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diff --git a/old/mt7bg11.txt b/old/mt7bg11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa514ff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt7bg11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,56481 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mark Twain, A Biography, by Paine +#7 in our series by Albert Bigelow Paine + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + +[NOTE: Six individual volumes of this work have been previously published +by The Gutenberg Project in the following list; this 3mb text file +includes all six. D.W.] + +Mark Twain, A Biography 1907-1910, by Albert Paine[mt6bg10.txt]2987 +Mark Twain, A Biography 1900-1907, by Albert Paine[mt5bg10.txt]2986 +Mark Twain, A Biography 1886-1900, by Albert Paine[mt4bg10.txt]2985 +Mark Twain, A Biography 1875-1886, by Albert Paine[mt3bg10.txt]2984 +Mark Twain, A Biography 1866-1875, by Albert Paine[mt2bg10.txt]2983 +Mark Twain, A Biography 1835-1866, by Albert Paine[mt1bg10.txt]2982 + + + +VOLUME I, Part 1: 1835-1866 + + + + MARK TWAIN + A BIOGRAPHY + THE PERSONAL AND LITERARY LIFE OF + SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS + BY + ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE + + + + TO + CLARA CLEMENS GABRILOWITSCH + WHO STEADILY UPHELD THE + AUTHOR'S PURPOSE TO WRITE + HISTORY RATHER THAN EULOGY AS + THE STORY OF HER FATHER'S LIFE + + + + AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT + +Dear William Dean Howells, Joseph Hopkins Twichell, Joseph T. Goodman, +and other old friends of Mark Twain: + +I cannot let these volumes go to press without some grateful word to you +who have helped me during the six years and more that have gone to their +making. + +First, I want to confess how I have envied you your association with Mark +Twain in those days when you and he "went gipsying, a long time ago." +Next, I want to express my wonder at your willingness to give me so +unstintedly from your precious letters and memories, when it is in the +nature of man to hoard such treasures, for himself and for those who +follow him. And, lastly, I want to tell you that I do not envy you so +much, any more, for in these chapters, one after another, through your +grace, I have gone gipsying with you all. Neither do I wonder now, for I +have come to know that out of your love for him grew that greater +unselfishness (or divine selfishness, as he himself might have termed +it), and that nothing short of the fullest you could do for his memory +would have contented your hearts. + +My gratitude is measureless; and it is world-wide, for there is no land +so distant that it does not contain some one who has eagerly contributed +to the story. Only, I seem so poorly able to put my thanks into words. + +Albert Bigelow Paine. + + + + + + + PREFATORY NOTE + +Certain happenings as recorded in this work will be found to differ +materially from the same incidents and episodes as set down in the +writings of Mr. Clemens himself. Mark Twain's spirit was built of the +very fabric of truth, so far as moral intent was concerned, but in his +earlier autobiographical writings--and most of his earlier writings were +autobiographical--he made no real pretense to accuracy of time, place, or +circumstance--seeking, as he said, "only to tell a good story"--while in +later years an ever-vivid imagination and a capricious memory made +history difficult, even when, as in his so-called "Autobiography," his +effort was in the direction of fact. + +"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or +not," he once said, quaintly, "but I am getting old, and soon I shall +remember only the latter." + +The reader may be assured, where discrepancies occur, that the writer of +this memoir has obtained his data from direct and positive sources: +letters, diaries, accountbooks, or other immediate memoranda; also from +the concurring testimony of eye-witnesses, supported by a unity of +circumstance and conditions, and not from hearsay or vagrant printed +items. + + + + + + MARK TWAIN + + A BIOGRAPHY + + +I + +ANCESTORS + +On page 492 of the old volume of Suetonius, which Mark Twain read until +his very last day, there is a reference to one Flavius Clemens, a man of +wide repute "for his want of energy," and in a marginal note he has +written: + +"I guess this is where our line starts." + +It was like him to write that. It spoke in his whimsical fashion the +attitude of humility, the ready acknowledgment of shortcoming, which was +his chief characteristic and made him lovable--in his personality and in +his work. + +Historically, we need not accept this identity of the Clemens ancestry. +The name itself has a kindly meaning, and was not an uncommon one in +Rome. There was an early pope by that name, and it appears now and again +in the annals of the Middle Ages. More lately there was a Gregory +Clemens, an English landowner who became a member of Parliament under +Cromwell and signed the death-warrant of Charles I. Afterward he was +tried as a regicide, his estates were confiscated, and his head was +exposed on a pole on the top of Westminster Hall. + +Tradition says that the family of Gregory Clemens did not remain in +England, but emigrated to Virginia (or New Jersey), and from them, in +direct line, descended the Virginia Clemenses, including John Marshall +Clemens, the father of Mark Twain. Perhaps the line could be traced, and +its various steps identified, but, after all, an ancestor more or less +need not matter when it is the story of a descendant that is to be +written. + +Of Mark Twain's immediate forebears, however, there is something to be +said. His paternal grandfather, whose name also was Samuel, was a man of +culture and literary taste. In 1797 he married a Virginia girl, Pamela +Goggin; and of their five children John Marshall Clemens, born August 11, +1798, was the eldest--becoming male head of the family at the age of +seven, when his father was accidentally killed at a house-raising. The +family was not a poor one, but the boy grew up with a taste for work. As +a youth he became a clerk in an iron manufactory, at Lynchburg, and +doubtless studied at night. At all events, he acquired an education, but +injured his health in the mean time, and somewhat later, with his mother +and the younger children, removed to Adair County, Kentucky, where the +widow presently married a sweetheart of her girlhood, one Simon Hancock, +a good man. In due course, John Clemens was sent to Columbia, the +countyseat, to study law. When the living heirs became of age he +administered his father's estate, receiving as his own share three negro +slaves; also a mahogany sideboard, which remains among the Clemens +effects to this day. + +This was in 1821. John Clemens was now a young man of twenty-three, +never very robust, but with a good profession, plenty of resolution, and +a heart full of hope and dreams. Sober, industrious, and unswervingly +upright, it seemed certain that he must make his mark. That he was +likely to be somewhat too optimistic, even visionary, was not then +regarded as a misfortune. + +It was two years later that he met Jane Lampton; whose mother was a Casey +--a Montgomery-Casey whose father was of the Lamptons (Lambtons) of +Durham, England, and who on her own account was reputed to be the +handsomest girl and the wittiest, as well as the best dancer, in all +Kentucky. The Montgomeries and the Caseys of Kentucky had been Indian +fighters in the Daniel Boone period, and grandmother Casey, who had been +Jane Montgomery, had worn moccasins in her girlhood, and once saved her +life by jumping a fence and out-running a redskin pursuer. The +Montgomery and Casey annals were full of blood-curdling adventures, and +there is to-day a Casey County next to Adair, with a Montgomery County +somewhat farther east. As for the Lamptons, there is an earldom in the +English family, and there were claimants even then in the American +branch. All these things were worth while in Kentucky, but it was rare +Jane Lampton herself--gay, buoyant, celebrated for her beauty and her +grace; able to dance all night, and all day too, for that matter--that +won the heart of John Marshall Clemens, swept him off his feet almost at +the moment of their meeting. Many of the characteristics that made Mark +Twain famous were inherited from his mother. His sense of humor, his +prompt, quaintly spoken philosophy, these were distinctly her +contribution to his fame. Speaking of her in a later day, he once said: + +"She had a sort of ability which is rare in man and hardly existent in +woman--the ability to say a humorous thing with the perfect air of not +knowing it to be humorous." + +She bequeathed him this, without doubt; also her delicate complexion; her +wonderful wealth of hair; her small, shapely hands and feet, and the +pleasant drawling speech which gave her wit, and his, a serene and +perfect setting. + +It was a one-sided love affair, the brief courtship of Jane Lampton and +John Marshall Clemens. All her life, Jane Clemens honored her husband, +and while he lived served him loyally; but the choice of her heart had +been a young physician of Lexington with whom she had quarreled, and her +prompt engagement with John Clemens was a matter of temper rather than +tenderness. She stipulated that the wedding take place at once, and on +May 6, 1823, they were married. She was then twenty; her husband twenty- +five. More than sixty years later, when John Clemens had long been dead, +she took a railway journey to a city where there was an Old Settlers' +Convention, because among the names of those attending she had noticed +the name of the lover of her youth. She meant to humble herself to him +and ask forgiveness after all the years. She arrived too late; the +convention was over, and he was gone. Mark Twain once spoke of this, and +added: + +"It is as pathetic a romance as any that has crossed the field of my +personal experience in a long lifetime." + + + + +II + +THE FORTUNES OF JOHN AND JANE CLEMENS + +With all his ability and industry, and with the-best of intentions, John +Clemens would seem to have had an unerring faculty for making business +mistakes. It was his optimistic outlook, no doubt--his absolute +confidence in the prosperity that lay just ahead--which led him from one +unfortunate locality or enterprise to another, as long as he lived. +About a year after his marriage he settled with his young wife in +Gainsborough, Tennessee, a mountain town on the Cumberland River, and +here, in 1825, their first child, a boy, was born. They named him +Orion--after the constellation, perhaps--though they changed the accent +to the first syllable, calling it Orion. Gainsborough was a small place +with few enough law cases; but it could hardly have been as small, or +furnished as few cases; as the next one selected, which was Jamestown, +Fentress County, still farther toward the Eastward Mountains. Yet +Jamestown had the advantage of being brand new, and in the eye of his +fancy John Clemens doubtless saw it the future metropolis of east +Tennessee, with himself its foremost jurist and citizen. He took an +immediate and active interest in the development of the place, +established the county-seat there, built the first Court House, and was +promptly elected as circuit clerk of the court. + +It was then that he decided to lay the foundation of a fortune for +himself and his children by acquiring Fentress County land. Grants could +be obtained in those days at the expense of less than a cent an acre, and +John Clemens believed that the years lay not far distant when the land +would increase in value ten thousand, twenty, perhaps even a hundred +thousandfold. There was no wrong estimate in that. Land covered with +the finest primeval timber, and filled with precious minerals, could +hardly fail to become worth millions, even though his entire purchase of +75,000 acres probably did not cost him more than $500. The great tract +lay about twenty nines to the southward of Jamestown. Standing in the +door of the Court House he had built, looking out over the "Knob" of the +Cumberland Mountains toward his vast possessions, he said: + +"Whatever befalls me now, my heirs are secure. I may not live to see +these acres turn into silver and gold, but my children will." + +Such was the creation of that mirage of wealth, the "Tennessee land," +which all his days and for long afterward would lie just ahead--a golden +vision, its name the single watchword of the family fortunes--the dream +fading with years, only materializing at last as a theme in a story of +phantom riches, The Gilded Age. + +Yet for once John Clemens saw clearly, and if his dream did not come true +he was in no wise to blame. The land is priceless now, and a corporation +of the Clemens heirs is to-day contesting the title of a thin fragment of +it--about one thousand acres--overlooked in some survey. + +Believing the future provided for, Clemens turned his attention to +present needs. He built himself a house, unusual in its style and +elegance. It had two windows in each room, and its walls were covered +with plastering, something which no one in Jamestown had ever seen +before. He was regarded as an aristocrat. He wore a swallow-tail coat +of fine blue jeans, instead of the coarse brown native-made cloth. The +blue-jeans coat was ornamented with brass buttons and cost one dollar and +twenty-five cents a yard, a high price for that locality and time. His +wife wore a calico dress for company, while the neighbor wives wore +homespun linsey-woolsey. The new house was referred to as the Crystal +Palace. When John and Jane Clemens attended balls--there were continuous +balls during the holidays--they were considered the most graceful +dancers. + +Jamestown did not become the metropolis he had dreamed. It attained +almost immediately to a growth of twenty-five houses--mainly log houses-- +and stopped there. The country, too, was sparsely settled; law practice +was slender and unprofitable, the circuit-riding from court to court was +very bad for one of his physique. John Clemens saw his reserve of health +and funds dwindling, and decided to embark in merchandise. He built +himself a store and put in a small country stock of goods. These he +exchanged for ginseng, chestnuts, lampblack, turpentine, rosin, and other +produce of the country, which he took to Louisville every spring and fall +in six-horse wagons. In the mean time he would seem to have sold one or +more of his slaves, doubtless to provide capital. There was a second +baby now--a little girl, Pamela,--born in September, 1827. Three years +later, May 1830, another little girl, Margaret, came. By this time the +store and home were in one building, the store occupying one room, the +household requiring two--clearly the family fortunes were declining. + +About a year after little Margaret was born, John Clemens gave up +Jamestown and moved his family and stock of goods to a point nine miles +distant, known as the Three Forks of Wolf. The Tennessee land was safe, +of course, and would be worth millions some day, but in the mean time the +struggle for daily substance was becoming hard. + +He could not have remained at the Three Forks long, for in 1832 we find +him at still another place, on the right bank of Wolf River, where a +post-office called Pall Mall was established, with John Clemens as +postmaster, usually addressed as "Squire" or "Judge." A store was run in +connection with the postoffice. At Pall Mall, in June, 1832, another +boy, Benjamin, was born. + +The family at this time occupied a log house built by John Clemens +himself, the store being kept in another log house on the opposite bank +of the river. He no longer practised law. In The Gilded Age we have +Mark Twain's picture of Squire Hawkins and Obedstown, written from +descriptions supplied in later years by his mother and his brother Orion; +and, while not exact in detail, it is not regarded as an exaggerated +presentation of east Tennessee conditions at that time. The chapter is +too long and too depressing to be set down here. The reader may look it +up for himself, if he chooses. If he does he will not wonder that Jane +Clemens's handsome features had become somewhat sharper, and her manner a +shade graver, with the years and burdens of marriage, or that John +Clemens at thirty-six-out of health, out of tune with his environment-- +was rapidly getting out of heart. After all the bright promise of the +beginning, things had somehow gone wrong, and hope seemed dwindling away. + +A tall man, he had become thin and unusually pale; he looked older than +his years. Every spring he was prostrated with what was called +"sunpain," an acute form of headache, nerve-racking and destroying to all +persistent effort. Yet he did not retreat from his moral and +intellectual standards, or lose the respect of that shiftless community. +He was never intimidated by the rougher element, and his eyes were of a +kind that would disconcert nine men out of ten. Gray and deep-set under +bushy brows, they literally looked you through. Absolutely fearless, he +permitted none to trample on his rights. It is told of John Clemens, at +Jamestown, that once when he had lost a cow he handed the minister on +Sunday morning a notice of the loss to be read from the pulpit, according +to the custom of that community. For some reason, the minister put the +document aside and neglected it. At the close of the service Clemens +rose and, going to the pulpit, read his announcement himself to the +congregation. Those who knew Mark Twain best will not fail to recall in +him certain of his father's legacies. + +The arrival of a letter from "Colonel Sellers" inviting the Hawkins +family to come to Missouri is told in The Gilded Age. In reality the +letter was from John Quarles, who had married Jane Clemens's sister, +Patsey Lampton, and settled in Florida, Monroe County, Missouri. It was +a momentous letter in The Gilded Age, and no less so in reality, for it +shifted the entire scene of the Clemens family fortunes, and it had to do +with the birthplace and the shaping of the career of one whose memory is +likely to last as long as American history. + + + + +III + +A HUMBLE BIRTHPLACE + +Florida, Missouri, was a small village in the early thirties--smaller +than it is now, perhaps, though in that day it had more promise, even if +less celebrity. The West was unassembled then, undigested, comparatively +unknown. Two States, Louisiana and Missouri, with less than half a +million white persons, were all that lay beyond the great river. +St. Louis, with its boasted ten thousand inhabitants and its river trade +with the South, was the single metropolis in all that vast uncharted +region. There was no telegraph; there were no railroads, no stage lines +of any consequence--scarcely any maps. For all that one could see or +guess, one place was as promising as another, especially a settlement +like Florida, located at the forks of a pretty stream, Salt River, which +those early settlers believed might one day become navigable and carry +the merchandise of that region down to the mighty Mississippi, thence to +the world outside. + +In those days came John A. Quarles, of Kentucky, with his wife, who had +been Patsey Ann Lampton; also, later, Benjamin Lampton, her father, and +others of the Lampton race. It was natural that they should want Jane +Clemens and her husband to give up that disheartening east Tennessee +venture and join them in this new and promising land. It was natural, +too, for John Quarles--happy-hearted, generous, and optimistic--to write +the letter. There were only twenty-one houses in Florida, but Quarles +counted stables, out-buildings--everything with a roof on it--and set +down the number at fifty-four. + +Florida, with its iridescent promise and negligible future, was just the +kind of a place that John Clemens with unerring instinct would be certain +to select, and the Quarles letter could have but one answer. Yet there +would be the longing for companionship, too, and Jane Clemens must have +hungered for her people. In The Gilded Age, the Sellers letter ends: + +"Come!--rush!--hurry!--don't wait for anything!" + +The Clemens family began immediately its preparation for getting away. +The store was sold, and the farm; the last two wagon-loads of produce +were sent to Louisville; and with the aid of the money realized, a few +hundred dollars, John Clemens and his family "flitted out into the great +mysterious blank that lay beyond the Knobs of Tennessee." They had a +two-horse barouche, which would seem to have been preserved out of their +earlier fortunes. The barouche held the parents and the three younger +children, Pamela, Margaret, anal the little boy, Benjamin. There were +also two extra horses, which Orion, now ten, and Jennie, the house-girl, +a slave, rode. This was early in the spring of 1835. + +They traveled by the way of their old home at Columbia, and paid a visit +to relatives. At Louisville they embarked on a steamer bound for St. +Louis; thence overland once more through wilderness and solitude into +what was then the Far West, the promised land. + +They arrived one evening, and if Florida was not quite all in appearance +that John Clemens had dreamed, it was at least a haven--with John +Quarles, jovial, hospitable, and full of plans. The great Mississippi +was less than fifty miles away. Salt River, with a system of locks and +dams, would certainly become navigable to the Forks, with Florida as its +head of navigation. It was a Sellers fancy, though perhaps it should be +said here that John Quarles was not the chief original of that lovely +character in The Gilded Age. That was another relative--James Lampton, a +cousin--quite as lovable, and a builder of even more insubstantial +dreams. + +John Quarles was already established in merchandise in Florida, and was +prospering in a small way. He had also acquired a good farm, which he +worked with thirty slaves, and was probably the rich man and leading +citizen of the community. He offered John Clemens a partnership in his +store, and agreed to aid him in the selection of some land. Furthermore, +he encouraged him to renew his practice of the law. Thus far, at least, +the Florida venture was not a mistake, for, whatever came, matters could +not be worse than they had been in Tennessee. + +In a small frame building near the center of the village, John and Jane +Clemens established their household. It was a humble one-story affair, +with two main rooms and a lean-to kitchen, though comfortable enough for +its size, and comparatively new. It is still standing and occupied when +these lines are written, and it should be preserved and guarded as a +shrine for the American people; for it was here that the foremost +American-born author--the man most characteristically American in every +thought and word and action of his life--drew his first fluttering +breath, caught blinkingly the light of a world that in the years to come +would rise up and in its wide realm of letters hail him as a king. + +It was on a bleak day, November 30, 1835, that he entered feebly the +domain he was to conquer. Long, afterward, one of those who knew him +best said: + +"He always seemed to me like some great being from another planet--never +quite of this race or kind." + +He may have been, for a great comet was in the sky that year, and it +would return no more until the day when he should be borne back into the +far spaces of silence and undiscovered suns. But nobody thought of this, +then. + +He was a seven-months child, and there was no fanfare of welcome at his +coming. Perhaps it was even suggested that, in a house so small and so +sufficiently filled, there was no real need of his coming at all. One +Polly Ann Buchanan, who is said to have put the first garment of any sort +on him, lived to boast of the fact,--[This honor has been claimed also +for Mrs. Millie Upton and a Mrs. Damrell. Probably all were present and +assisted.]--but she had no particular pride in that matter then. It was +only a puny baby with a wavering promise of life. Still, John Clemens +must have regarded with favor this first gift of fortune in a new land, +for he named the little boy Samuel, after his father, and added the name +of an old and dear Virginia friend, Langhorne. The family fortunes would +seem to have been improving at this time, and he may have regarded the +arrival of another son as a good omen. + +With a family of eight, now, including Jennie, the slavegirl, more room +was badly needed, and he began building without delay. The result was +not a mansion, by any means, being still of the one-story pattern, but it +was more commodious than the tiny two-room affair. The rooms were +larger, and there was at least one ell, or extension, for kitchen and +dining-room uses. This house, completed in 1836, occupied by the Clemens +family during the remainder of the years spent in Florida, was often in +later days pointed out as Mark Twain's birthplace. It missed that +distinction by a few months, though its honor was sufficient in having +sheltered his early childhood.--[This house is no longer standing. +When it was torn down several years ago, portions of it were carried off +and manufactured into souvenirs. Mark Twain himself disclaimed it as his +birthplace, and once wrote on a photograph of it: "No, it is too stylish, +it is not my birthplace."] + + + + +IV + +BEGINNING A LONG JOURNEY + +It was not a robust childhood. The new baby managed to go through the +winter--a matter of comment among the family and neighbors. Added +strength came, but slowly; "Little Sam," as they called him, was always +delicate during those early years. + +It was a curious childhood, full of weird, fantastic impressions and +contradictory influences, stimulating alike to the imagination and that +embryo philosophy of life which begins almost with infancy. John Clemens +seldom devoted any time to the company of his children. He looked after +their comfort and mental development as well as he could, and gave advice +on occasion. He bought a book now and then--sometimes a picture-book-- +and subscribed for Peter Parley's Magazine, a marvel of delight to the +older children, but he did not join in their amusements, and he rarely, +or never, laughed. Mark Twain did not remember ever having seen or heard +his father laugh. The problem of supplying food was a somber one to John +Clemens; also, he was working on a perpetual-motion machine at this +period, which absorbed his spare time, and, to the inventor at least, was +not a mirthful occupation. Jane Clemens was busy, too. Her sense of +humor did not die, but with added cares and years her temper as well as +her features became sharper, and it was just as well to be fairly out of +range when she was busy with her employments. + +Little Sam's companions were his brothers and sisters, all older than +himself: Orion, ten years his senior, followed by Pamela and Margaret at +intervals of two and three years, then by Benjamin, a kindly little lad +whose gentle life was chiefly devoted to looking after the baby brother, +three years his junior. But in addition to these associations, there +were the still more potent influences Of that day and section, the +intimate, enveloping institution of slavery, the daily companionship of +the slaves. All the children of that time were fond of the negroes and +confided in them. They would, in fact, have been lost without such +protection and company. + +It was Jennie, the house-girl, and Uncle Ned, a man of all work-- +apparently acquired with the improved prospects--who were in real charge +of the children and supplied them with entertainment. Wonderful +entertainment it was. That was a time of visions and dreams, small. +gossip and superstitions. Old tales were repeated over and over, with +adornments and improvements suggested by immediate events. At evening +the Clemens children, big and little, gathered about the great open +fireplace while Jennie and Uncle Ned told tales and hair-lifting legends. +Even a baby of two or three years could follow the drift of this +primitive telling and would shiver and cling close with the horror and +delight of its curdling thrill. The tales always began with "Once 'pon a +time," and one of them was the story of the "Golden Arm" which the +smallest listener would one day repeat more elaborately to wider +audiences in many lands. Briefly it ran as follows: + +"Once 'Pon a time there was a man, and he had a wife, and she had a' arm +of pure gold; and she died, and they buried her in the graveyard; and one +night her husband went and dug her up and cut off her golden arm and tuck +it home; and one night a ghost all in white come to him; and she was his +wife; and she says: + +"W-h-a-r-r's my golden arm? W-h-a-r-r's my golden arm? W-h-a-r-r's my +g-o-l-den arm?" + +As Uncle Ned repeated these blood-curdling questions he would look first +one and then another of his listeners in the eyes, with his bands drawn +up in front of his breast, his fingers turned out and crooked like claws, +while he bent with each question closer to the shrinking forms before +him. The tone was sepulchral, with awful pause as if waiting each time +for a reply. The culmination came with a pounce on one of the group, a +shake of the shoulders, and a shout of: + +"YOU'VE got it!' and she tore him all to pieces!" + +And the children would shout "Lordy!" and look furtively over their +shoulders, fearing to see a woman in white against the black wall; but, +instead, only gloomy, shapeless shadows darted across it as the +flickering flames in the fireplace went out on one brand and flared up on +another. Then there was a story of a great ball of fire that used to +follow lonely travelers along dark roads through the woods. + +"Once 'pon a time there was a man, and he was riding along de road and he +come to a ha'nted house, and he heard de chains'a-rattlin' and a-rattlin' +and a-rattlin', and a ball of fire come rollin' up and got under his +stirrup, and it didn't make no difference if his horse galloped or went +slow or stood still, de ball of fire staid under his stirrup till he got +plum to de front do', and his wife come out and say: 'My Gord, dat's +devil fire!' and she had to work a witch spell to drive it away." + +"How big was it, Uncle Ned?" + +"Oh, 'bout as big as your head, and I 'spect it's likely to come down dis +yere chimney 'most any time." + +Certainly an atmosphere like this meant a tropic development for the +imagination of a delicate child. All the games and daily talk concerned +fanciful semi-African conditions and strange primal possibilities. The +children of that day believed in spells and charms and bad-luck signs, +all learned of their negro guardians. + +But if the negroes were the chief companions and protectors of the +children, they were likewise one of their discomforts. The greatest real +dread children knew was the fear of meeting runaway slaves. A runaway +slave was regarded as worse than a wild beast, and treated worse when +caught. Once the children saw one brought into Florida by six men who +took him to an empty cabin, where they threw him on the floor and bound +him with ropes. His groans were loud and frequent. Such things made an +impression that would last a lifetime. + +Slave punishment, too, was not unknown, even in the household. Jennie +especially was often saucy and obstreperous. Jane Clemens, with more +strength of character than of body, once undertook to punish her for +insolence, whereupon Jennie snatched the whip from her hand. John +Clemens was sent for in haste. He came at once, tied Jennie's wrists +together with a bridle rein, and administered chastisement across the +shoulders with a cowhide. These were things all calculated to impress a +sensitive child. + +In pleasant weather the children roamed over the country, hunting berries +and nuts, drinking sugar-water, tying knots in love-vine, picking the +petals from daisies to the formula "Love me-love me not," always +accompanied by one or more, sometimes by half a dozen, of their small +darky followers. Shoes were taken off the first of April. For a time a +pair of old woolen stockings were worn, but these soon disappeared, +leaving the feet bare for the summer. One of their dreads was the +possibility of sticking a rusty nail into the foot, as this was liable to +cause lockjaw, a malady regarded with awe and terror. They knew what +lockjaw was--Uncle John Quarles's black man, Dan, was subject to it. +Sometimes when he opened his mouth to its utmost capacity he felt the +joints slip and was compelled to put down the cornbread, or jole and +greens, or the piece of 'possum he was eating, while his mouth remained a +fixed abyss until the doctor came and restored it to a natural position +by an exertion of muscular power that would have well-nigh lifted an ox. + +Uncle John Quarles, his home, his farm, his slaves, all were sources of +never-ending delight. Perhaps the farm was just an ordinary Missouri +farm and the slaves just average negroes, but to those children these +things were never apparent. There was a halo about anything that +belonged to Uncle John Quarles, and that halo was the jovial, hilarious +kindness of that gentle-hearted, humane man. To visit at his house was +for a child to be in a heaven of mirth and pranks continually. When the +children came for eggs he would say: + +"Your hens won't lay, eh? Tell your maw to feed 'em parched corn and +drive 'em uphill," and this was always a splendid stroke of humor to his +small hearers. + +Also, he knew how to mimic with his empty hands the peculiar patting and +tossing of a pone of corn-bread before placing it in the oven. He would +make the most fearful threats to his own children, for disobedience, but +never executed any of them. When they were out fishing and returned late +he would say: + +"You--if I have to hunt you again after dark, I will make you smell like +a burnt horn!" + +Nothing could exceed the ferocity of this threat, and all the children, +with delightful terror and curiosity, wondered what would happen--if it +ever did happen--that would result in giving a child that peculiar savor. +Altogether it was a curious early childhood that Little Sam had--at least +it seems so to us now. Doubtless it was commonplace enough for that time +and locality. + + + + +V + +THE WAY OF FORTUNE + +Perhaps John Quarles's jocular, happy-go-lucky nature and general conduct +did not altogether harmonize with John Clemens's more taciturn business +methods. Notwithstanding the fact that he was a builder of dreams, +Clemens was neat and methodical, with his papers always in order. He had +a hearty dislike for anything resembling frivolity and confusion, which +very likely were the chief features of John Quarles's storekeeping. At +all events, they dissolved partnership at the end of two or three years, +and Clemens opened business for himself across the street. He also +practised law whenever there were cases, and was elected justice of the +peace, acquiring the permanent title of "Judge." He needed some one to +assist in the store, and took in Orion, who was by this time twelve or +thirteen years old; but, besides his youth, Orion--all his days a +visionary--was a studious, pensive lad with no taste for commerce. Then +a partnership was formed with a man who developed neither capital nor +business ability, and proved a disaster in the end. The modest tide of +success which had come with John Clemens's establishment at Florida had +begun to wane. Another boy, Henry, born in July, 1838, added one more +responsibility to his burdens. + +There still remained a promise of better things. There seemed at least a +good prospect that the scheme for making Salt River navigable was likely +to become operative. With even small boats (bateaux) running as high as +the lower branch of the South Fork, Florida would become an emporium of +trade, and merchants and property-owners of that village would reap a +harvest. An act of the Legislature was passed incorporating the +navigation company, with Judge Clemens as its president. Congress was +petitioned to aid this work of internal improvement. So confident was +the company of success that the hamlet was thrown into a fever of +excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual +construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on +the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt +River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of +picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, +puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when he heard of +it, said: + +"I don't doubt a word they say. In Scotland, it often happens that when +people have been killed, or are troubled, they send their spirits abroad +and they are seen as much like themselves as a reflection in a looking- +glass. That was a ghost of some wrecked steamboat." + +But John Quarles, who was present, laughed: + +"If ever anybody was in trouble, the men on that steamboat were," he +said. "They were the Democratic candidates at the last election. They +killed Salt River improvements, and Salt River has killed them. Their +ghosts went up the river on a ghostly steamboat." + +It is possible that this comment, which was widely repeated and traveled +far, was the origin of the term "Going up Salt River," as applied to +defeated political candidates.--[The dictionaries give this phrase as +probably traceable to a small, difficult stream in Kentucky; but it seems +more reasonable to believe that it originated in Quarles's witty +comment.] + +No other attempt was ever made to establish navigation on Salt River. +Rumors of railroads already running in the East put an end to any such +thought. Railroads could run anywhere and were probably cheaper and +easier to maintain than the difficult navigation requiring locks and +dams. Salt River lost its prestige as a possible water highway and +became mere scenery. Railroads have ruined greater rivers than the +Little Salt, and greater villages than Florida, though neither Florida +nor Salt River has been touched by a railroad to this day. Perhaps such +close detail of early history may be thought unnecessary in a work of +this kind, but all these things were definite influences in the career of +the little lad whom the world would one day know as Mark Twain. + + + + +VI + +A NEW HOME + +The death of little Margaret was the final misfortune that came to the +Clemens family in Florida. Doubtless it hastened their departure. +There was a superstition in those days that to refer to health as good +luck, rather than to ascribe it to the kindness of Providence, was to +bring about a judgment. Jane Clemens one day spoke to a neighbor of +their good luck in thus far having lost no member of their family. That +same day, when the sisters, Pamela and Margaret, returned from school, +Margaret laid her books on the table, looked in the glass at her flushed +cheeks, pulled out the trundle-bed, and lay down. + +She was never in her right mind again. The doctor was sent for and +diagnosed the case "bilious fever." One evening, about nine o'clock, +Orion was sitting on the edge of the trundle-bed by the patient, when the +door opened and Little Sam, then about four years old, walked in from his +bedroom, fast asleep. He came to the side of the trundle-bed and pulled +at the bedding near Margaret's shoulder for some time before he woke. +Next day the little girl was "picking at the coverlet," and it was known +that she could not live. About a week later she died. She was nine +years old, a beautiful child, plump in form, with rosy cheeks, black +hair, and bright eyes. This was in August, 1839. It was Little Sam's +first sight of death--the first break in the Clemens family: it left a +sad household. The shoemaker who lived next door claimed to have seen +several weeks previous, in a vision, the coffin and the funeral- +procession pass the gate by the winding road, to the cemetery, exactly as +it happened. + +Matters were now going badly enough with John Clemens. Yet he never was +without one great comforting thought--the future of the Tennessee land. +It underlaid every plan; it was an anodyne for every ill. + +"When we sell the Tennessee land everything will be all right," was the +refrain that brought solace in the darkest hours. A blessing for him +that this was so, for he had little else to brighten his days. +Negotiations looking to the sale of the land were usually in progress. +When the pressure became very hard and finances were at their lowest ebb, +it was offered at any price--at five cents an acre, sometimes. When +conditions improved, however little, the price suddenly advanced even to +its maximum of one thousand dollars an acre. Now and then a genuine +offer came along, but, though eagerly welcomed at the moment, it was +always refused after a little consideration. + +"We will struggle along somehow, Jane," he would say. "We will not throw +away the children's fortune." + +There was one other who believed in the Tennessee land--Jane Clemens's +favorite cousin, James Lampton, the courtliest, gentlest, most prodigal +optimist of all that guileless race. To James Lampton the land always +had "millions in it"--everything had. He made stupendous fortunes daily, +in new ways. The bare mention of the Tennessee land sent him off into +figures that ended with the purchase of estates in England adjoining +those of the Durham Lamptons, whom he always referred to as "our +kindred," casually mentioning the whereabouts and health of the "present +earl." Mark Twain merely put James Lampton on paper when he created +Colonel Sellers, and the story of the Hawkins family as told in The +Gilded Age reflects clearly the struggle of those days. The words +"Tennessee land," with their golden promise, became his earliest +remembered syllables. He grew to detest them in time, for they came to +mean mockery. + +One of the offers received was the trifling sum of two hundred and fifty +dollars, and such was the moment's need that even this was considered. +Then, of course, it was scornfully refused. In some autobiographical +chapters which Orion Clemens left behind he said: + +"If we had received that two hundred and fifty dollars, it would have +been more than we ever made, clear of expenses, out of the whole of the +Tennessee land, after forty years of worry to three generations." + +What a less speculative and more logical reasoner would have done in the +beginning, John Clemens did now; he selected a place which, though little +more than a village, was on a river already navigable--a steamboat town +with at least the beginnings of manufacturing and trade already +established--that is to say, Hannibal, Missouri--a point well chosen, as +shown by its prosperity to-day. + +He did not delay matters. When he came to a decision, he acted quickly. +He disposed of a portion of his goods and shipped the remainder overland; +then, with his family and chattels loaded in a wagon, he was ready to set +out for the new home. Orion records that, for some reason, his father +did not invite him to get into the wagon, and how, being always sensitive +to slight, he had regarded this in the light of deliberate desertion. + +"The sense of abandonment caused my heart to ache. The wagon had gone a +few feet when I was discovered and invited to enter. How I wished they +had not missed me until they had arrived at Hannibal. Then the world +would have seen how I was treated and would have cried 'Shame!'" + +This incident, noted and remembered, long after became curiously confused +with another, in Mark Twain's mind. In an autobiographical chapter +published in The North American Review he tells of the move to Hannibal +and relates that he himself was left behind by his absentminded family. +The incident of his own abandonment did not happen then, but later, and +somewhat differently. It would indeed be an absent-minded family if the +parents, and the sister and brothers ranging up to fourteen years of age, +should drive off leaving Little Sam, age four, behind. + +--[As mentioned in the Prefatory Note, Mark Twain's memory played him +many tricks in later life. Incidents were filtered through his vivid +imagination until many of them bore little relation to the actual +occurrence. Some of these lapses were only amusing, but occasionally +they worked an unintentional injustice. It is the author's purpose in +every instance, so far as is possible, to keep the record straight.] + + + + +VII + +THE LITTLE TOWN OF HANNIBAL + +Hannibal in 1839 was already a corporate community and had an atmosphere +of its own. It was a town with a distinct Southern flavor, though rather +more astir than the true Southern community of that period; more Western +in that it planned, though without excitement, certain new enterprises +and made a show, at least, of manufacturing. It was somnolent (a slave +town could not be less than that), but it was not wholly asleep--that is +to say, dead--and it was tranquilly content. Mark Twain remembered it as +"the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer morning,. . . the +great Mississippi, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide +tide along; . . . the dense forest away on the other side." + +The little city was proud of its scenery, and justly so: circled with +bluffs, with Holliday's Hill on the north, Lover's Leap on the south, the +shining river in the foreground, there was little to be desired in the +way of setting. + +The river, of course, was the great highway. Rafts drifted by; +steamboats passed up and down and gave communication to the outside +world; St. Louis, the metropolis, was only one hundred miles away. +Hannibal was inclined to rank itself as of next importance, and took on +airs accordingly. It had society, too--all kinds--from the negroes and +the town drunkards ("General" Gaines and Jimmy Finn; later, Old Ben +Blankenship) up through several nondescript grades of mechanics and +tradesmen to the professional men of the community, who wore tall hats, +ruffled shirt-fronts, and swallow-tail coats, usually of some positive +color-blue, snuff-brown, and green. These and their families constituted +the true aristocracy of the Southern town. Most of them had pleasant +homes--brick or large frame mansions, with colonnaded entrances, after +the manner of all Southern architecture of that period, which had an +undoubted Greek root, because of certain drawing-books, it is said, +accessible to the builders of those days. Most of them, also, had means +--slaves and land which yielded an income in addition to their +professional earnings. They lived in such style as was considered +fitting to their rank, and had such comforts as were then obtainable. + +It was to this grade of society that judge Clemens and his family +belonged, but his means no longer enabled him to provide either the +comforts or the ostentation of his class. He settled his family and +belongings in a portion of a house on Hill Street--the Pavey Hotel; his +merchandise he established modestly on Main Street, with Orion, in a new +suit of clothes, as clerk. Possibly the clothes gave Orion a renewed +ambition for mercantile life, but this waned. Business did not begin +actively, and he was presently dreaming and reading away the time. A +little later he became a printer's apprentice, in the office of the +Hannibal Journal, at his father's suggestion. + +Orion Clemens perhaps deserves a special word here. He was to be much +associated with his more famous brother for many years, and his +personality as boy and man is worth at least a casual consideration. +He was fifteen now, and had developed characteristics which in a greater +or less degree were to go with him through life. Of a kindly, loving +disposition, like all of the Clemens children, quick of temper, but +always contrite, or forgiving, he was never without the fond regard of +those who knew him best. His weaknesses were manifold, but, on the +whole, of a negative kind. Honorable and truthful, he had no tendency to +bad habits or unworthy pursuits; indeed, he had no positive traits of any +sort. That was his chief misfortune. Full of whims and fancies, +unstable, indeterminate, he was swayed by every passing emotion and +influence. Daily he laid out a new course of study and achievement, only +to fling it aside because of some chance remark or printed paragraph or +bit of advice that ran contrary to his purpose. Such a life is bound to +be a succession of extremes--alternate periods of supreme exaltation and +despair. In his autobiographical chapters, already mentioned, Orion sets +down every impulse and emotion and failure with that faithful humility +which won him always the respect, if not always the approval, of men. + +Printing was a step downward, for it was a trade, and Orion felt it +keenly. A gentleman's son and a prospective heir of the Tennessee land, +he was entitled to a profession. To him it was punishment, and the +disgrace weighed upon him. Then he remembered that Benjamin Franklin had +been a printer and had eaten only an apple and a bunch of grapes for his +dinner. Orion decided to emulate Franklin, and for a time he took only a +biscuit and a glass of water at a meal, foreseeing the day when he should +electrify the world with his eloquence. He was surprised to find how +clear his mind was on this low diet and how rapidly he learned his trade. + +Of the other children Pamela, now twelve, and Benjamin, seven, were put +to school. They were pretty, attractive children, and Henry, the baby, +was a sturdy toddler, the pride of the household. Little Sam was the +least promising of the flock. He remained delicate, and developed little +beyond a tendency to pranks. He was a queer, fanciful, uncommunicative +child that detested indoors and would run away if not watched--always in +the direction of the river. He walked in his sleep, too, and often the +rest of the household got up in the middle of the night to find him +fretting with cold in some dark corner. The doctor was summoned for him +oftener than was good for the family purse--or for him, perhaps, if we +may credit the story of heavy dosings of those stern allopathic days. + +Yet he would appear not to have been satisfied with his heritage of +ailments, and was ambitious for more. An epidemic of measles--the black, +deadly kind--was ravaging Hannibal, and he yearned for the complaint. +He yearned so much that when he heard of a playmate, one of the Bowen +boys, who had it, he ran away and, slipping into the house, crept into +bed with the infection. The success of this venture was complete. Some +days later, the Clemens family gathered tearfully around Little Sam's bed +to see him die. According to his own after-confession, this gratified +him, and he was willing to die for the glory of that touching scene. +However, he disappointed them, and was presently up and about in search +of fresh laurels.--[In later life Mr. Clemens did not recollect the +precise period of this illness. With habitual indifference he assigned +it to various years, as his mood or the exigencies of his theme required. +Without doubt the "measles" incident occurred when he was very young.]-- + +He must have been a wearing child, and we may believe that Jane Clemens, +with her varied cares and labors, did not always find him a comfort. + +"You gave me more uneasiness than any child I had," she said to him once, +in her old age. + +"I suppose you were afraid I wouldn't live," he suggested, in his +tranquil fashion. + +She looked at him with that keen humor that had not dulled in eighty +years. "No; afraid you would," she said. But that was only her joke, +for she was the most tenderhearted creature in the world, and, like +mothers in general, had a weakness for the child that demanded most of +her mother's care. + +It was mainly on his account that she spent her summers on John Quarles's +farm near Florida, and it was during the first summer that an incident +already mentioned occurred. It was decided that the whole family should +go for a brief visit, and one Saturday morning in June Mrs. Clemens, with +the three elder children and the baby, accompanied by Jennie, the slave- +girl, set out in a light wagon for the day's drive, leaving Judge Clemens +to bring Little Sam on horseback Sunday morning. The hour was early when +Judge Clemens got up to saddle his horse, and Little Sam was still +asleep. The horse being ready, Clemens, his mind far away, mounted and +rode off without once remembering the little boy, and in the course of +the afternoon arrived at his brother-in-law's farm. Then he was +confronted by Jane Clemens, who demanded Little Sam. + +"Why," said the judge, aghast, "I never once thought of him after I left +him asleep." + +Wharton Lampton, a brother of Jane Clemens and Patsey Quarles, hastily +saddled a horse and set out, helter-skelter, for Hannibal. He arrived in +the early dusk. The child was safe enough, but he was crying with +loneliness and hunger. He had spent most of the day in the locked, +deserted house playing with a hole in the meal-sack where the meal ran +out, when properly encouraged, in a tiny stream. He was fed and +comforted, and next day was safe on the farm, which during that summer +and those that followed it, became so large a part of his boyhood and +lent a coloring to his later years. + + + + +VIII + +THE FARM + +We have already mentioned the delight of the Clemens children in Uncle +John Quarles's farm. To Little Sam it was probably a life-saver. With +his small cousin, Tabitha,--[Tabitha Quarles, now Mrs. Greening, of +Palmyra, Missouri, has supplied most of the material for this chapter.]-- +just his own age (they called her Puss), he wandered over that magic +domain, fording new marvels at every step, new delights everywhere. A +slave-girl, Mary, usually attended them, but she was only six years +older, and not older at all in reality, so she was just a playmate, and +not a guardian to be feared or evaded. Sometimes, indeed, it was +necessary for her to threaten to tell "Miss Patsey" or "Miss Jane," when +her little charges insisted on going farther or staying later than she +thought wise from the viewpoint of her own personal safety; but this was +seldom, and on the whole a stay at the farm was just one long idyllic +dream of summer-time and freedom. + +The farm-house stood in the middle of a large yard entered by a stile +made of sawed-off logs of graduated heights. In the corner of the yard +were hickory trees, and black walnut, and beyond the fence the hill fell +away past the barns, the corn-cribs, and the tobacco-house to a brook-- +a divine place to wade, with deep, dark, forbidden pools. Down in the +pasture there were swings under the big trees, and Mary swung the +children and ran under them until their feet touched the branches, and +then took her turn and "balanced" herself so high that their one wish was +to be as old as Mary and swing in that splendid way. All the woods were +full of squirrels--gray squirrels and the red-fox species--and many birds +and flowers; all the meadows were gay with clover and butterflies, and +musical with singing grasshoppers and calling larks; there were +blackberries in the fence rows, apples and peaches in the orchard, and +watermelons in the corn. They were not always ripe, those watermelons, +and once, when Little Sam had eaten several pieces of a green one, he was +seized with cramps so severe that most of the household expected him to +die forthwith. + +Jane Clemens was not heavily concerned. + +"Sammy will pull through," she said; "he wasn't born to die that way." + +It is the slender constitution that bears the strain. "Sammy" did pull +through, and in a brief time was ready for fresh adventure. + +There were plenty of these: there were the horses to ride to and from the +fields; the ox-wagons to ride in when they had dumped their heavy loads; +the circular horsepower to ride on when they threshed the wheat. This +last was a dangerous and forbidden pleasure, but the children would dart +between the teams and climb on, and the slave who was driving would +pretend not to see. Then in the evening when the black woman came along, +going after the cows, the children would race ahead and set the cows +running and jingling their bells--especially Little Sam, for he was a +wild-headed, impetuous child of sudden ecstasies that sent him capering +and swinging his arms, venting his emotions in a series of leaps and +shrieks and somersaults, and spasms of laughter as he lay rolling in the +grass. + +His tendency to mischief grew with this wide liberty, improved health, +and the encouragement of John Quarles's good-natured, fun-loving slaves. + +The negro quarters beyond the orchard were especially attractive. In one +cabin lived a bed-ridden, white-headed old woman whom the children +visited daily and looked upon with awe; for she was said to be a thousand +years old and to have talked with Moses. The negroes believed this; the +children, too, of course, and that she had lost her health in the desert, +coming out of Egypt. The bald spot on her head was caused by fright at +seeing Pharaoh drowned. She also knew how to avert spells and ward off +witches, which added greatly to her prestige. Uncle Dan'l was a +favorite, too-kind-hearted and dependable, while his occasional lockjaw +gave him an unusual distinction. Long afterward he would become Nigger +Jim in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tales, and so in his gentle +guilelessness win immortality and the love of many men. + +Certainly this was a heavenly place for a little boy, the farm of Uncle +John Quarles, and the house was as wonderful as its surroundings. It was +a two-story double log building, with a spacious floor (roofed in) +connecting the two divisions. In the summer the table was set in the +middle of that shady, breezy pavilion, and sumptuous meals were served in +the lavish Southern style, brought to the table in vast dishes that left +only room for rows of plates around the edge. Fried chicken, roast pig, +turkeys, ducks, geese, venison just killed, squirrels, rabbits, +partridges, pheasants, prairie-chickens--the list is too long to be +served here. If a little boy could not improve on that bill of fare and +in that atmosphere, his case was hopeless indeed. His mother kept him +there until the late fall, when the chilly evenings made them gather +around the wide, blazing fireplace. Sixty years later he wrote of that +scene: + + I can see the room yet with perfect clearness. I can see all its + buildings, all its details: the family-room of the house, with the + trundle-bed in one corner and the spinning-wheel in another a wheel + whose rising and falling wail, heard from a distance, was the + mournfulest of all sounds to me, and made me homesick and low- + spirited, and filled my atmosphere with the wandering spirits of the + dead; the vast fireplace, piled high with flaming logs, from whose + ends a sugary sap bubbled out, but did not go to waste, for we + scraped it off and ate it; . . . the lazy cat spread out on the + rough hearthstones, the drowsy dogs braced against the jambs, + blinking; my aunt in one chimney-corner and my uncle in the other + smoking his corn-cob pipe; the slick and carpetless oak floor + faintly mirroring the flame tongues, and freckled with black + indentations where fire-coals had popped out and died a leisurely + death; half a dozen children romping in the background twilight; + splint-bottom chairs here and there--some with rockers; a cradle-- + out of service, but waiting with confidence. + +One is tempted to dwell on this period, to quote prodigally from these +vivid memories--the thousand minute impressions which the child's +sensitive mind acquired in that long-ago time and would reveal everywhere +in his work in the years to come. For him it was education of a more +valuable and lasting sort than any he would ever acquire from books. + + + + +IX + +SCHOOL-DAYS + +Nevertheless, on his return to Hannibal, it was decided that Little Sam +was now ready to go to school. He was about five years old, and the +months on the farm had left him wiry and lively, even if not very robust. +His mother declared that he gave her more trouble than all the other +children put together. + +"He drives me crazy with his didoes, when he is in the house," she used +to say; "and when he is out of it I am expecting every minute that some +one will bring him home half dead." + +He did, in fact, achieve the first of his "nine narrow escapes from +drowning" about this time, and was pulled out of the river one afternoon +and brought home in a limp and unpromising condition. When with mullein +tea and castor-oil she had restored him to activity, she said: "I guess +there wasn't much danger. People born to be hanged are safe in water." + +She declared she was willing to pay somebody to take him off her hands +for a part of each day and try to teach him manners. Perhaps this is a +good place to say that Jane Clemens was the original of Tom Sawyer's +"Aunt Polly," and her portrait as presented in that book is considered +perfect. Kind-hearted, fearless, looking and acting ten years older than +her age, as women did in that time, always outspoken and sometimes +severe, she was regarded as a "character" by her friends, and beloved by +them as, a charitable, sympathetic woman whom it was good to know. Her +sense of pity was abnormal. She refused to kill even flies, and punished +the cat for catching mice. She, would drown the young kittens, when +necessary, but warmed the water for the purpose. On coming to Hannibal, +she joined the Presbyterian Church, and her religion was of that clean- +cut, strenuous kind which regards as necessary institutions hell and +Satan, though she had been known to express pity for the latter for being +obliged to surround himself with such poor society. Her children she +directed with considerable firmness, and all were tractable and growing +in grace except Little Sam. Even baby Henry at two was lisping the +prayers that Sam would let go by default unless carefully guarded. His +sister Pamela, who was eight years older and always loved him dearly, +usually supervised these spiritual exercises, and in her gentle care +earned immortality as the Cousin Mary of Tom Sawyer. He would say his +prayers willingly enough when encouraged by sister Pamela, but he much +preferred to sit up in bed and tell astonishing tales of the day's +adventure--tales which made prayer seem a futile corrective and caused +his listeners to wonder why the lightning was restrained so long. They +did not know they were glimpsing the first outcroppings of a genius that +would one day amaze and entertain the nations. Neighbors hearing of +these things (also certain of his narrations) remonstrated with Mrs. +Clemens. + +"You don't believe anything that child says, I hope." + +"Oh yes, I know his average. I discount him ninety per cent. The rest +is pure gold." At another time she said: "Sammy is a well of truth, but +you can't bring it all up in one bucket." + +This, however, is digression; the incidents may have happened somewhat +later. + +A certain Miss E. Horr was selected to receive the payment for taking +charge of Little Sam during several hours each day, directing him +mentally and morally in the mean time. Her school was then in a log +house on Main Street (later it was removed to Third Street), and was of +the primitive old-fashioned kind, with pupils of all ages, ranging in +advancement from the primer to the third reader, from the tables to long +division, with a little geography and grammar and a good deal of +spelling. Long division and the third reader completed the curriculum in +that school. Pupils who decided to take a post-graduate course went to a +Mr. Cross, who taught in a frame house on the hill facing what is now the +Public Square. + +Miss Horr received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and opened +her school with prayer; after which came a chapter of the Bible, with +explanations, and the rules of conduct. Then the A B C class was called, +because their recital was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring no +preparation. + +The rules of conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He calculated +how much he would need to trim in, to sail close to the danger-line and +still avoid disaster. He made a miscalculation during the forenoon and +received warning; a second offense would mean punishment. He did not +mean to be caught the second time, but he had not learned Miss Horr yet, +and was presently startled by being commanded to go out and bring a stick +for his own correction. + +This was certainly disturbing. It was sudden, and then he did not know +much about the selection of sticks. Jane Clemens had usually used her +hand. It required a second command to get him headed in the right +direction, and he was a trifle dazed when he got outside. He had the +forests of Missouri to select from, but choice was difficult. Everything +looked too big and competent. Even the smallest switch had a wiry, +discouraging look. Across the way was a cooper-shop with a good many +shavings outside. + +One had blown across and lay just in front of him. It was an +inspiration. He picked it up and, solemnly entering the school-room, +meekly handed it to Miss Herr. + +Perhaps Miss Horr's sense of humor prompted forgiveness, but discipline +must be maintained. + +"Samuel Langhorne Clemens," she said (he had never heard it all strung +together in that ominous way), "I am ashamed of you! Jimmy Dunlap, go +and bring a switch for Sammy." And Jimmy Dunlap went, and the switch was +of a sort to give the little boy an immediate and permanent distaste for +school. He informed his mother when he went home at noon that he did not +care for school; that he had no desire to be a great man; that he +preferred to be a pirate or an Indian and scalp or drown such people as +Miss Horr. Down in her heart his mother was sorry for him, but what she +said was that she was glad there was somebody at last who could take him +in hand. + +He returned to school, but he never learned to like it. Each morning he +went with reluctance and remained with loathing--the loathing which he +always had for anything resembling bondage and tyranny or even the +smallest curtailment of liberty. A School was ruled with a rod in those +days, a busy and efficient rod, as the Scripture recommended. Of the +smaller boys Little Sam's back was sore as often as the next, and he +dreamed mainly of a day when, grown big and fierce, he would descend with +his band and capture Miss Horr and probably drag her by the hair, as he +had seen Indians and pirates do in the pictures. When the days of early +summer came again; when from his desk he could see the sunshine lighting +the soft green of Holliday's Hill, with the purple distance beyond, and +the glint of the river, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a +Webster's spelling-book and a cross old maid was more than human nature +could bear. Among the records preserved from that far-off day there +remains a yellow slip, whereon in neat old-fashioned penmanship is +inscribed: + + MISS PAMELA CLEMENS + + Has won the love of her teacher and schoolmates by her amiable + deportment and faithful application to her various studies. + E. Horr, Teacher. + +If any such testimonial was ever awarded to Little Sam, diligent search +has failed to reveal it. If he won the love of his teacher and playmates +it was probably for other reasons. + +Yet he must have learned, somehow, for he could read presently and was +soon regarded as a good speller for his years. His spelling came as a +natural gift, as did most of his attainments, then and later. + +It has already been mentioned that Miss Horr opened her school with +prayer and Scriptural readings. Little Sam did not especially delight in +these things, but he respected them. Not to do so was dangerous. Flames +were being kept brisk for little boys who were heedless of sacred +matters; his home teaching convinced him of that. He also respected Miss +Horr as an example of orthodox faith, and when she read the text "Ask and +ye shall receive" and assured them that whoever prayed for a thing +earnestly, his prayer would be answered, he believed it. A small +schoolmate, the balker's daughter, brought gingerbread to school every +morning, and Little Sam was just "honing" for some of it. He wanted a +piece of that baker's gingerbread more than anything else in the world, +and he decided to pray for it. + +The little girl sat in front of him, but always until that morning had +kept the gingerbread out of sight. Now, however, when he finished his +prayer and looked up, a small morsel of the precious food lay in front of +him. Perhaps the little girl could no longer stand that hungry look in +his eyes. Possibly she had heard his petition; at all events his prayer +bore fruit and his faith at that moment would have moved Holliday's Hill. +He decided to pray for everything he wanted, but when he tried the +gingerbread supplication next morning it had no result. Grieved, but +still unshaken, he tried next morning again; still no gingerbread; and +when a third and fourth effort left him hungry he grew despairing and +silent, and wore the haggard face of doubt. His mother said: + +"What's the matter, Sammy; are you sick?" + +"No," he said, "but I don't believe in saying prayers any more, and I'm +never going to do it again." + +"Why, Sammy, what in the world has happened?" she asked, anxiously. Then +he broke down and cried on her lap and told her, for it was a serious +thing in that day openly to repudiate faith. Jane Clemens gathered him +to her heart and comforted him. + +"I'll make you a whole pan of gingerbread, better than that," she said, +"and school will soon be out, too, and you can go back to Uncle John's +farm." + +And so passed and ended Little Sam's first school-days. + + + + +X + +EARLY VICISSITUDE AND SORROW + +Prosperity came laggingly enough to the Clemens household. The year 1840 +brought hard times: the business venture paid little or no return; law +practice was not much more remunerative. Judge Clemens ran for the +office of justice of the peace and was elected, but fees were neither +large nor frequent. By the end of the year it became necessary to part +with Jennie, the slave-girl--a grief to all of them, for they were fond +of her in spite of her wilfulness, and she regarded them as "her family." +She was tall, well formed, nearly black, and brought a good price. A +Methodist minister in Hannibal sold a negro child at the same time to +another minister who took it to his home farther South. As the steamboat +moved away from the landing the child's mother stood at the water's edge, +shrieking her anguish. We are prone to consider these things harshly +now, when slavery has been dead for nearly half a century, but it was a +sacred institution then, and to sell a child from its mother was little +more than to sell to-day a calf from its lowing dam. One could be sorry, +of course, in both instances, but necessity or convenience are matters +usually considered before sentiment. Mark Twain once said of his mother: + +"Kind-hearted and compassionate as she was, I think she was not conscious +that slavery was a bald, grotesque, and unwarranted ursurpation. She had +never heard it assailed in any pulpit, but had heard it defended and +sanctified in a thousand. As far as her experience went, the wise, the +good, and the holy were unanimous in the belief that slavery was right, +righteous, sacred, the peculiar pet of the Deity, and a condition which +the slave himself ought to be daily and nightly thankful for." + +Yet Jane Clemens must have had qualms at times--vague, unassembled doubts +that troubled her spirit. After Jennie was gone a little black chore-boy +was hired from his owner, who had bought him on the east shore of +Maryland and brought him to that remote Western village, far from family +and friends. + +He was a cheery spirit in spite of that, and gentle, but very noisy. All +day he went about singing, whistling, and whooping until his noise became +monotonous, maddening. One day Little Sam said: + +"Ma--[that was the Southern term]--,make Sandy stop singing all the +time. It's awful." + +Tears suddenly came into his mother's eyes. + +"Poor thing! He is sold away from his home. When he sings it shows +maybe he is not remembering. When he's still I am afraid he is thinking, +and I can't bear it." + +Yet any one in that day who advanced the idea of freeing the slaves was +held in abhorrence. An abolitionist was something to despise, to stone +out of the community. The children held the name in horror, as belonging +to something less than human; something with claws, perhaps, and a tail. + +The money received for the sale of Jennie made judge Clemens easier for a +time. Business appears to have improved, too, and he was tided through +another year during which he seems to have made payments on an expensive +piece of real estate on Hill and Main streets. This property, acquired +in November, 1839, meant the payment of some seven thousand dollars, and +was a credit purchase, beyond doubt. It was well rented, but the tenants +did not always pay; and presently a crisis came--a descent of creditors-- +and John: Clemens at forty-four found himself without business and +without means. He offered everything--his cow, his household furniture, +even his forks and spoons--to his creditors, who protested that he must +not strip himself. They assured him that they admired his integrity so +much they would aid him to resume business; but when he went to St. +Louis to lay in a stock of goods he was coldly met, and the venture came +to nothing. + +He now made a trip to Tennessee in the hope of collecting some old debts +and to raise money on the Tennessee land. He took along a negro man +named Charlie, whom he probably picked up for a small sum, hoping to make +something through his disposal in a better market. The trip was another +failure. The man who owed him a considerable sum of money was solvent, +but pleaded hard times: + + It seems so very hard upon him--[John Clemens wrote home]--to pay + such a sum that I could not have the conscience to hold him to it. + . . I still have Charlie. The highest price I had offered for him + in New Orleans was $50, in Vicksburg $40. After performing the + journey to Tennessee, I expect to sell him for whatever he will + bring. + + I do not know what I can commence for a business in the spring. My + brain is constantly on the rack with the study, and I can't relieve + myself of it. The future, taking its completion from the state of + my health or mind, is alternately beaming in sunshine or over- + shadowed with clouds; but mostly cloudy, as you may suppose. I want + bodily exercise--some constant and active employment, in the first + place; and, in the next place, I want to be paid for it, if + possible. + +This letter is dated January 7, 1842. He returned without any financial +success, and obtained employment for a time in a commission-house on the +levee. The proprietor found some fault one day, and Judge Clemens walked +out of the premises. On his way home he stopped in a general store, kept +by a man named Sehns, to make some purchases. When he asked that these +be placed on account, Selms hesitated. Judge Clemens laid down a five- +dollar gold piece, the last money he possessed in the world, took the +goods, and never entered the place again. + +When Jane Clemens reproached him for having made the trip to Tennessee, +at a cost of two hundred dollars, so badly needed at this time, he only +replied gently that he had gone for what he believed to be the best. + +"I am not able to dig in the streets," he added, and Orion, who records +this, adds: + +"I can see yet the hopeless expression of his face." + +During a former period of depression, such as this, death had come into +the Clemens home. It came again now. Little Benjamin, a sensitive, +amiable boy of ten, one day sickened, and died within a week, May 12, +1842. He was a favorite child and his death was a terrible blow. Little +Sam long remembered the picture of his parents' grief; and Orion recalls +that they kissed each other, something hitherto unknown. + +Judge Clemens went back to his law and judicial practice. Mrs. Clemens +decided to take a few boarders. Orion, by this time seventeen and a very +good journeyman printer, obtained a place in St. Louis to aid in the +family support. + +The tide of fortune having touched low-water mark, the usual gentle stage +of improvement set in. Times grew better in Hannibal after those first +two or three years; legal fees became larger and more frequent. Within +another two years judge Clemens appears to have been in fairly hopeful +circumstances again--able at least to invest some money in silkworm +culture and lose it, also to buy a piano for Pamela, and to build a +modest house on the Hill Street property, which a rich St. Louis cousin, +James Clemens, had preserved for him. It was the house which is known +today as the "Mark Twain Home."--['This house, in 1911, was bought by +Mr. and Mrs. George A. Mahan, and presented to Hannibal for a memorial +museum.]--Near it, toward the corner of Main Street, was his office, +and here he dispensed law and justice in a manner which, if it did not +bring him affluence, at least won for him the respect of the entire +community. One example will serve: + +Next to his office was a stone-cutter's shop. One day the proprietor, +Dave Atkinson, got into a muss with one "Fighting" MacDonald, and there +was a tremendous racket. Judge Clemens ran out and found the men down, +punishing each other on the pavement. + +"I command the peace!" he shouted, as he came up to them. + +No one paid the least attention. + +"I command the peace!" he shouted again, still louder, but with no +result. + +A stone-cutter's mallet lay there, handy. Judge Clemens seized it and, +leaning over the combatants, gave the upper one, MacDonald, a smart blow +on the head. + +"I command the peace!" he said, for the third time, and struck a +considerably smarter blow. + +That settled it. The second blow was of the sort that made MacDonald +roll over, and peace ensued. Judge Clemens haled both men into his +court, fined them, and collected his fee. Such enterprise in the cause +of justice deserved prompt reward. + + + + +XI + +DAYS OF EDUCATION + +The Clemens family had made one or two moves since its arrival in +Hannibal, but the identity of these temporary residences and the period +of occupation of each can no longer be established. Mark Twain once +said: + +"In 1843 my father caught me in a lie. It is not this fact that gives me +the date, but the house we lived in. We were there only a year." + +We may believe it was the active result of that lie that fixed his memory +of the place, for his father seldom punished him. When he did, it was a +thorough and satisfactory performance. + +It was about the period of moving into the new house (1844) that the Tom +Sawyer days--that is to say, the boyhood of Samuel Clemens--may be said +to have begun. Up to that time he was just Little Sam, a child--wild, +and mischievous, often exasperating, but still a child--a delicate little +lad to be worried over, mothered, or spanked and put to bed. Now, at +nine, he had acquired health, with a sturdy ability to look out for +himself, as boys will, in a community like that, especially where the +family is rather larger than the income and there is still a younger +child to claim a mother's protecting care. So "Sam," as they now called +him, "grew up" at nine, and was full of knowledge for his years. Not +that he was old in spirit or manner--he was never that, even to his +death--but he had learned a great number of things, mostly of a kind not +acquired at school. + +They were not always of a pleasant kind; they were likely to be of a kind +startling to a boy, even terrifying. Once Little Sam--he was still +Little Sam, then--saw an old man shot down on the main street, at +noonday. He saw them carry him home, lay him on the bed, and spread on +his breast an open family Bible which looked as heavy as an anvil. He +though, if he could only drag that great burden away, the poor, old dying +man would not breathe so heavily. He saw a young emigrant stabbed with a +bowie-knife by a drunken comrade, and noted the spurt of life-blood that +followed; he saw two young men try to kill their uncle, one holding him +while the other snapped repeatedly an Allen revolver which failed to go +off. Then there was the drunken rowdy who proposed to raid the +"Welshman's" house one dark threatening night--he saw that, too. A widow +and her one daughter lived there, and the ruffian woke the whole village +with his coarse challenges and obscenities. Sam Clemens and a boon +companion, John Briggs, went up there to look and listen. The man was at +the gate, and the warren were invisible in the shadow of the dark porch. +The boys heard the elder woman's voice warning the man that she had a +loaded gun, and that she would kill him if he stayed where he was. He +replied with a ribald tirade, and she warned that she would count ten- +that if he remained a second longer she would fire. She began slowly and +counted up to five, with him laughing and jeering. At six he grew +silent, but he did not go. She counted on: seven--eight--nine--The boys +watching from the dark roadside felt their hearts stop. There was a long +pause, then the final count, followed a second later by a gush of flame. +The man dropped, his breast riddled. At the same instant the +thunderstorm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled wildly, +believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the lost soul. + +Many such instances happened in a town like that in those days. And +there were events incident to slavery. He saw a slave struck down and +killed with a piece of slag for a trifling offense. He saw an +abolitionist attacked by a mob, and they would have lynched him had not a +Methodist minister defended him on a plea that he must be crazy. He did +not remember, in later years, that he had ever seen a slave auction, but +he added: + +"I am suspicious that it is because the thing was a commonplace +spectacle, and not an uncommon or impressive one. I do vividly remember +seeing a dozen black men and women chained together lying in a group on +the pavement, waiting shipment to a Southern slave-market. They had the +saddest faces I ever saw." + +It is not surprising that a boy would gather a store of human knowledge +amid such happenings as these. They were wild, disturbing things. They +got into his dreams and made him fearful when he woke in the middle of +the night. He did not then regard them as an education. In some vague +way he set them down as warnings, or punishments, designed to give him a +taste for a better life. He felt that it was his own conscience that +made these things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a +high respect for her moral opinions, also for her courage. Among other +things, he had seen her one day defy a vicious devil of a Corsican--a +common terror in the town-who was chasing his grown daughter with a heavy +rope in his hand, declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious +citizens got out of her way, but Jane Clemens opened her door wide to the +refugee, and then, instead of rushing in and closing it, spread her arms +across it, barring the way. The man swore and threatened her with the +rope, but she did not flinch or show any sign of fear. She stood there +and shamed him and derided him and defied him until he gave up the rope +and slunk off, crestfallen and conquered. Any one who could do that must +have a perfect conscience, Sam thought. In the fearsome darkness he +would say his prayers, especially when a thunderstorm was coming, and vow +to begin a better life in the morning. He detested Sunday-school as much +as day-school, and once Orion, who was moral and religious, had +threatened to drag him there by the collar; but as the thunder got louder +Sam decided that he loved Sunday-school and would go the next Sunday +without being invited. + +Fortunately there were pleasanter things than these. There were picnics +sometimes, and ferry-boat excursions. Once there was a great Fourth-of- +July celebration at which it was said a real Revolutionary soldier was to +be present. Some one had discovered him living alone seven or eight +miles in the country. But this feature proved a disappointment; for when +the day came and he was triumphantly brought in he turned out to be a +Hessian, and was allowed to walk home. + +The hills and woods around Hannibal where, with his playmates, he roamed +almost at will were never disappointing. There was the cave with its +marvels; there was Bear Creek, where, after repeated accidents, he had +learned to swim. It had cost him heavily to learn to swim. He had seen +two playmates drown; also, time and again he had, himself, been dragged +ashore more dead than alive, once by a slave-girl, another time by a +slaveman--Neal Champ, of the Pavey Hotel. In the end he had conquered; +he could swim better than any boy in town of his age. + +It was the river that meant more to him than all the rest. Its charm was +permanent. It was the path of adventure, the gateway to the world. The +river with its islands, its great slow-moving rafts, its marvelous +steamboats that were like fairyland, its stately current swinging to the +sea! He would sit by it for hours and dream. He would venture out on it +in a surreptitiously borrowed boat when he was barely strong enough to +lift an oar out of the water. He learned to know all its moods and +phases. He felt its kinship. In some occult way he may have known it as +his prototype--that resistless tide of life with its ever-changing sweep, +its shifting shores, its depths, its shadows, its gorgeous sunset hues, +its solemn and tranquil entrance to the sea. + +His hunger for the life aboard the steamers became a passion. To be even +the humblest employee of one of those floating enchantments would be +enough; to be an officer would be to enter heaven; to be a pilot was to +be a god. + +"You can hardly imagine what it meant," he reflected once, "to a boy in +those days, shut in as we were, to see those steamboats pass up and down, +and never to take a trip on them." + +He had reached the mature age of nine when he could endure this no +longer. One day, when the big packet came down and stopped at Hannibal, +he slipped aboard and crept under one of the boats on the upper deck. +Presently the signal-bells rang, the steamboat backed away and swung into +midstream; he was really going at last. He crept from beneath the boat +and sat looking out over the water and enjoying the scenery. Then it +began to rain--a terrific downpour. He crept back under the boat, but +his legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. So he was taken down +into the cabin and at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of +Louisiana, and there were Lampton relatives there who took him home. +Jane Clemens declared that his father had got to take him in hand; which +he did, doubtless impressing the adventure on him in the usual way. +These were all educational things; then there was always the farm, where +entertainment was no longer a matter of girl-plays and swings, with a +colored nurse following about, but of manlier sports with his older boy +cousins, who had a gun and went hunting with the men for squirrels and +partridges by day, for coons and possums by night. Sometimes the little +boy had followed the hunters all night long and returned with them +through the sparkling and fragrant morning fresh, hungry, and triumphant +just in time for breakfast. + +So it is no wonder that at nine he was no longer "Little Sam," but Sam +Clemens, quite mature and self-dependent, with a wide knowledge of men +and things and a variety of accomplishments. He had even learned to +smoke--a little--out there on the farm, and had tried tobacco-chewing, +though that was a failure. He had been stung to this effort by a big +girl at a school which, with his cousin Puss, he sometimes briefly +attended. + +"Do you use terbacker?" the big girl had asked, meaning did he chew it. + +"No," he said, abashed at the confession. + +"Haw!" she cried to the other scholars; "here's a boy that can't chaw +terbacker." + +Degraded and ashamed, he tried to correct his fault, but it only made him +very ill; and he did not try again. + +He had also acquired the use of certain strong, expressive words, and +used them, sometimes, when his mother was safely distant. He had an +impression that she would "skin him alive" if she heard him swear. His +education had doubtful spots in it, but it had provided wisdom. + +He was not a particularly attractive lad. He was not tall for his years, +and his head was somewhat too large for his body. He had a "great ruck" +of light, sandy hair which he plastered down to keep it from curling; +keen blue-gray eyes, and rather large features. Still, he had a fair, +delicate complexion, when it was not blackened by grime or tan; a gentle, +winning manner; a smile that, with his slow, measured way of speaking, +made him a favorite with his companions. He did not speak much, and his +mental attainments were not highly regarded; but, for some reason, +whenever he did speak every playmate in hearing stopped whatever he was +doing and listened. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new game or lark; +perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a commonplace remark +that his peculiar drawl made amusing. Whatever it was, they considered +it worth while. His mother always referred to his slow fashion of +speaking as "Sammy's long talk." Her own speech was still more +deliberate, but she seemed not to notice it. Henry--a much handsomer lad +and regarded as far more promising--did not have it. He was a lovable, +obedient little fellow whom the mischievous Sam took delight in teasing. +For this and other reasons the latter's punishments were frequent enough, +perhaps not always deserved. Sometimes he charged his mother with +partiality. He would say: + +"Yes, no matter what it is, I am always the one to get punished"; and his +mother would answer: + +"Well, Sam, if you didn't deserve it for that, you did for something +else." + +Henry Clemens became the Sid of Tom Sawyer, though Henry was in every way +a finer character than Sid. His brother Sam always loved him, and fought +for him oftener than with him. + +With the death of Benjamin Clemens, Henry and Sam were naturally drawn +much closer together, though Sam could seldom resist the temptation of +tormenting Henry. A schoolmate, George Butler (he was a nephew of +General Butler and afterward fought bravely in the Civil War), had a +little blue suit with a leather belt to match, and was the envy of all. +Mrs. Clemens finally made Sam and Henry suits of blue cotton velvet, and +the next Sunday, after various services were over, the two sauntered +about, shedding glory for a time, finally going for a stroll in the +woods. They walked along properly enough, at first, then just ahead Sam +spied the stump of a newly cut tree, and with a wild whooping impulse +took a running leap over it. There were splinters on the stump where the +tree had broken away, but he cleared them neatly. Henry wanted to match +the performance, but was afraid to try, so Sam dared him. He kept daring +him until Henry was goaded to the attempt. He cleared the stump, but the +highest splinters caught the slack of his little blue trousers, and the +cloth gave way. He escaped injury, but the precious trousers were +damaged almost beyond repair. Sam, with a boy's heartlessness, was +fairly rolling on the ground with laughter at Henry's appearance. + +"Cotton-tail rabbit!" he shouted. "Cotton-tail rabbit!" while Henry, +weeping, set out for home by a circuitous and unfrequented road. Let us +hope, if there was punishment for this mishap, that it fell in the proper +locality. + +These two brothers were of widely different temperament. Henry, even as +a little boy, was sturdy, industrious, and dependable. Sam was volatile +and elusive; his industry of an erratic kind. Once his father set him to +work with a hatchet to remove some plaster. He hacked at it for a time +well enough, then lay down on the floor of the room and threw his hatchet +at such areas of the plaster as were not in easy reach. Henry would have +worked steadily at a task like that until the last bit was removed and +the room swept clean. + +The home incidents in 'Tom Sawyer', most of them, really happened. Sam +Clemens did clod Henry for getting him into trouble about the colored +thread with which he sewed his shirt when he came home from swimming; he +did inveigle a lot of boys into whitewashing, a fence for him; he did +give Pain-killer to Peter, the cat. There was a cholera scare that year, +and Pain-killer was regarded as a preventive. Sam had been ordered to +take it liberally, and perhaps thought Peter too should be safeguarded. +As for escaping punishment for his misdeeds in the manner described in +that book, this was a daily matter, and the methods adapted themselves to +the conditions. In the introduction to Tom Sawyer Mark Twain confesses +to the general truth of the history, and to the reality of its +characters. "Huck Finn was drawn from life," he tells us. "Tom Sawyer +also, but not from an individual--he is a combination of the +characteristics of three boys whom I knew." + +The three boys were--himself, chiefly, and in a lesser degree John Briggs +and Will Bowen. John Briggs was also the original of Joe Harper in that +book. As for Huck Finn, his original was Tom Blankenship, neither +elaborated nor qualified. + +There were several of the Blankenships: there was old Ben, the father, +who had succeeded "General" Gains as the town drunkard; young Ben, the +eldest son--a hard case with certain good traits; and Tom--that is to +say, Huck--who was just as he is described in Tom Sawyer: a ruin of rags, +a river-rat, an irresponsible bit of human drift, kind of heart and +possessing that priceless boon, absolute unaccountability of conduct to +any living soul. He could came and go as he chose; he never had to work +or go to school; he could do all things, good or bad, that the other boys +longed to do and were forbidden. He represented to them the very +embodiment of liberty, and his general knowledge of important matters, +such as fishing, hunting, trapping, and all manner of signs and spells +and hoodoos and incantations, made him immensely valuable as a companion. +The fact that his society was prohibited gave it a vastly added charm. + +The Blankenships picked up a precarious living fishing and hunting, and +lived at first in a miserable house of bark, under a tree, but later +moved into quite a pretentious building back of the new Clemens home on +Hill Street. It was really an old barn of a place--poor and ramshackle +even then; but now, more than sixty years later, a part of it is still +standing. The siding of the part that stands is of black walnut, which +must have been very plentiful in that long-ago time. Old drunken Ben +Blankenship never dreamed that pieces of his house would be carried off +as relics because of the literary fame of his son Tom--a fame founded on +irresponsibility and inconsequence. Orion Clemens, who was concerned +with missionary work about this time, undertook to improve the +Blankenships spiritually. Sam adopted them, outright, and took them to +his heart. He was likely to be there at any hour of the day, and he and +Tom had cat-call signals at night which would bring him out on the back +single-story roof, and down a little arbor and flight of steps, to the +group of boon companions which, besides Tom, included John Briggs, the +Bowen boys, Will Pitts, and one or two other congenial spirits. They +were not vicious boys; they were not really bad boys; they were only +mischievous, fun-loving boys-thoughtless, and rather disregardful of the +comforts and the rights of others. + + + + +XII + +TOM SAWYER'S BAND + +They ranged from Holliday's Hill on the north to the Cave on the south, +and over the fields and through all the woods about. They navigated. +the river from Turtle Island to Glasscock's Island (now Pearl, or Tom +Sawyer's Island), and far below; they penetrated the wilderness of the +Illinois shore. They could run like wild turkeys and swim like ducks; +they could handle a boat as if born in one. No orchard or melon patch +was entirely safe from them; no dog or slave patrol so vigilant that they +did not sooner or later elude it. They borrowed boats when their owners +were not present. Once when they found this too much trouble, they +decided to own a boat, and one Sunday gave a certain borrowed craft a +coat of red paint (formerly it had been green), and secluded it for a +season up Bear Creek. They borrowed the paint also, and the brush, +though they carefully returned these the same evening about nightfall, so +the painter could have them Monday morning. Tom Blankenship rigged up a +sail for the new craft, and Sam Clemens named it Cecilia, after which +they didn't need to borrow boats any more, though the owner of it did; +and he sometimes used to observe as he saw it pass that, if it had been +any other color but red, he would have sworn it was his. + +Some of their expeditions were innocent enough. They often cruised up to +Turtle Island, about two miles above Hannibal, and spent the day +feasting. You could have loaded a car with turtles and their eggs up +there, and there were quantities of mussels and plenty of fish. Fishing +and swimming were their chief pastimes, with general marauding for +adventure. Where the railroad-bridge now ends on the Missouri side was +their favorite swimming-hole--that and along Bear Creek, a secluded +limpid water with special interests of its own. Sometimes at evening +they swam across to Glasscock's Island--the rendezvous of Tom Sawyer's +"Black Avengers" and the hiding-place of Huck and Nigger Jim; then, when +they had frolicked on the sand-bar at the head of the island for an hour +or more, they would swim back in the dusk, a distance of half a mile, +breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or +fear. They could swim all day, likely enough, those graceless young +scamps. Once--though this was considerably later, when he was sixteen-- +Sam Clemens swam across to the Illinois side, and then turned and swam +back again without landing, a distance of at least two miles, as he had +to go. He was seized with a cramp on the return trip. His legs became +useless, and he was obliged to make the remaining distance with his arms. +It was a hardy life they led, and it is not recorded that they ever did +any serious damage, though they narrowly missed it sometimes. + +One of their Sunday pastimes was to climb Holliday's Hill and roll down +big stones, to frighten the people who were driving to church. +Holliday's Hill above the road was steep; a stone once started would go +plunging and leaping down and bound across the road with the deadly +swiftness of a twelve-inch shell. The boys would get a stone poised, +then wait until they saw a team approaching, and, calculating the +distance, would give it a start. Dropping down behind the bushes, they +would watch the dramatic effect upon the church-goers as the great +missile shot across the road a few yards before them. This was Homeric +sport, but they carried it too far. Stones that had a habit of getting +loose so numerously on Sundays and so rarely on other days invited +suspicion, and the "Patterollers" (river patrol--a kind of police of +those days) were put on the watch. So the boys found other diversions +until the Patterollers did not watch any more; then they planned a grand +coup that would eclipse anything before attempted in the stone-rolling +line. + +A rock about the size of an omnibus was lying up there, in a good +position to go down hill, once, started. They decided it would be a +glorious thing to see that great boulder go smashing down, a hundred +yards or so in front of some unsuspecting and peaceful-minded church- +goer. Quarrymen were getting out rock not far away, and left their picks +and shovels over Sundays. The boys borrowed these, and went to work to +undermine the big stone. It was a heavier job than they had counted on, +but they worked faithfully, Sunday after Sunday. If their parents had +wanted them to work like that, they would have thought they were being +killed. + +Finally one Sunday, while they were digging, it suddenly got loose and +started down. They were not quite ready for it. Nobody was coming but +an old colored man in a cart, so it was going to be wasted. It was not +quite wasted, however. They had planned for a thrilling result; and +there was thrill enough while it lasted. In the first place, the stone +nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. John Briggs had just that +moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will was about to step +into the excavation when Sam Clemens, who was already there, leaped out +with a yell: + +"Look out, boys, she's coming!" + +She came. The huge stone kept to the ground at first, then, gathering a +wild momentum, it went bounding into the air. About half-way down the +hill it struck a tree several inches through and cut it clean off. This +turned its course a little, and the negro in the cart, who heard the +noise, saw it come crashing in his direction and made a wild effort to +whip up his horse. It was also headed toward a cooper-shop across the +road. The boys watched it with growing interest. It made longer leaps +with every bound, and whenever it struck the fragments the dust would +fly. They were certain it would demolish the negro and destroy the +cooper-shop. The shop was empty, it being Sunday, but the rest of the +catastrophe would invite close investigation, with results. They wanted +to fly, but they could not move until they saw the rock land. It was +making mighty leaps now, and the terrified negro had managed to get +directly in its path. They stood holding their breath, their mouths +open. Then suddenly they could hardly believe their eyes; the boulder +struck a projection a distance above the road, and with a mighty bound +sailed clear over the negro and his mule and landed in the soft dirt +beyond-only a fragment striking the shop, damaging but not wrecking it. +Half buried in the ground, that boulder lay there for nearly forty years; +then it was blasted up for milling purposes. It was the last rock the +boys ever rolled down. They began to suspect that the sport was not +altogether safe. + +Sometimes the boys needed money, which was not easy to get in those days. +On one occasion of this sort, Tom Blankenship had the skin of a coon he +had captured, which represented the only capital in the crowd. At +Selms's store on Wild Cat corner the coonskin would bring ten cents, but +that was not enough. They arranged a plan which would make it pay a good +deal more than that. Selins's window was open, it being summer-time, and +his pile of pelts was pretty handy. Huck--that is to say, Tom--went in +the front door and sold the skin for ten cents to Selms, who tossed it +back on the pile. Tom came back with the money and after a reasonable +period went around to the open window, crawled in, got the coonskin, and +sold it to Selms again. He did this several times that afternoon; then +John Pierce, Selins's clerk, said: + +"Look here, Selms, there is something wrong about this. That boy has +been selling us coonskins all the afternoon." + +Selms went to his pile of pelts. There were several sheepskins and some +cowhides, but only one coonskin--the one he had that moment bought. +Selms himself used to tell this story as a great joke. + +Perhaps it is not adding to Mark Twain's reputation to say that the boy +Sam Clemens--a pretty small boy, a good deal less than twelve at this +time--was the leader of this unhallowed band; yet any other record would +be less than historic. If the band had a leader, it was he. They were +always ready to listen to him--they would even stop fishing to do that-- +and to follow his projects. They looked to him for ideas and +organization, whether the undertaking was to be real or make-believe. +When they played "Bandit" or "Pirate" or "Indian," Sam Clemens was always +chief; when they became real raiders it is recorded that he was no less +distinguished. Like Tom Sawyer, he loved the glare and trappings of +leadership. When the Christian Sons of Temperance came along with a +regalia, and a red sash that carried with it rank and the privilege of +inventing pass-words, the gaud of these things got into his eyes, and he +gave up smoking (which he did rather gingerly) and swearing (which he did +only under heavy excitement), also liquor (though he had never tasted it +yet), and marched with the newly washed and pure in heart for a full +month--a month of splendid leadership and servitude. Then even the red +sash could not hold him in bondage. He looked up Tom Blankenship and +said: + +"Say, Tom, I'm blamed tired of this! Let's go somewhere and smoke!" +Which must have been a good deal of a sacrifice, for the uniform was a +precious thing. + +Limelight and the center of the stage was a passion of Sam Clemens's +boyhood, a love of the spectacular that never wholly died. It seems +almost a pity that in those far-off barefoot old days he could not have +looked down the years to a time when, with the world at his feet, +venerable Oxford should clothe him in a scarlet gown. + +He could not by any chance have dreamed of that stately honor. His +ambitions did not lie in the direction of mental achievement. It is true +that now and then, on Friday at school, he read a composition, one of +which--a personal burlesque on certain older boys--came near resulting in +bodily damage. But any literary ambition he may have had in those days +was a fleeting thing. His permanent dream was to be a pirate, or a +pilot, or a bandit, or a trapper-scout; something gorgeous and active, +where his word--his nod, even--constituted sufficient law. The river +kept the pilot ambition always fresh, and the cave supplied a background +for those other things. + +The cave was an enduring and substantial joy. It was a real cave, not +merely a hole, but a subterranean marvel of deep passages and vaulted +chambers that led away into bluffs and far down into the earth's black +silences, even below the river, some said. For Sam Clemens the cave had +a fascination that never faded. Other localities and diversions might +pall, but any mention of the cave found him always eager and ready for +the three-mile walk or pull that brought them to its mystic door. With +its long corridors, its royal chambers hung with stalactites, its remote +hiding-places, its possibilities as the home of a gallant outlaw band, it +contained everything that a romantic boy could love or long for. In Tom +Sawyer Indian Joe dies in the cave. He did not die there in real life, +but was lost there once, and was living on bats when they found him. He +was a dissolute reprobate, and when, one night, he did die there came up +a thunder-storm so terrific that Sam Clemens at home and in bed was +certain that Satan had come in person for the half-breed's wicked soul. +He covered his head and said his prayers industriously, in the fear that +the evil one might conclude to save another trip by taking him along, +too. + +The treasure-digging adventure in the book had a foundation in fact. +There was a tradition concerning some French trappers who long before had +established a trading-post two miles above Hannibal, on what is called +the "bay." It is said that, while one of these trappers was out hunting, +Indians made a raid on the post and massacred the others. The hunter on +returning found his comrades killed and scalped, but the Indians had +failed to find the treasure which was buried in a chest. He left it +there, swam across to Illinois, and made his way to St. Louis, where he +told of the massacre and the burial of the, chest of gold. Then he +started to raise a party to go back for it, but was taken sick and died. +Later some men came up from St. Louis looking for the chest. They did +not find it, but they told the circumstances, and afterward a good many +people tried to find the gold. + +Tom Blankenship one morning came to Sam Clemens and John Briggs and said +he was going to dig up the treasure. He said he had dreamed just where +it was, and said if they would go with him and dig he would divide up. +The boys had great faith in dreams, especially Tom's dreams. Tom's +unlimited freedom gave him a large importance in their eyes. The dreams +of a boy like that were pretty sure to mean something. They followed Tom +to the place with some shovels and a pick, and he showed them where to +dig. Then he sat down under the shade of a papaw-tree and gave orders. + +They dug nearly all day. Now and then they stopped to rest, and maybe to +wonder a little why Tom didn't dig some himself; but, of course, he had +done the dreaming, which entitled him to an equal share. + +They did not find it that day, and when they went back next morning they +took two long iron rods; these they would push and drive into the ground +until they struck something hard. Then they would dig down to see what +it was, but it never turned out to be money. That night the boys +declared they would not dig any more. But Tom had another dream. He +dreamed the gold was exactly under the, little papaw-tree. This sounded +so circumstantial that they went back and dug another day. It was hot +weather too, August, and that night they were nearly dead. Even Tom gave +it up, then. He said there was something about the way they dug, but he +never offered to do any digging himself. + +This differs considerably from the digging incident in the book, but it +gives us an idea of the respect the boys had for the ragamuffin original +of Huckleberry Finn.--[Much of the detail in this chapter was furnished +to the writer by John Briggs shortly before his death in 1907.]--Tom +Blankenship's brother, Ben, was also drawn upon for that creation, at +least so far as one important phase of Huck's character is concerned. He +was considerably older, as well as more disreputable, than Tom. He was +inclined to torment the boys by tying knots in their clothes when they +went swimming, or by throwing mud at them when they wanted to come out, +and they had no deep love for him. But somewhere in Ben Blankenship +there was a fine generous strain of humanity that provided Mark Twain +with that immortal episode in the story of Huck Finn--in sheltering the +Nigger Jim. + +This is the real story: + +A slave ran off from Monroe County, Missouri, and got across the river +into Illinois. Ben used to fish and hunt over there in the swamps, and +one day found him. It was considered a most worthy act in those days to +return a runaway slave; in fact, it was a crime not to do it. Besides, +there was for this one a reward of fifty dollars, a fortune to ragged +outcast Ben Blankenship. That money and the honor he could acquire must +have been tempting to the waif, but it did not outweigh his human +sympathy. Instead of giving him up and claiming the reward, Ben kept the +runaway over there in the marshes all summer. The negro would fish and +Ben would carry him scraps of other food. Then, by and by, it leaked +out. Some wood-choppers went on a hunt for the fugitive, and chased him +to what was called "Bird Slough." There trying to cross a drift he was +drowned. + +In the book, the author makes Huck's struggle a psychological one between +conscience and the law, on one side, and sympathy on the other. With Ben +Blankenship the struggle--if there was a struggle--was probably between +sympathy and cupidity. He would care very little for conscience and +still less for law. His sympathy with the runaway, however, would be +large and elemental, and it must have been very large to offset the lure +of that reward. + +There was a gruesome sequel to this incident. Some days following the +drowning of the runaway, Sam Clemens, John Briggs, and the Bowen boys +went to the spot and were pushing the drift about, when suddenly the +negro rose before them, straight and terrible, about half his length out +of the water. He had gone down feet foremost, and the loosened drift had +released him. The boys did not stop to investigate. They thought he was +after them and flew in wild terror, never stopping until they reached +human habitation. + +How many gruesome experiences there appear to have been in those early +days! In 'The Innocents Abroad' Mark Twain tells of the murdered man he +saw one night in his father's office. The man's name was McFarlane. He +had been stabbed that day in the old Hudson-McFarlane feud and carried in +there to die. Sam Clemens and John Briggs had run away from school and +had been sky larking all that day, and knew nothing of the affair. Sam +decided that his father's office was safer for him than to face his +mother, who was probably sitting up, waiting. He tells us how he lay on +the lounge, and how a shape on the floor gradually resolved itself into +the outlines of a man; how a square of moonlight from the window +approached it and gradually revealed the dead face and the ghastly +stabbed breast. + +"I went out of there," he says. "I do not say that I went away in any +sort of a hurry, but I simply went; that is sufficient. I went out of +the window, and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need the +sash, but it was handier to take it than to, leave it, and so I took it. +I was not scared, but I was considerably agitated." + +He was not yet twelve, for his father was no longer alive when the boy +reached that age. Certainly these were disturbing, haunting things. +Then there was the case of the drunken tramp in the calaboose to whom the +boys kind-heartedly enough carried food and tobacco. Sam Clemens spent +some of his precious money to buy the tramp a box of Lucifer matches--a +brand new invention then, scarce and high. The tramp started a fire with +the matches and burned down the calaboose, himself in it. For weeks the +boy was tortured, awake and in his dreams, by the thought that if he had +not carried the man the matches the tragedy could not have happened. +Remorse was always Samuel Clemens's surest punishment. To his last days +on earth he never outgrew its pangs. + +What a number of things crowded themselves into a few brief years! It is +not easy to curtail these boyhood adventures of Sam Clemens and his +scapegrace friends, but one might go on indefinitely with their mad +doings. They were an unpromising lot. Ministers and other sober-minded +citizens freely prophesied sudden and violent ends for them, and +considered them hardly worth praying for. They must have proven a +disappointing lot to those prophets. The Bowen boys became fine river- +pilots; Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank director; +John Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer; even Huck +Finn--that is to say, Tom Blankenship--is reputed to have ranked as an +honored citizen and justice of the peace in a Western town. But in those +days they were a riotous, fun-loving band with little respect for order +and even less for ordinance. + + + + +XIII + +THE GENTLER SIDE + +His associations were not all of that lawless breed. At his school (he +had sampled several places of learning, and was now at Mr. Cross's on the +Square) were a number of less adventurous, even if not intrinsically +better playmates. There was George Robards, the Latin scholar, and John, +his brother, a handsome boy, who rode away at last with his father into +the sunset, to California, his golden curls flying in the wind. And +there was Jimmy McDaniel, a kind-hearted boy whose company was worth +while, because his father was a confectioner, and he used to bring candy +and cake to school. Also there was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John +Meredith, the doctor's son, and John Garth, who was one day to marry +little Helen Kercheval, and in the end would be remembered and honored +with a beautiful memorial building not far from the site of the old +school. + +Furthermore, there were a good many girls. Tom Sawyer had an +impressionable heart, and Sam Clemens no less so. There was Bettie +Ormsley, and Artemisia Briggs, and Jennie Brady; also Mary Miller, who +was nearly twice his age and gave him his first broken heart. + +"I believe I was as miserable as a grown man could be," he said once, +remembering. + +Tom Sawyer had heart sorrows too, and we may imagine that his emotions at +such times were the emotions of Sam Clemens, say at the age of ten. + +But, as Tom Sawyer had one faithful sweetheart, so did he. They were one +and the same. Becky Thatcher in the book was Laura Hawkins in reality. +The acquaintance of these two had begun when the Hawkins family moved +into the Virginia house on the corner of Hill and Main streets.--[The +Hawkins family in real life bore no resemblance to the family of that +name in The Gilded Age. Judge Hawkins of The Gilded Age, as already +noted, was John Clemens. Mark Twain used the name Hawkins, also the name +of his boyhood sweetheart, Laura, merely for old times' sake, and because +in portraying the childhood of Laura Hawkins he had a picture of the real +Laura in his mind.]--The Clemens family was then in the new home across +the way, and the children were soon acquainted. The boy could be tender +and kind, and was always gentle in his treatment of the other sex. They +visited back and forth, especially around the new house, where there were +nice pieces of boards and bricks for play-houses. So they played +"keeping house," and if they did not always agree well, since the +beginning of the world sweethearts have not always agreed, even in +Arcady. Once when they were building a house--and there may have been +some difference of opinion as to its architecture--the boy happened to +let a brick fall on the little girl's finger. If there had been any +disagreement it vanished instantly with that misfortune. He tried to +comfort her and soothe the pain; then he wept with her and suffered most +of the two, no doubt. So, you see, he was just a little boy, after all, +even though he was already chief of a red-handed band, the "Black +Avengers of the Spanish Main." + +He was always a tender-hearted lad. He would never abuse an animal, +unless, as in the Pain-killer incident, his tendency to pranking ran away +with him. He had indeed a genuine passion for cats; summers when he went +to the farm he never failed to take his cat in a basket. When he ate, it +sat in a chair beside him at the table. His sympathy included inanimate +things as well. He loved flowers--not as the embryo botanist or +gardener, but as a personal friend. He pitied the dead leaf and the +murmuring dried weed of November because their brief lives were ended, +and they would never know the summer again, or grow glad with another +spring. His heart went out to them; to the river and the sky, the sunlit +meadow and the drifted hill. That his observation of all nature was +minute and accurate is shown everywhere in his writing; but it was never +the observation of a young naturalist it was the subconscious observation +of sympathetic love. + +We are wandering away from his school-days. They were brief enough and +came rapidly to an end. They will not hold us long. Undoubtedly Tom +Sawyer's distaste for school and his excuses for staying at home--usually +some pretended illness--have ample foundation in the boyhood of Sam +Clemens. His mother punished him and pleaded with him, alternately. He +detested school as he detested nothing else on earth, even going to +church. "Church ain't worth shucks," said Tom Sawyer, but it was better +than school. + +As already noted, the school of Mr. Cross stood in or near what is now +the Square in Hannibal. The Square was only a grove then, grown up with +plum, hazel, and vine--a rare place for children. At recess and the noon +hour the children climbed trees, gathered flowers, and swung in grape- +vine swings. There was a spelling-bee every Friday afternoon, for Sam +the only endurable event of the school exercises. He could hold the +floor at spelling longer than Buck Brown. This was spectacular and +showy; it invited compliments even from Mr. Cross, whose name must have +been handed down by angels, it fitted him so well. One day Sam Clemens +wrote on his slate: + + Cross by name and cross by nature + Cross jumped over an Irish potato. + +He showed this to John Briggs, who considered it a stroke of genius. He +urged the author to write it on the board at noon, but the poet's +ambition did not go so far. + +"Oh, pshaw!" said John. "I wouldn't be afraid to do it. + +"I dare you to do it," said Sam. + +John Briggs never took a dare, and at noon, when Mr. Cross was at home at +dinner, he wrote flamingly the descriptive couplet. When the teacher +returned and "books" were called he looked steadily at John Briggs. He +had recognized the penmanship. + +"Did you do that?" he asked, ominously. + +It was a time for truth. + +"Yes, sir," said John. + +"Come here!" And John came, and paid for his exploitation of genius +heavily. Sam Clemens expected that the next call would be for "author," +but for some reason the investigation ended there. It was unusual for +him to escape. His back generally kept fairly warm from one "frailing" +to the next. + +His rewards were not all of a punitive nature. There were two medals in +the school, one for spelling, the other for amiability. They were +awarded once a week, and the holders wore them about the neck +conspicuously, and were envied accordingly. John Robards--he of the +golden curls--wore almost continuously the medal for amiability, while +Sam Clemens had a mortgage on the medal for spelling. Sometimes they +traded, to see how it would seem, but the master discouraged this +practice by taking the medals away from them for the remainder of the +week. Once Sam Clemens lost the medal by leaving the first "r" out of +February. He could have spelled it backward, if necessary; but Laura +Hawkins was the only one on the floor against him, and he was a gallant +boy. + +The picture of that school as presented in the book written thirty years +later is faithful, we may believe, and the central figure is a tender- +hearted, romantic, devil-may-care lad, loathing application and longing +only for freedom. It was a boon which would come to him sooner even than +he had dreamed. + + + + +XIV + +THE PASSING OF JOHN CLEMENS + +Judge Clemens, who time and again had wrecked or crippled his fortune by +devices more or less unusual, now adopted the one unfailing method of +achieving disaster. He endorsed a large note, for a man of good repute, +and the payment of it swept him clean: home, property, everything +vanished again. The St. Louis cousin took over the home and agreed to +let the family occupy it on payment of a small interest; but after an +attempt at housekeeping with a few scanty furnishings and Pamela's piano +--all that had been saved from the wreck--they moved across the street +into a portion of the Virginia house, then occupied by a Dr. Grant. The +Grants proposed that the Clemens family move over and board them, a +welcome arrangement enough at this time. + +Judge Clemens had still a hope left. The clerkship of the Surrogate +Court was soon to be filled by election. It was an important +remunerative office, and he was regarded as the favorite candidate for +the position. His disaster had aroused general sympathy, and his +nomination and election were considered sure. He took no chances; he +made a canvass on horseback from house to house, often riding through +rain and the chill of fall, acquiring a cough which was hard to overcome. +He was elected by a heavy majority, and it was believed he could hold the +office as long as he chose. There seemed no further need of worry. As +soon as he was installed in office they would live in style becoming +their social position. About the end of February he rode to Palmyra to +be sworn in. Returning he was drenched by a storm of rain and sleet, +arriving at last half frozen. His system was in no condition to resist +such a shock. Pneumonia followed; physicians came with torments of +plasters and allopathic dosings that brought no relief. Orion returned +from St. Louis to assist in caring for him, and sat by his bed, +encouraging him and reading to him, but it was evident that he grew daily +weaker. Now and then he became cheerful and spoke of the Tennessee land +as the seed of a vast fortune that must surely flower at last. He +uttered no regrets, no complaints. Once only he said: + +"I believe if I had stayed in Tennessee I might have been worth twenty +thousand dollars to-day." + +On the morning of the 24th of March, 1847, it was evident that he could +not live many hours. He was very weak. When he spoke, now and then, it +was of the land. He said it would soon make them all rich and happy. + +"Cling to the land," he whispered. "Cling to the land, and wait. Let +nothing beguile it away from you." + +A little later he beckoned to Pamela, now a lovely girl of nineteen, and, +putting his arm about her neck, kissed her for the first time in years. + +"Let me die," he said. + +He never spoke after that. A little more, and the sad, weary life that +had lasted less than forty-nine years was ended: A dreamer and a +moralist, an upright man honored by all, he had never been a financier. +He ended life with less than he had begun. + + + + +XV + +A YOUNG BEN FRANKLIN + +For a third time death had entered the Clemens home: not only had it +brought grief now, but it had banished the light of new fortune from the +very threshold. The disaster seemed complete. + +The children were dazed. Judge Clemens had been a distant, reserved man, +but they had loved him, each in his own way, and they had honored his +uprightness and nobility of purpose. Mrs. Clemens confided to a neighbor +that, in spite of his manner, her husband had been always warm-hearted, +with a deep affection for his family. They remembered that he had never +returned from a journey without bringing each one some present, however +trifling. Orion, looking out of his window next morning, saw old Abram +Kurtz, and heard him laugh. He wondered how anybody could still laugh. + +The boy Sam was fairly broken down. Remorse, which always dealt with him +unsparingly, laid a heavy hand on him now. Wildness, disobedience, +indifference to his father's wishes, all were remembered; a hundred +things, in themselves trifling, became ghastly and heart-wringing in the +knowledge that they could never be undone. Seeing his grief, his mother +took him by the hand and led him into the room where his father lay. + +"It is all right, Sammy," she said. "What's done is done, and it does +not matter to him any more; but here by the side of him now I want you to +promise me----" + +He turned, his eyes streaming with tears, and flung himself into her +arms. + +"I will promise anything," he sobbed, "if you won't make me go to school! +Anything!" + +His mother held him for a moment, thinking, then she said: + +"No, Sammy; you need not go to school any more. Only promise me to be a +better boy. Promise not to break my heart." + +So he promised her to be a faithful and industrious man, and upright, +like his father. His mother was satisfied with that. The sense of honor +and justice was already strong within him. To him a promise was a +serious matter at any time; made under conditions like these it would be +held sacred. + +That night--it was after the funeral--his tendency to somnambulism +manifested itself. His mother and sister, who were sleeping together, +saw the door open and a form in white enter. Naturally nervous at such a +time, and living in a day of almost universal superstition, they were +terrified and covered their heads. Presently a hand was laid on the +coverlet, first at the foot, then at the head of the bed. A thought +struck Mrs. Clemens: + +"Sam!" she said. + +He answered, but he was sound asleep and fell to the floor. He had risen +and thrown a sheet around him in his dreams. He walked in his sleep +several nights in succession after that. Then he slept more soundly. + +Orion returned to St. Louis. He was a very good book and job printer by +this time and received a salary of ten dollars a week (high wages in +those frugal days), of which he sent three dollars weekly to the family. +Pamela, who had acquired a considerable knowledge of the piano and +guitar, went to the town of Paris, in Monroe County, about fifty miles +away, and taught a class of music pupils, contributing whatever remained +after paying for her board and clothing to the family fund. It was a +hard task for the girl, for she was timid and not over-strong; but she +was resolute and patient, and won success. Pamela Clemens was a noble +character and deserves a fuller history than can be afforded in this +work. + +Mrs. Clemens and her son Samuel now had a sober talk, and, realizing that +the printing trade offered opportunity for acquiring further education as +well as a livelihood, they agreed that he should be apprenticed to Joseph +P. Ament, who had lately moved from Palmyra to Hannibal and bought a +weekly Democrat paper, the Missouri Courier. The apprentice terms were +not over-liberal. They were the usual thing for that time: board and +clothes--"more board than clothes, and not much of either," Mark Twain +used to say. + +"I was supposed to get two suits of clothes a year, like a nigger, but I +didn't get them. I got one suit and took the rest out in Ament's old +garments, which didn't fit me in any noticeable way. I was only about +half as big as he was, and when I had on one of his shirts I felt as if I +had on a circus tent. I had to turn the trousers up to my ears to make +them short enough." + +There was another apprentice, a young fellow of about eighteen, named +Wales McCormick, a devilish fellow and a giant. Ament's clothes were too +small for Wales, but he had to wear them, and Sam Clemens and Wales +McCormick together, fitted out with Ament's clothes, must have been a +picturesque pair. There was also, for a time, a boy named Ralph; but he +appears to have presented no features of a striking sort, and the memory +of him has become dim. + +The apprentices ate in the kitchen at first, served by the old slave-cook +and her handsome mulatto daughter; but those printer's "devils" made it +so lively there that in due time they were promoted to the family table, +where they sat with Mr. and Mrs. Ament and the one journeyman, Pet +McMurry--a name that in itself was an inspiration. What those young +scamps did not already know Pet McMurry could teach them. Sam Clemens +had promised to be a good boy, and he was, by the standards of boyhood. +He was industrious, regular at his work, quick to learn, kind, and +truthful. Angels could hardly be more than that in a printing-office; +but when food was scarce even an angel--a young printer angel--could +hardly resist slipping down the cellar stairs at night for raw potatoes, +onions, and apples which they carried into the office, where the boys +slept on a pallet on the floor, and this forage they cooked on the office +stove. Wales especially had a way of cooking a potato that his associate +never forgot. + +It is unfortunate that no photographic portrait has been preserved of Sam +Clemens at this period. But we may imagine him from a letter which, long +years after, Pet McMurry wrote to Mark Twain. He said: + + If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy- + haired boy--[The color of Mark Twain's hair in early life has been + variously referred to as red, black, and brown. It was, in fact, as + stated by McMurry, "sandy" in boyhood, deepening later to that rich, + mahogany tone known as auburn.]--of nearly a quarter of a century + ago, in the printing-office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham + drugstore, mounted upon a little box at the case, pulling away at a + huge cigar or a diminutive pipe, who used to love to sing so well + the expression of the poor drunken man who was supposed to have + fallen by the wayside: "If ever I get up again, I'll stay up--if I + kin." . . . Do you recollect any of the serious conflicts that + mirth-loving brain of yours used to get you into with that + diminutive creature Wales McCormick--how you used to call upon me to + hold your cigar or pipe, whilst you went entirely through him? + +This is good testimony, without doubt. When he had been with Ament +little more than a year Sam had become office favorite and chief standby. +Whatever required intelligence and care and imagination was given to Sam +Clemens. He could set type as accurately and almost as rapidly as Pet +McMurry; he could wash up the forms a good deal better than Pet; and he +could run the job-press to the tune of "Annie Laurie" or "Along the Beach +at Rockaway," without missing a stroke or losing a finger. Sometimes, at +odd moments, he would "set up" one of the popular songs or some favorite +poem like "The Blackberry Girl," and of these he sent copies printed on +cotton, even on scraps of silk, to favorite girl friends; also to Puss +Quarles, on his uncle's farm, where he seldom went now, because he was +really grown up, associating with men and doing a man's work. He had +charge of the circulation--which is to say, he carried the papers. +During the last year of the Mexican War, when a telegraph-wire found its +way across the Mississippi to Hannibal--a long sagging span, that for +some reason did not break of its own weight--he was given charge of the +extras with news from the front; and the burning importance of his +mission, the bringing of news hot from the field of battle, spurred him +to endeavors that won plaudits and success. + +He became a sort of subeditor. When the forms of the paper were ready to +close and Ament was needed to supply more matter, it was Sam who was +delegated to find that rather uncertain and elusive person and labor with +him until the required copy was produced. Thus it was he saw literature +in the making. + +It is not believed that Sam had any writing ambitions of his own. His +chief desire was to be an all-round journeyman printer like Pet McMurry; +to drift up and down the world in Pet's untrammeled fashion; to see all +that Pet had seen and a number of things which Pet appeared to have +overlooked. He varied on occasion from this ambition. When the first +negro minstrel show visited Hannibal and had gone, he yearned for a brief +period to be a magnificent "middle man" or even the "end-man" of that +combination; when the circus came and went, he dreamed of the day when, a +capering frescoed clown, he would set crowded tiers of spectators +guffawing at his humor; when the traveling hypnotist arrived, he +volunteered as a subject, and amazed the audience by the marvel of his +performance. + +In later life he claimed that he had not been hypnotized in any degree, +but had been pretending throughout--a statement always denied by his +mother and his brother Orion. This dispute was never settled, and never +could be. Sam Clemens's tendency to somnambulism would seem to suggest +that he really might have taken on a hypnotic condition, while his +consummate skill as an actor, then and always, and his early fondness of +exhibition and a joke, would make it not unlikely that he was merely +"showing off" and having his fun. He could follow the dictates of a +vivid imagination and could be as outrageous as he chose without +incurring responsibility of any sort. But there was a penalty: he must +allow pins and needles to be thrust into his flesh and suffer these +tortures without showing discomfort to the spectators. It is difficult +to believe that any boy, however great his exhibitory passion, could +permit, in the full possession of his sensibilities, a needle to be +thrust deeply into his flesh without manifestations of a most unmesmeric +sort. The conclusion seems warranted that he began by pretending, but +that at times he was at least under semi-mesmeric control. At all +events, he enjoyed a week of dazzling triumph, though in the end he +concluded to stick to printing as a trade. + +We have said that he was a rapid learner and a neat workman. At Ament's +he generally had a daily task, either of composition or press-work, after +which he was free. When he had got the hang of his work he was usually +done by three in the afternoon; then away to the river or the cave, as in +the old days, sometimes with his boy friends, sometimes with Laura +Hawkins gathering wild columbine on that high cliff overlooking the +river, Lover's Leap. + +He was becoming quite a beau, attending parties on occasion, where old- +fashioned games--Forfeits, Ring-around-a-Rosy, Dusty Miller, and the +like--were regarded as rare amusements. He was a favorite with girls of +his own age. He was always good-natured, though he played jokes on them, +too, and was often a severe trial. He was with Laura Hawkins more than +the others, usually her escort. On Saturday afternoons in winter he +carried her skates to Bear Creek and helped her to put them on. After +which they skated "partners," holding hands tightly, and were a likely +pair of children, no doubt. In The Gilded Age Laura Hawkins at twelve is +pictured "with her dainty hands propped into the ribbon-bordered pockets +of her apron . . . a vision to warm the coldest heart and bless and +cheer the saddest." The author had the real Laura of his childhood in +his mind when he wrote that, though the story itself bears no resemblance +to her life. + +They were never really sweethearts, those two. They were good friends +and comrades. Sometimes he brought her magazines--exchanges from the +printing--office--Godey's and others. These were a treat, for such +things were scarce enough. He cared little for reading, himself, beyond +a few exciting tales, though the putting into type of a good deal of +miscellaneous matter had beyond doubt developed in him a taste for +general knowledge. It needed only to be awakened. + + + + +XVI + +THE TURNING-POINT + +There came into his life just at this period one of those seemingly +trifling incidents which, viewed in retrospect, assume pivotal +proportions. He was on his way from the office to his home one afternoon +when he saw flying along the pavement a square of paper, a leaf from a +book. At an earlier time he would not have bothered with it at all, but +any printed page had acquired a professional interest for him now. He +caught the flying scrap and examined it. It was a leaf from some history +of Joan of Arc. The "maid" was described in the cage at Rouen, in the +fortress, and the two ruffian English soldiers had stolen her clothes. +There was a brief description and a good deal of dialogue--her reproaches +and their ribald replies. + +He had never heard of the subject before. He had never read any history. +When he wanted to know any fact he asked Henry, who read everything +obtainable. Now, however, there arose within him a deep compassion for +the gentle Maid of Orleans, a burning resentment toward her captors, a +powerful and indestructible interest in her sad history. It was an +interest that would grow steadily for more than half a lifetime and +culminate at last in that crowning work, the Recollections, the loveliest +story ever told of the martyred girl. + +The incident meant even more than that: it meant the awakening of his +interest in all history--the world's story in its many phases--a passion +which became the largest feature of his intellectual life and remained +with him until his very last day on earth. From the moment when that +fluttering leaf was blown into his hands his career as one of the world's +mentally elect was assured. It gave him his cue--the first word of a +part in the human drama. It crystallized suddenly within him sympathy +with the oppressed, rebellion against tyranny and treachery, scorn for +the divine rights of kings. A few months before he died he wrote a paper +on "The Turning-point of My Life." For some reason he did not mention +this incident. Yet if there was a turning-point in his life, he reached +it that bleak afternoon on the streets of Hannibal when a stray leaf from +another life was blown into his hands. + +He read hungrily now everything he could find relating to the French +wars, and to Joan in particular. He acquired an appetite for history in +general, the record of any nation or period; he seemed likely to become a +student. Presently he began to feel the need of languages, French and +German. There was no opportunity to acquire French, that he could +discover, but there was a German shoemaker in Hannibal who agreed to +teach his native tongue. Sam Clemens got a friend--very likely it was +John Briggs--to form a class with him, and together they arranged for +lessons. The shoemaker had little or no English. They had no German. +It would seem, however, that their teacher had some sort of a "word- +book," and when they assembled in his little cubby-hole of a retreat he +began reading aloud from it this puzzling sentence: + +"De hain eet flee whoop in de hayer." + +"Dere!" he said, triumphantly; "you know dose vord?" + +The students looked at each other helplessly. + +The teacher repeated the sentence, and again they were helpless when he +asked if they recognized it. + +Then in despair he showed them the book. It was an English primer, and +the sentence was: + +"The hen, it flies up in the air." + +They explained to him gently that it was German they wished to learn, not +English--not under the circumstances. Later, Sam made an attempt at +Latin, and got a book for that purpose, but gave it up, saying: + +"No, that language is not for me. I'll do well enough to learn English." +A boy who took it up with him became a Latin scholar. + +His prejudice against oppression he put into practice. Boys who were +being imposed upon found in him a ready protector. Sometimes, watching a +game of marbles or tops, he would remark in his slow, impressive way: + +"You mustn't cheat that boy." And the cheating stopped. When it didn't, +there was a combat, with consequences. + + + + +XVII + +THE HANNIBAL "JOURNAL" + + +Orion returned from St. Louis. He felt that he was needed in Hannibal +and, while wages there were lower, his expenses at home were slight; +there was more real return for the family fund. His sister Pamela was +teaching a class in Hannibal at this time. Orion was surprised when his +mother and sister greeted him with kisses and tears. Any outward display +of affection was new to him. + +The family had moved back across the street by this time. With Sam +supporting himself, the earnings of Orion and Pamela provided at least a +semblance of comfort. But Orion was not satisfied. Then, as always, he +had a variety of vague ambitions. Oratory appealed to him, and he +delivered a temperance lecture with an accompaniment of music, supplied +chiefly by Pamela. He aspired to the study of law, a recurring +inclination throughout his career. He also thought of the ministry, an +ambition which Sam shared with him for a time. Every mischievous boy has +it, sooner or later, though not all for the same reasons. + +"It was the most earnest ambition I ever had," Mark Twain once remarked, +thoughtfully. "Not that I ever really wanted to be a preacher, but +because it never occurred to me that a preacher could be damned. It +looked like a safe job." + +A periodical ambition of Orion's was to own and conduct a paper in +Hannibal. He felt that in such a position he might become a power in +Western journalism. Once his father had considered buying the Hannibal +Journal to give Orion a chance, and possibly to further his own political +ambitions. Now Orion considered it for himself. The paper was for sale +under a mortgage, and he was enabled to borrow the $500 which would +secure ownership. Sam's two years at Ament's were now complete, and +Orion induced him to take employment on the Journal. Henry at eleven was +taken out of school to learn typesetting. + +Orion was a gentle, accommodating soul, but he lacked force and +independence. + +"I followed all the advice I received," he says in his record. "If two +or more persons conflicted with each other, I adopted the views of the +last." + +He started full of enthusiasm. He worked like a slave to save help: +wrote his own editorials, and made his literary selections at night. The +others worked too. Orion gave them hard tasks and long hours. He had +the feeling that the paper meant fortune or failure to them all; that all +must labor without stint. In his usual self-accusing way he wrote +afterward: + +I was tyrannical and unjust to Sam. He was as swift and as clean as a +good journeyman. I gave him tasks, and if he got through well I +begrudged him the time and made him work more. He set a clean proof, and +Henry a very dirty one. The correcting was left to be done in the form +the day before publication. Once we were kept late, and Sam complained +with tears of bitterness that he was held till midnight on Henry's dirty +proofs. + +Orion did not realize any injustice at the time. The game was too +desperate to be played tenderly. His first editorials were so brilliant +that it was not believed he could have written them. The paper +throughout was excellent, and seemed on the high road to success. But +the pace was too hard to maintain. Overwork brought weariness, and +Orion's enthusiasm, never a very stable quantity, grew feeble. He became +still more exacting. + +It is not to be supposed that Sam Clemens had given up all amusements to +become merely a toiling drudge or had conquered in any large degree his +natural taste for amusement. He had become more studious; but after the +long, hard days in the office it was not to be expected that a boy of +fifteen would employ the evening--at least not every evening--in reading +beneficial books. The river was always near at hand--for swimming in the +summer and skating in the winter--and once even at this late period it +came near claiming a heavy tribute. That was one winter's night when +with another boy he had skated until nearly midnight. They were about in +the middle of the river when they heard a terrific and grinding noise +near the shore. They knew what it was. The ice was breaking up, and +they set out for home forthwith. It was moonlight, and they could tell +the ice from the water, which was a good thing, for there were wide +cracks toward the shore, and they had to wait for these to close. They +were an hour making the trip, and just before they reached the bank they +came to a broad space of water. The ice was lifting and falling and +crunching all around them. They waited as long as they dared and decided +to leap from cake to cake. Sam made the crossing without accident, but +his companion slipped in when a few feet from shore. He was a good +swimmer and landed safely, but the bath probably cost him his hearing. +He was taken very ill. One disease followed another, ending with scarlet +fever and deafness. + +There was also entertainment in the office itself. A country boy named +Jim Wolfe had come to learn the trade--a green, good-natured, bashful +boy. In every trade tricks are played on the new apprentice, and Sam +felt that it was his turn to play them. With John Briggs to help him, +tortures for Jim Wolfe were invented and applied. + +They taught him to paddle a canoe, and upset him. They took him sniping +at night and left him "holding the bag" in the old traditional fashion +while they slipped off home and went to bed. + +But Jim Wolfe's masterpiece of entertainment was one which he undertook +on his own account. Pamela was having a candy-pull down-stairs one +night--a grown-up candy-pull to which the boys were not expected. Jim +would not have gone, anyway, for he was bashful beyond belief, and always +dumb, and even pale with fear, in the presence of pretty Pamela Clemens. +Up in their room the boys could hear the merriment from below and could +look out in the moonlight on the snowy sloping roof that began just +beneath their window. Down at the eaves was the small arbor, green in +summer, but covered now with dead vines and snow. They could hear the +candymakers come out, now and then, doubtless setting out pans of candy +to cool. By and by the whole party seemed to come out into the little +arbor, to try the candy, perhaps the joking and laughter came plainly to +the boys up-stairs. About this time there appeared on the roof from +somewhere two disreputable cats, who set up a most disturbing duel of +charge and recrimination. Jim detested the noise, and perhaps was +gallant enough to think it would disturb the party. He had nothing to +throw at them, but he said: + +"For two cents I'd get out there and knock their heads off." + +"You wouldn't dare to do it," Sam said, purringly. + +This was wormwood to Jim. He was really a brave spirit. + +"I would too," he said, "and I will if you say that again." + +"Why, Jim, of course you wouldn't dare to go out there. You might catch +cold." + +"You wait and see," said Jim Wolfe. + +He grabbed a pair of yarn stockings for his feet, raised the window, and +crept out on the snowy roof. There was a crust of ice on the snow, but +Jim jabbed his heels through it and stood up in the moonlight, his legs +bare, his single garment flapping gently in the light winter breeze. +Then he started slowly toward the cats, sinking his heels in the snow +each time for a footing, a piece of lath in his hand. The cats were on +the corner of the roof above the arbor, and Jim cautiously worked his way +in that direction. The roof was not very steep. He was doing well +enough until he came to a place where the snow had melted until it was +nearly solid ice. He was so intent on the cats that he did not notice +this, and when he struck his heel down to break the crust nothing +yielded. A second later Jim's feet had shot out from under him, and he +vaulted like an avalanche down the icy roof out on the little vine-clad +arbor, and went crashing through among those candypullers, gathered there +with their pans of cooling taffy. There were wild shrieks and a general +flight. Neither Jim nor Sam ever knew how he got back to their room, but +Jim was overcome with the enormity of his offense, while Sam was in an +agony of laughter. + +"You did it splendidly, Jim," he drawled, when he could speak. "Nobody +could have done it better; and did you see how those cats got out of +there? I never had any idea when you started that you meant to do it +that way. And it was such a surprise to the folks down-stairs. How did +you ever think of it?" + +It was a fearful ordeal for a boy like Jim Wolfe, but he stuck to his +place in spite of what he must have suffered. The boys made him one of +them soon after that. His initiation was thought to be complete. + +An account of Jim Wolfe and the cats was the first original story Mark +Twain ever told. He told it next day, which was Sunday, to Jimmy +McDaniel, the baker's son, as they sat looking out over the river, eating +gingerbread. His hearer laughed immoderately, and the story-teller was +proud and happy in his success. + + + + +XVIII + +THE BEGINNING OF A LITERARY LIFE + +Orion's paper continued to go downhill. Following some random counsel, +he changed the name of it and advanced the price--two blunders. Then he +was compelled to reduce the subscription, also the advertising rates. He +was obliged to adopt a descending scale of charges and expenditures to +keep pace with his declining circulation--a fatal sign. A publisher must +lead his subscription list, not follow it. + +"I was walking backward," he said, "not seeing where I stepped." + +In desperation he broke away and made a trip to Tennessee to see if +something could not be realized on the land, leaving his brother Sam in +charge of the office. It was a journey without financial results; yet it +bore fruit, for it marked the beginning of Mark Twain's literary career. + +Sam, in his brother's absence, concluded to edit the paper in a way that +would liven up the circulation. He had never done any writing--not for +print--but he had the courage of his inclinations. His local items were +of a kind known as "spicy"; his personals brought prompt demand for +satisfaction. The editor of a rival paper had been in love, and was said +to have gone to the river one night to drown himself. Sam gave a +picturesque account of this, with all the names connected with the +affair. Then he took a couple of big wooden block letters, turned them +upside down, and engraved illustrations for it, showing the victim wading +out into the river with a stick to test the depth of the water. When +this issue of the paper came out the demand for it was very large. The +press had to be kept running steadily to supply copies. The satirized +editor at first swore that he would thrash the whole journal office, then +he left town and did not come back any more. The embryo Mark Twain also +wrote a poem. It was addressed "To Mary in Hannibal," but the title was +too long to be set in one column, so he left out all the letters in +Hannibal, except the first and the last, and supplied their place with a +dash, with a startling result. Such were the early flickerings of a +smoldering genius. Orion returned, remonstrated, and apologized. He +reduced Sam to the ranks. In later years he saw his mistake. + +"I could have distanced all competitors even then," he said, "if I had +recognized Sam's ability and let him go ahead, merely keeping him from +offending worthy persons." + +Sam was subdued, but not done for. He never would be, now. He had got +his first taste of print, and he liked it. He promptly wrote two +anecdotes which he thought humorous and sent them to the Philadelphia +Saturday Evening Post. They were accepted--without payment, of course, +in those days; and when the papers containing them appeared he felt +suddenly lifted to a lofty plane of literature. This was in 1851. + +"Seeing them in print was a joy which rather exceeded anything in that +line I have ever experienced since," he said, nearly sixty years later. + +Yet he did not feel inspired to write anything further for the Post. +Twice during the next two years he contributed to the Journal; once +something about Jim Wolfe, though it was not the story of the cats, and +another burlesque on a rival editor whom he pictured as hunting snipe +with a cannon, the explosion of which was said to have blown the snipe +out of the country. No contributions of this time have been preserved. +High prices have been offered for copies of the Hannibal journal +containing them, but without success. The Post sketches were unsigned +and have not been identified. It is likely they were trivial enough. +His earliest work showed no special individuality or merit, being mainly +crude and imitative, as the work of a boy--even a precocious boy--is +likely to be. He was not especially precocious--not in literature. His +literary career would halt and hesitate and trifle along for many years +yet, gathering impetus and equipment for the fuller, statelier swing +which would bring a greater joy to the world at large, even if not to +himself, than that first, far-off triumph.--[In Mark Twain's sketch "My +First Literary Venture" he has set down with characteristic embroideries +some account of this early authorship.] + +Those were hard financial days. Orion could pay nothing on his mortgage +--barely the interest. He had promised Sam three dollars and a half a +week, but he could do no more than supply him with board and clothes-- +"poor, shabby clothes," he says in his record. + +"My mother and sister did the housekeeping. My mother was cook. She +used the provisions I supplied her. We therefore had a regular diet of +bacon, butter, bread, and coffee." + +Mrs. Clemens again took a few boarders; Pamela, who had given up teaching +for a time, organized another music class. Orion became despondent. One +night a cow got into the office, upset a typecase, and ate up two +composition rollers. Orion felt that fate was dealing with a heavy hand. +Another disaster quickly followed. Fire broke out in the office, and the +loss was considerable. An insurance company paid one hundred and fifty +dollars. With it Orion replaced such articles as were absolutely needed +for work, and removed his plant into the front room of the Clemens +dwelling. He raised the one-story part of the building to give them an +added room up-stairs; and there for another two years, by hard work and +pinching economies, the dying paper managed to drag along. It was the +fire that furnished Sam Clemens with his Jim Wolfe sketch. In it he +stated that Jim in his excitement had carried the office broom half a +mile and had then come back after the wash-pan. + +In the meantime Pamela Clemens married. Her husband was a well-to-do +merchant, William A. Moffett, formerly of Hannibal, but then of St. +Louis, where he had provided her with the comforts of a substantial home. + +Orion tried the experiment of a serial story. He wrote to a number of +well-known authors in the East, but was unable to find one who would +supply a serial for the price he was willing to pay. Finally he obtained +a translation of a French novel for the sum offered, which was five +dollars. It did not save the sinking ship, however. He made the +experiment of a tri-weekly, without success. He noticed that even his +mother no longer read his editorials, but turned to the general news. +This was a final blow. + +"I sat down in the dark," he says, "the moon glinting in at the open +door. I sat with one leg over the chair and let my mind float." + +He had received an offer of five hundred dollars for his office--the +amount of the mortgage--and in his moonlight reverie he decided to +dispose of it on those terms. This was in 1853. + +His brother Samuel was no longer with him. Several months before, in +June, Sam decided he would go out into the world. He was in his +eighteenth year now, a good workman, faithful and industrious, but he had +grown restless in unrewarded service. Beyond his mastery of the trade he +had little to show for six years of hard labor. Once when he had asked +Orion for a few dollars to buy a second-hand gun, Orion, exasperated by +desperate circumstances, fell into a passion and rated him for thinking +of such extravagance. Soon afterward Sam confided to his mother that he +was going away; that he believed Orion hated him; that there was no +longer a place for him at home. He said he would go to St. Louis, where +Pamela was. There would be work for him in St. Louis, and he could send +money home. His intention was to go farther than St. Louis, but he dared +not tell her. His mother put together sadly enough the few belongings of +what she regarded as her one wayward boy; then she held up a little +Testament: + +"I want you to take hold of the other end of this, Sam," she said, "and +make me a promise." + +If one might have a true picture of that scene: the shin, wiry woman of +forty-nine, her figure as straight as her deportment, gray-eyed, tender, +and resolute, facing the fair-cheeked, auburn-haired youth of seventeen, +his eyes as piercing and unwavering as her own. Mother and son, they +were of the same metal and the same mold. + +"I want you to repeat after me, Sam, these words," Jane Clemens said. +"I do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card or drink a drop of +liquor while I am gone." + +He repeated the oath after her, and she kissed him. + +"Remember that, Sam, and write to us," she said. + +"And so," Orion records, "he went wandering in search of that comfort and +that advancement and those rewards of industry which he had failed to +find where I was--gloomy, taciturn, and selfish. I not only missed his +labor; we all missed his bounding activity and merriment." + + + + + +XIX + +IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FRANKLIN + +He went to St. Louis by the night boat, visited his sister Pamela, and +found a job in the composing-room of the Evening News. He remained on +the paper only long enough to earn money with which to see the world. +The "world" was New York City, where the Crystal Palace Fair was then +going on. The railway had been completed by this time, but he had not +traveled on it. It had not many comforts; several days and nights were +required for the New York trip; yet it was a wonderful and beautiful +experience. He felt that even Pet McMurry could hardly have done +anything to surpass it. He arrived in New York with two or three dollars +in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill concealed in the lining of his coat. + +New York was a great and amazing city. It almost frightened him. It +covered the entire lower end of Manhattan Island; visionary citizens +boasted that one day it would cover it all. The World's Fair building, +the Crystal Palace, stood a good way out. It was where Bryant Park is +now, on Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue. Young Clemens classed it +as one of the wonders of the world and wrote lavishly of its marvels. +A portion of a letter to his sister Pamela has been preserved and is +given here not only for what it contains, but as the earliest existing +specimen of his composition. The fragment concludes what was doubtless +an exhaustive description. + + From the gallery (second floor) you have a glorious sight--the flags + of the different countries represented, the lofty dome, glittering + jewelry, gaudy tapestry, etc., with the busy crowd passing to and + fro 'tis a perfect fairy palace--beautiful beyond description. + + The machinery department is on the main floor, but I cannot + enumerate any of it on account of the lateness of the hour (past 1 + o'clock). It would take more than a week to examine everything on + exhibition; and I was only in a little over two hours to-night. + I only glanced at about one-third of the articles; and, having a + poor memory, I have enumerated scarcely any of even the principal + objects. The visitors to the Palace average 6,000 daily--double the + population of Hannibal. The price of admission being 50 cents, they + take in about $3,000. + + The Latting Observatory (height about 280 feet) is near the Palace- + from it you can obtain a grand view of the city and the country + around. The Croton Aqueduct, to supply the city with water, is the + greatest wonder yet. Immense sewers are laid across the bed of the + Hudson River, and pass through the country to Westchester County, + where a whole river is turned from its course and brought to New + York. From the reservoir in the city to the Westchester County + reservoir the distance is thirty-eight miles and, if necessary, they + could easily supply every family in New York with one hundred + barrels of water per day! + + I am very sorry to learn that Henry has been sick. He ought to go + to the country and take exercise, for he is not half so healthy as + Ma thinks he is. If he had my walking to do, he would be another + boy entirely. Four times every day I walk a little over a mile; and + working hard all day and walking four miles is exercise. I am used + to it now, though, and it is no trouble. Where is it Orion's going + to? Tell Ma my promises are faithfully kept; and if I have my + health I will take her to Ky. in the spring--I shall save money for + this. Tell Jim (Wolfe) and all the rest of them to write, and give + me all the news .... + + (It has just struck 2 A.M., and I always get up at 6, and am at work + at 7.) You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you suppose, + with a free printer's library containing more than 4,000 volumes + within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk to? + Write soon. + + Truly your brother, SAM + + P.S.-I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could not + read by it. Write, and let me know how Henry is. + + +It is a good letter; it is direct and clear in its descriptive quality, +and it gives us a scale of things. Double the population of Hannibal +visited the Crystal Palace in one day! and the water to supply the city +came a distance of thirty-eight miles! Doubtless these were amazing +statistics. + +Then there was the interest in family affairs--always strong--his concern +for Henry, whom he loved tenderly; his memory of the promise to his +mother; his understanding of her craving to visit her old home. He did +not write to her direct, for the reason that Orion's plans were then +uncertain, and it was not unlikely that he had already found a new +location. From this letter, too, we learn that the boy who detested +school was reveling in a library of four thousand books--more than he had +ever seen together before. We have somehow the feeling that he had all +at once stepped from boyhood to manhood, and that the separation was +marked by a very definite line. + +The work he had secured was in Cliff Street in the printing establishment +of John A. Gray & Green, who agreed to pay him four dollars a week, and +did pay that amount in wildcat money, which saved them about twenty-five +per cent. of the sum. He lodged at a mechanics' boarding-house in Duane +Street, and when he had paid his board and washing he sometimes had as +much as fifty cents to lay away. + +He did not like the board. He had been accustomed to the Southern mode +of cooking, and wrote home complaining that New-Yorkers did not have +"hot-bread" or biscuits, but ate "light-bread," which they allowed to get +stale, seeming to prefer it in that way. On the whole, there was not +much inducement to remain in New York after he had satisfied himself with +its wonders. He lingered, however, through the hot months of 1853, and +found it not easy to go. In October he wrote to Pamela, suggesting plans +for Orion; also for Henry and Jim Wolfe, whom he seems never to have +overlooked. Among other things he says: + + I have not written to any of the family for some time, from the + fact, firstly, that I didn't know where they were, and, secondly, + because I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to + leave New York every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a + liking to the abominable place, and every time I get ready to leave + I put it off a day or so, from some unaccountable cause. I think I + shall get off Tuesday, though. + + Edwin Forrest has been playing for the last sixteen days at the + Broadway Theater, but I never went to see him till last night. The + play was the "Gladiator." I did not like parts of it much, but + other portions were really splendid. In the latter part of the last + act, where the "Gladiator" (Forrest) dies at his brother's feet (in + all the fierce pleasure of gratified revenge), the man's whole soul + seems absorbed in the part he is playing; and it is really startling + to see him. I am sorry I did not see him play "Damon and Pythias"-- + the former character being the greatest. He appears in Philadelphia + on Monday night. + + I have not received a letter from home lately, but got a "Journal" + the other day, in which I see the office has been sold . . . . + + If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about + me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years of age who is + not able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a + brother is not worth one's thoughts; and if I don't manage to take + care of No. 1, be assured you will never know it. I am not afraid, + however; I shall ask favors of no one and endeavor to be (and shall + be) as "independent as a wood-sawyer's clerk.". . . + + Passage to Albany (160 miles) on the finest steamers that ply the + Hudson is now 25 cents--cheap enough, but is generally cheaper than + that in the summer. + +"I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave New +York" is distinctly a Mark Twain phrase. He might have said that fifty +years later. + +He did go to Philadelphia presently and found work "subbing" on a daily +paper,'The Inquirer.' He was a fairly swift compositor. He could set +ten thousand ems a day, and he received pay according to the amount of +work done. Days or evenings when there was no vacant place for him to +fill he visited historic sites, the art-galleries, and the libraries. +He was still acquiring education, you see. Sometimes at night when he +returned to his boardinghouse his room-mate, an Englishman named Sumner, +grilled a herring, and this was regarded as a feast. He tried his hand +at writing in Philadelphia, though this time without success. For some +reason he did not again attempt to get into the Post, but offered his +contributions to the Philadelphia 'Ledger'--mainly poetry of an obituary +kind. Perhaps it was burlesque; he never confessed that, but it seems +unlikely that any other obituary poetry would have failed of print. + +"My efforts were not received with approval," was all he ever said of it +afterward. + +There were two or three characters in the 'Inquirer' office whom he did +not forget. One of these was an old compositor who had "held a case" in +that office for many years. His name was Frog, and sometimes when he +went away the "office devils" would hang a line over his case, with a +hook on it baited with a piece of red flannel. They never got tired of +this joke, and Frog was always able to get as mad over it as he had been +in the beginning. Another old fellow there furnished amusement. He +owned a house in the distant part of the city and had an abnormal fear of +fire. Now and then, when everything was quiet except the clicking of the +types, some one would step to the window and say with a concerned air: + +"Doesn't that smoke--[or that light, if it was evening]--seem to be in +the northwestern part of the city?" or "There go the fire-bells again!" +and away the old man would tramp up to the roof to investigate. It was +not the most considerate sport, and it is to be feared that Sam Clemens +had his share in it. + +He found that he liked Philadelphia. He could save a little money there, +for one thing, and now and then sent something to his mother--small +amounts, but welcome and gratifying, no doubt. In a letter to Orion-- +whom he seems to have forgiven with absence--written October 26th, he +incloses a gold dollar to buy her a handkerchief, and "to serve as a +specimen of the kind of stuff we are paid with in Philadelphia." Further +along he adds: + + Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people + in it. There is only one thing that gets my "dander" up--and that + is the hands are always encouraging me: telling me "it's no use to + get discouraged--no use to be downhearted, for there is more work + here than you can do!" "Downhearted," the devil! I have not had a + particle of such a feeling since I left Hannibal, more than four + months ago. I fancy they'll have to wait some time till they see me + downhearted or afraid of starving while I have strength to work and + am in a city of 400,000 inhabitants. When I was in Hannibal, before + I had scarcely stepped out of the town limits, nothing could have + convinced me that I would starve as soon as I got a little way from + home. + +He mentions the grave of Franklin in Christ Churchyard with its +inscription "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin," and one is sharply reminded +of the similarity between the early careers of Benjamin Franklin and +Samuel Clemens. Each learned the printer's trade; each worked in his +brother's printing-office and wrote for the paper; each left quietly and +went to New York, and from New York to Philadelphia, as a journeyman +printer; each in due season became a world figure, many-sided, human, and +of incredible popularity. + +The foregoing letter ends with a long description of a trip made on the +Fairmount stage. It is a good, vivid description--impressions of a +fresh, sensitive mind, set down with little effort at fine writing; a +letter to convey literal rather than literary enjoyment. The Wire +Bridge, Fairmount Park and Reservoir, new buildings--all these passed in +review. A fine residence about completed impressed him: + + It was built entirely of great blocks of red granite. The pillars + in front were all finished but one. These pillars were beautiful, + ornamental fluted columns, considerably larger than a hogshead at + the base, and about as high as Clapinger's second-story front + windows . . . . To see some of them finished and standing, and + then the huge blocks lying about, looks so massy, and carries one, + in imagination, to the ruined piles of ancient Babylon. I despise + the infernal bogus brick columns plastered over with mortar. Marble + is the cheapest building-stone about Philadelphia. + +There is a flavor of the 'Innocents' about it; then a little further +along: + + I saw small steamboats, with their signs up--"For Wissahickon and + Manayunk 25 cents." Geo. Lippard, in his Legends of Washington and + his Generals, has rendered the Wissahickon sacred in my eyes, and I + shall make that trip, as well as one to Germantown, soon . . . . + + There is one fine custom observed in Phila. A gentleman is always + expected to hand up a lady's money for her. Yesterday I sat in the + front end of the bus, directly under the driver's box--a lady sat + opposite me. She handed me her money, which was right. But, Lord! + a St. Louis lady would think herself ruined if she should be so + familiar with a stranger. In St. Louis a man will sit in the front + end of the stage, and see a lady stagger from the far end to pay her + fare. + +There are two more letters from Philadelphia: one of November, 28th, to +Orion, who by this time had bought a paper in Muscatine, Iowa, and +located the family there; and one to Pamela dated December 5th. +Evidently Orion had realized that his brother might be of value as a +contributor, for the latter says: + + I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my + letters will be very uninteresting, for this incessant night work + dulls one's ideas amazingly.... I believe I am the only person in + the Inquirer office that does not drink. One young fellow makes $18 + for a few weeks, and gets on a grand "bender" and spends every cent + of it. + + How do you like "free soil"?--I would like amazingly to see a good + old-fashioned negro. My love to all. + + Truly your brother, SAM + +In the letter to Pamela he is clearly homesick. + +"I only want to return to avoid night work, which is injuring my eyes," +is the excuse, but in the next sentence he complains of the scarcity of +letters from home and those "not written as they should be." "One only +has to leave home to learn how to write interesting letters to an absent +friend," he says, and in conclusion, "I don't like our present prospect +for cold weather at all." + +He had been gone half a year, and the first attack of home-longing, for a +boy of his age, was due. The novelty of things had worn off; it was +coming on winter; changes had taken place among his home people and +friends; the life he had known best and longest was going on and he had +no part in it. Leaning over his case, he sometimes hummed: + + "An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain." + +He weathered the attack and stuck it out for more than half a year +longer. In January, when the days were dark and he grew depressed, he +made a trip to Washington to see the sights of the capital. His stay was +comparatively brief, and he did not work there. He returned to +Philadelphia, working for a time on the Ledger and North American. +Finally he went back to New York. There are no letters of this period. +His second experience in New York appears not to have been recorded, and +in later years was only vaguely remembered. It was late in the summer of +1854 when he finally set out on his return to the West. His 'Wanderjahr' +had lasted nearly fifteen months. + +He went directly to St. Louis, sitting up three days and nights in a +smoking-car to make the journey. He was worn out when he arrived, but +stopped there only a few hours to see Pamela. It was his mother he was +anxious for. He took the Keokuk Packet that night, and, flinging himself +on his berth, slept the clock three times around, scarcely rousing or +turning over, only waking at last at Muscatine. For a long time that +missing day confused his calculations. + +When he reached Orion's house the family sat at breakfast. He came in +carrying a gun. They had not been expecting him, and there was a general +outcry, and a rush in his direction. He warded them off, holding the +butt of the gun in front of him. + +"You wouldn't let me buy a gun," he said, "so I bought one myself, and I +am going to use it, now, in self-defense." + +"You, Sam! You, Sam!" cried Jane Clemens. "Behave yourself," for she +was wary of a gun. + +Then he had had his joke and gave himself into his mother's arms. + + + + +XX + +KEOKUK DAYS + +Orion wished his brother to remain with him in the Muscatine office, but +the young man declared he must go to St. Louis and earn some money before +he would be able to afford that luxury: He returned to his place on the +St. Louis Evening News, where he remained until late winter or early +spring of the following year. + +He lived at this time with a Pavey family, probably one of the Hannibal +Paveys, rooming with a youth named Frank E. Burrough, a journeyman chair- +maker with a taste for Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and Disraeli. Burrough +had really a fine literary appreciation for his years, and the boys were +comrades and close friends. Twenty-two years later Mark Twain exchanged +with Burrough some impressions of himself at that earlier time. Clemens +wrote: + + MY DEAR BURROUGH,--As you describe me I can picture myself as I was + 22 years ago. The portrait is correct. You think I have grown + some; upon my word there was room for it. You have described a + callow fool, a self-sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bug, stern + in air, heaving at his bit of dung, imagining that he is remodeling + the world and is entirely capable of doing it right.... That is + what I was at 19-20. + +Orion Clemens in the mean time had married and removed to Keokuk. He had +married during a visit to that city, in the casual, impulsive way so +characteristic of him, and the fact that he had acquired a wife in the +operation seemed at first to have escaped his inner consciousness. He +tells it himself; he says: + + At sunrise on the next morning after the wedding we left in a stage + for Muscatine. We halted for dinner at Burlington. After + despatching that meal we stood on the pavement when the stage drove + up, ready for departure. I climbed in, gathered the buffalo robe + around me, and leaned back unconscious that I had anything further + to do. A gentleman standing on the pavement said to my wife, "Miss, + do you go by this stage?" I said, "Oh, I forgot!" and sprang out + and helped her in. A wife was a new kind of possession to which I + had not yet become accustomed; I had forgotten her. + +Orion's wife had been Mary Stotts; her mother a friend of Jane Clemens's +girlhood. She proved a faithful helpmate to Orion; but in those early +days of marriage she may have found life with him rather trying, and it +was her homesickness that brought them to Keokuk. Brother Sam came up +from St. Louis, by and by, to visit them, and Orion offered him five +dollars a week and board to remain. He accepted. The office at this +time, or soon after, was located on the third floor of 52 Main Street, in +the building at present occupied by the Paterson Shoe Company. Henry +Clemens, now seventeen, was also in Orion's employ, and a lad by the name +of Dick Hingham. Henry and Sam slept in the office, and Dick came in for +social evenings. Also a young man named Edward Brownell, who clerked in +the book-store on the ground floor. + +These were likely to be lively evenings. A music dealer and teacher, +Professor Isbell, occupied the floor just below, and did not care for +their diversions. He objected, but hardly in the right way. Had he gone +to Samuel Clemens gently, he undoubtedly would have found him willing to +make any concessions. Instead, he assailed him roughly, and the next +evening the boys set up a lot of empty wine-bottles, which they had found +in a barrel in a closet, and, with stones for balls, played tenpins on +the office floor. This was Dick and Sam; Henry declined to join the +game. Isbell rushed up-stairs and battered on the door, but they paid no +attention. Next morning he waited for the young men and denounced them +wildly. They merely ignored him, and that night organized a military +company, made up of themselves and a new German apprentice-boy, and +drilled up and down over the singing-class. Dick Hingham led these +military manoeuvers. He was a girlish sort of a fellow, but he had a +natural taste for soldiering. The others used to laugh at him. They +called him a disguised girl, and declared he would run if a gun were +really pointed in his direction. They were mistaken; seven years later +Dick died at Fort Donelson with a bullet in his forehead: this, by the +way. + +Isbell now adopted new tactics. He came up very pleasantly and said: + +"I like your military practice better than your tenpin exercise, but on +the whole it seems to disturb the young ladies. You see how it is +yourself. You couldn't possibly teach music with a company of raw +recruits drilling overhead--now, could you? Won't you please stop it? +It bothers my pupils." + +Sam Clemens regarded him with mild surprise. + +"Does it?" he said, very deliberately. "Why didn't you mention it +before? To be sure we don't want to disturb the young ladies." + +They gave up the horse-play, and not only stopped the disturbance, but +joined one of the singing--classes. Samuel Clemens had a pretty good +voice in those days and could drum fairly well on a piano and guitar. +He did not become a brilliant musician, but he was easily the most +popular member of the singing-class. + +They liked his frank nature, his jokes, and his humor; his slow, quaint +fashion of speech. The young ladies called him openly and fondly a +"fool"--a term of endearment, as they applied it meaning only that he +kept them in a more or less constant state of wonder and merriment; and +indeed it would have been hard for them to say whether he was really +light-minded and frivolous or the wisest of them all. He was twenty now +and at the age for love-making; yet he remained, as in Hannibal, a beau +rather than a suitor, good friend and comrade to all, wooer of none. +Ella Creel, a cousin on the Lampton side, a great belle; also Ella +Patterson (related through Orion's wife and generally known as "Ick"), +and Belle Stotts were perhaps his favorite companions, but there were +many more. He was always ready to stop and be merry with them, full of +his pranks and pleasantries; though they noticed that he quite often +carried a book under his arm--a history or a volume of Dickens or the +tales of Edgar Allan Poe. + +He read at odd moments; at night voluminously--until very late, +sometimes. Already in that early day it was his habit to smoke in bed, +and he had made him an Oriental pipe of the hubble-bubble variety, +because it would hold more and was more comfortable than the regular +short pipe of daytime use. + +But it had its disadvantages. Sometimes it would go out, and that would +mean sitting up and reaching for a match and leaning over to light the +bowl which stood on the floor. Young Brownell from below was passing +upstairs to his room on the fourth floor one night when he heard Sam +Clemens call. The two were great chums by this time, and Brownell poked +his head in at the door. + +"What will you have, Sam?" he asked. + +"Come in, Ed; Henry's asleep, and I am in trouble. I want somebody to +light my pipe." + +"Why don't you get up and light it yourself?" Brownell asked. + +"I would, only I knew you'd be along in a few minutes and would do it for +me." + +Brownell scratched the necessary match, stooped down, and applied it. + +"What are you reading, Sam?" he asked. + +"Oh, nothing much--a so-called funny book--one of these days I'll write a +funnier book than that, myself." + +Brownell laughed. + +"No, you won't, Sam," he said. "You are too lazy ever to write a book." + +A good many years later when the name "Mark Twain" had begun to stand for +American humor the owner of it gave his "Sandwich Island" lecture in +Keokuk. Speaking of the unreliability of the islanders, he said: "The +king is, I believe, one of the greatest liars on the face of the earth, +except one; and I am very sorry to locate that one right here in the city +of Keokuk, in the person of Ed Brownell." + +The Keokuk episode in Mark Twain's life was neither very long nor very +actively important. It extended over a period of less than two years-- +two vital years, no doubt, if all the bearings could be known--but they +were not years of startling occurrence. + +Yet he made at least one beginning there: at a printers' banquet he +delivered his first after-dinner speech; a hilarious speech--its humor of +a primitive kind. Whatever its shortcomings, it delighted his audience, +and raised him many points in the public regard. He had entered a field +of entertainment in which he would one day have no rival. They impressed +him into a debating society after that, and there was generally a stir of +attention when Sam Clemens was about to take the floor. + +Orion Clemens records how his brother undertook to teach the German +apprentice music. + +"There was an old guitar in the office and Sam taught Fritz a song +beginning: + + "Grasshopper sitting on a sweet-potato vine, + Turkey came along and yanked him from behind." + +The main point in the lesson was in giving to the word "yanked" the +proper expression and emphasis, accompanied by a sweep of the fingers +across the strings. With serious face and deep earnestness Fritz in his +broken English would attempt these lines, while his teacher would bend +over and hold his sides with laughter at each ridiculous effort. Without +intending it, Fritz had his revenge. One day his tormentor's hand was +caught in the press when the German boy was turning the wheel. Sam +called to him to stop, but the boy's mind was slow to grasp the +situation. The hand was badly wounded, though no bones were broken. In +due time it recovered, its power and dexterity, but the trace of the +scars remained. + +Orion's printing-office was not a prosperous one; he had not the gift of +prosperity in any form. When he found it difficult to pay his brother's +wages, he took him into partnership, which meant that Sam got no wages at +all, barely a living, for the office could not keep its head above water. + +The junior partner was not disturbed, however. He cared little for money +in those days, beyond his actual needs, and these were modest enough. +His mother, now with Pamela, was amply provided for. Orion himself tells +how his business dwindled away. He printed a Keokuk directory, but it +did not pay largely. He was always too eager for the work; too low in +his bid for it. Samuel Clemens in this directory is set down as "an +antiquarian" a joke, of course, though the point of it is now lost. + +Only two of his Keokuk letters have been preserved. The first indicates +the general disorder of the office and a growing dissatisfaction. It is +addressed to his mother and sister and bears date of June 10, 1856. + + I don't like to work at too many things at once. They take Henry + and Dick away from me, too. Before we commenced the Directory,-- + [Orion printed two editions of the directory. This was probably the + second one.]--I could tell before breakfast just how much work + could be done during the day, and manage accordingly--but now, they + throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their + work.... I am not getting along well with the job-work. I can't + work blindly--without system. I gave Dick a job yesterday, which I + calculated he could set in two hours and I could work off on the + press in three, and therefore just finish it by supper-time, but he + was transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this + morning, remains untouched. Through all the great pressure of job- + work lately, I never before failed in a promise of the kind . . . + +The other letter is dated two months later, August 5th. It was written +to Henry, who was visiting in St. Louis or Hannibal at the time, and +introduces the first mention of the South American fever, which now +possessed the writer. Lynch and Herndon had completed their survey of +the upper Amazon, and Lieutenant Herndon's account of the exploration was +being widely read. Poring over the book nights, young Clemens had been +seized with a desire to go to the headwaters of the South American river, +there to collect coca and make a fortune. All his life he was subject to +such impulses as that, and ways and means were not always considered. It +did not occur to him that it would be difficult to get to the Amazon and +still more difficult to ascend the river. It was his nature to see +results with a dazzling largeness that blinded him to the detail of their +achievement. In the "Turning-point" article already mentioned he refers +to this. He says: + + That was more than fifty years ago. In all that time my temperament + has not changed by even a shade. I have been punished many and many + a time, and bitterly, for doing things and reflecting afterward, but + these tortures have been of no value to me; I still do the thing + commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and reflect afterward. + Always violently. When I am reflecting on these occasions, even + deaf persons can hear me think. + +In the letter to Henry we see that his resolve was already made, his +plans matured; also that Orion had not as yet been taken into full +confidence. + + Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to keep it from + Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started to St. + Louis and went to New York--I can start for New York and go to South + America. + +He adds that Orion had promised him fifty or one hundred dollars, but +that he does not depend upon it, and will make other arrangements. He +fears obstacles may be put in his way, and he will bring various +influences to bear. + + I shall take care that Ma and Orion are plentifully supplied with + South American books: They have Herndon's report now. Ward and the + Dr. and myself will hold a grand consultation to-night at the + office. We have agreed that no more shall be admitted into our + company. + +He had enlisted those two adventurers in his enterprise: a Doctor Martin +and the young man, Ward. They were very much in earnest, but the start +was not made as planned, most likely for want of means. + +Young Clemens, however, did not give up the idea. He made up his mind to +work in the direction of his desire, following his trade and laying by +money for the venture. But Fate or Providence or Accident--whatever we +may choose to call the unaccountable--stepped in just then, and laid +before him the means of turning another sharp corner in his career. One +of those things happened which we refuse to accept in fiction as +possible; but fact has a smaller regard for the credibilities. + +As in the case of the Joan of Arc episode (and this adds to its marvel), +it was the wind that brought the talismanic gift. It was a day in early +November--bleak, bitter, and gusty, with curling snow; most persons were +indoors. Samuel Clemens, going down Main Street, saw a flying bit of +paper pass him and lodge against the side of a building. Something about +it attracted him and he captured it. It was a fifty-dollar bill. He had +never seen one before, but he recognized it. He thought he must be +having a pleasant dream. + +The temptation came to pocket his good-fortune and say nothing. His need +of money was urgent, but he had also an urgent and troublesome +conscience; in the end he advertised his find. + +"I didn't describe it very particularly, and I waited in daily fear that +the owner would turn up and take away my fortune. By and by I couldn't +stand it any longer. My conscience had gotten all that was coming to it. +I felt that I must take that money out of danger." + +In the "Turning-point" article he says: "I advertised the find and left +for the Amazon the same day," a statement which we may accept with a +literary discount. + +As a matter of fact, he remained ample time and nobody ever came for the +money. It may have been swept out of a bank or caught up by the wind +from some counting-room table. It may have materialized out of the +unseen--who knows? At all events it carried him the first stage of a +journey, the end of which he little dreamed. + + + + +XXI + +SCOTCHMAN NAMED MACFARLANE + +He concluded to go to Cincinnati, which would be on the way either to New +York or New Orleans (he expected to sail from one of these points), but +first paid a brief visit to his mother in St. Louis, for he had a far +journey and along absence in view. Jane Clemens made him renew his +promise as to cards and liquor, and gave him her blessing. He had +expected to go from St. Louis to Cincinnati, but a new idea--a literary +idea--came to him, and he returned to Keokuk. The Saturday Post, a +Keokuk weekly, was a prosperous sheet giving itself certain literary +airs. He was in favor with the management, of which George Rees was the +head, and it had occurred to him that he could send letters of his +travels to the Post--for, a consideration. He may have had a still +larger ambition; at least, the possibility of a book seems to have been +in his consciousness. Rees agreed to take letters from him at five +dollars each--good payment for that time and place. The young traveler, +jubilant in the prospect of receiving money for literature, now made +another start, this time by way of Quincy, Chicago, and Indianapolis +according to his first letter in the Post.--[Supplied by Thomas Rees, of +the Springfield (Illinois) Register, son of George Rees named.] + +This letter is dated Cincinnati, November 14, 1856, and it is not a +promising literary production. It was written in the exaggerated dialect +then regarded as humorous, and while here and there are flashes of the +undoubted Mark Twain type, they are few and far between. The genius that +a little more than ten years later would delight the world flickered +feebly enough at twenty-one. The letter is a burlesque account of the +trip to Cincinnati. A brief extract from it, as characteristic as any, +will serve. + + I went down one night to the railroad office there, purty close onto + the Laclede House, and bought about a quire o' yaller paper, cut up + into tickets--one for each railroad in the United States, I thought, + but I found out afterwards that the Alexandria and Boston Air-Line + was left out--and then got a baggage feller to take my trunk down to + the boat, where he spilled it out on the levee, bustin' it open and + shakin' out the contents, consisting of "guides" to Chicago, and + "guides" to Cincinnati, and travelers' guides, and all kinds of sich + books, not excepting a "guide to heaven," which last aint much use + to a Teller in Chicago, I kin tell you. Finally, that fast packet + quit ringing her bell, and started down the river--but she hadn't + gone morn a mile, till she ran clean up on top of a sand-bar, whar + she stuck till plum one o'clock, spite of the Captain's swearin'-- + and they had to set the whole crew to cussin' at last afore they got + her off. + +This is humor, we may concede, of that early American type which a little +later would have its flower in Nasby and Artemus Ward. Only careful +examination reveals in it a hint of the later Mark Twain. The letters +were signed "Snodgrass," and there are but two of them. The second, +dated exactly four months after the first, is in the same assassinating +dialect, and recounts among other things the scarcity of coal in +Cincinnati and an absurd adventure in which Snodgrass has a baby left on +his hands. + +From the fewness of the letters we may assume that Snodgrass found them +hard work, and it is said he raised on the price. At all events, the +second concluded the series. They are mainly important in that they are +the first of his contributions that have been preserved; also the first +for which he received a cash return. + +He secured work at his trade in Cincinnati at the printing-office of +Wrightson & Co., and remained there until April, 1857. That winter in +Cincinnati was eventless enough, but it was marked by one notable +association--one that beyond doubt forwarded Samuel Clemens's general +interest in books, influenced his taste, and inspired in him certain +views and philosophies which he never forgot. + +He lodged at a cheap boarding-house filled with the usual commonplace +people, with one exception. This exception was a long, lank, unsmiling +Scotchman named Macfarlane, who was twice as old as Clemens and wholly +unlike him--without humor or any comprehension of it. Yet meeting on the +common plane of intellect, the two became friends. Clemens spent his +evenings in Macfarlane's room until the clock struck ten; then Macfarlane +grilled a herring, just as the Englishman Sumner in Philadelphia had done +two years before, and the evening ended. + +Macfarlane had books, serious books: histories, philosophies, and +scientific works; also a Bible and a dictionary. He had studied these +and knew them by heart; he was a direct and diligent talker. He never +talked of himself, and beyond the statement that he had acquired his +knowledge from reading, and not at school, his personality was a mystery. +He left the house at six in the morning and returned at the same hour in +the evening. His hands were hardened from some sort of toil-mechanical +labor, his companion thought, but he never knew. He would have liked to +know, and he watched for some reference to slip out that would betray +Macfarlane's trade; but this never happened. + +What he did learn was that Macfarlane was a veritable storehouse of +abstruse knowledge; a living dictionary, and a thinker and philosopher +besides. He had at least one vanity: the claim that he knew every word +in the English dictionary, and he made it good. The younger man tried +repeatedly to discover a word that Macfarlane could not define. + +Perhaps Macfarlane was vain of his other mental attainments, for he never +tired of discoursing upon deep and grave matters, and his companion never +tired of listening. This Scotch philosopher did not always reflect the +conclusions of others; he had speculated deeply and strikingly on his own +account. That was a good while before Darwin and Wallace gave out--their +conclusions on the Descent of Man; yet Macfarlane was already advancing a +similar philosophy. He went even further: Life, he said, had been +developed in the course of ages from a few microscopic seed-germs--from +one, perhaps, planted by the Creator in the dawn of time, and that from +this beginning development on an ascending scale had finally produced +man. Macfarlane said that the scheme had stopped there, and failed; that +man had retrograded; that man's heart was the only bad one in the animal +kingdom: that man was the only animal capable of malice, vindictiveness, +drunkenness--almost the only animal that could endure personal +uncleanliness. He said that man's intellect was a depraving addition to +him which, in the end, placed him in a rank far below the other beasts, +though it enabled him to keep them in servitude and captivity, along with +many members of his own race. + +They were long, fermenting discourses that young Samuel Clemens listened +to that winter in Macfarlane's room, and those who knew the real Mark +Twain and his philosophies will recognize that those evenings left their +impress upon him for life. + + + + + +XXII + +THE OLD CALL OF THE RIVER + +When spring came, with budding life and quickening impulses; when the +trees in the parks began to show a hint of green, the Amazonian idea +developed afresh, and the would-be coca-hunter prepared for his +expedition. He had saved a little money--enough to take him to New +Orleans--and he decided to begin his long trip with a peaceful journey +down the Mississippi, for once, at least, to give himself up to that +indolent luxury of the majestic stream that had been so large a part of +his early dreams. + +The Ohio River steamers were not the most sumptuous craft afloat, but +they were slow and hospitable. The winter had been bleak and hard. +"Spring fever" and a large love of indolence had combined in that drowsy +condition which makes one willing to take his time. + +Mark Twain tells us in Life on the Mississippi that he "ran away," vowing +never to return until he could come home a pilot, shedding glory. This +is a literary statement. The pilot ambition had never entirely died; but +it was coca and the Amazon that were uppermost in his head when he +engaged passage on the Paul Jones for New Orleans, and so conferred +immortality on that ancient little craft. He bade good-by to Macfarlane, +put his traps aboard, the bell rang, the whistle blew, the gang-plank was +hauled in, and he had set out on a voyage that was to continue not for a +week or a fortnight, but for four years--four marvelous, sunlit years, +the glory of which would color all that followed them. + +In the Mississippi book the author conveys the impression of being then a +boy of perhaps seventeen. Writing from that standpoint he records +incidents that were more or less inventions or that happened to others. +He was, in reality, considerably more than twenty-one years old, for it +was in April, 1857, that he went aboard the Paul Jones; and he was fairly +familiar with steamboats and the general requirements of piloting. He +had been brought up in a town that turned out pilots; he had heard the +talk of their trade. One at least of the Bowen boys was already on the +river while Sam Clemens was still a boy in Hannibal, and had often been +home to air his grandeur and dilate on the marvel of his work. That +learning the river was no light task Sam Clemens very well knew. +Nevertheless, as the little boat made its drowsy way down the river into +lands that grew ever pleasanter with advancing spring, the old "permanent +ambition" of boyhood stirred again, and the call of the far-away Amazon, +with its coca and its variegated zoology, grew faint. + +Horace Bixby, pilot of the Paul Jones, then a man of thirty-two, still +living (1910) and at the wheel,--[The writer of this memoir interviewed +Mr. Bixby personally, and has followed his phrasing throughout.]--was +looking out over the bow at the head of Island No. 35 when he heard a +slow, pleasant voice say: + +"Good morning." + +Bixby was a clean-cut, direct, courteous man. + +"Good morning, sir," he said, briskly, without looking around. + +As a rule Mr. Bixby did not care for visitors in the pilot-house. This +one presently came up and stood a little behind him. + +"How would you like a young man to learn the river?" he said. + +The pilot glanced over his shoulder and saw a rather slender, loose- +limbed young fellow with a fair, girlish complexion and a great tangle of +auburn hair. + +"I wouldn't like it. Cub pilots are more trouble than they're worth. +A great deal more trouble than profit." + +The applicant was not discouraged. + +"I am a printer by trade," he went on, in his easy, deliberate way. +"It doesn't agree with me. I thought I'd go to South America." + +Bixby kept his eye on the river; but a note of interest crept into his +voice. + +"What makes you pull your words that way?" ("pulling" being the river +term for drawling), he asked. + +The young man had taken a seat on the visitors' bench. + +"You'll have to ask my mother," he said, more slowly than ever. "She +pulls hers, too." + +Pilot Bixby woke up and laughed; he had a keen sense of humor, and the +manner of the reply amused him. His guest made another advance. + +"Do you know the Bowen boys?" he asked--"pilots in the St. Louis and New +Orleans trade?" + +"I know them well--all three of them. William Bowen did his first +steering for me; a mighty good boy, too. Had a Testament in his pocket +when he came aboard; in a week's time he had swapped it for a pack of +cards. I know Sam, too, and Bart." + +"Old schoolmates of mine in Hannibal. Sam and Will especially were my +chums." + +"Come over and stand by the side of me," he said. "What is your name?" + +The applicant told him, and the two stood looking at the sunlit water. + +"Do you drink?" + +"No." + +"Do you gamble?" + +"No, Sir." + +"Do you swear?" + +"Not for amusement; only under pressure." + +"Do you chew?" + +"No, sir, never; but I must smoke." + +"Did you ever do any steering?" was Bixby's next question. + +"I have steered everything on the river but a steamboat, I guess." + +"Very well; take the wheel and see what you can do with a steamboat. +Keep her as she is--toward that lower cottonwood, snag." + +Bixby had a sore foot and was glad of a little relief. He sat down on +the bench and kept a careful eye on the course. By and by he said: + +"There is just one way that I would take a young man to learn the river: +that is, for money." + +"What do you charge?" + +"Five hundred dollars, and I to be at no expense whatever." + +In those days pilots were allowed to carry a learner, or "cub," board +free. Mr. Bixby meant that he was to be at no expense in port, or for +incidentals. His terms looked rather discouraging. + +"I haven't got five hundred dollars in money," Sam said; "I've got a lot +of Tennessee land worth twenty-five cents an acre; I'll give you two +thousand acres of that." + +Bixby dissented. + +"No; I don't want any unimproved real estate. I have too much already." + +Sam reflected upon the amount he could probably borrow from Pamela's +husband without straining his credit. + +"Well, then, I'll give you one hundred dollars cash and the rest when I +earn it." + +Something about this young man had won Horace Bixby's heart. His slow, +pleasant speech; his unhurried, quiet manner with the wheel, his evident +sincerity of purpose--these were externals, but beneath them the pilot +felt something of that quality of mind or heart which later made the +world love Mark Twain. The terms proposed were agreed upon. The +deferred payments were to begin when the pupil had learned the river and +was receiving pilot's wages. During Mr. Bixby's daylight watches his +pupil was often at the wheel, that trip, while the pilot sat directing +him and nursing his sore foot. Any literary ambitions Samuel Clemens may +have had grew dim; by the time they had reached New Orleans he had almost +forgotten he had been a printer, and when he learned that no ship would +be sailing to the Amazon for an indefinite period the feeling grew that a +directing hand had taken charge of his affairs. + +From New Orleans his chief did not return to Cincinnati, but went to St. +Louis, taking with him his new cub, who thought it fine, indeed, to come +steaming up to that great city with its thronging water-front; its levee +fairly packed with trucks, drays, and piles of freight, the whole flanked +with a solid mile of steamboats lying side by side, bow a little up- +stream, their belching stacks reared high against the blue--a towering +front of trade. It was glorious to nose one's way to a place in that +stately line, to become a unit, however small, of that imposing fleet. +At St. Louis Sam borrowed from Mr. Moffett the funds necessary to make up +his first payment, and so concluded his contract. Then, when he suddenly +found himself on a fine big boat, in a pilot-house so far above the water +that he seemed perched on a mountain--a "sumptuous temple"--his happiness +seemed complete. + + + + +XXIII + +THE SUPREME SCIENCE + +In his Mississippi book Mark Twain has given us a marvelous exposition of +the science of river-piloting, and of the colossal task of acquiring and +keeping a knowledge requisite for that work. He has not exaggerated this +part of the story of developments in any detail; he has set down a simple +confession. + +Serenely enough he undertook the task of learning twelve hundred miles of +the great changing, shifting river as exactly and as surely by daylight +or darkness as one knows the way to his own features. As already +suggested, he had at least an inkling of what that undertaking meant. +His statement that he "supposed all that a pilot had to do was to keep +his boat in the river" is not to be accepted literally. Still he could +hardly have realized the full majesty of his task; nobody could do that-- +not until afterward. + +Horace Bixby was a "lightning" pilot with a method of instruction as +direct and forcible as it was effective. He was a small man, hot and +quick-firing, though kindly, too, and gentle when he had blown off. +After one rather pyrotechnic misunderstanding as to the manner of +imparting and acquiring information he said: + +"My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book, and every time I tell you +a thing put it down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot, and +that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just like +A B C." + +So Sam Clemens got the little book, and presently it "fairly bristled" +with the names of towns, points, bars, islands, bends, and reaches, but +it made his heart ache to think that he had only half of the river set +down; for, as the "watches" were four hours off and four hours on, there +were long gaps during which he had slept. + +The little note-book still exists--thin and faded, with black water-proof +covers--its neat, tiny, penciled notes still, telling, the story of that +first trip. Most of them are cryptographic abbreviations, not readily +deciphered now. Here and there is an easier line: + + MERIWEATHER'S BEND + + 1/4 less 3--[Depth of water. One-quarter less than three + fathoms.]----run shape of upper bar and go into the low place in + willows about 200(ft.) lower down than last year. + +One simple little note out of hundreds far more complicated. It would +take days for the average mind to remember even a single page of such +statistics. And those long four-hour gaps where he had been asleep, they +are still there, and somehow, after more than fifty years, the old heart- +ache is still in them. He got a new book, maybe, for the next trip, and +laid this one away. + +There is but one way to account for the fact that the man whom the world +knew as Mark Twain--dreamy, unpractical, and indifferent to details--ever +persisted in acquiring knowledge like that--in the vast, the absolutely +limitless quantity necessary to Mississippi piloting. It lies in the +fact that he loved the river in its every mood and aspect and detail, and +not only the river, but a steam boat; and still more, perhaps, the +freedom of the pilot's life and its prestige. Wherever he has written of +the river--and in one way or another he was always writing of it we feel +the claim of the old captivity and that it still holds him. In the +Huckleberry Finn book, during those nights and days with Huck and Nigger +Jim on the raft--whether in stormlit blackness, still noontide, or the +lifting mists of morning--we can fairly "smell" the river, as Huck +himself would say, and we know that it is because the writer loved it +with his heart of hearts and literally drank in its environment and +atmosphere during those halcyon pilot days. + +So, in his love lay the secret of his marvelous learning, and it is +recorded (not by himself, but by his teacher) that he was an apt pupil. +Horace Bixby has more than once declared: + +"Sam was always good-natured, and he had a natural taste for the river. +He had a fine memory and never forgot anything I told him." + +Mark Twain himself records a different opinion of his memory, with the +size of its appalling task. It can only be presented in his own words. +In the pages quoted he had mastered somewhat of the problem, and had +begun to take on airs. His chief was a constant menace at such moments: + + One day he turned on me suddenly with this settler: + + "What is the shape of Walnut Bend?" + + He might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion of + protoplasm. I reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't know + it had any particular shape. My gun-powdery chief went off with a + bang, of course, and then went on loading and firing until he was + out of adjectives.... I waited. By and by he said: + + "My boy, you've got to know the shape of the river perfectly. It is + all there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything is + blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't the same shape in the + night that it has in the daytime." + + "How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then?" + + "How do you follow a hall at home in the dark? Because you know the + shape of it. You can't see it." + + "Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million trifling + variations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well + as I know the shape of the front hall at home?" + + "On my honor, you've got to know them better than any man ever did + know the shapes of the halls in his own house." + + "I wish I was dead!" + + "Now, I don't want to discourage you, but----" + + "Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another time." + + "You see, this has got to be learned; there isn't any getting around + it. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that, if you + didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly, you would claw away from + every bunch of timber, because you would take the black shadow of it + for a solid cape; and, you see, you would be getting scared to death + every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from + shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. + You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly + where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are + coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a + very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a + starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and + mighty dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines, only + you know better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems + to be a solid, straight wall (you know very well that in reality + there is a curve there), and that wall falls back and makes way for + you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's + one of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any + particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of + the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of + moonlight change the shape of the river in different ways. + You see----" + + "Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of + the river according to all these five hundred thousand different + ways? If I tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make + me stoop-shouldered." + + "No! you only learn the shape of the river; and you learn it with + such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape + that's in your head, and never mind the one that's before your + eyes." + + "Very well, I'll try it; but, after I have learned it, can I depend + on it? Will it keep the same form, and not go fooling around?" + + Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W. came in to take the watch, and + he said: + + "Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's island, and all that + country clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are + caving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why, + you wouldn't know the point about 40. You can go up inside the old + sycamore snag now." + + So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing + shape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed + pretty apparent to me. One was that in order to be a pilot a man + had got to learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; + and the other was that he must learn it all over again in a + different way every twenty-four hours. + + I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all the + eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or + hands on, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, + wooded point that projected far into the river some miles ahead of + me and go to laboriously photographing its shape upon my brain; and + just as I was beginning to succeed to my satisfaction we would draw + up to it, and the exasperating thing would begin to melt away and + fold back into the bank! + + It was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all + the different ways that could be thought of--upside down, wrong end + first, inside out, fore-and-aft, and "thort-ships,"--and then know + what to do on gray nights when it hadn't any shape at all. So I set + about it. In the course of time I began to get the best of this + knotty lesson, and my self-complacency moved to the front once more. + Mr. Bixby was all fixed and ready to start it to the rear again. He + opened on me after this fashion: + + "How much water did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-The- + Wall, trip before last?" + + I considered this an outrage. I said: + + "Every trip down and up the leadsmen are singing through that + tangled place for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do + you reckon I can remember such a mess as that?" + + "My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember the + exact spot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the + shoalest water, in every one of the five hundred shoal places + between St. Louis and New Orleans; and you mustn't get the shoal + soundings and marks of one trip mixed up with the shoal soundings + and marks of another, either, for they're not often twice alike. + You must keep them separate." + + When I came to myself again, I said: + + "When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead, + and then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want + to retire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; + I'm only fit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a + pilot; and if I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them + around, unless I went on crutches." + + "Now drop that! When I say I'll learn a man the river I mean it. + And you can depend on it, I'll learn him or kill him." + +We have quoted at length from this chapter because it seems of very +positive importance here. It is one of the most luminous in the book so +far as the mastery of the science of piloting is concerned, and shows +better than could any other combination of words something of what is +required of the learner. It does not cover the whole problem, by any +means--Mark Twain himself could not present that; and even considering +his old-time love of the river and the pilot's trade, it is still +incredible that a man of his temperament could have persisted, as he did, +against such obstacles. + + + + +XXIV + +THE RIVER CURRICULUM + +He acquired other kinds of knowledge. As the streets of Hannibal in +those early days, and the printing-offices of several cities, had taught +him human nature in various unvarnished aspects, so the river furnished +an added course to that vigorous education. Morally, its atmosphere +could not be said to be an improvement on the others. Navigation in the +West had begun with crafts of the flat-boat type--their navigators rude, +hardy men, heavy drinkers, reckless fighters, barbaric in their sports, +coarse in their wit, profane in everything. Steam-boatmen were the +natural successors of these pioneers--a shade less coarse, a thought less +profane, a veneer less barbaric. But these things were mainly "above +stairs." You had but to scratch lightly a mate or a deck-hand to find +the old keel-boatman savagery. Captains were overlords, and pilots kings +in this estate; but they were not angels. In Life on the Mississippi +Clemens refers to his chief's explosive vocabulary and tells us how he +envied the mate's manner of giving an order. It was easier to acquire +those things than piloting, and, on the whole, quicker. One could +improve upon them, too, with imagination and wit and a natural gift for +terms. That Samuel Clemens maintained his promise as to drink and cards +during those apprentice days is something worth remembering; and if he +did not always restrict his profanity to moments of severe pressure or +sift the quality of his wit, we may also remember that he was an extreme +example of a human being, in that formative stage which gathers all as +grist, later to refine it for the uses and delights of men. + +He acquired a vast knowledge of human character. He says: + + In that brief, sharp schooling I got personally and familiarly + acquainted with all the different types of human nature that are to + be found in fiction, biography, or history. When I find a well- + drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take a warm + personal interest in him, for the reason that I have, known him + before--met him on the river. + +Undoubtedly the river was a great school for the study of life's broader +philosophies and humors: philosophies that avoid vague circumlocution and +aim at direct and sure results; humors of the rugged and vigorous sort +that in Europe are known as "American" and in America are known as +"Western." Let us be thankful that Mark Twain's school was no less than +it was--and no more. + +The demands of the Missouri River trade took Horace Bixby away from the +Mississippi, somewhat later, and he consigned his pupil, according to +custom, to another pilot--it is not certain, now, to just which pilot, +but probably to Zeb Leavenworth or Beck Jolly, of the John J. Roe. The +Roe was a freight-boat, "as slow as an island and as comfortable as a +farm." In fact, the Roe was owned and conducted by farmers, and Sam +Clemens thought if John Quarles's farm could be set afloat it would +greatly resemble that craft in the matter of good-fellowship, +hospitality, and speed. It was said of her that up-stream she could even +beat an island, though down-stream she could never quite overtake the +current, but was a "love of a steamboat" nevertheless. The Roe was not +licensed to carry passengers, but she always had a dozen "family guests" +aboard, and there was a big boiler-deck for dancing and moonlight +frolics, also a piano in the cabin. The young pilot sometimes played on +the piano and sang to his music songs relating to the "grasshopper on the +sweet-potato vine," or to an old horse by the name of Methusalem: + + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago. + +There were forty-eight stanzas about this ancient horse, all pretty much +alike; but the assembled company was not likely to be critical, and his +efforts won him laurels. He had a heavenly time on the John J. Roe, and +then came what seemed inferno by contrast. Bixby returned, made a trip +or two, then left and transferred him again, this time to a man named +Brown. Brown had a berth on the fine new steamer Pennsylvania, one of +the handsomest boats on the river, and young Clemens had become a fine +steersman, so it is not unlikely that both men at first were gratified by +the arrangement. + +But Brown was a fault-finding, tyrannical chief, ignorant, vulgar, and +malicious. In the Mississippi book the author gives his first interview +with Brown, also his last one. For good reasons these occasions were +burned into his memory, and they may be accepted as substantially +correct. Brown had an offensive manner. His first greeting was a surly +question. + +"Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?" + +"Bixby" was usually pronounced "Bigsby" on the river, but Brown made it +especially obnoxious and followed it up with questions and comments and +orders still more odious. His subordinate soon learned to detest him +thoroughly. It was necessary, however, to maintain a respectable +deportment--custom, discipline, even the law, required that--but it must +have been a hard winter and spring the young steersman put in during +those early months of 1858, restraining himself from the gratification of +slaying Brown. Time would bring revenge--a tragic revenge and at a +fearful cost; but he could not guess that, and he put in his spare time +planning punishments of his own. + + I could imagine myself killing Brown; there was no law against that, + and that was the thing I always used to do the moment I was abed. + Instead of going over my river in my mind, as was my duty, I threw + business aside for pleasure and killed Brown. I killed Brown every + night for a month; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new + and picturesque ones--ways that were sometimes surprising for + freshness of design and ghastly for situation and environment. + +Once when Brown had been more insulting than usual his subordinate went +to bed and killed him in "seventeen different ways--all of them new." + +He had made an effort at first to please Brown, but it was no use. Brown +was the sort of a man that refused to be pleased; no matter how carefully +his subordinate steered, he as always at him. + +"Here," he would shout, "where are you going now? Pull her down! Pull +her down! Don't you hear me? Dod-derned mud-cat!" + +His assistant lost all desire to be obliging to such a person and even +took occasion now and then to stir him up. One day they were steaming up +the river when Brown noticed that the boat seemed to be heading toward +some unusual point. + +"Here, where are you heading for now?" he yelled. "What in nation are +you steerin' at, anyway? Deyned numskull!" + +"Why," said Sam, in unruffled deliberation, "I didn't see much else I +could steer for, and I was heading for that white heifer on the bank." + +"Get away from that wheel! and get outen this pilothouse!" yelled Brown. +"You ain't fit to become no pilot!" + +Which was what Sam wanted. Any temporary relief from the carping tyranny +of Brown was welcome. + +He had been on the river nearly a year now, and, though universally liked +and accounted a fine steersman, he was receiving no wages. There had +been small need of money for a while, for he had no board to pay; but +clothes wear out at last, and there were certain incidentals. The +Pennsylvania made a round trip in about thirty-five days, with a day or +two of idle time at either end. The young pilot found that he could get +night employment, watching freight on the New Orleans levee, and thus +earn from two and a half to three dollars for each night's watch. +Sometimes there would be two nights, and with a capital of five or six +dollars he accounted himself rich. + +"It was a desolate experience," he said, long afterward, "watching there +in the dark among those piles of freight; not a sound, not a living +creature astir. But it was not a profitless one: I used to have +inspirations as I sat there alone those nights. I used to imagine all +sorts of situations and possibilities. Those things got into my books by +and by and furnished me with many a chapter. I can trace the effect of +those nights through most of my books in one way and another." + +Many of the curious tales in the latter half of the Mississippi book came +out of those long night-watches. It was a good time to think of such +things. + + + + +XXV + +LOVE-MAKING AND ADVENTURE + +Of course, life with Brown was not all sorrow. At either end of the trip +there was respite and recreation. In St. Louis, at Pamela's there was +likely to be company: Hannibal friends mostly, schoolmates--girls, of +course. At New Orleans he visited friendly boats, especially the John J. +Roe, where he was generously welcomed. One such visit on the Roe he +never forgot. A young girl was among the boat's guests that trip-- +another Laura, fifteen, winning, delightful. They met, and were mutually +attracted; in the life of each it was one of those bright spots which are +likely to come in youth: one of those sudden, brief periods of romance, +love--call it what you will the thing that leads to marriage, if pursued. + +"I was not four inches from that girl's elbow during our waking hours for +the next three days." + +Then came a sudden interruption: Zeb Leavenworth came flying aft +shouting: + +"The Pennsylvania is backing out." + +A flutter of emotion, a fleeting good-by, a flight across the decks, a +flying leap from romance back to reality, and it was all over. He wrote +her, but received no reply. He never saw her again, never heard from her +for forty-eight years, when both were married, widowed, and old. She had +not received his letter. + +Even on the Pennsylvania life had its interests. A letter dated March 9, +1858, recounts a delightfully dangerous night-adventure in the steamer's +yawl, hunting for soundings in the running ice. + + Then the fun commenced. We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the + bow of the yawl, and put the men (both crews) to it like horses on + the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in the bow, with an oar, to keep + her head out, and I took the tiller. We would start the men, and + all would go well till the yawl would bring up on a heavy cake of + ice, and then the men would drop like so many tenpins, while Brown + assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat. After an hour's + hard work we got back, with ice half an inch thick on the oars. + Sent back and warped up the other yawl, and then George (George + Ealer, the other pilot) and myself took a double crew of fresh men + and tried it again. This time we found the channel in less than + half an hour, and landed on an island till the Pennsylvania came + along and took us off. The next day was colder still. I was out in + the yawl twice, and then we got through, but the infernal steamboat + came near running over us.... We sounded Hat Island, warped up + around a bar, and sounded again--but in order to understand our + situation you will have to read Dr. Kane. It would have been + impossible to get back to the boat. But the Maria Denning was + aground at the head of the island--they hailed us--we ran alongside, + and they hoisted us in and thawed us out. We had then been out in + the yawl from four o'clock in the morning till half past nine + without being near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over + men, and yawl, ropes and everything else, and we looked like rock- + candy statuary. + +This was the sort of thing he loved in those days. We feel the writer's +evident joy and pride in it. In the same letter he says: "I can't +correspond with the paper, because when one is learning the river he is +not allowed to do or think about anything else." Then he mentions his +brother Henry, and we get the beginning of that tragic episode for which, +though blameless, Samuel Clemens always held himself responsible. + + Henry was doing little or nothing here (St. Louis), and I sent him + to our clerk to work his way for a trip, measuring wood-piles, + counting coal-boxes, and doing other clerkly duties, which he + performed satisfactorily. He may go down with us again. + +Henry Clemens was about twenty at this time, a handsome, attractive boy +of whom his brother was lavishly fond and proud. He did go on the next +trip and continued to go regularly after that, as third clerk in line of +promotion. It was a bright spot in those hard days with Brown to have +Henry along. The boys spent a good deal of their leisure with the other +pilot, George Ealer, who "was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't," and quoted +Shakespeare and Goldsmith, and played the flute to his fascinated and +inspiring audience. These were things worth while. The young steersman +could not guess that the shadow of a long sorrow was even then stretching +across the path ahead. + +Yet in due time he received a warning, a remarkable and impressive +warning, though of a kind seldom heeded. One night, when the +Pennsylvania lay in St. Louis, he slept at his sister's house and had +this vivid dream: + +He saw Henry, a corpse, lying in a metallic burial case in the sitting- +room, supported on two chairs. On his breast lay a bouquet of flowers, +white, with a single crimson bloom in the center. + +When he awoke, it was morning, but the dream was so vivid that he +believed it real. Perhaps something of the old hypnotic condition was +upon him, for he rose and dressed, thinking he would go in and look at +his dead brother. Instead, he went out on the street in the early +morning and had walked to the middle of the block before it suddenly +flashed upon him that it was only a dream. He bounded back, rushed to +the sitting-room, and felt a great trembling revulsion of joy when he +found it really empty. He told Pamela the dream, then put it out of his +mind as quickly as he could. The Pennsylvania sailed from St. Louis as +usual, and made a safe trip to New Orleans. + +A safe trip, but an eventful one; on it occurred that last interview with +Brown, already mentioned. It is recorded in the Mississippi book, but +cannot be omitted here. Somewhere down the river (it was in Eagle Bend) +Henry appeared on the hurricane deck to bring an order from the captain +for a landing to be made a little lower down. Brown was somewhat deaf, +but would never confess it. He may not have understood the order; at all +events he gave no sign of having heard it, and went straight ahead. He +disliked Henry as he disliked everybody of finer grain than himself, and +in any case was too arrogant to ask for a repetition. They were passing +the landing when Captain Klinefelter appeared on deck and called to him +to let the boat come around, adding: + +"Didn't Henry tell you to land here?" + +"No, sir." + +Captain. Klinefelter turned to Sam: + +"Didn't you hear him?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Brown said: "Shut your mouth! You never heard anything of the kind." + +By and by Henry came into the pilot-house, unaware of any trouble. Brown +set upon him in his ugliest manner. + +"Here, why didn't you tell me we had got to land at that plantation?" he +demanded. + +Henry was always polite, always gentle. + +"I did tell you, Mr. Brown." + +"It's a lie." + +Sam Clemens could stand Brown's abuse of himself, but not of Henry. He +said: "You lie yourself. He did tell you." + +Brown was dazed for a moment and then he shouted: + +"I'll attend to your case in half a minute!" and ordered Henry out of +the pilot-house. + +The boy had started, when Brown suddenly seized him by the collar and +struck him in the face.--[In the Mississippi book the writer states +that Brown started to strike Henry with a large piece of coal; but, in a +letter written soon after the occurrence to Mrs. Orion Clemens, he says: +"Henry started out of the pilot-house-Brown jumped up and collared him-- +turned him half-way around and struck him in the face!-and him nearly six +feet high-struck my little brother. I was wild from that moment. I left +the boat to steer herself, and avenged the insult--and the captain said I +was right."]--Instantly Sam was upon Brown, with a heavy stool, and +stretched him on the floor. Then all the bitterness and indignation that +had been smoldering for months flamed up, and, leaping upon Brown and +holding him with his knees, he pounded him with his fists until strength +and fury gave out. Brown struggled free, then, and with pilot instinct +sprang to the wheel, for the vessel had been drifting and might have got +into trouble. Seeing there was no further danger, he seized a spy-glass +as a weapon. + +"Get out of this here pilot-house," he raged. + +But his subordinate was not afraid of him now. + +"You should leave out the 'here,'" he drawled, critically. "It is +understood, and not considered good English form." + +"Don't you give me none of your airs," yelled Brown. "I ain't going to +stand nothing more from you." + +"You should say, 'Don't give me any of your airs,'" Sam said, sweetly, +"and the last half of your sentence almost defies correction." + +A group of passengers and white-aproned servants, assembled on the deck +forward, applauded the victor. + +Brown turned to the wheel, raging and growling. Clemens went below, +where he expected Captain Klinefelter to put him in irons, perhaps, for +it was thought to be felony to strike a pilot. The officer took him into +his private room and closed the door. At first he looked at the culprit +thoughtfully, then he made some inquiries: + + "Did you strike him first?" Captain Klinefelter asked. + + "Yes, sir." + + "What with?" + + "A stool, sir." + + "Hard?" + + "Middling, sir." + + "Did it knock him down?" + + "He--he fell, sir." + + "Did you follow it up? Did you do anything further?" + + "Yes, sir." + + "What did you do?" + + "Pounded him, sir." + + "Pounded him?" + + "Yes, sir." + + "Did you pound him much--that is, severely?" + + "One might call it that, sir, maybe." + + "I am deuced glad of it! Hark ye, never mention that I said that. + You have been guilty of a great crime; and don't ever be guilty of + it again on this boat, but--lay for him ashore! Give him a good + sound thrashing; do you hear? I'll pay the expenses."--["Life on + the Mississippi."] + +Captain Klinefelter told him to clear out, then, and the culprit heard +him enjoying himself as the door closed behind him. Brown, of course, +forbade him the pilothouse after that, and he spent the rest of the trip +"an emancipated slave" listening to George Ealer's flute and his readings +from Goldsmith and Shakespeare; playing chess with him sometimes, and +learning a trick which he would use himself in the long after-years--that +of taking back the last move and running out the game differently when he +saw defeat. + +Brown swore that he would leave the boat at New Orleans if Sam Clemens +remained on it, and Captain Klinefelter told Brown to go. Then when +another pilot could not be obtained to fill his place, the captain +offered to let Clemens himself run the daylight watches, thus showing his +confidence in the knowledge of the young steersman, who had been only a +little more than a year at the wheel. But Clemens himself had less +confidence and advised the captain to keep Brown back to St. Louis. He +would follow up the river by another boat and resume his place as +steersman when Brown was gone. Without knowing it, he may have saved his +life by that decision. + +It is doubtful if he remembered his recent disturbing dream, though some +foreboding would seem to have hung over him the night before the +Pennsylvania sailed. Henry liked to join in the night-watches on the +levee when he had finished his duties, and the brothers often walked the +round chatting together. On this particular night the elder spoke of +disaster on the river. Finally he said: + +"In case of accident, whatever you do, don't lose your head--the +passengers will do that. Rush for the hurricane deck and to the life- +boat, and obey the mate's orders. When the boat is launched, help the +women and children into it. Don't get in yourself. The river is only a +mile wide. You can swim ashore easily enough." + +It was good manly advice, but it yielded a long harvest of sorrow. + + + + +XXVI + +THE TRAGEDY OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" + +Captain Klinefelter obtained his steersman a pass on the A. T. Lacey, +which left two days behind the Pennsylvania. This was pleasant, for Bart +Bowen had become captain of that fine boat. The Lacey touched at +Greenville, Mississippi, and a voice from the landing shouted: + +"The Pennsylvania is blown up just below Memphis, at Ship Island! One +hundred and fifty lives lost!" + +Nothing further could be learned there, but that evening at Napoleon a +Memphis extra reported some of the particulars. Henry Clemens's name was +mentioned as one of those, who had escaped injury. Still farther up the +river they got a later extra. Henry was again mentioned; this time as +being scalded beyond recovery. By the time they reached Memphis they +knew most of the details: At six o'clock that warm mid-June morning, +while loading wood from a large flat-boat sixty miles below Memphis, four +out of eight of the Pennsylvania's boilers had suddenly exploded with +fearful results. All the forward end of the boat had been blown out. +Many persons had been killed outright; many more had been scalded and +crippled and would die. It was one of those hopeless, wholesale +steamboat slaughters which for more than a generation had made the +Mississippi a river of death and tears. + +Samuel Clemens found his brother stretched upon a mattress on the floor +of an improvised hospital--a public hall--surrounded by more than thirty +others more or less desperately injured. He was told that Henry had +inhaled steam and that his body was badly scalded. His case was +considered hopeless. + +Henry was one of those who had been blown into the river by the +explosion. He had started to swim for the shore, only a few hundred +yards away, but presently, feeling no pain and believing himself unhurt, +he had turned back to assist in the rescue of the others. What he did +after that could not be clearly learned. The vessel had taken fire; the +rescued were being carried aboard the big wood-boat still attached to the +wreck. The fire soon raged so that the rescuers and all who could be +saved were driven into the wood-flat, which was then cut adrift and +landed. There the sufferers had to lie in the burning sun many hours +until help could come. Henry was among those who were insensible by that +time. Perhaps he had really been uninjured at first and had been scalded +in his work of rescue; it will never be known. + +His brother, hearing these things, was thrown into the deepest agony and +remorse. He held himself to blame for everything; for Henry's presence +on the boat; for his advice concerning safety of others; for his own +absence when he might have been there to help and protect the boy. He +wanted to telegraph at once to his mother and sister to come, but the +doctors persuaded him to wait--just why, he never knew. He sent word of +the disaster to Orion, who by this time had sold out in Keokuk and was in +East Tennessee studying law; then he set himself to the all but hopeless +task of trying to bring Henry back to life. Many Memphis ladies were +acting as nurses, and one, a Miss Wood, attracted by the boy's youth and +striking features, joined in the desperate effort. Some medical students +had come to assist the doctors, and one of these also took special +interest in Henry's case. Dr. Peyton, an old Memphis practitioner, +declared that with such care the boy might pull through. + +But on the fourth night he was considered to be dying. Half delirious +with grief and the strain of watching, Samuel Clemens wrote to his mother +and to his sister-in-law in Tennessee. The letter to Orion Clemens's +wife has been preserved. + + MEMPHIS, TENN., Friday, June 18, 1858. + + DEAR SISTER MOLLIE,--Long before this reaches you my poor Henry--my + darling, my pride, my glory, my all will have finished his blameless + career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter + darkness. The horrors of three days have swept over me--they have + blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, + there are gray hairs in my head to-night. For forty-eight hours I + labored at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised but + uncomplaining brother, and then the star of my hope went out and + left me in the gloom of despair. Men take me by the hand and + congratulate me, and call me "lucky" because I was not on the + Pennsylvania when she blew up! May God forgive them, for they know + not what they say. + + I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, + and I must tell you the truth, Mollie--three hundred human beings + perished by that fearful disaster. But may God bless Memphis, the + noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by + these poor afflicted creatures--especially Henry, for he has had + five--aye, ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that + any one else has had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he + is exactly like the portraits of Webster), sat by him for 36 hours. + There are 32 scalded men in that room, and you would know Dr. + Peyton better than I can describe him if you could follow him around + and hear each man murmur as he passes, "May the God of Heaven bless + you, Doctor!" The ladies have done well, too. Our second mate, a + handsome, noble-hearted young fellow, will die. Yesterday a + beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side and handed him + a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy's eyes kindled, his lips + quivered out a gentle "God bless you, Miss," and he burst into + tears. He made them write her name on a card for him, that he might + not forget it. + + Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother. + Your unfortunate brother, + + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + P. S.--I got here two days after Henry. + + +But, alas, this was not all, nor the worst. It would seem that Samuel +Clemens's cup of remorse must be always overfull. The final draft that +would embitter his years was added the sixth night after the accident-- +the night that Henry died. He could never bring himself to write it. He +was never known to speak of it but twice. + +Henry had rallied soon after the foregoing letter had been mailed, and +improved slowly that day and the next: Dr. Peyton came around about +eleven o'clock on the sixth night and made careful examination. He said: + +"I believe he is out of danger and will get well. He is likely to be +restless during the night; the groans and fretting of the others will +disturb him. If he cannot rest without it, tell the physician in charge +to give him one-eighth of a grain of morphine." + +The boy did wake during the night, and was disturbed by the complaining +of the other sufferers. His brother told the young medical student in +charge what the doctor had said about the morphine. But morphine was a +new drug then; the student hesitated, saying: + +"I have no way of measuring. I don't know how much an eighth of a grain +would be." + +Henry grew rapidly worse--more and more restless. His brother was half +beside himself with the torture of it. He went to the medical student. + +"If you have studied drugs," he said, "you ought to be able to judge an +eighth of a grain of morphine." + +The young man's courage was over-swayed. He yielded and ladled out in +the old-fashioned way, on the point of a knife-blade, what he believed to +be the right amount. Henry immediately sank into a heavy sleep. He died +before morning. His chance of life had been infinitesimal, and his death +was not necessarily due to the drug, but Samuel Clemens, unsparing in his +self-blame, all his days carried the burden of it. + +He saw the boy taken to the dead room, then the long strain of grief, the +days and nights without sleep, the ghastly realization of the end +overcame him. A citizen of Memphis took him away in a kind of daze and +gave him a bed in his house, where he fell into a stupor of fatigue and +surrender. It was many hours before he woke; when he did, at last, he +dressed and went to where Henry lay. The coffin provided for the dead +were of unpainted wood, but the youth and striking face of Henry Clemens +had aroused a special interest. The ladies of Memphis had made up a fund +of sixty dollars and bought for him a metallic case. Samuel Clemens +entering, saw his brother lying exactly as he had seen him in his dream, +lacking only the bouquet of white flowers with its crimson center--a +detail made complete while he stood there, for at that moment an elderly +lady came in with a large white bouquet, and in the center of it was a +single red rose. + +Orion arrived from Tennessee, and the brothers took their sorrowful +burden to St. Louis, subsequently to Hannibal, his old home. The death +of this lovely boy was a heavy sorrow to the community where he was +known, for he had been a favorite with all.--[For a fine +characterization of Henry Clemens the reader is referred to a letter +written by Orion Clemens to Miss Wood. See Appendix A, at the end of the +last volume.] + +From Hannibal the family returned to Pamela's home in St. Louis. There +one night Orion heard his brother moaning and grieving and walking the +floor of his room. By and by Sam came in to where Orion was. He could +endure it no longer, he said; he must, "tell somebody." + +Then he poured all the story of that last tragic night. It has been set +down here because it accounts for much in his after-life. It magnified +his natural compassion for the weakness and blunders of humanity, while +it increased the poor opinion implanted by the Scotchman Macfarlane of +the human being as a divine invention. Two of Mark Twain's chief +characteristics were--consideration for the human species, and contempt +for it. + +In many ways he never overcame the tragedy of Henry's death. He never +really looked young again. Gray hairs had come, as he said, and they did +not disappear. His face took on the serious, pathetic look which from +that time it always had in repose. At twenty-three he looked thirty. At +thirty he looked nearer forty. After that the discrepancy in age and +looks became less notable. In vigor, complexion, and temperament he was +regarded in later life as young for his years, but never in looks. + + + + +XXVII + +THE PILOT + +The young pilot returned to the river as steersman for George Ealer, whom +he loved, and in September of that year obtained a full license as +Mississippi River pilot.--[In Life on the Mississippi he gives his +period of learning at from two to two and a half years; but documentary +evidence as well as Mr. Bixby's testimony places the apprenticeship at +eighteen months]--Bixby had returned by this time, and they were again +together, first on the Crescent City, later on a fine new boat called the +New Falls City. Clemens was still a steersman when Bixby returned; but +as soon as his license was granted (September 9, 1858) his old chief took +him as full partner. + +He was a pilot at last. In eighteen months he had packed away in his +head all the multitude of volatile statistics and acquired that +confidence and courage which made him one of the elect, a river +sovereign. He knew every snag and bank and dead tree and reef in all +those endless miles between St. Louis and New Orleans, every cut-off and +current, every depth of water--the whole story--by night and by day. He +could smell danger in the dark; he could read the surface of the water as +an open page. At twenty-three he had acquired a profession which +surpassed all others for absolute sovereignty and yielded an income equal +to that then earned by the Vice-President of the United States. Boys +generally finish college at about that age, but it is not likely that any +boy ever finished college with the mass of practical information and +training that was stored away in Samuel Clemens's head, or with his +knowledge of human nature, his preparation for battle with the world. + +"Not only was he a pilot, but a good one." These are Horace Bixby's +words, and he added: + +"It is the fashion to-day to disparage Sam's piloting. Men who were born +since he was on the river and never saw him will tell you that Sam was +never much of a pilot. Most of them will tell you that he was never a +pilot at all. As a matter of fact, Sam was a fine pilot, and in a day +when piloting on the Mississippi required a great deal more brains and +skill and application than it does now. There were no signal-lights +along the shore in those days, and no search-lights on the vessels; +everything was blind, and on a dark, misty night in a river full of snags +and shifting sand--bars and changing shores, a pilot's judgment had to be +founded on absolute certainty." + +He had plenty of money now. He could help his mother with a liberal +hand, and he did it. He helped Orion, too, with money and with advice. +From a letter written toward the end of the year, we gather the new +conditions. Orion would seem to have been lamenting over prospects, and +the young pilot, strong and exalted in his new estate, urges him to +renewed consistent effort: + + What is a government without energy?--[he says]--. And what is a + man without energy? Nothing--nothing at all. What is the grandest + thing in "Paradise Lost"--the Arch-Fiend's terrible energy! What + was the greatest feature in Napoleon's character? His unconquerable + energy! Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our + greatest share of admiration to his energy. And to-day, if I were a + heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy, and fall down and worship + it! + + I want a man to--I want you to--take up a line of action, and follow + it out, in spite of the very devil. + +Orion and his wife had returned to Keokuk by this time, waiting for +something in the way of a business opportunity. + +His pilot brother, wrote him more than once letters of encouragement and +council. Here and there he refers to the tragedy of Henry's death, and +the shadow it has cast upon his life; but he was young, he was +successful, his spirits were naturally exuberant. In the exhilaration of +youth and health and success he finds vent at times in that natural human +outlet, self-approval. He not only exhibits this weakness, but confesses +it with characteristic freedom. + + Putting all things together, I begin to think I am rather lucky than + otherwise--a notion which I was slow to take up. The other night I + was about to "round to" for a storm, but concluded that I could find + a smoother bank somewhere. I landed five miles below. The storm + came, passed away and did not injure us. Coming up, day before + yesterday, I looked at the spot I first chose, and half the trees on + the bank were torn to shreds. We couldn't have lived 5 minutes in + such a tornado. And I am also lucky in having a berth, while all + the other young pilots are idle. This is the luckiest circumstance + that ever befell me. Not on account of the wages--for that is a + secondary consideration-but from the fact that the City of Memphis + is the largest boat in the trade, and the hardest to pilot, and + consequently I can get a reputation on her, which is a thing I never + could accomplish on a transient boat. I can "bank" in the + neighborhood of $100 a month on her, and that will satisfy me for + the present (principally because the other youngsters are sucking + their fingers). Bless me! what a pleasure there is in revenge!--and + what vast respect Prosperity commands! Why, six months ago, I could + enter the "Rooms," and receive only the customary fraternal greeting + now they say, "Why, how are you, old fellow--when did you get in?" + + And the young pilots who use to tell me, patronizingly, that I could + never learn the river cannot keep from showing a little of their + chagrin at seeing me so far ahead of them. Permit me to "blow my + horn," for I derive a living pleasure from these things, and I must + confess that when I go to pay my dues, I rather like to let the + d---d rascals get a glimpse of a hundred-dollar bill peeping out + from amongst notes of smaller dimensions whose face I do not + exhibit! You will despise this egotism, but I tell you there is a + "stern joy" in it. + +We are dwelling on this period of Mark Twain's life, for it was a period +that perhaps more than any other influenced his future years. He became +completely saturated with the river its terms, its memories, its +influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of his +days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where before +he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner--now all in a +moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition +of his childhood had been realized--more than realized, for in that day +he had never dreamed of a boat or of an income of such stately +proportions. Of great personal popularity, and regarded as a safe pilot, +he had been given one of the largest, most difficult of boats. Single- +handed and alone he had fought his way into the company of kings. + +And we may pardon his vanity. He could hardly fail to feel his glory and +revel in it and wear it as a halo, perhaps, a little now and then in the +Association Rooms. To this day he is remembered as a figure there, +though we may believe, regardless of his own statement, that it was not +entirely because of his success. As the boys of Hannibal had gathered +around to listen when Sam Clemens began to speak, so we may be certain +that the pilots at St. Louis and New Orleans laid aside other things when +he had an observation to make or a tale to tell. + + He was much given to spinning yarns--[writes one associate of those + days]--so funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the + time his own face was perfectly sober. If he laughed at all, it + must have been inside. It would have killed his hearers to do that. + Occasionally some of his droll yarns would get into the papers. He + may have written them himself. + +Another riverman of those days has recalled a story he heard Sam Clemens +tell: + + We were speaking of presence of mind in accidents--we were always + talking of such things; then he said: + + "Boys, I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old + man leaned out of a four-story building calling for help. Everybody + in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders + weren't long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind--nobody but + me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I + threw the old man the end of it. He caught it and I told him to tie + it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down." + +This was one of the stories that got into print and traveled far. +Perhaps, as the old pilot suggests, he wrote some of them himself, for +Horace Bixby remembers that "Sam was always scribbling when not at the +wheel." + +But if he published any work in those river-days he did not acknowledge +it later--with one exception. The exception was not intended for +publication, either. It was a burlesque written for the amusement of his +immediate friends. He has told the story himself, more than once, but it +belongs here for the reason that some where out of the general +circumstance of it there originated a pseudonym, one day to become the +best-known in the hemispheres the name Mark Twain. + +That terse, positive, peremptory, dynamic pen-name was first used by an +old pilot named Isaiah Sellers--a sort of "oldest inhabitant" of the +river, who made the other pilots weary with the scope and antiquity of +his reminiscent knowledge. He contributed paragraphs of general +information and Nestorian opinions to the New Orleans Picayune, and +signed them "Mark Twain." They were quaintly egotistical in tone, +usually beginning: "My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New +Orleans," and reciting incidents and comparisons dating as far back as +1811. + +Captain Sellers naturally was regarded as fair game by the young pilots, +who amused themselves by imitating his manner and general attitude of +speech. But Clemens went further; he wrote at considerable length a +broadly burlesque imitation signed "Sergeant Fathom," with an +introduction which referred to the said Fathom as "one of the oldest cub +pilots on the river." The letter that followed related a perfectly +impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 by the steamer "the +old first Jubilee" with a "Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew." It is a +gem of its kind, and will bear reprint in full today.--[See Appendix B, +at the end of the last volume.] + +The burlesque delighted Bart Bowen, who was Clemens's pilot partner on +the Edward J. Gay at the time. He insisted on showing it to others and +finally upon printing it. Clemens was reluctant, but consented. It +appeared in the True Delta (May 8 or 9, 1859), and was widely and +boisterously enjoyed. + +It broke Captain Sellers's literary heart. He never contributed another +paragraph. Mark Twain always regretted the whole matter deeply, and his +own revival of the name was a sort of tribute to the old man he had +thoughtlessly wounded. If Captain Sellers has knowledge of material +matters now, he is probably satisfied; for these things brought to him, +and to the name he had chosen, what he could never himself have achieved +--immortality. + + + + + +XXVIII + +PILOTING AND PROPHECY + +Those who knew Samuel Clemens best in those days say that he was a +slender, fine-looking man, well dressed--even dandified--given to patent +leathers, blue serge, white duck, and fancy striped shirts. Old for his +years, he heightened his appearance at times by wearing his beard in the +atrocious mutton-chop fashion, then popular, but becoming to no one, +least of all to him. The pilots regarded him as a great reader-- +a student of history, travels, literature, and the sciences--a young man +whom it was an education as well as an entertainment to know. When not +at the wheel, he was likely to be reading or telling yarns in the +Association Rooms. + +He began the study of French one day when he passed a school of +languages, where three tongues, French, German, and Italian, were taught, +one in each of three rooms. The price was twenty-five dollars for one +language, or three for fifty dollars. The student was provided with a +set of cards for each room and supposed to walk from one apartment to +another, changing tongues at each threshold. With his unusual enthusiasm +and prodigality, the young pilot decided to take all three languages, but +after the first two or three round trips concluded that for the present +French would do. He did not return to the school, but kept his cards and +bought text-books. He must have studied pretty faithfully when he was +off watch and in port, for his river note-book contains a French +exercise, all neatly written, and it is from the Dialogues of Voltaire. + +This old note-book is interesting for other things. The notes are no +longer timid, hesitating memoranda, but vigorous records made with the +dash of assurance that comes from confidence and knowledge, and with the +authority of one in supreme command. Under the head of "2d high-water +trip--Jan., 1861--Alonzo Child," we have the story of a rising river with +its overflowing banks, its blind passages and cut-offs--all the +circumstance and uncertainty of change. + + Good deal of water all over Coles Creek Chute, 12 or 15 ft. bank-- + could have gone up shore above General Taylor's--too much drift.... + + Night--didn't run either 77 or 76 towheads--8 ft. bank on main shore + Ozark Chute.... + +And so on page after page of cryptographic memoranda. It means little +enough to the lay reader, yet one gets an impression somehow of the +swirling, turbulent water and a lonely figure in that high glassed-in +place peering into the dark for blind land-marks and possible dangers, +picking his way up the dim, hungry river of which he must know every foot +as well as a man knows the hall of his own home. All the qualifications +must come into play, then memory, judgment, courage, and the high art of +steering. "Steering is a very high, art," he says; "one must not keep a +rudder dragging across a boat's stern if he wants to get up the river +fast." + +He had an example of the perfection of this art one misty night on the +Alonzo Child. Nearly fifty years later, sitting on his veranda in the +dark, he recalled it. He said: + +"There was a pilot in those days by the name of Jack Leonard who was a +perfectly wonderful creature. I do not know that Jack knew anymore about +the river than most of us and perhaps could not read the water any +better, but he had a knack of steering away ahead of our ability, and I +think he must have had an eye that could see farther into the darkness. + +"I had never seen Leonard steer, but I had heard a good deal about it. I +had heard it said that the crankiest old tub afloat--one that would kill +any other man to handle--would obey and be as docile as a child when Jack +Leonard took the wheel. I had a chance one night to verify that for +myself. We were going up the river, and it was one of the nastiest +nights I ever saw. Besides that, the boat was loaded in such a way that +she steered very hard, and I was half blind and crazy trying to locate +the safe channel, and was pulling my arms out to keep her in it. It was +one of those nights when everything looks the same whichever way you +look: just two long lines where the sky comes down to the trees and where +the trees meet the water with all the trees precisely the same height-- +all planted on the same day, as one of the boys used to put it--and not a +thing to steer by except the knowledge in your head of the real shape of +the river. Some of the boats had what they call a 'night hawk' on the +jackstaff, a thing which you could see when it was in the right position +against the sky or the water, though it seldom was in the right position +and was generally pretty useless. + +"I was in a bad way that night and wondering how I could ever get through +it, when the pilot-house door opened, and Jack Leonard walked in. He was +a passenger that trip, and I had forgotten he was aboard. I was just +about in the worst place and was pulling the boat first one way, then +another, running the wheel backward and forward, and climbing it like a +squirrel. + +"'Sam,' he said, "let me take the wheel. Maybe I have been over this +place since you have.' + +"I didn't argue the question. Jack took the wheel, gave it a little turn +one way, then a little turn the other; that old boat settled down as +quietly as a lamb--went right along as if it had been broad daylight in a +river without snags, bars, bottom, or banks, or anything that one could +possibly hit. I never saw anything so beautiful. He stayed my watch out +for me, and I hope I was decently grateful. I have never forgotten it." + +The old note-book contained the record of many such nights as that; but +there were other nights, too, when the stars were blazing out, or when +the moon on the water made the river a wide mysterious way of speculative +dreams. He was always speculating; the planets and the remote suns were +always a marvel to him. A love of astronomy--the romance of it, its vast +distances, and its possibilities--began with those lonely river-watches +and never waned to his last day. For a time a great comet blazed in the +heavens, a "wonderful sheaf of light" that glorified his lonely watch. +Night after night he watched it as it developed and then grew dim, and he +read eagerly all the comet literature that came to his hand, then or +afterward. He speculated of many things: of life, death, the reason of +existence, of creation, the ways of Providence and Destiny. It was a +fruitful time for such meditation; out of such vigils grew those larger +philosophies that would find expression later, when the years had +conferred the magic gift of phrase. + +Life lay all ahead of him then, and during those still watches he must +have revolved many theories of how the future should be met and mastered. +In the old notebook there still remains a well-worn clipping, the words +of some unknown writer, which he had preserved and may have consulted as +a sort of creed. It is an interesting little document--a prophetic one, +the reader may concede: + + HOW TO TAKE LIFE.--Take it just as though it was--as it is--an + earnest, vital, and important affair. Take it as though you were + born to the task of performing a merry part in it--as though the + world had awaited for your coming. Take it as though it was a grand + opportunity to do and achieve, to carry forward great and good + schemes; to help and cheer a suffering, weary, it may be + heartbroken, brother. Now and then a man stands aside from the + crowd, labors earnestly, steadfastly, confidently, and straightway + becomes famous for wisdom, intellect, skill, greatness of some sort. + The world wonders, admires, idolizes, and it only illustrates what + others may do if they take hold of life with a purpose. The + miracle, or the power that elevates the few, is to be found in their + industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a + brave, determined spirit. + +The old note-book contains no record of disasters. Horace Bixby, who +should know, has declared: + +"Sam Clemens never had an accident either as a steersman or as a pilot, +except once when he got aground for a few hours in the bagasse (cane) +smoke, with no damage to anybody though of course there was some good +luck in that too, for the best pilots do not escape trouble, now and +then." + +Bixby and Clemens were together that winter on the Alonzo Child, and a +letter to Orion contains an account of great feasting which the two +enjoyed at a "French restaurant" in New Orleans--"dissipating on a ten- +dollar dinner--tell it not to Ma!"--where they had sheepshead fish, +oysters, birds, mushrooms, and what not, "after which the day was too far +gone to do anything." So it appears that he was not always reading +Macaulay or studying French and astronomy, but sometimes went frivoling +with his old chief, now his chum, always his dear friend. + +Another letter records a visit with Pamela to a picture-gallery in St. +Louis where was being exhibited Church's "Heart of the Andes." He +describes the picture in detail and with vast enthusiasm. + +"I have seen it several times," he concludes, "but it is always a new +picture--totally new--you seem to see nothing the second time that you +saw the first." + +Further along he tells of having taken his mother and the girls--his +cousin Ella Creel and another--for a trip down the river to New Orleans. + + Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls + for allowing me to embrace and kiss them--and she was horrified at + the 'schottische' as performed by Miss Castle and myself. She was + perfectly willing for me to dance until 12 o'clock at the imminent + peril of my going to sleep on the after-watch--but then she would + top off with a very inconsistent sermon on dancing in general; + ending with a terrific broadside aimed at that heresy of heresies, + the 'schottische'. + + I took Ma and the girls in a carriage round that portion of New + Orleans where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and, + although it was a blazing hot, dusty day, they seemed hugely + delighted. To use an expression which is commonly ignored in polite + society, they were "hell-bent" on stealing some of the luscious- + looking oranges from branches which overhung the fence, but I + restrained them. + +In another letter of this period we get a hint of the future Mark Twain. +It was written to John T. Moore, a young clerk on the John J. Roe. + + What a fool old Adam was. Had everything his own way; had succeeded + in gaining the love of the best-looking girl in the neighborhood, + but yet, unsatisfied with his conquest, he had to eat a miserable + little apple. Ah, John, if you had been in his place you would not + have eaten a mouthful of the apple--that is, if it had required any + exertion. I have noticed that you shun exertion. There comes in + the difference between us. I court exertion. I love work. Why, + sir, when I have a piece of work to perform, I go away to myself, + sit down in the shade, and muse over the coming enjoyment. + Sometimes I am so industrious that I muse too long. + +There remains another letter of this period--a sufficiently curious +document. There was in those days a famous New Orleans clairvoyant known +as Madame Caprell. Some of the' young pilot's friends. had visited her +and obtained what seemed to be satisfying results. From time to time +they had urged him to visit the fortune-teller, and one idle day he +concluded to make the experiment. As soon as he came away he wrote to +Orion in detail. + + She's a very pleasant little lady--rather pretty--about 28--say + 5 feet 2 1/4--would weigh 116--has black eyes and hair--is polite + and intelligent--used good language, and talks much faster than I + do. + + She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we + were alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. + Then she put her hands before her eyes a moment, and commenced + talking as if she had a good deal to say and not much time to say it + in. Something after this style: + + 'Madame.' Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the + water; but you should have been a lawyer--there is where your + talents lie; you might have distinguished yourself as an orator, or + as an editor--, you have written a great deal; you write well--but + you are rather out of practice; no matter--you will be in practice + some day; you have a superb constitution, and as excellent health as + any man in the world; you have great powers of endurance; in your + profession your strength holds out against the longest sieges + without flagging; still, the upper part of your lungs, the top of + them, is slightly affected--you must take care of yourself; you do + not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and you must stop + it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it, totally; then I can + almost promise you 86, when you will surely die; otherwise, look out + for 28, 31, 34, 47, and 65; be careful--for you are not of a long- + lived race, that is, on your father's side; you are the only healthy + member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like + the certainty of attaining to a great age--so, stop using tobacco, + and be careful of yourself.... In some respects you take after your + father, but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the + long-lived, energetic side of the house.... You never brought all + your energies to bear upon any subject but what you accomplished it + --for instance, you are self-made, self-educated. + + 'S. L. C.' Which proves nothing. + + 'Madame.' Don't interrupt. When you sought your present + occupation, you found a thousand obstacles in your way--obstacles + unknown--not even suspected by any save you and me, since you keep + such matter to yourself--but you fought your way, and hid the long + struggle under a mask of cheerfulness, which saved your friends + anxiety on your account. To do all this requires the qualities + which I have named. + + 'S. L. C.' You flatter well, Madame. + + 'Madame.' Don't interrupt. Up to within a short time you had + always lived from hand to mouth--now you are in easy circumstances-- + for which you need give credit to no one but yourself. The turning- + point in your life occurred in 1840-7-8. + + 'S. L. C.' Which was? + + 'Madame.' A death, perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and + made you what you are; it was always intended that you should make + yourself; therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as + early as it did. You will never die of water, although your career + upon it in the future seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You + will continue upon the water for some time yet; you will not retire + finally until ten years from now.... What is your brother's age? + 23--and a lawyer? and in pursuit of an office? Well, he stands a + better chance than the other two, and he may get it; he is too + visionary--is always flying off on a new hobby; this will never do-- + tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer--a very good lawyer--and a + fine speaker--is very popular and much respected, and makes many + friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their + confidence by displaying his instability of character.... The land + he has now will be very valuable after a while---- + + 'S. L. C.' Say 250 years hence, or thereabouts, Madame---- + + 'Madame.' No--less time--but never mind the land, that is a + secondary consideration--let him drop that for the present, and + devote himself to his business and politics with all his might, for + he must hold offices under Government.... + + After a while you will possess a good deal of property--retire at + the end of ten years--after which your pursuits will be literary-- + try the law--you will certainly succeed. I am done now. If you + have any questions to ask--ask them freely--and if it be in my + power, I will answer without reserve--without reserve. + + I asked a few questions of minor importance-paid her and left-under + the decided impression that going to the fortune-teller's was just + as good as going to the opera, and cost scarcely a trifle more-- + ergo, I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when + other amusements fail. Now isn't she the devil? That is to say, + isn't she a right smart little woman? + + When you want money, let Ma know, and she will send it. She and + Pamela are always fussing about change, so I sent them a hundred and + twenty quarters yesterday--fiddler's change enough to last till I + get back, I reckon. + SAM. + +In the light of preceding and subsequent events, we must confess that +Madame Caprell was "indeed a right smart little woman." She made +mistakes enough (the letter is not quoted in full), but when we remember +that she not only gave his profession at the moment, but at least +suggested his career for the future; that she approximated the year of +his father's death as the time when he was thrown upon the world; that +she admonished him against his besetting habit, tobacco; that she read. +minutely not only his characteristics, but his brother Orion's; that she +outlined the struggle in his conquest of the river; that she seemingly +had knowledge of Orion's legal bent and his connection with the Tennessee +land, all seems remarkable enough, supposing, of course, she had no +material means of acquiring knowledge--one can never know certainly about +such things. + + + + + +XXIX + +THE END OF PILOTING + +It is curious, however, that Madame Caprell, with clairvoyant vision, +should not have seen an important event then scarcely more than two +months distant: the breaking-out of the Civil War, with the closing of +the river and the end of Mark Twain's career as a pilot. Perhaps these +things were so near as to be "this side" the range of second sight. + +There had been plenty of war-talk, but few of the pilots believed that +war was really coming. Traveling that great commercial highway, the +river, with intercourse both of North and South, they did not believe +that any political differences would be allowed to interfere with the +nation's trade, or would be settled otherwise than on the street corners, +in the halls of legislation, and at the polls. True, several States, +including Louisiana, had declared the Union a failure and seceded; but +the majority of opinions were not clear as to how far a State had rights +in such a matter, or as to what the real meaning of secession might be. +Comparatively few believed it meant war. Samuel Clemens had no such +belief. His Madame Caprell letter bears date of February 6, 1861, yet +contains no mention of war or of any special excitement in New Orleans-- +no forebodings as to national conditions. + +Such things came soon enough: President Lincoln was inaugurated on the +4th of March, and six weeks later Fort Sumter was fired upon. Men began +to speak out then and to take sides. + +It was a momentous time in the Association Rooms. There were pilots who +would go with the Union; there were others who would go with the +Confederacy. Horace Bixby was one of the former, and in due time became +chief of the Union River Service. Another pilot named Montgomery (Samuel +Clemens had once steered for him) declared for the South, and later +commanded the Confederate Mississippi fleet. They were all good friends, +and their discussions, though warm, were not always acrimonious; but they +took sides. + +A good many were not very clear as to their opinions. Living both North +and South as they did, they saw various phases of the question and +divided their sympathies. Some were of one conviction one day and of +another the next. Samuel Clemens was of the less radical element. He +knew there was a good deal to be said for either cause; furthermore, he +was not then bloodthirsty. A pilot-house with its elevated position and +transparency seemed a poor place to be in when fighting was going on. + +"I'll think about it," he said. "I'm not very anxious to get up into a +glass perch and be shot at by either side. I'll go home and reflect on +the matter." + +He did not realize it, but he had made his last trip as a pilot. It is +rather curious that his final brief note-book entry should begin with his +future nom de plume--a memorandum of soundings--"mark twain," and should +end with the words "no lead." + +He went up the river as a passenger on a steamer named the Uncle Sam. +Zeb Leavenworth was one of the pilots, and Sam Clemens usually stood +watch with him. They heard war-talk all the way and saw preparations, +but they were not molested, though at Memphis they basely escaped the +blockade. At Cairo, Illinois, they saw soldiers drilling--troops later +commanded by Grant. The Uncle Sam came steaming up toward St. Louis, +those on board congratulating themselves on having come through +unscathed. They were not quite through, however. Abreast of Jefferson +Barracks they suddenly heard the boom of a cannon and saw a great whorl +of smoke drifting in their direction. They did not realize that it was a +signal--a thunderous halt--and kept straight on. Less than a minute +later there was another boom, and a shell exploded directly in front of +the pilot-house, breaking a lot of glass and destroying a good deal of +the upper decoration. Zeb Leavenworth fell back into a corner with a +yell. + +"Good Lord Almighty! Sam;" he said, "what do they mean by that?" + +Clemens stepped to the wheel and brought the boat around. "I guess they +want us to wait a minute, Zeb," he said. + +They were examined and passed. It was the last steamboat to make the +trip from New Orleans to St. Louis. Mark Twain's pilot-days were over. +He would have grieved had he known this fact. + +"I loved the profession far better than any I have followed since," he +long afterward declared, "and I took a measureless pride in it." + +The dreamy, easy, romantic existence suited him exactly. A sovereign and +an autocrat, the pilot's word was law; he wore his responsibilities as a +crown. As long as he lived Samuel Clemens would return to those old days +with fondness and affection, and with regret that they were no more. + + + + +XXX + +THE SOLDIER + +Clemens spent a few days in St. Louis (in retirement, for there was a +pressing war demand for Mississippi pilots), then went up to Hannibal to +visit old friends. They were glad enough to see him, and invited him to +join a company of gay military enthusiasts who were organizing to "help +Gov. 'Claib' Jackson repel the invader." A good many companies were +forming in and about Hannibal, and sometimes purposes were conflicting +and badly mixed. Some of the volunteers did not know for a time which +invader they intended to drive from Missouri soil, and more than one +company in the beginning was made up of young fellows whose chief +ambition was to have a lark regardless as to which cause they might +eventually espouse. + +--[The military organizations of Hannibal and Palmyra, in 1861, were as +follows: The Marion Artillery; the Silver Grays; Palmyra Guards; the W. +E. Dennis company, and one or two others. Most of them were small +private affairs, usually composed of about half-and-half Union and +Confederate men, who knew almost nothing of the questions or conditions, +and disbanded in a brief time, to attach themselves to the regular +service according as they developed convictions. The general idea of +these companies was a little camping-out expedition and a good time. One +such company one morning received unexpected reinforcements. They saw +the approach of the recruits, and, remarking how well drilled the new +arrivals seemed to be, mistook them for the enemy and fled.] + + +Samuel Clemens had by this time decided, like Lee, that he would go with +his State and lead battalions to victory. The "battalion" in this +instance consisted of a little squad of young fellows of his own age, +mostly pilots and schoolmates, including Sam Bowen, Ed Stevens, and Ab +Grimes, about a dozen, all told. They organized secretly, for the Union +militia was likely to come over from Illinois any time and look up any +suspicious armies that made an open demonstration. An army might lose +enthusiasm and prestige if it spent a night or two in the calaboose. + +So they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill, just as Tom Sawyer's +red-handed bandits had gathered so long before (a good many of them were +of the same lawless lot), and they planned how they would sell their +lives on the field of glory, just as Tom Sawyer's band might have done if +it had thought about playing "War," instead of "Indian" and "Pirate" and +"Bandit" with fierce raids on peach orchards and melon patches. Then, on +the evening before marching away, they stealthily called on their +sweethearts--those who had them did, and the others pretended sweethearts +for the occasion--and when it was dark and mysterious they said good-by +and suggested that maybe those girls would never see them again. And as +always happens in such a case, some of them were in earnest, and two or +three of the little group that slipped away that night never did come +back, and somewhere sleep in unmarked graves. + +The "two Sams"--Sam Bowen and Sam Clemens--called on Patty Gore and Julia +Willis for their good-by visit, and, when they left, invited the girls to +"walk through the pickets" with them, which they did as far as Bear Creek +Hill. The girls didn't notice any pickets, because the pickets were away +calling on girls, too, and probably wouldn't be back to begin picketing +for some time. So the girls stood there and watched the soldiers march +up Bear Creek Hill and disappear among the trees. + +The army had a good enough time that night, marching through the brush +and vines toward New London, though this sort of thing grew rather +monotonous by morning. When they took a look at themselves by daylight, +with their nondescript dress and accoutrements, there was some thing +about it all which appealed to one's sense of humor rather than to his +patriotism. Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, however, received them +cordially and made life happier for them with a good breakfast and some +encouraging words. He was authorized to administer the oath of office, +he said, and he proceeded to do it, and made them a speech besides; also +he sent out notice to some of the neighbors--to Col. Bill Splawn, Farmer +Nuck Matson, and others--that the community had an army on its hands and +perhaps ought to do something for it. This brought in a number of +contributions, provisions, paraphernalia, and certain superfluous horses +and mules, which converted the battalion into a cavalry, and made it +possible for it to move on to the front without further delay. Samuel +Clemens, mounted on a small yellow mule whose tail had been trimmed down +to a tassel at the end in a style that suggested his name, Paint Brush, +upholstered and supplemented with an extra pair of cowskin boots, a pair +of gray blankets, a home-made quilt, frying-pan, a carpet sack, a small +valise, an overcoat, an old-fashioned Kentucky rifle, twenty yards of +rope, and an umbrella, was a representative unit of the brigade. The +proper thing for an army loaded like that was to go into camp, and they +did it. They went over on Salt River, near Florida, and camped not far +from a farm-house with a big log stable; the latter they used as +headquarters. Somebody suggested that when they went into battle they +ought to have short hair, so that in a hand-to-hand conflict the enemy +could not get hold of it. Tom Lyon found a pair of sheep-shears in the +stable and acted as barber. They were not very sharp shears, but the +army stood the torture for glory in the field, and a group of little +darkies collected from the farm-house to enjoy the performance. The army +then elected its officers. William Ely was chosen captain, with Asa +Glasscock as first lieutenant. Samuel Clemens was then voted second +lieutenant, and there were sergeants and orderlies. There were only +three privates when the election was over, and these could not be +distinguished by their deportment. There was scarcely any discipline in +this army. + +Then it set in to rain. It rained by day and it rained by night. Salt +River rose until it was bank full and overflowed the bottoms. Twice +there was a false night alarm of the enemy approaching, and the battalion +went slopping through the mud and brush into the dark, picking out the +best way to retreat, plodding miserably back to camp when the alarm was +over. Once they fired a volley at a row of mullen stalks, waving on the +brow of a hill, and once a picket shot at his own horse that had got +loose and had wandered toward him in the dusk. + +The rank and file did not care for picket duty. Sam Bowen--ordered by +Lieutenant Clemens to go on guard one afternoon--denounced his superior +and had to be threatened with court-martial and death. Sam went finally, +but he sat in a hot open place and swore at the battalion and the war in +general, and finally went to sleep in the broiling sun. These things +began to tell on patriotism. Presently Lieutenant Clemens developed a +boil, and was obliged to make himself comfortable with some hay in a +horse-trough, where he lay most of the day, violently denouncing the war +and the fools that invented it. Then word came that "General" Tom +Harris, who was in command of the district, was stopping at a farmhouse +two miles away, living on the fat of the land. + +That settled it. Most of them knew Tom Harris, and they regarded his +neglect of them as perfidy. They broke camp without further ceremony. + +Lieutenant Clemens needed assistance to mount Paint Brush, and the little +mule refused to cross the river; so Ab Grimes took the coil of rope, +hitched one end of it to his own saddle and the other end to Paint +Brush's neck. Grimes was mounted on a big horse, and when he started it +was necessary for Paint Brush to follow. Arriving at the farther bank, +Grimes looked around, and was horrified to see that the end of the rope +led down in the water with no horse and rider in view. He spurred up the +bank, and the hat of Lieutenant Clemens and the ears of Paint Brush +appeared. + +"Ah," said Clemens, as he mopped his face, "do you know that little devil +waded all the way across?" + +A little beyond the river they met General Harris, who ordered them back +to camp. They admonished him to "go there himself." They said they had +been in that camp and knew all about it. They were going now where there +was food--real food and plenty of it. Then he begged them, but it was no +use. By and by they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A tall, bony +woman came to the door: + +"You're secesh, ain't you?" + +They acknowledged that they were defenders of the cause and that they +wanted to buy provisions. The request seemed to inflame her. + +"Provisions!" she screamed. "Provisions for secesh, and my husband a +colonel in the Union Army. You get out of here!" + +She reached for a hickory hoop-pole that stood by the door, and the army +moved on. When they arrived at Col. Bill Splawn's that night Colonel +Splawn and his family had gone to bed, and it seemed unwise to disturb +them. The hungry army camped in the barnyard and crept into the hay-loft +to sleep. Presently somebody yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been +smoking and started the hay. Lieutenant Clemens suddenly wakened, made a +quick rolling movement from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window +into the barnyard below. The rest of the army, startled into action, +seized the burning hay and pitched it out of the same window. The +lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he struck the ground, and his boil +was far from well, but when the burning hay descended he forgot his +disabilities. Literally and figuratively this was the final straw. With +a voice and vigor suited to the urgencies of the case, he made a spring +from under the burning stuff, flung off the remnants, and with them his +last vestige of interest in the war. The others, now that the fire was, +out, seemed to think the incident boisterously amusing. Whereupon the +lieutenant rose up and told them, collectively and individually, what he +thought of them; also he spoke of the war and the Confederacy, and of the +human race at large. They helped him in, then, for his ankle was +swelling badly. Next morning, when Colonel Splawn had given them a good +breakfast, the army set out for New London. + +But Lieutenant Clemens never got any farther than Nuck Matson's farm- +house. His ankle was so painful by that time that Mrs. Matson had him +put to bed, where he stayed for several weeks, recovering from the injury +and stress of war. A little negro boy was kept on watch for Union +detachments--they were passing pretty frequently now--and when one came +in sight the lieutenant was secluded until the danger passed. When he +was able to travel, he had had enough of war and the Confederacy. He +decided to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union abolitionist and +might lead him to mend his doctrines. + +As for the rest of the army, it was no longer a unit in the field. Its +members had drifted this way and that, some to return to their +occupations, some to continue in the trade of war. Sam Bowen is said to +have been caught by the Federal troops and put to sawing wood in the +stockade at Hannibal. Ab (A. C.) Grimes became a noted Confederate spy +and is still among those who have lived to furnish the details here set +down. Properly officered and disciplined, that detachment would have +made as brave soldiers as any. Military effectiveness is a matter of +leaders and tactics. + +Mark Twain's own Private History of a 'Campaign that Failed' is, of +course, built on this episode. He gives us a delicious account, even if +it does not strikingly resemble the occurrence. The story might have +been still better if he had not introduced the shooting of the soldier in +the dark. The incident was invented, of course, to present the real +horror of war, but it seems incongruous in this burlesque campaign, and, +to some extent at least, it missed fire in its intention. + +--[In a book recently published, Mark Twain's "nephew" is quoted as +authority for the statement that Mark Twain was detailed for river duty, +captured, and paroled, captured again, and confined in a tobacco- +warehouse in St. Louis, etc. Mark Twain had but one nephew: Samuel E. +Moffett, whose Biographical Sketch (vol. xxii, Mark Twain's Works) +contains no such statement; and nothing of the sort occurred.] + + + + +XXXI + +OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY + +When Madame Caprell prophesied that Orion Clemens would hold office under +government, she must have seen with true clairvoyant vision. The +inauguration of Abraham Lincoln brought Edward Bates into his Cabinet, +and Bates was Orion's friend. Orion applied for something, and got it. +James W. Nye had been appointed Territorial governor of Nevada, and Orion +was made Territorial secretary. You could strain a point and refer to +the office as "secretary of state," which was an imposing title. +Furthermore, the secretary would be acting governor in the governor's +absence, and there would be various subsidiary honors. When Lieutenant +Clemens arrived in Keokuk, Orion was in the first flush of his triumph +and needed only money to carry him to the scene of new endeavor. The +late lieutenant C. S. A. had accumulated money out of his pilot salary, +and there was no comfortable place just then in the active Middle West +for an officer of either army who had voluntarily retired from the +service. He agreed that if Orion would overlook his recent brief +defection from the Union and appoint him now as his (Orion's) secretary, +he would supply the funds for both overland passages, and they would +start with no unnecessary delay for a country so new that all human +beings, regardless of previous affiliations and convictions, were flung +into the common fusing-pot and recast in the general mold of pioneer. + +The offer was a boon to Orion. He was always eager to forgive, and the +money was vitally necessary. In the briefest possible time he had packed +his belongings, which included a large unabridged dictionary, and the +brothers were on their way to St. Louis for final leave-taking before +setting out for the great mysterious land of promise--the Pacific West. +From St. Louis they took the boat for St. Jo, whence the Overland stage +started, and for six days "plodded" up the shallow, muddy, snaggy +Missouri, a new experience for the pilot of the Father of Waters. + + In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Jo by land, + for she was walking most of the time, anyhow--climbing over reefs + and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. + The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was some + "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, + but I had the deep sagacity not to say so.'--['Roughing It'.]-- + +At St. Jo they paid one hundred and fifty dollars apiece for their stage +fare (with something extra for the dictionary), and on the twenty-sixth +of July, 1861, set out on that long, delightful trip behind sixteen +galloping horses--or mules--never stopping except for meals or to change +teams, heading steadily into the sunset, following it from horizon to +horizon over the billowy plains, across the snow-clad Rockies, covering +the seventeen hundred miles between St. Jo and Carson City (including a +two-day halt in Salt Lake City) in nineteen glorious days. What an +inspiration in such a trip! In 'Roughing It' he tells it all, and says: +"Even at this day it thrills me through and through to think of the life, +the gladness, and the wild sense of freedom that used to make the blood +dance in my face on those fine Overland mornings." + +The nights, with the uneven mail-bags for a bed and the bounding +dictionary for company, were less exhilarating; but then youth does not +mind. + + All things being now ready, stowed the uneasy dictionary where it + would lie as quiet as possible, and placed the water-canteen and + pistols where we could find them in the dark. Then we smoked a + final pipe and swapped a final yarn; after which we put the pipes, + tobacco, and bag of coin in snug holes and caves among the mail- + bags, and made the place as dark as the inside of a cow, as the + conductor phrased it in his picturesque way. It was certainly as + dark as any place could be--nothing was even dimly visible in it. + And finally we rolled ourselves up like silkworms, each person in + his own blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep. + +Youth loves that sort of thing, despite its inconvenience. And sometimes +the clatter of the pony-rider swept by in the night, carrying letters at +five dollars apiece and making the Overland trip in eight days; just a +quick beat of hoofs in the distance, a dash, and a hail from the +darkness, the beat of hoofs again, then only the rumble of the stage and +the even, swinging gallop of the mules. Sometimes they got a glimpse of +the ponyrider by day--a flash, as it were, as he sped by. And every +morning brought new scenery, new phases of frontier life, including, at +last, what was to them the strangest phase of all, Mormonism. + +They spent two wonderful days at Salt Lake City, that mysterious and +remote capital of the great American monarchy, who still flaunts her +lawless, orthodox creed the religion of David and Solomon--and thrives. +An obliging official made it his business to show them the city and the +life there, the result of which would be those amusing chapters in +'Roughing It' by and by. The Overland travelers set out refreshed from +Salt Lake City, and with a new supply of delicacies--ham, eggs, and +tobacco--things that make such a trip worth while. The author of +'Roughing It' assures us of this: + + Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after + these a pipe--an old, rank, delicious pipe--ham and eggs and + scenery, a "down-grade," a flying coach, a fragrant pipe, and a + contented heart--these make happiness. It is what all the ages have + struggled for. + +But one must read all the story of that long-ago trip. It was a trip so +well worth taking, so well worth recording, so well worth reading and +rereading to-day. We can only read of it now. The Overland stage long +ago made its last trip, and will not start any more. Even if it did, the +life and conditions, the very scenery itself, would not be the same. + + + + +XXXII + +THE PIONEER + +It was a hot, dusty August 14th that the stage reached Carson City and +drew up before the Ormsby Hotel. It was known that the Territorial +secretary was due to arrive; and something in the nature of a reception, +with refreshments and frontier hospitality, had been planned. Governor +Nye, formerly police commissioner in New York City, had arrived a short +time before, and with his party of retainers ("heelers" we would call +them now), had made an imposing entrance. Perhaps something of the sort +was expected with the advent of the secretary of state. Instead, the +committee saw two way-worn individuals climb down from the stage, +unkempt, unshorn--clothed in the roughest of frontier costume, the same +they had put on at St. Jo--dusty, grimy, slouchy, and weather-beaten with +long days of sun and storm and alkali desert dust. It is not likely +there were two more unprepossessing officials on the Pacific coast at +that moment than the newly arrived Territorial secretary and his brother: +Somebody identified them, and the committee melted away; the half-formed +plan of a banquet faded out and was not heard of again. Soap and water +and fresh garments worked a transformation; but that first impression had +been fatal to festivities of welcome. + +Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was a "wooden town," with a +population of two thousand souls. Its main street consisted of a few +blocks of small frame stores, some of which are still standing. In +'Roughing It' the author writes: + + In the middle of the town, opposite the stores, was a "Plaza," which + is native to all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains, a large, + unfenced, level vacancy with a Liberty Pole in it, and very useful + as a place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass-meetings, and + likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the Plaza + were faced by stores, offices, and stables. The rest of Carson City + was pretty scattering. + +One sees the place pretty clearly from this brief picture of his, but it +requires an extract from a letter written to his mother somewhat later to +populate it. The mineral excitement was at its height in those days of +the early sixties, and had brought together such a congress of nations as +only the greed for precious metal can assemble. The sidewalks and +streets of Carson, and the Plaza, thronged all day with a motley +aggregation--a museum of races, which it was an education merely to gaze +upon. Jane Clemens had required him to write everything just as it was-- +"no better and no worse." + + Well--[he says]--,"Gold Hill" sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down; + "Wild Cat" isn't worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in + gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble, + granite, chalk, plaster of Paris (gypsum), thieves, murderers, + desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, + Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpens; coyotes (pronounced ki-yo- + ties), poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a + gentleman say, the other day, that it was "the d---dest country + under the sun," and that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe + to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow + here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over + the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the + raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the + purest, most unadulterated and uncompromising sand, in which + infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage- + brush," ventures to grow. . . . I said we are situated in a flat, + sandy desert--true. And surrounded on all sides by such prodigious + mountains that when you look disdainfully down (from them) upon the + insignificant village of Carson, in that instant you are seized with + a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put the city in your + pocket, and walk off with it. + + As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but, + like that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe "they don't + run her now." + +Carson has been through several phases of change since this was written-- +for better and for worse. It is a thriving place in these later days, +and new farming conditions have improved the country roundabout. But it +was a desert outpost then, a catch-all for the human drift which every +whirlwind of discovery sweeps along. Gold and silver hunting and mine +speculations were the industries--gambling, drinking, and murder were the +diversions--of the Nevada capital. Politics developed in due course, +though whether as a business or a diversion is not clear at this time. + +The Clemens brothers took lodging with a genial Irishwoman, Mrs. Murphy, +a New York retainer of Governor Nye, who boarded the camp-followers.-- +[The Mrs, O'Flannigan of 'Roughing It'.]--This retinue had come in the +hope of Territorial pickings and mine adventure--soldiers of fortune they +were, and a good-natured lot all together. One of them, Bob Howland, a +nephew of the governor, attracted Samuel Clemens by his clean-cut manner +and commanding eye. + +"The man who has that eye doesn't need to go armed," he wrote later. "He +can move upon an armed desperado and quell him and take him a prisoner +without saying a single word." It was the same Bob Howland who would be +known by and by as the most fearless man in the Territory; who, as city +marshal of Aurora, kept that lawless camp in subjection, and, when the +friends of a lot of condemned outlaws were threatening an attack with +general massacre, sent the famous message to Governor Nye: "All quiet in +Aurora. Five men will be hung in an hour." And it was quiet, and the +programme was carried out. But this is a digression and somewhat +premature. + +Orion Clemens, anxious for laurels, established himself in the meager +fashion which he thought the government would approve; and his brother, +finding neither duties nor salary attached to his secondary position, +devoted himself mainly to the study of human nature as exhibited under +frontier conditions. Sometimes, when the nights were cool, he would +build a fire in the office stove, and, with Bob Howland and a few other +choice members of the "Brigade" gathered around, would tell river yarns +in that inimitable fashion which would win him devoted audiences all his +days. His river life had increased his natural languor of habit, and his +slow speech heightened the lazy impression which he was never unwilling +to convey. His hearers generally regarded him as an easygoing, indolent +good fellow with a love of humor--with talent, perhaps--but as one not +likely ever to set the world afire. They did not happen to think that +the same inclination which made them crowd about to listen and applaud +would one day win for him the attention of all mankind. + +Within a brief time Sam Clemens (he was never known as otherwise than +"Sam" among those pioneers) was about the most conspicuous figure on the +Carson streets. His great bushy head of auburn hair, his piercing, +twinkling eyes, his loose, lounging walk, his careless disorder of dress, +drew the immediate attention even of strangers; made them turn to look a +second time and then inquire as to his identity. + +He had quickly adapted himself to the frontier mode. Lately a river +sovereign and dandy, in fancy percales and patent leathers, he had become +the roughest of rough-clad pioneers, in rusty slouch hat, flannel shirt, +coarse trousers slopping half in and half out of the heavy cowskin boots +Always something of a barbarian in love with the loose habit of +unconvention, he went even further than others and became a sort of +paragon of disarray. The more energetic citizens of Carson did not +prophesy much for his future among them. Orion Clemens, with the stir +and bustle of the official new broom, earned their quick respect; but his +brother--well, they often saw him leaning for an hour or more at a time +against an awning support at the corner of King and Carson streets, +smoking a short clay pipe and staring drowsily at the human kaleidoscope +of the Plaza, scarcely changing his position, just watching, studying, +lost in contemplation--all of which was harmless enough, of course, but +how could any one ever get a return out of employment like that? + +Samuel Clemens did not catch the mining fever immediately; there was too +much to see at first to consider any special undertaking. The mere +coming to the frontier was for the present enough; he had no plans. His +chief purpose was to see the world beyond the Rockies, to derive from it +such amusement and profit as might fall in his way. The war would end, +by and by, and he would go back to the river, no doubt. He was already +not far from homesick for the "States" and his associations there. He +closed one letter: + + I heard a military band play "What Are the Wild Waves Saying" the + other night, and it brought Ella Creel and Belle (Stotts) across the + desert in an instant, for they sang the song in Orion's yard the + first time I ever heard it. It was like meeting an old friend. I + tell you I could have swallowed that whole band, trombone and all, + if such a compliment would have been any gratification to them. + +His friends contracted the mining mania; Bob Howland and Raish Phillips +went down to Aurora and acquired "feet" in mini-claims and wrote him +enthusiastic letters. With Captain Nye, the governor's brother, he +visited them and was presented with an interest which permitted him to +contribute an assessment every now and then toward the development of the +mine; but his enthusiasm still languished. + +He was interested more in the native riches above ground than in those +concealed under it. He had heard that the timber around Lake Bigler +(Tahoe) promised vast wealth which could be had for the asking. The lake +itself and the adjacent mountains were said to be beautiful beyond the +dream of art. He decided to locate a timber claim on its shores. + +He made the trip afoot with a young Ohio lad, John Kinney, and the +account of this trip as set down in 'Roughing It' is one of the best +things in the book. The lake proved all they had expected--more than +they expected; it was a veritable habitation of the gods, with its +delicious, winy atmosphere, its vast colonnades of pines, its measureless +depths of water, so clear that to drift on it was like floating high +aloft in mid-nothingness. They staked out a timber claim and made a +semblance of fencing it and of building a habitation, to comply with the +law; but their chief employment was a complete abandonment to the quiet +luxury of that dim solitude: wandering among the trees, lounging along +the shore, or drifting on that transparent, insubstantial sea. They did +not sleep in their house, he says: + +"It never occurred to us, for one thing; and, besides, it was built to +hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it." + +They lived by their camp-fire on the borders of the lake, and one day--it +was just at nightfall--it got away from them, fired the forest, and +destroyed their fence and habitation. His picture in 'Roughing It' of +the superb night spectacle, the mighty mountain conflagration reflected +in the waters of the lake, is splendidly vivid. The reader may wish to +compare it with this extract from a letter written to Pamela at the time. + + The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard- + bearers, as we called the tall, dead trees, wrapped in fire, and + waving their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we + could turn from the scene to the lake, and see every branch and leaf + and cataract of flame upon its banks perfectly reflected, as in a + gleaming, fiery mirror. The mighty roaring of the conflagration, + together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there + was no one within six miles of us), rendered the scene very + impressive. Occasionally one of us would remove his pipe from his + mouth and say, "Superb, magnificent!--beautifull--but--by the Lord + God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch to-night, + we'll never live till morning!" + +This is good writing too, but it lacks the fancy and the choice of +phrasing which would develop later. The fire ended their first excursion +to Tahoe, but they made others and located other claims--claims in which +the "folks at home, "Mr. Moffett, James Lampton, and others, were +included. It was the same James Lampton who would one day serve as a +model for Colonel Sellers. Evidently Samuel Clemens had a good opinion +of his business capacity in that earlier day, for he writes: + + This is just the country for cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe + it would take him six months to make $100,000 here if he had $3,000 + to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family, though. + +Further along in the same letter his own overflowing Seller's optimism +develops. + + Orion and I have confidence enough in this country to think that if + the war lets us alone we can make Mr. Moffett rich without its ever + costing him a cent or a particle of trouble. + +This letter bears date of October 25th, and from it we gather that a +certain interest in mining claims had by this time developed. + + We have got about 1,650 feet of mining ground, and, if it proves + good, Mr. Moffett's name will go in, and if not I can get "feet" for + him in the spring. + + You see, Pamela, the trouble does not consist in getting mining + ground--for there is plenty enough--but the money to work it with + after you get it. + +He refers to Pamela's two little children, his niece Annie and Baby Sam, +--[Samuel E. Moffett, in later life a well-known journalist and editor.] +--and promises to enter claims for them--timber claims probably--for he +was by no means sanguine as yet concerning the mines. That was a long +time ago. Tahoe land is sold by the lot, now, to summer residents. +Those claims would have been riches to-day, but they were all abandoned +presently, forgotten in the delirium which goes only with the pursuit of +precious ores. + + + + + +XXXIII + +THE PROSPECTOR + +It was not until early winter that Samuel Clemens got the real mining +infection. Everybody had it by that time; the miracle is that he had not +fallen an earlier victim. The wildest stories of sudden fortune were in +the air, some of them undoubtedly true. Men had gone to bed paupers, on +the verge of starvation, and awakened to find themselves millionaires. +Others had sold for a song claims that had been suddenly found to be +fairly stuffed with precious ores. Cart-loads of bricks--silver and +gold--daily drove through the streets. + +In the midst of these things reports came from the newly opened Humboldt +region--flamed up with a radiance that was fairly blinding. The papers +declared that Humboldt County "was the richest mineral region on God's +footstool." The mountains were said to be literally bursting with gold +and silver. A correspondent of the daily Territorial Enterprise fairly +wallowed in rhetoric, yet found words inadequate to paint the measureless +wealth of the Humboldt mines. No wonder those not already mad speedily +became so. No wonder Samuel Clemens, with his natural tendency to +speculative optimism, yielded to the epidemic and became as "frenzied as +the craziest." The air to him suddenly began to shimmer; all his +thoughts were of "leads" and "ledges" and "veins"; all his clouds had +silver linings; all his dreams were of gold. He joined an expedition at +once; he reproached himself bitterly for not having started earlier. + + Hurry was the word! We wasted no time. Our party consisted of four + persons--a blacksmith sixty years of age, two young lawyers, and + myself. We bought a wagon and two miserable old horses. We put + 1,800 pounds of provisions and mining tools in the wagon and drove + out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon. + +In a letter to his mother he states that besides provisions and mining +tools, their load consisted of certain luxuries viz., ten pounds of +killikinick, Watts's Hymns, fourteen decks of cards, Dombey and Son, a +cribbage-board, one small keg of lager-beer, and the "Carmina Sacra." + +The two young lawyers were A. W.(Gus) Oliver (Oliphant in 'Roughing It'), +and W. H. Clagget. Sam Clemens had known Billy Clagget as a law student +in Keokuk, and they were brought together now by this association. Both +Clagget and Oliver were promising young men, and would be heard from in +time. The blacksmith's name was Tillou (Ballou), a sturdy, honest soul +with a useful knowledge of mining and the repair of tools. There were +also two dogs in the party--a small curly-tailed mongrel, Curney, the +property of Mr. Tillou, and a young hound. The combination seemed a +strong one. + +It proved a weak one in the matter of horses. Oliver and Clemens had +furnished the team, and their selection had not been of the best. It was +two hundred miles to Humboldt, mostly across sand. The horses could not +drag their load and the miners too, so the miners got out. Then they +found it necessary to push. + + Not because we were fond of it, Ma--oh, no! but on Bunker's account. + Bunker was the "near" horse on the larboard side, named after the + attorney-general of this Territory. My horse--and I am sorry you do + not know him personally, Ma, for I feel toward him, sometimes, as if + he were a blood relation of our family--he is so lazy, you know--my + horse--I was going to say, was the "off" horse on the starboard + side. But it was on Bunker's account, principally, that we pushed + behind the wagon. In fact, Ma, that horse had something on his mind + all the way to Humboldt.--[S. L. C. to his mother. Published in + the Keokuk (Iowa) Gate city.]-- + +So they had to push, and most of that two hundred miles through snow and +sand storm they continued to push and swear and groan, sustained only by +the thought that they must arrive at last, when their troubles would all +be at an end, for they would be millionaires in a brief time and never +know want or fatigue any more. + +There were compensations: the camp-fire at night was cheerful, the food +satisfying. They bundled close under the blankets and, when it was too +cold to sleep, looked up at the stars, while the future entertainer of +kings would spin yarn after yarn that made his hearers forget their +discomforts. Judge Oliver, the last one of the party alive, in a recent +letter to the writer of this history, says: + + He was the life of the camp; but sometimes there would come a + reaction and he could hardly speak for a day or two. One day a pack + of wolves chased us, and the hound Sam speaks of never stopped to + look back till he reached the next station, many miles ahead. + +Judge Oliver adds that an Indian war had just ended, and that they +occasionally passed the charred ruin of a shack, and new graves: This was +disturbing enough. Then they came to that desolation of desolations, the +Alkali Desert, where the sand is of unknown depth, where the road is +strewn thickly with the carcasses of dead beasts of burden, the charred +remains of wagons, chains, bolts, and screws, which thirsty emigrants, +grown desperate, have thrown away in the grand hope of being able, when +less encumbered, to reach water. + +They traveled all day and night, pushing through that fierce, waterless +waste to reach camp on the other side. It was three o'clock in the +morning when they got across and dropped down utterly exhausted. Judge +Oliver in his letter tells what happened then: + + The sun was high in the heavens when we were aroused from our sleep + by a yelling band of Piute warriors. We were upon our feet in an + instant. The pictures of burning cabins and the lonely graves we + had passed were in our minds. Our scalps were still our own, and + not dangling from the belts of our visitors. Sam pulled himself + together, put his hand on his head as if to make sure he had not + been scalped, and then with his inimitable drawl said: "Boys, they + have left us our scalps. Let's give them all the flour and sugar + they ask for." And we did give them a good supply, for we were + grateful. + +They were eleven weary days pushing their wagon and team the two hundred +miles to Unionville, Humboldt County, arriving at last in a driving snow- +storm. Unionville consisted of eleven poor cabins built in the bottom of +a canon, five on one side and six facing them on the other. They were +poor, three-sided, one-room huts, the fourth side formed by the hill; the +roof, a spread of white cotton. Stones used to roll down on them +sometimes, and Mark Twain tells of live stock--specifically of a mule and +cow--that interrupted the patient, long-suffering Oliver, who was trying +to write poetry, and only complained when at last "an entire cow came +rolling down the hill, crashed through on the table, and made a shapeless +wreck of everything."--['The Innocents Abroad.'] + +Judge Oliver still does not complain; but he denies the cow. He says +there were no cows in Humboldt in those days, so perhaps it was only a +literary cow, though in any case it will long survive. Judge Oliver's +name will go down with it to posterity. + +In the letter which Samuel Clemens wrote home he tells of what they found +in Unionville. + + "National" there was selling at $50 per foot and assayed $2,496 per + ton at the mint in San Francisco. And the "Alda Nueva," "Peru," + "Delirio," "Congress," "Independent," and others were immensely rich + leads. And moreover, having winning ways with us, we could get + "feet" enough to make us all rich one of these days. + +"I confess with shame," says the author of 'Roughing It', "that I +expected to find masses of silver lying all about the ground." And he +adds that he slipped away from the cabin to find a claim on his own +account, and tells how he came staggering back under a load of golden +specimens; also how his specimens proved to be only worthless mica; and +how he learned that in mining nothing that glitters is gold. His account +in 'Roughing It' of the Humboldt mining experience is sufficiently good +history to make detail here unnecessary. Tillou instructed them in +prospecting, and in time they located a fairly promising claim. They +went to work on it with pick and shovel, then with drill and blasting- +powder. Then they gave it up + +"One week of this satisfied me. I resigned." + +They tried to tunnel, but soon resigned again. It was pleasanter to +prospect and locate and trade claims and acquire feet in every new ledge +than it was to dig-and about as profitable. The golden reports of +Humboldt had been based on assays of selected rich specimens, and were +mainly delirium and insanity. The Clemens-Clagget-Oliver-Tillou +combination never touched their claims again with pick and shovel, though +their faith, or at least their hope, in them did not immediately die. +Billy Clagget put out his shingle as notary public, and Gus Oliver put +out his as probate judge. Sam Clemens and Tillou, with a fat-witted, +arrogant Prussian named Pfersdoff (Ollendorf) set out for Carson City. +It is not certain what became of the wagon and team, or of the two dogs. + +The Carson travelers were water-bound at a tavern on the Carson River +(the scene of the "Arkansas" sketch), with a fighting, drinking lot. +Pfersdoff got them nearly drowned getting away, and finally succeeded in +getting them absolutely lost in the snow. The author of 'Roughing It' +tells us how they gave themselves up to die, and how each swore off +whatever he had in the way of an evil habit, how they cast their +tempters-tobacco, cards, and whisky-into the snow. He further tells us +how next morning, when they woke to find themselves alive, within a few +rods of a hostelry, they surreptitiously dug up those things again and, +deep in shame and luxury, resumed their fallen ways: It was the 29th of +January when they reached Carson City. They had been gone not quite two +months, one of which had been spent in travel. It was a brief period, +but it contained an episode, and it seemed like years. + + + + +XXXIV + +TERRITORIAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Meantime, the Territorial secretary had found difficulties in launching +the ship of state. There was no legislative hall in Carson City; and if +Abram Curry, one of the original owners of the celebrated Gould and Curry +mine--"Curry--old Curry--old Abe Curry," as he called himself--had not +tendered the use of a hall rent free, the first legislature would have +been obliged to "sit in the desert." Furthermore, Orion had met with +certain acute troubles of his own. The government at Washington had not +appreciated his economies in the matter of cheap office rental, and it +had stipulated the price which he was to pay for public printing and +various other services-prices fixed according to Eastern standards. +These prices did not obtain in Nevada, and when Orion, confident that +because of his other economies the comptroller would stretch a point and +allow the increased frontier tariff, he was met with the usual thick- +headed official lack of imagination, with the result that the excess paid +was deducted from his slender salary. With a man of less conscience this +condition would easily have been offset by another wherein other rates, +less arbitrary, would have been adjusted to negotiate the official +deficit. With Orion Clemens such a remedy was not even considered; +yielding, unstable, blown by every wind of influence though he was, +Orion's integrity was a rock. + +Governor Nye was among those who presently made this discovery. Old +politician that he was--former police commissioner of New York City--Nye +took care of his own problems in the customary manner. To him, politics +was simply a game--to be played to win. He was a popular, jovial man, +well liked and thought of, but he did not lie awake, as Orion did, +planning economies for the government, or how to make up excess charges +out of his salary. To him Nevada was simply a doorway to the United +States Senate, and in the mean time his brigade required official +recognition and perquisites. The governor found Orion Clemens an +impediment to this policy. Orion could not be brought to a proper +political understanding of "special bills and accounts," and relations +between the secretary of state and the governor were becoming strained. + +It was about this time that the man who had been potentate of the pilot- +house of a Mississippi River steamer returned from Humboldt. He was fond +of the governor, but he had still higher regard for the family integrity. +When he had heard Orion's troubled story, he called on Governor Nye and +delivered himself in his own fashion. In his former employments he had +acquired a vocabulary and moral backbone sufficient to his needs. We may +regret that no stenographic report was made of the interview. It would +be priceless now. But it is lost; we only know that Orion's rectitude +was not again assailed, and that curiously enough Governor Nye apparently +conceived a strong admiration and respect for his brother. + +Samuel Clemens, miner, remained but a brief time in Carson City--only +long enough to arrange for a new and more persistent venture. He did not +confess his Humboldt failure to his people; in fact, he had not as yet +confessed it to himself; his avowed purpose was to return to Humboldt +after a brief investigation of the Esmeralda mines. He had been paying +heavy assessments on his holdings there; and, with a knowledge of mining +gained at Unionville, he felt that his personal attention at Aurora might +be important. As a matter of fact, he was by this time fairly daft on +the subject of mines and mining, with the rest of the community for +company. + +His earlier praises of the wonders and climate of Tahoe had inspired his +sister Pamela, always frail, with a desire to visit that health-giving +land. Perhaps he felt that he recommended the country somewhat too +highly. + +"By George, Pamela," he said, "I begin to fear that I have invoked a +spirit of some kind or other, which I will find more than difficult to +allay." He proceeds to recommend California as a residence for any or +all of them, but he is clearly doubtful concerning Nevada. + + Some people are malicious enough to think that if the devil were set + at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada Territory, he would + come here and look sadly around awhile, and then get homesick and go + back to hell again .... Why, I have had my whiskers and mustaches + so full of alkali dust that you'd have thought I worked in a starch + factory and boarded in a flour barrel. + +But then he can no longer restrain his youth and optimism. How could he, +with a fortune so plainly in view? It was already in his grasp in +imagination; he was on the way home with it. + + I expect to return to St. Louis in July--per steamer. I don't say + that I will return then, or that I shall be able to do it--but I + expect to--you bet. I came down here from Humboldt, in order to + look after our Esmeralda interests. Yesterday, Bob Howland arrived + here, and I have had a talk with him. He owns with me in the + "Horatio and Derby" ledge. He says our tunnel is in 52 feet, and a + small stream of water has been struck, which bids fair to become a + "big thing" by the time the ledge is reached--sufficient to supply a + mill. Now, if you knew anything of the value of water here, you + would perceive at a glance that if the water should amount to 50 or + 100 inches, we wouldn't care whether school kept or not. If the + ledge should prove to be worthless, we'd sell the water for money + enough to give us quite a lift. But, you see, the ledge will not + prove to be worthless. We have located, near by, a fine site for a + mill, and when we strike the ledge, you know, we'll have a mill- + site, water-power, and payrock, all handy. Then we sha'n't care + whether we have capital or not. Mill folks will build us a mill, + and wait for their pay. If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike the + ledge in June--and if we do, I'll be home in July, you know. + +He pauses at this point for a paragraph of self-analysis--characteristic +and crystal-clear. + + So, just keep your clothes on, Pamela, until I come. Don't you know + that undemonstrated human calculations won't do to bet on? Don't + you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved nothing? Don't + you know that I have expended money in this country but have made + none myself? Don't you know that I have never held in my hands a + gold or silver bar that belonged to me? Don't you know that it's + all talk and no cider so far? Don't you know that people who always + feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them--who + have the organ of Hope preposterously developed--who are endowed + with an unconcealable sanguine temperament--who never feel concerned + about the price of corn--and who cannot, by any possibility, + discover any but the bright side of a picture--are very apt to go to + extremes and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power? + + But-but + In the bright lexicon of youth, + There is no such word as Fail-- + and I'll prove it! + +Whereupon, he lets himself go again, full-tilt: + + By George, if I just had a thousand dollars I'd be all right! Now + there's the "Horatio," for instance. There are five or six + shareholders in it, and I know I could buy half of their interests + at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth $50 per barrel and + they are pressed for money, but I am hard up myself, and can't buy-- + and in June they'll strike the ledge, and then "good-by canary." I + can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot! Think of + it! For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars, Madam- + and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum. + So it will be in Humboldt next summer. The boys will get pushed and + sell ground for a song that is worth a fortune. But I am at the + helm now. I have convinced Orion that he hasn't business talent + enough to carry on a peanut-stand, and he has solemnly promised me + that he will meddle no more with mining or other matters not + connected with the secretary's office. So, you see, if mines are to + be bought or sold, or tunnels run or shafts sunk, parties have to + come to me--and me only. I'm the "firm," you know. + +There are pages of this, all glowing with golden expectations and plans. +Ah, well! we have all written such letters home at one time and another- +of gold-mines of one form or another. + +He closes at last with a bit of pleasantry for his mother. + + Ma says: "It looks like a man can't hold public office and be + honest." Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can't hold public office + and be honest. Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion + to go about town stealing little things that happen to be lying + around loose. And I don't remember having heard him speak the truth + since we have been in Nevada. He even tries to prevail upon me to + do these things, Ma, but I wasn't brought up in that way, you know. + You showed the public what you could do in that line when you raised + me, Madam. But then you ought to have raised me first, so that + Orion could have had the benefit of my example. Do you know that he + stole all the stamps out of an 8-stamp quartz-mill one night, and + brought them home under his overcoat and hid them in the back room? + + + + +XXXV + +THE MINER + +He had about exhausted his own funds by this time, and it was necessary +that Orion should become the financier. The brothers owned their +Esmeralda claims in partnership, and it was agreed that Orion, out of his +modest depleted pay, should furnish the means, while the other would go +actively into the field and develop their riches. Neither had the +slightest doubt but that they would be millionaires presently, and both +were willing to struggle and starve for the few intervening weeks. + +It was February when the printer-pilot-miner arrived in Aurora, that +rough, turbulent camp of the Esmeralda district lying about one hundred +miles south of Carson City, on the edge of California, in the Sierra +slopes. Everything was frozen and covered with snow; but there was no +lack of excitement and prospecting and grabbing for "feet" in this ledge +and that, buried deep under the ice and drift. The new arrival camped +with Horatio Phillips (Raish), in a tiny cabin with a domestic roof (the +ruin of it still stands), and they cooked and bunked together and +combined their resources in a common fund. Bob Howland joined them +presently, and later an experienced miner, Calvin H. Higbie (Cal), one +day to be immortalized in the story of 'Roughing It' and in the +dedication of that book. Around the cabin stove they would gather, and +paw over their specimens, or test them with blow-pipe and "horn" spoon, +after which they would plan tunnels and figure estimates of prospective +wealth. Never mind if the food was poor and scanty, and the chill wind +came in everywhere, and the roof leaked like a filter; they were living +in a land where all the mountains were banked with nuggets, where all the +rivers ran gold. Bob Howland declared later that they used to go out at +night and gather up empty champagne-bottles and fruit-tins and pile them +in the rear of their cabin to convey to others the appearance of +affluence and high living. When they lacked for other employment and +were likely to be discouraged, the ex-pilot would "ride the bunk" and +smoke and, without money and without price, distribute riches more +valuable than any they would ever dig out of those Esmeralda Hills. At +other times he talked little or not at all, but sat in one corner and +wrote, wholly oblivious of his surroundings. They thought he was writing +letters, though letters were not many and only to Orion during this +period. It was the old literary impulse stirring again, the desire to +set things down for their own sake, the natural hunger for print. One or +two of his earlier letters home had found their way into a Keokuk paper-- +the 'Gate City'. Copies containing them had gone back to Orion, who had +shown them to a representative of the Territorial Enterprise, a young man +named Barstow, who thought them amusing. The Enterprise reprinted at +least one of these letters, or portions of it, and with this +encouragement the author of it sent an occasional contribution direct to +that paper over the pen-name "Josh." He did not care to sign his own +name. He was a miner who was soon to be a magnate; he had no desire to +be known as a camp scribbler. + +He received no pay for these offerings, and expected none. They were +sketches of a broadly burlesque sort, the robust horse-play kind of humor +that belongs to the frontier. They were not especially promising +efforts. One of them was about an old rackabones of a horse, a sort of +preliminary study for "Oahu," of the Sandwich Islands, or "Baalbec" and +"Jericho," of Syria. If any one had told him, or had told any reader of +this sketch, that the author of it was knocking at the door of the house +of fame such a person's judgment or sincerity would have been open to +doubt. Nevertheless, it was true, though the knock was timid and halting +and the summons to cross the threshold long delayed. + +A winter mining-camp is the most bleak and comfortless of places. The +saloon and gambling-house furnished the only real warmth and cheer. Our +Aurora miners would have been less than human, or more, if they had not +found diversion now and then in the happy harbors of sin. Once there was +a great ball given at a newly opened pavilion, and Sam Clemens is said to +have distinguished himself by his unrestrained and spontaneous enjoyment +of the tripping harmony. Cal Higbie, who was present, writes: + + In changing partners, whenever he saw a hand raised he would grasp + it with great pleasure and sail off into another set, oblivious to + his surroundings. Sometimes he would act as though there was no use + in trying to go right or to dance like other people, and with his + eyes closed he would do a hoe-down or a double-shuffle all alone, + talking to himself and saying that he never dreamed there was so + much pleasure to be obtained at a ball. It was all as natural as a + child's play. By the second set, all the ladies were falling over + themselves to get him for a partner, and most of the crowd, too full + of mirth to dance, were standing or sitting around, dying with + laughter. + +What a child he always was--always, to the very end? With the first +break of winter the excitement that had been fermenting and stewing +around camp stoves overflowed into the streets, washed up the gullies, +and assailed the hills. There came then a period of madness, beside +which the Humboldt excitement had been mere intoxication. Higbie says: + + It was amazing how wild the people became all over the Pacific + coast. In San Francisco and other large cities barbers, hack- + drivers, servant-girls, merchants, and nearly every class of people + would club together and send agents representing all the way from + $5,000 to $500,000 or more to buy mines. They would buy anything. + in the shape of quartz, whether it contained any mineral value or + not. + +The letters which went from the Aurora miner to Orion are humanly +documentary. They are likely to be staccato in their movement; they show +nervous haste in their composition, eagerness, and suppressed excitement; +they are not always coherent; they are seldom humorous, except in a +savage way; they are often profane; they are likely to be violent. Even +the handwriting has a terse look; the flourish of youth has gone out of +it. Altogether they reveal the tense anxiety of the gambling mania of +which mining is the ultimate form. An extract from a letter of April is +a fair exhibit: + + Work not yet begun on the "Horatio and Derby"--haven't seen it yet. + It is still in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks-- + strike the ledge in July: Guess it is good--worth from $30 to $50 a + foot in California.... + + Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim + on Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die. + + These mills here are not worth a d--n--except Clayton's--and it is + not in full working trim yet. + + Send me $40 or $50--by mail-immediately. I go to work to-morrow + with pick and shovel. Something's got to come, by G--, before I let + go here. + +By the end of April work had become active in the mines, though the snow +in places was still deep and the ground stony with frost. On the 28th he +writes: + + I have been at work all day blasting and digging, and d--ning one of + our new claims--"Dashaway"--which I don't think a great deal of, but + which I am willing to try. We are down, now, 10 or 12 a feet. We + are following down under the ledge, but not taking it out. If we + get up a windlass to-morrow we shall take out the ledge, and see + whether it is worth anything or not. + +It must have been hard work picking away at the flinty ledges in the +cold; and the "Dashaway" would seem to have proven a disappointment, for +there is no promising mention of it again. Instead, we hear of the +"Flyaway;" and "Annipolitan" and the "Live Yankee" and of a dozen +others, each of which holds out the beacon of hope for a little while and +then passes from notice forever. In May it is the "Monitor" that is sure +to bring affluence, though realization is no longer regarded as +immediate. + + To use a French expression, I have "got my d---d satisfy" at last. + Two years' time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything. + + Therefore we need fret and fume and worry and doubt no more, but + just lie still and put up with privation for six months. Perhaps 3 + months will "let us out." Then, if government refuses to pay the + rent on your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait + six weeks, anyhow, for a dividend--maybe longer--but that it will + come there is no shadow of a doubt. I have got the thing sifted + down to a dead moral certainty. I own one-eighth of the new + "Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company," and money can't buy a foot of it; + because I know it to contain our fortune. The ledge is six feet + wide, and one needs no glass to see gold and silver in it.... + + When you and I came out here we did not expect '63 or '64 to find us + rich men--and if that proposition had been made we would have + accepted it gladly. Now, it is made. I am willing, now, that + "Neary's tunnel" or anybody else's tunnel shall succeed. Some of + them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on hand in the + fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap chances + with any member of the tribe . . . . + +It is the same man who twenty-five years later would fasten his faith and +capital to a type-setting machine and refuse to exchange stock in it, +share for share, with the Mergenthaler linotype. He adds: + + But I have struck my tent in Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but + those which I can superintend myself. I am a citizen here now, and + I am satisfied, although Ratio and I are "strapped" and we haven't + three days' rations in the house.... I shall work the "Monitor" and + the other claims with my own hands. I prospected 3/4 of a pound of + "Monitor" yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and + got about 10 or 12 cents in gold and silver, besides the other half + of it which we spilt on the floor and didn't get.... + + I tried to break a handsome chunk from a huge piece of my darling + "Monitor" which we brought from the croppings yesterday, but it all + splintered up, and I send you the scraps. I call that "choice"--any + d---d fool would. + + Don't ask if it has been assayed, for it hasn't. It don't need it. + It is simply able to speak for itself. It is six feet wide on top, + and traversed through with veins whose color proclaims their worth. + + What the devil does a man want with any more feet when he owns in + the invincible bomb-proof "Monitor"? + +There is much more of this, and other such letters, most of them ending +with demands for money. The living, the tools, the blasting-powder, and +the help eat it up faster than Orion's salary can grow. + +"Send me $50 or $100, all you can spare; put away $150 subject to my +call--we shall need it soon for the tunnel." The letters are full of +such admonition, and Orion, more insane, if anything, than his brother, +is scraping his dollars and pennies together to keep the mines going. He +is constantly warned to buy no claims on his own account and promises +faithfully, but cannot resist now and then when luring baits are laid +before him, though such ventures invariably result in violent and profane +protests from Aurora. + +"The pick and shovel are the only claims I have any confidence in now," +the miner concludes, after one fierce outburst. "My back is sore, and my +hands are blistered with handling them to-day." + +But even the pick and shovel did not inspire confidence a little later. +He writes that the work goes slowly, very slowly, but that they still +hope to strike it some day. "But--if we strike it rich--I've lost my +guess, that's all." Then he adds: "Couldn't go on the hill to-day. It +snowed. It always snows here, I expect"; and the final heart-sick line, +"Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing at home?" + +This is midsummer, and snow still interferes with the work. One feels +the dreary uselessness of the quest. + +Yet resolution did not wholly die, or even enthusiasm. These things were +as recurrent as new prospects, which were plentiful enough. In a still +subsequent letter he declares that he will never look upon his mother's +face again, or his sister's, or get married, or revisit the "Banner +State," until he is a rich man, though there is less assurance than +desperation in the words. + +In 'Roughing It' the author tells us that, when flour had reached one +dollar a pound and he could no longer get the dollar, he abandoned mining +and went to milling "as a common laborer in a quartz-mill at ten dollars +a week." This statement requires modification. It was not entirely for +the money that he undertook the laborious task of washing "riffles" and +"screening tailings." The money was welcome enough, no doubt, but the +greater purpose was to learn refining, so that when his mines developed +he could establish his own mill and personally superintend the work. It +is like him to wish us to believe that he was obliged to give up being a +mining magnate to become a laborer in a quartz-mill, for there is a grim +humor in the confession. That he abandoned the milling experiment at the +end of a week is a true statement. He got a violent cold in the damp +place, and came near getting salivated, he says in a letter, "working in +the quicksilver and chemicals. I hardly think I shall try the experiment +again. It is a confining business, and I will not be confined for love +or money." + +As recreation after this trying experience, Higbie took him on a tour, +prospecting for the traditional "Cement Mine," a lost claim where, in a +deposit of cement rock, gold nuggets were said to be as thick as raisins +in a fruitcake. They did not find the mine, but they visited Mono Lake-- +that ghastly, lifeless alkali sea among the hills, which in 'Roughing It' +he has so vividly pictured. It was good to get away from the stress of +things; and they repeated the experiment. They made a walking trip to +Yosemite, carrying their packs, camping and fishing in that far, +tremendous isolation, which in those days few human beings had ever +visited at all. Such trips furnished a delicious respite from the +fevered struggle around tunnel and shaft. Amid mountain-peaks and giant +forests and by tumbling falls the quest for gold hardly seemed worth +while. More than once that summer he went alone into the wilderness to +find his balance and to get away entirely from humankind. + + + + +XXXVI + +LAST MINING DAYS + +It was late in July when he wrote: + + If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of + decom. (decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from + Wide West ledge a while ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a + company with 400 ft. in it, which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a + spur from the W. W.--our shaft is about 100 ft. from the W. W. + shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to sink 30 ft. We have sublet + to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for powder and sharpening + tools. + +This was the "Blind Lead" claim of Roughing It, but the episode as set +down in that book is somewhat dramatized. It is quite true that he +visited and nursed Captain Nye while Higbie was off following the +"Cement" 'ignus fatuus' and that the "Wide West" holdings were forfeited +through neglect. But if the loss was regarded as a heavy one, the +letters fail to show it. It is a matter of dispute to-day whether or not +the claim was ever of any value. A well-known California author--[Ella +Sterling Cummins, author of The Story of the Files, etc]--declares: + + No one need to fear that he ran any chance of being a millionaire + through the "Wide West" mine, for the writer, as a child, played + over that historic spot and saw only a shut-down mill and desolate + hole in the ground to mark the spot where over-hopeful men had sunk + thousands and thousands, that they never recovered. + +The "Blind Lead" episode, as related, is presumably a tale of what might +have happened--a possibility rather than an actuality. It is vividly +true in atmosphere, however, and forms a strong and natural climax for +closing the mining episode, while the literary privilege warrants any +liberties he may have taken for art's sake. + +In reality the close of his mining career was not sudden and spectacular; +it was a lingering close, a reluctant and gradual surrender. The "Josh" +letters to the Enterprise had awakened at least a measure of interest, +and Orion had not failed to identify their author when any promising +occasion offered; as a result certain tentative overtures had been made +for similar material. Orion eagerly communicated such chances, for the +money situation was becoming a desperate one. A letter from the Aurora +miner written near the end of July presents the situation very fully. An +extract or two will be sufficient: + + My debts are greater than I thought for--I bought $25 worth of + clothing and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe + about $45 or $50, and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in + the h--l I am going to live on something over $100 until October or + November is singular. The fact is, I must have something to do, and + that shortly, too.... Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or + to Marsh, and tell them I'll write as many letters a week as they + want for $10 a week. My board must be paid. Tell them I have + corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent and other papers--and the + Enterprise. + + If they want letters from here--who'll run from morning till night + collecting material cheaper? I'll write a short letter twice a + week, for the present for the 'Age', for $5 per week. Now it has + been a long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall + be a long time before I loaf another year. + +Nothing came of these possibilities, but about this time Barstow, of the +Enterprise, conferred with Joseph T. Goodman, editor and owner of the +paper, as to the advisability of adding the author of the "Josh" letters +to their local staff. Joe Goodman, who had as keen a literary perception +as any man that ever pitched a journalistic tent on the Pacific coast +(and there could be no higher praise than that), looked over the letters +and agreed with Barstow that the man who wrote them had "something in +him." Two of the sketches in particular he thought promising. One of +them was a burlesque report of an egotistical lecturer who was referred +to as "Professor Personal Pronoun." It closed by stating that it was +"impossible to print his lecture in full, as the type-cases had run out +of capital I's." But it was the other sketch which settled Goodman's +decision. It was also a burlesque report, this time of a Fourth-of-July +oration. It opened, "I was sired by the Great American Eagle and foaled +by a continental dam." This was followed by a string of stock patriotic +phrases absurdly arranged. But it was the opening itself that won +Goodman's heart. + +"That is the sort of thing we want," he said. "Write to him, Barstow, +and ask him if he wants to come up here." + +Barstow wrote, offering twenty-five dollars a week, a tempting sum. This +was at the end of July, 1862. + +In 'Roughing It' we are led to believe that the author regarded this as a +gift from heaven and accepted it straightaway. As a matter of fact, he +fasted and prayed a good while over the "call." To Orion he wrote +Barstow has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at +$25 a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail, if +possible. + +There was no desperate eagerness, you see, to break into literature, even +under those urgent conditions. It meant the surrender of all hope in the +mines, the confession of another failure. On August 7th he wrote again +to Orion. He had written to Barstow, he said, asking when they thought +he might be needed. He was playing for time to consider. + +Now, I shall leave at midnight to-night, alone and on foot, for a walk of +60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely +possible that mail facilities may prove infernally "slow." But do you +write Barstow that I have left here for a week or so, and in case he +should want me, he must write me here, or let me know through you. + +So he had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone. But +eight days later, when he had returned, there was still no decision. In +a letter to Pamela of this date he refers playfully to the discomforts of +his cabin and mentions a hope that he will spend the winter in San +Francisco; but there is no reference in it to any newspaper prospects-- +nor to the mines, for that matter. Phillips, Howland, and Higbie would +seem to have given up by this time, and he was camping with Dan Twing and +a dog, a combination amusingly described. It is a pleasant enough +letter, but the note of discouragement creeps in: + + I did think for a while of going home this fall--but when I found + that that was, and had been, the cherished intention and the darling + aspiration every year of these old care-worn Californians for twelve + weary years, I felt a little uncomfortable, so I stole a march on + Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall. This country + suits me, and it shall suit me whether or no. + +He was dying hard, desperately hard; how could he know, to paraphrase the +old form of Christian comfort, that his end as a miner would mean, in +another sphere, "a brighter resurrection" than even his rainbow +imagination could paint? + + + + +XXXVII + +THE NEW ESTATE + +It was the afternoon of a hot, dusty August day when a worn, travel- +stained pilgrim drifted laggingly into the office of the Virginia City +Enterprise, then in its new building on C Street, and, loosening a heavy +roll of blankets from his shoulders, dropped wearily into a chair. He +wore a rusty slouch hat, no coat, a faded blue flannel shirt, a Navy +revolver; his trousers were hanging on his boot tops. A tangle of +reddish-brown hair fell on his shoulders, and a mass of tawny beard, +dingy with alkali dust, dropped half-way to his waist. + +Aurora lay one hundred and thirty miles from Virginia. He had walked +that distance, carrying his heavy load. Editor Goodman was absent at the +moment, but the other proprietor, Denis E. McCarthy, signified that the +caller might state his errand. The wanderer regarded him with a far-away +look and said, absently and with deliberation: + +"My starboard leg seems to be unshipped. I'd like about one hundred +yards of line; I think I am falling to pieces." Then he added: "I want +to see Mr. Barstow, or Mr. Goodman. My name is Clemens, and I've come to +write for the paper." + +It was the master of the world's widest estate come to claim his kingdom: + +William Wright, who had won a wide celebrity on the Coast as Dan de +Quille, was in the editorial chair and took charge of the new arrival. +He was going on a trip to the States soon; it was mainly on this account +that the new man had been engaged. The "Josh" letters were very good, in +Dan's opinion; he gave their author a cordial welcome, and took him +around to his boarding-place. It was the beginning of an association +that continued during Samuel Clemens's stay in Virginia City and of a +friendship that lasted many years. + +The Territorial Enterprise was one of the most remarkable frontier papers +ever published. Its editor-in-chief, Joseph Goodman, was a man with rare +appreciation, wide human understanding, and a comprehensive newspaper +policy. Being a young man, he had no policy, in fact, beyond the general +purpose that his paper should be a forum for absolutely free speech, +provided any serious statement it contained was based upon knowledge. +His instructions to the new reporter were about as follows: + +"Never say we learn so and so, or it is rumored, or we understand so and +so; but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts; then speak out and +say it is so and so. In the one case you are likely to be shot, and in +the other you are pretty certain to be; but you will preserve the public +confidence." + +Goodman was not new to the West. He had come to California as a boy and +had been a miner, explorer, printer, and contributor by turns. Early in +'61, when the Comstock Lode--[Named for its discoverer, Henry T. P. +Comstock, a half-crazy miner, who realized very little from his +stupendous find.]--was new and Virginia in the first flush of its +monster boom, he and Denis McCarthy had scraped together a few dollars +and bought the paper. It had been a hand-to-hand struggle for a while, +but in a brief two years, from a starving sheet in a shanty the +Enterprise, with new building, new presses, and a corps of swift +compositors brought up from San Francisco, had become altogether +metropolitan, as well as the most widely considered paper on the Coast. +It had been borne upward by the Comstock tide, though its fearless, +picturesque utterance would have given it distinction anywhere. Goodman +himself was a fine, forceful writer, and Dan de Quille and R. M. Daggett +(afterward United States minister to Hawaii) were representative of +Enterprise men.--[The Comstock of that day became famous for its +journalism. Associated with the Virginia papers then or soon afterward +were such men as Tom Fitch (the silver-tongued orator), Alf Doten, W. J. +Forbes, C. C. Goodwin, H. R. Mighels, Clement T. Rice, Arthur McEwen, +and Sam Davis--a great array indeed for a new Territory.]-- + +Samuel Clemens fitted precisely into this group. He added the fresh, +rugged vigor of thought and expression that was the very essence of the +Comstock, which was like every other frontier mining-camp, only on a more +lavish, more overwhelming scale. + +There was no uncertainty about the Comstock; the silver and gold were +there. Flanking the foot of Mount Davidson, the towns of Gold Hill and +Virginia and the long street between were fairly underburrowed and +underpinned by the gigantic mining construction of that opulent lode +whose treasures were actually glutting the mineral markets of the world. +The streets overhead seethed and swarmed with miners, mine owners, and +adventurers--riotous, rollicking children of fortune, always ready to +drink and make merry, as eager in their pursuit of pleasure as of gold. +Comstockers would always laugh at a joke; the rougher the better. The +town of Virginia itself was just a huge joke to most of them. Everybody +had, money; everybody wanted to laugh and have a good time. The +Enterprise, "Comstock to the backbone," did what it could to help things +along. + +It was a sort of free ring, with every one for himself. Goodman let the +boys write and print in accordance with their own ideas and upon any +subject. Often they wrote of each other--squibs and burlesques, which +gratified the Comstock far more than mere news.--[The indifference to +'news' was noble--none the less so because it was so blissfully +unconscious. Editors Mark or Dan would dismiss a murder with a couple of +inches and sit down and fill up a column with a fancy sketch: "Arthur +McEwen"]--It was the proper class-room for Mark Twain, an encouraging +audience and free utterance: fortune could have devised nothing better +for him than that. + +He was peculiarly fitted for the position. Unspoiled humanity appealed +to him, and the Comstock presented human nature in its earliest landscape +forms. Furthermore, the Comstock was essentially optimistic--so was he; +any hole in the ground to him held a possible, even a probable, fortune. + +His pilot memory became a valuable asset in news-gathering. Remembering +marks, banks, sounding, and other river detail belonged apparently in the +same category of attainments as remembering items and localities of news. +He could travel all day without a note-book and at night reproduce the +day's budget or at least the picturesqueness of it, without error. He +was presently accounted a good reporter, except where statistics-- +measurements and figures--were concerned. These he gave "a lick and a +promise," according to De Quille, who wrote afterward of their +associations. De Quille says further: + + Mark and I agreed well in our work, which we divided when there was + a rush of events; but we often cruised in company, he taking the + items of news he could handle best, and I such as I felt competent + to work up. However, we wrote at the same table and frequently + helped each other with such suggestions as occurred to us during the + brief consultations we held in regard to the handling of any matters + of importance. Never was there an angry word between us in all the + time we worked together. + +De Quille tells how Clemens clipped items with a knife when there were no +scissors handy, and slashed through on the top of his desk, which in time +took on the semblance "of a huge polar star, spiritedly dashing forth a +thousand rays." + +The author of 'Roughing It' has given us a better picture of the Virginia +City of those days and his work there than any one else will ever write. +He has made us feel the general spirit of affluence that prevailed; how +the problem was not to get money, but to spend it; how "feet" in any one +of a hundred mines could be had for the asking; how such shares were +offered like apples or cigars or bonbons, as a natural matter of courtesy +when one happened to have his supply in view; how any one connected with +a newspaper would have stocks thrust upon him, and how in a brief time he +had acquired a trunk ful of such riches and usually had something to sell +when any of the claims made a stir on the market. He has told us of the +desperadoes and their trifling regard for human life, and preserved other +elemental characters of these prodigal days. The funeral of Buck Fanshaw +that amazing masterpiece--is a complete epitome of the social frontier. + +It would not be the part of wisdom to attempt another inclusive +presentation of Comstock conditions. We may only hope to add a few +details of history, justified now by time and circumstances, to +supplement the picture with certain data of personality preserved from +the drift of years. + + + + +XXXVIII + +ONE OF THE "STAFF" + +The new reporter found acquaintance easy. The office force was like one +family among which there was no line of caste. Proprietors, editors, and +printers were social equals; there was little ceremony among them--none +at all outside of the office.--["The paper went to press at two in the +morning, then all the staff and all the compositors gathered themselves +together in the composing-room and drank beer and sang the popular war- +songs of the day until dawn."--S. L. C., in 1908.]--Samuel Clemens +immediately became "Sam," or "Josh," to his associates, just as De Quille +was "Dan" and Goodman "Joe." He found that he disliked the name of Josh, +and, as he did not sign it again, it was presently dropped. The office, +and Virginia City generally, quickly grew fond of him, delighting in his +originality and measured speech. Enterprise readers began to identify +his work, then unsigned, and to enjoy its fresh phrasing, even when it +was only the usual local item or mining notice. True to its name and +reputation, the paper had added a new attraction. + +It was only a brief time after his arrival in Virginia City that Clemens +began the series of hoaxes which would carry his reputation, not always +in an enviable fashion, across the Sierras and down the Pacific coast. +With one exception these are lost to-day, for so far as known there is +not a single file of the Enterprise in existence. Only a few stray +copies and clippings are preserved, but we know the story of some of +these literary pranks and of their results. They were usually intended +as a special punishment of some particular individual or paper or +locality; but victims were gathered by the wholesale in their seductive +web. Mark Twain himself, in his book of Sketches, has set down something +concerning the first of these, "The Petrified Man," and of another, "My +Bloody Massacre," but in neither case has he told it all. "The Petrified +Man" hoax was directed at an official named Sewall, a coroner and justice +of the peace at Humboldt, who had been pompously indifferent in the +matter of supplying news. The story, told with great circumstance and +apparent care as to detail, related the finding of a petrified +prehistoric man, partially imbedded in a rock, in a cave in the desert +more than one hundred miles from Humboldt, and how Sewall had made the +perilous five-day journey in the alkali waste to hold an inquest over a +man that had been dead three hundred years; also how, "with that delicacy +so characteristic of him," Sewall had forbidden the miners from blasting +him from his position. The account further stated that the hands of the +deceased were arranged in a peculiar fashion; and the description of the +arrangement was so skilfully woven in with other matters that at first, +or even second, reading one might not see that the position indicated was +the ancient one which begins with the thumb at the nose and in many ages +has been used impolitely to express ridicule and the word "sold." But +the description was a shade too ingenious. The author expected that the +exchanges would see the jolt and perhaps assist in the fun he would have +with Sewall. He did not contemplate a joke on the papers themselves. As +a matter of fact, no one saw the "sell" and most of the papers printed +his story of the petrified man as a genuine discovery. This was a +surprise, and a momentary disappointment; then he realized that he had +builded better than he knew. He gathered up a bundle of the exchanges +and sent them to Sewall; also he sent marked copies to scientific men in +various parts of the United States. The papers had taken it seriously; +perhaps the scientists would. Some of them did, and Sewall's days became +unhappy because of letters received asking further information. As +literature, the effort did not rank high, and as a trick on an obscure +official it was hardly worth while; but, as a joke on the Coast exchanges +and press generally, it was greatly regarded and its author, though as +yet unnamed, acquired prestige. + +Inquiries began to be made as to who was the smart chap in Virginia that +did these things. The papers became wary and read Enterprise items twice +before clipping them. Clemens turned his attention to other matters to +lull suspicion. The great "Dutch Nick Massacre" did not follow until a +year later. + +Reference has already been made to the Comstock's delight in humor of a +positive sort. The practical joke was legal tender in Virginia. One +might protest and swear, but he must take it. An example of Comstock +humor, regarded as the finest assay, is an incident still told of Leslie +Blackburn and Pat Holland, two gay men about town. They were coming down +C Street one morning when they saw some fine watermelons on a fruit-stand +at the International Hotel corner. Watermelons were rare and costly in +that day and locality, and these were worth three dollars apiece. +Blackburn said: + +"Pat, let's get one of those watermelons. You engage that fellow in +conversation while I stand at the corner, where I can step around out of +sight easily. When you have got him interested, point to something on +the back shelf and pitch me a melon." + +This appealed to Holland, and he carried out his part of the plan +perfectly; but when he pitched the watermelon Blackburn simply put his +hands in his pockets, and stepped around the comer, leaving the melon a +fearful disaster on the pavement. It was almost impossible for Pat to +explain to the fruit-man why he pitched away a three-dollar melon like +that even after paying for it, and it was still more trying, also more +expensive, to explain to the boys facing the various bars along C Street. + +Sam Clemens, himself a practical joker in his youth, found a healthy +delight in this knock-down humor of the Comstock. It appealed to his +vigorous, elemental nature. He seldom indulged physically in such +things; but his printed squibs and hoaxes and his keen love of the +ridiculous placed him in the joker class, while his prompt temper, droll +manner, and rare gift of invective made him an enticing victim. + +Among the Enterprise compositors was one by the name of Stephen E. +Gillis (Steve, of course--one of the "fighting Gillises"), a small, +fearless young fellow, handsome, quick of wit, with eyes like needle- +points. + +"Steve weighed only ninety-five pounds," Mark Twain once wrote of him, +"but it was well known throughout the Territory that with his fists he +could whip anybody that walked on two legs, let his weight and science be +what they might." + +Clemens was fond of Steve Gillis from the first. The two became closely +associated in time, and were always bosom friends; but Steve was a +merciless joker, and never as long as they were together could he "resist +the temptation of making Sam swear," claiming that his profanity was +grander than any music. + +A word hereabout Mark Twain's profanity. Born with a matchless gift of +phrase, the printing-office, the river, and the mines had developed it in +a rare perfection. To hear him denounce a thing was to give one the +fierce, searching delight of galvanic waves. Every characterization +seemed the most perfect fit possible until he applied the next. And +somehow his profanity was seldom an offense. It was not mere idle +swearing; it seemed always genuine and serious. His selection of epithet +was always dignified and stately, from whatever source--and it might be +from the Bible or the gutter. Some one has defined dirt as misplaced +matter. It is perhaps the greatest definition ever uttered. It is +absolutely universal in its application, and it recurs now, remembering +Mark Twain's profanity. For it was rarely misplaced; hence it did not +often offend. It seemed, in fact, the safety-valve of his high-pressure +intellectual engine. When he had blown off he was always calm, gentle; +forgiving, and even tender. Once following an outburst he said, +placidly: + +"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate +circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer." + +It seems proper to add that it is not the purpose of this work to magnify +or modify or excuse that extreme example of humankind which forms its +chief subject; but to set him down as he was inadequately, of course, but +with good conscience and clear intent. + +Led by Steve Gillis, the Enterprise force used to devise tricks to set +him going. One of these was to hide articles from his desk. He detested +the work necessary to the care of a lamp, and wrote by the light of a +candle. To hide "Sam's candle" was a sure way to get prompt and vigorous +return. He would look for it a little; then he would begin a slow, +circular walk--a habit acquired in the limitations of the pilot-house-- +and his denunciation of the thieves was like a great orchestration of +wrong. By and by the office boy, supposedly innocent, would find another +for him, and all would be forgotten. He made a placard, labeled with +fearful threats and anathemas, warning any one against touching his +candle; but one night both the placard and the candle were gone. + +Now, amoung his Virginia acquaintances was a young minister, a Mr. +Rising, "the fragile, gentle new fledgling" of the Buck Fanshaw episode. +Clemens greatly admired Mr. Rising's evident sincerity, and the young +minister had quickly recognized the new reporter's superiority of mind. +Now and then he came to the office to call on him. Unfortunately, he +happened to step in just at that moment when, infuriated by the latest +theft of his property, Samuel Clemens was engaged in his rotary +denunciation of the criminals, oblivious of every other circumstance. +Mr. Rising stood spellbound by this, to him, new phase of genius, and at +last his friend became dimly aware of him. He did not halt in his +scathing treadmill and continued in the slow monotone of speech: + +"I know, Mr. Rising, I know it's wicked to talk like this; I know it is +wrong. I know I shall certainly go to hell for it. But if you had a +candle, Mr. Rising, and those thieves should carry it off every night, I +know that you would say, just as I say, Mr. Rising, G-d d--n their +impenitent souls, may they roast in hell for a million years." + +The little clergyman caught his breath. + +"Maybe I should, Mr. Clemens," he replied, "but I should try to say, +'Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.'" + +"Oh, well! if you put it on the ground that they are just fools, that +alters the case, as I am one of that class myself. Come in and we'll try +to forgive them and forget about it." + +Mark Twain had a good many experiences with young ministers. He was +always fond of them, and they often sought him out. Once, long +afterward, at a hotel, he wanted a boy to polish his shoes, and had rung +a number of times without getting any response. Presently, he thought he +heard somebody approaching in the hall outside. He flung open the door, +and a small, youngish-looking person, who seemed to have been hesitating +at the door, made a movement as though to depart hastily. Clemens +grabbed him by the collar. + +"Look here," he said, "I've been waiting and ringing here for half an +hour. Now I want you to take those shoes, and polish them, quick. Do +you hear?" + +The slim, youthful person trembled a good deal, and said: "I would, Mr. +Clemens, I would indeed, sir, if I could. But I'm a minister of the +Gospel, and I'm not prepared for such work." + + + + +XXXIX + +PHILOSOPHY AND POETRY + +There was a side to Samuel Clemens that in those days few of his +associates saw. This was the poetic, the philosophic, the contemplative +side. Joseph Goodman recognized this phase of his character, and, while +he perhaps did not regard it as a future literary asset, he delighted in +it, and in their hours of quiet association together encouraged its +exhibition. It is rather curious that with all his literary penetration +Goodman did not dream of a future celebrity for Clemens. He afterward +said: + +"If I had been asked to prophesy which of the two men, Dan de Quille or +Sam, would become distinguished, I should have said De Quille. Dan was +talented, industrious, and, for that time and place, brilliant. Of +course, I recognized the unusualness of Sam's gifts, but he was eccentric +and seemed to lack industry; it is not likely that I should have +prophesied fame for him then." + +Goodman, like MacFarlane in Cincinnati, half a dozen years before, though +by a different method, discovered and developed the deeper vein. Often +the two, dining together in a French restaurant, discussed life, subtler +philosophies, recalled various phases of human history, remembered and +recited the poems that gave them especial enjoyment. "The Burial of +Moses," with its noble phrasing and majestic imagery, appealed strongly +to Clemens, and he recited it with great power. The first stanza in +particular always stirred him, and it stirred his hearer as well. With +eyes half closed and chin lifted, a lighted cigar between his fingers, he +would lose himself in the music of the stately lines. + + By Nebo's lonely mountain, + On this side Jordan's wave, + In a vale in the land of Moab, + There lies a lonely grave. + + And no man knows that sepulchre, + And no man saw it e'er, + For the angels of God, upturned the sod, + And laid the dead man there. + +Another stanza that he cared for almost as much was the one beginning: + + And had he not high honor-- + The hill-side for a pall, + To lie in state while angels wait + With stars for tapers tall, + And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, + Over his bier to wave, + And God's own hand in that lonely land, + To lay him in the grave? + +Without doubt he was moved to emulate the simple grandeur of that poem, +for he often repeated it in those days, and somewhat later we find it +copied into his notebook in full. It would seem to have become to him a +sort of literary touchstone; and in some measure it may be regarded as +accountable for the fact that in the fullness of time "he made use of the +purest English of any modern writer." These are Goodman's words, though +William Dean Howells has said them, also, in substance, and Brander +Matthews, and many others who know about such things. Goodman adds, "The +simplicity and beauty of his style are almost without a parallel, except +in the common version of the Bible," which is also true. One is reminded +of what Macaulay said of Milton: + +"There would seem at first sight to be no more in his words than in other +words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced +than the past is present and the distance near. New forms of beauty +start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory +give up their dead." + +One drifts ahead, remembering these things. The triumph of words, the +mastery of phrases, lay all before him at the time of which we are +writing now. He was twenty-seven. At that age Rudyard Kipling had +reached his meridian. Samuel Clemens was still in the classroom. +Everything came as a lesson-phrase, form, aspect, and combination; +nothing escaped unvalued. The poetic phase of things particularly +impressed him. Once at a dinner with Goodman, when the lamp-light from +the chandelier struck down through the claret on the tablecloth in a +great red stain, he pointed to it dramatically "Look, Joe," he said, "the +angry tint of wine." + +It was at one of these private sessions, late in '62, that Clemens +proposed to report the coming meeting of the Carson legislature. He knew +nothing of such work and had small knowledge of parliamentary +proceedings. Formerly it had been done by a man named Gillespie, but +Gillespie was now clerk of the house. Goodman hesitated; then, +remembering that whether Clemens got the reports right or not, he would +at least make them readable, agreed to let him undertake the work. + + + + + +XL + +"MARK TWAIN" + +The early Nevada legislature was an interesting assembly. All State +legislatures are that, and this was a mining frontier. No attempt can be +made to describe it. It was chiefly distinguished for a large ignorance +of procedure, a wide latitude of speech, a noble appreciation of humor, +and plenty of brains. How fortunate Mask Twain was in his schooling, to +be kept away from institutional training, to be placed in one after +another of those universities of life where the sole curriculum is the +study of the native inclinations and activities of mankind! Sometimes, +in after-years, he used to regret the lack of systematic training. Well +for him--and for us--that he escaped that blight. + +For the study of human nature the Nevada assembly was a veritable +lecture-room. In it his understanding, his wit, his phrasing, his self- +assuredness grew like Jack's bean-stalk, which in time was ready to break +through into a land above the sky. He made some curious blunders in his +reports, in the beginning; but he was so frank in his ignorance and in +his confession of it that the very unsophistication of his early letters +became their chief charm. Gillespie coached him on parliamentary +matters, and in time the reports became technically as well as +artistically good. Clemens in return christened Gillespie "Young, +Jefferson's Manual," a title which he bore, rather proudly indeed, for +many years. + +Another "entitlement" growing out of those early reports, and possibly +less satisfactory to its owner, was the one accorded to Clement T. Rice, +of the Virginia City Union. Rice knew the legislative work perfectly and +concluded to poke fun at the Enterprise letters. + +But this was a mistake. Clemens in his next letter declared that Rice's +reports might be parliamentary enough, but that they covered with +glittering technicalities the most festering mass of misstatement, and +even crime. He avowed that they were wholly untrustworthy; dubbed the +author of them "The Unreliable," and in future letters never referred to +him by any other term. Carson and the Comstock and the papers of the +Coast delighted in this burlesque journalistic warfare, and Rice was "The +Unreliable" for life. + +Rice and Clemens, it should be said, though rivals, were the best of +friends, and there was never any real animosity between them. + +Clemens quickly became a favorite with the members; his sharp letters, +with their amusing turn of phrase and their sincerity, won general +friendship. Jack Simmons, speaker of the house, and Billy Clagget, the +Humboldt delegation, were his special cronies and kept him on the inside +of the political machine. Clagget had remained in Unionville after the +mining venture, warned his Keokuk sweetheart, and settled down into +politics and law. In due time he would become a leading light and go to +Congress. He was already a notable figure of forceful eloquence and +tousled, unkempt hair. Simmons, Clagget, and Clemens were easily the +three conspicuous figures of the session. + +It must have been gratifying to the former prospector and miner to come +back to Carson City a person of consequence, where less than a year +before he had been regarded as no more than an amusing indolent fellow, a +figure to smile at, but unimportant. There is a photograph extant of +Clemens and his friends Clagget and Simmons in a group, and we gather +from it that he now arrayed himself in a long broadcloth cloak, a +starched shirt, and polished boots. Once more he had become the glass of +fashion that he had been on the river. He made his residence with Orion, +whose wife and little daughter Jennie had by this time come out from the +States. "Sister Mollie," as wife of the acting governor, was presently +social leader of the little capital; her brilliant brother-in-law its +chief ornament. His merriment and songs and good nature made him a +favorite guest. His lines had fallen in pleasant places; he could afford +to smile at the hard Esmeralda days. + +He was not altogether satisfied. His letters, copied and quoted all +along the Coast, were unsigned. They were easily identified with one +another, but not with a personality. He realized that to build a +reputation it was necessary to fasten it to an individuality, a name. + +He gave the matter a good deal of thought. He did not consider the use +of his own name; the 'nom de plume' was the fashion of the time. He +wanted something brief, crisp, definite, unforgettable. He tried over a +good many combinations in his mind, but none seemed convincing. Just +then--this was early in 1863--news came to him that the old pilot he had +wounded by his satire, Isaiah Sellers, was dead. At once the pen-name of +Captain Sellers recurred to him. That was it; that was the sort of name +he wanted. It was not trivial; it had all the qualities--Sellers would +never need it again. Clemens decided he would give it a new meaning and +new association in this far-away land. He went up to Virginia City. + +"Joe," he said, to Goodman, "I want to sign my articles. I want to be +identified to a wider audience." + +"All right, Sam. What name do you want to use 'Josh'?" + +"No, I want to sign them 'Mark Twain.' It is an old river term, a leads- +man's call, signifying two fathoms--twelve feet. It has a richness about +it; it was always a pleasant sound for a pilot to hear on a dark night; +it meant safe water." + +He did not then mention that Captain Isaiah Sellers had used and dropped +the name. He was ashamed of his part in that episode, and the offense +was still too recent for confession. Goodman considered a moment: + +"Very well, Sam," he said, "that sounds like a good name." + +It was indeed a good name. In all the nomenclature of the world no more +forceful combination of words could have been selected to express the man +for whom they stood. The name Mark Twain is as infinite, as fundamental +as that of John Smith, without the latter's wasting distribution of +strength. If all the prestige in the name of John Smith were combined in +a single individual, its dynamic energy might give it the carrying power +of Mark Twain. Let this be as it may, it has proven the greatest 'nom de +plume' ever chosen--a name exactly in accord with the man, his work, and +his career. + +It is not surprising that Goodman did not recognize this at the moment. +We should not guess the force that lies in a twelve-inch shell if we had +never seen one before or heard of its seismic destruction. We should +have to wait and see it fired, and take account of the result. + +It was first signed to a Carson letter bearing date of February 2, 1863, +and from that time was attached to all Samuel Clemens's work. The work +was neither better nor worse than before, but it had suddenly acquired +identification and special interest. Members of the legislature and +friends in Virginia and Carson immediately began to address him as +"Mark." The papers of the Coast took it up, and within a period to be +measured by weeks he was no longer "Sam" or "Clemens" or "that bright +chap on the Enterprise," but "Mark"--"Mark Twain." No 'nom de plume' was +ever so quickly and generally accepted as that. De Quille, returning +from the East after an absence of several months, found his room and +deskmate with the distinction of a new name and fame. + +It is curious that in the letters to the home folks preserved from that +period there is no mention of his new title and its success. In fact, +the writer rarely speaks of his work at all, and is more inclined to tell +of the mining shares he has accumulated, their present and prospective +values. However, many of the letters are undoubtedly missing. Such as +have been preserved are rather airy epistles full of his abounding joy of +life and good nature. Also they bear evidence of the renewal of his old +river habit of sending money home--twenty dollars in each letter, with +intervals of a week or so between. + + + + +XLI + +THE CREAM OF COMSTOCK HUMOR + +With the adjournment of the legislature, Samuel Clemens returned to +Virginia City distinctly a notability--Mark Twain. He was regarded as +leading man on the Enterprise--which in itself was high distinction on +the Comstock--while his improved dress and increased prosperity commanded +additional respect. When visitors of note came along--well-known actors, +lecturers, politicians--he was introduced as one of the Comstock features +which it was proper to see, along with the Ophir and Gould and Curry +mines, and the new hundred-stamp quartz-mill. + +He was rather grieved and hurt, therefore, when, after several +collections had been taken up in the Enterprise office to present various +members of the staff with meerschaum pipes, none had come to him. He +mentioned this apparent slight to Steve Gillis: + +"Nobody ever gives me a meerschaum pipe," he said, plaintively. "Don't I +deserve one yet?" + +Unhappy day! To that remorseless creature, Steve Gillis, this was a +golden opportunity for deviltry of a kind that delighted his soul. This +is the story, precisely as Gillis himself told it to the writer of these +annals more than a generation later: + +"There was a German kept a cigar store in Virginia City and always had a +fine assortment of meerschaum pipes. These pipes usually cost anywhere +from forty to seventy-five dollars. + +"One day Denis McCarthy and I were walking by the old German's place, and +stopped to look in at the display in the window. Among other things +there was one large imitation meerschaum with a high bowl and a long +stem, marked a dollar and a half. + +"I decided that that would be just the pipe for Sam. We went in and +bought it, also a very much longer stem. I think the stem alone cost +three dollars. Then we had a little German-silver plate engraved with +Mark's name on it and by whom presented, and made preparations for the +presentation. Charlie Pope--[afterward proprietor of Pope's Theater, +St. Louis]--was playing at the Opera House at the time, and we engaged +him to make the presentation speech. + +"Then we let in Dan de Quille, Mark's closest friend, to act the part of +Judas--to tell Mark privately that he, was going to be presented with a +fine pipe, so that he could have a speech prepared in reply to Pope's. +It was awful low-down in Dan. We arranged to have the affair come off in +the saloon beneath the Opera House after the play was over. + +"Everything went off handsomely; but it was a pretty remorseful occasion, +and some of us had a hang-dog look; for Sam took it in such sincerity, +and had prepared one of the most beautiful speeches I ever heard him +make. Pope's presentation, too, was beautifully done. He told Sam how +his friends all loved him, and that this pipe, purchased at so great an +expense, was but a small token of their affection. But Sam's reply, +which was supposed to be impromptu, actually brought the tears to the +eyes of some of us, and he was interrupted every other minute with +applause. I never felt so sorry for anybody. + +"Still, we were bent on seeing the thing through. After Sam's speech was +finished, he ordered expensive wines--champagne and sparkling Moselle. +Then we went out to do the town, and kept things going until morning to +drown our sorrow. + +"Well, next day, of course, he started in to color the pipe. It wouldn't +color any more than a piece of chalk, which was about all it was. Sam +would smoke and smoke, and complain that it didn't seem to taste right, +and that it wouldn't color. Finally Denis said to him one day: + +"'Oh, Sam, don't you know that's just a damned old egg-shell, and that +the boys bought it for a dollar and a half and presented you with it for +a joke?' + +"Then Sam was furious, and we laid the whole thing on Dan de Quille. He +had a thunder-cloud on his face when he started up for the Local Room, +where Dan was. He went in and closed the door behind him, and locked it, +and put the key in his pocket--an awful sign. Dan was there alone, +writing at his table. + +"Sam said, 'Dan, did you know, when you invited me to make that speech, +that those fellows were going to give me a bogus pipe?' + +"There was no way for Dan to escape, and he confessed. Sam walked up and +down the floor, as if trying to decide which way to slay Dan. Finally he +said: + +"'Oh, Dan, to think that you, my dearest friend, who knew how little +money I had, and how hard I would work to prepare a speech that would +show my gratitude to my friends, should be the traitor, the Judas, to +betray me with a kiss! Dan, I never want to look on your face again. +You knew I would spend every dollar I had on those pirates when I +couldn't afford to spend anything; and yet you let me do it; you aided +and abetted their diabolical plan, and you even got me to get up that +damned speech to make the thing still more ridiculous.' + +"Of course Dan felt terribly, and tried to defend himself by saying that +they were really going to present him with a fine pipe--a genuine one, +this time. But Sam at first refused to be comforted; and when, a few +days later, I went in with the pipe and said, 'Sam, here's the pipe the +boys meant to give you all the time,' and tried to apologize, he looked +around a little coldly, and said: + +"'Is that another of those bogus old pipes?' + +"He accepted it, though, and general peace was restored. One day, soon +after, he said to me: + +"'Steve, do you know that I think that that bogus pipe smokes about as +well as the good one?'" + +Many years later (this was in his home at Hartford, and Joe Goodman was +present) Mark Twain one day came upon the old imitation pipe. + +"Joe," he said, "that was a cruel, cruel trick the boys played on me; +but, for the feeling I had during the moment when they presented me with +that pipe and when Charlie Pope was making his speech and I was making my +reply to it--for the memory of that feeling, now, that pipe is more +precious to me than any pipe in the world!" + +Eighteen hundred and sixty-three was flood-tide on the Comstock. Every +mine was working full blast. Every mill was roaring and crunching, +turning out streams of silver and gold. A little while ago an old +resident wrote: + + When I close my eyes I hear again the respirations of hoisting- + engines and the roar of stamps; I can see the "camels" after + midnight packing in salt; I can see again the jam of teams on C + Street and hear the anathemas of the drivers--all the mighty work + that went on in order to lure the treasures from the deep chambers + of the great lode and to bring enlightenment to the desert. + +Those were lively times. In the midst of one of his letters home Mark +Twain interrupts himself to say: "I have just heard five pistol-shots +down the street--as such things are in my line, I will go and see about +it," and in a postscript added a few hours later: + + 5 A.M. The pistol-shot did its work well. One man, a Jackson + County Missourian, shot two of my friends (police officers) through + the heart--both died within three minutes. The murderer's name is + John Campbell. + +"Mark and I had our hands full," says De Quille, "and no grass grew under +our feet." In answer to some stray criticism of their policy, they +printed a sort of editorial manifesto: + + Our duty is to keep the universe thoroughly posted concerning + murders and street fights, and balls, and theaters, and pack-trains, + and churches, and lectures, and school-houses, and city military + affairs, and highway robberies, and Bible societies, and hay-wagons, + and the thousand other things which it is in the province of local + reporters to keep track of and magnify into undue importance for the + instruction of the readers of a great daily newspaper. + +It is easy to recognize Mark Twain's hand in that compendium of labor, +which, in spite of its amusing apposition, was literally true, and so +intended, probably with no special thought of humor in its construction. +It may be said, as well here as anywhere, that it was not Mark Twain's +habit to strive for humor. He saw facts at curious angles and phrased +them accordingly. In Virginia City he mingled with the turmoil of the +Comstock and set down what he saw and thought, in his native speech. The +Comstock, ready to laugh, found delight in his expression and discovered +a vast humor in his most earnest statements. + +On the other hand, there were times when the humor was intended and +missed its purpose. We have already recalled the instance of the +"Petrified Man" hoax, which was taken seriously; but the "Empire City +Massacre" burlesque found an acceptance that even its author considered +serious for a time. It is remembered to-day in Virginia City as the +chief incident of Mark Twain's Comstock career. + +This literary bomb really had two objects, one of which was to punish the +San Francisco Bulletin for its persistent attacks on Washoe interests; +the other, though this was merely incidental, to direct an unpleasant +attention to a certain Carson saloon, the Magnolia, which was supposed to +dispense whisky of the "forty rod" brand--that is, a liquor warranted to +kill at that range. It was the Bulletin that was to be made especially. +ridiculous. This paper had been particularly disagreeable concerning the +"dividend-cooking" system of certain of the Comstock mines, at the same +time calling invidious attention to safer investments in California +stocks. Samuel Clemens, with "half a trunkful" of Comstock shares, had +cultivated a distaste for California things in general: In a letter of +that time he says: + +"How I hate everything that looks or tastes or smells like California!" +With his customary fickleness of soul, he was glorifying California less +than a year later, but for the moment he could see no good in that +Nazareth. To his great satisfaction, one of the leading California +corporations, the Spring Valley Water Company, "cooked" a dividend of its +own about this time, resulting in disaster to a number of guileless +investors who were on the wrong side of the subsequent crash. This +afforded an inviting opportunity for reprisal. With Goodman's consent he +planned for the California papers, and the Bulletin in particular, a +punishment which he determined to make sufficiently severe. He believed +the papers of that State had forgotten his earlier offenses, and the +result would show he was not mistaken. + +There was a point on the Carson River, four miles from Carson City, known +as "Dutch Nick's," and also as Empire City, the two being identical. +There was no forest there of any sort nothing but sage-brush. In the one +cabin there lived a bachelor with no household. Everybody in Virginia +and Carson, of course, knew these things. + +Mark Twain now prepared a most lurid and graphic account of how one +Phillip Hopkins, living "just at the edge of the great pine forest which +lies between Empire City and 'Dutch Nick's'," had suddenly gone insane and +murderously assaulted his entire family consisting of his wife and their +nine children, ranging in ages from one to nineteen years. The wife had +been slain outright, also seven of the children; the other two might +recover. The murder had been committed in the most brutal and ghastly +fashion, after which Hopkins had scalped his wife, leaped on a horse, cut +his own throat from ear to ear, and ridden four miles into Carson City, +dropping dead at last in front of the Magnolia saloon, the red-haired +scalp of his wife still clutched in his gory hand. The article further +stated that the cause of Mr. Hopkins's insanity was pecuniary loss, he +having withdrawn his savings from safe Comstock investments and, through +the advice of a relative, one of the editors of the San Francisco +Bulletin, invested them in the Spring Valley Water Company. This absurd +tale with startling head-lines appeared in the Enterprise, in its issue +of October 28, 1863. + +It was not expected that any one in Virginia City or Carson City would +for a moment take any stock in the wild invention, yet so graphic was it +that nine out of ten on first reading never stopped to consider the +entire impossibility of the locality and circumstance. Even when these +things were pointed out many readers at first refused to confess +themselves sold. As for the Bulletin and other California papers, they +were taken-in completely, and were furious. Many of them wrote and +demanded the immediate discharge of its author, announcing that they +would never copy another line from the Enterprise, or exchange with it, +or have further relations with a paper that had Mark Twain on its staff. +Citizens were mad, too, and cut off their subscriptions. The joker was +in despair. + +"Oh, Joe," he said, "I have ruined your business, and the only reparation +I can make is to resign. You can never recover from this blow while I am +on the paper." + +"Nonsense," replied Goodman. "We can furnish the people with news, but +we can't supply them with sense. Only time can do that. The flurry will +pass. You just go ahead. We'll win out in the long run." + +But the offender was in torture; he could not sleep. "Dan, Dan," he +said, "I am being burned alive on both sides of the mountains." + +"Mark," said Dan. "It will all blow over. This item of yours will be +remembered and talked about when the rest of your Enterprise work is +forgotten." + +Both Goodman and De Quille were right. In a month papers and people had +forgotten their humiliation and laughed. "The Dutch Nick Massacre" gave +to its perpetrator and to the Enterprise an added vogue. + +--[For full text of the "Dutch Nick" hoax see Appendix C, at the end of +last volume: also, for an anecdote concerning a reporting excursion made +by Alf. Doten and Mark Twain.]-- + + + + +XLII + +REPORTORIAL DAYS + +Reference has already been made to the fashion among Virginia City papers +of permitting reporters to use the editorial columns for ridicule of one +another. This custom was especially in vogue during the period when Dan +de Quille and Mark Twain and The Unreliable were the shining journalistic +lights of the Comstock. Scarcely a week went by that some apparently +venomous squib or fling or long burlesque assault did not appear either +in the Union or the Enterprise, with one of those jokers as its author +and another as its target. In one of his "home" letters of that year +Mark Twain says: + + I have just finished writing up my report for the morning paper and + giving The Unreliable a column of advice about how to conduct + himself in church. + +The advice was such as to call for a reprisal, but it apparently made no +difference in personal relations, for a few weeks later he is with The +Unreliable in San Francisco, seeing life in the metropolis, fairly +swimming in its delights, unable to resist reporting them to his mother. + + We fag ourselves completely out every day and go to sleep without + rocking every night. When I go down Montgomery Street shaking hands + with Tom, Dick, and Harry, it is just like being on Main Street in + Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go back + to Washoe. We take trips across the bay to Oakland, and down to San + Leandro and Alameda, and we go out to the Willows and Hayes Park and + Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out on + a yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the + Pacific coast. Rice says: "Oh no--we are not having any fun, Mark-- + oh no--I reckon it's somebody else--it's probably the gentleman in + the wagon" (popular slang phrase), and when I invite Rice to the + Lick House to dinner the proprietor sends us champagne and claret, + and then we do put on the most disgusting airs. The Unreliable says + our caliber is too light--we can't stand it to be noticed. + +Three days later he adds that he is going sorrowfully "to the snows and +the deserts of Washoe," but that he has "lived like a lord to make up for +two years of privation." + +Twenty dollars is inclosed in each of these letters, probably as a bribe +to Jane Clemens to be lenient with his prodigalities, which in his +youthful love of display he could not bring himself to conceal. But +apparently the salve was futile, for in another letter, a month later, he +complains that his mother is "slinging insinuations" at him again, such +as "where did you get that money" and "the company I kept in San +Francisco." He explains: + + Why, I sold Wild Cat mining ground that was given me, and my credit + was always good at the bank for $2,000 or $3,000, and I never gamble + in any shape or manner, and never drink anything stronger than + claret and lager beer, which conduct is regarded as miraculously + temperate in this place. As for company, I went in the very best + company to be found in San Francisco. I always move in the best + society in Virginia and have a reputation to preserve. + +He closes by assuring her that he will be more careful in future and that +she need never fear but that he will keep her expenses paid. Then he +cannot refrain from adding one more item of his lavish life: + +"Put in my washing, and it costs me one hundred dollars a month to live." + +De Quille had not missed the opportunity of his comrade's absence to +payoff some old scores. At the end of the editorial column of the +Enterprise on the day following his departure he denounced the absent one +and his "protege," The Unreliable, after the intemperate fashion of the +day. + + It is to be regretted that such scrubs are ever permitted to visit + the bay, as the inevitable effect will be to destroy that exalted + opinion of the manners and morality of our people which was inspired + by the conduct of our senior editor--[which is to say, Dan + himself]--. + +The diatribe closed with a really graceful poem, and the whole was no +doubt highly regarded by the Enterprise readers. + +What revenge Mark Twain took on his return has not been recorded, but it +was probably prompt and adequate; or he may have left it to The +Unreliable. It was clearly a mistake, however, to leave his own local +work in the hands of that properly named person a little later. Clemens +was laid up with a cold, and Rice assured him on his sacred honor that he +would attend faithfully to the Enterprise locals, along with his own +Union items. He did this, but he had been nursing old injuries too long. +What was Mark Twain's amazement on looking over the Enterprise next +morning to find under the heading "Apologetic" a statement over his own +nom de plume, purporting to be an apology for all the sins of ridicule to +the various injured ones. + + To Mayor Arick, Hon. Wm. Stewart, Marshal Perry, Hon. J. B. Winters, + Mr. Olin, and Samuel Wetherill, besides a host of others whom we + have ridiculed from behind the shelter of our reportorial position, + we say to these gentlemen we acknowedge our faults, and, in all + weakness and humility upon our bended marrow bones, we ask their + forgiveness, promising that in future we will give them no cause for + anything but the best of feeling toward us. To "Young Wilson" and + The Unreliable (as we have wickedly termed them), we feel that no + apology we can make begins to atone for the many insults we have + given them. Toward these gentlemen we have been as mean as a man + could be--and we have always prided ourselves on this base quality. + We feel that we are the least of all humanity, as it were. We will + now go in sack-cloth and ashes for the next forty days. + +This in his own paper over his own signature was a body blow; but it had +the effect of curing his cold. He was back in the office forthwith, and +in the next morning's issue denounced his betrayer. + + We are to blame for giving The Unreliable an opportunity to + misrepresent us, and therefore refrain from repining to any great + extent at the result. We simply claim the right to deny the truth + of every statement made by him in yesterday's paper, to annul all + apologies he coined as coming from us, and to hold him up to public + commiseration as a reptile endowed with no more intellect, no more + cultivation, no more Christian principle than animates and adorns + the sportive jackass-rabbit of the Sierras. We have done. + +These were the things that enlivened Comstock journalism. Once in a +boxing bout Mark Twain got a blow on the nose which caused it to swell to +an unusual size and shape. He went out of town for a few days, during +which De Quille published an extravagant account of his misfortune, +describing the nose and dwelling on the absurdity of Mark Twain's ever +supposing himself to be a boxer. + +De Quille scored heavily with this item but his own doom was written. +Soon afterward he was out riding and was thrown from his horse and +bruised considerably. + +This was Mark's opportunity. He gave an account of Dan's disaster; then, +commenting, he said: + + The idea of a plebeian like Dan supposing he could ever ride a + horse! He! why, even the cats and the chickens laughed when they + saw him go by. Of course, he would be thrown off. Of course, any + well-bred horse wouldn't let a common, underbred person like Dan + stay on his back! When they gathered him up he was just a bag of + scraps, but they put him together, and you'll find him at his old + place in the Enterprise office next week, still laboring under the + delusion that he's a newspaper man. + +The author of 'Roughing It' tells of a literary periodical called the +Occidental, started in Virginia City by a Mr. F. This was the silver- +tongued Tom Fitch, of the Union, an able speaker and writer, vastly +popular on the Coast. Fitch came to Clemens one day and said he was +thinking of starting such a periodical and asked him what he thought of +the venture. Clemens said: + +"You would succeed if any one could, but start a flower-garden on the +desert of Sahara; set up hoisting-works on Mount Vesuvius for mining +sulphur; start a literary paper in Virginia City; h--l!" + +Which was a correct estimate of the situation, and the paper perished +with the third issue. It was of no consequence except that it contained +what was probably the first attempt at that modern literary abortion, the +composite novel. Also, it died too soon to publish Mark Twain's first +verses of any pretension, though still of modest merit--"The Aged Pilot +Man"--which were thereby saved for 'Roughing It.' + +Visiting Virginia now, it seems curious that any of these things could +have happened there. The Comstock has become little more than a memory; +Virginia and Gold Hill are so quiet, so voiceless, as to constitute +scarcely an echo of the past. The International Hotel, that once so +splendid edifice, through whose portals the tide of opulent life then +ebbed and flowed, is all but deserted now. One may wander at will +through its dingy corridors and among its faded fripperies, seeking in +vain for attendance or hospitality, the lavish welcome of a vanished day. +Those things were not lacking once, and the stream of wealth tossed up +and down the stair and billowed up C Street, an ebullient tide of metals +and men from which millionaires would be struck out, and individuals +known in national affairs. William M. Stewart who would one day become a +United States Senator, was there, an unnoticed unit; and John Mackay and +James G. Fair, one a senator by and by, and both millionaires, but poor +enough then--Fair with a pick on his shoulder and Mackay, too, at first, +though he presently became a mine superintendent. Once in those days +Mark Twain banteringly offered to trade businesses with Mackay. + +"No," Mackay said, "I can't trade. My business is not worth as much as +yours. I have never swindled anybody, and I don't intend to begin now." + +Neither of those men could dream that within ten years their names would +be international property; that in due course Nevada would propose +statues to their memory. + +Such things came out of the Comstock; such things spring out of every +turbulent frontier. + + + + +XLIII + +ARTEMUS WARD + +Madame Caprell's warning concerning Mark Twain's health at twenty-eight +would seem to have been justified. High-strung and neurotic, the strain +of newspaper work and the tumult of the Comstock had told on him. As in +later life, he was subject to bronchial colds, and more than once that +year he found it necessary to drop all work and rest for a time at +Steamboat Springs, a place near Virginia City, where there were boiling +springs and steaming fissures in the mountain-side, and a comfortable +hotel. He contributed from there sketches somewhat more literary in form +than any of his previous work. "Curing a Cold" is a more or less +exaggerated account of his ills. + + [Included in Sketches New and Old. "Information for the Million," + and "Advice to Good Little Girls," included in the "Jumping Frog" + Collection, 1867, but omitted from the Sketches, are also believed + to belong to this period.] + +A portion of a playful letter to his mother, written from the springs, +still exists. + + You have given my vanity a deadly thrust. Behold, I am prone to + boast of having the widest reputation as a local editor of any man + on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and tell me "if I + work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire to a place + on a big San Francisco daily some day." There's a comment on human + vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I + could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I + don't want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay me + what my place on the Enterprise is worth. If I were not naturally a + lazy, idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me + $20,000 a year. But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. I + lead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether school + keeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever + I go, be it on this side of the mountain or the other. And I am + proud to say I am the most conceited ass in the Territory. + + You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it--in reality + I'm not as old as I was when I was eighteen. + +Which was a true statement, so far as his general attitude was concerned. +At eighteen, in New York and Philadelphia, his letters had been grave, +reflective, advisory. Now they were mostly banter and froth, lightly +indifferent to the serious side of things, though perhaps only +pretendedly so, for the picture did look old. From the shock and +circumstance of his brother's death he--had never recovered. He was +barely twenty-eight. From the picture he might have been a man of forty. + +It was that year that Artemus Ward (Charles F. Browne) came to Virginia +City. There was a fine opera-house in Virginia, and any attraction that +billed San Francisco did not fail to play to the Comstock. Ward intended +staying only a few days to deliver his lectures, but the whirl of the +Comstock caught him like a maelstrom, and he remained three weeks. + +He made the Enterprise office his headquarters, and fairly reveled in the +company he found there. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Each +recognized in the other a kindred spirit. With Goodman, De Quille, and +McCarthy, also E. E. Hingston--Ward's agent, a companionable fellow--they +usually dined at Chaumond's, Virginia's high-toned French restaurant. + +Those were three memorable weeks in Mark Twain's life. Artemus Ward was +in the height of his fame, and he encouraged his new-found brother- +humorist and prophesied great things of him. Clemens, on his side, +measured himself by this man who had achieved fame, and perhaps with good +reason concluded that Ward's estimate was correct, that he too could win +fame and honor, once he got a start. If he had lacked ambition before +Ward's visit, the latter's unqualified approval inspired him with that +priceless article of equipment. He put his soul into entertaining the +visitor during those three weeks; and it was apparent to their associates +that he was at least Ward's equal in mental stature and originality. +Goodman and the others began to realize that for Mark Twain the rewards +of the future were to be measured only by his resolution and ability to +hold out. On Christmas eve Artemus lectured in Silver City and afterward +came to the Enterprise office to give the boys a farewell dinner. The +Enterprise always published a Christmas carol, and Goodman sat at his +desk writing it. He was just finishing as Ward came in: + +"Slave, slave," said Artemus. "Come out and let me banish care from +you." + +They got the boys and all went over to Chaumond's, where Ward commanded +Goodman to order the dinner. When the cocktails came on, Artemus lifted +his glass and said: + +"I give you Upper Canada." + +The company rose, drank the toast in serious silence; then Goodman said: + +"Of course, Artemus, it's all right, but why did you give us Upper +Canada?" + +"Because I don't want it myself," said Ward, gravely. + +Then began a rising tide of humor that could hardly be matched in the +world to-day. Mark Twain had awakened to a fuller power; Artemus Ward +was in his prime. They were giants of a race that became extinct when +Mark Twain died. The youth, the wine, the whirl of lights and life, the +tumult of the shouting street-it was as if an electric stream of +inspiration poured into those two human dynamos and sent them into a +dazzling, scintillating whirl. All gone--as evanescent, as forgotten, as +the lightnings of that vanished time; out of that vast feasting and +entertainment only a trifling morsel remains. Ward now and then asked +Goodman why he did not join in the banter. Goodman said: + +"I'm preparing a joke, Artemus, but I'm keeping it for the present." + +It was near daybreak when Ward at last called for the bill. It was two +hundred and thirty-seven dollars. + +"What"' exclaimed Artemus. + +"That's my joke." said Goodman. + +"But I was only exclaiming because it was not twice as much," returned +Ward. + +He paid it amid laughter, and they went out into the early morning air. +It was fresh and fine outside, not yet light enough to see clearly. +Artemus threw his face up to the sky and said: + +"I feel glorious. I feel like walking on the roofs." + +Virginia was built on the steep hillside, and the eaves of some of the +houses almost touched the ground behind them. + +"There is your chance, Artemus," Goodman said, pointing to a row of these +houses all about of a height. + +Artemus grabbed Mark Twain, and they stepped out upon the long string of +roofs and walked their full length, arm in arm. Presently the others +noticed a lonely policeman cocking his revolver and getting ready to aim +in their direction. Goodman called to him: + +"Wait a minute. What are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to shoot those burglars," he said. + +"Don't for your life. Those are not burglars. That's Mark Twain and +Artemus Ward." + +The roof-walkers returned, and the party went down the street to a corner +across from the International Hotel. A saloon was there with a barrel +lying in front, used, perhaps for a sort of sign. Artemus climbed +astride the barrel, and somebody brought a beer-glass and put it in his +hand. Virginia City looks out over the Eastward Desert. Morning was +just breaking upon the distant range-the scene as beautiful as when the +sunrise beams across the plain of Memnon. The city was not yet awake. +The only living creatures in sight were the group of belated diners, with +Artemus Ward, as King Gambrinus, pouring a libation to the sunrise. + +That was the beginning of a week of glory. The farewell dinner became a +series. At the close of one convivial session Artemus went to a concert- +hall, the "Melodeon," blacked his face, and delivered a speech. He got +away from Virginia about the close of the year. + +A day or two later he wrote from Austin, Nevada, to his new-found comrade +as "My dearest Love," recalling the happiness of his stay: + +"I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence, as +all others must or rather cannot be, as it were." + +Then reflectively he adds: + +"Some of the finest intellects in the world have been blunted by liquor." + +Rare Artemus Ward and rare Mark Twain! If there lies somewhere a place +of meeting and remembrance, they have not failed to recall there those +closing days of '63. + + + + +XLIV + +GOVERNOR OF THE "THIRD HOUSE" + +With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Clemens began to think of extending +his audience eastward. The New York Sunday Mercury published literary +matter. Ward had urged him to try this market, and promised to write a +special letter to the editors, introducing Mark Twain and his work. +Clemens prepared a sketch of the Comstock variety, scarcely refined in +character and full of personal allusion, a humor not suited to the +present-day reader. Its general subject was children; it contained some +absurd remedies, supposedly sent to his old pilot friend Zeb Leavenworth, +and was written as much for a joke on that good-natured soul as for +profit or reputation. + +"I wrote it especially for Beck Jolly's use," the author declares, in a +letter to his mother, "so he could pester Zeb with it." + +We cannot know to-day whether Zeb was pestered or not. A faded clipping +is all that remains of the incident. As literature the article, properly +enough, is lost to the world at large. It is only worth remembering as +his metropolitan beginning. Yet he must have thought rather highly of it +(his estimation of his own work was always unsafe), for in the letter +above quoted he adds: + + I cannot write regularly for the Mercury, of course, I sha'n't have + time. But sometimes I throw off a pearl (there is no self-conceit + about that, I beg you to observe) which ought for the eternal + welfare of my race to have a more extensive circulation than is + afforded by a local daily paper. + + And if Fitzhugh Ludlow (author of the 'Hasheesh Eater') comes your + way, treat him well. He published a high encomium upon Mark Twain + (the same being eminently just and truthful, I beseech you to + believe) in a San Francisco paper. Artemus Ward said that when my + gorgeous talents were publicly acknowledged by such high authority I + ought to appreciate them myself, leave sage-brush obscurity, and + journey to New York with him, as he wanted me to do. But I + preferred not to burst upon the New York public too suddenly and + brilliantly, so I concluded to remain here. + +He was in Carson City when this was written, preparing for the opening of +the next legislature. He was beyond question now the most conspicuous +figure of the capital; also the most wholesomely respected, for his +influence had become very large. It was said that he could control more +votes than any legislative member, and with his friends, Simmons and +Clagget, could pass or defeat any bill offered. The Enterprise was a +powerful organ--to be courted and dreaded--and Mark Twain had become its +chief tribune. That he was fearless, merciless, and incorruptible, +without doubt had a salutary influence on that legislative session. He +reveled in his power; but it is not recorded that he ever abused it. He +got a bill passed, largely increasing Orion's official fees, but this was +a crying need and was so recognized. He made no secret promises, none at +all that he did not intend to fulfill. "Sam's word was as fixed as +fate," Orion records, and it may be added that he was morally as +fearless. + +The two Houses of the last territorial legislature of Nevada assembled +January 12, 1864.--[Nevada became a State October 31, 1864.]-- + +A few days later a "Third House" was organized--an institution quite in +keeping with the happy atmosphere of that day and locality, for it was a +burlesque organization, and Mark Twain was selected as its "Governor." + +The new House prepared to make a public occasion of this first session, +and its Governor was required to furnish a message. Then it was decided +to make it a church benefit. The letters exchanged concerning this +proposition still exist; they explain themselves: + + CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864. + + GOV. MARK TWAIN, Understanding from certain members of the Third + House of the territorial Legislature that that body will have + effected a permanent organization within a day or two, and be ready + for the reception of your Third Annual Message,--[ There had been + no former message. This was regarded as a great joke.]--we desire + to ask your permission, and that of the Third House, to turn the + affair to the benefit of the Church by charging toll-roads, + franchises, and other persons a dollar apiece for the privilege of + listening to your communication. + S. PIXLEY, + G. A. SEARS, + Trustees. + + + CARSON CITY, January 23, 1864. + + GENTLEMEN,--Certainly. If the public can find anything in a grave + state paper worth paying a dollar for, I am willing they should pay + that amount, or any other; and although I am not a very dusty + Christian myself, I take an absorbing interest in religious affairs, + and would willingly inflict my annual message upon the Church itself + if it might derive benefit thereby. You can charge what you please; + I promise the public no amusement, but I do promise a reasonable + amount of instruction. I am responsible to the Third House only, + and I hope to be permitted to make it exceedingly warm for that + body, without caring whether the sympathies of the public and the + Church be enlisted in their favor, and against myself, or not. + Respectfully, + MARK TWAIN. + + +Mark Twain's reply is closely related to his later style in phrase and +thought. It might have been written by him at almost any subsequent +period. Perhaps his association with Artemus Ward had awakened a new +perception of the humorous idea--a humor of repression, of +understatement. He forgot this often enough, then and afterward, and +gave his riotous fancy free rein; but on the whole the simpler, less +florid form seemingly began to attract him more and more. + +His address as Governor of the Third House has not been preserved, but +those who attended always afterward referred to it as the "greatest +effort of his life." Perhaps for that audience and that time this +verdict was justified. + +It was his first great public opportunity. On the stage about him sat +the membership of the Third House; the building itself was packed, the +aisles full. He knew he could let himself go in burlesque and satire, +and he did. He was unsparing in his ridicule of the Governor, the +officials in general, the legislative members, and of individual +citizens. From the beginning to the end of his address the audience was +in a storm of laughter and applause. With the exception of the dinner +speech made to the printers in Keokuk, it was his first public utterance +--the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs. + +Only one thing marred his success. Little Carrie Pixley, daughter of one +of the "trustees," had promised to be present and sit in a box next the +stage. It was like him to be fond of the child, and he had promised to +send a carriage for her. Often during his address he glanced toward the +box; but it remained empty. When the affair was ended, he drove home +with her father to inquire the reason. They found the little girl, in +all her finery, weeping on the bed. Then he remembered he had forgotten +to send the carriage; and that was like him, too. + +For his Third House address Judge A. W. (Sandy) Baldwin and Theodore +Winters presented him with a gold watch inscribed to "Governor Mark +Twain." He was more in demand now than ever; no social occasion was +regarded as complete without him. His doings were related daily and his +sayings repeated on the streets. Most of these things have passed away +now, but a few are still recalled with smiles. Once, when conundrums +were being asked at a party, he was urged to make one. + +"Well," he sand, "why am I like the Pacific Ocean?" + +Several guesses were made, but none satisfied him. Finally all gave it +up. + +"Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?" + +"I don't know," he drawled. "I was just asking for information." + +At another time, when a young man insisted on singing a song of eternal +length, the chorus of which was, "I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm +going home tomorrow," Mark Twain put his head in the window and said, +pleadingly: + +"For God's sake go to-night." + +But he was also fond of quieter society. Sometimes, after the turmoil of +a legislative morning, he would drop in to Miss Keziah Clapp's school and +listen to the exercises, or would call on Colonel Curry--"old Curry, old +Abe Curry"--and if the colonel happened to be away, he would talk with +Mrs. Curry, a motherly soul (still alive at ninety-three, in 1910), and +tell her of his Hannibal boyhood or his river and his mining adventures, +and keep her laughing until the tears ran. + +He was a great pedestrian in those days. Sometimes he walked from +Virginia to Carson, stopping at Colonel Curry's as he came in for rest +and refreshment. + +"Mrs. Curry," he said once, "I have seen tireder men than I am, and +lazier men, but they were dead men." He liked the home feeling there-- +the peace and motherly interest. Deep down, he was lonely and homesick; +he was always so away from his own kindred. + +Clemens returned now to Virginia City, and, like all other men who ever +met her, became briefly fascinated by the charms of Adah Isaacs Menken, +who was playing Mazeppa at the Virginia Opera House. All men--kings, +poets, priests, prize-fighters--fell under Menken's spell. Dan de Quille +and Mark Twain entered into a daily contest as to who could lavish the +most fervid praise on her in the Enterprise. The latter carried her his +literary work to criticize. He confesses this in one of his home +letters, perhaps with a sort of pride. + +I took it over to show to Miss Menken the actress, Orpheus C. Ken's wife. +She is a literary cuss herself. + +She has a beautiful white hand, but her handwriting is infamous; she +writes fast and her chirography is of the door-plate order--her letters +are immense. I gave her a conundrum, thus: + +"My dear madam, why ought your hand to retain its present grace and +beauty always? Because you fool away devilish little of it on your +manuscript." + +But Menken was gone presently, and when he saw her again, somewhat later, +in San Francisco, his "madness" would have seemed to have been allayed. + + + + +XLV + +A COMSTOCK DUEL + +The success--such as it was--of his occasional contributions to the New +York Sunday Mercury stirred Mark Twain's ambition for a wider field of +labor. Circumstance, always ready to meet his wishes, offered +assistance, though in an unexpected form. + +Goodman, temporarily absent, had left Clemens in editorial charge. As in +that earlier day, when Orion had visited Tennessee and returned to find +his paper in a hot personal warfare with certain injured citizens, so the +Enterprise, under the same management, had stirred up trouble. It was +just at the time of the "Flour Sack Sanitary Fund," the story of which is +related at length in 'Roughing It'. In the general hilarity of this +occasion, certain Enterprise paragraphs of criticism or ridicule had +incurred the displeasure of various individuals whose cause naturally +enough had been espoused by a rival paper, the Chronicle. Very soon the +original grievance, whatever it was, was lost sight of in the fireworks +and vitriol-throwing of personal recrimination between Mark Twain and the +Chronicle editor, then a Mr. Laird. + +A point had been reached at length when only a call for bloodshed--a +challenge--could satisfy either the staff or the readers of the two +papers. Men were killed every week for milder things than the editors +had spoken each of the other. Joe Goodman himself, not so long before, +had fought a duel with a Union editor--Tom Fitch--and shot him in the +leg, so making of him a friend, and a lame man, for life. In Joe's +absence the prestige of the paper must be maintained. + +Mark Twain himself has told in burlesque the story of his duel, keeping +somewhat nearer to the fact than was his custom in such writing, as may +be seen by comparing it with the account of his abettor and second--of +course, Steve Gillis. The account is from Mr. Gillis's own hand: + + When Joe went away, he left Sam in editorial charge of the paper. + That was a dangerous thing to do. Nobody could ever tell what Sam + was going to write. Something he said stirred up Mr. Laird, of the + Chronicle, who wrote a reply of a very severe kind. He said some + things that we told Mark could only be wiped out with blood. Those + were the days when almost every man in Virginia City had fought with + pistols either impromptu or premeditated duels. I had been in + several, but then mine didn't count. Most of them were of the + impromptu kind. Mark hadn't had any yet, and we thought it about + time that his baptism took place. + + He was not eager for it; he was averse to violence, but we finally + prevailed upon him to send Laird a challenge, and when Laird did not + send a reply at once we insisted on Mark sending him another + challenge, by which time he had made himself believe that he really + wanted to fight, as much as we wanted him to do. Laird concluded to + fight, at last. I helped Mark get up some of the letters, and a man + who would not fight after such letters did not belong in Virginia + City--in those days. + + Laird's acceptance of Mark's challenge came along about midnight, I + think, after the papers had gone to press. The meeting was to take + place next morning at sunrise. + + Of course I was selected as Mark's second, and at daybreak I had him + up and out for some lessons in pistol practice before meeting Laird. + I didn't have to wake him. He had not been asleep. We had been + talking since midnight over the duel that was coming. I had been + telling him of the different duels in which I had taken part, either + as principal or second, and how many men I had helped to kill and + bury, and how it was a good plan to make a will, even if one had not + much to leave. It always looked well, I told him, and seemed to be + a proper thing to do before going into a duel. So Mark made a will + with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, and as soon as it was light + enough to see, we went out to a little ravine near the meeting- + place, and I set up a board for him to shoot at. He would step out, + raise that big pistol, and when I would count three he would shut + his eyes and pull the trigger. Of course he didn't hit anything; he + did not come anywhere near hitting anything. Just then we heard + somebody shooting over in the next ravine. Sam said: + + "What's that, Steve?" + + "Why," I said, "that's Laud. His seconds are practising him over + there." + + It didn't make my principal any more cheerful to hear that pistol go + off every few seconds over there. Just then I saw a little mud-hen + light on some sage-brush about thirty yards away. + + "Mark," I said, "let me have that pistol. I'll show you how to + shoot." + + He handed it to me, and I let go at the bird and shot its head off, + clean. About that time Laird and his second came over the ridge to + meet us. I saw them coming and handed Mark back the pistol. We + were looking at the bird when they came up. + + "Who did that?" asked Laird's second. + + "Sam," I said. + + "How far off was it?" + + "Oh, about thirty yards." + + "Can he do it again?" + + "Of course," I said; "every time. He could do it twice that far." + + Laud's second turned to his principal. + + "Laird," he said, "you don't want to fight that man. It's just like + suicide. You'd better settle this thing, now." + + So there was a settlement. Laird took back all he had said; Mark + said he really had nothing against Laird--the discussion had been + purely journalistic and did not need to be settled in blood. He + said that both he and Laird were probably the victims of their + friends. I remember one of the things Laird said when his second + told him he had better not fight. + + "Fight! H--l, no! I am not going to be murdered by that d--d + desperado." + + Sam had sent another challenge to a man named Cutler, who had been + somehow mixed up with the muss and had written Sam an insulting + letter; but Cutler was out of town at the time, and before he got + back we had received word from Jerry Driscoll, foreman of the Grand + jury, that the law just passed, making a duel a penitentiary offense + for both principal and second, was to be strictly enforced, and + unless we got out of town in a limited number of hours we would be + the first examples to test the new law. + +We concluded to go, and when the stage left next morning for San +Francisco we were on the outside seat. Joe Goodman had returned by this +time and agreed to accompany us as far as Henness Pass. We were all in +good spirits and glad we were alive, so Joe did not stop when he got to +Henness Pass, but kept on. Now and then he would say, "Well, I had +better be going back pretty soon," but he didn't go, and in the end he +did not go back at all, but went with us clear to San Francisco, and we +had a royal good time all the way. I never knew any series of duels to +close so happily. + +So ended Mark Twain's career on the Comstock. He had come to it a weary +pilgrim, discouraged and unknown; he was leaving it with a new name and +fame--elate, triumphant, even if a fugitive. + + + + +XLVI + +GETTING SETTLED IN SAN FRANCISCO + +This was near the end of May, 1864. The intention of both Gillis and +Clemens was to return to the States; but once in San Francisco both +presently accepted places, Clemens as reporter and Gillis as compositor, +on the 'Morning Call'. + +From 'Roughing It' the reader gathers that Mark Twain now entered into a +life of butterfly idleness on the strength of prospective riches to be +derived from the "half a trunkful of mining stocks," and that presently, +when the mining bubble exploded, he was a pauper. But a good many +liberties have been taken with the history of this period. Undoubtedly +he expected opulent returns from his mining stocks, and was disappointed, +particularly in an investment in Hale and Norcross shares, held too long +for the large profit which could have been made by selling at the proper +time. + +The fact is, he spent not more than a few days--a fortnight at most--in +"butterfly idleness," at the Lick House before he was hard at work on the +'Call', living modestly with Steve Gillis in the quietest place they +could find, never quiet enough, but as far as possible from dogs and cats +and chickens and pianos, which seemed determined to make the mornings +hideous, when a weary night reporter and compositor wanted to rest. They +went out socially, on occasion, arrayed in considerable elegance; but +their recreations were more likely to consist of private midnight orgies, +after the paper had gone to press--mild dissipations in whatever they +could find to eat at that hour, with a few glasses of beer, and perhaps a +game of billiards or pool in some all-night resort. A printer by the +name of Ward--"Little Ward,"--[L. P. Ward; well known as an athlete in +San Francisco. He lost his mind and fatally shot himself in 1903.]-- +they called him--often went with them for these refreshments. Ward and +Gillis were both bantam game-cocks, and sometimes would stir up trouble +for the very joy of combat. Clemens never cared for that sort of thing +and discouraged it, but Ward and Gillis were for war. "They never +assisted each other. If one had offered to assist the other against some +overgrown person, it would have been an affront, and a battle would have +followed between that pair of little friends."--[S. L. C., 1906.]-- +Steve Gillis in particular, was fond of incidental encounters, a +characteristic which would prove an important factor somewhat later in +shaping Mark Twain's career. Of course, the more strenuous nights were +not frequent. Their home-going was usually tame enough and they were +glad enough to get there. + +Clemens, however, was never quite ready for sleep. Then, as ever, he +would prop himself up in bed, light his pipe, and lose himself in English +or French history until sleep conquered. His room-mate did not approve +of this habit; it interfered with his own rest, and with his fiendish +tendency to mischief he found reprisal in his own fashion. Knowing his +companion's highly organized nervous system he devised means of torture +which would induce him to put out the light. Once he tied a nail to a +string; an arrangement which he kept on the floor behind the bed. +Pretending to be asleep, he would hold the end of the string, and lift it +gently up and down, making a slight ticking sound on the floor, maddening +to a nervous man. Clemens would listen a moment and say: + +"What in the nation is that noise" + +Gillis's pretended sleep and the ticking would continue. + +Clemens would sit up in bed, fling aside his book, and swear violently. + +"Steve, what is that d--d noise?" he would say. + +Steve would pretend to rouse sleepily. + +"What's the matter, Sam? What noise? Oh, I guess that is one of those +death-ticks; they don't like the light. Maybe it will stop in a minute." + +It usually did stop about that time, and the reading would be apt to +continue. But no sooner was there stillness than it began again--tick, +tick, tick. With a wild explosion of blasphemy, the book would go across +the floor and the light would disappear. Sometimes, when he couldn't +sleep, he would dress and walk out in the street for an hour, while the +cruel Steve slept like the criminal that he was. + +At last, one night, he overdid the thing and was caught. His tortured +room-mate at first reviled him, then threatened to kill him, finally put +him to shame. It was curious, but they always loved each other, those +two; there was never anything resembling an estrangement, and to his last +days Mark Twain never could speak of Steve Gillis without tenderness. + +They moved a great many times in San Francisco. Their most satisfactory +residence was on a bluff on California Street. Their windows looked down +on a lot of Chinese houses--"tin-can houses," they were called--small +wooden shanties covered with beaten-out cans. Steve and Mark would look +down on these houses, waiting until all the Chinamen were inside; then +one of them would grab an empty beer-bottle, throw it down on those tin +can roofs, and dodge behind the blinds. The Chinamen would swarm out and +look up at the row of houses on the edge of the bluff, shake their fists, +and pour out Chinese vituperation. By and by, when they had retired and +everything was quiet again, their tormentors would throw another bottle. +This was their Sunday amusement. + +At a place on Minna Street they lived with a private family. At first +Clemens was delighted. + +"Just look at it, Steve," he said. "What a nice, quiet place. Not a +thing to disturb us." + +But next morning a dog began to howl. Gillis woke this time, to find his +room-mate standing in the door that opened out into a back garden, +holding a big revolver, his hand shaking with cold and excitement. + +"Came here, Steve," he said. "Come here and kill him. I'm so chilled +through I can't get a bead on him." + +"Sam," said Steve, "don't shoot him. Just swear at him. You can easily +kill him at that range with your profanity." + +Steve Gillis declares that Mark Twain then let go such a scorching, +singeing blast that the brute's owner sold him next day for a Mexican +hairless dog. + +We gather that they moved, on an average, about once a month. A home +letter of September 25, 1864, says: + + We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodging + five times. We are very comfortably fixed where we are now and have + no fault to find with the rooms or the people. We are the only + lodgers-in a well-to-do private family . . . . But I need change + and must move again. + +This was the Minna Street place--the place of the dog. In the same +letter he mentions having made a new arrangement with the Call, by which +he is to receive twenty-five dollars a week, with no more night-work; he +says further that he has closed with the Californian for weekly articles +at twelve dollars each. + + + + +XLVII + +BOHEMIAN DAYS + +Mark Twain's position on the 'Call' was uncongenial from the start. San +Francisco was a larger city than Virginia; the work there was necessarily +more impersonal, more a routine of news-gathering and drudgery. He once +set down his own memories of it: + + At nine in the morning I had to be at the police court for an hour + and make a brief history of the squabbles of the night before. They + were usually between Irishmen and Irishmen, and Chinamen and + Chinamen, with now and then a squabble between the two races, for a + change. + + During the rest of the day we raked the town from end to end, + gathering such material as we might, wherewith to fill our required + columns; and if there were no fires to report, we started some. At + night we visited the six theaters, one after the other, seven nights + in the week. We remained in each of those places five minutes, got + the merest passing glimpse of play and opera, and with that for a + text we "wrote up" those plays and operas, as the phrase goes, + torturing our souls every night in the effort to find something to + say about those performances which we had not said a couple of + hundred times before. + + It was fearful drudgery-soulless drudgery--and almost destitute of + interest. It was an awful slavery for a lazy man. + +On the Enterprise he had been free, with a liberty that amounted to +license. He could write what he wished, and was personally responsible +to the readers. On the Call he was simply a part of a news-machine; +restricted by a policy, the whole a part of a still greater machine-- +politics. Once he saw some butchers set their dogs on an unoffending +Chinaman, a policeman looking on with amused interest. He wrote an +indignant article criticizing the city government and raking the police. +In Virginia City this would have been a welcome delight; in San Francisco +it did not appear. + +At another time he found a policeman asleep on his beat. Going to a +near-by vegetable stall he borrowed a large cabbage-leaf, came back and +stood over the sleeper, gently fanning him. It would be wasted effort to +make an item of this incident; but he could publish it in his own +fashion. He stood there fanning the sleeping official until a large +crowd collected. When he thought it was large enough he went away. Next +day the joke was all over the city. + +Only one of the several severe articles he wrote criticizing officials +and institutions seems to have appeared--an attack on an undertaker whose +establishment formed a branch of the coroner's office. The management of +this place one day refused information to a Call reporter, and the next +morning its proprietor was terrified by a scathing denunciation of his +firm. It began, "Those body-snatchers" and continued through half a +column of such scorching strictures as only Mark Twain could devise. The +Call's policy of suppression evidently did not include criticisms of +deputy coroners. + +Such liberty, however, was too rare for Mark Twain, and he lost interest. +He confessed afterward that he became indifferent and lazy, and that +George E. Barnes, one of the publishers of the Call, at last allowed him +an assistant. He selected from the counting-room a big, hulking youth by +the name of McGlooral, with the acquired prefix of "Smiggy." Clemens had +taken a fancy to Smiggy McGlooral--on account of his name and size +perhaps--and Smiggy, devoted to his patron, worked like a slave gathering +news nights--daytimes, too, if necessary--all of which was demoralizing +to a man who had small appetite for his place anyway. It was only a +question of time when Smiggy alone would be sufficient for the job. + +There were other and pleasanter things in San Francisco. The personal +and literary associations were worth while. At his right hand in the +Call office sat Frank Soule--a gentle spirit--a graceful versifier who +believed himself a poet. Mark Twain deferred to Frank Soule in those +days. He thought his verses exquisite in their workmanship; a word of +praise from Soule gave him happiness. In a luxurious office up-stairs +was another congenial spirit--a gifted, handsome fellow of twenty-four, +who was secretary of the Mint, and who presently became editor of a new +literary weekly, the Californian, which Charles Henry Webb had founded. +This young man's name was Francis Bret Harte, originally from Albany, +later a miner and school-teacher on the Stanislaus, still later a +compositor, finally a contributor, on the Golden Era. His fame scarcely +reached beyond San Francisco as yet; but among the little coterie of +writing folk that clustered about the Era office his rank was high. Mark +Twain fraternized with Bret Harte and the Era group generally. He felt +that he had reached the land--or at least the borderland--of Bohemia, +that Ultima Thule of every young literary dream. + +San Francisco did, in fact, have a very definite literary atmosphere and +a literature of its own. Its coterie of writers had drifted from here +and there, but they had merged themselves into a California body-poetic, +quite as individual as that of Cambridge, even if less famous, less +fortunate in emoluments than the Boston group. Joseph E. Lawrence, +familiarly known as "Joe" Lawrence, was editor of the Golden Era,--[The +Golden Era, California's first literary publication, was founded by +Rollin M. Daggett and J. McDonough Foard in 1852.]--and his kindness +and hospitality were accounted sufficient rewards even when his pecuniary +acknowledgments were modest enough. He had a handsome office, and the +literati, local and visiting, used to gather there. Names that would be +well known later were included in that little band. Joaquin Miller +recalls from an old diary, kept by him then, having seen Adah Isaacs +Menken, Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh +Ludlow, Mark Twain, Orpheus C. Kerr, Artemus Ward, Gilbert Densmore, +W. S. Kendall, and Mrs. Hitchcock assembled there at one time. The Era +office would seem to have been a sort of Mount Olympus, or Parnassus, +perhaps; for these were mainly poets, who had scarcely yet attained to +the dignity of gods. Miller was hardly more than a youth then, and this +grand assemblage impressed him, as did the imposing appointments of the +place. + + The Era rooms were elegant--[he says]--,the most grandly carpeted + and most gorgeously furnished that I have ever seen. Even now in my + memory they seem to have been simply palatial. I have seen the + world well since then--all of its splendors worth seeing--yet those + carpeted parlors, with Joe Lawrence and his brilliant satellites, + outshine all things else, as I turn to look back. + +More than any other city west of the Alleghanies, San Francisco has +always been a literary center; and certainly that was a remarkable group +to be out there under the sunset, dropped down there behind the Sierras, +which the transcontinental railway would not climb yet, for several +years. They were a happy-hearted, aspiring lot, and they got as much as +five dollars sometimes for an Era article, and were as proud of it as if +it had been a great deal more. They felt that they were creating +literature, as they were, in fact; a new school of American letters +mustered there. + +Mark Twain and Bret Harte were distinctive features of this group. They +were already recognized by their associates as belonging in a class by +themselves, though as yet neither had done any of the work for which he +would be remembered later. They were a good deal together, and it was +when Harte was made editor of the Californian that Mark Twain was put on +the weekly staff at the then unexampled twelve-dollar rate. The +Californian made larger pretensions than the Era, and perhaps had a +heavier financial backing. With Mark Twain on the staff and Bret Harte +in the chair, himself a frequent contributor, it easily ranked as first +of San Francisco periodicals. A number of the sketches collected by Webb +later, in Mark Twain's first little volume, the Celebrated Jumping Frog, +Etc., appeared in the Era or Californian in 1864 and 1865. They were +smart, bright, direct, not always refined, but probably the best humor of +the day. Some of them are still preserved in this volume of sketches. +They are interesting in what they promise, rather than in what they +present, though some of them are still delightful enough. "The Killing +of Julius Caesar Localized" is an excellent forerunner of his burlesque +report of a gladiatorial combat in The Innocents Abroad. The Answers to +Correspondents, with his vigorous admonition of the statistical moralist, +could hardly have been better done at any later period. The Jumping Frog +itself was not originally of this harvest. It has a history of its own, +as we shall see a little further along. + +The reportorial arrangement was of brief duration. Even the great San +Francisco earthquake of that day did not awaken in Mark Twain any +permanent enthusiasm for the drudgery of the 'Call'. He had lost +interest, and when Mark Twain lost interest in a subject or an +undertaking that subject or that undertaking were better dead, so far as +he was concerned. His conclusion of service with the Call was certain, +and he wondered daily why it was delayed so long. The connection had +become equally unsatisfactory to proprietor and employee. They had a +heart-to-heart talk presently, with the result that Mark Twain was free. +He used to claim, in after-years, with his usual tendency to confess the +worst of himself, that he was discharged, and the incident has been +variously told. George Barnes himself has declared that Clemens resigned +with great willingness. It is very likely that the paragraph at the end +of Chapter LVIII in 'Roughing It' presents the situation with fair +accuracy, though, as always, the author makes it as unpleasant for +himself as possible: + +"At last one of the proprietors took me aside, with a charity I still +remember with considerable respect, and gave me an opportunity to resign +my berth, and so save myself the disgrace of a dismissal." + +As an extreme contrast with the supposititious "butterfly idleness" of +his beginning in San Francisco, and for no other discoverable reason, he +doubtless thought it necessary, in the next chapter of that book, to +depict himself as having reached the depths of hard luck, debt, and +poverty. + +"I became an adept at slinking," he says. "I slunk from back street to +back street.... I slunk to my bed. I had pawned everything but the +clothes I had on." + +This is pure fiction. That he occasionally found himself short of funds +is likely enough--a literary life invites that sort of thing--but that he +ever clung to a single "silver ten-cent piece," as he tells us, and +became the familiar of mendicancy, was a condition supplied altogether by +his later imagination to satisfy what he must have regarded as an +artistic need. Almost immediately following his separation from the +'Call' he arranged with Goodman to write a daily letter for the +Enterprise, reporting San Francisco matters after his own notion with a +free hand. His payment for this work was thirty dollars a week, and he +had an additional return from his literary sketches. The arrangement was +an improvement both as to labor and income. + +Real affluence appeared on the horizon just then, in the form of a +liberal offer for the Tennessee land. But alas! it was from a wine- +grower who wished to turn the tract into great vineyards, and Orion had a +prohibition seizure at the moment, so the trade was not made. Orion +further argued that the prospective purchaser would necessarily be +obliged to import horticultural labor from Europe, and that those people +might be homesick, badly treated, and consequently unhappy in those far +eastern Tennessee mountains. Such was Orion's way. + + + + +XLVIII + +THE REFUGE OF THE HILLS + +Those who remember Mark Twain's Enterprise letters (they are no longer +obtainable)--[Many of these are indeed now obtainable by a simple Web +search. D.W.]--declare them to have been the greatest series of daily +philippics ever written. However this may be, it is certain that they +made a stir. Goodman permitted him to say absolutely what he pleased +upon any subject. San Francisco was fairly weltering in corruption, +official and private. He assailed whatever came first to hand with all +the fierceness of a flaming indignation long restrained. + +Quite naturally he attacked the police, and with such ferocity and +penetration that as soon as copies of the Enterprise came from Virginia +the City Hall began to boil and smoke and threaten trouble. Martin G. +Burke, then chief of police, entered libel suit against the Enterprise, +prodigiously advertising that paper, copies of which were snatched as +soon as the stage brought them. + +Mark Twain really let himself go then. He wrote a letter that on the +outside was marked, "Be sure and let Joe see this before it goes in." +He even doubted himself whether Goodman would dare to print it, after +reading. It was a letter describing the city's corrupt morals under the +existing police government. It began, "The air is full of lechery, and +rumors of lechery," and continued in a strain which made even the +Enterprise printers aghast. + +"You can never afford to publish that," the foreman said to, Goodman. + +"Let it all go in, every word," Goodman answered. "If Mark can stand it, +I can!" + +It seemed unfortunate (at the time) that Steve Gillis should select this +particular moment to stir up trouble that would involve both himself and +Clemens with the very officials which the latter had undertaken to +punish. Passing a saloon one night alone, Gillis heard an altercation +going on inside, and very naturally stepped in to enjoy it. Including +the barkeeper, there were three against two. Steve ranged himself on the +weaker side, and selected the barkeeper, a big bruiser, who, when the +fight was over, was ready for the hospital. It turned out that he was +one of Chief Burke's minions, and Gillis was presently indicted on a +charge of assault with intent to kill. He knew some of the officials in +a friendly way, and was advised to give a straw bond and go into +temporary retirement. Clemens, of course, went his bail, and Steve set +out for Virginia City, until the storm blew over. + +This was Burke's opportunity. When the case was called and Gillis did +not appear, Burke promptly instituted an action against his bondsman, +with an execution against his loose property. The watch that had been +given him as Governor of the Third House came near being thus sacrificed +in the cause of friendship, and was only saved by skilful manipulation. + +Now, it was down in the chain of circumstances that Steve Gillis's +brother, James N. Gillis, a gentle-hearted hermit, a pocket-miner of the +halcyon Tuolumne district--the Truthful James of Bret Harte--happened to +be in San Francisco at this time, and invited Clemens to return with him +to the far seclusion of his cabin on Jackass Hill. In that peaceful +retreat were always rest and refreshment for the wayfarer, and more than +one weary writer besides Bret Harte had found shelter there. James +Gillis himself had fine literary instincts, but he remained a pocket- +miner because he loved that quiet pursuit of gold, the Arcadian life, the +companionship of his books, the occasional Bohemian pilgrim who found +refuge in his retreat. It is said that the sick were made well, and the +well made better, in Jim Gillis's cabin on the hilltop, where the air was +nectar and the stillness like enchantment. One could mine there if he +wished to do so; Jim would always furnish him a promising claim, and +teach him the art of following the little fan-like drift of gold specks +to the nested deposit of nuggets somewhere up the hillside. He regularly +shared his cabin with one Dick Stoker (Dick Baker, of 'Roughing It'), +another genial soul who long ago had retired from the world to this +forgotten land, also with Dick's cat, Tom Quartz; but there was always +room for guests. + +In 'Roughing It', and in a later story, "The Californian's Tale," Mark +Twain has made us acquainted with the verdant solitude of the Tuolumne +hills, that dreamy, delicious paradise where once a vast population had +gathered when placer-mining had been in its bloom, a dozen years before. +The human swarm had scattered when the washings failed to pay, leaving +only a quiet emptiness and the few pocket-miners along the Stanislaus and +among the hills. Vast areas of that section present a strange appearance +to-day. Long stretches there are, crowded and jammed and drifted with +ghostly white stones that stand up like fossils of a prehistoric life-- +the earth deposit which once covered them entirely washed away, every +particle of it removed by the greedy hordes, leaving only this vast +bleaching drift, literally the "picked bones of the land." At one place +stands Columbia, regarded once as a rival to Sacramento, a possible State +capital--a few tumbling shanties now--and a ruined church. + +It was the 4th of December, 1864, when Mark Twain arrived at Jim Gillis's +cabin. He found it a humble habitation made of logs and slabs, partly +sheltered by a great live-oak tree, surrounded by a stretch of grass. +It had not much in the way of pretentious furniture, but there was a +large fireplace, and a library which included the standard authors. +A younger Gillis boy, William, was there at this time, so that the family +numbered five in all, including Tom Quartz, the cat. On rainy days they +would gather about the big, open fire and Jim Gillis, with his back to +the warmth, would relate diverting yarns, creations of his own, turned +out hot from the anvil, forged as he went along. He had a startling +imagination, and he had fostered it in that secluded place. His stories +usually consisted of wonderful adventures of his companion, Dick Stoker, +portrayed with humor and that serene and vagrant fancy which builds as it +goes, careless as to whither it is proceeding and whether the story shall +end well or ill, soon or late, if ever. He always pretended that these +extravagant tales of Stoker were strictly true; and Stoker--"forty-six +and gray as a rat"--earnest, thoughtful, and tranquilly serene, would +smoke and look into the fire and listen to those astonishing things of +himself, smiling a little now and then but saying never a word. What did +it matter to him? He had no world outside of the cabin and the hills, no +affairs; he would live and die there; his affairs all had ended long ago. +A number of the stories used in Mark Twain's books were first told by Jim +Gillis, standing with his hands crossed behind him, back to the fire, in +the cabin on jackass Hill. The story of Dick Baker's cat was one of +these; the jaybird and Acorn story of 'A Tramp Abroad' was another; also +the story of the "Burning Shame," and there are others. Mark Twain had +little to add to these stories; in fact, he never could get them to sound +as well, he said, as when Jim Gillis had told them. + +James Gillis's imagination sometimes led him into difficulties. Once a +feeble old squaw came along selling some fruit that looked like green +plums. Stoker, who knew the fruit well enough, carelessly ventured the +remark that it might be all right, but he had never heard of anybody +eating it, which set Gillis off into eloquent praises of its delights, +all of which he knew to be purely imaginary; whereupon Stoker told him if +he liked the fruit so well, to buy some of it. There was no escape after +that; Jim had to buy some of those plums, whose acid was of the hair- +lifting aqua-fortis variety, and all the rest of the day he stewed them, +adding sugar, trying to make them palatable, tasting them now and then, +boasting meanwhile of their nectar-like deliciousness. He gave the +others a taste by and by--a withering, corroding sup--and they derided +him and rode him down. But Jim never weakened. He ate that fearful +brew, and though for days his mouth was like fire he still referred to +the luscious health-giving joys of the "Californian plums." + +Jackass Hill was not altogether a solitude; here and there were +neighbors. Another pocket-miner; named Carrington, had a cabin not far +away, and a mile or two distant lived an old couple with a pair of pretty +daughters, so plump and trim and innocent, that they were called the +"Chapparal Quails." Young men from far and near paid court to them, and +on Sunday afternoons so many horses would be tied to their front fence as +to suggest an afternoon service there. Young "Billy" Gillis knew them, +and one Sunday morning took his brother's friend, Sam Clemens, over for a +call. They went early, with forethought, and promptly took the girls for +a walk. They took a long walk, and went wandering over the hills, toward +Sandy Bar and the Stanislaus--through that reposeful land which Bret +Harte would one day light with idyllic romance--and toward evening found +themselves a long way from home. They must return by the nearest way to +arrive before dark. One of the young ladies suggested a short cut +through the Chemisal, and they started. But they were lost, presently, +and it was late, very late, when at last they reached the ranch. The +mother of the "Quails" was sitting up for them, and she had something to +say. She let go a perfect storm of general denunciation, then narrowed +the attack to Samuel Clemens as the oldest of the party. He remained +mildly serene. + +"It wasn't my fault," he ventured at last; "it was Billy Gillis's fault." + +"No such thing. You know better. Mr. Gillis has been here often. It +was you." + +"But do you realize, ma'am, how tired and hungry we are? Haven't you got +a bite for us to eat?" + +"No, sir, not a bite--for such as you." + +The offender's eyes, wandering about the room, spied something in a +corner. + +"Isn't that a guitar over there?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir, it is; what of it?" + +The culprit walked over, and taking it up, tuned the strings a little and +struck the chords. Then he began to sing. He began very softly and sang +"Fly Away, Pretty Moth," then "Araby's Daughter." He could sing very +well in those days, following with the simpler chords. Perhaps the +mother "Quail" had known those songs herself back in the States, for her +manner grew kindlier, almost with the first notes. When he had finished +she was the first to ask him to go on. + +"I suppose you are just like all young folks," she said. "I was young +myself once. While you sing I'll get some supper." + +She left the door to the kitchen open so that she could hear, and cooked +whatever she could find for the belated party. + + + + +XLIX + +THE JUMPING FROG + +It was the rainy season, the winter of 1864 and 1865, but there were many +pleasant days, when they could go pocket-hunting, and Samuel Clemens soon +added a knowledge of this fascinating science to his other acquirements. +Sometimes he worked with Dick Stoker, sometimes with one of the Gillis +boys. He did not make his fortune at pocket-mining; he only laid its +corner-stone. In the old note-book he kept of that sojourn we find that, +with Jim Gillis, he made a trip over into Calaveras County soon after +Christmas and remained there until after New Year's, probably +prospecting; and he records that on New Year's night, at Vallecito, he +saw a magnificent lunar rainbow in a very light, drizzling rain. A lunax +rainbow is one of the things people seldom see. He thought it an omen of +good-fortune. + +They returned to the cabin on the hill; but later in the month, on the +they crossed over into Calaveras again, and began pocket-hunting not far +from Angel's Camp. The note-book records that the bill of fare at the +Camp hotel consisted wholly of beans and something which bore the name of +coffee; also that the rains were frequent and heavy. + + January 27. Same old diet--same old weather--went out to the + pocket-claim--had to rush back. + +They had what they believed to be a good claim. Jim Gillis declared the +indications promising, and if they could only have good weather to work +it, they were sure of rich returns. For himself, he would have been +willing to work, rain or shine. Clemens, however, had different views on +the subject. His part was carrying water for washing out the pans of +dirt, and carrying pails of water through the cold rain and mud was not +very fascinating work. Dick Stoker came over before long to help. +Things went a little better then; but most of their days were spent in +the bar-room of the dilapidated tavern at Angel's Camp, enjoying the +company of a former Illinois River pilot, Ben Coon,--[This name has been +variously given as "Ros Coon," "Coon Drayton," etc. It is given here as +set down in Mark Twain's notes, made on the spot. Coon was not (as has +been stated) the proprietor of the hotel (which was kept by a Frenchman), +but a frequenter of it.]--a solemn, fat-witted person, who dozed by the +stove, or old slow, endless stories, without point or application. +Listeners were a boon to him, for few came and not many would stay. To +Mark Twain and Jim Gillis, however, Ben Coon was a delight. It was +soothing and comfortable to listen to his endless narratives, told in +that solemn way, with no suspicion of humor. Even when his yarns had +point, he did not recognize it. One dreary afternoon, in his slow, +monotonous fashion, he told them about a frog--a frog that had belonged +to a man named Coleman, who trained it to jump, but that failed to win a +wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously loaded the +trained jumper with shot. The story had circulated among the camps, and +a well-known journalist, named Samuel Seabough, had already made a squib +of it, but neither Clemens nor Gillis had ever happened to hear it +before. They thought the tale in itself amusing, and the "spectacle of a +man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever +smiling was exquisitely absurd." When Coon had talked himself out, his +hearers played billiards on the frowsy table, and now and then one would +remark to the other: + +"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other +frog," and perhaps the other would answer: + +"I ain't got no frog, but if I had a frog I'd bet you." + +Out on the claim, between pails of water, Clemens, as he watched Jim +Gillis or Dick Stoker "washing," would be apt to say, "I don't see no +p'ints about that pan o' dirt that's any better'n any other pan o' dirt," +and so they kept it up. + +Then the rain would come again and interfere with their work. One +afternoon, when Clemens and Gillis were following certain tiny-sprayed +specks of gold that were leading them to pocket--somewhere up the long +slope, the chill downpour set in. Gillis, as usual, was washing, and +Clemens carrying water. The "color" was getting better with every pan, +and Jim Gillis believed that now, after their long waiting, they were to +be rewarded. Possessed with the miner's passion, he would have gone on +washing and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of +everything. Clemens, however, shivering and disgusted, swore that each +pail of water was his last. His teeth were chattering and he was wet +through. Finally he said, in his deliberate way: + +"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work is too disagreeable." + +Gillis had just taken out a panful of dirt. + +"Bring one more pail, Sam," he pleaded. + +"Oh, hell, Jim, I won't do it; I'm freezing!" + +"Just one more pail, Sam," he pleaded. + +"No, sir, not a drop, not if I knew there were a million dollars in that +pan." + +Gillis tore a page out of his note-book, and hastily posted a thirty-day +claim notice by the pan of dirt, and they set out for Angel's Camp. It +kept on raining and storming, and they did not go back. A few days later +a letter from Steve Gillis made Clemens decide to return to San +Francisco. With Jim Gillis and Dick Stoker he left Angel's and walked +across the mountains to Jackass Hill in the snow-storm--"the first I ever +saw in California," he says in his notes. + +In the mean time the rain had washed away the top of the pan of earth +they had left standing on the hillside, and exposed a handful of nuggets- +pure gold. Two strangers, Austrians, had come along and, observing it, +had sat down to wait until the thirty-day claim notice posted by Jim +Gillis should expire. They did not mind the rain--not with all that gold +in sight--and the minute the thirty days were up they followed the lead a +few pans farther and took out--some say ten, some say twenty, thousand +dollars. In either case it was a good pocket. Mark Twain missed it by +one pail of water. Still, it is just as well, perhaps, when one +remembers that vaster nugget of Angel's Camp--the Jumping Frog. Jim +Gillis always declared, "If Sam had got that pocket he would have +remained a pocket-miner to the end of his days, like me." + +In Mark Twain's old note-book occurs a memorandum of the frog story--a +mere casual entry of its main features: + + Coleman with his jumping frog--bet stranger $50--stranger had no + frog, and C. got him one:--in the mean time stranger filled C.'s + frog full of shot and he couldn't jump. The stranger's frog won. + +It seemed unimportant enough, no doubt, at the time; but it was the +nucleus around which was built a surpassing fame. The hills along the +Stanislaus have turned out some wonderful nuggets in their time, but no +other of such size as that. + + + + +L + +BACK TO THE TUMULT + +FROM the note-book: + + February 25. Arrived in Stockton 5 P.m. Home again home again at + the Occidental Hotel, San Francisco--find letters from Artemus Ward + asking me to write a sketch for his new book of Nevada Territory + Travels which is soon to come out. Too late--ought to have got the + letters three months ago. They are dated early in November. + +He was sorry not to oblige Ward, sorry also not to have representation in +his book. He wrote explaining the circumstance, and telling the story of +his absence. Steve Gillis, meantime, had returned to San Francisco, and +settled his difficulties there. The friends again took up residence +together. + +Mark Twain resumed his daily letters to the Enterprise, without further +annoyance from official sources. Perhaps there was a temporary truce in +that direction, though he continued to attack various abuses--civic, +private, and artistic--becoming a sort of general censor, establishing +for himself the title of the "Moralist of the Main." The letters were +reprinted in San Francisco and widely read. Now and then some one had +the temerity to answer them, but most of his victims maintained a +discreet silence. In one of these letters he told of the Mexican oyster, +a rather tough, unsatisfactory article of diet, which could not stand +criticism, and presently disappeared from the market. It was a mistake, +however, for him to attack an Alta journalist by the name of Evans. +Evans was a poet, and once composed an elegy with a refrain which ended: + + Gone, gone, gone-- + Gone to his endeavor; + Gone, gone, gone, + Forever and forever. + +In the Enterprise letter following its publication Mark Twain referred to +this poem. He parodied the refrain and added, "If there is any criticism +to make on it I should say there is a little too much 'gone' and not +enough 'forever.'" + +It was a more or less pointless witticism, but it had a humorous quotable +flavor, and it made Evans mad. In a squib in the Alta he retaliated: + + Mark Twain has killed the Mexican oyster. We only regret that the + act was not inspired by a worthier motive. Mark Twain's sole reason + for attacking the Mexican oyster was because the restaurant that + sold them refused him credit. + +A deadly thrust like that could not be parried in print. To deny or +recriminate would be to appear ridiculous. One could only sweat and +breathe vengeance. + +"Joe," he said to Goodman, who had come over for a visit, "my one object +in life now is to make enough money to stand trial and then go and murder +Evans." + +He wrote verses himself sometimes, and lightened his Enterprise letters +with jingles. One of these concerned Tom Maguire, the autocrat manager +of San Francisco theaters. It details Maguire's assault on one of his +actors. + + Tom Maguire, + Roused to ire, + Lighted on McDougal; + Tore his coat, + Clutched his throat, + And split him in the bugle. + + For shame! oh, fie! + Maguire, why + Will you thus skyugle? + Why curse and swear, + And rip and tear + The innocent McDougal? + + Of bones bereft, + Almost, you've left + Vestvali, gentle Jew gal; + And now you've smashed + And almost hashed + The form of poor McDougall + +Goodman remembers that Clemens and Gillis were together again on +California Street at this time, and of hearing them sing, "The Doleful +Ballad of the Rejected Lover," another of Mark Twain's compositions. It +was a wild, blasphemous outburst, and the furious fervor with which Mark +and Steve delivered it, standing side by side and waving their fists, did +not render it less objectionable. Such memories as these are set down +here, for they exhibit a phase of that robust personality, built of the +same primeval material from which the world was created--built of every +variety of material, in fact, ever incorporated in a human being--equally +capable of writing unprintable coarseness and that rarest and most tender +of all characterizations, the 'Recollections of JOAN of ARC'. + + + + +LI + +THE CORNER-STONE + +Along with his Enterprise work, Clemens continued to write occasionally +for the Californian, but for some reason he did not offer the story of +the jumping frog. For one thing, he did not regard it highly as literary +material. He knew that he had enjoyed it himself, but the humor and +fashion of its telling seemed to him of too simple and mild a variety in +that day of boisterous incident and exaggerated form. By and by Artemus +Ward turned up in San Francisco, and one night Mark Twain told him his +experiences with Jim Gillis, and in Angel's Camp; also of Ben Coon and +his tale of the Calaveras frog. Ward was delighted. + +"Write it," he said. "There is still time to get it into my volume of +sketches. Send it to Carleton, my publisher in New York."--[This is in +accordance with Mr. Clemens's recollection of the matter. The author can +find no positive evidence that Ward was on the Pacific coast again in +1865. It seems likely, therefore, that the telling of the frog story and +his approval of it were accomplished by exchange of letters.]-- + +Clemens promised to do this, but delayed fulfilment somewhat, and by the +time the sketch reached Carleton, Ward's book was about ready for the +press. It did not seem worth while to Carleton to make any change of +plans that would include the frog story. The publisher handed it over to +Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday Press, a perishing sheet, saying: +"Here, Clapp, here's something you can use in your paper." Clapp took it +thankfully enough, we may believe. + +"Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog"--[This was the original title.]-- +appeared in the Saturday Press of November 18, 1865, and was immediately +copied and quoted far and near. It brought the name of Mark Twain across +the mountains, bore it up and down the Atlantic coast, and out over the +prairies of the Middle West. Away from the Pacific slope only a reader +here and there had known the name before. Now every one who took a +newspaper was treated to the tale of the wonderful Calaveras frog, and +received a mental impress of the author's signature. The name Mark Twain +became hardly an institution, as yet, but it made a strong bid for +national acceptance. + +As for its owner, he had no suspicion of these momentous happenings for a +considerable time. The telegraph did not carry such news in those days, +and it took a good while for the echo of his victory to travel to the +Coast. When at last a lagging word of it did arrive, it would seem to +have brought disappointment, rather than exaltation, to the author. Even +Artemus Ward's opinion of the story had not increased Mark Twain's regard +for it as literature. That it had struck the popular note meant, as he +believed, failure for his more highly regarded work. In a letter written +January 20, 1866, he says these things for himself: + + I do not know what to write; my life is so uneventful. I wish I was + back there piloting up and down the river again. Verily, all is + vanity and little worth--save piloting. + + To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused + for thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out + a villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on! "Jim Smiley and + His Jumping Frog"--a squib which would never have been written but + to please Artemus Ward, and then it reached New York too late to + appear in his book. + + But no matter. His book was a wretchedly poor one, generally + speaking, and it could be no credit to either of us to appear + between its covers. + +This paragraph is from the New York correspondence of the San Francisco +Alta: + + "Mark Twain's story in the Saturday Press of November 18th, called + "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog," has set all New York in a roar, + and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty + times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and + near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the + 'Californian' afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let + him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the + California press." + + The New York publishing house of Carleton & Co. gave the sketch to + the Saturday Press when they found it was too late for the book. + +It is difficult to judge the jumping Frog story to-day. It has the +intrinsic fundamental value of one of AEsop's Fables.--[The resemblance +of the frog story to the early Greek tales must have been noted by Prof. +Henry Sidgwick, who synopsized it in Greek form and phrase for his book, +Greek Prose Composition. Through this originated the impression that the +story was of Athenian root. Mark Twain himself was deceived, until in +1899, when he met Professor Sidgwick, who explained that the Greek +version was the translation and Mark Twain's the original; that he had +thought it unnecessary to give credit for a story so well known. See The +Jumping Frog, Harper & Bros., 1903, p. 64.]--It contains a basic idea +which is essentially ludicrous, and the quaint simplicity of its telling +is convincing and full of charm. It appeared in print at a time when +American humor was chaotic, the public taste unformed. We had a vast +appreciation for what was comic, with no great number of opportunities +for showing it. We were so ready to laugh that when a real opportunity +came along we improved it and kept on laughing and repeating the cause of +our merriment, directing the attention of our friends to it. Whether the +story of "Jim Smiley's Frog," offered for the first time today, would +capture the public, and become the initial block of a towering fame, is +another matter. That the author himself underrated it is certain. That +the public, receiving it at what we now term the psychological moment, +may have overrated it is by no means impossible. In any case, it does +not matter now. The stone rejected by the builder was made the corner- +stone of his literary edifice. As such it is immortal. + +In the letter already quoted, Clemens speaks of both Bret Harte and +himself as having quit the 'Californian' in future expecting to write for +Eastern papers. He adds: + + Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers + in this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret + Harte, I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. He wants + me to club a lot of old sketches together with a lot of his, and + publish a book. I wouldn't do it, only he agrees to take all the + trouble. But I want to know whether we are going to make anything + out of it, first. However, he has written to a New York publisher, + and if we are offered a bargain that will pay for a month's labor we + will go to work and prepare the volume for the press. + +Nothing came of the proposed volume, or of other joint literary schemes +these two had then in mind. Neither of them would seem to have been +optimistic as to their future place in American literature; certainly in +their most exalted moments they could hardly have dreamed that within +half a dozen years they would be the head and front of a new school of +letters--the two most talked-of men in America. + + + + +LII + +A COMMISSION TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS + +Whatever his first emotions concerning the success of "Jim Smiley's Frog" +may have been, the sudden astonishing leap of that batrachian into +American literature gave the author an added prestige at home as well as +in distant parts. Those about him were inclined to regard him, in some +degree at least, as a national literary figure and to pay tribute +accordingly. Special honors began to be shown to him. A fine new +steamer, the Ajax, built for the Sandwich Island trade, carried on its +initial trip a select party of guests of which he was invited to make +one. He did not go, and reproached himself sorrowfully afterward. + +If the Ajax were back I would go quick, and throw up my correspondence. +She had fifty-two invited guests aboard--the cream of the town--gentlemen +and ladies, and a splendid brass band. I could not accept because there +would be no one to write my correspondence while I was gone. + +In fact, the daily letter had grown monotonous. He was restless, and the +Ajax excursion, which he had been obliged to forego, made him still more +dissatisfied. An idea occurred to him: the sugar industry of the islands +was a matter of great commercial interest to California, while the life +and scenery there, picturesquely treated, would appeal to the general +reader. He was on excellent terms with James Anthony and Paul Morrill, +of the Sacramento Union; he proposed to them that they send him as their +special correspondent to report to their readers, in a series of letters, +life, trade, agriculture, and general aspect of the islands. To his vast +delight, they gave him the commission. He wrote home joyously now: + +I am to remain there a month and ransack the islands, the cataracts and +volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters, for which they +pay as much money as I would get if I stayed at home. + +He adds that on his return he expects to start straight across the +continent by way of the Columbia River, the Pend Oreille Lakes, through +Montana and down the Missouri River. "Only two hundred miles of land +travel from San Francisco to New Orleans." + +So it is: man proposes, while fate, undisturbed, spins serenely on. + +He sailed by the Ajax on her next trip, March 7 (1866), beginning his +first sea voyage--a brand-new experience, during which he acquired the +names of the sails and parts of the ship, with considerable knowledge of +navigation, and of the islands he was to visit--whatever information +passengers and sailors could furnish. It was a happy, stormy voyage +altogether. In 'Roughing It' he has given us some account of it. + +It was the 18th of March when he arrived at Honolulu, and his first +impression of that tranquil harbor remained with him always. In fact, +his whole visit there became one of those memory-pictures, full of golden +sunlight and peace, to be found somewhere in every human past. + +The letters of introduction he had brought, and the reputation which had +preceded him, guaranteed him welcome and hospitality. Officials and +private citizens were alike ready to show him their pleasant land, and he +fairly reveled in its delicious air, its summer warmth, its soft repose. + + Oh, islands there are on the face of the deep + Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep, + +he quotes in his note-book, and adds: + + Went with Mr. Damon to his cool, vine-shaded home; no careworn or + eager, anxious faces in this land of happy contentment. God, what a + contrast with California and the Washoe! + +And in another place: + + They live in the S. I.--no rush, no worry--merchant goes down to his + store like a gentleman at nine--goes home at four and thinks no more + of business till next day. D--n San F. style of wearing out life. + +He fitted in with the languorous island existence, but he had come for +business, and he lost not much time. He found there a number of friends +from Washoe, including the Rev. Mr. Rising, whose health had failed from +overwork. By their direction, and under official guidance, he set out on +Oahu, one of the several curious horses he has immortalized in print, +and, accompanied by a pleasant party of ladies and gentlemen, encircled +the island of that name, crossed it and recrossed it, visited its various +battle-fields, returning to Honolulu, lame, sore, sunburnt, but +triumphant. His letters home, better even than his Union correspondence, +reveal his personal interest and enthusiasms. + + I have got a lot of human bones which I took from one of these + battle-fields. I guess I will bring you some of them. I went with + the American Minister and took dinner this evening with the King's + Grand Chamberlain, who is related to the royal family, and though + darker than a mulatto he has an excellent English education, and in + manners is an accomplished gentleman. He is to call for me in the + morning; we will visit the King in the palace, After dinner they + called in the "singing girls," and we had some beautiful music, sung + in the native tongue. + +It was his first association with royalty, and it was human that he +should air it a little. In the same letter he states: "I will sail in a +day or two on a tour of the other islands, to be gone two months." + +'In Roughing It' he has given us a picture of his visits to the islands, +their plantations, their volcanoes, their natural and historic wonders. +He was an insatiable sight-seer then, and a persevering one. The very +name of a new point of interest filled him with an eager enthusiasm to be +off. No discomfort or risk or distance discouraged him. With a single +daring companion--a man who said he could find the way--he crossed the +burning floor of the mighty crater of Kilauea (then in almost constant +eruption), racing across the burning lava floor, jumping wide and +bottomless crevices, when a misstep would have meant death. + +By and by Marlette shouted "Stop!" I never stopped quicker in my life. +I asked what the matter was. He said we were out of the path. He said +we must not try to go on until we found it again, for we were surrounded +with beds of rotten lava, through which we could easily break and plunge +down 1,000 feet. I thought Boo would answer for me, and was about to say +so, when Marlette partly proved his statement, crushing through and +disappearing to his arm-pits. + +They made their way across at last, and stood the rest of the night +gazing down upon a spectacle of a crater in quivering action, a veritable +lake of fire. They had risked their lives for that scene, but it seemed +worth while. + +His open-air life on the river, and the mining camps, had prepared Samuel +Clemens for adventurous hardships. He was thirty years old, with his +full account of mental and physical capital. His growth had been slow, +but he was entering now upon his golden age; he was fitted for conquest +of whatever sort, and he was beginning to realize his power. + + + + +LIII + +ANSON BURLINGAME AND THE "HORNET" DISASTER + +It was near the end of June when he returned to Honolulu from a tour of +all the islands, fairly worn out and prostrated with saddle boils. He +expected only to rest and be quiet for a season, but all unknown to him +startling and historic things were taking place in which he was to have a +part--events that would mark another forward stride in his career. + +The Ajax had just come in, bringing his Excellency Anson Burlingame, then +returning to his post as minister to China; also General Van Valkenburg, +minister to Japan; Colonel Rumsey and Minister Burlingame's son, Edward, +--[Edward L. Burlingame, now for many years editor of Scribner's +Magazine.]--then a lively boy of eighteen. Young Burlingame had read +"The Jumping Frog," and was enthusiastic about Mark Twain and his work. +Learning that he was in Honolulu, laid up at his hotel, the party sent +word that they would call on him next morning. + +Clemens felt that he must not accept this honor, sick or well. He +crawled out of bed, dressed and shaved himself as quickly as possible, +and drove to the American minister's, where the party was staying. They +had a hilariously good time. When he returned to his hotel he sent them, +by request, whatever he had on hand of his work. General Van Valkenburg +had said to him: + +"California is proud of Mark Twain, and some day the American people will +be, too, no doubt." + +There has seldom been a more accurate prophecy. + +But a still greater event was imminent. On that very day (June 21, 1866) +there came word of the arrival at Sanpahoe, on the island of Hawaii, of +an open boat containing fifteen starving wretches, who on short, ten-day +rations had been buffeting a stormy sea for forty-three days! A vessel, +the Hornet, from New York, had taken fire and burned "on the line," and +since early in May, on that meager sustenance, they had been battling +with hundreds of leagues of adverse billows, seeking for land. + +A few days following the first report, eleven of the rescued men were +brought to Honolulu and placed in the hospital. Mark Twain recognized +the great news importance of the event. It would be a splendid beat if +he could interview the castaways and be the first to get their story to +his paper. There was no cable in those days; a vessel for San Francisco +would sail next morning. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he +must not miss it. Bedridden as he was, the undertaking seemed beyond his +strength. + +But just at this time the Burlingame party descended on him, and almost +before he knew it he was on the way to the hospital on a cot, escorted by +the heads of the joint legations of China and Japan. Once there, Anson +Burlingame, with his splendid human sympathy and handsome, courtly +presence, drew from those enfeebled castaways all the story of their long +privation and struggle, that had stretched across forty-three distempered +days and four thousand miles of sea. All that Mark Twain had to do was +to listen and make the notes. + +He put in the night-writing against time. Next morning, just as the +vessel for the States was drifting away from her dock, a strong hand +flung his bulky envelope of manuscript aboard, and if the vessel arrived +his great beat was sure. It did arrive, and the three-column story on +the front page of the Sacramento Union, in its issue of July 19th, gave +the public the first detailed history of the terrible Hornet disaster and +the rescue of those starving men. Such a story occupied a wider place in +the public interest than it would in these crowded days. The telegraph +carried it everywhere, and it was featured as a sensation. + +Mark Twain always adored the name and memory of Anson Burlingame. In his +letter home he tells of Burlingame's magnanimity in "throwing away an +invitation to dine with princes and foreign dignitaries" to help him. +"You know I appreciate that kind of thing," he says; which was a true +statement, and in future years he never missed an opportunity of paying +an instalment on his debt of gratitude. It was proper that he should do +so, for the obligation was a far greater one than that contracted in +obtaining the tale of the Hornet disaster. It was the debt which one +owes to a man who, from the deep measure of his understanding, gives +encouragement and exactly needed and convincing advice. Anson Burlingame +said to Samuel Clemens: + +"You have great ability; I believe you have genius. What you need now is +the refinement of association. Seek companionship among men of superior +intellect and character. Refine yourself and your work. Never affiliate +with inferiors; always climb." + +Clemens never forgot that advice. He did not always observe it, but he +rarely failed to realize its gospel. Burlingame urged him to travel. + +"Come to Pekin next winter," he said, "and visit me. Make my house your +home. I will give you letters and introduce you. You will have +facilities for acquiring information about China." + +It is not surprising then that Mark Twain never felt his debt to Anson +Burlingame entirely paid. Burlingame came more than once to the hotel, +for Clemens was really ill now, and they discussed plans for his future +betterment. + +He promised, of course, to visit China, and when he was alone put in a +good deal of time planning a trip around the world which would include +the great capitals. When not otherwise employed he read; though there +was only one book in the hotel, a "blue and gold" edition of Dr. +Holmes's Songs in Many Keys, and this he soon knew almost by heart, from +title-page to finis. + +He was soon up and about. No one could remain ill long in those happy +islands. Young Burlingame came, and suggested walks. Once, when Clemens +hesitated, the young man said: + +"But there is a Scriptural command for you to go." + +"If you can quote one I'll obey it," said Clemens. + +"Very well. The Bible says, 'If any man require thee to walk a mile, go +with him, Twain.'" + +The command was regarded as sufficient. Clemens quoted the witticism +later (in his first lecture), and it was often repeated in after-years, +ascribed to Warner, Ward, and a dozen others. Its origin was as here set +down. + +Under date of July 4 (1866), Mark Twain's Sandwich Island note-book says: + + Went to a ball 8.30 P.M.--danced till 12.30; stopped at General Van + Valkenburg's room and talked with him and Mr. Burlingame and Ed + Burlingame until 3 A.M. + +From which we may conclude that he had altogether recovered. A few days +later. the legation party had sailed for China and Japan, and on the +19th Clemens himself set out by a slow sailing-vessel to San Francisco. +They were becalmed and were twenty-five days making the voyage. Captain +Mitchell and others of the wrecked Hornet were aboard, and he put in a +good deal of time copying their diaries and preparing a magazine article +which, he believed, would prove his real entrance to the literary world. + +The vessel lay almost perfectly still, day after day, and became a +regular playground at sea. Sundays they had services and Mark Twain led +the choir. + +"I hope they will have a better opinion of our music in heaven than I +have down here," he says in his notes. "If they don't, a thunderbolt +will knock this vessel endways." It is perhaps worthy of mention that on +the night of the 27th of July he records having seen another "splendidly +colored, lunar rainbow." That he regarded this as an indication of +future good-fortune is not surprising, considering the events of the +previous year. + +It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco, and the note-book entry +of that day says: + + Home again. No--not home again--in prison again, end all the wild + sense of freedom gone. The city seems so cramped and so dreary with + toil and care and business anxiety. God help me, I wish I were at + sea again! + +There were compensations, however. He went over to Sacramento, and was +abundantly welcomed. It was agreed that, in addition to the twenty +dollars allowed for each letter, a special bill should be made for the +Hornet report. + +"How much do you think it ought to be, Mark?" James Anthony asked. + +"Oh, I'm a modest man; I don't want the whole Union office. Call it $100 +a column." + +There was a general laugh. The bill was made out at that figure, and he +took it to the business office for payment. + +"The cashier didn't faint," he wrote, many years later, "but he came +rather near it. He sent for the proprietors, and they only laughed in +their jolly fashion, and said it was a robbery, but 'no matter, pay it. +It's all right.' The best men that ever owned a newspaper."--["My Debut +as a Literary Person."--Collected works.]-- + +Though inferior to the descriptive writing which a year later would give +him a world-wide fame, the Sandwich Island letters added greatly to his +prestige on the Pacific coast. They were convincing, informing; tersely +--even eloquently--descriptive, with a vein of humor adapted to their +audience. Yet to read them now, in the fine nonpareil type in which they +were set, is such a wearying task that one can only marvel at their +popularity. They were not brilliant literature, by our standards to-day. +Their humor is usually of a muscular kind, varied with grotesque +exaggerations; the literary quality is pretty attenuated. Here and there +are attempts at verse. He had a fashion in those days of combining two +or more poems with distracting, sometimes amusing, effect. Examples of +these dislocations occur in the Union letters; a single stanza will +present the general idea: + + The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, + + The turf with their bayonets turning, + And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold, + And our lanterns dimly burning. + +Only a trifling portion of the letters found their way into his Sandwich +Island chapters of 'Roughing It', five years later. They do, however, +reveal a sort of transition stage between the riotous florescence of the +Comstock and the mellowness of his later style. He was learning to see +things with better eyes, from a better point of view. It is not +difficult to believe that this literary change of heart was in no small +measure due to the influence of Anson Burlingame. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume I, Part 1 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY, 1835-1866 by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME I, Part 2: 1866-1875 + + + +LIV + +THE LECTURER + +It was not easy to take up the daily struggle again, but it was +necessary.--[Clemens once declared he had been so blue at this period +that one morning he put a loaded pistol to his head, but found he lacked +courage to pull the trigger.]--Out of the ruck of possibilities (his +brain always thronged with plans) he constructed three or four resolves. +The chief of these was the trip around the world; but that lay months +ahead, and in the mean time ways and means must be provided. Another +intention was to finish the Hornet article, and forward it to Harper's +Magazine--a purpose carried immediately into effect. To his delight the +article found acceptance, and he looked forward to the day of its +publication as the beginning of a real career. He intended to follow it +up with a series on the islands, which in due time might result in a book +and an income. He had gone so far as to experiment with a dedication for +the book--an inscription to his mother, modified later for use in 'The +Innocents Abroad'. A third plan of action was to take advantage of the +popularity of the Hawaiian letters, and deliver a lecture on the same +subject. But this was a fearsome prospect--he trembled when he thought +of it. As Governor of the Third House he had been extravagantly received +and applauded, but in that case the position of public entertainer had +been thrust upon him. To come forward now, offering himself in the same +capacity, was a different matter. He believed he could entertain, but he +lacked the courage to declare himself; besides, it meant a risk of his +slender capital. He confided his situation to Col. John McComb, of the +Alta California, and was startled by McComb's vigorous endorsement. + +"Do it, by all means!" urged McComb. "It will be a grand success--I know +it! Take the largest house in town, and charge a dollar a ticket." + +Frightened but resolute, he went to the leading theater manager the same +Tom Maguire of his verses--and was offered the new opera-house at half +rates. The next day this advertisement appeared: + + MAGUIRE'S ACADEMY OF MUSIC + PINE STREET, NEAR MONTGOMERY + + THE SANDWICH ISLANDS + + MARK TWAIN + + (HONOLULU CORRESPONDENT OF THE SACRAMENTO UNION) + WILL DELIVER A + LECTURE ON THE SANDWICH ISLANDS + + AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC + ON TUESDAY EVENING, OCT. 2d + (1866) + + In which passing mention will be made of Harris, Bishop Staley, the +American missionaries, etc., and the absurd customs and characteristics + of the natives duly discussed and described. The great volcano of + Kilauea will also receive proper attention. + + A SPLENDID ORCHESTRA + is in town, but has not been engaged + ALSO + A DEN OF FEROCIOUS WILD BEASTS + will be on exhibition in the next block + MAGNIFICENT FIREWORKS +were in contemplation for this occasion, but the idea has been abandoned + A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION + may be expected; in fact, the public are privileged to expect whatever + they please. + + Dress Circle, $1.00 Family Circle, 50c + Doors open at 7 o'clock The Trouble to begin at 8 o'clock + + +The story of that first lecture, as told in Roughing It, is a faithful +one, and need only be summarized here. + +Expecting to find the house empty, he found it packed from the footlights +to the walls. Sidling out from the wings--wobbly-kneed and dry of +tongue--he was greeted by a murmur, a roar, a very crash of applause that +frightened away his remaining vestiges of courage. Then, came reaction-- +these were his friends, and he began to talk to them. Fear melted away, +and as tide after tide of applause rose and billowed and came breaking at +his feet, he knew something of the exaltation of Monte Cristo when he +declared "The world is mine!" + +It was a vast satisfaction to have succeeded. It was particularly +gratifying at this time, for he dreaded going back into newspaper +harness. Also; it softened later the disappointment resulting from +another venture; for when the December Harper appeared, with his article, +the printer and proof-reader had somehow converted Mark Twain into "Mark +Swain," and his literary dream perished. + +As to the literary value of his lecture, it was much higher than had, +been any portion of his letters, if we may judge from its few remaining +fragments. One of these--a part of the description of the great volcano +Haleakala, on the island of Maui--is a fair example of his eloquence. + +It is somewhat more florid than his later description of the same scene +in Roughing It, which it otherwise resembles; and we may imagine that its +poetry, with the added charm of its delivery, held breathless his +hearers, many of whom believed that no purer eloquence had ever been +uttered or written. + +It is worth remembering, too, that in this lecture, delivered so long +ago, he advocated the idea of American ownership of these islands, +dwelling at considerable length on his reasons for this ideal. + +--[For fragmentary extracts from this first lecture of Mark Twain and +news comment, see Appendix D, end of last volume.]-- + +There was a gross return from his venture of more than $1,200, but with +his usual business insight, which was never foresight, he had made an +arrangement by which, after paying bills and dividing with his manager, +he had only about one-third of, this sum left. Still, even this was +prosperity and triumph. He had acquired a new and lucrative profession +at a bound. The papers lauded him as the "most piquant and humorous +writer and lecturer on the Coast since the days of the lamented John +Phoenix." He felt that he was on the highroad at last. + +Denis McCarthy, late of the Enterprise, was in San Francisco, and was +willing to become his manager. Denis was capable and honest, and Clemens +was fond of him. They planned a tour of the near-by towns, beginning +with Sacramento, extending it later even to the mining camps, such as Red +Dog and Grass Valley; also across into Nevada, with engagements at Carson +City, Virginia, and Gold Hill. It was an exultant and hilarious +excursion--that first lecture tour made by Denis McCarthy and Mark Twain. +Success traveled with them everywhere, whether the lecturer looked across +the footlights of some pretentious "opera-house" or between the two +tallow candles of some camp "academy." Whatever the building, it was +packed, and the returns were maximum. + +Those who remember him as a lecturer in that long-ago time say that his +delivery was more quaint, his drawl more exaggerated, even than in later +life; that his appearance and movements on the stage were natural, rather +than graceful; that his manuscript, which he carried under his arm, +looked like a ruffled hen. It was, in fact, originally written on sheets +of manila paper, in large characters, so that it could be read easily by +dim light, and it was doubtless often disordered. + +There was plenty of amusing experience on this tour. At one place, when +the lecture was over, an old man came to him and said: + +"Be them your natural tones of eloquence?" + +At Grass Valley there was a rival show, consisting of a lady tight-rope +walker and her husband. It was a small place, and the tight-rope +attraction seemed likely to fail. The lady's husband had formerly been a +compositor on the Enterprise, so that he felt there was a bond of +brotherhood between him and Mark Twain. + +"Look here," he said. "Let's combine our shows. I'll let my wife do the +tight-rope act outside and draw a crowd, and you go inside and lecture." + +The arrangement was not made. + +Following custom, the lecturer at first thought it necessary to be +introduced, and at each place McCarthy had to skirmish around and find +the proper person. At Red Dog, on the Stanislaus, the man selected +failed to appear, and Denis had to provide another on short notice. +He went down into the audience and captured an old fellow, who ducked and +dodged but could not escape. Denis led him to the stage, a good deal +frightened. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "this is the celebrated Mark Twain from +the celebrated city of San Francisco, with his celebrated lecture about +the celebrated Sandwich Islands." + +That was as far as he could go; but it was far enough. Mark Twain never +had a better introduction. The audience was in a shouting humor from the +start. + +Clemens himself used to tell of an introduction at another camp, where +his sponsor said: + +"Ladies and gentlemen, I know only two things about this man: the first +is that he's never been in jail, and the second is I don't know why." + +But this is probably apocryphal; there is too much "Mark Twain" in it. + +When he reached Virginia, Goodman said to him: + +"Sam, you do not need anybody to introduce you. There's a piano on the +stage in the theater. Have it brought out in sight, and when the curtain +rises you be seated at the piano, playing and singing that song of yours, +'I Had an Old Horse Whose Name Was Methusalem,' and don't seem to notice +that the curtain is up at first; then be surprised when you suddenly find +out that it is up, and begin talking, without any further preliminaries." + +This proved good advice, and the lecture, thus opened, started off with +general hilarity and applause. + + + + +LV + +HIGHWAY ROBBERY + +His Nevada, lectures were bound to be immensely successful. The people +regarded him as their property over there, and at Carson and Virginia the +houses overflowed. At Virginia especially his friends urged and begged +him to repeat the entertainment, but he resolutely declined. + +"I have only one lecture yet," he said. "I cannot bring myself to give +it twice in the same town." + +But that irresponsible imp, Steve Gillis, who was again in Virginia, +conceived a plan which would make it not only necessary for him to +lecture again, but would supply him with a subject. Steve's plan was +very simple: it was to relieve the lecturer of his funds by a friendly +highway robbery, and let an account of the adventure furnish the new +lecture. + +In 'Roughing It' Mark Twain has given a version of this mock robbery +which is correct enough as far as it goes; but important details are +lacking. Only a few years ago (it was April, 1907), in his cabin on +jackass Hill, with Joseph Goodman and the writer of this history present, +Steve Gillis made his "death-bed" confession as is here set down: + +"Mark's lecture was given in Piper's Opera House, October 30, 1866. The +Virginia City people had heard many famous lectures before, but they were +mere sideshows compared with Mark's. It could have been run to crowded +houses for a week. We begged him to give the common people a chance; but +he refused to repeat himself. He was going down to Carson, and was +coming back to talk in Gold Hill about a week later, and his agent, Denis +McCarthy, and I laid a plan to have him robbed on the Divide between Gold +Hill and Virginia, after the Gold Hill lecture was over and he and Denis +would be coming home with the money. The Divide was a good lonely place, +and was famous for its hold-ups. We got City Marshal George Birdsall +into it with us, and took in Leslie Blackburn, Pat Holland, Jimmy +Eddington, and one or two more of Sam's old friends. We all loved him, +and would have fought for him in a moment. That's the kind of friends +Mark had in Nevada. If he had any enemies I never heard of them. + +"We didn't take in Dan de Quille, or Joe here, because Sam was Joe's +guest, and we were afraid he would tell him. We didn't take in Dan +because we wanted him to write it up as a genuine robbery and make a big +sensation. That would pack the opera-house at two dollars a seat to hear +Mark tell the story. + +"Well, everything went off pretty well. About the time Mark was +finishing his lecture in Gold Hill the robbers all went up on the Divide +to wait, but Mark's audience gave him a kind of reception after his +lecture, and we nearly froze to death up there before he came along. +By and by I went back to see what was the matter. Sam and Denis were +coming, and carrying a carpet-sack about half full of silver between +them. I shadowed them and blew a policeman's whistle as a signal to the +boys when the lecturers were within about a hundred yards of the place. +I heard Sam say to Denis: + +"'I'm glad they've got a policeman on the Divide. They never had one in +my day.' + +"Just about that time the boys, all with black masks on and silver +dollars at the sides of their tongues to disguise their voices, stepped +out and stuck six-shooters at Sam and Denis and told them to put up their +hands. The robbers called each other 'Beauregard' and 'Stonewall +Jackson.' Of course Denis's hands went up, and Mark's, too, though Mark +wasn't a bit scared or excited. He talked to the robbers in his regular +fashion. He said: + +"'Don't flourish those pistols so promiscuously. They might go off by +accident.' + +"They told him to hand over his watch and money; but when he started to +take his hands down they made him put them up again. Then he asked how +they expected him to give them his valuables with his hands up in the +sky. He said his treasures didn't lie in heaven. He told them not to +take his watch, which was the one Sandy Baldwin and Theodore Winters had +given him as Governor of the Third House, but we took it all the same. + +"Whenever he started to put his hands down we made him put them up again. +Once he said: + +"'Don't you fellows be so rough. I was tenderly reared.' + +"Then we told him and Denis to keep their hands up for fifteen minutes +after we were gone--this was to give us time to get back to Virginia and +be settled when they came along. As we were going away Mark called: + +"'Say, you forgot something.' + +"'What is it?' + +"Why, the carpet-bag.' + +"He was cool all the time. Senator Bill Stewart, in his Autobiography, +tells a great story of how scared Mark was, and how he ran; but Stewart +was three thousand miles from Virginia by that time, and later got mad at +Mark because he made a joke about him in 'Roughing It'. + +"Denis wanted to take his hands down pretty soon after we were gone, but +Mark said: + +"'No, Denis, I'm used to obeying orders when they are given in that +convincing way; we'll just keep our hands up another fifteen minutes or +so for good measure.' + +"We were waiting in a big saloon on C Street when Mark and Denis came +along. We knew they would come in, and we expected Mark would be +excited; but he was as unruffled as a mountain lake. He told us they had +been robbed, and asked me if I had any money. I gave him a hundred +dollars of his own money, and he ordered refreshments for everybody. +Then we adjourned to the Enterprise office, where he offered a reward, +and Dan de Quille wrote up the story and telegraphed it to the other +newspapers. Then somebody suggested that Mark would have to give another +lecture now, and that the robbery would make a great subject. He entered +right into the thing, and next day we engaged Piper's Opera House, and +people were offering five dollars apiece for front seats. It would have +been the biggest thing that ever came to Virginia if it had come off. +"But we made a mistake, then, by taking Sandy Baldwin into the joke. We +took in Joe here, too, and gave him the watch and money to keep, which +made it hard for Joe afterward. But it was Sandy Baldwin that ruined us. +He had Mark out to dinner the night before the show was to come off, and +after he got well warmed up with champagne he thought it would be a smart +thing to let Mark into what was really going on. + +"Mark didn't see it our way. He was mad clear through." + +At this point Joseph Goodman took up the story. He said: + +"Those devils put Sam's money, watch, keys, pencils, and all his things +into my hands. I felt particularly mean at being made accessory to the +crime, especially as Sam was my guest, and I had grave doubts as to how +he would take it when he found out the robbery was not genuine. + +"I felt terribly guilty when he said: + +"'Joe, those d--n thieves took my keys, and I can't get into my trunk. +Do you suppose you could get me a key that would fit my trunk?' + +"I said I thought I could during the day, and after Sam had gone I took +his own key, put it in the fire and burnt it to make it look black. Then +I took a file and scratched it here and there, to make it look as if I +had been fitting it to the lock, feeling guilty all the time, like a man +who is trying to hide a murder. Sam did not ask for his key that day, +and that evening he was invited to judge Baldwin's to dinner. I thought +he looked pretty silent and solemn when he came home; but he only said: + +"'Joe, let's play cards; I don't feel sleepy.' + +"Steve here, and two or three of the other boys who had been active in +the robbery, were present, and they did not like Sam's manner, so they +excused themselves and left him alone with me. We played a good while; +then he said: + +"'Joe, these cards are greasy. I have got some new ones in my trunk. +Did you get that key to-day?' + +"I fished out that burnt, scratched-up key with fear and trembling. But +he didn't seem to notice it at all, and presently returned with the +cards. Then we played, and played, and played--till one o'clock--two +o'clock--Sam hardly saying a word, and I wondering what was going to +happen. By and by he laid down his cards and looked at me, and said: + +"'Joe, Sandy Baldwin told me all about that robbery to-night. Now, Joe, +I have found out that the law doesn't recognize a joke, and I am going to +send every one of those fellows to the penitentiary.' + +"He said it with such solemn gravity, and such vindictiveness, that I +believed he was in dead earnest. + +"I know that I put in two hours of the hardest work I ever did, trying to +talk him out of that resolution. I used all the arguments about the boys +being his oldest friends; how they all loved him, and how the joke had +been entirely for his own good; I pleaded with him, begged him to +reconsider; I went and got his money and his watch and laid them on the +table; but for a time it seemed hopeless. And I could imagine those +fellows going behind the bars, and the sensation it would make in +California; and just as I was about to give it up he said: + +"'Well, Joe, I'll let it pass--this time; I'll forgive them again; I've +had to do it so many times; but if I should see Denis McCarthy and Steve +Gillis mounting the scaffold to-morrow, and I could save them by turning +over my hand, I wouldn't do it!' + +"He canceled the lecture engagement, however, next morning, and the day +after left on the Pioneer Stage, by the way of Donner Lake, for +California. The boys came rather sheepishly to see him off; but he would +make no show of relenting. When they introduced themselves as +Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, etc., he merely said: + +"'Yes, and you'll all be behind the bars some day. There's been a good +deal of robbery around here lately, and it's pretty clear now who did +it.' They handed him a package containing the masks which the robbers +had worn. He received it in gloomy silence; but as the stage drove away +he put his head out of the window, and after some pretty vigorous +admonition resumed his old smile, and called out: 'Good-by, friends; +good-by, thieves; I bear you no malice.' So the heaviest joke was on his +tormentors after all." + +This is the story of the famous Mark Twain robbery direct from +headquarters. It has been garbled in so many ways that it seems worth +setting down in full. Denis McCarthy, who joined him presently in San +Francisco, received a little more punishment there. + +"What kind of a trip did you boys have?" a friend asked of them. + +Clemens, just recovering from a cold which the exposure on the Divide had +given him, smiled grimly: + +"Oh, pretty good, only Denis here mistook it for a spree." + +He lectured again in San Francisco, this time telling the story of his +Overland trip in 1861, and he did the daring thing of repeating three +times the worn-out story of Horace Greeley's ride with Hank Monk, as +given later in 'Roughing It'. People were deadly tired of that story out +there, and when he told it the first time, with great seriousness, they +thought he must be failing mentally. They did not laugh--they only felt +sorry. He waited a little, as if expecting a laugh, and presently led +around to it and told it again. The audience was astonished still more, +and pitied him thoroughly. He seemed to be waiting pathetically in the +dead silence for their applause, then went on with his lecture; but +presently, with labored effort, struggled around to the old story again, +and told it for the third time. The audience suddenly saw the joke then, +and became vociferous and hysterical in their applause; but it was a +narrow escape. He would have been hysterical himself if the relief had +not came when it did. + +--[A side-light on the Horace Greeley story and on Mr. Greeley's +eccentricities is furnished by Mr. Goodman: + +When I was going East in 1869 I happened to see Hank Monk just before I +started. "Mr. Goodman," he said, "you tell Horace Greeley that I want to +come East, and ask him to send me a pass." "All right, Hank," I said, +"I will." It happened that when I got to New York City one of the first +men I met was Greeley. "Mr. Greeley," said, "I have a message for you +from Hank Monk." Greeley bristled and glared at me. "That--rascal?" he +said, "He has done me more injury than any other man in America."] + + + + +LVI + +BACK TO THE STATES + +In the mean time Clemens had completed his plan for sailing, and had +arranged with General McComb, of the Alta California, for letters during +his proposed trip around the world. However, he meant to visit his +people first, and his old home. He could go back with means now, and +with the prestige of success. + +"I sail to-morrow per Opposition--telegraphed you to-day," he wrote on +December 14th, and a day later his note-book entry says: + + Sailed from San Francisco in Opposition (line) steamer America, + Capt. Wakeman, at noon, 15th Dec., 1866. Pleasant sunny day, hills + brightly clad with green grass and shrubbery. + +So he was really going home at last! He had been gone five and a half +years--eventful, adventurous years that had made him over completely, at +least so far as ambitions and equipment were concerned. He had came +away, in his early manhood, a printer and a pilot, unknown outside of his +class. He was returning a man of thirty-one, with a fund of hard +experience, three added professions--mining, journalism, and lecturing-- +also with a new name, already famous on the sunset slopes of its +adoption, and beginning to be heard over the hills and far away. In some +degree, at least, he resembled the prince of a fairy tale who, starting +out humble and unnoticed, wins his way through a hundred adventures and +returns with gifts and honors. + +The homeward voyage was a notable one. It began with a tempest a little +way out of San Francisco--a storm terrible but brief, that brought the +passengers from their berths to the deck, and for a time set them +praying. Then there was Captain Ned Wakeman, a big, burly, fearless +sailor, who had visited the edges of all continents and archipelagos; who +had been born at sea, and never had a day's schooling in his life, but +knew the Bible by heart; who was full of human nature and profanity, and +believed he was the only man on the globe who knew the secret of the +Bible miracles. He became a distinct personality in Mark Twain's work-- +the memory of him was an unfailing delight. Captain "Ned Blakely," in +'Roughing It', who with his own hands hanged Bill Noakes, after reading +him promiscuous chapters from the Bible, was Captain Wakeman. Captain +"Stormfield," who had the marvelous visit to heaven, was likewise Captain +Wakeman; and he appears in the "Idle Excursion" and elsewhere. + +Another event of the voyage was crossing the Nicaragua Isthmus--the trip +across the lake and down the San Juan River--a, brand-new experience, +between shores of splendid tropic tangle, gleaming with vivid life. The +luxuriance got into his note-book. + +Dark grottos, fairy festoons, tunnels, temples, columns, pillars, towers, +pilasters, terraces, pyramids, mounds, domes, walls, in endless confusion +of vine-work--no shape known to architecture unimitated--and all so +webbed together that short distances within are only gained by glimpses. +Monkeys here and there; birds warbling; gorgeous plumaged birds on the +wing; Paradise itself, the imperial realm of beauty-nothing to wish for +to make it perfect. + +But it was beyond the isthmus that the voyage loomed into proportions +somber and terrible. The vessel they took there, the San Francisco, +sailed from Greytown January 1, 1867, the beginning of a memorable year +in Mark Twain's life. Next day two cases of Asiatic cholera were +reported in the steerage. There had been a rumor of it in Nicaragua, but +no one expected it on the ship. + +The nature of the disease was not hinted at until evening, when one of +the men died. Soon after midnight, the other followed. A minister +making the voyage home, Rev. J. G. Fackler, read the burial service. The +gaiety of the passengers, who had become well acquainted during the +Pacific voyage, was subdued. When the word "cholera" went among them, +faces grew grave and frightened. On the morning of January 4th Reverend +Fackler's services were again required. The dead man was put overboard +within half an hour after he had ceased to breathe. + +Gloom settled upon the ship. All steam was made to put into Key West. +Then some of the machinery gave way and the ship lay rolling, helplessly +becalmed in the fierce heat of the Gulf, while repairs were being made. +The work was done at a disadvantage, and the parts did not hold. Time +and again they were obliged to lie to, in the deadly tropic heat, +listening to the hopeless hammering, wondering who would be the next to +be sewed up hastily in a blanket and slipped over the ship's side. On +the 5th seven new cases of illness were reported. One of the crew, a man +called "Shape," was said to be dying. A few hours later he was dead. By +this time the Reverend Fackler himself had been taken. + +"So they are burying poor 'Shape' without benefit of clergy," says the +note-book. + +General consternation now began to prevail. Then it was learned that the +ship's doctor had run out of medicines. The passengers became +demoralized. They believed their vessel was to become a charnel ship. +Strict sanitary orders were issued, and a hospital was improvised. + + Verily the ship is becoming a floating hospital herself--not an hour + passes but brings its fresh sensation, its new disaster, its + melancholy tidings. When I think of poor "Shape" and the preacher, + both so well when I saw them yesterday evening, I realize that I + myself may be dead to-morrow. + + Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has ceased on the + ship--a settled gloom is upon the faces of the passengers. + +By noon it was evident that the minister could not survive. He died at +two o'clock next morning; the fifth victim in less than five days. The +machinery continued to break and the vessel to drag. The ship's doctor +confessed to Clemens that he was helpless. There were eight patients in +the hospital. + +But on January 6th they managed to make Key West, and for some reason +were not quarantined. Twenty-one passengers immediately deserted the +ship and were heard of no more. + +"I am glad they are gone. D--n them," says the notebook. Apparently he +had never considered leaving, and a number of others remained. The +doctor restocked his medicine-locker, and the next day they put to sea +again. Certainly they were a daring lot of voyagers. On the 8th another +of the patients died. Then the cooler weather seemed to check the +contagion, and it was not until the night of the 11th, when the New York +harbor lights were in view, that the final death occurred. There were no +new cases by this time, and the other patients were convalescent. A +certificate was made out that the last man had died of "dropsy." There +would seem to have been no serious difficulty in docking the vessel and +landing the passengers. The matter would probably be handled differently +to-day. + + + + +LVII + +OLD FRIENDS AND NEW PLANS + +It had been more than thirteen years since his first arrival in New York. +Then he had been a youth, green, untraveled, eager to get away from home. +Now a veteran, he was as eager to return. + +He stopped only long enough in New York to see Charles Henry Webb, late +of California, who had put together a number of the Mark Twain sketches, +including "The Jumping Frog," for book publication. Clemens himself +decided to take the book to Carleton, thinking that, having missed the +fame of the "Frog" once, he might welcome a chance to stand sponsor for +it now. But Carleton was wary; the "Frog" had won favor, and even fame, +in its fugitive, vagrant way, but a book was another matter. Books were +undertaken very seriously and with plenty of consideration in those days. +Twenty-one years later, in Switzerland, Carleton said to Mark Twain: + +"My chief claim to immortality is the distinction of having declined your +first book." + +Clemens was ready enough to give up the book when Carleton declined it, +but Webb said he would publish it himself, and he set about it forthwith. +The author waited no longer now, but started for St. Louis, and was soon +with his mother and sister, whom he had not seen since that eventful +first year of the war. They thought he looked old, which was true +enough, but they found him unchanged in his manner: buoyant, full of +banter and gravely quaint remarks--he was always the same. Jane Clemens +had grown older, too. She was nearly sixty-four, but as keen and +vigorous as ever-proud (even if somewhat critical) of this handsome, +brilliant man of new name and fame who had been her mischievous, wayward +boy. She petted him, joked with him, scolded him, and inquired +searchingly into his morals and habits. In turn he petted, comforted, +and teased her. She decided that he was the same Sam, and always would +be--a true prophecy. + +He went up to Hannibal to see old friends. Many were married; some had +moved away; some were dead--the old story. He delivered his lecture +there, and was the center of interest and admiration--his welcome might +have satisfied even Tom Sawyer. From Hannibal he journeyed to Keokuk, +where he lectured again to a crowd of old friends and new, then returned +to St. Louis for a more extended visit. + +It was while he was in St. Louis that he first saw the announcement of +the Quaker City Holy Land Excursion, and was promptly fascinated by what +was then a brand-new idea in ocean travel--a splendid picnic--a choice +and refined party that would sail away for a long summer's journeying to +the most romantic of all lands and seas, the shores of the Mediterranean. +No such argosy had ever set out before in pursuit of the golden fleece of +happiness. + +His projected trip around the world lost its charm in the light of this +idyllic dream. Henry Ward Beecher was advertised as one of the party; +General Sherman as another; also ministers, high-class journalists--the +best minds of the nation. Anson Burlingame had told him to associate +with persons of refinement and intellect. He lost no time in writing to +the Alta, proposing that they send him in this select company. + +Noah Brooks, who was then on the Alta, states--[In an article published +in the Century Magazine.]--that the management was staggered by the +proposition, but that Col. John McComb insisted that the investment in +Mark Twain would be sound. A letter was accordingly sent, stating that a +check for his passage would be forwarded in due season, and that meantime +he could contribute letters from New York City. The rate for all letters +was to be twenty dollars each. The arrangement was a godsend, in the +fullest sense of the word, to Mark Twain. + +It was now April, and he was eager to get back to New York to arrange his +passage. The Quaker City would not sail for two months yet (two eventful +months), but the advertisement said that passages must be secured by the +5th, and he was there on that day. Almost the first man he met was the +chief of the New York Alta bureau with a check for twelve hundred and +fifty dollars (the amount of his ticket) and a telegram saying, "Ship +Mark Twain in the Holy Land Excursion and pay his passage." + + --[The following letter, which bears no date, was probably handed to + him later in the New York Alta office as a sort of credential: + + ALTA CALIFORNIA OFFICE, 42 JOHN STREET, NEW YORK. + + Sam'l Clemens, Esq., New York. + + DEAR SIR,--I have the honor to inform you that Fred'k. MacCrellish + & Co., Proprietors of Alta California, San Francisco, Cal., desire + to engage your services as Special Correspondent on the pleasure + excursion now about to proceed from this City to the Holy Land. In + obedience to their instructions I have secured a passage for you on + the vessel about to convey the excursion party referred to, and made + such arrangements as I hope will secure your comfort and + convenience. Your only instructions are that you will continue to + write at such times and from such places as you deem proper, and in + the same style that heretofore secured you the favor of the readers + of the Alta California. I have the honor to remain, with high + respect and esteem, + + Your ob'dt. Servant, + + JOHN J. MURPHY.] + + +The Alta, it appears, had already applied for his berth; but, not having +been vouched for by Mr. Beecher or some other eminent divine, Clemens was +fearful he might not be accepted. Quite casually he was enlightened on +this point. While waiting for attention in the shipping-office, with the +Alta agent, he heard a newspaper man inquire what notables were going. +A clerk, with evident pride, rattled off the names: + +"Lieutenant-General Sherman, Henry Ward Beecher, and Mask Twain; also +probably General Banks." + +So he was billed as an attraction. It was his first surreptitious taste +of fame on the Atlantic coast, and not without its delight. The story +often told of his being introduced by Ned House, of the Tribune, as a +minister, though often repeated by Mark Twain himself, was in the nature +of a joke, and mainly apocryphal. Clemens was a good deal in House's +company at the time, for he had made an arrangement to contribute +occasional letters to the Tribune, and House no doubt introduced him +jokingly as one of the Quaker City ministers. + + + + +LVIII + +A NEW BOOK AND A LECTURE + +Webb, meantime, had pushed the Frog book along. The proofs had been read +and the volume was about ready for issue. Clemens wrote to his mother +April 15th: + + My book will probably be in the bookseller's hands in about two + weeks. After that I shall lecture. Since I have been gone, the + boys have gotten up a "call" on me signed by two hundred + Californians. + +The lecture plan was the idea of Frank Fuller, who as acting Governor of +Utah had known Mark Twain on the Comstock, and prophesied favorably of +his future career. Clemens had hunted up Fuller on landing in New York +in January, and Fuller had encouraged the lecture then; but Clemens was +doubtful. + +"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "We +couldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me." + +But Fuller was a sanguine person, with an energy and enthusiasm that were +infectious. He insisted that the idea was sound. It would solidify Mark +Twain's reputation on the Atlantic coast, he declared, insisting that the +largest house in New York, Cooper Union, should be taken. Clemens had +partially consented, and Fuller had arranged with all the Pacific slope +people who had come East, headed by ex-Governor James W. Nye (by this +time Senator at Washington), to sign a call for the "Inimitable Mark +Twain" to appear before a New York audience. Fuller made Nye agree to be +there and introduce the lecturer, and he was burningly busy and happy in +the prospect. + +But Mark Twain was not happy. He looked at that spacious hall and +imagined the little crowd of faithful Californian stragglers that might +gather in to hear him, and the ridicule of the papers next day. He +begged Fuller to take a smaller hall, the smallest he could get. But +only the biggest hall in New York would satisfy Fuller. He would have +taken a larger one if he could have found it. The lecture was announced +for May 6th. Its subject was "Kanakadom, or the Sandwich Islands"-- +tickets fifty cents. Fuller timed it to follow a few days after Webb's +book should appear, so that one event might help the other. + +Mark Twain's first book, 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveyas +County, and Other Sketches', was scheduled for May 1st, and did, in fact, +appear on that date; but to the author it was no longer an important +event. Jim Smiley's frog as standard-bearer of his literary procession +was not an interesting object, so far as he was concerned--not with that +vast, empty hall in the background and the insane undertaking of trying +to fill it. The San Francisco venture had been as nothing compared with +this. Fuller was working night and day with abounding joy, while the +subject of his labor felt as if he were on the brink of a fearful +precipice, preparing to try a pair of wings without first learning to +fly. At one instant he was cold with fright, the next glowing with an +infection of Fuller's faith. He devised a hundred schemes for the sale +of seats. Once he came rushing to Fuller, saying: + +"Send a lot of tickets down to the Chickering Piano Company. I have +promised to put on my programme, 'The piano used at this entertainment is +manufactured by Chickering."' + +"But you don't want a piano, Mark," said Fuller, "do you?" + +"No, of course not; but they will distribute the tickets for the sake of +the advertisement, whether we have the piano or not." + +Fuller got out a lot of handbills and hung bunches of them in the stages, +omnibuses, and horse-cars. Clemens at first haunted these vehicles to +see if anybody noticed the bills. The little dangling bunches seemed +untouched. Finally two men came in; one of them pulled off a bill and +glanced at it. His friend asked: + +"Who's Mark Twain?" + +"God knows; I don't!" + +The lecturer could not ride any more. He was desperate. + +"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest." + +Fuller assured him that everything was working all right "working +underneath," Fuller said--but the lecturer was hopeless. He reported his +impressions to the folks at home: + + Everything looks shady, at least, if not dark; I have a good agent; + but now, after we have hired the Cooper Institute, and gone to an + expense in one way or another of $500, it comes out that I have got + to play against Speaker Colfax at Irving Hall, Ristori, and also the + double troop of Japanese jugglers, the latter opening at the great + Academy of Music--and with all this against me I have taken the + largest house in New York and cannot back water. + +He might have added that there were other rival entertainments: "The +Flying Scud" was at Wallack's, the "Black Crook" was at Niblo's, John +Brougham at the Olympic; and there were at least a dozen lesser +attractions. New York was not the inexhaustible city in those days; +these things could gather in the public to the last man. When the day +drew near, and only a few tickets had been sold, Clemens was desperate. + +"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in the Cooper Union that night but +you and me. I am on the verge of suicide. I would commit suicide if I +had the pluck and the outfit. You must paper the house, Fuller. You +must send out a flood of complementaries." + +"Very well," said Fuller; "what we want this time is reputation anyway-- +money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest, most intelligent +audience that ever was gathered in New York City. I will bring in the +school-instructors--the finest body of men and women in the world." + +Fuller immediately sent out a deluge of complimentary tickets, inviting +the school-teachers of New York and Brooklyn, and all the adjacent +country, to come free and hear Mark Twain's great lecture on Kanakadom. +This was within forty-eight hours of the time he was to appear. + +Senator Nye was to have joined Clemens and Fuller at the Westminster, +where Clemens was stopping, and they waited for him there with a +carriage, fuming and swearing, until it was evident that he was not +coming. At last Clemens said: + +"Fuller, you've got to introduce me." + +"No," suggested Fuller; "I've got a better scheme than that. You get up +and begin by bemeaning Nye for not being there. That will be better +anyway." + +Clemens said: + +"Well, Fuller, I can do that. I feel that way. I'll try to think up +something fresh and happy to say about that horse-thief." + +They drove to Cooper Union with trepidation. Suppose, after all, the +school-teachers had declined to come? They went half an hour before the +lecture was to begin. Forty years later Mark Twain said: + +"I couldn't keep away. I wanted to see that vast Mammoth cave and die. +But when we got near the building I saw that all the streets were blocked +with people, and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't believe that these +people were trying to get into Cooper Institute; but they were, and when +I got to the stage at last the house was jammed full-packed; there wasn't +room enough left for a child. + +"I was happy and I was excited beyond expression. I poured the Sandwich +Islands out on those people, and they laughed and shouted to my entire +content. For an hour and fifteen minutes I was in paradise." + +And Fuller to-day, alive and young, when so many others of that ancient +time and event have vanished, has added: + +"When Mark appeared the Californians gave a regular yell of welcome. +When that was over he walked to the edge of the platform, looked +carefully down in the pit, round the edges as if he were hunting for +something. Then he said: 'There was to have been a piano here, and a +senator to introduce me. I don't seem to discover them anywhere. The +piano was a good one, but we will have to get along with such music as I +can make with your help. As for the senator--Then Mark let himself go +and did as he promised about Senator Nye. He said things that made men +from the Pacific coast, who had known Nye, scream with delight. After +that came his lecture. The first sentence captured the audience. From +that moment to the end it was either in a roar of laughter or half +breathless by his beautiful descriptive passages. People were positively +ill for days, laughing at that lecture." + +So it was a success: everybody was glad to have been there; the papers +were kind, congratulations numerous. + +--[Kind but not extravagant; those were burning political times, and the +doings of mere literary people did not excite the press to the extent of +headlines. A jam around Cooper Union to-day, followed by such an +artistic triumph, would be a news event. On the other hand, Schuyler +Colfax, then Speaker of the House, was reported to the extent of a +column, nonpareil. His lecture was of no literary importance, and no +echo of it now remains. But those were political, not artistic, days. + +Of Mark Twain's lecture the Times notice said: + +"Nearly every one present came prepared for considerable provocation for +enjoyable laughter, and from the appearance of their mirthful faces +leaving the hall at the conclusion of the lecture but few were +disappointed, and it is not too much to say that seldom has so large an +audience been so uniformly pleased as the one that listened to Mark +Twain's quaint remarks last evening. The large hall of the Union was +filled to its utmost capacity by fully two thousand persons, which fact +spoke well for the reputation of the lecturer and his future success. +Mark Twain's style is a quaint one both in manner and method, and through +his discourse he managed to keep on the right side of the audience, and +frequently convulsed it with hearty laughter.... During a description of +the topography of the Sandwich Islands the lecturer surprised his hearers +by a graphic and eloquent description of the eruption of the great +volcano, which occurred in 1840, and his language was loudly applauded. + +"Judging from the success achieved by the lecturer last evening, he +should repeat his experiment at an early date."] + + + COOPER INSTITUTE + By Invitation of s large number of prominent Californians and + Citizens of New York, + + MARK TWAIN + + WILL DELIVER A + SERIO-HUMEROUS LECTURE + CONERNING + + KANAKDOM + OR + THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, + + COOPER INSTITUTE, + On Monday Evening, May 6,1867. + + TICKETS FIFTY GENTS. + For Sale at Chickering and Sons, 852 Broadway, and at the Principal + Hotel + + Doors open at 7 o'clock. The Wisdom will begin to flow at 8. + + +Mark Twain always felt grateful to the school-teachers for that night. +Many years later, when they wanted him to read to them in Steinway Hall, +he gladly gave his services without charge. + +Nor was the lecture a complete financial failure. In spite of the flood +of complementaries, there was a cash return of some three hundred dollars +from the sale of tickets--a substantial aid in defraying the expenses +which Fuller assumed and insisted on making good on his own account. +That was Fuller's regal way; his return lay in the joy of the game, and +in the winning of the larger stake for a friend. + +"Mark," he said, "it is all right. The fortune didn't come, but it will. +The fame has arrived; with this lecture and your book just out you are +going to be the most talked-of man in the country. Your letters for the +Alta and the Tribune will get the widest reception of any letters of +travel ever written." + + + + + +LIX + +THE FIRST BOOK + +With the shadow of the Cooper Institute so happily dispelled, The +Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and his following of Other +Sketches, became a matter of more interest. The book was a neat blue- +and-gold volume printed by John A. Gray & Green, the old firm for which +the boy, Sam Clemens, had set type thirteen years before. The title-page +bore Webb's name as publisher, with the American News Company as selling +agents. It further stated that the book was edited by "John Paul," that +is to say by Webb himself. The dedication was in keeping with the +general irresponsible character of the venture. It was as follows: + + TO + JOHN SMITH + WHOM I HAVE KNOWN IN DIVERS AND SUNDRY + PLACES ABOUT THE WORLD, AND WHOSE + MANY AND MANIFOLD VIRTUES DID + ALWAYS COMMAND MY ESTEEM, + I DEDICATE THIS BOOK + +It is said that the man to whom a volume is dedicated always buys a copy. +If this prove true in the present instance, a princely affluence is about +to burst upon + THE AUTHOR. + + +The "advertisement" stated that the author had "scaled the heights of +popularity at a single jump, and won for himself the sobriquet of the +'Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope'; furthermore, that he was known to +fame as the 'Moralist of the Main,'" and that as such he would be likely +to go down to posterity, adding that it was in his secondary character, +as humorist, rather than in his primal one of moralist, that the volume +aimed to present him.--[The advertisement complete, with extracts from +the book, may be found under Appendix E, at the end of last volume.] + +Every little while, during the forty years or more that have elapsed +since then, some one has come forward announcing Mark Twain to be as much +a philosopher as a humorist, as if this were a new discovery. But it was +a discovery chiefly to the person making the announcement. Every one who +ever knew Mark Twain at any period of his life made the same discovery. +Every one who ever took the trouble to familiarize himself with his work +made it. Those who did not make it have known his work only by hearsay +and quotation, or they have read it very casually, or have been very +dull. It would be much more of a discovery to find a book in which he +has not been serious--a philosopher, a moralist, and a poet. Even in the +Jumping Frog sketches, selected particularly for their inconsequence, the +under-vein of reflection and purpose is not lacking. The answer to Moral +Statistician--[In "Answers to Correspondents," included now in Sketches +New and Old. An extract from it, and from "A Strange Dream," will be +found in Appendix E.]--is fairly alive with human wisdom and righteous +wrath. The "Strange Dream," though ending in a joke, is aglow with +poetry. Webb's "advertisement" was playfully written, but it was +earnestly intended, and he writes Mark Twain down a moralist--not as a +discovery, but as a matter of course. The discoveries came along later, +when the author's fame as a humorist had dazzled the nations. + +It is as well to say it here as anywhere, perhaps, that one reason why +Mark Twain found it difficult to be accepted seriously was the fact that +his personality was in itself so essentially humorous. His physiognomy, +his manner of speech, this movement, his mental attitude toward events-- +all these were distinctly diverting. When we add to this that his medium +of expression was nearly always full of the quaint phrasing and those +surprising appositions which we recognize as amusing, it is not so +astonishing that his deeper, wiser, more serious purpose should be +overlooked. On the whole these unabated discoverers serve a purpose, if +only to make the rest of their species look somewhat deeper than the +comic phrase. + +The little blue-and-gold volume which presented the Frog story and +twenty-six other sketches in covers is chiefly important to-day as being +Mark Twain's first book. The selections in it were made for a public +that had been too busy with a great war to learn discrimination, and most +of them have properly found oblivion. Fewer than a dozen of them were +included in his collected Sketches issued eight years later, and some +even of those might have been spared; also some that were added, for that +matter; but detailed literary criticism is not the province of this work. +The reader may investigate and judge for himself. + +Clemens was pleased with the appearance of his book. To Bret Harte he +wrote: + +The book is out and it is handsome. It is full of damnable errors of +grammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch, +because I was away and did not read proofs; but be a friend and say +nothing about these things. When my hurry is over, I will send you a +copy to pisen the children with. + +That he had no exaggerated opinion of the book's contents or prospects we +may gather from his letter home: + +As for the Frog book, I don't believe it will ever pay anything worth a +cent. I published it simply to advertise myself, and not with the hope +of making anything out of it. + +He had grown more lenient in his opinion of the merits of the Frog story +itself since it had made friends in high places, especially since James +Russell Lowell had pronounced it "the finest piece of humorous writing +yet produced in America"; but compared with his lecture triumph, and his +prospective journey to foreign seas, his book venture, at best, claimed +no more than a casual regard. A Sandwich Island book (he had collected +his Union letters with the idea of a volume) he gave up altogether after +one unsuccessful offer of it to Dick & Fitzgerald. + +Frank Fuller's statement, that the fame had arrived, had in it some +measure of truth. Lecture propositions came from various directions. +Thomas Nast, then in the early day of his great popularity, proposed a +joint tour, in which Clemens would lecture, while he, Nast, illustrated +the remarks with lightning caricatures. But the time was too short; the +Quaker City would sail on the 8th of June, and in the mean time the Alta +correspondent was far behind with his New York letters. On May 29th he +wrote: + +I am 18 Alta letters behind, and I must catch up or bust. I have refused +all invitations to lecture. Don't know how my book is coming on. + +He worked like a slave for a week or so, almost night and day, to clean +up matters before his departure. Then came days of idleness and +reaction-days of waiting, during which his natural restlessness and the +old-time regret for things done and undone, beset him. + + My passage is paid, and if the ship sails I sail on her; but I make + no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going clothing--have + made no preparations whatever--shall not pack my trunk till the + morning we sail. + + All I do know or feel is that I am wild with impatience to move-- + move--move! Curse the endless delays! They always kill me--they + make me neglect every duty, and then I have a conscience that tears + me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a month. + I do more mean things the moment I get a chance to fold my hands and + sit down than ever I get forgiveness for. + + Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I + suppose we shall have to be gotten up regardless of expense, in + swallow-tails, white kids and everything 'en regle'. + + I am resigned to Rev. Mr. Hutchinson's or anybody else's + supervision. I don't mind it. I am fixed. I have got a splendid, + immoral, tobacco-smoking, wine-drinking, godless roommate who is as + good and true and right-minded a man as ever lived--a man whose + blameless conduct and example will always be an eloquent sermon to + all who shall come within their influence. But send on the + professional preachers--there are none I like better to converse + with; if they're not narrowminded and bigoted they make good + companions. + +The "splendid immoral room-mate" was Dan Slote--"Dan," of The Innocents, +a lovable character--all as set down. Samuel Clemens wrote one more +letter to his mother and sister--a conscience-stricken, pessimistic +letter of good-by written the night before sailing. Referring to the +Alta letters he says: + + I think they are the stupidest letters ever written from New York. + Corresponding has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the + States. If it continues abroad, I don't know what the Tribune and + Alta folk will think. + +He remembers Orion, who had been officially eliminated when Nevada had +received statehood. + + I often wonder if his law business is going satisfactorily. I wish + I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of going West. I + could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him, and that + would have atoned for the loss of my home visit. But I am so + worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish + anything that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory. My mind is + stored full of unworthy conduct toward Orion and toward you all, and + an accusing conscience gives me peace only in excitement and + restless moving from place to place. If I could only say I had done + one thing for any of you that entitled me to your good opinions (I + say nothing of your love, for I am sure of that, no matter how + unworthy of it I may make myself--from Orion down, you have always + given me that; all the days of my life, when God Almighty knows I + have seldom deserved it), I believe I could go home and stay there-- + and I know I would care little for the world's praise or blame. + There is no satisfaction in the world's praise anyhow, and it has no + worth to me save in the way of business. I tried to gather up its + compliments to send you, but the work was distasteful and I dropped + it. + + You observe that under a cheerful exterior I have got a spirit that + is angry with me and gives me freely its contempt. I can get away + from that at sea, and be tranquil and satisfied; and so, with my + parting love and benediction for Orion and all of you, I say good-by + and God bless you all-and welcome the wind that wafts a weary soul + to the sunny lands of the Mediterranean! + + Yrs. forever, + SAM + + + + + +LX + +THE INNOCENTS AT SEA + + HOLY LAND PLEASURE EXCURSION + + Steamer: Quaker City. + + Captain C. C. Duncan. + + Left New York at 2 P.m., June 8, 1867. + + Rough weather--anchored within the harbor to lay all night. + +That first note recorded an event momentous in Mark Twain's career--an +event of supreme importance; if we concede that any link in a chain +regardless of size is of more importance than any other link. +Undoubtedly it remains the most conspicuous event, as the world views it +now, in retrospect. + +The note further heads a new chapter of history in sea-voyaging. No such +thing as the sailing of an ocean steamship with a pleasure-party on a +long transatlantic cruise had ever occurred before. A similar project +had been undertaken the previous year, but owing to a cholera scare in +the East it had been abandoned. Now the dream had become a fact--a +stupendous fact when we consider it. Such an important beginning as that +now would in all likelihood furnish the chief news story of the day. + +But they had different ideas of news in those days. There were no +headlines announcing the departure of the Quaker City--only the barest +mention of the ship's sailing, though a prominent position was given to +an account of a senatorial excursion-party which set out that same +morning over the Union Pacific Railway, then under construction. Every +name in that political party was set dawn, and not one of them except +General Hancock will ever be heard of again. The New York Times, +however, had some one on its editorial staff who thought it worth while +to comment a little on the history-making Quaker City excursion. The +writer was pleasantly complimentary to officers and passengers. He +referred to Moses S. Beach, of the Sun, who was taking with him type and +press, whereby he would "skilfully utilize the brains of the company for +their mutual edification." Mr. Beecher and General Sherman would find +talent enough aboard to make the hours go pleasantly (evidently the +writer had not interested himself sufficiently to know that these +gentlemen were not along), and the paragraph closed by prophesying other +such excursions, and wishing the travelers "good speed, a happy voyage, +and a safe return." + +That was handsome, especially for those days; only now, some fine day, +when an airship shall start with a band of happy argonauts to land beyond +the sunrise for the first time in history, we shall feature it and +emblazon it with pictures in the Sunday papers, and weeklies, and in the +magazines.--[The Quaker City idea was so unheard-of that in some of the +foreign ports visited, the officials could not believe that the vessel +was simply a pleasure-craft, and were suspicious of some dark, ulterior +purpose.] + +That Henry Ward Beecher and General Sherman had concluded not to go was a +heavy disappointment at first; but it proved only a temporary disaster. +The inevitable amalgamation of all ship companies took place. The sixty- +seven travelers fell into congenial groups, or they mingled and devised +amusements, and gossiped and became a big family, as happy and as free +from contention as families of that size are likely to be. + +The Quaker City was a good enough ship and sizable for her time. She was +registered eighteen hundred tons--about one-tenth the size of +Mediterranean excursion-steamers today--and when conditions were +favorable she could make ten knots an hour under steam--or, at least, she +could do it with the help of her auxiliary sails. Altogether she was a +cozy, satisfactory ship, and they were a fortunate company who had her +all to themselves and went out on her on that long-ago ocean gipsying. +She has grown since then, even to the proportions of the Mayflower. It +was necessary for her to grow to hold all of those who in later times +claimed to have sailed in her on that voyage with Mark Twain.--[The +Quaker City passenger list will be found under Appendix F, at the end of +last volume.] + +They were not all ministers and deacons aboard the Quaker City. Clemens +found other congenial spirits be sides his room-mate Dan Slote--among +them the ship's surgeon, Dr. A. Reeve Jackson (the guide-destroying +"Doctor" of The Innocents); Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey ("Jack"); +Julius Moulton, of St. Louis ("Moult"), and other care-free fellows, the +smoking-room crowd which is likely to make comradeship its chief +watchword. There were companionable people in the cabin crowd also-- +fine, intelligent men and women, especially one of the latter, a middle- +aged, intellectual, motherly soul--Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks, of Cleveland, +Ohio. Mrs. Fairbanks--herself a newspaper correspondent for her +husband's paper, the Cleveland Herald had a large influence on the +character and general tone of those Quaker City letters which established +Mark Twain's larger fame. She was an able writer herself; her judgment +was thoughtful, refined, unbiased--altogether of a superior sort. She +understood Samuel Clemens, counseled him, encouraged him to read his +letters aloud to her, became in reality "Mother Fairbanks," as they +termed her, to him and to others of that ship who needed her kindly +offices. + +In one of his home letters, later, he said of her: + + She was the most refined, intelligent, cultivated lady in the ship, + and altogether the kindest and best. She sewed my buttons on, kept + my clothing in presentable trim, fed me on Egyptian jam (when I + behaved), lectured me awfully on the quarter-deck on moonlit + promenading evenings, and cured me of several bad habits. I am + under lasting obligations to her. She looks young because she is so + good, but she has a grown son and daughter at home. + +In one of the early letters which Mrs. Fairbanks wrote to her paper she +is scarcely less complimentary to him, even if in a different way. + + We have D.D.'s and M.D.'s--we have men of wisdom and men of wit. + There is one table from which is sure to come a peal of laughter, + and all eyes are turned toward Mark Twain, whose face is, perfectly + mirth-provoking. Sitting lazily at the table, scarcely genteel in + his appearance, there is something, I know not what, that interests + and attracts. I saw to-day at dinner venerable divines and sage- + looking men convulsed with laughter at his drolleries and quaint, + odd manners. + +It requires only a few days on shipboard for acquaintances to form, and +presently a little afternoon group was gathering to hear Mark Twain read +his letters. Mrs. Fairbanks was there, of course, also Mr. and Mrs. S. +L. Severance, likewise of Cleveland, and Moses S. Beach, of the Sun, with +his daughter Emma, a girl of seventeen. Dan Slote was likely to be +there, too, and Jack, and the Doctor, and Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira, +New York, a boy of eighteen, who had conceived a deep admiration for the +brilliant writer. They were fortunate ones who first gathered to hear +those daring, wonderful letters. + +But the benefit was a mutual one. He furnished a priceless entertainment, +and he derived something equally priceless in return--the test of +immediate audience and the boon of criticism. Mrs. Fairbanks especially +was frankly sincere. Mr. Severance wrote afterward: + + One afternoon I saw him tearing up a bunch of the soft, white paper- + copy paper, I guess the newspapers call it-on which he had written + something, and throwing the fragments into the Mediterranean. I + inquired of him why he cast away the fruits of his labors in that + manner. + +"Well," he drawled, "Mrs. Fairbanks thinks it oughtn't to be printed, +and, like as not, she is right." + +And Emma Beach (Mrs. Abbott Thayer) remembers hearing him say: + +"Well, Mrs. Fairbanks has just destroyed another four hours' work for +me." + +Sometimes he played chess with Emma Beach, who thought him a great hero +because, once when a crowd of men were tormenting a young lad, a +passenger, Mark Twain took the boy's part and made them desist. + +"I am sure I was right, too," she declares; "heroism came natural to +him." + +Mr. Severance recalls another incident which, as he says, was trivial +enough, but not easy to forget: + +We were having a little celebration over the birthday anniversary of Mrs. +Duncan, wife of our captain. Mark Twain got up and made a little speech, +in which he said Mrs. Duncan was really older than Methuselah because she +knew a lot of things that Methuselah never heard of. Then he mentioned a +number of more or less modern inventions, and wound up by saying, "What +did Methuselah know about a barbed-wire fence?" + +Except Following the Equator, The Innocents Abroad comes nearer to being +history than any other of Mark Twain's travel-books. The notes for it +were made on the spot, and there was plenty of fact, plenty of fresh, new +experience, plenty of incident to set down. His idea of descriptive +travel in those days was to tell the story as it happened; also, perhaps, +he had not then acquired the courage of his inventions. We may believe +that the adventures with Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are elaborated here +and there; but even those happened substantially as recorded. There is +little to add, then, to the story of that halcyon trip, and not much to +elucidate. + +The old note-books give a light here and there that is interesting. It +is curious to be looking through them now, trying to realize that these +penciled memoranda were the fresh, first impressions that would presently +grow into the world's most delightful book of travel; that they were set +down in the very midst of that care-free little company that frolicked +through Italy, climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. They are all dead +now; but to us they are as alive and young to-day as when they followed +the footprints of the Son of Man through Palestine, and stood at last +before the Sphinx, impressed and awed by its "five thousand slow- +revolving years." + +Some of the items consist of no more than a few terse, suggestive words-- +serious, humorous, sometimes profane. Others are statistical, +descriptive, elaborated. Also there are drawings--"not copied," he marks +them, with a pride not always justified by the result. The earlier notes +are mainly comments on the "pilgrims," the freak pilgrims: "the Frenchy- +looking woman who owns a dog and keeps up an interminable biography of +him to the passengers"; the "long-legged, simple, wide-mouthed, horse- +laughing young fellow who once made a sea voyage to Fortress Monroe, and +quotes eternally from his experiences"; also, there is reference to +another young man, "good, accommodating, pleasant but fearfully green." +This young person would become the "Interrogation Point," in due time, +and have his picture on page 71 (old edition), while opposite him, on +page 70, would appear the "oracle," identified as one Doctor Andrews, who +(the note-book says) had the habit of "smelling in guide-books for +knowledge and then trying to play it for old information that has been +festering in his brain." Sometimes there are abstract notes such as: + +How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing that no one had +ever said it before. + +Of the "character" notes, the most important and elaborated is that which +presents the "Poet Lariat." This is the entry, somewhat epitomized: + + BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER + + He is fifty years old, and small of his age. He dresses in + homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer, with + a strange proclivity for writing rhymes. He writes them on all + possible subjects, and gets them printed on slips of paper, with his + portrait at the head. These he will give to any man who comes + along, whether he has anything against him or not . . . . + + Dan said: + + "It must be a great happiness to you to sit down at the close of day + and put its events all down in rhymes and poetry, like Byron and + Shakespeare and those fellows." + + "Oh yes, it is--it is--Why, many's the time I've had to get up in + the night when it comes on me: + + Whether we're on the sea or the land + We've all got to go at the word of command-- + + "Hey! how's that?" + +A curious character was Cutter--a Long Island farmer with the obsession +of rhyme. In his old age, in an interview, he said: + +"Mark was generally writing and he was glum. He would write what we were +doing, and I would write poetry, and Mark would say: + +"'For Heaven's sake, Cutter, keep your poems to yourself.' + +"Yes, Mark was pretty glum, and he was generally writing." + +Poor old Poet Lariat--dead now with so many others of that happy crew. +We may believe that Mark learned to be "glum" when he saw the Lariat +approaching with his sheaf of rhymes. We may believe, too, that he was +"generally writing." He contributed fifty-three letters to the Alta +during that five months and six to the Tribune. They would average about +two columns nonpareil each, which is to say four thousand words, or +something like two hundred and fifty thousand words in all. To turn out +an average of fifteen hundred words a day, with continuous sight-seeing +besides, one must be generally writing during any odd intervals; those +who are wont to regard Mark Twain as lazy may consider these statistics. +That he detested manual labor is true enough, but at the work for which +he was fitted and intended it may be set down here upon authority (and +despite his own frequent assertions to the contrary) that to his last +year he was the most industrious of men. + + + + +LXI + +THE INNOCENTS ABROAD + +It was Dan, Jack, and the Doctor who with Mark Twain wandered down +through Italy and left moral footprints that remain to this day. The +Italian guides are wary about showing pieces of the True Cross, fragments +of the Crown of Thorns, and the bones of saints since then. They show +them, it is true, but with a smile; the name of Mark Twain is a touch- +stone to test their statements. Not a guide in Italy but has heard the +tale of that iconoclastic crew, and of the book which turned their +marvels into myths, their relics into bywords. + +It was Doctor Jackson, Colonel Denny, Doctor Birch, and Samuel Clemens +who evaded the quarantine and made the perilous night trip to Athens and +looked upon the Parthenon and the sleeping city by moonlight. It is all +set down in the notes, and the account varies little from that given in +the book; only he does not tell us that Captain Duncan and the +quartermaster, Pratt, connived at the escapade, or how the latter watched +the shore in anxious suspense until he heard the whistle which was their +signal to be taken aboard. It would have meant six months' imprisonment +if they had been captured, for there was no discretion in the Greek law. + +It was T. D. Crocker, A. N. Sanford, Col. Peter Kinney, and William +Gibson who were delegated to draft the address to the Emperor of Russia +at Yalta, with Samuel L. Clemens as chairman of that committee. The +chairman wrote the address, the opening sentence of which he grew so +weary of hearing: + + We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply + for recreation, and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial + state. + +The address is all set down in the notes, and there also exists the first +rough draft, with the emendations in his own hand. He deplores the time +it required: + + That job is over. Writing addresses to emperors is not my strong + suit. However, if it is not as good as it might be it doesn't + signify--the other committeemen ought to have helped me write it; + they had nothing to do, and I had my hands full. But for bothering + with this I would have caught up entirely with my New York Tribune + correspondence and nearly up with the San Francisco. + +They wanted him also to read the address to the Emperor, but he pointed +out that the American consul was the proper person for that office. He +tells how the address was presented: + +August 26th. The Imperial carriages were in waiting at eleven, and at +twelve we were at the palace.... + +The Consul for Odessa read the address and the Czar said frequently, +"Good--very good; indeed"--and at the close, "I am very, very grateful." + +It was not improper for him to set down all this, and much more, in his +own note-book--not then for publication. It was in fact a very proper +record--for today. + +One incident of the imperial audience Mark Twain omitted from his book, +perhaps because the humor of it had not yet become sufficiently evident. +"The humorous perception of a thing is a pretty slow growth sometimes," +he once remarked. It was about seventeen years before he could laugh +enjoyably at a slight mistake he made at the Emperor's reception. He set +down a memorandum of it, then, for fear it might be lost: + + There were a number of great dignitaries of the Empire there, and + although, as a general thing, they were dressed in citizen's + clothing, I observed that the most of them wore a very small piece + of ribbon in the lapels of their coats. That little touch of color + struck my fancy, and it seemed to me a good idea to add it to my own + attractions; not imagining that it had any special significance. So + I stepped aside, hunted up a bit of red ribbon, and ornamented my + lapel with it. Presently, Count Festetics, the Grand Master of + ceremonies, and the only man there who was gorgeously arrayed, in + full official costume, began to show me a great many attentions. He + was particularly polite, and pleasant, and anxious to be of service + to me. Presently, he asked me what order of nobility I belonged to? + I said, "I didn't belong to any." Then he asked me what order of + knighthood I belonged to? I said, "None." Then he asked me what + the red ribbon in my buttonhole stood for? I saw, at once, what an + ass I had been making of myself, and was accordingly confused and + embarrassed. I said the first thing that came into my mind, and + that was that the ribbon was merely the symbol of a club of + journalists to which I belonged, and I was not pursued with any more + of Count Festetic's attentions. + + Later, I got on very familiar terms with an old gentleman, whom I + took to be the head gardener, and walked him all about the gardens, + slipping my arm into his without invitation, yet without demur on + his part, and by and by was confused again when I found that he was + not a gardener at all, but the Lord High Admiral of Russia! I + almost made up my mind that I would never call on an Emperor again. + +Like all Mediterranean excursionists, those first pilgrims were +insatiable collectors of curios, costumes, and all manner of outlandish +things. Dan Slote had the stateroom hung and piled with such gleanings. +At Constantinople his room-mate writes: + + I thought Dan had got the state-room pretty full of rubbish at last, + but awhile ago his dragoman arrived with a brand-new ghastly + tombstone of the Oriental pattern, with his name handsomely carved + and gilted on it in Turkish characters. That fellow will buy a + Circassian slave next. + +It was Church, Denny, Jack, Davis, Dan, Moult, and Mark Twain who made +the "long trip" through Syria from Beirut to Jerusalem with their +elaborate camping outfit and decrepit nags "Jericho," "Baalbec," and the +rest. It was better camping than that Humboldt journey of six years +before, though the horses were not so dissimilar, and altogether it was a +hard, nerve-racking experience, climbing the arid hills of Palestine in +that torrid summer heat. Nobody makes that trip in summer-time now. +Tourists hurry out of Syria before the first of April, and they do not go +back before November. One brief quotation from Mark Twain's book gives +us an idea of what that early party of pilgrims had to undergo: + + We left Damascus at noon and rode across the plain a couple of + hours, and then the party stopped a while in the shade of some fig- + trees to give me a chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had + seen yet--the sun-flames shot down like the shafts of fire that + stream out before a blow-pipe; the rays seemed to fall in a deluge + on the head and pass downward like rain from a roof. I imagined I + could distinguish between the floods of rays. I thought I could + tell when each flood struck my head, when it reached my shoulders, + and when the next one came. It was terrible. + +He had been ill with cholera at Damascus, a light attack; but any attack +of that dread disease is serious enough. He tells of this in the book, +but he does not mention, either in the book or in his notes, the attack +which Dan Slote had some days later. It remained for William F. Church, +of the party, to relate that incident, for it was the kind of thing that +Mark Twain was not likely to record, or even to remember. Doctor Church +was a deacon with orthodox views and did not approve of Mark Twain; he +thought him sinful, irreverent, profane. + +"He was the worst man I ever knew," Church said; then he added, "And the +best." + +What happened was this: At the end of a terrible day of heat, when the +party had camped on the edge of a squalid Syrian village, Dan was taken +suddenly ill. It was cholera, beyond doubt. Dan could not go on--he +might never go on. The chances were that way. It was a serious matter +all around. To wait with Dan meant to upset their travel schedule--it +might mean to miss the ship. Consultation was held and a resolution +passed (the pilgrims were always passing resolutions) to provide for Dan +as well as possible, and leave him behind. Clemens, who had remained +with Dan, suddenly appeared and said: + +"Gentlemen, I understand that you are going to leave Dan Slote here +alone. I'll be d---d if I do!" + +And he didn't. He stayed there and brought Dan into Jerusalem, a few +days late, but convalescent. + +Perhaps most of them were not always reverent during that Holy Land trip. +It was a trying journey, and after fierce days of desert hills the +reaction might not always spare even the holiest memories. Jack was +particularly sinful. When they learned the price for a boat on Galilee, +and the deacons who had traveled nearly half around the world to sail on +that sacred water were confounded by the charge, Jack said: + +"Well, Denny, do you wonder now that Christ walked?" + +It was the irreverent Jack who one morning (they had camped the night +before by the ruins of Jericho) refused to get up to see the sun rise +across the Jordan. Deacon Church went to his tent. + +"Jack, my boy, get up. Here is the place where the Israelites crossed +over into the Promised Land, and beyond are the mountains of Moab, where +Moses lies buried." + +"Moses who!" said Jack. + +"Oh, Jack, my boy, Moses, the great lawgiver--who led the Israelites out +of Egypt-forty years through the wilderness--to the Promised Land." + +"Forty years!" said Jack. "How far was it?" + +"It was three hundred miles, Jack; a great wilderness, and he brought +them through in safety." + +Jack regarded him with scorn. "Huh, Moses--three hundred miles forty +years--why, Ben Holiday would have brought them through in thirty-six +hours!"--[Ben Holiday, owner of the Overland stages, and a man of great +executive ability. This incident, a true one, is more elaborately told +in Roughing It, but it seems pertinent here.] + +Jack probably learned more about the Bible during that trip-its history +and its heroes-than during all his former years. Nor was Jack the only +one of that group thus benefited. The sacred landmarks of Palestine +inspire a burning interest in the Scriptures, and Mark Twain probably did +not now regret those early Sunday-school lessons; certainly he did not +fail to review them exhaustively on that journey. His note-books fairly +overflow with Bible references; the Syrian chapters in The Innocents +Abroad are permeated with the poetry and legendary beauty of the Bible +story. The little Bible he carried on that trip, bought in +Constantinople, was well worn by the time they reached the ship again at +Jaffa. He must have read it with a large and persistent interest; also +with a double benefit. For, besides the knowledge acquired, he was +harvesting a profit--probably unsuspected at the time---viz., the +influence of the most direct and beautiful English--the English of the +King James version--which could not fail to affect his own literary +method at that impressionable age. We have already noted his earlier +admiration for that noble and simple poem, "The Burial of Moses," which +in the Palestine note-book is copied in full. All the tendency of his +expression lay that way, and the intense consideration of stately Bible +phrase and imagery could hardly fail to influence his mental processes. +The very distinct difference of style, as shown in The Innocents Abroad +and in his earlier writings, we may believe was in no small measure due +to his study of the King James version during those weeks in Palestine. + +He bought another Bible at Jerusalem; but it was not for himself. It was +a little souvenir volume bound in olive and balsam wood, and on the fly- +leaf is inscribed: + + Mrs. Jane Clemens from her son. Jerusalem, Sept. 24, 1867. + +There is one more circumstance of that long cruise-recorded neither in +the book nor the notes--an incident brief, but of more importance in the +life of Samuel Clemens than any heretofore set down. It occurred in the +beautiful Bay of Smyrna, on the fifth or sixth of September, while the +vessel lay there for the Ephesus trip. + +Reference has been made to young Charles Langdon, of Elmira (the +"Charley" once mentioned in the Innocents), as an admirer of Mark Twain. +There was a good deal of difference in their ages, and they were seldom +of the same party; but sometimes the boy invited the journalist to his +cabin and, boy-like, exhibited his treasures. He had two sisters at +home; and of Olivia, the youngest, he had brought a dainty miniature done +on ivory in delicate tints--a sweet-pictured countenance, fine and +spiritual. On that fateful day in the day of Smyrna, Samuel Clemens, +visiting in young Langdon's cabin, was shown this portrait. He looked at +it with long admiration, and spoke of it reverently, for the delicate +face seemed to him to be something more than a mere human likeness. Each +time he came, after that, he asked to see the picture, and once even +begged to be allowed to take it away with him. The boy would not agree +to this, and the elder man looked long and steadily at the miniature, +resolving in his mind that some day he would meet the owner of that +lovely face--a purpose for once in accord with that which the fates had +arranged for him, in the day when all things were arranged, the day of +the first beginning. + + + + +LXII + +THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIMS + +The last note-book entry bears date of October 11th: + + At sea, somewhere in the neighborhood of Malta. Very stormy. + + Terrible death to be talked to death. The storm has blown two small + land birds and a hawk to sea and they came on board. Sea full of + flying-fish. + +That is all. There is no record of the week's travel in Spain, which a +little group of four made under the picturesque Gibraltar guide, Benunes, +still living and quite as picturesque at last accounts. This side-trip +is covered in a single brief paragraph in the Innocents, and the only +account we have of it is in a home letter, from Cadiz, of October 24th: + + We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras (4 hours), thus + dodging the quarantine--took dinner, and then rode horseback all + night in a swinging trot, and at daylight took a caleche (a-wheeled + vehicle), and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve + at night. That landed us at Seville, and we were over the hard part + of our trip and somewhat tired. Since then we have taken things + comparatively easy, drifting around from one town to another and + attracting a good deal of attention--for I guess strangers do not + wander through Andalusia and the other southern provinces of Spain + often. The country is precisely what it was when Don Quixote and + Sancho Panza were possible characters. + + But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was + under Moorish domination. No, I will not say that--but then when + one is carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the + Alhambra and the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to + overflow with admiration for the splendid intellects that created + them. + +We may wish that he had left us a chapter of that idyllic journey, but it +will never be written now. A night or two before the vessel reached New +York there was the usual good-by assembly, and for this occasion, at Mrs. +Severance's request, Mark Twain wrote some verses. They were not +especially notable, for meter and rhyme did not come easy to him, but one +prophetic stanza is worth remembering. In the opening lines the +passengers are referred to as a fleet of vessels, then follows: + + Lo! other ships of that parted fleet + Shall suffer this fate or that: + One shall be wrecked, another shall sink, + Or ground on treacherous flat. + Some shall be famed in many lands + As good ships, fast and fair, + And some shall strangely disappear, + Men know not when or where. + +The Quaker City returned to America on November 19, 1867, and Mark Twain +found himself, if not famous, at least in very wide repute. The fifty- +three letters to the Alta and the half-dozen to the New York Tribune had +carried his celebrity into every corner of the States and Territories. +Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry, they came as a +revelation to a public weary of the driveling, tiresome travel-letters of +that period. They preached a new gospel in travel-literature: the gospel +of seeing with an overflowing honesty; a gospel of sincerity in according +praises to whatever seemed genuine, and ridicule to the things considered +sham. It was the gospel that Mark Twain would continue to preach during +his whole career. It became his chief literary message to the world-a +world waiting for that message. + +Moreover, the letters were literature. He had received, from whatever +source, a large and very positive literary impulse, a loftier conception +and expression. It was at Tangier that he first struck the grander +chord, the throbbing cadence of human story. + +Here is a crumbling wall that was old when Columbus discovered America; +old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages to +arm for the first Crusade; old when Charlemagne and his paladins +beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants and genii in the +fabled days of the olden time; old when Christ and his disciples walked +the earth; stood where it stands to-day when the lips of Memnon were +vocal and men bought and sold in the streets of ancient Thebes. + +This is pure poetry. He had never touched so high a strain before, but +he reached it often after that, and always with an ever-increasing +mastery and confidence. In Venice, in Rome, in Athens, through the Holy +Land, his retrospection becomes a stately epic symphony, a processional +crescendo that swings ever higher until it reaches that sublime strain, +the ageless contemplation of the Sphinx. We cannot forego a paragraph or +two of that word-picture: + + After years of waiting it was before me at last. The great face was + so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not + of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as + never anything human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. + If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking + toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing--nothing + but distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond everything + of the present, and far into the past.... It was thinking of the + wars of the departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and + destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose + progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy + and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five + thousand slow-revolving years . . . . + + The Sphinx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its + magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its + story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this + eternal figure of stone, with its accusing memory of the deeds of + all ages, which reveals to one something of what we shall feel when + we shall stand at last in the awful presence of God. + +Then that closing word of Egypt. He elaborated it for the book, and did +not improve it. Let us preserve here its original form. + + We are glad to have seen Egypt. We are glad to have seen that old + land which taught Greece her letters--and through Greece, Rome--and + through Rome, the world--that venerable cradle of culture and + refinement which could have humanized and civilized the Children of + Israel, but allowed them to depart out of her borders savages--those + Children whom we still revere, still love, and whose sad + shortcomings we still excuse--not because they were savages, but + because they were the chosen savages of God. + +The Holy Land letters alone would have brought him fame. They presented +the most graphic and sympathetic picture of Syrian travel ever written-- +one that will never become antiquated or obsolete so long as human nature +remains unchanged. From beginning to end the tale is rarely, reverently +told. Its closing paragraph has not been surpassed in the voluminous +literature of that solemn land: + + Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of + a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. + Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers that solemn + sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing + exists--over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs + motionless and dead--about whose borders nothing grows but weeds and + scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises + refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. + Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of + Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing one finds + only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the + accursed lies a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua's miracle left + it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in + their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to + remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour's + presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks + by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, goodwill to men, + is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature + that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the + stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and + is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer + there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the + wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel is + gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on + that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the + Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode + at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, + was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its + borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; + Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have + vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them + where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate + the miraculous bread sleep in the hush of a solitude that is + inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes. + + Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? + Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? + +It would be easy to quote pages here--a pictorial sequence from Gibraltar +to Athens, from Athens to Egypt, a radiant panoramic march. In time he +would write technically better. He would avoid solecism, he would become +a greater master of vocabulary and phrase, but in all the years ahead he +would never match the lambent bloom and spontaneity of those fresh, first +impressions of Mediterranean lands and seas. No need to mention the +humor, the burlesque, the fearless, unrestrained ridicule of old masters +and of sacred relics, so called. These we have kept familiar with much +repetition. Only, the humor had grown more subtle, more restrained; the +burlesque had become impersonal and harmless, the ridicule so frank and +good-natured, that even the old masters themselves might have enjoyed it, +while the most devoted churchman, unless blinded by bigotry, would find +in it satisfaction, rather than sacrilege. + +The final letter was written for the New York Herald after the arrival, +and was altogether unlike those that preceded it. Gaily satirical and +personal--inclusively so--it might better have been left unwritten, for +it would seem to have given needless offense to a number of goodly +people, whose chief sin was the sedateness of years. However, it is all +past now, and those who were old then, and perhaps queer and pious and +stingy, do not mind any more, and those who were young and frivolous have +all grown old too, and most of them have set out on the still farther +voyage. Somewhere, it may be, they gather, now; and then, and lightly, +tenderly recall their old-time journeying. + + + + +LXIII + +IN WASHINGTON--A PUBLISHING PROPOSITION + +Clemens remained but one day in New York. Senator Stewart had written, +about the time of the departure of the Quaker City, offering him the +position of private secretary--a position which was to give him leisure +for literary work, with a supporting salary as well. Stewart no doubt +thought it would be considerably to his advantage to have the brilliant +writer and lecturer attached to his political establishment, and Clemens +likewise saw possibilities in the arrangement. From Naples, in August, +he had written accepting Stewart's offer; he lost no time now in +discussing the matter in person.--[In a letter home, August 9th, he +referred to the arrangement: "I wrote to Bill Stewart to-day accepting +his private secretaryship in Washington, next winter."] + +There seems to have been little difficulty in concluding the arrangement. +When Clemens had been in Washington a week we find him writing: + + DEAR FOLKS, Tired and sleepy--been in Congress all day and making + newspaper acquaintances. Stewart is to look up a clerkship in the + Patent Office for Orion. Things necessarily move slowly where there + is so much business and such armies of office-seekers to be attended + to. I guess it will be all right. I intend it shall be all right. + + I have 18 invitations to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts + of the Union--have declined them all. I am for business now. + + Belong on the Tribune Staff, and shall write occasionally. Am + offered the same berth to-day on the Herald by letter. Shall write + Mr. Bennett and accept, as soon as I hear from Tribune that it will + not interfere. Am pretty well known now--intend to be better known. + Am hobnobbing with these old Generals and Senators and other humbugs + for no good purpose. Don't have any more trouble making friends + than I did in California. All serene. Good-by. Shall continue on + the Alta. + Yours affectionately, + SAM. + + P.S.--I room with Bill Stewart and board at Willard's Hotel. + +But the secretary arrangement was a brief matter. It is impossible to +conceive of Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, especially as the +secretary of Senator Stewart. + +--[In Senator Stewart's memoirs he refers unpleasantly to Mark Twain, and +after relating several incidents that bear only strained relations to the +truth, states that when the writer returned from the Holy Land he +(Stewart) offered him a secretaryship as a sort of charity. He adds that +Mark Twain's behavior on his premises was such that a threat of a +thrashing was necessary. The reason for such statements becomes +apparent, however, when he adds that in 'Roughing It' the author accuses +him of cheating, prints a picture of him with a hatch over his eye, and +claims to have given him a sound thrashing, none of which statements, +save only the one concerning the picture (an apparently unforgivable +offense to his dignity), is true, as the reader may easily ascertain for +himself.] + +Within a few weeks he was writing humorous accounts of "My Late +Senatorial Secretaryship," "Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation," +etc., all good-natured burlesque, but inspired, we. may believe, by the +change: These articles appeared in the New York Tribune, the New York +Citizen, and the Galaxy Magazine. + +There appears to have been no ill-feeling at this time between Clemens +and Stewart. If so, it is not discoverable in any of the former's +personal or newspaper correspondence. In fact, in his article relating +to his "late senatorial secretaryship" he puts the joke, so far as it is +a joke, on Senator James W. Nye, probably as an additional punishment for +Nye's failure to appear on the night of his lecture. He established +headquarters with a brilliant newspaper correspondent named Riley. "One +of the best men in Washington--or elsewhere," he tells us in a brief +sketch of that person.--[See Riley, newspaper correspondent. Sketches +New and Old.]--He had known Riley in San Francisco; the two were +congenial, and settled down to their several undertakings. + +Clemens was chiefly concerned over two things: he wished to make money +and he wished to secure a government appointment for Orion. He had used +up the most of his lecture accumulations, and was moderately in debt. +His work was in demand at good rates, for those days, and with working +opportunity he could presently dispose of his financial problem. The +Tribune was anxious for letters; the Enterprise and Alta were waiting for +them; the Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the magazines--all had solicited +contributions; the lecture bureaus pursued him. Personally his outlook +was bright. + +The appointment for Orion was a different matter. The powers were not +especially interested in a brother; there were too many brothers and +assorted relatives on the official waiting-list already. Clemens was +offered appointments for himself--a consulship, a post-mastership; even +that of San Francisco. From the Cabinet down, the Washington political +contingent had read his travel-letters, and was ready to recognize +officially the author of them in his own person and personality. + +Also, socially: Mark Twain found himself all at once in the midst of +receptions, dinners, and speech-making; all very exciting for a time at +least, but not profitable, not conducive to work. At a dinner of the +Washington Correspondents Club his response to the toast, "Women," was +pronounced by Schuyler Colfax to be "the best after dinner speech ever +made." Certainly it was a refreshing departure from the prosy or clumsy- +witted efforts common to that period. He was coming altogether into his +own.--[This is the first of Mark Twain's after-dinner speeches to be +preserved. The reader will find it complete, as reported next day, in +Appendix G, at the end of last volume.] + +He was not immediately interested in the matter of book publication. +The Jumping Frog book was popular, and in England had been issued by +Routledge; but the royalty returns were modest enough and slow in +arrival. His desire was for prompter results. His interest in book +publication had never been an eager one, and related mainly to the +advertising it would furnish, which he did not now need; or to the money +return, in which he had no great faith. Yet at this very moment a letter +for him was lying in the Tribune office in New York which would bring the +book idea into first prominence and spell the beginning of his fortune. + +Among those who had read and found delight in the Tribune letters was +Elisha Bliss, Jr., of the American Publishing Company, of Hartford. +Bliss was a shrewd and energetic man, with a keen appreciation for humor +and the American fondness for that literary quality. He had recently +undertaken the management of a Hartford concern, and had somewhat alarmed +its conservative directorate by publishing books that furnished +entertainment to the reader as well as moral instruction. Only his +success in paying dividends justified this heresy and averted his +downfall. Two days after the arrival of the Quaker City Bliss wrote the +letter above mentioned. It ran as follows: + + OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO. + HARTFORD, CONN., November 21, 1867. + +SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, ESQ., +Tribune Office, New York. + +DEAR SIR,--We take the liberty to address you this, in place of a letter +which we had recently written and were about to forward to you, not +knowing your arrival home was expected so soon. We are desirous of +obtaining from you a work of some kind, perhaps compiled from your +letters from the past, etc., with such interesting additions as may be +proper. We are the publishers of A. D. Richardson's works, and flatter +ourselves that we can give an author a favorable term and do as full +justice to his productions as any other house in the country. We are +perhaps the oldest subscription house in the country, and have never +failed to give a book an immense circulation. We sold about 100,000 +copies of Richardson's F. D. and E. ('Field, Dungeon and Escape'), and +are now printing 41,000 of 'Beyond the Mississippi', and large orders +ahead. If you have any thought of writing a book, or could be induced to +do so, we should be pleased to see you, and will do so. Will you do us +the favor of reply at once, at your earliest convenience. + + Very truly etc., + + E. BLISS, JR., + Secretary. + +After ten days' delay this letter was forwarded to the Tribune bureau in +Washington, where Clemens received it. He replied promptly. + + + WASHINGTON, December 2, 1867. + +E. BLISS, JR., ESQ., +Secretary American Publishing Co. + +DEAR SIR,--I only received your favor of November 21st last night, at the +rooms of the Tribune Bureau here. It was forwarded from the Tribune +office, New York where it had lain eight or ten days. This will be a +sufficient apology for the seeming discourtesy of my silence. + +I wrote fifty-two letters for the San Francisco Alta California during +the Quakes City excusion, about half of which number have been printed +thus far. The Alta has few exchanges in the East, and I suppose scarcely +any of these letters have been copied on this side of the Rocky +Mountains. I could weed them of their chief faults of construction and +inelegancies of expression, and make a volume that would be more +acceptable in many respects than any I could now write. When those +letters were written my impressions were fresh, but now they have lost +that freshness; they were warm then, they are cold now. I could strike +out certain letters, and write new ones wherewith to supply their places. +If you think such a book would suit your purpose, please drop me a line, +specifying the size and general style of the volume--when the matter +ought to be ready; whether it should have pictures in it or not; and +particularly what your terms with me would be, and what amount of money +I might possibly make out of it. The latter clause has a degree of +importance for me which is almost beyond my own comprehension. But you +understand that, of course. + +I have other propositions for a book, but have doubted the propriety of +interfering with good newspaper engagements, except my way as an author +could be demonstrated to be plain before me. But I know Richardson, and +learned from him some months ago something of an idea of the subscription +plan of publishing. If that is your plan invariably it looks safe. + +I am on the New York Tribune staff here as an "occasional," among other +things, and a note from you addressed to + Very truly, etc., + SAM. L. CLEMENS, + New York Tribune Bureau, Washington +will find me, without fail. + + +The exchange of those two letters marked the beginning of one of the most +notable publishing connections in American literary history. + +Consummation, however, was somewhat delayed. Bliss was ill when the +reply came, and could not write again in detail until nearly a month +later. In this letter he recited the profits made by Richardson and +others through subscription publication, and named the royalties paid. +Richardson had received four per cent. of the sale price, a small enough +rate for these later days; but the cost of manufacture was larger then, +and the sale and delivery of books through agents has ever been an +expensive process. Even Horace Greeley had received but a fraction more +on his Great American Conflict. Bliss especially suggested and +emphasized a "humorous work--that is to say, a work humorously inclined." +He added that they had two arrangements for paying authors: outright +purchase, and royalty. He invited a meeting in New York to arrange +terms. + + + + +LXIV + +OLIVIA LANGDON + +Clemens did in fact go to New York that same evening, to spend Christmas +with Dan Slote, and missed Bliss's second letter. It was no matter. +Fate had his affairs properly in hand, and had prepared an event of still +larger moment than the publication even of Innocents Abroad. There was a +pleasant reunion at Dan Slote's. He wrote home about it: + + Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I (all Quaker City + night-hawks) had a blow-out at Dan's house and a lively talk over + old times. I just laughed till my sides ached at some of our + reminiscences. It was the unholiest gang that ever cavorted through + Palestine, but those are the best boys in the world. + +This, however, was not the event; it was only preliminary to it. We are +coming to that now. At the old St. Nicholas Hotel, which stood on the +west of Broadway between Spring and Broome streets, there were stopping +at this time Jervis Langdon, a wealty coal-dealer and mine-owner of +Elmira, his son Charles and his daughter Olivia, whose pictured face +Samuel Clemens had first seen in the Bay of Smyrna one September day. +Young Langdon had been especially anxious to bring his distinguished +Quaker City friend and his own people together, and two days before +Christmas Samuel Clemens was invited to dine at the hotel. He went very +willingly. The lovely face of that miniature had been often a part of +his waking dreams. For the first time now he looked upon its reality. +Long afterward he said: + +"It is forty years ago. From that day to this she has never been out of +my mind." + +Charles Dickens was in New York then, and gave a reading that night in +Steinway Hall. The Langdons went, and Samuel Clemens accompanied them. +He remembered afterward that Dickens wore a black velvet coat with a +fiery red flower in his buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene from +Copperfield--the death of James Steerforth. But he remembered still more +clearly the face and dress of that slender girlish figure at his side. + +Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as the +miniature he had seen, fragile to look upon, though no longer with the +shattered health of her girlhood. At sixteen, through a fall upon the +ice, she had become a complete invalid, confined to her bed for two +years, unable to sit, even when supported, unable to lie in any position +except upon her back. Great physicians and surgeons, one after another, +had done their best for her but she had failed steadily until every hope +had died. Then, when nothing else was left to try, a certain Doctor +Newton, of spectacular celebrity, who cured by "laying on of hands," was +brought to Elmira to see her. Doctor Newton came into the darkened room +and said: + +"Open the windows--we must have light!" + +They protested that she could not bear the light, but the windows were +opened. Doctor Newton came to the bedside of the helpless girl, +delivered a short, fervent prayer, put his arm under her shoulders, and +bade her sit up. She had not moved for two years, and the family were +alarmed, but she obeyed, and he assisted her into a chair. Sensation +came back to her limbs. With his assistance she even made a feeble +attempt to walk. He left then, saying that she would gradually improve, +and in time be well, though probably never very strong. On the same day +he healed a boy, crippled and drawn with fever. + +It turned out as he had said. Olivia Langdon improved steadily, and now +at twenty-two, though not robust--she was never that--she was +comparatively well. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, +and Samuel Clemens joined in their worship from the moment of that first +meeting. + +Olivia Langdon, on her part, was at first dazed and fascinated, rather +than attracted, by this astonishing creature, so unlike any one she had +ever known. Her life had been circumscribed, her experiences of a simple +sort. She had never seen anything resembling him before. Indeed, nobody +had. Somewhat carelessly, even if correctly, attired; eagerly, rather +than observantly, attentive; brilliant and startling, rather than +cultured, of speech--a blazing human solitaire, unfashioned, unset, +tossed by the drift of fortune at her feet. He disturbed rather than +gratified her. She sensed his heresy toward the conventions and forms +which had been her gospel; his bantering, indifferent attitude toward +life--to her always so serious and sacred; she suspected that he even +might have unorthodox views on matters of religion. When he had gone she +somehow had the feeling that a great fiery meteor of unknown portent had +swept across her sky. + +To her brother, who was eager for her approval of his celebrity, Miss +Langdon conceded admiration. As for her father, he did not qualify his +opinion. With hearty sense of humor, and a keen perception of verity and +capability in men, Jervis Langdon accepted Samuel Clemens from the start, +and remained his stanch admirer and friend. Clemens left that night with +an invitation to visit Elmira by and by, and with the full intention of +going--soon. Fate, however, had another plan. He did not see Elmira for +the better part of a year. + +He saw Miss Langdon again within the week. On New-Year's Day he set +forth to pay calls, after the fashion of the time--more lavish then than +now. Miss Langdon was receiving with Miss Alice Hooker, a niece of Henry +Ward Beecher, at the home of a Mrs. Berry; he decided to go there first. +With young Langdon he arrived at eleven o'clock in the morning, and they +did not leave until midnight. If his first impression upon Olivia +Langdon had been meteoric, it would seem that he must now have become to +her as a streaming comet that swept from zenith to horizon. One thing is +certain: she had become to him the single, unvarying beacon of his future +years. He visited Henry Ward Beecher on that trip and dined with him by +invitation. Harriet Beecher Stowe was present, and others of that +eminent family. Likewise his old Quaker City comrades, Moses S. and +Emma Beach. It was a brilliant gathering, a conclave of intellectual +gods--a triumph to be there for one who had been a printer-boy on the +banks of the Mississippi, and only a little while before a miner with +pick and shovel. It was gratifying to be so honored; it would be +pleasant to write home; but the occasion lacked something too-- +everything, in fact--for when he ran his eye around the board the face of +the minature was not there. + +Still there were compensations; inadequate, of course, but pleasant +enough to remember. It was Sunday evening and the party adjourned to +Plymouth Church. After services Mr. Beecher invited him to return home +with him for a quiet talk. Evidently they had a good time, for in the +letter telling of these things Samuel Clemens said: "Henry Ward Beecher +is a brick." + + + + +LXV + +A CONTRACT WITH ELISHA BLISS, JR. + +He returned to Washington without seeing Miss Langdon again, though he +would seem to have had permission to write--friendly letters. A little +later (it was on the evening of January 9th) he lectured in Washington-- +on very brief notice indeed. The arrangement for his appearance had been +made by a friend during his absence--"a friend," Clemens declared +afterward, "not entirely sober at the time." To his mother he wrote: + +I scared up a doorkeeper and was ready at the proper time, and by pure +good luck a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved. I hardly +knew what I was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style. + +The title of the lecture delivered was "The Frozen Truth"--"more truth in +the title than in the lecture," according to his own statement. What it +dealt with is not remembered now. It had to do with the Quaker City +trip, perhaps, and it seems to have brought a financial return which was +welcome enough. Subsequently he delivered it elsewhere; though just how +far the tour extended cannot be learned from the letters, and he had but +little memory of it in later years. + +There was some further correspondence with Bliss, then about the 21st of +January (1868) Clemens made a trip to Hartford to settle the matter. +Bliss had been particularly anxious to meet him, personally and was a +trifle disappointed with his appearance. Mark Twain's traveling costume +was neither new nor neat, and he was smoking steadily a pipe of power. +His general make-up was hardly impressive. + +Bliss's disturbance was momentary. Once he began to talk the rest did +not matter. He was the author of those letters, and Bliss decided that +personally he was even greater than they. The publisher, confined to his +home with illness, offered him the hospitality of his household. Also, +he made him two propositions: he would pay him ten thousand dollars cash +for his copyright, or he would pay five per cent. royalty, which was a +fourth more than Richardson had received. He advised the latter +arrangement. + +Clemens had already taken advice and had discussed the project a good +deal with Richardson. The ten thousand dollars was a heavy temptation, +but he withstood it and closed on the royalty basis--"the best business +judgment I ever displayed," he was wont to declare. A letter written to +his mother and sister near the end of this Hartford stay is worth quoting +pretty fully here, for the information and "character" it contains. It +bears date of January 24th. + + This is a good week for me. I stopped in the Herald office, as I + came through New York, to see the boys on the staff, and young James + Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week, impersonally, for the + Herald, and said if I would I might have full swing, and about + anybody and everything I wanted to. I said I must have the very + fullest possible swing, and he said, "All right." I said, "It's a + contract--" and that settled that matter. + + I'll make it a point to write one letter a week anyhow. But the + best thing that has happened is here. This great American + Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till + I thought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk. I + met Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled + way of dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he + gets a chance, he said: "Now, here, you are one of the talented men + of the age--nobody is going to deny that--but in matters of business + I don't suppose you know more than enough to come in when it rains. + I'll tell you what to do and how to do it." And he did. + + And I listened well, and then came up here and made a splendid + contract for a Quaker City book of 5 or 600 large pages, with + illustrations, the manuscript to be placed in the publisher's hands + by the middle of July.--[The contract was not a formal one. There + was an exchange of letters agreeing to the terms, but no joint + document was drawn until October 16 (1868).]--My percentage is to + be a fourth more than they have ever paid any author except Greeley. + Beecher will be surprised, I guess, when he hears this. + + These publishers get off the most tremendous editions of their books + you can imagine. I shall write to the Enterprise and Alta every + week, as usual, I guess, and to the Herald twice a week, + occasionally to the Tribune and the magazines (I have a stupid + article in the Galaxy, just issued), but I am not going to write to + this and that and the other paper any more. + + I have had a tiptop time here for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno. + Hooker's family--Beecher's relatives--in a general way of Mr. Bliss + also, who is head of the publishing firm). Puritans are mighty + straight-laced, and they won't let me smoke in the parlor, but the + Almighty don't make any better people. + + I have to make a speech at the annual Herald dinner on the 6th of + May. + +So the book, which would establish his claim to a peerage in the literary +land, was arranged for, and it remained only to prepare the manuscript, a +task which he regarded as not difficult. He had only to collate the Alta +and Tribune letters, edit them, and write such new matter as would be +required for completeness. + +Returning to Washington, he plunged into work with his usual terrific +energy, preparing the copy--in the mean time writing newspaper +correspondence and sketches that would bring immediate return. In +addition to his regular contributions, he entered into a syndicate +arrangement with John Swinton (brother of William Swinton, the historian) +to supply letters to a list of newspapers. + +"I have written seven long newspaper letters and a short magazine article +in less than two days," he wrote home, and by the end of January he had +also prepared several chapters of his book. + +The San Francisco post-mastership was suggested to him again, but he put +the temptation behind him. He refers to this more than once in his home +letters, and it is clear that he wavered. + + Judge Field said if I wanted the place he could pledge me the + President's appointment, and Senator Corners said he would guarantee + me the Senate's confirmation. It was a great temptation, but it + would render it impossible to fill my book contract, and I had to + drop the idea.... + + And besides I did not want the office. + +He made this final decision when he heard that the chief editor of the +Alta wanted the place, and he now threw his influence in that quarter. +"I would not take ten thousand dollars out of a friend's pocket," he +said. + +But then suddenly came the news from Goodman that the Alta publishers had +copyrighted his Quaker City letters and proposed getting them out in a +book, to reimburse themselves still further on their investment. This +was sharper than a serpent's tooth. Clemens got confirmation of the +report by telegraph. By the same medium he protested, but to no purpose. +Then he wrote a letter and sat down to wait. He reported his troubles to +Orion: + + I have made a superb contract for a book, and have prepared the + first ten chapters of the sixty or eighty, but I will bet it never + sees the light. Don't you let the folks at home hear that. That + thieving Alta copyrighted the letters, and now shows no disposition + to let me use them. I have done all I can by telegraph, and now + await the final result by mail. I only charged them for 50 letters + what (even in) greenbacks would amount to less than two thousand + dollars, intending to write a good deal for high-priced Eastern + papers, and now they want to publish my letters in book form + themselves to get back that pitiful sum. + +Orion was by this time back from Nevada, setting type in St. Louis. He +was full of schemes, as usual, and his brother counsels him freely. Then +he says: + + We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we + learn wisdom even then, and save the other half. + + I am in for it. I must go on chasing them, until I marry, then I am + done with literature and all other bosh--that is, literature + wherewith to please the general public. + + I shall write to please myself then. + +He closes by saying that he rather expects to go with Anson Burlingame on +the Chinese embassy. Clearly he was pretty hopeless as to his book +prospects. + +His first meeting with General Grant occurred just at this time. In one +of his home letters he mentions, rather airily, that he will drop in +someday on the General for an interview; and at last, through Mrs. Grant, +an appointment was made for a Sunday evening when the General would be at +home. He was elated with the prospect of an interview; but when he +looked into the imperturbable, square, smileless face of the soldier he +found himself, for the first time in his life, without anything +particular to say. Grant nodded slightly and waited. His caller wished +something would happen. It did. His inspiration returned. + +"General," he said, "I seem to be a little embarrassed. Are you?" + +That broke the ice. There were no further difficulties.--[Mark Twain +has variously related this incident. It is given here in accordance with +the letters of the period.] + + + + +LXVI + +BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO + +Reply came from the Alta, but it was not promising. It spoke rather +vaguely of prior arrangements and future possibilities. Clemens gathered +that under certain conditions he might share in the profits of the +venture. There was but one thing to do; he knew those people--some of +them--Colonel McComb and a Mr. McCrellish intimately. He must confer +with them in person. + +He was weary of Washington, anyway. The whole pitiful machinery of +politics disgusted him. In his notebook he wrote: + + Whiskey is taken into the committee rooms in demijohns and carried + out in demagogues. + +And in a letter: + + This is a place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There are + some pitiful intellects in this Congress! There isn't one man in + Washington in civil office who has the brains of Anson Burlingame, + and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great talents to + the world this government would have discarded him when his time was + up.--[Anson Burlingame had by this time become China's special + ambassador to the nations.] + +Furthermore, he was down on the climate of Washington. He decided to go +to San Francisco and see "those Alta thieves face to face." Then, if a +book resulted, he could prepare it there among friends. Also, he could +lecture. + +He had been anxious to visit his people before sailing, but matters were +too urgent to permit delay. He obtained from Bliss an advance of royalty +and took passage, by way of Aspinwall, on the sidewheel steamer Henry +Chauncey, a fine vessel for those days. The name of Mark Twain was +already known on the isthmus, and when it was learned he had arrived on +the Chauncey a delegation welcomed him on the wharf, and provided him +with refreshments and entertainment. Mr. Tracy Robinson, a poet, long a +resident of that southern land, was one of the group. Beyond the isthmus +Clemens fell in again with his old captain, Ned Wakeman, who during the +trip told him the amazing dream that in due time would become Captain +Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. He made the first draft of this story soon +after his arrival in San Francisco, as a sort of travesty of Elizabeth +Stuart Phelps's Gates Ajar, then very popular. Clemens, then and later, +had a high opinion of Capt. Ned Wakeman's dream, but his story of it +would pass through several stages before finally reaching the light of +publication.--[Mr. John P. Vollmer, now of Lewiston, Idaho, a +companion of that voyage, writes of a card game which took place beyond +the isthmus. The notorious crippled gambler, "Smithy," figured in it, +and it would seem to have furnished the inspiration for the exciting +story in Chapter XXXVI of the Mississippi book.] + +In San Francisco matters turned out as he had hoped. Colonel McComb was +his stanch friend; McCrellish and Woodward, the proprietors, presently +conceded that they had already received good value for the money paid. +The author agreed to make proper acknowledgments to the Alta in his +preface, and the matter was settled with friendliness all around. + +The way was now clear, the book assured. First, however, he must provide +himself with funds. He delivered a lecture, with the Quaker City +excursion as his subject. On the 5th of May he wrote to Bliss: + +I lectured here on the trip the other night; over $1,600 in gold in the +house; every seat taken and paid for before night. + +He reports that he is steadily at work, and expects to start East with +the completed manuscript about the middle of June. + +But this was a miscalculation. Clemens found that the letters needed +more preparation than he had thought. His literary vision and equipment +had vastly altered since the beginning of that correspondence. Some of +the chapters he rewrote; others he eliminated entirely. It required two +months of fairly steady work to put the big manuscript together. + +Some of the new chapters he gave to Bret Harte for the Overland Monthly, +then recently established. Harte himself was becoming a celebrity about +this time. His "Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," +published in early numbers of the Overland, were making a great stir in +the East, arousing there a good deal more enthusiasm than in the magazine +office or the city of their publication. That these two friends, each +supreme in his own field, should have entered into their heritage so +nearly at the same moment, is one of the many seemingly curious +coincidences of literary history. + +Clemens now concluded to cover his lecture circuit of two years before. +He was assured that it would be throwing away a precious opportunity not +to give his new lecture to his old friends. The result justified that +opinion. At Virginia, at Carson, and elsewhere he was received like a +returned conqueror. He might have been accorded a Roman triumph had +there been time and paraphernalia. Even the robbers had reformed, and +entire safety was guaranteed him on the Divide between Virginia and Gold +Hill. At Carson he called on Mrs. Curry, as in the old days, and among +other things told her how snow from the Lebanon Mountains is brought to +Damascus on the backs of camels. + +"Sam," she said, "that's just one of your yarns, and if you tell it in +your lecture to-night I'll get right up and say so." + +But he did tell it, for it was a fact; and though Mrs. Curry did not rise +to deny it she shook her finger at him in a way he knew. + +He returned to San Francisco and gave one more lecture, the last he would +ever give in California. His preparatory advertising for that occasion +was wholly unique, characteristic of him to the last degree. It assumed +the form of a handbill of protest, supposed to have been issued by the +foremost citizens of San Francisco, urging him to return to the States +without inflicting himself further upon them. As signatures he made free +with the names of prominent individuals, followed by those of +organizations, institutions, "Various Benevolent Societies, Citizens on +Foot and Horseback, and fifteen hundred in the Steerage." + +Following this (on the same bill) was his reply, "To the fifteen hundred +and others," in which he insisted on another hearing: + + I will torment the people if I want to.... It only costs the people + $1 apiece, and if they can't stand it what do they stay here for?... + My last lecture was not as fine as I thought it was, but I have + submitted this discourse to several able critics, and they have + pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I withhold it? + +He promised positively to sail on the 6th of July if they would let him +talk just this once. Continuing, the handbill presented a second +protest, signed by the various clubs and business firms; also others +bearing variously the signatures of the newspapers, and the clergy, +ending with the brief word: + + You had better go. Yours, CHIEF OF POLICE. + +All of which drollery concluded with his announcement of place and date +of his lecture, with still further gaiety at the end. Nothing short of a +seismic cataclysm--an earthquake, in fact--could deter a San Francisco +audience after that. Mark Twain's farewell address, given at the +Mercantile Library July 2 (1868), doubtless remains today the leading +literary event in San Francisco's history.--[Copy of the lecture +announcement, complete, will be found in Appendix H, at the end of last +volume.] + +He sailed July 6th by the Pacific mail steamer Montana to Acapulco, +caught the Henry Chauncey at Aspinwall, reached New York on the 28th, and +a day or two later had delivered his manuscript at Hartford. + +But a further difficulty had arisen. Bliss was having troubles himself, +this time, with his directors. Many reports of Mark Twain's new book had +been traveling the rounds of the press, some of which declared it was to +be irreverent, even blasphemous, in tone. The title selected, The New +Pilgrim's Progress, was in itself a sacrilege. Hartford was a +conservative place; the American Publishing Company directors were of +orthodox persuasion. They urged Bliss to relieve the company of this +impending disaster of heresy. When the author arrived one or more of +them labored with him in person, without avail. As for Bliss, he was +stanch; he believed in the book thoroughly, from every standpoint. He +declared if the company refused to print it he would resign the +management and publish the book himself. This was an alarming suggestion +to the stockholders. Bliss had returned dividends--a boon altogether too +rare in the company's former history. The objectors retired and were +heard of no more. The manuscript was placed in the hands of Fay and Cox, +illustrators, with an order for about two hundred and fifty pictures. + +Fay and Cox turned it over to True Williams, one of the well-known +illustrators of that day. Williams was a man of great talent--of fine +imagination and sweetness of spirit--but it was necessary to lock him in +a room when industry was required, with nothing more exciting than cold +water as a beverage. Clemens himself aided in the illustrating by +obtaining of Moses S. Beach photographs from the large collection he had +brought home. + + + + +LXVII + +A VISIT TO ELMIRA + +Meantime he had skilfully obtained a renewal of the invitation to spend a +week in the Langdon home. + +He meant to go by a fast train, but, with his natural gift for +misunderstanding time-tables, of course took a slow one, telegraphing his +approach from different stations along the road. Young Langdon concluded +to go down the line as far as Waverly to meet him. When the New York +train reached there the young man found his guest in the smoking-car, +travel-stained and distressingly clad. Mark Twain was always +scrupulously neat and correct of dress in later years, but in that +earlier day neatness and style had not become habitual and did not give +him comfort. Langdon greeted him warmly but with doubt. Finally he +summoned courage to say, hesitatingly-- + +"You've got some other clothes, haven't you?" + +The arriving guest was not in the least disturbed. + +"Oh yes," he said with enthusiasm, "I've got a fine brand-new outfit in +this bag, all but a hat. It will be late when we get in, and I won't see +any one to-night. You won't know me in the morning. We'll go out early +and get a hat." + +This was a large relief to the younger man, and the rest of the journey +was happy enough. True to promise, the guest appeared at daylight +correctly, even elegantly clad, and an early trip to the shops secured +the hat. A gay and happy week followed--a week during which Samuel +Clemens realized more fully than ever that in his heart there was room +for only one woman in all the world: Olivia Langdon--"Livy," as they all +called her--and as the day of departure drew near it may be that the +gentle girl had made some discoveries, too. + +No word had passed between them. Samuel Clemens had the old-fashioned +Southern respect for courtship conventions, and for what, in that day at +least, was regarded as honor. On the morning of the final day he said to +young Langdon: + +"Charley, my week is up, and I must go home." + +The young man expressed a regret which was genuine enough, though not +wholly unqualified. His older sister, Mrs. Crane, leaving just then for +a trip to the White Mountains, had said: + +"Charley, I am sure Mr. Clemens is after our Livy. You mustn't let him +carry her off before our return." + +The idea was a disturbing one. The young man did not urge his guest to +prolong his-visit. He said: + +"We'll have to stand it, I guess, but you mustn't leave before to-night." + +"I ought to go by the first train," Clemens said, gloomily. "I am in +love." + +"In what!" + +"In love-with your sister, and I ought to get away from here." + +The young man was now very genuinely alarmed. To him Mark Twain was a +highly gifted, fearless, robust man--a man's man--and as such altogether +admirable--lovable. But Olivia--Livy--she was to him little short of a +saint. No man was good enough for her, certainly not this adventurous +soldier of letters from the West. Delightful he was beyond doubt, +adorable as a companion, but not a companion for Livy. + +"Look here, Clemens," he said, when he could get his voice. "There's a +train in half an hour. I'll help you catch it. Don't wait till to- +night. Go now." + +Clemens shook his head. + +"No, Charley," he said, in his gentle drawl, "I want to enjoy your +hospitality a little longer. I promise to be circumspect, and I'll go +to-night." + +That night, after dinner, when it was time to take the New York train, a +light two-seated wagon was at the gate. The coachman was in front, and +young Langdon and his guest took the back seat. For some reason the seat +had not been locked in its place, and when, after the good-bys, the +coachman touched the horse it made a quick spring forward, and the back +seat, with both passengers, described a half-circle and came down with +force on the cobbled street. Neither passenger was seriously hurt; +Clemens not at all--only dazed a little for a moment. Then came an +inspiration; here was a chance to prolong his visit. Evidently it was +not intended that he should take that train. When the Langdon household +gathered around with restoratives he did not recover too quickly. He +allowed them to support or carry him into the house and place him in an +arm-chair and apply remedies. The young daughter of the house especially +showed anxiety and attention. This was pure happiness. He was perjuring +himself, of course, but they say Jove laughs at such things. + +He recovered in a day or two, but the wide hospitality of the handsome +Langdon home was not only offered now; it was enforced. He was still +there two weeks later, after which he made a trip to Cleveland to confide +in Mrs. Fairbanks how he intended to win Livy Langdon for his wife. + + + + +LXVIII + +THE REV. "JOE" TWICHELL + +He returned to Hartford to look after the progress of his book. Some of +it was being put into type, and with his mechanical knowledge of such +things he was naturally interested in the process. + +He made his headquarters with the Blisses, then living at 821 Asylum +Avenue, and read proof in a little upper room, where the lamp was likely +to be burning most of the time, where the atmosphere was nearly always +blue with smoke, and the window-sill full of cigar butts. Mrs. Bliss +took him into the quiet social life of the neighborhood--to small church +receptions, society gatherings and the like--all of which he seemed to +enjoy. Most of the dwellers in that neighborhood were members of the +Asylum Hill Congregational Church, then recently completed; all but the +spire. It was a cultured circle, well-off in the world's goods, its male +members, for the most part, concerned in various commercial ventures. + +The church stood almost across the way from the Bliss home, and Mark +Twain, with his picturesque phrasing, referred to it as the "stub-tailed +church," on account of its abbreviated spire; also, later, with a +knowledge of its prosperous membership, as the "Church of the Holy +Speculators." He was at an evening reception in the home of one of its +members when he noticed a photograph of the unfinished building framed +and hanging on the wall. + +"Why, yes," he commented, in his slow fashion, "this is the 'Church of +the Holy Speculators.'" + +"Sh," cautioned Mrs. Bliss. "Its pastor is just behind you. He knows +your work and wants to meet you." Turning, she said: "Mr. Twichell, this +is Mr. Clemens. Most people know him as Mark Twain." + +And so, in this casual fashion, he met the man who was presently to +become his closest personal friend and counselor, and would remain so for +more than forty years. + +Joseph Hopkins Twichell was a man about his own age, athletic and +handsome, a student and a devout Christian, yet a man familiar with the +world, fond of sports, with an exuberant sense of humor and a wide +understanding of the frailties of humankind. He had been "port waist +oar" at Yale, and had left college to serve with General "Dan" Sickles as +a chaplain who had followed his duties not only in the camp, but on the +field. + +Mention has already been made of Mark Twain's natural leaning toward +ministers of the gospel, and the explanation of it is easier to realize +than to convey. He was hopelessly unorthodox--rankly rebellious as to +creeds. Anything resembling cant or the curtailment of mental liberty +roused only his resentment and irony. Yet something in his heart always +warmed toward any laborer in the vineyard, and if we could put the +explanation into a single sentence, perhaps we might say it was because +he could meet them on that wide, common ground sympathy with mankind. +Mark Twain's creed, then and always, may be put into three words, +"liberty, justice, humanity." It may be put into one word, "humanity." + +Ministers always loved Mark Twain. They did not always approve of him, +but they adored him: The Rev. Mr. Rising, of the Comstock, was an early +example of his ministerial friendships, and we have seen that Henry Ward +Beecher cultivated his company. In a San Francisco letter of two years +before, Mark Twain wrote his mother, thinking it would please her: + +I am as thick as thieves with the Reverend Stebbins. I am laying for the +Reverend Scudder and the Reverend Doctor Stone. I am running on +preachers now altogether, and I find them gay. + +So it may be that his first impulse toward Joseph Twichell was due to the +fact that he was a young member of that army whose mission is to comfort +and uplift mankind. But it was only a little time till the impulse had +grown into a friendship that went beyond any profession or doctrine, a +friendship that ripened into a permanent admiration and love for "Joe" +Twichell himself, as one of the noblest specimens of his race. + +He was invited to the Twichell home, where he met the young wife and got +a glimpse of the happiness of that sweet and peaceful household. He had +a neglected, lonely look, and he loved to gather with them at their +fireside. He expressed his envy of their happiness, and Mrs. Twichell +asked him why, since his affairs were growing prosperous, he did not +establish a household of his own. Long afterward Mr. Twichell wrote: + + Mark made no answer for a little, but, with his eyes bent on the + floor, appeared to be deeply pondering. Then he looked up, and said + slowly, in a voice tremulous with earnestness (with what sympathy he + was heard may be imagined): "I am taking thought of it. I am in + love beyond all telling with the dearest and best girl in the whole + world. I don't suppose she will marry me. I can't think it + possible. She ought not to. But if she doesn't I shall be sure + that the best thing I ever did was to fall in love with her, and + proud to have it known that I tried to win her!" + +It was only a brief time until the Twichell fireside was home to him. He +came and went, and presently it was "Mark" and "Joe," as by and by it +would be "Livy" and "Harmony," and in a few years "Uncle Joe" and "Uncle +Mark," "Aunt Livy" and "Aunt Harmony," and so would remain until the +end. + + + + +LXIX + +A LECTURE TOUR + +James Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, was the leading +lecture agent of those days, and controlled all, or nearly all, of the +platform celebrities. Mark Twain's success at the Cooper Union the year +before had interested Redpath. He had offered engagements then and +later, but Clemens had not been free for the regular circuit. Now there +was no longer a reason for postponement of a contract. Redpath was eager +for the new celebrity, and Clemens closed with him for the season of +1868-9. With his new lecture, "The Vandal Abroad," he was presently +earning a hundred dollars and more a night, and making most of the nights +count. + +This was affluence indeed. He had become suddenly a person of substance- +an associate of men of consequence, with a commensurate income. He could +help his mother lavishly now, and he did. + +His new lecture was immensely popular. It was a resume of the 'Quaker +City' letters--a foretaste of the book which would presently follow. +Wherever he went, he was hailed with eager greetings. He caught such +drifting exclamations as, "There he is! There goes Mark Twain!" People +came out on the street to see him pass. That marvelous miracle which we +variously call "notoriety," "popularity," "fame," had come to him. In +his notebook he wrote, "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the +only, earthly certainty oblivion." + +The newspapers were filled with enthusiasm both as to his matter and +method. His delivery was described as a "long, monotonous drawl, with +the fun invariably coming in at the end of a sentence--after a pause." +His appearance at this time is thus set down: + + Mark Twain is a man of medium height, about five feet ten, sparsely + built, with dark reddish-brown hair and mustache. His features are + fair, his eyes keen and twinkling. He dresses in scrupulous evening + attire. In lecturing he hangs about the desk, leaning on it or + flirting around the corners of it, then marching and countermarching + in the rear of it. He seldom casts a glance at his manuscript. + +No doubt this fairly presents Mark Twain, the lecturer of that day. It +was a new figure on the platform, a man with a new method. As to his +manuscript, the item might have said that he never consulted it at all. +He learned his lecture; what he consulted was merely a series of +hieroglyphics, a set of crude pictures drawn by himself, suggestive of +the subject-matter underneath new head. Certain columns represented the +Parthenon; the Sphinx meant Egypt, and so on. His manuscript lay there +in case of accident, but the accident did not happen. + +A number of his engagements were in the central part of New York, at +points not far distant from Elmira. He had a standing invitation to +visit the Langdon home, and he made it convenient to avail himself of +that happiness. + +His was not an unruffled courtship. When at last he reached the point of +proposing for the daughter of the house, neither the daughter nor the +household offered any noticeable encouragement to his suit. Many absurd +anecdotes have been told of his first interview with Mr. Langdon on the +subject, but they are altogether without foundation. It was a proper and +dignified discussion of a very serious matter. Mr. Langdon expressed +deep regard for him and friendship but he was not inclined to add him to +the family; the young lady herself, in a general way, accorded with these +views. The applicant for favor left sadly enough, but he could not +remain discouraged or sad. He lectured at Cleveland with vast success, +and the news of it traveled quickly to Elmira. He was referred to by +Cleveland papers as a "lion" and "the coming man of the age." Two days +later, in Pittsburgh (November 19th), he "played" against Fanny Kemble, +the favorite actress of that time, with the result that Miss Kemble had +an audience of two hundred against nearly ten times the number who +gathered to hear Mark Twain. The news of this went to Elmira, too. It +was in the papers there next morning; surely this was a conquering hero-- +a gay Lochinvar from out of the West--and the daughter of the house must +be guarded closely, that he did not bear her away. It was on the second +morning following the Pittsburgh triumph, when the Langdon family were +gathered at breakfast, that a bushy auburn head poked fearfully in at the +door, and a low, humble voice said: + +"The calf has returned; may the prodigal have some breakfast?" + +No one could be reserved or reprovingly distant, or any of those +unfriendly things with a person like that; certainly not Jervis Langdon, +who delighted in the humor and the tricks and turns and oddities of this +eccentric visitor. Giving his daughter to him was another matter, but +even that thought was less disturbing than it had been at the start. In +truth, the Langdon household had somehow grown to feel that he belonged +to them. The elder sister's husband, Theodore Crane, endorsed him fully. +He had long before read some of the Mark Twain sketches that had traveled +eastward in advance of their author, and had recognized, even in the +crudest of them, a classic charm. As for Olivia Langdon's mother and +sister, their happiness lay in hers. Where her heart went theirs went +also, and it would appear that her heart, in spite of herself, had found +its rightful keeper. Only young Langdon was irreconciled, and eventually +set out for a voyage around the world to escape the situation. + +There was only a provisional engagement at first. Jervis Langdon +suggested, and Samuel Clemens agreed with him, that it was proper to know +something of his past, as well as of his present, before the official +parental sanction should be given. When Mr. Langdon inquired as to the +names of persons of standing to whom he might write for credentials, +Clemens pretty confidently gave him the name of the Reverend Stebbins and +others of San Francisco, adding that he might write also to Joe Goodman +if he wanted to, but that he had lied for Goodman a hundred times and +Goodman would lie for him if necessary, so his testimony would be of no +value. The letters to the clergy were written, and Mr. Langdon also +wrote one on his own account. + +It was a long mail-trip to the Coast and back in those days. It might be +two months before replies would come from those ministers. The lecturer +set out again on his travels, and was radiantly and happily busy. He +went as far west as Illinois, had crowded houses in Chicago, visited +friends and kindred in Hannibal, St. Louis, and Keokuk, carrying the +great news, and lecturing in old familiar haunts. + + + + +LXX + +INNOCENTS AT HOME--AND "THE INNOCENTS ABROAD" + +He was in Jacksonville, Illinois, at the end of January (1869), and in a +letter to Bliss states that he will be in Elmira two days later, and asks +that proofs of the book be sent there. He arrived at the Langdon home, +anxious to hear the reports that would make him, as the novels might say, +"the happiest or the most miserable of men." Jervis Langdon had a rather +solemn look when they were alone together. Clemens asked: + +"You've heard from those gentlemen out there?" + +"Yes, and from another gentleman I wrote concerning you." + +"They don't appear to have been very enthusiastic, from your manner." + +"Well, yes, some of them were." + +"I suppose I may ask what particular form their emotion took?" + +"Oh yes, yes; they agree unanimously that you are a brilliant, able man, +a man with a future, and that you would make about the worst husband on +record." + +The applicant for favor had a forlorn look. + +"There's nothing very evasive about that," he said: + +There was a period of reflective silence. It was probably no more than a +few seconds, but it seemed longer. + +"Haven't you any other friend that you could suggest?" Langdon said. + +"Apparently none whose testimony would be valuable." + +Jervis Langdon held out his hand. "You have at least one," he said. +"I believe in you. I know you better than they do." + +And so came the crown of happiness. The engagement of Samuel Langhorne +Clemens and Olivia Lewis Langdon was ratified next day, February 4, 1869. + +But if the friends of Mark Twain viewed the idea of the carnage with +scant favor, the friends of Miss Langdon regarded it with genuine alarm. +Elmira was a conservative place--a place of pedigree and family +tradition; that a stranger, a former printer, pilot, miner, wandering +journalist and lecturer, was to carry off the daughter of one of the +oldest and wealthiest families, was a thing not to be lightly permitted. +The fact that he had achieved a national fame did not count against other +considerations. The social protest amounted almost to insurrection, but +it was not availing. The Langdon family had their doubts too, though of +a different sort. Their doubts lay in the fear that one, reared as their +daughter had been, might be unable to hold a place as the wife of this +intellectual giant, whom they felt that the world was preparing to honor. +That this delicate, sheltered girl could have the strength of mind and +body for her position seemed hard to believe. Their faith overbore such +questionings, and the future years proved how fully it was justified. + +To his mother Samuel Clemens wrote: + + She is only a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom. + I gave her only a plain gold engagement ring, when fashion + imperatively demands a two-hundred-dollar diamond one, and told her + it was typical of her future life-namely, that she would have to + flourish on substance, rather than luxuries (but you see I know the + girl--she don't care anything about luxuries).... She spends no + money but her astral year's allowance, and spends nearly every cent + of that on other people. She will be a good, sensible little wife, + without any airs about her. I don't make intercession for her + beforehand, and ask you to love her, for there isn't any use in + that--you couldn't help it if you were to try. I warn you that + whoever comes within the fatal influence of her beautiful nature is + her willing slave forevermore. + +To Mrs. Crane, absent in March, her father wrote: + + DEAR SUE,--I received your letter yesterday with a great deal of + pleasure, but the letter has gone in pursuit of one S. L. Clemens, + who has been giving us a great deal of trouble lately. We cannot + have a joy in our family without a feeling, on the part of the + little incorrigible in our family, that this wanderer must share it, + so, as soon as read, into her pocket and off upstairs goes your + letter, and in the next two minutes into the mail, so it is + impossible for me now to refer to it, or by reading it over gain an + inspiration in writing you. . . + +Clemens closed his lecture tour in March, acid went immediately to +Elmira. He had lectured between fifty and sixty times, with a return of +something more than $8,000, not a bad aggregate for a first season on the +circuit. He had planned to make a spring tour to California, but the +attraction at Elmira was of a sort that discouraged distant travel. +Furthermore, he disliked the platform, then and always. It was always a +temptation to him because of its quick and abundant return, but it was +none the less distasteful. In a letter of that spring he wrote: + + I most cordially hate the lecture field. And after all, I shudder + to think I may never get out of it. In all conversation with Gough, + and Anna Dickinson, Nasby, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips, + and the other old stagers, I could not observe that they ever + expected or hoped to get out of the business. I don't want to get + wedded to it as they are. + +He declined further engagements on the excuse that he must attend to +getting out his book. The revised proofs were coming now, and he and +gentle Livy Langdon read them together. He realized presently that with +her sensitive nature she had also a keen literary perception. What +he lacked in delicacy--and his lack was likely to be large enough in that +direction--she detected, and together they pruned it away. She became +his editor during those happy courtship days--a position which she held +to her death. The world owed a large debt of gratitude to Mark Twain's +wife, who from the very beginning--and always, so far as in her strength +she was able--inspired him to give only his worthiest to the world, +whether in written or spoken word, in counsel or in deed. Those early +days of their close companionship, spiritual and mental, were full of +revelation to Samuel Clemens, a revelation that continued from day to +day, and from year to year, even to the very end. + +The letter to Bliss and the proofs were full of suggested changes that +would refine and beautify the text. In one of them he settles the +question of title, which he says is to be: + + THE INNOCENTS ABROAD + or + THE NEW PILGRIM'S PROGRESS + +and we may be sure that it was Olivia Langdon's voice that gave the +deciding vote for the newly adopted chief title, which would take any +suggestion of irreverence out of the remaining words. + +The book was to have been issued in the spring, but during his wanderings +proofs had been delayed, and there was now considerable anxiety about it, +as the agencies had become impatient for the canvass. At the end of +April Clemens wrote: "Your printers are doing well. I will hurry the +proofs"; but it was not until the early part of June that the last +chapters were revised and returned. Then the big book, at last +completed, went to press on an edition of twenty thousand, a large number +for any new book, even to-day. + +In later years, through some confusion of circumstance, Mark Twain was +led to believe that the publication of The Innocents Abroad was long and +unnecessarily delayed. But this was manifestly a mistake. The book went +to press in June. It was a big book and a large edition. The first copy +was delivered July 20 (1869), and four hundred and seventeen bound +volumes were shipped that month. Even with the quicker mechanical +processes of to-day a month or more is allowed for a large book between +the final return of proofs and the date of publication. So it is only +another instance of his remembering, as he once quaintly put it, "the +thing that didn't happen."--[In an article in the North American Review +(September 21, 1906) Mr. Clemens stated that he found it necessary to +telegraph notice that he would bring suit if the book was not immediately +issued. In none of the letters covering this period is there any +suggestion of delay on the part of the publishers, and the date of the +final return of proofs, together with the date of publication, preclude +the possibility of such a circumstance. At some period of his life he +doubtless sent, or contemplated sending, such a message, and this fact, +through some curious psychology, became confused in his mind with the +first edition of The Innocents Abroad.] + + + + +LXXI + +THE GREAT BOOK OF TRAVEL + +'The Innocents Abroad' was a success from the start. The machinery for +its sale and delivery was in full swing by August 1, and five thousand +one hundred and seventy copies were disposed of that month--a number that +had increased to more than thirty-one thousand by the first of the year. +It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a half dollars. +No such record had been made by a book of that description; none has +equaled it since.--[One must recall that this was the record only up to +1910. D.W.] + +If Mark Twain was not already famous, he was unquestionably famous now. +As the author of The New Pilgrim's Progress he was swept into the domain +of letters as one riding at the head of a cavalcade--doors and windows +wide with welcome and jubilant with applause. Newspapers chorused their +enthusiasm; the public voiced universal approval; only a few of the more +cultured critics seemed hesitant and doubtful. + +They applauded--most of them--but with reservation. Doctor Holland +regarded Mark Twain as a mere fun maker of ephemeral popularity, and was +not altogether pleasant in his dictum. Doctor Holmes, in a letter to the +author, speaks of the "frequently quaint and amusing conceits," but does +not find it in his heart to refer to the book as literature. It was +naturally difficult for the East to concede a serious value to one who +approached his subject with such militant aboriginality, and occasionally +wrote "those kind." William Dean Howells reviewed the book in the +Atlantic, which was of itself a distinction, whether the review was +favorable or otherwise. It was favorable on the whole, favorable to the +humor of the book, its "delicious impudence," the charm of its good- +natured irony. The review closed: + + It is no business of ours to fix his rank among the humorists + California has given us, but we think he is, in an entirely + different way from all the others, quite worthy of the company of + the best. + +This is praise, but not of an intemperate sort, nor very inclusive. The +descriptive, the poetic, the more pretentious phases of the book did not +receive attention. Mr. Howells was perhaps the first critic of eminence +to recognize in Mark Twain not only the humorist, but the supreme genius- +the "Lincoln of our literature." This was later. The public--the silent +public--with what Howells calls "the inspired knowledge of the simple- +hearted multitude," reached a similar verdict forthwith. And on +sufficient evidence: let the average unprejudiced person of to-day take +up the old volume and read a few chapters anywhere and decide whether it +is the work of a mere humorist, or also of a philosopher, a poet, and a +seer. The writer well remembers a little group of "the simple-hearted +multitude" who during the winter of '69 and '70 gathered each evening to +hear the Innocents read aloud, and their unanimous verdict that it was +the "best book of modern times." + +It was the most daring book of its day. Passages of it were calculated +to take the breath of the orthodox reader; only, somehow, it made him +smile, too. It was all so good-natured, so openly sincere. Without +doubt it preached heresy--the heresy of viewing revered landmarks and +relics joyously, rather than lugubriously; reverentially, when they +inspired reverence; satirically, when they invited ridicule, and with +kindliness always. + +The Innocents Abroad is Mark Twain's greatest book of travel. The +critical and the pure in speech may object to this verdict. Brander +Matthews regards it second to A Tramp Abroad, the natural viewpoint of +the literary technician. The 'Tramp' contains better usage without +doubt, but it lacks the "color" which gives the Innocents its perennial +charm. In the Innocents there is a glow, a fragrance, a romance of +touch, a subtle something which is idyllic, something which is not quite +of reality, in the tale of that little company that so long ago sailed +away to the harbors of their illusions beyond the sea, and, wandered +together through old palaces and galleries, and among the tombs of the +saints, and down through ancient lands. There is an atmosphere about it +all, a dream-like quality that lies somewhere in the telling, maybe, or +in the tale; at all events it is there, and the world has felt it ever +since. Perhaps it could be defined in a single word, perhaps that word +would be "youth." That the artist, poor True Williams, felt its +inspiration is certain. We may believe that Williams was not a great +draftsman, but no artist ever caught more perfectly the light and spirit +of the author's text. Crude some of the pictures are, no doubt, but they +convey the very essence of the story; they belong to it, they are a part +of it, and they ought never to perish. 'A Tramp Abroad' is a rare book, +but it cannot rank with its great predecessor in human charm. The +public, which in the long run makes mistakes, has rendered that verdict. +The Innocents by far outsells the Tramp, and, for that matter, any other +book of travel. + + +THE PURCHASE OF A PAPER + +It is curious to reflect that Mark Twain still did not regard himself as +a literary man. He had no literary plans for the future; he scarcely +looked forward to the publication of another book. He considered himself +a journalist; his ambition lay in the direction of retirement in some +prosperous newspaper enterprise, with the comforts and companionship of a +home. During his travels he had already been casting about for a +congenial and substantial association in newspaperdom, and had at one +time considered the purchase of an interest in the Cleveland Herald. But +Buffalo was nearer Elmira, and when an opportunity offered, by which he +could acquire a third interest in the Buffalo Express for $25,000, the +purchase was decided upon. His lack of funds prompted a new plan for a +lecture tour to the Pacific coast, this time with D. R. Locke (Nasby), +then immensely popular, in his lecture "Cussed Be Canaan." + +Clemens had met Nasby on the circuit, and was very fond of him. The two +had visited Boston together, and while there had called on Doctor Holmes; +this by the way. Nasby was fond of Clemens too, but doubtful about the +trip-doubtful about his lecture: + + Your proposition takes my breath away. If I had my new lecture + completed I wouldn't hesitate a moment, but really isn't "Cussed Be + Canaan" too old? You know that lemon, our African brother, juicy as + he was in his day, has been squeezed dry. Why howl about his wrongs + after said wrongs have been redressed? Why screech about the + "damnable spirit of Cahst" when the victim thereof sits at the first + table, and his oppressor mildly takes, in hash, what he leaves? You + see, friend Twain, the Fifteenth Amendment busted "Cussed Be + Canaan." I howled feelingly on the subject while it was a living + issue, for I felt all that I said and a great deal more; but now + that we have won our fight why dance frantically on the dead corpse + of our enemy? The Reliable Contraband is contraband no more, but a + citizen of the United States, and I speak of him no more. + + Give me a week to think of your proposition. If I can jerk a + lecture in time I will go with you. The Lord knows I would like to. + --[Nasby's lecture, "Cussed Be Canaan," opened, "We are all + descended from grandfathers!" He had a powerful voice, and always + just on the stroke of eight he rose and vigorously delivered this + sentence. Once, after lecturing an entire season--two hundred and + twenty-five nights--he went home to rest. That evening he sat, + musingly drowsing by the fire, when the clock struck eight. Without + a moment's thought Nasby sprang to his feet and thundered out, "We + are all descended from grandfathers!"] + +Nasby did not go, and Clemens's enthusiasm cooled at the prospect of +setting out alone on that long tour. Furthermore, Jervis Langdon +promptly insisted on advancing the money required to complete the +purchase of the Express, and the trade was closed.--[Mr. Langdon is just +as good for $25,000 for me, and has already advanced half of it in cash. +I wrote and asked whether I had better send him my note, or a due bill, +or how he would prefer to have the indebtedness made of record, and he +answered every other topic in the letter pleasantly, but never replied to +that at all. Still, I shall give my note into a hands of his business +agent here, and pay him the interest as it falls due.--S. L. C. to his +mother.] + +The Buffalo Express was at this time in the hands of three men--Col. +George F. Selkirk, J. L. Lamed, and Thomas A. Kennett. Colonel Selkirk +was business manager, Lamed was political editor. With the purchase of +Kennett's share Clemens became a sort of general and contributing editor, +with a more or less "roving commission"--his hours and duties not very +clearly defined. It was believed by his associates, and by Clemens +himself, that his known connection with the paper would give it prestige +and circulation, as Nasby's connection had popularized the Toledo Blade. +The new editor entered upon his duties August 14 (1869). The members of +the Buffalo press gave him a dinner that evening, and after the manner of +newspaper men the world over, were handsomely cordial to the "new enemy +in their midst." + +There is an anecdote which relates that next morning, when Mark Twain +arrived in the Express office (it was then at 14 Swan Street), there +happened to be no one present who knew him. A young man rose very +bruskly and asked if there was any one he would like to see. It is +reported that he replied, with gentle deliberation: + +"Well, yes, I should like to see some young man offer the new editor a +chair." + +It is so like Mark Twain that we are inclined to accept it, though it +seems of doubtful circumstance. In any case it deserves to be true. His +"Salutatory" (August 18th) is sufficiently genuine: + + Being a stranger, it would be immodest for me to suddenly and + violently assume the associate editorship of the Buffalo Express + without a single word of comfort or encouragement to the unoffending + patrons of the paper, who are about to be exposed to constant + attacks of my wisdom and learning. But the word shall be as brief + as possible. I only want to assure parties having a friendly + interest in the prosperity of the journal that I am not going to + hurt the paper deliberately and intentionally at any time. I am not + going to introduce any startling reforms, nor in any way attempt to + make trouble.... I shall not make use of slang and vulgarity upon + any occasion or under any circumstances, and shall never use + profanity except when discussing house rent and taxes. Indeed, upon + a second thought, I shall not use it even then, for it is + unchristian, inelegant, and degrading; though, to speak truly, I do + not see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a + cent without it. I shall not often meddle with politics, because we + have a political Editor who is already excellent and only needs to + serve a term or two in the penitentiary to be perfect. I shall not + write any poetry unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers. + + Such is my platform. I do not see any use in it, but custom is law + and must be obeyed. + +John Harrison Mills, who was connected with the Express in those days, +has written: + + I cannot remember that there was any delay in getting down to his + work. I think within five minutes the new editor had assumed the + easy look of one entirely at home, pencil in hand and a clutch of + paper before him, with an air of preoccupation, as of one intent on + a task delayed. It was impossible to be conscious of the man + sitting there, and not feel his identity with all that he had + enjoyed, and the reminiscence of it he that seemed to radiate; for + the personality was so absolutely in accord with all the record of + himself and his work. I cannot say he seemed to be that vague thing + they call a type in race or blood, though the word, if used in his + case for temperament, would decidedly mean what they used to call + the "sanguine." + + I thought that, pictorially, the noble costume of the Albanian would + have well become him. Or he might have been a Goth, and worn the + horned bull-pate helmet of Alaric's warriors; or stood at the prow + of one of the swift craft of the Vikings. His eyes, which have been + variously described, were, it seemed to me, of an indescribable + depth of the bluish moss-agate, with a capacity of pupil dilation + that in certain lights had the effect of a deep black.... + +Mr. Mills adds that in dress he was now "well groomed," and that +consequently they were obliged to revise their notions as to the careless +negligee which gossip had reported.--[From unpublished Reminiscences +kindly lent to the author by Mr. Mills] + + + + +LXXIII + +THE FIRST MEETING WITH HOWELLS + +Clemens' first period of editorial work was a brief one, though he made +frequent contributions to the paper: sketches, squibs, travel-notes, and +experiences, usually humorous in character. His wedding-day had been set +for early in the year, and it was necessary to accumulate a bank account +for that occasion. Before October he was out on the lecture circuit, +billed now for the first time for New England, nervous and apprehensive +in consequence, though with good hope. To Pamela he wrote +(November 9th): + +To-morrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience-- +4,000 critics--and on the success of this matter depends my future +success in New England. But I am not distressed. Nasby is in the same +boat. Tonight decides the fate of his brand-new lecture. He has just +left my room--been reading his lecture to me--was greatly depressed. I +have convinced him that he has little to fear. + +Whatever alarm Mark Twain may have felt was not warranted. His success +with the New England public was immediate and complete. He made his +headquarters in Boston, at Redpath's office, where there was pretty sure +to be a congenial company, of which he was presently the center. + +It was during one of these Boston sojourns that he first met William Dean +Howells, his future friend and literary counselor. Howells was assistant +editor of the Atlantic at this time; James T. Fields, its editor. +Clemens had been gratified by the Atlantic review, and had called to +express his thanks for it. He sat talking to Fields, when Howells +entered the editorial rooms, and on being presented to the author of the +review, delivered his appreciation in the form of a story, sufficiently +appropriate, but not qualified for the larger types.--[He said: "When I +read that review of yours, I felt like the woman who was so glad her baby +had come white."] + +His manner, his humor, his quaint colloquial forms all delighted Howells +--more, in fact, than the opulent sealskin overcoat which he affected at +this period--a garment astonishing rather than esthetic, as Mark Twain's +clothes in those days of his first regeneration were likely to be +startling enough, we may believe; in the conservative atmosphere of the +Atlantic rooms. And Howells--gentle, genial, sincere--filled with the +early happiness of his calling, won the heart of Mark Twain and never +lost it, and, what is still more notable, won his absolute and unvarying +confidence in all literary affairs. It was always Mark Twain's habit to +rely on somebody, and in matters pertaining to literature and to literary +people in general he laid his burden on William Dean Howells from that +day. Only a few weeks after that first visit we find him telegraphing to +Howells, asking him to look after a Californian poet, then ill and +friendless in Brooklyn. Clemens states that he does not know the poet, +but will contribute fifty dollars if Howells will petition the steamboat +company for a pass; and no doubt Howells complied, and spent a good deal +more than fifty dollars' worth of time to get the poet relieved and +started; it would be like him. + + + + +LXXIV + +THE WEDDING-DAY + +The wedding was planned, at first, either for Christmas or New-Year's +Day; but as the lecture engagements continued into January it was decided +to wait until these were filled. February 2d, a date near the +anniversary of the engagement, was agreed upon, also a quiet wedding with +no "tour." The young people would go immediately to Buffalo, and take up +a modest residence, in a boardinghouse as comfortable, even as luxurious, +as the husband's financial situation justified. At least that was Samuel +Clemens's understanding of the matter. He felt that he was heavily in +debt--that his first duty was to relieve himself of that obligation. + +There were other plans in Elmira, but in the daily and happy letters he +received there was no inkling of any new purpose. + +He wrote to J. D. F. Slee, of Buffalo, who was associated in business +with Mr. Langdon, and asked him to find a suitable boarding-place, one +that would be sufficiently refined for the woman who was to be his wife, +and sufficiently reasonable to insure prosperity. In due time Slee +replied that, while boarding was a "miserable business anyhow," he had +been particularly fortunate in securing a place on one of the most +pleasant streets--"the family a small one and choice spirits, with no +predilection for taking boarders, and consenting to the present +arrangement only because of the anticipated pleasure of your company." +The price, Slee added, would be reasonable. As a matter of fact a house +on Delaware Avenue--still the fine residence street of Buffalo--had been +bought and furnished throughout as a present to the bride and groom. It +stands to-day practically unchanged--brick and mansard without, Eastlake +within, a type then much in vogue--spacious and handsome for that period. +It was completely appointed. Diagrams of the rooms had been sent to +Elmira and Miss Langdon herself had selected the furnishings. Everything +was put in readiness, including linen, cutlery, and utensils. Even the +servants had been engaged and the pantry and cellar had been stocked. + +It must have been hard for Olivia Langdon to keep this wonderful surprise +out of those daily letters. A surprise like that is always watching a +chance to slip out unawares, especially when one is eagerly impatient to +reveal it. + +However, the traveler remained completely in the dark. He may have +wondered vaguely at the lack of enthusiasm in the boarding idea, and +could he have been certain that the sales of the book would continue, or +that his newspaper venture would yield an abundant harvest, he might have +planned his domestic beginning on a more elaborate scale. If only the +Tennessee land would yield the long-expected fortune now! But these were +all incalculable things. All that he could be sure of was the coming of +his great happiness, in whatever environment, and of the dragging weeks +between. + +At last the night of the final lecture came, and he was off for Elmira +with the smallest possible delay. Once there, the intervening days did +not matter. He could join in the busy preparations; he could write +exuberantly to his friends. To Laura Hawkins, long since Laura Frazer he +sent a playful line; to Jim Gillis, still digging and washing on the +slopes of the old Tuolumne hills, he wrote a letter which eminently +belongs here: + + + Elmira, N. Y., January 26, 1870. + + DEAR Jim,--I remember that old night just as well! And somewhere + among my relics I have your remembrance stored away. It makes my + heart ache yet to call to mind some of those days. Still it + shouldn't, for right in the depths of their poverty and their + pocket-hunting vagabondage lay the germ of my coming good fortune. + You remember the one gleam of jollity that shot across our dismal + sojourn in the rain and mud of Angel's Camp--I mean that day we sat + around the tavern stove and heard that chap tell about the frog and + how they filled him with shot. And you remember how we quoted from + the yarn and laughed over it out there on the hillside while you and + dear old Stoker panned and washed. I jotted the story down in my + note-book that day, and would have been glad to get ten or fifteen + dollars for it--I was just that blind. But then we were so hard up. + I published that story, and it became widely known in America, + India, China, England, and the reputation it made for me has paid me + thousands and thousands of dollars since. Four or five months ago I + bought into the Express (I have ordered it sent to you as long as + you live, and if the bookkeeper sends you any bills you let me hear + of it). I went heavily in debt--never could have dared to do that, + Jim, if we hadn't heard the jumping Frog story that day. + + And wouldn't I love to take old Stoker by the hand, and wouldn't I + love to see him in his great specialty, his wonderful rendition of + Rinalds in the "Burning Shame!" Where is Dick and what is he doing? + Give him my fervent love and warm old remembrances. + + A week from to-day I shall be married-to a girl even better and + lovelier than the peerless "Chapparal Quails." You can't come so + far, Jim, but still I cordially invite you to come anyhow, and I + invite Dick too. And if you two boys were to land here on that + pleasant occasion we would make you right royally welcome. + Truly your friend, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + P.S.---California plums are good. Jim, particularly when they are + stewed. + +It had been only five years before--that day in Angel's Camp--but how +long ago and how far away it seemed to him now! So much had happened +since then, so much of which that was the beginning--so little compared +with the marvel of the years ahead, whose threshold he was now about to +cross, and not alone. + +A day or two before the wedding he was asked to lecture on the night of +February 2d. He replied that he was sorry to disappoint the applicant, +but that he could not lecture on the night of February 2d, for the reason +that he was going to marry a young lady on that evening, and that he +would rather marry that young lady than deliver all the lectures in the +world. + +And so came the wedding-day. It began pleasantly; the postman brought a +royalty check that morning of $4,000, the accumulation of three months' +sales, and the Rev. Joseph Twichell and Harmony, his wife, came from +Hartford--Twichell to join with the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher in +solemnizing the marriage. Pamela Moffett, a widow now, with her daughter +Annie, grown to a young lady, had come all the way from St. Louis, and +Mrs. Fairbanks from Cleveland. + +Yet the guests were not numerous, not more than a hundred at most, so it +was a quiet wedding there in the Langdon parlors, those dim, stately +rooms that in the future would hold so much of his history--so much of +the story of life and death that made its beginning there. + +The wedding-service was about seven o'clock, for Mr. Beecher had a +meeting at the church soon after that hour. Afterward followed the +wedding-supper and dancing, and the bride's father danced with the bride. +To the interested crowd awaiting him at the church Mr. Beecher reported +that the bride was very beautiful, and had on the longest white gloves he +had ever seen; he declared they reached to her shoulders.--[Perhaps for +a younger generation it should be said that Thomas K. Beecher was a +brother of Henry Ward Beecher. He lived and died in Elmira, the almost +worshiped pastor of the Park Congregational Church. He was a noble, +unorthodox teacher. Samuel Clemens at the time of his marriage already +strongly admired him, and had espoused his cause in an article signed +"S'cat!" in the Elmira Advertiser, when he (Beecher) had been assailed by +the more orthodox Elmira clergy. For the "S'cat" article see Appendix I, +at the end of last volume.] + +It was the next afternoon when they set out for Buffalo, accompanied by +the bride's parents, the groom's relatives, the Beechers, and perhaps one +or two others of that happy company. It was nine o'clock at night when +they arrived, and found Mr. Slee waiting at the station with sleighs to +convey the party to the "boarding-house" he had selected. They drove and +drove, and the sleigh containing the bride and groom got behind and +apparently was bound nowhere in particular, which disturbed the groom a +good deal, for he thought it proper that they should arrive first, to +receive their guests. He commented on Slee's poor judgment in selecting +a house that was so hard to find, and when at length they turned into +fashionable Delaware Avenue, and stopped before one of the most +attractive places in the neighborhood, he was beset with fear concerning +the richness of the locality. + +They were on the steps when the doors opened, and a perfect fairyland of +lights and decoration was revealed within. The friends who had gone +ahead came out with greetings, to lead in the bride and groom. Servants +hurried forward to take bags and wraps. They were ushered inside; they +were led through beautiful rooms, all newly appointed and garnished. The +bridegroom was dazed, unable to understand the meaning of things, the +apparent ownership and completeness of possession. + +At last the young wife put her hand upon his arm: + +"Don't you understand, Youth," she said; that was always her name for +him. "Don't you understand? It is ours, all ours--everything--a gift +from father!" + +But even then he could not grasp it; not at first, not until Mr. Langdon +brought a little box and, opening it, handed them the deeds. + +Nobody quite remembers what was the first remark that Samuel Clemens made +then; but either then or a little later he said: + +"Mr. Langdon, whenever you are in Buffalo, if it's twice a year, come +right here. Bring your bag and stay overnight if you want to. It +sha'n't cost you a cent!" + +They went in to supper then, and by and by the guests were gone and the +young wedded pair were alone. + +Patrick McAleer, the young coachman, who would grow old in their employ, +and Ellen, the cook, came in for their morning orders, and were full of +Irish delight at the inexperience and novelty of it all. Then they were +gone, and only the lovers in their new house and their new happiness +remained. + +And so it was they entered the enchanted land. + + + + +LXXV + +AS TO DESTINY + +If any reader has followed these chapters thus far, he may have wondered, +even if vaguely, at the seeming fatality of events. Mark Twain had but +to review his own life for justification of his doctrine of inevitability +--an unbroken and immutable sequence of cause and effect from the +beginning. Once he said: + +"When the first living atom found itself afloat on the great Laurentian +sea the first act of that first atom led to the second act of that first +atom, and so on down through the succeeding ages of all life, until, if +the steps could be traced, it would be shown that the first act of that +first atom has led inevitably to the act of my standing here in my +dressing-gown at this instant talking to you." + +It seemed the clearest presentment ever offered in the matter of +predestined circumstance--predestined from the instant when that primal +atom felt the vital thrill. Mark Twain's early life, however imperfectly +recorded, exemplifies this postulate. If through the years still ahead +of us the course of destiny seems less clearly defined, it is only +because thronging events make the threads less easy to trace. The web +becomes richer, the pattern more intricate and confusing, but the line of +fate neither breaks nor falters, to the end. + + + + +LXXVI + +ON THE BUFFALO "EXPRESS" + +With the beginning of life in Buffalo, Mark Twain had become already a +world character--a man of large consequence and events. He had no proper +realization of this, no real sense of the size of his conquest; he still +regarded himself merely as a lecturer and journalist, temporarily +popular, but with no warrant to a permanent seat in the world's literary +congress. He thought his success something of an accident. The fact +that he was prepared to settle down as an editorial contributor to a +newspaper in what was then only a big village is the best evidence of a +modest estimate of his talents. + +He "worked like a horse," is the verdict of those who were closely +associated with him on the Express. His hours were not regular, but they +were long. Often he was at his desk at eight in the morning, and +remained there until ten or eleven at night. + +His working costume was suited to comfort rather than show. With coat, +vest, collar, and tie usually removed (sometimes even his shoes), he +lounged in his chair, in any attitude that afforded the larger ease, +pulling over the exchanges; scribbling paragraphs, editorials, humorous +skits, and what not, as the notion came upon him. J. L. Lamed, his co- +worker (he sat on the opposite side of the same table), remembers that +Mark Twain enjoyed his work as he went along--the humor of it--and that +he frequently laughed as some whimsicality or new absurdity came into his +mind. + +"I doubt," writes Lamed, "if he ever enjoyed anything more than the +jackknife engraving that he did on a piece of board of a military map of +the siege of Paris, which was printed in the Express from his original +plate, with accompanying explanations and comments. His half-day of +whittling and laughter that went with it are something that I find +pleasant to remember. Indeed, my whole experience of association with +him is a happy memory, which I am fortunate in having.... What one saw +of him was always the actual Mark Twain, acting out of his own nature +simply, frankly, without pretense, and almost without reserve. It was +that simplicity and naturalness in the man which carried his greatest +charm." + +Lamed, like many others, likens Mark Twain to Lincoln in various of his +characteristics. The two worked harmoniously together: Lamed attending +to the political direction of the journal, Clemens to the literary, and +what might be termed the sentimental side. There was no friction in the +division of labor, never anything but good feeling between them. Clemens +had a poor opinion of his own comprehension of politics, and perhaps as +little regard for Lamed's conception of humor. Once when the latter +attempted something in the way of pleasantry his associate said: + +"Better leave the humor on this paper to me, Lamed"; and once when Lamed +was away attending the Republican State Convention at Saratoga, and some +editorial comment seemed necessary, Clemens thought it best to sign the +utterance, and to make humor of his shortcomings. + + I do not know much about politics, and am not sitting up nights to + learn . . . . + + I am satisfied that these nominations are all right and sound, and + that they are the only ones that can bring peace to our distracted + country (the only political phrase I am perfectly familiar with and + competent to hurl at the public with fearless confidence--the other + editor is full of them), but being merely satisfied is not enough. + I always like to know before I shout. But I go for Mr. Curtis with + all my strength! Being certain of him, I hereby shout all I know + how. But the others may be a split ticket, or a scratched ticket, + or whatever you call it. + + I will let it alone for the present. It will keep. The other young + man will be back to-morrow, and he will shout for it, split or no + split, rest assured of that. He will prance into this political + ring with his tomahawk and his war-whoop, and then you will hear a + crash and see the scalps fly. He has none of my diffidence. He + knows all about these nominees, and if he don't he will let on to in + such a natural way as to deceive the most critical. He knows + everything--he knows more than Webster's Unabridged and the American + Encyclopedia--but whether he knows anything about a subject or not + he is perfectly willing to discuss it. When he gets back he will + tell you all about these candidates as serenely as if he had been + acquainted with them a hundred years, though, speaking + confidentially, I doubt if he ever heard of any of them till to-day. + I am right well satisfied it is a good, sound, sensible ticket, and + a ticket to win; but wait till he comes. + + In the mean time I go for George William Curtis and take the + chances. + MARK TWAIN. + +He had become what Mr. Howells calls entirely "desouthernized" by this +time. From having been of slaveholding stock, and a Confederate soldier, +he had become a most positive Republican, a rampant abolitionist--had +there been anything left to abolish. His sympathy had been always with +the oppressed, and he had now become their defender. His work on the +paper revealed this more and more. He wrote fewer sketches and more +editorials, and the editorials were likely to be either savage assaults +upon some human abuse, or fierce espousals of the weak. They were +fearless, scathing, terrific. Of some farmers of Cohocton, who had taken +the law into their own hands to punish a couple whom they believed to be +a detriment to the community, he wrote: + +"The men who did that deed are capable of doing any low, sneaking, +cowardly villainy that could be invented in perdition. They are the very +bastards of the devil." + +He appended a full list of their names, and added: + +"If the farmers of Cohocton are of this complexion, what on earth must a +Cohocton rough be like?" + +But all this happened a long time ago, and we need not detail those +various old interests and labors here. It is enough to say that Mark +Twain on the Express was what he had been from the beginning, and would +be to the end--the zealous champion of justice and liberty; violent and +sometimes wrong in his viewpoint, but never less than fearless and +sincere. Invariably he was for the oppressed. He had a natural instinct +for the right, but, right or wrong, he was for the under dog. + +Among the best of his editorial contributions is a tribute to Anson +Burlingame, who died February 23, 1870, at St. Petersburg, on his trip +around the world as special ambassador for the Chinese Empire. In this +editorial Clemens endeavored to pay something of his debt to the noble +statesman. He reviewed Burlingame's astonishing career--the career which +had closed at forty-seven, and read like a fairy-tale-and he dwelt +lovingly on his hero's nobility of character. At the close he said: + +"He was a good man, and a very, very great man. America, lost a son, and +all the world a servant, when he died." + +Among those early contributions to the Express is a series called "Around +the World," an attempt at collaboration with Prof. D. R. Ford, who did +the actual traveling, while Mark Twain, writing in the first person, gave +the letters his literary stamp. At least some of the contributions were +written in this way, such as "Adventures in Hayti," "The Pacific," and +"Japan." These letters exist to-day only in the old files of the +Express, and indeed this is the case with most of Clemens's work for that +paper. It was mainly ephemeral or timely work, and its larger value has +disappeared. Here and there is a sentence worth remembering. Of two +practical jokers who sent in a marriage notice of persons not even +contemplating matrimony, he said: "This deceit has been practised +maliciously by a couple of men whose small souls will escape through +their pores some day if they do not varnish their hides." + +Some of the sketches have been preserved. "Journalism in Tennessee," one +of the best of his wilder burlesques, is as enjoyable to-day as when +written. "A Curious Dream" made a lasting impression on his Buffalo +readers, and you are pretty certain to hear of it when you mention Mark +Twain in that city to-day. It vividly called attention to the neglect of +the old North Street graveyard. The gruesome vision of the ancestors +deserting with their coffins on their backs was even more humiliating +than amusing, and inspired a movement for reform. It has been effective +elsewhere since then, and may still be read with profit--or satisfaction +--for in a note at the end the reader is assured that if the cemeteries +of his town are kept in good order the dream is not leveled at his town +at all, but "particularly and venomously at the next town." + + + + +LXXVII + +THE "GALAXY" + +Mark Twain's work on the Express represented only a portion of his +literary activities during his Buffalo residence. The Galaxy, an +ambitious New York magazine of that day--[published by Sheldon & Co. at +498 and 500 Broadway]--, proposed to him that he conduct for them a +humorous department. They would pay $2,400 a year for the work, and +allow him a free hand. There was some discussion as to book rights, but +the arrangement was concluded, and his first instalment, under the +general title of "Memoranda," appeared in the May number, 1870. In his +Introductory he outlined what the reader might expect, such as +"exhaustive statistical tables," "Patent Office reports," and "complete +instructions about farming, even from the grafting of the seed to the +harrowing of the matured crops." He declared that he would throw a +pathos into the subject of agriculture that would surprise and delight +the world. He added that the "Memoranda" was not necessarily a humorous +department. + + I would not conduct an exclusively and professedly humorous + department for any one. I would always prefer to have the privilege + of printing a serious and sensible remark, in case one occurred to + me, without the reader's feeling obliged to consider himself + outraged.... Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department.... + No circumstance, however dismal, will ever be considered a + sufficient excuse for the admission of that last and saddest + evidence of intellectual poverty, the pun. + +The Galaxy was really a fine magazine, with the best contributors +obtainable; among them Justin McCarthy, S. M. B. Piatt, Richard Grant +White, and many others well known in that day, with names that still +flicker here and there in its literary twilight. The new department +appealed to Clemens, and very soon he was writing most of his sketches +for it. They were better literature, as a rule, than those published in +his own paper. + +The first number of the "Memoranda" was fairly representative of those +that followed it. "The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract," +a manuscript which he had undertaken three years before and mislaid, was +its initial contribution. Besides the "Beef Contract," there was a +tribute to George Wakeman, a well-known journalist of those days; a +stricture on the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, who had delivered from the +pulpit an argument against workingmen occupying pews in fashionable +churches; a presentment of the Chinese situation in San Francisco, +depicting the cruel treatment of the Celestial immigrant; a burlesque of +the Sunday-school "good little boy" story,--["The Story of the Good +Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper" and the "Beef Contract" are included in +Sketches New and Old; also the Chinese sketch, under the title, +"Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy."]--and several shorter skits--and +anecdotes, ten pages in all; a rather generous contract. + +Mark Twain's comment on Talmage was prompted by an article in which +Talmage had assumed the premise that if workingmen attended the churches +it would drive the better class of worshipers away. Among other things +he said: + + I have a good Christian friend who, if he sat in the front pew in + church, and a workingman should enter the door at the other end, + would smell him instantly. My friend is not to blame for the + sensitiveness of his nose, any more than you would flog a pointer + for being keener on the scent than a stupid watch-dog. The fact is, + if you had all the churches free, by reason of the mixing of the + common people with the uncommon, you would keep one-half of + Christendom sick at their stomach. If you are going to kill the + church thus with bad smells I will have nothing to do with this work + of evangelization. + +Commenting on this Mark Twain said--well, he said a good deal more than +we have room for here, but a portion of his closing paragraphs is worth +preserving. He compares the Reverend Mr. Talmage with the early +disciples of Christ--Paul and Peter and the others; or, rather, he +contrasts him with them. + + They healed the very beggars, and held intercourse with people of a + villainous odor every day. If the subject of these remarks had been + chosen among the original Twelve Apostles he would not have + associated with the rest, because he could not have stood the fishy + smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of + Galilee. He would have resigned his commission with some such + remark as he makes in the extract quoted above: "Master, if thou art + going to kill the church thus with bad smells I will have nothing to + do with this work of evangelization." He is a disciple, and makes + that remark to the Master; the only difference is that he makes it + in the nineteenth instead of the first century. + +Talmage was immensely popular at this time, and Mark Twain's open attack +on him must have shocked a good many Galaxy readers, as perhaps his +article on the Chinese cruelties offended the citizens of San Francisco. +It did not matter. He was not likely to worry over the friends he would +lose because of any stand taken for human justice. Lamed said of him: +"He was very far from being one who tried in any way to make himself +popular." Certainly he never made any such attempt at the expense of his +convictions. + +The first Galaxy instalment was a sort of platform of principles for the +campaign that was to follow. Not that each month's contribution +contained personal criticism, or a defense of the Chinese (of whom he was +always the champion as long as he lived), but a good many of them did. +In the October number he began a series of letters under the general +title of "Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again," supposed to have been written +by a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco, detailing his experience there. +In a note the author says: "No experience is set down in the following +letters which had to be invented. Fancy is not needed to give variety to +the history of the Chinaman's sojourn in America. Plain fact is amply +sufficient." The letters show how the supposed Chinese writer of them +had set out for America, believing it to be a land whose government was +based on the principle that all men are created equal, and treated +accordingly; how, upon arriving in San Francisco, he was kicked and +bruised and beaten, and set upon by dogs, flung into jail, tried and +condemned without witnesses, his own race not being allowed to testify +against Americans--Irish-Americans--in the San Francisco court. They are +scathing, powerful letters, and one cannot read them, even in this day of +improved conditions, without feeling the hot waves of resentment and +indignation which Mark Twain must have felt when he penned them. + +Reverend Mr. Talmage was not the only divine to receive attention in the +"Memoranda." The Reverend Mr. Sabine, of New York, who had declined to +hold a church burial service for the old actor, George Holland, came in +for the most caustic as well as the most artistic stricture of the entire +series. It deserves preservation to-day, not only for its literary +value, but because no finer defense of the drama, no more searching +sermon on self-righteousness, has ever been put into concrete form. +--["The Indignity Put Upon the Remains of Gorge Holland by the Rev. Mr. +Sabine"; Galaxy for February, 1871. The reader will find it complete +under Appendix J, at the end of last volume.] + +The "Little Church Around the Corner" on Twenty-ninth Street received +that happy title from this incident. + +"There is a little church around the corner that will, perhaps, permit +the service," Mr. Sabine had said to Holland's friends. + +The little church did permit the service, and there was conferred upon it +the new name, which it still bears. It has sheltered a long line of +actor folk and their friends since then, earning thereby reverence, +gratitude, and immortal memory.--[Church of the Transfiguration. +Memorial services were held there for Joseph Jefferson; and a memorial +window, by John La Farge, has been placed there in memory of Edwin +Booth.] + +Of the Galaxy contributions a number are preserved in Sketches New and +Old. "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper" is one of the best of these-- +an excellent example of Mark Twain's more extravagant style of humor. It +is perennially delightful; in France it has been dramatized, and is still +played. + +A successful Galaxy feature, also preserved in the Sketches, was the +"Burlesque Map of Paris," reprinted from the Express. The Franco- +Prussian War was in progress, and this travesty was particularly timely. +It creates only a smile of amusement to-day, but it was all fresh and +delightful then. Schuyler Colfax, by this time Vice-President, wrote to +him: "I have had the heartiest possible laugh over it, and so have all my +family. You are a wicked, conscienceless wag, who ought to be punished +severely." + +The "Official Commendations," which accompany the map, are its chief +charm. They are from Grant, Bismarck, Brigham Young, and others, the +best one coming from one J. Smith, who says: + + My wife was for years afflicted with freckles, and though everything + was done for her relief that could be done, all was in vain. But, + sir, since her first glance at your map they have entirely left her. + She has nothing but convulsions now. + +It is said that the "Map of Paris" found its way to Berlin, where the +American students in the beer-halls used to pretend to quarrel over it +until they attracted the attention of the German soldiers that might be +present. Then they would wander away and leave it on the table and watch +results. The soldiers would pounce upon it and lose their tempers over +it; then finally abuse it and revile its author, to the satisfaction of +everybody. + +The larger number of "Memoranda" sketches have properly found oblivion +to-day. They were all, or nearly all, collected by a Canadian pirate, +C. A. Backas, in a volume bearing the title of Memoranda,--[Also by a +harpy named John Camden Hotten (of London), of whom we shall hear again. +Hotten had already pirated The Innocents, and had it on the market before +Routledge could bring out the authorized edition. Routledge later +published the "Memoranda" under the title of Sketches, including the +contents of the Jumping Frog book.]--a book long ago suppressed. Only +about twenty of the Galaxy contributions found place in Sketches New and +Old, five years later, and some of these might have been spared as +literature. "To Raise Poultry," "John Chinaman in New York," and +"History Repeats Itself" are valuable only as examples of his work at +that period. The reader may consult them for himself. + + + + + +LXXVIII + +THE PRIMROSE PATH + +But we are losing sight of more important things. From the very +beginning Mark Twain's home meant always more to him than his work. The +life at 472 Delaware Avenue had begun with as fair a promise as any +matrimonial journey ever undertaken: There seemed nothing lacking: a +beautiful home, sufficient income, bright prospects--these things, with +health and love; constitute married happiness. Mrs. Clemens wrote to her +sister, Mrs. Crane, at the end of February: "Sue, we are two as happy +people as you ever saw. Our days seem to be made up of only bright +sunlight, with no shadow in them." In the same letter the husband added: +"Livy pines and pines every day for you, and I pine and pine every day +for you, and when we both of us are pining at once you would think it was +a whole pine forest let loose." + +To Redpath, who was urging lecture engagements for the coming season, he +wrote: + + DEAR RED,--I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got + things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it + will cost to live, and I can make the money without lecturing. + Therefore, old man, count me out. + +And still later, in May: + + I guess I am out of the field permanently. Have got a lovely wife, + a lovely house, bewitchingly furnished, a lovely carriage, and a + coachman whose style and dignity are simply awe-in-spiring, nothing + less; and I am making more money than necessary, by considerable, + and therefore why crucify myself nightly on the platform? The + subscriber will have to be excused for the present season at least. + +So they were very happy during those early months, acquiring pleasantly +the education which any matrimonial experience is sure to furnish, +accustoming themselves to the uses of housekeeping, to life in +partnership, with all the discoveries and mental and spiritual +adaptations that belong to the close association of marriage. They were +far, very far, apart on many subjects. He was unpolished, untrained, +impulsive, sometimes violent. Twichell remembers that in the earlier +days of their acquaintance he wore a slouch hat pulled down in front, and +smoked a cigar that sometimes tilted up and touched the brim of it. The +atmosphere and customs of frontier life, the Westernisms of that day, +still clung to him. Mrs. Clemens, on the other hand, was conservative, +dainty, cultured, spiritual. He adored her as little less than a saint, +and she became, indeed, his saving grace. She had all the personal +refinement which he lacked, and she undertook the work of polishing and +purifying her life companion. She had no wish to destroy his +personality, to make him over, but only to preserve his best, and she set +about it in the right way--gently, and with a tender gratitude in each +achievement. + +She did not entirely approve of certain lines of his reading; or, rather, +she did not understand them in those days. That he should be fond of +history and the sciences was natural enough, but when the Life of P. T. +Barnum, Written by Himself, appeared, and he sat up nights to absorb it, +and woke early and lighted the lamp to follow the career of the great +showman, she was at a loss to comprehend this particular literary +passion, and indeed was rather jealous of it. She did not realize then +his vast interest in the study of human nature, or that such a book +contained what Mr. Howells calls "the root of the human matter," the +inner revelation of the human being at first hand. + +Concerning his religious observances her task in the beginning was easy +enough. Clemens had not at that time formulated any particular doctrines +of his own. His natural kindness of heart, and especially his love for +his wife, inclined him toward the teachings and customs of her Christian +faith--unorthodox but sincere, as Christianity in the Langdon family was +likely to be. It took very little persuasion on his wife's part to +establish family prayers in their home, grace before meals, and the +morning reading of a Bible chapter. Joe Goodman, who made a trip East, +and visited them during the early days of their married life, was +dumfounded to see Mark Twain ask a blessing and join in family worship. +Just how long these forms continued cannot be known to-day; the time of +their abandonment has perished from the recollection of any one now +living. + +It would seem to have been the Bible-reading that wrought the change. +The prayer and the blessing were to him sincere and gracious; but as the +readings continued he realized that he had never before considered the +Bible from a doctrinal point of view, as a guide to spiritual salvation. +To his logical reasoning mind, a large portion of it seemed absurd: a +mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology. From such material +humanity had built its mightiest edifice of hope, the doctrines of its +faith. After a little while he could stand it no longer. + +"Livy," he said one day, "you may keep this up if you want to, but I must +ask you to excuse me from it. It is making me a hypocrite. I don't +believe in this Bible. It contradicts my reason. I can't sit here and +listen to it, letting you believe that I regard it, as you do, in the +light of gospel, the word of God." + +He was moved to write an article on the human idea of God, ancient and +modern. It contained these paragraphs: + + The difference in importance, between the God of the Bible and the + God of the present day, cannot be described, it can only be vaguely + and inadequately figured to the mind . . . . If you make figures + to represent the earth and moon, and allow a space of one inch + between them, to represent the four hundred thousand miles of + distance which lies between the two bodies, the map will have to be + eleven miles long in order to bring in the nearest fixed star.-- + [His figures were far too small. A map drawn on the scale of + 400,000 miles to the inch would need to be 1,100 miles long to take + in both the earth and the nearest fixed star. On such a map the + earth would be one-fiftieth of an inch in diameter--the size of a + small grain of sand.]--So one cannot put the modern heavens on a + map, nor the modern God; but the Bible God and the Bible heavens can + be set down on a slate and yet not be discommoded . . . . + + The difference between that universe and the modern one revealed by + science is as the difference between a dust-flecked ray in a barn + and the sublime arch of the Milky Way in the skies. Its God was + strictly proportioned to its dimensions. His sole solicitude was + about a handful of truculent nomads. He worried and fretted over + them in a peculiarly and distractingly human way. One day he coaxed + and petted them beyond their due, the next he harried and lashed + them beyond their deserts. He sulked, he cursed, he raged, he + grieved, according to his mood and the circumstances, but all to no + purpose; his efforts were all vain, he could not govern them. When + the fury was on him he was blind to all reason--he not only + slaughtered the offender, but even his harmless little children and + dumb cattle.... + + To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, + fierce and ever fickle and changeful master; to trust the true God + is to trust a Being who has uttered no promises, but whose + beneficent, exact, and changeless ordering of the machinery of his + colossal universe is proof that he is at least steadfast to his + purposes; whose unwritten laws, so far as they affect man, being + equal and impartial, show that he is just and fair; these things, + taken together, suggest that if he shall ordain us to live + hereafter, he will still be steadfast, just, and fair toward us. We + shall not need to require anything more. + +It seems mild enough, obvious, even orthodox, now--so far have we +traveled in forty years. But such a declaration then would have shocked +a great number of sincerely devout persons. His wife prevailed upon him +not to print it. She respected his honesty--even his reasoning, but his +doubts were a long grief to her, nevertheless. In time she saw more +clearly with his vision, but this was long after, when she had lived more +with the world, had become more familiar with its larger needs, and the +proportions of created things. + +They did not mingle much or long with the social life of Buffalo. They +received and returned calls, attended an occasional reception; but +neither of them found such things especially attractive in those days, so +they remained more and more in their own environment. There is an +anecdote which seems to belong here. + +One Sunday morning Clemens noticed smoke pouring from the upper window of +the house across the street. The owner and his wife, comparatively +newcomers, were seated upon the veranda, evidently not aware of impending +danger. The Clemens household thus far had delayed calling on them, but +Clemens himself now stepped briskly across the street. Bowing with +leisurely politeness, he said: + +"My name is Clemens; we ought to have called on you before, and I beg +your pardon for intruding now in this informal way, but your house is on +fire." + +Almost the only intimate friends they had in Buffalo were in the family +of David Gray, the poet-editor of the Courier. Gray was a gentle, +lovable man. "The gentlest spirit and the loveliest that ever went +clothed in clay, since Sir Galahad laid him to rest," Mark Twain once +said of him. Both Gray and Clemens were friends of John Hay, and their +families soon became intimate. Perhaps, in time, the Clemens household +would have found other as good friends in the Buffalo circles; but heavy +clouds that had lain unseen just beyond the horizon during those earlier +months of marriage rose suddenly into view, and the social life, whatever +it might have become, was no longer a consideration. + + + + +LXXIX + +THE OLD HUMAN STORY + +Jervis Langdon was never able to accept his son-in-law's invitation to +the new home. His health began to fail that spring, and at the end of +March, with his physician and Mrs. Langdon, he made a trip to the South. +In a letter written at Richmond he said, "I have thrown off all care," +and named a list of the four great interests in which he was involved. +Under "number 5," he included "everything," adding, "so you see how good +I am to follow the counsel of my children." He closed: "Samuel, I love +your wife and she loves me. I think it is only fair that you should know +it, but you need not flare up. I loved her before you did, and she loved +me before she did you, and has not ceased since. I see no way but for +you to make the most of it." He was already a very ill man, and this +cheerful letter was among the last he ever wrote. + +He was absent six weeks and seemed to improve, but suffered an attack +early in May; in June his condition became critical. Clemens and his +wife were summoned to Elmira, and joined in the nursing, day and night. +Clemens surprised every one by his ability as a nurse. His delicacy and +thoughtfulness were unfailing; his original ways of doing things always +amused and interested the patient. In later years Mark Twain once said: + + "How much of the nursing did I do? My main watch was from midnight + to four in the morning, nearly four hours. My other watch was a + midday watch, and I think it was nearly three hours. The two + sisters divided the remaining seventeen hours of the twenty-four + hours between them, and each of them tried generously and + persistently to swindle the other out of a part of her watch. I + went to bed early every night, and tried to get sleep enough by + midnight to fit me for my work, but it was always a failure. I went + on watch sleepy and remained miserable, sleepy, and wretched, + straight along through the four hours. I can still see myself + sitting by that bed in the melancholy stillness of the sweltering + night, mechanically waving a palm-leaf fan over the drawn, white + face of the patient. I can still recall my noddings, my fleeting + unconsciousness, when the fan would come to a standstill in my hand, + and I woke up with a start and a hideous shock. During all that + dreary time I began to watch for the dawn long before it came. When + the first faint gray showed through the window-blinds I felt as no + doubt a castaway feels when the dim threads of the looked-for ship + appear against the sky. I was well and strong, but I was a man, + afflicted with a man's infirmity--lack of endurance." + +He always dealt with himself in this unsparing way; but those who were +about him then have left a different story. + +It was all without avail. Mr. Langdon rallied, and early in July there +was hope for his recovery. He failed again, and on the afternoon of the +6th of August he died. To Mrs. Clemens, delicate and greatly worn with +the anxiety and strain of watching, the blow was a crushing one. It was +the beginning of a series of disasters which would mark the entire +remaining period of their Buffalo residence. + +There had been a partial plan for spending the summer in England, and a +more definite one for joining the Twichells in the Adirondacks. Both of +these projects were now abandoned. Mrs. Clemens concluded that she would +be better at home than anywhere else, and invited an old school friend, a +Miss Emma Nye, to visit her. + +But the shadow of death had not been lifted from the Clemens household. +Miss Nye presently fell ill with typhoid fever. There followed another +long period of anxiety and nursing, ending with the death of the visitor +in the new home, September 29th. The young wife was now in very delicate +health; genuinely ill, in fact. The happy home had become a place of +sorrow-of troubled nights and days. Another friend came to cheer them, +and on this friend's departure Mrs. Clemens drove to the railway station. +It was a hurried trip over rough streets to catch the train. She was +prostrated on her return, and a little later, November 7, 1870, her first +child, Langdon, was prematurely born. A dangerous illness followed, and +complete recovery was long delayed. But on the 12th the crisis seemed +passed, and the new father wrote a playful letter to the Twichells, as +coming from the late arrival: + + DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT,--I came into the world on the 7th inst., and + consequently am about five days old now. I have had wretched health + ever since I made my appearance . . . I am not corpulent, nor am + I robust in any way. At birth I only weighed four and one-half + pounds with my clothes on--and the clothes were the chief feature of + the weight, too, I am obliged to confess, but I am doing finely, all + things considered . . . . My little mother is very bright and + cheery, and I guess she is pretty happy, but I don't know what + about. She laughs a great deal, notwithstanding she is sick abed. + + P. S.--Father says I had better write because you will be more + interested in me, just now, than in the rest of the family. + +A week later Clemens, as himself, wrote: + + Livy is up and the prince keeps her busy and anxious these latter + days and nights, but I am a bachelor up-stairs and don't have to + jump up and get the soothing sirup, though I would as soon do it as + not, I assure you. (Livy will be certain to read this letter.) + + Tell Harmony that I do hold the baby, and do it pretty handily too, + though with occasional apprehensions that his loose head will fall + off. I don't have to quiet him; he hardly ever utters a cry. He is + always thinking about something. He is a patient, good little baby. + +Further along he refers to one of his reforms: + + Smoke? I always smoke from three till five on Sunday afternoons, + and in New York, the other day, I smoked a week, day and night. But + when Livy is well I smoke only those two hours on Sunday. I'm boss + of the habit now, and shall never let it boss me any more. + Originally I quit solely on Livy's account (not that I believed + there was the faintest reason in the matter, but just as I would + deprive myself of sugar in my coffee if she wished it, or quit + wearing socks if she thought them immoral), and I stick to it yet on + Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so without a pang. + But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind + it, if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a + kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to + make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable + as well as useful. To go quit smoking, when there ain't any + sufficient excuse for it!--why, my old boy, when they used to tell + me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they little knew + the devotee they were wasting their puerile words upon; they little + knew how trivial and valueless I would regard a decade that had no + smoking in it! But I won't persuade you, Twichell--I won't until I + see you again--but then we'll smoke for a week together, and then + shut off again. + + + + +LXXX + +LITERARY PROJECTS + +The success of the Innocents naturally made a thrifty publisher like +Bliss anxious for a second experiment. He had begun early in the year to +talk about another book, but nothing had come of it beyond a project or +two, more or less hazy and unpursued. Clemens at one time developed a +plan for a Noah's Ark book, which was to detail the cruise of the Ark in +diaries kept by various members of it-Shem, Ham, and the others. He +really wrote some of it at the time, and it was an idea he never entirely +lost track of. All along among his manuscripts appear fragments from +those ancient voyagers. One of the earlier entries will show the style +and purpose of the undertaking. It is from Shem's record: + + Friday: Papa's birthday. He is 600 years old. We celebrated it in + a big, black tent. Principal men of the tribe present. Afterward + they were shown over the ark, which was looking desolate and empty + and dreary on account of a misunderstanding with the workmen about + wages. Methuselah was as free with his criticisms as usual, and as + voluble and familiar, which I and my brothers do not like; for we + are past our one hundredth year and married. He still calls me + Shemmy, just as he did when I was a child of sixty. I am still but + a youth, it is true, but youth has its feelings, and I do not like + this . . . . + + Saturday: Keeping the Sabbath. + + Sunday: Papa has yielded the advance and everybody is hard at work. + The shipyard is so crowded that the men hinder each other; everybody + hurrying or being hurried; the rush and confusion and shouting and + wrangling are astonishing to our family, who have always been used + to a quiet, country life. + +It was from this germ that in a later day grew the diaries of Adam and +Eve, though nothing very satisfactory ever came of this preliminary +attempt. The author had faith in it, however. To Bliss he wrote: + + I mean to take plenty of time and pains with the Noah's Ark book; + maybe it will be several years before it is all written, but it will + be a perfect lightning striker when it is done. + + You can have the first say (that is plain enough) on that or any + other book I may prepare for the press, as long as you deal in a + fair, open, and honorable way with me. I do not think you will ever + find me doing otherwise with you. I can get a book ready for you + any time you want it; but you can't want one before this time next + year, so I have plenty of time. + +Bliss was only temporarily appeased. He realized that to get a book +ready by the time he wanted it-a book of sufficient size and importance +to maintain the pace set by the Innocents meant rather more immediate +action than his author seemed to contemplate. Futhermore, he knew that +other publishers were besieging the author of the Innocents; a +disquieting thought. In early July, when Mr. Langdon's condition had +temporarily improved, Bliss had come to Elmira and proposed a book which +should relate the author's travels and experiences in the Far West. It +was an inviting subject, and Clemens, by this time more attracted by the +idea of authorship and its rewards, readily enough agreed to undertake +the volume. He had been offered half profits, and suggested that the new +contract be arranged upon these terms. Bliss, figuring on a sale of +100,000 copies, proposed seven and one-half per cent. royalty as an +equivalent, and the contract was so arranged. In after-years, when the +cost of manufacture and paper had become greatly reduced, Clemens, with +but a confused notion of business details, believed he had been misled by +Bliss in this contract, and was bitter and resentful accordingly. The +figures remain, however, to show that Bliss dealt fairly. Seven and one- +half per cent. of a subscription book did represent half profits up to +100,000 copies when the contract was drawn; but it required ten years to +sell that quantity, and in that time conditions had changed. Bliss could +hardly foresee that these things would be so, and as he was dead when the +book touched the 100,000 mark he could not explain or readjust matters, +whatever might have been his inclination. + +Clemens was pleased enough with the contract when it was made. To Orion +he wrote July 15 (1870): + + Per contract I must have another six-hundred-page book ready for my + publisher January 1st, and I only began it to-day. The subject of + it is a secret, because I may possibly change it. But as it stands + I propose to do up Nevada and California, beginning with the trip + across the country in the stage. Have you a memorandum of the route + we took, or the names of any of the stations we stopped at? Do you + remember any of the scenes, names, incidents, or adventures of the + coach trip?--for I remember next to nothing about the matter. Jot + down a foolscap page of items for me. I wish I could have two days' + talk with you. + + I suppose I am to get the biggest copyright this time ever paid on a + subscription book in this country. + +The work so promptly begun made little progress. Hard days of illness +and sorrow followed, and it was not until September that it was really +under way. His natural enthusiasm over any new undertaking possessed +him. On the 4th he wrote Bliss: + +During the past week I have written the first four chapters of the book, +and I tell you 'The Innocents Abroad' will have to get up early to beat +it. It will be a book that will jump straight into continental celebrity +the first month it is issued. + +He prophesied a sale of 90,000 copies during the first twelve months and +declared, "I see the capabilities of the subject." + +But further disasters, even then impending, made continued effort +impossible; the prospect of the new book for a time became gloomy, the +idea of it less inspiring. Other plans presented themselves, and at one +time he thought of letting the Galaxy publishers get out a volume of his +sketches. In October he wrote Bliss that he was "driveling along +tolerably fair on the book, getting off from twelve to twenty pages of +manuscript a day." Bliss naturally discouraged the Galaxy idea, and +realizing that the new book might be long delayed, agreed to get out a +volume of miscellany sufficiently large and important for subscription +sales. He was doubtful of the wisdom of this plan, and when Clemens +suddenly proposed a brand-new scheme his publisher very readily agreed to +hold back the publication of Sketches indefinitely. + +The new book was to be adventures in the diamond mines of South Africa, +then newly opened and of wide public interest. Clemens did not propose +to visit the mines himself, but to let another man do the traveling, make +the notes, and write or tell him the story, after which Clemens would +enlarge and elaborate it in his own fashion. His adaptation of the +letters of Professor Ford, a year earlier, had convinced him that his +plan would work out successfully on a larger scale; he fixed upon his old +friend, J. H. Riley, of Washington--["Riley-Newspaper Correspondent." +See Sketches.]--(earlier of San Francisco), as the proper person to do +the traveling. At the end of November he wrote Bliss: + + I have put my greedy hands upon the best man in America for my + purpose, and shall start him to the diamond field in South Africa + within a fortnight at my expense . . . that the book will have a + perfectly beautiful sale. + +He suggested that Bliss advance Riley's expense money, the amount to be +deducted from the first royalty returns; also he proposed an increased +royalty, probably in view of the startling splendor of the new idea. +Bliss was duly impressed, and the agreement was finally made on a basis +of eight and one-half per cent., with an advance of royalty sufficient to +see Riley to South Africa and return. + +Clemens had not yet heard from Riley definitely when he wrote his glowing +letter to Bliss. He took it for granted that Riley, always an +adventurous sort, would go. When Riley wrote him that he felt morally +bound to the Alta, of which he was then Washington correspondent, also in +certain other directions till the end of the session, Clemens wrote him +at great length, detailing his scheme in full and urging him to write +instantly to the Alta and others, asking a release on the ground of being +offered a rare opportunity to improve his fortunes. + +You know right well that I would not have you depart a hair from any +obligation for any money. The, boundless confidence that I have in you +is born of a conviction of your integrity in small as well as in great +things. I know plenty of men whose integrity I would trust to here, but +not off yonder in Africa. + +His proposal, in brief, to Riley was that the latter should make the trip +to Africa without expense to himself, collect memoranda, and such diamond +mines as might be found lying about handy. Upon his return he was to +take up temporary residence in the Clemens household until the book was +finished, after which large benefits were to accrue to everybody +concerned. In the end Riley obtained a release from his obligations and +was off for the diamond mines and fortune. + +Poor fellow! He was faithful in his mission, and it is said that he +really located a mining claim that would have made him and his +independent for all time to come; but returning home with his precious +memoranda and the news of good fortune, he accidentally wounded himself +with a fork while eating; blood-poisoning set in (they called it cancer +then), and he was only able to get home to die. His memoranda were never +used, his mining claim was never identified. Certainly, death was +closely associated with Mark Twain's fortunes during those earlier days +of his married life. + +On the whole the Buffalo residence was mainly a gloomy one; its ventures +were attended by ill-fortune. For some reason Mark Twain's connection +with the Express, while it had given the paper a wide reputation, had not +largely increased its subscription. Perhaps his work on it was too +varied and erratic. Nasby, who had popularized the Toledo Blade, kept +steadily to one line. His farmer public knew always just what to expect +when their weekly edition arrived. + +Clemens and his wife dreamed of a new habitation, and new faces and +surroundings. They agreed to offer their home and his interests in the +Express for sale. They began to talk of Hartford, where Twichell lived, +and where Orion Clemens and his wife had recently located. + +Mark Twain's new fortunes had wrought changes in the affairs of his +relatives. Already, before his marriage, he had prospected towns here +and there with a view to finding an Eastern residence for his mother and +sister, and he had kept Orion's welfare always in mind. When Pamela and +her daughter came to his wedding he told them of a little city by the +name of Fredonia (New York), not far from Buffalo, where he thought they +might find a pleasant home. + +"I went in there by night and out by night," he said, "so I saw none of +it, but I had an intelligent, attractive audience. Prospect Fredonia and +let me know what it is like. Try to select a place where a good many +funerals pass. Ma likes funerals. If you can pick a good funeral corner +she will be happy." + +It was in her later life that Jane Clemens had developed this particular +passion. She would consult the morning paper for any notice of obsequies +and attend those that were easy of access. Watching the processions go +by gave her a peculiar joy. Mrs. Moffett and her daughter did go to +Fredonia immediately following the wedding. They found it residentially +attractive, and rented a house before returning to St. Louis, a +promptness that somewhat alarmed the old lady, who did not altogether +fancy the idea of being suddenly set down in a strange house, in a +strange land, even though it would be within hailing distance of Sam and +his new wife. Perhaps the Fredonia funerals were sufficiently numerous +and attractive, for she soon became attached to the place, and entered +into the spirit of the life there, joining its temperance crusades, and +the like, with zest and enjoyment. + +Onion remained in St. Louis, but when Bliss established a paper called +The Publisher, and wanted an editor, he was chosen for the place, +originally offered to his brother; the latter, writing to Onion, said: + +If you take the place with an air of perfect confidence in yourself, +never once letting anything show in your bearing but a quiet, modest, +entire, and perfect confidence in your ability to do pretty much anything +in the world, Bliss will think you are the very man he needs; but don't +show any shadow of timidity or unsoldierly diffidence, for that sort of +thing is fatal to advancement. + +I warn you thus because you are naturally given to knocking your pot over +in this way, when a little judicious conduct would make it boil. + + + + +LXXXI + +SOME FURTHER LITERARY MATTERS + +Meantime The Innocents Abroad had continued to prosper. Its author +ranked mainly as a humorist, but of such colossal proportions that his +contemporaries had seemed to dwindle; the mighty note of the "Frog of +Calaveras" had dwarfed a score of smaller peepers. At the end of a year +from its date of publication the book had sold up to 67,000 and was +continuing at the rate of several thousand monthly. + +"You are running it in staving, tiptop, first-class style," Clemens wrote +to Bliss. "On the average ten people a day come and hunt me up to tell +me I am a benefactor! I guess that is a part of the program we didn't +expect, in the first place." + +Apparently the book appealed to readers of every grade. One hundred and +fifteen copies were in constant circulation at the Mercantile Library, in +New York, while in the most remote cabins of America it was read and +quoted. Jack Van Nostrand, making a long horseback tour of Colorado, +wrote: + +I stopped a week ago in a ranch but a hundred miles from nowhere. The +occupant had just two books: the Bible and The Innocents Abroad--the +former in good repair. + +Across the ocean the book had found no less favor, and was being +translated into many and strange tongues. By what seems now some +veritable magic its author's fame had become literally universal. The +consul at Hongkong, discussing English literature with a Chinese +acquaintance, a mandarin, mentioned The Pilgrim's Progress. + +"Yes, indeed, I have read it!" the mandarin said, eagerly. "We are +enjoying it in China, and shall have it soon in our own language. It is +by Mark Twain." + +In England the book had an amazing vogue from the beginning, and English +readers were endeavoring to outdo the Americans in appreciation. Indeed, +as a rule, English readers of culture, critical readers, rose to an +understanding of Mark Twain's literary value with greater promptness than +did the same class of readers at home. There were exceptions, of course. +There were English critics who did not take Mark Twain seriously, there +were American critics who did. Among the latter was a certain William +Ward, an editor of a paper down in Macon, Georgia--The Beacon. Ward did +not hold a place with the great magazine arbiters of literary rank. He +was only an obscure country editor, but he wrote like a prophet. His +article--too long to quote in full--concerned American humorists in +general, from Washington Irving, through John Phoenix, Philander +Doesticks, Sut Lovingwood, Artemus Ward, Josh Billings and Petroleum V. +Nasby, down to Mark Twain. With the exception of the first and last +named he says of them: + + They have all had, or will have, their day. Some of them are + resting beneath the sod, and others still live whose work will + scarcely survive them. Since Irving no humorist in prose has held + the foundation of a permanent fame except it be Mark Twain, and + this, as in the case of Irving, is because he is a pure writer. + Aside from any subtle mirth that lurks through his composition, the + grace and finish of his more didactic and descriptive sentences + indicate more than mediocrity. + +The writer then refers to Mark Twain's description of the Sphinx, +comparing it with Bulwer's, which he thinks may have influenced it. He +was mistaken in this, for Clemens had not read Bulwer--never could read +him at any length. + +Of the English opinions, that of The Saturday Review was perhaps most +doubtful. It came along late in 1870, and would hardly be worth +recalling if it were not for a resulting, or collateral, interest. +Clemens saw notice of this review before he saw the review itself. A +paragraph in the Boston Advertiser spoke of The Saturday Review as +treating the absurdities of the Innocents from a serious standpoint. The +paragraph closed: + + We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute + to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can + hardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next + monthly "Memoranda." + +The old temptation to hoax his readers prompted Mark Twain to "reproduce" +in the Galaxy, not the Review article, which he had not yet seen, but an +imaginary Review article, an article in which the imaginary reviewer +would be utterly devoid of any sense of humor and treat the most absurd +incidents of The New Pilgrim's Progress as if set down by the author in +solemn and serious earnest. The pretended review began: + + Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when + we finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. + Macaulay died too soon; for none but he could mete out complete and + comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impudence, the + presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance + of this author. + +The review goes on to cite cases of the author's gross deception. It +says: + + Let the cultivated English student of human nature picture to + himself this Mark Twain as a person capable of doing the following + described things; and not only doing them, but, with incredible + innocence, printing them tranquilly and calmly in a book. For + instance: + + He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get a shave, + and the first "rake" the barber gave him with his razor it loosened + his "hide," and lifted him out of the chair. + + This is unquestionably extravagant. In Florence he was so annoyed + by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a + frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. + He gives at full length the theatrical program, seventeen or + eighteen hundred years old, which he professes to have found in the + ruins of the Colosseum, among the dirt-and mold and rubbish. It is + a sufficient comment upon this subject to remark that even a cast- + iron program would not have lasted so long under the circumstances. + +There were two and one-half pages of this really delightful burlesque +which the author had written with huge-enjoyment, partly as a joke on the +Review, partly to trick American editors, who he believed would accept it +as a fresh and startling proof of the traditional English lack of humor. + +But, as in the early sage-brush hoaxes, he rather overdid the thing. +Readers and editors readily enough accepted it as genuine, so far as +having come from The Saturday Review; but most of them, regarded it as a +delicious bit of humor which Mark Twain himself had taken seriously, and +was therefore the one sold. This was certainly startling, and by no +means gratifying. In the next issue he undertook that saddest of all +performances with tongue or pen: he explained his joke, and insisted on +the truth of the explanation. Then he said: + + If any man doubts my word now I will kill him. No, I will not kill + him; I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let + any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have + above made as to the authorship of the article in question are + entirely true. + + +But the Cincinnati Enquirer persisted in continuing the joke--in "rubbing +it in," as we say now. The Enquirer declared that Mark Twain had been +intensely mortified at having been so badly taken in; that his +explanation in the Galaxy was "ingenious, but unfortunately not true." +The Enquirer maintained that The Saturday Review of October 8, 1870, did +contain the article exactly as printed in the "Memoranda," and advised +Mark Twain to admit that he was sold, and say no more about it. + +This was enraging. Mark Twain had his own ideas as to how far a joke +might be carried without violence, and this was a good way beyond the +limits. He denounced the Enquirer's statement as a "pitiful, deliberate +falsehood," in his anger falling into the old-time phrasing of newspaper +editorial abuse. He offered to bet them a thousand dollars in cash +that they could not prove their assertions, and asked pointedly, in +conclusion: "Will they swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they +send an agent to the Galaxy office? I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must +be edited by children." He promised that if they did not accept his +financial proposition he would expose them in the next issue. + +The incident closed there. He was prevented, by illness in his +household, from contributing to the next issue, and the second issue +following was his final "Memoranda" installment. So the matter perished +and was forgotten. It was his last editorial hoax. Perhaps he concluded +that hoaxes in any form were dangerous playthings; they were too likely +to go off at the wrong end. + +It was with the April number (1871) that he concluded his relations with +the Galaxy. In a brief valedictory he gave his reasons: + + I have now written for the Galaxy a year. For the last eight + months, with hardly an interval, I have had for my fellows and + comrades, night and day, doctors and watchers of the sick! During + these eight months death has taken two members of my home circle and + malignantly threatened two others. All this I have experienced, yet + all the time have been under contract to furnish "humorous" matter, + once a month, for this magazine. I am speaking the exact truth in + the above details. Please to put yourself in my place and + contemplate the grisly grotesqueness of the situation. I think that + some of the "humor" I have written during this period could have + been injected into a funeral sermon without disturbing the solemnity + of the occasion. + + The "Memoranda" will cease permanently with this issue of the + magazine. To be a pirate on a low salary, and with no share in the + profits of the business, used to be my idea of an uncomfortable + occupation, but I have other views now. To be a monthly humorist in + a cheerless time is drearier. + +Without doubt he felt a glad relief in being rid of this recurrent, +imperative demand. He wrote to Orion that he had told the Galaxy people +he would not write another article, long or short, for less than $500, +and preferred not to do it at all. + +The Galaxy department and the work on the Express were Mark Twain's +farewell to journalism; for the "Memoranda" was essentially journalistic, +almost as much so, and as liberally, as his old-time Enterprise position. +Apparently he wrote with absolute freedom, unhampered by editorial policy +or restriction. The result was not always pleasant, and it was not +always refined. We may be certain that it was because of Mrs. Clemens's +heavy burdens that year, and her consequent inability to exert a +beneficent censorship, that more than one--more than a dozen--of the +"Memoranda" contributions were permitted to see the light of print. + +As a whole, the literary result of Mark Twain's Buffalo period does not +reach the high standard of The Innocents Abroad. It was a retrogression +--in some measure a return to his earlier form. It had been done under +pressure, under heavy stress of mind, as he said. Also there was another +reason; neither the subject treated nor the environment of labor had +afforded that lofty inspiration which glorified every step of the Quaker +City journey. Buffalo was a progressive city--a beautiful city, as +American cities go--but it was hardly an inspiring city for literature, +and a dull, dingy newspaper office was far, very far, from the pleasant +decks of the Quaker City, the camp-fires of Syria, the blue sky and sea +of the Medit&ranean. + + + + +LXXXII + +THE WRITING OF "ROUGHING IT" + +The third book published by Mark Twain was not the Western book he was +preparing for Bliss. It was a small volume, issued by Sheldon & Co., +entitled Mark Twain's Autobiography (Burlesque) and First Romance. The +Romance was the "Awful, Terrible Medieval Romance" which had appeared in +the Express at the beginning of 1870. The burlesque autobiography had +not previously appeared. The two made a thin little book, which, in +addition to its literary features, had running through it a series of +full-page, irrelevant pictures---cartoons of the Erie Railroad Ring, +presented as illustrations of a slightly modified version of "The House +That Jack Built." The "House" was the Erie headquarters, the purpose +being to illustrate the swindling methods of the Ring. The faces of Jay +Gould, James Fisk, Jr., John T. Hoffman, and others of the combination, +are chiefly conspicuous. The publication was not important, from any +standpoint. Literary burlesque is rarely important, and it was far from +Mark Twain's best form of expression. A year or two later he realized +the mistake of this book, bought in the plates and destroyed them. + +Meantime the new Western book was at a standstill. To Orion, in March, +he wrote: + + I am still nursing Livy night and day. I am nearly worn out. We + shall go to Elmira ten days hence (if Livy can travel on a mattress + then), and stay there until I finish the California book, say three + months. But I can't begin work right away when I get there; must + have a week's rest, for I have been through thirty days' terrific + siege. + +He promised to forward some of the manuscript soon. + + Hold on four or five days and I will see if I can get a few chapters + fixed to send to Bliss . . . . + + I have offered this house and the Express for sale, and when we go + to Elmira we leave here for good. I shall not select a new home + till the book is finished, but we have little doubt that Hartford + will be the place. + +He disposed of his interest in the Express in April, at a sacrifice of +$10,000 on the purchase price. Mrs. Clemens and the baby were able to +travel, and without further delay he took them to Elmira, to Quarry Farm. + +Quarry Farm, the home of Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane, is a +beautiful hilltop, with a wide green slope, overlooking the hazy city and +the Chemung River, beyond which are the distant hills. It was bought +quite incidentally by Mr. and Mrs. Langdon, who, driving by one evening, +stopped to water the horses and decided that it would make a happy summer +retreat, where the families could combine their housekeeping arrangements +during vacation days. When the place had first been purchased, they had +debated on a name for it. They had tried several, among them "Go-as-you- +please Hall," "Crane's Nest," and had finally agreed upon "Rest and Be +Thankful." But this was only its official name. There was an abandoned +quarry up the hill, a little way from the house, and the title suggested +by Thomas K. Beecher came more naturally to the tongue. The place became +Quarry Farm, and so remains. + +Clemens and his wife had fully made up their minds to live in Hartford. +They had both conceived an affection for the place, Clemens mainly +because of Twichell, while both of them yearned for the congenial +literary and social atmosphere, and the welcome which they felt awaited +them. Hartford was precisely what Buffalo in that day was not--a home +for the literary man. It held a distinguished group of writers, most of +whom the Clemenses already knew. Furthermore, with Bliss as publisher of +the Mark Twain books, it held their chief business interests. + +Their plans for going were not very definite as to time. Clemens found +that his work went better at the farm, and that Mrs. Clemens and the +delicate baby daily improved. They decided to remain at Quarry Farm for +the summer, their first summer in that beautiful place which would mean +so much to them in the years to come. + +It was really Joe Goodman, as much as anything, that stirred a fresh +enthusiasm in the new book. Goodman arrived just when the author's +spirits were at low ebb. + +"Joe," he said, "I guess I'm done for. I don't appear to be able to get +along at all with my work, and what I do write does not seem valuable. +I'm afraid I'll never be able to reach the standard of 'The Innocents +Abroad' again. Here is what I have written, Joe. Read it, and see if +that is your opinion." + +Goodman took the manuscript and seated himself in a chair, while Clemens +went over to a table and pretended to work. Goodman read page after +page, critically, and was presently absorbed in it. Clemens watched him +furtively, till he could stand it no longer. Then he threw down his pen, +exclaiming: + +"I knew it! I knew it! I am writing nothing but rot. You have sat +there all this time reading without a smile, and pitying the ass I am +making of myself. But I am not wholly to blame. I am not strong enough +to fight against fate. I have been trying to write a funny book, with +dead people and sickness a verywhere. Mr. Langdon died first, then a +young lady in our house, and now Mrs. Clemens and the baby have been at +the point of death all winter! Oh, Joe, I wish to God I could die +myself!" + +"Mark," said Joe, "I was reading critically, not for amusement, and so +far as I have read, and can judge, this is one of the best things you +have ever written. I have found it perfectly absorbing. You are doing a +great book!" + +Clemens knew that Goodman never spoke except from conviction, and the +verdict was to him like a message of life handed down by an archangel. +He was a changed man instantly. He was all enthusiasm, full of his +subject, eager to go on. He proposed to pay Goodman a salary to stay +there and keep him company and furnish him with inspiration--the Pacific +coast atmosphere and vernacular, which he feared had slipped away from +him. Goodman declined the salary, but extended his visit as long as his +plans would permit, and the two had a happy time together, recalling old +Comstock days. Every morning, for a month or more, they used to tramp +over the farm. They fell into the habit of visiting the old quarry and +pawing over the fragments in search of fossil specimens. Both of them +had a poetic interest in geology, its infinite remotenesses and its +testimonies. Without scientific knowledge, they took a deep pleasure in +accumulating a collection, which they arranged on boards torn from an old +fence, until they had enough specimens to fill a small museum. They +imagined they could distinguish certain geological relations and +families, and would talk about trilobites, the Old Red Sandstone period, +and the azoic age, or follow random speculation to far-lying conclusions, +developing vague humors of phrase and fancy, having altogether a joyful +good time. + +Another interest that developed during Goodman's stay was in one Ruloff, +who was under death sentence for a particularly atrocious murder. The +papers were full of Ruloff's prodigious learning. It was said that he +had in preparation a work showing the unity of all languages. Goodman +and Clemens agreed that Ruloff's death would be a great loss to mankind, +even though he was clearly a villain and deserved his sentence. They +decided that justice would be served just as well if some stupid person +were hung in his place, and following out this fancy Clemens one morning +put aside his regular work and wrote an article to the Tribune, offering +to supply a substitute for Ruloff. He signed it simply "Samuel +Langhorne," and it was published as a serious communication, without +comment, so far as the Tribune was concerned. Other papers, however, +took it up and it was widely copied and commented upon. Apparently no +one ever identified, Mark Twain with the authorship of the letter, which, +by the way, does not appear to have prolonged Ruloff's earthly +usefulness.--[The reader will find the Ruloff letter in full under +Appendix K, at the end of last volume.] + +Life at the farm may have furnished agricultural inspiration, for Clemens +wrote something about Horace Greeley's farming, also a skit concerning +Henry Ward Beecher's efforts in that direction. Of Mr. Beecher's farming +he said: + +"His strawberries would be a comfortable success if robins would eat +turnips." + +The article amused Beecher, and perhaps Greeley was amused too, for he +wrote: + + MARK,--You are mistaken as to my criticisms on your farming. I + never publicly made any, while you have undertaken to tell the exact + cost per pint of my potatoes and cabbages, truly enough the + inspiration of genius. If you will really betake yourself to + farming, or even to telling what you know about it, rather than what + you don't know about mine, I will not only refrain from disparaging + criticism, but will give you my blessing. + + Yours, HORACE GREELEY. + + +The letter is in Mr. Greeley's characteristic scrawl, and no doubt +furnished inspiration for the turnip story in 'Roughing It', also the +model for the pretended facsimile of Greeley's writing. + +Altogether that was a busy, enterprising summer at Quarry Farm. By the +middle of May, Clemens wrote to Bliss that he had twelve hundred +manuscript pages of the new book already written, and that he was turning +out the remainder at the rate of from thirty to sixty-five per day. He +was in high spirits by this time. The family health had improved, and +prospects were bright. + +I have enough manuscript on hand now to make (allowing for engravings) +about four hundred pages of the book, consequently am two-thirds done. +I intended to run up to Hartford about the middle of the week and take it +along, but I find myself so thoroughly interested in my work now (a thing +I have not experienced for months) that I can't bear to lose a single +moment of the inspiration. So I will stay here and peg away as long as +it lasts. My present idea is to write as much more as I have already +written, and then collect from the mass the very best chapters and +discard the rest. When I get it done I want to see the man who will +begin to read it and not finish it. Nothing grieves me now; nothing +troubles me, nothing bothers me or gets my attention. I don't think of +anything but the book, and don't have an hour's unhappiness about +anything, and don't care two cents whether school keeps or not. The book +will be done soon now. It will be a starchy book; the dedication will be +worth the price of the volume. Thus: + + TO THE LATE CAIN + THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED + + not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little + respect; not on account of sympathy for him, for his bloody deed + places him without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking, but + out of a mere humane commiseration for him, in that it was his + misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent + insanity plea. + + +Probably Mrs. Clemens diverted this picturesque dedication in favor of +the Higbie inscription, or perhaps the author never really intended the +literary tribute to Cain. The impulse that inspired it, however, was +characteristic. + +In a postscript to this letter he adds: + + My stock is looking up. I am getting the bulliest offers for books + and almanacs; am flooded with lecture invitations, and one + periodical offers me $6,000 cash for twelve articles of any length, + and on any subject, treated humorously or otherwise. + +He set in to make hay while the sun was shining. In addition to the +California book, which was now fast nearing completion, he discussed a +scheme with Goodman for a six-hundred-page work which they were to do +jointly; he planned and wrote one or two scenes from a Western play, to +be built from episodes in the new book (one of them was the "Arkansas" +incident, related in Chapter XXXI); he perfected one of his several +inventions--an automatically adjusting vest-strap; he wrote a number of +sketches, made an occasional business trip to New York and Hartford; +prospected the latter place for a new home. The shadow which had hung +over the sojourn in Buffalo seemed to have lifted. + +He had promised Bliss some contributions for his new paper, and in June +he sent three sketches. In an accompanying letter he says: + + Here are three articles which you may have if you will pay $125 for + the lot. If you don't want them I'll sell them to the Galaxy, but + not for a cent less than three times the money.... If you take them + pay one-tenth of the $125 in weekly instalments to Orion till he has + received it all. + +He reconsidered his resolution not to lecture again, and closed with +Redpath for the coming season. He found himself in a lecture-writing +fever. He wrote three of them in succession: one on Artemus Ward, +another on "Reminiscences of Some Pleasant Characters I Have Met," and a +third one based on chapters from the new book. Of the "Reminiscence" +lecture he wrote Redpath: + +"It covers my whole acquaintance; kings, lunatics, idiots, and all." +Immediately afterward he wrote that he had prepared still another +lecture, "title to be announced later." + +"During July I'll decide which one I like best," he said. He instructed +Redpath not to make engagements for him to lecture in churches. "I never +made a success of a lecture in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh +in a church." + +Redpath was having difficulties in arranging a circuit to suit him. +Clemens had prejudices against certain towns and localities, prejudices +that were likely to change overnight. In August he wrote: + + DEAR RED,--I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener. + People who have no mind can easily be stead fast and firm, but when + a man is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea + of foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo. + See? Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give + rigid instructions to confine me to New England; the next week send + me to Arizona; the next week withdraw my name; the next week give + you full, untrammeled swing; and the week following modify it. You + must try to keep the run of my mind, Redpath that is your business, + being the agent, and it always was too many for me.... Now about + the West this week, I am willing that you shall retain all the + Western engagements. But what I shall want next week is still with + God. + Yours, MARK. + +He was in Hartford when this letter was written, arranging for residence +there and the removal of his belongings. He finally leased the fine +Hooker house on Ford Street, in that pleasant seclusion known as Nook +Farm--the literary part of Hartford, which included the residence of +Charles Dudley Warner and Harriet Beecher Stowe. He arranged for +possession of the premises October 1st. So the new home was settled +upon; then learning that Nasby was to be in Boston, he ran over to that +city for a few days of recreation after his season's labors. + +Preparations for removal to Hartford were not delayed. The Buffalo +property was disposed of, the furnishings were packed and shipped away. +The house which as bride and groom they had entered so happily was left +empty and deserted, never to be entered by them again. In the year and a +half of their occupancy it had seen well-nigh all the human round, all +that goes to make up the happiness and the sorrow of life. + + + + +LXXXIII + +LECTURING DAYS + +Life in Hartford, in the autumn of 1871, began in the letter, rather than +in the spirit. The newcomers were received with a wide, neighborly +welcome, but the disorder of establishment and the almost immediate +departure of the head of the household on a protracted lecturing tour +were disquieting things; the atmosphere of the Clemens home during those +early Hartford days gave only a faint promise of its future loveliness. + +As in a far later period, Mark Twain had resorted to lecturing to pay off +debt. He still owed a portion of his share in the Express; also he had +been obliged to obtain an advance from the lecture bureau. He dreaded, +as always, the tedium of travel, the clatter of hotel life, the monotony +of entertainment, while, more than most men, he loved the tender luxury +of home. It was only that he could not afford to lose the profit offered +on the platform. + +His season opened at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, October 16th, and his +schedule carried him hither and thither, to and fro, over distances that +lie between Boston and Chicago. There were opportunities to run into +Hartford now and then, when he was not too far away, and in November he +lectured there on Artemus Ward. + +He changed his entertainment at least twice that season. He began with +the "Reminiscences," the lecture which he said would treat of all those +whom he had met, "idiots, lunatics, and kings," but he did not like it, +or it did not go well. He wrote Redpath of the Artemus Ward address: + +"It suits me, and I'll never deliver the nasty, nauseous 'Reminiscences' +any more." + +But the Ward lecture was good for little more than a month, for on +December 8th he wrote again: + + Notify all hands that from this time I shall talk nothing but + selections from my forthcoming book, 'Roughing It'. Tried it twice + last night; suits me tiptop. + +And somewhat later: + + Had a splendid time with a splendid audience in Indianapolis last + night; a perfectly jammed house, just as I have all the time out + here.... I don't care now to have any appointments canceled. I'll + even "fetch" those Dutch Pennsylvanians with this lecture. + + Have paid up $4,000 indebtedness. You are the last on my list. + Shall begin to pay you in a few days, and then I shall be a free man + again. + +Undoubtedly he reveled in the triumphs of a platform tour, though at no +time did he regard it as a pleasure excursion. During those early weeks +the proofs of his new book, chasing him from place to place, did not add +to his comfort. Still, with large, substantial rewards in hand and in +prospect, one could endure much. + +In the neighborhood of Boston there were other compensations. He could +spend a good part of his days at the Lyceum headquarters, in School +Street, where there was always congenial fellowship--Nasby, Josh +Billings, and the rest of the peripatetic group that about the end of the +year collected there. Their lectures were never tried immediately in +Boston, but in the outlying towns; tried and perfected--or discarded. +When the provincial audiences were finally satisfied, then the final. +test in the Boston Music Hall was made, and if this proved successful the +rest of the season was safe. Redpath's lecturers put up at Young's +Hotel, and spent their days at the bureau, smoking and spinning yarns, or +talking shop. Early in the evening they scattered to the outlying towns, +Lowell, Lexington, Concord, New Bedford. There is no such a condition +to-day: lecturers are few, lecture bureaus obscure; there are no great +reputations made on the platform. + +Neither is there any such distinct group of humorists as the one just +mentioned. Humor has become universal since then. Few writers of this +age would confess to taking their work so seriously as to be at all times +unsmiling in it; only about as many, in fact, as in that day would +confess to taking their work so lightly that they could regard life's +sterner phases and philosophies with a smile. + +Josh Billings was one of the gentlest and loveliest of our pioneers of +laughter. The present generation is not overfamiliar even with his name, +but both the name and sayings of that quaint soul were on everybody's +lips at the time of which we are writing. His true name was Henry W. +Shaw, and he was a genuine, smiling philosopher, who might have built up +a more permanent and serious reputation had he not been induced to +disfigure his maxims with ridiculous spelling in order to popularize them +and make them bring a living price. It did not matter much with Nasby's +work. An assumed illiteracy belonged with the side of life which he +presented; but it is pathetic now to consider some of the really masterly +sayings of Josh Billings presented in that uncouth form which was +regarded as a part of humor a generation ago. Even the aphorisms that +were essentially humorous lose value in that degraded spelling. + +"When a man starts down hill everything is greased for the occasion," +could hardly be improved upon by distorted orthography, and here are a +few more gems which have survived that deadly blight. + +"Some folks mistake vivacity for wit; whereas the difference between +vivacity and wit is the same as the difference between the lightning-bug +and the lightning." + +"Don't take the bull by the horns-take him by the tail; then you can let +go when you want to." + +"The difficulty is not that we know so much, but that we know so much +that isn't so." + +Josh Billings, Nasby, and Mark Twain were close friends. They had +themselves photographed in a group, and there was always some pleasantry +going on among them. Josh Billings once wrote on "Lekturing," and under +the head of "Rule Seven," which treated of unwisdom of inviting a +lecturer to a private house, he said: + + Think of asking Mark Twain home with yu, for instance. Yure good + wife has put her house in apple-pie order for the ockashun; + everything is just in the right place. Yu don't smoke in yure + house, never. Yu don't put yure feet on the center-table, yu don't + skatter the nuzepapers all over the room, in utter confushion: order + and ekonemy governs yure premises. But if yu expeckt Mark Twain to + be happy, or even kumfortable yu hav got to buy a box of cigars + worth at least seventeen dollars and yu hav got to move all the + tender things out ov yure parlor. Yu hav got to skatter all the + latest papers around the room careless, you hav got to hav a pitcher + ov icewater handy, for Mark is a dry humorist. Yu hav got to ketch + and tie all yure yung ones, hed and foot, for Mark luvs babys only + in theory; yu hav got to send yure favorite kat over to the nabors + and hide yure poodle. These are things that hav to be done, or Mark + will pak hiz valise with hiz extry shirt collar and hiz lektur on + the Sandwich Islands, and travel around yure streets, smoking and + reading the sighns over the store doorways untill lektur time + begins. + +As we-are not likely to touch upon Mark Twain's lecturing, save only +lightly, hereafter, it may be as well to say something of his method at +this period. At all places visited by lecturers there was a committee, +and it was the place of the chairman to introduce the lecturer, a +privilege which he valued, because it gave him a momentary association +with distinction and fame. Clemens was a great disappointment to these +officials. He had learned long ago that he could introduce himself more +effectively than any one else. His usual formula was to present himself +as the chairman of the committee, introducing the lecturer of the +evening; then, with what was in effect a complete change of personality, +to begin his lecture. It was always startling and amusing, always a +success; but the papers finally printed this formula, which took the +freshness out of it, so that he had to invent others. Sometimes he got +up with the frank statement that he was introducing himself because he +had never met any one who could pay a proper tribute to his talents; but +the newspapers printed that too, and he often rose and began with no +introduction at all. + +Whatever his method of beginning, Mark Twain's procedure probably was the +purest exemplification of the platform entertainer's art which this +country has ever seen. It was the art that makes you forget the +artisanship, the art that made each hearer forget that he was not being +personally entertained by a new and marvelous friend, who had traveled a +long way for his particular benefit. One listener has written that he +sat "simmering with laughter" through what he supposed was the +continuation of the introduction, waiting for the traditional lecture to +begin, when presently the lecturer, with a bow, disappeared, and it was +over. The listener looked at his watch; he had been there more than an +hour. He thought it could be no more than ten minutes, at most. Many +have tried to set down something of the effect his art produced on them, +but one may not clearly convey the story of a vanished presence and a +silent voice. + +There were other pleasant associations in Boston. Howells was there, and +Aldrich; also Bret Harte, who had finished his triumphal progress across +the continent to join the Atlantic group. Clemens appears not to have +met Aldrich before, though their acquaintance had begun a year earlier, +when Aldrich, as editor of Every Saturday, had commented on a poem +entitled, "The Three Aces," which had appeared in the Buffalo Express. +Aldrich had assumed the poem to be the work of Mark Twain, and had +characterized it as "a feeble imitation of Bret Harte's 'Heathen +Chinee.'" Clemens, in a letter, had mildly protested as to the charge of +authorship, and Aldrich had promptly printed the letter with apologetic +explanation. A playful exchange of personal letters followed, and the +beginning of a lifelong friendship. + +One of the letters has a special interest here. Clemens had followed his +protest with an apology for it, asking that no further notice be taken of +the matter. Aldrich replied that it was too late to prevent "doing him +justice," as his explanation was already on the press, but that if +Clemens insisted he would withdraw it in the next issue. Clemens then +wrote that he did not want it withdrawn, and explained that he hated to +be accused of plagiarizing Bret Harte, to whom he was deeply indebted for +literary schooling in the California days. Continuing he said: + + Do you know the prettiest fancy and the neatest that ever shot + through Harte's brain? It was this. When they were trying to + decide upon a vignette cover for the Overland a grizzly bear (of the + arms of the State of California) was chosen. Nahl Bros. carved him + and the page was printed with him in it. + + As a bear he was a success. He was a good bear, but then, it was + objected, he was an objectless bear--a bear that meant nothing, + signified nothing, simply stood there, snarling over his shoulder at + nothing, and was painfully and manifestly a boorish and ill-natured + intruder upon the fair page. All hands said that none were + satisfied; they hated badly to give him up, and yet they hated as + much to have him there when there was no point to him. But + presently Harte took a pencil and drew two simple lines under his + feet, and behold he was a magnificent success!--the ancient symbol + of California savagery, snarling at the approaching type of high and + progressive civilization, the first Overland locomotive! I just + think that was nothing less than an inspiration.--[The "bear" was + that which has always appeared on the Overland cover; the "two + lines" formed a railway track under his feet. Clemens's original + letter contained crude sketches illustrating these things.] + +Among the Boston group was another Californian, Ralph Keeler, an +eccentric, gifted, and altogether charming fellow, whom Clemens had known +on the Pacific slope. Keeler had been adopted by the Boston writers, and +was grateful and happy accordingly. He was poor of purse, but +inexhaustibly rich in the happier gifts of fortune. He was unfailingly +buoyant, light-hearted, and hopeful. On an infinitesimal capital he had +made a tour of many lands, and had written of it for the Atlantic. In +that charmed circle he was as overflowingly happy as if he had been +admitted to the company of the gods. Keeler was affectionately regarded +by all who knew him, and he offered a sort of worship in return. He +often accompanied Mark Twain on his lecture engagements to the various +outlying towns, and Clemens brought him back to his hotel for breakfast, +where they had good, enjoyable talks together. Once Keeler came eagerly +to the hotel and made his way up to Clemens's room. + +"Come with me," he said. "Quick!" + +"What is it? What's happened?" + +"Don't wait to talk. Come with me." + +They tramped briskly through the streets till they reached the public +library, entered, Keeler leading the way, not stopping till he faced a +row of shelves filled with books. He pointed at one of them, his face +radiant with joy. + +"Look," he said. "Do you see it?" + +Clemens looked carefully now and identified one of the books as a still- +born novel which Keeler had published. + +"This is a library," said Keeler, eagerly, "and they've got it!" + +His whole being was aglow with the wonder of it. He had been +investigating; the library records showed that in the two years the book +had been there it had been taken out and read three times! It never +occurred to Clemens even to smile. Knowing Mark Twain, one would guess +that his eyes were likely to be filled with tears. + +In his book about Mark Twain, Howells tells of a luncheon which Keeler +gave to his more famous associates--Aldrich, Fields, Harte, Clemens, and +Howells himself--a merry informal occasion. Says Howells: + + Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and + aimless and joyful talk--play, beginning and ending nowhere, of + eager laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat- + lightning shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional + concentration of our joint mockeries upon our host, who took it + gladly; and amid the discourse, so little improving, but so full of + good-fellowship, Bret Harte's leering dramatization of Clemens's + mental attitude toward a symposium of Boston illuminates. "Why, + fellows," he spluttered, "this is the dream of Mark's life," and I + remember the glance from under Clemens's feathery eyebrows which + betrayed his enjoyment of the fun. + +Very likely Keeler gave that luncheon in celebration of his book's +triumph; it would be like him. + +Keeler's end was a mystery. The New York Tribune commissioned him to go +to Cuba to report the facts of some Spanish outrages. He sailed from New +York in the steamer, and was last seen alive the night before the vessel +reached Havana. He had made no secret of his mission, but had discussed +it in his frank, innocent way. There were some Spanish military men on +the ship. + +Clemens, commenting on the matter, once said: + +"It may be that he was not flung into the sea, still the belief was +general that that was what had happened." + +In his book Howells refers to the doubt with which Mark Twain was then +received by the polite culture of Boston; which, on the other hand, +accepted Bret Harte as one of its own, forgiving even social +shortcomings. + +The reason is not difficult to understand. Harte had made his appeal +with legitimate fiction of the kind which, however fresh in flavor and +environment, was of a sort to be measured and classified. Harte spoke a +language they could understand; his humor, his pathos, his point of view +were all recognizable. It was an art already standardized by a master. +It is no reflection on the genius of Bret Harte to liken his splendid +achievements to those of Charles Dickens. Much of Harte's work is in no +way inferior to that of his great English prototype. Dickens never wrote +a better short story than "The Outcasts of Poker Flats." He never wrote +as good a short story as "The Luck of Roaring Camp." Boston critics +promptly realized these things and gave Harte his correct rating. That +they failed to do this with Mark Twain, lay chiefly in the fact that he +spoke to them in new and startling tongues. His gospels were likely to +be heresies; his literary eccentricities were all unclassified. Of the +ultrafastidious set Howells tells us that Charles Eliot Norton and Prof. +Francis J. Child were about the only ones who accorded him unqualified +approval. The others smiled and enjoyed him, but with that condescension +which the courtier is likely to accord to motley and the cap and bells. +Only the great, simple-hearted, unbiased multitude, the public, which had +no standards but the direct appeal from one human heart to another, could +recognize immediately his mightier heritage, could exalt and place him on +the throne. + + + +LXXXIV + +"ROUGHING IT" + +Telegram to Redpath: + + How in the name of God does a man find his way from here to Amherst, + and when must he start? Give me full particulars, and send a man + with me. If I had another engagement I would rot before I would + fill it. S. L. CLEMENS. + +This was at the end of February, and he believed that he was standing on +the platform for the last time. He loathed the drudgery of the work, and +he considered there was no further need. He was no longer in debt, and +his income he accounted ample. His new book, 'Roughing It',--[It was +Bliss who had given the new book the title of Roughing It. Innocents at +Home had been its provision title, certainly a misleading one, though it +has been retained in England for the second volume; for what reason it +would be difficult to explain.]--had had a large advance sale, and its +earnings promised to rival those of the 'Innocents'. He resolved in the +future to confine himself to the trade and profits of authorship. + +The new book had advantages in its favor. Issued early in the year, it +was offered at the best canvassing season; particularly so, as the +author's lectures had prepared the public for its reception. +Furthermore, it dealt with the most picturesque phases of American life, +scenes and episodes vastly interesting at that time, and peculiarly +adapted to Mark Twain's literary expression. In a different way +'Roughing It' is quite as remarkable as 'The Innocents Abroad.' If it +has less charm, it has greater interest, and it is by no means without +charm. There is something delicious, for instance, in this bit of pure +enjoyment of the first day's overland travel: + + It was now just dawn, and as we stretched our cramped legs full + length on the mail-sacks, and gazed out through the windows across + the wide wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist to where + there was an expectant look in the Eastern horizon, our perfect + enjoyment took the form of a tranquil and contented ecstasy. The + stage whirled along at a spanking gait, the breeze flapping the + curtains and suspended coats in a most exhilarating way; the cradle + swayed and swung luxuriously, the pattering of the horses' hoofs, + the cracking of the driver's whip, and his "Hi-yi! g'lang!" were + music; the spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to give + us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack up and look after us + with interest and envy, or something; and as we lay and smoked the + pipe of peace, and compared all this luxury with the years of + tiresome city life that had gone before it, we felt that there was + only one complete and satisfying happiness in the world, and we had + found it. + +Also, there is that lofty presentation of South Pass, and a picture of +the alkali desert, so parching, so withering in its choking realism, that +it makes the throat ache and the tongue dry to read it. Just a bit of +the desert in passing: + + The sun beats down with a dead, blistering, relentless malignity; + the perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but + scarcely a sign of it finds its way to the surface--it is absorbed + before it gets there; there is not the faintest breath of air + stirring; there is not a merciful shred of cloud in all the + brilliant firmament; there is not a living creature visible in any + direction whither one searches the blank level that stretches its + monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a sound, not a sigh, + not a whisper, not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of + bird; not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless people that + dead air. + +As for the humor of the book, it has been chiefly famous for that. "Buck +Fanshaw's Funeral" has become a classic, and the purchase of the "Mexican +Plug." But it is to no purpose to review the book here in detail. We +have already reviewed the life and environment out of which it grew. + +Without doubt the story would have contained more of the poetic and +contemplative, in which he was always at his best, if the subject itself, +as in the Innocents, had lent itself oftener to this form of writing. It +was the lack of that halo perhaps which caused the new book never quite +to rank with its great forerunner in public favor. There could hardly be +any other reason. It presented a fresher theme; it abounded in humor; +technically, it was better written; seemingly it had all the elements of +popularity and of permanence. It did, in fact, possess these qualities, +but its sales, except during the earlier months of its canvass, never +quite equaled those of The Innocents Abroad. + +'Roughing It' was accepted by the public for just what it was and is, a +great picture of the Overland Pioneer days--a marvelous picture of +frontier aspects at a time when the frontier itself, even with its +hardships and its tragedies, was little more than a vast primal joke; +when all frontiersmen were obliged to be laughing philosophers in order +to survive the stress of its warfares. + +A word here about this Western humor: It is a distinct product. It grew +out of a distinct condition--the battle with the frontier. The fight was +so desperate, to take it seriously was to surrender. Women laughed that +they might not weep; men, when they could no longer swear. "Western +humor" was the result. It is the freshest, wildest humor in the world, +but there is tragedy behind it. + +'Roughing It' presented the picture of those early conditions with the +startling vividness and truth of a great novel, which, in effect, it was. +It was not accurate history, even of the author's own adventures. It was +true in its aspects, rather than in its details. The greater artist +disregards the truth of detail to render more strikingly a phase or a +condition, to produce an atmosphere, to reconstruct a vanished time. +This was what Mark Twain did in 'Roughing It'. He told the story of +overland travel and the frontier, for his own and future generations, in +what is essentially a picaresque novel, a work of unperishing fiction, +founded on fact. + +The sales of 'Roughing It' during the first three months aggregated +nearly forty thousand copies, and the author was lavishly elate +accordingly. To Orion (who had already closed his career with Bliss, by +exercise of those hereditary eccentricities through which he so often +came to grief) he gave $1,000 out of the first royalty check, in +acknowledgment of the memorandum book and other data which Orion had +supplied. Clemens believed the new book would sell one hundred thousand +copies within the year; but the sale diminished presently, and at the end +of the first year it was considerably behind the Innocents for the same +period. As already stated, it required ten years for Roughing It to +reach the one-hundred-thousand mark, which the Innocents reached in +three. + + + + +LXXXV + +A BIRTH, A DEATH, AND A VOYAGE + +The year 1872 was an eventful one in Mark Twain's life. At Elmira, on +March 19th, his second child, a little girl, whom they named Susan +Olivia, was born. On June 2d, in the new home in Hartford, to which they +had recently moved, his first child, a little boy, Langdon, died. He had +never been strong, his wavering life had often been uncertain, always +more of the spirit than the body, and in Elmira he contracted a heavy +cold, or perhaps it was diphtheria from the beginning. In later years, +whenever Clemens spoke of the little fellow, he never failed to accuse +himself of having been the cause of the child's death. It was Mrs. +Clemens's custom to drive out each morning with Langdon, and once when +she was unable to go Clemens himself went instead. + +"I should not have been permitted to do it," he said, remembering. +"I was not qualified for any such responsibility as that. Some one +should have gone who had at least the rudiments of a mind. Necessarily +I would lose myself dreaming. After a while the coachman looked around +and noticed that the carriage-robes had dropped away from the little +fellow, and that he was exposed to the chilly air. He called my +attention to it, but it was too late. Tonsilitis or something of the +sort set in, and he did not get any better, so we took him to Hartford. +There it was pronounced diphtheria, and of course he died." + +So, with or without reason, he added the blame of another tragedy to the +heavy burden of remorse which he would go on piling up while he lived. + +The blow was a terrible one to Mrs. Clemens; even the comfort of the +little new baby on her arm could not ease the ache in her breast. It +seemed to her that death was pursuing her. In one of her letters she +says: + +"I feel so often as if my path is to be lined with graves," and she +expresses the wish that she may drop out of life herself before her +sister and her husband--a wish which the years would grant. + +They did not return to Elmira, for it was thought that the air of the +shore would be better for the little girl; so they spent the summer at +Saybrook, Connecticut, at Fenwick Hall, leaving Orion and his wife in +charge of the house at Hartford. + +Beyond a few sketches, Clemens did very little literary work that summer, +but he planned a trip to Europe, and he invented what is still known and +sold as the "Mark Twain Scrap-Book." + +He wrote to Orion of his proposed trip to England, and dilated upon his +scrap-book with considerable enthusiasm. The idea had grown out of the +inconvenience of finding a paste-jar, and the general mussiness of scrap- +book keeping. His new plan was a self-pasting scrap-book with the gum +laid on in narrow strips, requiring only to be dampened with a sponge or +other moist substance to be ready for the clipping. He states that he +intends to put the invention into the hands of Slote, Woodman & Co., of +whom Dan Slote, his old Quaker City room-mate, was the senior partner, +and have it manufactured for the trade. + +About this time began Mark Twain's long and active interest in copyright. +Previously he had not much considered the subject; he had taken it for +granted there was no step that he could take, while international piracy +was a recognized institution. On both sides of the water books were +appropriated, often without profit, sometimes even without credit, to the +author. To tell the truth, Clemens had at first regarded it rather in +the nature of a compliment that his books should be thought worth +pirating in England, but as time passed he realized that he was paying +heavily for this recognition. Furthermore, he decided that he was +forfeiting a right; rather that he was being deprived of it: something +which it was in his nature to resent. + +When 'Roughing It' had been ready for issue he agreed with Bliss that +they should try the experiment of copyrighting it in England, and see how +far the law would protect them against the voracious little publisher, +who thus far had not only snapped up everything bearing Mark Twain's +signature, but had included in a volume of Mark Twain sketches certain +examples of very weak humor with which Mark Twain had been previously +unfamiliar. + +Whatever the English pirate's opinion of the copyright protection of +'Roughing It' may have been, he did not attempt to violate it. This was +gratifying. Clemens came to regard England as a friendly power. He +decided to visit it and spy out the land. He would make the acquaintance +of its people and institutions and write a book, which would do these +things justice. + +He gave out no word of his real purpose. He merely said that he was +going over to see his English publishers, and perhaps to arrange for a +few lectures. He provided himself with some stylographic note-books, by +which he could produce two copies of his daily memoranda--one for himself +and one to mail to Mrs. Clemens--and sailed on the Scotia August 21, +1872. + +Arriving in Liverpool he took train for London, and presently the +wonderful charm of that old, finished country broke upon him. His "first +hour in England was an hour of delight," he records; "of rapture and +ecstasy. These are the best words I can find, but they are not adequate; +they are not strong enough to convey the feeling which this first vision +of rural England brought me." Then he noticed that the gentleman +opposite in his compartment paid no attention to the scenery, but was +absorbed in a green-covered volume. He was so absorbed in it that, by +and by, Clemens's curiosity was aroused. He shifted his position a +little and his eye caught the title. It was the first volume of the +English edition of The Innocents Abroad. This was gratifying for a +moment; then he remembered that the man had never laughed, never even +smiled during the hour of his steady reading. Clemens recalled what he +had heard of the English lack of humor. He wondered if this was a fair +example of it, and if the man could be really taking seriously every word +he was reading. Clemens could not look at the scenery any more for +watching his fellow-passenger, waiting with a fascinated interest for the +paragraph that would break up that iron-clad solemnity. It did not come. +During all the rest of the trip to London the atmosphere of the +compartment remained heavy with gloom. + +He drove to the Langham Hotel, always popular with Americans, established +himself, and went to look up his publishers. He found the Routledges +about to sit down to luncheon in a private room, up-stairs, in their +publishing house. He joined them, and not a soul stirred from that table +again until evening. The Routledges had never heard Mark Twain talk +before, never heard any one talk who in the least resembled him. Various +refreshments were served during the afternoon, came and went, while this +marvelous creature talked on and they listened, reveling, and wondering +if America had any more of that sort at home. By and by dinner was +served; then after a long time, when there was no further excuse for +keeping him there, they took him to the Savage Club, where there were yet +other refreshments and a gathering of the clans to welcome this new +arrival as a being from some remote and unfamiliar star. + +Tom Hood, the younger, was there, and Harry Lee, and Stanley the +explorer, who had but just returned from finding Livingstone, and Henry +Irving, and many another whose name remains, though the owners of those +names are all dead now, and their laughter and their good-fellowship are +only a part of that intangible fabric which we call the past.'--[Clemens +had first known Stanley as a newspaper man. "I first met him when he +reported a lecture of mine in St. Louis," he said once in a conversation +where the name of Stanley was mentioned.] + + + + +LXXXVI + +ENGLAND + +From that night Mark Twain's stay in England could not properly be called +a gloomy one. + +Routledge, Hood, Lee, and, in fact, all literary London, set themselves +the task of giving him a good time. Whatever place of interest they +could think of he was taken there; whatever there was to see he saw it. +Dinners, receptions, and assemblies were not complete without him. The +White Friars' Club and others gave banquets in his honor. He was the +sensation of the day. When he rose to speak on these occasions he was +greeted with wild cheers. Whatever he said they eagerly applauded--too +eagerly sometimes, in the fear that they might be regarded as insensible +to American humor. Other speakers delighted in chaffing him in order to +provoke his retorts. When a speaker humorously referred to his American +habit of carrying a cotton umbrella, his reply that he followed this +custom because a cotton umbrella was the only kind of an umbrella that an +Englishman wouldn't steal, was all over England next day, and regarded as +one of the finest examples of wit since the days of Swift. + +The suddenness and completeness of his acceptance by the great ones of +London rather overwhelmed and frightened him made him timid. Joaquin +Miller writes: + + He was shy as a girl, although time was already coyly flirting white + flowers at his temples, and could hardly be coaxed to meet the + learned and great who wanted to take him by the hand. + +Many came to call on him at his hotel, among them Charles Reade and Canon +Kingsley. Kingsley came twice without finding him; then wrote, asking +for an appointment. Reade invited his assistance on a novel. Indeed, it +was in England that Mark Twain was first made to feel that he had come +into his rightful heritage. Whatever may have been the doubts concerning +him in America, there was no question in England. Howells says: + + In England rank, fashion, and culture rejoiced in him. Lord mayors, + lord chief justices, and magnates of many kinds were his hosts; he + was desired in country houses, and his bold genius captivated the + favor of periodicals which spurned the rest of our nation. + +After that first visit of Mark Twain's, when Americans in England, +referring to their great statesmen, authors, and the like, naturally +mentioned the names of Seward, Webster, Lowell, or Holmes, the English +comment was likely to be: "Never mind those. We can turn out academic +Sewards by the dozen, and cultured humorists like Lowell and Holmes by +the score. Tell us of Lincoln, Artemus Ward, and Mark Twain. We cannot +match these; they interest us." And it was true. History could not +match them, for they were unique. + +Clemens would have been more than human if in time he had not realized +the fuller meaning of this triumph, and exulted in it a little to the +folks at home. There never lived a more modest, less pretentious, less +aggressive man than Mark Twain, but there never lived a man who took a +more childlike delight in genuine appreciation; and, being childlike, it +was only human that he should wish those nearest to him to share his +happiness. After one memorable affair he wrote: + + I have been received in a sort of tremendous way to-night by the + brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the sheriffs of + London; mine being (between you and me) a name which was received + with a thundering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long + list of guests was called. + +I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support and +assistance of my excellent friend, Sir John Bennett. + +This letter does not tell all of the incident or the real reason why he +might have perished on the spot. During the long roll-call of guests he +had lost interest a little, and was conversing in whispers with his +"excellent friend," Sir John Bennett, stopping to applaud now and then +when the applause of the others indicated that some distinguished name +had been pronounced. All at once the applause broke out with great +vehemence. This must be some very distinguished person indeed. He +joined in it with great enthusiasm. When it was over he whispered to Sir +John: + +"Whose name was that we were just applauding?" + +"Mark Twain's." + +Whereupon the support was needed. + +Poor little pirate Hotten did not have a happy time during this visit. +He had reveled in the prospect at first, for he anticipated a large +increase to be derived from his purloined property; but suddenly, one +morning, he was aghast to find in the Spectator a signed letter from Mark +Twain, in which he was repudiated, referred to as "John Camden +Hottentot," an unsavory person generally. Hotten also sent a letter to +the Spectator, in which he attempted to justify himself, but it was a +feeble performance. Clemens prepared two other communications, each +worse than the other and both more destructive than the first one. But +these were only to relieve his mind. He did not print them. In one of +them he pursued the fancy of John Camden Hottentot, whom he offers as a +specimen to the Zoological Gardens. + +It is not a bird. It is not a man. It is not a fish. It does not seem +to be in all respects a reptile. It has the body and features of a man, +but scarcely any of the instincts that belong to such a structure.... I +am sure that this singular little creature is the missing link between +the man and the hyena. + +Hotten had preyed upon explorer Stanley and libeled him in a so-called. +biography to a degree that had really aroused some feeling against +Stanley in England. Only for the moment--the Queen invited Stanley to +luncheon, and newspaper criticism ceased. Hotten was in general +disrepute, therefore, so it was not worth while throwing a second brick +at him. + +In fact, now that Clemens had expended his venom, on paper, Hotten seemed +to him rather an amusing figure than otherwise. An incident grew out of +it all, however, that was not amusing. E. P. Hingston, whom the reader +may remember as having been with Artemus Ward in Virginia City, and one +of that happy group that wined and dined the year away, had been engaged +by Hotten to write the introductory to his edition of The Innocents +Abroad. It was a well-written, highly complimentary appreciation. +Hingston did not dream that he was committing an offense, nor did Clemens +himself regard it as such in the beginning. + +But Mark Twain's views had undergone a radical change, and with +characteristic dismissal of previous conditions he had forgotten that he +had ever had any other views than those he now held. Hingston was in +London, and one evening, at a gathering, approached Clemens with +outstretched hand. But Clemens failed to see Hingston's hand or to +recognize him. In after-years his conscience hurt him terribly for this. +He remembered it only with remorse and shame. Once, in his old age, he +spoke of it with deep sorrow. + + + + +LXXXVII + +THE BOOK THAT WAS NEVER WRITTEN + +The book on England, which he had prepared for so carefully, was never +written. Hundreds of the stylographic pages were filled, and the +duplicates sent home for the entertainment of Olivia Clemens, but the +notes were not completed, and the actual writing was never begun. There +was too much sociability in London for one thing, and then he found that +he could not write entertainingly of England without introducing too many +personalities, and running the risk of offending those who had taken him +into their hearts and homes. In a word, he would have to write too +seriously or not at all. + +He began his memoranda industriously enough, and the volume might have +been as charming and as valuable as any he has left behind. The reader +will hardly fail to find a few of the entries interesting. They are +offered here as examples of his daily observation during those early +weeks of his stay, and to show somewhat of his purpose: + + AN EXPATRIATE + + There was once an American thief who fled his country and took + refuge in England. He dressed himself after the fashion of the + Londoners, and taught his tongue the peculiarities of the London + pronunciation and did his best in all ways to pass himself for a + native. But he did two fatal things: he stopped at the Langham + Hotel, and the first trip he took was to visit Stratford-on-Avon and + the grave of Shakespeare. These things betrayed his nationality. + + + STANLEY AND THE QUEEN + + See the power a monarch wields! When I arrived here, two weeks ago, + the papers and geographers were in a fair way to eat poor Stanley up + without salt or sauce. The Queen says, "Come four hundred miles up + into Scotland and sit at my luncheon-table fifteen minutes"; which, + being translated, means, "Gentlemen, I believe in this man and take + him under my protection"; and not another yelp is heard. + + + AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM + + What a place it is! + + Mention some very rare curiosity of a peculiar nature--a something + which you have read about somewhere but never seen--they show you a + dozen! They show you all the possible varieties of that thing! + They show you curiously wrought jeweled necklaces of beaten gold, + worn by the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Etruscans, Greeks, + Britons--every people of the forgotten ages, indeed. They show you + the ornaments of all the tribes and peoples that live or ever did + live. Then they show you a cast taken from Cromwell's face in + death; then the venerable vase that once contained the ashes of + Xerxes. + + I am wonderfully thankful for the British Museum. Nobody comes + bothering around me--nobody elbows me--all the room and all the + light I want, under this huge dome--no disturbing noises--and people + standing ready to bring me a copy of pretty much any book that ever + was printed under the sun--and if I choose to go wandering about the + long corridors and galleries of the great building the secrets of + all the earth and all the ages axe laid open to me. I am not + capable of expressing my gratitude for the British Museum--it seems + as if I do not know any but little words and weak ones. + + + WESTMINSTER ABBEY BY NIGHT + + It was past eleven o'clock and I was just going to bed. But this + friend of mine was as reliable as he was eccentric, and so there was + not a doubt in my mind that his "expedition" had merit in it. I put + on my coat and boots again, and we drove away. + + "Where is it? Where are we going?" + + "Don't worry. You'll see." + + He was not inclined to talk. So I thought this must be a weighty + matter. My curiosity grew with the minutes, but I kept it manfully + under the surface. I watched the lamps, the signs, the numbers as + we thundered down the long street. I am always lost in London, day + or night. It was very chilly, almost bleak. People leaned against + the gusty blasts as if it were the dead of winter. The crowds grew + thinner and thinner, and the noises waxed faint and seemed far away. + The sky was overcast and threatening. We drove on, and still on, + till I wondered if we were ever going to stop. At last we passed by + a spacious bridge and a vast building, and presently entered a + gateway, passed through a sort of tunnel, and stopped in a court + surrounded by the black outlines of a great edifice. Then we + alighted, walked a dozen steps or so, and waited. In a little while + footsteps were heard, a man emerged from the darkness, and we + dropped into his wake without saying anything. He led us under an + archway of masonry, and from that into a roomy tunnel, through a + tall iron gate, which he locked behind us. We followed him down + this tunnel, guided more by his footsteps on the stone flagging than + by anything we could very distinctly see. At the end of it we came + to another iron gate, and our conductor stopped there and lit a + bull's-eye lantern. Then he unlocked the gate; and I wished he had + oiled it first, it grated so dismally. The gate swung open and we + stood on the threshold of what seemed a limitless domed and pillared + cavern, carved out of the solid darkness. The conductor and my + friend took off their hats reverently, and I did likewise. For the + moment that we stood thus there was not a sound, and the stillness + seemed to add to the solemnity of the gloom. I looked my inquiry! + + "It is the tomb of the great dead of England-Westminster Abbey."... + + We were among the tombs; on every hand dull shapes of men, sitting, + standing, or stooping, inspected us curiously out of the darkness-- + reached out their hands toward us--some appealing, some beckoning, + some warning us away. Effigies they were--statues over the graves; + but they looked human and natural in the murky shadows. Now a + little half-grown black and white cat squeezed herself through the + bars of the iron gate and came purring lovingly about us, unawed by + the time or the place, unimpressed by the marble pomp that + sepulchers a line of mighty dead that ends with a great author of + yesterday and began with a sceptered monarch away back in the dawn + of history, more than twelve hundred years ago . . . . + + Mr. Wright flashed his lantern first upon this object and then upon + that, and kept up a running commentary that showed there was nothing + about the venerable Abbey that was trivial in his eyes or void of + interest. He is a man in authority, being superintendent, and his + daily business keeps him familiar with every nook and corner of the + great pile. Casting a luminous ray now here, now yonder, he would + say: + + "Observe the height of the Abbey--one hundred and three feet to the + base of the roof; I measured it myself the other day. Notice the + base of this column--old, very old--hundreds and hundreds of years-- + and how well they knew how to build in those old days! Notice it-- + every stone is laid horizontally; that is to say, just as nature + laid it originally in the quarry not set up edgewise; in our day + some people set them on edge, and then wonder why they split and + flake. Architects cannot teach nature anything. Let me remove this + matting--it is put here to preserve the pavement; now there is a bit + of pavement that is seven hundred years old; you can see by these + scattering clusters of colored mosaics how beautiful it was before + time and sacrilegious idlers marred it. Now there, in the border, + was an inscription, once see, follow the circle-you can trace it by + the ornaments that have been pulled out--here is an A and there is + an O, and yonder another A--all beautiful Old English capitals; + there is no telling what the inscription was--no record left now. + Now move along in this direction, if you please. Yonder is where + old King Sebert the Saxon lies his monument is the oldest one in the + Abbey; Sebert died in 616,--[Clemens probably misunderstood the + name. It was Ethelbert who died in 616. The name Sebert does not + appear in any Saxon annals accessible to the author.]--and that's + as much, as twelve hundred and fifty years ago think of it! Twelve + hundred and fifty years! Now yonder is the last one--Charles + Dickens--there on the floor, with the brass letters on the slab--and + to this day the people come and put flowers on it.... There is + Garrick's monument; and Addison's, and Thackeray's bust--and + Macaulay lies there. And close to Dickens and Garrick lie Sheridan + and Dr. Johnson--and here is old Parr.... + + "That stone there covers Campbell the poet. Here are names you know + pretty well--Milton, and Gray who wrote the Elegy, and Butler who + wrote Hudibras; and Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson--there are three + tablets to him scattered about the Abbey, and all got 'O, Rare Ben + Jonson' cut on them. You were standing on one of them just now he + is buried standing up. There used to be a tradition here that + explains it. The story goes that he did not dare ask to be buried + in the Abbey, so he asked King James if he would make him a present + of eighteen inches of English ground, and the King said 'yes,' and + asked him where he would have it, and he said in Westminster Abbey. + Well, the King wouldn't go back on his word, and so there he is, + sure enough-stood up on end." + +The reader may regret that there are not more of these entries, and that +the book itself was never written. Just when he gave up the project is +not recorded. He was urged to lecture in London, but declined. To Mrs. +Clemens, in September, he wrote: + +Everybody says lecture, lecture, lecture, but I have not the least idea +of doing it; certainly not at present. Mr. Dolby, who took Dickens to +America, is coming to talk business tomorrow, though I have sent him word +once before that I can't be hired to talk here; because I have no time to +spare. There is too much sociability; I do not get along fast enough +with work. + +In October he declared that he was very homesick, and proposed that Mrs. +Clemens and Susie join him at once in London, unless she would prefer to +have him come home for the winter and all of them return to London in the +spring. So it is likely that the book was not then abandoned. He felt +that his visit was by no means ended; that it was, in fact, only just +begun, but he wanted the ones he loved most to share it with him. To his +mother and sister, in November, he wrote: + +I came here to take notes for a book, but I haven't done much but attend +dinners and make speeches. I have had a jolly good time, and I do hate +to go away from these English folks; they make a stranger feel entirely +at home, and they laugh so easily that it is a comfort to make after- +dinner speeches here. I have made hundreds of friends; and last night, +in the crush at the opening of the new Guild Hall Library and Museum, I +was surprised to meet a familiar face every other step. + +All his impressions of England had been happy ones. He could deliver a +gentle satire now and then at certain British institutions--certain +London localities and features--as in his speech at the Savage Club, +--[September 28, 1872. This is probably the most characteristic speech +made by Mark Twain during his first London visit; the reader will find it +in full in Appendix L, at the end of last volume.]--but taking the snug +island as a whole, its people, its institutions, its fair, rural aspects, +he had found in it only delight. To Mrs. Crane he wrote: + + If you and Theodore will come over in the spring with Livy and me, + and spend the summer, you shall see a country that is so beautiful + that you will be obliged to believe in fairy-land. There is nothing + like it elsewhere on the globe. You should have a season ticket and + travel up and down every day between London and Oxford and worship + nature. + + And Theodore can browse with me among dusty old dens that look now + as they looked five hundred years ago; and puzzle over books in the + British Museum that were made before Christ was born; and in the + customs of their public dinners, and the ceremonies of every + official act, and the dresses of a thousand dignitaries, trace the + speech and manners of all the centuries that have dragged their + lagging decades over England since the Heptarchy fell asunder. I + would a good deal rather live here if I could get the rest of you + over. + +He sailed November 12th, on the Batavia, loaded with Christmas presents +for everybody; jewelry, furs, laces; also a practical steam-engine for +his namesake, Sam Moffett. Half-way across the Atlantic the Batavia ran +into a hurricane and was badly damaged by heavy seas, and driven far out +of her course. It was a lucky event on the whole, for she fell in with a +water-logged lumber bark, a complete wreck, with nine surviving sailors +clinging to her rigging. In the midst of the wild gale a lifeboat was +launched and the perishing men were rescued. Clemens prepared a graphic +report of the matter for the Royal Humane Society, asking that medals be +conferred upon the brave rescuers, a document that was signed by his +fellow-passengers and obtained for the men complete recognition and wide +celebrity. Closing, the writer said: + + As might have been anticipated, if I have been of any service toward + rescuing these nine shipwrecked human beings by standing around the + deck in a furious storm, without an umbrella, keeping an eye on + things and seeing that they were done right, and yelling whenever a + cheer seemed to be the important thing, I am glad and I am + satisfied. I ask no reward. I would do it again under the same + circumstances. But what I do plead for, earnestly and sincerely, is + that the Royal Humane Society will remember our captain and our + life-boat crew, and in so remembering them increase the high honor + and esteem in which the society is held all over the civilized + world. + +The Batavia reached New York November 26, 1872. Mark Twain had been +absent three months, during which he had been brought to at least a +partial realization of what his work meant to him and to mankind. + +An election had taken place during his absence--an election which +gratified him deeply, for it had resulted in the second presidency of +General Grant and in the defeat of Horace Greeley, whom he admired +perhaps, but not as presidential material. To Thomas Nast, who had aided +very effectually in Mr. Greeley's overwhelming defeat, Clemens wrote: + +Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for +Grant--I mean, rather, for civilization and progress. Those pictures +were simply marvelous, and if any man in the land has a right to hold his +head up and be honestly proud of his share in this year's vast events +that man is unquestionably yourself. We all do sincerely honor you, and +are proud of you. + +Horace Greeley's peculiar abilities and eccentricities won celebrity for +him, rather than voters. Mark Twain once said of him: + +"He was a great man, an honest man, and served his, country well and was +an honor to it. Also, he was a good-natured man, but abrupt with +strangers if they annoyed him when he was busy. He was profane, but that +is nothing; the best of us is that. I did not know him well, but only +just casually, and by accident. I never met him but once. I called on +him in the Tribune office, but I was not intending to. I was looking for +Whitelaw Reid, and got into the wrong den. He was alone at his desk, +writing, and we conversed--not long, but just a little. I asked him if +he was well, and he said, 'What the hell do you want?' Well, I couldn't +remember what I wanted, so I said I would call again. But I didn't." + +Clemens did not always tell the incident just in this way. Sometimes it +was John Hay he was looking for instead of Reid, and the conversation +with Greeley varied; but perhaps there was a germ of history under it +somewhere, and at any rate it could have happened well enough, and not +have been out of character with either of the men. + + + + +LXXXVIII + +"THE GILDED AGE" + +Mark Twain did not go on the lecture circuit that winter. Redpath had +besought him as usual, and even in midsummer had written: + +"Will you? Won't you? We have seven thousand to eight thousand dollars +in engagements recorded for you," and he named a list of towns ranging +geographically from Boston to St. Paul. + +But Clemens had no intention then of ever lecturing any more, and again +in November, from London, he announced (to Redpath): + +"When I yell again for less than $500 I'll be pretty hungry, but I +haven't any intention of yelling at any price." + +Redpath pursued him, and in January proposed $400 for a single night in +Philadelphia, but without result. He did lecture two nights in Steinway +Hall for the Mercantile Library Association, on the basis of half +profits, netting $1,300 for the two nights as his share; and he lectured +one night in Hartford, at a profit Of $1,500, for charity. Father +Hawley, of Hartford, had announced that his missionary work was suffering +for lack of funds. Some of his people were actually without food, he +said, their children crying with hunger. No one ever responded to an +appeal like that quicker than Samuel Clemens. He offered to deliver a +lecture free, and to bear an equal proportion of whatever expenses were +incurred by the committee of eight who agreed to join in forwarding the +project. He gave the Sandwich Island lecture, and at the close of it a +large card was handed him with the figures of the receipts printed upon +it. It was held up to view, and the house broke into a storm of cheers. + +He did very little writing during the early weeks following his return. +Early in the year (January 3 and 6, 1873) he contributed two Sandwich +Island letters to the Tribune, in which, in his own peculiar fashion, he +urged annexation. + +"We must annex those people," he declared, and proceeded to specify the +blessings we could give them, such as "leather-headed juries, the +insanity law, and the Tweed Ring." + + We can confer Woodhull and Clafin on them, and George Francis Train. + We can give them lecturers! I will go myself. + + We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner + on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy + civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need! + + "Shall we, to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?" + +His success in England became an incentive to certain American +institutions to recognize his gifts at home. Early in the year he was +dined as the guest of the Lotos Club of New York, and a week or two later +elected to its membership. This was but a beginning. Some new +membership or honor was offered every little while, and so many banquets +that he finally invented a set form for declining them. He was not yet +recognized as the foremost American man of letters, but undoubtedly he +had become the most popular; and Edwin Whipple, writing at this time, or +but little later, said: + +"Mark Twain is regarded chiefly as a humorist, but the exercise of his +real talents would rank him with the ablest of our authors in the past +fifty years." So he was beginning to be "discovered" in high places. + +It was during this winter that the Clemens household enjoyed its first +real home life in Hartford, its first real home life anywhere since those +earliest days of marriage. The Hooker mansion was a comfortable place. +The little family had comparatively good health. Their old friends were +stanch and lavishly warm-hearted, and they had added many new ones. +Their fireside was a delightful nucleus around which gathered those they +cared for most, the Twichells, the Warner families, the Trumbulls--all +certain of a welcome there. George Warner, only a little while ago, +remembering, said: + +"The Clemens house was the only one I have ever known where there was +never any preoccupation in the evenings, and where visitors were always +welcome. Clemens was the best kind of a host; his evenings after dinner +were an unending flow of stories." + +Friends living near by usually came and went at will, often without the +ceremony of knocking or formal leave-taking. They were more like one +great family in that neighborhood, with a community of interests, a unity +of ideals. The Warner families and the Clemenses were particularly +intimate, and out of their association grew Mark Twain's next important +literary undertaking, his collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner in +'The Gilded Age'. + +A number of more or less absurd stories have been printed about the +origin of this book. It was a very simple matter, a perfectly natural +development. + +At the dinner-table one night, with the Warners present, criticisms of +recent novels were offered, with the usual freedom and severity of +dinner-table talk. The husbands were inclined to treat rather lightly +the novels in which their wives were finding entertainment. The wives +naturally retorted that the proper thing for the husbands to do was to +furnish the American people with better ones. This was regarded in the +nature of a challenge, and as such was accepted--mutually accepted: that +is to say, in partnership. On the spur of the moment Clemens and Warner +agreed that they would do a novel together, that they would begin it +immediately. This is the whole story of the book's origin; so far, at +least, as the collaboration is concerned. Clemens, in fact, had the +beginning of a story in his mind, but had been unwilling to undertake an +extended work of fiction alone. He welcomed only too eagerly, therefore, +the proposition of joint authorship. His purpose was to write a tale +around that lovable character of his youth, his mother's cousin, James +Lampton--to let that gentle visionary stand as the central figure against +a proper background. The idea appealed to Warner, and there was no delay +in the beginning. Clemens immediately set to work and completed 399 +pages of the manuscript, the first eleven chapters of the book, before +the early flush of enthusiasm waned. + +Warner came over then, and Clemens read it aloud to him. Warner had some +plans for the story, and took it up at this point, and continued it +through the next twelve chapters; and so they worked alternately, "in the +superstition," as Mark Twain long afterward declared, "that we were +writing one coherent yarn, when I suppose, as a matter of fact, we were +writing two incoherent ones."--[The reader may be interested in the +division of labor. Clemens wrote chapters I to XI; also chapters XXIV, +XXV, XXVII, XXVIII, XXX, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XLII, +XLIII, XLV, LI, LII, LIII, LVII, LIX, LX, LXI, LXII, and portions of +chapters XXXV, XLIX, LVI. Warner wrote chapters XII to XXIII; also +chapters XXVI, XXIX, XXXI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, XLI, XLIV, XLVI, XLVII, +XLVITT, L, LIV, LV, LVIII, LXIII, and portions of chapters XXXV, XLIX, +and LVI. The work was therefore very evenly divided. + +There was another co-worker on The Gilded Age before the book was finally +completed. This was J. Hammond Trumbull, who prepared the variegated, +marvelous cryptographic chapter headings: Trumbull was the most learned +man that ever lived in Hartford. He was familiar with all literary and +scientific data, and according to Clemens could swear in twenty-seven +languages. It was thought to be a choice idea to get Trumbull to supply +a lingual medley of quotations to precede the chapters in the new book, +the purpose being to excite interest and possibly to amuse the reader--a +purpose which to some extent appears to have miscarried.] + +The book was begun in February and finished in April, so the work did not +lag. The result, if not highly artistic, made astonishingly good +reading. Warner had the touch of romance, Clemens, the gift of creating, +or at least of portraying, human realities. Most of his characters +reflected intimate personalities of his early life. Besides the +apotheosis of James Lampton into the immortal Sellers, Orion became +Washington Hawkins, Squire Clemens the judge, while Mark Twain's own +personality, in a greater or lesser degree, is reflected in most of his +creations. As for the Tennessee land, so long a will-o'the-wisp and a +bugbear, it became tangible property at last. Only a year or two before +Clemens had written to Orion: + + Oh, here! I don't want to be consulted at all about Tennessee. I + don't want it even mentioned to me. When I make a suggestion it is + for you to act upon it or throw it aside, but I beseech you never to + ask my advice, opinion, or consent about that hated property. + +But it came in good play now. It is the important theme of the story. + +Mark Twain was well qualified to construct his share of the tale. He +knew his characters, their lives, and their atmospheres perfectly. +Senator Dilworthy (otherwise Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, then notorious +for attempted vote-buying) was familiar enough. That winter in +Washington had acquainted Clemens with the life there, its political +intrigues, and the disrepute of Congress. Warner was equally well +qualified for his share of the undertaking, and the chief criticism that +one may offer is the one stated by Clemens himself--that the divisions of +the tale remain divisions rather than unity. + +As for the story itself--the romance and tragedy of it--the character of +Laura in the hands of either author is one not easy to forget. Whether +this means that the work is well done, or only strikingly done, the +reader himself must judge. Morally, the character is not justified. +Laura was a victim of circumstance from the beginning. There could be no +poetic justice in her doom. To drag her out of a steamer wreck, only to +make her the victim of a scoundrel, later an adventuress, and finally a +murderess, all may be good art, but of a very bad kind. Laura is a sort +of American Becky Sharp; but there is retributive justice in Becky's +fate, whereas Laura's doom is warranted only by the author's whim. As +for her end, whatever the virtuous public of that day might have done, a +present-day audience would not have pelted her from the stage, destroyed +her future, taken away her life. + +The authors regarded their work highly when it was finished, but that is +nothing. Any author regards his work highly at the moment of its +completion. In later years neither of them thought very well of their +production; but that also is nothing. The author seldom cares very +deeply for his offspring once it is turned over to the public charge. +The fact that the story is still popular, still delights thousands of +readers, when a myriad of novels that have been written since it was +completed have lived their little day and died so utterly that even their +names have passed out of memory, is the best verdict as to its worth. + + + + +LXXXIX + +PLANNING A NEW HOME + +Clemens and his wife bought a lot for the new home that winter, a fine, +sightly piece of land on Farmington Avenue--table-land, slopingdown to a +pretty stream that wound through the willows and among the trees. They +were as delighted as children with their new purchase and the prospect of +building. To her sister Mrs. Clemens wrote: + + Mr. Clemens seems to glory in his sense of possession; he goes daily + into the lot, has had several falls trying to lay off the land by + sliding around on his feet.... + + For three days the ice has covered the trees, and they have been + glorious. We could do nothing but watch the beauty outside; if you + looked at the trees as the sun struck them, with your back toward + the sun, they were covered with jewels. If you looked toward the + sun it was all crystal whiteness, a perfect fairy-land. Then the + nights were moonlight, and that was a great beauty, the moon giving + us the same prismatic effect. + +This was the storm of which Mark Twain wrote his matchless description, +given first in his speech on New England weather, and later preserved in +'Following the Equator', in more extended form. In that book he likens +an ice-storm to his impressions derived from reading descriptions of the +Taj Mahal, that wonderful tomb of a fair East Indian queen. It is a +marvelous bit of word-painting--his description of that majestic vision: +"When every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dewdrops, and +the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of Persia's diamond +plume." It will pay any one to look up that description and read it all, +though it has been said, by the fortunate one or two who heard him first +give it utterance as an impromptu outburst, that in the subsequent +process of writing the bloom of its original magnificence was lost. + +The plans for the new house were drawn forthwith by that gentle architect +Edward Potter, whose art to-day may be considered open to criticism, but +not because of any lack of originality. Hartford houses of that period +were mainly of the goods-box form of architecture, perfectly square, +typifying the commercial pursuits of many of their owners. Potter agreed +to get away from this idea, and a radical and even frenzied departure was +the result. Certainly his plans presented beautiful pictures, and all +who saw them were filled with wonder and delight. Architecture has +lavished itself in many florescent forms since then, but we may imagine +that Potter's "English violet" order of design, as he himself designated +it, startled, dazzled, and captivated in a day, when most houses were +mere habitations, built with a view to economy and the largest possible +amount of room. + +Workmen were put on the ground without delay, to prepare for the +builders, and work was rapidly pushed along. Then in May the whole +matter was left in the hands of the architect and the carpenters (with +Lawyer Charles E. Perkins to stand between Potter and the violent +builder, who roared at Potter and frightened him when he wanted changes), +while the Clemens household, with Clara Spaulding, a girlhood friend of +Mrs. Clemens, sailed away to England for a half-year holiday. + + + + +XC + +A LONG ENGLISH HOLIDAY + +They sailed on the Batavia, and with them went a young man named +Thompson, a theological student whom Clemens had consented to take as an +amanuensis. There is a pathetic incident connected with this young man, +and it may as well be set down here. Clemens found, a few weeks after +his arrival in England, that so great was the tax upon his time that he +could make no use of Thompson's services. He gave Thompson fifty +dollars, and upon the possibility of the young man's desiring to return +to America, advanced him another fifty dollars, saying that he could +return it some day, and never thought of it again. But the young man +remembered it, and one day, thirty-six years later, after a life of +hardship and struggle, such as the life of a country minister is apt to +be, he wrote and inclosed a money-order, a payment on his debt. That +letter and its inclosure brought only sorrow to Mark Twain. He felt that +it laid upon him the accumulated burden of the weary thirty-six years' +struggle with ill-fortune. He returned the money, of course, and in a +biographical note commented: + + How pale painted heroisms of romance look beside it! Thompson's + heroism, which is real, which is colossal, which is sublime, and + which is costly beyond all estimate, is achieved in profound + obscurity, and its hero walks in rags to the end of his days. I had + forgotten Thompson completely, but he flashes before me as vividly + as lightning. I can see him now. It was on the deck of the + Batavia, in the dock. The ship was casting off, with that hubbub + and confusion and rushing of sailors, and shouting of orders and + shrieking of boatswain whistles, which marked the departure + preparations in those days--an impressive contrast with the solemn + silence which marks the departure preparations of the giant ships of + the present day. Mrs. Clemens, Clara Spaulding, little Susy, and + the nurse-maid were all properly garbed for the occasion. We all + had on our storm-rig, heavy clothes of somber hue, but new and + designed and constructed for the purpose, strictly in accordance + with sea-going etiquette; anything wearable on land being distinctly + and odiously out of the question. + + Very well. On that deck, and gliding placidly among those honorable + and properly upholstered groups, appeared Thompson, young, grave, + long, slim, with an aged fuzzy plug hat towering high on the upper + end of him and followed by a gray duster, which flowed down, without + break or wrinkle, to his ankles. He came straight to us, and shook + hands and compromised us. Everybody could see that we knew him. A + nigger in heaven could not have created a profounder astonishment. + + However, Thompson didn't know that anything was happening. He had + no prejudices about clothes. I can still see him as he looked when + we passed Sandy Hook and the winds of the big ocean smote us. + Erect, lofty, and grand he stood facing the blast, holding his plug + on with both hands and his generous duster blowing out behind, level + with his neck. There were scoffers observing, but he didn't know + it; he wasn't disturbed. + + In my mind, I see him once afterward, clothed as before, taking me + down in shorthand. The Shah of Persia had come to England and Dr. + Hosmer, of the Herald, had sent me to Ostend, to view his Majesty's + progress across the Channel and write an account of it. I can't + recall Thompson after that, and I wish his memory had been as poor + as mine. + +They had been a month in London, when the final incident referred to took +place--the arrival of the Shah of Persia--and were comfortably quartered +at the Langham Hotel. To Twichell Clemens wrote: + + We have a luxuriously ample suite of apartments on the third floor, + our bedroom looking straight up Portland Place, our parlor having a + noble array of great windows looking out upon both streets (Portland + Place and the crook that joins it onto Regent Street). + + Nine p.m. full twilight, rich sunset tints lingering in the west. + + I am not going to write anything; rather tell it when I get back. + I love you and Harmony, and that is all the fresh news I've got + anyway. And I mean to keep that fresh all the time. + +Mrs. Clemens, in a letter to her sister, declared: "It is perfectly +discouraging to try to write you. There is so much to write about that +it makes me feel as if it was no use to begin." + +It was a period of continuous honor and entertainment. If Mark Twain had +been a lion on his first visit, he was little less than royalty now. His +rooms at the Langham were like a court. Miss Spaulding (now Mrs. John B. +Stanchfield) remembers that Robert Browning, Turgenieff, Sir John +Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke (then at the height of his +fame) were among those that called to pay their respects. In a recent +letter she says: + + I remember a delightful luncheon that Charles Kingsley gave for Mr. + Clemens; also an evening when Lord Dunraven brought Mr. Home, the + medium, Lord Dunraven telling many of the remarkable things he had + seen Mr. Home do. I remember I wanted so much to see him float out + of a seven or eight story window, and enter another, which Lord + Dunraven said he had seen him do many times. But Mr. Home had been + very ill, and said his power had left him. My great regret was that + we did not see Carlyle, who was too sad and ill for visits. + +Among others they met Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, +and found him so shy that it was almost impossible to get him to say a +word on any subject. + +"The shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remus, I ever met," Clemens once +wrote. "Dr. MacDonald and several other lively talkers were present, and +the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll sat still all +the while, except now and then when he answered a question." + +At a dinner given by George Smalley they met Herbert Spencer, and at a +luncheon-party at Lord Houghton's, Sir Arthur Helps, then a world-wide +celebrity. + + Lord Elcho, a large, vigorous man, sat at some distance down the + table. He was talking earnestly about the town of Godalming. It + was a deep, flowing, and inarticulate rumble, but I caught the + Godalming pretty nearly every time it broke free of the rumbling, + and as all the strength was on the first end of the word, it + startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing. In the + middle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on + her right and on her left, in a matter-of-fact way, "Excuse me, I + have an engagement," and without further ceremony, she went off to + meet it. This would have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord + Houghton told a number of delightful stories. He told them in + French, and I lost nothing of them but the nubs. + +Little Susy and her father thrived on London life, but after a time it +wore on Mrs. Clemens. She delighted in the English cordiality and +culture, but the demands were heavy, the social forms sometimes trying. +Life in London was interesting, and in its way charming, but she did not +enter into it with quite her husband's enthusiasm and heartiness. In the +end they canceled all London engagements and quietly set out for +Scotland. On the way they rested a few days in York, a venerable place +such as Mark Twain always loved to describe. In a letter to Mrs. Langdon +he wrote: + + For the present we shall remain in this queer old walled town, with + its crooked, narrow lanes, that tell us of their old day that knew + no wheeled vehicles; its plaster-and-timber dwellings, with upper + stories far overhanging the street, and thus marking their date, + say three hundred years ago; the stately city walls, the castellated + gates, the ivy-grown, foliage-sheltered, most noble and picturesque + ruin of St. Mary's Abbey, suggesting their date, say five hundred + years ago, in the heart of Crusading times and the glory of English + chivalry and romance; the vast Cathedral of York, with its worn + carvings and quaintly pictured windows, preaching of still remoter + days; the outlandish names of streets and courts and byways that + stand as a record and a memorial, all these centuries, of Danish + dominion here in still earlier times; the hint here and there of + King Arthur and his knights and their bloody fights with Saxon + oppressors round about this old city more than thirteen hundred + years gone by; and, last of all, the melancholy old stone coffins + and sculptured inscriptions, a venerable arch and a hoary tower of + stone that still remain and are kissed by the sun and caressed by + the shadows every day, just as the sun and the shadows have kissed + and, caressed them every lagging day since the Roman Emperor's + soldiers placed them here in the times when Jesus the Son of Mary + walked the streets of Nazareth a youth, with no more name or fame + than the Yorkshire boy who is loitering down this street this + moment. + +They reached Edinburgh at the end of July and secluded themselves in +Veitch's family hotel in George Street, intending to see no one. But +this plan was not a success; the social stress of London had been too +much for Mrs. Clemens, and she collapsed immediately after their arrival. +Clemens was unacquainted in Edinburgh, but remembered that Dr. John +Brown, who had written Rab and His Friend, lived there. He learned his +address, and that he was still a practising physician. He walked around +to 23 Rutland Street, and made himself known. Dr. Brown came forthwith, +and Mrs. Clemens speedily recovered under his able and inspiring +treatment. + +The association did not end there. For nearly a month Dr. Brown was +their daily companion, either at the hotel, or in his own home, or on +protracted drives when he made his round of visits, taking these new +friends along. Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Edinburgh, everybody +in Scotland, for that matter, and his story of Rab had won him a +following throughout Christendom. He was an unpretentious sovereign. +Clemens once wrote of him: + + His was a sweet and winning face, as beautiful a face as I have ever + known. Reposeful, gentle, benignant; the face of a saint at peace + with all the world and placidly beaming upon it the sunshine of love + that filled his heart. + +He was the friend of all dogs, and of all people. It has been told of +him that once, when driving, he thrust his head suddenly out of the +carriage window, then resumed his place with a disappointed look. + +"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?" + +"No," he said. "A dog I don't know." + +He became the boon companion and playmate of little Susy, then not quite +a year and a half old. He called her Megalopis, a Greek term, suggested +by her eyes; those deep, burning eyes that seemed always so full of +life's sadder philosophies, and impending tragedy. In a collection of +Dr. Brown's letters he refers to this period. In one place he says: + + Had the author of The Innocents Abroad not come to Edinburgh at that + time we in all human probability might never have met, and what a + deprivation that would have been to me during the last quarter of a + century! + +And in another place: + + I am attending the wife of Mark Twain. His real name is Clemens. + She is a quite lovely little woman, modest and clever, and she has a + girlie eighteen months old, her ludicrous miniature--and such eyes! + +Those playmates, the good doctor and Megalopis, romped together through +the hotel rooms with that complete abandon which few grown persons can +assume in their play with children, and not all children can assume in +their play with grown-ups. They played "bear," and the "bear" (which was +a very little one, so little that when it stood up behind the sofa you +could just get a glimpse of yellow hair) would lie in wait for her +victim, and spring out and surprise him and throw him into frenzies of +fear. + +Almost every day they made his professional rounds with him. He always +carried a basket of grapes for his patients. His guests brought along +books to read while they waited. When he stopped for a call he would +say: + +"Entertain yourselves while I go in and reduce the population." + +There was much sight-seeing to do in Edinburgh, and they could not quite +escape social affairs. There were teas and luncheons and dinners with +the Dunfermlines and the Abercrombies, and the MacDonalds, and with +others of those brave clans that no longer slew one another among the +grim northern crags and glens, but were as sociable and entertaining +lords and ladies as ever the southland could produce. They were very +gentle folk indeed, and Mrs. Clemens, in future years, found her heart +going back oftener to Edinburgh than to any other haven of those first +wanderings. August 24th she wrote to her sister: + + We leave Edinburgh to-morrow with sincere regret; we have had such a + delightful stay here--we do so regret leaving Dr. Brown and his + sister, thinking that we shall probably never see them again [as + indeed they never did]. + +They spent a day or two at Glasgow and sailed for Ireland, where they put +in a fortnight, and early in September were back in England again, at +Chester, that queer old city where; from a tower on the wall, Charles I. +read the story of his doom. Reginald Cholmondeley had invited them to +visit his country seat, beautiful Condover Hall, near Shrewsbury, and in +that lovely retreat they spent some happy, restful days. Then they were +in the whirl of London once more, but escaped for a fortnight to Paris, +sight-seeing and making purchases for the new home. + +Mrs. Clemens was quite ready to return to America, by this time. + + I am blue and cross and homesick [she wrote]. I suppose what makes + me feel the latter is because we are contemplating to stay in London + another month. There has not one sheet of Mr. Clemens's proof come + yet, and if he goes home before the book is published here he will + lose his copyright. And then his friends feel that it will be + better for him to lecture in London before his book is published, + not only that it will give him a larger but a more enviable + reputation. I would not hesitate one moment if it were simply for + the money that his copyright will bring him, but if his reputation + will be better for his staying and lecturing, of course he ought to + stay.... The truth is, I can't bear the thought of postponing going + home. + +It is rather gratifying to find Olivia Clemens human, like that, now and +then. Otherwise, on general testimony, one might well be tempted to +regard her as altogether of another race and kind. + + + + +XCI + +A LONDON LECTURE + +Clemens concluded to hasten the homeward journey, but to lecture a few +nights in London before starting. He would then accompany his little +family home, and return at once to continue the lecture series and +protect his copyright. This plan was carried out. In a communication to +the Standard, October 7th, he said: + + SIR,--In view of the prevailing frenzy concerning the Sandwich + Islands, and the inflamed desire of the public to acquire + information concerning them, I have thought it well to tarry yet + another week in England and deliver a lecture upon this absorbing + subject. And lest it should be thought unbecoming in me, a + stranger, to come to the public rescue at such a time, instead of + leaving to abler hands a matter of so much moment, I desire to + explain that I do it with the best motives and the most honorable + intentions. I do it because I am convinced that no one can allay + this unwholesome excitement as effectually as I can, and to allay + it, and allay it as quickly as possible, is surely one thing that is + absolutely necessary at this juncture. I feel and know that I am + equal to this task, for I can allay any kind of an excitement by + lecturing upon it. I have saved many communities in this way. I + have always been able to paralyze the public interest in any topic + that I chose to take hold of and elucidate with all my strength. + + Hoping that this explanation will show that if I am seeming to + intrude I am at least doing it from a high impulse, I am, sir, your + obedient servant, + MARK TWAIN. + + +A day later the following announcement appeared: + + QUEEN'S CONCERT ROOMS, + HANOVER SQUARE. + + MR. GEORGE DOLBY begs to announce that + + MR. MARK TWAIN + + WILL DELIVER A + LECTURE + OF A + HUMOROUS CHARACTER, + + AS ABOVE, ON + MONDAY EVENING NEXT, OCTOBER 13th, 1873, + AND REPEAT IT IN THE SAME PLACE, ON + TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 14th, + WEDNESDAY " " 15th, + THURSDAY " " 16th, + FRIDAY " " 17th, + + At Eight o'Clock, + AND + SATURDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 18th, + At Three o'Clock. + + SUBJECT: + "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." + + As Mr. TWAIN has spent several months in these Islands, and is well + acquainted with his subject, the Lecture may be expected to furnish + matter of interest. + + STALLS, 5s. UNRESERVED SEATS, 3s. + + +The prospect of a lecture from Mark Twain interested the London public. +Those who had not seen him were willing to pay even for that privilege. +The papers were encouraging; Punch sounded a characteristic note: + + WELCOME TO A LECTURER + + "'Tis time we Twain did show ourselves." 'Twas said + By Caesar, when one Mark had lost his head: + By Mark, whose head's quite bright, 'tis said again: + Therefore, "go with me, friends, to bless this Twain." + + --Punch. + + +Dolby had managed the Dickens lectures, and he proved his sound business +judgment and experience by taking the largest available hall in London +for Mark Twain. + +On the evening of October 13th, in the spacious Queen's Concert Rooms, +Hanover Square, Mark Twain delivered his first public address in England. +The subject was "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands," the old +lecture with which he had made his first great successes. He was not +introduced. He appeared on the platform in evening dress, assuming the +character of a manager announcing a disappointment. + +Mr. Clemens, he said, had fully expected to be present. He paused and +loud murmurs arose from the audience. He lifted his hand and they +subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present, +and will now give his lecture." Whereupon the audience roared its +approval. + +It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that his triumph that week was +a regal one. For five successive nights and a Saturday matinee the +culture and fashion of London thronged to hear him discourse of their +"fellow savages." It was a lecture event wholly without precedent. The +lectures of Artemus Ward,--["Artemus the delicious," as Charles Reade +called him, came to London in June, 1866, and gave his "piece" in +Egyptian Hall. The refined, delicate, intellectual countenance, the +sweet, gave, mouth, from which one might have expected philosophical +lectures retained their seriousness while listeners were convulsed with +laughter. There was something magical about it. Every sentence was a +surprise. He played on his audience as Liszt did on a piano most easily +when most effectively. Who can ever forget his attempt to stop his +Italian pianist-" a count in his own country, but not much account in +this "-who went on playing loudly while he was trying to tell us an +"affecting incident" that occurred near a small clump of trees shown on +his panorama of the Far West. The music stormed on-we could see only +lips and arms pathetically moving till the piano suddenly ceased, and we +heard-it was all we heard "and, she fainted in Reginald's arms." His +tricks have been at tempted in many theaters, but Artemus Ward was +inimitable. And all the time the man was dying. (Moneure D. Conway, +Autobiography.)]--who had quickly become a favorite in London, had +prepared the public for American platform humor, while the daily doings +of this new American product, as reported by the press, had aroused +interest, or curiosity, to a high pitch. On no occasion in his own +country had he won such a complete triumph. The papers for a week +devoted columns of space to appreciation and editorial comment. The +Daily News of October 17th published a column-and-a-half editorial on +American humor, with Mark Twain's public appearance as the general text. +The Times referred to the continued popularity of the lectures: + + They can't be said to have more than whetted the public appetite, if + we are to take the fact which has been imparted to us, that the + holding capacity of the Hanover Square Rooms has been inadequate to + the demand made upon it every night by Twain's lecturing, as a + criterion. The last lecture of this too brief course was delivered + yesterday before an audience which crammed to discomfort every part + of the principal apartment of the Hanover Square Rooms.... + +At the close of yesterday's lecture Mark Twain was so loudly applauded +that he returned to the stage, and, as soon as the audience gave him a +chance of being heard, he said, with much apparent emotion: + + "Ladies and Gentlemen,--I won't keep you one single moment in this + suffocating atmosphere. I simply wish to say that this is the last + lecture I shall have the honor to deliver in London until I return + from America, four weeks from now. I only wish to say (here Mr. + Clemens faltered as if too much affected to proceed) I am very + grateful. I do not wish to appear pathetic, but it is something + magnificent for a stranger to come to the metropolis of the world + and be received so handsomely as I have been. I simply thank you." + +The Saturday Review devoted a page, and Once a Week, under the head of +"Cracking jokes," gave three pages, to praise of the literary and lecture +methods of the new American humorist. With the promise of speedy return, +he left London, gave the lecture once in Liverpool, and with his party +(October 21st) set sail for home. + +In mid-Atlantic he remembered Dr. Brown, and wrote him: + + We have plowed a long way over the sea, and there's twenty-two + hundred miles of restless water between us now, besides the railway + stretch. And yet you are so present with us, so close to us, that a + span and a whisper would bridge the distance. + +So it would seem that of all the many memories of that eventful half- +year, that of Dr. Brown was the most present, the most tender. + + + + +XCII + +FURTHER LONDON LECTURE TRIUMPHS + +Orion Clemens records that he met "Sam and Livy" on their arrival from +England, November 2d, and that the president of the Mercantile Library +Association sent up his card "four times," in the hope of getting a +chance to propose a lecture engagement--an incident which impressed Orion +deeply in its evidence of his brother's towering importance. Orion +himself was by this time engaged in various projects. He was inventing a +flying-machine, for one thing, writing a Jules Verne story, reading proof +on a New York daily, and contemplating the lecture field. This great +blaze of international appreciation which had come to the little boy who +used to set type for him in Hannibal, and wash up the forms and cry over +the dirty proof, made him gasp. + +They went to see Booth in Hamlet [he says], and Booth sent for Sam to +come behind the scenes, and when Sam proposed to add a part to Hamlet, +the part of a bystander who makes humorous modern comment on the +situations in the play, Booth laughed immoderately. + +Proposing a sacrilege like that to Booth! To what heights had this +printer-pilot, miner-brother not attained!--[This idea of introducing a +new character in Hamlet was really attempted later by Mark Twain, with +the connivance of Joe Goodman [of all men], sad to relate. So far as is +known it is the one stain on Goodman's literary record.] + +Clemens returned immediately to England--the following Saturday, in fact +--and was back in London lecturing again after barely a month's absence. +He gave the "Roughing It" address, this time under the title of "Roughing +It on the Silver Frontier," and if his audiences were any less +enthusiastic, or his houses less crowded than before, the newspapers of +that day have left no record of it. It was the height of the season now, +and being free to do so, he threw himself into the whirl of it, and for +two months, beyond doubt, was the most talked-of figure in London. The +Athenaeum Club made him a visiting member (an honor considered next to +knighthood); Punch quoted him; societies banqueted him; his apartments, +as before; were besieged by callers. Afternoons one was likely to find +him in "Poets' Corner" of the Langham smoking-room, with a group of +London and American authors--Reade, Collins, Miller, and the others-- +frankly rioting in his bold fancies. Charles Warren Stoddard was in +London at the time, and acted as his secretary. Stoddard was a gentle +poet, a delightful fellow, and Clemens was very fond of him. His only +complaint of Stoddard was that he did not laugh enough at his humorous +yarns. Clemens once said: + +"Dolby and I used to come in after the lecture, or perhaps after being +out to some dinner, and we liked to sit down and talk it over and tell +yarns, and we expected Stoddard to laugh at them, but Stoddard would lie +there on the couch and snore. Otherwise, as a secretary, he was +perfect." + +The great Tichborne trial was in progress then, and the spectacle of an +illiterate impostor trying to establish his claim as the rightful heir to +a great estate was highly diverting to Mark Twain.--[In a letter of this +period he speaks of having attended one of the Claimant's "Evenings."]-- +He wanted to preserve the evidence as future literary material, and +Stoddard day after day patiently collected the news reports and neatly +pasted them into scrap-books, where they still rest, a complete record of +that now forgotten farce. The Tichborne trial recalled to Mark Twain the +claimant in the Lampton family, who from time to time wrote him long +letters, urging him to join in the effort to establish his rights to the +earldom of Durham. This American claimant was a distant cousin, who had +"somehow gotten hold of, or had fabricated a full set of documents." + +Colonel Henry Watterson, just quoted (also a Lampton connection), adds: + + During the Tichborne trial Mark and I were in London, and one day he + said to me: "I have investigated this Durham business down at the + Herald's office. There is nothing to it. The Lamptons passed out + of the earldom of Durham a hundred years ago. There were never any + estates; the title lapsed; the present earldom is a new creation, + not in the same family at all. But I'll tell you what: if you'll + put up $500, I'll put up $500 more; we'll bring our chap over here + and set him in as claimant, and, my word for it, Kenealy's fat boy + won't be a marker to him." + +It was a characteristic Mark Twain project, one of the sort he never +earned out in reality, but loved to follow in fancy, and with the pen +sometimes. The "Rightful Earl of Durham" continued to send letters for a +long time after that (some of them still exist), but he did not establish +his claim. No one but Mark Twain ever really got anything out of it. +Like the Tennessee land, it furnished material by and by for a book. +Colonel Watterson goes on to say that Clemens was only joking about +having looked up the matter in the peerage; that he hadn't really looked +it up at all, and that the earldom lies still in the Lampton family. + +Another of Clemens's friends in London at this time was Prentice Mulford, +of California. In later years Mulford acquired a wide reputation for his +optimistic and practical psychologies. Through them he lifted himself +out of the slough of despond, and he sought to extend a helping hand to +others. His "White Cross Library" had a wide reading and a wide +influence; perhaps has to this day. But in 1873 Mulford had not found +the tangibility of thought, the secret of strength; he was only finding +it, maybe, in his frank acknowledgment of shortcoming: + + Now, Mark, I am down-very much down at present; you are up-where you + deserve to be. I can't ask this on the score of any past favors, + for there have been none. I have not always spoken of you in terms + of extravagant praise; have sometimes criticized you, which was due, + I suppose, in part to an envious spirit. I am simply human. Some + people in the same profession say they entertain no jealousy of + those more successful. I can't. They are divine; I am not. + +It was only that he wished Clemens to speak a word for him to Routledge, +to get him a hearing for his work. He adds: + + I shall be up myself some day, although my line is far apart from + yours. Whether you can do anything that I ask of you or not, I + shall be happy then, as I would be now, to do you any just and right + service.... Perhaps I have mistaken my vocation. Certainly, if I + was back with my rocker on the Tuolumne, I'd make it rattle livelier + than ever I did before. I have occasionally thought of London + Bridge, but the Thames is now so d---d cold and dirty, and besides I + can swim, and any attempt at drowning would, through the mere + instinct of self-preservation, only result in my swimming ashore and + ruining my best clothes; wherefore I should be worse off than ever. + +Of course Mark Twain granted the favor Mulford asked, and a great deal +more, no doubt, for that was his way. Mulford came up, as he had +prophesied, but the sea in due time claimed him, though not in the way he +had contemplated. Years after he was one day found drifting off the +shores of Long Island in an open boat, dead. + +Clemens made a number of notable dinner speeches during this second +London lecture period. His response to the toast of the "Ladies," +delivered at the annual dinner of the Scottish Corporation of London, was +the sensational event of the evening. + +He was obliged to decline an invitation to the Lord Mayor's dinner, +whereupon his Lordship wrote to urge him to be present at least at the +finale, when the welcome would be "none the less hearty," and bespoke his +attendance for any future dinners. + +Clemens lectured steadily at the Hanover Square Rooms during the two +months of his stay in London, and it was only toward the end of this +astonishing engagement that the audience began to show any sign of +diminishing. Early in January he wrote to Twichell: + +I am not going to the provinces because I cannot get halls that are large +enough. I always felt cramped in the Hanover Square Rooms, but I find +that everybody here speaks with awe and respect of that prodigious hall +and wonders that I could fill it so long. + +I am hoping to be back in twenty days, but I have so much to go home to +and enjoy with a jubilant joy that it hardly seems possible that it can +come to pass in so uncertain a world as this. + +In the same letter he speaks of attending an exhibition of Landseer's +paintings at the Royal Academy: + + Ah, they are wonderfully beautiful! There are such rich moonlights + and dusks in the "Challenge" and the "Combat," and in that long + flight of birds across a lake in the subdued flush of sunset (or + sunrise, for no man can ever tell t'other from which in a picture, + except it has the filmy morning mist breathing itself up from the + water), and there is such a grave analytical profundity in the face + of the connoisseurs; and such pathos in the picture of a fawn + suckling its dead mother on a snowy waste, with only the blood in + the footprints to hint that she is not asleep. And the way that he + makes animals' flesh and blood, insomuch that if the room were + darkened ever so little, and a motionless living animal placed + beside the painted one, no man could tell which was which. + +I interrupted myself here, to drop a line to Shirley Brooks and suggest a +cartoon for Punch. It was this: in one of the Academy saloons (in a +suite where these pictures are) a fine bust of Landseer stands on a +pedestal in the center of the room. I suggested that some of Landseer's +best known animals be represented as having come down out of their frames +in the moonlight and grouped themselves about the bust in mourning +attitudes. + +He sailed January 13 (1874.), on the Paythia, and two weeks later was at +home, where all was going well. The Gilded Age had been issued a day or +two before Christmas, and was already in its third edition. By the end +of January 26,000 copies had been sold, a sale that had increased to +40,000 a month later. The new house was progressing, though it was by no +means finished. Mrs. Clemens was in good health. Little Susy was full +of such American activities as to earn the name of "The Modoc." The +promise of the year was bright. + + + + +XCIII + +THE REAL COLONEL SELLERS-GOLDEN DAYS + +There are bound to be vexations, flies in the ointment, as we say. It +was Warner who conferred the name of Eschol Sellers on the chief figure +of the collaborated novel. Warner had known it as the name of an obscure +person, or perhaps he had only heard of it. At all events, it seemed a +good one for the character and had been adopted. But behold, the book +had been issued but a little while when there rose "out of the vasty +deeps" a genuine Eschol Sellers, who was a very respectable person. He +was a stout, prosperous-looking man, gray and about fifty-five years old. +He came into the American Publishing Company offices and asked permission +to look at the book. Mr. Bliss was out at the moment, but presently +arrived. The visitor rose and introduced himself. + +"My name is Eschol Sellers," he said. "You have used it in one of your +publications. It has brought upon me a lot of ridicule. My people wish +me to sue you for $10,000 damages." + +He had documents to prove his identity, and there was only one thing to +be done; he must be satisfied. Bliss agreed to recall as many of the +offending volumes as possible and change the name on the plates. He +contacted the authors, and the name Beriah was substituted for the +offending Eschol. It turned out that the real Sellers family was a large +one, and that the given name Eschol was not uncommon in its several +branches. This particular Eschol Sellers, curiously enough, was an +inventor and a promoter, though of a much more substantial sort than his +fiction namesake. He was also a painter of considerable merit, a writer +and an antiquarian. He was said to have been a grandson of the famous +painter, Rembrandt Peale. + +Clemens vowed that he would not lecture in America that winter. The +irrepressible Redpath besieged him as usual, and at the end of January +Clemens telegraphed him, as he thought, finally. Following it with a +letter of explanation, he added: + +"I said to her, 'There isn't money enough in America to hire me to leave +you for one day.'" + +But Redpath was a persistent devil. He used arguments and held out +inducements which even Mrs. Clemens thought should not be resisted, and +Clemens yielded from time to time, and gave a lecture here and there +during February. Finally, on the 3d of March (1879.) he telegraphed his +tormentor: + +"Why don't you congratulate me? I never expect to stand on a lecture +platform again after Thursday night." + +Howells tells delightfully of a visit which he and Aldrich paid to +Hartford just at this period. Aldrich went to visit Clemens and Howells +to visit Charles Dudley Warner, Clemens coming as far as Springfield to +welcome them. + + In the good-fellowship of that cordial neighborhood we had two such + days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round. There was + constant running in and out of friendly houses where the lively + hosts and guests called one another by their Christian names or + nicknames, and no such vain ceremony as knocking or ringing at + doors. Clemens was then building the stately mansion in which he + satisfied his love of magnificence as if it had been another + sealskin coat, and he was at the crest of the prosperity which + enabled him to humor every whim or extravagance. + +Howells tells how Clemens dilated on the advantages of subscription sale +over the usual methods of publication, and urged the two Boston authors +to prepare something which canvassers could handle. + +"Why, any other means of bringing out a book is privately printing it," +he declared, and added that his subscription books in Bliss's hands sold +right along, "just like the Bible." + +On the way back to Boston Howells and Aldrich planned a subscription book +which would sell straight along, like the Bible. It was to be called +"Twelve Memorable Murders." They had dreamed two or three fortunes by +the time they had reached Boston, but the project ended there. + +"We never killed a single soul," Howells said once to the writer of this +memoir. + +Clemens was always urging Howells to visit him after that. He offered +all sorts of inducements. + + You will find us the most reasonable people in the world. We had + thought of precipitating upon you, George Warner and his wife one + day, Twichell and his jewel of a wife another day, and Charles + Perkins and wife another. Only those--simply members of our family + they are. But I'll close the door against them all, which will + "fix" all of the lot except Twichell, who will no more hesitate to + climb in the back window than nothing. + + And you shall go to bed when you please, get up when you please, + talk when you please, read when you please. + +A little later he was urging Howells or Aldrich, or both of them; to come +to Hartford to live. + + Mr. Hall, who lives in the house next to Mrs. Stowe's (just where we + drive in to go to our new house), will sell for $16,000 or $17,000. + You can do your work just as well here as in Cambridge, can't you? + Come! Will one of you boys buy that house? Now, say yes. + +Certainly those were golden, blessed days, and perhaps, as Howells says, +the sun does not shine on their like any more--not in Hartford, at least, +for the old group that made them no longer assembles there. Hartford +about this time became a sort of shrine for all literary visitors, and +for other notables as well, whether of America or from overseas. It was +the half-way place between Boston and New York, and pilgrims going in +either direction rested there. It is said that travelers arriving in +America, were apt to remember two things they wished to see: Niagara +Falls and Mark Twain. But the Falls had no such recent advertising +advantage as that spectacular success in London. Visitors were apt to +begin in Hartford. + +Howells went with considerable frequency after that, or rather with +regularity, twice a year, or oftener, and his coming was always hailed +with great rejoicing. They visited and ate around at one place and +another among that pleasant circle of friends. But they were happiest +afterward together, Clemens smoking continually, "soothing his tense +nerves with a mild hot Scotch," says Howells, "while we both talked, and +talked, and tasked of everything in the heavens and on the earth, and the +waters under the earth. After two days of this talk I would come away +hollow, realizing myself best in the image of one of those locust-shells +which you find sticking to the bark of trees at the end of summer." +Sometimes Clemens told the story of his early life, "the inexhaustible, +the fairy, the Arabian Nights story, which I could never tire of even +when it began to be told over again." + + + + +XCIV + +BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" + +The Clemens household went to Quarry Farm in April, leaving the new house +once more in the hands of the architect and builders. It was costing a +vast sum of money, and there was a financial stress upon land. Mrs. +Clemens, always prudent, became a little uneasy at times, though without +warrant in those days, for her business statement showed that her +holdings were only a little less than a quarter of a million in her own +right, while her husband's books and lectures had been highly +remunerative, and would be more so. They were justified in living in +ample, even luxurious comfort, and how free from financial worries they +could have lived for the rest of their days! + +Clemens, realizing his happiness, wrote Dr. Brown: + +Indeed I am thankful for the wifey and the child, and if there is one +individual creature on all this footstool who is more thoroughly and +uniformly and, unceasingly happy than I am I defy the world to produce +him and prove him. In my opinion he don't exist. I was a mighty rough, +coarse, unpromising subject when Livy took charge of me, four years ago, +and I may still be to the rest of the world, but not to her. She has +made a very creditable job of me. + +Truly fortune not only smiled, but laughed. Every mail brought great +bundles of letters that sang his praises. Robert Watt, who had +translated his books into Danish, wrote of their wide popularity among +his people. Madame Blanc (Th. Bentzon), who as early as 1872 had +translated The Jumping Frog into French, and published it, with extended +comment on the author and his work, in the 'Revue des deux mondes', was +said to be preparing a review of 'The Gilded Age'. All the world seemed +ready to do him honor. + +Of course, one must always pay the price, usually a vexatious one. Bores +stopped him on the street to repeat ancient and witless stories. +Invented anecdotes, some of them exasperating ones, went the rounds of +the press. Impostors in distant localities personated him, or claimed to +be near relatives, and obtained favors, sometimes money, in his name. +Trivial letters, seeking benefactions of every kind, took the savor from +his daily mail. Letters from literary aspirants were so numerous that he +prepared a "form" letter of reply: + +DEAR SIR OR MADAM,--Experience has not taught me very much, still it has +taught me that it is not wise to criticize a piece of literature, except +to an enemy of the person who wrote it; then if you praise it that enemy +admires--you for your honest manliness, and if you dispraise it he +admires you for your sound judgment. + + Yours truly, S. L. C. + +Even Orion, now in Keokuk on a chicken farm, pursued him with manuscripts +and proposals of schemes. Clemens had bought this farm for Orion, who +had counted on large and quick returns, but was planning new enterprises +before the first eggs were hatched. Orion Clemens was as delightful a +character as was ever created in fiction, but he must have been a trial +now and then to Mark Twain. We may gather something of this from a +letter written by the latter to his mother and sister at this period: + + I can't "encourage" Orion. Nobody can do that conscientiously, for + the reason that before one's letter has time to reach him he is off + on some new wild-goose chase. Would you encourage in literature a + man who the older he grows the worse he writes? + + I cannot encourage him to try the ministry, because he would change + his religion so fast that he would have to keep a traveling agent + under wages to go ahead of him to engage pulpits and board for him. + + I cannot conscientiously encourage him to do anything but potter + around his little farm and put in his odd hours contriving new and + impossible projects at the rate of 365 a year which is his customary + average. He says he did well in Hannibal! Now there is a man who + ought to be entirely satisfied with the grandeurs, emoluments, and + activities of a hen farm. + + If you ask me to pity Orion I can do that. I can do it every day + and all day long. But one can't "encourage" quicksilver; because + the instant you put your finger on it, it isn't there. No, I am + saying too much. He does stick to his literary and legal + aspirations, and he naturally would elect the very two things which + he is wholly and preposterously unfitted for. If I ever become + able, I mean to put Orion on a regular pension without revealing the + fact that it is a pension. + + He did presently allow the pension, a liberal one, which continued + until neither Orion Clemens nor his wife had further earthly need of + it. + +Mark Twain for some time had contemplated one of the books that will +longest preserve his memory, 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'. The success +of 'Roughing It' naturally made him cast about for other autobiographical +material, and he remembered those days along the river-front in Hannibal +--his skylarking with Tom Blankenship, the Bowen boys, John Briggs, and +the rest. He had recognized these things as material--inviting material +it was--and now in the cool luxury of Quarry Farm he set himself to spin +the fabric of youth. + +He found summer-time always his best period for literary effort, and on a +hillside just by the old quarry, Mrs. Crane had built for him that spring +a study--a little room of windows, somewhat suggestive of a pilot-house-- +overlooking the long sweep of grass and the dreamlike city below. Vines +were planted that in the course of time would cover and embower it; there +was a tiny fireplace for chilly days. To Twichell, of his new retreat, +Clemens wrote: + +It is the loveliest study you ever saw. It is octagonal, with a peaked +roof, each face filled with a spacious window, and it sits perched in +complete isolation on the top of an elevation that commands leagues of +valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a +cozy nest and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four +chairs, and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the +lightning flashes behind the hills beyond, and the rain beats upon the +roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it. + +He worked steadily there that summer. He would go up mornings, after +breakfast, remaining until nearly dinner-time, say until five o'clock or +after, for it was not his habit to eat luncheon. Other members of the +family did not venture near the place, and if he was urgently wanted they +blew a horn. Each evening he brought down his day's performance to read +to the assembled family. He felt the need of audience and approval. +Usually he earned the latter, but not always. Once, when for a day he +put aside other matters to record a young undertaker's love-affair, and +brought down the result in the evening, fairly bubbling with the joy of +it, he met with a surprise. The tale was a ghastly burlesque, its humor +of the most disheartening, unsavory sort. No one spoke during the +reading, nobody laughed: The air was thick with disapproval. His voice +lagged and faltered toward the end. When he finished there was heavy +silence. Mrs. Clemens was the only one who could speak: + +"Youth, let's walk a little," she said. + +The "Undertaker's Love Story" is still among the manuscripts of that +period, but it is unlikely that it will ever see the light of print. +--[This tale bears no relation to "The Undertaker's Story" in Sketches +New and Old.] + +The Tom Sawyer tale progressed steadily and satisfactorily. Clemens +wrote Dr. Brown: + + I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an average, + for some time now, on a book (a story), and consequently have been + so wrapped up in it, and dead to everything else, that I have fallen + mighty short in letter-writing.... + + On hot days I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers down with + brickbats, and write in the midst of the hurricane, clothed in the + same thin linen we make shirts of. + +He incloses some photographs in this letter. + + The group [he says] represents the vine-clad carriageway in front of + the farm-house. On the left is Megalopis sitting in the lap of her + German nurse-maid. I am sitting behind them. Mrs. Crane is in the + center. Mr. Crane next to her. Then Mrs. Clemens and the new baby. + Her Irish nurse stands at her back. Then comes the table waitress, + a young negro girl, born free. Next to her is Auntie Cord (a + fragment of whose history I have just sent to a magazine). She is + the cook; was in slavery more than forty years; and the self- + satisfied wench, the last of the group, is the little baby's + American nurse-maid. In the middle distance my mother-in-law's + coachman (up on errand) has taken a position unsolicited to help out + the picture. No, that is not true. He was waiting there a minute + or two before the photographer came. In the extreme background, + under the archway, you glimpse my study. + +The "new baby," "Bay," as they came to call her, was another little +daughter, born in June, a happy, healthy addition to the household. +In a letter written to Twichell we get a sweet summer picture of this +period, particularly of little sunny-haired, two-year-old Susy. + + There is nothing selfish about the Modoc. She is fascinated with + the new baby. The Modoc rips and tears around outdoors most of the + time, and consequently is as hard as a pineknot and as brown as an + Indian. She is bosom friend to all the chickens, ducks, turkeys, + and guinea-hens on the place. Yesterday, as she marched along the + winding path that leads up the hill through the red-clover beds to + the summer-house, there was a long procession of these fowls + stringing contentedly after her, led by a stately rooster, who can + look over the Modoc's head. The devotion of these vassals has been + purchased with daily largess of Indian meal, and so the Modoc, + attended by her body-guard, moves in state wherever she goes. + +There were days, mainly Sundays, when he did not work at all; peaceful +days of lying fallow, dreaming in shady places, drowsily watching little +Susy, or reading with Mrs. Clemens. Howells's "Foregone Conclusion" was +running in the Atlantic that year, and they delighted in it. Clemens +wrote the author: + + I should think that this must be the daintiest, truest, most + admirable workmanship that was ever put on a story. The creatures + of God do not act out their natures more unerringly than yours do. + If your genuine stories can die I wonder by what right old Walter + Scott's artificialities shall continue to live. + +At other times he found comfort in the society of Theodore Crane. These +two were always fond of each other, and often read together the books in +which they were mutually interested. They had portable-hammock +arrangements, which they placed side by side on the lawn, and read and +discussed through summer afternoons. The 'Mutineers of the Bounty' was +one of the books they liked best, and there was a story of an Iceland +farmer, a human document, that had an unfading interest. Also there were +certain articles in old numbers of the Atlantic that they read and +reread. 'Pepys' Diary', 'Two Years Before the Mast', and a book on the +Andes were reliable favorites. Mark Twain read not so many books, but +read a few books often. Those named were among the literature he asked +for each year of his return to Quarry Farm. Without them, the farm and +the summer would not be the same. + +Then there was 'Lecky's History of European Morals'; there were periods +when they read Lecky avidly and discussed it in original and unorthodox +ways. Mark Twain found an echo of his own philosophies in Lecky. He +made frequent marginal notes along the pages of the world's moral +history--notes not always quotable in the family circle. Mainly, +however, they were short, crisp interjections of assent or disapproval. +In one place Lecky refers to those who have undertaken to prove that all +our morality is a product of experience, holding that a desire to obtain +happiness and to avoid pain is the only possible motive to action; the +reason, and the only reason, why we should perform virtuous actions being +"that on the whole such a course will bring us the greatest amount of +happiness." Clemens has indorsed these philosophies by writing on the +margin, "Sound and true." It was the philosophy which he himself would +always hold (though, apparently, never live by), and in the end would +embody a volume of his own.--[What Is Man? Privately printed in 1906.]-- +In another place Lecky, himself speaking, says: + + Fortunately we are all dependent for many of our pleasures on + others. Co-operation and organization are essential to our + happiness, and these are impossible without some restraint being + placed upon our appetites. Laws are made to secure this restraint, + and being sustained by rewards, and punishments they make it the + interest of the individual to regard that of the community. + +"Correct!" comments Clemens. "He has proceeded from unreasoned +selfishness to reasoned selfishness. All our acts, reasoned and +unreasoned, are selfish." It was a conclusion he logically never +departed from; not the happiest one, it would seem, at first glance, but +one easier to deny than to disprove. + +On the back of an old envelope Mark Twain set down his literary +declaration of this period. + +"I like history, biography, travels, curious facts and strange +happenings, and science. And I detest novels, poetry, and theology." + +But of course the novels of Howells would be excepted; Lecky was not +theology, but the history of it; his taste for poetry would develop +later, though it would never become a fixed quantity, as was his devotion +to history and science. His interest in these amounted to a passion. + + + + +XCV + +AN "ATLANTIC" STORY AND A PLAY + +The reference to "Auntie Cord" in the letter to Dr. Brown brings us to +Mark Twain's first contribution to the Atlantic Monthly. Howells in his +Recollections of his Atlantic editorship, after referring to certain +Western contributors, says: + + Later came Mark Twain, originally of Missouri, but then + provisionally of Hartford, and now ultimately of the solar system, + not to say the universe. He came first with "A True Story," one of + those noble pieces of humanity with which the South has atoned + chiefly, if not solely, through him for all its despite to the + negro. + +Clemens had long aspired to appear in the Atlantic, but such was his own +rating of his literature that he hardly hoped to qualify for its pages. +Twichell remembers his "mingled astonishment and triumph" when he was +invited to send something to the magazine. + +He was obliged to "send something" once or twice before the acceptance of +"A True Story," the narrative of Auntie Cord, and even this acceptance +brought with it the return of a fable which had accompanied it, with the +explanation that a fable like that would disqualify the magazine for +every denominational reader, though Howells hastened to express his own +joy in it, having been particularly touched by the author's reference to +Sisyphus and Atlas as ancestors of the tumble-bug. The "True Story," he +said, with its "realest king of black talk," won him, and a few days +later he wrote again: "This little story delights me more and more. I +wish you had about forty of 'em." + +And so, modestly enough, as became him, for the story was of the +simplest, most unpretentious sort, Mark Twain entered into the school of +the elect. + +In his letter to Howells, accompanying the MS., the author said: + + I inclose also "A True Story," which has no humor in it. You can + pay as lightly as you choose for that if you want it, for it is + rather out of my line. I have not altered the old colored woman's + story, except to begin it at the beginning, instead of the middle, + as she did--and traveled both ways. + +Howells in his Recollections tells of the business anxiety in the +Atlantic office in the effort to estimate the story's pecuniary value. +Clemens and Harte had raised literary rates enormously; the latter was +reputed to have received as much as five cents a word from affluent +newspapers! But the Atlantic was poor, and when sixty dollars was +finally decided upon for the three pages (about two and a half cents a +word) the rate was regarded as handsome--without precedent in Atlantic +history. Howells adds that as much as forty times this amount was +sometimes offered to Mark Twain in later years. Even in '74 he had +received a much higher rate than that offered by the Atlantic,--but no +acceptance, then, or later, ever made him happier, or seemed more richly +rewarded. + +"A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It" was precisely what +it claimed to be.--[Atlantic Monthly for November, 1874; also included +in Sketches New and Old.]--Auntie Cord, the Auntie Rachel of that tale, +cook at Quarry Farm, was a Virginia negress who had been twice sold as a +slave, and was proud of the fact; particularly proud that she had brought +$1,000 on the block. All her children had been sold away from her, but +it was a long time ago, and now at sixty she was fat and seemingly +without care. She had told her story to Mrs. Crane, who had more than +once tried to persuade her to tell it to Clemens; but Auntie Cord was +reluctant. One evening, however, when the family sat on the front +veranda in the moonlight, looking down on the picture city, as was their +habit, Auntie Cord came around to say good night, and Clemens engaged her +in conversation. He led up to her story, and almost before she knew it +she was seated at his feet telling the strange tale in almost the exact +words in which it was set down by him next morning. It gave Mark Twain a +chance to exercise two of his chief gifts--transcription and portrayal. +He was always greater at these things than at invention. Auntie Cord's +story is a little masterpiece. + +He wished to do more with Auntie Cord and her associates of the farm, for +they were extraordinarily interesting. Two other negroes on the place, +John Lewis and his wife (we shall hear notably of Lewis later), were not +always on terms of amity with Auntie Cord. They disagreed on religion, +and there were frequent battles in the kitchen. These depressed the +mistress of the house, but they gave only joy to Mark Twain. His +Southern raising had given him an understanding of their humors, their +native emotions which made these riots a spiritual gratification. He +would slip around among the shrubbery and listen to the noise and strife +of battle, and hug himself with delight. Sometimes they resorted to +missiles--stones, tinware--even dressed poultry which Auntie Cord was +preparing for the oven. Lewis was very black, Auntie Cord was a bright +mulatto, Lewis's' wife several shades lighter. Wherever the discussion +began it promptly shaded off toward the color-line and insult. Auntie +Cord was a Methodist; Lewis was a Dunkard. Auntie Cord was ignorant and +dogmatic; Lewis could read and was intelligent. Theology invariably led +to personality, and eventually to epithets, crockery, geology, and +victuals. How the greatest joker of the age did enjoy that summer +warfare! + +The fun was not all one-sided. An incident of that summer probably +furnished more enjoyment for the colored members of the household than it +did for Mark Twain. Lewis had some fowls, and among them was a +particularly pestiferous guinea-hen that used to get up at three in the +morning and go around making the kind of a noise that a guinea-hen must +like and is willing to get up early to hear. Mark Twain did not care for +it. He stood it as long as he could one morning, then crept softly from +the house to stop it. + +It was a clear, bright night; locating the guinea-hen, he slipped up +stealthily with a stout stick. The bird was pouring out its heart, +tearing the moonlight to tatters. Stealing up close, Clemens made a +vicious swing with his bludgeon, but just then the guinea stepped forward +a little, and he missed. The stroke and his explosion frightened the +fowl, and it started to run. Clemens, with his mind now on the single +purpose of revenge, started after it. Around the trees, along the paths, +up and down the lawn, through gates and across the garden, out over the +fields, they raced, "pursuer and pursued." The guinea nor longer sang, +and Clemens was presently too exhausted to swear. Hour after hour the +silent, deadly hunt continued, both stopping to rest at intervals; then +up again and away. It was like something in a dream. It was nearly +breakfast-time when he dragged himself into the house at last, and the +guinea was resting and panting under a currant-bush. Later in the day +Clemens gave orders to Lewis to "kill and eat that guinea-hen," which +Lewis did. Clemens himself had then never eaten a guinea, but some years +later, in Paris, when the delicious breast of one of those fowls was +served him, he remembered and said: + +"And to think, after chasing that creature all night, John Lewis got to +eat him instead of me." + +The interest in Tom and Huck, or the inspiration for their adventures, +gave out at last, or was superseded by a more immediate demand. As early +as May, Goodman, in San Francisco, had seen a play announced there, +presenting the character of Colonel Sellers, dramatized by Gilbert S. +Densmore and played by John T. Raymond. Goodman immediately wrote +Clemens; also a letter came from Warner, in Hartford, who had noticed in +San Francisco papers announcements of the play. Of course Clemens would +take action immediately; he telegraphed, enjoining the performance. Then +began a correspondence with the dramatist and actor. This in time +resulted in an amicable arrangement, by which the dramatist agreed to +dispose of his version to Clemens. Clemens did not wait for it to +arrive, but began immediately a version of his own. Just how much or how +little of Densmore's work found its way into the completed play, as +presented by Raymond later, cannot be known now. Howells conveys the +impression that Clemens had no hand in its authorship beyond the +character of Sellers as taken from the book. But in a letter still +extant, which Clemens wrote to Howells at the time, he says: + + I worked a month on my play, and launched it in New York last + Wednesday. I believe it will go. The newspapers have been + complimentary. It is simply a setting for one character, Colonel + Sellers. As a play I guess it will not bear critical assault in + force. + +The Warners are as charming as ever. They go shortly to the devil for a +year--that is, to Egypt. + +Raymond, in a letter which he wrote to the Sun, November 3, 1874, +declared that "not one line" of Densmore's dramatization was used, +"except that which was taken bodily from The Gilded Age." During the +newspaper discussion of the matter, Clemens himself prepared a letter for +the Hartford Post. This letter was suppressed, but it still exists. In +it he says: + + I entirely rewrote the play three separate and distinct times. I + had expected to use little of his [Densmore's] language and but + little of his plot. I do not think there are now twenty sentences + of Mr. Densmore's in the play, but I used so much of his plot that I + wrote and told him that I should pay him about as much more as I had + already paid him in case the play proved a success. I shall keep my + word. + +This letter, written while the matter was fresh in his mind, is +undoubtedly in accordance with the facts. That Densmore was fully +satisfied may be gathered from an acknowledgment, in which he says: +"Your letter reached me on the ad, with check. In this place permit me +to thank you for the very handsome manner in which you have acted in this +matter." + +Warner, meantime, realizing that the play was constructed almost entirely +of the Mark Twain chapters of the book, agreed that his collaborator +should undertake the work and financial responsibilities of the dramatic +venture and reap such rewards as might result. Various stories have been +told of this matter, most of them untrue. There was no bitterness +between the friends, no semblance of an estrangement of any sort. Warner +very generously and promptly admitted that he was not concerned with the +play, its authorship, or its profits, whatever the latter might amount +to. Moreover, Warner was going to Egypt very soon, and his labors and +responsibilities were doubly sufficient as they stood. + +Clemens's estimate of the play as a dramatic composition was correct +enough, but the public liked it, and it was a financial success from the +start. He employed a representative to travel with Raymond, to assist in +the management and in the division of spoil. The agent had instructions +to mail a card every day, stating the amount of his share in the profits. +Howells once arrived in Hartford just when this postal tide of fortune +was at its flood: + +One hundred and fifty dollars--two hundred dollars--three hundred dollars +were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in the air, +before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish, and then, +flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up and down to exult in. + +Once, in later years, referring to the matter, Howells said +"He was never a man who cared anything about money except as a dream, and +he wanted more and more of it to fill out the spaces of this dream." +Which was a true word. Mark Twain with money was like a child with a +heap of bright pebbles, ready to pile up more and still more, then +presently to throw them all away and begin gathering anew. + + + + +XCVI + +THE NEW HOME + +The Clemenses returned to Hartford to find their new house "ready," +though still full of workmen, decorators, plumbers, and such other +minions of labor as make life miserable to those with ambitions for new +or improved habitations. The carpenters were still on the lower floor, +but the family moved in and camped about in rooms up-stairs that were +more or less free from the invader. They had stopped in New York ten +days to buy carpets and furnishings, and these began to arrive, with no +particular place to put them; but the owners were excited and happy with +it all, for it was the pleasant season of the year, and all the new +features of the house were fascinating, while the daily progress of the +decorators furnished a fresh surprise when they roamed through the rooms +at evening. Mrs. Clemens wrote home: + + We are perfectly delighted with everything here and do so want you + all to see it. + +Her husband, as he was likely to do, picked up the letter and finished +it: + + Livy appoints me to finish this; but how can a headless man perform + an intelligent function? I have been bully-ragged all day by the + builder, by his foreman, by the architect, by the tapestry devil who + is to upholster the furniture, by the idiot who is putting down the + carpets, by the scoundrel who is setting up the billiard-table (and + has left the balls in New York), by the wildcat who is sodding the + ground and finishing the driveway (after the sun went down), by a + book agent, whose body is in the back yard and the coroner notified. + Just think of this thing going on the whole day long, and I a man + who loathes details with all his heart! But I haven't lost my + temper, and I've made Livy lie down most of the time; could anybody + make her lie down all the time? + +Warner wrote from Egypt expressing sympathy for their unfurnished state +of affairs, but added, "I would rather fit out three houses and fill them +with furniture than to fit out one 'dahabiyeh'." Warner was at that +moment undertaking his charmingly remembered trip up the Nile. + +The new home was not entirely done for a long time. One never knows when +a big house like that--or a little house, for that matters done. But +they were settled at last, with all their beautiful things in place; and +perhaps there have been richer homes, possibly more artistic ones, but +there has never been a more charming home, within or without, than that +one. + +So many frequenters have tried to express the charm of that household. +None of them has quite succeeded, for it lay not so much in its +arrangement of rooms or their decorations or their outlook, though these +were all beautiful enough, but rather in the personality, the atmosphere; +and these are elusive things to convey in words. We can only see and +feel and recognize; we cannot translate them. Even Howells, with his +subtle touch, can present only an aspect here and there; an essence, as +it were, from a happy garden, rather than the fullness of its bloom. + +As Mark Twain was unlike any other man that ever lived, so his house was +unlike any other house ever built. People asked him why he built the +kitchen toward the street, and he said: + +"So the servants can see the circus go by without running out into the +front yard." + +But this was probably an after-thought. The kitchen end of the house +extended toward Farmington Avenue, but it was by no means unbeautiful. +It was a pleasing detail of the general scheme. The main entrance faced +at right angles with the street and opened to a spacious hall. In turn, +the hall opened to a parlor, where there was a grand piano, and to the +dining-room and library, and the library opened to a little conservatory, +semicircular in form, of a design invented by Harriet Beecher Stowe. +Says Howells: + + The plants were set in the ground, and the flowering vines climbed + up the sides and overhung the roof above the silent spray of the + fountain companied by Callas and other waterloving lilies. There, + while we breakfasted, Patrick came in from the barn and sprinkled + the pretty bower, which poured out its responsive perfume in the + delicate accents of its varied blossoms. + +In the library was an old carved mantel which Clemens and his wife had +bought in Scotland, salvage from a dismantled castle, and across the top +of the fireplace a plate of brass with the motto, "The ornament of a +house is the friends that frequent it," surely never more appropriately +inscribed. + +There was the mahogany room, a large bedroom on the ground floor, and +upstairs were other spacious bedrooms and many baths, while everywhere +were Oriental rugs and draperies, and statuary and paintings. There was +a fireplace under a window, after the English pattern, so that in winter- +time one could at the same moment watch the blaze and the falling snow. +The library windows looked out over the valley with the little stream in +it, and through and across the tree-tops. At the top of the house was +what became Clemens's favorite retreat, the billiard-room, and here and +there were unexpected little balconies, which one could step out upon for +the view. + +Below was a wide, covered veranda, the "ombra," as they called it, +secluded from the public eye--a favorite family gathering-place on +pleasant days. + +But a house might easily have all these things without being more than +usually attractive, and a house with a great deal less might have been as +full of charm; only it seemed just the proper setting for that particular +household, and undoubtedly it acquired the personality of its occupants. + +Howells assures us that there never was another home like it, and we may +accept his statement. It was unique. It was the home of one of the most +unusual and unaccountable personalities in the world, yet was perfectly +and serenely ordered. Mark Twain was not responsible for this blissful +condition. He was its beacon-light; it was around Mrs. Clemens that its +affairs steadily revolved. + +If in the four years and more of marriage Clemens had made advancement in +culture and capabilities, Olivia Clemens also had become something more +than the half-timid, inexperienced girl he had first known. In a way her +education had been no less notable than his. She had worked and studied, +and her half-year of travel and entertainment abroad had given her +opportunity for acquiring knowledge and confidence. Her vision of life +had vastly enlarged; her intellect had flowered; her grasp of +practicalities had become firm and sure. + +In spite of her delicate physical structure, her continued uncertainty of +health, she capably undertook the management of their large new house, +and supervised its economies. Any one of her undertakings was sufficient +for one woman, but she compassed them all. No children had more careful +direction than hers. No husband had more devoted attendance and +companionship. No household was ever directed with a sweeter and gentler +grace, or with greater perfection of detail. When the great ones of the +world came to visit America's most picturesque literary figure she gave +welcome to them all, and filled her place at his side with such sweet and +capable dignity that those who came to pay their duties to him often +returned to pay even greater devotion to his companion. Says Howells: + + She was, in a way, the loveliest person I have ever seen--the + gentlest, the kindest, without a touch of weakness; she united + wonderful tact with wonderful truth; and Clemens not only accepted + her rule implicitly, but he rejoiced, he gloried in it. + +And once, in an interview with the writer of these chapters, Howells +declared: "She was not only a beautiful soul, but a woman of singular +intellectual power. I never knew any one quite like her." Then he +added: "Words cannot express Mrs. Clemens--her fineness, her delicate, +her wonderful tact with a man who was in some respects, and wished to be, +the most outrageous creature that ever breathed." + +Howells meant a good many things by that, no doubt: Clemens's violent +methods, for one thing, his sudden, savage impulses, which sometimes +worked injustice and hardship for others, though he was first to discover +the wrong and to repair it only too fully. Then, too, Howells may have +meant his boyish teasing tendency to disturb Mrs. Clemens's exquisite +sense of decorum. + +Once I remember seeing him come into his drawing-room at Hartford in a +pair of white cowskin slippers with the hair out, and do a crippled +colored uncle, to the joy of all beholders. I must not say all, for I +remember also the dismay of Mrs. Clemens, and her low, despairing cry of +"Oh, Youth!" + +He was continually doing such things as the "crippled colored uncle,"; +partly for the very joy of the performance, but partly, too, to disturb +her serenity, to incur her reproof, to shiver her a little--"shock" would +be too strong a word. And he liked to fancy her in a spirit and attitude +of belligerence, to present that fancy to those who knew the measure of +her gentle nature. Writing to Mrs. Howells of a picture of herself in a +group, he said: + + You look exactly as Mrs. Clemens does after she has said: "Indeed, I + do not wonder that you can frame no reply; for you know only too + well that your conduct admits of no excuse, palliation, or argument- + none!" + +Clemens would pretend to a visitor that she had been violently indignant +over some offense of his; perhaps he would say: + +"Well I contradicted her just now, and the crockery will begin to fly +pretty soon." + +She could never quite get used to this pleasantry, and a faint glow would +steal over her face. He liked to produce that glow. Yet always his +manner toward her was tenderness itself. He regarded her as some dainty +bit of porcelain, and it was said that he was always following her about +with a chair. Their union has been regarded as ideal. That is +Twichell's opinion and Howells's. The latter sums up: + + Marriages are what the parties to them alone really know them to be, + but from the outside I should say that this marriage was one of the + most perfect. + + + + +XCVII + +THE WALK TO BOSTON + +The new home became more beautiful to them as things found their places, +as the year deepened; and the wonder of autumn foliage lit up their +landscape. Sitting on one of the little upper balconies Mrs. Clemens +wrote: + + The atmosphere is very hazy, and it makes the autumn tints even more + soft and beautiful than usual. Mr. Twichell came for Mr. Clemens to + go walking with him; they returned at dinner-time, heavily laden + with autumn leaves. + +And as usual Clemens, finding the letter unfinished, took up the story. + + Twichell came up here with me to luncheon after services, and I went + back home with him and took Susy along in her little carriage. We + have just got home again, middle of afternoon, and Livy has gone to + rest and left the west balcony to me. There is a shining and most + marvelous miracle of cloud-effects mirrored in the brook; a picture + which began with perfection, and has momently surpassed it ever + since, until at last it is almost unendurably beautiful.... + + There is a cloud-picture in the stream now whose hues are as + manifold as those in an opal and as delicate as the tintings of a + sea-shell. But now a muskrat is swimming through it and + obliterating it with the turmoil of wavelets he casts abroad from + his shoulders. + + The customary Sunday assemblage of strangers is gathered together in + the grounds discussing the house. + +Twichell and Clemens took a good many walks these days; long walks, for +Twichell was an athlete and Clemens had not then outgrown the Nevada +habit of pedestrian wandering. Talcott's Tower, a wooden structure about +five miles from Hartford, was one of their favorite objective points; and +often they walked out and back, talking so continuously, and so absorbed +in the themes of their discussions, that time and distance slipped away +almost unnoticed. How many things they talked of in those long walks! +They discussed philosophies and religions and creeds, and all the range +of human possibility and shortcoming, and all the phases of literature +and history and politics. Unorthodox discussions they were, +illuminating, marvelously enchanting, and vanished now forever. +Sometimes they took the train as far as Bloomfield, a little station on +the way, and walked the rest of the distance, or they took the train from +Bloomfield home. It seems a strange association, perhaps, the fellowship +of that violent dissenter with that fervent soul dedicated to church and +creed, but the root of their friendship lay in the frankness with which +each man delivered his dogmas and respected those of his companion. + +It was during one of their walks to the tower that they planned a far +more extraordinary undertaking--nothing less, in fact, than a walk from +Hartford to Boston. This was early in November. They did not delay the +matter, for the weather was getting too uncertain. + +Clemens wrote Redpath: + +DEAR REDPATH,--Rev. J. H. Twichell and I expect to start at 8 o'clock +Thursday morning to walk to Boston in twenty four hours--or more. We +shall telegraph Young's Hotel for rooms Saturday night, in order to allow +for a low average of pedestrianism. + +It was half past eight on Thursday morning, November 12, 1874, that they +left Twichell's house in a carriage, drove to the East Hartford bridge, +and there took to the road, Twichell carrying a little bag and Clemens a +basket of lunch. + +The papers had got hold of it by this time, and were watching the result. +They did well enough that first day, following the old Boston stage road, +arriving at Westford about seven o'clock in the evening, twenty-eight +miles from the starting-point. There was no real hotel at Westford, only +a sort of tavern, but it afforded the luxury of rest. "Also," says +Twichell, in a memoranda of the trip, "a sublimely profane hostler whom +you couldn't jostle with any sort of mild remark without bringing down +upon yourself a perfect avalanche of oaths." + +This was a joy to Clemens, who sat behind the stove, rubbing his lame +knees and fairly reveling in Twichell's discomfiture in his efforts to +divert the hostler's blasphemy. There was also a mellow inebriate there +who recommended kerosene for Clemens's lameness, and offered as testimony +the fact that he himself had frequently used it for stiffness in his +joints after lying out all night in cold weather, drunk: altogether it +was a notable evening. + +Westford was about as far as they continued the journey afoot. Clemens +was exceedingly lame next morning, and had had a rather bad night; but he +swore and limped along six miles farther, to North Ashford, then gave it +up. They drove from North Ashford to the railway, where Clemens +telegraphed Redpath and Howells of their approach. To Redpath: + + We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days. This + demonstrates that the thing can be done. Shall now finish by rail. + Did you have any bets on us? + +To Howells: + + Arrive by rail at seven o'clock, the first of a series of grand + annual pedestrian tours from Hartford to Boston to be performed by + us. The next will take place next year. + +Redpath read his despatch to a lecture audience, with effect. Howells +made immediate preparation for receiving two way-worn, hungry men. He +telegraphed to Young's Hotel: "You and Twichell come right up to 37 +Concord Avenue, Cambridge, near observatory. Party waiting for you." + +They got to Howells's about nine o'clock, and the refreshments were +waiting. Miss Longfellow was there, Rose Hawthorne, John Fiske, Larkin +G. Mead, the sculptor, and others of their kind. Howells tells in his +book how Clemens, with Twichell, "suddenly stormed in," and immediately +began to eat and drink: + + I can see him now as he stood up in the midst of our friends, with + his head thrown back, and in his hand a dish of those escalloped + oysters without which no party in Cambridge was really a party, + exulting in the tale of his adventure, which had abounded in the + most original characters and amusing incidents at every mile of + their progress. + +Clemens gave a dinner, next night, to Howells, Aldrich, Osgood, and the +rest. The papers were full of jokes concerning the Boston expedition; +some even had illustrations, and it was all amusing enough at the time. + +Next morning, sitting in the writing-room of Young's Hotel, he wrote a +curious letter to Mrs. Clemens, though intended as much for Howells and +Aldrich as for her. It was dated sixty-one years ahead, and was a sort +of Looking Backwards, though that notable book had not yet been written. +It presupposed a monarchy in which the name of Boston has been changed to +"Limerick," and Hartford to "Dublin." In it, Twichell has become the +"Archbishop of Dublin," Howells "Duke of Cambridge," Aldrich "Marquis of +Ponkapog," Clemens the "Earl of Hartford." It was too whimsical and +delightful a fancy to be forgotten.--[This remarkable and amusing +document will be found under Appendix M, at the end of last volume.] + +A long time afterward, thirty-four year, he came across this letter. He +said: + +"It seems curious now that I should have been dreaming dreams of a future +monarchy and never suspect that the monarchy was already present and the +Republic a thing of the past." + +What he meant, was the political succession that had fostered those +commercial trusts which, in turn, had established party dominion. + +To Howells, on his return, Clemens wrote his acknowledgments, and added: + + Mrs. Clemens gets upon the verge of swearing, and goes tearing + around in an unseemly fury when I enlarge upon the delightful time + we had in Boston, and she not there to have her share. I have tried + hard to reproduce Mrs. Howells to her, and have probably not made a + shining success of it. + + + + +XCVIII + +"OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI" + +Howells had been urging Clemens to do something more for the Atlantic, +specifically something for the January number. Clemens cudgeled his +brains, but finally declared he must give it up: + + Mrs. Clemens has diligently persecuted me day by day with urgings to + go to work and do that something, but it's no use. I find I can't. + We are in such a state of worry and endless confusion that my head + won't go. + +Two hours later he sent another hasty line: + + I take back the remark that I can't write for the January number, + for Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods, and I got to + telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and + grandeur as I saw them (during four years) from the pilot-house. He + said, "What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!" I hadn't + thought of that before. Would you like a series of papers to run + through three months or six or nine--or about four months, say? + +Howells welcomed this offer as an echo of his own thought. He had come +from a piloting family himself, and knew the interest that Mark Twain +could put into such a series. + +Acting promptly under the new inspiration, Clemens forthwith sent the +first chapter of that monumental, that absolutely unique, series of +papers on Mississippi River life, which to-day constitutes one of his +chief claims to immortality. + +His first number was in the nature of an experiment. Perhaps, after all, +the idea would not suit the Atlantic readers. + +"Cut it, scarify it, reject it, handle it with entire freedom," he wrote, +and awaited the result. + +The "result" was that Howells expressed his delight: + + The piece about the Mississippi is capital. It almost made the + water in our ice-pitcher muddy as I read it. I don't think I shall + meddle much with it, even in the way of suggestion. The sketch of + the low-lived little town was so good that I could have wished there + was more of it. I want the sketches, if you can make them, every + month. + +Mark Twain was now really interested in this new literary venture. He +was fairly saturated with memories. He was writing on the theme that lay +nearest to his heart. Within ten days he reported that he had finished +three of the papers, and had begun the fourth. + +And yet I have spoken of nothing but piloting as a science so far, and I +doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject. And I don't care +to. Any Muggins can write about old days on the Mississippi of five +hundred different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble +about the piloting of that day, and no man has ever tried to scribble +about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time, and it is about the +only new subject I know of. + +He became so enthusiastic presently that he wanted to take Howells with +him on a trip down the Mississippi, with their wives for company, to go +over the old ground again and obtain added material enough for a book. +Howells was willing enough--agreed to go, in fact--but found it hard to +get away. He began to temporize and finally backed out. Clemens tried +to inveigle Osgood into the trip, but without success; also John Hay, but +Hay had a new baby at his house just then--"three days old, and with a +voice beyond price," he said, offering it as an excuse for non- +acceptance. So the plan for revisiting the river and the conclusion of +the book were held in abeyance for nearly seven years. + +Those early piloting chapters, as they appeared in the Atlantic, +constituted Mark Twain's best literary exhibit up to that time. In some +respects they are his best literature of any time. As pictures of an +intensely interesting phase of life, they are so convincing, so real, and +at the same time of such extraordinary charm and interest, that if the +English language should survive a thousand years, or ten times as long, +they would be as fresh and vivid at the end of that period as the day +they were penned. In them the atmosphere of, the river and its +environment--its pictures, its thousand aspects of life--are reproduced +with what is no less than literary necromancy. Not only does he make you +smell the river you can fairly hear it breathe. On the appearance of the +first number John Hay wrote: + +"It is perfect; no more nor less. I don't see how you do it," and added, +"you know what my opinion is of time not spent with you." + +Howells wrote: + + You are doing the science of piloting splendidly. Every word + interesting, and don't you drop the series till you've got every bit + of anecdote and reminiscence into it. + +He let Clemens write the articles to suit himself. Once he said: + + If I might put in my jaw at this point I should say, stick to actual + fact and character in the thing and give things in detail. All that + belongs to the old river life is novel, and is now mostly + historical. Don't write at any supposed Atlantic audience, but yarn + it off as if into my sympathetic ear. + +Clemens replied that he had no dread of the Atlantic audience; he +declared it was the only audience that did not require a humorist to +"paint himself striped and stand on his head to amuse it." + +The "Old Times" papers ran through seven numbers of the Atlantic. They +were reprinted everywhere by the newspapers, who in that day had little +respect for magazine copyrights, and were promptly pirated in book form +in Canada. They added vastly to Mark Twain's literary capital, though +Howells informs us that the Atlantic circulation did not thrive +proportionately, for the reason that the newspapers gave the articles to +their readers from advanced sheets of the magazine, even before the +latter could be placed on sale. It so happened that in the January +Atlantic, which contained the first of the Mississippi papers, there +appeared Robert Dale Owen's article on "Spiritualism," which brought such +humility both to author and publisher because of the exposure of the +medium Katie King, which came along while the magazine was in press. +Clemens has written this marginal note on the opening page of the copy at +Quarry Farm: + +While this number of the Atlantic was being printed the Katie King +manifestations were discovered to be the cheapest, wretchedest shams and +frauds, and were exposed in the newspapers. The awful humiliation of it +unseated Robert Dale Owen's reason, and he died in the madhouse. + + + + +XCIX + +A TYPEWRITER, AND A JOKE ON ALDRICH + +It was during the trip to Boston with Twichell that Mark Twain saw for +the first time what was then--a brand-new invention, a typewriter; or it +may have been during a subsequent visit, a week or two later. At all +events, he had the machine and was practising on it December 9, 1874, for +he wrote two letters on it that day, one to Howells and the other to +Orion Clemens. In the latter he says: + + I am trying to get the hang of this new-fangled writing-machine, but + am not making a shining success of it. However, this is the first + attempt I ever have made, and yet I perceive that I shall soon + easily acquire a fine facility in its use. I saw the thing in + Boston the other day and was greatly taken with it. + +He goes on to explain the new wonder, and on the whole his first attempt +is a very creditable performance. With his usual enthusiasm over an +innovation, he believes it is going to be a great help to him, and +proclaims its advantages. + +This is the letter to Howells, with the errors preserved: + + You needn't answer this; I am only practicing to get three; anothe + slip-up there; only practici?ng ti get the hang of the thing. I + notice I miss fire & get in a good many unnecessary letters & + punctuation marks. I am simply using you for a target to bang at. + Blame my cats, but this thing requires genius in order to work it + just right. + +In an article written long after he tells how he was with Nasby when he +first saw the machine in Boston through a window, and how they went in to +see it perform. In the same article he states that he was the first +person in the world to apply the type-machine to literature, and that he +thinks the story of Tom Sawyer was the first type-copied manuscript. +--[Tom Sawyer was not then complete, and had been laid aside. The first +type-copied manuscript was probably early chapters of the Mississippi +story, two discarded typewritten pages of which still exist.] + +The new enthusiasm ran its course and died. Three months later, when the +Remington makers wrote him for a recommendation of the machine, he +replied that he had entirely stopped using it. The typewriter was not +perfect in those days, and the keys did not always respond readily. +He declared it was ruining his morals--that it made him "want to swear." +He offered it to Howells because, he said, Howells had no morals anyway. +Howells hesitated, so Clemens traded the machine to Bliss for a side- +saddle. But perhaps Bliss also became afraid of its influence, for in +due time he brought it back. Howells, again tempted, hesitated, and this +time was lost. What eventually became of the machine is not history. + +One of those, happy Atlantic dinners which Howells tells of came about +the end of that year. It was at the Parker House, and Emerson was there; +and Aldrich, and the rest of that group. + +"Don't you dare to refuse the invitation," said Howells, and naturally +Clemens didn't, and wrote back: + + I want you to ask Mrs. Howells to let you stay all night at the + Parker House and tell lies and have an improving time, and take + breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you + and a fire. Can't you tell her it always makes you sick to go home + late at night or something like that? That sort of thing arouses + Mrs. Clemens's sympathies easily. + +Two memories of that old dinner remain to-day. Aldrich and Howells were +not satisfied with the kind of neckties that Mark Twain wore (the old- +fashioned black "string" tie, a Western survival), so they made him a +present of two cravats when he set out on his return for Hartford. Next +day he wrote: + + You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful-- + Mrs. Clemens. For months--I may even say years--she has shown an + unaccountable animosity toward my necktie, even getting up in the + night to take it with the tongs and blackguard it, sometimes also + getting so far as to threaten it. + + When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neckties, and that + they were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of + happiness until she found I was going to frame them; then all the + venom in her nature gathered itself together; insomuch that I, being + near to a door, went without, perceiving danger. + +It is recorded that eventually he wore the neckties, and returned no more +to the earlier mode. + +Another memory of that dinner is linked to a demand that Aldrich made of +Clemens that night, for his photograph. Clemens, returning to Hartford, +put up fifty-two different specimens in as many envelopes, with the idea +of sending one a week for a year. Then he concluded that this was too +slow a process, and for a week sent one every morning to "His Grace of +Ponkapog." + +Aldrich stood it for a few days, then protested. "The police," he said, +"are in the habit of swooping down upon a publication of that sort." + +On New-Year's no less than twenty pictures came at once--photographs and +prints of Mark Twain, his house, his family, his various belongings. +Aldrich sent a warning then that the perpetrator of this outrage was +known to the police as Mark Twain, alias "The Jumping Frog," a well-known +California desperado, who would be speedily arrested and brought to +Ponkapog to face his victim. This letter was signed "T. Bayleigh, Chief +of Police," and on the outside of the envelope there was a statement that +it would be useless for that person to send any more mail-matter, as the +post-office had been blown up. The jolly farce closed there. It was the +sort of thing that both men enjoyed. + +Aldrich was writing a story at this time which contained some Western +mining incident and environment. He sent the manuscript to Clemens for +"expert" consideration and advice. Clemens wrote him at great length and +in careful detail. He was fond of Aldrich, regarding him as one of the +most brilliant of men. Once, to Robert Louis Stevenson, he said: + + "Aldrich has never had his peer for prompt and pithy and witty and + humorous sayings. None has equaled him, certainly none has + surpassed him, in the felicity of phrasing with which he clothed + these children of his fancy. Aldrich is always brilliant; he can't + help it; he is a fire-opal set round with rose diamonds; when he is + not speaking you know that his dainty fancies are twinkling and + glimmering around in him; when he speaks the diamonds flash. Yes, + he is always brilliant, he will always be brilliant; he will be + brilliant in hell-you will see." + +Stevenson, smiling a chuckly smile, said, "I hope not." + +"Well, you will, and he will dim even those ruddy fires and look like a +transfigured Adonis backed against a pink sunset."--[North American +Review, September, 1906.] + + + + +C + +RAYMOND, MENTAL TELEGRAPHY, ETC. + +The Sellers play was given in Hartford, in January (1875), to as many +people as could crowd into the Opera House. Raymond had reached the +perfection of his art by that time, and the townsmen of Mark Twain saw +the play and the actor at their best. Kate Field played the part of +Laura Hawkins, and there was a Hartford girl in the company; also a +Hartford young man, who would one day be about as well known to playgoers +as any playwright or actor that America has produced. His name was +William Gillette, and it was largely due to Mark Twain that the author of +Secret Service and of the dramatic "Sherlock Holmes" got a fair public +start. Clemens and his wife loaned Gillette the three thousand dollars +which tided him through his period of dramatic education. Their faith in +his ability was justified. + +Hartford would naturally be enthusiastic on a first "Sellers-Raymond" +night. At the end of the fourth act there was an urgent demand for the +author of the play, who was supposed to be present. He was not there in +person, but had sent a letter, which Raymond read: + +MY DEAR RAYMOND,--I am aware that you are going to be welcomed to our +town by great audiences on both nights of your stay there, and I beg to +add my hearty welcome also, through this note. I cannot come to the +theater on either evening, Raymond, because there is something so +touching about your acting that I can't stand it. + +(I do not mention a couple of colds in my head, because I hardly mind +them as much as I would the erysipelas, but between you and me I would +prefer it if they were rights and lefts.) + +And then there is another thing. I have always taken a pride in earning +my living in outside places and spending it in Hartford; I have said that +no good citizen would live on his own people, but go forth and make it +sultry for other communities and fetch home the result; and now at this +late day I find myself in the crushed and bleeding position of fattening +myself upon the spoils of my brethren! Can I support such grief as this? +(This is literary emotion, you understand. Take the money at the door +just the same.) + +Once more I welcome you to Hartford, Raymond, but as for me let me stay +at home and blush. + + Yours truly, MARK. + +The play was equally successful wherever it went. It made what in that +day was regarded as a fortune. One hundred thousand dollars is hardly +too large an estimate of the amount divided between author and actor. +Raymond was a great actor in that part, as he interpreted it, though he +did not interpret it fully, or always in its best way. The finer side, +the subtle, tender side of Colonel Sellers, he was likely to overlook. +Yet, with a natural human self-estimate, Raymond believed he had created +a much greater part than Mark Twain had written. Doubtless from the +point of view of a number of people this was so, though the idea, was +naturally obnoxious to Clemens. In course of time their personal +relations ceased. + +Clemens that winter gave another benefit for Father Hawley. In reply to +an invitation to appear in behalf of the poor, he wrote that he had quit +the lecture field, and would not return to the platform unless driven +there by lack of bread. But he added: + +By the spirit of that remark I am debarred from delivering this proposed +lecture, and so I fall back upon the letter of it, and emerge upon the +platform for this last and final time because I am confronted by a lack +of bread-among Father Hawley's flock. + +He made an introductory speech at an old-fashioned spelling-bee, given at +the Asylum Hill Church; a breezy, charming talk of which the following is +a sample: + + I don't see any use in spelling a word right--and never did. I mean + I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of + spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook + all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. I + have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me; + there is such a breezy, unfettered originality about his + orthography. He always spells "kow" with a large "K." Now that is + just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It + gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests + to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind of a cow. + + He took part in the contest, and in spite of his early reputation, + was spelled down on the word "chaldron," which he spelled + "cauldron," as he had been taught, while the dictionary used as + authority gave that form as second choice. + +Another time that winter, Clemens read before the Monday Evening Club a +paper on "Universal Suffrage," which is still remembered by the surviving +members of that time. A paragraph or two will convey its purport: + + Our marvelous latter-day statesmanship has invented universal + suffrage. That is the finest feather in our cap. All that we + require of a voter is that he shall be forked, wear pantaloons + instead of petticoats, and bear a more or less humorous resemblance + to the reported image of God. He need not know anything whatever; + he may be wholly useless and a cumberer of the earth; he may even be + known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer + clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a + president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We + brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after + all, for we restrict when we come to the women. + +The Monday Evening Club was an organization which included the best minds +of Hartford. Dr. Horace Bushnell, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, and J. Hammond +Trumbull founded it back in the sixties, and it included such men as Rev. +Dr. Parker, Rev. Dr. Burton, Charles H. Clark, of the Courant, Warner, +and Twichell, with others of their kind. Clemens had been elected after +his first sojourn in England (February, 1873), and had then read a paper +on the "License of the Press." The club met alternate Mondays, from +October to May. There was one paper for each evening, and, after the +usual fashion of such clubs, the reading was followed by discussion. +Members of that time agree that Mark Twain's association with the club +had a tendency to give it a life, or at least an exhilaration, which it +had not previously known. His papers were serious in their purpose he +always preferred to be serious--but they evidenced the magic gift which +made whatever he touched turn to literary jewelry. + +Psychic theories and phenomena always attracted Mark Twain. In thought- +transference, especially, he had a frank interest--an interest awakened +and kept alive by certain phenomena--psychic manifestations we call them +now. In his association with Mrs. Clemens it not infrequently happened +that one spoke the other's thought, or perhaps a long-procrastinated +letter to a friend would bring an answer as quickly as mailed; but these +are things familiar to us all. A more startling example of thought- +communication developed at the time of which we are writing, an example +which raised to a fever-point whatever interest he may have had in the +subject before. (He was always having these vehement interests--rages we +may call them, for it would be inadequate to speak of them as fads, +inasmuch as they tended in the direction of human enlightenment, or +progress, or reform.) + +Clemens one morning was lying in bed when, as he says, suddenly a red-hot +new idea came whistling down into my camp." The idea was that the time +was ripe for a book that would tell the story of the Comstock-of the +Nevada silver mines. It seemed to him that the person best qualified for +the work was his old friend William Wright--Dan de Quille. He had not +heard from Dan, or of him, for a long time, but decided to write and urge +him to take up the idea. He prepared the letter, going fully into the +details of his plan, as was natural for him to do, then laid it aside +until he could see Bliss and secure his approval of the scheme from a +publishing standpoint. Just a week later, it was the 9th of March, a +letter came--a thick letter bearing a Nevada postmark, and addressed in a +handwriting which he presently recognized as De Quille's. To a visitor +who was present he said: + +"Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you everything this letter +contains--date, signature, and all without breaking the seal." + +He stated what he believed was in the letter. Then he opened it and +showed that he had correctly given its contents, which were the same in +all essential details as those of his own letter, not yet mailed. + +In an article on "Mental Telegraphy" (he invented the name) he relates +this instance, with others, and in 'Following the Equator' and elsewhere +he records other such happenings. It was one of the "mysteries" in which +he never lost interest, though his concern in it in time became a passive +one. + +The result of the De Quille manifestation, however, he has not recorded. +Clemens immediately wrote, urging Dan to come to Hartford for an extended +visit. De Quille came, and put in a happy spring in his old comrade's +luxurious home, writing 'The Big Bonanza', which Bliss successfully +published a year later. + +Mark Twain was continually inviting old friends to share his success with +him. Any comrade of former days found welcome in his home as often as he +would come, and for as long as he would stay. Clemens dropped his own +affairs to advise in their undertakings; and if their undertakings were +literary he found them a publisher. He did this for Joaquin Miller and +for Bret Harte, and he was always urging Goodman to make his house a +home. + +The Beecher-Tilton trial was the sensation of the spring of 1875, and +Clemens, in common with many others, was greatly worked up over it. The +printed testimony had left him decidedly in doubt as to Beecher's +innocence, though his blame would seem to have been less for the possible +offense than because of the great leader's attitude in the matter. To +Twichell he said: + +"His quibbling was fatal. Innocent or guilty, he should have made an +unqualified statement in the beginning." + +Together they attended one of the sessions, on a day when Beecher himself +was on the witness-stand. The tension was very great; the excitement was +painful. Twichell thought that Beecher appeared well under the stress of +examination and was deeply sorry for him; Clemens was far from convinced. + +The feeling was especially strong in Hartford, where Henry Ward Beecher's +relatives were prominent, and animosities grew out of it. They are all +forgotten now; most of those who cherished bitterness are dead. Any +feeling that Clemens had in the matter lasted but a little while. +Howells tells us that when he met him some months after the trial ended, +and was tempted to mention it, Clemens discouraged any discussion of the +event. Says Howells: + + He would only say the man had suffered enough; as if the man had + expiated his wrong, and he was not going to do anything to renew his + penalty. I found that very curious, very delicate. His continued + blame could not come to the sufferer's knowledge, but he felt it his + duty to forbear it. + +It was one hundred years, that 19th of April, since the battles of +Lexington and Concord, and there was to be a great celebration. The +Howellses had visited Hartford in March, and the Clemenses were invited +to Cambridge for the celebration. Only Clemens could go, which in the +event proved a good thing perhaps; for when Clemens and Howells set out +for Concord they did not go over to Boston to take the train, but decided +to wait for it at Cambridge. Apparently it did not occur to them that +the train would be jammed the moment the doors were opened at the Boston +station; but when it came along they saw how hopeless was their chance. +They had special invitations and passage from Boston, but these were only +mockeries now. It yeas cold and chilly, and they forlornly set out in +search of some sort of a conveyance. They tramped around in the mud and +raw wind, but vehicles were either filled or engaged, and drivers and +occupants were inclined to jeer at them. Clemens was taken with an acute +attack of indigestion, which made him rather dismal and savage. Their +effort finally ended with his trying to run down a tally-ho which was +empty inside and had a party of Harvard students riding atop. The +students, who did not recognize their would-be fare, enjoyed the race. +They encouraged their pursuer, and perhaps their driver, with merriment +and cheers. Clemens was handicapped by having to run in the slippery +mud, and soon "dropped by the wayside." + +"I am glad," says Howells, "I cannot recall what he said when he came +back to me." + +They hung about a little longer, then dragged themselves home, slipped +into the house, and built up a fine, cheerful fire on the hearth. They +proposed to practise a deception on Mrs. Howells by pretending they had +been to Concord and returned. But it was no use. Their statements were +flimsy, and guilt was plainly written on their faces. Howells recalls +this incident delightfully, and expresses the belief that the humor of +the situation was finally a greater pleasure to Clemens than the actual +visit to Concord would have been. + +Twichell did not have any such trouble in attending the celebration. He +had adventures (he was always having adventures), but they were of a more +successful kind. Clemens heard the tale of them when he returned to +Hartford. He wrote it to Howells: + + Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took + midnight train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by + rail at 7.30 A.M. for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P.M., + seeing everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw + everything there; traveled on top of a train to Boston (with + hundreds in company), deluged with dust, smoke, and cinders; yelled + and hurrahed all the way like a school-boy; lay flat down, to dodge + numerous bridges, and sailed into the depot howling with excitement + and as black as a chimneysweep; got to Young's Hotel at 7 P.M.; sat + down in the reading-room and immediately fell asleep; was promptly + awakened by a porter, who supposed he was drunk; wandered around an + hour and a half; then took 9 P.M. train, sat down in a smoking-car, + and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as the train + came into Hartford at 1.30 A.M. Thinks he had simply a glorious + time, and wouldn't have missed the Centennial for the world. He + would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge but he was too + dirty. I wouldn't have wanted him there; his appalling energy would + have been an insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and + me. + + + + +CI + +CONCLUDING "TOM SAWYER"--MARK TWAIN's "EDITORS" + +Meantime the "inspiration tank," as Clemens sometimes called it, had +filled up again. He had received from somewhere new afflatus for the +story of Tom and Huck, and was working on it steadily. The family +remained in Hartford, and early in July, under full head of steam, he +brought the story to a close. On the 5th he wrote Howells: + + I have finished the story and didn't take the chap beyond boyhood. + I believe it would be fatal to do it in any shape but + autobiographically, like Gil Blas. I perhaps made a mistake in not + writing it in the first person. If I went on now, and took him into + manhood, he would just lie, like all the one-horse men in + literature, and the reader would conceive a hearty contempt for him. + It is not a boy's book at all. It will only be read by adults. It + is only written for adults. + +He would like to see the story in the Atlantic, he said, but doubted the +wisdom of serialization. + +"By and by I shall take a boy of twelve and run him through life (in the +first person), but not Tam Sawyer, he would not make a good character for +it." From which we get the first glimpse of Huck's later adventures. + +Of course he wanted Howells to look at the story. It was a tremendous +favor to ask, he said, and added, "But I know of no other person whose +judgment I could venture to take, fully and entirely. Don't hesitate to +say no, for I know how your time is taxed, and I would have honest need +to blush if you said yes." + +"Send on your MS.," wrote Howells. "You've no idea what I may ask you to +do for me some day." + +But Clemens, conscience-stricken, "blushed and weakened," as he said. +When Howells insisted, he wrote: + + But I will gladly send it to you if you will do as follows: + dramatize it, if you perceive that you can, and take, for your + remuneration, half of the first $6,000 which I receive for its + representation on the stage. You could alter the plot entirely if + you chose. I could help in the work most cheerfully after you had + arranged the plot. I have my eye upon two young girls who can play + Tom and Huck. + +Howells in his reply urged. Clemens to do the playwriting himself. He +could never find time, he said, and he doubted whether he could enter +into the spirit of another man's story. Clemens did begin a +dramatization then or a little later, but it was not completed. Mrs. +Clemens, to whom he had read the story as it proceeded, was as anxious as +her husband for Howells's opinion, for it was the first extended piece of +fiction Mark Twain had undertaken alone. He carried the manuscript over +to Boston himself, and whatever their doubts may have been, Howells's +subsequent letter set them at rest. He wrote that he had sat up till one +in the morning to get to the end of it, simply because it was impossible +to leave off. + +It is altogether the best boy story I ever read. It will be an immense +success, but I think you ought to treat it explicitly as a boy's story; +grown-ups will enjoy it just as much if you do, and if you should put it +forth as a story of boys' character from the grown-up point of view you +give the wrong key to it. + +Viewed in the light of later events, there has never been any better +literary opinion than that--none that has been more fully justified. + +Clemens was delighted. He wrote concerning a point here and there, one +inquiry referring to the use of a certain strong word. Howells's reply +left no doubt: + + I'd have that swearing out in an instant. I suppose I didn't notice + it because the location was so familiar to my Western sense, and so + exactly the thing Huck would say, but it won't do for children. + +It was in the last chapter, where Huck relates to Tom the sorrows of +reform and tells how they comb him "all to thunder." In the original, +"They comb me all to hell," says Huck; which statement, one must agree, +is more effective, more the thing Huck would be likely to say. + +Clemens's acknowledgment of the correction was characteristic: + + Mrs. Clemens received the mail this morning, and the next minute she + lit into the study with danger in her eye and this demand on her + tongue, "Where is the profanity Mr. Howells speaks of?" Then I had + to miserably confess that I had left it out when reading the MS. to + her. Nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape + with my scalp. Does your wife give you rats, like that, when you go + a little one-sided? + +The Clemens family did not, go to Elmira that year. The children's +health seemed to require the sea-shore, and in August they went to +Bateman's Point, Rhode Island, where Clemens most of the time played +tenpins in an alley that had gone to ruin. The balls would not stay on +the track; the pins stood at inebriate angles. It reminded him of the +old billiard-tables of Western mining-camps, and furnished the same +uncertainty of play. It was his delight, after he had become accustomed +to the eccentricities of the alley, to invite in a stranger and watch his +suffering and his frantic effort to score. + + + + +CII + +"SKETCHES NEW AND OLD" + +The long-delayed book of Sketches, contracted for five years before, was +issued that autumn. "The Jumping Frog," which he had bought from Webb, +was included in the volume, also the French translation which Madame +Blanc (Th. Bentzon) had made for the Revue des deux mondes, with Mark +Twain's retranslation back into English, a most astonishing performance +in its literal rendition of the French idiom. One example will suffice +here. It is where the stranger says to Smiley, "I don't see no p'ints +about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." + +Says the French, retranslated: + +"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each +frog" (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait mieux qu'aucune +grenouille). (If that isn't grammar gone to seed then I count myself no +judge.--M. T.) + +"Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley; "possible that you you +comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing; +possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be but +an amateur. Of all manner (de toute maniere) I bet forty dollars that +she batter in jumping, no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras." + +He included a number of sketches originally published with the Frog, also +a selection from the "Memoranda" and Buffalo Express contributions, and +he put in the story of Auntie Cord, with some matter which had never +hitherto appeared. True Williams illustrated the book, but either it +furnished him no inspiration or he was allowed too much of another sort, +for the pictures do not compare with his earlier work. + +Among the new matter in the book were-"Some Fables for Good Old Boys and +Girls," in which certain wood creatures are supposed to make a scientific +excursion into a place at some time occupied by men. It is the most +pretentious feature of the book, and in its way about as good as any. +Like Gulliver's Travels, its object was satire, but its result is also +interest. + +Clemens was very anxious that Howells should be first to review this +volume. He had a superstition that Howells's verdicts were echoed by the +lesser reviewers, and that a book was made or damned accordingly; a +belief hardly warranted, for the review has seldom been written that +meant to any book the difference between success and failure. Howells's +review of Sketches may be offered as a case in point. It was highly +commendatory, much more so than the notice of the 'Innocents' had been, +or even that of 'Roughing It', also more extensive than the latter. Yet +after the initial sale of some twenty thousand copies, mainly on the +strength of the author's reputation, the book made a comparatively poor +showing, and soon lagged far behind its predecessors. + +We cannot judge, of course, the taste of that day, but it appears now an +unattractive, incoherent volume. The pictures were absurdly bad, the +sketches were of unequal merit. Many of them are amusing, some of them +delightful, but most of them seem ephemeral. If we except "The Jumping +Frog," and possibly "A True Story" (and the latter was altogether out of +place in the collection), there is no reason to suppose that any of its +contents will escape oblivion. The greater number of the sketches, as +Mark Twain himself presently realized and declared, would better have +been allowed to die. + +Howells did, however, take occasion to point out in his review, or at +least to suggest, the more serious side of Mark Twain. He particularly +called attention to "A True Story," which the reviewers, at the time of +its publication in the Atlantic, had treated lightly, fearing a lurking +joke in it; or it may be they had not read it, for reviewers are busy +people. Howells spoke of it as the choicest piece of work in the volume, +and of its "perfect fidelity to the tragic fact." He urged the reader to +turn to it again, and to read it as a "simple dramatic report of +reality," such as had been equaled by no other American writer. + +It was in this volume of sketches that Mark Twain first spoke in print +concerning copyright, showing the absurd injustice of discriminating +against literary ownership by statute of limitation. He did this in the +form of an open petition to Congress, asking that all property, real and +personal, should be put on the copyright basis, its period of ownership +limited to a "beneficent term of forty-two years." Generally this was +regarded as a joke, as in a sense it was; but like most of Mark Twain's +jokes it was founded on reason and justice. + +The approval with which it was received by his literary associates led +him to still further flights. He began a determined crusade for +international copyright laws. It was a transcendental beginning, but it +contained the germ of what, in the course of time, he would be largely +instrumental in bringing to a ripe and magnificent conclusion. In this +first effort he framed a petition to enact laws by which the United +States would declare itself to be for right and justice, regardless of +other nations, and become a good example to the world by refusing to +pirate the books of any foreign author. He wrote to Howells, urging him +to get Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and others to sign this +petition. + +I will then put a gentlemanly chap under wages, and send him personally +to every author of distinction in the country and corral the rest of the +signatures. Then I'll have the whole thing lithographed (about one +thousand copies), and move upon the President and Congress in person, but +in the subordinate capacity of the party who is merely the agent of +better and wiser men, or men whom the country cannot venture to laugh at. +I will ask the President to recommend the thing in his message (and if he +should ask me to sit down and frame the paragraph for him I should blush, +but still I would frame it). And then if Europe chooses to go on +stealing from us we would say, with noble enthusiasm, "American lawmakers +do steal, but not from foreign authors--not from foreign authors,".... +If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a +sweat to get Him into the Constitution, it would be better all around. + +The petition never reached Congress. Holmes agreed to sign it with a +smile, and the comment that governments were not in the habit of setting +themselves up as high moral examples, except for revenue. Longfellow +also pledged himself, as did a few others; but if there was any general +concurrence in the effort there is no memory of it now. Clemens +abandoned the original idea, but remained one of the most persistent and +influential advocates of copyright betterment, and lived to see most of +his dream fulfilled.--[For the petition concerning copyright term in the +United States, see Sketches New and Old. For the petition concerning +international copyright and related matters, see Appendix N, at the end +of last volume.] + + + + +CIII + +"ATLANTIC" DAYS + +It was about this period that Mark Twain began to exhibit openly his more +serious side; that is to say his advocacy of public reforms. His paper +on "Universal Suffrage" had sounded a first note, and his copyright +petitions were of the same spirit. In later years he used to say that he +had always felt it was his mission to teach, to carry the banner of moral +reconstruction, and here at forty we find him furnishing evidences of +this inclination. In the Atlantic for October, 1875, there was published +an unsigned three-page article entitled, "The Curious Republic of +Gondour." In this article was developed the idea that the voting +privilege should be estimated not by the individuals, but by their +intellectual qualifications. The republic of Gondour was a Utopia, where +this plan had been established: + + It was an odd idea and ingenious. You must understand the + constitution gave every man a vote; therefore that vote was a vested + right, and could not be taken away. But the constitution did not + say that certain individuals might not be given two votes or ten. + So an amendatory clause was inserted in a quiet way, a clause which + authorized the enlargement of the suffrage in certain cases to be + specified by statute.... + + The victory was complete. The new law was framed and passed. Under + it every citizen, howsoever poor or ignorant, possessed one vote, so + universal suffrage still reigned; but if a man possessed a good + common-school education and no money he had two votes, a high-school + education gave him four; if he had property, likewise, to the value + of three thousand sacos he wielded one more vote; for every fifty + thousand sacos a man added to his property, he was entitled to + another vote; a University education entitled a man to nine votes, + even though he owned no property. + +The author goes on to show the beneficent results of this enaction; how +the country was benefited and glorified by this stimulus toward +enlightenment and industry. No one ever suspected that Mark Twain was +the author of this fable. It contained almost no trace of his usual +literary manner. Nevertheless he wrote it, and only withheld his name, +as he did in a few other instances, in the fear that the world might +refuse to take him seriously over his own signature or nom de plume. + +Howells urged him to follow up the "Gondour" paper; to send some more +reports from that model land. But Clemens was engaged in other things by +that time, and was not pledged altogether to national reforms. + +He was writing a skit about a bit of doggerel which was then making +nights and days unhappy for many undeserving persons who in an evil +moment had fallen upon it in some stray newspaper corner. A certain car +line had recently adopted the "punch system," and posted in its cars, for +the information of passengers and conductor, this placard: + +A Blue Trip Slip for an 8 Cents Fare, +A Buff Trip Slip for a 6 Cents Fare, +A Pink Trip Slip for a 3 Cents Fare, +For Coupon And Transfer, Punch The Tickets. + +Noah Brooks and Isaac Bromley were riding down-town one evening on the +Fourth Avenue line, when Bromley said: + +"Brooks, it's poetry. By George, it's poetry!" + +Brooks followed the direction of Bromley's finger and read the card of +instructions. They began perfecting the poetic character of the notice, +giving it still more of a rhythmic twist and jingle; arrived at the +Tribune office, W. C. Wyckoff, scientific editor, and Moses P. Handy lent +intellectual and poetic assistance, with this result: + + Conductor, when you receive a fare, + + Punch in the presence of the passenjare! + A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, + A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, + A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare. + Punch in the presence of the passenjare! + + CHORUS + Punch, brothers! Punch with care! + Punch in the presence of the passenjare! + +It was printed, and street-car poetry became popular. Different papers +had a turn at it, and each usually preceded its own effort with all other +examples, as far as perpetrated. Clemens discovered the lines, and on +one of their walks recited them to Twichell. "A Literary Nightmare" was +written a few days later. In it the author tells how the jingle took +instant and entire possession of him and went waltzing through his brain; +how, when he had finished his breakfast, he couldn't tell whether he had +eaten anything or not; and how, when he went to finish the novel he was +writing, and took up his pen, he could only get it to say: + +Punch in the presence of the passenjare. + +He found relief at last in telling it to his reverend friend, that is, +Twichell, upon whom he unloaded it with sad results. + +It was an amusing and timely skit, and is worth reading to-day. Its +publication in the Atlantic had the effect of waking up horse-car poetry +all over the world. Howells, going to dine at Ernest Longfellow's the +day following its appearance, heard his host and Tom Appleton urging each +other to "Punch with care." The Longfellow ladies had it by heart. +Boston was devastated by it. At home, Howells's children recited it to +him in chorus. The streets were full of it; in Harvard it became an +epidemic. + +It was transformed into other tongues. Even Swinburne, the musical, is +said to have done a French version for the 'Revue des deux mondes'*. A +St. Louis magazine, The Western, found relief in a Latin anthem with this +chorus: + +Pungite, fratres, pungite, +Pungite cum amore, +Pungite pro vectore, +Diligentissime pungite. + + + * LE CHANT DU CONDUCTEUR + + Ayant ete paye, le conducteur + Percera en pleine vue du voyageur, + Quand il regoit trois sous un coupon vert, + Un coupon jaune pour six sous c'est l'affaire, + Et pour huit sous c'est un coupon couleur + De rose, en pleine vue du voyageur. + + CHOEUR + Donc, percez soigneusement, mes freres + Tout en pleine vue des voyageurs, etc. + + + + + +CIV + +MARK TWAIN AND HIS WIFE + +Clemens and his wife traveled to Boston for one of those happy fore- +gatherings with the Howellses, which continued, at one end of the journey +or another, for so many years. There was a luncheon with Longfellow at +Craigie House, and, on the return to Hartford, Clemens reported to +Howells how Mrs. Clemens had thrived on the happiness of the visit. Also +he confesses his punishment for the usual crimes: + + I "caught it" for letting Mrs. Howells bother and bother about her + coffee, when it was a "good deal better than we get at home." I + "caught it" for interrupting Mrs. C. at the last moment and losing + her the opportunity to urge you not to forget to send her that MS. + when the printers are done with it. I "caught it" once more for + personating that drunken Colonel James. I "caught it" for + mentioning that Mr. Longfellow's picture was slightly damaged; and + when, after a lull in the storm, I confessed, shamefacedly, that I + had privately suggested to you that we hadn't any frames, and that + if you wouldn't mind hinting to Mr. Houghton, etc., etc., etc., the + madam was simply speechless for the space of a minute. Then she + said: + + "How could you, Youth! The idea of sending Mr. Howells, with his + sensitive nature, upon such a repulsive er--" + + "Oh, Howells won't mind it! You don't know Howells. Howells is a + man who--" + + She was gone. But George was the first person she stumbled on in + the hall, so she took it out of George. I am glad of that, because + it saved the babies. + +Clemens used to admit, at a later day, that his education did not advance +by leaps and bounds, but gradually, very gradually; and it used to give +him a pathetic relief in those after-years, when that sweet presence had +gone out of his life, to tell the way of it, to confess over-fully, +perhaps, what a responsibility he had been to her. + +He used to tell how, for a long time, he concealed his profanity from +her; how one morning, when he thought the door was shut between their +bedroom and the bathroom, he was in there dressing and shaving, +accompanying these trying things with language intended only for the +strictest privacy; how presently, when he discovered a button off the +shirt he intended to put on, he hurled it through the window into the +yard with appropriate remarks, followed it with another shirt that was in +the same condition, and added certain collars and neckties and bath-room +requisites, decorating the shrubbery outside, where the people were going +by to church; how in this extreme moment he heard a slight cough and +turned to find that the door was open! There was only one door to the +bath-room, and he knew he had to pass her. He felt pale and sick, and +sat down for a few moments to consider. He decided to assume that she +was asleep, and to walk out and through the room, head up, as if he had +nothing on his conscience. He attempted it, but without success. Half- +way across the room he heard a voice suddenly repeat his last terrific +remark. He turned to see her sitting up in bed, regarding him with a +look as withering as she could find in her gentle soul. The humor of it +struck him. + +"Livy," he said, "did it sound like that?" + +"Of course it did," she said, "only worse. I wanted you to hear just how +it sounded." + +"Livy," he said, "it would pain me to think that when I swear it sounds +like that. You got the words right, Livy, but you don't know the tune." + +Yet he never willingly gave her pain, and he adored her and gloried in +her dominion, his life long. Howells speaks of his beautiful and tender +loyalty to her as the "most moving quality of his most faithful soul." + +It was a greater part of him than the love of most men for their wives, +and she merited all the worship he could give her, all the devotion, all +the implicit obedience, by her surpassing force and beauty of character. + +She guarded his work sacredly; and reviewing the manuscripts which he was +induced to discard, and certain edited manuscripts, one gets a partial +idea of what the reading world owes to Olivia Clemens. Of the discarded. +manuscripts (he seems seldom to have destroyed them) there are a +multitude, and among them all scarcely one that is not a proof of her +sanity and high regard for his literary honor. They are amusing--some of +them; they are interesting--some of them; they are strong and virile-- +some of them; but they are unworthy--most of them, though a number remain +unfinished because theme or interest failed. + +Mark Twain was likely to write not wisely but too much, piling up +hundreds of manuscript pages only because his brain was thronging as with +a myriad of fireflies, a swarm of darting, flashing ideas demanding +release. As often as not he began writing with only a nebulous idea of +what he proposed to do. He would start with a few characters and +situations, trusting in Providence to supply material as needed. So he +was likely to run ashore any time. As for those other attempts--stories +"unavailable" for one reason or another--he was just as apt to begin +those as the better sort, for somehow he could never tell the difference. +That is one of the hall-marks of genius--the thing which sharply +differentiates genius from talent. Genius is likely to rate a literary +disaster as its best work. Talent rarely makes that mistake. + +Among the abandoned literary undertakings of these early years of +authorship there is the beginning of what was doubtless intended to +become a book, "The Second Advent," a story which opens with a very +doubtful miraculous conception in Arkansas, and leads only to grotesquery +and literary disorder. There is another, "The Autobiography of a Damn +Fool," a burlesque on family history, hopelessly impossible; yet he began +it with vast enthusiasm and, until he allowed her to see the manuscript, +thought it especially good. "Livy wouldn't have it," he said, "so I gave +it up." There is another, "The Mysterious Chamber," strong and fine in +conception, vividly and intensely interesting; the story of a young lover +who is accidentally locked behind a secret door in an old castle and +cannot announce himself. He wanders at last down into subterranean +passages beneath the castle, and he lives in this isolation for twenty +years. The question of sustenance was the weak point in the story. +Clemens could invent no way of providing it, except by means of a waste +or conduit from the kitchen into which scraps of meat, bread, and other +items of garbage were thrown. This he thought sufficient, but Mrs. +Clemens did not highly regard such a literary device. Clemens could +think of no good way to improve upon it, so this effort too was consigned +to the penal colony, a set of pigeonholes kept in his study. To Howells +and others, when they came along, he would read the discarded yarns, and +they were delightful enough for such a purpose, as delightful as the +sketches which every artist has, turned face to the wall. + +"Captain Stormfield" lay under the ban for many a year, though never +entirely abandoned. This manuscript was even recommended for publication +by Howells, who has since admitted that it would not have done then; and +indeed, in its original, primitive nakedness it would hardly have done +even in this day of wider toleration. + +It should be said here that there is not the least evidence (and the +manuscripts are full of evidence) that Mrs. Clemens was ever super- +sensitive, or narrow, or unliterary in her restraints. She became his +public, as it were, and no man ever had a more open-minded, clear-headed +public than that. For Mark Twain's reputation it would have been better +had she exercised her editorial prerogative even more actively--if, in +her love for him and her jealousy of his reputation, she had been even +more severe. She did all that lay in her strength, from the beginning to +the end, and if we dwell upon this phase of their life together it is +because it is so large a part of Mark Twain's literary story. On her +birthday in the year we are now closing (1875) he wrote her a letter +which conveys an acknowledgment of his debt. + +LIVY DARLING,--Six years have gone by since I made my first great success +in life and won you, and thirty years have passed since Providence made +preparation for that happy success by sending you into the world. Every +day we live together adds to the security of my confidence that we can +never any more wish to be separated than we can imagine a regret that we +were ever joined. You are dearer to me to-day, my child, than you were +upon the last anniversary of this birthday; you were dearer then than you +were a year before; you have grown more and more dear from the first of +those anniversaries, and I do not doubt that this precious progression +will continue on to the end. + +Let us look forward to the coming anniversaries, with their age and their +gray hairs, without fear and without depression, trusting and believing +that the love we bear each other will be sufficient to make them blessed. + +So, with abounding affection for you and our babies I hail this day that +brings you the matronly grace and dignity of three decades! + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume I, Part 2 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY, 1866-1875 by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME II, Part 1: 1875-1886 + + + +CV + +MARK TWAIN AT FORTY + +In conversation with John Hay, Hay said to Clemens: + +"A man reaches the zenith at forty, the top of the hill. From that time +forward he begins to descend. If you have any great undertaking ahead, +begin it now. You will never be so capable again." + +Of course this was only a theory of Hay's, a rule where rules do not +apply, where in the end the problem resolves itself into a question of +individualities. John Hay did as great work after forty as ever before, +so did Mark Twain, and both of them gained in intellectual strength and +public honor to the very end. + +Yet it must have seemed to many who knew him, and to himself, like +enough, that Mark Twain at forty had reached the pinnacle of his fame and +achievement. His name was on every lip; in whatever environment +observation and argument were likely to be pointed with some saying or +anecdote attributed, rightly or otherwise, to Mark Twain. "As Mark Twain +says," or, "You know that story of Mark Twain's," were universal and +daily commonplaces. It was dazzling, towering fame, not of the best or +most enduring kind as yet, but holding somewhere within it the structure +of immortality. + +He was in a constant state of siege, besought by all varieties and +conditions of humanity for favors such as only human need and abnormal +ingenuity can invent. His ever-increasing mail presented a marvelous +exhibition of the human species on undress parade. True, there were +hundreds of appreciative tributes from readers who spoke only out of a +heart's gratitude; but there were nearly as great a number who came with +a compliment, and added a petition, or a demand, or a suggestion, usually +unwarranted, often impertinent. Politicians, public speakers, aspiring +writers, actors, elocutionists, singers, inventors (most of them he had +never seen or heard of) cheerfully asked him for a recommendation as to +their abilities and projects. + +Young men wrote requesting verses or sentiments to be inscribed in young +ladies' autograph albums; young girls wrote asking him to write the story +of his life, to be used as a school composition; men starting obscure +papers coolly invited him to lend them his name as editor, assuring him +that he would be put to no trouble, and that it would help advertise his +books; a fruitful humorist wrote that he had invented some five thousand +puns, and invited Mark Twain to father this terrific progeny in book form +for a share of the returns. But the list is endless. He said once: + +"The symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax, for +every human being has one concealed about him somewhere, and is always +seeking the opportunity to grind it." + +Even P. T. Barnum had an ax, the large ax of advertising, and he was +perpetually trying to grind it on Mark Twain's reputation; in other +words, trying to get him to write something that would help to popularize +"The Greatest Show on Earth." + +There were a good many curious letters-letters from humorists, would-be +and genuine. A bright man in Duluth sent him an old Allen "pepper-box" +revolver with the statement that it had been found among a pile of bones +under a tree, from the limb of which was suspended a lasso and a buffalo +skull; this as evidence that the weapon was the genuine Allen which Bemis +had lost on that memorable Overland buffalo-hunt. Mark Twain enjoyed +that, and kept the old pepper-box as long as he lived. There were +letters from people with fads; letters from cranks of every description; +curious letters even from friends. Reginald Cholmondeley, that lovely +eccentric of Condover Hall, where Mr. and Mrs. Clemens had spent some +halcyon days in 1873, wrote him invitations to be at his castle on a +certain day, naming the hour, and adding that he had asked friends to +meet him. Cholmondeley had a fancy for birds, and spared nothing to +improve his collection. Once he wrote Clemens asking him to collect for +him two hundred and five American specimens, naming the varieties and the +amount which he was to pay for each. Clemens was to catch these birds +and bring them over to England, arriving at Condover on a certain day, +when there would be friends to meet him, of course. + +Then there was a report which came now and then from another English +castle--the minutes of a certain "Mark Twain Club," all neatly and +elaborately written out, with the speech of each member and the +discussions which had followed--the work, he found out later, of another +eccentric; for there was no Mark Twain Club, the reports being just the +mental diversion of a rich young man, with nothing else to do.--[In +Following the Equator Clemens combined these two pleasant characters in +one story, with elaborations.] + +Letters came queerly addressed. There is one envelope still in existence +which bears Clemens's name in elaborate design and a very good silhouette +likeness, the work of some talented artist. "Mark Twain, United States," +was a common address; "Mark Twain, The World," was also used; "Mark +Twain, Somewhere," mailed in a foreign country, reached him promptly, and +"Mark Twain, Anywhere," found its way to Hartford in due season. Then +there was a letter (though this was later; he was abroad at the time), +mailed by Brander Matthews and Francis Wilson, addressed, "Mark Twain, +God Knows Where." It found him after traveling half around the world on +its errand, and in his answer he said, "He did." Then some one sent a +letter addressed, "The Devil Knows Where." Which also reached him, and +he answered, "He did, too." + +Surely this was the farthest horizon of fame. + +Countless Mark Twain anecdotes are told of this period, of every period, +and will be told and personally vouched for so long as the last soul of +his generation remains alive. For seventy years longer, perhaps, there +will be those who will relate "personal recollections" of Mark Twain. +Many of them will be interesting; some of them will be true; most of them +will become history at last. It is too soon to make history of much of +this drift now. It is only safe to admit a few authenticated examples. + +It happens that one of the oftenest-told anecdotes has been the least +elaborated. It is the one about his call on Mrs. Stowe. Twichell's +journal entry, set down at the time, verifies it: + +Mrs. Stowe was leaving for Florida one morning, and Clemens ran over +early to say good-by. On his return Mrs. Clemens regarded him +disapprovingly: + +"Why, Youth," she said, "you haven't on any collar and tie." + +He said nothing, but went up to his room, did up these items in a neat +package, and sent it over by a servant, with a line: + +"Herewith receive a call from the rest of me." + +Mrs. Stowe returned a witty note, in which she said that he had +discovered a new principle, the principle of making calls by instalments, +and asked whether, in extreme cases, a man might not send his hat, coat, +and boots and be otherwise excused. + +Col. Henry Watterson tells the story of an after-theater supper at the +Brevoort House, where Murat Halstead, Mark Twain, and himself were +present. A reporter sent in a card for Colonel Watterson, who was about +to deny himself when Clemens said: + +"Give it to me; I'll fix it." And left the table. He came back in a +moment and beckoned to Watterson. + +"He is young and as innocent as a lamb," he said. "I represented myself +as your secretary. I said that you were not here, but if Mr. Halstead +would do as well I would fetch him out. I'll introduce you as Halstead, +and we'll have some fun." + +Now, while Watterson and Halstead were always good friends, they were +political enemies. It was a political season and the reporter wanted +that kind of an interview. Watterson gave it to him, repudiating every +principle that Halstead stood for, reversing him in every expressed +opinion. Halstead was for hard money and given to flying the "bloody +shirt" of sectional prejudice; Watterson lowered the bloody shirt and +declared for greenbacks in Halstead's name. Then he and Clemens returned +to the table and told frankly what they had done. Of course, nobody +believed it. The report passed the World night-editor, and appeared, +next morning. Halstead woke up, then, and wrote a note to the World, +denying the interview throughout. The World printed his note with the +added line: + +"When Mr. Halstead saw our reporter he had dined." + +It required John Hay (then on the Tribune) to place the joke where it +belonged. + +There is a Lotos Club anecdote of Mark Twain that carries the internal +evidence of truth. Saturday evening at the Lotos always brought a +gathering of the "wits," and on certain evenings--"Hens and chickens" +nights--each man had to tell a story, make a speech, or sing a song. On +one evening a young man, an invited guest, was called upon and recited a +very long poem. + +One by one those who sat within easy reach of the various exits melted +away, until no one remained but Mark Twain. Perhaps he saw the +earnestness of the young man, and sympathized with it. He may have +remembered a time when he would have been grateful for one such attentive +auditor. At all events, he sat perfectly still, never taking his eyes +from the reader, never showing the least inclination toward discomfort or +impatience, but listening, as with rapt attention, to the very last line. +Douglas Taylor, one of the faithful Saturday-night members, said to him +later: + +"Mark, how did you manage to sit through that dreary, interminable poem?" + +"Well," he said, "that young man thought he had a divine message to +deliver, and I thought he was entitled to at least one auditor, so I +stayed with him." + +We may believe that for that one auditor the young author was willing to +sacrifice all the others. + +One might continue these anecdotes for as long as the young man's poem +lasted, and perhaps hold as large an audience. But anecdotes are not all +of history. These are set down because they reflect a phase of the man +and an aspect of his life at this period. For at the most we can only +present an angle here and there, and tell a little of the story, letting +each reader from his fancy construct the rest. + + + + +CVI + +HIS FIRST STAGE APPEARANCE + +Once that winter the Monday Evening Club met at Mark Twain's home, and +instead of the usual essay he read them a story: "The Facts Concerning +the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut." It was the story of a +man's warfare with a personified conscience--a, sort of "William Wilson" +idea, though less weird, less somber, and with more actuality, more +verisimilitude. It was, in fact, autobiographical, a setting-down of the +author's daily self-chidings. The climax, where conscience is slain, is +a startling picture which appeals to most of humanity. So vivid is it +all, that it is difficult in places not to believe in the reality of the +tale, though the allegory is always present. + +The club was deeply impressed by the little fictional sermon. One of its +ministerial members offered his pulpit for the next Sunday if Mark Twain +would deliver it to his congregation. Howells welcomed it for the +Atlantic, and published it in June. It was immensely successful at the +time, though for some reason it seems to be little known or remembered +to-day. Now and then a reader mentions it, always with enthusiasm. +Howells referred to it repeatedly in his letters, and finally persuaded +Clemens to let Osgood bring it out, with "A True Story," in dainty, +booklet form. If the reader does not already know the tale, it will pay +him to look it up and read it, and then to read it again. + +Meantime Tom Sawyer remained unpublished. + +"Get Bliss to hurry it up!" wrote Howells. "That boy is going to make a +prodigious hit." + +But Clemens delayed the book, to find some means to outwit the Canadian +pirates, who thus far had laid hands on everything, and now were +clamoring at the Atlantic because there was no more to steal. + +Moncure D. Conway was in America, and agreed to take the manuscript of +Sawyer to London and arrange for its publication and copyright. In +Conway's Memoirs he speaks of Mark Twain's beautiful home, comparing it +and its surroundings with the homes of Surrey, England. He tells of an +entertainment given to Harriet Beecher Stowe, a sort of animated jarley +wax-works. Clemens and Conway went over as if to pay a call, when +presently the old lady was rather startled by an invasion of costumed. +figures. Clemens rose and began introducing them in his gay, fanciful +fashion. He began with a knight in full armor, saying, as if in an +aside, "Bring along that tinshop," and went on to tell the romance of the +knight's achievements. + +Conway read Tom Sawyer on the ship and was greatly excited over it. +Later, in London, he lectured on it, arranging meantime for its +publication with Chatto & Windus, thus establishing a friendly business +relation with that firm which Mark Twain continued during his lifetime. + +Clemens lent himself to a number of institutional amusements that year, +and on the 26th of April, 1876, made his first public appearance on the +dramatic stage. + +It was an amateur performance, but not of the usual kind. There was +genuine dramatic talent in Hartford, and the old play of the "Loan of the +Lover," with Mark Twain as Peter Spuyk and Miss Helen Smith--[Now Mrs. +William W. Ellsworth.]--as Gertrude, with a support sufficient for their +needs, gave a performance that probably furnished as much entertainment +as that pleasant old play is capable of providing. Mark Twain had in him +the making of a great actor. Henry Irving once said to him: + + +"You made a mistake by not adopting the stage as a profession. You would +have made even a greater actor than a writer." + +Yet it is unlikely that he would ever have been satisfied with the stage. +He had too many original literary ideas. He would never have been +satisfied to repeat the same part over and over again, night after night +from week to month, and from month to year. He could not stick to the +author's lines even for one night. In his performance of the easy-going, +thick-headed Peter Spuyk his impromptu additions to the lines made it +hard on the company, who found their cues all at sixes and sevens, but it +delighted the audience beyond measure. No such impersonation of that. +character was ever given before, or ever will be given again. It was +repeated with new and astonishing variations on the part of Peter, and it +could have been put on for a long run. Augustin Daly wrote immediately, +offering the Fifth Avenue Theater for a "benefit" performance, and again, +a few days later, urging acceptance. "Not for one night, but for many." + +Clemens was tempted, no doubt. Perhaps, if he had yielded, he would +today have had one more claim on immortality. + + + + +CVII + +HOWELLS, CLEMENS, AND "GEORGE" + +Howells and Clemens were visiting back and forth rather oftener just +then. Clemens was particularly fond of the Boston crowd--Aldrich, +Fields, Osgood, and the rest--delighting in those luncheons or dinners +which Osgood, that hospitable publisher, was always giving on one pretext +or another. No man ever loved company more than Osgood, or to play the +part of host and pay for the enjoyment of others. His dinners were +elaborate affairs, where the sages and poets and wits of that day (and +sometimes their wives) gathered. They were happy reunions, those fore- +gatherings, though perhaps a more intimate enjoyment was found at the +luncheons, where only two or three were invited, usually Aldrich, +Howells, and Clemens, and the talk continued through the afternoon and +into the deepening twilight, such company and such twilight as somehow +one seems never to find any more. + +On one of the visits which Howells made to Hartford that year he took his +son John, then a small boy, with him. John was about six years old at +the time, with his head full of stories of Aladdin, and of other Arabian +fancies. On the way over his father said to him: + +"Now, John, you will see a perfect palace." + +They arrived, and John was awed into silence by the magnificence and +splendors of his surroundings until they went to the bath-room to wash +off the dust of travel. There he happened to notice a cake of pink soap. + +"Why," he said, "they've even got their soap painted!" Next morning he +woke early--they were occupying the mahogany room on the ground floor-- +and slipping out through the library, and to the door of the dining-room, +he saw the colored butler, George--the immortal George--setting the +breakfast-table. He hurriedly tiptoed back and whispered to his father: + +"Come quick! The slave is setting the table!" + +This being the second mention of George, it seems proper here that he +should be formally presented. Clemens used to say that George came one +day to wash windows and remained eighteen years. He was precisely the +sort of character that Mark Twain loved. He had formerly been the body- +servant of an army general and was typically racially Southern, with +those delightful attributes of wit and policy and gentleness which go +with the best type of negro character. The children loved him no less +than did their father. Mrs. Clemens likewise had a weakness for George, +though she did not approve of him. George's morals were defective. He +was an inveterate gambler. He would bet on anything, though prudently +and with knowledge. He would investigate before he invested. If he +placed his money on a horse, he knew the horse's pedigree and the +pedigree of the horses against it, also of their riders. If he invested +in an election, he knew all about the candidates. He had agents among +his own race, and among the whites as well, to supply him with +information. He kept them faithful to him by lending them money--at +ruinous interest. He buttonholed Mark Twain's callers while he was +removing their coats concerning the political situation, much to the +chagrin of Mrs. Clemens, who protested, though vainly, for the men liked +George and his ways, and upheld him in his iniquities. + +Mrs. Clemens's disapproval of George reached the point, now and then, +where she declared he could not remain. + +She even discharged him once, but next morning George was at the +breakfast-table, in attendance, as usual. Mrs. Clemens looked at him +gravely: + +"George," she said, "didn't I discharge you yesterday?" + +"Yes, Mis' Clemens, but I knew you couldn't get along without me, so I +thought I'd better stay a while." + +In one of the letters to Howells, Clemens wrote: + +When George first came he was one of the most religious of men. He had +but one fault--young George Washington's. But I have trained him; and +now it fairly breaks Mrs. Clemens's heart to hear him stand at that front +door and lie to an unwelcome visitor. + +George was a fine diplomat. He would come up to the billiard-room with a +card or message from some one waiting below, and Clemens would fling his +soul into a sultry denial which became a soothing and balmy subterfuge +before it reached the front door. + +The "slave" must have been setting the table in good season, for the +Clemens breakfasts were likely to be late. They usually came along about +nine o'clock, by which time Howells and John were fairly clawing with +hunger. + +Clemens did not have an early appetite, but when it came it was a good +one. Breakfast and dinner were his important meals. He seldom ate at +all during the middle of the day, though if guests were present he would +join them at luncheon-time and walk up and down while they were eating, +talking and gesticulating in his fervent, fascinating way. Sometimes +Mrs. Clemens would say: + +"Oh, Youth, do come and sit down with us. We can listen so much better." + +But he seldom did. At dinner, too, it was his habit, between the +courses, to rise from the table and walk up and down the room, waving his +napkin and talking!--talking in a strain and with a charm that he could +never quite equal with his pen. It's the opinion of most people who knew +Mark Twain personally that his impromptu utterances, delivered with that +ineffable quality of speech, manifested the culmination of his genius. + +When Clemens came to Boston the Howells household was regulated, or +rather unregulated, without regard to former routine. Mark Twain's +personality was of a sort that unconsciously compelled the general +attendance of any household. The reader may recall Josh Billings's +remark on the subject. Howells tells how they kept their guest to +themselves when he visited their home in Cambridge, permitting him to +indulge in as many unconventions as he chose; how Clemens would take a +room at the Parker House, leaving the gas burning day and night, and +perhaps arrive at Cambridge, after a dinner or a reading, in evening +dress and slippers, and joyously remain with them for a day or more in +that guise, slipping on an overcoat and a pair of rubbers when they went +for a walk. Also, how he smoked continuously in every room of the house, +smoked during every waking moment, and how Howells, mindful of his +insurance, sometimes slipped in and removed the still-burning cigar after +he was asleep. + +Clemens had difficulty in getting to sleep in that earlier day, and for a +time found it soothing to drink a little champagne on retiring. Once, +when he arrived in Boston, Howells said: + +"Clemens, we've laid in a bottle of champagne for you." + +But he answered: + +"Oh, that's no good any more. Beer's the thing." + +So Howells provided the beer, and always afterward had a vision of his +guest going up-stairs that night with a pint bottle under each arm. + +He invented other methods of inducing slumber as the years went by, and +at one time found that this precious boon came more easily when he +stretched himself on the bath-room floor. + +He was a perpetual joy to the Howells family when he was there, even +though the household required a general reorganization when he was gone. + +Mildred Howells remembers how, as a very little girl, her mother +cautioned her not to ask for anything she wanted at the table when +company was present, but to speak privately of it to her. Miss Howells +declares that while Mark Twain was their guest she nearly starved because +it was impossible to get her mother's attention; and Mrs. Howells, after +one of those visits of hilarity and disorder, said: + +"Well, it 'most kills me, but it pays," a remark which Clemens vastly +enjoyed. Howells himself once wrote: + +Your visit was a perfect ovation for us; we never enjoy anything so much +as those visits of yours. The smoke and the Scotch and the late hours +almost kill us; but we look each other in the eyes when you are gone, and +say what a glorious time it was, and air the library, and begin sleeping +and longing to have you back again.... + + + + +CVIII + +SUMMER LABORS AT QUARRY FARM + +They went to Elmira, that summer of '76, to be "hermits and eschew caves +and live in the sun," as Clemens wrote in a letter to Dr. Brown. They +returned to the place as to Paradise: Clemens to his study and the books +which he always called for, Mrs. Clemens to a blessed relief from social +obligations, the children to the shady play-places, the green, sloping +hill, where they could race and tumble, and to all their animal friends. + +Susy was really growing up. She had had several birthdays, quite grand +affairs, when she had been brought down in the morning, decked, and with +proper ceremonies, with subsequent celebration. She was a strange, +thoughtful child, much given to reflecting on the power and presence of +infinity, for she was religiously taught. Down in the city, one night, +there was a grand display of fireworks, and the hilltop was a good place +from which to enjoy it; but it grew late after a little, and Susy was +ordered to bed. She said, thoughtfully: + +"I wish I could sit up all night, as God does." + +The baby, whom they still called "Bay," was a tiny, brown creature who +liked to romp in the sun and be rocked to sleep at night with a song. +Clemens often took them for extended' walks, pushing Bay in her carriage. +Once, in a preoccupied moment, he let go of the little vehicle and it +started downhill, gaining speed rapidly. + +He awoke then, and set off in wild pursuit. Before he could overtake the +runaway carriage it had turned to the roadside and upset. Bay was lying +among the stones and her head was bleeding. Hastily binding the wound +with a handkerchief he started full speed with her up the hill toward the +house, calling for restoratives as he came. It was no serious matter. +The little girl was strong and did not readily give way to affliction. + +The children were unlike: Susy was all contemplation and nerves; Bay +serene and practical. It was said, when a pet cat died--this was some +years later--that Susy deeply reflected as to its life here and +hereafter, while Bay was concerned only as to the style of its funeral. +Susy showed early her father's quaintness of remark. Once they bought +her a heavier pair of shoes than she approved of. She was not in the +best of humors during the day, and that night, when at prayer-time her +mother said, "Now, Susy, put your thoughts on God," she answered, "Mama, +I can't with those shoes." + +Clemens worked steadily that summer and did a variety of things. He had +given up a novel, begun with much enthusiasm, but he had undertaken +another long manuscript. By the middle of August he had written several +hundred pages of a story which was to be a continuation of Tam Sawyer-- +The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Now, here is a curious phase of +genius. The novel which for a time had filled him with enthusiasm and +faith had no important literary value, whereas, concerning this new tale, +he says: + +"I like it only tolerably well, as far as I have gone, and may possibly +pigeonhole or burn the manuscript when it is done"--this of the story +which, of his books of pure fiction, will perhaps longest survive. He +did, in fact, give the story up, and without much regret, when it was +about half completed, and let it lie unfinished for years. + +He wrote one short tale, "The Canvasser's Story," a burlesque of no +special distinction, and he projected for the Atlantic a scheme of +"blindfold novelettes," a series of stories to be written by well-known +authors and others, each to be constructed on the same plot. One can +easily imagine Clemens's enthusiasm over a banal project like that; his +impulses were always rainbow-hued, whether valuable or not; but it is +curious that Howells should welcome and even encourage an enterprise so +far removed from all the traditions of art. It fell to pieces, at last, +of inherent misconstruction. The title was to be, "A Murder and a +Marriage." Clemens could not arrive at a logical climax that did not +bring the marriage and the hanging on the same day. + +The Atlantic started its "Contributors' Club," and Howells wrote to +Clemens for a paragraph or more of personal opinion on any subject, +assuring him that he could "spit his spite" out at somebody or something +as if it were a passage from a letter. That was a fairly large +permission to give Mark Twain. The paragraph he sent was the sort of +thing he would write with glee, and hug himself over in the thought of +Howells's necessity of rejecting it. In the accompanying note he said: + +Say, Boss, do you want this to lighten up your old freight-train with? +I suppose you won't, but then it won't take long to say, so. + +He was always sending impossible offerings to the magazines; innocently +enough sometimes, but often out of pure mischievousness. Yet they were +constantly after him, for they knew they were likely to get a first-water +gem. Mary Mopes Dodge, of St. Nicholas, wrote time and again, and +finally said: + +"I know a man who was persecuted by an editor till he went distracted." + +In his reading that year at the farm he gave more than customary +attention to one of his favorite books, Pepys' Diary, that captivating +old record which no one can follow continuously without catching the +infection of its manner and the desire of imitation. He had been reading +diligently one day, when he determined to try his hand on an imaginary +record of conversation and court manners of a bygone day, written in the +phrase of the period. The result was Fireside Conversation in the Time +of Queen Elizabeth, or, as he later called it, 1601. The "conversation," +recorded by a supposed Pepys of that period, was written with all the +outspoken coarseness and nakedness of that rank day, when fireside +sociabilities were limited only by the range of loosened fancy, +vocabulary, and physical performance, and not by any bounds of +convention. Howells has spoken of Mark Twain's "Elizabethan breadth of +parlance," and how he, Howells, was always hiding away in discreet holes +and corners the letters in which Clemens had "loosed his bold fancy to +stoop on rank suggestion." "I could not bear to burn them," he +declares, "and I could not, after the first reading, quite bear to look +at them." + +In the 1601 Mark Twain outdid himself in the Elizabethan field. It was +written as a letter to that robust divine, Rev. Joseph Twichell, who had +no special scruples concerning Shakespearian parlance and customs. +Before it was mailed it was shown to David Gray, who was spending a +Sunday at Elmira. Gray said: + +"Print it and put your name to it, Mark. You have never done a greater +piece of work than that." + +John Hay, whom it also reached in due time, pronounce it a classic--a +"most exquisite bit of old English morality." Hay surreptitiously +permitted some proofs to be made of it, and it has been circulated +privately, though sparingly, ever since. At one time a special font of +antique type was made for it and one hundred copies were taken on hand- +made paper. They would easily bring a hundred dollars each to-day. + +1601 is a genuine classic, as classics of that sort go. It is better +than the gross obscenities of Rabelais, and perhaps, in some day to come, +the taste that justified Gargantua and the Decameron will give this +literary refugee shelter and setting among the more conventional writings +of Mark Twain. Human taste is a curious thing; delicacy is purely a +matter of environment and point of view.--[In a note-book of a later +period Clemens himself wrote: "It depends on who writes a thing whether +it is coarse or not. I once wrote a conversation between Elizabeth, +Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Sir W. Raleigh, Lord Bacon, Sir +Nicholas Throckmorton, and a stupid old nobleman--this latter being cup- +bearer to the queen and ostensible reporter of the talk. + +"There were four maids of honor present and a sweet young girl two years +younger than the boy Beaumont. I built a conversation which could have +happened--I used words such as were used at that time--1601. I sent it +anonymously to a magazine, and how the editor abused it and the sender! +But that man was a praiser of Rabelais, and had been saying, 'O that we +had a Rabelais!' I judged that I could furnish him one."] + + +Eighteen hundred and seventy-six was a Presidential year--the year of the +Hayes-Tilden campaign. Clemens and Howells were both warm Republicans +and actively interested in the outcome, Clemens, as he confessed, for the +first time in his life. Before his return to Hartford he announced +himself publicly as a Hayes man, made so by Governor Hayes's letter of +acceptance, which, he said, "expresses my own political convictions." +His politics had not been generally known up to that time, and a Tilden +and Hendricks club in Jersey City had invited him to be present and give +them some political counsel, at a flag-raising. He wrote, declining +pleasantly enough, then added: + +"You have asked me for some political counsel or advice: In view of Mr. +Tilden's Civil War record my advice is not to raise the flag." + +He wrote Howells: "If Tilden is elected I think the entire country will +go pretty straight to--Mrs. Howells's bad place." + +Howells was writing a campaign biography of Hayes, which he hoped would +have a large sale, and Clemens urged him to get it out quickly and save +the country. Howells, working like a beaver, in turn urged Clemens to +take the field in the cause. Returning to Hartford, Clemens presided at +a political rally and made a speech, the most widely quoted of the +campaign. All papers, without distinction as to party, quoted it, and +all readers, regardless of politics, read it with joy. + +Yet conditions did not improve. When Howells's book had been out a +reasonable length of time he wrote that it had sold only two thousand +copies. + +"There's success for you," he said. "It makes me despair of the +Republic, I can tell you." + +Clemens, however, did not lose faith, and went on shouting for Hayes and +damning Tilden till the final vote was cast. In later life he changed +his mind about Tilden (as did many others) through sympathy. Sympathy +could make--Mark Twain change his mind any time. He stood for the right, +but, above all, for justice. He stood for the wronged, regardless of all +other things. + + + + +CIX + +THE PUBLIC APPEARANCE OF "TOM SAWYER" + +Clemens gave a few readings in Boston and Philadelphia, but when urged to +go elsewhere made the excuse that he was having his portrait painted and +could not leave home. + +As a matter of fact, he was enjoying himself with Frank Millet, who had +been invited to the house to do the portrait and had captured the fervent +admiration of the whole family. Millet was young, handsome, and lively; +Clemens couldn't see enough of him, the children adored him and added his +name to the prayer which included each member of the household--the "Holy +Family," Clemens called it. + +Millet had brought with him but one piece of canvas for the portrait, and +when the first sketch was finished Mrs. Clemens was so delighted with it +that she did not wish him to touch it again. She was afraid of losing +some particular feeling in it which she valued. Millet went to the city. +for another canvas and Clemens accompanied him. While Millet was doing +his shopping it happened to occur to Clemens that it would be well to +fill in the time by having his hair cut. He left word with a clerk to +tell Millet that he had gone across the street. By and by the artist +came over, and nearly wept with despair when he saw his subject sheared +of the auburn, gray-sprinkled aureola that had made his first sketch a +success. He tried it again, and the result was an excellent likeness, +but it never satisfied Millet. + +The 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer' appeared late in December (1876), and +immediately took its place as foremost of American stories of boy life, +a place which it unquestionably holds to this day. We have already +considered the personal details of this story, for they were essentially +nothing more than the various aspects of Mark Twain's own boyhood. It is +only necessary to add a word concerning the elaboration of this period in +literary form. + +From every point it is a masterpiece, this picture of boy life in a +little lazy, drowsy town, with all the irresponsibility and general +disreputability of boy character coupled with that indefinable, formless, +elusive something we call boy conscience, which is more likely to be boy +terror and a latent instinct of manliness. These things are so truly +portrayed that every boy and man reader finds the tale fitting into his +own remembered years, as if it had grown there. Every boy has played off +sick to escape school; every boy has reflected in his heart Tom's picture +of himself being brought home dead, and gloated over the stricken +consciences of those who had blighted his young life; every boy--of that +day, at least--every normal, respectable boy, grew up to "fear God and +dread the Sunday-school," as Howells puts it in his review. + +As for the story itself, the narrative of it, it is pure delight. The +pirate camp on the island is simply boy heaven. What boy, for instance, +would not change any other glory or boon that the world holds for this: + + They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty or thirty + steps within the somber depths of the forest, and then cooked some + bacon in the frying-pan for supper, and used up half of the corn + "pone" stock they had brought. It seemed glorious sport to be + feasting in that wild, free way in the virgin forest of an + unexplored and uninhabited island, far from the haunts of men, and + they said they never would return to civilization. The climbing + fire lit up their faces and threw its ruddy glare upon the pillared + tree-trunks of their forest-temple, and upon the varnished foliage + and the festooning vines. + +There is a magic in it. Mark Twain, when he wrote it, felt renewed in +him all the old fascination of those days and nights with Tom +Blankenship, John Briggs, and the Bowen boys on Glasscock's Island. +Everywhere in Tom Sawyer there is a quality, entirely apart from the +humor and the narrative, which the younger reader is likely to overlook. +No one forgets the whitewashing scene, but not many of us, from our early +reading, recall this delicious bit of description which introduces it: + + The locust-trees were in bloom, and the fragrance of the blossoms + filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was + green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a + delectable land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting. + +Tom's night visit home; the graveyard scene, with the murder of Dr. +Robinson; the adventures of Tom and Becky in the cave--these are all +marvelously invented. Literary thrill touches the ultimate in one +incident of the cave episode. Brander Matthews has written: + + Nor is there any situation quite as thrilling as that awful moment + in the cave when the boy and girl are lost in the darkness, and when + Tom suddenly sees a human hand bearing a light, and then finds that + the hand is the hand of Indian Joe, his one mortal enemy. I have + always thought that the vision of the hand in the cave in Tom Sawyer + was one of the very finest things in the literature of adventure + since Robinson Crusoe first saw a single footprint in the sand of + the sea-shore. + +Mark Twain's invention was not always a reliable quantity, but with that +eccentricity which goes with any attribute of genius, it was likely at +any moment to rise supreme. If to the critical, hardened reader the tale +seems a shade overdone here and there, a trifle extravagant in its +delineations, let him go back to his first long-ago reading of it and see +if he recalls anything but his pure delight in it then. As a boy's story +it has not been equaled. + +Tom Sawyer has ranked in popularity with Roughing It. + +Its sales go steadily on from year to year, and are likely to continue so +long as boys and girls do not change, and men and women remember. + +--[Col. Henry Watterson, when he finished Tom Sawyer, wrote: "I have +just laid down Tom Sawyer, and cannot resist the pressure. It is +immense! I read every word of it, didn't skip a line, and nearly +disgraced myself several times in the presence of a sleeping-car full of +honorable and pious people. Once I had to get to one side and have a +cry, and as for an internal compound of laughter and tears there was no +end to it.... The 'funeral' of the boys, the cave business, and the hunt +for the hidden treasure are as dramatic as anything I know of in fiction, +while the pathos--particularly everything relating to Huck and Aunt +Polly--makes a cross between Dickens's skill and Thackeray's nature, +which, resembling neither, is thoroughly impressive and original."] + + + + +CX + +MARK TWAIN AND BRET HARTE WRITE A PLAY + +It was the fall and winter of '76 that Bret Harte came to Hartford and +collaborated with Mark Twain on the play "Ah Sin," a comedy-drama, or +melodrama, written for Charles T. Parsloe, the great impersonator of +Chinese character. Harte had written a successful play which +unfortunately he had sold outright for no great sum, and was eager for +another venture. Harte had the dramatic sense and constructive +invention. He also had humor, but he felt the need of the sort of humor +that Mark Twain could furnish. Furthermore, he believed that a play +backed by both their reputations must start with great advantages. +Clemens also realized these things, and the arrangement was made. +Speaking of their method of working, Clemens once said: + +"Well, Bret came down to Hartford and we talked it over, and then Bret +wrote it while I played billiards, but of course I had to go over it to +get the dialect right. Bret never did know anything about dialect." +Which is hardly a fair statement of the case. They both worked on the +play, and worked hard. + +During the, period of its construction Harte had an order for a story +which he said he must finish at once, as he needed the money. It must be +delivered by the following night, and he insisted that he must be getting +at it without a moment's delay. Still he seemed in no haste to begin. +The evening passed; bedtime came. Then he asked that an open fire might +be made in his room and a bottle of whisky sent up, in case he needed. +something to keep him awake. George attended to these matters, and +nothing more was heard of Harte until very early next morning, when he +rang for George and asked for a fresh fire and an additional supply of +whisky. At breakfast-time he appeared, fresh, rosy, and elate, with the +announcement that his story was complete. + +That forenoon the Saturday Morning Club met at the Clemens home. It was +a young women's club, of which Mark Twain was a sort of honorary member-- +a club for the purpose of intellectual advancement, somewhat on the order +of the Monday Evening Club of men, except that the papers read before it +were not prepared by members, but by men and women prominent in some +field of intellectual progress. Bret Harte had agreed to read to them on +this particular occasion, and he gaily appeared and gave them the story +just finished, "Thankful Blossom," a tale which Mark Twain always +regarded as one of Harte's very best. + +The new play, "Ah Sin," by Mark Twain and Bret Harte, was put on at +Washington, at the National Theater, on the evening of May 7, 1877. It +had been widely exploited in the newspapers, and the fame of the authors +insured a crowded opening. Clemens was unable to go over on account of a +sudden attack of bronchitis. Parsloe was nervous accordingly, and the +presence of Harte does not seem to have added to his happiness. + +"I am not very well myself," he wrote to Clemens. "The excitement of the +first night is bad enough, but to have the annoyance with Harte that I +have is too much for a new beginner." + +Nevertheless, the play seems to have gone well, with Parsloe as Ah Sin-- +a Chinese laundryman who was also a great number of other diverting +things--with a fair support and a happy-go-lucky presentation of frontier +life, which included a supposed murder, a false accusation, and a general +clearing-up of mystery by the pleasant and wily and useful and +entertaining Ah Sin. It was not a great play. It was neither very +coherent nor convincing, but it had a lot of good fun in it, with +character parts which, if not faithful to life, were faithful enough to +the public conception of it to be amusing and exciting. At the end of +each act not only Parsloe, but also the principal members of the company, +were called before the curtain for special acknowledgments. When it was +over there was a general call for Ah Sin, who came before the curtain and +read a telegram. + +CHARLES T. PARSLOE,--I am on the sick-list, and therefore cannot come to +Washington; but I have prepared two speeches--one to deliver in event of +failure of the play, and the other if successful. Please tell me which I +shall send. May be better to put it to vote. + + MARK TWAIN. + + +The house cheered the letter, and when it was put to vote decided +unanimously that the play had been a success--a verdict more kindly than +true. + +J. I. Ford, of the theater management, wrote to Clemens, next morning +after the first performance, urging him to come to Washington in person +and "wet nurse" the play until "it could do for itself." + +Ford expressed satisfaction with the play and its prospects, and +concludes: + +I inclose notices. Come if you can. "Your presence will be worth ten +thousand men. The king's name is a tower of strength." I have urged the +President to come to-night. + +The play made no money in Washington, but Augustin Daly decided to put it +on in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theater, with a company which +included, besides Parsloe, Edmund Collier, P. A. Anderson, Dora +Goldthwaite, Henry Crisp, and Mrs. Wells, a very worthy group of players +indeed. Clemens was present at the opening, dressed in white, which he +affected only for warm-weather use in those days, and made a speech at +the end of the third act. + +"Ah Sin" did not excite much enthusiasm among New York dramatic critics. +The houses were promising for a time, but for some reason the performance +as a whole did not contain the elements of prosperity. It set out on its +provincial travels with no particular prestige beyond the reputation of +its authors; and it would seem that this was not enough, for it failed to +pay, and all parties concerned presently abandoned it to its fate and it +was heard of no more. Just why "Ah Sin" did not prosper it would not +become us to decide at this far remove of time and taste. Poorer plays +have succeeded and better plays have failed since then, and no one has +ever been able to demonstrate the mystery. A touch somewhere, a pulling- +about and a readjustment, might have saved "Ali Sin," but the pullings +and haulings which they gave it did not. Perhaps it still lies in some +managerial vault, and some day may be dragged to light and reconstructed +and recast, and come into its reward. Who knows? Or it may have drifted +to that harbor of forgotten plays, whence there is no returning. + +As between Harte and Clemens, the whole matter was unfortunate. In the +course of their association there arose a friction and the long-time +friendship disappeared. + + + + +CXI + +A BERMUDA HOLIDAY + +On the 16th of May, 1877, Mark Twain set out on what, in his note-book, +he declared to be "the first actual pleasure-trip" he had ever taken, +meaning that on every previous trip he had started with a purpose other +than that of mere enjoyment. He took with him his, friend and pastor, +the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, and they sailed for Bermuda, an island +resort not so well known or so fashionable as to-day. + +They did not go to a hotel. Under assumed names they took up quarters in +a boarding-house, with a Mrs. Kirkham, and were unmolested and altogether +happy in their wanderings through four golden days. Mark Twain could not +resist keeping a note-book, setting down bits of scenery and character +and incident, just as he had always done. He was impressed with the +cheapness of property and living in the Bermuda of that period. He makes +special mention of some cottages constructed of coral blocks: "All as +beautiful and as neat as a pin, at the cost of four hundred and eighty +dollars each." To Twichell he remarked: + +"Joe, this place is like Heaven, and I'm going to make the most of it." + +"Mark," said Twichell, "that's right; make the most of a place that is +like Heaven while you have a chance." + +In one of the entries--the final one--Clemens says: + +"Bermuda is free (at present) from the triple curse of railways, +telegraphs, and newspapers, but this will not last the year. I propose +to spend next year here and no more." + +When they were ready to leave, and started for the steamer, Twichell made +an excuse to go back, his purpose being to tell their landlady and her +daughter that, without knowing it, they had been entertaining Mark Twain. + +"Did you ever hear of Mark Twain?" asked Twichell. + +The daughter answered. + +"Yes," she said, "until I'm tired of the name. I know a young man who +never talks of anything else." + +"Well," said Twichell, "that gentleman with me is Mark Twain." + +The Kirkhams declined to believe it at first, and then were in deep +sorrow that they had not known it earlier. Twichell promised that he and +Clemens would come back the next year; and they meant to go back--we +always mean to go back to places--but it was thirty years before they +returned at last, and then their pleasant landlady was dead. + +On the home trip they sighted a wandering vessel, manned by blacks, +trying to get to New York. She had no cargo and was pretty helpless. +Later, when she was reported again, Clemens wrote about it in a Hartford +paper, telling the story as he knew it. The vessel had shipped the crew, +on a basis of passage to New York, in exchange for labor. So it was a +"pleasure-excursion!" Clemens dwelt on this fancy: + + I have heard of a good many pleasure-excursions, but this heads the + list. It is monumental, and if ever the tired old tramp is found I + should like to be there and see him in his sorrowful rags and his + venerable head of grass and seaweed, and hear the ancient mariners + tell the story of their mysterious wanderings through the solemn + solitudes of the ocean. + +Long afterward this vagrant craft was reported again, still drifting with +the relentless Gulf Stream. Perhaps she reached New York in time; one +would like to know, but there seems no good way to find out. + +That first Bermuda voyage was always a happy memory to Mark Twain. To +Twichell he wrote that it was the "joyousest trip" he had ever made: + + Not a heartache anywhere, not a twinge of conscience. I often come + to myself out of a reverie and detect an undertone of thought that + had been thinking itself without volition of mind--viz., that if we + had only had ten days of those walks and talks instead of four. + +There was but one regret: Howells had not been with them. Clemens +denounced him for his absence: + + If you had gone with us and let me pay the fifty dollars, which the + trip and the board and the various knick-knacks and mementos would + cost, I would have picked up enough droppings from your conversation + to pay me five hundred per cent. profit in the way of the several + magazine articles which I could have written; whereas I can now + write only one or two, and am therefore largely out of pocket by + your proud ways. + +Clemens would not fail to write about his trip. He could not help doing +that, and he began "Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion" as soon as +he landed in Hartford. They were quite what the name would signify-- +leisurely, pleasant commentaries on a loafing, peaceful vacation. They +are not startling in their humor or description, but are gently amusing +and summery, reflecting, bubble-like, evanescent fancies of Bermuda. +Howells, shut up in a Boston editorial office, found them delightful +enough, and very likely his Atlantic readers agreed with him. The story +of "Isaac and the Prophets of Baal" was one that Capt. Ned Wakeman had +told to Twichell during a voyage which the latter had made to Aspinwall +with that vigorous old seafarer; so in the "Rambling Notes" Wakeman +appears as Captain Hurricane Jones, probably a step in the evolution of +the later name of Stormfield. The best feature of the series (there were +four papers in all) is a story of a rescue in mid-ocean; but surely the +brightest ripple of humor is the reference to Bermuda's mahogany-tree: + + There was exactly one mahogany-tree on the island. I know this to + be reliable because I saw a man who said he had counted it many a + time and could not be mistaken. He was a man with a haze lip and a + pure heart, and everybody said he was as true as steel. Such men + are all too few. + +Clemens cared less for these papers than did Howells. He had serious +doubts about the first two and suggested their destruction, but with +Howells's appreciation his own confidence in them returned and he let +them all go in. They did not especially advance his reputation, but +perhaps they did it no harm. + + + + +CXII + +A NEW PLAY AND A NEW TALE + +He wrote a short story that year which is notable mainly for the fact +that in it the telephone becomes a literary property, probably for the +first time. "The Loves of Alonzo Fitz-Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton" +employed in the consummation what was then a prospect, rather than a +reality--long-distance communication. + +His work that summer consisted mainly of two extensive undertakings, one +of which he completed without delay. He still had the dramatic ambition, +and he believed that he was capable now of constructing a play entirely +from his own resources. + +To Howells, in June, he wrote: + +To-day I am deep in a comedy which I began this morning--principal +character an old detective. I skeletoned the first act and wrote the +second to-day, and am dog-tired now. Fifty-four pages of MS. in seven +hours. + +Seven days later, the Fourth of July, he said: + +I have piled up one hundred and fifty-one pages on my comedy. The first, +second and fourth acts are done, and done to my satisfaction, too. To- +morrow and next day will finish the third act, and the play. Never had +so much fun over anything in my life never such consuming interest and +delight. And just think! I had Sol Smith Russell in my mind's eye for +the old detective's part, and bang it! he has gone off pottering with +Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie. + +He was working with enthusiasm, you see, believing in it with a faith +which, alas, was no warrant for its quality. Even Howells caught his +enthusiasm and became eager to see the play, and to have the story it +contained told for the Atlantic. + +But in the end it proved a mistake. Dion Boucicault, when he read the +manuscript, pronounced it better than "Ah Sin," but that was only +qualified praise. Actors who considered the play, anxious enough to have +Mark Twain's name on their posters and small bills, were obliged to admit +that, while it contained marvelous lines, it wouldn't "go." John +Brougham wrote: + + There is an absolute "embarrassment of riches" in your "Detective" + most assuredly, but the difficulty is to put it into profitable + form. The quartz is there in abundance, only requiring the + necessary manipulation to extract the gold. + + In narrative structure the story would be full of life, character, + and the most exuberant fun, but it is altogether too diffuse in its + present condition for dramatic representation, and I confess I do + not feel sufficient confidence in my own experience (even if I had + the time, which on reflection I find I have not) to undertake what, + under different circumstances, would be a "labor of love." + + Yours sincerely, JOHN BROUGHAM. + + +That was frank, manly, and to the point; it covered the ground exactly. +"Simon Wheeler, the Amateur Detective," had plenty of good material in +it--plenty of dialogue and situations; but the dialogue wouldn't play, +and the situations wouldn't act. Clemens realized that perhaps the drama +was not, after all, his forte; he dropped "Simon Wheeler," lost his +interest in "Ah Sin," even leased "Colonel Sellers" for the coming +season, and so, in a sort of fury, put theatrical matters out of his +mind. + +He had entered upon what, for him, was a truer domain. One day he picked +up from among the books at the farm a little juvenile volume, an English +story of the thirteenth century by Charlotte M. Yonge, entitled, The +Prince and the Page. It was a story of Edward I. and his cousins, +Richard and Henry de Montfort; in part it told of the submerged +personality of the latter, picturing him as having dwelt in disguise as +a blind beggar for a period of years. It was a story of a sort and with +a setting that Mark Twain loved, and as he read there came a correlative +idea. Not only would he disguise a prince as a beggar, but a beggar as +a prince. He would have them change places in the world, and each learn +the burdens of the other's life.--[There is no point of resemblance +between the Prince and the Pauper and the tale that inspired it. No one +would ever guess that the one had grown out of the readings of the other, +and no comparison of any sort is possible between them.] + +The plot presented physical difficulties. He still had some lurking +thought of stage performance, and saw in his mind a spectacular +presentation, with all the costumery of an early period as background for +a young and beautiful creature who would play the part of prince. The +old device of changelings in the cradle (later used in Pudd'nhead Wilson) +presented itself to him, but it could not provide the situations he had +in mind. Finally came the thought of a playful interchange of raiment +and state (with startling and unlooked-for consequence)--the guise and +personality of Tom Canty, of Offal Court, for those of the son of Henry +VIII., little Edward Tudor, more lately sixth English king of that name. +This little prince was not his first selection for the part. His +original idea had been to use the late King Edward VII. (then Prince of +Wales) at about fifteen, but he found that it would never answer to lose +a prince among the slums of modern London, and have his proud estate +denied and jeered at by a modern mob. He felt that he could not make it +seem real; so he followed back through history, looking along for the +proper time and prince, till he came to little Edward, who was too young +--but no matter, he would do. + +He decided to begin his new venture in story form. He could dramatize it +later. The situation appealed to him immensely. The idea seemed a +brand-new one; it was delightful, it was fascinating, and he was +saturated with the atmosphere and literature and history--the data and +detail of that delightful old time. He put away all thought of cheap, +modern play-acting and writing, to begin one of the loveliest and most +entertaining and instructive tales of old English life. He decided to be +quite accurate in his picture of the period, and he posted himself on old +London very carefully. He bought a pocket-map which he studied in the +minutest detail. + +He wrote about four hundred manuscript pages of the tale that summer; +then, as the inspiration seemed to lag a little, put it aside, as was his +habit, to wait until the ambition for it should be renewed. It was a +long wait, as usual. He did not touch it again for more than three +years. + + + + +CXIII + +TWO DOMESTIC DRAMAS + +Some unusual happenings took place that summer of 1877. John T. Lewis +(colored), already referred to as the religious antagonist of Auntie +Cord, by great presence of mind and bravery saved the lives of Mrs. +Clemens's sister-in-law, Mrs. Charles ("Charley") Langdon, her little +daughter Julia, and her nurse-maid. They were in a buggy, and their +runaway horse was flying down East Hill toward Elmira to certain +destruction, when Lewis, laboring slowly homeward with a loaded wagon, +saw them coming and turned his team across the road, after which he +leaped out and with extraordinary strength and quickness grabbed the +horse's bridle and brought him to a standstill. The Clemens and Crane +families, who had seen the runaway start at the farm gate, arrived half +wild with fear, only to find the supposed victims entirely safe. + +Everybody contributed in rewarding Lewis. He received money ($1,500) and +various other presents, including inscribed books and trinkets, also, +what he perhaps valued more than anything, a marvelous stem-winding gold +watch. Clemens, writing a full account to Dr. Brown of the watch, says: + + And if any scoffer shall say, "behold this thing is out of + character," there is an inscription within which will silence him; + for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not + the watch the wearer. + +In another paragraph he says: + + When Lewis arrived the other evening, after having saved those lives + by a feat which I think is the most marvelous I can call to mind, + when he arrived hunched up on his manure-wagon and as grotesquely + picturesque as usual, everybody wanted to go and see how he looked. + They came back and said he was beautiful. It was so, too, and yet + he would have photographed exactly as he would have done any day + these past seven years that he has occupied this farm. + +Lewis acknowledged his gifts in a letter which closed with a paragraph of +rare native loftiness: + + But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine Providence saw fit + to use me as an instrument for the saving of those preshious lives, + the honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed. + +Lewis lived to enjoy his prosperity, and the honor of the Clemens and +Langdon households, for twenty-nine years. When he was too old to work +there was a pension, to which Clemens contributed; also Henry H. Rogers. +So the simple-hearted, noble old negro closed his days in peace. + +Mrs. Crane, in a letter, late in July, 1906, told of his death: + + He was always cheerful, and seemed not to suffer much pain, told + stories, and was able to eat almost everything. + + Three days ago a new difficulty appeared, on account of which his + doctor said he must go to the hospital for care such as it was quite + impossible to give in his home. + + He died on his way there. + + Thus it happened that he died on the road where he had performed his + great deed. + +A second unusual incident of that summer occurred in Hartford. There had +been a report of a strange man seen about the Clemens place, thought to +be a prospecting burglar, and Clemens went over to investigate. A little +searching inquiry revealed that the man was not a burglar, but a mechanic +out of employment, a lover of one of the house-maids, who had given him +food and shelter on the premises, intending no real harm. When the girl +found that her secret was discovered, she protested that he was her +fiance, though she said he appeared lately to have changed his mind and +no longer wished to marry her. + +The girl seemed heartbroken, and sympathy for her was naturally the first +and about the only feeling which Clemens developed, for the time being. +He reasoned with the young man, but without making much headway. Finally +his dramatic instinct prompted him to a plan of a sort which would have +satisfied even Tom Sawyer. He asked Twichell to procure a license for +the couple, and to conceal himself in a ground floor bath-room. He +arranged with the chief of police to be on hand in another room; with the +rest of the servants quietly to prepare a wedding-feast, and finally with +Lizzie herself to be dressed for the ceremony. He had already made an +appointment with the young man to come to, see him at a certain hour on a +"matter of business," and the young man arrived in the belief, no doubt, +that it was something which would lead to profitable employment. When he +came in Clemens gently and quietly reviewed the situation, told him of +the young girl's love for him; how he had been sheltered and fed by her; +how through her kindness to him she had compromised her reputation for +honesty and brought upon her all the suspicion of having sheltered a +burglar; how she was ready and willing to marry him, and how he (Clemens) +was ready to assist them to obtain work and a start in life. + +But the young man was not enthusiastic. He was a Swede and slow of +action. He resolutely declared that he was not ready to marry yet, and +in the end refused to do so. Then came the dramatic moment. Clemens +quietly but firmly informed him that the wedding ceremony must take +place; that by infesting his premises he had broken the law, not only +against trespass, but most likely against house-breaking. There was a +brief discussion of this point. Finally Clemens gave him five minutes to +make up his mind, with the statement that he had an officer in waiting, +and unless he would consent to the wedding he would be taken in charge. +The young man began to temporize, saying that it would be necessary for +him to get a license and a preacher. But Clemens stepped to the door of +the bath-room, opened it, and let out Twichell, who had been sweltering +there in that fearful place for more than an hour, it being August. The +delinquent lover found himself confronted with all the requisites of +matrimony except the bride, and just then this detail appeared on the +scene, dressed for the occasion. Behind her ranged the rest of the +servants and a few invited guests. Before the young man knew it he had a +wife, and on the whole did not seem displeased. It ended with a gay +supper and festivities. Then Clemens started them handsomely by giving +each of them a check for one hundred dollars; and in truth (which in this +case, at least, is stranger than fiction) they lived happily and +prosperously ever after. + +Some years later Mark Twain based a story on this episode, but it was +never entirely satisfactory and remains unpublished. + + + + +CXIV + +THE WHITTIER BIRTHDAY SPEECH + +It was the night of December 17, 1877, that Mark Twain made his +unfortunate speech at the dinner given by the Atlantic staff to John G. +Whittier on his seventieth birthday. Clemens had attended a number of +the dinners which the Atlantic gave on one occasion or another, and had +provided a part of the entertainment. It is only fair to say that his +after-dinner speeches at such times had been regarded as very special +events, genuine triumphs of humor and delivery. But on this particular +occasion he determined to outdo himself, to prepare something unusual, +startling, something altogether unheard of. + +When Mark Twain had an impulse like that it was possible for it to result +in something dangerous, especially in those earlier days. This time it +produced a bombshell; not just an ordinary bombshell, or even a twelve- +inch projectile, but a shell of planetary size. It was a sort of hoax- +always a doubtful plaything--and in this case it brought even quicker and +more terrible retribution than usual. It was an imaginary presentation +of three disreputable frontier tramps who at some time had imposed +themselves on a lonely miner as Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes, quoting +apposite selections from their verses to the accompaniment of cards and +drink, and altogether conducting themselves in a most unsavory fashion. +At the end came the enlightenment that these were not what they pretended +to be, but only impostors--disgusting frauds. A feature like that would +be a doubtful thing to try in any cultured atmosphere. The thought of +associating, ever so remotely, those three old bummers which he had +conjured up with the venerable and venerated Emerson, Longfellow, and +Holmes, the Olympian trinity, seems ghastly enough to-day, and must have +seemed even more so then. But Clemens, dazzled by the rainbow splendor +of his conception, saw in it only a rare colossal humor, which would +fairly lift and bear his hearers along on a tide of mirth. He did not +show his effort to any one beforehand. He wanted its full beauty to +burst upon the entire company as a surprise. + +It did that. Howells was toastmaster, and when he came to present +Clemens he took particular pains to introduce him as one of his foremost +contributors and dearest friends. Here, he said, was "a humorist who +never left you hanging you head for having enjoyed his joke." + +Thirty years later Clemens himself wrote of his impressions as he rose to +deliver his speech. + + I vaguely remember some of the details of that gathering: dimly I + can see a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty--shadowy figures, + sitting at tables feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless + forevermore. I don't know who they were, but I can very distinctly + see, seated at the grand table and facing the rest of us, Mr. + Emerson, supernaturally grave, unsmiling; Mr. Whittier, grave, + lovely, his beautiful spirit shining out of his face; Mr. + Longfellow, with his silken-white hair and his benignant face; Dr. + Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection and all good- + fellowship everywhere, like a rose-diamond whose facets are being + turned toward the light, first one way and then another--a charming + man, and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he + was sitting still (what he would call still, but what would be more + or less motion to other people). I can see those figures with + entire distinctiness across this abyss of time. + +William Winter, the poet, had just preceded him, and it seemed a moment +aptly chosen for his so-different theme. "And then," to quote Howells, +"the amazing mistake, the bewildering blunder, the cruel catastrophe was +upon us." + +After the first two or three hundred words, when the general plan and +purpose of the burlesque had developed, when the names of Longfellow, +Emerson, and Holmes began to be flung about by those bleary outcasts, and +their verses given that sorry association, those Atlantic diners became +petrified with amazement and horror. Too late, then, the speaker +realized his mistake. He could not stop, he must go on to the ghastly +end. And somehow he did it, while "there fell a silence weighing many +tons to the square inch, which deepened from moment to moment, and was +broken only by the hysterical and blood-curdling laughter of a single +guest, whose name shall not be handed down to infamy." + +Howells can remember little more than that, but Clemens recalls that one +speaker made an effort to follow him--Bishop, the novelist, and that +Bishop didn't last long. + + It was not many sentences after his first before he began to + hesitate and break, and lose his grip, and totter and wobble, and at + last he slumped down in a limp and mushy pile. + +The next man had not strength to rise, and somehow the company broke up. + +Howells's next recollection is of being in a room of the hotel, and of +hearing Charles Dudley Warner saying in the gloom: + +"Well, Mark, you're a funny fellow." + +He remembers how, after a sleepless night, Clemens went out to buy some +bric-a-brac, with a soul far from bric-a-brac, and returned to Hartford +in a writhing agony of spirit. He believed that he was ruined forever, +so far as his Boston associations were concerned; and when he confessed +all the tragedy to Mrs. Clemens it seemed to her also that the mistake +could never be wholly repaired. The fact that certain papers quoted the +speech and spoke well of it, and certain readers who had not listened to +it thought it enormously funny, gave very little comfort. But perhaps +his chief concern was the ruin which he believed he had brought upon +Howells. He put his heart into a brief letter: + + MY DEAR HOWELLS,--My sense of disgrace does not abate. It grows. + I see that it is going to add itself to my list of permanencies, a + list of humiliations that extends back to when I was seven years + old, and which keep on persecuting me regardless of my repentances. + + I feel that my misfortune has injured me all over the country; + therefore it will be best that I retire from before the public at + present. It will hurt the Atlantic for me to appear in its pages + now. So it is my opinion, and my wife's, that the telephone story + had better be suppressed. Will you return those proofs or revises + to me, so that I can use the same on some future occasion? + + It seems as if I must have been insane when I wrote that speech and + saw no harm in it, no disrespect toward those men whom I reverenced + so much. And what shame I brought upon you, after what you said in + introducing me! It burns me like fire to think of it. + + The whole matter is a dreadful subject. Let me drop it here--at + least on paper. + + Penitently yours, MARK + + +So, all in a moment, his world had come to an end--as it seemed. But +Howells's letter, which came rushing back by first mail, brought hope. + +"It was a fatality," Howells said. "One of those sorrows into which a +man walks with his eyes wide open, no one knows why." + +Howells assured him that Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes would so +consider it, beyond doubt; that Charles Eliot Norton had already +expressed himself exactly in the right spirit concerning it. Howells +declared that there was no intention of dropping Mark Twain's work from +the Atlantic. + + You are not going to be floored by it; there is more justice than + that even in this world. Especially as regards me, just call the + sore spot well. I can say more, and with better heart, in praise of + your good feeling (which was what I always liked in you), since this + thing happened than I could before. + +It was agreed that he should at once write a letter to Longfellow, +Emerson, and Holmes, and he did write, laying his heart bare to them. +Longfellow and Holmes answered in a fine spirit of kindliness, and Miss +Emerson wrote for her father in the same tone. Emerson had not been +offended, for he had not heard the speech, having arrived even then at +that stage of semi-oblivion as to immediate things which eventually so +completely shut him away. Longfellow's letter made light of the whole +matter. The newspapers, he said, had caused all the mischief. + + A bit of humor at a dinner-table talk is one thing; a report of it + in the morning papers is another. One needs the lamplight and the + scenery. These failing, what was meant in jest assumes a serious + aspect. + + I do not believe that anybody was much hurt. Certainly I was not, + and Holmes tells me that he was not. So I think you may dismiss the + matter from your mind, without further remorse. + + It was a very pleasant dinner, and I think Whittier enjoyed it very + much. + +Holmes likewise referred to it as a trifle. + + It never occurred to me for a moment to take offense, or to feel + wounded by your playful use of my name. I have heard some mild + questioning as to whether, even in fun, it was good taste to + associate the names of the authors with the absurdly unlike + personalities attributed to them, but it seems to be an open + question. Two of my friends, gentlemen of education and the highest + social standing, were infinitely amused by your speech, and stoutly + defended it against the charge of impropriety. More than this, one + of the cleverest and best-known ladies we have among us was highly + delighted with it. + +Miss Emerson's letter was to Mrs. Clemens and its homelike New England +fashion did much to lift the gloom. + + DEAR MRS. CLEMENS,--At New Year's our family always meets, to spend + two days together. To-day my father came last, and brought with him + Mr. Clemens's letter, so that I read it to the assembled family, and + I have come right up-stairs to write to you about it. My sister + said, "Oh, let father write!" but my mother said, "No, don't wait + for him. Go now; don't stop to pick that up. Go this minute and + write. I think that is a noble letter. Tell them so." First let + me say that no shadow of indignation has ever been in any of our + minds. The night of the dinner, my father says, he did not hear Mr. + Clemens's speech. He was too far off, and my mother says that when + she read it to him the next day it amused him. But what you will + want is to know, without any softening, how we did feel. We were + disappointed. We have liked almost everything we have ever seen + over Mark Twain's signature. It has made us like the man, and we + have delighted in the fun. Father has often asked us to repeat + certain passages of The Innocents Abroad, and of a speech at a + London dinner in 1872, and we all expect both to approve and to + enjoy when we see his name. Therefore, when we read this speech it + was a real disappointment. I said to my brother that it didn't seem + good or funny, and he said, "No, it was unfortunate. Still some of + those quotations were very good"; and he gave them with relish and + my father laughed, though never having seen a card in his life, he + couldn't understand them like his children. My mother read it + lightly and had hardly any second thoughts about it. To my father + it is as if it had not been; he never quite heard, never quite + understood it, and he forgets easily and entirely. I think it + doubtful whether he writes to Mr. Clemens, for he is old and long + ago gave up answering letters, I think you can see just how bad, and + how little bad, it was as far as we are concerned, and this lovely + heartbreaking letter makes up for our disappointment in our much- + liked author, and restores our former feeling about him. + + ELLEN T. EMERSON. + + +The sorrow dulled a little as the days passed. Just after Christmas +Clemens wrote to Howells: + + I haven't done a stroke of work since the Atlantic dinner. But I'm + going to try to-morrow. How could I ever---- + + Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, + and all his work must be contemplated with respect. + +So long as that unfortunate speech is remembered there will be +differences of opinion as to its merits and propriety. Clemens himself, +reading it for the first time in nearly thirty years, said: + +"I find it gross, coarse--well, I needn't go on with particulars. I +don't like any part of it, from the beginning to the end. I find it +always offensive and detestable. How do I account for this change of +view? I don't know." + +But almost immediately afterward he gave it another consideration and +reversed his opinion completely. All the spirit and delight of his old +first conception returned, and preparing it for publication, he wrote: + +--[North American Review, December, 1907, now with comment included in +the volume of "Speeches." (Also see Appendix O, at the end of last +volume.)--I have read it twice, and unless I am an idiot it hasn't a +single defect in it, from the first word to the last. It is just as good +as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with humor. There isn't a +suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it anywhere.] + +It was altogether like Mark Twain to have those two absolutely opposing +opinions in that brief time; for, after all, it was only a question of +the human point of view, and Mark Twain's points of view were likely to +be as extremely human as they were varied. + +Of course the first of these impressions, the verdict of the fresh mind +uninfluenced by the old conception, was the more correct one. The speech +was decidedly out of place in that company. The skit was harmless +enough, but it was of the Comstock grain. It lacked refinement, and, +what was still worse, it lacked humor, at least the humor of a kind +suited to that long-ago company of listeners. It was another of those +grievous mistakes which genius (and not talent) can make, for genius is a +sort of possession. The individual is pervaded, dominated for a time by +an angel or an imp, and he seldom, of himself, is able to discriminate +between his controls. A literary imp was always lying in wait for Mark +Twain; the imp of the burlesque, tempting him to do the 'outre', the +outlandish, the shocking thing. It was this that Olivia Clemens had to +labor hardest against: the cheapening of his own high purpose with an +extravagant false note, at which sincerity, conviction, and artistic +harmony took wings and fled away. Notably he did a good burlesque now +and then, but his fame would not have suffered if he had been delivered +altogether from his besetting temptation. + + + + +CXV + +HARTFORD AND BILLIARDS + +Clemens was never much inclined to work, away from his Elmira study. +"Magnanimous Incident Literature" (for the Atlantic) was about his only +completed work of the winter of 1877-78. He was always tinkering with +the "Visit to Heaven," and after one reconstruction Howells suggested +that he bring it out as a book, in England, with Dean Stanley's +indorsement, though this may have been only semi-serious counsel. The +story continued to lie in seclusion. + +Clemens had one new book in the field--a small book, but profitable. Dan +Slote's firm issued for him the Mark Twain Scrap-book, and at the end of +the first royalty period rendered a statement of twenty-five thousand +copies sold, which was well enough for a book that did not contain a +single word that critics could praise or condemn. Slote issued another +little book for him soon after Punch, Brothers, Punch!--which, besides +that lively sketch, contained the "Random Notes" and seven other +selections. + +Mark Twain was tempted to go into the lecture field that winter, not by +any of the offers, though these were numerous enough, but by the idea of +a combination which he thought night be not only profitable but pleasant. +Thomas Nast had made a great success of his caricature lectures, and +Clemens, recalling Nast's long-ago proposal, found it newly attractive. +He wrote characteristically: + + MY DEAR NAST,--I did not think I should ever stand on a platform + again until the time was come for me to say, "I die innocent." But + the same old offers keep arriving. I have declined them all, just + as usual, though sorely tempted, as usual. + + Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but + because (1) traveling alone is so heartbreakingly dreary, and (2) + shouldering the whole show is such a cheer-killing responsibility. + + Therefore, I now propose to you what you proposed to me in 1867, ten + years ago (when I was unknown)--viz., that you stand on the platform + and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. + I should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns--don't + want to go to the little ones), with you for company. + + My idea is not to fatten the lecture agents and lyceums on the + spoils, but to put all the ducats religiously into two equal piles, + and say to the artist and lecturer, "absorb these." + + For instance, [here follows a plan and a possible list of the cities + to be visited]. The letter continues: + + Call the gross receipts $100,00 for four months and a half, and the + profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large + enough, and leave it to the public to reduce them). + + I did not put in Philadelphia because Pugh owns that town, and last + winter, when I made a little reading-trip, he only paid me $300, and + pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a + concert) cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn't afford any more. + I could get up a better concert with a barrel of cats. + + I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying + remarks, to see how the thing would go. I was charmed. + + Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line. We should have + some fun. + + +Undoubtedly this would have been a profitable combination, but Nast had a +distaste for platforming--had given it up, as he thought, for life. So +Clemens settled down to the fireside days, that afforded him always the +larger comfort. The children were at an age "to be entertaining, and to +be entertained." In either case they furnished him plenty of diversion +when he did not care to write. They had learned his gift as a romancer, +and with this audience he might be as extravagant as he liked. They +sometimes assisted by furnishing subjects. They would bring him a +picture, requiring him to invent a story for it without a moment's delay. +Sometimes they suggested the names of certain animals or objects, and +demanded that these be made into a fairy tale. If they heard the name of +any new creature or occupation they were likely to offer them as +impromptu inspiration. Once he was suddenly required to make a story out +of a plumber and a "bawgunstrictor," but he was equal to it. On one side +of the library, along the book-shelves that joined the mantelpiece, were +numerous ornaments and pictures. At one end was the head of a girl, that +they called "Emeline," and at the other was an oil-painting of a cat. +When other subjects failed, the romancer was obliged to build a story +impromptu, and without preparation, beginning with the cat, working along +through the bric-a-brac, and ending with "Emeline." This was the +unvarying program. He was not allowed to begin with "Emeline" and end +with the cat, and he was not permitted to introduce an ornament from any +other portion of the room. He could vary the story as much as he liked. +In fact, he was required to do that. The trend of its chapters, from the +cat to "Emeline," was a well-trodden and ever-entertaining way. + +He gave up his luxurious study to the children as a sort of nursery and +playroom, and took up his writing-quarters, first in a room over the +stables, then in the billiard-room, which, on the whole, he preferred to +any other place, for it was a third-story remoteness, and he could knock +the balls about for inspiration. + +The billiard-room became his headquarters. He received his callers there +and impressed them into the game. If they could play, well and good; if +they could not play, so much the better--he could beat them +extravagantly, and he took a huge delight in such conquests. Every +Friday evening, or oftener, a small party of billiard-lovers gathered, +and played until a late hour, told stories, and smoked till the room was +blue, comforting themselves with hot Scotch and general good-fellowship. +Mark Twain always had a genuine passion for billiards. He was never +tired of the game. He could play all night. He would stay till the last +man gave out from sheer weariness; then he would go on knocking the balls +about alone. He liked to invent new games and new rules for old games, +often inventing a rule on the spur of the moment to fit some particular +shot or position on the table. It amused him highly to do this, to make +the rule advantage his own play, and to pretend a deep indignation when +his opponents disqualified his rulings and rode him down. S. C. Dunham +was among those who belonged to the "Friday Evening Club," as they called +it, and Henry C. Robinson, long dead, and rare Ned Bunce, and F. G. +Whitmore; and the old room there at the top of the house, with its little +outside balcony, rang with their voices and their laughter in that day +when life and the world for them was young. Clemens quoted to them +sometimes: + + Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring + Your winter garment of repentance fling; + The bird of time has but a little way + To flutter, and the bird is on the wing. + +Omar was new then on this side of the Atlantic, and to his serene "eat, +drink, and be merry" philosophy, in Fitzgerald's rhyme, these were early +converts. Mark Twain had an impressive, musical delivery of verse; the +players were willing at any moment to listen as he recited: + + For some we loved, the loveliest and best + That from his vintage rolling time has prest, + Have drunk their cup a round or two before, + And one by one crept silently to rest. + Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, + Before we too into the dust descend; + Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie, + Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans End.' + +--[The 'Rubaiyat' had made its first appearance, in Hartford, a little +before in a column of extracts published in the Courant.] Twichell +immediately wrote Clemens a card: + +"Read (if you haven't) the extracts from Oman Khayyam, on the first page +of this morning's Courant. I think we'll have to get the book. I never +yet came across anything that uttered certain thoughts of mine so. +adequately. And it's only a translation. Read it, and we'll talk it +over. There is something in it very like the passage of Emerson you read +me last night, in fact identical with it in thought. + +"Surely this Omar was a great poet. Anyhow, he has given me an immense +revelation this morning. + +"Hoping that you are better, + + J. H. T." + +Twichell's "only a translation" has acquired a certain humor with time. + + + + +CXVI + +OFF FOR GERMANY + +The German language became one of the interests of the Clemens home +during the early months of 1878. The Clemenses had long looked forward +to a sojourn in Europe, and the demand for another Mark Twain book of +travel furnished an added reason for their going. They planned for the +spring sailing, and to spend a year or more on the Continent, making +their headquarters in Germany. So they entered into the study of the +language with an enthusiasm and perseverance that insured progress. +There was a German nurse for the children, and the whole atmosphere of +the household presently became lingually Teutonic. It amused Mark Twain, +as everything amused him, but he was a good student; he acquired a +working knowledge of the language in an extraordinarily brief time, just +as in an earlier day he had picked up piloting. He would never become a +German scholar, but his vocabulary and use of picturesque phrases, +particularly those that combined English and German words, were often +really startling, not only for their humor, but for their expressiveness. + +Necessarily the new study would infect his literature. He conceived a +plan for making Captain Wakeman (Stormfield) come across a copy of +Ollendorf in Heaven, and proceed to learn the language of a near-lying +district. + +They arranged to sail early in April, and, as on their former trip, +persuaded Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira, to accompany them. They wrote +to the Howellses, breaking the news of the journey, urging them to come +to Hartford for a good-by visit. Howells and his wife came. The +Twichells, Warners, and other Hartford friends paid repeated farewell +calls. The furniture was packed, the rooms desolated, the beautiful home +made ready for closing. + +They were to have pleasant company on the ship. Bayard Taylor, then +recently appointed Minister to Germany, wrote that he had planned to sail +on the same vessel; Murat Halstead's wife and daughter were listed among +the passengers. Clemens made a brief speech at Taylor's "farewell +dinner." + +The "Mark Twain" party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, Miss +Spaulding, little Susy and Clara ("Bay"), and a nurse-maid, Rosa, sailed +on the Holsatia, April 11, 1878. Bayard Taylor and the Halstead ladies +also sailed, as per program; likewise Murat Halstead himself, for whom no +program had been made. There was a storm outside, and the Holsatia +anchored down the bay to wait until the worst was over. As the weather +began to moderate Halstead and others came down in a tug for a final word +of good-by. When the tug left, Halstead somehow managed to get +overlooked, and was presently on his way across the ocean with only such +wardrobe as he had on, and what Bayard Taylor, a large man like himself, +was willing to lend him. Halstead was accused of having intentionally +allowed himself to be left behind, and his case did have a suspicious +look; but in any event they were glad to have him along. + +In a written word of good-by to Howells, Clemens remembered a debt of +gratitude, and paid it in the full measure that was his habit. + + And that reminds me, ungrateful dog that I am, that I owe as much to + your training as the rude country job-printer owes to the city boss + who takes him in hand and teaches him the right way to handle his + art. I was talking to Mrs. Clemens about this the other day, and + grieving because I never mentioned it to you, thereby seeming to + ignore it or to be unaware of it. Nothing that has passed under + your eye needs any revision before going into a volume, while all my + other stuff does need so much. + +In that ancient day, before the wireless telegraph, the voyager, when the +land fell away behind him, felt a mighty sense of relief and rest, which +to some extent has gone now forever. He cannot entirely escape the world +in this new day; but then he had a complete sense of dismissal from all +encumbering cares of life. Among the first note-book entries Mark Twain +wrote: + +To go abroad has something of the same sense that death brings--"I am no +longer of ye; what ye say of me is now of no consequence--but of how much +consequence when I am with ye and of ye. I know you will refrain from +saying harsh things because they cannot hurt me, since I am out of reach +and cannot hear them. This is why we say no harsh things of the dead." + +It was a rough voyage outside, but the company made it pleasant within. +Halstead and Taylor were good smoking-room companions. Taylor had a +large capacity for languages and a memory that was always a marvel. He +would repeat for them Arabian, Hungarian, and Russian poetry, and show +them the music and construction of it. He sang German folk-lore songs +for them, and the "Lorelei," then comparatively unknown in America. Such +was his knowledge of the language that even educated Germans on board +submitted questions of construction to him and accepted his decisions. +He was wisely chosen for the mission he had to fill, but unfortunately he +did not fill it long. Both Halstead and Taylor were said to have heart +trouble. Halstead, however, survived many years. Taylor died +December 19, 1878. + + + + +CXVII + +GERMANY AND GERMAN + +From the note-book: + + It is a marvel that never loses its surprise by repetition, this + aiming a ship at a mark three thousand miles away and hitting the + bull's-eye in a fog--as we did. When the fog fell on us the captain + said we ought to be at such and such a spot (it had been eighteen + hours since an observation was had), with the Scilly islands bearing + so and so, and about so many miles away. Hove the lead and got + forty-eight fathoms; looked on the chart, and sure enough this depth + of water showed that we were right where the captain said we were. + + Another idea. For ages man probably did not know why God carpeted + the ocean bottom with sand in one place, shells in another, and so + on. But we see now; the kind of bottom the lead brings up shows + where a ship is when the soundings don't, and also it confirms the + soundings. + +They reached Hamburg after two weeks' stormy sailing. They rested a few +days there, then went to Hanover and Frankfort, arriving at Heidelberg +early in May. + +They had no lodgings selected in Heidelberg, and leaving the others at an +inn, Clemens set out immediately to find apartments. Chance or +direction, or both, led him to the beautiful Schloss Hotel, on a hill +overlooking the city, and as fair a view as one may find in all Germany. +He did not go back after his party. He sent a message telling them to +take carriage and drive at once to the Schloss, then he sat down to enjoy +the view. + +Coming up the hill they saw him standing on the veranda, waving his hat +in welcome. He led them to their rooms--spacious apartments--and pointed +to the view. They were looking down on beautiful Heidelberg Castle, +densely wooded hills, the far-flowing Neckar, and the haze-empurpled +valley of the Rhine. By and by, pointing to a small cottage on the +hilltop, he said: + +"I have been picking out my little house to work in; there it is over +there; the one with the gable in the roof. Mine is the middle room on +the third floor." + +Mrs. Clemens thought the occupants of the house might be surprised if he +should suddenly knock and tell them he had come to take possession of his +room. Nevertheless, they often looked over in that direction and +referred to it as his office. They amused themselves by watching his +"people" and trying to make out what they were like. One day he went +over there, and sure enough there was a sign out, "Moblirte Wohnung zu +Vermiethen." A day or two later he was established in the very room he +had selected, it being the only room but one vacant. + +In A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain tells of the beauty of their Heidelberg +environment. To Howells he wrote: + + Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (inclosed balconies), one + looking toward the Rhine Valley and sunset, the other looking up the + Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend pearly all our time in + these. We have tables and chairs in them; we do our reading, + writing, studying, smoking, and suppering in them . . . . It + must have been a noble genius who devised this hotel. Lord, how + blessed is the repose, the tranquillity of this place! Only two + sounds: the happy clamor of the birds in the groves and the muffled + music of the Neckar tumbling over the opposing dikes. It is no + hardship to lie awake awhile nights, for this subdued roar has + exactly the sound of a steady rain beating upon a roof. It is so + healing to the spirit; and it bears up the thread of one's + imaginings as the accompaniment bears up a song.... + + I have waited for a "call" to go to work--I knew it would come. + Well, it began to come a week ago; my note-book comes out more and + more frequently every day since; three days ago I concluded to move + my manuscripts over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at + last. So to-morrow I shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to + it till the middle of July or August 1st, when I look for Twichell; + we will then walk about Germany two or three weeks, and then I'll go + to work again (perhaps in Munich). + +The walking tour with Twichell had been contemplated in the scheme for +gathering book material, but the plan for it had not been completed when +he left Hartford. Now he was anxious that they should start as soon as +possible. Twichell, receiving the news in Hartford, wrote that it was a +great day for him: that his third son had been happily born early that +morning, and now the arrival of this glorious gift of a tramp through +Germany and Switzerland completed his blessings. + + I am almost too joyful for pleasure [he wrote]. I labor with my + felicities. How I shall get to sleep to-night I don't know, though + I have had a good start, in not having slept much last night. Oh, + my! do you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be? I do. To + begin with, I am thoroughly tired and the rest will be worth + everything. To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together-- + why, it's my dream of luxury. Harmony, who at sunrise this morning + deemed herself the happiest woman on the Continent when I read your + letter to her, widened her smile perceptibly, and revived another + degree of strength in a minute. She refused to consider her being + left alone; but: only the great chance opened to me. + + SHOES--Mark, remember that ever so much of our pleasure depends upon + your shoes. Don't fail to have adequate preparation made in that + department. + +Meantime, the struggle with the "awful German language" went on. It was +a general hand-to-hand contest. From the head of the household down to +little Clara not one was exempt. To Clemens it became a sort of +nightmare. Once in his note-book he says: + +"Dreamed all bad foreigners went to German heaven; couldn't talk, and +wished they had gone to the other place"; and a little farther along, +"I wish I could hear myself talk German." + +To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira, he reported their troubles: + + Clara Spaulding is working herself to death with her German; never + loses an instant while she is awake--or asleep, either, for that + matter; dreams of enormous serpents, who poke their heads up under + her arms and glare upon her with red-hot eyes, and inquire about the + genitive case and the declensions of the definite article. Livy is + bully-ragging herself about as hard; pesters over her grammar and + her reader and her dictionary all day; then in the evening these two + students stretch themselves out on sofas and sigh and say, "Oh, + there's no use! We never can learn it in the world!" Then Livy + takes a sentence to go to bed on: goes gaping and stretching to her + pillow murmuring, "Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden--Ich bin Ihnen sehr + verbunden--Ich bin Ihnen sehr verbunden--I wonder if I can get that + packed away so it will stay till morning"--and about an hour after + midnight she wakes me up and says, "I do so hate to disturb you, but + is it 'Ich Ben Jonson sehr befinden'?" + +And Mrs. Clemens wrote: + + Oh, Sue dear, strive to enter in at the straight gate, for many + shall seek to enter it and shall not be able. I am not striving + these days. I am just interested in German. + +Rosa, the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, +though Bay at first would have none of it. The nurse and governess tried +to blandish her, in vain. She maintained a calm and persistent attitude +of scorn. Little Susy tried, and really made progress; but one, day she +said, pathetically: + +"Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English." + +Yet a little later Susy herself wrote her Aunt Sue: + + I know a lot of German; everybody says I know a lot. I give you a + million dollars to see you, and you would give two hundred dollars + to see the lovely woods that we see. + +Even Howells, in far-off America, caught the infection and began a letter +in German, though he hastened to add, "Or do you prefer English by this +time? Really I could imagine the German going hard with you, for you +always seemed to me a man who liked to be understood with the least +possible personal inconvenience." + +Clemens declared more than once that he scorned the "outrageous and +impossible German grammar," and abandoned it altogether. In his note- +book he records how two Germans, strangers in Heidelberg, asked him a +direction, and that when he gave it, in the most elaborate and correct +German he could muster, one of them only lifted his eyes and murmured: + +"Gott im Himmel!" + +He was daily impressed with the lingual attainments of foreigners and his +own lack of them. In the notes he comments: + + Am addressed in German, and when I can't speak it immediately the + person tackles me in French, and plainly shows astonishment when I + stop him. They naturally despise such an ignoramus. Our doctor + here speaks as pure English, as I. + +On the Fourth of July he addressed the American students in Heidelberg in +one of those mixtures of tongues for which he had a peculiar gift. + +The room he had rented for a study was let by a typical German family, +and he was a great delight to them. He practised his German on them, and +interested himself in their daily affairs. + +Howells wrote insistently for some assurance of contributions to the +Atlantic. + +"I must begin printing your private letters to satisfy the popular +demand," he said. "People are constantly asking when you are going to +begin." + +Clemens replied that he would be only too glad to write for the Atlantic +if his contributions could be copyrighted in Canada, where pirates were +persistently enterprising. + +I do not know that I have any printable stuff just now--separatable +stuff, that is--but I shall have by and by. It is very gratifying to +hear that it is wanted by anybody. I stand always prepared to hear the +reverse, and am constantly surprised that it is delayed so long. +Consequently it is not going to astonish me when it comes. + +The Clemens party enjoyed Heidelberg, though in different ways. The +children romped and picnicked in the castle grounds, which adjoined the +hotel; Mrs. Clemens and Miss Spaulding were devoted to bric-a-brac +hunting, picture-galleries, and music. Clemens took long walks, or made +excursions by rail and diligence to farther points. Art and opera did +not appeal to him. The note-book says: + + I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen + years now; I am sure I know of no agony comparable to the listening + to an unfamiliar opera. I am enchanted with the airs of "Trovatore" + and other old operas which the hand-organ and the music-box have + made entirely familiar to my ear. I am carried away with delighted + enthusiasm when they are sung at the opera. But oh, how far between + they are! And what long, arid, heartbreaking and headaching + "between-times" of that sort of intense but incoherent noise which + always so reminds me of the time the orphan asylum burned down. + + Sunday night, 11th. Huge crowd out to-night to hear the band play + the "Fremersberg." I suppose it is very low-grade music--I know it + must be low-grade music--because it so delighted me, it so warmed + me, moved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that at times + I could have cried, and at others split my throat with shouting. + The great crowd was another evidence that it was low-grade music, + for only the few are educated up to a point where high-class music + gives pleasure. I have never heard enough classic music to be able + to enjoy it, and the simple truth is I detest it. Not mildly, but + with all my heart. + + What a poor lot we human beings are anyway! If base music gives me + wings, why should I want any other? But I do. I want to like the + higher music because the higher and better like it. But you see I + want to like it without taking the necessary trouble, and giving the + thing the necessary amount of time and attention. The natural + suggestion is, to get into that upper tier, that dress-circle, by a + lie--we will pretend we like it. This lie, this pretense, gives to + opera what support it has in America. + + And then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull Turner's + "Slave Ship" is to me. Mr. Ruskin is educated in art up to a point + where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy of pleasure as + it throws me into one of rage. His cultivation enables him to see + water in that yellow mud; his cultivation reconciles the floating of + unfloatable things to him--chains etc.; it reconciles him to fishes + swimming on top of the water. The most of the picture is a manifest + impossibility, that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation can + enable a man to find truth in a lie. A Boston critic said the + "Slave Ship" reminded him of a cat having a fit in a platter of + tomatoes. That went home to my non-cultivation, and I thought, here + is a man with an unobstructed eye. + +Mark Twain has dwelt somewhat upon these matters in 'A Tramp Abroad'. He +confesses in that book that later he became a great admirer of Turner, +though perhaps never of the "Slave Ship" picture. In fact, Mark Twain +was never artistic, in the common acceptance of that term; neither his +art nor his tastes were of an "artistic" kind. + + + + + +CXVIII + +TRAMPING WITH TWICHELL + +Twichell arrived on time, August 1st. Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, +and they immediately set out on a tramp through the Black Forest, +excursioning as pleased them, and having an idyllic good time. They did +not always walk, but they often did. At least they did sometimes, when +the weather was just right and Clemens's rheumatism did not trouble him. +But they were likely to take a carriage, or a donkey-cart, or a train, or +any convenient thing that happened along. They did not hurry, but idled +and talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives and +tourists, though always preferring to wander along together, beguiling +the way with discussion and speculation and entertaining tales. They +crossed on into Switzerland in due time and considered the conquest of +the Alps. The family followed by rail or diligence, and greeted them +here and there when they rested from their wanderings. Mark Twain found +an immunity from attention in Switzerland, which for years he had not +known elsewhere. His face was not so well known and his pen-name was +carefully concealed. + +It was a large relief to be no longer an object of public curiosity; but +Twichell, as in the Bermuda trip, did not feel quite honest, perhaps, in +altogether preserving the mask of unrecognition. In one of his letters +home he tells how; when a young man at their table was especially +delighted with Mark Twain's conversation, he could not resist taking the +young man aside and divulging to him the speaker's identity. + +"I could not forbear telling him who Mark was," he says, "and the mingled +surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so." + +They climbed the Rigi, after which Clemens was not in good walking trim +for some time; so Twichell went on a trip on his own account, to give his +comrade a chance to rest. Then away again to Interlaken, where the +Jungfrau rises, cold and white; on over the loneliness of Gemini Pass, +with glaciers for neighbors and the unfading white peaks against the +blue; to Visp and to Zermatt, where the Matterhorn points like a finger +that directs mankind to God. This was true Alpine wandering--sweet +vagabondage. + +The association of the wanderers was a very intimate one. Their minds +were closely attuned, and there were numerous instances of thought--echo- +mind answering to mind--without the employment of words. Clemens records +in his notes: + + Sunday A.M., August 11th. Been reading Romola yesterday afternoon, + last night, and this morning; at last I came upon the only passage + which has thus far hit me with force--Tito compromising with his + conscience, and resolving to do; not a bad thing, but not the best + thing. Joe entered the room five minutes--no, three minutes later-- + and without prelude said, "I read that book you've got there six + years ago, and got a mighty good text for a sermon out of it the + passage where the young fellow compromises with his conscience, and + resolves to do, not a bad thing, but not the best thing." This is + Joe's first reference to this book since he saw me buy it twenty- + four hours ago. So my mind operated on his in this instance. He + said he was sitting yonder in the reading-room, three minutes ago (I + have not got up yet), thinking of nothing in particular, and didn't + know what brought Romola into his head; but into his head it came + and that particular passage. Now I, forty feet away, in another + room, was reading that particular passage at that particular moment. + + Couldn't suggest Romola to him earlier, because nothing in the book + had taken hold of me till I came to that one passage on page 112, + Tauchnitz edition. + +And again: + + The instances of mind-telegraphing are simply innumerable. This + evening Joe and I sat long at the edge of the village looking at the + Matterhorn. Then Joe said, "We ought to go to the Cervin Hotel and + inquire for Livy's telegram." If he had been but one instant later + I should have said those words instead of him. + +Such entries are frequent, and one day there came along a kind of object- +lesson. They were toiling up a mountainside, when Twichell began telling +a very interesting story which had happened in connection with a friend +still living, though Twichell had no knowledge of his whereabouts at this +time. The story finished just as they rounded a turn in, the cliff, and +Twichell, looking up, ended his last sentence, "And there's the man!" +Which was true, for they were face to face with the very man of whom he +had been telling. + +Another subject that entered into their discussion was the law of +accidents. Clemens held that there was no such thing an accident: that +it was all forewritten in the day of the beginning; that every event, +however slight, was embryonic in that first instant of created life, and +immutably timed to its appearance in the web of destiny. Once on their +travels, when they were on a high bank above a brawling stream, a little +girl, who started to run toward them, slipped and rolled under the bottom +rail of the protecting fence, her feet momentarily hanging out over the +precipice and the tearing torrent below. It seemed a miraculous escape +from death, and furnished an illustration for their discussion. The +condition of the ground, the force of her fall, the nearness of the fatal +edge, all these had grown inevitably out of the first great projection of +thought, and the child's fall and its escape had been invested in life's +primal atom. + +The author of A Tramp Abroad tells us of the rushing stream that flows +out of the Arcadian sky valley, the Gasternthal, and goes plunging down +to Kandersteg, and how he took exercise by making "Harris" (Twichell) set +stranded logs adrift while he lounged comfortably on a boulder, and +watched them go tearing by; also how he made Harris run a race with one +of those logs. But that is literature. Twichell, in a letter home, has +preserved a likelier and lovelier story: + + Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing that he so delights in as + a swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when + once he is within the influence of its fascinations. To throw in + stones and sticks seems to afford him rapture. Tonight, as we were + on our way back to the hotel, seeing a lot of driftwood caught by + the torrent side below the path, I climbed down and threw it in. + When I got back to the path Mark was running down-stream after it as + hard as he could go, throwing up his hands and shouting in the + wildest ecstasy, and when a piece went over a fall and emerged to + view in the foam below he would jump up and down and yell. He said + afterward that he hadn't been so excited in three months. He acted + just like a boy; another feature of his extreme sensitiveness in + certain directions. + +Then generalizing, Twichell adds: + + He has coarse spots in him. But I never knew a person so finely + regardful of the feelings of others in some ways. He hates to pass + another person walking, and will practise some subterfuge to take + off what he feels is the discourtesy of it. And he is exceedingly + timid, tremblingly timid, about approaching strangers; hates to ask + a question. His sensitive regard for others extends to animals. + When we are driving his concern is all about the horse. He can't + bear to see the whip used, or to see a horse pull hard. To-day, + when the driver clucked up his horse and quickened his pace a + little, Mark said, "The fellow's got the notion that we are in a + hurry." He is exceedingly considerate toward me in regard of + everything--or most things. + +The days were not all sunshine. Sometimes it rained and they took +shelter by the wayside, or, if there was no shelter, they plodded along +under their umbrellas, still talking away, and if something occurred that +Clemens wanted to put down they would stand stock still in the rain, and +Twichell would hold the umbrella while Clemens wrote--a good while +sometimes--oblivious to storm and discomfort and the long way yet ahead. + +After the day on Gemmi Pass Twichell wrote home: + + Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in the flowers. He scrambled + around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest + pleasure in them. He crowded a pocket of his note-book with his + specimens and wanted more room. So I stopped the guide and got out + my needle and thread, and out of a stiff paper, a hotel + advertisement, I had about me made a paper bag, a cornucopia like, + and tied it to his vest in front, and it answered the purpose + admirably. He filled it full with a beautiful collection, and as + soon as we got here to-night he transferred it to a cardboard box + and sent it by mail to Livy. A strange Mark he is, full of + contradictions. I spoke last night of his sensitive to others' + feelings. To-day the guide got behind, and came up as if he would + like to go by, yet hesitated to do so. Mark paused, went aside and + busied himself a minute picking a flower. In the halt the guide got + by and resumed his place in front. Mark threw the flower away, + saying, "I didn't want that. I only wanted to give the old man a + chance to go on without seeming to pass us." Mark is splendid to + walk with amid such grand scenery, for he talks so well about it, + has such a power of strong, picturesque expression. I wish you + might have heard him to-day. His vigorous speech nearly did justice + to the things we saw. + +In an address which Twichell gave many years later he recalls another +pretty incident of their travels. They had been toiling up the Gorner +Grat. + +As we paused for a rest, a lamb from a flock of sheep near by ventured +inquisitively toward us, whereupon Mark seated himself on a rock, and +with beckoning hand and soft words tried to get it to come to him. + +On the lamb's part it was a struggle between curiosity and timidity, but +in a succession of advances and retreats it gained confidence, though at +a very gradual rate. It was a scene for a painter: the great American +humorist on one side of the game and that silly little creature on the +other, with the Matterhorn for a background. Mark was reminded that the +time he was consuming was valuable--but to no purpose. The Gorner Grat +could wait. He held on with undiscouraged perseverance till he carried +his point: the lamb finally put its nose in his hand, and he was happy +over it all the rest of the day. + +The matter of religion came up now and again in the drift of their +discussions. It was Twichell's habit to have prayers in their room every +night at the hotels, and Clemens was willing to join in the observances. +Once Twichell, finding him in a responsive mood--a remorseful mood--gave +his sympathy, and spoke of the larger sympathy of divinity. Clemens +listened and seemed soothed and impressed, but his philosophies were too +wide and too deep for creeds and doctrines. A day or two later, as they +were tramping along in the hot sun, his honesty had to speak out. + +"Joe," he said, "I'm going to make a confession. I don't believe in your +religion at all. I've been living a lie right straight along whenever I +pretended to. For a moment, sometimes, I have been almost a believer, +but it immediately drifts away from me again. I don't believe one word +of your Bible was inspired by God any more than any other book. I +believe it is entirely the work of man from beginning to end--atonement +and all. The problem of life and death and eternity and the true +conception of God is a bigger thing than is contained in that book." + +So the personal side of religious discussion closed between them, and was +never afterward reopened. + +They joined Mrs. Clemens and the others at Lausanne at last, and their +Swiss holiday was over. Twichell set out for home by way of England, and +Clemens gave himself up to reflection and rest after his wanderings. +Then, as the days of their companionship passed in review, quickly and +characteristically he sent a letter after his comrade: + + DEAR OLD JOE, It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the + station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't seem to + accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, and the pleasant + tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! it has been such a + rich holiday to me, and I feel under such deep and honest + obligations to you for coming. I am putting out of my mind all + memory of the times when I misbehaved toward you and hurt you; I am + resolved to consider it forgiven, and to store up and remember only + the charming hours of the journeys and the times when I was not + unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands + first after Livy's. It is justifiable to do this; for why should I + let my small infirmities of disposition live and grovel among my + mental pictures of the eternal sublimities of the Alps? + + Livy can't accept or endure the fact that you are gone. But you + are, and we cannot get around it. So take our love with you, and + bear it also over the sea to Harmony, and God bless you both. + + MARK. + + + + +CXIX + +ITALIAN DAYS + +The Clemens party wandered down into Italy--to the lakes, Venice, +Florence, Rome--loitering through the galleries, gathering here and there +beautiful furnishings--pictures, marbles, and the like--for the Hartford +home. + +In Venice they bought an old careen bed, a massive regal affair with +serpentine columns surmounted by singularly graceful cupids, and with +other cupids sporting on the headboard: the work of some artist who had +been dust three centuries maybe, for this bed had come out of an old +Venetian palace, dismantled and abandoned. It was a furniture with a +long story, and the years would add mightily to its memories. It would +become a stately institution in the Clemens household. The cupids on the +posts were removable, and one of the highest privileges of childhood +would be to occupy that bed and have down one of the cupids to play with. +It was necessary to be ill to acquire that privilege--not violently and +dangerously ill, but interestingly so--ill enough to be propped up with +pillows and have one's meals served on a tray, with dolls and picture- +books handy, and among them a beautiful rosewood cupid who had kept +dimpled and dainty for so many, many years. + +They spent three weeks in Venice: a dreamlike experience, especially for +the children, who were on the water most of the time, and became fast +friends with their gondolier, who taught them some Italian words; then a +week in Florence and a fortnight in Rome.--[From the note-book: +"BAY--When the waiter brought my breakfast this morning I spoke to him in +Italian. +"MAMA--What did you say? +"B.--I said, 'Polly-vo fransay.' +"M.--What does it mean? +"B.--I don't know. What does it mean, Susy? +"S.-It means, 'Polly wants a cracker."] + +Clemens discovered that in twelve years his attitude had changed somewhat +concerning the old masters. He no longer found the bright, new copies an +improvement on the originals, though the originals still failed to wake +his enthusiasm. Mrs. Clemens and Miss Spaulding spent long hours +wandering down avenues of art, accompanied by him on occasion, though not +always willingly. He wrote his sorrow to Twichell: + +I do wish you were in Rome to do my sight-seeing for me. Rome interests +me as much as East Hartford could, and no more; that is, the Rome which +the average tourist feels an interest in. There are other things here +which stir me enough to make life worth living. Livy and Clara are +having a royal time worshiping the old masters, and I as good a time +gritting my ineffectual teeth over them. + +Once when Sarah Orne Jewett was with the party he remarked that if the +old masters had labeled their fruit one wouldn't be so likely to mistake +pears for turnips. + +"Youth," said Mrs. Clemens, gravely, "if you do not care for these +masterpieces yourself, you might at least consider the feelings of +others"; and Miss Jewett, regarding him severely, added, in her quaint +Yankee fashion: + +"Now, you've been spoke to!" + +He felt duly reprimanded, but his taste did not materially reform. He +realized that he was no longer in a proper frame of mind to write of +general sight-seeing. One must be eager, verdant, to write happily the +story of travel. Replying to a letter from Howells on the subject he +said: + + I wish I could give those sharp satires on European life which you + mention, but of course a man can't write successful satire except he + be in a calm, judicial good-humor; whereas I hate travel, and I hate + hotels, and I hate the opera, and I hate the old masters. In truth + I don't ever seem to be in a good enough humor with anything to + satirize it. No, I want to stand up before it and curse it and foam + at the mouth, or take a club and pound it to rags and pulp. I have + got in two or three chapters about Wagner's operas, and managed to + do it without showing temper, but the strain of another such effort + would burst me. + +Clemens became his own courier for a time in Italy, and would seem to +have made more of a success of it than he did a good many years +afterward, if we may believe the story he has left us of his later +attempt: + +"Am a shining success as a courier," he records, "by the use of francs. +Have learned how to handle the railway guide intelligently and with +confidence." + +He declares that he will have no more couriers; but possibly he could +have employed one to advantage on the trip out of Italy, for it was a +desperately hard one, with bad connections and delayed telegrams. When, +after thirty-six hours weary, continuous traveling, they arrived at last +in Munich in a drizzle and fog, and were domiciled in their winter +quarters, at No. 1a, Karlstrasse, they felt that they had reached the +home of desolation itself, the very throne of human misery. + + And the rooms were so small, the conveniences so meager, and the + porcelain stove was grim, ghastly, dismal, intolerable! So Livy and + Clara Spaulding sat down forlorn and cried, and I retired to a + private place to pray. By and by we all retired to our narrow + German beds, and when Livy and I had finished talking across the + room it was all decided that we should rest twenty-four hours, then + pay whatever damages were required and straightway fly to the south + of France. + +The rooms had been engaged by letter, months before, of their +proprietress, Fraulein Dahlweiner, who had met them at the door with a +lantern in her hand, full of joy in their arrival and faith in her +ability to make them happy. It was a faith that was justified. Next +morning, when they all woke, rested, the weather had cleared, there were +bright fires in the rooms, the world had taken on a new aspect. Fraulein +Dahlweiner, the pathetic, hard-working little figure, became almost +beautiful in their eyes in her efforts for their comfort. She arranged +larger rooms and better conveniences for them. Their location was +central and there was a near-by park. They had no wish to change. +Clemens, in his letter to Howells, boasts that he brought the party +through from Rome himself, and that they never had so little trouble +before; but in looking over this letter, thirty years later, he +commented, "Probably a lie." + +He secured a room some distance away for his work, but then could not +find his Swiss note-book. He wrote Twichell that he had lost it, and +that after all he might not be obliged to write a volume of travels. But +the notebook turned up and the work on the new book proceeded. For a +time it went badly. He wrote many chapters, only to throw them aside. +He had the feeling that he had somehow lost the knack of descriptive +narrative. He had become, as it seemed, too didactic. He thought his +description was inclined to be too literal, his humor manufactured. +These impressions passed, by and by; interest developed, and with it +enthusiasm and confidence. In a letter to Twichell he reported his +progress: + +I was about to write to my publisher and propose some other book, when +the confounded thing [the note-book] turned up, and down went my heart +into my boots. But there was now no excuse, so I went solidly to work, +tore up a great part of the MS. written in Heidelberg--wrote and tore up, +continued to write and tear up--and at last, reward of patient and noble +persistence, my pen got the old swing again! Since then I'm glad that +Providence knew better what to do with the Swiss notebook than I did. + +Further along in the same letter there breaks forth a true heart-answer +to that voice of the Alps which, once heard, is never wholly silent: + + O Switzerland! The further it recedes into the enriching haze of + time, the more intolerably delicious the charm of it and the cheer + of it and the glory and majesty, and solemnity and pathos of it + grow. Those mountains had a soul: they thought, they spoke. And + what a voice it was! And how real! Deep down in my memory it is + sounding yet. Alp calleth unto Alp! That stately old Scriptural + wording is the right one for God's Alps and God's ocean. How puny + we were in that awful Presence, and how painless it was to be so! + How fitting and right it seemed, and how stingless was the sense of + our unspeakable insignificance! And Lord, how pervading were the + repose and peace and blessedness that poured out of the heart of the + invisible Great Spirit of the mountains! + + Now what is it? There are mountains and mountains and mountains in + this world, but only these take you by the heartstrings. I wonder + what the secret of it is. Well, time and time and again it has + seemed to me that I must drop everything and flee to Switzerland + once more. It is a longings deep, strong, tugging longing. That is + the word. We must go again, Joe. + + + + +CXX + +IN MUNICH + +That winter in Munich was not recalled as an unpleasant one in after- +years. His work went well enough--always a chief source of +gratification. Mrs. Clemens and Miss Spaulding found interest in the +galleries, in quaint shops, in the music and picturesque life of that +beautiful old Bavarian town. The children also liked Munich. It was +easy for them to adopt any new environment or custom. The German +Christmas, with its lavish tree and toys and cakes, was an especial +delight. The German language they seemed fairly to absorb. Writing to +his mother Clemens said: + +I cannot see but that the children speak German as well as they do +English. Susy often translates Livy's orders to the servants. I cannot +work and study German at the same time; so I have dropped the latter and +do not even read the language, except in the morning paper to get the +news. + +In Munich--as was the case wherever they were known--there were many +callers. Most Americans and many foreigners felt it proper to call on +Mark Twain. It was complimentary, but it was wearying sometimes. Mrs. +Clemens, in a letter written from Venice, where they had received even +more than usual attention, declared there were moments when she almost +wished she might never see a visitor again. + +Originally there was a good deal about Munich in the new book, and some +of the discarded chapters might have been retained with advantage. They +were ruled out in the final weeding as being too serious, along with the +French chapters. Only a few Italian memories were left to follow the +Switzerland wanderings. + +The book does record one Munich event, though transferring it to +Heilsbronn. It is the incident of the finding of the lost sock in the +vast bedroom. It may interest the reader to compare what really +happened, as set down in a letter to Twichell, with the story as written +for publication: + + Last night I awoke at three this morning, and after raging to myself + for two interminable hours I gave it up. I rose, assumed a catlike + stealthiness, to keep from waking Livy, and proceeded to dress in + the pitch-dark. Slowly but surely I got on garment after garment-- + all down to one sock; I had one slipper on and the other in my hand. + Well, on my hands and knees I crept softly around, pawing and + feeling and scooping along the carpet, and among chair-legs, for + that missing sock, I kept that up, and still kept it up, and kept it + up. At first I only said to myself, "Blame that sock," but that + soon ceased to answer. My expletives grew steadily stronger and + stronger, and at last, when I found I was lost, I had to sit flat + down on the floor and take hold of something to keep from lifting + the roof off with the profane explosion that was trying to get out + of me. I could see the dim blur of the window, but of course it was + in the wrong place and could give me no information as to where I + was. But I had one comfort--I had not waked Livy; I believed I + could find that sock in silence if the night lasted long enough. + So I started again and softly pawed all over the place, and sure + enough, at the end of half an hour I laid my hand on the missing + article. I rose joyfully up and butted the washbowl and pitcher off + the stand, and simply raised ---- so to speak. Livy screamed, then + said, "Who is it? What is the matter?" I said, "There ain't + anything the matter. I'm hunting for my sock." She said, "Are you + hunting for it with a club?" + + I went in the parlor and lit the lamp, and gradually the fury + subsided and the ridiculous features of the thing began to suggest + themselves. So I lay on the sofa with note-book and pencil, and + transferred the adventure to our big room in the hotel at + Heilsbronn, and got it on paper a good deal to my satisfaction. + +He wrote with frequency to Howells, and sent him something for the +magazine now and then: the "Gambetta Duel" burlesque, which would make a +chapter in the book later, and the story of "The Great Revolution in +Pitcairn."--[Included in The Stolen White Elephant volume. The +"Pitcairn" and "Elephant" tales were originally chapters in 'A Tramp +Abroad'; also the unpleasant "Coffin-box" yarn, which Howells rejected +for the Atlantic and generally condemned, though for a time it remained a +favorite with its author.] + + +Howells's novel, 'The Lady of the Aroostook', was then running through +the 'Atlantic', and in one of his letters Clemens expresses the general +deep satisfaction of his household in that tale: + +If your literature has not struck perfection now we are not able to see +what is lacking. It is all such truth--truth to the life; everywhere +your pen falls it leaves a photograph . . . . Possibly you will not +be a fully accepted classic until you have been dead one hundred years-- +it is the fate of the Shakespeares of all genuine professions--but then +your books will be as common as Bibles, I believe. In that day I shall +be in the encyclopedias too, thus: "Mark Twain, history and occupation +unknown; but he was personally acquainted with Howells." + +Though in humorous form, this was a sincere tribute. Clemens always +regarded with awe William Dean Howells's ability to dissect and +photograph with such delicacy the minutiae of human nature; just as +Howells always stood in awe of Mark Twain's ability to light, with a +single flashing sentence, the whole human horizon. + + + + +CXXI + +PARIS, ENGLAND, AND HOMEWARD BOUND + +They decided to spend the spring months in Paris, so they gave up their +pleasant quarters with Fraulein Dahlweiner, and journeyed across Europe, +arriving at the French capital February 28, 1879. Here they met another +discouraging prospect, for the weather was cold and damp, the cabmen +seemed brutally ill-mannered, their first hotel was chilly, dingy, +uninviting. Clemens, in his note-book, set down his impressions of their +rooms. A paragraph will serve: + + Ten squatty, ugly arm-chairs, upholstered in the ugliest and + coarsest conceivable scarlet plush; two hideous sofas of the same-- + uncounted armless chairs ditto. Five ornamental chairs, seats + covered with a coarse rag, embroidered in flat expanse with a + confusion of leaves such as no tree ever bore, six or seven a dirty + white and the rest a faded red. How those hideous chairs do swear + at the hideous sofa near them! This is the very hatefulest room I + have seen in Europe. + + Oh, how cold and raw and unwarmable it is! + +It was better than that when the sun came out, and they found happier +quarters presently at the Hotel Normandy, rue de l'Echelle. + +But, alas, the sun did not come out often enough. It was one of those +French springs and summers when it rains nearly every day, and is +distressingly foggy and chill between times. Clemens received a bad +impression of France and the French during that Parisian-sojourn, from +which he never entirely recovered. In his note-book he wrote: "France +has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks +it is a fine country." + +The weather may not have been entirely accountable for his prejudice, but +from whatever cause Mark Twain, to the day of his death, had no great +love for the French as a nation. Conversely, the French as a nation did +not care greatly for Mark Twain. There were many individual Frenchmen +that Mark Twain admired, as there were many Frenchmen who admired the +work and personality of Mark Twain; but on neither side was there the +warm, fond, general affection which elsewhere throughout Europe he +invited and returned. + +His book was not yet finished. In Paris he worked on it daily, but +without enthusiasm. The city was too noisy, the weather too dismal. +His note-book says: + +May 7th. I wish this terrible winter would come to an end. Have had +rain almost without intermission for two months and one week. + +May 28th. This is one of the coldest days of this most damnable and +interminable winter. + +It was not all gloom and discomfort. There was congenial company in +Paris, and dinner-parties, and a world of callers. Aldrich the +scintillating--[ Of Aldrich Clemens used to say: "When Aldrich speaks it +seems to me he is the bright face of the moon, and I feel like the other +side." Aldrich, unlike Clemens, was not given to swearing. The Parisian +note-book has this memorandum: "Aldrich gives his seat in the horse-car +to a crutched cripple, and discovers that what he took for a crutch is +only a length of walnut beading and the man not lame; whereupon Aldrich +uses the only profanity that ever escaped his lips: 'Damn a dam'd man who +would carry a dam'd piece of beading under his dam'd arm!'"]--was there, +also Gedney Bunce, of Hartford, Frank Millet and his wife, Hjalinar +Hjorth Boyesen and his wife, and a Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain, artist +people whom the Clemenses had met pleasantly in Italy. Turgenieff, as in +London, came to call; also Baron Tauchnitz, that nobly born +philanthropist of German publishers, who devoted his life, often at his +personal cost, to making the literature of other nations familiar to his +own. Tauchnitz had early published the 'Innocents', following it with +other Mark Twain volumes as they appeared, paying always, of his own will +and accord, all that he could afford to pay for this privilege; which was +not really a privilege, for the law did not require him to pay at all. +He traveled down to Paris now to see the author, and to pay his respects +to him. "A mighty nice old gentleman," Clemens found him. Richard +Whiteing was in Paris that winter, and there were always plenty of young +American painters whom it was good to know. + +They had what they called the Stomach Club, a jolly organization, whose +purpose was indicated by its name. Mark Twain occasionally attended its +sessions, and on one memorable evening, when Edwin A. Abbey was there, +speeches were made which never appeared in any printed proceedings. Mark +Twain's address that night has obtained a wide celebrity among the clubs +of the world, though no line of it, or even its title has ever found its +way into published literature. + +Clemens had a better time in Paris than the rest of his party. He could +go and come, and mingle with the sociabilities when the abnormal weather +kept the others housed in. He did a good deal of sight-seeing of his own +kind, and once went up in a captive balloon. They were all studying +French, more or less, and they read histories and other books relating to +France. Clemens renewed his old interest in Joan of Arc, and for the +first time appears to have conceived the notion of writing the story of +that lovely character. + +The Reign of Terror interested him. He reread Carlyle's Revolution, a +book which he was never long without reading, and they all read 'A Tale +of Two Cities'. When the weather permitted they visited the scenes of +that grim period. + +In his note-book he comments: + + "The Reign of Terror shows that, without distinction or rank, the + people were savages. Marquises, dukes, lawyers, blacksmiths, they + each figure in due proportion to their crafts." + +And again: + + "For 1,000 years this savage nation indulged itself in massacre; + every now and then a big massacre or a little one. The spirit is + peculiar to France--I mean in Christendom--no other state has had + it. In this France has always walked abreast, kept her end up with + her brethren, the Turks and the Burmese. Their chief traits--love + of glory and massacre." + +Yet it was his sense of fairness that made him write, as a sort of +quittance: + + "You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. + It is the tourists' custom. When I see a man jump from the Vendome + Column I say, 'They like to do that in Paris.'" + +Following this implied atonement, he records a few conclusions, drawn +doubtless from Parisian reading and observation: + + "Childish race and great." + + "I'm for cremation." + + "I disfavor capital punishment." + + "Samson was a Jew, therefore not a fool. The Jews have the best + average brain of any people in the world. The Jews are the only + race in the world who work wholly with their brains, and never with + their hands. There are no Jew beggars, no Jew tramps, no Jew + ditchers, hod-carriers, day-laborers, or followers of toilsome + mechanical trade. + + "They are peculiarly and conspicuously the world's intellectual + aristocracy." + + "Communism is idiocy. They want to divide up the property. Suppose + they did it. It requires brains to keep money as well as to make + it. In a precious little while the money would be back in the + former owner's hands and the communist would be poor again. The + division would have to be remade every three years or it would do + the communist no good." + +A curious thing happened one day in Paris. Boyesen; in great excitement, +came to the Normandy and was shown to the Clemens apartments. He was +pale and could hardly speak, for his emotion. He asked immediately if. +his wife had come to their rooms. On learning that she had not, he +declared that she was lost or had met with an accident. She had been +gone several hours, he said, and had sent no word, a thing which she had +never done before. He besought Clemens to aid him in his search for her, +to do something to help him find her. Clemens, without showing the least +emotion or special concentration of interest, said quietly: + +"I will." + +"Where will you go first," Boyesen demanded. + +Still in the same even voice Clemens said: + +"To the elevator." + +He passed out of the room, with Boyesen behind him, into the hall. The +elevator was just coming up, and as they reached it, it stopped at their +landing, and Mrs. Boyesen stepped out. She had been delayed by a +breakdown and a blockade. Clemens said afterward that he had a positive +conviction that she would be on the elevator when they reached it. It +was one of those curious psychic evidences which we find all along during +his life; or, if the skeptics prefer to call them coincidences, they are +privileged to do so. + + Paris, June 1, 1879. Still this vindictive winter continues. Had a + raw, cold rain to-day. To-night we sit around a rousing wood fire. + +They stood it for another month, and then on the 10th of July, when it +was still chilly and disagreeable, they gave it up and left for Brussels, +which he calls "a dirty, beautiful (architecturally), interesting town." + +Two days in Brussels, then to Antwerp, where they dined on the Trenton +with Admiral Roan, then to Rotterdam, Dresden, Amsterdam, and London, +arriving there the 29th of July, which was rainy and cold, in keeping +with all Europe that year. + + Had to keep a rousing big cannel-coal fire blazing in the grate all + day. A remarkable summer, truly! + +London meant a throng of dinners, as always: brilliant, notable affairs, +too far away to recall. A letter written by Mrs. Clemens at the time +preserves one charming, fresh bit of that departed bloom. + + Clara [Spaulding] went in to dinner with Mr. Henry James; she + enjoyed him very much. I had a little chat with him before dinner, + and he was exceedingly pleasant and easy to talk with. I had + expected just the reverse, thinking one would feel looked over by + him and criticized. + + Mr. Whistler, the artist, was at the dinner, but he did not attract + me. Then there was a lady, over eighty years old, a Mrs. Stuart, + who was Washington Irving's love, and she is said to have been his + only love, and because of her he went unmarried to his grave.-- + [Mrs. Clemens was misinformed. Irving's only "love" was a Miss + Hoffman.]--She was also an intimate friend of Madame Bonaparte. + You would judge Mrs. Stuart to be about fifty, and she was the life + of the drawing-room after dinner, while the ladies were alone, + before the gentlemen came up. It was lovely to see such a sweet old + age; every one was so fond of her, every one deferred to her, yet + every one was joking her, making fun of her, but she was always + equal to the occasion, giving back as bright replies as possible; + you had not the least sense that she was aged. She quoted French in + her stories with perfect ease and fluency, and had all the time such + a kindly, lovely way. When she entered the room, before dinner, Mr. + James, who was then talking with me, shook hands with her and said, + "Good evening, you wonderful lady." After she had passed . . . + he said, "She is the youngest person in London. She has the + youngest feelings and the youngest interests . . . . She is + always interested." + + It was a perfect delight to hear her and see her. + +For more than two years they had had an invitation from Reginald +Cholmondeley to pay him another visit. + +So they went for a week to Condover, where many friends were gathered, +including Millais, the painter, and his wife (who had been the wife of +Ruskin), numerous relatives, and other delightful company. It was one of +the happiest chapters of their foreign sojourn.--[Moncure D. Conway, who +was in London at the time, recalls, in his Autobiography, a visit which +he made with Mr. and Mrs. Clemens to Stratford-on-Avon. "Mrs. Clemens +was an ardent Shakespearian, and Mark Twain determined to give her a +surprise. He told her that we were going on a journey to Epworth, and +persuaded me to connive with the joke by writing to Charles Flower not to +meet us himself, but send his carriage. On arrival at the station we +directed the driver to take us straight to the church. When we entered, +and Mrs. Clemens read on Shakespeare's grave, 'Good friend, for Jesus' +sake, forbear,' she started back, exclaiming, 'where am I?' Mark +received her reproaches with an affluence of guilt, but never did lady +enjoy a visit more than that to Avonbank. Mrs. Charles Flower (nee +Martineau) took Mrs. Clemens to her heart, and contrived that every +social or other attraction of that region should surround her."] + +From the note-book: + + Sunday, August 17,'79. Raw and cold, and a drenching rain. Went to + hear Mr. Spurgeon. House three-quarters full-say three thousand + people. First hour, lacking one minute, taken up with two prayers, + two ugly hymns, and Scripture-reading. Sermon three-quarters of an + hour long. A fluent talker, good, sonorous voice. Topic treated in + the unpleasant, old fashion: Man a mighty bad child, God working at + him in forty ways and having a world of trouble with him. + + A wooden-faced congregation; just the sort to see no incongruity in + the majesty of Heaven stooping to plead and sentimentalize over + such, and see in their salvation an important matter. + + Tuesday, August 19th. Went up Windermere Lake in the steamer. + Talked with the great Darwin. + +They had planned to visit Dr. Brown in Scotland. Mrs. Clemens, in +particular, longed to go, for his health had not been of the best, and +she felt that they would never have a chance to see him again. Clemens +in after years blamed himself harshly for not making the trip, declaring +that their whole reason for not going was an irritable reluctance on his +part to take the troublesome journey and a perversity of spirit for which +there was no real excuse. There is documentary evidence against this +harsh conclusion. They were, in fact, delayed here and there by +misconnections and the continued terrific weather, barely reaching +Liverpool in time for their sailing date, August 23d. Unquestionably he +was weary of railway travel, far he always detested it. Time would +magnify his remembered reluctance, until, in the end, he would load his +conscience with the entire burden of blame. + +Their ship was the Gallia, and one night, when they were nearing the +opposite side of the Atlantic, Mark Twain, standing on deck, saw for the +third time in his experience a magnificent lunar rainbow: a complete +arch, the colors part of the time very brilliant, but little different +from a day rainbow. It is not given to many persons in this world to see +even one of these phenomena. After each previous vision there had come +to him a period of good-fortune. Perhaps this also boded well for him. + + + + +CXXII + +AN INTERLUDE + +The Gallia reached New York September 3, 1879. A report of his arrival, +in the New York Sun, stated that Mark Twain had changed in his absence; +that only his drawl seemed natural. + + His hat, as he stood on the deck of the incoming Cunarder, Gallia, + was of the pattern that English officers wear in India, and his suit + of clothes was such as a merchant might wear in his store. He + looked older than when he went to Germany, and his hair has turned + quite gray. + +It was a late hour when they were finally up to the dock, and Clemens, +anxious to get through the Custom House, urged the inspector to accept +his carefully prepared list of dutiable articles, without opening the +baggage. But the official was dubious. Clemens argued eloquently, and a +higher authority was consulted. Again Clemens stated his case and +presented his arguments. A still higher chief of inspection was +summoned, evidently from his bed. He listened sleepily to the preamble, +then suddenly said: "Oh, chalk his baggage, of course! Don't you know +it's Mark Twain and that he'll talk all night?" + +They went directly to the farm, for whose high sunlit loveliness they had +been longing through all their days of absence. Mrs. Clemens, in her +letters, had never failed to dwell on her hunger for that fair hilltop. +From his accustomed study-table Clemens wrote to Twichell: + +"You have run about a good deal, Joe, but you have never seen any place +that was so divine as the farm. Why don't you come here and take a +foretaste of Heaven?" Clemens declared he would roam no more forever, +and settled down to the happy farm routine. He took up his work, which +had not gone well in Paris, and found his interest in it renewed. In the +letter to Twichell he said: + + I am revising my MS. I did not expect to like it, but I do. I have + been knocking out early chapters for more than a year now, not + because they had not merit, but merely because they hindered the + flow of the narrative; it was a dredging process. Day before + yesterday my shovel fetched up three more chapters and laid them, + reeking, on the festering shore-pile of their predecessors, and now + I think the yarn swims right along, without hitch or halt. I + believe it will be a readable book of travels. I cannot see that it + lacks anything but information. + +Mrs. Clemens was no less weary of travel than her husband. Yet she had +enjoyed their roaming, and her gain from it had been greater than his. +Her knowledge of art and literature, and of the personal geography of +nations, had vastly increased; her philosophy of life had grown beyond +all counting. + +She had lost something, too; she had outstripped her traditions. One +day, when she and her sister had walked across the fields, and had +stopped to rest in a little grove by a pretty pond, she confessed, +timidly enough and not without sorrow, how she had drifted away from her +orthodox views. She had ceased to believe, she said, in the orthodox +Bible God, who exercised a personal supervision over every human soul. +The hordes of people she had seen in many lands, the philosophies she had +listened to from her husband and those wise ones about him, the life away +from the restricted round of home, all had contributed to this change. +Her God had become a larger God; the greater mind which exerts its care +of the individual through immutable laws of time and change and +environment--the Supreme Good which comprehends the individual flower, +dumb creature, or human being only as a unit in the larger scheme of life +and love. Her sister was not shocked or grieved; she too had grown with +the years, and though perhaps less positively directed, had by a path of +her own reached a wider prospect of conclusions. It was a sweet day +there in the little grove by the water, and would linger in the memory of +both so long as life lasted. Certainly it was the larger faith; though +the moment must always come when the narrower, nearer, more humanly +protecting arm of orthodoxy lends closer comfort. Long afterward, in the +years that followed the sorrow of heavy bereavement, Clemens once said to +his wife, "Livy, if it comforts you to lean on the Christian faith do +so," and she answered," I can't, Youth. I haven't any." + +And the thought that he had destroyed her illusion, without affording a +compensating solace, was one that would come back to him, now and then, +all his days. + + + + +CXXIII + +THE GRANT SPEECH OF 1879 + +If the lunar rainbow had any fortuitous significance, perhaps we may find +it in the two speeches which Mark Twain made in November and December of +that year. The first of these was delivered at Chicago, on the occasion +of the reception of General Grant by the Army of the Tennessee, on the +evening of November 73, 1879. Grant had just returned from his splendid +tour of the world. His progress from San Francisco eastward had been +such an ovation as is only accorded to sovereignty. Clemens received an +invitation to the reunion, but, dreading the long railway journey, was at +first moved to decline. He prepared a letter in which he made "business" +his excuse, and expressed his regret that he would not be present to see +and hear the veterans of the Army of the Tennessee at the moment when +their old commander entered the room and rose in his place to speak. + +"Besides," he said, "I wanted to see the General again anyway and renew +the acquaintance. He would remember me, because I was the person who did +not ask him for an office." + +He did not send the letter. Reconsidering, it seemed to him that there +was something strikingly picturesque in the idea of a Confederate soldier +who had been chased for a fortnight in the rain through Ralls and Monroe +counties, Missouri, now being invited to come and give welcome home to +his old imaginary pursuer. It was in the nature of an imperative +command, which he could not refuse to obey. + +He accepted and agreed to speak. They had asked him to respond to the +toast of "The Ladies," but for him the subject was worn out. He had +already responded to that toast at least twice. He telegraphed that +there was one class of the community that had always been overlooked upon +such occasions, and that if they would allow him to do so he would take +that class for a toast: the babies. Necessarily they agreed, and he +prepared himself accordingly. + +He arrived in Chicago in time for the prodigious procession of welcome. +Grant was to witness the march from a grand reviewing stand, which had +been built out from the second story of the Palmer House. Clemens had +not seen the General since the "embarrassing" introduction in Washington, +twelve years before. Their meeting was characteristic enough. Carter +Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, arriving with Grant, stepped over to Clemens, +and asked him if he wouldn't like to be presented. Grant also came +forward, and a moment later Harrison was saying: + +"General, let me present Mr. Clemens, a man almost as great as yourself." +They shook hands; there was a pause of a moment, then Grant said, looking +at him gravely: + +"Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed, are you?" + +So he remembered that first, long-ago meeting. It was a conspicuous +performance. The crowd could not hear the words, but they saw the +greeting and the laugh, and cheered both men. + +Following the procession, there were certain imposing ceremonies of +welcome at Haverly's Theater where long, laudatory eloquence was poured +out upon the returning hero, who sat unmoved while the storm of music and +cheers and oratory swept about him. Clemens, writing of it that evening +to Mrs. Clemens, said: + + I never sat elbow to elbow with so many historic names before. + Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope, Logan, and so on. + + What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the house, with his right + leg crossed over his left, his right boot sole tilted up at an + angle, and his left hand and arm reposing on the arm of his chair. + You note that position? Well, when glowing references were made to + other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed a trifle + of nervous consciousness, and as these references came frequently + the nervous changes of position and attitude were also frequent. + But Grant! He was under a tremendous and ceaseless bombardment of + praise and congratulation; but as true as I'm sitting here he never + moved a muscle of his body for a single instant during thirty + minutes! You could have played him on a stranger for an effigy. + Perhaps he never would have moved, but at last a speaker made such a + particularly ripping and blood-stirring remark about him that the + audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped and clapped an + entire minute--Grant sitting as serene as ever-when General Sherman + stepped up to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, + bent respectfully down, and whispered in his ear. Then Grant got up + and bowed, and the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. + +But it was the next evening that the celebration rose to a climax. This +was at the grand banquet at the Palmer House, where six hundred guests +sat down to dinner and Grant himself spoke, and Logan and Hurlbut, and +Vilas and Woodford and Pope, fifteen in all, including Robert G. +Ingersoll and Mark Twain. Chicago has never known a greater event than +that dinner, for there has never been a time since when those great +soldiers and citizens could have been gathered there. + +To Howells Clemens wrote: + + Imagine what it was like to see a bullet-shredded old battle-flag + reverently unfolded to the gaze of a thousand middle-aged soldiers, + most of whom hadn't seen it since they saw it advancing over + victorious fields when they were in their prime. And imagine what + it was like when Grant, their first commander, stepped into view + while they were still going mad over the flag, and then right in the + midst of it all somebody struck up "When we were marching through + Georgia." Well, you should have heard the thousand voices lift that + chorus and seen the tears stream down. If I live a hundred years I + sha'n't ever forget these things, nor be able to talk about them. I + sha'n't ever forget that I saw Phil Sheridan, with martial cloak and + plumed chapeau, riding his big black horse in the midst of his own + cannon; by all odds the superbest figure of a soldier. I ever + looked upon! + Grand times, my boy, grand times! + +Mark Twain declared afterward that he listened to four speeches that +night which he would remember as long as he lived. One of them was by +Emory Storrs, another by General Vilas, another by Logan, and the last +and greatest by Robert Ingersoll, whose eloquence swept the house like a +flame. The Howells letter continues: + + I doubt if America has ever seen anything quite equal to it; I am + well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again. How pale + those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how + blinding they were in the delivery! Bob Ingersoll's music will sing + through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my + ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a + dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of + seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature + that ever lived. "They fought, that a mother might own her child." + The words look like any other print, but, Lord bless me! he + borrowed the very accent of the angel of mercy to say them in, and + you should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; and you + should have heard the hurricane that followed. That's the only + test! People may shout, clap their hands, stamp, wave their + napkins, but none but the master can make them get up on their feet. + +Clemens's own speech came last. He had been placed at the end to hold +the house. He was preceded by a dull speaker, and his heart sank, for it +was two o'clock and the diners were weary and sleepy, and the dreary +speech had made them unresponsive. + +They gave him a round of applause when he stepped up upon the table in +front of him--a tribute to his name. Then he began the opening words of +that memorable, delightful fancy. + +"We haven't all had the good-fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been +generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the +babies--we stand on common ground--" + +The tired audience had listened in respectful silence through the first +half of the sentence. He made one of his effective pauses on the word +"babies," and when he added, in that slow, rich measure of his, "we stand +on common ground," they let go a storm of applause. There was no +weariness and inattention after that. At the end of each sentence, he +had to stop to let the tornado roar itself out and sweep by. When he +reached the beginning of the final paragraph, "Among the three or four +million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would +preserve for ages as sacred things if we could know which ones they are," +the vast audience waited breathless for his conclusion. Step by step he +led toward some unseen climax--some surprise, of course, for that would +be his way. Then steadily, and almost without emphasis, he delivered the +opening of his final sentence: + +"And now in his cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious +commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his +approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole +strategic mind, at this moment, to trying to find out some way to get his +own big toe into his mouth, an achievement which (meaning no disrespect) +the illustrious guest of this evening also turned his attention to some +fifty-six years ago." + +He paused, and the vast crowd had a chill of fear. After all, he seemed +likely to overdo it to spoil everything with a cheap joke at the end. +No one ever knew better than Mark Twain the value of a pause. He waited +now long enough to let the silence become absolute, until the tension was +painful, then wheeling to Grant himself he said, with all the dramatic +power of which he was master: + +"And if the child is but the father of the man, there are mighty few who +will doubt that he succeeded!" + +The house came down with a crash. The linking of their hero's great +military triumphs with that earliest of all conquests seemed to them so +grand a figure that they went mad with the joy of it. Even Grant's iron +serenity broke; he rocked and laughed while the tears streamed down his +cheeks. + +They swept around the speaker with their congratulations, in their +efforts to seize his hand. He was borne up and down the great dining- +hall. Grant himself pressed up to make acknowledgments. + +"It tore me all to pieces," he said; and Sherman exclaimed, "Lord bless +you, my boy! I don't know how you do it!" + +The little speech has been in "cold type" so many years since then that +the reader of it to-day may find it hard to understand the flame of +response it kindled so long ago. But that was another day--and another +nation--and Mark Twain, like Robert Ingersoll, knew always his period and +his people. + + + + +CXXIV + +ANOTHER "ATLANTIC" SPEECH + +The December good-fortune was an opportunity Clemens had to redeem +himself with the Atlantic contingent, at a breakfast given to Dr. Holmes. + +Howells had written concerning it as early as October, and the first +impulse had been to decline. It would be something of an ordeal; for +though two years had passed since the fatal Whittier dinner, Clemens had +not been in that company since, and the lapse of time did not signify. +Both Howells and Warner urged him to accept, and he agreed to do so on +condition that he be allowed to speak. + +If anybody talks there I shall claim the right to say a word myself, and +be heard among the very earliest, else it would be confoundedly awkward +for me--and for the rest, too. But you may read what I say beforehand, +and strike out whatever you choose. + +Howells advised against any sort of explanation. Clemens accepted this +as wise counsel, and prepared an address relevant only to the guest of +honor. + +It was a noble gathering. Most of the guests of the Whittier dinner were +present, and this time there were ladies. Emerson, Longfellow, and +Whittier were there, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Julia Ward Howe; also the +knightly Colonel Waring, and Stedman, and Parkman, and grand old John +Bigelow, old even then.--[He died in 1911 in his 94th year.] + +Howells was conservative in his introduction this time. It was better +taste to be so. He said simply: + +"We will now listen to a few words of truth and soberness from Mark +Twain." + +Clemens is said to have risen diffidently, but that was his natural +manner. It probably did not indicate anything of the inner tumult he +really felt. + +Outwardly he was calm enough, and what he said was delicate and +beautiful, the kind of thing that he could say so well. It seems fitting +that it should be included here, the more so that it tells a story not +elsewhere recorded. This is the speech in full: + + MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN,--I would have traveled a much + greater distance than I have come to witness the paying of honors to + Dr. Holmes, for my feeling toward him has always been one of + peculiar warmth. When one receives a letter from a great man for + the first time in his life it is a large event to him, as all of you + know by your own experience. You never can receive letters enough + from famous men afterward to obliterate that one or dim the memory + of the pleasant surprise it was and the gratification it gave you. + Lapse of time cannot make it commonplace or cheap. Well, the first + great man who ever wrote me a letter was our guest, Oliver Wendell + Holmes. He was also the first great literary man I ever stole + anything from, and that is how I came to write to him and he to me. + When my first book was new a friend of mine said, "The dedication is + very neat." Yes, I said, I thought it was. My friend said, + "I always admired it, even before I saw it in The Innocents Abroad." + I naturally said, "What do you mean? Where did you ever see it + before?" "Well, I saw it first, some years ago, as Dr. Holmes's + dedication to his Songs in Many Keys." Of course my first impulse + was to prepare this man's remains for burial, but upon reflection I + said I would reprieve him for a moment or two, and give him a chance + to prove his assertion if he could. We stepped into a book-store. + and he did prove it. I had stolen that dedication almost word for + word. I could not imagine how this curious thing happened; for I + knew one thing, for a dead certainty--that a certain amount of pride + always goes along with a teaspoonful of brains, and that this pride + protects a man from deliberately stealing other people's ideas. + That is what a teaspoonful of brains will do for a man, and admirers + had often told me I had nearly a basketful, though they were rather + reserved as to the size of the basket. However, I thought the thing + out and solved the mystery. Some years before I had been laid up a + couple of weeks in the Sandwich Islands, and had read and reread Dr. + Holmes's poems till my mental reservoir was filled with them to the + brim. The dedication lay on top and handy, so by and by I + unconsciously took it. Well, of course, I wrote to Dr. Holmes and + told him I hadn't meant to steal, and he wrote back and said, in the + kindest way, that it was all right, and no harm done, and added that + he believed we all unconsciously worked over ideas gathered in + reading and hearing, imagining they were original with ourselves. + He stated a truth and did it in such a pleasant way, and salved over + my sore spot so gently and so healingly, that I was rather glad I + had committed the crime, for the sake of the letter. I afterward + called on him and told him to make perfectly free with any ideas of + mine that struck him as good protoplasm for poetry. He could see by + that time that there wasn't anything mean about me; so we got along, + right from the start.--[Holmes in his letter had said: "I rather + think The Innocents Abroad will have many more readers than Songs in + Many Keys. . . You will be stolen from a great deal oftener than + you will borrow from other people."] + + I have met Dr. Holmes many times since; and lately he said--However, + I am wandering wildly away from the one thing which I got on my feet + to do; that is, to make my compliments to you, my fellow-teachers of + the great public, and likewise to say I am right glad to see that + Dr. Holmes is still in his prime and full of generous life, and as + age is not determined by years but by trouble, and by infirmities of + mind and body, I hope it may be a very long time yet before any can + truthfully say, "He is growing old." + +Whatever Mark Twain may have lost on that former occasion, came back to +him multiplied when he had finished this happy tribute. So the year for +him closed prosperously. The rainbow of promise was justified. + + + + +CXXV + +THE QUIETER THINGS OF HOME + +Upset and disturbed as Mark Twain often was, he seldom permitted his +distractions to interfere with the program of his fireside. His days and +his nights might be fevered, but the evenings belonged to another world. +The long European wandering left him more than ever enamoured of his +home; to him it had never been so sweet before, so beautiful, so full of +peace. Company came: distinguished guests and the old neighborhood +circles. Dinner-parties were more frequent than ever, and they were +likely to be brilliant affairs. The best minds, the brightest wits, +gathered around Mark Twain's table. Booth, Barrett, Irving, Sheridan, +Sherman, Howells, Aldrich: they all assembled, and many more. There was +always some one on the way to Boston or New York who addressed himself +for the day or the night, or for a brief call, to the Mark Twain +fireside. + +Certain visitors from foreign lands were surprised at his environment, +possibly expecting to find him among less substantial, more bohemian +surroundings. Henry Drummond, the author of Natural Law in the Spiritual +World, in a letter of this time, said: + + I had a delightful day at Hartford last Wednesday . . . . Called + on Mark Twain, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the widow of Horace + Bushnell. I was wishing A---- had been at the Mark Twain interview. + He is funnier than any of his books, and to my surprise a most + respected citizen, devoted to things esthetic, and the friend of the + poor and struggling.--[Life of Henry Drummond, by George Adam + Smith.] + +The quieter evenings were no less delightful. Clemens did not often go +out. He loved his own home best. The children were old enough now to +take part in a form of entertainment that gave him and them especial +pleasure-acting charades. These he invented for them, and costumed the +little performers, and joined in the acting as enthusiastically and as +unrestrainedly as if he were back in that frolicsome boyhood on John +Quarles's farm. The Warner and Twichell children were often there and +took part in the gay amusements. The children of that neighborhood +played their impromptu parts well and naturally. They were in a dramatic +atmosphere, and had been from infancy. There was never any preparation +for the charades. A word was selected and the parts of it were whispered +to the little actors. Then they withdrew to the hall, where all sorts of +costumes had been laid out for the evening, dressed their parts, and each +detachment marched into the library, performed its syllable and retired, +leaving the audience, mainly composed of parents, to guess the answer. +Often they invented their own words, did their own costuming, and +conducted the entire performance independent of grown-up assistance or +interference. Now and then, even at this early period, they conceived +and produced little plays, and of course their father could not resist +joining in these. At other times, evenings, after dinner, he would sit +at the piano and recall the old darky songs-spirituals and jubilee +choruses-singing them with fine spirit, if not with perfect technic, the +children joining in these moving melodies. + +He loved to read aloud to them. It was his habit to read his manuscript +to Mrs. Clemens, and, now that the children were older, he was likely to +include them in his critical audience. + +It would seem to have been the winter after their return from Europe that +this custom was inaugurated, for 'The Prince and the Pauper' manuscript +was the first one so read, and it was just then he was resuming work on +this tale. Each afternoon or evening, when he had finished his chapter, +he assembled his little audience and read them the result. The children +were old enough to delight in that half real, half fairy tale of the +wandering prince and the royal pauper: and the charm and simplicity of +the story are measurably due to those two small listeners, to whom it was +adapted in that early day of its creation. + +Clemens found the Prince a blessed relief from 'A Tramp Abroad', which +had become a veritable nightmare. He had thought it finished when he +left the farm, but discovered that he must add several hundred pages to +complete its bulk. It seemed to him that he had been given a life- +sentence. He wrote six hundred pages and tore up all but two hundred and +eighty-eight. He was about to destroy these and begin again, when Mrs. +Clemens's health became poor and he was advised to take her to Elmira, +though it was then midwinter. To Howells he wrote: + + I said, "if there is one death that is painfuler than another, may I + get it if I don't do that thing." + + So I took the 288 pages to Bliss and told him that was the very last + line I should ever write on this book (a book which required 600 + pages of MS., and I have written nearly four thousand, first and + last). + + I am as soary (and flighty) as a rocket to-day, with the unutterable + joy of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has + been roosting more than a year and a half. + +They remained a month at Elmira, and on their return Clemens renewed work +on 'The Prince and the Pauper'. He reported to Howells that if he never +sold a copy his jubilant delight in writing it would suffer no +diminution. A week later his enthusiasm had still further increased: + + I take so much pleasure in my story that I am loath to hurry, not + wanting to get it done. Did I ever tell you the plot of it? It + begins at 9 A.M., January 27, 1547. + +He follows with a detailed synopsis of his plot, which in this instance +he had worked out with unusual completeness--a fact which largely +accounts for the unity of the tale. Then he adds: + + My idea is to afford a realizing sense of the exceeding severity of + the laws of that day by inflicting some of their penalties upon the + king himself, and allowing him a chance to see the rest of them + applied to others; all of which is to account for certain mildnesses + which distinguished Edward VI.'s reign from those that precede it + and follow it. + + Imagine this fact: I have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this + yarn for youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with + faint praise out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She + is become the horse-leech's daughter, and my mill doesn't grind fast + enough to suit her. This is no mean triumph, my dear sir. + +He forgot, perhaps, to mention his smaller auditors, but we may believe +they were no less eager in their demands for the tale's continuance. + + + + +CXXVI + +"A TRAMP ABROAD" + +'A Tramp Abroad' came from the presses on the 13th of March, 1880. It +had been widely heralded, and there was an advance sale of twenty-five +thousand copies. It was of the same general size and outward character +as the Innocents, numerously illustrated, and was regarded by its +publishers as a satisfactory book. + +It bore no very striking resemblance to the Innocents on close +examination. Its pictures-drawn, for the most part, by a young art +student named Brown, whom Clemens had met in Paris--were extraordinarily +bad, while the crude engraving process by which they had been reproduced; +tended to bring them still further into disrepute. A few drawings by +True Williams were better, and those drawn by Clemens himself had a value +of their own. The book would have profited had there been more of what +the author calls his "works of art." + +Mark Twain himself had dubious anticipations as to the book's reception. + +But Howells wrote: + + Well, you are a blessing. You ought to believe in God's goodness, + since he has bestowed upon the world such a delightful genius as + yours to lighten its troubles. + +Clemens replied: + + Your praises have been the greatest uplift I ever had. When a body + is not even remotely expecting such things, how the surprise takes + the breath away! We had been interpreting your stillness to + melancholy and depression, caused by that book. This is honest. + Why, everything looks brighter now. A check for untold cash could + not have made our hearts sing as your letter has done. + +A letter from Tauchnitz, proposing to issue an illustrated edition in +Germany, besides putting it into his regular series, was an added +satisfaction. To be in a Tauchnitz series was of itself a recognition of +the book's merit. + +To Twichell, Clemens presented a special copy of the Tramp with a +personal inscription, which must not be omitted here: + + MY DEAR "HARRIS"--NO, I MEAN MY DEAR JOE,--Just imagine it for a + moment: I was collecting material in Europe during fourteen months + for a book, and now that the thing is printed I find that you, who + were with me only a month and a half of the fourteen, are in actual + presence (not imaginary) in 440 of the 531 pages the book contains! + Hang it, if you had stayed at home it would have taken me fourteen + years to get the material. You have saved me an intolerable whole + world of hated labor, and I'll not forget it, my boy. + + You'll find reminders of things, all along, that happened to us, and + of others that didn't happen; but you'll remember the spot where + they were invented. You will see how the imaginary perilous trip up + the Riffelberg is preposterously expanded. That horse-student is on + page 192. The "Fremersberg" is neighboring. The Black Forest novel + is on page 211. I remember when and where we projected that: in the + leafy glades with the mountain sublimities dozing in the blue haze + beyond the gorge of Allerheiligen. There's the "new member," page + 213; the dentist yarn, 223; the true Chamois, 242; at page 248 is a + pretty long yarn, spun from a mighty brief text meeting, for a + moment, that pretty girl who knew me and whom I had forgotten; at + 281 is "Harris," and should have been so entitled, but Bliss has + made a mistake and turned you into some other character; 305 brings + back the whole Rigi tramp to me at a glance; at 185 and 186 are + specimens of my art; and the frontispiece is the combination which I + made by pasting one familiar picture over the lower half of an + equally familiar one. This fine work being worthy of Titian, I have + shed the credit of it upon him. Well, you'll find more reminders of + things scattered through here than are printed, or could have been + printed, in many books. + + All the "legends of the Neckar," which I invented for that unstoried + region, are here; one is in the Appendix. The steel portrait of me + is just about perfect. + + We had a mighty good. time, Joe, and the six weeks I would dearly + like to repeat any time; but the rest of the fourteen months-never. + With love, + Yours, MARK. + + Hartford, March 16, 1880. + + +Possibly Twichell had vague doubts concerning a book of which he was so +large a part, and its favorable reception by the critics and the public +generally was a great comfort. When the Howells letter was read to him +he is reported as having sat with his hands on his knees, his head bent +forward--a favorite attitude--repeating at intervals: + +"Howells said that, did he? Old Howells said that!" + +There have been many and varying opinions since then as to the literary +merits of 'A Tramp Abroad'. Human tastes differ, and a "mixed" book of +this kind invites as many opinions as it has chapters. The word "uneven" +pretty safely describes any book of size, but it has a special +application to this one. Written under great stress and uncertainty of +mind, it could hardly be uniform. It presents Mark Twain at his best, +and at his worst. Almost any American writer was better than Mark Twain +at his worst: Mark Twain at his best was unapproachable. + +It is inevitable that 'A Tramp Abroad' and 'The Innocents Abroad' should +be compared, though with hardly the warrant of similarity. The books are +as different as was their author at the periods when they were written. +'A Tramp Abroad' is the work of a man who was traveling and observing for +the purpose of writing a book, and for no other reason. The Innocents +Abroad was written by a man who was reveling in every scene and +experience, every new phase and prospect; whose soul was alive to every +historic association, and to every humor that a gay party of young sight- +seers could find along the way. The note-books of that trip fairly glow +with the inspiration of it; those of the later wanderings are mainly +filled with brief, terse records, interspersed with satire and +denunciation. In the 'Innocents' the writer is the enthusiast with a +sense of humor. In the 'Tramp' he has still the sense of humor, but he +has become a cynic; restrained, but a cynic none the less. In the +'Innocents' he laughs at delusions and fallacies--and enjoys them. In +the 'Tramp' he laughs at human foibles and affectations--and wants to +smash them. Very often he does not laugh heartily and sincerely at all, +but finds his humor in extravagant burlesque. In later life his gentler +laughter, his old, untroubled enjoyment of human weakness, would return, +but just now he was in that middle period, when the "damned human race" +amused him indeed, though less tenderly. (It seems proper to explain +that in applying this term to mankind he did not mean that the race was +foredoomed, but rather that it ought to be.) + +Reading the 'Innocents', the conviction grows that, with all its faults, +it is literature from beginning to end. Reading the 'Tramp', the +suspicion arises that, regardless of technical improvement, its +percentage of literature is not large. Yet, as noted in an earlier +volume, so eminent a critic as Brander Matthews has pronounced in its +favor, and he undoubtedly had a numerous following; Howells expressed. +his delight in the book at the time of its issue, though one wonders how +far the personal element entered into his enjoyment, and what would be +his final decision if he read the two books side by side to-day. He +reviewed 'A Tramp Abroad' adequately and finely in the Atlantic, and +justly; for on the whole it is a vastly entertaining book, and he did not +overpraise it. + +'A Tramp Abroad' had an "Introduction" in the manuscript, a pleasant word +to the reader but not a necessary one, and eventually it was omitted. +Fortunately the appendix remained. Beyond question it contains some of +the very best things in the book. The descriptions of the German Portier +and the German newspaper are happy enough, and the essay on the awful +German language is one of Mark Twain's supreme bits of humor. It is Mark +Twain at his best; Mark Twain in a field where he had no rival, the field +of good-natured, sincere fun-making-ridicule of the manifest absurdities +of some national custom or institution which the nation itself could +enjoy, while the individual suffered no wound. The present Emperor of +Germany is said to find comfort in this essay on his national speech when +all other amusements fail. It is delicious beyond words to express; it +is unique. + +In the body of the book there are also many delights. The description of +the ant might rank next to the German language almost in its humor, and +the meeting with the unrecognized girl at Lucerne has a lively charm. + +Of the serious matter, some of the word-pictures are flawless in their +beauty; this, for instance, suggested by the view of the Jungfrau from +Interlaken: + + There was something subduing in the influence of that silent and + solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet the immutable, the + indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feel the trivial + and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharply by the + contrast. One had the sense of being under the brooding + contemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a + spirit which had looked down, through the slow drift of ages, upon a + million vanished races of men and judged them; and would judge a + million more--and still be there, watching unchanged and + unchangeable, after all life should be gone and the earth have + become a vacant desolation + + While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it, + toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in + the Alps, and in no other mountains; that strange, deep, nameless + influence which, once felt, cannot be forgotten; once felt, leaves + always behind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing + which is like homesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning, which + will plead, implore, and persecute till it has its will. I met + dozens of people, imaginative and unimaginative, cultivated and + uncultivated, who had come from far countries and roamed through the + Swiss Alps year after year--they could not explain why. They had + come first, they said, out of idle curiosity, because everybody + talked about it; they had come since because they could not help it, + and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for the same + reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but it + was futile; now they had no desire to break them. Others came + nearer formulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect + rest and peace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and + worries and chafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant + serenity of the Alps; the Great Spirit of the mountain breathed his + own peace upon their hurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; + they could not think base thoughts or do mean and sordid things + here, before the visible throne of God. + +Indeed, all the serious matter in the book is good. The reader's chief +regret is likely to be that there is not more of it. The main difficulty +with the humor is that it seems overdone. It is likely to be carried too +far, and continued too long. The ascent of Riffelberg is an example. +Though spotted with delights it seems, to one reader at least, less +admirable than other of the book's important features, striking, as it +does, more emphatically the chief note of the book's humor--that is to +say, exaggeration. + +Without doubt there must be many--very many--who agree in finding a +fuller enjoyment in 'A Tramp Abroad' than in the 'Innocents'; only, the +burden of the world's opinion lies the other way. The world has a +weakness for its illusions: the splendor that falls on castle walls, the +glory of the hills at evening, the pathos of the days that are no more. +It answers to tenderness, even on the page of humor, and to genuine +enthusiasm, sharply sensing the lack of these things; instinctively +resenting, even when most amused by it, extravagance and burlesque. The +Innocents Abroad is more soul-satisfying than its successor, more poetic; +more sentimental, if you will. The Tramp contains better English usage, +without doubt, but it is less full of happiness and bloom and the halo of +romance. The heart of the world has felt this, and has demanded the book +in fewer numbers.--[The sales of the Innocents during the earlier years +more than doubled those of the Tramp during a similar period. The later +ratio of popularity is more nearly three to one. It has been repeatedly +stated that in England the Tramp has the greater popularity, an assertion +not sustained by the publisher's accountings.] + + + + +CXXVII + +LETTERS, TALES, AND PLANS + +The reader has not failed to remark the great number of letters which +Samuel Clemens wrote to his friend William Dean Howells; yet +comparatively few can even be mentioned. He was always writing to +Howells, on every subject under the sun; whatever came into his mind-- +business, literature, personal affairs--he must write about it to +Howells. Once, when nothing better occurred, he sent him a series of +telegrams, each a stanza from an old hymn, possibly thinking they might +carry comfort.--["Clemens had then and for many years the habit of +writing to me about what he was doing, and still more of what he was +experiencing. Nothing struck his imagination, in or out of the daily +routine, but he wished to write me of it, and he wrote with the greatest +fullness and a lavish dramatization, sometimes to the length of twenty or +forty pages:" (My Mark Twain, by W. D. Howells.)] Whatever of +picturesque happened in the household he immediately set it down for +Howells's entertainment. Some of these domestic incidents carry the +flavor of his best humor. Once he wrote: + + Last night, when I went to bed, Mrs. Clemens said, "George didn't + take the cat down to the cellar; Rosa says he has left it shut up in + the conservatory." So I went down to attend to Abner (the cat). + About three in the morning Mrs. C. woke me and said, "I do believe + I hear that cat in the drawing-room. What did you do with him?" I + answered with the confidence of a man who has managed to do the + right thing for once, and said, "I opened the conservatory doors, + took the library off the alarm, and spread everything open, so that + there wasn't any obstruction between him and the cellar." Language + wasn't capable of conveying this woman's disgust. But the sense of + what she said was, "He couldn't have done any harm in the + conservatory; so you must go and make the entire house free to him + and the burglars, imagining that he will prefer the coal-bins to the + drawing-room. If you had had Mr. Howells to help you I should have + admired, but not have been astonished, because I should know that + together you would be equal to it; but how you managed to contrive + such a stately blunder all by yourself is what I cannot understand." + + So, you see, even she knows how to apprecaite our gifts.... + + I knocked off during these stirring hours, and don't intend to go to + work again till we go away for the summer, four or six weeks hence. + So I am writing to you, not because I have anything to say, but + because you don't have to answer and I need something to do this + afternoon. + + The rightful earl has---- + + Friday, 7th. + + Well, never mind about the rightful earl; he merely wanted to-borrow + money. I never knew an American earl that didn't. + +After a trip to Boston, during which Mrs. Clemens did some bric-a-brac +shopping, he wrote: + + Mrs. Clemens has two imperishable topics now: the museum of andirons + which she collected and your dinner. It is hard to tell which she + admires the most. Sometimes she leans one way and sometimes the + other; but I lean pretty steadily toward the dinner because I can + appreciate that, whereas I am no prophet in andirons. There has + been a procession of Adams Express wagons filing before the door all + day delivering andirons. + +In a more serious vein he refers to the aged violinist Ole Bull and his +wife, whom they had met during their visit, and their enjoyment of that +gentle-hearted pair. + +Clemens did some shorter work that spring, most of which found its way +into the Atlantic. "Edward Mills and George Benton," one of the +contributions of this time, is a moral sermon in its presentation of a +pitiful human spectacle and misdirected human zeal. + +It brought a pack of letters of approval, not only from laity, but the +church, and in some measure may have helped to destroy the silly +sentimentalism which manifested itself in making heroes of spectacular +criminals. That fashion has gone out, largely. Mark Twain wrote +frequently on the subject, though never more effectively than in this +particular instance. "Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning" was another +Atlantic story, a companion piece to "Mrs. McWilliams's Experience with +the Membranous Croup," and in the same delightful vein--a vein in which +Mark Twain was likely to be at his best--the transcription of a scene not +so far removed in character from that in the "cat" letter just quoted: +something which may or may not have happened, but might have happened, +approximately as set down. Rose Terry Cooke wrote: + + Horrid man, how did you know the way I behave in a thunderstorm? + Have you been secreted in the closet or lurking on the shed roof? + I hope you got thoroughly rained on; and worst of all is that you + made me laugh at myself; my real terrors turned round and grimaced + at me: they were sublime, and you have made them ridiculous just + come out here another year and have four houses within a few rods of + you struck and then see if you write an article of such exasperating + levity. I really hate you, but you are funny. + +In addition to his own work, he conceived a plan for Orion. Clemens +himself had been attempting, from time to time, an absolutely faithful +autobiography; a document in which his deeds and misdeeds, even his moods +and inmost thoughts, should be truly set down. He had found it an +impossible task. He confessed freely that he lacked the courage, even +the actual ability, to pen the words that would lay his soul bare, but he +believed Orion equal to the task. He knew how rigidly honest he was, how +ready to confess his shortcomings, how eager to be employed at some +literary occupation. It was Mark Twain's belief that if Orion would +record in detail his long, weary struggle, his succession of attempts and +failures, his past dreams and disappointments, along with his sins of +omission and commission, it would make one of those priceless human +documents such as have been left by Benvenuto Cellini, Cazenova, and +Rousseau. + +"Simply tell your story to yourself," he wrote, "laying all hideousness +utterly bare, reserving nothing. Banish the idea of the audience and all +hampering things." + +Orion, out in Keokuk, had long since abandoned the chicken farm and a +variety of other enterprises. He had prospected insurance, mining, +journalism, his old trade of printing, and had taken down and hung up his +law shingle between each of these seizures. Aside from business, too, he +had been having a rather spectacular experience. He had changed his +politics three times (twice in one day), and his religion as many more. +Once when he was delivering a political harangue in the street, at night, +a parade of the opposition (he had but just abandoned them) marched by +carrying certain flaming transparencies, which he himself had made for +them the day before. Finally, after delivering a series of infidel +lectures; he had been excommunicated and condemned to eternal flames by +the Presbyterian Church. He was therefore ripe for any new diversion, +and the Autobiography appealed to him. He set about it with splendid +enthusiasm, wrote a hundred pages or so of his childhood with a startling +minutia of detail and frankness, and mailed them to his brother for +inspection. + +They were all that Mark Twain had expected; more than he had expected. +He forwarded them to Howells with great satisfaction, suggesting, with +certain excisions, they be offered anonymously to the Atlantic readers. + +But Howells's taste for realism had its limitations. He found the story +interesting--indeed, torturingly, heart-wringingly so--and, advising +strongly against its publication, returned it. + +Onion was steaming along at the rate of ten to twenty pages a day now, +forwarding them as fast as written, while his courage was good and the +fires warm. Clemens, receiving a package by every morning mail, soon +lost interest, then developed a hunted feeling, becoming finally +desperate. He wrote wildly to shut Orion off, urging him to let his +manuscript accumulate, and to send it in one large consignment at the +end. This Orion did, and it is fair to say that in this instance at +least he stuck to his work faithfully to the bitter, disheartening end. +And it would have been all that Mark Twain had dreamed it would be, had +Orion maintained the simple narrative spirit of its early pages. But he +drifted off into theological byways; into discussions of his +excommunication and infidelities, which were frank enough, but lacked +human interest. + +In old age Mark Twain once referred to Orion's autobiography in print and +his own disappointment in it, which he attributed to Orion's having +departed from the idea of frank and unrestricted confession to exalt +himself as a hero-a statement altogether unwarranted, and due to one of +those curious confusions of memory and imagination that more than once +resulted in a complete reversal of the facts. A quantity of Orion's +manuscript has been lost and destroyed, but enough fragments of it remain +to show its fidelity to the original plan. It is just one long record of +fleeting hope, futile effort, and humiliation. It is the story of a life +of disappointment; of a man who has been defeated and beaten down and +crushed by the world until he has nothing but confession left to +surrender.--[Howells, in his letter concerning the opening chapters, +said that they would some day make good material. Fortunately the +earliest of these chapters were preserved, and, as the reader may +remember, furnished much of the childhood details for this biography.] + +Whatever may have been Mark Twain's later impression of his brother's +manuscript, its story of failure and disappointment moved him to definite +action at the time. + +Several years before, in Hartford, Orion had urged him to make his +publishing contracts on a basis of half profits, instead of on the +royalty plan. Clemens, remembering this, had insisted on such an +arrangement for the publication of 'A Tramp Abroad', and when his first +statement came in he realized that the new contract was very largely to +his advantage. He remembered Orion's anxiety in the matter, and made it +now a valid excuse for placing his brother on a firm financial footing. + +Out of the suspicions which you bred in me years ago has grown this +result, to wit: that I shall within the twelve months get $40,000 out of +this Tramp, instead of $20,000. $20,000, after taxes and other expenses +are stripped away, is worth to the investor about $75 a month, so I shall +tell Mr. Perkins [his lawyer and financial agent] to make your check that +amount per month hereafter.... This ends the loan business, and +hereafter you can reflect that you are living not on borrowed money, but +on money which you have squarely earned, and which has no taint or savor +of charity about it, and you can also reflect that the money which you +have been receiving of me is charged against the heavy bill which the +next publisher will have to stand who gets a book of mine. + +From that time forward Orion Clemens was worth substantially twenty +thousand dollars--till the day of his death, and, after him, his widow. +Far better was it for him that the endowment be conferred in the form of +an income, than had the capital amount been placed in his hands. + + + +CXXVIII + +MARK TWAIN's ABSENT-MINDEDNESS + +A number of amusing incidents have been more or less accurately reported +concerning Mark Twain's dim perception of certain physical surroundings, +and his vague resulting memories--his absent-mindedness, as we say. + +It was not that he was inattentive--no man was ever less so if the +subject interested him--but only that the casual, incidental thing seemed +not to find a fixed place in his deeper consciousness. + +By no means was Mark Twain's absent-mindedness a development of old age. +On the two occasions following he was in the very heyday of his mental +strength. Especially was it, when he was engaged upon some absorbing or +difficult piece of literature, that his mind seemed to fold up and shut +most of the world away. Soon after his return from Europe, when he was +still struggling with 'A Tramp Abroad', he wearily put the manuscript +aside, one day, and set out to invite F. G. Whitmore over for a game of +billiards. Whitmore lived only a little way down the street, and Clemens +had been there time and again. It was such a brief distance that he +started out in his slippers and with no hat. But when he reached the +corner where the house, a stone's-throw away, was in plain view he +stopped. He did not recognize it. It was unchanged, but its outlines +had left no impress upon his mind. He stood there uncertainly a little +while, then returned and got the coachman, Patrick McAleer, to show him +the way. + +The second, and still more picturesque instance, belongs also to this +period. One day, when he was playing billiards with Whitmore, George, +the butler, came up with a card. + +"Who is he, George?" Clemens asked, without looking at the card. + +"I don't know, suh, but he's a gentleman, Mr. Clemens." + +"Now, George, how many times have I told you I don't want to see +strangers when I'm playing billiards! This is just some book agent, or +insurance man, or somebody with something to sell. I don't want to see +him, and I'm not going to." + +"Oh, but this is a gentleman, I'm sure, Mr. Clemens. Just look at his +card, suh." + +"Yes, of course, I see--nice engraved card--but I don't know him, and if +it was St. Peter himself I wouldn't buy the key of salvation! You tell +him so--tell him--oh, well, I suppose I've got to go and get rid of him +myself. I'll be back in a minute, Whitmore." + +He ran down the stairs, and as he got near the parlor door, which stood +open, he saw a man sitting on a couch with what seemed to be some framed +water-color pictures on the floor near his feet. + +"Ah, ha!" he thought, "I see. A picture agent. I'll soon get rid of +him." + +He went in with his best, "Well, what can I do for you?" air, which he, +as well as any man living, knew how to assume; a friendly air enough, but +not encouraging. The gentleman rose and extended his hand. + +"How are you, Mr. Clemens?" he said. + +Of course this was the usual thing with men who had axes to grind or +goods to sell. Clemens did not extend a very cordial hand. He merely +raised a loose, indifferent hand--a discouraging hand. + +"And how is Mrs. Clemens?" asked the uninvited guest. + +So this was his game. He would show an interest in the family and +ingratiate himself in that way; he would be asking after the children +next. + +"Well--Mrs. Clemens is about as usual--I believe." + +"And the children--Miss Susie and little Clara?" + +This was a bit startling. He knew their names! Still, that was easy to +find out. He was a smart agent, wonderfully smart. He must be got rid +of. + +"The children are well, quite well," and (pointing down at the pictures)- +-"We've got plenty like these. We don't want any more. No, we don't +care for any more," skilfully working his visitor toward the door as he +talked. + +The man, looking non-plussed--a good deal puzzled--allowed himself to be +talked into the hall and toward the front door. Here he paused a moment: + +"Mr. Clemens, will you tell me where Mr. Charles Dudley Warner lives?" + +This was the chance! He would work him off on Charlie Warner. Perhaps +Warner needed pictures. + +"Oh, certainly, certainly! Right across the yard. I'll show you. +There's a walk right through. You don't need to go around the front way +at all. You'll find him at home, too, I'm pretty sure"; all the time +working his caller out and down the step and in the right direction. + +The visitor again extended his hand. + +"Please remember me to Mrs. Clemens and the children." + +"Oh, certainly, certainly, with pleasure. Good day. Yes, that's the +house Good-by." + +On the way back to the billiard-room Mrs. Clemens called to him. She was +ill that day. + +"Youth!" + +"Yes, Livy." He went in for a word. + +"George brought me Mr. B----'s card. I hope you were very nice to him; +the B----s were so nice to us, once last year, when you were gone.", + +"The B----s--Why, Livy ----" + +"Yes, of course, and I asked him to be sure to call when he came to +Hartford." + +He gazed at her helplessly. + +"Well, he's been here." + +"Oh, Youth, have you done anything?" + +"Yes, of course I have. He seemed to have some pictures to sell, so I +sent him over to Warner's. I noticed he didn't take them with him. Land +sakes, Livy, what can I do?" + +"Which way did he go, Youth?" + +"Why, I sent him to Charlie Warner's. I thought----" + +"Go right after him. Go quick! Tell him what you have done." + +He went without further delay, bareheaded and in his slippers, as usual. +Warner and B---- were in cheerful and friendly converse. They had met +before. Clemens entered gaily: + +"Oh Yes, I see! You found him all right. Charlie, we met Mr. B---- and +his wife in Europe last summer and they made things pleasant for us. I +wanted to come over here with him, but was a good deal occupied just +then. Livy isn't very well, but she seems a good deal better, so I just +followed along to have a good talk, all together." + +He stayed an hour, and whatever bad impression had formed in B----'s mind +faded long before the hour ended. Returning home Clemens noticed the +pictures still on the parlor floor. + +"George," he said, "what pictures are those that gentleman left?" + +"Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures. I've been straightening +up the room a little, and Mrs. Clemens had me set them around to see how +they would look in new places. The gentleman was looking at them while +he was waiting for you to come down." + + + + +CXXIX + +FURTHER AFFAIRS AT THE FARM + +It was at Elmira, in July (1880), that the third little girl came--Jane +Lampton, for her grandmother, but always called Jean. She was a large, +lovely baby, robust and happy. When she had been with them a little more +than a month Clemens, writing to Twichell, said: + + DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't + see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," I + should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort + of observer. She is the comeliest and daintiest and perfectest + little creature the continents and archipelagos have seen since the + Bay and Susy were her size. I will not go into details; it is not + necessary; you will soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired + a hall; the admission fee will be but a trifle. + + It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotations of the + Affection Board brought about by throwing this new security on the + market. Four weeks ago the children still put Mama at the head of + the list right along, where she had always been. But now: + + Jean + Mama + Motley |cats + Fraulein | + Papa + + That is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped + from No. 4, and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip + and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I + didn't stand any more show. + + Been reading Daniel Webster's Private Correspondence. Have read a + hundred of his diffuse, conceited, "eloquent," bathotic (or + bathostic) letters, written in that dim (no, vanished) past, when he + was a student. And Lord! to think that this boy, who is so real to + me now, and so booming with fresh young blood and bountiful life, + and sappy cynicisms about girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame + and stood against the sun one brief, tremendous moment with the + world's eyes on him, and then----fzt! where is he? Why, the only + long thing, the only real thing about the whole shadowy business, is + the sense of the lagging dull and hoary lapse of time that has + drifted by since then; a vast, empty level, it seems, with a + formless specter glimpsed fitfully through the smoke and mist that + lie along its remote verge. + + Well, we are all getting along here first-rate. Livy gains strength + daily and sits up a deal; the baby is five weeks old and----But no + more of this. Somebody may be reading this letter eighty years + hence. And so, my friend (you pitying snob, I mean, who are holding + this yellow paper in your hand in 1960), save yourself the trouble + of looking further. I know how pathetically trivial our small + concerns would seem to you, and I will not let your eye profane + them. No, I keep my news; you keep your compassion. Suffice it you + to know, scoffer and ribald, that the little child is old and blind + now, and once more tooth less; and the rest of us are shadows these + many, many years. Yes, and your time cometh! + MARK. + +It is the ageless story. He too had written his youthful letters, and +later had climbed the Alps of fame and was still outlined against the +sun. Happily, the little child was to evade that harsher penalty--the +unwarranted bitterness and affront of a lingering, palsied age. + +Mrs. Clemens, in a letter somewhat later, set down a thought similar to +his: + +"We are all going so fast. Pretty soon we shall have been dead a hundred +years." + +Clemens varied his work that summer, writing alternately on 'The Prince +and the Pauper' and on the story about 'Huck Finn', which he had begun +four years earlier. + +He read the latter over and found in it a new interest. It did not +fascinate him, as did the story of the wandering prince. He persevered +only as the spirit moved him, piling up pages on both the tales. + +He always took a boy's pride in the number of pages he could complete at +a sitting, and if the day had gone well he would count them triumphantly, +and, lighting a fresh cigar, would come tripping down the long stair that +led to the level of the farm-house, and, gathering his audience, would +read to them the result of his industry; that is to say, he proceeded +with the story of the Prince. Apparently he had not yet acquired +confidence or pride enough in poor Huck to exhibit him, even to friends. + +The reference (in the letter to Twichell) to the cats at the farm +introduces one of the most important features of that idyllic resort. +There were always cats at the farm. Mark Twain himself dearly loved +cats, and the children inherited this passion. Susy once said: + +"The difference between papa and mama is, that mama loves morals and papa +loves cats." + +The cats did not always remain the same, but some of the same ones +remained a good while, and were there from season to season, always +welcomed and adored. They were commendable cats, with such names as +Fraulein, Blatherskite, Sour Mash, Stray Kit, Sin, and Satan, and when, +as happened now and then, a vacancy occurred in the cat census there +followed deep sorrow and elaborate ceremonies. + +Naturally, there would be stories about cats: impromptu bedtime stories, +which began anywhere and ended nowhere, and continued indefinitely +through a land inhabited only by cats and dreams. One of these stories, +as remembered and set down later, began: + + Once upon a time there was a noble, big cat whose christian name was + Catasaqua, because she lived in that region; but she didn't have any + surname, because she was a short-tailed cat, being a manx, and + didn't need one. It is very just and becoming in a long-tailed cat + to have a surname, but it would be very ostentatious, and even + dishonorable, in a manx. Well, Catasaqua had a beautiful family of + cattings; and they were of different colors, to harmonize with their + characters. Cattaraugus, the eldest, was white, and he had high + impulses and a pure heart; Catiline, the youngest, was black, and he + had a self-seeking nature, his motives were nearly always base, he + was truculent and insincere. He was vain and foolish, and often + said that he would rather be what he was, and live like a bandit, + yet have none above him, than be a cat-o'-nine-tails and eat with + the king. + +And so on without end, for the audience was asleep presently and the end +could wait. + +There was less enthusiasm over dogs at Quarry Farm. + +Mark Twain himself had no great love for the canine breed. To a woman +who wrote, asking for his opinion on dogs, he said, in part: + + By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a "noble" animal? + The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to him the more your + fawning and adoring slave he becomes; whereas, if you shamefully + misuse a cat once she will always maintain a dignified reserve + toward you afterward you can never get her full confidence again. + +He was not harsh to dogs; occasionally he made friends with them. There +was once at the farm a gentle hound, named Bones, that for some reason +even won his way into his affections. Bones was always a welcome +companion, and when the end of summer came, and Clemens, as was his +habit, started down the drive ahead of the carriage, Bones, half-way to +the entrance, was waiting for him. Clemens stooped down, put his arms +around him, and bade him an affectionate good-by. He always recalled +Bones tenderly, and mentioned him in letters to the farm. + + + + +CXXX + +COPYRIGHT AND OTHER FANCIES + +The continued assault of Canadian pirates on his books kept Mark Twain's +interest sharply alive on the subject of copyright reform. He invented +one scheme after another, but the public-mind was hazy on the subject, +and legislators were concerned with purposes that interested a larger +number of voters. There were too few authors to be of much value at the +polls, and even of those few only a small percentage were vitally +concerned. For the others, foreign publishers rarely paid them the +compliment of piracy, while at home the copyright limit of forty-two +years was about forty-two times as long as they needed protection. Bliss +suggested a law making the selling of pirated books a penal offense, a +plan with a promising look, but which came to nothing. + +Clemens wrote to his old friend Rollin M. Daggett, who by this time was a +Congressman. Daggett replied that he would be glad to introduce any bill +that the authors might agree upon, and Clemens made at least one trip to +Washington to discuss the matter, but it came to nothing in the end. It +was a Presidential year, and it would do just as well to keep the authors +quiet by promising to do something next year. Any legislative stir is +never a good thing for a campaign. + +Clemens's idea for copyright betterment was not a fixed one. Somewhat +later, when an international treaty which would include protection for +authors was being discussed, his views had undergone a change. He wrote, +asking Howells: + + Will the proposed treaty protect us (and effectually) against + Canadian piracy? Because, if it doesn't, there is not a single + argument in favor of international copyright which a rational + American Senate could entertain for a moment. My notions have + mightily changed lately. I can buy Macaulay's History, three vols.; + bound, for $1.25; Chambers's Cyclopaedia, ten vols., cloth, for + $7.25 (we paid $60), and other English copyrights in proportion; I + can buy a lot of the great copyright classics, in paper, at from + three cents to thirty cents apiece. These things must find their + way into the very kitchens and hovels of the country. A generation + of this sort of thing ought to make this the most intelligent and + the best-read nation in the world. International copyright must + becloud this sun and bring on the former darkness and dime novel + reading. + + Morally this is all wrong; governmentally it is all right. For it + is the duty of governments and families to be selfish, and look out + simply for their own. International copyright would benefit a few + English authors and a lot of American publishers, and be a profound + detriment to twenty million Americans; it would benefit a dozen + American authors a few dollars a year, and there an end. The real + advantages all go to English authors and American publishers. + + And even if the treaty will kill Canadian piracy, and thus save me + an average of $5,000 a year, I'm down on it anyway, and I'd like + cussed well to write an article opposing the treaty. + +It is a characteristic expression. Mark Twain might be first to grab for +the life-preserver, but he would also be first to hand it to a humanity +in greater need. He could damn the human race competently, but in the +final reckoning it was the interest of that race that lay closest to his +heart. + +Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of Clemens's enthusiasms or +"rages" for this thing and that which should benefit humankind. He was +seldom entirely without them. Whether it was copyright legislation, the +latest invention, or a new empiric practice, he rarely failed to have a +burning interest in some anodyne that would provide physical or mental +easement for his species. Howells tells how once he was going to save +the human race with accordion letter-files--the system of order which +would grow out of this useful device being of such nerve and labor saving +proportions as to insure long life and happiness to all. The fountain- +pen, in its first imperfect form, must have come along about the same +time, and Clemens was one of the very earliest authors to own one. For a +while it seemed that the world had known no greater boon since the +invention of printing; but when it clogged and balked, or suddenly +deluged his paper and spilled in his pocket, he flung it to the outer +darkness. After which, the stylo-graphic pen. He tried one, and wrote +severally to Dr. Brown, to Howells, and to Twichell, urging its adoption. +Even in a letter to Mrs. Howells he could not forget his new possession: + + And speaking of Howells, he ought to use the stylographic pen, the + best fountain-pen yet invented; he ought to, but of course he won't + --a blamed old sodden-headed conservative--but you see yourself what + a nice, clean, uniform MS. it makes. + +And at the same time to Twichell: + + I am writing with a stylographic pen. It takes a royal amount of + cussing to make the thing go the first few days or a week, but by + that time the dullest ass gets the hang of the thing, and after that + no enrichments of expression are required, and said ass finds the + stylographic a genuine God's blessing. I carry one in each breeches + pocket, and both loaded. I'd give you one of them if I had you + where I could teach you how to use it--not otherwise. For the + average ass flings the thing out of the window in disgust the second + day, believing it hath no virtue, no merit of any sort; whereas the + lack lieth in himself, God of his mercy damn him. + +It was not easy to withstand Mark Twain's enthusiasm. Howells, Twichell, +and Dr. Brown were all presently struggling and swearing (figuratively) +over their stylographic pens, trying to believe that salvation lay in +their conquest. But in the midst of one letter, at last, Howells broke +down, seized his old steel weapon, and wrote savagely: "No white man +ought to use a stylographic pen, anyhow!" Then, with the more ancient +implement, continued in a calmer spirit. + +It was only a little later that Clemens himself wrote: + + You see I am trying a new pen. I stood the stylograph as long as I + could, and then retired to the pencil. The thing I am trying now is + that fountain-pen which is advertised to employ and accommodate + itself to any kind of pen. So I selected an ordinary gold pen--a + limber one--and sent it to New York and had it cut and fitted to + this thing. It goes very well indeed--thus far; but doubtless the + devil will be in it by tomorrow. + +Mark Twain's schemes were not all in the line of human advancement; some +of them were projected, primarily at least, for diversion. He was likely +at any moment to organize a club, a sort of private club, and at the time +of which we are writing he proposed what was called the "Modest" Club. +He wrote to Howells, about it: + + At present I am the only member, and as the modesty required must be + of a quite aggravated type the enterprise did seem for a time doomed + to stop dead still with myself, for lack of further material; but on + reflection I have come to the conclusion that you are eligible. + Therefore, I have held a meeting and voted to offer you the + distinction of membership. I do not know that we can find any + others, though I have had some thought of Hay, Warner, Twichell, + Aldrich, Osgood, Fields, Higginson, and a few more, together with + Mrs. Howells, Mrs. Clemens, and certain others of the sex. I have + long felt there ought to be an organized gang of our kind. + +He appends the by-laws, the main ones being: + + The object of the club shall be to eat and talk. + + Qualification for membership shall be aggravated modesty, + unobtrusiveness, native humility, learning, talent, intelligence, + unassailable character. + + There shall be no officers except a president, and any member who + has anything to eat and talk about may constitute himself president + for the time being. + + Any brother or sister of the order finding a brother or a sister in + imminently deadly peril shall forsake his own concerns, no matter at + what cost, and call the police. + + Any member knowing anything scandalous about himself shall + immediately inform the club, so that they shall call a meeting and + have the first chance to talk about it. + +It was one of his whimsical fancies, and Howells replied that he would +like to join it, only that he was too modest--that is, too modest to +confess that he was modest enough for membership. + +He added that he had sent a letter, with the rules, to Hay, but doubted +his modesty. He said: + +"He will think he has a right to belong as much as you or I." + +Howells agreed that his own name might be put down, but the idea seems +never to have gone any further. Perhaps the requirements of membership +were too severe. + + + + +CXXXI + +WORKING FOR GARFIELD + +Eighteen hundred and eighty was a Presidential year. General Garfield +was nominated on the Republican ticket (against General Hancock), and +Clemens found him satisfactory. + +Garfield suits me thoroughly and exactly [he wrote Howells]. I prefer +him to Grant's friends. The Presidency can't add anything to Grant; he +will shine on without it. It is ephemeral; he is eternal. + +That was the year when the Republican party became panicky over the +disaffection in its ranks, due to the defeat of Grant in the convention, +and at last, by pleadings and promises, conciliated Platt and Conkling +and brought them into the field. General Grant also was induced to save +the party from defeat, and made a personal tour of oratory for that +purpose. He arrived in Hartford with his family on the 16th of October, +and while his reception was more or less partizan, it was a momentous +event. A vast procession passed in review before him, and everywhere +houses and grounds were decorated. To Mrs. Clemens, still in Elmira, +Clemens wrote: + + I found Mr. Beals hard at work in the rain with his decorations. + With a ladder he had strung flags around our bedroom balcony, and + thence around to the porte-cochere, which was elaborately flagged; + thence the flags of all nations were suspended from a line which + stretched past the greenhouse to the limit of our grounds. Against + each of the two trees on the mound, half-way down to our gate, + stands a knight in complete armor. Piles of still-bundled flags + clutter up the ombra (to be put up), also gaudy shields of various + shapes (arms of this and other countries), also some huge glittering + arches and things done in gold and silver paper, containing mottoes + in big letters. I broke Mr. Beals's heart by persistently and + inflexibly annulling and forbidding the biggest and gorgeousest of + the arches--it had on it, in all the fires of the rainbow, "The Home + of Mark Twain," in letters as big as your head. Oh, we're going to + be decorated sufficient, don't you worry about that, madam. + +Clemens was one of those delegated to receive Grant and to make a speech +of welcome. It was a short speech but an effective one, for it made +Grant laugh. He began: + + "I am among those deputed to welcome you to the sincere and cordial + hospitalities of Hartford, the city of the historic and revered + Charter Oak, of which most of the town is built." He seemed to be + at loss what to say next, and, leaning over, pretended to whisper to + Grant; then, as if he had obtained the information he wanted, he + suddenly straightened up and poured out the old-fashioned eulogy on + Grant's achievements, adding, in an aside, as he finished: + + "I nearly forgot that part of my speech," which evoked roars of + laughter from the assembly and a grim smile from Grant. He spoke of + Grant as being out of public employment, with private opportunities + closed against him, and added, "But your country will reward you, + never fear." + +Then he closed: + + When Wellington won Waterloo, a battle about on a level with any one + of a dozen of your victories, sordid England tried to pay him for + that service with wealth and grandeurs. She made him a duke and + gave him $4,000,000. If you had done and suffered for any other + country what you have done and suffered for your own you would have + been affronted in the same sordid way. But, thank God! this vast + and rich and mighty republic is imbued to the core with a delicacy + which will forever preserve her from so degrading you. + + Your country loves you--your country's proud of you--your country is + grateful to you. Her applauses, which have been many, thundering in + your ears all these weeks and months, will never cease while the + flag you saved continues to wave. + + Your country stands ready from this day forth to testify her + measureless love and pride and gratitude toward you in every + conceivable--inexpensive way. Welcome to Hartford, great soldier, + honored statesman, unselfish citizen. + +Grant's grim smile showed itself more than once during the speech, and +when Clemens reached the sentence that spoke of his country rewarding him +in "every conceivable--inexpensive way" his composure broke up completely +and he "nearly laughed his entire head off," according to later +testimony, while the spectators shouted their approval. + +Grant's son, Col. Fred Grant,--[Maj.-Gen'l, U. S. Army, 1906. Died +April, 1912.]--dined at the Clemens home that night, and Rev. Joseph +Twichell and Henry C. Robinson. Twichell's invitation was in the form +of a telegram. It said: + + I want you to dine with us Saturday half past five and meet Col. + Fred Grant. No ceremony. Wear the same shirt you always wear. + +The campaign was at its height now, and on the evening of October 26th +there was a grand Republican rally at the opera-house with addresses by +Charles Dudley Warner, Henry C. Robinson, and Mark Twain. It was an +unpleasant, drizzly evening, but the weather had no effect on their +audience. The place was jammed and packed, the aisles, the windows, and +the gallery railings full. Hundreds who came as late as the hour +announced for the opening were obliged to turn back, for the building had +been thronged long before. Mark Twain's speech that night is still +remembered in Hartford as the greatest effort of his life. It was hardly +that, except to those who were caught in the psychology of the moment, +the tumult and the shouting of patriotism, the surge and sweep of the +political tide. The roaring delight of the audience showed that to them +at least it was convincing. Howells wrote that he had read it twice, and +that he could not put it out of his mind. Whatever its general effect +was need not now be considered. Garfield was elected, and perhaps +Grant's visit to Hartford and the great mass-meeting that followed +contributed their mite to that result. + +Clemens saw General Grant again that year, but not on political business. +The Educational Mission, which China had established in Hartford--a +thriving institution for eight years or more--was threatened now by +certain Chinese authorities with abolishment. Yung Wing (a Yale +graduate), the official by whom it had been projected and under whose +management it had prospered, was deeply concerned, as was the Rev. Joseph +Twichell, whose interest in the mission was a large and personal one. +Yung Wing declared that if influence could be brought upon Li Hung Chang, +then the most influential of Chinese counselors, the mission might be +saved. Twichell, remembering the great honors which Li Hung Chang had +paid to General Grant in China, also Grant's admiration of Mark Twain, +went to the latter without delay. Necessarily Clemens would be +enthusiastic, and act promptly. He wrote to Grant, and Grant replied by +telegraph, naming a day when he would see them in New York. + +They met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Grant was in fine spirits, and by no +means the "silent man" of his repute. + +He launched at once into as free and flowing talk as I have ever heard +[says Twichell], marked by broad and intelligent views on the subject of +China, her wants, disadvantages, etc. Now and then he asked a question, +but kept the lead of the conversation. At last he proposed, of his own +accord, to write a letter to Li Hung Chang, advising the continuance of +the Mission, asking only that I would prepare him some notes, giving him +points to go by. Thus we succeeded easily beyond our expectations, +thanks, very largely, to Clemens's assistance. + +Clemens wrote Howells of the interview, detailing at some length +Twichell's comical mixture of delight and chagrin at not being given time +to air the fund of prepared statistics with which he had come loaded. +It was as if he had come to borrow a dollar and had been offered a +thousand before he could unfold his case. + + + + + +CXXXII + +A NEW PUBLISHER + +It was near the end of the year that Clemens wrote to his mother: + + I have two stories, and by the verbal agreement they are both going + into the same book; but Livy says they're not, and by George! she + ought to know. She says they're going into separate books, and that + one of them is going to be elegantly gotten up, even if the elegance + of it eats up the publisher's profits and mine too. + + I anticipate that publisher's melancholy surprise when he calls here + Tuesday. However, let him suffer; it is his own fault. People who + fix up agreements with me without first finding out what Livy's + plans are take their fate into their own hands. + + I said two stories, but one of them is only half done; two or three + months' work on it yet. I shall tackle it Wednesday or Thursday; + that is, if Livy yields and allows both stories to go in one book, + which I hope she won't. + +The reader may surmise that the finished story--the highly regarded +story--was 'The Prince and the Pauper'. The other tale--the unfinished +and less considered one was 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Nobody +appears to have been especially concerned about Huck, except, possibly, +the publisher. + +The publisher was not the American Company. Elisha Bliss, after long ill +health, had died that fall, and this fact, in connection with a growing +dissatisfaction over the earlier contracts, had induced Clemens to listen +to offers from other makers of books. The revelation made by the "half- +profit" returns from A Tramp Abroad meant to him, simply that the profits +had not been fairly apportioned, and he was accordingly hostile. To +Orion he wrote that, had Bliss lived, he would have remained with the +company and made it reimburse him for his losses, but that as matters +stood he would sever the long connection. It seemed a pity, later, that +he did this, but the break was bound to come. Clemens was not a business +man, and Bliss was not a philanthropist. He was, in fact, a shrewd, +capable publisher, who made as good a contract as he could; yet he was +square in his dealings, and the contract which Clemens held most bitterly +against him--that of 'Roughing It'--had been made in good faith and in +accordance with the conditions, of that period. In most of the later +contracts Clemens himself had named his royalties, and it was not in +human nature--business human nature--for Bliss to encourage the size of +these percentages. If one wished to draw a strictly moral conclusion +from the situation, one might say that it would have been better for the +American Publishing Company, knowing Mark Twain, voluntarily to have +allowed him half profits, which was the spirit of his old understanding +even if not the letter of it, rather than to have waited till he demanded +it and then to lose him by the result. Perhaps that would be also a +proper business deduction; only, as a rule, business morals are regulated +by the contract, and the contract is regulated by the necessities and the +urgency of demand. + +Never mind. Mark Twain revised 'The Prince and the Pauper', sent it to +Howells, who approved of it mightily (though with reservations as to +certain chapters), and gave it to James R. Osgood, who was grateful and +agreed to make it into a book upon which no expense for illustration or +manufacture should be spared. It was to be a sort of partnership +arrangement as between author and publisher, and large returns were +anticipated. + +Among the many letters which Clemens was just then writing to Howells one +was dated "Xmas Eve." It closes with the customary pleasantries and the +final line: + +"But it is growing dark. Merry Christmas to all of you!" + +That last was a line of large significance. It meant that the air was +filled with the whisper of hovering events and that he must mingle with +the mystery of preparation. Christmas was an important season in the +Clemens home. Almost the entire day before, Patrick was out with the +sleigh, delivering food and other gifts in baskets to the poor, and the +home preparations were no less busy. There was always a tree--a large +one--and when all the gifts had been gathered in--when Elmira and +Fredonia had delivered their contributions, and Orion and his wife in +Keokuk had sent the annual sack of hickory-nuts (the big river-bottom +nuts, big as a silver dollar almost, such nuts as few children of this +later generation ever see) when all this happy revenue had been gathered, +and the dusk of Christmas Eve had hurried the children off to bed, it was +Mrs. Clemens who superintended the dressing of the tree, her husband +assisting, with a willingness that was greater than his skill, and with a +boy's anticipation in the surprise of it next morning. + +Then followed the holidays, with parties and dances and charades, and +little plays, with the Warner and Twichell children. To the Clemens home +the Christmas season brought all the old round of juvenile happiness--the +spirit of kindly giving, the brightness and the merrymaking, the gladness +and tenderness and mystery that belong to no other season, and have been +handed down through all the ages since shepherds watched on the plains of +Bethlehem. + + + + +CXXXIII + +THE THREE FIRES--SOME BENEFACTIONS + +The tradition that fires occur in groups of three was justified in the +Clemens household that winter. On each of three successive days flames +started that might have led to ghastly results. + +The children were croupy, and one morning an alcohol lamp near little +Clara's bed, blown by the draught, set fire to the canopy. Rosa, the +nurse, entered just as the blaze was well started. She did not lose her +presence of mind,--[Rosa was not the kind to lose her head. Once, in +Europe, when Bay had crept between the uprights of a high balustrade, and +was hanging out over destruction, Rosa, discovering her, did not scream +but spoke to her playfully and lifted her over into safety.]--but +snatched the little girl out of danger, then opened the window and threw +the burning bedding on the lawn. The child was only slightly scorched, +but the escape was narrow enough. + +Next day little Jean was lying asleep in her crib, in front of an open +wood fire, carefully protected by a firescreen, when a spark, by some +ingenuity, managed to get through the mesh of the screen and land on the +crib's lace covering. Jean's nurse, Julia, arrived to find the lace a +gust of flame and the fire spreading. She grabbed the sleeping Jean and +screamed. Rosa, again at hand, heard the scream, and rushing in once +more opened a window and flung out the blazing bedclothes. Clemens +himself also arrived, and together they stamped out the fire. + +On the third morning, just before breakfast-time, Susy was practising at +the piano in the school-room, which adjoined the nursery. At one end of +the room a fire of large logs was burning. Susy was at the other end of +the room, her back to the fire. A log burned in two and fell, scattering +coals around the woodwork which supported the mantel. Just as the blaze +was getting fairly started a barber, waiting to trim Mr. Clemens's hair, +chanced to look in and saw what was going on. He stepped into the +nursery bath-room, brought a pitcher of water and extinguished the +flames. This period was always referred to in the Clemens household as +the "three days of fire." + +Clemens would naturally make philosophical deductions from these +coincidental dangers and the manner in which they had been averted. He +said that all these things were comprehended in the first act of the +first atom; that, but for some particular impulse given in that remote +time, the alcohol flame would not have blown against the canopy, the +spark would not have found its way through the screen, the log would not +have broken apart in that dangerous way, and that Rosa and Julia and the +barber would not have been at hand to save precious life and property. +He did not go further and draw moral conclusions as to the purpose of +these things: he never drew conclusions as to purpose. He was willing to +rest with the event. Logically he did not believe in reasons for things, +but only that things were. + +Nevertheless, he was always trying to change them; to have a hand in +their improvement. Had you asked him, he would have said that this, too, +was all in the primal atom; that his nature, such as it was, had been +minutely embodied there. + +In that charming volume, 'My Mark Twain', Howells tells us of Clemens's +consideration, and even tenderness, for the negro race and his effort to +repair the wrong done by his nation. Mark Twain's writings are full of +similar evidence, and in his daily life he never missed an opportunity to +pay tribute to the humbler race. He would go across the street to speak +to an old negro, and to take his hand. He would read for a negro church +when he would have refused a cathedral. Howells mentions the colored +student whose way through college Clemens paid as a partial reparation +"due from every white man to every black man."--[Mark Twain paid two +colored students through college. One of them, educated in a Southern +institution, became a minister of the gospel. The other graduated from +the Yale Law School.]--This incident belongs just to the period of which +we are now writing, and there is another which, though different enough, +indicates the same tendency. + +Garfield was about to be inaugurated, and it was rumored that Frederick +Douglass might lose his position as Marshal of the District of Columbia. +Clemens was continually besought by one and another to use his influence +with the Administration, and in every case had refused. Douglass had +made no such, application. Clemens, learning that the old negro's place +was in danger, interceded for him of his own accord. He closed his +letter to General Garfield: + + A simple citizen may express a desire, with all propriety, in the + matter of recommendation to office, and so I beg permission to hope + that you will retain Mr. Douglass in his present office of Marshal + of the District of Columbia, if such a course will not clash with + your own preferences or with the expediencies and interests of your + Administration. I offer this petition with peculiar pleasure and + strong desire, because I so honor this man's high and blemishless + character, and so admire his brave, long crusade for the liberties + and elevation of his race. + + He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point; + his history would move me to say these things without that, and I + feel them, too. + +Douglass wrote to Clemens, thanking him for his interest; at the end he +said: + + I think if a man is mean enough to want an office he ought to be + noble enough to ask for it, and use all honorable means of getting + it. I mean to ask, and I will use your letter as a part of my + petition. It will put the President-elect in a good humor, in any + case, and that is very important. + + With great respect, + Gratefully yours, + FREDERICK DOUGLASS. + + +Mark Twain's benefactions were not all for the colored race. One morning +in February of this same year, while the family were at late breakfast, +George came in to announce "a lady waiting to see Mr. Clemens in the +drawing-room." Clemens growled. + +"George," he said, "it's a book agent. I won't see her. I'll die, in my +tracks first." + +He went, fuming and raging inwardly, and began at once to ask the nature +of the intruder's business. Then he saw that she was very young and +modest, with none of the assurance of a canvasser, so he gave her a +chance to speak. She told him that a young man employed in Pratt & +Whitney's machine-shops had made a statue in clay, and would like to have +Mark Twain come and look at it and see if it showed any promise of future +achievement. His name, she said, was Karl Gerhardt, and he was her +husband. Clemens protested that he knew nothing about art, but the young +woman's manner and appearance (she seemed scarcely more than a child) won +him. He wavered, and finally promised that he would come the first +chance he had; that in fact he would come some time during the next week. +On her suggestion he agreed to come early in the week; he specified +Monday, "without fail." + +When she was gone, and the door shut behind her, his usual remorse came +upon him. He said to himself: + +"Why didn't I go now? Why didn't I go with her now?" + +She went from Clemens's over to Warner's. Warner also resisted, but, +tempted beyond his strength by her charm, laid down his work and went at +once. When he returned he urged Clemens to go without fail, and, true to +promise, Clemens took Patrick, the coachman, and hunted up the place. +Clemens saw the statue, a seminude, for which the young wife had posed, +and was struck by its evident merit. Mrs. Gerhardt told him the story of +her husband's struggles between his daily work and the effort to develop +his talent. He had never had a lesson, she said; if he could only have +lessons what might he not accomplish? + +Mrs. Clemens and Miss Spaulding called next day, and were equally carried +away with Karl Gerhardt, his young wife, and his effort to win his way in +art. Clemens and Warner made up their minds to interest themselves +personally in the matter, and finally persuaded the painter J. Wells +Champney to come over from New York and go with them to the Gerhardts' +humble habitation, to see his work. Champney approved of it. He thought +it well worth while, he said, for the people of Hartford to go to the +expense of Gerhardt's art education. He added that it would be better to +get the judgment of a sculptor. So they brought over John Quincy Adams +Ward, who, like all the others, came away bewitched with these young +people and their struggles for the sake of art. Ward said: + +"If any stranger had told me that this 'prentice did not model that thing +from plaster-casts I should not have believed it. It's full of +crudities, but it's full of genius, too. Hartford must send him to Paris +for two years; then, if the promise holds good, keep him there three +more." + +When he was gone Mrs. Clemens said: + +"Youth, we won't wait for Hartford to do it. It would take too long. +Let us send the Gerhardts to Paris ourselves, and say nothing about it to +any one else." + +So the Gerhardts, provided with funds and an arrangement that would +enable them to live for five years in Paris if necessary, were started +across the sea without further delay. + +Clemens and his wife were often doing something of this sort. There was +seldom a time that they were not paying the way of some young man or +woman through college, or providing means and opportunity for development +in some special field of industry. + + + + +CXXXIV + +LITERARY PROJECTS AND A MONUMENT TO ADAM + +Mark Twain's literary work languished during this period. He had a world +of plans, as usual, and wrote plentifully, but without direction or +conclusion. "A Curious Experience," which relates a circumstance told to +him by an army officer, is about the most notable of the few completed +manuscripts of this period. + +Of the books projected (there were several), a burlesque manual of +etiquette would seem to have been the most promising. Howells had faith +in it, and of the still remaining fragments a few seem worth quoting: + + AT BILLIARDS + + If your ball glides along in the intense and immediate vicinity of + the object-ball, and a count seems exquisitely imminent, lift one + leg; then one shoulder; then squirm your body around in sympathy + with the direction of the moving ball; and at the instant when the + ball seems on the point of colliding throw up both of your arms + violently. Your cue will probably break a chandelier, but no + matter; you have done what you could to help the count. + + AT THE DOG-FIGHT + + If it occur in your block, courteously give way to strangers + desiring a view, particularly ladies. + + Avoid showing partiality toward the one dog, lest you hurt the + feelings of the other one. + + Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the + under dog in the fight--this is magnanimity; but bet on the other + one--this is business. + + AT POKER + + If you draw to a flush and fail to fill, do not continue the + conflict. + + If you hold a pair of trays, and your opponent is blind, and it + costs you fifty to see him, let him remain unperceived. + + If you hold nothing but ace high, and by some means you know that + the other man holds the rest of the aces, and he calls, excuse + yourself; let him call again another time. + + WALL STREET + + If you live in the country, buy at 80, sell at 40. Avoid all forms + of eccentricity. + + IN THE RESTAURANT + + When you wish to get the waiter's attention, do not sing out "Say!" + Simply say "Szt!" + + +His old abandoned notion of "Hamlet" with an added burlesque character +came back to him and stirred his enthusiasm anew, until even Howells +manifested deep interest in the matter. One reflects how young Howells +must have been in those days; how full of the joy of existence; also how +mournfully he would consider such a sacrilege now. + +Clemens proposed almost as many things to Howells as his brother Orion +proposed to him. There was scarcely a letter that didn't contain some +new idea, with a request for advice or co-operation. Now it was some +book that he meant to write some day, and again it would be a something +that he wanted Howells to write. + +Once he urged Howells to make a play, or at least a novel, out of Orion. +At another time he suggested as material the "Rightful Earl of Durham." + +He is a perfectly stunning literary bonanza, and must be dug up and put +on the market. You must get his entire biography out of him and have it +ready for Osgood's magazine. Even if it isn't worth printing, you must +have it anyway, and use it one of these days in one of your stories or in +a play. + +It was this notion about 'The American Claimant' which somewhat later +would lead to a collaboration with Howells on a drama, and eventually to +a story of that title. + +But Clemens's chief interest at this time lay in publishing, rather than +in writing. His association with Osgood inspired him to devise new +ventures of profit. He planned a 'Library of American Humor', which +Howells (soon to leave the Atlantic) and "Charley" Clark--[Charles +Hopkins Clark, managing editor of the Hartford Courant.]--were to edit, +and which Osgood would publish, for subscription sale. Without realizing +it, Clemens was taking his first step toward becoming his own publisher. +His contract with Osgood for 'The Prince and the Pauper' made him +essentially that, for by the terms of it he agreed to supply all the +money for the making of the book, and to pay Osgood a royalty of seven +and one-half per cent. for selling it, reversing the usual conditions. +The contract for the Library of Humor was to be a similar one, though in +this case Osgood was to have a larger royalty return, and to share +proportionately in the expense and risk. Mark Twain was entering into a +field where he did not belong; where in the end he would harvest only +disaster and regret. + +One curious project came to an end in 1881--the plan for a monument to +Adam. In a sketch written a great many years later Mark Twain tells of +the memorial which the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher and himself once proposed +to erect to our great common ancestor. The story is based on a real +incident. Clemens, in Elmira one day (it was October, 1879), heard of a +jesting proposal made by F. G. Hall to erect a monument in Elmira to +Adam. The idea promptly caught Mark Twain's fancy. He observed to +Beecher that the human race really showed a pretty poor regard for its +great progenitor, who was about to be deposed by Darwin's simian, not to +pay him the tribute of a single monument. Mankind, he said, would +probably accept the monkey ancestor, and in time the very name of Adam +would be forgotten. He declared Mr. Hall's suggestion to be a sound +idea. + +Beecher agreed that there were many reasons why a monument should be +erected to Adam, and suggested that a subscription be started for the +purpose. Certain business men, seeing an opportunity for advertising the +city, took the matter semi-seriously, and offered to contribute large +sums in the interest of the enterprise. Then it was agreed that Congress +should be petitioned to sanction the idea exclusively to Elmira, +prohibiting the erection of any such memorial elsewhere. A document to +this effect was prepared, headed by F. G. Hall, and signed by other +leading citizens of Elmira, including Beecher himself. General Joe +Hawley came along just then on a political speech-making tour. Clemens +introduced him, and Hawley, in turn, agreed to father the petition in +Congress. What had begun merely as pleasantry began to have a formidable +look. + +But alas! in the end Hawley's courage had failed him. He began to hate +his undertaking. He was afraid of the national laugh it would arouse, +the jeers of the newspapers. It was certain to leak out that Mark Twain +was behind it, in spite of the fact that his name nowhere appeared; that +it was one of his colossal jokes. Now and then, in the privacy of his +own room at night, Hawley would hunt up the Adam petition and read it and +feel the cold sweat breaking out. He postponed the matter from one +session to another till the summer of 1881, when he was about to sail for +Europe. Then he gave the document to his wife, to turn over to Clemens, +and ignominiously fled. + +[For text of the petition in full, etc., see Appendix P, at the end of +last volume.] + +Mark Twain's introduction of Hawley at Elmira contained this pleasantry: +"General Hawley was president of the Centennial Commission. Was a +gallant soldier in the war. He has been Governor of Connecticut, member +of Congress, and was president of the convention that nominated Abraham +Lincoln." + +General Hawley: "That nominated Grant." + +Twain: "He says it was Grant, but I know better. He is a member of my +church at Hartford, and the author of 'Beautiful Snow.' Maybe he will +deny that. But I am only here to give him a character from his last +place. As a pure citizen, I respect him; as a personal friend of years, +I have the warmest regard for him; as a neighbor whose vegetable garden +joins mine, why--why, I watch him. That's nothing; we all do that with +any neighbor. General Hawley keeps his promises, not only in private, +but in public. He is an editor who believes what he writes in his own +paper. As the author of 'Beautiful Snow' he added a new pang to winter. +He is broad-souled, generous, noble, liberal, alive to his moral and +religious responsibilities. Whenever the contribution-box was passed I +never knew him to take out a cent." + + + + +CXXXV + +A TRIP WITH SHERMAN AND AN INTERVIEW WITH GRANT. + +The Army of the Potomac gave a dinner in Hartford on the 8th of June, +1881. But little memory remains of it now beyond Mark Twain's speech and +a bill of fare containing original comments, ascribed to various revered +authors, such as Johnson, Milton, and Carlyle. A pleasant incident +followed, however, which Clemens himself used to relate. General Sherman +attended the banquet, and Secretary of War, Robert Lincoln. Next morning +Clemens and Twichell were leaving for West Point, where they were to +address the military students, guests on the same special train on which +Lincoln and Sherman had their private car. This car was at the end of +the train, and when the two passengers reached the station, Sherman and +Lincoln were out on the rear platform addressing the multitude. Clemens +and Twichell went in and, taking seats, waited for them. + +As the speakers finished the train started, but they still remained +outside, bowing and waving to the assembled citizens, so that it was +under good headway before they came in. Sherman came up to Clemens, who +sat smoking unconcernedly. + +"Well," he said, "who told you you could go in this car?" + +"Nobody," said Clemens. + +"Do you expect to pay extra fare?" asked Sherman. + +"No," said Clemens. "I don't expect to pay any fare." + +"Oh, you don't. Then you'll work your way." + +Sherman took off his coat and military hat and made Clemens put them on. + +"Now," said he, "whenever the train stops you go out on the platform and +represent me and make a speech." + +It was not long before the train stopped, and Clemens, according to +orders, stepped out on the rear platform and bowed to the crowd. There +was a cheer at the sight of his military uniform. Then the cheer waned, +became a murmur of uncertainty, followed by an undertone of discussion. +Presently somebody said: + +"Say, that ain't Sherman, that's Mark Twain," which brought another +cheer. + +Then Sherman had to come out too, and the result was that both spoke. +They kept this up at the different stations, and sometimes Lincoln came +out with them. When there was time all three spoke, much to the +satisfaction of their audiences. + +President Garfield was shot that summer--July 2, 1881.--[On the day that +President Garfield was shot Mrs. Clemens received from their friend +Reginald Cholmondeley a letter of condolence on the death of her husband +in Australia; startling enough, though in reality rather comforting than +otherwise, for the reason that the "Mark Twain" who had died in Australia +was a very persistent impostor. Clemens wrote Cholmondeley: "Being dead +I might be excused from writing letters, but I am not that kind of a +corpse. May I never be so dead as to neglect the hail of a friend from a +far land." Out of this incident grew a feature of an anecdote related in +Following the Equator the joke played by the man from Bendigo.]--He died +September 19th, and Arthur came into power. There was a great feeling of +uncertainty as to what he would do. He was regarded as "an excellent +gentleman with a weakness for his friends." Incumbents holding +appointive offices were in a state of dread. + +Howells's father was consul at Toronto, and, believing his place to be in +danger, he appealed to his son. In his book Howells tells how, in turn, +he appealed to Clemens, remembering his friendship with Grant and Grant's +friendship with Arthur. He asked Clemens to write to Grant, but Clemens +would hear of nothing less than a call on the General, during which the +matter would be presented to him in person. Howells relates how the +three of them lunched together, in a little room just out of the office, +on baked beans and coffee, brought in from some near-by restaurant: + + The baked beans and coffee were of about the railroad-refreshment + quality; but eating them with Grant was like sitting down to baked + beans and coffee with Julius Caesar, or Alexander, or some other + great Plutarchan captain. + +Clemens, also recalling the interview, once added some interesting +details: + +"I asked Grant if he wouldn't write a word on a card which Howells could +carry to Washington and hand to the President. But, as usual, General +Grant was his natural self--that is to say, ready and determined to do a +great deal more for you than you could possibly ask him to do. He said +he was going to Washington in a couple of days to dine with the +President, and he would speak to him himself on the subject and make it a +personal matter. Grant was in the humor to talk--he was always in a +humor to talk when no strangers were present--he forced us to stay and +take luncheon in a private room, and continued to talk all the time. It +was baked beans, but how 'he sits and towers,' Howells said, quoting +Dame. Grant remembered 'Squibob' Derby (John Phoenix) at West Point very +well. He said that Derby was always drawing caricatures of the +professors and playing jokes on every body. He told a thing which I had +heard before but had never seen in print. A professor questioning a +class concerning certain particulars of a possible siege said, 'Suppose a +thousand men are besieging a fortress whose equipment of provisions is +so-and-so; it is a military axiom that at the end of forty-five days the +fort will surrender. Now, young men, if any of you were in command of +such a fortress, how would you proceed?' + +"Derby held up his hand in token that he had an answer for that question. +He said, 'I would march out, let the enemy in, and at the end of forty- +five days I would change places with him.' + +"I tried hard, during that interview, to get General Grant to agree to +write his personal memoirs for publication, but he wouldn't listen to the +suggestion. His inborn diffidence made him shrink from voluntarily +coming before the public and placing himself under criticism as an +author. He had no confidence in his ability to write well; whereas we +all know now that he possessed an admirable literary gift and style. He +was also sure that the book would have no sale, and of course that would +be a humility too. I argued that the book would have an enormous sale, +and that out of my experience I could save him from making unwise +contracts with publishers, and would have the contract arranged in such a +way that they could not swindle him, but he said he had no necessity for +any addition to his income. Of course he could not foresee that he was +camping on a volcano; that as Ward's partner he was a ruined man even +then, and of course I had no suspicion that in four years from that time +I would become his publisher. He would not agree to write his memoirs. +He only said that some day he would make very full notes and leave them +behind him, and then if his children chose to make them into a book they +could do so. We came away then. He fulfilled his promise entirely +concerning Howells's father, who held his office until he resigned of his +own accord." + + + + +CXXXVI + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" + +During the summer absence alterations were made in the Hartford home, +with extensive decorations by Tiffany. The work was not completed when +the family returned. Clemens wrote to Charles Warren Stoddard, then in +the Sandwich Islands, that the place was full of carpenters and +decorators, whereas what they really needed was "an incendiary." + +If the house would only burn down we would pack up the cubs and fly to +the isles of the blest, and shut ourselves up in the healing solitudes of +the crater of Haleakala and get a good rest, for the mails do not intrude +there, nor yet the telephone and the telegraph; and after resting we +would come down the mountain a piece and board with a godly, breech- +clouted native, and eat poi and dirt, and give thanks to whom all thanks +belong for these privileges, and never housekeep any more. + +They had acquired more ground. One morning in the spring Mark Twain had +looked out of his window just in time to see a man lift an ax to cut down +a tree on the lot which lay between his own and that of his neighbor. He +had heard that a house was to be built there; altogether too close to him +for comfort and privacy. Leaning out of the window he called sonorously, +"Woodman, spare that tree!" Then he hurried down, obtained a stay of +proceedings, and without delay purchased the lot from the next-door +neighbor who owned it, acquiring thereby one hundred feet of extra ground +and a greenhouse which occupied it. It was a costly purchase; the owner +knew he could demand his own price; he asked and received twelve thousand +dollars for the strip. + +In November, Clemens found that he must make another trip to Canada. +'The Prince and the Pauper' was ready for issue, and to insure Canadian +copyright the author must cross the line in person. He did not enjoy the +prospect of a cold-weather trip to the north, and tried to tempt Howells +to go with him, but only succeeded in persuading Osgood, who would do +anything or go anywhere that offered the opportunity for pleasant company +and junket. + +It was by no means an unhappy fortnight. Clemens took a note-book, and +there are plenty of items that give reality to that long-ago excursion. +He found the Canadian girls so pretty that he records it as a relief now +and then to see a plain one. On another page he tells how one night in +the hotel a mouse gnawed and kept him awake, and how he got up and hunted +for it, hoping to destroy it. He made a rebus picture for the children +of this incident in a letter home. + +We get a glimpse just here of how he was constantly viewing himself as +literary material--human material--an example from which some literary +aspect or lesson may be drawn. Following the mouse adventure we find it +thus dramatized: + Trace Father Brebeuf all through this trip, and when I am in a rage + and can't endure the mouse be reading of Brebeuf's marvelous + endurances and be shamed. + + And finally, after chasing the bright-eyed rascal several days, and + throwing things and trying to jump on him when in my overshoes, he + darts away with those same bright eyes, then straightway I read + Brebeuf's magnificent martyrdom, and turn in, subdued and wondering. + By and by the thought occurs to me, Brebeuf, with his good, great + heart would spare even that poor humble mousie--and for his sake so + will I--I will throw the trap in the fire--jump out of bed, reach + under, fetch out the trap, and find him throttled there and not two + minutes dead. + +They gave him a dinner in Montreal. Louis Frechette, the Canadian poet, +was there and Clemens addressed him handsomely in the response he made to +the speech of welcome. From that moment Frechette never ceased to adore +Mark Twain, and visited him soon after the return to Hartford. + +'The Prince and the Pauper' was published in England, Canada, Germany, +and America early in December, 1881. There had been no stint of money, +and it was an extremely handsome book. The pen-and-ink drawings were +really charming, and they were lavish as to number. It was an attractive +volume from every standpoint, and it was properly dedicated "To those +good-mannered and agreeable children, Susy and Clara Clemens." + +The story itself was totally unlike anything that Mark Twain had done +before. Enough of its plan and purpose has been given in former chapters +to make a synopsis of it unnecessary here. The story of the wandering +prince and the pauper king--an impressive picture of ancient legal and +regal cruelty--is as fine and consistent a tale as exists in the realm of +pure romance. Unlike its great successor, the 'Yankee at King Arthur's +Court', it never sacrifices the illusion to the burlesque, while through +it all there runs a delicate vein of humor. Only here and there is there +the slightest disillusion, and this mainly in the use of some ultra- +modern phrase or word. + +Mark Twain never did any better writing than some of the splendid scenes +in 'The Prince and the Pauper'. The picture of Old London Bridge; the +scene in the vagabond's retreat, with its presentation to the little king +of the wrongs inflicted by the laws of his realm; the episode of the jail +where his revelation reaches a climax--these are but a few of the +splendid pictures which the chapters portray, while the spectacle of +England acquiring mercy at the hands of two children, a king and a +beggar, is one which only genius could create. One might quote here, but +to do so without the context would be to sacrifice atmosphere, half the +story's charm. How breathlessly interesting is the tale of it! We may +imagine that first little audience at Mark Twain's fireside hanging +expectant on every paragraph, hungry always for more. Of all Mark +Twain's longer works of fiction it is perhaps the most coherent as to +plot, the most carefully thought out, the most perfect as to workmanship. +This is not to say that it is his greatest story. Probably time will not +give it that rank, but it comes near to being a perfectly constructed +story, and it has an imperishable charm. + +It was well received, though not always understood by the public. The +reviewer was so accustomed to looking for the joke in Mark Twain's work, +that he found it hard to estimate this new product. Some even went so +far as to refer to it as one of Mark Twain's big jokes, meaning probably +that he had created a chapter in English history with no foundation +beyond his fancy. Of course these things pained the author of the book. +At one time, he had been inclined to publish it anonymously, to avert +this sort of misunderstanding, and sometimes now he regretted not having +done so. + +Yet there were many gratifying notices. The New York Herald reviewer +gave the new book two columns of finely intelligent appreciation. In +part he said: + + To those who have followed the career of Mark Twain, his appearance + as the author of a charming and noble romance is really no more of a + surprise than to see a stately structure risen upon sightly ground + owned by an architect of genius, with the resources of abundant + building material and ample training at command. Of his capacity + they have had no doubt, and they rejoice in his taking a step which + they felt he was able to take. Through all his publications may be + traced the marks of the path which half led up to this happy height. + His humor has often been the cloak, but not the mask, of a sturdy + purpose. His work has been characterized by a manly love of truth, + a hatred of humbug, and a scorn for cant. A genial warmth and + whole-souledness, a beautiful fancy, a fertile imagination, and a + native feeling for the picturesque and a fine eye for color have + afforded the basis of a style which has become more and more plastic + and finished. + +And in closing: + + The characters of these two boys, twins in spirit, will rank with + the purest and loveliest creations of child-life in the realm of + fiction. + + + + +CXXXVII + +CERTAIN ATTACKS AND REPRISALS + +Beyond the publication of The Prince and the Pauper Clemens was sparingly +represented in print in '81. A chapter originally intended for the book, +the "Whipping Boy's Story," he gave to the Bazaar Budget, a little +special-edition sheet printed in Hartford. It was the story of the 'Bull +and the Bees' which he later adapted for use in Joan of Arc, the episode +in which Joan's father rides a bull to a funeral. Howells found that it +interfered with the action in the story of the Prince, and we might have +spared it from the story of Joan, though hardly without regret. + +The military story "A Curious Episode" was published in the Century +Magazine for November. The fact that Clemens had heard, and not +invented, the story was set forth quite definitely and fully in his +opening paragraphs. Nevertheless, a "Captious Reader" thought it +necessary to write to a New York publication concerning its origin: + + I am an admirer of the writings of Mr. Mark Twain, and consequently, + when I saw the table of contents of the November number of the + Century, I bought it and turned at once to the article bearing his + name, and entitled, "A Curious Episode." When I began to read it, + it struck me as strangely familiar, and I soon recognized the story + as a true one, told me in the summer of 1878 by an officer of the + United States artillery. Query: Did Mr. Twain expect the public to + credit this narrative to his clever brain? + +The editor, seeing a chance for Mark Twain "copy," forwarded a clipping +to Clemens and asked him if he had anything to say in the matter. +Clemens happened to know the editor very well, and he did have something +to say, not for print, but for the editor's private ear. + + The newspaper custom of shooting a man in the back and then calling + upon him to come out in a card and prove that he was not engaged in + any infamy at the time is a good enough custom for those who think + it justifiable. Your correspondent is not stupid, I judge, but + purely and simply malicious. He knew there was not the shadow of a + suggestion, from the beginning to the end of "A Curious Episode," + that the story was an invention; he knew he had no warrant for + trying to persuade the public that I had stolen the narrative and + was endeavoring to palm it off as a piece of literary invention; he + also knew that he was asking his closing question with a base + motive, else he would have asked it of me by letter, not spread it + before the public. + + I have never wronged you in any way, and I think you had no right to + print that communication; no right, neither any excuse. As to + publicly answering that correspondent, I would as soon think of + bandying words in public with any other prostitute. + +The editor replied in a manly, frank acknowledgment of error. He had not +looked up the article itself in the Century before printing the +communication. + + "Your letter has taught me a lesson," he said. "The blame belongs + to me for not hunting up the proofs. Please accept my apology." + +Mark Twain was likely to be peculiarly sensitive to printed innuendos. +Not always. Sometimes he would only laugh at them or be wholly +indifferent. Indeed, in his later years, he seldom cared to read +anything about himself, one way or the other, but at the time of which we +are now writing--the period of the early eighties--he was alive to any +comment of the press. His strong sense of humor, and still stronger +sense of human weakness, caused him to overlook many things which another +might regard as an affront; but if the thing printed were merely an +uncalled-for slur, an inexcusable imputation, he was inclined to rage and +plan violence. Sometimes he conceived retribution in the form of libel +suits with heavy damages. Sometimes he wrote blasting answers, which +Mrs. Clemens would not let him print. + +At one time he planned a biography of a certain editor who seemed to be +making a deliberate personal campaign against his happiness. Clemens had +heard that offending items were being printed in this man's paper; +friends, reporting with customary exaggeration, declared that these +sneers and brutalities appeared almost daily, so often as to cause +general remark. + +This was enough. He promptly began to collect data--damaging data-- +relating to that editor's past history. He even set a man to work in +England collecting information concerning his victim. One of his +notebooks contains the memoranda; a few items will show how terrific was +to be the onslaught. + + When the naturalist finds a new kind of animal, he writes him up in + the interest of science. No matter if it is an unpleasant animal. + This is a new kind of animal, and in the cause of society must be + written up. He is the polecat of our species . . . . He is + purely and simply a Guiteau with the courage left out . . . . + + Steel portraits of him as a sort of idiot, from infancy up--to a + dozen scattered through the book--all should resemble him. + +But never mind the rest. When he had got thoroughly interested in his +project Mrs. Clemens, who had allowed the cyclone to wear itself out a +little with its own vehemence, suggested that perhaps it would be well to +have some one make an examination of the files of the paper and see just +what had been said of him. So he subscribed for the paper himself and +set a man to work on the back numbers. We will let him tell the +conclusion of the matter himself, in his report of it to Howells: + + The result arrived from my New York man this morning. Oh, what a + pitiable wreck of high hopes! The "almost daily" assaults for two + months consist of (1) adverse criticism of P. & P. from an enraged + idiot in the London Athenaeum, (2) paragraphs from some indignant + Englishman in the Pall Mall Gazette, who pays me the vast compliment + of gravely rebuking some imaginary ass who has set me up in the + neighborhood of Rabelais, (3) a remark about the Montreal dinner, + touched with an almost invisible satire, and, (4) a remark about + refusal of Canadian copyright, not complimentary, but not + necessarily malicious; and of course adverse criticism which is not + malicious is a thing which none but fools irritate themselves about. + + There, that is the prodigious bugaboo in its entirety! Can you + conceive of a man's getting himself into a sweat over so diminutive + a provocation? I am sure I can't. What the devil can those friends + of mine have been thinking about to spread those three or four + harmless things out into two months of daily sneers and affronts? + + Boiled down, this vast outpouring of malice amounts to simply this: + one jest (one can make nothing more serious than that out of it). + One jest, and that is all; for foreign criticisms do not count, they + being matters of news, and proper for publication in anybody's + newspaper . . . . + + Well, my mountain has brought forth its mouse, and a sufficiently + small mouse it is, God knows. And my three weeks' hard work has got + to go into the ignominious pigeonhole. Confound it, I could have + earned ten thousand dollars with infinitely less trouble. + +Howells refers to this episode, and concludes: + + So the paper was acquitted and the editor's life was spared. The + wretch never, never knew how near he was to losing it, with + incredible preliminaries of obloquy, and a subsequent devotion to + lasting infamy. + + + + +CXXXVIII + +MANY UNDERTAKINGS + +To write a detailed biography of Mark Twain at this period would be to +defy perusal. Even to set down all the interesting matters, interesting +to the public of his time, would mean not only to exhaust the subject, +but the reader. He lived at the top of his bent, and almost anything +relating to him was regarded as news. Daily and hourly he mingled with +important matters or spoke concerning them. A bare list of the +interesting events of Mark Twain's life would fill a large volume. + +He was so busy, so deeply interested himself, so vitally alive to every +human aspect. He read the papers through, and there was always enough to +arouse his indignation--the doings of the human race at large could be +relied upon to do that--and he would write, and write, to relieve +himself. His mental Niagara was always pouring away, turning out +articles, essays, communications on every conceivable subject, mainly +with the idea of reform. There were many public and private abuses, and +he wanted to correct them all. He covered reams of paper with lurid +heresies--political, religious, civic--for most of which there was no +hope of publication. + +Now and then he was allowed to speak out: An order from the Past-office +Department at Washington concerning the superscription of envelopes +seemed to him unwarranted. He assailed it, and directly the nation was +being entertained by a controversy between Mark Twain and the Postmaster- +General's private secretary, who subsequently receded from the field. +At another time, on the matter of postage rates he wrote a paper which +began: "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member +of Congress. But I repeat myself." + +It is hardly necessary to add that the paper did not appear. + +On the whole, Clemens wrote his strictures more for relief than to print, +and such of these papers as are preserved to-day form a curious +collection of human documents. Many of them could be printed to-day, +without distress to any one. The conditions that invited them are +changed; the heresies are not heresies any more. He may have had some +thought of their publication in later years, for once he wrote: + + Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put + them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then + all that ink and labor are wasted because I can't print the result. + I have just finished an article of this kind, and it satisfies me + entirely. It does my weather-beaten soul good to read it, and + admire the trouble it would make for me and the family. I will + leave it behind and utter it from the grave. There is a free speech + there, and no harm to the family. + +It is too late and too soon to print most of these things; too late to +print them for their salutary influence, too soon to print them as +literature. + +He was interested in everything: in music, as little as he knew of it. +He had an ear for melody, a dramatic vision, and the poetic conception of +sound. Reading some lilting lyric, he could fancy the words marching to +melody, and would cast about among his friends for some one who could +supply a tuneful setting. Once he wrote to his friend the Rev. Dr. +Parker, who was a skilled musician, urging him to write a score for +Tennyson's "Bugle Song," outlining an attractive scheme for it which the +order of his fancy had formulated. Dr. Parker replied that the "Bugle +Song," often attempted, had been the despair of many musicians. + +He was interested in business affairs. Already, before the European +trip, he had embarked in, and disembarked from, a number of pecuniary +ventures. He had not been satisfied with a strictly literary income. +The old tendency to speculative investment, acquired during those +restless mining days, always possessed him. There were no silver mines +in the East, no holes in the ground into which to empty money and effort; +but there were plenty of equivalents--inventions, stock companies, and +the like. He had begun by putting five thousand dollars into the +American Publishing Company; but that was a sound and profitable venture, +and deserves to be remembered for that reason. + +Then a man came along with a patent steam generator which would save +ninety per cent. of the fuel energy, or some such amount, and Mark Twain +was early persuaded that it would revolutionize the steam manufactures of +the world; so he put in whatever bank surplus he had and bade it a +permanent good-by. + +Following the steam generator came a steam pulley, a rather small +contrivance, but it succeeded in extracting thirty-two thousand dollars +from his bank account in a period of sixteen months. + +By the time he had accumulated a fresh balance, a new method of marine +telegraphy was shown him, so he used it up on that, twenty-five thousand +dollars being the price of this adventure. + +A watch company in western New York was ready to sell him a block of +shares by the time he was prepared to experiment again, but it did not +quite live to declare the first dividend on his investment. + +Senator John P. Jones invited him to join in the organization of an +accident insurance company, and such was Jones's confidence in the +venture that he guaranteed Clemens against loss. Mark Twain's only +profit from this source was in the delivery of a delicious speech, which +he made at a dinner given to Cornelius Walford, of London, an insurance +author of repute. Jones was paying back the money presently, and about +that time came a young inventor named Graham Bell, offering stock in a +contrivance for carrying the human voice on an electric wire. At almost +any other time Clemens would eagerly have welcomed this opportunity; but +he was so gratified at having got his money out of the insurance venture +that he refused to respond to the happy "hello" call of fortune. In some +memoranda made thirty years later he said: + +I declined. I said I didn't want anything more to do with wildcat +speculation. Then he [Bell] offered the stock to me at twenty-five. I +said I didn't want it at any price. He became eager; insisted that I +take five hundred dollars' worth. He said he would sell me as much as I +wanted for five hundred dollars; offered to let me gather it up in my +hands and measure it in a plug hat; said I could have a whole hatful for +five hundred dollars. But I was the burnt child, and I resisted all +these temptations-resisted them easily; went off with my check intact, +and next day lent five thousand of it, on an unendorsed note, to a friend +who was going to go bankrupt three days later. + +About the end of the year I put up a telephone wire from my house down to +the Courant office, the only telephone wire in town, and the first one +that was ever used in a private house in the world. + +That had been only a little while before he sailed for Europe. When he +returned he would have been willing to accept a very trifling interest in +the telephone industry for the amount of his insurance salvage. + +He had a fresh interest in patents now, and when his old friend Dan Slote +got hold of a new process for engraving--the kaolatype or "chalk-plate" +process--which was going to revolutionize the world of illustration, he +promptly acquired a third interest, and eventually was satisfied with +nothing short of control. It was an ingenious process: a sheet of +perfectly smooth steel was coated with a preparation of kaolin (or china +clay), and a picture was engraved through the coating down to the steel +surface. This formed the matrix into which the molten metal was poured +to make the stereotype plate, or die, for printing. It was Clemens's +notion that he could utilize this process for the casting of brass dies +for stamping book covers--that, so applied, the fortunes to be made out +of it would be larger and more numerous. Howells tells how, at one time, +Clemens thought the "damned human race" was almost to be redeemed by a +process of founding brass without air-bubbles in it. This was the time +referred to and the race had to go unredeemed; for, after long, worried, +costly experimenting, the brass refused to accommodate its nature to the +new idea, while the chalk plate itself, with all its subsidiary and +auxiliary possibilities, was infringed upon right and left, and the +protecting patent failed to hold. The process was doomed, in any case. +It was barely established before the photographic etching processes, +superior in all ways, were developed and came quickly into use. The +kaolatype enterprise struggled nobly for a considerable period. Clemens +brought his niece's husband, young Charles L. Webster, from Fredonia to +manage it for him, and backed it liberally. Webster was vigorous, hard- +working, and capable; but the end of each month showed a deficit, until +Clemens was from forty to fifty thousand dollars out of pocket in his +effort to save the race with chalk and brass. The history of these +several ventures (and there were others), dismissed here in a few +paragraphs, would alone make a volume not without interest, certainly not +without humor. Following came the type-setting machine, but we are not +ready for that. Of necessity it is a longer, costlier story. + +Mrs. Clemens did not share his enthusiasm in these various enterprises. +She did not oppose them, at least not strenuously, but she did not +encourage them. She did not see their need. Their home was beautiful; +they were happy; he could do his work in deliberation and comfort. She +knew the value of money better than he, cared more for it in her own way; +but she had not his desire to heap up vast and sudden sums, to revel in +torrential golden showers. She was willing to let well enough alone. +Clemens could not do this, and suffered accordingly. In the midst of +fair home surroundings and honors we find him writing to his mother: + + Life has come to be a very serious matter with me. I have a + badgered, harassed feeling a good part of my time. It comes mainly + from business responsibilities and annoyances. + +He had no moral right to be connected with business at all. He had a +large perception of business opportunity, but no vision of its +requirements--its difficulties and details. He was the soul of honor, +but in anything resembling practical direction he was but a child. +During any period of business venture he was likely to be in hot water: +eagerly excited, worried, impatient; alternately suspicious and over- +trusting, rash, frenzied, and altogether upset. + +Yet never, even to the end of his days, would he permanently lose faith +in speculative ventures. Human traits are sometimes modified, but never +eliminated. The man who is born to be a victim of misplaced confidence +will continue to be one so long as he lives and there are men willing to +victimize him. The man who believes in himself as an investor will +uphold that faith against all disaster so long as he draws breath and has +money to back his judgments. + + + + +CXXXIX + +FINANCIAL AND LITERARY + +By a statement made on the 1st of January, 1882, of Mark Twain's +disbursements for the preceding year, it is shown that considerably more +than one hundred thousand dollars had been expended during that twelve +months. It is a large sum for an author to pay out in one year. It +would cramp most authors to do it, and it was not the best financing, +even for Mark Twain. It required all that the books could earn, all the +income from the various securities, and a fair sum from their principal. +There is a good deal of biography in the statement. Of the amount +expended forty-six thousand dollars represented investments; but of this +comfortable sum less than five thousand dollars would cover the +legitimate purchases; the rest had gone in the "ventures" from whose +bourne no dollar would ever return. Also, a large sum had been spent for +the additional land and for improvements on the home--somewhat more than +thirty thousand dollars altogether--while the home life had become more +lavish, the establishment had grown each year to a larger scale, the +guests and entertainments had become more and, more numerous, until the +actual household expenditure required about as much as the books and +securities could earn. + +It was with the increased scale of living that Clemens had become +especially eager for some source of commercial profit; something that +would yield a return, not in paltry thousands, but hundreds of thousands. +Like Colonel Sellers, he must have something with "millions in it." +Almost any proposition that seemed to offer these possible millions +appealed to him, and in his imagination he saw the golden freshet pouring +in. + +His natural taste was for a simple, inexpensive life; yet in his large +hospitality, and in a certain boyish love of grandeur, he gloried in the +splendor of his entertainment, the admiration and delight of his guests. +There were always guests; they were coming and going constantly. Clemens +used to say that he proposed to establish a bus line between their house +and the station for the accommodation of his company. He had the +Southern hospitality. Much company appealed to a very large element in +his strangely compounded nature. For the better portion of the year he +was willing to pay the price of it, whether in money or in endurance, and +Mrs. Clemens heroically did her part. She loved these things also, in +her own way. She took pride in them, and realized that they were a part +of his vast success. Yet in her heart she often longed for the simpler +life--above all, for the farm life at Elmira. Her spirit cried out for +the rest and comfort there. In one of her letters she says: + The house has been full of company, and I have been "whirled + around." How can a body help it? Oh, I cannot help sighing for the + peace and quiet of the farm. This is my work, and I know that I do + very wrong when I feel chafed by it, but how can I be right about + it? Sometimes it seems as if the simple sight of people would drive + me mad. I am all wrong; if I would simply accept the fact that this + is my work and let other things go, I know I should not be so + fretted; but I want so much to do other things, to study and do + things with the children, and I cannot. + + I have the best French teacher that I ever had, and if I could give + any time to it I could not help learning French. + +When we reflect on the conditions, we are inclined to say how much better +it would have been to have remained there among the hills in that quiet, +inexpensive environment, to have let the world go. But that was not +possible. The game was of far larger proportions than any that could be +restricted to the limits of retirement and the simpler round of life. +Mark Twain's realm had become too large for his court to be established +in a cottage. + +It is hard to understand that in spite of a towering fame Mark Twain was +still not regarded by certain American arbiters of reputations as a +literary fixture; his work was not yet recognized by them as being of +important meaning and serious purport. + +In Boston, at that time still the Athens of America, he was enjoyed, +delighted in; but he was not honored as being quite one of the elect. +Howells tells us that: + + In proportion as people thought themselves refined they questioned + that quality which all recognize in him now, but which was then the + inspired knowledge of the simple-hearted multitude. + +Even at the Atlantic dinners his place was "below the salt"--a place of +honor, but not of the greatest honor. He did not sit on the dais with +Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Howells, and Aldrich. We of a +later period, who remember him always as the center of every board--the +one supreme figure, his splendid head and crown of silver hair the target +of every eye-find it hard to realize the Cambridge conservatism that clad +him figuratively always in motley, and seated him lower than the throne +itself. + +Howells clearly resented this condition, and from random review corners +had ventured heresy. Now in 1882 he seems to have determined to declare +himself, in a large, free way, concerning his own personal estimate of +Mark Twain. He prepared for the Century Magazine a biographical +appreciation, in which he served notice to the world that Mark Twain's +work, considered even as literature, was of very considerable importance +indeed. Whether or not Howells then realized the "inspired knowledge of +the multitude," and that most of the nation outside of the counties of +Suffolk and Essex already recognized his claim, is not material. Very +likely he did; but he also realized the mental dusk of the cultured +uninspired and his prerogative to enlighten them. His Century article +was a kind of manifesto, a declaration of independence, no longer +confined to the obscurities of certain book notices, where of course one +might be expected to stretch friendly favor a little for a popular +Atlantic contributor. In the open field of the Century Magazine Howells +ventured to declare: + + Mark Twain's humor is as simple in form and as direct as the + statesmanship of Lincoln or the generalship of Grant. + + When I think how purely and wholly American it is I am a little + puzzled at its universal acceptance . . . . Why, in fine, should + an English chief-justice keep Mark Twain's books always at hand? + Why should Darwin have gone to them for rest and refreshment at + midnight, when spent with scientific research? + + I suppose that Mark Twain transcends all other American humorists in + the universal qualities. He deals very little with the pathetic, + which he nevertheless knows very well how to manage, as he has + shown, notably in the true story of the old slave-mother; but there + is a poetic lift in his work, even when he permits you to recognize + it only as something satirized. There is always the touch of + nature, the presence of a sincere and frank manliness in what he + says, the companionship of a spirit which is at once delightfully + open and deliciously shrewd. Elsewhere I have tried to persuade the + reader that his humor is, at its best, the foamy break of the strong + tide of earnestness in him. But it would be limiting him unjustly + to describe him as a satirist, and it is hardly practicable to + establish him in people's minds as a moralist; he has made them + laugh too long; they will not believe him serious; they think some + joke is always intended. This is the penalty, as Dr. Holmes has + pointed out, of making one's first success as a humorist. There was + a paper of Mark Twain's printed in the Atlantic Monthly some years + ago and called, "The Facts Concerning the Late Carnival of Crime in + Connecticut," which ought to have won popular recognition of the + ethical intelligence underlying his humor. It was, of course, + funny; but under the fun it was an impassioned study of the human + conscience. Hawthorne or Bunyan might have been proud to imagine + that powerful allegory, which had a grotesque force far beyond + either of them.... Yet it quite failed of the response I had hoped + for it, and I shall not insist here upon Mark Twain as a moralist; + though I warn the reader that if he leaves out of the account an + indignant sense of right and wrong, a scorn of all affectations and + pretense, an ardent hate of meanness and injustice, he will come + infinitely short of knowing Mark Twain. + +Howells realized the unwisdom and weakness of dogmatic insistence, and +the strength of understatement. To him Mark Twain was already the +moralist, the philosopher, and the statesman; he was willing that the +reader should take his time to realize these things. The article, with +his subject's portrait as a frontispiece, appeared in the Century for +September, 1882. If it carried no new message to many of its readers, it +at least set the stamp of official approval upon what they had already +established in their hearts. + + + + +CXL + +DOWN THE RIVER + +Osgood was doing no great things with The Prince and the Pauper, but +Clemens gave him another book presently, a collection of sketches--The +Stolen White Elephant. It was not an especially important volume, though +some of the features, such as "Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning" and the +"Carnival of Crime," are among the best of their sort, while the +"Elephant" story is an amazingly good take-off on what might be called +the spectacular detective. The interview between Inspector Blunt and the +owner of the elephant is typical. The inspector asks: + + "Now what does this elephant eat, and how much?" + + "Well, as to what he eats--he will eat anything. He will eat a man, + he will eat a Bible; he will eat anything between a man and a + Bible." + + "Good-very good, indeed, but too general. Details are necessary; + details are the only valuable thing in our trade. Very well, as to + men. At one meal--or, if you prefer, during one day--how many men + will he eat if fresh?" + + "He would not care whether they were fresh or not; at a single meal + he would eat five ordinary men." + + "Very good; five men. We will put that down. What nationalities + would he prefer?" + + "He is indifferent about nationalities. He prefers acquaintances, + but is not prejudiced against strangers." + + "Very good. Now, as to Bibles. How many Bibles would he eat at a + meal?" + + "He would eat an entire edition." + +Clemens and Osgood had a more important publishing enterprise on hand. +The long-deferred completion of the Mississippi book was to be +accomplished; the long-deferred trip down the river was to be taken. +Howells was going abroad, but the charming Osgood was willing to make the +excursion, and a young man named Roswell Phelps, of Hartford, was engaged +as a stenographer to take the notes. + +Clemens made a farewell trip to Boston to see Howells before his +departure, and together they went to Concord to call on Emerson; a +fortunate thing, for he lived but a few weeks longer. They went again in +the evening, not to see him, but to stand reverently outside and look at +his house. This was in April. Longfellow had died in March. The fact +that Howells was going away indefinitely, made them reminiscent and sad. + +Just what breach Clemens committed during this visit is not remembered +now, and it does not matter; but his letter to Howells, after his return +to Hartford, makes it pretty clear that it was memorable enough at the +time. Half-way in it he breaks out: + + But oh, hell, there is no hope for a person that is built like me, + because there is no cure, no cure. + + If I could only know when I have committed a crime: then I could + conceal it, and not go stupidly dribbling it out, circumstance by + circumstance, into the ears of a person who will give no sign till + the confession is complete; and then the sudden damnation drops on a + body like the released pile-driver, and he finds himself in the + earth down to his chin. When he merely supposed he was being + entertaining. + +Next day he was off with Osgood and the stenographer for St. Louis, where +they took the steamer Gold Dust down the river. He intended to travel +under an assumed name, but was promptly recognized, both at the Southern +Hotel and on the boat. In 'Life on the Mississippi' he has given us the +atmosphere of his trip, with his new impressions of old scenes; also his +first interview with the pilot, whom he did not remember, but who easily +remembered him. + +"I did not write that story in the book quite as it happened," he +reflected once, many years later. "We went on board at night. Next +morning I was up bright and early and out on deck to see if I could +recognize any of the old landmarks. I could not remember any. I did not +know where we were at all. It was a new river to me entirely. I climbed +up in the pilot-house and there was a fellow of about forty at the wheel. +I said 'Good morning.' He answered pleasantly enough. His face was +entirely strange to me. Then I sat down on the high seat back of the +wheel and looked out at the river and began to ask a few questions, such +as a landsman would ask. He began, in the old way, to fill me up with +the old lies, and I enjoyed letting him do it. Then suddenly he turned +round to me and said: + +"'I want to get a cup of coffee. You hold her, will you, till I come +back?' And before I could say a word he was out of the pilot-house door +and down the steps. It all came so suddenly that I sprang to the wheel, +of course, as I would have done twenty years before. Then in a moment I +realized my position. Here I was with a great big steamboat in the +middle of the Mississippi River, without any further knowledge than that +fact, and the pilot out of sight. I settled my mind on three +conclusions: first, that the pilot might be a lunatic; second, that he +had recognized me and thought I knew the river; third, that we were in a +perfectly safe place, where I could not possibly kill the steamboat. But +that last conclusion, though the most comforting, was an extremely +doubtful one. I knew perfectly well that no sane pilot would trust his +steamboat for a single moment in the hands of a greenhorn unless he were +standing by the greenhorn's side. Of course, by force of habit, when I +grabbed the wheel, I had taken the steering marks ahead and astern, and I +made up my mind to hold her on those marks to the hair; but I could feel +myself getting old and gray. Then all at once I recognized where we +were; we were in what is called the Grand Chain--a succession of hidden +rocks, one of the most dangerous places on the river. There were two +rocks there only about seventy feet apart, and you've got to go exactly +between them or wreck the boat. There was a time when I could have done +it without a tremor, but that time wasn't now. I would have given any +reasonable sum to have been on the shore just at that moment. I think I +was about ready to drop dead when I heard a step on the pilothouse stair; +then the door opened and the pilot came in, quietly picking his teeth, +and took the wheel, and I crawled weakly back to the seat. He said: + +"'You thought you were playing a nice joke on me, didn't you? You +thought I didn't know who you were. Why, I recognized that drawl of +yours as soon as you opened your mouth.' + +"I said, 'Who the h--l are you? I don't remember you.' + +"'Well,' he said, 'perhaps you don't, but I was a cub pilot on the +river before the war, when you were a licensed pilot, and I couldn't get +a license when I was qualified for one, because the Pilots' Association +was so strong at that time that they could keep new pilots out if they +wanted to, and the law was that I had to be examined by two licensed +pilots, and for a good while I could not get any one to make that +examination. But one day you and another pilot offered to do it, and you +put me through a good, healthy examination and indorsed my application +for a license. I had never seen you before, and I have never seen you +since until now, but I recognized you.' + +"'All right,' I said. 'But if I had gone half a mile farther with that +steamboat we might have all been at the bottom of the river.' + +"We got to be good friends, of course, and I spent most of my time up +there with him. When we got down below Cairo, and there was a big, full +river--for it was highwater season and there was no danger of the boat +hitting anything so long as she kept in the river--I had her most of the +time on his watch. He would lie down and sleep, and leave me there to +dream that the years had not slipped away; that there had been no war, no +mining days, no literary adventures; that I was still a pilot, happy and +care-free as I had been twenty years before." + +From the book we gather that he could not keep out of the pilot-house. +He was likely to get up at any hour of the night to stand his watch, and +truly enough the years had slipped away. He was the young fellow in his +twenties again, speculating on the problems of existence and reading his +fortune in the stars. To heighten the illusion, he had himself called +regularly with the four-o'clock watch, in order not to miss the mornings. +--[It will repay the reader to turn to chap. xxx of Life on the +Mississippi, and consider Mark Twain's word-picture of the river +sunrise.] + +The majesty and solitude of the river impressed him more than ever +before, especially its solitude. It had been so full of life in his +time; now it had returned once more to its primal loneliness--the +loneliness of God. + +At one place two steamboats were in sight at once an unusual spectacle. +Once, in the mouth of a river, he noticed a small boat, which he made out +to be the Mark Twain. There had been varied changes in twenty-one years; +only the old fascination of piloting remained unchanged. To Bixby +afterward he wrote: + +"I'd rather be a pilot than anything else I've ever done in my life. How +do you run Plum Point?" + +He met Bixby at New Orleans. Bixby was captain now on a splendid new +Anchor Line steamboat, the City of Baton Rouge. The Anchor Line steamers +were the acme of Mississippi River steamboat-building, and they were +about the end of it. They were imposingly magnificent, but they were +only as gorgeous clouds that marked the sunset of Mississippi steamboat +travel. Mark Twain made his trip down the river just in time. + +In New Orleans he met George W. Cable and Joel Chandler Harris, and they +had a fraternizing good time together, mousing about the old French +Quarter or mingling with the social life of the modern city. He made a +trip with Bixby in a tug to the Warmouth plantation, and they reviewed +old days together, as friends parted for twenty-one years will. +Altogether the New Orleans sojourn was a pleasant one, saddened only by a +newspaper notice of the death, in Edinburgh, of the kindly and gentle and +beloved Dr. Brown. + +Clemens arranged to make the trip up the river on the Baton Rouge. Bixby +had one pretty inefficient pilot, and stood most of the watches himself, +so that with "Sam Clemens" in the pilot-house with him, it was +wonderfully like those old first days of learning the river, back in the +fifties. + +"Sam was ever making notes in his memorandum-book, just as he always +did," said Bixby to the writer, recalling the time. "I was sorry I had +to stay at the wheel so much. I wanted to have more time with Sam +without thinking of the river at all. Sam was sorry, too, from what he +wrote after he got home." + +Bixby produced a letter in the familiar handwriting. It was a tender, +heart-spoken letter: + + I didn't see half enough of you. It was a sore disappointment. + Osgood could have told you, if he would--discreet old dog--I + expected to have you with me all the time. Altogether, the most + pleasant part of my visit with you was after we arrived in St. + Louis, and you were your old natural self again. Twenty years have + not added a month to your age or taken a fraction from your + loveliness. + +Said Bixby: "When we arrived in St. Louis we came to the Planters' Hotel; +to this very table where you and I are sitting now, and we had a couple +of hot Scotches between us, just as we have now, and we had a good last +talk over old times and old acquaintances. After he returned to New York +he sent for my picture. He wanted to use it in his book." + +At St. Louis the travelers changed boats, and proceeded up the +Mississippi toward St. Paul. Clemens laid off three days at Hannibal. + +Delightful days [he wrote home]. Loitering around all day long, +examining the old localities, and talking with the gray heads who were +boys and girls with me thirty or forty years ago. I spent my nights with +John and Helen Garth, three miles from town, in their spacious and +beautiful house. They were children with me, and afterward schoolmates. +That world which I knew in its blooming youth is old and bowed and +melancholy now; its soft cheeks are leathery and withered, the fire has +gone out of its eyes, the spring from its step. It will be dust and +ashes when I come again. + +He had never seen the far upper river, and he found it very satisfying. +His note-book says: + + The bluffs all along up above St. Paul are exquisitely beautiful + where the rough and broken turreted rocks stand up against the sky + above the steep, verdant slopes. They are inexpressibly rich and + mellow in color; soft dark browns mingled with dull greens--the very + tints to make an artist worship. + +In a final entry he wrote: + +The romance of boating is gone now. In Hannibal the steamboat man is no +longer the god. + + + + +CXLI + +LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY + +Clemens took a further step toward becoming a publisher on his own +account. Not only did he contract to supply funds for the Mississippi +book, but, as kaolatype, the chalk-engraving process, which had been +lingeringly and expensively dying, was now become merely something to +swear at, he had his niece's husband, Webster, installed as Osgood's New +York subscription manager, with charge of the general agencies. There +was no delay in this move. Webster must get well familiarized with the +work before the Mississippi book's publication. + +He had expected to have the manuscript finished pretty promptly, but the +fact that he had promised it for a certain time paralyzed his effort. +Even at the farm he worked without making much headway. At the end of +October he wrote Howells: + + The weather turned cold, and we had to rush home, while I still + lacked thirty thousand words. I had been sick and got delayed. I + am going to write all day and two-thirds of the night until the + thing is done or break down at it. The spur and burden of the + contract are intolerable to me. I can endure the irritation of it + no longer. I went to work at nine o'clock yesterday morning and + went to bed an hour after midnight. Result of the day (mainly + stolen from books though credit given), 9,500 words, so I reduced my + burden by one-third in one day. It was five days' work in one. I + have nothing more to borrow or steal; the rest must all be written. + It is ten days' work and unless something breaks it will be finished + in five. + +He had sworn once, when he had finally finished 'A Tramp Abroad', that he +would never limit himself as to time again. But he had forgotten that +vow, and was suffering accordingly. + +Howells wrote from London urging him to drop everything and come over to +Europe for refreshment. + + We have seen lots of nice people, and have been most pleasantly made + of; but I would rather have you smoke in my face and talk for half a + day, just for pleasure, than to go to the best house or club in + London. + +Clemens answered: + + Yes, it would be more profitable to me to do that because, with your + society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now apparently + interminable book. But I cannot come, because I am not boss here, + and nothing but dynamite can move Mrs. Clemens away from home in the + winter season. + +This was in November, and he had broken all restrictions as to time. He +declared that he had never had such a fight over any book before, and +that he had told Osgood and everybody concerned that they must wait. + + I have said with sufficient positiveness that I will finish the book + at no particular date; that I will not hurry it; that I will not + hurry myself; that I will take things easy and comfortably--write + when I choose to write, leave it alone when I do so prefer . . . + I have got everything at a dead standstill, and that is where it + ought to be, and that is where it must remain; to follow any other + policy would be to make the book worse than it already is. I ought + to have finished it before showing it to anybody, and then sent it + across the ocean to you to be edited, as usual; for you seem to be a + great many shades happier than you deserve to be, and if I had + thought of this thing earlier I would have acted upon it and taken + the tuck somewhat out of your joyousness. + +It was a long, heartfelt letter. Near the end of it he said: + + Cable has been here, creating worshipers on all hands. He is a + marvelous talker on a deep subject. I do not see how even Spencer + could unwind a thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in + cleaner, clearer, crisper English. He astounded Twichell with his + faculty. You know that when it comes down to moral honesty, limpid + innocence, and utterly blemishless piety, the apostles were mere + policemen to Cable; so with this in mind you must imagine him at a + midnight dinner in Boston the other night, where we gathered around + the board of the Summerset Club: Osgood full, Boyle O'Reilly full, + Fairchild responsively loaded, and Aldrich and myself possessing the + floor and properly fortified. Cable told Mrs. Clemens, when he + returned here, that he seemed to have been entertaining himself with + horses, and had a dreamy idea that he must have gone to Boston in a + cattle-car. It was a very large time. He called it an orgy. And + no doubt it was, viewed from his standpoint. + +Osgood wanted Mark Twain to lecture that fall, as preliminary advertising +for the book, with "Life on the Mississippi" as his subject. Osgood was +careful to make this proposition by mail, and probably it was just as +well; for if there was any single straw that could have broken the back +of Clemens's endurance and made him violent at this particular time, it +was a proposition to go back on the platform. His answer to Osgood has +not been preserved. + +Clemens spoke little that winter. In February he addressed the Monday +Evening Club on "What is Happiness?" presenting a theory which in later +years he developed as a part of his "gospel," and promulgated in a +privately printed volume, 'What is Man'? It is the postulate already +mentioned in connection with his reading of Lecky, that every human +action, bad or good, is the result of a selfish impulse; that is to say, +the result of a desire for the greater content of spirit. It is not a +new idea; philosophers in all ages have considered it, and accepted or +rejected it, according to their temperament and teachings, but it was +startling and apparently new to the Monday Evening Club. They scoffed +and jeered at it; denounced it as a manifest falsity. They did not quite +see then that there may be two sorts of selfishness--brutal and divine; +that he who sacrifices others to himself exemplifies the first, whereas +he who sacrifices himself for others personifies the second--the divine +contenting of his soul by serving the happiness of his fellow-men. Mark +Twain left this admonition in furtherance of that better sort: + +"Diligently train your ideals upward, and still upward, toward a summit +where you will find your chiefest pleasure, in conduct which, while +contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor and +the community." + +It is a divine admonition, even if, in its suggested moral freedom, it +does seem to conflict with that other theorythe inevitable sequence of +cause and effect, descending from the primal atom. There is seeming +irrelevance in introducing this matter here; but it has a chronological +relation, and it presents a mental aspect of the time. Clemens was +forty-eight, and becoming more and more the philosopher; also, in logic +at least, a good deal of a pessimist. He made a birthday aphorism on the +subject: + +"The man who is a pessimist before he is forty-eight knows too much; the +man who is an optimist after he is forty-eight knows too little." + +He was never more than a pessimist in theory at any time. In practice he +would be a visionary; a builder of dreams and fortunes, a veritable +Colonel Sellers to the end of his days. + + + + +CXLII + +"LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI" + +The Mississippi book was completed at last and placed in Osgood's hands +for publication. Clemens was immensely fond of Osgood. Osgood would +come down to Hartford and spend days discussing plans and playing +billiards, which to Mark Twain's mind was the proper way to conduct +business. Besides, there was Webster, who by this time, or a very little +later, had the word "publisher" printed in his letter-heads, and was +truly that, so far as the new book was concerned. Osgood had become +little more than its manufacturer, shipping-agent, and accountant. It +should be added that he made the book well, though somewhat expensively. +He was unaccustomed to getting out big subscription volumes. His taste +ran to the artistic, expensive product. + +"That book cost me fifty thousand dollars to make," Clemens once +declared. "Bliss could have built a whole library, for that sum. But +Osgood was a lovely fellow." + +Life on the Mississippi was issued about the middle of May. It was a +handsome book of its kind and a successful book, but not immediately a +profitable one, because of the manner of its issue. It was experimental, +and experiments are likely to be costly, even when successful in the +final result. + +Among other things, it pronounced the final doom of kaolatype. The +artists who drew the pictures for it declined to draw them if they were +to be reproduced by that process, or indeed unless some one of the lately +discovered photographic processes was used. Furthermore, the latter were +much cheaper, and it was to the advantage of Clemens himself to repudiate +kaolatype, even for his own work. + +Webster was ordered to wind up the last ends of the engraving business +with as little sacrifice as possible, and attend entirely to more +profitable affairs--viz., the distribution of books. + +As literature, the Mississippi book will rank with Mark Twain's best--so +far, at least, as the first twenty chapters of it are concerned. Earlier +in this history these have been sufficiently commented upon. They +constitute a literary memorial seemingly as enduring as the river itself. + +Concerning the remaining chapters of the book, they are also literature, +but of a different class. The difference is about the same as that +between 'A Tramp Abroad' and the 'Innocents'. It is the difference +between the labors of love and duty; between art and industry, literature +and journalism. + +But the last is hardly fair. It is journalism, but it is literary +journalism, and there are unquestionably areas that are purely literary, +and not journalistic at all. There would always be those in any book of +travel he might write. The story of the river revisited is an +interesting theme; and if the revisiting had been done, let us say eight +or ten years earlier, before he had become a theoretical pessimist, and +before the river itself had become a background for pessimism, the tale +might have had more of the literary glamour and illusion, even if less +that is otherwise valuable. + +'Life on the Mississippi' has been always popular in Germany. The +Emperor William of Germany once assured Mark Twain that it was his +favorite American book, and on the same evening the portier of the +author's lodging in Berlin echoed the Emperor's opinion. + +Paul Lindau, a distinguished German author and critic, in an interview at +the time the Mississippi book appeared, spoke of the general delight of +his countrymen in its author. When he was asked, "But have not the +Germans been offended by Mark Twain's strictures on their customs and +language in his Tramp Abroadf" he replied, "We know what we are and how +we look, and the fanciful picture presented to our eyes gives us only +food for laughter, not cause for resentment. The jokes he made on our +long words, our inverted sentences, and the position of the verb have +really led to a reform in style which will end in making our language as +compact and crisp as the French or English. I regard Mark Twain as the +foremost humorist of the age." + +Howells, traveling through Europe, found Lindau's final sentiment echoed +elsewhere, and he found something more: in Europe Mark Twain was already +highly regarded as a serious writer. Thomas Hardy said to Howells one +night at dinner: + +"Why don't people understand that Mark Twain is not merely a great +humorist? He is a very remarkable fellow in a very different way." + +The Rev. Dr. Parker, returning from England just then, declared that, +wherever he went among literary people, the talk was about Mark Twain; +also that on two occasions, when he had ventured diffidently to say that +he knew that author personally, he was at once so evidently regarded as +lying for effect that he felt guilty, and looked it, and did not venture +to say it any more; thus, in a manner, practising untruth to save his +reputation for veracity. + +That the Mississippi book throughout did much to solidify this foreign +opinion of Mark Twain's literary importance cannot be doubted, and it is +one of his books that will live longest in the memory of men. + + + + +CXLIII + +A GUEST OF ROYALTY + +For purposes of copyright another trip to Canada was necessary, and when +the newspapers announced (May, 1883) that Mark Twain was about to cross +the border there came one morning the following telegram: + + Meeting of Literary and Scientific Society at Ottawa from 22d to + 26th. It would give me much pleasure if you could come and be my + guest during that time. + + LORNE. + + +The Marquis of Lorne, then Governor-General of Canada, was the husband of +Queen Victoria's daughter, the Princess Louise. The invitation was +therefore in the nature of a command. Clemens obeyed it graciously +enough, and with a feeling of exaltation no doubt. He had been honored +by the noble and the great in many lands, but this was royalty--English +royalty--paying a tribute to an American writer whom neither the Marquis +nor the Princess, his wife, had ever seen. They had invited him because +they had cared enough for his books to make them wish to see him, to have +him as a guest in Rideau Hall, their home. Mark Twain was democratic. +A king to him was no more than any other man; rather less if he were not +a good king. But there was something national in this tribute; and, +besides, Lord Lorne and the Princess Louise were the kind of sovereigns +that honored their rank, instead of being honored by it. + +It is a good deal like a fairy tale when you think of it; the barefooted +boy of Hannibal, who had become a printer, a pilot, a rough-handed miner, +being summoned, not so many years later, by royalty as one of America's +foremost men of letters. The honor was no greater than many others he +had received, certainly not greater than the calls of Canon Kingsley and +Robert Browning and Turgenieff at his London hotel lodgings, but it was +of a less usual kind. + +Clemens enjoyed his visit. Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne kept +him with them almost continually, and were loath to let him go. Once +they took him tobogganing--an exciting experience. + +It happened that during his stay with them the opening of the Canadian +Parliament took place. Lord Lorne and the principal dignitaries of state +entered one carriage, and in a carriage behind them followed Princess +Louise with Mark Twain. As they approached the Parliament House the +customary salute was fired. Clemens pretended to the Princess +considerable gratification. The temptation was too strong to resist: + + "Your Highness," he said, "I have had other compliments paid to me, + but none equal to this one. I have never before had a salute fired + in my honor." + +Returning to Hartford, he sent copies of his books to Lord Lorne, and to +the Princess a special copy of that absurd manual, The New Guide of the +Conversation in Portuguese and English, for which he had written an +introduction.--[A serious work, in Portugal, though issued by Osgood +('83) as a joke. Clemens in the introduction says: "Its delicious, +unconscious ridiculousness and its enchanting naivety are as supreme and +unapproachable in their way as Shakespeare's sublimities." An extract, +the closing paragraph from the book's preface, will illustrate his +meaning: + +"We expect then, who the little book (for the care that we wrote him, and +for her typographical correction), that maybe worth the acceptation of +the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate +him particularly."] + + + + +CXLIV + +A SUMMER LITERARY HARVEST + +Arriving at the farm in June, Clemens had a fresh crop of ideas for +stories of many lengths and varieties. His note-book of that time is +full of motifs and plots, most of them of that improbable and extravagant +kind which tended to defeat any literary purpose, whether humorous or +otherwise. It seems worth while setting down one or more of these here, +for they are characteristic of the myriad conceptions that came and went, +and beyond these written memoranda left no trace behind. Here is a fair +example of many: + + Two men starving on a raft. The pauper has a Boston cracker, + resolves to keep it till the multimillionaire is beginning to + starve, then make him pay $50,000 for it. Millionaire agrees. + Pauper's cupidity rises, resolves to wait and get more; twenty-four + hours later asks him a million for the cracker. Millionaire agrees. + Pauper has a wild dream of becoming enormously rich off his cracker; + backs down; lies all night building castles in the air; next day + raises his price higher and higher, till millionaire has offered + $100,000,000, every cent he has in the world. Pauper accepts. + Millionaire: "Now give it to me." + + Pauper: "No; it isn't a trade until you sign documental history of + the transaction and make an oath to pay." + + While pauper is finishing the document millionaire sees a ship. + When pauper says, "Sign and take the cracker," millionaire smiles a + smile, declines, and points to the ship. + +Yet this is hardly more extravagant than another idea that is mentioned +repeatedly among the notes--that of an otherwise penniless man wandering +about London with a single million-pound bank-note in his possession, a +motif which developed into a very good story indeed. + + + IDEA FOR "STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN" + + In modern times the halls of heaven are warmed by registers + connected with hell; and this is greatly applauded by Jonathan + Edwards, Calvin, Baxter and Company, because it adds a new pang to + the sinner's sufferings to know that the very fire which tortures + him is the means of making the righteous comfortable. + +Then there was to be another story, in which the various characters were +to have a weird, pestilential nomenclature; such as "Lockjaw Harris," +"Influenza Smith," "Sinapism Davis," and a dozen or two more, a perfect +outbreak of disorders. + +Another--probably the inspiration of some very hot afternoon--was to +present life in the interior of an iceberg, where a colony would live for +a generation or two, drifting about in a vast circular current year after +year, subsisting on polar bears and other Arctic game. + +An idea which he followed out and completed was the 1002d Arabian Night, +in which Scheherazade continues her stories, until she finally talks the +Sultan to death. That was a humorous idea, certainly; but when Howells +came home and read it in the usual way he declared that, while the +opening was killingly funny, when he got into the story itself it seemed +to him that he was "made a fellow-sufferer with the Sultan from +Scheherazade's prolixity." + +"On the whole," he said, "it is not your best, nor your second best; but +all the way it skirts a certain kind of fun which you can't afford to +indulge in." + +And that was the truth. So the tale, neatly typewritten, retired to +seclusion, and there remains to this day. + +Clemens had one inspiration that summer which was not directly literary, +but historical, due to his familiarity with English dates. He wrote +Twichell: + + Day before yesterday, feeling not in condition for writing, I left + the study, but I couldn't hold in--had to do something; so I spent + eight hours in the sun with a yardstick, measuring off the reigns of + the English kings on the roads in these grounds, from William the + Conqueror to 1883, calculating to invent an open-air game which + shall fill the children's heads with dates without study. I give + each king's reign one foot of space to the year and drive one stake + in the ground to mark the beginning of each reign, and I make the + children call the stake by the king's name. You can stand in the + door and take a bird's-eye view of English monarchy, from the + Conqueror to Edward IV.; then you can turn and follow the road up + the hill to the study and beyond with an opera-glass, and bird's-eye + view the rest of it to 1883. + + You can mark the sharp difference in the length of reigns by the + varying distances of the stakes apart. You can see Richard II., two + feet; Oliver Cromwell, two feet; James II., three feet, and so on-- + and then big skips; pegs standing forty-five, forty-six, fifty, + fifty-six, and sixty feet apart (Elizabeth, Victoria, Edward III., + Henry III., and George III.). By the way, third's a lucky number + for length of days, isn't it? Yes, sir; by my scheme you get a + realizing notion of the time occupied by reigns. + + The reason it took me eight hours was because, with little Jean's + interrupting assistance, I had to measure from the Conquest to the + end of Henry VI. three times over, and besides I had to whittle out + all those pegs. + + I did a full day's work and a third over, yesterday, but was full of + my game after I went to bed trying to fit it for indoors. So I + didn't get to sleep till pretty late; but when I did go off I had + contrived a new way to play my history game with cards and a board. + +We may be sure the idea of the game would possess him, once it got a fair +start like that. He decided to save the human race that year with a +history game. When he had got the children fairly going and interested +in playing it, he adapted it to a cribbage-board, and spent his days and +nights working it out and perfecting it to a degree where the world at +large might learn all the facts of all the histories, not only without +effort, but with an actual hunger for chronology. He would have a game +not only of the English kings, but of the kings of every other nation; +likewise of great statesmen, vice-chancellors, churchmen, of celebrities +in every line. He would prepare a book to accompany these games. Each +game would contain one thousand facts, while the book would contain eight +thousand; it would be a veritable encyclopedia. He would organize clubs +throughout the United States for playing the game; prizes were to be +given. Experts would take it up. He foresaw a department in every +newspaper devoted to the game and its problems, instead of to chess and +whist and other useless diversions. He wrote to Orion, and set him to +work gathering facts and dates by the bushel. He wrote to Webster, sent +him a plan, and ordered him to apply for the patent without delay. +Patents must also be applied for abroad. With all nations playing this +great game, very likely it would produce millions in royalties; and so, +in the true Sellers fashion, the iridescent bubble was blown larger and +larger, until finally it blew up. The game on paper had become so large, +so elaborate, so intricate, that no one could play it. Yet the first +idea was a good one: the king stakes driven along the driveway and up the +hillside of Quarry Farm. The children enjoyed it, and played it through +many sweet summer afternoons. Once, in the days when he had grown old, +he wrote, remembering: + + Among the principal merits of the games which we played by help of + the pegs were these: that they had to be played in the open air, and + that they compelled brisk exercise. The peg of William the + Conqueror stood in front of the house; one could stand near the + Conqueror and have all English history skeletonized and landmarked + and mile-posted under his eye . . . . The eye has a good memory. + Many years have gone by and the pegs have disappeared, but I still + see them and each in its place; and no king's name falls upon my ear + without my seeing his pegs at once, and noticing just how many feet + of space he takes up along the road. + +It turned out an important literary year after all. In the Mississippi +book he had used a chapter from the story he had been working at from +time to time for a number of years, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. +Reading over the manuscript now he found his interest in it sharp and +fresh, his inspiration renewed. The trip down the river had revived it. +The interest in the game became quiescent, and he set to work to finish +the story at a dead heat. + +To Howells, August 22 (1883), he wrote: + + I have written eight or nine hundred manuscript pages in such a + brief space of time that I mustn't name the number of days; I + shouldn't believe it myself, and of course couldn't expect you to. + I used to restrict myself to four and five hours a day and five days + in the week, but this time I have wrought from breakfast till 5.15 + P.M. six days in the week, and once or twice I smouched a Sunday + when the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literature + hooked on Sunday, on the sly. + +He refers to the game, though rather indifferently. + + When I wrote you I thought I had it; whereas I was merely entering + upon the initiatory difficulties of it. I might have known it + wouldn't be an easy job or somebody would have invented a decent + historical game long ago--a thing which nobody has done. + +Notwithstanding the fact that he was working at Huck with enthusiasm, he +seems to have been in no hurry to revise it for publication, either as a +serial or as a book. But the fact that he persevered until Huck Finn at +last found complete utterance was of itself a sufficient matter for +congratulation. + + + + +CXLV + +HOWELLS AND CLEMENS WRITE A PLAY + +Before Howells went abroad Clemens had written: + + Now I think that the play for you to write would be one entitled, + "Colonel Mulberry Sellers in Age" (75), with Lafayette Hawkins (at + 50) still sticking to him and believing in him and calling him "My + lord." He [Sellers] is a specialist and a scientist in various + ways. Your refined people and purity of speech would make the best + possible background, and when you are done, I could take your + manuscript and rewrite the Colonel's speeches, and make him properly + extravagant, and I would let the play go to Raymond, and bind him up + with a contract that would give him the bellyache every time he read + it. Shall we think this over, or drop it as being nonsense? + +Howells, returned and settled in Boston once more, had revived an +interest in the play idea. He corresponded with Clemens concerning it +and agreed that the American Claimant, Leathers, should furnish the +initial impulse of the drama. + +They decided to revive Colonel Sellers and make him the heir; Colonel +Sellers in old age, more wildly extravagant than ever, with new schemes, +new patents, new methods of ameliorating the ills of mankind. + +Howells came down to Hartford from Boston full of enthusiasm. He found +Clemens with some ideas of the plan jotted down: certain effects and +situations which seemed to him amusing, but there was no general scheme +of action. Howells, telling of it, says: + + I felt authorized to make him observe that his scheme was as nearly + nothing as chaos could be. He agreed hilariously with me, and was + willing to let it stand in proof of his entire dramatic inability. + +Howells, in turn, proposed a plan which Clemens approved, and they set to +work. Howells could imitate Clemens's literary manner, and they had a +riotously jubilant fortnight working out their humors. Howells has told +about it in his book, and he once related it to the writer of this +memoir. He said: + +"Clemens took one scene and I another. We had loads and loads of fun +about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it as it went along. We +thought it mighty good, and I think to this day that it was mighty good. +We called the play 'Colonel Sellers.' We revived him. Clemens had a +notion of Sellers as a spiritual medium-there was a good deal of +excitement about spiritualism then; he also had a notion of Sellers +leading a women's temperance crusade. We conceived the idea of Sellers +wanting to try, in the presence of the audience, how a man felt who had +fallen, through drink. Sellers was to end with a sort of corkscrew +performance on the stage. He always wore a marvelous fire extinguisher, +one of his inventions, strapped on his back, so in any sudden emergency, +he could give proof of its effectiveness." + +In connection with the extinguisher, Howells provided Sellers with a pair +of wings, which Sellers declared would enable him to float around in any +altitude where the flames might break out. The extinguisher, was not to +be charged with water or any sort of liquid, but with Greek fire, on the +principle that like cures like; in other words, the building was to be +inoculated with Greek fire against the ordinary conflagration. Of course +the whole thing was as absurd as possible, and, reading the old +manuscript to-day, one is impressed with the roaring humor of some of the +scenes, and with the wild extravagance of the farce motive, not wholly +warranted by the previous character of Sellers, unless, indeed, he had +gone stark mad. It is, in fact, Sellers caricatured. The gentle, tender +side of Sellers--the best side--the side which Clemens and Howells +themselves cared for most, is not there. Chapter III of Mark Twain's +novel, The American Claimant, contains a scene between Colonel Sellers +and Washington Hawkins which presents the extravagance of the Colonel's +materialization scheme. It is a modified version of one of the scenes in +the play, and is as amusing and unoffending as any. + +The authors' rollicking joy in their work convinced them that they had +produced a masterpiece for which the public in general, and the actors in +particular, were waiting. Howells went back to Boston tired out, but +elate in the prospect of imminent fortune. + + + + +CXLVI + +DISTINGUISHED VISITORS + +Meantime, while Howells had been in Hartford working at the play with +Clemens, Matthew Arnold had arrived in Boston. On inquiring for Howells, +at his home, the visitor was told that he had gone to see Mark Twain. +Arnold was perhaps the only literary Englishman left who had not accepted +Mark Twain at his larger value. He seemed surprised and said: + +"Oh, but he doesn't like that sort of thing, does he?" + +To which Mrs. Howells replied: + +"He likes Mr. Clemens very much, and he thinks him one of the greatest +men he ever knew." + +Arnold proceeded to Hartford to lecture, and one night Howells and +Clemens went to meet him at a reception. Says Howells: + + While his hand laxly held mine in greeting I saw his eyes fixed + intensely on the other side of the room. "Who--who in the world is + that?" I looked and said, "Oh, that is Mark Twain." I do not + remember just how their instant encounter was contrived by Arnold's + wish; but I have the impression that they were not parted for long + during the evening, and the next night Arnold, as if still under the + glamour of that potent presence, was at Clemens's house. + +He came there to dine with the Twichells and the Rev. Dr. Edwin P. +Parker. Dr. Parker and Arnold left together, and, walking quietly +homeward, discussed the remarkable creature whose presence they had just +left. Clemens had been at his best that night--at his humorous best. He +had kept a perpetual gale of laughter going, with a string of comment and +anecdote of a kind which Twichell once declared the world had never +before seen and would never see again. Arnold seemed dazed by it, unable +to come out from under its influence. He repeated some of the things +Mark Twain had said; thoughtfully, as if trying to analyze their magic. +Then he asked solemnly: + +"And is he never serious?" + +And Dr. Parker as solemnly answered: + +"Mr. Arnold, he is the most serious man in the world." Dr. Parker, +recalling this incident, remembered also that Protap Chunder Mazoomdar, a +Hindoo Christian prelate of high rank, visited Hartford in 1883, and that +his one desire was to meet Mark Twain. In some memoranda of this visit +Dr. Parker has written: + + I said that Mark Twain was a friend of mine, and we would + immediately go to his house. He was all eagerness, and I perceived + that I had risen greatly in this most refined and cultivated + gentleman's estimation. Arriving at Mr. Clemens's residence, I + promptly sought a brief private interview with my friend for his + enlightenment concerning the distinguished visitor, after which they + were introduced and spent a long while together. In due time + Mazoomdar came forth with Mark's likeness and autograph, and as we + walked away his whole air and manner seemed to say, with Simeon of + old, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!" + + + + +CXLVII + +THE FORTUNES OF A PLAY + +Howells is of the impression that the "Claimant" play had been offered to +other actors before Raymond was made aware of it; but there are letters +(to Webster) which indicate that Raymond was to see the play first, +though Clemens declares, in a letter of instruction, that he hopes +Raymond will not take it. Then he says: + + Why do I offer him the play at all? For these reasons: he plays + that character well; there are not thirty actors in the country who + can do it better; and, too, he has a sort of sentimental right to be + offered the piece, though no moral, or legal, or other kind of + right. + + Therefore we do offer it to him; but only once, not twice. Let us + have no hemming and hawing; make short, sharp work of the business. + I decline to have any correspondence with R. myself in any way. + +This was at the end of November, 1883, while the play was still being +revised. Negotiations with Raymond had already begun, though he does not +appear to have actually seen the play during that theatrical season, and +many and various were the attempts made to place it elsewhere; always +with one result--that each actor or manager, in the end, declared it to +be strictly a Raymond play. The thing was hanging fire for nearly a +year, altogether, while they were waiting on Raymond, who had a +profitable play, and was in no hurry for the recrudescence of Sellers. +Howells tells how he eventually took the manuscript to Raymond, whom he +found "in a mood of sweet reasonableness" at one of Osgood's luncheons. +Raymond said he could not do the play then, but was sure he would like it +for the coming season, and in any case would be glad to read it. + +In due time Raymond reported favorably on the play, at least so far as +the first act was concerned, but he objected to the materialization +feature and to Sellers as claimant for the English earldom. He asked +that these features be eliminated, or at least much ameliorated; but as +these constituted the backbone and purpose of the whole play, Clemens and +Howells decided that what was left would be hardly worth while. Raymond +finally agreed to try the play as it was in one of the larger towns-- +Howells thinks in Buffalo. A week later the manuscript came back to +Webster, who had general charge of the business negotiations, as indeed +he had of all Mark Twain's affairs at this time, and with it a brief +line: + + DEAR SIR,--I have just finished rereading the play, and am convinced + that in its present form it would not prove successful. I return + the manuscript by express to your address. + + Thanking you for your courtesy, I am, + + Yours truly, JOHN T. RAYMOND. + + P.S.--If the play is altered and made longer I will be pleased to + read it again. + + +In his former letter Raymond had declared that "Sellers, while a very +sanguine man, was not a lunatic, and no one but a lunatic could for a +moment imagine that he had done such a work" (meaning the +materialization). Clearly Raymond wanted a more serious presentation, +something akin to his earlier success, and on the whole we can hardly +blame him. But the authors had faith in their performance as it stood, +and agreed they would make no change. + +Finally a well-known elocutionist, named Burbank, conceived the notion of +impersonating Raymond as well as Sellers, making of it a sort of double +burlesque, and agreed to take the play on those terms. Burbank came to +Hartford and showed what he could do. Howells and Clemens agreed to give +him the play, and they hired the old Lyceum Theater for a week, at seven +hundred dollars, for its trial presentation. Daniel Frohman promoted it. +Clemens and Howells went over the play and made some changes, but they +were not as hilarious over it or as full of enthusiasm as they had been +in the beginning. Howells put in a night of suffering--long, dark hours +of hot and cold waves of fear--and rising next morning from a tossing +bed, wrote: "Here's a play which every manager has put out-of-doors and +which every actor known to us has refused, and now we go and give it to +an elocutioner. We are fools." + +Clemens hurried over to Boston to consult with Howells, and in the end +they agreed to pay the seven hundred dollars for the theater, take the +play off and give Burbank his freedom. But Clemens's faith in it did not +immediately die. Howells relinquished all right and title in it, and +Clemens started it out with Burbank and a traveling company, doing one- +night stands, and kept it going for a week or more at his own expense. +It never reached New York. + +"And yet," says Howells, "I think now that if it had come it would have +been successful. So hard does the faith of the unsuccessful dramatist +die."--[This was as late as the spring of 1886, at which time Howells's +faith in the play was exceedingly shaky. In one letter he wrote: "It is +a lunatic that we have created, and while a lunatic in one act might +amuse, I'm afraid that in three he would simply bore." + +And again: + +"As it stands, I believe the thing will fail, and it would be a disgrace +to have it succeed."] + + + + +CXLVIII + +CABLE AND HIS GREAT JOKE + +Meanwhile, with the completion of the Sellers play Clemens had flung +himself into dramatic writing once more with a new and more violent +impetuosity than ever. Howells had hardly returned to Boston when he +wrote: + +Now let's write a tragedy. + +The inclosed is not fancy, it is history; except that the little girl was +a passing stranger, and not kin to any of the parties. I read the +incident in Carlyle's Cromwell a year ago, and made a note in my note- +book; stumbled on the note to-day, and wrote up the closing scene of a +possible tragedy, to see how it might work. + +If we made this colonel a grand fellow, and gave him a wife to suit--hey? +It's right in the big historical times--war; Cromwell in big, picturesque +power, and all that. + +Come, let's do this tragedy, and do it well. Curious, but didn't +Florence want a Cromwell? But Cromwell would not be the chief figure +here. + +It was the closing scene of that pathetic passage in history from which +he would later make his story, "The Death Disc." Howells was too tired +and too occupied to undertake immediately a new dramatic labor, so +Clemens went steaming ahead alone. + + My billiard-table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich + Islands; the walls are upholstered with scraps of paper penciled + with notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge + of that unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange and + fascinating people. And I have begun a story. Its hidden motive + will illustrate a but-little considered fact in human nature: that + the religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter what + apparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken its + place; meanwhile abolished and obliterated it. I start Bill + Ragsdale at eleven years of age, and the heroine at four, in the + midst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque and + amazing customs and superstitions, three months before the arrival + of the missionaries and--the erection of a shallow Christianity upon + the ruins of the old paganism. + + Then these two will become educated Christians and highly civilized. + + And then I will jump fifteen years and do Ragsdale's leper business. + When we come to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from the + story, all ready to our hand. + +He made elaborate preparations for the Sandwich Islands story, which he +and Howells would dramatize later, and within the space of a few weeks he +actually did dramatize 'The Prince and the Pauper' and 'Tom Sawyer', and +was prodding Webster to find proper actors or managers; stipulating at +first severe and arbitrary terms, which were gradually modified, as one +after another of the prospective customers found these dramatic wares +unsuited to their needs. Mark Twain was one of the most dramatic +creatures that ever lived, but he lacked the faculty of stage arrangement +of the dramatic idea. It is one of the commonest defects in the literary +make-up; also one of the hardest to realize and to explain. + +The winter of 1883-84 was a gay one in the Clemens home. Henry Irving +was among those entertained, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Aldrich and his +wife, Howells of course, and George W. Cable. Cable had now permanently +left the South for the promised land which all authors of the South and +West seek eventually, and had in due course made his way to Hartford. +Clemens took Cable's fortunes in hand, as he had done with many another, +invited him to his home, and undertook to open negotiations with the +American Publishing Company, of which Frank Bliss was now the manager, +for the improvement of his fortunes. + +Cable had been giving readings from his stories and had somewhere picked +up the measles. He suddenly came down with the complaint during his +visit to Clemens, and his case was a violent one. It required the +constant attendance of a trained nurse and one or two members of the +household to pull him through. + +In the course of time he was convalescent, and when contagion was no +longer to be feared guests were invited in for his entertainment. At one +of these gatherings, Cable produced a curious book, which he said had +been lent to him by Prof. Francis Bacon, of New Haven, as a great rarity. +It was a little privately printed pamphlet written by a Southern youth, +named S. Watson Wolston, a Yale student of 1845, and was an absurd +romance of the hyperflorid, grandiloquent sort, entitled, "Love +Triumphant, or the Enemy Conquered." Its heroine's name was Ambulinia, +and its flowery, half-meaningless periods and impossible situations +delighted Clemens beyond measure. He begged Cable to lend it to him, to +read at the Saturday Morning Club, declaring that he certainly must own +the book, at whatever cost. Henry C. Robinson, who was present, +remembered having seen a copy in his youth, and Twichell thought he +recalled such a book on sale in New Haven during his college days. +Twichell said nothing as to any purpose in the matter; but somewhat +later, being in New Haven, he stepped into the old book-store and found +the same proprietor, who remembered very well the book and its author. +Twichell rather fearfully asked if by any chance a copy of it might still +be obtained. + +"Well," was the answer, "I undertook to put my cellar in order the other +day, and found about a cord of them down there. I think I can supply +you." + +Twichell took home six of the books at ten cents each, and on their first +spring walk to Talcott's Tower casually mentioned to Clemens the quest +for the rare Ambulinia. But Clemens had given up the pursuit. New York +dealers had reported no success in the matter. The book was no longer in +existence. + +"What would you give for a copy?" asked. Twichell. + +Clemens became excited. + +"It isn't a question of price," he said; "that would be for the owner to +set if I could find him." + +Twichell drew a little package from his pocket. + +"Well, Mark," he said, "here are six copies of that book, to begin with. +If that isn't enough, I can get you a wagon-load." + +It was enough. But it did not deter Clemens in his purpose, which was to +immortalize the little book by pointing out its peculiar charms. He did +this later, and eventually included the entire story, with comments, in +one of his own volumes. + +Clemens and Twichell did not always walk that spring. The early form of +bicycle, the prehistoric high-wheel, had come into vogue, and they each +got one and attempted its conquest. They practised in the early morning +hours on Farmington Avenue, which was wide and smooth, and they had an +instructor, a young German, who, after a morning or two, regarded Mark +Twain helplessly and said: + +"Mr. Clemens, it's remarkable--you can fall off of a bicycle more +different ways than the man that invented it." + +They were curious things, those old high-wheel machines. You were +perched away up in the air, with the feeling that you were likely at any +moment to strike a pebble or something that would fling you forward with +damaging results. Frequently that is what happened. The word "header" +seems to have grown out of that early bicycling period. Perhaps Mark +Twain invented it. He had enough experience to do it. He always +declared afterward that he invented all the new bicycle profanity that +has since come into general use. Once he wrote: + + There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, + a measured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer pretty + fairly I was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They + gave me the worst falls I ever got in that street, except those + which I got from dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is + quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip + out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the + reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I + did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came + along. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try to + run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to + miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump + the wrong way every time. It was always so in my experience. Even + when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see me + practise. They all liked to see me practise, and they all came, for + there was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain a + dog. + +He conquered, measurably, that old, discouraging thing, and he and +Twichell would go on excursions, sometimes as far as Wethersfield or to +the tower. It was a pleasant change, at least it was an interesting one; +but bicycling on the high wheel was never a popular diversion with Mark +Twain, and his enthusiasm in the sport had died before the "safety" came +along. + +He had his machine sent out to Elmira, but there were too many hills in +Chemung County, and after one brief excursion he came in, limping and +pushing his wheel, and did not try it again. + +To return to Cable. When the 1st of April (1884) approached he concluded +it would be a good time to pay off his debt of gratitude for his recent +entertainment in the Clemens's home. He went to work at it +systematically. He had a "private and confidential" circular letter +printed, and he mailed it to one hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's +literary friends in Boston, Hartford, Springfield, New York, Brooklyn, +Washington, and elsewhere, suggesting that they write to him, so that +their letters would reach him simultaneously April 1st, asking for his +autograph. No stamps or cards were to be inclosed for reply, and it was +requested that "no stranger to Mr. Clemens and no minor" should take +part. Mrs. Clemens was let into the secret, so that she would see to it +that her husband did not reject his mail or commit it to the flames +unopened. + +It would seem that every one receiving the invitation must have responded +to it, for on the morning of April 1st a stupefying mass of letters was +unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not know what to make of it, and +Mrs. Clemens stood off to watch the results. The first one he opened was +from Dean Sage, a friend whom he valued highly. Sage wrote from +Brooklyn: + + DEAR CLEMENS,--I have recently been asked by a young lady who + unfortunately has a mania for autograph-collecting, but otherwise is + a charming character, and comely enough to suit your fastidious + taste, to secure for her the sign manual of the few distinguished + persons fortunate enough to have my acquaintance. In enumerating + them to her, after mentioning the names of Geo. Shepard Page, Joe + Michell, Capt. Isaiah Ryndus, Mr. Willard, Dan Mace, and J. L. + Sullivan, I came to yours. "Oh!" said she, "I have read all his + works--Little Breeches, The Heathen Chinee, and the rest--and think + them delightful. Do oblige me by asking him for his autograph, + preceded by any little sentiment that may occur to him, provided it + is not too short." + + Of course I promised, and hope you will oblige me by sending some + little thing addressed to Miss Oakes. + + We are all pretty well at home just now, though indisposition has + been among us for the past fortnight. With regards to Mrs. Clemens + and the children, in which my wife joins, + + Yours truly, DEAN SAGE. + + +It amused and rather surprised him, and it fooled him completely; but +when he picked up a letter from Brander Matthews, asking, in some absurd +fashion, for his signature, and another from Ellen Terry, and from +Irving, and from Stedman, and from Warner, and Waring, and H. C. Bunner, +and Sarony, and Laurence Hutton, and John Hay, and R. U. Johnson, and +Modjeska, the size and quality of the joke began to overawe him. He was +delighted, of course; for really it was a fine compliment, in its way, +and most of the letters were distinctly amusing. Some of them asked for +autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Henry Irving said: + + I have just got back from a very late rehearsal-five o'clock--very + tired--but there will be no rest till I get your autograph. + +Some requested him to sit down and copy a few chapters from The Innocents +Abroad for them or to send an original manuscript. Others requested that +his autograph be attached to a check of interesting size. John Hay +suggested that he copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "Night +Thoughts," and an equal amount of Pollak's "Course of Time." + + I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and + it will add considerable commercial value to have them in your + handwriting. + +Altogether the reading of the letters gave him a delightful day, and his +admiration for Cable grew accordingly. Cable, too, was pleased with the +success of his joke, though he declared he would never risk such a thing +again. A newspaper of the time reports him as saying: + + I never suffered so much agony as for a few days previous to the 1st + of April. I was afraid the letters would reach Mark when he was in + affliction, in which case all of us would never have ceased flying + to make it up to him. + When I visited Mark we used to open our budgets of letters together + at breakfast. We used to sing out whenever we struck an autograph- + hunter. I think the idea came from that. The first person I spoke + to about it was Robert Underwood Johnson, of the Century. My most + enthusiastic ally was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. We never thought + it would get into the papers. I never played a practical joke + before. I never will again, certainly. + +Mark Twain in those days did not encourage the regular autograph- +collectors, and seldom paid any attention to their requests for his +signature. He changed all this in later years, and kept a supply always +on hand to satisfy every request; but in those earlier days he had no +patience with collecting fads, and it required a particularly pleasing +application to obtain his signature. + + + + +CXLIX + +MARK TWAIN IN BUSINESS + +Samuel Clemens by this time was definitely engaged in the publishing +business. Webster had a complete office with assistants at 658 Broadway, +and had acquired a pretty thorough and practical knowledge of +subscription publishing. He was a busy, industrious young man, +tirelessly energetic, and with a good deal of confidence, by no means +unnecessary to commercial success. He placed this mental and physical +capital against Mark Twain's inspiration and financial backing, and the +combination of Charles L. Webster & Co. seemed likely to be a strong +one. + +Already, in the spring of 1884., Webster had the new Mark Twain book, +'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', well in hand, and was on the watch +for promising subscription books by other authors. Clemens, with his +usual business vision and eye for results, with a generous disregard of +detail, was supervising the larger preliminaries, and fulminating at the +petty distractions and difficulties as they came along. Certain plays he +was trying to place were enough to keep him pretty thoroughly upset +during this period, and proof-reading never added to his happiness. To +Howells he wrote: + + My days are given up to cursings, both loud and deep, for I am + reading the 'Huck Finn' proofs. They don't make a very great many + mistakes, but those that do occur are of a nature that make a man + swear his teeth loose. + +Whereupon Howells promptly wrote him that he would help him out with the +Huck Finn proofs for the pleasure of reading the story. Clemens, among +other things, was trying to place a patent grape-scissors, invented by +Howells's father, so that there was, in some degree, an equivalent for +the heavy obligation. That it was a heavy one we gather from his fervent +acknowledgment: + + It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, entirely--I + mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck + Finn. + + Now, if you mean it, old man--if you are in earnest-proceed, in + God's name, and be by me forever blessed. I can't conceive of a + rational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself. + But if there be such a man, and you be that man, pile it on. The + proof-reading of 'The Prince and the Pauper' cost me the last rags + of my religion. + +Clemens decided to have the Huckleberry Finn book illustrated after his +own ideas. He looked through the various comic papers to see if he could +find the work of some new man that appealed to his fancy. In the pages +of Life he discovered some comic pictures illustrating the possibility of +applying electrical burners to messenger boys, waiters, etc. The style +and the spirit of these things amused him. He instructed Webster to look +up the artist, who proved to be a young man, E. W. Kemble by name, later +one of our foremost cartoonists. Webster engaged Kemble and put the +manuscript in his hands. Through the publication of certain chapters of +Huck Finn in the Century Magazine, Kemble was brought to the notice of +its editors, who wrote Clemens that they were profoundly indebted to him +for unearthing "such a gem of an illustrator." + +Clemens, encouraged and full of enthusiasm, now endeavored to interest +himself in the practical details of manufacture, but his stock of +patience was light and the details were many. His early business period +resembles, in some of its features, his mining experience in Esmeralda, +his letters to Webster being not unlike those to Orion in that former +day. They are much oftener gentle, considerate, even apologetic, but +they are occasionally terse, arbitrary, and profane. It required effort +for him to be entirely calm in his business correspondence. A criticism +of one of Webster's assistants will serve as an example of his less quiet +method: + + Charley, your proof-reader, is an idiot; and not only an idiot, but + blind; and not only blind, but partly dead. + +Of course, one must regard many of Mark Twain's business aspects +humorously. To consider them otherwise is to place him in a false light +altogether. He wore himself out with his anxieties and irritations; but +that even he, in the midst of his furies, saw the humor of it all is +sufficiently evidenced by the form of his savage phrasing. There were +few things that did not amuse him, and certainly nothing amused more, or +oftener, than himself. + +It is proper to add a detail in evidence of a business soundness which he +sometimes manifested. He had observed the methods of Bliss and Osgood, +and had drawn his conclusions. In the beginning of the Huck Finn canvass +he wrote Webster: + + Keep it diligently in mind that we don't issue till we have made a + big sale. + + Get at your canvassing early and drive it with all your might, with + an intent and purpose of issuing on the 1oth or 15th of next + December (the best time in the year to tumble a big pile into the + trade); but if we haven't 40,000 subscriptions we simply postpone + publication till we've got them. It is a plain, simple policy, and + would have saved both of my last books if it had been followed. + [That is to say, 'The Prince and the Pauper' and the Mississippi + book, neither of which had sold up to his expectations on the, + initial canvass.] + + + + +CL + +FARM PICTURES + +Gerhardt returned from Paris that summer, after three years of study, a +qualified sculptor. He was prepared to take commissions, and came to +Elmira to model a bust of his benefactor. The work was finished after +four or five weeks of hard effort and pronounced admirable; but Gerhardt, +attempting to make a cast one morning, ruined it completely. The family +gathered round the disaster, which to them seemed final, but the sculptor +went immediately to work, and in an amazingly brief time executed a new +bust even better than the first, an excellent piece of modeling and a +fine likeness. It was decided that a cut of it should be used as a +frontispiece for the new book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. + +Clemens was at this time giving the final readings to the Huck Finn +pages, a labor in which Mrs. Clemens and the children materially +assisted. In the childish biography which Susy began of her father, a +year later, she says: + + Ever since papa and mama were married papa has written his books and + then taken them to mama in manuscript, and she has expurgated-- + [Susy's spelling is preserved]--them. Papa read Huckleberry Finn to + us in manuscript,--[Probably meaning proof.]--just before it came + out, and then he would leave parts of it with mama to expurgate, + while he went off to the study to work, and sometimes Clara and I + would be sitting with mama while she was looking the manuscript + over, and I remember so well, with what pangs of regret we used to + see her turn down the leaves of the pages, which meant that some + delightfully terrible part must be scratched out. And I remember + one part pertickularly which was perfectly fascinating it was so + terrible, that Clara and I used to delight in and oh, with what + despair we saw mama turn down the leaf on which it was written, we + thought the book would almost be ruined without it. But we + gradually came to think as mama did. + +Commenting on this phase of Huck's evolution Mark Twain has since +written: + + I remember the special case mentioned by Susy, and can see the group + yet--two-thirds of it pleading for the life of the culprit sentence + that was so fascinatingly dreadful, and the other third of it + patiently explaining why the court could not grant the prayer of the + pleaders; but I do not remember what the condemned phrase was. It + had much company, and they all went to the gallows; but it is + possible that that especially dreadful one which gave those little + people so much delight was cunningly devised and put into the book + for just that function, and not with any hope or expectation that it + would get by the "expergator" alive. It is possible, for I had that + custom. + +Little Jean was probably too youthful yet to take part in that literary +arbitration. She was four, and had more interest in cows. In some +memoranda which her father kept of that period--the "Children's Book"--he +says: + + She goes out to the barn with one of us every evening toward six + o'clock, to look at the cows--which she adores--no weaker word can + express her feeling for them. She sits rapt and contented while + David milks the three, making a remark now and then--always about + the cows. The time passes slowly and drearily for her attendant, + but not for her. She could stand a week of it. When the milking is + finished, and "Blanche," "Jean," and "the cross cow" are turned into + the adjoining little cow-lot, we have to set Jean on a shed in that + lot, and stay by her half an hour, till Eliza, the German nurse, + comes to take her to bed. The cows merely stand there, and do + nothing; yet the mere sight of them is all-sufficient for Jean. She + requires nothing more. The other evening, after contemplating them + a long time, as they stood in the muddy muck chewing the cud, she + said, with deep and reverent appreciation, "Ain't this a sweet + little garden?" + + Yesterday evening our cows (after being inspected and worshiped by + Jean from the shed for an hour) wandered off down into the pasture + and left her bereft. I thought I was going to get back home, now, + but that was an error. Jean knew of some more cows in a field + somewhere, and took my hand and led me thitherward. When we turned + the corner and took the right-hand road, I saw that we should + presently be out of range of call and sight; so I began to argue + against continuing the expedition, and Jean began to argue in favor + of it, she using English for light skirmishing and German for + "business." I kept up my end with vigor, and demolished her + arguments in detail, one after the other, till I judged I had her + about cornered. She hesitated a moment, then answered up, sharply: + + "Wir werden nichts mehr daruber sprechen!" (We won't talk any more + about it.) + + It nearly took my breath away, though I thought I might possibly + have misunderstood. I said: + + "Why, you little rascal! Was hast du gesagt?" + + But she said the same words over again, and in the same decided way. + I suppose I ought to have been outraged, but I wasn't; I was + charmed. + +His own note-books of that summer are as full as usual, but there are +fewer literary ideas and more philosophies. There was an excitement, +just then, about the trichina germ in pork, and one of his memoranda +says: + + I think we are only the microscopic trichina concealed in the blood + of some vast creature's veins, and that it is that vast creature + whom God concerns himself about and not us. + +And there is another which says: + + People, in trying to justify eternity, say we can put it in by + learning all the knowledge acquired by the inhabitants of the + myriads of stars. We sha'n't need that. We could use up two + eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own + world, and the thousands of nations that have risen, and flourished, + and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight + million years. + +He records an incident which he related more fully in a letter to +Howells: + + Before I forget it I must tell you that Mrs. Clemens has said a + bright thing. A drop-letter came to me asking me to lecture here + for a church debt. I began to rage over the exceedingly cool + wording of the request, when Mrs. Clemens said: "I think I know that + church, and, if so, this preacher is a colored man; he doesn't know + how to write a polished letter. How should he?" + + My manner changed so suddenly and so radically that Mrs. C. said: "I + will give you a motto, and it will be useful to you if you will + adopt it: 'Consider every man colored till he is proved white.'" + +It is dern good, I think. + +One of the note-books contains these entries: + + Talking last night about home matters, I said, "I wish I had said to + George when we were leaving home, 'Now, George, I wish you would + take advantage of these three or four months' idle time while I am + away----'" + + "To learn to let my matches alone," interrupted Livy. The very + words I was going to use. Yet George had not been mentioned before, + nor his peculiarities. + +Several years ago I said: + + "Suppose I should live to be ninety-two, and just as I was dying a + messenger should enter and say----" + + "You are become Earl of Durham," interrupted Livy. The very words I + was going to utter. Yet there had not been a word said about the + earl, or any other person, nor had there been any conversation + calculated to suggest any such subject. + + + + +CLI + +MARK TWAIN MUGWUMPS + +The Republican Presidential nomination of James G. Blaine resulted in a +political revolt such as the nation had not known. Blaine was immensely +popular, but he had many enemies in his own party. There were strong +suspicions of his being connected with doubtful financiering-enterprises, +more or less sensitive to official influence, and while these scandals +had become quieted a very large portion of the Republican constituency +refused to believe them unjustified. What might be termed the +intellectual element of Republicanism was against Blame: George William +Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, James Russell Lowell, Henry Ward Beecher, +Thomas Nast, the firm of Harper & Brothers, Joseph W. Hawley, Joseph +Twichell, Mark Twain--in fact the majority of thinking men who held +principle above party in their choice. + +On the day of the Chicago nomination, Henry C. Robinson, Charles E. +Perkins, Edward M. Bunce, F. G. Whitmore, and Samuel C. Dunham were +collected with Mark Twain in his billiard-room, taking turns at the game +and discussing the political situation, with George, the colored butler, +at the telephone down-stairs to report the returns as they came in. As +fast as the ballot was received at the political headquarters down-town, +it was telephoned up to the house and George reported it through the +speaking-tube. + +The opposition to Blaine in the convention was so strong that no one of +the assembled players seriously expected his nomination. What was their +amazement, then, when about mid-afternoon George suddenly announced +through the speaking-tube that Blaine was the nominee. The butts of the +billiard cues came down on the floor with a bump, and for a moment the +players were speechless. Then Henry Robinson said: + +"It's hard luck to have to vote for that man." + +Clemens looked at him under his heavy brows. + +"But--we don't--have to vote for him," he said. + +"Do you mean to say that you're not going to vote for him?" + +"Yes, that is what I mean to say. I am not going to vote for him." + +There was a general protest. Most of those assembled declared that when +a party's representatives chose a man one must stand by him. They might +choose unwisely, but the party support must be maintained. Clemens said: + +"No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote. If +loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot. If there is +any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in +the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and +what isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixty +millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism." + +There was a good deal of talk back and forth, and, in the end, most of +those there present remained loyal to Blaine. General Hawley and his +paper stood by Blaine. Warner withdrew from his editorship of the +Courant and remained neutral. Twichell stood with Clemens and came near +losing his pulpit by it. Open letters were published in the newspapers +about him. It was a campaign when politics divided neighbors, families, +and congregations. If we except the Civil War period, there never had +been a more rancorous political warfare than that waged between the +parties of James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland in 1884. + +That Howells remained true to Blaine was a grief to Clemens. He had gone +to the farm with Howells on his political conscience and had written +fervent and imploring letters on the subject. As late as September 17th, +he said: + + Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of your voting for + Blaine. I believe you said something about the country and the + party. Certainly allegiance to these is well, but certainly a man's + first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country + come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at + all. I only urge you not to soil yourself by voting for Blaine.... + Don't be offended; I mean no offense. I am not concerned about the + rest of the nation, but well, good-by. + Yours ever, MARK. + +Beyond his prayerful letters to Howells, Clemens did not greatly concern +himself with politics on the farm, but, returning to Hartford, he went +vigorously into the campaign, presided, as usual, at mass-meetings, and +made political speeches which invited the laughter of both parties, and +were universally quoted and printed without regard to the paper's +convictions. + +It was during one such speech as this that, in the course of his remarks, +a band outside came marching by playing patriotic music so loudly as to +drown his voice. He waited till the band got by, but by the time he was +well under way again another band passed, and once more he was obliged to +wait till the music died away in the distance. Then he said, quite +serenely: + +"You will find my speech, without the music, in the morning paper." + +In introducing Carl Schurz at a great mugwump mass-meeting at Hartford, +October 20, 1884., he remarked that he [Clemens] was the only +legitimately elected officer, and was expected to read a long list of +vice-presidents; but he had forgotten all about it, and he would ask all +the gentlemen there, of whatever political complexion, to do him a great +favor by acting as vice-presidents. Then he said: + + As far as my own political change of heart is concerned, I have not + been convinced by any Democratic means. The opinion I hold of Mr. + Blaine is due to the comments of the Republican press before the + nomination. Not that they have said bitter or scandalous things, + because Republican papers are above that, but the things they said + did not seem to be complimentary, and seemed to me to imply + editorial disapproval of Mr. Blame and the belief that he was not + qualified to be President of the United States. + + It is just a little indelicate for me to be here on this occasion + before an assemblage of voters, for the reason that the ablest + newspaper in Colorado--the ablest newspaper in the world--has + recently nominated me for President. It is hardly fit for me to + preside at a discussion of the brother candidate, but the best among + us will do the most repulsive things the moment we are smitten with + a Presidential madness. If I had realized that this canvass was to + turn on the candidate's private character I would have started that + Colorado paper sooner. I know the crimes that can be imputed and + proved against me can be told on the fingers of your hands. This + cannot be said of any other Presidential candidate in the field. + +Inasmuch as the Blaine-Cleveland campaign was essentially a campaign of +scurrility, this touch was loudly applauded. + +Mark Twain voted for Grover Cleveland, though up to the very eve of +election he was ready to support a Republican nominee in whom he had +faith, preferably Edmunds, and he tried to inaugurate a movement by which +Edmunds might be nominated as a surprise candidate and sweep the country. + +It was probably Dr. Burchard's ill-advised utterance concerning the three +alleged R's of Democracy, "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," that defeated +Blaine, and by some strange, occult means Mark Twain's butler George got +wind of this damning speech before it became news on the streets of +Hartford. George had gone with his party, and had a considerable sum of +money wagered on Blaine's election; but he knew it was likely to be very +close, and he had an instant and deep conviction that these three fatal +words and Blaine's failure to repudiate them meant the candidate's +downfall. He immediately abandoned everything in the shape of household +duties, and within the briefest possible time had changed enough money to +make him safe, and leave him a good margin of winnings besides, in the +event of Blame's defeat. This was evening. A very little later the news +of Blaine's blunder, announced from the opera-house stage, was like the +explosion of a bomb. But it was no news to George, who went home +rejoicing with his enemies. + + + + +CLII + +PLATFORMING WITH CABLE + +The drain of many investments and the establishment of a publishing house +had told heavily on Clemens's finances. It became desirable to earn a +large sum of money with as much expedition as possible. Authors' +readings had become popular, and Clemens had read in Philadelphia and +Boston with satisfactory results. He now conceived the idea of a grand +tour of authors as a commercial enterprise. He proposed to Aldrich, +Howells, and Cable that he charter a private car for the purpose, and +that with their own housekeeping arrangements, cooking, etc., they could +go swinging around the circuit, reaping, a golden harvest. He offered to +be general manager of the expedition, the impresario as it were, and +agreed to guarantee the others not less than seventy-five dollars a day +apiece as their net return from the "circus," as he called it. + +Howells and Aldrich liked well enough to consider it as an amusing +prospect, but only Cable was willing to realize it. He had been scouring +the country on his own account, and he was willing enough to join forces +with Mark Twain. + +Clemens detested platforming, but the idea of reading from his books or +manuscript for some reason seemed less objectionable, and, as already +stated, the need of much money had become important. + +He arranged with J. B. Pond for the business side of the expedition, +though in reality he was its proprietor. The private-car idea was given +up, but he employed Cable at a salary of four hundred and fifty dollars a +week and expenses, and he paid Pond a commission. Perhaps, without going +any further, we may say that the tour was a financial success, and +yielded a large return of the needed funds. + +Clemens and Cable had a pleasant enough time, and had it not been for the +absence from home and the disagreeableness of railway travel, there would +have been little to regret. They were a curiously associated pair. +Cable was orthodox in his religion, devoted to Sunday-school, Bible +reading, and church affairs in general. Clemens--well, Clemens was +different. On the first evening of their tour, when the latter was +comfortably settled in bed with an entertaining book, Cable appeared with +his Bible, and proceeded to read a chapter aloud. Clemens made no +comment, and this went on for an evening or two more. Then he said: + +"See here, Cable, we'll have to cut this part of the program out. You +can read the Bible as much as you please so long as you don't read it to +me." + +Cable retired courteously. He had a keen sense of humor, and most things +that Mark Twain did, whether he approved or not, amused him. Cable did +not smoke, but he seemed always to prefer the smoking compartment when +they traveled, to the more respectable portions of the car. One day +Clemens sand to him: + +"Cable, why do you sit in here? You don't smoke, and you know I always +smoke, and sometimes swear." + +Cable said, "I know, Mark, I don't do these things, but I can't help +admiring the way you do them." + +When Sunday came it was Mark Twain's great happiness to stay in bed all +day, resting after his week of labor; but Cable would rise, bright and +chipper, dress himself in neat and suitable attire, and visit the various +churches and Sunday-schools in town, usually making a brief address at +each, being always invited to do so. + +It seems worth while to include one of the Clemens-Cable programs here-- +a most satisfactory one. They varied it on occasion, and when they were +two nights in a place changed it completely, but the program here given +was the one they were likely to use after they had proved its worth: + + PROGRAM + + Richling's visit to Kate Riley + GEO. W. CABLE + + King Sollermun + MARK TWAIN + + (a) Kate Riley and Ristofolo + (b) Narcisse in mourning for "Lady Byron" + (c) Mary's Night Ride + GEO. W. CABLE + (a) Tragic Tale of the Fishwife + (b) A Trying Situation + (c) A Ghost Story + MARK TWAIN + + +At a Mark Twain memorial meeting (November 30, 1910), where the few who +were left of his old companions told over quaint and tender memories, +George Cable recalled their reading days together and told of Mark +Twain's conscientious effort to do his best, to be worthy of himself, +regardless of all other concerns. He told how when they had been +traveling for a while Clemens seemed to realize that he was only giving +the audience nonsense; making them laugh at trivialities which they would +forget before they had left the entertainment hall. Cable said that up +to that time he had supposed Clemens's chief thought was the +entertainment of the moment, and that if the audience laughed he was +satisfied. He told how he had sat in the wings, waiting his turn, and +heard the tides of laughter gather and roll forward and break against the +footlights, time and time again, and how he had believed his colleague to +be glorying in that triumph. What was his surprise, then, on the way to +the hotel in the carriage, when Clemens groaned and seemed writhing in +spirit and said: + +"Oh, Cable, I am demeaning myself. I am allowing myself to be a mere +buffoon. It's ghastly. I can't endure it any longer." + +Cable added that all that night and the next day Mark Twain devoted +himself to the study and rehearsal of selections which were justified not +only as humor, but as literature and art. + +A good many interesting and amusing things would happen on such a tour. +Many of these are entirely forgotten, of course, but of others certain +memoranda have been preserved. Grover Cleveland had been elected when +they set out on their travels, but was still holding his position in +Albany as Governor of New York. When they reached Albany Cable and +Clemens decided to call on him. They drove to the Capitol and were shown +into the Governor's private office. Cleveland made them welcome, and, +after greetings, said to Clemens: + +"Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow-citizen of yours in Buffalo a good many +months some years ago, but you never called on me then. How do you +explain this?" + +Clemens said: "Oh, that is very simple to answer, your Excellency. In +Buffalo you were a sheriff. I kept away from the sheriff as much as +possible, but you're Governor now, and on the way to the Presidency. +It's worth while coming to see you." + +Clemens meantime had been resting, half sitting, on the corner of the +Executive desk. He leaned back a little, and suddenly about a dozen +young men opened various doors, filed in and stood at attention, as if +waiting for orders. + +No one spoke for a moment; then the Governor said to this collection of +attendants: + +"You are dismissed, young gentlemen. Your services are not required. +Mr. Clemens is sitting on the bells." + +In Buffalo, when Clemens appeared on the stage, he leisurely considered +the audience for a moment; then he said: + +"I miss a good many faces. They have gone--gone to the tomb, to the +gallows, or to the White House. All of us are entitled to at least one +of these distinctions, and it behooves us to be wise and prepare for +all." + +On Thanksgiving Eve the readers were in Morristown, New Jersey, where +they were entertained by Thomas Nast. The cartoonist prepared a quiet +supper for them and they remained overnight in the Nast home. They were +to leave next morning by an early train, and Mrs. Nast had agreed to see +that they were up in due season. When she woke next morning there seemed +a strange silence in the house and she grew suspicious. Going to the +servants' room, she found them sleeping soundly. The alarm-clock in the +back hall had stopped at about the hour the guests retired. The studio +clock was also found stopped; in fact, every timepiece on the premises +had retired from business. Clemens had found that the clocks interfered +with his getting to sleep, and he had quieted them regardless of early +trains and reading engagements. On being accused of duplicity he said: + +"Well, those clocks were all overworked, anyway. They will feel much +better for a night's rest." + +A few days later Nast sent him a caricature drawing--a picture which +showed Mark Twain getting rid of the offending clocks. + +At Christmas-time they took a fortnight's holiday and Clemens went home +to Hartford. A surprise was awaiting him there. Mrs. Clemens had made +an adaptation of 'The Prince and the Pauper' play, and the children of +the neighborhood had prepared a presentation of it for his special +delectation. He knew, on his arrival home, that something mysterious was +in progress, for certain rooms were forbidden him; but he had no inkling +of their plan until just before the performance--when he was led across +the grounds to George Warner's home, into the large room there where it +was to be given, and placed in a seat directly in front of the stage. + +Gerhardt had painted the drop-curtain, and assisted in the general +construction of scenery and effects. The result was really imposing; but +presently, when the curtain rose and the guest of honor realized what it +was all about, and what they had undertaken for his pleasure, he was +deeply moved and supremely gratified. + +There was but one hitch in the performance. There is a place where the +Prince says, "Fathers be alike, mayhap; mine hath not a doll's temper." + +This was Susy's part, and as she said it the audience did not fail to +remember its literal appropriateness. There was a moment's silence, then +a titter, followed by a roar of laughter, in which everybody but the +little actors joined. They did not see the humor and were disturbed and +grieved. Curiously enough, Mrs Clemens herself, in arranging and casting +the play, had not considered the possibility of this effect. The parts +were all daintily played. The children wore their assumed personalities +as if native to them. Daisy Warner played the part of Tom Canty, Clara +Clemens was Lady Jane Grey. + +It was only the beginning of The Prince and the Pauper productions. The +play was repeated, Clemens assisting, adding to the parts, and himself +playing the role of Miles Hendon. In her childish biography Susy says: + + Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all + sure that he could do it. The scene that he acted in was the scene + between Miles Hendon and the Prince, the "Prithee, pour the water" + scene. I was the Prince and papa and I rehearsed together two or + three times a day for the three days before the appointed evening. + Papa acted his part beautifully, and he added to the scene, making + it a good deal longer. He was inexpressibly funny, with his great + slouch hat and gait----oh such a gait! Papa made the Miles Hendon + scene a splendid success and every one was delighted with the scene, + and papa too. We had great fun with our "Prince and Pauper," and I + think we none of us shall forget how immensely funny papa was in it. + He certainly could have been an actor as well as an author. + +The holidays over, Cable and Clemens were off on the circuit again. At +Rochester an incident happened which led to the writing of one of Mark +Twain's important books, 'A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court'. +Clemens and Cable had wandered into a book-store for the purpose of +finding something to read. Pulling over some volumes on one of the +tables, Clemens happened to pick up a little green, cloth-bound book, and +after looking at the title turned the pages rather curiously and with +increasing interest. + +"Cable," he said, "do you know anything about this book, the Arthurian +legends of Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Arthure?" + +Cable answered: "Mark, that is one of the most beautiful books in the +world. Let me buy it for you. You will love it more than any book you +ever read." + +So Clemens came to know the old chronicler's version of the rare Round +Table legends, and from that first acquaintance with them to the last +days of his life seldom let the book go far from him. He read and reread +those quaint, stately tales and reverenced their beauty, while fairly +reveling in the absurdities of that ancient day. Sir Ector's lament he +regarded as one of the most simply beautiful pieces of writing in the +English tongue, and some of the combats and quests as the most ridiculous +absurdities in romance. Presently he conceived the idea of linking that +day, with its customs, costumes, and abuses, with the progress of the +present, or carrying back into that age of magicians and armor and +superstition and cruelties a brisk American of progressive ideas who +would institute reforms. His note-book began to be filled with memoranda +of situations and possibilities for the tale he had in mind. These were +vague, unformed fancies as yet, and it would be a long time before the +story would become a fact. This was the first entry: + + Dream of being a knight-errant in armor in the Middle Ages. Have + the notions and habits, though, of the present day mixed with the + necessities of that. No pockets in the armor. No way to manage + certain requirements of nature. Can't scratch. Cold in the head + and can't blow. Can't get a handkerchief; can't use iron sleeve; + iron gets red-hot in the sun; leaks in the rain; gets white with + frost and freezes me solid in winter; makes disagreeable clatter + when I enter church. Can't dress or undress myself. Always getting + struck by lightning. Fall down and can't get up. + +Twenty-one years later, discussing the genesis of the story, he said: + +"As I read those quaint and curious old legends I suppose I naturally +contrasted those days with ours, and it made me curious to fancy what +might be the picturesque result if we could dump the nineteenth century +down into the sixth century and observe the consequences." + +The reading tour continued during the first two months of the new year +and carried them as far west as Chicago. They read in Hannibal and +Keokuk, and Clemens spent a day in the latter place with his mother, now +living with Orion, brisk and active for her years and with her old-time +force of character. Mark Twain, arranging for her Keokuk residence, had +written: + + Ma wants to board with you, and pay her board. She will pay you $20 + a month (she wouldn't pay a cent more in heaven; she is obstinate on + this point), and as long as she remains with you and is content I + will add $25 a month to the sum Perkins already sends you. + +Jane Clemens attended the Keokuk reading, and later, at home, when her +children asked her if she could still dance, she rose, and at eighty-one +tripped as lightly as a girl. It was the last time that Mark Twain ever +saw his mother in the health and vigor which had been always so much a +part of her personality. + +Clemens saw another relative on that trip; in St. Louis, James Lampton, +the original of Colonel Sellers, called. + +He was become old and white-headed, but he entered to me in the same old +breezy way of his earlier life, and he was all there, yet--not a detail +wanting: the happy light in his eye, the abounding hope in his heart, the +persuasive tongue, the miracle-breeding imagination--they were all there; +and before I could turn around he was polishing up his Aladdin's lamp and +flashing the secret riches of the world before me. I said to myself: +"I did not overdraw him by a shade, I set him down as he was; and he is +the same man to-day. Cable will recognize him." + +Clemens opened the door into Cable's room and allowed the golden dream- +talk to float in. It was of a "small venture" which the caller had +undertaken through his son. + +"Only a little thing--a, mere trifle--a bagatelle. I suppose there's a +couple of millions in it, possibly three, but not more, I think; still, +for a boy, you know----" + +It was the same old Cousin Jim. Later, when he had royally accepted some +tickets for the reading and bowed his exit, Cable put his head in at the +door. + +"That was Colonel Sellers," he said. + + + + +CLIII + +HUCK FINN COMES INTO HIS OWN + +In the December Century (1884) appeared a chapter from 'The Adventures of +Huckleberry Finn', "The Grangerford-Shepherdson Feud," a piece of writing +which Edmund Clarence Stederian, Brander Matthews, and others promptly +ranked as among Mark Twain's very best; when this was followed, in the +January number, by "King Sollermun," a chapter which in its way delighted +quite as many readers, the success of the new book was accounted certain. +--[Stedman, writing to Clemens of this instalment, said: "To my mind it +is not only the most finished and condensed thing you have done. but as +dramatic and powerful an episode as I know in modern literature."] + +'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' was officially published in England +and America in December, 1884, but the book was not in the canvassers' +hands for delivery until February. By this time the orders were +approximately for forty thousand copies, a number which had increased to +fifty thousand a few weeks later. Webster's first publication venture +was in the nature of a triumph. Clemens wrote to him March 16th: + +"Your news is splendid. Huck certainly is a success." + +He felt that he had demonstrated his capacity as a general director and +Webster had proved his efficiency as an executive. He had no further +need of an outside publisher. + +The story of Huck Finn will probably stand as the best of Mark Twain's +purely fictional writings. A sequel to Tom Sawyer, it is greater than +its predecessor; greater artistically, though perhaps with less immediate +interest for the juvenile reader. In fact, the books are so different +that they are not to be compared--wherein lies the success of the later +one. Sequels are dangerous things when the story is continuous, but in +Huckleberry Finn the story is a new one, wholly different in environment, +atmosphere, purpose, character, everything. The tale of Huck and Nigger +Jim drifting down the mighty river on a raft, cross-secting the various +primitive aspects of human existence, constitutes one of the most +impressive examples of picaresque fiction in any language. It has been +ranked greater than Gil Blas, greater even than Don Quixote; certainly it +is more convincing, more human, than either of these tales. Robert Louis +Stevenson once wrote, "It is a book I have read four times, and am quite +ready to begin again to-morrow." + +It is by no means a flawless book, though its defects are trivial enough. +The illusion of Huck as narrator fails the least bit here and there; the +"four dialects" are not always maintained; the occasional touch of broad +burlesque detracts from the tale's reality. We are inclined to resent +this. We never wish to feel that Huck is anything but a real character. +We want him always the Huck who was willing to go to hell if necessary, +rather than sacrifice Nigger Jim; the Huck who watched the river through +long nights, and, without caring to explain why, felt his soul go out to +the sunrise. + + Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum + by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way + we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there-- + sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights and laid up and hid + daytimes; soon as the night was most gone we stopped navigating and + tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then + cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then + we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, + so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy + bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight + come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole + world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. + The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of + dull line--that was the woods on t'other side, you couldn't make + nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, + spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't + black anymore, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting + along, ever so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long + black streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or + jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by- + and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the + look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current + which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see + the mist curl up off the water, and the east reddens up, and the + river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away + on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, + and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it + anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you + over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the + woods and the flowers.... And next you've got the full day, and + everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it! + +This is the Huck we want, and this is the Huck we usually have, and that +the world has long been thankful for. + +Take the story as a whole, it is a succession of startling and unique +pictures. The cabin in the swamp which Huck and his father used together +in their weird, ghastly relationship; the night adventure with Jim on the +wrecked steamboat; Huck's night among the towheads; the Grangerford- +Shepherdson battle; the killing of Boggs--to name a few of the many vivid +presentations--these are of no time or literary fashion and will never +lose their flavor nor their freshness so long as humanity itself does not +change. The terse, unadorned Grangerford-Shepherdson episode--built out +of the Darnell--Watson feuds--[See Life on the Mississippi, chap. xxvi. +Mark Twain himself, as a cub pilot, came near witnessing the battle he +describes.]--is simply classic in its vivid casualness, and the same may +be said of almost every incident on that long river-drift; but this is +the strength, the very essence of picaresque narrative. It is the way +things happen in reality; and the quiet, unexcited frame of mind in which +Huck is prompted to set them down would seem to be the last word in +literary art. To Huck, apparently, the killing of Boggs and Colonel +Sherburn's defiance of the mob are of about the same historical +importance as any other incidents of the day's travel. When Colonel +Sherburn threw his shotgun across his arm and bade the crowd disperse +Huck says: + + The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart and went + tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after + them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a staid if I'd a wanted to, + but I didn't want to. + + I went to the circus, and loafed around the back side till the + watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. + +That is all. No reflections, no hysterics; a murder and a mob dispersed, +all without a single moral comment. And when the Shepherdsons had got +done killing the Grangerfords, and Huck had tugged the two bodies ashore +and covered Buck Grangerford's face with a handkerchief, crying a little +because Buck had been good to him, he spent no time in sentimental +reflection or sermonizing, but promptly hunted up Jim and the raft and +sat down to a meal of corn-dodgers, buttermilk, pork and cabbage, and +greens: + + There ain't nothing in the world so good, when it is cooked right; + and while I eat my supper we talked, and had a good time. I was + powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away + from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a raft, after + all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft + don't; you feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. + +It was Huck Finn's morality that caused the book to be excluded from the +Concord Library, and from other libraries here and there at a later day. +The orthodox mental attitude of certain directors of juvenile literature +could not condone Huck's looseness in the matter of statement and +property rights, and in spite of New England traditions, Massachusetts +librarians did not take any too kindly to his uttered principle that, +after thinking it over and taking due thought on the deadly sin of +abolition, he had decided that he'd go to hell rather than give Jim over +to slavery. Poor vagrant Ben Blankenship, hiding his runaway negro in an +Illinois swamp, could not dream that his humanity would one day supply +the moral episode of an immortal book. + +Able critics have declared that the psychology of Huck Finn is the book's +large feature: Huck's moral point of view--the struggle between his heart +and his conscience concerning the sin of Jim's concealment, and his final +decision of self-sacrifice. Time may show that as an epic of the river, +the picture of a vanished day, it will rank even greater. The problems +of conscience we have always with us, but periods once passed are gone +forever. Certainly Huck's loyalty to that lovely soul Nigger Jim was +beautiful, though after all it may not have been so hard for Huck, who +could be loyal to anything. Huck was loyal to his father, loyal to Tom +Sawyer of course, loyal even to those two river tramps and frauds, the +King and the Duke, for whom he lied prodigiously, only weakening when a +new and livelier loyalty came into view--loyalty to Mary Wilks. + +The King and the Duke, by the way, are not elsewhere matched in fiction. +The Duke was patterned after a journeyman-printer Clemens had known in +Virginia City, but the King was created out of refuse from the whole +human family--"all tears and flapdoodle," the very ultimate of disrepute +and hypocrisy--so perfect a specimen that one must admire, almost love, +him. "Hain't we all the fools in town on our side? and ain't that a big +enough majority in any town?" he asks in a critical moment--a remark +which stamps him as a philosopher of classic rank. We are full of pity +at last when this pair of rapscallions ride out of the history on a rail, +and feel some of Huck's inclusive loyalty and all the sorrowful truth of +his comment: "Human beings can be awful cruel to one another." + +The "poor old king" Huck calls him, and confesses how he felt "ornery and +humble and to blame, somehow," for the old scamp's misfortunes. "A +person's conscience ain't got no sense," he says, and Huck is never more +real to us, or more lovable, than in that moment. Huck is what he is +because, being made so, he cannot well be otherwise. He is a boy +throughout--such a boy as Mark Twain had known and in some degree had +been. One may pettily pick a flaw here and there in the tale's +construction if so minded, but the moral character of Huck himself is not +open to criticism. And indeed any criticism of this the greatest of Mark +Twain's tales of modern life would be as the mere scratching of the +granite of an imperishable structure. Huck Finn is a monument that no +puny pecking will destroy. It is built of indestructible blocks of human +nature; and if the blocks do not always fit, and the ornaments do not +always agree, we need not fear. Time will blur the incongruities and +moss over the mistakes. The edifice will grow more beautiful with the +years. + + + + +CLIV + +THE MEMOIRS OF GENERAL GRANT + +The success of Huck Finn, though sufficiently important in itself, +prepared the way for a publishing venture by the side of which it +dwindled to small proportions. One night (it was early in November, +1884), when Cable and Clemens had finished a reading at Chickering Hall, +Clemens, coming out into the wet blackness, happened to hear Richard +Watson Gilder's voice say to some unseen companion: + +"Do you know General Grant has actually determined to write his memoirs +and publish them. He has said so to-day, in so many words." + +Of course Clemens was immediately interested. It was the thing he had +proposed to Grant some three years previously, during his call that day +with Howells concerning the Toronto consulship. + +With Mrs. Clemens, he promptly overtook Gilder and accompanied him to his +house, where they discussed the matter in its various particulars. +Gilder said that the Century Editors had endeavored to get Grant to +contribute to their war series, but that not until his financial +disaster, as a member of the firm of Grant & Ward, had he been willing to +consider the matter. He said that Grant now welcomed the idea of +contributing three papers to the series, and that the promised payment of +five hundred dollars each for these articles had gladdened his heart and +relieved him of immediate anxiety.--[Somewhat later the Century Company, +voluntarily, added liberally to this sum.] + +Gilder added that General Grant seemed now determined to continue his +work until he had completed a book, though this at present was only a +prospect. + +Clemens was in the habit of calling on Grant, now and then, to smoke a +cigar with him, and he dropped in next morning to find out just how far +the book idea had developed, and what were the plans of publication. He +found the General and his son, Colonel Fred Grant, discussing some +memoranda, which turned out to be a proposition from the Century Company +for the book publication of his memoirs. Clemens asked to be allowed to +look over the proposed terms, and when he had done so he said: + +"General, it is clear that the Century people do not realize the +importance--the commercial magnitude of your book. It is not strange +that this is true, for they are comparatively new publishers and have had +little or no experience with books of this class. The terms they propose +indicate that they expect to sell five, possibly ten thousand copies. A +book from your hand, telling the story of your life and battles, should +sell not less than a quarter of a million, perhaps twice that sum. It +should be sold only by subscription, and you are entitled to double the +royalty here proposed. I do not believe it is to your interest to +conclude this contract without careful thought and investigation. Write +to the American Publishing Company at Hartford and see what they will do +for you." + +But Grant demurred. He said that, while no arrangements had been made +with the Century Company, he thought it only fair and right that they +should have the book on reasonable terms; certainly on terms no greater +than he could obtain elsewhere. He said that, all things being equal, +the book ought to go to the man who had first suggested it to him. + +Clemens spoke up: "General, if that is so, it belongs to me." + +Grant did not understand until Clemens recalled to him how he had urged +him, in that former time, to write his memoirs; had pleaded with him, +agreeing to superintend the book's publication. Then he said: + +"General, I am publishing my own book, and by the time yours is ready it +is quite possible that I shall have the best equipped subscription +establishment in the country. If you will place your book with my firm-- +and I feel that I have at least an equal right in the consideration--I +will pay you twenty per cent. of the list price, or, if you prefer, I +will give you seventy per cent. of the net returns and I will pay all +office expenses out of my thirty per cent." + +General Grant was really grieved at this proposal. It seemed to him +that here was a man who was offering to bankrupt himself out of pure +philanthropy--a thing not to be permitted. He intimated that he had +asked the Century Company president, Roswell Smith, a careful-headed +business man, if he thought his book would pay as well as Sherman's, +which the Scribners had published at a profit to Sherman of twenty-five +thousand dollars, and that Smith had been unwilling to guarantee that +amount to the author.--[Mark Twain's note-book, under date of March, +1885, contains this memorandum: "Roswell Smith said to me: 'I'm glad you +got the book, Mr. Clemens; glad there was somebody with courage enough to +take it, under the circumstances. What do you think the General wanted +to require of me?' + +"'He wanted me to insure a sale of twenty-five thousand sets of his book. +I wouldn't risk such a guarantee on any book that was ever published.'" + +Yet Roswell Smith, not so many years later, had so far enlarged his views +of subscription publishing that he fearlessly and successfully invested a +million dollars or more in a dictionary, regardless of the fact that the +market was already thought to be supplied.] + +Clemens said: + +"General, I have my check-book with me. I will draw you a check now for +twenty-five thousand dollars for the first volume of your memoirs, and +will add a like amount for each volume you may write as an advance +royalty payment, and your royalties will continue right along when this +amount has been reached." + +Colonel Fred Grant now joined in urging that matters be delayed, at least +until more careful inquiry concerning the possibilities of publishing +could be made. + +Clemens left then, and set out on his trip with Cable, turning the whole +matter over to Webster and Colonel Fred for settlement. Meantime, the +word that General Grant was writing his memoirs got into the newspapers +and various publishing propositions came to him. In the end the General +sent over to Philadelphia for his old friend, George W. Childs, and laid +the whole matter before him. Childs said later it was plain that General +Grant, on the score of friendship, if for no other reason, distinctly +wished to give the book to Mark Twain. It seemed not to be a question of +how much money he would make, but of personal feeling entirely. +Webster's complete success with Huck Finn being now demonstrated, Colonel +Fred Grant agreed that he believed Clemens and Webster could handle the +book as profitably as anybody; and after investigation Childs was of the +same opinion. The decision was that the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. +should have the book, and arrangements for drawing the contract were +made. + +General Grant, however, was still somewhat uneasy as to the terms. +He thought he was taking an unfair advantage in receiving so large a +proportion of the profits. He wrote to Clemens, asking him which of his +two propositions--the twenty per cent. gross-royalty or the seventy per +cent. of the net profit--would be the best all around. Clemens sent +Webster to tell him that he believed the simplest, as well as the most +profitable for the author, would be the twenty per cent. arrangement. +Whereupon Grant replied that he would take the alternative; as in that +case, if the book were a failure, and there were no profits, Clemens +would not be obliged to pay him anything. He could not consent to the +thought of receiving twenty per cent. on a book published at a loss. + +Meantime, Grant had developed a serious illness. The humiliation of his +business failure had undermined his health. The papers announced his +malady as cancer of the tongue. In a memorandum which Clemens made, +February 26, 1885, he states that on the 21st he called at the Grant +home, 3 East 66th Street, and was astonished to see how thin and weak the +General looked. He was astonished because the newspaper, in a second +report, had said the threatening symptoms had disappeared, that the +cancer alarm was a false one. + + I took for granted the report, and said I had been glad to see that + news. He smiled and said, "Yes--if it had only been true." + + One of the physicians was present, and he startled me by saying the + General's condition was the opposite of encouraging. + + Then the talk drifted to business, and the General presently said: + "I mean you shall have the book--I have about made up my mind to + that--but I wish to write to Mr. Roswell Smith first, and tell him I + have so decided. I think this is due him." + + From the beginning the General has shown a fine delicacy toward + those people--a delicacy which was native to the character of the + man who put into the Appomattox terms of surrender the words, + "Officers may retain their side-arms," to save General Lee the + humiliation of giving up his sword. [Note-book.] + +The physician present was Dr. Douglas, and upon Clemens assuming that the +General's trouble was probably due to smoking, also that it was a warning +to those who smoked to excess, himself included, Dr. Douglas said that +General Grant's affliction could not be attributed altogether to smoking, +but far more to his distress of mind, his year-long depression of spirit, +the grief of his financial disaster. Dr. Douglas's remark started +General Grant upon the subject of his connection with Ward, which he +discussed with great freedom and apparent relief of mind. Never at any +time did he betray any resentment toward Ward, but characterized him as +one might an offending child. He spoke as a man who has been deeply +wronged and humiliated and betrayed, but without a venomous expression or +one with revengeful nature. Clemens confessed in his notes that all the +time he himself was "inwardly boiling--scalping Ward--flaying him alive-- +breaking him on the wheel--pounding him to a jelly." + +While he was talking Colonel Grant said: + +"Father is letting you see that the Grant family are a pack of fools, Mr. +Clemens." + +The General objected to this statement. He said that the facts could be +produced which would show that when Ward laid siege to a man he was +pretty certain to turn out to be a fool; as much of a fool as any of the +Grant family. He said that nobody could call the president of the Erie +Railroad a fool, yet Ward had beguiled him of eight hundred thousand +dollars, robbed him of every cent of it. + +He cited another man that no one could call a fool who had invested in +Ward to the extent of half a million. He went on to recall many such +cases. He told of one man who had come to the office on the eve of +departure for Europe and handed Ward a check for fifty thousand dollars, +saying: + +"I have no use for it at present. See what you can do with it for me." +By and by this investor, returning from Europe, dropped in and said: + +"Well, did anything happen?" + +Ward indifferently turned to his private ledger, consulted it, then drew +a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and handed it over, +with the casual remark: + +"Well, yes, something happened; not much yet--a little too soon." + +The man stared at the check, then thrust it back into Ward's hand. +"That's all right. It's plenty good enough for me. Set that hen again," +and left the place. + +Of course Ward made no investments. His was the first playing on a +colossal scale of the now worn-out "get rich quick" confidence game. +Such dividends as were made came out of the principal. Ward was the +Napoleon of that game, whether he invented it or not. Clemens agreed +that, as far as himself or any of his relatives were concerned, they +would undoubtedly have trusted Ward. + +Colonel Grant followed him to the door when he left, and told him that +the physicians feared his father might not live more than a few weeks +longer, but that meantime he had been writing steadily, and that the +first volume was complete and fully half the second. Three days later +the formal contract was closed, and Webster & Co. promptly advanced. +General Grant ten thousand dollars for imminent demands, a welcome +arrangement, for Grant's debts and expenses were many, and his available +resources restricted to the Century payments for his articles. + +Immediately the office of Webster & Co. was warm with affairs. +Reporters were running hot-foot for news of the great contract by which +Mark Twain was to publish the life of General Grant. No publishing +enterprise of such vast moment had ever been undertaken, and no +publishing event, before or since, ever received the amount of newspaper +comment. The names of General Grant and Mark Twain associated would +command columns, whatever the event, and that Mark Twain was to become +the publisher of Grant's own story of his battles was of unprecedented +importance. + +The partners were sufficiently occupied. Estimates and prices for vast +quantities of paper were considered, all available presses were +contracted for, binderies were pledged exclusively for the Grant book. +Clemens was boiling over with plans and suggestions for distribution. +Webster was half wild with the tumult of the great campaign. +Applications for agencies poured in. + +In those days there were general subscription agencies which divided the +country into districts, and the heads of these agencies Webster summoned +to New York and laid down the law to them concerning the, new book. It +was not a time for small dealings, and Webster rose to the occasion. By +the time these men returned to their homes they had practically pledged +themselves to a quarter of a million sets of the Grant Memoirs, and this +estimate they believed to be conservative. + +Webster now moved into larger and more pretentious quarters. He took a +store-room at 42 East 14th Street, Union Square, and surrounded himself +with a capable force of assistants. He had become, all at once, the most +conspicuous publisher in the world. + + + + + +CLV + +DAYS WITH A DYING HERO + +The contract for the publication of the Grant Life was officially closed +February 27, 1885. Five days later, on the last day and at the last hour +of President Arthur's administration, and of the Congress then sitting, a +bill was passed placing Grant as full General, with full pay, on the +retired army list. The bill providing for this somewhat tardy +acknowledgment was rushed through at the last moment, and it is said that +the Congressional clock was set back so that this enactment might become +a law before the administration changed. + +Clemens was with General Grant when the news of this action was read to +him. Grant had greatly desired such recognition, and it meant more to +him than to any one present, yet Clemens in his notes records: + + Every face there betrayed strong excitement and emotion except one- + General Grant's. He read the telegram, but not a shade or + suggestion of a change exhibited itself in his iron countenance. + The volume of his emotion was greater than all the other emotions + there present combined, but he was able to suppress all expression + of it and make no sign. + +Grant's calmness, endurance, and consideration during these final days +astonished even those most familiar with his noble character. One night +Gerhardt came into the library at Hartford with the announcement that he +wished to show his patron a small bust he had been making in clay of +General Grant. Clemens did not show much interest in the prospect, but +when the work was uncovered he became enthusiastic. He declared it was +the first likeness he had ever seen of General Grant that approached +reality. He agreed that the Grant family ought to see it, and that he +would take Gerhardt with him next day in order that he might be within +reach in case they had any suggestions. They went to New York next +morning, and called at the Grant home during the afternoon. + +From the note-book: + + Friday, March 20, 1885. Gerhardt and I arrived at General Grant's + about 2.30 P.m. and I asked if the family would look at a small + clay bust of the General which Gerhardt had made from a photograph. + Colonel Fred and Jesse were absent to receive their sister, Mrs. + Sartoris, who would arrive from Europe about 4.30; but the three + Mrs. Grants examined the work and expressed strong approval of it, + and also great gratification that Mr. Gerhardt had undertaken it. + Mrs. Jesse Grant had lately dreamed that she was inquiring where the + maker of my bust could be found (she had seen a picture of it in + Huck Finn, which was published four weeks ago), for she wanted the + same artist to make one of General Grant. The ladies examined the + bust critically and pointed out defects, while Gerhardt made the + necessary corrections. Presently Mrs. General Grant suggested that + Gerhardt step in and look at the General. I had been in there + talking with the General, but had never thought of asking him to let + a stranger come in. So Gerhardt went in with the ladies and me, and + the inspection and cross-fire began: "There, I was sure his nose was + so and so," and, "I was sure his forehead was so and so," and, + "Don't you think his head is so and so?" And so everybody walked + around and about the old hero, who lay half reclining in his easy + chair, but well muffled up, and submitting to all this as serenely + as if he were used to being served so. One marked feature of + General Grant's character is his exceeding gentleness, goodness, + sweetness. Every time I have been in his presence--lately and + formerly--my mind was drawn to that feature. I wonder it has not + been more spoken of. + + Presently he said, let Gerhardt bring in his clay and work there, if + Gerhardt would not mind his reclining attitude. Of course we were + glad. A table for the bust was moved up in front of him; the ladies + left the room; I got a book; Gerhardt went to work; and for an hour + there was perfect stillness, and for the first time during the day + the General got a good, sound, peaceful nap. General Badeau came + in, and probably interrupted that nap. He spoke out as strongly as + the others concerning the great excellence of the likeness. He had + some sheets of MS. in his hand, and said, "I've been reading what + you wrote this morning, General, and it is of the utmost value; it + solves a riddle that has puzzled men's brains all these years and + makes the thing clear and rational." I asked what the puzzle was, + and he said, "It was why Grant did not immediately lay siege to + Vicksburg after capturing Port Hudson" (at least that is my + recollection, now toward midnight, of General Badeau's answer). + +The little bust of Grant which Gerhardt worked on that day was widely +reproduced in terra-cotta, and is still regarded by many as the most +nearly correct likeness of Grant. The original is in possession of the +family. + +General Grant worked industriously on his book. He had a superb memory +and worked rapidly. Webster & Co. offered to supply him with a +stenographer, and this proved a great relief. Sometimes he dictated ten +thousand words at a sitting. It was reported at the time, and it has +been stated since, that Grant did not write the Memoirs himself, but only +made notes, which were expanded by others. But this is not true. +General Grant wrote or dictated every word of the story himself, then had +the manuscript read aloud to him and made his own revisions. He wrote +against time, for he knew that his disease was fatal. Fortunately the +lease of life granted him was longer than he had hoped for, though the +last chapters were written when he could no longer speak, and when +weakness and suffering made the labor a heavy one indeed; but he never +flinched or faltered, never at any time suggested that the work be +finished by another hand. + +Early in April General Grant's condition became very alarming, and on the +night of the 3d it was believed he could not live until morning. But he +was not yet ready to surrender. He rallied and renewed his task; feebly +at first, but more perseveringly as each day seemed to bring a little +added strength, or perhaps it was only resolution. Now and then he +appeared depressed as to the quality of his product. Once Colonel Fred +Grant suggested to Clemens that if he could encourage the General a +little it might be worth while. Clemens had felt always such a reverence +and awe for the great soldier that he had never dreamed of complimenting +his literature. + +"I was as much surprised as Columbus's cook could have been to learn that +Columbus wanted his opinion as to how Columbus was doing his navigating." + +He did not hesitate to give it, however, and with a clear conscience. +Grant wrote as he had fought; with a simple, straightforward dignity, +with a style that is not a style at all but the very absence of it, and +therefore the best of all literary methods. It happened that Clemens had +been comparing some of Grant's chapters with Caesar's Commentaries, and +was able to say, in all sincerity, that the same high merits +distinguished both books: clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, +manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike, +soldierly candor and frankness, and soldierly avoidance of flowery +speech. + +"I placed the two books side by side upon the same level," he said, "and +I still think that they belong there. I learned afterward that General +Grant was pleased with this verdict. It shows that he was just a man, +just a human being, just an author." + +Within two months after the agents had gone to work canvassing for the +Grant Memoirs--which is to say by the 1st of May, 1885--orders for sixty +thousand sets had been received, and on that day Mark Twain, in his note- +book, made a memorandum estimate of the number of books that the country +would require, figuring the grand total at three hundred thousand sets of +two volumes each. Then he says: + + If these chickens should really hatch according to my account, + General Grant's royalties will' amount to $420,000, and will make + the largest single check ever paid an author in the world's history. + Up to the present time the largest one ever paid was to Macaulay on + his History of England, L20,000. If I pay the General in silver + coin at $12 per pound it will weigh seventeen tons. + +Certainly this has a flavor in it of Colonel Sellers, but we shall see by +and by in how far this calculation was justified. + +Grant found the society of Mark Twain cheering and comforting, and +Clemens held himself in readiness to go to the dying man at call. On the +26th of May he makes this memorandum: + + It is curious and dreadful to sit up in this way and talk cheerful + nonsense to General Grant, and he under sentence of death with that + cancer. He says he has made the book too large by 200 pages--not a + bad fault. A short time ago we were afraid we would lack 400 of + being enough. + + To-day talked with General Grant about his and my first great + Missouri campaign in 1861. He surprised an empty camp near Florida, + Missouri, on Salt River, which I had been occupying a day or two + before. How near he came to playing the devil with his future + publisher. + +Of course Clemens would amuse the old commander with the tale of his +soldiering, how his company had been chased through the brush and mud by +the very announcement that Grant was coming. Some word of this got to +the Century editors, who immediately proposed that Mark Twain contribute +to the magazine War Series the story of his share in the Rebellion, and +particularly of his war relations with General Grant. So the "Private +History of a Campaign that Failed" was prepared as Mark Twain's side- +light on the history of the Rebellion; and if it was not important +history it was at least amusing, and the telling of that tale in Mark +Twain's inimitable fashion must have gone far toward making cheerful +those last sad days of his ancient enemy. + +During one of their talks General Grant spoke of the question as to +whether he or Sherman had originated the idea of the march to the sea. +Grant said: + +"Neither of us originated the idea of that march. The enemy did it." + +Reports were circulated of estrangements between General Grant and the +Century Company, and between Mark Twain and the Century Company, as a +result of the book decision. Certain newspapers exploited and magnified +these rumors--some went so far as to accuse Mark Twain of duplicity, and +to charge him with seeking to obtain a vast fortune for himself at the +expense of General Grant and his family. All of which was the merest +nonsense. The Century Company, Webster & Co., General Grant, and Mark +Twain individually, were all working harmoniously, and nothing but the +most cordial relations and understanding prevailed. As to the charge of +unfair dealing on the part of Mark Twain, this was too absurd, even then, +to attract more than momentary attention. Webster & Co., somewhat later +in the year, gave to the press a clear statement of their publishing +arrangement, though more particularly denying the report that General +Grant had been unable to complete his work. + + + + +CLVI + +THE CLOSE OF A GREAT CAREER + +The Clemens household did not go to Elmira that year until the 27th of +June. Meantime General Grant had been taken to Mount McGregor, near the +Adirondacks. The day after Clemens reached Elmira there came a summons +saying that the General had asked to see him. He went immediately, and +remained several days. The resolute old commander was very feeble by +this time. It was three months since he had been believed to be dying, +yet he was still alive, still at work, though he could no longer speak. +He was adding, here and there, a finishing touch to his manuscript, +writing with effort on small slips of paper containing but a few words +each. His conversation was carried on in the same way. Mark Twain +brought back a little package of those precious slips, and some of them +are still preserved. The writing is perfectly legible, and shows no +indication of a trembling hand. + +On one of these slips is written: + + There is much more that I could do if I was a well man. I do not + write quite as clearly as I could if well. If I could read it over + myself many little matters of anecdote and incident would suggest + themselves to me. + +On another: + + Have you seen any portion of the second volume? It is up to the + end, or nearly so. As much more work as I have done to-day will + finish it. I have worked faster than if I had been well. I have + used my three boys and a stenographer. + +And on still another: + + If I could have two weeks of strength I could improve it very much. + As I am, however, it will have to go about as it is, with + verifications by the boys and by suggestions which will enable me to + make a point clear here and there. + +Certainly no campaign was ever conducted with a braver heart. As long as +his fingers could hold a pencil he continued at his task. Once he asked +if any estimate could now be made of what portion would accrue to his +family from the publication. Clemens's prompt reply, that more than one +hundred thousand sets had been sold, and that already the amount of his +share, secured by safe bonds, exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand +dollars, seemed to give him deep comfort. Clemens told him that the +country was as yet not one-third canvassed, and that without doubt there +turns would be twice as much more by the end of the year. Grant made no +further inquiry, and probably never again mentioned the subject to any +one. + +When Clemens left, General Grant was sitting, fully dressed, with a shawl +about his shoulders, pencil and paper beside him. It was a picture that +would never fade from the memory. In a later memorandum he says: + + I then believed he would live several months. He was still adding + little perfecting details to his book, and preface, among other + things. He was entirely through a few days later. Since then the + lack of any strong interest to employ his mind has enabled the + tedious weariness to kill him. I think his book kept him alive + several months. He was a very great man and superlatively good. + +This note was made July 23, 1885, at 10 A.M., on receipt of the news that +General Grant was dead. To Henry Ward Beecher, Clemens wrote: + + One day he put his pencil aside and said there was nothing more to + do. If I had been there I could have foretold the shock that struck + the world three days later. + +It can be truly said that all the nation mourned. General Grant had no +enemies, political or sectional, in those last days. The old soldier +battling with a deadly disease, yet bravely completing his task, was a +figure at once so pathetic and so noble that no breath of animosity +remained to utter a single word that was not kind. + +Memorial services were held from one end of the country to the other. +Those who had followed him in peace or war, those who had fought beside +him or against him, alike paid tribute to his memory. Twichell, from the +mountains of Vermont, wrote: + + I suppose I have said to Harmony forty times since I got up here, + "How I wish I could see Mark!" My notion is that between us we could + get ourselves expressed. I have never known any one who could help + me read my own thoughts in such a case as you can and have done many + a time, dear old fellow. + + I'd give more to sit on a log with you in the woods this afternoon, + while we twined a wreath together for Launcelot's grave, than + to hear any conceivable eulogy of him pronounced by mortal lips. + +The death of Grant so largely and so suddenly augmented the orders for +his Memoirs that it seemed impossible to get the first volume printed in +time for the delivery, which had been promised for December 1st. J. J. +Little had the contract of manufacture, and every available press and +bindery was running double time to complete the vast contract. + +In the end more than three hundred thousand sets of two volumes each were +sold, and between four hundred and twenty and four hundred and fifty +thousand dollars was paid to Mrs. Grant. The first check of two hundred +thousand dollars, drawn February 27, 1886, remains the largest single +royalty check in history. Mark Twain's prophecy had been almost exactly +verified. + + + + +CLVII + +MINOR MATTERS OF A GREAT YEAR + +The Grant episode, so important in all its phases, naturally overshadowed +other events of 1885. Mark Twain was so deeply absorbed in this great +publishing enterprise that he wasted little thought or energy in other +directions. + +Yet there are a few minor things that it seems worth while to remember. +Howells has told something of the Authors' Reading given for the +Longfellow Memorial, an entertainment managed by George Parsons Lathrop, +though Howells justly claims the glory of having fixed the price of +admission at five dollars. Then he recalls a pleasing anecdote of +Charles Eliot Norton, who introduced the attractions. + +Norton presided, and when it came Clemens's turn to read he introduced +him with such exquisite praises as he best knew how to give, but before +he closed he fell a prey to one of those lapses of tact which are the +peculiar peril of people of the greatest tact. He was reminded of +Darwin's delight in Mark Twain, and how when he came from his long day's +exhausting study, and sank into bed at midnight, he took up a volume of +Mark Twain, whose books he always kept on a table beside him, and +whatever had been his tormenting problem, or excess of toil, he felt +secure of a good night's rest from it. A sort of blank ensued which +Clemens filled in the only possible way. He said he should always be +glad he had contributed to the repose of that great man, to whom science +owed so much, and then without waiting for the joy in every breast to +burst forth, he began to read. + +Howells tells of Mark Twain's triumph on this occasion, and in a letter +at the time he wrote: "You simply straddled down to the footlights and +took that house up in the hollow of your hand and tickled it." + +Howells adds that the show netted seventeen hundred dollars. This was +early in May. + +Of literary work, beyond the war paper, the "Private History of a +Campaign that Failed" (published December, 1885), Clemens appears to have +done very little. His thoughts were far too busy with plans for +furthering the sale of the great military Memoir to follow literary +ventures of his own. At one time he was impelled to dictate an +autobiography--Grant's difficulties in his dying hour suggesting this-- +and he arranged with Redpath, who was no longer a lecture agent and +understood stenography, to co-operate with him in the work. He dictated +a few chapters, but he was otherwise too much occupied to continue. +Also, he was unused to dictation, and found it hard and the result +unsatisfactory. + +Two open communications from Mark Twain that year deserve to be +remembered. One of these; unsigned, was published in the Century +Magazine, and expressed the need for a "universal tinker," the man who +can accept a job in a large household or in a community as master of all +trades, with sufficient knowledge of each to be ready to undertake +whatever repairs are likely to be required in the ordinary household, +such as--"to put in windowpanes, mend gas leaks, jack-plane the edges of +doors that won't shut, keep the waste-pipe and other water-pipe joints, +glue and otherwise repair havoc done in furniture, etc." The letter was +signed X. Y. Z., and it brought replies from various parts of the world. +None of the applicants seemed universally qualified, but in Kansas City a +business was founded on the idea, adopting "The Universal Tinker" as its +firm name. + +The other letter mentioned was written to the 'Christian Union', inspired +by a tale entitled, "What Ought We to Have Done?" It was a tale +concerning the government of children; especially concerning the +government of one child--John Junior--a child who, as it would appear +from the tale, had a habit of running things pretty much to his own +notion. The performance of John junior, and of his parents in trying to +manage him, stirred Mark Twain considerably--it being "enough to make a +body's blood boil," as he confesses--and it impelled him to set down +surreptitiously his impressions of what would have happened to John +Junior as a member of the Clemens household. He did not dare to show the +communication to Mrs. Clemens before he sent it, for he knew pretty well +what its fate would be in that case. So he took chances and printed it +without her knowledge. The letter was published July 16, 1885. It is +too long to be included entire, but it is too illuminating to be +altogether omitted. After relating, in considerable detail, Mrs. +Clemens's method of dealing with an unruly child--the gentleness yet +firmness of her discipline--he concludes: + + The mother of my children adores them--there is no milder term for + it--and they worship her; they even worship anything which the touch + of her hand has made sacred. They know her for the best and truest + friend they have ever had, or ever shall have; they know her for one + who never did them a wrong, and cannot do them a wrong; who never + told them a lie, nor the shadow of one; who never deceived them by + even an ambiguous gesture; who never gave them an unreasonable + command, nor ever contented herself with anything short of a perfect + obedience; who has always treated them as politely and considerately + as she would the best and oldest in the land, and has always + required of them gentle speech and courteous conduct toward all, of + whatsoever degree with whom they chanced to come in contact; they + know her for one whose promise, whether of reward or punishment, is + gold, and always worth its face, to the uttermost farthing. In a + word, they know her, and I know her, for the best and dearest mother + that lives--and by a long, long way the wisest.... + + In all my life I have never made a single reference to my wife in + print before, as far as I can remember, except once in the + dedication of a book; and so, after these fifteen years of silence, + perhaps I may unseal my lips this one time without impropriety or + indelicacy. I will institute one other novelty: I will send this + manuscript to the press without her knowledge and without asking her + to edit it. This will save it from getting edited into the stove. + +Susy's biography refers to this incident at considerable length. She +states that her father had misgivings after he had sent it to the +Christian Union, and that he tried to recall the manuscript, but found it +too late. She sets down some comments of her own on her mother's +government, then tells us of the appearance of the article: + +When the Christian Union reached the farm and papa's article in it, all +ready and waiting to be read to mama, papa hadn't the courage to show it +to her (for he knew she wouldn't like it at all) at first, and he didn't, +but he might have let it go and never let her see it; but finally he gave +his consent to her seeing it, and told Clara and I we could take it to +her, which we did with tardiness, and we all stood around mama while she +read it, all wondering what she would say and think about it. + +She was too much surprised (and pleased privately too) to say much at +first; but, as we all expected, publicly (or rather when she remembered +that this article was to be read by every one that took the Christian +Union) she was rather shocked and a little displeased. + +Susy goes on to tell that the article provoked a number of letters, most +of them pleasant ones, but some of them of quite another sort. One of +the latter fell into her mother's hands, after which there was general +regret that the article had been printed, and the subject was no longer +discussed at Quarry Farm. + +Susy's biography is a unique record. It was a sort of combined memoir +and journal, charming in its innocent frankness and childish insight. +She used to keep it under her pillow, and after she was asleep the +parents would steal it out and find a tender amusement and pathos in its +quaint entries. It is a faithful record so far as it goes, and the +period it covers is an important one; for it presents a picture of Mark +Twain in the fullness of his manhood, in the golden hour of his fortune. +Susy's beginning has a special value here:--[Susy's' spelling and +punctuation are preserved.] + + We are a very happy family! We consist of papa, mama, Jean, Clara + and me. It is papa I am writing about, and I shall have no trouble + in not knowing what to say about him, as he is a very striking + character. Papa's appearance has been described many times, but + very incorrectly; he has beautiful curly grey hair, not any too + thick, or any too long, just right; a Roman nose, which greatly + improves the beauty of his features, kind blue eyes, and a small + mustache, he has a wonderfully shaped head, and profile, he has a + very good figure in short he is an extraordinarily fine looking man. + All his features are perfect, except that he hasn't extraordinary + teeth. His complexion is very fair, and he doesn't ware a beard: + + He is a very good man, and a very funny one; he has got a temper but + we all of us have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever + saw, or ever hope to see, and oh so absent-minded! + +That this is a fair statement of the Clemens home, and the truest picture +of Mark Twain at fifty that has been preserved, cannot be doubted. His +hair was iron-gray, not entirely white at this time, the auburn tints +everywhere mingled with the shining white that later would mantle it like +a silver crown. He did not look young for his years, but he was still +young, always young--indestructibly young in spirit and bodily vigor. +Susy tells how that summer he blew soap-bubbles for the children, filling +the bubbles with tobacco smoke; how he would play with the cats, and come +clear down from his study on the hill to see how "Sour Mash," then a +kitten, was getting along; also how he wrote a poem for Jean's donkey, +Cadichon (which they made Kiditchin): She quotes the poem: + + KIDITCHIN + + O du lieb' Kiditchin + Du bist ganz bewitchin, + Waw- - - -he! + + In summer days Kiditchin + Thou'rt dear from nose to britchin + Waw----he! + + No dought thoult get a switchin + When for mischief thou'rt itchin' + Waw- - - -he! + + But when you're good Kiditchin + You shall feast in James's kitchin + Waw- - - -he! + + O now lift up thy song + Thy noble note prolong + Thou living Chinese gong! + Waw---he! waw---he waw + Sweetest donkey man ever saw. + + +Clemens undertook to ride Kiditchin one day, to show the children how it +should be done, but Kiditchin resented this interference and promptly +flung him over her head. He thought she might have been listening to the +poem he had written of her. + +Susy's discovery that the secret of her biography was known is shown by +the next entry, and the touch of severity in it was probably not entirely +unconscious: + + Papa said the other day, "I am a mugwump and a mugwump is pure from + the marrow out." (Papa knows that I am writing this biography of + him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at + all, why I never understood, until just now. He told us the other + day that he couldn't bear to hear anyone talk but himself, but that + he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting tired, of + course he said this in joke, but I've no doubt it was founded on + truth. + +Susy's picture of life at Quarry Farm at this period is realistic and +valuable--too valuable to be spared from this biography: + + There are eleven cats at the farm here now. Papa's favorite is a + little tortoise-shell kitten he has named "Sour Mash," and a little + spotted one "Fannie." It is very pretty to see what papa calls the + cat procession; it was formed in this way. Old Minniecat headed, + (the mother of all the cats) next to her came aunt Susie, then Clara + on the donkey, accompanied by a pile of cats, then papa and Jean + hand in hand and a pile of cats brought up in the rear, mama and I + made up the audience. + + Our varius occupations are as follows. Papa rises about 1/2 past 7 + in the morning, breakfasts at eight, writes, plays tennis with Clara + and me and tries to make the donkey go, in the morning; does varius + things in P.M., and in the evening plays tennis with Clara and me + and amuses Jean and the donkey. + + Mama rises about 1/4 to eight, breakfasts at eight, teaches Jean + German reading from 9-10; reads German with me from 10-11. Then she + reads studdies or visits with aunt Susie for a while, and then she + reads to Clara and I till lunch time things connected with English + history (for we hope to go to England next summer) while we sew. + Then we have lunch. She studdies for about half an hour or visits + with aunt Susie, then reads to us an hour or more, then studdies + writes reads and rests till supper time. After supper she sits out + on the porch and works till eight o'clock, from eight o'clock to + bedtime she plays whist with papa and after she has retired she + reads and studdies German for a while. + + Clara and I do most everything from practicing to donkey riding and + playing tag. While Jean's time is spent in asking mama what she can + have to eat. + +It is impossible, at this distance, to convey all that the farm meant to +the children during the summers of their infancy and childhood and +girlhood which they spent there. It was the paradise, the dreamland they +looked forward to during all the rest of the year. Through the long, +happy months there they grew strong and brown, and drank deeply of the +joy of life. Their cousins Julia, Jervis, and Ida Langdon ranged about +their own ages and were almost their daily companions. Their games were +mainly of the out-of-doors; the woods and meadows and hillside pastures +were their playground. Susy was thirteen when she began her diary; a +gentle, thoughtful, romantic child. One afternoon she discovered a +wonderful tangle of vines and bushes between the study and the sunset--a +rare hiding-place. She ran breathlessly to her aunt: + +"Can I have it? Can Clara and I have it all for our own?" + +The petition was granted, of course, and the place was named Helen's +Bower, for they were reading Thaddeus of Warsaw and the name appealed to +Susy's poetic fancy. Then Mrs. Clemens conceived the idea of building a +house for the children just beyond the bower. It was a complete little +cottage when finished, with a porch and with furnishings contributed by +friends and members of the family. There was a stove--a tiny affair, but +practical--dishes, table, chairs, shelves, and a broom. The little house +was named Ellerslie, out of Grace Aguilar's Days of Robert Bruce, and +became one of the children's most beloved possessions. But alas for +Helen's Bower! A workman was sent to clear away the debris after the +builders, and being a practical man, he cut away Helen's Bower--destroyed +it utterly. Susy first discovered the vandalism, and came rushing to the +house in a torrent of sorrow. For her the joy of life seemed ended, and +it was long before she could be comforted. But Ellerslie in time +satisfied her hunger for retreat, became, in fact, the nucleus around +which the children's summer happiness centered. + +To their elders the farm remained always the quiet haven. Once to +Orion's wife Clemens wrote: + + This is a superb Sunday . . . . + + The city in the valley is purple with shade, as seen from up here at + the study. The Cranes are reading and loafing in the canvas- + curtained summer-house, fifty yards away, on a higher (the highest) + point; the cats are loafing over at Ellerslie, which is the + children's estate and dwelling house in their own private grounds + (by deed from Susie Crane), a hundred yards from the study, among + the clover and young oaks and willows. Livy is down at the house, + but I shall now go and bring her up to the Cranes to help us occupy + the lounges and hammocks, whence a great panorama of distant hills + and valley and city is seeable. The children have gone on a lark + through the neighboring hills and woods, Susie and Clara horseback + and Jean, driving a buggy, with the coachman for comrade and + assistant at need. It is a perfect day indeed. + +The ending of each year's summer brought only regret. Clemens would +never take away all his things. He had an old superstition that to leave +some article insured return. Mrs. Clemens also left something--her +heart's content. The children went around bidding various objects good- +by and kissed the gates of Ellerslie too. + + + + +CLVIII + +MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY + +Mark Twain's fiftieth birthday was one of the pleasantly observed events +of that year. There was no special celebration, but friends sent kindly +messages, and The Critic, then conducted by Jeannette and Joseph Gilder, +made a feature of it. Miss Gilder wrote to Oliver Wendell Holmes and +invited some verses, which with his never-failing kindliness he sent, +though in his accompanying note he said: + +"I had twenty-three letters spread out on my table for answering, all +marked immediate, when your note came." + +Dr. Holmes's stanzas are full of his gentle spirit: + + + TO MARK TWAIN + + (On his fiftieth birthday) + + Ah, Clemens, when I saw thee last, + We both of us were younger; + How fondly mumbling o'er the past + Is Memory's toothless hunger! + + So fifty years have fled, they say, + Since first you took to drinking; + I mean in Nature's milky way + Of course no ill I'm thinking. + + But while on life's uneven road + Your track you've been pursuing, + What fountains from your wit have flowed + What drinks you have been brewing! + + I know whence all your magic came, + Your secret I've discovered, + The source that fed your inward flame, + The dreams that round you hovered. + + Before you learned to bite or munch, + Still kicking in your cradle, + The Muses mixed a bowl of punch + And Hebe seized the ladle. + + Dear babe, whose fiftieth year to-day + Your ripe half-century rounded, + Your books the precious draught betray + The laughing Nine compounded. + + So mixed the sweet, the sharp, the strong, + Each finds its faults amended, + The virtues that to each belong + In happiest union blended. + + And what the flavor can surpass + Of sugar, spirit, lemons? + So while one health fills every glass + Mark Twain for Baby Clemens! + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. + + +Frank R. Stockton, Charles Dudley Warner, and Joel Chandler Harris sent +pleasing letters. Warner said: + + You may think it an easy thing to be fifty years old, but you will + find it's not so easy to stay there, and your next fifty years will + slip away much faster than those just accomplished. + +Many wrote letters privately, of course, and Andrew Lang, like Holmes, +sent a poem that has a special charm. + + + FOR MARK TWAIN + + To brave Mark Twain, across the sea, + The years have brought his jubilee. + One hears it, half in pain, + That fifty years have passed and gone + Since danced the merry star that shone + Above the babe Mark Twain. + + We turn his pages and we see + The Mississippi flowing free; + We turn again and grin + O'er all Tom Sawyer did and planned + With him of the ensanguined hand, + With Huckleberry Finn! + + Spirit of Mirth, whose chime of bells + Shakes on his cap, and sweetly swells + Across the Atlantic main, + Grant that Mark's laughter never die, + That men through many a century + May chuckle o'er Mark Twain! + + +Assuredly Mark Twain was made happy by these attentions; to Dr. Holmes he +wrote: + +DEAR DR. HOLMES,--I shall never be able to tell you the half of how +proud you have made me. If I could you would say you were nearly paid +for the trouble you took. And then the family: If I could convey the +electrical surprise and gratitude and exaltation of the wife and the +children last night, when they happened upon that Critic where I had, +with artful artlessness, spread it open and retired out of view to see +what would happen--well, it was great and fine and beautiful to see, and +made me feel as the victor feels when the shouting hosts march by: and if +you also could have seen it you would have said the account was squared. +For I have brought them up in your company, as in the company of a warm +and friendly and beneficent but far-distant sun; and so, for you to do +this thing was for the sun to send down out of the skies the miracle of a +special ray and transfigure me before their faces. I knew what that poem +would be to them; I knew it would raise me up to remote and shining +heights in their eyes, to very fellowship with the chambered Nautilus +itself, and that from that fellowship they could never more dissociate me +while they should live; and so I made sure to be by when the surprise +should come. + +Charles Dudley Warner is charmed with the poem for its own felicitous +sake; and so indeed am I, but more because it has drawn the sting of my +fiftieth year; taken away the pain of it, the grief of it, the somehow +shame of it, and made me glad and proud it happened. + + With reverence and affection, + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +So Samuel Clemens had reached the half-century mark; reached it in what +seemed the fullness of success from every viewpoint. If he was not yet +the foremost American man of letters, he was at least the most widely +known he sat upon the highest mountain-top. Furthermore, it seemed to +him that fortune was showering her gifts into his lap. His unfortunate +investments were now only as the necessary experiments that had led him +to larger successes. As a publisher, he was already the most conspicuous +in the world, and he contemplated still larger ventures: a type-setting +machine patent, in which he had invested, and now largely controlled, he +regarded as the chief invention of the age, absolutely certain to yield +incalculable wealth. His connection with the Grant family had associated +him with an enterprise looking to the building of a railway from +Constantinople to the Persian Gulf. Charles A. Dana, of the Sun, had +put him in the way of obtaining for publication the life of the Pope, Leo +XIII, officially authorized by the Pope himself, and this he regarded as +a certain fortune. + +Now that the tide had turned he felt no hesitancy in reckoning a fortune +from almost any venture. The Grant book, even on the liberal terms +allowed to the author, would yield a net profit of one hundred and fifty +thousand dollars to its publishers. Huck Finn would yield fifty thousand +dollars more. The sales of his other books had considerably increased. +Certainly, at fifty, Mark Twain's fortunes were at flood-tide; buoyant +and jubilant, he was floating on the topmost wave. If there were +undercurrents and undertow they were down somewhere out of sight. If +there were breakers ahead, they were too far distant to be heard. So +sure was he of the triumphant consummation of every venture that to a +friend at his home one night he said: + +"I am frightened at the proportions of my prosperity. It seems to me +that whatever I touch turns to gold." + + + + +CLIX + +THE LIFE OF THE POPE + +As Mark Twain in the earlier days of his marriage had temporarily put +aside authorship to join in a newspaper venture, so now again literature +had dropped into the background, had become an avocation, while financial +interests prevailed. There were two chief ventures--the business of +Charles L. Webster & Co. and the promotion of the Paige type-setting +machine. They were closely identified in fortunes, so closely that in +time the very existence of each depended upon the success of the other; +yet they were quite distinct, and must be so treated in this story. + +The success of the Grant Life had given the Webster business an immense +prestige. It was no longer necessary to seek desirable features for +publication. They came uninvited. Other war generals preparing their +memoirs naturally hoped to appear with their great commander. +McClellan's Own Story was arranged for without difficulty. A Genesis of +the Civil War, by Gen. Samuel Wylie Crawford, was offered and accepted. +General Sheridan's Memoirs were in preparation, and negotiations with +Webster & Co. for their appearance were not delayed. Probably neither +Webster nor Clemens believed that the sale of any of these books would +approach those of the Grant Life, but they expected them to be large, for +the Grant book had stimulated the public taste for war literature, and +anything bearing the stamp of personal battle experience was considered +literary legal-tender. + +Moreover, these features, and even the Grant book itself, seemed likely +to dwindle in importance by the side of The Life of Pope Leo XIII., who +in his old and enfeebled age had consented to the preparation of a +memoir, to be published with his sanction and blessing.--[By Bernard +O'Reilly, D.D., LL.D. "Written with the Encouragement, Approbation, and +Blessings of His Holiness the Pope."]--Clemens and Webster--every one, +in fact, who heard of the project--united in the belief that no book, +with the exception of the Holy Scripture itself or the Koran, would have +a wider acceptance than the biography of the Pope. It was agreed by good +judges--and they included Howells and Twichell and even the shrewd +general agents throughout the country--that every good Catholic would +regard such a book not only as desirable, but as absolutely necessary to +his salvation. Howells, recalling Clemens's emotions of this time, +writes: + + He had no words in which to paint the magnificence of the project or + to forecast its colossal success. It would have a currency bounded + only by the number of Catholics in Christendom. It would be + translated into every language which was anywhere written or + printed; it would be circulated literally in every country of the + globe. + +The formal contract for this great undertaking was signed in Rome in +April, 1886, and Webster immediately prepared to go over to consult with +his Holiness in person as to certain details, also, no doubt, for the +newspaper advertising which must result from such an interview. + +It was decided to carry a handsome present to the Pope in the form of a +specially made edition of the Grant Memoirs in a rich-casket, and it was +Clemens's idea that the binding of the book should be solid gold--this to +be done by Tiffany at an estimated cost of about three thousand dollars. +In the end, however, the binding was not gold, but the handsomest that +could be designed of less precious and more appropriate materials. + +Webster sailed toward the end of June, and was warmly received and highly +honored in Rome. The great figures of the Grant success had astonished +Europe even more than America, where spectacular achievements were more +common. That any single publication should pay a profit to author and +publisher of six hundred thousand dollars was a thing which belonged with +the wonders of Aladdin's garden. It was natural, therefore, that +Webster, who had rubbed the magic lamp with this result, who was Mark +Twain's partner, and who had now traveled across the seas to confer with +the Pope himself, should be received with royal honors. In letters +written at the time, Webster relates how he found it necessary to have an +imposing carriage and a footman to maintain the dignity of his mission, +and how, after various impressive formalities, he was granted a private +audience, a very special honor indeed. Webster's letter gives us a +picture of his Holiness which is worth preserving. + + We--[Mrs. Webster, who, the reader will remember, was Annie Moffett, + a daughter of Pamela Clemens, was included in the invitation to the + Presence Chamber.]--found ourselves in a room perhaps twenty-five by + thirty-five feet; the furniture was gilt, upholstered in light-red + silk, and the side-walls were hung with the same material. Against + the wall by which we entered and in the middle space was a large + gilt throne chair, upholstered in red plush, and upon it sat a man + bowed with age; his hair was silvery white and as pure as the driven + snow. His head was partly covered with a white skullcap; he was + dressed in a long white cassock which reached to his feet, which + rested upon a red-plush cushion and were inclosed in red embroidered + slippers with a design of a cross. A golden chain was about his + neck and suspended by it in his lap was a gold cross set in precious + stones. Upon a finger of his right hand was a gold ring with an + emerald setting nearly an inch in diameter. His countenance was + smiling, and beamed with benevolence. His face at once impressed us + as that of a noble, pure man who could not do otherwise than good. + + This was the Pope of Rome, and as we advanced, making the three + genuflexions prescribed by etiquette, he smiled benignly upon us. + We advanced and, kneeling at his feet, kissed the seal upon his + ring. He took us each by the hand repeatedly during the audience + and made us perfectly at our ease. + +They remained as much as half an hour in the Presence; and the Pope +conversed on a variety of subjects, including the business failure of +General Grant, his last hours, and the great success of his book. The +figures seemed to him hardly credible, and when Webster assured him that +already a guaranteed sale of one hundred thousand copies of his own +biography had been pledged by the agents he seemed even more astonished. +"We in Italy cannot comprehend such things," he said. "I know you do +great work in America; I know you have done a great and noble work in +regard to General Grant's book, but that my Life should have such a sale +seems impossible." + +He asked about their home, their children, and was in every way the +kindly, gentle-hearted man that his pictured face has shown him. Then he +gave them his final blessing and the audience closed. + + We each again kissed the seal on his ring. As Annie was about to + kiss it he suddenly withdrew his hand and said, "And will you, a + little Protestant, kiss the Pope's ring?" As he said this, his face + was all smiles, and mischief was clearly delineated upon it. He + immediately put back his hand and she kissed the ring. We now + withdrew, backing out and making three genuflexions as before. Just + as we reached the door he called to Dr. O'Reilly, "Now don't praise + me too much; tell the truth, tell the truth." + + + + +CLX + +A GREAT PUBLISHER AT HOME + +Men are likely to be spoiled by prosperity, to be made arrogant, even +harsh. Success made Samuel Clemens merely elate, more kindly, more +humanly generous. Every day almost he wrote to Webster, suggesting some +new book or venture, but always considerately, always deferring to +suggestions from other points of view. Once, when it seemed to him that +matters were not going as well as usual, a visit from Webster showed him +that it was because of his own continued absence from the business that +he did not understand. Whereupon he wrote: + + DEAR CHARLEY,--Good--it's all good news. Everything is on the + pleasantest possible basis now, and is going to stay so. I blame + myself in not looking in on you oftener in the past--that would have + prevented all trouble. I mean to stand to my duty better now. + +At another time, realizing the press of responsibility, and that Webster +was not entirely well, he sent a warning from Mrs. Clemens against +overwork. He added: + + Your letter shows that you need such a warning. So I warn you + myself to look after that. Overwork killed Mr. Langdon and it can + kill you. + +Clemens found his own cares greatly multiplied. His connection with the +firm was widely known, and many authors sent him their manuscripts or +wrote him personal letters concerning them. Furthermore, he was beset by +all the cranks and beggars in Christendom. His affairs became so +numerous at length that he employed a business agent, F. G. Whitmore, to +relieve him of a part of his burden. Whitmore lived close by, and was a +good billiard-player. Almost anything from the morning mail served as an +excuse to send for Whitmore. + +Clemens was fond of affairs when they were going well; he liked the game +of business, especially when it was pretentious and showily prosperous. +It is probable that he was never more satisfied with his share of fortune +than just at this time. Certainly his home life was never happier. +Katie Leary, for thirty years in the family service, has set down some +impressions of that pleasant period. + + Mr. Clemens was a very affectionate father. He seldom left the + house at night, but would read to the family, first to the children + until bedtime, afterward to Mrs. Clemens. He usually read Browning + to her. They were very fond of it. The children played charades a + great deal, and he was wonderful at that game and always helped + them. They were very fond of private theatricals. Every Saturday + of their lives they had a temporary stage put up in the school-room + and we all had to help. Gerhardt painted the scenery. They + frequently played the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" and + several plays they wrote themselves. Now and then we had a big + general performance of "The Prince and the Pauper." That would be + in the library and the dining-room with the folding-doors open. The + place just held eighty-four chairs, and the stage was placed back + against the conservatory. The children were crazy about acting and + we all enjoyed it as much as they did, especially Mr. Clemens, who + was the best actor of all. I had a part, too, and George. I have + never known a happier household than theirs was during those years. + + Mr. Clemens spent most of his time up in the billiard-room, writing + or playing billiards. One day when I went in, and he was shooting + the balls around the tables, I noticed smoke coming up from the + hearth. I called Patrick, and John O'Neill, the gardener, and we + began taking up the hearth to see what was the matter. Mr. Clemens + kept on playing billiards right along and paid no attention to what + we were doing. Finally, when we got the hearth up, a lot of flame + and smoke came out into the room. The house was on fire. Mr. + Clemens noticed then what we were about, and went over to the corner + where there were some bottle fire-extinguishers. He took one down + and threw it into the flames. This put them out a good deal, and he + took up his cue, went back to the table, and began to shoot the + balls around again as if nothing had happened. Mrs. Clemens came in + just then and said, "Why, the house is afire!" + + "Yes, I know it," he said, but went on playing. + + We had a telephone and it didn't work very well. It annoyed him a + good deal and sometimes he'd say: + + "I'll tear it out." + + One day he tried to call up Mrs. Dr. Tafft. He could not hear + plainly and thought he was talking to central. "Send down and take + this d---thing out of here," he said; "I'm tired of it." He was + mad, and using a good deal of bad language. All at once he heard + Mrs. Dr. Tafft say, "Oh, Mr. Clemens, good morning." He said, "Why, + Mrs. Tafft, I have just come to the telephone. George, our butler, + was here before me and I heard him swearing as I came up. I shall + have to talk to him about it." + + Mrs. Tafft often told it on him.--[ Mark Twain once wrote to the + telephone management: "The time is coming very soon when the + telephone will be a perfect instrument, when proximity will no + longer be a hindrance to its performance, when, in fact, one will + hear a man who is in the next block just as easily and comfortably + as he would if that man were in San Francisco."] + Mrs. Clemens, before I went there, took care of his desk, but little + by little I began to look after it when she was busy at other + things. Finally I took care of it altogether, but he didn't know it + for a long time. One morning he caught me at it. "What are you + doing here?" he asked. + + "Dusting, Mr. Clemens," I said. + + "You have no business here," he said, very mad. + + "I've been doing it for a year, Mr. Clemens," I said. "Mrs. Clemens + told me to do it." + + After that, when he missed anything--and he missed things often--he + would ring for me. "Katie," he would say, "you have lost that + manuscript." + + "Oh, Mr. Clemens,", I would say, "I am sure I didn't touch it." + + "Yes, you did touch it, Katie. You put it in the fire. It is + gone." + + He would scold then, and fume a great deal. Then he would go over + and mark out with his toe on the carpet a line which I was never to + cross. "Katie," he would say, "you are never to go nearer to my + desk than that line. That is the dead-line." Often after he had + scolded me in the morning he would come in in the evening where I + was dressing Mrs. Clemens to go out and say, "Katie, I found that + manuscript." And I would say, "Mr. Clemens, I felt so bad this + morning that I wanted to go away." + + He had a pipe-cleaner which he kept on a high shelf. It was an + awful old dirty one, and I didn't know that he ever used it. I took + it to the balcony which was built out into the woods and threw it + away as far as I could throw it. Next day he asked, "Katie, did you + see my pipe-cleaner? You did see it; I can tell by your looks." + + I said, "Yes, Mr. Clemens, I threw it away." + + "Well," he said, "it was worth a thousand dollars," and it seemed so + to me, too, before he got done scolding about it. + +It is hard not to dwell too long on the home life of this period. One +would like to make a long chapter out of those play-acting evenings +alone. They remained always fresh in Mark Twain's memory. Once he wrote +of them: + + We dined as we could, probably with a neighbor, and by quarter to + eight in the evening the hickory fire in the hall was pouring a + sheet of flame up the chimney, the house was in a drench of gas- + light from the ground floor up, the guests were arriving, and there + was a babble of hearty greetings, with not a voice in it that was + not old and familiar and affectionate; and when the curtain went up + we looked out from the stage upon none but faces that were dear to + us, none but faces that were lit up with welcome for us. + + + + +CLXI + +HISTORY: MAINLY BY SUSY + +Suzy, in her biography, which she continued through this period, writes: + + Mama and I have both been very much troubled of late because papa, + since he had been publishing General Grant's books, has seemed to + forget his own books and works entirely; and the other evening, as + papa and I were promonading up and down the library, he told me that + he didn't expect to write but one more book, and then he was ready + to give up work altogether, die, or, do anything; he said that he + had written more than he had ever expected to, and the only book + that he had been pertickularly anxious to write was one locked up in + the safe downstairs, not yet published. + +The book locked in the safe was Captain Stormfield, and the one he +expected to write was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He +had already worked at it in a desultory way during the early months of +1886, and once wrote of it to Webster: + + I have begun a book whose scene is laid far back in the twilight of + tradition; I have saturated myself with the atmosphere of the day + and the subject and got myself into the swing of the work. If I peg + away for some weeks without a break I am safe. + +But he could not peg away. He had too many irons in the fire for that. +Matthew Arnold had criticized General Grant's English, and Clemens +immediately put down other things to rush to his hero's defense. He +pointed out that in Arnold's criticism there were no less than "two +grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and +slovenly English," and said: + + There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots, and + when we think of General Grant our pulses quicken and his grammar + vanishes; we only remember that this is the simple soldier, who, all + untaught of the silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an + art surpassing the art of the schools, and put into them a something + which will still bring to American ears, as long as America shall + last, the roll of his vanished drums and the tread of his marching + hosts.--[Address to Army and Navy Club. For full text see + Appendix] + +Clemens worked at the Yankee now and then, and Howells, when some of the +chapters were read to him, gave it warm approval and urged its +continuance. + +Howells was often in Hartford at this time. Webster & Co. were planning +to publish The Library of Humor, which Howells and "Charley" Clark had +edited several years before, and occasional conferences were desirable. +Howells tells us that, after he and Clark had been at great trouble to +get the matter logically and chronologically arranged, Clemens pulled it +all to pieces and threw it together helter-skelter, declaring that there +ought to be no sequence in a book of that sort, any more than in the +average reader's mind; and Howells admits that this was probably the +truer method in a book made for the diversion rather than the instruction +of the reader. + +One of the literary diversions of this time was a commentary on a +delicious little book by Caroline B. Le Row--English as She Is Taught-- +being a compilation of genuine answers given to examination questions by +pupils in our public schools. Mark Twain was amused by such definitions +as: "Aborigines, system of mountains"; "Alias--a good man in the Bible"; +"Ammonia--the food of the gods," and so on down the alphabet. + +Susy, in her biography, mentions that her father at this is time read to +them a little article which he had just written, entitled "Luck," and +that they thought it very good. It was a story which Twichell had heard +and told to Clemens, who set it down about as it came to him. It was +supposed to be true, yet Clemens seemed to think it too improbable for +literature and laid it away for a number of years. We shall hear of it +again by and by. + +From Susy's memoranda we gather that humanity at this time was to be +healed of all evils and sorrows through "mind cure." + + Papa has been very much interested of late in the "mind-cure" + theory. And, in fact, so have we all. A young lady in town has + worked wonders by using the "mind cure" upon people; she is + constantly busy now curing peoples' diseases in this way--and curing + her own, even, which to me seems the most remarkable of all. + + A little while past papa was delighted with the knowledge of what he + thought the best way of curing a cold, which was by starving it. + This starving did work beautifully, and freed him from a great many + severe colds. Now he says it wasn't the starving that helped his + colds, but the trust in the starving, the "mind cure" connected with + the starving. + + I shouldn't wonder if we finally became firm believers in "mind + cure." The next time papa has a cold I haven't a doubt he will send + for Miss Holden, the young lady who is doctoring in the "mind-cure" + theory, to cure him of it. + +Again, a month later, she writes: + + April 19, 1886. Yes, the "mind cure" does seem to be working + wonderfully. Papa, who has been using glasses now for more than a + year, has laid them off entirely. And my near-sightedness is really + getting better. It seems marvelous. When Jean has stomack-ache + Clara and I have tried to divert her by telling her to lie on her + side and try "mind cure." The novelty of it has made her willing to + try it, and then Clara and I would exclaim about how wonderful it + was she was getting better. And she would think it realy was + finally, and stop crying, to our delight. + + The other day mama went into the library and found her lying on the + sofa with her back toward the door. She said, "Why, Jean, what's + the matter? Don't you feel well?" Jean said that she had a little + stomack-ache, and so thought she would lie down. Mama said, "Why + don't you try 'mind cure'?" "I am," Jean answered. + +Howells and Twichell were invited to try the "mind cure," as were all +other friends who happened along. To the end of his days Clemens would +always have some panacea to offer to allay human distress. It was a good +trait, when all is said, for it had its root in his humanity. The "mind +cure" did not provide all the substance of things hoped for, though he +always allowed for it a wide efficacy. Once, in later years, commenting +on Susy's record, he said: + + The mind cannot heal broken bones, and doubtless there are many + other physical ills which it cannot heal, but it can greatly help to + modify the severities of all of them without exception, and there + are mental and nervous ailments which it can wholly heal without the + help of physician or surgeon. + +Susy records another burning interest of this time: + + Clara sprained her ankle a little while ago by running into a tree + when coasting, and while she was unable to walk with it she played + solotaire with cards a great deal. While Clara was sick and papa + saw her play solotaire so much he got very much interested in the + game, and finally began to play it himself a little; then Jean took + it up, and at last mama even played it occasionally; Jean's and + papa's love for it rapidly increased, and now Jean brings the cards + every night to the table and papa and mama help her play, and before + dinner is at an end papa has gotten a separate pack of cards and is + playing alone, with great interest. Mama and Clara next are made + subject to the contagious solotaire, and there are four + solotarireans at the table, while you hear nothing but "Fill up the + place," etc. It is dreadful! + +But a little further along Susy presents her chief subject more +seriously. He is not altogether absorbed with "mind cure" and solitaire, +or even with making humorous tales. + + Papa has done a great deal in his life I think that is good and very + remarkable, but I think if he had had the advantages with which he + could have developed the gifts which he has made no use of in + writing his books, or in any other way, for peoples' pleasure and + benefit outside of his own family and intimate friends, he could + have done more than he has, and a great deal more, even. He is + known to the public as a humorist, but he has much more in him that + is earnest than that is humorous. He has a keen sense of the + ludicrous, notices funny stories and incidents, knows how to tell + them, to improve upon them, and does not forget them. + +And again: + + When we are all alone at home nine times out of ten he talks about + some very earnest subject (with an occasional joke thrown in), and + he a good deal more often talks upon such subjects than upon the + other kind. + + He is as much of a philosopher as anything, I think. I think he + could have done a great deal in this direction if he had studied + while young, for he seems to enjoy reasoning out things, no matter + what; in a great many such directions he has greater ability than in + the gifts which have made him famous. + +It was with the keen eyes and just mind of childhood that Susy estimated, +and there is little to add to her valuation. + +Susy's biography came to an end that summer after starting to record a +visit which they all made to Keokuk to see Grandma Clemens. They went by +way of the Lakes and down the Mississippi from St. Paul. A pleasant +incident happened that first evening on the river. Soon after nightfall +they entered a shoal crossing. Clemens, standing alone on the hurricane- +deck, heard the big bell forward boom out the call for leads. Then came +the leadsman's long-drawn chant, once so familiar, the monotonous +repeating in river parlance of the depths of water. Presently the lead +had found that depth of water signified by his nom de plume and the call +of "Mark Twain, Mark Twain" floated up to him like a summons from the +past. All at once a little figure came running down the deck, and Clara +confronted him, reprovingly: + +"Papa," she said, "I have hunted all over the boat for you. Don't you +know they are calling for you?" + +They remained in Keokuk a week, and Susy starts to tell something of +their visit there. She begins: + +"We have arrived in Keokuk after a very pleasant----" + +The sentence remains unfinished. We cannot know what was the +interruption or what new interest kept her from her task. We can only +regret that the loving little hand did not continue its pleasant history. +Years later, when Susy had passed from among the things we know, her +father, commenting, said: + + When I look at the arrested sentence that ends the little book it + seems as if the hand that traced it cannot be far--it is gone for a + moment only, and will come again and finish it. But that is a + dream; a creature of the heart, not of the mind--a feeling, a + longing, not a mental product; the same that lured Aaron Burr, old, + gray, forlorn, forsaken, to the pier day after day, week after week, + there to stand in the gloom and the chill of the dawn, gazing + seaward through veiling mists and sleet and snow for the ship which + he knew was gone down, the ship that bore all his treasure--his + daughter. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume 2, Part 1 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY 1875-1886 by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME II, Part 2: 1886-1900 + + +CLXII + +BROWNING, MEREDITH, AND MEISTERSCHAFT + +The Browning readings must have begun about this time. Just what kindled +Mark Twain's interest in the poetry of Robert Browning is not remembered, +but very likely his earlier associations with the poet had something to +do with it. Whatever the beginning, we find him, during the winter of +1886 and 1887, studiously, even violently, interested in Browning's +verses, entertaining a sort of club or class who gathered to hear his +rich, sympathetic, and luminous reading of the Payleyings--"With Bernard +de Mandeville," "Daniel Bartoli," or "Christopher Smart." Members of the +Saturday Morning Club were among his listeners and others-friends of the +family. They were rather remarkable gatherings, and no one of that group +but always vividly remembered the marvelously clear insight which Mark +Twain's vocal personality gave to those somewhat obscure measures. They +did not all of them realize that before reading a poem he studied it line +by line, even word by word; dug out its last syllable of meaning, so far +as lay within human possibility, and indicated with pencil every shade of +emphasis which would help to reveal the poet's purpose. No student of +Browning ever more devoutly persisted in trying to compass a master's +intent--in such poems as "Sordello," for instance--than Mark Twain. +Just what permanent benefit he received from this particular passion it +is difficult to know. Once, at a class-meeting, after finishing "Easter +Day," he made a remark which the class requested him to "write down." +It is recorded on the fly-leaf of Dramatis Personae as follows: + + One's glimpses & confusions, as one reads Browning, remind me of + looking through a telescope (the small sort which you must move with + your hand, not clock-work). You toil across dark spaces which are + (to your lens) empty; but every now & then a splendor of stars & + suns bursts upon you and fills the whole field with flame. Feb. + 23, 1887. + +In another note he speaks of the "vague dim flash of splendid hamming- +birds through a fog." Whatever mental treasures he may or may not have +laid up from Browning there was assuredly a deep gratification in the +discovery of those splendors of "stars and suns" and the flashing +"humming-birds," as there must also have been in pointing out those +wonders to the little circle of devout listeners. It all seemed so worth +while. + +It was at a time when George Meredith was a reigning literary favorite. +There was a Meredith cult as distinct as that of Browning. Possibly it +exists to-day, but, if so, it is less militant. Mrs. Clemens and her +associates were caught in the Meredith movement and read Diana of the +Crossways and the Egoist with reverential appreciation. + +The Meredith epidemic did not touch Mark Twain. He read but few novels +at most, and, skilful as was the artistry of the English favorite, he +found his characters artificialities--ingeniously contrived puppets +rather than human beings, and, on the whole, overrated by their creator. +Diana of the Crossways was read aloud, and, listening now and then, he +was likely to say: + +"It doesn't seem to me that Diana lives up to her reputation. The author +keeps telling us how smart she is, how brilliant, but I never seem to +hear her say anything smart or brilliant. Read me some of Diana's smart +utterances." + +He was relentless enough in his criticism of a literature he did not care +for, and he never learned to care for Meredith. + +He read his favorite books over and over with an everchanging point of +view. He re-read Carlyle's French Revolution during the summer at the +farm, and to Howells he wrote: + + How stunning are the changes which age makes in man while he sleeps! + When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871 I was a + Girondin; every time I have read it since I have read it + differently--being influenced & changed, little by little, by life & + environment (& Taine & St. Simon); & now I lay the book down once + more, & recognize that I am a Sansculotte!--And not a pale, + characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such + gospel, so the change is in me--in my vision of the evidences. + + People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it + did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they + can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say + that of Dickens's or Scott's books. Nothing remains the same. When + a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood it has always + shrunk; there is no instance of such house being as big as the + picture in memory & imagination call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its + correct dimensions; the house hasn't altered; this is the first time + it has been in focus. + + Well, that's loss. To have house & Bible shrink so, under the + disillusioning corrected angle, is loss--for a moment. But there + are compensations. You tilt the tube skyward & bring planets & + comets & corona flames a hundred & fifty thousand miles high into + the field. Which I see you have done, & found Tolstoi. I haven't + got him in focus yet, but I've got Browning. + +In time the Browning passion would wane and pass, and the club was +succeeded by, or perhaps it blended with, a German class which met at +regular intervals at the Clemens home to study "der, die, and das" and +the "gehabt habens" out of Meisterschaft and such other text-books as +Professor Schleutter could provide. They had monthly conversation days, +when they discussed in German all sorts of things, real and imaginary. +Once Dr. Root, a prominent member, and Clemens had a long wrangle over +painting a house, in which they impersonated two German neighbors. + +Clemens finally wrote for the class a three-act play" Meisterschaft"--a +literary achievement for which he was especially qualified, with its +picturesque mixture of German and English and its unfailing humor. It +seems unlike anything ever attempted before or since. No one but Mark +Twain could have written it. It was given twice by the class with +enormous success, and in modified form it was published in the Century +Magazine (January, 1888). It is included to-day in his "Complete Works," +but one must have a fair knowledge of German to capture the full delight +of it.--[On the original manuscript Mark Twain wrote: "There is some +tolerably rancid German here and there in this piece. It is attributable +to the proof-reader." Perhaps the proof-reader resented this and cut it +out, for it does not appear as published.] + +Mark Twain probably exaggerated his sentiments a good deal when in the +Carlyle letter he claimed to be the most rabid of Sansculottes. It is +unlikely that he was ever very bare-kneed and crimson in his anarchy. He +believed always that cruelty should be swiftly punished, whether in king +or commoner, and that tyrants should be destroyed. He was for the people +as against kings, and for the union of labor as opposed to the union of +capital, though he wrote of such matters judicially--not radically. The +Knights of Labor organization, then very powerful, seemed to Clemens the +salvation of oppressed humanity. He wrote a vehement and convincing +paper on the subject, which he sent to Howells, to whom it appealed very +strongly, for Howells was socialistic, in a sense, and Clemens made his +appeal in the best and largest sense, dramatizing his conception in a +picture that was to include, in one grand league, labor of whatever form, +and, in the end, all mankind in a final millennium. Howells wrote that +he had read the essay "with thrills amounting to yells of satisfaction," +and declared it to be the best thing yet said on the subject. The essay +closed: + + He [the unionized workman] is here and he will remain. He is the + greatest birth of the greatest age the nations of the world have + known. You cannot sneer at him--that time has gone by. He has + before him the most righteous work that was ever given into the hand + of man to do; and he will do it. Yes, he is here; and the question + is not--as it has been heretofore during a thousand ages--What shall + we do with him? For the first time in history we are relieved of + the necessity of managing his affairs for him. He is not a broken + dam this time--he is the Flood! + +It must have been about this time that Clemens developed an intense, even +if a less permanent, interest in another matter which was to benefit the +species. He was one day walking up Fifth Avenue when he noticed the sign + + PROFESSOR LOISETTE + SCHOOL OF MEMORY + The Instantaneous Art of Never Forgetting + +Clemens went inside. When he came out he had all of Professor Loisette's +literature on "predicating correlation," and for the next several days +was steeping himself in an infusion of meaningless words and figures and +sentences and forms, which he must learn backward and forward and +diagonally, so that he could repeat them awake and asleep in order to +predicate his correlation to a point where remembering the ordinary facts +of life, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers, would be a mere +diversion. + +It was another case of learning the multitudinous details of the +Mississippi River in order to do the apparently simple thing of steering +a boat from New Orleans to St. Louis, and it is fair to say that, for the +time he gave it, he achieved a like success. He was so enthusiastic over +this new remedy for human distress that within a very brief time he was +sending out a printed letter recommending Loisette to the public at +large. Here is an extract: + + . . . I had no SYSTEM--and some sort of rational order of + procedure is, of course, necessary to success in any study. Well, + Loisette furnished me a system. I cannot undertake to say it is the + best, or the worst, because I don't know what the other systems are. + Loisette, among other cruelties, requires you to memorize a great + long string of words that, haven't any apparent connection or + meaning--there are perhaps 500 of these words, arranged in maniacal + lines of 6 to 8 or 9 words in each line--71 lines in all. Of course + your first impulse is to resign, but at the end of three or four + hours you find to your surprise that you've GOT them and can deliver + them backward or forward without mistake or hesitation. Now, don't + you see what a world of confidence that must necessarily breed?-- + confidence in a memory which before you wouldn't even venture to + trust with the Latin motto of the U. S. lest it mislay it and the + country suffer. + + Loisette doesn't make memories, he furnishes confidence in memories + that already exist. Isn't that valuable? Indeed it is to me. + Whenever hereafter I shall choose to pack away a thing properly in + that refrigerator I sha'n't be bothered with the aforetime doubts; I + shall know I'm going to find it sound and sweet when I go for it + again. + +Loisette naturally made the most of this advertising and flooded the +public with Mark Twain testimonials. But presently Clemens decided that +after all the system was not sufficiently simple to benefit the race at +large. He recalled his printed letters and prevailed upon Loisette to +suppress his circulars. Later he decided that the whole system was a +humbug. + + + + +CLXIII + +LETTER TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND + +It was one day in 1887 that Clemens received evidence that his reputation +as a successful author and publisher--a man of wealth and revenues--had +penetrated even the dimness of the British Tax Offices. A formidable +envelope came, inclosing a letter from his London publishers and a very +large printed document all about the income tax which the Queen's +officers had levied upon his English royalties as the result of a report +that he had taken Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year, and was to become +an English resident. The matter amused and interested him. To Chatto & +Windus he wrote: + + I will explain that all that about Buckenham Hall was an English + newspaper's mistake. I was not in England, and if I had been I + wouldn't have been at Buckenham Hall anyway, but Buckingham Palace, + or I would have endeavored to have found out the reason why . . . + + But we won't resist. We'll pay as if I were really a resident. The + country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me. + +Reflecting on the matter, Clemens decided to make literature of it. He +conceived the notion of writing an open letter to the Queen in the +character of a rambling, garrulous, but well-disposed countryman whose +idea was that her Majesty conducted all the business of the empire +herself. He began: + + HARTFORD, November 6, 2887. + + MADAM, You will remember that last May Mr. Edward Bright, the clerk + of the Inland Revenue Office, wrote me about a tax which he said was + due from me to the Government on books of mine published in London-- + that is to say, an income tax on the royalties. I do not know Mr. + Bright, and it is embarrassing to me to correspond with strangers, + for I was raised in the country and have always lived there, the + early part in Marion County, Missouri, before the war, and this part + in Hartford County, Connecticut, near Bloomfield and about 8 miles + this side of Farmington, though some call it 9, which it is + impossible to be, for I have walked it many and many a time in + considerably under three hours, and General Hawley says he has done + it in two and a quarter, which is not likely; so it has seemed best + that I write your Majesty. + +The letter proceeded to explain that he had never met her Majesty +personally, but that he once met her son, the Prince of Wales, in Oxford +Street, at the head of a procession, while he himself was on the top of +an omnibus. He thought the Prince would probably remember him on account +of a gray coat with flap pockets which he wore, he being the only person +on the omnibus who had on that kind of a coat. + +"I remember him," he said, "as easily as I would a comet." + +He explained the difficulty he had in understanding under what heading he +was taxed. There was a foot-note on the list which stated that he was +taxed under "Schedule D, section 14." He had turned to that place and +found these three things: "Trades, Offices, Gas Works." He did not +regard authorship as a trade, and he had no office, so he did not +consider that he was taxable under "Schedule D, section 14." The letter +concludes: + + Having thus shown your Majesty that I am not taxable, but am the + victim of the error of a clerk who mistakes the nature of my + commerce, it only remains for me to beg that you will, of your + justice, annul my letter that I spoke of, so that my publisher can + keep back that tax money which, in the confusion and aberration + caused by the Document, I ordered him to pay. You will not miss the + sum, but this is a hard year for authors, and as for lectures I do + not suppose your Majesty ever saw such a dull season. + + With always great and ever-increasing respect, I beg to sign myself + your Majesty's servant to command, + MARK TWAIN. + Her Majesty the Queen, London. + + +The letter, or "petition," as it was called, was published in the +Harper's Magazine "Drawer" (December, 1889), and is now included in the +"Complete Works." Taken as a whole it is one of the most exquisite of +Mark Twain's minor humors. What other humorist could have refrained from +hinting, at least, the inference suggested by the obvious "Gas Works"? +Yet it was a subtler art to let his old, simple-minded countryman ignore +that detail. The little skit was widely copied and reached the Queen +herself in due time, and her son, Prince Edward, who never forgot its +humor. + +Clemens read a notable paper that year before the Monday Evening Club. +Its subject was "Consistency"--political consistency--and in it he took +occasion to express himself pretty vigorously regarding the virtue of +loyalty to party before principle, as exemplified in the Blaine-Cleveland +campaign. It was in effect a scathing reply to those who, three years, +before, had denounced Twichell and himself for standing by their +convictions.--[ Characteristic paragraphs from this paper will be found +under Appendix R, at the end of last volume.] + + + + +CLXIV + +SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. + +Flood-tide is a temporary condition, and the ebb in the business of +Charles L. Webster & Co., though very deliberate, was not delayed in its +beginning. Most of the books published--the early ones at least-were +profitable. McClellan's memoirs paid, as did others of the war series. + +Even The Life of Pope Leo XIII. paid. What a statement to make, after +all their magnificent dreams and preparations! It was published +simultaneously in six languages. It was exploited in every conceivable +fashion, and its aggregate sales fell far short of the number which the +general agents had promised for their first orders. It was amazing, it +was incredible, but, alas! it was true. The prospective Catholic +purchaser had decided that the Pope's Life was not necessary to his +salvation or even to his entertainment. Howells explains it, to his own +satisfaction at least, when he says: + + We did not consider how often Catholics could not read, how often, + when they could, they might not wish to read. The event proved + that, whether they could read or not, the immeasurable majority did + not wish to read The Life of the Pope, though it was written by a + dignitary of the Church and issued to the world with sanction from + the Vatican. + +Howells, of course, is referring to the laboring Catholic of that day. +There are no Catholics of this day--no American Catholics, at least--who +do not read, and money among them has become plentiful. Perhaps had the +Pope's Life been issued in this new hour of enlightenment the tale of its +success might have been less sadly told. + +A variety of books followed. Henry Ward Beecher agreed to write an +autobiography, but he died just when he was beginning the work, and the +biography, which his family put together, brought only a moderate return. +A book of Sandwich Islands tales and legends, by his Hawaiian Majesty +King Kalakaua, edited by Clemens's old friend, Rollin M. Daggett, who had +become United States minister to the islands, barely paid for the cost of +manufacture, while a volume of reminiscences by General Hancock was still +less fortunate. The running expenses of the business were heavy. On the +strength of the Grant success Webster had moved into still larger +quarters at No. 3 East Fifteenth Street, and had a ground floor for a +salesroom. The force had become numerous and costly. It was necessary +that a book should pay largely to maintain this pretentious +establishment. A number of books were published at a heavy loss. Never +mind their titles; we may forget them, with the name of the bookkeeper +who presently embezzled thirty thousand dollars of the firm's money and +returned but a trifling sum. + +By the end of 1887 there were three works in prospect on which great +hopes were founded--'The Library of Humor', which Howells and Clark had +edited; a personal memoir of General Sheridan's, and a Library of +American Literature in ten volumes, compiled by Edmund Clarence Stedman +and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. It was believed these would restore the +fortunes and the prestige of the firm. They were all excellent, +attractive features. The Library of Humor was ably selected and +contained two hundred choice drawings by Kemble. The Sheridan Memoir was +finely written, and the public interest in it was bound to be general. +The Library of American Literature was a collection of the best American +writing, and seemed bound to appeal to every American reading-home. It +was necessary to borrow most of the money required to build these books, +for the profit made from the Grant Life and less fortunate ventures was +pretty well exhausted. Clemens presently found a little drift of his +notes accumulating at this bank and that--a disturbing condition, when he +remembered it, for he was financing the typesetting machine by this time, +and it was costing a pretty sum. + +Meantime, Webster was no longer active in the management. In two years +he had broken down from overwork, and was now desperately ill with an +acute neuralgia that kept him away from the business most of the time. +Its burdens had fallen upon his assistant, Fred J. Hall, a willing, +capable young man, persevering and hopeful, lacking only years and +experience. Hall worked like a beaver, and continually looked forward to +success. He explained, with each month's report of affairs, just why the +business had not prospered more during that particular month, and just +why its profits would be greater during the next. Webster finally +retired from the business altogether, and Hall was given a small +partnership in the firm. He reduced expenses, worked desperately, +pumping out the debts, and managed to keep the craft afloat. + +The Library of Humor, the Life of Sheridan, and The Library of American +Literature all sold very well; not so well as had been hoped, but the +sales yielded a fair profit. It was thought that if Clemens himself +would furnish a new book now and then the business might regain something +of its original standing. + +We may believe that Clemens had not been always patient, not always +gentle, during this process of decline. He had differed with Webster, +and occasionally had gone down and reconstructed things after his own +notions. Once he wrote to Orion that he had suddenly awakened to find +that there was no more system in the office than in a nursery without a +nurse. + +"But," he added, "I have spent a good deal of time there since, and +reduced everything to exact order and system." + +Just what were the new features of order instituted it would be +interesting to know. That the financial pressure was beginning to be +felt even in the Clemens home is shown by a Christmas letter to Mrs. +Moffett. + + HARTFORD, December 18, 1887. + +DEAR PAMELA,--Will you take this $15 & buy some candy or other trifle for +yourself & Sam & his wife to remind you that we remember you? + +If we weren't a little crowded this year by the type-setter I'd send a +check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like +that. However, we go on & on, but the type-setter goes on forever--at +$3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the +first 17 months, when the bill only averaged $2,000, & promised to take a +thousand years. We'll be through now in 3 or 4 months, I reckon, & then +the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether +success ensues or failure. + +Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped- +but it would take a long letter to explain why & who is to blame. + +All the family send love to all of you, & best Christmas wishes for your +prosperity. + +Affectionately, + +SAM. + + + + +CLXV + +LETTERS, VISITS, AND VISITORS + +There were many pleasanter things, to be sure. The farm life never +failed with each returning summer; the winters brought gay company and +fair occasions. Sir Henry and Lady Stanley, visiting. America, were +entertained in the Clemens home, and Clemens went on to Boston to +introduce Stanley to his lecture audience. Charles Dickens's son, with +his wife and daughter, followed a little later. An incident of their +visit seems rather amusing now. There is a custom in England which +requires the host to give the guest notice of bedtime by handing him a +lighted candle. Mrs. Clemens knew of this custom, but did not have the +courage to follow it in her own home, and the guests knew of no other way +to relieve the situation; as a result, all sat up much later than usual. +Eventually Clemens himself suggested that possibly the guests would like +to retire. + +Robert Louis Stevenson came down from Saranac, and Clemens went in to +visit him at his New York hotel, the St. Stevens, on East Eleventh +Street. Stevenson had orders to sit in the sunshine as much as possible, +and during the few days of their association he and Clemens would walk +down to Washington Square and sit on one of the benches and talk. They +discussed many things--philosophies, people, books; it seems a pity their +talk could not have been preserved. + +Stevenson was a great admirer of Mark Twain's work. He said that during +a recent painting of his portrait he had insisted on reading Huck Finn +aloud to the artist, a Frenchman, who had at first protested, and finally +had fallen a complete victim to Huck's yarn. In one of Stevenson's +letters to Clemens he wrote: + + My father, an old man, has been prevailed upon to read Roughing It + (his usual amusement being found in theology), and after one evening + spent with the book he declared: "I am frightened. It cannot be + safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much." + +What heaps of letters, by the way, remain from this time, and how curious +some of them are! Many of them are requests of one sort or another, +chiefly for money--one woman asking for a single day's income, +conservatively estimated at five thousand dollars. Clemens seldom +answered an unwarranted letter; but at one time he began a series of +unmailed answers--that is to say, answers in which he had let himself go +merely to relieve his feelings and to restore his spiritual balance. He +prepared an introduction for this series. In it he said: + + . . . You receive a letter. You read it. It will be tolerably + sure to produce one of three results: 1, pleasure; 2, displeasure; + 3, indifference. I do not need to say anything about Nos. 1 & 3; + everybody knows what to do with those breeds of letters; it is breed + No. 2 that I am after. It is the one that is loaded up with + trouble. + + When you get an exasperating letter what happens? If you are young + you answer it promptly, instantly--and mail the thing you have + written. At forty what do you do? By that time you have found out + that a letter written in a passion is a mistake in ninety-nine cases + out of a hundred; that it usually wrongs two persons, and always + wrongs one--yourself. You have grown weary of wronging yourself and + repenting; so you manacle, you fetter, you log-chain the frantic + impulse to write a pulverizing answer. You will wait a day or die. + But in the mean time what do you do? Why, if it is about dinner- + time, you sit at table in a deep abstraction all through the meal; + you try to throw it off and help do the talking; you get a start + three or four times, but conversation dies on your lips every time- + your mind isn't on it; your heart isn't in it. You give up, and + subside into a bottomless deep of silence, permanently; people must + speak to you two or three times to get your attention, and then say + it over again to make you understand. This kind of thing goes on + all the rest of the evening; nobody can interest you in anything; + you are useless, a depressing influence, a burden. You go to bed at + last; but at three in the morning you are as wide awake as you were + in the beginning. Thus we see what you have been doing for nine + hours--on the outside. But what were you doing on the inside? You + were writing letters--in your mind. And enjoying it, that is quite + true; that is not to be denied. You have been flaying your + correspondent alive with your incorporeal pen; you have been + braining him, disemboweling him, carving him into little bits, and + then--doing it all over again. For nine hours. + + It was wasted time, for you had no intention of putting any of this + insanity on paper and mailing it. Yes, you know that, and confess + it--but what were you to do? Where was your remedy? Will anybody + contend that a man can say to such masterful anger as that, Go, and + be obeyed? + + No, he cannot; that is certainly true. Well, then, what is he to + do? I will explain by the suggestion contained in my opening + paragraph. During the nine hours he has written as many as forty- + seven furious letters--in his mind. If he had put just one of them + on paper it would have brought him relief, saved him eight hours of + trouble, and given him an hour's red-hot pleasure besides. + + He is not to mail this letter; he understands that, and so he can + turn on the whole volume of his wrath; there is no harm. He is only + writing it to get the bile out. So to speak, he is a volcano: + imaging himself erupting does no good; he must open up his crater + and pour out in reality his intolerable charge of lava if he would + get relief. + + Before he has filled his first sheet sometimes the relief is there. + He degenerates into good-nature from that point. + + Sometimes the load is so hot and so great that one writes as many as + three letters before he gets down to a mailable one; a very angry + one, a less angry one, and an argumentative one with hot embers in + it here and there. He pigeonholes these and then does one of two + things--dismisses the whole matter from his mind or writes the + proper sort of letter and mails it. + + To this day I lose my balance and send an overwarm letter--or more + frequently telegram--two or three times a year. But that is better + than doing it a hundred times a year, as I used to do years ago. + Perhaps I write about as many as ever, but I pigeonhole them. They + ought not to be thrown away. Such a letter a year or so old is as + good as a sermon to the maw who wrote it. It makes him feel small + and shabby, but--well, that wears off. Any sermon does; but the + sermon does some little good, anyway. An old cold letter like that + makes you wonder how you could ever have got into such a rage about + nothing. + +The unmailed answers that were to accompany this introduction were +plentiful enough and generally of a fervent sort. One specimen will +suffice. It was written to the chairman of a hospital committee. + + DEAR SIR,--If I were Smithfield I would certainly go out and get + behind something and blush. According to your report, "the + politicians are afraid to tax the people for the support" of so + humane and necessary a thing as a hospital. And do your "people" + propose to stand that?--at the hands of vermin officials whom the + breath of their votes could blow out of official existence in a + moment if they had the pluck to band themselves together and blow. + Oh, come, these are not "people"--they are cowed school-boys with + backbones made of boiled macaroni. If you are not misreporting + those "people" you are just in the right business passing the + mendicant hat for them. Dear sir, communities where anything like + citizenship exists are accustomed to hide their shames, but here we + have one proposing to get up a great "exposition" of its dishonor + and advertise it all it can. + + It has been eleven years since I wrote anything for one of those + graveyards called a "Fair paper," and so I have doubtless lost the + knack of it somewhat; still I have done the best I could for you. + + This was from a burning heart and well deserved. One may almost + regret that he did not send it. + +Once he received a letter intended for one Samuel Clements, of Elma, New +York, announcing that the said Clements's pension had been allowed. But +this was amusing. When Clemens had forwarded the notice to its proper +destination he could not resist sending this comment to the commissioner +at Washington: + + DEAR SIR,--I have not applied for a pension. I have often wanted a + pension--often--ever so often--I may say, but in as much as the only + military service I performed during the war was in the Confederate + army, I have always felt a delicacy about asking you for it. + However, since you have suggested the thing yourself, I feel + strengthened. I haven't any very pensionable diseases myself, but I + can furnish a substitute--a man who is just simply a chaos, a museum + of all the different kinds of aches and pains, fractures, + dislocations and malformations there are; a man who would regard + "rheumatism and sore eyes" as mere recreation and refreshment after + the serious occupations of his day. If you grant me the pension, + dear sir, please hand it to General Jos. Hawley, United States + Senator--I mean hand him the certificate, not the money, and he will + forward it to me. You will observe by this postal-card which I + inclose that he takes a friendly interest in the matter. He thinks + I've already got the pension, whereas I've only got the rheumatism; + but didn't want that--I had that before. I wish it were catching. I + know a man that I would load up with it pretty early. Lord, but we + all feel that way sometimes. I've seen the day when but never mind + that; you may be busy; just hand it to Hawley--the certificate, you + understand, is not transferable. + +Clemens was in good standing at Washington during the Cleveland +administration, and many letters came, asking him to use his influence +with the President to obtain this or that favor. He always declined, +though once--a few years later, in Europe--when he learned that Frank +Mason, consul-general at Frankfort, was about to be displaced, Clemens, +of his own accord, wrote to Baby Ruth Cleveland about it. + + + MY DEAR RUTH, I belong to the Mugwumps, and one of the most sacred + rules of our order prevents us from asking favors of officials or + recommending men to office, but there is no harm in writing a + friendly letter to you and telling you that an infernal outrage is + about to be committed by your father in turning out of office the + best Consul I know (and I know a great many) just because he is a + Republican and a Democrat wants his place. + + He went on to recall Mason's high and honorable record, suggesting + that Miss Ruth take the matter into her own hands. Then he said: + + I can't send any message to the President, but the next time you + have a talk with him concerning such matters I wish you would tell + him about Captain Mason and what I think of a Government that so + treats its efficient officials. + +Just what form of appeal the small agent made is not recorded, but by and +by Mark Twain received a tiny envelope, postmarked Washington, inclosing +this note in President Cleveland's handwriting: + + Miss Ruth Cleveland begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Twain's + letter and say that she took the liberty of reading it to the + President, who desires her to thank Mr. Twain for her information, + and to say to him that Captain Mason will not be disturbed in the + Frankfort Consulate. The President also desires Miss Cleveland to + say that if Mr. Twain knows of any other cases of this kind he will + be greatly obliged if he will write him concerning them at his + earliest convenience. + +Clemens immensely admired Grover Cleveland, also his young wife, and his +visits to Washington were not infrequent. Mrs. Clemens was not always +able to accompany him, and he has told us how once (it was his first +visit after the President's marriage) she put a little note in the pocket +of his evening waistcoat, which he would be sure to find when dressing, +warning him about his deportment. Being presented to Mrs. Cleveland, he +handed her a card on which he had written "He didn't," and asked her to +sign her name below those words. Mrs. Cleveland protested that she +couldn't sign it unless she knew what it was he hadn't done; but he +insisted, and she promised to sign if he would tell her immediately +afterward all about it. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. Clemens's +note, which was very brief. It said: + +"Don't wear your arctics in the White House." + +Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card she had signed +mailed at once to Mrs. Clemens at Hartford. + +He was not always so well provided against disaster. Once, without +consulting his engagements, he agreed to assist Mrs. Cleveland at a +dedication, only to find that he must write an apology later. In his +letter he said: + + I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this house of + ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run + itself without the help of the major half it gets aground. + +He explained his position, and added: + + I suppose the President often acts just like that; goes and makes an + impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next to + impossible to break it up and set things straight again. Well, that + is just our way exactly--one-half the administration always busy + getting the family into trouble and the other half busy getting it + out. + + + + +CLVXI + +A "PLAYER" AND A MASTER OF ARTS + +One morning early in January Clemens received the following note: + + + DALY'S THEATER, NEW YORK, January 2, 1888. + + Mr. Augustin Daly will be very much pleased to have Mr. S. L. + Clemens meet Mr. Booth, Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Palmer and a few + friends at lunch on Friday next, January 6th (at one o'clock in + Delmonico's), to discuss the formation of a new club which it is + thought will claim your (sic) interest. + + R. S. V. P. + + +There were already in New York a variety of literary and artistic +societies, such as The Kinsmen and Tile clubs, with which Clemens was +more or less associated. It was proposed now to form a more +comprehensive and pretentious organization--one that would include the +various associated arts. The conception of this new club, which was to +be called The Players, had grown out of a desire on the part of Edwin +Booth to confer some enduring benefit upon the members of his profession. +It had been discussed during a summer cruise on Mr. E. C. Benedict's +steam-yacht by a little party which, besides the owner, consisted of +Booth himself, Aldrich, Lawrence Barrett, William Bispham, and Laurence +Hutton. Booth's original idea had been to endow some sort of an actors' +home, but after due consideration this did not appear to be the best +plan. Some one proposed a club, and Aldrich, with never-failing +inspiration, suggested its name, The Players, which immediately impressed +Booth and the others. It was then decided that members of all the +kindred arts should be admitted, and this was the plan discussed and +perfected at the Daly luncheon. The guests became charter members, and +The Players became an incorporated fact early in January, 1888. +--[Besides Mr. Booth himself, the charter members were: Lawrence Barrett, +William Bispham, Samuel L. Clemens, Augustin Daly, Joseph F. Daly, John +Drew, Henry Edwards, Laurence Hutton, Joseph Jefferson, John A. Lane, +James Lewis, Brander Matthews, Stephen H. Olin, A. M. Palmer, and William +T. Sherman.]--Booth purchased the fine old brownstone residence at 16 +Gramercy Park, and had expensive alterations made under the directions of +Stanford White to adapt it for club purposes. He bore the entire cost, +furnished it from garret to cellar, gave it his books and pictures, his +rare collections of every sort. Laurence Hutton, writing of it +afterward, said: + +And on the first Founder's Night, the 31st of December, 1888, he +transferred it all to the association, a munificent gift; absolutely +without parallel in its way. The pleasure it gave to Booth during the +few remaining years of his life was very great. He made it his home. +Next to his own immediate family it was his chief interest, care, and +consolation. He nursed and petted it, as it nursed and petted and +honored him. He died in it. And it is certainly his greatest monument. + +There is no other club quite like The Players. The personality of Edwin +Booth pervades it, and there is a spirit in its atmosphere not found in +other large clubs--a spirit of unity, and ancient friendship, and +mellowness which usually come only of small membership and long +establishment. Mark Twain was always fond of The Players, and more than +once made it his home. It is a true home, and its members are a genuine +brotherhood. + +It was in June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Samuel Clemens the +degree of Master of Arts. It was his first honor of this kind, and he +was proud of it. To Charles Hopkins ("Charley") Clark, who had been +appointed to apprise him of the honor, he wrote: + + I felt mighty proud of that degree; in fact I could squeeze the + truth a little closer and say vain of it. And why shouldn't I be? + I am the only literary animal of my particular subspecies who has + ever been given a degree by any college in any age of the world as + far as I know. + +To which Clark answered: + + MY DEAR FRIEND, You are "the only literary animal of your particular + subspecies" in existence, and you've no cause for humility in the + fact. Yale has done herself at least as much credit as she has done + you, and "don't you forget it." + C. H. C. + +Clemens could not attend the alumni dinner, being at Elmira and unable to +get away, but in an address he made at Yale College later in the year he +thus freely expressed himself: + + I was sincerely proud and grateful to be made a Master of Arts by + this great and venerable University, and I would have come last June + to testify this feeling, as I do now testify it, but that the sudden + and unexpected notice of the honor done me found me at a distance + from home and unable to discharge that duty and enjoy that + privilege. + + Along at first, say for the first month or so, I, did not quite know + hove to proceed because of my not knowing just what authorities and + privileges belonged to the title which had been granted me, but + after that I consulted some students of Trinity--in Hartford--and + they made everything clear to me. It was through them that I found + out that my title made me head of the Governing Body of the + University, and lodged in me very broad and severely responsible + powers. + + I was told that it would be necessary to report to you at this time, + and of course I comply, though I would have preferred to put it off + till I could make a better showing; for indeed I have been so + pertinaciously hindered and obstructed at every turn by the faculty + that it would be difficult to prove that the University is really in + any better shape now than it was when I first took charge. By + advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I + told the Greek professor I had concluded to drop the use of Greek- + written character because it is so hard to spell with, and so + impossible to read after you get it spelt. Let us draw the curtain + there. I saw by what followed that nothing but early neglect saved + him from being a very profane man. I ordered the professor of + mathematics to simplify the whole system, because the way it was I + couldn't understand it, and I didn't want things going on in the + college in what was practically a clandestine fashion. I told him + to drop the conundrum system; it was not suited to the dignity of a + college, which should deal in facts, not guesses and suppositions; + we didn't want any more cases of if A and B stand at opposite poles + of the earth's surface and C at the equator of Jupiter, at what + variations of angle will the left limb of the moon appear to these + different parties?--I said you just let that thing alone; it's + plenty time to get in a sweat about it when it happens; as like as + not it ain't going to do any harm, anyway. His reception of these + instructions bordered on insubordination, insomuch that I felt + obliged to take his number and report him. I found the astronomer + of the University gadding around after comets and other such odds + and ends--tramps and derelicts of the skies. I told him pretty + plainly that we couldn't have that. I told him it was no economy to + go on piling up and piling up raw material in the way of new stars + and comets and asteroids that we couldn't ever have any use for till + we had worked off the old stock. At bottom I don't really mind + comets so much, but somehow I have always been down on asteroids. + There is nothing mature about them; I wouldn't sit up nights the way + that man does if I could get a basketful of them. He said it was + the bast line of goods he had; he said he could trade them to + Rochester for comets, and trade the comets to Harvard for nebulae, + and trade the nebula to the Smithsonian for flint hatchets. I felt + obliged to stop this thing on the spot; I said we couldn't have the + University turned into an astronomical junk shop. And while I was + at it I thought I might as well make the reform complete; the + astronomer is extraordinarily mutinous, and so, with your approval, + I will transfer him to the law department and put one of the law + students in his place. A boy will be more biddable, more tractable, + also cheaper. It is true he cannot be intrusted with important work + at first, but he can comb the skies for nebulae till he gets his + hand in. I have other changes in mind, but as they are in the + nature of surprises I judge it politic to leave them unspecified at + this time. + +Very likely it was in this new capacity, as the head of the governing +body, that he wrote one morning to Clark advising him as to the misuse of +a word in the Courant, though he thought it best to sign the +communication with the names of certain learned friends, to give it +weight with the public, as he afterward explained. + + SIR,--The word "patricide" in your issue of this morning (telegrams) + was an error. You meant it to describe the slayer of a father; you + should have used "parricide" instead. Patricide merely means the + killing of an Irishman--any Irishman, male or female. + + Respectfully, + J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL. + N. J. BURTON. + J. H. TWICHELL. + + + + +CLXVII + +NOTES AND LITERARY MATTERS + +Clemens' note-books of this time are full of the vexations of his +business ventures, figures, suggestions, and a hundred imagined +combinations for betterment--these things intermingled with the usual +bits of philosophy and reflections, and amusing reminders. + + Aldrich's man who painted the fat toads red, and naturalist chasing + and trying to catch them. + + Man who lost his false teeth over Brooklyn Bridge when he was on his + way to propose to a widow. + + One believes St. Simon and Benvenuto and partly believes the + Margravine of Bayreuth. There are things in the confession of + Rousseau which one must believe. + + What is biography? Unadorned romance. What is romance? Adorned + biography. Adorn it less and it will be better than it is. + + If God is what people say there can be none in the universe so + unhappy as he; for he sees unceasingly myriads of his creatures + suffering unspeakable miseries, and, besides this, foresees all they + are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might + well say "as unhappy as God." + +In spite of the financial complexities and the drain of the enterprises +already in hand he did not fail to conceive others. He was deeply +interested in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress at the moment, and from +photography and scenic effect he presaged a possibility to-day realized +in the moving picture. + +Dress up some good actors as Apollyon, Greatheart, etc., & the other +Bunyan characters, take them to a wild gorge and photograph them--Valley +of the Shadow of Death; to other effective places & photo them along with +the scenery; to Paris, in their curious costumes, place them near the Arc +de l'Etoile & photo them with the crowd-Vanity Fair; to Cairo, Venice, +Jerusalem, & other places (twenty interesting cities) & always make them +conspicuous in the curious foreign crowds by their costume. Take them to +Zululand. It would take two or three years to do the photographing & +cost $10,000; but this stereopticon panorama of Bunyan's Pilgrim's +Progress could be exhibited in all countries at the same time & would +clear a fortune in a year. By & by I will do this. + + If in 1891 I find myself not rich enough to carry out my scheme of + buying Christopher Columbus's bones & burying them under the Statue + of Liberty Enlightening the World I will give the idea to somebody + who is rich enough. + +Incidentally he did an occasional piece of literary work. Early in the +year, with Brander Matthews, he instructed and entertained the public +with a copyright controversy in the Princeton Review. Matthews would +appear to have criticized the English copyright protection, or rather the +lack of it, comparing it unfavorably with American conditions. Clemens, +who had been amply protected in Great Britain, replied that America was +in no position to criticize England; that if American authors suffered in +England they had themselves to blame for not taking the proper trouble +and precautions required by the English law, that is to say, "previous +publication" on English soil. He declared that his own books had been as +safe in England as at home since he had undertaken to comply with English +requirements, and that Professor Matthews was altogether mistaken, both +as to premise and conclusion. + +"You are the very wrong-headedest person in America," he said; "and you +are injudicious." And of the article: "I read it to the cat--well, I +never saw a cat carry on so before . . . . The American author can go +to Canada, spend three days there and come home with an English and +American copyright as strong as if it had been built out of railroad +iron." + +Matthews replied that not every one could go to Canada, any more than to +Corinth. He said: + +"It is not easy for a poor author who may chance to live in Florida or +Texas, those noted homes of literature, to go to Canada." + +Clemens did not reply again; that is to say, he did not publish his +reply. It was a capable bomb which he prepared, well furnished with +amusing instance, sarcasm, and ridicule, but he did not use it. Perhaps +he was afraid it would destroy his opponent, which would not do. In his +heart he loved Matthews. He laid the deadly thing away and maintained a +dignified reserve. + +Clemens often felt called upon to criticize American institutions, but he +was first to come to their defense, especially when the critic was an +alien. When Matthew Arnold offered some strictures on America. Clemens +covered a good many quires of paper with caustic replies. He even +defended American newspapers, which he had himself more than once +violently assailed for misreporting him and for other journalistic +shortcomings, and he bitterly denounced every shaky British institution, +touched upon every weak spot in hereditary rule. He did not print--not +then--[An article on the American press, probably the best of those +prepared at this time, was used, in part, in The American Claimant, as +the paper read before the Mechanics' Club, by "Parker," assistant editor +of the 'Democrat'.]--he was writing mainly for relief--without success, +however, for he only kindled the fires of his indignation. He was at +Quarry Farm and he plunged into his neglected story--A Yankee in King +Arthur's Court--and made his astonishing hero the mouthpiece of his +doctrines. He worked with an inspiration and energy born of his +ferocity. To Whitmore, near the end of the summer, he wrote: + +I've got 16 working-days left yet, and in that time I will add another +120,000 words to my book if I have luck. + +In his memoranda of this time he says: + + There was never a throne which did not represent a crime. There is + no throne to-day which does not represent a crime .... + +Show me a lord and I will show you a man whom you couldn't tell from a +journeyman shoemaker if he were stripped, and who, in all that is worth +being, is the shoemaker's inferior; and in the shoemaker I will show you +a dull animal, a poor-spirited insect; for there are enough of him to +rise and chuck the lords and royalties into the sea where they belong, +and he doesn't do it. + +But his violence waned, maybe, for he did not finish the Yankee in the +sixteen days as planned. He brought the manuscript back to Hartford, but +found it hard work there, owing to many interruptions. He went over to +Twichell's and asked for a room where he might work in seclusion. They +gave him a big upper chamber, but some repairs were going on below. From +a letter written to Theodore Crane we gather that it was not altogether +quiet. + + Friday, October 5, 1888. + + DEAR THEO, I am here in Twichell's house at work, with the noise of + the children and an army of carpenters to help: Of course they don't + help, but neither do they hinder. It's like a boiler factory for + racket, and in nailing a wooden ceiling on to the room under me the + hammering tickles my feet amazingly sometimes and jars my table a + good deal, but I never am conscious of the racket at all, and I move + my feet into positions of relief without knowing when I do it. I + began here Monday morning, and have done eighty pages since. I was + so tired last night that I thought I would lie abed and rest to-day; + but I couldn't resist. I mean to try to knock off tomorrow, but + it's doubtful if I do. I want to finish the day the machine + finishes, and a week ago the closest calculations for that indicated + Oct. 22--but experience teaches me that the calculations will miss + fire as usual. + + The other day the children were projecting a purchase, Livy and I to + furnish the money--a dollar and a half. Jean discouraged the idea. + She said, "We haven't got any money. Children, if you would think, + you would remember the machine isn't done." + + It's billiards to-night. I wish you were here. + + With love to you both, S. L. C. + + P. S. I got it all wrong. It wasn't the children, it was Marie. + She wanted a box of blacking for the children's shoes. Jean + reproved her and said, "Why, Marie, you mustn't ask for things now. + The machine isn't done." + +Neither the Yankee nor the machine was completed that fall, though +returns from both were beginning to be badly needed. The financial pinch +was not yet severe, but it was noticeable, and it did not relax. + +A memorandum of this time tells of an anniversary given to Charles and +Susan Warner in their own home. The guests assembled at the Clemens +home, the Twichells among them, and slipped across to Warner's, entering +through a window. Dinner was then announced to the Warners, who were +sitting by their library fire. They came across the hall and opened the +dining-room door, to be confronted by a table fully spread and lighted +and an array of guests already seated. + + + + +CLXVIII + +INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY AND OTHERS + +It was the winter (1888-89) that the Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley +entertainment combination set out on its travels. Mark Twain introduced +them to their first Boston audience. Major J. B. Pond was exploiting Nye +and Riley, and Clemens went on to Boston especially to hear them. Pond +happened upon him in the lobby of the Parker House and insisted that +nothing would do but he must introduce them. In his book of memories +which he published later Pond wrote: + +He replied that he believed I was his mortal enemy, and determined that +he should never have an evening's enjoyment in my presence. He +consented, however, and conducted his brother-humorist and the Hoosier +poet to the platform. Mark's presence was a surprise to the audience, +and when they recognized him the demonstration was tremendous. The +audience rose in a body, and men and women shouted at the very top of +their voices. Handkerchiefs waved, the organist even opened every forte +key and pedal in the great organ, and the noise went on unabated for +minutes. It took some time for the crowd to get down to listening, but +when they did subside, as Mark stepped to the front, the silence was as +impressive as the noise had been. + +He presented the Nye-Riley pair as the Siamese Twins. "I saw them +first," he sand, "a great many years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them, and +they were just fresh from Siam. The ligature was their best hold then, +but literature became their best hold later, when one of them committed +an indiscretion, and they had to cut the old bond to accommodate the +sheriff." + +He continued this comic fancy, and the audience was in a proper frame of +mind, when he had finished, to welcome the "Twins of Genius" who were to +entertain them: + +Pond says: + +It was a carnival of fun in every sense of the word. Bostonians will not +have another such treat in this generation. + +Pond proposed to Clemens a regular tour with Nye and Riley. He wrote: + + I will go partners with you, and I will buy Nye and Riley's time and + give an entertainment something like the one we gave in Boston. Let + it be announced that you will introduce the "Twins of Genius." + Ostensibly a pleasure trip for you. I will take one-third of the + profits and you two-thirds. I can tell you it will be the biggest + thing that can be brought before the American public. + +But Clemens, badly as he was beginning to need the money, put this +temptation behind him. His chief diversion these days was in gratuitous +appearances. He had made up his mind not to read or lecture again for +pay, but he seemed to take a peculiar enjoyment in doing these things as +a benefaction. That he was beginning to need the money may have added a +zest to the joy of his giving. He did not respond to all invitations; he +could have been traveling constantly had he done so. He consulted with +Mrs. Clemens and gave himself to the cause that seemed most worthy. In +January Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston was billed to give a reading with +Thomas Nelson Page in Baltimore. Page's wife fell ill and died, and +Colonel Johnston, in extremity, wired Charles Dudley Warner to come in +Page's place. Warner, unable to go, handed the invitation to Clemens, +who promptly wired that he would come. They read to a packed house, and +when the audience was gone and the returns had been counted an equal +division of the profits was handed to each of the authors. Clemens +pushed his share over to Johnston, saying: + +"That's yours, Colonel. I'm not reading for money these days." + +Colonel Johnston, to whom the sum was important, tried to thank him, but +he only said: + +"Never mind, Colonel, it only gave me pleasure to do you that little +favor. You can pass it on some day." + +As a matter of fact, hard put to it as he was for funds, Clemens at this +time regarded himself as a potential multi-millionaire. The type-setting +machine which for years had been sapping his financial strength was +believed to be perfected, and ship-loads of money were waiting in the +offing. However, we shall come to this later. + +Clemens read for the cadets at West Point and for a variety of +institutions and on many special occasions. He usually gave chapters +from his Yankee, now soon to be finished, chapters generally beginning +with the Yankee's impression of the curious country and its people, +ending with the battle of the Sun-belt, when the Yankee and his fifty- +four adherents were masters of England, with twenty-five thousand dead +men lying about them. He gave this at West Point, including the chapter +where the Yankee has organized a West Point of his own in King Arthur's +reign. + +In April, '89, he made an address at a dinner given to a victorious +baseball team returning from a tour of the world by way of the Sandwich +Islands. He was on familiar ground there. His heart was in his words. +He began: + + I have been in the Sandwich Islands-twenty-three years ago--that + peaceful land, that beautiful land, that far-off home of solitude, + and soft idleness, and repose, and dreams, where life is one long + slumberous Sabbath, the climate one long summer day, and the good + that die experience no change, for they but fall asleep in one + heaven and wake up in another. And these boys have played baseball + there!--baseball, which is the very symbol, the outward and visible + expression, of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the + living, tearing, booming nineteenth, the mightiest of all the + centuries! + +He told of the curious island habits for his hearers' amusement, but at +the close the poetry of his memories once more possessed him: + + Ah, well, it is refreshment to the jaded, it is water to the + thirsty, to look upon men who have so lately breathed the soft air + of those Isles of the Blest and had before their eyes the + inextinguishable vision of their beauty. No alien land in all the + earth has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land + could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and + waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things + leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the + same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas + flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf is in my ear; I can see + its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing + by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the + cloud-rack; I can feel the spirit of its woody solitudes, I hear the + plashing of the brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of + flowers that perished twenty years ago. + + + + +CLXIX + +THE COMING OF KIPLING + +It was the summer of 1889 that Mark Twain first met Rudyard Kipling. +Kipling was making his tour around the world, a young man wholly unheard +of outside of India. He was writing letters home to an Indian journal, +The Pioneer, and he came to Elmira especially to see Mark Twain. It was +night when he arrived, and next morning some one at the hotel directed +him to Quarry Farm. In a hired hack he made his way out through the +suburbs, among the buzzing planing-mills and sash factories, and toiled +up the long, dusty, roasting east hill, only to find that Mark Twain was +at General Langdon's, in the city he had just left behind. Mrs. Crane +and Susy Clemens were the only ones left at the farm, and they gave him a +seat on the veranda and brought him glasses of water or cool milk while +he refreshed them with his talk-talk which Mark Twain once said might be +likened to footprints, so strong and definite was the impression which it +left behind. He gave them his card, on which the address was Allahabad, +and Susy preserved it on that account, because to her India was a +fairyland, made up of magic, airy architecture, and dark mysteries. +Clemens once dictated a memory of Kipling's visit. + + Kipling had written upon the card a compliment to me. This gave it + an additional value in Susy's eyes, since, as a distinction, it was + the next thing to being recognized by a denizen of the moon. + + Kipling came down that afternoon and spent a couple of hours with + me, and at the end of that time I had surprised him as much as he + had surprised me--and the honors were easy. I believed that he knew + more than any person I had met before, and I knew that he knew that + I knew less than any person he had met before--though he did not say + it, and I was not expecting that he would. When he was gone Mrs. + Langdon wanted to know about my visitor. I said: + + "He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man--and I am + the other one. Between us we cover all knowledge; he knows all that + can be known, and I know the rest." + + He was a stranger to me and to all the world, and remained so for + twelve months, then he became suddenly known, and universally known. + From that day to this he has held this unique distinction--that of + being the only living person, not head of a nation, whose voice is + heard around the world the moment it drops a remark; the only such + voice in existence that does not go by slow ship and rail, but + always travels first-class--by cable. + + About a year after Kipling's visit in Elmira George Warner came into + our library one morning in Hartford with a small book in his hand + and asked me if I had ever heard of Rudyard Kipling. I said, "No." + + He said I would hear of him very soon, and that the noise he was + going to make would be loud and continuous. The little book was the + Plain Tales, and he left it for me to read, saying it was charged + with a new and inspiriting fragrance, and would blow a refreshing + breath around the world that would revive the nations. A day or two + later he brought a copy of the London World which had a sketch of + Kipling in it, and a mention of the fact that he had traveled in the + United States. According to this sketch he had passed through + Elmira. This remark, with the additional fact that he hailed from + India, attracted my attention--also Susy's. She went to her room + and brought his card from its place in the frame of her mirror, and + the Quarry Farm visitor stood identified. + +Kipling also has left an account of that visit. In his letter recording +it he says: + + You are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are + Commissioners and some are Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the + V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm + with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, + have shaken his hand and smoked a cigar--no, two cigars--with him, + and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly + that I do not despise you; indeed, I don't. I am only very sorry + for you, from the Viceroy downward. + + A big, darkened drawing-room; a huge chair; a man with eyes, a mane + of grizzled hair, a brown mustache covering a mouth as delicate as a + woman's, a strong, square hand shaking mine, and the slowest, + calmest, levelest voice in all the world saying: + + "Well, you think you owe me something, and you've come to tell me + so. That's what I call squaring a debt handsomely." + + "Piff!" from a cob-pipe (I always said that a Missouri meerschaum + was the best smoking in the world), and behold! Mark Twain had + curled himself up in the big arm-chair, and I was smoking + reverently, as befits one in the presence of his superior. + + The thing that struck me first was that he was an elderly man; yet, + after a minute's thought, I perceived that it was otherwise, and in + five minutes, the eyes looking at me, I saw that the gray hair was + an accident of the most trivial. He was quite young. I was shaking + his hand. I was smoking his cigar, and I was hearing him talk--this + man I had learned to love and admire fourteen thousand miles away. + + Reading his books, I had striven to get an idea of his personality, + and all my preconceived notions were wrong and beneath the reality. + Blessed is the man who finds no disillusion when he is brought face + to face with a revered writer. + +The meeting of those two men made the summer of '89 memorable in later +years. But it was recalled sadly, too. Theodore Crane, who had been +taken suddenly and dangerously ill the previous autumn, had a recurring +attack and died July 3d. It was the first death in the immediate +families for more than seventeen years, Mrs. Clemens, remembering that +earlier period of sorrow, was depressed with forebodings. + + + + + +CLXX + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" ON THE STAGE + +There was an unusual dramatic interest in the Clemens home that autumn. +Abby Sage Richardson had dramatized 'The Prince and the Pauper', and +Daniel Frohman had secured Elsie Leslie (Lyde) to take the double role of +the Prince and Tom Canty. The rehearsals were going on, and the Clemens +children were naturally a good deal excited over the outcome. Susy +Clemens was inspired to write a play of her own--a pretty Greek fancy, +called "The Triumph of Music," and when it was given on Thanksgiving +night, by herself, with Clara and Jean and Margaret Warner, it was really +a lovely performance, and carried one back to the days when emotions were +personified, and nymphs haunted the seclusions of Arcady. Clemens was +proud of Susy's achievement, and deeply moved by it. He insisted on +having the play repeated, and it was given again later in the year. + +Pretty Elsie Leslie became a favorite of the Clemens household. She was +very young, and when she visited Hartford Jean and she were companions +and romped together in the hay-loft. She was also a favorite of William +Gillette. One day when Clemens and Gillette were together they decided +to give the little girl a surprise--a unique one. They agreed to +embroider a pair of slippers for her--to do the work themselves. Writing +to her of it, Mark Twain said: + + Either one of us could have thought of a single slipper, but it took + both of us to think of two slippers. In fact, one of us did think + of one slipper, and then, quick as a flash, the other of the other + one. It shows how wonderful the human mind is.... + + Gillette embroidered his slipper with astonishing facility and + splendor, but I have been a long time pulling through with mine. + You see, it was my very first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly + get the hang of it along at first. And then I was so busy that I + couldn't get a chance to work at it at home, and they wouldn't let + me embroider on the cars; they said it made the other passengers + afraid. They didn't like the light that flared into my eye when I + had an inspiration. And even the most fair-minded people doubted me + when I explained what it was I was making--especially brakemen. + Brakemen always swore at it and carried on, the way ignorant people + do about art. They wouldn't take my word that it was a slipper; + they said they believed it was a snow-shoe that had some kind of + disease. + +He went on to explain and elucidate the pattern of the slipper, and how +Dr. Root had come in and insisted on taking a hand in it, and how +beautiful it was to see him sit there and tell Mrs. Clemens what had been +happening while they were away during the summer, holding the slipper up +toward the end of his nose, imagining the canvas was a "subject" with a +scalp-wound, working with a "lovely surgical stitch," never hesitating a +moment in his talk except to say "Ouch!" when he stuck himself with the +needle. + + Take the slippers and wear them next your heart, Elsie dear; for + every stitch in them is a testimony of the affection which two of + your loyalest friends bear you. Every single stitch cost us blood. + I've got twice as many pores in me now as I used to have; and you + would never believe how many places you can stick a needle in + yourself until you go into the embroidery line and devote yourself + to art. + + Do not wear these slippers in public, dear; it would only excite + envy; and, as like as not, somebody would try to shoot you. + + Merely use them to assist you in remembering that among the many, + many people who think all the world of you is your friend, + + MARK TWAIN. + + +The play of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by Mrs. Richardson +and arranged for the stage by David Belasco, was produced at the Park +Theater, Philadelphia, on Christmas Eve. It was a success, but not a +lavish one. The play was well written and staged, and Elsie Leslie was +charming enough in her parts, but in the duality lay the difficulty. The +strongest scenes in the story had to be omitted when one performer played +both Tom Canty and the little Prince. The play came to New York--to the +Broadway Theater--and was well received. On the opening night there Mark +Twain made a speech, in which he said that the presentation of "The +Prince and the Pauper" realized a dream which fifteen years before had +possessed him all through a long down-town tramp, amid the crowds and +confusion of Broadway. In Elsie Leslie, he said, he had found the +embodiment of his dream, and to her he offered homage as the only prince +clothed in a divine right which was not rags and sham--the divine right +of an inborn supremacy in art. + +It seems incredible to-day that, realizing the play's possibilities as +Mark Twain did, and as Belasco and Daniel Frohman must have done, they +did not complete their partial triumph by finding another child actress +to take the part of Tom Canty. Clemens urged and pleaded with them, but +perhaps the undertaking seemed too difficult--at all events they did not +find the little beggar king. Then legal complications developed. Edward +House, to whom Clemens had once given a permission to attempt a +dramatization of the play, suddenly appeared with a demand for +recognition, backed by a lawsuit against all those who had a proprietary +interest in the production. House, with his adopted Japanese daughter +Koto, during a period of rheumatism and financial depression, had made a +prolonged visit in the Clemens home and originally undertook the +dramatization as a sort of return for hospitality. He appears not to +have completed it and to have made no arrangement for its production or +to have taken any definite step until Mrs. Richardson's play was +profitably put on; whereupon his suit and injunction. + +By the time a settlement of this claim had been reached the play had run +its course, and it was not revived in that form. It was brought out in +England, where it was fairly prosperous, though it seems not to have been +long continued. Variously reconstructed, it has occasionally been played +since, and always, when the parts of Tom Canty and the Prince were +separate, with great success. Why this beautiful drama should ever be +absent from the boards is one of the unexplainable things. It is a play +for all times and seasons, the difficulty of obtaining suitable "twin" +interpreters for the characters of the Prince and the Pauper being its +only drawback. + + + + +CLXXI + +"A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT" + +From every point of view it seemed necessary to make the 'Yankee in King +Arthur's Court' an important and pretentious publication. It was Mark +Twain's first book after a silence of five years; it was a book badly +needed by his publishing business with which to maintain its prestige and +profit; it was a book which was to come out of his maturity and present +his deductions, as to humanity at large and kings in particular, to a +waiting public. It was determined to spare no expense on the +manufacture, also that its illustrations must be of a sort to illuminate +and, indeed, to elaborate the text. Clemens had admired some pictures +made by Daniel Carter ("Dan") Beard for a Chinese story in the +Cosmopolitan, and made up his mind that Beard was the man for the Yankee. +The manuscript was sent to Beard, who met Clemens a little later in the +office of Webster & Co. to discuss the matter. Clemens said: + +"Mr. Beard, I do not want to subject you to any undue suffering, but I +wish you would read the book before you make the pictures." + +Beard replied that he had already read it twice. + +"Very good," Clemens said; "but I wasn't led to suppose that that was the +usual custom among illustrators, judging from some results I have seen. +You know," he went on, "this Yankee of mine has neither the refinement +nor the weakness of a college education; he is a perfect ignoramus; he is +boss of a machine shop; he can build a locomotive or a Colt's revolver, +he can put up and run a telegraph line, but he's an ignoramus, +nevertheless. I am not going to tell you what to draw. If a man comes +to me and says, 'Mr. Clemens, I want you to write me a story,' I'll write +it for him; but if he undertakes to tell me what to write I'll say, 'Go +hire a typewriter.'" + +To Hall a few days later he wrote: + + Tell Beard to obey his own inspirations, and when he sees a picture + in his mind put that picture on paper, be it humorous or be it + serious. I want his genius to be wholly unhampered. I sha'n't have + any fear as to results. + +Without going further it is proper to say here that the pictures in the +first edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court justified +the author's faith in the artist of his selection. They are far and away +Dan Beard's best work. The socialism of the text strongly appealed to +him. Beard himself had socialistic tendencies, and the work inspired him +to his highest flights of fancy and to the acme of his technic. Clemens +examined the pictures from time to time, and once was moved to write: + + My pleasure in them is as strong and as fresh as ever. I do not + know of any quality they lack. Grace, dignity, poetry, spirit, + imagination, these enrich them and make them charming and beautiful; + and wherever humor appears it is high and fine--easy, unforced, kept + under, masterly, and delicious. + +He went on to describe his appreciation in detail, and when the drawings +were complete he wrote again: + + Hold me under permanent obligations. What luck it was to find you! + There are hundreds of artists who could illustrate any other book of + mine, but there was only one who could illustrate this one. Yes, it + was a fortunate hour that I went netting for lightning-bugs and + caught a meteor. Live forever! + +This was not too much praise. Beard realized the last shade of the +author's allegorical intent and portrayed it with a hundred accents which +the average reader would otherwise be likely to miss. + +Clemens submitted his manuscript to Howells and to Stedman, and he read +portions of it, at least, to Mrs. Clemens, whose eyes were troubling her +so that she could not read for herself. Stedman suggested certain +eliminations, but, on the whole, would seem to have approved of the book. +Howells was enthusiastic. It appealed to him as it had appealed to +Beard. Its sociology and its socialism seemed to him the final word that +could be said on those subjects. When he had partly finished it he +wrote: + + It's a mighty great book and it makes my heart, burn with wrath. It + seems that God didn't forget to put a soul in you. He shuts most + literary men off with a brain, merely. + +A few days later he wrote again: + + The book is glorious-simply noble. What masses of virgin truth + never touched in print before! + +And when he had finished it: + + Last night I read your last chapter. As Stedman says of the whole + book, it's titanic. + +Clemens declared, in one of his replies to Howells: + + I'm not writing for those parties who miscall themselves critics, + and I don't care to have them paw the book at all. It's my swan + song, my retirement from literature permanently, and I wish to pass + to the cemetery unclodded . . . . Well, my book is written--let + it go, but if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so + many things left out. They burn in me; they keep multiplying and + multiplying, but now they can't ever be said; and besides they would + require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell. + +In another letter of this time to Sylvester Baxter, apropos of the +tumbling Brazilian throne, he wrote: + + When our great brethren, the disenslaved Brazilians, frame their + declaration of independence I hope they will insert this missing + link: "We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all monarchs + are usurpers and descendants of usurpers, for the reason that no + throne was ever set up in this world by the will, freely exercised, + of the only body possessing the legitimate right to set it up--the + numerical mass of the nation." + +He was full of it, as he had been all along, and 'A Connecticut Yankee in +King Arthur's Court' is nothing less than a brief for human rights and +human privileges. That is what it is, and it is a pity that it should be +more than that. It is a pity that he should have been beset by his old +demon of the burlesque, and that no one should have had the wisdom or the +strength to bring it under control. + +There is nothing more charming in any of Mark Twain's work than his +introductory chapter, nothing more delightful than the armoring of the +Yankee and the outset and the wandering with Alisande. There is nothing +more powerful or inspiring than his splendid panoramic picture--of the +King learning mercy through his own degradation, his daily intercourse +with a band of manacled slaves; nothing more fiercely moving than that +fearful incident of the woman burned to warm those freezing chattels, or +than the great gallows scene, where the priest speaks for the young +mother about to pay the death penalty for having stolen a halfpenny's +worth, that her baby might have bread. Such things as these must save +the book from oblivion; but alas! its greater appeal is marred almost to +ruin by coarse and extravagant burlesque, which destroys illusion and +antagonizes the reader often at the very moment when the tale should fill +him with a holy fire of a righteous wrath against wrong. As an example +of Mark Twain at his literary worst and best the Yankee ranks supreme. +It is unnecessary to quote examples; one cannot pick up the volume and +read ten pages of it, or five pages, without finding them. In the midst +of some exalted passage, some towering sublimity, you are brought +suddenly to earth with a phrase which wholly destroys the illusion and +the diviner purpose. Howells must have observed these things, or was he +so dazzled by the splendor of its intent, its righteous charge upon the +ranks of oppression, that he regarded its offenses against art as +unimportant. This is hard to explain, for the very thing that would +sustain such a great message and make it permanent would be the care, the +restraint, the artistic worthiness of its construction. One must believe +in a story like that to be convinced of its logic. To lose faith in it-- +in its narrative--is absolutely fatal to its purpose. The Yankee in King +Arthur's Court not only offended the English nation, but much of it +offended the better taste of Mark Twain's own countrymen, and in time it +must have offended even Mark Twain himself. Reading it, one can +visualize the author as a careering charger, with a bit in his teeth, +trampling the poetry and the tradition of the romantic days, the very +things which he himself in his happier moods cared for most. Howells +likened him to Cervantes, laughing Spain's chivalry away. The comparison +was hardly justified. It was proper enough to laugh chivalry out of +court when it was a reality; but Mark Twain, who loved Sir Thomas Malory +to the end of his days, the beauty and poetry of his chronicles; who had +written 'The Prince and the Pauper', and would one day write that divine +tale of the 'Maid of Orleans'; who was himself no more nor less than a +knight always ready to redress wrong, would seem to have been the last +person to wish to laugh it out of romance. + +And yet, when all is said, one may still agree with Howells in ranking +the Yankee among Mark Twain's highest achievements in the way of "a +greatly imagined and symmetrically developed tale." It is of that class, +beyond doubt. Howells goes further: + + Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction it pleases me most, and I + give myself with absolute delight to its notion of a keen East + Hartford Yankee finding himself, by a retroactionary spell, at the + court of King Arthur of Britain, and becoming part of the sixth + century with all the customs and ideas of the nineteenth in him and + about him. The field for humanizing satire which this scheme opens + is illimitable. + +Colossal it certainly is, as Howells and Stedman agreed: colossal in its +grotesqueness as in its sublimity. Howells, summarizing Mark Twain's +gifts (1901), has written: + + He is apt to burlesque the lighter colloquiality, and it is only in + the more serious and most tragical junctures that his people utter + themselves with veracious simplicity and dignity. That great, burly + fancy of his is always tempting him to the exaggeration which is the + condition of so much of his personal humor, but which when it + invades the drama spoils the illusion. The illusion renews itself + in the great moments, but I wish it could be kept intact in the + small, and I blame him that he does not rule his fancy better. + +All of which applies precisely to the writing of the Yankee in King +Arthur's Court. Intended as a fierce heart-cry against human injustice-- +man's inhumanity to man--as such it will live and find readers; but, more +than any other of Mark Twain's pretentious works, it needs editing-- +trimming by a fond but relentless hard. + + + + +CLXXII + +THE "YANKEE" IN ENGLAND + +The London publishers of the Yankee were keenly anxious to revise the +text for their English readers. Clemens wrote that he had already +revised the Yankee twice, that Stedman had critically read it, and that +Mrs. Clemens had made him strike out many passages and soften others. He +added that he had read chapters of it in public several times where +Englishmen were present and had profited by their suggestions. Then he +said: + + Now, mind you, I have taken all this pains because I wanted to say a + Yankee mechanic's say against monarchy and its several natural + props, and yet make a book which you would be willing to print + exactly as it comes to you, without altering a word. + + We are spoken of (by Englishmen) as a thin-skinned people. It is + you who are thin-skinned. An Englishman may write with the most + brutal frankness about any man or institution among us and we + republish him without dreaming of altering a line or a word. But + England cannot stand that kind of a book written about herself. It + is England that is thin-skinned. It causeth me to smile when I read + the modifications of my language which have been made in my English + editions to fit them for the sensitive English palate. + + Now, as I say, I have taken laborious pains to so trim this book of + offense that you'll not lack the nerve to print it just as it + stands. I am going to get the proofs to you just as early as I can. + I want you to read it carefully. If you can publish it without + altering a single word, go ahead. Otherwise, please hand it to + J. R. Osgood in time for him to have it published at my expense. + + This is important, for the reason that the book was not written for + America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done + their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that + it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially + recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to + a little higher level of manhood in turn. + +So the Yankee was published in England just as he had written it,--[The +preface was shortened and modified for both the American and English +editions. The reader will find it as originally written under Appendix +S, at the end of last volume.]--and the criticisms were as plentiful as +they were frank. It was referred to as a "lamentable failure" and as an +"audacious sacrilege" and in terms still less polite. Not all of the +English critics were violent. The Daily Telegraph gave it something more +than a column of careful review, which did not fail to point out the +book's sins with a good deal of justice and dignity; but the majority of +English papers joined in a sort of objurgatory chorus which, for a time +at least, spared neither the author nor his work. Strictures on the +Yankee extended to his earlier books. After all, Mark Twain's work was +not for the cultivated class. + +These things must have begun to gravel Clemens a good deal at last, for +he wrote to Andrew Lang at considerable length, setting forth his case in +general terms--that is to say, his position as an author--inviting Lang +to stand as his advocate before the English public. In part he said: + + The critic assumes every time that if a book doesn't meet the + cultivated-class standard it isn't valuable . . . The critic has + actually imposed upon the world the superstition that a painting by + Raphael is more valuable to the civilizations of the earth than is a + chromo; and the august opera more than the hurdy-gurdy and the + villagers' singing society; and the Latin classics than Kipling's + far-reaching bugle-note; and Jonathan Edwards than the Salvation + Army . . . . If a critic should start a religion it would not + have any object but to convert angels, and they wouldn't need it. + It is not that little minority who are already saved that are best + worth lifting up, I should think, but the mighty mass of the + uncultivated who are underneath! That mass will never see the old + masters--that sight is for the few; but the chromo-maker can lift + them all one step upward toward appreciation of art; they cannot + have the opera, but the hurdy-gurdy and the singing-class lift them + a little way toward that far height; they will never know Homer, but + the passing rhymester of their day leaves them higher than he found + them; they may never even hear of the Latin classics, but they will + strike step with Kipling's drum-beat and they will march; for all + Jonathan Edwards's help they would die in their slums, but the + Salvation Army will beguile some of them to a purer air and a + cleaner life . + + . . . I have never tried, in even one single little instance, to + help cultivate the cultivated classes. I was not equipped for it + either by native gifts or training. And I never had any ambition in + that direction, but always hunted for bigger game--the masses. I + have seldom deliberately tried to instruct them, but I have done my + best to entertain them, for they can get instruction elsewhere . . + . . My audience is dumb; it has no voice in print, and so I cannot + know whether I have won its approval or only got its censure. + +He closed by asking that Lang urge the critics to adopt a rule +recognizing the masses, and to formulate a standard whereby work done for +them might be judged. "No voice can reach further than yours in a case +of this kind," he said, "or carry greater weight of authority." There +was no humor in this letter, and the writer of it was clearly in earnest. + +Lang's response was an article published in the Illustrated London News +on the art of Mark Twain. He began by gently ridiculing hyperculture-- +the new culture--and ended with a eulogy on Huck Finn. It seems worth +while, however, to let Andrew Lang speak for himself. + + I have been educated till I nearly dropped; I have lived with the + earliest apostles of culture, in the days when Chippendale was first + a name to conjure with, and Japanese art came in like a raging lion, + and Ronsard was the favorite poet, and Mr. William Morris was a + poet, too, and blue and green were the only wear, and the name of + Paradise was Camelot. To be sure, I cannot say that I took all this + quite seriously, but "we, too, have played" at it, and know all + about it. Generally speaking, I have kept up with culture. I can + talk (if desired) about Sainte-Beuve, and Merimee, and Felicien + Rops; I could rhyme "Ballades" when they were "in," and knew what a + "pantoom" was . . . . And yet I have not culture. My works are + but tinkling brass because I have not culture. For culture has got + into new regions where I cannot enter, and, what is perhaps worse, + I find myself delighting in a great many things which are under the + ban of culture. + +He confesses that this is a dreadful position; one that makes a man feel +like one of those Liberal politicians who are always "sitting on the +fence," and who follow their party, if follow it they do, with the +reluctant acquiescence of the prophet's donkey. He further confesses +that he has tried Hartmann and prefers Plato, that he is shaky about +Blake, though stalwart concerning Rudyard Kipling. + + This is not the worst of it. Culture has hardly a new idol but I + long to hurl things at it. Culture can scarcely burn anything, but + I am impelled to sacrifice to that same. I am coming to suspect + that the majority of culture's modern disciples are a mere crowd of + very slimly educated people who have no natural taste or impulses; + who do not really know the best things in literature; who have a + feverish desire to admire the newest thing, to follow the latest + artistic fashion; who prate about "style," without the faintest + acquaintance with the ancient examples of style in Greek, French, or + English; who talk about the classics and--criticize the classical + critics and poets, without being able to read a line of them in the + original. Nothing of the natural man is left in these people; their + intellectual equipment is made up of ignorant vanity and eager + desire for novelty, and a yearning to be in the fashion. Take, for + example--and we have been a long time in coming to him--Mark Twain. + [Here follow some observations concerning the Yankee, which Lang + confesses that he has not read, and has abstained from reading + because----]. Here Mark Twain is not, and cannot be, at the proper + point of view. He has not the knowledge which would enable him to + be a sound critic of the ideals of the Middle Ages. An Arthurian + Knight in New York or in Washington would find as much to blame, and + justly, as a Yankee at Camelot. + +Of Mark Twain's work in general he speaks with another conclusion: + + Mark Twain is a benefactor beyond most modern writers, and the + cultured who do not laugh are merely to be pitied. But his art is + not only that of the maker of the scarce article--mirth. I have no + hesitation in saying that Mark Twain is one among the greatest + contemporary makers of fiction . . . . I can never forget or be + ungrateful for the exquisite pleasure with which I read Huckleberry + Finn for the first time years ago. I read it again last night, + deserting Kenilworth for Huck. I never laid it down till I had + finished it. I perused several passages more than once, and rose + from it with a higher opinion of its merits than ever. + + What is it that we want in a novel? We want a vivid and original + picture of life; we want character naturally displayed in action; + and if we get the excitement of adventure into the bargain, and that + adventure possible and plausible, I so far differ from the newest + school of criticism as to think that we have additional cause for + gratitude. If, moreover, there is an unstrained sense of humor in + the narrator we have a masterpiece, and Huckleberry Finn is, nothing + less. + +He reviews Huck sympathetically in detail, and closes: + + There are defects of taste, or passages that to us seem deficient in + taste, but the book remains a nearly flawless gem of romance and of + humor. The world appreciates it, no doubt, but "cultured critics" + are probably unaware of its singular value. The great American + novel has escaped the eyes of those who watch to see this new planet + swim into their ken. And will Mark Twain never write such another? + One is enough for him to live by, and for our gratitude, but not + enough for our desire. + +In the brief column and a half which it occupies, this comment of Andrew +Lang's constitutes as thoughtful and fair an estimate of Mark Twain's +work as was ever written. + +W. T. Stead, of the Review of Reviews, was about the only prominent +English editor to approve of the Yankee and to exploit its merits. Stead +brought down obloquy upon himself by so doing, and his separation from +his business partner would seem to have been at least remotely connected +with this heresy. + +The Yankee in King Arthur's Court was dramatized in America by Howard +Taylor, one of the Enterprise compositors, whom Clemens had known in the +old Comstock days. Taylor had become a playwright of considerable +success, with a number of well-known actors and actresses starring in his +plays. The Yankee, however, did not find a manager, or at least it seems +not to have reached the point of production. + + + + +CLXXIII + +A SUMMER AT ONTEORA + +With the exception of one article--" A Majestic Literary Fossil"-- +[Harper's Magazine, February, 1890. Included in the "Complete Works."]-- +Clemens was writing nothing of importance at this time. This article +grew out of a curious old medical work containing absurd prescriptions +which, with Theodore Crane, he had often laughed over at the farm. A +sequel to Huckleberry Finn--Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians-- +was begun, and a number of its chapters were set in type on the new Paige +compositor, which had cost such a gallant sum, and was then thought to be +complete. There seems to have been a plan to syndicate the story, but at +the end of Chapter IX Huck and Tom had got themselves into a predicament +from which it seemed impossible to extricate them, and the plot was +suspended for further inspiration, which apparently never came. + +Clemens, in fact, was troubled with rheumatism in his arm and shoulder, +which made writing difficult. Mrs. Clemens, too, had twinges of the +malady. They planned to go abroad for the summer of 1890, to take the +waters of some of the German baths, but they were obliged to give up the +idea. There were too many business complications; also the health of +Clemens's mother had become very feeble. They went to Tannersville in +the Catskills, instead--to the Onteora Club, where Mrs. Candace Wheeler +had gathered a congenial colony in a number of picturesque cottages, with +a comfortable hotel for the more transient visitor. The Clemenses +secured a cottage for the season. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence +Hutton, Carroll Beckwith, the painter; Brander Matthews, Dr. Heber +Newton, Mrs. Custer, and Dora Wheeler were among those who welcomed Mark +Twain and his family at a generous home-made banquet. + +It was the beginning of a happy summer. There was a constant visiting +from one cottage to another, with frequent assemblings at the Bear and +Fox Inn, their general headquarters. There were pantomimes and charades, +in which Mark Twain and his daughters always had star parts. Susy +Clemens, who was now eighteen, brilliant and charming, was beginning to +rival her father as a leader of entertainment. Her sister Clara gave +impersonations of Modjeska and Ada Rehan. When Fourth of July came there +were burlesque races, of which Mark Twain was starter, and many of that +lighthearted company took part. Sometimes, in the evening, they gathered +in one of the cottages and told stories by the firelight, and once he +told the story of the Golden Arm, so long remembered, and brought them up +with the same old jump at the sudden climax. Brander Matthews remembers +that Clemens was obliged frequently to go to New York on business +connected with the machine and the publishing, and that during one of +these absences a professional entertainer came along, and in the course +of his program told a Mark Twain story, at which Mrs. Clemens and the +girls laughed without recognizing its authorship. Matthews also +remembers Jean, as a little girl of ten, allowed to ride a pony and to go +barefoot, to her great delight, full of health and happiness, a favorite +of the colony. + +Clemens would seem to have forgiven Brander Matthews for his copyright +articles, for he walked over to the Matthews cottage one morning and +asked to be taught piquet, the card game most in vogue there that season. +At odd times he sat to Carroll Beckwith for his portrait, and smoked a +cob pipe meantime, so Beckwith painted him in that way. + +It was a season that closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in +August, to his mother's bedside, for it was believed that her end was +near. She rallied, and he returned to Onteora. But on the 27th of +October came the close of that long, active life, and the woman who two +generations before had followed John Clemens into the wilderness, and +along the path of vicissitude, was borne by her children to Hannibal and +laid to rest at his side. She was in her eighty-eighth year. + +The Clemens family were back in Hartford by this time, and it was only a +little later that Mrs. Clemens was summoned to the death-bed of her own +mother, in Elmira. Clemens accompanied her, but Jean being taken +suddenly ill he returned to Hartford. Watching by the little girl's +bedside on the night of the 27th of November, he wrote Mrs. Clemens a +birthday letter, telling of Jean's improved condition and sending other +good news and as many loving messages as he could devise. But it proved +a sad birthday for Mrs. Clemens, for on that day her mother's gentle and +beautiful soul went out from among them. The foreboding she had felt at +the passing of Theodore Crane had been justified. She had a dread that +the harvest of death was not yet ended. Matters in general were going +badly with them, and an anxiety began to grow to get away from America, +and so perhaps leave sorrow and ill-luck behind. Clemens, near the end +of December, writing to his publishing manager, Hall, said: + + Merry Christmas to you, and I wish to God I could have one myself + before I die. + +The house was emptier that winter than before, for Susy was at Bryn Mawr. +Clemens planned some literary work, but the beginning, after his long +idleness, was hard. A diversion was another portrait of himself, this +time undertaken by Charles Noel Flagg. Clemens rather enjoyed portrait- +sittings. He could talk and smoke, and he could incidentally acquire +information. He liked to discuss any man's profession with him, and in +his talks with Flagg he made a sincere effort to get that insight which +would enable him to appreciate the old masters. Flagg found him a +tractable sitter, and a most interesting one. Once he paid him a +compliment, then apologized for having said the obvious thing. + +"Never mind the apology," said Clemens. "The compliment that helps us on +our way is not the one that is shut up in the mind, but the one that is +spoken out." + +When Flagg's portrait was about completed, Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Crane +came to the studio to look at it. Mrs. Clemens complained only that the +necktie was crooked. + +"But it's always crooked," said Flagg, "and I have a great fancy for the +line it makes." + +She straightened it on Clemens himself, but it immediately became crooked +again. Clemens said: + +"If you were to make that necktie straight people would say; ' Good +portrait, but there is something the matter with it. I don't know where +it is.'" + +The tie was left unchanged. + + + + +CLXXIV + +THE MACHINE + +The reader may have realized that by the beginning of 1891 Mark Twain's +finances were in a critical condition. The publishing business had +managed to weather along. It was still profitable, and could have been +made much more so if the capital necessary to its growth had not been +continuously and relentlessly absorbed by that gigantic vampire of +inventions--that remorseless Frankenstein monster--the machine. + +The beginning of this vast tragedy (for it was no less than that) dated +as far back as 1880, when Clemens one day had taken a minor and purely +speculative interest in patent rights, which was to do away with setting +type by hand. In some memoranda which he made more than ten years later, +when the catastrophe was still a little longer postponed, he gave some +account of the matter. + + This episode has now spread itself over more than one-fifth of my + life, a considerable stretch of time, as I am now 55 years old. + + Ten or eleven years ago Dwight Buell, a jeweler, called at our house + and was shown up to the billiard-room-which was my study; and the + game got more study than the other sciences. He wanted me to take + some stock in a type-setting machine. He said it was at the Colt's + Arms factory, and was about finished. I took $2,000 of the stock. + I was always taking little chances like that, and almost always + losing by it, too. Some time afterward I was invited to go down to + the factory and see the machine. I went, promising myself nothing, + for I knew all about type-setting by practical experience, and held + the settled and solidified opinion that a successful type-setting + machine was an impossibility, for the reason that a machine cannot + be made to think, and the thing that sets movable type must think or + retire defeated. So, the performance I witnessed did most + thoroughly amaze me. Here was a machine that was really setting + type, and doing it with swiftness and accuracy, too. Moreover, it + was distributing its case at the same time. The distribution was + automatic; the machine fed itself from a galley of dead matter and + without human help or suggestion, for it began its work of its own + accord when the type channels needed filling, and stopped of its own + accord when they were full enough. The machine was almost a + complete compositor; it lacked but one feature--it did not "justify" + the lines. This was done by the operator's assistant. + + I saw the operator set at the rate of 3,000 ems an hour, which, + counting distribution, was but little short of four casemen's work. + William Hamersley was there. He said he was already a considerable + owner, and was going to take as much more of the stock as he could + afford. Wherefore, I set down my name for an additional $3,000. It + is here that the music begins. + +It was the so-called Farnham machine that he saw, invented by James W. +Paige, and if they had placed it on the market then, without waiting for +the inventor to devise improvements, the story might have been a +different one. But Paige was never content short of absolute perfection +--a machine that was not only partly human, but entirely so. Clemens' +used to say later that the Paige type-setter would do everything that a +human being could do except drink and swear and go on a strike. He might +properly have omitted the last item, but of that later. Paige was a +small, bright-eyed, alert, smartly dressed man, with a crystal-clear +mind, but a dreamer and a visionary. Clemens says of him: "He is a poet; +a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations are written in +steel." + +It is easy to see now that Mark Twain and Paige did not make a good +business combination. When Paige declared that, wonderful as the machine +was, he could do vastly greater things with it, make it worth many more +and much larger fortunes by adding this attachment and that, Clemens was +just the man to enter into his dreams and to furnish the money to realize +them. Paige did not require much money at first, and on the capital +already invested he tinkered along with his improvements for something +like four or five years; Hamersley and Clemens meantime capitalizing the +company and getting ready to place the perfected invention on the market. +By the time the Grant episode had ended Clemens had no reason to believe +but that incalculable wealth lay just ahead, when the newspapers should +be apprised of the fact that their types were no longer to be set by +hand. Several contracts had been made with Paige, and several new +attachments had been added to the machine. It seemed to require only one +thing more, the justifier, which would save the labor of the extra man. +Paige could be satisfied with nothing short of that, even though the +extra man's wage was unimportant. He must have his machine do it all, +and meantime five precious years had slipped away. Clemens, in his +memoranda, says: + + End of 1885. Paige arrives at my house unheralded. I had seen + little or nothing of him for a year or two. He said: + + "What will you complete the machine for?" + + "What will it cost?" + + "Twenty thousand dollars; certainly not over $30,000." + + "What will you give?" + + "I'll give you half." + +Clemens was "flush" at this time. His reading tour with Cable, the great +sale of Huck Finn, the prospect of the Grant book, were rosy realities. +He said: + + "I'll do it, but the limit must be $30,000." + +They agreed to allow Hamersley a tenth interest for the money he had +already invested and for legal advice. + +Hamersley consented readily enough, and when in February, 1886, the new +contract was drawn they believed themselves heir to the millions of the +Fourth Estate. + +By this time F. G. Whitmore had come into Clemens's business affairs, and +he did not altogether approve of the new contract. Among other things, +it required that Clemens should not only complete the machine, but +promote it, capitalize it commercially. Whitmore said: + +"Mr. Clemens, that clause can bankrupt you." + +Clemens answered: "Never mind that, Whitmore; I've considered that. I +can get a thousand men worth a million apiece to go in with me if I can +get a perfect machine." + +He immediately began to calculate the number of millions he would be +worth presently when the machine was completed and announced to the +waiting world. He covered pages with figures that never ran short of +millions, and frequently approached the billion mark. Colonel Sellers in +his happiest moments never dreamed more lavishly. He obtained a list of +all the newspapers in the United States and in Europe, and he counted up +the machines that would be required by each. To his nephew, Sam Moffett, +visiting him one day, he declared that it would take ten men to count the +profits from the typesetter. He realized clearly enough that a machine +which would set and distribute type and do the work of half a dozen men +or more would revolutionize type composition. The fact that other +inventors besides Paige were working quite as diligently and perhaps +toward more simple conclusions did not disturb him. Rumors came of the +Rogers machine and the Thorne machine and the Mergenthaler linotype, but +Mark Twain only smiled. When the promoters of the Mergenthaler offered +to exchange half their interests for a half interest in the Paige patent, +to obtain thereby a wider insurance of success, it only confirmed his +trust, and he let the golden opportunity go by. + +Clemens thinks the thirty thousand dollars lasted about a year. Then +Paige confessed that the machine was still incomplete, but he said that +four thousand dollars more would finish it, and that with ten thousand +dollars he could finish it and give a big exhibition in New York. He had +discarded the old machine altogether, it seems, and at Pratt & Whitney's +shops was building a new one from the ground up--a machine of twenty +thousand minutely exact parts, each of which must be made by expert hand +workmanship after elaborate drawings and patterns even more expensive. +It was an undertaking for a millionaire. + +Paige offered to borrow from Clemens the amount needed, offering the +machine as security. Clemens supplied the four thousand dollars, and +continued to advance money from time to time at the rate of three to four +thousand dollars a month, until he had something like eighty thousand +dollars invested, with the machine still unfinished. This would be early +in 1888, by which time other machines had reached a state of completion +and were being placed on the market. The Mergenthaler, in particular, +was attracting wide attention. Paige laughed at it, and Clemens, too, +regarded it as a joke. The moment their machine was complete all other +machines would disappear. Even the fact that the Tribune had ordered +twenty-three of the linotypes, and other journals were only waiting to +see the paper in its new dress before ordering, did not disturb them. +Those linotypes would all go into the scrap-heap presently. It was too +bad people would waste their money so. In January, 1888, Paige promised +that the machine would be done by the 1st of April. On the 1st of April +he promised it for September, but in October he acknowledged there were +still eighty-five days' work to be done on it. In November Clemens wrote +to Orion: + +The machine is apparently almost done--but I take no privileges on that +account; it must be done before I spend a cent that can be avoided. I +have kept this family on very short commons for two years and they must +go on scrimping until the machine is finished, no matter how long that +may be. + +By the end of '88 the income from the books and the business and Mrs. +Clemens's Elmira investments no longer satisfied the demands of the type- +setter, in addition to the household expense, reduced though the latter +was; and Clemens began by selling and hypothecating his marketable +securities. The whole household interest by this time centered in the +machine. What the Tennessee land had been to John and Jane Clemens and +their children, the machine had now become to Samuel Clemens and his +family. "When the machine is finished everything will be all right +again" afforded the comfort of that long-ago sentence, "When the +Tennessee land is sold." + +They would have everything they wanted then. Mrs. Clemens planned +benefactions, as was her wont. Once she said to her sister: + +"How strange it will seem to have unlimited means, to be able to do +whatever you want to do, to give whatever you want to give without +counting the cost." + +Straight along through another year the three thousand dollars and more a +month continued, and then on the 5th of January, 1889, there came what +seemed the end--the machine and justifier were complete! In his notebook +on that day Mark Twain set down this memorandum: + + EUREKA! + + Saturday, January 5, 1889-12.20 P.M. At this moment I have seen a + line of movable type spaced and justified by machinery! This is the + first time in the history of the world that this amazing thing has + ever been done. Present: + J. W. Paige, the inventor; + Charles Davis, | Mathematical assistants + Earll | & mechanical + Graham | experts + Bates, foreman, and S. L. Clemens. + This record is made immediately after the prodigious event. + + +Two days later he made another note: + + Monday, January 7--4.45 P.m. The first proper name ever set by this + new keyboard was William Shakspeare. I set it at the above hour; & + I perceive, now that I see the name written, that I either mis- + spelled it then or I've misspelled it now. + + The space-bar did its duty by the electric connections & steam & + separated the two words preparatory to the reception of the space. + +It seemed to him that his troubles were at an end. He wrote overflowing +letters, such as long ago he had written about his first mining claims, +to Orion and to other members of the family and to friends in America and +Europe. One of these letters, written to George Standring, a London +printer and publisher, also an author, will serve as an example. + + The machine is finished! An hour and forty minutes ago a line of + movable type was spaced and justified by machinery for the first + time in the history of the world. And I was there to see. + + That was the final function. I had before seen the machine set + type, automatically, and distribute type, and automatically + distribute its eleven different thicknesses of spaces. So now I + have seen the machine, operated by one individual, do the whole + thing, and do it a deal better than any man at the case can do it. + + This is by far and away the most marvelous invention ever contrived + by man. And it is not a thing of rags and patches; it is made of + massive steel, and will last a century. + + She will do the work of six men, and do it better than any six men + that ever stood at a case. + + The death-warrant of all other type-setting machines in this world + was signed at 12.20 this afternoon, when that first line was shot + through this machine and came out perfectly spaced and justified. + And automatically, mind you. + + There was a speck of invisible dirt on one of those nonpareil types. + Well, the machine allowed for that by inserting of its own accord a + space which was the 5-1,000 of an inch thinner than it would have + used if the dirt had been absent. But when I send you the details + you will see that that's nothing for this machine to do; you'll see + that it knows more and has got more brains than all the printers in + the world put together. + +His letter to Orion was more technical, also more jubilant. At the end +he said: + + All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical + birth--the first justification of a line of movable type by + machinery--& also set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had + drank anything, & yet everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, + stupefied, stunned. + + All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty + nearly into commonplaces contrasted with this awful mechanical + miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton-gins, sewing- + machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, + all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and + far in the land of human inventions. + +In one paragraph of Orion's letter he refers to the machine as a "cunning +devil, knowing more than any man that ever lived." That was a profound +truth, though not as he intended it. That creation of James Paige's +brain reflected all the ingenuity and elusiveness of its creator, and +added something on its own account. It was discovered presently that it +had a habit of breaking the types. Paige said it was a trifling thing: +he could fix it, but it meant taking down the machine, and that deadly +expense of three thousand or four thousand dollars a month for the band +of workmen and experts in Pratt & Whitney's machine shops did not cease. +In February the machine was again setting and justifying type "to a +hair," and Whitmore's son, Fred, was running it at a rate of six thousand +ems an hour, a rate of composition hitherto unknown in the history of the +world. His speed was increased to eight thousand ems an hour by the end +of the year, and the machine was believed to have a capacity of eleven +thousand. No type-setter invented to this day could match it for +accuracy and precision when it was in perfect order, but its point of +perfection was apparently a vanishing point. It would be just reached, +when it would suddenly disappear, and Paige would discover other needed +corrections. Once, when it was apparently complete as to every detail; +and running like a human thing, with such important customers as the New +York Herald and other great papers ready to place their orders, Paige +suddenly discovered that it required some kind of an air-blast, and it +was all taken down again and the air-blast, which required months to +invent and perfect, was added. + +But what is the use of remembering all these bitter details? The steady +expense went on through another year, apparently increasing instead of +diminishing, until, by the beginning of 1890, Clemens was finding it +almost impossible to raise funds to continue the work. Still he +struggled on. It was the old mining fascination--"a foot farther into +the ledge and we shall strike the vein of gold." + +He sent for Joe Goodman to come and help him organize a capital-stock +company, in which Senator Jones and John Mackay, old Comstock friends, +were to be represented. He never for a moment lost faith in the final +outcome, and he believed that if they could build their own factory the +delays and imperfections of construction would be avoided. Pratt & +Whitney had been obliged to make all the parts by hand. With their own +factory the new company would have vast and perfect machinery dedicated +entirely to the production of type-setters. + +Nothing short of two million dollars capitalization was considered, and +Goodman made at least three trips from California to the East and labored +with Jones and Mackay all that winter and at intervals during the +following year, through which that "cunning devil," the machine, consumed +its monthly four thousand dollars--money that was the final gleanings and +sweepings of every nook and corner of the strong-box and bank-account and +savings of the Clemens family resources. With all of Mark Twain's fame +and honors his life at this period was far from an enviable one. It was, +in fact, a fevered delirium, often a veritable nightmare. + +Reporters who approached him for interviews, little guessing what he was +passing through, reported that Mark Twain's success in life had made him +crusty and sour. + +Goodman remembers that when they were in Washington, conferring with +Jones, and had rooms at the Arlington, opening together, often in the +night he would awaken to see a light burning in the next room and to hear +Mark Twain's voice calling: + +"Joe, are you awake?" + +"Yes, Mark, what is it?" + +"Oh, nothing, only I can't sleep. Won't you talk awhile? I know it's +wrong to disturb you, but I am so d--d miserable that I can't help it." + +Whereupon he would get up and talk and talk, and pace the floor and curse +the delays until he had refreshed himself, and then perhaps wallow in +millions until breakfast-time. + +Jones and Mackay, deeply interested, were willing to put up a reasonable +amount of money, but they were unable to see a profit in investing so +large a capital in a plant for constructing the machines. + +Clemens prepared estimates showing that the American business alone would +earn thirty-five million dollars a year, and the European business twenty +million dollars more. These dazzled, but they did not convince the +capitalists. Jones was sincerely anxious to see the machine succeed, and +made an engagement to come out to see it work, but a day or two before he +was to come Paige was seized with an inspiration. The type-setter was +all in parts when the day came, and Jones's visit had to be postponed. +Goodman wrote that the fatal delay had "sicklied over the bloom" of +Jones's original enthusiasm. + +Yet Clemens seems never to have been openly violent with Paige. In the +memorandum which he completed about this time he wrote: + + Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate terms, and yet he + knows perfectly well that if I had him in a steel trap I would shut + out all human succor and watch that trap until he died. + +He was grabbing at straws now. He offered a twentieth or a hundredth or +a thousandth part of the enterprise for varying sums, ranging from one +thousand to one hundred thousand dollars. He tried to capitalize his +advance (machine) royalties, and did dispose of a few of these; but when +the money came in for them he was beset by doubts as to the final +outcome, and though at his wit's ends for further funds, he returned the +checks to the friends who had sent them. One five-thousand-dollar check +from a friend named Arnot, in Elmira, went back by the next mail. He was +willing to sacrifice his own last penny, but he could not take money from +those who were blindly backing his judgment only and not their own. He +still had faith in Jones, faith which lasted up to the 13th of February, +1891. Then came a final letter, in which Jones said that he had +canvassed the situation thoroughly with such men as Mackay, Don Cameron, +Whitney, and others, with the result that they would have nothing to do +with the machine. Whitney and Cameron, he said, were large stockholders +in the Mergenthaler. Jones put it more kindly and more politely than +that, and closed by saying that there could be no doubt as to the +machine's future an ambiguous statement. A letter from young Hall came +about the same time, urging a heavy increase of capital in the business. +The Library of American Literature, its leading feature, was handled on +the instalment plan. The collections from this source were deferred +driblets, while the bills for manufacture and promotion must be paid down +in cash. Clemens realized that for the present at least the dream was +ended. The family securities were exhausted. The book trade was dull; +his book royalties were insufficient even to the demands of the +household. He signed further notes to keep business going, left the +matter of the machine in abeyance, and turned once more to the trade of +authorship. He had spent in the neighborhood of one hundred and ninety +thousand dollars on the typesetter--money that would better have been +thrown into the Connecticut River, for then the agony had been more +quickly over. As it was, it had shadowed many precious years. + + + + + +CLXXV + +"THE CLAIMANT"--LEAVING HARTFORD + +For the first time in twenty years Mark Twain was altogether dependent on +literature. He did not feel mentally unequal to the new problem; in +fact, with his added store of experience, he may have felt himself more +fully equipped for authorship than ever before. It had been his habit to +write within his knowledge and observation. To a correspondent of this +time he reviewed his stock in trade + + . . . I confine myself to life with which I am familiar when + pretending to portray life. But I confined myself to the boy-life + out on the Mississippi because that had a peculiar charm for me, and + not because I was not familiar with other phases of life. I was a + soldier two weeks once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted + like a rat the whole time. Familiar? My splendid Kipling himself + hasn't a more burnt-in, hard-baked, and unforgetable familiarity + with that death-on-the-pale-horse-with-hell-following-after, which + is a raw soldier's first fortnight in the field--and which, without + any doubt, is the most tremendous fortnight and the vividest he is + ever going to see. + + Yes, and I have shoveled silver tailings in a quartz-mill a couple + of weeks, and acquired the last possibilities of culture in that + direction. And I've done "pocket-mining" during three months in the + one little patch of ground in the whole globe where Nature conceals + gold in pockets--or did before we robbed all of those pockets and + exhausted, obliterated, annihilated the most curious freak Nature + ever indulged in. There are not thirty men left alive who, being + told there was a pocket hidden on the broad slope of a mountain, + would know how to go and find it, or have even the faintest idea of + how to set about it; but I am one of the possible 20 or 30 who + possess the secret, and I could go and put my hand on that hidden + treasure with a most deadly precision. + + And I've been a prospector, and know pay rock from poor when I find + it--just with a touch of the tongue. And I've been a silver miner + and know how to dig and shovel and drill and put in a blast. And so + I know the mines and the miners interiorly as well as Bret Harte + knows them exteriorly. + + And I was a newspaper reporter four years in cities, and so saw the + inside of many things; and was reporter in a legislature two + sessions and the same in Congress one session, and thus learned to + know personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the + selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes. + + And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all + the different kinds of steamboatmen--a race apart, and not like + other folk. + + And I was for some years a traveling "jour" printer, and wandered + from city to city--and so I know that sect familiarly. + + And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and + was a responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets-- + and so I know a great many secrets about audiences--secrets not to + be got out of books, but only acquirable by experience. + + And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a + fortune on it, and failed to make it go--and the history of that + would make a large book in which a million men would see themselves + as in a mirror; and they would testify and say, Verily, this is not + imagination; this fellow has been there--and after would they cast + dust upon their heads, cursing and blaspheming. + + And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General + Grant's) the largest copyright checks this world has seen- + aggregating more than L80,000 in the first year. + + And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55. + + Now then: as the most valuable capital or culture or education + usable in the building of novels is personal experience I ought to + be well equipped for that trade. + + I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real, + none of it artificial, for I don't know anything about books. + +This generous bill of literary particulars was fully warranted. Mark +Twain's equipment was equal to his occasions. It is true that he was no +longer young, and that his health was not perfect, but his resolution and +his energy had not waned. + +His need was imminent and he lost no time. He dug out from his +pigeonholes such materials as he had in stock, selecting a few completed +manuscripts for immediate disposal--among them his old article entitled, +"Mental Telegraphy," written in 1878, when he had hesitated to offer it, +in the fear that it would not be accepted by the public otherwise than as +a joke. He added to it now a supplement and sent it to Mr. Alden, of +Harper's Magazine. + +Psychic interest had progressed in twelve years; also Mark Twain had come +to be rather more seriously regarded. The article was accepted promptly! +--[The publication of this article created a good deal of a stir and +resulted in the first general recognition of what later became known as +Telepathy. A good many readers insisted on regarding the whole matter as +one of Mark Twain's jokes, but its serious acceptance was much wider.]-- +The old sketch, "Luck," also found its way to Harper's Magazine, and +other manuscripts were looked over and furbished up with a view to their +disposal. Even the history game was dragged from the dust of its +retirement, and Hall was instructed to investigate its chance of profit. + +Then Mark Twain went to work in earnest. Within a week after the +collapse of the Jones bubble he was hard at work on a new book--the +transmigration of the old "Claimant" play into a novel. + +Ever since the appearance of the Yankee there had been what was evidently +a concerted movement to induce him to write a novel with the theories of +Henry George as the central idea. Letters from every direction had urged +him to undertake such a story, and these had suggested a more serious +purpose for the Claimant book. A motif in which there is a young lord +who renounces his heritage and class to come to America and labor with +his hands; who attends socialistic meetings at which men inspired by +readings of 'Progress and Poverty' and 'Looking Backward' address their +brothers of toil, could have in it something worth while. Clemens +inserted portions of some of his discarded essays in these addresses, and +had he developed this element further, and abandoned Colonel Sellers's +materialization lunacies to the oblivion they had earned, the result +might have been more fortunate. + +But his faith in the new Sellers had never died, and the temptation to +use scenes from the abandoned play proved to be too strong to be +resisted. The result was incongruous enough. The author, however, +admired it amazingly at the time. He sent Howells stirring reports of +his progress. He wrote Hall that the book would be ready soon and that +there must be seventy-five thousand orders by the date of issue, "not a +single one short of that." Then suddenly, at the end of February, the +rheumatism came back into his shoulder and right arm and he could hardly +hold the pen. He conceived the idea of dictating into a phonograph, and +wrote Howells to test this invention and find out as to terms for three +months, with cylinders enough to carry one hundred and seventy-five +thousand words. + + I don't want to erase any of them. My right arm is nearly disabled + by rheumatism, but I am bound to write this book (and sell 100,000 + copies of it-no, I mean 1,000,000--next fall). I feel sure I can + dictate the book into a phonograph if I don't have to yell. I write + 2,000 words a day. I think I can dictate twice as many. + + But mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you--go ahead + and do it all the same. + +Howells replied encouragingly. He had talked a letter into a phonograph +and the phonograph man had talked his answer into it, after which the +cylinder had been taken to a typewriter in the-next room and correctly +written out. If a man had the "cheek" to dictate his story into a +phonograph, Howells said, all the rest seemed perfectly easy. + +Clemens ordered a phonograph and gave it a pretty fair trial. It was +only a partial success. He said he couldn't write literature with it +because it hadn't any ideas or gift for elaboration, but was just as +matter-of-fact, compressive and unresponsive, grave and unsmiling as the +devil--a poor audience. + +I filled four dozen cylinders in two sittings, then I found I could have +said it about as easy with the pen, and said it a deal better. Then I +resigned. + +He did not immediately give it up. To relieve his aching arm he +alternated the phonograph with the pen, and the work progressed rapidly. +Early in May he was arranging for its serial disposition, and it was +eventually sold for twelve thousand dollars to the McClure Syndicate, who +placed it with a number of papers in America and with the Idler Magazine +in England. W. M. Laffan, of the Sun, an old and tried friend, combined +with McClure in the arrangement. Laffan also proposed to join with +McClure in paying Mark Twain a thousand dollars each for a series of six +European letters. This was toward the end of May, 1891, when Clemens had +already decided upon a long European sojourn. + +There were several reasons why this was desirable. Neither Clemens nor +his wife was in good health. Both of them were troubled with rheumatism, +and a council of physicians had agreed that Mrs. Clemens had some +disturbance of the heart. The death of Charles L. Webster in April--the +fourth death among relatives in two years--had renewed her forebodings. +Susy, who had been at Bryn Mawr, had returned far from well. The +European baths and the change of travel it was believed would be +beneficial to the family health. Furthermore, the maintenance of the +Hartford home was far too costly for their present and prospective +income. The house with its associations of seventeen incomparable years +must be closed. A great period had ended. + +They arranged to sail on the 6th of June by the French line.--[On the +Gascogne.]--Mrs. Crane was to accompany them, and came over in April to +help in breaking the news to the servants. John and Ellen O'Neill (the +gardener and his wife) were to remain in charge; places were found for +George and Patrick. Katie Leary was retained to accompany the family. +It was a sad dissolution. + +The day came for departure and the carriage was at the door. Mrs. +Clemens did not come immediately. She was looking into the rooms, +bidding a kind of silent good-by to the home she had made and to all its +memories. Following the others she entered the carriage, and Patrick +McAleer drove them together for the last time. They were going on a long +journey. They did not guess how long, or that the place would never be +home to them again. + + + + +CLXXVI + +A EUROPEAN SUMMER + +They landed at Havre and went directly to Paris, where they remained +about a week. From Paris Clemens wrote to Hall that a deal by which he +had hoped to sell out his interest in the type-setter to the Mallorys, of +the Churchman, had fallen through. + +"Therefore," he said, "you will have to modify your instalment system to +meet the emergency of a constipated purse; for if you should need to +borrow any more money I would not know how or where to raise it." + +The Clemens party went to Geneva, then rested for a time at the baths of +Aix; from Aix to Bayreuth to attend the Wagner festival, and from +Bayreuth to Marienbad for further additions of health. Clemens began +writing his newspaper letters at Aix, the first of which consists of +observations at that "paradise of rheumatics." This letter is really a +careful and faithful description of Aix-les-Bains, with no particular +drift of humor in it. He tells how in his own case the baths at first +developed plenty of pain, but that the subsequent ones removed almost all +of it. + +"I've got back the use of my arm the last few days, and I am going away +now," he says, and concludes by describing the beautiful drives and +scenery about Aix--the pleasures to be found paddling on little Lake +Bourget and the happy excursions to Annecy. + + At the end of an hour you come to Annecy and rattle through its old + crooked lanes, built solidly up with curious old houses that are a + dream of the Middle Ages, and presently you come to the main object + of your trip--Lake Annecy. It is a revelation. It is a miracle. + It brings the tears to a body's eyes. It is so enchanting. That is + to say, it affects you just as all other things that you instantly + recognize as perfect affect you--perfect music, perfect eloquence, + perfect art, perfect joy, perfect grief. + +He was getting back into his old descriptive swing, but his dislike for +travel was against him, and he found writing the letters hard. From +Bayreuth he wrote "At the Shrine of St. Wagner," one of the best +descriptions of that great musical festival that has been put into words. +He paid full tribute to the performance, also to the Wagner devotion, +confessing its genuineness. + + This opera of "Tristan and Isolde" last night broke the hearts of + all witnesses who were of the faith, and I know of some, and have + heard of many, who could not sleep after it, but cried the night + away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the + one sane person in the community of the mad; sometimes I feel like + the one blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in + the college of the learned, and always during service I feel like a + heretic in heaven. + +He tells how he really enjoyed two of the operas, and rejoiced in +supposing that his musical regeneration was accomplished and perfected; +but alas! he was informed by experts that those particular events were +not real music at all. Then he says: + + Well, I ought to have recognized the sign the old, sure sign that + has never failed me in matters of art. Whenever I enjoy anything in + art it means that it is mighty poor. The private knowledge of this + fact has saved me from going to pieces with enthusiasm in front of + many and many a chromo. However, my base instinct does bring me + profit sometimes; I was the only man out of 3,200 who got his money + back on those two operas. + +His third letter was from Marienbad, in Bohemia, another "health- +factory," as he calls it, and is of the same general character as those +preceding. In his fourth letter he told how he himself took charge of +the family fortunes and became courier from Aix to Bayreuth. It is a +very delightful letter, most of it, and probably not greatly burlesqued +or exaggerated in its details. It is included now in the "Complete +Works," as fresh and delightful as ever. They returned to Germany at the +end of August, to Nuremberg, which he notes as the "city of exquisite +glimpses," and to Heidelberg, where they had their old apartment of +thirteen years before, Room 40 at the Schloss Hotel, with its wonderful +prospect of wood and hill, and the haze-haunted valley of the Rhine. +They remained less than a week in that beautiful place, and then were off +for Switzerland, Lucerne, Brienz, Interlaken, finally resting at the +Hotel Beau Rivage, Ouchy, Lausanne, on beautiful Lake Leman. + +Clemens had agreed to write six of the newspaper letters, and he had by +this time finished five of them, the fifth being dated from Interlaken, +its subject, "Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty." He wrote to Hall that +it was his intention to write another book of travel and to take a year +or two to collect the material. The Century editors were after him for a +series after the style of Innocents Abroad. He considered this +suggestion, but declined by cable, explaining to Hall that he intended to +write for serial publication no more than the six newspaper letters. He +said: + + To write a book of travel would be less trouble than to write six + detached chapters. Each of these letters requires the same variety + of treatment and subject that one puts into a book; but in the book + each chapter doesn't have to be rounded and complete in itself. + +He suggested that the six letters be gathered into a small volume which +would contain about thirty-five or forty thousand words, to be sold as +low as twenty-five cents, but this idea appears to have been dropped. + +At Ouchy Clemens conceived the idea of taking a little trip on his own +account, an excursion that would be a rest after the strenuous three +months' travel and sightseeing--one that he could turn into literature. +He engaged Joseph Very, a courier used during their earlier European +travels, and highly recommended in the Tramp Abroad. He sent Joseph over +to Lake Bourget to engage a boat and a boatman for a ten days' trip down +the river Rhone. For five dollars Joseph bought a safe, flat-bottom +craft; also he engaged the owner as pilot. A few days later--September +19--Clemens followed. They stopped overnight on an island in Lake +Bourget, and in his notes Clemens tells how he slept in the old castle of +Chatillon, in the room where a pope was born. They started on their +drift next morning. To Mrs. Clemens, in some good-by memoranda, he said: + + The lake is as smooth as glass; a brilliant sun is shining. + + Our boat is so comfortable and shady with its awning. + + 11.20. We have crossed the lake and are entering the canal. Shall + presently be in the Rhone. + + Noon. Nearly down to the Rhone, passing the village of Chanaz. + + Sunday, 3.15 P.M. We have been in the Rhone three hours. It + is unimaginably still & reposeful & cool & soft & breezy. No rowing + or work of any kind to do--we merely float with the current we glide + noiseless and swift--as fast as a London cab-horse rips along--8 + miles an hour--the swiftest current I've ever boated in. We have the + entire river to ourselves nowhere a boat of any kind. + +Pleasant it must have been in the warm September days to go swinging down +that swift, gray stream which comes racing out of Switzerland into +France, fed from a thousand glaciers. He sent almost daily memoranda of +his progress. Half-way to Arles he wrote: + + It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the + awning these superb, sunshiny days in deep peace and quietness. + + Some of these curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, + but it is so lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the + outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for + next to nothing. My, but that inn was suffocating with garlic where + we stayed last night! I had to hold my nose as we went up-stairs or + I believe I should have fainted. + + Little bit of a room, rude board floor unswept, 2 chairs, unpainted + white pine table--void the furniture! Had a good firm bed, solid as + a rock, & you could have brained an ox with the bolster. + + These six hours have been entirely delightful. I want to do all the + rivers of Europe in an open boat in summer weather. + + Still further along he described one of their shore accommodations. + + Night caught us yesterday where we had to take quarters in a + peasant's house which was occupied by the family and a lot of cows & + calves, also several rabbits.--[His word for fleas. Neither fleas + nor mosquitoes ever bit him--probably because of his steady use of + tobacco.]--The latter had a ball & I was the ballroom; but they + were very friendly and didn't bite. + + The peasants were mighty kind and hearty & flew around & did their + best to make us comfortable. This morning I breakfasted on the + shore in the open air with two sociable dogs & a cat. Clean cloth, + napkins & table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent + butter, good bread, first-class coffee with pure milk, fried fish + just caught. Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of + such a phenomenally dirty house. + + An hour ago we saw the Falls of the Rhone, a prodigiously rough and + dangerous-looking place; shipped a little water, but came to no + harm. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of piloting & boat + management I ever saw. Our admiral knew his business. + + We have had to run ashore for shelter every time it has rained + heretofore, but Joseph has been putting in his odd time making a + waterproof sun-bonnet for the boat, & now we sail along dry, + although we have had many heavy showers this morning. + +Here follows a pencil-drawing of the boat and its new awning, and he +adds: "I'm on the stern, under the shelter, and out of sight." + +The trip down the Rhone proved more valuable as an outing than as +literary material. Clemens covered one hundred and seventy-four pages +with his notes of it, then gave it up. Traveling alone with no one but +Joseph and the Admiral (former owner of the craft) was reposeful and +satisfactory, but it did not inspire literary flights. He tried to +rectify the lack of companionship by introducing fictitious characters, +such as Uncle Abner, Fargo, and Stavely, a young artist; also Harris, +from the Tramp Abroad; but Harris was not really there this time, and +Mark Twain's genius, given rather to elaboration than to construction, +found it too severe a task to imagine a string of adventures without at +least the customary ten per cent. of fact to build upon. + +It was a day above Avignon that he had an experience worth while. They +were abreast of an old castle, nearing a village, one of the huddled +jumble of houses of that locality, when, glancing over his left shoulder +toward the distant mountain range, he received what he referred to later +as a soul-stirring shock. Pointing to the outline of the distant range +he said to the courier: + +"Name it. Who is it?" + +The courier said, "Napoleon." + +Clemens assented. The Admiral, when questioned, also promptly agreed +that the mountain outlined was none other than the reclining figure of +the great commander himself. They watched and discussed the phenomenon +until they reached the village. Next morning Clemens was up for a first +daybreak glimpse of his discovery. Later he reported it to Mrs. Clemens: + + I did so long for you and Sue yesterday morning--the most superb + sunrise--the most marvelous sunrise--& I saw it all, from the very + faintest suspicion of the coming dawn, all the way through to the + final explosion of glory. But it had an interest private to itself + & not to be found elsewhere in the world; for between me & it, in + the far-distant eastward, was a silhouetted mountain range, in which + I had discovered, the previous afternoon, a most noble face upturned + to the sky, & mighty form outstretched, which I had named Napoleon + Dreaming of Universal Empire--& now this prodigious face, soft, + rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay against + that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors, all rayed + like a wheel with the up-streaming & far-reaching lances of the sun. + It made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its + unimaginable majesty & beauty. + +He made a pencil-sketch of the Napoleon head in his note-book, and stated +that the apparition could be seen opposite the castle of Beauchastel; but +in later years his treacherous memory betrayed him, and, forgetting these +identifying marks, he told of it as lying a few hours above Arles, and +named it the "Lost Napoleon," because those who set out to find it did +not succeed. He even wrote an article upon the subject, in which he +urged tourists to take steamer from Arles and make a short trip upstream, +keeping watch on the right-hand bank, with the purpose of rediscovering +the natural wonder. Fortunately this sketch was not published. It would +have been set down as a practical joke by disappointed travelers. One of +Mark Twain's friends, Mr. Theodore Stanton, made a persistent effort to +find the Napoleon, but with the wrong directions naturally failed. + +It required ten days to float to Arles. Then the current gave out and +Clemens ended the excursion and returned to Lausanne by rail. He said: + +"It was twenty-eight miles to Marseilles, and somebody would have to row. +That would not have been pleasure; it would have meant work for the +sailor, and I do not like work even when another person does it." + +To Twichell in America he wrote: + + You ought to have been along--I could have made room for you easily, + & you would have found that a pedestrian tour in Europe doesn't + begin with a raft voyage for hilarity & mild adventure & intimate + contact with the unvisited native of the back settlements & + extinction from the world and newspapers & a conscience in a state + of coma & lazy comfort & solid happiness. In fact, there's nothing + that's so lovely. + +But it's all over. I gave the raft away yesterday at Arles & am loafing +along back by short stages on the rail to Ouchy, Lausanne, where the +tribe are staying at the Beau Rivage and are well and prosperous. + + + + +CLXXVII + +KORNERSTRASSE,7 + +They had decided to spend the winter in Berlin, and in October Mrs. +Clemens and Mrs. Crane, after some previous correspondence with an agent, +went up to that city to engage an apartment. The elevator had not +reached the European apartment in those days, and it was necessary, on +Mrs. Clemens's account, to have a ground floor. The sisters searched a +good while without success, and at last reached Kornerstrasse, a short, +secluded street, highly recommended by the agent. The apartment they +examined in Kornerstrasse was Number 7, and they were so much pleased +with the conveniences and comfort of it and so tired that they did not +notice closely its, general social environment. The agent supplied an +assortment of furniture for a consideration, and they were soon settled +in the attractive, roomy place. Clemens and the children, arriving +somewhat later, expressed themselves as satisfied. + +Their contentment was somewhat premature. When they began to go out +socially, which was very soon, and friends inquired as to their location, +they noticed that the address produced a curious effect. Semi- +acquaintances said, "Ah, yes, Kornerstrasse"; acquaintances said, "Dear +me, do you like it?" An old friend exclaimed, "Good gracious! How in +the world did you ever come to locate there?" Then they began to notice +what they had not at first seen. Kornerstrasse was not disreputable, but +it certainly was not elegant. There were rag warehouses across the +street and women who leaned out the windows to gossip. The street itself +was thronged with children. They played on a sand pile and were often +noisy and seldom clean. It was eminently not the place for a +distinguished man of letters. The family began to be sensitive on the +subject of their address. + +Clemens, of course, made humor out of it. He wrote a newspaper letter on +the subject, a burlesque, naturally, which the family prevailed upon him +not to print. But the humiliation is out of it now, and a bit of its +humor may be preserved. He takes upon himself the renting of the place, +and pictures the tour of inspection with the agent's assistant. + +He was greatly moved when they came to the street and said, softly and +lovingly: + + "Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you + before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?--notice how + still it is; and remember this is noonday--noonday. It is but one + block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in + the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet + unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately + thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And----" + + "This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others. + They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin." + + "Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of + the nobility. What they want----" + + "The nobility? Do they live in----" + + "In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke + of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke + first moved in here he----" + + "Does he live in this street?" + + "Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over + there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his + house." + + "The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep + boarders?" + + "What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand + marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good." + + "Well, what does he have that sign up for?" + + The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light + beaming in his eye: + + "Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by + your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine + aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities, + eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they + are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board + there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated + by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count + five, a duke fifteen----" + + "Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup----" + + "Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not + the present Duke, but the last but one, he----" + + "Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?" + + "No, the one farther along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is + chewing the door-mat----" + + "But all the yellow cats are chewing the door-mats." + + "Yes, but I mean the eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind; + there's a lot more come. I'll get you another mark. Let me see---" + +They could not remain permanently in Komerstrasse, but they stuck it out +till the end of December--about two months. Then they made such +settlement with the agent as they could--that is to say, they paid the +rest of their year's rent--and established themselves in a handsome +apartment at the Hotel Royal, Unter den Linden. There was no need to be +ashamed of this address, for it was one of the best in Berlin. + +As for Komerstrasse, it is cleaner now. It is still not aristocratic, +but it is eminently respectable. There is a new post-office that takes +in Number 7, where one may post mail and send telegrams and use the +Fernsprecher--which is to say the telephone--and be politely treated by +uniformed officials, who have all heard of Mark Twain, but have no +knowledge of his former occupation of their premises. + + + + +CLXXVIII + +A WINTER IN BERLIN + +Clemens, meantime, had been trying to establish himself in his work, but +his rheumatism racked him occasionally and was always a menace. Closing +a letter to Hall, he said: + + "I must stop-my arm is howling." + +He put in a good deal of time devising publishing schemes, principal +among them being a plan for various cheap editions of his books, +pamphlets, and such like, to sell for a few cents. These projects appear +never to have been really undertaken, Hall very likely fearing that a +flood of cheap issues would interfere with the more important trade. It +seemed dangerous to trifle with an apparently increasing prosperity, and +Clemens was willing enough to agree with this view. + +Clemens had still another letter to write for Laffan and McClure, and he +made a pretty careful study of Berlin with that end in view. But his arm +kept him from any regular work. He made notes, however. Once he wrote: + + The first gospel of all monarchies should be Rebellion; the second + should be Rebellion; and the third and all gospels, and the only + gospel of any monarchy, should be Rebellion--against Church and + State. + +And again: + + I wrote a chapter on this language 13 years ago and tried my level + best to improve it and simplify it for these people, and this is the + result--a, word of thirty-nine letters. It merely concentrates the + alphabet with a shovel. It hurts me to know that that chapter is + not in any of their text-books and they don't use it in the + university. + +Socially, that winter in Berlin was eventful enough. William Walter +Phelps, of New Jersey (Clemens had known him in America), was United +States minister at the German capital, while at the Emperor's court there +was a cousin, Frau von Versen, nee Clemens, one of the St. Louis family. +She had married a young German officer who had risen to the rank of a +full general. Mark Twain and his family were welcome guests at all the +diplomatic events--often brilliant levees, gatherings of distinguished +men and women from every circle of achievement. Labouchere of 'Truth' +was there, De Blowitz of the 'Times', and authors, ambassadors, and +scientists of rank. Clemens became immediately a distinguished figure at +these assemblies. His popularity in Germany was openly manifested. At +any gathering he was surrounded by a brilliant company, eager to do him +honor. He was recognized whenever he appeared on the street, and +saluted, though in his notes he says he was sometimes mistaken for the +historian Mommsen, whom he resembled in hair and features. His books +were displayed for sale everywhere, and a special cheap edition of them +was issued at a few cents per copy. + +Captain Bingham (later General Bingham, Commissioner of Police in New +York City) and John Jackson were attaches of the legation, both of them +popular with the public in general, and especially so with the Clemens +family. Susy Clemens, writing to her father during a temporary absence, +tells of a party at Mrs. Jackson's, and especially refers to Captain +Bingham in the most complimentary terms. + +"He never left me sitting alone, nor in an awkward situation of any kind, +but always came cordially to the rescue. My gratitude toward him was +absolutely limitless." + +She adds that Mrs. Bingham was very handsome and decidedly the most +attractive lady present. Berlin was Susy's first real taste of society, +and she was reveling in it. In her letter she refers to Minister Phelps +by the rather disrespectful nickname of "Yaas," a term conferred because +of his pronounciation of that affirmative. The Clemens children were not +entirely happy in the company of the minister. They were fond of him, +but he was a great tease. They were quite young enough, but it seemed +always to give him delight to make them appear much younger. In the +letter above quoted Susy says: + + When I saw Mr. Phelps I put out my hand enthusiastically and said, + "Oh, Mr. Phelps, good evening," whereat he drew back and said, so + all could hear, "What, you here! why, you're too young. Do you + think you know how to behave?" As there were two or three young + gentlemen near by to whom I hadn't been introduced I wasn't exactly + overjoyed at this greeting. + +We may imagine that the nickname "Yaas" had been invented by Susy in +secret retaliation, though she was ready enough to forgive him, for he +was kindness itself at heart. + +In one of his later dictations Clemens related an anecdote concerning a +dinner with Phelps, when he (Clemens) had been invited to meet Count +S----, a cabinet minister of long and illustrious descent. Clemens, and +Phelps too, it seems, felt overshadowed by this ancestry. + + Of course I wanted to let out the fact that I had some ancestors, + too; but I did not want to pull them out of their graves by the + ears, and I never could seem to get the chance to work them in, in a + way that would look sufficiently casual. I suppose Phelps was in + the same difficulty. In fact he looked distraught now and then just + as a person looks who wants to uncover an ancestor purely by + accident and cannot think of a way that will seem accidental enough. + But at last, after dinner, he made a try. He took us about his + drawing-room, showing us the pictures, and finally stopped before a + rude and ancient engraving. It was a picture of the court that + tried Charles I. There was a pyramid of judges in Puritan slouch + hats, and below them three bareheaded secretaries seated at a table. + Mr. Phelps put his finger upon one of the three and said, with + exulting indifference: + + "An ancestor of mine." + + I put a finger on a judge and retorted with scathing languidness: + "Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others." + +Clemens was sincerely fond of Phelps and spent a good deal of time at the +legation headquarters. Sometimes he wrote there. An American +journalist, Henry W. Fischer, remembers seeing him there several times +scribbling on such scraps of paper as came handy, and recalls that on one +occasion he delivered an address to a German and English audience on the +"Awful German Tongue." This was probably the lecture that brought +Clemens to bed with pneumonia. With Mrs. Clemens he had been down to +Ilsenburg, in the Hartz Mountains, for a week of change. It was pleasant +there, and they would have remained longer but for the Berlin lecture +engagement. As it was, they found Berlin very cold and the lecture-room +crowded and hot. When the lecture was over they stopped at General von +Versen's for a ball, arriving at home about two in the morning. Clemens +awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a very +sick man indeed, for the better part of a month. It was unpleasant +enough at first, though he rather enjoyed the convalescent period. He +could sit up in bed and read and receive occasional callers. Fischer +brought him Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, always a favorite. +--[Clemens was deeply interested in the Margravine, and at one time began +a novel with her absorbing history as its theme. He gave it up, probably +feeling that the romantic form could add nothing to the Margravine's own +story.]--The Emperor sent Frau von Versen with an invitation for him to +attend the consecration of some flags in the palace. When she returned, +conveying thanks and excuses, his Majesty commanded her to prepare a +dinner at her home for Mark Twain and himself and a few special guests, +the date to be arranged when Clemens's physician should pronounce him +well enough to attend. + +Members of the Clemens household were impressed by this royal attention. +Little Jean was especially awed. She said: + +"I wish I could be in papa's clothes"; then, after reflection, "but that +wouldn't be any use. I reckon the Emperor wouldn't recognize me." And a +little later, when she had been considering all the notables and +nobilities of her father's recent association, she added: + +"Why, papa, if it keeps on like this, pretty soon there won't be anybody +for you to get acquainted with but God," which Mark Twain decided was not +quite as much of a compliment as it had at first seemed. + +It was during the period of his convalescence that Clemens prepared his +sixth letter for the New York Sun and McClure's syndicate, "The German +Chicago," a finely descriptive article on Berlin, and German customs and +institutions generally. Perhaps the best part of it is where he +describes the grand and prolonged celebration which had been given in +honor of Professor Virchow's seventieth birthday.--[Rudolph Virchow, an +eminent German pathologist and anthropologist and scholar; then one of +the most prominent figures of the German Reichstag. He died in 1902.]-- +He tells how the demonstrations had continued in one form or another day +after day, and merged at last into the seventieth birthday of Professor +Helmholtz--[Herman von Helmholtz, an eminent German physicist, one of +the most distinguished scientists of the nineteenth century. He died in +1894.]--also how these great affairs finally culminated in a mighty +'commers', or beer-fest, given in their honor by a thousand German +students. This letter has been published in Mark Twain's "Complete +Works," and is well worth reading to-day. His place had been at the +table of the two heroes of the occasion, Virchow and Helmholtz, a place +where he could see and hear all that went on; and he was immensely +impressed at the honor which Germany paid to her men of science. The +climax came when Mommsen unexpectedly entered the room.--[Theodor +Mommsen (1817-1903), an eminent German historian and archeologist, a +powerful factor in all liberal movements. From 1874-1895 permanent +secretary of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences.] + + There seemed to be some signal whereby the students on the platform + were made aware that a professor had arrived at the remote door of + entrance, for you would see them suddenly rise to their feet, strike + an erect military attitude, then draw their swords; the swords of + all their brethren standing guard at the innumerable tables would + flash from the scabbard and be held aloft--a handsome spectacle. + Three clear bugle-notes would ring out, then all these swords would + come down with a crash, twice repeated, on the tables and be + uplifted and held aloft again; then in the distance you would see + the gay uniforms and uplifted swords of a guard of honor clearing + the way and conducting the guest down to his place. The songs were + stirring, and the immense outpour from young life and young lungs, + the crash of swords, and the thunder of the beer-mugs gradually + worked a body up to what seemed the last possible summit of + excitement. It surely seemed to me that I had reached that summit, + that I had reached my limit, and that there was no higher lift + devisable for me. When apparently the last eminent guest had long + ago taken his place, again those three bugle-blasts rang out, and + once more the swords leaped from their scabbards. Who might this + late comer be? Nobody was interested to inquire. Still, indolent + eyes were turned toward the distant entrance, and we saw the silken + gleam and the lifted sword of a guard of honor plowing through the + remote crowds. Then we saw that end of the house rising to its + feet; saw it rise abreast the advancing guard all along like a wave. + This supreme honor had been offered to no one before. There was an + excited whisper at our table--"Mommsen!"--and the whole house rose-- + rose and shouted and stamped and clapped and banged the beer-mugs. + Just simply a storm! Then the little man with his long hair and + Emersonian face edged his way past us and took his seat. I could + have touched him with my hand--Mommsen!--think of it! + + This was one of those immense surprises that can happen only a few + times in one's life. I was not dreaming of him; he was to me only a + giant myth, a world-shadowing specter, not a reality. The surprise + of it all can be only comparable to a man's suddenly coming upon + Mont Blanc, with its awful form towering into the sky, when he + didn't suspect he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked a + great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without + trouble, or tramp, or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a + titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here + he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Caesars in his + hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous + vault, the skull of the universe, carries the Milky Way and the + constellations. + +During his convalescent days, Clemens had plenty of time to reflect and +to look out of the window. His notebook preserves some of his +reflections. In one place he says: + + The Emperor passes in a modest open carnage. Next that happy 12- + year-old butcher-boy, all in white apron and turban, standing up + & so proud! + + How fast they drive-nothing like it but in London. And the horses + seem to be of very fine breed, though I am not an expert in horses + & do not speak with assurance. I can always tell which is the front + end of a horse, but beyond that my art is not above the ordinary. + + The "Court Gazette" of a German paper can be covered with a playing- + card. In an English paper the movements of titled people take up + about three times that room. In the papers of Republican France + from six to sixteen times as much. There, if a Duke's dog should + catch cold in the head they would stop the press to announce it and + cry about it. In Germany they respect titles, in England they + revere them, in France they adore them. That is, the French + newspapers do. + + Been taken for Mommsen twice. We have the same hair, but on + examination it was found the brains were different. + +On February 14th he records that Professor Helmholtz called, but +unfortunately leaves no further memorandum of that visit. He was quite +recovered by this time, but was still cautioned about going out in the +severe weather. In the final entry he says: + + Thirty days sick abed--full of interest--read the debates and get + excited over them, though don't 'versteh'. By reading keep in a + state of excited ignorance, like a blind man in a house afire; + flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't + know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a + booming time all to myself. + +Don't know what a 'Schelgesetzentwurf' is, but I keep as excited over it +and as worried about it as if it was my own child. I simply live on the +Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for +anything in the world. Especially now that I've lost the 'offentliche +Militargericht circus'. I read all the debates on that question with a +never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple +of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn't find +out what it was. + + + + +CLXXIX + +A DINNER WITH WILLIAM II. + +The dinner with Emperor William II. at General von Versen's was set for +the 20th of February. A few days before, Mark Twain entered in his note- +book: + + In that day the Imperial lion and the Democratic lamb shall sit down + together, and a little General shall feed them. + +Mark Twain was the guest of honor on this occasion, and was seated at the +Emperor's right hand. The Emperor's brother, Prince Heinrich, sat +opposite; Prince Radolin farther along. Rudolf Lindau, of the Foreign +Office, was also present. There were fourteen at the table, all told. +In his memorandum made at the time, Clemens gave no account of the dinner +beyond the above details, only adding: + + After dinner 6 or 8 officers came in, & all hands adjourned to the + big room out of the smoking-room and held a "smoking parliament" + after the style of the ancient Potsdam one, till midnight, when the + Emperor shook hands and left. + +It was not until fourteen years later that Mark Twain related some +special matters pertaining to that evening. He may have expanded then +somewhat to fill out spaces of his memory, and embroidered them, as was +his wont; but that something happened, either in reality or in his +imagination, which justified his version of it we may believe. He told +it as here given, premising: "This may appear in print after I am dead, +but not before. + + "From 1891 until day before yesterday I had never mentioned the + matter, nor set it down with a pen, nor ever referred to it in any + way--not even to my wife, to whom I was accustomed to tell + everything that happened to me. + + "At the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along + in easy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself + to address a remark to me or to some other individual of the guests. + When the reply had been delivered he resumed his talk. I noticed + that the table etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my + house at home when we had guests; that is to say, the guests + answered when the host favored them with a remark, and then quieted + down and behaved themselves until they got another chance. If I had + been in the Emperor's chair and he in mine I should have felt + infinitely comfortable and at home, but I was guest now, and + consequently felt less at home. From old experience I was familiar + with the rules of the game and familiar with their exercise from the + high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammeled and + less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little + strange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the + Emperor was host, therefore, according to my own rule, he had a + right to do the talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no + interruptions or other improvements except upon invitation; and of + course it could be my turn some day--some day, on some friendly + visit of inspection to America, it might be my pleasure and + distinction to have him as guest at my table; then I would give him + a rest and a quiet time. + + "In one way there was a difference between his table and mine-for + instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally + they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only + human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he + did it with a deferential voice and manner; he did not put any + emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his + system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved. The + Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; + maybe it was an inspiration to him, for he was alert, brilliant, and + full of animation; also he was most gracefully and felicitously + complimentary to my books--and I will remark here that the happy + phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the + happy delivery of it another. I once mentioned the high compliment + which he paid to the book 'Old Times on the Mississippi'; but there + were others, among them some high praise of my description in 'A + Tramp Abroad' of certain striking phases of German student life. + + "Fifteen or twenty minutes before the dinner ended the Emperor made + a remark to me in praise of our generous soldier pensions; then, + without pausing, he continued the remark, not speaking to me, but + across the table to his brother, Prince Heinrich. The Prince + replied, endorsing the Emperor's view of the matter. Then I + followed with my own view of it. I said that in the beginning our + government's generosity to the soldier was clear in its intent and + praiseworthy, since the pensions were conferred upon soldiers who + had earned them, soldiers who had been disabled in the war and could + no longer earn a livelihood for themselves and their families, but + that the pensions decreed and added later lacked the virtue of a + clean motive, and had, little by little, degenerated into a wider + and wider and more and more offensive system of vote-purchasing, and + was now become a source of corruption, which was an unpleasant thing + to contemplate and was a danger besides. I think that that was + about the substance of my remark; but in any case the remark had a + quite definite result, and that is the memorable thing about it-- + manifestly it made everybody uncomfortable. I seemed to perceive + this quite plainly. I had committed an indiscretion. Possibly it + was in violating etiquette by intruding a remark when I had not been + invited to make one; possibly it was in taking issue with an opinion + promulgated by his Majesty. I do not know which it was, but I quite + clearly remember the effect which my act produced--to wit, the + Emperor refrained from addressing any remarks to me afterward, and + not merely during the brief remainder of the dinner, but afterward + in the kneip-room, where beer and cigars and hilarious anecdoting + prevailed until about midnight. I am sure that the Emperor's good + night was the only thing he said to me in all that time. + + "Was this rebuke studied and intentional? I don't know, but I + regarded it in that way. I can't be absolutely sure of it because + of modifying doubts created afterward by one or two circumstances. + For example: the Empress Dowager invited me to her palace, and the + reigning Empress invited me to breakfast, and also sent for General + von Versen to come to her palace and read to her and her ladies from + my books." + +It was a personal message from the Emperor that fourteen years later +recalled to him this curious circumstance. A gentleman whom Clemens knew +went on a diplomatic mission to Germany. Upon being presented to Emperor +William, the latter had immediately begun to talk of Mark Twain and his +work. He spoke of the description of German student life as the greatest +thing of its kind ever written, and of the sketch on the German language +as wonderful; then he said: + +"Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards, ask him if he remembers that +dinner at Von Versen's, and ask him why he didn't do any more talking at +that dinner." + +It seemed a mysterious message. Clemens thought it might have been meant +to convey some sort of an imperial apology; but again it might have meant +that Mark Twain's breach and the Emperor's coolness on that occasion were +purely imaginary, and that the Emperor had really expected him to talk +far more than he did. + +Returning to the Royal Hotel after the Von Versen dinner, Mark Twain +received his second high compliment that day on the Mississippi book. +The portier, a tow-headed young German, must have been comparatively new +at the hotel; for apparently he had just that day learned that his +favorite author, whose books he had long been collecting, was actually +present in the flesh. Clemens, all ready to apologize for asking so late +an admission, was greeted by the portier's round face all sunshine and +smiles. The young German then poured out a stream of welcome and +compliments and dragged the author to a small bedroom near the front +door, where he excitedly pointed out a row of books, German translations +of Mark Twain. + +"There," he said; "you wrote them. I've found it out. Lieber Gott! +I did not know it before, and I ask a million pardons. That one there, +Old Times on the Mississippi, is the best you ever wrote." + +The note-book records only one social event following the Emperor's +dinner--a dinner with the secretary of the legation. The note says: + +At the Emperor's dinner black cravats were ordered. Tonight I went in a +black cravat and everybody else wore white ones. Just my luck. + +The Berlin activities came to an end then. He was still physically far +from robust, and his doctors peremptorily ordered him to stay indoors or +to go to a warmer climate. This was March 1st. Clemens and his wife +took Joseph Very, and, leaving the others for the time in Berlin, set out +for Mentone, in the south of France. + + + + +CLXXX + +MANY WANDERINGS + +Mentone was warm and quiet, and Clemens worked when his arm permitted. +He was alone there with Mrs. Clemens, and they wandered about a good +deal, idling and picture-making, enjoying a sort of belated honeymoon. +Clemens wrote to Susy: + +Joseph is gone to Nice to educate himself in kodaking--and to get the +pictures mounted which mama thinks she took here; but I noticed she +didn't take the plug out, as a rule. When she did she took nine pictures +on top of each other--composites. + +They remained a month in Mentone, then went over to Pisa, and sent Joseph +to bring the rest of the party to Rome. In Rome they spent another +month--a period of sight-seeing, enjoyable, but to Clemens pretty +profitless. + +"I do not expect to be able to write any literature this year," he said +in a letter to Hall near the end of April. "The moment I take up my pen +my rheumatism returns." + +Still he struggled along and managed to pile up a good deal of copy in +the course of weeks. From Rome to Florence, at the end of April, and so +pleasing was the prospect, and so salubrious the air of that ancient +city, that they resolved to engage residence there for the next winter. +They inspected accommodations of various kinds, and finally, through +Prof. Willard Fiske, were directed to the Villa Viviani, near Settignano, +on a hill to the eastward of Florence, with vineyard and olive-grove +sloping away to the city lying in a haze-a vision of beauty and peace. +They closed the arrangement for Viviani, and about the middle of May went +up to Venice for a fortnight of sight-seeing--a break in the travel back +to Germany. William Gedney Bunce, the Hartford artist, was in Venice, +and Sarah Orne Jewett and other home friends. + +From Venice, by way of Lake Como and "a tangled route" (his note-book +says) to Lucerne, and so northward to Berlin and on to Bad Nauheim, where +they had planned to spend the summer. Clemens for some weeks had +contemplated a trip to America, for matters there seemed to demand his +personal attention. Summer arrangements for the family being now +concluded, he left within the week and set sail on the Havel for New +York. To Jean he wrote a cheerful good-by letter, more cheerful, we may +believe, than he felt. + + BREMEN, 7.45 A.M., June 14, 1892. + +DEAR JEAN CLEMENS,--I am up & shaved & got my clean shirt on & feel +mighty fine, & am going down to show off before I put on the rest of my +clothes. + +Perhaps mama & Mrs. Hague can persuade the Hauswirth to do right; but if +he don't you go down & kill his dog. + +I wish you would invite the Consul-General and his ladies down to take +one of those slim dinners with mama, then he would complain to the +Government. + + +Clemens felt that his presence in America, was demanded by two things. +Hall's reports continued, as ever, optimistic; but the semi-annual +statements were less encouraging. The Library of Literature and some of +the other books were selling well enough; but the continuous increase of +capital required by a business conducted on the instalment plan had +steadily added to the firm's liabilities, while the prospect of a general +tightening in the money-market made the outlook not a particularly happy +one. Clemens thought he might be able to dispose of the Library or an +interest in it, or even of his share of the business itself, to some one +with means sufficient to put it on an easier financial footing. The +uncertainties of trade and the burden of increased debt had become a +nightmare which interfered with his sleep. It seemed hard enough to earn +a living with a crippled arm, without this heavy business care. + +The second interest requiring attention was that other old one--the +machine. Clemens had left the matter in Paige's hands, and Paige, with +persuasive eloquence, had interested Chicago capital to a point where a +company had been formed to manufacture the type-setter in that city. +Paige reported that he had got several million dollars subscribed for the +construction of a factory, and that he had been placed on a salary as a +sort of general "consulting omniscient" at five thousand dollars a month. +Clemens, who had been negotiating again with the Mallorys for the +disposal of his machine royalties, thought it proper to find out just +what was going on. He remained in America less than two weeks, during +which he made a flying trip to Chicago and found that Paige's company +really had a factory started, and proposed to manufacture fifty machines. +It was not easy to find out the exact status of this new company, but +Clemens at least was hopeful enough of its prospects to call off the +negotiations with the Mallorys which had promised considerable cash in +hand. He had been able to accomplish nothing material in the publishing +situation, but his heart-to-heart talk with Hall for some reason had +seemed comforting. The business had been expanding; they would now +"concentrate." He returned on the Lahn, and he must have been in better +health and spirits, for it is said he kept the ship very merry during the +passage. He told many extravagantly amusing yarns; so many that a court +was convened to try him on the charge of "inordinate and unscientific +lying." Many witnesses testified, and his own testimony was so +unconvincing that the jury convicted him without leaving the bench. He +was sentenced to read aloud from his own works for a considerable period +every day until the steamer should reach port. It is said that he +faithfully carried out this part of the program, and that the proceeds +from the trial and the various readings amounted to something more than +six hundred dollars, which was turned over to the Seamen's Fund. + +Clemens's arm was really much better, and he put in a good deal of spare +time during the trip writing an article on "All Sorts and Conditions of +Ships," from Noah's Ark down to the fine new Havel, then the latest word +in ship-construction. It was an article written in a happy vein and is +profitable reading to-day. The description of Columbus as he appeared on +the deck of his flag-ship is particularly rich and flowing: + + If the weather was chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to + spurred heel in magnificent plate-armor inlaid with arabesques of + gold, having previously warmed it at the galley fire. If the + weather was warm he came up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the + time-great slouch hat of blue velvet, with a flowing brush of snowy + ostrich-plumes, fastened on with a flashing cluster of diamonds and + emeralds; gold-embroidered doublet of green velvet, with slashed + sleeves exposing undersleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and cuff + ruffles of rich, limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, with big + knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl-tinted silk stockings, + clocked and daintily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn + kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty stockings; + deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, from the factory of the + Holy Inquisition, formerly part of the person of a lady of rank; + rapier with sheath crusted with jewels and hanging from a broad + baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires. + + + + +CLXXXI + +NAUHEIM AND THE PRINCE OF WALES + +Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and +turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles and +stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books--'Tom Sawyer +Abroad' and 'Those Extraordinary Twins'--the latter being the original +form of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'. As early as August 4th he wrote to Hall +that he had finished forty thousand words of the "Tom Sawyer" story, and +that it was to be offered to some young people's magazine, Harper's Young +People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that his narrative +method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote: + + I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more + effective way of using the main episode--to wit, by telling it + through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom + Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim + around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, & + somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that + original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has + been written & the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode + in in an effective (& at the same time apparently unintentional) + way. I have written 12,000 words of this new narrative, & find that + the humor flows as easily as the adventures & surprises--so I shall + go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words. + + It is a story for boys, of course, & I think it will interest any + boy between 8 years & 80. + + When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St. + Nicholas, wrote and offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for + boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other + matter in my mind then. + + I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write + so that it will not only interest boys, but will also strongly + interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges + the audience. + + Now, this story doesn't need to be restricted to a child's magazine + --it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a + syndicate. I don't swear it, but I think so. + + Proposed title--New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. + +He was full of his usual enthusiasm in any new undertaking, and writes of +the Extraordinary Twins: + + By and by I shall have to offer (for grown folks' magazine) a novel + entitled, 'Those Extraordinary Twins'. It's the howling farce I + told you I had begun awhile back. I laid it aside to ferment while + I wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad, but I took it up again on a little + different plan lately, and it is swimming along satisfactorily now. + I think all sorts of folks will read it. It is clear out of the + common order--it is a fresh idea--I don't think it resembles + anything in literature. + +He was quite right; it did not resemble anything in literature, nor did +it greatly resemble literature, though something at least related to +literature would eventually grow out of it. + +In a letter written many years afterward by Frank Mason, then consul- +general at Frankfort, he refers to "that happy summer at Nauheim." Mason +was often a visitor there, and we may believe that his memory of the +summer was justified. For one thing, Clemens himself was in better +health and spirits and able to continue his work. But an even greater +happiness lay in the fact that two eminent physicians had pronounced Mrs. +Clemens free from any organic ills. To Orion, Clemens wrote: + + We are in the clouds because the bath physicians say positively that + Livy has no heart disease but has only weakness of the heart muscles + and will soon be well again. That was worth going to Europe to find + out. + +It was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the household, and +financial worries were less considered. Another letter to Orion relates +history: + + The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with + them. Joe & I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure-resort, + Saturday, to dine with friends, & in the morning I went walking in + the promenade & met the British ambassador to the Court of Berlin + and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales. I found him a most + unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman. + +Twichell has reported Mark Twain's meeting with the Prince (later Edward +VII) as having come about by special request of the latter, made through +the British ambassador. "The meeting," he says, "was a most cordial one +on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain's arm and the two +marched up and down, talking earnestly together, the Prince, solid, +erect, and soldierlike, Clemens weaving along in his curious, swinging +gait in a full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun-umbrella of the most +scandalous description." + +When they parted Clemens said: + +"It has been, indeed, a great pleasure to meet your Royal Highness." + +The Prince answered: + +"And it is a pleasure, Mr. Clemens, to have met you--again." + +Clemens was puzzled to reply. + +"Why," he said, "have we met before?" + +The Prince smiled happily. + +"Oh yes," he said; "don't you remember that day on the Strand when you +were on the top of a bus and I was heading a procession and you had on +your new overcoat with flap-pockets?"--[See chap. clxiii, "A Letter to +the Queen of England."] + +It was the highest compliment he could have paid, for it showed that he +had read, and had remembered all those years. Clemens expressed to +Twichell regret that he had forgotten to mention his visit to the +Prince's sister, Louise, in Ottawa, but he had his opportunity at a +dinner next day. Later the Prince had him to supper and they passed an +entire evening together. + +There was a certain uneasiness in the Nauheim atmosphere that year, for +the cholera had broken out at Hamburg, and its victims were dying at a +terrific rate. It was almost impossible to get authentic news as to the +spread of the epidemic, for the German papers were curiously conservative +in their reports. Clemens wrote an article on the subject but concluded +not to print it. A paragraph will convey its tenor. + + What I am trying to make the reader understand is the strangeness of + the situation here--a mighty tragedy being played upon a stage that + is close to us, & yet we are as ignorant of its details as we should + be if the stage were in China. We sit "in front," & the audience is + in fact the world; but the curtain is down, & from behind it we hear + only an inarticulate murmur. The Hamburg disaster must go into + history as the disaster without a history. + +He closes with an item from a physician's letter--an item which he says +"gives you a sudden and terrific sense of the situation there." + For in a line it flashes before you--this ghastly picture--a thing + seen by the physician: a wagon going along the street with five sick + people in it, and with them four dead ones. + + + + +CLXXXII + +THE VILLA VIVIANI + +'The American Claimant', published in May l (1892), did not bring a very +satisfactory return. For one thing, the book-trade was light, and then +the Claimant was not up to his usual standard. It had been written under +hard circumstances and by a pen long out of practice; it had not paid, +and its author must work all the harder on the new undertakings. The +conditions at Nauheim seemed favorable, and they lingered there until +well into September. To Mrs. Crane, who had returned to America, Clemens +wrote on the 18th, from Lucerne, in the midst of their travel to Italy: + + We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left four or + five days earlier we should have made Florence in three days. Hard + trip because it was one of those trains that gets tired every 7 + minutes and stops to rest three-quarters of an hour. It took us + 3 1/2 hours to get there instead of the regulation 2 hours. We + shall pull through to Milan to-morrow if possible. Next day we + shall start at 10 AM and try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day, + Florence, D. V. Next year we will walk. Phelps came to Frankfort + and we had some great times--dinner at his hotel; & the Masons, + supper at our inn--Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a + glimpse, no more. Of course Phelps said she was merely pretending + to be ill; was never looking so well & fine. + + A Paris journal has created a happy interest by inoculating one of + its correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to + God they would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite + general and strong & much hope is felt. + + Livy says I have said enough bad things, and better send all our + loves & shut up. Which I do--and shut up. + +They lingered at Lucerne until Mrs. Clemens was rested and better able to +continue the journey, arriving at last in Florence, September 26th. They +drove out to the Villa Viviani in the afternoon and found everything in +readiness for their reception, even to the dinner, which was prepared and +on the table. Clemens, in his notes, speaks of this and adds: + +It takes but a sentence to state that, but it makes an indolent person +tired to think of the planning & work and trouble that lie concealed in +it. + +Some further memoranda made at this time have that intimate interest +which gives reality and charm. The 'contadino' brought up their trunks +from the station, and Clemens wrote: + + The 'contadino' is middle-aged & like the rest of the peasants--that + is to say, brown, handsome, good-natured, courteous, & entirely + independent without making any offensive show of it. He charged too + much for the trunks, I was told. My informer explained that this + was customary. + + September 27. The rest of the trunks brought up this morning. He + charged too much again, but I was told that this was also customary. + It's all right, then. I do not wish to violate the customs. Hired + landau, horses, & coachman. Terms, 480 francs a month & a pourboire + to the coachman, I to furnish lodging for the man & the horses, but + nothing else. The landau has seen better days & weighs 30 tons. + The horses are feeble & object to the landau; they stop & turn + around every now & then & examine it with surprise & suspicion. + This causes delay. But it entertains the people along the road. + They came out & stood around with their hands in their pockets & + discussed the matter with each other. I was told that they said + that a 30-ton landau was not the thing for horses like those--what + they needed was a wheelbarrow. + +His description of the house pictures it as exactly today as it did then, +for it has not changed in these twenty years, nor greatly, perhaps, in +the centuries since it was built. + It is a plain, square building, like a box, & is painted light + yellow & has green window-shutters. It stands in a commanding + position on the artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is + walled around with masonry. From the walls the vineyards & olive + orchards of the estate slant away toward the valley. There are + several tall trees, stately stone-pines, also fig-trees & trees of + breeds not familiar to me. Roses overflow the retaining-walls, & + the battered & mossy stone urn on the gate-posts, in pink & yellow + cataracts exactly as they do on the drop-curtains in the theaters. + The house is a very fortress for strength. The main walls--all + brick covered with plaster--are about 3 feet thick. I have several + times tried to count the rooms of the house, but the irregularities + baffle me. There seem to be 28. There are plenty of windows & + worlds of sunlight. The floors are sleek & shiny & full of + reflections, for each is a mirror in its way, softly imaging all + objects after the subdued fashion of forest lakes. The curious + feature of the house is the salon. This is a spacious & lofty + vacuum which occupies the center of the house. All the rest of the + house is built around it; it extends up through both stories & its + roof projects some feet above the rest of the building. The sense + of its vastness strikes you the moment you step into it & cast your + eyes around it & aloft. There are divans distributed along its + walls. They make little or no show, though their aggregate length + is 57 feet. A piano in it is a lost object. We have tried to + reduce the sense of desert space & emptiness with tables & things, + but they have a defeated look, & do not do any good. Whatever + stands or moves under that soaring painted vault is belittled. + +He describes the interior of this vast room (they grew to love it), +dwelling upon the plaster-relief portraits above its six doors, +Florentine senators and judges, ancient dwellers there and former owners +of the estate. + + The date of one of them is 1305--middle-aged, then, & a judge--he + could have known, as a youth, the very greatest Italian artists, & + he could have walked & talked with Dante, & probably did. The date + of another is 1343--he could have known Boccaccio & spent his + afternoons wandering in Fiesole, gazing down on plague-reeking + Florence & listening to that man's improper tales, & he probably + did. The date of another is 1463--he could have met Columbus & he + knew the magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis-- + or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into + their family on account of its antiquity--my origin having been + heretofore too recent to suit me. + +We are considering the details of Viviani at some length, for it was in +this setting that he began and largely completed what was to be his most +important work of this later time--in some respects his most important of +any time--the 'Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc'. If the reader +loves this book, and he must love it if he has read it, he will not +begrudge the space here given to the scene of its inspiration. The +outdoor picture of Viviani is of even more importance, for he wrote +oftener out-of-doors than elsewhere. Clemens added it to his notes +several months later, but it belongs here. + + The situation of this villa is perfect. It is three miles from + Florence, on the side of a hill. Beyond some hill-spurs is Fiesole + perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground is the + imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with + the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant + plain lies Florence, pink & gray & brown, with the ruddy, huge dome + of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, & + flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel & on + the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; all around the + horizon is a billowy rim of lofty blue hills, snowed white with + innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this + panorama I still think, as I thought in the beginning, that this is + the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, + the most satisfying to the eye & the spirit. To see the sun sink + down, drowned in his pink & purple & golden floods, & overwhelm + Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim & + faint & turn the solid city into a city of dreams, is a sight to + stir the coldest nature & make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy. + +The Clemens household at Florence consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, +Susy, and Jean. Clara had soon returned to Berlin to attend Mrs. +Willard's school and for piano instruction. Mrs. Clemens improved in the +balmy autumn air of Florence and in the peaceful life of their well- +ordered villa. In a memorandum of October 27th Clemens wrote: + + The first month is finished. We are wonted now. This carefree life + at a Florentine villa is an ideal existence. The weather is divine, + the outside aspects lovely, the days and nights tranquil and + reposeful, the seclusion from the world and its worries as + satisfactory as a dream. Late in the afternoons friends come out + from the city & drink tea in the open air & tell what is happening + in the world; & when the great sun sinks down upon Florence & the + daily miracle begins they hold their breath & look. It is not a + time for talk. + +No wonder he could work in that environment. He finished 'Tom Sawyer +Abroad', also a short story, 'The L 1,000,000 Bank-Note' (planned many +years before), discovered the literary mistake of the 'Extraordinary +Twins' and began converting it into the worthier tale, 'Pudd'nhead +Wilson', soon completed and on its way to America. + +With this work out of his hands, Clemens was ready for his great new +undertaking. A seed sown by the wind more than forty years before was +ready to bloom. He would write the story of Joan of Arc. + + + + +CLXXXIII + +THE SIEUR DE CONTE AND JOAN + +In a note which he made many years later Mark Twain declared that he was +fourteen years at work on Joan of Arc; that he had been twelve years +preparing for it, and that he was two years in writing it. + +There is nothing in any of his earlier notes or letters to indicate that +he contemplated the story of Joan as early as the eighties; but there is +a bibliographical list of various works on the subject, probably compiled +for him not much later than 1880, for the latest published work of the +list bears that date. He was then too busy with his inventions and +publishing schemes to really undertake a work requiring such vast +preparation; but without doubt he procured a number of books and renewed +that old interest begun so long ago when a stray wind had blown a leaf +from that tragic life into his own. Joan of Arc, by Janet Tuckey, was +apparently the first book he read with the definite idea of study, for +this little volume had been recently issued, and his copy, which still +exists, is filled with his marginal notes. He did not speak of this +volume in discussing the matter in after-years. He may have forgotten +it. He dwelt mainly on the old records of the trial which had been dug +out and put into modern French by Quicherat; the 'Jeanne d'Arc' of J. +Michelet, and the splendid 'Life of the Maid' of Lord Ronald Gower, these +being remembered as his chief sources of information.--[The book of +Janet Tuckey, however, and ten others, including those mentioned, are +credited as "authorities examined in verification" on a front page of his +published book. In a letter written at the conclusion of "Joan" in 1895, +the author states that in the first two-thirds of the story he used one +French and one English authority, while in the last third he had +constantly drawn from five French and five English sources.] + +"I could not get the Quicherat and some of the other books in English," +he said, "and I had to dig them out of the French. I began the story +five times." + +None of these discarded beginnings exists to-day, but we may believe they +were wisely put aside, for no story of the Maid could begin more +charmingly, more rarely, than the one supposedly told in his old age by +Sieur Louis de Conte, secretary of Joan of Arc, and translated by Jean +Francois Alden for the world to read. The impulse which had once +prompted Mark Twain to offer The Prince and the Pauper anonymously now +prevailed. He felt that the Prince had missed a certain appreciation by +being connected with his signature, and he resolved that its companion +piece (he so regarded Joan) should be accepted on its merits and without +prejudice. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, smoking vigorously, he +said to Mrs. Clemens and Susy: + +"I shall never be accepted seriously over my own signature. People +always want to laugh over what I write and are disappointed if they don't +find a joke in it. This is to be a serious book. It means more to me +than anything I have ever undertaken. I shall write it anonymously." + +So it was that that gentle, quaint Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and +the tale of Joan was begun in that beautiful spot which of all others +seems now the proper environment for its lovely telling. + +He wrote rapidly once he got his plan perfected and his material +arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood, with the vivid +impressions of that earlier time, became now something remembered, not +merely as reading, but as fact. + +Others of the family went down into the city almost daily, but he +remained in that still garden with Joan as his companion--the old Sieur +de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out that marvelous and tragic +tale. At the end of each day he would read to the others what he had +written, to their enjoyment and wonder. + +How rapidly he worked may be judged from a letter which he wrote to Hall +in February, in which he said: + +I am writing a companion piece to 'The Prince and the Pauper', which is +half done & will make 200,000 words. + +That is to say, he had written one hundred thousand words in a period of +perhaps six weeks, marvelous work when one remembers that after all he +was writing history, some of which he must dig laboriously from a foreign +source. He had always, more or less, kept up his study of the French, +begun so long ago on the river and it stood him in good stead now. +Still, it was never easy for him, and the multitude of notes along the +margin of his French authorities bears evidence of his faithfulness and +the magnitude of his toil. No previous work had ever required so much of +him, such thorough knowledge; none had ever so completely commanded his +interest. He would have been willing to remain shut away from visitors, +to have been released altogether from social obligations; and he did +avoid most of them. Not all, for he could not always escape, and perhaps +did not always really wish to. Florence and its suburbs were full of +delightful people--some of them his old friends. There were luncheons, +dinners, teas, dances, concerts, operas always in progress somewhere, and +not all of these were to be resisted even by an absorbed author who was +no longer himself, but sad old Sieur de Conte, following again the banner +of the Maid of Orleans, marshaling her twilight armies across his +illumined page. + + + + +CLXXXIV + +NEW HOPE IN THE MACHINE + +If all human events had not been ordered in the first act of the primal +atom, and so become inevitable, it would seem a pity now that he must +abandon his work half-way, and make another hard, distracting trip to +America. + +But it was necessary for him to go. Even Hall was no longer optimistic. +His letters provided only the barest shreds of hope. Times were hard and +there was every reason to believe they would be worse. The World's Fair +year promised to be what it speedily became--one of the hardest financial +periods this country has ever seen. Chicago could hardly have selected a +more profitless time for her great exposition. Clemens wrote urging Hall +to sell out all, or a portion, of the business--to do anything, indeed, +that would avoid the necessity of further liability and increased dread. +Every payment that could be spared from the sales of his manuscript was +left in Hall's hands, and such moneys as still came to Mrs. Clemens from +her Elmira interests were flung into the general fund. The latter were +no longer large, for Langdon & Co. were suffering heavily in the general +depression, barely hoping to weather the financial storm. + +It is interesting to note that age and misfortune and illness had a +tempering influence on Mark Twain's nature. Instead of becoming harsh +and severe and bitter, he had become more gentle, more kindly. He wrote +often to Hall, always considerately, even tenderly. Once, when something +in Hall's letter suggested that he had perhaps been severe, he wrote: + + Mrs. Clemens is deeply distressed, for she thinks I have been + blaming you or finding fault with you about something. But most + assuredly that cannot be. I tell her that although I am prone to + write hasty and regrettable things to other people I am not a bit + likely to write such things to you. I can't believe I have done + anything so ungrateful. If I have, pile coals of fire upon my head + for I deserve it. You have done magnificently with the business, & + we must raise the money somehow to enable you to reap a reward for + all that labor. + +He was fond of Hall. He realized how honest and resolute and industrious +he had been. In another letter he wrote him that it was wonderful he had +been able to "keep the ship afloat in the storm that has seen fleets and +fleets go down"; and he added: "Mrs. Clemens says I must tell you not to +send us any money for a month or two, so that you may be afforded what +little relief is in our power." + +The type-setter situation seemed to promise something. In fact, the +machine once more had become the principal hope of financial salvation. +The new company seemed really to begetting ahead in spite of the money +stringency, and was said to have fifty machines well under way: About the +middle of March Clemens packed up two of his shorter manuscripts which he +had written at odd times and forwarded them to Hall, in the hope that +they would be disposed of and the money waiting him on his arrival; and a +week later, March 22, 1893, he sailed from Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm +II, a fine, new boat. One of the manuscripts was 'The Californian's +Tale' and the other was 'Adam's Diary'.--[It seems curious that neither +of these tales should have found welcome with the magazines. "The +Californian's Tale" was published in the Liber Scriptorum, an Authors' +Club book, edited by Arthur Stedman. The 'Diary' was disposed of to the +Niagara Book, a souvenir of Niagara Falls, which contained sketches by +Howells, Clemens, and others. Harper's Magazine republished both these +stories in later years--the Diary especially with great success.] + +Some joke was likely to be played on Mark Twain during these ocean +journeys, and for this particular voyage an original one was planned. +They knew how he would fume and swear if he should be discovered with +dutiable goods and held up in the Custom House, and they planned for this +effect. A few days before arriving in New York one passenger after +another came to him, each with a box of expensive cigars, and some +pleasant speech expressing friendship and appreciation and a hope that +they would be remembered in absence, etc., until he had perhaps ten or a +dozen very choice boxes of smoking material. He took them all with +gratitude and innocence. He had never declared any dutiable baggage, +entering New York alone, and it never occurred to him that he would need +to do so now. His trunk and bags were full; he had the cigars made into +a nice package, to be carried handily, and on his arrival at the North +German Lloyd docks stood waiting among his things for the formality of +Customs examination, his friends assembled for the explosion. + +They had not calculated well; the Custom-House official came along +presently with the usual "Open your baggage, please," then suddenly +recognizing the owner of it he said: + +"Oh, Mr. Clemens, excuse me. We have orders to extend to you the +courtesies of the port. No examination of your effects is necessary." + +It was the evening of Monday, April 3d, when he landed in New York and +went to the Hotel Glenham. In his notes he tells of having a two-hour +talk with Howells on the following night. They had not seen each other +for two years, and their correspondence had been broken off. It was a +happy, even if somewhat sad, reunion, for they were no longer young, and +when they called the roll of friends there were many vacancies. They had +reached an age where some one they loved died every year. Writing to +Mrs. Crane, Clemens speaks of the ghosts of memory; then he says: + + I dreamed I was born & grew up & was a pilot on the Mississippi & a + miner & a journalist in Nevada & a pilgrim in the Quaker City & had + a wife & children & went to live in a villa at Florence--& this + dream goes on & on & sometimes seems so real that I almost believe + it is real. I wonder if it is? But there is no way to tell, for if + one applies tests they would be part of the dream, too, & so would + simply aid the deceit. I wish I knew whether it is a dream or real. + +He was made handsomely welcome in New York. His note-book says: + + Wednesday. Dined with Mary Mapes Dodge, Howells, Rudyard Kipling & + wife, Clarke,--[ William Fayal Clarke, now editor of St. Nicholas + Magazine.]--Jamie Dodge & wife. + + Thursday, 6th. Dined with Andrew Carnegie, Prof. Goldwin Smith, + John Cameron, Mr. Glenn. Creation of league for absorbing Canada + into our Union. Carnegie also wants to add Great Britain & Ireland. + +It was on this occasion that Carnegie made his celebrated maxim about the +basket and the eggs. Clemens was suggesting that Carnegie take an +interest in the typesetter, and quoted the old adage that one should not +put all of his eggs into one basket. Carnegie regarded him through half- +closed lids, as was his custom, and answered: + + "That's a mistake; put all your eggs into one basket--and watch that + basket." + +He had not come to America merely for entertainment. He was at the New +York office of the type-setter company, acquiring there what seemed to be +good news, for he was assured that his interests were being taken care +of, and that within a year at most his royalty returns would place him +far beyond the fear of want. He forwarded this good news to Italy, where +it was sorely needed, for Mrs. Clemens found her courage not easy to +sustain in his absence. That he had made his letter glowing enough, we +may gather from her answer. + + It does not seem credible that we are really again to have money to + spend. I think I will jump around and spend money just for fun, and + give a little away, if we really get some. What should we do and + how should we feel if we had no bright prospects before us, and yet + how many people are situated in that way? + +He decided to make another trip to Chicago to verify, with his own eyes, +the manufacturing reports, and to see Paige, who would appear to have +become more elusive than ever as to contracts, written and implied. He +took Hall with him, and wrote Orion to meet him at the Great Northern +Hotel. This would give him a chance to see Orion and would give Orion a +chance to see the great Fair. He was in Chicago eleven days, and in bed +with a heavy cold almost the whole of that time. Paige came to see him +at his rooms, and, as always, was rich in prospects and promises; full of +protestations that, whatever came, when the tide of millions rolled in, +they would share and share alike. The note-book says: + + Paige shed even more tears than usual. What a talker he is! He + could persuade a fish to come out and take a walk with him. When he + is present I always believe him; I can't help it. + +Clemens returned to New York as soon as he was able to travel. Going +down in the elevator a man stepped in from one of the floors swearing +violently. Clemens, leaning over to Hall, with his hand to his mouth, +and in a whisper audible to every one, said: + +"Bishop of Chicago." + +The man, with a quick glance, recognized his fellow-passenger and +subsided. + +On May 13th Clemens took the Kaiser Wilhelm II. for Genoa. He had +accomplished little, but he was in better spirits as to the machine. +If only the strain of his publishing business had slackened even for a +moment! Night and day it was always with him. Hall presently wrote that +the condition of the money-market was "something beyond description. You +cannot get money on anything short of government bonds." The Mount +Morris Bank would no longer handle their paper. The Clemens household +resorted to economies hitherto undreamed of. Mrs. Clemens wrote to her +sister that she really did not see sometimes where their next money would +come from. She reported that her husband got up in the night and walked +the floor in his distress. + +He wrote again to Hall, urging him to sell and get rid of the debts and +responsibilities at whatever sacrifice: + + I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition + unfit for it, & I want to get out of it. I am standing on the Mount + Morris volcano with help from the machine a long, long way off--& + doubtless a long way further off than the Connecticut company + imagine. + + Get me out of business! + +He knew something of the delays of completing a typesetting machine, and +he had little faith in any near relief from that source. He wrote again +go Hall, urging him to sell some of his type-setter royalties. They +should be worth something now since the manufacturing company was +actually in operation; but with the terrible state of the money-market +there was no sale for anything. Clemens attempted to work, but put in +most of his time footing up on the margin of his manuscript the amount of +his indebtedness, the expenses of his household, and the possibilities of +his income. It was weary, hard, nerve-racking employment. About the +muddle of June they closed Viviani. Susy Clemens went to Paris to +cultivate her voice, a rare soprano, with a view to preparing for the +operatic stage. Clemens took Mrs. Clemens, with little Jean, to Germany +for the baths. Clara, who had graduated from Mrs. Willard's school in +Berlin, joined them in Munich, and somewhat later Susy also joined them, +for Madame Marchesi, the great master of voice-culture, had told her that +she must acquire physique to carry that voice of hers before she would +undertake to teach her. + +In spite of his disturbed state of mind Clemens must have completed some +literary work during this period, for we find first mention, in a letter +to Hall, of his immortal defense of Harriet Shelley, a piece of writing +all the more marvelous when we consider the conditions of its +performance. Characteristically, in the same letter, he suddenly +develops a plan for a new enterprise--this time for a magazine which +Arthur Stedman or his father will edit, and the Webster company will +publish as soon as their present burdens are unloaded. But we hear no +more of this project. + +But by August he was half beside himself with anxiety. On the 6th he +wrote Hall: + + Here we never see a newspaper, but even if we did I could not come + anywhere near appreciating or correctly estimating the tempest you + have been buffeting your way through--only the man who is in it can + do that--but I have tried not to burden you thoughtlessly or + wantonly. I have been overwrought & unsettled in mind by + apprehensions, & that is a thing that is not helpable when one is in + a strange land & sees his resources melt down to a two months' + supply & can't see any sure daylight beyond. The bloody machine + offers but a doubtful outlook--& will still offer nothing much + better for a long time to come; for when the "three weeks" are up, + there will be three months' tinkering to follow, I guess. That is + unquestionably the boss machine of the world, but is the toughest + one on prophets when it is in an incomplete state that has ever seen + the light. + +And three days later: + + Great Scott, but it's a long year--for you & me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. At least not since I was finishing that other + machine. + + I watch for your letters hungrily--just as I used to watch for the + telegram saying the machine's finished--but when "next week + certainly" suddenly swelled into "three weeks sure" I recognized the + old familiar tune I used to hear so much. W---- don't know what + sick-heartedness is--but he is in a way to find out. + +And finally, on the 4th: + + I am very glad indeed if you and Mr. Langdon are able to see any + daylight ahead. To me none is visible. I strongly advise that + every penny that comes in shall be applied to paying off debts. I + may be in error about this, but it seems to me that we have no other + course open. We can pay a part of the debts owing to outsiders-- + none to Clemenses. In very prosperous times we might regard our + stock & copyrights as assets sufficient, with the money owing to us, + to square up & quit even, but I suppose we may not hope for such + luck in the present condition of things. + + What I am mainly hoping for is to save my book royalties. If they + come into danger I hope you will cable me so that I can come over & + try to save them, for if they go I am a beggar. + + I would sail to-day if I had anybody to take charge of my family & + help them through the difficult journeys commanded by the doctors. + +A few days later he could stand it no longer, and on August 29 (1893) +sailed, the second time that year, for New York. + + + + +CLXXXV + +AN INTRODUCTION TO H. H. ROGERS + +Clemens took a room at The Players--"a cheap room," he wrote, "at $1.50 +per day." It was now the end of September, the beginning of a long half- +year, during which Mark Twain's fortunes were at a lower ebb than ever +before; lower, even, than during those mining days among the bleak +Esmeralda hills. Then he had no one but him self and was young. Now, at +fifty-eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed +down with a vast burden of debt. The liabilities of Charles L. Webster +& Co. were fully two hundred thousand dollars. Something like sixty +thousand dollars of this was money supplied by Mrs. Clemens, but the vast +remaining sum was due to banks, to printers, to binders, and to dealers +in various publishing materials. Somehow it must be paid. As for their +assets, they looked ample enough on paper, but in reality, at a time like +this, they were problematical. In fact, their value was very doubtful +indeed. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He could not even send +cheerful reports to Europe. There was no longer anything to promise +concerning the type-setter. The fifty machines which the company had +started to build had dwindled to ten machines; there was a prospect that +the ten would dwindle to one, and that one a reconstruction of the +original Hartford product, which had cost so much money and so many weary +years. Clemens spent a good part of his days at The Players, reading or +trying to write or seeking to divert his mind in the company of the +congenial souls there, waiting for-he knew not what. + +Yet at this very moment a factor was coming into his life, a human +element, a man to whom in his old age Mark Twain owed more than to any +other of his myriad of friends. One night, when he was with Dr. Clarence +C. Rice at the Murray Hill Hotel, Rice said: + +"Clemens, I want you to know my friend, Mr. H. H. Rogers. He is an +admirer of your books." + +Clemens turned and was looking into the handsome, clean-cut features of +the great financier, whose name was hardly so familiar then as it became +at a later period, but whose power was already widely known and felt +among his kind. + +"Mr. Clemens," said Mr. Rogers, "I was one of your early admirers. +I heard you lecture a long time ago on the Sandwich Islands. I was +interested in the subject in those days, and I heard that Mark Twain was +a man who had been there. I didn't suppose I'd have any difficulty +getting a seat, but I did; the house was jammed. When I came away I +realized that Mark Twain was a great man, and I have read everything of +yours since that I could get hold of." + +They sat down at a table, and Clemens told some of his amusing stories. +Rogers was in a perpetual gale of laughter. When at last he rose to go +the author and the financier were as old friends. Mr. Rogers urged him +to visit him at his home. He must introduce him to Mrs. Rogers, he said, +who was also his warm admirer. It was only a little while after this +that Dr. Rice said to the millionaire: + +"Mr. Rogers, I wish you would look into Clemens's finances a little: I am +afraid they are a good deal confused." + +This would be near the end of September, 1893. On October 18 Clemens +wrote home concerning a possible combination of Webster & Co. with John +Brisben Walker, of the 'Cosmopolitan', and added: + + I have got the best and wisest man of the whole Standard Oil group-a + multi-millionaire--a good deal interested in looking into the type- + setter. He has been searching into that thing for three weeks and + yesterday he said to me: + + "I find the machine to be all you represent it. I have here + exhaustive reports from my own experts, and I know every detail of + its capacity, its immense construction, its cost, its history, and + all about its inventor's character. I know that the New York + company and the Chicago company are both stupid, and that they are + unbusinesslike people, destitute of money and in a hopeless boggle." + +Then he told me the scheme he had planned and said: + + "If I can arrange with these people on this basis--it will take + several weeks to find out--I will see to it that they get the money + they need. In the mean time you 'stop walking the floor'." + +Of course, with this encouragement, Clemens was in the clouds again. +Furthermore, Rogers had suggested to his son-in-law, William Evarts +Benjamin, also a subscription publisher, that he buy from the Webster +company The Library of American Literature for fifty thousand dollars, a +sum which provided for the more insistent creditors. There was hope that +the worst was over. Clemens did in reality give up walking the floor, +and for the time, at least, found happier diversions. He must not return +to Europe as yet, for the type-setter matter was still far from +conclusion. On the 11th of November he was gorgeously entertained by the +Lotos Club in its new building. Introducing him, President Frank +Lawrence said: + +"What name is there in literature that can be likened to his? Perhaps +some of the distinguished gentlemen about this table can tell us, but I +know of none. Himself his only parallel, it seems to me. He is all our +own--a ripe and perfect product of the American soil." + + + + +CLXXXVI + +"THE BELLE OF NEW YORK" + +Those were feverish weeks of waiting, with days of alternate depression +and exaltation as the pendulum swung to and fro between hope and despair. +By daylight Clemens tried to keep himself strenuously busy; evenings and +nights he plunged into social activities--dinners, amusements, suppers, +balls, and the like. He was be sieged with invitations, sought for by +the gayest and the greatest; "Jamie" Dodge conferred upon him the +appropriate title: of "The Belle of New York." In his letters home he +describes in detail many of the festivities and the wildness with which +he has flung himself into them, dilating on his splendid renewal of +health, his absolute immunity from fatigue. He attributes this to his +indifference to diet and regularities of meals and sleep; but we may +guess that it was due to a reaction from having shifted his burden to +stronger financial shoulders. Henry Rogers had taken his load upon him. + +"It rests me," Rogers said, "to experiment with the affairs of a friend +when I am tired of my own. You enjoy yourself. Let me work at the +puzzle a little." + +And Clemens, though his conscience pricked him, obeyed, as was his habit +at such times. To Mrs. Clemens (in Paris now, at the Hotel Brighton) he +wrote: + + He is not common clay, but fine-fine & delicate. I did hate to + burden his good heart & overworked head, but he took hold with + avidity & said it was no burden to work for his friends, but a + pleasure. When I arrived in September, Lord! how black the prospect + was & how desperate, how incurably desperate! Webster & Co. had to + have a small sum of money or go under at once. I flew to Hartford-- + to my friends--but they were not moved, not strongly interested, & I + was ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that I + got the money and was by it saved. And then--while still a + stranger--he set himself the task of saving my financial life + without putting upon me (in his native delicacy) any sense that I + was the recipient of a charity, a benevolence. He gave time to me-- + time, which could not be bought by any man at $100,000 a month--no, + nor for three times the money. + +He adds that a friend has just offered to Webster & Co. a book that +arraigns the Standard Oil magnates individual by individual. + + I wanted to say the only man I care for in the world, the only man I + would give a d---n for, the only man who is lavishing his sweat & + blood to save me & mine from starvation is a Standard Oil magnate. + If you know me, you know whether I want the book or not. + + But I didn't say that. I said I didn't want any book; I wanted to + get out of this publishing business & out of all business & was here + for that purpose & would accomplish it if I could. + +He tells how he played billiards with Rogers, tirelessly as always, until +the millionaire had looked at him helplessly and asked: + +"Don't you ever get tired?" + +And he answered: + +"I don't know what it is to get tired. I wish I did." + +He wrote of going with Mr. Rogers to the Madison Square Garden to see an +exhibition of boxing given by the then splendid star of pugilism, James +J. Corbett. Dr. Rice accompanied him, and painters Robert Reid and +Edward Simmons, from The Players. They had five seats in a box, and +Stanford White came along presently and took Clemens into the champion's +dressing-room. + + Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being + the most perfectly & beautifully constructed human animal in the + world. I said: + + "You have whipped Mitchell & maybe you will whip Jackson in June-- + but you are not done then. You will have to tackle me." + + He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in + earnest: + + "No, I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or + right to require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit + of your own, but by a purely accidental blow, & then my reputation + would be gone & you would have a double one. You have got fame + enough & you ought not to want to take mine away from me." + + Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank, in San + Francisco. + + There were lots of little boxing-matches to entertain the crowd; + then at last Corbett appeared in the ring & the 8,000 people present + went mad with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. + They said they had never seen anything that came reasonably near + equaling its perfection except Greek statues, & they didn't surpass + it. + + Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion-- + oh, beautiful to see!--then the show was over and we struggled out + through a perfect mash of humanity. When we reached the street I + found I had left my arctics in the box. I had to have them, so + Simmons said he would go back & get them, & I didn't dissuade him. + I wouldn't see how he was going to make his way a single yard into + that solid incoming wave of people--yet he must plow through it full + 50 yards. He was back with the shoes in 3 minutes! + + How do you reckon he accomplished that miracle? By saying: + + "Way, gentlemen, please--coming to fetch Mr. Corbett's overshoes." + + The word flew from mouth to mouth, the Red Sea divided, & Simmons + walked comfortably through & back, dry-shod. This is Fire-escape + Simmons, the inveterate talker, you know: Exit--in case of Simmons. + + I had an engagement at a beautiful dwelling close to The Players for + 10.30; I was there by 10.45. Thirty cultivated & very musical + ladies & gentlemen present--all of them acquaintances & many of them + personal friends of mine. That wonderful Hungarian band was there + (they charge $500 for an evening). Conversation and band until + midnight; then a bite of supper; then the company was compactly + grouped before me & I told them about Dr. B. E. Martin & the + etchings, & followed it with the Scotch-Irish christening. My, but + the Martin is a darling story! Next, the head tenor from the Opera + sang half a dozen great songs that set the company wild, yes, mad + with delight, that nobly handsome young Damrosch accompanying on the + piano. + + Just a little pause, then the band burst out into an explosion of + weird and tremendous dance-music, a Hungarian celebrity & his wife + took the floor; I followed--I couldn't help it; the others drifted + in, one by one, & it was Onteora over again. + + By half past 4. I had danced all those people down--& yet was not + tired; merely breathless. I was in bed at 5 & asleep in ten + minutes. Up at 9 & presently at work on this letter to you. I + think I wrote until 2 or half past. Then I walked leisurely out to + Mr. Rogers's (it is called 3 miles, but is short of it), arriving at + 3.30, but he was out--to return at 5.30--so I didn't stay, but + dropped over and chatted with Howells until five. + +--[Two Mark Twain anecdotes are remembered of that winter at The Players: + +Just before Christmas a member named Scott said one day: + +"Mr. Clemens, you have an extra overcoat hanging in the coatroom. I've +got to attend my uncle's funeral and it's raining very hard. I'd like to +wear it." + +The coat was an old one, in the pockets of which Clemens kept a +melancholy assortment of pipes, soiled handkerchiefs, neckties, letters, +and what not. + +"Scott," he said, "if you won't lose anything out of the pockets of that +coat you may wear it." + +An hour or two later Clemens found a notice in his mail-box that a +package for him was in the office. He called for it and found a neat +bundle, which somehow had a Christmas look. He carried it up to the +reading-room with a showy, air. + +"Now, boys," he said, "you may make all the fun of Christmas you like, +but it's pretty nice, after all, to be remembered." + +They gathered around and he undid the package. It was filled with the +pipes, soiled handkerchiefs, and other articles from the old overcoat. +Scott had taken special precautions against losing them. + +Mark Twain regarded them a moment in silence, then he drawled: + +"Well--, d---n Scott. I hope his uncle's funeral will be a failure!" + +The second anecdote concerns The Player egg-cups. They easily hold two +eggs, but not three. One morning a new waiter came to take the breakfast +order. Clemens said: + +"Boy, put three soft eggs in that cup for me." + +By and by the waiter returned, bringing the breakfast. Clemens looked at +the egg portion and asked: + +"Boy, what was my order?" + +"Three soft eggs broken in the cup, Mr. Clemens." + +"And you've filled that order, have you?" + +"Yes, Mr. Clemens." + +"Boy, you are trifling with the truth; I've been trying all winter to get +three eggs into that cup."] + +In one letter he tells of a dinner with his old Comstock friend, John +Mackay--a dinner without any frills, just soup and raw oysters and corned +beef and cabbage, such as they had reveled in sometimes, in prosperous +moments, thirty years before. + +"The guests were old gray Pacific coasters," he said, "whom I knew when +they were young and not gray. The talk was of the days when we went +gipsying-along time ago--thirty years." + +Indeed, it was a talk of the dead. Mainly that. And of how they looked +& the harum-scarum things they did & said. For there were no cares in +that life, no aches & pains, & not time enough in the day (& three- +fourths of the night) to work off one's surplus vigor & energy. Of the +midnight highway-robbery joke played upon me with revolvers at my head on +the windswept & desolate Gold Hill Divide no witness was left but me, the +victim. Those old fools last night laughed till they cried over the +particulars of that old forgotten crime. + +In still another letter he told of a very wonderful entertainment at +Robert Reid's studio. There were present, he says: + + Coquelin; + Richard Harding Davis; + Harrison, the great outdoor painter; + Wm. H. Chase, the artist; + Bettini, inventor of the new phonograph; + Nikola Tesla, the world-wide illustrious electrician; see article + about him in Jan. or Feb. Century. + John Drew, actor; + James Barnes, a marvelous mimic; my, you should see him! + Smedley, the artist; + Zorn, " " + Zogbaum, " " + Reinhart, " " + Metcalf, " " + Ancona, head tenor at the Opera; + + Oh, & a great lot of others. Everybody there had done something & + was in his way famous. + + Somebody welcomed Coquelin in a nice little French speech, John Drew + did the like for me in English, & then the fun began. Coquelin did + some excellent French monologues--one of them an ungrammatical + Englishman telling a colorless historiette in French. It nearly + killed the fifteen or twenty people who understood it. + + I told a yarn, Ancona sang half a dozen songs, Barnes did his + darling imitations, Handing Davis sang the hanging of Danny Deever, + which was of course good, but he followed it with that mast + fascinating (for what reason I don't know) of all Kipling's poems, + "On the Road to Mandalay," sang it tenderly, & it searched me deeper + & charmed me more than the Deever. + + Young Gerrit Smith played some ravishing dance-music, & we all + danced about an hour. There couldn't be a pleasanter night than + that one was. Some of those people complained of fatigue, but I + don't seem to know what the sense of fatigue is. + +In his reprieve he was like some wild thing that had regained liberty. + +He refers to Susy's recent illness and to Mrs. Clemens's own poor state +of health. + + Dear, dear Susy! My strength reproaches me when I think of her and + you. + + It is an unspeakable pity that you should be without any one to go + about with the girls, & it troubles me, & grieves me, & makes me + curse & swear; but you see, dear heart, I've got to stick right + where I am till I find out whether we are rich or whether the + poorest person we are acquainted with in anybody's kitchen is better + off than we are. . I stand on the land-end of a springboard, with + the family clustered on the other end; if I take my foot---- + +He realized his hopes to her as a vessel trying to make port; once he +wrote: + + The ship is in sight now .... + + When the anchor is down then I shall say: + + "Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it + again!" + + I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it; I will + swim in ink! 'Joan of Arc'--but all this is premature; the anchor + is not down yet. + +Sometimes he sent her impulsive cables calculating to sustain hope. Mrs. +Clemens, writing to her sister in January, said: + + Mr. Clemens now for ten days has been hourly expecting to send me + word that Paige had signed the (new) contract, but as yet no + despatch comes . . . . On the 5th of this month I received a + cable, "Expect good news in ten days." On the 15th I receive a + cable, "Look out for good news." On the 19th a cable, "Nearing + success." + +It appealed to her sense of humor even in these dark days. She added: + + They make me laugh, for they are so like my beloved "Colonel." + +Mr. Rogers had agreed that he would bring Paige to rational terms, and +with Clemens made a trip to Chicago. All agreed now that the machine +promised a certain fortune as soon as a contract acceptable to everybody +could be concluded--Paige and his lawyer being the last to dally and +dicker as to terms. Finally a telegram came from Chicago saying that +Paige had agreed to terms. On that day Clemens wrote in his note-book: + +This is a great date in my history. Yesterday we were paupers with but +3 months' rations of cash left and $160,000 in debt, my wife & I, but +this telegram makes us wealthy. + +But it was not until a fortnight later that Paige did actually sign. +This was on the 1st of February, '94, and Clemens that night cabled to +Paris, so that Mrs. Clemens would have it on her breakfast-plate the +morning of their anniversary: + +"Wedding news. Our ship is safe in port. I sail the moment Rogers can +spare me." + +So this painted bubble, this thing of emptiness, had become as substance +again--the grand hope. He was as concerned with it as if it had been an +actual gold-mine with ore and bullion piled in heaps--that shadow, that +farce, that nightmare. One longs to go back through the years and face +him to the light and arouse him to the vast sham of it all. + + + + +CLXXXVII + +SOME LITERARY MATTERS + +Clemens might have lectured that winter with profit, and Major Pond did +his best to persuade him; but Rogers agreed that his presence in New York +was likely to be too important to warrant any schedule of absence. He +went once to Boston to lecture for charity, though his pleasure in the +experience was a sufficient reward. On the evening before the lecture +Mrs. James T. Fields had him to her house to dine with Dr. Holmes, then +not far from the end of his long, beautiful life.--[He died that same +year, October, 1894.] + +Clemens wrote to Paris of their evening together: + +Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out (he is in his 84th year), but he +came out this time--said he wanted to "have a time" once more with me. + +Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come, & went away crying because she +wouldn't let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett & +sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes. + +Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking +(& listening) as he ever did in his life, I guess. Fields and Jewett +said he hadn't been in such splendid form for years. He had ordered his +carriage for 9. The coachman sent in for him at 9, but he said, "Oh, +nonsense!--leave glories & grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away & +come in an hour!" + +At 10 he was called for again, & Mrs. Fields, getting uneasy, rose, but +he wouldn't go--& so we rattled ahead the same as ever. Twice more Mrs. +Fields rose, but he wouldn't go--& he didn't go till half past 10--an +unwarrantable dissipation for him in these days. He was prodigiously +complimentary about some of my books, & is having Pudd'nhead read to him. +I told him you & I used the Autocrat as a courting book & marked it all +through, & that you keep it in the sacred green box with the loveletters, +& it pleased him. + +One other address Clemens delivered that winter, at Fair Haven, on the +opening of the Millicent Library, a present to the town from Mrs. Rogers. +Mrs. Rogers had suggested to her husband that perhaps Mr. Clemens would +be willing to say a few words there. Mr. Rogers had replied, "Oh, +Clemens is in trouble. I don't like to ask him," but a day or two later +told him of Mrs. Rogers's wish, adding: + +"Don't feel at all that you need to do it. I know just how you are +feeling, how worried you are." + +Clemens answered, "Mr. Rogers, do you think there is anything I could do +for you that I wouldn't do?" + +It was on this occasion that he told for the first time the "stolen +watermelon" story, so often reprinted since; how once he had stolen a +watermelon, and when he found it to be a green one, had returned it to +the farmer, with a lecture on honesty, and received a ripe one in its +place. + +In spite of his cares and diversions Clemens's literary activities of +this time were considerable. He wrote an article for the Youth's +Companion--"How to Tell a Story"--and another for the North American +Review on Fenimore Cooper's "Literary Offenses." Mark Twain had not much +respect for Cooper as a literary artist. Cooper's stilted +artificialities and slipshod English exasperated him and made it hard for +him to see that in spite of these things the author of the Deerslayer was +a mighty story-teller. Clemens had also promised some stories to Walker, +of the Cosmopolitan, and gave him one for his Christmas number, +"Traveling with a Reformer," which had grown out of some incidents of +that long-ago journey with Osgood to Chicago, supplemented by others that +had happened on the more recent visit to that city with Hall. This story +had already appeared when Clemens and Rogers had made their Chicago trip. +Rogers had written for passes over the Pennsylvania road, and the +president, replying, said: + +"No, I won't give Mark Twain a pass over our road. I've been reading his +'Traveling with a Reformer,' in which he abuses our road. I wouldn't let +him ride over it again if I could help it. The only way I'll agree to +let him go over it at all is in my private car. I have stocked it with +everything he can possibly want, and have given orders that if there is +anything else he wants the train is to be stopped until they can get it." + +"Pudd'nhead Wilson" was appearing in the Century during this period, and +"Tom Sawyer Abroad" in the St. Nicholas. The Century had issued a tiny +calendar of the Pudd'nhead maxims, and these quaint bits of philosophy, +the very gems of Mark Twain mental riches, were in everybody's mouth. +With all this going on, and with his appearance at various social events, +he was rather a more spectacular figure that winter than ever before. + +From the note-book: + + The Haunted Looking-glass. The guest (at midnight a dim light + burning) wakes up & sees appear & disappear the faces that have + looked into the glass during 3 centuries. + + Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. No man + and woman really know what perfect love is until they have been + married a quarter of a century. + + It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right. + + Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the + slave of the lash--that one is the cat. + + Truth is stranger than fiction--to some people, but I am measurably + familiar with it. + + + + +CLXXXVIII + +FAILURE + +It was the first week in March before it was thought to be safe for +Clemens to return to France, even for a brief visit to his family. He +hurried across and remained with them what seemed an infinitesimal time, +a bare three weeks, and was back again in New York by the middle of +April. The Webster company difficulties had now reached an acute stage. +Mr. Rogers had kept a close watch on its financial affairs, hoping to be +able to pull it through or to close it without failure, paying all the +creditors in full; but on the afternoon of the 16th of April, 1894, Hall +arrived at Clemens's room at The Players in a panic. The Mount Morris +Bank had elected a new president and board of directors, and had +straightway served notice on him that he must pay his notes--two notes of +five thousand dollars each in a few days when due. Mr. Rogers was +immediately notified, of course, and said he would sleep on it and advise +them next day. He did not believe that the bank would really push them +to the wall. The next day was spent in seeing what could be done, and by +evening it was clear that unless a considerable sum of money was raised a +voluntary assignment was the proper course. The end of the long struggle +had come. Clemens hesitated less on his own than on his wife's account. +He knew that to her the word failure would be associated with disgrace. +She had pinched herself with a hundred economies to keep the business +afloat, and was willing to go on economizing to avert this final +disaster. Mr. Rogers said: + +"Mr. Clemens, assure her from me that there is not even a tinge of +disgrace in making this assignment. By doing it you will relieve +yourself of a fearful load of dread, and in time will be able to pay +everything and stand clear before the world. If you don't do it you will +probably never be free from debt, and it will kill you and Mrs. Clemens +both. If there is any disgrace it would be in not taking the course that +will give you and her your freedom and your creditors a better chance for +their claims. Most of them will be glad enough to help you." + +It was on the afternoon of the next day, April 18, 1894, that the firm of +Charles L. Webster & Co. executed assignment papers and closed its +doors. A meeting of the creditors was called, at which H. H. Rogers was +present, representing Clemens. For the most part the creditors were +liberal and willing to agree to any equitable arrangement. But there +were a few who were grumpy and fussy. They declared that Mark Twain +should turn over his copyrights, his Hartford home, and whatever other +odds and ends could be discovered. Mr. Rogers, discussing the matter in +1908, said: + +"They were bent on devouring every pound of flesh in sight and picking +the bones afterward, as Clemens and his wife were perfectly willing they +should do. I was getting a little warm all the time at the highhanded +way in which these few men were conducting the thing, and presently I got +on my feet and said, 'Gentlemen, you are not going to have this thing all +your way. I have something to say about Mr. Clemens's affairs. Mrs. +Clemens is the chief creditor of this firm. Out of her own personal +fortune she has lent it more than sixty thousand dollars. She will be a +preferred creditor, and those copyrights will be assigned to her until +her claim is paid in full. As for the home in Hartford, it is hers +already.' + +"There was a good deal of complaint, but I refused to budge. I insisted +that Mrs. Clemens had the first claims on the copyrights, though, to tell +the truth, these did not promise much then, for in that hard year the +sale of books was small enough. Besides Mrs. Clemens's claim the debts +amounted to one hundred thousand dollars, and of course there must be a +definite basis of settlement, so it was agreed that Clemens should pay +fifty cents on the dollar, when the assets were finally realized upon, +and receive a quittance. Clemens himself declared that sooner or later +he would pay the other fifty cents, dollar for dollar, though I believe +there was no one besides himself and his wife and me who believed he +would ever be able to do it. Clemens himself got discouraged sometimes, +and was about ready to give it up, for he was getting on in years--nearly +sixty--and he was in poor health. Once when we found the debt, after the +Webster salvage, was going to be at least seventy thousand dollars, he +said, 'I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it.' But he +stuck to it. He was at my house a good deal at first. We gave him a +room there and he came and went as he chose. The worry told upon him. +He became frail during those weeks, almost ethereal, yet it was strange +how brilliant he was, how cheerful." + +The business that had begun so promisingly and prosperously a decade +before had dwindled to its end. The last book it had in hand was 'Tom +Sawyer Abroad', just ready for issue. It curiously happened that on the +day of the failure copies of it were filed in Washington for copyright. +Frank Bliss came over from Hartford, and Clemens arranged with him for +the publication of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', thereby renewing the old +relationship with the American Publishing Company after a break of a +dozen years. + +Naturally, the failure of Mark Twain's publishing firm made a public +stir, and it showed how many and sincere were his friends, how ready they +were with sympathy and help of a more material kind. Those who +understood best, congratulated him on being out of the entanglement. + +Poultney Bigelow, Douglas Taylor, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dudley Warner, +and others extended financial help, Bigelow and Taylor each inclosing him +a check of one thousand dollars for immediate necessities. He was +touched by these things, but the checks were returned. Many of his +creditors sent him personal letters assuring him that he was to forget +his obligation to them completely until such time as the remembering +would cost him no uneasiness. + +Clemens, in fact, felt relieved, now that the worst had come, and wrote +bright letters home. In one he said: + +Mr. Rogers is perfectly satisfied that our course was right, absolutely +right and wise--cheer up, the best is yet to come. + +And again: + + Now & then a good and dear Joe Twichell or Susy Warner condoles with + me & says, "Cheer up-don't be downhearted," and some other friend + says, "I'm glad and surprised to see how cheerful you are & how + bravely you stand it," & none of them suspect what a burden has been + lifted from me & how blithe I am inside. Except when I think of + you, dear heart--then I am not blithe; for I seem to see you + grieving and ashamed, & dreading to look people in the face. For in + the thick of the fight there is cheer, but you are far away & cannot + hear the drum nor see the wheeling squadrons. You only seem to see + rout, retreat, & dishonored colors dragging in the dirt--whereas + none of these things exist. There is temporary defeat, but no + dishonor--& we will march again. Charley Warner said to-day, "Sho, + Livy isn't worrying. So long as she's got you and the children she + doesn't care what happens. She knows it isn't her affair." Which + didn't convince me. + +Olivia Clemens wrote bravely and encouragingly to him, and more +cheerfully than she felt, for in a letter to her sister she said: + + The hideous news of Webster & Co.'s failure reached me by cable on + Thursday, and Friday morning Galignani's Messenger had a squib about + it. Of course I knew it was likely to come, but I had great hope + that it would be in some way averted. Mr. Rogers was so sure there + was no way out but failure that I suppose it was true. But I have a + perfect horror and heart-sickness over it. I cannot get away from + the feeling that business failure means disgrace. I suppose it + always will mean that to me. We have put a great deal of money into + the concern, and perhaps there would have been nothing but to keep + putting it in and losing it. We certainly now have not much to + lose. We might have mortgaged the house; that was the only thing I + could think of to do. Mr. Clemens felt that there would never be + any end, and perhaps he was right. At any rate, I know that he was + convinced that it was the only thing, because when he went back he + promised me that if it was possible to save the thing he would do so + if only on account of my sentiment in the matter. + + Sue, if you were to see me you would see that I have grown old very + fast during this last year. I have wrinkled. + + Most of the time I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me + so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that + my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am + thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and + die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I + should at once desire to live. + + Clemens now hurried back to Paris, arriving about the middle of May, + his second trip in two months. Scarcely had he got the family + settled at La Bourboule-les-Bains, a quiet watering-place in the + southern part of France, when a cable from Mr. Rogers, stating that + the typesetter was perfected, made him decide to hurry back to + America to assist in securing the new fortune. He did not go, + however. Rogers wrote that the machine had been installed in the + Times-Herald office, Chicago, for a long and thorough trial. There + would be plenty of time, and Clemens concluded to rest with his + family at La Bourboule-les-Bains. Later in the summer they went to + Etretat, where he settled down to work. + + + + +CLXXXIX + +AN EVENTFUL YEAR ENDS + +That summer (July, '94.) the 'North American Review' published "In +Defense of Harriet Shelley," a rare piece of literary criticism and +probably the most human and convincing plea ever made for that injured, +ill-fated woman. An admirer of Shelley's works, Clemens could not resist +taking up the defense of Shelley's abandoned wife. It had become the +fashion to refer to her slightingly, and to suggest that she had not been +without blame for Shelley's behavior. A Shelley biography by Professor +Dowden, Clemens had found particularly irritating. In the midst of his +tangle of the previous year he had paused to give it attention. There +were times when Mark Twain wrote without much sequence, digressing this +way and that, as his fancy led him, charmingly and entertainingly enough, +with no large, logical idea. He pursued no such method in this instance. +The paper on Harriet Shelley is a brief as direct and compact and +cumulative as could have been prepared by a trained legal mind of the +highest order, and it has the added advantage of being the utterance of a +human soul voicing an indignation inspired by human suffering and human +wrong. By no means does it lack humor, searching and biting sarcasm. +The characterization of Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley as a "literary +cake-walk" is a touch which only Mark Twain could have laid on. Indeed, +the "Defense of Harriet Shelly," with those early chapters of Joan at +Florence, maybe counted as the beginning for Mark Twain of a genuine +literary renaissance. It was to prove a remarkable period less +voluminous than the first, but even more choice, containing, as it would, +besides Joan and the Shelley article, the rest of that remarkable series +collected now as Literary Essays; the Hadleyburg story; "Was it Heaven or +Hell?"; those masterly articles on our national policies; closing at last +with those exquisite memories, in his final days. + +The summer of 1894 found Mark Twain in the proper frame of mind for +literary work. He was no longer in a state of dread. At Etretat, a +watering-place on the French coast, he returned eagerly to the long- +neglected tale of Joan--"a book which writes itself," he wrote Mr. +Rogers"--a tale which tells itself; I merely have to hold the pen." +Etretat, originally a fishing-village, was less pretentious than to-day, +and the family had taken a small furnished cottage a little way back from +the coast--a charming place, and a cheap one--as became their means. +Clemens worked steadily at Etretat for more than a month, finishing the +second part of his story, then went over to Rouen to visit the hallowed +precincts where Joan dragged out those weary months that brought her to +the stake. Susy Clemens was taken ill at Rouen, and they lingered in +that ancient city, wandering about its venerable steets, which have been +changed but slowly by the centuries, and are still full of memories. + +They returned to Paris at length--to the Brighton; their quarters of the +previous winter--but presently engaged for the winter the studio home of +the artist Pomroy at 169 rue de l'Universite, beyond the Seine. Mark +Twain wrote of it once: + + It was a lovely house; large, rambling, quaint, charmingly furnished + and decorated, built upon no particular plan, delightfully uncertain + and full of surprises. You were always getting lost in it, and + finding nooks and corners which you did not know were there and + whose presence you had not suspected before. It was built by a rich + French artist, and he had also furnished it and decorated it + himself. The studio was coziness itself. With us it served as a + drawing-room, sitting-room, living-room, dancing-room--we used it + for everything. We couldn't get enough of it. It is odd that it + should have been so cozy, for it was 40 feet long, 40 feet high, and + 30 feet wide, with a vast fireplace on, each side, in the middle, + and a musicians' gallery at one end. + +Mrs. Clemens had hoped to return to America, to their Hartford home. +That was her heart's desire--to go back once more to their old life and +fireside, to forget all this period of exile and wandering. Her letters +were full of her home-longing; her three years of absence seemed like an +eternity. + +In its way, the Pomroy house was the best substitute for home they had +found. Its belongings were of the kind she loved. Susy had better +health, and her husband was happy in his work. They had much delightful +and distinguished company. Her letters tell of these attractive things, +and of their economies to make their income reach. + +It was near the end of the year that the other great interest--the +machine--came finally to a conclusion. Reports from the test had been +hopeful during the summer. Early in October Clemens, receiving a copy of +the Times-Herald, partly set by the machine, wrote: "The Herald has just +arrived, and that column is healing for sore eyes. It affects me like +Columbus sighting land." And again on the 28th: + + It seems to me that things couldn't well be going better at Chicago + than they are. There's no other machine that can set type eight + hours with only seventeen minutes' stoppage through cussedness. The + others do rather more stopping than working. By and by our machines + will be perfect; then they won't stop at all. + +But that was about the end of the good news. The stoppages became worse +and worse. The type began to break--the machine had its old trouble: it +was too delicately adjusted--too complicated. + +"Great guns, what is the matter with it?" wrote Clemens in November when +he received a detailed account of its misconduct. + +Mr. Rogers and his son-in-law, Mr. Broughton, went out to Chicago to +investigate. They went to the Times-Herald office to watch the type- +setter in action. Mr. Rogers once told of this visit to the writer of +these chapters. He said: + +"Certainly it was a marvelous invention. It was the nearest approach to +a human being in the wonderful things it could do of any machine I have +ever known. But that was just the trouble; it was too much of a human +being and not enough of a machine. It had all the complications of the +human mechanism, all the liability of getting out of repair, and it could +not be replaced with the ease and immediateness of the human being. It +was too costly; too difficult of construction; too hard to set up. I +took out my watch and timed its work and counted its mistakes. We +watched it a long time, for it was most interesting, most fascinating, +but it was not practical--that to me was clear." + +It had failed to stand the test. The Times-Herald would have no more of +it. Mr. Rogers himself could see the uselessness of the endeavor. He +instructed Mr. Broughton to close up the matter as best he could and +himself undertook the harder task of breaking the news to Mark Twain. +His letters seem not to have been preserved, but the replies to them tell +the story. + + 169 rue de l'Universite, + + PARIS, December 22, 1894. + + DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I seemed to be entirely expecting your letter, and + also prepared and resigned; but Lord, it shows how little we know + ourselves and how easily we can deceive ourselves. It hit me like a + thunder-clap. It knocked every rag of sense out of my head, and I + went flying here and there and yonder, not knowing what I was doing, + and only one clearly defined thought standing up visible and + substantial out of the crazy storm-drift--that my dream of ten years + was in desperate peril and out of the 60,000 or 70,000 projects for + its rescue that came flocking through my skull not one would hold + still long enough for me to examine it and size it up. Have you + ever been like that? Not so much, I reckon. + + There was another clearly defined idea--I must be there and see it + die. That is, if it must die; and maybe if I were there we might + hatch up some next-to-impossible way to make it take up its bed and + take a walk. + + So, at the end of four hours I started, still whirling, and walked + over to the rue Scribe--4 p.m.--and asked a question or two and was + told I should be running a big risk if I took the 9 p.m. train for + London and Southampton; "better come right along at 6.52 per Havre + special and step aboard the New York all easy and comfortable." + Very! and I about two miles from home and no packing done. + + Then it occurred to me that none of these salvation notions that + were whirlwinding through my head could be examined or made + available unless at least a month's time could be secured. So I + cabled you, and said to myself that I would take the French steamer + to-morrow (which will be Sunday). + + By bedtime Mrs. Clemens had reasoned me into a fairly rational and + contented state of mind; but of course it didn't last long. So I + went on thinking--mixing it with a smoke in the dressing-room once + an hour--until dawn this morning. Result--a sane resolution; no + matter what your answer to my cable might be I would hold still and + not sail until I should get an answer to this present letter which I + am now writing or a cable answer from you saying "Come" or "Remain." + + I have slept 6 hours, my pond has clarified, and I find the sediment + of my 70,000 projects to be of this character: + +He follows with a detailed plan for reconstructing the machine, using +brass type, etc., and concludes: + + Don't say I'm wild. For really I'm sane again this morning. + + I am going right along with Joan now, and wait untroubled till I + hear from you. If you think I can be of the least use cable me + "Come." I can write Joan on board ship and lose no time. Also I + could discuss my plan with the publisher for a de luxe Joan, time + being an object, for some of the pictures could be made over here, + cheaply and quickly, that would cost much more time and money in + America. + +The second letter followed five days later: + + 169 rue de l'Universite, + PARIS, December 27, 1894. + + DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Notwithstanding your heart is "old and hard" you + make a body choke up. I know you "mean every word you say" and I do + take it "in the same spirit in which you tender it." I shall keep + your regard while we two live--that I know; for I shall always + remember what you have done for me, and that will insure me against + ever doing anything that could forfeit it or impair it. + + It is six days or seven days ago that I lived through that + despairing day, and then through a night without sleep; then settled + down next day into my right mind (or thereabouts) and wrote you. I + put in the rest of that day till 7 P.m. plenty comfortably enough + writing a long chapter of my book; then went to a masked ball + blacked up as Uncle Remus, taking Clara along, and we had a good + time. I have lost no day since, and suffered no discomfort to speak + of, but drove my troubles out of my mind and had good success in + keeping them out--through watchfulness. I have done a good week's + work and put the book a good way ahead in the Great Trial [of Joan], + which is the difficult part: the part which requires the most + thought and carefulness. I cannot see the end of the Trial yet, but + I am on the road. I am creeping surely toward it. + + "Why not leave them all to me?" My business brothers? I take you by + the hand! I jump at the chance! + + I ought to be ashamed and I am trying my best to be ashamed--and yet + I do jump at the chance in spite of it. I don't want to write + Irving and I don't want to write Stoker. It doesn't seem as if I + could. But I can suggest something for you to write them; and then + if you see that I am unwise you can write them something quite + different. Now this is my idea: + + 1. To return Stoker's $100 to him and keep his stock. + + 2. And tell Irving that when luck turns with me I will make + good to him what the salvage from the dead Co. fails to pay him + of his $500. + + [P. S. Madam says No, I must face the music. So I inclose my + effort--to be used if you approve, but not otherwise.] + + We shall try to find a tenant for our Hartford house; not an easy + matter, for it costs heavily to live in. We can never live in it + again; though it would break the family's hearts if they could + believe it. + + Nothing daunts Mrs. Clemens or makes the world look black to her-- + which is the reason I haven't drowned myself. + + I got the Xmas journals which you sent and I thank you for that Xmas + remembrance. + + We all send our deepest and warmest greetings to you and all of + yours and a Happy New Year! + + S. L. CLEMENS. + +--[Brain Stoker and Sir Henry Irving had each taken a small interest in +the machine. The inclosure for Stoker ran as follows:] + + MY DEAR STOKER,--I am not dating this, because it is not to be + mailed at present. + + When it reaches you it will mean that there is a hitch in my machine + enterprise--a, hitch so serious as to make it take to itself the + aspect of a dissolved dream. This letter, then, will contain cheque + for the $100 which you have paid. And will you tell Irving for me-- + I can't get up courage enough to talk about this misfortune myself, + except to you, whom by good luck I haven't damaged yet--that when + the wreckage presently floats ashore he will get a good deal of his + $500 back; and a dab at a time I will make up to him the rest. + + I'm not feeling as fine as I was when I saw you there in your home. + Please remember me kindly to Mrs. Stoker. I gave up that London + lecture-project entirely. Had to--there's never been a chance since + to find the time. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +A week later he added what was about his final word on the subject: + + Yours of December 21 has arrived, containing the circular to + stockholders, and I guess the Co. will really quit--there doesn't + seem to be any other wise course. + + There's one thing which makes it difficult for me to soberly realize + that my ten-year dream is actually dissolved; and that is that it + reverses my horoscope. The proverb says, "Born lucky, always lucky." + It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned + in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a + drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was + considered to be a cat in disguise. When the Pennsylvania blew up + and the telegraph reported my brother as fatally injured (with 60 + others) but made no mention of me, my uncle said to my mother "it + means that Sam was somewhere else, after being on that boat a year + and a half--he was born lucky." Yes, I was somewhere else. I am so + superstitious that I have always been afraid to have business + dealings with certain relatives and friends of mine because they + were unlucky people. All my life I have stumbled upon lucky chances + of large size, and whenever they were wasted it was because of my + own stupidity and carelessness. And so I have felt entirely certain + that the machine would turn up trumps eventually. It disappointed + me lots of times, but I couldn't shake off the confidence of a + lifetime in my luck. + + Well, whatever I get out of the wreckage will be due to good luck- + the good luck of getting you into the scheme--for, but for that + there wouldn't be any wreckage; it would be total loss. + + I wish you had been in at the beginning. Then we should have had + the good luck to step promptly ashore. + +So it was that the other great interest died and was put away forever. +Clemens scarcely ever mentioned it again, even to members of his family. +It was a dead issue; it was only a pity that it had ever seemed a live +one. A combination known as the Regius Company took over Paige's +interest, but accomplished nothing. Eventually--irony of fate--the +Mergenthaler Company, so long scorned and derided, for twenty thousand +dollars bought out the rights and assets and presented that marvelous +work of genius, the mechanical wonder of the age, to the Sibley College +of Engineering, where it is shown as the costliest piece of machinery, +for its size, ever constructed. Mark Twain once received a letter from +an author who had written a book calculated to assist inventors and +patentees, asking for his indorsement. He replied: + + DEAR SIR,--I have, as you say, been interested in patents and + patentees. If your books tell how to exterminate inventors send me + nine editions. Send them by express. + + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +The collapse of the "great hope" meant to the Clemens household that +their struggle with debt was to continue, that their economies were to +become more rigid. In a letter on her wedding anniversary, February a +(1895), Mrs. Clemens wrote to her sister: + +As I was starting down the stairs for my breakfast this morning Mr. +Clemens called me back and took out a five-franc piece and gave it to me, +saying: "It is our silver-wedding day, and so I give you a present." + +It was a symbol of their reduced circumstances--of the change that +twenty-five years had brought. + +Literary matters, however, prospered. The new book progressed amazingly. +The worst had happened; other and distracting interests were dead. He +was deep in the third part-the story of Joan's trial and condemnation, +and he forgot most other things in his determination to make that one a +reality. + +As at Viviani, Clemens read his chapters to the family circle. The story +was drawing near the end now; tragedy was closing in on the frail martyr; +the farce of her trial was wringing their hearts. Susy would say, "Wait, +wait till I get a handkerchief," and one night when the last pages had +been written and read, and Joan had made the supreme expiation for +devotion to a paltry king, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc +was burned at the stake," meaning that the book was finished. + +Susy herself had literary taste and might have written had it not been +that she desired to sing. There are fragments of her writing that show +the true literary touch. Her father, in an unpublished article which he +once wrote of her, quoted a paragraph, doubtless intended some day to +take its place at the end of a story: + + And now at last when they lie at rest they must go hence. It is + always so. Completion; perfection, satisfaction attained--a human + life has fulfilled its earthly destiny. Poor human life! It may + not pause and rest, for it must hasten on to other realms and + greater consummations. + +She was a deep reader, and she had that wonderful gift of brilliant, +flowing, scintillating speech. From her father she had inherited a rare +faculty of oral expression, born of a superior depth of mind, swiftness +and clearness of comprehension, combined with rapid, brilliant, and +forceful phrasing. Her father wrote of her gift: + + Sometimes in those days of swift development her speech was rocket- + like for vividness and for the sense it carried of visibility. I + seem to see it stream into the sky and burst full in a shower of + colored fire. + +We are dwelling here a moment on Susy, for she was at her best that +winter. + +She was more at home than the others. Her health did not permit her to +go out so freely and her father had more of her companionship. They +discussed many things--the problems of life and of those beyond life, +philosophies of many kinds, and the subtleties of literary art. He +recalled long after how once they lost themselves in trying to solve the +mystery of the emotional effect of certain word-combinations--certain +phrases and lines of verse--as, for instance, the wild, free breath of +the open that one feels in "the days when we went gipsying a long time +ago" and the tender, sunlit, grassy slope and mossy headstones suggested +by the simple words, "departed this life." Both Susy and her father +cared more for Joan than any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers, Clemens +wrote: + +"Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was written for +love." A memorandum which he made at the time, apparently for no one but +himself, brings us very close to the personality behind it. + + Do you know that shock? I mean when you come at your regular hour + into the sick-room where you have watched for months and find the + medicine-bottles all gone, the night-table removed, the bed + stripped, the furniture set stiffly to rights, the windows up, the + room cold, stark, vacant--& you catch your breath & realize what has + happened. + + Do you know that shock? + + The man who has written a long book has that experience the morning + after he has revised it for the last time & sent it away to the + printer. He steps into his study at the hour established by the + habit of months--& he gets that little shock. All the litter & + confusion are gone. The piles of dusty reference-books are gone + from the chairs, the maps from the floor; the chaos of letters, + manuscripts, note-books, paper-knives, pipes, matches, photographs, + tobacco-jars, & cigar-boxes is gone from the writing-table, the + furniture is back where it used to be in the long-ago. The + housemaid, forbidden the place for five months, has been there & + tidied it up & scoured it clean & made it repellent & awful. + + I stand here this morning contemplating this desolation, & I realize + that if I would bring back the spirit that made this hospital home- + like & pleasant to me I must restore the aids to lingering + dissolution to their wonted places & nurse another patient through + & send it forth for the last rites, With many or few to assist + there, as may happen; & that I will do. + + + + +CXC + +STARTING ON THE LONG TRAIL + +The tragedy of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', with its splendid illustrations by +Louis Loeb, having finished its course in the Century Magazine, had been +issued by the American Publishing Company. It proved not one of Mark +Twain's great books, but only one of his good books. From first to last +it is interesting, and there are strong situations and chapters finely +written. The character of Roxy is thoroughly alive, and her weird +relationship with her half-breed son is startling enough. There are not +many situations in fiction stronger than that where half-breed Tom sells +his mother down the river into slavery. The negro character is well +drawn, of course-Mark Twain could not write it less than well, but its +realism is hardly to be compared with similar matter in his other books-- +in Tom Sawyer, for instance, or Huck Finn. With the exceptions of Tom, +Roxy, and Pudd'nhead the characters are slight. The Twins are mere +bodiless names that might have been eliminated altogether. The character +of Pudd'nhead Wilson is lovable and fine, and his final triumph at the +murder trial is thrilling in the extreme. Identification by thumb-marks +was a new feature in fiction then--in law, too, for that matter. But it +is chiefly Pudd'nhead Wilson's maxims, run at the head of each chapter, +that will stick in the memory of men. Perhaps the book would live +without these, but with them it is certainly immortal. + +Such aphorisms as: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits"; +"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good +example"; "When angry count four, and when very angry swear," cannot +perish; these, with the forty or so others in this volume and the added +collection of rare philosophies that head the chapters of Following the +Equator, have insured to Philosopher Pudd'nhead a respectful hearing for +all time.--[The story of Pudd'nhead Wilson was dramatized by Frank Mayo, +who played it successfully as long as he lived. It is by no means dead, +and still pays a royalty to the Mayo and Clemens estates.] + +Clemens had meant to begin another book, but he decided first to make a +trip to America, to give some personal attention to publishing matters +there. They were a good deal confused. The Harpers had arranged for the +serial and book publication of Joan, and were negotiating for the Webster +contracts. Mr. Rogers was devoting priceless time in an effort to +establish amicable relations between the Harpers and the American Company +at Hartford so that they could work on some general basis that would be +satisfactory and profitable to all concerned. It was time that Clemens +was on the scene of action. He sailed on the New York on the end of +February, and a little more than a month later returned by the Paris-- +that is, at the end of March. By this time he had altogether a new +thought. It was necessary to earn a large sum of money as promptly as +possible, and he adopted the plan which twice before in his life in 1872 +and in 1884:--had supplied him with needed funds. Loathing the platform +as he did, he was going back to it. Major Pond had proposed. a lecture +tour soon after his failure. + +"The loss of a fortune is tough," wrote Pond, "but there are other +resources for another fortune. You and I will make the tour together." + +Now he had resolved to make a tour-one that even Pond himself had not +contemplated. He would go platforming around the world! He would take +Pond with him as far as the Pacific coast, arranging with some one +equally familiar with the lecture circuit on the other side of the +Pacific. He had heard of R. S. Smythe, who had personally conducted +Henry M. Stanley and other great lecturers through Australia and the +East, and he wrote immediately, asking information and advice concerning +such a tour. Clemens himself has told us in one of his chapters how his +mental message found its way to Smythe long before his written one, and +how Smythe's letter, proposing just such a trip, crossed his own. + +He sailed for America, with the family on the 11th of May, and a little +more than a week later, after four years of exile, they found themselves +once more at beautiful Quarry Farm. We may imagine how happy they were +to reach that peaceful haven. Mrs. Clemens had written: + +"It is, in a way, hard to go home and feel that we are not able to open +our house. But it is an immense delight to me to think of seeing our +friends." + +Little at the farm was changed. There were more vines on the home--the +study was overgrown--that was all. Even Ellerslie remained as the +children had left it, with all the small comforts and utensils in place. +Most of the old friends were there; only Mrs. Langdon and Theodore Crane +were missing. The Beechers drove up to see them, as formerly, and the +old discussions on life and immortality were taken up in the old places. + +Mrs. Beecher once came with some curious thin layers of leaves of stone +which she had found, knowing Mark Twain's interest in geology. Later, +when they had been discussing the usual problems, he said he would write +an agreement on those imperishable leaves, to be laid away until the ages +should solve their problems. He wrote it in verse: + + If you prove right and I prove wrong, + A million years from now, + In language plain and frank and strong + My error I'll avow + To your dear waking face. + + If I prove right, by God His grace, + Full sorry I shall be, + For in that solitude no trace + There'll be of you and me. + + A million years, O patient stone, + You've waited for this message. + Deliver it a million hence; + (Survivor pays expressage.) + MARK TWAIN + + Contract with Mrs. T. K. Beecher, July 2, 1895. + + +Pond came to Elmira and the route westward was arranged. Clemens decided +to give selections from his books, as he had done with Cable, and to +start without much delay. He dreaded the prospect of setting out on that +long journey alone, nor could Mrs. Clemens find it in her heart to +consent to such a plan. It was bitterly hard to know what to do, but it +was decided at last that she and one of the elder daughters should +accompany him, the others remaining with their aunt at Quarry Farm. +Susy, who had the choice, dreaded ocean travel, and felt that she would +be happier and healthier to rest in the quiet of that peaceful hilltop. +She elected to remain with her aunt and jean; and it fell to Clara to go. +Major Pond and his wife would accompany them as far as Vancouver. They +left Elmira on the night of the 14th of July. When the train pulled away +their last glimpse was of Susy, standing with the others under the +electric light of the railway platform, waving them good-by. + + + + +CXCI + +Clemens had been ill in Elmira with a distressing carbuncle, and was +still in no condition to undertake steady travel and entertainment in +that fierce summer heat. He was fearful of failure. "I sha'n't be able +to stand on a platform," he wrote Mr. Rogers; but they pushed along +steadily with few delays. They began in Cleveland, thence by the Great +Lakes, traveling by steamer from one point to another, going constantly, +with readings at every important point--Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul, +Winnipeg, Butte, and through the great Northwest, arriving at Vancouver +at last on August 16th, but one day behind schedule time. + +It had been a hot, blistering journey, but of immense interest, for none +of them had traveled through the Northwest, and the wonder and grandeur +of it all, its scenery, its bigness, its mighty agriculture, impressed +them. Clemens in his notes refers more than once to the "seas" and +"ocean" of wheat. + + There is the peace of the ocean about it and a deep contentment, a + heaven-wide sense of ampleness, spaciousness, where pettiness and + all small thoughts and tempers must be out of place, not suited to + it, and so not intruding. The scattering, far-off homesteads, with + trees about them, were so homelike and remote from the warring + world, so reposeful and enticing. The most distant and faintest + under the horizon suggested fading ships at sea. + +The Lake travel impressed him; the beauties and cleanliness of the Lake +steamers, which he compares with those of Europe, to the disadvantage of +the latter. Entering Port Huron he wrote: + + The long approach through narrow ways with flat grass and wooded + land on both sides, and on the left a continuous row of summer + cottages, with small-boat accommodations for visiting across the + little canals from family to family, the groups of summer-dressed + young people all along waving flags and handkerchiefs and firing + cannon, our boat replying with toots of the hoarse whistle and now + and then a cannon, and meeting steamers in the narrow way, and once + the stately sister-ship of the line crowded with summer-dressed + people waving-the rich browns and greens of the rush-grown, far- + reaching flat-lands, with little glimpses of water away on their + farther edges, the sinking sun throwing a crinkled broad carpet of + gold on the water-well, it is the perfection of voyaging. + +It had seemed a doubtful experiment to start with Mrs. Clemens on that +journey in the summer heat; but, strange to say, her health improved, and +she reached Vancouver by no means unfit for the long voyage ahead. No +doubt the change and continuous interest and their splendid welcome +everywhere and their prosperity were accountable. Everywhere they were +entertained; flowers filled their rooms; carriages and committees were +always waiting. It was known that Mark Twain had set out for the purpose +of paying his debts, and no cause would make a deeper appeal to his +countrymen than that, or, for that matter, to the world at large. + +From Winnipeg he wrote to Mr. Rogers: + + At the end of an hour and a half I offered to let the audience go, + but they said "go on," and I did. + +He had five thousand dollars to forward to Rogers to place against his +debt account by the time he reached the Coast, a fine return for a +month's travel in that deadly season. At no more than two places were +the houses less than crowded. One of these was Anaconda, then a small +place, which they visited only because the manager of the entertainment +hall there had known Clemens somewhere back in the sixties and was eager +to have him. He failed to secure the amount of the guarantee required by +Pond, and when Pond reported to Clemens that he had taken "all he had" +Clemens said: + +"And you took the last cent that poor fellow had. Send him one hundred +dollars, and if you can't afford to stand your share charge it all to me. +I'm not going around robbing my friends who are disappointed in my +commercial value. I don't want to get money that way." + +"I sent the money," said Pond afterward, "and was glad of the privilege +of standing my share." + +Clemens himself had not been in the best of health during the trip. He +had contracted a heavy cold and did not seem to gain strength. But in a +presentation copy of 'Roughing It', given to Pond as a souvenir, he +wrote: + +"Here ends one of the smoothest and pleasantest trips across the +continent that any group of five has ever made." + +There were heavy forest fires in the Northwest that year, and smoke +everywhere. The steamer Waryimoo, which was to have sailed on the 16th, +went aground in the smoke, and was delayed a week. While they were +waiting, Clemens lectured in Victoria, with the Governor-General and Lady +Aberdeen and their little son in the audience. His note-book says: + + They came in at 8.45, 15 minutes late; wish they would always be + present, for it isn't permissible to begin until they come; by that + time the late-comers are all in. + +Clemens wrote a number of final letters from Vancouver. In one of them +to Mr. J. Henry Harper, of Harper & Brothers, he expressed the wish that +his name might now be printed as the author of "Joan," which had begun +serially in the April Magazine. He thought it might, help his lecturing +tour and keep his name alive. But a few days later, with Mrs. Clemens's +help, he had reconsidered, and wrote: + + My wife is a little troubled by my wanting my nom de plume put to + the "Joan of Arc" so soon. She thinks it might go counter to your + plans, and that you ought to be left free and unhampered in the + matter. + + All right-so be it. I wasn't strenuous about it, and wasn't meaning + to insist; I only thought my reasons were good, and I really think + so yet, though I do confess the weight and fairness of hers. + +As a matter of fact the authorship of "Joan" had been pretty generally +guessed by the second or third issue. Certain of its phrasing and humor +could hardly have come from another pen than Mark Twain's. The +authorship was not openly acknowledged, however, until the publication of +the book, the following May. + +Among the letters from Vancouver was this one to Rudyard Kipling + + DEAR KIPLING,--It is reported that you are about to visit India. + This has moved me to journey to that far country in order that I may + unload from my conscience a debt long due to you. Years ago you + came from India to Elmira to visit me, as you said at the time. It + has always been my purpose to return that visit & that great + compliment some day. I shall arrive next January & you must be + ready. I shall come riding my ayah with his tusks adorned with + silver bells & ribbons & escorted by a troop of native howdahs + richly clad & mounted upon a herd of wild bungalows; & you must be + on hand with a few bottles of ghee, for I shall be thirsty. + +To the press he gave this parting statement: + + It has been reported that I sacrificed for the benefit of the + creditors the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer + I was and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. This is an + error. I intend the lectures as well as the property for the + creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brain, and a + merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws + of insolvency and start free again for himself. But I am not a + business man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot + compromise for less than 100 cents on the dollar and its debts never + outlaw. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour I am + confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four + years, after which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and + unincumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and + South Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great + cities of the United States. I meant, when I began, to give my + creditors all the benefit of this, but I am beginning to feel that I + am gaining something from it, too, and that my dividends, if not + available for banking purposes, may be even more satisfactory than + theirs. + +There was one creditor, whose name need, not be "handed down to infamy," +who had refused to consent to any settlement except immediate payment in +full, and had pursued with threatened attachment of earnings and +belongings, until Clemens, exasperated, had been disposed to turn over to +his creditors all remaining properties and let that suffice, once and for +all. But this was momentary. He had presently instructed Mr. Rogers to +"pay Shylock in full," and to assure any others that he would pay them, +too, in the end. But none of the others annoyed him. + +It was on the afternoon of August 23, 1895, that they were off at last. +Major Pond and his wife lunched with them on board and waved them good-by +as long as they could see the vessel. The far voyage which was to carry +them for the better part of the year to the under side of the world had +begun. + + + + +CXCII + +"FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR" + +Mark Twain himself has written with great fulness the story of that +traveling--setting down what happened, and mainly as it happened, with +all the wonderful description, charm, and color of which he was so great +a master. We need do little more than summarize then--adding a touch +here and there, perhaps, from another point of view. + +They had expected to stop at the Sandwich Islands, but when they arrived +in the roadstead of Honolulu, word came that cholera had broken out and +many were dying daily. They could not land. It was a double +disappointment; not only were the lectures lost, but Clemens had long +looked forward to revisiting the islands he had so loved in the days of +his youth. There was nothing for them to do but to sit on the decks in +the shade of the awnings and look at the distant shore. In his book he +says: + + We lay in luminous blue water; shoreward the water was green-green + and brilliant; at the shore itself it broke in a long, white ruffle, + and with no crash, no sound that we could hear. The town was buried + under a mat of foliage that looked like a cushion of moss. The + silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting + color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in slanting mists. I + recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long before, with + nothing of its beauty lost, nothing of its charm wanting. + +In his note-book he wrote: "If I might, I would go ashore and never +leave." + +This was the 31 st of August. Two days later they were off again, +sailing over the serene Pacific, bearing to the southwest for Australia. +They crossed the equator, which he says was wisely put where it is, +because if it had been run through Europe all the kings would have tried +to grab it. They crossed it September 6th, and he notes that Clara +kodaked it. A day or two later the north star disappeared behind them +and the constellation of the Cross came into view above the southern +horizon. Then presently they were among the islands of the southern +Pacific, and landed for a little time on one of the Fiji group. They had +twenty-four days of halcyon voyaging between Vancouver and Sydney with +only one rough day. A ship's passengers get closely acquainted on a trip +of that length and character. They mingle in all sorts of diversions to +while away the time; and at the end have become like friends of many +years. + +On the night of September 15th-a night so dark that from the ship's deck +one could not see the water--schools of porpoises surrounded the ship, +setting the water alive with phosphorescent splendors: "Like glorified +serpents thirty to fifty feet long. Every curve of the tapering long +body perfect. The whole snake dazzlingly illumined. It was a weird +sight to see this sparkling ghost come suddenly flashing along out of the +solid gloom and stream past like a meteor." + +They were in Sydney next morning, September 16, 1895, and landed in a +pouring rain, the breaking up of a fierce drought. Clemens announced +that he had brought Australia good-fortune, and should expect something +in return. + +Mr. Smythe was ready for them and there was no time lost in getting to +work. All Australia was ready for them, in fact, and nowhere in their +own country were they more lavishly and royally received than in that +faraway Pacific continent. Crowded houses, ovations, and gorgeous +entertainment--public and private--were the fashion, and a little more +than two weeks after arrival Clemens was able to send back another two +thousand dollars to apply on his debts. But he had hard luck, too, for +another carbuncle developed at Melbourne and kept him laid up for nearly +a week. When he was able to go before an audience again he said: + +"The doctor says I am on the verge of being a sick man. Well, that may +be true enough while I am lying abed all day trying to persuade his +cantankerous, rebellious medicines to agree with each other; but when I +come out at night and get a welcome like this I feel as young and healthy +as anybody, and as to being on the verge of being a sick man I don't take +any stock in that. I have been on the verge of being an angel all my +life, but it's never happened yet." + +In his book Clemens has told us his joy in Australia, his interest in the +perishing native tribes, in the wonderfully governed cities, in the gold- +mines, and in the advanced industries. The climate he thought superb; +"a darling climate," he says in a note-book entry. + +Perhaps one ought to give a little idea of the character of his +entertainment. His readings were mainly from his earlier books, +'Roughing It' and 'Innocents Abroad'. The story of the dead man which, +as a boy, he had discovered in his father's office was one that he often +told, and the "Mexican Plug" and his "Meeting with Artemus Ward" and the +story of Jim Blaine's old ram; now and again he gave chapters from 'Huck +Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer'. He was likely to finish with that old fireside +tale of his early childhood, the "Golden Arm." But he sometimes told the +watermelon story, written for Mrs. Rogers, or gave extracts from Adam's +Diary, varying his program a good deal as he went along, and changing it +entirely where he appeared twice in one city. + +Mrs. Clemens and Clara, as often as they had heard him, generally went +when the hour of entertainment came: They enjoyed seeing his triumph with +the different audiences, watching the effect of his subtle art. + +One story, the "Golden Arm," had in it a pause, an effective, delicate +pause which must be timed to the fraction of a second in order to realize +its full value. Somewhere before we have stated that no one better than +Mark Twain knew the value of a pause. Mrs. Clemens and Clara were +willing to go night after night and hear that tale time and again, for +its effect on each new, audience. + +From Australia to New Zealand--where Clemens had his third persistent +carbuncle,--[In Following the Equator the author says: "The dictionary +says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a +dictionary."]--and again lost time in consequence. It was while he was +in bed with this distressing ailment that he wrote Twichell: + + I think it was a good stroke of luck that knocked me on my back here + at Napier instead of in some hotel in the center of a noisy city. + Here we have the smooth & placidly complaining sea at our door, with + nothing between us & it but 20 yards of shingle--& hardly a + suggestion of life in that space to mar it or to make a noise. Away + down here fifty-five degrees south of the equator this sea seems to + murmur in an unfamiliar tongue--a foreign tongue--a tongue bred + among the ice-fields of the antarctic--a murmur with a note of + melancholy in it proper to the vast unvisited solitudes it has come + from. It was very delicious and solacing to wake in the night & + find it still pulsing there. I wish you were here--land, but it + would be fine! + +Mrs. Clemens and himself both had birthdays in New Zealand; Clemens +turned sixty, and his wife passed the half-century mark. + +"I do not like it one single bit," she wrote to her sister. "Fifty years +old-think of it; that seems very far on." + +And Clemens wrote: + + Day before yesterday was Livy's birthday (underworld time) & + tomorrow will be mine. I shall be 60--no thanks for it! + +From New Zealand back to Australia, and then with the new year away to +Ceylon. Here they were in the Orient at last, the land of color, +enchantment, and gentle races. Clemens was ill with a heavy cold when +they arrived; and in fact, at no time during this long journeying was his +health as good as that of his companions. The papers usually spoke of +him as looking frail, and he was continually warned that he must not +remain in India until the time of the great heat. He was so determined +to work, however, and working was so profitable, that he seldom spared +himself. + +He traveled up and down and back and forth the length and breadth of +India--from Bombay to Allahabad, to Benares, to Calcutta and Darjeeling, +to Lahore, to Lucknow, to Delhi--old cities of romance--and to Jeypore-- +through the heat and dust on poor, comfortless railways, fighting his +battle and enjoying it too, for he reveled in that amazing land--its +gorgeous, swarming life, the patience and gentleness of its servitude, +its splendid pageantry, the magic of its architecture, the maze and +mystery of its religions, the wonder of its ageless story. + +One railway trip he enjoyed--a thirty-five-mile flight down the steep +mountain of Darjeeling in a little canopied hand-car. In his book he +says: + + That was the most enjoyable time I have spent in the earth. For + rousing, tingling, rapturous pleasure there is no holiday trip that + approaches the bird-flight down the Himalayas in a handcar. It has + no fault, no blemish, no lack, except that there are only thirty- + five miles of it, instead of five hundred. + +Mark Twain found India all that Rudyard Kipling had painted it and more. +"INDIA THE MARVELOUS" he printed in his note-book in large capitals, as +an effort to picture his thought, and in his book he wrote: + + So far as I am able to judge nothing has been left undone, either by + man or Nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the + sun visits on his rounds. "Where every prospect pleases, and only + man is vile." + +Marvelous India is, certainly; and he saw it all to the best advantage, +for government official and native grandee spared no effort to do honor +to his party--to make their visit something to be remembered for a +lifetime. It was all very gratifying, and most of it of extraordinary +interest. There are not many visitors who get to see the inner household +of a native prince of India, and the letter which Mark Twain wrote to +Kumar Shri Samatsinhji, a prince of the Palitana state, at Bombay, gives +us a notion of how his unostentatious, even if lavish, hospitality was +appreciated. + + DEAR KUMAR SAHIB,--It would be hard for me to put into words how + much my family & I enjoyed our visit to your hospitable house. It + was our first glimpse of the home of an Eastern Prince, & the charm + of it, the grace & beauty & dignity of it realized to us the + pictures which we had long ago gathered from books of travel & + Oriental tales. We shall not forget that happy experience, nor your + kind courtesies to us, nor those of her Highness to my wife & + daughter. We shall keep always the portrait & the beautiful things + you gave us; & as long as we live a glance at them will bring your + house and its life & its sumptuous belongings & rich harmonies of + color instantly across the years & the oceans, & we shall see them + again, & how welcome they will be! + + We make our salutation to your Highness & to all members of your + family--including, with affectionate regard, that littlest little + sprite of a Princess--& I beg to sign myself + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + BENARES, February 5, 1896. + + +They had been entertained in truly royal fashion by Prince Kumar, who, +after refreshments, had ordered in "bales of rich stuffs" in the true +Arabian Nights fashion, and commanded his servants to open them and allow +his guests to select for themselves. + +With the possible exception of General Grant's long trip in '78 and '79 +there has hardly been a more royal progress than Mark Twain's trip around +the world. Everywhere they were overwhelmed with honors and invitations, +and their gifts became so many that Mrs. Clemens wrote she did not see +how they were going to carry them all. In a sense, it was like the Grant +trip, for it was a tribute which the nations paid not only to a beloved +personality, but to the American character and people. + +The story of that East Indian sojourn alone would fill a large book, and +Mark Twain, in his own way, has written that book, in the second volume +of Following the Equator, an informing, absorbing, and enchanting story +of Indian travel. + +Clemens lectured everywhere to jammed houses, which were rather less +profitable than in Australia, because in India the houses were not built +for such audiences as he could command. He had to lecture three times in +Calcutta, and then many people were turned away. At one place, however, +his hall was large enough. This was in the great Hall of the Palace, +where durbars are held, at Bombay. + +Altogether they were two months in India, and then about the middle of +March an English physician at Jeypore warned them to fly for Calcutta and +get out of the country immediately before the real heat set in. + +They sailed toward the end of March, touched at Madras and again at +Ceylon, remaining a day or two at Colombo, and then away to sea again, +across the Indian Ocean on one of those long, peaceful, eventless, tropic +voyages, where at night one steeps on deck and in daytime wears the +whitest and lightest garments and cares to do little more than sit +drowsily in a steamer-chair and read and doze and dream. + +From the note-book: + + Here in the wastes of the Indian Ocean just under the equator the + sea is blue, the motion gentle, the sunshine brilliant, the broad + decks with their grouped companies of talking, reading, or game- + playing folk suggestive of a big summer hotel--but outside of the + ship is no life visible but the occasional flash of a flying-fish. + I would like the voyage, under these conditions, to continue + forever. + + The Injian Ocean sits and smiles + So sof', so bright, so bloomin' blue, + There aren't a wave for miles an' miles + Excep' the jiggle of the screw. + + --KIP. + + How curiously unanecdotical the colonials and the ship-going English + are--I believe I haven't told an anecdote or heard one since I left + America, but Americans when grouped drop into anecdotes as soon as + they get a little acquainted. + + Preserve your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, + but not live. + + Swore off from profanity early this morning--I was on deck in the + peaceful dawn, the calm of holy dawn. Went down, dressed, bathed, + put on white linen, shaved--a long, hot, troublesome job and no + profanity. Then started to breakfast. Remembered my tonic--first + time in 3 months without being told--poured it into measuring-glass, + held bottle in one hand, it in the other, the cork in my teeth-- + reached up & got a tumbler--measuring-glass slipped out of my + fingers--caught it, poured out another dose, first setting the + tumbler on wash-stand--just got it poured, ship lurched, heard a + crash behind me--it was the tumbler, broken into millions of + fragments, but the bottom hunk whole. Picked it up to throw out of + the open port, threw out the measuring-glass instead--then I + released my voice. Mrs. Clemens behind me in the door. + + "Don't reform any more. It is not an improvement." + + This is a good time to read up on scientific matters and improve the + mind, for about us is the peace of the great deep. It invites to + dreams, to study, to reflection. Seventeen days ago this ship + sailed out of Calcutta, and ever since, barring a day or two in + Ceylon, there has been nothing in sight but the tranquil blue sea & + a cloudless blue sky. All down the Bay of Bengal it was so. It is + still so in the vast solitudes of the Indian Ocean--17 days of + heaven. In 11 more it will end. There will be one passenger who + will be sorry. One reads all day long in this delicious air. Today + I have been storing up knowledge from Sir John Lubbock about the + ant. The thing which has struck me most and most astonished me is + the ant's extraordinary powers of identification--memory of his + friend's person. I will quote something which he says about Formica + fusca. Formica fusca is not something to eat; it's the name of a + breed of ants. + +He does quote at great length and he transferred most of it later to his +book. In another note he says: + + In the past year have read Vicar of Wakefield and some of Jane + Austen--thoroughly artificial. Have begun Children of the Abbey. + It begins with this "Impromptu" from the sentimental heroine: + + "Hail, sweet asylum of my infancy! Content and innocence reside + beneath your humble roof and charity unboastful of the good it + renders . . . . Here unmolested may I wait till the rude storm + of sorrow is overblown and my father's arms are again extended to + receive me." + + Has the ear-marks of preparation. + +They were at the island of Mauritius by the middle of April, that curious +bit of land mainly known to the world in the romance of Paul and +Virginia, a story supposed by some in Mauritius to be "a part of the +Bible." They rested there for a fortnight and then set sail for South +Africa on the ship Arundel Castle, which he tells us is the finest boat +he has seen in those waters. + +It was the end of the first week in May when they reached Durban and felt +that they were nearing home. + +One more voyage and they would be in England, where they had planned for +Susy and Jean to join them. + +Mrs. Clemens, eager for letters, writes of her disappointment in not +finding one from Susy. The reports from Quarry Farm had been cheerful, +and there had been small snap-shot photographs which were comforting, but +her mother heart could not be entirely satisfied that Susy did not send +letters. She had a vague fear that some trouble, some illness, had come +to Susy which made her loath to write. Susy was, in fact, far from well, +though no one, not even Susy herself, suspected how serious was her +condition. + +Mrs. Clemens writes of her own hopefulness, but adds that her husband is +often depressed. + + Mr. Clemens has not as much courage as I wish he had, but, poor old + darling, he has been pursued with colds and inabilities of various + sorts. Then he is so impressed with the fact that he is sixty years + old. Naturally I combat that thought all I can, trying to make him + rejoice that he is not seventy . . . . + + He does not believe that any good thing will come, but that we must + all our lives live in poverty. He says he never wants to go back to + America. I cannot think that things are as black as he paints them, + and I trust that if I get him settled down for work in some quiet + English village he will get back much of his cheerfulness; in fact, + I believe he will because that is what he wants to do, and that is + the work that he loves: The platform he likes for the two hours that + he is on it, but all the rest of the time it grinds him, and he says + he is ashamed of what he is doing. Still, in spite of this sad + undercurrent, we are having a delightful trip. People are so nice, + and with people Mr. Clemens seems cheerful. Then the ocean trips + are a great rest to him. + +Mrs. Clemens and Clara remained at the hotel in Durban while Clemens made +his platform trip to the South African cities. It was just at the time +when the Transvaal invasion had been put down--when the Jameson raid had +come to grief and John Hares Hammond, chief of the reformers, and fifty +or more supporters were lying in the jail at Pretoria under various +sentences, ranging from one to fifteen years, Hammond himself having +received the latter award. Mrs. Hammond was a fellow-Missourian; Clemens +had known her in America. He went with her now to see the prisoners, who +seemed to be having a pretty good time, expecting to be pardoned +presently; pretending to regard their confinement mainly as a joke. +Clemens, writing of it to Twichell, said: + + A Boer guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous & + polite, only he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big + open court) & wouldn't let me cross a white mark that was on the + ground--the "deathline," one of the prisoners called it. Not in + earnest, though, I think. I found that I had met Hammond once when + he was a Yale senior & a guest of General Franklin's. I also found + that I had known Captain Mein intimately 32 years ago. One of the + English prisoners had heard me lecture in London 23 years ago.... + + These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, & I believe they are + all educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy. + They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a + while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for + long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of + deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech--sitting down. + It just happened so. I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has + one advantage--it is only a talk, it doesn't take the form of a + speech . . . . I advised them at considerable length to stay + where they were--they would get used to it & like it presently; if + they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the + look of their countenances; & I promised to go and see the President + & do what I could to get him to double their jail terms.... + We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up &. + a little over & we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but + the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, & the warden, a genial, elderly + Boer named Du Plessis, explained that his orders wouldn't allow him + to admit saint & sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday. + Du Plessis descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200 + years ago--but he hasn't any French left in him now--all Dutch. + +Clemens did visit President Kruger a few days later, but not for the +purpose explained. John Hayes Hammond, in a speech not long ago (1911), +told how Mark Twain was interviewed by a reporter after he left the jail, +and when the reporter asked if the prisoners were badly treated Clemens +had replied that he didn't think so, adding: + +"As a matter of fact, a great many of these gentlemen have fared far +worse in the hotels and mining-camps of the West." + +Said Hammond in his speech: "The result of this was that the interview +was reported literally and a leader appeared in the next morning's issue +protesting against such lenience. The privations, already severe enough, +were considerably augmented by that remark, and it required some three or +four days' search on the part of some of our friends who were already +outside of jail to get hold of Mark Twain and have him go and explain to +Kruger that it was all a joke." + +Clemens made as good a plea to "Oom Paul" as he could, and in some degree +may have been responsible for the improved treatment and the shortened +terms of the unlucky reformers. + +They did not hurry away from South Africa. Clemens gave many readings +and paid a visit to the Kimberley mines. His note-book recalls how poor +Riley twenty-five years before had made his fatal journey. + +It was the 14th of July, 1896, a year to a day since they left Elmira, +that they sailed by the steamer Norman for England, arriving at +Southampton the 31st. It was from Southampton that they had sailed for +America fourteen months before. They had completed the circuit of the +globe. + + + + +CXCII + +THE PASSING OF SUSY + +It had been arranged that Katie Leary should bring Jean and Susy to +England. It was expected that they would arrive soon, not later than the +12th, by which time the others would be established. The travelers +proceeded immediately to London and engaged for the summer a house in +Guildford, modest quarters, for they were still economizing, though Mark +Twain had reason to hope that with the money already earned and the +profits of the book he would write of his travels he could pay himself +free. Altogether, the trip had been prosperous. Now that it was behind +him, his health and spirits had improved. The outlook was brighter. + +August 12th came, but it did not bring Katie and the children. A letter +came instead. Clemens long afterward wrote: + + It explained that Susy was slightly ill-nothing of consequence. But + we were disquieted and began to cable for later news. This was + Friday. All day no answer--and the ship to leave Southampton next + day at noon. Clara and her mother began packing, to be ready in + case the news should be bad. Finally came a cablegram saying, "Wait + for cablegram in the morning." This was not satisfactory--not + reassuring. I cabled again, asking that the answer be sent to + Southampton, for the day was now closing. I waited in the post- + office that night till the doors were closed, toward midnight, in + the hope that good news might still come, but there was no message. + We sat silent at home till one in the morning waiting--waiting for + we knew not what. Then we took the earlier morning train, and when + we reached Southampton the message was there. It said the recovery + would be long but certain. This was a great relief to me, but not + to my wife. She was frightened. She and Clara went aboard the + steamer at once and sailed for America, to nurse Susy. I remained + behind to search for another and larger house in Guildford. + + That was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife + and Clara were about half-way across the ocean, I was standing in + our dining-room, thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram + was put into my hand. It said, "Susy was peacefully released to- + day." + +Some of those who in later years wondered at Mark Twain's occasional +attitude of pessimism and bitterness toward all creation, when his +natural instinct lay all the other way, may find here some reasons in his +logic of gloom. For years he and his had been fighting various impending +disasters. In the end he had torn his family apart and set out on a +weary pilgrimage to pay, for long financial unwisdom, a heavy price--a +penance in which all, without complaint, had joined. Now, just when it +seemed about ended, when they were ready to unite and be happy once more, +when he could hold up his head among his fellows--in this moment of +supreme triumph had come the message that Susy's lovely and blameless +life was ended. There are not many greater dramas in fiction or in +history than this. The wonder is not that Mark Twain so often preached +the doctrine of despair during his later life, but that he did not +exemplify it--that he did not become a misanthrope in fact. + +Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that +equaled this one. This time none of the elements were lacking--not the +smallest detail. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a year +since he had seen her face, and now by this word he knew that he would +never see it again. The blow had found him alone absolutely alone among +strangers--those others--half-way across the ocean, drawing nearer and +nearer to it, and he with no way to warn them, to prepare them, to +comfort them. + +Clemens sought no comfort for himself. Just as nearly forty years before +he had writhed in self-accusation for the death of his younger brother, +and as later he held himself to blame for the death of his infant son, so +now he crucified himself as the slayer of Susy. To Mrs. Clemens he +poured himself out in a letter in which he charged himself categorically +as being wholly and solely responsible for the tragedy, detailing step by +step with fearful reality his mistakes and weaknesses which had led to +their downfall, the separation from Susy, and this final incredible +disaster. Only a human being, he said, could have done these things. + +Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well for a +time at Quarry Farm, well and happy, but during the summer of '96 she had +become restless, nervous, and unlike herself in many ways. Her health +seemed to be gradually failing, and she renewed the old interest in +mental science, always with the approval of her parents. Clemens had +great faith in mind over matter, and Mrs. Clemens also believed that +Susy's high-strung nature was especially calculated to receive benefit +from a serene and confident mental attitude. From Bombay, in January, +she wrote Mrs. Crane: + +I am very glad indeed that Susy has taken up Mental Science, and I do +hope it may do her as much good as she hopes. Last winter we were so +very anxious to have her get hold of it, and even felt at one time that +we must go to America on purpose to have her have the treatment, so it +all seems very fortunate that it should have come about as it has this +winter. + +Just how much or how little Susy was helped by this treatment cannot be +known. Like Stevenson, she had "a soul of flame in a body of gauze," a +body to be guarded through the spirit. She worked continuously at her +singing and undoubtedly overdid herself. Early in the year she went over +to Hartford to pay some good-by visit, remaining most of the time in the +home of Charles Dudley Warner, working hard at her singing. Her health +did not improve, and when Katie Leary went to Hartford to arrange for +their departure she was startled at the change in her. + +"Miss Susy; you are sick," she said. "You must have the doctor come." + +Susy refused at first, but she grew worse and the doctor was sent for. +He thought her case not very serious--the result, he said, of overwork. +He prescribed some soothing remedies, and advised that she be kept very +quiet, away from company, and that she be taken to her own home, which +was but a step away. It was then that the letter was written and the +first cable sent to England. Mrs. Crane was summoned from Elmira, also +Charles Langdon. Mr. Twichell was notified and came down from his summer +place in the Adirondacks. + +Susy did not improve. She became rapidly worse, and a few days later the +doctor pronounced her ailment meningitis. This was on the 15th of +August--that hot, terrible August of 1896. Susy's fever increased and +she wandered through the burning rooms in delirium and pain; then her +sight left her, an effect of the disease. She lay down at last, and +once, when Katie Leary was near her, she put her hands on Katie's face +and said, "mama." She did not speak after that, but sank into +unconsciousness, and on the evening of Tuesday, August 18th, the flame +went out forever. + +To Twichell Clemens wrote of it: + + Ah, well, Susy died at home. She had that privilege. Her dying + eyes rested upon no thing that was strange to them, but only upon + things which they had known & loved always & which had made her + young years glad; & she had you & Sue & Katie & & John & Ellen. + This was happy fortune--I am thankful that it was vouchsafed to her. + If she had died in another house--well, I think I could not have + borne that. To us our house was not unsentient matter--it had a + heart & a soul & eyes to see us with, & approvals & solicitudes & + deep sympathies; it was of us, & we were in its confidence, & lived + in its grace & in the peace of its benediction. We never came home + from an absence that its face did not light up & speak out its + eloquent welcome--& we could not enter it unmoved. And could we + now? oh, now, in spirit we should enter it unshod. + +A tugboat with Dr. Rice, Mr. Twichell, and other friends of the family +went down the bay to meet the arriving vessel with Mrs. Clemens and Clara +on board. It was night when the ship arrived, and they did not show +themselves until morning; then at first to Clara. There had been little +need to formulate a message--their presence there was enough--and when a +moment later Clara returned to the stateroom her mother looked into her +face and she also knew. Susy already had been taken to Elmira, and at +half past ten that night Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived there by the +through train--the same train and in the same coach which they had taken +one year and one month before on their journey westward around the world. + +And again Susy was there, not waving her welcome in the glare of the +lights as she had waved her farewell to us thirteen months before, but +lying white and fair in her coffin in the house where she was born. + +They buried her with the Langdon relatives and the little brother, and +ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia: + + Warm summer sun shine kindly here; + Warm southern wind blow softly here; + Green sod above lie light, lie light + Good night, dear heart, good night, good night. + +--[These lines at first were generally attributed to Clemens himself. +When this was reported to him he ordered the name of the Australian poet, +Robert Richardson, cut beneath them. The word "southern" in the original +read "northern," as in Australia. the warm wind is from the north. +Richardson died in England in 1901.] + + + + +CXCIV + +WINTER IN TEDWORTH SQUARE + +Mrs. Clemens, Clara, and Jean, with Katie Leary, sailed for England +without delay. Arriving there, they gave up the house in Guildford, and +in a secluded corner of Chelsea, on the tiny and then almost unknown +Tedworth Square (No. 23), they hid themselves away for the winter. They +did not wish to be visited; they did not wish their whereabouts known +except to a few of their closest friends. They wanted to be alone with +their sorrow, and not a target for curious attention. Perhaps not a +dozen people in London knew their address and the outside world was +ignorant of it altogether. It was through this that a wild report +started that Mark Twain's family had deserted him--that ill and in +poverty he was laboring alone to pay his debts. This report--exploited +in five-column head-lines by a hyper-hysterical paper of that period +received wide attention. + +James Ross Clemens, of the St. Louis branch, a nephew of Frau von Versen, +was in London just then, and wrote at once, through Chatto & Windus, +begging Mark Twain to command his relative's purse. The reply to this +kind offer was an invitation to tea, and "Young Doctor Jim," as he was +called, found his famous relative by no means abandoned or in want, but +in pleasant quarters, with his family still loyal. The general +impression survived, however, that Mark Twain was sorely pressed, and the +New York Herald headed a public benefit fund for the payment of his +debts. The Herald subscribed one thousand dollars on its own account, +and Andrew Carnegie followed with another thousand, but the enterprise +was barely under way when Clemens wrote a characteristic letter, in which +he declared that while he would have welcomed the help offered, being +weary of debt, his family did not wish him to accept and so long as he +was able to take care of them through his own efforts. + +Meantime he was back into literary harness; a notebook entry for +October 24, 1896, says: + +"Wrote the fist chapter of the book to-day-'Around the World'." + +He worked at it uninterruptedly, for in work; there was respite, though +his note-books show something of his mental torture, also his spiritual +heresies. His series of mistakes and misfortunes, ending with the death +of Susy, had tended to solidify his attitude of criticism toward things +in general and the human race in particular. + +"Man is the only animal that blushes, or that needs to," was one of his +maxims of this period, and in another place he sets down the myriad +diseases which human flesh is heir to and his contempt for a creature +subject to such afflictions and for a Providence that could invent them. +Even Mrs. Clemens felt the general sorrow of the race. "Poor, poor human +nature," she wrote once during that long, gloomy winter. + +Many of Mark Twain's notes refer to Susy. In one he says: + +"I did not hear her glorious voice at its supremest--that was in Hartford +a month or two before the end." + +Notes of heavy regret most of them are, and self-reproach and the +hopelessness of it all. In one place he records her accomplishment of +speech, adding: + +"And I felt like saying 'you marvelous child,' but never said it; to my +sorrow I remember it now. But I come of an undemonstrative race." + +He wrote to Twichell: + + But I have this consolation: that dull as I was I always knew enough + to be proud when she commended me or my work--as proud as if Livy + had done it herself--& I took it as the accolade from the hand of + genius. I see now--as Livy always saw--that she had greatness in + her, & that she herself was dimly conscious of it. + + And now she is dead--& I can never tell her. + +And closing a letter to Howells: + + Good-by. Will healing ever come, or life have value again? + + And shall we see Susy? Without doubt! without a shadow of doubt if + it can furnish opportunity to break our hearts again. + +On November 26th, Thanksgiving, occurs this note: + + "We did not celebrate it. Seven years ago Susy gave her play for + the first time." + +And on Christmas: + + London, 11.30 Xmas morning. The Square & adjacent streets are not + merely quiet, they are dead. There is not a sound. At intervals a + Sunday-looking person passes along. The family have been to + breakfast. We three sat & talked as usual, but the name of the day + was not mentioned. It was in our minds, but we said nothing. + +And a little later: + + Since bad luck struck us it is risky for people to have to do with + us. Our cook's sweetheart was healthy. He is rushing for the grave + now. Emily, one of the maids, has lost the sight of one eye and the + other is in danger. Wallace carried up coal & blacked the boots two + months--has suddenly gone to the hospital--pleurisy and a bad case. + We began to allow ourselves to see a good deal of our friends, the + Bigelows--straightway their baby sickened & died. Next Wilson got + his skull fractured. + + January 23, 1897. I wish the Lord would disguise Himself in + citizen's clothing & make a personal examination of the sufferings + of the poor in London. He would be moved & would do something for + them Himself. + + + + +CXCV + +"PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC" + +Meantime certain publishing events had occurred. During his long voyage +a number of Mark Twain's articles had appeared in the magazines, among +them "Mental Telegraphy Again," in Harpers, and in the North American +Review that scorching reply to Paul Bourget's reflections upon America. +Clemens could criticize his own nation freely enough, but he would hardly +be patient under the strictures of a Frenchman, especially upon American +women. + +There had been book publication also during this period. The Harpers had +issued an edition of 'Tom Sawyer Abroad', which included another Tom and +Huck story 'Tom Sawyer, Detective', written in Paris, and the contents of +the old White Elephant book. + +But there had been a much more important book event. The chapters of his +story of Joan having run their course in Harper's Magazine had been +issued as a volume. + +As already mentioned, Joan had been early recognized as Mark Twain's +work, and it was now formally acknowledged as such on the title-page. It +is not certain now that the anonymous beginning had been a good thing. +Those who began reading it for its lofty charm, with the first hint of +Mark Twain as the author became fearful of some joke or burlesque. Some +who now promptly hastened to read it as Mark Twain's, were inclined to be +disappointed at the very lack of these features. When the book itself +appeared the general public, still doubtful as to its merits, gave it a +somewhat dubious reception. The early sales were disappointing. + +Nor were the reviewers enthusiastic, as a rule. Perhaps they did not +read it over-carefully, or perhaps they were swayed a good deal by a sort +of general verdict that, in attempting 'Joan of Arc', Mark Twain had gone +out of his proper field. Furthermore, there were a number of Joan books +published just then, mainly sober, somber books, in which Joan was +pictured properly enough as a saint, and never as anything else--never +being permitted to smile or enjoy the lighter side of life, to be a human +being, in fact, at all. + +But this is just the very wonder of Mark Twain's Joan. She is a saint; +she is rare, she is exquisite, she is all that is lovely, and she is a +human being besides. Considered from every point of view, Joan of Arc is +Mark Twain's supreme literary expression, the loftiest, the most +delicate, the most luminous example of his work. It is so from the first +word of its beginning, that wonderful "Translator's Preface," to the last +word of the last chapter, where he declares that the figure of Joan with +the martyr's crown upon her head shall stand for patriotism through all +time. + +The idyllic picture of Joan's childhood with her playmates around the +fairy tree is so rare in its delicacy and reality that any attempt to +recall it here would disturb its bloom. The little poem, "L'Arbre fee de +Bourlemont," Mark Twain's own composition, is a perfect note, and that +curiously enough, for in versification he was not likely to be strong. +Joan's girlhood, the picture of her father's humble cottage, the singing +there by the wandering soldier of the great song of Roland which stirred +her deepest soul with the love of France, Joan's heroism among her +playmates, her wisdom, her spiritual ideals-are not these all reverently +and nobly told, and with that touch of tenderness which only Mark Twain +could give? And the story of her voices, and her march, and of her first +appearance before the wavering king. And then the great coronation scene +at Rheims, and the dramatic moment when Joan commands the march on Paris +--the dragging of the hopeless trial, and that last, fearful day of +execution, what can surpass these? Nor must we forget those charming, +brighter moments where Joan is shown just as a human being, laughing +until the tears run at the absurdities of the paladin or the simple home +prattle of her aged father and uncle. Only here and there does one find +a touch--and it is never more than that--of the forbidden thing, the +burlesque note which was so likely to be Mark Twain's undoing. + +It seems incredible to-day that any reader, whatever his preconceived +notions of the writer might have been, could have followed these chapters +without realizing their majesty, and that this tale of Joan was a book +such as had not before been written. Let any one who read it then and +doubted, go back and consider it now. A surprise will await him, and it +will be worth while. He will know the true personality of Joan of Arc +more truly than ever before, and he will love her as the author loved +her, for "the most innocent, the most lovely, the most adorable child the +ages have produced." + +The tale is matchless in its workmanship. The quaint phrasing of the old +Sieur de Conte is perfectly adapted to the subject-matter, and the lovely +character of the old narrator himself is so perfectly maintained that we +find ourselves all the time as in an atmosphere of consecration, and feel +that somehow we are helping him to weave a garland to lay on Joan's tomb. +Whatever the tale he tells, he is never more than a step away. We are +within sound of his voice, we can touch his presence; we ride with him +into battle; we laugh with him in the by-play and humors of warfare; we +sit hushed at his side through the long, fearful days of the deadly +trial, and when it is all ended it is to him that we turn to weep for +Joan--with him only would we mingle our tears. It is all bathed in the +atmosphere of romance, but it is the ultimate of realism, too; not hard, +sordid, ugly realism, but noble, spiritual, divine realism, belonging to +no particular class or school--a creation apart. Not all of Mark Twain's +tales have been convincing, but there is no chapter of his Joan that we +doubt. We believe it all happened--we know that it must have happened, +for our faith in the Sieur de Conte never for an instant wavers. + +Aside from the personality of the book--though, in truth, one never is +aside from it--the tale is a marvel in its pageantry, its splendid +panorama and succession of stirring and stately scenes. The fight before +Orleans, the taking of the Tourelles and of Jargeau, all the movement of +that splendid march to Rheims, there are few better battle-pictures than +these. Howells, always interested mainly in the realism of to-day, in +his review hints at staginess in the action and setting and even in Joan +herself. But Howells himself did not accept his earlier judgment as +final. Five years later he wrote: + +"She is indeed realized to the modern sense as few figures of the past +have been realized in fiction." + +As for the action, suppose we consider a brief bit of Joan's warfare. It +is from the attack on the Tourelles: + + Joan mounted her horse now with her staff about her, and when our + people saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once + eager for another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to + the foss where she had received her wound, and, standing there in + the rain of bolts and arrows, she ordered the paladin to let her + long standard blow free, and to note when its fringes should touch + the fortress. Presently he said: + + "It touches." + + "Now, then," said Joan to the waiting battalions, "the place is + yours--enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then--all + together--go!" + + And go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the + ladders and over the battlements like a wave--and the place was our + property. Why, one might live a thousand years and never see so + gorgeous a thing as that again.... + + We were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they + were fired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, + while we were hammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, + the reserve on the Orleans side poured across the bridge and + attacked the Tourelles from that side. A fireboat was brought down + and moored under the drawbridge which connected the Tourelles with + our boulevard; wherefore, when at last we drove our English ahead of + us, and they tried to cross that drawbridge and join their friends + in the Tourelles, the burning timbers gave way under them and + emptied them in a mass into the river in their heavy armor--and a + pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death as that. + + "God pity them!" said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful + spectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate + tears, although one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her + with a coarse name three days before when she had sent him a message + asking him to surrender. That was their leader, Sir William + Glasdale, a most valorous knight. He was clothed all in steel; so + he plunged under the water like a lance, and of course came up no + more. + + We soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves + against the last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans + from friends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down Joan's + forever memorable day's work was finished, her banner floated from + the fortress of the Tourelles, her promise was fulfilled, she had + raised the siege of Orleans! + +England had resented the Yankee, but it welcomed Joan. Andrew Lang +adored it, and some years later contemplated dedicating his own book, +'The Maid of France', to Mark Twain.'--[His letter proposing this +dedication, received in 1909, appears to have been put aside and +forgotten by Mr. Clemens, whose memory had not improved with failing +health.] + +Brander Matthews ranks Huck Finn before Joan of Arc, but that is +understandable. His literary culture and research enable him, in some +measure, to comprehend the production of Joan; whereas to him Huck is +pure magic. Huck is not altogether magic to those who know the West--the +character of that section and the Mississippi River, especially of an +older time--it is rather inspiration resulting from these existing +things. Joan is a truer literary magic--the reconstruction of a far- +vanished life and time. To reincarnate, as in a living body of the +present, that marvelous child whose life was all that was pure and +exalted and holy, is veritable necromancy and something more. It is the +apotheosis of history. + +Throughout his life Joan of Arc had been Mark Twain's favorite character +in the world's history. His love for her was a beautiful and a sacred +thing. He adored young maidenhood always and nobility of character, and +he was always the champion of the weak and the oppressed. The +combination of these characteristics made him the ideal historian of an +individuality and of a career like hers. It is fitting that in his old +age (he was nearing sixty when it was finished) he should have written +this marvelously beautiful thing. He could not have written it at an +earlier time. It had taken him all these years to prepare for it; to +become softened, to acquire the delicacy of expression, the refinement of +feeling, necessary to the achievement. + +It was the only book of all he had written that Mark Twain considered +worthy of this dedication: + + 1870 To MY WIFE 1895 + OLIVIA LANGDON CLEMENS + THIS BOOK + + is tendered on our wedding anniversary in grateful recognition + of her twenty-five years of valued service as my literary + adviser and editor. + + THE AUTHOR + +The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was a book not understood in +the beginning, but to-day the public, that always renders justice in the +end, has reversed its earlier verdict. The demand for Joan has +multiplied many fold and it continues to multiply with every year. Its +author lived long enough to see this change and to be comforted by it, +for though the creative enthusiasm in his other books soon passed, his +glory in the tale of Joan never died. On his seventy-third birthday, +when all of his important books were far behind him, and he could judge +them without prejudice, he wrote as his final verdict: + + Nov. 30, 1908 + +I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; & it is the best; I know it +perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure +afforded me by any of the others: 12 years of preparation & a years of +writing. The others needed no preparation, & got none. + + MARK TWAIN. + + + + +CXCVI + +MR. ROGERS AND HELEN KELLER + +It was during the winter of '96, in London, that Clemens took an active +interest in the education of Helen Keller and enlisted the most valuable +adherent in that cause, that is to say, Henry H. Rogers. It was to Mrs. +Rogers that he wrote, heading his letter: + + For & in behalf + of Helen Keller, + Stone blind & deaf, + & formerly dumb. + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--Experience has convinced me that when one + wished to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't + prefer to be bothered with it is best to move upon him behind his + wife. If she can't convince him it isn't worth while for other + people to try. + + Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at + Lawrence Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July, + in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for + admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single + condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is + granted to other applicants, & this was shortened in her case by the + fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored + an average of 90, as against an average of 78 on the part of the + other applicants. + + It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from + her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will + make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her + special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages. + + There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a college + degree for lack of support for herself & for Miss Sullivan (the + teacher who has been with her from the start--Mr. Rogers will + remember her). Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich + Englishmen in her case, & I would gladly try, but my secluded life + will not permit it. I see nobody. Nobody knows my address. + Nothing but the strictest hiding can enable me to write my book in + time. + + So I thought of this scheme: Beg you to lay siege to your husband & + get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William + Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen's case; get + them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a + thousand dollars--& agree to continue this for three or four years, + until she has completed her college course. I'm not trying to limit + their generosity--indeed no; they may pile that Standard Oil Helen + Keller College Fund as high as they please; they have my consent. + + Mrs. Hutton's idea is to raise a permanent fund, the interest upon + which shall support Helen & her teacher & put them out of the fear + of want. I sha'n't say a word against it, but she will find it a + difficult & disheartening job, & meanwhile what is to become of that + miraculous girl? + + No, for immediate and sound effectiveness, the thing is for you to + plead with Mr. Rogers for this hampered wonder of your sex, & send + him clothed with plenary powers to plead with the other chiefs--they + have spent mountains of money upon the worthiest benevolences, & I + think that the same spirit which moved them to put their hands down + through their hearts into their pockets in those cases will answer. + "Here!" when its name is called in this one. + + There--I don't need to apologize to you or to H. H. for this appeal + that I am making; I know you too well for that: + + Good-by, with love to all of you, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +The result of this letter was that Mr. Rogers personally took charge of +Helen Keller's fortunes, and out of his own means made it possible for +her to continue her education and to achieve for herself the enduring +fame which Mark Twain had foreseen. + +Mr. Rogers wrote that, by a curious coincidence, a letter had come to him +from Mrs. Hutton on the same morning that Mrs. Rogers had received hers +from Tedworth Square. Clemens sent grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. +Rogers. + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful + to you both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, + & that Mr. Rogers was already interested in her & touched by her; & + I was sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you + have gone far & away beyond the sum I expected--may your lines fall + in pleasant places here, & Hereafter for it! + + The Huttons are as glad & grateful as they can be, & I am glad for + their sakes as well as for Helen's. + + I want to thank Mr. Rogers for crucifying himself on the same old + cross between Bliss & Harper; & goodness knows I hope he will come + to enjoy it above all other dissipations yet, seeing that it has + about it the elements of stability & permanency. However, at any + time that he says sign we're going to do it. + + Ever sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CXCVII + +FINISHING THE BOOK OF TRAVEL + +One reading the Equator book to-day, and knowing the circumstances under +which it was written, might be puzzled to reconcile the secluded +household and its atmosphere of sorrow with certain gaieties of the +subject matter. The author himself wondered at it, and to Howells wrote: + I don't mean that I am miserable; no-worse than that--indifferent. + Indifferent to nearly everything but work. I like that; I enjoy it, + & stick to it. I do it without purpose & without ambition; merely + for the love of it. Indeed, I am a mud-image; & it puzzles me to + know what it is in me that writes & has comedy fancies & finds + pleasure in phrasing them. It is the law of our nature, of course, + or it wouldn't happen; the thing in me forgets the presence of the + mud-image, goes its own way wholly unconscious of it & apparently of + no kinship with it. + +He saw little company. Now and, then a good friend, J.Y.W. MacAlister, +came in for a smoke with him. Once Clemens sent this line: + + You speak a language which I understand. I would like to see you. + Could you come and smoke some manilas; I would, of course, say dine, + but my family are hermits & cannot see any one, but I would have a + fire in my study, & if you came at any time after your dinner that + might be most convenient for you you would find me & a welcome. + +Clemens occasionally went out to dinner, but very privately. He dined +with Bram Stoker, who invited Anthony Hope and one or two others, and +with the Chattos and Mr. Percy Spalding; also with Andrew Lang, who +wrote, "Your old friend, Lord Lome, wants to see you again"; with the +Henry M. Stanleys and Poultney Bigelow, and with Francis H. Skrine, a +government official he had met in India. But in all such affairs he was +protected from strangers and his address was kept a secret from the +public. Finally, the new-found cousin, Dr. Jim Clemens, fell ill, and +the newspapers had it presently that Mark Twain was lying at the point of +death. A reporter ferreted him out and appeared at Tedworth Square with +cabled instructions from his paper. He was a young man, and innocently +enough exhibited his credentials. His orders read: + +"If Mark Twain very ill, five hundred words. If dead, send one +thousand." + +Clemens smiled grimly as he handed back the cable. + +"You don't need as much as that," he said. "Just say the report of my +death has been grossly exaggerated." + +The young man went away quite seriously, and it was not until he was +nearly to his office that he saw the joke. Then, of course, it was +flashed all over the world. + +Clemens kept grinding steadily at the book, for it was to be a very large +volume--larger than he had ever written before. To MacAlister, April 6, +1897, he wrote, replying to some invitation: + + Ah, but I mustn't stir from my desk before night now when the + publisher is hurrying me & I am almost through. I am up at work + now--4 o'clock in the morning-and a few more spurts will pull me + through. You come down here & smoke; that is better than tempting a + working-man to strike & go to tea. + + And it would move me too deeply to see Miss Corelli. When I saw her + last it was on the street in Homburg, & Susy was walking with me. + +On April 13th he makes a note-book entry: "I finished my book to-day," +and on the 15th he wrote MacAlister, inclosing some bits of manuscript: + + I finished my book yesterday, and the madam edited this stuff out of + it--on the ground that the first part is not delicate & the last + part is indelicate. Now, there's a nice distinction for you--& + correctly stated, too, & perfectly true. + +It may interest the reader to consider briefly the manner in which Mark +Twain's "editor" dealt with his manuscript, and a few pages of this +particular book remain as examples. That he was not always entirely +tractable, or at least submissive, but that he did yield, and graciously, +is clearly shown. + +In one of her comments Mrs. Clemens wrote: + + Page 597. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that you go too + minutely into particulars in describing the feats of the + aboriginals. I felt it in the boomerang-throwing. + +And Clemens just below has written: + + Boomerang has been furnished with a special train--that is, I've + turned it into "Appendix." Will that answer? + + Page 1002. I don't like the "shady-principled cat that has a family + in every port." + + Then I'll modify him just a little. + + Page 1020. 9th line from the top. I think some other word would be + better than "stench." You have used that pretty often. + + But can't I get it in anywhere? You've knocked it out every time. + Out it goes again. And yet "stench" is a noble, good word. + + Page 1038. I hate to have your father pictured as lashing a slave + boy. + + It's out, and my father is whitewashed. + + Page 1050. 2d line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a + word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and "offal" + out of the language. + + You are steadily weakening the English tongue, Livy. + + Page 1095. Perhaps you don't care, but whoever told you that the + Prince's green stones were rubies told an untruth. They were superb + emeralds. Those strings of pearls and emeralds were famous all over + Bombay. + + All right, I'll make them emeralds, but it loses force. Green + rubies is a fresh thing. And besides it was one of the Prince's own + staff liars that told me. + +That the book was not quite done, even after the triumphant entry of +April 13th, is shown by another note which followed something more than a +month later: + + May 18, 1897. Finished the book again--addition of 30,000 words. + +And to MacAlister he wrote: + + I have finished the book at last--and finished it for good this + time. Now I am ready for dissipation with a good conscience. What + night will you come down & smoke? + +His book finished, Clemens went out rather more freely, and one evening +allowed MacAlister to take him around to the Savage Club. There happened +to be a majority of the club committee present, and on motion Mark Twain +was elected an honorary life member. There were but three others on whom +this distinction had been conferred--Stanley, Nansen, and the Prince of +Wales. When they told Mark Twain this he said: + +"Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine."--[In a volume of Savage +Club anecdotes the date of Mark Twain's election to honorary membership +is given as 1899. Clemens's notebook gives it in 1897.] + +He did not intend to rest; in another entry we find: + + May 23, 1897. Wrote first chapter of above story to-day. + +The "above story" is a synopsis of a tale which he tried then and later +in various forms--a tale based on a scientific idea that one may dream an +episode covering a period of years in minute detail in what, by our +reckoning, may be no more than a few brief seconds. In this particular +form of the story a man sits down to write some memories and falls into a +doze. The smell of his cigarette smoke causes him to dream of the +burning of his home, the destruction of his family, and of a long period +of years following. Awakening a few seconds later, and confronted by his +wife and children, he refuses to believe in their reality, maintaining +that this condition, and not the other, is the dream. Clemens tried the +psychological literary experiment in as many as three different ways +during the next two or three years, and each at considerable length; but +he developed none of them to his satisfaction, or at least he brought +none of them to conclusion. Perhaps the most weird of these attempts, +and the most intensely interesting, so long as the verisimilitude is +maintained, is a dream adventure in a drop of water which, through an +incredible human reduction to microbic, even atomic, proportions, has +become a vast tempestuous sea. Mark Twain had the imagination for these +undertakings and the literary workmanship, lacking only a definite plan +for development of his tale--a lack which had brought so many of his +literary ventures to the rocks. + + + + + +CXCVIII + +A SUMMER IN SWITZERLAND + +The Queen's Jubilee came along--June 22, 1897, being the day chosen to +celebrate the sixty-year reign. Clemens had been asked to write about it +for the American papers, and he did so after his own ideas, illustrating +some of his material with pictures of his own selection. The selections +were made from various fashion-plates, which gave him a chance to pick +the kind of a prince or princess or other royal figure that he thought +fitted his description without any handicap upon his imagination. Under +his portrait of Henry V. (a very correctly dressed person in top hat and +overcoat) he wrote: + + In the original the King has a crown on. That is no kind of a thing + for the King to wear when he has come home on business. He ought to + wear something he can collect taxes in. You will find this + represenation of Henry V. active, full of feeling, full of + sublimity. I have pictured him looking out over the battle of + Agincourt and studying up where to begin. + +Mark Twain's account of the Jubilee probably satisfied most readers; but +James Tufts, then managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner, had a +rather matter-of-fact Englishman on the staff, who, after reading the +report, said: + +"Well, Jim Tufts, I hope you are satisfied with that Mark Twain cable." + +"Why, yes," said Tufts; "aren't you?" + +"I should say not. Just look what he says about the number of soldiers. +He says, 'I never saw so many soldiers anywhere except on the stage of a +theater.' Why, Tufts, don't you know that the soldiers in the theater are +the same old soldiers marching around and around? There aren't more than +a hundred soldiers in the biggest army ever put on the stage." + +It was decided to vacate the house in Tedworth Square and go to +Switzerland for the summer. Mrs. Crane and Charles Langdon's daughter, +Julia, joined them early in July, and they set out for Switzerland a few +days later. Just before leaving, Clemens received an offer from Pond of +fifty thousand dollars for one hundred and twenty-five nights on the +platform in America. It was too great a temptation to resist at once, +and they took it under advisement. Clemens was willing to accept, but +Mrs. Clemens opposed the plan. She thought his health no longer equal to +steady travel. She believed that with continued economy they would be +able to manage their problem without this sum. In the end the offer was +declined. + +They journeyed to Switzerland by way of Holland and Germany, the general +destination being Lucerne. They did not remain there, however. They +found a pretty little village farther up the lake--Weggis, at the foot of +the Rigi--where, in the Villa Buhlegg, they arranged for the summer at +very moderate rates indeed. Weggis is a beautiful spot, looking across +the blue water to Mount Pilatus, the lake shore dotted with white +villages. Down by the water, but a few yards from the cottage--for it +was scarcely a villa except by courtesy--there was a little inclosure, +and a bench under a large tree, a quiet spot where Clemens often sat to +rest and smoke. The fact is remembered there to-day, and recorded. A +small tablet has engraved upon it "Mark Twain Ruhe." Farther along the +shore he discovered a neat, white cottage were some kindly working-people +agreed to rent him an upper room for a study. It was a sunny room with +windows looking out upon the lake, and he worked there steadily. To +Twichell he wrote: + +This is the charmingest place we have ever lived in for repose and +restfulness, superb scenery whose beauty undergoes a perpetual change +from one miracle to another, yet never runs short of fresh surprises and +new inventions. We shall always come here for the summers if we can. + +The others have climbed the Rigi, he says, and he expects to some day if +Twichell will come and climb it with him. They had climbed it together +during that summer vagabondage, nineteen years before. + +He was full of enthusiasm over his work. To F. H. Skrine, in London, he +wrote that he had four or five books all going at once, and his note-book +contains two or three pages merely of titles of the stories he proposed +to write. + +But of the books begun that summer at Weggis none appears to have been +completed. There still exists a bulky, half-finished manuscript about +Tom and Huck, most of which was doubtless written at this time, and there +is the tale already mentioned, the "dream" story; and another tale with a +plot of intricate psychology and crime; still another with the burning +title of "Hell-Fire Hotchkiss"--a, story of Hannibal life--and some short +stories. Clemens appeared to be at this time out of tune with fiction. +Perhaps his long book of travel had disqualified his invention. He +realized that these various literary projects were leading nowhere, and +one after another he dropped them. The fact that proofs of the big book +were coming steadily may also have interfered with his creative faculty. + +As was his habit, Clemens formed the acquaintance of a number of the +native residents, and enjoyed talking to them about their business and +daily affairs. They were usually proud and glad of these attentions, +quick to see the humor of his remarks. + +But there was an old watchmaker-an 'Uhrmacher' who remained indifferent. +He would answer only in somber monosyllables, and he never smiled. +Clemens at last brought the cheapest kind of a watch for repairs. + +"Be very careful of this watch," he said. "It is a fine one." + +The old man merely glared at him. + +"It is not a valuable watch. It is a worthless watch." + +"But I gave six francs for it in Paris." + +"Still, it is a cheap watch," was the unsmiling answer. Defeat waits +somewhere for every conqueror. + +Which recalls another instance, though of a different sort. On one of +his many voyages to America, he was sitting on deck in a steamer-chair +when two little girls stopped before him. One of them said, +hesitatingly: + +"Are you Mr. Mark Twain?" + +"Why, yes, dear, they call me that." + +"Won't you please say something funny?" + +And for the life of him he couldn't make the required remark. + +In one of his letters to Twichell of that summer, Clemens wrote of the +arrival there of the colored jubilee singers, always favorites of his, +and of his great delight in them. + + We went down to the village hotel & bought our tickets & entered the + beer-hall, where a crowd of German & Swiss men & women sat grouped + around tables with their beer-mugs in front of them--self-contained + & unimpressionable-looking people--an indifferent & unposted & + disheartening audience--& up at the far end of the room sat the + jubilees in a row. The singers got up & stood--the talking & glass- + jingling went on. Then rose & swelled out above those common + earthly sounds one of those rich chords, the secret of whose make + only the jubilees possess, & a spell fell upon that house. It was + fine to see the faces light up with the pleased wonder & surprise of + it. No one was indifferent any more; & when the singers finished + the camp was theirs. It was a triumph. It reminded me of Lancelot + riding in Sir Kay's armor, astonishing complacent knights who + thought they had struck a soft thing. The jubilees sang a lot of + pieces. Arduous & painstaking cultivation has not diminished or + artificialized their music, but on the contrary--to my surprise--has + mightily reinforced its eloquence and beauty. Away back in the + beginning--to my mind--their music made all other vocal music cheap; + & that early notion is emphasized now. It is entirely beautiful to + me; & it moves me infinitely more than any other music can. I think + that in the jubilees & their songs America has produced the + perfectest flower of the ages; & I wish it were a foreign product, + so that she would worship it & lavish money on it & go properly + crazy over it. + + Now, these countries are different: they would do all that if it + were native. It is true they praise God, but that is merely a + formality, & nothing in it; they open out their whole hearts to no + foreigner. + +As the first anniversary of Susy's death drew near the tension became +very great. A gloom settled on the household, a shadow of restraint. On +the morning of the 18th Clemens went early to his study. Somewhat later +Mrs. Clemens put on her hat and wrap, and taking a small bag left the +house. The others saw her go toward the steamer-landing, but made no +inquiries as to her destination. They guessed that she would take the +little boat that touched at the various points along the lake shore. +This she did, in fact, with no particular plan as to where she would +leave it. One of the landing-places seemed quiet and inviting, and there +she went ashore, and taking a quiet room at a small inn spent the day in +reading Susy's letters. It was evening when she returned, and her +husband, lonely and anxious, was waiting for her at the landing. He had +put in the day writing the beautiful poem, "In Memoriam," a strain lofty, +tender, and dirge-like-liquidly musical, though irregular in form.--[Now +included in the Uniform Edition.] + + + + +CXCIX + +WINTER IN VIENNA + +They remained two months in Weggis--until toward the end of September; +thence to Vienna, by way of Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, "where the mountains +seem more approachable than in Switzerland." Clara Clemens wished to +study the piano under Leschetizky, and this would take them to Austria +for the winter. Arriving at Vienna, they settled in the Hotel Metropole, +on the banks of the Danube. Their rooms, a corner suite, looked out on a +pretty green square, the Merzimplatz, and down on the Franz Josef quay. +A little bridge crosses the river there, over which all kinds of life are +continually passing. On pleasant days Clemens liked to stand on this +bridge and watch the interesting phases of the Austrian capital. The +Vienna humorist, Poetzl, quickly formed his acquaintance, and they +sometimes stood there together. Once while Clemens was making some +notes, Poetzl interested the various passers by asking each one--the +errand-boy, the boot-black, the chestnut-vender, cabmen, and others--to +guess who the stranger was and what he wanted. Most of them recognized +him when their attention was called, for the newspapers had proudly +heralded his arrival and his picture was widely circulated. + +Clemens had scarcely arrived in Vienna, in fact, before he was pursued by +photographers, journalists, and autograph-hunters. The Viennese were his +fond admirers, and knowing how the world elsewhere had honored him they +were determined not to be outdone. The 'Neues Viener Tageblatt', a +fortnight after his arrival, said: + + It is seldom that a foreign author has found such a hearty reception + in Vienna as that accorded to Mark Twain, who not only has the + reputation of being the foremost humorist in the whole civilized. + world, but one whose personality arouses everywhere a peculiar + interest on account of the genuine American character which sways + it. + +He was the guest of honor at the Concordia Club soon after his arrival, +and the great ones of Vienna assembled to do him honor. Charlemagne +Tower, then American minister, was also one of the guests. Writers, +diplomats, financiers, municipal officials, everybody in Vienna that was +worth while, was there. Clemens gave them a surprise, for when Ferdinand +Gross, Concordia president, introduced him first in English, then in +German, Mark Twain made his reply wholly in the latter language. + +The paper just quoted gives us a hint of the frolic and wassail of that +old 'Festkneipe' when it says: + + At 9 o'clock Mark Twain appeared in the salon, and amid a storm of + applause took his seat at the head of the table. His characteristic + shaggy and flowing mane of hair adorning a youthful countenance + attracted the attention at once of all present. After a few formal + convivial commonplaces the president of the Concordia, Mr. Ferdinand + Gross, delivered an excellent address in English, which he wound up + with a few German sentences. Then Mr. Tower was heard in praise of + his august countryman. In the course of his remarks he said he + could hardly find words enough to express his delight at the + presence of the popular American. Then followed the greatest + attraction of the evening, an impromptu speech by Mark Twain in the + German language, which it is true he has not fully mastered, but + which he nevertheless controls sufficiently well to make it + difficult to detect any harsh foreign accent. He had entitled his + speech, "Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache" (the terrors of the + German language). At times he would interrupt himself in English + and ask, with a stuttering smile, "How do you call this word in + German" or "I only know that in mother-tongue." The Festkneipe + lasted far into the morning hours. + +It was not long after their arrival in Vienna that the friction among the +unamalgamated Austrian states flamed into a general outbreak in the +Austrian Reichsrath, or Imperial Parliament. We need not consider just +what the trouble was. Any one wishing to know can learn from Mark +Twain's article on the subject, for it is more clearly pictured there +than elsewhere. It is enough to say here that the difficulty lay mainly +between the Hungarian and German wings of the house; and in the midst of +it Dr. Otto Lecher made his famous speech, which lasted twelve hours +without a break, in order to hold the floor against the opposing forces. +Clemens was in the gallery most of the time while that speech, with its +riotous accompaniment, was in progress.--["When that house is +legislating you can't tell it from artillery practice." From Mark +Twain's report, "Stirring Times in Austria," in Literary Essays,]--He +was intensely interested. Nothing would appeal to him more than that, +unless it should be some great astronomic or geologic change. He was +also present somewhat later when a resolution was railroaded through +which gave the chair the right to invoke the aid of the military, and he +was there when the military arrived and took the insurgents in charge. +It was a very great occasion, a "tremendous episode," he says. + + The memory of it will outlast all the others that exist to-day. In + the whole history of free parliament the like of it had been seen + but three times before. It takes imposing place among the world's + unforgetable things. I think that in my lifetime I have not twice + seen abiding history made before my eyes, but I know that I have + seen it once. + +Wild reports were sent to the American press; among them one that Mark +Twain had been hustled out with the others, and that, having waved his +handkerchief and shouted "Hoch die Deutschen!" he had been struck by an +officer of the law. Of course nothing of the kind happened. The +sergeant-at-arms, who came to the gallery where he sat, said to a friend +who suggested that Clemens be allowed to remain: + +"Oh, I know him very well. I recognize him by his pictures, and I should +be very glad to let him stay, but I haven't any choice because of the +strictness of the order." + +Clemens, however, immediately ran across a London Times correspondent, +who showed him the way into the first gallery, which it seems was not +emptied, so he lost none of the exhibit. + +Mark Twain's report of the Austrian troubles, published in Harper's +Magazine the following March and now included with the Literary Essays, +will keep that episode alive and important as literature when otherwise +it would have been merely embalmed, and dimly remembered, as history. + +It was during these exciting political times in Vienna that a +representative of a New York paper wrote, asking for a Mark Twain +interview. Clemens replied, giving him permission to call. When the +reporter arrived Clemens was at work writing in bed, as was so much his +habit. At the doorway the reporter paused, waiting for a summons to +enter. The door was ajar and he heard Mrs. Clemens say: + +"Youth, don't you think it will be a little embarrassing for him, your +being in bed?" + +And he heard Mark Twain's easy, gentle, deliberate voice reply: + +"Why, Livy, if you think so, we might have the other bed made up for +him." + +Clemens became a privileged character in Vienna. Official rules were +modified for his benefit. Everything was made easy for him. Once, on a +certain grand occasion, when nobody was permitted to pass beyond a +prescribed line, he was stopped by a guard, when the officer in charge +suddenly rode up: + +"Let him pass," he commanded. "Lieber Gott! Don't you see it's Herr +Mark Twain?" + +The Clemens apartments at the Metropole were like a court, where with +those of social rank assembled the foremost authors, journalists, +diplomats, painters, philosophers, scientists, of Europe, and therefore +of the world. A sister of the Emperor of Germany lived at the Metropole +that winter and was especially cordial. Mark Twain's daily movements +were chronicled as if he had been some visiting potentate, and, as usual, +invitations and various special permissions poured in. A Vienna paper +announced: + + He has been feted and dined from morn till eve. The homes of the + aristocracy are thrown open to him, counts and princes delight to do + him honor, and foreign audiences hang upon the words that fall from + his lips, ready to burst out any instant into roars of laughter. + +Deaths never came singly in the Clemens family. It was on the 11th of +December, 1897, something more than a year after the death of Susy, that +Orion Clemens died, at the age of seventy-two. Orion had remained the +same to the end, sensitively concerned as to all his brother's doings, +his fortunes and misfortunes: soaring into the clouds when any good news +came; indignant, eager to lend help and advice in the hour of defeat; +loyal, upright, and generally beloved by those who knew and understood +his gentle nature. He had not been ill, and, in fact, only a few days +before he died had written a fine congratulatory letter on his brother's +success in accumulating means for the payment of his debts, entering +enthusiastically into some literary plans which Mark Twain then had in +prospect, offering himself for caricature if needed. + +I would fit in as a fool character, believing, what the Tennessee +mountaineers predicted, that I would grow up to be a great man and go to +Congress. I did not think it worth the trouble to be a common great man +like Andy Johnson. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff, little as I needed +it, to be anybody, less than Napoleon. So when a farmer took my father's +offer for some chickens under advisement till the next day I said to +myself, "Would Napoleon Bonaparte have taken under advisement till the +next day an offer to sell him some chickens?" + +To his last day and hour Orion was the dreamer, always with a new plan. +It was one morning early that he died. He had seated himself at a table +with pencil and paper and was setting down the details of his latest +project when death came to him, kindly enough, in the moment of new hope. + +There came also, just then, news of the death of their old Hartford +butler, George. It saddened them as if it had been a member of the +household. Jean, especially, wept bitterly. + + + + +CC + +MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS + +'Following the Equator'--[In England, More Tramps Abroad.]--had come from +the press in November and had been well received. It was a large, +elaborate subscription volume, more elaborate than artistic in +appearance. Clemens, wishing to make some acknowledgment to his +benefactor, tactfully dedicated it to young Harry Rogers: + +"With recognition of what he is, and an apprehension of what he may +become unless he form himself a little more closely upon the model of the +author." + +Following the Equator was Mark Twain's last book of travel, and it did +not greatly resemble its predecessors. It was graver than the Innocents +Abroad; it was less inclined to cynicism and burlesque than the Tramp. +It was the thoughtful, contemplative observation and philosophizing of +the soul-weary, world-weary pilgrim who has by no means lost interest, +but only his eager, first enthusiasm. It is a gentler book than the +Tramp Abroad, and for the most part a pleasanter one. It is better +history and more informing. Its humor, too, is of a worthier sort, less +likely to be forced and overdone. The holy Hindoo pilgrim's "itinerary +of salvation" is one of the richest of all Mark Twain's fancies, and is +about the best thing in the book. The revised philosophies of Pudd'nhead +Wilson, that begin each chapter, have many of them passed into our daily +speech. That some of Mark Twain's admirers were disappointed with the +new book is very likely, but there were others who could not praise it +enough. James Whitcomb Riley wrote: + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--For a solid week-night sessions--I have been glorying +in your last book-and if you've ever done anything better, stronger, or +of wholesomer uplift I can't recall it. So here's my heart and here's my +hand with all the augmented faith and applause of your proudest +countryman! It's just a hail I'm sending you across the spaces--not to +call you from your blessed work an instant, but simply to join my voice +in the universal cheer that is steadfastly going up for you. + +As gratefully as delightedly, + Your abiding friend, + JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. + + +Notwithstanding the belief that the sale of single subscription volumes +had about ended, Bliss did well with the new book. Thirty or forty +thousand copies were placed without much delay, and the accumulated +royalties paid into Mr. Rogers's hands. The burden of debt had become a +nightmare. Clemens wrote: + +Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. It +totally unfits me for work. + +This was November 10, 1897. December 29th he wrote: + +Land, we are glad to see those debts diminishing. For the first time in +my life I am getting more pleasure from paying money out than pulling it +in. + +To Howells, January 3d, Clemens wrote that they had "turned the corner," +and a month later: + +We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, & there's no +undisputed claim now that we can't cash. There are only two claims which +I dispute & which I mean to look into personally before I pay them. But +they are small. Both together they amount to only $12,500. I hope you +will never get the like of the load saddled onto you that was saddled +onto me 3 years ago. And yet there is such a solid pleasure in paying +the things that I reckon maybe it is worth while to get into that kind of +a hobble after all. Mrs. Clemens gets millions of delight out of it; & +the children have never uttered one complaint about the scrimping from +the beginning. + +By the end of January, 1898, Mark Twain had accumulated enough money to +make the final payment to his creditors and stand clear of debt. At the +time of his failure he said he had given himself five years in which to +clear himself of the heavy obligation. He had achieved that result in +less than three. The world heralded it as a splendid triumph. + +Miss Katharine I. Harrison, Henry Rogers's secretary, who had been in +charge of the details, wrote in her letter announcing his freedom: + +"I wish I could shout it across the water to you so that you would get it +ten days ahead of this letter." + +Miss Harrison's letter shows that something like thirteen thousand +dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were wiped +away. + +Clemens had kept his financial progress from the press, but the payment +of the final claims was distinctly a matter of news and the papers made +the most of it. Head-lines shouted it, there were long editorials in +which Mark Twain was heralded as a second Walter Scott, though it was +hardly necessary that he should be compared with anybody; he had been in +that--as in those peculiarities which had invited his disaster--just +himself. + +One might suppose now that he had had enough of inventions and commercial +enterprises of every sort that is, one who did not know Mark Twain might +suppose this; but it would not be true. Within a month after the debts +were paid he had negotiated with the great Austrian inventor, Szczepanik, +and his business manager for the American rights of a wonderful carpet- +pattern machine, obtained an option for these rights at fifteen hundred +thousand dollars, and, Sellers-like, was planning to organize a company +with a capital of fifteen hundred million dollars to control carpet- +weaving industries of the world. He records in his note-book that a +certain Mr. Wood, representing the American carpet interests, called upon +him and, in the course of their conversation, asked him at what price he +would sell his option. + + I declined, and got away from the subject. I was afraid he would + offer me $500,000 for it. I should have been obliged to take it, + but I was born with a speculative instinct & I did not want that + temptation put in my way. + +He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the Standard Oil +to furnish the capital for it--but it appears not to have borne the test +of Mr. Rogers's scrutiny, and is heard of no more. + +Szczepanik had invented the 'Fernseher', or Telelectroscope, the machine +by which one sees at a distance. Clemens would have invested heavily in +this, too, for he had implicit faith in its future, but the 'Fernseher' +was already controlled for the Paris Exposition; so he could only employ +Szczepanik as literary material, which he did in two instances: "The +Austrian Edison Keeping School Again" and "From the London Times of +1904"--magazine articles published in the Century later in the year. He +was fond of Szczepanik and Szczepanik's backer, Mr. Kleinburg. In one of +his note-book entries he says: + +Szczepanik is not a Paige. He is a gentleman; his backer, Mr. Kleinburg, +is a gentleman, too, yet is not a Clemens--that is to say, he is not an +ass. + +Clemens did not always consult his financial adviser, Rogers, any more +than he always consulted his spiritual adviser, Twichell, or his literary +adviser, Howells, when he intended to commit heresies in their respective +provinces. Somewhat later an opportunity came along to buy an interest +in a preparation of skimmed milk, an invalid food by which the human race +was going to be healed of most of its ills. When Clemens heard that +Virchow had recommended this new restorative, the name of which was +plasmon, he promptly provided MacAlister with five thousand pounds to +invest in a company then organizing in London. It should be added that +this particular investment was not an entire loss, for it paid very good +dividends for several years. We shall hear of it again. + +For the most part Clemens was content to let Henry Rogers do his +financiering, and as the market was low with an upward incline, Rogers +put the various accumulations into this thing and that, and presently had +some fifty thousand dollars to Mark Twain's credit, a very comfortable +balance for a man who had been twice that amount in debt only a few years +before. It has been asserted most strenuously, by those in a position to +know least about the matter, that Henry Rogers lent, and even gave, Mark +Twain large sums, and pointed out opportunities whereby he could make +heavily by speculation. No one of these statements is true. Mr. Rogers +neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money for investment, and he never +allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He invested for him +wisely, but he never bought for him a share of stock that he did not have +the money in hand to pay for in full-money belonging to and earned by +Clemens himself. What he did give to Mark Twain was his priceless +counsel and time--gifts more precious than any mere sum of money--boons +that Mark Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them and +was unceasingly grateful.--[Mark Twain never lost an opportunity for +showing his gratitude to Henry Rogers. The reader is referred to +Appendix T, at the end of the last volume, for a brief tribute which +Clemens prepared in 1902. Mr. Rogers would not consent to its +publication.] + + + + +CCI + +SOCIAL LIFE IN VIENNA + +Clemens, no longer worried about finances and full of ideas and +prospects, was writing now at a great rate, mingling with all sorts of +social events, lecturing for charities, and always in the lime-light. + +I have abundant peace of mind again--no sense of burden. Work is become +a pleasure--it is not labor any longer. + +He was the lion of the Austrian capital, and it was natural that he +should revel in his new freedom and in the universal tribute. Mrs. +Clemens wrote that they were besieged with callers of every description: + + Such funny combinations are here sometimes: one duke, several + counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper + women, etc. I find so far, without exception, that the high-up + aristocracy are simple and cordial and agreeable. + +When Clemens appeared as a public entertainer all society turned out to +hear him and introductions were sought by persons of the most exclusive +rank. Once a royal introduction led to an adventure. He had been giving +a charity reading in Vienna, and at the end of it was introduced, with +Mrs. Clemens, to her Highness, Countess Bardi, a princess of the +Portuguese royal house by marriage and sister to the Austrian Archduchess +Maria Theresa. They realized that something was required after such an +introduction; that, in fact, they must go within a day or two and pay +their respects by writing their names in the visitors' book, kept in a +sort of anteroom of the royal establishment. A few days later, about +noon, they drove to the archducal palace, inquired their way to the royal +anteroom, and informed the grandly uniformed portier that they wished to +write their names in the visitors' book. The portier did not produce the +book, but summoned a man in livery and gold lace and directed him to take +them up-stairs, remarking that her Royal Highness was out, but would be +in presently. They protested that her Royal Highness was not looking for +them, that they were not calling, but had merely come to sign the +visitors' book, but he said: + +"You are Americans, are you not?" + +"Yes, we are Americans." + +"Then you are expected. Please go up-stairs." + +Mrs. Clemens said: + +"Oh no, we are not expected; there is some mistake. Please let us sign +the book and we will go away." + +But it was no use. He insisted that her Royal Highness would be back in +a very little while; that she had commanded him to say so and that they +must wait. They were shown up-stairs, Clemens going willingly enough, +for he scented an adventure; but Mrs. Clemens was far from happy. They +were taken to a splendid drawing-room, and at the doorway she made her +last stand, refusing to enter. She declared that there was certainly +some mistake, and begged them to let her sign her name in the book and +go, without parleying. It was no use. Their conductor insisted that +they remove their wraps and sit down, which they finally did--Mrs. +Clemens miserable, her husband in a delightful state of anticipation. +Writing of it to Twichell that night he said: + + I was hoping and praying that the Princess would come and catch us + up there, & that those other Americans who were expected would + arrive and be taken as impostors by the portier & be shot by the + sentinels & then it would all go into the papers & be cabled all + over the world & make an immense stir and be perfectly lovely. + + Livy was in a state of mind; she said it was too theatrically + ridiculous & that I would never be able to keep my mouth shut; that + I would be sure to let it out & it would get into the papers, & she + tried to make me promise. + + "Promise what?" I said. + + "To be quiet about this." + + "Indeed I won't; it's the best thing ever happened. I'll tell it + and add to it & I wish Joe & Howells were here to make it perfect; I + can't make all the rightful blunders by myself--it takes all three + of us to do justice to an opportunity like this. I would just like + to see Howells get down to his work & explain & lie & work his + futile & inventionless subterfuges when that Princess comes raging + in here & wanting to know." + + But Livy could not hear fun--it was not a time to be trying to be + funny. We were in a most miserable & shameful situation, & it---- + Just then the door spread wide & our Princess & 4 more & 3 little + Princes flowed in! Our Princess & her sister, the Archduchess Maria + Theresa (mother to the imperial heir & to the a young girl + Archduchesses present, & aunt to the 3 little Princes), & we shook + hands all around & sat down & had a most sociable time for half an + hour, & by & by it turned out that we were the right ones & had been + sent for by a messenger who started too late to catch us at the + hotel. We were invited for a o'clock, but we beat that arrangement + by an hour & a half. + + Wasn't it a rattling good comedy situation? Seems a kind of pity we + were the right ones. It would have been such nuts to see the right + ones come and get fired out, & we chatting along comfortably & + nobody suspecting us for impostors. + +Mrs. Clemens to Mrs. Crane: + + Of course I know that I should have courtesied to her Imperial + Majesty & not quite so deep to her Royal Highness, and that Mr. + Clemens should have kissed their hands; but it was all so unexpected + that I had no time to prepare, and if I had had I should not have + been there; I only went in to help Mr. C. with my bad German. When + our minister's wife is going to be presented to the Archduchess she + practises her courtesying beforehand. + +They had met royalty in simple American fashion and no disaster had +followed. + +We have already made mention of the distinguished visitors who gathered +in the Clemens apartments at the Hotel Metropole. They were of many +nations and ranks. It was the winter in London of twenty-five years +before over again. Only Mark Twain was not the same. Then he had been +unsophisticated, new, not always at his ease; now he was the polished +familiar of courts and embassies--at home equally with poets and princes, +authors and ambassadors and kings. Such famous ones were there as +Vereshchagin, Leschetizky, Mark Hambourg, Dvorak, Lenbach, and Jokai, +with diplomats of many nations. A list of foreign names may mean little +to the American reader, but among them were Neigra, of Italy; Paraty, of +Portugal; Lowenhaupt, of Sweden; and Ghiki, of Rumania. The Queen of +Rumania, Carmen Sylva, a poetess in her own right, was a friend and warm +admirer of Mark Twain. The Princess Metternich, and Madame de +Laschowska, of Poland, were among those who came, and there were Nansen +and his wife, and Campbell-Bannerman, who was afterward British Premier. +Also there was Spiridon, the painter, who made portraits of Clara Clemens +and her father, and other artists and potentates--the list is too long. + +Those were brilliant, notable gatherings and are remembered in Vienna +today. They were not always entirely harmonious, for politics was in the +air and differences of opinion were likely to be pretty freely expressed. + +Clemens and his family, as Americans, did not always have a happy time of +it. It was the eve of the Spanish American War and most of continental +Europe sided with Spain. Austria, in particular, was friendly to its +related nation; and from every side the Clemenses heard how America was +about to take a brutal and unfair advantage of a weaker nation for the +sole purpose of annexing Cuba. + +Charles Langdon and his son Jervis happened to arrive in Vienna about +this time, bringing straight from America the comforting assurance that +the war was not one of conquest or annexation, but a righteous defense of +the weak. Mrs. Clemens gave a dinner for them, at which, besides some +American students, were Mark Hambourg, Gabrilowitsch, and the great +Leschetizky himself. Leschetizky, an impetuous and eloquent talker, took +this occasion to inform the American visitors that their country was only +shamming, that Cuba would soon be an American dependency. No one not +born to the language could argue with Leschetizky. Clemens once wrote of +him: + +He is a most capable and felicitous talker-was born for an orator, I +think. What life, energy, fire in a man past 70! & how he does play! He +is easily the greatest pianist in the world. He is just as great & just +as capable today as ever he was. + +Last Sunday night, at dinner with us, he did all the talking for 3 hours, +and everybody was glad to let him. He told his experiences as a +revolutionist 50 years ago in '48, & his battle-pictures were +magnificently worded. Poetzl had never met him before. He is a talker +himself & a good one--but he merely sat silent & gazed across the table +at this inspired man, & drank in his words, & let his eyes fill & the +blood come & go in his face & never said a word. + +Whatever may have been his doubts in the beginning concerning the Cuban +War, Mark Twain, by the end of May, had made up his mind as to its +justice. When Theodore Stanton invited him to the Decoration Day banquet +to be held in Paris, he replied: + +I thank you very much for your invitation and I would accept if I were +foot-free. For I should value the privilege of helping you do honor to +the men who rewelded our broken Union and consecrated their great work +with their lives; and also I should like to be there to do, homage to our +soldiers and sailors of today who are enlisted for another most righteous +war, and utter the hope that they may make short and decisive work of it +and leave Cuba free and fed when they face for home again. And finally I +should like to be present and see you interweave those two flags which, +more than any others, stand for freedom and progress in the earth-flags +which represent two kindred nations, each great and strong by itself, +competent sureties for the peace of the world when they stand together. + +That is to say, the flags of England and America. To an Austrian friend +he emphasized this thought: + +The war has brought England and America close together--and to my mind +that is the biggest dividend that any war in this world has ever paid. +If this feeling is ever to grow cold again I do not wish to live to see +it. + +And to Twichell, whose son David had enlisted: + +You are living your war-days over again in Dave & it must be strong +pleasure mixed with a sauce of apprehension . . . . + +I have never enjoyed a war, even in history, as I am enjoying this one, +for this is the worthiest one that was ever fought, so far as my +knowledge goes. It is a worthy thing to fight for one's own country. It +is another sight finer to fight for another man's. And I think this is +the first time it has been done. + +But it was a sad day for him when he found that the United States really +meant to annex the Philippines, and his indignation flamed up. He said: + +"When the United States sent word to Spain that the Cuban atrocities must +end she occupied the highest moral position ever taken by a nation since +the Almighty made the earth. But when she snatched the Philippines she +stained the flag." + + + + +CCII + +LITERARY WORK IN VIENNA + +One must wonder, with all the social demands upon him, how Clemens could +find time to write as much as he did during those Vienna days. He piled +up a great heap of manuscript of every sort. He wrote Twichell: + + There may be idle people in the world, but I am not one of them. + +And to Howells: + + I couldn't get along without work now. I bury myself in it up to + the ears. Long hours--8 & 9 on a stretch sometimes. It isn't all + for print, by any means, for much of it fails to suit me; 50,000 + words of it in the past year. It was because of the deadness which + invaded me when Susy died. + +He projected articles, stories, critiques, essays, novels, autobiography, +even plays; he covered the whole literary round. Among these activities +are some that represent Mark Twain's choicest work. "Concerning the +Jews," which followed the publication of his "Stirring Times in Austria" +(grew out of it, in fact), still remains the best presentation of the +Jewish character and racial situation. Mark Twain was always an ardent +admirer of the Jewish race, and its oppression naturally invited his +sympathy. Once he wrote to Twichell: + +The difference between the brain of the average Christian and that of the +average Jew--certainly in Europe--is about the difference between a +tadpole's brain & an archbishop's. It is a marvelous race; by long odds +the most marvelous race the world has produced, I suppose. + +Yet he did not fail to see its faults and to set them down in his summary +of Hebrew character. It was a reply to a letter written to him by a +lawyer, and he replied as a lawyer might, compactly, logically, +categorically, conclusively. The result pleased him. To Mr. Rogers he +wrote: + +The Jew article is my "gem of the ocean." I have taken a world of +pleasure in writing it & doctoring it & fussing at it. Neither Jew nor +Christian will approve of it, but people who are neither Jews nor +Christian will, for they are in a condition to know the truth when they +see it. + +Clemens was not given to race distinctions. In his article he says: + +I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I +have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. +Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is +that a man is a human being, that is enough for me; he can't be any +worse. + +We gather from something that follows that the one race which he bars is +the French, and this, just then, mainly because of the Dreyfus +agitations. + +He also states in this article: + +I have no special regard for Satan, but I can at least claim that I have +no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way on +account of his not having a fair show. + +Clemens indeed always had a friendly feeling toward Satan (at least, as +he conceived him), and just at this time addressed a number of letters to +him concerning affairs in general--cordial, sympathetic, informing +letters enough, though apparently not suited for publication. A good +deal of the work done at this period did not find its way into print. An +interview with Satan; a dream-story concerning a platonic sweetheart, and +some further comment on Austrian politics, are among the condemned +manuscripts. + +Mark Twain's interest in Satan would seem later to have extended to his +relatives, for there are at least three bulky manuscripts in which he has +attempted to set down some episodes in the life of one "Young Satan," a +nephew, who appears to have visited among the planets and promoted some +astonishing adventures in Austria several centuries ago. The idea of a +mysterious, young, and beautiful stranger who would visit the earth and +perform mighty wonders, was always one which Mark Twain loved to play +with, and a nephew of Satan's seemed to him properly qualified to carry +out his intention. His idea was that this celestial visitant was not +wicked, but only indifferent to good and evil and suffering, having no +personal knowledge of any of these things. Clemens tried the experiment +in various ways, and portions of the manuscript are absorbingly +interesting, lofty in conception, and rarely worked out--other portions +being merely grotesque, in which the illusion of reality vanishes. + +Among the published work of the Vienna period is an article about a +morality play, the "Master of Palmyra,"--[About play-acting, Forum, +October, 1898.]--by Adolf Wilbrandt, an impressive play presenting +Death, the all-powerful, as the principal part. + +The Cosmopolitan Magazine for August published "At the Appetite-Cure," in +which Mark Twain, in the guise of humor, set forth a very sound and +sensible idea concerning dietetics, and in October the same magazine +published his first article on "Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. +Eddy." As we have seen, Clemens had been always deeply interested in +mental healing, and in closing this humorous skit he made due +acknowledgments to the unseen forces which, properly employed, through +the imagination work physical benefits: + +"Within the last quarter of a century," he says, "in America, several +sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable +things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines." + +Clemens was willing to admit that Mrs. Eddy and her book had benefited +humanity, but he could not resist the fun-making which certain of her +formulas and her phrasing invited. The delightful humor of the +Cosmopolitan article awoke a general laugh, in which even devout +Christian Scientists were inclined to join.--[It was so popular that +John Brisben Walker voluntarily added a check for two hundred dollars to +the eight hundred dollars already paid.]--Nothing that he ever did +exhibits more happily that peculiar literary gift upon which his fame +rests. + +But there is another story of this period that will live when most of +those others mentioned are but little remembered. It is the story of +"The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg." This is a tale that in its own way +takes its place with the half-dozen great English short stories of the +world-with such stories as "The Fall of the House of Usher," by Poe; +"The Luck of Roaring Camp," by Harte; "The Man Who Would be King," by +Kipling; and "The Man Without a Country," by Hale. As a study of the +human soul, its flimsy pretensions and its pitiful frailties, it outranks +all the rest. In it Mark Twain's pessimistic philosophy concerning the +"human animal" found a free and moral vent. Whatever his contempt for a +thing, he was always amused at it; and in this tale we can imagine him a +gigantic Pantagruel dangling a ridiculous manikin, throwing himself back +and roaring out his great bursting guffaws at its pitiful antics. The +temptation and the downfall of a whole town was a colossal idea, a +sardonic idea, and it is colossally and sardonically worked out. + +Human weakness and rotten moral force were never stripped so bare or so +mercilessly jeered at in the marketplace. For once Mark Twain could hug +himself with glee in derision of self-righteousness, knowing that the +world would laugh with him, and that none would be so bold as to gainsay +his mockery. Probably no one but Mark Twain ever conceived the idea of +demoralizing a whole community--of making its "nineteen leading citizens" +ridiculous by leading them into a cheap, glittering temptation, and +having them yield and openly perjure themselves at the very moment when +their boasted incorruptibility was to amaze the world. And it is all +wonderfully done. The mechanism of the story is perfect, the drama of it +is complete. The exposure of the nineteen citizens in the very sanctity +of the church itself, and by the man they have discredited, completing +the carefully prepared revenge of the injured stranger, is supreme in its +artistic triumph. "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" is one of the +mightiest sermons against self-righteousness ever preached. Its +philosophy, that every man is strong until his price is named; the +futility of the prayer not to be led into temptation, when it is only by +resisting temptation that men grow strong--these things blaze out in a +way that makes us fairly blink with the truth of them. + +It is Mark Twain's greatest short story. It is fine that it should be +that, as well as much more than that; for he was no longer essentially a +story-teller. He had become more than ever a moralist and a sage. +Having seen all of the world, and richly enjoyed and deeply suffered at +its hands, he sat now as in a seat of judgment, regarding the passing +show and recording his philosophies. + + + + +CCIII + +AN IMPERIAL TRAGEDY + +For the summer they went to Kaltenleutgeben, just out of Vienna, where +they had the Villa Paulhof, and it was while they were there, September +10, 1898, that the Empress Elizabeth of Austria was assassinated at +Geneva by an Italian vagabond, whose motive seemed to have been to gain +notoriety. The news was brought to them one evening, just at supper- +time, by Countess Wydenbouck-Esterhazy. + +Clemens wrote to Twichell: + + That good & unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by a madman, & + I am living in the midst of world-history again. The Queen's + Jubilee last year, the invasion of the Reichsrath by the police, & + now this murder, which will still be talked of & described & painted + a thousand years from now. To have a personal friend of the wearer + of two crowns burst in at the gate in the deep dusk of the evening & + say, in a voice broken with tears, "My God! the Empress is + murdered," & fly toward her home before we can utter a question-- + why, it brings the giant event home to you, makes you a part of it & + personally interested; it is as if your neighbor Antony should come + flying & say, "Caesar is butchered--the head of the world is + fallen!" + +Of course there is no talk but of this. The mourning is universal and +genuine, the consternation is stupefying. The Austrian Empire is being +draped with black. Vienna will be a spectacle to see by next Saturday, +when the funeral cortege marches. + +Clemens and the others went into Vienna for the funeral ceremonies and +witnessed them from the windows of the new Krantz Hotel, which faces the +Capuchin church where the royal dead lie buried. It was a grandly +impressive occasion, a pageant of uniforms of the allied nations that +made up the Empire of Austria. Clemens wrote of it at considerable +length, and sent the article to Mr. Rogers to offer to the magazines. +Later, however, he recalled it just why is not clear. In one place he +wrote: + +Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state; the first time was in +1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, & when she rode in measureless +pomp through a world of gay flags & decorations down the streets, walled +on both hands with the press of shouting & welcoming subjects; & the +second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin, +& moved down the same streets in the dead of night under waving black +flags, between human walls again, but everywhere was a deep stillness now +& a stillness emphasized rather than broken by the muffled hoofbeats of +the long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, & the low sobbing +of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entrance, forty-four +years before, when she & they were young & unaware.... She was so +blameless--the Empress; & so beautiful in mind & heart, in person & +spirit; & whether with the crown upon her head, or without it & nameless, +a grace to the human race, almost a justification of its creation; would +be, indeed, but that the animal that struck her down re-establishes the +doubt. + +They passed a quiet summer at Kaltenleutgeben. Clemens wrote some +articles, did some translating of German plays, and worked on his +"Gospel," an elaboration of his old essay on contenting one's soul +through selfishness, later to be published as 'What is Man?' A. C. +Dunham and Rev. Dr. Parker, of Hartford, came to Vienna, and Clemens +found them and brought them out to Kaltenleutgeben and read them chapters +of his doctrines, which, he said, Mrs. Clemens would not let him print. +Dr. Parker and Dunham returned to Hartford and reported Mark Twain more +than ever a philosopher; also that he was the "center of notability and +his house a court." + + + + +CCIV + +THE SECOND WINTER IN VIENNA + +The Clemens family did not return to the Metropole for the winter, but +went to the new Krantz, already mentioned, where they had a handsome and +commodious suite looking down on the Neuer Markt and on the beautiful +facade of the Capuchin church, with the great cathedral only a step away. +There they passed another brilliant and busy winter. Never in Europe had +they been more comfortably situated; attention had been never more +lavishly paid to them. Their drawing-room was a salon which acquired the +name of the "Second Embassy." Clemens in his note-book wrote: + +During 8 years now I have filled the position--with some credit, I trust, +of self-appointed ambassador-at-large of the United States of America-- +without salary. + +Which was a joke; but there was a large grain of truth in it, for Mark +Twain, more than any other American in Europe, was regarded as typically +representing his nation and received more lavish honors. + +It had become the fashion to consult him on every question of public +interest, for he was certain to say something worth printing, whether +seriously or otherwise. When the Tsar of Russia proposed the disarmament +of the nations William T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, wrote +for Mark Twain's opinion. He replied: + +DEAR MR. STEADY,--The Tsar is ready to disarm. I am ready to disarm. +Collect the others; it should not be much of a task now. + + MARK TWAIN. + + +He was on a tide of prosperity once more, one that was to continue now +until the end. He no longer had any serious financial qualms. He could +afford to be independent. He refused ten thousand dollars for a tobacco +indorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough; and he was aware +that even royalty was willing to put a value on its opinions. He +declined ten thousand dollars a year for five years to lend his name as +editor of a humorous periodical, though there was no reason to suppose +that the paper would be otherwise than creditably conducted. He declined +lecture propositions from Pond at the rate of about one a month. He +could get along without these things, he said, and still preserve some +remnants of self-respect. In a letter to Rogers he said: + +Pond offers me $10,000 for 10 nights, but I do not feel strongly tempted. +Mrs. Clemens ditto. + +Early in 1899 he wrote to Howells that Mrs. Clemens had proved to him +that they owned a house and furniture in Hartford, that his English and +American copyrights paid an income on the equivalent of two hundred +thousand dollars, and that they had one hundred and seven thousand +dollars' accumulation in the bank. + +"I have been out and bought a box of 6c. cigars," he says; "I was smoking +4 1/2c. before." + +The things that men are most likely to desire had come to Mark Twain, and +no man was better qualified to rejoice in them. That supreme, elusive +thing which we call happiness might have been his now but for the tragedy +of human bereavement and the torture of human ills. That he did rejoice +--reveled indeed like a boy in his new fortunes, the honors paid him, and +in all that gay Viennese life-there is no doubt. He could wave aside +care and grief and remorse, forget their very existence, it seemed; but +in the end he had only driven them ahead a little way and they waited by +his path. Once, after reciting his occupations and successes, he wrote: + + All these things might move and interest one. But how, desperately + more I have been moved to-night by the thought of a little old copy + in the nursery of 'At the Back of the North Wind'. Oh, what happy + days they were when that book was read, and how Susy loved it!... + Death is so kind, benignant, to whom he loves, but he goes by us + others & will not look our way. + +And to Twichell a few days later: + + A Hartford with no Susy in it--& no Ned Bunce!--It is not the city + of Hartford, it is the city of Heartbreak.... It seems only a few + weeks since I saw Susy last--yet that was 1895 & this is 1899.... + + My work does not go well to-day. It failed yesterday--& the day + before & the day before that. And so I have concluded to put the + MS. in the waste-basket & meddle with some other subject. I was + trying to write an article advocating the quadrupling of the + salaries of our ministers & ambassadors, & the devising of an + official dress for them to wear. It seems an easy theme, yet I + couldn't do the thing to my satisfaction. All I got out of it was + an article on Monaco & Monte Carlo--matters not connected with the + subject at all. Still, that was something--it's better than a total + loss. + +He finished the article--"Diplomatic Pay and Clothes"--in which he shows +how absurd it is for America to expect proper representation on the +trifling salaries paid to her foreign ministers, as compared with those +allowed by other nations. + +He prepared also a reminiscent article--the old tale of the shipwrecked +Hornet and the magazine article intended as his literary debut a +generation ago. Now and again he worked on some one of the several +unfinished longer tales, but brought none of them to completion. The +German drama interested him. Once he wrote to Mr. Rogers that he had +translated "In Purgatory" and sent it to Charles Frohman, who pronounced +it "all jabber and no play." + +Curious, too, for it tears these Austrians to pieces with laughter. When +I read it, now, it seems entirely silly; but when I see it on the stage +it is exceedingly funny. + +He undertook a play for the Burg Theater, a collaboration with a Vienna +journalist, Siegmund Schlesinger. Schlesinger had been successful with +several dramas, and agreed with Clemens to do some plays dealing with +American themes. One of them was to be called "Die Goldgraeberin," that +is, "The Woman Gold-Miner." Another, "The Rival Candidates," was to +present the humors of female suffrage. Schlesinger spoke very little +English, and Clemens always had difficulty in comprehending rapid-fire +German. So the work did not progress very well. By the time they had +completed a few scenes of mining-drama the interest died, and they good- +naturedly agreed that it would be necessary to wait until they understood +each other's language more perfectly before they could go on with the +project. Frau Kati Schratt, later morganatic wife of Emperor Franz +Josef, but then leading comedienne of the Burg Theater, is said to have +been cast for the leading part in the mining-play; and Director-General +Herr Schlenther, head of the Burg Theater management, was deeply +disappointed. He had never doubted that a play built by Schlesinger and +Mark Twain, with Frau Schratt in the leading role, would have been a +great success. + +Clemens continued the subject of Christian Science that winter. He wrote +a number of articles, mainly criticizing Mrs. Eddy and her financial +methods, and for the first time conceived the notion of a book on the +subject. The new hierarchy not only amused but impressed him. He +realized that it was no ephemeral propaganda, that its appeal to human +need was strong, and that its system of organization was masterful and +complete. To Twichell he wrote: + +Somehow I continue to feel sure of that cult's colossal future.... I am +selling my Lourdes stock already & buying Christian Science trust. I +regard it as the Standard Oil of the future. + +He laid the article away for the time and, as was his custom, put the +play quite out of his mind and invented a postal-check which would be far +more simple than post-office orders, because one could buy them in any +quantity and denomination and keep them on hand for immediate use, making +them individually payable merely by writing in the name of the payee. It +seems a fine, simple scheme, one that might have been adopted by the +government long ago; but the idea has been advanced in one form or +another several times since then, and still remains at this writing +unadopted. He wrote John Hay about it, remarking at the close that the +government officials would probably not care to buy it as soon as they +found they couldn't kill Christians with it. + +He prepared a lengthy article on the subject, in dialogue form, making it +all very clear and convincing, but for some reason none of the magazines +would take it. Perhaps it seemed too easy, too simple, too obvious. +Great ideas, once developed, are often like that. + + + + +CCV + +SPEECHES THAT WERE NOT MADE + +In a volume of Mark Twain's collected speeches there is one entitled +"German for the Hungarians--Address at the jubilee Celebration of the +Emancipation of the Hungarian Press, March 26, 1899." An introductory +paragraph states that the ministers and members of Parliament were +present, and that the subject was the "Ausgleich"--i.e., the arrangement +for the apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria. The +speech as there set down begins: + + Now that we are all here together I think that it will be a good + idea to arrange the Ausgleich. If you will act for Hungary I shall + be quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for + it. + +It is an excellent speech, full of good-feeling and good-humor, but it +was never delivered. It is only a speech that Mark Twain intended to +deliver, and permitted to be copied by a representative of the press +before he started for Budapest. + +It was a grand dinner, brilliant and inspiring, and when, Mark Twain was +presented to that distinguished company he took a text from something the +introducer had said and became so interested in it that his prepared +speech wholly disappeared from his memory. + +I think I will never embarrass myself with a set speech again [he wrote +Twichell]. My memory is old and rickety and cannot stand the strain. +But I had this luck. What I did was to furnish a text for a part of the +splendid speech which was made by the greatest living orator of the +European world--a speech which it was a great delight to listen to, +although I did not understand any word of it, it being in Hungarian. +I was glad I came, it was a great night, & I heard all the great men in +the German tongue. + +The family accompanied Clemens to Budapest, and while there met Franz, +son of Louis Kossuth, and dined with him. + +I assure you [wrote Mrs. Clemens] that I felt stirred, and I kept saying +to myself "This is Louis Kossuth's son." He came to our room one day, +and we had quite a long and a very pleasant talk together. He is a man +one likes immensely. He has a quiet dignity about him that is very +winning. He seems to be a man highly esteemed in Hungary. If I am not +mistaken, the last time I saw the old picture of his father it was +hanging in a room that we turned into a music-room for Susy at the farm. + +They were most handsomely treated in Budapest. A large delegation +greeted them on arrival, and a carriage and attendants were placed +continually at their disposal. They remained several days, and Clemens +showed his appreciation by giving a reading for charity. + +It was hinted to Mark Twain that spring, that before leaving Vienna, it +would be proper for him to pay his respects to Emperor Franz Josef, who +had expressed a wish to meet him. Clemens promptly complied with the +formalities and the meeting was arranged. He had a warm admiration for +the Austrian Emperor, and naturally prepared himself a little for what he +wanted to say to him. He claimed afterward that he had compacted a sort +of speech into a single German sentence of eighteen words. He did not +make use of it, however. When he arrived at the royal palace and was +presented, the Emperor himself began in such an entirely informal way +that it did no occur to his visitor to deliver his prepared German +sentence. When he returned from the audience he said: + +"We got along very well. I proposed to him a plan to exterminate the +human race by withdrawing the oxygen from the air for a period of two +minutes. I said Szczepanik would invent it for him. I think it +impressed him. After a while, in the course of our talk I remembered and +told the Emperor I had prepared and memorized a very good speech but had +forgotten it. He was very agreeable about it. He said a speech wasn't +necessary. He seemed to be a most kind-hearted emperor, with a great +deal of plain, good, attractive human nature about him. Necessarily he +must have or he couldn't have unbent to me as he did. I couldn't unbend +if I were an emperor. I should feel the stiffness of the position. +Franz Josef doesn't feel it. He is just a natural man, although an +emperor. I was greatly impressed by him, and I liked him exceedingly. +His face is always the face of a pleasant man and he has a fine sense of +humor. It is the Emperor's personality and the confidence all ranks have +in him that preserve the real political serenity in what has an outside +appearance of being the opposite. He is a man as well as an emperor--an +emperor and a man." + +Clemens and Howells were corresponding with something of the old-time +frequency. The work that Mark Twain was doing--thoughtful work with +serious intent--appealed strongly to Howells. He wrote: + + You are the greatest man of your sort that ever lived, and there is + no use saying anything else . . . . You have pervaded your + century almost more than any other man of letters, if not more; and + it is astonishing how you keep spreading . . . . You are my + "shadow of a great rock in a weary land" more than any other writer. + +Clemens, who was reading Howells's serial, "Their Silver-Wedding +journey," then running in Harper's Magazine, responded: + + You are old enough to be a weary man with paling interests, but you + do not show it; you do your work in the same old, delicate & + delicious & forceful & searching & perfect way. I don't know how + you can--but I suspect. I suspect that to you there is still + dignity in human life, & that man is not a joke--a poor joke--the + poorest that was ever contrived. Since I wrote my Bible--[The + "Gospel," What is Man?]--(last year), which Mrs. Clemens loathes & + shudders over & will not listen to the last half nor allow me to + print any part of it, man is not to me the respect-worthy person he + was before, & so I have lost my pride in him & can't write gaily nor + praisefully about him any more . . . . + + Next morning. I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every + morning--well knowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities + & basenesses & hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization & + cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of + the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do + not despair. + +He was not greatly changed. Perhaps he had fewer illusions and less +iridescent ones, and certainly he had more sorrow; but the letters to +Howells do not vary greatly from those written twenty-five years before. +There is even in them a touch of the old pretense as to Mrs. Clemens's +violence. + +I mustn't stop to play now or I shall never get those helfiard letters +answered. (That is not my spelling. It is Mrs. Clemens's, I have told +her the right way a thousand times, but it does no good, she never +remembers.) + +All through this Vienna period (as during several years before and after) +Henry Rogers was in full charge of Mark Twain's American affairs. +Clemens wrote him almost daily, and upon every matter, small or large, +that developed, or seemed likely to develop, in his undertakings. The +complications growing out of the type machine and Webster failures were +endless.--["I hope to goodness I sha'n't get you into any more jobs such +as the type-setter and Webster business and the Bliss-Harper campaigns +have been. Oh, they were sickeners." (Clemens to Rogers, +November 15, 1898.)]--The disposal of the manuscripts alone was work for +a literary agent. The consideration of proposed literary, dramatic, and +financial schemes must have required not only thought, but time. Yet Mr. +Rogers comfortably and genially took care of all these things and his own +tremendous affairs besides, and apologized sometimes when he felt, +perhaps, that he had wavered a little in his attention. Clemens once +wrote him: + + Oh, dear me, you don't have to excuse yourself for neglecting me; + you are entitled to the highest praise for being so limitlessly + patient and good in bothering with my confused affairs, and pulling + me out of a hole every little while. + + It makes me lazy, the way that Steel stock is rising. If I were + lazier--like Rice--nothing could keep me from retiring. But I work + right along, like a poor person. I shall figure up the rise, as the + figures come in, and push up my literary prices accordingly, till I + get my literature up to where nobody can afford it but the family. + (N. B.--Look here, are you charging storage? I am not going to + stand that, you know.) Meantime, I note those encouraging illogical + words of yours about my not worrying because I am to be rich when I + am 68; why didn't you have Cheiro make it 90, so that I could have + plenty of room? + + It would be jolly good if some one should succeed in making a play + out of "Is He Dead?"--[Clemens himself had attempted to make a play + out of his story "Is He Dead?" and had forwarded the MS. to Rogers. + Later he wrote: "Put 'Is He Dead?' in the fire. God will bless you. + I too. I started to convince myself that I could write a play, or + couldn't. I'm convinced. Nothing can disturb that conviction."]-- + From what I gather from dramatists, he will have his hands something + more than full--but let him struggle, let him struggle. + + Is there some way, honest or otherwise, by which you can get a copy + of Mayo's play, "Pudd'nhead Wilson," for me? There is a capable + young Austrian here who saw it in New York and wants to translate it + and see if he can stage it here. I don't think these people here + would understand it or take to it, but he thinks it will pay us to + try. + + A couple of London dramatists want to bargain with me for the right + to make a high comedy out of the "Million-Pound Note." Barkis is + willing. + +This is but one of the briefer letters. Most of them were much longer +and of more elaborate requirements. Also they overflowed with the gaiety +of good-fortune and with gratitude. From Vienna in 1899 Clemens wrote: + + Why, it is just splendid! I have nothing to do but sit around and + watch you set the hen and hatch out those big broods and make my + living for me. Don't you wish you had somebody to do the same for + you?--a magician who can turn steel add copper and Brooklyn gas into + gold. I mean to raise your wages again--I begin to feel that I can + afford it. + + I think the hen ought to have a name; she must be called Unberufen. + That is a German word which is equivalent to it "sh! hush' don't let + the spirits hear you!" The superstition is that if you happen to + let fall any grateful jubilation over good luck that you've had or + are hoping to have you must shut square off and say "Unberufen!" and + knock wood. The word drives the evil spirits away; otherwise they + would divine your joy or your hopes and go to work and spoil your + game. Set her again--do! + + Oh, look here! You are just like everybody; merely because I am + literary you think I'm a commercial somnambulist, and am not + watching you with all that money in your hands. Bless you, I've got + a description of you and a photograph in every police-office in + Christendom, with the remark appended: "Look out for a handsome, + tall, slender young man with a gray mustache and courtly manners and + an address well calculated to deceive, calling himself by the name + of Smith." Don't you try to get away--it won't work. + +From the note-book: + + Midnight. At Miss Bailie's home for English governesses. Two + comedies & some songs and ballads. Was asked to speak & did it. + (And rung in the "Mexican Plug.") + + A Voice. "The Princess Hohenlohe wishes you to write on her fan." + + "With pleasure--where is she?" + + "At your elbow." + + I turned & took the fan & said, "Your Highness's place is in a fairy + tale; & by & by I mean to write that tale," whereat she laughed a + happy girlish laugh, & we moved through the crowd to get to a + writing-table--& to get in a strong light so that I could see her + better. Beautiful little creature, with the dearest friendly ways & + sincerities & simplicities & sweetnesses--the ideal princess of the + fairy tales. She is 16 or 17, I judge. + + Mental Telegraphy. Mrs. Clemens was pouring out the coffee this + morning; I unfolded the Neue Freie Presse, began to read a paragraph + & said: + + "They've found a new way to tell genuine gems from false----" + + "By the Roentgen ray!" she exclaimed. + + That is what I was going to say. She had not seen the paper, & + there had been no talk about the ray or gems by herself or by me. + It was a plain case of telegraphy. + + No man that ever lived has ever done a thing to please God-- + primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next. + + The Being who to me is the real God is the one who created this + majestic universe & rules it. He is the only originator, the only + originator of thoughts; thoughts suggested from within, not from + without; the originator of colors & of all their possible + combinations; of forces & the laws that govern them; of forms & + shapes of all forms-man has never invented a new one. He is the + only originator. He made the materials of all things; He made the + laws by which, & by which only, man may combine them into the + machines & other things which outside influences suggest to him. He + made character--man can portray it but not "create" it, for He is + the only creator. + + He, is the perfect artisan, the perfect artist. + + + + +CCVI + +A SUMMER IN SWEDEN + +A part of the tragedy of their trip around the world had been the +development in Jean Clemens of a malady which time had identified as +epilepsy. The loss of one daughter and the invalidism of another was the +burden which this household had now to bear. Of course they did not for +a moment despair of a cure for the beautiful girl who had been so cruelly +stricken, and they employed any agent that promised relief. + +They decided now to go to London, in the hope of obtaining beneficial +treatment. They left Vienna at the end of May, followed to the station +by a great crowd, who loaded their compartment with flowers and lingered +on the platform waving and cheering, some of them in tears, while the +train pulled away. Leschetizky himself was among them, and Wilbrandt, +the author of the Master of Palmyra, and many artists and other notables, +"most of whom," writes Mrs. Clemens, "we shall probably never see again +in this world." + +Their Vienna sojourn had been one of the most brilliant periods of their +life, as well as one of the saddest. The memory of Susy had been never +absent, and the failing health of Jean was a gathering cloud. + +They stopped a day or two at Prague, where they were invited by the +Prince of Thurn and Taxis to visit his castle. It gave them a glimpse of +the country life of the Bohemian nobility which was most interesting. +The Prince's children were entirely familiar with Tom Sawyer and +Huckleberry Finn, which they had read both in English and in the +translation. + +They journeyed to London by way of Cologne, arriving by the end of May. +Poultney Bigelow was there, and had recently been treated with great +benefit by osteopathy (then known as the Swedish movements), as practised +by Heinrick Kellgren at Sanna, Sweden. Clemens was all interest +concerning Kellgren's method and eager to try it for his daughter's +malady. He believed she could be benefited, and they made preparation to +spend some months at least in Sanna. They remained several weeks in +London, where they were welcomed with hospitality extraordinary. They +had hardly arrived when they were invited by Lord Salisbury to Hatfield +House, and by James Bryce to Portland Place, and by Canon Wilberforce to +Dean's Yard. A rather amusing incident happened at one of the luncheon- +parties. Canon Wilberforce was there and left rather early. When +Clemens was ready to go there was just one hat remaining. It was not +his, and he suspected, by the initials on the inside, that it belonged to +Canon Wilberforce. However, it fitted him exactly and he wore it away. +That evening he wrote: + + PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL, DE VERE GARDENS, + July,3, 1899. + +DEAR CANON WILBERFORCE,--It is 8 P.M. During the past four hours I have +not been able to take anything that did not belong to me; during all that +time I have not been able to stretch a fact beyond the frontiers of truth +try as I might, & meantime, not only my morals have moved the +astonishment of all who have come in contact with me, but my manners have +gained more compliments than they have been accustomed to. This mystery +is causing my family much alarm. It is difficult to account for it. +I find I haven't my own hat. Have you developed any novelties of conduct +since you left Mr. Murray's, & have they been of a character to move the +concern of your friends? I think it must be this that has put me under +this happy charm; but, oh dear! I tremble for the other man! + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +Scarcely was this note on its way to Wilberforce when the following one +arrived, having crossed it in transit: + +July 3, 1899. + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--I have been conscious of a vivacity and facility of +expression this afternoon beyond the normal and I have just discovered +the reason!! I have seen the historic signature "Mark Twain" in my hat!! +Doubtless you have been suffering from a corresponding dullness & have +wondered why. I departed precipitately, the hat stood on my umbrella and +was a new Lincoln & Bennett--it fitted me exactly and I did not discover +the mistake till I got in this afternoon. Please forgive me. If you +should be passing this way to-morrow will you look in and change hats? +or shall I send it to the hotel? + + I am, very sincerely yrs., +20 Dean's Yard. BASIL WILBERFORCE. + + +Clemens was demanded by all the bohemian clubs, the White Friars, the +Vagabonds, the Savage, the Beefsteak, and the Authors. He spoke to them, +and those "Mark Twain Evenings" have become historic occasions in each of +the several institutions that gave him welcome. At the Vagabonds he told +them the watermelon story, and at the White Friars he reviewed the old +days when he had been elected to that society; "days," he said, "when all +Londoners were talking about nothing else than that they had discovered +Livingstone, and that the lost Sir Roger Tichborne had been found and +they were trying him for it." + +At the Savage Club, too, he recalled old times and old friends, and +particularly that first London visit, his days in the club twenty-seven +years before. + +"I was 6 feet 4 in those days," he said. "Now I am 5 feet 8 1/2 and +daily diminishing in altitude, and the shrinkage of my principles goes on +. . . . Irving was here then, is here now. Stanley is here, and Joe +Hatton, but Charles Reade is gone and Tom Hood and Harry Lee and Canon +Kingsley. In those days you could have carried Kipling around in a +lunch-basket; now he fills the world. I was young and foolish then; now +I am old and foolisher." + +At the Authors Club he paid a special tribute to Rudyard Kipling, whose +dangerous illness in New York City and whose daughter's death had aroused +the anxiety and sympathy of the entire American nation. It had done much +to bring England and America closer together, Clemens said. Then he +added that he had been engaged the past eight days compiling a pun and +had brought it there to lay at their feet, not to ask for their +indulgence, but for their applause. It was this: + +"Since England and America have been joined in Kipling, may they not be +severed in Twain." + +Hundreds of puns had been made on his pen-name, but this was probably his +first and only attempt, and it still remains the best. + +They arrived in Sweden early in July and remained until October. Jean +was certainly benefited by the Kellgren treatment, and they had for a +time the greatest hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens became +enthusiastic over osteopathy, and wrote eloquently to every one, urging +each to try the great new curative which was certain to restore universal +health. He wrote long articles on Kellgren and his science, largely +justified, no doubt, for certainly miraculous benefits were recorded; +though Clemens was not likely to underestimate a thing which appealed to +both his imagination and his reason. Writing to Twichell he concluded, +with his customary optimism over any new benefit: + + Ten years hence no sane man will call a doctor except when the knife + must be used--& such cases will be rare. The educated physician + will himself be an osteopath. Dave will become one after he has + finished his medical training. Young Harmony ought to become one + now. I do not believe there is any difference between Kellgren's + science and osteopathy; but I am sending to America to find out. I + want osteopathy to prosper; it is common sense & scientific, & cures + a wider range of ailments than the doctor's methods can reach. + +Twichell was traveling in Europe that summer, and wrote from Switzerland: + + I seemed ever and anon to see you and me swinging along those + glorious Alpine woods, staring at the new unfoldings of splendor + that every turn brought into view-talking, talking, endlessly + talking the days through-days forever memorable to me. That was + twenty-one years ago; think of it! We were youngsters then, Mark, + and how keen our relish of everything was! Well, I can enjoy myself + now; but not with that zest and rapture. Oh, a lot of items of our + tramp travel in 1878 that I had long forgotten came back to me as we + sped through that enchanted region, and if I wasn't on duty with + Venice I'd stop and set down some of them, but Venice must be + attended to. For one thing, there is Howells's book to be read at + such intervals as can be snatched from the quick-time march on which + our rustling leader keeps us. However, in Venice so far we want to + be gazing pretty steadily from morning till night, and by the grace + of the gondola we can do it without exhaustion. Really I am drunk + with Venice. + +But Clemens was full of Sweden. The skies there and the sunsets be +thought surpassed any he had ever known. On an evening in September he +wrote: + + DEAR JOE,--I've no business in here-I ought to be outside. I shall + never see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven. + Venice? land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place to + be. I have seen about 60 sunsets here; & a good 40 of them were + away & beyond anything I had ever imagined before for dainty & + exquisite & marvelous beauty & infinite change & variety. America? + Italy? the tropics? They have no notion of what a sunset ought to + be. And this one--this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all the + rest. It brings the tears, it is so unutterably beautiful. + +Clemens read a book during his stay in Sweden which interested him +deeply. It was the Open Question, by Elizabeth Robbins--a fine study of +life's sterner aspects. When he had finished he was moved to write the +author this encouraging word: + + DEAR MISS ROBBINS,--A relative of Matthew Arnold lent us your 'Open + Question' the other day, and Mrs. Clemens and I are in your debt. I + am not able to put in words my feeling about the book--my admiration + of its depth and truth and wisdom and courage, and the fine and + great literary art and grace of the setting. At your age you cannot + have lived the half of the things that are in the book, nor + personally penetrated to the deeps it deals in, nor covered its wide + horizons with your very own vision--and so, what is your secret? + how have you written this miracle? Perhaps one must concede that + genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old + experience. + + Well, in any case, I am grateful to you. I have not been so + enriched by a book for many years, nor so enchanted by one. I seem + to be using strong language; still, I have weighed it. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCVII + +30, WELLINGTON COURT + +Clemens himself took the Kellgren treatment and received a good deal of +benefit. + +"I have come back in sound condition and braced for work," he wrote +MacAlister, upon his return to London. "A long, steady, faithful siege +of it, and I begin now in five minutes." + +They had settled in a small apartment at 30, Wellington Court, Albert +Gate, where they could be near the London branch of the Kellgren +institution, and he had a workroom with Chatto & Windus, his publishers. +His work, however, was mainly writing speeches, for he was entertained +constantly, and it seemed impossible for him to escape. His note-book +became a mere jumble of engagements. He did write an article or a story +now and then, one of which, "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It," was +made the important Christmas feature of the 'New York Sunday World.' +--[Now included in the Hadleyburg volume; "Complete Works."] + +Another article of this time was the "St. Joan of Arc," which several +years later appeared in Harper's Magazine. This article was originally +written as the Introduction of the English translation of the official +record of the trials and rehabilitation of Joan, then about to be +elaborately issued. Clemens was greatly pleased at being invited to +prepare the Introduction of this important volume, but a smug person with +pedagogic proclivities was in charge of the copy and proceeded to edit +Mark Twain's manuscript; to alter its phrasing to conform to his own +ideas of the Queen's English. Then he had it all nicely typewritten, and +returned it to show how much he had improved it, and to receive thanks +and compliments. He did not receive any thanks. Clemens recorded a few +of the remarks that he made when he saw his edited manuscript: + + I will not deny that my feelings rose to 104 in the shade. "The + idea! That this long-eared animal this literary kangaroo this + illiterate hostler with his skull full of axle-grease--this....." + But I stopped there, for this was not the Christian spirit. + +His would-be editor received a prompt order to return the manuscript, +after which Clemens wrote a letter, some of which will go very well here. + + DEAR MR. X.,--I have examined the first page of my amended + Introduction,--& will begin now & jot down some notes upon your + corrections. If I find any changes which shall not seem to me to be + improvements I will point out my reasons for thinking so. In this + way I may chance to be helpful to you, & thus profit you perhaps as + much as you have desired to profit me. + + First Paragraph. "Jeanne d'Arc." This is rather cheaply pedantic, + & is not in very good taste. Joan is not known by that name among + plain people of our race & tongue. I notice that the name of the + Deity occurs several times in the brief instalment of the Trials + which you have favored me with. To be consistent, it will be + necessary that you strike out "God" & put in "Dieu." Do not neglect + this. + + Second Paragraph. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you + realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art + like that with your limitations? And do you think that you have + added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of the + sentence? + + Third Paragraph. Ditto. + + Fourth Paragraph. Your word "directly" is misleading; it could be + construed to mean "at once." Plain clarity is better than ornate + obscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark: "Rather unkind to + French feelings--referring to Moscow." Indeed I have not been + concerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating the + facts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French-- + calling them a "nation of ingrates" in one place--but you have been + so busy editing commas & semicolons that you overlooked them & + failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slur + at the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for a + compliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like + yours. You ought to get it out & dance on it. + + That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to + use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now & + then along through life it would not have petrified. + + Fifth Paragraph. Thus far I regard this as your masterpiece! You + are really perfect in the great art of reducing simple & dignified + speech to clumsy & vapid commonplace. + + Sixth Paragraph. You have a singularly fine & aristocratic + disrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go + back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" + is suited only to the drawing-room--it is ducal, & says itself with + a simper & a smirk. + + Seventh Paragraph. "Permission" is ducal. Ducal and affected. + "Her" great days were not "over," they were only half over. Didn't + you know that? Haven't you read anything at all about Joan of Arc? + The truth is you do not pay any attention; I told you on my very + first page that the public part of her career lasted two years, & + you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind out + and have it repaired; you see yourself that it is all caked + together. + + Eighth Paragraph. She "rode away to assault & capture a + stronghold." Very well; but you do not tell us whether she + succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with + uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity + is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than + keep this useful rule in mind. + + Ninth Paragraph. "Known" history. That word has a polish which is + too indelicate for me; there doesn't seem to be any sense in it. + This would have surprised me last week. + + . . . "Breaking a lance" is a knightly & sumptuous phrase, & I + honor it for its hoary age & for the faithful service it has done in + the prize-composition of the school-girl, but I have ceased from + employing it since I got my puberty, & must solemnly object to + fathering it here. And, besides, it makes me hint that I have + broken one of those things before in honor of the Maid, an + intimation not justified by the facts. I did not break any lances + or other furniture; I only wrote a book about her. + + Truly yours, + MARK TWAIN. + + + It cost me something to restrain myself and say these smooth & half- + flattering things of this immeasurable idiot, but I did it, & have + never regretted it. For it is higher & nobler to be kind to even a + shad like him than just . . . . I could have said hundreds of + unpleasant things about this tadpole, but I did not even feel them. + +Yet, in the end, he seems not to have sent the letter. Writing it had +served every purpose. + +An important publishing event of 1899 was the issue by the American +Publishing Company of Mark Twain's "Complete Works in Uniform Edition." +Clemens had looked forward to the day when this should be done, perhaps +feeling that an assembling of his literary family in symmetrical dress +constituted a sort of official recognition of his authorship. Brander +Matthews was selected to write the Introduction and prepared a fine +"Biographical Criticism," which pleased Clemens, though perhaps he did +not entirely agree with its views. Himself of a different cast of mind, +he nevertheless admired Matthews. + +Writing to Twichell he said: + + When you say, "I like Brander Matthews, he impresses me as a man of + parts & power," I back you, right up to the hub--I feel the same + way. And when you say he has earned your gratitude for cuffing me + for my crimes against the Leather-stockings & the Vicar I ain't + making any objection. Dern your gratitude! + + His article is as sound as a nut. Brander knows literature & loves + it; he can talk about it & keep his temper; he can state his case so + lucidly & so fairly & so forcibly that you have to agree with him + even when you don't agree with him; & he can discover & praise such + merits as a book has even when they are merely half a dozen diamonds + scattered through an acre of mud. And so he has a right to be a + critic. + + To detail just the opposite of the above invoice is to describe me. + I haven't any right to criticize books, & I don't do it except when + I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books + madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; & + therefore I have to stop every time I begin.'--[Once at a dinner + given to Matthews, Mark Twain made a speech which consisted almost + entirely of intonations of the name "Brander Matthews" to express + various shades of human emotion. It would be hopeless, of course, + to attempt to convey in print any idea of this effort, which, by + those who heard it, is said to have been a masterpiece of + vocalization.] + +Clemens also introduced the "Uniform Edition" with an Author's Preface, +the jurisdiction of which, he said, was "restricted to furnishing reasons +for the publication of the collection as a whole." + + This is not easy to do. Aside from the ordinary commercial reasons + I find none that I can offer with dignity: I cannot say without + immodesty that the books have merit; I cannot say without immodesty + that the public want a "Uniform Edition"; I cannot say without + immodesty that a "Uniform Edition" will turn the nation toward high + ideals & elevated thought; I cannot say without immodesty that a + "Uniform Edition" will eradicate crime, though I think it will. I + find no reason that I can offer without immodesty except the rather + poor one that I should like to see a "Uniform Edition" myself. It + is nothing; a cat could say it about her kittens. Still, I believe + I will stand upon that. I have to have a Preface & a reason, by law + of custom, & the reason which I am putting forward is at least + without offense. + + + + +CCVIII + +MARK TWAIN AND THE WARS + +English troubles in South Africa came to a head that autumn. On the day +when England's ultimatum to the Boers expired Clemens wrote: + + LONDON, 3.07 P.m., Wednesday, October 11, 1899. The time is up! + Without a doubt the first shot in the war is being fired to-day in + South Africa at this moment. Some man had to be the first to fall; + he has fallen. Whose heart is broken by this murder? For, be he + Boer or be he Briton, it is murder, & England committed it by the + hand of Chamberlain & the Cabinet, the lackeys of Cecil Rhodes & his + Forty Thieves, the South Africa Company. + +Mark Twain would naturally sympathize with the Boer--the weaker side, the +man defending his home. He knew that for the sake of human progress +England must conquer and must be upheld, but his heart was all the other +way. In January, 1900, he wrote a characteristic letter to Twichell, +which conveys pretty conclusively his sentiments concerning the two wars +then in progress. + + DEAR JOE,--Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free + & give their islands to them; & apparently we are not proposing to + hang the priests & confiscate their property. If these things are + so the war out there has no interest for me. + + I have just been examining Chapter LXX of Following the Equator to + see if the Boer's old military effectiveness is holding out. It + reads curiously as if it had been written about the present war. + + I believe that in the next chapter my notion of the Boer was rightly + conceived. He is popularly called uncivilized; I do not know why. + Happiness, food, shelter, clothing, wholesome labor, modest & + rational ambitions, honesty, kindliness, hospitality, love of + freedom & limitless courage to fight for it, composure & fortitude + in time of disaster, patience in time of hardship & privation, + absence of noise & brag in time of victory, contentment with humble + & peaceful life void of insane excitements--if there is a higher & + better form of civilization than this I am not aware of it & do not + know where to look for it. I suppose that we have the habit of + imagining that a lot of artistic & intellectual & other + artificialities must be added or it isn't complete. We & the + English have these latter; but as we lack the great bulk of those + others I think the Boer civilization is the best of the two. My + idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing & full + of cruelties, vanities, arrogancies, meannesses, & hypocrisies. + + Provided we could get something better in the place of it. But that + is not possible perhaps. Poor as it is, it is better than real + savagery, therefore we must stand by it, extend it, & (in public) + praise it. And so we must not utter any hurtful word about England + in these days, nor fail to hope that she will win in this war, for + her defeat & fall would be an irremediable disaster for the mangy + human race. Naturally, then, I am for England; but she is + profoundly in the wrong, Joe, & no (instructed) Englishman doubts + it. At least that is my belief. + +Writing to Howells somewhat later, he calls the conflict in South Africa, +a "sordid and criminal war," and says that every day he is writing (in +his head) bitter magazine articles against it. + + But I have to stop with that. Even if wrong--& she is wrong England + must be upheld. He is an enemy of the human race who shall speak + against her now. Why was the human race created? Or at least why + wasn't something creditable created in place of it? . . . I talk + the war with both sides--always waiting until the other man + introduces the topic. Then I say, "My head is with the Briton, but + my heart & such rags of morals as I have are with the Boer--now we + will talk, unembarrassed and without prejudice." And so we discuss + & have no trouble. + + I notice that God is on both sides in this war; thus history repeats + itself. But I am the only person who has noticed this; everybody + here thinks He is playing the game for this side, & for this side + only. + +Clemens wrote one article for anonymous publication in the Times. But +when the manuscript was ready to mail in an envelope stamped and +addressed to Moberly Bell--he reconsidered and withheld it. It still +lies in the envelope with the accompanying letter, which says: + +Don't give me away, whether you print it or not. But I think you ought +to print it and get up a squabble, for the weather is just suitable. + + + + + +CCIX + +PLASMON, AND A NEW MAGAZINE + +Clemens was not wholly wedded to osteopathy. The financial interest +which he had taken in the new milk albumen, "a food for invalids," tended +to divide his faith and make him uncertain as to which was to be the +chief panacea for all ills--osteopathy or plasmon. + +MacAlister, who was deeply interested in the plasmon fortunes, was +anxious to get the product adopted by the army. He believed, if he could +get an interview with the Medical Director-General, he could convince him +of its merits. Discussing the matter with Clemens, the latter said: + +"MacAlister, you are going at it from the wrong end. You can't go direct +to that man, a perfect stranger, and convince him of anything. Who is +his nearest friend?" + +MacAlister knew a man on terms of social intimacy with the official. + +Clemens said, "That is the man to speak to the Director-General." + +"But I don't know him, either," said MacAlister. + +"Very good. Do you know any one who does know him?" + +"Yes, I know his most intimate friend." + +"Then he is the man for you to approach. Convince him that plasmon is +what the army needs, that the military hospitals are suffering for it. +Let him understand that what you want is to get this to the Director- +General, and in due time it will get to him in the proper way. You'll +see." + +This proved to be a true prophecy. It was only a little while until the +British army had experimented with plasmon and adopted it. MacAlister +reported the success of the scheme to Clemens, and out of it grew the +story entitled, "Two Little Tales," published in November of the +following year (1901) in the Century Magazine. Perhaps the reader will +remember that in the "Two Little Tales" the Emperor is very ill and the +lowest of all his subjects knows a certain remedy, but he cannot seek the +Emperor direct, so he wisely approaches him through a series of +progressive stages--finally reaching and curing his stricken Majesty. + +Clemens had the courage of his investments. He adopted plasmon as his +own daily food, and induced various members of the family to take it in +its more palatable forms, one of these being a preparation of chocolate. +He kept the reading-table by his bed well stocked with a variety of the +products and invited various callers to try a complimentary sample lot. +It was really an excellent and harmless diet, and both the company and +its patients would seem to have prospered--perhaps are prospering still. + +There was another business opportunity came along just at this time. +S. S. McClure was in England with a proposition for starting a new +magazine whose complexion was to be peculiarly American, with Mark Twain +as its editor. The magazine was to be called 'The Universal', and by the +proposition Clemens was to receive a tenth interest in it for his first +year's work, and an added twentieth interest for each of the two +succeeding years, with a guarantee that his shares should not earn him +less than five thousand dollars the first year, with a proportionate +increase as his holdings grew. + +The scheme appealed to Clemens, it being understood in the beginning that +he was to give very little time to the work, with the privilege of doing +it at his home, wherever that might happen to be. He wrote of the matter +to Mr. Rogers, explaining in detail, and Rogers replied, approving the +plan. Mr. Rogers said he knew that he [Rogers] would have to do most of +the work in editing the magazine, and further added: + + One thing I shall insist upon, however, if I have anything to do + with the matter, and it is this: that when you have made up your + mind on the subject you will stick to it. I have not found in your + composition that element of stubbornness which is a constant source + of embarrassment to me in all friendly and social ways, but which, + when applied to certain lines of business, brings in the dollar and + fifty-cent pieces. If you accept the position, of course that means + that you have to come to this country. If you do, the yachting will + be a success. + +There was considerable correspondence with McClure over the new +periodical. In one letter Clemens set forth his general views of the +matter quite clearly: + + Let us not deceive any one, nor allow any one to deceive himself, if + it can be prevented. This is not to be comic magazine. It is to be + simply a good, clean, wholesome collection of well-written & + enticing literary products, like the other magazines of its class; + not setting itself to please but one of man's moods, but all of + them. It will not play but one kind of music, but all kinds. I + should not be able to edit a comic periodical satisfactorily, for + lack of interest in the work. I value humor highly, & am + constitutionally fond of it, but I should not like it as a steady + diet. For its own best interests, humor should take its outings in + grave company; its cheerful dress gets heightened color from the + proximity of sober hues. For me to edit a comic magazine would be + an incongruity & out of character, for of the twenty-three books + which I have written eighteen do not deal in humor as their chiefs + feature, but are half & half admixtures of fun & seriousness. I + think I have seldom deliberately set out to be humorous, but have + nearly always allowed the humor to drop in or stay out, according to + its fancy. Although I have many times been asked to write something + humorous for an editor or a publisher I have had wisdom enough to + decline; a person could hardly be humorous with the other man + watching him like that. I have never tried to write a humorous + lecture; I have only tried to write serious ones--it is the only way + not to succeed. + + I shall write for this magazine every time the spirit moves me; but + I look for my largest entertainment in editing. I have been edited + by all kinds of people for more than thirty-eight years; there has + always been somebody in authority over my manuscript & privileged to + improve it; this has fatigued me a good deal, & I have often longed + to move up from the dock to the bench & rest myself and fatigue + others. My opportunity is come, but I hope I shall not abuse it + overmuch. I mean to do my best to make a good magazine; I mean to + do my whole duty, & not shirk any part of it. There are plenty of + distinguished artists, novelists, poets, story-tellers, + philosophers, scientists, explorers, fighters, hunters, followers of + the sea, & seekers of adventure; & with these to do the hard & the + valuable part of the work with the pen & the pencil it will be + comfort & joy to me to walk the quarter-deck & superintend. + +Meanwhile McClure's enthusiasm had had time to adjust itself to certain +existing facts. Something more than a month later he wrote from America +at considerable length, setting forth the various editorial duties and +laying stress upon the feature of intimate physical contact with the +magazine. He went into the matter of the printing schedule, the various +kinds of paper used, the advertising pages, illustrations--into all the +detail, indeed, which a practical managing editor must compass in his +daily rounds. It was pretty evident that Clemens would not be able to go +sailing about on Mr. Rogers's yacht or live at will in London or New York +or Vienna or Elmira, but that he would be more or less harnessed to a +revolving chair at an editorial desk, the thing which of all fates he +would be most likely to dread The scheme appears to have died there--the +correspondence to have closed. + +Somewhat of the inducement in the McClure scheme had been the thought in +Clemens's mind that it would bring him back to America. In a letter to +Mr. Rogers (January 8, 1900) he said, "I am tired to death of this +everlasting exile." Mrs. Clemens often wrote that he was restlessly +impatient to return. They were, in fact, constantly discussing the +practicability of returning to their own country now and opening the +Hartford home. Clemens was ready to do that or to fall in with any plan +that would bring him across the water and settle him somewhere +permanently. He was tired of the wandering life they had been leading. +Besides the long trip of '95 and '96 they had moved two or three times a +year regularly since leaving Hartford, nine years before. It seemed to +him that they were always packing and unpacking. + +"The poor man is willing to live anywhere if we will only let him 'stay +put," wrote Mrs. Clemens, but he did want to settle in his own land. +Mrs. Clemens, too, was weary with wandering, but the Hartford home no +longer held any attraction for her. There had been a time when her every +letter dwelt on their hope of returning to it. Now the thought filled +her with dread. To her sister she wrote: + +Do you think we can live through the first going into the house in +Hartford? I feel if we had gotten through the first three months all +might be well, but consider the first night. + +The thought of the responsibility of that great house--the taking up +again of the old life-disheartened her, too. She had added years and she +had not gained in health or strength. + + When I was comparatively young I found the burden of that house very + great. I don't think I was ever fitted for housekeeping. I dislike + the practical part of it so much. I hate it when the servants don't + do well, and I hate the correcting them. + + Yet no one ever had better discipline in her domestic affairs or + ever commanded more devoted service. Her strength of character and + the proportions of her achievement show large when we consider this + confession. + +They planned to return in the spring, but postponed the date for sailing. +Jean was still under Kellgren's treatment, and, though a cure had been +promised her, progress was discouragingly slow. They began to look about +for summer quarters in or near London. + + + + +CCX + +LONDON SOCIAL AFFAIRS + +All this time Clemens had been tossing on the London social tide. There +was a call for him everywhere. No distinguished visitor of whatever +profession or rank but must meet Mark Twain. The King of Sweden was +among his royal conquests of that season. + +He was more happy with men of his own kind. He was often with Moberly +Bell, editor of the Times; E. A. Abbey, the painter; Sir Henry Lucy, of +Punch (Toby, M.P.); James Bryce, and Herbert Gladstone; and there were a +number of brilliant Irishmen who were his special delight. Once with +Mrs. Clemens he dined with the author of his old favorite, 'European +Morals', William E. H. Lecky. Lady Gregory was there and Sir Dennis +Fitz-Patrick; who had been Governor-General at Lahore when they were in +India, and a number of other Irish ladies and gentlemen. It was a +memorable evening. To Twichell Clemens wrote: + + Joe, do you know the Irish gentleman & the Irish lady, the Scotch + gentleman & the Scotch lady? These are darlings, every one. Night + before last it was all Irish--24. One would have to travel far to + match their ease & sociability & animation & sparkle & absence of + shyness & self-consciousness. It was American in these fine + qualities. This was at Mr. Lecky's. He is Irish, you know. Last + night it was Irish again, at Lady Gregory's. Lord Roberts is Irish, + & Sir William Butler, & Kitchener, I think, & a disproportion of the + other prominent generals are of Irish & Scotch breed keeping up the + traditions of Wellington & Sir Colin Campbell, of the Mutiny. You + will have noticed that in S. A., as in the Mutiny, it is usually the + Irish & Scotch that are placed in the forefront of the battle.... + Sir William Butler said, "the Celt is the spearhead of the British + lance." + +He mentions the news from the African war, which had been favorable to +England, and what a change had come over everything in consequence. The +dinner-parties had been lodges of sorrow and depressing. Now everybody +was smiling again. In a note-book entry of this time he wrote: + + Relief of Mafeking (May 18, 1900). The news came at 9.17 P.M. + Before 10 all London was in the streets, gone mad with joy. By then + the news was all over the American continent. + +Clemens had been talking copyright a good deal in London, and introducing +it into his speeches. Finally, one day he was summoned before a +committee of the House of Lords to explain his views. His old idea that +the product of a man's brain is his property in perpetuity and not for +any term of years had not changed, and they permitted him to dilate on +this (to them) curious doctrine. The committee consisted of Lords +Monkswell, Knutsford, Avebury, Farrar, and Thwing. When they asked for +his views he said: + +"In my opinion the copyright laws of England and America need only the +removal of the forty-two-year limit and the return to perpetual copyright +to be perfect. I consider that at least one of the reasons advanced in +justification of limited copyright is fallacious--namely, the one which +makes a distinction between an author's property and real estate, and +pretends that the two are not created, produced, or acquired in the same +way, thus warranting a different treatment of the two by law." + +Continuing, he dwelt on the ancient doctrine that there was no property +in an idea, showing how the far greater proportion of all property +consisted of nothing more than elaborated ideas--the steamship, +locomotive, telephone, the vast buildings in the world, how all of these +had been constructed upon a basic idea precisely as a book is +constructed, and were property only as a book is property, and therefore +rightly subject to the same laws. He was carefully and searchingly +examined by that shrewd committee. He kept them entertained and +interested and left them in good-nature, even if not entirely converted. +The papers printed his remarks, and London found them amusing. + +A few days after the copyright session, Clemens, responding to the toast, +"Literature," at the Royal Literary Fund Banquet, made London laugh +again, and early in June he was at the Savoy Hotel welcoming Sir Henry +Irving back to England after one of his successful American tours. + +On the Fourth of July (1900) Clemens dined with the Lord Chief-Justice, +and later attended an American banquet at the Hotel Cecil. He arrived +late, when a number of the guests were already going. They insisted, +however, that he make a speech, which he did, and considered the evening +ended. It was not quite over. A sequel to his "Luck" story, published +nine years before, suddenly developed. + +To go back a little, the reader may recall that "Luck" was a story which +Twichell had told him as being supposedly true. The hero of it was a +military officer who had risen to the highest rank through what at least +seemed to be sheer luck, including a number of fortunate blunders. +Clemens thought the story improbable, but wrote it and laid it away for +several years, offering it at last in the general house-cleaning which +took place after the first collapse of the machine. It was published in +Harper's Magazine for August, 1891, and something less than a year later, +in Rome, an English gentleman--a new acquaintance--said to him: + +"Mr. Clemens, shall you go to England?" + +"Very likely." + +"Shall you take your tomahawk with you?" + +"Why--yes, if it shall seem best." + +"Well, it will. Be advised. Take it with you." + +"Why?" + +"Because of that sketch of yours entitled 'Luck.' That sketch is current +in England, and you will surely need your tomahawk." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"I think so because the hero of the sketch will naturally want your +scalp, and will probably apply for it. Be advised. Take your tomahawk +along." + +"Why, even with it I sha'n't stand any chance, because I sha'n't know him +when he applies, and he will have my scalp before I know what his errand +is." + +"Come, do you mean to say that you don't know who the hero of that sketch +is?" + +"Indeed I haven't any idea who the hero of the sketch is. Who is it?" + +His informant hesitated a moment, then named a name of world-wide +military significance. + +As Mask Twain finished his Fourth of July speech at the Cecil and started +to sit down a splendidly uniformed and decorated personage at his side +said: + +"Mr. Clemens, I have been wanting to know you a long time," and he was +looking down into the face of the hero of "Luck." + +"I was caught unprepared," he said in his notes of it. "I didn't sit +down--I fell down. I didn't have my tomahawk, and I didn't know what +would happen. But he was, composed, and pretty soon I got composed and +we had a good, friendly time. If he had ever heard of that sketch of +mine he did not manifest it in any way, and at twelve, midnight, I took +my scalp home intact." + + + + +CCXI + +DOLLIS HILL AND HOME + +It was early in July, 1900, that they removed to Dollis Hill House, a +beautiful old residence surrounded by trees on a peaceful hilltop, just +outside of London. It was literally within a stone's-throw of the city +limits, yet it was quite rural, for the city had not overgrown it then, +and it retained all its pastoral features--a pond with lily-pads, the +spreading oaks, the wide spaces of grassy lawn. Gladstone, an intimate +friend of the owner, had made it a favorite retreat at one period of his +life, and the place to-day is converted into a public garden called +Gladstone Park. The old English diplomat used to drive out and sit in +the shade of the trees and read and talk and translate Homer, and pace +the lawn as he planned diplomacy, and, in effect, govern the English +empire from that retired spot. + +Clemens, in some memoranda made at the moment, doubts if Gladstone was +always at peace in his mind in this retirement. + +"Was he always really tranquil within," he says, "or was he only +externally so--for effect? We cannot know; we only know that his rustic +bench under his favorite oak has no bark on its arms. Facts like this +speak louder than words." + +The red-brick residential wave of London was still some distance away in +1900. Clemens says: + + The rolling sea of green grass still stretches away on every hand, + splotches with shadows of spreading oaks in whose black coolness + flocks of sheep lie peacefully dreaming. Dreaming of what? That + they are in London, the metropolis of the world, Post-office + District, N. W.? Indeed no. They are not aware of it. I am aware + of it, but that is all. It is not possible to realize it. For + there is no suggestion of city here; it is country, pure & simple, + & as still & reposeful as is the bottom of the sea. + +They all loved Dollis Hill. Mrs. Clemens wrote as if she would like to +remain forever in that secluded spot. + + It is simply divinely beautiful & peaceful; . . . the great old + trees are beyond everything. I believe nowhere in the world do you + find such trees as in England . . . . Jean has a hammock swung + between two such great trees, & on the other side of a little pond, + which is full of white & yellow pond-lilies, there is tall grass & + trees & Clara & Jean go there in the afternoons, spread down a rug + on the grass in the shade & read & sleep. + +They all spent most of their time outdoors at Dollis Hill under those +spreading trees. + +Clemens to Twichell in midsummer wrote: + + I am the only person who is ever in the house in the daytime, but I + am working & deep in the luxury of it. But there is one tremendous + defect. Livy is all so enchanted with the place & so in love with + it that she doesn't know how she is going to tear herself away from + it. + +Much company came to them at Dollis Hill. Friends drove out from London, +and friends from America came often, among them--the Sages, Prof. +Willard Fiske, and Brander Matthews with his family. Such callers were +served with tea and refreshment on the lawn, and lingered, talking and +talking, while the sun got lower and the shadows lengthened, reluctant to +leave that idyllic spot. + +"Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever +occupied," he wrote when the summer was about over. + +But there was still a greater attraction than Dollis Hill. Toward the +end of summer they willingly left that paradise, for they had decided at +last to make that home-returning voyage which had invited them so long. +They were all eager enough to go--Clemens more eager than the rest, +though he felt a certain sadness, too, in leaving the tranquil spot which +in a brief summer they had so learned to love. + +Writing to W. H. Helm, a London newspaper man who had spent pleasant +hours with him chatting in the shade, he said: + + . . . The packing & fussing & arranging have begun, for the + removal to America &, by consequence, the peace of life is marred & + its contents & satisfactions are departing. There is not much + choice between a removal & a funeral; in fact, a removal is a + funeral, substantially, & I am tired of attending them. + +They closed Dollis Hill, spent a few days at Brown's Hotel, and sailed +for America, on the Minnehaha, October 6, 1900, bidding, as Clemens +believed, and hoped, a permanent good-by to foreign travel. They reached +New York on the 15th, triumphantly welcomed after their long nine years +of wandering. How glad Mark Twain was to get home may be judged from his +remark to one of the many reporters who greeted him. + + "If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I + can't, get away again." + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume 2, Part 2 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + + + +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 (2.3o) 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 Volume 3, Part 1 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME III, Part 2: 1907-1910 + + + +CCLVI + +HONORS FROM OXFORD + +Clemens made a brief trip to Bermuda during the winter, taking Twichell +along; their first return to the island since the trip when they had +promised to come back so soon-nearly thirty years before. They had been +comparatively young men then. They were old now, but they found the +green island as fresh and full of bloom as ever. They did not find their +old landlady; they could not even remember her name at first, and then +Twichell recalled that it was the same as an author of certain +schoolbooks in his youth, and Clemens promptly said, "Kirkham's Grammar." +Kirkham was truly the name, and they went to find her; but she was dead, +and the daughter, who had been a young girl in that earlier time, reigned +in her stead and entertained the successors of her mother's guests. They +walked and drove about the island, and it was like taking up again a +long-discontinued book and reading another chapter of the same tale. It +gave Mark Twain a fresh interest in Bermuda, one which he did not allow +to fade again. + +Later in the year (March, 1907) I also made a journey; it having been +agreed that I should take a trip to the Mississippi and to the Pacific +coast to see those old friends of Mark Twain's who were so rapidly +passing away. John Briggs was still alive, and other Hannibal +schoolmates; also Joe Goodman and Steve Gillis, and a few more of the +early pioneers--all eminently worth seeing in the matter of such work as +I had in hand. The billiard games would be interrupted; but whatever +reluctance to the plan there may have been on that account was put aside +in view of prospective benefits. Clemens, in fact, seemed to derive joy +from the thought that he was commissioning a kind of personal emissary to +his old comrades, and provided me with a letter of credentials. + +It was a long, successful trip that I made, and it was undertaken none +too soon. John Briggs, a gentle-hearted man, was already entering the +valley of the shadow as he talked to me by his fire one memorable +afternoon, and reviewed the pranks of those days along the river and in +the cave and on Holliday's Hill. I think it was six weeks later that he +died; and there were others of that scattering procession who did not +reach the end of the year. Joe Goodman, still full of vigor (in 1912), +journeyed with me to the green and dreamy solitudes of Jackass Hill to +see Steve and Jim Gillis, and that was an unforgetable Sunday when Steve +Gillis, an invalid, but with the fire still in his eyes and speech, sat +up on his couch in his little cabin in that Arcadian stillness and told +old tales and adventures. When I left he said: + +"Tell Sam I'm going to die pretty soon, but that I love him; that I've +loved him all my life, and I'll love him till I die. This is the last +word I'll ever send to him." Jim Gillis, down in Sonora, was already +lying at the point of death, and so for him the visit was too late, +though he was able to receive a message from his ancient mining partner, +and to send back a parting word. + +I returned by way of New Orleans and the Mississippi River, for I wished +to follow that abandoned water highway, and to visit its presiding +genius, Horace Bixby,--[He died August 2, 1912, at the age of 86]--still +alive and in service as pilot of the government snagboat, his +headquarters at St. Louis. + +Coming up the river on one of the old passenger steam boats that still +exist, I noticed in a paper which came aboard that Mark Twain was to +receive from Oxford University the literary doctor's degree. There had +been no hint of this when I came away, and it seemed rather too sudden +and too good to be true. That the little barefoot lad that had played +along the river-banks at Hannibal, and received such meager advantages in +the way of schooling--whose highest ambition had been to pilot such a +craft as this one--was about to be crowned by the world's greatest +institution of learning, to receive the highest recognition for +achievement in the world of letters, was a thing which would not be +likely to happen outside of a fairy tale. + +Returning to New York, I ran out to Tuxedo, where he had taken a home for +the summer (for it was already May), and walking along the shaded paths +of that beautiful suburban park, he told me what he knew of the Oxford +matter. + +Moberly Bell, of the London Times, had been over in April, and soon after +his return to England there had come word of the proposed honor. Clemens +privately and openly (to Bell) attributed it largely to his influence. +He wrote to him: + + DEAR MR. BELL,--Your hand is in it & you have my best thanks. + Although I wouldn't cross an ocean again for the price of the ship + that carried me I am glad to do it for an Oxford degree. I shall + plan to sail for England a shade before the middle of June, so that + I can have a few days in London before the 26th. + +A day or two later, when the time for sailing had been arranged, he +overtook his letter with a cable: + + I perceive your hand in it. You have my best thanks. Sail on + Minneapolis June 8th. Due in Southampton ten days later. + +Clemens said that his first word of the matter had been a newspaper +cablegram, and that he had been doubtful concerning it until a cablegram +to himself had confirmed it. + +"I never expected to cross the water again," he said; "but I would be +willing to journey to Mars for that Oxford degree." + +He put the matter aside then, and fell to talking of Jim Gillis and the +others I had visited, dwelling especially on Gillis's astonishing faculty +for improvising romances, recalling how he had stood with his back to the +fire weaving his endless, grotesque yarns, with no other guide than his +fancy. It was a long, happy walk we had, though rather a sad one in its +memories; and he seemed that day, in a sense, to close the gate of those +early scenes behind him, for he seldom referred to them afterward. + +He was back at 21 Fifth Avenue presently, arranging for his voyage. +Meantime, cable invitations of every sort were pouring in, from this and +that society and dignitary; invitations to dinners and ceremonials, and +what not, and it was clear enough that his English sojourn was to be a +busy one. He had hoped to avoid this, and began by declining all but two +invitations--a dinner-party given by Ambassador Whitelaw Reid and a +luncheon proposed by the "Pilgrims." But it became clear that this +would not do. England was not going to confer its greatest collegiate +honor without being permitted to pay its wider and more popular tribute. + +Clemens engaged a special secretary for the trip--Mr. Ralph W. Ashcroft, +a young Englishman familiar with London life. They sailed on the 8th of +June, by a curious coincidence exactly forty years from the day he had +sailed on the Quaker City to win his great fame. I went with him to the +ship. His first elation had passed by this time, and he seemed a little +sad, remembering, I think, the wife who would have enjoyed this honor +with him but could not share it now. + + + + +CCLVII + +A TRUE ENGLISH WELCOME + +Mark Twain's trip across the Atlantic would seem to have been a pleasant +one. The Minneapolis is a fine, big ship, and there was plenty of +company. Prof. Archibald Henderson, Bernard Shaw's biographer, was +aboard;--[Professor .Henderson has since then published a volume on Mark +Twain-an interesting commentary on his writings-mainly from the +sociological point of view.]--also President Patton, of the Princeton +Theological Seminary; a well-known cartoonist, Richards, and some very +attractive young people--school-girls in particular, such as all through +his life had appealed to Mark Twain. Indeed, in his later life they made +a stronger appeal than ever. The years had robbed him of his own little +flock, and always he was trying to replace them. Once he said: + +"During those years after my wife's death I was washing about on a +forlorn sea of banquets and speech-making in high and holy causes, and +these things furnished me intellectual cheer, and entertainment; but they +got at my heart for an evening only, then left it dry and dusty. I had +reached the grandfather stage of life without grandchildren, so I began +to adopt some." + +He adopted several on that journey to England and on the return voyage, +and he kept on adopting others during the rest of his life. These +companionships became one of the happiest aspects of his final days, as +we shall see by and by. + +There were entertainments on the ship, one of them given for the benefit +of the Seamen's Orphanage. One of his adopted granddaughters--"Charley" +he called her--played a violin solo and Clemens made a speech. Later his +autographs were sold at auction. Dr. Patton was auctioneer, and one +autographed postal card brought twenty-five dollars, which is perhaps the +record price for a single Mark Twain signature. He wore his white suit +on this occasion, and in the course of his speech referred to it. He +told first of the many defects in his behavior, and how members of his +household had always tried to keep him straight. The children, he said, +had fallen into the habit of calling it "dusting papa off." Then he went +on: + + When my daughter came to see me off last Saturday at the boat she + slipped a note in my hand and said, "Read it when you get aboard the + ship." I didn't think of it again until day before yesterday, and + it was a "dusting off." And if I carry out all the instructions + that I got there I shall be more celebrated in England for my + behavior than for anything else. I got instructions how to act on + every occasion. She underscored "Now, don't you wear white clothes + on ship or on shore until you get back," and I intended to obey. I + have been used to obeying my family all my life, but I wore the + white clothes to-night because the trunk that has the dark clothes + in it is in the cellar. I am not apologizing for the white clothes; + I am only apologizing to my daughter for not obeying her. + +He received a great welcome when the ship arrived at Tilbury. A throng +of rapid-fire reporters and photographers immediately surrounded him, and +when he left the ship the stevedores gave him a round of cheers. It was +the beginning of that almost unheard-of demonstration of affection and +honor which never for a moment ceased, but augmented from day to day +during the four weeks of his English sojourn. + +In a dictation following his return, Mark Twain said: + + Who began it? The very people of all people in the world whom I + would have chosen: a hundred men of my own class--grimy sons of + labor, the real builders of empires and civilizations, the + stevedores! They stood in a body on the dock and charged their + masculine lungs, and gave me a welcome which went to the marrow of + me. + +J. Y. W. MacAlister was at the St. Pancras railway station to meet him, +and among others on the platform was Bernard Shaw, who had come down to +meet Professor Henderson. Clemens and Shaw were presented, and met +eagerly, for each greatly admired the other. A throng gathered. Mark +Twain was extricated at last, and hurried away to his apartments at +Brown's Hotel, "a placid, subdued, homelike, old-fashioned English inn," +he called it, "well known to me years ago, a blessed retreat of a sort +now rare in England, and becoming rarer every year." + +But Brown's was not placid and subdued during his stay. The London +newspapers declared that Mark Twain's arrival had turned Brown's not only +into a royal court, but a post-office--that the procession of visitors +and the bundles of mail fully warranted this statement. It was, in fact, +an experience which surpassed in general magnitude and magnificence +anything he had hitherto known. His former London visits, beginning with +that of 1872, had been distinguished by high attentions, but all of them +combined could not equal this. When England decides to get up an +ovation, her people are not to be outdone even by the lavish Americans. +An assistant secretary had to be engaged immediately, and it sometimes +required from sixteen to twenty hours a day for two skilled and busy men +to receive callers and reduce the pile of correspondence. + +A pile of invitations had already accumulated, and others flowed in. +Lady Stanley, widow of Henry M. Stanley, wrote: + + You know I want to see you and join right hand to right hand. I + must see your dear face again . . . . You will have no peace, + rest, or leisure during your stay in London, and you will end by + hating human beings. Let me come before you feel that way. + +Mary Cholmondeley, the author of Red Pottage, niece of that lovable +Reginald Cholmondeley, and herself an old friend, sent greetings and +urgent invitations. Archdeacon Wilberforce wrote: + + I have just been preaching about your indictment of that scoundrel + king of the Belgians and telling my people to buy the book. I am + only a humble item among the very many who offer you a cordial + welcome in England, but we long to see you again, and I should like + to change hats with you again. Do you remember? + +The Athenaeum, the Garrick, and a dozen other London clubs had +anticipated his arrival with cards of honorary membership for the period +of his stay. Every leading photographer had put in a claim for sittings. +It was such a reception as Charles Dickens had received in America in +1842, and again in 1867. A London paper likened it to Voltaire's return +to Paris in 1778, when France went mad over him. There is simply no +limit to English affection and, hospitality once aroused. Clemens wrote: + + Surely such weeks as this must be very rare in this world: I had + seen nothing like them before; I shall see nothing approaching them + again! + +Sir Thomas Lipton and Bram Stoker, old friends, were among the first to +present themselves, and there was no break in the line of callers. + +Clemens's resolutions for secluding himself were swept away. On the very +next morning following his arrival he breakfasted with J. Henniker +Heaton, father of International Penny Postage, at the Bath Club, just +across Dover Street from Brown's. He lunched at the Ritz with Marjorie +Bowen and Miss Bisland. In the afternoon he sat for photographs at +Barnett's, and made one or two calls. He could no more resist these +things than a debutante in her first season. + +He was breakfasting again with Heaton next morning; lunching with "Toby, +M.P.," and Mrs. Lucy; and having tea with Lady Stanley in the afternoon, +and being elaborately dined next day at Dorchester House by Ambassador +and Mrs. Reid. These were all old and tried friends. He was not a +stranger among them, he said; he was at home. Alfred Austin, Conan +Doyle, Anthony Hope, Alma Tadema, E. A. Abbey, Edmund Goss, George +Smalley, Sir Norman Lockyer, Henry W. Lucy, Sidney Brooks, and Bram +Stoker were among those at Dorchester House--all old comrades, as were +many of the other guests. + +"I knew fully half of those present," he said afterward. + +Mark Twain's bursting upon London society naturally was made the most of +by the London papers, and all his movements were tabulated and +elaborated, and when there was any opportunity for humor in the situation +it was not left unimproved. The celebrated Ascot racing-cup was stolen +just at the time of his arrival, and the papers suggestively mingled +their head-lines, "Mark Twain Arrives: Ascot Cup Stolen," and kept the +joke going in one form or another. Certain state jewels and other +regalia also disappeared during his stay, and the news of these +burglaries was reported in suspicious juxtaposition with the news of Mark +Twain's doings. + +English reporters adopted American habits for the occasion, and invented +or embellished when the demand for a new sensation was urgent. Once, +when following the custom of the place, he descended the hotel elevator +in a perfectly proper and heavy brown bath robe, and stepped across +narrow Dover Street to the Bath Club, the papers flamed next day with the +story that Mark Twain had wandered about the lobby of Brown's and +promenaded Dover Street in a sky-blue bath robe attracting wide +attention. + +Clara Clemens, across the ocean, was naturally a trifle disturbed by such +reports, and cabled this delicate "dusting off": + +"Much worried. Remember proprieties." + +To which he answered: + +"They all pattern after me," a reply to the last degree characteristic. + +It was on the fourth day after his arrival, June 22d, that he attended +the King's garden-party at Windsor Castle. There were eighty-five +hundred guests at the King's party, and if we may judge from the London +newspapers, Mark Twain was quite as much a figure in that great throng as +any member of the royal family. His presentation to the King and the +Queen is set down as an especially notable incident, and their +conversation is quite fully given. Clemens himself reported: + + His Majesty was very courteous. In the course of the conversation + I reminded him of an episode of fifteen years ago, when I had the + honor to walk a mile with him when he was taking the waters at + Homburg, in Germany. I said that I had often told about that + episode, and that whenever I was the historian I made good history + of it and it was worth listening to, but that it had found its way + into print once or twice in unauthentic ways and was badly damaged + thereby. I said I should like to go on repeating this history, but + that I should be quite fair and reasonably honest, and while I + should probably never tell it twice in the same way I should at + least never allow it to deteriorate in my hands. His Majesty + intimated his willingness that I should continue to disseminate that + piece of history; and he added a compliment, saying that he knew + good and sound history would not suffer at my hands, and that if + this good and sound history needed any improvement beyond the facts + he would trust me to furnish that improvement. + + I think it is not an exaggeration to say that the Queen looked as + young and beautiful as she did thirty-five years ago when I saw her + first. I did not say this to her, because I learned long ago never + to say the obvious thing, but leave the obvious thing to commonplace + and inexperienced people to say. That she still looked to me as + young and beautiful as she did thirty-five years ago is good + evidence that ten thousand people have already noticed this and have + mentioned it to her. I could have said it and spoken the truth, but + I was too wise for that. I kept the remark unuttered and saved her + Majesty the vexation of hearing it the ten-thousand-and-oneth time. + + All that report about my proposal to buy Windsor Castle and its + grounds was a false rumor. I started it myself. + + One newspaper said I patted his Majesty on the shoulder--an + impertinence of which I was not guilty; I was reared in the most + exclusive circles of Missouri and I know how to behave. The King + rested his hand upon my arm a moment or two while we were chatting, + but he did it of his own accord. The newspaper which said I talked + with her Majesty with my hat on spoke the truth, but my reasons for + doing it were good and sufficient--in fact unassailable. Rain was + threatening, the temperature had cooled, and the Queen said, "Please + put your hat on, Mr. Clemens." I begged her pardon and excused + myself from doing it. After a moment or two she said, "Mr. Clemens, + put your hat on"--with a slight emphasis on the word "on" "I can't + allow you to catch cold here." When a beautiful queen commands it + is a pleasure to obey, and this time I obeyed--but I had already + disobeyed once, which is more than a subject would have felt + justified in doing; and so it is true, as charged; I did talk with + the Queen of England with my hat on, but it wasn't fair in the + newspaper man to charge it upon me as an impoliteness, since there + were reasons for it which he could not know of. + +Nearly all the members of the British royal family were there, and there +were foreign visitors which included the King of Siam and a party of +India princes in their gorgeous court costumes, which Clemens admired +openly and said he would like to wear himself. + +The English papers spoke of it as one of the largest and most +distinguished parties ever given at Windsor. Clemens attended it in +company with Mr. and Mrs. J. Henniker Heaton, and when it was over Sir +Thomas Lipton joined them and motored with them back to Brown's. + +He was at Archdeacon Wilberforce's next day, where a curious circumstance +developed. When he arrived Wilberforce said to him, in an undertone: + +"Come into my library. I have something to show you." + +In the library Clemens was presented to a Mr. Pole, a plain-looking man, +suggesting in dress and appearance the English tradesman. Wilberforce +said: + +"Mr. Pole, show to Mr. Clemens what you have brought here." + +Mr. Pole unrolled a long strip of white linen and brought to view at last +a curious, saucer-looking vessel of silver, very ancient in appearance, +and cunningly overlaid with green glass. The archdeacon took it and +handed it to Clemens as some precious jewel. Clemens said: + +"What is it?" + +Wilberforce impressively answered: + +"It is the Holy Grail." + +Clemens naturally started with surprise. + +"You may well start," said Wilberforce; "but it's the truth. That is the +Holy Grail." + +Then he gave this explanation: Mr. Pole, a grain merchant of Bristol, had +developed some sort of clairvoyant power, or at all events he had dreamed +several times with great vividness the location of the true Grail. +Another dreamer, a Dr. Goodchild, of Bath, was mixed up in the matter, +and between them this peculiar vessel, which was not a cup, or a goblet, +or any of the traditional things, had been discovered. Mr. Pole seemed a +man of integrity, and it was clear that the churchman believed the +discovery to be genuine and authentic. Of course there could be no +positive proof. It was a thing that must be taken on trust. That the +vessel itself was wholly different from anything that the generations had +conceived, and was apparently of very ancient make, was opposed to the +natural suggestion of fraud. + +Clemens, to whom the whole idea of the Holy Grail was simply a poetic +legend and myth, had the feeling that he had suddenly been transmigrated, +like his own Connecticut Yankee, back into the Arthurian days; but he +made no question, suggested no doubt. Whatever it was, it was to them +the materialization of a symbol of faith which ranked only second to the +cross itself, and he handled it reverently and felt the honor of having +been one of the first permitted to see the relic. In a subsequent +dictation he said: + + I am glad I have lived to see that half-hour--that astonishing half- + hour. In its way it stands alone in my life's experience. In the + belief of two persons present this was the very vessel which was + brought by night and secretly delivered to Nicodemus, nearly + nineteen centuries ago, after the Creator of the universe had + delivered up His life on the cross for the redemption of the human + race; the very cup which the stainless Sir Galahad had sought with + knightly devotion in far fields of peril and adventure in Arthur's + time, fourteen hundred years ago; the same cup which princely + knights of other bygone ages had laid down their lives in long and + patient efforts to find, and had passed from life disappointed--and + here it was at last, dug up by a grain-broker at no cost of blood or + travel, and apparently no purity required of him above the average + purity of the twentieth-century dealer in cereal futures; not even a + stately name required--no Sir Galahad, no Sir Bors de Ganis, no Sir + Lancelot of the Lake--nothing but a mere Mr. Pole.--[From the New + York Sun somewhat later: "Mr. Pole communicated the discovery to a + dignitary of the Church of England, who summoned a number of eminent + persons, including psychologists, to see and discuss it. Forty + attended, including some peers with ecclesiastical interests, + Ambassador Whitelaw Reid, Professor Crookas, and ministers of + various religious bodies, including the Rev. R. J. Campbell. They + heard Mr. Pole's story with deep attention, but he could not prove + the genuineness of the relic."] + +Clemens saw Mr. and Mrs. Rogers at Claridge's Hotel that evening; lunched +with his old friends Sir Norman and Lady Lockyer next day; took tea with +T. P. O'Connor at the House of Commons, and on the day following, which +was June a 5th, he was the guest of honor at one of the most elaborate +occasions of his visit--a luncheon given by the Pilgrims at the Savoy +Hotel. It would be impossible to set down here a report of the doings, +or even a list of the guests, of that gathering. The Pilgrims is a club +with branches on both sides of the ocean, and Mark Twain, on either side, +was a favorite associate. At this luncheon the picture on the bill of +fare represented him as a robed pilgrim, with a great pen for his staff, +turning his back on the Mississippi River and being led along his +literary way by a huge jumping frog, to which he is attached by a string. +On a guest-card was printed: + + Pilot of many Pilgrims since the shout + "Mark Twain!"--that serves you for a deathless sign-- + On Mississippi's waterway rang out + Over the plummet's line-- + + Still where the countless ripples laugh above + The blue of halcyon seas long may you keep + Your course unbroken, buoyed upon a love + Ten thousand fathoms deep! + + --O. S. [OWEN SEAMAN]. + +Augustine Birrell made the speech of introduction, closing with this +paragraph: + + Mark Twain is a man whom Englishmen and Americans do well to honor. + He is a true consolidator of nations. His delightful humor is of + the kind which dissipates and destroys national prejudices. His + truth and his honor--his love of truth and his love of honor-- + overflow all boundaries. He has made the world better by his + presence, and we rejoice to see him here. Long may he live to reap + a plentiful harvest of hearty honest human affection. + +The toast was drunk standing. Then Clemens rose and made a speech which +delighted all England. In his introduction Mr. Birrell had happened to +say, "How I came here I will not ask!" Clemens remembered this, and +looking down into Mr. Birrell's wine-glass, which was apparently unused, +he said: + +"Mr. Birrell doesn't know how he got here. But he will be able to get +away all right--he has not drunk anything since he came." + +He told stories about Howells and Twichell, and how Darwin had gone to +sleep reading his books, and then he came down to personal things and +company, and told them how, on the day of his arrival, he had been +shocked to read on a great placard, "Mark Twain Arrives: Ascot Cup +Stolen." + + No doubt many a person was misled by those sentences joined together + in that unkind way. I have no doubt my character has suffered from + it. I suppose I ought to defend my character, but how can I defend + it? I can say here and now that anybody can see by my face that I + am sincere--that I speak the truth, and that I have never seen that + Cup. I have not got the Cup, I did not have a chance to get it. I + have always had a good character in that way. I have hardly ever + stolen anything, and if I did steal anything I had discretion enough + to know about the value of it first. I do not steal things that are + likely to get myself into trouble. I do not think any of us do + that. I know we all take things--that is to be expected; but really + I have never taken anything, certainly in England, that amounts to + any great thing. I do confess that when I was here seven years ago + I stole a hat--but that did not amount to anything. It was not a + good hat it was only a clergyman's hat, anyway. I was at a + luncheon-party and Archdeacon Wilberforce was there also. I dare say + he is archdeacon now--he was a canon then--and he was serving in the + Westminster Battery, if that is the proper term. I do not know, as + you mix military and ecclesiastical things together so much. + +He recounted the incident of the exchanged hats; then he spoke of graver +things. He closed: + + I cannot always be cheerful, and I cannot always be chaffing. I + must sometimes lay the cap and bells aside and recognize that I am + of the human race. I have my cares and griefs, and I therefore + noticed what Mr. Birrell said--I was so glad to hear him say it-- + something that was in the nature of these verses here at the top of + the program: + + He lit our life with shafts of sun + And vanquished pain. + Thus two great nations stand as one + In honoring Twain. + +I am very glad to have those verses. I am very glad and very grateful +for what Mr. Birrell said in that connection. I have received since I +have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters from all conditions +of people in England, men, women, and children, and there is compliment, +praise, and, above all, and better than all, there is in them a note of +affection. + +Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection--that is the last and +final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character +or achievement, and I am very grateful to have that reward. All these +letters make me feel that here in England, as in America, when I stand +under the English or the American flag I am not a, stranger, I am not an +alien, but at home. + + + + +CCLVIII + +DOCTOR OF LITERATURE, OXFORD + +He left, immediately following the Pilgrim luncheon, with Hon. Robert P. +Porter, of the London Times, for Oxford, to remain his guest there during +the various ceremonies. The encenia--the ceremony of conferring the +degrees--occurred at the Sheldonian Theater the following morning, June +26, 1907. + +It was a memorable affair. Among those who were to receive degrees that +morning besides Samuel Clemens were: Prince Arthur of Connaught; Prime +Minister Campbell-Bannerman; Whitelaw Reid; Rudyard Kipling; Sidney Lee; +Sidney Colvin; Lord Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland; Sir Norman +Lockyer; Auguste Rodin, the sculptor; Saint-Saens, and Gen. William +Booth, of the Salvation Army-something more than thirty, in all, of the +world's distinguished citizens. + +The candidates assembled at Magdalen College, and led by Lord Curzon, the +Chancellor, and clad in their academic plumage, filed in radiant +procession to the Sheldonian Theater, a group of men such as the world +seldom sees collected together. The London Standard said of it: + So brilliant and so interesting was the list of those who had been + selected by Oxford University on Convocation to receive degrees, + 'honoris causa', in this first year of Lord Curzon's chancellorship, + that it is small wonder that the Sheldonian Theater was besieged + today at an early hour. + + Shortly after 11 o'clock the organ started playing the strains of + "God Save the King," and at once a great volume of sound arose as + the anthem was taken up by the undergraduates and the rest of the + assemblage. Every one stood up as, headed by the mace of office, + the procession slowly filed into the theater, under the leadership + of Lord Curzon, in all the glory of his robes of office, the long + black gown heavily embroidered with gold, the gold-tasseled mortar- + board, and the medals on his breast forming an admirable setting, + thoroughly in keeping with the dignity and bearing of the late + Viceroy of India. Following him came the members of Convocation, a + goodly number consisting of doctors of divinity, whose robes of + scarlet and black enhanced the brilliance of the scene. Robes of + salmon and scarlet-which proclaim the wearer to be a doctor of civil + law--were also seen in numbers, while here and there was a gown of + gray and scarlet, emblematic of the doctorate of science or of + letters. + +The encenia is an impressive occasion; but it is not a silent one. There +is a splendid dignity about it; but there goes with it all a sort of +Greek chorus of hilarity, the time-honored prerogative of the Oxford +undergraduate, who insists on having his joke and his merriment at the +expense of those honored guests. The degrees of doctor of law were +conferred first. Prince Arthur was treated with proper dignity by the +gallery; but when Whitelaw Reid stepped forth a voice shouted, "Where's +your Star-spangled Banner?" and when England's Prime Minister-Campbell- +Bannerman--came forward some one shouted, "What about the House of +Lords?" and so they kept it up, cheering and chaffing, until General +Booth was introduced as the "Passionate advocate of the dregs of the +people, leader of the submerged tenth," and general of the Salvation +Army," when the place broke into a perfect storm of applause, a storm +that a few minutes later became, according to the Daily News, "a +veritable cyclone," for Mark Twain, clad in his robe of scarlet and gray, +had been summoned forward to receive the highest academic honors which +the world has to give. The undergraduates went wild then. There was +such a mingling of yells and calls and questions, such as, "Have you +brought the jumping Frog with you?" "Where is the Ascot Cup?" "Where are +the rest of the Innocents?" that it seemed as if it would not be possible +to present him at all; but, finally, Chancellor Curzon addressed him (in +Latin), "Most amiable and charming sir, you shake the sides of the whole +world with your merriment," and the great degree was conferred. +If only Tom Sawyer could have seen him then! If only Olivia Clemens +could have sat among those who gave him welcome! But life is not like +that. There is always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow across +the path. + +Rudyard Kipling followed--another supreme favorite, who was hailed with +the chorus, "For he's a jolly good fellow," and then came Saint-Satins. +The prize poems and essays followed, and then the procession of newly +created doctors left the theater with Lord Curzon at their head. So it +was all over-that for which, as he said, he would have made the journey +to Mars. The world had nothing more to give him now except that which he +had already long possessed-its honor and its love. + +The newly made doctors were to be the guests of Lord Curzon at All Souls +College for luncheon. As they left the theater (according to Sidney +Lee): + + The people in the streets singled out Mark Twain, formed a vast and + cheering body-guard around him and escorted him to the college + gates. But before and after the lunch it was Mark Twain again whom + everybody seemed most of all to want to meet. The Maharajah of + Bikanir, for instance, finding himself seated at lunch next to Mrs. + Riggs (Kate Douglas Wiggin), and hearing that she knew Mark Twain, + asked her to present him a ceremony duly performed later on the + quadrangle. At the garden-party given the same afternoon in the + beautiful grounds of St. John's, where the indefatigable Mark put + in an appearance, it was just the same--every one pressed forward + for an exchange of greetings and a hand-shake. On the following + day, when the Oxford pageant took place, it was even more so. "Mark + Twain's Pageant," it was called by one of the papers.--[There was a + dinner that evening at one of the colleges where, through mistaken + information, Clemens wore black evening dress when he should have + worn his scarlet gown. "When I arrived," he said, "the place was + just a conflagration--a kind of human prairie-fire. I looked as out + of place as a Presbyterian in hell."] + + +Clemens remained the guest of Robert Porter, whose house was besieged +with those desiring a glimpse of their new doctor of letters. If he went +on the streets he was instantly recognized by some newsboy or cabman or +butcher-boy, and the word ran along like a cry of fire, while the crowds +assembled. + +At a luncheon which the Porters gave him the proprietor of the catering +establishment garbed himself as a waiter in order to have the distinction +of serving Mark Twain, and declared it to have been the greatest moment +of his life. This gentleman--for he was no less than that--was a man +well-read, and his tribute was not inspired by mere snobbery. Clemens, +learning of the situation, later withdrew from the drawing-room for a +talk with him. + +"I found," he said, "that he knew about ten or fifteen times as much +about my books as I knew about them myself." + +Mark Twain viewed the Oxford pageant from a box with Rudyard Kipling and +Lord Curzon, and as they sat there some one passed up a folded slip of +paper, on the outside of which was written, "Not true." Opening it, they +read: + + East is East and West is West, + And never the Twain shall meet, + + --a quotation from Kipling. + +They saw the panorama of history file by, a wonderful spectacle which +made Oxford a veritable dream of the Middle Ages. The lanes and streets +and meadows were thronged with such costumes as Oxford had seen in its +long history. History was realized in a manner which no one could +appreciate more fully than Mark Twain. + +"I was particularly anxious to see this pageant," he said, "so that I +could get ideas for my funeral procession, which I am planning on a large +scale." + +He was not disappointed; it was a realization to him of all the gorgeous +spectacles that his soul had dreamed from youth up. + +He easily recognized the great characters of history as they passed by, +and he was recognized by them in turn; for they waved to him and bowed +and sometimes called his name, and when he went down out of his box, by +and by, Henry VIII. shook hands with him, a monarch he had always +detested, though he was full of friendship for him now; and Charles I. +took off his broad, velvet-plumed hat when they met, and Henry II. and +Rosamond and Queen Elizabeth all saluted him--ghosts of the dead +centuries. + + + + +CCLIX + +LONDON SOCIAL HONORS + +We may not detail all the story of that English visit; even the path of +glory leads to monotony at last. We may only mention a few more of the +great honors paid to our unofficial ambassador to the world: among them a +dinner given to members of the Savage Club by the Lord Mayor of London at +the Mansion House, also a dinner given by the American Society at the +Hotel Cecil in honor of the Fourth of July. Clemens was the guest of +honor, and responded to the toast given by Ambassador Reid, "The Day we +Celebrate." He made an amusing and not altogether unserious reference to +the American habit of exploding enthusiasm in dangerous fireworks. + +To English colonists he gave credit for having established American +independence, and closed: + + We have, however, one Fourth of July which is absolutely our own, + and that is the memorable proclamation issued forty years ago by + that great American to whom Sir Mortimer Durand paid that just and + beautiful tribute--Abraham Lincoln: a proclamation which not only + set the black slave free, but set his white owner free also. The + owner was set free from that burden and offense, that sad condition + of things where he was in so many instances a master and owner of + slaves when he did not want to be. That proclamation set them all + free. But even in this matter England led the way, for she had set + her slaves free thirty years before, and we but followed her + example. We always follow her example, whether it is good or bad. + And it was an English judge, a century ago, that issued that other + great proclamation, and established that great principle, that when + a slave, let him belong to whom he may, and let him come whence he + may, sets his foot upon English soil his fetters, by that act, fall + away and he is a free man before the world! + + It is true, then, that all our Fourths of July, and we have five of + them, England gave to us, except that one that I have mentioned--the + Emancipation Proclamation; and let us not forget that we owe this + debt to her. Let us be able to say to old England, this great- + hearted, venerable old mother of the race, you gave us our Fourths + of July, that we love and that we honor and revere; you gave us the + Declaration of Independence, which is the charter of our rights; + you, the venerable Mother of Liberties, the Champion and Protector + of Anglo-Saxon Freedom--you gave us these things, and we do most + honestly thank you for them. + +It was at this dinner that he characteristically confessed, at last, to +having stolen the Ascot Cup. + +He lunched one day with Bernard Shaw, and the two discussed the +philosophies in which they were mutually interested. Shaw regarded +Clemens as a sociologist before all else, and gave it out with great +frankness that America had produced just two great geniuses--Edgar Allan +Poe and Mark Twain. Later Shaw wrote him a note, in which he said: + +I am persuaded that the future historian of America will find your works +as indispensable to him as a French historian finds the political tracts +of Voltaire. I tell you so because I am the author of a play in which a +priest says, "Telling the truth's the funniest joke in the world," a +piece of wisdom which you helped to teach me. + +Clemens saw a great deal of Moberly Bell. The two lunched and dined +privately together when there was opportunity, and often met at the +public gatherings. + +The bare memorandum of the week following July Fourth will convey +something of Mark Twain's London activities: + + Friday, July 5. Dined with Lord and Lady Portsmouth. + + Saturday, July 6. Breakfasted at Lord Avebury's. Lord Kelvin, Sir + Charles Lyell, and Sir Archibald Geikie were there. Sat 22 times + for photos, 16 at Histed's. Savage Club dinner in the evening. + White suit. Ascot Cup. + + Sunday, July 7. Called on Lady Langattock and others. Lunched with + Sir Norman Lockyer. + + Monday, July 8. Lunched with Plasmon directors at Bath Club. Dined + privately at C. F. Moberly Bell's. + + Tuesday, July 9. Lunched at the House with Sir Benjamin Stone. + Balfour and Komura were the other guests of honor. Punch dinner in + the evening. Joy Agnew and the cartoon. + + Wednesday, July 10. Went to Liverpool with Tay Pay. Attended + banquet in the Town Hall in the evening. + + Thursday, July 11. Returned to London with Tay Pay. Calls in the + afternoon. + +The Savage Club would inevitably want to entertain him on its own +account, and their dinner of July 6th was a handsome, affair. He felt at +home with the Savages, and put on white for the only time publicly in +England. He made them one of his reminiscent speeches, recalling his +association with them on his first visit to London, thirty-seven years +before. Then he said: + + That is a long time ago, and as I had come into a very strange land, + and was with friends, as I could see, that has always remained in my + mind as a peculiarly blessed evening, since it brought me into + contact with men of my own kind and my own feelings. I am glad to + be here, and to see you all, because it is very likely that I shall + not see you again. I have been received, as you know, in the most + delightfully generous way in England ever since I came here. It + keeps me choked up all the time. Everybody is so generous, and they + do seem to give you such a hearty welcome. Nobody in the world can + appreciate it higher than I do. + +The club gave him a surprise in the course of the evening. A note was +sent to him accompanied by a parcel, which, when opened, proved to +contain a gilded plaster replica of the Ascot Gold Cup. The note said: + + Dere Mark, i return the Cup. You couldn't keep your mouth shut + about it. 'Tis 2 pretty 2 melt, as you want me 2; nest time I work + a pinch ile have a pard who don't make after-dinner speeches. + +There was a postcript which said: "I changed the acorn atop for another +nut with my knife." The acorn was, in fact, replaced by a well-modeled +head of Mark Twain. + +So, after all, the Ascot Cup would be one of the trophies which he would +bear home with him across the Atlantic. + +Probably the most valued of his London honors was the dinner given to him +by the staff of Punch. Punch had already saluted him with a front-page +cartoon by Bernard Partridge, a picture in which the presiding genius of +that paper, Mr. Punch himself, presents him with a glass of the +patronymic beverage with the words, "Sir, I honor myself by drinking your +health. Long life to you--and happiness--and perpetual youth!" + +Mr. Agnew, chief editor; Linley Sambourne, Francis Burnand, Henry Lucy, +and others of the staff welcomed him at the Punch offices at 10 Bouverie +Street, in the historic Punch dining-room where Thackeray had sat, and +Douglas Jerrold, and so many of the great departed. Mark Twain was the +first foreign visitor to be so honored--in fifty years the first stranger +to sit at the sacred board--a mighty distinction. In the course of the +dinner they gave him a pretty surprise, when little joy Agnew presented +him with the original drawing of Partridge's cartoon. + +Nothing could have appealed to him more, and the Punch dinner, with its +associations and that dainty presentation, remained apart in his memory +from all other feastings. + +Clemens had intended to return early in July, but so much was happening +that he postponed his sailing until the 13th. Before leaving America, he +had declined a dinner offered by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. + +Repeatedly urged to let Liverpool share in his visit, he had reconsidered +now, and on the day following the Punch dinner, on July loth, they +carried him, with T. P. O'Connor (Tay Pay) in the Prince of Wales's +special coach to Liverpool, to be guest of honor at the reception and +banquet which Lord Mayor Japp tendered him at the Town Hall. Clemens was +too tired to be present while the courses were being served, but arrived +rested and fresh to respond to his toast. Perhaps because it was his +farewell speech in England, he made that night the most effective address +of his four weeks' visit--one of the most effective of his whole career: +He began by some light reference to the Ascot Cup and the Dublin Jewels +and the State Regalia, and other disappearances that had been laid to his +charge, to amuse his hearers, and spoke at greater length than usual, and +with even greater variety. Then laying all levity aside, he told them, +like the Queen of Sheba, all that was in his heart. + + . . . Home is dear to us all, and now I am departing to my own + home beyond the ocean. Oxford has conferred upon me the highest + honor that has ever fallen to my share of this life's prizes. It is + the very one I would have chosen, as outranking all and any others, + the one more precious to me than any and all others within the gift + of man or state. During my four weeks' sojourn in England I have + had another lofty honor, a continuous honor, an honor which has + flowed serenely along, without halt or obstruction, through all + these twenty-six days, a most moving and pulse-stirring honor--the + heartfelt grip of the hand, and the welcome that does not descend + from the pale-gray matter of the brain, but rushes up with the red + blood from the heart. It makes me proud and sometimes it makes me + humble, too. Many and many a year ago I gathered an incident from + Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. It was like this: There was a + presumptuous little self-important skipper in a coasting sloop + engaged in the dried-apple and kitchen-furniture trade, and he was + always hailing every ship that came in sight. He did it just to + hear himself talk and to air his small grandeur. One day a majestic + Indiaman came plowing by with course on course of canvas towering + into the sky, her decks and yards swarming with sailors, her hull + burdened to the Plimsoll line with a rich freightage of precious + spices, lading the breezes with gracious and mysterious odors of the + Orient. It was a noble spectacle, a sublime spectacle! Of course + the little skipper popped into the shrouds and squeaked out a hail, + "Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?" In a deep + and thunderous bass the answer came back through the speaking- + trumpet, "The Begum, of Bengal--142 days out from Canton--homeward + bound! What ship is that?" Well, it just crushed that poor little + creature's vanity flat, and he squeaked back most humbly, "Only the + Mary Ann, fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for Kittery Point-- + with nothing to speak of!" Oh, what an eloquent word that "only," + to express the depths of his humbleness! That is just my case. + During just one hour in the twenty-four--not more--I pause and + reflect in the stillness of the night with the echoes of your + English welcome still lingering in my ears, and then I am humble. + Then I am properly meek, and for that little while I am only the + Mary Ann, fourteen hours out, cargoed with vegetables and tinware; + but during all the other twenty-three hours my vain self-complacency + rides high on the white crests of your approval, and then I am a + stately Indiaman, plowing the great seas under a cloud of canvas and + laden with the kindest words that have ever been vouchsafed to any + wandering alien in this world, I think; then my twenty-six fortunate + days on this old mother soil seem to be multiplied by six, and I am + the Begum, of Bengal, 142 days out from Canton--homeward bound! + +He returned to London, and with one of his young acquaintances, an +American--he called her Francesca--paid many calls. It took the +dreariness out of that social function to perform it in that way. With a +list of the calls they were to make they drove forth each day to cancel +the social debt. They paid calls in every walk of life. His young +companion was privileged to see the inside of London homes of almost +every class, for he showed no partiality; he went to the homes of the +poor and the rich alike. One day they visited the home of an old +bookkeeper whom he had known in 1872 as a clerk in a large establishment, +earning a salary of perhaps a pound a week, who now had risen mightily, +for he had become head bookkeeper in that establishment on a salary of +six pounds a week, and thought it great prosperity and fortune for his +old age. + +He sailed on July 13th for home, besought to the last moment by a crowd +of autograph-seekers and reporters and photographers, and a multitude who +only wished to see him and to shout and wave good-by. He was sailing +away from them for the last time. They hoped he would make a speech, but +that would not have been possible. To the reporters he gave a farewell +message: "It has been the most enjoyable holiday I have ever had, and I +am sorry the end of it has come. I have met a hundred, old friends, and +I have made a hundred new ones. It is a good kind of riches to have; +there is none better, I think." And the London Tribune declared that +"the ship that bore him away had difficulty in getting clear, so thickly +was the water strewn with the bay-leaves of his triumph. For Mark Twain +has triumphed, and in his all-too-brief stay of a month has done more for +the cause of the world's peace than will be accomplished by the Hague +Conference. He has made the world laugh again." + +His ship was the Minnetonka, and there were some little folks aboard to +be adopted as grandchildren. On July 5th, in a fog, the Minnetonka +collided with the bark Sterling, and narrowly escaped sinking her. On +the whole, however, the homeward way was clear, and the vessel reached +New York nearly a day in advance of their schedule. Some ceremonies of +welcome had been prepared for him; but they were upset by the early +arrival, so that when he descended the gang-plank to his native soil only +a few who had received special information were there to greet him. But +perhaps he did not notice it. He seldom took account of the absence of +such things. By early afternoon, however, the papers rang with the +announcement that Mark Twain was home again. + +It is a sorrow to me that I was not at the dock to welcome him. I had +been visiting in Elmira, and timed my return for the evening of the a 2d, +to be on hand the following morning, when the ship was due. When I saw +the announcement that he had already arrived I called a greeting over the +telephone, and was told to come down and play billiards. I confess I +went with a certain degree of awe, for one could not but be overwhelmed +with the echoes of the great splendor he had so recently achieved, and I +prepared to sit a good way off in silence, and hear something of the tale +of this returning conqueror; but when I arrived he was already in the +billiard-room knocking the balls about--his coat off, for it was a hot +night. As I entered he said: + +"Get your cue. I have been inventing a new game." And I think there +were scarcely ten words exchanged before we were at it. The pageant was +over; the curtain was rung down. Business was resumed at the old stand. + + + + +CCLX + +MATTERS PSYCHIC AND OTHERWISE + +He returned to Tuxedo and took up his dictations, and mingled freely with +the social life; but the contrast between his recent London experience +and his semi-retirement must have been very great. When I visited him +now and then, he seemed to me lonely--not especially for companionship, +but rather for the life that lay behind him--the great career which in a +sense now had been completed since he had touched its highest point. +There was no billiard-table at Tuxedo, and he spoke expectantly of +getting back to town and the games there, also of the new home which was +then building in Redding, and which would have a billiard-room where we +could assemble daily--my own habitation being not far away. Various +diversions were planned for Redding; among them was discussed a possible +school of philosophy, such as Hawthorne and Emerson and Alcott had +established at Concord. + +He spoke quite freely of his English experiences, but usually of the more +amusing phases. He almost never referred to the honors that had been +paid to him, yet he must have thought of them sometimes, and cherished +them, for it had been the greatest national tribute ever paid to a +private citizen; he must have known that in his heart. He spoke +amusingly of his visit to Marie Corelli, in Stratford, and of the Holy +Grail incident, ending the latter by questioning--in words at least--all +psychic manifestations. I said to him: + +"But remember your own dream, Mr. Clemens, which presaged the death of +your brother." + +He answered: "I ask nobody to believe that it ever happened. To me it is +true; but it has no logical right to be true, and I do not expect belief +in it." Which I thought a peculiar point of view, but on the whole +characteristic. + +He was invited to be a special guest at the Jamestown Exposition on +Fulton Day, in September, and Mr. Rogers lent him his yacht in which to +make the trip. It was a break in the summer's monotonies, and the +Jamestown honors must have reminded him of those in London. When he +entered the auditorium where the services were to be held there was a +demonstration which lasted more than five minutes. Every person in the +hall rose and cheered, waving handkerchiefs and umbrellas. He made them +a brief, amusing talk on Fulton and other matters, then introduced +Admiral Harrington, who delivered a masterly address and was followed by +Martin W. Littleton, the real orator of the day. Littleton acquitted +himself so notably that Mark Twain conceived for him a deep admiration, +and the two men quickly became friends. They saw each other often during +the remainder of the Jamestown stay, and Clemens, learning that Littleton +lived just across Ninth Street from him in New York, invited him to come +over when he had an evening to spare and join the billiard games. + +So it happened, somewhat later, when every one was back in town, Mr. and +Mrs. Littleton frequently came over for billiards, and the games became +three-handed with an audience--very pleasant games played in that way. +Clemens sometimes set himself up as umpire, and became critic and gave +advice, while Littleton and I played. He had a favorite shot that he +frequently used himself and was always wanting us to try, which was to +drive the ball to the cushion at the beginning of the shot. + +He played it with a good deal of success, and achieved unexpected results +with it. He was even inspired to write a poem on the subject. + + "CUSHION FIRST" + + When all your days are dark with doubt, + And dying hope is at its worst; + When all life's balls are scattered wide, + With not a shot in sight, to left or right, + Don't give it up; + Advance your cue and shut your eyes, + And take the cushion first. + +The Harry Thaw trial was in progress just then, and Littleton was Thaw's +chief attorney. It was most interesting to hear from him direct the +day's proceedings and his views of the situation and of Thaw. + +Littleton and billiards recall a curious thing which happened one +afternoon. I had been absent the evening before, and Littleton had been +over. It was after luncheon now, and Clemens and I began preparing for +the customary games. We were playing then a game with four balls, two +white and two red. I began by placing the red balls on the table, and +then went around looking in the pockets for the two white cue-balls. +When I had made the round of the table I had found but one white ball. I +thought I must have overlooked the other, and made the round again. Then +I said: + +"There is one white ball missing." + +Clemens, to satisfy himself, also made the round of the pockets, and +said: + +"It was here last night." He felt in the pockets of the little white- +silk coat which he usually wore, thinking that he might unconsciously +have placed it there at the end of the last game, but his coat pockets +were empty. + +He said: "I'll bet Littleton carried that ball home with him." + +Then I suggested that near the end of the game it might have jumped off +the table, and I looked carefully under the furniture and in the various +corners, but without success. There was another set of balls, and out of +it I selected a white one for our play, and the game began. It went +along in the usual way, the balls constantly falling into the pockets, +and as constantly being replaced on the table. This had continued for +perhaps half an hour, there being no pocket that had not been frequently +occupied and emptied during that time; but then it happened that Clemens +reached into the middle pocket, and taking out a white ball laid it in +place, whereupon we made the discovery that three white balls lay upon +the table. The one just taken from the pocket was the missing ball. We +looked at each other, both at first too astonished to say anything at +all. No one had been in the room since we began to play, and at no time +during the play had there been more than two white balls in evidence, +though the pockets had been emptied at the end of each shot. The pocket +from which the missing ball had been taken had been filled and emptied +again and again. Then Clemens said: + +"We must be dreaming." + +We stopped the game for a while to discuss it, but we could devise no +material explanation. I suggested the kobold--that mischievous invisible +which is supposed to play pranks by carrying off such things as pencils, +letters, and the like, and suddenly restoring them almost before one's +eyes. Clemens, who, in spite of his material logic, was always a mystic +at heart, said: + +"But that, so far as I know, has never happened to more than one person +at a time, and has been explained by a sort of temporary mental +blindness. This thing has happened to two of us, and there can be no +question as to the positive absence of the object." + +"How about dematerialization?" + +"Yes, if one of us were a medium that might be considered an +explanation." + +He went on to recall that Sir Alfred Russel Wallace had written of such +things, and cited instances which Wallace had recorded. In the end he +said: + +"Well, it happened, that's all we can say, and nobody can ever convince +me that it didn't." + +We went on playing, and the ball remained solid and substantial ever +after, so far as I know. + +I am reminded of two more or less related incidents of this period. +Clemens was, one morning, dictating something about his Christian Union +article concerning Mrs. Clemens's government of children, published in +1885. I had discovered no copy of it among the materials, and he was +wishing very much that he could see one. Somewhat later, as he was +walking down Fifth Avenue, the thought of this article and his desire for +it suddenly entered his mind. Reaching the corner of Forty-second +Street, he stopped a moment to let a jam of vehicles pass. As he did so +a stranger crossed the street, noticed him, and came dodging his way +through the blockade and thrust some clippings into his hand. + +"Mr. Clemens," he said, "you don't know me, but here is something you may +wish to have. I have been saving them for more than twenty years, and +this morning it occurred to me to send them to you. I was going to mail +them from my office, but now I will give them to you," and with a word or +two he disappeared. The clippings were from the Christian Union of 1885, +and were the much-desired article. Clemens regarded it as a remarkable +case of mental telegraphy. + +"Or, if it wasn't that," he said, "it was a most remarkable coincidence." + +The other circumstance has been thought amusing. I had gone to Redding +for a few days, and while there, one afternoon about five o'clock, fell +over a coal-scuttle and scarified myself a good deal between the ankle +and the knee. I mention the hour because it seems important. Next +morning I received a note, prompted by Mr. Clemens, in which he said: + +Tell Paine I am sorry he fell and skinned his shin at five o'clock +yesterday afternoon. + +I was naturally astonished, and immediately wrote: + +I did fall and skin my shin at five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but how +did you find it out? + +I followed the letter in person next day, and learned that at the same +hour on the same afternoon Clemens himself had fallen up the front steps +and, as he said, peeled off from his "starboard shin a ribbon of skin +three inches long." The disaster was still uppermost in his mind at the +time of writing, and the suggestion of my own mishap had flashed out for +no particular reason. + +Clemens was always having his fortune told, in one way or another, being +superstitious, as he readily confessed, though at times professing little +faith in these prognostics. Once when a clairvoyant, of whom he had +never even heard, and whom he had reason to believe was ignorant of his +family history, told him more about it than he knew himself, besides +reading a list of names from a piece of paper which Clemens had concealed +in his vest pocket he came home deeply impressed. The clairvoyant added +that he would probably live to a great age and die in a, foreign land--a +prophecy which did not comfort him. + + + + +CCLXI + +MINOR EVENTS AND DIVERSIONS + +Mark Twain was deeply interested during the autumn of 1907 in the +Children's Theater of the Jewish Educational Alliance, on the lower East +Side--a most worthy institution which ought to have survived. A Miss +Alice M. Herts, who developed and directed it, gave her strength and +health to build up an institution through which the interest of the +children could be diverted from less fortunate amusements. She had +interested a great body of Jewish children in the plays of Shakespeare, +and of more modern dramatists, and these they had performed from time to +time with great success. The admission fee to the performance was ten +cents, and the theater was always crowded with other children--certainly +a better diversion for them than the amusements of the street, though of +course, as a business enterprise, the theater could not pay. It required +patrons. Miss Herts obtained permission to play "The Prince and the +Pauper," and Mark Twain agreed to become a sort of chief patron in using +his influence to bring together an audience who might be willing to +assist financially in this worthy work. + +"The Prince and the Pauper" evening turned out a distinguished affair. +On the night of November 19, 1907, the hall of the Educational Alliance +was crowded with such an audience as perhaps never before assembled on +the East Side; the finance and the fashion of New York were there. It +was a gala night for the little East Side performers. Behind the curtain +they whispered to each other that they were to play before queens. The +performance they gave was an astonishing one. So fully did they enter +into the spirit of Tom Canty's rise to royalty that they seemed +absolutely to forget that they were lowly-born children of the Ghetto. +They had become little princesses and lords and maids-in-waiting, and +they moved through their pretty tinsel parts as if all their ornaments +were gems and their raiment cloth of gold. There was no hesitation, no +awkwardness of speech or gesture, and they rose really to sublime heights +in the barn scene where the little Prince is in the hands of the mob. +Never in the history of the stage has there been assembled a mob more +wonderful than that. These children knew mobs! A mob to them was a +daily sight, and their reproduction of it was a thing to startle you with +its realism. Never was it absurd; never was there a single note of +artificiality in it. It was Hogarthian in its bigness. + +Both Mark Twain and Miss Herts made brief addresses, and the audience +shouted approval of their words. It seems a pity that such a project as +that must fail, and I do not know why it happened. Wealthy men and women +manifested an interest; but there was some hitch somewhere, and the +Children's Theater exists to-day only as history.--[In a letter to a Mrs. +Amelia Dunne Hookway, who had conducted some children's plays at the +Howland School, Chicago, Mark Twain once wrote: "If I were going to +begin life over again I would have a children's theater and watch it, and +work for it, and see it grow and blossom and bear its rich moral and +intellectual fruitage; and I should get more pleasure and a saner and +healthier profit out of my vocation than I should ever be able to get out +of any other, constituted as I am. Yes, you are easily the most +fortunate of women, I think."] + +It was at a dinner at The Players--a small, private dinner given by Mr. +George C. Riggs-that I saw Edward L. Burlingame and Mark Twain for the +only time together. They had often met during the forty-two years that +had passed since their long-ago Sandwich Island friendship; but only +incidentally, for Mr. Burlingame cared not much for great public +occasions, and as editor of Scribner's Magazine he had been somewhat out +of the line of Mark Twain's literary doings. + +Howells was there, and Gen. Stewart L. Woodford, and David Bispham, John +Finley, Evan Shipman, Nicholas Biddle, and David Munro. Clemens told +that night, for the first time, the story of General Miles and the three- +dollar dog, inventing it, I believe, as he went along, though for the +moment it certainly did sound like history. He told it often after that, +and it has been included in his book of speeches. + +Later, in the cab, he said: + +"That was a mighty good dinner. Riggs knows how to do that sort of +thing. I enjoyed it ever so much. Now we'll go home and play +billiards." + +We began about eleven o'clock, and played until after midnight. I +happened to be too strong for him, and he swore amazingly. He vowed that +it was not a gentleman's game at all, that Riggs's wine had demoralized +the play. But at the end, when we were putting up the cues, he said: + +"Well, those were good games. There is nothing like billiards after +all." + +We did not play billiards on his birthday that year. He went to the +theater in the afternoon; and it happened that, with Jesse Lynch +Williams, I attended the same performance--the "Toy-Maker of Nuremberg"-- +written by Austin Strong. It proved to be a charming play, and I could +see that Clemens was enjoying it. He sat in a box next to the stage, and +the actors clearly were doing their very prettiest for his benefit. + +When later I mentioned having seen him at the play, he spoke freely of +his pleasure in it. + +"It is a fine, delicate piece of work," he said. "I wish I could do such +things as that." + +"I believe you are too literary for play-writing." + +"Yes, no doubt. There was never any question with the managers about my +plays. They always said they wouldn't act. Howells has come pretty near +to something once or twice. I judge the trouble is that the literary man +is thinking of the style and quality of the thing, while the playwright +thinks only of how it will play. One is thinking of how it will sound, +the other of how it will look." + +"I suppose," I said, "the literary man should have a collaborator with a +genius for stage mechanism. John Luther Long's exquisite plays would +hardly have been successful without David Belasco to stage them. Belasco +cannot write a play himself, but in the matter of acting construction his +genius is supreme." + +"Yes, so it is; it was Belasco who made it possible to play "The Prince +and the Pauper"--a collection of literary garbage before he got hold of +it." + +Clemens attended few public functions now. He was beset with +invitations, but he declined most of them. He told the dog story one +night to the Pleiades Club, assembled at the Brevoort; but that was only +a step away, and we went in after the dining was ended and came away +before the exercises were concluded. + +He also spoke at a banquet given to Andrew Carnegie--Saint Andrew, as he +called him--by the Engineers Club, and had his usual fun at the chief +guest's expense. + + I have been chief guest at a good many banquets myself, and I know + what brother Andrew is feeling like now. He has been receiving + compliments and nothing but compliments, but he knows that there is + another side to him that needs censure. + + I am going to vary the complimentary monotony. While we have all + been listening to the complimentary talk Mr. Carnegie's face has + scintillated with fictitious innocence. You'd think he never + committed a crime in his life. But he has. + + Look at his pestiferous simplified spelling. Imagine the calamity + on two sides of the ocean when he foisted his simplified spelling on + the whole human race. We've got it all now so that nobody could + spell . . . . + + If Mr. Carnegie had left spelling alone we wouldn't have had any + spots on the sun, or any San Francisco quake, or any business + depression. + + There, I trust he feels better now and that he has enjoyed my abuse + more than he did his compliments. And now that I think I have him + smoothed down and feeling comfortable I just want to say one thing + more--that his simplified spelling is all right enough, but, like + chastity, you can carry it too far. + +As he was about to go, Carnegie called his attention to the beautiful +souvenir bronze and gold-plated goblets that stood at each guest's plate. +Carnegie said: + +"The club had those especially made at Tiffany's for this occasion. They +cost ten dollars apiece." + +Clemens sand: "Is that so? Well, I only meant to take my own; but if +that's the case I'll load my cab with them." + +We made an attempt to reform on the matter of billiards. The continued +strain of late hours was doing neither of us any particular good. More +than once I journeyed into the country on one errand and another, mainly +for rest; but a card saying that he was lonely and upset, for lack of his +evening games, quickly brought me back again. It was my wish only to +serve him; it was a privilege and an honor to give him happiness. + +Billiards, however, was not his only recreation just then. He walked out +a good deal, and especially of a pleasant Sunday morning he liked the +stroll up Fifth Avenue. Sometimes we went as high as Carnegie's, on +Ninety-second Street, and rode home on top of the electric stage--always +one of Mark Twain's favorite diversions. + +From that high seat he liked to look down on the panorama of the streets, +and in that free, open air he could smoke without interference. Oftener, +however, we turned at Fifty-ninth Street, walking both ways. + +When it was pleasant we sometimes sat on a bench in Central Park; and +once he must have left a handkerchief there, for a few days later one of +his handkerchiefs came to him accompanied by a note. Its finder, a Mr. +Lockwood, received a reward, for Mark Twain wrote him: + + There is more rejoicing in this house over that one handkerchief + that was lost and is found again than over the ninety and nine that + never went to the wash at all. Heaven will reward you, I know it + will. + +On Sunday mornings the return walk would be timed for about the hour that +the churches would be dismissed. On the first Sunday morning we had +started a little early, and I thoughtlessly suggested, when we reached +Fifty-ninth Street, that if we returned at once we would avoid the +throng. He said, quietly: + +"I like the throng." + +So we rested in the Plaza Hotel until the appointed hour. Men and women +noticed him, and came over to shake his hand. The gigantic man in +uniform; in charge of the carriages at the door, came in for a word. He +had opened carriages for Mr. Clemens at the Twenty-third Street station, +and now wanted to claim that honor. I think he received the most cordial +welcome of any one who came. I am sure he did. It was Mark Twain's way +to warm to the man of the lower social rank. He was never too busy, +never too preoccupied, to grasp the hand of such a man; to listen to his +story, and to say just the words that would make that man happy +remembering them. + +We left the Plaza Hotel and presently were amid the throng of outpouring +congregations. Of course he was the object on which every passing eye +turned; the presence to which every hat was lifted. I realized that this +open and eagerly paid homage of the multitude was still dear to him, not +in any small and petty way, but as the tribute of a nation, the +expression of that affection which in his London and Liverpool speeches +he had declared to be the last and final and most precious reward that +any man can win, whether by character or achievement. It was his final +harvest, and he had the courage to claim it--the aftermath of all his +years of honorable labor and noble living. + + + + +CCLXII + +FROM MARK TWAIN's MAIL + +If the reader has any curiosity as to some of the less usual letters +which a man of wide public note may inspire, perhaps he will find a +certain interest in a few selected from the thousands which yearly came +to Mark Twain. + +For one thing, he was constantly receiving prescriptions and remedies +whenever the papers reported one of his bronchial or rheumatic attacks. +It is hardly necessary to quote examples of these, but only a form of his +occasional reply, which was likely to be in this wise: + + DEAR SIR [or MADAM],--I try every remedy sent to me. I am now on + No. 87. Yours is 2,653. I am looking forward to its beneficial + results. + +Of course a large number of the nostrums and palliatives offered were +preparations made by the wildest and longest-haired medical cranks. One +of these sent an advertisement of a certain Elixir of Life, which was +guaranteed to cure everything--to "wash and cleanse the human molecules, +and so restore youth and preserve life everlasting." + +Anonymous letters are not usually popular or to be encouraged, but Mark +Twain had an especial weakness for compliments that came in that way. +They were not mercenary compliments. The writer had nothing to gain. +Two such letters follow--both written in England just at the time of his +return. + + MARK TWAIN. + + DEAR SIR,--Please accept a poor widow's good-by and kindest wishes. + I have had some of your books sent to me; have enjoyed them very + much--only wish I could afford to buy some. + + I should very much like to have seen you. I have many photos of you + which I have cut from several papers which I read. I have one where + you are writing in bed, which I cut from the Daily News. Like + myself, you believe in lots of sleep and rest. I am 70 and I find I + need plenty. Please forgive the liberty I have taken in writing to + you. If I can't come to your funeral may we meet beyond the river. + + May God guard you, is the wish of a lonely old widow. + Yours sincerely, + + +The other letter also tells its own story: + + DEAR, KIND MARK TWAIN,--For years I have wanted to write and thank + you for the comfort you were to me once, only I never quite knew + where you were, and besides I did not want to bother you; but to-day + I was told by some one who saw you going into the lift at the Savoy + that you looked sad and I thought it might cheer you a little tiny + bit to hear how you kept a poor lonely girl from ruining her eyes + with crying every night for long months. + + Ten years ago I had to leave home and earn my living as a governess + and Fate sent me to spend a winter with a very dull old country + family in the depths of Staffordshire. According to the genial + English custom, after my five charges had gone to bed, I took my + evening meal alone in the school-room, where "Henry Tudor had supped + the night before Bosworth," and there I had to stay without a soul + to speak to till I went to bed. At first I used to cry every night, + but a friend sent me a copy of your Huckleberry Finn and I never + cried any more. I kept him handy under the copy-books and maps, and + when Henry Tudor commenced to stretch out his chilly hands toward me + I grabbed my dear Huck and he never once failed me; I opened him at + random and in two minutes I was in another world. That's why I am + so grateful to you and so fond of you, and I thought you might like + to know; for it is yourself that has the kind heart, as is easily + seen from the way you wrote about the poor old nigger. I am a + stenographer now and live at home, but I shall never forget how you + helped me. God bless you and spare you long to those you are dear + to. + +A letter which came to him soon after his return from England contained a +clipping which reported the good work done by Christian missionaries in +the Congo, especially among natives afflicted by the terrible sleeping +sickness. The letter itself consisted merely of a line, which said: + + Won't you give your friends, the missionaries, a good mark for this? + +The writer's name was signed, and Mark Twain answered: + + In China the missionaries are not wanted, & so they ought to be + decent & go away. But I have not heard that in the Congo the + missionary servants of God are unwelcome to the native. + + Evidently those missionaries axe pitying, compassionate, kind. How + it would improve God to take a lesson from them! He invented & + distributed the germ of that awful disease among those helpless, + poor savages, & now He sits with His elbows on the balusters & looks + down & enjoys this wanton crime. Confidently, & between you & me- + well, never mind, I might get struck by lightning if I said it. + + Those are good and kindly men, those missionaries, but they are a + measureless satire upon their Master. + +To which the writer answered: + + O wicked Mr. Clemens! I have to ask Saint Joan of Arc to pray for + you; then one of these days, when we all stand before the Golden + Gates and we no longer "see through a glass darkly and know only in + part," there will be a struggle at the heavenly portals between Joan + of Arc and St. Peter, but your blessed Joan will conquer and she'll + lead Mr. Clemens through the gates of pearl and apologize and plead + for him. + +Of the letters that irritated him, perhaps the following is as fair a +sample as any, and it has additional interest in its sequel. + + DEAR SIR,--I have written a book--naturally--which fact, however, + since I am not your enemy, need give you no occasion to rejoice. + Nor need you grieve, though I am sending you a copy. If I knew of + any way of compelling you to read it I would do so, but unless the + first few pages have that effect I can do nothing. Try the first + few pages. I have done a great deal more than that with your books, + so perhaps you owe me some thing--say ten pages. If after that + attempt you put it aside I shall be sorry--for you. + + I am afraid that the above looks flippant--but think of the + twitterings of the soul of him who brings in his hand an unbidden + book, written by himself. To such a one much is due in the way of + indulgence. Will you remember that? Have you forgotten early + twitterings of your own? + +In a memorandum made on this letter Mark Twain wrote: + + Another one of those peculiarly depressing letters--a letter cast in + artificially humorous form, whilst no art could make the subject + humorous--to me. + +Commenting further, he said: + + As I have remarked before about one thousand times the coat of arms + of the human race ought to consist of a man with an ax on his + shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone, or it ought to represent + the several members of the human race holding out the hat to one + another; for we are all beggars, each in his own way. One beggar is + too proud to beg for pennies, but will beg for an introduction into + society; another does not care for society, but he wants a + postmastership; another will inveigle a lawyer into conversation and + then sponge on him for free advice. The man who wouldn't do any of + these things will beg for the Presidency. Each admires his own + dignity and greatly guards it, but in his opinion the others haven't + any. + + Mendicancy is a matter of taste and temperament, no doubt, but no + human being is without some form of it. I know my own form, you + know yours. Let us conceal them from view and abuse the others. + There is no man so poor but what at intervals some man comes to him + with an ax to grind. By and by the ax's aspect becomes familiar to + the proprietor of the grindstone. He perceives that it is the same + old ax. If you are a governor you know that the stranger wants an + office. The first time he arrives you are deceived; he pours out + such noble praises of you and your political record that you are + moved to tears; there's a lump in your throat and you are thankful + that you have lived for this happiness. Then the stranger discloses + his ax, and you are ashamed of yourself and your race. Six + repetitions will cure you. After that you interrupt the compliments + and say, "Yes, yes, that's all right; never mind about that. What + is it you want?" + + But you and I are in the business ourselves. Every now and then we + carry our ax to somebody and ask a whet. I don't carry mine to + strangers--I draw the line there; perhaps that is your way. This is + bound to set us up on a high and holy pinnacle and make us look down + in cold rebuke on persons who carry their axes to strangers. + + I do not know how to answer that stranger's letter. I wish he had + spared me. Never mind about him--I am thinking about myself. I + wish he had spared me. The book has not arrived yet; but no matter, + I am prejudiced against it. + +It was a few days later that he added: + + I wrote to that man. I fell back upon the old Overworked, polite + lie, and thanked him for his book and said I was promising myself + the pleasure of reading it. Of course that set me free; I was not + obliged to read it now at all, and, being free, my prejudice was + gone, and as soon as the book came I opened it to see what it was + like. I was not able to put it down until I had finished. It was + an embarrassing thing to have to write to that man and confess that + fact, but I had to do it. That first letter was merely a lie. Do + you think I wrote the second one to give that man pleasure? Well, I + did, but it was second-hand pleasure. I wrote it first to give + myself comfort, to make myself forget the original lie. + +Mark Twain's interest was once aroused by the following: + + DEAR SIR,--I have had more or less of your works on my shelves for + years, and believe I have practically a complete set now. This is + nothing unusual, of course, but I presume it will seem to you + unusual for any one to keep books constantly in sight which the + owner regrets ever having read. + + Every time my glance rests on the books I do regret having read + them, and do not hesitate to tell you so to your face, and care not + who may know my feelings. You, who must be kept busy attending to + your correspondence, will probably pay little or no attention to + this small fraction of it, yet my reasons, I believe, are sound and + are probably shared by more people than you are aware of. + + Probably you will not read far enough through this to see who has + signed it, but if you do, and care to know why I wish I had left + your work unread, I will tell you as briefly as possible if you will + ask me. + GEORGE B. LAUDER. + +Clemens did not answer the letter, but put it in his pocket, perhaps +intending to do so, and a few days later, in Boston, when a reporter +called, he happened to remember it. The reporter asked permission to +print the queer document, and it appeared in his Mark Twain interview +next morning. A few days later the writer of it sent a second letter, +this time explaining: + + MY DEAR SIR,--I saw in to-day's paper a copy of the letter which I + wrote you October 26th. + + I have read and re-read your works until I can almost recall some of + them word for word. My familiarity with them is a constant source + of pleasure which I would not have missed, and therefore the regret + which I have expressed is more than offset by thankfulness. + + Believe me, the regret which I feel for having read your works is + entirely due to the unalterable fact that I can never again have the + pleasure of reading them for the first time. + + Your sincere admirer, + GEORGE B. LADDER. + +Mark Twain promptly replied this time: + DEAR SIR, You fooled me completely; I didn't divine what the letter + was concealing, neither did the newspaper men, so you are a very + competent deceiver. + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +It was about the end of 1907 that the new St. Louis Harbor boat, was +completed. The editor of the St. Louis Republic reported that it has +been christened "Mark Twain," and asked for a word of comment. Clemens +sent this line: + + May my namesake follow in my righteous footsteps, then neither of us + will need any fire insurance. + + + + +CCLXIII + +SOME LITERARY LUNCHEONS + +Howells, in his book, refers to the Human Race Luncheon Club, which +Clemens once organized for the particular purpose of damning the species +in concert. It was to consist, beside Clemens himself, of Howells, +Colonel Harvey, and Peter Dunne; but it somehow never happened that even +this small membership could be assembled while the idea was still fresh, +and therefore potent. + +Out of it, however, grew a number of those private social gatherings +which Clemens so dearly loved--small luncheons and dinners given at his +own table. The first of these came along toward the end of 1907, when +Howells was planning to spend the winter in Italy. + +"Howells is going away," he said, "and I should like to give him a stag- +party. We'll enlarge the Human Race Club for the occasion." + +So Howells, Colonel Harvey, Martin Littleton, Augustus Thomas, Robert +Porter, and Paderewski were invited. Paderewski was unable to come, and +seven in all assembled. + +Howells was first to arrive. + +"Here comes Howells," Clemens said. "Old Howells a thousand years old." + +But Howells didn't look it. His face was full of good-nature and +apparent health, and he was by no means venerable, either in speech or +action. Thomas, Porter, Littleton, and Harvey drifted in. Cocktails +were served and luncheon was announced. + +Claude, the butler, had prepared the table with fine artistry--its center +a mass of roses. There was to be no woman in the neighborhood--Clemens +announced this fact as a sort of warrant for general freedom of +expression. + +Thomas's play, "The Witching Hour," was then at the height of its great +acceptance, and the talk naturally began there. Thomas told something of +the difficulty which he found in being able to convince a manager that it +would succeed, and declared it to be his own favorite work. I believe +there was no dissenting opinion as to its artistic value, or concerning +its purpose and psychology, though these had been the stumbling-blocks +from a managerial point of view. + +When the subject was concluded, and there had come a lull, Colonel +Harvey, who was seated at Clemens's left, said: + +"Uncle Mark"--he often called him that--"Major Leigh handed me a report +of the year's sales just as I was leaving. It shows your royalty returns +this year to be very close to fifty thousand dollars. I don't believe +there is another such return from old books on record." + +This was said in an undertone, to Clemens only, but was overheard by one +or two of those who sat nearest. Clemens was not unwilling to repeat it +for the benefit of all, and did so. Howells said: + +"A statement like that arouses my basest passions. The books are no +good; it's just the advertising they get." + +Clemens said: "Yes, my contract compels the publisher to advertise. It +costs them two hundred dollars every time they leave the advertisement +out of the magazines." + +"And three hundred every time we put it in," said Harvey. "We often +debate whether it is more profitable to put in the advertisement or to +leave it out." + +The talk switched back to plays and acting. Thomas recalled an incident +of Beerbohm Tree's performance of "Hamlet." W. S. Gilbert, of light- +opera celebrity, was present at a performance, and when the play ended +Mrs. Tree hurried over to him and said: + +"Oh, Mr. Gilbert, what did you think of Mr. Tree's rendition of Hamlet?" +"Remarkable," said Gilbert. "Funny without being vulgar." + +It was with such idle tales and talk-play that the afternoon passed. Not +much of it all is left to me, but I remember Howells saying, "Did it ever +occur to you that the newspapers abolished hell? Well, they did--it was +never done by the church. There was a consensus of newspaper opinion +that the old hell with its lake of fire and brimstone was an antiquated +institution; in fact a dead letter." And again, "I was coming down +Broadway last night, and I stopped to look at one of the street-venders +selling those little toy fighting roosters. It was a bleak, desolate +evening; nobody was buying anything, and as he pulled the string and kept +those little roosters dancing and fighting his remarks grew more and more +cheerless and sardonic. + +"'Japanese game chickens,' he said; 'pretty toys, amuse the children with +their antics. Child of three can operate it. Take them home for +Christmas. Chicken-fight at your own fireside.' I tried to catch his eye +to show him that I understood his desolation and sorrow, but it was no +use. He went on dancing his toy chickens, and saying, over and over, +'Chicken-fight at your own fireside.'" + +The luncheon over, we wandered back into the drawing-room, and presently +all left but Colonel Harvey. Clemens and the Colonel went up to the +billiard-room and engaged in a game of cushion caroms, at twenty-five +cents a game. I was umpire and stakeholder, and it was a most +interesting occupation, for the series was close and a very cheerful one. +It ended the day much to Mark Twain's satisfaction, for he was oftenest +winner. That evening he said: + +"We will repeat that luncheon; we ought to repeat it once a month. +Howells will be gone, but we must have the others. We cannot have a +thing like that too often." + +There was, in fact, a second stag-luncheon very soon after, at which +George Riggs was present and that rare Irish musician, Denis O'Sullivan. +It was another choice afternoon, with a mystical quality which came of +the music made by O'Sullivan on some Hindu reeds-pipes of Pan. But we +shall have more of O'Sullivan presently--all too little, for his days +were few and fleeting. + +Howells could not get away just yet. Colonel Harvey, who, like James +Osgood, would not fail to find excuse for entertainment, chartered two +drawing-room cars, and with Mrs. Harvey took a party of fifty-five or +sixty congenial men and women to Lakewood for a good-by luncheon to +Howells. It was a day borrowed from June, warm and beautiful. + +The trip down was a sort of reception. Most of the guests were +acquainted, but many of them did not often meet. There was constant +visiting back and forth the full length of the two coaches. Denis +O'Sullivan was among the guests. He looked in the bloom of health, and +he had his pipes and played his mystic airs; then he brought out the tin- +whistle of Ireland, and blew such rollicking melodies as capering fairies +invented a long time ago. This was on the train going down. + +There was a brief program following the light-hearted feasting--an +informal program fitting to that sunny day. It opened with some +recitations by Miss Kitty Cheatham; then Colonel Harvey introduced +Howells, with mention of his coming journey. As a rule, Howells does not +enjoy speaking. He is willing to read an address on occasion, but he has +owned that the prospect of talking without his notes terrifies him. This +time, however, there was no reluctance, though he had prepared no speech. +He was among friends. He looked even happy when he got on his feet, and +he spoke like a happy man. He talked about Mark Twain. It was all +delicate, delicious chaffing which showed Howells at his very best--all +too short for his listeners. + +Clemens, replying, returned the chaff, and rambled amusingly among his +fancies, closing with a few beautiful words of "Godspeed and safe return" +to his old comrade and friend. + +Then once more came Denis and his pipes. No one will ever forget his +part of the program. The little samples we had heard on the train were +expanded and multiplied and elaborated in a way that fairly swept his +listeners out of themselves into that land where perhaps Denis himself +wanders playing now; for a month later, strong and lusty and beautiful as +he seemed that day, he suddenly vanished from among us and his reeds were +silent. It never occurred to us then that Denis could die; and as he +finished each melody and song there was a shout for a repetition, and I +think we could have sat there and let the days and years slip away +unheeded, for time is banished by music like that, and one wonders if it +might not even divert death. + +It was dark when we crossed the river homeward; the myriad lights from +heaven-climbing windows made an enchanted city in the sky. The evening, +like the day, was warm, and some of the party. left the ferry-cabin to +lean over and watch the magic spectacle, the like of which is not to be +found elsewhere on the earth. + + + + + +CCLXIV + +"CAPTAIN STORMFIELD" IN PRINT + +During the forty years or so that had elapsed since the publication of +the "Gates Ajar" and the perpetration of Mark Twain's intended burlesque, +built on Captain Ned Wakeman's dream, the Christian religion in its more +orthodox aspects had undergone some large modifications. It was no +longer regarded as dangerous to speak lightly of hell, or even to suggest +that the golden streets and jeweled architecture of the sky might be +regarded as symbols of hope rather than exhibits of actual bullion and +lapidary construction. Clemens re-read his extravaganza, Captain +Stoymfields Visit to Heaven, gave it a modernizing touch here and there, +and handed it to his publishers, who must have agreed that it was no +longer dangerous, for it was promptly accepted and appeared in the +December and January numbers (1907-8) of Harper's Magazine, and was also +issued as a small book. If there were any readers who still found it +blasphemous, or even irreverent, they did not say so; the letters that +came--and they were a good many--expressed enjoyment and approval, also +(some of them) a good deal of satisfaction that Mark Twain "had returned +to his earlier form." + +The publication of this story recalled to Clemens's mind another heresy +somewhat similar which he had written during the winter of 1891 and 1892 +in Berlin. This was a dream of his own, in which he had set out on a +train with the evangelist Sam Jones and the Archbishop of Canterbury for +the other world. He had noticed that his ticket was to a different +destination than the Archbishop's, and so, when the prelate nodded and +finally went to sleep, he changed the tickets in their hats with +disturbing results. Clemens thought a good deal of this fancy when he +wrote it, and when Mrs. Clemens had refused to allow it to be printed he +had laboriously translated it into German, with some idea of publishing +it surreptitiously; but his conscience had been too much for him. He had +confessed, and even the German version had been suppressed. + +Clemens often allowed his fancy to play with the idea of the orthodox +heaven, its curiosities of architecture, and its employments of +continuous prayer, psalm-singing, and harpistry. + +"What a childish notion it was," he said, "and how curious that only a +little while ago human beings were so willing to accept such fragile +evidences about a place of so much importance. If we should find +somewhere to-day an ancient book containing an account of a beautiful and +blooming tropical Paradise secreted in the center of eternal icebergs--an +account written by men who did not even claim to have seen it themselves +--no geographical society on earth would take any stock in that book, yet +that account would be quite as authentic as any we have of heaven. If +God has such a place prepared for us, and really wanted us to know it, He +could have found some better way than a book so liable to alterations and +misinterpretation. God has had no trouble to prove to man the laws of +the constellations and the construction of the world, and such things as +that, none of which agree with His so-called book. As to a hereafter, we +have not the slightest evidence that there is any--no evidence that +appeals to logic and reason. I have never seen what to me seemed an atom +of proof that there is a future life." + +Then, after a long pause, he added: + +"And yet--I am strongly inclined to expect one." + + + + +CCLXV + +LOTOS CLUB HONORS + +It was on January 11, 1908, that Mark Twain was given his last great +banquet by the Lotos Club. The club was about to move again, into +splendid new quarters, and it wished to entertain him once more in its +old rooms. + +He wore white, and amid the throng of black-clad men was like a white +moth among a horde of beetles. The room fairly swarmed with them, and +they seemed likely to overwhelm him. + +President Lawrence was toast-master of the evening, and he ended his +customary address by introducing Robert Porter, who had been Mark Twain's +host at Oxford. Porter told something of the great Oxford week, and +ended by introducing Mark Twain. It had been expected that Clemens would +tell of his London experiences. Instead of doing this, he said he had +started a new kind of collection, a collection of compliments. He had +picked up a number of valuable ones abroad and some at home. He read +selections from them, and kept the company going with cheers and +merriment until just before the close of his speech. Then he repeated, +in his most impressive manner, that stately conclusion of his Liverpool +speech, and the room became still and the eyes of his hearers grew dim. +It may have been even more moving than when originally given, for now the +closing words, "homeward bound," had only the deeper meaning. + +Dr. John MacArthur followed with a speech that was as good a sermon as +any he ever delivered, and closed it by saying: + +"I do not want men to prepare for heaven, but to prepare to remain on +earth, and it is such men as Mark Twain who make other men not fit to +die, but fit to live." + +Andrew Carnegie also spoke, and Colonel Harvey, and as the speaking ended +Robert Porter stepped up behind Clemens and threw over his shoulders the +scarlet Oxford robe which had been surreptitiously brought, and placed +the mortar-board cap upon his head, while the diners vociferated their +approval. Clemens was quite calm. + +"I like this," he said, when the noise had subsided. "I like its +splendid color. I would dress that way all the time, if I dared." + +In the cab going home I mentioned the success of his speech, how well it +had been received. + +"Yes," he said; "but then I have the advantage of knowing now that I am +likely to be favorably received, whatever I say. I know that my +audiences are warm and responseful. It is an immense advantage to feel +that. There are cold places in almost every speech, and if your audience +notices them and becomes cool, you get a chill yourself in those zones, +and it is hard to warm up again. Perhaps there haven't been so many +lately; but I have been acquainted with them more than once." And then I +could not help remembering that deadly Whittier birthday speech of more +than thirty years before--that bleak, arctic experience from beginning to +end. + +"We have just time for four games," he said, as we reached the billiard- +room; but there was no sign of stopping when the four games were over. +We were winning alternately, and neither noted the time. I was leaving +by an early train, and was willing to play all night. The milk-wagons +were rattling outside when he said: + +"Well, perhaps we'd better quit now. It seems pretty early, though." I +looked at my watch. It was quarter to four, and we said good night. + + + + +CCLXVI + +A WINTER IN BERMUDA + +Edmund Clarence Stedman died suddenly at his desk, January 18, 1908, and +Clemens, in response to telegrams, sent this message: + +I do not wish to talk about it. He was a valued friend from days that +date back thirty-five years. His loss stuns me and unfits me to speak. + +He recalled the New England dinners which he used to attend, and where he +had often met Stedman. + +"Those were great affairs," he said. "They began early, and they ended +early. I used to go down from Hartford with the feeling that it wasn't +an all-night supper, and that it was going to be an enjoyable time. +Choate and Depew and Stedman were in their prime then--we were all young +men together. Their speeches were always worth listening to. Stedman +was a prominent figure there. There don't seem to be any such men now-- +or any such occasions." + +Stedman was one of the last of the old literary group. Aldrich had died +the year before. Howells and Clemens were the lingering "last leaves." + +Clemens gave some further luncheon entertainments to his friends, and +added the feature of "doe" luncheons--pretty affairs where, with Clara +Clemens as hostess, were entertained a group of brilliant women, such as +Mrs. Kate Douglas Riggs, Geraldine Farrax, Mrs. Robert Collier, Mrs. +Frank Doubleday, and others. I cannot report those luncheons, for I was +not present, and the drift of the proceedings came to me later in too +fragmentary a form to be used as history; but I gathered from Clemens +himself that he had done all of the talking, and I think they must have +been very pleasant afternoons. Among the acknowledgments that followed +one of these affairs is this characteristic word-play from Mrs. Riggs: + + N. B.--A lady who is invited to and attends a doe luncheon is, of + course, a doe. The question is, if she attends two doe luncheons in + succession is she a doe-doe? If so is she extinct and can never + attend a third? + +Luncheons and billiards, however, failed to give sufficient brightness to +the dull winter days, or to insure him against an impending bronchial +attack, and toward the end of January he sailed away to Bermuda, where +skies were bluer and roadsides gay with bloom. His sojourn was brief +this time, but long enough to cure him, he said, and he came back full of +happiness. He had been driving about over the island with a newly +adopted granddaughter, little Margaret Blackmer, whom he had met one +morning in the hotel dining-room. A part of his dictated story will +convey here this pretty experience. + + My first day in Bermuda paid a dividend--in fact a double dividend: + it broke the back of my cold and it added a jewel to my collection. + As I entered the breakfast-room the first object I saw in that + spacious and far-reaching place was a little girl seated solitary at + a table for two. I bent down over her and patted her cheek and + said: + + "I don't seem to remember your name; what is it?" + + By the sparkle in her brown eyes it amused her. She said: + + "Why, you've never known it, Mr. Clemens, because you've never seen + me before." + + "Why, that is true, now that I come to think; it certainly is true, + and it must be one of the reasons why I have forgotten your name. + But I remember it now perfectly--it's Mary." + + She was amused again; amused beyond smiling; amused to a chuckle, + and she said: + + "Oh no, it isn't; it's Margaret." + + I feigned to be ashamed of my mistake and said: + + "Ah, well, I couldn't have made that mistake a few years ago; but I + am old, and one of age's earliest infirmities is a damaged memory; + but I am clearer now--clearer-headed--it all comes back to me just + as if it were yesterday. It's Margaret Holcomb." + + She was surprised into a laugh this time, the rippling laugh that a + happy brook makes when it breaks out of the shade into the sunshine, + and she said: + + "Oh, you are wrong again; you don't get anything right. It isn't + Holcomb, it's Blackmer." + + I was ashamed again, and confessed it; then: + + "How old are you, dear?" + + "Twelve; New-Year's. Twelve and a month." + + We were close comrades-inseparables, in fact-for eight days. Every + day we made pedestrian excursions--called them that anyway, and + honestly they were intended for that, and that is what they would + have been but for the persistent intrusion of a gray and grave and + rough-coated donkey by the name of Maud. Maud was four feet long; + she was mounted on four slender little stilts, and had ears that + doubled her altitude when she stood them up straight. Her tender + was a little bit of a cart with seat room for two in it, and you + could fall out of it without knowing it, it was so close to the + ground. This battery was in command of a nice, grave, dignified, + gentlefaced little black boy whose age was about twelve, and whose + name, for some reason or other, was Reginald. Reginald and Maud--I + shall not easily forget those names, nor the combination they stood + for. The trips going and coming were five or six miles, and it + generally took us three hours to make it. This was because Maud set + the pace. Whenever she detected an ascending grade she respected + it; she stopped and said with her ears: + + "This is getting unsatisfactory. We will camp here." + + The whole idea of these excursions was that Margaret and I should + employ them for the gathering of strength, by walking, yet we were + oftener in the cart than out of it. She drove and I superintended. + In the course of the first excursions I found a beautiful little + shell on the beach at Spanish Point; its hinge was old and dry, and + the two halves came apart in my hand. I gave one of them to + Margaret and said: + + "Now dear, sometime or other in the future I shall run across you + somewhere, and it may turn out that it is not you at all, but will + be some girl that only resembles you. I shall be saying to myself + 'I know that this is a Margaret by the look of her, but I don't know + for sure whether this is my Margaret or somebody else's'; but, no + matter, I can soon find out, for I shall take my half shell out of + my pocket and say, 'I think you are my Margaret, but I am not + certain; if you are my Margaret you can produce the other half of + this shell.'" + + Next morning when I entered the breakfast-room and saw the child I + approached and scanned her searchingly all over, then said, sadly: + + "No, I am mistaken; it looks like my Margaret,--but it isn't, and I + am so sorry. I shall go away and cry now." + + Her eyes danced triumphantly, and she cried out: + + "No, you don't have to. There!" and she fetched out the identifying + shell. + + I was beside myself with gratitude and joyful surprise, and revealed + it from every pore. The child could not have enjoyed this thrilling + little drama more if we had been playing it on the stage. Many + times afterward she played the chief part herself, pretending to be + in doubt as to my identity and challenging me to produce my half of + the shell. She was always hoping to catch me without it, but I + always defeated that game--wherefore she came to recognize at last + that I was not only old, but very smart. + +Sometimes, when they were not walking or driving, they sat on the +veranda, and he prepared history-lessons for little Margaret by making +grotesque figures on cards with numerous legs and arms and other +fantastic symbols end features to fix the length of some king's reign. +For William the Conqueror, for instance, who reigned twenty-one years, he +drew a figure of eleven legs and ten arms. It was the proper method of +impressing facts upon the mind of a child. It carried him back to those +days at Elmira when he had arranged for his own little girls the game of +kings. A Miss Wallace, a friend of Margaret's, and usually one of the +pedestrian party, has written a dainty book of those Bermudian days. +--[Mark Twain and the Happy Islands, by Elizabeth Wallace.] + +Miss Wallace says: + + Margaret felt for him the deep affection that children have for an + older person who understands them and treats them with respect. Mr. + Clemens never talked down to her, but considered her opinions with a + sweet dignity. + +There were some pretty sequels to the shell incident. After Mark Twain +had returned to New York, and Margaret was there, she called one day with +her mother, and sent up her card. He sent back word, saying: + + "I seem to remember the name; but if this is really the person whom + I think it is she can identify herself by a certain shell I once + gave her, of which I have the other half. If the two halves fit, I + shall know that this is the same little Margaret that I remember." + +The message went down, and the other half of the shell was promptly sent +up. Mark Twain had the two half-shells incised firmly in gold, and one +of these he wore on his watch-fob, and sent the other to Margaret. + +He afterward corresponded with Margaret, and once wrote her: + + I'm already making mistakes. When I was in New York, six weeks ago, + I was on a corner of Fifth Avenue and I saw a small girl--not a big + one--start across from the opposite corner, and I exclaimed to + myself joyfully, "That is certainly my Margaret!" so I rushed to + meet her. But as she came nearer I began to doubt, and said to + myself, "It's a Margaret--that is plain enough--but I'm afraid it is + somebody else's." So when I was passing her I held my shell so she + couldn't help but see it. Dear, she only glanced at it and passed + on! I wondered if she could have overlooked it. It seemed best to + find out; so I turned and followed and caught up with her, and said, + deferentially; "Dear Miss, I already know your first name by the + look of you, but would you mind telling me your other one?" She was + vexed and said pretty sharply, "It's Douglas, if you're so anxious + to know. I know your name by your looks, and I'd advise you to shut + yourself up with your pen and ink and write some more rubbish. I am + surprised that they allow you to run' at large. You are likely to + get run over by a baby-carriage any time. Run along now and don't + let the cows bite you." + + What an idea! There aren't any cows in Fifth Avenue. But I didn't + smile; I didn't let on to perceive how uncultured she was. She was + from the country, of course, and didn't know what a comical blunder. + she was making. + +Mr. Rogers's health was very poor that winter, and Clemens urged him to +try Bermuda, and offered to go back with him; so they sailed away to the +summer island, and though Margaret was gone, there was other entertaining +company--other granddaughters to be adopted, and new friends and old +friends, and diversions of many sorts. Mr. Rogers's son-in-law, William +Evarts Benjamin, came down and joined the little group. It was one of +Mark Twain's real holidays. Mr. Rogers's health improved rapidly, and +Mark Twain was in fine trim. To Mrs. Rogers, at the end of the first +week, he wrote: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS, He is getting along splendidly! This was the very + place for him. He enjoys himself & is as quarrelsome as a cat. + + But he will get a backset if Benjamin goes home. Benjamin is the + brightest man in these regions, & the best company. Bright? He is + much more than that, he is brilliant. He keeps the crowd intensely + alive. + + With love & all good wishes. + S. L. C. + +Mark Twain and Henry Rogers were much together and much observed. They +were often referred to as "the King" and "the Rajah," and it was always a +question whether it was "the King" who took care of "the Rajah," or vice +versa. There was generally a group to gather around them, and Clemens +was sure of an attentive audience, whether he wanted to air his +philosophies, his views of the human race, or to read aloud from the +verses of Kipling. + +"I am not fond of all poetry," he would say; "but there's something in +Kipling that appeals to me. I guess he's just about my level." + +Miss Wallace recalls certain Kipling readings in his room, when his +friends gathered to listen. + + On those Kipling evenings the 'mise-en-scene' was a striking one. + The bare hotel room, the pine woodwork and pine furniture, loose + windows which rattled in the sea-wind. Once in a while a gust of + asthmatic music from the spiritless orchestra downstairs came up the + hallway. Yellow, unprotected gas-lights burned uncertainly, and + Mark Twain in the midst of this lay on his bed (there was no couch) + still in his white serge suit, with the light from the jet shining + down on the crown of his silver hair, making it gleam and glisten + like frosted threads. + +In one hand he held his book, in the other he had his pipe, which he used +principally to gesture with in the most dramatic passages. + +Margaret's small successors became the earliest members of the Angel Fish +Club, which Clemens concluded to organize after a visit to the +spectacular Bermuda aquarium. The pretty angel-fish suggested youth and +feminine beauty to him, and his adopted granddaughters became angel-fish +to him from that time forward. He bought little enamel angel-fish pins, +and carried a number of them with him most of the time, so that he could +create membership on short notice. It was just another of the harmless +and happy diversions of his gentler side. He was always fond of youth +and freshness. He regarded the decrepitude of old age as an unnecessary +part of life. Often he said: + +"If I had been helping the Almighty when, He created man, I would have +had Him begin at the other end, and start human beings with old age. How +much better it would have been to start old and have all the bitterness +and blindness of age in the beginning! One would not mind then if he +were looking forward to a joyful youth. Think of the joyous prospect of +growing young instead of old! Think of looking forward to eighteen +instead of eighty! Yes, the Almighty made a poor job of it. I wish He +had invited my assistance." + +To one of the angel fish he wrote, just after his return: + + I miss you, dear. I miss Bermuda, too, but not so much as I miss + you; for you were rare, and occasional and select, and Ltd.; whereas + Bermuda's charms and, graciousnesses were free and common and + unrestricted--like the rain, you know, which falls upon the just and + the unjust alike; a thing which would not happen if I were + superintending the rain's affairs. No, I would rain softly and + sweetly upon the just, but whenever I caught a sample of the unjust + outdoors I would drown him. + + + + +CCLXVII + +VIEWS AND ADDRESSES + + [As I am beginning this chapter, April 16, 1912, the news comes of + the loss, on her first trip, of the great White Star Line steamer + Titanic, with the destruction of many passengers, among whom are + Frank D. Millet, William T. Stead, Isadore Straus, John Jacob Astor, + and other distinguished men. They died as heroes, remaining with + the ship in order that the women and children might be saved. + + It was the kind of death Frank Millet would have wished to die. + He was always a soldier--a knight. He has appeared from time to + time in these pages, for he was a dear friend of the Clemens + household. One of America's foremost painters; at the time of his + death he was head of the American Academy of Arts in Rome.] + +Mark Twain made a number of addresses during the spring of 1908. +He spoke at the Cartoonists' dinner, very soon after his return from +Bermuda; he spoke at the Booksellers' banquet, expressing his debt of +obligation to those who had published and sold his books; he delivered a +fine address at the dinner given by the British Schools and University +Club at Delmonico's, May 25th, in honor of Queen Victoria's birthday. +In that speech he paid high tribute to the Queen for her attitude toward +America, during the crisis of the Civil Wax, and to her royal consort, +Prince Albert. + + What she did for us in America in our time of storm and stress we + shall not forget, and whenever we call it to mind we shall always + gratefully remember the wise and righteous mind that guided her in + it and sustained and supported her--Prince Albert's. We need not + talk any idle talk here to-night about either possible or impossible + war between two countries; there will be no war while we remain sane + and the son of Victoria and Albert sits upon the throne. In + conclusion, I believe I may justly claim to utter the voice of my + country in saying that we hold him in deep honor, and also in + cordially wishing him a long life and a happy reign. + +But perhaps his most impressive appearance was at the dedication of the +great City College (May 14, 1908), where President John Finley, who had +been struggling along with insufficient room, was to have space at last +for his freer and fuller educational undertakings. A great number of +honored scholars, statesmen, and diplomats assembled on the college +campus, a spacious open court surrounded by stately college architecture +of medieval design. These distinguished guests were clad in their +academic robes, and the procession could not have been widely different +from that one at Oxford of a year before. But there was something rather +fearsome about it, too. A kind of scaffolding had been reared in the +center of the campus for the ceremonies; and when those grave men in +their robes of state stood grouped upon it the picture was strikingly +suggestive of one of George Cruikshank's drawings of an execution scene +at the Tower of London. Many of the robes were black--these would be the +priests--and the few scarlet ones would be the cardinals who might have +assembled for some royal martyrdom. There was a bright May sunlight over +it all, one of those still, cool brightnesses which served to heighten +the weird effect. I am sure that others felt it besides myself, for +everybody seemed wordless and awed, even at times when there was no +occasion for silence. There was something of another age about the whole +setting, to say the least. + +We left the place in a motor-car, a crowd of boys following after. As +Clemens got in they gathered around the car and gave the college yell, +ending with "Twain! Twain! Twain!" and added three cheers for Tom +Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson. They called for a speech, but +he only said a few words in apology for not granting their request. He +made a speech to them that night at the Waldorf--where he proposed for +the City College a chair of citizenship, an idea which met with hearty +applause. + +In the same address he referred to the "God Trust" motto on the coins, +and spoke approvingly of the President's order for its removal. + + We do not trust in God, in the important matters of life, and not + even a minister of the Gospel will take any coin for a cent more + than its accepted value because of that motto. If cholera should + ever reach these shores we should probably pray to be delivered from + the plague, but we would put our main trust in the Board of Health. + +Next morning, commenting on the report of this speech, he said: + +"If only the reporters would not try to improve on what I say. They seem +to miss the fact that the very art of saying a thing effectively is in +its delicacy, and as they can't reproduce the manner and intonation in +type they make it emphatic and clumsy in trying to convey it to the +reader." + +I pleaded that the reporters were often young men, eager, and unmellowed +in their sense of literary art. + +"Yes," he agreed, "they are so afraid their readers won't see my good +points that they set up red flags to mark them and beat a gong. They +mean well, but I wish they wouldn't do it." + +He referred to the portion of his speech concerning the motto on the +coins. He had freely expressed similar sentiments on other public +occasions, and he had received a letter criticizing him for saying that +we do not really trust in God in any financial matter. + +"I wanted to answer it," he said; "but I destroyed it. It didn't seem +worth noticing." + +I asked how the motto had originated. + +"About 1853 some idiot in Congress wanted to announce to the world that +this was a religious nation, and proposed putting it there, and no other +Congressman had courage enough to oppose it, of course. It took courage +in those days to do a thing like that; but I think the same thing would +happen to-day." + +"Still the country has become broader. It took a brave man before the +Civil War to confess he had read the 'Age of Reason'." + +"So it did, and yet that seems a mild book now. I read it first when I +was a cub pilot, read it with fear and hesitation, but marveling at its +fearlessness and wonderful power. I read it again a year or two ago, for +some reason, and was amazed to see how tame it had become. It seemed +that Paine was apologizing everywhere for hurting the feelings of the +reader." + +He drifted, naturally, into a discussion of the Knickerbocker Trust +Company's suspension, which had tied up some fifty-five thousand dollars +of his capital, and wondered how many were trusting in God for the return +of these imperiled sums. Clemens himself, at this time, did not expect +to come out whole from that disaster. He had said very little when the +news came, though it meant that his immediate fortunes were locked up, +and it came near stopping the building activities at Redding. It was +only the smaller things of life that irritated him. He often met large +calamities with a serenity which almost resembled indifference. In the +Knickerbocker situation he even found humor as time passed, and wrote a +number of gay letters, some of which found their way into print. + +It should be added that in the end there was no loss to any of the +Knickerbocker depositors. + + + + +CCLXVIII + +REDDING + +The building of the new home at Redding had been going steadily forward +for something more than a year. John Mead Howells had made the plans; +W. W. Sunderland and his son Philip, of Danbury, Connecticut, were the +builders, and in the absence of Miss Clemens, then on a concert tour, +Mark Twain's secretary, Miss I. V. Lyon, had superintended the +furnishing. + +"Innocence at Home," as the place was originally named, was to be ready +for its occupant in June, with every detail in place, as he desired. He +had never visited Redding; he had scarcely even glanced at the plans or +discussed any of the decorations of the new home. He had required only +that there should be one great living-room for the orchestrelle, and +another big room for the billiard-table, with plenty of accommodations +for guests. He had required that the billiard-room be red, for something +in his nature answered to the warm luxury of that color, particularly in +moments of diversion. Besides, his other billiard-rooms had been red, +and such association may not be lightly disregarded. His one other +requirement was that the place should be complete. + +"I don't want to see it," he said, "until the cat is purring on the +hearth." + +Howells says: + +"He had grown so weary of change, and so indifferent to it, that he was +without interest." + +But it was rather, I think, that he was afraid of losing interest by +becoming wearied with details which were likely to exasperate him; also, +he wanted the dramatic surprise of walking into a home that had been +conjured into existence as with a word. + +It was expected that the move would be made early in the month; but there +were delays, and it was not until the 18th of June that he took +possession. + +The plan, at this time, was only to use the Redding place as a summer +residence, and the Fifth Avenue house was not dismantled. A few days +before the 18th the servants, with one exception, were taken up to the +new house, Clemens and myself remaining in the loneliness of No. 21, +attending to the letters in the morning and playing billiards the rest of +the time, waiting for the appointed day and train. It was really a +pleasant three days. He invented a new game, and we were riotous and +laughed as loudly as we pleased. I think he talked very little of the +new home which he was so soon to see. It was referred to no oftener than +once or twice a day, and then I believe only in connection with certain +of the billiard-room arrangements. I have wondered since what picture of +it he could have had in his mind, for he had never seen a photograph. +He had a general idea that it was built upon a hill, and that its +architecture was of the Italian villa order. I confess I had moments of +anxiety, for I had selected the land for him, and had been more or less +accessory otherwise. I did not really worry, for I knew how beautiful +and peaceful it all was; also something of his taste and needs. + +It had been a dry spring, and country roads were dusty, so that those who +were responsible had been praying for rain, to be followed by a pleasant +day for his arrival. Both petitions were granted; June 18th would fall +on Thursday, and Monday night there came a good, thorough, and refreshing +shower that washed the vegetation clean and laid the dust. The morning +of the 18th was bright and sunny and cool. Clemens was up and shaved by +six o'clock in order to be in time, though the train did not leave until +four in the afternoon--an express newly timed to stop at Redding--its +first trip scheduled for the day of Mark Twain's arrival. + +We were still playing billiards when word was brought up that the cab was +waiting. My daughter, Louise, whose school on Long Island had closed +that day, was with us. Clemens wore his white flannels and a Panama hat, +and at the station a group quickly collected, reporters and others, to +interview him and speed him to his new home. He was cordial and +talkative, and quite evidently full of pleasant anticipation. A reporter +or two and a special photographer came along, to be present at his +arrival. + +The new, quick train, the green, flying landscape, with glimpses of the +Sound and white sails, the hillsides and clear streams becoming rapidly +steeper and dearer as we turned northward: all seemed to gratify him, and +when he spoke at all it was approvingly. The hour and a half required to +cover the sixty miles of distance seemed very short. As the train slowed +down for the Redding station, he said: + +"We'll leave this box of candy"--he had bought a large box on the way-- +"those colored porters sometimes like candy, and we can get some more." + +He drew out a great handful of silver. + +"Give them something--give everybody liberally that does any service." + +There was a sort of open-air reception in waiting. Redding had +recognized the occasion as historic. A varied assemblage of vehicles +festooned with flowers had gathered to offer a gallant country welcome. + +It was now a little before six o'clock of that long June day, still and +dreamlike; and to the people assembled there may have been something +which was not quite reality in the scene. There was a tendency to be +very still. They nodded, waved their hands to him, smiled, and looked +their fill; but a spell lay upon them, and they did not cheer. It would +have been a pity if they had done so. A noise, and the illusion would +have been shattered. + +His carriage led away on the three-mile drive to the house on the +hilltop, and the floral turnout fell in behind. No first impression of a +fair land could have come at a sweeter time. Hillsides were green, +fields were white with daisies, dog-wood and laurel shone among the +trees. And over all was the blue sky, and everywhere the fragrance of +June. + +He was very quiet as we drove along. Once with gentle humor, looking +over a white daisy field, he said: + +"That is buckwheat. I always recognize buckwheat when I see it. I wish +I knew as much about other things as I know about buckwheat. It seems to +be very plentiful here; it even grows by the roadside." And a little +later: "This is the kind of a road I like; a good country road through +the woods." + +The water was flowing over the mill-dam where the road crosses the +Saugatuck, and he expressed approval of that clear, picturesque little +river, one of those charming Connecticut streams. A little farther on a +brook cascaded down the hillside, and he compared it with some of the +tiny streams of Switzerland, I believe the Giessbach. The lane that led +to the new home opened just above, and as he entered the leafy way he +said, "This is just the kind of a lane I like," thus completing his +acceptance of everything but the house and the location. + +The last of the procession had dropped away at the entrance of the lane, +and he was alone with those who had most anxiety for his verdict. They +had not long to wait. As the carriage ascended higher to the open view +he looked away, across the Saugatuck Valley to the nestling village and +church-spire and farm-houses, and to the distant hills, and declared the +land to be a good land and beautiful--a spot to satisfy one's soul. Then +came the house--simple and severe in its architecture--an Italian villa, +such as he had known in Florence, adapted now to American climate and +needs. The scars of building had not all healed yet, but close to the +house waved green grass and blooming flowers that might have been there +always. Neither did the house itself look new. The soft, gray stucco +had taken on a tone that melted into the sky and foliage of its +background. At the entrance his domestic staff waited to greet him, and +then he stepped across the threshold into the wide hall and stood in his +own home for the first time in seventeen years. It was an anxious +moment, and no one spoke immediately. But presently his eye had taken in +the satisfying harmony of the place and followed on through the wide +doors that led to the dining-room--on through the open French windows to +an enchanting vista of tree-tops and distant farmside and blue hills. He +said, very gently: + +"How beautiful it all is? I did not think it could be as beautiful as +this." + +He was taken through the rooms; the great living-room at one end of the +hall--a room on the walls of which there was no picture, but only color- +harmony--and at the other end of the hall, the splendid, glowing +billiard-room, where hung all the pictures in which he took delight. +Then to the floor above, with its spacious apartments and a continuation +of color--welcome and concord, the windows open to the pleasant evening +hills. When he had seen it all--the natural Italian garden below the +terraces; the loggia, whose arches framed landscape vistas and formed a +rare picture-gallery; when he had completed the round and stood in the +billiard-room--his especial domain--once more he said, as a final +verdict: + +"It is a perfect house--perfect, so far as I can see, in every detail. +It might have been here always." + +He was at home there from that moment--absolutely, marvelously at home, +for he fitted the setting perfectly, and there was not a hitch or flaw in +his adaptation. To see him over the billiard-table, five minutes later, +one could easily fancy that Mark Twain, as well as the house, had "been +there always." Only the presence of his daughters was needed now to +complete his satisfaction in everything. + +There were guests that first evening--a small home dinner-party--and so +perfect were the appointments and service, that one not knowing would +scarcely have imagined it to be the first dinner served in that lovely +room. A little later; at the foot of the garden of bay and cedar, +neighbors, inspired by Dan Beard, who had recently located near by, set +off some fireworks. Clemens stepped out on the terrace and saw rockets +climbing through the summer sky to announce his arrival. + +"I wonder why they all go to so much trouble for me," he said, softly. +"I never go to any trouble for anybody"--a statement which all who heard +it, and all his multitude of readers in every land, stood ready to deny. + +That first evening closed with billiards--boisterous, triumphant +billiards--and when with midnight the day ended and the cues were set in +the rack, there was none to say that Mark Twain's first day in his new +home had not been a happy one. + + + + +CCLXIX + +FIRST DAYS AT STORMFIELD + +I went up next afternoon, for I knew how he dreaded loneliness. We +played billiards for a time, then set out for a walk, following the long +drive to the leafy lane that led to my own property. Presently he said: + +"In one way I am sorry I did not see this place sooner. I never want to +leave it again. If I had known it was so beautiful I should have vacated +the house in town and moved up here permanently." + +I suggested that he could still do so, if he chose, and he entered +immediately into the idea. By and by we turned down a deserted road, +grassy and beautiful, that ran along his land. At one side was a slope +facing the west, and dotted with the slender, cypress-like cedars of New +England. He had asked if that were part of his land, and on being told +it was he said: + +"I would like Howells to have a house there. We must try to give that to +Howells." + +At the foot of the hill we came to a brook and followed it into a meadow. +I told him that I had often caught fine trout there, and that soon I +would bring in some for breakfast. He answered: + +"Yes, I should like that. I don't care to catch them any more myself. I +like them very hot." + +We passed through some woods and came out near my own ancient little +house. He noticed it and said: + +"The man who built that had some memory of Greece in his mind when he put +on that little porch with those columns." + +My second daughter, Frances, was coming from a distant school on the +evening train, and the carriage was starting just then to bring her. I +suggested that perhaps he would find it pleasant to make the drive. + +"Yes," he agreed, "I should enjoy that." + +So I took the reins, and he picked up little Joy, who came running out +just then, and climbed into the back seat. It was another beautiful +evening, and he was in a talkative humor. Joy pointed out a small turtle +in the road, and he said: + +"That is a wild turtle. Do you think you could teach it arithmetic?" + +Joy was uncertain. + +"Well," he went on, "you ought to get an arithmetic--a little ten-cent +arithmetic--and teach that turtle." + +We passed some swampy woods, rather dim and junglelike. + +"Those," he said, "are elephant woods." + +But Joy answered: + +"They are fairy woods. The fairies are there, but you can't see them +because they wear magic cloaks." + +He said: "I wish I had one of those magic cloaks, sometimes. I had one +once, but it is worn out now." + +Joy looked at him reverently, as one who had once been the owner of a +piece of fairyland. + +It was a sweet drive to and from the village. There are none too many +such evenings in a lifetime. Colonel Harvey's little daughter, Dorothy, +came up a day or two later, and with my daughter Louise spent the first +week with him in the new home. They were created "Angel-Fishes"--the +first in the new aquarium; that is to say, the billiard-room, where he +followed out the idea by hanging a row of colored prints of Bermuda +fishes in a sort of frieze around the walls. Each visiting member was +required to select one as her particular patron fish and he wrote her +name upon it. It was his delight to gather his juvenile guests in this +room and teach them the science of billiard angles; but it was so +difficult to resist taking the cue and making plays himself that he was +required to stand on a little platform and give instruction just out of +reach. His snowy flannels and gleaming white hair, against those rich +red walls, with those small, summer-clad players, made a pretty picture. + +The place did not retain its original name. He declared that it would +always be "Innocence at Home" to the angel-fish visitors, but that the +title didn't remain continuously appropriate. The money which he had +derived from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven had been used to build +the loggia wing, and he considered the name of "Stormfield" as a +substitute. When, presently, the summer storms gathered on that rock- +bound, open hill, with its wide reaches of vine and shrub-wild, fierce +storms that bent the birch and cedar, and strained at the bay and +huckleberry, with lightning and turbulent wind and thunder, followed by +the charging rain--the name seemed to become peculiarly appropriate. +Standing with his head bared to the tumult, his white hair tossing in the +blast, and looking out upon the wide splendor of the spectacle, he +rechristened the place, and "Stormfield" it became and remained. + +The last day of Mark Twain's first week in Redding, June 25th, was +saddened by the news of the death of Grover Cleveland at his home in +Princeton, New Jersey. Clemens had always been an ardent Cleveland +admirer, and to Mrs. Cleveland now he sent this word of condolence-- + + Your husband was a man I knew and loved and honored for twenty-five + years. I mourn with you. + +And once during the evening he said: + +"He was one of our two or three real Presidents. There is none to take +his place." + + + + +CCLXX + +THE ALDRICH MEMORIAL + +At the end of June came the dedication at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of +the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial Museum, which the poet's wife had +established there in the old Aldrich homestead. It was hot weather. +We were obliged to take a rather poor train from South Norwalk, and +Clemens was silent and gloomy most of the way to Boston. Once there, +however, lodged in a cool and comfortable hotel, matters improved. +He had brought along for reading the old copy of Sir Thomas Malory's +Arthur Tales, and after dinner he took off his clothes and climbed into +bed and sat up and read aloud from those stately legends, with comments +that I wish I could remember now, only stopping at last when overpowered +with sleep. + +We went on a special train to Portsmouth next morning through the summer +heat, and assembled, with those who were to speak, in the back portion of +the opera-house, behind the scenes: Clemens was genial and good-natured +with all the discomfort of it; and he liked to fancy, with Howells, who +had come over from Kittery Point, how Aldrich must be amused at the whole +circumstance if he could see them punishing themselves to do honor to his +memory. Richard Watson Gilder was there, and Hamilton Mabie; also +Governor Floyd of New Hampshire; Colonel Higginson, Robert Bridges, and +other distinguished men. We got to the more open atmosphere of the stage +presently, and the exercises began. Clemens was last on the program. + +The others had all said handsome, serious things, and Clemens himself had +mentally prepared something of the sort; but when his turn came, and he +rose to speak, a sudden reaction must have set in, for he delivered an +address that certainly would have delighted Aldrich living, and must have +delighted him dead, if he could hear it. It was full of the most +charming humor, delicate, refreshing, and spontaneous. The audience, +that had been maintaining a proper gravity throughout, showed its +appreciation in ripples of merriment that grew presently into genuine +waves of laughter. He spoke out his regret for having worn black +clothes. It was a mistake, he said, to consider this a solemn time-- +Aldrich would not have wished it to be so considered. He had been a man +who loved humor and brightness and wit, and had helped to make life merry +and delightful. Certainly, if he could know, he would not wish this +dedication of his own home to be a lugubrious, smileless occasion. +Outside, when the services were ended, the venerable juvenile writer, +J. T. Trowbridge, came up to Clemens with extended hand. Clemens said: +"Trowbridge, are you still alive? You must be a thousand years old. +Why, I listened to your stories while I was being rocked in the cradle." +Trowbridge said: + +"Mark, there's some mistake. My earliest infant smile was wakened with +one of your jokes." + +They stood side by side against a fence in the blazing sun and were +photographed--an interesting picture. + +We returned to Boston that evening. Clemens did not wish to hurry in the +summer heat, and we remained another day quietly sight-seeing, and +driving around and around Commonwealth Avenue in a victoria in the cool +of the evening. Once, remembering Aldrich, he said: + +"I was just planning Tom Sawyer when he was beginning the 'Story of a Bad +Boy'. When I heard that he was writing that I thought of giving up mine, +but Aldrich insisted that it would be a foolish thing to do. He thought +my Missouri boy could not by any chance conflict with his boy of New +England, and of course he was right." + +He spoke of how great literary minds usually came along in company. He +said: + +"Now and then, on the stream of time, small gobs of that thing which we +call genius drift down, and a few of these lodge at some particular +point, and others collect about them and make a sort of intellectual +island--a towhead, as they say on the river--such an accumulation of +intellect we call a group, or school, and name it. + +"Thirty years ago there was the Cambridge group. Now there's been still +another, which included Aldrich and Howells and Stedman and Cable. It +will soon be gone. I suppose they will have to name it by and by." + +He pointed out houses here and there of people he had known and visited +in other days. The driver was very anxious to go farther, to other and +more distinguished sights. Clemens mildly but firmly refused any +variation of the program, and so we kept on driving around and around the +shaded loop of Beacon Street until dusk fell and the lights began to +twinkle among the trees. + + + + +CCLXXI + +DEATH OF "SAM" MOFFETT + +Clemens' next absence from Redding came on August 1, 1908, when the +sudden and shocking news was received of the drowning of his nephew, +Samuel E. Moffett, in the surf of the Jersey shore. Moffett was his +nearest male relative, and a man of fine intellect and talents. He was +superior in those qualities which men love--he was large-minded and +large-hearted, and of noble ideals. With much of the same sense of humor +which had made his uncle's fame, he had what was really an abnormal +faculty of acquiring and retaining encyclopedic data. Once as a child he +had visited Hartford when Clemens was laboring over his history game. +The boy was much interested, and asked permission to help. His uncle +willingly consented, and referred him to the library for his facts. But +he did not need to consult the books; he already had English history +stored away, and knew where to find every detail of it. At the time of +his death Moffett held an important editorial position on Collier's +Weekly. + +Clemens was fond and proud of his nephew. Returning from the funeral, he +was much depressed, and a day or two later became really ill. He was in +bed for a few days, resting, he said, after the intense heat of the +journey. Then he was about again and proposed billiards as a diversion. +We were all alone one very still, warm August afternoon playing, when he +suddenly said: + +"I feel a little dizzy; I will sit down a moment." + +I brought him a glass of water and he seemed to recover, but when he rose +and started to play I thought he had a dazed look. He said: + +"I have lost my memory. I don't know which is my ball. I don't know +what game we are playing." + +But immediately this condition passed, and we thought little of it, +considering it merely a phase of biliousness due to his recent journey. +I have been told since, by eminent practitioners, that it was the first +indication of a more serious malady. + +He became apparently quite himself again and showed his usual vigor-light +of step and movement, able to skip up and down stairs as heretofore. In +a letter to Mrs. Crane, August 12th, he spoke of recent happenings: + + DEAR AUNT SUE,--It was a most moving, a most heartbreaking sight, + the spectacle of that stunned & crushed & inconsolable family. I + came back here in bad shape, & had a bilious collapse, but I am all + right again, though the doctor from New York has given peremptory + orders that I am not to stir from here before frost. O fortunate + Sam Moffett! fortunate Livy Clemens! doubly fortunate Susy! Those + swords go through & through my heart, but there is never a moment + that I am not glad, for the sake of the dead, that they have + escaped. + + How Livy would love this place! How her very soul would steep + itself thankfully in this peace, this tranquillity, this deep + stillness, this dreamy expanse of woodsy hill & valley! You must + come, Aunt Sue, & stay with us a real good visit. Since June 26 we + have had 21 guests, & they have all liked it and said they would + come again. + +To Howells, on the same day, he wrote: + + Won't you & Mrs. Howells & Mildred come & give us as many days as + you can spare & examine John's triumph? It is the most satisfactory + house I am acquainted with, & the most satisfactorily situated . . + . . I have dismissed my stenographer, & have entered upon a + holiday whose other end is the cemetery. + + + + +CCLXXII + +STORMFIELD ADVENTURES + +Clemens had fully decided, by this time, to live the year round in the +retirement at Stormfield, and the house at 21 Fifth Avenue was being +dismantled. He had also, as he said, given up his dictations for the +time, at least, after continuing them, with more or less regularity, for +a period of two and a half years, during which he had piled up about half +a million words of comment and reminiscence. His general idea had been +to add portions of this matter to his earlier books as the copyrights +expired, to give them new life and interest, and he felt that he had +plenty now for any such purpose. + +He gave his time mainly to his guests, his billiards, and his reading, +though of course he could not keep from writing on this subject and that +as the fancy moved him, and a drawer in one of his dressers began to +accumulate fresh though usually fragmentary manuscripts. . . He read the +daily paper, but he no longer took the keen, restless interest in public +affairs. New York politics did not concern him any more, and national +politics not much. When the Evening Post wrote him concerning the +advisability of renominating Governor Hughes he replied: + + If you had asked me two months ago my answer would have been prompt + & loud & strong: yes, I want Governor Hughes renominated. But it is + too late, & my mouth is closed. I have become a citizen & taxpayer + of Connecticut, & could not now, without impertinence, meddle in + matters which are none of my business. I could not do it with + impertinence without trespassing on the monopoly of another. + +Howells speaks of Mark Twain's "absolute content" with his new home, and +these are the proper words' to express it. He was like a storm-beaten +ship that had drifted at last into a serene South Sea haven. + +The days began and ended in tranquillity. There were no special morning +regulations: One could have his breakfast at any time and at almost any +place. He could have it in bed if he liked, or in the loggia or +livingroom, or billiard-room. He might even have it in the diningroom, +or on the terrace, just outside. Guests--there were usually guests-- +might suit their convenience in this matter--also as to the forenoons. +The afternoon brought games--that is, billiards, provided the guest knew +billiards, otherwise hearts. Those two games were his safety-valves, and +while there were no printed requirements relating to them the unwritten +code of Stormfield provided that guests, of whatever age or previous +faith, should engage in one or both of these diversions. + +Clemens, who usually spent his forenoon in bed with his reading and his +letters, came to the green table of skill and chance eager for the onset; +if the fates were kindly, he approved of them openly. If not--well, the +fates were old enough to know better, and, as heretofore, had to take the +consequences. Sometimes, when the weather was fine and there were no +games (this was likely to be on Sunday afternoons), there were drives +among the hills and along the Saugatuck through the Bedding Glen. + +The cat was always "purring on the hearth" at Stormfield--several cats-- +for Mark Twain's fondness for this clean, intelligent domestic animal +remained, to the end, one of his happiest characteristics. There were +never too many cats at Stormfield, and the "hearth" included the entire +house, even the billiard-table. When, as was likely to happen at any +time during the game, the kittens Sinbad, or Danbury, or Billiards would +decide to hop up and play with the balls, or sit in the pockets and grab +at them as they went by, the game simply added this element of chance, +and the uninvited player was not disturbed. The cats really owned +Stormfield; any one could tell that from their deportment. Mark Twain +held the title deeds; but it was Danbury and Sinbad and the others that +possessed the premises. They occupied any portion of the house or its +furnishings at will, and they never failed to attract attention. Mark +Twain might be preoccupied and indifferent to the comings and goings of +other members of the household; but no matter what he was doing, let +Danbury appear in the offing and he was observed and greeted with due +deference, and complimented and made comfortable. Clemens would arise +from the table and carry certain choice food out on the terrace to +Tammany, and be satisfied with almost no acknowledgment by way of +appreciation. One could not imagine any home of Mark Twain where the +cats were not supreme. In the evening, as at 21 Fifth Avenue, there was +music--the stately measures of the orchestrelle--while Mark Twain smoked +and mingled unusual speculation with long, long backward dreams. + +It was three months from the day of arrival in Redding that some guests +came to Stormfield without invitation--two burglars, who were carrying +off some bundles of silver when they were discovered. Claude, the +butler, fired a pistol after them to hasten their departure, and Clemens, +wakened by the shots, thought the family was opening champagne and went +to sleep again. + +It was far in the night; but neighbor H. A. Lounsbury and Deputy-Sheriff +Banks were notified, and by morning the thieves were captured, though +only after a pretty desperate encounter, during which the officer +received a bullet-wound. Lounsbury and a Stormfield guest had tracked +them in the dark with a lantern to Bethel, a distance of some seven +miles. The thieves, also their pursuers, had boarded the train there. +Sheriff Banks was waiting at the West Redding station when the train came +down, and there the capture was made. It was a remarkably prompt and +shrewd piece of work. Clemens gave credit for its success chiefly to +Lounsbury, whose talents in many fields always impressed him. The +thieves were taken to the Redding Town Hall for a preliminary healing. +Subsequently they received severe sentences. + +Clemens tacked this notice on his front door: + + NOTICE + + TO THE NEXT BURGLAR + + There is nothing but plated ware in this house now and henceforth. + + You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the + corner by the basket of kittens. + + If you want the basket put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not + make a noise--it disturbs the family. + + You will find rubbers in the front hall by that thing which has the + umbrellas in it, chiffonnier, I think they call it, or pergola, or + something like that. + + Please close the door when you go away! + + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCLXXIII + +STORMFIELD PHILOSOPHIES + +Now came the tranquil days of the Connecticut autumn. The change of the +landscape colors was a constant delight to Mark Twain. There were +several large windows in his room, and he called them his picture- +gallery. The window-panes were small, and each formed a separate picture +of its own that was changing almost hourly. The red tones that began to +run through the foliage; the red berry bushes; the fading grass, and the +little touches of sparkling frost that came every now and then at early +morning; the background of distant blue hills and changing skies-these +things gave his gallery a multitude of variation that no art-museums +could furnish. He loved it all, and he loved to walk out in it, pacing +up and down the terrace, or the long path that led to the pergola at the +foot of a natural garden. If a friend came, he was willing to walk much +farther; and we often descended the hill in one direction or another, +though usually going toward the "gorge," a romantic spot where a clear +brook found its way through a deep and rather dangerous-looking chasm. +Once he was persuaded to descend into this fairy-like place, for it was +well worth exploring; but his footing was no longer sure and he did not +go far. + +He liked better to sit on the grass-grown, rocky arch above and look down +into it, and let his talk follow his mood. He liked to contemplate the +geology of his surroundings, the record of the ageless periods of +construction required to build the world. The marvels of science always +appealed to him. He reveled in the thought of the almost limitless +stretches of time, the millions upon millions of years that had been +required for this stratum and that--he liked to amaze himself with the +sounding figures. I remember him expressing a wish to see the Grand +Canon of Arizona, where, on perpendicular walls six thousand feet high, +the long story of geological creation is written. I had stopped there +during my Western trip of the previous year, and I told him something of +its wonders. I urged him to see them for himself, offering to go with +him. He said: + +"I should enjoy that; but the railroad journey is so far and I should +have no peace. The papers would get hold of it, and I would have to make +speeches and be interviewed, and I never want to do any of those things +again." + +I suggested that the railroads would probably be glad to place a private +car at his service, so that he might travel in comfort; but he shook his +head. + +"That would only make me more conspicuous." + +"How about a disguise?" + +"Yes," he said, "I might put on a red wig and false whiskers and change +my name, but I couldn't disguise my drawling speech and they'd find me +out." + +It was amusing, but it was rather sad, too. His fame had deprived him of +valued privileges. + +He talked of many things during these little excursions. Once he told +how he had successively advised his nephew, Moffett, in the matter of +obtaining a desirable position. Moffett had wanted to become a reporter. +Clemens devised a characteristic scheme. He said: + +"I will get you a place on any newspaper you may select if you promise +faithfully to follow out my instructions." + +The applicant agreed, eagerly enough. Clemens said: + +"Go to the newspaper of your choice. Say that you are idle and want +work, that you are pining for work--longing for it, and that you ask no +wages, and will support yourself. All that you ask is work. That you +will do anything, sweep, fill the inkstands, mucilage-bottles, run +errands, and be generally useful. You must never ask for wages. You +must wait until the offer of wages comes to you. You must work just as +faithfully and just as eagerly as if you were being paid for it. Then +see what happens." + +The scheme had worked perfectly. Young Moffett had followed his +instructions to the letter. By and by he attracted attention. He was +employed in a variety of ways that earned him the gratitude and the +confidence of the office. In obedience to further instructions, he began +to make short, brief, unadorned notices of small news matters that came +under his eye and laid them on the city editor's desk. No pay was asked; +none was expected. Occasionally one of the items was used. Then, of +course, it happened, as it must sooner or later at a busy time, that he +was given a small news assignment. There was no trouble about his +progress after that. He had won the confidence of the management and +shown that he was not afraid to work. + +The plan had been variously tried since, Clemens said, and he could not +remember any case in which it had failed. The idea may have grown out of +his own pilot apprenticeship on the river, when cub pilots not only +received no salary, but paid for the privilege of learning. + +Clemens discussed public matters less often than formerly, but they were +not altogether out of his mind. He thought our republic was in a fair +way to become a monarchy--that the signs were already evident. He +referred to the letter which he had written so long ago in Boston, with +its amusing fancy of the Archbishop of Dublin and his Grace of Ponkapog, +and declared that, after all, it contained something of prophecy.--[See +chap. xcvii; also Appendix M.]--He would not live to see the actual +monarchy, he said, but it was coming. + +"I'm not expecting it in my time nor in my children's time, though it may +be sooner than we think. There are two special reasons for it and one +condition. The first reason is, that it is in the nature of man to want +a definite something to love, honor, reverently look up to and obey; a +God and King, for example. The second reason is, that while little +republics have lasted long, protected by their poverty and +insignificance, great ones have not. And the condition is, vast power +and wealth, which breed commercial and political corruptions, and incite +public favorites to dangerous ambitions." + +He repeated what I had heard him say before, that in one sense we already +had a monarchy; that is to say, a ruling public and political aristocracy +which could create a Presidential succession. He did not say these +things bitterly now, but reflectively and rather indifferently. + +He was inclined to speak unhopefully of the international plans for +universal peace, which were being agitated rather persistently. + +"The gospel of peace," he said, "is always making a deal of noise, always +rejoicing in its progress but always neglecting to furnish statistics. +There are no peaceful nations now. All Christendom is a soldier-camp. +The poor have been taxed in some nations to the starvation point to +support the giant armaments which Christian governments have built up, +each to protect itself from the rest of the Christian brotherhood, and +incidentally to snatch any scrap of real estate left exposed by a weaker +owner. King Leopold II. of Belgium, the most intensely Christian +monarch, except Alexander VI., that has escaped hell thus far, has stolen +an entire kingdom in Africa, and in fourteen years of Christian endeavor +there has reduced the population from thirty millions to fifteen by +murder and mutilation and overwork, confiscating the labor of the +helpless natives, and giving them nothing in return but salvation and a +home in heaven, furnished at the last moment by the Christian priest. + +"Within the last generation each Christian power has turned the bulk of +its attention to finding out newer and still newer and more and more +effective ways of killing Christians, and, incidentally, a pagan now and +then; and the surest way to get rich quickly in Christ's earthly kingdom +is to invent a kind of gun that can kill more Christians at one shot than +any other existing kind. All the Christian nations are at it. The more +advanced they are, the bigger and more destructive engines of war they +create." + +Once, speaking of battles great and small, and how important even a small +battle must seem to a soldier who had fought in no other, he said: + +"To him it is a mighty achievement, an achievement with a big A, when to +a wax-worn veteran it would be a mere incident. For instance, to the +soldier of one battle, San Juan Hill was an Achievement with an A as big +as the Pyramids of Cheops; whereas, if Napoleon had fought it, he would +have set it down on his cuff at the time to keep from forgetting it had +happened. But that is all natural and human enough. We are all like +that." + +The curiosities and absurdities of religious superstitions never failed +to furnish him with themes more or less amusing. I remember one Sunday, +when he walked down to have luncheon at my house, he sat under the shade +and fell to talking of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, which he said +could not have happened. + +"Tacitus makes no mention of it," he said, "and he would hardly have +overlooked a sweeping order like that, issued by a petty ruler like +Herod. Just consider a little king of a corner of the Roman Empire +ordering the slaughter of the first-born of a lot of Roman subjects. +Why, the Emperor would have reached out that long arm of his and +dismissed Herod. That tradition is probably about as authentic as those +connected with a number of old bridges in Europe which are said to have +been built by Satan. The inhabitants used to go to Satan to build +bridges for them, promising him the soul of the first one that crossed +the bridge; then, when Satan had the bridge done, they would send over a +rooster or a jackass--a cheap jackass; that was for Satan, and of course +they could fool him that way every time. Satan must have been pretty +simple, even according to the New Testament, or he wouldn't have led +Christ up on a high mountain and offered him the world if he would fall +down and worship him. That was a manifestly absurd proposition, because +Christ, as the Son of God, already owned the world; and, besides, what +Satan showed him was only a few rocky acres of Palestine. It is just as +if some one should try to buy Rockefeller, the owner of all the Standard +Oil Company, with a gallon of kerosene." + +He often spoke of the unseen forces of creation, the immutable laws that +hold the planet in exact course and bring the years and the seasons +always exactly on schedule time. "The Great Law" was a phrase often on +his lips. The exquisite foliage, the cloud shapes, the varieties of +color everywhere: these were for him outward manifestations of the Great +Law, whose principle I understood to be unity--exact relations throughout +all nature; and in this I failed to find any suggestion of pessimism, but +only of justice. Once he wrote on a card for preservation: + + From everlasting to everlasting, this is the law: the sum of wrong & + misery shall always keep exact step with the sum of human + blessedness. + + No "civilization," no "advance," has ever modified these proportions + by even the shadow of a shade, nor ever can, while our race endures. + + + + +CCLXIV + +CITIZEN AND FARMER + +The procession of guests at Stormfield continued pretty steadily. +Clemens kept a book in which visitors set down their names and the dates +of arrival and departure, and when they failed to attend to these matters +he diligently did it himself after they were gone. + +Members of the Harper Company came up with their wives; "angel-fish" swam +in and out of the aquarium; Bermuda friends came to see the new home; +Robert Collier, the publisher, and his wife--"Mrs. Sally," as Clemens +liked to call her--paid their visits; Lord Northcliffe, who was visiting +America, came with Colonel Harvey, and was so impressed with the +architecture of Stormfield that he adopted its plans for a country-place +he was about to build in Newfoundland. Helen Keller, with Mr. and Mrs. +Macy, came up for a week-end visit. Mrs. Crane came over from Elmira; +and, behold! one day came the long-ago sweetheart of his childhood, +little Laura Hawkins--Laura Frazer now, widowed and in the seventies, +with a granddaughter already a young lady quite grown up. + +That Mark Twain was not wearying of the new conditions we may gather from +a letter written to Mrs. Rogers in October: + + I've grown young in these months of dissipation here. And I have + left off drinking--it isn't necessary now. Society & theology are + sufficient for me. + +To Helen Allen, a Bermuda "Angel-Fish," he wrote: + + We have good times here in this soundless solitude on the hilltop. + The moment I saw the house I was glad I built it, & now I am gladder + & gladder all the time. I was not dreaming of living here except in + the summer-time--that was before I saw this region & the house, you + see--but that is all changed now; I shall stay here winter & summer + both & not go back to New York at all. My child, it's as tranquil & + contenting as Bermuda. You will be very welcome here, dear. + +He interested himself in the affairs and in the people of Redding. Not +long after his arrival he had gathered in all the inhabitants of the +country-side, neighbors of every quality, for closer acquaintance, and +threw open to them for inspection every part of the new house. He +appointed Mrs. Lounsbury, whose acquaintance was very wide; a sort of +committee on reception, and stood at the entrance with her to welcome +each visitor in person. + +It was a sort of gala day, and the rooms and the grounds were filled with +the visitors. In the dining-room there were generous refreshments. +Again, not long afterward, he issued a special invitation to all of +those-architects, builders, and workmen who had taken any part, however +great or small, in the building of his home. Mr. and Mrs. Littleton were +visiting Stormfield at this time, and both Clemens and Littleton spoke to +these assembled guests from the terrace, and made them feel that their +efforts had been worth while. + +Presently the idea developed to establish something that would be of +benefit to his neighbors, especially to those who did not have access to +much reading-matter. He had been for years flooded with books by authors +and publishers, and there was a heavy surplus at his home in the city. +When these began to arrive he had a large number of volumes set aside as +the nucleus of a public library. An unused chapel not far away--it could +be seen from one of his windows--was obtained for the purpose; officers +were elected; a librarian was appointed, and so the Mark Twain Library of +Redding was duly established. Clemens himself was elected its first +president, with the resident physician, Dr. Ernest H. Smith, vice- +president, and another resident, William E. Grumman, librarian. On the +afternoon of its opening the president made a brief address. He said: + + I am here to speak a few instructive words to my fellow-farmers. + I suppose you are all farmers: I am going to put in a crop next + year, when I have been here long enough and know how. I couldn't + make a turnip stay on a tree now after I had grown it. I like to + talk. It would take more than the Redding air to make me keep + still, and I like to instruct people. It's noble to be good, and + it's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble. I am glad + to help this library. We get our morals from books. I didn't get + mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books-- + theoretically at least. Mr. Beard or Mr. Adams will give some land, + and by and by we are going to have a building of our own. + +This statement was news to both Mr. Beard and Mr. Adams and an +inspiration of the moment; but Mr. Theodore Adams, who owned a most +desirable site, did in fact promptly resolve to donate it for library +purposes. Clemens continued: + + I am going to help build that library with contributions from my + visitors. Every male guest who comes to my house will have to + contribute a dollar or go away without his baggage.-- + [A characteristic notice to guests requiring them to contribute a + dollar to the Library Building Fund was later placed on the + billiard-room mantel at Stormfield with good results.]--If those + burglars that broke into my house recently had done that they would + have been happier now, or if they'd have broken into this library + they would have read a few books and led a better life. Now they + are in jail, and if they keep on they will go to Congress. When a + person starts downhill you can never tell where he's going to stop. + I am sorry for those burglars. They got nothing that they wanted + and scared away most of my servants. Now we are putting in a + burglar-alarm instead of a dog. Some advised the dog, but it costs + even more to entertain a dog than a burglar. I am having the ground + electrified, so that for a mile around any one who puts his foot + across the line sets off an alarm that will be heard in Europe. Now + I will introduce the real president to you, a man whom you know + already--Dr. Smith. + +So a new and important benefit was conferred upon the community, and +there was a feeling that Redding, besides having a literary colony, was +to be literary in fact. + +It might have been mentioned earlier that Redding already had literary +associations when Mark Twain arrived. As far back as Revolutionary days +Joel Barlow, a poet of distinction, and once Minister to France, had been +a resident of Redding, and there were still Barlow descendants in the +township. + +William Edgar Grumman, the librarian, had written the story of Redding's +share in the Revolutionary War--no small share, for Gen. Israel Putnam's +army had been quartered there during at least one long, trying winter. +Charles Burr Todd, of one of the oldest Redding families, himself--still +a resident, was also the author of a Redding history. + +Of literary folk not native to Redding, Dora Reed Goodale and her sister +Elaine, the wife of Dr. Charles A. Eastman, had, long been residents of +Redding Center; Jeanette L. Gilder and Ida M. Tarbell had summer homes on +Redding Ridge; Dan Beard, as already mentioned, owned a place near the +banks of the Saugatuck, while Kate V. St. Maur, also two of Nathaniel +Hawthorne's granddaughters had recently located adjoining the Stormfield +lands. By which it will be seen that Redding was in no way unsuitable as +a home for Mark Twain. + + + + +CCLXV + +A MANTEL AND A BABY ELEPHANT + +Mark Twain was the receiver of two notable presents that year. The first +of these, a mantel from Hawaii, presented to him by the Hawaiian +Promotion Committee, was set in place in the billiard-room on the morning +of his seventy-third birthday. This committee had written, proposing to +build for his new home either a mantel or a chair, as he might prefer, +the same to be carved from the native woods. Clemens decided on a +billiard-room mantel, and John Howells forwarded the proper measurements. +So, in due time, the mantel arrived, a beautiful piece of work and in +fine condition, with the Hawaiian word, "Aloha," one of the sweetest +forms of greeting in any tongue, carved as its central ornament. + +To the donors of the gift Clemens wrote: + + The beautiful mantel was put in its place an hour ago, & its + friendly "Aloha" was the first uttered greeting received on my 73d + birthday. It is rich in color, rich in quality, & rich in + decoration; therefore it exactly harmonized with the taste for such + things which was born in me & which I have seldom been able to + indulge to my content. It will be a great pleasure to me, daily + renewed, to have under my eye this lovely reminder of the loveliest + fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean, & I beg to thank + the committee for providing me that pleasure. + +To F. N. Otremba, who had carved the mantel, he sent this word: + + I am grateful to you for the valued compliment to me in the labor of + heart and hand and brain which you have put upon it. It is worthy + of the choicest place in the house and it has it. + +It was the second beautiful mantel in Stormfield--the Hartford library +mantel, removed when that house was sold, having been installed in the +Stormfield living-room. + +Altogether the seventy-third birthday was a pleasant one. Clemens, in +the morning, drove down to see the library lot which Mr. Theodore Adams +had presented, and the rest of the day there were fine, close billiard +games, during which he was in the gentlest and happiest moods. He +recalled the games of two years before, and as we stopped playing I said: + +"I hope a year from now we shall be here, still playing the great game." + +And he answered, as then: + +"Yes, it is a great game--the best game on earth." And he held out his +hand and thanked me for coming, as he never failed to do when we parted, +though it always hurt me a little, for the debt was so largely mine. + +Mark Twain's second present came at Christmas-time. About ten days +earlier, a letter came from Robert J. Collier, saying that he had bought +a baby elephant which he intended to present to Mark Twain as a Christmas +gift. He added that it would be sent as soon as he could get a car for +it, and the loan of a keeper from Barnum & Bailey's headquarters at +Bridgeport. + +The news created a disturbance in Stormfield. One could not refuse, +discourteously and abruptly, a costly present like that; but it seemed a +disaster to accept it. An elephant would require a roomy and warm place, +also a variety of attention which Stormfield was not prepared to supply. +The telephone was set going and certain timid excuses were offered by the +secretary. There was no good place to put an elephant in Stormfield, but +Mr. Collier said, quite confidently: + +"Oh, put him in the garage." + +"But there's no heat in the garage." + +"Well, put him in the loggia, then. That's closed in, isn't it, for the +winter? Plenty of sunlight--just the place for a young elephant." + +"But we play cards in the loggia. We use it for a sort of sun-parlor." + +"But that wouldn't matter. He's a kindly, playful little thing. He'll +be just like a kitten. I'll send the man up to look over the place and +tell you just how to take care of him, and I'll send up several bales of +hay in advance. It isn't a large elephant, you know: just a little one-- +a regular plaything." + +There was nothing further to be done; only to wait and dread until the +Christmas present's arrival. + +A few days before Christmas ten bales of hay arrived and several bushels +of carrots. This store of provender aroused no enthusiasm at Stormfield. +It would seem there was no escape now. + +On Christmas morning Mr. Lounsbury telephoned up that there was a man at +the station who said he was an elephant-trainer from Barnum & Bailey's, +sent by Mr. Collier to look at the elephant's quarters and get him +settled when he should arrive. Orders were given to bring the man over. +The day of doom was at hand. + +But Lounsbury's detective instinct came once more into play. He had seen +a good many elephant-trainers at Bridgeport, and he thought this one had +a doubtful look. + +"Where is the elephant?" he asked, as they drove along. + +"He will arrive at noon." + +"Where are you going to put him?" + +"In the loggia." + +"How big is he?" + +"About the size of a cow." + +"How long have you been with Barnum and Bailey?" + +"Six years." + +"Then you must know some friends of mine" (naming two that had no +existence until that moment). + +"Oh yes, indeed. I know them well." + +Lounsbury didn't say any more just then, but he had a feeling that +perhaps the dread at Stormfield had grown unnecessarily large. Something +told him that this man seemed rather more like a butler, or a valet, than +an elephant-trainer. They drove to Stormfield, and the trainer looked +over the place. It would do perfectly, he said. He gave a few +instructions as to the care of this new household feature, and was driven +back to the station to bring it. + +Lounsbury came back by and by, bringing the elephant but not the trainer. +It didn't need a trainer. It was a beautiful specimen, with soft, smooth +coat and handsome trappings, perfectly quiet, well-behaved and small-- +suited to the loggia, as Collier had said--for it was only two feet long +and beautifully made of cloth and cotton--one of the forest toy elephants +ever seen anywhere. + +It was a good joke, such as Mark Twain loved--a carefully prepared, +harmless bit of foolery. He wrote Robert Collier, threatening him with +all sorts of revenge, declaring that the elephant was devastating +Stormfield. + +"To send an elephant in a trance, under pretense that it was dead or +stuffed!" he said. "The animal came to life, as you knew it would, and +began to observe Christmas, and we now have no furniture left and no +servants and no visitors, no friends, no photographs, no burglars-- +nothing but the elephant. Be kind, be merciful, be generous; take him +away and send us what is left of the earthquake." + +Collier wrote that he thought it unkind of him to look a gift-elephant in +the trunk. And with such chaffing and gaiety the year came to an end. + + + + +CCLXXVI + +SHAKESPEARE-BACON TALK + +When the bad weather came there was not much company at Stormfield, and +I went up regularly each afternoon, for it was lonely on that bleak hill, +and after his forenoon of reading or writing he craved diversion. My own +home was a little more than a half mile away, and I enjoyed the walk, +whatever the weather. I usually managed to arrive about three o'clock. +He would watch from his high windows until he saw me raise the hilltop, +and he would be at the door when I arrived, so that there might be no +delay in getting at the games. Or, if it happened that he wished to show +me something in his room, I would hear his rich voice sounding down the +stair. Once, when I arrived, I heard him calling, and going up I found +him highly pleased with the arrangement of two pictures on a chair, +placed so that the glasses of them reflected the sunlight on the ceiling. +He said: + +"They seem to catch the reflection of the sky and the winter colors. +Sometimes the hues are wonderfully iridescent." + +He pointed to a bunch of wild red berries on the mantel with the sun on +them. + +"How beautifully they light up!" he said; "some of them in the sunlight, +some still in the shadow." + +He walked to the window and stood looking out on the somber fields. + +"The lights and colors are always changing there," he said. "I never +tire of it." + +To see him then so full of the interest and delight of the moment, one +might easily believe he had never known tragedy and shipwreck. More than +any one I ever knew, he lived in the present. Most of us are either +dreaming of the past or anticipating the future--forever beating the +dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow. Mark Twain's step was +timed to the march of the moment. There were days when he recalled the +past and grieved over it, and when he speculated concerning the future; +but his greater interest was always of the now, and of the particular +locality where he found it. The thing which caught his fancy, however +slight or however important, possessed him fully for the time, even if +never afterward. + +He was especially interested that winter in the Shakespeare-Bacon +problem. He had long been unable to believe that the actor-manager from +Stratford had written those great plays, and now a book just published, +'The Shakespeare Problem Restated', by George Greenwood, and another one +in press, 'Some Characteristic Signatures of Francis Bacon', by William +Stone Booth, had added the last touch of conviction that Francis Bacon, +and Bacon only, had written the Shakespeare dramas. I was ardently +opposed to this idea. The romance of the boy, Will Shakespeare, who had +come up to London and began, by holding horses outside of the theater, +and ended by winning the proudest place in the world of letters, was +something I did not wish to let perish. I produced all the stock +testimony--Ben Jonson's sonnet, the internal evidence of the plays +themselves, the actors who had published them--but he refused to accept +any of it. He declared that there was not a single proof to show that +Shakespeare had written one of them. + +"Is there any evidence that he didn't?" I asked. + +"There's evidence that he couldn't," he said. "It required a man with +the fullest legal equipment to have written them. When you have read +Greenwood's book you will see how untenable is any argument for +Shakespeare's authorship." + +I was willing to concede something, and offered a compromise. + +"Perhaps," I said, "Shakespeare was the Belasoo of that day--the +managerial genius, unable to write plays himself, but with the supreme +gift of making effective drama from the plays of others. In that case it +is not unlikely that the plays would be known as Shakespeare's. Even in +this day John Luther Long's "Madam Butterfly" is sometimes called +Belasco's play; though it is doubtful if Belasco ever wrote a line of +it." + +He considered this view, but not very favorably. The Booth book was at +this time a secret, and he had not told me anything concerning it; but he +had it in his mind when he said, with an air of the greatest conviction: + +"I know that Shakespeare did not write those plays, and I have reason to +believe he did not touch the text in any way." + +"How can you be so positive?" I asked. + +He replied: + +"I have private knowledge from a source that cannot be questioned." + +I now suspected that he was joking, and asked if he had been consulting a +spiritual medium; but he was clearly in earnest. + +"It is the great discovery of the age," he said, quite seriously. "The +world will soon ring with it. I wish I could tell you about it, but I +have passed my word. You will not have long to wait." + +I was going to sail for the Mediterranean in February, and I asked if it +would be likely that I would know this great secret before I sailed. He +thought not; but he said that more than likely the startling news would +be given to the world while I was on the water, and it might come to me +on the ship by wireless. I confess I was amazed and intensely curious by +this time. I conjectured the discovery of some document--some Bacon or +Shakespeare private paper which dispelled all the mystery of the +authorship. I hinted that he might write me a letter which I could open +on the ship; but he was firm in his refusal. He had passed his word, he +repeated, and the news might not be given out as soon as that; but he +assured me more than once that wherever I might be, in whatever remote +locality, it would come by cable, and the world would quake with it. +I was tempted to give up my trip, to be with him at Stormfield at the +time of the upheaval. + +Naturally the Shakespeare theme was uppermost during the remaining days +that we were together. He had engaged another stenographer, and was now +dictating, forenoons, his own views on the subject--views coordinated +with those of Mr. Greenwood, whom he liberally quoted, but embellished +and decorated in his own gay manner. These were chapters for his +autobiography, he said, and I think he had then no intention of making a +book of them. I could not quite see why he should take all this +argumentary trouble if he had, as he said, positive evidence that Bacon, +and not Shakespeare, had written the plays. I thought the whole matter +very curious. + +The Shakespeare interest had diverging by-paths. One evening, when we +were alone at dinner, he said: + +"There is only one other illustrious man in history about whom there is +so little known," and he added, "Jesus Christ." + +He reviewed the statements of the Gospels concerning Christ, though he +declared them to be mainly traditional and of no value. I agreed that +they contained confusing statements, and inflicted more or less with +justice and reason; but I said I thought there was truth in them, too. + +"Why do you think so?" he asked. + +"Because they contain matters that are self-evident--things eternally and +essentially just." + +"Then you make your own Bible?" + +"Yes, from those materials combined with human reason." + +"Then it does not matter where the truth, as you call it, comes from?" + +I admitted that the source did not matter; that truth from Shakespeare, +Epictetus, or Aristotle was quite as valuable as from the Scriptures. We +were on common ground now. He mentioned Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, and +their blameless lives. I, still pursuing the thought of Jesus, asked: + +"Do you not think it strange that in that day when Christ came, admitting +that there was a Christ, such a character could have come at all--in the +time of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, when all was ceremony and +unbelief?" + +"I remember," he said, "the Sadducees didn't believe in hell. He brought +them one." + +"Nor the resurrection. He brought them that, also." + +He did not admit that there had been a Christ with the character and +mission related by the Gospels. + +"It is all a myth," he said. "There have been Saviours in every age of +the world. It is all just a fairy tale, like the idea of Santa Claus." + +"But," I argued, "even the spirit of Christmas is real when it is +genuine. Suppose that we admit there was no physical Saviour--that it is +only an idea--a spiritual embodiment which humanity has made for itself +and is willing to improve upon as its own spirituality improves, wouldn't +that make it worthy?" + +"But then the fairy story of the atonement dissolves, and with it +crumbles the very foundations of any established church. You can create +your own Testament, your own Scripture, and your own Christ, but you've +got to give up your atonement." + +"As related to the crucifixion, yes, and good riddance to it; but the +death of the old order and the growth of spirituality comes to a sort of +atonement, doesn't it?" + +He said: + +"A conclusion like that has about as much to do with the Gospels and +Christianity as Shakespeare had to do with Bacon's plays. You are +preaching a doctrine that would have sent a man to the stake a few +centuries ago. I have preached that in my own Gospel." + +I remembered then, and realized that, by my own clumsy ladder, I had +merely mounted from dogma, and superstition to his platform of training +the ideals to a higher contentment of soul. + + + + +CCLXXVII + +"IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?" + +I set out on my long journey with much reluctance. However, a series of +guests with various diversions had been planned, and it seemed a good +time to go. Clemens gave me letters of introduction, and bade me +Godspeed. It would be near the end of April before I should see him +again. + +Now and then on the ship, and in the course of my travels, I remembered +the great news I was to hear concerning Shakespeare. In Cairo, at +Shepheard's, I looked eagerly through English newspapers, expecting any +moment to come upon great head-lines; but I was always disappointed. +Even on the return voyage there was no one I could find who had heard any +particular Shakespeare news. + +Arriving in New York, I found that Clemens himself had published his +Shakespeare dictations in a little volume of his own, entitled, 'Is +Shakespeare Dead?' The title certainly suggested spiritistic matters, +and I got a volume at Harpers', and read it going up on the train, hoping +to find somewhere in it a solution of the great mystery. But it was only +matter I had already known; the secret was still unrevealed. + +At Redding I lost not much time in getting up to Stormfield. There had +been changes in my absence. Clara Clemens had returned from her travels, +and Jean, whose health seemed improved, was coming home to be her +father's secretary. He was greatly pleased with these things, and +declared he was going to have a home once more with his children about +him. + +He was quite alone that day, and we walked up and down the great living- +room for an hour, perhaps, while he discussed his new plans. For one +thing, he had incorporated his pen-name, Mark Twain, in order that the +protection of his copyrights and the conduct of his literary business in +general should not require his personal attention. He seemed to find a +relief in this, as he always did in dismissing any kind of +responsibility. When we went in for billiards I spoke of his book, which +I had read on the way up, and of the great Shakespearian secret which was +to astonish the world. Then he told me that the matter had been delayed, +but that he was no longer required to suppress it; that the revelation +was in the form of a book--a book which revealed conclusively to any one +who would take the trouble to follow the directions that the acrostic +name of Francis Bacon in a great variety of forms ran through many-- +probably through all of the so-called Shakespeare plays. He said it was +far and away beyond anything of the kind ever published; that Ignatius +Donnelly and others had merely glimpsed the truth, but that the author of +this book, William Stone Booth, had demonstrated, beyond any doubt or +question, that the Bacon signatures were there. The book would be issued +in a few days, he said. He had seen a set of proofs of it, and while it +had not been published in the best way to clearly demonstrate its great +revelation, it must settle the matter with every reasoning mind. He +confessed that his faculties had been more or less defeated in, +attempting to follow the ciphers, and he complained bitterly that the +evidence had not been set forth so that he who merely skims a book might +grasp it. + +He had failed on the acrostics at first; but more recently he had +understood the rule, and had been able to work out several Bacon +signatures. He complimented me by saying that he felt sure that when the +book came I would have no trouble with it. + +Without going further with this matter, I may say here that the book +arrived presently, and between us we did work out a considerable number +of the claimed acrostics by following the rules laid down. It was +certainly an interesting if not wholly convincing occupation, and it +would be a difficult task for any one to prove that the ciphers are not +there. Just why this pretentious volume created so little agitation it +would be hard to say. Certainly it did not cause any great upheaval in +the literary world, and the name of William Shakespeare still continues +to be printed on the title-page of those marvelous dramas so long +associated with his name. + +Mark Twain's own book on the subject--'Is Shakespeare Dead?'--found a +wide acceptance, and probably convinced as many readers. It contained no +new arguments; but it gave a convincing touch to the old ones, and it was +certainly readable.--[Mark Twain had the fullest conviction as to the +Bacon authorship of the Shakespeare plays. One evening, with Mr. Edward +Loomis, we attended a fine performance of "Romeo and Juliet" given by +Sothern and Marlowe. At the close of one splendid scene he said, quite +earnestly, "That is about the best play that Lord Bacon ever wrote."] + +Among the visitors who had come to Stormfield was Howells. Clemens had +called a meeting of the Human Race Club, but only Howells was able to +attend. We will let him tell of his visit: + + We got on very well without the absentees, after finding them in the + wrong, as usual, and the visit was like those I used to have with + him so many years before in Hartford, but there was not the old + ferment of subjects. Many things had been discussed and put away + for good, but we had our old fondness for nature and for each other, + who were so differently parts of it. He showed his absolute content + with his house, and that was the greater pleasure for me because it + was my son who designed it. The architect had been so fortunate as + to be able to plan it where a natural avenue of savins, the close- + knit, slender, cypress-like cedars of New England, led away from the + rear of the villa to the little level of a pergola, meant some day + to be wreathed and roofed with vines. But in the early spring days + all the landscape was in the beautiful nakedness of the Northern + winter. It opened in the surpassing loveliness of wooded and + meadowed uplands, under skies that were the first days blue, and the + last gray over a rainy and then a snowy floor. We walked up and + down, up and down, between the villa terrace and the pergola, and + talked with the melancholy amusement, the sad tolerance of age for + the sort of men and things that used to excite us or enrage us; now + we were far past turbulence or anger. Once we took a walk together + across the yellow pastures to a chasmal creek on his grounds, where + the ice still knit the clayey banks together like crystal mosses; + and the stream far down clashed through and over the stones and the + shards of ice. Clemens pointed out the scenery he had bought to + give himself elbowroom, and showed me the lot he was going to have + me build on. The next day we came again with the geologist he had + asked up to Stormfield to analyze its rocks. Truly he loved the + place . . . . + + My visit at Stormfield came to an end with tender relucting on his + part and on mine. Every morning before I dressed I heard him + sounding my name through the house for the fun of it and I know for + the fondness, and if I looked out of my door there he was in his + long nightgown swaying up and down the corridor, and wagging his + great white head like a boy that leaves his bed and comes out in the + hope of frolic with some one. The last morning a soft sugar-snow + had fallen and was falling, and I drove through it down to the + station in the carriage which had been given him by his wife's + father when they were first married, and had been kept all those + intervening years in honorable retirement for this final use.--[This + carriage--a finely built coup--had been presented to Mrs. Crane when + the Hartford house was closed. When Stormfield was built she + returned it to its original owner.]--Its springs had not grown + yielding with time, it had rather the stiffness and severity of age; + but for him it must have swung low like the sweet chariot of the + negro "spiritual" which I heard him sing with such fervor when those + wonderful hymns of the slaves began to make their way northward. + +Howells's visit resulted in a new inspiration. Clemens started to write +him one night when he could not sleep, and had been reading the volume of +letters of James Russell Lowell. Then, next morning, he was seized with +the notion of writing a series of letters to such friends as Howells, +Twichell, and Rogers--letters not to be mailed, but to be laid away for +some future public. He wrote two of these immediately--to Howells and to +Twichell. The Howells letter (or letters, for it was really double) is +both pathetic and amusing. The first part ran: + 3 in the morning, April 17, 1909. + + My pen has gone dry and the ink is out of reach. Howells, did you + write me day-before-day-before yesterday or did I dream it? In my + mind's eye I most vividly see your hand-write on a square blue + envelope in the mail-pile. I have hunted the house over, but there + is no such letter. Was it an illusion? + + I am reading Lowell's letters & smoking. I woke an hour ago & am + reading to keep from wasting the time. On page 305, Vol. I, I have + just margined a note: + + "Young friend! I like that! You ought to see him now." + + It seemed startlingly strange to hear a person call you young. It + was a brick out of a blue sky, & knocked me groggy for a moment. Ah + me, the pathos of it is that we were young then. And he--why, so + was he, but he didn't know it. He didn't even know it 9 years + later, when we saw him approaching and you warned me, saying: + + "Don't say anything about age--he has just turned 50 & thinks he is + old, & broods over it." + + Well, Clara did sing! And you wrote her a dear letter. + + Time to go to sleep. + + Yours ever, + MARK + + +The second letter, begun at 10 A.M., outlines the plan by which he is to +write on the subject uppermost in his mind without restraint, knowing +that the letter is not to be mailed. + + . . .The scheme furnishes a definite target for each letter, & you + can choose the target that's going to be the most sympathetic for + what you are hungering & thirsting to say at that particular moment. + And you can talk with a quite unallowable frankness & freedom + because you are not going to send the letter. When you are on fire + with theology you'll not write it to Rogers, who wouldn't be an + inspiration; you'll write it to Twichell, because it will make him + writhe and squirm & break the furniture. When you are on fire with + a good thing that's indecent you won't waste it on Twichell; you'll + save it for Howells, who will love it. As he will never see it you + can make it really indecenter than he could stand; & so no harm is + done, yet a vast advantage is gained. + +The letter was not finished, and the scheme perished there. The Twichell +letter concerned missionaries, and added nothing to what he had already +said on the subject. + +He wrote no letter to Mr. Rogers--perhaps never wrote to him again. + + + + +CCLXXVIII + +THE DEATH OF HENRY ROGERS + +Clemens, a little before my return, had been on a trip to Norfolk, +Virginia, to attend the opening ceremonies of the Virginia Railway. He +had made a speech on that occasion, in which he had paid a public tribute +to Henry Rogers, and told something of his personal obligation to the +financier. + +He began by telling what Mr. Rogers had done for Helen Keller, whom he +called "the most marvelous person of her sex that has existed on this +earth since Joan of Arc." Then he said: + + That is not all Mr. Rogers has done, but you never see that side of + his character because it is never protruding; but he lends a helping + hand daily out of that generous heart of his. You never hear of it. + He is supposed to be a moon which has one side dark and the other + bright. But the other side, though you don't see it, is not dark; + it is bright, and its rays penetrate, and others do see it who are + not God. + I would take this opportunity to tell something that I have never + been allowed to tell by Mr. Rogers, either by my mouth or in print, + and if I don't look at him I can tell it now. + + In 1894, when the publishing company of Charles L. Webster, of which + I was financial agent, failed, it left me heavily in debt. If you + will remember what commerce was at that time you will recall that + you could not sell anything, and could not buy anything, and I was + on my back; my books were not worth anything at all, and I could not + give away my copyrights. Mr. Rogers had long-enough vision ahead to + say, "Your books have supported you before, and after the panic is + over they will support you again," and that was a correct + proposition. He saved my copyrights, and saved me from financial + ruin. He it was who arranged with my creditors to allow me to roam + the face of the earth and persecute the nations thereof with + lectures, promising at the end of four years I would pay dollar for + dollar. That arrangement was made, otherwise I would now be living + out-of-doors under an umbrella, and a borrowed one at that. + + You see his white mustache and his hair trying to get white (he is + always trying to look like me--I don't blame him for that). These + are only emblematic of his character, and that is all. I say, + without exception, hair and all, he is the whitest man I have ever + known. + +This had been early in April. Something more than a month later Clemens +was making a business trip to New York to see Mr. Rogers. I was +telephoned early to go up and look over some matters with him before he +started. I do not remember why I was not to go along that day, for I +usually made such trips with him. I think it was planned that Miss +Clemens, who was in the city, was to meet him at the Grand Central +Station. At all events, she did meet him there, with the news that +during the night Mr. Rogers had suddenly died. This was May 20, 1909. +The news had already come to the house, and I had lost no time in +preparations to follow by the next train. I joined him at the Grosvenor +Hotel, on Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street. He was upset and deeply +troubled by the loss of his stanch adviser and friend. He had a helpless +look, and he said his friends were dying away from him and leaving him +adrift. + +"And how I hate to do anything," he added, "that requires the least +modicum of intelligence!" + +We remained at the Grosvenor for Mr. Rogers's funeral. Clemens served as +one of the pall-bearers, but he did not feel equal to the trip to +Fairhaven. He wanted to be very quiet, he said. He could not undertake +to travel that distance among those whom he knew so well, and with whom +he must of necessity join in conversation; so we remained in the hotel +apartment, reading and saying very little until bedtime. Once he asked +me to write a letter to Jean: "Say, 'Your father says every little while, +"How glad I am that Jean is at home again!"' for that is true and I think +of it all the time." + +But by and by, after a long period of silence, he said: + +"Mr. Rogers is under the ground now." + +And so passed out of earthly affairs the man who had contributed so +largely to the comfort of Mark Twain's old age. He was a man of fine +sensibilities and generous impulses; withal a keen sense of humor. + +One Christmas, when he presented Mark Twain with a watch and a match- +case, he wrote: + + MY DEAR CLEMENS,--For many years your friends have been complaining + of your use of tobacco, both as to quantity and quality. Complaints + are now coming in of your use of time. Most of your friends think + that you are using your supply somewhat lavishly, but the chief + complaint is in regard to the quality. + + I have been appealed to in the mean time, and have concluded that it + is impossible to get the right kind of time from a blacking-box. + + Therefore, I take the liberty of sending you herewith a machine that + will furnish only the best. Please use it with the kind wishes of + Yours truly, + H. H. ROGERS. + + P. S.--Complaint has also been made in regard to the furrows you + make in your trousers in scratching matches. You will find a furrow + on the bottom of the article inclosed. Please use it. Compliments + of the season to the family. + +He was a man too busy to write many letters, but when he did write (to +Clemens at least) they were always playful and unhurried. One reading +them would not find it easy to believe that the writer was a man on whose +shoulders lay the burdens of stupendous finance-burdens so heavy that at +last he was crushed beneath their weight. + + + + +CCLXXIX + +AN EXTENSION OF COPYRIGHT + +One of the pleasant things that came to Mark Twain that year was the +passage of a copyright bill, which added to the royalty period an +extension of fourteen years. Champ Clark had been largely instrumental +in the success of this measure, and had been fighting for it steadily +since Mark Twain's visit to Washington in 1906. Following that visit, +Clark wrote: + + . . . It [the original bill] would never pass because the bill + had literature and music all mixed together. Being a Missourian of + course it would give me great pleasure to be of service to you. + What I want to say is this: you have prepared a simple bill relating + only to the copyright of books; send it to me and I will try to have + it passed. + +Clemens replied that he might have something more to say on the copyright +question by and by--that he had in hand a dialogue--[Similar to the "Open +Letter to the Register of Copyrights," North American Review, January, +1905.]--which would instruct Congress, but this he did not complete. +Meantime a simple bill was proposed and early in 1909 it became a law. +In June Clark wrote: + + DR. SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, + Stormfield, Redding, Conn. + + MY DEAR DOCTOR,--I am gradually becoming myself again, after a + period of exhaustion that almost approximated prostration. After a + long lecture tour last summer I went immediately into a hard + campaign; as soon as the election was over, and I had recovered my + disposition, I came here and went into those tariff hearings, which + began shortly after breakfast each day, and sometimes lasted until + midnight. Listening patiently and meekly, withal, to the lying of + tariff barons for many days and nights was followed by the work of + the long session; that was followed by a hot campaign to take Uncle + Joe's rules away from him; on the heels of that "Campaign that + Failed" came the tariff fight in the House. I am now getting time + to breathe regularly and I am writing to ask you if the copyright + law is acceptable to you. If it is not acceptable to you I want to + ask you to write and tell me how it should be changed and I will + give my best endeavors to the work. I believe that your ideas and + wishes in the matter constitute the best guide we have as to what + should be done in the case. + Your friend, + CHAMP CLARK. + +To this Clemens replied: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN, June 5, 1909. + + DEAR CHAMP CLARK,--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me? + Emphatically yes! Clark, it is the only sane & clearly defined & + just & righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United + States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have + no trouble in arriving at that decision. + + The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was + down there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting & + apparently irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all + said "the case is hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos + nothing can be built." But we were in error; out of that chaotic + mass this excellent bill has been constructed, the warring interests + have been reconciled, and the result is as comely and substantial a + legislative edifice as lifts its domes and towers and protective + lightning-rods out of the statute book I think. When I think of + that other bill, which even the Deity couldn't understand, and of + this one, which even I can understand, I take off my hat to the man + or men who devised this one. Was it R. U. Johnson? Was it the + Authors' League? Was it both together? I don't know, but I take + off my hat, anyway. Johnson has written a valuable article about + the new law--I inclose it. + + At last--at last and for the first time in copyright history--we are + ahead of England! Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and + by fairness to all interests concerned. Does this sound like + shouting? Then I must modify it: all we possessed of copyright + justice before the 4th of last March we owed to England's + initiative. + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Clemens had prepared what was the final word an the subject of copyright +just before this bill was passed--a petition for a law which he believed +would regulate the whole matter. It was a generous, even if a somewhat +Utopian, plan, eminently characteristic of its author. The new fourteen- +year extension, with the prospect of more, made this or any other +compromise seem inadvisable.--[The reader may consider this last +copyright document by Mark Twain under Appendix N, at the end of this +volume.] + + + + +CCLXXX + +A WARNING + +Clemens had promised to go to Baltimore for the graduation of "Francesca" +of his London visit in 1907--and to make a short address to her class. + +It was the eighth of June when we set out on this journey,--[The reader +may remember that it was the 8th of June, 1867, that Mark Twain sailed +for the Holy Land. It was the 8th of June, 1907, that he sailed for +England to take his Oxford degree. This 8th of June, 1909, was at least +slightly connected with both events, for he was keeping an engagement +made with Francesca in London, and my notes show that he discussed, on +the way to the station, some incidents of his Holy Land trip and his +attitude at that time toward Christian traditions. As he rarely +mentioned the Quaker City trip, the coincidence seems rather curious. +It is most unlikely that Clemens himself in any way associated the two +dates.]--but the day was rather bleak and there was a chilly rain. +Clemens had a number of errands to do in New York, and we drove from one +place to another, attending to them. Finally, in the afternoon, the rain +ceased, and while I was arranging some matters for him he concluded to +take a ride on the top of a Fifth Avenue stage. It was fine and pleasant +when he started, but the weather thickened again and when he returned he +complained that he had felt a little chilly. He seemed in fine +condition, however, next morning and was in good spirits all the way to +Baltimore. Chauncey Depew was on the train and they met in the dining- +car--the last time, I think, they ever saw each other. He was tired when +we reached the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore and did not wish to see the +newspaper men. It happened that the reporters had a special purpose in +coming just at this time, for it had suddenly developed that in his +Shakespeare book, through an oversight, due to haste in publication, full +credit had not been given to Mr. Greenwood for the long extracts quoted +from his work. The sensational head-lines in a morning paper, "Is Mark +Twain a Plagiarist?" had naturally prompted the newspaper men to see what +he would have to say on the subject. It was a simple matter, easily +explained, and Clemens himself was less disturbed about it than anybody. +He felt no sense of guilt, he said; and the fact that he had been +stealing and caught at it would give Mr. Greenwood's book far more +advertising than if he had given him the full credit which he had +intended. He found a good deal of amusement in the situation, his only +worry being that Clara and Jean would see the paper and be troubled. + +He had taken off his clothes and was lying down, reading. After a little +he got up and began walking up and down the room. Presently he stopped +and, facing me, placed his hand upon his breast. He said: + +"I think I must have caught a little cold yesterday on that Fifth Avenue +stage. I have a curious pain in my breast." + +I suggested that he lie down again and I would fill his hot-water bag. +The pain passed away presently, and he seemed to be dozing. I stepped +into the next room and busied myself with some writing. By and by I +heard him stirring again and went in where he was. He was walking up and +down and began talking of some recent ethnological discoveries-- +something relating to prehistoric man. + +"What a fine boy that prehistoric man must have been," he said--" the +very first one! Think of the gaudy style of him, how he must have lorded +it over those other creatures, walking on his hind legs, waving his arms, +practising and getting ready for the pulpit." + +The fancy amused him, but presently he paused in his walk and again put +his hand on his breast, saying: + +"That pain has come back. It's a curious, sickening, deadly kind of +pain. I never had anything just like it." + +It seemed to me that his face had become rather gray. I said: + +"Where is it, exactly, Mr. Clemens?" + +He laid his hand in the center of his breast and said: + +"It is here, and it is very peculiar indeed." + +Remotely in my mind occurred the thought that he had located his heart, +and the "peculiar deadly pain" he had mentioned seemed ominous. I +suggested, however, that it was probably some rheumatic touch, and this +opinion seemed warranted when, a few moments later, the hot water had +again relieved it. This time the pain had apparently gone to stay, for +it did not return while we were in Baltimore. It was the first positive +manifestation of the angina which eventually would take him from us. + +The weather was pleasant in Baltimore, and his visit to St. Timothy's +School and his address there were the kind of diversions that meant most +to him. The flock of girls, all in their pretty commencement dresses, +assembled and rejoicing at his playfully given advice: not to smoke--to +excess; not to drink--to excess; not to marry--to excess; he standing +there in a garb as white as their own--it made a rare picture--a sweet +memory--and it was the last time he ever gave advice from the platform to +any one. + +Edward S. Martin also spoke to the school, and then there was a great +feasting in the big assembly-hall. + +It was on the lawn that a reporter approached him with the news of the +death of Edward Everett Hale--another of the old group. Clemens said +thoughtfully, after a moment: + +"I had the greatest respect and esteem for Edward Everett Hale, the +greatest admiration for his work. I am as grieved to hear of his death +as I can ever be to hear of the death of any friend, though my grief is +always tempered with the satisfaction of knowing that for the one that +goes, the hard, bitter struggle of life is ended." + +We were leaving the Belvedere next morning, and when the subject of +breakfast came up for discussion he said: + +"That was the most delicious Baltimore fried chicken we had yesterday +morning. I think we'll just repeat that order. It reminds me of John +Quarles's farm." + +We had been having our meals served in the rooms, but we had breakfast +that morning down in the diningroom, and "Francesca" and her mother were +there. + +As he stood on the railway platform waiting for the train, he told me how +once, fifty-five years before, as a boy of eighteen, he had changed cars +there for Washington and had barely caught his train--the crowd yelling +at him as he ran. + +We remained overnight in New York, and that evening, at the Grosvenor, he +read aloud a poem of his own which I had not seen before. He had brought +it along with some intention of reading it at St. Timothy's, he said, +but had not found the occasion suitable. + +"I wrote it a long time ago in Paris. I'd been reading aloud to Mrs. +Clemens and Susy--in'93, I think--about Lord Clive and Warren Hastings, +from Macaulay--how great they were and how far they fell. Then I took an +imaginary case--that of some old demented man mumbling of his former +state. I described him, and repeated some of his mumblings. Susy and +Mrs. Clemens said, 'Write it'--so I did, by and by, and this is it. I +call it 'The Derelict.'" + +He read in his effective manner that fine poem, the opening stanza of +which follows: + + You sneer, you ships that pass me by, + Your snow-pure canvas towering proud! + You traders base!--why, once such fry + Paid reverence, when like a cloud + Storm-swept I drove along, + My Admiral at post, his pennon blue + Faint in the wilderness of sky, my long + Yards bristling with my gallant crew, + My ports flung wide, my guns displayed, + My tall spars hid in bellying sail! + --You struck your topsails then, and made + Obeisance--now your manners fail. + +He had employed rhyme with more facility than was usual for him, and the +figure and phrasing were full of vigor. + +"It is strong and fine," I said, when he had finished. + +"Yes," he assented. "It seems so as I read it now. It is so long since +I have seen it that it is like reading another man's work. I should call +it good, I believe." + +He put the manuscript in his bag and walked up and down the floor +talking. + +"There is no figure for the human being like the ship," he said; "no such +figure for the storm-beaten human drift as the derelict--such men as +Clive and Hastings could only be imagined as derelicts adrift, helpless, +tossed by every wind and tide." + +We returned to Redding next day. On the train going home he fell to +talking of books and authors, mainly of the things he had never been able +to read. + +"When I take up one of Jane Austen's books," he said, "such as Pride and +Prejudice, I feel like a barkeeper entering the kingdom of heaven. I +know, what his sensation would be and his private comments. He would not +find the place to his taste, and he would probably say so." + +He recalled again how Stepniak had come to Hartford, and how humiliated +Mrs. Clemens had been to confess that her husband was not familiar with +the writings of Thackeray and others. + +"I don't know anything about anything," he said, mournfully, "and never +did. My brother used to try to get me to read Dickens, long ago. I +couldn't do it--I was ashamed; but I couldn't do it. Yes, I have read +The Tale of Two Cities, and could do it again. I have read it a good +many times; but I never could stand Meredith and most of the other +celebrities." + +By and by he handed me the Saturday Times Review, saying: + +"Here is a fine poem, a great poem, I think. I can stand that." + +It was "The Palatine (in the 'Dark Ages')," by Willa Sibert Cather, +reprinted from McClure's. The reader will understand better than I can +express why these lofty opening stanzas appealed to Mark Twain: + + THE PALATINE + + "Have you been with the King to Rome, + Brother, big brother?" + "I've been there and I've come home, + Back to your play, little brother." + + "Oh, how high is Caesar's house, + Brother, big brother?" + "Goats about the doorways browse; + Night-hawks nest in the burnt roof-tree, + Home of the wild bird and home of the bee. + A thousand chambers of marble lie + Wide to the sun and the wind and the sky. + Poppies we find amongst our wheat + Grow on Caesar's banquet seat. + Cattle crop and neatherds drowse + On the floors of Caesar's house." + + "But what has become of Caesar's gold, + Brother, big brother?" + "The times are bad and the world is old-- + Who knows the where of the Caesar's gold? + Night comes black on the Caesar's hill; + The wells are deep and the tales are ill. + Fireflies gleam in the damp and mold, + All that is left of the Caesar's gold. + Back to your play, little brother." + + +Farther along in our journey he handed me the paper again, pointing to +these lines of Kipling: + + How is it not good for the Christian's health + To hurry the Aryan brown, + For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, + And he weareth the Christian down; + And the end of the fight is a tombstone white + And the name of the late deceased: + And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here + Who tried to hustle the East." + + +"I could stand any amount of that," he said, and presently: "Life is too +long and too short. Too long for the weariness of it; too short for the +work to be done. At the very most, the average mind can only master a +few languages and a little history." + +I said: "Still, we need not worry. If death ends all it does not matter; +and if life is eternal there will be time enough." + +"Yes," he assented, rather grimly, "that optimism of yours is always +ready to turn hell's back yard into a playground." + +I said that, old as I was, I had taken up the study of French, and +mentioned Bayard Taylor's having begun Greek at fifty, expecting to need +it in heaven. + +Clemens said, reflectively: "Yes--but you see that was Greek." + + + + +CCLXXXI + +THE LAST SUMMER AT STORMFIELD + +I was at Stormfield pretty constantly during the rest of that year. At +first I went up only for the day; but later, when his health did not +improve, and when he expressed a wish for companionship evenings, I +remained most of the nights as well. Our rooms were separated only by a +bath-room; and as neither of us was much given to sleep, there was likely +to be talk or reading aloud at almost any hour when both were awake. In +the very early morning I would usually slip in, softly, sometimes to find +him propped up against his pillows sound asleep, his glasses on, the +reading-lamp blazing away as it usually did, day or night; but as often +as not he was awake, and would have some new plan or idea of which he was +eager to be delivered, and there was always interest, and nearly always +amusement in it, even if it happened to be three in the morning or +earlier. + +Sometimes, when he thought it time for me to be stirring, he would call +softly, but loudly enough for me to hear if awake; and I would go in, and +we would settle again problems of life and death and science, or, rather, +he would settle them while I dropped in a remark here and there, merely +to hold the matter a little longer in solution. + +The pains in his breast came back, and with a good deal of frequency as +the summer advanced; also, they became more severe. Dr. Edward Quintard +came up from New York, and did not hesitate to say that the trouble +proceeded chiefly from the heart, and counseled diminished smoking, with +less active exercise, advising particularly against Clemens's lifetime +habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs. + +There was no prohibition as to billiards, however, or leisurely walking, +and we played pretty steadily through those peaceful summer days, and +often took a walk down into the meadows or perhaps in the other +direction, when it was not too warm or windy. Once we went as far as the +river, and I showed him a part of his land he had not seen before--a +beautiful cedar hillside, remote and secluded, a place of enchantment. +On the way I pointed out a little corner of land which earlier he had +given me to straighten our division line. I told him I was going to +build a study on it, and call it "Markland." He thought it an admirable +building-site, and I think he was pleased with the name. Later he said: + +"If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine [the Rogers +table, which had been left in New York] I would turn it over to you." + +I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit a +billiard-table, and he said: + +"Now that will be very good. Then, when I want exercise, I can walk down +and play billiards with you, and when you want exercise you can walk up +and play billiards with me. You must build that study." + +So it was we planned, and by and by Mr. Lounsbury had undertaken the +work. + +During the walks Clemens rested a good deal. There were the New England +hills to climb, and then he found that he tired easily, and that +weariness sometimes brought on the pain. As I remember now, I think how +bravely he bore it. It must have been a deadly, sickening, numbing pain, +for I have seen it crumple him, and his face become colorless while his +hand dug at his breast; but he never complained, he never bewailed, and +at billiards he would persist in going on and playing in his turn, even +while he was bowed with the anguish of the attack. + +We had found that a glass of very hot water relieved it, and we kept +always a thermos bottle or two filled and ready. At the first hint from +him I would pour out a glass and another, and sometimes the relief came +quickly; but there were times, and alas! they came oftener, when that +deadly gripping did not soon release him. Yet there would come a week or +a fortnight when he was apparently perfectly well, and at such times we +dismissed the thought of any heart malady, and attributed the whole +trouble to acute indigestion, from which he had always suffered more or +less. + +We were alone together most of the time. He did not appear to care for +company that summer. Clara Clemens had a concert tour in prospect, and +her father, eager for her success, encouraged her to devote a large part +of her time to study. For Jean, who was in love with every form of +outdoor and animal life, he had established headquarters in a vacant +farm-house on one corner of the estate, where she had collected some +stock and poultry, and was over-flowingly happy. Ossip Gabrilowitsch was +a guest in the house a good portion of the summer, but had been invalided +through severe surgical operations, and for a long time rarely appeared, +even at meal-times. So it came about that there could hardly have been a +closer daily companionship than was ours during this the last year of +Mark Twain's life. For me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again +in this world. One is not likely to associate twice with a being from +another star. + + + + +CCLXXXII + +PERSONAL MEMORANDA + +In the notes I made of this period I caught a little drift of personality +and utterance, and I do not know better how to preserve these things than +to give them here as nearly as may be in the sequence and in the forth in +which they were set down. + +One of the first of these entries occurs in June, when Clemens was +rereading with great interest and relish Andrew D. White's Science and +Theology, which he called a lovely book.--['A History of the Warfare of +Science with Theology in Christendom'.] + June 21. A peaceful afternoon, and we walked farther than usual, + resting at last in the shade of a tree in the lane that leads to + Jean's farm-house. I picked a dandelion-ball, with some remark + about its being one of the evidences of the intelligent principle in + nature--the seeds winged for a wider distribution. + + "Yes," he said, "those are the great evidences; no one who reasons + can doubt them." + + And presently he added: + + "That is a most amusing book of White's. When you read it you see + how those old theologians never reasoned at all. White tells of an + old bishop who figured out that God created the world in an instant + on a certain day in October exactly so many years before Christ, and + proved it. And I knew a preacher myself once who declared that the + fossils in the rocks proved nothing as to the age of the world. He + said that God could create the rocks with those fossils in them for + ornaments if He wanted to. Why, it takes twenty years to build a + little island in the Mississippi River, and that man actually + believed that God created the whole world and all that's in it in + six days. White tells of another bishop who gave two new reasons + for thunder; one being that God wanted to show the world His power, + and another that He wished to frighten sinners to repent. Now + consider the proportions of that conception, even in the pettiest + way you can think of it. Consider the idea of God thinking of all + that. Consider the President of the United States wanting to + impress the flies and fleas and mosquitoes, getting up on the dome + of the Capitol and beating a bass-drum and setting off red fire." + +He followed the theme a little further, then we made our way slowly back +up the long hill, he holding to my arm, and resting here and there, but +arriving at the house seemingly fresh and ready for billiards. + + June 23. I came up this morning with a basket of strawberries. He + was walking up and down, looking like an ancient Roman. He said: + + "Consider the case of Elsie Sigel--[Granddaughter of Gen. Franz + Sigel. She was mysteriously murdered while engaged in settlement + work among the Chinese.]--what a ghastly ending to any life!" + + Then turning upon me fiercely, he continued: + + "Anybody that knows anything knows that there was not a single life + that was ever lived that was worth living. Not a single child ever + begotten that the begetting of it was not a crime. Suppose a + community of people to be living on the slope of a volcano, directly + under the crater and in the path of lava-flow; that volcano has been + breaking out right along for ages and is certain to break out again. + They do not know when it will break out, but they know it will do + it--that much can be counted on. Suppose those people go to a + community in a far neighborhood and say, 'We'd like to change places + with you. Come take our homes and let us have yours.' Those people + would say, 'Never mind, we are not interested in your country. We + know what has happened there, and what will happen again.' We don't + care to live under the blow that is likely to fall at any moment; + and yet every time we bring a child into the world we are bringing + it to a country, to a community gathered under the crater of a + volcano, knowing that sooner or later death will come, and that + before death there will be catastrophes infinitely worse. Formerly + it was much worse than now, for before the ministers abolished hell + a man knew, when he was begetting a child, that he was begetting a + soul that had only one chance in a hundred of escaping the eternal + fires of damnation. He knew that in all probability that child + would be brought to damnation--one of the ninety-nine black sheep. + But since hell has been abolished death has become more welcome. + I wrote a fairy story once. It was published somewhere. I don't + remember just what it was now, but the substance of it was that a + fairy gave a man the customary wishes. I was interested in seeing + what he would take. First he chose wealth and went away with it, + but it did not bring him happiness. Then he came back for the + second selection, and chose fame, and that did not bring happiness + either. Finally he went to the fairy and chose death, and the fairy + said, in substance, 'If you hadn't been a fool you'd have chosen + that in the first place.' + + "The papers called me a pessimist for writing that story. + Pessimist--the man who isn't a pessimist is a d---d fool." + +But this was one of his savage humors, stirred by tragic circumstance. +Under date of July 5th I find this happier entry: + + We have invented a new game, three-ball carom billiards, each player + continuing until he has made five, counting the number of his shots + as in golf, the one who finishes in the fewer shots wins. It is a + game we play with almost exactly equal skill, and he is highly + pleased with it. He said this afternoon: + + "I have never enjoyed billiards as I do now. I look forward to it + every afternoon as my reward at the end of a good day's work."--[His + work at this time was an article on Marjorie Fleming, the "wonder + child," whose quaint writings and brief little life had been + published to the world by Dr. John Brown. Clemens always adored the + thought of Marjorie, and in this article one can see that she ranked + almost next to Joan of Arc in his affections.] + +We went out in the loggia by and by and Clemens read aloud from a book +which Professor Zubelin left here a few days ago--'The Religion of a +Democrat'. Something in it must have suggested to Clemens his favorite +science, for presently he said: + + "I have been reading an old astronomy; it speaks of the perfect line + of curvature of the earth in spite of mountains and abysses, and I + have imagined a man three hundred thousand miles high picking up a + ball like the earth and looking at it and holding it in his hand. + It would be about like a billiard-ball to him, and he would turn it + over in his hand and rub it with his thumb, and where he rubbed over + the mountain ranges he might say, 'There seems to be some slight + roughness here, but I can't detect it with my eye; it seems + perfectly smooth to look at.' The Himalayas to him, the highest + peak, would be one-sixty-thousandth of his height, or about the one- + thousandth part of an inch as compared with the average man." + +I spoke of having somewhere read of some very tiny satellites, one as +small, perhaps, as six miles in diameter, yet a genuine world. + +"Could a man live on a world so small as that?" I asked. + + "Oh yes," he said. "The gravitation that holds it together would + hold him on, and he would always seem upright, the same as here. + His horizon would be smaller, but even if he were six feet tall he + would only have one foot for each mile of that world's diameter, so + you see he would be little enough, even for a world that he could + walk around in half a day." + +He talked astronomy a great deal--marvel astronomy. He had no real +knowledge of the subject, and I had none of any kind, which made its +ungraspable facts all the more thrilling. He was always thrown into a +sort of ecstasy by the unthinkable distances of space--the supreme drama +of the universe. The fact that Alpha Centauri was twenty-five trillions +of miles away--two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance of our +own remote sun, and that our solar system was traveling, as a whole, +toward the bright star Vega, in the constellation of Lyra, at the rate of +forty-four miles a second, yet would be thousands upon thousands of years +reaching its destination, fairly enraptured him. + +The astronomical light-year--that is to say, the distance which light +travels in a year--was one of the things which he loved to contemplate; +but he declared that no two authorities ever figured it alike, and that +he was going to figure it for himself. I came in one morning, to find +that he had covered several sheets of paper with almost interminable rows +of ciphers, and with a result, to him at least, entirely satisfactory. +I am quite certain that he was prouder of those figures and their +enormous aggregate than if he had just completed an immortal tale; and +when he added that the nearest fixed star--Alpha Centauri--was between +four and five light-years distant from the earth, and that there was no +possible way to think that distance in miles or even any calculable +fraction of it, his glasses shone and his hair was roached up as with the +stimulation of these stupendous facts. + +By and by he said: + +"I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, +and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment +of my life if I don't go out with Halley's comet. The Almighty has said, +no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in +together, they must go out together.' Oh! I am looking forward to +that." And a little later he added: + +"I've got some kind of a heart disease, and Quintard won't tell me +whether it is the kind that carries a man off in an instant or keeps him +lingering along and suffering for twenty years or so. I was in hopes +that Quintard would tell me that I was likely to drop dead any minute; +but he didn't. He only told me that my blood-pressure was too strong. +He didn't give me any schedule; but I expect to go with Halley's comet." + +I seem to have omitted making any entries for a few days; but among his +notes I find this entry, which seems to refer to some discussion of a +favorite philosophy, and has a special interest of its own: + + July 14, 1909. Yesterday's dispute resumed, I still maintaining + that, whereas we can think, we generally don't do it. Don't do it, + & don't have to do it: we are automatic machines which act + unconsciously. From morning till sleeping-time, all day long. All + day long our machinery is doing things from habit & instinct, & + without requiring any help or attention from our poor little 7-by-9 + thinking apparatus. This reminded me of something: thirty years + ago, in Hartford, the billiard-room was my study, & I wrote my + letters there the first thing every morning. My table lay two + points off the starboard bow of the billiard-table, & the door of + exit and entrance bore northeast&-by-east-half-east from that + position, consequently you could see the door across the length of + the billiard-table, but you couldn't see the floor by the said + table. I found I was always forgetting to ask intruders to carry my + letters down-stairs for the mail, so I concluded to lay them on the + floor by the door; then the intruder would have to walk over them, & + that would indicate to him what they were there for. Did it? No, + it didn't. He was a machine, & had habits. Habits take precedence + of thought. + + Now consider this: a stamped & addressed letter lying on the floor-- + lying aggressively & conspicuously on the floor--is an unusual + spectacle; so unusual a spectacle that you would think an intruder + couldn't see it there without immediately divining that it was not + there by accident, but had been deliberately placed there & for a + definite purpose. Very well--it may surprise you to learn that that + most simple & most natural & obvious thought would never occur to + any intruder on this planet, whether he be fool, half-fool, or the + most brilliant of thinkers. For he is always an automatic machine & + has habits, & his habits will act before his thinking apparatus can + get a chance to exert its powers. My scheme failed because every + human being has the habit of picking up any apparently misplaced + thing & placing it where it won't be stepped on. + + My first intruder was George. He went and came without saying + anything. Presently I found the letters neatly piled up on the + billiard-table. I was astonished. I put them on the floor again. + The next intruder piled them on the billiard-table without a word. + I was profoundly moved, profoundly interested. So I set the trap + again. Also again, & again, & yet again--all day long. I caught + every member of the family, & every servant; also I caught the three + finest intellects in the town. In every instance old, time-worn + automatic habit got in its work so promptly that the thinking + apparatus never got a chance. + +I do not remember this particular discussion, but I do distinctly recall +being one of those whose intelligence was not sufficient to prevent my +picking up the letter he had thrown on the floor in front of his bed, and +being properly classified for doing it. + +Clemens no longer kept note-books, as in an earlier time, but set down +innumerable memoranda-comments, stray reminders, and the like--on small +pads, and bunches of these tiny sheets accumulated on his table and about +his room. I gathered up many of them then and afterward, and a few of +these characteristic bits may be offered here. + + + KNEE + +It is at our mother's knee that we acquire our noblest & truest & highest +ideals, but there is seldom any money in them. + + + JEHOVAH + +He is all-good. He made man for hell or hell for man, one or the other-- +take your choice. He made it hard to get into heaven and easy to get +into hell. He commended man to multiply & replenish-what? Hell. + + + MODESTY ANTEDATES CLOTHES + +& will be resumed when clothes are no more. +[The latter part of this aphorism is erased and underneath it he adds:] + + + MODESTY DIED + +when clothes were born. + + + MODESTY DIED +when false modesty was born. + + + HISTORY + +A historian who would convey the truth has got to lie. Often he must +enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to +see it. + + + MORALS + +are not the important thing--nor enlightenment--nor civilization. A man +can do absolutely well without them, but he can't do without something to +eat. The supremest thing is the needs of the body, not of the mind & +spirit. + + + SUGGESTION + +There is conscious suggestion & there is unconscious suggestion--both +come from outside--whence all ideas come. + DUELS + +I think I could wipe out a dishonor by crippling the other man, but I +don't see how I could do it by letting him cripple me. + +I have no feeling of animosity toward people who do not believe as I do; +I merely do not respect 'em. In some serious matters (relig.) I would +have them burnt. + +I am old now and once was a sinner. I often think of it with a kind of +soft regret. I trust my days are numbered. I would not have that detail +overlooked. + +She was always a girl, she was always young because her heart was young; +& I was young because she lived in my heart & preserved its youth from +decay. + + + +He often busied himself working out more extensively some of the ideas +that came to him--moral ideas, he called them. One fancy which he +followed in several forms (some of them not within the privilege of +print) was that of an inquisitive little girl, Bessie, who pursues her +mother with difficult questionings.--[Under Appendix w, at the end of +this volume, the reader will find one of the "Bessie" dialogues.]--He +read these aloud as he finished them, and it is certain that they lacked +neither logic nor humor. + +Sometimes he went to a big drawer in his dresser, where he kept his +finished manuscripts, and took them out and looked over them, and read +parts of them aloud, and talked of the plans he had had for them, and how +one idea after another had been followed for a time and had failed to +satisfy him in the end. + +Two fiction schemes that had always possessed him he had been unable to +bring to any conclusion. Both of these have been mentioned in former +chapters; one being the notion of a long period of dream-existence during +a brief moment of sleep, and the other being the story of a mysterious +visitant from another realm. He had experimented with each of these +ideas in no less than three forms, and there was fine writing and +dramatic narrative in all; but his literary architecture had somehow +fallen short of his conception. "The Mysterious Stranger" in one of its +forms I thought might be satisfactorily concluded, and he admitted that +he could probably end it without much labor. He discussed something of +his plans, and later I found the notes for its conclusion. But I suppose +he was beyond the place where he could take up those old threads, though +he contemplated, fondly enough, the possibility, and recalled how he had +read at least one form of the dream tale to Howells, who had urged him to +complete it. + + + + +CCLXXXIII + +ASTRONOMY AND DREAMS + +August 5, 1909. This morning I noticed on a chair a copy of Flaubert's +Salammbo which I recently lent him. I asked if he liked it. + +"No," he said, "I didn't like any of it." + +"But you read it?" + +"Yes, I read every line of it." + +"You admitted its literary art?" + +"Well, it's like this: If I should go to the Chicago stockyards and they +should kill a beef and cut it up and the blood should splash all over +everything, and then they should take me to another pen and kill another +beef and the blood should splash over everything again, and so on to pen +after pen, I should care for it about as much as I do for that book." + +"But those were bloody days, and you care very much for that period in +history." + +"Yes, that is so. But when I read Tacitus and know that I am reading +history I can accept it as such and supply the imaginary details and +enjoy it, but this thing is such a continuous procession of blood and +slaughter and stench it worries me. It has great art--I can see that. +That scene of the crucified lions and the death canon and the tent scene +are marvelous, but I wouldn't read that book again without a salary." + +August 16. He is reading Suetonius, which he already knows by heart--so +full of the cruelties and licentiousness of imperial Rome. + +This afternoon he began talking about Claudius. + +"They called Claudius a lunatic," he said, "but just see what nice +fancies he had. He would go to the arena between times and have captives +and wild beasts brought out and turned in together for his special +enjoyment. Sometimes when there were no captives on hand he would say, +'Well, never mind; bring out a carpenter.' Carpentering around the arena +wasn't a popular job in those days. He went visiting once to a province +and thought it would be pleasant to see how they disposed of criminals +and captives in their crude, old-fashioned way, but there was no +executioner on hand. No matter; the Emperor of Rome was in no hurry--he +would wait. So he sat down and stayed there until an executioner came." + +I said, "How do you account for the changed attitude toward these things? +We are filled with pity to-day at the thought of torture and suffering." + +"Ah! but that is because we have drifted that way and exercised the +quality of compassion. Relax a muscle and it soon loses its vigor; relax +that quality and in two generations--in one generation--we should be +gloating over the spectacle of blood and torture just the same. Why, I +read somewhere a letter written just before the Lisbon catastrophe in +1755 about a scene on the public square of Lisbon: A lot of stakes with +the fagots piled for burning and heretics chained for burning. The +square was crowded with men and women and children, and when those fires +were lighted, and the heretics began to shriek and writhe, those men and +women and children laughed so they were fairly beside themselves with the +enjoyment of the scene. The Greeks don't seem to have done these things. +I suppose that indicates earlier advancement in compassion." + +Colonel Harvey and Mr. Duneka came up to spend the night. Mr. Clemens +had one of his seizures during the evening. They come oftener and last +longer. One last night continued for an hour and a half. I slept there. + +September 7. To-day news of the North Pole discovered by Peary. Five +days ago the same discovery was reported by Cook. Clemens's comment: +"It's the greatest joke of the ages." But a moment later he referred to +the stupendous fact of Arcturus being fifty thousand times as big as the +sun. + +September 21. This morning he told me, with great glee, the dream he had +had just before wakening. He said: + + "I was in an automobile going slowly, with 'a little girl beside me, + and some uniformed person walking along by us. I said, 'I'll get + out and walk, too'; but the officer replied, 'This is only one of + the smallest of our fleet.' + + "Then I noticed that the automobile had no front, and there were two + cannons mounted where the front should be. I noticed, too, that we + were traveling very low, almost down on the ground. Presently we + got to the bottom of a hill and started up another, and I found + myself walking ahead of the 'mobile. I turned around to look for + the little girl, and instead of her I found a kitten capering beside + me, and when we reached the top of the hill we were looking out over + a most barren and desolate waste of sand-heaps without a speck of + vegetation anywhere, and the kitten said, 'This view beggars all + admiration.' Then all at once we were in a great group of people + and I undertook to repeat to them the kitten's remark, but when I + tried to do it the words were so touching that I broke down and + cried, and all the group cried, too, over the kitten's moving + remark." + + The joy with which he told this absurd sleep fancy made it supremely + ridiculous and we laughed until tears really came. + +One morning he said: "I was awake a good deal in the night, and I tried +to think of interesting things. I got to working out geological periods, +trying to think of some way to comprehend them, and then astronomical +periods. Of course it's impossible, but I thought of a plan that seemed +to mean something to me. I remembered that Neptune is two billion eight +hundred million miles away. That, of course, is incomprehensible, but +then there is the nearest fixed star with its twenty-five trillion miles- +-twenty-five trillion--or nearly a thousand times as far, and then I took +this book and counted the lines on a page and I found that there was an +average of thirty-two lines to the page and two hundred and forty pages, +and I figured out that, counting the distance to Neptune as one line, +there were still not enough lines in the book by nearly two thousand to +reach the nearest fixed star, and somehow that gave me a sort of dim idea +of the vastness of the distance and kind of a journey into space." + +Later I figured out another method of comprehending a little of that +great distance by estimating the existence of the human race at thirty +thousand years (Lord Kelvin's figures) and the average generation to have +been thirty-three years with a world population of 1,500,000,000 souls. +I assumed the nearest fixed star to be the first station in Paradise and +the first soul to have started thirty thousand years ago. Traveling at +the rate of about thirty miles a second, it would just now be arriving in +Alpha Centauri with all the rest of that buried multitude stringing out +behind at an average distance of twenty miles apart. + +Few things gave him more pleasure than the contemplation of such figures +as these. We made occasional business trips to New York, and during one +of them visited the Museum of Natural History to look at the brontosaur +and the meteorites and the astronomical model in the entrance hall. To +him these were the most fascinating things in the world. He contemplated +the meteorites and the brontosaur, and lost himself in strange and +marvelous imaginings concerning the far reaches of time and space whence +they had come down to us. + +Mark Twain lived curiously apart from the actualities of life. Dwelling +mainly among his philosophies and speculations, he observed vaguely, or +minutely, what went on about him; but in either case the fact took a +place, not in the actual world, but in a world within his consciousness, +or subconsciousness, a place where facts were likely to assume new and +altogether different relations from those they had borne in the physical +occurrence. It not infrequently happened, therefore, when he recounted +some incident, even the most recent, that history took on fresh and +startling forms. More than once I have known him to relate an occurrence +of the day before with a reality of circumstance that carried absolute +conviction, when the details themselves were precisely reversed. If his +attention were called to the discrepancy, his face would take on a blank +look, as of one suddenly aroused from dreamland, to be followed by an +almost childish interest in your revelation and ready acknowledgment of +his mistake. I do not think such mistakes humiliated him; but they often +surprised and, I think, amused him. + +Insubstantial and deceptive as was this inner world of his, to him it +must have been much more real than the world of flitting physical. +shapes about him. He would fix you keenly with his attention, but you +realized, at last, that he was placing you and seeing you not as a part +of the material landscape, but as an item of his own inner world--a world +in which philosophies and morals stood upright--a very good world indeed, +but certainly a topsy-turvy world when viewed with the eye of mere +literal scrutiny. And this was, mainly, of course, because the routine +of life did not appeal to him. Even members of his household did not +always stir his consciousness. + +He knew they were there; he could call them by name; he relied upon them; +but his knowledge of them always suggested the knowledge that Mount +Everest might have of the forests and caves and boulders upon its slopes, +useful, perhaps, but hardly necessary to the giant's existence, and in no +important matter a part of its greater life. + + + + +CCLXXXIV + +A LIBRARY CONCERT + +In a letter which Clemens wrote to Miss Wallace at this time, he tells of +a concert given at Stormfield on September 21st for the benefit of the +new Redding Library. Gabrilowitsch had so far recovered that he was up +and about and able to play. David Bispham, the great barytone, always +genial and generous, agreed to take part, and Clara Clemens, already +accustomed to public singing, was to join in the program. The letter to +Miss Wallace supplies the rest of the history. + We had a grand time here yesterday. Concert in aid of the little + library. + + TEAM + + Gabrilowitsch, pianist. + David Bispham, vocalist. + Clara Clemens, ditto. + Mark Twain, introduces of team. + + Detachments and squads and groups and singles came from everywhere- + Danbury, New Haven, Norwalk, Redding, Redding Ridge, Ridgefield, and + even from New York: some in 60-h.p. motor-cars, some in buggies and + carriages, and a swarm of farmer-young-folk on foot from miles + around--525 altogether. + + If we hadn't stopped the sale of tickets a day and a half before the + performance we should have been swamped. We jammed 160 into the + library (not quite all had seats), we filled the loggia, the dining- + room, the hall, clear into the billiard-room, the stairs, and the + brick-paved square outside the dining-room door. + + The artists were received with a great welcome, and it woke them up, + and I tell you they performed to the Queen's taste! The program was + an hour and three-quarters long and the encores added a half-hour to + it. The enthusiasm of the house was hair-lifting. They all stayed + an hour after the close to shake hands and congratulate. + + We had no dollar seats except in the library, but we accumulated + $372 for the Building Fund. We had tea at half past six for a + dozen--the Hawthornes, Jeannette Gilder, and her niece, etc.; and + after 8-o'clock dinner we had a private concert and a ball in the + bare-stripped library until 10; nobody present but the team and Mr. + and Mrs. Paine and Jean and her dog. And me. Bispham did "Danny + Deever" and the "Erlkonig" in his majestic, great organ-tones and + artillery, and Gabrilowitsch played the accompaniments as they were + never played before, I do suppose. + +There is not much to add to that account. Clemens, introducing the +performers, was the gay feature of the occasion. He spoke of the great +reputation of Bispham and Gabrilowitsch; then he said: + +"My daughter is not as famous as these gentlemen, but she is ever so much +better-looking." + +The music of the evening that followed, with Gabrilowitsch at the piano +and David Bispham to sing, was something not likely ever to be repeated. +Bispham sang the "Erlkonig" and "Killiecrankie" and the "Grenadiers" and +several other songs. He spoke of having sung Wagner's arrangement of the +"Grenadiers" at the composer's home following his death, and how none of +the family had heard it before. + +There followed dancing, and Jean Clemens, fine and handsome, apparently +full of life and health, danced down that great living-room as care-free +as if there was no shadow upon her life. And the evening was +distinguished in another way, for before it ended Clara Clemens had +promised Ossip Gabrilowitsch to become his wife. + + + + +CCLXXXV + +A WEDDING AT STORMFIELD + +The wedding of Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Clara Clemens was not delayed. +Gabrilowitsch had signed for a concert tour in Europe, and unless the +marriage took place forthwith it must be postponed many months. It +followed, therefore, fifteen days after the engagement. They were busy +days. Clemens, enormously excited and pleased over the prospect of the +first wedding in his family, personally attended to the selection of +those who were to have announcement-cards, employing a stenographer to +make the list. + +October 6th was a perfect wedding-day. It was one of those quiet, lovely +fall days when the whole world seems at peace. Claude, the butler, with +his usual skill in such matters, had decorated the great living-room with +gay autumn foliage and flowers, brought in mainly from the woods and +fields. They blended perfectly with the warm tones of the walls and +furnishings, and I do not remember ever having seen a more beautiful +room. Only relatives and a few of the nearest friends were invited to +the ceremony. The Twichells came over a day ahead, for Twichell, who had +assisted in the marriage rites between Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon, +was to perform that ceremony for their daughter now. A fellow-student of +the bride and groom when they had been pupils of Leschetizky, in Vienna-- +Miss Ethel Newcomb--was at the piano and played softly the Wedding March +from" Taunhauser." Jean Clemens was the only bridesmaid, and she was +stately and classically beautiful, with a proud dignity in her office. +Jervis Langdon, the bride's cousin and childhood playmate, acted as best +man, and Clemens, of course, gave the bride away. By request he wore his +scarlet Oxford gown over his snowy flannels, and was splendid beyond +words. I do not write of the appearance of the bride and groom, for +brides and grooms are always handsome and always happy, and certainly +these were no exception. It was all so soon over, the feasting ended, +and the principals whirling away into the future. I have a picture in my +mind of them seated together in the automobile, with Richard Watson +Gilder standing on the step for a last good-by, and before them a wide +expanse of autumn foliage and distant hills. I remember Gilder's voice +saying, when the car was on the turn, and they were waving back to us: + + "Over the hills and far away, + Beyond the utmost purple rim, + Beyond the night, beyond the day, + Through all the world she followed him." + +The matter of the wedding had been kept from the newspapers until the eve +of the wedding, when the Associated Press had been notified. A +representative was there; but Clemens had characteristically interviewed +himself on the subject, and it was only necessary to hand the reporter a +typewritten copy. Replying to the question (put to himself), "Are you +pleased with the marriage?" he answered: + + Yes, fully as much as any marriage could please me or any other + father. There are two or three solemn things in life and a happy + marriage is one of them, for the terrors of life are all to come. + I am glad of this marriage, and Mrs. Clemens would be glad, for she + always had a warm affection for Gabrilowitsch. + +There was another wedding at Stormfield on the following afternoon--an +imitation wedding. Little Joy came up with me, and wished she could +stand in just the spot where she had seen the bride stand, and she +expressed a wish that she could get married like that. Clemens said: + +"Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it." + +Then he happened to remember a ridiculous boy-doll--a white-haired +creature with red coat and green trousers, a souvenir imitation of +himself from one of the Rogerses' Christmas trees. He knew where it was, +and he got it out. Then he said: + +"Now, Joy, we will have another wedding. This is Mr. Colonel Williams, +and you are to become his wedded wife." + +So Joy stood up very gravely and Clemens performed the ceremony, and I +gave the bride away, and Joy to him became Mrs. Colonel Williams +thereafter, and entered happily into her new estate. + + + + +CCLXXXVI + +AUTUMN DAYS + +A harvest of letters followed the wedding: a general congratulatory +expression, mingled with admiration, affection, and good-will. In his +interview Clemens had referred to the pain in his breast; and many begged +him to deny that there was anything serious the matter with him, urging +him to try this relief or that, pathetically eager for his continued life +and health. They cited the comfort he had brought to world-weary +humanity and his unfailing stand for human justice as reasons why he +should live. Such letters could not fail to cheer him. + +A letter of this period, from John Bigelow, gave him a pleasure of its +own. Clemens had written Bigelow, apropos of some adverse expression on +the tariff: + + Thank you for any hard word you can say about the tariff. I guess + the government that robs its own people earns the future it is + preparing for itself. + +Bigelow was just then declining an invitation to the annual dinner of the +Chamber of Commerce. In sending his regrets he said: + + The sentiment I would propose if I dared to be present would be the + words of Mark Twain, the statesman: + + "The government that robs its own people earns the future it is + preparing for itself." + +Now to Clemens himself he wrote: + + Rochefoucault never said a cleverer thing, nor Dr. Franklin a wiser + one . . . . Be careful, or the Demos will be running you for + President when you are not on your guard. + + Yours more than ever, + JOHN BIGELOW. + + +Among the tributes that came, was a sermon by the Rev. Fred Window Adams, +of Schenectady, New York, with Mark Twain as its subject. Mr. Adams +chose for his text, "Take Mark and bring him with thee; for he is +profitable for the ministry," and he placed the two Marks, St. Mark and +Mark Twain, side by side as ministers to humanity, and characterized him +as "a fearless knight of righteousness." A few weeks later Mr. Adams +himself came to Stormfield, and, like all open-minded ministers of the +Gospel, he found that he could get on very well indeed with Mark Twain. + +In spite of the good-will and the good wishes Clemens's malady did not +improve. As the days grew chillier he found that he must remain closer +indoors. The cold air seemed to bring on the pains, and they were +gradually becoming more severe; then, too, he did not follow the doctor's +orders in the matter of smoking, nor altogether as to exercise. + +To Miss Wallace he wrote: + +I can't walk, I can't drive, I'm not down-stairs much, and I don't see +company, but I drink barrels of water to keep the pain quiet; I read, and +read, and read, and smoke, and smoke, and smoke all the time (as +formerly), and it's a contented and comfortable life. + +But this was not altogether accurate as to details. He did come down- +stairs many times daily, and he persisted in billiards regardless of the +paroxysms. We found, too, that the seizures were induced by mental +agitation. One night he read aloud to Jean and myself the first chapter +of an article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," which he was preparing for +Harper's Bazar. He had begun it with one of his impossible burlesque +fancies, and he felt our attitude of disappointment even before any word +had been said. Suddenly he rose, and laying his hand on his breast said, +"I must lie down," and started toward the stair. I supported him to his +room and hurriedly poured out the hot water. He drank it and dropped +back on the bed. + +"Don't speak to me," he said; "don't make me talk." + +Jean came in, and we sat there several moments in silence. I think we +both wondered if this might not be the end; but presently he spoke of his +own accord, declaring he was better, and ready for billiards. + +We played for at least an hour afterward, and he seemed no worse for the +attack. It is a curious malady--that angina; even the doctors are +acquainted with its manifestations, rather than its cause. Clemens's +general habits of body and mind were probably not such as to delay its +progress; furthermore, there had befallen him that year one of those +misfortunes which his confiding nature peculiarly invited--a betrayal of +trust by those in whom it had been boundlessly placed--and it seems +likely that the resulting humiliation aggravated his complaint. The +writing of a detailed history of this episode afforded him occupation and +a certain amusement, but probably did not contribute to his health. One +day he sent for his attorney, Mr. Charles T. Lark, and made some final +revisions in his will.--[Mark Twain's estate, later appraised at +something more than $600,000 was left in the hands of trustees for his +daughters. The trustees were Edward E. Loomis, Jervis Langdon, and +Zoheth S. Freeman. The direction of his literary affairs was left to his +daughter Clara and the writer of this history.] + +To see him you would never have suspected that he was ill. He was in +good flesh, and his movement was as airy and his eye as bright and his +face as full of bloom as at any time during the period I had known him; +also, he was as light-hearted and full of ideas and plans, and he was +even gentler--having grown mellow with age and retirement, like good +wine. + +And of course he would find amusement in his condition. He said: + +"I have always pretended to be sick to escape visitors; now, for the +first time, I have got a genuine excuse. It makes me feel so honest." + +And once, when Jean reported a caller in the livingroom, he said: + +"Jean, I can't see her. Tell her I am likely to drop dead any minute and +it would be most embarrassing." + +But he did see her, for it was a poet--Angela Morgan--and he read her +poem, "God's Man," aloud with great feeling, and later he sold it for her +to Collier's Weekly. + +He still had violent rages now and then, remembering some of the most +notable of his mistakes; and once, after denouncing himself, rather +inclusively, as an idiot, he said: + +"I wish to God the lightning would strike me; but I've wished that fifty +thousand times and never got anything out of it yet. I have missed +several good chances. Mrs. Clemens was afraid of lightning, and would +never let me bare my head to the storm." + +The element of humor was never lacking, and the rages became less violent +and less frequent. + +I was at Stormfield steadily now, and there was a regular routine of +afternoon sessions of billiards or reading, in which we were generally +alone; for Jean, occupied with her farming and her secretary labors, +seldom appeared except at meal-times. Occasionally she joined in the +billiard games; but it was difficult learning and her interest was not +great. She would have made a fine player, for she had a natural talent +for games, as she had for languages, and she could have mastered the +science of angles as she had mastered tennis and French and German and +Italian. She had naturally a fine intellect, with many of her father's +characteristics, and a tender heart that made every dumb creature her +friend. + +Katie Leary, who had been Jean's nurse, once told how, as a little child, +Jean had not been particularly interested in a picture of the Lisbon +earthquake, where the people were being swallowed up; but on looking at +the next page, which showed a number of animals being overwhelmed, she +had said: + +"Poor things!" + +Katie said: + +"Why, you didn't say that about the people!" + +But Jean answered: + +"Oh, they could speak." + +One night at the dinner-table her father was saying how difficult it must +be for a man who had led a busy life to give up the habit of work. + +"That is why the Rogerses kill themselves," he said. "They would rather +kill themselves in the old treadmill than stop and try to kill time. +They have forgotten how to rest. They know nothing but to keep on till +they drop." + +I told of something I had read not long before. It was about an aged +lion that had broken loose from his cage at Coney Island. He had not +offered to hurt any one; but after wandering about a little, rather +aimlessly, he had come to a picket-fence, and a moment later began pacing +up and down in front of it, just the length of his cage. They had come +and led him back to his prison without trouble, and he had rushed eagerly +into it. I noticed that Jean was listening anxiously, and when I +finished she said: + +"Is that a true story?" + +She had forgotten altogether the point in illustration. She was +concerned only with the poor old beast that had found no joy in his +liberty. + +Among the letters that Clemens wrote just then was one to Miss Wallace, +in which he described the glory of the fall colors as seen from his +windows. + + The autumn splendors passed you by? What a pity! I wish you had + been here. It was beyond words! It was heaven & hell & sunset & + rainbows & the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, & you + couldn't look at it and keep the tears back. + + Such a singing together, & such a whispering together, & such a + snuggling together of cozy, soft colors, & such kissing & caressing, + & such pretty blushing when the sun breaks out & catches those + dainty weeds at it--you remember that weed-garden of mine?--& then-- + then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance--oh, hearing about + it is nothing, you should be here to see it! + +In the same letter he refers to some work that he was writing for his own +satisfaction--'Letters from the Earth'; said letters supposed to have +been written by an immortal visitant and addressed to other immortals in +some remote sphere. + + I'll read passages to you. This book will never be published-- + in fact it couldn't be, because it would be felony . . . Paine + enjoys it, but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I + suppose. + +I very well remember his writing those 'Letters from the Earth'. He read +them to me from time to time as he wrote them, and they were fairly +overflowing with humor and philosophy and satire concerning the human +race. The immortal visitor pointed out, one after another, the +absurdities of mankind, his ridiculous conception of heaven, and his +special conceit in believing that he was the Creator's pet--the +particular form of life for which all the universe was created. Clemens +allowed his exuberant fancy free rein, being under no restrictions as to +the possibility of print or public offense. He enjoyed them himself, +too, as he read them aloud, and we laughed ourselves weak over his bold +imaginings. + +One admissible extract will carry something of the flavor of these +chapters. It is where the celestial correspondent describes man's +religion. + + His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, + grotesque. I give you my word it has not a single feature in it + that he actually values. It consists--utterly and entirely--of + diversions which he cares next to nothing about here in the earth, + yet he is quite sure he will like in heaven. Isn't it curious? + Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it + is not so. I will give you the details. + + Most, men do not sing, most men cannot sing, most men will not stay + where others are singing if it be continued more than two hours. + Note that. + + Only about two men in a hundred can play upon a musical instrument, + and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that + down. + + Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few pray long, the + others make a short-cut. + + More men go to church than want to. + + To forty-nine men in fifty the Sabbath day is a dreary, dreary bore. + + Further, all sane people detest noise. + + All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their lives. + Monotony quickly wearies them. + + Now then, you have the facts. You know what men don't enjoy. Well, + they have invented a heaven, out of their own heads, all by + themselves; guess what it is like? In fifteen hundred years you + couldn't do it. They have left out the very things they care for + most their dearest pleasures--and replaced them with prayer! + + In man's heaven everybody sings. There are no exceptions. The man + who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on + earth sings there. Thus universal singing is not casual, not + occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on all day + long and every day during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody + stays where on earth the place would be empty in two hours. The + singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is one hymn alone. The words + are always the same in number--they are only about a dozen--there is + no rhyme--there is no poetry. "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna unto the + highest!" and a few such phrases constitute the whole service. + + Meantime, every person is playing on a harp! Consider the deafening + hurricane of sound. Consider, further, it is a praise service--a + service of compliment, flattery, adulation. Do you ask who it is + that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane + compliment, and who not only endures it but likes it, enjoys it, + requires it, commands it? Hold your breath: It is God! This race's + God I mean--their own pet invention. + +Most of the ideas presented in this his last commentary on human +absurdities were new only as to phrasing. He had exhausted the topic +long ago, in one way or another; but it was one of the themes in which he +never lost interest. Many subjects became stale to him at last; but the +curious invention called man remained a novelty to him to the end. + +From my note-book: + + October 25. I am constantly amazed at his knowledge of history--all + history--religious, political, military. He seems to have read + everything in the world concerning Rome, France, and England + particularly. + + Last night we stopped playing billiards while he reviewed, in the + most vivid and picturesque phrasing, the reasons of Rome's decline. + Such a presentation would have enthralled any audience--I could not + help feeling a great pity that he had not devoted some of his public + effort to work of that sort. No one could have equaled him at it. + He concluded with some comments on the possibility of America + following Rome's example, though he thought the vote of the people + would always, or at least for a long period, prevent imperialism. + + November 1. To-day he has been absorbed in his old interest in + shorthand. "It is the only rational alphabet," he declared. "All + this spelling reform is nonsense. What we need is alphabet reform, + and shorthand is the thing. Take the letter M, for instance; it is + made with one stroke in shorthand, while in longhand it requires at + least three. The word Mephistopheles can be written in shorthand + with one-sixth the number of strokes that is required in longhand. + I tell you shorthand should be adopted as the alphabet." + + I said: "There is this objection: the characters are so slightly + different that each writer soon forms a system of his own and it is + seldom that two can read each other's notes." + + "You are talking of stenographic reporting," he said, rather warmly. + "Nothing of the kind is true in the case of the regular alphabet. + It is perfectly clear and legible." + + "Would you have it in the schools, then?" + + "Yes, it should be taught in the schools, not for stenographic + purposes, but only for use in writing to save time." + + He was very much in earnest, and said he had undertaken an article + on the subject. + + November 3. He said he could not sleep last night, for thinking + what a fool he had been in his various investments. + + "I have always been the victim of somebody," he said, "and always an + idiot myself, doing things that even a child would not do. Never + asking anybody's advice--never taking it when it was offered. I + can't see how anybody could do the things I have done and have kept + right on doing." + I could see that the thought agitated him, and I suggested that we + go to his room and read, which we did, and had a riotous time over + the most recent chapters of the 'Letters from the Earth', and some + notes he had made for future chapters on infant damnation and other + distinctive features of orthodox creeds. He told an anecdote of an + old minister who declared that Presbyterianism without infant + damnation would be like the dog on the train that couldn't be + identified because it had lost its tag. + + Somewhat on the defensive I said, "But we must admit that the so- + called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive." + + He answered, "Yes, but in spite of their religion, not because of + it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the + day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetics in + child-birth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical + curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and + geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. + The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five + hundred years before the Christian religion was born. + + "I have been reading Gibbon's celebrated Fifteenth Chapter," he said + later, "and I don't see what Christians found against it. It is so + mild--so gentle in its sarcasm." He added that he had been reading + also a little book of brief biographies and had found in it the + saying of Darwin's father, "Unitarianism is a featherbed to catch + falling Christians." + + "I was glad to find and identify that saying," he said; "it is so + good." + + He finished the evening by reading a chapter from Carlyle's French + Revolution--a fine pyrotechnic passage--the gathering at Versailles. + I said that Carlyle somehow reminded me of a fervid stump-speaker + who pounded his fists and went at his audience fiercely, determined + to convince them. + + "Yes," he said, "but he is the best one that ever lived." + + November 10. This morning early he heard me stirring and called. I + went in and found him propped up with a book, as usual. He said: + + "I seldom read Christmas stories, but this is very beautiful. It + has made me cry. I want you to read it." (It was Booth + Tarkington's 'Beasley's Christmas Party'.) "Tarkington has the true + touch," he said; "his work always satisfies me." Another book he + has been reading with great enjoyment is James Branch Cabell's + Chivalry. He cannot say enough of the subtle poetic art with which + Cabell has flung the light of romance about dark and sordid chapters + of history. + + + + +CCLXXVII + +MARK TWAIN'S READING + +Perhaps here one may speak of Mark Twain's reading in general. On the +table by him, and on his bed, and in the billiard-room shelves he kept +the books he read most. They were not many--not more than a dozen--but +they were manifestly of familiar and frequent usage. All, or nearly all, +had annotations--spontaneously uttered marginal notes, title prefatories, +or concluding comments. They were the books he had read again and again, +and it was seldom that he had not had something to say with each fresh +reading. + +There were the three big volumes by Saint-Simon--'The Memoirs'--which he +once told me he had read no less than twenty times. On the fly-leaf of +the first volume he wrote + +This, & Casanova & Pepys, set in parallel columns, could afford a good +coup d'oeil of French & English high life of that epoch. + +All through those finely printed volumes are his commentaries, sometimes +no more than a word, sometimes a filled, closely written margin. He +found little to admire in the human nature of Saint-Simon's period-- +little to approve in Saint-Simon himself beyond his unrestrained +frankness, which he admired without stint, and in one paragraph where the +details of that early period are set down with startling fidelity he +wrote: "Oh, incomparable Saint-Simon!" + +Saint-Simon is always frank, and Mark Twain was equally so. Where the +former tells one of the unspeakable compulsions of Louis XIV., the latter +has commented: + +We have to grant that God made this royal hog; we may also be permitted +to believe that it was a crime to do so. + +And on another page: + +In her memories of this period the Duchesse de St. Clair makes this +striking remark: "Sometimes one could tell a gentleman, but it was only +by his manner of using his fork." + +His comments on the orthodox religion of Saint-Simon's period are not +marked by gentleness. Of the author's reference to the Edict of Nantes, +which he says depopulated half of the realm, ruined its commerce, and +"authorized torments and punishments by which so many innocent people of +both sexes were killed by thousands," Clemens writes: + +So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the +Gospel: "Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is." +Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed +for many religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to +add that new law to its code. + +In the place where Saint-Simon describes the death of Monseigneur, son of +the king, and the court hypocrites are wailing their extravagantly +pretended sorrow, Clemens wrote: + +It is all so true, all so human. God made these animals. He must have +noticed this scene; I wish I knew how it struck Him. + +There were not many notes in the Suetonius, nor in the Carlyle +Revolution, though these were among the volumes he read oftenest. +Perhaps they expressed for him too completely and too richly their +subject-matter to require anything at his hand. Here and there are +marked passages and occasional cross-references to related history and +circumstance. + +There was not much room for comment on the narrow margins of the old copy +of Pepys, which he had read steadily since the early seventies; but here +and there a few crisp words, and the underscoring and marked passages are +plentiful enough to convey his devotion to that quaint record which, +perhaps next to Suetonius, was the book he read and quoted most. + +Francis Parkman's Canadian Histories he had read periodically, especially +the story of the Old Regime and of the Jesuits in North America. As late +as January, 1908, he wrote on the title-page of the Old Regime: + +Very interesting. It tells how people religiously and otherwise insane +came over from France and colonized Canada. + +He was not always complimentary to those who undertook to Christianize +the Indians; but he did not fail to write his admiration of their +courage--their very willingness to endure privation and even the fiendish +savage tortures for the sake of their faith. "What manner of men are +these?" he wrote, apropos of the account of Bressani, who had undergone +the most devilish inflictions which savage ingenuity could devise, and +yet returned maimed and disfigured the following spring to "dare again +the knives and fiery brand of the Iroquois." Clemens was likely to be on +the side of the Indians, but hardly in their barbarism. In one place he +wrote: + + That men should be willing to leave their happy homes and endure + what the missionaries endured in order to teach these Indians the + road to hell would be rational, understandable, but why they should + want to teach them a way to heaven is a thing which the mind somehow + cannot grasp. + +Other histories, mainly English and French, showed how he had read them-- +read and digested every word and line. There were two volumes of Lecky, +much worn; Andrew D. White's 'Science and Theology'--a chief interest for +at least one summer--and among the collection a well-worn copy of 'Modern +English Literature--Its Blemishes and Defects', by Henry H. Breen. On +the title-page of this book Clemens had written: + + HARTFORD, 1876. Use with care, for it is a scarce book. England + had to be ransacked in order to get it--or the bookseller speaketh + falsely. + +He once wrote a paper for the Saturday Morning Club, using for his text +examples of slipshod English which Breen had noted. + +Clemens had a passion for biography, and especially for autobiography, +diaries, letters, and such intimate human history. Greville's 'Journal +of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV.' he had read much and +annotated freely. Greville, while he admired Byron's talents, abhorred +the poet's personality, and in one place condemns him as a vicious person +and a debauchee. He adds: + +Then he despises pretenders and charlatans of all sorts, while he is +himself a pretender, as all men are who assume a character which does not +belong to them and affect to be something which they are all the time +conscious they are not in reality. + +Clemens wrote on the margin: + + But, dear sir, you are forgetting that what a man sees in the human + race is merely himself in the deep and honest privacy of his own + heart. Byron despised the race because he despised himself. I feel + as Byron did, and for the same reason. Do you admire the race (& + consequently yourself)? + +A little further along--where Greville laments that Byron can take no +profit to himself from the sinful characters he depicts so faithfully, +Clemens commented: + + If Byron--if any man--draws 50 characters, they are all himself--50 + shades, 50 moods, of his own character. And when the man draws them + well why do they stir my admiration? Because they are me--I + recognize myself. + +A volume of Plutarch was among the biographies that showed usage, and the +Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. Two Years Before the Mast he +loved, and never tired of. The more recent Memoirs of Andrew D. White +and Moncure D. Conway both, I remember, gave him enjoyment, as did the +Letters of Lowell. A volume of the Letters of Madame de Sevigne had some +annotated margins which were not complimentary to the translator, or for +that matter to Sevigne herself, whom he once designates as a "nauseating" +person, many of whose letters had been uselessly translated, as well as +poorly arranged for reading. But he would read any volume of letters or +personal memoirs; none were too poor that had the throb of life in them, +however slight. + +Of such sort were the books that Mark Twain had loved best, and such were +a few of his words concerning them. Some of them belong to his earlier +reading, and among these is Darwin's 'Descent of Man', a book whose +influence was always present, though I believe he did not read it any +more in later years. In the days I knew him he read steadily not much +besides Suetonius and Pepys and Carlyle. These and his simple +astronomies and geologies and the Morte Arthure and the poems of Kipling +were seldom far from his hand. + + + + +CCLXXXVIII + +A BERMUDA BIRTHDAY + +It was the middle of November, 1909, when Clemens decided to take another +Bermuda vacation, and it was the 19th that we sailed. I went to New York +a day ahead and arranged matters, and on the evening of the 18th received +the news that Richard Watson Gilder had suddenly died. + +Next morning there was other news. Clemens's old friend, William M. +Laffan, of the Sun, had died while undergoing a surgical operation. I +met Clemens at the train. He had already heard about Gilder; but he had +not yet learned of Laffan's death. He said: + +"That's just it. Gilder and Laffan get all the good things that come +along and I never get anything." + +Then, suddenly remembering, he added: + +"How curious it is! I have been thinking of Laffan coming down on the +train, and mentally writing a letter to him on this Stetson-Eddy affair." + +I asked when he had begun thinking of Laffan. + +He said: "Within the hour." + +It was within the hour that I had received the news, and naturally in my +mind had carried it instantly to him. Perhaps there was something +telepathic in it. + +He was not at all ill going down to Bermuda, which was a fortunate thing, +for the water was rough and I was quite disqualified. We did not even +discuss astronomy, though there was what seemed most important news--the +reported discovery of a new planet. + +But there was plenty of talk on the subject as soon as we got settled in +the Hamilton Hotel. It was windy and rainy out-of-doors, and we looked +out on the drenched semi-tropical foliage with a great bamboo swaying and +bending in the foreground, while he speculated on the vast distance that +the new planet must lie from our sun, to which it was still a satellite. +The report had said that it was probably four hundred billions of miles +distant, and that on this far frontier of the solar system the sun could +not appear to it larger than the blaze of a tallow candle. To us it was +wholly incredible how, in that dim remoteness, it could still hold true +to the central force and follow at a snail-pace, yet with unvarying +exactitude, its stupendous orbit. Clemens said that heretofore Neptune, +the planetary outpost of our system, had been called the tortoise of the +skies, but that comparatively it was rapid in its motion, and had become +a near neighbor. He was a good deal excited at first, having somehow the +impression that this new planet traveled out beyond the nearest fixed +star; but then he remembered that the distance to that first solar +neighbor was estimated in trillions, not billions, and that our little +system, even with its new additions, was a child's handbreadth on the +plane of the sky. He had brought along a small book called The Pith of +Astronomy--a fascinating little volume--and he read from it about the +great tempest of fire in the sun, where the waves of flame roll up two +thousand miles high, though the sun itself is such a tiny star in the +deeps of the universe. + +If I dwell unwarrantably on this phase of Mark Twain's character, it is +because it was always so fascinating to me, and the contemplation of the +drama of the skies always meant so much to him, and somehow always seemed +akin to him in its proportions. He had been born under a flaming star, a +wanderer of the skies. He was himself, to me, always a comet rushing +through space, from mystery to mystery, regardless of sun and systems. It +is not likely to rain long in Bermuda, and when the sun comes back it +brings summer, whatever the season. Within a day after our arrival we +were driving about those coral roads along the beaches, and by that +marvelously variegated water. We went often to the south shore, +especially to Devonshire Bay, where the reefs and the sea coloring seem +more beautiful than elsewhere. Usually, when we reached the bay, we got +out to walk along the indurated shore, stopping here and there to look +out over the jeweled water liquid turquoise, emerald lapis-lazuli, jade, +the imperial garment of the Lord. + +At first we went alone with only the colored driver, Clifford Trott, +whose name Clemens could not recollect, though he was always attempting +resemblances with ludicrous results. A little later Helen Allen, an +early angel-fish member already mentioned, was with us and directed the +drives, for she had been born on the island and knew every attractive +locality, though, for that matter, it would be hard to find there a place +that was not attractive. + +Clemens, in fact, remained not many days regularly at the hotel. He kept +a room and his wardrobe there; but he paid a visit to Bay House--the +lovely and quiet home of Helen's parents--and prolonged it from day to +day, and from week to week, because it was a quiet and peaceful place +with affectionate attention and limitless welcome. Clifford Trott had +orders to come with the carriage each afternoon, and we drove down to Bay +House for Mark Twain and his playmate, and then went wandering at will +among the labyrinth of blossom-bordered, perfectly kept roadways of a +dainty paradise, that never, I believe, becomes quite a reality even to +those who know it best. + +Clemens had an occasional paroxysm during these weeks, but they were not +likely to be severe or protracted; and I have no doubt the peace of his +surroundings, the remoteness from disturbing events, as well as the balmy +temperature, all contributed to his improved condition. + +He talked pretty continuously during these drives, and he by no means +restricted his subjects to juvenile matters. He discussed history and +his favorite sciences and philosophies, and I am sure that his drift was +rarely beyond the understanding of his young companion, for it was Mark +Twain's gift to phrase his thought so that it commanded not only the +respect of age, but the comprehension and the interest of youth. +I remember that once he talked, during an afternoon's drive, on the +French Revolution and the ridiculous episode of Anacharsis Cloots, +"orator and advocate of the human race," collecting the vast populace of +France to swear allegiance to a king even then doomed to the block. The +very name of Cloots suggested humor, and nothing could have been more +delightful and graphic than the whole episode as he related it. +Helen asked if he thought such a thing as that could ever happen in +America. + +"No," he said, "the American sense of humor would have laughed it out of +court in a week; and the Frenchman dreads ridicule, too, though he never +seems to realize how ridiculous he is--the most ridiculous creature in +the world." + +On the morning of his seventy-fourth birthday he was looking wonderfully +well after a night of sound sleep, his face full of color and freshness, +his eyes bright and keen and full of good-humor. I presented him with a +pair of cuff-buttons silver-enameled with the Bermuda lily, and I thought +he seemed pleased with them. + +It was rather gloomy outside, so we remained indoors by the fire and +played cards, game after game of hearts, at which he excelled, and he was +usually kept happy by winning. There were no visitors, and after dinner +Helen asked him to read some of her favorite episodes from Tom Sawyer, so +he read the whitewashing scene, Peter and the Pain-killer, and such +chapters until tea-time. Then there was a birthday cake, and afterward +cigars and talk and a quiet fireside evening. + +Once, in the course of his talk, he forgot a word and denounced his poor +memory: + +"I'll forget the Lord's middle name some time," he declared, "right in +the midst of a storm, when I need all the help I can get." + +Later he said: + +"Nobody dreamed, seventy-four years ago to-day, that I would be in +Bermuda now." And I thought he meant a good deal more than the words +conveyed. + +It was during this Bermuda visit that Mark Twain added the finishing +paragraph to his article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," which, at +Howells's suggestion, he had been preparing for Harper's Bazar. It was a +characteristic touch, and, as the last summary of his philosophy of human +life, may be repeated here. + + Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of + yours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was + forged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of + me into the literary guild. Adam's temperament was the first + command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And + it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It + said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." + The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be + disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament--which he + did not create and had no authority over. For the temperament is + the man; the thing tricked out with clothes and named Man is merely + its Shadow, nothing more. The law of the tiger's temperament is, + Thou shaft kill; the law of the sheep's temperament is, Thou shalt + not kill. To issue later commands requiring the tiger to let the + fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to imbrue its hands in + the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those commands can't + be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law of + temperament, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other + authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. + That is, in their temperaments. Not in them, poor helpless young + creatures--afflicted with temperaments made out of butter, which + butter was commanded to get into contact with fire and be melted. + What I cannot help wishing is, that Adam and Eve had been postponed, + and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place--that splendid + pair equipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. + By neither sugary persuasions nor by hell-fire could Satan have + beguiled them to eat the apple. + + There would have been results! Indeed yes. The apple would be + intact to-day; there would be no human race; there would be no you; + there would be no me. And the old, old creation-dawn scheme of + ultimately launching me into the literary guild would have been + defeated. + + + + +CCLXXXIX + +THE DEATH OF JEAN + +He decided to go home for the holidays, and how fortunate it seems now +that he did so! We sailed for America on the 18th of December, arriving +the 21st. Jean was at the wharf to meet us, blue and shivering with the +cold, for it was wretchedly bleak there, and I had the feeling that she +should not have come. + +She went directly, I think, to Stormfield, he following a day or two +later. On the 23d I was lunching with Jean alone. She was full of +interest in her Christmas preparations. She had a handsome tree set up +in the loggia, and the packages were piled about it, with new ones +constantly arriving. With her farm management, her housekeeping, her +secretary work, and her Christmas preparations, it seemed to me that she +had her hands overfull. Such a mental pressure could not be good for +her. I suggested that for a time at least I might assume a part of her +burden. + +I was to remain at my own home that night, and I think it was as I left +Stormfield that I passed jean on the stair. She said, cheerfully, that +she felt a little tired and was going up to lie down, so that she would +be fresh for the evening. I did not go back, and I never saw her alive +again. + +I was at breakfast next morning when word was brought in that one of the +men from Stormfield was outside and wished to see me immediately. When I +went out he said: "Miss Jean is dead. They have just found her in her +bath-room. Mr. Clemens sent me to bring you." + +It was as incomprehensible as such things always are. I could not +realize at all that Jean, so full of plans and industries and action less +than a day before, had passed into that voiceless mystery which we call +death. + +Harry Iles drove me rapidly up the hill. As I entered Clemens's room he +looked at me helplessly and said: + +"Well, I suppose you have heard of this final disaster." + +He was not violent or broken down with grief. He had come to that place +where, whatever the shock or the ill-turn of fortune, he could accept it, +and even in that first moment of loss he realized that, for Jean at +least, the fortune was not ill. Her malady had never been cured, and it +had been one of his deepest dreads that he would leave her behind him. +It was believed, at first; that Jean had drowned, and Dr. Smith tried +methods of resuscitation; but then he found that it was simply a case of +heart cessation caused by the cold shock of her bath. + +The Gabrilowitsches were by this time in Europe, and Clemens cabled them +not to come. Later in the day he asked me if we would be willing to +close our home for the winter and come to Stormfield. He said that he +should probably go back to Bermuda before long; but that he wished to +keep the house open so that it would be there for him to come to at any +time that he might need it. + +We came, of course, for there was no thought among any of his friends but +for his comfort and peace of mind. Jervis Langdon was summoned from +Elmira, for Jean would lie there with the others. + +In the loggia stood the half-trimmed Christmas tree, and all about lay +the packages of gifts, and in Jean's room, on the chairs and upon her +desk, were piled other packages. Nobody had been forgotten. For her +father she had bought a handsome globe; he had always wanted one. Once +when I went into his room he said: + +"I have been looking in at Jean and envying her. I have never greatly +envied any one but the dead. I always envy the dead." + +He told me how the night before they had dined together alone; how he had +urged her to turn over a part of her work to me; how she had clung to +every duty as if now, after all the years, she was determined to make up +for lost time. + +While they were at dinner a telephone inquiry had come concerning his +health, for the papers had reported him as returning from Bermuda in a +critical condition. He had written this playful answer: + + MANAGER ASSOCIATED PRESS, + New York. + + I hear the newspapers say I am dying. The charge is not true. I + would not do such a thing at my time of life. I am behaving as good + as I can. + + Merry Christmas to everybody! MARK TWAIN. + + +Jean telephoned it for him to the press. It had been the last secretary +service she had ever rendered. + +She had kissed his hand, he said, when they parted, for she had a severe +cold and would not wish to impart it to him; then happily she had said +good night, and he had not seen her again. The reciting of this was good +to him, for it brought the comfort of tears. + +Later, when I went in again, he was writing: + +"I am setting it down," he said--"everything. It is a relief to me to +write it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking." + +He continued writing most of the day, and at intervals during the next +day, and the next. + +It was on Christmas Day that they went with Jean on her last journey. +Katie Leary, her baby nurse, had dressed her in the dainty gown which she +had worn for Clara's wedding, and they had pinned on it a pretty buckle +which her father had brought her from Bermuda, and which she had not +seen. No Greek statue was ever more classically beautiful than she was, +lying there in the great living-room, which in its brief history had seen +so much of the round of life. + +They were to start with jean at about six o'clock, and a little before +that time Clemens (he was unable to make the journey) asked me what had +been her favorite music. I said that she seemed always to care most for +the Schubert Impromptu.--[Op. 142, No. 2.]--Then he said: + +"Play it when they get ready to leave with her, and add the Intermezzo +for Susy and the Largo for Mrs. Clemens. When I hear the music I shall +know that they are starting. Tell them to set lanterns at the door, so I +can look down and see them go." + +So I sat at the organ and began playing as they lifted and bore her away. +A soft, heavy snow was falling, and the gloom of those shortest days was +closing in. There was not the least wind or noise, the whole world was +muffled. The lanterns at the door threw their light out on the thickly +falling flakes. I remained at the organ; but the little group at the +door saw him come to the window above--the light on his white hair as he +stood mournfully gazing down, watching Jean going away from him for the +last time. I played steadily on as he had instructed, the Impromptu, the +Intermezzo from "Cavalleria," and Handel's Largo. When I had finished I +went up and found him. + +"Poor little Jean," he said; "but for her it is so good to go." + +In his own story of it he wrote: + + From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the + road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and + presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not + come back any more. The cousin she had played with when they were + babies together--he and her beloved old Katie--Were conducting her + to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother's + side once more, in the company of Susy and Langdon. + +He did not come down to dinner, and when I went up afterward I found him +curiously agitated. He said: + +"For one who does not believe in spirits I have had a most peculiar +experience. I went into the bath-room just now and closed the door. +You know how warm it always is in there, and there are no draughts. All +at once I felt a cold current of air about me. I thought the door must +be open; but it was closed. I said, 'Jean, is this you trying to let me +know you have found the others?' Then the cold air was gone." + +I saw that the incident had made a very great impression upon him; but I +don't remember that he ever mentioned it afterward. + +Next day the storm had turned into a fearful blizzard; the whole hilltop +was a raging, driving mass of white. He wrote most of the day, but +stopped now and then to read some of the telegrams or letters of +condolence which came flooding in. Sometimes he walked over to the +window to look out on the furious tempest. Once, during the afternoon, +he said: + +"Jean always so loved to see a storm like this, and just now at Elmira +they are burying her." + +Later he read aloud some lines by Alfred Austin, which Mrs. Crane had +sent him lines which he had remembered in the sorrow for Susy: + + When last came sorrow, around barn and byre + Wind-careen snow, the year's white sepulchre, lay. + "Come in," I said, "and warm you by the fire"; + And there she sits and never goes away. + +It was that evening that he came into the room where Mrs. Paine and I sat +by the fire, bringing his manuscript. + +"I have finished my story of Jean's death," he said. "It is the end of +my autobiography. I shall never write any more. I can't judge it myself +at all. One of you read it aloud to the other, and let me know what you +think of it. If it is worthy, perhaps some day it may be published." + +It was, in fact, one of the most exquisite and tender pieces of writing +in the language. He had ended his literary labors with that perfect +thing which so marvelously speaks the loftiness and tenderness of his +soul. It was thoroughly in keeping with his entire career that he +should, with this rare dramatic touch, bring it to a close. A paragraph +which he omitted may be printed now: + + December 27. Did I know jean's value? No, I only thought I did. + I knew a ten-thousandth fraction of it, that was all. It is always + so, with us, it has always been so. We are like the poor ignorant + private soldier-dead, now, four hundred years--who picked up the + great Sancy diamond on the field of the lost battle and sold it for + a franc. Later he knew what he had done. + + Shall I ever be cheerful again, happy again? Yes. And soon. For + I know my temperament. And I know that the temperament is master of + the man, and that he is its fettered and helpless slave and must in + all things do as it commands. A man's temperament is born in him, + and no circumstances can ever change it. + + My temperament has never allowed my spirits to remain depressed long + at a time. + + That was a feature of Jean's temperament, too. She inherited it + from me. I think she got the rest of it from her mother. + +Jean Clemens had two natural endowments: the gift of justice and a +genuine passion for all nature. In a little paper found in her desk she +had written: + + I know a few people who love the country as I do, but not many. + Most of my acquaintances are enthusiastic over the spring and summer + months, but very few care much for it the year round. A few people + are interested in the spring foliage and the development of the wild + flowers--nearly all enjoy the autumn colors--while comparatively few + pay much attention to the coming and going of the birds, the changes + in their plumage and songs, the apparent springing into life on some + warm April day of the chipmunks and woodchucks, the skurrying of + baby rabbits, and again in the fall the equally sudden disappearance + of some of the animals and the growing shyness of others. To me it + is all as fascinating as a book--more so, since I have never lost + interest in it. + +It is simple and frank, like Thoreau. Perhaps, had she exercised it, +there was a third gift--the gift of written thought. + +Clemens remained at Stormfield ten days after Jean was gone. The weather +was fiercely cold, the landscape desolate, the house full of tragedy. +He kept pretty closely to his room, where he had me bring the heaps of +letters, a few of which he answered personally; for the others he +prepared a simple card of acknowledgment. He was for the most part in +gentle mood during these days, though he would break out now and then, +and rage at the hardness of a fate that had laid an unearned burden of +illness on Jean and shadowed her life. + +They were days not wholly without humor--none of his days could be +altogether without that, though it was likely to be of a melancholy sort. + +Many of the letters offered orthodox comfort, saying, in effect: "God +does not willingly punish us." + +When he had read a number of these he said: + +"Well, why does He do it then? We don't invite it. Why does He give +Himself the trouble?" + +I suggested that it was a sentiment that probably gave comfort to the +writer of it. + +"So it does," he said, "and I am glad of it--glad of anything that gives +comfort to anybody." + +He spoke of the larger God--the God of the great unvarying laws, and by +and by dropped off to sleep, quite peacefully, and indeed peace came more +and more to him each day with the thought that Jean and Susy and their +mother could not be troubled any more. To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch he wrote: + + REDDING, CONN, December 29, 1909. + + O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it & safe--safe! + + I am not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think. + + You see, I was in such distress when I came to realize that you were + gone far away & no one stood between her & danger but me--& I could + die at any moment, & then--oh then what would become of her! For + she was wilful, you know, & would not have been governable. + + You can't imagine what a darling she was that last two or three + days; & how fine, & good, & sweet, & noble--& joyful, thank Heaven! + --& how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted with + Jean before. I recognized that. + + But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't. I have already + poured my heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two. + I will send you that--& you must let no one but Ossip read it. + + Good-by. I love you so! And Ossip. + FATHER. + + + + +CCXC + +THE RETURN TO BERMUDA + +I don't think he attempted any further writing for print. His mind was +busy with ideas, but he was willing to talk, rather than to write, rather +even than to play billiards, it seemed, although we had a few quiet +games--the last we should ever play together. Evenings he asked for +music, preferring the Scotch airs, such as "Bonnie Doon" and "The +Campbells are Coming." I remember that once, after playing the latter +for him, he told, with great feeling, how the Highlanders, led by Gen. +Colin Campbell, had charged at Lucknow, inspired by that stirring air. +When he had retired I usually sat with him, and he drifted into +literature, or theology, or science, or history--the story of the +universe and man. + +One evening he spoke of those who had written but one immortal thing and +stopped there. He mentioned "Ben Bolt." + +"I met that man once," he said. "In my childhood I sang 'Sweet Alice, +Ben Bolt,' and in my old age, fifteen years ago, I met the man who wrote +it. His name was Brown.--[Thomas Dunn English. Mr. Clemens apparently +remembered only the name satirically conferred upon him by Edgar Allan +Poe, "Thomas Dunn Brown."]--He was aged, forgotten, a mere memory. I +remember how it thrilled me to realize that this was the very author of +'Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt.' He was just an accident. He had a vision and +echoed it. A good many persons do that--the thing they do is to put in +compact form the thing which we have all vaguely felt. 'Twenty Years +Ago' is just like it 'I have wandered through the village, Tom, and sat +beneath the tree'--and Holmes's 'Last Leaf' is another: the memory of the +hallowed past, and the gravestones of those we love. It is all so +beautiful--the past is always beautiful." + +He quoted, with great feeling and effect: + + The massy marbles rest + On the lips that we have pressed + In their bloom, + And the names we love to hear + Have been carved for many a year + On the tomb. + +He continued in this strain for an hour or more. He spoke of humor, and +thought it must be one of the chief attributes of God. He cited plants +and animals that were distinctly humorous in form and in their +characteristics. These he declared were God's jokes. + +"Why," he said, "humor is mankind's greatest blessing." + +"Your own case is an example," I answered. "Without it, whatever your +reputation as a philosopher, you could never have had the wide-spread +affection that is shown by the writers of that great heap of letters." + +"Yes," he said, gently, "they have liked to be amused." + +I tucked him in for the night, promising to send him to Bermuda, with +Claude to take care of him, if he felt he could undertake the journey in +two days more. + +He was able, and he was eager to go, for he longed for that sunny island, +and for the quiet peace of the Allen home. His niece, Mrs. Loomis, came +up to spend the last evening in Stormfield, a happy evening full of quiet +talk, and next morning, in the old closed carriage that had been his +wedding-gift, he was driven to the railway station. This was on January +4, 1910. + +He was to sail next day, and that night, at Mr. Loomis's, Howells came +in, and for an hour or two they reviewed some of the questions they had +so long ago settled, or left forever unsettled, and laid away. I +remember that at dinner Clemens spoke of his old Hartford butler, George, +and how he had once brought George to New York and introduced him at the +various publishing houses as his friend, with curious and sometimes +rather embarrassing results. + +The talk drifted to sociology and to the labor-unions, which Clemens +defended as being the only means by which the workman could obtain +recognition of his rights. + +Howells in his book mentions this evening, which he says "was made +memorable to me by the kind, clear, judicial sense with which he +explained and justified the labor-unions as the sole present help of the +weak against the strong." + +They discussed dreams, and then in a little while Howells rose to go. I +went also, and as we walked to his near-by apartment he spoke of Mark +Twain's supremacy. He said: + +"I turn to his books for cheer when I am down-hearted. There was never +anybody like him; there never will be." + +Clemens sailed next morning. They did not meet again. + + + + +CCXCI + +LETTERS FROM BERMUDA + +Stormfield was solemn and empty without Mark Twain; but he wrote by every +steamer, at first with his own hand, and during the last week by the hand +of one of his enlisted secretaries--some member of the Allen family +usually Helen. His letters were full of brightness and pleasantry-- +always concerned more or less with business matters, though he was no +longer disturbed by them, for Bermuda was too peaceful and too far away, +and, besides, he had faith in the Mark Twain Company's ability to look +after his affairs. I cannot do better, I believe, than to offer some +portions of these letters here. + +He reached Bermuda on the 7th of January, 1910, and on the 12th he wrote: + + Again I am living the ideal life. There is nothing to mar it but + the bloody-minded bandit Arthur,--[A small playmate of Helen's of + whom Clemens pretended to be fiercely jealous. Once he wrote a + memorandum to Helen: "Let Arthur read this book. There is a page in + it that is poisoned."]--who still fetches and carries Helen. + Presently he will be found drowned. Claude comes to Bay House twice + a day to see if I need any service. He is invaluable. There was a + military lecture last night at the Officers' Mess Prospect; as the + lecturer honored me with a special urgent invitation, and said he + wanted to lecture to me particularly, I naturally took Helen and her + mother into the private carriage and went. + + As soon as we landed at the door with the crowd the Governor came to + me& was very cordial. I "met up" with that charming Colonel Chapman + [we had known him on the previous visit] and other officers of the + regiment & had a good time. + +A few days later he wrote: + + Thanks for your letter & for its contenting news of the situation in + that foreign & far-off & vaguely remembered country where you & + Loomis & Lark and other beloved friends are. + + I had a letter from Clara this morning. She is solicitous & wants + me well & watchfully taken care of. My, my, she ought to see Helen + & her parents & Claude administer that trust. Also she says, "I + hope to hear from you or Mr. Paine very soon." + + I am writing her & I know you will respond to your part of her + prayer. She is pretty desolate now after Jean's emancipation--the + only kindness that God ever did that poor, unoffending child in all + her hard life. + + Send Clara a copy of Howells's gorgeous letter. + +The "gorgeous letter" mentioned was an appreciation of his recent Bazar +article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," and here follows: + + January 18, 1910. + + DEAR CLEMENS,--While your wonderful words are warm in my mind yet I + want to tell you what you know already: that you never wrote + anything greater, finer, than that turning-point paper of yours. + + I shall feel it honor enough if they put on my tombstone "He was + born in the same century and general section of Middle Western + country with Dr. S. L. Clemens, Oxon., and had his degree three + years before him through a mistake of the University." + + I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely + intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a + worn-out material body on top of your soul. + + Yours ever, + W. D. HOWELLS. + +On the margin of this letter Clemens had written: + + I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day + is good to keep, ain't it, Paine? + +January 24th he wrote again of his contentment: + + Life continues here the same as usual. There isn't a fault in it- + good times, good home, tranquil contentment all day & every day + without a break. I know familiarly several very satisfactory people + & meet them frequently: Mr. Hamilton, the Sloanes, Mr. & Mrs. Fells, + Miss Waterman, & so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering + my situation. + +On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health +might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he +wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time. And +he added: + + Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton's big + motor-boat. Present: Mrs. Allen, Mr. & Mrs. & Miss Sloane, Helen, + Mildred Howells, Claude, & me. Several hours' swift skimming over + ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun; also a couple of hours of + picnicking & lazying under the cedars in a secluded place. + + The Orotava is arriving with a6o passengers-I shall get letters by + her, no doubt. + + P. S.-Please send me the Standard Unabridged that is on the table in + my bedroom. I have no dictionary here. + +There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble; but he was +having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would +seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb +him, and much that contributed to his peace. Among the callers at the +Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant +hours at miniature golf, "putting" on the Allen lawn. Of course a +catastrophe would come along now and then--such things could not always +be guarded against. In a letter toward the end of February he wrote: + It is 2.30 in the morning & I am writing because I can't sleep. + I can't sleep because a professional pianist is coming to-morrow + afternoon to play for me. My God! I wouldn't allow Paderewski or + Gabrilowitsch to do that. I would rather have a leg amputated. + I knew he was coming, but I never dreamed it was to play for me. + When I heard the horrible news 4 hours ago, be d---d if I didn't + come near screaming. I meant to slip out and be absent, but now I + can't. Don't pray for me. The thing is just as d---d bad as it can + be already. + +Clemens's love for music did not include the piano, except for very +gentle melodies, and he probably did not anticipate these from a +professional player. He did not report the sequel of the matter; but it +is likely that his imagination had discounted its tortures. Sometimes +his letters were pure nonsense. Once he sent a sheet, on one side of +which was written: + + + + BAY HOUSE, + March s, 1910. + Received of S. L. C. + Two Dollars and Forty Cents + in return for my promise to believe everything he says + hereafter. + HELEN S. ALLEN. + +and on the reverse: + + FOR SALE + + The proprietor of the hereinbefore mentioned Promise desires to part + with it on account of ill health and obliged to go away somewheres + so as to let it recipricate, and will take any reasonable amount for + it above 2 percent of its face because experienced parties think it + will not keep but only a little while in this kind of weather & is a + kind of proppity that don't give a cuss for cold storage nohow. + +Clearly, however serious Mark Twain regarded his physical condition, he +did not allow it to make him gloomy. He wrote that matters were going +everywhere to his satisfaction; that Clara was happy; that his household +and business affairs no longer troubled him; that his personal +surroundings were of the pleasantest sort. Sometimes he wrote of what he +was reading, and once spoke particularly of Prof. William Lyon Phelps's +Literary Essays, which he said he had been unable to lay down until he +had finished the book.--[To Phelps himself he wrote: "I thank you ever +so much for the book, which I find charming--so charming, indeed, that I +read it through in a single night, & did not regret the lost night's +sleep. I am glad if I deserve what you have said about me; & even if I +don't I am proud & well contented, since you think I deserve it."] + +So his days seemed full of comfort. But in March I noticed that he +generally dictated his letters, and once when he sent some small +photographs I thought he looked thinner and older. Still he kept up his +merriment. In one letter he said: + + While the matter is in my mind I will remark that if you ever send + me another letter which is not paged at the top I will write you + with my own hand, so that I may use with utter freedom & without + embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a + criminal, to wit, - - - -; you will have to put into words those + dashes because propriety will not allow me to do it myself in my + secretary's hearing. You are forgiven, but don't let it occur + again. + +He had still made no mention of his illness; but on the 25th of March he +wrote something of his plans for coming home. He had engaged passage on +the Bermudian for April 23d, he said; and he added: + + But don't tell anybody. I don't want it known. I may have to go + sooner if the pain in my breast does not mend its ways pretty + considerable. I don't want to die here, for this is an unkind place + for a person in that condition. I should have to lie in the + undertaker's cellar until the ship would remove me & it is dark down + there & unpleasant. + + The Colliers will meet me on the pier, & I may stay with them a week + or two before going home. It all depends on the breast pain. I + don't want to die there. I am growing more and more particular + about the place. + +But in the same letter he spoke of plans for the summer, suggesting that +we must look into the magic-lantern possibilities, so that library +entertainments could be given at Stormfield. I confess that this letter, +in spite of its light tone, made me uneasy, and I was tempted to sail for +Bermuda to bring him home. Three days later he wrote again: + + I have been having a most uncomfortable time for the past four days + with that breast pain, which turns out to be an affection of the + heart, just as I originally suspected. The news from New York is to + the effect that non-bronchial weather has arrived there at last; + therefore, if I can get my breast trouble in traveling condition I + may sail for home a week or two earlier than has been proposed. + +The same mail that brought this brought a letter from Mr. Allen, who +frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. Mr. Clemens +had had some dangerous attacks, and the physicians considered his +condition critical. + +These letters arrived April 1st. I went to New York at once and sailed +next morning. Before sailing I consulted with Dr. Quintard, who provided +me with some opiates and instructed me in the use of the hypodermic +needle. He also joined me in a cablegram to the Gabrilowitsches, then in +Italy, advising them to sail without delay. + + + + +CCXCII + +THE VOYAGE HOME + +I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when on the second +morning I arrived at Hamilton, I stepped quickly ashore from the tender +and hurried to Bay House. The doors were all open, as they usually are +in that summer island, and no one was visible. I was familiar with the +place, and, without knocking, I went through to the room occupied by Mark +Twain. As I entered I saw that he was alone, sitting in a large chair, +clad in the familiar dressing-gown. + +Bay House stands upon the water, and the morning light, reflected in at +the window, had an unusual quality. He was not yet shaven, and he seemed +unnaturally pale and gray; certainly he was much thinner. I was too +startled, for the moment, to say anything. When he turned and saw me he +seemed a little dazed. + +"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you didn't tell us you were +coming." + +"No," I said, "it is rather sudden. I didn't quite like the sound of +your last letters." + +"But those were not serious," he protested. "You shouldn't have come on +my account." + +I said then that I had come on my own account; that I had felt the need +of recreation, and had decided to run down and come home with him. + +"That's--very--good," he said, in his slow, gentle fashion. "Now I'm +glad to see you." + +His breakfast came in and he ate with an appetite. + +When he had been shaved and freshly propped tip in his pillows it seemed +to me, after all, that I must have been mistaken in thinking him so +changed. Certainly he was thinner, but his color was fine, his eyes were +bright; he had no appearance of a man whose life was believed to be in +danger. He told me then of the fierce attacks he had gone through, how +the pains had torn at him, and how it had been necessary for him to have +hypodermic injections, which he amusingly termed "hypnotic injunctions" +and "subcutaneous applications," and he had his humor out of it, as of +course he must have, even though Death should stand there in person. + +From Mr. and Mrs. Allen and from the physician I learned how slender had +been his chances and how uncertain were the days ahead. Mr. Allen had +already engaged passage on the Oceana for the 12th, and the one purpose +now was to get him physically in condition for the trip. + +How devoted those kind friends had been to him! They had devised every +imaginable thing for his comfort. Mr. Allen had rigged an electric bell +which connected with his own room, so that he could be aroused instantly +at any hour of the night. Clemens had refused to have a nurse, for it +was only during the period of his extreme suffering that he needed any +one, and he did not wish to have a nurse always around. When the pains +were gone he was as bright and cheerful, and, seemingly, as well as ever. + +On the afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as formerly, and he +discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. He had been +rereading Macaulay, he said, and spoke at considerable length of the +hypocrisy and intrigue of the English court under James II. He spoke, +too, of the Redding Library. I had sold for him that portion of the land +where Jean's farm-house had stood, and it was in his mind to use the +money for some sort of a memorial to Jean. I had written, suggesting +that perhaps he would like to put up a small library building, as the +Adams lot faced the corner where Jean had passed every day when she rode +to the station for the mail. He had been thinking this over, he said, +and wished the idea carried out. He asked me to write at once to his +lawyer, Mr. Lark, and have a paper prepared appointing trustees for a +memorial library fund. + +The pain did not trouble him that afternoon, nor during several +succeeding days. He was gay and quite himself, and he often went out on +the lawn; but we did not drive out again. For the most part, he sat +propped up in his bed, reading or smoking, or talking in the old way; and +as I looked at him he seemed so full of vigor and the joy of life that I +could not convince myself that he would not outlive us all. I found that +he had been really very much alive during those three months--too much +for his own good, sometimes--for he had not been careful of his hours or +his diet, and had suffered in consequence. + +He had not been writing, though he had scribbled some playful valentines +and he had amused himself one day by preparing a chapter of advice--for +me it appeared--which, after reading it aloud to the Allens and receiving +their approval, he declared he intended to have printed for my benefit. +As it would seem to have been the last bit of continued writing he ever +did, and because it is characteristic and amusing, a few paragraphs may +be admitted. The "advice" is concerning deportment on reaching the Gate +which St. Peter is supposed to guard-- + + Upon arrival do not speak to St. Peter until spoken to. It is not + your place to begin. + + Do not begin any remark with "Say." + + When applying for a ticket avoid trying to make conversation. If + you must talk let the weather alone. St. Peter cares not a damn for + the weather. And don't ask him what time the 4.30 train goes; there + aren't any trains in heaven, except through trains, and the less + information you get about them the better for you. + + You can ask him for his autograph--there is no harm in that--but be + careful and don't remark that it is one of the penalties of + greatness. He has heard that before. + + Don't try to kodak him. Hell is full of people who have made that + mistake. + + Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit + you would stay out and the dog would go in. + + You will be wanting to slip down at night and smuggle water to those + poor little chaps (the infant damned), but don't you try it. You + would be caught, and nobody in heaven would respect you after that. + + Explain to Helen why I don't come. If you can. + +There were several pages of this counsel. One paragraph was written in +shorthand. I meant to ask him to translate it; but there were many other +things to think of, and I did not remember. + +I spent most of each day with him, merely sitting by the bed and reading +while he himself read or dozed. His nights were wakeful--he found it +easier to sleep by day--and he liked to think that some one was there. +He became interested in Hardy's Jude, and spoke of it with high approval, +urging me to read it. He dwelt a good deal on the morals of it, or +rather on the lack of them. He followed the tale to the end, finishing +it the afternoon before we sailed. It was his last continuous reading. +I noticed, when he slept, that his breathing was difficult, and I could +see from day to day that he did not improve; but each evening he would be +gay and lively, and he liked the entire family to gather around, while he +became really hilarious over the various happenings of the day. +It was only a few days before we sailed that the very severe attacks +returned. The night of the 8th was a hard one. The doctors were +summoned, and it was only after repeated injections of morphine that the +pain had been eased. When I returned in the early morning he was sitting +in his chair trying to sing, after his old morning habit. He took my +hand and said: + +"Well, I had a picturesque night. Every pain I had was on exhibition." + +He looked out the window at the sunlight on the bay and green dotted +islands. "'Sparkling and bright in the liquid light,'" he quoted. +"That's Hoffman. Anything left of Hoffman?" + +"No," I said. + +"I must watch for the Bermudian and see if she salutes," he said, +presently. "The captain knows I am here sick, and he blows two short +whistles just as they come up behind that little island. Those are for +me." + +He said he could breathe easier if he could lean forward, and I placed a +card-table in front of him. His breakfast came in, and a little later he +became quite gay. He drifted to Macaulay again, and spoke of King +James's plot to assassinate William II., and how the clergy had brought +themselves to see that there was no difference between killing a king in +battle and by assassination. He had taken his seat by the window to +watch for the Bermudian. She came down the bay presently, her bright red +stacks towering vividly above the green island. It was a brilliant +morning, the sky and the water a marvelous blue. He watched her +anxiously and without speaking. Suddenly there were two white puffs of +steam, and two short, hoarse notes went up from her. + +"Those are for me," he said, his face full of contentment. "Captain +Fraser does not forget me." + +There followed another bad night. My room was only a little distance +away, and Claude came for me. I do not think any of us thought he would +survive it; but he slept at last, or at least dozed. In the morning he +said: + +"That breast pain stands watch all night and the short breath all day. +I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army. I want a jugful of +that hypnotic injunction every night and every morning." + +We began to fear now that he would not be able to sail on the 12th; but +by great good-fortune he had wonderfully improved by the 12th, so much so +that I began to believe, if once he could be in Stormfield, where the air +was more vigorous, he might easily survive the summer. The humid +atmosphere of the season increased the difficulty of his breathing. + +That evening he was unusually merry. Mr. and Mrs. Allen and Helen and +myself went in to wish him good night. He was loath to let us leave, but +was reminded that he would sail in the morning, and that the doctor had +insisted that he must be quiet and lie still in bed and rest. He was +never one to be very obedient. A little later Mrs. Allen and I, in the +sitting-room, heard some one walking softly outside on the veranda. We +went out there, and he was marching up and down in his dressing-gown as +unconcerned as if he were not an invalid at all. He hadn't felt sleepy, +he said, and thought a little exercise would do him good. Perhaps it +did, for he slept soundly that night--a great blessing. + +Mr. Allen had chartered a special tug to come to Bay House landing in the +morning and take him to the ship. He was carried in a little hand-chair +to the tug, and all the way out he seemed light-spirited, anything but an +invalid: The sailors carried him again in the chair to his state-room, +and he bade those dear Bermuda friends good-by, and we sailed away. + +As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of +that homeward voyage. It was a brief two days as time is measured; but +as time is lived it has taken its place among those unmeasured periods by +the side of which even years do not count. + +At first he seemed quite his natural self, and asked for a catalogue of +the ship's library, and selected some memoirs of the Countess of Cardigan +for his reading. He asked also for the second volume of Carlyle's French +Revolution, which he had with him. But we ran immediately into the more +humid, more oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and his breathing became +at first difficult, then next to impossible. There were two large port- +holes, which I opened; but presently he suggested that it would be better +outside. It was only a step to the main-deck, and no passengers were +there. I had a steamer-chair brought, and with Claude supported him to +it and bundled him with rugs; but it had grown damp and chilly, and his +breathing did not improve. It seemed to me that the end might come at +any moment, and this thought was in his mind, too, for once in the effort +for breath he managed to say: + +"I am going--I shall be gone in a moment." + +Breath came; but I realized then that even his cabin was better than +this. I steadied him back to his berth and shut out most of that deadly +dampness. He asked for the "hypnotic 'injunction" (for his humor never +left him), and though it was not yet the hour prescribed I could not deny +it. It was impossible for him to lie down, even to recline, without +great distress. The opiate made him drowsy, and he longed for the relief +of sleep; but when it seemed about to possess him the struggle for air +would bring him upright. + +During the more comfortable moments he spoke quite in the old way, and +time and again made an effort to read, and reached for his pipe or a +cigar which lay in the little berth hammock at his side. I held the +match, and he would take a puff or two with satisfaction. Then the peace +of it would bring drowsiness, and while I supported him there would come +a few moments, perhaps, of precious sleep. Only a few moments, for the +devil of suffocation was always lying in wait to bring him back for fresh +tortures. Over and over again this was repeated, varied by him being +steadied on his feet or sitting on the couch opposite the berth. In +spite of his suffering, two dominant characteristics remained--the sense +of humor, and tender consideration for another. + +Once when the ship rolled and his hat fell from the hook, and made the +circuit of the cabin floor, he said: + +"The ship is passing the hat." + +Again he said: + +"I am sorry for you, Paine, but I can't help it--I can't hurry this dying +business. Can't you give me enough of the hypnotic injunction to put an +end to me?" + +He thought if I could arrange the pillows so he could sit straight up it +would not be necessary to support him, and then I could sit on the couch +and read while he tried to doze. He wanted me to read Jude, he said, so +we could talk about it. I got all the pillows I could and built them up +around him, and sat down with the book, and this seemed to give him +contentment. He would doze off a little and then come up with a start, +his piercing, agate eyes searching me out to see if I was still there. +Over and over--twenty times in an hour--this was repeated. When I could +deny him no longer I administered the opiate, but it never completely +possessed him or gave him entire relief. + +As I looked at him there, so reduced in his estate, I could not but +remember all the labor of his years, and all the splendid honor which the +world had paid to him. Something of this may have entered his mind, too, +for once, when I offered him some of the milder remedies which we had +brought, he said: + +"After forty years of public effort I have become just a target for +medicines." + +The program of change from berth to the floor, from floor to the couch, +from the couch back to the berth among the pillows, was repeated again +and again, he always thinking of the trouble he might be making, rarely +uttering any complaint; but once he said: + +"I never guessed that I was not going to outlive John Bigelow." And +again: + +"This is such a mysterious disease. If we only had a bill of particulars +we'd have something to swear at." + +Time and again he picked up Carlyle or the Cardigan Memoirs, and read, or +seemed to read, a few lines; but then the drowsiness would come and the +book would fall. Time and again he attempted to smoke, or in his drowse +simulated the motion of placing a cigar to his lips and puffing in the +old way. + +Two dreams beset him in his momentary slumber--one of a play in which the +title-role of the general manager was always unfilled. He spoke of this +now and then when it had passed, and it seemed to amuse him. The other +was a discomfort: a college assembly was attempting to confer upon him +some degree which he did not want. Once, half roused, he looked at me +searchingly and asked: + +"Isn't there something I can resign and be out of all this? They keep +trying to confer that degree upon me and I don't want it." Then +realizing, he said: "I am like a bird in a cage: always expecting to get +out, and always beaten back by the wires." And, somewhat later: "Oh, it +is such a mystery, and it takes so long." + +Toward the evening of the first day, when it grew dark outside, he asked: + +"How long have we been on this voyage?" + +I answered that this was the end of the first day. + +"How many more are there?" he asked. + +"Only one, and two nights." + +"We'll never make it," he said. "It's an eternity." + +"But we must on Clara's account," I told him, and I estimated that Clara +would be more than half-way across the ocean by now. + +"It is a losing race," he said; "no ship can outsail death." + +It has been written--I do not know with what proof--that certain great +dissenters have recanted with the approach of death--have become weak, +and afraid to ignore old traditions in the face of the great mystery. +I wish to write here that Mark Twain, as he neared the end, showed never +a single tremor of fear or even of reluctance. I have dwelt upon these +hours when suffering was upon him, and death the imminent shadow, in +order to show that at the end he was as he had always been, neither more +nor less, and never less than brave. + +Once, during a moment when he was comfortable and quite himself, he said, +earnestly: + +"When I seem to be dying I don't want to be stimulated back to life. I +want to be made comfortable to go." + +There was not a vestige of hesitation; there was no grasping at straws, +no suggestion of dread. + +Somehow those two days and nights went by. Once, when he was partially +relieved by the opiate, I slept, while Claude watched; and again, in the +fading end of the last night, when we had passed at length into the cold, +bracing northern air, and breath had come back to him, and with it sleep. + +Relatives, physicians, and news-gatherers were at the dock to welcome +him. He was awake, and the northern air had brightened him, though it +was the chill, I suppose, that brought on the pains in his breast, which, +fortunately, he had escaped during the voyage. It was not a prolonged +attack, and it was, blessedly, the last one. + +An invalid-carriage had been provided, and a compartment secured on the +afternoon express to Redding--the same train that had taken him there two +years before. Dr. Robert H. Halsey and Dr. Edward Quintard attended him, +and he made the journey really in cheerful comfort, for he could breathe +now, and in the relief came back old interests. Half reclining on the +couch, he looked through the afternoon papers. It happened curiously +that Charles Harvey Genung, who, something more than four years earlier, +had been so largely responsible for my association with Mark Twain, was +on the same train, in the same coach, bound for his country-place at New +Hartford. + +Lounsbury was waiting with the carriage, and on that still, sweet April +evening we drove him to Stormfield much as we had driven him two years +before. Now and then he mentioned the apparent backwardness of the +season, for only a few of the trees were beginning to show their green. +As we drove into the lane that led to the Stormfield entrance, he said: + +"Can we see where you have built your billiard-room?" + +The gable showed above the trees, and I pointed it out to him. + +"It looks quite imposing," he said. + +I think it was the last outside interest he ever showed in anything. +He had been carried from the ship and from the train, but when we drew up +to Stormfield, where Mrs. Paine, with Katie Leary and others of the +household, was waiting to greet him, he stepped from the carriage alone +with something of his old lightness, and with all his old courtliness, +and offered each one his hand. Then, in the canvas chair which we had +brought, Claude and I carried him up-stairs to his room and delivered him +to the physicians, and to the comforts and blessed air of home. This was +Thursday evening, April 14, 1910. + + + + +CCXCIII + +THE RETURN TO THE INVISIBLE + +There would be two days more before Ossip and Clara Gabrilowitsch could +arrive. Clemens remained fairly bright and comfortable during this +interval, though he clearly was not improving. The physicians denied him +the morphine, now, as he no longer suffered acutely. But he craved it, +and once, when I went in, he said, rather mournfully: + +"They won't give me the subcutaneous any more." + +It was Sunday morning when Clara came. He was cheerful and able to talk +quite freely. He did not dwell upon his condition, I think, but spoke +rather of his plans for the summer. At all events, he did not then +suggest that he counted the end so near; but a day later it became +evident to all that his stay was very brief. His breathing was becoming +heavier, though it seemed not to give him much discomfort. His +articulation also became affected. I think the last continuous talking +he did was to Dr. Halsey on the evening of April 17th--the day of Clara's +arrival. A mild opiate had been administered, and he said he wished to +talk himself to sleep. He recalled one of his old subjects, Dual +Personality, and discussed various instances that flitted through his +mind--Jekyll and Hyde phases in literature and fact. He became drowsier +as he talked. He said at last: + +"This is a peculiar kind of disease. It does not invite you to read; it +does not invite you to be read to; it does not invite you to talk, nor to +enjoy any of the usual sick-room methods of treatment. What kind of a +disease is that? Some kinds of sicknesses have pleasant features about +them. You can read and smoke and have only to lie still." + +And a little later he added: + +"It is singular, very singular, the laws of mentality--vacuity. I put +out my hand to reach a book or newspaper which I have been reading most +glibly, and it isn't there, not a suggestion of it." + +He coughed violently, and afterward commented: + +"If one gets to meddling with a cough it very soon gets the upper hand +and is meddling with you. That is my opinion--of seventy-four years' +growth." + +The news of his condition, everywhere published, brought great heaps of +letters, but he could not see them. A few messages were reported to him. +At intervals he read a little. Suetonius and Carlyle lay on the bed +beside him, and he would pick them up as the spirit moved him and read a +paragraph or a page. Sometimes, when I saw him thus-the high color still +in his face, and the clear light in his eyes--I said: "It is not reality. +He is not going to die." On Tuesday, the 19th, he asked me to tell Clara +to come and sing to him. It was a heavy requirement, but she somehow +found strength to sing some of the Scotch airs which he loved, and he +seemed soothed and comforted. When she came away he bade her good-by, +saying that he might not see her again. + +But he lingered through the next day and the next. His mind was +wandering a little on Wednesday, and his speech became less and less +articulate; but there were intervals when he was quite clear, quite +vigorous, and he apparently suffered little. We did not know it, then, +but the mysterious messenger of his birth-year, so long anticipated by +him, appeared that night in the sky.--[The perihelion of Halley's Comet +for 1835 was November 16th; for 1910 it was April 20th.] + +On Thursday morning, the 21st, his mind was generally clear, and it was +said by the nurses that he read a little from one of the volumes on his +bed, from the Suetonius, or from one of the volumes of Carlyle. Early in +the forenoon he sent word by Clara that he wished to see me, and when I +came in he spoke of two unfinished manuscripts which he wished me to +"throw away," as he briefly expressed it, for he had not many words left +now. I assured him that I would take care of them, and he pressed my +hand. It was his last word to me. + +Once or twice that morning he tried to write some request which he could +not put into intelligible words. + +And once he spoke to Gabrilowitsch, who, he said, could understand him +better than the others. Most of the time he dozed. + +Somewhat after midday, when Clara was by him, he roused up and took her +hand, and seemed to speak with less effort. + +"Good-by," he said, and Dr. Quintard, who was standing near, thought he +added: "If we meet"--but the words were very faint. He looked at her for +a little while, without speaking, then he sank into a doze, and from it +passed into a deeper slumber, and did not heed us any more. + +Through that peaceful spring afternoon the life-wave ebbed lower and +lower. It was about half past six, and the sun lay just on the horizon +when Dr. Quintard noticed that the breathing, which had gradually become +more subdued, broke a little. There was no suggestion of any struggle. +The noble head turned a little to one side, there was a fluttering sigh, +and the breath that had been unceasing through seventy-four tumultuous +years had stopped forever. + +He had entered into the estate envied so long. In his own words--the +words of one of his latest memoranda: + +"He had arrived at the dignity of death--the only earthly dignity that is +not artificial--the only safe one. The others are traps that can beguile +to humiliation. + +"Death--the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose +peace and whose refuge are for all--the soiled and the pure--the rich and +the poor--the loved and the unloved." + + + + +CCXCIV + +THE LAST RITES + +It is not often that a whole world mourns. Nations have often mourned a +hero--and races--but perhaps never before had the entire world really +united in tender sorrow for the death of any man. + +In one of his aphorisms he wrote: "Let us endeavor so to live that when +we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." And it was thus that +Mark Twain himself had lived. + +No man had ever so reached the heart of the world, and one may not even +attempt to explain just why. Let us only say that it was because he was +so limitlessly human that every other human heart, in whatever sphere or +circumstance, responded to his touch. From every remote corner of the +globe the cables of condolence swept in; every printed sheet in +Christendom was filled with lavish tribute; pulpits forgot his heresies +and paid him honor. No king ever died that received so rich a homage as +his. To quote or to individualize would be to cheapen this vast +offering. + +We took him to New York to the Brick Church, and Dr. Henry van Dyke spoke +only a few simple words, and Joseph Twichell came from Hartford and +delivered brokenly a prayer from a heart wrung with double grief, for +Harmony, his wife, was nearing the journey's end, and a telegram that +summoned him to her death-bed came before the services ended. + +Mark Twain, dressed in the white he loved so well, lay there with the +nobility of death upon him, while a multitude of those who loved him +passed by and looked at his face for the last time. The flowers, of +which so many had been sent, were banked around him; but on the casket +itself lay a single laurel wreath which Dan Beard and his wife had woven +from the laurel which grows on Stormfield hill. He was never more +beautiful than as he lay there, and it was an impressive scene to see +those thousands file by, regard him for a moment gravely, thoughtfully, +and pass on. All sorts were there, rich and poor; some crossed +themselves, some saluted, some paused a little to take a closer look; but +no one offered even to pick a flower. Howells came, and in his book he +says: + + I looked a moment at the face I knew so well; and it was patient + with the patience I had so often seen in it: something of a puzzle, + a great silent dignity, an assent to what must be from the depths of + a nature whose tragical seriousness broke in the laughter which the + unwise took for the whole of him. + +That night we went with him to Elmira, and next day--a somber day of +rain--he lay in those stately parlors that had seen his wedding-day, and +where Susy had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and Jean, while Dr. Eastman spoke +the words of peace which separate us from our mortal dead. Then in the +quiet, steady rain of that Sunday afternoon we laid him beside those +others, where he sleeps well, though some have wished that, like De Soto, +he might have been laid to rest in the bed of that great river which must +always be associated with his name. + + + + +CCXCV + +MARK TWAIN'S RELIGION + +There is such a finality about death; however interesting it may be as an +experience, one cannot discuss it afterward with one's friends. I have +thought it a great pity that Mark Twain could not discuss, with Howells +say, or with Twichell, the sensations and the particulars of the change, +supposing there be a recognizable change, in that transition of which we +have speculated so much, with such slender returns. No one ever debated +the undiscovered country more than he. In his whimsical, semi-serious +fashion he had considered all the possibilities of the future state-- +orthodox and otherwise--and had drawn picturesquely original conclusions. +He had sent Captain Stormfield in a dream to report the aspects of the +early Christian heaven. He had examined the scientific aspects of the +more subtle philosophies. He had considered spiritualism, +transmigration, the various esoteric doctrines, and in the end he had +logically made up his mind that death concludes all, while with that less +logical hunger which survives in every human heart he had never ceased to +expect an existence beyond the grave. His disbelief and his pessimism +were identical in their structure. They were of his mind; never of his +heart. + +Once a woman said to him: + +"Mr. Clemens, you are not a pessimist, you only think you are." And she +might have added, with equal force and truth: + +"You are not a disbeliever in immortality; you only think you are." + +Nothing could have conveyed more truly his attitude toward life and +death. His belief in God, the Creator, was absolute; but it was a God +far removed from the Creator of his early teaching. Every man builds his +God according to his own capacities. Mark Twain's God was of colossal +proportions--so vast, indeed, that the constellated stars were but +molecules in His veins--a God as big as space itself. + +Mark Twain had many moods, and he did not always approve of his own God; +but when he altered his conception, it was likely to be in the direction +of enlargement--a further removal from the human conception, and the +problem of what we call our lives. + +In 1906 he wrote:--[See also 1870, chap. lxxviii; 1899, chap. ccv; and +various talks, 1906-07, etc.] + Let us now consider the real God, the genuine God, the great God, + the sublime and supreme God, the authentic Creator of the real + universe, whose remotenesses are visited by comets only comets unto + which incredible distant Neptune is merely an out post, a Sandy Hook + to homeward-bound specters of the deeps of space that have not + glimpsed it before for generations--a universe not made with hands + and suited to an astronomical nursery, but spread abroad through the + illimitable reaches of space by the flat of the real God just + mentioned, by comparison with whom the gods whose myriads infest the + feeble imaginations of men are as a swarm of gnats scattered and + lost in the infinitudes of the empty sky. + +At an earlier period-the date is not exactly fixable, but the stationery +used and the handwriting suggest the early eighties--he set down a few +concisely written pages of conclusions--conclusions from which he did +not deviate materially in after years. The document follows: + + I believe in God the Almighty. + + I do not believe He has ever sent a message to man by anybody, or + delivered one to him by word of mouth, or made Himself visible to + mortal eyes at any time in any place. + + I believe that the Old and New Testaments were imagined and written + by man, and that no line in them was authorized by God, much less + inspired by Him. + + I think the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are + manifested in His works: I perceive that they are manifested toward + me in this life; the logical conclusion is that they will be + manifested toward me in the life to come, if there should be one. + + I do not believe in special providences. I believe that the + universe is governed by strict and immutable laws: If one man's + family is swept away by a pestilence and another man's spared it is + only the law working: God is not interfering in that small matter, + either against the one man or in favor of the other. + + I cannot see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any + good end, therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a + man in order to perfect him might be reasonable enough; to + annihilate him when he shall have proved himself incapable of + reaching perfection might be reasonable enough; but to roast him + forever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him roast would not be + reasonable--even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews would tire + of the spectacle eventually. + + There may be a hereafter and there may not be. I am wholly + indifferent about it. If I am appointed to live again I feel sure + it will be for some more sane and useful purpose than to flounder + about for ages in a lake of fire and brimstone for having violated a + confusion of ill-defined and contradictory rules said (but not + evidenced) to be of divine institution. If annihilation is to + follow death I shall not be aware of the annihilation, and therefore + shall not care a straw about it. + + I believe that the world's moral laws are the outcome of the world's + experience. It needed no God to come down out of heaven to tell men + that murder and theft and the other immoralities were bad, both for + the individual who commits them and for society which suffers from + them. + + If I break all these moral laws I cannot see how I injure God by it, + for He is beyond the reach of injury from me--I could as easily + injure a planet by throwing mud at it. It seems to me that my + misconduct could only injure me and other men. I cannot benefit God + by obeying these moral laws--I could as easily benefit the planet by + withholding my mud. (Let these sentences be read in the light of + the fact that I believe I have received moral laws only from man- + none whatever from God.) Consequently I do not see why I should be + either punished or rewarded hereafter for the deeds I do here. + +If the tragedies of life shook his faith in the goodness and justice and +the mercy of God as manifested toward himself, he at any rate never +questioned that the wider scheme of the universe was attuned to the +immutable law which contemplates nothing less than absolute harmony. I +never knew him to refer to this particular document; but he never +destroyed it and never amended it, nor is it likely that he would have +done either had it been presented to him for consideration even during +the last year of his life. + +He was never intentionally dogmatic. In a memorandum on a fly-leaf of +Moncure D. Conway's Sacred Anthology he wrote: + + RELIGION + +The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly +teaches me to suspect that my own is also. + MARK TWAIN, 19th Cent. A.D. + +And in another note: + +I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or +to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his +hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion maybe. But +it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life hence it is a +valuable possession to him. + +Mark Twain's religion was a faith too wide for doctrines--a benevolence +too limitless for creeds. From the beginning he strove against +oppression, sham, and evil in every form. He despised meanness; he +resented with every drop of blood in him anything that savored of +persecution or a curtailment of human liberties. It was a religion +identified with his daily life and his work. He lived as he wrote, and +he wrote as he believed. His favorite weapon was humor--good-humor--with +logic behind it. A sort of glorified truth it was truth wearing a smile +of gentleness, hence all the more quickly heeded. + +"He will be remembered with the great humorists of all time," says +Howells, "with Cervantes, with Swift, or with any others worthy of his +company; none of them was his equal in humanity." + +Mark Twain understood the needs of men because he was himself supremely +human. In one of his dictations he said: + +I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not +possess in either a small or a large way. When it is small, as compared +with the same ingredient in somebody else, there is still enough of it +for all the purposes of examination. + +With his strength he had inherited the weaknesses of our kind. With him, +as with another, a myriad of dreams and schemes and purposes daily +flitted by. With him, as with another, the spirit of desire led him +often to a high mountain-top, and was not rudely put aside, but +lingeringly--and often invited to return. With him, as with another, a +crowd of jealousies and resentments, and wishes for the ill of others, +daily went seething and scorching along the highways of the soul. With +him, as with another, regret, remorse, and shame stood at the bedside +during long watches of the night; and in the end, with him, the better +thing triumphed--forgiveness and generosity and justice--in a word, +Humanity. Certain of his aphorisms and memoranda each in itself +constitutes an epitome of Mark Twain's creed. His paraphrase, "When in +doubt tell the truth," is one of these, and he embodied his whole +attitude toward Infinity when in one of his stray pencilings he wrote: + +Why, even poor little ungodlike man holds himself responsible for the +welfare of his child to the extent of his ability. It is all that we +require of God. + + + + +CCXCVI + +POSTSCRIPT + +Every life is a drama--a play in all its particulars; comedy, farce, +tragedy--all the elements are there. To examine in detail any life, +however conspicuous or obscure, is to become amazed not only at the +inevitable sequence of events, but at the interlinking of details, often +far removed, into a marvelously intricate pattern which no art can hope +to reproduce, and can only feebly imitate. + +The biographer may reconstruct an episode, present a picture, or reflect +a mood by which the reader is enabled to feel something of the glow of +personality and know, perhaps, a little of the substance of the past. In +so far as the historian can accomplish this his work is a success. At +best his labor will be pathetically incomplete, for whatever its detail +and its resemblance to life, these will record mainly but an outward +expression, behind which was the mighty sweep and tumult of unwritten +thought, the overwhelming proportion of any life, which no other human +soul can ever really know. + +Mark Twain's appearance on the stage of the world was a succession of +dramatic moments. He was always exactly in the setting. Whatever he +did, or whatever came to him, was timed for the instant of greatest +effect. At the end he was more widely observed and loved and honored +than ever before, and at the right moment and in the right manner he +died. + +How little one may tell of such a life as his! He traveled always such a +broad and brilliant highway, with plumes flying and crowds following +after. Such a whirling panorama of life, and death, and change! I have +written so much, and yet I have put so much aside--and often the best +things, it seemed afterward, perhaps because each in its way was best and +the variety infinite. One may only strive to be faithful--and I would +have made it better if I could. + + + + + + + APPENDIX + + + +APPENDIX A + +LETTER FROM ORION CLEMENS TO MISS WOOD CONCERNING HENRY CLEMENS + +(See Chapter xxvi) + + KEOKUK, Iowa, October 3, 1858. + +MISS WOOD,--My mother having sent me your kind letter, with a request +that myself and wife should write to you, I hasten to do so. + +In my memory I can go away back to Henry's infancy; I see his large, blue +eyes intently regarding my father when he rebuked him for his credulity +in giving full faith to the boyish idea of planting his marbles, +expecting a crop therefrom; then comes back the recollection of the time +when, standing we three alone by our father's grave, I told them always +to remember that brothers should be kind to each other; afterward I see +Henry returning from school with his books for the last time. He must go +into my printing-office. He learned rapidly. A word of encouragement or +a word of discouragement told upon his organization electrically. I +could see the effects in his day's work. Sometimes I would say, "Henry!" +He would stand full front with his eyes upon mine--all attention. If I +commanded him to do something, without a word he was off instantly, +probably in a run. If a cat was to be drowned or shot Sam (though +unwilling yet firm) was selected for the work. If a stray kitten was to +be fed and taken care of Henry was expected to attend to it, and he would +faithfully do so. So they grew up, and many was the grave lecture +commenced by ma, to the effect that Sam was misleading and spoiling +Henry. But the lectures were never concluded, for Sam would reply with a +witticism, or dry, unexpected humor, that would drive the lecture clean +out of my mother's mind, and change it to a laugh. Those were happier +days. My mother was as lively as any girl of sixteen. She is not so +now. And sister Pamela I have described in describing Henry; for she was +his counterpart. The blow falls crushingly on her. But the boys grew +up--Sam a rugged, brave, quick-tempered, generous-hearted fellow, Henry +quiet, observing, thoughtful, leaning on Sam for protection; Sam and I +too leaning on him for knowledge picked up from conversation or books, +for Henry seemed never to forget anything, and devoted much of his +leisure hours to reading. + +Henry is gone! His death was horrible! How I could have sat by him, +hung over him, watched day and night every change of expression, and +ministered to every want in my power that I could discover. This was +denied to me, but Sam, whose organization is such as to feel the utmost +extreme of every feeling, was there. Both his capacity of enjoyment and +his capacity of suffering are greater than mine; and knowing how it would +have affected me to see so sad a scene, I can somewhat appreciate Sam's +sufferings. In this time of great trouble, when my two brothers, whose +heartstrings have always been a part of my own, were suffering the utmost +stretch of mortal endurance, you were there, like a good angel, to aid +and console, and I bless and thank you for it with my whole heart. I +thank all who helped them then; I thank them for the flowers they sent to +Henry, for the tears that fell for their sufferings, and when he died, +and all of them for all the kind attentions they bestowed upon the poor +boys. We thank the physicians, and we shall always gratefully remember +the kindness of the gentleman who at so much expense to himself enabled +us to deposit Henry's remains by our father. + +With many kind wishes for your future welfare, I remain your earnest +friend, + Respectfully, + ORION CLEMENS. + + + + + + +APPENDIX B + +MARK TWAIN'S BURLESQUE OF CAPTAIN ISAIAH SELLERS + +(See Chapter xxvii) + +The item which served as a text for the "Sergeant Fathom" communication +was as follows: + + VICKSBURG, May 4, 1859. + +My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is +higher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the +water will be four feet deep in Canal Street before the first of next +June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all +under water, and it has not been since 1815. + I. SELLERS.--[Captain Sellers, as + in this case, sometimes signed + his own name to his + communications.] + + + +THE BURLESQUE + +INTRODUCTORY + +Our friend Sergeant Fathom, one of the oldest cub pilots on the river, +and now on the Railroad Line steamer Trombone, sends us a rather bad +account concerning the state of the river. Sergeant Fathom is a "cub" of +much experience, and although we are loath to coincide in his view of the +matter, we give his note a place in our columns, only hoping that his +prophecy will not be verified in this instance. While introducing the +Sergeant, "we consider it but simple justice (we quote from a friend of +his) to remark that he is distinguished for being, in pilot phrase, +'close,' as well as superhumanly 'safe.'" It is a well-known fact that +he has made fourteen hundred and fifty trips in the New Orleans and St. +Louis trade without causing serious damage to a steamboat. This +astonishing success is attributed to the fact that he seldom runs his +boat after early candle-light. It is related of the Sergeant that upon +one occasion he actually ran the chute of Glasscock's Island, down- +stream, in the night, and at a time, too, when the river was scarcely +more than bank full. His method of accomplishing this feat proves what +we have just said of his "safeness"--he sounded the chute first, and then +built a fire at the head of the island to run by. As to the Sergeant's +"closeness," we have heard it whispered that he once went up to the right +of the "Old Hen,"--[Glasscock's Island and the "Old Hen" were +phenomenally safe places.]--but this is probably a pardonable little +exaggeration, prompted by the love and admiration in which he is held by +various ancient dames of his acquaintance (for albeit the Sergeant may +have already numbered the allotted years of man, still his form is erect, +his step is firm, his hair retains its sable hue, and, more than all, he +hath a winning way about him, an air of docility and sweetness, if you +will, and a smoothness of speech, together with an exhaustless fund of +funny sayings; and, lastly, an overflowing stream, without beginning, or +middle, or end, of astonishing reminiscences of the ancient Mississippi, +which, taken together, form a 'tout ensemble' which is sufficient excuse +for the tender epithet which is, by common consent, applied to him by all +those ancient dames aforesaid, of "che-arming creature!"). As the +Sergeant has been longer on the river, and is better acquainted with it +than any other "cub" extant, his remarks are entitled to far more +consideration, and are always read with the deepest interest by high and +low, rich and poor, from "Kiho" to Kamschatka, for let it be known that +his fame extends to the uttermost parts of the earth: + + + +THE COMMUNICATION + +R.R. Steamer Trombone, VICKSBURG, May 8, 1859. + +The river from New Orleans up to Natchez is higher than it has been since +the niggers were executed (which was in the fall of 1813) and my opinion +is that if the rise continues at this rate the water will be on the roof +of the St. Charles Hotel before the middle of January. The point at +Cairo, which has not even been moistened by the river since 1813, is now +entirely under water. + +However, Mr. Editor, the inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley should not +act precipitately and sell their plantations at a sacrifice on account of +this prophecy of mine, for I shall proceed to convince them of a great +fact in regard to this matter, viz.: that the tendency of the Mississippi +is to rise less and less high every year (with an occasional variation of +the rule), that such has been the case for many centuries, and eventually +that it will cease to rise at all. Therefore, I would hint to the +planters, as we say in an innocent little parlor game commonly called +"draw," that if they can only "stand the rise" this time they may enjoy +the comfortable assurance that the old river's banks will never hold a +"full" again during their natural lives. + +In the summer of 1763 I came down the river on the old first Jubilee. +She was new then, however; a singular sort of a single-engine boat, with +a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, forecastle on her stern, wheels in +the center, and the jackstaff "nowhere," for I steered her with a window- +shutter, and when we wanted to land we sent a line ashore and "rounded +her to" with a yoke of oxen. + +Well, sir, we wooded off the top of the big bluff above Selmathe only dry +land visible--and waited there three weeks, swapping knives and playing +"seven up" with the Indians, waiting for the river to fall. Finally, it +fell about a hundred feet, and we went on. One day we rounded to, and I +got in a horse-trough, which my partner borrowed from the Indians up +there at Selma while they were at prayers, and went down to sound around +No. 8, and while I was gone my partner got aground on the hills at +Hickman. After three days' labor we finally succeeded in sparring her +off with a capstan bar, and went on to Memphis. By the time we got there +the river had subsided to such an extent that we were able to land where +the Gayoso House now stands. We finished loading at Memphis, and loaded +part of the stone for the present St. Louis Court House (which was then +in process of erection), to be taken up on our return trip. + +You can form some conception, by these memoranda, of how high the +water was in 1763. In 1775 it did not rise so high by thirty feet; +in 1790 it missed the original mark at least sixty-five feet; in +1797, one hundred and fifty feet; and in 1806, nearly two hundred and +fifty feet. These were "high-water" years. The "high waters" since then +have been so insignificant that I have scarcely taken the trouble to +notice them. Thus, you will perceive that the planters need not feel +uneasy. The river may make an occasional spasmodic effort at a flood, +but the time is approaching when it will cease to rise altogether. + +In conclusion, sir, I will condescend to hint at the foundation of these +arguments: When me and De Soto discovered the Mississippi I could stand +at Bolivar Landing (several miles above "Roaring Waters Bar") and pitch a +biscuit to the main shore on the other side, and in low water we waded +across at Donaldsonville. The gradual widening and deepening of the +river is the whole secret of the matter. + + Yours, etc. + SERGEANT FATHOM. + + + + +APPENDIX C + + +I + +MARK TWAIN'S EMPIRE CITY HOAX +(See Chapter xli) + +THE LATEST SENSATION + + A Victim to Jeremy Diddling Trustees--He Cuts his Throat from Ear to + Ear, Scalps his Wife, and Dashes Out the Brains of Six Helpless + Children! + +From Abram Curry, who arrived here yesterday afternoon from Carson, we +learn the following particulars concerning a bloody massacre which was +committed in Ormsby County night before last. It seems that during the +past six months a man named P. Hopkins, or Philip Hopkins, has been +residing with his family in the old log-house just at the edge of the +great pine forest which lies between Empire City and Dutch Nick's. The +family consisted of nine children--five girls and four boys--the oldest +of the group, Mary, being nineteen years old, and the youngest, Tommy, +about a year and a half. Twice in the past two months Mrs. Hopkins, +while visiting Carson, expressed fears concerning the sanity of her +husband, remarking that of late he had been subject to fits of violence, +and that during the prevalence of one of these he had threatened to take +her life. It was Mrs. Hopkins's misfortune to be given to exaggeration, +however, and but little attention was given to what she said. + +About 10 o'clock on Monday evening Hopkins dashed into Carson on +horseback, with his throat cut from ear to ear, and bearing in his hand a +reeking scalp, from which the warm, smoking blood was still dripping, and +fell in a dying condition in front of the Magnolia saloon. Hopkins +expired, in the course of five minutes, without speaking. The long, red +hair of the scalp he bore marked it as that of Mrs. Hopkins. A number of +citizens, headed by Sheriff Gasherie, mounted at once and rode down to +Hopkins's house, where a ghastly scene met their eyes. The scalpless +corpse of Mrs. Hopkins lay across the threshold, with her head split open +and her right hand almost severed from the wrist. Near her lay the ax +with which the murderous deed had been committed. In one of the bedrooms +six of the children were found, one in bed and the others scattered about +the floor. They were all dead. Their brains had evidently been dashed +out with a club, and every mark about them seemed to have been made with +a blunt instrument. The children must have struggled hard for their +lives, as articles of clothing and broken furniture were strewn about the +room in the utmost confusion. Julia and Emma, aged respectively fourteen +and seventeen, were found in the kitchen, bruised and insensible, but it +is thought their recovery is possible. The eldest girl, Mary, must have +sought refuge, in her terror, in the garret, as her body was found there +frightfully mutilated, and the knife with which her wounds had been +inflicted still sticking in her side. The two girls Julia and Emma, who +had recovered sufficiently to be able to talk yesterday morning, declare +that their father knocked them down with a billet of wood and stamped on +them. They think they were the first attacked. They further state that +Hopkins had shown evidence of derangement all day, but had exhibited no +violence. He flew into a passion and attempted to murder them because +they advised him to go to bed and compose his mind. + +Curry says Hopkins was about forty-two years of age, and a native of +western Pennsylvania; he was always affable and polite, and until very +recently no one had ever heard of his ill-treating his family. He had +been a heavy owner in the best mines of Virginia and Gold Hill, but when +the San Francisco papers exposed our game of cooking dividends in order +to bolster up our stocks he grew afraid and sold out, and invested an +immense amount in the Spring Valley Water Company, of San Francisco. He +was advised to do this by a relative of his, one of the editors of the +San Francisco Bulletin, who had suffered pecuniarily by the dividend- +cooking system as applied to the Daney Mining Company recently. Hopkins +had not long ceased to own in the various claims on the Comstock lead, +however, when several dividends were cooked on his newly acquired +property, their water totally dried up, and Spring Valley stock went down +to nothing. It is presumed that this misfortune drove him mad, and +resulted in his killing himself and the greater portion of his family. +The newspapers of San Francisco permitted this water company to go on +borrowing money and cooking dividends, under cover of which the cunning +financiers crept out of the tottering concern, leaving the crash to come +upon poor and unsuspecting stockholders, without offering to expose the +villainy at work. We hope the fearful massacre detailed above may prove +the saddest result of their silence. + + + +II + +NEWS-GATHERING WITH MARK TWAIN + +Alfred Doten's son gives the following account of a reporting trip made +by his father and Mark Twain, when the two were on Comstock papers: + +My father and Mark Twain were once detailed to go over to Como and write +up some new mines that had been discovered over there. My father was on +the Gold Hill News. He and Mark had not met before, but became promptly +acquainted, and were soon calling each other by their first names. + +They went to a little hotel at Carson, agreeing to do their work there +together next morning. When morning came they set out, and suddenly on a +corner Mark stopped and turned to my father, saying: + +"By gracious, Alf! Isn't that a brewery?" + +"It is, Mark. Let's go in." + +They did so, and remained there all day, swapping yarns, sipping beer, +and lunching, going back to the hotel that night. + +The next morning precisely the same thing occurred. When they were on +the same corner, Mark stopped as if he had never been there before, and +sand: + +"Good gracious, Alf ! Isn't that a brewery?" + +"It is, Mark. Let's go in." + +So again they went in, and again stayed all day. + +This happened again the next morning, and the next. Then my father +became uneasy. A letter had come from Gold Hill, asking him where his +report of the mines was. They agreed that next morning they would really +begin the story; that they would climb to the top of a hill that +overlooked the mines, and write it from there. + +But the next morning, as before, Mark was surprised to discover the +brewery, and once more they went in. A few moments later, however, a man +who knew all about the mines--a mining engineer connected with them--came +in. He was a godsend. My father set down a valuable, informing story, +while Mark got a lot of entertaining mining yarns out of him. + +Next day Virginia City and Gold Hill were gaining information from my +father's article, and entertainment from Mark's story of the mines. + + + + +APPENDIX D + +FROM MARK TWAIN'S FIRST LECTURE, DELIVERED OCTOBER 2, 1866 + +(See Chapter liv) + +HAWAIIAN IMPORTANCE TO AMERICA + +After a full elucidation of the sugar industry of the Sandwich Islands, +its profits and possibilities, he said: + +I have dwelt upon this subject to show you that these islands have a +genuine importance to America--an importance which is not generally +appreciated by our citizens. They pay revenues into the United States +Treasury now amounting to over a half a million a year. + +I do not know what the sugar yield of the world is now, but ten years +ago, according to the Patent Office reports, it was 800,000 hogsheads. +The Sandwich Islands, properly cultivated by go-ahead Americans, are +capable of providing one-third as much themselves. With the Pacific +Railroad built, the great China Mail Line of steamers touching at +Honolulu--we could stock the islands with Americans and supply a third of +the civilized world with sugar--and with the silkiest, longest-stapled +cotton this side of the Sea Islands, and the very best quality of rice +.... The property has got to fall to some heir, and why not the United +States? + + +NATIVE PASSION FOR FUNERALS + +They are very fond of funerals. Big funerals are their main weakness. +Fine grave clothes, fine funeral appointments, and a long procession are +things they take a generous delight in. They are fond of their chief and +their king; they reverence them with a genuine reverence and love them +with a warm affection, and often look forward to the happiness they will +experience in burying them. They will beg, borrow, or steal money +enough, and flock from all the islands, to be present at a royal funeral +on Oahu. Years ago a Kanaka and his wife were condemned to be hanged for +murder. They received the sentence with manifest satisfaction because it +gave an opening for a funeral, you know. All they care for is a funeral. +It makes but little difference to them whose it is; they would as soon +attend their own funeral as anybody else's. This couple were people of +consequence, and had landed estates. They sold every foot of ground they +had and laid it out in fine clothes to be hung in. And the woman +appeared on the scaffold in a white satin dress and slippers and fathoms +of gaudy ribbon, and the man was arrayed in a gorgeous vest, blue claw- +hammer coat and brass buttons, and white kid gloves. As the noose was +adjusted around his neck, he blew his nose with a grand theatrical +flourish, so as to show his embroidered white handkerchief. I never, +never knew of a couple who enjoyed hanging more than they did. + + + +VIEW FROM HALEAKALA + +It is a solemn pleasure to stand upon the summit of the extinct crater of +Haleakala, ten thousand feet above the sea, and gaze down into its awful +crater, 27 miles in circumference and ago feet deep, and to picture to +yourself the seething world of fire that once swept up out of the +tremendous abyss ages ago. + +The prodigious funnel is dead and silent now, and even has bushes growing +far down in its bottom, where the deep-sea line could hardly have reached +in the old times, when the place was filled with liquid lava. These +bushes look like parlor shrubs from the summit where you stand, and the +file of visitors moving through them on their mules is diminished to a +detachment of mice almost; and to them you, standing so high up against +the sun, ten thousand feet above their heads, look no larger than a +grasshopper. + +This in the morning; but at three or four in the afternoon a thousand +little patches of white clouds, like handfuls of wool, come drifting +noiselessly, one after another, into the crater, like a procession of +shrouded phantoms, and circle round and round the vast sides, and settle +gradually down and mingle together until the colossal basin is filled to +the brim with snowy fog and all its seared and desolate wonders are +hidden from sight. + +And then you may turn your back to the crater and look far away upon the +broad valley below, with its sugar-houses glinting like white specks in +the distance, and the great sugar-fields diminished to green veils amid +the lighter-tinted verdure around them, and abroad upon the limitless +ocean. But I should not say you look down; you look up at these things. + +You are ten thousand feet above them, but yet you seem to stand in a +basin, with the green islands here and there, and the valleys and the +wide ocean, and the remote snow-peak of Mauna Loa, all raised up before +and above you, and pictured out like a brightly tinted map hung at the +ceiling of a room. + +You look up at everything; nothing is below you. It has a singular and +startling effect to see a miniature world thus seemingly hung in mid-air. + +But soon the white clouds come trooping along in ghostly squadrons and +mingle together in heavy masses a quarter of a mile below you and shut +out everything-completely hide the sea and all the earth save the +pinnacle you stand on. As far as the eye can reach, it finds nothing to +rest upon but a boundless plain of clouds tumbled into all manner of +fantastic shapes-a billowy ocean of wool aflame with the gold and purple +and crimson splendors of the setting sun! And so firm does this grand +cloud pavement look that you can hardly persuade yourself that you could +not walk upon it; that if you stepped upon it you would plunge headlong +and astonish your friends at dinner ten thousand feet below. + +Standing on that peak, with all the world shut out by that vast plain of +clouds, a feeling of loneliness comes over a man which suggests to his +mind the last man at the flood, perched high upon the last rock, with +nothing visible on any side but a mournful waste of waters, and the ark +departing dimly through the distant mists and leaving him to storm and +night and solitude and death! + + + + +NOTICE OF MARK TWAIN'S LECTURE + +"THE TROUBLE IS OVER" + +"The inimitable Mark Twain, delivered himself last night of his first +lecture on the Sandwich Islands, or anything else. + +"Some time before the hour appointed to open his head the Academy of Music +(on Pine Street) was densely crowded with one of the most fashionable +audiences it was ever my privilege to witness during my long residence in +this city. The Elite of the town were there, and so was the Governor of +the State, occupying one of the boxes, whose rotund face was suffused +with a halo of mirth during the whole entertainment. The audience +promptly notified Mark by the usual sign--stamping--that the auspicious +hour had arrived, and presently the lecturer came sidling and swinging +out from the left of the stage. His very manner produced a generally +vociferous laugh from the assemblage. He opened with an apology, by +saying that he had partly succeeded in obtaining a band, but at the last +moment the party engaged backed out. He explained that he had hired a +man to play the trombone, but he, on learning that he was the only person +engaged, came at the last moment and informed him that he could not play. +This placed Mark in a bad predicament, and wishing to know his reasons +for deserting him at that critical moment, he replied, 'That he wasn't +going to make a fool of himself by sitting up there on the stage and +blowing his horn all by himself.' After the applause subsided, he +assumed a very grave countenance and commenced his remarks proper with +the following well-known sentence: 'When, in the course of human events,' +etc. He lectured fully an hour and a quarter, and his humorous sayings +were interspersed with geographical, agricultural, and statistical +remarks, sometimes branching off and reaching beyond, soaring, in the +very choicest language, up to the very pinnacle of descriptive power." + + + + + +APPENDIX E + +FROM "THE JUMPING FROG" BOOK (MARK TWAIN'S FIRST PUBLISHED VOLUME) + +(See Chapters lviii and lix) + +I + +ADVERTISEMENT + +"Mark Twain" is too well known to the public to require a formal +introduction at my hands. By his story of the Frog he scaled the heights +of popularity at a single jump and won for himself the 'sobriquet' of The +Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope. He is also known to fame as The +Moralist of the Main; and it is not unlikely that as such he will go down +to posterity. It is in his secondary character, as humorist, however, +rather than in the primal one of moralist, that I aim to present him in +the present volume. And here a ready explanation will be found for the +somewhat fragmentary character of many of these sketches; for it was +necessary to snatch threads of humor wherever they could be found--very +often detaching them from serious articles and moral essays with which +they were woven and entangled. Originally written for newspaper +publication, many of the articles referred to events of the day, the +interest of which has now passed away, and contained local allusions, +which the general reader would fail to understand; in such cases excision +became imperative. Further than this, remark or comment is unnecessary. +Mark Twain never resorts to tricks of spelling nor rhetorical buffoonery +for the purpose of provoking a laugh; the vein of his humor runs too rich +and deep to make surface gliding necessary. But there are few who can +resist the quaint similes, keen satire, and hard, good sense which form +the staple of his writing. + J. P. + + + +II + +FROM ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS + +"MORAL STATISTICIAN"--I don't want any of your statistics. I took your +whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You +are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much +his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he +wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal +practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking +coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of +wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. . . . + +Of course you can save money by denying yourself all these vicious little +enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use +can you put it to? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. All the +use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this +life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is +the use in accumulating cash? It won't do for you to say that you can +use it to better purpose in furnishing good table, and in charities, and +in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people +who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you +stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and +hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor +wretch, seeing you in a good-humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; +and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried in +the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give +the revenue-officers a true statement of your income. Now you all know +all these things yourself, don't you? Very well, then, what is the use +of your stringing out your miserable lives to a clean and withered old +age? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless +to you? In a word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be +always trying to seduce people into becoming as "ornery" and unlovable as +you are yourselves, by your ceaseless and villainous "moral statistics"? +Now, I don't approve of dissipation, and I don't indulge in it, either; +but I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming +petty vices whatever, and so I don't want to hear from you any more. I +think you are the very same man who read me a long lecture last week +about the degrading vice of smoking cigars and then came back, in my +absence, with your vile, reprehensible fire-proof gloves on, and carried +off my beautiful parlor-stove. + + + + +III + +FROM "A STRANGE DREAM" + +(Example of Mark Twain's Early Descriptive Writing) + +. . . In due time I stood, with my companion, on the wall of the vast +caldron which the natives, ages ago, named 'Hale mau mau'--the abyss +wherein they were wont to throw the remains of their chiefs, to the end +that vulgar feet might never tread above them. We stood there, at dead +of night, a mile above the level of the sea, and looked down a thousand +feet upon a boiling, surging, roaring ocean of fire!--shaded our eyes +from the blinding glare, and gazed far away over the crimson waves with a +vague notion that a supernatural fleet, manned by demons and freighted +with the damned, might presently sail up out of the remote distance; +started when tremendous thunder-bursts shook the earth, and followed with +fascinated eyes the grand jets of molten lava that sprang high up toward +the zenith and exploded in a world of fiery spray that lit up the somber +heavens with an infernal splendor. + +"What is your little bonfire of Vesuvius to this?" + +My ejaculation roused my companion from his reverie, and we fell into a +conversation appropriate to the occasion and the surroundings. We came +at last to speak of the ancient custom of casting the bodies of dead +chieftains into this fearful caldron; and my comrade, who is of the blood +royal, mentioned that the founder of his race, old King Kamehameha the +First--that invincible old pagan Alexander--had found other sepulture +than the burning depths of the 'Hale mau mau'. I grew interested at +once; I knew that the mystery of what became of the corpse of the warrior +king hail never been fathomed; I was aware that there was a legend +connected with this matter; and I felt as if there could be no more +fitting time to listen to it than the present. The descendant of the +Kamehamehas said: + +The dead king was brought in royal state down the long, winding road that +descends from the rim of the crater to the scorched and chasm-riven plain +that lies between the 'Hale mau mau' and those beetling walls yonder in +the distance. The guards were set and the troops of mourners began the +weird wail for the departed. In the middle of the night came a sound of +innumerable voices in the air and the rush of invisible wings; the +funeral torches wavered, burned blue, and went out. The mourners and +watchers fell to the ground paralyzed by fright, and many minutes elapsed +before any one dared to move or speak; for they believed that the phantom +messengers of the dread Goddess of Fire had been in their midst. When at +last a torch was lighted the bier was vacant--the dead monarch had been +spirited away! + + + + +APPENDIX F + +THE INNOCENTS ABROAD +(See Chapter lx) + + +NEW YORK "HERALD" EDITORIAL ON THE RETURN OF THE "QUAKER CITY" +PILGRIMAGE, NOVEMBER 19, 1867 + +In yesterday's Herald we published a most amusing letter from the pen of +that most amusing American genius, Mark Twain, giving an account of that +most amusing of all modern pilgrimages--the pilgrimage of the 'Quaker +City'. It has been amusing all through, this Quaker City affair. It +might have become more serious than amusing if the ship had been sold at +Jaffa, Alexandria, or Yalta, in the Black Sea, as it appears might have +happened. In such a case the passengers would have been more effectually +sold than the ship. The descendants of the Puritan pilgrims have, +naturally enough, some of them, an affection for ships; but if all that +is said about this religious cruise be true they have also a singularly +sharp eye to business. It was scarcely wise on the part of the pilgrims, +although it was well for the public, that so strange a genius as Mark +Twain should have found admission into the sacred circle. We are not +aware whether Mr. Twain intends giving us a book on this pilgrimage, but +we do know that a book written from his own peculiar standpoint, giving +an account of the characters and events on board ship and of the scenes +which the pilgrims witnessed, would command an almost unprecedented sale. +There are varieties of genius peculiar to America. Of one of these +varieties Mark Twain is a striking specimen. For the development of his +peculiar genius he has never had a more fitting opportunity. Besides, +there are some things which he knows, and which the world ought to know, +about this last edition of the Mayflower. + + + + + + +APPENDIX G + +MARK TWAIN AT THE CORRESPONDENTS CLUB, WASHINGTON + +(See Chapter lxiii) + +WOMAN + +A EULOGY OF THE FAIR SEX + +The Washington Correspondents Club held its anniversary on Saturday +night. Mr. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, responded to the toast, +"Woman, the pride of the professions and the jewel of ours." He said: + +Mr. President,--I do not know why I should have been singled out to +receive the greatest distinction of the evening--for so the office of +replying to the toast to woman has been regarded in every age. +[Applause.] I do not know why I have received this distinction, unless it +be that I am a trifle less homely than the other members of the club. +But, be this as it may, Mr. President, I am proud of the position, and +you could not have chosen any one who would have accepted it more gladly, +or labored with a heartier good--will to do the subject justice, than I. +Because, Sir, I love the sex. [Laughter.] I love all the women, sir, +irrespective of age or color. [Laughter.] + +Human intelligence cannot estimate what we owe to woman, sir. She sews +on our buttons [laughter]; she mends our clothes [laughter]; she ropes us +in at the church fairs; she confides in us; she tells us whatever she can +find out about the private affairs of the neighbors; she gives good +advice, and plenty of it; she gives us a piece of her mind sometimes-- +and sometimes all of it; she soothes our aching brows; she bears our +children. (Ours as a general thing.)--[this last sentence appears in +Twain's published speeches and may have been added later. D.W.] + +In all relations of life, sir, it is but just and a graceful tribute to +woman to say of her that she is a brick. [Great laughter.] + +Wheresoever you place woman, sir--in whatsoever position or estate--she +is an ornament to that place she occupies, and a treasure to the world. +[Here Mr. Twain paused, looked inquiringly at his hearers, and remarked +that the applause should come in at this point. It came in. Mr. Twain +resumed his eulogy.] Look at the noble names of history! Look at +Cleopatra! Look at Desdemona! Look at Florence Nightingale! Look at +Joan of Arc! Look at Lucretia Borgia! [Disapprobation expressed. +"Well," said Mr. Twain, scratching his head, doubtfully, "suppose we let +Lucretia slide."] Look at Joyce Heth! Look at Mother Eve! I repeat, +sir, look at the illustrious names of history! Look at the Widow +Machree! Look at Lucy Stone! Look at Elizabeth Cady Stanton! Look at +George Francis Train! [Great laughter.] And, sir, I say with bowed head +and deepest veneration, look at the mother of Washington! She raised a +boy that could not lie--could not lie. [Applause.] But he never had any +chance. It might have been different with him if he had belonged to a +newspaper correspondents' club. [Laughter, groans, hisses, cries of "put +him out." Mark looked around placidly upon his excited audience, and +resumed.] + +I repeat, sir, that in whatsoever position you place a woman she is an +ornament to society and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart she has +few equals and no superior [laughter]; as a cousin she is convenient; as +a wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper she is precious; as a +wet nurse she has no equal among men! [Laughter.] + +What, sir, would the people of this earth be without woman? They would +be scarce, sir. (Mighty scarce.)--[another line added later in the +published 'Speeches'. D.W.] Then let us cherish her, let us protect her, +let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy--ourselves, +if we get a chance. [Laughter.] + +But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is lovable, gracious, kind of +heart, beautiful; worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference. +Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially, for each +and every one of us has personally known, loved, and honored the very +best one of them all--his own mother! [Applause.] + + + + + + +APPENDIX H + +ANNOUNCEMENT FOR LECTURE OF JULY 2, 1868 + +(See Chapter lxvi) + +THE PUBLIC TO MARK TWAIN-CORRESPONDENCE + +SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th. + +MR. MARK TWAIN--DEAR SIR,--Hearing that you are about to sail for New +York in the P. M. S. S. Company's steamer of the 6th July, to publish a +book, and learning with the deepest concern that you propose to read a +chapter or two of that book in public before you go, we take this method +of expressing our cordial desire that you will not. We beg and implore +you do not. There is a limit to human endurance. + +We are your personal friends. We have your welfare at heart. We desire +to see you prosper. And it is upon these accounts, and upon these only, +that we urge you to desist from the new atrocity you contemplate. Yours +truly, + + 60 names including: Bret Harte, Maj.-Gen. Ord, Maj.-Gen. Halleck, + The Orphan Asylum, and various Benevolent Societies, Citizens on + Foot and Horseback, and 1500 in the Steerage. + + + +(REPLY) + + SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th + +TO THE 1,500 AND OTHERS,--It seems to me that your course is entirely +unprecedented. Heretofore, when lecturers, singers, actors, and other +frauds have said they were about to leave town, you have always been the +very first people to come out in a card beseeching them to hold on for +just one night more, and inflict just one more performance on the public, +but as soon as I want to take a farewell benefit you come after me, with +a card signed by the whole community and the board of aldermen, praying +me not to do it. But it isn't of any use. You cannot move me from my +fell purpose. I will torment the people if I want to. I have a better +right to do it than these strange lecturers and orators that come here +from abroad. It only costs the public a dollar apiece, and if they can't +stand it what do they stay here for? Am I to go away and let them have +peace and quiet for a year and a half, and then come back and only +lecture them twice? What do you take me for? + +No, gentlemen, ask of me anything else and I will do it cheerfully; but +do not ask me not to afflict the people. I wish to tell them all I know +about VENICE. I wish to tell them about the City of the Sea--that most +venerable, most brilliant, and proudest Republic the world has ever seen. +I wish to hint at what it achieved in twelve hundred years, and what it +lost in two hundred. I wish to furnish a deal of pleasant information, +somewhat highly spiced, but still palatable, digestible, and eminently +fitted for the intellectual stomach. My last lecture was not as fine as +I thought it was, but I have submitted this discourse to several able +critics, and they have pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I +withhold it? + +Let me talk only just this once, and I will sail positively on the 6th of +July, and stay away until I return from China--two years. + Yours truly, MARK TWAIN. + + + +(FURTHER REMONSTRANCE) + +SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th. + +MR. MARK TWAIN,--Learning with profound regret that you have concluded to +postpone your departure until the 6th July, and learning also, with +unspeakable grief, that you propose to read from your forthcoming book, +or lecture again before you go, at the New Mercantile Library, we hasten +to beg of you that you will not do it. Curb this spirit of lawless +violence, and emigrate at once. Have the vessel's bill for your passage +sent to us. We will pay it. + + Your friends, + Pacific Board of Brokers [and + other financial and social + institutions] + + + + SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th. + +MR. MARK TWAIN--DEAR SIR,--Will you start now, without any unnecessary +delay? + Yours truly, + Proprietors of the Alta, + Bulletin, Times, Call, Examiner + [and other San Francisco + publications]. + + + + SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th. + +MR. MARK TWAIN--DEAR SIR,--Do not delay your departure. You can come +back and lecture another time. In the language of the worldly--you can +"cut and come again." + Your friends, + THE CLERGY. + + + + SAN FRANCISCO, June 3oth. + +MR. MARK TWAIN--DEAR SIR,--You had better go. + Yours, + THE CHIEF OF POLICE. + + + +(REPLY) + +SAN FRANCISCO, June 30th. + +GENTLEMEN,--Restrain your emotions; you observe that they cannot avail. +Read: + + NEW MERCANTILE LIBRARY + Bush Street + + Thursday Evening, July 2, 1868 + One Night Only + + FAREWELL LECTURE + of + MARK TWAIN + Subject: + The Oldest of the Republics + VENICE + PAST AND PRESENT + + Box-Office open Wednesday and Thursday + No extra charge for reserved seats + + ADMISSION . . . . . . . . . . . ONE DOLLAR + Doors open at 7 Orgies to commence at 8 P. M. + + The public displays and ceremonies projected to give fitting eclat + to this occasion have been unavoidably delayed until the 4th. The + lecture will be delivered certainly on the 2d, and the event will be + celebrated two days afterward by a discharge of artillery on the + 4th, a procession of citizens, the reading of the Declaration of + Independence, and by a gorgeous display of fireworks from Russian + Hill in the evening, which I have ordered at my sole expense, the + cost amounting to eighty thousand dollars. + + AT NEW MERCANTILE LIBRARY + Bush Street + Thursday Evening, July 2, 1868 + + + + + + +APPENDIX I + +MARK TWAIN'S CHAMPIONSHIP OF THOMAS K. BEECHER + +(See Chapter lxxiv) + +There was a religious turmoil in Elmira in 1869; a disturbance among the +ministers, due to the success of Thomas K. Beecher in a series of +meetings he was conducting in the Opera House. Mr. Beecher's teachings +had never been very orthodox or doctrinal, but up to this time they had +been seemingly unobjectionable to his brother clergymen, who fraternized +with him and joined with him in the Monday meetings of the Ministerial +Union of Elmira, when each Monday a sermon was read by one of the +members. The situation presently changed. Mr. Beecher was preaching his +doubtful theology to large and nightly increasing audiences, and it was +time to check the exodus. The Ministerial Union of Elmira not only +declined to recognize and abet the Opera House gatherings, but they +requested him to withdraw from their Monday meetings, on the ground that +his teachings were pernicious. Mr. Beecher said nothing of the matter, +and it was not made public until a notice of it appeared in a religious +paper. Naturally such a course did not meet with the approval of the +Langdon family, and awoke the scorn of a man who so detested bigotry in +any form as Mark Twain. He was a stranger in the place, and not +justified to speak over his own signature, but he wrote an article and +read it to members of the Langdon family and to Dr. and Mrs. Taylor, +their intimate friends, who were spending an evening in the Langdon home. +It was universally approved, and the next morning appeared in the Elmira +Advertiser, over the signature of "S'cat." It created a stir, of course. + +The article follows: + +MR. BEECHER AND THE CLERGY + +"The Ministerial Union of Elmira, N. Y., at a recent meeting passed +resolutions disapproving the teachings of Rev. T. K. Beecher, declining +to co-operate with him in his Sunday evening services at the Opera House, +and requesting him to withdraw from their Monday morning meeting. This +has resulted in his withdrawal, and thus the pastors are relieved from +further responsibility as to his action."--N. Y. Evangelist. + + +Poor Beecher! All this time he could do whatever he pleased that was +wrong, and then be perfectly serene and comfortable over it, because the +Ministerial Union of Elmira was responsible to God for it. He could lie +if he wanted to, and those ministers had to answer for it; he could +promote discord in the church of Christ, and those parties had to make it +right with the Deity as best they could; he could teach false doctrines +to empty opera houses, and those sorrowing lambs of the Ministerial Union +had to get out their sackcloth and ashes and stand responsible for it. +He had such a comfortable thing of it! But he went too far. In an evil +hour he slaughtered the simple geese that laid the golden egg of +responsibility for him, and now they will uncover their customary +complacency, and lift up their customary cackle in his behalf no more. +And so, at last, he finds himself in the novel position of being +responsible to God for his acts, instead of to the Ministerial Union of +Elmira. To say that this is appalling is to state it with a degree of +mildness which amounts to insipidity. + +We cannot justly estimate this calamity, without first reviewing certain +facts that conspired to bring it about. Mr. Beecher was and is in the +habit of preaching to a full congregation in the Independent +Congregational Church, in this city. The meeting-house was not large +enough to accommodate all the people who desired admittance. Mr. Beecher +regularly attended the meetings of the Ministerial Union of Elmira every +Monday morning, and they received him into their fellowship, and never +objected to the doctrines which he taught in his church. So, in an +unfortunate moment, he conceived the strange idea that they would connive +at the teaching of the same doctrines in the same way in a larger house. +Therefore he secured the Opera House and proceeded to preach there every +Sunday evening to assemblages comprising from a thousand to fifteen +hundred persons. He felt warranted in this course by a passage of +Scripture which says, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel +unto every creature." Opera-houses were not ruled out specifically in +this passage, and so he considered it proper to regard opera-houses as a +part of "all the world." He looked upon the people who assembled there +as coming under the head of "every creature." These ideas were as absurd +as they were farfetched, but still they were the honest ebullitions of a +diseased mind. His great mistake was in supposing that when he had the +Saviour's indorsement of his conduct he had all that was necessary. He +overlooked the fact that there might possibly be a conflict of opinion +between the Saviour and the Ministerial Union of Elmira. And there was. +Wherefore, blind and foolish Mr. Beecher went to his destruction. The +Ministerial Union withdrew their approbation, and left him dangling in +the air, with no other support than the countenance and approval of the +gospel of Christ. + +Mr. Beecher invited his brother ministers to join forces with him and +help him conduct the Opera House meetings. They declined with great +unanimity. In this they were wrong. Since they did not approve of those +meetings, it was a duty they owed to their consciences and their God to +contrive their discontinuance. They knew this. They felt it. Yet they +turned coldly away and refused to help at those meetings, when they well +knew that their help, earnestly and persistently given, was able to kill +any great religious enterprise that ever was conceived of. + +The ministers refused, and the calamitous meetings at the Opera House +continued; and not only continued, but grew in interest and importance, +and sapped of their congregations churches where the Gospel was preached +with that sweet monotonous tranquillity and that impenetrable profundity +which stir up such consternation in the strongholds of sin. It is a pity +to have to record here that one clergyman refused to preach at the Opera +House at Mr. Beecher's request, even when that incendiary was sick and +disabled; and if that man's conscience justifies him in that refusal I do +not. Under the plea of charity for a sick brother he could have preached +to that Opera House multitude a sermon that would have done incalculable +damage to the Opera House experiment. And he need not have been +particular about the sermon he chose, either. He could have relied on +any he had in his barrel. + +The Opera House meetings went on; other congregations were thin, and grew +thinner, but the Opera House assemblages were vast. Every Sunday night, +in spite of sense and reason, multitudes passed by the churches where +they might have been saved, and marched deliberately to the Opera House +to be damned. The community talked, talked, talked. Everybody discussed +the fact that the Ministerial Union disapproved of the Opera House +meetings; also the fact that they disapproved of the teachings put forth +there. And everybody wondered how the Ministerial Union could tell +whether to approve or disapprove of those teachings, seeing that those +clergymen had never attended an Opera House meeting, and therefore didn't +know what was taught there. Everybody wondered over that curious +question, and they had to take it out in wondering. + +Mr. Beecher asked the Ministerial Union to state their objections to the +Opera House matter. They could not--at least they did not. He said to +them that if they would come squarely out and tell him that they desired +the discontinuance of those meetings he would discontinue them. They +declined to do that. Why should they have declined? They had no right +to decline, and no excuse to decline, if they honestly believed that +those meetings interfered in the slightest degree with the best interests +of religion. (That is a proposition which the profoundest head among +them cannot get around.) + +But the Opera House meetings went on. That was the mischief of it. And +so, one Monday morning, when Mr. B. appeared at the usual Ministers' +meeting, his brother clergymen desired him to come there no more. He +asked why. They gave no reason. They simply declined to have his +company longer. Mr. B. said he could not accept of this execution +without a trial, and since he loved them and had nothing against them he +must insist upon meeting with them in the future just the same as ever. +And so, after that, they met in secret, and thus got rid of this man's +importunate affection. + +The Ministerial Union had ruled out Beecher--a point gained. He would +get up an excitement about it in public. But that was a miscalculation. +He never mentioned it. They waited and waited for the grand crash, but +it never came. After all their labor-pains, their ministerial mountain +had brought forth only a mouse--and a still-born one at that. Beecher +had not told on them; Beecher malignantly persisted in not telling on +them. The opportunity was slipping away. Alas, for the humiliation of +it, they had to come out and tell it themselves! And after all, their +bombshell did not hurt anybody when they did explode it. They had ceased +to be responsible to God for Beecher, and yet nobody seemed paralyzed +about it. Somehow, it was not even of sufficient importance, apparently, +to get into the papers, though even the poor little facts that Smith has +bought a trotting team and Alderman Jones's child has the measles are +chronicled there with avidity. Something must be done. As the +Ministerial Union had told about their desolating action, when nobody +else considered it of enough importance to tell, they would also publish +it, now that the reporters failed to see anything in it important enough +to print. And so they startled the entire religious world no doubt by +solemnly printing in the Evangelist the paragraph which heads this +article. They have got their excommunication-bull started at last. It +is going along quite lively now, and making considerable stir, let us +hope. They even know it in Podunk, wherever that may be. It excited a +two-line paragraph there. Happy, happy world, that knows at last that a +little congress of congregationless clergymen of whom it had never heard +before have crushed a famous Beecher, and reduced his audiences from +fifteen hundred down to fourteen hundred and seventy-five at one fell +blow! Happy, happy world, that knows at last that these obscure +innocents are no longer responsible for the blemishless teachings, the +power, the pathos, the logic, and the other and manifold intellectual +pyrotechnics that seduce, but to damn, the Opera House assemblages every +Sunday night in Elmira! And miserable, O thrice miserable Beecher! For +the Ministerial Union of Elmira will never, no, never more be responsible +to God for his shortcomings. (Excuse these tears.) + +(For the protection of a man who is uniformly charged with all the +newspaper deviltry that sees the light in Elmira journals, I take this +opportunity of stating, under oath, duly subscribed before a magistrate, +that Mr. Beecher did not write this article. And further still, that he +did not inspire it. And further still, the Ministerial Union of Elmira +did not write it. And finally, the Ministerial Union did not ask me to +write it. No, I have taken up this cudgel in defense of the Ministerial +Union of Elmira solely from a love of justice. Without solicitation, I +have constituted myself the champion of the Ministerial Union of Elmira, +and it shall be a labor of love with me to conduct their side of a +quarrel in print for them whenever they desire me to do it; or if they +are busy, and have not the time to ask me, I will cheerfully do it +anyhow. In closing this I must remark that if any question the right of +the clergymen of Elmira to turn Mr. Beecher out of the Ministerial Union, +to such I answer that Mr. Beecher recreated that institution after it had +been dead for many years, and invited those gentlemen to come into it, +which they did, and so of course they have a right to turn him out if +they want to. The difference between Beecher and the man who put an +adder in his bosom is, that Beecher put in more adders than he did, and +consequently had a proportionately livelier time of it when they got +warmed up.) + Cheerfully, + S'CAT. + + + + + +APPENDIX J + +THE INDIGNITY PUT UPON THE REMAINS OF GEORGE HOLLAND BY THE +REV. MR. SABINE + +(See Chapter lxxvii) + +What a ludicrous satire it was upon Christian charity!--even upon the +vague, theoretical idea of it which doubtless this small saint mouths +from his own pulpit every Sunday. Contemplate this freak of nature, and +think what a Cardiff giant of self-righteousness is crowded into his +pigmy skin. If we probe, and dissect; and lay open this diseased, this +cancerous piety of his, we are forced to the conviction that it is the +production of an impression on his part that his guild do about all the +good that is done on the earth, and hence are better than common clay-- +hence are competent to say to such as George Holland, "You are unworthy; +you are a play-actor, and consequently a sinner; I cannot take the +responsibility of recommending you to the mercy of Heaven." It must have +had its origin in that impression, else he would have thought, "We are +all instruments for the carrying out of God's purposes; it is not for me +to pass judgment upon your appointed share of the work, or to praise or +to revile it; I have divine authority for it that we are all sinners, and +therefore it is not for me to discriminate and say we will supplicate for +this sinner, for he was a merchant prince or a banker, but we will +beseech no forgiveness for this other one, for he was a play-actor." + +It surely requires the furthest possible reach of self-righteousness to +enable a man to lift his scornful nose in the air and turn his back upon +so poor and pitiable a thing as a dead stranger come to beg the last +kindness that humanity can do in its behalf. This creature has violated +the letter of the Gospel, and judged George Holland--not George Holland, +either, but his profession through him. Then it is, in a measure, fair +that we judge this creature's guild through him. In effect he has said, +"We are the salt of the earth; we do all the good work that is done; to +learn how to be good and do good men must come to us; actors and such are +obstacles to moral progress." Pray look at the thing reasonably a +moment, laying aside all biases of education and custom. If a common +public impression is fair evidence of a thing then this minister's +legitimate, recognized, and acceptable business is to tell people calmly, +coldly, and in stiff, written sentences, from the pulpit, to go and do +right, be just, be merciful, be charitable. And his congregation forget +it all between church and home. But for fifty years it was George +Holland's business on the stage to make his audience go and do right, and +be just, merciful, and charitable--because by his living, breathing, +feeling pictures he showed them what it was to do these things, and how +to do them, and how instant and ample was the reward! Is it not a +singular teacher of men, this reverend gentleman who is so poorly +informed himself as to put the whole stage under ban, and say, "I do not +think it teaches moral lessons"? Where was ever a sermon preached that +could make filial ingratitude so hateful to men as the sinful play of +"King Lear"? Or where was there ever a sermon that could so convince men +of the wrong and the cruelty of harboring a pampered and unanalyzed +jealousy as the sinful play of "Othello"? And where are there ten +preachers who can stand in the pulpit preaching heroism, unselfish +devotion, and lofty patriotism, and hold their own against any one of +five hundred William Tells that can be raised upon five hundred stages in +the land at a day's notice? It is almost fair and just to aver (although +it is profanity) that nine-tenths of all the kindness and forbearance and +Christian charity and generosity in the hearts of the American people +today got there by being filtered down from their fountain-head, the +gospel of Christ, through dramas and tragedies and comedies on the stage, +and through the despised novel and the Christmas story, and through the +thousand and one lessons, suggestions, and narratives of generous deeds +that stir the pulses, and exalt and augment the nobility of the nation +day by day from the teeming columns of ten thousand newspapers, and not +from the drowsy pulpit. + +All that is great and good in our particular civilization came straight +from the hand of Jesus Christ, and many creatures, and of divers sorts, +were doubtless appointed to disseminate it; and let us believe that this +seed and the result are the main thing, and not the cut of the sower's +garment; and that whosoever, in his way and according to his opportunity, +sows the one and produces the other, has done high service and worthy. +And further, let us try with all our strength to believe that whenever +old simple-hearted George Holland sowed this seed, and reared his crop of +broader charities and better impulses in men's hearts, it was just as +acceptable before the Throne as if the seed had been scattered in vapid +platitudes from the pulpit of the ineffable Sabine himself. + +Am I saying that the pulpit does not do its share toward disseminating +the marrow, the meat of the gospel of Christ? (For we are not talking of +ceremonies and wire-drawn creeds now, but the living heart and soul of +what is pretty often only a specter.) + +No, I am not saying that. The pulpit teaches assemblages of people twice +a week nearly two hours altogether--and does what it can in that time. +The theater teaches large audiences seven times a week--28 or 30 hours +altogether--and the novels and newspapers plead, and argue, and +illustrate, stir, move, thrill, thunder, urge, persuade, and supplicate, +at the feet of millions and millions of people every single day, and all +day long and far into the night; and so these vast agencies till nine- +tenths of the vineyard, and the pulpit tills the other tenth. Yet now +and then some complacent blind idiot says, "You unanointed are coarse +clay and useless; you are not as we, the regenerators of the world; go, +bury yourselves elsewhere, for we cannot take the responsibility of +recommending idlers and sinners to the yearning mercy of Heaven." How +does a soul like that stay in a carcass without getting mixed with the +secretions and sweated out through the pores? Think of this insect +condemning the whole theatrical service as a disseminator of bad morals +because it has Black Crooks in it; forgetting that if that were +sufficient ground people would condemn the pulpit because it had Crooks +and Kallochs and Sabines in it! + +No, I am not trying to rob the pulpit of any atom of its full share and +credit in the work of disseminating the meat and marrow of the gospel of +Christ; but I am trying to get a moment's hearing for worthy agencies in +the same work, that with overwrought modesty seldom or never claim a +recognition of their great services. I am aware that the pulpit does its +excellent one-tenth (and credits itself with it now and then, though most +of the time a press of business causes it to forget it); I am aware that +in its honest and well-meaning way it bores the people with uninflammable +truisms about doing good; bores them with correct compositions on +charity; bores them, chloroforms them, stupefies them with argumentative +mercy without a flaw in the grammar or an emotion which the minister +could put in in the right place if he turned his back and took his finger +off the manuscript. And in doing these things the pulpit is doing its +duty, and let us believe that it is likewise doing its best, and doing it +in the most harmless and respectable way. And so I have said, and shall +keep on saying, let us give the pulpit its full share of credit in +elevating and ennobling the people; but when a pulpit takes to itself +authority to pass judgment upon the work and worth of just as legitimate +an instrument of God as itself, who spent a long life preaching from the +stage the selfsame gospel without the alteration of a single sentiment or +a single axiom of right, it is fair and just that somebody who believes +that actors were made for a high and good purpose, and that they +accomplish the object of their creation and accomplish it well, should +protest. And having protested, it is also fair and just--being driven to +it, as it were--to whisper to the Sabine pattern of clergyman, under the +breath, a simple, instructive truth, and say, "Ministers are not the only +servants of God upon earth, nor his most efficient ones, either, by a +very, very long distance!" Sensible ministers already know this, and it +may do the other kind good to find it out. + +But to cease teaching and go back to the beginning again, was it not +pitiable--that spectacle? Honored and honorable old George Holland, +whose theatrical ministry had for fifty years softened hard hearts, bred +generosity in cold ones, kindled emotion in dead ones, uplifted base +ones, broadened bigoted ones, and made many and many a stricken one glad +and filled it brimful of gratitude, figuratively spit upon in his +unoffending coffin by this crawling, slimy, sanctimonious, self-righteous +reptile! + + + + + + +APPENDIX K + +A SUBSTITUTE FOR RULOFF HAVE WE A SIDNEY CARTON AMONG US? + +(See Chapter lxxxii) + +To EDITOR of 'Tribune'. + +SIR,--I believe in capital punishment. I believe that when a murder has +been done it should be answered for with blood. I have all my life been +taught to feel this way, and the fetters of education are strong. The +fact that the death--law is rendered almost inoperative by its very +severity does not alter my belief in its righteousness. The fact that in +England the proportion of executions to condemnations is one to sixteen, +and in this country only one to twenty-two, and in France only one to +thirty-eight, does not shake my steadfast confidence in the propriety of +retaining the death-penalty. It is better to hang one murderer in +sixteen, twenty-two, thirty-eight than not to hang any at all. + +Feeling as I do, I am not sorry that Ruloff is to be hanged, but I am +sincerely sorry that he himself has made it necessary that his vast +capabilities for usefulness should be lost to the world. In this, mine +and the public's is a common regret. For it is plain that in the person +of Ruloff one of the most marvelous of intellects that any age has +produced is about to be sacrificed, and that, too, while half the mystery +of its strange powers is yet a secret. Here is a man who has never +entered the doors of a college or a university, and yet by the sheer +might of his innate gifts has made himself such a colossus in abstruse +learning that the ablest of our scholars are but pigmies in his presence. +By the evidence of Professor Mather, Mr. Surbridge, Mr. Richmond, and +other men qualified to testify, this man is as familiar with the broad +domain of philology as common men are with the passing events of the day. +His memory has such a limitless grasp that he is able to quote sentence +after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, from a +gnarled and knotty ancient literature that ordinary scholars are capable +of achieving little more than a bowing acquaintance with. But his memory +is the least of his great endowments. By the testimony of the gentlemen +above referred to he is able to critically analyze the works of the old +masters of literature, and while pointing out the beauties of the +originals with a pure and discriminating taste is as quick to detect the +defects of the accepted translations; and in the latter case, if +exceptions be taken to his judgment, he straightway opens up the quarries +of his exhaustless knowledge, and builds a very Chinese wall of evidence +around his position. Every learned man who enters Ruloff's presence +leaves it amazed and confounded by his prodigious capabilities and +attainments. One scholar said he did not believe that in matters of +subtle analysis, vast knowledge in his peculiar field of research, +comprehensive grasp of subject, and serene kingship over its limitless +and bewildering details, any land or any era of modern times had given +birth to Ruloff's intellectual equal. What miracles this murderer might +have wrought, and what luster he might have shed upon his country, if he +had not put a forfeit upon his life so foolishly! But what if the law +could be satisfied, and the gifted criminal still be saved. If a life be +offered up on the gallows to atone for the murder Ruloff did, will that +suffice? If so, give me the proofs, for in all earnestness and truth I +aver that in such a case I will instantly bring forward a man who, in the +interests of learning and science, will take Ruloff's crime upon himself, +and submit to be hanged in Ruloff's place. I can, and will do this +thing; and I propose this matter, and make this offer in good faith. You +know me, and know my address. + SAMUEL LANGHORNE. + April 29, 1871. + + + + + + +APPENDIX L + +ABOUT LONDON + +ADDRESS AT A DINNER GIVEN BY THE SAVAGE CLUB, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 28, 1872 + +(See Chapter lxxxvii) + +Reported by Moncure D. Conway in the Cincinnati Commercial + +It affords me sincere pleasure to meet this distinguished club, a club +which has extended its hospitalities and its cordial welcome to so many +of my countrymen. I hope [and here the speaker's voice became low and +fluttering] you will excuse these clothes. I am going to the theater; +that will explain these clothes. I have other clothes than these. +Judging human nature by what I have seen of it, I suppose that the +customary thing for a stranger to do when he stands here is to make a pun +on the name of this club, under the impression, of course, that he is the +first man that that idea has occurred to. It is a credit to our human +nature, not a blemish upon it; for it shows that underlying all our +depravity (and God knows and you know we are depraved enough) and all our +sophistication, and untarnished by them, there is a sweet germ of +innocence and simplicity still. When a stranger says to me, with a glow +of inspiration in his eye, some gentle, innocuous little thing about +"Twain and one flesh" and all that sort of thing, I don't try to crush +that man into the earth--no. I feel like saying, "Let me take you by the +hand, sir; let me embrace you; I have not heard that pun for weeks." We +will deal in palpable puns. We will call parties named King "your +Majesty" and we will say to the Smiths that we think we have heard that +name before somewhere. Such is human nature. We cannot alter this. It +is God that made us so for some good and wise purpose. Let us not +repine. But though I may seem strange, may seem eccentric, I mean to +refrain from punning upon the name of this club, though I could make a +very good one if I had time to think about it--a week. + +I cannot express to you what entire enjoyment I find in this first visit +to this prodigious metropolis of yours. Its wonders seem to me to be +limitless. I go about as in a dream--as in a realm of enchantment--where +many things are rare and beautiful, and all things are strange and +marvelous. Hour after hour I stand--I stand spellbound, as it were-and +gaze upon the statuary in Leicester Square. [Leicester Square being a +horrible chaos, with the relic of an equestrian statue in the center, the +king being headless and limbless, and the horse in little better +condition.] I visit the mortuary effigies of noble old Henry VIII., and +Judge Jeffreys, and the preserved gorilla, and try to make up my mind +which of my ancestors I admire the most. I go to that matchless Hyde +Park and drive all around it, and then I start to enter it at the Marble +Arch--and am induced to "change my mind." [Cabs are not permitted in +Hyde Park--nothing less aristocratic than a private carriage.] It is a +great benefaction--is Hyde Park. There, in his hansom cab, the invalid +can go--the poor, sad child of misfortune--and insert his nose between +the railings, and breathe the pure, health-giving air of the country and +of heaven. And if he is a swell invalid who isn't obliged to depend upon +parks for his country air he can drive inside--if he owns his vehicle. +I drive round and round Hyde Park and the more I see of the edges of it +the more grateful I am that the margin is extensive. + +And I have been to the Zoological Gardens. What a wonderful place that +is! I have never seen such a curious and interesting variety of wild- +animals in any garden before--except Mabille. I never believed before +there were so many different kinds of animals in the world as you can +find there--and I don't believe it yet. I have been to the British +Museum. I would advise you to drop in there some time when you have +nothing to do for--five minutes--if you have never been there. It seems +to me the noblest monument this nation has, yet erected to her greatness. +I say to her, our greatness--as a nation. True, she has built other +monuments, and stately ones, as well; but these she has uplifted in honor +of two or three colossal demigods who have stalked across the world's +stage, destroying tyrants and delivering nations, and whose prodigies +will still live in the memories of men ages after their monuments shall +have crumbled to dust--I refer to the Wellington and Nelson monuments, +and--the Albert memorial. [Sarcasm. The Albert memorial is the finest +monument in the world, and celebrates the existence of as commonplace a +person as good luck ever lifted out of obscurity.] + +The Library at the British Museum I find particularly astounding. I have +read there hours together, and hardly made an impression on it. I revere +that library. It is the author's friend. I don't care how mean a book +is, it always takes one copy. [A copy of every book printed in Great +Britain must by law be sent to the British Museum, a law much complained +of by publishers.] And then every day that author goes there to gaze at +that book, and is encouraged to go on in the good work. And what a +touching sight it is of a Saturday afternoon to see the poor, careworn +clergymen gathered together in that vast reading-room cabbaging sermons +for Sunday! You will pardon my referring to these things. Everything in +this monster city interests me, and I cannot keep from talking, even at +the risk of being instructive. People here seem always to express +distances by parables. To a stranger it is just a little confusing to be +so parabolic--so to speak. I collar a citizen, and I think I am going to +get some valuable information out of him. I ask him how far it is to +Birmingham, and he says it is twenty-one shillings and sixpence. Now we +know that doesn't help a man who is trying to learn. I find myself down- +town somewhere, and I want to get some sort of idea where I am--being +usually lost when alone--and I stop a citizen and say, "How far is it to +Charing Cross?" "Shilling fare in a cab," and off he goes. I suppose if +I were to ask a Londoner how far it is from the sublime to the ridiculous +he would try to express it in a coin. But I am trespassing upon your +time with these geological statistics and historical reflections. I will +not longer keep you from your orgies. 'Tis a real pleasure for me to be +here, and I thank you for it. The name of the Savage Club is associated +in my mind with the kindly interest and the friendly offices which you +lavished upon an old friend of mine who came among you a stranger, and +you opened your English hearts to him and gave him a welcome and a home-- +Artemus Ward. Asking that you will join me, I give you his Memory. + + + + + + +APPENDIX M + +LETTER WRITTEN TO MRS. CLEMENS FROM BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1874, PROPHESYING A +MONARCHY IN SIXTY-ONE YEARS + +(See Chapter xcvii) + + BOSTON, November 16, 1935. + +DEAR LIVY,--You observe I still call this beloved old place by the name +it had when I was young. Limerick! It is enough to make a body sick. + +The gentlemen-in-waiting stare to see me sit here telegraphing this +letter to you, and no doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let +them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I +will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed, +holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a +thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it, +it makes me frantic with rage; and then I am more implacably fixed and +resolved than ever to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you +what I might communicate in ten seconds by the new way if I would so +debase myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn drawing-room full +of idiots sitting with their hands on each other's foreheads "communing" +I tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the +blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked +pure drivel and "rot," mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than +these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in this mad +generation. + +It is sixty years since I was here before. I walked hither then with my +precious old friend. It seems incredible now that we did it in two days, +but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked back in +a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of the +hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the puerile +organisms in this effeminate age attempting such a feat. + +My air-ship was delayed by a collision with a fellow from China loaded +with the usual cargo of jabbering, copper-colored missionaries, and so I +was nearly an hour on my journey. But by the goodness of God thirteen of +the missionaries were crippled and several killed, so I was content to +lose the time. I love to lose time anyway because it brings soothing +reminiscences of the creeping railroad days of old, now lost to us +forever. + +Our game was neatly played, and successfully. None expected us, of +course. You should have seen the guards at the ducal palace stare when I +said, "Announce his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Right +Honorable the Earl of Hartford." Arrived within, we were all eyes to see +the Duke of Cambridge and his Duchess, wondering if we might remember +their faces and they ours. In a moment they came tottering in; he, bent +and withered and bald; she, blooming with wholesome old age. He peered +through his glasses a moment, then screeched in a reedy voice, "Come to +my arms! Away with titles--I'll know ye by no names but Twain and +Twichell!" Then fell he on our necks and jammed his trumpet in his ear, +the which we filled with shoutings to this effect: "God bless you, old +Howells, what is left of you!" + +We talked late that night--none of your silent idiot "communings" for us +--of the olden time. We rolled a stream of ancient anecdotes over our +tongues and drank till the Lord Archbishop grew so mellow in the mellow +past that Dublin ceased to be Dublin to him, and resumed its sweeter, +forgotten name of New York. In truth he almost got back into his ancient +religion, too, good Jesuit as he has always been since O'Mulligan the +First established that faith in the empire. + +And we canvassed everybody. Bailey Aldrich, Marquis of Ponkapog, came +in, got nobly drunk, and told us all about how poor Osgood lost his +earldom and was hanged for conspiring against the second Emperor; but he +didn't mention how near he himself came to being hanged, too, for +engaging in the same enterprise. He was as chaffy as he was sixty years +ago, too, and swore the Archbishop and I never walked to Boston; but +there was never a day that Ponkapog wouldn't lie, so be it by the grace +of God he got the opportunity. + +The Lord High Admiral came in, a hale gentleman close upon seventy and +bronzed by the suns and storms of many climes and scarred by the wounds +got in many battles, and I told him how I had seen him sit in a high- +chair and eat fruit and cakes and answer to the name of Johnny. His +granddaughter (the eldest) is but lately married to the youngest of the +Grand Dukes, and so who knows but a day may come when the blood of the +Howellses may reign in the land? I must not forget to say, while I think +of it, that your new false teeth are done, my dear, and your wig. Keep +your head well bundled with a shawl till the latter comes, and so cheat +your persecuting neuralgias and rheumatisms. Would you believe it?--the +Duchess of Cambridge is deafer than you--deafer than her husband. They +call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it +thunders she looks up expectantly and says, "Come in." But she has +become subdued and gentle with age and never destroys the furniture now, +except when uncommonly vexed. God knows, my dear, it would be a happy +thing if you and old Lady Harmony would imitate this spirit. But indeed +the older you grow the less secure becomes the furniture. When I throw +chairs through the window I have sufficient reason to back it. But you-- +you are but a creature of passion. + +The monument to the author of 'Gloverson and His Silent Partners' is +finished.--[Ralph Keeler. See chap. lxxxiii.]--It is the stateliest +and the costliest ever erected to the memory of any man. This noble +classic has now been translated into all the languages of the earth and +is adored by all nations and known to all creatures. Yet I have +conversed as familiarly with the author of it as I do with my own great- +grandchildren. + +I wish you could see old Cambridge and Ponkapog. I love them as dearly +as ever, but privately, my dear, they are not much improvement on idiots. +It is melancholy to hear them jabber over the same pointless anecdotes +three and four times of an evening, forgetting that they had jabbered +them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes +poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his +best effort of late years is this: + + O soul, soul, soul of mine! + Soul, soul, soul of throe! + Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine, + And sing thy lauds in crystal wine! + + +This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch +that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him. + +But I must desist. There are draughts here everywhere and my gout is +something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder. +God be with you. + HARTFORD. + +These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the +upper portion of the city of Dublin. + + + + + + +APPENDIX N + +MARK TWAIN AND COPYRIGHT + + +I + +PETITION + +Concerning Copyright (1875) +(See Chapter cii) + +TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN +CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. + +We, your petitioners, do respectfully represent as follows, viz.: That +justice, plain and simple, is a thing which right-feeling men stand ready +at all times to accord to brothers and strangers alike. All such men +will concede that it is but plain, simple justice that American authors +should be protected by copyright in Europe; also, that European authors +should be protected by copyright here. + +Both divisions of this proposition being true, it behooves our government +to concern itself with that division of it which comes peculiarly within +its province--viz., the latter moiety--and to grant to foreign authors +with all convenient despatch a full and effective copyright in America +without marring the grace of the act by stopping to inquire whether a +similar justice will be done our own authors by foreign governments. If +it were even known that those governments would not extend this justice +to us it would still not justify us in withholding this manifest right +from their authors. If a thing is right it ought to be done--the thing +called "expediency" or "policy" has no concern with such a matter. And +we desire to repeat, with all respect, that it is not a grace or a +privilege we ask for our foreign brethren, but a right--a right received +from God, and only denied them by man. We hold no ownership in these +authors, and when we take their work from them, as at present, without +their consent, it is robbery. The fact that the handiwork of our own +authors is seized in the same way in foreign lands neither excuses nor +mitigates our sin. + +With your permission we will say here, over our signatures, and earnestly +and sincerely, that we very greatly desire that you shall grant a full +copyright to foreign authors (the copyright fee for the entry in the +office of the Congressional Librarian to be the same as we pay +ourselves), and we also as greatly desire that this grant shall be made +without a single hampering stipulation that American authors shall +receive in turn an advantage of any kind from foreign governments. + +Since no author who was applied to hesitated for a moment to append his +signature to this petition we are satisfied that if time had permitted we +could have procured the signature of every writer in the United States, +great and small, obscure or famous. As it is, the list comprises the +names of about all our writers whose works have at present a European +market, and who are therefore chiefly concerned in this matter. + +No objection to our proposition can come from any reputable publisher +among us--or does come from such a quarter, as the appended signatures of +our greatest publishing firms will attest. A European copyright here +would be a manifest advantage to them. As the matter stands now the +moment they have thoroughly advertised a desirable foreign book, and thus +at great expense aroused public interest in it, some small-spirited +speculator (who has lain still in his kennel and spent nothing) rushes +the same book on the market and robs the respectable publisher of half +the gains. + +Then, since neither our authors nor the decent among our publishing firms +will object to granting an American copyright to foreign authors and +artists, who can there be to object? Surely nobody whose protest is +entitled to any weight. + +Trusting in the righteousness of our cause we, your petitioners, will +ever pray, etc. + With great respect, + Your Ob't Serv'ts. + + + + +CIRCULAR TO AMERICAN AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS + +DEAR SIR,--We believe that you will recognize the justice and the +righteousness of the thing we desire to accomplish through the +accompanying petition. And we believe that you will be willing that our +country shall be the first in the world to grant to all authors alike the +free exercise of their manifest right to do as they please with the fruit +of their own labor without inquiring what flag they live under. If the +sentiments of the petition meet your views, will you do us the favor to +sign it and forward it by post at your earliest convenience to our +secretary? + }Committee +Address + ------------------- +Secretary of the Committee. + + + + + +II + +Communications supposed to have been written by the Tsar of Russia and +the Sultan of Turkey to Mark Twain on the subject of International +Copyright, about 1890. + + + ST. PETERSBURG, February. + +COL. MARK TWAIN, Washington. + +Your cablegram received. It should have been transmitted through my +minister, but let that pass. I am opposed to international copyright. +At present American literature is harmless here because we doctor it in +such a way as to make it approve the various beneficent devices which we +use to keep our people favorable to fetters as jewelry and pleased with +Siberia as a summer resort. But your bill would spoil this. We should +be obliged to let you say your say in your own way. 'Voila'! my empire +would be a republic in five years and I should be sampling Siberia +myself. + +If you should run across Mr. Kennan--[George Kennan, who had graphically +pictured the fearful conditions of Siberian exile.]--please ask him to +come over and give some readings. I will take good care of him. + + ALEXANDER III. + +144--Collect. + + + + + CONSTANTINOPLE, February. + +DR. MARK TWAIN, Washington. + +Great Scott, no! By the beard of the Prophet, no! How can you ask such +a thing of me? I am a man of family. I cannot take chances, like other +people. I cannot let a literature come in here which teaches that a +man's wife is as good as the man himself. Such a doctrine cannot do any +particular harm, of course, where the man has only one wife, for then it +is a dead-level between them, and there is no humiliating inequality, and +no resulting disorder; but you take an extremely married person, like me, +and go to teaching that his wife is 964 times as good as he is, and +what's hell to that harem, dear friend? I never saw such a fool as you. +Do not mind that expression; I already regret it, and would replace it +with a softer one if I could do it without debauching the truth. I +beseech you, do not pass that bill. Roberts College is quite all the +American product we can stand just now. On top of that, do you want to +send us a flood of freedom-shrieking literature which we can't edit the +poison out of, but must let it go among our people just as it is? My +friend, we should be a republic inside of ten years. + + ABDUL II. + + + +III + +MARK TWAIN'S LAST SUGGESTION ON COPYRIGHT + +A MEMORIAL RESPECTFULLY TENDERED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND THE +HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES + +(Prepared early in 1909 at the suggestion of Mr. Champ Clack but not +offered. A bill adding fourteen years to the copyright period was passed +about this time.) + +The Policy of Congress:--Nineteen or twenty years ago James Russell +Lowell, George Haven Putnam, and the under signed appeared before the +Senate Committee on Patents in the interest of Copyright. Up to that +time, as explained by Senator Platt, of Connecticut, the policy of +Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright by a term of years, +with one definite end in view, and only one--to wit, that after an author +had been permitted to enjoy for a reasonable length of time the income +from literary property created by his hand and brain the property should +then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still the +policy of Congress to-day. + +The Purpose in View:--The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the +price of the book as to bring it within the reach of all purses, and +spread it among the millions who had not been able to buy it while it was +still under the protection of copyright. + +The Purpose Defeated:--This purpose has always been defeated. That is to +say, that while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price +of a book by a half for a while, and in some cases by even more, it has +never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was +permanent and secure. + +The Reason:--The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction +compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the author's +royalty and the book's consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among +several competing publishers would make the book cheap by force of the +competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, +a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap edition if he must +divide the market with competitors. + +Proposed Remedy:--The natural remedy would seem to be, amended law +requiring the issue of cheap editions. + +Copyright Extension:--I think the remedy could be accomplished in the +following way, without injury to author or publisher, and with extreme +advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law providing as +follows--to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's +forty-first year and the ending of its forty-second the owner of the +copyright may extend its life thirty years by issuing and placing on sale +an edition of the book at one-tenth the price of the cheapest edition +hitherto issued at any time during the ten immediately preceding years. +This extension to lapse and become null and void if at any time during +the thirty years he shall fail during the space of three consecutive +months to furnish the ten per cent. book upon demand of any person or +persons desiring to buy it. + +The Result:--The result would be that no American classic enjoying the +thirty-year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American +purse, let its uncompulsory price be what it might. He would get a two- +dollar book for 20 cents, and he could get none but copyright-expired +classics at any such rate. + +The Final Result:--At the end of the thirty-year extension the +copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a +natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an +advantage to any publisher. + +Reconstruction of The Present Law Not Necessary:--A clause of the +suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the +necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again: + + All books and all articles enjoying forty-two years copyright-life + under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the + thirty-year extension upon complying with the condition requiring + the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form + of said book or article at a price of 90 per cent. below the + cheapest rate at which said book or article had been placed upon the + market at any time during the immediately preceding ten years. + + + REMARKS + +If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present +Congress and become law--and I hope it will--I shall have personal +experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact, in the person +of my first book, 'The Innocents Abroad'. For its forty-two-year +copyright-life will then cease and its thirty-year extension begin--and +with the latter the permanent low-rate edition. At present the highest +price of the book is eight dollars, and its lowest price three dollars +per copy. Thus the permanent low rate will be thirty cents per copy. A +sweeping reduction like this is what Congress from the beginning has +desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no +inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk. + + Respectfully submitted, + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +(A full and interesting elucidation of Mark Twain's views on Copyright +may be found in an article entitled "Concerning Copyright," published in +the North American Review for January, 1905.) + + + + + + +APPENDIX O +(See Chapter cxiv) + + Address of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) from a report of the + dinner given by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly in honor of + the Seventieth Anniversary of the Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, + at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877, as published in + the Boston Evening Transcript, December 18, 1877. + +MR. CHAIRMAN, This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of +pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk, therefore I will drop +lightly into history myself. Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic, +and contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded +of a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just +succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose +spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly California-ward. I started an +inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow +and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'. +I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin +in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at the +time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door to +me. When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than +before. He let me in-pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the +customary bacon and beans, black coffee and hot whisky, I took a pipe. +This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time. Now he +spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering, "You're +the fourth--I'm going to move." "The fourth what?" said I. "The fourth +littery man that has been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going to move." +"You don't tell me!" said I; "who were the others?" "Mr. Longfellow. +Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the lot!" + +You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot +whiskies did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said he: + +"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in, of +course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough lot, +but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot. +Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was +as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundered, and had double +chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a +prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wig +made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down in his face, like a +finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see +that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin, +then he took me by the buttonhole and says he: + + "'Through the deep caves of thought + I hear a voice that sings, + "Build thee more stately mansions, + O my soul!"' + +"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want to.' +Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a stranger that +way. However, I started to get out my bacon and beans when Mr. Emerson +came and looked on awhile, and then he takes me aside by the buttonhole +and says: + + "'Give me agates for my meat; + Give me cantharids to eat; + From air and ocean bring me foods, + From all zones and altitudes.' + +"Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.' You +see, it sort of riled me--I warn't used to the ways of Jittery swells. +But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr. Longfellow and +buttonholes me and interrupts me. Says he: + + "'Honor be to Mudjekeewis! + You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--' + +"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll +be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get +this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after they'd filled up +I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then he fires up all of a +sudden and yells: + + "'Flash out a stream of blood-red wine! + For I would drink to other days.' + +"By George, I was getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was +getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes and says I, 'Looky +here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the court knows +herself you'll take whisky straight or you'll go dry.' Them's the very +words I said to him. Now I don't want to sass such famous Littery +people, but you see they kind of forced me. There ain't nothing +onreasonable 'bout me. I don't mind a passel of guests a-treadin' on my +tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's +different, 'and if the court knows herself,' I says, 'you'll take whisky +straight or you'll go dry.' Well, between drinks they'd swell around the +cabin and strike attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a +greasy old deck and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on +trust. I began to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson +dealt, looked at his hand, shook his head, says: + + "'I am the doubter and the doubt--' + +and calmly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new lay-out. +Says he: + + "'They reckon ill who leave me out; + They know not well the subtle ways I keep. + I pass and deal again!' + +Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! Oh, he was a cool one! +Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight, but all of a +sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had already +corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he kind of lifts +a little in his chair and says, + + "'I tire of globes and aces! + Too long the game is played!' + +and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie +and says, + + "'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, + For the lesson thou hast taught,' + +and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower! Emerson claps his +hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under +a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose +up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first +man that draws I'll lay down on him and smother him!' All quiet on the +Potomac, you bet! + +"They were pretty how-come-you-so by now, and they begun to blow. +Emerson says, 'The noblest thing I ever wrote was "Barbara Frietchie."' +Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my "Bigelow Papers."' Says Holmes, +'My "Thanatopsis" lays over 'em both.' They mighty near ended in a fight. +Then they wished they had some more company, and Mr. Emerson pointed to +me and says: + + "'Is yonder squalid peasant all + That this proud nursery could breed?' + +He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass. Well, sir, +next they took it into their heads that they would like some music; so +they made me stand up and sing, 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' till I +dropped--at thirteen minutes past four this morning. That's what I've +been through, my friend. When I woke at seven they were leaving, thank +goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only boots on and his'n under his +arm. Says I, 'Hold on there, Evangeline, what are you going to do with +them?' He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em, because-- + + "'Lives of great men all remind us + We can make our lives sublime; + And, departing, leave behind us + Footprints on the sands of time.' + +"As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours +and I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a Littery atmosphere." + +I said to the miner, "Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious +singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and homage; these +were impostors." + +The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, "Ah! +impostors, were they? Are you?" + +I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not traveled on my +'nom de guerre' enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I was moved to +contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the +details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I +believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular +fact on an occasion like this. + + + + + + +APPENDIX P + +THE ADAM MONUMENT PETITION + +(See Chapter cxxxiv) + +TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES +IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. + +WHEREAS, A number of citizens of the city of Elmira in the State of New +York having covenanted among themselves to erect in that city a monument +in memory of Adam, the father of mankind, being moved thereto by a +sentiment of love and duty, and these having appointed the undersigned to +communicate with your honorable body, we beg leave to lay before you the +following facts and append to the same our humble petition. + +1. As far as is known no monument has ever been raised in any part of +the world to commemorate the services rendered to our race by this great +man, whilst many men of far less note and worship have been rendered +immortal by means of stately and indestructible memorials. + +2. The common father of mankind has been suffered to lie in entire +neglect, although even the Father of our Country has now, and has had for +many years, a monument in course of construction. + +3. No right-feeling human being can desire to see this neglect +continued, but all just men, even to the farthest regions of the globe, +should and will rejoice to know that he to whom we owe existence is about +to have reverent and fitting recognition of his works at the hands of the +people of Elmira. His labors were not in behalf of one locality, but for +the extension of humanity at large and the blessings which go therewith; +hence all races and all colors and all religions are interested in seeing +that his name and fame shall be placed beyond the reach of the blight of +oblivion by a permanent and suitable monument. + +4. It will be to the imperishable credit of the United States if this +monument shall be set up within her borders; moreover, it will be a +peculiar grace to the beneficiary if this testimonial of affection and +gratitude shall be the gift of the youngest of the nations that have +sprung from his loins after 6,000 years of unappreciation on the part of +its elders. + +5. The idea of this sacred enterprise having originated in the city of +Elmira, she will be always grateful if the general government shall +encourage her in the good work by securing to her a certain advantage +through the exercise of its great authority. + +Therefore, Your petitioners beg that your honorable body will be pleased +to issue a decree restricting to Elmira the right to build a monument to +Adam and inflicting a heavy penalty upon any other community within the +United States that shall propose or attempt to erect a monument or other +memorial to the said Adam, and to this end we will ever pray. + +NAMES: (100 signatures) + + + + + + + +APPENDIX Q + +GENERAL GRANT'S GRAMMAR + +(Written in 1886. Delivered at an Army and Navy Club dinner in New York +City) + +Lately a great and honored author, Matthew Arnold, has been finding fault +with General Grant's English. That would be fair enough, maybe, if the +examples of imperfect English averaged more instances to the page in +General Grant's book than they do in Arnold's criticism on the book--but +they do not. It would be fair enough, maybe, if such instances were +commoner in General Grant's book than they are in the works of the +average standard author--but they are not. In fact, General Grant's +derelictions in the matter of grammar and construction are not more +frequent than such derelictions in the works of a majority of the +professional authors of our time, and of all previous times--authors as +exclusively and painstakingly trained to the literary trade as was +General Grant to the trade of war. This is not a random statement: it is +a fact, and easily demonstrable. I have a book at home called Modern +English Literature: Its Blemishes and Defects, by Henry H. Breen, a +countryman of Mr. Arnold. In it I find examples of bad grammar and +slovenly English from the pens of Sydney Smith, Sheridan, Hallam, +Whately, Carlyle, Disraeli, Allison, Junius, Blair, Macaulay, +Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Southey, Lamb, Landor, Smollett, Walpole, +Walker (of the dictionary), Christopher North, Kirk White, Benjamin +Franklin, Sir Walter Scott, and Mr. Lindley Murray (who made the +grammar). + +In Mr. Arnold's criticism on General Grant's book we find two grammatical +crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English, +enough of them to entitle him to a lofty place in the illustrious list of +delinquents just named. + +The following passage all by itself ought to elect him: + "Meade suggested to Grant that he might wish to have immediately + under him Sherman, who had been serving with Grant in the West. He + begged him not to hesitate if he thought it for the good of the + service. Grant assured him that he had not thought of moving him, + and in his memoirs, after relating what had passed, he adds, etc." + +To read that passage a couple of times would make a man dizzy; to read it +four times would make him drunk. + +Mr. Breen makes this discriminating remark: "To suppose that because a +man is a poet or a historian he must be correct in his grammar is to +suppose that an architect must be a joiner, or a physician a compounder +of medicine." + +People may hunt out what microscopic motes they please, but, after all, +the fact remains, and cannot be dislodged, that General Grant's book is a +great and, in its peculiar department, a unique and unapproachable +literary masterpiece. In their line there is no higher literature than +those modest, simple memoirs. Their style is at least flawless and no +man could improve upon it, and great books are weighed and measured by +their style and matter, and not by the trimmings and shadings of their +grammar. + +There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots, and when we +think of General Grant our pulses quicken and his grammar vanishes; we +only remember that this is the simple soldier who, all untaught of the +silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an art surpassing the +art of the schools and put into them a something which will still bring +to American ears, as long as America shall last, the roll of his vanished +drums and the tread of his marching hosts. What do we care for grammar +when we think of those thunderous phrases, "Unconditional and immediate +surrender," "I propose to move immediately upon your works," "I propose +to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Mr. Arnold would +doubtless claim that that last phrase is not strictly grammatical, and +yet it did certainly wake up this nation as a hundred million tons of A- +number-one fourth-proof, hard-boiled, hide-bound grammar from another +mouth could not have done. And finally we have that gentler phrase, that +one which shows you another true side of the man, shows you that in his +soldier heart there was room for other than gory war mottoes and in his +tongue the gift to fitly phrase them: "Let us have peace." + + + + + + +APPENDIX R + +PARTY ALLEGIANCE + +BEING A PORTION OF A PAPER ON "CONSISTENCY," READ BEFORE THE MONDAY +EVENING CLUB IN 1887 + +(See Chapter clxiii) + +. . . I have referred to the fact that when a man retires from his +political party he is a traitor--that he is so pronounced in plain +language. That is bold; so bold as to deceive many into the fancy that +it is true. Desertion, treason--these are the terms applied. Their +military form reveals the thought in the man's mind who uses them: to him +a political party is an army. Well, is it? Are the two things +identical? Do they even resemble each other? Necessarily a political +party is not an army of conscripts, for they are in the ranks by +compulsion. Then it must be a regular army or an army of volunteers. +Is it a regular army? No, for these enlist for a specified and well- +understood term, and can retire without reproach when the term is up. +Is it an army of volunteers who have enlisted for the war, and may +righteously be shot if they leave before the war is finished? No, it is +not even an army in that sense. Those fine military terms are high- +sounding, empty lies, and are no more rationally applicable to a +political party than they would be to an oyster-bed. The volunteer +soldier comes to the recruiting office and strips himself and proves that +he is so many feet high, and has sufficiently good teeth, and no fingers +gone, and is sufficiently sound in body generally; he is accepted; but +not until he has sworn a deep oath or made other solemn form of promise +to march under, that flag until that war is done or his term of +enlistment completed. What is the process when a voter joins a party? +Must he prove that he is sound in any way, mind or body? Must he prove +that he knows anything--is capable of anything--whatever? Does he take +an oath or make a promise of any sort?--or doesn't he leave himself +entirely free? If he were informed by the political boss that if he +join, it must be forever; that he must be that party's chattel and wear +its brass collar the rest of his days--would not that insult him? It +goes without saying. He would say some rude, unprintable thing, and turn +his back on that preposterous organization. But the political boss puts +no conditions upon him at all; and this volunteer makes no promises, +enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; +he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find +that his bosses and his newspapers have assumed just the reverse of that: +that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military +authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he +will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to +believe that he cannot leave that party, for any cause whatever, without +being a shameful traitor, a deserter, a legitimately dishonored man. + +There you have the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of +opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated +foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. +Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target +for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop +twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise +one of them. If he is a preacher half his congregation will clamor for +his expulsion--and will expel him, except they find it will injure real +estate in the neighborhood; if he is a doctor his own dead will turn +against him. + +I repeat that the new party-member who supposed himself independent will +presently find that the party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul, +and that within a year he will recognize the mortgage, deliver up his +liberty, and actually believe he cannot retire from that party from any +motive howsoever high and right in his own eyes without shame and +dishonor. + +Is it possible for human wickedness to invent a doctrine more infernal +and poisonous than this? Is there imaginable a baser servitude than it +imposes? What slave is so degraded as the slave that is proud that he is +a slave? What is the essential difference between a lifelong democrat +and any other kind of lifelong slave? Is it less humiliating to dance to +the lash of one master than another? + +This infamous doctrine of allegiance to party plays directly into the +hands of politicians of the baser sort--and doubtless for that it was +borrowed--or stolen--from the monarchial system. It enables them to +foist upon the country officials whom no self-respecting man would vote +for if he could but come to understand that loyalty to himself is his +first and highest duty, not loyalty to any party name. + +Shall you say the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? +Shall you also say that it demands that a man kick his truth and his +conscience into the gutter and become a mouthing lunatic besides? Oh no, +you say; it does not demand that. But what if it produce that in spite +of you? There is no obligation upon a man to do things which he ought +not to do when drunk, but most men will do them just the same; and so we +hear no arguments about obligations in the matter--we only hear men +warned to avoid the habit of drinking; get rid of the thing that can +betray men into such things. + +This is a funny business all around. The same men who enthusiastically +preach loyal consistency to church and party are always ready and willing +and anxious to persuade a Chinaman or an Indian or a Kanaka to desert his +church or a fellow-American to desert his party. The man who deserts to +them is all that is high and pure and beautiful--apparently; the man who +deserts from them is all that is foul and despicable. This is +Consistency--with a capital C. + +With the daintiest and self-complacentest sarcasm the lifelong loyalist +scoffs at the Independent--or as he calls him, with cutting irony, the +Mugwump; makes himself too killingly funny for anything in this world +about him. But--the Mugwump can stand it, for there is a great history +at his back; stretching down the centuries, and he comes of a mighty +ancestry. He knows that in the whole history of the race of men no +single great and high and beneficent thing was ever done for the souls +and bodies, the hearts and the brains of the children of this world, but +a Mugwump started it and Mugwumps carried it to victory: And their names +are the stateliest in history: Washington, Garrison, Galileo, Luther, +Christ. Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a +human soul in this world-end never will. + + + + + + + +APPENDIX S + +ORIGINAL PREFACE FOR "A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT" + +(See Chapter clxxii) + +My object has been to group together some of the most odious laws which +have had vogue in the Christian countries within the past eight or ten +centuries, and illustrate them by the incidents of a story. + +There was never a time when America applied the death-penalty to more +than fourteen crimes. But England, within the memory of men still +living, had in her list of crimes 223 which were punishable by death! +And yet from the beginning of our existence down to a time within the +memory of babes England has distressed herself piteously over the +ungentleness of our Connecticut Blue Laws. Those Blue Laws should have +been spared English criticism for two reasons: + +1. They were so insipidly mild, by contrast with the bloody and +atrocious laws of England of the same period, as to seem characterless +and colorless when one brings them into that awful presence. + +2. The Blue Laws never had any existence. They were the fancy-work of +an English clergyman; they were never a part of any statute-book. And +yet they could have been made to serve a useful and merciful purpose; if +they had been injected into the English law the dilution would have given +to the whole a less lurid aspect; or, to figure the effect in another +way, they would have been coca mixed into vitriol. + +I have drawn no laws and no illustrations from the twin civilizations of +hell and Russia. To have entered into that atmosphere would have +defeated my purpose, which was to show a great and genuine progress in +Christendom in these few later generations toward mercifulness--a wide +and general relaxing of the grip of the law. Russia had to be left out +because exile to Siberia remains, and in that single punishment is +gathered together and concentrated all the bitter inventions of all the +black ages for the infliction of suffering upon human beings. Exile for +life from one's hearthstone and one's idols--this is rack, thumb-screw, +the water-drop, fagot and stake, tearing asunder by horses, flaying +alive--all these in one; and not compact into hours, but drawn out into +years, each year a century, and the whole a mortal immortality of torture +and despair. While exile to Siberia remains one will be obliged to admit +that there is one country in Christendom where the punishments of all the +ages are still preserved and still inflicted, that there is one country +in Christendom where no advance has been made toward modifying the +medieval penalties for offenses against society and the State. + + + + + + +APPENDIX T + +A TRIBUTE TO HENRY H. ROGERS + +(See Chapter cc and earlier) + +April 25, 1902. I owe more to Henry Rogers than to any other man whom I +have known. He was born in Fairhaven, Connecticut, in 1839, and is my +junior by four years. He was graduated from the high school there in +1853, when he was fourteen years old, and from that time forward he +earned his own living, beginning at first as the bottom subordinate in +the village store with hard-work privileges and a low salary. When he +was twenty-four he went out to the newly discovered petroleum fields in +Pennsylvania and got work; then returned home, with enough money to pay +passage, married a schoolmate, and took her to the oil regions. He +prospered, and by and by established the Standard Oil Trust with Mr. +Rockefeller and others, and is still one of its managers and directors. + +In 1893 we fell together by accident one evening in the Murray Hill +Hotel, and our friendship began on the spot and at once. Ever since then +he has added my business affairs to his own and carried them through, and +I have had no further trouble with them. Obstructions and perplexities +which would have driven me mad were simplicities to his master mind and +furnished him no difficulties. He released me from my entanglements with +Paige and stopped that expensive outgo; when Charles L. Webster & Company +failed he saved my copyrights for Mrs. Clemens when she would have +sacrificed them to the creditors although they were in no way entitled to +them; he offered to lend me money wherewith to save the life of that +worthless firm; when I started lecturing around the world to make the +money to pay off the Webster debts he spent more than a year trying to +reconcile the differences between Harper & Brothers and the American +Publishing Company and patch up a working-contract between them and +succeeded where any other man would have failed; as fast as I earned +money and sent it to him he banked it at interest and held onto it, +refusing to pay any creditor until he could pay all of the 96 alike; when +I had earned enough to pay dollar for dollar he swept off the +indebtedness and sent me the whole batch of complimentary letters which +the creditors wrote in return; when I had earned $28,500 more, $18,500 of +which was in his hands, I wrote him from Vienna to put the latter into +Federal Steel and leave it there; he obeyed to the extent of $17,500, but +sold it in two months at $25,000 profit, and said it would go ten points +higher, but that it was his custom to "give the other man a chance" (and +that was a true word--there was never a truer one spoken). That was at +the end of '99 and beginning of 1900; and from that day to this he has +continued to break up my bad schemes and put better ones in their place, +to my great advantage. I do things which ought to try man's patience, +but they never seem to try his; he always finds a colorable excuse for +what I have done. His soul was born superhumanly sweet, and I do not +think anything can sour it. I have not known his equal among men for +lovable qualities. But for his cool head and wise guidance I should +never have come out of the Webster difficulties on top; it was his good +steering that enabled me to work out my salvation and pay a hundred cents +on the dollar--the most valuable service any man ever did me. + +His character is full of fine graces, but the finest is this: that he can +load you down with crushing obligations and then so conduct himself that +you never feel their weight. If he would only require something in +return--but that is not in his nature; it would not occur to him. With +the Harpers and the American Company at war those copyrights were worth +but little; he engineered a peace and made them valuable. He invests +$100,000 for me here, and in a few months returns a profit of $31,000. I +invest (in London and here) $66,000 and must wait considerably for +results (in case there shall be any). I tell him about it and he finds +no fault, utters not a sarcasm. He was born serene, patient, all- +enduring, where a friend is concerned, and nothing can extinguish that +great quality in him. Such a man is entitled to the high gift of humor: +he has it at its very best. He is not only the best friend I have ever +had, but is the best man I have known. + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + + +APPENDIX U + +FROM MARK TWAIN'S LAST POEM + +BEGUN AT RIVERDALE, NEW YORK. FINISHED AT YORK HARBOR, MAINE, +AUGUST 18, 1902 + +(See Chapter ccxxiii) + +(A bereft and demented mother speaks) + +. . . O, I can see my darling yet: the little form +In slip of flimsy stuff all creamy white, +Pink-belted waist with ample bows, +Blue shoes scarce bigger than the house-cat's ears-- +Capering in delight and choked with glee. + +It was a summer afternoon; the hill +Rose green above me and about, and in the vale below +The distant village slept, and all the world +Was steeped in dreams. Upon me lay this peace, +And I forgot my sorrow in its spell. And now +My little maid passed by, and she +Was deep in thought upon a solemn thing: +A disobedience, and my reproof. +Upon my face She must not look until the day was done; +For she was doing penance . . . She? +O, it was I! What mother knows not that? +And so she passed, I worshiping and longing . . . +It was not wrong? You do not think me wrong? +I did it for the best. Indeed I meant it so. + +She flits before me now: +The peach-bloom of her gauzy crepe, +The plaited tails of hair, +The ribbons floating from the summer hat, +The grieving face, dropp'd head absorbed with care. +O, dainty little form! +I see it move, receding slow along the path, +By hovering butterflies besieged; I see it reach +The breezy top clear-cut against the sky, . . . +Then pass beyond and sink from sight-forever! + +Within, was light and cheer; without, +A blustering winter's right. There was a play; +It was her own; for she had wrought it out +Unhelped, from her own head-and she +But turned sixteen! A pretty play, +All graced with cunning fantasies, +And happy songs, and peopled all with fays, +And sylvan gods and goddesses, +And shepherds, too, that piped and danced, +And wore the guileless hours away +In care-free romps and games. + +Her girlhood mates played in the piece, +And she as well: a goddess, she,-- +And looked it, as it seemed to me. + +'Twas fairyland restored-so beautiful it was +And innocent. It made us cry, we elder ones, +To live our lost youth o'er again +With these its happy heirs. + +Slowly, at last, the curtain fell. +Before us, there, she stood, all wreathed and draped +In roses pearled with dew-so sweet, so glad, +So radiant!--and flung us kisses through the storm +Of praise that crowned her triumph . . . . O, +Across the mists of time I see her yet, +My Goddess of the Flowers! + +. . . The curtain hid her . . . . +Do you comprehend? Till time shall end! +Out of my life she vanished while I looked! + +. . . Ten years are flown. +O, I have watched so long, +So long. But she will come no more. +No, she will come no more. + +It seems so strange . . . so strange . . . +Struck down unwarned! +In the unbought grace, of youth laid low-- +In the glory of her fresh young bloom laid low-- +In the morning of her life cut down! +And I not by! Not by +When the shadows fell, the night of death closed down +The sun that lit my life went out. Not by to answer +When the latest whisper passed the lips +That were so dear to me--my name! +Far from my post! the world's whole breadth away. +O, sinking in the waves of death she cried to me +For mother-help, and got for answer +Silence! + +We that are old--we comprehend; even we +That are not mad: whose grown-up scions still abide; +Their tale complete: +Their earlier selves we glimpse at intervals +Far in the dimming past; +We see the little forms as once they were, +And whilst we ache to take them to our hearts, +The vision fades. We know them lost to us-- +Forever lost; we cannot have them back; +We miss them as we miss the dead, +We mourn them as we mourn the dead. + + + + + + +APPENDIX V + +SELECTIONS FROM AN UNFINISHED BOOK, "3,000 YEARS AMONG THE MICROBES" + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MICROBE, WHO, IN A FORMER EXISTENCE, HAD BEEN A +MAN--HIS PRESENT HABITAT BEING THE ORGANISM OF A TRAMP, BLITZOWSKI. +(WRITTEN AT DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1905) + +(See Chapter ccxxxv) + +Our world (the tramp) is as large and grand and awe-compelling to us +microscopic creatures as is man's world to man. Our tramp is +mountainous, there are vast oceans in him, and lakes that are sea-like +for size, there are many rivers (veins and arteries) which are fifteen +miles across, and of a length so stupendous as to make the Mississippi +and the Amazon trifling little Rhode Island brooks by comparison. As for +our minor rivers, they are multitudinous, and the dutiable commerce of +disease which they carry is rich beyond the dreams of the American +custom-house. + +Take a man like Sir Oliver Lodge, and what secret of Nature can be hidden +from him? He says: "A billion, that is a million millions,[?? Trillion +D.W.] of atoms is truly an immense number, but the resulting aggregate is +still excessively minute. A portion of substance consisting, of a +billion atoms is only barely visible with the highest power of a +microscope; and a speck or granule, in order to be visible to the naked +eye, like a grain of lycopodium-dust, must be a million times bigger +still." + +The human eye could see it then--that dainty little speck. But with my +microbe-eye I could see every individual of the whirling billions of +atoms that compose the speck. Nothing is ever at rest--wood, iron, +water, everything is alive, everything is raging, whirling, whizzing, day +and night and night and day, nothing is dead, there is no such thing as +death, everything is full of bristling life, tremendous life, even the +bones of the crusader that perished before Jerusalem eight centuries ago. +There are no vegetables, all things are animal; each electron is an +animal, each molecule is a collection of animals, and each has an +appointed duty to perform and a soul to be saved. Heaven was not made +for man alone, and oblivion and neglect reserved for the rest of His +creatures. He gave them life, He gave them humble services to perform, +they have performed them, and they will not be forgotten, they will have +their reward. Man-always vain, windy, conceited-thinks he will be in the +majority there. He will be disappointed. Let him humble himself. But +for the despised microbe and the persecuted bacillus, who needed a home +and nourishment, he would not have been created. He has a mission, +therefore a reason for existing: let him do the service he was made for, +and keep quiet. + +Three weeks ago I was a man myself, and thought and felt as men think and +feel; I have lived 3,000 years since then [microbic time], and I see the +foolishness of it now. We live to learn, and fortunate are we when we +are wise enough to profit by it. + +In matters pertaining to microscopy we necessarily have an advantage here +over the scientist of the earth, because, as I have just been indicating, +we see with our naked eyes minutenesses which no man-made microscope can +detect, and are therefore able to register as facts many things which +exist for him as theories only. Indeed, we know as facts several things +which he has not yet divined even by theory. For example, he does not +suspect that there is no life but animal life, and that all atoms are +individual animals endowed each with a certain degree of consciousness, +great or small, each with likes and dislikes, predilections and +aversions--that, in a word, each has a character, a character of its own. +Yet such is the case. Some of the molecules of a stone have an aversion +for some of those of a vegetable or any other creature and will not +associate with them--and would not be allowed to, if they tried. Nothing +is more particular about society than a molecule. And so there are no +end of castes; in this matter India is not a circumstance. + +"Tell me, Franklin [a microbe of great learning], is the ocean an +individual, an animal, a creature?" + +"Yes." + +"Then water--any water-is an individual?" + +"Yes." + +"Suppose you remove a drop of it? Is what is left an individual?" + +"Yes, and so is the drop." + +"Suppose you divide the drop?" + +"Then you have two individuals." + +"Suppose you separate the hydrogen and the oxygen?" + +"Again you have two individuals. But you haven't water any more." + +"Of course. Certainly. Well, suppose you combine them again, but in a +new way: make the proportions equal--one part oxygen to one of hydrogen?" + +"But you know you can't. They won't combine on equal terms." + +I was ashamed to have made that blunder. I was embarrassed; to cover it +I started to say we used to combine them like that where I came from, but +thought better of it, and stood pat. + +"Now then," I said, "it amounts to this: water is an individual, an +animal, and is alive; remove the hydrogen and it is an animal and is +alive; the remaining oxygen is also an individual, an animal, and is +alive. Recapitulation: the two individuals combined constitute a third +individual--and yet each continues to be an individual." + +I glanced at Franklin, but . . . upon reflection, held my peace. I +could have pointed out to him that here was mute Nature explaining the +sublime mystery of the Trinity so luminously--that even the commonest +understanding could comprehend it, whereas many a trained master of words +had labored to do it with speech and failed. But he would not have known +what I was talking about. After a moment I resumed: + +"Listen--and see if I have understood you rightly, to wit: All the atoms +that constitute each oxygen molecule are separate individuals, and each +is a living animal; all the atoms that constitute each hydrogen molecule +are separate individuals, and each one is a living animal; each drop of +water consists of millions of living animals, the drop itself is an +individual, a living animal, and the wide ocean is another. Is that it?" + +"Yes, that is correct." + +"By George, it beats the band!" + +He liked the expression, and set it down in his tablets. + +"Franklin, we've got it down fine. And to think--there are other animals +that are still smaller than a hydrogen atom, and yet it is so small that +it takes five thousand of them to make a molecule--a molecule so minute +that it could get into a microbe's eye and he wouldn't know it was +there!" + +"Yes, the wee creatures that inhabit the bodies of us germs and feed upon +us, and rot us with disease: Ah, what could they have been created for? +They give us pain, they make our lives miserable, they murder us-and +where is the use of it all, where the wisdom? Ah, friend Bkshp [microbic +orthography], we live in a strange and unaccountable world; our birth is +a mystery, our little life is a mystery, a trouble, we pass and are seen +no more; all is mystery, mystery, mystery; we know not whence we came, +nor why; we know not whither we go, nor why we go. We only know we were +not made in vain, we only know we were made for a wise purpose, and that +all is well! We shall not be cast aside in contumely and unblest after +all we have suffered. Let us be patient, let us not repine, let us +trust. The humblest of us is cared for--oh, believe it!--and this +fleeting stay is not the end!" + +You notice that? He did not suspect that he, also, was engaged in +gnawing, torturing, defiling, rotting, and murdering a fellow-creature-- +he and all the swarming billions of his race. None of them suspects it. +That is significant. It is suggestive--irresistibly suggestive-- +insistently suggestive. It hints at the possibility that the procession +of known and listed devourers and persecutors is not complete. It +suggests the possibility, and substantially the certainty, that man is +himself a microbe, and his globe a blood-corpuscle drifting with its +shining brethren of the Milky Way down a vein of the Master and Maker of +all things, whose body, mayhap--glimpsed part-wise from the earth by +night, and receding and lost to view in the measureless remotenesses of +space--is what men name the Universe. + +Yes, that was all old to me, but to find that our little old familiar +microbes were themselves loaded up with microbes that fed them, enriched +them, and persistently and faithfully preserved them and their poor old +tramp-planet from destruction--oh, that was new, and too delicious! + +I wanted to see them! I was in a fever to see them! I had lenses to +two-million power, but of course the field was no bigger than a person's +finger-nail, and so it wasn't possible to compass a considerable +spectacle or a landscape with them; whereas what I had been craving was a +thirty-foot field, which would represent a spread of several miles of +country and show up things in a way to make them worth looking at. The +boys and I had often tried to contrive this improvement, but had failed. + +I mentioned the matter to the Duke and it made him smile. He said it was +a quite simple thing-he had it at home. I was eager to bargain for the +secret, but he said it was a trifle and not worth bargaining for. +He said: + +"Hasn't it occurred to you that all you have to do is to bend an X-ray to +an angle-value of 8.4 and refract it with a parabolism, and there you +are?" + +Upon my word, I had never thought of that simple thing! You could have +knocked me down with a feather. + +We rigged a microscope for an exhibition at once and put a drop of my +blood under it, which got mashed flat when the lens got shut down upon +it. The result was beyond my dreams. The field stretched miles away, +green and undulating, threaded with streams and roads, and bordered all +down the mellowing distances with picturesque hills. And there was a +great white city of tents; and everywhere were parks of artillery and +divisions of cavalry and infantry waiting. We had hit a lucky moment, +evidently there was going to be a march-past or some thing like that. At +the front where the chief banner flew there was a large and showy tent, +with showy guards on duty, and about it were some other tents of a swell +kind. + +The warriors--particularly the officers--were lovely to look at, they +were so trim-built and so graceful and so handsomely uniformed. They +were quite distinct, vividly distinct, for it was a fine day, and they +were so immensely magnified that they looked to be fully a finger-nail +high.--[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: +"Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!" +"How do you mean, m' lord?" +"This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand +resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your +little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would +just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh." The Duke said +"finger-milers was good"-good and exact; and he afterward used it several +times himself.]--Everywhere you could see officers moving smartly about, +and they looked gay, but the common soldiers looked sad. Many wife- +swinks [" Swinks," an atomic race] and daughter-swinks and sweetheart- +swinks were about--crying, mainly. It seemed to indicate that this was a +case of war, not a summer-camp for exercise, and that the poor labor- +swinks were being torn from their planet-saving industries to go and +distribute civilization and other forms of suffering among the feeble +benighted somewhere; else why should the swinkesses cry? + +The cavalry was very fine--shiny black horses, shapely and spirited; and +presently when a flash of light struck a lifted bugle (delivering a +command which we couldn't hear) and a division came tearing down on a +gallop it was a stirring and gallant sight, until the dust rose an inch-- +the Duke thought more--and swallowed it up in a rolling and tumbling long +gray cloud, with bright weapons glinting and sparkling in it. + +Before long the real business of the occasion began. A battalion of +priests arrived carrying sacred pictures. That settled it: this was war; +these far-stretching masses of troops were bound for the front. Their +little monarch came out now, the sweetest little thing that ever +travestied the human shape I think, and he lifted up his hands and +blessed the passing armies, and they looked as grateful as they could, +and made signs of humble and real reverence as they drifted by the holy +pictures. + +It was beautiful--the whole thing; and wonderful, too, when those serried +masses swung into line and went marching down the valley under the long +array of fluttering flags. + +Evidently they were going somewhere to fight for their king, which was +the little manny that blessed them; and to preserve him and his brethren +that occupied the other swell tents; to civilize and grasp a valuable +little unwatched country for them somewhere. But the little fellow and +his brethren didn't fall in--that was a noticeable particular. They +didn't fight; they stayed at home, where it was safe, and waited for the +swag. + +Very well, then-what ought we to do? Had we no moral duty to perform? +Ought we to allow this war to begin? Was it not our duty to stop it, in +the name of right and righteousness? Was it not our duty to administer a +rebuke to this selfish and heartless Family? + +The Duke was struck by that, and greatly moved. He felt as I did about +it, and was ready to do whatever was right, and thought we ought to pour +boiling water on the Family and extinguish it, which we did. + +It extinguished the armies, too, which was not intended. We both +regretted this, but the Duke said that these people were nothing to us, +and deserved extinction anyway for being so poor-spirited as to serve +such a Family. He was loyally doing the like himself, and so was I, but +I don't think we thought of that. And it wasn't just the same, anyway, +because we were sooflaskies, and they were only swinks. + +Franklin realizes that no atom is destructible; that it has always +existed and will exist forever; but he thinks all atoms will go out of +this world some day and continue their life in a happier one. Old +Tolliver thinks no atom's life will ever end, but he also thinks +Blitzowski is the only world it will ever see, and that at no time in its +eternity will it be either worse off or better off than it is now and +always has been. Of course he thinks the planet Blitzowski is itself +eternal and indestructible--at any rate he says he thinks that. It could +make me sad, only I know better. D. T. will fetch Blitzy yet one of +these days. + +But these are alien thoughts, human thoughts, and they falsely indicate +that I do not want this tramp to go on living. What would become of me +if he should disintegrate? My molecules would scatter all around and +take up new quarters in hundreds of plants and animals; each would carry +its special feelings along with it, each would be content in its new +estate, but where should I be? I should not have a rag of a feeling +left, after my disintegration--with his--was complete. Nothing to think +with, nothing to grieve or rejoice with, nothing to hope or despair with. +There would be no more me. I should be musing and thinking and dreaming +somewhere else--in some distant animal maybe--perhaps a cat--by proxy of +my oxygen I should be raging and fuming in some other creatures--a rat, +perhaps; I should be smiling and hoping in still another child of Nature +--heir to my hydrogen--a weed, or a cabbage, or something; my carbonic +acid (ambition) would be dreaming dreams in some lowly wood-violet that +was longing for a showy career; thus my details would be doing as much +feeling as ever, but I should not be aware of it, it would all be going +on for the benefit of those others, and I not in it at all. I should be +gradually wasting away, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, as the years +went on, and at last I should be all distributed, and nothing left of +what had once been Me. It is curious, and not without impressiveness: I +should still be alive, intensely alive, but so scattered that I would not +know it. I should not be dead--no, one cannot call it that--but I should +be the next thing to it. And to think what centuries and ages and aeons +would drift over me before the disintegration was finished, the last bone +turned to gas and blown away! I wish I knew what it is going to feel +like, to lie helpless such a weary, weary time, and see my faculties +decay and depart, one by one, like lights which burn low, and flicker and +perish, until the ever-deepening gloom and darkness which--oh, away, away +with these horrors, and let me think of something wholesome! + +My tramp is only 85; there is good hope that he will live ten years +longer--500,000 of my microbe years. So may it be. + +Oh, dear, we are all so wise! Each of us knows it all, and knows he +knows it all--the rest, to a man, are fools and deluded. One man knows +there is a hell, the next one knows there isn't; one man knows high +tariff is right, the next man knows it isn't; one man knows monarchy is +best, the next one knows it isn't; one age knows there are witches, the +next one knows there aren't; one sect knows its religion is the only true +one, there are sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know +it isn't so. There is not a mind present among this multitude of +verdict-deliverers that is the superior of the minds that persuade and +represent the rest of the divisions of the multitude. Yet this sarcastic +fact does not humble the arrogance nor diminish the know-it-all bulk of a +single verdict-maker of the lot by so much as a shade. Mind is plainly +an ass, but it will be many ages before it finds it out, no doubt. Why +do we respect the opinions of any man or any microbe that ever lived? I +swear I don't know. Why do I respect my own? Well--that is different. + + + + + + + +APPENDIX W + +LITTLE BESSIE WOULD ASSIST PROVIDENCE + +(See Chapter cclxxxii) + +[It is dull, and I need wholesome excitements and distractions; so I will +go lightly excursioning along the primrose path of theology.] + +Little Bessie was nearly three years old. She was a good child, and not +shallow, not frivolous, but meditative and thoughtful, and much given to +thinking out the reasons of things and trying to make them harmonize with +results. One day she said: + +"Mama, why is there so much pain and sorrow and suffering? What is it +all for?" + +It was an easy question, and mama had no difficulty in answering it: + +"It is for our good, my child. In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us +these afflictions to discipline us and make us better." + +"Is it He that sends them?" + +"Yes." + +"Does He send all of them, mama?" + +"Yes, dear, all of them. None of them comes by accident; He alone sends +them, and always out of love for us, and to make us better." + +"Isn't it strange?" + +"Strange? Why, no, I have never thought of it in that way. I have not +heard any one call it strange before. It has always seemed natural and +right to me, and wise and most kindly and merciful." + +"Who first thought of it like that, mama? Was it you?" + +"Oh no, child, I was taught it." + +"Who taught you so, mama?" + +"Why, really, I don't know--I can't remember. My mother, I suppose; or +the preacher. But it's a thing that everybody knows." + +"Well, anyway, it does seem strange. Did He give Billy Norris the +typhus?" + +"Yes." + +"What for?" + +"Why, to discipline him and make him good." + +"But he died, mama, and so it couldn't make him good." + +"Well, then, I suppose it was for some other reason. We know it was a +good reason, whatever it was." + +"What do you think it was, mama?" + +"Oh, you ask so many questions! I think it was to discipline his +parents." + +"Well, then, it wasn't fair, mama. Why should his life be taken away for +their sake, when he wasn't doing anything?" + +"Oh, I don't know! I only know it was for a good and wise and merciful +reason." + +"What reason, mama?" + +"I think--I think-well, it was a judgment; it was to punish them for some +sin they had committed." + +"But he was the one that was punished, mama. Was that right?" + +"Certainly, certainly. He does nothing that isn't right and wise and +merciful. You can't understand these things now, dear, but when you are +grown up you will understand them, and then you will see that they are +just and wise." + +After a pause: + +"Did He make the roof fall in on the stranger that was trying to save the +crippled old woman from the fire, mama?" + +"Yes, my child. Wait! Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I only +know it was to discipline some one, or be a judgment upon somebody, or to +show His power." + +"That drunken man that stuck a pitchfork into Mrs. Welch's baby when--" + +"Never mind about it, you needn't go into particulars; it was to +discipline the child--that much is certain, anyway." + +"Mama, Mr. Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures +are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid, and lockjaw, and more +than a thousand other sicknesses and--mama, does He send them?" + +"Oh, certainly, child, certainly. Of course." + +"What for?" + +"Oh, to discipline us! Haven't I told you so, over and over again?" + +"It's awful cruel, mama! And silly! and if I----" + +"Hush, oh, hush! Do you want to bring the lightning?" + +"You know the lightning did come last week, mama, and struck the new +church, and burnt it down. Was it to discipline the church?" + +(Wearily.) "Oh, I suppose so." + +"But it killed a hog that wasn't doing anything. Was it to discipline +the hog, mama?" + +"Dear child, don't you want to run out and play a while? If you would +like to----" + +"Mama, only think! Mr. Hollister says there isn't a bird, or fish, or +reptile, or any other animal that hasn't got an enemy that Providence has +sent to bite it and chase it and pester it and kill it and suck its blood +and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mother-- +because if it is true why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?" + +"That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I don't want you to listen to +anything he says." + +"Why, mama, he is very interesting, and I think he tries to be good. He +says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down into their nests in the +ground--alive, mama!--and there they live and suffer days and days and +days, and the hungry little wasps chewing their legs and gnawing into +their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise +God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and +ever so kind; for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that +he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he----Dear mama, have +you fainted! I will run and bring help! Now this comes of staying in +town this hot weather." + + + + + + + APPENDIX X + + A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MARK TWAIN'S WORK + + PUBLISHED AND OTHERWISE--FROM 1851-1910 + + +Note 1.--This is not a detailed bibliography, but merely a general list +of Mark Twain's literary undertakings, in the order of performance, +showing when, and usually where, the work was done, when and where first +published, etc. An excellent Mark Twain bibliography has been compiled +by Mr. Merle Johnson, to whom acknowledgments are due for important +items. + +Note 2.--Only a few of the more important speeches are noted. Volumes +that are merely collections of tales or articles are not noted. + +Note 3.--Titles are shortened to those most commonly in use, as "Huck +Finn" or "Huck" for "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." + +Names of periodicals are abbreviated. + +The initials U. E. stand for the "Uniform Edition" of Mark Twain's +works. + +The chapter number or numbers in the line with the date refers to the +place in this work where the items are mentioned. + + + 1851. + (See Chapter xviii of this work.) + +Edited the Hannibal Journal during the absence of the owner and editor, +Orion Clemens. +Wrote local items for the Hannibal Journal. +Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal. +Wrote two sketches for The Sat. Eve. Post (Philadelphia). +To MARY IN H-l. Hannibal Journal. + + + 1852-53. + (See Chapter xviii.) + +JIM WOLFE AND THE FIRE--Hannibal Journal. +Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal. + + + 1853. + (See Chapter xix.) + +Wrote obituary poems--not published. +Wrote first letters home. + + + 1855-56. + (See Chapters xx and xxi.) + +First after-dinner speech; delivered at a printers' banquet in Keokuk, +Iowa. +Letters from Cincinnati, November 16, 1856, signed "Snodgrass"-- +Saturday Post (Keokuk). + + 1857. + (See Chapter xxi.) + +Letters from Cincinnati, March 16, 1857, signed "Snodgrass"--Saturday +Post (Keokuk). + + + 1858. + +Anonymous contributions to the New Orleans Crescent and probably to St. +Louis papers. + + 1859. + (See Chapter xxvii; also Appendix B.) + +Burlesque of Capt. Isaiah Sellers--True Delta (New Orleans), May 8 or 9. + + + 1861. + (See Chapters xxxiii to xxxv.) + + +Letters home, published in The Gate City (Keokuk). + + + 1862. + (See Chapters xxxv to xxxviii.) + +Letters and sketches, signed "Josh," for the Territorial Enterprise +(Virginia City, Nevada). +REPORT OF THE LECTURE OF PROF. PERSONAL PRONOUN--Enterprise. +REPORT OF A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION--Enterprise. +THE PETRIFIED MAN--Enterprise. +Local news reporter for the Enterprise from August. + + + 1863. + (See Chapters xli to xliii; also Appendix C.) + +Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. +First used the name "Mark Twain," February 2. +ADVICE TO THE UNRELIABLE--Enterprise. +CURING A COLD--Enterprise. U. E. +INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION--Enterprise. +ADVICE TO GOOD LITTLE GIRLS--Enterprise. +THE DUTCH NICK MASSACRE--Enterprise. +Many other Enterprise sketches. +THE AGED PILOT MAN (poem)--" ROUGHING IT." U. E. + + 1864. + (See. Chapters xliv to xlvii.) + +Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. +Speech as "Governor of the Third House." +Letters to New York Sunday Mercury. +Local reporter on the San Francisco Call. +Articles and sketches for the Golden Era. +Articles and sketches for the Californian. +Daily letters from San Francisco to the Enterprise. +(Several of the Era and Californian sketches appear in SKETCHES NEW AND +OLD. U. E.) + + + 1865. + (See Chapters xlix to li; also Appendix E.) + +Notes for the Jumping Frog story; Angel's Camp, February. +Sketches etc., for the Golden Era and Californian. +Daily letter to the Enterprise. +THE JUMPING FROG (San Francisco)Saturday Press. New York, +November 18. U. E. + + + 1866. + (See Chapters lii to lv; also Appendix D.) + +Daily letter to the Enterprise. +Sandwich Island letters to the Sacramento Union. + +Lecture on the Sandwich Islands, San Francisco, October 2. +FORTY-THREE DAYS IN AN OPEN BOAT--Harper's Magazine, December (error in +signature made it Mark Swain). + + + 1867. + (See Chapters lvii to lxv; also Appendices E, F, and G.) + +Letters to Alta California from New York. +JIM WOLFE AND THE CATS--N. Y. Sunday Mercury. +THE JUMPING FROG--book, published by Charles Henry Webb, May 1. U. E. +Lectured at Cooper Union, May, '66. +Letters to Alta California and New York Tribune from the Quaker City-- +Holy Land excursion. +Letter to New York Herald on the return from the Holy Land. +After-dinner speech on "Women" (Washington). +Began arrangement for the publication of THE INNOCENTS ABROAD. + + + 1868. + (See Chapters lxvi to lxix; also Appendices H and I.) + +Newspaper letters, etc., from Washington, for New York Citizen, Tribune, +Herald, and other papers and periodicals. +Preparing Quaker City letters (in Washington and San Francisco) for book +publication. +CAPTAIN WAKEMAN'S (STORMFIELD'S) VISIT TO HEAVEN (San Francisco), +published Harper's Magazine, December, 1907-January, 1908 (also book, +Harpers). +Lectured in California and Nevada on the "Holy Land," July 2. +S'CAT! Anonymous article on T. K. Beecher (Elmira), published in local +paper. +Lecture-tour, season 1868-69. + + + 1869. + (See Chapters lxx to lxxni.) + +THE INNOCENTS ABROAD--book (Am. Pub. Co.), July 20. U. E. + +Bought one-third ownership in the Buffalo Express. +Contributed editorials, sketches, etc., to the Express. +Contributed sketches to Packard's Monthly, Wood's Magazine, etc. +Lecture-tour, season 1869-70. + + + 1870. + (See Chapters lxxiv to lxxx; also Appendix J.) + +Contributed various matter to Buffalo Express. +Contributed various matter under general head of "MEMORANDA" to Galaxy +Magazine, May to April, '71. +ROUGHING IT begun in September (Buffalo). +SHEM'S DIARY (Buffalo) (unfinished). +GOD, ANCIENT AND MODERN (unpublished). + + + 1871. + (See Chapters lxxxi and lxxxii; also Appendix K.) + +MEMORANDA continued in Galaxy to April. +AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FIRST ROMANCE--[THE FIRST ROMANCE had appeared in the +Express in 1870. Later included in SKETCHES.]--booklet (Sheldon & Co.). +U. E. +ROUGHING IT finished (Quarry Farm). +Ruloff letter--Tribune. +Wrote several sketches and lectures (Quarry Farm). +Western play (unfinished). +Lecture-tour, season 1871-72. + + + 1872. + (See Chapters lxxxiii to lxxxvii; also Appendix L.) + +ROUGHING IT--book (Am. Pub. Co.), February. U. E. +THE MARK TWAIN SCRAP-BOOK invented (Saybrook, Connecticut). +TOM SAWYER begun as a play (Saybrook, Connecticut). +A few unimportant sketches published in "Practical jokes," etc. +Began a book on England (London). + + + 1873. + (See Chapters lxxxviii to xcii.) + +Letters on the Sandwich Islands-Tribune, January 3 and 6. +THE GILDED AGE (with C. D. Warner)--book (Am. Pub. Co), December. U. E. +THE LICENSE OF THE PRESS--paper for The Monday Evening Club. +Lectured in London, October 18 and season 1873-74. + + + 1874. + (See Chapters xciii to xcviii; also Appendix M.) + +TOM SAWYER continued (in the new study at Quarry Farm). +A TRUE STORY (Quarry Farm)-Atlantic, November. U. E. +FABLES (Quarry Farm). U. E. +COLONEL SELLERS--play (Quarry Farm) performed by John T. Raymond. +UNDERTAKER'S LOVE-STORY (Quarry Farm) (unpublished). +OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI (Hartford) Atlantic, January to July, 1875. +Monarchy letter to Mrs. Clemens, dated 1935 (Boston). + + + 1875. + (See Chapters c to civ; also Appendix N.) + +UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE--paper for The Monday Evening Club. +SKETCHES NEW AND OLD--book (Am. Pub. Co.), July. U. E. +TOM SAWYER concluded (Hartford). +THE CURIOUS REP. OF GONDOUR--Atlantic, October (unsigned). +PUNCH, CONDUCTOR, PUNCH--Atlantic, February, 1876. U. E. +THE SECOND ADVENT (unfinished). +THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER (unfinished). +AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DAMN FOOL (unfinished). +Petition for International Copyright. + 1876. + (See Chapters cvi to cx.) + +Performed in THE LOAN OF THE LOVER as Peter Spuyk (Hartford). +CARNIVAL OF CRIME--paper for The Monday Evening Club--Atlantic, June. +U. E. +HUCK FINN begun (Quarry Farm). +CANVASSER'S STORY (Quarry Farm)--Atlantic, December. U. E. +"1601" (Quarry Farm), privately printed. [And not edited by Livy. D.W.] +AH SIN (with Bret Harte)--play, (Hartford). +TOM SAWYER--book (Am. Pub. Co.), December. U. E. +Speech on "The Weather," New England Society, December 22. + + + 1877. + (See Chapters cxii to cxv; also Appendix O.) + +LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ-CLARENCE, ETC. (Quarry Farm)--Atlantic. +IDLE EXCURSION (Quarry Farm)--Atlantic, October, November, December. +U. E. +SIMON WHEELER, DETECTIVE--play (Quarry Farm) (not produced). +PRINCE AND PAUPER begun (Quarry Farm). +Whittier birthday speech (Boston), December. + + + 1878. + (See Chapters cxvii to cxx.) + +MAGNANIMOUS INCIDENT (Hartford)--Atlantic, May. U. E. +A TRAMP ABROAD (Heidelberg and Munich). +MENTAL TELEGRAPHY--Harper's Magazine, December, 1891. U. E. +GAMBETTA DUEL--Atlantic, February, 1879 (included in TRAMP). U. E. +REV. IN PITCAIRN--Atlantic, March, 1879. U. E. +STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT--book (Osgood & Co.), 1882. U. E. +(The three items last named were all originally a part of the TRAMP +ABROAD.) + + + 1879. +(See Chapters cxxi to cxxiv; also Chapter cxxxiv and Appendix P.) + +A TRAMP ABROAD continued (Paris, Elmira, and Hartford). +Adam monument scheme (Elmira). +Speech on "The Babies" (Grant dinner, Chicago), November. +Speech on "Plagiarism" (Holmes breakfast, Boston), December. + + + 1880. + (See Chapters cxxv to cxxxii.) + +PRINCE AND PAUPER concluded (Hartford and Elmira). +HUCK FINN continued (Quarry Farm, Elmira). +A CAT STORY (Quarry Farm) (unpublished). +A TRAMP ABROAD--book (Am. Pub. Co.), March 13. U. E. +EDWARD MILLS AND GEO. BENTON (Hartford)--Atlantic, August. U. E. +MRS. McWILLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING (Hartford)--Atlantic, September. U. E. + + + 1881. + (See Chapters cxxxiv to cxxxvii.) + +A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE--Century, November. U. E. +A BIOGRAPHY OF -----(unfinished). +PRINCE AND PAUPER--book (Osgood R; CO.), December. +BURLESQUE ETIQUETTE (unfinished). [Included in LETTERS FROM THE EARTH +D.W.] + + + 1882. + (See Chapters cxl and cxli.) + +LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI (Elmira and Hartford). + + + 1883. + (See Chapters cxlii to cxlviii.) + +LIFE ON THE Mississippi--book (Osgood R CO.), May. U. E. +WHAT Is HAPPINESS?--paper for The Monday Evening Club. +Introduction to Portuguese conversation book (Hartford). +HUCK FINN concluded (Quarry Farm). +HISTORY GAME (Quarry Farm). +AMERICAN CLAIMANT (with W. D. Howells)--play (Hartford), produced by +A. P. Burbank. +Dramatized TOM SAWYER and PRINCE AND PAUPER (not produced). + + + 1884. + (See Chapters cxlix to cliii.) + +Embarked in publishing with Charles L. Webster. +THE CARSON FOOTPRINTS--the San Franciscan. +HUCK FINN--book (Charles L. Webster & Co.), December. U. E. +Platform-readings with George W. Cable, season '84-'85. + + + 1885. + (See Chapters cliv to clvii.) + +Contracted for General Grant's Memoirs. +A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED--Century, December. U. E. +THE UNIVERSAL TINKER--Century, December (open letter signed X. Y. Z. +Letter on the government of children--Christian Union.) +KIDITCHIN (children's poem). + + + 1886. + (See Chapters clix to clxi; also Appendix Q.) + +Introduced Henry M. Stanley (Boston). +CONNECTICUT YANKEE begun (Hartford). +ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT--Century, April, 1887. +LUCK--Harper's, August, 1891. +GENERAL GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD--Army and Navy dinner speech. + + + 1887. + (See Chapters clxii to clxiv; also Appendix R.) + +MEISTERSCHAFT--play (Hartford)-Century, January, 1888. U. E. +KNIGHTS OF LABOR--essay (not published). +To THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND--Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. +CONSISTENCY--paper for The Monday Evening Club. + + + 1888. + (See Chapters clxv to clxviii.) + +Introductory for "Unsent Letters" (unpublished). +Master of Arts degree from Yale. +Yale Alumni address (unpublished). +Copyright controversy with Brander Matthews--Princeton Review. +Replies to Matthew Arnold's American criticisms (unpublished). +YANKEE continued (Elmira and Hartford). +Introduction of Nye and Riley (Boston). + + + 1889. + (See Chapters clxix to clxxiii; also Appendix S.) + +A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL Harper's Magazine, February, 1890. U. E. +HUCK AND TOM AMONG THE INDIANS (unfinished). +Introduction to YANKEE (not used). +LETTER To ELSIE LESLIE--St Nicholas, February, 1890. +CONNECTICUT YANKEE--book (Webster & Co.), December. U. E. + + + 1890. + (See Chapters clxxii to clxxiv.) + +Letter to Andrew Lang about English Criticism. +(No important literary matters this year. Mark Twain engaged +promoting the Paige typesetting-machine.) + + + 1891. + (See Chapters clxxv to clxxvii.) + +AMERICAN CLAIMANT (Hartford) syndicated; also book (Webster & Co.), May, +1892. U. E. +European letters to New York Sun. +DOWN THE RHONE (unfinished). +KORNERSTRASSE (unpublished). + + + 1892. + (See Chapters clxxx to clxxxii.) + +THE GERMAN CHICAGO (Berlin--Sun.) U. E. +ALL KINDS OF SHIPS (at sea). U. E. +Tom SAWYER ABROAD (Nauheim)--St. Nicholas, November, '93, to April, '94. +U. E. +THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS (Nauheim). U. E. +PUDD'NHEAD WILSON (Nauheim and Florence)--Century, December, '93, to +June, '94 U. E. +$100,000 BANK-NOTE (Florence)--Century, January, '93. U. E. + + + 1893. + (See Chapters clxxxiii to clxxxvii.) + +JOAN OF ARC begun (at Villa Viviani, Florence) and completed up to the +raising of the Siege of Orleans. +CALIFORNIAN'S TALE (Florence) Liber Scriptorum, also Harper's. +ADAM'S DIARY (Florence)--Niagara Book, also Harper's. +ESQUIMAU MAIDEN'S ROMANCE--Cosmopolitan, November. U. E. +IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?--Cosmopolitan, September. U. E. +TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER--Cosmopolitan, December. U. E. +IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY (Florence)--N. A.--Rev., July, '94. U. E. +FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENSES--[This may not have been written +until early in 1894.]--(Players, New York)--N. A. Rev., July,'95 U. E. + + + 1894. + (See Chapters clxxxviii to cxc.) + +JOAN OF ARC continued (Etretat and Paris). +WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US (Etretat)--N. A. Rev., January, '95 U. E. +TOM SAWYER ABROAD--book (Webster & Co.), April. U. E. +PUDD'NHEAD WILSON--book (Am. Pub. Co.), November. U. E. +The failure of Charles L. Webster & Co., April 18. +THE DERELICT--poem (Paris) (unpublished). + + + 1895. + (See Chapters clxxxix and cxcii.) + +JOAN OF ARC finished (Paris), January 28, Harper's Magazine, April to +December. +MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN--Harper's, September. U. E. +A LITTLE NOTE TO PAUL BOURGET. U. E. +Poem to Mrs. Beecher (Elmira) (not published). U. E. +Lecture-tour around the world, begun at Elmira, July 14, ended July 31. + + + 1896. + (See Chapters cxci to cxciv.) + +JOAN OF ARC--book (Harpers) May. U. E. +TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE, and other stories-book (Harpers), November. +FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR begun (23 Tedworth Square, London). + + + 1897. + (See Chapters cxcvii to cxcix.) + +FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR--book (Am. Pub. Co.), November. +QUEEN'S JUBILEE (London), newspaper syndicate; book privately printed. +JAMES HAMMOND TRUMBULL--Century, November. +WHICH WAS WHICH? (London and Switzerland) (unfinished). +TOM AND HUCK (Switzerland) (unfinished). + +HELLFIRE HOTCHKISS (Switzerland) (unfinished). +IN MEMORIAM--poem (Switzerland)-Harper's Magazine. U. E. +Concordia Club speech (Vienna). +STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA (Vienna)--Harper's Magazine, March, 1898. U. E. + + + 1898. + (See Chapters cc to cciii; also Appendix T.) + +THE AUSTRIAN EDISON KEEPING SCHOOL AGAIN (Vienna)Century, August. U. E. +AT THE APPETITE CURE (Vienna)--Cosmopolitan, August. U. E. +FROM THE LONDON TIMES, 1904 (Vienna)--Century, November. U. E. +ABOUT PLAY-ACTING (Vienna)--Forum, October. U. E. +CONCERNING THE JEWS (Vienna)--Harper's Magazine, September, '99. U. E. +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MRS. EDDY (Vienna)--Cosmopolitan, October. U. E. +THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG (Vienna)--Harper's Magazine, December, +'99 U. E. +Autobiographical chapters (Vienna); some of them used in the N. A. Rev., +1906-07. +WHAT IS MAN? (Kaltenleutgeben)--book (privately printed), August, 1906. +ASSASSINATION OF AN EMPRESS (Kaltenleutgeben) (unpublished). +THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (unfinished). +Translations of German plays (unproduced). + + + 1899. + (See Chapters cciv to ccviii.) + +DIPLOMATIC PAY AND CLOTHES (Vienna)--Forum, March. U. E. +MY LITERARY DEBUT (Vienna)--Century, December. U. E. +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE (Vienna)--N. A. Rev., December, 1902, January and +February, 1903. +Translated German plays (Vienna) (unproduced). +Collaborated with Siegmund Schlesinger on plays (Vienna) (unfinished). +Planned a postal-check scheme (Vienna). +Articles about the Kellgren treatment (Sanna, Sweden) (unpublished). +ST. JOAN OF ARC (London)--Harper's Magazine, December, 1904. U. E. +MY FIRST LIE, AND How I GOT OUT OF IT (London)--New York World. U. E. + +Articles on South African War (London) (unpublished) +Uniform Edition of Mark Twain's works (Am. Pub. Co.). + + 1900. + (See Chapters ccix to ccxii.) + +TWO LITTLE TALES (London)--Century, November, 1901. U. E. +Spoke on "Copyright" before the House of Lords. +Delivered many speeches in London and New York. + + + 1901. + (See Chapters ccxiii to ccxviii.) + +TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS (14 West Tenth Street, New York)-- +N. A. Rev., February. +TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS (14 West Tenth Street, New York)--N. A. Rev., +April. +DOUBLE-BARREL DETECTIVE STORY (Saranac Lake, "The Lair") Harper's +Magazine, January and February, 1902. +Lincoln Birthday Speech, February 11. +Many other speeches. +PLAN FOR CASTING VOTE PARTY (Riverdale) (unpublished). +THE STUPENDOUS PROCESSION (Riverdale) (unpublished). +ANTE-MORTEM OBITUARIES--Harper's Weekly. +Received degree of Doctor of Letters from Yale. + + + 1902. + (See Chapters ccxix to ccxxiv; also Appendix U.) + +DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD? (Riverdale)--N. A. Rev., April. U. E. +FIVE BOONS of LIFE (Riverdale)--Harper's Weekly, July 5. U. E. +WHY NOT ABOLISH IT? (Riverdale)--Harper's Weekly, July 5. +DEFENSE OF GENERAL FUNSTON (Riverdale)--N. A. Rev., May. +IF I COULD BE THERE (Riverdale unpublished). +Wrote various articles, unfinished or unpublished. +Received degree of LL.D. from the University of Missouri, June. + +THE BELATED PASSPORT (York Harbor)--Harper's Weekly, December 6. U. E. +WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL? (York Harbor)--Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. +Poem (Riverdale and York Harbor) (unpublished) +Sixty-seventh Birthday speech (New York), November 27. + + + 1903. + (See Chapters ccxxv to ccxxx.) + +MRS. EDDY IN ERROR (Riverdale)--N. A. Rev., April. +INSTRUCTIONS IN ART (Riverdale)-Metropolitan, April and May. +EDDYPUS, and other C. S. articles (unfinished). +A DOG'S TALE (Elmira)--Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. +ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER (Florence)--Harper's Weekly, January 21, 1904. +U. E. +ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR (Florence)--Harper's Magazine, August, U. E. +THE $30,000 BEQUEST (Florence)--Harper's Weekly, December 10, 1904. U. E. + + + 1904. + (See Chapters ccxxx to ccxxxiv.) + +AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Florence)--portions published, N. A. Rev. and Harper's +Weekly. +CONCERNING COPYRIGHT (Tyringham, Massachusetts)--N. A. Rev., January, +1905. +TSARS SOLILOQUY (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)--N. A. Rev., March, 1905. +ADAM'S DIARY--book (Harpers), April. + + + 1905. + (See Chapters ccxxxiv to ccxxxvii; also Appendix V.) + +LEOPOLD'S SOLILOQUY (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)--pamphlet, P. R. Warren +Company. +THE WAR PRAYER (21 Fifth Avenue, New York) (unpublished). +EVE'S DIARY (Dublin, New Hampshire)--Harper's Magazine, December. +3,000 YEARS AMONG THE MICROBES (unfinished). +INTERPRETING THE DEITY (Dublin New Hampshire) (unpublished). +A HORSE'S TALE (Dublin, New Hampshire)-Harper's Magazine, +August and September, 1906. +Seventieth Birthday speech. +W. D. HOWELLS (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)-Harper's Magazine, July, 1906. + + + 1906. + (See Chapters ccxxxix to ccli.) + +Autobiography dictation (21 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Dublin, New +Hampshire)--selections published, N. A. Rev., 1906 and 1907. +Many speeches. +Farewell lecture, Carnegie Hall, April 19. +WHAT IS MAN?--book (privately printed). +Copyright speech (Washington), December. + + + 1907. + (See Chapters cclvi to cclxiii.) + +Autobiography dictations (27 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Tuxedo). +Degree of Doctor of Literature conferred by Oxford, June 26. +Made many London speeches. +Begum of Bengal speech (Liverpool). +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE--book (Harpers), February. U. E. +CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT To HEAVEN--book (Harpers). + + + 1908. + (See Chapters cclxiv to cclxx.) + +Autobiography dictations (21 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Redding, +Connecticut). +Lotos Club and other speeches. +Aldrich memorial speech. + + + 1909. + (See Chapters cclxxvi to cclxxxix; also Appendices N and W.) + +IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?--book (Harpers), April. +A FABLE--Harper's Magazine December. +Copyright documents (unpublished). +Address to St. Timothy School. +MARJORIE FLEMING (Stormfield)--Harper's Bazar, December. +THE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE (Stormfield)--Harper's Bazar, February, 1910 +BESSIE DIALOGUE (unpublished). +LETTERS FROM THE EARTH (unfinished). +THE DEATH OF JEAN--Harper's, December, 1910. +THE INTERNATIONAL LIGHTNING TRUST (unpublished). + + + 1910. + (See Chapter ccxcii.) + +VALENTINES TO HELEN AND OTHERS (not published). +ADVICE TO PAINE (not published). + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume 3, Part 2 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of A BIOGRAPHY of MARK TWAIN, +by Albert Bigelow Paine + |