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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3463.txt b/3463.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43185f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/3463.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9261 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Paine + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Boys' Life of Mark Twain + +Author: Albert Bigelow Paine + +Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #3463] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN *** + + + + +Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger + + + + + +THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE +I. THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS +II. THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM +III. SCHOOL +IV. EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL +V. TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND +VI. CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS +VII. THE APPRENTICE +VIII. ORION'S PAPER +IX. THE OPEN ROAD +X. A WIND OF CHANCE +XI. THE LONG WAY To THE AMAZON +XII. RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION +XIII. LEARNING THE RIVER +XIV. RIVER DAYS +XV. THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" +XVI. THE PILOT +XVII. THE END OF PILOTING +XVIII. THE SOLDIER +XIX. THE PIONEER +XX. THE MINER +XXI. THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE +XXII. "MARK TWAIN" +XXIII. ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO +XXIV. THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" +XXV. HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME +XXVI. MARK TWAIN, LECTURER +XXVII. AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN +XXVIII. OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" +XXIX. THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES +XXX. THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING +XXXI. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO +XXXII. AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" +XXXIII. IN ENGLAND +XXXIV. A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS +XXXV. BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVI. THE NEW HOME +XXXVII. "OLD TIMES, "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVIII. HOME PICTURES +XXXIX. TRAMPING ABROAD +XL. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" +XLI. GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD +XLII. MANY INVESTMENTS +XLIII. BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY +XLIV. A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE +XLV. "THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" +XLVI. PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT +XLVII. THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE +XLVIII. BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS +XLIX. KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" +L. THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN +LI. THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW +LII. EUROPEAN ECONOMIES +LIII. MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS +LIV. RETURN AFTER EXILE +LV. A PROPHET AT HOME +LVI. HONORED BY MISSOURI +LVII. THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE +LVIII. MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY +LIX. MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY +LX. WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXI. DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. +LXII. A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS +LXIII. LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXIV. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD +LXV. THE REMOVAL TO REDDING +LXVI. LIFE AT STORMFIELD +LXVII. THE DEATH OF JEAN +LXVIII. DAYS IN BERMUDA +LXIX. THE RETURN TO REDDING +LXX. THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + + + + +PREFACE + +This is the story of a boy, born in the humblest surroundings, reared +almost without schooling, and amid benighted conditions such as to-day +have no existence, yet who lived to achieve a world-wide fame; to attain +honorary degrees from the greatest universities of America and Europe; to +be sought by statesmen and kings; to be loved and honored by all men in +all lands, and mourned by them when he died. It is the story of one of +the world's very great men--the story of Mark Twain. + + + + +I. + +THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS + +A long time ago, back in the early years of another century, a family +named Clemens moved from eastern Tennessee to eastern Missouri--from a +small, unheard-of place called Pall Mall, on Wolf River, to an equally +small and unknown place called Florida, on a tiny river named the Salt. + +That was a far journey, in those days, for railway trains in 1835 had not +reached the South and West, and John Clemens and his family traveled in +an old two-horse barouche, with two extra riding-horses, on one of which +rode the eldest child, Orion Clemens, a boy of ten, and on the other +Jennie, a slave girl. + +In the carriage with the parents were three other children--Pamela and +Margaret, aged eight and five, and little Benjamin, three years old. The +time was spring, the period of the Old South, and, while these youngsters +did not realize that they were passing through a sort of Golden Age, they +must have enjoyed the weeks of leisurely journeying toward what was then +the Far West--the Promised Land. + +The Clemens fortunes had been poor in Tennessee. John Marshall Clemens, +the father, was a lawyer, a man of education; but he was a dreamer, too, +full of schemes that usually failed. Born in Virginia, he had grown up +in Kentucky, and married there Jane Lampton, of Columbia, a descendant of +the English Lamptons and the belle of her region. They had left Kentucky +for Tennessee, drifting from one small town to another that was always +smaller, and with dwindling law-practice John Clemens in time had been +obliged to open a poor little store, which in the end had failed to pay. +Jennie was the last of several slaves he had inherited from his Virginia +ancestors. Besides Jennie, his fortune now consisted of the horses and +barouche, a very limited supply of money, and a large, unsalable tract of +east Tennessee land, which John Clemens dreamed would one day bring his +children fortune. + +Readers of the "Gilded Age" will remember the journey of the Hawkins +family from the "Knobs" of Tennessee to Missouri and the important part +in that story played by the Tennessee land. Mark Twain wrote those +chapters, and while they are not history, but fiction, they are based +upon fact, and the picture they present of family hardship and struggle +is not overdrawn. The character of Colonel Sellers, who gave the +Hawkinses a grand welcome to the new home, was also real. In life he was +James Lampton, cousin to Mrs. Clemens, a gentle and radiant merchant of +dreams, who believed himself heir to an English earldom and was always on +the verge of colossal fortune. With others of the Lampton kin, he was +already settled in Missouri and had written back glowing accounts; though +perhaps not more glowing than those which had come from another relative, +John Quarles, brother-in-law to Mrs. Clemens, a jovial, whole-hearted +optimist, well-loved by all who knew him. + +It was a June evening when the Clemens family, with the barouche and the +two outriders, finally arrived in Florida, and the place, no doubt, +seemed attractive enough then, however it may have appeared later. It +was the end of a long journey; relatives gathered with fond welcome; +prospects seemed bright. Already John Quarles had opened a general store +in the little town. Florida, he said, was certain to become a city. +Salt River would be made navigable with a series of locks and dams. He +offered John Clemens a partnership in his business. + +Quarles, for that time and place, was a rich man. Besides his store he +had a farm and thirty slaves. His brother-in-law's funds, or lack of +them, did not matter. The two had married sisters. That was capital +enough for his hearty nature. So, almost on the moment of arrival in the +new land, John Clemens once more found himself established in trade. + +The next thing was to find a home. There were twenty-one houses in +Florida, and none of them large. The one selected by John and Jane +Clemens had two main rooms and a lean-to kitchen--a small place and +lowly--the kind of a place that so often has seen the beginning of +exalted lives. Christianity began with a babe in a manger; Shakespeare +first saw the light in a cottage at Stratford; Lincoln entered the world +by way of a leaky cabin in Kentucky, and into the narrow limits of the +Clemens home in Florida, on a bleak autumn day--November 30, 1835--there +was born one who under the name of Mark Twain would live to cheer and +comfort a tired world. + +The name Mark Twain had not been thought of then, and probably no one +prophesied favorably for the new-comer, who was small and feeble, and not +over-welcome in that crowded household. They named him Samuel, after his +paternal grandfather, and added Langhorne for an old friend--a goodly +burden for so frail a wayfarer. But more appropriately they called him +"Little Sam," or "Sammy," which clung to him through the years of his +delicate childhood. + +It seems a curious childhood, as we think of it now. Missouri was a +slave State--Little Sam's companions were as often black as white. All +the children of that time and locality had negroes for playmates, and +were cared for by them. They were fond of their black companions and +would have felt lost without them. The negro children knew all the best +ways of doing things--how to work charms and spells, the best way to cure +warts and heal stone-bruises, and to make it rain, and to find lost +money. They knew what signs meant, and dreams, and how to keep off +hoodoo; and all negroes, old and young, knew any number of weird tales. + +John Clemens must have prospered during the early years of his Florida +residence, for he added another slave to his household--Uncle Ned, a man +of all work--and he built a somewhat larger house, in one room of which, +the kitchen, was a big fireplace. There was a wide hearth and always +plenty of wood, and here after supper the children would gather, with +Jennie and Uncle Ned, and the latter would tell hair-lifting tales of +"ha'nts," and lonely roads, and witch-work that would make his hearers +shiver with terror and delight, and look furtively over their shoulders +toward the dark window-panes and the hovering shadows on the walls. +Perhaps it was not the healthiest entertainment, but it was the kind to +cultivate an imagination that would one day produce "Tom Sawyer" and +"Huck Finn." + +True, Little Sam was very young at this period, but even a little chap of +two or three would understand most of that fireside talk, and get +impressions more vivid than if the understanding were complete. He was +barely four when this earliest chapter of his life came to a close. + +John Clemens had not remained satisfied with Florida and his undertakings +there. The town had not kept its promises. It failed to grow, and the +lock-and-dam scheme that would make Salt River navigable fell through. +Then one of the children, Margaret, a black-eyed, rosy little girl of +nine, suddenly died. This was in August, 1839. A month or two later the +saddened family abandoned their Florida home and moved in wagons, with +their household furnishings, to Hannibal, a Mississippi River town, +thirty miles away. There was only one girl left now, Pamela, twelve +years old, but there was another boy, baby Henry, three years younger +than Little Sam--four boys in all. + + + + +II. + +THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM + +Hannibal was a town with prospects and considerable trade. It was +slumbrous, being a slave town, but it was not dead. John Clemens +believed it a promising place for business, and opened a small general +store with Orion Clemens, now fifteen, a studious, dreamy lad, for clerk. + +The little city was also an attractive place of residence. 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 "white town" was built against green hills, and abutting the river +were bluffs--Holliday's Hill and Lover's Leap. A distance below the town +was a cave--a wonderful cave, as every reader of Tom Sawyer knows--while +out in the river, toward the Illinois shore, was the delectable island +that was one day to be the meeting-place of Tom's pirate band, and later +to become the hiding-place of Huck and Nigger Jim. + +The river itself was full of interest. It was the highway to the outside +world. Rafts drifted by; smartly painted steamboats panted up and down, +touching to exchange traffic and travelers, a never-ceasing wonder to +those simple shut-in dwellers whom the telegraph and railway had not yet +reached. That Hannibal was a pleasant place of residence we may believe, +and what an attractive place for a boy to grow up in! + +Little Sam, however, was not yet ready to enjoy the island and the cave. +He was still delicate--the least promising of the family. He was queer +and fanciful, and rather silent. He walked in his sleep and was often +found in the middle of the night, fretting with the cold, in some dark +corner. Once he heard that a neighbor's children had the measles, and, +being very anxious to catch the complaint, slipped over to the house and +crept into bed with an infected playmate. Some days later, Little Sam's +relatives gathered about his bed to see him die. He confessed, long +after, that the scene gratified him. However, he survived, and fell into +the habit of running away, usually in the direction of the river. + +"You gave me more uneasiness than any child I had," his mother once said +to him, in her old age. + +"I suppose you were afraid I wouldn't live," he suggested. + +She looked at him with the keen humor which had been her legacy to him. +"No, afraid you would," she said. Which was only her joke, for she had +the tenderest of hearts, and, like all mothers, had a weakness for the +child that demanded most of her mother's care. It was chiefly on his +account that she returned each year to Florida to spend the summer on +John Quarles's farm. + +If Uncle John Quarles's farm was just an ordinary Missouri farm, and his +slaves just average negroes, they certainly never seemed so to Little +Sam. There was a kind of glory about everything that belonged to Uncle +John, and it was not all imagination, for some of the spirit of that +jovial, kindly hearted man could hardly fail to radiate from his +belongings. + +The farm was a large one for that locality, and the farm-house was a big +double log building--that is, two buildings with a roofed-over passage +between, where in summer the lavish Southern meals were served, brought +in on huge dishes by the negroes, and left for each one to help himself. +Fried chicken, roast pig, turkeys, ducks, geese, venison just killed, +squirrels, rabbits, partridges, pheasants, prairie-chickens, green corn, +watermelon--a little boy who did not die on that bill of fare would be +likely to get well on it, and to Little Sam the farm proved a life-saver. + +It was, in fact, a heavenly place for a little boy. In the corner of the +yard there were hickory and black-walnut trees, and just over the fence +the hill sloped past barns and cribs to a brook, a rare place to wade, +though there were forbidden pools. Cousin Tabitha Quarles, called +"Puss," his own age, was Little Sam's playmate, and a slave girl, Mary, +who, being six years older, was supposed to keep them out of mischief. +There were swings in the big, shady pasture, where Mary swung her charges +and ran under them until their feet touched the branches. All the woods +were full of squirrels and birds and blooming flowers; all the meadows +were gay with clover and butterflies, and musical with singing +grasshoppers and calling larks; the fence-rows were full of wild +blackberries; there were apples and peaches in the orchard, and plenty of +melons ripening in the corn. Certainly it was a glorious place! + +Little Sam got into trouble once with the watermelons. One of them had +not ripened quite enough when he ate several slices of it. Very soon +after he was seized with such terrible cramps that some of the household +did not think he could live. + +But his mother said: "Sammy will pull through. He was not born to die +that way." Which was a true prophecy. Sammy's slender constitution +withstood the strain. It was similarly tested more than once during +those early years. He was regarded as a curious child. At times dreamy +and silent, again wild-headed and noisy, with sudden impulses that sent +him capering and swinging his arms into the wind until he would fall with +shrieks and spasms of laughter and madly roll over and over in the grass. +It is not remembered that any one prophesied very well for his future at +such times. + +The negro quarters on Uncle John's farm were especially fascinating. In +one cabin lived a bedridden old woman whom the children looked upon with +awe. She was said to be a thousand years old, and to have talked with +Moses. She had lost her health in the desert, coming out of Egypt. She +had seen Pharaoh drown, and the fright had caused the bald spot on her +head. She could ward off witches and dissolve spells. + +Uncle Dan'l was another favorite, a kind-hearted, gentle soul, who long +after, as Nigger Jim in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tales, would +win world-wide love and sympathy. + +Through that far-off, warm, golden summer-time Little Sam romped and +dreamed and grew. He would return each summer to the farm during those +early years. It would become a beautiful memory. His mother generally +kept him there until the late fall, when the chilly evenings made them +gather around the wide, blazing fireplace. Sixty years later he wrote: + + "I can see the room yet with perfect clearness. I can see all + its belongings, 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." + +It is hard not to tell more of the farm, for the boy who was one day +going to write of Tom and Huck and the rest learned there so many things +that Tom and Huck would need to know. + +But he must have "book-learning," too, Jane Clemens said. On his return +to Hannibal that first summer, she decided that Little Sam was ready for +school. He was five years old and regarded as a "stirring child." + +"He drives me crazy with his didoes when he's in the house," his mother +declared, "and when he's out of it I'm expecting every minute that some +one will bring him home half dead." + +Mark Twain used to say that he had had nine narrow escapes from drowning, +and it was at this early age that he was brought home one afternoon in a +limp state, having been pulled from a deep hole in Bear Creek by a slave +girl. + +When he was restored, his mother said: "I guess there wasn't much danger. +People born to be hanged are safe in water." + +Mark Twain's mother was the original of Aunt Polly in the story of Tom +Sawyer, an outspoken, keen-witted, charitable woman, whom it was good to +know. She had a heart full of pity, especially for dumb creatures. She +refused to kill even flies, and punished the cat for catching mice. She +would drown young kittens when necessary, but warmed the water for the +purpose. She could be strict, however, with her children, if occasion +required, and recognized their faults. + +Little Sam was inclined to elaborate largely on fact. A neighbor once +said to her: "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." + +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." A certain Mrs. E. +Horr was selected for the purpose. + +Mrs. Horr's school on Main Street, Hannibal, was of the old-fashioned +kind. There were pupils of all ages, and everything was taught up to the +third reader and long division. Pupils who cared to go beyond those +studies went to a Mr. Cross, on the hill, facing what is now the public +square. Mrs. Horr received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and +the rules of conduct were read daily. After the rules came the A-B-C +class, whose recitation was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring no +study-time. + +The rules of conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He wondered +how nearly he could come to breaking them and escape. He experimented +during the forenoon, and received a warning. Another experiment would +mean correction. He did not expect to be caught again; but when he least +expected it he was startled by a command to go out and bring a stick for +his own punishment. + +This was rather dazing. It was sudden, and, then, he did not know much +about choosing sticks for such a purpose. Jane Clemens had commonly used +her hand. A second command was needed to start him in the right +direction, and he was still dazed when he got outside. He had the +forests of Missouri to select from, but choice was not easy. Everything +looked too big and competent. Even the smallest switch had a wiry look. +Across the way was a cooper's shop. There were shavings outside, and one +had blown across just in front of him. He picked it up, and, gravely +entering the room, handed it to Mrs. Horr. So far as known, it is the +first example of that humor which would one day make Little Sam famous +before all the world. + +It was a failure in this instance. Mrs. Horr's comic side may have +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 the switch that Jimmy Dunlap brought +was of a kind to give Little Sam a permanent distaste for school. He +told his mother at noon that he did not care for education; that he did +not wish to be a great man; that his desire was to be an Indian and scalp +such persons as Mrs. Horr. In her heart Jane Clemens was sorry for him, +but she openly said she was glad there was somebody who could take him in +hand. + +Little Sam went back to school, but he never learned to like it. A +school was ruled with a rod in those days, and of the smaller boys Little +Sam's back was sore as often as the next. 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 glint of the river and the purple +distance beyond, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster +spelling-book and a cross teacher was more than human nature could bear. +There still exists a yellow slip of paper upon which, in neat, +old-fashioned penmanship is written: + + 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. + + +Thus we learn that Little Sam's sister, eight years older than himself, +attended the same school, and that she was a good pupil. If any such +reward of merit was ever conferred on Little Sam, it has failed to come +to light. 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 a +good speller for his age. + + + + +IV. + +EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL + +On their arrival in Hannibal, the Clemens family had moved into a part of +what was then the Pavey Hotel. They could not have remained there long, +for they moved twice within the next few years, and again in 1844 into a +new house which Judge Clemens, as he was generally called, had built +on Hill Street--a house still standing, and known to-day as the Mark +Twain home. + +John Clemens had met varying fortunes in Hannibal. Neither commerce nor +the practice of law had paid. The office of justice of the peace, to +which he was elected, returned a fair income, but his business losses +finally obliged him to sell Jennie, the slave girl. Somewhat later his +business failure was complete. He surrendered everything to his +creditors, even to his cow and household furniture, and relied upon his +law practice and justice fees. However, he seems to have kept the +Tennessee land, possibly because no one thought it worth taking. There +had been offers for it earlier, but none that its owner would accept. It +appears to have been not even considered by his creditors, though his own +faith in it never died. + +The struggle for a time was very bitter. Orion Clemens, now seventeen, +had learned the printer's trade and assisted the family with his wages. +Mrs. Clemens took a few boarders. In the midst of this time of hardship +little Benjamin Clemens died. He was ten years old. It was the darkest +hour. + +Then conditions slowly improved. There was more law practice and better +justice fees. By 1844 Judge Clemens was able to build the house +mentioned above--a plain, cheap house, but a shelter and a home. Sam +Clemens--he was hardly "Little Sam" any more--was at this time nine years +old. His boyhood had begun. + +Heretofore he had been just 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 in such a +community will. "Sam," as they now called him, was "grown up" at nine +and wise 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, many of them of a kind not taught at school. + +He had learned a good deal of natural history and botany--the habits of +plants, insects, and animals. Mark Twain's books bear evidence of this +early study. His plants, bugs, and animals never do the wrong things. +He was learning a good deal about men, and this was often less pleasant +knowledge. Once Little Sam--he was still Little Sam then--saw an old man +shot down on Main Street at noon day. 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 thought 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 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 sultry, threatening evening--he saw that, too. With a boon +companion, John Briggs, he followed at a safe distance behind. A widow +with her one daughter lived there. They stood in the shadow of the dark +porch; the man had paused at the gate to revile them. The boys heard the +mother's voice warning the intruder that she had a loaded gun and would +kill him if he stayed where he was. He replied with a tirade, and she +warned him that she would count ten--that if he remained a second longer +she would fire. She began slowly and counted up to five, the man +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 +thunder-storm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled wildly, +believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the lost soul. + +That was a day and locality of violent impulse and sudden action. +Happenings such as these were not infrequent in a town like Hannibal. +And there were events connected with slavery. Sam once saw a slave +struck down and killed with a piece of slag, for a trifling offense. He +saw an Abolitionist attacked by a mob that 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 was 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." + +Readers of Mark Twain's books--especially the stories of Huck and Tom, +will hardly be surprised to hear of these early happenings that formed so +large a portion of the author's early education. Sam, however, did not +regard them as education--not at the time. They got into his dreams. He +set them down as warnings, or punishments, intended to give him a taste +for a better life. He felt that it was his conscience that made such +things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high +respect for her opinion in such matters. Among other things, he had seen +her one day defy a vicious and fierce Corsican--a common terror in the +town--who had chased his grown daughter with a heavy rope in his hand, +declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious citizens got out of the +way, but Jane Clemens opened her door to the fugitive; then, instead of +rushing in and closing it, spread her arms across it, barring the way. +The man raved, and threatened her with the rope, but she did not flinch +or show any sign of fear. She stood there and shamed and defied him +until he slunk off, crestfallen and conquered. Any one as brave as his +mother must have a perfect conscience, Sam thought, and would know how to +take care of it. In the darkness he would say his prayers, especially +when a thunderstorm was coming, and vow to begin a better life. He +detested Sunday-school as much as he did day-school, and once his brother +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. + +Sam's days were not all disturbed by fierce events. They were mostly +filled with pleasanter things. There were picnics sometimes, and +ferryboat excursions, and any day one could roam the woods, or fish, +alone or in company. The hills and woods around Hannibal were never +disappointing. There was the cave with its marvels. There was Bear +Creek, where he had learned to swim. He had seen two playmates drown; +twice, himself, he had been dragged ashore, more dead than alive; once by +a slave girl, another time by a slave man--Neal Champ, of the Pavey +Hotel. But he had persevered, and with success. He could swim better +than any playmate of his age. + +It was the river that he cared for most. It was the pathway that led to +the great world outside. He would sit by it for hours and dream. He +would venture out on it in a quietly borrowed boat, when he was barely +strong enough to lift an oar. He learned to know all its moods and +phases. + +More than anything in the world he hungered to make a trip on one of the +big, smart steamers that were always passing. "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 take a trip +on them." + +It was at the mature age of nine that he found 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. +Then the signal-bells rang, the steamer 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 regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his +legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. He was dragged out and +at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, where there +were Lampton relatives, who took him home. Very likely the home-coming +was not entirely pleasant, though a "lesson," too, in his general +education. + +And always, each summer, there was the farm, where his recreation was no +longer mere girl plays and swings, with a colored nurse following about, +but sports with his older boy cousins, who went hunting with the men, for +partridges by day and for 'coons and 'possums by night. Sometimes the +little boy 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 Little +Sam, at nine, was no longer Little Sam, but plain Sam Clemens, and grown +up. If there were doubtful spots in his education--matters related to +smoking and strong words--it is also no wonder, and experience even in +these lines was worth something in a book like Tom Sawyer. + +The boy Sam Clemens was not a particularly attractive lad. He was rather +undersized, and his head seemed too large for his body. He had a mass of +light sandy hair, which he plastered down to keep from curling. His eyes +were keen and blue and his features rather large. Still, he had a fair, +delicate complexion when it was not blackened by grime and tan; a gentle, +winning manner; a smile and a slow way of speaking that made him a +favorite with his companions. He did not talk much, and was thought to +be rather dull--was certainly so in most of his lessons--but, for some +reason, he never spoke that every playmate in hearing did not stop, +whatever he was doing, to listen. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new +game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a +casual remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. His mother always +referred to his slow fashion of speech as "Sammy's long talk." Her own +speech was even more deliberate, though she seemed not to notice it. Sam +was more like his mother than the others. His brother, Henry Clemens, +three years younger, was as unlike Sam as possible. He did not have the +"long talk," and was a handsome, obedient little fellow whom the +mischievous Sam loved to tease. Henry was to become the Sid of Tom +Sawyer, though he was in every way a finer character than Sid. With the +death of little Benjamin, Sam and Henry had been drawn much closer +together, and, in spite of Sam's pranks, loved each other dearly. For +the pranks were only occasional, and Sam's love for Henry was constant. +He fought for him oftener than with him. + +Many of the home incidents in the Tom Sawyer book really happened. Sam +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 +painkiller to Peter, the cat. As for escaping punishment for his +misdeeds, as described in the book, this was a daily matter, and his +methods suited the occasions. For, of course, Tom Sawyer was Sam Clemens +himself, almost entirely, as most readers of that book have imagined. +However, we must have another chapter for Tom Sawyer and his doings--the +real Tom and his real doings with those graceless, lovable associates, +Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. + + + + +V. + +TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND + +In beginning "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" the author says, "Most of the +adventures recorded in this book really occurred," and he tells us that +Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, though not from a single +individual, being a composite of three boys whom Mark Twain had known. + +The three boys were himself, almost entirely, with traces of two +schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. John Briggs was also the +original of Joe Harper, the "Terror of the Seas." As for Huck Finn, the +"Red-Handed," his original was a village waif named Tom Blankenship, who +needed no change for his part in the story. + +The Blankenship family picked up an uncertain livelihood, fishing and +hunting, and lived at first under a tree in a bark shanty, but later +moved into a large, barn-like building, back of the Clemens home on Hill +Street. There were three male members of the household: Old Ben, the +father, shiftless and dissolute; young Ben, the eldest son--a doubtful +character, with certain good traits; and Tom--that is to say, Huck, who +was just as he is described in the book--a ruin of rags, a river-rat, +kind of heart, and accountable for his conduct to nobody in the world. +He could come and go as he chose; he never had to work or go to school; +he could do all the things, good and bad, that other boys longed to do +and were forbidden. To them he was the symbol of liberty; his knowledge +of fishing, trapping, signs, and of the woods and river gave value to his +society, while the fact that it was forbidden made it necessary to Sam +Clemens's happiness. + +The Blankenships being handy to the back gate of the Hill Street house, +he adopted them at sight. Their free mode of life suited him. He was +likely to be there at any hour of the day, and Tom made cat-call signals +at night that would bring Sam out on the shed roof at the back and down a +little trellis and flight of steps to the group of boon companions, +which, besides Tom, usually included John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the two +younger Bowen boys. They were not malicious boys, but just mischievous, +fun-loving boys--little boys of ten or twelve--rather thoughtless, being +mainly bent on having a good time. + +They had a wide field of action: they ranged from Holliday's Hill on the +north to the cave on the south, and over the fields and through all the +woods between. They explored both banks of the river, the islands, and +the deep wilderness of the Illinois shore. They could run like 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 was so watchful that they did not sooner or later elude it. They +borrowed boats with or without the owner's consent--it did not matter. + +Most of their expeditions were harmless enough. They often cruised up to +Turtle Island, about two miles above Hannibal, and spent the day +feasting. There were quantities of turtles and their eggs there, and +mussels, and plenty of fish. Fishing and swimming were their chief +pastimes, with incidental raiding, for adventure. Bear Creek was their +swimming-place by day, and the river-front at night-fall--a favorite spot +being where the railroad bridge now ends. It was a good distance across +to the island where, in the book, Tom Sawyer musters his pirate band, and +where later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they +swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the +sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, +breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or +dread. They could swim all day, those little scamps, and seemed to have +no fear. Once, during his boyhood, Sam Clemens swam across to the +Illinois side, 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. + +The adventures of Sam Clemens and his comrades would fill several books +of the size of Tom Sawyer. Many of them are, of course, forgotten now, +but those still remembered show that Mark Twain had plenty of real +material. + +It was not easy to get money in those days, and the boys were often +without it. Once "Huck" Blankenship had the skin of a 'coon he had +captured, and offered to sell it to raise capital. At Selms's store, on +Wild Cat Corner, the 'coon-skin would bring ten cents. But this was not +enough. The boys thought of a plan to make it bring more. Selms's back +window was open, and the place where he kept his pelts was pretty handy. +Huck went around to the front door and sold the skin for ten cents to +Selms, who tossed it back on the pile. Then Huck came back and, after +waiting a reasonable time, crawled in the open window, got the +'coon-skin, and sold it to Selms again. He did this several times that +afternoon, and the capital of the band grew. But at last John Pierce, +Selms's clerk, said: + +"Look here, Mr. Selms, there's something wrong about this. That boy has +been selling us 'coonskins all the afternoon." + +Selms went back to his pile of pelts. There were several sheep-skins and +some cow-hides, but only one 'coon-skin--the one he had that moment +bought. + +Selms himself, in after years, used to tell this story as a great joke. + +One of the boys' occasional pastimes was to climb Holliday's Hill and +roll down big stones, to frighten the people who were driving by. +Holliday's Hill above the road was steep; a stone once started would go +plunging downward and bound across the road with the deadly momentum of a +shell. The boys would get a stone poised, then wait until they saw a +team approaching, and, calculating the distance, would give the boulder a +start. Dropping behind the bushes, they would watch the sudden effect +upon the party below as the great missile shot across the road a few +yards before them. This was huge sport, but they carried it too far. +For at last they planned a grand climax that would surpass anything +before attempted in the stone-rolling line. + +A monstrous boulder was lying up there in the right position to go +down-hill, once started. It would be a glorious thing to see that +great stone go smashing down a hundred yards or so in front of some +peaceful-minded countryman jogging along the road. Quarrymen had been +getting out rock not far away and had left their picks and shovels handy. +The boys borrowed the tools and went to work to undermine the big stone. +They worked at it several hours. If their parents had asked them to work +like that, they would have thought they were being killed. + +Finally, while they were still digging, the big stone suddenly got loose +and started down. They were not ready for it at all. Nobody was coming +but an old colored man in a cart; their splendid stone was going to be +wasted. + +One could hardly call it wasted, however; they had planned for a +thrilling result, and there was certainly thrill enough while it lasted. +In the first place the stone nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. +John Briggs had that moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will +was about to take his turn when Sam Clemens leaped aside with a yell: + +"Lookout, boys; she's coming!" + +She came. The huge boulder kept to the ground at first, then, gathering +momentum, it went bounding into the air. About half-way down the hill it +struck a sapling and cut it clean off. This turned its course a little, +and the negro in the cart, hearing the noise and seeing the great mass +come crashing in his direction, made a wild effort to whip up his mule. + +The boys watched their bomb with growing interest. It was headed +straight for the negro, also for a cooper-shop across the road. It made +longer leaps with every bound, and, wherever it struck, fragments and +dust would fly. The shop happened to be empty, but the rest of the +catastrophe would call for close investigation. 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 exactly in its +path. The boys stood holding their breath, their mouths open. + +Then, suddenly, they could hardly believe their eyes; a little way above +the road the boulder struck a projection, made one mighty leap into the +air, sailed clear over the negro and his mule, and landed in the soft +dirt beyond the road, only a fragment striking the shop, damaging, but +not wrecking it. Half buried in the ground, the great stone lay there +for nearly forty years; then it was broken up. It was the last rock the +boys ever rolled down. Nearly sixty years later John Briggs and Mark +Twain walked across Holliday's Hill and looked down toward the river +road. + +Mark Twain said: "It was a mighty good thing, John, that stone acted the +way it did. We might have had to pay a fancy price for that old darky I +can see him yet."[1] + +It can be no harm now, to confess that the boy Sam Clemens--a pretty +small boy, a good deal less than twelve at the time, and by no means +large for his years--was the leader of this unhallowed band. In any +case, truth requires this admission. If the band had a leader, it was +Sam, just as it was Tom Sawyer in the book. They were always ready to +listen to him--they would even stop fishing to do that--and to follow his +plans. They looked to him for ideas and directions, and he gloried in +being a leader and showing off, just as Tom did in the book. It seems +almost a pity that in those far-off barefoot days he could not have +looked down the years and caught a glimpse of his splendid destiny. + +But of literary fame he could never have dreamed. The chief ambition +--the "permanent ambition"--of every Hannibal boy was to be a pilot. The +pilot in his splendid glass perch with his supreme power and princely +salary was to them the noblest of all human creatures. An elder Bowen +boy was already a pilot, and when he came home, as he did now and then, +his person seemed almost too sacred to touch. + +Next to being a pilot, Sam thought he would like to be a pirate or a +bandit or a trapper-scout--something gorgeous and awe-inspiring, where +his word, his nod, would still be law. The river kept his river ambition +always fresh, and with the cave and the forest round about helped him to +imagine those other things. + +The cave was the joy of his heart. It was a real cave, not merely a +hole, but a marvel of deep passages and vaulted chambers that led back +into the bluffs and far down into the earth, even below the river, some +said. Sam Clemens never tired of the cave. He was willing any time to +quit fishing or swimming or melon-hunting 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, it was +exactly suitable, Sam thought, to be the lair of an outlaw, and in it he +imagined and carried out adventures which his faithful followers may not +always have understood, though enjoying them none the less for that +reason. + +In Tom Sawyer, Indian Joe dies in the cave. He did not die there in real +life, but was lost there once and was very weak when they found him. He +was not as bad as painted in the book, though he was dissolute and +accounted dangerous; and when one night he died in reality, there came a +thunder-storm so terrific that Sam Clemens at home, in bed, was certain +that Satan had come in person for the half-breed's soul. He covered his +head and said his prayers with fearful anxiety lest the evil one might +decide to save another trip by taking him along then. + +The treasure-digging adventure in the book had this foundation in fact: +It was said that two French trappers had once buried a chest of gold +about two miles above Hannibal, and that it was still there. Tom +Blankenship (Huck) one morning said he had dreamed just where the +treasure was, and that if the boys--Sam Clemens and John Briggs--would go +with him and help dig, he would divide. The boys had great faith in +dreams, especially in Huck's dreams. They followed him to a place with +some shovels and picks, and he showed them just where to dig. Then he +sat down under the shade of a pawpaw-bush and gave orders. + +They dug nearly all day. Huck didn't dig any himself, because he had +done the dreaming, which was his share. They didn't find the treasure +that day, and next morning they took two long iron rods to push and drive +into the ground until they should strike something. They struck a number +of things, but when they dug down it was never the money they found. +That night the boys said they wouldn't dig any more. + +But Huck had another dream. He dreamed the gold was exactly under the +little pawpaw-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 Huck gave it up then. He said there was +something wrong about the way they dug. + +This differs a good deal from the treasure incident in the book, but it +shows us what respect the boys had for the gifts of the ragamuffin +original of Huck Finn. Tom Blankenship's brother Ben was also used, and +very importantly, in the creation of our beloved Huck. Ben was +considerably older, but certainly no more reputable, than Tom. He +tormented the smaller boys, and they had little love for him. Yet +somewhere in Ben Blankenship's nature there was a fine, generous strain +of humanity that provided Mark Twain with that immortal episode--the +sheltering of 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, out-cast 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 fished, and Ben carried him scraps of + other food. Then, by and by, the facts 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. + +Huck's struggle in the book is between conscience and the law, on one +side, and deep human sympathy on the other. Ben Blankenship's struggle, +supposing there was one, would be between sympathy and the offered +reward. Neither conscience nor law would trouble him. It was his native +humanity that made him shelter the runaway, and it must have been strong +and genuine to make him resist the lure of the fifty-dollar prize. + +There was another chapter to this incident. A few days after the +drowning of the runaway, Sam Clemens and his band made their way to the +place and were pushing the drift about, when, all at once, the negro shot +up out of the water, straight and terrible, a full half-length in the +air. He had gone down foremost and had been caught in the drift. The +boys did not stop to investigate, but flew in terror to report their +tale. + +Those early days seem to have been full of gruesome things. In "The +Innocents Abroad," the author tells how he once spent a night in his +father's office and discovered there a murdered man. This was a true +incident. The man had been stabbed that afternoon and carried into the +house to die. Sam and John Briggs had been playing truant all day and +knew nothing of the matter. Sam thought the office safer than his home, +where his mother was probably sitting up for him. He climbed in by a +window and lay down on the lounge, but did not sleep. Presently he +noticed what appeared to be an unusual shape on the floor. He tried to +turn his face to the wall and forget it, but that would not do. In agony +he watched the thing until at last a square of moonlight gradually +revealed a sight that he never forgot. In the book he says: + + "I went away from there. I do not say that I went in any sort of + 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 considerable agitated." + +Sam was not yet twelve, for his father was no longer living when the boy +had reached that age. And how many things had crowded themselves into +his few brief years! We must be content here with only a few of them. +Our chapter is already too long. + +Ministers and deacons did not prophesy well for Sam Clemens and his mad +companions. They spoke feelingly of state prison and the gallows. But +the boys were a disappointing lot. Will Bowen became a fine river-pilot. +Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank president. John +Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer. Huck Finn +--which is to say, Tom Blankenship--died an honored citizen and justice of +the peace in a Western town. As for Sam Clemens, we shall see what he +became as the chapters pass. + +[1] John Briggs died in 1907; earlier in the same year the writer of this +memoir spent an afternoon with him and obtained from him most of the +material for this chapter. + + + + +VI. + +CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS + +Sam was at Mr. Cross's school on the Square in due time, and among the +pupils were companions that appealed to his gentler side. There were the +Robards boys--George, the best Latin scholar, and John, who always won +the good-conduct medal, and would one day make all the other boys envious +by riding away with his father to California, his curls of gold blowing +in the wind. + +There was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John Garth, who would marry +little Helen Kercheval, and Jimmy MacDaniel, whom it was well to know +because his father kept a pastry-shop and he used to bring cakes and +candy to school. + +There were also a number of girls. Bettie Ormsley, Artemisia Briggs, and +Jennie Brady were among the girls he remembered in later years, and Mary +Miller, who was nearly double his age and broke his heart by getting +married one day, a thing he had not expected at all. + +Yet through it all he appears, like Tom Sawyer, to have had one faithful +sweetheart. In the book it is Becky Thatcher--in real life she was Laura +Hawkins. The Clemens and Hawkins families lived opposite, and the +children were early acquainted. The "Black Avenger of the Spanish Main" +was very gentle when he was playing at house-building with little Laura, +and once, when he dropped a brick on her finger, he cried the louder and +longer of the two. + +For he was a tender-hearted boy. He would never abuse an animal, except +when his tendency to mischief ran away with him, as in the "pain-killer" +incident. He had a real passion for cats. Each summer he carried his +cat to the farm in a basket, and it always had a place by him at the +table. He loved flowers--not as a boy botanist or gardener, but as a +companion who understood their thoughts. He pitied dead leaves and dry +weeds because their lives were ended and they would never know summer +again or grow glad with another spring. Even in that early time he had +that deeper sympathy which one day would offer comfort to humanity and +make every man his friend. + +But we are drifting away from Sam Clemens's school-days. They will not +trouble us much longer now. More than anything in the world Sam detested +school, and he made any excuse to get out of going. It is hard to say +just why, unless it was the restraint and the long hours of confinement. + +The Square in Hannibal, where stood the school of Mr. Cross, was a grove +in those days, with plum-trees and hazel-bushes and grape-vines. When +spring came, the children gathered flowers at recess, climbed trees, and +swung in the vines. It was a happy place enough, only--it was school. +To Sam Clemens, the spelling-bee every Friday afternoon was the one thing +that made it worth while. Sam was a leader at spelling--it was one of +his gifts--he could earn compliments even from Mr. Cross, whose name, it +would seem, was regarded as descriptive. Once in a moment of inspiration +Sam wrote on his late: + + "Cross by name and Cross by nature, + Cross jumped over an Irish potato." + +John Briggs thought this a great effort, and urged the author to write it +on the blackboard at noon. Sam hesitated. + +"Oh, pshaw!" said John, "I wouldn't be afraid to do it." + +"I dare you to do it," said Sam. + +This was enough. While Mr. Cross was at dinner John wrote in a large +hand the fine couplet. The teacher returned and called the school to +order. He looked at the blackboard, then, searchingly, at John Briggs. +The handwriting was familiar. + +"Did you do that?" he asked, ominously. + +It was a time for truth. + +"Yes, sir," said John. + +"Come here!" And John came and paid handsomely for his publishing +venture. Sam Clemens expected that the author would be called for next; +but perhaps Mr. Cross had exhausted himself on John. Sam did not often +escape. His back kept fairly warm from one "flailing" to the next. + +Yet he usually wore one of the two medals offered in that school--the +medal for spelling. Once he lost it by leaving the first "r" out of +February. Laura Hawkins was on the floor against him, and he was a +gallant boy. If it had only been Huck Brown he would have spelled that +and all the other months backward, to show off. There were moments of +triumph that almost made school worth while; the rest of the time it was +prison and servitude. + +But then one day came freedom. Judge Clemens, who, in spite of +misfortune, had never lost faith in humanity, indorsed a large note for a +neighbor, and was obliged to pay it. Once more all his property was +taken away. Only a few scanty furnishings were rescued from the wreck. +A St. Louis cousin saved the home, but the Clemens family could not +afford to live in it. They moved across the street and joined +housekeeping with another family. + +Judge Clemens had one hope left. He was a candidate for the clerkship of +the surrogate court, a good office, and believed his election sure. His +business misfortunes had aroused wide sympathy. He took no chances, +however, and made a house-to house canvas of the district, regardless of +the weather, probably undermining his health. He was elected by a large +majority, and rejoiced that his worries were now at an end. They were, +indeed, over. At the end of February he rode to the county seat to take +the oath of office. He returned through a drenching storm and reached +home nearly frozen. Pneumonia set in, and a few days later he was +dying. His one comfort now was the Tennessee land. He said it would +make them all rich and happy. Once he whispered: + +"Cling to the land; cling to the land and wait. Let nothing beguile it +away from you." + +He was a man who had rarely displayed affection for his children. But +presently he beckoned to Pamela, now a lovely girl of nineteen, and, +putting his arm around her neck, kissed her for the first time in years. + +"Let me die," he said. + +He did not speak again. A little more, and his worries had indeed ended. +The hard struggle of an upright, impractical man had come to a close. +This was in March, 1847. John Clemens had lived less than forty-nine +years. + +The children were dazed. They had loved their father and honored his +nobility of purpose. The boy Sam was overcome with remorse. He recalled +his wildness and disobedience--a thousand things trifling enough at the +time, but heartbreaking now. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was never +spared by remorse. Leading him into the room where his father lay, his +mother said some comforting words and asked him to make her a promise. + +He flung himself into her arms, sobbing: "I will promise anything, if you +won't make me go to school! Anything!" + +After a moment his mother 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!" + +He gave his promise to be faithful and industrious and upright, like his +father. Such a promise was a serious matter, and Sam Clemens, underneath +all, was a serious lad. He would not be twelve until November, but his +mother felt that he would keep his word. + +Orion Clemens returned to St. Louis, where he was receiving a salary of +ten dollars a week--high wage for those days--out of which he could send +three dollars weekly to the family. Pamela, who played the guitar and +piano very well, gave music lessons, and so helped the family fund. +Pamela Clemens, the original of Cousin Mary, in "Tom Sawyer," was a sweet +and noble girl. Henry was too young to work, but Sam was apprenticed to +a printer named Ament, who had recently moved to Hannibal and bought a +weekly paper, "The Courier." Sam agreed with his mother that the +printing trade offered a chance for further education without attending +school, and then, some day, there might be wages. + + + + +VII. + +THE APPRENTICE + +The terms of Samuel Clemens's apprenticeship were the usual thing for +that day: 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, 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." + +Another apprentice, a huge creature, named Wales McCormick, was so large +that Ament's clothes were much too small for him. The two apprentices, +fitted out with their employer's cast-off garments, were amusing enough, +no doubt. Sam and Wales ate in the kitchen at first, but later at the +family table with Mr. and Mrs. Ament and Pet McMurry, a journeyman +printer. McMurry was a happy soul, as one could almost guess from his +name. He had traveled far and learned much. What the two apprentices +did not already know, Pet McMurry could teach them. Sam Clemens had +promised to be a good boy, and he was so, 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 cooked in the office, where the boys slept +on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato +which his fellow apprentice never forgot. + +How one wishes for a photograph of Sam Clemens at that period! But in +those days there were only daguerreotypes, and they were expensive +things. There is a letter, though, written long afterward, by Pet +McMurry to Mark Twain, which contains this paragraph: + + "If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy- + haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing- + office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a + little box at the case, 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.'" + +And with this portrait we must be content--we cannot doubt its truth. + +Sam was soon office favorite and in time became chief stand-by. When he +had been at work a year, he could set type accurately, run the job press +to the tune of "Annie Laurie," and he had charge of the circulation. +That is to say, he carried the papers--a mission of real importance, for +a long, sagging span of telegraph-wire had reached across the river to +Hannibal, and Mexican-war news delivered hot from the front gave the +messenger a fine prestige. + +He even did editing, of a kind. That is to say, when Ament was not in +the office and copy was needed, Sam hunted him up, explained the +situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not +ambitious to write--not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like +Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to +be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served +as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled by his success. + +But he stuck to printing, and rapidly became a neat, capable workman. +Ament gave him a daily task, after which he was free. By three in the +afternoon he was likely to finish his stint. Then he was off for the +river or the cave, joining his old comrades. Or perhaps he would go with +Laura Hawkins to gather wild columbine on the high cliff above the river, +known as Lover's Leap. When winter came these two sometimes went to +Bear Creek, skating; or together they attended parties, where the +old-fashioned games "Ring-around-Rosy" and "Dusty Miller" were the chief +amusements. + +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." That +was the real Laura, though her story in that book in no way resembles the +reality. + +It was just at this time that an incident occurred which may be looked +back upon now as a turning-point in Samuel Clemens's life. Coming home +from the office one afternoon, he noticed a square of paper being swept +along by the wind. He saw that it was printed--was interested +professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap +and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and +pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and +mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of +description, but the rest was pitiful dialogue. + +Sam had never heard of Joan before--he knew nothing of history. He was +no reader. Orion was fond of books, and Pamela; even little Henry had +read more than Sam. But now, as he read, there awoke in him a deep +feeling of pity and indignation, and with it a longing to know more of +the tragic story. It was an interest that would last his life through, +and in the course of time find expression in one of the rarest books ever +written. + +The first result was that Sam began to read. He hunted up everything he +could find on the subject of Joan, and from that went into French history +in general--indeed, into history of every kind. Samuel Clemens had +suddenly become a reader--almost a student. He even began the study of +languages, German and Latin, but was not able to go on for lack of time +and teachers. + +He became a hater of tyranny, a champion of the weak. Watching a game of +marbles or tops, he would remark to some offender, in his slow drawling +way, "You mustn't cheat that boy." + +And the cheating stopped, or trouble followed. + + + + +VIII. + +ORION'S PAPER + +A Hannibal paper, the "Journal," was for sale under a mortgage of five +hundred dollars, and Orion Clemens, returning from St. Louis, borrowed +the money and bought it. Sam's two years' apprenticeship with Ament had +been completed, and Orion felt that together they could carry on the +paper and win success. Henry Clemens, now eleven, was also taken out of +school to learn type-setting. + +Orion was a better printer than proprietor. Like so many of his family, +he was a visionary, gentle and credulous, ready to follow any new idea. +Much advice was offered him, and he tried to follow it all. + +He began with great hopes and energy. He worked like a slave and did not +spare the others. The paper was their hope of success. Sam, especially, +was driven. There were no more free afternoons. In some chapters +written by Orion Clemens in later life, he said: + + "I was tyrannical and unjust to Sam. He was swift and clean as a + good journeyman. I gave him 'takes,' and, if he got through well, I + begrudged him the time and made him work more." + +Orion did not mean to be unjust. The struggle against opposition and +debt was bitter. He could not be considerate. + +The paper for a time seemed on the road to success, but Orion worked too +hard and tried too many schemes. His enthusiasm waned and most of his +schemes turned out poorly. By the end of the year the "Journal" was on +the down grade. + +In time when the need of money became great, Orion made a trip to +Tennessee to try to raise something on the land which they still held +there. He left Sam in charge of the paper, and, though its proprietor +returned empty-handed, his journey was worth while, for it was during his +absence that Samuel Clemens began the career that would one day make him +Mark Twain. + +Sam had concluded to edit the paper in a way that would liven up the +circulation. He had never written anything for print, but he believed he +knew what the subscribers wanted. The editor of a rival paper had been +crossed in love, and was said to have tried to drown himself. Sam wrote +an article telling all the history of the affair, giving names and +details. Then on the back of two big wooden letters, used for +bill-printing, he engraved illustrations of the victim wading out +into the river, testing the depth of the water with a stick. + +The paper came out, and the demand for it kept the Washington hand-press +busy. The injured editor sent word that he was coming over to thrash the +whole Journal staff, but he left town, instead, for the laugh was too +general. + +Sam also wrote a poem which startled orthodox readers. Then Orion +returned and reduced him to the ranks. In later years Orion saw his +mistake. + + "I could have distanced all competitors, even then," he wrote, + "if I had recognized Sam's ability and let him go ahead, merely + keeping him from offending worthy persons." + +Sam was not discouraged. He liked the taste of print. He sent two +anecdotes to the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post. Both were accepted +--without payment, of course, in those days--and when they appeared he +walked on air. This was in 1851. Nearly sixty years later he said: + + "Seeing them in print was a joy which rather exceeded anything in + that line I have ever experienced since." + +However, he wrote nothing further for the "Post." Orion printed two of +his sketches in the "Journal," which was the extent of his efforts at +this time. None of this early work has been preserved. Files of the +"Post" exist, but the sketches were unsigned and could hardly be +identified. + +The Hannibal paper dragged along from year to year. Orion could pay +nothing on the mortgage--financial matters becoming always worse. He +could barely supply the plainest food and clothing for the family. Sam +and Henry got no wages, of course. Then real disaster came. A cow got +into the office one night, upset a type-case, and ate up two composition +rollers. Somewhat later a fire broke out and did considerable damage. +There was partial insurance, with which Orion replaced a few necessary +articles; then, to save rent, he moved the office into the front room of +the home on Hill Street, where they were living again at this time. + +Samuel Clemens, however, now in his eighteenth year, felt that he was no +longer needed in Hannibal. He was a capable workman, with little to do +and no reward. Orion, made irritable by his misfortunes, was not always +kind. Pamela, who, meantime, had married well, was settled in St. Louis. +Sam told his mother that he would visit Pamela and look about the city. +There would be work in St. Louis at good wages. + +He was going farther than St. Louis, but he dared not tell her. Jane +Clemens, consenting, sighed as she put together his scanty belongings. +Sam was going away. He had been a good boy of late years, but her faith +in his resisting powers was not strong. Presently 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." + +The slim, wiry woman of forty-nine, gray-eyed, tender, and resolute, +faced the fair-cheeked youth of seventeen, his eyes as piercing and +unwavering as her own. How much alike they were! + +"I want you," Jane Clemens said, "to repeat after me, Sam, these words: I +do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card or drink a drop of liquor +while I am gone." + +He repeated the vow after her, and she kissed him. + +"Remember that, Sam, and write to us," she said. + +"And so," writes Orion, "he went wandering in search of that comfort and +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 abounding activity and merriment." + + + + +IX. + +THE OPEN ROAD + +Samuel Clemens went to visit his sister Pamela in St. Louis and was +presently at work, setting type on the "Evening News." He had no +intention, however, of staying there. His purpose was to earn money +enough to take him to New York City. The railroad had by this time +reached St. Louis, and he meant to have the grand experience of a long +journey "on the cars." Also, there was a Crystal Palace in New York, +where a world's exposition was going on. + +Trains were slow in 1853, and it required several days and nights to go +from St. Louis to New York City, but to Sam Clemens it was a wonderful +journey. All day he sat looking out of the window, eating when he chose +from the food he carried, curling up in his seat at night to sleep. He +arrived at last with a few dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill +sewed into the lining of his coat. + +New York was rather larger than he expected. All of the lower end of +Manhattan Island was covered by it. The Crystal Palace--some distance +out--stood at Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue--the present site of +Bryant Park. All the world's newest wonders were to be seen there--a +dazzling exhibition. A fragment of the letter which Sam Clemens wrote to +his sister Pamela--the earliest piece of Mark Twain's writing that has +been preserved--expresses his appreciation of the big fair: + + "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 one + 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 fifty 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 pipes are laid across the bed of the + Harlem 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 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 a 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. + + "(It has just struck 2 A.M., and I always get up at six and am at + work at 7.) You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you + suppose, with a free printers' library containing more than 4,000 + volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk + to?" + + "I shall write to Ella soon. Write soon. + "Truly your Brother, + + "SAMY. + + "P.S.--I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could + not read by it." + +We get a fair idea of Samuel Clemens at seventeen from this letter. For +one thing, he could write good, clear English, full of interesting facts. +He is enthusiastic, but not lavish of words. He impresses us with his +statement that the visitors to the Palace each day are in number double +the population of Hannibal; a whole river is turned from its course to +supply New York City with water; the water comes thirty-eight miles, and +each family could use a hundred barrels a day! The letter reveals his +personal side--his kindly interest in those left behind, his anxiety for +Henry, his assurance that the promise to his mother was being kept, his +memory of her longing to visit her old home. And the boy who hated +school has become a reader--he is reveling in a printers' library of +thousands of volumes. We feel, somehow, that Samuel Clemens has suddenly +become quite a serious-minded person, that he has left Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper and Huck Finn somewhere in a beautiful country a long way behind. + +He found work with the firm of John A. Gray & Green, general printers, in +Cliff Street. His pay was four dollars a week, in wild-cat money--that +is, money issued by private banks--rather poor money, being generally at +a discount and sometimes worth less. But if wages were low, living +was cheap in those days, and Sam Clemens, lodging in a mechanics' +boarding-house in Duane Street, sometimes had fifty cents left on +Saturday night when his board and washing were paid. + +Luckily, he had not set out to seek his fortune, but only to see +something of the world. He lingered in New York through the summer of +1853, never expecting to remain long. His letters of that period were +few. In October he said, in a letter to Pamela, that he did not write to +the family because he did not know their whereabouts, Orion having sold +the paper and left Hannibal. + + "I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave + New York every day for the last two weeks," he adds, which sounds + like the Mark Twain of fifty years later. Farther along, he tells + of going to see Edwin Forrest, then playing at the Broadway Theater: + + "The play was the 'Gladiator.' I did not like part of it much, but + other portions were really splendid. In the latter part of the last + act. . . the man's whole soul seems absorbed in the part he is + playing; and it is real 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." + +A little farther along he says: + + "If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about + me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years old who is not + able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother + is not worth one's thoughts." + +Sam Clemens may have followed Forrest to Philadelphia. At any rate, he +was there presently, "subbing" in the composing-rooms of the "Inquirer," +setting ten thousand ems a day, and receiving pay accordingly. When +there was no vacancy for him to fill, he put in the time visiting the +Philadelphia libraries, art galleries, and historic landmarks. After +all, his chief business was sight-seeing. Work was only a means to this +end. Chilly evenings, when he returned to his boarding-house, his +room-mate, an Englishman named Sumner, grilled a herring over their small +open fire, and this was a great feast. He tried writing--obituary poetry, +for the "Philadelphia Ledger"--but it was not accepted. + +"My efforts were not received with approval" was his comment long after. + +In the "Inquirer" office there was a printer named Frog, and sometimes, +when he went out, the office "devils" would hang over his case a line +with a hook on it baited with a piece of red flannel. They never got +tired of this joke, and Frog never failed to get fighting mad when he saw +that dangling string with the bit of red flannel at the end. No doubt +Sam Clemens had his share in this mischief. + +Sam found that he liked Philadelphia. He could save a little money and +send something to his mother--small amounts, but welcome. Once he +inclosed a gold dollar, "to serve as a specimen of the kind of stuff we +are paid with in Philadelphia." Better than doubtful "wild-cat," +certainly. Of his work he writes: + + "One man has engaged me to work for him every Sunday till the first + of next April, when I shall return home to take Ma to Ky . . . . + If I want to, I can get subbing every night of the week. I go to + work at seven in the evening and work till three the next morning. + . . . The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois, + and when one gets a good agate 'take,' he is sure to make money. I + made $2.50 last Sunday." + +There is a long description of a trip on the Fairmount stage in this +letter, well-written and interesting, but too long to have place here. +In the same letter he speaks of the graves of Benjamin Franklin and his +wife, which he had looked at through the iron railing of the locked +inclosure. Probably it did not occur to him that there might be points +of similarity between Franklin's career and his own. Yet in time these +would be rather striking: each learned the printer's trade; each worked +in his brother's 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. + +Orion Clemens, meantime, had bought a paper in Muscatine, Iowa, and +located the family there. Evidently by this time he had realized the +value of his brother as a contributor, for Sam, in a letter to Orion, +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." + +Meantime, he had passed his eighteenth birthday, winter was coming on, he +had been away from home half a year, and the first attack of homesickness +was due. "One only has to leave home to learn how to write interesting +letters to an absent friend," he wrote; and again. "I don't like our +present prospect for cold weather at all." + +He declared he only wanted to get back to avoid night work, which was +injuring his eyes, but we may guess there was a stronger reason, which +perhaps he did not entirely realize. The novelty of wandering had worn +off, and he yearned for familiar faces, the comfort of those he loved. + +But he did not go. He made a trip to Washington in January--a +sight-seeing trip--returning to Philadelphia, where he worked for the +"Ledger" and "North American." Eventually he went back to New York, and +from there took ticket to St. Louis. This was in the late summer of 1854; +he had been fifteen months away from his people when he stepped aboard +the train to return. + +Sam was worn out when he reached St. Louis; but the Keokuk packet was +leaving, and he stopped only long enough to see Pamela, then went aboard +and, flinging himself into his berth, did not waken until the boat +reached Muscatine, Iowa, thirty-six hours later. + +It was very early when he arrived, too early to rouse the family. He sat +down in the office of a little hotel to wait for morning, and picked up a +small book that lay on the writing-table. It contained pictures of the +English rulers with the brief facts of their reigns. Sam Clemens +entertained himself learning these data by heart. He had a fine memory +for such things, and in an hour or two had those details so perfectly +committed that he never forgot one of them as long as he lived. The +knowledge acquired in this stray fashion he found invaluable in later +life. It was his groundwork for all English history. + + + + +X. + +A WIND OF CHANCE + +Orion could not persuade his brother to remain in Muscatine. Sam +returned to his old place on the "Evening News," in St. Louis, where he +remained until the following year, rooming with a youth named Burrough, a +journeyman chair-maker with literary taste, a reader of the English +classics, a companionable lad, and for Samuel Clemens a good influence. + +By spring, Orion Clemens had married and had sold out in Muscatine. He +was now located in Keokuk, Iowa. When presently Brother Sam came +visiting to Keokuk, Orion offered him five dollars a week and his board +to remain. He accepted. Henry Clemens, now seventeen, was also in +Orion's employ, and a lad named Dick Hingham. Henry and Sam slept in the +office; Dick and a young fellow named Brownell, who roomed above, came in +for social evenings. + +They were pretty lively evenings. A music-teacher on the floor below did +not care for them--they disturbed his class. He was furious, in fact, +and assailed the boys roughly at first, with no result but to make +matters worse. Then he tried gentleness, and succeeded. The boys +stopped their capers and joined his class. Sam, especially, became a +distinguished member of that body. He was never a great musician, but +with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, +he had no rival in popularity. He was twenty now, and much with young +ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good comrade to +all, full of pranks and pleasantries, ready to stop and be merry with any +that came along. If they prophesied concerning his future, it is not +likely that they spoke of literary fame. They thought him just +easy-going and light-minded. True, they noticed that he often carried a +book under his arm--a history, a volume of Dickens, or the tales of Poe. + +He read more than any one guessed. At night, propped up in bed--a habit +continued until his death--he was likely to read until a late hour. He +enjoyed smoking at such times, and had made himself a pipe with a large +bowl which stood on the floor and had a long rubber stem, something like +the Turkish hubble-bubble. He liked to fill the big bowl and smoke at +ease through the entire evening. But sometimes the pipe went out, which +meant that he must strike a match and lean far over to apply it, just +when he was most comfortable. Sam Clemens never liked unnecessary +exertion. One night, when the pipe had gone out for the second time, he +happened to hear the young book-clerk, Brownell, passing up to his room +on the top floor. Sam called to him: + +"Ed, come here!" + +Brownell poked his head in the door. The two were great chums. + +"What will you have, Sam?" he asked. + +"Come in, Ed; Henry's asleep, and I'm in trouble. I want somebody to +light my pipe." + +"Why don't you 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 a match, stooped down, and applied it. + +"What are you reading, Sam?" + +"Oh, nothing much--a so-called funny book. One of these days I'll write +a funnier book myself." + +Brownell laughed. "No, you won't, Sam," he said. "You're too lazy ever +to write a book." + +Years later, in the course of a lecture which he delivered in Keokuk, +Mark Twain said that he supposed the most untruthful man in the world +lived right there in Keokuk, and that his name was Ed Brownell. + +Orion Clemens did not have the gift of prosperity, and his +printing-office did not flourish. When he could no longer pay Sam's wages +he took him into partnership, which meant that Sam got no wages at all, +though this was of less consequence, since his mother, now living with +Pamela, was well provided for. The disorder of the office, however, +distressed him. He wrote home that he could not work without system, and, +a little later, that he was going to leave Keokuk, that, in fact, he was +planning a great adventure--a trip to the upper Amazon! + +His interest in the Amazon had been awakened by a book. Lynch and +Herndon had surveyed the upper river, and Lieutenant Herndon's book was +widely read. Sam Clemens, propped up in bed, pored over it through long +evenings, and nightly made fabulous fortunes collecting cocoa and other +rare things--resolving, meantime, to start in person for the upper Amazon +with no unnecessary delay. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was the same. +His vision of grand possibilities ahead blinded him to the ways and means +of arrival. It was an inheritance from both sides of his parentage. +Once, in old age, he wrote: + + "I have been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing + things and reflecting afterward . . . . When I am reflecting on + these occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think." + +He believed, however, that he had reflected carefully concerning the +Amazon, and that in a brief time he should be there at the head of an +expedition, piling up untold wealth. He even stirred the imaginations of +two other adventurers, a Dr. Martin and a young man named Ward. To +Henry, then in St. Louis, he wrote, August 5, 1856: + + "Ward and I held a long consultation Sunday morning, and the result + was that we two have determined to start to Brazil, if possible, in + six weeks from now, in order to look carefully into matters there + and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on the first of + March." + +The matter of finance troubled him. Orion could not be depended on for +any specified sum, and the fare to the upper Amazon would probably be +considerable. Sam planned different methods of raising it. One of them +was to go to New York or Cincinnati and work at his trade until he saved +the amount. He would then sail from New York direct, or take boat for +New Orleans and sail from there. Of course there would always be vessels +clearing for the upper Amazon. After Lieutenant Herndon's book the ocean +would probably be full of them. + +He did not make the start with Ward, as planned, and Ward and Martin seem +to have given up the Amazon idea. Not so with Samuel Clemens. He went +on reading Herndon, trying meantime to raise money enough to get him out +of Keokuk. Was it fate or Providence that suddenly placed it in his +hands? Whatever it was, the circumstance is so curious that it must be +classed as one of those strange facts that have no place in fiction. + +The reader will remember how, one day in Hannibal, the wind had brought +to Sam Clemens, then printer's apprentice, a stray leaf from a book about +"Joan of Arc," and how that incident marked a turning-point in his mental +life. Now, seven years later, it was the wind again that directed his +fortune. It was a day in early November--bleak, bitter, and +gusty, with whirling snow; most persons were indoors. Samuel Clemens, +going down Main Street, Keokuk, saw a flying bit of paper pass him and +lodge against 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. + +He was tempted to pocket his good fortune and keep still. But he had +always a troublesome conscience. He went to a newspaper office and +advertised that he had found a sum of money, a large bill. + +Once, long after, he said: "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." + +Another time he said, "I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the +same day." All of which we may take with his usual literary discount +--the one assigned to him by his mother in childhood. As a matter of fact, +he remained for an ample time, and nobody came for the money. What was +its origin? Was it swept out of a bank, or caught up by the wind from +some counting-room table? Perhaps it materialized out of the unseen. +Who knows? + + + + +XI. + +THE LONG WAY TO THE AMAZON + +Sam decided on Cincinnati as his base. From there he could go either to +New York or New Orleans to catch the Amazon boat. He paid a visit to St. +Louis, where his mother made him renew his promise as to drink and cards. +Then he was seized with a literary idea, and returned to Keokuk, where he +proposed to a thriving weekly paper, the "Saturday Post," to send letters +of travel, which might even be made into a book later on. George Reese, +owner of the "Post," agreed to pay five dollars each for the letters, +which speaks well for his faith in Samuel Clemens's talent, five dollars +being good pay for that time and place--more than the letters were worth, +judged by present standards. The first was dated Cincinnati, November +14, 1856, and was certainly not promising literature. It was written in +the ridiculous dialect which was once thought to be the dress of humor; +and while here and there is a comic flash, there is in it little promise +of the future Mark Twain. One extract is enough: + + "When we got to the depo', I went around to git a look at the iron + hoss. Thunderation! It wasn't no more like a hoss than a meetin'- + house. If I was goin' to describe the animule, I'd say it looked + like--well, it looked like--blamed if I know what it looked like, + snorting fire and brimstone out of his nostrils, and puffin' out + black smoke all 'round, and pantin', and heavin', and swellin', and + chawin' up red-hot coals like they was good. A feller stood in a + little house like, feedin' him all the time; but the more he got, + the more he wanted and the more he blowed and snorted. After a + spell the feller ketched him by the tail, and great Jericho! he set + up a yell that split the ground for more'n a mile and a half, and + the next minit I felt my legs a-waggin', and found myself at t'other + end of the string o' vehickles. I wasn't skeered, but I had three + chills and a stroke of palsy in less than five minits, and my face + had a cur'us brownish-yaller-greenbluish color in it, which was + perfectly unaccountable. 'Well,' say I, 'comment is super-flu-ous.'" + +How Samuel Clemens could have written that, and worse, at twenty-one, and +a little more than ten years later have written "The Innocents Abroad," +is one of the mysteries of literature. The letters were signed +"Snodgrass," and there are but two of them. Snodgrass seems to have +found them hard work, for it is said he raised on the price, which, +fortunately, brought the series to a close. Their value to-day lies in +the fact that they are the earliest of Mark Twain's newspaper +contributions that have been preserved--the first for which he received a +cash return. + +Sam remained in Cincinnati until April of the following year, 1857, +working for Wrightson & Co., general printers, lodging in a cheap +boarding-house, saving every possible penny for his great adventure. + +He had one associate at the boarding-house, a lank, unsmiling Scotchman +named Macfarlane, twice young Clemens's age, and a good deal of a +mystery. Sam never could find out what Macfarlane did. His hands were +hardened by some sort of heavy labor; he left at six in the morning and +returned in the evening at the same hour. He never mentioned his work, +and young Clemens had the delicacy not to inquire. + +For Macfarlane was no ordinary person. He was a man of deep knowledge, a +reader of many books, a thinker; he was versed in history and philosophy, +he knew the dictionary by heart. He made but two statements concerning +himself: one, that he had acquired his knowledge from reading, and not at +school; the other, that he knew every word in the English dictionary. He +was willing to give proof of the last, and Sam Clemens tested him more +than once, but found no word that Macfarlane could not define. + +Macfarlane was not silent--he would discuss readily enough the deeper +problems of life and had many startling theories of his own. Darwin had +not yet published his "Descent of Man," yet Macfarlane was already +advancing ideas similar to those in that book. He went further than +Darwin. He had startling ideas of the moral evolution of man, and these +he would pour into the ears of his young listener until ten o'clock, +after which, like the English Sumner in Philadelphia, he would grill a +herring, and the evening would end. Those were fermenting discourses +that young Samuel Clemens listened to that winter in Macfarlane's room, +and they did not fail to influence his later thought. + +It was the high-tide of spring, late in April, when the prospective +cocoa-hunter decided that it was time to set out for the upper Amazon. +He had saved money enough to carry him at least as far as New Orleans, +where he would take ship, it being farther south and therefore nearer his +destination. Furthermore, he could begin with a lazy trip down the +Mississippi, which, next to being a pilot, had been one of his most +cherished dreams. The Ohio River steamers were less grand than those of +the Mississippi, but they had a homelike atmosphere and did not hurry. +Samuel Clemens had the spring fever and was willing to take his time. + +In "Life on the Mississippi" we read that the author ran away, vowing +never to return until he could come home a pilot, shedding glory. But +this is the fiction touch. He had always loved the river, and his +boyhood dream of piloting had time and again returned, but it was not +uppermost when he bade good-by to Macfarlane and stepped aboard the "Paul +Jones," bound for New Orleans, and thus conferred immortality on that +ancient little craft. + +Now he had really started on his voyage. But it was a voyage that would +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. + + + + +XII. + +RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION + +A reader of Mark Twain's Mississippi book gets the impression that the +author was a boy of about seventeen when he started to learn the river, +and that he was painfully ignorant of the great task ahead. But this +also is the fiction side of the story. Samuel Clemens was more than +twenty-one when he set out on the "Paul Jones," and in a way was familiar +with the trade of piloting. Hannibal had turned out many pilots. An +older brother of the Bowen boys was already on the river when Sam Clemens +was rolling rocks down Holliday's Hill. Often he came home to air his +grandeur and hold forth on the wonder of his work. That learning the +river was no light task Sam Clemens would know as well as any one who had +not tried it. + +Nevertheless, as the drowsy little steamer went puffing down into softer, +sunnier lands, the old dream, the "permanent ambition" of boyhood, +returned, while the call of the far-off Amazon and cocoa drew faint. + +Horace Bixby,[2] pilot of the "Paul Jones," a man of thirty-two, 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 small, clean-cut man. "Good morning, sir," he said, rather +briskly, without looking around. + +He did not much care for visitors in the pilothouse. This one entered +and stood a little behind him. + +"How would you like a young man to learn the river?" came to him in that +serene, deliberate speech. + +The pilot glanced over his shoulder and saw a rather slender, +loose-limbed youth with a fair, girlish complexion and a great mass +of curly auburn hair. + +"I wouldn't like it. Cub pilots are more trouble than they're worth. A +great deal more trouble than profit." + +"I am a printer by trade," the easy voice went on. "It doesn't agree +with me. I thought I'd go to South America." + +Bixby kept his eye on the river, but there was interest in his voice when +he spoke. "What makes you pull your words that way?" he asked--"pulling" +being the river term for drawling. + +The young man, now seated comfortably on the visitors' bench, said more +slowly than ever: "You'll have to ask my mother--she pulls hers, too." + +Pilot Bixby laughed. The manner of the reply amused him. His guest was +encouraged. + +"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. I know Sam, too, and Bart." + +"Old schoolmates of mine in Hannibal. Sam and Will, especially, were my +chums." + +Bixby's tone became friendly. "Come over and stand by me," he said. +"What is your name?" + +The applicant told him, and the two stood looking out on the sunlit +water. + +"Do you drink?" + +"No." + +"Do you gamble?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you swear?" + +"N-not for amusement; only under pressure." + +"Do you chew?" + +"No, sir, never; but I must--smoke." + +"Did you ever do any steering?" + +"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 on the +bench where he could keep a careful eye on the course. By and by he said +"There is just one way 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 seemed discouraging. + +"I haven't got five hundred dollars in money," Sam said. "I've got a lot +of Tennessee land worth two bits an acre. I'll give you two thousand +acres of that." + +Bixby shook his head. "No," he said, "I don't want any unimproved real +estate. I have too much already." + +Sam reflected. He thought he might be able to borrow one hundred dollars +from William Moffett, Pamela's husband, without straining his credit. + +"Well, then," he proposed, "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 at the wheel, his evident +simplicity and sincerity--the inner qualities of mind and heart which +would make the world love Mark Twain. The terms proposed were accepted. +The first payment was to be in cash; the others were to begin when the +pupil had learned the river and was earning wages. During the rest of +the trip to New Orleans the new pupil was often at the wheel, while Mr. +Bixby nursed his sore foot and gave directions. Any literary ambitions +that Samuel Clemens still nourished waned rapidly. By the time he had +reached New Orleans he had almost forgotten he had ever been a printer. +As for the Amazon and cocoa, why, there had been no ship sailing in that +direction for years, and it was unlikely that any would ever sail again, +a fact that rather amused the would-be adventurer now, since Providence +had regulated his affairs in accordance with his oldest and longest +cherished dream. + +At New Orleans Bixby left the "Paul Jones" for a fine St. Louis boat, +taking his cub with him. This was a sudden and happy change, and Sam was +a good deal impressed with his own importance in belonging to so imposing +a structure, especially when, after a few days' stay in New Orleans, he +stood by Bixby's side in the big glass turret while they backed out of +the line of wedged-in boats and headed up the great river. + +This was glory, but there was sorrow ahead. He had not really begun +learning the river as yet he had only steered under directions. He had +known that to learn the river would be hard, but he had never realized +quite how hard. Serenely he had undertaken the task of mastering 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. +Nobody could realize the full size of that task--not till afterward. + +[2] Horace Bixby lived until 1912 and remained at the wheel until within +a short time of his death, in his eighty-seventh year. The writer of +this memoir visited him in 1910 and took down from his dictation the +dialogue that follows. + + + +XIII. + +LEARNING THE RIVER + +In that early day, to be a pilot was to be "greater than a king." The +Mississippi River pilot was a law unto himself--there was none above him. +His direction of the boat was absolute; he could start or lay up when he +chose; he could pass a landing regardless of business there, consulting +nobody, not even the captain; he could take the boat into what seemed +certain destruction, if he had that mind, and the captain was obliged to +stand by, helpless and silent, for the law was with the pilot in +everything. + +Furthermore, the pilot was a gentleman. His work was clean and +physically light. It ended the instant the boat was tied to the landing, +and did not begin again until it was ready to back into the stream. +Also, for those days his salary was princely--the Vice-President of the +United States did not receive more. As for prestige, the Mississippi +pilot, perched high in his glass inclosure, fashionably dressed, and +commanding all below him, was the most conspicuous and showy, the most +observed and envied creature in the world. No wonder Sam Clemens, with +his love of the river and his boyish fondness for honors, should aspire +to that stately rank. Even at twenty-one he was still just a boy--as, +indeed, he was till his death--and we may imagine how elated he was, +starting up the great river as a real apprentice pilot, who in a year or +two would stand at the wheel, as his chief was now standing, a monarch +with a splendid income and all the great river packed away in his head. + +In that last item lay the trouble. In the Mississippi book he tells of +it in a way that no one may hope to equal, and if the details are not +exact, the truth is there--at least in substance. + +For a distance above New Orleans Mr. Bixby had volunteered information +about the river, naming the points and crossings, in what seemed a casual +way, all through his watch of four hours. Their next watch began in the +middle of the night, and Mark Twain tells how surprised and disgusted he +was to learn that pilots must get up in the night to run their boats, and +his amazement to find Mr. Bixby plunging into the blackness ahead as if +it had been daylight. Very likely this is mainly fiction, but hardly the +following: + + Presently he turned to me and said: "What's the name of the first + point above New Orleans?" + + I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I + didn't know. + + "Don't know!" + + His manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. + But I had to say just what I had said before. + + "Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. Bixby. "What's the name of the + next point?" + + Once more I didn't know. + + "Well, this beats anything! Tell me the name of any point or place + I told you." + + I studied awhile and decided that I couldn't. + + "Look here! What do you start from, above Twelve Mile Point, to + cross over?" + + "I--I--don't know." + + "'You--you don't know,"' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. + "What do you know?" + + "I--I--Nothing, for certain." + + Bixby was a small, nervous man, hot and quick-firing. He went off + now, and said a number of severe things. Then: + + "Look here, what do you suppose I told you the names of those points + for?" + + I tremblingly considered a moment--then the devil of temptation + provoked me to say: "Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought." + + This was a red flag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was + crossing the river at the time) that I judged it made him blind, + because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course + the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man + so grateful as Mr. Bixby was, because he was brimful, and here were + subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his + head out, and such an irruption followed as I had never heard before + . . . . When he closed the window he was empty. Presently he + said to me, in the gentlest way: + + "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." + +The little memorandum-book which Sam Clemens bought, probably at the next +daylight landing, still exists--the same that he says "fairly bristled +with the names of towns, points, bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc."; +but it made his heart ache to think he had only half the river set down, +for, as the watches were four hours off and four hours on, there were the +long gaps where he had slept. + +It is not easy to make out the penciled notes today. The small, neat +writing is faded, and many of them are in an abbreviation made only for +himself. It is hard even to find these examples to quote: + +MERIWETHER'S BEND + +One-fourth less 3[3]--run shape of upper bar and go into the low place in +the willows about 200 (ft.) lower down than last year. + +OUTSIDE OF MONTEZUMA + +Six or eight feet more water. Shape bar till high timber on towhead gets +nearly even with low willows. Then hold a little open on right of low +willows--run 'em close if you want to, but come out 200 yards when you +get nearly to head of towhead. + +The average mind would not hold a single one of these notes ten seconds, +yet by the time he reached St. Louis he had set down pages that to-day +make one's head weary even to contemplate. And those long four-hour gaps +where he had been asleep--they are still there; and now, after nearly +sixty years, the old heartache is still in them. He must have bought a +new book for the next trip and laid this one away. + +To the new "cub" it seemed a long way to St. Louis that first trip, but +in the end it was rather grand to come steaming up to the big, busy city, +with its thronging waterfront flanked with a solid mile of steamboats, +and to nose one's way to a place in that stately line. + +At St. Louis, Sam borrowed from his brother-in-law the one hundred +dollars he had agreed to pay, and so closed his contract with Bixby. A +few days later his chief was engaged to go on a very grand boat indeed--a +"sumptuous temple," he tells us, all brass and inlay, with a pilot-house +so far above the water that he seemed perched on a mountain. This part +of learning the river was worth while; and when he found that the +regiment of natty servants respectfully "sir'd" him, his happiness was +complete. + +But he was in the depths again, presently, for when they started down the +river and he began to take account of his knowledge, he found that he had +none. Everything had changed--that is, he was seeing it all from the +other direction. What with the four-hour gaps and this transformation, +he was lost completely. + +How could the easy-going, dreamy, unpractical man whom the world knew as +Mark Twain ever have persisted against discouragement like that to +acquire the vast, the absolute, limitless store of information necessary +to Mississippi piloting? The answer is that he loved the river, the +picturesqueness and poetry of a steamboat, the ease and glory of a +pilot's life; and then, in spite of his own later claims to the contrary, +Samuel Clemens, boy and man, in the work suited to his tastes and gifts, +was the most industrious of persons. Work of the other sort he avoided, +overlooked, refused to recognize, but never any labor for which he was +qualified by his talents or training. Piloting suited him exactly, and +he proved an apt pupil. + +Horace Bixby said to the writer of this memoir: "Sam was always +good-natured, and he had a natural taste for the river. He had a fine +memory and never forgot what I told him." + +Yet there must have been hard places all along, for to learn every crook +and turn and stump and snag and bluff and bar and sounding of that twelve +hundred miles of mighty, shifting water was a gigantic task. Mark Twain +tells us how, when he was getting along pretty well, his chief one day +turned on him 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 replied respectfully and 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 that is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else + is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't got the same shape + in the night that it has in the daytime." + + "How on earth am I 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!" + +But the reader must turn to Chapter VIII of "Life on the Mississippi" and +read, or reread, the pages which follow this extract--nothing can better +convey the difficulties of piloting. That Samuel Clemens had the courage +to continue is the best proof, not only of his great love of the river, +but of that splendid gift of resolution that one rarely fails to find in +men of the foremost rank. + +[3] Depth of water. One-quarter less than three fathoms. + + + + +XIV. + +RIVER DAYS + +Piloting was only a part of Sam Clemens's education on the Mississippi. +He learned as much of the reefs and shallows of human nature as of the +river-bed. In one place he writes: + + 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. + +All the different types, but most of them in the rough. That Samuel +Clemens kept the promise made to his mother as to drink and cards during +those apprentice days is well worth remembering. + +Horace Bixby, answering a call for pilots from the Missouri River, +consigned his pupil, as was customary, tonne of the pilots of the "John +J. Roe," a freight-boat, owned and conducted by some retired farmers, and +in its hospitality reminding Sam of his Uncle John Quarles's farm. The +"Roe" was a very deliberate boat. It was said that she could beat an +island to St. Louis, but never quite overtake the current going +down-stream. Sam loved the "Roe." She was not licensed to carry +passengers, but she always had a family party of the owners' relations +aboard, and there was a big deck for dancing and a piano in the cabin. +The young pilot could play the chords, and sing, in his own fashion, +about a grasshopper that; sat on a sweet-potato vine, and about-- + + An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago. + +The "Roe" was a heavenly place, but Sam's stay there did not last. Bixby +came down from the Missouri, and perhaps thought he was doing a fine +thing for his pupil by transferring him to a pilot named Brown, then on a +large passenger-steamer, the "Pennsylvania." The "Pennsylvania" was new +and one of the finest boats on the river. Sam Clemens, by this time, was +accounted a good steersman, so it seemed fortunate and a good arrangement +for all parties. + +But Brown was a tyrant. He was illiterate and coarse, and took a dislike +to Sam from the start. His first greeting was a question, harmless +enough in form but offensive in manner. + +"Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?"--Bixby being usually pronounced "Bigsby" +in river parlance. + +Sam answered politely enough that he was, and Brown proceeded to comment +on the "style" of his clothes and other personal matters. + +He had made an effort to please Brown, but it was no use. Brown was +never satisfied. At a moment when Sam was steering, Brown, sitting on +the bench, would shout: "Here! Where are you going now? Pull her down! +Pull her down! Do you hear me? Blamed mud-cat!" + +The young pilot soon learned to detest his chief, and presently was +putting in a good deal of his time inventing punishments for him. + +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 the river in my mind, as was my duty, I threw business aside +for pleasure, and killed Brown. + +He gave up trying to please Brown, and was even willing to stir him up +upon occasion. One day when the cub was at the wheel his chief noticed +that the course seemed peculiar. + +"Here! Where you headin' for now?" he yelled. "What in the nation you +steerin' at, anyway? Blamed numskull!" + +"Why," said Sam in his calm, slow way, "I didn't see much else I could +steer for, so I was heading for that white heifer on the bank." + +"Get away from that wheel! And get outen this pilot-house!" yelled +Brown. "You ain't fitten to become no pilot!" An order that Sam found +welcome enough. The other pilot, George Ealer, was a lovable soul who +played the flute and chess during his off watch, and read aloud to Sam +from "Goldsmith" and "Shakespeare." To be with George Ealer was to +forget the persecutions of Brown. + +Young Clemens had been on the river nearly a year at this time, and, +though he had learned a good deal and was really a fine steersman, he +received no wages. He had no board to pay, but there were things he must +buy, and his money supply had become limited. Each trip of the +"Pennsylvania" she remained about two days and nights in New Orleans, +during which time the young man was free. He found he could earn two and +a half to three dollars a night watching freight on the levee, and, as +this opportunity came around about once a month, the amount was useful. +Nor was this the only return; many years afterward he said: + + "It was a desolate experience, 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 sots of + situations and possibilities. These things got into my books by and + by, and furnished me with many a chapter. I can trace the effects + of those nights through most of my books, in one way and another." + +Piloting, even with Brown, had its pleasant side. In St. Louis, young +Clemens stopped with his sister, and often friends were there from +Hannibal. At both ends of the line he visited friendly boats, especially +the "Roe," where a grand welcome was always waiting. Once among the +guests of that boat a young girl named Laura so attracted him that he +forgot time and space until one of the "Roe" pilots, Zeb Leavenworth, +came flying aft, shouting: + +"The 'Pennsylvania' is backing out!" + +A hasty good-by, a wild flight across the decks of several boats, and a +leap across several feet of open water closed the episode. He wrote to +Laura, but there was no reply. He never saw her again, never heard from +her for nearly fifty years, when both were widowed and old. She had not +received his letter. + +Occasionally there were stirring adventures aboard the "Pennsylvania." +In a letter written in March, 1858, the young pilot tells of an exciting +night search in the running ice for Hat Island soundings: + +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 until +the yawl would bring us 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 . . . . 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 . . . . 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 been out in the yawl from +four in the morning until half-past nine without being near a fire. +There was a thick coating of ice over men and yawl, ropes, and +everything, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. + +He was at the right age to enjoy such adventures, and to feel a pride in +them. In the same letter he tells how he found on the "Pennsylvania" a +small clerkship for his brother Henry, who was now nearly twenty, a +handsome, gentle boy of whom Sam was lavishly fond and proud. The young +pilot was eager to have Henry with him--to see him started in life. How +little he dreamed what sorrow would come of his well-meant efforts in the +lad's behalf! Yet he always believed, later, that he had a warning, for +one night at the end of May, in St. Louis, he had a vivid dream, which +time would presently fulfil. + +An incident now occurred on the "Pennsylvania" that closed Samuel +Clemens's career on that boat. It was the down trip, and the boat was in +Eagle Bend when Henry Clemens appeared on the hurricane deck with an +announcement from the captain of a landing a little lower down. Brown, +who would never own that he was rather deaf, probably misunderstood the +order. They were passing the landing when the captain appeared on the +deck. + +"Didn't Henry tell you to land here?" he called to Brown. + +"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!" + +Henry appeared, not suspecting any trouble. + +Brown said, fiercely, "Here, why didn't you tell me we had got to land at +that plantation?" + +"I did tell you, Mr. Brown," Henry said, politely. + +"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!" + +For a cub pilot to defy his chief was unheard of. Brown was dazed, then +he shouted: + +"I'll attend to your case in half a minute!" And to Henry, "Get out of +here!" + +Henry had started when Brown seized him by the collar and struck him in +the face. An instant later Sam was upon Brown with a heavy stool and +stretched him on the floor. Then all the repressed fury of months broke +loose; and, leaping upon Brown and holding him down with his knees, +Samuel Clemens pounded the tyrant with his fists till his strength gave +out. He let Brown go then, and the latter, with pilot instinct, sprang +to the wheel, for the boat was drifting. Seeing she was safe, he seized +a spy-glass as a weapon and ordered his chastiser out of the pilot-house. +But Sam lingered. He had become very calm, and he openly corrected +Brown's English. + +"Don't give me none of your airs!" yelled Brown. "I ain't goin' to stand +nothin' 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. Sam went down to find Captain +Klinefelter. He expected to be put in irons, for it was thought to be +mutiny to strike a pilot. + +The captain took Sam into his private room and made some inquiries. Mark +Twain, in the "Mississippi" boot remembers them as follows: + +"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 mighty 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." + +In a letter which Samuel Clemens wrote to Orion's wife, immediately after +this incident, he gives the details of the encounter with Brown and +speaks of Captain Klinefelter's approval.[4] Brown declared he would +leave the boat at New Orleans if Sam Clemens remained on it, and the +captain told him to go, offering to let Sam himself run the daylight +watches back to St. Louis, thus showing his faith in the young steersman. +The "cub," however, had less confidence, and advised that Brown be kept +for the up trip, saying he would follow by the next boat. It was a +decision that probably saved his life. + +That night, watching on the levee, Henry joined him, when his own duties +were finished, and the brothers made the round together. It may have +been some memory of his dream that made Samuel Clemens say: + +"Henry, 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 a long grief lay behind it. + +[4] In the Mississippi book the author says that Brown was about to +strike Henry with a lump of coal, but in the letter above mentioned the +details are as here given. + + + + +XV. + + +THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" + +The "A. T. Lacy," that brought Samuel Clemens up the river, was two days +behind the "Pennsylvania." At Greenville, Mississippi, a voice from +the landing shouted "The 'Pennsylvania' is blown up just below Memphis, +at Ship Island. One hundred and fifty lives lost!" + +It proved a true report. At six o'clock that warm mid-June morning, +while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, four out of eight of the +Pennsylvania's boilers had suddenly exploded, with fearful results. +Henry Clemens had been one of the victims. He had started to swim for +the shore, only a few hundred yards away, but had turned back to assist +in the rescue of others. What followed could not be clearly learned. He +was terribly injured, and died on the fourth night after the catastrophe. +His brother was with him by that time, and believed he recognized the +exact fulfilment of his dream. + +The young pilot's grief was very great. In a letter home he spoke of the +dying boy as "My darling, my pride, my glory, my all." His heavy sorrow, +and the fact that with unsparing self-blame he held himself in a measure +responsible for his brother's tragic death, saddened his early life. His +early gaiety came back, but his face had taken on the serious, pathetic +look which from that time it always wore in repose. Less than +twenty-three, he had suddenly the look of thirty, and while Samuel +Clemens in spirit, temperament, and features never would become really +old, neither would he ever look really young again. + +He 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 from St. Louis to New Orleans. In eighteen months he had +packed away in his head all those wearisome details and acquired that +confidence that made him one of the elect. He knew every snag and bank +and dead tree and depth in all those endless miles of shifting current, +every cut-off and crossing. He could read the surface of the water by +day, he could smell danger in the dark. To the writer of these chapters, +Horace Bixby said: + +"In a year and a half from the time he came to the river, Sam was not +only a pilot, but a good one. 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 +sandbars and changing shores, a pilot's judgment had to be founded on +absolute certainty." + +Bixby had returned from the Missouri by the time his pupil's license was +issued, and promptly took him as full partner on the "Crescent City," and +later on a fine new boat, the "New Falls City." Still later, they appear +to have been together on a very large boat, the "City of Memphis," and +again on the "Alonzo Child." + + + + +XVI. + +THE PILOT + +For Samuel Clemens these were happy days--the happiest, in some respects, +he would ever know. He had plenty of money now. He could help his +mother with a liberal hand, and could put away fully a hundred dollars a +month for himself. He had few cares, and he loved the ease and romance +and independence of his work as he would never quite love anything again. + +His popularity on the river was very great. His humorous stories and +quaint speech made a crowd collect wherever he appeared. There were +pilot-association rooms in St. Louis and New Orleans, and his appearance +at one of these places was a signal for the members to gather. + +A friend of those days writes: "He was much given to spinning yarns so +funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the time his own face +was perfectly sober. Occasionally some of his droll yarns got into the +papers. He may have written them himself." + +Another old river-man remembers how, one day, at the association, they +were talking of presence of mind in an accident, when Pilot Clemens 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 a story that found its way into print, probably his own +contribution. + +"Sam was always scribbling when not at the wheel," said Bixby, "but the +best thing he ever did was the burlesque of old Isaiah Sellers. He +didn't write it for print, but only for his own amusement and to show to +a few of the boys. Bart Bowen, who was with him on the "Edward J. Gay" +at the time, got hold of it, and gave it to one of the New Orleans +papers." + +The burlesque on Captain Sellers would be of little importance if it were +not for its association with the origin, or, at least, with the +originator, of what is probably the best known of literary names--the +name Mark Twain. + +This strong, happy title--a river term indicating a depth of two fathoms +on the sounding-line--was first used by the old pilot, Isaiah Sellers, +who was a sort of "oldest inhabitant" of the river, with a passion for +airing his ancient knowledge before the younger men. Sellers used to +send paragraphs to the papers, quaint and rather egotistical in tone, +usually beginning, "My opinion for the citizens of New Orleans," etc., +prophesying river conditions and recalling memories as far back as 1811. +These he generally signed "Mark Twain." + +Naturally, the younger pilots amused themselves by imitating Sellers, and +when Sam Clemens wrote abroad burlesque of the old man's contributions, +relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 +with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a +masterpiece of wit. + +It appeared in the "True Delta" in May, 1859, and broke Captain Sellers's +literary heart. He never wrote another paragraph. Clemens always +regretted the whole matter deeply, and his own revival of the name +afterward was a sort of tribute to the old man he had thoughtlessly and +unintentionally wounded. + +Old pilots of that day remembered Samuel Clemens as a slender, +fine-looking man, well dressed, even dandified, generally wearing blue +serge, with fancy shirts, white duck trousers, and patent-leather shoes. +A pilot could do that, for his surroundings were speckless. + +The pilots regarded him as a great reader--a student of history, travels, +and the sciences. In the association rooms they often saw him poring +over serious books. He began the study of French one day in New Orleans, +when he had passed a school of languages where 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. The student was +provided with a set of conversation cards for each, and was supposed to +walk from one apartment to another, changing his nationality at each +threshold. The young pilot, with his usual enthusiasm, invested in all +three languages, but after a few round trips decided that French would +do. He did not return to the school, but kept the cards and added +text-books. He studied faithfully when off watch and in port, and his +old river note-book, still preserved, contains a number of advanced +exercises, neatly written out. + +Still more interesting are the river notes themselves. They are not the +timid, hesitating memoranda of the "little book" which, by Bixby's +advice, he bought for his first trip. They are quick, vigorous records +that show confidence and knowledge. Under the head of "Second high-water +trip--Jan., 1861 'Alonzo Child,'" the notes tell the story of a rising +river, with overflowing banks, blind passages, and cut-offs--a new river, +in fact, that must be judged by a perfect knowledge of the old--guessed, +but guessed right. + +Good deal of water all over Cole's Creek Chute, 12 or 15 ft. bank--could +have gone up above General Taylor's--too much drift . . . . + +Night--didn't run either 77 or 76 towheads--8-ft. bank on main shore +Ozark chute. + +To the reader to-day it means little enough, but one may imagine, +perhaps, a mile-wide sweep of boiling water, full of drift, shifting +currents with newly forming bars, and a lone figure in the dark +pilot-house, peering into the night for blind and disappearing landmarks. + +But such nights were not all there was of piloting. There were glorious +nights when the stars were blazing out, and the moon was on the water, +and the young pilot could follow a clear channel and dream long dreams. +He was very serious at such times--he reviewed the world's history he had +read, he speculated on the future, he considered philosophies, he lost +himself in a study of the stars. Mark Twain's love of astronomy, which +never waned until his last day, began with those lonely river watches. +Once a great comet blazed in the sky, a "wonderful sheaf of light," and +glorified his long hours at the wheel. + +Samuel Clemens was now twenty-five, full of health and strong in his +courage. In the old notebook there remains a well-worn clipping, the +words of some unknown writer, which he may have kept as a sort of creed: + +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. + +Bixby and Clemens were together that winter on the "Child," and were the +closest friends. Once the young pilot invited his mother to make the +trip to New Orleans, and the river journey and a long drive about the +beautiful Southern city filled Jane Clemens with wonder and delight. She +no longer shad any doubts of Sam. He had long since become the head of +the family. She felt called upon to lecture him, now and then, but down +in her heart she believed that he could really do no wrong. They joked +each other unmercifully, and her wit, never at a loss, was quite as keen +as his. + + + + +XVII. + +THE END OF PILOTING + +When one remembers how much Samuel Clemens loved the river, and how +perfectly he seemed suited to the ease and romance of the pilot-life, one +is almost tempted to regret that it should so soon have come to an end. + +Those trips of early '61, which the old note-book records, were the last +he would ever make. The golden days of Mississippi steam-boating were +growing few. + +Nobody, however, seemed to suspect it. Even a celebrated fortune-teller +in New Orleans, whom the young pilot one day consulted as to his future, +did not mention the great upheaval then close at hand. She told him +quite remarkable things, and gave him some excellent advice, but though +this was February, 1861, she failed to make any mention of the Civil War! +Yet, a month later, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated and trouble was in +the air. Then in April Fort Sumter was fired upon and the war had come. + +It was a feverish time among the pilots. Some were for the Union--others +would go with the Confederacy. Horace Bixby stood for the North, and in +time was chief of the Union river-service. A pilot named Montgomery +(Clemens had once steered for him) went with the South and by and by +commanded the Confederate Mississippi fleet. In the beginning a good +many were not clear as to their opinions. Living both North and South, +as they did, they divided their sympathies. Samuel Clemens was +thoughtful, and far from bloodthirsty. A pilothouse, so fine and showy +in times of peace, seemed a poor place to be in when fighting was going +on. He would consider the matter. + +"I am not anxious to get up into a glass perch and be shot at by either +side," he said. "I'll go home and reflect." + +He went up the river as a passenger on a steamer named the "Uncle Sam." +Zeb Leavenworth, formerly of the "John J. Roe," was one of the pilots, +and Clemens usually stood the watch with him. At Memphis they barely +escaped the blockade. At Cairo they saw soldiers drilling--troops later +commanded by Grant. + +The "Uncle Sam" came steaming up to St. Louis, glad to have slipped +through safely. They were not quite through, however. Abreast of +Jefferson Barracks they heard the boom of a cannon, and a great ring of +smoke drifted in their direction. They did not recognize it as a +thunderous "Halt!" and kept on. Less than a minute later, a shell +exploded directly in front of the pilot-house, breaking a lot of glass +and damaging the decoration. Zeb Leavenworth tumbled into a corner. + +"Gee-mighty, Sam!" he said. "What do they mean by that?" + +Clemens stepped from the visitors' bench 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 through 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." + +At the time, like many others, he expected the war to be brief, and his +life to be only temporarily interrupted. Within a year, certainly, he +would be back in the pilot-house. Meantime the war must be settled; he +would go up to Hannibal to see about it. + + + + +XVIII. + +THE SOLDIER + +When he reached Hannibal, Samuel Clemens found a very mixed condition of +affairs. The country was in an uproar of war preparation; in a border +State there was a confusion of sympathies, with much ignorance as to what +it was all about. Any number of young men were eager to enlist for a +brief camping-out expedition, and small private companies were formed, +composed about half-and-half of Union and Confederate men, as it turned +out later. + +Missouri, meantime, had allied herself with the South, and Samuel +Clemens, on his arrival in Hannibal, decided that, like Lee, he would go +with his State. Old friends, who were getting up a company "to help +Governor `Claib' Jackson repel the invader," offered him a lieutenancy if +he would join. It was not a big company; it had only about a dozen +members, most of whom had been schoolmates, some of them fellow-pilots, +and Sam Clemens was needed to make it complete. It was just another Tom +Sawyer band, and they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill and +planned how they would sell their lives on the field of glory, just as +years before fierce raids had been arranged on peach-orchards and +melon-patches. Secrecy was necessary, for the Union militia had a habit +of coming over from Illinois and arresting suspicious armies on sight. It +would humiliate the finest army in the world to spend a night or two in +the calaboose. + +So they met secretly at night, and one mysterious evening they called on +girls who either were their sweethearts or were pretending to be for the +occasion, and when the time came for good-by the girls were invited to +"walk through the pickets" with them, though the girls didn't notice any +pickets, because the pickets were calling on their girls, too, and were a +little late getting to their posts. + +That night they marched, through brush and vines, because the highroad +was thought to be dangerous, and next morning arrived at the home of +Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, who had the army form in dress parade and +made it a speech and gave it a hot breakfast in good Southern style. +Then he sent out to Col. Bill Splawn and Farmer Nuck Matson a requisition +for supplies that would convert this body of infantry into cavalry +--rough-riders of that early day. The community did not wish to keep an +army on its hands, and were willing to send it along by such means as +they could spare handily. When the outfitting was complete, Lieutenant +Samuel Clemens, mounted on a small yellow mule whose tail had been +trimmed in the paint-brush pattern then much worn by mules, and +surrounded by variously attached articles--such as an extra pair of +cowhide boots, a pair of gray blankets, a home-made quilt, a frying-pan, +a carpet-sack, a small valise, an overcoat, an old-fashioned Kentucky +rifle, twenty yards of rope, and an umbrella--was a fair sample of the +brigade. + +An army like that, to enjoy itself, ought to go into camp; so it went +over to Salt River, near the town of Florida, and took up headquarters in +a big log stable. Somebody suggested that an army ought to have its hair +cut, so that in a hand-to-hand conflict the enemy could not get hold of +it. There was a pair of sheep-shears in the stable, and Private Tom +Lyons acted as barber. They were not sharp shears, and a group of little +darkies gathered from the farm to enjoy the torture. + +Regular elections were now held--all officers, down to sergeants and +orderlies, being officially chosen. There were only three privates, and +you couldn't tell them from officers. The discipline in that army was +very bad. + +It became worse soon. Pouring rain set in. Salt River rose and +overflowed the bottoms. Men ordered on picket duty climbed up into the +stable-loft and went to bed. Twice, on black, drenching nights, word +came from the farmhouse that the enemy, commanded by a certain Col. +Ulysses Grant, was in the neighborhood, and the Hannibal division went +hastily slopping through mud and brush in the other direction, dragging +wearily back when the alarm was over. Military ardor was bound to cool +under such treatment. Then Lieutenant Clemens developed a very severe +boil, and was obliged to lie most of the day on some hay in a +horse-trough, where he spent his time denouncing the war and the mistaken +souls who had invented it. When word that "General" Tom Harris, commander +of the district--formerly telegraph-operator in Hannibal--was at a +near-by farm-house, living on the fat of the land, the army broke camp +without further ceremony. Halfway there they met General Harris, who +ordered them back to quarters. They called him familiarly "Tom," and told +him they were through with that camp forever. He begged them, but it was +no use. A little farther on they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A +tall, bony woman came to the door. + +"You're Secesh, ain't you?" + +Lieutenant Clemens said: "We are, madam, defenders of the noble cause, +and we should like to buy a few 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 [5] that stood by the door, and the +army moved on. When they reached the home of Col. Bill Splawn it was +night and the family had gone to bed. So the hungry army camped in the +barn-yard and crept into the hay-loft to sleep. Presently somebody +yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been smoking and had ignited the hay. + +Lieutenant Clemens, suddenly wakened, made a quick rotary movement away +from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window into the barn-yard +below. The rest of the brigade seized the burning hay and pitched it out +of the same window. The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he +struck, and his boil was still painful, but the burning hay cured him +--for the moment. He made a spring from under it; then, noticing that the +rest of the army, now that the fire was out, seemed to think his +performance amusing, he rose up and expressed himself concerning the war, +and military life, and the human race in general. They helped him in, +then, for his ankle was swelling badly. + +In the morning, Colonel Splawn gave the army a good breakfast, and it +moved on. Lieutenant Clemens, however, did not get farther than Farmer +Nuck Matson's. He was in a high fever by that time from his injured +ankle, and Mrs. Matson put him to bed. So the army left him, and +presently disbanded. Some enlisted in the regular service, North or +South, according to preference. Properly officered and disciplined, that +"Tom Sawyer" band would have made as good soldiers as any. + +Lieutenant Clemens did not enlist again. When he was able to walk, he +went to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union Abolitionist, but there +would be no unpleasantness on that account. Samuel Clemens was beginning +to have leanings in that direction himself. + +[5] In an earlier day, barrel hoops were made of small hickory trees, +split and shaved. The hoop-pole was a very familiar article of commerce, +and of household defense. + + + + +XIX. + +THE PIONEER + +He arrived in Keokuk at what seemed a lucky moment. Through Edward +Bates, a member of Lincoln's Cabinet, Orion Clemens had received an +appointment as territorial secretary of Nevada, and only needed the money +to carry him to the seat of his office at Carson City. Out of his +pilot's salary his brother had saved more than enough for the journey, +and was willing to pay both their fares and go along as private secretary +to Orion, whose position promised something in the way of adventure and a +possible opportunity for making a fortune. + +The brothers went at once to St. Louis for final leave-taking, and there +took boat for "St. Jo," Missouri, terminus of the great Overland Stage +Route. They paid one hundred and fifty dollars each for their passage, +and about the end of July, 1861, set out on that long, delightful trip, +behind sixteen galloping horses, never stopping except for meals or to +change teams, heading steadily into the sunset over the billowy plains +and snow-clad Rockies, covering the seventeen hundred miles between St. +Jo and Carson City in nineteen glorious days. + +But one must read Mark Twain's "Roughing It" for the story of that +long-ago trip--the joy and wonder of it, and the inspiration. "Even at +this day," he writes, "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." + +It was a hot dusty, August day when they arrived, dusty, unshaven, and +weather-beaten, and Samuel Clemens's life as a frontiersman began. +Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was a wooden town with an assorted +population of two thousand souls. The mining excitement was at its +height and had brought together the drift of every race. + +The Clemens brothers took up lodgings with a genial Irishwoman, the Mrs. +O'Flannigan of "Roughing It," and Orion established himself in a modest +office, for there was no capitol building as yet, no government +headquarters. Orion could do all the work, and Samuel Clemens, finding +neither duties nor salary attached to his position, gave himself up to +the study of the life about him, and to the enjoyment of the freedom of +the frontier. Presently he had a following of friends who loved his +quaint manner of speech and his yarns. On cool nights they would collect +about Orion's office-stove, and he would tell stories in the wonderful +way that one day would delight the world. Within a brief time Sam +Clemens (he was always "Sam" to the pioneers) was the most notable figure +on the Carson streets. His great, bushy head of auburn hair, has +piercing, twinkling eyes, his loose, lounging walk, his careless disorder +of dress invited a second look, even from strangers. From a river dandy +he had become the roughest-clad of pioneers--rusty slouch hat, flannel +shirt, coarse trousers slopping half in and half out of heavy cowhide +boots, this was his make-up. Energetic citizens did not prophesy success +for him. Often they saw him leaning against an awning support, staring +drowsily at the motley human procession, for as much as an hour at a +time. Certainly that could not be profitable. + +But they did like to hear him talk. + +He did not catch the mining fever at once. He was interested first in +the riches that he could see. Among these was the timber-land around +Lake Bigler (now Tahoe)--splendid acres, to be had for the asking. The +lake itself was beautifully situated. + +With an Ohio boy, John Kinney, he made an excursion afoot to Tahoe, a +trip described in one of the best chapters of "Roughing It." They staked +out a timber claim and pretended to fence it and to build a house, but +their chief employment was loafing in the quiet luxury of the great woods +or drifting in a boat on the transparent water. They did not sleep in +the house. In "Roughing It" 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 made their camp-fires on the borders of the lake, and one evening it +got away from them, fired the forest, and destroyed their fences and +habitation. In a letter home he describes this fire in a fine, vivid +way. At one place he says: + + "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." + +He was acquiring the literary vision and touch. The description of this +same fire in "Roughing It," written ten years later, is scarcely more +vivid. + +Most of his letters home at this time tell of glowing prospects--the +certainty of fortune ahead. The fever of the frontier is in them. Once, +to Pamela Moffett, he wrote: + + "Orion and I have enough confidence 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." + +From the same letter we gather that the brothers are now somewhat +interested in mining claims: + + "We have 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." + +This was written about the end of October. Two months later, in +midwinter, the mining fever came upon him with full force. + + + + +XX. + +THE MINER + +The wonder is that Samuel Clemens, always speculative and visionary, had +not fallen an earlier victim. Everywhere one heard stories of sudden +fortune--of men who had gone to bed paupers and awakened millionaires. +New and fabulous finds were reported daily. Cart-loads of bricks--silver +and gold bricks--drove through the Carson streets. + +Then suddenly from the newly opened Humboldt region came the wildest +reports. The mountains there were said to be stuffed with gold. A +correspondent of the "Territorial Enterprise" was unable to find words to +picture the riches of the Humboldt mines. + +The air for Samuel Clemens began to shimmer. Fortune was waiting to be +gathered in a basket. He joined the first expedition for Humboldt--in +fact, helped to organize it. In "Roughing It" he says: + + "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 + eighteen hundred pounds of provisions and mining-tools in the wagon + and drove out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon.." + +The two young lawyers were W. H. Clagget, whom Clemens had known in +Keokuk, and A. W. Oliver, called Oliphant in "Roughing It." The +blacksmith was named Tillou (Ballou in "Roughing It"), a sturdy, honest +man with a knowledge of mining and the repair of tools. There were also +two dogs in the party--a curly-tailed mongrel and a young hound. + +The horses were the weak feature of the expedition. It was two hundred +miles to Humboldt, mostly across sand. The miners rode only a little +way, then got out to lighten the load. Later they pushed. Then it began +to snow, also to blow, and the air became filled with whirling clouds of +snow and sand. On and on they pushed and groaned, sustained by the +knowledge that they must arrive some time, when right away they would be +millionaires and all their troubles would be over. + +The nights were better. The wind went down and they made a camp-fire in +the shelter of the wagon, cooked their bacon, crept under blankets with +the dogs to warm them, and Sam Clemens spun yarns till they fell asleep. + +There had been an Indian war, and occasionally they passed the charred +ruin of a cabin and new graves. By and by they came to that deadly waste +known as the Alkali Desert, strewn with the carcasses of dead beasts and +with the heavy articles discarded by emigrants in their eagerness to +reach water. All day and night they pushed through that choking, +waterless plain to reach camp on the other side. When they arrived at +three in the morning, they dropped down exhausted. Judge Oliver, the +last survivor of the party, in a letter to the writer of these chapters, +said: + + "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 picture of burning cabins and the lonely graves we had + passed was 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, with his inimitable drawl, said 'Boys, they have + left us our scalps. Let us give them all the flour and sugar they + ask for.' And we did give them a good supply, for we were grateful." + +The Indians left them unharmed, and the prospective millionaires moved +on. Across that two hundred miles to the Humboldt country they pushed, +arriving at the little camp of Unionville at the end of eleven weary +days. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain has told us of Unionville and the mining +experience there. Their cabin was a three-sided affair with a cotton +roof. Stones rolled down the mountainside on them; also, the author +says, a mule and a cow. + +The author could not gather fortune in a basket, as he had dreamed. +Masses of gold and silver were not lying about. He gathered a back-load +of yellow, glittering specimens, but they proved worthless. Gold in the +rough did not glitter, and was not yellow. Tillou instructed the others +in prospecting, and they went to work with pick and shovel--then with +drill and blasting-powder. The prospect of immediately becoming +millionaires vanished. + +"One week of this satisfied me. I resigned," is Mark Twain's brief +comment. + +The Humboldt reports had been exaggerated. The Clemens-Clagget-Oliver- +Tillou millionaire combination soon surrendered its claims. Clemens and +Tillou set out for Carson City with a Prussian named Pfersdorff, who +nearly got them drowned and got them completely lost in the snow before +they arrived there. Oliver and Clagget remained in Unionville, began law +practice, and were elected to office. It is not known what became of the +wagon and horses and the two dogs. + +It was the end of January when our miner returned to Carson. He was not +discouraged--far from it. He believed he had learned something that +would be useful to him in a camp where mines were a reality. Within a +few weeks from his return we find him at Aurora, in the Esmeralda region, +on the edge of California. It was here that the Clemens brothers owned +the 1,650 feet formerly mentioned. He had came down to work it. + +It was the dead of winter, but he was full of enthusiasm, confident of a +fortune by early summer. To Pamela he wrote: + + "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 . . . . If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike + the ledge in June." + +He was trying to be conservative, and further along he cautions his +sister not to get excited. + + "Don't you know I have only talked as yet, but proved nothing? Don't + you know I have never held in my hands a gold or silver bar that + belonged to me? 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 + uncongealable, 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 a 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 soars again, adding page after page full of glowing +expectations and plans such as belong only with speculation in treasures +buried in the ground--a very difficult place, indeed, to find them. + +His money was about exhausted by this time, and funds to work the mining +claims must come out of Orion's rather modest salary. The brothers owned +all claims in partnership, and it was now the part of "Brother Sam" to do +the active work. He hated the hard picking and prying and blasting into +the flinty ledges, but the fever drove him on. He camped with a young +man named Phillips at first, and, later on, with an experienced miner, +Calvin H. Higbie, to whom "Roughing It" would one day be dedicated. They +lived in a tiny cabin with a cotton roof, and around their rusty stove +they would paw over their specimens and figure the fortune that their +mines would be worth in the spring. + +Food ran low, money gave out almost entirely, but they did not give up. +When it was stormy and they could not dig, and the ex-pilot was in a +talkative vein, he would sit astride the bunk and distribute to his +hearers riches more valuable than any they would dig from the Esmeralda +hills. At other times he did not talk at all, but sat in a corner and +wrote. They thought he was writing home; they did not know that he was +"literary." Some of his home letters had found their way into a Keokuk +paper and had come back to Orion, who had shown them to an assistant on +the "Territorial Enterprise," of Virginia City. The "Enterprise" man had +caused one of them to be reprinted, and this had encouraged its author to +send something to the paper direct. He signed these contributions +"Josh," and one told of: + + "An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +He received no pay for these offerings and expected none. He considered +them of no value. If any one had told him that he was knocking at the +door of the house of fame, however feebly, he would have doubted that +person's judgment or sincerity. + +His letters to Orion, in Carson City, were hasty compositions, reporting +progress and progress, or calling for remittances to keep the work going. +On April 13, he wrote: + + "Work not begun on the Horatio and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is + still in the snow. Shall begin on it within three or four weeks + --strike the ledge in July." + +Again, later in the month: + + "I have been at work all day, blasting and digging in 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 ten or twelve feet." + +It must have been disheartening work, picking away at the flinty ledges. +There is no further mention of the "Dashaway," but we hear of the +"Flyaway," the "Annipolitan," the "Live Yankee," and of many another, +each of which holds out a beacon of hope for a brief moment, then passes +from notice forever. Still, he was not discouraged. Once he wrote: + + "I am a citizen here and I am satisfied, though '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. + + "The pick and shovel are the only claims I have confidence in now," + he wrote, later; "my back is sore and my hands are blistered with + handling them to-day." + +His letters began to take on a weary tone. Once in midsummer he wrote +that it was still snowing up there in the hills, and added, "It always +snows here I expect. If we strike it rich, I've lost my guess, that's +all." And the final heartsick line, "Don't you suppose they have pretty +much quit writing at home?" + +In time he went to work in a quartz-mill at ten dollars a week, though it +was not entirely for the money, as in "Roughing It" he would have us +believe. Samuel Clemens learned thoroughly what he undertook, and he +proposed to master the science of mining. From Phillips and Higbie he +had learned what there was to know about prospecting. He went to the +mill to learn refining, so that, when his claims developed, he could +establish a mill and personally superintend the work. His stay was +brief. He contracted a severe cold and came near getting poisoned by the +chemicals. Recovering, he went with Higbie for an outing to Mono Lake, a +ghastly, lifeless alkali sea among the hills, vividly described in +"Roughing It." + +At another time he went with Higbie on a walking trip to the Yosemite, +where they camped and fished undisturbed, for in those days few human +beings came to that far isolation. Discouragement did not reach them +there--amid that vast grandeur and quiet the quest for gold hardly seemed +worth while. Now and again that summer he went alone into the wilderness +to find his balance and to get entirely away from humankind. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain tells the story of how he and Higbie finally +located a "blind lead," which made them really millionaires, until they +forfeited their claim through the sharp practice of some rival miners and +their own neglect. It is true that the "Wide West" claim was forfeited +in some such manner, but the size of the loss was magnified in "Roughing +It," to make a good story. There was never a fortune in "Wide West," +except the one sunk in it by its final owners. The story as told in +"Roughing It" is a tale of what might have happened, and ends the +author's days in the mines with a good story-book touch. + +The mining career of Samuel Clemens really came to a close gradually, and +with no showy climax. He fought hard and surrendered little by little, +without owning, even to the end, that he was surrendering at all. It was +the gift of resolution that all his life would make his defeats long and +costly--his victories supreme. + +By the end of July the money situation in the Aurora camp was getting +desperate. Orion's depleted salary would no longer pay for food, tools, +and blasting-powder, and the miner began to cast about far means to earn +an additional sum, however small. The "Josh" letters to the "Enterprise" +had awakened interest as to their author, and Orion had not failed to let +"Josh's" identity be known. The result had been that here and there a +coast paper had invited contributions and even suggested payment. A +letter written by the Aurora miner at the end of July tells this part of +the story: + + "My debts are greater than I thought for . . . . 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 + that I will 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 "New 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." + +This all led to nothing, but about the same time the "Enterprise" +assistant already mentioned spoke to Joseph T. Goodman, owner and editor +of the paper, about adding "Josh" to their regular staff. "Joe" Goodman, +a man of keen humor and literary perception, agreed that the author of +the "Josh" letters might be useful to them. One of the sketches +particularly appealed to him--a burlesque report of a Fourth of July +oration. + +"That is the kind 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. + +Yet the hard-pressed miner made no haste to accept the offer. To leave +Aurora meant the surrender of all hope in the mines, the confession of +another failure. He wrote Barstow, asking when he thought he might be +needed. And at the same time, in a letter to Orion, he said: + + "I shall leave at midnight to-night, alone and on foot, for a walk of + sixty or seventy miles through a totally uninhabited country. 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." + +He had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone, postponing +the final moment of surrender--surrender that, had he known, only meant +the beginning of victory. He was still undecided when he returned eight +days later and wrote to his sister Pamela a letter in which there is no +mention of newspaper prospects. + +Just how and when the end came at last cannot be known; but one hot, +dusty August afternoon, in Virginia City, a worn, travel-stained pilgrim +dragged himself into the office of the "Territorial Enterprise," then in +its new building on C Street, and, loosening a heavy roll of blankets +from his shoulder, dropped wearily into a chair. He wore a rusty slouch +hat, no coat, a faded blue-flannel shirt, a navy revolver; his trousers +were tucked into his boot-tops; a tangle of reddish-brown hair fell on +his shoulders; a mass of tawny beard, dingy with alkali dust, dropped +half-way to his waist. + +Aurora lay one hundred and thirty miles from Virginia City. He had +walked that distance, carrying his heavy load. Editor Goodman was absent +at the moment, but the other proprietor, Dennis E. McCarthy, asked the +caller to 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'm 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! + + + + +XXI. + +THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE + +In 1852 Virginia City, Nevada, was the most flourishing of mining towns. +A half-crazy miner, named Comstock, had discovered there a vein of such +richness that the "Comstock Lode" was presently glutting the mineral +markets of the world. Comstock himself got very little out of it, but +those who followed him made millions. Miners, speculators, adventurers +swarmed in. Every one seemed to have money. The streets seethed with an +eager, affluent, boisterous throng whose chief business seemed to be to +spend the wealth that the earth was yielding in such a mighty stream. + +Business of every kind boomed. Less than two years earlier, J. T. +Goodman, a miner who was also a printer and a man of literary taste, had +joined with another printer, Dennis McCarthy, and the two had managed to +buy a struggling Virginia City paper, the "Territorial Enterprise." But +then came the hightide of fortune. A year later the "Enterprise," from a +starving sheet in a leaky shanty, had become a large, handsome paper in a +new building, and of such brilliant editorial management that it was the +most widely considered journal on the Pacific coast. + +Goodman was a fine, forceful writer, and he surrounded himself with able +men. He was a young man, full of health and vigor, overflowing with the +fresh spirit and humor of the West. Comstockers would always laugh at a +joke, and Goodman was always willing to give it to them. The +"Enterprise" was a newspaper, but it was willing to furnish entertainment +even at the cost of news. William Wright, editorially next to Goodman, +was a humorist of ability. His articles, signed Dan de Quille, were +widely copied. R. M. Daggett (afterward United States Minister to +Hawaii) was also an "Enterprise" man, and there were others of their +sort. + +Samuel Clemens fitted precisely into this group. He brought with him a +new turn of thought and expression; he saw things with open eyes, and +wrote of them in a fresh, wild way that Comstockers loved. He was +allowed full freedom. Goodman suppressed nothing; his men could write as +they chose. They were all young together--if they pleased themselves, +they were pretty sure to please their readers. Often they wrote of one +another--squibs and burlesques, which gratified the Comstock far more +than mere news. It was just the school to produce Mark Twain. + +The new arrival found acquaintance easy. The whole "Enterprise" force +was like one family; proprietors, editor, and printers were social +equals. Samuel Clemens immediately became "Sam" to his associates, just +as De Quille was "Dan," and Goodman "Joe." Clemens was supposed to +report city items, and did, in fact, do such work, which he found easy, +for his pilot-memory made notes unnecessary. + +He could gather items all day, and at night put down the day's budget +well enough, at least, to delight his readers. When he was tired of +facts, he would write amusing paragraphs, as often as not something about +Dan, or a reporter on a rival paper. Dan and the others would reply, and +the Comstock would laugh. Those were good old days. + +Sometimes he wrote hoaxes. Once he told with great circumstance and +detail of a petrified prehistoric man that had been found embedded in a +rock in the desert, and how the coroner from Humboldt had traveled more +than a hundred miles to hold an inquest over a man dead for centuries, +and had refused to allow miners to blast the discovery from its position. + +The sketch was really intended as a joke on the Humboldt coroner, but it +was so convincingly written that most of the Coast papers took it +seriously and reprinted it as the story of a genuine discovery. In time +they awoke, and began to inquire as to who was the smart writer on the +"Enterprise." + +Mark Twain did a number of such things, some of which are famous on the +Coast to this day. + +Clemens himself did not escape. Lamps were used in the "Enterprise" +office, but he hated the care of a lamp, and worked evenings by the light +of a candle. It was considered a great joke in the office to "hide Sam's +candle" and hear him fume and rage, walking in a circle meantime--a habit +acquired in the pilothouse--and scathingly denouncing the culprits. +Eventually the office-boy, supposedly innocent, would bring another +candle, and quiet would follow. Once the office force, including De +Quille, McCarthy, and a printer named Stephen Gillis, of whom Clemens was +very fond, bought a large imitation meerschaum pipe, had a German-silver +plate set on it, properly engraved, and presented it to Samuel Clemens as +genuine, in testimony of their great esteem. His reply to the +presentation speech was so fine and full of feeling that the jokers felt +ashamed of their trick. A few days later, when he discovered the +deception, he was ready to destroy the lot of them. Then, in atonement, +they gave him a real meerschaum. Such things kept the Comstock +entertained. + +There was a side to Samuel Clemens that, in those days, few of his +associates saw. This was the poetic, the reflective side. Joseph +Goodman, like Macfarlane in Cincinnati several years earlier, recognized +this phase of his character and developed it. Often these two, dining or +walking together, discussed the books and history they had read, quoted +from poems that gave them pleasure. Clemens sometimes recited with great +power the "Burial of Moses," whose noble phrasing and majestic imagery +seemed to move him deeply. 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 sepulcher, + And no man saw it e'er, + For the angels of God upturned the sod, + And laid the dead man there. + +That his own writing would be influenced by the simple grandeur of this +poem we can hardly doubt. Indeed, it may have been to him a sort of +literary touchstone, that in time would lead him to produce, as has been +said, some of the purest English written by any modern author. + + + + +XXII. + +"MARK TWAIN" + +It was once when Goodman and Clemens were dining together that the latter +asked to be allowed to report the proceedings of the coming legislature +at Carson City. He knew nothing of such work, and Goodman hesitated. +Then, remembering that Clemens would, at least, make his reports +readable, whether they were parliamentary or not, he consented. + +So, at the beginning of the year (1863), Samuel Clemens undertook a new +and interesting course in the study of human nature--the political human +nature of the frontier. There could have been no better school for him. +His wit, his satire, his phrasing had full swing--his letters, almost +from the beginning, were copied as choice reading up and down the Coast. +He made curious blunders, at first, as to the proceedings, but his open +confession of ignorance in the early letters made these blunders their +chief charm. A young man named Gillespie, clerk of the House, coached +him, and in return was christened "Young Jefferson's Manual," a title +which he bore for many years. + +A reporter named Rice, on a rival Virginia City paper, the "Union," also +earned for himself a title through those early letters. + +Rice concluded to poke fun at the "Enterprise" reports, pointing out +their mistakes. But this was not wise. Clemens, in his next +contribution, admitted that Rice's reports might be parliamentary enough, +but declared his glittering technicalities were only to cover +misstatements of fact. He vowed they were wholly untrustworthy, dubbed +the author of them "The Unreliable," and never thereafter referred to him +by any other term. Carson and the Comstock papers delighted in this +foolery, and Rice became "The Unreliable" for life. There was no real +feeling between Rice and Clemens. They were always the best of friends. + +But now we arrive at the story of still another name, one of vastly +greater importance than either of those mentioned, for it is the name +chosen by Samuel Clemens for himself. In those days it was the fashion +for a writer to have a pen-name, especially for his journalistic and +humorous work. Clemens felt that his "Enterprise" letters, copied up and +down the Coast, needed a mark of identity. + +He gave the matter a good deal of thought. He wanted something brief and +strong--something that would stick in the mind. It was just at this time +that news came of the death of Capt. Isaiah Sellers, the old pilot who +had signed himself "Mark Twain." Mark Twain! That was the name he +wanted. It was not trivial. It had all the desired qualities. Captain +Sellers would never need it again. It would do no harm to keep it alive +--to give it a new meaning in a new land. Clemens took a trip from Carson +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 +leadsman'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 waters." + +He did not mention that Captain Sellers had used and dropped the name. +He was not proud of his part in that episode, and it was too recent for +confession. + +Goodman considered a moment. "Very well, Sam," he said, "that sounds +like a good name." + +A good name, indeed! Probably, if he had considered every combination of +words in the language, he could not have found a better one. To-day we +recognize it as the greatest nom de plume ever chosen, and, somehow, we +cannot believe that the writer of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn" and +"Roughing It" could have selected any other had he tried. + +The name Mark Twain was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, +1863, and after that to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters that +had amused so many readers had taken on a new interest--the interest that +goes with a name. It became immediately more than a pen-name. Clemens +found he had attached a name to himself as well as to his letters. +Everybody began to address him as Mark. Within a few weeks he was no +longer "Sam" or "Clemens," but Mark--Mark Twain. The Coast papers liked +the sound of it. It began to mean something to their readers. By the +end of that legislative session Samuel Clemens, as Mark Twain, had +acquired out there on that breezy Western slope something resembling +fame. + +Curiously, he fails to mention any of this success in his letters home of +that period. Indeed, he seldom refers to his work, but more often speaks +of mining shares which he has accumulated, and their possible values. +His letters are airy, full of the joy of life and of the wild doings of +the frontier. Closing one of them, he says: "I have just heard five +pistolshots down the street. As such things are in my line, I will go +and see about it." + +And in a postscript, later, he adds: + + "5 A.M.--The pistol-shots did their 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." + +The Comstock was a great school for Mark Twain, and in "Roughing It" he +has left us a faithful picture of its long-vanished glory. + +More than one national character came out of the Comstock school. +Senator James G. Fair was one of them, and John Mackay, both miners with +pick and shovel at first, though Mackay presently became a +superintendent. Mark Twain one day laughingly offered to trade jobs 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." + +For both these men the future held splendid gifts: for Mackay vast +wealth, for Mark Twain the world's applause, and neither would have long +to wait. + + + + +XXIII. + +ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO + +It was about the end of 1863 that a new literary impulse came into Mark +Twain's life. The gentle and lovable humorist Artemus Ward (Charles F. +Browne) was that year lecturing in the West, and came to Virginia City. +Ward had intended to stay only a few days, but the whirl of the Comstock +fascinated him. He made the "Enterprise" office his headquarters and +remained three weeks. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Their +humor was not unlike; they were kindred spirits, together almost +constantly. Ward was then at the summit of his fame, and gave the +younger man the highest encouragement, prophesying great things for ha +work. Clemens, on his side, was stirred, perhaps for the first time, +with a real literary ambition, and the thought that he, too, might win a +place of honor. He promised Ward that he would send work to the Eastern +papers. + +On Christmas Eve, Ward gave a dinner to the "Enterprise" staff, at +Chaumond's, a fine French restaurant of that day. When refreshments +came, Artemus lifted his glass, and said: + +"I give you Upper Canada." + +The company rose and drank the toast in serious silence. Then Mr. +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. + +What would one not give to have listened to the talk of that evening! +Mark Twain's power had awakened; Artemus Ward was in his prime. They +were giants of a race that became extinct when Mark Twain died. + +Goodman remained rather quiet during the evening. Ward had appointed him +to order the dinner, and he had attended to this duty without mingling +much in the conversation. When Ward asked him why he did not join the +banter, he said: + +"I am preparing a joke, Artemus, but I am keeping it for the present." + +At a late hour Ward finally 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," laughed +Ward, laying the money on the table. + +Ward remained through the holidays, and later wrote back an affectionate +letter to Mark Twain. + +"I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence," he +said, "as all others must, or rather, cannot be, as it were." + +With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Mark Twain now began sending work +eastward. The "New York Sunday Mercury" published one, possibly more, of +his sketches, but they were not in his best vein, and made little +impression. He may have been too busy for outside work, for the +legislative session of 1864 was just beginning. Furthermore, he had been +chosen governor of the "Third House," a mock legislature, organized for +one session, to be held as a church benefit. The "governor" was to +deliver a message, which meant that he was to burlesque from the platform +all public officials and personages, from the real governor down. + +With the exception of a short talk he had once given at a printer's +dinner in Keokuk, it was Mark Twain's first appearance as a speaker, and +the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs on the platform. The +building was packed--the aisles full. The audience was ready for fun, +and he gave it to them. Nobody escaped ridicule; from beginning to end +the house was a storm of laughter and applause. + +Not a word of this first address of Mark Twain's has been preserved, but +those who heard it always spoke of it as the greatest effort of his life, +as to them it seemed, no doubt. + +For his Third House address, Clemens was presented with a gold watch, +inscribed "To Governor Mark Twain." Everywhere, now, he was pointed out +as a distinguished figure, and his quaint remarks were quoted. Few of +these sayings are remembered to-day, though occasionally one is still +unforgotten. At a party one night, being urged to make a conundrum, he +said: + +"Well, why am I like the Pacific Ocean?" + +Several guesses were made, but he shook his head. Some one said: + +"We give it up. Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?" + +"I--don't--know," he drawled. "I was just--asking for information." + +The governor of Nevada was generally absent, and Orion Clemens was +executive head of the territory. His wife, who had joined him in Carson +City, was social head of the little capital, and Brother Sam, with his +new distinction and now once more something of a dandy in dress, was +society's chief ornament--a great change, certainly, from the early +months of his arrival less than three years before. + +It was near the end of May, 1864, when Mark Twain left Nevada for San +Francisco. The immediate cause of his going was a duel--a duel +elaborately arranged between Mark Twain and the editor of a rival paper, +but never fought. In fact, it was mainly a burlesque affair throughout, +chiefly concocted by that inveterate joker, Steve Gillis, already +mentioned in connection with the pipe incident. The new dueling law, +however, did not distinguish between real and mock affrays, and the +prospect of being served with a summons made a good excuse for Clemens +and Gillis to go to San Francisco, which had long attracted them. They +were great friends, these two, and presently were living together and +working on the same paper, the "Morning Call," Clemens as a reporter and +Gillis as a compositor. + +Gillis, with his tendency to mischief, was a constant exasperation to his +room-mate, who, goaded by some new torture, would sometimes denounce him +in feverish terms. Yet they were never anything but the closest friends. + +Mark Twain did not find happiness in his new position on the "Call." +There was less freedom and more drudgery than he had known on the +"Enterprise." His day was spent around the police court, attending +fires, weddings, and funerals, with brief glimpses of the theaters at +night. + +Once he wrote: "It was fearful drudgery--soulless drudgery--and almost +destitute of interest. It was an awful slavery for a lazy man." + +It must have been so. There was little chance for original work. He had +become just a part of a news machine. He saw many public abuses that he +wished to expose, but the policy of the paper opposed him. Once, +however, 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. He knew the paper would not +publish the policeman's negligence, but he could advertise it in his own +way. A large crowd soon collected, much amused. When he thought the +audience large enough, he went away. Next day the joke was all over the +city. + +He grew indifferent to the "Call" work, and, when an assistant was +allowed him to do part of the running for items, it was clear to +everybody that presently the assistant would be able to do it all. + +But there was a pleasant and profitable side to the San Francisco life. +There were real literary people there--among them a young man, with rooms +upstairs in the "Call" office, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the +"Californian," a new literary weekly which Charles Henry Webb had +recently founded. Bret Harte was not yet famous, but his gifts were +recognized on the Pacific slope, especially by the "Era" group of +writers, the "Golden Era" being a literary monthly of considerable +distinction. Joaquin Miller recalls, from his diary of that period, +having seen Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Mark +Twain, Artemus Ward, and others, all assembled there at one time--a +remarkable group, certainly, to be dropped down behind the Sierras so +long ago. They were a hopeful, happy lot, and sometimes received five +dollars for an article, which, of course, seemed a good deal more +precious than a much larger sum earned in another way. + +Mark Twain had contributed to the "Era" while still in Virginia City, and +now, with Bret Harte, was ranked as a leader of the group. The two were +much together, and when Harte became editor of the "Californian" he +engaged Clemens as a regular contributor at the very fancy rate of twelve +dollars an article. Some of the brief chapters included to-day in +"Sketches New and Old" were done at this time. They have humor, but are +not equal to his later work, and beyond the Pacific slope they seem to +have attracted little attention. + +In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from +the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the +depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit +of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The +true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly +talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. +Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for +the "Enterprise," for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, +with his earnings from the "Californian," made his total return larger +than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time--literary men +are often that--but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have +us believe, is just a good story and not history. + + + + +XXIV. + +THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" + +Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him +in San Francisco. He was free, now, to write what he chose, and he +attacked the corrupt police management with such fierceness that, when +copies of the "Enterprise" got back to San Francisco, they started a +commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more +vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even +the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, +word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police +brought against the Enterprise advertised the paper amazingly. + +But now came what at the time seemed an unfortunate circumstance. Steve +Gillis, always a fearless defender of the weak, one night rushed to the +assistance of two young fellows who had been set upon by three roughs. +Gillis, though small of stature, was a terrific combatant, and he +presently put two of the assailants to flight and had the other ready for +the hospital. Next day it turned out that the roughs were henchmen of +the police, and Gillis was arrested. + +Clemens went his bail, and advised Steve to go down to Virginia City +until the storm blew over. + +But it did not blow over for Mark Twain. The police department was only +too glad to have a chance at the author of the fierce "Enterprise" +letters, and promptly issued a summons for him, with an execution against +his personal effects. If James N. Gillis, brother of Steve, had not +happened along just then and spirited Mark Twain away to his mining-camp +in the Tuolumne Hills, the beautiful gold watch given to the governor of +the Third House might have been sacrificed in the cause of friendship. + +As it was, he found himself presently in the far and peaceful seclusion +of that land which Bret Harte would one day make famous with his tales of +"Roaring Camp" and "Sandy Bar." Jim Gillis was, in fact, the Truthful +James of Bret Harte, and his cabin on jackass Hill had been the retreat +of Harte and many another literary wayfarer who had wandered there for +rest and refreshment and peace. It was said the sick were made well, and +the well made better, in Jim Gillis's cabin. There were plenty of books +and a variety of out-of-door recreation. One could mine there if he +chose. Jim would furnish the visiting author with a promising claim, and +teach him to follow the little fan-like drift of gold specks to the +pocket of treasure somewhere up the hillside. + +Gillis himself had literary ability, though he never wrote. He told his +stories, and with his back to the open fire would weave the most amazing +tales, invented as he went along. His stories were generally wonderful +adventures that had happened to his faithful companion, Stoker; and +Stoker never denied them, but would smoke and look into the fire, smiling +a little sometimes, but never saying a word. A number of the tales later +used by Mark Twain were first told by Jim Gillis in the cabin on Jackass +Hill. "Dick Baker's Cat" was one of these, the jay-bird and acorn story +in "A Tramp Abroad" was another. Mark Twain had little to add to these +stories. + +"They are not mine, they are Jim's," he said, once; "but I never could +get them to sound like Jim--they were never as good as his." + +It was early in December, 1864, when Mark Twain arrived at the humble +retreat, built of logs under a great live-oak tree, and surrounded by a +stretch of blue-grass. A younger Gillis boy was there at the time, and +also, of course, Dick Stoker and his cat, Tom Quartz, which every reader +of "Roughing It" knows. + +It was the rainy season, but on pleasant days they all went +pocket-mining, and, in January, Mark Twain, Gillis, and Stoker crossed +over into Calaveras County and began work near Angel's Camp, a place well +known to readers of Bret Harte. They put up at a poor hotel in Angel's, +and on good days worked pretty faithfully. But it was generally raining, +and the food was poor. + +In his note-book, still preserved, Mark Twain wrote: "January 27 (1865). +--Same old diet--same old weather--went out to the pocket-claim--had to +rush back." + +So they spent a good deal of their time around the rusty stove in the +dilapidated tavern at Angel's Camp. It seemed a profitless thing to do, +but few experiences were profitless to Mark Twain, and certainly this one +was not. + +At this barren mining hotel there happened to be a former Illinois River +pilot named Ben Coon, a solemn, sleepy person, who dozed by the stove or +told slow, pointless stories to any one who would listen. Not many would +stay to hear him, but Jim Gillis and Mark Twain found him a delight. +They would let him wander on in his dull way for hours, and saw a vast +humor in a man to whom all tales, however trivial or absurd, were serious +history. + +At last, one dreary afternoon, he told them about a frog--a frog that had +belonged to a man named Coleman, who had trained it to jump, and how the +trained frog had failed to win a wager because the owner of the rival +frog had slyly loaded the trained jumper with shot. It was not a new +story in the camps, but Ben Coon made a long tale of it, and it happened +that neither Clemens nor Gillis had heard it before. They thought it +amusing, and his solemn way of telling it still more so. + +"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's better than any other +frog," became a catch phrase among the mining partners; and, "I 'ain't +got no frog, but if I had a frog, I'd bet you." + +Out on the claim, Clemens, watching Gillis and Stoker anxiously washing, +would say, "I don't see no pints about that pan o' dirt that's any better +than any other pan o' dirt." And so they kept the tale going. In his +note-book Mark Twain made a brief memorandum of the story for possible +use. + +The mining was rather hopeless work. The constant and heavy rains were +disheartening. Clemens hated it, and even when, one afternoon, traces of +a pocket began to appear, he rebelled as the usual chill downpour set in. + +"Jim," he said, "let's go home; we'll freeze here." + +Gillis, as usual, was washing, and Clemens carrying the water. Gillis, +seeing the gold "color" improving with every pan, wanted to go on washing +and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of wet and cold. +Clemens, shivering and disgusted, vowed that each pail of water would be +his last. His teeth were chattering, and he was wet through. Finally he +said: + +"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work too disagreeable." + +Gillis had just taken out a panful of dirt. + +"Bring one more pail, Sam," he begged. + +"Jim I won't do it. I'm-freezing." + +"Just one more pail, Sam!" Jim pleaded. + +"No, sir; not a drop--not if I knew there was a million dollars in that +pan." + +Gillis tore out a page of his note-book and hastily posted a +thirty-day-claim notice by the pan of dirt. Then they set out for Angel's +Camp, never to return. It kept on raining, and a letter came from Steve +Gillis, saying he had settled all the trouble in San Francisco. Clemens +decided to return, and the miners left Angel's without visiting their +claim again. + +Meantime the rain had washed away the top of the pan of dirt they had +left standing on the hillside, exposing a handful of nuggets, pure gold. +Two strangers, Austrians, happening along, gathered it up and, seeing the +claim notice posted by Jim Gillis, sat down to wait until it expired. +They did not mind the rain--not under the circumstances--and the moment +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 that Mark Twain missed by one pail of water. +Still, without knowing it, he had carried away in his note-book a single +nugget of far greater value the story of "The Jumping Frog." + +He did not write it, however, immediately upon his return to San +Francisco. He went back to his "Enterprise" letters and contributed some +sketches to the Californian. Perhaps he thought the frog story too mild +in humor for the slope. By and by he wrote it, and by request sent it to +Artemus Ward to be used in a book that Ward was about to issue. It +arrived too late, and the publisher handed it to the editor of the +"Saturday Press," Henry Clapp, saying: + +"Here, Clapp, is something you can use in your paper." + +The "Press" was struggling, and was glad to get a story so easily. "Jim +Smiley and his jumping Frog" appeared in the issue of November 18, 1865, +and was at once copied and quoted far and near. It carried the name of +Mark Twain across the mountains and the prairies of the Middle West; it +bore it up and down the Atlantic slope. Some one said, then or later, +that Mark Twain leaped into fame on the back of a jumping frog. + +Curiously, this did not at first please the author. He thought the tale +poor. To his mother he wrote: + +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. + +However, somewhat later he changed his mind considerably, especially when +he heard that James Russell Lowell had pronounced the story the finest +piece of humorous writing yet produced in America. + + + + +XXV. + +HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME + +Mark Twain remained about a year in San Francisco after his return from +the Gillis cabin and Angel's Camp, adding to his prestige along the Coast +rather than to his national reputation. Then, in the spring of 1866 he +was commissioned by the "Sacramento Union" to write a series of letters +that would report the life, trade, agriculture, and general aspects of +the Hawaiian group. He sailed in March, and his four months in those +delectable islands remained always to him a golden memory--an experience +which he hoped some day to repeat. He was young and eager for adventure +then, and he went everywhere--horseback and afoot--saw everything, did +everything, and wrote of it all for his paper. His letters to the +"Union" were widely read and quoted, and, though not especially literary, +added much to his journalistic standing. He was a great sight-seer in +those days, and a persevering one. No discomfort or risk discouraged +him. Once, with a single daring companion, he crossed the burning floor +of the mighty crater of Kilauea, racing across the burning lava, leaping +wide and bottomless crevices where a misstep would have meant death. His +open-air life on the river and in the mining-camps had nerved and +hardened him for adventure. He was thirty years old and in his physical +prime. His mental growth had been slower, but it was sure, and it would +seem always to have had the right guidance at the right time. + +Clemens had been in the islands three months when one day Anson +Burlingame arrived there, en route to his post as minister to China. +With him was his son Edward, a boy of eighteen, and General Van +Valkenburg, minister to Japan. Young Burlingame had read about Jim +Smiley's jumping frog and, learning that the author was in Honolulu, but +ill after a long trip inland, sent word that the party would call on him +next morning. But Mark Twain felt that he could not accept this honor, +and, crawling out of bed, shaved himself and drove to the home of the +American minister, where the party was staying. He made a great +impression with the diplomats. It was an occasion of good stories and +much laughter. On leaving, General Van Valkenburg said to him: + + "California is proud of Mark Twain, and some day the American people + will be, too, no doubt." Which was certainly a good prophecy. + +It was only a few days later that the diplomats rendered him a great +service. Report had come of the arrival at Sanpahoe of an open boat +containing fifteen starving men, who had been buffeting a stormy sea for +forty-three days--sailors from the missing ship Hornet of New York, +which, it appeared, had been burned at sea. Presently eleven of the +rescued men were brought to Honolulu and placed in the hospital. + +Mark Twain recognized the great importance as news of this event. It +would be a splendid beat if he could interview the castaways and be the +first to get their story in his paper. There was no cable, but a vessel +was sailing for San Francisco next morning. It seemed the opportunity of +a lifetime, but he was now bedridden and could scarcely move. + +Then suddenly appeared in his room Anson Burlingame and his party, and, +almost before Mark Twain realized what was happening, he was on a cot +and, escorted by the heads of two legations, was on his way to the +hospital to get the precious interview. Once there, Anson Burlingame, +with his gentle manner and courtly presence, drew from those enfeebled +castaways all the story of the burning of the vessel, followed by the +long privation and struggle that had lasted through forty-three fearful +days and across four thousand miles of stormy sea. All that Mark Twain +had to do was to listen and make notes. That night he wrote against +time, and next morning, just as the vessel was drifting from the dock, a +strong hand flung his bulky manuscript aboard and his great beat was +sure. The three-column story, published in the "Sacramento Union" of +July 9, gave the public the first detailed history of the great disaster. +The telegraph carried it everywhere, and it was featured as a sensation. + +Mark Twain and the Burlingame party were much together during the rest of +their stay in Hawaii, and Samuel Clemens never ceased to love and honor +the memory of Anson Burlingame. It was proper that he should do so, for +he owed him much--far more than has already been told. + +Anson Burlingame one day said to him: "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." + +This, coming to him from a man of Burlingame's character and position, +was like a gospel from some divine source. Clemens never forgot the +advice. It gave him courage, new hope, new resolve, new ideals. + +Burlingame came often to the hotel, and they discussed plans for Mark +Twain's future. The diplomat invited the journalist to visit him in +China: + +"Come to Pekin," he said, "and make my house your home." + +Young Burlingame also came, when the patient became convalescent, 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," said Clemens. + +"Very well; the Bible says: `If any man require thee to walk a mile, go +with him Twain.'" + +The walk was taken. + +Mark Twain returned to California at the end of July, and went down to +Sacramento. It was agreed that a special bill should be made for the +"Hornet" report. + +"How much do you think it ought to be, Mark?" asked one of the +proprietors. + +Clemens said: "Oh, I'm a modest man; I don't want the whole 'Union' +office; call it a hundred dollars a column." + +There was a general laugh. The bill was made out at that figure, and he +took it to the 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 robbery, but `no matter, pay it. +It's all right.' The best men that ever owned a paper." [6] + +[6] "My Debut as a Literary Person." + + + + +XXVI. + +MARK TWAIN, LECTURER + +In spite of the success of his Sandwich Island letters, Samuel Clemens +felt, on his return to San Francisco, that his future was not bright. He +was not a good, all-round newspaper man--he was special correspondent and +sketch-writer, out of a job. + +He had a number of plans, but they did not promise much. One idea was to +make a book from his Hawaiian material. Another was to write magazine +articles, beginning with one on the Hornet disaster. He did, in fact, +write the Hornet article, and its prompt acceptance by "Harper's +Magazine" delighted him, for it seemed a start in the right direction. A +third plan was to lecture on the islands. + +This prospect frightened him. He had succeeded in his "Third House" +address of two years before, but then he had lectured without charge and +for a church benefit. This would be a different matter. + +One of the proprietors of a San Francisco paper, Col. John McComb, of the +"Alta California," was strong in his approval of the lecture idea. + +"Do it, by all means," he said. "Take the largest house in the city, and +charge a dollar a ticket." + +Without waiting until his fright came back, Mark Twain hurried to the +manager of the Academy of Music, and engaged it for a lecture to be given +October 2d (1866), and sat down and wrote his announcement. He began by +stating what he would speak upon, and ended with a few absurdities, such +as: + + 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. + A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION + may be expected; in fact, the public are privileged to + expect whatever they please. + Doors open at 7 o'clock. The trouble to begin at 8 o'clock. + +Mark Twain was well known in San Francisco, and was pretty sure to have a +good house. But he did not realize this, and, as the evening approached, +his dread of failure increased. Arriving at the theater, he entered by +the stage door, half expecting to find the place empty. Then, suddenly, +he became more frightened than ever; peering from the wings, he saw that +the house was jammed--packed from the footlights to the walls! +Terrified, his knees shaking, his tongue dry, he managed to emerge, and +was greeted with a roar, a crash of applause that nearly finished him. +Only for an instant--reaction followed; these people were his friends, +and he was talking to them. He forgot to be afraid, and, as the applause +came in great billows that rose ever higher, he felt himself borne with +it as on a tide of happiness and success. His evening, from beginning to +end, was a complete triumph. Friends declared that for descriptive +eloquence, humor, and real entertainment nothing like his address had +ever been delivered. The morning papers were enthusiastic. + +Mark Twain no longer hesitated as to what he should do now. He would +lecture. The book idea no longer attracted him; the appearance of the +"Hornet" article, signed, through a printer's error, "Mark Swain," cooled +his desire to be a magazine contributor. No matter--lecturing was the +thing. Dennis McCarthy, who had sold his interest in the "Enterprise," +was in San Francisco. Clemens engaged this honest, happy-hearted +Irishman as manager, and the two toured California and Nevada with +continuous success. + +Those who remember Mark Twain as a lecturer in that early day say that on +entering he would lounge loosely across the platform, his manuscript +--written on wrapping-paper and carried under his arm--looking like a +ruffled hen. His delivery they recall as being even more quaint and +drawling than in later life. Once, when his lecture was over, an old man +came up to him and said: + +"Be them your natural tones of eloquence?" + +In those days it was thought proper that a lecturer should be introduced, +and Clemens himself used to tell of being presented by an old miner, who +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." + +When he reached Virginia, his old friend Goodman said, "Sam, you don't +need anybody to introduce you," and he suggested a novel plan. That +night, when the curtain rose, it showed Mark Twain seated at a piano, +playing and singing, as if still cub pilot on the "John J. Roe:" + + "Had an old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +Pretending to be surprised and startled at the burst of applause, he +sprang up and began to talk. How the audience enjoyed it! + +Mark Twain continued his lecture tour into December, and then, on the +15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York. +He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had +planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of +letters to the "Alta California," lecturing where opportunity afforded. +He had been on the Coast five and a half years, and to his professions of +printing and piloting had added three others--mining, journalism, and +lecturing. Also, he had acquired a measure of fame. He could come back +to his people with a good account of his absence and a good heart for the +future. + +But it seems now only a chance that he arrived at all. Crossing the +Isthmus, he embarked for New York on what proved to be a cholera ship. +For a time there were one or more funerals daily. An entry in his diary +says: + + "Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has ceased on the + ship--a settled gloom is upon the faces of the passengers. + + "But the winter air of the North checked the contagion, and there + were no new cases when New York City was reached." + +Clemens remained but a short time in New York, and was presently in St. +Louis with his mother and sister. They thought he looked old, but he had +not changed in manner, and the gay banter between mother and son was soon +as lively as ever. He was thirty-one now, and she sixty-four, but the +years had made little difference. She petted him, joked with him, and +scolded him. In turn, he petted and comforted and teased her. She +decided he was the same Sam and always would be--a true prophecy. + +He visited Hannibal and lectured there, receiving an ovation that would +have satisfied even Tom Sawyer. In Keokuk he lectured again, then +returned to St. Louis to plan his trip around the world. + +He was not to make a trip around the world, however--not then. In St. +Louis he saw the notice of the great "Quaker City" Holy Land excursion +--the first excursion of the kind ever planned--and was greatly taken with +the idea. Impulsive as always, he wrote at once to the "Alta +California," proposing that they send him as their correspondent on this +grand ocean picnic. The cost of passage was $1.200, and the "Alta" +hesitated, but Colonel McComb, already mentioned, assured his associates +that the investment would be sound. The "Alta" wrote, accepting Mark +Twain's proposal, and agreed to pay twenty dollars each for letters. +Clemens hurried to New York to secure a berth, fearing the passenger-list +might be full. Furthermore, with no one of distinction to vouch for him, +according to advertised requirements, he was not sure of being accepted. +Arriving in New York, he learned from an "Alta" representative that +passage had already been reserved for him, but he still doubted his +acceptance as one of the distinguished advertised company. His mind was +presently relieved on this point. Waiting his turn at the booking-desk, +he heard a newspaper man inquire: + +"What notables are going?" + +A clerk, with evident pride, rattled off the names: + +"Lieutenant-General Sherman, Henry Ward Beecher, and Mark Twain; also, +probably, General Banks." + +It was very pleasant to hear the clerk say that. Not only was he +accepted, but billed as an attraction. + +The "Quaker City" would not sail for two months yet, and during the +period of waiting Mark Twain was far from idle. He wrote New York +letters to the "Alta," and he embarked in two rather important ventures +--he published his first book and he delivered a lecture in New York City. + +Both these undertakings were planned and carried out by friends from the +Coast. Charles Henry Webb, who had given up his magazine to come East, +had collected "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other +Sketches," and, after trying in vain to find a publisher for them, +brought them out himself, on the 1st of May, 1867.[7] It seems curious +now that any publisher should have declined the little volume, for the +sketches, especially the frog story, had been successful, and there was +little enough good American humor in print. However, publishing was a +matter not lightly undertaken in those days. + +Mark Twain seems to have been rather pleased with the appearance of his +first book. To Bret Harte he wrote: + +The book is out and is handsome. It is full of . . . errors....but be a +friend and say nothing about those things. When my hurry is over, I will +send you a copy to pizen the children with. + +The little cloth-and-gold volume, so valued by book-collectors to-day, +contained the frog story and twenty-six other sketches, some of which are +still preserved in Mark Twain's collected works. Most of them were not +Mark Twain's best literature, but they were fresh and readable and suited +the taste of that period. The book sold very well, and, while it did not +bring either great fame or fortune to its author, it was by no means a +failure. + +The "hurry" mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to Bret Harte related to his +second venture--that is to say, his New York lecture, an enterprise +managed by an old Comstock friend, Frank Fuller, ex-Governor of Utah. +Fuller, always a sanguine and energetic person, had proposed the lecture +idea as soon as Mark Twain arrived in New York. Clemens shook his head. + +"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "We +couldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me." + +But Fuller insisted, and eventually engaged the largest hall in New York, +the Cooper Union. Full of enthusiasm and excitement, he plunged into the +business of announcing and advertising his attraction, and inventing +schemes for the sale of seats. Clemens caught Fuller's enthusiasm by +spells, but between times he was deeply depressed. Fuller had got up a +lot of tiny hand-bills, and had arranged to hang bunches of these in the +horse-cars. The little dangling clusters fascinated Clemens, and he rode +about to see if anybody else noticed them. Finally, after a long time, a +passenger pulled off one of the bills and glanced at it. A man with him +asked: + +"Who's Mark Twain?" + +"Goodness knows! I don't." + +The lecturer could not ride any farther. He hunted up his patron. + +"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest." + +Fuller assured him that things were "working underneath," and would be +all right. But Clemens wrote home: "Everything looks shady, at least, if +not dark." And he added that, after hiring the largest house in New +York, he must play against Schuyler Colfax, Ristori, and a double troupe +of Japanese jugglers, at other places of amusement. + +When the evening of the lecture approached and only a few tickets had +been sold, the lecturer was desperate. + +"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in 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 complimentaries!" + +"Very well," said Fuller. "What we want this time is reputation, anyway +--money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest and most +intelligent audience that was ever gathered in New York City." + +Fuller immediately sent out complimentary tickets to the school-teachers +of New York and Brooklyn---a general invitation to come and hear Mark +Twain's great lecture on the Sandwich Islands. There was nothing to do +after that but wait results. + +Mark Twain had lost faith--he did not believe anybody in New York would +come to hear him even on a free ticket. When the night arrived, he drove +with Fuller to the Cooper Union half an hour before the lecture was to +begin. Forty years later he 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 all the streets were + blocked with people and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't + believe that these people were trying to get to the 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." + +So in its way this venture was a success. It brought Mark Twain a good +deal of a reputation in New York, even if no financial profit, though, in +spite of the flood of complimentaries, there was a cash return of +something like three hundred dollars. This went a good way toward paying +the expenses, while Fuller, in his royal way, insisted on making up the +deficit, declaring he had been paid for everything in the fun and joy of +the game. + +"Mark," he said, "it's 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 to the +'Alta' and the 'Tribune' will get the widest reception of any letters of +travel ever written." + + + + +XXVII. + +AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN + +It was early in May--the 6th--that Mark Twain had delivered his Cooper +Union lecture, and a month later, June 8, 1867, he sailed on the "Quaker +City," with some sixty-six other "pilgrims," on the great Holy Land +excursion, the story of which has been so fully and faithfully told in +"The Innocent Abroad." + +What a wonderful thing it must have seemed in that time for a party of +excursionists to have a ship all to themselves to go a-gipsying in from +port to port of antiquity and romance! The advertised celebrities did +not go, none of them but Mark Twain, but no one minded, presently, for +Mark Twain's sayings and stories kept the company sufficiently +entertained, and sometimes he would read aloud to his fellow-passengers +from the newspaper letters he was writing, and invite comment and +criticism. That was entertainment for them, and it was good for him, for +it gave him an immediate audience, always inspiring to an author. +Furthermore, the comments offered were often of the greatest value, +especially suggestions from one Mrs. Fairbanks, of Cleveland, a +middle-aged, cultured woman, herself a correspondent for her husband's +paper, the "Herald". It requires not many days for acquaintances to form +on shipboard, and in due time a little group gathered regularly each +afternoon to hear Mark Twain read what he had written of their day's +doings, though some of it he destroyed later because Mrs. Fairbanks +thought it not his best. + +All of the "pilgrims" mentioned in "The Innocents Abroad" were real +persons. "Dan" was Dan Slote, Mark Twain's room-mate; the Doctor who +confused the guides was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago; the poet +Lariat was Bloodgood H. Cutter, an eccentric from Long Island; "Jack" was +Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey; and "Moult" and "Blucher" and "Charlie" +were likewise real, the last named being Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira, +N. Y., a boy of eighteen, whose sister would one day become Mark Twain's +wife. + +It has been said that Mark Twain first met Olivia Langdon on the "Quaker +City," but this is not quite true; he met only her picture--the original +was not on that ship. Charlie Langdon, boy fashion, made a sort of hero +of the brilliant man called Mark Twain, and one day in the Bay of Smyrna +invited him to his cabin and exhibited his treasures, among them a dainty +miniature of a sister at home, Olivia, a sweet, delicate creature whom +the boy worshiped. + +Samuel Clemens gazed long at the exquisite portrait and spoke of it +reverently, for in the sweet face he seemed to find something spiritual. +Often after that he came to young Langdon's cabin to look at the pictured +countenance, in his heart dreaming of a day when he might learn to know +its owner. + +We need not follow in detail here the travels of the "pilgrims" and their +adventures. Most of them have been fully set down in "The Innocents +Abroad," and with not much elaboration, for plenty of amusing things were +happening on a trip of that kind, and Mark Twain's old note-books are +full of the real incidents that we find changed but little in the book. +If the adventures of Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are embroidered here and +there, the truth is always there, too. + +Yet the old note-books have a very intimate interest of their own. It is +curious to be looking through them to-day, trying to realize that those +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 historic little company that frolicked +through Italy and climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. + +It required five months for the "Quaker City" to make the circuit of the +Mediterranean and return to New York. Mark Twain in that time +contributed fifty two or three letters to the "Alta California" and six +to the "New York Tribune," or an average of nearly three a week--a vast +amount of labor to be done in the midst of sight-seeing. And what +letters of travel they were! The most remarkable that had been written +up to that time. Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry, +they came as a revelation to a public weary of the tiresome descriptive +drivel of that day. They preached a new gospel in travel literature--the +gospel of seeing honestly and speaking frankly--a gospel that Mark Twain +would continue to preach during the rest of his career. + +Furthermore, the letters showed a great literary growth in their author. +No doubt the cultivated associations of the ship, the afternoon reading +aloud of his work, and Mrs. Fairbanks's advice had much to do with this. +But we may believe, also, that the author's close study of the King James +version of the Old Testament during the weeks of travel through Palestine +exerted a powerful influence upon his style. The man who had recited +"The Burial of Moses" to Joe Goodman, with so much feeling, could not +fail to be mastered by the simple yet stately Bible phrase and imagery. +Many of the fine descriptive passages in "The Innocents Abroad" have +something almost Biblical in their phrasing. The writer of this memoir +heard in childhood "The Innocents Abroad" read aloud, and has never +forgotten the poetic spell that fell upon him as he listened to a +paragraph written of Tangier: + + "Here is a crumbled 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." + +Mark Twain returned to America to find himself, if not famous, at least +in very high repute. The "Alta" and "Tribune" letters had carried his +name to every corner of his native land. He was in demand now. To his +mother he wrote: + + "I have eighteen offers to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts of + the Union--have declined them all . . . . Belong on the + "Tribune" staff and shall write occasionally. Am offered the same + berth to-day on the 'Herald,' by letter." + +He was in Washington at this time, having remained in New York but one +day. He had accepted a secretaryship from Senator Stewart of Nevada, but +this arrangement was a brief one. He required fuller freedom for his +Washington correspondence and general literary undertakings. + +He had been in Washington but a few days when he received a letter that +meant more to him than he could possibly have dreamed at the moment. It +was from Elisha Bliss, Jr., manager of the American Publishing Company, +of Hartford, Connecticut, and it suggested gathering the Mediterranean +travel-letters into a book. Bliss was a capable, energetic man, with a +taste for humor, and believed there was money for author and publisher in +the travel-book. + +The proposition pleased Mark Twain, who replied at once, asking for +further details as to Bliss's plan. Somewhat later he made a trip to +Hartford, and the terms for the publication of "The Innocents Abroad" +were agreed upon. It was to be a large illustrated book for subscription +sale, and the author was to receive five per cent of the selling price. +Bliss had offered him the choice between this royalty and ten thousand +dollars cash. Though much tempted by the large sum to be paid in hand, +Mark Twain decided in favor of the royalty plan--"the best business +judgment I ever displayed," he used to say afterward. He agreed to +arrange the letters for book publication, revising and rewriting where +necessary, and went back to Washington well pleased. He did not realize +that his agreement with Bliss marked the beginning of one of the most +notable publishing connections in American literary history. + + + + +XXVIII. + +OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" + +Certainly this was a momentous period in Mark Twain's life. It was a +time of great events, and among them was one which presently would come +to mean more to him than all the rest--the beginning of his acquaintance +with Olivia Langdon. + +One evening in late December when Samuel Clemens had come to New York to +visit his old "Quaker City" room-mate, Dan Slote, he found there other +ship comrades, including Jack Van Nostrand and Charlie Langdon. It was a +joyful occasion, but one still happier followed it. Young Langdon's +father and sister Olivia were in New York, and an evening or two later +the boy invited his distinguished "Quaker City" shipmate to dine with +them at the old St. Nicholas Hotel. We may believe that Samuel Clemens +went willingly enough. He had never forgotten the September day in the +Bay of Smyrna when he had first seen the sweet-faced miniature--now, at +last he looked upon the reality. + +Long afterward he said: "It was forty years ago. From that day to this +she has never been out of my mind." + +Charles Dickens gave a reading that night at Steinway Hall. The Langdons +attended, and Samuel Clemens with them. He recalled long after that +Dickens wore a black velvet coat with a fiery-red flower in his +buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene from "David Copperfield" +--the death of James Steerforth; but he remembered still more clearly the +face and dress and the slender, girlish figure of Olivia Langdon at his +side. + +Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as the +miniature he had seen, though no longer in the fragile health of her +girlhood. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, and Samuel +Clemens was no less her worshiper from the first moment of their meeting. + +Miss Langdon, on her part, was at first rather dazed by the strange, +brilliant, handsome man, so unlike anything she had known before. When +he had gone, she had the feeling that something like a great meteor had +crossed her sky. To her brother, who was eager for her good opinion of +his celebrity, she admitted her admiration, if not her entire approval. +Her father had no doubts. With a keen sense of humor and a deep +knowledge of men, Jervis Langdon was from that first evening the devoted +champion of Mark Twain. Clemens saw Miss Langdon again during the +holidays, and by the week's end he had planned to visit Elmira--soon. +But fate managed differently. He was not to see Elmira for the better +part of a year. + +He returned to his work in Washington--the preparation of the book and +his newspaper correspondence. It was in connection with the latter that +he first met General Grant, then not yet President. The incident, +characteristic of both men, is worth remembering. Mark Twain had called +by permission, elated with the prospect of an interview. But when he +looked into the 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 slightly embarrassed. Are you?" + +Grant's severity broke up in laughter. There were no further +difficulties. + +Work on the book did not go so well. There were many distractions in +Washington, and Clemens did not like the climate there. Then he found +the "Alta" had copyrighted his letters and were reluctant to allow him to +use them. He decided to sail at once for San Francisco. If he could +arrange the "Alta" matter, he would finish his work there. He did, in +fact, carry out this plan, and all difficulties vanished on his arrival. +His old friend Colonel McComb obtained for him free use of the "Alta" +letters. The way was now clear for his book. His immediate need of +funds, however, induced him to lecture. In May he wrote Bliss: + + "I lectured here on the trip (the Quaker City excursion) the other + night; $1,600 in gold in the house; every seat taken and paid for + before night." + +He settled down to work now with his usual energy, editing and rewriting, +and in two months had the big manuscript ready for delivery. + +Mark Twain's friends urged him to delay his return to "the States" long +enough to make a lecture tour through California and Nevada. He must +give his new lecture, they told him, to his old friends. He agreed, and +was received at Virginia City, Carson, and elsewhere like a returning +conqueror. He lectured again in San Francisco just before sailing. + +The announcement of his lecture was highly original. It was a hand-bill +supposed to have been issued by the foremost citizens of San Francisco, a +mock protest against his lecture, urging him to return to New York +without inflicting himself on them again. On the same bill was printed +his reply. In it he said: + + "I will torment the people if I want to. It only costs them $1 + apiece, and, if they can't stand it, what do they stay here for?" + +He promised positively to sail on July 6th if they would let him talk +just this once. + +There was a good deal more of this drollery on the bill, which ended with +the announcement that he would appear at the Mercantile Library on July +2d. It is unnecessary to say that the place was jammed on that evening. +It was probably the greatest lecture event San Francisco has ever known. +Four days later, July 6, 1868, Mark Twain sailed, via Aspinwall, for New +York, and on the 28th delivered the manuscript of "The Innocents Abroad, +or the New Pilgrim's Progress," to his Hartford publisher. + + + + +XXIX + +THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES + +Samuel Clemens now decided to pay his long-deferred visit to the Langdon +home in Elmira. Through Charlie Langdon he got the invitation renewed, +and for a glorious week enjoyed the generous hospitality of the beautiful +Langdon home and the society of fair Olivia Langdon--Livy, as they called +her--realizing more and more that for him there could never be any other +woman in the world. He spoke no word of this to her, but on the morning +of the day when his visit would end he relieved himself to Charlie +Langdon, much to the young man's alarm. Greatly as he admired Mark Twain +himself, he did not think him, or, indeed, any man, good enough for +"Livy," whom he considered little short of a saint. Clemens was to take +a train that evening, but young Langdon said, when he recovered: + +"Look here, Clemens, there's a train in half an hour. I'll help you +catch it. Don't wait until tonight; go now!" + +Mark Twain shook his head. + +"No, Charlie," 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 train, a light +two-seated wagon was at the gate. Young Langdon and his guest took the +back seat, which, for some reason, had not been locked in its place. The +horse started with a quick forward spring, and the seat with its two +occupants described a circle and landed with force on the cobbled street. + +Neither passenger was seriously hurt--only dazed a little for the moment. +But to Mark Twain there came a sudden inspiration. Here was a chance to +prolong his visit. When the Langdon household gathered with +restoratives, he did not recover at once, and allowed himself to be +supported to an arm-chair for further remedies. Livy Langdon showed +especial anxiety. + +He was not allowed to go, now, of course; he must stay until it was +certain that his recovery was complete. Perhaps he had been internally +injured. His visit was prolonged two weeks, two weeks of pure happiness, +and when he went away he had fully resolved to win Livy Langdon for his +wife. + +Mark Twain now went to Hartford to look after his book proofs, and there +for the first time met the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, who would become his +closest friend. The two men, so different in many ways, always had the +fondest admiration for each other; each recognized in the other great +courage, humanity, and sympathy. Clemens would gladly have remained in +Hartford that winter. Twichell presented him to many congenial people, +including Charles Dudley Warner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other writing +folk. But flattering lecture offers were made him, and he could no +longer refuse. + +He called his new lecture "The Vandal Abroad," it being chapters from the +forthcoming book, and it was a great success everywhere. His houses were +crowded; the newspapers were enthusiastic. His delivery was described as +a "long, monotonous drawl, with fun invariably coming in at the end of a +sentence--after a pause." He began to be recognized everywhere--to have +great popularity. People came out on the street to see him pass. + +Many of his lecture engagements were in central New York, no great +distance from Elmira. He had a standing invitation to visit the Langdon +home, and went when he could. His courtship, however, was not entirely +smooth. Much as Mr. Langdon honored his gifts and admired him +personally, he feared that his daughter, who had known so little of life +and the outside world, and the brilliant traveler, lecturer, author, +might not find happiness in marriage. Many absurd stories have been told +of Mark Twain's first interview with Jervis Langdon on this subject, but +these are without foundation. It was an earnest discussion on both +sides, and left Samuel Clemens rather crestfallen, though not without +hope. More than once the subject was discussed between the two men that +winter as the lecturer came and went, his fame always growing. In time +the Langdon household had grown to feel that he belonged to them. It +would be only a step further to make him really one of the family. + +There was no positive engagement at first, for it was agreed between +Clemens and Jervis Langdon that letters should be sent by Mr. Langdon to +those who had known his would-be son-in-law earlier, with inquiries as to +his past conduct and general character. It was a good while till answers +to these came, and when they arrived Samuel Clemens was on hand to learn +the result. Mr. 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 gentlemen I wrote to 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 had a forlorn look. "There is nothing very evasive about +that," he said. + +Langdon reflected. + +"Haven't you any other friend that you could suggest?" + +"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 +then they do." + +The engagement of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Olivia Lewis Langdon was +ratified next day, February 4, 1869. To Jane Clemens her son wrote: +"She is a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom." + + + + +XXX. + +THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING + +Clemens closed his lecture tour in March with a profit of something more +than eight thousand dollars. He had intended to make a spring tour of +California, but went to Elmira instead. The revised proofs of his book +were coming now, and he and gentle Livy Langdon read them together. +Samuel Clemens realized presently that the girl he had chosen had a +delicate literary judgment. She became all at once his editor, a +position she held until her death. Her refining influence had much to do +with Mark Twain's success, then and later, and the world owes her a debt +of gratitude. Through that first pleasant summer these two worked at the +proofs and planned for their future, and were very happy indeed. + +It was about the end of July when the big book appeared at last, and its +success was startling. Nothing like it had ever been known before. Mark +Twain's name seemed suddenly to be on every tongue--his book in +everybody's hands. From one end of the country to the other, readers +were hailing him as the greatest humorist and descriptive writer of +modern times. By the first of the year more than thirty thousand volumes +had been sold. It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a +half dollars; the record has not been equaled since. In England also +large editions had been issued, and translations into foreign languages +were under way. It was and is a great book, because it is a human book +--a book written straight from the heart. + +If Mark Twain had not been famous before, he was so now. Indeed, it is +doubtful if any other American author was so widely known and read as the +author of "The Innocents Abroad" during that first half-year after its +publication. + +Yet for some reason he still did not regard himself as a literary man. +He was a journalist, and began to look about for a paper which he could +buy-his idea being to establish a business and a home. Through Mr. +Langdon's assistance, he finally obtained an interest in the "Buffalo +Express," and the end of the year 1869 found him established as its +associate editor, though still lecturing here and there, because his +wedding-day was near at hand and there must be no lack of funds. + +It was the 2d of February, 1870, that Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon +were married. A few days before, he sat down one night and wrote to +Jim Gillis, away out in the Tuolumne Hills, and told him of all his good +fortune, recalling their days at Angel's Camp, and the absurd frog story, +which he said had been the beginning of his happiness. In the five years +since then he had traveled a long way, but he had not forgotten. + +On the morning of his wedding-day Mark Twain received from his publisher +a check for four thousand dollars, his profit from three months' sales of +the book, a handsome sum. + +The wedding was mainly a family affair. Twichell and his wife came over +from Hartford--Twichell to assist Thomas K. Beecher in performing the +ceremony. Jane Clemens could not come, nor Orion and his wife; but +Pamela, a widow now, and her daughter Annie, grown to a young lady, +arrived from St. Louis. Not more than one hundred guests gathered in the +stately Langdon parlors that in future would hold so much history for +Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon--so much of the story of life and death +that thus made its beginning there. Then, at seven in the evening, they +were married, and the bride danced with her father, and the Rev. Thomas +Beecher declared she wore the longest gloves he had ever seen. + +It was the next afternoon that the wedding-party set out for Buffalo. +Through a Mr. Slee, an agent of Mr. Langdon's, Clemens had engaged, as he +supposed, a boarding-house, quiet and unpretentious, for he meant to +start his married life modestly. Jervis Langdon had a plan of his own +for his daughter, but Clemens had received no inkling of it, and had full +faith in the letter which Slee had written, saying that a choice and +inexpensive boarding-house had been secured. When, about nine o'clock +that night, the party reached Buffalo, they found Mr. Slee waiting at the +station. There was snow, and sleighs had been ordered. Soon after +starting, the sleigh of the bride and groom fell behind and drove about +rather aimlessly, apparently going nowhere in particular. This disturbed +the groom, who thought they should arrive first and receive their guests. +He criticized Slee for selecting a house that was so hard to find, and +when they turned at last into Delaware Avenue, Buffalo's finest street, +and stopped before a handsome house, he was troubled concerning the +richness of the locality. + +They were on the steps when the door 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 it all--the +completeness of their possession. At last his 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 still he could not quite grasp it, and 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, 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." + + + + +XXXI. + +MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO + +Mark Twain remained less than two years in Buffalo--a period of much +affliction. + +In the beginning, prospects could hardly have been brighter. His +beautiful home seemed perfect. At the office he found work to his hand, +and enjoyed it. His co-editor, J. W. Larned, who sat across the table +from him, used to tell later how Mark enjoyed his work as he went along +--the humor of it--frequently laughing as some new absurdity came into his +mind. He was not very regular in his arrivals, but he worked long hours +and turned in a vast amount of "copy"--skits, sketches, editorials, and +comments of a varied sort. Not all of it was humorous; he would stop +work any time on an amusing sketch to attack some abuse or denounce an +injustice, and he did it in scorching words that made offenders pause. +Once, when two practical jokers had sent in a marriage notice of persons +not even contemplating matrimony, he wrote: + + "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." + +In May he considerably increased his income by undertaking a department +called "Memoranda" for the new "Galaxy" magazine. The outlook was now so +promising that to his lecture agent, James Redpath, he wrote: + + "DEAR RED: I'm not going to lecture any more forever. I've 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 in a second letter: + + "I guess I'm 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-inspiring, nothing + less; and I'm 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." + +The little household on Delaware Avenue was indeed a happy place during +those early months. Neither Clemens nor his wife in those days cared +much for society, preferring the comfort of their own home. Once when a +new family moved into a house across the way they postponed calling until +they felt ashamed. Clemens himself called first. One Sunday morning he +noticed smoke pouring from an upper window of their neighbor's house. +The occupants, seated on the veranda, evidently did not suspect their +danger. Clemens stepped across to the gate and, bowing politely, 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." + +It was at the moment when life seemed at its best that shadows gathered. +Jervis Langdon had never accepted his son-in-law's playful invitation to +"bring his bag and stay overnight," and now the time for it was past. In +the spring his health gave way. Mrs. Clemens, who adored him, went to +Elmira to be at his bedside. Three months of lingering illness brought +the end. His death was a great blow to Mrs. Clemens, and the strain of +watching had been very hard. Her own health, never robust, became poor. +A girlhood friend, who came to cheer her with a visit, was taken down +with typhoid fever. Another long period of anxiety and nursing ended +with the young woman's death in the Clemens home. + +To Mark Twain and his wife it seemed that their bright days were over. +The arrival of little Langdon Clemens, in November, brought happiness, +but his delicate hold on life was so uncertain that the burden of anxiety +grew. + +Amid so many distractions Clemens found his work hard. His "Memoranda" +department in the "Galaxy" must be filled and be bright and readable. +His work at the office could not be neglected. Then, too, he had made a +contract with Bliss for another book "Roughing It"--and he was trying to +get started on that. + +He began to chafe under the relentless demands of the magazine and +newspaper. Finally he could stand it no longer. He sold his interest in +the "Express," at a loss, and gave up the "Memoranda." In the closing +number (April, 1871) he said: + + "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 .... To be a + pirate on a low salary and with no share of the profits in 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." + + + + +XXXII. + +AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" + +The Clemens family now went to Elmira, to Quarry Farm--a beautiful +hilltop place, overlooking the river and the town--the home of Mrs. +Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane. They did not expect to return to +Buffalo, and the house there was offered for sale. For them the sunlight +had gone out of it. + +Matters went better at Quarry Farm. The invalids gained strength; work +on the book progressed. The Clemenses that year fell in love with the +place that was to mean so much to them in the many summers to come. + +Mark Twain was not altogether satisfied, however, with his writing. He +was afraid it was not up to his literary standard. His spirits were at +low ebb when his old first editor, Joe Goodman, came East and stopped off +at Elmira. Clemens hurried him out to the farm, and, eagerly putting the +chapters of "Roughing It" into his hands, asked him to read them. +Goodman seated himself comfortably by a window, while the author went +over to a table and pretended to write, but was really watching Goodman, +who read page after page solemnly and with great deliberation. Presently +Mark Twain could stand it no longer. He threw down his pen, exclaiming: + +"I knew it! I knew it! I've been writing nothing but rot. You have sat +there all this time reading without a smile--but I am not wholly to +blame. I have been trying to write a funny book with dead people and +sickness everywhere. Oh, Joe, I wish I could die myself!" + +"Mark," said Goodman, "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!" + +That was enough. Clemens knew that Goodman never spoke idly of such +matters. The author of "Roughing It" was a changed man--full of +enthusiasm, eager to go on. He offered to pay Goodman a salary to stay +and furnish inspiration. Goodman declined the salary, but remained for +several weeks, and during long walks which the two friends took over the +hills gave advice, recalled good material, and was a great help and +comfort. In May, Clemens wrote to Bliss that he had twelve hundred +manuscript pages of the new book written and was turning out from thirty +to sixty-five per day. He was in high spirits. The family health had +improved--once more prospects were bright. He even allowed Redpath to +persuade him to lecture again during the coming season. Selling his +share of the "Express" at a loss had left Mark Twain considerably in debt +and lecture profits would furnish the quickest means of payment. + +When the summer ended the Clemens family took up residence in Hartford, +Connecticut, in the fine old Hooker house, on Forest Street. Hartford +held many attractions for Mark Twain. His publishers were located there, +also it was the home of a distinguished group of writers, and of the Rev. +"Joe" Twichell. Neither Clemens nor his wife had felt that they could +return to Buffalo. The home there was sold--its contents packed and +shipped. They did not see it again. + +His book finished, Mark Twain lectured pretty steadily that winter, often +in the neighborhood of Boston, which was lecture headquarters. Mark +Twain enjoyed Boston. In Redpath's office one could often meet and "swap +stories" with Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) and Petroleum V. Nasby (David +R. Locke)--well-known humorists of that day--while in the strictly +literary circle there were William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, +Bret Harte (who by this time had become famous and journeyed eastward), +and others of their sort. They were all young and eager and merry, then, +and they gathered at luncheons in snug corners and talked gaily far into +the dimness of winter afternoons. Harte had been immediately accorded a +high place in the Boston group. Mark Twain as a strictly literary man +was still regarded rather doubtfully by members of the older set--the +Brahmins, as they were called--but the young men already hailed him +joyfully, reveling in the fine, fearless humor of his writing, his +wonderful talk, his boundless humanity. + + + + +XXXIII. + +IN ENGLAND + +Mark Twain closed his lecture season in February (1872), and during the +same month his new book, "Roughing It," came from the press. He disliked +the lecture platform, and he felt that he could now abandon it. He had +made up his loss in Buffalo and something besides. Furthermore, the +advance sales on his book had been large. + +"Roughing It," in fact, proved a very successful book. Like "The +Innocents Abroad," it was the first of its kind, fresh in its humor and +description, true in its picture of the frontier life he had known. In +three months forty thousand copies had been sold, and now, after more +than forty years, it is still a popular book. The life it describes is +all gone-the scenes are changed. It is a record of a vanished time--a +delightful history--as delightful to-day as ever. + +Eighteen hundred and seventy-two was an eventful year for Mark Twain. In +March his second child, a little girl whom they named Susy, was born, and +three months later the boy, Langdon, died. He had never been really +strong, and a heavy cold and diphtheria brought the end. + +Clemens did little work that summer. He took his family to Saybrook, +Connecticut, for the sea air, and near the end of August, when Mrs. +Clemens had regained strength and courage, he sailed for England to +gather material for a book on English life and customs. He felt very +friendly toward the English, who had been highly appreciative of his +writings, and he wished their better acquaintance. He gave out no word +of the book idea, and it seems unlikely that any one in England ever +suspected it. He was there three months, and beyond some notebook +memoranda made during the early weeks of his stay he wrote not a line. +He was too delighted with everything to write a book--a book of his kind. +In letters home he declared the country to be as beautiful as fairyland. +By all classes attentions were showered upon him--honors such as he had +never received even in America. W. D. Howells writes:[8] + + "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, that spurned the rest of our nation." + +He could not make a book--a humorous book--out of these people and their +country; he was too fond of them. + +England fairly reveled in Mark Twain. At one of the great banquets, a +roll of the distinguished guests was called, and the names properly +applauded. Mark Twain, busily engaged in low conversation with his +neighbor, applauded without listening, vigorously or mildly, as the +others led. Finally a name was followed by a great burst of long and +vehement clapping. This must be some very great person indeed, and Mark +Twain, not to be outdone in his approval, stoutly kept his hands going +when all others had finished. + +"Whose name was that we were just applauding?" he asked of his neighbor. + +"Mark Twain's." + +But it was no matter; they took it all as one of his jokes. He was a +wonder and a delight to them. Whatever he did or said was to them +supremely amusing. When, on one occasion, a speaker humorously referred +to his American habit of carrying a cotton umbrella, his reply that he +did so "because it was the only kind of an umbrella that an Englishman +wouldn't steal," was repeated all over England next day as one of the +finest examples of wit since the days of Swift. + +He returned to America at the end of November; promising to come back and +lecture to them the following year. + +[7] From "My Mark Twain," by W. D. Howells. + + + + +XXXIV. + +A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS + +But if Mark Twain could find nothing to write of in England, he found no +lack of material in America. That winter in Hartford, with Charles +Dudley Warner, he wrote "The Gilded Age." The Warners were neighbors, +and the families visited back and forth. One night at dinner, when the +two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the +wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The +challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens +agreed that they would write a book together, and began it immediately. + +Clemens had an idea already in mind. It was to build a romance around +that lovable dreamer, his mother's cousin, James Lampton, whom the reader +will recall from an earlier chapter. Without delay he set to work and +soon completed the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages of the new +story. Warner came over and, after listening to its reading, went home +and took up the story. In two months the novel was complete, Warner +doing most of the romance, Mark Twain the character parts. Warner's +portion was probably pure fiction, but Mark Twain's chapters were full of +history. + +Judge Hawkins and wife were Mark Twain's father and mother; Washington +Hawkins, his brother Orion. Their doings, with those of James Lampton as +Colonel Sellers, were, of course, elaborated, but the story of the +Tennessee land, as told in that book, is very good history indeed. Laura +Hawkins, however, was only real in the fact that she bore the name of +Samuel Clemens's old playmate. "The Gilded Age," published later in the +year, was well received and sold largely. The character of Colonel +Sellers at once took a place among the great fiction characters of the +world, and is probably the best known of any American creation. His +watchword, "There's millions in it!" became a byword. + +The Clemenses decided to build in Hartford. They bought a plot of land +on Farmington Avenue, in the literary neighborhood, and engaged an +architect and builder. By spring, the new house was well under way, and, +matters progressing so favorably, the owners decided to take a holiday +while the work was going on. Clemens had been eager to show England to +his wife; so, taking little Sissy, now a year old, they sailed in May, to +be gone half a year. + +They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment. +If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than +royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The +nation's most distinguished men--among them Robert Browning, Sir John +Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke--came to pay their +respects. Authors were calling constantly. Charles Reade and Wilkie +Collins could not get enough of Mark Twain. Reade proposed to join with +him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call, +being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one +night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I +ever saw," Mark Twain once declared. + +Little Sissy and her father thrived on London life, but it wore on Mrs. +Clemens. At the end of July they went quietly to Edinburgh, and settled +at Veitch's Hotel, on George Street. The strain of London life had been +too much for Mrs. Clemens, and her health became poor. Unacquainted in +Edinburgh, Clemens only remembered that Dr. John Brown, author of "Rab +and His Friends," lived there. Learning the address, he walked around to +23 Rutland Street, and made himself known. Doctor Brown came forthwith, +and Mrs. Clemens seemed better from the moment of his arrival. + +The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and +the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him +to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage +to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his +head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look. + +"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?" + +"No, a dog I don't know." + +Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had +won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he +were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by +her great, dark eyes. + +Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th +of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our +Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens +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 the noise +subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present +and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval. + +He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no +time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the +talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times" +declared his lectures had only whetted the public appetite for more. His +manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles Dickens), urged him +to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally +agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back +himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to +London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square +rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end +that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no +other such a lecture triumph on record. + +Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full +health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest +places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all +too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led +him so far. + + + + +XXXV. + +BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" + +It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America. +His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and +Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become +--to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of +all the things between the earth and sky. And Twichell came in, of +course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or +worried about anything at all. + +"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round," +wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so +carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on +the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was +to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three +fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston. + +"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells +once confessed to the writer of this memoir. + +At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The +Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set +down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, +with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, +and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built +for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. +The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, +with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any +direction the breeze could come, and there were fine views. To Twichell +he wrote: + + "It is a cozy nest, and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three + or four chairs, and when the storm sweeps down the remote valley and + the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond, and the rain beats on + the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it!" + +He worked steadily there that summer. He would begin mornings, soon +after breakfast, keeping at it until nearly dinner-time, say until five +or after, for it was not his habit to eat the midday meal. Other members +of the family did not venture near the place; if he was wanted urgently, +a horn was blown. His work finished, he would light a cigar and, +stepping lightly down the stone flight that led to the house-level, he +would find where the family had assembled and read to them his day's +work. Certainly those were golden days, and the tale of Tom and Huck and +Joe Harper progressed. To Dr. John Brown, in Scotland, he wrote: + + "I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an average, + for some time now, .. . . and consequently have been so wrapped + up in it and dead to everything else that I have fallen mighty short + in letter-writing." + +But the inspiration of Tom and Huck gave out when the tale was half +finished, or perhaps it gave way to a new interest. News came one day +that a writer in San Francisco, without permission, had dramatized "The +Gilded Age," and that it was being played by John T. Raymond, an actor of +much power. Mark Twain had himself planned to dramatize the character of +Colonel Sellers and had taken out dramatic copyright. He promptly +stopped the California production, then wrote the dramatist a friendly +letter, and presently bought the play of him, and set in to rewrite it. +It proved a great success. Raymond played it for several years. Colonel +Sellers on the stage became fully as popular as in the book, and very +profitable indeed. + + + + +XXXVI. + +THE NEW HOME + +The new home in Hartford was ready that autumn--the beautiful house +finished, or nearly finished, the handsome furnishings in place. It was +a lovely spot. There were trees and grass--a green, shady slope that +fell away to a quiet stream. The house itself, quite different from the +most of the houses of that day, had many wings and balconies, and toward +the back a great veranda that looked down the shaded slope. The kitchen +was not at the back. As Mark Twain was unlike any other man that ever +lived, so his house was not like other houses. When asked why he built +the kitchen toward the street, he said: + + "So the servants can see the circus go by without running into the + front yard." + +But this was probably his afterthought. The kitchen wing extended toward +Farmington Avenue, but it was a harmonious detail of the general plan. + +Many frequenters have tried to express the charm of Mark Twain's +household. Few have succeeded, for it lay not in the house itself, nor +in its furnishings, beautiful as these things were, but in the +personality of its occupants--the daily round of their lives--the +atmosphere which they unconsciously created. From its wide entrance-hall +and tiny, jewel like conservatory below to the billiard-room at the top +of the house, it seemed perfectly appointed, serenely ordered, and full +of welcome. The home of one of the most unusual and unaccountable +personalities in the world was filled with gentleness and peace. It was +Mrs. Clemens who was chiefly responsible. She was no longer the +half-timid, inexperienced girl he had married. Association, study, and +travel had brought her knowledge and confidence. When the great ones of +the world came to visit America's most picturesque literary figure, she +gave welcome to them, and filled her place at his side with such sweet +grace that those who came to pay their dues to him often returned to pay +still greater devotion to his companion. William Dean Howells, so often a +visitor there, once said to the writer: + + "Words cannot express Mrs. Clemens--her fineness, her delicate, + wonderful tact." And again, "She was not only a beautiful soul, but + a woman of singular intellectual power." + +There were always visitors in the Clemens home. Above the mantel in the +library was written: "The ornament of a house is the friends that +frequent it," and the Clemens home never lacked of those ornaments, and +they were of the world's best. No distinguished person came to America +that did not pay a visit to Hartford and Mark Twain. Generally it was +not merely a call, but a stay of days. The welcome was always genuine, +the entertainment unstinted. George Warner, a close neighbor, once 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." + +As for friends living near, they usually came and went at will, often +without the ceremony of knocking or formal leave-taking. The two Warner +famines were among these, the home of Charles Dudley Warner being only a +step away. Dr. and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe were also close neighbors, +while the Twichell parsonage was not far. They were all like one great +family, of which Mark Twain's home was the central gathering-place. + + + + +XXXVII. + +"OLD TIMES," "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" + +The Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and Mark Twain used to take many long walks +together, and once they decided to walk from Hartford to Boston--about +one hundred miles. They decided to allow three days for the trip, and +really started one morning, with some luncheon in a basket, and a little +bag of useful articles. It was a bright, brisk November day, and they +succeeded in getting to Westford, a distance of twenty-eight miles, that +evening. But they were lame and foot-sore, and next morning, when they +had limped six miles or so farther, Clemens telegraphed to Redpath: + + "We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days. This shows + the thing can be done. Shall finish now by rail. Did you have any + bets on us?" + +He also telegraphed Howells that they were about to arrive in Boston, and +they did, in fact, reach the Howells home about nine o'clock, and found +excellent company--the Cambridge set--and a most welcome supper waiting. +Clemens and Twichell were ravenous. Clemens demanded food immediately. +Howells writes: + + "I can see him now as he stood up in the midst of our friends, with + his head thrown back, and in his hands a dish of those scalloped + 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." + +The pedestrians returned to Hartford a day or two later--by train. It +was during another, though less extended, tour which Twichell and Clemens +made that fall, that the latter got his idea for a Mississippi book. +Howells had been pleading for something for the January "Atlantic," of +which he was now chief editor, but thus far Mark Twain's inspiration had +failed. He wrote at last, "My head won't go," but later, the same day, +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 wrote at once, welcoming the idea. Clemens forthwith sent the +first instalment of that marvelous series of river chapters which rank +to-day among the very best of his work. As pictures of the vanished +Mississippi life they are so real, so convincing, so full of charm that +they can never grow old. As long as any one reads of the Mississippi +they will look up those chapters of Mark Twain's piloting days. When the +first number appeared, John Hay wrote: + + "It is perfect; no more, no less. I don't see how you do it." + +The "Old Times" chapter ran through seven numbers of the "Atlantic," and +show Mark Twain at his very best. They form now most of the early +chapters of "Life on the Mississippi." The remainder of that book was +added about seven years later. + +Those were busy literary days for Mark Twain. Writing the river chapters +carried him back, and hardly had he finished them when he took up the +neglected story of "Tom and Huck," and finished that under full steam. +He at first thought of publishing it in the "Atlantic", but decided +against this plan. He sent Howells the manuscript to read, and received +the fullest praise. Howells wrote: + + "It is altogether the best boy's story I ever read. It will be an + immense success." + +Clemens, however, delayed publication. He had another volume in press--a +collection of his sketches--among them the "Jumping Frog," and others of +his California days. The "Jumping Frog" had been translated into French, +and in this book Mark Twain published the French version and then a +literal retranslation of his own, which is one of the most amusing +features in the volume. As an example, the stranger's remark, "I don't +see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other frog," in +the literal retranslation becomes, "I no saw not that that frog had +nothing of better than each frog," and Mark Twain parenthetically adds, +"If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge." + +"Sketches New and Old" went very well, but the book had no such sale as +"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which appeared a year later, December, +1876. From the date of its issue it took its place as foremost of +American stories of boy life, a place that to this day it shares only +with "Huck Finn." Mark Twain's own boy life in the little drowsy town of +Hannibal, with John Briggs and Tom Blankenship--their adventures in and +about the cave and river--made perfect material. The story is full of +pure delight. The camp on the island is a picture of boy heaven. No boy +that reads it but longs for the woods and a camp-fire and some bacon +strips in the frying-pan. It is all so thrillingly told and so vivid. +We know certainly that it must all have happened. "The Adventures of Tom +Sawyer" has taken a place side by side with "Treasure Island." + + + + +XXXVIII. + +HOME PICTURES + +Mark Twain was now regarded by many as the foremost American author. +Certainly he was the most widely known. As a national feature he rivaled +Niagara Falls. No civilized spot on earth that his name had not reached. +Letters merely addressed "Mark Twain" found their way to him. "Mark +Twain, United States," was a common superscription. "Mark Twain, The +World," also reached him without delay, while "Mark Twain, Somewhere," +and "Mark Twain, Anywhere," in due time came to Hartford. "Mark Twain, +God Knows Where," likewise arrived promptly, and in his reply he said, +"He did." Then a letter addressed "The Devil Knows Where" also reached +him, and he answered, "He did, too." Surely these were the farthermost +limits of fame. + +Countless anecdotes went the rounds of the press. Among them was one +which happened to be true: + +Their near neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, was leaving for Florida +one morning, and Clemens ran over early to say good-by. On his return +Mrs. Clemens looked at him severely. + +"Why, Youth," she said, "you haven't on any collar and tie." + +He said nothing, but went to his room, wrapped up those items in a neat +package, which he sent over by a servant to Mrs. Stowe, with the line: + + "Herewith receive a call from the rest of me." + +Mrs. Stowe returned a witty note, in which she said he had discovered a +new principle--that of making calls by instalments, and asked whether in +extreme cases a man might not send his clothes and be himself excused. + +Most of his work Mark Twain did at Quarry Farm. Each summer the family +--there were two little girls now, Susy and Clara--went to that lovely +place on the hilltop above Elmira, where there were plenty of green +fields and cows and horses and apple-trees, a spot as wonderful to them +as John Quarles's farm had been to their father, so long ago. All the +family loved Quarry Farm, and Mark Twain's work went more easily there. +His winters were not suited to literary creation--there were too many +social events, though once--it was the winter of '76--he wrote a play +with Bret Harte, who came to Hartford and stayed at the Clemens home +while the work was in progress. It was a Chinese play, "Ah Sin," and the +two had a hilarious time writing it, though the result did not prove much +of a success with the public. Mark Twain often tried plays--one with +Howells, among others--but the Colonel Sellers play was his only success. + +Grand dinners, trips to Boston and New York, guests in his own home, +occupied much of Mark Twain's winter season. His leisure he gave to his +children and to billiards. He had a passion for the game, and at any +hour of the day or night was likely to be found in the room at the top of +the house, knocking the balls about alone or with any visitor that he had +enticed to that den. He mostly received his callers there, and impressed +them into the game. If they could play, well and good. If not, so much +the better; he could beat them extravagantly, and he took huge delight in +such contests. Every Friday evening a party of billiard lovers--Hartford +men--gathered and played, and told stories, and smoked, until the room +was blue. Clemens never tired of the game. He could play all night. He +would stay until the last man dropped from sheer weariness, and then go +on knocking the balls about alone. + +But many evenings at home--early evenings--he gave to Susy and Clara. +They had learned his gift as a romancer and demanded the most startling +inventions. They would bring him a picture requiring him to fit a story +to it without a moment's delay. Once he was suddenly ordered by Clara to +make a story out of a plumber and a "bawgunstictor," which, on the whole, +was easier than some of their requirements. Along the book-shelves were +ornaments and pictures. A picture of a girl whom they called "Emeline" +was at one end, and at the other a cat. Every little while they +compelled him to make a story beginning with the cat and ending with +Emeline. Always a new story, and never the other way about. The +literary path from the cat to Emeline was a perilous one, but in time he +could have traveled it in his dreams. + + + + +XXXIX. + +TRAMPING ABROAD + +It was now going on ten years since the publication of "The Innocents +Abroad," and there was a demand for another Mark Twain book of travel. +Clemens considered the matter, and decided that a walking-tour in Europe +might furnish the material he wanted. He spoke to his good friend, the +Rev. "Joe" Twichell, and invited him to become his guest on such an +excursion, because, as he explained, he thought he could "dig material +enough out of Joe to make it a sound investment." As a matter of fact, +he loved Twichell's companionship, and was always inviting him to share +his journeys--to Boston, to Bermuda, to Washington--wherever interest or +fancy led him. His plan now was to take the family to Germany in the +spring, and let Twichell join them later for a summer tramp down through +the Black Forest and Switzerland. Meantime the Clemens household took up +the study of German. The children had a German nurse--others a German +teacher. The household atmosphere became Teutonic. Of course it all +amused Mark Twain, as everything amused him, but he was a good student. +In a brief time he had a fair knowledge of every-day German and a +really surprising vocabulary. The little family sailed in April (1878), +and a few weeks later were settled in the Schloss Hotel, on a hill above +Heidelberg, overlooking the beautiful old castle, the ancient town, with +the Neckar winding down the hazy valley--as fair a view as there is in +all Germany. + +Clemens found a room for his work in a small house not far from the +hotel. On the day of his arrival he had pointed out this house and said +he had decided to work there--that his room would be the middle one on +the third floor. Mrs. Clemens laughed, and thought the occupants of the +house might be surprised when he came over to take possession. They +amused themselves by watching "his people" and trying to make out what +they were like. One day he went over that way, and, sure enough, there +was a sign, "Furnished Rooms," and the one he had pointed out from the +hotel was vacant. It became his study forthwith. + +The travelers were delighted with their location. To Howells, Clemens +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 spent nearly all our time in + these. We have tables and chairs 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 thin 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." + +Twichell was summoned for August, and wrote back eagerly at the prospect: + + "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!" + +Meantime the struggle with the "awful German language" went on. Rosa, +the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, though +little Clara at first would have none of it. Susy, two years older, +tried, and really made progress, but one day she said, pathetically: + + "Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English." + +But presently she was writing to "Aunt Sue" (Mrs. Crane) at Quarry Farm: + + "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 we see." + +Twichell arrived August 1st. Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, and they +immediately set forth on a tramp through the Black Forest, excursioning +as they pleased and having a blissful time. They did not always walk. +They were likely to take a carriage or a donkey-cart, or even a train, +when one conveniently happened along. They did not hurry, but idled and +talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives +--picturesque peasants in the Black Forest costume. In due time they +crossed into Switzerland and prepared to conquer the Alps. + +The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in +America. His face, however, was less familiar. He was not often +recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed. +It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish +attention. Twichell's conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the +truth. In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel +had especially delighted in Mark's table conversation, and how he +(Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker's +identity. + + "I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled + surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so." + +They did not climb many of the Alps on foot. They did scale the Rigi, +after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later +they conquered Gemmi Pass--no small undertaking--that trail that winds up +and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the +little high-blooming flowers for company. + +All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did +not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but, +whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb +surroundings was the same. + +In Twichell's letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of +that day: + + "Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers. He scrambled + around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest + pleasure in them . . . . 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 + today. His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw." + +And in another place: + + "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 were in a + hurry.'" + +Another extract refers to an incident which Mark Twain also mentions in +"A Tramp Abroad:" [8] + + "Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing so delights him as a + swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once + he is in the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and + sticks seems to afford him rapture." + +Twichell goes on to tell how he threw some driftwood into a racing +torrent and how Mark went running down-stream after it, waving and +shouting in a sort of mad ecstasy. + +When a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam below, he +would jump up and down and yell. He acted just like a boy. + +Boy he was, then and always. Like Peter Pan, he never really grew up +--that is, if growing up means to grow solemn and uninterested in play. + +Climbing the Gorner Grat with Twichell, they sat down to rest, and a lamb +from a near-by flock ventured toward them. Clemens held out his hand and +called softly. The lamb ventured nearer, curious but timid. + +It was a scene for a painter: the great American humorist on one side of +the game, and the 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 Mark's hand, and he was happy all the rest of the +day. + +"In A Tramp Abroad" Mark Twain burlesques most of the walking-tour with +Harris (Twichell), feeling, perhaps, that he must make humor at whatever +cost. But to-day the other side of the picture seems more worth while. +That it seemed so to him, also, even at the time, we may gather from a +letter he sent after Twichell when it was all over and Twichell was on +his way home: + + "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 for 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 time 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 journey and the times when I was not + unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands + first after Livy's." + +Clemens had joined his family at Lausanne, and presently they journeyed +down into Italy, returning later to Germany--to Munich, where they lived +quietly with Fraulein Dahlweiner at No. 1a Karlstrasse, while he worked +on his new book of travel. When spring came they went to Paris, and +later to London, where the usual round of entertainment briefly claimed +them. It was the 3d of September, 1879, when they finally reached New +York. The papers said that Mark Twain had changed in his year and a half +of absence. He had, somehow, taken on a traveled look. One paper +remarked that he looked older than when he went to Germany, and that his +hair had turned quite gray. + +[8] Chapter XXXIII. + + + + +XL. + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" + +They went directly to Quarry Farm, where Clemens again took up work on +his book, which he hoped to have ready for early publication. But his +writing did not go as well as he had hoped, and it was long after they +had returned to Hartford that the book was finally in the printer's +hands. + +Meantime he had renewed work on a story begun two years before at Quarry +Farm. Browsing among the books there one summer day, he happened to pick +up "The Prince and the Page," by Charlotte M. Yonge. It was a story of a +prince disguised as a blind beggar, and, as Mark Twain read, an idea came +to him for an altogether different story, or play, of his own. He would +have a prince and a pauper change places, and through a series of +adventures learn each the trials and burdens of the other life. He +presently gave up the play idea, and began it as a story. His first +intention had been to make the story quite modern, using the late King +Edward VII. (then Prince of Wales) as his prince, but it seemed to him +that it would not do to lose a prince among the slums of modern London +--he could not make it seem real; so he followed back through history until +he came to the little son of Henry VIII., Edward Tudor, and decided that +he would do. + +It was the kind of a story that Mark Twain loved to read and to write. +By the end of that first summer he had finished a good portion of the +exciting adventures of "The Prince and the Pauper," and then, as was +likely to happen, the inspiration waned and the manuscript was laid +aside. + +But with the completion of "A Tramp Abroad"--a task which had grown +wearisome--he turned to the luxury of romance with a glad heart. To +Howells he wrote that he was taking so much pleasure in the writing that +he wanted to make it last. + + "Did I ever tell you the plot of it? It begins at 9 A.M., January + 27, 1547 . . . . 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." + +Susy and Clara Clemens were old enough now to understand the story, and +as he finished the chapters he read them aloud to his small home +audience--a most valuable audience, indeed, for he could judge from its +eager interest, or lack of attention, just the measure of his success. + +These little creatures knew all about the writing of books. Susy's +earliest recollection was "Tom Sawyer" read aloud from the manuscript. +Also they knew about plays. They could not remember a time when they did +not take part in evening charades--a favorite amusement in the Clemens +home. + +Mark Twain, who always loved his home and played with his children, +invented the charades and their parts for them, at first, but as they +grew older they did not need much help. With the Twichell and Warner +children they organized a little company for their productions, and +entertained the assembled households. They did not make any preparation +for their parts. A word was selected and the syllables of it 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 +group marched into the library, performed its syllable, and retired, +leaving the audience of parents to guess the answer. Now and then, even +at this early day, they gave little plays, and of course Mark Twain could +not resist joining them. In time the plays took the place of the +charades and became quite elaborate, with a stage and scenery, but we +shall hear of this later on. + +"The Prince and the Pauper" came to an end in due season, in spite of the +wish of both author and audience for it to go on forever. It was not +published at once, for several reasons, the main one being that "A Tramp +Abroad" had just been issued from the press, and a second book might +interfere with its sale. + +As it was, the "Tramp" proved a successful book--never as successful as +the "Innocents," for neither its humor nor its description had quite the +fresh quality of the earlier work. In the beginning, however, the sales +were large, the advance orders amounting to twenty-five thousand copies, +and the return to the author forty thousand dollars for the first year. + + + + +XLI. + +GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD + +A third little girl came to the Clemens household during the summer of +1880. They were then at Quarry Farm, and Clemens wrote to his friend +Twichell: + + "DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he 'didn't + see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other + frog,' I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty + poor sort of an observer. . . It is curious to note the change in + the stock-quotations of the Affection Board. Four weeks ago the + children put Mama at the head of the list right along, where she has + always been, but now: + + Jean + Mama + Motley }cat + Fraulein }cat + Papa + + "That is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped + from 4 and 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." + +Those were happy days at Quarry Farm. The little new baby thrived on +that summer hilltop. + +Also, it may be said, the cats. Mark Twain's children had inherited +his love for cats, and at the farm were always cats of all ages and +varieties. Many of the bed-time stories were about these pets--stories +invented by Mark Twain as he went along--stories that began anywhere and +ended nowhere, and continued indefinitely from evening to evening, +trailing off into dreamland. + +The great humorist cared less for dogs, though he was never unkind to +them, and once at the farm a gentle hound named Bones won his affection. +When the end of the 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 about him, and +bade him an affectionate good-by. + +Eighteen hundred and eighty was a Presidential year. Mark Twain was for +General Garfield, and made a number of remarkable speeches in his favor. +General Grant came to Hartford during the campaign, and Mark Twain was +chosen to make the address of welcome. Perhaps no such address of +welcome was ever made before. 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 a loss what to say next, and, leaning over, pretended +to whisper to Grant. Then, as if he had been prompted by the great +soldier, he straightened up and poured out a fervid eulogy on Grant's +victories, adding, in an aside, as he finished, "I nearly forgot that +part of my speech," to the roaring delight of his hearers, while Grant +himself grimly smiled. + +He then spoke of the General being now out of public employment, and how +grateful his country was to him, and how it stood ready to reward him in +every conceivable--inexpensive--way. + +Grant had smiled more than once during the speech, and when this sentence +came out at the end his composure broke up altogether, while the throng +shouted approval. Clemens made another speech that night at the +opera-house--a speech long remembered in Hartford as one of the great +efforts of his life. + +A very warm friendship had grown up between Mark Twain and General Grant. +A year earlier, on the famous soldier's return from his trip around the +world, a great birthday banquet had been given him in Chicago, at which +Mark Twain's speech had been the event of the evening. The colonel who +long before had chased the young pilot-soldier through the Mississippi +bottoms had become his conquering hero, and Grant's admiration for +America's foremost humorist was most hearty. Now and again Clemens urged +General Grant to write his memoirs for publication, but the hero of many +battles was afraid to venture into the field of letters. He had no +confidence in his ability to write. He did not realize that the man who +had written "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," +and, later, "Let us have peace," was capable of English as terse and +forceful as the Latin of Caesar's Commentaries. + + + + +XLII + +MANY INVESTMENTS + +The "Prince and the Pauper," delayed for one reason and another, did not +make its public appearance until the end of 1881. It was issued by +Osgood, of Boston, and was a different book in every way from any that +Mark Twain had published before. Mrs. Clemens, who loved the story, had +insisted that no expense should be spared in its making, and it was, +indeed, a handsome volume. It was filled with beautiful pen-and-ink +drawings, and the binding was rich. The dedication to its two earliest +critics read: + + "To those good-mannered and agreeable + children, Susy and Clara Clemens." + +The story itself was unlike anything in Mark Twain's former work. It was +pure romance, a beautiful, idyllic tale, though not without his touch of +humor and humanity on every page. And how breathlessly interesting it +is! We may imagine that first little audience--the "two good-mannered +and agreeable children," drawing up in their little chairs by the +fireside, hanging on every paragraph of the adventures of the wandering +prince and Tom Canty, the pauper king, eager always for more. + +The story, at first, was not entirely understood by the reviewers. They +did not believe it could be serious. They expected a joke in it +somewhere. Some even thought they had found it. But it was not a joke, +it was just a simple tale--a beautiful picture of a long-vanished time. +One critic, wiser than the rest, said: + + "The characters of those two boys, twin in spirit, will rank with the + purest and loveliest creations of child-life in the realm of + fiction." + +Mark Twain was now approaching the fullness of his fame and prosperity. +The income from his writing was large; Mrs. Clemens possessed a +considerable fortune of her own; they had no debts. Their home was as +perfectly appointed as a home could well be, their family life was ideal. +They lived in the large, hospitable way which Mrs. Clemens had known in +her youth, and which her husband, with his Southern temperament, loved. +Their friends were of the world's chosen, and they were legion in number. +There were always guests in the Clemens home--so many, indeed, were +constantly coming and going that Mark Twain said he was going to set up a +private 'bus to save carriage hire. Yet he loved it all dearly, and for +the most part realized his happiness. + +Unfortunately, there were moments when he forgot that his lot was +satisfactory, and tried to improve it. His Colonel Sellers imagination, +inherited from both sides of his family, led him into financial +adventures which were generally unprofitable. There were no silver-mines +in the East into which to empty money and effort, as in the old Nevada +days, but there were plenty of other things--inventions, stock companies, +and the like. + +When a man came along with a patent steam-generator which would save +ninety per cent. of the usual coal-supply, Mark Twain invested whatever +bank surplus he had at the moment, and saw that money no more forever. + +After the steam-generator came a steam-pulley, a small affair, but +powerful enough to relieve him of thirty-two thousand dollars in a brief +time. + +A new method of marine telegraphy was offered him by the time his balance +had grown again, a promising contrivance, but it failed to return the +twenty-five thousand dollars invested in it by Mark Twain. The list of +such adventures is too long to set down here. They differ somewhat, but +there is one feature common to all--none of them paid. At last came a +chance in which there was really a fortune. A certain Alexander Graham +Bell, an inventor, one day appeared, offering stock in an invention for +carrying the human voice on an electric wire. But Mark Twain had grown +wise, he thought. Long after he wrote: + + "I declined. I said I did not want any more to do with wildcat + speculation .... I said I didn't want it at any price. He (Bell) + became eager; and insisted 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 a burnt child, and resisted all these temptations--resisted + them easily; went off with my money, and next day lent five thousand + of it to a friend who was going to go bankrupt three days later." + +It was the chance of fortune thus thrown away which, perhaps, led him to +take up later with an engraving process--an adventure which lasted +through several years and ate up a heavy sum. Altogether, these +experiences in finance cost Mark Twain a fair-sized fortune, though, +after all, they were as nothing compared with the great type-machine +calamity which we shall hear of in a later chapter. + + + + +XLIII + +BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY + +Fortunately, Mark Twain was not greatly upset by his losses. They +exasperated him for the moment, perhaps, but his violence waned +presently, and the whole matter was put aside forever. His work went on +with slight interference. Looking over his Mississippi chapters one day, +he was taken with a new interest in the river, and decided to make the +steamboat trip between St. Louis and New Orleans, to report the changes +that had taken place in his twenty-one years of absence. His Boston +publisher, Osgood, agreed to accompany him, and a stenographer was +engaged to take down conversations and comments. + +At St. Louis they took passage on the steamer "Gold Dust"--Clemens under +an assumed name, though he was promptly identified. In his book he tells +how the pilot recognized him and how they became friends. Once, in later +years, he said: + + "I spent most of my time up there with him. When we got down below + Cairo, where there was a big, full river--for it was high-water + 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." + +To heighten the illusion he had himself called regularly with the +four-o'clock watch, in order not to miss the mornings. The points along +the river were nearly all new to him, everything had changed, but during +high-water this mattered little. He was a pilot again--a young fellow in +his twenties, speculating on the problems of existence and reading his +fortunes in the stars. The river had lost none of its charm for him. To +Bixby he wrote: + + "I'd rather be a pilot than anything else I've ever been in my life. + How do you run Plum Point?" + +He met Bixby at New Orleans. Bixby was a captain now, on the splendid +new Anchor Line steamer "City of Baton Rouge," one of the last of the +fine river boats. Clemens made the return trip to St. Louis with Bixby +on the "Baton Rouge"--almost exactly twenty-five years from their first +trip together. To Bixby it seemed wonderfully like those old days back +in the fifties. + +"Sam was making notes in his memorandum-book, just as he always did," +said Bixby, long after, to the writer of this history. + +Mark Twain decided to see the river above St. Louis. He went to Hannibal +to spend a few days with old friends. "Delightful days," he wrote home, +"loitering around all day long, and talking with grayheads who were boys +and girls with me thirty or forty years ago." He took boat for St. Paul +and saw the upper river, which he had never seen before. He thought the +scenery beautiful, but he found a sadness everywhere because of the decay +of the river trade. In a note-book entry he said: "The romance of +boating is gone now. In Hannibal the steamboatman is no longer a god." + +He worked at the Mississippi book that summer at the farm, but did not +get on very well, and it was not until the following year (1883) that it +came from the press. Osgood published it, and Charles L. Webster, who +had married Mark Twain's niece, Annie (daughter of his sister Pamela), +looked after the agency sales. Mark Twain, in fact, was preparing to +become his own publisher, and this was the beginning. Webster was a man +of ability, and the book sold well. + +"Life on the Mississippi" is one of Mark Twain's best books--one of those +which will live longest. The first twenty chapters are not excelled in +quality anywhere in his writings. The remainder of the book has an +interest of its own, but it lacks the charm of those memories of his +youth--the mellow light of other days which enhances all of his better +work. + + + + +XLIV. + +A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE + +Every little while Mark Twain had a fever of play-writing, and it was +about this time that he collaborated with W. D. Howells on a second +Colonel Sellers play. It was a lively combination. + +Once to the writer Howells said: "Clemens took one scene and I another. +We had loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it +as we went along. We thought it mighty good, and I think to this day it +was mighty good." + +But actors and managers did not agree with them. Raymond, who had played +the original Sellers, declared that in this play the Colonel had not +become merely a visionary, but a lunatic. The play was offered +elsewhere, and finally Mark Twain produced it at his own expense. But +perhaps the public agreed with Raymond, for the venture did not pay. + +It was about a year after this (the winter of 1884-5) that Mark Twain +went back to the lecture platform--or rather, he joined with George W. +Cable in a reading-tour. Cable had been giving readings on his own +account from his wonderful Creole stories, and had visited Mark Twain in +Hartford. While there he had been taken down with the mumps, and it was +during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading-tour had +been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the +autumn. + +Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark +Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April-fool--a great complimentary +joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a "private and +confidential" circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and +fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and +elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1, +requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this +letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st an +immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not +know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke, +slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs +ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the +nature and magnitude of the joke, he entered into it fully-delighted, of +course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked +for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit +down and copy a few chapters from "The Innocents Abroad." Others asked +that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he +copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "Night Thoughts," etc., and +added: + + "I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and + it will add considerable commercial value to have it in your + handwriting." + +Altogether, the reading of the letters gave Mark Twain a delightful day. + +The platform tour of Clemens and Cable that fall was a success. They had +good houses, and the work of these two favorites read by the authors of +it made a fascinating program. + +They continued their tour westward as far as Chicago and gave readings in +Hannibal and Keokuk. Orion Clemens and his wife once more lived in +Keokuk, and with them Jane Clemens, brisk and active for her eighty-one +years. She had visited Hartford more than once and enjoyed "Sam's fine +house," but she chose the West for home. Orion Clemens, honest, earnest, +and industrious, had somehow missed success in life. The more prosperous +brother, however, made an allowance ample for all. Mark Twain's mother +attended the Keokuk reading. Later, at home, when her children asked her +if she could still dance (she had been a great dancer in her youth), she +rose, and in spite of her fourscore, tripped as lightly as a girl. It +was the last time that Mark Twain would see her in full health. + +At Christmas-time Cable and Clemens took a fortnight's holiday, and +Clemens went home to Hartford. There a grand surprise awaited him. Mrs. +Clemens had made an adaptation of "The Prince and the Pauper" for the +stage, and his children, with those of the neighborhood, had learned the +parts. A good stage had been set up in George Warner's home, with a +pretty drop-curtain and very good scenery indeed. Clemens arrived in the +late afternoon, and felt an air of mystery in the house, but did not +guess what it meant. By and by he was led across the grounds to George +Warner's home, into a large room, and placed in a seat directly fronting +the stage. Then presently the curtain went up, the play began, and he +knew. As he watched the little performers playing so eagerly the parts +of his story, he was deeply moved and gratified. + +It was only the beginning of "The Prince and the Pauper" production. The +play was soon repeated, Clemens himself taking the part of Miles Hendon. +In a "biography" of her father which Susy began a little later, she +wrote: + + "Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all + sure he could do it . . . . I was the prince, and Papa and I + rehearsed 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!" + +Susy's sister, Clara, took the part of Lady Jane Gray, while little Jean, +aged four, in the part of a court official, sat at a small table and +constantly signed state papers and death-warrants. + + + + +XLV. + +"THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" + +Meantime, Mark Twain had really become a publisher. His nephew by +marriage, Charles L. Webster, who, with Osgood, had handled the +"Mississippi" book, was now established under the firm name of Charles L. +Webster & Co., Samuel L. Clemens being the company. Clemens had another +book ready, and the new firm were to handle it throughout. + +The new book was a story which Mark Twain had begun one day at Quarry +Farm, nearly eight years before. It was to be a continuation of the +adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, especially of the latter as told +by himself. But the author had no great opinion of the tale and +presently laid it aside. Then some seven years later, after his trip +down the river, he felt again the inspiration of the old days, and the +story of Huck's adventures had been continued and brought to a close. +The author believed in it by this time, and the firm of Webster & Co. +was really formed for the purpose of publishing it. + +Mark Twain took an active interest in the process. From the pages of +"Life" he selected an artist--a young man named E. W. Kemble, who would +later become one of our foremost illustrators of Southern character. He +also gave attention to the selection of the paper and the binding--even +to the method of canvassing for the sales. In a note to Webster, he +wrote: + + "Get at your canvassing early and drive it with all your might . . + . . If we haven't 40,000 subscriptions we simply postpone + publication till we've got them." + +Mark Twain was making himself believe that he was a business man, and in +this instance, at least, he seems to have made no mistake. Some advanced +chapters of "Huck" appeared serially in the "Century Magazine," and the +public was eager for more. By the time the "Century" chapters were +finished the forty thousand advance subscriptions for the book had been +taken, and Huck Finn's own story, so long pushed aside and delayed, came +grandly into its own. Many grown-up readers and most critics declared +that it was greater than the "Tom Sawyer" book, though the younger +readers generally like the first book the best, it being rather more in +the juvenile vein. Huck's story, in fact, was soon causing quite +grown-up discussions--discussions as to its psychology and moral phases, +matters which do not interest small people, who are always on Huck's side +in everything, and quite willing that he should take any risk of body or +soul for the sake of Nigger Jim. 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 for an immortal book! + +As literature, the story of "Huck Finn" holds a higher place than that of +"Tom Sawyer." As stories, they stand side by side, neither complete +without the other, and both certain to live as long as there are real +boys and girls to read them. + + + + +XLVI. + +PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT + +Mark Twain was now a successful publisher, but his success thus far was +nothing to what lay just ahead. One evening he learned that General +Grant, after heavy financial disaster, had begun writing the memoirs +which he (Clemens) had urged him to undertake some years before. Next +morning he called on the General to learn the particulars. Grant had +contributed some articles to the "Century" war series, and felt in a mood +to continue the work. He had discussed with the "Century" publishers the +matter of a book. Clemens suggested that such a book should be sold only +by subscription and prophesied its enormous success. General Grant was +less sure. His need of money was very great and he was anxious to get as +much return as possible, but his faith was not large. He was inclined to +make no special efforts in the matter of publication. But Mark Twain +prevailed. Like his own Colonel Sellers, he talked glowingly and +eloquently of millions. He first offered to direct the general to his +own former subscription publisher, at Hartford, then finally proposed to +publish it himself, offering Grant seventy per cent. of the net returns, +and to pay all office expenses out of his own share. + +Of course there could be nothing for any publisher in such an arrangement +unless the sales were enormous. General Grant realized this, and at +first refused to consent. Here was a friend offering to bankrupt himself +out of pure philanthropy, a thing he could not permit. But Mark Twain +came again and again, and finally persuaded him that purely as business +proposition the offer was warranted by the certainty of great sales. + +So the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. undertook the Grant book, and the +old soldier, broken in health and fortune, was liberally provided with +means that would enable him to finish his task with his mind at peace. +He devoted himself steadily to the work--at first writing by hand, then +dictating to a stenographer that Webster & Co. provided. His disease, +cancer, made fierce ravages, but he "fought it out on that line," and +wrote the last pages of his memoirs by hand when he could no longer speak +aloud. Mark Twain was much with him, and cheered him with anecdotes and +news of the advance sale of his book. In one of his memoranda of that +time Clemens wrote: + + "To-day (May 26) 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 d-- with his future + publisher." + +At Mount McGregor, a few weeks before the end, General Grant asked if any +estimate could now be made of the sum which his family would obtain from +his work, and was deeply comforted by Clemens's prompt reply that more +than one hundred thousand sets had already been sold, the author's share +of which would exceed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clemens +added that the gross return would probably be twice as much more. + +The last notes came from Grant's hands soon after that, and a few days +later, July 23, 1885, his task completed, he died. 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." + +In a memorandum estimate made by Mark Twain soon after the canvass for +the Grant memoirs had begun, he had prophesied that three hundred +thousand sets of the book would be sold, and that he would pay General +Grant in royalties $420,000. This prophecy was more than fulfilled. The +first check paid to Mrs. Grant--the largest single royalty check in +history--was for $200,000. Later payments brought her royalty return up +to nearly $450.000. For once, at least, Mark Twain's business vision had +been clear. A fortune had been realized for the Grant family. Even his +own share was considerable, for out of that great sale more than a +hundred thousand dollars' profit was realized by Webster & Co. + + + + +XLVII + +THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE + +That summer at Quarry Farm was one of the happiest they had ever known. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty, was in the fullness of his manhood and in the +brightest hour of his fortune. Susy, in her childish "biography," begun +at this time, gives us a picture of him. She begins: + + "We are a 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, gray 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, is an extraordinarily fine-looking man." + + "He is a very good man, and a very funny one; he has got a temper, + but we all have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw, + or ever hope to see, and oh, so absent-minded!" + +We may believe this is a true picture of Mark Twain at fifty. He did not +look young for his years, but he was still young in spirit and body. +Susy tells how he blew bubbles for the children, filling them with +tobacco smoke. Also, how he would play with the cats and come clear down +from his study to see how a certain kitten was getting along. + +Susy adds that "there are eleven cats at the farm now," and tells of the +day's occupations, but the description is too long to quote. It reveals +a beautiful, busy life. + +Susy herself was a gentle, thoughtful, romantic child. One afternoon she +discovered a wonderful tangle of vines and bushes, a still, shut-in +corner not far from the study. She ran breathlessly to her aunt. + +"Can I have it--can Clara and I have it all for our own?" + +The petition was granted and the place was called Helen's Bower, for they +were reading "Thaddeus of Warsaw", and the name appealed to Susy's poetic +fancy. Something happened to the "bower"--an unromantic workman mowed it +down--but by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens +had built, just for the children. It was a complete little cottage, when +furnished. There was a porch in front, with comfortable chairs. Inside +were also chairs, a table, dishes, shelves, a broom, even a stove--small, +but practical. They called the little house "Ellerslie," out of Grace +Aguilar's "Days of Robert Bruce." There alone, or with their Langdon +cousins, how many happy summers they played and dreamed away. Secluded +by a hillside and happy trees, overlooking the hazy, distant town, it was +a world apart--a corner of story-book land. When the end of the summer +came its little owners went about bidding their treasures good-by, +closing and kissing the gates of Ellerslie. + +Looking back now, Mark Twain at fifty would seem to have been in his +golden prime. His family was ideal--his surroundings idyllic. Favored +by fortune, beloved by millions, honored now even in the highest places, +what more had life to give? When November 30th brought his birthday, one +of the great Brahmins, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote him a beautiful +poem. Andrew Lang, England's foremost critic, also sent verses, while +letters poured in from all sides. + +And Mark Twain realized his fortune and was disturbed by it. To a friend +he said: "I am frightened at the proportions of my prosperity. It seems +to me that whatever I touch turns to gold." + + + + +XLVIII. + +BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS + +For the time it would seem that Mark Twain had given up authorship for +business. The success of the Grant book had filled his head with plans +for others of a like nature. The memoirs of General McClellan and +General Sheridan were arranged for. Almost any war-book was considered a +good venture. And there was another plan afoot. Pope Leo XIII., in his +old age, had given sanction to the preparation of his memoirs, and it was +to be published, with his blessing, by Webster & Co., of Hartford. It +was generally believed that such a book would have a tremendous sale, and +Colonel Sellers himself could not have piled the figures higher than did +his creator in counting his prospective returns. Every Catholic in the +world must have a copy of the Pope's book, and in America alone there +were millions. Webster went to Rome to consult with the Pope in person, +and was received in private audience. Mark Twain's publishing firm +seemed on the top wave of success. + +The McClellan and Sheridan books were issued, and, in due time, the Life +of Pope Leo XIII.--published simultaneously in six languages--issued from +the press. A large advance sale had been guaranteed by the general +canvassing agents--a fortunate thing, as it proved. For, strange as it +may seem, the book did not prove a great success. It is hard to explain +just why. Perhaps Catholics felt that there had been so many popes that +the life of any particular one was no great matter. The book paid, but +not largely. The McClellan and Sheridan books, likewise, were only +partially successful. Perhaps the public was getting tired of war +memoirs. Webster & Co. undertook books of a general sort--travel, +fiction, poetry. Many of them did not pay. Their business from a march +of triumph had become a battle. They undertook a "Library of American +Literature," a work of many volumes, costly to make and even more so to +sell. To float this venture they were obliged to borrow large sums. + +It seems unfortunate that Mark Twain should have been disturbed by these +distracting things during what should have been his literary high-tide. +As it was, his business interests and cares absorbed the energy that +might otherwise have gone into books. He was not entirely idle. He did +an occasional magazine article or story, and he began a book which he +worked at from time to time the story of a Connecticut Yankee who +suddenly finds himself back in the days of King Arthur's reign. Webster +was eager to publish another book by his great literary partner, but the +work on it went slowly. Then Webster broke down from two years of +overwork, and the business management fell into other hands. Though +still recognized as a great publishing-house, those within the firm of +Charles L. Webster & Co. knew that its prospects were not bright. + +Furthermore, Mark Twain had finally invested in another patent, the +type-setting machine mentioned in a former chapter, and the demands for +cash to promote this venture were heavy. To his sister Pamela, about the +end of 1887, he wrote: "The type-setter goes on forever at $3,000 a +month.... We'll be through with it in three or four months, I reckon" +--a false hope, for the three or four months would lengthen into as +many years. + +But if there were clouds gathering in the business sky, they were not +often allowed to cast a shadow in Mark Twain's home. The beautiful house +in Hartford was a place of welcome and merriment, of many guests and of +happy children. Especially of happy children: during these years--the +latter half of the 'eighties--when Mark Twain's fortunes were on the +decline, his children were at the age to have a good time, and certainly +they had it. The dramatic stage which had been first set up at George +Warner's for the Christmas "Prince and Pauper" performance was brought +over and set up in the Clemens schoolroom, and every Saturday there were +plays or rehearsals, and every little while there would be a grand +general performance in the great library downstairs, which would +accommodate just eighty-four chairs, filled by parents of the performers +and invited guests. In notes dictated many years later, Mark Twain said: + + "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 dear to us, none + but faces that were lit up with welcome for us." + +He was one of the children himself, you see, and therefore on the stage +with the others. Katy Leary, for thirty years in the family service, +once said to the author: "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 have never known a happier household than theirs +was during those years." + +The plays were not all given by the children. Mark Twain had kept up his +German study, and a class met regularly in his home to struggle with the +problems of der, die, and das. By and by he wrote a play for the class, +"Meisterschaft," a picturesque mixture of German and English, which they +gave twice, with great success. It was unlike anything attempted before +or since. No one but Mark Twain could have written it. Later (January, +1888), in modified form, it was published in the "Century Magazine." It +is his best work of this period. + +Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days if one +only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them. +Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he +and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least +one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! "Huck +Finn" was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had +insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his +portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a +complete victim to Huck's story. Once, in a letter, Stevenson 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.'" + +Mark Twain had been a "mugwump" during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in +1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic +candidate, Grover Cleveland. He was, therefore, in high favor at the +White House during both Cleveland administrations, and called there +informally whenever business took him to Washington. But on one occasion +(it was his first visit after the President's marriage) there was to be a +party, and Mrs. Clemens, who could not attend, slipped a little note into +the pocket of his evening waistcoat, where he would be sure to find it +when dressing, warning him as to his deportment. Being presented to +young 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 must know first what it was that he hadn't +done, finally agreeing to sign if he would tell her immediately all about +it, which he promised to do. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. +Clemens's note. It was very brief. It said, "Don't wear your arctics in +the White House." + +Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card mailed immediately +to Mrs. Clemens. + +Absent-mindedness was characteristic of Mark Twain. He lived so much in +the world within that to him the material outer world was often vague and +shadowy. Once when he was knocking the balls about in the billiard-room, +George, the colored butler, a favorite and privileged household +character, brought up a card. So many canvassers came to sell him one +thing and another that Clemens promptly assumed this to be one of them. +George insisted mildly, but firmly, that, though a stranger, the caller +was certainly a gentleman, and Clemens grumblingly descended the stairs. +As he entered the parlor the caller arose and extended his hand. Clemens +took it rather limply, for he had noticed some water-colors and +engravings leaning against the furniture as if for exhibition, and he was +instantly convinced that the caller was a picture-canvasser. Inquiries +by the stranger as to Mrs. Clemens and the children did not change Mark +Twain's conclusion. He was polite, but unresponsive, and gradually +worked the visitor toward the front door. His inquiry as to the home of +Charles Dudley Warner caused him to be shown eagerly in that direction. + +Clemens, on his way back to the billiard-room, heard Mrs. Clemens call +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 nice to him; the B's +were so nice to us, once, in Europe, while 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." + +"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?" + +"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 conversation. 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, and they made things pleasant for us. I wanted to +come over here with him, but I was a good deal occupied just then. Livy +isn't very well, but she seems now 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 these that gentleman left?" + +"Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures! Mrs. Clemens had me set +them around to see how they would look in new places. The gentleman was +only looking at them while he waited for you to come down." + +It was in June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Mark Twain the +degree of Master of Arts. He was proud of the honor, for it was +recognition of a kind that had not come to him before--remarkable +recognition, when we remember how as a child he had hated all schools and +study, having ended his class-room days before he was twelve years old. +He could not go to New Haven at the time, but later in the year made the +students a delightful address. In his capacity of Master of Arts, he +said, he had come down to New Haven to institute certain college reforms. + +By advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I +told the Greek Professor I had concluded to drop the use of the +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. + +He said he had given advice to the mathematical department with about the +same result. The astronomy department he had found in a bad way. He had +decided to transfer the professor to the law department and to put a +law-student in his place. + +A boy will be more biddable, more tractable--also cheaper. It is true he +cannot be entrusted with important work at first, but he can comb the +skies for nebula till he gets his hand in. + +It was hardly the sort of an address that the holder of a college degree +is expected to make, but doctors and students alike welcomed it +hilariously from Mark Twain. + +Not many great things happened to Mark Twain during this long period of +semi-literary inaction, but many interesting ones. When Bill Nye, the +humorist, and James Whitcomb Riley joined themselves in an entertainment +combination, Mark Twain introduced them to their first Boston audience--a +great event to them, and to Boston. Clemens himself gave a reading now +and then, but not for money. Once, when Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston +and Thomas Nelson Page were to give a reading in Baltimore, Page's wife +fell ill, and Colonel Johnston wired to Charles Dudley Warner, asking him +to come in Page's stead. Warner, unable to go, handed the telegram to +Clemens, who promptly answered that he would come. They read to a packed +house, and when the audience had gone and the returns were counted, an +equal amount 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 +Clemens only said: + +"Never mind, Colonel; it only gives me pleasure to do you that little +favor. You can pass it along some day." + + +As a matter of fact, Mark Twain himself was beginning to be hard pressed +for funds at this time, but was strong in the faith that he would +presently be a multi-millionaire. The typesetting machine was still +costing a vast sum, but each week its inventor promised that a few more +weeks or months would see it finished, and then a tide of wealth would +come rolling in. Mark Twain felt that a man with ship-loads of money +almost in port could not properly entertain the public for pay. He read +for institutions, schools, benefits, and the like, without charge. + + + + +XLIX. + +KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" + +One day during the summer of 1889 a notable meeting took place in Elmira. +On a blazing forenoon a rather small and very hot young man, in a slow, +sizzling hack made his way up East Hill to Quarry Faun. He inquired for +Mark Twain, only to be told that he was at the Langdon home, down in the +town which the young man had just left. So he sat for a little time on +the pleasant veranda, and Mrs. Crane and Susy Clemens, who were there, +brought him some cool milk and listened to him talk in a way which seemed +to them very entertaining and wonderful. When he went away he left his +card with a name on it strange to them--strange to the world at that +time. The name was Rudyard Kipling. Also on the card was the address +Allahabad, and Sissy kept it, because, to her, India was fairyland. + +Kipling went down into Elmira and found Mark Twain. In his book +"American Notes" he has left an account of that visit. He claimed that +he had traveled around the world to see Mark Twain, and his article +begins: + + "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!" + +But one should read the article entire--it is so worth while. Clemens +also, long after, dictated an account of the meeting. + +Kipling came down 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. . . When he had 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 all the world, and remained so for twelve +months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. . . +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 made would +be loud and continuous. . . 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 the +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. + +A theatrical production of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by +Mrs. A. S. Richardson, was one of the events of this period. It was a +charming performance, even if not a great financial success, and little +Elsie Leslie, who played the double part of the Prince and Tom Canty, +became a great favorite in the Clemens home. She was also a favorite of +the actor and playwright, William Gillette, [9] and once when Clemens and +Gillette were together they decided to give the little girl a surprise--a +pair of slippers, in fact, embroidered by themselves. In his +presentation letter to her, Mark Twain wrote: + +"Either 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 thought of the other one." + +He apologized for his delay: + +"You see, it was my first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly get the +hang of it, along at first. And then I was so busy I couldn't get a +chance to work at home, and they wouldn't let me embroider on the cars; +they said it made the other passengers afraid. . . 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 . . . . Do not wear these slippers in public, +dear; it would only excite envy; and, as like as not, somebody would try +to shoot you." + +For five years Mark Twain had not published a book. Since the appearance +of "Huck Finn" at the end of 1884 he had given the public only an +occasional magazine story or article. His business struggle and the +type-setter had consumed not only his fortune, but his time and energy. +Now, at last, however, a book was ready. "A Connecticut Yankee in King +Arthur's Court" came from the press of Webster & Co. at the end of 1889, +a handsome book, elaborately and strikingly illustrated by Dan Beard--a +pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my +swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, +though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this +conclusion. + +The story of the "Yankee"--a fanciful narrative of a skilled Yankee +mechanic swept backward through the centuries to the dim day of Arthur +and his Round Table--is often grotesque enough in its humor, but under it +all is Mark Twain's great humanity in fierce and noble protest against +unjust laws, the tyranny of an individual or of a ruling class +--oppression of any sort. As in "The Prince and the Pauper," the wandering +heir to the throne is brought in contact with cruel injustice and misery, +so in the "Yankee" the king himself becomes one of a band of fettered +slaves, and through degradation and horror of soul acquires mercy and +humility. + +The "Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is a splendidly imagined tale. +Edmund Clarence Stedman and William Dean Howells have ranked it very +high. Howells once wrote: "Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction, it +pleases me most." The "Yankee" has not held its place in public favor +with Mark Twain's earlier books, but it is a wonderful tale, and we +cannot afford to leave it unread. + +When the summer came again, Mark Twain and his family decided for once to +forego Quarry Farm for a season in the Catskills, and presently found +themselves located in a cottage at Onteora in the midst of a most +delightful colony. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, then editor of St. Nicholas, +was there, and Mrs. Custer and Brander Matthews and Lawrence Hutton and a +score of other congenial spirits. There was constant visiting from one +cottage to another, with frequent gatherings at the Inn, which was +general headquarters. Susy Clemens, now eighteen, was a central figure, +brilliant, eager, intense, ambitious for achievement--lacking only in +physical strength. She was so flower-like, it seemed always that her +fragile body must be consumed by the flame of her spirit. It was a happy +summer, but it closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in August, to +his mother's bedside. A few weeks later came the end, and Jane Clemens +had closed her long and useful life. She was in her eighty-eighth year. +A little later, at Elmira, followed the death of Mrs. Clemens's mother, a +sweet and gentle woman. + +[9] Gillette was originally a Hartford boy. Mark Twain had recognized +his ability, advanced him funds with which to complete his dramatic +education, and Gillette's first engagement seems to have been with the +Colonel Sellers company. Mark Twain often advanced money in the interest +of education. A young sculptor he sent to Paris for two years' study. +Among others, he paid the way of two colored students through college. + + + + +L. + +THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN + +It was hoped that the profits from the Yankee would provide for all needs +until the great sums which were to come from the type-setter should come +rolling in. The book did yield a large return, but, alas! the hope of +the type-setter, deferred year after year and month after month, never +reached fulfilment. Its inventor, James W. Paige, whom Mark Twain once +called "a poet, a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations +are written in steel," during ten years of persistent experiment had +created one of the most marvelous machines ever constructed. It would +set and distribute type, adjust the spaces, detect flaws--would perform, +in fact, anything that a human being could do, with more exactness and +far more swiftness. Mark Twain, himself a practical printer, seeing it +in its earlier stages of development, and realizing what a fortune must +come from a perfect type-setting machine, was willing to furnish his last +dollar to complete the invention. But there the trouble lay. It could +never be complete. It was too intricate, too much like a human being, +too easy to get out of order, too hard to set right. Paige, fully +confident, always believed he was just on the verge of perfecting some +appliance that would overcome all difficulties, and the machine finally +consisted of twenty thousand minutely exact parts, each of which required +expert workmanship and had to be fitted by hand. Mark Twain once wrote: + + "All other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly + into commonplaces contrasted with this awful, mechanical miracle." + +This was true, and it conveys the secret of its failure. It was too much +of a miracle to be reliable. Sometimes it would run steadily for hours, +but then some part of its delicate mechanism would fail, and days, even +weeks, were required to repair it. It is all too long a story to be +given here. It has been fully told elsewhere.[10] By the end of 1890 +Mark Twain had put in all his available capital, and was heavily in debt. +He had spent one hundred and ninety thousand dollars on the machine, no +penny of which would ever be returned. Outside capital to carry on the +enterprise was promised, but it failed him. Still believing that there +were "millions in it," he realized that for the present, at least, he +could do no more. + +Two things were clear: he must fall back on authorship for revenue, and +he must retrench. In the present low stage of his fortunes he could no +longer afford to live in the Hartford house. He decided to take the +family abroad, where living was cheaper, and where he might be able to +work with fewer distractions. + +He began writing at a great rate articles and stories for the magazines. +He hunted out the old play he had written with Howells long before, and +made a book of it, "The American Claimant." Then, in June, 1891, they +closed the beautiful Hartford house, where for seventeen years they had +found an ideal home; where the children had grown through their sweet, +early life; where the world's wisest had come and gone, pausing a little +to laugh with the world's greatest merrymaker. The furniture was +shrouded, the curtains drawn, the light shut away. + +While the carriage was waiting, Mrs. Clemens went back and took a last +look into each of the rooms, as if bidding a kind of good-by to the past. +Then she entered the carriage, and Patrick McAleer, who had been with +Mark Twain and his wife since their wedding-day, drove them to the +station for the last time. + +Mark Twain had a contract for six newspaper letters at one thousand +dollars each. He was troubled with rheumatism in his arm, and wrote his +first letter from Aix-les-Bains, a watering-place--a "health-factory," as +he called it--and another from Marienbad. They were in Germany in +August, and one day came to Heidelberg, where they occupied their old +apartment of thirteen years before, room forty, in the Schloss Hotel, +with its far prospect of wood and hill, the winding Neckar, and the blue, +distant valley of the Rhine. Then, presently, they came to Switzerland, +to Ouchy-Lausanne, by lovely Lake Geneva, and here Clemens left the +family and, with a guide and a boatman, went drifting down the Rhone in a +curious, flat-bottomed craft, thinking to find material for one or more +articles, possibly for a book. But drifting down that fair river through +still September days, past ancient, drowsy villages, among sloping +vineyards, where grapes were ripening in the tranquil sunlight, was too +restful and soothing for work. In a letter home, he wrote: + + "It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the awning + these superb, sunshiny days, in peace and quietness. Some of the + curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, but it's so + lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the outside and + sail on. . . I want to do all the rivers of Europe in an open boat + in summer weather." + +One afternoon, about fifteen miles below the city of Valence, he made a +discovery. Dreamily observing the eastward horizon, he noticed that a +distant blue mountain presented a striking profile outline of Napoleon +Bonaparte. It seemed really a great natural wonder, and he stopped that +night at the village just below, Beauchastel, a hoary huddle of houses +with the roofs all run together, and took a room at the little hotel, +with a window looking to the eastward, from which, next morning, he saw +the profile of the great stone face, wonderfully outlined against the +sunrise. He was excited over his discovery, and made a descriptive note +of it and an outline sketch. Then, drifting farther down the river, he +characteristically forgot all about it and did not remember it again for +ten years, by which time he had forgotten the point on the river where +the Napoleon could be seen, forgotten even that he had made a note and +sketch giving full details. He wished the Napoleon to be found again, +believing, as he declared, that it would become one of the natural +wonders of the world. To travelers going to France he attempted to +describe it, and some of these tried to find it; but, as he located it +too far down the Rhone, no one reported success, and in time he spoke of +his discovery as the "Lost Napoleon." It was not until after Mark +Twain's death that it was rediscovered, and then by the writer of this +memoir, who, having Mark Twain's note-book,[11] with its exact memoranda, +on another September day, motoring up the Rhone, located the blue profile +of the reclining Napoleon opposite the gray village of Beauchastel. It +is a really remarkable effigy, and deserves to be visited. + +Clemens finished his trip at Arles--a beautiful trip from beginning to +end, but without literary result. When he undertook to write of it, he +found that it lacked incident, and, what was worse, it lacked humor. To +undertake to create both was too much. After a few chapters he put the +manuscript aside, unfinished, and so it remains to this day. + +The Clemens family spent the winter in Berlin, a gay winter, with Mark +Twain as one of the distinguished figures of the German capital. He was +received everywhere and made much of. Once a small, choice dinner was +given him by Kaiser William II., and, later, a breakfast by the Empress. +His books were great favorites in the German royal family. The Kaiser +particularly enjoyed the "Mississippi" book, while the essay on "The +Awful German Language," in the "Tramp Abroad," he pronounced one of the +finest pieces of humor ever written. Mark Twain's books were favorites, +in fact, throughout Germany. The door-man in his hotel had them all in +his little room, and, discovering one day that their guest, Samuel L. +Clemens, and Mark Twain were one, he nearly exploded with excitement. +Dragging the author to his small room, he pointed to the shelf: + +"There," he said, "you wrote them! I've found it out. Ach! I did not +know it before, and I ask a million pardons." + +Affairs were not going well in America, and in June Clemens made a trip +over to see what could be done. Probably he did very little, and he was +back presently at Nauheim, a watering-place, where he was able to work +rather quietly. He began two stories--one of them, "The Extraordinary +Twins," which was the first form of "Pudd'nhead Wilson;" the other, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," for "St. Nicholas." Twichell came to Nauheim during the +summer, and one day he and Clemens ran over to Homburg, not far away. +The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII.) was there, and Clemens and +Twichell, walking in the park, met the Prince with the British +ambassador, and were presented. Twichell, in an account of the meeting, +said: + + "The meeting between the Prince and Mark 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 soldier-like; Clemens weaving along in his + curious, swinging gait, in full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun + umbrella of the most scandalous description." + +At Villa Viviani, an old, old mansion outside of Florence, on the hill +toward Settignano, Mark Twain finished "Tom Sawyer Abroad," also +"Pudd'nhead Wilson", and wrote the first half of a book that really had +its beginning on the day when, an apprentice-boy in Hannibal, he had +found a stray leaf from the pathetic story of "Joan of Arc." All his +life she had been his idol, and he had meant some day to write of her. +Now, in this weather-stained old palace, looking down on Florence, +medieval and hazy, and across to the villa-dotted hills, he began one of +the most beautiful stories ever written, "The Personal Recollections of +Joan of Arc." He wrote in the first person, assuming the character of +Joan's secretary, Sieur Louis de Conte, who in his old age is telling the +great tale of the Maid of Orleans. It was Mark Twain's purpose, this +time, to publish anonymously. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, and +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 else I have ever undertaken. I shall write + it anonymously." + +So it was that the gentle Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and the tale of +Joan was begun in the ancient garden of Viviani, a setting appropriate to +its lovely form. + +He wrote rapidly when once his plan was perfected and his material +arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood was now recalled, not +merely as reading, but as remembered reality. It was as if he were truly +the old Sieur de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out the tender, +tragic tale. In six weeks he had written one hundred thousand words +--remarkable progress at any time, the more so when we consider that some +of the authorities he consulted were in a foreign tongue. He had always +more or less kept up his study of French, begun so long ago on the river, +and it stood him now in good stead. Still, it was never easy for him, +and the multitude of notes that still exist along the margin of his +French authorities show the magnitude of his work. Others of the family +went down into the city almost daily, but he stayed in the still garden +with Joan. Florence and its suburbs were full of delightful people, some +of them old friends. There were luncheons, dinners, teas, dances, and +the like always in progress, but he resisted most of these things, +preferring to remain the quaint old Sieur de Conte, following again the +banner of the Maid of Orleans marshaling her twilight armies across his +illumined page. + +But the next spring, March, 1893, he was obliged to put aside the +manuscript and hurry to America again, fruitlessly, of course, for a +financial stress was on the land; the business of Webster & Co. was on +the down-grade--nothing could save it. There was new hope in the old +type-setting machine, but his faith in the resurrection was not strong. +The strain of his affairs was telling on him. The business owed a great +sum, with no prospect of relief. Back in Europe again, Mark Twain wrote +F. D. Hall, his business manager in New York: + + "I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition + unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a + volcano. Get me out of business." + +Tantalizing letters continued to come, holding out hope in the business +--the machine--in any straw that promised a little support through the +financial storm. Again he wrote Hall: + + "Great Scott, but it's a long year for you and me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. . . I watch for your letters hungrily--just + as I used to watch for the telegram saying the machine was 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 fair way to + find out." + +They closed Viviani in June and returned to Germany. By the end of +August Clemens could stand no longer the strain of his American affairs, +and, leaving the family at some German baths, he once more sailed for New +York. + +[11] At Mark Twain's death his various literary effects passed into the +hands of his biographer and literary executor, the present writer. + + + + +LI. + +THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW + +In a room at the Players Club--"a cheap room," he wrote home, "at $1.50 +per day"--Mark Twain spent the winter, hoping against hope to weather the +financial storm. His fortunes were at a lower ebb than ever before; +lower even than during those bleak mining days among the Esmeralda hills. +Then there had been no one but himself, and he was young. Now, at +fifty-eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed +down by debt. The liabilities of his firm were fully two hundred thousand +dollars--sixty thousand of which were owing to Mrs. Clemens for money +advanced--but the large remaining sum was due to banks, printers, +binders, and the manufacturers of paper. A panic was on the land and +there was no business. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He spent +most of his days in his room, trying to write, and succeeded in finishing +several magazine articles. Outwardly cheerful, he hid the bitterness of +his situation. + +A few, however, knew the true state of his affairs. One of these one +night introduced him to Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil millionaire. + +"Mr. Clemens," said Mr. Rogers, "I was one of your early admirers. I +heard you lecture a long time ago, on the Sandwich Islands." + +They sat down at a table, and Mark Twain told amusing stories. Rogers +was in a perpetual gale of laughter. They became friends from that +evening, and in due time the author had confessed to the financier all +his business worries. + +"You had better let me look into things a little," Rogers said, and he +advised Clemens to "stop walking the floor." + +It was characteristic of Mark Twain to be willing to unload his affairs +upon any one that he thought able to bear the burden. He became a new +man overnight. With Henry Rogers in charge, life was once more worth +while. He accepted invitations from the Rogers family and from many +others, and was presently so gay, so widely sought, and seen in so many +places that one of his acquaintances, "Jamie" Dodge, dubbed him the +"Belle of New York." + +Henry Rogers, meanwhile, was "looking into things." He had reasonable +faith in the type-machine, and advanced a large sum on the chance of its +proving a success. This, of course, lifted Mark Twain quite into the +clouds. Daily he wrote and cabled all sorts of glowing hopes to his +family, then in Paris. 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!" + +Once he cabled, "Expect good news in ten days"; and a little later, "Look +out for good news"; and in a few days, "Nearing success." + +Those Sellers-like messages could not but appeal, Mrs. Clemens's sense of +humor, even in those dark days. To her sister she wrote, "They make me +laugh, for they are so like my beloved Colonel." + +The affairs of Webster & Co. Mr. Rogers found a bad way. When, at last, +in April, 1894, the crisis came--a demand by the chief creditors for +payment--he advised immediate assignment as the only course. + +So the firm of Webster & Co. closed its doors. The business which less +than ten years before had begun so prosperously had ended in failure. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty-nine, was bankrupt. When all the firm's +effects had been sold and applied on the counts, he was still more than +seventy thousand dollars in debt. Friends stepped in and offered to lend +him money, but he declined these offers. Through Mr. Rogers a basis of +settlement at fifty cents on the dollar was arranged, and Mark Twain +said, "Give me time, and I will pay the other fifty." + +No one but his wife and Mr. Rogers, however, believed that at his age he +would be able to make good the promise. Many advised him not to attempt +it, but to settle once and for all on the legal basis as arranged. +Sometimes, in moments of despondency, he almost surrendered. Once he +said: + +"I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it." + +But these were only the hard moments. For the most part he kept up good +heart and confidence. It is true that he now believed again in the +future of the type-setter, and that returns from it would pay him out of +bankruptcy. But later in the year this final hope was taken away. Mr. +Rogers wrote to him that in the final test the machine had failed to +prove itself practical and that the whole project had been finally and +permanently abandoned. The shock of disappointment was heavy for the +moment, but then it was over--completely over--for that old mechanical +demon, that vampire of invention that had sapped his fortune so long, was +laid at last. The worst had happened; there was nothing more to dread. +Within a week Mark Twain (he was now back in Paris with the family) had +settled down to work once more on the "Recollections of Joan," and all +mention and memory of the type-setter was forever put away. The machine +stands to-day in the Sibley College of Engineering, where it is exhibited +as the costliest piece of mechanism for its size ever constructed. Mark +Twain once received a letter from an author who had written a book 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 book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me + nine editions. Send them by express. + + "Very truly yours, + + "S. L. CLEMENS." + +Those were economical days. There was no income except from the old +books, and at the time this was not large. The Clemens family, however, +was cheerful, and Mark Twain was once more in splendid working form. The +story of Joan hurried to its tragic conclusion. Each night he read to +the family what he had written that day, and Susy, who was easily moved, +would say, "Wait--wait till I get my handkerchief," and one night when +the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene at Rouen +had been depicted, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc was +burned at the stake!" Meaning that the book was finished. + +Susy herself had fine literary taste, and might have written had not her +greater purpose been to sing. There are fragments of her writing that +show the true literary touch. Both Susy and her father cared more for +Joan than for any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers Clemens wrote, +"Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was mitten for +love." It was placed serially with "Harper's Magazine" and appeared +anonymously, but the public soon identified the inimitable touch of Mark +Twain. + +It was now the spring of 1895, and Mark Twain had decided upon a new plan +to restore his fortunes. Platform work had always paid him well, and +though he disliked it now more than ever, he had resolved upon something +unheard of in that line--nothing less, in fact, than a platform tour +around the world. In May, with the family, he sailed for America, and +after a month or two of rest at Quarry Farm he set out with Mrs. Clemens +and Clara and with his American agent, J. B. Pond, for the Pacific coast. +Susy and Jean remained behind with their aunt at the farm. The travelers +left Elmira at night, and they always remembered the picture of Susy, +standing under the electric light of the railway platform, waving them +good-by. + +Mark Twain's tour of the world was a success from the beginning. +Everywhere he was received with splendid honors--in America, in +Australia, in New Zealand, in India, in Ceylon, in South Africa--wherever +he went his welcome was a grand ovation, his theaters and halls were +never large enough to hold his audiences. With the possible exception of +General Grant's long tour in 1878-9 there had hardly been a more gorgeous +progress than Mark Twain's trip around the world. Everywhere they were +overwhelmed with attention and gifts. We cannot begin to tell the story +of that journey here. In "Following the Equator" the author himself +tells it in his own delightful fashion. + +From time to time along the way Mark Twain forwarded his accumulated +profits to Mr. Rogers to apply against his debts, and by the time they +sailed from South Africa the sum was large enough to encourage him to +believe that, with the royalties to be derived from the book he would +write of his travels, he might be able to pay in full and so face the +world once more a free man. Their long trip--it had lasted a full year +--was nearing its end. They would spend the winter in London--Susy and +Jean were notified to join them there. They would all be reunited again. +The outlook seemed bright once more. + +They reached England the last of July. Susy and Jean, with Katy Leary, +were to arrive on the 12th of August. But the 12th did not bring them +--it brought, instead, a letter. Susy was not well, the letter said; the +sailing had been postponed. The letter added that it was nothing +serious, but her parents cabled at once for later news. Receiving no +satisfactory answer, Mrs. Clemens, full of forebodings, prepared to sail +with Clara for America. Clemens would remain in London to arrange for +the winter residence. A cable came, saying Susy's recovery would be slow +but certain. Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed immediately. In some notes +he once dictated, Mark Twain said: + + "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.'" + +Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that +equaled this one. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a +year since they parted, and now he knew he would never see her again. +The blow had found him alone and among strangers. In that day he could +not even reach out to those upon the ocean, drawing daily nearer to the +heartbreak. + +Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well far a +time at the farm, but then her health had declined. She worked +continuously at her singing lessons and over-tried her strength. Then +she went on a visit to Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, in Hartford; but she +did not rest, working harder than ever at her singing. Finally she was +told that she must consult a physician. The doctor came and prescribed +soothing remedies, and advised that she have the rest and quiet of her +own home. Mrs. Crane came from Elmira, also her uncle Charles Langdon. +But Susy became worse, and a few days later her malady was pronounced +meningitis. This was the 15th of August, the day that her mother and +Clara sailed from England. She was delirious and burning with fever, but +at last sank into unconsciousness. She died three days later, and on the +night that Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived was taken to Elmira for burial. + +They laid her beside the little brother that had died so long before, and +ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia, +written by Robert Richardson: + + 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. + + + + +LII. + +EUROPEAN ECONOMIES + +With Clara and Jean, Mrs. Clemens returned to England, and in a modest +house on Tedworth Square, a secluded corner of London, the stricken +family hid themselves away for the winter. Few, even of their closest +friends, knew of their whereabouts. In time the report was circulated +that Mask Twain, old, sick, and deserted by his family, was living in +poverty, toiling to pay his debts. Through the London publishers a +distant cousin, Dr. James Clemens, of St. Louis, located the house on +Tedworth Square, and wrote, offering assistance. He was invited to call, +and found a quiet place--the life there simple--but not poverty. By and +by there was another report--this time that Mark Twain was dead. A +reporter found his way to Tedworth Square, and, being received by Mark +Twain himself, asked what he should say. + +Clemens regarded him gravely, then, in his slow, nasal drawl, "Say--that +the report of my death--has been grossly--exaggerated, "a remark that a +day later was amusing both hemispheres. He could not help his humor; it +was his natural form of utterance--the medium for conveying fact, +fiction, satire, philosophy. Whatever his depth of despair, the quaint +surprise of speech would come, and it would be so until his last day. + +By November he was at work on his book of travel, which he first thought +of calling "Around the World." He went out not at all that winter, and +the work progressed steadily, and was complete by the following May +(1897). + +Meantime, during his trip around the world, Mark Twain's publishers had +issued two volumes of his work--the "Joan of Arc" book, and another "Tom +Sawyer" book, the latter volume combining two rather short stories, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," published serially in St. Nicholas, and "Tom Sawyer, +Detective." The "Joan of Arc" book, the tenderest and most exquisite of +all Mark Twain's work--a tale told with the deepest sympathy and the +rarest delicacy--was dedicated by the author to his wife, as being the +only piece of his writing which he considered worthy of this honor. He +regarded it as his best book, and this was an opinion that did not +change. Twelve years later--it was on his seventy-third birthday--he +wrote as his final verdict, November 30, 1908: + + "I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; and 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; twelve years of + preparation and two years of writing. The others needed no + preparation and got none. + MARK TWAIN." + +The public at first did not agree with the author's estimate, and the +demand for the book was not large. But the public amended its opinion. +The demand for "Joan" increased with each year until its sales ranked +with the most popular of Mark Twain's books. + +The new stories of Tom and Huck have never been as popular as the earlier +adventures of this pair of heroes. The shorter stories are less +important and perhaps less alive, but they are certainly very readable +tales, and nobody but Mark Twain could have written them. + +Clemens began some new stories when his travel book was out of the way, +but presently with the family was on the way to Switzerland for the +summer. They lived at Weggis, on Lake Lucerne, in the Villa Buhlegg--a +very modest five-franc-a-day pension, for they were economizing and +putting away money for the debts. Mark Twain was not in a mood for work, +and, besides, proofs of the new book "Following the Equator," as it is +now called--were coming steadily. But on the anniversary of Susy's death +(August 18th) he wrote a poem, "In Memoriam," in which he touched a +literary height never before attained. It was published in "Harper's +Magazine," and now appears in his collected works. + +Across from Villa Buhlegg on the lake-front there was a small shaded +inclosure where he loved to sit and look out on the blue water and lofty +mountains, one of which, Rigi, he and Twichell had climbed nineteen years +before. The little retreat is still there, and to-day one of the trees +bears a tablet (in German), "Mark Twain's Rest." + +Autumn found the family in Vienna, located for the winter at the Hotel +Metropole. Mrs. Clemens realized that her daughters must no longer be +deprived of social and artistic advantages. For herself, she longed only +for retirement. + +Vienna is always a gay city, a center of art and culture and splendid +social functions. From the moment of his arrival, Mark Twain and his +family were in the midst of affairs. Their room at the Metropole became +an assembling-place for distinguished members of the several circles that +go to make up the dazzling Viennese life. Mrs. Clemens, to her sister in +America, once wrote: + + "Such funny combinations are here sometimes: one duke, several + counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper + women, etc." + +Mark Twain found himself the literary lion of the Austrian capital. +Every club entertained him and roared with delight at his German +speeches. Wherever he appeared on the streets he was recognized. + +"Let him pass! Don't you see it is Herr Mark Twain!" commanded an +officer to a guard who, in the midst of a great assemblage, had presumed +to bar the way. + + + + +LIII. + +MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS + +Mark Twain wrote much and well during this period, in spite of his social +life. His article "Concerning the Jews" was written that first winter in +Vienna--a fine piece of special pleading; also the greatest of his short +stories--one of the greatest of all short stories--"The Man that +Corrupted Hadleyburg." + +But there were good reasons why he should write better now; his mind was +free of a mighty load--he had paid his debts! + +Soon after his arrival in Vienna he had written to Mr. Rogers: + + "Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. + It totally unfits me for work." + +He had accumulated a large sum for the purpose, and the royalties from +the new book were beginning to roll in. Payment of the debts was begun. +At the end of December he wrote again: + + "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 from pulling it in." + +A few days later he wrote to Howells that he had "turned the corner"; and +again: + + "We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, and + there's no undisputed claim now that we can't cash . . . . I + hope you will never get the like of the load saddled on to you that + was saddled on to me, three years ago. And yet there is such a + solid pleasure in paying the things that I reckon it is worth while + to get into that kind of a hobble, after all. Mrs. Clemens gets + millions of delight out of it, and the children have never uttered + one complaint about the scrimping from the beginning." + +By the end of January, 1898, Clemens had accumulated enough money to make +the final payments to his creditors. At the time of his failure he had +given himself five years to achieve this result. But he had needed less +than four. A report from Mr. Rogers showed that a balance of thirteen +thousand dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were +wiped away. + +Clemens had tried to keep his money affairs out of the newspapers, but +the payment of the final claims could not be concealed, and the press +made the most of it. Head-lines shouted it. Editorials heralded Mark +Twain as a second Walter Scott, because Scott, too, had labored to lift a +great burden of debt. Never had Mark Twain been so beloved by his +fellow-men. + +One might suppose now that he had had enough of invention 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 his debts +were paid he was negotiating with the Austrian inventor Szczepanik for +the American rights in a wonderful carpet-pattern machine, and, +Sellers-like, was planning to organize a company with a capital of fifteen +hundred million dollars to control the carpet-weaving industries of the +world. He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the +Standard Oil to "come in"; but the plan failed to bear the test of Mr. +Rogers's investigation and was heard of no more. + +Samuel Clemens's obligation to Henry Rogers was very great, but it was +not quite the obligation that many supposed it to be. It was often +asserted that the financier lent, even gave, the humorist large sums, and +pointed out opportunities for speculation. No part of this statement is +true. Mr. Rogers neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money, and never +allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He sometimes invested +Mark Twain's own funds for him, but he never bought for him a share of +stock without money in hand to pay for it in full--money belonging to, +and earned by, Clemens himself. + +What Henry Rogers did give to Mark Twain was his priceless counsel and +time--gifts more precious than any mere sum of money--favors that Mark +Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them, and never +ceased to be grateful. He rarely wrote without expressing his gratitude, +and we get the size of Mark Twain's obligation when in one letter we +read: + + "I have abundant peace of mind again--no sense of burden. Work is + become a pleasure--it is not labor any longer." + +He wrote much and well, mainly magazine articles, including some of those +chapters later gathered it his book on "Christian Science." He reveled +like a boy in his new freedom and fortunes, in the lavish honors paid +him, in the rich circumstance of Viennese life. But always just beneath +the surface were unforgetable sorrows. His face in repose was always +sad. Once, after writing to Howells of his successes, he added: + + "All those 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!" + + + + +LIV. + +RETURN AFTER EXILE + +News came to Vienna of the death of Orion Clemens, at the age of +seventy-two. Orion had died as he had lived--a gentle dreamer, always +with a new plan. He had not been sick at all. One morning early he had +seated himself at a table, with pencil and paper, and was putting down +the details of his latest project, when death came--kindly, in the moment +of new hope. He was a generous, upright man, beloved by all who +understood him. + +The Clemenses remained two winters in Vienna, spending the second at the +Hotel Krantz, where their rooms were larger and finer than at the +Metropole, and even more crowded with notabilities. Their salon acquired +the name of the "Second Embassy," and Mark Twain was, in fact, the most +representative American in the Austrian capital. It became the fashion +to consult him on every question of public interest, his comments, +whether serious or otherwise, being always worth printing. When European +disarmament was proposed, Editor William T. Stead, of the "Review of +Reviews," wrote for his opinion. He replied: + + "DEAR MR. STEAD,--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 refused offers of many sorts. He declined ten thousand dollars for a +tobacco endorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough. He +declined ten thousand dollars a year for five years to lend his name as +editor of a humorous periodical. He declined another ten thousand for +ten lectures, and another offer for fifty lectures at the same rates +--that is, one thousand dollars per night. He could get along without +these sums, he said, and still preserve some remnants of his +self-respect. + +It was May, 1899, when Clemens and his family left Vienna. They spent a +summer in Sweden on account of the health of Jean Clemens, and located +in London apartments--30 Wellington Court--for the winter. Then followed +a summer at beautiful Dollis Hill, an old house where Gladstone had often +visited, on a shady hilltop just outside of London. The city had not +quite enclosed the place then, and there were spreading oaks, a pond with +lily-pads, and wide spaces of grassy lawn. The place to-day is converted +into a public garden called Gladstone Park. Writing to Twichell in +mid-summer, Clemens said: + + "I am the only person who is ever in the house in the daytime, but I + am working, and deep in the luxury of it. But there is one + tremendous defect. Levy is all so enchanted with the place and so + in love with it that she doesn't know how she is going to tear + herself away from it." + +However, there was one still greater attraction than Dollis Hill, and +that was America--home. Mark Twain at sixty-five and a free man once +more had decided to return to his native land. They closed Dollis Hill +at the end of September, and October 6, 1900, sailed on the Minnehaha for +New York, bidding good-by, as Mark Twain believed, and hoped, to foreign +travel. Nine days later, to a reporter who greeted him on the ship, he +said: + + "If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I can't + get away again." + + + + +LV. + +A PROPHET AT HOME + +New York tried to outdo Vienna and London in honoring Mark Twain. Every +newspaper was filled with the story of his great fight against debt, and +his triumph. "He had behaved like Walter Scott," writes Howells, "as +millions rejoiced to know who had not known how Walter Scott behaved till +they knew it was like Clemens." Clubs and societies vied with one +another in offering him grand entertainments. Literary and lecture +proposals poured in. He was offered at the rate of a dollar a word for +his writing--he could name his own terms for lectures. + +These sensational offers did not tempt him. He was sick of the platform. +He made a dinner speech here and there--always an event--but he gave no +lectures or readings for profit. His literary work he confined to a few +magazines, and presently concluded an arrangement with "Harper & +Brothers" for whatever he might write, the payment to be twenty (later +thirty) cents per word. He arranged with the same firm for the +publication of all his books, by this time collected in uniform edition. +He wished his affairs to be settled as nearly as might be. His desire +was freedom from care. Also he would have liked a period of quiet and +rest, but that was impossible. He realized that the multitude of honors +tendered him was in a sense a vast compliment which he could not entirely +refuse. Howells writes that Mark Twain's countrymen "kept it up past all +precedent," and in return Mark Twain tried to do his part. "His friends +saw that he was wearing himself out," adds Howells, and certain it is +that he grew thin and pale and had a hacking cough. Once to Richard +Watson Gilder he wrote: + + "In bed with a chest cold and other company. + + "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 that killed himself trying to do all the dining + and speeching? No, old man, no, no! + + "Ever yours, MARK." + +In the various dinner speeches and other utterances made by Mark Twain at +this time, his hearers recognized a new and great seriousness of purpose. +It was not really new, only, perhaps, more emphasized. He still made +them laugh, but he insisted on making them think, too. He preached a new +gospel of patriotism--not the patriotism that means a boisterous cheering +of the Stars and Stripes wherever unfurled, but the patriotism that +proposes to keep the Stars and Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In +one place he said: + + "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." + +He protested against the blind allegiance of monarchies. He was seldom +"with the largest crowd" himself. Writing much of our foreign affairs, +then in a good deal of a muddle, he assailed so fearlessly and fiercely +measures which he held to be unjust that he was caricatured as an armed +knight on a charger and as Huck Finn with a gun. + +But he was not always warlike. One of the speeches he made that winter +was with Col. Henry Watterson, a former Confederate soldier, at a Lincoln +birthday memorial at Carnegie Hall. "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 Clemens household did not go back to Hartford. During their early +years abroad it had been Mrs. Clemens's dream to return and open the +beautiful home, with everything the same as before. The death of Susy +had changed all this. The mother had grown more and more to feel that +she could not bear the sorrow of Susy's absence in the familiar rooms. +After a trip which Clemens himself made to Hartford, he wrote, "I realize +that if we ever enter the house again to live, our hearts will break." + +So they did not go back. Mrs. Clemens had seen it for the last time on +that day when the carriage waited while she went back to take a last look +into the vacant rooms. They had taken a house at 14 West Tenth Street +for the winter, and when summer came they went to a log cabin on +Saranac Lake, which they called "The Lair." Here Mark Twain wrote +"A Double-barreled Detective Story," a not very successful burlesque of +Sherlock Holmes. But most of the time that summer he loafed and rested, +as was his right. Once during the summer he went on a cruise with H. H. +Rogers, Speaker "Tom" Reed, and others on Mr. Rogers's yacht. + + + + +LVI. + +HONORED BY MISSOURI + +The family did not return to New York. They took a beautiful house at +Riverdale on the Hudson--the old Appleton homestead. Here they +established themselves and settled down for American residence. They +would have bought the Appleton place, but the price was beyond their +reach. + +It was in the autumn of 1901 that Mark Twain settled in Riverdale. In +June of the following year he was summoned West to receive the degree of +LL.D. from the university of his native state. He made the journey a +sort of last general visit to old associations and friends. In St. Louis +he saw Horace Bixby, fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five +years before. Clemens said: + + "I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five." + +They went over to the rooms of the pilots' association, where the +river-men gathered in force to celebrate his return. Then he took train +for Hannibal. + +He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins--Mrs. Frazer, and +a widow now--and John Briggs, an old man, and John RoBards, who had worn +the golden curls and the medal for good conduct. They drove him to the +old house on Hill Street, where once he had lived and set type; +photographers were there and photographed him standing at the front door. + +"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 bird-house." He did +not see "Huck"--Torn Blankenship had not lived in Hannibal for many +years. But he was driven to all the familiar haunts--to Lover's Leap, +the cave, and the rest; and Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked +over Holliday's Hill--the "Cardiff Hill" of "Tom Sawyer." It was just +such a day, as the one when they had damaged a cooper shop and so nearly +finished the old negro driver. A good deal more than fifty years had +passed since then, and now here they were once more--Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper--two old men, the hills still fresh and green, the river rippling +in the sun. Looking across to the Illinois shore and 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 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 peaches from old +man Price, and one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with dogs, and +how we made up our minds we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by drove along +the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it and was +taken with a cramp on the return. + +"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 knee struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by a place where a haunted house had stood. They drank from a +well they had always known--from the bucket, as they had always drunk +--talking, always talking, touching with lingering fondness that most +beautiful and safest of all our possessions--the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall renew +our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth a thousand 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." + +Clemens left next day for Columbia, where the university is located. At +each station a crowd had gathered to cheer and wave as the train pulled +in and to offer him flowers. Sometimes he tried to say a few words, but +his voice would not come. This was more than even Tom Sawyer had +dreamed. + +Certainly there is something deeply touching in the recognition of one's +native State; the return of the boy who has set out unknown to battle +with life and who is called back to be crowned is unlike any other +home-coming--more dramatic, more moving. Next day at the university Mark +Twain, summoned before the crowded assembly-hall to receive his degree, +stepped out to the center of the stage and paused. He seemed in doubt as +to whether he should make a speech or only express his thanks for the +honor received. Suddenly and without signal the great audience rose and +stood in silence at his feet. He bowed but he could not speak. Then the +vast assembly began a peculiar chant, spelling out slowly the word +M-i-s-s-o-u-r-i, with a pause between each letter. It was tremendously +impressive. + +Mark Twain was not left in doubt as to what was required of him when the +chant ended. The audience demanded a speech--a speech, and he made them +one--such a speech as no one there would forget to his dying day. + +Back in St. Louis, he attended the rechristening of the St. Louis harbor +boat; it had been previously called the "St. Louis," but it was now to be +called the "Mark Twain." + + + + +LVII. + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +Life which had begun very cheerfully at Riverdale ended sadly enough. In +August, at York Harbor, Maine, Mrs. Clemens's health failed and she was +brought home an invalid, confined almost entirely to her room. She had +been always the life, the center, the mainspring of the household. Now +she must not even be consulted--hardly visited. On her bad days--and +they were many--Clemens, sad and anxious, spent most of his time +lingering about her door, waiting for news, or until he was permitted to +see her for a brief moment. In his memorandum-book of that period he +wrote: + + "Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork--day and night + devotion to the children and me. We did not know how to value it. + We know now." + +And on the margin of a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his triumph over debt, he wrote: + + "Livy never gets her share of those applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share." + +She improved during the winter, but very slowly. Her husband wrote in +his diary: + + "Feb. 2, 1903--Thirty-third wedding anniversary. I was allowed to + see Livy five minutes this morning, in honor of the day." + +Mrs. Clemens had always remembered affectionately their winter in +Florence of ten years before, and she now expressed the feeling that if +she were in Florence again she would be better. The doctors approved, +and it was decided that she should be taken there as soon as she was +strong enough to travel. She had so far improved by June that they +journeyed to Elmira, where in the quiet rest of Quarry Farm her strength +returned somewhat and the hope of her recovery was strong. + +Mark Twain wrote a story that summer in Elmira, in the little octagonal +study, shut in now by trees and overgrown with vines. "A Dog's Tale," a +pathetic plea against vivisection, was the last story written in the +little retreat that had seen the beginning of "Tom Sawyer" twenty-nine +years before. + +There was a feeling that the stay in Europe was this time to be +permanent. On one of the first days of October Clemens wrote in his +note-book: + + "To-day I place flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time, probably + --and read the words, 'Good night, dear heart, good night, + good night.'" + +They sailed on the 24th, by way of Naples and Genoa, and were presently +installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old Italian palace, in an +ancient garden looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the +Chianti hills. It was a beautiful spot, though its aging walls and +cypresses and matted vines gave it a rather mournful look. Mrs. +Clemens's health improved there for a time, in spite of dull, rainy, +depressing weather; so much so that in May, when the warmth and sun came +back, Clemens was driving about the country, seeking a villa that he +might buy for a home. + +On one of these days--it was a Sunday in early June, the 5th--when he had +been out with Jean, and had found a villa which he believed would fill +all their requirements, he came home full of enthusiasm and hope, eager +to tell the patient about the discovery. Certainly she seemed better. A +day or two before she had been wheeled out on the terrace to enjoy the +wonder of early Italian summer. + +He found her bright and cheerful, anxious to hear all their plans for the +new home. He stayed with her alone through the dinner hour, and their +talk was as in the old days. Summoned to go at last, he chided himself +for staying 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 returned them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so full of hope--they were going to be happy again. Long ago he +had been in the habit of singing jubilee songs to the children. He went +upstairs now to the piano and played the chorus and sang "Swing Low, +Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." He stopped then, but Jean, +who had come in, asked him to go on. Mrs. Clemens, from her room, heard +the music and said to Katy Leary: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently. A moment later she asked to be lifted up. +Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, just then coming to say good-night, saw a little group gathered +about her bed, and heard Clara ask: + +"Katy, is it true? Oh, Katy, is it true?" + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + "At a quarter-past nine this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief and the peace of death, after twenty-two months + of unjust and unearned suffering. I first saw her thirty-seven + years ago, and now I have looked upon her face for the last time.... + I was full of remorse for things done and said in these thirty- + four years of married life that have hurt Livy's heart." + +And to Howells a few days later: + + "To-day, treasured in her worn, old testament, I found a dear and + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 12, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired and old; I wish I were with Livy." + +They brought her to America; and from the house, and the rooms, where she +had been made a bride bore her to a grave beside Susy and little Langdon. + + + + +LVIII. + +MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY + +In a small cottage belonging to Richard Watson Gilder, at Tyringham, +Massachusetts, Samuel Clemens and his daughters tried to plan for the +future. Mrs. Clemens had always been the directing force--they were lost +without her. They finally took a house in New York City, No. 21 Fifth +Avenue, at the corner of Ninth Street, installed the familiar +furnishings, and tried once more to establish a home. The house was +handsome within and without--a proper residence for a venerable author +and sage--a suitable setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. + +It lacked soul--comfort that would reach the heart. He added presently a +great Aeolian orchestrelle, with a variety of music for his different +moods. Sometimes he played it himself, though oftener his secretary +played to him. He went out little that winter--seeing only a few old and +intimate friends. His writing, such as it was, was of a serious nature, +protests against oppression and injustice in a variety of forms. Once he +wrote a "War Prayer," supposed to have been made by a mysterious, +white-robed stranger who enters a church during those ceremonies that +precede the marching of the nation's armies to battle. The minister had +prayed for victory, a prayer which the stranger interprets as a petition +that the enemy's country be laid waste, its soldiers be torn by shells, +its people turned out roofless, to wander through their desolated land +in rags and hunger. It was a scathing arraignment of war, a prophecy, +indeed, which to-day has been literally fulfilled. He did not print it, +because then it would have been regarded as sacrilege. + +When summer came again, in a beautiful house at Dublin, New Hampshire, on +the Monadnock slope, he seemed to get back into the old swing of work, +and wrote that pathetic story, "A Horse's Tale." Also "Eve's Diary," +which, under its humor, is filled with tenderness, and he began a wildly +fantastic tale entitled "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes," a +satire in which Gulliver is outdone. He never finished it. He never +could finish it, for it ran off into amazing by-paths that led nowhere, +and the tale was lost. Yet he always meant to get at it again some day +and make order out of chaos. + +Old friends were dying, and Mark Twain grew more and more lonely. "My +section of the procession has but a little way to go," he wrote when the +great English actor Henry Irving died. Charles Henry Webb, his first +publisher, John Hay, Bret Harte, Thomas B. Reed, and, indeed, most of his +earlier associates were gone. When an invitation came from San Francisco +to attend a California reunion he replied that his wandering days were +over and that it was his purpose to sit by the fire for the rest of his +life. And in another letter: + + "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." + +A choice example, by the way, of Mark Twain's best humor, with its +perfectly timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would have +been content to end with the statement, "I could have gone earlier." +Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch--"it was +suggested." + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy. With the 30th of November (1905) he +would complete the scriptural limitation, and the president of his +publishing-house, Col. George Harvey, of Harper's, proposed a great +dinner for him in celebration of his grand maturity. Clemens would have +preferred a small assembly in some snug place, with only his oldest and +closest friends. Colonel Harvey had a different view. He had given a +small, choice dinner to Mark Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday; now it +must be something really worth while--something to outrank any former +literary gathering. In order not to conflict with Thanksgiving holidays, +the 5th of December was selected as the date. On that evening, two +hundred American and English men and women of letters assembled in +Delmonico's great banquet-hall to do honor to their chief. What an +occasion it was! The tables of gay diners and among them Mark Twain, his +snow-white hair a gleaming beacon for every eye. Then, by and by, +presented by William Dean Howells, he rose to speak. Instantly the +brilliant throng was on its feet, a shouting billow of life, the white +handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. It was a supreme moment! +The greatest one of them all hailed by their applause as he scaled the +mountaintop. + +Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that +night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet +that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully +that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under +it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his +habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living +that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed he had +no valuable habits at all. Then, at last, came that unforgetable close: + + "Threescore years and ten! + + "It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: you have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but 'lights out.' You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline, if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + "The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter, through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, 'Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.'" + +The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to +mention the fact later. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest. Mr. Rogers did not speak, +nor the Reverend Twichell, but they sat at his special table. Aldrich +could not be there, but wrote a letter. A group of English authors, +including Alfred Austin, Barrie, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy, +Kipling, Lang, and others, joined in a cable. 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 never a pessimist in his heart. + + + + +LIX. + +MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY + +It was at the beginning of 1906--a little more than a month after the +seventieth-birthday dinner--that the writer of these chapters became +personally associated with Mark Twain. I had met him before, and from +time to time he had returned a kindly word about some book I had written +and inconsiderately sent him, for he had been my literary hero from +childhood. Once, indeed, he had allowed me to use some of his letters in +a biography I was writing of Thomas Nast; he had been always an admirer +of the great cartoonist, and the permission was kindness itself. Before +the seating at the birthday dinner I happened to find myself for a moment +alone with Mark Twain and remembered to thank him in person for the use +of the letters; a day or two later I sent him a copy of the book. I did +not expect to hear from it again. + +It was a little while after this that I was asked to join in a small +private dinner to be given to Mark Twain at the Players, in celebration +of his being made an honorary member of that club--there being at the +time only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. I was in the +Players a day or two before the event, and David Munro, of "The North +American Review," a man whose gentle and kindly nature made him "David" +to all who knew him, greeted me joyfully, his face full of something he +knew I would wish to hear. + +He had been chosen, he said, to propose the Players' dinner to Mark +Twain, and had found him propped up in bed, and beside him a copy of the +Nast book. I suspect now that David's generous heart prompted Mark Twain +to speak of the book, and that his comment had lost nothing in David's +eager retelling. But I was too proud and happy to question any feature +of the precious compliment, and Munro--always most happy in making others +happy--found opportunity to repeat it, and even to improve upon it +--usually in the presence of others--several times during the evening. + +The Players' dinner to Mark Twain was given on the evening of January 3, +19066, and the picture of it still remains clear to me. The guests, +assembled around a single table in the private dining-room, did not +exceed twenty-five in number. Brander Matthews presided, and the +knightly Frank Millet, who would one day go down on the "Titanic," was +there, and Gilder and Munro and David Bispham and Robert Reid, and others +of their kind. It so happened that my seat was nearly facing the guest +of the evening, who by a custom of the Players is placed at the side and +not at the distant end of the long table. Regarding him at leisure, I +saw that he seemed to be in full health. He had an alert, rested look; +his complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the soft +glow of the shaded candles, outlined against the richness of the shadowed +walls, he made a figure of striking beauty. I could not take my eyes +from it, for it stirred in me the farthest memories. I saw the interior +of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West where I had first heard +the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a group had gathered +around the evening lamp to hear read aloud the story of the Innocents on +their Holy Land 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 one had meant to me quite what Mark Twain had meant--in +literature and, indeed, in life. Now here he was just across the table. +It was a fairy-tale come true. + +Genung said: "You should write his life." + +It seemed to me no more than a pleasant remark, but he came back to it +again and again, trying to encourage me with the word that Munro had +brought back concerning the biography of Nast. However, nothing of what +he said had kindled any spark of hope. I put him off by saying that +certainly some one of longer and closer friendship and larger experience +had been selected for the work. Then the speaking began, and the matter +went out of my mind. Later in the evening, when we had left our seats +and were drifting about the table, I found a chance to say a word to our +guest concerning his "Joan of Arc," which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he told me that long-ago incident--the stray leaf from Joan's +life, blown to him by the wind--which had led to his interest in all +literature. Then presently I was with Genung again and he was still +insisting that I write the life of Mark Twain. It may have been his +faithful urging, it may have been the quick sympathy kindled by the name +of "Joan of Arc"; whatever it was, in the instant of bidding good-by to +our guest I was prompted to add: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" And something--to this +day I do not know what--prompted him to answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +Two days later, by appointment with his secretary, I arrived at 21 Fifth +Avenue, and waited in the library to be summoned to his room. A few +moments later I was ascending the long stairs, wondering why I had come +on so useless an errand, trying to think up an excuse for having come at +all. + +He was propped up in bed--a regal bed, from a dismantled Italian palace +--delving through a copy of "Huckleberry Finn," in search of a paragraph +concerning which some unknown correspondent had inquired. He pushed the +cigars toward me, commenting amusingly on this correspondent and on +letter-writing in general. By and by, when there came a lull, I told him +what so many thousands had told him before--what his work had meant to +me, so long ago, and recalled my childish impressions of that large +black-and-gilt book with its wonderful pictures and adventures "The +Innocents Abroad." Very likely he was willing enough to let me change +the subject presently and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro +had brought. I do not remember what was his comment, but I suddenly +found myself saying that out of his encouragement had grown a hope +(though certainly it was less), that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected my errand to end at this point, and his +silence seemed long and ominous. + +He said at last that from time to time he had himself written chapters of +his life, but that he had always tired of the work and put it aside. He +added that he hoped his daughters would one day collect his letters, but +that a biography--a detailed story of a man's life and effort--was +another matter. I think he added one or two other remarks, then all at +once, turning upon me those piercing agate-blue eyes, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser, with a large mirror, at the end of the room. 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; I asked if Tuesday, January 9, would be too soon +to start. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired as to my plan +of work. I suggested bringing a stenographer to make notes of his +life-story as he could recall it, this record to be supplemented by +other material--letters, journals, and what not. He said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer with some one to +prompt me and act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for +my study. My manuscript 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 dictations 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. He got up and showed +me the warm luxury of the study, with its mass of material--disordered, +but priceless. + +I have no distinct recollections of how I came away, but presently, back +at the Players, I was confiding the matter to Charles Harvey Genung, who +said he was not surprised; but I think he was. + + + + +LX. + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +It was true, after all; and on Tuesday morning, January 9, 1906, I was on +hand with a capable stenographer, ready to begin. Clemens, meantime, had +developed a new idea: he would like to add, he said, the new dictations +to his former beginnings, completing an autobiography which was to be +laid away and remain unpublished for a hundred years. He would pay the +stenographer himself, and own the notes, allowing me, of course, free use +of them as material for my book. He did not believe that he could follow +the story of his life in its order of dates, but would find it necessary +to wander around, picking up the thread as memory or fancy prompted. I +could suggest subjects and ask questions. I assented to everything, and +we set to work immediately. + +As on my former visit, he was in bed when we arrived, though clad now in +a rich Persian dressing gown, and propped against great, snowy pillows. +A small table beside him held his pipes, cigars, papers, also a +reading-lamp, the soft light of which brought out his brilliant coloring +and the gleam of his snowy hair. There was daylight, too, but it was dull +winter daylight, from the north, while the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red. + +He began that morning with some memories of the Comstock mine; then he +dropped back to his childhood, closing at last with some comment on +matters quite recent. How delightful it was--his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious habits of his delicate hands, the play +of his features as his fancies and phrases passed through his mind and +were accepted or put aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. Time did +not count. When he finished, at last, we were all amazed to find that +more than two hours 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 +short-hand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table +always an 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, 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. But it was always +fascinating, and I felt myself the most fortunate biographer in the +world, as indeed I was. + +It was not all smooth sailing, however. In the course of time I began to +realize that these marvelous dictated chapters were not altogether +history, but were often partly, or even entirely, imaginary. The creator +of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had been embroidering old incidents or +inventing new ones too long to stick to history now, to be able to +separate the romance in his mind from the reality of the past. Also, his +memory of personal events had become inaccurate. He realized this, and +once said, in his whimsical, gentle way: + + "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." + +Yet it was his constant purpose to stick to fact, and especially did he +make no effort to put himself in a good light. Indeed, 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, and he would improve upon it and pile up +his sins, and sometimes the sins of others, without stint. Certainly the +dictations were precious, for they revealed character as nothing else +could; but as material for history they often failed to stand the test of +the documents in the next room--the letters, notebooks, agreements, and +the like--from which I was gradually rebuilding the structure of the +years. + +In the talks that we usually had when the dictations were ended and the +stenographer had gone I got much that was of great value. It was then +that I usually made those inquiries which we had planned in the +beginning, and his answers, coming quickly and without reflection, gave +imagination less play. Sometimes he would touch some point of special +interest and walk up and down, philosophizing, or commenting upon things +in general, in a manner not always complimentary to humanity and its +progress. + +I seldom asked him a question during the dictation--or interrupted in any +way, though he had asked me to stop him when I found him repeating or +contradicting himself, or misstating some fact known to me. At first I +lacked the courage to point out a mistake at the moment, and cautiously +mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he would be likely to +say: + + "Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a donkey + 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 in 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 was sorry and apologized, and in a moment the sky was +clear again. There was generally a humorous complexion to the +dictations, whatever the subject. Humor was his natural breath of life, +and rarely absent. + +Perhaps I should have said sooner that he smoked continuously during the +dictations. His cigars were of that delicious fragrance which belongs to +domestic tobacco. They were strong and inexpensive, and it was only his +early training that made him prefer them. Admiring friends used to send +him costly, imported cigars, but he rarely touched them, and they were +smoked by visitors. He often smoked a pipe, and preferred it to be old +and violent. Once when he had bought a new, expensive briar-root, he +handed it 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." + + + + +LXI. + +DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. + +Following his birthday dinner, Mark Twain had become once more the "Belle +of New York," and in a larger way than ever before. An editorial in the +"Evening Mail" referred to him as a kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and +Themistocles of the American metropolis, and added: + + "Things have reached a 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." + +He loved the excitement of it, and it no longer seemed to wear upon him. +Scarcely an evening passed that he did not go out to some dinner or +gathering where he had promised to speak. In April, for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Society, he delivered his farewell lecture--the last +lecture, he said, where any one would have to pay to hear him. It was at +Carnegie Hall, and the great place was jammed. As he stood before that +vast, shouting audience, I wondered if he was remembering that night, +forty years before in San Francisco, when his lecture career had begun. +We hoped he might speak of it, but he did not do so. + +In May the dictations were transferred to Dublin, New Hampshire, to the +long veranda of the Upton House, on the Monadnock slope. He wished to +continue our work, he said; so the stenographer and myself were presently +located in the village, and drove out each morning, to sit facing one of +the rarest views in all New England, while he talked of everything and +anything that memory or fancy suggested. We had begun in his bedroom, +but the glorious outside was too compelling. + +The long veranda was ideal. He was generally ready when we arrived, a +luminous figure in white flannels, pacing up and down before a background +of sky and forest, blue lake, and distant hills. When it stormed we +would go inside to a bright fire. The dictation ended, he would ask his +secretary to play the orchestrelle, which at great expense had been +freighted up from New York. In that high situation, the fire and the +music and the stormbeat seemed to lift us very far indeed from reality. +Certain symphonies by Beethoven, an impromptu by Schubert, and a nocturne +by Chopin were the selections he cared for most,[12] though in certain +moods he asked, for the Scotch melodies. + +There was a good deal of social life in Dublin, but, the dictations were +seldom interrupted. He became lonely, now and then, and paid a brief +visit to New York, or to Mr. Rogers in Fairhaven, but he always returned +gladly, for he liked the rest and quiet, and the dictations gave him +employment. A part of his entertainment was a trio of kittens which he +had rented for the summer--rented because then they would not lose +ownership and would find home and protection in the fall. He named the +kittens Sackcloth and Ashes--Sackcloth being a black-and-white kit, and +Ashes a joint name owned by the two others, who were gray and exactly +alike. All summer long these merry little creatures played up and down +the wide veranda, or chased butterflies and grasshoppers down the clover +slope, offering Mark Twain never-ending amusement. He loved to see them +spring into the air after some insect, miss it, tumble back, and quickly +jump up again with a surprised and disappointed expression. + +In spite of his resolve not to print any of his autobiography until he +had been dead a hundred years, he was persuaded during the summer to +allow certain chapters of it to be published in "The North American +Review." With the price received, thirty thousand dollars, he announced +he was going to build himself a country home at Redding, Connecticut, on +land already purchased there, near a small country place of my own. He +wished to have a fixed place to go each summer, he said, and his thought +was to call it "Autobiography House." + +[12] His special favorites were Schubert's Op. 142, part 2, and Chopin's +Op. 37, part 2. + + + + +LXII + +A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS + +With the return to New York I began a period of closer association with +Mark Twain. Up to that time our relations had been chiefly of a literary +nature. They now became personal as well. + +It happened in this way: Mark Twain had never outgrown his love for the +game of billiards, though he had not owned a table since the closing of +the Hartford house, fifteen years before. Mrs. Henry Rogers had proposed +to present him with a table for Christmas, but when he heard of the plan, +boylike, he could not wait, and hinted that if he had the table "right +now" he could begin to use it sooner. So the table came--a handsome +combination affair, suitable to all games--and was set in place. That +morning 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 acknowledged that I had never played more than a few games of pool, and +those very long ago. + +"No matter," he said "the poorer you play the better I shall like it." + +So I remained for luncheon, and when it was over we began the first game +ever played on the "Christmas" table. He taught me a game in which +caroms and pockets both counted, and he gave me heavy odds. He beat me, +but it was a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a closer relation +between us. We played most of the afternoon, and he suggested that I +"come back in the evening and play some more." I did so, and the game +lasted till after midnight. I had beginner's luck--"nigger luck," as he +called it--and it kept him working feverishly to win. Once when I had +made a great fluke--a carom followed by most of the balls falling into +the pockets, he said: + + "When you pick up that cue this table drips at every pore." + +The morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a boy, he was +looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it seemed never to come +quickly enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and he +was inclined to cut the courses short that we might the sooner get +up-stairs for billiards. He did not eat the midday meal himself, but he +would come down and walk about the dining-room, talking steadily that +marvelous, marvelous talk which little by little I trained myself to +remember, though never with complete success. He was only killing time, +and I remember once, when he had been earnestly discussing some deep +question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was ending. + +"Now," he said, "we will proceed to more serious matters--it's your +--shot." + +My game improved with practice, and he reduced my odds. He was willing +to be beaten, but not too often. We kept a record of the games, and he +went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed a balance in his favor. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the game went steadily against +him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks. +Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and +attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying +to render this service. I wished he would not do it. It distressed me +that he should humble himself. I was willing that he should lose his +temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined--his age, his +position, his genius gave him special privileges. Yet I am glad, as I +remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes +the sum of his humanity. Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an +onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor. I +gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only +he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has +passed by. Presently 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." + +It was but natural that friendship should grow under such conditions. +The disparity of our ages and gifts no longer mattered. The pleasant +land of play is a democracy where such things do not count. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. +He invented a new game for the occasion, and added a new rule for it with +almost every shot. It happened that no other member of the family was at +home--ill-health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and a string of callers. He saw no +one but a few intimate friends. + +We were entirely alone for dinner, and I felt the great honor of being +his only guest on such an occasion. On that night, a year before, the +flower of his profession had assembled to do him honor. Once between the +courses, when he rose, as was his habit, 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. + +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening, and at night when +we 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 be playing it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + +LXIII. + +LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN + +I accompanied him on a trip he made to Washington in the interest of +copyright. Speaker "Uncle Joe" Cannon lent us his private room in the +Capitol, and there all one afternoon Mark Twain received Congressmen, and +in an atmosphere blue with cigar-smoke preached the gospel of copyright. +It was a historic trip, and for me an eventful one, for it was on the way +back to New York that Mark Twain suggested that I take up residence in +his home. There was a room going to waste, he said, and I would be +handier for the early and late billiard sessions. I accepted, of course. + +Looking back, 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 bent over it his 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 summon +for him scenes and faces which the others do not see. Sometimes he rose, +pacing the length of the parlors, but oftener he lay among the cushions, +the light flooding his white hair and dress, heightening his brilliant +coloring. He had taken up the fashion of wearing white altogether at +this time. Black, he said, reminded him of his funerals. + +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 he often did, and I see him clearest, his face alive with interest, +presenting some new angle of thought in his vivid, inimitable speech. +These are pictures that will not fade from my memory. How I wish the +marvelous things he said were like them! I preserved as much of them as +I could, and in time trained myself to recall portions of his exact +phrasing. But even so they seemed never quite as he had said them. They +lacked the breath of his personality. His dinner-table talk was likely +to be political, scientific, philosophic. He often discussed aspects of +astronomy, which was a passion with him. I could succeed better with the +billiard-room talk--that was likely to be reminiscent, full of anecdotes. +I kept a pad on the window-sill, and made notes while he was playing. At +one time he told me of his dreams. + +"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. 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 I have is being compelled to +go back to the lecture platform. 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 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 semi-darkness talking +to an empty house." + +He did not return to Dublin the next summer, but took a house at Tuxedo, +nearer New York. I did not go there with him, for in the spring it was +agreed that I should make a pilgrimage to the Mississippi and the Pacific +coast to see those few still remaining who had known Mark Twain in his +youth. John Briggs was alive, also Horace Bixby, "Joe" Goodman, Steve +and Jim Gillis, and there were a few others. + +It was a trip taken none too soon. John Briggs, a gentle-hearted old man +who sat by his fire and through one afternoon told me of the happy days +along the river-front from the cave to Holliday's Hill, did not reach the +end of the year. Horace Bixby, at eighty-one, was still young, and +piloting a government snag-boat. Neither was Joseph Goodman old, by any +means, but Jim Gillis was near his end, and Steve Gillis was an invalid, +who 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." + + + + +LXIV. + +A DEGREE FROM OXFORD + +On my return I found Mark Twain elated: he had been invited to England to +receive the degree of Literary Doctor from the Oxford University. It is +the highest scholastic honorary degree; and to come back, as I had, from +following the early wanderings of the barefoot truant of Hannibal, only +to find him about to be officially knighted by the world's most venerable +institution of learning, seemed rather the most surprising chapter even +of his marvelous fairy-tale. If Tom Sawyer had owned the magic wand, he +hardly could have produced anything as startling as that. + +He sailed on the 8th of June, 1907, exactly forty years from the day he +had sailed on the "Quaker City" to win his greater fame. I did not +accompany him. He took with him a secretary to make notes, and my +affairs held me in America. He was absent six weeks, and no attentions +that England had ever paid him before could compare with her lavish +welcome during this visit. His reception was really national. He was +banqueted by the greatest clubs of London, he was received with special +favor at the King's garden party, he traveled by a royal train, crowds +gathering everywhere to see him pass. At Oxford when he appeared on the +street the name Mark Twain ran up and down like a cry of fire, and the +people came running. When he appeared on the stage at the Sheldonian +Theater to receive his degree, clad in his doctor's robe of scarlet and +gray, there arose a great tumult--the shouting of the undergraduates for +the boy who had been Tom Sawyer and had played with Huckleberry Finn. +The papers next day spoke of his reception as a "cyclone," surpassing any +other welcome, though Rudyard Kipling was one of those who received +degrees on that occasion, and General Booth and Whitelaw Reid, and other +famous men. + +Perhaps the most distinguished social honor paid to Mark Twain at this +time was the dinner given him by the staff of London "Punch," in the +historic "Punch" editorial rooms on Bouverie Street. No other foreigner +had ever been invited to that sacred board, where Thackeray had sat, and +Douglas Jerrold and others of the great departed. "Punch" had already +saluted him with a front-page cartoon, and at this dinner the original +drawing was presented to him by the editor's little daughter, Joy Agnew. + +The Oxford degree, and the splendid homage paid him by England at large, +became, as it were, the crowning episode of Mark Twain's career. I think +he realized this, although he did not speak of it--indeed, he had very +little to say of the whole matter. I telephoned a greeting when I knew +that he had arrived in New York, and was summoned to "come down and play +billiards." I confess I went with a good deal of awe, prepared to sit in +silence and listen to the tale of the returning hero. 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've been inventing a new game." + +That was all. The pageant was over, the curtain was rung down. Business +was resumed at the old stand. + + + + +LXV. + +THE REMOVAL TO REDDING + +There followed another winter during which I was much with Mark Twain, +though a part of it he spent with Mr. Rogers in Bermuda, that pretty +island resort which both men loved. Then came spring again, and June, +and with it Mark Twain's removal to his newly built home, "Stormfield," +at Redding, Connecticut. + +The house had been under construction for a year. He had never seen it +--never even seen the land I had bought for him. He even preferred not to +look at any plans or ideas for decoration. + +"When the house is finished and furnished, and the cat is purring on the +hearth, it will be time enough for me to see it," he had said more than +once. + +He had only specified that the rooms should be large and that the +billiard-room should be red. His billiard-rooms thus far had been of +that color, and their memory was associated in his mind with enjoyment +and comfort. He detested details of preparation, and then, too, he +looked forward to the dramatic surprise of walking into a home that had +been conjured into existence as with a word. + +It was the 18th of June, 1908, that he finally took possession. The +Fifth Avenue house was not dismantled, for it was the plan then to use +Stormfield only as a summer place. The servants, however, with one +exception, had been transferred to Redding, and Mark Twain and I remained +alone, though not lonely, in the city house; playing billiards most of +the time, and being as hilarious as we pleased, for there was nobody to +disturb. I think he hardly mentioned the new home during that time. He +had never seen even a photograph of the place, and I confess I had +moments of anxiety, for I had selected the site and had been more or less +concerned otherwise, though John Howells was wholly responsible for the +building. I did not really worry, for I knew how beautiful and peaceful +it all was. + +The morning of the 18th was bright and sunny and cool. Mark Twain was up +and shaved by six o'clock in order to be in time. The train did not +leave until four in the afternoon, but our last billiards in town must +begin early and suffer no interruption. We were still playing when, +about three, word was brought up that the cab was waiting. Arrived at +the station, a group collected, reporters and others, to speed him to his +new home. Some of the reporters came along. + +The scenery was at its best that day, and he spoke of it approvingly. +The hour and a half required to cover the sixty miles' distance seemed +short. The train porters came to carry out the bags. He drew from his +pocket a great handful of silver. + +"Give them something," he said; "give everybody liberally that does any +service." + +There was a sort of open-air reception in waiting--a varied assemblage of +vehicles festooned with flowers had gathered to offer gallant country +welcome. It was a perfect June evening, still and dream-like; there +seemed a spell of silence on everything. The people did not cheer--they +smiled and waved to the white figure, and he smiled and waved reply, but +there was no noise. It was like a scene in a cinema. + +His carriage led the way on the three-mile drive to the house on the +hilltop, and the floral procession fell in behind. Hillsides were green, +fields were white with daisies, dogwood and laurel shone among the trees. +He was very quiet as we drove along. Once, with gentle humor, looking +out 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." + +The clear-running brooks, a swift-flowing river, a tumbling cascade where +we climbed a hill, all came in for his approval--then we were at the lane +that led to his new home, and the procession behind dropped away. The +carriage ascended still higher, and a view opened across the Saugatuck +Valley, with its nestling village and church-spire and farmhouses, and +beyond them the distant hills. Then came the house--simple in design, +but beautiful--an Italian villa, such as he had known in Florence, +adapted here to American climate and needs. + +At the entrance his domestic staff waited to greet him, and presently he +stepped across the threshold and stood in his own home for the first time +in seventeen years. Nothing was lacking--it was as finished, as +completely furnished, as if he had occupied it a lifetime. No one spoke +immediately, but when his eyes had taken in the harmony of the place, +with its restful, home-like comfort, and followed through the open French +windows to the distant vista of treetops and farmsides and blue hills, +he said, very gently: + + "How beautiful it all is! I did not think it could be as beautiful + as this." And later, when he had seen all of the apartments: "It is + a perfect house--perfect, so far as I can see, in every detail. It + might have been here always." + +There were guests that first evening--a small home dinner-party--and a +little later at the foot of the garden some fireworks were set off by +neighbors inspired by Dan Beard, who had recently located in Redding. +Mark Twain, watching the rockets that announced his arrival, said, +gently: + + "I wonder why they go to so much trouble for me. I never go to any + trouble for anybody." + +The evening closed with billiards, hilarious games, and when at midnight +the cues were set in the rack no one could say that Mark Twain's first +day in his new home had not been a happy one. + + + + +LXVI + +LIFE AT STORMFIELD + +Mark Twain loved Stormfield. Almost immediately he gave up the idea of +going back to New York for the winter, and I think he never entered the +Fifth Avenue house again. The quiet and undisturbed comfort of +Stormfield came to him at the right time of life. His day of being the +"Belle of New York" was over. Now and then he attended some great +dinner, but always under protest. Finally he refused to go at all. He +had much company during that first summer--old friends, and now and again +young people, of whom he was always fond. The billiard-room he called +"the aquarium," and a frieze of Bermuda fishes, in gay prints, ran around +the walls. Each young lady visitor was allowed to select one of these as +her patron fish and attach her name to it. Thus, as a member of the +"aquarium club," she was represented in absence. Of course there were +several cats at Stormfield, and these really owned the premises. The +kittens scampered about the billiard-table after the balls, even when the +game was in progress, giving all sorts of new angles to the shots. This +delighted him, and he would not for anything have discommoded or removed +one of those furry hazards. + +My own house was a little more than half a mile away, our lands joining, +and daily I went up to visit him--to play billiards or to take a walk +across the fields. There was a stenographer in the neighborhood, and he +continued his dictations, but not regularly. He wrote, too, now and +then, and finished the little book called "Is Shakespeare Dead?" + +Winter came. The walks were fewer, and there was even more company; the +house was gay and the billiard games protracted. In February I made a +trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, to go over some of his ground +there. Returning in April, I found him somewhat changed. It was not +that he had grown older, or less full of life, but only less active, less +eager for gay company, and he no longer dictated, or very rarely. His +daughter Jean, who had been in a health resort, was coming home to act as +his secretary, and this made him very happy. We resumed our games, our +talks, and our long walks across the fields. There were few guests, and +we were together most of the day and evening. How beautiful the memory +of it all is now! To me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again in +this world. + +Mark Twain walked slowly these days. Early in the summer there appeared +indications of the heart trouble that less than a year later would bring +the end. His doctor advised diminished smoking, and forbade the old +habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs. The trouble was with the +heart muscles, and at times there came severe deadly pains in his breast, +but for the most part he did not suffer. He was allowed the walk, +however, and once I showed him a part of his estate he had not seen +before--a remote cedar hillside. 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." I think the name pleased him. Later he said: + +"If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine" (the Rogers +table, which had been left in storage in New York), "I would turn it over +to you." + +I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit the +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 planned, and the work was presently under way. + +How many things we talked of! Life, death, the future--all the things of +which we know so little and love so much to talk about. Astronomy, as I +have said, was one of his favorite subjects. Neither of us had any real +knowledge of the matter, which made its great facts all the more awesome. +The thought that the nearest fixed star was twenty-five trillions of +miles away--two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance to our own +remote sun--gave him a sort of splendid thrill. He would figure out +those appalling measurements of space, covering sheets of paper with his +sums, but he was not a good mathematician, and the answers were generally +wrong. Comets in particular interested him, and one day 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." + +He looked so strong, and full of color and vitality. One could not +believe that his words held a prophecy. Yet the pains recurred with +increasing frequency and severity; his malady, angina pectoris, was +making progress. And how bravely he bore it all! He never complained, +never bewailed. I have seen the fierce attack crumple him when we were +at billiards, but he would insist on playing in his turn, bowed, his face +white, his hand digging at his breast. + + + + +LXVII + +THE DEATH OF JEAN + +Clara Clemens was married that autumn to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian +pianist, and presently sailed for Europe, where they would make their +home. Jean Clemens was now head of the house, and what with her various +duties and poor health, her burden was too heavy. She had a passion for +animal life of every kind, and in some farm-buildings at one corner of +the estate had set up quite an establishment of chickens and domestic +animals. She was fond of giving these her personal attention, and this, +with her house direction and secretarial work, gave her little time for +rest. I tried to relieve her of a share of the secretarial work, but she +was ambitious and faithful. Still, her condition did not seem critical. + +I stayed at Stormfield, now, most of the time--nights as well as days +--for the dull weather had come and Mark Twain found the house rather +lonely. In November he had an impulse to go to Bermuda, and we spent a +month in the warm light of that summer island, returning a week before +the Christmas holidays. And just then came Mark Twain's last great +tragedy--the death of his daughter Jean. + +The holidays had added heavily to Jean's labors. Out of her generous +heart she had planned gifts for everybody--had hurried to and from the +city for her purchases, and in the loggia set up a beautiful Christmas +tree. Meantime she had contracted a heavy cold. Her trouble was +epilepsy, and all this was bad for her. On the morning of December 24, +she died, suddenly, from the shock of a cold bath. + +Below, in the loggia, drenched with tinsel, stood the tree, and heaped +about it the packages of gifts which that day she had meant to open and +put in place. Nobody had been overlooked. + +Jean was taken to Elmira for burial. Her father, unable to make the +winter journey, remained behind. Her cousin, Jervis Langdon, came for +her. + +It was six in the evening when she went away. A soft, heavy snow was +falling, and the gloom of the short day was closing in. There was not +the least noise, the whole world was muffled. The lanterns shone out the +open door, and at an upper window, the light gleaming on his white hair, +her father watched her going away from him for the last time. Later he +wrote: + + "From my window 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 Katy--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." + + + + +LXVIII + +DAYS IN BERMUDA + +Ten days later Mark Twain returned to Bermuda, accompanied only by a +valet. He had asked me if we would be willing to close our home for the +winter and come to Stormfield, so that the place might be ready any time +for his return. We came, of course, for there was no thought other than +for his comfort. He did not go to a hotel in Bermuda, but to the home of +Vice-Consul Allen, where he had visited before. The Allens were devoted +to him and gave him such care as no hotel could offer. + +Bermuda agreed with Mark Twain, and for a time there he gained in +strength and spirits and recovered much of his old manner. He wrote me +almost daily, generally with good reports of his health and doings, and +with playful counsel and suggestions. Then, by and by, he did not write +with his own hand, but through his newly appointed "secretary," Mr. +Allen's young daughter, Helen, of whom he was very fond. The letters, +however, were still gay. Once 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 in utter freedom and without + embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a + criminal." + +He had made no mention so far of the pains in his breast, but near the +end of March he wrote that he was coming home, if the breast pains did +not "mend their ways pretty considerable. I do not want to die here," he +said. "I am growing more and more particular about the place." A week +later brought another alarming letter, also one from Mr. Allen, who +frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. I went to +New York and sailed the next morning, cabling the Gabrilowitsches to come +without delay. + +I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when I arrived he was +not expecting me. + +"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you did not 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. 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. "Wow I'm +glad to see you." + +His breakfast came in and he ate with appetite. I had thought him thin +and pale, at first sight, but his color had come back now, and his eyes +were bright. He told me of the fierce attacks of the pain, and how he +had been given hypodermic injections which he amusingly termed "hypnotic +injunctions" and "the sub-cutaneous." From Mr. and Mrs. Allen I learned +how slender had been his chances, and how uncertain were the days ahead. +Mr. Allen had already engaged passage home for April 12th. + +He seemed so little like a man whose days were numbered. On the +afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as we had done on our former visit, +and he discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. I had +sold for him, for six thousand dollars, the farm where Jean had kept her +animals, and he wished to use the money in erecting for her some sort of +memorial. He agreed that a building to hold the library which he had +already donated to the town of Redding would be appropriate and useful. +He asked me to write at once to his lawyer and have the matter arranged. + +We did not drive out again. The pains held off for several days, and he +was gay and went out on the lawn, but most of the time he sat propped up +in bed, reading and smoking. When I looked at him there, so full of +vigor and the joy of life, I could not persuade myself that he would not +outlive us all. + +He had written very little in Bermuda--his last work being a chapter of +amusing "Advice"--for me, as he confessed--what I was to do upon reaching +the gate of which St. Peter is said to keep the key. As it is the last +writing he ever did, and because it is characteristic, one or two +paragraphs may be admitted here: + + "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. . . + + "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." + +There were several pages of this counsel. + + + + +LXIX. + +THE RETURN TO REDDING + +I spent most of each day with him, merely sitting by the bed and reading. +I noticed when he slept that his breathing was difficult, and I could see +that he did not improve, but often he was gay and liked the entire family +to gather about and be merry. It was only a few days before we sailed +that the severe attacks returned. Then followed bad nights; but respite +came, and we sailed on the 12th, as arranged. The Allen home stands on +the water, and Mr. Allen had chartered a tug to take us to the ship. We +were obliged to start early, and the fresh morning breeze was +stimulating. Mark Twain seemed in good spirits when we reached the +"Oceana," which was to take him home. + +As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of +that homeward voyage. He was comfortable at first, and then we ran into +the humid, oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and he could not breathe. +It seemed to me that the end might come at any moment, and this thought +was in his own mind, but he had no dread, and his sense of humor did not +fail. 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." + +I had been instructed in the use of the hypodermic needle, and from time +to time gave him the "hypnotic injunction," as he still called it. But +it did not afford him entire relief. He could remain in no position for +any length of time. Yet he never complained and thought only of the +trouble he might be making. Once he said: + + "I am sorry for you, Paine, but I can't help it--I can't hurry this + dying business." + +And a little later: + + "Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long!" + +Relatives, physicians, and news-gatherers were at the dock to welcome +him. Revived by the cool, fresh air of the North, he had slept for +several hours and was seemingly much better. A special compartment on +the same train that had taken us first to Redding took us there now, his +physicians in attendance. He did not seem to mind the trip or the drive +home. + +As we turned into the lane that led to Stormfield he said: + +"Can we see where you have built your billiard-room?" + +The gable of the new study showed among the trees, and I pointed it out +to him. + +"It looks quite imposing," he said. + +Arriving at Stormfield, he stepped, unassisted, from the carriage to +greet the members of the household, and with all his old courtliness +offered each his hand. Then in a canvas chair we had brought we carried +him up-stairs to his room--the big, beautiful room that looked out to the +sunset hills. This was Thursday evening, April 14, 1910. + + + + +LXX. + +THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + +Mark Twain lived just a week from that day and hour. For a time he +seemed full of life, talking freely, and suffering little. Clara and +Ossip Gabrilowitsch arrived on Saturday and found him cheerful, quite +like himself. At intervals he read. "Suetonius" and "Carlyle" lay on +the bed beside him, and he would pick them up and read a page or a +paragraph. Sometimes when I saw him thus--the high color still in his +face, the clear light in his eyes'--I said: "It is not reality. He is +not going to die." + +But by Wednesday of the following week it was evident that the end was +near. We did not know it then, but the mysterious messenger of his birth +year, Halley's comet, became visible that night in the sky.[13] + +On Thursday morning, the 21st, his mind was still fairly clear, and he +read a little from one of the volumes on his bed. By Clara he sent word +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 his words were few, now, and uncertain. I assured him that I +would attend to the matter and he pressed my hand. It was his last word +to me. During the afternoon, while Clara stood by him, 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 for seventy-four tumultuous years +had stopped forever. + +In the Brick Church, New York, Mark Twain--dressed in the white he loved +so well--lay, 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. +Flowers in profusion were banked about him, but on the casket lay a +single 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. + +That night we went with him to Elmira, and next day he lay in those +stately parlors that had seen his wedding-day, and where little Langdon +and Susy had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and then Jean, only a little while +before. + +The worn-out body had reached its journey's end; but his spirit had never +grown old, and to-day, still young, it continues to cheer and comfort a +tired world. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boys' Life of Mark Twain +by Albert Bigelow Paine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN *** + +***** This file should be named 3463.txt or 3463.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/6/3463/ + +Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. 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.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN + +by Albert Bigelow Paine + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE +I. THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS +II. THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM +III. SCHOOL +IV. EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL +V. TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND +VI. CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS +VII. THE APPRENTICE +VIII. ORION'S PAPER +IX. THE OPEN ROAD +X. A WIND OF CHANCE +XI. THE LONG WAY To THE AMAZON +XII. RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION +XIII. LEARNING THE RIVER +XIV. RIVER DAYS +XV. THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" +XVI. THE PILOT +XVII. THE END OF PILOTING +XVIII. THE SOLDIER +XIX. THE PIONEER +XX. THE MINER +XXI. THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE +XXII. "MARK TWAIN" +XXIII. ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO +XXIV. THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" +XXV. HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME +XXVI. MARK TWAIN, LECTURER +XXVII. AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN +XXVIII. OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" +XXIX. THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES +XXX. THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING +XXXI. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO +XXXII. AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" +XXXIII. IN ENGLAND +XXXIV. A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS +XXXV. BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVI. THE NEW HOME +XXXVII. "OLD TIMES,""SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVIII. HOME PICTURES +XXXIX. TRAMPING ABROAD +XL. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" +XLI. GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD +XLII. MANY INVESTMENTS +XLIII. BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY +XLIV. A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE +XLV. "THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" +XLVI. PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT +XLVII. THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE +XLVIII. BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS +XLIX. KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" +L. THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN +LI. THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW +LII. EUROPEAN ECONOMIES +LIII. MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS +LIV. RETURN AFTER EXILE +LV. A PROPHET AT HOME +LVI. HONORED BY MISSOURI +LVII. THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE +LVIII. MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY +LIX. MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY +LX. WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXI. DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. +LXII. A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS +LXIII. LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXIV. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD +LXV. THE REMOVAL TO REDDING +LXVI. LIFE AT STORMFIELD +LXVII. THE DEATH OF JEAN +LXVIII. DAYS IN BERMUDA +LXIX. THE RETURN TO REDDING +LXX. THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + + + + +PREFACE + +This is the story of a boy, born in the humblest surroundings, reared +almost without schooling, and amid benighted conditions such as to-day +have no existence, yet who lived to achieve a world-wide fame; to attain +honorary degrees from the greatest universities of America and Europe; to +be sought by statesmen and kings; to be loved and honored by all men in +all lands, and mourned by them when he died. It is the story of one of +the world's very great men--the story of Mark Twain. + + + + +I. + +THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS + +A long time ago, back in the early years of another century, a family +named Clemens moved from eastern Tennessee to eastern Missouri--from a +small, unheard-of place called Pall Mall, on Wolf River, to an equally +small and unknown place called Florida, on a tiny river named the Salt. + +That was a far journey, in those days, for railway trains in 1835 had not +reached the South and West, and John Clemens and his family traveled in +an old two-horse barouche, with two extra riding-horses, on one of which +rode the eldest child, Orion Clemens, a boy of ten, and on the other +Jennie, a slave girl. + +In the carriage with the parents were three other children--Pamela and +Margaret, aged eight and five, and little Benjamin, three years old. The +time was spring, the period of the Old South, and, while these youngsters +did not realize that they were passing through a sort of Golden Age, they +must have enjoyed the weeks of leisurely journeying toward what was then +the Far West--the Promised Land. + +The Clemens fortunes had been poor in Tennessee. John Marshall Clemens, +the father, was a lawyer, a man of education; but he was a dreamer, too, +full of schemes that usually failed. Born in Virginia, he had grown up +in Kentucky, and married there Jane Lampton, of Columbia, a descendant of +the English Lamptons and the belle of her region. They had left Kentucky +for Tennessee, drifting from one small town to another that was always +smaller, and with dwindling law-practice John Clemens in time had been +obliged to open a poor little store, which in the end had failed to pay. +Jennie was the last of several slaves he had inherited from his Virginia +ancestors. Besides Jennie, his fortune now consisted of the horses and +barouche, a very limited supply of money, and a large, unsalable tract of +east Tennessee land, which John Clemens dreamed would one day bring his +children fortune. + +Readers of the "Gilded Age" will remember the journey of the Hawkins +family from the "Knobs" of Tennessee to Missouri and the important part +in that story played by the Tennessee land. Mark Twain wrote those +chapters, and while they are not history, but fiction, they are based +upon fact, and the picture they present of family hardship and struggle +is not overdrawn. The character of Colonel Sellers, who gave the +Hawkinses a grand welcome to the new home, was also real. In life he was +James Lampton, cousin to Mrs. Clemens, a gentle and radiant merchant of +dreams, who believed himself heir to an English earldom and was always on +the verge of colossal fortune. With others of the Lampton kin, he was +already settled in Missouri and had written back glowing accounts; though +perhaps not more glowing than those which had come from another relative, +John Quarles, brother-in-law to Mrs. Clemens, a jovial, whole-hearted +optimist, well-loved by all who knew him. + +It was a June evening when the Clemens family, with the barouche and the +two outriders, finally arrived in Florida, and the place, no doubt, +seemed attractive enough then, however it may have appeared later. It +was the end of a long journey; relatives gathered with fond welcome; +prospects seemed bright. Already John Quarles had opened a general store +in the little town. Florida, he said, was certain to become a city. +Salt River would be made navigable with a series of locks and dams. He +offered John Clemens a partnership in his business. + +Quarles, for that time and place, was a rich man. Besides his store he +had a farm and thirty slaves. His brother-in-law's funds, or lack of +them, did not matter. The two had married sisters. That was capital +enough for his hearty nature. So, almost on the moment of arrival in the +new land, John Clemens once more found himself established in trade. + +The next thing was to find a home. There were twenty-one houses in +Florida, and none of them large. The one selected by John and Jane +Clemens had two main rooms and a lean-to kitchen--a small place and +lowly--the kind of a place that so often has seen the beginning of +exalted lives. Christianity began with a babe in a manger; Shakespeare +first saw the light in a cottage at Stratford; Lincoln entered the world +by way of a leaky cabin in Kentucky, and into the narrow limits of the +Clemens home in Florida, on a bleak autumn day--November 30, 1835--there +was born one who under the name of Mark Twain would live to cheer and +comfort a tired world. + +The name Mark Twain had not been thought of then, and probably no one +prophesied favorably for the new-comer, who was small and feeble, and not +over-welcome in that crowded household. They named him Samuel, after his +paternal grandfather, and added Langhorne for an old friend--a goodly +burden for so frail a wayfarer. But more appropriately they called him +"Little Sam," or "Sammy," which clung to him through the years of his +delicate childhood. + +It seems a curious childhood, as we think of it now. Missouri was a +slave State--Little Sam's companions were as often black as white. All +the children of that time and locality had negroes for playmates, and +were cared for by them. They were fond of their black companions and +would have felt lost without them. The negro children knew all the best +ways of doing things--how to work charms and spells, the best way to cure +warts and heal stone-bruises, and to make it rain, and to find lost +money. They knew what signs meant, and dreams, and how to keep off +hoodoo; and all negroes, old and young, knew any number of weird tales. + +John Clemens must have prospered during the early years of his Florida +residence, for he added another slave to his household--Uncle Ned, a man +of all work--and he built a somewhat larger house, in one room of which, +the kitchen, was a big fireplace. There was a wide hearth and always +plenty of wood, and here after supper the children would gather, with +Jennie and Uncle Ned, and the latter would tell hair-lifting tales of +"ha'nts," and lonely roads, and witch-work that would make his hearers +shiver with terror and delight, and look furtively over their shoulders +toward the dark window-panes and the hovering shadows on the walls. +Perhaps it was not the healthiest entertainment, but it was the kind to +cultivate an imagination that would one day produce "Tom Sawyer" and +"Huck Finn." + +True, Little Sam was very young at this period, but even a little chap of +two or three would understand most of that fireside talk, and get +impressions more vivid than if the understanding were complete. He was +barely four when this earliest chapter of his life came to a close. + +John Clemens had not remained satisfied with Florida and his undertakings +there. The town had not kept its promises. It failed to grow, and the +lock-and-dam scheme that would make Salt River navigable fell through. +Then one of the children, Margaret, a black-eyed, rosy little girl of +nine, suddenly died. This was in August, 1839. A month or two later the +saddened family abandoned their Florida home and moved in wagons, with +their household furnishings, to Hannibal, a Mississippi River town, +thirty miles away. There was only one girl left now, Pamela, twelve +years old, but there was another boy, baby Henry, three years younger +than Little Sam--four boys in all. + + + + +II. + +THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM + +Hannibal was a town with prospects and considerable trade. It was +slumbrous, being a slave town, but it was not dead. John Clemens +believed it a promising place for business, and opened a small general +store with Orion Clemens, now fifteen, a studious, dreamy lad, for clerk. + +The little city was also an attractive place of residence. 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 "white town" was built against green hills, and abutting the river +were bluffs--Holliday's Hill and Lover's Leap. A distance below the town +was a cave--a wonderful cave, as every reader of Tom Sawyer knows--while +out in the river, toward the Illinois shore, was the delectable island +that was one day to be the meeting-place of Tom's pirate band, and later +to become the hiding-place of Huck and Nigger Jim. + +The river itself was full of interest. It was the highway to the outside +world. Rafts drifted by; smartly painted steamboats panted up and down, +touching to exchange traffic and travelers, a never-ceasing wonder to +those simple shut-in dwellers whom the telegraph and railway had not yet +reached. That Hannibal was a pleasant place of residence we may believe, +and what an attractive place for a boy to grow up in! + +Little Sam, however, was not yet ready to enjoy the island and the cave. +He was still delicate--the least promising of the family. He was queer +and fanciful, and rather silent. He walked in his sleep and was often +found in the middle of the night, fretting with the cold, in some dark +corner. Once he heard that a neighbor's children had the measles, and, +being very anxious to catch the complaint, slipped over to the house and +crept into bed with an infected playmate. Some days later, Little Sam's +relatives gathered about his bed to see him die. He confessed, long +after, that the scene gratified him. However, he survived, and fell into +the habit of running away, usually in the direction of the river. + +"You gave me more uneasiness than any child I had," his mother once said +to him, in her old age. + +"I suppose you were afraid I wouldn't live," he suggested. + +She looked at him with the keen humor which had been her legacy to him. +"No, afraid you would," she said. Which was only her joke, for she had +the tenderest of hearts, and, like all mothers, had a weakness for the +child that demanded most of her mother's care. It was chiefly on his +account that she returned each year to Florida to spend the summer on +John Quarles's farm. + +If Uncle John Quarles's farm was just an ordinary Missouri farm, and his +slaves just average negroes, they certainly never seemed so to Little +Sam. There was a kind of glory about everything that belonged to Uncle +John, and it was not all imagination, for some of the spirit of that +jovial, kindly hearted man could hardly fail to radiate from his +belongings. + +The farm was a large one for that locality, and the farm-house was a big +double log building--that is, two buildings with a roofed-over passage +between, where in summer the lavish Southern meals were served, brought +in on huge dishes by the negroes, and left for each one to help himself. +Fried chicken, roast pig, turkeys, ducks, geese, venison just killed, +squirrels, rabbits, partridges, pheasants, prairie-chickens, green corn, +watermelon--a little boy who did not die on that bill of fare would be +likely to get well on it, and to Little Sam the farm proved a life-saver. + +It was, in fact, a heavenly place for a little boy. In the corner of the +yard there were hickory and black-walnut trees, and just over the fence +the hill sloped past barns and cribs to a brook, a rare place to wade, +though there were forbidden pools. Cousin Tabitha Quarles, called +"Puss," his own age, was Little Sam's playmate, and a slave girl, Mary, +who, being six years older, was supposed to keep them out of mischief. +There were swings in the big, shady pasture, where Mary swung her charges +and ran under them until their feet touched the branches. All the woods +were full of squirrels and birds and blooming flowers; all the meadows +were gay with clover and butterflies, and musical with singing +grasshoppers and calling larks; the fence-rows were full of wild +blackberries; there were apples and peaches in the orchard, and plenty of +melons ripening in the corn. Certainly it was a glorious place! + +Little Sam got into trouble once with the watermelons. One of them had +not ripened quite enough when he ate several slices of it. Very soon +after he was seized with such terrible cramps that some of the household +did not think he could live. + +But his mother said: "Sammy will pull through. He was not born to die +that way." Which was a true prophecy. Sammy's slender constitution +withstood the strain. It was similarly tested more than once during +those early years. He was regarded as a curious child. At times dreamy +and silent, again wild-headed and noisy, with sudden impulses that sent +him capering and swinging his arms into the wind until he would fall with +shrieks and spasms of laughter and madly roll over and over in the grass. +It is not remembered that any one prophesied very well for his future at +such times. + +The negro quarters on Uncle John's farm were especially fascinating. In +one cabin lived a bedridden old woman whom the children looked upon with +awe. She was said to be a thousand years old, and to have talked with +Moses. She had lost her health in the desert, coming out of Egypt. She +had seen Pharaoh drown, and the fright had caused the bald spot on her +head. She could ward off witches and dissolve spells. + +Uncle Dan'l was another favorite, a kind-hearted, gentle soul, who long +after, as Nigger Jim in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tales, would +win world-wide love and sympathy. + +Through that far-off, warm, golden summer-time Little Sam romped and +dreamed and grew. He would return each summer to the farm during those +early years. It would become a beautiful memory. His mother generally +kept him there until the late fall, when the chilly evenings made them +gather around the wide, blazing fireplace. Sixty years later he wrote: + + "I can see the room yet with perfect clearness. I can see all + its belongings, 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." + +It is hard not to tell more of the farm, for the boy who was one day +going to write of Tom and Huck and the rest learned there so many things +that Tom and Huck would need to know. + +But he must have "book-learning," too, Jane Clemens said. On his return +to Hannibal that first summer, she decided that Little Sam was ready for +school. He was five years old and regarded as a "stirring child." + +"He drives me crazy with his didoes when he's in the house," his mother +declared, "and when he's out of it I'm expecting every minute that some +one will bring him home half dead." + +Mark Twain used to say that he had had nine narrow escapes from drowning, +and it was at this early age that he was brought home one afternoon in a +limp state, having been pulled from a deep hole in Bear Creek by a slave +girl. + +When he was restored, his mother said: "I guess there wasn't much danger. +People born to be hanged are safe in water." + +Mark Twain's mother was the original of Aunt Polly in the story of Tom +Sawyer, an outspoken, keen-witted, charitable woman, whom it was good to +know. She had a heart full of pity, especially for dumb creatures. She +refused to kill even flies, and punished the cat for catching mice. She +would drown young kittens when necessary, but warmed the water for the +purpose. She could be strict, however, with her children, if occasion +required, and recognized their faults. + +Little Sam was inclined to elaborate largely on fact. A neighbor once +said to her: "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." + +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." A certain Mrs. E. +Horr was selected for the purpose. + +Mrs. Horr's school on Main Street, Hannibal, was of the old-fashioned +kind. There were pupils of all ages, and everything was taught up to the +third reader and long division. Pupils who cared to go beyond those +studies went to a Mr. Cross, on the hill, facing what is now the public +square. Mrs. Horr received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and +the rules of conduct were read daily. After the rules came the A-B-C +class, whose recitation was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring no study- +time. + +The rules of conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He wondered +how nearly he could come to breaking them and escape. He experimented +during the forenoon, and received a warning. Another experiment would +mean correction. He did not expect to be caught again; but when he least +expected it he was startled by a command to go out and bring a stick for +his own punishment. + +This was rather dazing. It was sudden, and, then, he did not know much +about choosing sticks for such a purpose. Jane Clemens had commonly used +her hand. A second command was needed to start him in the right +direction, and he was still dazed when he got outside. He had the +forests of Missouri to select from, but choice was not easy. Everything +looked too big and competent. Even the smallest switch had a wiry look. +Across the way was a cooper's shop. There were shavings outside, and one +had blown across just in front of him. He picked it up, and, gravely +entering the room, handed it to Mrs. Horr. So far as known, it is the +first example of that humor which would one day make Little Sam famous +before all the world. + +It was a failure in this instance. Mrs. Horr's comic side may have +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 the switch that Jimmy Dunlap brought +was of a kind to give Little Sam a permanent distaste for school. He +told his mother at noon that he did not care for education; that he did +not wish to be a great man; that his desire was to be an Indian and scalp +such persons as Mrs. Horr. In her heart Jane Clemens was sorry for him, +but she openly said she was glad there was somebody who could take him in +hand. + +Little Sam went back to school, but he never learned to like it. A +school was ruled with a rod in those days, and of the smaller boys Little +Sam's back was sore as often as the next. 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 glint of the river and the purple +distance beyond, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster +spelling-book and a cross teacher was more than human nature could bear. +There still exists a yellow slip of paper upon which, in neat, old- +fashioned penmanship is written: + + 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. + + +Thus we learn that Little Sam's sister, eight years older than himself, +attended the same school, and that she was a good pupil. If any such +reward of merit was ever conferred on Little Sam, it has failed to come +to light. 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 a +good speller for his age. + + + + +IV. + +EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL + +0n their arrival in Hannibal, the Clemens family had moved into a part of +what was then the Pavey Hotel. They could not have remained there long, +for they moved twice within the next few years, and again in 1844 into a +new house which Judge Clemens, as he was generally called, had built +on Hill Street--a house still standing, and known to-day as the Mark +Twain home. + +John Clemens had met varying fortunes in Hannibal. Neither commerce nor +the practice of law had paid. The office of justice of the peace, to +which he was elected, returned a fair income, but his business losses +finally obliged him to sell Jennie, the slave girl. Somewhat later his +business failure was complete. He surrendered everything to his +creditors, even to his cow and household furniture, and relied upon his +law practice and justice fees. However, he seems to have kept the +Tennessee land, possibly because no one thought it worth taking. There +had been offers for it earlier, but none that its owner would accept. It +appears to have been not even considered by his creditors, though his own +faith in it never died. + +The struggle for a time was very bitter. Orion Clemens, now seventeen, +had learned the printer's trade and assisted the family with his wages. +Mrs. Clemens took a few boarders. In the midst of this time of hardship +little Benjamin Clemens died. He was ten years old. It was the darkest +hour. + +Then conditions slowly improved. There was more law practice and better +justice fees. By 1844 Judge Clemens was able to build the house +mentioned above--a plain, cheap house, but a shelter and a home. Sam +Clemens--he was hardly "Little Sam" any more--was at this time nine years +old. His boyhood had begun. + +Heretofore he had been just 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 in such a +community will. "Sam," as they now called him, was "grown up" at nine +and wise 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, many of them of a kind not taught at school. + +He had learned a good deal of natural history and botany--the habits of +plants, insects, and animals. Mark Twain's books bear evidence of this +early study. His plants, bugs, and animals never do the wrong things. +He was learning a good deal about men, and this was often less pleasant +knowledge. Once Little Sam--he was still Little Sam then--saw an old man +shot down on Main Street at noon day. 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 thought 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 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 sultry, threatening evening--he saw that, too. With a boon +companion, John Briggs, he followed at a safe distance behind. A widow +with her one daughter lived there. They stood in the shadow of the dark +porch; the man had paused at the gate to revile them. The boys heard the +mother's voice warning the intruder that she had a loaded gun and would +kill him if he stayed where he was. He replied with a tirade, and she +warned him that she would count ten--that if he remained a second longer +she would fire. She began slowly and counted up to five, the man +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 +thunder-storm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled wildly, +believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the lost soul. + +That was a day and locality of violent impulse and sudden action. +Happenings such as these were not infrequent in a town like Hannibal. +And there were events connected with slavery. Sam once saw a slave +struck down and killed with a piece of slag, for a trifling offense. He +saw an Abolitionist attacked by a mob that 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 was 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." + +Readers of Mark Twain's books--especially the stories of Huck and Tom, +will hardly be surprised to hear of these early happenings that formed so +large a portion of the author's early education. Sam, however, did not +regard them as education--not at the time. They got into his dreams. He +set them down as warnings, or punishments, intended to give him a taste +for a better life. He felt that it was his conscience that made such +things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high +respect for her opinion in such matters. Among other things, he had seen +her one day defy a vicious and fierce Corsican--a common terror in the +town--who had chased his grown daughter with a heavy rope in his hand, +declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious citizens got out of the +way, but Jane Clemens opened her door to the fugitive; then, instead of +rushing in and closing it, spread her arms across it, barring the way. +The man raved, and threatened her with the rope, but she did not flinch +or show any sign of fear. She stood there and shamed and defied him +until he slunk off, crestfallen and conquered. Any one as brave as his +mother must have a perfect conscience, Sam thought, and would know how to +take care of it. In the darkness he would say his prayers, especially +when a thunderstorm was coming, and vow to begin a better life. He +detested Sunday-school as much as he did day-school, and once his brother +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. + +Sam's days were not all disturbed by fierce events. They were mostly +filled with pleasanter things. There were picnics sometimes, and +ferryboat excursions, and any day one could roam the woods, or fish, +alone or in company. The hills and woods around Hannibal were never +disappointing. There was the cave with its marvels. There was Bear +Creek, where he had learned to swim. He had seen two playmates drown; +twice, himself, he had been dragged ashore, more dead than alive; once by +a slave girl, another time by a slave man--Neal Champ, of the Pavey +Hotel. But he had persevered, and with success. He could swim better +than any playmate of his age. + +It was the river that he cared for most. It was the pathway that led to +the great world outside. He would sit by it for hours and dream. He +would venture out on it in a quietly borrowed boat, when he was barely +strong enough to lift an oar. He learned to know all its moods and +phases. + +More than anything in the world he hungered to make a trip on one of the +big, smart steamers that were always passing. "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 take a trip +on them." + +It was at the mature age of nine that he found 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. +Then the signal-bells rang, the steamer 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 regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his +legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. He was dragged out and +at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, where there +were Lampton relatives, who took him home. Very likely the home-coming +was not entirely pleasant, though a "lesson," too, in his general +education. + +And always, each summer, there was the farm, where his recreation was no +longer mere girl plays and swings, with a colored nurse following about, +but sports with his older boy cousins, who went hunting with the men, for +partridges by day and for 'coons and 'possums by night. Sometimes the +little boy 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 Little +Sam, at nine, was no longer Little Sam, but plain Sam Clemens, and grown +up. If there were doubtful spots in his education--matters related to +smoking and strong words--it is also no wonder, and experience even in +these lines was worth something in a book like Tom Sawyer. + +The boy Sam Clemens was not a particularly attractive lad. He was rather +undersized, and his head seemed too large for his body. He had a mass of +light sandy hair, which he plastered down to keep from curling. His eyes +were keen and blue and his features rather large. Still, he had a fair, +delicate complexion when it was not blackened by grime and tan; a gentle, +winning manner; a smile and a slow way of speaking that made him a +favorite with his companions. He did not talk much, and was thought to +be rather dull--was certainly so in most of his lessons--but, for some +reason, he never spoke that every playmate in hearing did not stop, +whatever he was doing, to listen. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new +game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a +casual remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. His mother always +referred to his slow fashion of speech as "Sammy's long talk." Her own +speech was even more deliberate, though she seemed not to notice it. Sam +was more like his mother than the others. His brother, Henry Clemens, +three years younger, was as unlike Sam as possible. He did not have the +"long talk," and was a handsome, obedient little fellow whom the +mischievous Sam loved to tease. Henry was to become the Sid of Tom +Sawyer, though he was in every way a finer character than Sid. With the +death of little Benjamin, Sam and Henry had been drawn much closer +together, and, in spite of Sam's pranks, loved each other dearly. For +the pranks were only occasional, and Sam's love for Henry was constant. +He fought for him oftener than with him. + +Many of the home incidents in the Tom Sawyer book really happened. Sam +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 +painkiller to Peter, the cat. As for escaping punishment for his +misdeeds, as described in the book, this was a daily matter, and his +methods suited the occasions. For, of course, Tom Sawyer was Sam Clemens +himself, almost entirely, as most readers of that book have imagined. +However, we must have another chapter for Tom Sawyer and his doings--the +real Tom and his real doings with those graceless, lovable associates, +Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. + + + + +V. + +TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND + +In beginning "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" the author says, "Most of the +adventures recorded in this book really occurred," and he tells us that +Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, though not from a single +individual, being a composite of three boys whom Mark Twain had known. + +The three boys were himself, almost entirely, with traces of two +schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. John Briggs was also the +original of Joe Harper, the "Terror of the Seas." As for Huck Finn, the +"Red-Handed," his original was a village waif named Tom Blankenship, who +needed no change for his part in the story. + +The Blankenship family picked up an uncertain livelihood, fishing and +hunting, and lived at first under a tree in a bark shanty, but later +moved into a large, barn-like building, back of the Clemens home on Hill +Street. There were three male members of the household: Old Ben, the +father, shiftless and dissolute; young Ben, the eldest son--a doubtful +character, with certain good traits; and Tom--that is to say, Huck, who +was just as he is described in the book--a ruin of rags, a river-rat, +kind of heart, and accountable for his conduct to nobody in the world. +He could come and go as he chose; he never had to work or go to school; +he could do all the things, good and bad, that other boys longed to do +and were forbidden. To them he was the symbol of liberty; his knowledge +of fishing, trapping, signs, and of the woods and river gave value to his +society, while the fact that it was forbidden made it necessary to Sam +Clemens's happiness. + +The Blankenships being handy to the back gate of the Hill Street house, +he adopted them at sight. Their free mode of life suited him. He was +likely to be there at any hour of the day, and Tom made cat-call signals +at night that would bring Sam out on the shed roof at the back and down a +little trellis and flight of steps to the group of boon companions, +which, besides Tom, usually included John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the two +younger Bowen boys. They were not malicious boys, but just mischievous, +fun-loving boys--little boys of ten or twelve--rather thoughtless, being +mainly bent on having a good time. + +They had a wide field of action: they ranged from Holliday's Hill on the +north to the cave on the south, and over the fields and through all the +woods between. They explored both banks of the river, the islands, and +the deep wilderness of the Illinois shore. They could run like 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 was so watchful that they did not sooner or later elude it. They +borrowed boats with or without the owner's consent--it did not matter. + +Most of their expeditions were harmless enough. They often cruised up to +Turtle Island, about two miles above Hannibal, and spent the day +feasting. There were quantities of turtles and their eggs there, and +mussels, and plenty of fish. Fishing and swimming were their chief +pastimes, with incidental raiding, for adventure. Bear Creek was their +swimming-place by day, and the river-front at night-fall--a favorite spot +being where the railroad bridge now ends. It was a good distance across +to the island where, in the book, Tom Sawyer musters his pirate band, and +where later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they +swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the +sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, +breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or +dread. They could swim all day, those little scamps, and seemed to have +no fear. Once, during his boyhood, Sam Clemens swam across to the +Illinois side, 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. + +The adventures of Sam Clemens and his comrades would fill several books +of the size of Tom Sawyer. Many of them are, of course, forgotten now, +but those still remembered show that Mark Twain had plenty of real +material. + +It was not easy to get money in those days, and the boys were often +without it. Once "Huck" Blankenship had the skin of a 'coon he had +captured, and offered to sell it to raise capital. At Selms's store, on +Wild Cat Corner, the 'coon-skin would bring ten cents. But this was not +enough. The boys thought of a plan to make it bring more. Selms's back +window was open, and the place where he kept his pelts was pretty handy. +Huck went around to the front door and sold the skin for ten cents to +Selms, who tossed it back on the pile. Then Huck came back and, after +waiting a reasonable time, crawled in the open window, got the 'coon- +skin, and sold it to Selms again. He did this several times that +afternoon, and the capital of the band grew. But at last John Pierce, +Selms's clerk, said: + +"Look here, Mr. Selms, there's something wrong about this. That boy has +been selling us 'coonskins all the afternoon." + +Selms went back to his pile of pelts. There were several sheep-skins and +some cow-hides, but only one 'coon-skin--the one he had that moment +bought. + +Selms himself, in after years, used to tell this story as a great joke. + +One of the boys' occasional pastimes was to climb Holliday's Hill and +roll down big stones, to frighten the people who were driving by. +Holliday's Hill above the road was steep; a stone once started would go +plunging downward and bound across the road with the deadly momentum of a +shell. The boys would get a stone poised, then wait until they saw a +team approaching, and, calculating the distance, would give the boulder a +start. Dropping behind the bushes, they would watch the sudden effect +upon the party below as the great missile shot across the road a few +yards before them. This was huge sport, but they carried it too far. +For at last they planned a grand climax that would surpass anything +before attempted in the stone-rolling line. + +A monstrous boulder was lying up there in the right position to go down- +hill, once started. It would be a glorious thing to see that great stone +go smashing down a hundred yards or so in front of some peaceful-minded +countryman jogging along the road. Quarrymen had been getting out rock +not far away and had left their picks and shovels handy. The boys +borrowed the tools and went to work to undermine the big stone. They +worked at it several hours. If their parents had asked them to work like +that, they would have thought they were being killed. + +Finally, while they were still digging, the big stone suddenly got loose +and started down. They were not ready for it at all. Nobody was coming +but an old colored man in a cart; their splendid stone was going to be +wasted. + +One could hardly call it wasted, however; they had planned for a +thrilling result, and there was certainly thrill enough while it lasted. +In the first place the stone nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. +John Briggs had that moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will +was about to take his turn when Sam Clemens leaped aside with a yell: + +"Lookout, boys; she's coming!" + +She came. The huge boulder kept to the ground at first, then, gathering +momentum, it went bounding into the air. About half-way down the hill it +struck a sapling and cut it clean off. This turned its course a little, +and the negro in the cart, hearing the noise and seeing the great mass +come crashing in his direction, made a wild effort to whip up his mule. + +The boys watched their bomb with growing interest. It was headed +straight for the negro, also for a cooper-shop across the road. It made +longer leaps with every bound, and, wherever it struck, fragments and +dust would fly. The shop happened to be empty, but the rest of the +catastrophe would call for close investigation. 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 exactly in its +path. The boys stood holding their breath, their mouths open. + +Then, suddenly, they could hardly believe their eyes; a little way above +the road the boulder struck a projection, made one mighty leap into the +air, sailed clear over the negro and his mule, and landed in the soft +dirt beyond the road, only a fragment striking the shop, damaging, but +not wrecking it. Half buried in the ground, the great stone lay there +for nearly forty years; then it was broken up. It was the last rock the +boys ever rolled down. Nearly sixty years later John Briggs and Mark +Twain walked across Holliday's Hill and looked down toward the river +road. + +Mark Twain said: "It was a mighty good thing, John, that stone acted the +way it did. We might have had to pay a fancy price for that old darky I +can see him yet."[1] + +It can be no harm now, to confess that the boy Sam Clemens--a pretty +small boy, a good deal less than twelve at the time, and by no means +large for his years--was the leader of this unhallowed band. In any +case, truth requires this admission. If the band had a leader, it was +Sam, just as it was Tom Sawyer in the book. They were always ready to +listen to him--they would even stop fishing to do that -and to follow his +plans. They looked to him for ideas and directions, and he gloried in +being a leader and showing off, just as Tom did in the book. It seems +almost a pity that in those far-off barefoot days he could not have +looked down the years and caught a glimpse of his splendid destiny. + +But of literary fame he could never have dreamed. The chief ambition-- +the "permanent ambition"--of every Hannibal boy was to be a pilot. The +pilot in his splendid glass perch with his supreme power and princely +salary was to them the noblest of all human creatures. An elder Bowen +boy was already a pilot, and when he came home, as he did now and then, +his person seemed almost too sacred to touch. + +Next to being a pilot, Sam thought he would like to be a pirate or a +bandit or a trapper-scout--something gorgeous and awe-inspiring, where +his word, his nod, would still be law. The river kept his river ambition +always fresh, and with the cave and the forest round about helped him to +imagine those other things. + +The cave was the joy of his heart. It was a real cave, not merely a +hole, but a marvel of deep passages and vaulted chambers that led back +into the bluffs and far down into the earth, even below the river, some +said. Sam Clemens never tired of the cave. He was willing any time to +quit fishing or swimming or melon-hunting 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, it was +exactly suitable, Sam thought, to be the lair of an outlaw, and in it he +imagined and carried out adventures which his faithful followers may not +always have understood, though enjoying them none the less for that +reason. + +In Tom Sawyer, Indian Joe dies in the cave. He did not die there in real +life, but was lost there once and was very weak when they found him. He +was not as bad as painted in the book, though he was dissolute and +accounted dangerous; and when one night he died in reality, there came a +thunder-storm so terrific that Sam Clemens at home, in bed, was certain +that Satan had come in person for the half-breed's soul. He covered his +head and said his prayers with fearful anxiety lest the evil one might +decide to save another trip by taking him along then. + +The treasure-digging adventure in the book had this foundation in fact: +It was said that two French trappers had once buried a chest of gold +about two miles above Hannibal, and that it was still there. Tom +Blankenship (Huck) one morning said he had dreamed just where the +treasure was, and that if the boys--Sam Clemens and John Briggs--would go +with him and help dig, he would divide. The boys had great faith in +dreams, especially in Huck's dreams. They followed him to a place with +some shovels and picks, and he showed them just where to dig. Then he +sat down under the shade of a pawpaw-bush and gave orders. + +They dug nearly all day. Huck didn't dig any himself, because he had +done the dreaming, which was his share. They didn't find the treasure +that day, and next morning they took two long iron rods to push and drive +into the ground until they should strike something. They struck a number +of things, but when they dug down it was never the money they found. +That night the boys said they wouldn't dig any more. + +But Huck had another dream. He dreamed the gold was exactly under the +little pawpaw-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 Huck gave it up then. He said there was +something wrong about the way they dug. + +This differs a good deal from the treasure incident in the book, but it +shows us what respect the boys had for the gifts of the ragamuffin +original of Huck Finn. Tom Blankenship's brother Ben was also used, and +very importantly, in the creation of our beloved Huck. Ben was +considerably older, but certainly no more reputable, than Tom. He +tormented the smaller boys, and they had little love for him. Yet +somewhere in Ben Blankenship's nature there was a fine, generous strain +of humanity that provided Mark Twain with that immortal episode--the +sheltering of 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, out-cast 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 fished, and Ben carried him scraps of + other food. Then, by and by, the facts 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. + +Huck's struggle in the book is between conscience and the law, on one +side, and deep human sympathy on the other. Ben Blankenship's struggle, +supposing there was one, would be between sympathy and the offered +reward. Neither conscience nor law would trouble him. It was his native +humanity that made him shelter the runaway, and it must have been strong +and genuine to make him resist the lure of the fifty-dollar prize. + +There was another chapter to this incident. A few days after the +drowning of the runaway, Sam Clemens and his band made their way to the +place and were pushing the drift about, when, all at once, the negro shot +up out of the water, straight and terrible, a full half-length in the +air. He had gone down foremost and had been caught in the drift. The +boys did not stop to investigate, but flew in terror to report their +tale. + +Those early days seem to have been full of gruesome things. In "The +Innocents Abroad," the author tells how he once spent a night in his +father's office and discovered there a murdered man. This was a true +incident. The man had been stabbed that afternoon and carried into the +house to die. Sam and John Briggs had been playing truant all day and +knew nothing of the matter. Sam thought the office safer than his home, +where his mother was probably sitting up for him. He climbed in by a +window and lay down on the lounge, but did not sleep. Presently he +noticed what appeared to be an unusual shape on the floor. He tried to +turn his face to the wall and forget it, but that would not do. In agony +he watched the thing until at last a square of moonlight gradually +revealed a sight that he never forgot. In the book he says: + + "I went away from there. I do not say that I went in any sort of + 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 considerable agitated." + +Sam was not yet twelve, for his father was no longer living when the boy +had reached that age. And how many things had crowded themselves into +his few brief years! We must be content here with only a few of them. +Our chapter is already too long. + +Ministers and deacons did not prophesy well for Sam Clemens and his mad +companions. They spoke feelingly of state prison and the gallows. But +the boys were a disappointing lot. Will Bowen became a fine river-pilot. +Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank president. John +Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer. Huck Finn-- +which is to say, Tom Blankenship--died an honored citizen and justice of +the peace in a Western town. As for Sam Clemens, we shall see what he +became as the chapters pass. + +[1] John Briggs died in 1907; earlier in the same year the writer of this +memoir spent an afternoon with him and obtained from him most of the +material for this chapter. + + + + +VI. + +CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS + +Sam was at Mr. Cross's school on the Square in due time, and among the +pupils were companions that appealed to his gentler side. There were the +RoBards boys--George, the best Latin scholar, and John, who always won +the good-conduct medal, and would one day make all the other boys envious +by riding away with his father to California, his curls of gold blowing +in the wind. + +There was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John Garth, who would marry +little Helen Kercheval, and Jimmy MacDaniel, whom it was well to know +because his father kept a pastry-shop and he used to bring cakes and +candy to school. + +There were also a number of girls. Bettie Ormsley, Artemisia Briggs, and +Jennie Brady were among the girls he remembered in later years, and Mary +Miller, who was nearly double his age and broke his heart by getting +married one day, a thing he had not expected at all. + +Yet through it all he appears, like Tom Sawyer, to have had one faithful +sweetheart. In the book it is Becky Thatcher--in real life she was Laura +Hawkins. The Clemens and Hawkins families lived opposite, and the +children were early acquainted. The "Black Avenger of the Spanish Main" +was very gentle when he was playing at house-building with little Laura, +and once, when he dropped a brick on her finger, he cried the louder and +longer of the two. + +For he was a tender-hearted boy. He would never abuse an animal, except +when his tendency to mischief ran away with him, as in the "pain-killer" +incident. He had a real passion for cats. Each summer he carried his +cat to the farm in a basket, and it always had a place by him at the +table. He loved flowers--not as a boy botanist or gardener, but as a +companion who understood their thoughts. He pitied dead leaves and dry +weeds because their lives were ended and they would never know summer +again or grow glad with another spring. Even in that early time he had +that deeper sympathy which one day would offer comfort to humanity and +make every man his friend. + +But we are drifting away from Sam Clemens's school-days. They will not +trouble us much longer now. More than anything in the world Sam detested +school, and he made any excuse to get out of going. It is hard to say +just why, unless it was the restraint and the long hours of confinement. + +The Square in Hannibal, where stood the school of Mr. Cross, was a grove +in those days, with plum-trees and hazel-bushes and grape-vines. When +spring came, the children gathered flowers at recess, climbed trees, and +swung in the vines. It was a happy place enough, only--it was school. +To Sam Clemens, the spelling-bee every Friday afternoon was the one thing +that made it worth while. Sam was a leader at spelling--it was one of +his gifts--he could earn compliments even from Mr. Cross, whose name, it +would seem, was regarded as descriptive. Once in a moment of inspiration +Sam wrote on his late: + + "Cross by name and Cross by nature, + Cross jumped over an Irish potato." + +John Briggs thought this a great effort, and urged the author to write it +on the blackboard at noon. Sam hesitated. + +"Oh, pshaw!" said John, "I wouldn't be afraid to do it." + +"I dare you to do it," said Sam. + +This was enough. While Mr. Cross was at dinner John wrote in a large +hand the fine couplet. The teacher returned and called the school to +order. He looked at the blackboard, then, searchingly, at John Briggs. +The handwriting was familiar. + +"Did you do that?" he asked, ominously. + +It was a time for truth. + +"Yes, sir," said John. + +"Come here!" And John came and paid handsomely for his publishing +venture. Sam Clemens expected that the author would be called for next; +but perhaps Mr. Cross had exhausted himself on John. Sam did not often +escape. His back kept fairly warm from one "flailing" to the next. + +Yet he usually wore one of the two medals offered in that school--the +medal for spelling. Once he lost it by leaving the first "r" out of +February. Laura Hawkins was on the floor against him, and he was a +gallant boy. If it had only been Huck Brown he would have spelled that +and all the other months backward, to show off. There were moments of +triumph that almost made school worth while; the rest of the time it was +prison and servitude. + +But then one day came freedom. Judge Clemens, who, in spite of +misfortune, had never lost faith in humanity, indorsed a large note for a +neighbor, and was obliged to pay it. Once more all his property was +taken away. Only a few scanty furnishings were rescued from the wreck. +A St. Louis cousin saved the home, but the Clemens family could not +afford to live in it. They moved across the street and joined +housekeeping with another family. + +Judge Clemens had one hope left. He was a candidate for the clerkship of +the surrogate court, a good office, and believed his election sure. His +business misfortunes had aroused wide sympathy. He took no chances, +however, and made a house-to house canvas of the district, regardless of +the weather, probably undermining his health. He was elected by a large +majority, and rejoiced that his worries were now at an end. They were, +indeed, over. At the end of February he rode to the county seat to take +the oath of office. He returned through a drenching storm and reached +home nearly frozen. Pneumonia set in, and a few days later he was +dying. His one comfort now was the Tennessee land. He said it would +make them all rich and happy. Once he whispered: + +"Cling to the land; cling to the land and wait. Let nothing beguile it +away from you." + +He was a man who had rarely displayed affection for his children. But +presently he beckoned to Pamela, now a lovely girl of nineteen, and, +putting his arm around her neck, kissed her for the first time in years. + +"Let me die," he said. + +He did not speak again. A little more, and his worries had indeed ended. +The hard struggle of an upright, impractical man had come to a close. +This was in March, 1847. John Clemens had lived less than forty-nine +years. + +The children were dazed. They had loved their father and honored his +nobility of purpose. The boy Sam was overcome with remorse. He recalled +his wildness and disobedience--a thousand things trifling enough at the +time, but heartbreaking now. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was never +spared by remorse. Leading him into the room where his father lay, his +mother said some comforting words and asked him to make her a promise. + +He flung himself into her arms, sobbing: "I will promise anything, if you +won't make me go to school! Anything!" + +After a moment his mother 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!" + +He gave his promise to be faithful and industrious and upright, like his +father. Such a promise was a serious matter, and Sam Clemens, underneath +all, was a serious lad. He would not be twelve until November, but his +mother felt that he would keep his word. + +Orion Clemens returned to St. Louis, where he was receiving a salary of +ten dollars a week--high wage for those days--out of which he could send +three dollars weekly to the family. Pamela, who played the guitar and +piano very well, gave music lessons, and so helped the family fund. +Pamela Clemens, the original of Cousin Mary, in "Tom Sawyer," was a sweet +and noble girl. Henry was too young to work, but Sam was apprenticed to +a printer named Ament, who had recently moved to Hannibal and bought a +weekly paper, "The Courier." Sam agreed with his mother that the +printing trade offered a chance for further education without attending +school, and then, some day, there might be wages. + + + + +VII. + +THE APPRENTICE + +The terms of Samuel Clemens's apprenticeship were the usual thing for +that day: 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, 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." + +Another apprentice, a huge creature, named Wales McCormick, was so large +that Ament's clothes were much too small for him. The two apprentices, +fitted out with their employer's cast-off garments, were amusing enough, +no doubt. Sam and Wales ate in the kitchen at first, but later at the +family table with Mr. and Mrs. Ament and Pet McMurry, a journeyman +printer. McMurry was a happy soul, as one could almost guess from his +name. He had traveled far and learned much. What the two apprentices +did not already know, Pet McMurry could teach them. Sam Clemens had +promised to be a good boy, and he was so, 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 cooked in the office, where the boys slept +on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato +which his fellow apprentice never forgot. + +How one wishes for a photograph of Sam Clemens at that period! But in +those days there were only daguerreotypes, and they were expensive +things. There is a letter, though, written long afterward, by Pet +McMurry to Mark Twain, which contains this paragraph: + + "If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy- + haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing- + office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a + little box at the case, 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.'" + +And with this portrait we must be content--we cannot doubt its truth. + +Sam was soon office favorite and in time became chief stand-by. When he +had been at work a year, he could set type accurately, run the job press +to the tune of "Annie Laurie," and he had charge of the circulation. +That is to say, he carried the papers--a mission of real importance, for +a long, sagging span of telegraph-wire had reached across the river to +Hannibal, and Mexican-war news delivered hot from the front gave the +messenger a fine prestige. + +He even did editing, of a kind. That is to say, when Ament was not in +the office and copy was needed, Sam hunted him up, explained the +situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not +ambitious to write--not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like +Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to +be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served +as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled by his success. + +But he stuck to printing, and rapidly became a neat, capable workman. +Ament gave him a daily task, after which he was free. By three in the +afternoon he was likely to finish his stint. Then he was off for the +river or the cave, joining his old comrades. Or perhaps he would go with +Laura Hawkins to gather wild columbine on the high cliff above the river, +known as Lover's Leap. When winter came these two sometimes went to Bear +Creek, skating; or together they attended parties, where the old- +fashioned games "Ring-around-Rosy" and "Dusty Miller" were the chief +amusements. + +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." That +was the real Laura, though her story in that book in no way resembles the +reality. + +It was just at this time that an incident occurred which may be looked +back upon now as a turning-point in Samuel Clemens's life. Coming home +from the office one afternoon, he noticed a square of paper being swept +along by the wind. He saw that it was printed--was interested +professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap +and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and +pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and +mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of +description, but the rest was pitiful dialogue. + +Sam had never heard of Joan before--he knew nothing of history. He was +no reader. Orion was fond of books, and Pamela; even little Henry had +read more than Sam. But now, as he read, there awoke in him a deep +feeling of pity and indignation, and with it a longing to know more of +the tragic story. It was an interest that would last his life through, +and in the course of time find expression in one of the rarest books ever +written. + +The first result was that Sam began to read. He hunted up everything he +could find on the subject of Joan, and from that went into French history +in general--indeed, into history of every kind. Samuel Clemens had +suddenly become a reader--almost a student. He even began the study of +languages, German and Latin, but was not able to go on for lack of time +and teachers. + +He became a hater of tyranny, a champion of the weak. Watching a game of +marbles or tops, he would remark to some offender, in his slow drawling +way, "You mustn't cheat that boy." + +And the cheating stopped, or trouble followed. + + + + +VIII. + +ORION'S PAPER + +A Hannibal paper, the "Journal," was for sale under a mortgage of five +hundred dollars, and Orion Clemens, returning from St. Louis, borrowed +the money and bought it. Sam's two years' apprenticeship with Ament had +been completed, and Orion felt that together they could carry on the +paper and win success. Henry Clemens, now eleven, was also taken out of +school to learn type-setting. + +Orion was a better printer than proprietor. Like so many of his family, +he was a visionary, gentle and credulous, ready to follow any new idea. +Much advice was offered him, and he tried to follow it all. + +He began with great hopes and energy. He worked like a slave and did not +spare the others. The paper was their hope of success. Sam, especially, +was driven. There were no more free afternoons. In some chapters +written by Orion Clemens in later life, he said: + + "I was tyrannical and unjust to Sam. He was swift and clean as a + good journeyman. I gave him 'takes,' and, if he got through well, I + begrudged him the time and made him work more." + +Orion did not mean to be unjust. The struggle against opposition and +debt was bitter. He could not be considerate. + +The paper for a time seemed on the road to success, but Orion worked too +hard and tried too many schemes. His enthusiasm waned and most of his +schemes turned out poorly. By the end of the year the "Journal" was on +the down grade. + +In time when the need of money became great, Orion made a trip to +Tennessee to try to raise something on the land which they still held +there. He left Sam in charge of the paper, and, though its proprietor +returned empty-handed, his journey was worth while, for it was during his +absence that Samuel Clemens began the career that would one day make him +Mark Twain. + +Sam had concluded to edit the paper in a way that would liven up the +circulation. He had never written anything for print, but he believed he +knew what the subscribers wanted. The editor of a rival paper had been +crossed in love, and was said to have tried to drown himself. Sam wrote +an article telling all the history of the affair, giving names and +details. Then on the back of two big wooden letters, used for bill- +printing, he engraved illustrations of the victim wading out into the +river, testing the depth of the water with a stick. + +The paper came out, and the demand for it kept the Washington hand-press +busy. The injured editor sent word that he was coming over to thrash the +whole Journal staff, but he left town, instead, for the laugh was too +general. + +Sam also wrote a poem which startled orthodox readers. Then Orion +returned and reduced him to the ranks. In later years Orion saw his +mistake. + + "I could have distanced all competitors, even then," he wrote, + "if I had recognized Sam's ability and let him go ahead, merely + keeping him from offending worthy persons." + +Sam was not discouraged. He liked the taste of print. He sent two +anecdotes to the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post. Both were accepted- +-without payment, of course, in those days--and when they appeared he +walked on air. This was in 1851. Nearly sixty years later he said: + + "Seeing them in print was a joy which rather exceeded anything in + that line I have ever experienced since." + +However, he wrote nothing further for the "Post." Orion printed two of +his sketches in the "Journal," which was the extent of his efforts at +this time. None of this early work has been preserved. Files of the +"Post" exist, but the sketches were unsigned and could hardly be +identified. + +The Hannibal paper dragged along from year to year. Orion could pay +nothing on the mortgage--financial matters becoming always worse. He +could barely supply the plainest food and clothing for the family. Sam +and Henry got no wages, of course. Then real disaster came. A cow got +into the office one night, upset a type-case, and ate up two composition +rollers. Somewhat later a fire broke out and did considerable damage. +There was partial insurance, with which Orion replaced a few necessary +articles; then, to save rent, he moved the office into the front room of +the home on Hill Street, where they were living again at this time. + +Samuel Clemens, however, now in his eighteenth year, felt that he was no +longer needed in Hannibal. He was a capable workman, with little to do +and no reward. Orion, made irritable by his misfortunes, was not always +kind. Pamela, who, meantime, had married well, was settled in St. Louis. +Sam told his mother that he would visit Pamela and look about the city. +There would be work in St. Louis at good wages. + +He was going farther than St. Louis, but he dared not tell her. Jane +Clemens, consenting, sighed as she put together his scanty belongings. +Sam was going away. He had been a good boy of late years, but her faith +in his resisting powers was not strong. Presently 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." + +The slim, wiry woman of forty-nine, gray-eyed, tender, and resolute, +faced the fair-cheeked youth of seventeen, his eyes as piercing and +unwavering as her own. How much alike they were! + +"I want you," Jane Clemens said, "to repeat after me, Sam, these words: I +do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card or drink a drop of liquor +while I am gone." + +He repeated the vow after her, and she kissed him. + +"Remember that, Sam, and write to us," she said. + +"And so," writes Orion, "he went wandering in search of that comfort and +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 abounding activity and merriment." + + + + +IX. + +THE OPEN ROAD + +Samuel Clemens went to visit his sister Pamela in St. Louis and was +presently at work, setting type on the "Evening News." He had no +intention, however, of staying there. His purpose was to earn money +enough to take him to New York City. The railroad had by this time +reached St. Louis, and he meant to have the grand experience of a long +journey "on the cars." Also, there was a Crystal Palace in New York, +where a world's exposition was going on. + +Trains were slow in 1853, and it required several days and nights to go +from St. Louis to New York City, but to Sam Clemens it was a wonderful +journey. All day he sat looking out of the window, eating when he chose +from the food he carried, curling up in his seat at night to sleep. He +arrived at last with a few dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill +sewed into the lining of his coat. + +New York was rather larger than he expected. All of the lower end of +Manhattan Island was covered by it. The Crystal Palace--some distance +out--stood at Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue--the present site of +Bryant Park. All the world's newest wonders were to be seen there--a +dazzling exhibition. A fragment of the letter which Sam Clemens wrote to +his sister Pamela--the earliest piece of Mark Twain's writing that has +been preserved--expresses his appreciation of the big fair: + + "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 one + 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 fifty 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 pipes are laid across the bed of the + Harlem 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 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 a 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. + + "(It has just struck 2 A.M., and I always get up at six and am at + work at 7.) You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you + suppose, with a free printers' library containing more than 4,000 + volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk + to?" + + "I shall write to Ella soon. Write soon. + "Truly your Brother, + + "SAMY. + + "P.S.--I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could + not read by it." + +We get a fair idea of Samuel Clemens at seventeen from this letter. For +one thing, he could write good, clear English, full of interesting facts. +He is enthusiastic, but not lavish of words. He impresses us with his +statement that the visitors to the Palace each day are in number double +the population of Hannibal; a whole river is turned from its course to +supply New York City with water; the water comes thirty-eight miles, and +each family could use a hundred barrels a day! The letter reveals his +personal side--his kindly interest in those left behind, his anxiety for +Henry, his assurance that the promise to his mother was being kept, his +memory of her longing to visit her old home. And the boy who hated +school has become a reader--he is reveling in a printers' library of +thousands of volumes. We feel, somehow, that Samuel Clemens has suddenly +become quite a serious-minded person, that he has left Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper and Huck Finn somewhere in a beautiful country a long way behind. + +He found work with the firm of John A. Gray & Green, general printers, in +Cliff Street. His pay was four dollars a week, in wild-cat money--that +is, money issued by private banks--rather poor money, being generally at +a discount and sometimes worth less. But if wages were low, living was +cheap in those days, and Sam Clemens, lodging in a mechanics' boarding- +house in Duane Street, sometimes had fifty cents left on Saturday night +when his board and washing were paid. + +Luckily, he had not set out to seek his fortune, but only to see +something of the world. He lingered in New York through the summer of +1853, never expecting to remain long. His letters of that period were +few. In October he said, in a letter to Pamela, that he did not write to +the family because he did not know their whereabouts, Orion having sold +the paper and left Hannibal. + + "I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave + New York every day for the last two weeks," he adds, which sounds + like the Mark Twain of fifty years later. Farther along, he tells + of going to see Edwin Forrest, then playing at the Broadway Theater: + + "The play was the 'Gladiator.' I did not like part of it much, but + other portions were really splendid. In the latter part of the last + act. . . the man's whole soul seems absorbed in the part he is + playing; and it is real 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." + +A little farther along he says: + + "If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about + me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years old who is not + able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother + is not worth one's thoughts." + +Sam Clemens may have followed Forrest to Philadelphia. At any rate, he +was there presently, "subbing" in the composing-rooms of the "Inquirer," +setting ten thousand ems a day, and receiving pay accordingly. When +there was no vacancy for him to fill, he put in the time visiting the +Philadelphia libraries, art galleries, and historic landmarks. After +all, his chief business was sight-seeing. Work was only a means to this +end. Chilly evenings, when he returned to his boarding-house, his room- +mate, an Englishman named Sumner, grilled a herring over their small open +fire, and this was a great feast. He tried writing--obituary poetry, for +the "Philadelphia Ledger"--but it was not accepted. + +"My efforts were not received with approval" was his comment long after. + +In the "Inquirer" office there was a printer named Frog, and sometimes, +when he went out, the office "devils" would hang over his case a line +with a hook on it baited with a piece of red flannel. They never got +tired of this joke, and Frog never failed to get fighting mad when he saw +that dangling string with the bit of red flannel at the end. No doubt +Sam Clemens had his share in this mischief. + +Sam found that he liked Philadelphia. He could save a little money and +send something to his mother--small amounts, but welcome. Once he +inclosed a gold dollar, "to serve as a specimen of the kind of stuff we +are paid with in Philadelphia." Better than doubtful "wild-cat," +certainly. Of his work he writes: + + "One man has engaged me to work for him every Sunday till the first + of next April, when I shall return home to take Ma to Ky . . . . + If I want to, I can get subbing every night of the week. I go to + work at seven in the evening and work till three the next morning . + . . . The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois, + and when one gets a good agate "take," he is sure to make money. I + made $2.50 last Sunday." + +There is a long description of a trip on the Fairmount stage in this +letter, well-written and interesting, but too long to have place here. +In the same letter he speaks of the graves of Benjamin Franklin and his +wife, which he had looked at through the iron railing of the locked +inclosure. Probably it did not occur to him that there might be points +of similarity between Franklin's career and his own. Yet in time these +would be rather striking: each learned the printer's trade; each worked +in his brother's 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. + +Orion Clemens, meantime, had bought a paper in Muscatine, Iowa, and +located the family there. Evidently by this time he had realized the +value of his brother as a contributor, for Sam, in a letter to Orion, +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." + +Meantime, he had passed his eighteenth birthday, winter was coming on, he +had been away from home half a year, and the first attack of homesickness +was due. "One only has to leave home to learn how to write interesting +letters to an absent friend," he wrote; and again. "I don't like our +present prospect for cold weather at all." + +He declared he only wanted to get back to avoid night work, which was +injuring his eyes, but we may guess there was a stronger reason, which +perhaps he did not entirely realize. The novelty of wandering had worn +off, and he yearned for familiar faces, the comfort of those he loved. + +But he did not go. He made a trip to Washington in January--a sight- +seeing trip--returning to Philadelphia, where he worked for the "Ledger" +and "North American." Eventually he went back to New York, and from +there took ticket to St. Louis. This was in the late summer of 1854; he +had been fifteen months away from his people when he stepped aboard the +train to return. + +Sam was worn out when he reached St. Louis; but the Keokuk packet was +leaving, and he stopped only long enough to see Pamela, then went aboard +and, flinging himself into his berth, did not waken until the boat +reached Muscatine, Iowa, thirty-six hours later. + +It was very early when he arrived, too early to rouse the family. He sat +down in the office of a little hotel to wait for morning, and picked up a +small book that lay on the writing-table. It contained pictures of the +English rulers with the brief facts of their reigns. Sam Clemens +entertained himself learning these data by heart. He had a fine memory +for such things, and in an hour or two had those details so perfectly +committed that he never forgot one of them as long as he lived. The +knowledge acquired in this stray fashion he found invaluable in later +life. It was his groundwork for all English history. + + + + +X. + +A WIND OF CHANCE + +Orion could not persuade his brother to remain in Muscatine. Sam +returned to his old place on the "Evening News," in St. Louis, where he +remained until the following year, rooming with a youth named Burrough, a +journeyman chair-maker with literary taste, a reader of the English +classics, a companionable lad, and for Samuel Clemens a good influence. + +By spring, Orion Clemens had married and had sold out in Muscatine. He +was now located in Keokuk, Iowa. When presently Brother Sam came +visiting to Keokuk, Orion offered him five dollars a week and his board +to remain. He accepted. Henry Clemens, now seventeen, was also in +Orion's employ, and a lad named Dick Hingham. Henry and Sam slept in the +office; Dick and a young fellow named Brownell, who roomed above, came in +for social evenings. + +They were pretty lively evenings. A music-teacher on the floor below did +not care for them--they disturbed his class. He was furious, in fact, +and assailed the boys roughly at first, with no result but to make +matters worse. Then he tried gentleness, and succeeded. The boys +stopped their capers and joined his class. Sam, especially, became a +distinguished member of that body. He was never a great musician, but +with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, +he had no rival in popularity. He was twenty now , and much with young +ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good comrade to +all, full of pranks and pleasantries, ready to stop and be merry with any +that came along. If they prophesied concerning his future, it is not +likely that they spoke of literary fame. They thought him just easy- +going and light-minded. True, they noticed that he often carried a book +under his arm--a history, a volume of Dickens, or the tales of Poe. + +He read more than any one guessed. At night, propped up in bed--a habit +continued until his death--he was likely to read until a late hour. He +enjoyed smoking at such times, and had made himself a pipe with a large +bowl which stood on the floor and had a long rubber stem, something like +the Turkish hubble-bubble. He liked to fill the big bowl and smoke at +ease through the entire evening. But sometimes the pipe went out, which +meant that he must strike a match and lean far over to apply it, just +when he was most comfortable. Sam Clemens never liked unnecessary +exertion. One night, when the pipe had gone out for the second time, he +happened to hear the young book-clerk, Brownell, passing up to his room +on the top floor. Sam called to him: + +"Ed, come here!" + +Brownell poked his head in the door. The two were great chums. + +"What will you have, Sam?" he asked. + +"Come in, Ed; Henry's asleep, and I'm in trouble. I want somebody to +light my pipe." + +"Why don't you 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 a match, stooped down, and applied it. + +"What are you reading, Sam?" + +"Oh, nothing much--a so-called funny book. One of these days I'll write +a funnier book myself." + +Brownell laughed. "No, you won't, Sam," he said. "You're too lazy ever +to write a book." + +Years later, in the course of a lecture which he delivered in Keokuk, +Mark Twain said that he supposed the most untruthful man in the world +lived right there in Keokuk, and that his name was Ed Brownell. + +Orion Clemens did not have the gift of prosperity, and his printing- +office did not flourish. When he could no longer pay Sam's wages he took +him into partnership, which meant that Sam got no wages at all, though +this was of less consequence, since his mother, now living with Pamela, +was well provided for. The disorder of the office, however, distressed +him. He wrote home that he could not work without system, and, a little +later, that he was going to leave Keokuk, that, in fact, he was planning +a great adventure--a trip to the upper Amazon! + +His interest in the Amazon had been awakened by a book. Lynch and +Herndon had surveyed the upper river, and Lieutenant Herndon's book was +widely read. Sam Clemens, propped up in bed, pored over it through long +evenings, and nightly made fabulous fortunes collecting cocoa and other +rare things--resolving, meantime, to start in person for the upper Amazon +with no unnecessary delay. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was the same. +His vision of grand possibilities ahead blinded him to the ways and means +of arrival. It was an inheritance from both sides of his parentage. +Once, in old age, he wrote: + + "I have been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing + things and reflecting afterward . . . . When I am reflecting on + these occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think." + +He believed, however, that he had reflected carefully concerning the +Amazon, and that in a brief time he should be there at the head of an +expedition, piling up untold wealth. He even stirred the imaginations of +two other adventurers, a Dr. Martin and a young man named Ward. To +Henry, then in St. Louis, he wrote, August 5, 1856: + + "Ward and I held a long consultation Sunday morning, and the result + was that we two have determined to start to Brazil, if possible, in + six weeks from now, in order to look carefully into matters there + and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on the first of + March." + +The matter of finance troubled him. Orion could not be depended on for +any specified sum, and the fare to the upper Amazon would probably be +considerable. Sam planned different methods of raising it. One of them +was to go to New York or Cincinnati and work at his trade until he saved +the amount. He would then sail from New York direct, or take boat for +New Orleans and sail from there. Of course there would always be vessels +clearing for the upper Amazon. After Lieutenant Herndon's book the ocean +would probably be full of them. + +He did not make the start with Ward, as planned, and Ward and Martin seem +to have given up the Amazon idea. Not so with Samuel Clemens. He went +on reading Herndon, trying meantime to raise money enough to get him out +of Keokuk. Was it fate or Providence that suddenly placed it in his +hands? Whatever it was, the circumstance is so curious that it must be +classed as one of those strange facts that have no place in fiction. + +The reader will remember how, one day in Hannibal, the wind had brought +to Sam Clemens, then printer's apprentice, a stray leaf from a book about +"Joan of Arc," and how that incident marked a turning-point in his mental +life. Now, seven years later, it was the wind again that directed his +fortune. It was a day in early November--bleak, bitter, and +gusty, with whirling snow; most persons were indoors. Samuel Clemens, +going down Main Street, Keokuk, saw a flying bit of paper pass him and +lodge against 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. + +He was tempted to pocket his good fortune and keep still. But he had +always a troublesome conscience. He went to a newspaper office and +advertised that he had found a sum of money, a large bill. + +Once, long after, he said: "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." + +Another time he said, "I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the +same day." All of which we may take with his usual literary discount-- +the one assigned to him by his mother in childhood. As a matter of fact, +he remained for an ample time, and nobody came for the money. What was +its origin? Was it swept out of a bank, or caught up by the wind from +some counting-room table? Perhaps it materialized out of the unseen. +Who knows? + + + + +XI. + +THE LONG WAY TO THE AMAZON + +Sam decided on Cincinnati as his base. From there he could go either to +New York or New Orleans to catch the Amazon boat. He paid a visit to St. +Louis, where his mother made him renew his promise as to drink and cards. +Then he was seized with a literary idea, and returned to Keokuk, where he +proposed to a thriving weekly paper, the "Saturday Post," to send letters +of travel, which might even be made into a book later on. George Reese, +owner of the "Post," agreed to pay five dollars each for the letters, +which speaks well for his faith in Samuel Clemens's talent, five dollars +being good pay for that time and place--more than the letters were worth, +judged by present standards. The first was dated Cincinnati, November +14, 1856, and was certainly not promising literature. It was written in +the ridiculous dialect which was once thought to be the dress of humor; +and while here and there is a comic flash, there is in it little promise +of the future Mark Twain. One extract is enough: + + "When we got to the depo', I went around to git a look at the iron + hoss. Thunderation! It wasn't no more like a hoss than a meetin'- + house. If I was goin' to describe the animule, I'd say it looked + like--well, it looked like--blamed if I know what it looked like, + snorting fire and brimstone out of his nostrils, and puffin' out + black smoke all 'round, and pantin', and heavin', and swellin', and + chawin' up red-hot coals like they was good. A feller stood in a + little house like, feedin' him all the time; but the more he got, + the more he wanted and the more he blowed and snorted. After a + spell the feller ketched him by the tail, and great Jericho! he set + up a yell that split the ground for more'n a mile and a half, and + the next minit I felt my legs a-waggin', and found myself at t'other + end of the string o' vehickles. I wasn't skeered, but I had three + chills and a stroke of palsy in less than five minits, and my face + had a cur'us brownish-yaller-greenbluish color in it, which was + perfectly unaccountable. 'Well,' say I, 'comment is super-flu-ous.'" + +How Samuel Clemens could have written that, and worse, at twenty-one, and +a little more than ten years later have written "The Innocents Abroad," +is one of the mysteries of literature. The letters were signed +"Snodgrass," and there are but two of them. Snodgrass seems to have +found them hard work, for it is said he raised on the price, which, +fortunately, brought the series to a close. Their value to-day lies in +the fact that they are the earliest of Mark Twain's newspaper +contributions that have been preserved--the first for which he received a +cash return. + +Sam remained in Cincinnati until April of the following year, 1857, +working for Wrightson & Co., general printers, lodging in a cheap +boarding-house, saving every possible penny for his great adventure. + +He had one associate at the boarding-house, a lank, unsmiling Scotchman +named Macfarlane, twice young Clemens's age, and a good deal of a +mystery. Sam never could find out what Macfarlane did. His hands were +hardened by some sort of heavy labor; he left at six in the morning and +returned in the evening at the same hour. He never mentioned his work, +and young Clemens had the delicacy not to inquire. + +For Macfarlane was no ordinary person. He was a man of deep knowledge, a +reader of many books, a thinker; he was versed in history and philosophy, +he knew the dictionary by heart. He made but two statements concerning +himself: one, that he had acquired his knowledge from reading, and not at +school; the other, that he knew every word in the English dictionary. He +was willing to give proof of the last, and Sam Clemens tested him more +than once, but found no word that Macfarlane could not define. + +Macfarlane was not silent--he would discuss readily enough the deeper +problems of life and had many startling theories of his own. Darwin had +not yet published his "Descent of Man," yet Macfarlane was already +advancing ideas similar to those in that book. He went further than +Darwin. He had startling ideas of the moral evolution of man, and these +he would pour into the ears of his young listener until ten o'clock, +after which, like the English Sumner in Philadelphia, he would grill a +herring, and the evening would end. Those were fermenting discourses +that young Samuel Clemens listened to that winter in Macfarlane's room, +and they did not fail to influence his later thought. + +It was the high-tide of spring, late in April, when the prospective +cocoa-hunter decided that it was time to set out for the upper Amazon. +He had saved money enough to carry him at least as far as New Orleans, +where he would take ship, it being farther south and therefore nearer his +destination. Furthermore, he could begin with a lazy trip down the +Mississippi, which, next to being a pilot, had been one of his most +cherished dreams. The Ohio River steamers were less grand than those of +the Mississippi, but they had a homelike atmosphere and did not hurry. +Samuel Clemens had the spring fever and was willing to take his time. + +In "Life on the Mississippi" we read that the author ran away, vowing +never to return until he could come home a pilot, shedding glory. But +this is the fiction touch. He had always loved the river, and his +boyhood dream of piloting had time and again returned, but it was not +uppermost when he bade good-by to Macfarlane and stepped aboard the "Paul +Jones," bound for New Orleans, and thus conferred immortality on that +ancient little craft. + +Now he had really started on his voyage. But it was a voyage that would +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. + + + + +XII. + +RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION + +A reader of Mark Twain's Mississippi book gets the impression that the +author was a boy of about seventeen when he started to learn the river, +and that he was painfully ignorant of the great task ahead. But this +also is the fiction side of the story. Samuel Clemens was more than +twenty-one when he set out on the "Paul Jones," and in a way was familiar +with the trade of piloting. Hannibal had turned out many pilots. An +older brother of the Bowen boys was already on the river when Sam Clemens +was rolling rocks down Holliday's Hill. Often he came home to air his +grandeur and hold forth on the wonder of his work. That learning the +river was no light task Sam Clemens would know as well as any one who had +not tried it. + +Nevertheless, as the drowsy little steamer went puffing down into softer, +sunnier lands, the old dream, the "permanent ambition" of boyhood, +returned, while the call of the far-off Amazon and cocoa drew faint. + +Horace Bixby,[2] pilot of the "Paul Jones," a man of thirty-two, 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 small, clean-cut man. "Good morning, sir," he said, rather +briskly, without looking around. + +He did not much care for visitors in the pilothouse. This one entered +and stood a little behind him. + +"How would you like a young man to learn the river?" came to him in that +serene, deliberate speech. + +The pilot glanced over his shoulder and saw a rather slender, loose- +limbed youth with a fair, girlish complexion and a great mass of curly +auburn hair. + +"I wouldn't like it. Cub pilots are more trouble than they're worth. A +great deal more trouble than profit." + +"I am a printer by trade," the easy voice went on. "It doesn't agree +with me. I thought I'd go to South America." + +Bixby kept his eye on the river, but there was interest in his voice when +he spoke. "What makes you pull your words that way?" he asked--"pulling" +being the river term for drawling. + +The young man, now seated comfortably on the visitors' bench, said more +slowly than ever: "You'll have to ask my mother--she pulls hers, too." + +Pilot Bixby laughed. The manner of the reply amused him. His guest was +encouraged. + +"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. I know Sam, too, and Bart." + +"Old schoolmates of mine in Hannibal. Sam and Will, especially, were my +chums." + +Bixby's tone became friendly. "Come over and stand by me," he said. +"What is your name?" + +The applicant told him, and the two stood looking out on the sunlit +water. + +"Do you drink?" + +"No." + +"Do you gamble?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you swear?" + +"N-not for amusement; only under pressure." + +"Do you chew?" + +"No, sir, never; but I must--smoke." + +"Did you ever do any steering?" + +"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 on the +bench where he could keep a careful eye on the course. By and by he said +"There is just one way 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 seemed discouraging. + +"I haven't got five hundred dollars in money," Sam said. "I've got a lot +of Tennessee land worth two bits an acre. I'll give you two thousand +acres of that." + +Bixby shook his head. "No," he said, "I don't want any unimproved real +estate. I have too much already." + +Sam reflected. He thought he might be able to borrow one hundred dollars +from William Moffett, Pamela's husband, without straining his credit. + +"Well, then," he proposed, "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 at the wheel, his evident +simplicity and sincerity--the inner qualities of mind and heart which +would make the world love Mark Twain. The terms proposed were accepted. +The first payment was to be in cash; the others were to begin when the +pupil had learned the river and was earning wages. During the rest of +the trip to New Orleans the new pupil was often at the wheel, while Mr. +Bixby nursed his sore foot and gave directions. Any literary ambitions +that Samuel Clemens still nourished waned rapidly. By the time he had +reached New Orleans he had almost forgotten he had ever been a printer. +As for the Amazon and cocoa, why, there had been no ship sailing in that +direction for years, and it was unlikely that any would ever sail again, +a fact that rather amused the would-be adventurer now, since Providence +had regulated his affairs in accordance with his oldest and longest +cherished dream. + +At New Orleans Bixby left the "Paul Jones" for a fine St. Louis boat, +taking his cub with him. This was a sudden and happy change, and Sam was +a good deal impressed with his own importance in belonging to so imposing +a structure, especially when, after a few days' stay in New Orleans, he +stood by Bixby's side in the big glass turret while they backed out of +the line of wedged-in boats and headed up the great river. + +This was glory, but there was sorrow ahead. He had not really begun +learning the river as yet he had only steered under directions. He had +known that to learn the river would be hard, but he had never realized +quite how hard. Serenely he had undertaken the task of mastering 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. +Nobody could realize the full size of that task--not till afterward. + +[2] Horace Bixby lived until 1912 and remained at the wheel until within +a short time of his death, in his eighty-seventh year. The writer of +this memoir visited him in 1910 and took down from his dictation the +dialogue that follows. + + + +XIII. + +LEARNING THE RIVER + +In that early day, to be a pilot was to be "greater than a king." The +Mississippi River pilot was a law unto himself--there was none above him. +His direction of the boat was absolute; he could start or lay up when he +chose; he could pass a landing regardless of business there, consulting +nobody, not even the captain; he could take the boat into what seemed +certain destruction, if he had that mind, and the captain was obliged to +stand by, helpless and silent, for the law was with the pilot in +everything. + +Furthermore, the pilot was a gentleman. His work was clean and +physically light. It ended the instant the boat was tied to the landing, +and did not begin again until it was ready to back into the stream. +Also, for those days his salary was princely--the Vice-President of the +United States did not receive more. As for prestige, the Mississippi +pilot, perched high in his glass inclosure, fashionably dressed, and +commanding all below him, was the most conspicuous and showy, the most +observed and envied creature in the world. No wonder Sam Clemens, with +his love of the river and his boyish fondness for honors, should aspire +to that stately rank. Even at twenty-one he was still just a boy--as, +indeed, he was till his death--and we may imagine how elated he was, +starting up the great river as a real apprentice pilot, who in a year or +two would stand at the wheel, as his chief was now standing, a monarch +with a splendid income and all the great river packed away in his head. + +In that last item lay the trouble. In the Mississippi book he tells of +it in a way that no one may hope to equal, and if the details are not +exact, the truth is there--at least in substance. + +For a distance above New Orleans Mr. Bixby had volunteered information +about the river, naming the points and crossings, in what seemed a casual +way, all through his watch of four hours. Their next watch began in the +middle of the night, and Mark Twain tells how surprised and disgusted he +was to learn that pilots must get up in the night to run their boats, and +his amazement to find Mr. Bixby plunging into the blackness ahead as if +it had been daylight. Very likely this is mainly fiction, but hardly the +following: + + Presently he turned to me and said: "What's the name of the first + point above New Orleans?" + + I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I + didn't know. + + "Don't know!" + + His manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. + But I had to say just what I had said before. + + "Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. Bixby. "What's the name of the + next point?" + + Once more I didn't know. + + "Well, this beats anything! Tell me the name of any point or place + I told you." + + I studied awhile and decided that I couldn't. + + "Look here! What do you start from, above Twelve Mile Point, to + cross over?" + + "I--I--don't know." + + "'You--you don't know,"' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. + "What do you know?" + + "I--I--Nothing, for certain." + + Bixby was a small, nervous man, hot and quick-firing. He went off + now, and said a number of severe things. Then: + + "Look here, what do you suppose I told you the names of those points + for?" + + I tremblingly considered a moment--then the devil of temptation + provoked me to say: "Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought." + + This was a red flag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was + crossing the river at the time) that I judged it made him blind, + because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course + the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man + so grateful as Mr. Bixby was, because he was brimful, and here were + subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his + head out, and such an irruption followed as I had never heard before + . . . . When he closed the window he was empty. Presently he + said to me, in the gentlest way: + + "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." + +The little memorandum-book which Sam Clemens bought, probably at the next +daylight landing, still exists--the same that he says "fairly bristled +with the names of towns, points, bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc."; +but it made his heart ache to think he had only half the river set down, +for, as the watches were four hours off and four hours on, there were the +long gaps where he had slept. + +It is not easy to make out the penciled notes today. The small, neat +writing is faded, and many of them are in an abbreviation made only for +himself. It is hard even to find these examples to quote: + +MERIWETHER'S BEND + +One-fourth less 3[3]--run shape of upper bar and go into the low place in +the willows about 200 (ft.) lower down than last year. + +OUTSIDE OF MONTEZUMA + +Six or eight feet more water. Shape bar till high timber on towhead gets +nearly even with low willows. Then hold a little open on right of low +willows--run 'em close if you want to, but come out 200 yards when you +get nearly to head of towhead. + +The average mind would not hold a single one of these notes ten seconds, +yet by the time he reached St. Louis he had set down pages that to-day +make one's head weary even to contemplate. And those long four-hour gaps +where he had been asleep--they are still there; and now, after nearly +sixty years, the old heartache is still in them. He must have bought a +new book for the next trip and laid this one away. + +To the new "cub" it seemed a long way to St. Louis that first trip, but +in the end it was rather grand to come steaming up to the big, busy city, +with its thronging waterfront flanked with a solid mile of steamboats, +and to nose one's way to a place in that stately line. + +At St. Louis, Sam borrowed from his brother-in-law the one hundred +dollars he had agreed to pay, and so closed his contract with Bixby. A +few days later his chief was engaged to go on a very grand boat indeed--a +"sumptuous temple," he tells us, all brass and inlay, with a pilot-house +so far above the water that he seemed perched on a mountain. This part +of learning the river was worth while; and when he found that the +regiment of natty servants respectfully "sir'd" him, his happiness was +complete. + +But he was in the depths again, presently, for when they started down the +river and he began to take account of his knowledge, he found that he had +none. Everything had changed--that is, he was seeing it all from the +other direction. What with the four-hour gaps and this transformation, +he was lost completely. + +How could the easy-going, dreamy, unpractical man whom the world knew as +Mark Twain ever have persisted against discouragement like that to +acquire the vast, the absolute, limitless store of information necessary +to Mississippi piloting? The answer is that he loved the river, the +picturesqueness and poetry of a steamboat, the ease and glory of a +pilot's life; and then, in spite of his own later claims to the contrary, +Samuel Clemens, boy and man, in the work suited to his tastes and gifts, +was the most industrious of persons. Work of the other sort he avoided, +overlooked, refused to recognize, but never any labor for which he was +qualified by his talents or training. Piloting suited him exactly, and +he proved an apt pupil. + +Horace Bixby said to the writer of this memoir: "Sam was always good- +natured, and he had a natural taste for the river. He had a fine memory +and never forgot what I told him." + +Yet there must have been hard places all along, for to learn every crook +and turn and stump and snag and bluff and bar and sounding of that twelve +hundred miles of mighty, shifting water was a gigantic task. Mark Twain +tells us how, when he was getting along pretty well, his chief one day +turned on him 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 replied respectfully and 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 that is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else + is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't got the same shape + in the night that it has in the daytime." + + "How on earth am I 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!" + +But the reader must turn to Chapter VIII of "Life on the Mississippi" and +read, or reread, the pages which follow this extract--nothing can better +convey the difficulties of piloting. That Samuel Clemens had the courage +to continue is the best proof, not only of his great love of the river, +but of that splendid gift of resolution that one rarely fails to find in +men of the foremost rank. + +[3] Depth of water. One-quarter less than three fathoms. + + + + +XIV. + +RIVER DAYS + +Piloting was only a part of Sam Clemens's education on the Mississippi. +He learned as much of the reefs and shallows of human nature as of the +river-bed. In one place he writes: + + 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. + +All the different types, but most of them in the rough. That Samuel +Clemens kept the promise made to his mother as to drink and cards during +those apprentice days is well worth remembering. + +Horace Bixby, answering a call for pilots from the Missouri River, +consigned his pupil, as was customary, tonne of the pilots of the "John +J. Roe," a freight-boat, owned and conducted by some retired farmers, and +in its hospitality reminding Sam of his Uncle John Quarles's farm. The +"Roe" was a very deliberate boat. It was said that she could beat an +island to St. Louis, but never quite overtake the current going down- +stream. Sam loved the "Roe." She was not licensed to carry passengers, +but she always had a family party of the owners' relations aboard, and +there was a big deck for dancing and a piano in the cabin. The young +pilot could play the chords, and sing, in his own fashion, about a +grasshopper that; sat on a sweet-potato vine, and about-- + +An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, +Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, +A long time ago. + +The "Roe" was a heavenly place, but Sam's stay there did not last. Bixby +came down from the Missouri, and perhaps thought he was doing a fine +thing for his pupil by transferring him to a pilot named Brown, then on a +large passenger-steamer, the "Pennsylvania." The "Pennsylvania" was new +and one of the finest boats on the river. Sam Clemens, by this time, was +accounted a good steersman, so it seemed fortunate and a good arrangement +for all parties. + +But Brown was a tyrant. He was illiterate and coarse, and took a dislike +to Sam from the start. His first greeting was a question, harmless +enough in form but offensive in manner. + +"Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?"--Bixby being usually pronounced "Bigsby" +in river parlance. + +Sam answered politely enough that he was, and Brown proceeded to comment +on the "style" of his clothes and other personal matters. + +He had made an effort to please Brown, but it was no use. Brown was +never satisfied. At a moment when Sam was steering, Brown, sitting on +the bench, would shout: "Here! Where are you going now? Pull her down! +Pull her down! Do you hear me? Blamed mud-cat!" + +The young pilot soon learned to detest his chief, and presently was +putting in a good deal of his time inventing punishments for him. + +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 the river in my mind, as was my duty, I threw business aside +for pleasure, and killed Brown. + +He gave up trying to please Brown, and was even willing to stir him up +upon occasion. One day when the cub was at the wheel his chief noticed +that the course seemed peculiar. + +"Here! Where you headin' for now?" he yelled. "What in the nation you +steerin' at, anyway? Blamed numskull!" + +"Why," said Sam in his calm, slow way, "I didn't see much else I could +steer for, so I was heading for that white heifer on the bank." + +"Get away from that wheel! And get outen this pilot-house!" yelled +Brown. "You ain't fitten to become no pilot!" An order that Sam found +welcome enough. The other pilot, George Ealer, was a lovable soul who +played the flute and chess during his off watch, and read aloud to Sam +from "Goldsmith" and "Shakespeare." To be with George Ealer was to +forget the persecutions of Brown. + +Young Clemens had been on the river nearly a year at this time, and, +though he had learned a good deal and was really a fine steersman, he +received no wages. He had no board to pay, but there were things he must +buy, and his money supply had become limited. Each trip of the +"Pennsylvania" she remained about two days and nights in New Orleans, +during which time the young man was free. He found he could earn two and +a half to three dollars a night watching freight on the levee, and, as +this opportunity came around about once a month, the amount was useful. +Nor was this the only return; many years afterward he said: + + "It was a desolate experience, 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 sots of + situations and possibilities. These things got into my books by and + by, and furnished me with many a chapter. I can trace the effects + of those nights through most of my books, in one way and another." + +Piloting, even with Brown, had its pleasant side. In St. Louis, young +Clemens stopped with his sister, and often friends were there from +Hannibal. At both ends of the line he visited friendly boats, especially +the "Roe," where a grand welcome was always waiting. Once among the +guests of that boat a young girl named Laura so attracted him that he +forgot time and space until one of the "Roe" pilots, Zeb Leavenworth, +came flying aft, shouting: + +"The "Pennsylvania" is backing out!" + +A hasty good-by, a wild flight across the decks of several boats, and a +leap across several feet of open water closed the episode. He wrote to +Laura, but there was no reply. He never saw her again, never heard from +her for nearly fifty years, when both were widowed and old. She had not +received his letter. + +Occasionally there were stirring adventures aboard the "Pennsylvania." +In a letter written in March, 1858, the young pilot tells of an exciting +night search in the running ice for Hat Island soundings: + +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 until +the yawl would bring us 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 . . . . 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 . . . . 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 been out in the yawl from +four in the morning until half-past nine without being near a fire. +There was a thick coating of ice over men and yawl, ropes, and +everything, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. + +He was at the right age to enjoy such adventures, and to feel a pride in +them. In the same letter he tells how he found on the "Pennsylvania" a +small clerkship for his brother Henry, who was now nearly twenty, a +handsome, gentle boy of whom Sam was lavishly fond and proud. The young +pilot was eager to have Henry with him--to see him started in life. How +little he dreamed what sorrow would come of his well-meant efforts in the +lad's behalf! Yet he always believed, later, that he had a warning, for +one night at the end of May, in St. Louis, he had a vivid dream, which +time would presently fulfil. + +An incident now occurred on the "Pennsylvania" that closed Samuel +Clemens's career on that boat. It was the down trip, and the boat was in +Eagle Bend when Henry Clemens appeared on the hurricane deck with an +announcement from the captain of a landing a little lower down. Brown, +who would never own that he was rather deaf, probably misunderstood the +order. They were passing the landing when the captain appeared on the +deck. + +"Didn't Henry tell you to land here?" he called to Brown. + +"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!" + +Henry appeared, not suspecting any trouble. + +Brown said, fiercely, "Here, why didn't you tell me we had got to land at +that plantation?" + +"I did tell you, Mr. Brown," Henry said, politely. + +"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!" + +For a cub pilot to defy his chief was unheard of. Brown was dazed, then +he shouted: + +"I'll attend to your case in half a minute!" And to Henry, "Get out of +here!" + +Henry had started when Brown seized him by the collar and struck him in +the face. An instant later Sam was upon Brown with a heavy stool and +stretched him on the floor. Then all the repressed fury of months broke +loose; and, leaping upon Brown and holding him down with his knees, +Samuel Clemens pounded the tyrant with his fists till his strength gave +out. He let Brown go then, and the latter, with pilot instinct, sprang +to the wheel, for the boat was drifting. Seeing she was safe, he seized +a spy-glass as a weapon and ordered his chastiser out of the pilot-house. +But Sam lingered. He had become very calm, and he openly corrected +Brown's English. + +"Don't give me none of your airs!" yelled Brown. "I ain't goin' to stand +nothin' 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. Sam went down to find Captain +Klinefelter. He expected to be put in irons, for it was thought to be +mutiny to strike a pilot. + +The captain took Sam into his private room and made some inquiries. Mark +Twain, in the "Mississippi" boot remembers them as follows: + +"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 mighty 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." + +In a letter which Samuel Clemens wrote to Orion's wife, immediately after +this incident, he gives the details of the encounter with Brown and +speaks of Captain Klinefelter's approval.[4] Brown declared he would +leave the boat at New Orleans if Sam Clemens remained on it, and the +captain told him to go, offering to let Sam himself run the daylight +watches back to St. Louis, thus showing his faith in the young steersman. +The "cub," however, had less confidence, and advised that Brown be kept +for the up trip, saying he would follow by the next boat. It was a +decision that probably saved his life. + +That night, watching on the levee, Henry joined him, when his own duties +were finished, and the brothers made the round together. It may have +been some memory of his dream that made Samuel Clemens say: + +"Henry, 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 a long grief lay behind it. + +[4] In the Mississippi book the author says that Brown was about to +strike Henry with a lump of coal, but in the letter above mentioned the +details are as here given. + + + + +XV. + + +THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" + +The "A. T. Lacy," that brought Samuel Clemens up the river, was two days +behind the "Pennsylvania." At Greenville, Mississippi, a voice from +the landing shouted "The "Pennsylvania" is blown up just below Memphis, +at Ship Island. One hundred and fifty lives lost!" + +It proved a true report. At six o'clock that warm mid-June morning, +while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, four out of eight of the +Pennsylvania's boilers had suddenly exploded, with fearful results. +Henry Clemens had been one of the victims. He had started to swim for +the shore, only a few hundred yards away, but had turned back to assist +in the rescue of others. What followed could not be clearly learned. He +was terribly injured, and died on the fourth night after the catastrophe. +His brother was with him by that time, and believed he recognized the +exact fulfilment of his dream. + +The young pilot's grief was very great. In a letter home he spoke of the +dying boy as "My darling, my pride, my glory, my all." His heavy sorrow, +and the fact that with unsparing self-blame he held himself in a measure +responsible for his brother's tragic death, saddened his early life. His +early gaiety came back, but his face had taken on the serious, pathetic +look which from that time it always wore in repose. Less than twenty- +three, he had suddenly the look of thirty, and while Samuel Clemens in +spirit, temperament, and features never would become really old, neither +would he ever look really young again. + +He 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 from St. Louis to New Orleans. In eighteen months he had +packed away in his head all those wearisome details and acquired that +confidence that made him one of the elect. He knew every snag and bank +and dead tree and depth in all those endless miles of shifting current, +every cut-off and crossing. He could read the surface of the water by +day, he could smell danger in the dark. To the writer of these chapters, +Horace Bixby said: + +"In a year and a half from the time he came to the river, Sam was not +only a pilot, but a good one. 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 +sandbars and changing shores, a pilot's judgment had to be founded on +absolute certainty." + +Bixby had returned from the Missouri by the time his pupil's license was +issued, and promptly took him as full partner on the "Crescent City," and +later on a fine new boat, the "New Falls City." Still later, they appear +to have been together on a very large boat, the "City of Memphis," and +again on the "Alonzo Child." + + + + +XVI. + +THE PILOT + +For Samuel Clemens these were happy days--the happiest, in some respects, +he would ever know. He had plenty of money now. He could help his +mother with a liberal hand, and could put away fully a hundred dollars a +month for himself. He had few cares, and he loved the ease and romance +and independence of his work as he would never quite love anything again. + +His popularity on the river was very great. His humorous stories and +quaint speech made a crowd collect wherever he appeared. There were +pilot-association rooms in St. Louis and New Orleans, and his appearance +at one of these places was a signal for the members to gather. + +A friend of those days writes: "He was much given to spinning yarns so +funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the time his own face +was perfectly sober. Occasionally some of his droll yarns got into the +papers. He may have written them himself." + +Another old river-man remembers how, one day, at the association, they +were talking of presence of mind in an accident, when Pilot Clemens 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 a story that found its way into print, probably his own +contribution. + +"Sam was always scribbling when not at the wheel," said Bixby, "but the +best thing he ever did was the burlesque of old Isaiah Sellers. He +didn't write it for print, but only for his own amusement and to show to +a few of the boys. Bart Bowen, who was with him on the "Edward J. Gay" +at the time, got hold of it, and gave it to one of the New Orleans +papers." + +The burlesque on Captain Sellers would be of little importance if it were +not for its association with the origin, or, at least, with the +originator, of what is probably the best known of literary names--the +name Mark Twain. + +This strong, happy title--a river term indicating a depth of two fathoms +on the sounding-line--was first used by the old pilot, Isaiah Sellers, +who was a sort of "oldest inhabitant" of the river, with a passion for +airing his ancient knowledge before the younger men. Sellers used to +send paragraphs to the papers, quaint and rather egotistical in tone, +usually beginning, "My opinion for the citizens of New Orleans," etc., +prophesying river conditions and recalling memories as far back as 1811. +These he generally signed "Mark Twain." + +Naturally, the younger pilots amused themselves by imitating Sellers, and +when Sam Clemens wrote abroad burlesque of the old man's contributions, +relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 +with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a +masterpiece of wit. + +It appeared in the "True Delta" in May, 1859, and broke Captain Sellers's +literary heart. He never wrote another paragraph. Clemens always +regretted the whole matter deeply, and his own revival of the name +afterward was a sort of tribute to the old man he had thoughtlessly and +unintentionally wounded. + +Old pilots of that day remembered Samuel Clemens as a slender, fine- +looking man, well dressed, even dandified, generally wearing blue serge, +with fancy shirts, white duck trousers, and patent-leather shoes. A +pilot could do that, for his surroundings were speckless. + +The pilots regarded him as a great reader--a student of history, travels, +and the sciences. In the association rooms they often saw him poring +over serious books. He began the study of French one day in New Orleans, +when he had passed a school of languages where French, German, and +Italian were taught, one in each of three rooms. The price vas twenty- +five dollars for one language, or three for fifty. The student was +provided with a set of conversation cards for each, and was supposed to +walk from one apartment to another, changing his nationality at each +threshold. The young pilot, with his usual enthusiasm, invested in all +three languages, but after a few round trips decided that French would +do. He did not return to the school, but kept the cards and added text- +books. He studied faithfully when off watch and in port, and his old +river note-book, still preserved, contains a number of advanced +exercises, neatly written out. + +Still more interesting are the river notes themselves. They are not the +timid, hesitating memoranda of the "little book" which, by Bixby's +advice, he bought for his first trip. They are quick, vigorous records +that show confidence and knowledge. Under the head of "Second high-water +trip--Jan., 1861 "Alonzo Child," the notes tell the story of a rising +river, with overflowing banks, blind passages, and cut-offs--a new river, +in fact, that must be judged by a perfect knowledge of the old--guessed, +but guessed right. + +Good deal of water all over Cole's Creek Chute, 12 or 15 ft. bank--could +have gone up above General Taylor's--too much drift . . . . + +Night--didn't run either 77 or 76 towheads--8-ft. bank on main shore +Ozark chute. + +To the reader to-day it means little enough, but one may imagine, +perhaps, a mile-wide sweep of boiling water, full of drift, shifting +currents with newly forming bars, and a lone figure in the dark pilot- +house, peering into the night for blind and disappearing landmarks. + +But such nights were not all there was of piloting. There were glorious +nights when the stars were blazing out, and the moon was on the water, +and the young pilot could follow a clear channel and dream long dreams. +He was very serious at such times--he reviewed the world's history he had +read, he speculated on the future, he considered philosophies, he lost +himself in a study of the stars. Mark Twain's love of astronomy, which +never waned until his last day, began with those lonely river watches. +Once a great comet blazed in the sky, a "wonderful sheaf of light," and +glorified his long hours at the wheel. + +Samuel Clemens was now twenty-five, full of health and strong in his +courage. In the old notebook there remains a well-worn clipping, the +words of some unknown writer, which he may have kept as a sort of creed: + +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. + +Bixby and Clemens were together that winter on the "Child," and were the +closest friends. Once the young pilot invited his mother to make the +trip to New Orleans, and the river journey and a long drive about the +beautiful Southern city filled Jane Clemens with wonder and delight. She +no longer shad any doubts of Sam. He had long since become the head of +the family. She felt called upon to lecture him, now and then, but down +in her heart she believed that he could really do no wrong. They joked +each other unmercifully, and her wit, never at a loss, was quite as keen +as his. + + + + +XVII. + +THE END OF PILOTING + +When one remembers how much Samuel Clemens loved the river, and how +perfectly he seemed suited to the ease and romance of the pilot-life, one +is almost tempted to regret that it should so soon have come to an end. + +Those trips of early '61, which the old note-book records, were the last +he would ever make. The golden days of Mississippi steam-boating were +growing few. + +Nobody, however, seemed to suspect it. Even a celebrated fortune-teller +in New Orleans, whom the young pilot one day consulted as to his future, +did not mention the great upheaval then close at hand. She told him +quite remarkable things, and gave him some excellent advice, but though +this was February, 1861, she failed to make any mention of the Civil War! +Yet, a month later, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated and trouble was in +the air. Then in April Fort Sumter was fired upon and the war had come. + +It was a feverish time among the pilots. Some were for the Union--others +would go with the Confederacy. Horace Bixby stood for the North, and in +time was chief of the Union river-service. A pilot named Montgomery +(Clemens had once steered for him) went with the South and by and by +commanded the Confederate Mississippi fleet. In the beginning a good +many were not clear as to their opinions. Living both North and South, +as they did, they divided their sympathies. Samuel Clemens was +thoughtful, and far from bloodthirsty. A pilothouse, so fine and showy +in times of peace, seemed a poor place to be in when fighting was going +on. He would consider the matter. + +"I am not anxious to get up into a glass perch and be shot at by either +side," he said. "I'll go home and reflect." + +He went up the river as a passenger on a steamer named the "Uncle Sam." +Zeb Leavenworth, formerly of the "John J. Roe," was one of the pilots, +and Clemens usually stood the watch with him. At Memphis they barely +escaped the blockade. At Cairo they saw soldiers drilling--troops later +commanded by Grant. + +The "Uncle Sam" came steaming up to St. Louis, glad to have slipped +through safely. They were not quite through, however. Abreast of +Jefferson Barracks they heard the boom of a cannon, and a great ring of +smoke drifted in their direction. They did not recognize it as a +thunderous "Halt!" and kept on. Less than a minute later, a shell +exploded directly in front of the pilot-house, breaking a lot of glass +and damaging the decoration. Zeb Leavenworth tumbled into a corner. + +"Gee-mighty, Sam!" he said. "What do they mean by that?" + +Clemens stepped from the visitors' bench 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 through 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." + +At the time, like many others, he expected the war to be brief, and his +life to be only temporarily interrupted. Within a year, certainly, he +would be back in the pilot-house. Meantime the war must be settled; he +would go up to Hannibal to see about it. + + + + +XVIII. + +THE SOLDIER + +When he reached Hannibal, Samuel Clemens found a very mixed condition of +affairs. The country was in an uproar of war preparation; in a border +State there was a confusion of sympathies, with much ignorance as to what +it was all about. Any number of young men were eager to enlist for a +brief camping-out expedition, and small private companies were formed, +composed about half-and-half of Union and Confederate men, as it turned +out later. + +Missouri, meantime, had allied herself with the South, and Samuel +Clemens, on his arrival in Hannibal, decided that, like Lee, he would go +with his State. Old friends, who were getting up a company "to help +Governor `Claib' Jackson repel the invader," offered him a lieutenancy if +he would join. It was not a big company; it had only about a dozen +members, most of whom had been schoolmates, some of them fellow-pilots, +and Sam Clemens was needed to make it complete. It was just another Tom +Sawyer band, and they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill and +planned how they would sell their lives on the field of glory, just as +years before fierce raids had been arranged on peach-orchards and melon- +patches. Secrecy was necessary, for the Union militia had a habit of +coming over from Illinois and arresting suspicious armies on sight. It +would humiliate the finest army in the world to spend a night or two in +the calaboose. + +So they met secretly at night, and one mysterious evening they called on +girls who either were their sweethearts or were pretending to be for the +occasion, and when the time came for good-by the girls were invited to +"walk through the pickets" with them, though the girls didn't notice any +pickets, because the pickets were calling on their girls, too, and were a +little late getting to their posts. + +That night they marched, through brush and vines, because the highroad +was thought to be dangerous, and next morning arrived at the home of +Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, who had the army form in dress parade and +made it a speech and gave it a hot breakfast in good Southern style. +Then he sent out to Col. Bill Splawn and Farmer Nuck Matson a requisition +for supplies that would convert this body of infantry into cavalry-- +rough-riders of that early day. The community did not wish to keep an +army on its hands, and were willing to send it along by such means as +they could spare handily. When the outfitting was complete, Lieutenant +Samuel Clemens, mounted on a small yellow mule whose tail had been +trimmed in the paint-brush pattern then much worn by mules, and +surrounded by variously attached articles--such as an extra pair of +cowhide boots, a pair of gray blankets, a home-made quilt, a frying-pan, +a carpet-sack, a small valise, an overcoat, an old-fashioned Kentucky +rifle, twenty yards of rope, and an umbrella--was a fair sample of the +brigade. + +An army like that, to enjoy itself, ought to go into camp; so it went +over to Salt River, near the town of Florida, and took up headquarters in +a big log stable. Somebody suggested that an army ought to have its hair +cut, so that in a hand-to-hand conflict the enemy could not get hold of +it. There was a pair of sheep-shears in the stable, and Private Tom +Lyons acted as barber. They were not sharp shears, and a group of little +darkies gathered from the farm to enjoy the torture. + +Regular elections were now held--all officers, down to sergeants and +orderlies, being officially chosen. There were only three privates, and +you couldn't tell them from officers. The discipline in that army was +very bad. + +It became worse soon. Pouring rain set in. Salt River rose and +overflowed the bottoms. Men ordered on picket duty climbed up into the +stable-loft and went to bed. Twice, on black, drenching nights, word +came from the farmhouse that the enemy, commanded by a certain Col. +Ulysses Grant, was in the neighborhood, and the Hannibal division went +hastily slopping through mud and brush in the other direction, dragging +wearily back when the alarm was over. Military ardor was bound to cool +under such treatment. Then Lieutenant Clemens developed a very severe +boil, and was obliged to lie most of the day on some hay in a horse- +trough, where he spent his time denouncing the war and the mistaken souls +who had invented it. When word that "General" Tom Harris, commander of +the district--formerly telegraph-operator in Hannibal--was at a near-by +farm-house, living on the fat of the land, the army broke camp without +further ceremony. Halfway there they met General Harris, who ordered +them back to quarters. They called him familiarly "Tom," and told him +they were through with that camp forever. He begged them, but it was no +use. A little farther on they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A +tall, bony woman came to the door. + +"You're Secesh, ain't you?" + +Lieutenant Clemens said: "We are, madam, defenders of the noble cause, +and we should like to buy a few 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 [5] that stood by the door, and the +army moved on. When they reached the home of Col. Bill Splawn it was +night and the family had gone to bed. So the hungry army camped in the +barn-yard and crept into the hay-loft to sleep. Presently somebody +yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been smoking and had ignited the hay. + +Lieutenant Clemens, suddenly wakened, made a quick rotary movement away +from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window into the barn-yard +below. The rest of the brigade seized the burning hay and pitched it out +of the same window. The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he +struck, and his boil was still painful, but the burning hay cured him-- +for the moment. He made a spring from under it; then, noticing that the +rest of the army, now that the fire was out, seemed to think his +performance amusing, he rose up and expressed himself concerning the war, +and military life, and the human race in general. They helped him in, +then, for his ankle was swelling badly. + +In the morning, Colonel Splawn gave the army a good breakfast, and it +moved on. Lieutenant Clemens, however, did not get farther than Farmer +Nuck Matson's. He was in a high fever by that time from his injured +ankle, and Mrs. Matson put him to bed. So the army left him, and +presently disbanded. Some enlisted in the regular service, North or +South, according to preference. Properly officered and disciplined, that +"Tom Sawyer" band would have made as good soldiers as any. + +Lieutenant Clemens did not enlist again. When he was able to walk, he +went to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union Abolitionist, but there +would be no unpleasantness on that account. Samuel Clemens was beginning +to have leanings in that direction himself. + +[5] In an earlier day, barrel hoops were made of small hickory trees, +split and shaved. The hoop-pole was a very familiar article of commerce, +and of household defense. + + + + +XIX. + +THE PIONEER + +He arrived in Keokuk at what seemed a lucky moment. Through Edward +Bates, a member of Lincoln's Cabinet, Orion Clemens had received an +appointment as territorial secretary of Nevada, and only needed the money +to carry him to the seat of his office at Carson City. Out of his +pilot's salary his brother had saved more than enough for the journey, +and was willing to pay both their fares and go along as private secretary +to Orion, whose position promised something in the way of adventure and a +possible opportunity for making a fortune. + +The brothers went at once to St. Louis for final leave-taking, and there +took boat for "St. Jo," Missouri, terminus of the great Overland Stage +Route. They paid one hundred and fifty dollars each for their passage, +and about the end of July, 1861, set out on that long, delightful trip, +behind sixteen galloping horses, never stopping except for meals or to +change teams, heading steadily into the sunset over the billowy plains +and snow-clad Rockies, covering the seventeen hundred miles between St. +Jo and Carson City in nineteen glorious days. + +But one must read Mark Twain's "Roughing It" for the story of that long- +ago trip--the joy and wonder of it, and the inspiration. "Even at this +day," he writes, "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." + +It was a hot dusty, August day when they arrived, dusty, unshaven, and +weather-beaten, and Samuel Clemens's life as a frontiersman began. +Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was a wooden town with an assorted +population of two thousand souls. The mining excitement was at its +height and had brought together the drift of every race. + +The Clemens brothers took up lodgings with a genial Irishwoman, the Mrs. +O'Flannigan of "Roughing It," and Orion established himself in a modest +office, for there was no capitol building as yet, no government +headquarters. Orion could do all the work, and Samuel Clemens, finding +neither duties nor salary attached to his position, gave himself up to +the study of the life about him, and to the enjoyment of the freedom of +the frontier. Presently he had a following of friends who loved his +quaint manner of speech and his yarns. On cool nights they would collect +about Orion's office-stove, and he would tell stories in the wonderful +way that one day would delight the world. Within a brief time Sam +Clemens (he was always "Sam" to the pioneers) was the most notable figure +on the Carson streets. His great, bushy head of auburn hair, has +piercing, twinkling eyes, his loose, lounging walk, his careless disorder +of dress invited a second look, even from strangers. From a river dandy +he had become the roughest-clad of pioneers--rusty slouch hat, flannel +shirt, coarse trousers slopping half in and half out of heavy cowhide +boots, this was his make-up. Energetic citizens did not prophesy success +for him. Often they saw him leaning against an awning support, staring +drowsily at the motley human procession, for as much as an hour at a +time. Certainly that could not be profitable. + +But they did like to hear him talk. + +He did not catch the mining fever at once. He was interested first in +the riches that he could see. Among these was the timber-land around +Lake Bigler (now Tahoe)--splendid acres, to be had for the asking. The +lake itself was beautifully situated. + +With an Ohio boy, John Kinney, he made an excursion afoot to Tahoe, a +trip described in one of the best chapters of "Roughing It." They staked +out a timber claim and pretended to fence it and to build a house, but +their chief employment was loafing in the quiet luxury of the great woods +or drifting in a boat on the transparent water. They did not sleep in +the house. In "Roughing It" 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 made their camp-fires on the borders of the lake, and one evening it +got away from them, fired the forest, and destroyed their fences and +habitation. In a letter home he describes this fire in a fine, vivid +way. At one place he says: + + "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." + +He was acquiring the literary vision and touch. The description of this +same fire in "Roughing It," written ten years later, is scarcely more +vivid. + +Most of his letters home at this time tell of glowing prospects--the +certainty of fortune ahead. The fever of the frontier is in them. Once, +to Pamela Moffett, he wrote: + + "Orion and I have enough confidence 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." + +From the same letter we gather that the brothers are now somewhat +interested in mining claims: + + "We have 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." + +This was written about the end of October. Two months later, in +midwinter, the mining fever came upon him with full force. + + + + +XX. + +THE MINER + +The wonder is that Samuel Clemens, always speculative and visionary, had +not fallen an earlier victim. Everywhere one heard stories of sudden +fortune--of men who had gone to bed paupers and awakened millionaires. +New and fabulous finds were reported daily. Cart-loads of bricks--silver +and gold bricks--drove through the Carson streets. + +Then suddenly from the newly opened Humboldt region came the wildest +reports. The mountains there were said to be stuffed with gold. A +correspondent of the "Territorial Enterprise" was unable to find words to +picture the riches of the Humboldt mines. + +The air for Samuel Clemens began to shimmer. Fortune was waiting to be +gathered in a basket. He joined the first expedition for Humboldt--in +fact, helped to organize it. In "Roughing It" he says: + + "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 + eighteen hundred pounds of provisions and mining-tools in the wagon + and drove out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon.." + +The two young lawyers were W. H. Clagget, whom Clemens had known in +Keokuk, and A. W. Oliver, called Oliphant in "Roughing It." The +blacksmith was named Tillou (Ballou in "Roughing It"), a sturdy, honest +man with a knowledge of mining and the repair of tools. There were also +two dogs in the party--a curly-tailed mongrel and a young hound. + +The horses were the weak feature of the expedition. It was two hundred +miles to Humboldt, mostly across sand. The miners rode only a little +way, then got out to lighten the load. Later they pushed. Then it began +to snow, also to blow, and the air became filled with whirling clouds of +snow and sand. On and on they pushed and groaned, sustained by the +knowledge that they must arrive some time, when right away they would be +millionaires and all their troubles would be over. + +The nights were better. The wind went down and they made a camp-fire in +the shelter of the wagon, cooked their bacon, crept under blankets with +the dogs to warm them, and Sam Clemens spun yarns till they fell asleep. + +There had been an Indian war, and occasionally they passed the charred +ruin of a cabin and new graves. By and by they came to that deadly waste +known as the Alkali Desert, strewn with the carcasses of dead beasts and +with the heavy articles discarded by emigrants in their eagerness to +reach water. All day and night they pushed through that choking, +waterless plain to reach camp on the other side. When they arrived at +three in the morning, they dropped down exhausted. Judge Oliver, the +last survivor of the party, in a letter to the writer of these chapters, +said: + + "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 picture of burning cabins and the lonely graves we had + passed was 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, with his inimitable drawl, said 'Boys, they have + left us our scalps. Let us give them all the flour and sugar they + ask for.' And we did give them a good supply, for we were grateful." + +The Indians left them unharmed, and the prospective millionaires moved +on. Across that two hundred miles to the Humboldt country they pushed, +arriving at the little camp of Unionville at the end of eleven weary +days. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain has told us of Unionville and the mining +experience there. Their cabin was a three-sided affair with a cotton +roof. Stones rolled down the mountainside on them; also, the author +says, a mule and a cow. + +The author could not gather fortune in a basket, as he had dreamed. +Masses of gold and silver were not lying about. He gathered a back-load +of yellow, glittering specimens, but they proved worthless. Gold in the +rough did not glitter, and was not yellow. Tillou instructed the others +in prospecting, and they went to work with pick and shovel--then with +drill and blasting-powder. The prospect of immediately becoming +millionaires vanished. + +"One week of this satisfied me. I resigned," is Mark Twain's brief +comment. + +The Humboldt reports had been exaggerated. The Clemens-Clagget-Oliver- +Tillou millionaire combination soon surrendered its claims. Clemens and +Tillou set out for Carson City with a Prussian named Pfersdorff, who +nearly got them drowned and got them completely lost in the snow before +they arrived there. Oliver and Clagget remained in Unionville, began law +practice, and were elected to office. It is not known what became of the +wagon and horses and the two dogs. + +It was the end of January when our miner returned to Carson. He was not +discouraged--far from it. He believed he had learned something that +would be useful to him in a camp where mines were a reality. Within a +few weeks from his return we find him at Aurora, in the Esmeralda region, +on the edge of California. It was here that the Clemens brothers owned +the 1,650 feet formerly mentioned. He had came down to work it. + +It was the dead of winter, but he was full of enthusiasm, confident of a +fortune by early summer. To Pamela he wrote: + + "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 . . . . If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike + the ledge in June." + +He was trying to be conservative, and further along he cautions his +sister not to get excited. + + "Don't you know I have only talked as yet, but proved nothing? Don't + you know I have never held in my hands a gold or silver bar that + belonged to me? 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 + uncongealable, 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 a 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 soars again, adding page after page full of glowing +expectations and plans such as belong only with speculation in treasures +buried in the ground--a very difficult place, indeed, to find them. + +His money was about exhausted by this time, and funds to work the mining +claims must come out of Orion's rather modest salary. The brothers owned +all claims in partnership, and it was now the part of "Brother Sam" to do +the active work. He hated the hard picking and prying and blasting into +the flinty ledges, but the fever drove him on. He camped with a young +man named Phillips at first, and, later on, with an experienced miner, +Calvin H. Higbie, to whom "Roughing It" would one day be dedicated. They +lived in a tiny cabin with a cotton roof, and around their rusty stove +they would paw over their specimens and figure the fortune that their +mines would be worth in the spring. + +Food ran low, money gave out almost entirely, but they did not give up. +When it was stormy and they could not dig, and the ex-pilot was in a +talkative vein, he would sit astride the bunk and distribute to his +hearers riches more valuable than any they would dig from the Esmeralda +hills. At other times he did not talk at all, but sat in a corner and +wrote. They thought he was writing home; they did not know that he was +"literary." Some of his home letters had found their way into a Keokuk +paper and had come back to Orion, who had shown them to an assistant on +the "Territorial Enterprise," of Virginia City. The "Enterprise" man had +caused one of them to be reprinted, and this had encouraged its author to +send something to the paper direct. He signed these contributions +"Josh," and one told of: + + "An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +He received no pay for these offerings and expected none. He considered +them of no value. If any one had told him that he was knocking at the +door of the house of fame, however feebly, he would have doubted that +person's judgment or sincerity. + +His letters to Orion, in Carson City, were hasty compositions, reporting +progress and progress, or calling for remittances to keep the work going. +On April 13, he wrote: + + "Work not begun on the Horatio and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is + still in the snow. Shall begin on it within three or four weeks-- + strike the ledge in July." + +Again, later in the month: + + "I have been at work all day, blasting and digging in 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 ten or twelve feet." + +It must have been disheartening work, picking away at the flinty ledges. +There is no further mention of the "Dashaway," but we hear of the +"Flyaway," the "Annipolitan," the "Live Yankee," and of many another, +each of which holds out a beacon of hope for a brief moment, then passes +from notice forever. Still, he was not discouraged. Once he wrote: + + "I am a citizen here and I am satisfied, though '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. + + "The pick and shovel are the only claims I have confidence in now," + he wrote, later; "my back is sore and my hands are blistered with + handling them to-day." + +His letters began to take on a weary tone. Once in midsummer he wrote +that it was still snowing up there in the hills, and added, "It always +snows here I expect. If we strike it rich, I've lost my guess, that's +all." And the final heartsick line, "Don't you suppose they have pretty +much quit writing at home?" + +In time he went to work in a quartz-mill at ten dollars a week, though it +was not entirely for the money, as in "Roughing It" he would have us +believe. Samuel Clemens learned thoroughly what he undertook, and he +proposed to master the science of mining. From Phillips and Higbie he +had learned what there was to know about prospecting. He went to the +mill to learn refining, so that, when his claims developed, he could +establish a mill and personally superintend the work. His stay was +brief. He contracted a severe cold and came near getting poisoned by the +chemicals. Recovering, he went with Higbie for an outing to Mono Lake, a +ghastly, lifeless alkali sea among the hills, vividly described in +"Roughing It." + +At another time he went with Higbie on a walking trip to the Yosemite, +where they camped and fished undisturbed, for in those days few human +beings came to that far isolation. Discouragement did not reach them +there--amid that vast grandeur and quiet the quest for gold hardly seemed +worth while. Now and again that summer he went alone into the wilderness +to find his balance and to get entirely away from humankind. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain tells the story of ho« he and Higbie finally +located a "blind lead," which made them really millionaires, until they +forfeited their claim through the sharp practice of some rival miners and +their own neglect. It is true that the "Wide West" claim was forfeited +in some such manner, but the size of the loss was magnified in "Roughing +It," to make a good story. There was never a fortune in "Wide West," +except the one sunk in it by its final owners. The story as told in +"Roughing It" is a tale of what might have happened, and ends the +author's days in the mines with a good story-book touch. + +The mining career of Samuel Clemens really came to a close gradually, and +with no showy climax. He fought hard and surrendered little by little, +without owning, even to the end, that he was surrendering at all. It was +the gift of resolution that all his life would make his defeats long and +costly--his victories supreme. + +By the end of July the money situation in the Aurora camp was getting +desperate. Orion's depleted salary would no longer pay for food, tools, +and blasting-powder, and the miner began to cast about far means to earn +an additional sum, however small. The "Josh" letters to the "Enterprise" +had awakened interest as to their author, and Orion had not failed to let +"Josh's" identity be known. The result had been that here and there a +coast paper had invited contributions and even suggested payment. A +letter written by the Aurora miner at the end of July tells this part of +the story: + + "My debts are greater than I thought for . . . . 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 + that I will 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 "New 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. + +This all led to nothing, but about the same time the "Enterprise" +assistant already mentioned spoke to Joseph T. Goodman, owner and editor +of the paper, about adding "Josh" to their regular staff. "Joe" Goodman, +a man of keen humor and literary perception, agreed that the author of +the "Josh" letters might be useful to them. One of the sketches +particularly appealed to him--a burlesque report of a Fourth of July +oration. + +"That is the kind 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. + +Yet the hard-pressed miner made no haste to accept the offer. To leave +Aurora meant the surrender of all hope in the mines, the confession of +another failure. He wrote Barstow, asking when he thought he might be +needed. And at the same time, in a letter to Orion, he said: + + "I shall leave at midnight to-night, alone and on foot, for a walk of + sixty or seventy miles through a totally uninhabited country. 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." + +He had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone, postponing +the final moment of surrender--surrender that, had he known, only meant +the beginning of victory. He was still undecided when he returned eight +days later and wrote to his sister Pamela a letter in which there is no- +mention of newspaper prospects. + +Just how and when the end came at last cannot be known; but one hot, +dusty August afternoon, in Virginia City, a worn, travel-stained pilgrim +dragged himself into the office of the "Territorial Enterprise," then in +its new building on C Street, and, loosening a heavy roll of blankets +from his shoulder, dropped wearily into a chair. He wore a rusty slouch +hat, no coat, a faded blue-flannel shirt, a navy revolver; his trousers +were tucked into his boot-tops; a tangle of reddish-brown hair fell on +his shoulders; a mass of tawny beard, dingy with alkali dust, dropped +half-way to his waist. + +Aurora lay one hundred and thirty miles from Virginia City. He had +walked that distance, carrying his heavy load. Editor Goodman was absent +at the moment, but the other proprietor, Dennis E. McCarthy, asked the +caller to 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'm 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! + + + + +XXI. + +THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE + +In 1852 Virginia City, Nevada, was the most flourishing of mining towns. +A half-crazy miner, named Comstock, had discovered there a vein of such +richness that the "Comstock Lode" was presently glutting the mineral +markets of the world. Comstock himself got very little out of it, but +those who followed him made millions. Miners, speculators, adventurers +swarmed in. Every one seemed to have money. The streets seethed with an +eager, affluent, boisterous throng whose chief business seemed to be to +spend the wealth that the earth was yielding in such a mighty stream. + +Business of every kind boomed. Less than two years earlier, J. T. +Goodman, a miner who was also a printer and a man of literary taste, had +joined with another printer, Dennis McCarthy, and the two had managed to +buy a struggling Virginia City paper, the "Territorial Enterprise." But +then came the hightide of fortune. A year later the "Enterprise," from a +starving sheet in a leaky shanty, had become a large, handsome paper in a +new building, and of such brilliant editorial management that it was the +most widely considered journal on the Pacific coast. + +Goodman was a fine, forceful writer, and he surrounded himself with able +men. He was a young man, full of health and vigor, overflowing with the +fresh spirit and humor of the West. Comstockers would always laugh at a +joke, and Goodman was always willing to give it to them. The +"Enterprise" was a newspaper, but it was willing to furnish entertainment +even at the cost of news. William Wright, editorially next to Goodman, +was a humorist of ability. His articles, signed Dan de Quille, were +widely copied. R. M. Daggett (afterward United States Minister to +Hawaii) was also an "Enterprise" man, and there were others of their +sort. + +Samuel Clemens fitted precisely into this group. He brought with him a +new turn of thought and expression; he saw things with open eyes, and +wrote of them in a fresh, wild way that Comstockers loved. He was +allowed full freedom. Goodman suppressed nothing; his men could write as +they chose. They were all young together--if they pleased themselves, +they were pretty sure to please their readers. Often they wrote of one +another--squibs and burlesques, which gratified the Comstock far more +than mere news. It was just the school to produce Mark Twain. + +The new arrival found acquaintance easy. The whole "Enterprise" force +was like one family; proprietors, editor, and printers were social +equals. Samuel Clemens immediately became "Sam" to his associates, just +as De Quille was "Dan," and Goodman "Joe." Clemens was supposed to +report city items, and did, in fact, do such work, which he found easy, +for his pilot-memory made notes unnecessary. + +He could gather items all day, and at night put down the day's budget +well enough, at least, to delight his readers. When he was tired of +facts, he would write amusing paragraphs, as often as not something about +Dan, or a reporter on a rival paper. Dan and the others would reply, and +the Comstock would laugh. Those were good old days. + +Sometimes he wrote hoaxes. Once he told with great circumstance and +detail of a petrified prehistoric man that had been found embedded in a +rock in the desert, and how the coroner from Humboldt had traveled more +than a hundred miles to hold an inquest over a man dead for centuries, +and had refused to allow miners to blast the discovery from its position. + +The sketch was really intended as a joke on the Humboldt coroner, but it +was so convincingly written that most of the Coast papers took it +seriously and reprinted it as the story of a genuine discovery. In time +they awoke, and began to inquire as to who was the smart writer on the +"Enterprise." + +Mark Twain did a number of such things, some of which are famous on the +Coast to this day. + +Clemens himself did not escape. Lamps were used in the "Enterprise" +office, but he hated the care of a lamp, and worked evenings by the light +of a candle. It was considered a great joke in the office to "hide Sam's +candle" and hear him fume and rage, walking in a circle meantime--a habit +acquired in the pilothouse--and scathingly denouncing the culprits. +Eventually the office-boy, supposedly innocent, would bring another +candle, and quiet would follow. Once the office force, including De +Quille, McCarthy, and a printer named Stephen Gillis, of whom Clemens was +very fond, bought a large imitation meerschaum pipe, had a German-silver +plate set on it, properly engraved, and presented it to Samuel Clemens as +genuine, in testimony of their great esteem. His reply to the +presentation speech was so fine and full of feeling that the jokers felt +ashamed of their trick. A few days later, when he discovered the +deception, he was ready to destroy the lot of them. Then, in atonement, +they gave him a real meerschaum. Such things kept the Comstock +entertained. + +There was a side to Samuel Clemens that, in those days, few of his +associates saw. This was the poetic, the reflective side. Joseph +Goodman, like Macfarlane in Cincinnati several years earlier, recognized +this phase of his character and developed it. Often these two, dining or +walking together, discussed the books and history they had read, quoted +from poems that gave them pleasure. Clemens sometimes recited with great +power the "Burial of Moses," whose noble phrasing and majestic imagery +seemed to move him deeply. 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 sepulcher, + And no man saw it e'er, + For the angels of God upturned the sod, + And laid the dead man there. + +That his own writing would be influenced by the simple grandeur of this +poem we can hardly doubt. Indeed, it may have been to him a sort of +literary touchstone, that in time would lead him to produce, as has been +said, some of the purest English written by any modern author. + + + + +XXII. + +"MARK TWAIN" + +It was once when Goodman and Clemens were dining together that the latter +asked to be allowed to report the proceedings of the coming legislature +at Carson City. He knew nothing of such work, and Goodman hesitated. +Then, remembering that Clemens would, at least, make his reports +readable, whether they were parliamentary or not, he consented. + +So, at the beginning of the year (1863), Samuel Clemens undertook a new +and interesting course in the study of human nature--the political human +nature of the frontier. There could have been no better school for him. +His wit, his satire, his phrasing had full swing--his letters, almost +from the beginning, were copied as choice reading up and down the Coast. +He made curious blunders, at first, as to the proceedings, but his open +confession of ignorance in the early letters made these blunders their +chief charm. A young man named Gillespie, clerk of the House, coached +him, and in return was christened "Young Jefferson's Manual," a title +which he bore for many years. + +A reporter named Rice, on a rival Virginia City paper, the "Union," also +earned for himself a title through those early letters. + +Rice concluded to poke fun at the "Enterprise" reports, pointing out +their mistakes. But this was not wise. Clemens, in his next +contribution, admitted that Rice's reports might be parliamentary enough, +but declared his glittering technicalities were only to cover +misstatements of fact. He vowed they were wholly untrustworthy, dubbed +the author of them "The Unreliable," and never thereafter referred to him +by any other term. Carson and the Comstock papers delighted in this +foolery, and Rice became "The Unreliable" for life. There was no real +feeling between Rice and Clemens. They were always the best of friends. + +But now we arrive at the story of still another name, one of vastly +greater importance than either of those mentioned, for it is the name +chosen by Samuel Clemens for himself. In those days it was the fashion +for a writer to have a pen-name, especially for his journalistic and +humorous work. Clemens felt that his "Enterprise" letters, copied up and +down the Coast, needed a mark of identity. + +He gave the matter a good deal of thought. He wanted something brief and +strong--something that would stick in the mind. It was just at this time +that news came of the death of Capt. Isaiah Sellers, the old pilot who +had signed himself "Mark Twain." Mark Twain! That was the name he +wanted. It was not trivial. It had all the desired qualities. Captain +Sellers would never need it again. It would do no harm to keep it alive- +-to give it a new meaning in a new land. Clemens took a trip from Carson +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 +leadsman'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 waters." + +He did not mention that Captain Sellers had used and dropped the name. +He was not proud of his part in that episode, and it was too recent for +confession. + +Goodman considered a moment. "Very well, Sam," he said, "that sounds +like a good name." + +A good name, indeed! Probably, if he had considered every combination of +words in the language, he could not have found a better one. To-day we +recognize it as the greatest nom de plume ever chosen, and, somehow, we +cannot believe that the writer of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn" and +"Roughing It" could have selected any other had he tried. + +The name Mark Twain was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, +1863, and after that to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters that +had amused so many readers had taken on a new interest--the interest that +goes with a name. It became immediately more than a pen-name. Clemens +found he had attached a name to himself as well as to his letters. +Everybody began to address him as Mark. Within a few weeks he was no +longer "Sam" or "Clemens," but Mark--Mark Twain. The Coast papers liked +the sound of it. It began to mean something to their readers. By the +end of that legislative session Samuel Clemens, as Mark Twain, had +acquired out there on that breezy Western slope something resembling +fame. + +Curiously, he fails to mention any of this success in his letters home of +that period. Indeed, he seldom refers to his work, but more often speaks +of mining shares which he has accumulated, and their possible values. +His letters are airy, full of the joy of life and of the wild doings of +the frontier. Closing one of them, he says: "I have just heard five +pistolshots down the street. As such things are in my line, I will go +and see about it." + +And in a postscript, later, he adds: + + "5 A.M.--The pistol-shots did their 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." + +The Comstock was a great school for Mark Twain, and in "Roughing It" he +has left us a faithful picture of its long-vanished glory. + +More than one national character came out of the Comstock school. +Senator James G. Fair was one of them, and John Mackay, both miners with +pick and shovel at first, though Mackay presently became a +superintendent. Mark Twain one day laughingly offered to trade jobs 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." + +For both these men the future held splendid gifts: for Mackay vast +wealth, for Mark Twain the world's applause, and neither would have long +to wait. + + + + +XXIII. + +ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO + +It was about the end of 1863 that a new literary impulse came into Mark +Twain's life. The gentle and lovable humorist Artemus Ward (Charles F. +Browne) was that year lecturing in the West, and came to Virginia City. +Ward had intended to stay only a few days, but the whirl of the Comstock +fascinated him. He made the "Enterprise" office his headquarters and +remained three weeks. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Their +humor was not unlike; they were kindred spirits, together almost +constantly. Ward was then at the summit of his fame, and gave the +younger man the highest encouragement, prophesying great things for ha +work. Clemens, on his side, was stirred, perhaps for the first time, +with a real literary ambition, and the thought that he, too, might win a +place of honor. He promised Ward that he would send work to the Eastern +papers. + +On Christmas Eve, Ward gave a dinner to the "Enterprise" staff, at +Chaumond's, a fine French restaurant of that day. When refreshments +came, Artemus lifted his glass, and said: + +"I give you Upper Canada." + +The company rose and drank the toast in serious silence. Then Mr. +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. + +What would one not give to have listened to the talk of that evening! +Mark Twain's power had awakened; Artemus Ward was in his prime. They +were giants of a race that became extinct when Mark Twain died. + +Goodman remained rather quiet during the evening. Ward had appointed him +to order the dinner, and he had attended to this duty without mingling +much in the conversation. When Ward asked him why he did not join the +banter, he said: + +"I am preparing a joke, Artemus, but I am keeping it for the present." + +At a late hour Ward finally 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," laughed +Ward, laying the money on the table. + +Ward remained through the holidays, and later wrote back an affectionate +letter to Mark Twain. + +"I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence," he +said, "as all others must, or rather, cannot be, as it were." + +With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Mark Twain now began sending work +eastward. The "New York Sunday Mercury" published one, possibly more, of +his sketches, but they were not in his best vein, and made little +impression. He may have been too busy for outside work, for the +legislative session of 1864 was just beginning. Furthermore, he had been +chosen governor of the "Third House," a mock legislature, organized for +one session, to be held as a church benefit. The "governor" was to +deliver a message, which meant that he was to burlesque from the platform +all public officials and personages, from the real governor down. + +With the exception of a short talk he had once given at a printer's +dinner in Keokuk, it was Mark Twain's first appearance as a speaker, and +the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs on the platform. The +building was packed--the aisles full. The audience was ready for fun, +and he gave it to them. Nobody escaped ridicule; from beginning to end +the house was a storm of laughter and applause. + +Not a word of this first address of Mark Twain's has been preserved, but +those who heard it always spoke of it as the greatest effort of his life, +as to them it seemed, no doubt. + +For his Third House address, Clemens was presented with a gold watch, +inscribed "To Governor Mark Twain." Everywhere, now, he was pointed out +as a distinguished figure, and his quaint remarks were quoted. Few of +these sayings are remembered to-day, though occasionally one is still +unforgotten. At a party one night, being urged to make a conundrum, he +said: + +"Well, why am I like the Pacific Ocean?" + +Several guesses were made, but he shook his head. Some one said: + +"We give it up. Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?" + +"I--don't--know," he drawled. "I was just--asking for information." + +The governor of Nevada was generally absent, and Orion Clemens was +executive head of the territory. His wife, who had joined him in Carson +City, was social head of the little capital, and Brother Sam, with his +new distinction and now once more something of a dandy in dress, was +society's chief ornament--a great change, certainly, from the early +months of his arrival less than three years before. + +It was near the end of May, 1864, when Mark Twain left Nevada for San +Francisco. The immediate cause of his going was a duel--a duel +elaborately arranged between Mark Twain and the editor of a rival paper, +but never fought. In fact, it was mainly a burlesque affair throughout, +chiefly concocted by that inveterate joker, Steve Gillis, already +mentioned in connection with the pipe incident. The new dueling law, +however, did not distinguish between real and mock affrays, and the +prospect of being served with a summons made a good excuse for Clemens +and Gillis to go to San Francisco, which had long attracted them. They +were great friends, these two, and presently were living together and +working on the same paper, the "Morning Call," Clemens as a reporter and +Gillis as a compositor. + +Gillis, with his tendency to mischief, was a constant exasperation to his +room-mate, who, goaded by some new torture, would sometimes denounce him +in feverish terms. Yet they were never anything but the closest friends. + +Mark Twain did not find happiness in his new position on the "Call." +There was less freedom and more drudgery than he had known on the +"Enterprise." His day was spent around the police court, attending +fires, weddings, and funerals, with brief glimpses of the theaters at +night. + +Once he wrote: "It was fearful drudgery--soulless drudgery--and almost +destitute of interest. It was an awful slavery for a lazy man." + +It must have been so. There was little chance for original work. He had +become just a part of a news machine. He saw many public abuses that he +wished to expose, but the policy of the paper opposed him. Once, +however, 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. He knew the paper would not +publish the policeman's negligence, but he could advertise it in his own +way. A large crowd soon collected, much amused. When he thought the +audience large enough, he went away. Next day the joke was all over the +city. + +He grew indifferent to the "Call" work, and, when an assistant was +allowed him to do part of the running for items, it was clear to +everybody that presently the assistant would be able to do it all. + +But there was a pleasant and profitable side to the San Francisco life. +There were real literary people there--among them a young man, with rooms +upstairs in the "Call" office, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the +"Californian," a new literary weekly which Charles Henry Webb had +recently founded. Bret Harte was not yet famous, but his gifts were +recognized on the Pacific slope, especially by the "Era" group of +writers, the "Golden Era" being a literary monthly of considerable +distinction. Joaquin Miller recalls, from his diary of that period, +having seen Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Mark +Twain, Artemus Ward, and others, all assembled there at one time--a +remarkable group, certainly, to be dropped down behind the Sierras so +long ago. They were a hopeful, happy lot, and sometimes received five +dollars for an article, which, of course, seemed a good deal more +precious than a much larger sum earned in another way. + +Mark Twain had contributed to the "Era" while still in Virginia City, and +now, with Bret Harte, was ranked as a leader of the group. The two were +much together, and when Harte became editor of the "Californian" he +engaged Clemens as a regular contributor at the very fancy rate of twelve +dollars an article. Some of the brief chapters included to-day in +"Sketches New and Old" were done at this time. They have humor, but are +not equal to his later work, and beyond the Pacific slope they seem to +have attracted little attention. + +In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from +the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the +depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit +of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The +true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly +talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. +Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for +the "Enterprise," for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, +with his earnings from the "Californian," made his total return larger +than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time--literary men +are often that--but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have +us believe, is just a good story and not history. + + + + +XXIV. + +THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" + +Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him +in San Francisco. He was free, now, to write what he chose, and he +attacked the corrupt police management with such fierceness that, when +copies of the "Enterprise" got back to San Francisco, they started a +commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more +vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even +the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, +word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police +brought against the Enterprise advertised the paper amazingly. + +But now came what at the time seemed an unfortunate circumstance. Steve +Gillis, always a fearless defender of the weak, one night rushed to the +assistance of two young fellows who had been set upon by three roughs. +Gillis, though small of stature, was a terrific combatant, and he +presently put two of the assailants to flight and had the other ready for +the hospital. Next day it turned out that the roughs were henchmen of +the police, and Gillis was arrested. + +Clemens went his bail, and advised Steve to go down to Virginia City +until the storm blew over. + +But it did not blow over for Mark Twain. The police department was only +too glad to have a chance at the author of the fierce "Enterprise" +letters, and promptly issued a summons for him, with an execution against +his personal effects. If James N. Gillis, brother of Steve, had not +happened along just then and spirited Mark Twain away to his mining-camp +in the Tuolumne Hills, the beautiful gold watch given to the governor of +the Third House might have been sacrificed in the cause of friendship. + +As it was, he found himself presently in the far and peaceful seclusion +of that land which Bret Harte would one day make famous with his tales of +"Roaring Camp" and "Sandy Bar." Jim Gillis was, in fact, the Truthful +James of Bret Harte, and his cabin on jackass Hill had been the retreat +of Harte and many another literary wayfarer who had wandered there for +rest and refreshment and peace. It was said the sick were made well, and +the well made better, in Jim Gillis's cabin. There were plenty of books +and a variety of out-of-door recreation. One could mine there if he +chose. Jim would furnish the visiting author with a promising claim, and +teach him to follow the little fan-like drift of gold specks to the +pocket of treasure somewhere up the hillside. + +Gillis himself had literary ability, though he never wrote. He told his +stories, and with his back to the open fire would weave the most amazing +tales, invented as he went along. His stories were generally wonderful +adventures that had happened to his faithful companion, Stoker; and +Stoker never denied them, but would smoke and look into the fire, smiling +a little sometimes, but never saying a word. A number of the tales later +used by Mark Twain were first told by Jim Gillis in the cabin on Jackass +Hill. "Dick Baker's Cat" was one of these, the jay-bird and acorn story +in "A Tramp Abroad" was another. Mark Twain had little to add to these +stories. + +"They are not mine, they are Jim's," he said, once; "but I never could +get them to sound like Jim--they were never as good as his." + +It was early in December, 1864, when Mark Twain arrived at the humble +retreat, built of logs under a great live-oak tree, and surrounded by a +stretch of blue-grass. A younger Gillis boy was there at the time, and +also, of course, Dick Stoker and his cat, Tom Quartz, which every reader +of "Roughing It" knows. + +It was the rainy season, but on pleasant days they all went pocket- +mining, and, in January, Mark Twain, Gillis, and Stoker crossed over into +Calaveras County and began work near Angel's Camp, a place well known to +readers of Bret Harte. They put up at a poor hotel in Angel's, and on +good days worked pretty faithfully. But it was generally raining, and +the food was poor. + +In his note-book, still preserved, Mark Twain wrote: "January 27 (I865).- +-Same old diet--same old weather--went out to the pocket-claim--had to +rush back." + +So they spent a good deal of their time around the rusty stove in the +dilapidated tavern at Angel's Camp. It seemed a profitless thing to do, +but few experiences were profitless to Mark Twain, and certainly this one +was not. + +At this barren mining hotel there happened to be a former Illinois River +pilot named Ben Coon, a solemn, sleepy person, who dozed by the stove or +told slow, pointless stories to any one who would listen. Not many would +stay to hear him, but Jim Gillis and Mark Twain found him a delight. +They would let him wander on in his dull way for hours, and saw a vast +humor in a man to whom all tales, however trivial or absurd, were serious +history. + +At last, one dreary afternoon, he told them about a frog--a frog that had +belonged to a man named Coleman, who had trained it to jump, and how the +trained frog had failed to win a wager because the owner of the rival +frog had slyly loaded the trained jumper with shot. It was not a new +story in the camps, but Ben Coon made a long tale of it, and it happened +that neither Clemens nor Gillis had heard it before. They thought it +amusing, and his solemn way of telling it still more so. + +"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's better than any other +frog," became a catch phrase among the mining partners; and, "I 'ain't +got no frog, but if I had a frog, I'd bet you." + +Out on the claim, Clemens, watching Gillis and Stoker anxiously washing, +would say, "I don't see no pints about that pan o' dirt that's any better +than any other pan o' dirt." And so they kept the tale going. In his +note-book Mark Twain made a brief memorandum of the story for possible +use. + +The mining was rather hopeless work. The constant and heavy rains were +disheartening. Clemens hated it, and even when, one afternoon, traces of +a pocket began to appear, he rebelled as the usual chill downpour set in. + +"Jim," he said, "let's go home; we'll freeze here." + +Gillis, as usual, was washing, and Clemens carrying the water. Gillis, +seeing the gold "color" improving with every pan, wanted to go on washing +and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of wet and cold. +Clemens, shivering and disgusted, vowed that each pail of water would be +his last. His teeth were chattering, and he was wet through. Finally he +said: + +"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work too disagreeable." + +Gillis had just taken out a panful of dirt. + +"Bring one more pail, Sam," he begged. + +"Jim I won't do it. I'm-freezing." + +"Just one more pail, Sam!" Jim pleaded. + +"No, sir; not a drop--not if I knew there was a million dollars in that +pan." + +Gillis tore out a page of his note-book and hastily posted a thirty-day- +claim notice by the pan of dirt. Then they set out for Angel's Camp, +never to return. It kept on raining, and a letter came from Steve +Gillis, saying he had settled all the trouble in San Francisco. Clemens +decided to return, and the miners left Angel's without visiting their +claim again. + +Meantime the rain had washed away the top of the pan of dirt they had +left standing on the hillside, exposing a handful of nuggets, pure gold. +Two strangers, Austrians, happening along, gathered it up and, seeing the +claim notice posted by Jim Gillis, sat down to wait until it expired. +They did not mind the rain--not under the circumstances--and the moment +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 that Mark Twain missed by one pail of water. +Still, without knowing it, he had carried away in his note-book a single +nugget of far greater value the story of "The Jumping Frog." + +He did not write it, however, immediately upon his return to San +Francisco. He went back to his "Enterprise" letters and contributed some +sketches to the Californian. Perhaps he thought the frog story too mild +in humor for the slope. By and by he wrote it, and by request sent it to +Artemus Ward to be used in a book that Ward was about to issue. It +arrived too late, and the publisher handed it to the editor of the +"Saturday Press," Henry Clapp, saying: + +"Here, Clapp, is something you can use in your paper." + +The "Press" was struggling, and was glad to get a story so easily. "Jim +Smiley and his jumping Frog" appeared in the issue of November 18, 1865, +and was at once copied and quoted far and near. It carried the name of +Mark Twain across the mountains and the prairies of the Middle West; it +bore it up and down the Atlantic slope. Some one said, then or later, +that Mark Twain leaped into fame on the back of a jumping frog. + +Curiously, this did not at first please the author. He thought the tale +poor. To his mother he wrote: + +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. + +However, somewhat later he changed his mind considerably, especially when +he heard that James Russell Lowell had pronounced the story the finest +piece of humorous writing yet produced in America. + + + + +XXV. + +HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME + +Mark Twain remained about a year in San Francisco after his return from +the Gillis cabin and Angel's Camp, adding to his prestige along the Coast +rather than to his national reputation. Then, in the spring of 1866 he +was commissioned by the "Sacramento Union" to write a series of letters +that would report the life, trade, agriculture, and general aspects of +the Hawaiian group. He sailed in March, and his four months in those +delectable islands remained always to him a golden memory--an experience +which he hoped some day to repeat. He was young and eager for adventure +then, and he went everywhere--horseback and afoot--saw everything, did +everything, and wrote of it all for his paper. His letters to the +"Union" were widely read and quoted, and, though not especially literary, +added much to his journalistic standing. He was a great sight-seer in +those days, and a persevering one. No discomfort or risk discouraged +him. Once, with a single daring companion, he crossed the burning floor +of the mighty crater of Kilauea, racing across the burning lava, leaping +wide and bottomless crevices where a misstep would have meant death. His +open-air life on the river and in the mining-camps had nerved and +hardened him for adventure. He was thirty years old and in his physical +prime. His mental growth had been slower, but it was sure, and it would +seem always to have had the right guidance at the right time. + +Clemens had been in the islands three months when one day Anson +Burlingame arrived there, en route to his post as minister to China. +With him was his son Edward, a boy of eighteen, and General Van +Valkenburg, minister to Japan. Young Burlingame had read about Jim +Smiley's jumping frog and, learning that the author was in Honolulu, but +ill after a long trip inland, sent word that the party would call on him +next morning. But Mark Twain felt that he could not accept this honor, +and, crawling out of bed, shaved himself and drove to the home of the +American minister, where the party was staying. He made a great +impression with the diplomats. It was an occasion of good stories and +much laughter. On leaving, General Van Valkenburg said to him: + + "California is proud of Mark Twain, and some day the American people + will be, too, no doubt." Which was certainly a good prophecy. + +It was only a few days later that the diplomats rendered him a great +service. Report had come of the arrival at Sanpahoe of an open boat +containing fifteen starving men, who had been buffeting a stormy sea for +forty-three days--sailors from the missing ship Hornet of New York, +which, it appeared, had been burned at sea. Presently eleven of the +rescued men were brought to Honolulu and placed in the hospital. + +Mark Twain recognized the great importance as news of this event. It +would be a splendid beat if he could interview the castaways and be the +first to get their story in his paper. There was no cable, but a vessel +was sailing for San Francisco next morning. It seemed the opportunity of +a lifetime, but he was now bedridden and could scarcely move. + +Then suddenly appeared in his room Anson Burlingame and his party, and, +almost before Mark Twain realized what was happening, he was on a cot +and, escorted by the heads of two legations, was on his way to the +hospital to get the precious interview. Once there, Anson Burlingame, +with his gentle manner and courtly presence, drew from those enfeebled +castaways all the story of the burning of the vessel, followed by the +long privation and struggle that had lasted through forty-three fearful +days and across four thousand miles of stormy sea. All that Mark Twain +had to do was to listen and make notes. That night he wrote against +time, and next morning, just as the vessel was drifting from the dock, a +strong hand flung his bulky manuscript aboard and his great beat was +sure. The three-column story, published in the "Sacramento Union" of +July 9, gave the public the first detailed history of the great disaster. +The telegraph carried it everywhere, and it was featured as a sensation. + +Mark Twain and the Burlingame party were much together during the rest of +their stay in Hawaii, and Samuel Clemens never ceased to love and honor +the memory of Anson Burlingame. It was proper that he should do so, for +he owed him much--far more than has already been told. + +Anson Burlingame one day said to him: "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." + +This, coming to him from a man of Burlingame's character and position, +was like a gospel from some divine source. Clemens never forgot the +advice. It gave him courage, new hope, new resolve, new ideals. + +Burlingame came often to the hotel, and they discussed plans for Mark +Twain's future. The diplomat invited the journalist to visit him in +China: + +"Come to Pekin," he said, "and make my house your home." + +Young Burlingame also came, when the patient became convalescent, 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," said Clemens. + +"Very well; the Bible says: `If any man require thee to walk a mile, go +with him Twain.'" + +The walk was taken. + +Mark Twain returned to California at the end of July, and went down to +Sacramento. It was agreed that a special bill should be made for the +"Hornet" report. + +"How much do you think it ought to be, Mark?" asked one of the +proprietors. + +Clemens said: "Oh, I'm a modest man; I don't want the whole "Union" +office; call it a hundred dollars a column." + +There was a general laugh. The bill was made out at that figure, and he +took it to the 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 robbery, but `no matter, pay it. +It's all right.' The best men that ever owned a paper." [6] + +[6] "My Debut as a Literary Person." + + + + +XXVI. + +MARK TWAIN, LECTURER + +In spite of the success of his Sandwich Island letters, Samuel Clemens +felt, on his return to San Francisco, that his future was not bright. He +was not a good, all-round newspaper man--he was special correspondent and +sketch-writer, out of a job. + +He had a number of plans, but they did not promise much. One idea was to +make a book from his Hawaiian material. Another was to write magazine +articles, beginning with one on the Hornet disaster. He did, in fact, +write the Hornet article, and its prompt acceptance by "Harper's +Magazine" delighted him, for it seemed a start in the right direction. A +third plan was to lecture on the islands. + +This prospect frightened him. He had succeeded in his "Third House" +address of two years before, but then he had lectured without charge and +for a church benefit. This would be a different matter. + +One of the proprietors of a San Francisco paper, Col. John McComb, of the +"Alta California," was strong in his approval of the lecture idea. + +"Do it, by all means," he said. "Take the largest house in the city, and +charge a dollar a ticket." + +Without waiting until his fright came back, Mark Twain hurried to the +manager of the Academy of Music, and engaged it for a lecture to be given +October 2d (1866), and sat down and wrote his announcement. He began by +stating what he would speak upon, and ended with a few absurdities, such +as: + + 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. + A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION + may be expected; in fact, the public are privileged to + expect whatever they please. + Doors open at 7 o'clock. The trouble to begin at 8 o'clock. + +Mark Twain was well known in San Francisco, and was pretty sure to have a +good house. But he did not realize this, and, as the evening approached, +his dread of failure increased. Arriving at the theater, he entered by +the stage door, half expecting to find the place empty. Then, suddenly, +he became more frightened than ever; peering from the wings, he saw that +the house was jammed--packed from the footlights to the walls! +Terrified, his knees shaking, his tongue dry, he managed to emerge, and +was greeted with a roar, a crash of applause that nearly finished him. +Only for an instant--reaction followed; these people were his friends, +and he was talking to them. He forgot to be afraid, and, as the applause +came in great billows that rose ever higher, he felt himself borne with +it as on a tide of happiness and success. His evening, from beginning to +end, was a complete triumph. Friends declared that for descriptive +eloquence, humor, and real entertainment nothing like his address had +ever been delivered. The morning papers were enthusiastic. + +Mark Twain no longer hesitated as to what he should do now. He would +lecture. The book idea no longer attracted him; the appearance of the +"Hornet" article, signed, through a printer's error, "Mark Swain," cooled +his desire to be a magazine contributor. No matter--lecturing was the +thing. Dennis McCarthy, who had sold his interest in the "Enterprise," +was in San Francisco. Clemens engaged this honest, happy-hearted +Irishman as manager, and the two toured California and Nevada with +continuous success. + +Those who remember Mark Twain as a lecturer in that early day say that on +entering he would lounge loosely across the platform, his manuscript-- +written on wrapping-paper and carried under his arm--looking like a +ruffled hen. His delivery they recall as being even more quaint and +drawling than in later life. Once, when his lecture was over, an old man +came up to him and said: + +"Be them your natural tones of eloquence?" + +In those days it was thought proper that a lecturer should be introduced, +and Clemens himself used to tell of being presented by an old miner, who +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." + +When he reached Virginia, his old friend Goodman said, "Sam, you don't +need anybody to introduce you," and he suggested a novel plan. That +night, when the curtain rose, it showed Mark Twain seated at a piano, +playing and singing, as if still cub pilot on the "John J. Roe:" + + "Had an old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +Pretending to be surprised and startled at the burst of applause, he +sprang up and began to talk. How the audience enjoyed it! + +Mark Twain continued his lecture tour into December, and then, on the +15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York. +He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had +planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of +letters to the "Alta California," lecturing where opportunity afforded. +He had been on the Coast five and a half years, and to his professions of +printing and piloting had added three others--mining, journalism, and +lecturing. Also, he had acquired a measure of fame. He could come back +to his people with a good account of his absence and a good heart for the +future. + +But it seems now only a chance that he arrived at all. Crossing the +Isthmus, he embarked for New York on what proved to be a cholera ship. +For a time there were one or more funerals daily. An entry in his diary +says: + + "Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has ceased on the + ship--a settled gloom is upon the faces of the passengers. + + "But the winter air of the North checked the contagion, and there + were no new cases when New York City was reached." + +Clemens remained but a short time in New York, and was presently in St. +Louis with his mother and sister. They thought he looked old, but he had +not changed in manner, and the gay banter between mother and son was soon +as lively as ever. He was thirty-one now, and she sixty-four, but the +years had made little difference. She petted him, joked with him, and +scolded him. In turn, he petted and comforted and teased her. She +decided he was the same Sam and always would be--a true prophecy. + +He visited Hannibal and lectured there, receiving an ovation that would +have satisfied even Tom Sawyer. In Keokuk he lectured again, then +returned to St. Louis to plan his trip around the world. + +He was not to make a trip around the world, however--not then. In St. +Louis he saw the notice of the great "Quaker City" Holy Land excursion-- +the first excursion of the kind ever planned--and was greatly taken with +the idea. Impulsive as always, he wrote at once to the "Alta +California," proposing that they send him as their correspondent on this +grand ocean picnic. The cost of passage was $1.200, and the "Alta" +hesitated, but Colonel McComb, already mentioned, assured his associates +that the investment would be sound. The "Alta" wrote, accepting Mark +Twain's proposal, and agreed to pay twenty dollars each for letters. +Clemens hurried to New York to secure a berth, fearing the passenger-list +might be full. Furthermore, with no one of distinction to vouch for him, +according to advertised requirements, he was not sure of being accepted. +Arriving in New York, he learned from an "Alta" representative that +passage had already been reserved for him, but he still doubted his +acceptance as one of the distinguished advertised company. His mind was +presently relieved on this point. Waiting his turn at the booking-desk, +he heard a newspaper man inquire: + +"What notables are going?" + +A clerk, with evident pride, rattled off the names: + +"Lieutenant-General Sherman, Henry Ward Beecher, and Mark Twain; also, +probably, General Banks." + +It was very pleasant to hear the clerk say that. Not only was he +accepted, but billed as an attraction. + +The "Quaker City" would not sail for two months yet, and during the +period of waiting Mark Twain was far from idle. He wrote New York +letters to the "Alta," and he embarked in two rather important ventures-- +he published his first book and he delivered a lecture in New York City. + +Both these undertakings were planned and carried out by friends from the +Coast. Charles Henry Webb, who had given up his magazine to come East, +had collected "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other +Sketches," and, after trying in vain to find a publisher for them, +brought them out himself, on the 1st of May, 1867.[7] It seems curious +now that any publisher should have declined the little volume, for the +sketches, especially the frog story, had been successful, and there was +little enough good American humor in print. However, publishing was a +matter not lightly undertaken in those days. + +Mark Twain seems to have been rather pleased with the appearance of his +first book. To Bret Harte he wrote: + +The book is out and is handsome. It is full of . . . errors....but be a +friend and say nothing about those things. When my hurry is over, I will +send you a copy to pizen the children with. + +The little cloth-and-gold volume, so valued by book-collectors to-day, +contained the frog story and twenty-six other sketches, some of which are +still preserved in Mark Twain's collected works. Most of them were not +Mark Twain's best literature, but they were fresh and readable and suited +the taste of that period. The book sold very well, and, while it did not +bring either great fame or fortune to its author, it was by no means a +failure. + +The "hurry" mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to Bret Harte related to his +second venture--that is to say, his New York lecture, an enterprise +managed by an old Comstock friend, Frank Fuller, ex-Governor of Utah. +Fuller, always a sanguine and energetic person, had proposed the lecture +idea as soon as Mark Twain arrived in New York. Clemens shook his head. + +"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "We +couldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me." + +But Fuller insisted, and eventually engaged the largest hall in New York, +the Cooper Union. Full of enthusiasm and excitement, he plunged into the +business of announcing and advertising his attraction, and inventing +schemes for the sale of seats. Clemens caught Fuller's enthusiasm by +spells, but between times he was deeply depressed. Fuller had got up a +lot of tiny hand-bills, and had arranged to hang bunches of these in the +horse-cars. The little dangling clusters fascinated Clemens, and he rode +about to see if anybody else noticed them. Finally, after a long time, a +passenger pulled off one of the bills and glanced at it. A man with him +asked: + +"Who's Mark Twain?" + +"Goodness knows! I don't." + +The lecturer could not ride any farther. He hunted up his patron. + +"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest." + +Fuller assured him that things were "working underneath," and would be +all right. But Clemens wrote home: "Everything looks shady, at least, if +not dark." And he added that, after hiring the largest house in New +York, he must play against Schuyler Colfax, Ristori, and a double troupe +of Japanese jugglers, at other places of amusement. + +When the evening of the lecture approached and only a few tickets had +been sold, the lecturer was desperate. + +"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in 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 complimentaries!" + +"Very well,"said Fuller. "What we want this time is reputation, anyway-- +money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest and most +intelligent audience that was ever gathered in New York City." + +Fuller immediately sent out complimentary tickets to the school-teachers +of New York and Brooklyn---a general invitation to come and hear Mark +Twain's great lecture on the Sandwich Islands. There was nothing to do +after that but wait results. + +Mark Twain had lost faith--he did not believe anybody in New York would +come to hear him even on a free ticket. When the night arrived, he drove +with Fuller to the Cooper Union half an hour before the lecture was to +begin. Forty years later he 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 all the streets were + blocked with people and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't + believe that these people were trying to get to the 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." + +So in its way this venture was a success. It brought Mark Twain a good +deal of a reputation in New York, even if no financial profit, though, in +spite of the flood of complimentaries, there was a cash return of +something like three hundred dollars. This went a good way toward paying +the expenses, while Fuller, in his royal way, insisted on making up the +deficit, declaring he had been paid for everything in the fun and joy of +the game. + +"Mark," he said, "it's 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 to the +"Alta" and the "Tribune" will get the widest reception of any letters of +travel ever written." + + + + +XXVII. + +AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN + +It was early in May--the 6th--that Mark Twain had delivered his Cooper +Union lecture, and a month later, June 8, 1867, he sailed on the "Quaker +City," with some sixty-six other "pilgrims," on the great Holy Land +excursion, the story of which has been so fully and faithfully told in +"The Innocent Abroad." + +What a wonderful thing it must have seemed in that time for a party of +excursionists to have a ship all to themselves to go a-gipsying in from +port to port of antiquity and romance! The advertised celebrities did +not go, none of them but Mark Twain, but no one minded, presently, for +Mark Twain's sayings and stories kept the company sufficiently +entertained, and sometimes he would read aloud to his fellow-passengers +from the newspaper letters he was writing, and invite comment and +criticism. That was entertainment for them, and it was good for him, for +it gave him an immediate audience, always inspiring to an author. +Furthermore, the comments offered were often of the greatest value, +especially suggestions from one Mrs. Fairbanks, of Cleveland, a middle- +aged, cultured woman, herself a correspondent for her husband's paper, +the "Herald". It requires not many days for acquaintances to form on +shipboard, and in due time a little group gathered regularly each +afternoon to hear Mark Twain read what he had written of their day's +doings, though some of it he destroyed later because Mrs. Fairbanks +thought it not his best. + +All of the "pilgrims" mentioned in "The Innocents Abroad" were real +persons. "Dan" was Dan Slote, Mark Twain's room-mate; the Doctor who +confused the guides was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago; the poet +Lariat was Bloodgood H. Cutter, an eccentric from Long Island; "Jack" was +Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey; and "Moult" and "Blucher" and "Charlie" +were likewise real, the last named being Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira, +N. Y., a boy of eighteen, whose sister would one day become Mark Twain's +wife. + +It has been said that Mark Twain first met Olivia Langdon on the "Quaker +City," but this is not quite true; he met only her picture--the original +was not on that ship. Charlie Langdon, boy fashion, made a sort of hero +of the brilliant man called Mark Twain, and one day in the Bay of Smyrna +invited him to his cabin and exhibited his treasures, among them a dainty +miniature of a sister at home, Olivia, a sweet, delicate creature whom +the boy worshiped. + +Samuel Clemens gazed long at the exquisite portrait and spoke of it +reverently, for in the sweet face he seemed to find something spiritual. +Often after that he came to young Langdon's cabin to look at the pictured +countenance, in his heart dreaming of a day when he might learn to know +its owner. + +We need not follow in detail here the travels of the "pilgrims" and their +adventures. Most of them have been fully set down in "The Innocents +Abroad," and with not much elaboration, for plenty of amusing things were +happening on a trip of that kind, and Mark Twain's old note-books are +full of the real incidents that we find changed but little in the book. +If the adventures of Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are embroidered here and +there, the truth is always there, too. + +Yet the old note-books have a very intimate interest of their own. It is +curious to be looking through them to-day, trying to realize that those +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 historic little company that frolicked +through Italy and climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. + +It required five months for the "Quaker City" to make the circuit of the +Mediterranean and return to New York. Mark Twain in that time +contributed fifty two or three letters to the "Alta California" and six +to the "New York Tribune," or an average of nearly three a week--a vast +amount of labor to be done in the midst of sight-seeing. And what +letters of travel they were! The most remarkable that had been written +up to that time. Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry, +they came as a revelation to a public weary of the tiresome descriptive +drivel of that day. They preached a new gospel in travel literature--the +gospel of seeing honestly and speaking frankly--a gospel that Mark Twain +would continue to preach during the rest of his career. + +Furthermore, the letters showed a great literary growth in their author. +No doubt the cultivated associations of the ship, the afternoon reading +aloud of his work, and Mrs. Fairbanks's advice had much to do with this. +But we may believe, also, that the author's close study of the King James +version of the Old Testament during the weeks of travel through Palestine +exerted a powerful influence upon his style. The man who had recited +"The Burial of Moses " to Joe Goodman, with so much feeling, could not +fail to be mastered by the simple yet stately Bible phrase and imagery. +Many of the fine descriptive passages in "The Innocents Abroad" have +something almost Biblical in their phrasing. The writer of this memoir +heard in childhood "The Innocents Abroad" read aloud, and has never +forgotten the poetic spell that fell upon him as he listened to a +paragraph written of Tangier: + + "Here is a crumbled 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." + +Mark Twain returned to America to find himself, if not famous, at least +in very high repute. The "Alta" and "Tribune" letters had carried his +name to every corner of his native land. He was in demand now. To his +mother he wrote: + + "I have eighteen offers to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts of + the Union--have declined them all . . . . Belong on the + "Tribune" staff and shall write occasionally. Am offered the same + berth to-day on the 'Herald,' by letter." + +He was in Washington at this time, having remained in New York but one +day. He had accepted a secretaryship from Senator Stewart of Nevada, but +this arrangement was a brief one. He required fuller freedom for his +Washington correspondence and general literary undertakings. + +He had been in Washington but a few days when he received a letter that +meant more to him than he could possibly have dreamed at the moment. It +was from Elisha Bliss, Jr., manager of the American Publishing Company, +of Hartford, Connecticut, and it suggested gathering the Mediterranean +travel-letters into a book. Bliss was a capable, energetic man, with a +taste for humor, and believed there was money for author and publisher in +the travel-book. + +The proposition pleased Mark Twain, who replied at once, asking for +further details as to Bliss's plan. Somewhat later he made a trip to +Hartford, and the terms for the publication of "The Innocents Abroad" +were agreed upon. It was to be a large illustrated book for subscription +sale, and the author was to receive five per cent of the selling price. +Bliss had offered him the choice between this royalty and ten thousand +dollars cash. Though much tempted by the large sum to be paid in hand, +Mark Twain decided in favor of the royalty plan--"the best business +judgment I ever displayed," he used to say afterward. He agreed to +arrange the letters for book publication, revising and rewriting where +necessary, and went back to Washington well pleased. He did not realize +that his agreement with Bliss marked the beginning of one of the most +notable publishing connections in American literary history. + + + + +XXVIII. + +OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" + +Certainly this was a momentous period in Mark Twain's life. It was a +time of great events, and among them was one which presently would come +to mean more to him than all the rest--the beginning of his acquaintance +with Olivia Langdon. + +One evening in late December when Samuel Clemens had come to New York to +visit his old "Quaker City" room-mate, Dan Slote, he found there other +ship comrades, including Jack Van Nostrand and Charlie Langdon. It was a +joyful occasion, but one still happier followed it. Young Langdon's +father and sister Olivia were in New York, and an evening or two later +the boy invited his distinguished "Quaker City" shipmate to dine with +them at the old St. Nicholas Hotel. We may believe that Samuel Clemens +went willingly enough. He had never forgotten the September day in the +Bay of Smyrna when he had first seen the sweet-faced miniature--now, at +last he looked upon the reality. + +Long afterward he said: "It was forty years ago. From that day to this +she has never been out of my mind." + +Charles Dickens gave a reading that night at Steinway Hall. The Langdons +attended, and Samuel Clemens with them. He recalled long after that +Dickens wore a black velvet coat with a fiery-red flower in his +buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene from "David Copperfield"-- +the death of James Steerforth; but he remembered still more clearly the +face and dress and the slender, girlish figure of Olivia Langdon at his +side. + +Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as the +miniature he had seen, though no longer in the fragile health of her +girlhood. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, and Samuel +Clemens was no less her worshiper from the first moment of their meeting. + +Miss Langdon, on her part, was at first rather dazed by the strange, +brilliant, handsome man, so unlike anything she had known before. When +he had gone, she had the feeling that something like a great meteor had +crossed her sky. To her brother, who was eager for her good opinion of +his celebrity, she admitted her admiration, if not her entire approval. +Her father had no doubts. With a keen sense of humor and a deep +knowledge of men, Jervis Langdon was from that first evening the devoted +champion of Mark Twain. Clemens saw Miss Langdon again during the +holidays, and by the week's end he had planned to visit Elmira--soon. +But fate managed differently. He was not to see Elmira for the better +part of a year. + +He returned to his work in Washington--the preparation of the book and +his newspaper correspondence. It was in connection with the latter that +he first met General Grant, then not yet President. The incident, +characteristic of both men, is worth remembering. Mark Twain had called +by permission, elated with the prospect of an interview. But when he +looked into the 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 slightly embarrassed. Are you?" + +Grant's severity broke up in laughter. There were no further +difficulties. + +Work on the book did not go so well. There were many distractions in +Washington, and Clemens did not like the climate there. Then he found +the "Alta" had copyrighted his letters and were reluctant to allow him to +use them. He decided to sail at once for San Francisco. If he could +arrange the "Alta" matter, he would finish his work there. He did, in +fact, carry out this plan, and all difficulties vanished on his arrival. +His old friend Colonel McComb obtained for him free use of the "Alta" +letters. The way was now clear for his book. His immediate need of +funds, however, induced him to lecture. In May he wrote Bliss: + + "I lectured here on the trip (the Quaker City excursion) the other + night; $1,600 in gold in the house; every seat taken and paid for + before night." + +He settled down to work now with his usual energy, editing and rewriting, +and in two months had the big manuscript ready for delivery. + +Mark Twain's friends urged him to delay his return to "the States" long +enough to make a lecture tour through California and Nevada. He must +give his new lecture, they told him, to his old friends. He agreed, and +was received at Virginia City, Carson, and elsewhere like a returning +conqueror. He lectured again in San Francisco just before sailing. + +The announcement of his lecture was highly original. It was a hand-bill +supposed to have been issued by the foremost citizens of San Francisco, a +mock protest against his lecture, urging him to return to New York +without inflicting himself on them again. On the same bill was printed +his reply. In it he said: + + "I will torment the people if I want to. It only costs them $1 + apiece, and, if they can't stand it, what do they stay here for?" + +He promised positively to sail on July 6th if they would let him talk +just this once. + +There was a good deal more of this drollery on the bill, which ended with +the announcement that he would appear at the Mercantile Library on July +2d. It is unnecessary to say that the place was jammed on that evening. +It was probably the greatest lecture event San Francisco has ever known. +Four days later, July 6, 1868, Mark Twain sailed, via Aspinwall, for New +York, and on the 28th delivered the manuscript of "The Innocents Abroad, +or the New Pilgrim's Progress," to his Hartford publisher. + + + + +XXIX + +THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES + +Samuel Clemens now decided to pay his long-deferred visit to the Langdon +home in Elmira. Through Charlie Langdon he got the invitation renewed, +and for a glorious week enjoyed the generous hospitality of the beautiful +Langdon home and the society of fair Olivia Langdon--Livy, as they called +her--realizing more and more that for him there could never be any other +woman in the world. He spoke no word of this to her, but on the morning +of the day when his visit would end he relieved himself to Charlie +Langdon, much to the young man's alarm. Greatly as he admired Mark Twain +himself, he did not think him, or, indeed, any man, good enough for +"Livy," whom he considered little short of a saint. Clemens was to take +a train that evening, but young Langdon said, when he recovered: + +"Look here, Clemens, there's a train in half an hour. I'll help you +catch it. Don't wait until tonight; go now!" + +Mark Twain shook his head. + +"No, Charlie," 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 train, a light two- +seated wagon was at the gate. Young Langdon and his guest took the back +seat, which, for some reason, had not been locked in its place. The +horse started with a quick forward spring, and the seat with its two +occupants described a circle and landed with force on the cobbled street. + +Neither passenger was seriously hurt--only dazed a little for the moment. +But to Mark Twain there came a sudden inspiration. Here was a chance to +prolong his visit. When the Langdon household gathered with +restoratives, he did not recover at once, and allowed himself to be +supported to an arm-chair for further remedies. Livy Langdon showed +especial anxiety. + +He was not allowed to go, now, of course; he must stay until it was +certain that his recovery was complete. Perhaps he had been internally +injured. His visit was prolonged two weeks, two weeks of pure happiness, +and when he went away he had fully resolved to win Livy Langdon for his +wife. + +Mark Twain now went to Hartford to look after his book proofs, and there +for the first time met the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, who would become his +closest friend. The two men, so different in many ways, always had the +fondest admiration for each other; each recognized in the other great +courage, humanity, and sympathy. Clemens would gladly have remained in +Hartford that winter. Twichell presented him to many congenial people, +including Charles Dudley Warner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other writing +folk. But flattering lecture offers were made him, and he could no +longer refuse. + +He called his new lecture "The Vandal Abroad," it being chapters from the +forthcoming book, and it was a great success everywhere. His houses were +crowded; the newspapers were enthusiastic. His delivery was described as +a "long, monotonous drawl, with fun invariably coming in at the end of a +sentence--after a pause." He began to be recognized everywhere--to have +great popularity. People came out on the street to see him pass. + +Many of his lecture engagements were in central New York, no great +distance from Elmira. He had a standing invitation to visit the Langdon +home, and went when he could. His courtship, however, was not entirely +smooth. Much as Mr. Langdon honored his gifts and admired him +personally, he feared that his daughter, who had known so little of life +and the outside world, and the brilliant traveler, lecturer, author, +might not find happiness in marriage. Many absurd stories have been told +of Mark Twain's first interview with Jervis Langdon on this subject, but +these are without foundation. It was an earnest discussion on both +sides, and left Samuel Clemens rather crestfallen, though not without +hope. More than once the subject was discussed between the two men that +winter as the lecturer came and went, his fame always growing. In time +the Langdon household had grown to feel that he belonged to them. It +would be only a step further to make him really one of the family. + +There was no positive engagement at first, for it was agreed between +Clemens and Jervis Langdon that letters should be sent by Mr. Langdon to +those who had known his would-be son-in-law earlier, with inquiries as to +his past conduct and general character. It was a good while till answers +to these came, and when they arrived Samuel Clemens was on hand to learn +the result. Mr. 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 gentlemen I wrote to 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 had a forlorn look. "There is nothing very evasive about +that," he said. + +Langdon reflected. + +"Haven't you any other friend that you could suggest?" + +"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 +then they do." + +The engagement of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Olivia Lewis Langdon was +ratified next day, February 4, 1869. To Jane Clemens her son wrote: +"She is a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom." + + + + +XXX. + +THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING + +Clemens closed his lecture tour in March with a profit of something more +than eight thousand dollars. He had intended to make a spring tour of +California, but went to Elmira instead. The revised proofs of his book +were coming now, and he and gentle Livy Langdon read them together. +Samuel Clemens realized presently that the girl he had chosen had a +delicate literary judgment. She became all at once his editor, a +position she held until her death. Her refining influence had much to do +with Mark Twain's success, then and later, and the world owes her a debt +of gratitude. Through that first pleasant summer these two worked at the +proofs and planned for their future, and were very happy indeed. + +It was about the end of July when the big book appeared at last, and its +success was startling. Nothing like it had ever been known before. Mark +Twain's name seemed suddenly to be on every tongue--his book in +everybody's hands. From one end of the country to the other, readers +were hailing him as the greatest humorist and descriptive writer of +modern times. By the first of the year more than thirty thousand volumes +had been sold. It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a +half dollars; the record has not been equaled since. In England also +large editions had been issued, and translations into foreign languages +were under way. It was and is a great book, because it is a human book-- +a book written straight from the heart. + +If Mark Twain had not been famous before, he was so now. Indeed, it is +doubtful if any other American author was so widely known and read as the +author of "The Innocents Abroad" during that first half-year after its +publication. + +Yet for some reason he still did not regard himself as a literary man. +He was a journalist, and began to look about for a paper which he could +buy-his idea being to establish a business and a home. Through Mr. +Langdon's assistance, he finally obtained an interest in the "Buffalo +Express," and the end of the year 1869 found him established as its +associate editor, though still lecturing here and there, because his +wedding-day was near at hand and there must be no lack of funds. + +It was the 2d of February, 1870, that Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon +were married. A few days before, he sat down one night and wrote to +Jim Gillis, away out in the Tuolumne Hills, and told him of all his good +fortune, recalling their days at Angel's Camp, and the absurd frog story, +which he said had been the beginning of his happiness. In the five years +since then he had traveled a long way, but he had not forgotten. + +On the morning of his wedding-day Mark Twain received from his publisher +a check for four thousand dollars, his profit from three months' sales of +the book, a handsome sum. + +The wedding was mainly a family affair. Twichell and his wife came over +from Hartford--Twichell to assist Thomas K. Beecher in performing the +ceremony. Jane Clemens could not come, nor Orion and his wife; but +Pamela, a widow now, and her daughter Annie, grown to a young lady, +arrived from St. Louis. Not more than one hundred guests gathered in the +stately Langdon parlors that in future would hold so much history for +Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon--so much of the story of life and death +that thus made its beginning there. Then, at seven in the evening, they +were married, and the bride danced with her father, and the Rev. Thomas +Beecher declared she wore the longest gloves he had ever seen. + +It was the next afternoon that the wedding-party set out for Buffalo. +Through a Mr. Slee, an agent of Mr. Langdon's, Clemens had engaged, as he +supposed, a boarding-house, quiet and unpretentious, for he meant to +start his married life modestly. Jervis Langdon had a plan of his own +for his daughter, but Clemens had received no inkling of it, and had full +faith in the letter which Slee had written, saying that a choice and +inexpensive boarding-house had been secured. When, about nine o'clock +that night, the party reached Buffalo, they found Mr. Slee waiting at the +station. There was snow, and sleighs had been ordered. Soon after +starting, the sleigh of the bride and groom fell behind and drove about +rather aimlessly, apparently going nowhere in particular. This disturbed +the groom, who thought they should arrive first and receive their guests. +He criticized Slee for selecting a house that was so hard to find, and +when they turned at last into Delaware Avenue, Buffalo's finest street, +and stopped before a handsome house, he was troubled concerning the +richness of the locality. + +They were on the steps when the door 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 it all--the +completeness of their possession. At last his 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 still he could not quite grasp it, and 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, 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." + + + + +XXXI. + +MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO + +Mark Twain remained less than two years in Buffalo--a period of much +affliction. + +In the beginning, prospects could hardly have been brighter. His +beautiful home seemed perfect. At the office he found work to his hand, +and enjoyed it. His co-editor, J. W. Larned, who sat across the table +from him, used to tell later how Mark enjoyed his work as he went along-- +the humor of it--frequently laughing as some new absurdity came into his +mind. He was not very regular in his arrivals, but he worked long hours +and turned in a vast amount of "copy"--skits, sketches, editorials, and +comments of a varied sort. Not all of it was humorous; he would stop +work any time on an amusing sketch to attack some abuse or denounce an +injustice, and he did it in scorching words that made offenders pause. +Once, when two practical jokers had sent in a marriage notice of persons +not even contemplating matrimony, he wrote: + + "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." + +In May he considerably increased his income by undertaking a department +called "Memoranda" for the new "Galaxy" magazine. The outlook was now so +promising that to his lecture agent, James Redpath, he wrote: + + "DEAR RED: I'm not going to lecture any more forever. I've 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 in a second letter: + + "I guess I'm 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-inspiring, nothing + less; and I'm 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." + +The little household on Delaware Avenue was indeed a happy place during +those early months. Neither Clemens nor his wife in those days cared +much for society, preferring the comfort of their own home. Once when a +new family moved into a house across the way they postponed calling until +they felt ashamed. Clemens himself called first. One Sunday morning he +noticed smoke pouring from an upper window of their neighbor's house. +The occupants, seated on the veranda, evidently did not suspect their +danger. Clemens stepped across to the gate and, bowing politely, 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." + +It was at the moment when life seemed at its best that shadows gathered. +Jervis Langdon had never accepted his son-in-law's playful invitation to +"bring his bag and stay overnight," and now the time for it was past. In +the spring his health gave way. Mrs. Clemens, who adored him, went to +Elmira to be at his bedside. Three months of lingering illness brought +the end. His death was a great blow to Mrs. Clemens, and the strain of +watching had been very hard. Her own health, never robust, became poor. +A girlhood friend, who came to cheer her with a visit, was taken down +with typhoid fever. Another long period of anxiety and nursing ended +with the young woman's death in the Clemens home. + +To Mark Twain and his wife it seemed that their bright days were over. +The arrival of little Langdon Clemens, in November, brought happiness, +but his delicate hold on life was so uncertain that the burden of anxiety +grew. + +Amid so many distractions Clemens found his work hard. His "Memoranda" +department in the "Galaxy" must be filled and be bright and readable. +His work at the office could not be neglected. Then, too, he had made a +contract with Bliss for another book "Roughing It"--and he was trying to +get started on that. + +He began to chafe under the relentless demands of the magazine and +newspaper. Finally he could stand it no longer. He sold his interest in +the "Express," at a loss, and gave up the "Memoranda." In the closing +number (April, 1871) he said: + + "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 .... To be a + pirate on a low salary and with no share of the profits in 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." + + + + +XXXII. + +AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" + +The Clemens family now went to Elmira, to Quarry Farm--a beautiful +hilltop place, overlooking the river and the town--the home of Mrs. +Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane. They did not expect to return to +Buffalo, and the house there was offered for sale. For them the sunlight +had gone out of it. + +Matters went better at Quarry Farm. The invalids gained strength; work +on the book progressed. The Clemenses that year fell in love with the +place that was to mean so much to them in the many summers to come. + +Mark Twain was not altogether satisfied, however, with his writing. He +was afraid it was not up to his literary standard. His spirits were at +low ebb when his old first editor, Joe Goodman, came East and stopped off +at Elmira. Clemens hurried him out to the farm, and, eagerly putting the +chapters of "Roughing It" into his hands, asked him to read them. +Goodman seated himself comfortably by a window, while the author went +over to a table and pretended to write, but was really watching Goodman, +who read page after page solemnly and with great deliberation. Presently +Mark Twain could stand it no longer. He threw down his pen, exclaiming: + +"I knew it! I knew it! I've been writing nothing but rot. You have sat +there all this time reading without a smile--but I am not wholly to +blame. I have been trying to write a funny book with dead people and +sickness everywhere. Oh, Joe, I wish I could die myself!" + +"Mark," said Goodman, "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!" + +That was enough. Clemens knew that Goodman never spoke idly of such +matters. The author of "Roughing It" was a changed man--full of +enthusiasm, eager to go on. He offered to pay Goodman a salary to stay +and furnish inspiration. Goodman declined the salary, but remained for +several weeks, and during long walks which the two friends took over the +hills gave advice, recalled good material, and was a great help and +comfort. In May, Clemens wrote to Bliss that he had twelve hundred +manuscript pages of the new book written and was turning out from thirty +to sixty-five per day. He was in high spirits. The family health had +improved--once more prospects were bright. He even allowed Redpath to +persuade him to lecture again during the coming season. Selling his +share of the "Express" at a loss had left Mark Twain considerably in debt +and lecture profits would furnish the quickest means of payment. + +When the summer ended the Clemens family took up residence in Hartford, +Connecticut, in the fine old Hooker house, on Forest Street. Hartford +held many attractions for Mark Twain. His publishers were located there, +also it was the home of a distinguished group of writers, and of the Rev. +"Joe" Twichell. Neither Clemens nor his wife had felt that they could +return to Buffalo. The home there was sold--its contents packed and +shipped. They did not see it again. + +His book finished, Mark Twain lectured pretty steadily that winter, often +in the neighborhood of Boston, which was lecture headquarters. Mark +Twain enjoyed Boston. In Redpath's office one could often meet and "swap +stories" with Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) and Petroleum V. Nasby (David +R. Locke)--well-known humorists of that day--while in the strictly +literary circle there were William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, +Bret Harte (who by this time had become famous and journeyed eastward), +and others of their sort. They were all young and eager and merry, then, +and they gathered at luncheons in snug corners and talked gaily far into +the dimness of winter afternoons. Harte had been immediately accorded a +high place in the Boston group. Mark Twain as a strictly literary man +was still regarded rather doubtfully by members of the older set--the +Brahmins, as they were called--but the young men already hailed him +joyfully, reveling in the fine, fearless humor of his writing, his +wonderful talk, his boundless humanity. + + + + +XXXIII. + +IN ENGLAND + +Mark Twain closed his lecture season in February (1872), and during the +same month his new book, "Roughing It," came from the press. He disliked +the lecture platform, and he felt that he could now abandon it. He had +made up his loss in Buffalo and something besides. Furthermore, the +advance sales on his book had been large. + +"Roughing It," in fact, proved a very successful book. Like "The +Innocents Abroad," it was the first of its kind, fresh in its humor and +description, true in its picture of the frontier life he had known. In +three months forty thousand copies had been sold, and now, after more +than forty years, it is still a popular book. The life it describes is +all gone-the scenes are changed. It is a record of a vanished time--a +delightful history--as delightful to-day as ever. + +Eighteen hundred and seventy-two was an eventful year for Mark Twain. In +March his second child, a little girl whom they named Susy, was born, and +three months later the boy, Langdon, died. He had never been really +strong, and a heavy cold and diphtheria brought the end. + +Clemens did little work that summer. He took his family to Saybrook, +Connecticut, for the sea air, and near the end of August, when Mrs. +Clemens had regained strength and courage, he sailed for England to +gather material for a book on English life and customs. He felt very +friendly toward the English, who had been highly appreciative of his +writings, and he wished their better acquaintance. He gave out no word +of the book idea, and it seems unlikely that any one in England ever +suspected it. He was there three months, and beyond some notebook +memoranda made during the early weeks of his stay he wrote not a line. +He was too delighted with everything to write a book--a book of his kind. +In letters home he declared the country to be as beautiful as fairyland. +By all classes attentions were showered upon him--honors such as he had +never received even in America. W. D. Howells writes:[8] + + "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, that spurned the rest of our nation." + +He could not make a book--a humorous book--out of these people and their +country; he was too fond of them. + +England fairly reveled in Mark Twain. At one of the great banquets, a +roll of the distinguished guests was called, and the names properly +applauded. Mark Twain, busily engaged in low conversation with his +neighbor, applauded without listening, vigorously or mildly, as the +others led. Finally a name was followed by a great burst of long and +vehement clapping. This must be some very great person indeed, and Mark +Twain, not to be outdone in his approval, stoutly kept his hands going +when all others had finished. + +"Whose name was that we were just applauding?" he asked of his neighbor. + +"Mark Twain's." + +But it was no matter; they took it all as one of his jokes. He was a +wonder and a delight to them. Whatever he did or said was to them +supremely amusing. When, on one occasion, a speaker humorously referred +to his American habit of carrying a cotton umbrella, his reply that he +did so "because it was the only kind of an umbrella that an Englishman +wouldn't steal," was repeated all over England next day as one of the +finest examples of wit since the days of Swift. + +He returned to America at the end of November; promising to come back and +lecture to them the following year. + +[7] From "My Mark Twain," by W. D. Howells. + + + + +XXXIV. + +A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS + +But if Mark Twain could find nothing to write of in England, he found no +lack of material in America. That winter in Hartford, with Charles +Dudley Warner, he wrote "The Gilded Age." The Warners were neighbors, +and the families visited back and forth. One night at dinner, when the +two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the +wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The +challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens +agreed that they would write a book together, and began it immediately. + +Clemens had an idea already in mind. It was to build a romance around +that lovable dreamer, his mother's cousin, James Lampton, whom the reader +will recall from an earlier chapter. Without delay he set to work and +soon completed the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages of the new +story. Warner came over and, after listening to its reading, went home +and took up the story. In two months the novel was complete, Warner +doing most of the romance, Mark Twain the character parts. Warner's +portion was probably pure fiction, but Mark Twain's chapters were full of +history. + +Judge Hawkins and wife were Mark Twain's father and mother; Washington +Hawkins, his brother Orion. Their doings, with those of James Lampton as +Colonel Sellers, were, of course, elaborated, but the story of the +Tennessee land, as told in that book, is very good history indeed. Laura +Hawkins, however, was only real in the fact that she bore the name of +Samuel Clemens's old playmate. "The Gilded Age," published later in the +year, was well received and sold largely. The character of Colonel +Sellers at once took a place among the great fiction characters of the +world, and is probably the best known of any American creation. His +watchword, "There's millions in it!" became a byword. + +The Clemenses decided to build in Hartford. They bought a plot of land +on Farmington Avenue, in the literary neighborhood, and engaged an +architect and builder. By spring, the new house was well under way, and, +matters progressing so favorably, the owners decided to take a holiday +while the work was going on. Clemens had been eager to show England to +his wife; so, taking little Sissy, now a year old, they sailed in May, to +be gone half a year. + +They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment. +If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than +royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The +nation's most distinguished men--among them Robert Browning, Sir John +Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke--came to pay their +respects. Authors were calling constantly. Charles Reade and Wilkie +Collins could not get enough of Mark Twain. Reade proposed to join with +him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call, +being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one +night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I +ever saw," Mark Twain once declared. + +Little Sissy and her father thrived on London life, but it wore on Mrs. +Clemens. At the end of July they went quietly to Edinburgh, and settled +at Veitch's Hotel, on George Street. The strain of London life had been +too much for Mrs. Clemens, and her health became poor. Unacquainted in +Edinburgh, Clemens only remembered that Dr. John Brown, author of "Rab +and His Friends," lived there. Learning the address, he walked around to +23 Rutland Street, and made himself known. Doctor Brown came forthwith, +and Mrs. Clemens seemed better from the moment of his arrival. + +The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and +the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him +to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage +to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his +head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look. + +"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?" + +"No, a dog I don't know." + +Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had +won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he +were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by +her great, dark eyes. + +Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th +of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our +Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens +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 the noise +subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present +and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval. + +He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no +time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the +talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times" +declared his lectures had only whetted the public appetite for more. His +manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles Dickens), urged him +to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally +agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back +himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to +London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square +rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end +that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no +other such a lecture triumph on record. + +Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full +health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest +places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all +too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led +him so far. + + + + +XXXV. + +BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER + +It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America. +His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and +Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become- +-to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of +all the things between the earth and sky. And Twichell came in, of +course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or +worried about anything at all. + +"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round," +wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so +carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on +the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was +to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three +fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston. + +"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells +once confessed to the writer of this memoir. + +At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The +Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set +down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, +with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, +and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built +for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. +The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, +with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any +direction the breeze could come, and there were fine views. To Twichell +he wrote: + + "It is a cozy nest, and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three + or four chairs, and when the storm sweeps down the remote valley and + the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond, and the rain beats on + the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it!" + +He worked steadily there that summer. He would begin mornings, soon +after breakfast, keeping at it until nearly dinner-time, say until five +or after, for it was not his habit to eat the midday meal. Other members +of the family did not venture near the place; if he was wanted urgently, +a horn was blown. His work finished, he would light a cigar and, +stepping lightly down the stone flight that led to the house-level, he +would find where the family had assembled and read to them his day's +work. Certainly those were golden days, and the tale of Tom and Huck and +Joe Harper progressed. To Dr. John Brown, in Scotland, he wrote: + + "I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an average, + for some time now, .. . . and consequently have been so wrapped + up in it and dead to everything else that I have fallen mighty short + in letter-writing." + +But the inspiration of Tom and Huck gave out when the tale was half +finished, or perhaps it gave way to a new interest. News came one day +that a writer in San Francisco, without permission, had dramatized "The +Gilded Age," and that it was being played by John T. Raymond, an actor of +much power. Mark Twain had himself planned to dramatize the character of +Colonel Sellers and had taken out dramatic copyright. He promptly +stopped the California production, then wrote the dramatist a friendly +letter, and presently bought the play of him, and set in to rewrite it. +It proved a great success. Raymond played it for several years. Colonel +Sellers on the stage became fully as popular as in the book, and very +profitable indeed. + + + + +XXXVI. + +THE NEW HOME + +The new home in Hartford was ready that autumn--the beautiful house +finished, or nearly finished, the handsome furnishings in place. It was +a lovely spot. There were trees and grass--a green, shady slope that +fell away to a quiet stream. The house itself, quite different from the +most of the houses of that day, had many wings and balconies, and toward +the back a great veranda that looked down the shaded slope. The kitchen +was not at the back. As Mark Twain was unlike any other man that ever +lived, so his house was not like other houses. When asked why he built +the kitchen toward the street, he said: + + "So the servants can see the circus go by without running into the + front yard." + +But this was probably his afterthought. The kitchen wing extended toward +Farmington Avenue, but it was a harmonious detail of the general plan. + +Many frequenters have tried to express the charm of Mark Twain's +household. Few have succeeded, for it lay not in the house itself, nor +in its furnishings, beautiful as these things were, but in the +personality of its occupants--the daily round of their lives--the +atmosphere which they unconsciously created. From its wide entrance-hall +and tiny, jewel like conservatory below to the billiard-room at the top +of the house, it seemed perfectly appointed, serenely ordered, and full +of welcome. The home of one of the most unusual and unaccountable +personalities in the world was filled with gentleness and peace. It was +Mrs. Clemens who was chiefly responsible. She was no longer the half- +timid, inexperienced girl he had married. Association, study, and travel +had brought her knowledge and confidence. When the great ones of the +world came to visit America's most picturesque literary figure, she gave +welcome to them, and filled her place at his side with such sweet grace +that those who came to pay their dues to him often returned to pay still +greater devotion to his companion. William Dean Howells, so often a +visitor there, once said to the writer: + + "Words cannot express Mrs. Clemens--her fineness, her delicate, + wonderful tact." And again, "She was not only a beautiful soul, but + a woman of singular intellectual power." + +There were always visitors in the Clemens home. Above the mantel in the +library was written: "The ornament of a house is the friends that +frequent it," and the Clemens home never lacked of those ornaments, and +they were of the world's best. No distinguished person came to America +that did not pay a visit to Hartford and Mark Twain. Generally it was +not merely a call, but a stay of days. The welcome was always genuine, +the entertainment unstinted. George Warner, a close neighbor, once 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." + +As for friends living near, they usually came and went at will, often +without the ceremony of knocking or formal leave-taking. The two Warner +famines were among these, the home of Charles Dudley Warner being only a +step away. Dr. and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe were also close neighbors, +while the Twichell parsonage was not far. They were all like one great +family, of which Mark Twain's home was the central gathering-place. + + + + +XXXVII. + +"OLD TIMES," "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" + +The Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and Mark Twain used to take many long walks +together, and once they decided to walk from Hartford to Boston--about +one hundred miles. They decided to allow three days for the trip, and +really started one morning, with some luncheon in a basket, and a little +bag of useful articles. It was a bright, brisk November day, and they +succeeded in getting to Westford, a distance of twenty-eight miles, that +evening. But they were lame and foot-sore, and next morning, when they +had limped six miles or so farther, Clemens telegraphed to Redpath: + + "We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days. This shows + the thing can be done. Shall finish now by rail. Did you have any + bets on us?" + +He also telegraphed Howells that they were about to arrive in Boston, and +they did, in fact, reach the Howells home about nine o'clock, and found +excellent company--the Cambridge set--and a most welcome supper waiting. +Clemens and Twichell were ravenous. Clemens demanded food immediately. +Howells writes: + + "I can see him now as he stood up in the midst of our friends, with + his head thrown back, and in his hands a dish of those scalloped + 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." + +The pedestrians returned to Hartford a day or two later--by train. It +was during another, though less extended, tour which Twichell and Clemens +made that fall, that the latter got his idea for a Mississippi book. +Howells had been pleading for something for the January "Atlantic," of +which he was now chief editor, but thus far Mark Twain's inspiration had +failed. He wrote at last, "My head won't go," but later, the same day, +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 wrote at once, welcoming the idea. Clemens forthwith sent the +first instalment of that marvelous series of river chapters which rank +to-day among the very best of his work. As pictures of the vanished +Mississippi life they are so real, so convincing, so full of charm that +they can never grow old. As long as any one reads of the Mississippi +they will look up those chapters of Mark Twain's piloting days. When the +first number appeared, John Hay wrote: + + "It is perfect; no more, no less. I don't see how you do it." + +The "Old Times" chapter ran through seven numbers of the "Atlantic," and +show Mark Twain at his very best. They form now most of the early +chapters of "Life on the Mississippi." The remainder of that book was +added about seven years later. + +Those were busy literary days for Mark Twain. Writing the river chapters +carried him back, and hardly had he finished them when he took up the +neglected story of "Tom and Huck," and finished that under full steam. +He at first thought of publishing it in the "Atlantic", but decided +against this plan. He sent Howells the manuscript to read, and received +the fullest praise. Howells wrote: + + "It is altogether the best boy's story I ever read. It will be an + immense success." + +Clemens, however, delayed publication. He had another volume in press--a +collection of his sketches--among them the "Jumping Frog," and others of +his California days. The "Jumping Frog" had been translated into French, +and in this book Mark Twain published the French version and then a +literal retranslation of his own, which is one of the most amusing +features in the volume. As an example, the stranger's remark, "I don't +see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other frog," in +the literal retranslation becomes, "I no saw not that that frog had +nothing of better than each frog," and Mark Twain parenthetically adds, +"If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge." + +"Sketches New and Old" went very well, but the book had no such sale as +"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which appeared a year later, December, +1876. From the date of its issue it took its place as foremost of +American stories of boy life, a place that to this day it shares only +with "Huck Finn." Mark Twain's own boy life in the little drowsy town of +Hannibal, with John Briggs and Tom Blankenship--their adventures in and +about the cave and river--made perfect material. The story is full of +pure delight. The camp on the island is a picture of boy heaven. No boy +that reads it but longs for the woods and a camp-fire and some bacon +strips in the frying-pan. It is all so thrillingly told and so vivid. +We know certainly that it must all have happened. "The Adventures of Tom +Sawyer" has taken a place side by side with "Treasure Island." + + + + +XXXVIII. + +HOME PICTURES + +Mark Twain was now regarded by many as the foremost American author. +Certainly he was the most widely known. As a national feature he rivaled +Niagara Falls. No civilized spot on earth that his name had not reached. +Letters merely addressed "Mark Twain" found their way to him. "Mark +Twain, United States," was a common superscription. "Mark Twain, The +World," also reached him without delay, while "Mark Twain, Somewhere," +and "Mark Twain, Anywhere," in due time came to Hartford. "Mark Twain, +God Knows Where," likewise arrived promptly, and in his reply he said, +"He did." Then a letter addressed "The Devil Knows Where" also reached +him, and he answered, "He did, too." Surely these were the farthermost +limits of fame. + +Countless anecdotes went the rounds of the press. Among them was one +which happened to be true: + +Their near neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, was leaving for Florida +one morning, and Clemens ran over early to say good-by. On his return +Mrs. Clemens looked at him severely. + +"Why, Youth," she said, "you haven't on any collar and tie." + +He said nothing, but went to his room, wrapped up those items in a neat +package, which he sent over by a servant to Mrs. Stowe, with the line: + + "Herewith receive a call from the rest of me." + +Mrs. Stowe returned a witty note, in which she said he had discovered a +new principle--that of making calls by instalments, and asked whether in +extreme cases a man might not send his clothes and be himself excused. + +Most of his work Mark Twain did at Quarry Farm. Each summer the family-- +there were two little girls now, Susy and Clara--went to that lovely +place on the hilltop above Elmira, where there were plenty of green +fields and cows and horses and apple-trees, a spot as wonderful to them +as John Quarles's farm had been to their father, so long ago. All the +family loved Quarry Farm, and Mark Twain's work went more easily there. +His winters were not suited to literary creation--there were too many +social events, though once--it was the winter of '76--he wrote a play +with Bret Harte, who came to Hartford and stayed at the Clemens home +while the work was in progress. It was a Chinese play, "Ah Sin," and the +two had a hilarious time writing it, though the result did not prove much +of a success with the public. Mark Twain often tried plays--one with +Howells, among others--but the Colonel Sellers play was his only success. + +Grand dinners, trips to Boston and New York, guests in his own home, +occupied much of Mark Twain's winter season. His leisure he gave to his +children and to billiards. He had a passion for the game, and at any +hour of the day or night was likely to be found in the room at the top of +the house, knocking the balls about alone or with any visitor that he had +enticed to that den. He mostly received his callers there, and impressed +them into the game. If they could play, well and good. If not, so much +the better; he could beat them extravagantly, and he took huge delight in +such contests. Every Friday evening a party of billiard lovers--Hartford +men--gathered and played, and told stories, and smoked, until the room +was blue. Clemens never tired of the game. He could play all night. He +would stay until the last man dropped from sheer weariness, and then go +on knocking the balls about alone. + +But many evenings at home--early evenings--he gave to Susy and Clara. +They had learned his gift as a romancer and demanded the most startling +inventions. They would bring him a picture requiring him to fit a story +to it without a moment's delay. Once he was suddenly ordered by Clara to +make a story out of a plumber and a "bawgunstictor," which, on the whole, +was easier than some of their requirements. Along the book-shelves were +ornaments and pictures. A picture of a girl whom they called "Emeline" +was at one end, and at the other a cat. Every little while they +compelled him to make a story beginning with the cat and ending with +Emeline. Always a new story, and never the other way about. The +literary path from the cat to Emeline was a perilous one, but in time he +could have traveled it in his dreams. + + + + +XXXIX. + +TRAMPING ABROAD + +It was now going on ten years since the publication of "The Innocents +Abroad," and there was a demand for another Mark Twain book of travel. +Clemens considered the matter, and decided that a walking-tour in Europe +might furnish the material he wanted. He spoke to his good friend, the +Rev. "Joe" Twichell, and invited him to become his guest on such an +excursion, because, as he explained, he thought he could "dig material +enough out of Joe to make it a sound investment." As a matter of fact, +he loved Twichell's companionship, and was always inviting him to share +his journeys--to Boston, to Bermuda, to Washington--wherever interest or +fancy led him. His plan now was to take the family to Germany in the +spring, and let Twichell join them later for a summer tramp down through +the Black Forest and Switzerland. Meantime the Clemens household took up +the study of German. The children had a German nurse--others a German +teacher. The household atmosphere became Teutonic. Of course it all +amused Mark Twain, as everything amused him, but he was a good student. +In a brief time he had a fair knowledge of every-day German and a +really surprising vocabulary. The little family sailed in April (1878), +and a few weeks later were settled in the Schloss Hotel, on a hill above +Heidelberg, overlooking the beautiful old castle, the ancient town, with +the Neckar winding down the hazy valley--as fair a view as there is in +all Germany. + +Clemens found a room for his work in a small house not far from the +hotel. On the day of his arrival he had pointed out this house and said +he had decided to work there--that his room would be the middle one on +the third floor. Mrs. Clemens laughed, and thought the occupants of the +house might be surprised when he came over to take possession. They +amused themselves by watching "his people" and trying to make out what +they were like. One day he went over that way, and, sure enough, there +was a sign, "Furnished Rooms," and the one he had pointed out from the +hotel was vacant. It became his study forthwith. + +The travelers were delighted with their location. To Howells, Clemens +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 spent nearly all our time in + these. We have tables and chairs 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 thin 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." + +Twichell was summoned for August, and wrote back eagerly at the prospect: + + "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!" + +Meantime the struggle with the "awful German language" went on. Rosa, +the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, though +little Clara at first would have none of it. Susy, two years older, +tried, and really made progress, but one day she said, pathetically: + + "Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English." + +But presently she was writing to "Aunt Sue" (Mrs. Crane) at Quarry Farm: + + "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 we see." + +Twichell arrived August 1st. Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, and they +immediately set forth on a tramp through the Black Forest, excursioning +as they pleased and having a blissful time. They did not always walk. +They were likely to take a carnage or a donkey-cart, or even a train, +when one conveniently happened along. They did not hurry, but idled and +talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives-- +picturesque peasants in the Black Forest costume. In due time they +crossed into Switzerland and prepared to conquer the Alps. + +The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in +America. His face, however, was less familiar. He was not often +recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed. +It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish +attention. Twichell's conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the +truth. In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel +had especially delighted in Mark's table conversation, and how he +(Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker's +identity. + + "I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled + surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so." + +They did not climb many of the Alps on foot. They did scale the Rigi, +after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later +they conquered Gemmi Pass--no small undertaking--that trail that winds up +and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the +little high-blooming flowers for company. + +All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did +not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but, +whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb +surroundings was the same. + +In Twichell's letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of +that day: + + "Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers. He scrambled + around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest + pleasure in them . . . . 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 + today. His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw." + +And in another place: + + "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 were in a + hurry.'" + +Another extract refers to an incident which Mark Twain also mentions in +"A Tramp Abroad:" [8] + + "Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing so delights him as a + swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once + he is in the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and + sticks seems to afford him rapture." + +Twichell goes on to tell how he threw some driftwood into a racing +torrent and how Mark went running down-stream after it, waving and +shouting in a sort of mad ecstasy. + +When a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam below, he +would jump up and down and yell. He acted just like a boy. + +Boy he was, then and always. Like Peter Pan, he never really grew up-- +that is, if growing up means to grow solemn and uninterested in play. + +Climbing the Gorner Grat with Twichell, they sat down to rest, and a lamb +from a near-by flock ventured toward them. Clemens held out his hand and +called softly. The lamb ventured nearer, curious but timid. + +It was a scene for a painter: the great American humorist on one side of +the game, and the 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 Mark's hand, and he was happy all the rest of the +day. + +"In A Tramp Abroad" Mark Twain burlesques most of the walking-tour with +Harris (Twichell), feeling, perhaps, that he must make humor at whatever +cost. But to-day the other side of the picture seems more worth while. +That it seemed so to him, also, even at the time, we may gather from a +letter he sent after Twichell when it was all over and Twichell was on +his way home: + + "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 for 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 time 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 journey and the times when I was not + unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands + first after Livy's." + +Clemens had joined his family at Lausanne, and presently they journeyed +down into Italy, returning later to Germany--to Munich, where they lived +quietly with Fraulein Dahlweiner at No. 1a Karlstrasse, while he worked +on his new book of travel. When spring came they went to Paris, and +later to London, where the usual round of entertainment briefly claimed +them. It was the 3d of September, 1879, when they finally reached New +York. The papers said that Mark Twain had changed in his year and a half +of absence. He had, somehow, taken on a traveled look. One paper +remarked that he looked older than when he went to Germany, and that his +hair had turned quite gray. + +[8] Chapter XXXIII. + + + + +XL. + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER + +They went directly to Quarry Farm, where Clemens again took up work on +his book, which he hoped to have ready for early publication. But his +writing did not go as well as he had hoped, and it was long after they +had returned to Hartford that the book was finally in the printer's +hands. + +Meantime he had renewed work on a story begun two years before at Quarry +Farm. Browsing among the books there one summer day, he happened to pick +up "The Prince and the Page," by Charlotte M. Yonge. It was a story of a +prince disguised as a blind beggar, and, as Mark Twain read, an idea came +to him for an altogether different story, or play, of his own. He would +have a prince and a pauper change places, and through a series of +adventures learn each the trials and burdens of the other life. He +presently gave up the play idea, and began it as a story. His first +intention had been to make the story quite modern, using the late King +Edward VII. (then Prince of Wales) as his prince, but it seemed to him +that it would not do to lose a prince among the slums of modern London-- +he could not make it seem real; so he followed back through history until +he came to the little son of Henry VIII., Edward Tudor, and decided that +he would do. + +It was the kind of a story that Mark Twain loved to read and to write. +By the end of that first summer he had finished a good portion of the +exciting adventures of "The Prince and the Pauper," and then, as was +likely to happen, the inspiration waned and the manuscript was laid +aside. + +But with the completion of "A Tramp Abroad"--a task which had grown +wearisome--he turned to the luxury of romance with a glad heart. To +Howells he wrote that he was taking so much pleasure in the writing that +he wanted to make it last. + + "Did I ever tell you the plot of it? It begins at 9 A.M., January + 27, 1547 . . . . 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." + +Susy and Clara Clemens were old enough now to understand the story, and +as he finished the chapters he read them aloud to his small home +audience--a most valuable audience, indeed, for he could judge from its +eager interest, or lack of attention, just the measure of his success. + +These little creatures knew all about the writing of books. Susy's +earliest recollection was "Tom Sawyer" read aloud from the manuscript. +Also they knew about plays. They could not remember a time when they did +not take part in evening charades--a favorite amusement in the Clemens +home. + +Mark Twain, who always loved his home and played with his children, +invented the charades and their parts for them, at first, but as they +grew older they did not need much help. With the Twichell and Warner +children they organized a little company for their productions, and +entertained the assembled households. They did not make any preparation +for their parts. A word was selected and the syllables of it 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 +group marched into the library, performed its syllable, and retired, +leaving the audience of parents to guess the answer. Now and then, even +at this early day, they gave little plays, and of course Mark Twain could +not resist joining them. In time the plays took the place of the +charades and became quite elaborate, with a stage and scenery, but we +shall hear of this later on. + +"The Prince and the Pauper" came to an end in due season, in spite of the +wish of both author and audience for it to go on forever. It was not +published at once, for several reasons, the main one being that "A Tramp +Abroad" had just been issued from the press, and a second book might +interfere with its sale. + +As it was, the "Tramp" proved a successful book--never as successful as +the "Innocents," for neither its humor nor its description had quite the +fresh quality of the earlier work. In the beginning, however, the sales +were large, the advance orders amounting to twenty-five thousand copies, +and the return to the author forty thousand dollars for the first year. + + + + +XLI. + +GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD + +A third little girl came to the Clemens household during the summer of +1880. They were then at Quarry Farm, and Clemens wrote to his friend +Twichell: + + "DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't + see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other + frog," I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty + poor sort of an observer. . . It is curious to note the change in + the stock-quotations of the Affection Board. Four weeks ago the + children put Mama at the head of the list right along, where she has + always been, but now: + + Jean + Mama + Motley + Fraulein ~ cats + Papa + + That is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped + from 4 and 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." + +Those were happy days at Quarry Farm. The little new baby thrived on +that summer hilltop. + +Also, it may be said, the cats. Mark Twain's children had inherited his +love fOr cats, and at the farm were always cats of all ages and +varieties. Many of the bed-time stories were about these pets--stories +invented by Mark Twain as he went along--stories that began anywhere and +ended nowhere, and continued indefinitely from evening to evening, +trailing off into dreamland. + +The great humorist cared less for dogs, though he was never unkind to +them, and once at the farm a gentle hound named Bones won his affection. +When the end of the 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 about him, and +bade him an affectionate good-by. + +Eighteen hundred and eighty was a Presidential year. Mark Twain was for +General Garfield, and made a number of remarkable speeches in his favor. +General Grant came to Hartford during the campaign, and Mark Twain was +chosen to make the address of welcome. Perhaps no such address of +welcome was ever made before. 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 a loss what to say next, and, leaning over, pretended +to whisper to Grant. Then, as if he had been prompted by the great +soldier, he straightened up and poured out a fervid eulogy on Grant's +victories, adding, in an aside, as he finished, "I nearly forgot that +part of my speech," to the roaring delight of his hearers, while Grant +himself grimly smiled. + +He then spoke of the General being now out of public employment, and how +grateful his country was to him, and how it stood ready to reward him in +every conceivable--inexpensive--way. + +Grant had smiled more than once during the speech, and when this sentence +came out at the end his composure broke up altogether, while the throng +shouted approval. Clemens made another speech that night at the opera- +house--a speech long remembered in Hartford as one of the great efforts +of his life. + +A very warm friendship had grown up between Mark Twain and General Grant. +A year earlier, on the famous soldier's return from his trip around the +world, a great birthday banquet had been given him in Chicago, at which +Mark Twain's speech had been the event of the evening. The colonel who +long before had chased the young pilot-soldier through the Mississippi +bottoms had become his conquering hero, and Grant's admiration for +America's foremost humorist was most hearty. Now and again Clemens urged +General Grant to write his memoirs for publication, but the hero of many +battles was afraid to venture into the field of letters. He had no +confidence in his ability to write. He did not realize that the man who +had written "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," +and, later, "Let us have peace," was capable of English as terse and +forceful as the Latin of Caesar's Commentaries. + + + + +XLII + +MANY INVESTMENTS + +The "Prince and the Pauper," delayed for one reason and another, did not +make its public appearance until the end of 1881. It was issued by +Osgood, of Boston, and was a different book in every way from any that +Mark Twain had published before. Mrs. Clemens, who loved the story, had +insisted that no expense should be spared in its making, and it was, +indeed, a handsome volume. It was filled with beautiful pen-and-ink +drawings, and the binding was rich. The dedication to its two earliest +critics read: + + "To those good-mannered and agreeable + children, Susy and Clara Clemens." + +The story itself was unlike anything in Mark Twain's former work. It was +pure romance, a beautiful, idyllic tale, though not without his touch of +humor and humanity on every page. And how breathlessly interesting it +is! We may imagine that first little audience--the "two good-mannered +and agreeable children," drawing up in their little chairs by the +fireside, hanging on every paragraph of the adventures of the wandering +prince and Tom Canty, the pauper king, eager always for more. + +The story, at first, was not entirely understood by the reviewers. They +did not believe it could be serious. They expected a joke in it +somewhere. Some even thought they had found it. But it was not a joke, +it was just a simple tale--a beautiful picture of a long-vanished time. +One critic, wiser than the rest, said: + + "The characters of those two boys, twin in spirit, will rank with the + purest and loveliest creations of child-life in the realm of + fiction." + +Mark Twain was now approaching the fullness of his fame and prosperity. +The income from his writing was large; Mrs. Clemens possessed a +considerable fortune of her own; they had no debts. Their home was as +perfectly appointed as a home could well be, their family life was ideal. +They lived in the large, hospitable way which Mrs. Clemens had known in +her youth, and which her husband, with his Southern temperament, loved. +Their friends were of the world's chosen, and they were legion in number. +There were always guests in the Clemens home--so many, indeed, were +constantly coming and going that Mark Twain said he was going to set up a +private 'bus to save carnage hire. Yet he loved it all dearly, and for +the most part realized his happiness. + +Unfortunately, there were moments when he forgot that his lot was +satisfactory, and tried to improve it. His Colonel Sellers imagination, +inherited from both sides of his family, led him into financial +adventures which were generally unprofitable. There were no silver-mines +in the East into which to empty money and effort, as in the old Nevada +days, but there were plenty of other things--inventions, stock companies, +and the like. + +When a man came along with a patent steam-generator which would save +ninety per cent. of the usual coal-supply, Mark Twain invested whatever +bank surplus he had at the moment, and saw that money no more forever. + +After the steam-generator came a steam-pulley, a small affair, but +powerful enough to relieve him of thirty-two thousand dollars in a brief +time. + +A new method of marine telegraphy was offered him by the time his balance +had grown again, a promising contrivance, but it failed to return the +twenty-five thousand dollars invested in it by Mark Twain. The list of +such adventures is too long to set down here. They differ somewhat, but +there is one feature common to all--none of them paid. At last came a +chance in which there was really a fortune. A certain Alexander Graham +Bell, an inventor, one day appeared, offering stock in an invention for +carrying the human voice on an electric wire. But Mark Twain had grown +wise, he thought. Long after he wrote: + + "I declined. I said I did not want any more to do with wildcat + speculation .... I said I didn't want it at any price. He (Bell) + became eager; and insisted 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 a burnt child, and resisted all these temptations--resisted + them easily; went off with my money, and next day lent five thousand + of it to a friend who was going to go bankrupt three days later." + +It was the chance of fortune thus thrown away which, perhaps, led him to +take up later with an engraving process--an adventure which lasted +through several years and ate up a heavy sum. Altogether, these +experiences in finance cost Mark Twain a fair-sized fortune, though, +after all, they were as nothing compared with the great type-machine +calamity which we shall hear of in a later chapter. + + + + +XLIII + +BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY + +Fortunately, Mark Twain was not greatly upset by his losses. They +exasperated him for the moment, perhaps, but his violence waned +presently, and the whole matter was put aside forever. His work went on +with slight interference. Looking over his Mississippi chapters one day, +he was taken with a new interest in the river, and decided to make the +steamboat trip between St. Louis and New Orleans, to report the changes +that had taken place in his twenty-one years of absence. His Boston +publisher, Osgood, agreed to accompany him, and a stenographer was +engaged to take down conversations and comments. + +At St. Louis they took passage on the steamer "Gold Dust"--Clemens under +an assumed name, though he was promptly identified. In his book he tells +how the pilot recognized him and how they became friends. Once, in later +years, he said: + + "I spent most of my time up there with him. When we got down below + Cairo, where there was a big, full river--for it was high-water + 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." + +To heighten the illusion he had himself called regularly with the four- +o'clock watch, in order not to miss the mornings. The points along the +river were nearly all new to him, everything had changed, but during +high-water this mattered little. He was a pilot again--a young fellow in +his twenties, speculating on the problems of existence and reading his +fortunes in the stars. The river had lost none of its charm for him. To +Bixby he wrote: + + "I'd rather be a pilot than anything else I've ever been in my life. + How do you run Plum Point?" + +He met Bixby at New Orleans. Bixby was a captain now, on the splendid +new Anchor Line steamer "City of Baton Rouge," one of the last of the +fine river boats. Clemens made the return trip to St. Louis with Bixby +on the "Baton Rouge"--almost exactly twenty-five years from their first +trip together. To Bixby it seemed wonderfully like those old days back +in the fifties. + +"Sam was making notes in his memorandum-book, just as he always did," +said Bixby, long after, to the writer of this history. + +Mark Twain decided to see the river above St. Louis. He went to Hannibal +to spend a few days with old friends. "Delightful days," he wrote home, +"loitering around all day long, and talking with grayheads who were boys +and girls with me thirty or forty years ago." He took boat for St. Paul +and saw the upper river, which he had never seen before. He thought the +scenery beautiful, but he found a sadness everywhere because of the decay +of the river trade. In a note-book entry he said: "The romance of +boating is gone now. In Hannibal the steamboatman is no longer a god." + +He worked at the Mississippi book that summer at the farm, but did not +get on very well, and it was not until the following year (1883) that it +came from the press. Osgood published it, and Charles L. Webster, who +had married Mark Twain's niece, Annie (daughter of his sister Pamela), +looked after the agency sales. Mark Twain, in fact, was preparing to +become his own publisher, and this was the beginning. Webster was a man +of ability, and the book sold well. + +"Life on the Mississippi" is one of Mark Twain's best books--one of those +which will live longest. The first twenty chapters are not excelled in +quality anywhere in his writings. The remainder of the book has an +interest of its own, but it lacks the charm of those memories of his +youth--the mellow light of other days which enhances all of his better +work. + + + + +XLIV. + +A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE + +Every little while Mark Twain had a fever of play-writing, and it was +about this time that he collaborated with W. D. Howells on a second +Colonel Sellers play. It was a lively combination. + +Once to the writer Howells said: "Clemens took one scene and I another. +We had loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it + +as we went along. We thought it mighty good, and I think to this day it +was mighty good." + +But actors and managers did not agree with them. Raymond, who had played +the original Sellers, declared that in this play the Colonel had not +become merely a visionary, but a lunatic. The play was offered +elsewhere, and finally Mark Twain produced it at his own expense. But +perhaps the public agreed with Raymond, for the venture did not pay. + +It was about a year after this (the winter of 1884-5) that Mark Twain +went back to the lecture platform--or rather, he joined with George W. +Cable in a reading-tour. Cable had been giving readings on his own +account from his wonderful Creole stories, and had visited Mark Twain in +Hartford. While there he had been taken down with the mumps, and it was +during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading-tour had +been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the +autumn. + +Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark +Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April-fool--a great complimentary +joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a "private and +confidential" circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and +fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and +elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1, +requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this +letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st an +immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not +know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke, +slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs +ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the +nature and magnitude of the joke, he entered into it fully-delighted, of +course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked +for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit +down and copy a few chapters from "The Innocents Abroad." Others asked +that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he +copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "Night Thoughts," etc., and +added: + + "I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and + it will add considerable commercial value to have it in your + handwriting." + +Altogether, the reading of the letters gave Mark Twain a delightful day. + +The platform tour of Clemens and Cable that fall was a success. They had +good houses, and the work of these two favorites read by the authors of +it made a fascinating program. + +They continued their tour westward as far as Chicago and gave readings in +Hannibal and Keokuk. Orion Clemens and his wife once more lived in +Keokuk, and with them Jane Clemens, brisk and active for her eighty-one +years. She had visited Hartford more than once and enjoyed "Sam's fine +house," but she chose the West for home. Orion Clemens, honest, earnest, +and industrious, had somehow missed success in life. The more prosperous +brother, however, made an allowance ample for all. Mark Twain's mother +attended the Keokuk reading. Later, at home, when her children asked her +if she could still dance (she had been a great dancer in her youth), she +rose, and in spite of her fourscore, tripped as lightly as a girl. It +was the last time that Mark Twain would see her in full health. + +At Christmas-time Cable and Clemens took a fortnight's holiday, and +Clemens went home to Hartford. There a grand surprise awaited him. Mrs. +Clemens had made an adaptation of "The Prince and the Pauper" for the +stage, and his children, with those of the neighborhood, had learned the +parts. A good stage had been set up in George Warner's home, with a +pretty drop-curtain and very good scenery indeed. Clemens arrived in the +late afternoon, and felt an air of mystery in the house, but did not +guess what it meant. By and by he was led across the grounds to George +Warner's home, into a large room, and placed in a seat directly fronting +the stage. Then presently the curtain went up, the play began, and he +knew. As he watched the little performers playing so eagerly the parts +of his story, he was deeply moved and gratified. + +It was only the beginning of "The Prince and the Pauper" production. The +play was soon repeated, Clemens himself taking the part of Miles Hendon. +In a "biography" of her father which Susy began a little later, she +wrote: + + "Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all + sure he could do it . . . . I was the prince, and Papa and I + rehearsed 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!" + +Susy's sister, Clara, took the part of Lady Jane Gray, while little Jean, +aged four, in the part of a court official, sat at a small table and +constantly signed state papers and death-warrants. + + + + +XLV. + +"THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" + +Meantime, Mark Twain had really become a publisher. His nephew by +marriage, Charles L. Webster, who, with Osgood, had handled the +"Mississippi" book, was now established under the firm name of Charles L. +Webster & Co., Samuel L. Clemens being the company. Clemens had another +book ready, and the new firm were to handle it throughout. + +The new book was a story which Mark Twain had begun one day at Quarry +Farm, nearly eight years before. It was to be a continuation of the +adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, especially of the latter as told +by himself. But the author had no great opinion of the tale and +presently laid it aside. Then some seven years later, after his trip +down the river, he felt again the inspiration of the old days, and the +story of Huck's adventures had been continued and brought to a close. +The author believed in it by this time, and the firm of Webster & Co. +was really formed for the purpose of publishing it. + +Mark Twain took an active interest in the process. From the pages of +"Life" he selected an artist--a young man named E. W. Kemble, who would +later become one of our foremost illustrators of Southern character. He +also gave attention to the selection of the paper and the binding--even +to the method of canvassing for the sales. In a note to Webster, he +wrote: + + "Get at your canvassing early and drive it with all your might . . + . . If we haven't 40,000 subscriptions we simply postpone + publication till we've got them." + +Mark Twain was making himself believe that he was a business man, and in +this instance, at least, he seems to have made no mistake. Some advanced +chapters of "Huck" appeared serially in the "Century Magazine," and the +public was eager for more. By the time the "Century" chapters were +finished the forty thousand advance subscriptions for the book had been +taken, and Huck Finn's own story, so long pushed aside and delayed, came +grandly into its own. Many grown-up readers and most critics declared +that it was greater than the "Tom Sawyer" book, though the younger +readers generally like the first book the best, it being rather more in +the juvenile vein. Huck's story, in fact, was soon causing quite grown- +up discussions--discussions as to its psychology and moral phases, +matters which do not interest small people, who are always on Huck's side +in everything, and quite willing that he should take any risk of body or +soul for the sake of Nigger Jim. 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 for an immortal book! + +As literature, the story of "Huck Finn" holds a higher place than that of +"Tom Sawyer." As stories, they stand side by side, neither complete +without the other, and both certain to live as long as there are real +boys and girls to read them. + + + + +XLVI. + +PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT + +Mark Twain was now a successful publisher, but his success thus far was +nothing to what lay just ahead. One evening he learned that General +Grant, after heavy financial disaster, had begun writing the memoirs +which he (Clemens) had urged him to undertake some years before. Next +morning he called on the General to learn the particulars. Grant had +contributed some articles to the "Century" war series, and felt in a mood +to continue the work. He had discussed with the "Century" publishers the +matter of a book. Clemens suggested that such a book should be sold only +by subscription and prophesied its enormous success. General Grant was +less sure. His need of money was very great and he was anxious to get as +much return as possible, but his faith was not large. He was inclined to +make no special efforts in the matter of publication. But Mark Twain +prevailed. Like his own Colonel Sellers, he talked glowingly and +eloquently of millions. He first offered to direct the general to his +own former subscription publisher, at Hartford, then finally proposed to +publish it himself, offering Grant seventy per cent. of the net returns, +and to pay all office expenses out of his own share. + +Of course there could be nothing for any publisher in such an arrangement +unless the sales were enormous. General Grant realized this, and at +first refused to consent. Here was a friend offering to bankrupt himself +out of pure philanthropy, a thing he could not permit. But Mark Twain +came again and again, and finally persuaded him that purely as business +proposition the offer was warranted by the certainty of great sales. + +So the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. undertook the Grant book, and the +old soldier, broken in health and fortune, was liberally provided with +means that would enable him to finish his task with his mind at peace. +He devoted himself steadily to the work--at first writing by hand, then +dictating to a stenographer that Webster & Co. provided. His disease, +cancer, made fierce ravages, but he "fought it out on that line," and +wrote the last pages of his memoirs by hand when he could no longer speak +aloud. Mark Twain was much with him, and cheered him with anecdotes and +news of the advance sale of his book. In one of his memoranda of that +time Clemens wrote: + + "To-day (May 26) 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 d-- with his future + publisher." + +At Mount McGregor, a few weeks before the end, General Grant asked if any +estimate could now be made of the sum which his family would obtain from +his work, and was deeply comforted by Clemens's prompt reply that more +than one hundred thousand sets had already been sold, the author's share +of which would exceed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clemens +added that the gross return would probably be twice as much more. + +The last notes came from Grant's hands soon after that, and a few days +later, July 23, 1885, his task completed, he died. 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." + +In a memorandum estimate made by Mark Twain soon after the canvass for +the Grant memoirs had begun, he had prophesied that three hundred +thousand sets of the book would be sold, and that he would pay General +Grant in royalties $420,000. This prophecy was more than fulfilled. The +first check paid to Mrs. Grant--the largest single royalty check in +history--was for $200,000. Later payments brought her royalty return up +to nearly $450.000. For once, at least, Mark Twain's business vision had +been clear. A fortune had been realized for the Grant family. Even his +own share was considerable, for out of that great sale more than a +hundred thousand dollars' profit was realized by Webster & Co. + + + + +XLVII + +THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE + +That summer at Quarry Farm was one of the happiest they had ever known. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty, was in the fullness of his manhood and in the +brightest hour of his fortune. Susy, in her childish "biography," begun +at this time, gives us a picture of him. She begins: + + "We are a 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, gray 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, is an extraordinarily fine-looking man." + + "He is a very good man, and a very funny one; he has got a temper, + but we all have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw, + or ever hope to see, and oh, so absent-minded!" + +We may believe this is a true picture of Mark Twain at fifty. He did not +look young for his years, but he was still young in spirit and body. +Susy tells how he blew bubbles for the children, filling them with +tobacco smoke. Also, how he would play with the cats and come clear down +from his study to see how a certain kitten was getting along. + +Susy adds that "there are eleven cats at the farm now," and tells of the +day's occupations, but the description is too long to quote. It reveals +a beautiful, busy life. + +Susy herself was a gentle, thoughtful, romantic child. One afternoon she +discovered a wonderful tangle of vines and bushes, a still, shut-in +corner not far from the study. She ran breathlessly to her aunt. + +"Can I have it--can Clara and I have it all for our own?" + +The petition was granted and the place was called Helen's Bower, for they +were reading "Thaddeus of Warsaw", and the name appealed to Susy's poetic +fancy. Something happened to the "bower"--an unromantic workman mowed it +down--but by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens +had built, just for the children. It was a complete little cottage, when +furnished. There was a porch in front, with comfortable chairs. Inside +were also chairs, a table, dishes, shelves, a broom, even a stove--small, +but practical. They called the little house "Ellerslie," out of Grace +Aguilar's "Days of Robert Bruce." There alone, or with their Langdon +cousins, how many happy summers they played and dreamed away. Secluded +by a hillside and happy trees, overlooking the hazy, distant town, it was +a world apart--a corner of story-book land. When the end of the summer +came its little owners went about bidding their treasures good-by, +closing and kissing the gates of Ellerslie. + +Looking back now, Mark Twain at fifty would seem to have been in his +golden prime. His family was ideal--his surroundings idyllic. Favored +by fortune, beloved by millions, honored now even in the highest places, +what more had life to give? When November 30th brought his birthday, one +of the great Brahmins, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote him a beautiful +poem. Andrew Lang, England's foremost critic, also sent verses, while +letters poured in from all sides. + +And Mark Twain realized his fortune and was disturbed by it. To a friend +he said: "I am frightened at the proportions of my prosperity. It seems +to me that whatever I touch turns to gold." + + + + +XLVIII. + +BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS + +For the time it would seem that Mark Twain had given up authorship for +business. The success of the Grant book had filled his head with plans +for others of a like nature. The memoirs of General McClellan and +General Sheridan were arranged for. Almost any war-book was considered a +good venture. And there was another plan afoot. Pope Leo XIII., in his +old age, had given sanction to the preparation of his memoirs, and it was +to be published, with his blessing, by Webster & Co., of Hartford. It +was generally believed that such a book would have a tremendous sale, and +Colonel Sellers himself could not have piled the figures higher than did +his creator in counting his prospective returns. Every Catholic in the +world must have a copy of the Pope's book, and in America alone there +were millions. Webster went to Rome to consult with the Pope in person, +and was received in private audience. Mark Twain's publishing firm +seemed on the top wave of success. + +The McClellan and Sheridan books were issued, and, in due time, the Life +of Pope Leo XIII.--published simultaneously in six languages--issued from +the press. A large advance sale had been guaranteed by the general +canvassing agents--a fortunate thing, as it proved. For, strange as it +may seem, the book did not prove a great success. It is hard to explain +just why. Perhaps Catholics felt that there had been so many popes that +the life of any particular one was no great matter. The book paid, but +not largely. The McClellan and Sheridan books, likewise, were only +partially successful. Perhaps the public was getting tired of war +memoirs. Webster & Co. undertook books of a general sort--travel, +fiction, poetry. Many of them did not pay. Their business from a march +of triumph had become a battle. They undertook a "Library of American +Literature," a work of many volumes, costly to make and even more so to +sell. To float this venture they were obliged to borrow large sums. + +It seems unfortunate that Mark Twain should have been disturbed by these +distracting things during what should have been his literary high-tide. +As it was, his business interests and cares absorbed the energy that +might otherwise have gone into books. He was not entirely idle. He did +an occasional magazine article or story, and he began a book which he +worked at from time to time the story of a Connecticut Yankee who +suddenly finds himself back in the days of King Arthur's reign. Webster +was eager to publish another book by his great literary partner, but the +work on it went slowly. Then Webster broke down from two years of +overwork, and the business management fell into other hands. Though +still recognized as a great publishing-house, those within the firm of +Charles L. Webster & Co. knew that its prospects were not bright. + +Furthermore, Mark Twain had finally invested in another patent, the type- +setting machine mentioned in a former chapter, and the demands for cash +to promote this venture were heavy. To his sister Pamela, about the end +of 1887, he wrote: "The type-setter goes on forever at $3,000 a month. . +We'll be through with it in three or four months, I reckon"--a false +hope, for the three or four months would lengthen into as many years. + +But if there were clouds gathering in the business sky, they were not +often allowed to cast a shadow in Mark Twain's home. The beautiful house +in Hartford was a place of welcome and merriment, of many guests and of +happy children. Especially of happy children: during these years--the +latter half of the 'eighties--when Mark Twain's fortunes were on the +decline, his children were at the age to have a good time, and certainly +they had it. The dramatic stage which had been first set up at George +Warner's for the Christmas "Prince and Pauper" performance was brought +over and set up in the Clemens schoolroom, and every Saturday there were +plays or rehearsals, and every little while there would be a grand +general performance in the great library downstairs, which would +accommodate just eighty-four chairs, filled by parents of the performers +and invited guests. In notes dictated many years later, Mark Twain said: + + "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 dear to us, none + but faces that were lit up with welcome for us." + +He was one of the children himself, you see, and therefore on the stage +with the others. Katy Leary, for thirty years in the family service, +once said to the author: "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 have never known a happier household than theirs +was during those years." + +The plays were not all given by the children. Mark Twain had kept up his +German study, and a class met regularly in his home to struggle with the +problems of der, die, and das. By and by he wrote a play for the class, +"Meisterschaft," a picturesque mixture of German and English, which they +gave twice, with great success. It was unlike anything attempted before +or since. No one but Mark Twain could have written it. Later (January, +1888), in modified form, it was published in the "Century Magazine." It +is his best work of this period. + +Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days if one +only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them. +Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he +and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least +one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! "Huck +Finn" was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had +insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his +portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a +complete victim to Huck's story. Once, in a letter, Stevenson 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.'" + +Mark Twain had been a "mugwump" during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in +1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic +candidate, Grover Cleveland. He was, therefore, in high favor at the +White House during both Cleveland administrations, and called there +informally whenever business took him to Washington. But on one occasion +(it was his first visit after the President's marriage) there was to be a +party, and Mrs. Clemens, who could not attend, slipped a little note into +the pocket of his evening waistcoat, where he would be sure to find it +when dressing, warning him as to his deportment. Being presented to +young 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 must know first what it was that he hadn't +done, finally agreeing to sign if he would tell her immediately all about +it, which he promised to do. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. +Clemens's note. It was very brief. It said, "Don't wear your arctics in +the White House." + +Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card mailed immediately +to Mrs. Clemens. + +Absent-mindedness was characteristic of Mark Twain. He lived so much in +the world within that to him the material outer world was often vague and +shadowy. Once when he was knocking the balls about in the billiard-room, +George, the colored butler, a favorite and privileged household +character, brought up a card. So many canvassers came to sell him one +thing and another that Clemens promptly assumed this to be one of them. +George insisted mildly, but firmly, that, though a stranger, the caller +was certainly a gentleman, and Clemens grumblingly descended the stairs. +As he entered the parlor the caller arose and extended his hand. Clemens +took it rather limply, for he had noticed some water-colors and +engravings leaning against the furniture as if for exhibition, and he was +instantly convinced that the caller was a picture-canvasser. Inquiries +by the stranger as to Mrs. Clemens and the children did not change Mark +Twain's conclusion. He was polite, but unresponsive, and gradually +worked the visitor toward the front door. His inquiry as to the home of +Charles Dudley Warner caused him to be shown eagerly in that direction. + +Clemens, on his way back to the billiard-room, heard Mrs. Clemens call +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 nice to him; the B's +were so nice to us, once, in Europe, while 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." + +"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?" + +"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 conversation. 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, and they made things pleasant for us. I wanted to +come over here with him, but I was a good deal occupied just then. Livy +isn't very well, but she seems now 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 these that gentleman left?" + +"Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures! Mrs. Clemens had me set +them around to see how they would look in new places. The gentleman was +only looking at them while he waited for you to come down." + +It was in ,June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Mark Twain the +degree of Master of Arts. He was proud of the honor, for it was +recognition of a kind that had not come to him before--remarkable +recognition, when we remember how as a child he had hated all schools and +study, having ended his class-room days before he was twelve years old. +He could not go to New Haven at the time, but later in the year made the +students a delightful address. In his capacity of Master of Arts, he +said, he had come down to New Haven to institute certain college reforms. + +By advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I +told the Greek Professor I had concluded to drop the use of the 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. + +He said he had given advice to the mathematical department with about the +same result. The astronomy department he had found in a bad way. He had +decided to transfer the professor to the law department and to put a law- +student in his place. + +A boy will be more biddable, more tractable--also cheaper. It is true he +cannot be entrusted with important work at first, but he can comb the +skies for nebula till he gets his hand in. + +It was hardly the sort of an address that the holder of a college degree +is expected to make, but doctors and students alike welcomed it +hilariously from Mark Twain. + +Not many great things happened to Mark Twain during this long period of +semi-literary inaction, but many interesting ones. When Bill Nye, the +humorist, and James Whitcomb Riley joined themselves in an entertainment +combination, Mark Twain introduced them to their first Boston audience--a +great event to them, and to Boston. Clemens himself gave a reading now +and then, but not for money. Once, when Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston +and Thomas Nelson Page were to give a reading in Baltimore, Page's wife +fell ill, and Colonel Johnston wired to Charles Dudley Warner, asking him +to come in Page's stead. Warner, unable to go, handed the telegram to +Clemens, who promptly answered that he would come. They read to a packed +house, and when the audience had gone and the returns were counted, an +equal amount 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 +Clemens only said: + +"Never mind, Colonel; it only gives me pleasure to do you that little +favor. You can pass it along some day." + + +As a matter of fact, Mark Twain himself was beginning to be hard pressed +for funds at this time, but was strong in the faith that he would +presently be a multi-millionaire. The typesetting machine was still +costing a vast sum, but each week its inventor promised that a few more +weeks or months would see it finished, and then a tide of wealth would +come rolling in. Mark Twain felt that a man with ship-loads of money +almost in port could not properly entertain the public for pay. He read +for institutions, schools, benefits, and the like, without charge. + + + + +XLIX. + +KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" + +One day during the summer of 1889 a notable meeting took place in Elmira. +On a blazing forenoon a rather small and very hot young man, in a slow, +sizzling hack made his way up East Hill to Quarry Faun. He inquired for +Mark Twain, only to be told that he was at the Langdon home, down in the +town which the young man had just left. So he sat for a little time on +the pleasant veranda, and Mrs. Crane and Susy Clemens, who were there, +brought him some cool milk and listened to him talk in a way which seemed +to them very entertaining and wonderful. When he went away he left his +card with a name on it strange to them--strange to the world at that +time. The name was Rudyard Kipling. Also on the card was the address +Allahabad, and Sissy kept it, because, to her, India was fairyland. + +Kipling went down into Elmira and found Mark Twain. In his book +"American Notes" he has left an account of that visit. He claimed that +he had traveled around the world to see Mark Twain, and his article +begins: + + "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!" + +But one should read the article entire--it is so worth while. Clemens +also, long after, dictated an account of the meeting. + +Kipling came down 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. . . When he had 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 all the world, and remained so for twelve +months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. . . +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 made would +be loud and continuous. . . 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 the +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. + +A theatrical production of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by +Mrs. A. S. Richardson, was one of the events of this period. It was a +charming performance, even if not a great financial success, and little +Elsie Leslie, who played the double part of the Prince and Tom Canty, +became a great favorite in the Clemens home. She was also a favorite of +the actor and playwright, William Gillette, [9] and once when Clemens and +Gillette were together they decided to give the little girl a surprise--a +pair of slippers, in fact, embroidered by themselves. In his +presentation letter to her, Mark Twain wrote: + +"Either 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 thought of the other one." + +He apologized for his delay: + +"You see, it was my first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly get the +hang of it, along at first. And then I was so busy I couldn't get a +chance to work at home, and they wouldn't let me embroider on the cars; +they said it made the other passengers afraid. . . 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 . . . . Do not wear these slippers in public, +dear; it would only excite envy; and, as like as not, somebody would try +to shoot you." + +For five years Mark Twain had not published a book. Since the appearance +of "Huck Finn" at the end of 1884 he had given the public only an +occasional magazine story or article. His business struggle and the +type-setter had consumed not only his fortune, but his time and energy. +Now, at last, however, a book was ready. "A Connecticut Yankee in King +Arthur's Court" came from the press of Webster & Co. at the end of 1889, +a handsome book, elaborately and strikingly illustrated by Dan Beard--a +pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my +swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, +though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this +conclusion. + +The story of the "Yankee"--a fanciful narrative of a skilled Yankee +mechanic swept backward through the centuries to the dim day of Arthur +and his Round Table--is often grotesque enough in its humor, but under it +all is Mark Twain's great humanity in fierce and noble protest against +unjust laws, the tyranny of an individual or of a ruling class-- +oppression of any sort. As in "The Prince and the Pauper," the wandering +heir to the throne is brought in contact with cruel injustice and misery, +so in the "Yankee" the king himself becomes one of a band of fettered +slaves, and through degradation and horror of soul acquires mercy and +humility. + +The "Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is a splendidly imagined tale. +Edmund Clarence Stedman and William Dean Howells have ranked it very +high. Howells once wrote: "Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction, it +pleases me most." The "Yankee" has not held its place in public favor +with Mark Twain's earlier books, but it is a wonderful tale, and we +cannot afford to leave it unread. + +When the summer came again, Mark Twain and his family decided for once to +forego Quarry Farm for a season in the Catskills, and presently found +themselves located in a cottage at Onteora in the midst of a most +delightful colony. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, then editor of St. Nicholas, +was there, and Mrs. Custer and Brander Matthews and Lawrence Hutton and a +score of other congenial spirits. There was constant visiting from one +cottage to another, with frequent gatherings at the Inn, which was +general headquarters. Susy Clemens, now eighteen, was a central figure, +brilliant, eager, intense, ambitious for achievement--lacking only in +physical strength. She was so flower-like, it seemed always that her +fragile body must be consumed by the flame of her spirit. It was a happy +summer, but it closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in August, to +his mother's bedside. A few weeks later came the end, and Jane Clemens +had closed her long and useful life. She was in her eighty-eighth year. +A little later, at Elmira, followed the death of Mrs. Clemens's mother, a +sweet and gentle woman. + +[9] Gillette was originally a Hartford boy. Mark Twain had recognized +his ability, advanced him funds with which to complete his dramatic +education, and Gillette's first engagement seems to have been with the +Colonel Sellers company. Mark Twain often advanced money in the interest +of education. A young sculptor he sent to Paris for two years' study. +Among others, he paid the way of two colored students through college. + + + + +L. + +THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN + +It was hoped that the profits from the Yankee would provide for all needs +until the great sums which were to come from the type-setter should come +rolling in. The book did yield a large return, but, alas! the hope of +the type-setter, deferred year after year and month after month, never +reached fulfilment. Its inventor, James W. Paige, whom Mark Twain once +called "a poet, a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations +are written in steel," during ten years of persistent experiment had +created one of the most marvelous machines ever constructed. It would +set and distribute type, adjust the spaces, detect flaws--would perform, +in fact, anything that a human being could do, with more exactness and +far more swiftness. Mark Twain, himself a practical printer, seeing it +in its earlier stages of development, and realizing what a fortune must +come from a perfect type-setting machine, was willing to furnish his last +dollar to complete the invention. But there the trouble lay. It could +never be complete. It was too intricate, too much like a human being, +too easy to get out of order, too hard to set right. Paige, fully +confident, always believed he was just on the verge of perfecting some +appliance that would overcome all difficulties, and the machine finally +consisted of twenty thousand minutely exact parts, each of which required +expert workmanship and had to be fitted by hand. Mark Twain once wrote: + + "All other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly + into commonplaces contrasted with this awful, mechanical miracle." + +This was true, and it conveys the secret of its failure. It was too much +of a miracle to be reliable. Sometimes it would run steadily for hours, +but then some part of its delicate mechanism would fail, and days, even +weeks, were required to repair it. It is all too long a story to be +given here. It has been fully told elsewhere.[10] By the end of 1890 +Mark Twain had put in all his available capital, and was heavily in debt. +He had spent one hundred and ninety thousand dollars on the machine, no +penny of which would ever be returned. Outside capital to carry on the +enterprise was promised, but it failed him. Still believing that there +were "millions in it," he realized that for the present, at least, he +could do no more. + +Two things were clear: he must fall back on authorship for revenue, and +he must retrench. In the present low stage of his fortunes he could no +longer afford to live in the Hartford house. He decided to take the +family abroad, where living was cheaper, and where he might be able to +work with fewer distractions. + +He began writing at a great rate articles and stories for the magazines. +He hunted out the old play he had written with Howells long before, and +made a book of it, "The American Claimant." Then, in June, 1891, they +closed the beautiful Hartford house, where for seventeen years they had +found an ideal home; where the children had grown through their sweet, +early life; where the world's wisest had come and gone, pausing a little +to laugh with the world's greatest merrymaker. The furniture was +shrouded, the curtains drawn, the light shut away. + +While the carriage was waiting, Mrs. Clemens went back and took a last +look into each of the rooms, as if bidding a kind of good-by to the past. +Then she entered the carriage, and Patrick McAleer, who had been with +Mark Twain and his wife since their wedding-day, drove them to the +station for the last time. + +Mark Twain had a contract for six newspaper letters at one thousand +dollars each. He was troubled with rheumatism in his arm, and wrote his +first letter from Aix-les-Bains, a watering-place--a "health-factory," as +he called it--and another from Marienbad. They were in Germany in +August, and one day came to Heidelberg, where they occupied their old +apartment of thirteen years before, room forty, in the Schloss Hotel, +with its far prospect of wood and hill, the winding Neckar, and the blue, +distant valley of the Rhine. Then, presently, they came to Switzerland, +to Ouchy-Lausanne, by lovely Lake Geneva, and here Clemens left the +family and, with a guide and a boatman, went drifting down the Rhone in a +curious, flat-bottomed craft, thinking to find material for one or more +articles, possibly for a book. But drifting down that fair river through +still September days, past ancient, drowsy villages, among sloping +vineyards, where grapes were ripening in the tranquil sunlight, was too +restful and soothing for work. In a letter home, he wrote: + + "It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the awning + these superb, sunshiny days, in peace and quietness. Some of the + curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, but it's so + lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the outside and + sail on. . . I want to do all the rivers of Europe in an open boat + in summer weather." + +One afternoon, about fifteen miles below the city of Valence, he made a +discovery. Dreamily observing the eastward horizon, he noticed that a +distant blue mountain presented a striking profile outline of Napoleon +Bonaparte. It seemed really a great natural wonder, and he stopped that +night at the village just below, Beauchastel, a hoary huddle of houses +with the roofs all run together, and took a room at the little hotel, +with a window looking to the eastward, from which, next morning, he saw +the profile of the great stone face, wonderfully outlined against the +sunrise. He was excited over his discovery, and made a descriptive note +of it and an outline sketch. Then, drifting farther down the river, he +characteristically forgot all about it and did not remember it again for +ten years, by which time he had forgotten the point on the river where +the Napoleon could be seen, forgotten even that he had made a note and +sketch giving full details. He wished the Napoleon to be found again, +believing, as he declared, that it would become one of the natural +wonders of the world. To travelers going to France he attempted to +describe it, and some of these tried to find it; but, as he located it +too far down the Rhone, no one reported success, and in time he spoke of +his discovery as the "Lost Napoleon." It was not until after Mark +Twain's death that it was rediscovered, and then by the writer of this +memoir, who, having Mark Twain's note-book,[11] with its exact memoranda, +on another September day, motoring up the Rhone, located the blue profile +of the reclining Napoleon opposite the gray village of Beauchastel. It +is a really remarkable effigy, and deserves to be visited. + +Clemens finished his trip at Arles--a beautiful trip from beginning to +end, but without literary result. When he undertook to write of it, he +found that it lacked incident, and, what was worse, it lacked humor. To +undertake to create both was too much. After a few chapters he put the +manuscript aside, unfinished, and so it remains to this day. + +The Clemens family spent the winter in Berlin, a gay winter, with Mark +Twain as one of the distinguished figures of the German capital. He was +received everywhere and made much of. Once a small, choice dinner was +given him by Kaiser William II., and, later, a breakfast by the Empress. +His books were great favorites in the German royal family. The Kaiser +particularly enjoyed the "Mississippi" book, while the essay on "The +Awful German Language," in the "Tramp Abroad," he pronounced one of the +finest pieces of humor ever written. Mark Twain's books were favorites, +in fact, throughout Germany. The door-man in his hotel had them all in +his little room, and, discovering one day that their guest, Samuel L. +Clemens, and Mark Twain were one, he nearly exploded with excitement. +Dragging the author to his small room, he pointed to the shelf: + +"There," he said, "you wrote them! I've found it out. Ach! I did not +know it before, and I ask a million pardons." + +Affairs were not going well in America, and in June Clemens made a trip +over to see what could be done. Probably he did very little, and he was +back presently at Nauheim, a watering-place, where he was able to work +rather quietly. He began two stories--one of them, "The Extraordinary +Twins," which was the first form of "Pudd'nhead Wilson;" the other, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," for "St. Nicholas." Twichell came to Nauheim during the +summer, and one day he and Clemens ran over to Homburg, not far away. +The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII.) was there, and Clemens and +Twichell, walking in the park, met the Prince with the British +ambassador, and were presented. Twichell, in an account of the meeting, +said: + + "The meeting between the Prince and Mark 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 soldier-like; Clemens weaving along in his + curious, swinging gait, in full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun + umbrella of the most scandalous description." + +At Villa Viviani, an old, old mansion outside of Florence, on the hill +toward Settignano, Mark Twain finished "Tom Sawyer Abroad," also +"Pudd'nhead Wilson", and wrote the first half of a book that really had +its beginning on the day when, an apprentice-boy in Hannibal, he had +found a stray leaf from the pathetic story of "Joan of Arc." All his +life she had been his idol, and he had meant some day to write of her. +Now, in this weather-stained old palace, looking down on Florence, +medieval and hazy, and across to the villa-dotted hills, he began one of +the most beautiful stories ever written, "The Personal Recollections of +Joan of Arc." He wrote in the first person, assuming the character of +Joan's secretary, Sieur Louis de Conte, who in his old age is telling the +great tale of the Maid of Orleans. It was Mark Twain's purpose, this +time, to publish anonymously. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, and +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 else I have ever undertaken. I shall write + it anonymously." + +So it was that the gentle Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and the tale of +Joan was begun in the ancient garden of Viviani, a setting appropriate to +its lovely form. + +He wrote rapidly when once his plan was perfected and his material +arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood was now recalled, not +merely as reading, but as remembered reality. It was as if he were truly +the old Sieur de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out the tender, +tragic tale. In six weeks he had written one hundred thousand words-- +remarkable progress at any time, the more so when we consider that some +of the authorities he consulted were in a foreign tongue. He had always +more or less kept up his study of French, begun so long ago on the river, +and it stood him now in good stead. Still, it was never easy for him, +and the multitude of notes that still exist along the margin of his +French authorities show the magnitude of his work. Others of the family +went down into the city almost daily, but he stayed in the still garden +with Joan. Florence and its suburbs were full of delightful people, some +of them old friends. There were luncheons, dinners, teas, dances, and +the like always in progress, but he resisted most of these things, +preferring to remain the quaint old Sieur de Conte, following again the +banner of the Maid of Orleans marshaling her twilight armies across his +illumined page. + +But the next spring, March, 1893, he was obliged to put aside the +manuscript and hurry to America again, fruitlessly, of course, for a +financial stress was on the land; the business of Webster & Co. was on +the down-grade--nothing could save it. There was new hope in the old +type-setting machine, but his faith in the resurrection was not strong. +The strain of his affairs was telling on him. The business owed a great +sum, with no prospect of relief. Back in Europe again, Mark Twain wrote +F. D. Hall, his business manager in New York: + + "I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition + unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a + volcano. Get me out of business." + +Tantalizing letters continued to come, holding out hope in the business-- +the machine--in any straw that promised a little support through the +financial storm. Again he wrote Hall: + + "Great Scott, but it's a long year for you and me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. . . I watch for your letters hungrily--just + as I used to watch for the telegram saying the machine was 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 fair way to + find out." + +They closed Viviani in June and returned to Germany. By the end of +August Clemens could stand no longer the strain of his American affairs, +and, leaving the family at some German baths, he once more sailed for New +York. + +[11] At Mark Twain's death his various literary effects passed into the +hands of his biographer and literary executor, the present writer. + + + + +LI. + +THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW + +In a room at the Players Club--"a cheap room," he wrote home, "at $1.5o +per day"--Mark Twain spent the winter, hoping against hope to weather the +financial storm. His fortunes were at a lower ebb than ever before; +lower even than during those bleak mining days among the Esmeralda hills. +Then there had been no one but himself, and he was young. Now, at fifty- +eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed down +by debt. The liabilities of his firm were fully two hundred thousand +dollars--sixty thousand of which were owing to Mrs. Clemens for money +advanced--but the large remaining sum was due to banks, printers, +binders, and the manufacturers of paper. A panic was on the land and +there was no business. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He spent +most of his days in his room, trying to write, and succeeded in finishing +several magazine articles. Outwardly cheerful, he hid the bitterness of +his situation. + +A few, however, knew the true state of his affairs. One of these one +night introduced him to Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil millionaire. + +"Mr. Clemens," said Mr. Rogers, "I was one of your early admirers. I +heard you lecture a long time ago, on the Sandwich Islands." + +They sat down at a table, and Mark Twain told amusing stories. Rogers +was in a perpetual gale of laughter. They became friends from that +evening, and in due time the author had confessed to the financier all +his business worries. + +"You had better let me look into things a little," Rogers said, and he +advised Clemens to "stop walking the floor." + +It was characteristic of Mark Twain to be willing to unload his affairs +upon any one that he thought able to bear the burden. He became a new +man overnight. With Henry Rogers in charge, life was once more worth +while. He accepted invitations from the Rogers family and from many +others, and was presently so gay, so widely sought, and seen in so many +places that one of his acquaintances, "Jamie" Dodge, dubbed him the +"Belle of New York." + +Henry Rogers, meanwhile, was "looking into things." He had reasonable +faith in the type-machine, and advanced a large sum on the chance of its +proving a success. This, of course, lifted Mark Twain quite into the +clouds. Daily he wrote and cabled all sorts of glowing hopes to his +family, then in Paris. 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!" + +Once he cabled, "Expect good news in ten days"; and a little later, "Look +out for good news"; and in a few days, "Nearing success." + +Those Sellers-like messages could not but appeal, Mrs. Clemens's sense of +humor, even in those dark days. To her sister she wrote, "They make me +laugh, for they are so like my beloved Colonel." + +The affairs of Webster & Co. Mr. Rogers found a bad way. When, at last, +in April, 1894, the crisis came--a demand by the chief creditors for +payment--he advised immediate assignment as the only course. + +So the firm of Webster & Co. closed its doors. The business which less +than ten years before had begun so prosperously had ended in failure. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty-nine, was bankrupt. When all the firm's +effects had been sold and applied on the counts, he was still more than +seventy thousand dollars in debt. Friends stepped in and offered to lend +him money, but he declined these offers. Through Mr. Rogers a basis of +settlement at fifty cents on the dollar was arranged, and Mark Twain +said, "Give me time, and I will pay the other fifty." + +No one but his wife and Mr. Rogers, however, believed that at his age he +would be able to make good the promise. Many advised him not to attempt +it, but to settle once and for all on the legal basis as arranged. +Sometimes, in moments of despondency, he almost surrendered. Once he +said: + +"I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it." + +But these were only the hard moments. For the most part he kept up good +heart and confidence. It is true that he now believed again in the +future of the type-setter, and that returns from it would pay him out of +bankruptcy. But later in the year this final hope was taken away. Mr. +Rogers wrote to him that in the final test the machine had failed to +prove itself practical and that the whole project had been finally and +permanently abandoned. The shock of disappointment was heavy for the +moment, but then it was over--completely over--for that old mechanical +demon, that vampire of invention that had sapped his fortune so long, was +laid at last. The worst had happened; there was nothing more to dread. +Within a week Mark Twain (he was now back in Paris with the family) had +settled down to work once more on the "Recollections of Joan," and all +mention and memory of the type-setter was forever put away. The machine +stands to-day in the Sibley College of Engineering, where it is exhibited +as the costliest piece of mechanism for its size ever constructed. Mark +Twain once received a letter from an author who had written a book 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 book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me + nine editions. Send them by express. + + "Very truly yours, + + "S. L. CLEMENS." + +Those were economical days. There was no income except from the old +books, and at the time this was not large. The Clemens family, however, +was cheerful, and Mark Twain was once more in splendid working form. The +story of Joan hurried to its tragic conclusion. Each night he read to +the family what he had written that day, and Susy, who was easily moved, +would say, "Wait--wait till I get my handkerchief," and one night when +the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene at Rouen +had been depicted, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc was +burned at the stake!" Meaning that the book was finished. + +Susy herself had fine literary taste, and might have written had not her +greater purpose been to sing. There are fragments of her writing that +show the true literary touch. Both Susy and her father cared more for +Joan than for any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers Clemens wrote, +"Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was mitten for +love." It was placed serially with "Harper's Magazine" and appeared +anonymously, but the public soon identified the inimitable touch of Mark +Twain. + +It was now the spring of 1895, and Mark Twain had decided upon a new plan +to restore his fortunes. Platform work had always paid him well, and +though he disliked it now more than ever, he had resolved upon something +unheard of in that line--nothing less, in fact, than a platform tour +around the world. In May, with the family, he sailed for America, and +after a month or two of rest at Quarry Farm he set out with Mrs. Clemens +and Clara and with his American agent, J. B. Pond, for the Pacific coast. +Susy and Jean remained behind with their aunt at the farm. The travelers +left Elmira at night, and they always remembered the picture of Susy, +standing under the electric light of the railway platform, waving them +good-by. + +Mark Twain's tour of the world was a success from the beginning. +Everywhere he was received with splendid honors--in America, in +Australia, in New Zealand, in India, in Ceylon, in South Africa--wherever +he went his welcome was a grand ovation, his theaters and halls were +never large enough to hold his audiences. With the possible exception of +General Grant's long tour in 1878-9 there had hardly been a more gorgeous +progress than Mark Twain's trip around the world. Everywhere they were +overwhelmed with attention and gifts. We cannot begin to tell the story +of that journey here. In "Following the Equator" the author himself +tells it in his own delightful fashion. + +From time to time along the way Mark Twain forwarded his accumulated +profits to Mr. Rogers to apply against his debts, and by the time they +sailed from South Africa the sum was large enough to encourage him to +believe that, with the royalties to be derived from the book he would +write of his travels, he might be able to pay in full and so face the +world once more a free man. Their long trip--it had lasted a full year-- +was nearing its end. They would spend the winter in London--Susy and +Jean were notified to join them there. They would all be reunited again. +The outlook seemed bright once more. + +They reached England the last of July. Susy and Jean, with Katy Leary, +were to arrive on the 12th of August. But the 12th did not bring them-- +it brought, instead, a letter. Susy was not well, the letter said; the +sailing had been postponed. The letter added that it was nothing +serious, but her parents cabled at once for later news. Receiving no +satisfactory answer, Mrs. Clemens, full of forebodings, prepared to sail +with Clara for America. Clemens would remain in London to arrange for +the winter residence. A cable came, saying Susy's recovery would be slow +but certain. Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed immediately. In some notes +he once dictated, Mark Twain said: + + "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.'" + +Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that +equaled this one. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a +year since they parted, and now he knew he would never see her again. +The blow had found him alone and among strangers. In that day he could +not even reach out to those upon the ocean, drawing daily nearer to the +heartbreak. + +Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well far a +time at the farm, but then her health had declined. She worked +continuously at her singing lessons and over-tried her strength. Then +she went on a visit to Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, in Hartford; but she +did not rest, working harder than ever at her singing. Finally she was +told that she must consult a physician. The doctor came and prescribed +soothing remedies, and advised that she have the rest and quiet of her +own home. Mrs. Crane came from Elmira, also her uncle Charles Langdon. +But Susy became worse, and a few days later her malady was pronounced +meningitis. This was the 15th of August, the day that her mother and +Clara sailed from England. She was delirious and burning with fever, but +at last sank into unconsciousness. She died three days later, and on the +night that Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived was taken to Elmira for burial. + +They laid her beside the little brother that had died so long before, and +ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia, +written by Robert Richardson: + + 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. + + + + +LII. + +EUROPEAN ECONOMIES + +With Clara and Jean, Mrs. Clemens returned to England, and in a modest +house on Tedworth Square, a secluded corner of London, the stricken +family hid themselves away for the winter. Few, even of their closest +friends, knew of their whereabouts. In time the report was circulated +that Mask Twain, old, sick, and deserted by his family, was living in +poverty, toiling to pay his debts. Through the London publishers a +distant cousin, Dr. James Clemens, of St. Louis, located the house on +Tedworth Square, and wrote, offering assistance. He was invited to call, +and found a quiet place--the life there simple--but not poverty. By and +by there was another report--this time that Mark Twain was dead. A +reporter found his way to Tedworth Square, and, being received by Mark +Twain himself, asked what he should say. + +Clemens regarded him gravely, then, in his slow, nasal drawl, "Say--that +the report of my death--has been grossly--exaggerated, "a remark that a +day later was amusing both hemispheres. He could not help his humor; it +was his natural form of utterance--the medium for conveying fact, +fiction, satire, philosophy. Whatever his depth of despair, the quaint +surprise of speech would come, and it would be so until his last day. + +By November he was at work on his book of travel, which he first thought +of calling "Around the World." He went out not at all that winter, and +the work progressed steadily, and was complete by the following May +(1897). + +Meantime, during his trip around the world, Mark Twain's publishers had +issued two volumes of his work--the "Joan of Arc" book, and another "Tom +Sawyer" book, the latter volume combining two rather short stories, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," published serially in St. Nicholas, and "Tom Sawyer, +Detective." The "Joan of Arc" book, the tenderest and most exquisite of +all Mark Twain's work--a tale told with the deepest sympathy and the +rarest delicacy--was dedicated by the author to his wife, as being the +only piece of his writing which he considered worthy of this honor. He +regarded it as his best book, and this was an opinion that did not +change. Twelve years later--it was on his seventy-third birthday--he +wrote as his final verdict, November 30, 1908: + + "I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; and 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; twelve years of + preparation and two years of writing. The others needed no + preparation and got none. + MARK TWAIN." + +The public at first did not agree with the author's estimate, and the +demand for the book was not large. But the public amended its opinion. +The demand for "Joan" increased with each year until its sales ranked +with the most popular of Mark Twain's books. + +The new stories of Tom and Huck have never been as popular as the earlier +adventures of this pair of heroes. The shorter stories are less +important and perhaps less alive, but they are certainly very readable +tales, and nobody but Mark Twain could have written them. + +Clemens began some new stories when his travel book was out of the way, +but presently with the family was on the way to Switzerland for the +summer. They lived at Weggis, on Lake Lucerne, in the Villa Buhlegg--a +very modest five-franc-a-day pension, for they were economizing and +putting away money for the debts. Mark Twain was not in a mood for work, +and, besides, proofs of the new book "Following the Equator," as it is +now called--were coming steadily. But on the anniversary of Susy's death +(August 18th) he wrote a poem, "In Memoriam," in which he touched a +literary height never before attained. It was published in "Harper's +Magazine," and now appears in his collected works. + +Across from Villa Buhlegg on the lake-front there was a small shaded +inclosure where he loved to sit and look out on the blue water and lofty +mountains, one of which, Rigi, he and Twichell had climbed nineteen years +before. The little retreat is still there, and to-day one of the trees +bears a tablet (in German), "Mark Twain's Rest." + +Autumn found the family in Vienna, located for the winter at the Hotel +Metropole. Mrs. Clemens realized that her daughters must no longer be +deprived of social and artistic advantages. For herself, she longed only +for retirement. + +Vienna is always a gay city, a center of art and culture and splendid +social functions. From the moment of his arrival, Mark Twain and his +family were in the midst of affairs. Their room at the Metropole became +an assembling-place for distinguished members of the several circles that +go to make up the dazzling Viennese life. Mrs. Clemens, to her sister in +America, once wrote: + + "Such funny combinations are here sometimes: one duke, several + counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper + women, etc." + +Mark Twain found himself the literary lion of the Austrian capital. +Every club entertained him and roared with delight at his German +speeches. Wherever he appeared on the streets he was recognized. + +"Let him pass! Don't you see it is Herr Mark Twain!" commanded an +officer to a guard who, in the midst of a great assemblage, had presumed +to bar the way. + + + + +LIII. + +MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS + +Mark Twain wrote much and well during this period, in spite of his social +life. His article "Concerning the Jews" was written that first winter in +Vienna--a fine piece of special pleading; also the greatest of his short +stories--one of the greatest of all short stories--"The Man that +Corrupted Hadleyburg." + +But there were good reasons why he should write better now; his mind was +free of a mighty load--he had paid his debts! + +Soon after his arrival in Vienna he had written to Mr. Rogers: + + "Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. + It totally unfits me for work." + +He had accumulated a large sum for the purpose, and the royalties from +the new book were beginning to roll in. Payment of the debts was begun. +At the end of December he wrote again: + + "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 from pulling it in." + +A few days later he wrote to Howells that he had "turned the corner"; and +again: + + "We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, and + there's no undisputed claim now that we can't cash . . . . I + hope you will never get the like of the load saddled on to you that + was saddled on to me, three years ago. And yet there is such a + solid pleasure in paying the things that I reckon it is worth while + to get into that kind of a hobble, after all. Mrs. Clemens gets + millions of delight out of it, and the children have never uttered + one complaint about the scrimping from the beginning." + +By the end of January, 1898, Clemens had accumulated enough money to make +the final payments to his creditors. At the time of his failure he had +given himself five years to achieve this result. But he had needed less +than four. A report from Mr. Rogers showed that a balance of thirteen +thousand dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were +wiped away. + +Clemens had tried to keep his money affairs out of the newspapers, but +the payment of the final claims could not be concealed, and the press +made the most of it. Head-lines shouted it. Editorials heralded Mark +Twain as a second Walter Scott, because Scott, too, had labored to lift a +great burden of debt. Never had Mark Twain been so beloved by his +fellow-men. + +One might suppose now that he had had enough of invention 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 his debts +were paid he was negotiating with the Austrian inventor Szczepanik for +the American rights in a wonderful carpet-pattern machine, and, Sellers- +like, was planning to organize a company with a capital of fifteen +hundred million dollars to control the carpet-weaving industries of the +world. He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the +Standard Oil to "come in"; but the plan failed to bear the test of Mr. +Rogers's investigation and was heard of no more. + +Samuel Clemens's obligation to Henry Rogers was very great, but it was +not quite the obligation that many supposed it to be. It was often +asserted that the financier lent, even gave, the humorist large sums, and +pointed out opportunities for speculation. No part of this statement is +true. Mr. Rogers neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money, and never +allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He sometimes invested +Mark Twain's own funds for him, but he never bought for him a share of +stock without money in hand to pay for it in full--money belonging to, +and earned by, Clemens himself. + +What Henry Rogers did give to Mark Twain was his priceless counsel and +time--gifts more precious than any mere sum of money--favors that Mark +Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them, and never +ceased to be grateful. He rarely wrote without expressing his gratitude, +and we get the size of Mark Twain's obligation when in one letter we +read: + + "I have abundant peace of mind again--no sense of burden. Work is + become a pleasure--it is not labor any longer." + +He wrote much and well, mainly magazine articles, including some of those +chapters later gathered it his book on "Christian Science." He reveled +like a boy in his new freedom and fortunes, in the lavish honors paid +him, in the rich circumstance of Viennese life. But always just beneath +the surface were unforgetable sorrows. His face in repose was always +sad. Once, after writing to Howells of his successes, he added: + + "All those 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!" + + + + +LIV. + +RETURN AFTER EXILE + +News came to Vienna of the death of Orion Clemens, at the age of seventy- +two. Orion had died as he had lived--a gentle dreamer, always with a new +plan. He had not been sick at all. One morning early he had seated +himself at a table, with pencil and paper, and was putting down the +details of his latest project, when death came--kindly, in the moment of +new hope. He was a generous, upright man, beloved by all who understood +him. + +The Clemenses remained two winters in Vienna, spending the second at the +Hotel Krantz, where their rooms were larger and finer than at the +Metropole, and even more crowded with notabilities. Their salon acquired +the name of the "Second Embassy," and Mark Twain was, in fact, the most +representative American in the Austrian capital. It became the fashion +to consult him on every question of public interest, his comments, +whether serious or otherwise, being always worth printing. When European +disarmament was proposed, Editor William T. Stead, of the "Review of +Reviews," wrote for his opinion. He replied: + + "DEAR Mr. STEAD,--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 refused offers of many sorts. He declined ten thousand dollars for a +tobacco endorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough. He +declined ten thousand dollars a year for five years to lend his name as +editor of a humorous periodical. He declined another ten thousand for +ten lectures, and another offer for fifty lectures at the same rates-- +that is, one thousand dollars per night. He could get along without +these sums, he said, and still preserve some remnants of his self- +respect. + +It was May, 1899, when Clemens and his family left Vienna. They spent a +summer in Sweden on account of the health of Jean Clemens, and located +in London apartments--3o Wellington Court--for the winter. Then followed +a summer at beautiful Dollis Hill, an old house where Gladstone had often +visited, on a shady hilltop just outside of London. The city had not +quite enclosed the place then, and there were spreading oaks, a pond with +lily-pads, and wide spaces of grassy lawn. The place to-day is converted +into a public garden called Gladstone Park. Writing to Twichell in mid- +summer, Clemens said: + + "I am the only person who is ever in the house in the daytime, but I + am working, and deep in the luxury of it. But there is one + tremendous defect. Levy is all so enchanted with the place and so + in love with it that she doesn't know how she is going to tear + herself away from it." + +However, there was one still greater attraction than Dollis Hill, and +that was America--home. Mark Twain at sixty-five and a free man once +more had decided to return to his native land. They closed Dollis Hill +at the end of September, and October 6, 1900, sailed on the Minnehaha for +New York, bidding good-by, as Mark Twain believed, and hoped, to foreign +travel. Nine days later, to a reporter who greeted him on the ship, he +said: + + "If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I can't + get away again." + + + + +LV. + +A PROPHET AT HOME + +New York tried to outdo Vienna and London in honoring Mark Twain. Every +newspaper was filled with the story of his great fight against debt, and +his triumph. "He had behaved like Walter Scott," writes Howells, "as +millions rejoiced to know who had not known how Walter Scott behaved till +they knew it was like Clemens." Clubs and societies vied with one +another in offering him grand entertainments. Literary and lecture +proposals poured in. He was offered at the rate of a dollar a word for +his writing--he could name his own terms for lectures. + +These sensational offers did not tempt him. He was sick of the platform. +He made a dinner speech here and there--always an event--but he gave no +lectures or readings for profit. His literary work he confined to a few +magazines, and presently concluded an arrangement with "Harper & +Brothers" for whatever he might write, the payment to be twenty (later +thirty) cents per word. He arranged with the same firm for the +publication of all his books, by this time collected in uniform edition. +He wished his affairs to be settled as nearly as might be. His desire +was freedom from care. Also he would have liked a period of quiet and +rest, but that was impossible. He realized that the multitude of honors +tendered him was in a sense a vast compliment which he could not entirely +refuse. Howells writes that Mark Twain's countrymen "kept it up past all +precedent," and in return Mark Twain tried to do his part. "His friends +saw that he was wearing himself out," adds Howells, and certain it is +that he grew thin and pale and had a hacking cough. Once to Richard +Watson Gilder he wrote: + + "In bed with a chest cold and other company. + + "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 that killed himself trying to do all the dining + and speeching? No, old man, no, no! + + Ever yours, MARK." + +In the various dinner speeches and other utterances made by Mark Twain at +this time, his hearers recognized a new and great seriousness of purpose. +It was not really new, only, perhaps, more emphasized. He still made +them laugh, but he insisted on making them think, too. He preached a new +gospel of patriotism--not the patriotism that means a boisterous cheering +of the Stars and Stripes wherever unfurled, but the patriotism that +proposes to keep the Stars and Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In +one place he said: + + "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." + +He protested against the blind allegiance of monarchies. He was seldom +"with the largest crowd" himself. Writing much of our foreign affairs, +then in a good deal of a muddle, he assailed so fearlessly and fiercely +measures which he held to be unjust that he was caricatured as an armed +knight on a charger and as Huck Finn with a gun. + +But he was not always warlike. One of the speeches he made that winter +was with Col. Henry Watterson, a former Confederate soldier, at a Lincoln +birthday memorial at Carnegie Hall. "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 Clemens household did not go back to Hartford. During their early +years abroad it had been Mrs. Clemens's dream to return and open the +beautiful home, with everything the same as before. The death of Susy +had changed all this. The mother had grown more and more to feel that +she could not bear the sorrow of Susy's absence in the familiar rooms. +After a trip which Clemens himself made to Hartford, he wrote, "I realize +that if we ever enter the house again to live, our hearts will break." + +So they did not go back. Mrs. Clemens had seen it for the last time on +that day when the carnage waited while she went back to take a last look +into the vacant rooms. They had taken a house at 14 West Tenth Street +for the winter, and when summer came they went to a log cabin on Saranac +Lake, which they called "The Lair." Here Mark Twain wrote "A Double- +barreled Detective Story," a not very successful burlesque of Sherlock +Holmes. But most of the time that summer he loafed and rested, as was +his right. Once during the summer he went on a cruise with H. H. Rogers, +Speaker "Tom" Reed, and others on Mr. Rogers's yacht. + + + + +LVI. + +HONORED BY MISSOURI + +The family did not return to New York. They took a beautiful house at +Riverdale on the Hudson--the old Appleton homestead. Here they +established themselves and settled down for American residence. They +would have bought the Appleton place, but the price was beyond their +reach. + +It was in the autumn of 1901 that Mark Twain settled in Riverdale. In +June of the following year he was summoned West to receive the degree of +LL.D. from the university of his native state. He made the journey a +sort of last general visit to old associations and friends. In St. Louis +he saw Horace Bixby, fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five +years before. Clemens said: + + "I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five." + +They went over to the rooms of the pilots' association, where the river- +men gathered in force to celebrate his return. Then he took train for +Hannibal. + +He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins--Mrs. Frazer, and +a widow now--and John Briggs, an old man, and John RoBards, who had worn +the golden curls and the medal for good conduct. They drove him to the +old house on Hill Street, where once he had lived and set type; +photographers were there and photographed him standing at the front door. + +"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 bird-house." He did +not see "Huck"--Torn Blankenship had not lived in Hannibal for many +years. But he was driven to all the familiar haunts--to Lover's Leap, +the cave, and the rest; and Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked +over Holliday's Hill--the "Cardiff Hill" of "Tom Sawyer." It was just +such a day, as the one when they had damaged a cooper shop and so nearly +finished the old negro driver. A good deal more than fifty years had +passed since then, and now here they were once more--Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper--two old men, the hills still fresh and green, the river rippling +in the sun. Looking across to the Illinois shore and 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 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 peaches from old +man Price, and one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with dogs, and +how we made up our minds we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by drove along +the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it and was +taken with a cramp on the return. + +"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 knee struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by a place where a haunted house had stood. They drank from a +well they had always known--from the bucket, as they had always drunk-- +talking, always talking, touching with lingering fondness that most +beautiful and safest of all our possessions--the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall renew +our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth a thousand 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." + +Clemens left next day for Columbia, where the university is located. At +each station a crowd had gathered to cheer and wave as the train pulled +in and to offer him flowers. Sometimes he tried to say a few words, but +his voice would not come. This was more than even Tom Sawyer had +dreamed. + +Certainly there is something deeply touching in the recognition of one's +native State; the return of the boy who has set out unknown to battle +with life and who is called back to be crowned is unlike any other home- +coming--more dramatic, more moving. Next day at the university Mark +Twain, summoned before the crowded assembly-hall to receive his degree, +stepped out to the center of the stage and paused. He seemed in doubt as +to whether he should make a speech or only express his thanks for the +honor received. Suddenly and without signal the great audience rose and +stood in silence at his feet. He bowed but he could not speak. Then the +vast assembly began a peculiar chant, spelling out slowly the word M-i-s- +s-o-u-r-i, with a pause between each letter. It was tremendously +impressive. + +Mark Twain was not left in doubt as to what was required of him when the +chant ended. The audience demanded a speech--a speech, and he made them +one--such a speech as no one there would forget to his dying day. + +Back in St. Louis, he attended the rechristening of the St. Louis harbor +boat; it had been previously called the "St. Louis," but it was now to be +called the "Mark Twain." + + + + +LVII. + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +Life which had begun very cheerfully at Riverdale ended sadly enough. In +August, at York Harbor, Maine, Mrs. Clemens's health failed and she was +brought home an invalid, confined almost entirely to her room. She had +been always the life, the center, the mainspring of the household. Now +she must not even be consulted--hardly visited. On her bad days--and +they were many--Clemens, sad and anxious, spent most of his time +lingering about her door, waiting for news, or until he was permitted to +see her for a brief moment. In his memorandum-book of that period he +wrote: + + "Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork--day and night + devotion to the children and me. We did not know how to value it. + We know now." + +And on the margin of a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his triumph over debt, he wrote: + + "Livy never gets her share of those applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share." + +She improved during the winter, but very slowly. Her husband wrote in +his diary: + + "Feb. 2, 1903--Thirty-third wedding anniversary. I was allowed to + see Livy five minutes this morning, in honor of the day." + +Mrs. Clemens had always remembered affectionately their winter in +Florence of ten years before, and she now expressed the feeling that if +she were in Florence again she would be better. The doctors approved, +and it was decided that she should be taken there as soon as she was +strong enough to travel. She had so far improved by June that they +journeyed to Elmira, where in the quiet rest of Quarry Farm her strength +returned somewhat and the hope of her recovery was strong. + +Mark Twain wrote a story that summer in Elmira, in the little octagonal +study, shut in now by trees and overgrown with vines. "A Dog's Tale," a +pathetic plea against vivisection, was the last story written in the +little retreat that had seen the beginning of "Tom Sawyer" twenty-nine +years before. + +There was a feeling that the stay in Europe was this time to be +permanent. On one of the first days of October Clemens wrote in his +note-book: + + "To-day I place flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time, probably + --and read the words, "Good night, dear heart, good night, + good night." + +They sailed on the 24th, by way of Naples and Genoa, and were presently +installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old Italian palace, in an +ancient garden looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the +Chianti hills. It was a beautiful spot, though its aging walls and +cypresses and matted vines gave it a rather mournful look. Mrs. +Clemens's health improved there for a time, in spite of dull, rainy, +depressing weather; so much so that in May, when the warmth and sun came +back, Clemens was driving about the country, seeking a villa that he +might buy for a home. + +On one of these days--it was a Sunday in early June, the 5th--when he had +been out with Jean, and had found a villa which he believed would fill +all their requirements, he came home full of enthusiasm and hope, eager +to tell the patient about the discovery. Certainly she seemed better. A +day or two before she had been wheeled out on the terrace to enjoy the +wonder of early Italian summer. + +He found her bright and cheerful, anxious to hear all their plans for the +new home. He stayed with her alone through the dinner hour, and their +talk was as in the old days. Summoned to go at last, he chided himself +for staying 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 returned them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so full of hope--they were going to be happy again. Long ago he +had been in the habit of singing jubilee songs to the children. He went +upstairs now to the piano and played the chorus and sang "Swing Low, +Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." He stopped then, but Jean, +who had come in, asked him to go on. Mrs. Clemens, from her room, heard +the music and said to Katy Leary: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently. A moment later she asked to be lifted up. +Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, just then coming to say good-night, saw a little group gathered +about her bed, and heard Clara ask: + +"Katy, is it true? Oh, Katy, is it true?" + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + "At a quarter-past nine this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief and the peace of death, after twenty-two months + of unjust and unearned suffering. I first saw her thirty-seven + years ago, and now I have looked upon her face for the last time.... + I was full of remorse for things done and said in these thirty- + four years of married life that have hurt Livy's heart." + +And to Howells a few days later: + + "To-day, treasured in her worn, old testament, I found a dear and + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 12, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired and old; I wish I were with Livy." + +They brought her to America; and from the house, and the rooms, where she +had been made a bride bore her to a grave beside Susy and little Langdon. + + + + +LVIII. + +MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY + +In a small cottage belonging to Richard Watson Gilder, at Tyringham, +Massachusetts, Samuel Clemens and his daughters tried to plan for the +future. Mrs. Clemens had always been the directing force--they were lost +without her. They finally took a house in New York City, No. 21 Fifth +Avenue, at the corner of Ninth Street, installed the familiar +furnishings, and tried once more to establish a home. The house was +handsome within and without--a proper residence for a venerable author +and sage--a suitable setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. + +It lacked soul--comfort that would reach the heart. He added presently a +great Aeolian orchestrelle, with a variety of music for his different +moods. Sometimes he played it himself, though oftener his secretary +played to him. He went out little that winter--seeing only a few old and +intimate friends. His writing, such as it was, was of a serious nature, +protests against oppression and injustice in a variety of forms. Once he +wrote a "War Prayer," supposed to have been made by a mysterious, white- +robed stranger who enters a church during those ceremonies that precede +the marching of the nation's armies to battle. The minister had prayed +for victory, a prayer which the stranger interprets as a petition that +the enemy's country be laid waste, its soldiers be torn by shells, its +people turned out roofless, to wander through their desolated land in +rags and hunger. It was a scathing arraignment of war, a prophecy, +indeed, which to-day has been literally fulfilled. He did not print it, +because then it would have been regarded as sacrilege. + +When summer came again, in a beautiful house at Dublin, New Hampshire, on +the Monadnock slope, he seemed to get back into the old swing of work, +and wrote that pathetic story, "A Horse's Tale." Also "Eve's Diary," +which, under its humor, is filled with tenderness, and he began a wildly +fantastic tale entitled "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes," a +satire in which Gulliver is outdone. He never finished it. He never +could finish it, for it ran off into amazing by-paths that led nowhere, +and the tale was lost. Yet he always meant to get at it again some day +and make order out of chaos. + +Old friends were dying, and Mark Twain grew more and more lonely. "My +section of the procession has but a little way to go," he wrote when the +great English actor Henry Irving died. Charles Henry Webb, his first +publisher, John Hay, Bret Harte, Thomas B. Reed, and, indeed, most of his +earlier associates were gone. When an invitation came from San Francisco +to attend a California reunion he replied that his wandering days were +over and that it was his purpose to sit by the fire for the rest of his +life. And in another letter: + + "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." + +A choice example, by the way, of Mark Twain's best humor, with its +perfectly timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would have +been content to end with the statement, "I could have gone earlier." +Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch--"it was +suggested." + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy. With the 30th of November (1905) he +would complete the scriptural limitation, and the president of his +publishing-house, Col. George Harvey, of Harper's, proposed a great +dinner for him in celebration of his grand maturity. Clemens would have +preferred a small assembly in some snug place, with only his oldest and +closest friends. Colonel Harvey had a different view. He had given a +small, choice dinner to Mark Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday; now it +must be something really worth while--something to outrank any former +literary gathering. In order not to conflict with Thanksgiving holidays, +the 5th of December was selected as the date. On that evening, two +hundred American and English men and women of letters assembled in +Delmonico's great banquet-hall to do honor to their chief. What an +occasion it was! The tables of gay diners and among them Mark Twain, his +snow-white hair a gleaming beacon for every eye. Then, by and by, +presented by William Dean Howells, he rose to speak. Instantly the +brilliant throng was on its feet, a shouting billow of life, the white +handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. It was a supreme moment! +The greatest one of them all hailed by their applause as he scaled the +mountaintop. + +Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that +night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet +that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully +that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under +it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his + +habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living +that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed he had +no valuable habits at all. Then, at last, came that unforgetable close: + + "Threescore years and ten! + + "It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: you have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline, if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + "The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter, through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, "Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart." + +The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to +mention the fact later. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest. Mr. Rogers did not speak, +nor the Reverend Twichell, but they sat at his special table. Aldrich +could not be there, but wrote a letter. A group of English authors, +including Alfred Austin, Barrie, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy, +Kipling, Lang, and others, joined in a cable. 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 never a pessimist in his heart. + + + + +LIX. + +MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY + +It was at the beginning of 1906--a little more than a month after the +seventieth-birthday dinner--that the writer of these chapters became +personally associated with Mark Twain. I had met him before, and from +time to time he had returned a kindly word about some book I had written +and inconsiderately sent him, for he had been my literary hero from +childhood. Once, indeed, he had allowed me to use some of his letters in +a biography I was writing of Thomas Nast; he had been always an admirer +of the great cartoonist, and the permission was kindness itself. Before +the seating at the birthday dinner I happened to find myself for a moment +alone with Mark Twain and remembered to thank him in person for the use +of the letters; a day or two later I sent him a copy of the book. I did +not expect to hear from it again. + +It was a little while after this that I was asked to join in a small +private dinner to be given to Mark Twain at the Players, in celebration +of his being made an honorary member of that club--there being at the +time only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. I was in the +Players a day or two before the event, and David Munro, of "The North +American Review," a man whose gentle and kindly nature made him "David" +to all who knew him, greeted me joyfully, his face full of something he +knew I would wish to hear. + +He had been chosen, he said, to propose the Players' dinner to Mark +Twain, and had found him propped up in bed, and beside him a copy of the +Nast book. I suspect now that David's generous heart prompted Mark Twain +to speak of the book, and that his comment had lost nothing in David's +eager retelling. But I was too proud and happy to question any feature +of the precious compliment, and Munro--always most happy in making others +happy--found opportunity to repeat it, and even to improve upon it-- +usually in the presence of others--several times during the evening. + +The Players' dinner to Mark Twain was given on the evening of January 3, +19066, and the picture of it still remains clear to me. The guests, +assembled around a single table in the private dining-room, did not +exceed twenty-five in number. Brander Matthews presided, and the +knightly Frank Millet, who would one day go down on the "Titanic," was +there, and Gilder and Munro and David Bispham and Robert Reid, and others +of their kind. It so happened that my seat was nearly facing the guest +of the evening, who by a custom of the Players is placed at the side and +not at the distant end of the long table. Regarding him at leisure, I +saw that he seemed to be in full health. He had an alert, rested look; +his complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the soft +glow of the shaded candles, outlined against the richness of the shadowed +walls, he made a figure of striking beauty. I could not take my eyes +from it, for it stirred in me the farthest memories. I saw the interior +of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West where I had first heard +the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a group had gathered +around the evening lamp to hear read aloud the story of the Innocents on +their Holy Land 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 one had meant to me quite what Mark Twain had meant--in +literature and, indeed, in life. Now here he was just across the table. +It was a fairy-tale come true. + +Genung said: "You should write his life." + +It seemed to me no more than a pleasant remark, but he came back to it +again and again, trying to encourage me with the word that Munro had +brought back concerning the biography of Nast. However, nothing of what +he said had kindled any spark of hope. I put him off by saying that +certainly some one of longer and closer friendship and larger experience +had been selected for the work. Then the speaking began, and the matter +went out of my mind. Later in the evening, when we had left our seats +and were drifting about the table, I found a chance to say a word to our +guest concerning his "Joan of Arc," which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he told me that long-ago incident--the stray leaf from Joan's +life, blown to him by the wind--which had led to his interest in all +literature. Then presently I was with Genung again and he was still +insisting that I write the life of Mark Twain. It may have been his +faithful urging, it may have been the quick sympathy kindled by the name +of "Joan of Arc"; whatever it was, in the instant of bidding good-by to +our guest I was prompted to add: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" And something--to this +day I do not know what--prompted him to answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +Two days later, by appointment with his secretary, I arrived at 21 Fifth +Avenue, and waited in the library to be summoned to his room. A few +moments later I was ascending the long stairs, wondering why I had come +on so useless an errand, trying to think up an excuse for having come at +all. + +He was propped up in bed--a regal bed, from a dismantled Italian palace-- +delving through a copy of "Huckleberry Finn," in search of a paragraph +concerning which some unknown correspondent had inquired. He pushed the +cigars toward me, commenting amusingly on this correspondent and on +letter-writing in general. By and by, when there came a lull, I told him +what so many thousands had told him before--what his work had meant to +me, so long ago, and recalled my childish impressions of that large +black-and-gilt book with its wonderful pictures and adventures "The +Innocents Abroad." Very likely he was willing enough to let me change +the subject presently and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro +had brought. I do not remember what was his comment, but I suddenly +found myself saying that out of his encouragement had grown a hope +(though certainly it was less), that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected my errand to end at this point, and his +silence seemed long and ominous. + +He said at last that from time to time he had himself written chapters of +his life, but that he had always tired of the work and put it aside. He +added that he hoped his daughters would one day collect his letters, but +that a biography--a detailed story of a man's life and effort--was +another matter. I think he added one or two other remarks, then all at +once, turning upon me those piercing agate-blue eyes, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser, with a large mirror, at the end of the room. 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; I asked if Tuesday, January 9, would be too soon to +start. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired as to my plan of +work. I suggested bringing a stenographer to make notes of his life- +story as he could recall it, this record to be supplemented by other +material--letters, journals, and what not. He said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer with some one to +prompt me and act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for +my study. My manuscript 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 dictations 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. He got up and showed +me the warm luxury of the study, with its mass of material--disordered, +but priceless. + +I have no distinct recollections of how I came away, but presently, back +at the Players, I was confiding the matter to Charles Harvey Genung, who +said he was not surprised; but I think he was. + + + + +LX. + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +It was true, after all; and on Tuesday morning, January 9, 1906, I was on +hand with a capable stenographer, ready to begin. Clemens, meantime, had +developed a new idea: he would like to add, he said, the new dictations +to his former beginnings, completing an autobiography which was to be +laid away and remain unpublished for a hundred years. He would pay the +stenographer himself, and own the notes, allowing me, of course, free use +of them as material for my book. He did not believe that he could follow +the story of his life in its order of dates, but would find it necessary +to wander around, picking up the thread as memory or fancy prompted. I +could suggest subjects and ask questions. I assented to everything, and +we set to work immediately. + +As on my former visit, he was in bed when we arrived, though clad now in +a rich Persian dressing gown, and propped against great, snowy pillows. +A small table beside him held his pipes, cigars, papers, also a reading- +lamp, the soft light of which brought out his brilliant coloring and the +gleam of his snowy hair. There was daylight, too, but it was dull winter +daylight, from the north, while the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red. + +He began that morning with some memories of the Comstock mine; then he +dropped back to his childhood, closing at last with some comment on +matters quite recent. How delightful it was--his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious habits of his delicate hands, the play +of his features as his fancies and phrases passed through his mind and +were accepted or put aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. Time did +not count. When he finished, at last, we were all amazed to find that +more than two hours 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 +short-hand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table +always an 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, 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. But it was always +fascinating, and I felt myself the most fortunate biographer in the +world, as indeed I was. + +It was not all smooth sailing, however. In the course of time I began to +realize that these marvelous dictated chapters were not altogether +history, but were often partly, or even entirely, imaginary. The creator +of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had been embroidering old incidents or +inventing new ones too long to stick to history now, to be able to +separate the romance in his mind from the reality of the past. Also, his +memory of personal events had become inaccurate. He realized this, and +once said, in his whimsical, gentle way: + + "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." + +Yet it was his constant purpose to stick to fact, and especially did he +make no effort to put himself in a good light. Indeed, 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, and he would improve upon it and pile up +his sins, and sometimes the sins of others, without stint. Certainly the +dictations were precious, for they revealed character as nothing else +could; but as material for history they often failed to stand the test of +the documents in the next room--the letters, notebooks, agreements, and +the like--from which I was gradually rebuilding the structure of the +years. + +In the talks that we usually had when the dictations were ended and the +stenographer had gone I got much that was of great value. It was then +that I usually made those inquiries which we had planned in the +beginning, and his answers, coming quickly and without reflection, gave +imagination less play. Sometimes he would touch some point of special +interest and walk up and down, philosophizing, or commenting upon things +in general, in a manner not always complimentary to humanity and its +progress. + +I seldom asked him a question during the dictation--or interrupted in any +way, though he had asked me to stop him when I found him repeating or +contradicting himself, or misstating some fact known to me. At first I +lacked the courage to point out a mistake at the moment, and cautiously +mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he would be likely to +say: + + "Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a donkey + 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 in 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 was sorry and apologized, and in a moment the sky was +clear again. There was generally a humorous complexion to the +dictations, whatever the subject. Humor was his natural breath of life, +and rarely absent. + +Perhaps I should have said sooner that he smoked continuously during the +dictations. His cigars were of that delicious fragrance which belongs to +domestic tobacco. They were strong and inexpensive, and it was only his +early training that made him prefer them. Admiring friends used to send +him costly, imported cigars, but he rarely touched them, and they were +smoked by visitors. He often smoked a pipe, and preferred it to be old +and violent. Once when he had bought a new, expensive briar-root, he +handed it 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." + + + + +LXI. + +DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. + +Following his birthday dinner, Mark Twain had become once more the "Belle +of New York," and in a larger way than ever before. An editorial in the +"Evening Mail" referred to him as a kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and +Themistocles of the American metropolis, and added: + + "Things have reached a 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." + +He loved the excitement of it, and it no longer seemed to wear upon him. +Scarcely an evening passed that he did not go out to some dinner or +gathering where he had promised to speak. In April, for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Society, he delivered his farewell lecture--the last +lecture, he said, where any one would have to pay to hear him. It was at +Carnegie Hall, and the great place was jammed. As he stood before that +vast, shouting audience, I wondered if he was remembering that night, +forty years before in San Francisco, when his lecture career had begun. +We hoped he might speak of it, but he did not do so. + +In May the dictations were transferred to Dublin, New Hampshire, to the +long veranda of the Upton House, on the Monadnock slope. He wished to +continue our work, he said; so the stenographer and myself were presently +located in the village, and drove out each morning, to sit facing one of +the rarest views in all New England, while he talked of everything and +anything that memory or fancy suggested. We had begun in his bedroom, +but the glorious outside was too compelling. + +The long veranda was ideal. He was generally ready when we arrived, a +luminous figure in white flannels, pacing up and down before a background +of sky and forest, blue lake, and distant hills. When it stormed we +would go inside to a bright fire. The dictation ended, he would ask his +secretary to play the orchestrelle, which at great expense had been +freighted up from New York. In that high situation, the fire and the +music and the stormbeat seemed to lift us very far indeed from reality. +Certain symphonies by Beethoven, an impromptu by Schubert, and a nocturne +by Chopin were the selections he cared for most,[12] though in certain +moods he asked, for the Scotch melodies. + +There was a good deal of social life in Dublin, but, the dictations were +seldom interrupted. He became lonely, now and then, and paid a brief +visit to New York, or to Mr. Rogers in Fairhaven, but he always returned +gladly, for he liked the rest and quiet, and the dictations gave him +employment. A part of his entertainment was a trio of kittens which he +had rented for the summer--rented because then they would not lose +ownership and would find home and protection in the fall. He named the +kittens Sackcloth and Ashes--Sackcloth being a black-and-white kit, and +Ashes a joint name owned by the two others, who were gray and exactly +alike. All summer long these merry little creatures played up and down +the wide veranda, or chased butterflies and grasshoppers down the clover +slope, offering Mark Twain never-ending amusement. He loved to see them +spring into the air after some insect, miss it, tumble back, and quickly +jump up again with a surprised and disappointed expression. + +In spite of his resolve not to print any of his autobiography until he +had been dead a hundred years, he was persuaded during the summer to +allow certain chapters of it to be published in "The North American +Review." With the price received, thirty thousand dollars, he announced +he was going to build himself a country home at Redding, Connecticut, on +land already purchased there, near a small country place of my own. He +wished to have a fixed place to go each summer, he said, and his thought +was to call it "Autobiography House." + +[12] His special favorites were Schubert's Op. 142, part 2, and Chopin's +Op. 37, part 2. + + + + +LXII + +A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS + +With the return to New York I began a period of closer association with +Mark Twain. Up to that time our relations had been chiefly of a literary +nature. They now became personal as well. + +It happened in this way: Mark Twain had never outgrown his love for the +game of billiards, though he had not owned a table since the closing of +the Hartford house, fifteen years before. Mrs. Henry Rogers had proposed +to present him with a table for Christmas, but when he heard of the plan, +boylike, he could not wait, and hinted that if he had the table "right +now" he could begin to use it sooner. So the table came--a handsome +combination affair, suitable to all games--and was set in place. That +morning 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 acknowledged that I had never played more than a few games of pool, and +those very long ago. + +"No matter," he said "the poorer you play the better I shall like it." + +So I remained for luncheon, and when it was over we began the first game +ever played on the "Christmas" table. He taught me a game in which +caroms and pockets both counted, and he gave me heavy odds. He beat me, +but it was a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a closer relation +between us. We played most of the afternoon, and he suggested that I +"come back in the evening and play some more." I did so, and the game +lasted till after midnight. I had beginner's luck--"nigger luck," as he +called it--and it kept him working feverishly to win. Once when I had +made a great fluke--a carom followed by most of the balls falling into +the pockets, he said: + + "When you pick up that cue this table drips at every pore." + +The morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a boy, he was +looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it seemed never to come +quickly enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and he +was inclined to cut the courses short that we might the sooner get up- +stairs for billiards. He did not eat the midday meal himself, but he +would come down and walk about the dining-room, talking steadily that +marvelous, marvelous talk which little by little I trained myself to +remember, though never with complete success. He was only killing time, +and I remember once, when he had been earnestly discussing some deep +question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was ending. + +"Now," he said, "we will proceed to more serious matters--it's your-- +shot." + +My game improved with practice, and he reduced my odds. He was willing +to be beaten, but not too often. We kept a record of the games, and he +went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed a balance in his favor. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the game went steadily against +him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks. +Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and +attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying +to render this service. I wished he would not do it. It distressed me +that he should humble himself. I was willing that he should lose his +temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined--his age, his +position, his genius gave him special privileges. Yet I am glad, as I +remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes +the sum of his humanity. Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an +onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor. I +gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only +he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has +passed by. Presently 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." + +It was but natural that friendship should grow under such conditions. +The disparity of our ages and gifts no longer mattered. The pleasant +land of play is a democracy where such things do not count. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. +He invented a new game for the occasion, and added a new rule for it with +almost every shot. It happened that no other member of the family was at +home--ill-health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and a string of callers. He saw no +one but a few intimate friends. + +We were entirely alone for dinner, and I felt the great honor of being +his only guest on such an occasion. On that night, a year before, the +flower of his profession had assembled to do him honor. Once between the +courses, when he rose, as was his habit, 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. +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening, and at night when +we 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 be playing it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + +LXIII. + +LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN + +I accompanied him on a trip he made to Washington in the interest of +copyright. Speaker "Uncle Joe" Cannon lent us his private room in the +Capitol, and there all one afternoon Mark Twain received Congressmen, and +in an atmosphere blue with cigar-smoke preached the gospel of copyright. +It was a historic trip, and for me an eventful one, for it was on the way +back to New York that Mark Twain suggested that I take up residence in +his home. There was a room going to waste, he said, and I would be +handier for the early and late billiard sessions. I accepted, of course. + +Looking back, 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 bent over it his 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 summon +for him scenes and faces which the others do not see. Sometimes he rose, +pacing the length of the parlors, but oftener he lay among the cushions, +the light flooding his white hair and dress, heightening his brilliant +coloring. He had taken up the fashion of wearing white altogether at +this time. Black, he said, reminded him of his funerals. + +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 he often did, and I see him clearest, his face alive with interest, +presenting some new angle of thought in his vivid, inimitable speech. +These are pictures that will not fade from my memory. How I wish the +marvelous things he said were like them! I preserved as much of them as +I could, and in time trained myself to recall portions of his exact +phrasing. But even so they seemed never quite as he had said them. They +lacked the breath of his personality. His dinner-table talk was likely +to be political, scientific, philosophic. He often discussed aspects of +astronomy, which was a passion with him. I could succeed better with the +billiard-room talk--that was likely to be reminiscent, full of anecdotes. +I kept a pad on the window-sill, and made notes while he was playing. At +one time he told me of his dreams. + +"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. 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 I have is being compelled to +go back to the lecture platform. 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 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 semi-darkness talking +to an empty house." + +He did not return to Dublin the next summer, but took a house at Tuxedo, +nearer New York. I did not go there with him, for in the spring it was +agreed that I should make a pilgrimage to the Mississippi and the Pacific +coast to see those few still remaining who had known Mark Twain in his +youth. John Briggs was alive, also Horace Bixby, "Joe" Goodman, Steve +and Jim Gillis, and there were a few others. + +It was a trip taken none too soon. John Briggs, a gentle-hearted old man +who sat by his fire and through one afternoon told me of the happy days +along the river-front from the cave to Holliday's Hill, did not reach the +end of the year. Horace Bixby, at eighty-one, was still young, and +piloting a government snag-boat. Neither was Joseph Goodman old, by any +means, but Jim Gillis was near his end, and Steve Gillis was an invalid, +who 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." + + + + +LXIV. + +A DEGREE FROM OXFORD + +On my return I found Mark Twain elated: he had been invited to England to +receive the degree of Literary Doctor from the Oxford University. It is +the highest scholastic honorary degree; and to come back, as I had, from +following the early wanderings of the barefoot truant of Hannibal, only +to find him about to be officially knighted by the world's most venerable +institution of learning, seemed rather the most surprising chapter even +of his marvelous fairy-tale. If Tom Sawyer had owned the magic wand, he +hardly could have produced anything as startling as that. + +He sailed on the 8th of June, 1907, exactly forty years from the day he +had sailed on the "Quaker City" to win his greater fame. I did not +accompany him. He took with him a secretary to make notes, and my +affairs held me in America. He was absent six weeks, and no attentions +that England had ever paid him before could compare with her lavish +welcome during this visit. His reception was really national. He was +banqueted by the greatest clubs of London, he was received with special +favor at the King's garden party, he traveled by a royal train, crowds +gathering everywhere to see him pass. At Oxford when he appeared on the +street the name Mark Twain ran up and down like a cry of fire, and the +people came running. When he appeared on the stage at the Sheldonian +Theater to receive his degree, clad in his doctor's robe of scarlet and +gray, there arose a great tumult--the shouting of the undergraduates for +the boy who had been Tom Sawyer and had played with Huckleberry Finn. +The papers next day spoke of his reception as a "cyclone," surpassing any +other welcome, though Rudyard Kipling was one of those who received +degrees on that occasion, and General Booth and Whitelaw Reid, and other +famous men. + +Perhaps the most distinguished social honor paid to Mark Twain at this +time was the dinner given him by the staff of London "Punch," in the +historic "Punch" editorial rooms on Bouverie Street. No other foreigner +had ever been invited to that sacred board, where Thackeray had sat, and +Douglas Jerrold and others of the great departed. "Punch" had already +saluted him with a front-page cartoon, and at this dinner the original +drawing was presented to him by the editor's little daughter, Joy Agnew. + +The Oxford degree, and the splendid homage paid him by England at large, +became, as it were, the crowning episode of Mark Twain's career. I think +he realized this, although he did not speak of it--indeed, he had very +little to say of the whole matter. I telephoned a greeting when I knew +that he had arrived in New York, and was summoned to "come down and play +billiards." I confess I went with a good deal of awe, prepared to sit in +silence and listen to the tale of the returning hero. 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've been inventing a new game." + +That was all. The pageant was over, the curtain was rung down. Business +was resumed at the old stand. + + + + +LXV. + +THE REMOVAL TO REDDING + +There followed another winter during which I was much with Mark Twain, +though a part of it he spent with Mr. Rogers in Bermuda, that pretty +island resort which both men loved. Then came spring again, and June, +and with it Mark Twain's removal to his newly built home, "Stormfield," +at Redding, Connecticut. + +The house had been under construction for a year. He had never seen it-- +never even seen the land I had bought for him. He even preferred not to +look at any plans or ideas for decoration. + +"When the house is finished and furnished, and the cat is purring on the +hearth, it will be time enough for me to see it," he had said more than +once. + +He had only specified that the rooms should be large and that the +billiard-room should be red. His billiard-rooms thus far had been of +that color, and their memory was associated in his mind with enjoyment +and comfort. He detested details of preparation, and then, too, he +looked forward to the dramatic surprise of walking into a home that had +been conjured into existence as with a word. + +It was the 18th of June, 1908, that he finally took possession. The +Fifth Avenue house was not dismantled, for it was the plan then to use +Stormfield only as a summer place. The servants, however, with one +exception, had been transferred to Redding, and Mark Twain and I remained +alone, though not lonely, in the city house; playing billiards most of +the time, and being as hilarious as we pleased, for there was nobody to +disturb. I think he hardly mentioned the new home during that time. He +had never seen even a photograph of the place, and I confess I had +moments of anxiety, for I had selected the site and had been more or less +concerned otherwise, though John Howells was wholly responsible for the +building. I did not really worry, for I knew how beautiful and peaceful +it all was. + +The morning of the 18th was bright and sunny and cool. Mark Twain was up +and shaved by six o'clock in order to be in time. The train did not +leave until four in the afternoon, but our last billiards in town must +begin early and suffer no interruption. We were still playing when, +about three, word was brought up that the cab was waiting. Arrived at +the station, a group collected, reporters and others, to speed him to his +new home. Some of the reporters came along. + +The scenery was at its best that day, and he spoke of it approvingly. +The hour and a half required to cover the sixty miles' distance seemed +short. The train porters came to carry out the bags. He drew from his +pocket a great handful of silver. + +"Give them something," he said; "give everybody liberally that does any +service." + +There was a sort of open-air reception in waiting--a varied assemblage of +vehicles festooned with flowers had gathered to offer gallant country +welcome. It was a perfect June evening, still and dream-like; there +seemed a spell of silence on everything. The people did not cheer--they +smiled and waved to the white figure, and he smiled and waved reply, but +there was no noise. It was like a scene in a cinema. + +His carriage led the way on the three-mile drive to the house on the +hilltop, and the floral procession fell in behind. Hillsides were green, +fields were white with daisies, dogwood and laurel shone among the trees. +He was very quiet as we drove along. Once, with gentle humor, looking +out 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." + +The clear-running brooks, a swift-flowing river, a tumbling cascade where +we climbed a hill, all came in for his approval--then we were at the lane +that led to his new home, and the procession behind dropped away. The +carriage ascended still higher, and a view opened across the Saugatuck +Valley, with its nestling village and church-spire and farmhouses, and +beyond them the distant hills. Then came the house--simple in design, +but beautiful--an Italian villa, such as he had known in Florence, +adapted here to American climate and needs. + +At the entrance his domestic staff waited to greet him, and presently he +stepped across the threshold and stood in his own home for the first time +in seventeen years. Nothing was lacking--it was as finished, as +completely furnished, as if he had occupied it a lifetime. No one spoke +immediately, but when his eyes had taken in the harmony of the place, +with its restful, home-like comfort, and followed through the open French +windows to the distant vista of treetops and farmsides and blue hills, +he said, very gently: + + "How beautiful it all is! I did not think it could be as beautiful + as this." And later, when he had seen all of the apartments: "It is + a perfect house--perfect, so far as I can see, in every detail. It + might have been here always." + +There were guests that first evening--a small home dinner-party--and a +little later at the foot of the garden some fireworks were set off by +neighbors inspired by Dan Beard, who had recently located in Redding. +Mark Twain, watching the rockets that announced his arrival, said, +gently: + + "I wonder why they go to so much trouble for me. I never go to any + trouble for anybody." + +The evening closed with billiards, hilarious games, and when at midnight +the cues were set in the rack no one could say that Mark Twain's first +day in his new home had not been a happy one. + + + + +LXVI + +LIFE AT STORMFIELD + +Mark Twain loved Stormfield. Almost immediately he gave up the idea of +going back to New York for the winter, and I think he never entered the +Fifth Avenue house again. The quiet and undisturbed comfort of +Stormfield came to him at the right time of life. His day of being the +"Belle of New York" was over. Now and then he attended some great +dinner, but always under protest. Finally he refused to go at all. He +had much company during that first summer--old friends, and now and again +young people, of whom he was always fond. The billiard-room he called +"the aquarium," and a frieze of Bermuda fishes, in gay prints, ran around +the walls. Each young lady visitor was allowed to select one of these as +her patron fish and attach her name to it. Thus, as a member of the +"aquarium club," she was represented in absence. Of course there were +several cats at Stormfield, and these really owned the premises. The +kittens scampered about the billiard-table after the balls, even when the +game was in progress, giving all sorts of new angles to the shots. This +delighted him, and he would not for anything have discommoded or removed +one of those furry hazards. + +My own house was a little more than half a mile away, our lands joining, +and daily I went up to visit him--to play billiards or to take a walk +across the fields. There was a stenographer in the neighborhood, and he +continued his dictations, but not regularly. He wrote, too, now and +then, and finished the little book called "Is Shakespeare Dead?" + +Winter came. The walks were fewer, and there was even more company; the +house was gay and the billiard games protracted. In February I made a +trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, to go over some of his ground +there. Returning in April, I found him somewhat changed. It was not +that he had grown older, or less full of life, but only less active, less +eager for gay company, and he no longer dictated, or very rarely. His +daughter Jean, who had been in a health resort, was coming home to act as +his secretary, and this made him very happy. We resumed our games, our +talks, and our long walks across the fields. There were few guests, and +we were together most of the day and evening. How beautiful the memory +of it all is now! To me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again in +this world. + +Mark Twain walked slowly these days. Early in the summer there appeared +indications of the heart trouble that less than a year later would bring +the end. His doctor advised diminished smoking, and forbade the old +habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs. The trouble was with the +heart muscles, and at times there came severe deadly pains in his breast, +but for the most part he did not suffer. He was allowed the walk, +however, and once I showed him a part of his estate he had not seen +before--a remote cedar hillside. 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." I think the name pleased him. Later he said: + +"If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine" (the Rogers +table, which had been left in storage in New York), "I would turn it over +to you." + +I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit the +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 planned, and the work was presently under way. + +How many things we talked of! Life, death, the future--all the things of +which we know so little and love so much to talk about. Astronomy, as I +have said, was one of his favorite subjects. Neither of us had any real +knowledge of the matter, which made its great facts all the more awesome. +The thought that the nearest fixed star was twenty-five trillions of +miles away--two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance to our own +remote sun--gave him a sort of splendid thrill. He would figure out +those appalling measurements of space, covering sheets of paper with his +sums, but he was not a good mathematician, and the answers were generally +wrong. Comets in particular interested him, and one day 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." + +He looked so strong, and full of color and vitality. One could not +believe that his words held a prophecy. Yet the pains recurred with +increasing frequency and severity; his malady, angina pectoris, was +making progress. And how bravely he bore it all! He never complained, +never bewailed. I have seen the fierce attack crumple him when we were +at billiards, but he would insist on playing in his turn, bowed, his face +white, his hand digging at his breast. + + + + +LXVII + +THE DEATH OF JEAN + +Clara Clemens was married that autumn to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian +pianist, and presently sailed for Europe, where they would make their +home. Jean Clemens was now head of the house, and what with her various +duties and poor health, her burden was too heavy. She had a passion for +animal life of every kind, and in some farm-buildings at one corner of +the estate had set up quite an establishment of chickens and domestic +animals. She was fond of giving these her personal attention, and this, +with her house direction and secretarial work, gave her little time for +rest. I tried to relieve her of a share of the secretarial work, but she +was ambitious and faithful. Still, her condition did not seem critical. + +I stayed at Stormfield, now, most of the time--nights as well as days-- +for the dull weather had come and Mark Twain found the house rather +lonely. In November he had an impulse to go to Bermuda, and we spent a +month in the warm light of that summer island, returning a week before +the Christmas holidays. And just then came Mark Twain's last great +tragedy--the death of his daughter Jean. + +The holidays had added heavily to Jean's labors. Out of her generous +heart she had planned gifts for everybody--had hurried to and from the +city for her purchases, and in the loggia set up a beautiful Christmas +tree. Meantime she had contracted a heavy cold. Her trouble was +epilepsy, and all this was bad for her. On the morning of December 24, +she died, suddenly, from the shock of a cold bath. + +Below, in the loggia, drenched with tinsel, stood the tree, and heaped +about it the packages of gifts which that day she had meant to open and +put in place. Nobody had been overlooked. + +Jean was taken to Elmira for burial. Her father, unable to make the +winter journey, remained behind. Her cousin, Jervis Langdon, came for +her. + +It was six in the evening when she went away. A soft, heavy snow was +falling, and the gloom of the short day was closing in. There was not +the least noise, the whole world was muffled. The lanterns shone out the +open door, and at an upper window, the light gleaming on his white hair, +her father watched her going away from him for the last time. Later he +wrote: + + "From my window 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 Katy--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." + + + + +LXVIII + +DAYS IN BERMUDA + +Ten days later Mark Twain returned to Bermuda, accompanied only by a +valet. He had asked me if we would be willing to close our home for the +winter and come to Stormfield, so that the place might be ready any time +for his return. We came, of course, for there was no thought other than +for his comfort. He did not go to a hotel in Bermuda, but to the home of +Vice-Consul Allen, where he had visited before. The Allens were devoted +to him and gave him such care as no hotel could offer. + +Bermuda agreed with Mark Twain, and for a time there he gained in +strength and spirits and recovered much of his old manner. He wrote me +almost daily, generally with good reports of his health and doings, and +with playful counsel and suggestions. Then, by and by, he did not write +with his own hand, but through his newly appointed "secretary," Mr. +Allen's young daughter, Helen, of whom he was very fond. The letters, +however, were still gay. Once 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 in utter freedom and without + embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a + criminal." + +He had made no mention so far of the pains in his breast, but near the +end of March he wrote that he was coming home, if the breast pains did +not "mend their ways pretty considerable. I do not want to die here," he +said. "I am growing more and more particular about the place." A week +later brought another alarming letter, also one from Mr. Allen, who +frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. I went to +New York and sailed the next morning, cabling the Gabrilowitsches to come +without delay. + +I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when I arrived he was +not expecting me. + +"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you did not 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. 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. "Wow I'm +glad to see you." + +His breakfast came in and he ate with appetite. I had thought him thin +and pale, at first sight, but his color had come back now, and his eyes +were bright. He told me of the fierce attacks of the pain, and how he +had been given hypodermic injections which he amusingly termed "hypnotic +injunctions" and "the sub-cutaneous." From Mr. and Mrs. Allen I learned +how slender had been his chances, and how uncertain were the days ahead. +Mr. Allen had already engaged passage home for April 12th. + +He seemed so little like a man whose days were numbered. On the +afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as we had done on our former visit, +and he discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. I had +sold for him, for six thousand dollars, the farm where Jean had kept her +animals, and he wished to use the money in erecting for her some sort of +memorial. He agreed that a building to hold the library which he had +already donated to the town of Redding would be appropriate and useful. +He asked me to write at once to his lawyer and have the matter arranged. + +We did not drive out again. The pains held off for several days, and he +was gay and went out on the lawn, but most of the time he sat propped up +in bed, reading and smoking. When I looked at him there, so full of +vigor and the joy of life, I could not persuade myself that he would not +outlive us all. + +He had written very little in Bermuda--his last work being a chapter of +amusing "Advice"--for me, as he confessed--what I was to do upon reaching +the gate of which St. Peter is said to keep the key. As it is the last +writing he ever did, and because it is characteristic, one or two +paragraphs may be admitted here: + + "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. . . + + "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." + +There were several pages of this counsel. + + + + +LXIX. + +THE RETURN TO REDDING + +I spent most of each day with him, merely sitting by the bed and reading. +I noticed when he slept that his breathing was difficult, and I could see +that he did not improve, but often he was gay and liked the entire family +to gather about and be merry. It was only a few days before we sailed +that the severe attacks returned. Then followed bad nights; but respite +came, and we sailed on the 12th, as arranged. The Allen home stands on +the water, and Mr. Allen had chartered a tug to take us to the ship. We +were obliged to start early, and the fresh morning breeze was +stimulating. Mark Twain seemed in good spirits when we reached the +"Oceana," which was to take him home. + +As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of +that homeward voyage. He was comfortable at first, and then we ran into +the humid, oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and he could not breathe. +It seemed to me that the end might come at any moment, and this thought +was in his own mind, but he had no dread, and his sense of humor did not +fail. 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." + +I had been instructed in the use of the hypodermic needle, and from time +to time gave him the "hypnotic injunction," as he still called it. But +it did not afford him entire relief. He could remain in no position for +any length of time. Yet he never complained and thought only of the +trouble he might be making. Once he said: + + "I am sorry for you, Paine, but I can't help it--I can't hurry this + dying business." + +And a little later: + + "Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long!" + +Relatives, physicians, and news-gatherers were at the dock to welcome +him. Revived by the cool, fresh air of the North, he had slept for +several hours and was seemingly much better. A special compartment on +the same train that had taken us first to Redding took us there now, his +physicians in attendance. He did not seem to mind the trip or the drive +home. + +As we turned into the lane that led to Stormfield he said: + +"Can we see where you have built your billiard-room?" + +The gable of the new study showed among the trees, and I pointed it out +to him. + +"It looks quite imposing," he said. + +Arriving at Stormfield, he stepped, unassisted, from the carriage to +greet the members of the household, and with all his old courtliness +offered each his hand. Then in a canvas chair we had brought we carried +him up-stairs to his room--the big, beautiful room that looked out to the +sunset hills. This was Thursday evening, April 14, 1910. + + + + +LXX. + +THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + +Mark Twain lived just a week from that day and hour. For a time he +seemed full of life, talking freely, and suffering little. Clara and +Ossip Gabrilowitsch arrived on Saturday and found him cheerful, quite +like himself. At intervals he read. "Suetonius" and "Carlyle" lay on +the bed beside him, and he would pick them up and read a page or a +paragraph. Sometimes when I saw him thus--the high color still in his +face, the clear light in his eyes'--I said: "It is not reality. He is +not going to die." + +But by Wednesday of the following week it was evident that the end was +near. We did not know it then, but the mysterious messenger of his birth +year, Halley's comet, became visible that night in the sky.[13] + +On Thursday morning, the 21st, his mind was still fairly clear, and he +read a little from one of the volumes on his bed. By Clara he sent word +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 his words were few, now, and uncertain. I assured him that I +would attend to the matter and he pressed my hand. It was his last word +to me. During the afternoon, while Clara stood by him, 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 for seventy-four tumultuous years +had stopped forever. + +In the Brick Church, New York, Mark Twain--dressed in the white he loved +so well--lay, 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. +Flowers in profusion were banked about him, but on the casket lay a +single 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. + +That night we went with him to Elmira, and next day he lay in those +stately parlors that had seen his wedding-day, and where little Langdon +and Susy had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and then Jean, only a little while +before. + +The worn-out body had reached its journey's end; but his spirit had never +grown old, and to-day, still young, it continues to cheer and comfort a +tired world. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, by Paine + diff --git a/old/mt8bg10.zip b/old/mt8bg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae99927 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt8bg10.zip diff --git a/old/mt8bg11.txt b/old/mt8bg11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a10ce1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt8bg11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9235 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, by Paine +#8 in our series by Albert Bigelow Paine + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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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 Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +CONTENTS + + PREFACE +I. THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS +II. THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM +III. SCHOOL +IV. EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL +V. TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND +VI. CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS +VII. THE APPRENTICE +VIII. ORION'S PAPER +IX. THE OPEN ROAD +X. A WIND OF CHANCE +XI. THE LONG WAY To THE AMAZON +XII. RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION +XIII. LEARNING THE RIVER +XIV. RIVER DAYS +XV. THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" +XVI. THE PILOT +XVII. THE END OF PILOTING +XVIII. THE SOLDIER +XIX. THE PIONEER +XX. THE MINER +XXI. THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE +XXII. "MARK TWAIN" +XXIII. ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO +XXIV. THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" +XXV. HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME +XXVI. MARK TWAIN, LECTURER +XXVII. AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN +XXVIII. OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" +XXIX. THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES +XXX. THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING +XXXI. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO +XXXII. AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" +XXXIII. IN ENGLAND +XXXIV. A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS +XXXV. BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVI. THE NEW HOME +XXXVII. "OLD TIMES, "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" +XXXVIII. HOME PICTURES +XXXIX. TRAMPING ABROAD +XL. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" +XLI. GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD +XLII. MANY INVESTMENTS +XLIII. BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY +XLIV. A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE +XLV. "THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" +XLVI. PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT +XLVII. THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE +XLVIII. BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS +XLIX. KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" +L. THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN +LI. THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW +LII. EUROPEAN ECONOMIES +LIII. MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS +LIV. RETURN AFTER EXILE +LV. A PROPHET AT HOME +LVI. HONORED BY MISSOURI +LVII. THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE +LVIII. MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY +LIX. MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY +LX. WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXI. DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. +LXII. A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS +LXIII. LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN +LXIV. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD +LXV. THE REMOVAL TO REDDING +LXVI. LIFE AT STORMFIELD +LXVII. THE DEATH OF JEAN +LXVIII. DAYS IN BERMUDA +LXIX. THE RETURN TO REDDING +LXX. THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + + + + +PREFACE + +This is the story of a boy, born in the humblest surroundings, reared +almost without schooling, and amid benighted conditions such as to-day +have no existence, yet who lived to achieve a world-wide fame; to attain +honorary degrees from the greatest universities of America and Europe; to +be sought by statesmen and kings; to be loved and honored by all men in +all lands, and mourned by them when he died. It is the story of one of +the world's very great men--the story of Mark Twain. + + + + +I. + +THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS + +A long time ago, back in the early years of another century, a family +named Clemens moved from eastern Tennessee to eastern Missouri--from a +small, unheard-of place called Pall Mall, on Wolf River, to an equally +small and unknown place called Florida, on a tiny river named the Salt. + +That was a far journey, in those days, for railway trains in 1835 had not +reached the South and West, and John Clemens and his family traveled in +an old two-horse barouche, with two extra riding-horses, on one of which +rode the eldest child, Orion Clemens, a boy of ten, and on the other +Jennie, a slave girl. + +In the carriage with the parents were three other children--Pamela and +Margaret, aged eight and five, and little Benjamin, three years old. The +time was spring, the period of the Old South, and, while these youngsters +did not realize that they were passing through a sort of Golden Age, they +must have enjoyed the weeks of leisurely journeying toward what was then +the Far West--the Promised Land. + +The Clemens fortunes had been poor in Tennessee. John Marshall Clemens, +the father, was a lawyer, a man of education; but he was a dreamer, too, +full of schemes that usually failed. Born in Virginia, he had grown up +in Kentucky, and married there Jane Lampton, of Columbia, a descendant of +the English Lamptons and the belle of her region. They had left Kentucky +for Tennessee, drifting from one small town to another that was always +smaller, and with dwindling law-practice John Clemens in time had been +obliged to open a poor little store, which in the end had failed to pay. +Jennie was the last of several slaves he had inherited from his Virginia +ancestors. Besides Jennie, his fortune now consisted of the horses and +barouche, a very limited supply of money, and a large, unsalable tract of +east Tennessee land, which John Clemens dreamed would one day bring his +children fortune. + +Readers of the "Gilded Age" will remember the journey of the Hawkins +family from the "Knobs" of Tennessee to Missouri and the important part +in that story played by the Tennessee land. Mark Twain wrote those +chapters, and while they are not history, but fiction, they are based +upon fact, and the picture they present of family hardship and struggle +is not overdrawn. The character of Colonel Sellers, who gave the +Hawkinses a grand welcome to the new home, was also real. In life he was +James Lampton, cousin to Mrs. Clemens, a gentle and radiant merchant of +dreams, who believed himself heir to an English earldom and was always on +the verge of colossal fortune. With others of the Lampton kin, he was +already settled in Missouri and had written back glowing accounts; though +perhaps not more glowing than those which had come from another relative, +John Quarles, brother-in-law to Mrs. Clemens, a jovial, whole-hearted +optimist, well-loved by all who knew him. + +It was a June evening when the Clemens family, with the barouche and the +two outriders, finally arrived in Florida, and the place, no doubt, +seemed attractive enough then, however it may have appeared later. It +was the end of a long journey; relatives gathered with fond welcome; +prospects seemed bright. Already John Quarles had opened a general store +in the little town. Florida, he said, was certain to become a city. +Salt River would be made navigable with a series of locks and dams. He +offered John Clemens a partnership in his business. + +Quarles, for that time and place, was a rich man. Besides his store he +had a farm and thirty slaves. His brother-in-law's funds, or lack of +them, did not matter. The two had married sisters. That was capital +enough for his hearty nature. So, almost on the moment of arrival in the +new land, John Clemens once more found himself established in trade. + +The next thing was to find a home. There were twenty-one houses in +Florida, and none of them large. The one selected by John and Jane +Clemens had two main rooms and a lean-to kitchen--a small place and +lowly--the kind of a place that so often has seen the beginning of +exalted lives. Christianity began with a babe in a manger; Shakespeare +first saw the light in a cottage at Stratford; Lincoln entered the world +by way of a leaky cabin in Kentucky, and into the narrow limits of the +Clemens home in Florida, on a bleak autumn day--November 30, 1835--there +was born one who under the name of Mark Twain would live to cheer and +comfort a tired world. + +The name Mark Twain had not been thought of then, and probably no one +prophesied favorably for the new-comer, who was small and feeble, and not +over-welcome in that crowded household. They named him Samuel, after his +paternal grandfather, and added Langhorne for an old friend--a goodly +burden for so frail a wayfarer. But more appropriately they called him +"Little Sam," or "Sammy," which clung to him through the years of his +delicate childhood. + +It seems a curious childhood, as we think of it now. Missouri was a +slave State--Little Sam's companions were as often black as white. All +the children of that time and locality had negroes for playmates, and +were cared for by them. They were fond of their black companions and +would have felt lost without them. The negro children knew all the best +ways of doing things--how to work charms and spells, the best way to cure +warts and heal stone-bruises, and to make it rain, and to find lost +money. They knew what signs meant, and dreams, and how to keep off +hoodoo; and all negroes, old and young, knew any number of weird tales. + +John Clemens must have prospered during the early years of his Florida +residence, for he added another slave to his household--Uncle Ned, a man +of all work--and he built a somewhat larger house, in one room of which, +the kitchen, was a big fireplace. There was a wide hearth and always +plenty of wood, and here after supper the children would gather, with +Jennie and Uncle Ned, and the latter would tell hair-lifting tales of +"ha'nts," and lonely roads, and witch-work that would make his hearers +shiver with terror and delight, and look furtively over their shoulders +toward the dark window-panes and the hovering shadows on the walls. +Perhaps it was not the healthiest entertainment, but it was the kind to +cultivate an imagination that would one day produce "Tom Sawyer" and +"Huck Finn." + +True, Little Sam was very young at this period, but even a little chap of +two or three would understand most of that fireside talk, and get +impressions more vivid than if the understanding were complete. He was +barely four when this earliest chapter of his life came to a close. + +John Clemens had not remained satisfied with Florida and his undertakings +there. The town had not kept its promises. It failed to grow, and the +lock-and-dam scheme that would make Salt River navigable fell through. +Then one of the children, Margaret, a black-eyed, rosy little girl of +nine, suddenly died. This was in August, 1839. A month or two later the +saddened family abandoned their Florida home and moved in wagons, with +their household furnishings, to Hannibal, a Mississippi River town, +thirty miles away. There was only one girl left now, Pamela, twelve +years old, but there was another boy, baby Henry, three years younger +than Little Sam--four boys in all. + + + + +II. + +THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM + +Hannibal was a town with prospects and considerable trade. It was +slumbrous, being a slave town, but it was not dead. John Clemens +believed it a promising place for business, and opened a small general +store with Orion Clemens, now fifteen, a studious, dreamy lad, for clerk. + +The little city was also an attractive place of residence. 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 "white town" was built against green hills, and abutting the river +were bluffs--Holliday's Hill and Lover's Leap. A distance below the town +was a cave--a wonderful cave, as every reader of Tom Sawyer knows--while +out in the river, toward the Illinois shore, was the delectable island +that was one day to be the meeting-place of Tom's pirate band, and later +to become the hiding-place of Huck and Nigger Jim. + +The river itself was full of interest. It was the highway to the outside +world. Rafts drifted by; smartly painted steamboats panted up and down, +touching to exchange traffic and travelers, a never-ceasing wonder to +those simple shut-in dwellers whom the telegraph and railway had not yet +reached. That Hannibal was a pleasant place of residence we may believe, +and what an attractive place for a boy to grow up in! + +Little Sam, however, was not yet ready to enjoy the island and the cave. +He was still delicate--the least promising of the family. He was queer +and fanciful, and rather silent. He walked in his sleep and was often +found in the middle of the night, fretting with the cold, in some dark +corner. Once he heard that a neighbor's children had the measles, and, +being very anxious to catch the complaint, slipped over to the house and +crept into bed with an infected playmate. Some days later, Little Sam's +relatives gathered about his bed to see him die. He confessed, long +after, that the scene gratified him. However, he survived, and fell into +the habit of running away, usually in the direction of the river. + +"You gave me more uneasiness than any child I had," his mother once said +to him, in her old age. + +"I suppose you were afraid I wouldn't live," he suggested. + +She looked at him with the keen humor which had been her legacy to him. +"No, afraid you would," she said. Which was only her joke, for she had +the tenderest of hearts, and, like all mothers, had a weakness for the +child that demanded most of her mother's care. It was chiefly on his +account that she returned each year to Florida to spend the summer on +John Quarles's farm. + +If Uncle John Quarles's farm was just an ordinary Missouri farm, and his +slaves just average negroes, they certainly never seemed so to Little +Sam. There was a kind of glory about everything that belonged to Uncle +John, and it was not all imagination, for some of the spirit of that +jovial, kindly hearted man could hardly fail to radiate from his +belongings. + +The farm was a large one for that locality, and the farm-house was a big +double log building--that is, two buildings with a roofed-over passage +between, where in summer the lavish Southern meals were served, brought +in on huge dishes by the negroes, and left for each one to help himself. +Fried chicken, roast pig, turkeys, ducks, geese, venison just killed, +squirrels, rabbits, partridges, pheasants, prairie-chickens, green corn, +watermelon--a little boy who did not die on that bill of fare would be +likely to get well on it, and to Little Sam the farm proved a life-saver. + +It was, in fact, a heavenly place for a little boy. In the corner of the +yard there were hickory and black-walnut trees, and just over the fence +the hill sloped past barns and cribs to a brook, a rare place to wade, +though there were forbidden pools. Cousin Tabitha Quarles, called +"Puss," his own age, was Little Sam's playmate, and a slave girl, Mary, +who, being six years older, was supposed to keep them out of mischief. +There were swings in the big, shady pasture, where Mary swung her charges +and ran under them until their feet touched the branches. All the woods +were full of squirrels and birds and blooming flowers; all the meadows +were gay with clover and butterflies, and musical with singing +grasshoppers and calling larks; the fence-rows were full of wild +blackberries; there were apples and peaches in the orchard, and plenty of +melons ripening in the corn. Certainly it was a glorious place! + +Little Sam got into trouble once with the watermelons. One of them had +not ripened quite enough when he ate several slices of it. Very soon +after he was seized with such terrible cramps that some of the household +did not think he could live. + +But his mother said: "Sammy will pull through. He was not born to die +that way." Which was a true prophecy. Sammy's slender constitution +withstood the strain. It was similarly tested more than once during +those early years. He was regarded as a curious child. At times dreamy +and silent, again wild-headed and noisy, with sudden impulses that sent +him capering and swinging his arms into the wind until he would fall with +shrieks and spasms of laughter and madly roll over and over in the grass. +It is not remembered that any one prophesied very well for his future at +such times. + +The negro quarters on Uncle John's farm were especially fascinating. In +one cabin lived a bedridden old woman whom the children looked upon with +awe. She was said to be a thousand years old, and to have talked with +Moses. She had lost her health in the desert, coming out of Egypt. She +had seen Pharaoh drown, and the fright had caused the bald spot on her +head. She could ward off witches and dissolve spells. + +Uncle Dan'l was another favorite, a kind-hearted, gentle soul, who long +after, as Nigger Jim in the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tales, would +win world-wide love and sympathy. + +Through that far-off, warm, golden summer-time Little Sam romped and +dreamed and grew. He would return each summer to the farm during those +early years. It would become a beautiful memory. His mother generally +kept him there until the late fall, when the chilly evenings made them +gather around the wide, blazing fireplace. Sixty years later he wrote: + + "I can see the room yet with perfect clearness. I can see all + its belongings, 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." + +It is hard not to tell more of the farm, for the boy who was one day +going to write of Tom and Huck and the rest learned there so many things +that Tom and Huck would need to know. + +But he must have "book-learning," too, Jane Clemens said. On his return +to Hannibal that first summer, she decided that Little Sam was ready for +school. He was five years old and regarded as a "stirring child." + +"He drives me crazy with his didoes when he's in the house," his mother +declared, "and when he's out of it I'm expecting every minute that some +one will bring him home half dead." + +Mark Twain used to say that he had had nine narrow escapes from drowning, +and it was at this early age that he was brought home one afternoon in a +limp state, having been pulled from a deep hole in Bear Creek by a slave +girl. + +When he was restored, his mother said: "I guess there wasn't much danger. +People born to be hanged are safe in water." + +Mark Twain's mother was the original of Aunt Polly in the story of Tom +Sawyer, an outspoken, keen-witted, charitable woman, whom it was good to +know. She had a heart full of pity, especially for dumb creatures. She +refused to kill even flies, and punished the cat for catching mice. She +would drown young kittens when necessary, but warmed the water for the +purpose. She could be strict, however, with her children, if occasion +required, and recognized their faults. + +Little Sam was inclined to elaborate largely on fact. A neighbor once +said to her: "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." + +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." A certain Mrs. E. +Horr was selected for the purpose. + +Mrs. Horr's school on Main Street, Hannibal, was of the old-fashioned +kind. There were pupils of all ages, and everything was taught up to the +third reader and long division. Pupils who cared to go beyond those +studies went to a Mr. Cross, on the hill, facing what is now the public +square. Mrs. Horr received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and +the rules of conduct were read daily. After the rules came the A-B-C +class, whose recitation was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring no study- +time. + +The rules of conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He wondered +how nearly he could come to breaking them and escape. He experimented +during the forenoon, and received a warning. Another experiment would +mean correction. He did not expect to be caught again; but when he least +expected it he was startled by a command to go out and bring a stick for +his own punishment. + +This was rather dazing. It was sudden, and, then, he did not know much +about choosing sticks for such a purpose. Jane Clemens had commonly used +her hand. A second command was needed to start him in the right +direction, and he was still dazed when he got outside. He had the +forests of Missouri to select from, but choice was not easy. Everything +looked too big and competent. Even the smallest switch had a wiry look. +Across the way was a cooper's shop. There were shavings outside, and one +had blown across just in front of him. He picked it up, and, gravely +entering the room, handed it to Mrs. Horr. So far as known, it is the +first example of that humor which would one day make Little Sam famous +before all the world. + +It was a failure in this instance. Mrs. Horr's comic side may have +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 the switch that Jimmy Dunlap brought +was of a kind to give Little Sam a permanent distaste for school. He +told his mother at noon that he did not care for education; that he did +not wish to be a great man; that his desire was to be an Indian and scalp +such persons as Mrs. Horr. In her heart Jane Clemens was sorry for him, +but she openly said she was glad there was somebody who could take him in +hand. + +Little Sam went back to school, but he never learned to like it. A +school was ruled with a rod in those days, and of the smaller boys Little +Sam's back was sore as often as the next. 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 glint of the river and the purple +distance beyond, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster +spelling-book and a cross teacher was more than human nature could bear. +There still exists a yellow slip of paper upon which, in neat, old- +fashioned penmanship is written: + + 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. + + +Thus we learn that Little Sam's sister, eight years older than himself, +attended the same school, and that she was a good pupil. If any such +reward of merit was ever conferred on Little Sam, it has failed to come +to light. 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 a +good speller for his age. + + + + +IV. + +EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL + +On their arrival in Hannibal, the Clemens family had moved into a part of +what was then the Pavey Hotel. They could not have remained there long, +for they moved twice within the next few years, and again in 1844 into a +new house which Judge Clemens, as he was generally called, had built +on Hill Street--a house still standing, and known to-day as the Mark +Twain home. + +John Clemens had met varying fortunes in Hannibal. Neither commerce nor +the practice of law had paid. The office of justice of the peace, to +which he was elected, returned a fair income, but his business losses +finally obliged him to sell Jennie, the slave girl. Somewhat later his +business failure was complete. He surrendered everything to his +creditors, even to his cow and household furniture, and relied upon his +law practice and justice fees. However, he seems to have kept the +Tennessee land, possibly because no one thought it worth taking. There +had been offers for it earlier, but none that its owner would accept. It +appears to have been not even considered by his creditors, though his own +faith in it never died. + +The struggle for a time was very bitter. Orion Clemens, now seventeen, +had learned the printer's trade and assisted the family with his wages. +Mrs. Clemens took a few boarders. In the midst of this time of hardship +little Benjamin Clemens died. He was ten years old. It was the darkest +hour. + +Then conditions slowly improved. There was more law practice and better +justice fees. By 1844 Judge Clemens was able to build the house +mentioned above--a plain, cheap house, but a shelter and a home. Sam +Clemens--he was hardly "Little Sam" any more--was at this time nine years +old. His boyhood had begun. + +Heretofore he had been just 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 in such a +community will. "Sam," as they now called him, was "grown up" at nine +and wise 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, many of them of a kind not taught at school. + +He had learned a good deal of natural history and botany--the habits of +plants, insects, and animals. Mark Twain's books bear evidence of this +early study. His plants, bugs, and animals never do the wrong things. +He was learning a good deal about men, and this was often less pleasant +knowledge. Once Little Sam--he was still Little Sam then--saw an old man +shot down on Main Street at noon day. 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 thought 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 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 sultry, threatening evening--he saw that, too. With a boon +companion, John Briggs, he followed at a safe distance behind. A widow +with her one daughter lived there. They stood in the shadow of the dark +porch; the man had paused at the gate to revile them. The boys heard the +mother's voice warning the intruder that she had a loaded gun and would +kill him if he stayed where he was. He replied with a tirade, and she +warned him that she would count ten--that if he remained a second longer +she would fire. She began slowly and counted up to five, the man +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 +thunder-storm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled wildly, +believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the lost soul. + +That was a day and locality of violent impulse and sudden action. +Happenings such as these were not infrequent in a town like Hannibal. +And there were events connected with slavery. Sam once saw a slave +struck down and killed with a piece of slag, for a trifling offense. He +saw an Abolitionist attacked by a mob that 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 was 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." + +Readers of Mark Twain's books--especially the stories of Huck and Tom, +will hardly be surprised to hear of these early happenings that formed so +large a portion of the author's early education. Sam, however, did not +regard them as education--not at the time. They got into his dreams. He +set them down as warnings, or punishments, intended to give him a taste +for a better life. He felt that it was his conscience that made such +things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high +respect for her opinion in such matters. Among other things, he had seen +her one day defy a vicious and fierce Corsican--a common terror in the +town--who had chased his grown daughter with a heavy rope in his hand, +declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious citizens got out of the +way, but Jane Clemens opened her door to the fugitive; then, instead of +rushing in and closing it, spread her arms across it, barring the way. +The man raved, and threatened her with the rope, but she did not flinch +or show any sign of fear. She stood there and shamed and defied him +until he slunk off, crestfallen and conquered. Any one as brave as his +mother must have a perfect conscience, Sam thought, and would know how to +take care of it. In the darkness he would say his prayers, especially +when a thunderstorm was coming, and vow to begin a better life. He +detested Sunday-school as much as he did day-school, and once his brother +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. + +Sam's days were not all disturbed by fierce events. They were mostly +filled with pleasanter things. There were picnics sometimes, and +ferryboat excursions, and any day one could roam the woods, or fish, +alone or in company. The hills and woods around Hannibal were never +disappointing. There was the cave with its marvels. There was Bear +Creek, where he had learned to swim. He had seen two playmates drown; +twice, himself, he had been dragged ashore, more dead than alive; once by +a slave girl, another time by a slave man--Neal Champ, of the Pavey +Hotel. But he had persevered, and with success. He could swim better +than any playmate of his age. + +It was the river that he cared for most. It was the pathway that led to +the great world outside. He would sit by it for hours and dream. He +would venture out on it in a quietly borrowed boat, when he was barely +strong enough to lift an oar. He learned to know all its moods and +phases. + +More than anything in the world he hungered to make a trip on one of the +big, smart steamers that were always passing. "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 take a trip +on them." + +It was at the mature age of nine that he found 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. +Then the signal-bells rang, the steamer 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 regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his +legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. He was dragged out and +at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, where there +were Lampton relatives, who took him home. Very likely the home-coming +was not entirely pleasant, though a "lesson," too, in his general +education. + +And always, each summer, there was the farm, where his recreation was no +longer mere girl plays and swings, with a colored nurse following about, +but sports with his older boy cousins, who went hunting with the men, for +partridges by day and for 'coons and 'possums by night. Sometimes the +little boy 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 Little +Sam, at nine, was no longer Little Sam, but plain Sam Clemens, and grown +up. If there were doubtful spots in his education--matters related to +smoking and strong words--it is also no wonder, and experience even in +these lines was worth something in a book like Tom Sawyer. + +The boy Sam Clemens was not a particularly attractive lad. He was rather +undersized, and his head seemed too large for his body. He had a mass of +light sandy hair, which he plastered down to keep from curling. His eyes +were keen and blue and his features rather large. Still, he had a fair, +delicate complexion when it was not blackened by grime and tan; a gentle, +winning manner; a smile and a slow way of speaking that made him a +favorite with his companions. He did not talk much, and was thought to +be rather dull--was certainly so in most of his lessons--but, for some +reason, he never spoke that every playmate in hearing did not stop, +whatever he was doing, to listen. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new +game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a +casual remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. His mother always +referred to his slow fashion of speech as "Sammy's long talk." Her own +speech was even more deliberate, though she seemed not to notice it. Sam +was more like his mother than the others. His brother, Henry Clemens, +three years younger, was as unlike Sam as possible. He did not have the +"long talk," and was a handsome, obedient little fellow whom the +mischievous Sam loved to tease. Henry was to become the Sid of Tom +Sawyer, though he was in every way a finer character than Sid. With the +death of little Benjamin, Sam and Henry had been drawn much closer +together, and, in spite of Sam's pranks, loved each other dearly. For +the pranks were only occasional, and Sam's love for Henry was constant. +He fought for him oftener than with him. + +Many of the home incidents in the Tom Sawyer book really happened. Sam +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 +painkiller to Peter, the cat. As for escaping punishment for his +misdeeds, as described in the book, this was a daily matter, and his +methods suited the occasions. For, of course, Tom Sawyer was Sam Clemens +himself, almost entirely, as most readers of that book have imagined. +However, we must have another chapter for Tom Sawyer and his doings--the +real Tom and his real doings with those graceless, lovable associates, +Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn. + + + + +V. + +TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND + +In beginning "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" the author says, "Most of the +adventures recorded in this book really occurred," and he tells us that +Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, though not from a single +individual, being a composite of three boys whom Mark Twain had known. + +The three boys were himself, almost entirely, with traces of two +schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. John Briggs was also the +original of Joe Harper, the "Terror of the Seas." As for Huck Finn, the +"Red-Handed," his original was a village waif named Tom Blankenship, who +needed no change for his part in the story. + +The Blankenship family picked up an uncertain livelihood, fishing and +hunting, and lived at first under a tree in a bark shanty, but later +moved into a large, barn-like building, back of the Clemens home on Hill +Street. There were three male members of the household: Old Ben, the +father, shiftless and dissolute; young Ben, the eldest son--a doubtful +character, with certain good traits; and Tom--that is to say, Huck, who +was just as he is described in the book--a ruin of rags, a river-rat, +kind of heart, and accountable for his conduct to nobody in the world. +He could come and go as he chose; he never had to work or go to school; +he could do all the things, good and bad, that other boys longed to do +and were forbidden. To them he was the symbol of liberty; his knowledge +of fishing, trapping, signs, and of the woods and river gave value to his +society, while the fact that it was forbidden made it necessary to Sam +Clemens's happiness. + +The Blankenships being handy to the back gate of the Hill Street house, +he adopted them at sight. Their free mode of life suited him. He was +likely to be there at any hour of the day, and Tom made cat-call signals +at night that would bring Sam out on the shed roof at the back and down a +little trellis and flight of steps to the group of boon companions, +which, besides Tom, usually included John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the two +younger Bowen boys. They were not malicious boys, but just mischievous, +fun-loving boys--little boys of ten or twelve--rather thoughtless, being +mainly bent on having a good time. + +They had a wide field of action: they ranged from Holliday's Hill on the +north to the cave on the south, and over the fields and through all the +woods between. They explored both banks of the river, the islands, and +the deep wilderness of the Illinois shore. They could run like 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 was so watchful that they did not sooner or later elude it. They +borrowed boats with or without the owner's consent--it did not matter. + +Most of their expeditions were harmless enough. They often cruised up to +Turtle Island, about two miles above Hannibal, and spent the day +feasting. There were quantities of turtles and their eggs there, and +mussels, and plenty of fish. Fishing and swimming were their chief +pastimes, with incidental raiding, for adventure. Bear Creek was their +swimming-place by day, and the river-front at night-fall--a favorite spot +being where the railroad bridge now ends. It was a good distance across +to the island where, in the book, Tom Sawyer musters his pirate band, and +where later Huck found Nigger Jim, but quite often in the evening they +swam across to it, and when they had frolicked for an hour or more on the +sandbar at the head of the island, they would swim back in the dusk, +breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion or +dread. They could swim all day, those little scamps, and seemed to have +no fear. Once, during his boyhood, Sam Clemens swam across to the +Illinois side, 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. + +The adventures of Sam Clemens and his comrades would fill several books +of the size of Tom Sawyer. Many of them are, of course, forgotten now, +but those still remembered show that Mark Twain had plenty of real +material. + +It was not easy to get money in those days, and the boys were often +without it. Once "Huck" Blankenship had the skin of a 'coon he had +captured, and offered to sell it to raise capital. At Selms's store, on +Wild Cat Corner, the 'coon-skin would bring ten cents. But this was not +enough. The boys thought of a plan to make it bring more. Selms's back +window was open, and the place where he kept his pelts was pretty handy. +Huck went around to the front door and sold the skin for ten cents to +Selms, who tossed it back on the pile. Then Huck came back and, after +waiting a reasonable time, crawled in the open window, got the 'coon- +skin, and sold it to Selms again. He did this several times that +afternoon, and the capital of the band grew. But at last John Pierce, +Selms's clerk, said: + +"Look here, Mr. Selms, there's something wrong about this. That boy has +been selling us 'coonskins all the afternoon." + +Selms went back to his pile of pelts. There were several sheep-skins and +some cow-hides, but only one 'coon-skin--the one he had that moment +bought. + +Selms himself, in after years, used to tell this story as a great joke. + +One of the boys' occasional pastimes was to climb Holliday's Hill and +roll down big stones, to frighten the people who were driving by. +Holliday's Hill above the road was steep; a stone once started would go +plunging downward and bound across the road with the deadly momentum of a +shell. The boys would get a stone poised, then wait until they saw a +team approaching, and, calculating the distance, would give the boulder a +start. Dropping behind the bushes, they would watch the sudden effect +upon the party below as the great missile shot across the road a few +yards before them. This was huge sport, but they carried it too far. +For at last they planned a grand climax that would surpass anything +before attempted in the stone-rolling line. + +A monstrous boulder was lying up there in the right position to go down- +hill, once started. It would be a glorious thing to see that great stone +go smashing down a hundred yards or so in front of some peaceful-minded +countryman jogging along the road. Quarrymen had been getting out rock +not far away and had left their picks and shovels handy. The boys +borrowed the tools and went to work to undermine the big stone. They +worked at it several hours. If their parents had asked them to work like +that, they would have thought they were being killed. + +Finally, while they were still digging, the big stone suddenly got loose +and started down. They were not ready for it at all. Nobody was coming +but an old colored man in a cart; their splendid stone was going to be +wasted. + +One could hardly call it wasted, however; they had planned for a +thrilling result, and there was certainly thrill enough while it lasted. +In the first place the stone nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. +John Briggs had that moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will +was about to take his turn when Sam Clemens leaped aside with a yell: + +"Lookout, boys; she's coming!" + +She came. The huge boulder kept to the ground at first, then, gathering +momentum, it went bounding into the air. About half-way down the hill it +struck a sapling and cut it clean off. This turned its course a little, +and the negro in the cart, hearing the noise and seeing the great mass +come crashing in his direction, made a wild effort to whip up his mule. + +The boys watched their bomb with growing interest. It was headed +straight for the negro, also for a cooper-shop across the road. It made +longer leaps with every bound, and, wherever it struck, fragments and +dust would fly. The shop happened to be empty, but the rest of the +catastrophe would call for close investigation. 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 exactly in its +path. The boys stood holding their breath, their mouths open. + +Then, suddenly, they could hardly believe their eyes; a little way above +the road the boulder struck a projection, made one mighty leap into the +air, sailed clear over the negro and his mule, and landed in the soft +dirt beyond the road, only a fragment striking the shop, damaging, but +not wrecking it. Half buried in the ground, the great stone lay there +for nearly forty years; then it was broken up. It was the last rock the +boys ever rolled down. Nearly sixty years later John Briggs and Mark +Twain walked across Holliday's Hill and looked down toward the river +road. + +Mark Twain said: "It was a mighty good thing, John, that stone acted the +way it did. We might have had to pay a fancy price for that old darky I +can see him yet."[1] + +It can be no harm now, to confess that the boy Sam Clemens--a pretty +small boy, a good deal less than twelve at the time, and by no means +large for his years--was the leader of this unhallowed band. In any +case, truth requires this admission. If the band had a leader, it was +Sam, just as it was Tom Sawyer in the book. They were always ready to +listen to him--they would even stop fishing to do that--and to follow his +plans. They looked to him for ideas and directions, and he gloried in +being a leader and showing off, just as Tom did in the book. It seems +almost a pity that in those far-off barefoot days he could not have +looked down the years and caught a glimpse of his splendid destiny. + +But of literary fame he could never have dreamed. The chief ambition-- +the "permanent ambition"--of every Hannibal boy was to be a pilot. The +pilot in his splendid glass perch with his supreme power and princely +salary was to them the noblest of all human creatures. An elder Bowen +boy was already a pilot, and when he came home, as he did now and then, +his person seemed almost too sacred to touch. + +Next to being a pilot, Sam thought he would like to be a pirate or a +bandit or a trapper-scout--something gorgeous and awe-inspiring, where +his word, his nod, would still be law. The river kept his river ambition +always fresh, and with the cave and the forest round about helped him to +imagine those other things. + +The cave was the joy of his heart. It was a real cave, not merely a +hole, but a marvel of deep passages and vaulted chambers that led back +into the bluffs and far down into the earth, even below the river, some +said. Sam Clemens never tired of the cave. He was willing any time to +quit fishing or swimming or melon-hunting 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, it was +exactly suitable, Sam thought, to be the lair of an outlaw, and in it he +imagined and carried out adventures which his faithful followers may not +always have understood, though enjoying them none the less for that +reason. + +In Tom Sawyer, Indian Joe dies in the cave. He did not die there in real +life, but was lost there once and was very weak when they found him. He +was not as bad as painted in the book, though he was dissolute and +accounted dangerous; and when one night he died in reality, there came a +thunder-storm so terrific that Sam Clemens at home, in bed, was certain +that Satan had come in person for the half-breed's soul. He covered his +head and said his prayers with fearful anxiety lest the evil one might +decide to save another trip by taking him along then. + +The treasure-digging adventure in the book had this foundation in fact: +It was said that two French trappers had once buried a chest of gold +about two miles above Hannibal, and that it was still there. Tom +Blankenship (Huck) one morning said he had dreamed just where the +treasure was, and that if the boys--Sam Clemens and John Briggs--would go +with him and help dig, he would divide. The boys had great faith in +dreams, especially in Huck's dreams. They followed him to a place with +some shovels and picks, and he showed them just where to dig. Then he +sat down under the shade of a pawpaw-bush and gave orders. + +They dug nearly all day. Huck didn't dig any himself, because he had +done the dreaming, which was his share. They didn't find the treasure +that day, and next morning they took two long iron rods to push and drive +into the ground until they should strike something. They struck a number +of things, but when they dug down it was never the money they found. +That night the boys said they wouldn't dig any more. + +But Huck had another dream. He dreamed the gold was exactly under the +little pawpaw-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 Huck gave it up then. He said there was +something wrong about the way they dug. + +This differs a good deal from the treasure incident in the book, but it +shows us what respect the boys had for the gifts of the ragamuffin +original of Huck Finn. Tom Blankenship's brother Ben was also used, and +very importantly, in the creation of our beloved Huck. Ben was +considerably older, but certainly no more reputable, than Tom. He +tormented the smaller boys, and they had little love for him. Yet +somewhere in Ben Blankenship's nature there was a fine, generous strain +of humanity that provided Mark Twain with that immortal episode--the +sheltering of 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, out-cast 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 fished, and Ben carried him scraps of + other food. Then, by and by, the facts 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. + +Huck's struggle in the book is between conscience and the law, on one +side, and deep human sympathy on the other. Ben Blankenship's struggle, +supposing there was one, would be between sympathy and the offered +reward. Neither conscience nor law would trouble him. It was his native +humanity that made him shelter the runaway, and it must have been strong +and genuine to make him resist the lure of the fifty-dollar prize. + +There was another chapter to this incident. A few days after the +drowning of the runaway, Sam Clemens and his band made their way to the +place and were pushing the drift about, when, all at once, the negro shot +up out of the water, straight and terrible, a full half-length in the +air. He had gone down foremost and had been caught in the drift. The +boys did not stop to investigate, but flew in terror to report their +tale. + +Those early days seem to have been full of gruesome things. In "The +Innocents Abroad," the author tells how he once spent a night in his +father's office and discovered there a murdered man. This was a true +incident. The man had been stabbed that afternoon and carried into the +house to die. Sam and John Briggs had been playing truant all day and +knew nothing of the matter. Sam thought the office safer than his home, +where his mother was probably sitting up for him. He climbed in by a +window and lay down on the lounge, but did not sleep. Presently he +noticed what appeared to be an unusual shape on the floor. He tried to +turn his face to the wall and forget it, but that would not do. In agony +he watched the thing until at last a square of moonlight gradually +revealed a sight that he never forgot. In the book he says: + + "I went away from there. I do not say that I went in any sort of + 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 considerable agitated." + +Sam was not yet twelve, for his father was no longer living when the boy +had reached that age. And how many things had crowded themselves into +his few brief years! We must be content here with only a few of them. +Our chapter is already too long. + +Ministers and deacons did not prophesy well for Sam Clemens and his mad +companions. They spoke feelingly of state prison and the gallows. But +the boys were a disappointing lot. Will Bowen became a fine river-pilot. +Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank president. John +Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer. Huck Finn-- +which is to say, Tom Blankenship--died an honored citizen and justice of +the peace in a Western town. As for Sam Clemens, we shall see what he +became as the chapters pass. + +[1] John Briggs died in 1907; earlier in the same year the writer of this +memoir spent an afternoon with him and obtained from him most of the +material for this chapter. + + + + +VI. + +CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS + +Sam was at Mr. Cross's school on the Square in due time, and among the +pupils were companions that appealed to his gentler side. There were the +RoBards boys--George, the best Latin scholar, and John, who always won +the good-conduct medal, and would one day make all the other boys envious +by riding away with his father to California, his curls of gold blowing +in the wind. + +There was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John Garth, who would marry +little Helen Kercheval, and Jimmy MacDaniel, whom it was well to know +because his father kept a pastry-shop and he used to bring cakes and +candy to school. + +There were also a number of girls. Bettie Ormsley, Artemisia Briggs, and +Jennie Brady were among the girls he remembered in later years, and Mary +Miller, who was nearly double his age and broke his heart by getting +married one day, a thing he had not expected at all. + +Yet through it all he appears, like Tom Sawyer, to have had one faithful +sweetheart. In the book it is Becky Thatcher--in real life she was Laura +Hawkins. The Clemens and Hawkins families lived opposite, and the +children were early acquainted. The "Black Avenger of the Spanish Main" +was very gentle when he was playing at house-building with little Laura, +and once, when he dropped a brick on her finger, he cried the louder and +longer of the two. + +For he was a tender-hearted boy. He would never abuse an animal, except +when his tendency to mischief ran away with him, as in the "pain-killer" +incident. He had a real passion for cats. Each summer he carried his +cat to the farm in a basket, and it always had a place by him at the +table. He loved flowers--not as a boy botanist or gardener, but as a +companion who understood their thoughts. He pitied dead leaves and dry +weeds because their lives were ended and they would never know summer +again or grow glad with another spring. Even in that early time he had +that deeper sympathy which one day would offer comfort to humanity and +make every man his friend. + +But we are drifting away from Sam Clemens's school-days. They will not +trouble us much longer now. More than anything in the world Sam detested +school, and he made any excuse to get out of going. It is hard to say +just why, unless it was the restraint and the long hours of confinement. + +The Square in Hannibal, where stood the school of Mr. Cross, was a grove +in those days, with plum-trees and hazel-bushes and grape-vines. When +spring came, the children gathered flowers at recess, climbed trees, and +swung in the vines. It was a happy place enough, only--it was school. +To Sam Clemens, the spelling-bee every Friday afternoon was the one thing +that made it worth while. Sam was a leader at spelling--it was one of +his gifts--he could earn compliments even from Mr. Cross, whose name, it +would seem, was regarded as descriptive. Once in a moment of inspiration +Sam wrote on his late: + + "Cross by name and Cross by nature, + Cross jumped over an Irish potato." + +John Briggs thought this a great effort, and urged the author to write it +on the blackboard at noon. Sam hesitated. + +"Oh, pshaw!" said John, "I wouldn't be afraid to do it." + +"I dare you to do it," said Sam. + +This was enough. While Mr. Cross was at dinner John wrote in a large +hand the fine couplet. The teacher returned and called the school to +order. He looked at the blackboard, then, searchingly, at John Briggs. +The handwriting was familiar. + +"Did you do that?" he asked, ominously. + +It was a time for truth. + +"Yes, sir," said John. + +"Come here!" And John came and paid handsomely for his publishing +venture. Sam Clemens expected that the author would be called for next; +but perhaps Mr. Cross had exhausted himself on John. Sam did not often +escape. His back kept fairly warm from one "flailing" to the next. + +Yet he usually wore one of the two medals offered in that school--the +medal for spelling. Once he lost it by leaving the first "r" out of +February. Laura Hawkins was on the floor against him, and he was a +gallant boy. If it had only been Huck Brown he would have spelled that +and all the other months backward, to show off. There were moments of +triumph that almost made school worth while; the rest of the time it was +prison and servitude. + +But then one day came freedom. Judge Clemens, who, in spite of +misfortune, had never lost faith in humanity, indorsed a large note for a +neighbor, and was obliged to pay it. Once more all his property was +taken away. Only a few scanty furnishings were rescued from the wreck. +A St. Louis cousin saved the home, but the Clemens family could not +afford to live in it. They moved across the street and joined +housekeeping with another family. + +Judge Clemens had one hope left. He was a candidate for the clerkship of +the surrogate court, a good office, and believed his election sure. His +business misfortunes had aroused wide sympathy. He took no chances, +however, and made a house-to house canvas of the district, regardless of +the weather, probably undermining his health. He was elected by a large +majority, and rejoiced that his worries were now at an end. They were, +indeed, over. At the end of February he rode to the county seat to take +the oath of office. He returned through a drenching storm and reached +home nearly frozen. Pneumonia set in, and a few days later he was +dying. His one comfort now was the Tennessee land. He said it would +make them all rich and happy. Once he whispered: + +"Cling to the land; cling to the land and wait. Let nothing beguile it +away from you." + +He was a man who had rarely displayed affection for his children. But +presently he beckoned to Pamela, now a lovely girl of nineteen, and, +putting his arm around her neck, kissed her for the first time in years. + +"Let me die," he said. + +He did not speak again. A little more, and his worries had indeed ended. +The hard struggle of an upright, impractical man had come to a close. +This was in March, 1847. John Clemens had lived less than forty-nine +years. + +The children were dazed. They had loved their father and honored his +nobility of purpose. The boy Sam was overcome with remorse. He recalled +his wildness and disobedience--a thousand things trifling enough at the +time, but heartbreaking now. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was never +spared by remorse. Leading him into the room where his father lay, his +mother said some comforting words and asked him to make her a promise. + +He flung himself into her arms, sobbing: "I will promise anything, if you +won't make me go to school! Anything!" + +After a moment his mother 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!" + +He gave his promise to be faithful and industrious and upright, like his +father. Such a promise was a serious matter, and Sam Clemens, underneath +all, was a serious lad. He would not be twelve until November, but his +mother felt that he would keep his word. + +Orion Clemens returned to St. Louis, where he was receiving a salary of +ten dollars a week--high wage for those days--out of which he could send +three dollars weekly to the family. Pamela, who played the guitar and +piano very well, gave music lessons, and so helped the family fund. +Pamela Clemens, the original of Cousin Mary, in "Tom Sawyer," was a sweet +and noble girl. Henry was too young to work, but Sam was apprenticed to +a printer named Ament, who had recently moved to Hannibal and bought a +weekly paper, "The Courier." Sam agreed with his mother that the +printing trade offered a chance for further education without attending +school, and then, some day, there might be wages. + + + + +VII. + +THE APPRENTICE + +The terms of Samuel Clemens's apprenticeship were the usual thing for +that day: 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, 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." + +Another apprentice, a huge creature, named Wales McCormick, was so large +that Ament's clothes were much too small for him. The two apprentices, +fitted out with their employer's cast-off garments, were amusing enough, +no doubt. Sam and Wales ate in the kitchen at first, but later at the +family table with Mr. and Mrs. Ament and Pet McMurry, a journeyman +printer. McMurry was a happy soul, as one could almost guess from his +name. He had traveled far and learned much. What the two apprentices +did not already know, Pet McMurry could teach them. Sam Clemens had +promised to be a good boy, and he was so, 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 cooked in the office, where the boys slept +on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato +which his fellow apprentice never forgot. + +How one wishes for a photograph of Sam Clemens at that period! But in +those days there were only daguerreotypes, and they were expensive +things. There is a letter, though, written long afterward, by Pet +McMurry to Mark Twain, which contains this paragraph: + + "If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy- + haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing- + office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a + little box at the case, 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.'" + +And with this portrait we must be content--we cannot doubt its truth. + +Sam was soon office favorite and in time became chief stand-by. When he +had been at work a year, he could set type accurately, run the job press +to the tune of "Annie Laurie," and he had charge of the circulation. +That is to say, he carried the papers--a mission of real importance, for +a long, sagging span of telegraph-wire had reached across the river to +Hannibal, and Mexican-war news delivered hot from the front gave the +messenger a fine prestige. + +He even did editing, of a kind. That is to say, when Ament was not in +the office and copy was needed, Sam hunted him up, explained the +situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not +ambitious to write--not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like +Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to +be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served +as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled by his success. + +But he stuck to printing, and rapidly became a neat, capable workman. +Ament gave him a daily task, after which he was free. By three in the +afternoon he was likely to finish his stint. Then he was off for the +river or the cave, joining his old comrades. Or perhaps he would go with +Laura Hawkins to gather wild columbine on the high cliff above the river, +known as Lover's Leap. When winter came these two sometimes went to Bear +Creek, skating; or together they attended parties, where the old- +fashioned games "Ring-around-Rosy" and "Dusty Miller" were the chief +amusements. + +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." That +was the real Laura, though her story in that book in no way resembles the +reality. + +It was just at this time that an incident occurred which may be looked +back upon now as a turning-point in Samuel Clemens's life. Coming home +from the office one afternoon, he noticed a square of paper being swept +along by the wind. He saw that it was printed--was interested +professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap +and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and +pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and +mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of +description, but the rest was pitiful dialogue. + +Sam had never heard of Joan before--he knew nothing of history. He was +no reader. Orion was fond of books, and Pamela; even little Henry had +read more than Sam. But now, as he read, there awoke in him a deep +feeling of pity and indignation, and with it a longing to know more of +the tragic story. It was an interest that would last his life through, +and in the course of time find expression in one of the rarest books ever +written. + +The first result was that Sam began to read. He hunted up everything he +could find on the subject of Joan, and from that went into French history +in general--indeed, into history of every kind. Samuel Clemens had +suddenly become a reader--almost a student. He even began the study of +languages, German and Latin, but was not able to go on for lack of time +and teachers. + +He became a hater of tyranny, a champion of the weak. Watching a game of +marbles or tops, he would remark to some offender, in his slow drawling +way, "You mustn't cheat that boy." + +And the cheating stopped, or trouble followed. + + + + +VIII. + +ORION'S PAPER + +A Hannibal paper, the "Journal," was for sale under a mortgage of five +hundred dollars, and Orion Clemens, returning from St. Louis, borrowed +the money and bought it. Sam's two years' apprenticeship with Ament had +been completed, and Orion felt that together they could carry on the +paper and win success. Henry Clemens, now eleven, was also taken out of +school to learn type-setting. + +Orion was a better printer than proprietor. Like so many of his family, +he was a visionary, gentle and credulous, ready to follow any new idea. +Much advice was offered him, and he tried to follow it all. + +He began with great hopes and energy. He worked like a slave and did not +spare the others. The paper was their hope of success. Sam, especially, +was driven. There were no more free afternoons. In some chapters +written by Orion Clemens in later life, he said: + + "I was tyrannical and unjust to Sam. He was swift and clean as a + good journeyman. I gave him 'takes,' and, if he got through well, I + begrudged him the time and made him work more." + +Orion did not mean to be unjust. The struggle against opposition and +debt was bitter. He could not be considerate. + +The paper for a time seemed on the road to success, but Orion worked too +hard and tried too many schemes. His enthusiasm waned and most of his +schemes turned out poorly. By the end of the year the "Journal" was on +the down grade. + +In time when the need of money became great, Orion made a trip to +Tennessee to try to raise something on the land which they still held +there. He left Sam in charge of the paper, and, though its proprietor +returned empty-handed, his journey was worth while, for it was during his +absence that Samuel Clemens began the career that would one day make him +Mark Twain. + +Sam had concluded to edit the paper in a way that would liven up the +circulation. He had never written anything for print, but he believed he +knew what the subscribers wanted. The editor of a rival paper had been +crossed in love, and was said to have tried to drown himself. Sam wrote +an article telling all the history of the affair, giving names and +details. Then on the back of two big wooden letters, used for bill- +printing, he engraved illustrations of the victim wading out into the +river, testing the depth of the water with a stick. + +The paper came out, and the demand for it kept the Washington hand-press +busy. The injured editor sent word that he was coming over to thrash the +whole Journal staff, but he left town, instead, for the laugh was too +general. + +Sam also wrote a poem which startled orthodox readers. Then Orion +returned and reduced him to the ranks. In later years Orion saw his +mistake. + + "I could have distanced all competitors, even then," he wrote, + "if I had recognized Sam's ability and let him go ahead, merely + keeping him from offending worthy persons." + +Sam was not discouraged. He liked the taste of print. He sent two +anecdotes to the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post. Both were accepted +--without payment, of course, in those days--and when they appeared he +walked on air. This was in 1851. Nearly sixty years later he said: + + "Seeing them in print was a joy which rather exceeded anything in + that line I have ever experienced since." + +However, he wrote nothing further for the "Post." Orion printed two of +his sketches in the "Journal," which was the extent of his efforts at +this time. None of this early work has been preserved. Files of the +"Post" exist, but the sketches were unsigned and could hardly be +identified. + +The Hannibal paper dragged along from year to year. Orion could pay +nothing on the mortgage--financial matters becoming always worse. He +could barely supply the plainest food and clothing for the family. Sam +and Henry got no wages, of course. Then real disaster came. A cow got +into the office one night, upset a type-case, and ate up two composition +rollers. Somewhat later a fire broke out and did considerable damage. +There was partial insurance, with which Orion replaced a few necessary +articles; then, to save rent, he moved the office into the front room of +the home on Hill Street, where they were living again at this time. + +Samuel Clemens, however, now in his eighteenth year, felt that he was no +longer needed in Hannibal. He was a capable workman, with little to do +and no reward. Orion, made irritable by his misfortunes, was not always +kind. Pamela, who, meantime, had married well, was settled in St. Louis. +Sam told his mother that he would visit Pamela and look about the city. +There would be work in St. Louis at good wages. + +He was going farther than St. Louis, but he dared not tell her. Jane +Clemens, consenting, sighed as she put together his scanty belongings. +Sam was going away. He had been a good boy of late years, but her faith +in his resisting powers was not strong. Presently 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." + +The slim, wiry woman of forty-nine, gray-eyed, tender, and resolute, +faced the fair-cheeked youth of seventeen, his eyes as piercing and +unwavering as her own. How much alike they were! + +"I want you," Jane Clemens said, "to repeat after me, Sam, these words: I +do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card or drink a drop of liquor +while I am gone." + +He repeated the vow after her, and she kissed him. + +"Remember that, Sam, and write to us," she said. + +"And so," writes Orion, "he went wandering in search of that comfort and +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 abounding activity and merriment." + + + + +IX. + +THE OPEN ROAD + +Samuel Clemens went to visit his sister Pamela in St. Louis and was +presently at work, setting type on the "Evening News." He had no +intention, however, of staying there. His purpose was to earn money +enough to take him to New York City. The railroad had by this time +reached St. Louis, and he meant to have the grand experience of a long +journey "on the cars." Also, there was a Crystal Palace in New York, +where a world's exposition was going on. + +Trains were slow in 1853, and it required several days and nights to go +from St. Louis to New York City, but to Sam Clemens it was a wonderful +journey. All day he sat looking out of the window, eating when he chose +from the food he carried, curling up in his seat at night to sleep. He +arrived at last with a few dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill +sewed into the lining of his coat. + +New York was rather larger than he expected. All of the lower end of +Manhattan Island was covered by it. The Crystal Palace--some distance +out--stood at Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue--the present site of +Bryant Park. All the world's newest wonders were to be seen there--a +dazzling exhibition. A fragment of the letter which Sam Clemens wrote to +his sister Pamela--the earliest piece of Mark Twain's writing that has +been preserved--expresses his appreciation of the big fair: + + "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 one + 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 fifty 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 pipes are laid across the bed of the + Harlem 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 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 a 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. + + "(It has just struck 2 A.M., and I always get up at six and am at + work at 7.) You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you + suppose, with a free printers' library containing more than 4,000 + volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk + to?" + + "I shall write to Ella soon. Write soon. + "Truly your Brother, + + "SAMY. + + "P.S.--I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could + not read by it." + +We get a fair idea of Samuel Clemens at seventeen from this letter. For +one thing, he could write good, clear English, full of interesting facts. +He is enthusiastic, but not lavish of words. He impresses us with his +statement that the visitors to the Palace each day are in number double +the population of Hannibal; a whole river is turned from its course to +supply New York City with water; the water comes thirty-eight miles, and +each family could use a hundred barrels a day! The letter reveals his +personal side--his kindly interest in those left behind, his anxiety for +Henry, his assurance that the promise to his mother was being kept, his +memory of her longing to visit her old home. And the boy who hated +school has become a reader--he is reveling in a printers' library of +thousands of volumes. We feel, somehow, that Samuel Clemens has suddenly +become quite a serious-minded person, that he has left Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper and Huck Finn somewhere in a beautiful country a long way behind. + +He found work with the firm of John A. Gray & Green, general printers, in +Cliff Street. His pay was four dollars a week, in wild-cat money--that +is, money issued by private banks--rather poor money, being generally at +a discount and sometimes worth less. But if wages were low, living was +cheap in those days, and Sam Clemens, lodging in a mechanics' boarding- +house in Duane Street, sometimes had fifty cents left on Saturday night +when his board and washing were paid. + +Luckily, he had not set out to seek his fortune, but only to see +something of the world. He lingered in New York through the summer of +1853, never expecting to remain long. His letters of that period were +few. In October he said, in a letter to Pamela, that he did not write to +the family because he did not know their whereabouts, Orion having sold +the paper and left Hannibal. + + "I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave + New York every day for the last two weeks," he adds, which sounds + like the Mark Twain of fifty years later. Farther along, he tells + of going to see Edwin Forrest, then playing at the Broadway Theater: + + "The play was the 'Gladiator.' I did not like part of it much, but + other portions were really splendid. In the latter part of the last + act. . . the man's whole soul seems absorbed in the part he is + playing; and it is real 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." + +A little farther along he says: + + "If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about + me; for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years old who is not + able to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother + is not worth one's thoughts." + +Sam Clemens may have followed Forrest to Philadelphia. At any rate, he +was there presently, "subbing" in the composing-rooms of the "Inquirer," +setting ten thousand ems a day, and receiving pay accordingly. When +there was no vacancy for him to fill, he put in the time visiting the +Philadelphia libraries, art galleries, and historic landmarks. After +all, his chief business was sight-seeing. Work was only a means to this +end. Chilly evenings, when he returned to his boarding-house, his room- +mate, an Englishman named Sumner, grilled a herring over their small open +fire, and this was a great feast. He tried writing--obituary poetry, for +the "Philadelphia Ledger"--but it was not accepted. + +"My efforts were not received with approval" was his comment long after. + +In the "Inquirer" office there was a printer named Frog, and sometimes, +when he went out, the office "devils" would hang over his case a line +with a hook on it baited with a piece of red flannel. They never got +tired of this joke, and Frog never failed to get fighting mad when he saw +that dangling string with the bit of red flannel at the end. No doubt +Sam Clemens had his share in this mischief. + +Sam found that he liked Philadelphia. He could save a little money and +send something to his mother--small amounts, but welcome. Once he +inclosed a gold dollar, "to serve as a specimen of the kind of stuff we +are paid with in Philadelphia." Better than doubtful "wild-cat," +certainly. Of his work he writes: + + "One man has engaged me to work for him every Sunday till the first + of next April, when I shall return home to take Ma to Ky . . . . + If I want to, I can get subbing every night of the week. I go to + work at seven in the evening and work till three the next morning. + . . . The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois, + and when one gets a good agate "take," he is sure to make money. I + made $2.50 last Sunday." + +There is a long description of a trip on the Fairmount stage in this +letter, well-written and interesting, but too long to have place here. +In the same letter he speaks of the graves of Benjamin Franklin and his +wife, which he had looked at through the iron railing of the locked +inclosure. Probably it did not occur to him that there might be points +of similarity between Franklin's career and his own. Yet in time these +would be rather striking: each learned the printer's trade; each worked +in his brother's 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. + +Orion Clemens, meantime, had bought a paper in Muscatine, Iowa, and +located the family there. Evidently by this time he had realized the +value of his brother as a contributor, for Sam, in a letter to Orion, +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." + +Meantime, he had passed his eighteenth birthday, winter was coming on, he +had been away from home half a year, and the first attack of homesickness +was due. "One only has to leave home to learn how to write interesting +letters to an absent friend," he wrote; and again. "I don't like our +present prospect for cold weather at all." + +He declared he only wanted to get back to avoid night work, which was +injuring his eyes, but we may guess there was a stronger reason, which +perhaps he did not entirely realize. The novelty of wandering had worn +off, and he yearned for familiar faces, the comfort of those he loved. + +But he did not go. He made a trip to Washington in January--a sight- +seeing trip--returning to Philadelphia, where he worked for the "Ledger" +and "North American." Eventually he went back to New York, and from +there took ticket to St. Louis. This was in the late summer of 1854; he +had been fifteen months away from his people when he stepped aboard the +train to return. + +Sam was worn out when he reached St. Louis; but the Keokuk packet was +leaving, and he stopped only long enough to see Pamela, then went aboard +and, flinging himself into his berth, did not waken until the boat +reached Muscatine, Iowa, thirty-six hours later. + +It was very early when he arrived, too early to rouse the family. He sat +down in the office of a little hotel to wait for morning, and picked up a +small book that lay on the writing-table. It contained pictures of the +English rulers with the brief facts of their reigns. Sam Clemens +entertained himself learning these data by heart. He had a fine memory +for such things, and in an hour or two had those details so perfectly +committed that he never forgot one of them as long as he lived. The +knowledge acquired in this stray fashion he found invaluable in later +life. It was his groundwork for all English history. + + + + +X. + +A WIND OF CHANCE + +Orion could not persuade his brother to remain in Muscatine. Sam +returned to his old place on the "Evening News," in St. Louis, where he +remained until the following year, rooming with a youth named Burrough, a +journeyman chair-maker with literary taste, a reader of the English +classics, a companionable lad, and for Samuel Clemens a good influence. + +By spring, Orion Clemens had married and had sold out in Muscatine. He +was now located in Keokuk, Iowa. When presently Brother Sam came +visiting to Keokuk, Orion offered him five dollars a week and his board +to remain. He accepted. Henry Clemens, now seventeen, was also in +Orion's employ, and a lad named Dick Hingham. Henry and Sam slept in the +office; Dick and a young fellow named Brownell, who roomed above, came in +for social evenings. + +They were pretty lively evenings. A music-teacher on the floor below did +not care for them--they disturbed his class. He was furious, in fact, +and assailed the boys roughly at first, with no result but to make +matters worse. Then he tried gentleness, and succeeded. The boys +stopped their capers and joined his class. Sam, especially, became a +distinguished member of that body. He was never a great musician, but +with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, +he had no rival in popularity. He was twenty now, and much with young +ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good comrade to +all, full of pranks and pleasantries, ready to stop and be merry with any +that came along. If they prophesied concerning his future, it is not +likely that they spoke of literary fame. They thought him just easy- +going and light-minded. True, they noticed that he often carried a book +under his arm--a history, a volume of Dickens, or the tales of Poe. + +He read more than any one guessed. At night, propped up in bed--a habit +continued until his death--he was likely to read until a late hour. He +enjoyed smoking at such times, and had made himself a pipe with a large +bowl which stood on the floor and had a long rubber stem, something like +the Turkish hubble-bubble. He liked to fill the big bowl and smoke at +ease through the entire evening. But sometimes the pipe went out, which +meant that he must strike a match and lean far over to apply it, just +when he was most comfortable. Sam Clemens never liked unnecessary +exertion. One night, when the pipe had gone out for the second time, he +happened to hear the young book-clerk, Brownell, passing up to his room +on the top floor. Sam called to him: + +"Ed, come here!" + +Brownell poked his head in the door. The two were great chums. + +"What will you have, Sam?" he asked. + +"Come in, Ed; Henry's asleep, and I'm in trouble. I want somebody to +light my pipe." + +"Why don't you 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 a match, stooped down, and applied it. + +"What are you reading, Sam?" + +"Oh, nothing much--a so-called funny book. One of these days I'll write +a funnier book myself." + +Brownell laughed. "No, you won't, Sam," he said. "You're too lazy ever +to write a book." + +Years later, in the course of a lecture which he delivered in Keokuk, +Mark Twain said that he supposed the most untruthful man in the world +lived right there in Keokuk, and that his name was Ed Brownell. + +Orion Clemens did not have the gift of prosperity, and his printing- +office did not flourish. When he could no longer pay Sam's wages he took +him into partnership, which meant that Sam got no wages at all, though +this was of less consequence, since his mother, now living with Pamela, +was well provided for. The disorder of the office, however, distressed +him. He wrote home that he could not work without system, and, a little +later, that he was going to leave Keokuk, that, in fact, he was planning +a great adventure--a trip to the upper Amazon! + +His interest in the Amazon had been awakened by a book. Lynch and +Herndon had surveyed the upper river, and Lieutenant Herndon's book was +widely read. Sam Clemens, propped up in bed, pored over it through long +evenings, and nightly made fabulous fortunes collecting cocoa and other +rare things--resolving, meantime, to start in person for the upper Amazon +with no unnecessary delay. Boy and man, Samuel Clemens was the same. +His vision of grand possibilities ahead blinded him to the ways and means +of arrival. It was an inheritance from both sides of his parentage. +Once, in old age, he wrote: + + "I have been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing + things and reflecting afterward . . . . When I am reflecting on + these occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think." + +He believed, however, that he had reflected carefully concerning the +Amazon, and that in a brief time he should be there at the head of an +expedition, piling up untold wealth. He even stirred the imaginations of +two other adventurers, a Dr. Martin and a young man named Ward. To +Henry, then in St. Louis, he wrote, August 5, 1856: + + "Ward and I held a long consultation Sunday morning, and the result + was that we two have determined to start to Brazil, if possible, in + six weeks from now, in order to look carefully into matters there + and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on the first of + March." + +The matter of finance troubled him. Orion could not be depended on for +any specified sum, and the fare to the upper Amazon would probably be +considerable. Sam planned different methods of raising it. One of them +was to go to New York or Cincinnati and work at his trade until he saved +the amount. He would then sail from New York direct, or take boat for +New Orleans and sail from there. Of course there would always be vessels +clearing for the upper Amazon. After Lieutenant Herndon's book the ocean +would probably be full of them. + +He did not make the start with Ward, as planned, and Ward and Martin seem +to have given up the Amazon idea. Not so with Samuel Clemens. He went +on reading Herndon, trying meantime to raise money enough to get him out +of Keokuk. Was it fate or Providence that suddenly placed it in his +hands? Whatever it was, the circumstance is so curious that it must be +classed as one of those strange facts that have no place in fiction. + +The reader will remember how, one day in Hannibal, the wind had brought +to Sam Clemens, then printer's apprentice, a stray leaf from a book about +"Joan of Arc," and how that incident marked a turning-point in his mental +life. Now, seven years later, it was the wind again that directed his +fortune. It was a day in early November--bleak, bitter, and +gusty, with whirling snow; most persons were indoors. Samuel Clemens, +going down Main Street, Keokuk, saw a flying bit of paper pass him and +lodge against 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. + +He was tempted to pocket his good fortune and keep still. But he had +always a troublesome conscience. He went to a newspaper office and +advertised that he had found a sum of money, a large bill. + +Once, long after, he said: "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." + +Another time he said, "I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the +same day." All of which we may take with his usual literary discount-- +the one assigned to him by his mother in childhood. As a matter of fact, +he remained for an ample time, and nobody came for the money. What was +its origin? Was it swept out of a bank, or caught up by the wind from +some counting-room table? Perhaps it materialized out of the unseen. +Who knows? + + + + +XI. + +THE LONG WAY TO THE AMAZON + +Sam decided on Cincinnati as his base. From there he could go either to +New York or New Orleans to catch the Amazon boat. He paid a visit to St. +Louis, where his mother made him renew his promise as to drink and cards. +Then he was seized with a literary idea, and returned to Keokuk, where he +proposed to a thriving weekly paper, the "Saturday Post," to send letters +of travel, which might even be made into a book later on. George Reese, +owner of the "Post," agreed to pay five dollars each for the letters, +which speaks well for his faith in Samuel Clemens's talent, five dollars +being good pay for that time and place--more than the letters were worth, +judged by present standards. The first was dated Cincinnati, November +14, 1856, and was certainly not promising literature. It was written in +the ridiculous dialect which was once thought to be the dress of humor; +and while here and there is a comic flash, there is in it little promise +of the future Mark Twain. One extract is enough: + + "When we got to the depo', I went around to git a look at the iron + hoss. Thunderation! It wasn't no more like a hoss than a meetin'- + house. If I was goin' to describe the animule, I'd say it looked + like--well, it looked like--blamed if I know what it looked like, + snorting fire and brimstone out of his nostrils, and puffin' out + black smoke all 'round, and pantin', and heavin', and swellin', and + chawin' up red-hot coals like they was good. A feller stood in a + little house like, feedin' him all the time; but the more he got, + the more he wanted and the more he blowed and snorted. After a + spell the feller ketched him by the tail, and great Jericho! he set + up a yell that split the ground for more'n a mile and a half, and + the next minit I felt my legs a-waggin', and found myself at t'other + end of the string o' vehickles. I wasn't skeered, but I had three + chills and a stroke of palsy in less than five minits, and my face + had a cur'us brownish-yaller-greenbluish color in it, which was + perfectly unaccountable. 'Well,' say I, 'comment is super-flu-ous.'" + +How Samuel Clemens could have written that, and worse, at twenty-one, and +a little more than ten years later have written "The Innocents Abroad," +is one of the mysteries of literature. The letters were signed +"Snodgrass," and there are but two of them. Snodgrass seems to have +found them hard work, for it is said he raised on the price, which, +fortunately, brought the series to a close. Their value to-day lies in +the fact that they are the earliest of Mark Twain's newspaper +contributions that have been preserved--the first for which he received a +cash return. + +Sam remained in Cincinnati until April of the following year, 1857, +working for Wrightson & Co., general printers, lodging in a cheap +boarding-house, saving every possible penny for his great adventure. + +He had one associate at the boarding-house, a lank, unsmiling Scotchman +named Macfarlane, twice young Clemens's age, and a good deal of a +mystery. Sam never could find out what Macfarlane did. His hands were +hardened by some sort of heavy labor; he left at six in the morning and +returned in the evening at the same hour. He never mentioned his work, +and young Clemens had the delicacy not to inquire. + +For Macfarlane was no ordinary person. He was a man of deep knowledge, a +reader of many books, a thinker; he was versed in history and philosophy, +he knew the dictionary by heart. He made but two statements concerning +himself: one, that he had acquired his knowledge from reading, and not at +school; the other, that he knew every word in the English dictionary. He +was willing to give proof of the last, and Sam Clemens tested him more +than once, but found no word that Macfarlane could not define. + +Macfarlane was not silent--he would discuss readily enough the deeper +problems of life and had many startling theories of his own. Darwin had +not yet published his "Descent of Man," yet Macfarlane was already +advancing ideas similar to those in that book. He went further than +Darwin. He had startling ideas of the moral evolution of man, and these +he would pour into the ears of his young listener until ten o'clock, +after which, like the English Sumner in Philadelphia, he would grill a +herring, and the evening would end. Those were fermenting discourses +that young Samuel Clemens listened to that winter in Macfarlane's room, +and they did not fail to influence his later thought. + +It was the high-tide of spring, late in April, when the prospective +cocoa-hunter decided that it was time to set out for the upper Amazon. +He had saved money enough to carry him at least as far as New Orleans, +where he would take ship, it being farther south and therefore nearer his +destination. Furthermore, he could begin with a lazy trip down the +Mississippi, which, next to being a pilot, had been one of his most +cherished dreams. The Ohio River steamers were less grand than those of +the Mississippi, but they had a homelike atmosphere and did not hurry. +Samuel Clemens had the spring fever and was willing to take his time. + +In "Life on the Mississippi" we read that the author ran away, vowing +never to return until he could come home a pilot, shedding glory. But +this is the fiction touch. He had always loved the river, and his +boyhood dream of piloting had time and again returned, but it was not +uppermost when he bade good-by to Macfarlane and stepped aboard the "Paul +Jones," bound for New Orleans, and thus conferred immortality on that +ancient little craft. + +Now he had really started on his voyage. But it was a voyage that would +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. + + + + +XII. + +RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION + +A reader of Mark Twain's Mississippi book gets the impression that the +author was a boy of about seventeen when he started to learn the river, +and that he was painfully ignorant of the great task ahead. But this +also is the fiction side of the story. Samuel Clemens was more than +twenty-one when he set out on the "Paul Jones," and in a way was familiar +with the trade of piloting. Hannibal had turned out many pilots. An +older brother of the Bowen boys was already on the river when Sam Clemens +was rolling rocks down Holliday's Hill. Often he came home to air his +grandeur and hold forth on the wonder of his work. That learning the +river was no light task Sam Clemens would know as well as any one who had +not tried it. + +Nevertheless, as the drowsy little steamer went puffing down into softer, +sunnier lands, the old dream, the "permanent ambition" of boyhood, +returned, while the call of the far-off Amazon and cocoa drew faint. + +Horace Bixby,[2] pilot of the "Paul Jones," a man of thirty-two, 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 small, clean-cut man. "Good morning, sir," he said, rather +briskly, without looking around. + +He did not much care for visitors in the pilothouse. This one entered +and stood a little behind him. + +"How would you like a young man to learn the river?" came to him in that +serene, deliberate speech. + +The pilot glanced over his shoulder and saw a rather slender, loose- +limbed youth with a fair, girlish complexion and a great mass of curly +auburn hair. + +"I wouldn't like it. Cub pilots are more trouble than they're worth. A +great deal more trouble than profit." + +"I am a printer by trade," the easy voice went on. "It doesn't agree +with me. I thought I'd go to South America." + +Bixby kept his eye on the river, but there was interest in his voice when +he spoke. "What makes you pull your words that way?" he asked--"pulling" +being the river term for drawling. + +The young man, now seated comfortably on the visitors' bench, said more +slowly than ever: "You'll have to ask my mother--she pulls hers, too." + +Pilot Bixby laughed. The manner of the reply amused him. His guest was +encouraged. + +"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. I know Sam, too, and Bart." + +"Old schoolmates of mine in Hannibal. Sam and Will, especially, were my +chums." + +Bixby's tone became friendly. "Come over and stand by me," he said. +"What is your name?" + +The applicant told him, and the two stood looking out on the sunlit +water. + +"Do you drink?" + +"No." + +"Do you gamble?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you swear?" + +"N-not for amusement; only under pressure." + +"Do you chew?" + +"No, sir, never; but I must--smoke." + +"Did you ever do any steering?" + +"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 on the +bench where he could keep a careful eye on the course. By and by he said +"There is just one way 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 seemed discouraging. + +"I haven't got five hundred dollars in money," Sam said. "I've got a lot +of Tennessee land worth two bits an acre. I'll give you two thousand +acres of that." + +Bixby shook his head. "No," he said, "I don't want any unimproved real +estate. I have too much already." + +Sam reflected. He thought he might be able to borrow one hundred dollars +from William Moffett, Pamela's husband, without straining his credit. + +"Well, then," he proposed, "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 at the wheel, his evident +simplicity and sincerity--the inner qualities of mind and heart which +would make the world love Mark Twain. The terms proposed were accepted. +The first payment was to be in cash; the others were to begin when the +pupil had learned the river and was earning wages. During the rest of +the trip to New Orleans the new pupil was often at the wheel, while Mr. +Bixby nursed his sore foot and gave directions. Any literary ambitions +that Samuel Clemens still nourished waned rapidly. By the time he had +reached New Orleans he had almost forgotten he had ever been a printer. +As for the Amazon and cocoa, why, there had been no ship sailing in that +direction for years, and it was unlikely that any would ever sail again, +a fact that rather amused the would-be adventurer now, since Providence +had regulated his affairs in accordance with his oldest and longest +cherished dream. + +At New Orleans Bixby left the "Paul Jones" for a fine St. Louis boat, +taking his cub with him. This was a sudden and happy change, and Sam was +a good deal impressed with his own importance in belonging to so imposing +a structure, especially when, after a few days' stay in New Orleans, he +stood by Bixby's side in the big glass turret while they backed out of +the line of wedged-in boats and headed up the great river. + +This was glory, but there was sorrow ahead. He had not really begun +learning the river as yet he had only steered under directions. He had +known that to learn the river would be hard, but he had never realized +quite how hard. Serenely he had undertaken the task of mastering 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. +Nobody could realize the full size of that task--not till afterward. + +[2] Horace Bixby lived until 1912 and remained at the wheel until within +a short time of his death, in his eighty-seventh year. The writer of +this memoir visited him in 1910 and took down from his dictation the +dialogue that follows. + + + +XIII. + +LEARNING THE RIVER + +In that early day, to be a pilot was to be "greater than a king." The +Mississippi River pilot was a law unto himself--there was none above him. +His direction of the boat was absolute; he could start or lay up when he +chose; he could pass a landing regardless of business there, consulting +nobody, not even the captain; he could take the boat into what seemed +certain destruction, if he had that mind, and the captain was obliged to +stand by, helpless and silent, for the law was with the pilot in +everything. + +Furthermore, the pilot was a gentleman. His work was clean and +physically light. It ended the instant the boat was tied to the landing, +and did not begin again until it was ready to back into the stream. +Also, for those days his salary was princely--the Vice-President of the +United States did not receive more. As for prestige, the Mississippi +pilot, perched high in his glass inclosure, fashionably dressed, and +commanding all below him, was the most conspicuous and showy, the most +observed and envied creature in the world. No wonder Sam Clemens, with +his love of the river and his boyish fondness for honors, should aspire +to that stately rank. Even at twenty-one he was still just a boy--as, +indeed, he was till his death--and we may imagine how elated he was, +starting up the great river as a real apprentice pilot, who in a year or +two would stand at the wheel, as his chief was now standing, a monarch +with a splendid income and all the great river packed away in his head. + +In that last item lay the trouble. In the Mississippi book he tells of +it in a way that no one may hope to equal, and if the details are not +exact, the truth is there--at least in substance. + +For a distance above New Orleans Mr. Bixby had volunteered information +about the river, naming the points and crossings, in what seemed a casual +way, all through his watch of four hours. Their next watch began in the +middle of the night, and Mark Twain tells how surprised and disgusted he +was to learn that pilots must get up in the night to run their boats, and +his amazement to find Mr. Bixby plunging into the blackness ahead as if +it had been daylight. Very likely this is mainly fiction, but hardly the +following: + + Presently he turned to me and said: "What's the name of the first + point above New Orleans?" + + I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I + didn't know. + + "Don't know!" + + His manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. + But I had to say just what I had said before. + + "Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. Bixby. "What's the name of the + next point?" + + Once more I didn't know. + + "Well, this beats anything! Tell me the name of any point or place + I told you." + + I studied awhile and decided that I couldn't. + + "Look here! What do you start from, above Twelve Mile Point, to + cross over?" + + "I--I--don't know." + + "'You--you don't know,"' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. + "What do you know?" + + "I--I--Nothing, for certain." + + Bixby was a small, nervous man, hot and quick-firing. He went off + now, and said a number of severe things. Then: + + "Look here, what do you suppose I told you the names of those points + for?" + + I tremblingly considered a moment--then the devil of temptation + provoked me to say: "Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought." + + This was a red flag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was + crossing the river at the time) that I judged it made him blind, + because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course + the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man + so grateful as Mr. Bixby was, because he was brimful, and here were + subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his + head out, and such an irruption followed as I had never heard before + . . . . When he closed the window he was empty. Presently he + said to me, in the gentlest way: + + "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." + +The little memorandum-book which Sam Clemens bought, probably at the next +daylight landing, still exists--the same that he says "fairly bristled +with the names of towns, points, bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc."; +but it made his heart ache to think he had only half the river set down, +for, as the watches were four hours off and four hours on, there were the +long gaps where he had slept. + +It is not easy to make out the penciled notes today. The small, neat +writing is faded, and many of them are in an abbreviation made only for +himself. It is hard even to find these examples to quote: + +MERIWETHER'S BEND + +One-fourth less 3[3]--run shape of upper bar and go into the low place in +the willows about 200 (ft.) lower down than last year. + +OUTSIDE OF MONTEZUMA + +Six or eight feet more water. Shape bar till high timber on towhead gets +nearly even with low willows. Then hold a little open on right of low +willows--run 'em close if you want to, but come out 200 yards when you +get nearly to head of towhead. + +The average mind would not hold a single one of these notes ten seconds, +yet by the time he reached St. Louis he had set down pages that to-day +make one's head weary even to contemplate. And those long four-hour gaps +where he had been asleep--they are still there; and now, after nearly +sixty years, the old heartache is still in them. He must have bought a +new book for the next trip and laid this one away. + +To the new "cub" it seemed a long way to St. Louis that first trip, but +in the end it was rather grand to come steaming up to the big, busy city, +with its thronging waterfront flanked with a solid mile of steamboats, +and to nose one's way to a place in that stately line. + +At St. Louis, Sam borrowed from his brother-in-law the one hundred +dollars he had agreed to pay, and so closed his contract with Bixby. A +few days later his chief was engaged to go on a very grand boat indeed--a +"sumptuous temple," he tells us, all brass and inlay, with a pilot-house +so far above the water that he seemed perched on a mountain. This part +of learning the river was worth while; and when he found that the +regiment of natty servants respectfully "sir'd" him, his happiness was +complete. + +But he was in the depths again, presently, for when they started down the +river and he began to take account of his knowledge, he found that he had +none. Everything had changed--that is, he was seeing it all from the +other direction. What with the four-hour gaps and this transformation, +he was lost completely. + +How could the easy-going, dreamy, unpractical man whom the world knew as +Mark Twain ever have persisted against discouragement like that to +acquire the vast, the absolute, limitless store of information necessary +to Mississippi piloting? The answer is that he loved the river, the +picturesqueness and poetry of a steamboat, the ease and glory of a +pilot's life; and then, in spite of his own later claims to the contrary, +Samuel Clemens, boy and man, in the work suited to his tastes and gifts, +was the most industrious of persons. Work of the other sort he avoided, +overlooked, refused to recognize, but never any labor for which he was +qualified by his talents or training. Piloting suited him exactly, and +he proved an apt pupil. + +Horace Bixby said to the writer of this memoir: "Sam was always good- +natured, and he had a natural taste for the river. He had a fine memory +and never forgot what I told him." + +Yet there must have been hard places all along, for to learn every crook +and turn and stump and snag and bluff and bar and sounding of that twelve +hundred miles of mighty, shifting water was a gigantic task. Mark Twain +tells us how, when he was getting along pretty well, his chief one day +turned on him 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 replied respectfully and 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 that is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else + is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't got the same shape + in the night that it has in the daytime." + + "How on earth am I 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!" + +But the reader must turn to Chapter VIII of "Life on the Mississippi" and +read, or reread, the pages which follow this extract--nothing can better +convey the difficulties of piloting. That Samuel Clemens had the courage +to continue is the best proof, not only of his great love of the river, +but of that splendid gift of resolution that one rarely fails to find in +men of the foremost rank. + +[3] Depth of water. One-quarter less than three fathoms. + + + + +XIV. + +RIVER DAYS + +Piloting was only a part of Sam Clemens's education on the Mississippi. +He learned as much of the reefs and shallows of human nature as of the +river-bed. In one place he writes: + + 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. + +All the different types, but most of them in the rough. That Samuel +Clemens kept the promise made to his mother as to drink and cards during +those apprentice days is well worth remembering. + +Horace Bixby, answering a call for pilots from the Missouri River, +consigned his pupil, as was customary, tonne of the pilots of the "John +J. Roe," a freight-boat, owned and conducted by some retired farmers, and +in its hospitality reminding Sam of his Uncle John Quarles's farm. The +"Roe" was a very deliberate boat. It was said that she could beat an +island to St. Louis, but never quite overtake the current going down- +stream. Sam loved the "Roe." She was not licensed to carry passengers, +but she always had a family party of the owners' relations aboard, and +there was a big deck for dancing and a piano in the cabin. The young +pilot could play the chords, and sing, in his own fashion, about a +grasshopper that; sat on a sweet-potato vine, and about-- + +An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, +Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, +A long time ago. + +The "Roe" was a heavenly place, but Sam's stay there did not last. Bixby +came down from the Missouri, and perhaps thought he was doing a fine +thing for his pupil by transferring him to a pilot named Brown, then on a +large passenger-steamer, the "Pennsylvania." The "Pennsylvania" was new +and one of the finest boats on the river. Sam Clemens, by this time, was +accounted a good steersman, so it seemed fortunate and a good arrangement +for all parties. + +But Brown was a tyrant. He was illiterate and coarse, and took a dislike +to Sam from the start. His first greeting was a question, harmless +enough in form but offensive in manner. + +"Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?"--Bixby being usually pronounced "Bigsby" +in river parlance. + +Sam answered politely enough that he was, and Brown proceeded to comment +on the "style" of his clothes and other personal matters. + +He had made an effort to please Brown, but it was no use. Brown was +never satisfied. At a moment when Sam was steering, Brown, sitting on +the bench, would shout: "Here! Where are you going now? Pull her down! +Pull her down! Do you hear me? Blamed mud-cat!" + +The young pilot soon learned to detest his chief, and presently was +putting in a good deal of his time inventing punishments for him. + +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 the river in my mind, as was my duty, I threw business aside +for pleasure, and killed Brown. + +He gave up trying to please Brown, and was even willing to stir him up +upon occasion. One day when the cub was at the wheel his chief noticed +that the course seemed peculiar. + +"Here! Where you headin' for now?" he yelled. "What in the nation you +steerin' at, anyway? Blamed numskull!" + +"Why," said Sam in his calm, slow way, "I didn't see much else I could +steer for, so I was heading for that white heifer on the bank." + +"Get away from that wheel! And get outen this pilot-house!" yelled +Brown. "You ain't fitten to become no pilot!" An order that Sam found +welcome enough. The other pilot, George Ealer, was a lovable soul who +played the flute and chess during his off watch, and read aloud to Sam +from "Goldsmith" and "Shakespeare." To be with George Ealer was to +forget the persecutions of Brown. + +Young Clemens had been on the river nearly a year at this time, and, +though he had learned a good deal and was really a fine steersman, he +received no wages. He had no board to pay, but there were things he must +buy, and his money supply had become limited. Each trip of the +"Pennsylvania" she remained about two days and nights in New Orleans, +during which time the young man was free. He found he could earn two and +a half to three dollars a night watching freight on the levee, and, as +this opportunity came around about once a month, the amount was useful. +Nor was this the only return; many years afterward he said: + + "It was a desolate experience, 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 sots of + situations and possibilities. These things got into my books by and + by, and furnished me with many a chapter. I can trace the effects + of those nights through most of my books, in one way and another." + +Piloting, even with Brown, had its pleasant side. In St. Louis, young +Clemens stopped with his sister, and often friends were there from +Hannibal. At both ends of the line he visited friendly boats, especially +the "Roe," where a grand welcome was always waiting. Once among the +guests of that boat a young girl named Laura so attracted him that he +forgot time and space until one of the "Roe" pilots, Zeb Leavenworth, +came flying aft, shouting: + +"The "Pennsylvania" is backing out!" + +A hasty good-by, a wild flight across the decks of several boats, and a +leap across several feet of open water closed the episode. He wrote to +Laura, but there was no reply. He never saw her again, never heard from +her for nearly fifty years, when both were widowed and old. She had not +received his letter. + +Occasionally there were stirring adventures aboard the "Pennsylvania." +In a letter written in March, 1858, the young pilot tells of an exciting +night search in the running ice for Hat Island soundings: + +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 until +the yawl would bring us 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 . . . . 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 . . . . 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 been out in the yawl from +four in the morning until half-past nine without being near a fire. +There was a thick coating of ice over men and yawl, ropes, and +everything, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. + +He was at the right age to enjoy such adventures, and to feel a pride in +them. In the same letter he tells how he found on the "Pennsylvania" a +small clerkship for his brother Henry, who was now nearly twenty, a +handsome, gentle boy of whom Sam was lavishly fond and proud. The young +pilot was eager to have Henry with him--to see him started in life. How +little he dreamed what sorrow would come of his well-meant efforts in the +lad's behalf! Yet he always believed, later, that he had a warning, for +one night at the end of May, in St. Louis, he had a vivid dream, which +time would presently fulfil. + +An incident now occurred on the "Pennsylvania" that closed Samuel +Clemens's career on that boat. It was the down trip, and the boat was in +Eagle Bend when Henry Clemens appeared on the hurricane deck with an +announcement from the captain of a landing a little lower down. Brown, +who would never own that he was rather deaf, probably misunderstood the +order. They were passing the landing when the captain appeared on the +deck. + +"Didn't Henry tell you to land here?" he called to Brown. + +"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!" + +Henry appeared, not suspecting any trouble. + +Brown said, fiercely, "Here, why didn't you tell me we had got to land at +that plantation?" + +"I did tell you, Mr. Brown," Henry said, politely. + +"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!" + +For a cub pilot to defy his chief was unheard of. Brown was dazed, then +he shouted: + +"I'll attend to your case in half a minute!" And to Henry, "Get out of +here!" + +Henry had started when Brown seized him by the collar and struck him in +the face. An instant later Sam was upon Brown with a heavy stool and +stretched him on the floor. Then all the repressed fury of months broke +loose; and, leaping upon Brown and holding him down with his knees, +Samuel Clemens pounded the tyrant with his fists till his strength gave +out. He let Brown go then, and the latter, with pilot instinct, sprang +to the wheel, for the boat was drifting. Seeing she was safe, he seized +a spy-glass as a weapon and ordered his chastiser out of the pilot-house. +But Sam lingered. He had become very calm, and he openly corrected +Brown's English. + +"Don't give me none of your airs!" yelled Brown. "I ain't goin' to stand +nothin' 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. Sam went down to find Captain +Klinefelter. He expected to be put in irons, for it was thought to be +mutiny to strike a pilot. + +The captain took Sam into his private room and made some inquiries. Mark +Twain, in the "Mississippi" boot remembers them as follows: + +"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 mighty 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." + +In a letter which Samuel Clemens wrote to Orion's wife, immediately after +this incident, he gives the details of the encounter with Brown and +speaks of Captain Klinefelter's approval.[4] Brown declared he would +leave the boat at New Orleans if Sam Clemens remained on it, and the +captain told him to go, offering to let Sam himself run the daylight +watches back to St. Louis, thus showing his faith in the young steersman. +The "cub," however, had less confidence, and advised that Brown be kept +for the up trip, saying he would follow by the next boat. It was a +decision that probably saved his life. + +That night, watching on the levee, Henry joined him, when his own duties +were finished, and the brothers made the round together. It may have +been some memory of his dream that made Samuel Clemens say: + +"Henry, 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 a long grief lay behind it. + +[4] In the Mississippi book the author says that Brown was about to +strike Henry with a lump of coal, but in the letter above mentioned the +details are as here given. + + + + +XV. + + +THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA" + +The "A. T. Lacy," that brought Samuel Clemens up the river, was two days +behind the "Pennsylvania." At Greenville, Mississippi, a voice from +the landing shouted "The "Pennsylvania" is blown up just below Memphis, +at Ship Island. One hundred and fifty lives lost!" + +It proved a true report. At six o'clock that warm mid-June morning, +while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, four out of eight of the +Pennsylvania's boilers had suddenly exploded, with fearful results. +Henry Clemens had been one of the victims. He had started to swim for +the shore, only a few hundred yards away, but had turned back to assist +in the rescue of others. What followed could not be clearly learned. He +was terribly injured, and died on the fourth night after the catastrophe. +His brother was with him by that time, and believed he recognized the +exact fulfilment of his dream. + +The young pilot's grief was very great. In a letter home he spoke of the +dying boy as "My darling, my pride, my glory, my all." His heavy sorrow, +and the fact that with unsparing self-blame he held himself in a measure +responsible for his brother's tragic death, saddened his early life. His +early gaiety came back, but his face had taken on the serious, pathetic +look which from that time it always wore in repose. Less than twenty- +three, he had suddenly the look of thirty, and while Samuel Clemens in +spirit, temperament, and features never would become really old, neither +would he ever look really young again. + +He 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 from St. Louis to New Orleans. In eighteen months he had +packed away in his head all those wearisome details and acquired that +confidence that made him one of the elect. He knew every snag and bank +and dead tree and depth in all those endless miles of shifting current, +every cut-off and crossing. He could read the surface of the water by +day, he could smell danger in the dark. To the writer of these chapters, +Horace Bixby said: + +"In a year and a half from the time he came to the river, Sam was not +only a pilot, but a good one. 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 +sandbars and changing shores, a pilot's judgment had to be founded on +absolute certainty." + +Bixby had returned from the Missouri by the time his pupil's license was +issued, and promptly took him as full partner on the "Crescent City," and +later on a fine new boat, the "New Falls City." Still later, they appear +to have been together on a very large boat, the "City of Memphis," and +again on the "Alonzo Child." + + + + +XVI. + +THE PILOT + +For Samuel Clemens these were happy days--the happiest, in some respects, +he would ever know. He had plenty of money now. He could help his +mother with a liberal hand, and could put away fully a hundred dollars a +month for himself. He had few cares, and he loved the ease and romance +and independence of his work as he would never quite love anything again. + +His popularity on the river was very great. His humorous stories and +quaint speech made a crowd collect wherever he appeared. There were +pilot-association rooms in St. Louis and New Orleans, and his appearance +at one of these places was a signal for the members to gather. + +A friend of those days writes: "He was much given to spinning yarns so +funny that his hearers were convulsed, and yet all the time his own face +was perfectly sober. Occasionally some of his droll yarns got into the +papers. He may have written them himself." + +Another old river-man remembers how, one day, at the association, they +were talking of presence of mind in an accident, when Pilot Clemens 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 a story that found its way into print, probably his own +contribution. + +"Sam was always scribbling when not at the wheel," said Bixby, "but the +best thing he ever did was the burlesque of old Isaiah Sellers. He +didn't write it for print, but only for his own amusement and to show to +a few of the boys. Bart Bowen, who was with him on the "Edward J. Gay" +at the time, got hold of it, and gave it to one of the New Orleans +papers." + +The burlesque on Captain Sellers would be of little importance if it were +not for its association with the origin, or, at least, with the +originator, of what is probably the best known of literary names--the +name Mark Twain. + +This strong, happy title--a river term indicating a depth of two fathoms +on the sounding-line--was first used by the old pilot, Isaiah Sellers, +who was a sort of "oldest inhabitant" of the river, with a passion for +airing his ancient knowledge before the younger men. Sellers used to +send paragraphs to the papers, quaint and rather egotistical in tone, +usually beginning, "My opinion for the citizens of New Orleans," etc., +prophesying river conditions and recalling memories as far back as 1811. +These he generally signed "Mark Twain." + +Naturally, the younger pilots amused themselves by imitating Sellers, and +when Sam Clemens wrote abroad burlesque of the old man's contributions, +relating a perfectly impossible trip, supposed to have been made in 1763 +with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, it was regarded as a +masterpiece of wit. + +It appeared in the "True Delta" in May, 1859, and broke Captain Sellers's +literary heart. He never wrote another paragraph. Clemens always +regretted the whole matter deeply, and his own revival of the name +afterward was a sort of tribute to the old man he had thoughtlessly and +unintentionally wounded. + +Old pilots of that day remembered Samuel Clemens as a slender, fine- +looking man, well dressed, even dandified, generally wearing blue serge, +with fancy shirts, white duck trousers, and patent-leather shoes. A +pilot could do that, for his surroundings were speckless. + +The pilots regarded him as a great reader--a student of history, travels, +and the sciences. In the association rooms they often saw him poring +over serious books. He began the study of French one day in New Orleans, +when he had passed a school of languages where French, German, and +Italian were taught, one in each of three rooms. The price vas twenty- +five dollars for one language, or three for fifty. The student was +provided with a set of conversation cards for each, and was supposed to +walk from one apartment to another, changing his nationality at each +threshold. The young pilot, with his usual enthusiasm, invested in all +three languages, but after a few round trips decided that French would +do. He did not return to the school, but kept the cards and added text- +books. He studied faithfully when off watch and in port, and his old +river note-book, still preserved, contains a number of advanced +exercises, neatly written out. + +Still more interesting are the river notes themselves. They are not the +timid, hesitating memoranda of the "little book" which, by Bixby's +advice, he bought for his first trip. They are quick, vigorous records +that show confidence and knowledge. Under the head of "Second high-water +trip--Jan., 1861 'Alonzo Child,'" the notes tell the story of a rising +river, with overflowing banks, blind passages, and cut-offs--a new river, +in fact, that must be judged by a perfect knowledge of the old--guessed, +but guessed right. + +Good deal of water all over Cole's Creek Chute, 12 or 15 ft. bank--could +have gone up above General Taylor's--too much drift . . . . + +Night--didn't run either 77 or 76 towheads--8-ft. bank on main shore +Ozark chute. + +To the reader to-day it means little enough, but one may imagine, +perhaps, a mile-wide sweep of boiling water, full of drift, shifting +currents with newly forming bars, and a lone figure in the dark pilot- +house, peering into the night for blind and disappearing landmarks. + +But such nights were not all there was of piloting. There were glorious +nights when the stars were blazing out, and the moon was on the water, +and the young pilot could follow a clear channel and dream long dreams. +He was very serious at such times--he reviewed the world's history he had +read, he speculated on the future, he considered philosophies, he lost +himself in a study of the stars. Mark Twain's love of astronomy, which +never waned until his last day, began with those lonely river watches. +Once a great comet blazed in the sky, a "wonderful sheaf of light," and +glorified his long hours at the wheel. + +Samuel Clemens was now twenty-five, full of health and strong in his +courage. In the old notebook there remains a well-worn clipping, the +words of some unknown writer, which he may have kept as a sort of creed: + +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. + +Bixby and Clemens were together that winter on the "Child," and were the +closest friends. Once the young pilot invited his mother to make the +trip to New Orleans, and the river journey and a long drive about the +beautiful Southern city filled Jane Clemens with wonder and delight. She +no longer shad any doubts of Sam. He had long since become the head of +the family. She felt called upon to lecture him, now and then, but down +in her heart she believed that he could really do no wrong. They joked +each other unmercifully, and her wit, never at a loss, was quite as keen +as his. + + + + +XVII. + +THE END OF PILOTING + +When one remembers how much Samuel Clemens loved the river, and how +perfectly he seemed suited to the ease and romance of the pilot-life, one +is almost tempted to regret that it should so soon have come to an end. + +Those trips of early '61, which the old note-book records, were the last +he would ever make. The golden days of Mississippi steam-boating were +growing few. + +Nobody, however, seemed to suspect it. Even a celebrated fortune-teller +in New Orleans, whom the young pilot one day consulted as to his future, +did not mention the great upheaval then close at hand. She told him +quite remarkable things, and gave him some excellent advice, but though +this was February, 1861, she failed to make any mention of the Civil War! +Yet, a month later, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated and trouble was in +the air. Then in April Fort Sumter was fired upon and the war had come. + +It was a feverish time among the pilots. Some were for the Union--others +would go with the Confederacy. Horace Bixby stood for the North, and in +time was chief of the Union river-service. A pilot named Montgomery +(Clemens had once steered for him) went with the South and by and by +commanded the Confederate Mississippi fleet. In the beginning a good +many were not clear as to their opinions. Living both North and South, +as they did, they divided their sympathies. Samuel Clemens was +thoughtful, and far from bloodthirsty. A pilothouse, so fine and showy +in times of peace, seemed a poor place to be in when fighting was going +on. He would consider the matter. + +"I am not anxious to get up into a glass perch and be shot at by either +side," he said. "I'll go home and reflect." + +He went up the river as a passenger on a steamer named the "Uncle Sam." +Zeb Leavenworth, formerly of the "John J. Roe," was one of the pilots, +and Clemens usually stood the watch with him. At Memphis they barely +escaped the blockade. At Cairo they saw soldiers drilling--troops later +commanded by Grant. + +The "Uncle Sam" came steaming up to St. Louis, glad to have slipped +through safely. They were not quite through, however. Abreast of +Jefferson Barracks they heard the boom of a cannon, and a great ring of +smoke drifted in their direction. They did not recognize it as a +thunderous "Halt!" and kept on. Less than a minute later, a shell +exploded directly in front of the pilot-house, breaking a lot of glass +and damaging the decoration. Zeb Leavenworth tumbled into a corner. + +"Gee-mighty, Sam!" he said. "What do they mean by that?" + +Clemens stepped from the visitors' bench 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 through 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." + +At the time, like many others, he expected the war to be brief, and his +life to be only temporarily interrupted. Within a year, certainly, he +would be back in the pilot-house. Meantime the war must be settled; he +would go up to Hannibal to see about it. + + + + +XVIII. + +THE SOLDIER + +When he reached Hannibal, Samuel Clemens found a very mixed condition of +affairs. The country was in an uproar of war preparation; in a border +State there was a confusion of sympathies, with much ignorance as to what +it was all about. Any number of young men were eager to enlist for a +brief camping-out expedition, and small private companies were formed, +composed about half-and-half of Union and Confederate men, as it turned +out later. + +Missouri, meantime, had allied herself with the South, and Samuel +Clemens, on his arrival in Hannibal, decided that, like Lee, he would go +with his State. Old friends, who were getting up a company "to help +Governor `Claib' Jackson repel the invader," offered him a lieutenancy if +he would join. It was not a big company; it had only about a dozen +members, most of whom had been schoolmates, some of them fellow-pilots, +and Sam Clemens was needed to make it complete. It was just another Tom +Sawyer band, and they met in a secret place above Bear Creek Hill and +planned how they would sell their lives on the field of glory, just as +years before fierce raids had been arranged on peach-orchards and melon- +patches. Secrecy was necessary, for the Union militia had a habit of +coming over from Illinois and arresting suspicious armies on sight. It +would humiliate the finest army in the world to spend a night or two in +the calaboose. + +So they met secretly at night, and one mysterious evening they called on +girls who either were their sweethearts or were pretending to be for the +occasion, and when the time came for good-by the girls were invited to +"walk through the pickets" with them, though the girls didn't notice any +pickets, because the pickets were calling on their girls, too, and were a +little late getting to their posts. + +That night they marched, through brush and vines, because the highroad +was thought to be dangerous, and next morning arrived at the home of +Colonel Ralls, of Ralls County, who had the army form in dress parade and +made it a speech and gave it a hot breakfast in good Southern style. +Then he sent out to Col. Bill Splawn and Farmer Nuck Matson a requisition +for supplies that would convert this body of infantry into cavalry-- +rough-riders of that early day. The community did not wish to keep an +army on its hands, and were willing to send it along by such means as +they could spare handily. When the outfitting was complete, Lieutenant +Samuel Clemens, mounted on a small yellow mule whose tail had been +trimmed in the paint-brush pattern then much worn by mules, and +surrounded by variously attached articles--such as an extra pair of +cowhide boots, a pair of gray blankets, a home-made quilt, a frying-pan, +a carpet-sack, a small valise, an overcoat, an old-fashioned Kentucky +rifle, twenty yards of rope, and an umbrella--was a fair sample of the +brigade. + +An army like that, to enjoy itself, ought to go into camp; so it went +over to Salt River, near the town of Florida, and took up headquarters in +a big log stable. Somebody suggested that an army ought to have its hair +cut, so that in a hand-to-hand conflict the enemy could not get hold of +it. There was a pair of sheep-shears in the stable, and Private Tom +Lyons acted as barber. They were not sharp shears, and a group of little +darkies gathered from the farm to enjoy the torture. + +Regular elections were now held--all officers, down to sergeants and +orderlies, being officially chosen. There were only three privates, and +you couldn't tell them from officers. The discipline in that army was +very bad. + +It became worse soon. Pouring rain set in. Salt River rose and +overflowed the bottoms. Men ordered on picket duty climbed up into the +stable-loft and went to bed. Twice, on black, drenching nights, word +came from the farmhouse that the enemy, commanded by a certain Col. +Ulysses Grant, was in the neighborhood, and the Hannibal division went +hastily slopping through mud and brush in the other direction, dragging +wearily back when the alarm was over. Military ardor was bound to cool +under such treatment. Then Lieutenant Clemens developed a very severe +boil, and was obliged to lie most of the day on some hay in a horse- +trough, where he spent his time denouncing the war and the mistaken souls +who had invented it. When word that "General" Tom Harris, commander of +the district--formerly telegraph-operator in Hannibal--was at a near-by +farm-house, living on the fat of the land, the army broke camp without +further ceremony. Halfway there they met General Harris, who ordered +them back to quarters. They called him familiarly "Tom," and told him +they were through with that camp forever. He begged them, but it was no +use. A little farther on they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A +tall, bony woman came to the door. + +"You're Secesh, ain't you?" + +Lieutenant Clemens said: "We are, madam, defenders of the noble cause, +and we should like to buy a few 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 [5] that stood by the door, and the +army moved on. When they reached the home of Col. Bill Splawn it was +night and the family had gone to bed. So the hungry army camped in the +barn-yard and crept into the hay-loft to sleep. Presently somebody +yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been smoking and had ignited the hay. + +Lieutenant Clemens, suddenly wakened, made a quick rotary movement away +from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window into the barn-yard +below. The rest of the brigade seized the burning hay and pitched it out +of the same window. The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he +struck, and his boil was still painful, but the burning hay cured him-- +for the moment. He made a spring from under it; then, noticing that the +rest of the army, now that the fire was out, seemed to think his +performance amusing, he rose up and expressed himself concerning the war, +and military life, and the human race in general. They helped him in, +then, for his ankle was swelling badly. + +In the morning, Colonel Splawn gave the army a good breakfast, and it +moved on. Lieutenant Clemens, however, did not get farther than Farmer +Nuck Matson's. He was in a high fever by that time from his injured +ankle, and Mrs. Matson put him to bed. So the army left him, and +presently disbanded. Some enlisted in the regular service, North or +South, according to preference. Properly officered and disciplined, that +"Tom Sawyer" band would have made as good soldiers as any. + +Lieutenant Clemens did not enlist again. When he was able to walk, he +went to visit Orion in Keokuk. Orion was a Union Abolitionist, but there +would be no unpleasantness on that account. Samuel Clemens was beginning +to have leanings in that direction himself. + +[5] In an earlier day, barrel hoops were made of small hickory trees, +split and shaved. The hoop-pole was a very familiar article of commerce, +and of household defense. + + + + +XIX. + +THE PIONEER + +He arrived in Keokuk at what seemed a lucky moment. Through Edward +Bates, a member of Lincoln's Cabinet, Orion Clemens had received an +appointment as territorial secretary of Nevada, and only needed the money +to carry him to the seat of his office at Carson City. Out of his +pilot's salary his brother had saved more than enough for the journey, +and was willing to pay both their fares and go along as private secretary +to Orion, whose position promised something in the way of adventure and a +possible opportunity for making a fortune. + +The brothers went at once to St. Louis for final leave-taking, and there +took boat for "St. Jo," Missouri, terminus of the great Overland Stage +Route. They paid one hundred and fifty dollars each for their passage, +and about the end of July, 1861, set out on that long, delightful trip, +behind sixteen galloping horses, never stopping except for meals or to +change teams, heading steadily into the sunset over the billowy plains +and snow-clad Rockies, covering the seventeen hundred miles between St. +Jo and Carson City in nineteen glorious days. + +But one must read Mark Twain's "Roughing It" for the story of that long- +ago trip--the joy and wonder of it, and the inspiration. "Even at this +day," he writes, "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." + +It was a hot dusty, August day when they arrived, dusty, unshaven, and +weather-beaten, and Samuel Clemens's life as a frontiersman began. +Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was a wooden town with an assorted +population of two thousand souls. The mining excitement was at its +height and had brought together the drift of every race. + +The Clemens brothers took up lodgings with a genial Irishwoman, the Mrs. +O'Flannigan of "Roughing It," and Orion established himself in a modest +office, for there was no capitol building as yet, no government +headquarters. Orion could do all the work, and Samuel Clemens, finding +neither duties nor salary attached to his position, gave himself up to +the study of the life about him, and to the enjoyment of the freedom of +the frontier. Presently he had a following of friends who loved his +quaint manner of speech and his yarns. On cool nights they would collect +about Orion's office-stove, and he would tell stories in the wonderful +way that one day would delight the world. Within a brief time Sam +Clemens (he was always "Sam" to the pioneers) was the most notable figure +on the Carson streets. His great, bushy head of auburn hair, has +piercing, twinkling eyes, his loose, lounging walk, his careless disorder +of dress invited a second look, even from strangers. From a river dandy +he had become the roughest-clad of pioneers--rusty slouch hat, flannel +shirt, coarse trousers slopping half in and half out of heavy cowhide +boots, this was his make-up. Energetic citizens did not prophesy success +for him. Often they saw him leaning against an awning support, staring +drowsily at the motley human procession, for as much as an hour at a +time. Certainly that could not be profitable. + +But they did like to hear him talk. + +He did not catch the mining fever at once. He was interested first in +the riches that he could see. Among these was the timber-land around +Lake Bigler (now Tahoe)--splendid acres, to be had for the asking. The +lake itself was beautifully situated. + +With an Ohio boy, John Kinney, he made an excursion afoot to Tahoe, a +trip described in one of the best chapters of "Roughing It." They staked +out a timber claim and pretended to fence it and to build a house, but +their chief employment was loafing in the quiet luxury of the great woods +or drifting in a boat on the transparent water. They did not sleep in +the house. In "Roughing It" 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 made their camp-fires on the borders of the lake, and one evening it +got away from them, fired the forest, and destroyed their fences and +habitation. In a letter home he describes this fire in a fine, vivid +way. At one place he says: + + "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." + +He was acquiring the literary vision and touch. The description of this +same fire in "Roughing It," written ten years later, is scarcely more +vivid. + +Most of his letters home at this time tell of glowing prospects--the +certainty of fortune ahead. The fever of the frontier is in them. Once, +to Pamela Moffett, he wrote: + + "Orion and I have enough confidence 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." + +From the same letter we gather that the brothers are now somewhat +interested in mining claims: + + "We have 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." + +This was written about the end of October. Two months later, in +midwinter, the mining fever came upon him with full force. + + + + +XX. + +THE MINER + +The wonder is that Samuel Clemens, always speculative and visionary, had +not fallen an earlier victim. Everywhere one heard stories of sudden +fortune--of men who had gone to bed paupers and awakened millionaires. +New and fabulous finds were reported daily. Cart-loads of bricks--silver +and gold bricks--drove through the Carson streets. + +Then suddenly from the newly opened Humboldt region came the wildest +reports. The mountains there were said to be stuffed with gold. A +correspondent of the "Territorial Enterprise" was unable to find words to +picture the riches of the Humboldt mines. + +The air for Samuel Clemens began to shimmer. Fortune was waiting to be +gathered in a basket. He joined the first expedition for Humboldt--in +fact, helped to organize it. In "Roughing It" he says: + + "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 + eighteen hundred pounds of provisions and mining-tools in the wagon + and drove out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon.." + +The two young lawyers were W. H. Clagget, whom Clemens had known in +Keokuk, and A. W. Oliver, called Oliphant in "Roughing It." The +blacksmith was named Tillou (Ballou in "Roughing It"), a sturdy, honest +man with a knowledge of mining and the repair of tools. There were also +two dogs in the party--a curly-tailed mongrel and a young hound. + +The horses were the weak feature of the expedition. It was two hundred +miles to Humboldt, mostly across sand. The miners rode only a little +way, then got out to lighten the load. Later they pushed. Then it began +to snow, also to blow, and the air became filled with whirling clouds of +snow and sand. On and on they pushed and groaned, sustained by the +knowledge that they must arrive some time, when right away they would be +millionaires and all their troubles would be over. + +The nights were better. The wind went down and they made a camp-fire in +the shelter of the wagon, cooked their bacon, crept under blankets with +the dogs to warm them, and Sam Clemens spun yarns till they fell asleep. + +There had been an Indian war, and occasionally they passed the charred +ruin of a cabin and new graves. By and by they came to that deadly waste +known as the Alkali Desert, strewn with the carcasses of dead beasts and +with the heavy articles discarded by emigrants in their eagerness to +reach water. All day and night they pushed through that choking, +waterless plain to reach camp on the other side. When they arrived at +three in the morning, they dropped down exhausted. Judge Oliver, the +last survivor of the party, in a letter to the writer of these chapters, +said: + + "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 picture of burning cabins and the lonely graves we had + passed was 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, with his inimitable drawl, said 'Boys, they have + left us our scalps. Let us give them all the flour and sugar they + ask for.' And we did give them a good supply, for we were grateful." + +The Indians left them unharmed, and the prospective millionaires moved +on. Across that two hundred miles to the Humboldt country they pushed, +arriving at the little camp of Unionville at the end of eleven weary +days. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain has told us of Unionville and the mining +experience there. Their cabin was a three-sided affair with a cotton +roof. Stones rolled down the mountainside on them; also, the author +says, a mule and a cow. + +The author could not gather fortune in a basket, as he had dreamed. +Masses of gold and silver were not lying about. He gathered a back-load +of yellow, glittering specimens, but they proved worthless. Gold in the +rough did not glitter, and was not yellow. Tillou instructed the others +in prospecting, and they went to work with pick and shovel--then with +drill and blasting-powder. The prospect of immediately becoming +millionaires vanished. + +"One week of this satisfied me. I resigned," is Mark Twain's brief +comment. + +The Humboldt reports had been exaggerated. The Clemens-Clagget-Oliver- +Tillou millionaire combination soon surrendered its claims. Clemens and +Tillou set out for Carson City with a Prussian named Pfersdorff, who +nearly got them drowned and got them completely lost in the snow before +they arrived there. Oliver and Clagget remained in Unionville, began law +practice, and were elected to office. It is not known what became of the +wagon and horses and the two dogs. + +It was the end of January when our miner returned to Carson. He was not +discouraged--far from it. He believed he had learned something that +would be useful to him in a camp where mines were a reality. Within a +few weeks from his return we find him at Aurora, in the Esmeralda region, +on the edge of California. It was here that the Clemens brothers owned +the 1,650 feet formerly mentioned. He had came down to work it. + +It was the dead of winter, but he was full of enthusiasm, confident of a +fortune by early summer. To Pamela he wrote: + + "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 . . . . If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike + the ledge in June." + +He was trying to be conservative, and further along he cautions his +sister not to get excited. + + "Don't you know I have only talked as yet, but proved nothing? Don't + you know I have never held in my hands a gold or silver bar that + belonged to me? 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 + uncongealable, 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 a 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 soars again, adding page after page full of glowing +expectations and plans such as belong only with speculation in treasures +buried in the ground--a very difficult place, indeed, to find them. + +His money was about exhausted by this time, and funds to work the mining +claims must come out of Orion's rather modest salary. The brothers owned +all claims in partnership, and it was now the part of "Brother Sam" to do +the active work. He hated the hard picking and prying and blasting into +the flinty ledges, but the fever drove him on. He camped with a young +man named Phillips at first, and, later on, with an experienced miner, +Calvin H. Higbie, to whom "Roughing It" would one day be dedicated. They +lived in a tiny cabin with a cotton roof, and around their rusty stove +they would paw over their specimens and figure the fortune that their +mines would be worth in the spring. + +Food ran low, money gave out almost entirely, but they did not give up. +When it was stormy and they could not dig, and the ex-pilot was in a +talkative vein, he would sit astride the bunk and distribute to his +hearers riches more valuable than any they would dig from the Esmeralda +hills. At other times he did not talk at all, but sat in a corner and +wrote. They thought he was writing home; they did not know that he was +"literary." Some of his home letters had found their way into a Keokuk +paper and had come back to Orion, who had shown them to an assistant on +the "Territorial Enterprise," of Virginia City. The "Enterprise" man had +caused one of them to be reprinted, and this had encouraged its author to +send something to the paper direct. He signed these contributions +"Josh," and one told of: + + "An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +He received no pay for these offerings and expected none. He considered +them of no value. If any one had told him that he was knocking at the +door of the house of fame, however feebly, he would have doubted that +person's judgment or sincerity. + +His letters to Orion, in Carson City, were hasty compositions, reporting +progress and progress, or calling for remittances to keep the work going. +On April 13, he wrote: + + "Work not begun on the Horatio and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is + still in the snow. Shall begin on it within three or four weeks-- + strike the ledge in July." + +Again, later in the month: + + "I have been at work all day, blasting and digging in 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 ten or twelve feet." + +It must have been disheartening work, picking away at the flinty ledges. +There is no further mention of the "Dashaway," but we hear of the +"Flyaway," the "Annipolitan," the "Live Yankee," and of many another, +each of which holds out a beacon of hope for a brief moment, then passes +from notice forever. Still, he was not discouraged. Once he wrote: + + "I am a citizen here and I am satisfied, though '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. + + "The pick and shovel are the only claims I have confidence in now," + he wrote, later; "my back is sore and my hands are blistered with + handling them to-day." + +His letters began to take on a weary tone. Once in midsummer he wrote +that it was still snowing up there in the hills, and added, "It always +snows here I expect. If we strike it rich, I've lost my guess, that's +all." And the final heartsick line, "Don't you suppose they have pretty +much quit writing at home?" + +In time he went to work in a quartz-mill at ten dollars a week, though it +was not entirely for the money, as in "Roughing It" he would have us +believe. Samuel Clemens learned thoroughly what he undertook, and he +proposed to master the science of mining. From Phillips and Higbie he +had learned what there was to know about prospecting. He went to the +mill to learn refining, so that, when his claims developed, he could +establish a mill and personally superintend the work. His stay was +brief. He contracted a severe cold and came near getting poisoned by the +chemicals. Recovering, he went with Higbie for an outing to Mono Lake, a +ghastly, lifeless alkali sea among the hills, vividly described in +"Roughing It." + +At another time he went with Higbie on a walking trip to the Yosemite, +where they camped and fished undisturbed, for in those days few human +beings came to that far isolation. Discouragement did not reach them +there--amid that vast grandeur and quiet the quest for gold hardly seemed +worth while. Now and again that summer he went alone into the wilderness +to find his balance and to get entirely away from humankind. + +In "Roughing It" Mark Twain tells the story of how he and Higbie finally +located a "blind lead," which made them really millionaires, until they +forfeited their claim through the sharp practice of some rival miners and +their own neglect. It is true that the "Wide West" claim was forfeited +in some such manner, but the size of the loss was magnified in "Roughing +It," to make a good story. There was never a fortune in "Wide West," +except the one sunk in it by its final owners. The story as told in +"Roughing It" is a tale of what might have happened, and ends the +author's days in the mines with a good story-book touch. + +The mining career of Samuel Clemens really came to a close gradually, and +with no showy climax. He fought hard and surrendered little by little, +without owning, even to the end, that he was surrendering at all. It was +the gift of resolution that all his life would make his defeats long and +costly--his victories supreme. + +By the end of July the money situation in the Aurora camp was getting +desperate. Orion's depleted salary would no longer pay for food, tools, +and blasting-powder, and the miner began to cast about far means to earn +an additional sum, however small. The "Josh" letters to the "Enterprise" +had awakened interest as to their author, and Orion had not failed to let +"Josh's" identity be known. The result had been that here and there a +coast paper had invited contributions and even suggested payment. A +letter written by the Aurora miner at the end of July tells this part of +the story: + + "My debts are greater than I thought for . . . . 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 + that I will 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 "New 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." + +This all led to nothing, but about the same time the "Enterprise" +assistant already mentioned spoke to Joseph T. Goodman, owner and editor +of the paper, about adding "Josh" to their regular staff. "Joe" Goodman, +a man of keen humor and literary perception, agreed that the author of +the "Josh" letters might be useful to them. One of the sketches +particularly appealed to him--a burlesque report of a Fourth of July +oration. + +"That is the kind 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. + +Yet the hard-pressed miner made no haste to accept the offer. To leave +Aurora meant the surrender of all hope in the mines, the confession of +another failure. He wrote Barstow, asking when he thought he might be +needed. And at the same time, in a letter to Orion, he said: + + "I shall leave at midnight to-night, alone and on foot, for a walk of + sixty or seventy miles through a totally uninhabited country. 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." + +He had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone, postponing +the final moment of surrender--surrender that, had he known, only meant +the beginning of victory. He was still undecided when he returned eight +days later and wrote to his sister Pamela a letter in which there is no- +mention of newspaper prospects. + +Just how and when the end came at last cannot be known; but one hot, +dusty August afternoon, in Virginia City, a worn, travel-stained pilgrim +dragged himself into the office of the "Territorial Enterprise," then in +its new building on C Street, and, loosening a heavy roll of blankets +from his shoulder, dropped wearily into a chair. He wore a rusty slouch +hat, no coat, a faded blue-flannel shirt, a navy revolver; his trousers +were tucked into his boot-tops; a tangle of reddish-brown hair fell on +his shoulders; a mass of tawny beard, dingy with alkali dust, dropped +half-way to his waist. + +Aurora lay one hundred and thirty miles from Virginia City. He had +walked that distance, carrying his heavy load. Editor Goodman was absent +at the moment, but the other proprietor, Dennis E. McCarthy, asked the +caller to 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'm 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! + + + + +XXI. + +THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE + +In 1852 Virginia City, Nevada, was the most flourishing of mining towns. +A half-crazy miner, named Comstock, had discovered there a vein of such +richness that the "Comstock Lode" was presently glutting the mineral +markets of the world. Comstock himself got very little out of it, but +those who followed him made millions. Miners, speculators, adventurers +swarmed in. Every one seemed to have money. The streets seethed with an +eager, affluent, boisterous throng whose chief business seemed to be to +spend the wealth that the earth was yielding in such a mighty stream. + +Business of every kind boomed. Less than two years earlier, J. T. +Goodman, a miner who was also a printer and a man of literary taste, had +joined with another printer, Dennis McCarthy, and the two had managed to +buy a struggling Virginia City paper, the "Territorial Enterprise." But +then came the hightide of fortune. A year later the "Enterprise," from a +starving sheet in a leaky shanty, had become a large, handsome paper in a +new building, and of such brilliant editorial management that it was the +most widely considered journal on the Pacific coast. + +Goodman was a fine, forceful writer, and he surrounded himself with able +men. He was a young man, full of health and vigor, overflowing with the +fresh spirit and humor of the West. Comstockers would always laugh at a +joke, and Goodman was always willing to give it to them. The +"Enterprise" was a newspaper, but it was willing to furnish entertainment +even at the cost of news. William Wright, editorially next to Goodman, +was a humorist of ability. His articles, signed Dan de Quille, were +widely copied. R. M. Daggett (afterward United States Minister to +Hawaii) was also an "Enterprise" man, and there were others of their +sort. + +Samuel Clemens fitted precisely into this group. He brought with him a +new turn of thought and expression; he saw things with open eyes, and +wrote of them in a fresh, wild way that Comstockers loved. He was +allowed full freedom. Goodman suppressed nothing; his men could write as +they chose. They were all young together--if they pleased themselves, +they were pretty sure to please their readers. Often they wrote of one +another--squibs and burlesques, which gratified the Comstock far more +than mere news. It was just the school to produce Mark Twain. + +The new arrival found acquaintance easy. The whole "Enterprise" force +was like one family; proprietors, editor, and printers were social +equals. Samuel Clemens immediately became "Sam" to his associates, just +as De Quille was "Dan," and Goodman "Joe." Clemens was supposed to +report city items, and did, in fact, do such work, which he found easy, +for his pilot-memory made notes unnecessary. + +He could gather items all day, and at night put down the day's budget +well enough, at least, to delight his readers. When he was tired of +facts, he would write amusing paragraphs, as often as not something about +Dan, or a reporter on a rival paper. Dan and the others would reply, and +the Comstock would laugh. Those were good old days. + +Sometimes he wrote hoaxes. Once he told with great circumstance and +detail of a petrified prehistoric man that had been found embedded in a +rock in the desert, and how the coroner from Humboldt had traveled more +than a hundred miles to hold an inquest over a man dead for centuries, +and had refused to allow miners to blast the discovery from its position. + +The sketch was really intended as a joke on the Humboldt coroner, but it +was so convincingly written that most of the Coast papers took it +seriously and reprinted it as the story of a genuine discovery. In time +they awoke, and began to inquire as to who was the smart writer on the +"Enterprise." + +Mark Twain did a number of such things, some of which are famous on the +Coast to this day. + +Clemens himself did not escape. Lamps were used in the "Enterprise" +office, but he hated the care of a lamp, and worked evenings by the light +of a candle. It was considered a great joke in the office to "hide Sam's +candle" and hear him fume and rage, walking in a circle meantime--a habit +acquired in the pilothouse--and scathingly denouncing the culprits. +Eventually the office-boy, supposedly innocent, would bring another +candle, and quiet would follow. Once the office force, including De +Quille, McCarthy, and a printer named Stephen Gillis, of whom Clemens was +very fond, bought a large imitation meerschaum pipe, had a German-silver +plate set on it, properly engraved, and presented it to Samuel Clemens as +genuine, in testimony of their great esteem. His reply to the +presentation speech was so fine and full of feeling that the jokers felt +ashamed of their trick. A few days later, when he discovered the +deception, he was ready to destroy the lot of them. Then, in atonement, +they gave him a real meerschaum. Such things kept the Comstock +entertained. + +There was a side to Samuel Clemens that, in those days, few of his +associates saw. This was the poetic, the reflective side. Joseph +Goodman, like Macfarlane in Cincinnati several years earlier, recognized +this phase of his character and developed it. Often these two, dining or +walking together, discussed the books and history they had read, quoted +from poems that gave them pleasure. Clemens sometimes recited with great +power the "Burial of Moses," whose noble phrasing and majestic imagery +seemed to move him deeply. 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 sepulcher, + And no man saw it e'er, + For the angels of God upturned the sod, + And laid the dead man there. + +That his own writing would be influenced by the simple grandeur of this +poem we can hardly doubt. Indeed, it may have been to him a sort of +literary touchstone, that in time would lead him to produce, as has been +said, some of the purest English written by any modern author. + + + + +XXII. + +"MARK TWAIN" + +It was once when Goodman and Clemens were dining together that the latter +asked to be allowed to report the proceedings of the coming legislature +at Carson City. He knew nothing of such work, and Goodman hesitated. +Then, remembering that Clemens would, at least, make his reports +readable, whether they were parliamentary or not, he consented. + +So, at the beginning of the year (1863), Samuel Clemens undertook a new +and interesting course in the study of human nature--the political human +nature of the frontier. There could have been no better school for him. +His wit, his satire, his phrasing had full swing--his letters, almost +from the beginning, were copied as choice reading up and down the Coast. +He made curious blunders, at first, as to the proceedings, but his open +confession of ignorance in the early letters made these blunders their +chief charm. A young man named Gillespie, clerk of the House, coached +him, and in return was christened "Young Jefferson's Manual," a title +which he bore for many years. + +A reporter named Rice, on a rival Virginia City paper, the "Union," also +earned for himself a title through those early letters. + +Rice concluded to poke fun at the "Enterprise" reports, pointing out +their mistakes. But this was not wise. Clemens, in his next +contribution, admitted that Rice's reports might be parliamentary enough, +but declared his glittering technicalities were only to cover +misstatements of fact. He vowed they were wholly untrustworthy, dubbed +the author of them "The Unreliable," and never thereafter referred to him +by any other term. Carson and the Comstock papers delighted in this +foolery, and Rice became "The Unreliable" for life. There was no real +feeling between Rice and Clemens. They were always the best of friends. + +But now we arrive at the story of still another name, one of vastly +greater importance than either of those mentioned, for it is the name +chosen by Samuel Clemens for himself. In those days it was the fashion +for a writer to have a pen-name, especially for his journalistic and +humorous work. Clemens felt that his "Enterprise" letters, copied up and +down the Coast, needed a mark of identity. + +He gave the matter a good deal of thought. He wanted something brief and +strong--something that would stick in the mind. It was just at this time +that news came of the death of Capt. Isaiah Sellers, the old pilot who +had signed himself "Mark Twain." Mark Twain! That was the name he +wanted. It was not trivial. It had all the desired qualities. Captain +Sellers would never need it again. It would do no harm to keep it alive- +-to give it a new meaning in a new land. Clemens took a trip from Carson +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 +leadsman'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 waters." + +He did not mention that Captain Sellers had used and dropped the name. +He was not proud of his part in that episode, and it was too recent for +confession. + +Goodman considered a moment. "Very well, Sam," he said, "that sounds +like a good name." + +A good name, indeed! Probably, if he had considered every combination of +words in the language, he could not have found a better one. To-day we +recognize it as the greatest nom de plume ever chosen, and, somehow, we +cannot believe that the writer of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn" and +"Roughing It" could have selected any other had he tried. + +The name Mark Twain was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, +1863, and after that to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters that +had amused so many readers had taken on a new interest--the interest that +goes with a name. It became immediately more than a pen-name. Clemens +found he had attached a name to himself as well as to his letters. +Everybody began to address him as Mark. Within a few weeks he was no +longer "Sam" or "Clemens," but Mark--Mark Twain. The Coast papers liked +the sound of it. It began to mean something to their readers. By the +end of that legislative session Samuel Clemens, as Mark Twain, had +acquired out there on that breezy Western slope something resembling +fame. + +Curiously, he fails to mention any of this success in his letters home of +that period. Indeed, he seldom refers to his work, but more often speaks +of mining shares which he has accumulated, and their possible values. +His letters are airy, full of the joy of life and of the wild doings of +the frontier. Closing one of them, he says: "I have just heard five +pistolshots down the street. As such things are in my line, I will go +and see about it." + +And in a postscript, later, he adds: + + "5 A.M.--The pistol-shots did their 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." + +The Comstock was a great school for Mark Twain, and in "Roughing It" he +has left us a faithful picture of its long-vanished glory. + +More than one national character came out of the Comstock school. +Senator James G. Fair was one of them, and John Mackay, both miners with +pick and shovel at first, though Mackay presently became a +superintendent. Mark Twain one day laughingly offered to trade jobs 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." + +For both these men the future held splendid gifts: for Mackay vast +wealth, for Mark Twain the world's applause, and neither would have long +to wait. + + + + +XXIII. + +ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO + +It was about the end of 1863 that a new literary impulse came into Mark +Twain's life. The gentle and lovable humorist Artemus Ward (Charles F. +Browne) was that year lecturing in the West, and came to Virginia City. +Ward had intended to stay only a few days, but the whirl of the Comstock +fascinated him. He made the "Enterprise" office his headquarters and +remained three weeks. He and Mark Twain became boon companions. Their +humor was not unlike; they were kindred spirits, together almost +constantly. Ward was then at the summit of his fame, and gave the +younger man the highest encouragement, prophesying great things for ha +work. Clemens, on his side, was stirred, perhaps for the first time, +with a real literary ambition, and the thought that he, too, might win a +place of honor. He promised Ward that he would send work to the Eastern +papers. + +On Christmas Eve, Ward gave a dinner to the "Enterprise" staff, at +Chaumond's, a fine French restaurant of that day. When refreshments +came, Artemus lifted his glass, and said: + +"I give you Upper Canada." + +The company rose and drank the toast in serious silence. Then Mr. +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. + +What would one not give to have listened to the talk of that evening! +Mark Twain's power had awakened; Artemus Ward was in his prime. They +were giants of a race that became extinct when Mark Twain died. + +Goodman remained rather quiet during the evening. Ward had appointed him +to order the dinner, and he had attended to this duty without mingling +much in the conversation. When Ward asked him why he did not join the +banter, he said: + +"I am preparing a joke, Artemus, but I am keeping it for the present." + +At a late hour Ward finally 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," laughed +Ward, laying the money on the table. + +Ward remained through the holidays, and later wrote back an affectionate +letter to Mark Twain. + +"I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence," he +said, "as all others must, or rather, cannot be, as it were." + +With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Mark Twain now began sending work +eastward. The "New York Sunday Mercury" published one, possibly more, of +his sketches, but they were not in his best vein, and made little +impression. He may have been too busy for outside work, for the +legislative session of 1864 was just beginning. Furthermore, he had been +chosen governor of the "Third House," a mock legislature, organized for +one session, to be held as a church benefit. The "governor" was to +deliver a message, which meant that he was to burlesque from the platform +all public officials and personages, from the real governor down. + +With the exception of a short talk he had once given at a printer's +dinner in Keokuk, it was Mark Twain's first appearance as a speaker, and +the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs on the platform. The +building was packed--the aisles full. The audience was ready for fun, +and he gave it to them. Nobody escaped ridicule; from beginning to end +the house was a storm of laughter and applause. + +Not a word of this first address of Mark Twain's has been preserved, but +those who heard it always spoke of it as the greatest effort of his life, +as to them it seemed, no doubt. + +For his Third House address, Clemens was presented with a gold watch, +inscribed "To Governor Mark Twain." Everywhere, now, he was pointed out +as a distinguished figure, and his quaint remarks were quoted. Few of +these sayings are remembered to-day, though occasionally one is still +unforgotten. At a party one night, being urged to make a conundrum, he +said: + +"Well, why am I like the Pacific Ocean?" + +Several guesses were made, but he shook his head. Some one said: + +"We give it up. Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?" + +"I--don't--know," he drawled. "I was just--asking for information." + +The governor of Nevada was generally absent, and Orion Clemens was +executive head of the territory. His wife, who had joined him in Carson +City, was social head of the little capital, and Brother Sam, with his +new distinction and now once more something of a dandy in dress, was +society's chief ornament--a great change, certainly, from the early +months of his arrival less than three years before. + +It was near the end of May, 1864, when Mark Twain left Nevada for San +Francisco. The immediate cause of his going was a duel--a duel +elaborately arranged between Mark Twain and the editor of a rival paper, +but never fought. In fact, it was mainly a burlesque affair throughout, +chiefly concocted by that inveterate joker, Steve Gillis, already +mentioned in connection with the pipe incident. The new dueling law, +however, did not distinguish between real and mock affrays, and the +prospect of being served with a summons made a good excuse for Clemens +and Gillis to go to San Francisco, which had long attracted them. They +were great friends, these two, and presently were living together and +working on the same paper, the "Morning Call," Clemens as a reporter and +Gillis as a compositor. + +Gillis, with his tendency to mischief, was a constant exasperation to his +room-mate, who, goaded by some new torture, would sometimes denounce him +in feverish terms. Yet they were never anything but the closest friends. + +Mark Twain did not find happiness in his new position on the "Call." +There was less freedom and more drudgery than he had known on the +"Enterprise." His day was spent around the police court, attending +fires, weddings, and funerals, with brief glimpses of the theaters at +night. + +Once he wrote: "It was fearful drudgery--soulless drudgery--and almost +destitute of interest. It was an awful slavery for a lazy man." + +It must have been so. There was little chance for original work. He had +become just a part of a news machine. He saw many public abuses that he +wished to expose, but the policy of the paper opposed him. Once, +however, 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. He knew the paper would not +publish the policeman's negligence, but he could advertise it in his own +way. A large crowd soon collected, much amused. When he thought the +audience large enough, he went away. Next day the joke was all over the +city. + +He grew indifferent to the "Call" work, and, when an assistant was +allowed him to do part of the running for items, it was clear to +everybody that presently the assistant would be able to do it all. + +But there was a pleasant and profitable side to the San Francisco life. +There were real literary people there--among them a young man, with rooms +upstairs in the "Call" office, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the +"Californian," a new literary weekly which Charles Henry Webb had +recently founded. Bret Harte was not yet famous, but his gifts were +recognized on the Pacific slope, especially by the "Era" group of +writers, the "Golden Era" being a literary monthly of considerable +distinction. Joaquin Miller recalls, from his diary of that period, +having seen Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Mark +Twain, Artemus Ward, and others, all assembled there at one time--a +remarkable group, certainly, to be dropped down behind the Sierras so +long ago. They were a hopeful, happy lot, and sometimes received five +dollars for an article, which, of course, seemed a good deal more +precious than a much larger sum earned in another way. + +Mark Twain had contributed to the "Era" while still in Virginia City, and +now, with Bret Harte, was ranked as a leader of the group. The two were +much together, and when Harte became editor of the "Californian" he +engaged Clemens as a regular contributor at the very fancy rate of twelve +dollars an article. Some of the brief chapters included to-day in +"Sketches New and Old" were done at this time. They have humor, but are +not equal to his later work, and beyond the Pacific slope they seem to +have attracted little attention. + +In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from +the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the +depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit +of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The +true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly +talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection. +Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for +the "Enterprise," for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, +with his earnings from the "Californian," made his total return larger +than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time--literary men +are often that--but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have +us believe, is just a good story and not history. + + + + +XXIV. + +THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG" + +Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him +in San Francisco. He was free, now, to write what he chose, and he +attacked the corrupt police management with such fierceness that, when +copies of the "Enterprise" got back to San Francisco, they started a +commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more +vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even +the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, +word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police +brought against the Enterprise advertised the paper amazingly. + +But now came what at the time seemed an unfortunate circumstance. Steve +Gillis, always a fearless defender of the weak, one night rushed to the +assistance of two young fellows who had been set upon by three roughs. +Gillis, though small of stature, was a terrific combatant, and he +presently put two of the assailants to flight and had the other ready for +the hospital. Next day it turned out that the roughs were henchmen of +the police, and Gillis was arrested. + +Clemens went his bail, and advised Steve to go down to Virginia City +until the storm blew over. + +But it did not blow over for Mark Twain. The police department was only +too glad to have a chance at the author of the fierce "Enterprise" +letters, and promptly issued a summons for him, with an execution against +his personal effects. If James N. Gillis, brother of Steve, had not +happened along just then and spirited Mark Twain away to his mining-camp +in the Tuolumne Hills, the beautiful gold watch given to the governor of +the Third House might have been sacrificed in the cause of friendship. + +As it was, he found himself presently in the far and peaceful seclusion +of that land which Bret Harte would one day make famous with his tales of +"Roaring Camp" and "Sandy Bar." Jim Gillis was, in fact, the Truthful +James of Bret Harte, and his cabin on jackass Hill had been the retreat +of Harte and many another literary wayfarer who had wandered there for +rest and refreshment and peace. It was said the sick were made well, and +the well made better, in Jim Gillis's cabin. There were plenty of books +and a variety of out-of-door recreation. One could mine there if he +chose. Jim would furnish the visiting author with a promising claim, and +teach him to follow the little fan-like drift of gold specks to the +pocket of treasure somewhere up the hillside. + +Gillis himself had literary ability, though he never wrote. He told his +stories, and with his back to the open fire would weave the most amazing +tales, invented as he went along. His stories were generally wonderful +adventures that had happened to his faithful companion, Stoker; and +Stoker never denied them, but would smoke and look into the fire, smiling +a little sometimes, but never saying a word. A number of the tales later +used by Mark Twain were first told by Jim Gillis in the cabin on Jackass +Hill. "Dick Baker's Cat" was one of these, the jay-bird and acorn story +in "A Tramp Abroad" was another. Mark Twain had little to add to these +stories. + +"They are not mine, they are Jim's," he said, once; "but I never could +get them to sound like Jim--they were never as good as his." + +It was early in December, 1864, when Mark Twain arrived at the humble +retreat, built of logs under a great live-oak tree, and surrounded by a +stretch of blue-grass. A younger Gillis boy was there at the time, and +also, of course, Dick Stoker and his cat, Tom Quartz, which every reader +of "Roughing It" knows. + +It was the rainy season, but on pleasant days they all went pocket- +mining, and, in January, Mark Twain, Gillis, and Stoker crossed over into +Calaveras County and began work near Angel's Camp, a place well known to +readers of Bret Harte. They put up at a poor hotel in Angel's, and on +good days worked pretty faithfully. But it was generally raining, and +the food was poor. + +In his note-book, still preserved, Mark Twain wrote: "January 27 (1865). +--Same old diet--same old weather--went out to the pocket-claim--had to +rush back." + +So they spent a good deal of their time around the rusty stove in the +dilapidated tavern at Angel's Camp. It seemed a profitless thing to do, +but few experiences were profitless to Mark Twain, and certainly this one +was not. + +At this barren mining hotel there happened to be a former Illinois River +pilot named Ben Coon, a solemn, sleepy person, who dozed by the stove or +told slow, pointless stories to any one who would listen. Not many would +stay to hear him, but Jim Gillis and Mark Twain found him a delight. +They would let him wander on in his dull way for hours, and saw a vast +humor in a man to whom all tales, however trivial or absurd, were serious +history. + +At last, one dreary afternoon, he told them about a frog--a frog that had +belonged to a man named Coleman, who had trained it to jump, and how the +trained frog had failed to win a wager because the owner of the rival +frog had slyly loaded the trained jumper with shot. It was not a new +story in the camps, but Ben Coon made a long tale of it, and it happened +that neither Clemens nor Gillis had heard it before. They thought it +amusing, and his solemn way of telling it still more so. + +"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's better than any other +frog," became a catch phrase among the mining partners; and, "I 'ain't +got no frog, but if I had a frog, I'd bet you." + +Out on the claim, Clemens, watching Gillis and Stoker anxiously washing, +would say, "I don't see no pints about that pan o' dirt that's any better +than any other pan o' dirt." And so they kept the tale going. In his +note-book Mark Twain made a brief memorandum of the story for possible +use. + +The mining was rather hopeless work. The constant and heavy rains were +disheartening. Clemens hated it, and even when, one afternoon, traces of +a pocket began to appear, he rebelled as the usual chill downpour set in. + +"Jim," he said, "let's go home; we'll freeze here." + +Gillis, as usual, was washing, and Clemens carrying the water. Gillis, +seeing the gold "color" improving with every pan, wanted to go on washing +and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of wet and cold. +Clemens, shivering and disgusted, vowed that each pail of water would be +his last. His teeth were chattering, and he was wet through. Finally he +said: + +"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work too disagreeable." + +Gillis had just taken out a panful of dirt. + +"Bring one more pail, Sam," he begged. + +"Jim I won't do it. I'm-freezing." + +"Just one more pail, Sam!" Jim pleaded. + +"No, sir; not a drop--not if I knew there was a million dollars in that +pan." + +Gillis tore out a page of his note-book and hastily posted a thirty-day- +claim notice by the pan of dirt. Then they set out for Angel's Camp, +never to return. It kept on raining, and a letter came from Steve +Gillis, saying he had settled all the trouble in San Francisco. Clemens +decided to return, and the miners left Angel's without visiting their +claim again. + +Meantime the rain had washed away the top of the pan of dirt they had +left standing on the hillside, exposing a handful of nuggets, pure gold. +Two strangers, Austrians, happening along, gathered it up and, seeing the +claim notice posted by Jim Gillis, sat down to wait until it expired. +They did not mind the rain--not under the circumstances--and the moment +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 that Mark Twain missed by one pail of water. +Still, without knowing it, he had carried away in his note-book a single +nugget of far greater value the story of "The Jumping Frog." + +He did not write it, however, immediately upon his return to San +Francisco. He went back to his "Enterprise" letters and contributed some +sketches to the Californian. Perhaps he thought the frog story too mild +in humor for the slope. By and by he wrote it, and by request sent it to +Artemus Ward to be used in a book that Ward was about to issue. It +arrived too late, and the publisher handed it to the editor of the +"Saturday Press," Henry Clapp, saying: + +"Here, Clapp, is something you can use in your paper." + +The "Press" was struggling, and was glad to get a story so easily. "Jim +Smiley and his jumping Frog" appeared in the issue of November 18, 1865, +and was at once copied and quoted far and near. It carried the name of +Mark Twain across the mountains and the prairies of the Middle West; it +bore it up and down the Atlantic slope. Some one said, then or later, +that Mark Twain leaped into fame on the back of a jumping frog. + +Curiously, this did not at first please the author. He thought the tale +poor. To his mother he wrote: + +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. + +However, somewhat later he changed his mind considerably, especially when +he heard that James Russell Lowell had pronounced the story the finest +piece of humorous writing yet produced in America. + + + + +XXV. + +HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME + +Mark Twain remained about a year in San Francisco after his return from +the Gillis cabin and Angel's Camp, adding to his prestige along the Coast +rather than to his national reputation. Then, in the spring of 1866 he +was commissioned by the "Sacramento Union" to write a series of letters +that would report the life, trade, agriculture, and general aspects of +the Hawaiian group. He sailed in March, and his four months in those +delectable islands remained always to him a golden memory--an experience +which he hoped some day to repeat. He was young and eager for adventure +then, and he went everywhere--horseback and afoot--saw everything, did +everything, and wrote of it all for his paper. His letters to the +"Union" were widely read and quoted, and, though not especially literary, +added much to his journalistic standing. He was a great sight-seer in +those days, and a persevering one. No discomfort or risk discouraged +him. Once, with a single daring companion, he crossed the burning floor +of the mighty crater of Kilauea, racing across the burning lava, leaping +wide and bottomless crevices where a misstep would have meant death. His +open-air life on the river and in the mining-camps had nerved and +hardened him for adventure. He was thirty years old and in his physical +prime. His mental growth had been slower, but it was sure, and it would +seem always to have had the right guidance at the right time. + +Clemens had been in the islands three months when one day Anson +Burlingame arrived there, en route to his post as minister to China. +With him was his son Edward, a boy of eighteen, and General Van +Valkenburg, minister to Japan. Young Burlingame had read about Jim +Smiley's jumping frog and, learning that the author was in Honolulu, but +ill after a long trip inland, sent word that the party would call on him +next morning. But Mark Twain felt that he could not accept this honor, +and, crawling out of bed, shaved himself and drove to the home of the +American minister, where the party was staying. He made a great +impression with the diplomats. It was an occasion of good stories and +much laughter. On leaving, General Van Valkenburg said to him: + + "California is proud of Mark Twain, and some day the American people + will be, too, no doubt." Which was certainly a good prophecy. + +It was only a few days later that the diplomats rendered him a great +service. Report had come of the arrival at Sanpahoe of an open boat +containing fifteen starving men, who had been buffeting a stormy sea for +forty-three days--sailors from the missing ship Hornet of New York, +which, it appeared, had been burned at sea. Presently eleven of the +rescued men were brought to Honolulu and placed in the hospital. + +Mark Twain recognized the great importance as news of this event. It +would be a splendid beat if he could interview the castaways and be the +first to get their story in his paper. There was no cable, but a vessel +was sailing for San Francisco next morning. It seemed the opportunity of +a lifetime, but he was now bedridden and could scarcely move. + +Then suddenly appeared in his room Anson Burlingame and his party, and, +almost before Mark Twain realized what was happening, he was on a cot +and, escorted by the heads of two legations, was on his way to the +hospital to get the precious interview. Once there, Anson Burlingame, +with his gentle manner and courtly presence, drew from those enfeebled +castaways all the story of the burning of the vessel, followed by the +long privation and struggle that had lasted through forty-three fearful +days and across four thousand miles of stormy sea. All that Mark Twain +had to do was to listen and make notes. That night he wrote against +time, and next morning, just as the vessel was drifting from the dock, a +strong hand flung his bulky manuscript aboard and his great beat was +sure. The three-column story, published in the "Sacramento Union" of +July 9, gave the public the first detailed history of the great disaster. +The telegraph carried it everywhere, and it was featured as a sensation. + +Mark Twain and the Burlingame party were much together during the rest of +their stay in Hawaii, and Samuel Clemens never ceased to love and honor +the memory of Anson Burlingame. It was proper that he should do so, for +he owed him much--far more than has already been told. + +Anson Burlingame one day said to him: "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." + +This, coming to him from a man of Burlingame's character and position, +was like a gospel from some divine source. Clemens never forgot the +advice. It gave him courage, new hope, new resolve, new ideals. + +Burlingame came often to the hotel, and they discussed plans for Mark +Twain's future. The diplomat invited the journalist to visit him in +China: + +"Come to Pekin," he said, "and make my house your home." + +Young Burlingame also came, when the patient became convalescent, 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," said Clemens. + +"Very well; the Bible says: `If any man require thee to walk a mile, go +with him Twain.'" + +The walk was taken. + +Mark Twain returned to California at the end of July, and went down to +Sacramento. It was agreed that a special bill should be made for the +"Hornet" report. + +"How much do you think it ought to be, Mark?" asked one of the +proprietors. + +Clemens said: "Oh, I'm a modest man; I don't want the whole "Union" +office; call it a hundred dollars a column." + +There was a general laugh. The bill was made out at that figure, and he +took it to the 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 robbery, but `no matter, pay it. +It's all right.' The best men that ever owned a paper." [6] + +[6] "My Debut as a Literary Person." + + + + +XXVI. + +MARK TWAIN, LECTURER + +In spite of the success of his Sandwich Island letters, Samuel Clemens +felt, on his return to San Francisco, that his future was not bright. He +was not a good, all-round newspaper man--he was special correspondent and +sketch-writer, out of a job. + +He had a number of plans, but they did not promise much. One idea was to +make a book from his Hawaiian material. Another was to write magazine +articles, beginning with one on the Hornet disaster. He did, in fact, +write the Hornet article, and its prompt acceptance by "Harper's +Magazine" delighted him, for it seemed a start in the right direction. A +third plan was to lecture on the islands. + +This prospect frightened him. He had succeeded in his "Third House" +address of two years before, but then he had lectured without charge and +for a church benefit. This would be a different matter. + +One of the proprietors of a San Francisco paper, Col. John McComb, of the +"Alta California," was strong in his approval of the lecture idea. + +"Do it, by all means," he said. "Take the largest house in the city, and +charge a dollar a ticket." + +Without waiting until his fright came back, Mark Twain hurried to the +manager of the Academy of Music, and engaged it for a lecture to be given +October 2d (1866), and sat down and wrote his announcement. He began by +stating what he would speak upon, and ended with a few absurdities, such +as: + + 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. + A GRAND TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION + may be expected; in fact, the public are privileged to + expect whatever they please. + Doors open at 7 o'clock. The trouble to begin at 8 o'clock. + +Mark Twain was well known in San Francisco, and was pretty sure to have a +good house. But he did not realize this, and, as the evening approached, +his dread of failure increased. Arriving at the theater, he entered by +the stage door, half expecting to find the place empty. Then, suddenly, +he became more frightened than ever; peering from the wings, he saw that +the house was jammed--packed from the footlights to the walls! +Terrified, his knees shaking, his tongue dry, he managed to emerge, and +was greeted with a roar, a crash of applause that nearly finished him. +Only for an instant--reaction followed; these people were his friends, +and he was talking to them. He forgot to be afraid, and, as the applause +came in great billows that rose ever higher, he felt himself borne with +it as on a tide of happiness and success. His evening, from beginning to +end, was a complete triumph. Friends declared that for descriptive +eloquence, humor, and real entertainment nothing like his address had +ever been delivered. The morning papers were enthusiastic. + +Mark Twain no longer hesitated as to what he should do now. He would +lecture. The book idea no longer attracted him; the appearance of the +"Hornet" article, signed, through a printer's error, "Mark Swain," cooled +his desire to be a magazine contributor. No matter--lecturing was the +thing. Dennis McCarthy, who had sold his interest in the "Enterprise," +was in San Francisco. Clemens engaged this honest, happy-hearted +Irishman as manager, and the two toured California and Nevada with +continuous success. + +Those who remember Mark Twain as a lecturer in that early day say that on +entering he would lounge loosely across the platform, his manuscript-- +written on wrapping-paper and carried under his arm--looking like a +ruffled hen. His delivery they recall as being even more quaint and +drawling than in later life. Once, when his lecture was over, an old man +came up to him and said: + +"Be them your natural tones of eloquence?" + +In those days it was thought proper that a lecturer should be introduced, +and Clemens himself used to tell of being presented by an old miner, who +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." + +When he reached Virginia, his old friend Goodman said, "Sam, you don't +need anybody to introduce you," and he suggested a novel plan. That +night, when the curtain rose, it showed Mark Twain seated at a piano, +playing and singing, as if still cub pilot on the "John J. Roe:" + + "Had an old horse whose name was Methusalem, + Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem, + A long time ago." + +Pretending to be surprised and startled at the burst of applause, he +sprang up and began to talk. How the audience enjoyed it! + +Mark Twain continued his lecture tour into December, and then, on the +15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York. +He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had +planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of +letters to the "Alta California," lecturing where opportunity afforded. +He had been on the Coast five and a half years, and to his professions of +printing and piloting had added three others--mining, journalism, and +lecturing. Also, he had acquired a measure of fame. He could come back +to his people with a good account of his absence and a good heart for the +future. + +But it seems now only a chance that he arrived at all. Crossing the +Isthmus, he embarked for New York on what proved to be a cholera ship. +For a time there were one or more funerals daily. An entry in his diary +says: + + "Since the last two hours all laughter, all levity, has ceased on the + ship--a settled gloom is upon the faces of the passengers. + + "But the winter air of the North checked the contagion, and there + were no new cases when New York City was reached." + +Clemens remained but a short time in New York, and was presently in St. +Louis with his mother and sister. They thought he looked old, but he had +not changed in manner, and the gay banter between mother and son was soon +as lively as ever. He was thirty-one now, and she sixty-four, but the +years had made little difference. She petted him, joked with him, and +scolded him. In turn, he petted and comforted and teased her. She +decided he was the same Sam and always would be--a true prophecy. + +He visited Hannibal and lectured there, receiving an ovation that would +have satisfied even Tom Sawyer. In Keokuk he lectured again, then +returned to St. Louis to plan his trip around the world. + +He was not to make a trip around the world, however--not then. In St. +Louis he saw the notice of the great "Quaker City" Holy Land excursion-- +the first excursion of the kind ever planned--and was greatly taken with +the idea. Impulsive as always, he wrote at once to the "Alta +California," proposing that they send him as their correspondent on this +grand ocean picnic. The cost of passage was $1.200, and the "Alta" +hesitated, but Colonel McComb, already mentioned, assured his associates +that the investment would be sound. The "Alta" wrote, accepting Mark +Twain's proposal, and agreed to pay twenty dollars each for letters. +Clemens hurried to New York to secure a berth, fearing the passenger-list +might be full. Furthermore, with no one of distinction to vouch for him, +according to advertised requirements, he was not sure of being accepted. +Arriving in New York, he learned from an "Alta" representative that +passage had already been reserved for him, but he still doubted his +acceptance as one of the distinguished advertised company. His mind was +presently relieved on this point. Waiting his turn at the booking-desk, +he heard a newspaper man inquire: + +"What notables are going?" + +A clerk, with evident pride, rattled off the names: + +"Lieutenant-General Sherman, Henry Ward Beecher, and Mark Twain; also, +probably, General Banks." + +It was very pleasant to hear the clerk say that. Not only was he +accepted, but billed as an attraction. + +The "Quaker City" would not sail for two months yet, and during the +period of waiting Mark Twain was far from idle. He wrote New York +letters to the "Alta," and he embarked in two rather important ventures-- +he published his first book and he delivered a lecture in New York City. + +Both these undertakings were planned and carried out by friends from the +Coast. Charles Henry Webb, who had given up his magazine to come East, +had collected "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other +Sketches," and, after trying in vain to find a publisher for them, +brought them out himself, on the 1st of May, 1867.[7] It seems curious +now that any publisher should have declined the little volume, for the +sketches, especially the frog story, had been successful, and there was +little enough good American humor in print. However, publishing was a +matter not lightly undertaken in those days. + +Mark Twain seems to have been rather pleased with the appearance of his +first book. To Bret Harte he wrote: + +The book is out and is handsome. It is full of . . . errors....but be a +friend and say nothing about those things. When my hurry is over, I will +send you a copy to pizen the children with. + +The little cloth-and-gold volume, so valued by book-collectors to-day, +contained the frog story and twenty-six other sketches, some of which are +still preserved in Mark Twain's collected works. Most of them were not +Mark Twain's best literature, but they were fresh and readable and suited +the taste of that period. The book sold very well, and, while it did not +bring either great fame or fortune to its author, it was by no means a +failure. + +The "hurry" mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to Bret Harte related to his +second venture--that is to say, his New York lecture, an enterprise +managed by an old Comstock friend, Frank Fuller, ex-Governor of Utah. +Fuller, always a sanguine and energetic person, had proposed the lecture +idea as soon as Mark Twain arrived in New York. Clemens shook his head. + +"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "We +couldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me." + +But Fuller insisted, and eventually engaged the largest hall in New York, +the Cooper Union. Full of enthusiasm and excitement, he plunged into the +business of announcing and advertising his attraction, and inventing +schemes for the sale of seats. Clemens caught Fuller's enthusiasm by +spells, but between times he was deeply depressed. Fuller had got up a +lot of tiny hand-bills, and had arranged to hang bunches of these in the +horse-cars. The little dangling clusters fascinated Clemens, and he rode +about to see if anybody else noticed them. Finally, after a long time, a +passenger pulled off one of the bills and glanced at it. A man with him +asked: + +"Who's Mark Twain?" + +"Goodness knows! I don't." + +The lecturer could not ride any farther. He hunted up his patron. + +"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest." + +Fuller assured him that things were "working underneath," and would be +all right. But Clemens wrote home: "Everything looks shady, at least, if +not dark." And he added that, after hiring the largest house in New +York, he must play against Schuyler Colfax, Ristori, and a double troupe +of Japanese jugglers, at other places of amusement. + +When the evening of the lecture approached and only a few tickets had +been sold, the lecturer was desperate. + +"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in 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 complimentaries!" + +"Very well," said Fuller. "What we want this time is reputation, anyway-- +money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest and most +intelligent audience that was ever gathered in New York City." + +Fuller immediately sent out complimentary tickets to the school-teachers +of New York and Brooklyn---a general invitation to come and hear Mark +Twain's great lecture on the Sandwich Islands. There was nothing to do +after that but wait results. + +Mark Twain had lost faith--he did not believe anybody in New York would +come to hear him even on a free ticket. When the night arrived, he drove +with Fuller to the Cooper Union half an hour before the lecture was to +begin. Forty years later he 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 all the streets were + blocked with people and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't + believe that these people were trying to get to the 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." + +So in its way this venture was a success. It brought Mark Twain a good +deal of a reputation in New York, even if no financial profit, though, in +spite of the flood of complimentaries, there was a cash return of +something like three hundred dollars. This went a good way toward paying +the expenses, while Fuller, in his royal way, insisted on making up the +deficit, declaring he had been paid for everything in the fun and joy of +the game. + +"Mark," he said, "it's 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 to the +"Alta" and the "Tribune" will get the widest reception of any letters of +travel ever written." + + + + +XXVII. + +AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN + +It was early in May--the 6th--that Mark Twain had delivered his Cooper +Union lecture, and a month later, June 8, 1867, he sailed on the "Quaker +City," with some sixty-six other "pilgrims," on the great Holy Land +excursion, the story of which has been so fully and faithfully told in +"The Innocent Abroad." + +What a wonderful thing it must have seemed in that time for a party of +excursionists to have a ship all to themselves to go a-gipsying in from +port to port of antiquity and romance! The advertised celebrities did +not go, none of them but Mark Twain, but no one minded, presently, for +Mark Twain's sayings and stories kept the company sufficiently +entertained, and sometimes he would read aloud to his fellow-passengers +from the newspaper letters he was writing, and invite comment and +criticism. That was entertainment for them, and it was good for him, for +it gave him an immediate audience, always inspiring to an author. +Furthermore, the comments offered were often of the greatest value, +especially suggestions from one Mrs. Fairbanks, of Cleveland, a middle- +aged, cultured woman, herself a correspondent for her husband's paper, +the "Herald". It requires not many days for acquaintances to form on +shipboard, and in due time a little group gathered regularly each +afternoon to hear Mark Twain read what he had written of their day's +doings, though some of it he destroyed later because Mrs. Fairbanks +thought it not his best. + +All of the "pilgrims" mentioned in "The Innocents Abroad" were real +persons. "Dan" was Dan Slote, Mark Twain's room-mate; the Doctor who +confused the guides was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago; the poet +Lariat was Bloodgood H. Cutter, an eccentric from Long Island; "Jack" was +Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey; and "Moult" and "Blucher" and "Charlie" +were likewise real, the last named being Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira, +N. Y., a boy of eighteen, whose sister would one day become Mark Twain's +wife. + +It has been said that Mark Twain first met Olivia Langdon on the "Quaker +City," but this is not quite true; he met only her picture--the original +was not on that ship. Charlie Langdon, boy fashion, made a sort of hero +of the brilliant man called Mark Twain, and one day in the Bay of Smyrna +invited him to his cabin and exhibited his treasures, among them a dainty +miniature of a sister at home, Olivia, a sweet, delicate creature whom +the boy worshiped. + +Samuel Clemens gazed long at the exquisite portrait and spoke of it +reverently, for in the sweet face he seemed to find something spiritual. +Often after that he came to young Langdon's cabin to look at the pictured +countenance, in his heart dreaming of a day when he might learn to know +its owner. + +We need not follow in detail here the travels of the "pilgrims" and their +adventures. Most of them have been fully set down in "The Innocents +Abroad," and with not much elaboration, for plenty of amusing things were +happening on a trip of that kind, and Mark Twain's old note-books are +full of the real incidents that we find changed but little in the book. +If the adventures of Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are embroidered here and +there, the truth is always there, too. + +Yet the old note-books have a very intimate interest of their own. It is +curious to be looking through them to-day, trying to realize that those +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 historic little company that frolicked +through Italy and climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. + +It required five months for the "Quaker City" to make the circuit of the +Mediterranean and return to New York. Mark Twain in that time +contributed fifty two or three letters to the "Alta California" and six +to the "New York Tribune," or an average of nearly three a week--a vast +amount of labor to be done in the midst of sight-seeing. And what +letters of travel they were! The most remarkable that had been written +up to that time. Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry, +they came as a revelation to a public weary of the tiresome descriptive +drivel of that day. They preached a new gospel in travel literature--the +gospel of seeing honestly and speaking frankly--a gospel that Mark Twain +would continue to preach during the rest of his career. + +Furthermore, the letters showed a great literary growth in their author. +No doubt the cultivated associations of the ship, the afternoon reading +aloud of his work, and Mrs. Fairbanks's advice had much to do with this. +But we may believe, also, that the author's close study of the King James +version of the Old Testament during the weeks of travel through Palestine +exerted a powerful influence upon his style. The man who had recited +"The Burial of Moses" to Joe Goodman, with so much feeling, could not +fail to be mastered by the simple yet stately Bible phrase and imagery. +Many of the fine descriptive passages in "The Innocents Abroad" have +something almost Biblical in their phrasing. The writer of this memoir +heard in childhood "The Innocents Abroad" read aloud, and has never +forgotten the poetic spell that fell upon him as he listened to a +paragraph written of Tangier: + + "Here is a crumbled 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." + +Mark Twain returned to America to find himself, if not famous, at least +in very high repute. The "Alta" and "Tribune" letters had carried his +name to every corner of his native land. He was in demand now. To his +mother he wrote: + + "I have eighteen offers to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts of + the Union--have declined them all . . . . Belong on the + "Tribune" staff and shall write occasionally. Am offered the same + berth to-day on the 'Herald,' by letter." + +He was in Washington at this time, having remained in New York but one +day. He had accepted a secretaryship from Senator Stewart of Nevada, but +this arrangement was a brief one. He required fuller freedom for his +Washington correspondence and general literary undertakings. + +He had been in Washington but a few days when he received a letter that +meant more to him than he could possibly have dreamed at the moment. It +was from Elisha Bliss, Jr., manager of the American Publishing Company, +of Hartford, Connecticut, and it suggested gathering the Mediterranean +travel-letters into a book. Bliss was a capable, energetic man, with a +taste for humor, and believed there was money for author and publisher in +the travel-book. + +The proposition pleased Mark Twain, who replied at once, asking for +further details as to Bliss's plan. Somewhat later he made a trip to +Hartford, and the terms for the publication of "The Innocents Abroad" +were agreed upon. It was to be a large illustrated book for subscription +sale, and the author was to receive five per cent of the selling price. +Bliss had offered him the choice between this royalty and ten thousand +dollars cash. Though much tempted by the large sum to be paid in hand, +Mark Twain decided in favor of the royalty plan--"the best business +judgment I ever displayed," he used to say afterward. He agreed to +arrange the letters for book publication, revising and rewriting where +necessary, and went back to Washington well pleased. He did not realize +that his agreement with Bliss marked the beginning of one of the most +notable publishing connections in American literary history. + + + + +XXVIII. + +OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS" + +Certainly this was a momentous period in Mark Twain's life. It was a +time of great events, and among them was one which presently would come +to mean more to him than all the rest--the beginning of his acquaintance +with Olivia Langdon. + +One evening in late December when Samuel Clemens had come to New York to +visit his old "Quaker City" room-mate, Dan Slote, he found there other +ship comrades, including Jack Van Nostrand and Charlie Langdon. It was a +joyful occasion, but one still happier followed it. Young Langdon's +father and sister Olivia were in New York, and an evening or two later +the boy invited his distinguished "Quaker City" shipmate to dine with +them at the old St. Nicholas Hotel. We may believe that Samuel Clemens +went willingly enough. He had never forgotten the September day in the +Bay of Smyrna when he had first seen the sweet-faced miniature--now, at +last he looked upon the reality. + +Long afterward he said: "It was forty years ago. From that day to this +she has never been out of my mind." + +Charles Dickens gave a reading that night at Steinway Hall. The Langdons +attended, and Samuel Clemens with them. He recalled long after that +Dickens wore a black velvet coat with a fiery-red flower in his +buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene from "David Copperfield"-- +the death of James Steerforth; but he remembered still more clearly the +face and dress and the slender, girlish figure of Olivia Langdon at his +side. + +Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as the +miniature he had seen, though no longer in the fragile health of her +girlhood. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, and Samuel +Clemens was no less her worshiper from the first moment of their meeting. + +Miss Langdon, on her part, was at first rather dazed by the strange, +brilliant, handsome man, so unlike anything she had known before. When +he had gone, she had the feeling that something like a great meteor had +crossed her sky. To her brother, who was eager for her good opinion of +his celebrity, she admitted her admiration, if not her entire approval. +Her father had no doubts. With a keen sense of humor and a deep +knowledge of men, Jervis Langdon was from that first evening the devoted +champion of Mark Twain. Clemens saw Miss Langdon again during the +holidays, and by the week's end he had planned to visit Elmira--soon. +But fate managed differently. He was not to see Elmira for the better +part of a year. + +He returned to his work in Washington--the preparation of the book and +his newspaper correspondence. It was in connection with the latter that +he first met General Grant, then not yet President. The incident, +characteristic of both men, is worth remembering. Mark Twain had called +by permission, elated with the prospect of an interview. But when he +looked into the 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 slightly embarrassed. Are you?" + +Grant's severity broke up in laughter. There were no further +difficulties. + +Work on the book did not go so well. There were many distractions in +Washington, and Clemens did not like the climate there. Then he found +the "Alta" had copyrighted his letters and were reluctant to allow him to +use them. He decided to sail at once for San Francisco. If he could +arrange the "Alta" matter, he would finish his work there. He did, in +fact, carry out this plan, and all difficulties vanished on his arrival. +His old friend Colonel McComb obtained for him free use of the "Alta" +letters. The way was now clear for his book. His immediate need of +funds, however, induced him to lecture. In May he wrote Bliss: + + "I lectured here on the trip (the Quaker City excursion) the other + night; $1,600 in gold in the house; every seat taken and paid for + before night." + +He settled down to work now with his usual energy, editing and rewriting, +and in two months had the big manuscript ready for delivery. + +Mark Twain's friends urged him to delay his return to "the States" long +enough to make a lecture tour through California and Nevada. He must +give his new lecture, they told him, to his old friends. He agreed, and +was received at Virginia City, Carson, and elsewhere like a returning +conqueror. He lectured again in San Francisco just before sailing. + +The announcement of his lecture was highly original. It was a hand-bill +supposed to have been issued by the foremost citizens of San Francisco, a +mock protest against his lecture, urging him to return to New York +without inflicting himself on them again. On the same bill was printed +his reply. In it he said: + + "I will torment the people if I want to. It only costs them $1 + apiece, and, if they can't stand it, what do they stay here for?" + +He promised positively to sail on July 6th if they would let him talk +just this once. + +There was a good deal more of this drollery on the bill, which ended with +the announcement that he would appear at the Mercantile Library on July +2d. It is unnecessary to say that the place was jammed on that evening. +It was probably the greatest lecture event San Francisco has ever known. +Four days later, July 6, 1868, Mark Twain sailed, via Aspinwall, for New +York, and on the 28th delivered the manuscript of "The Innocents Abroad, +or the New Pilgrim's Progress," to his Hartford publisher. + + + + +XXIX + +THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES + +Samuel Clemens now decided to pay his long-deferred visit to the Langdon +home in Elmira. Through Charlie Langdon he got the invitation renewed, +and for a glorious week enjoyed the generous hospitality of the beautiful +Langdon home and the society of fair Olivia Langdon--Livy, as they called +her--realizing more and more that for him there could never be any other +woman in the world. He spoke no word of this to her, but on the morning +of the day when his visit would end he relieved himself to Charlie +Langdon, much to the young man's alarm. Greatly as he admired Mark Twain +himself, he did not think him, or, indeed, any man, good enough for +"Livy," whom he considered little short of a saint. Clemens was to take +a train that evening, but young Langdon said, when he recovered: + +"Look here, Clemens, there's a train in half an hour. I'll help you +catch it. Don't wait until tonight; go now!" + +Mark Twain shook his head. + +"No, Charlie," 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 train, a light two- +seated wagon was at the gate. Young Langdon and his guest took the back +seat, which, for some reason, had not been locked in its place. The +horse started with a quick forward spring, and the seat with its two +occupants described a circle and landed with force on the cobbled street. + +Neither passenger was seriously hurt--only dazed a little for the moment. +But to Mark Twain there came a sudden inspiration. Here was a chance to +prolong his visit. When the Langdon household gathered with +restoratives, he did not recover at once, and allowed himself to be +supported to an arm-chair for further remedies. Livy Langdon showed +especial anxiety. + +He was not allowed to go, now, of course; he must stay until it was +certain that his recovery was complete. Perhaps he had been internally +injured. His visit was prolonged two weeks, two weeks of pure happiness, +and when he went away he had fully resolved to win Livy Langdon for his +wife. + +Mark Twain now went to Hartford to look after his book proofs, and there +for the first time met the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, who would become his +closest friend. The two men, so different in many ways, always had the +fondest admiration for each other; each recognized in the other great +courage, humanity, and sympathy. Clemens would gladly have remained in +Hartford that winter. Twichell presented him to many congenial people, +including Charles Dudley Warner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other writing +folk. But flattering lecture offers were made him, and he could no +longer refuse. + +He called his new lecture "The Vandal Abroad," it being chapters from the +forthcoming book, and it was a great success everywhere. His houses were +crowded; the newspapers were enthusiastic. His delivery was described as +a "long, monotonous drawl, with fun invariably coming in at the end of a +sentence--after a pause." He began to be recognized everywhere--to have +great popularity. People came out on the street to see him pass. + +Many of his lecture engagements were in central New York, no great +distance from Elmira. He had a standing invitation to visit the Langdon +home, and went when he could. His courtship, however, was not entirely +smooth. Much as Mr. Langdon honored his gifts and admired him +personally, he feared that his daughter, who had known so little of life +and the outside world, and the brilliant traveler, lecturer, author, +might not find happiness in marriage. Many absurd stories have been told +of Mark Twain's first interview with Jervis Langdon on this subject, but +these are without foundation. It was an earnest discussion on both +sides, and left Samuel Clemens rather crestfallen, though not without +hope. More than once the subject was discussed between the two men that +winter as the lecturer came and went, his fame always growing. In time +the Langdon household had grown to feel that he belonged to them. It +would be only a step further to make him really one of the family. + +There was no positive engagement at first, for it was agreed between +Clemens and Jervis Langdon that letters should be sent by Mr. Langdon to +those who had known his would-be son-in-law earlier, with inquiries as to +his past conduct and general character. It was a good while till answers +to these came, and when they arrived Samuel Clemens was on hand to learn +the result. Mr. 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 gentlemen I wrote to 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 had a forlorn look. "There is nothing very evasive about +that," he said. + +Langdon reflected. + +"Haven't you any other friend that you could suggest?" + +"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 +then they do." + +The engagement of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and Olivia Lewis Langdon was +ratified next day, February 4, 1869. To Jane Clemens her son wrote: +"She is a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom." + + + + +XXX. + +THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING + +Clemens closed his lecture tour in March with a profit of something more +than eight thousand dollars. He had intended to make a spring tour of +California, but went to Elmira instead. The revised proofs of his book +were coming now, and he and gentle Livy Langdon read them together. +Samuel Clemens realized presently that the girl he had chosen had a +delicate literary judgment. She became all at once his editor, a +position she held until her death. Her refining influence had much to do +with Mark Twain's success, then and later, and the world owes her a debt +of gratitude. Through that first pleasant summer these two worked at the +proofs and planned for their future, and were very happy indeed. + +It was about the end of July when the big book appeared at last, and its +success was startling. Nothing like it had ever been known before. Mark +Twain's name seemed suddenly to be on every tongue--his book in +everybody's hands. From one end of the country to the other, readers +were hailing him as the greatest humorist and descriptive writer of +modern times. By the first of the year more than thirty thousand volumes +had been sold. It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a +half dollars; the record has not been equaled since. In England also +large editions had been issued, and translations into foreign languages +were under way. It was and is a great book, because it is a human book-- +a book written straight from the heart. + +If Mark Twain had not been famous before, he was so now. Indeed, it is +doubtful if any other American author was so widely known and read as the +author of "The Innocents Abroad" during that first half-year after its +publication. + +Yet for some reason he still did not regard himself as a literary man. +He was a journalist, and began to look about for a paper which he could +buy-his idea being to establish a business and a home. Through Mr. +Langdon's assistance, he finally obtained an interest in the "Buffalo +Express," and the end of the year 1869 found him established as its +associate editor, though still lecturing here and there, because his +wedding-day was near at hand and there must be no lack of funds. + +It was the 2d of February, 1870, that Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon +were married. A few days before, he sat down one night and wrote to +Jim Gillis, away out in the Tuolumne Hills, and told him of all his good +fortune, recalling their days at Angel's Camp, and the absurd frog story, +which he said had been the beginning of his happiness. In the five years +since then he had traveled a long way, but he had not forgotten. + +On the morning of his wedding-day Mark Twain received from his publisher +a check for four thousand dollars, his profit from three months' sales of +the book, a handsome sum. + +The wedding was mainly a family affair. Twichell and his wife came over +from Hartford--Twichell to assist Thomas K. Beecher in performing the +ceremony. Jane Clemens could not come, nor Orion and his wife; but +Pamela, a widow now, and her daughter Annie, grown to a young lady, +arrived from St. Louis. Not more than one hundred guests gathered in the +stately Langdon parlors that in future would hold so much history for +Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon--so much of the story of life and death +that thus made its beginning there. Then, at seven in the evening, they +were married, and the bride danced with her father, and the Rev. Thomas +Beecher declared she wore the longest gloves he had ever seen. + +It was the next afternoon that the wedding-party set out for Buffalo. +Through a Mr. Slee, an agent of Mr. Langdon's, Clemens had engaged, as he +supposed, a boarding-house, quiet and unpretentious, for he meant to +start his married life modestly. Jervis Langdon had a plan of his own +for his daughter, but Clemens had received no inkling of it, and had full +faith in the letter which Slee had written, saying that a choice and +inexpensive boarding-house had been secured. When, about nine o'clock +that night, the party reached Buffalo, they found Mr. Slee waiting at the +station. There was snow, and sleighs had been ordered. Soon after +starting, the sleigh of the bride and groom fell behind and drove about +rather aimlessly, apparently going nowhere in particular. This disturbed +the groom, who thought they should arrive first and receive their guests. +He criticized Slee for selecting a house that was so hard to find, and +when they turned at last into Delaware Avenue, Buffalo's finest street, +and stopped before a handsome house, he was troubled concerning the +richness of the locality. + +They were on the steps when the door 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 it all--the +completeness of their possession. At last his 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 still he could not quite grasp it, and 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, 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." + + + + +XXXI. + +MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO + +Mark Twain remained less than two years in Buffalo--a period of much +affliction. + +In the beginning, prospects could hardly have been brighter. His +beautiful home seemed perfect. At the office he found work to his hand, +and enjoyed it. His co-editor, J. W. Larned, who sat across the table +from him, used to tell later how Mark enjoyed his work as he went along-- +the humor of it--frequently laughing as some new absurdity came into his +mind. He was not very regular in his arrivals, but he worked long hours +and turned in a vast amount of "copy"--skits, sketches, editorials, and +comments of a varied sort. Not all of it was humorous; he would stop +work any time on an amusing sketch to attack some abuse or denounce an +injustice, and he did it in scorching words that made offenders pause. +Once, when two practical jokers had sent in a marriage notice of persons +not even contemplating matrimony, he wrote: + + "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." + +In May he considerably increased his income by undertaking a department +called "Memoranda" for the new "Galaxy" magazine. The outlook was now so +promising that to his lecture agent, James Redpath, he wrote: + + "DEAR RED: I'm not going to lecture any more forever. I've 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 in a second letter: + + "I guess I'm 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-inspiring, nothing + less; and I'm 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." + +The little household on Delaware Avenue was indeed a happy place during +those early months. Neither Clemens nor his wife in those days cared +much for society, preferring the comfort of their own home. Once when a +new family moved into a house across the way they postponed calling until +they felt ashamed. Clemens himself called first. One Sunday morning he +noticed smoke pouring from an upper window of their neighbor's house. +The occupants, seated on the veranda, evidently did not suspect their +danger. Clemens stepped across to the gate and, bowing politely, 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." + +It was at the moment when life seemed at its best that shadows gathered. +Jervis Langdon had never accepted his son-in-law's playful invitation to +"bring his bag and stay overnight," and now the time for it was past. In +the spring his health gave way. Mrs. Clemens, who adored him, went to +Elmira to be at his bedside. Three months of lingering illness brought +the end. His death was a great blow to Mrs. Clemens, and the strain of +watching had been very hard. Her own health, never robust, became poor. +A girlhood friend, who came to cheer her with a visit, was taken down +with typhoid fever. Another long period of anxiety and nursing ended +with the young woman's death in the Clemens home. + +To Mark Twain and his wife it seemed that their bright days were over. +The arrival of little Langdon Clemens, in November, brought happiness, +but his delicate hold on life was so uncertain that the burden of anxiety +grew. + +Amid so many distractions Clemens found his work hard. His "Memoranda" +department in the "Galaxy" must be filled and be bright and readable. +His work at the office could not be neglected. Then, too, he had made a +contract with Bliss for another book "Roughing It"--and he was trying to +get started on that. + +He began to chafe under the relentless demands of the magazine and +newspaper. Finally he could stand it no longer. He sold his interest in +the "Express," at a loss, and gave up the "Memoranda." In the closing +number (April, 1871) he said: + + "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 .... To be a + pirate on a low salary and with no share of the profits in 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." + + + + +XXXII. + +AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT" + +The Clemens family now went to Elmira, to Quarry Farm--a beautiful +hilltop place, overlooking the river and the town--the home of Mrs. +Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane. They did not expect to return to +Buffalo, and the house there was offered for sale. For them the sunlight +had gone out of it. + +Matters went better at Quarry Farm. The invalids gained strength; work +on the book progressed. The Clemenses that year fell in love with the +place that was to mean so much to them in the many summers to come. + +Mark Twain was not altogether satisfied, however, with his writing. He +was afraid it was not up to his literary standard. His spirits were at +low ebb when his old first editor, Joe Goodman, came East and stopped off +at Elmira. Clemens hurried him out to the farm, and, eagerly putting the +chapters of "Roughing It" into his hands, asked him to read them. +Goodman seated himself comfortably by a window, while the author went +over to a table and pretended to write, but was really watching Goodman, +who read page after page solemnly and with great deliberation. Presently +Mark Twain could stand it no longer. He threw down his pen, exclaiming: + +"I knew it! I knew it! I've been writing nothing but rot. You have sat +there all this time reading without a smile--but I am not wholly to +blame. I have been trying to write a funny book with dead people and +sickness everywhere. Oh, Joe, I wish I could die myself!" + +"Mark," said Goodman, "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!" + +That was enough. Clemens knew that Goodman never spoke idly of such +matters. The author of "Roughing It" was a changed man--full of +enthusiasm, eager to go on. He offered to pay Goodman a salary to stay +and furnish inspiration. Goodman declined the salary, but remained for +several weeks, and during long walks which the two friends took over the +hills gave advice, recalled good material, and was a great help and +comfort. In May, Clemens wrote to Bliss that he had twelve hundred +manuscript pages of the new book written and was turning out from thirty +to sixty-five per day. He was in high spirits. The family health had +improved--once more prospects were bright. He even allowed Redpath to +persuade him to lecture again during the coming season. Selling his +share of the "Express" at a loss had left Mark Twain considerably in debt +and lecture profits would furnish the quickest means of payment. + +When the summer ended the Clemens family took up residence in Hartford, +Connecticut, in the fine old Hooker house, on Forest Street. Hartford +held many attractions for Mark Twain. His publishers were located there, +also it was the home of a distinguished group of writers, and of the Rev. +"Joe" Twichell. Neither Clemens nor his wife had felt that they could +return to Buffalo. The home there was sold--its contents packed and +shipped. They did not see it again. + +His book finished, Mark Twain lectured pretty steadily that winter, often +in the neighborhood of Boston, which was lecture headquarters. Mark +Twain enjoyed Boston. In Redpath's office one could often meet and "swap +stories" with Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) and Petroleum V. Nasby (David +R. Locke)--well-known humorists of that day--while in the strictly +literary circle there were William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, +Bret Harte (who by this time had become famous and journeyed eastward), +and others of their sort. They were all young and eager and merry, then, +and they gathered at luncheons in snug corners and talked gaily far into +the dimness of winter afternoons. Harte had been immediately accorded a +high place in the Boston group. Mark Twain as a strictly literary man +was still regarded rather doubtfully by members of the older set--the +Brahmins, as they were called--but the young men already hailed him +joyfully, reveling in the fine, fearless humor of his writing, his +wonderful talk, his boundless humanity. + + + + +XXXIII. + +IN ENGLAND + +Mark Twain closed his lecture season in February (1872), and during the +same month his new book, "Roughing It," came from the press. He disliked +the lecture platform, and he felt that he could now abandon it. He had +made up his loss in Buffalo and something besides. Furthermore, the +advance sales on his book had been large. + +"Roughing It," in fact, proved a very successful book. Like "The +Innocents Abroad," it was the first of its kind, fresh in its humor and +description, true in its picture of the frontier life he had known. In +three months forty thousand copies had been sold, and now, after more +than forty years, it is still a popular book. The life it describes is +all gone-the scenes are changed. It is a record of a vanished time--a +delightful history--as delightful to-day as ever. + +Eighteen hundred and seventy-two was an eventful year for Mark Twain. In +March his second child, a little girl whom they named Susy, was born, and +three months later the boy, Langdon, died. He had never been really +strong, and a heavy cold and diphtheria brought the end. + +Clemens did little work that summer. He took his family to Saybrook, +Connecticut, for the sea air, and near the end of August, when Mrs. +Clemens had regained strength and courage, he sailed for England to +gather material for a book on English life and customs. He felt very +friendly toward the English, who had been highly appreciative of his +writings, and he wished their better acquaintance. He gave out no word +of the book idea, and it seems unlikely that any one in England ever +suspected it. He was there three months, and beyond some notebook +memoranda made during the early weeks of his stay he wrote not a line. +He was too delighted with everything to write a book--a book of his kind. +In letters home he declared the country to be as beautiful as fairyland. +By all classes attentions were showered upon him--honors such as he had +never received even in America. W. D. Howells writes:[8] + + "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, that spurned the rest of our nation." + +He could not make a book--a humorous book--out of these people and their +country; he was too fond of them. + +England fairly reveled in Mark Twain. At one of the great banquets, a +roll of the distinguished guests was called, and the names properly +applauded. Mark Twain, busily engaged in low conversation with his +neighbor, applauded without listening, vigorously or mildly, as the +others led. Finally a name was followed by a great burst of long and +vehement clapping. This must be some very great person indeed, and Mark +Twain, not to be outdone in his approval, stoutly kept his hands going +when all others had finished. + +"Whose name was that we were just applauding?" he asked of his neighbor. + +"Mark Twain's." + +But it was no matter; they took it all as one of his jokes. He was a +wonder and a delight to them. Whatever he did or said was to them +supremely amusing. When, on one occasion, a speaker humorously referred +to his American habit of carrying a cotton umbrella, his reply that he +did so "because it was the only kind of an umbrella that an Englishman +wouldn't steal," was repeated all over England next day as one of the +finest examples of wit since the days of Swift. + +He returned to America at the end of November; promising to come back and +lecture to them the following year. + +[7] From "My Mark Twain," by W. D. Howells. + + + + +XXXIV. + +A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS + +But if Mark Twain could find nothing to write of in England, he found no +lack of material in America. That winter in Hartford, with Charles +Dudley Warner, he wrote "The Gilded Age." The Warners were neighbors, +and the families visited back and forth. One night at dinner, when the +two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the +wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The +challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens +agreed that they would write a book together, and began it immediately. + +Clemens had an idea already in mind. It was to build a romance around +that lovable dreamer, his mother's cousin, James Lampton, whom the reader +will recall from an earlier chapter. Without delay he set to work and +soon completed the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages of the new +story. Warner came over and, after listening to its reading, went home +and took up the story. In two months the novel was complete, Warner +doing most of the romance, Mark Twain the character parts. Warner's +portion was probably pure fiction, but Mark Twain's chapters were full of +history. + +Judge Hawkins and wife were Mark Twain's father and mother; Washington +Hawkins, his brother Orion. Their doings, with those of James Lampton as +Colonel Sellers, were, of course, elaborated, but the story of the +Tennessee land, as told in that book, is very good history indeed. Laura +Hawkins, however, was only real in the fact that she bore the name of +Samuel Clemens's old playmate. "The Gilded Age," published later in the +year, was well received and sold largely. The character of Colonel +Sellers at once took a place among the great fiction characters of the +world, and is probably the best known of any American creation. His +watchword, "There's millions in it!" became a byword. + +The Clemenses decided to build in Hartford. They bought a plot of land +on Farmington Avenue, in the literary neighborhood, and engaged an +architect and builder. By spring, the new house was well under way, and, +matters progressing so favorably, the owners decided to take a holiday +while the work was going on. Clemens had been eager to show England to +his wife; so, taking little Sissy, now a year old, they sailed in May, to +be gone half a year. + +They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment. +If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than +royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The +nation's most distinguished men--among them Robert Browning, Sir John +Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke--came to pay their +respects. Authors were calling constantly. Charles Reade and Wilkie +Collins could not get enough of Mark Twain. Reade proposed to join with +him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call, +being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one +night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I +ever saw," Mark Twain once declared. + +Little Sissy and her father thrived on London life, but it wore on Mrs. +Clemens. At the end of July they went quietly to Edinburgh, and settled +at Veitch's Hotel, on George Street. The strain of London life had been +too much for Mrs. Clemens, and her health became poor. Unacquainted in +Edinburgh, Clemens only remembered that Dr. John Brown, author of "Rab +and His Friends," lived there. Learning the address, he walked around to +23 Rutland Street, and made himself known. Doctor Brown came forthwith, +and Mrs. Clemens seemed better from the moment of his arrival. + +The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and +the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him +to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage +to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his +head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look. + +"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?" + +"No, a dog I don't know." + +Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had +won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he +were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by +her great, dark eyes. + +Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th +of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our +Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens +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 the noise +subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present +and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval. + +He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no +time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the +talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times" +declared his lectures had only whetted the public appetite for more. His +manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles Dickens), urged him +to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally +agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back +himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to +London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square +rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end +that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no +other such a lecture triumph on record. + +Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full +health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest +places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all +too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led +him so far. + + + + +XXXV. + +BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER" + +It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America. +His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and +Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become- +-to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of +all the things between the earth and sky. And Twichell came in, of +course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or +worried about anything at all. + +"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round," +wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so +carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on +the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was +to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three +fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston. + +"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells +once confessed to the writer of this memoir. + +At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The +Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set +down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, +with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, +and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built +for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. +The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, +with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any +direction the breeze could come, and there were fine views. To Twichell +he wrote: + + "It is a cozy nest, and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three + or four chairs, and when the storm sweeps down the remote valley and + the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond, and the rain beats on + the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it!" + +He worked steadily there that summer. He would begin mornings, soon +after breakfast, keeping at it until nearly dinner-time, say until five +or after, for it was not his habit to eat the midday meal. Other members +of the family did not venture near the place; if he was wanted urgently, +a horn was blown. His work finished, he would light a cigar and, +stepping lightly down the stone flight that led to the house-level, he +would find where the family had assembled and read to them his day's +work. Certainly those were golden days, and the tale of Tom and Huck and +Joe Harper progressed. To Dr. John Brown, in Scotland, he wrote: + + "I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an average, + for some time now, .. . . and consequently have been so wrapped + up in it and dead to everything else that I have fallen mighty short + in letter-writing." + +But the inspiration of Tom and Huck gave out when the tale was half +finished, or perhaps it gave way to a new interest. News came one day +that a writer in San Francisco, without permission, had dramatized "The +Gilded Age," and that it was being played by John T. Raymond, an actor of +much power. Mark Twain had himself planned to dramatize the character of +Colonel Sellers and had taken out dramatic copyright. He promptly +stopped the California production, then wrote the dramatist a friendly +letter, and presently bought the play of him, and set in to rewrite it. +It proved a great success. Raymond played it for several years. Colonel +Sellers on the stage became fully as popular as in the book, and very +profitable indeed. + + + + +XXXVI. + +THE NEW HOME + +The new home in Hartford was ready that autumn--the beautiful house +finished, or nearly finished, the handsome furnishings in place. It was +a lovely spot. There were trees and grass--a green, shady slope that +fell away to a quiet stream. The house itself, quite different from the +most of the houses of that day, had many wings and balconies, and toward +the back a great veranda that looked down the shaded slope. The kitchen +was not at the back. As Mark Twain was unlike any other man that ever +lived, so his house was not like other houses. When asked why he built +the kitchen toward the street, he said: + + "So the servants can see the circus go by without running into the + front yard." + +But this was probably his afterthought. The kitchen wing extended toward +Farmington Avenue, but it was a harmonious detail of the general plan. + +Many frequenters have tried to express the charm of Mark Twain's +household. Few have succeeded, for it lay not in the house itself, nor +in its furnishings, beautiful as these things were, but in the +personality of its occupants--the daily round of their lives--the +atmosphere which they unconsciously created. From its wide entrance-hall +and tiny, jewel like conservatory below to the billiard-room at the top +of the house, it seemed perfectly appointed, serenely ordered, and full +of welcome. The home of one of the most unusual and unaccountable +personalities in the world was filled with gentleness and peace. It was +Mrs. Clemens who was chiefly responsible. She was no longer the half- +timid, inexperienced girl he had married. Association, study, and travel +had brought her knowledge and confidence. When the great ones of the +world came to visit America's most picturesque literary figure, she gave +welcome to them, and filled her place at his side with such sweet grace +that those who came to pay their dues to him often returned to pay still +greater devotion to his companion. William Dean Howells, so often a +visitor there, once said to the writer: + + "Words cannot express Mrs. Clemens--her fineness, her delicate, + wonderful tact." And again, "She was not only a beautiful soul, but + a woman of singular intellectual power." + +There were always visitors in the Clemens home. Above the mantel in the +library was written: "The ornament of a house is the friends that +frequent it," and the Clemens home never lacked of those ornaments, and +they were of the world's best. No distinguished person came to America +that did not pay a visit to Hartford and Mark Twain. Generally it was +not merely a call, but a stay of days. The welcome was always genuine, +the entertainment unstinted. George Warner, a close neighbor, once 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." + +As for friends living near, they usually came and went at will, often +without the ceremony of knocking or formal leave-taking. The two Warner +famines were among these, the home of Charles Dudley Warner being only a +step away. Dr. and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe were also close neighbors, +while the Twichell parsonage was not far. They were all like one great +family, of which Mark Twain's home was the central gathering-place. + + + + +XXXVII. + +"OLD TIMES," "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER" + +The Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and Mark Twain used to take many long walks +together, and once they decided to walk from Hartford to Boston--about +one hundred miles. They decided to allow three days for the trip, and +really started one morning, with some luncheon in a basket, and a little +bag of useful articles. It was a bright, brisk November day, and they +succeeded in getting to Westford, a distance of twenty-eight miles, that +evening. But they were lame and foot-sore, and next morning, when they +had limped six miles or so farther, Clemens telegraphed to Redpath: + + "We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days. This shows + the thing can be done. Shall finish now by rail. Did you have any + bets on us?" + +He also telegraphed Howells that they were about to arrive in Boston, and +they did, in fact, reach the Howells home about nine o'clock, and found +excellent company--the Cambridge set--and a most welcome supper waiting. +Clemens and Twichell were ravenous. Clemens demanded food immediately. +Howells writes: + + "I can see him now as he stood up in the midst of our friends, with + his head thrown back, and in his hands a dish of those scalloped + 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." + +The pedestrians returned to Hartford a day or two later--by train. It +was during another, though less extended, tour which Twichell and Clemens +made that fall, that the latter got his idea for a Mississippi book. +Howells had been pleading for something for the January "Atlantic," of +which he was now chief editor, but thus far Mark Twain's inspiration had +failed. He wrote at last, "My head won't go," but later, the same day, +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 wrote at once, welcoming the idea. Clemens forthwith sent the +first instalment of that marvelous series of river chapters which rank +to-day among the very best of his work. As pictures of the vanished +Mississippi life they are so real, so convincing, so full of charm that +they can never grow old. As long as any one reads of the Mississippi +they will look up those chapters of Mark Twain's piloting days. When the +first number appeared, John Hay wrote: + + "It is perfect; no more, no less. I don't see how you do it." + +The "Old Times" chapter ran through seven numbers of the "Atlantic," and +show Mark Twain at his very best. They form now most of the early +chapters of "Life on the Mississippi." The remainder of that book was +added about seven years later. + +Those were busy literary days for Mark Twain. Writing the river chapters +carried him back, and hardly had he finished them when he took up the +neglected story of "Tom and Huck," and finished that under full steam. +He at first thought of publishing it in the "Atlantic", but decided +against this plan. He sent Howells the manuscript to read, and received +the fullest praise. Howells wrote: + + "It is altogether the best boy's story I ever read. It will be an + immense success." + +Clemens, however, delayed publication. He had another volume in press--a +collection of his sketches--among them the "Jumping Frog," and others of +his California days. The "Jumping Frog" had been translated into French, +and in this book Mark Twain published the French version and then a +literal retranslation of his own, which is one of the most amusing +features in the volume. As an example, the stranger's remark, "I don't +see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other frog," in +the literal retranslation becomes, "I no saw not that that frog had +nothing of better than each frog," and Mark Twain parenthetically adds, +"If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself no judge." + +"Sketches New and Old" went very well, but the book had no such sale as +"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which appeared a year later, December, +1876. From the date of its issue it took its place as foremost of +American stories of boy life, a place that to this day it shares only +with "Huck Finn." Mark Twain's own boy life in the little drowsy town of +Hannibal, with John Briggs and Tom Blankenship--their adventures in and +about the cave and river--made perfect material. The story is full of +pure delight. The camp on the island is a picture of boy heaven. No boy +that reads it but longs for the woods and a camp-fire and some bacon +strips in the frying-pan. It is all so thrillingly told and so vivid. +We know certainly that it must all have happened. "The Adventures of Tom +Sawyer" has taken a place side by side with "Treasure Island." + + + + +XXXVIII. + +HOME PICTURES + +Mark Twain was now regarded by many as the foremost American author. +Certainly he was the most widely known. As a national feature he rivaled +Niagara Falls. No civilized spot on earth that his name had not reached. +Letters merely addressed "Mark Twain" found their way to him. "Mark +Twain, United States," was a common superscription. "Mark Twain, The +World," also reached him without delay, while "Mark Twain, Somewhere," +and "Mark Twain, Anywhere," in due time came to Hartford. "Mark Twain, +God Knows Where," likewise arrived promptly, and in his reply he said, +"He did." Then a letter addressed "The Devil Knows Where" also reached +him, and he answered, "He did, too." Surely these were the farthermost +limits of fame. + +Countless anecdotes went the rounds of the press. Among them was one +which happened to be true: + +Their near neighbor, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, was leaving for Florida +one morning, and Clemens ran over early to say good-by. On his return +Mrs. Clemens looked at him severely. + +"Why, Youth," she said, "you haven't on any collar and tie." + +He said nothing, but went to his room, wrapped up those items in a neat +package, which he sent over by a servant to Mrs. Stowe, with the line: + + "Herewith receive a call from the rest of me." + +Mrs. Stowe returned a witty note, in which she said he had discovered a +new principle--that of making calls by instalments, and asked whether in +extreme cases a man might not send his clothes and be himself excused. + +Most of his work Mark Twain did at Quarry Farm. Each summer the family-- +there were two little girls now, Susy and Clara--went to that lovely +place on the hilltop above Elmira, where there were plenty of green +fields and cows and horses and apple-trees, a spot as wonderful to them +as John Quarles's farm had been to their father, so long ago. All the +family loved Quarry Farm, and Mark Twain's work went more easily there. +His winters were not suited to literary creation--there were too many +social events, though once--it was the winter of '76--he wrote a play +with Bret Harte, who came to Hartford and stayed at the Clemens home +while the work was in progress. It was a Chinese play, "Ah Sin," and the +two had a hilarious time writing it, though the result did not prove much +of a success with the public. Mark Twain often tried plays--one with +Howells, among others--but the Colonel Sellers play was his only success. + +Grand dinners, trips to Boston and New York, guests in his own home, +occupied much of Mark Twain's winter season. His leisure he gave to his +children and to billiards. He had a passion for the game, and at any +hour of the day or night was likely to be found in the room at the top of +the house, knocking the balls about alone or with any visitor that he had +enticed to that den. He mostly received his callers there, and impressed +them into the game. If they could play, well and good. If not, so much +the better; he could beat them extravagantly, and he took huge delight in +such contests. Every Friday evening a party of billiard lovers--Hartford +men--gathered and played, and told stories, and smoked, until the room +was blue. Clemens never tired of the game. He could play all night. He +would stay until the last man dropped from sheer weariness, and then go +on knocking the balls about alone. + +But many evenings at home--early evenings--he gave to Susy and Clara. +They had learned his gift as a romancer and demanded the most startling +inventions. They would bring him a picture requiring him to fit a story +to it without a moment's delay. Once he was suddenly ordered by Clara to +make a story out of a plumber and a "bawgunstictor," which, on the whole, +was easier than some of their requirements. Along the book-shelves were +ornaments and pictures. A picture of a girl whom they called "Emeline" +was at one end, and at the other a cat. Every little while they +compelled him to make a story beginning with the cat and ending with +Emeline. Always a new story, and never the other way about. The +literary path from the cat to Emeline was a perilous one, but in time he +could have traveled it in his dreams. + + + + +XXXIX. + +TRAMPING ABROAD + +It was now going on ten years since the publication of "The Innocents +Abroad," and there was a demand for another Mark Twain book of travel. +Clemens considered the matter, and decided that a walking-tour in Europe +might furnish the material he wanted. He spoke to his good friend, the +Rev. "Joe" Twichell, and invited him to become his guest on such an +excursion, because, as he explained, he thought he could "dig material +enough out of Joe to make it a sound investment." As a matter of fact, +he loved Twichell's companionship, and was always inviting him to share +his journeys--to Boston, to Bermuda, to Washington--wherever interest or +fancy led him. His plan now was to take the family to Germany in the +spring, and let Twichell join them later for a summer tramp down through +the Black Forest and Switzerland. Meantime the Clemens household took up +the study of German. The children had a German nurse--others a German +teacher. The household atmosphere became Teutonic. Of course it all +amused Mark Twain, as everything amused him, but he was a good student. +In a brief time he had a fair knowledge of every-day German and a +really surprising vocabulary. The little family sailed in April (1878), +and a few weeks later were settled in the Schloss Hotel, on a hill above +Heidelberg, overlooking the beautiful old castle, the ancient town, with +the Neckar winding down the hazy valley--as fair a view as there is in +all Germany. + +Clemens found a room for his work in a small house not far from the +hotel. On the day of his arrival he had pointed out this house and said +he had decided to work there--that his room would be the middle one on +the third floor. Mrs. Clemens laughed, and thought the occupants of the +house might be surprised when he came over to take possession. They +amused themselves by watching "his people" and trying to make out what +they were like. One day he went over that way, and, sure enough, there +was a sign, "Furnished Rooms," and the one he had pointed out from the +hotel was vacant. It became his study forthwith. + +The travelers were delighted with their location. To Howells, Clemens +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 spent nearly all our time in + these. We have tables and chairs 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 thin 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." + +Twichell was summoned for August, and wrote back eagerly at the prospect: + + "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!" + +Meantime the struggle with the "awful German language" went on. Rosa, +the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, though +little Clara at first would have none of it. Susy, two years older, +tried, and really made progress, but one day she said, pathetically: + + "Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English." + +But presently she was writing to "Aunt Sue" (Mrs. Crane) at Quarry Farm: + + "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 we see." + +Twichell arrived August 1st. Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, and they +immediately set forth on a tramp through the Black Forest, excursioning +as they pleased and having a blissful time. They did not always walk. +They were likely to take a carnage or a donkey-cart, or even a train, +when one conveniently happened along. They did not hurry, but idled and +talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives-- +picturesque peasants in the Black Forest costume. In due time they +crossed into Switzerland and prepared to conquer the Alps. + +The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in +America. His face, however, was less familiar. He was not often +recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed. +It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish +attention. Twichell's conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the +truth. In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel +had especially delighted in Mark's table conversation, and how he +(Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker's +identity. + + "I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled + surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so." + +They did not climb many of the Alps on foot. They did scale the Rigi, +after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later +they conquered Gemmi Pass--no small undertaking--that trail that winds up +and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the +little high-blooming flowers for company. + +All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did +not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but, +whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb +surroundings was the same. + +In Twichell's letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of +that day: + + "Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers. He scrambled + around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest + pleasure in them . . . . 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 + today. His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw." + +And in another place: + + "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 were in a + hurry.'" + +Another extract refers to an incident which Mark Twain also mentions in +"A Tramp Abroad:" [8] + + "Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing so delights him as a + swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once + he is in the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and + sticks seems to afford him rapture." + +Twichell goes on to tell how he threw some driftwood into a racing +torrent and how Mark went running down-stream after it, waving and +shouting in a sort of mad ecstasy. + +When a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam below, he +would jump up and down and yell. He acted just like a boy. + +Boy he was, then and always. Like Peter Pan, he never really grew up-- +that is, if growing up means to grow solemn and uninterested in play. + +Climbing the Gorner Grat with Twichell, they sat down to rest, and a lamb +from a near-by flock ventured toward them. Clemens held out his hand and +called softly. The lamb ventured nearer, curious but timid. + +It was a scene for a painter: the great American humorist on one side of +the game, and the 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 Mark's hand, and he was happy all the rest of the +day. + +"In A Tramp Abroad" Mark Twain burlesques most of the walking-tour with +Harris (Twichell), feeling, perhaps, that he must make humor at whatever +cost. But to-day the other side of the picture seems more worth while. +That it seemed so to him, also, even at the time, we may gather from a +letter he sent after Twichell when it was all over and Twichell was on +his way home: + + "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 for 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 time 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 journey and the times when I was not + unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands + first after Livy's." + +Clemens had joined his family at Lausanne, and presently they journeyed +down into Italy, returning later to Germany--to Munich, where they lived +quietly with Fraulein Dahlweiner at No. 1a Karlstrasse, while he worked +on his new book of travel. When spring came they went to Paris, and +later to London, where the usual round of entertainment briefly claimed +them. It was the 3d of September, 1879, when they finally reached New +York. The papers said that Mark Twain had changed in his year and a half +of absence. He had, somehow, taken on a traveled look. One paper +remarked that he looked older than when he went to Germany, and that his +hair had turned quite gray. + +[8] Chapter XXXIII. + + + + +XL. + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" + +They went directly to Quarry Farm, where Clemens again took up work on +his book, which he hoped to have ready for early publication. But his +writing did not go as well as he had hoped, and it was long after they +had returned to Hartford that the book was finally in the printer's +hands. + +Meantime he had renewed work on a story begun two years before at Quarry +Farm. Browsing among the books there one summer day, he happened to pick +up "The Prince and the Page," by Charlotte M. Yonge. It was a story of a +prince disguised as a blind beggar, and, as Mark Twain read, an idea came +to him for an altogether different story, or play, of his own. He would +have a prince and a pauper change places, and through a series of +adventures learn each the trials and burdens of the other life. He +presently gave up the play idea, and began it as a story. His first +intention had been to make the story quite modern, using the late King +Edward VII. (then Prince of Wales) as his prince, but it seemed to him +that it would not do to lose a prince among the slums of modern London-- +he could not make it seem real; so he followed back through history until +he came to the little son of Henry VIII., Edward Tudor, and decided that +he would do. + +It was the kind of a story that Mark Twain loved to read and to write. +By the end of that first summer he had finished a good portion of the +exciting adventures of "The Prince and the Pauper," and then, as was +likely to happen, the inspiration waned and the manuscript was laid +aside. + +But with the completion of "A Tramp Abroad"--a task which had grown +wearisome--he turned to the luxury of romance with a glad heart. To +Howells he wrote that he was taking so much pleasure in the writing that +he wanted to make it last. + + "Did I ever tell you the plot of it? It begins at 9 A.M., January + 27, 1547 . . . . 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." + +Susy and Clara Clemens were old enough now to understand the story, and +as he finished the chapters he read them aloud to his small home +audience--a most valuable audience, indeed, for he could judge from its +eager interest, or lack of attention, just the measure of his success. + +These little creatures knew all about the writing of books. Susy's +earliest recollection was "Tom Sawyer" read aloud from the manuscript. +Also they knew about plays. They could not remember a time when they did +not take part in evening charades--a favorite amusement in the Clemens +home. + +Mark Twain, who always loved his home and played with his children, +invented the charades and their parts for them, at first, but as they +grew older they did not need much help. With the Twichell and Warner +children they organized a little company for their productions, and +entertained the assembled households. They did not make any preparation +for their parts. A word was selected and the syllables of it 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 +group marched into the library, performed its syllable, and retired, +leaving the audience of parents to guess the answer. Now and then, even +at this early day, they gave little plays, and of course Mark Twain could +not resist joining them. In time the plays took the place of the +charades and became quite elaborate, with a stage and scenery, but we +shall hear of this later on. + +"The Prince and the Pauper" came to an end in due season, in spite of the +wish of both author and audience for it to go on forever. It was not +published at once, for several reasons, the main one being that "A Tramp +Abroad" had just been issued from the press, and a second book might +interfere with its sale. + +As it was, the "Tramp" proved a successful book--never as successful as +the "Innocents," for neither its humor nor its description had quite the +fresh quality of the earlier work. In the beginning, however, the sales +were large, the advance orders amounting to twenty-five thousand copies, +and the return to the author forty thousand dollars for the first year. + + + + +XLI. + +GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD + +A third little girl came to the Clemens household during the summer of +1880. They were then at Quarry Farm, and Clemens wrote to his friend +Twichell: + + "DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't + see no p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other + frog," I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty + poor sort of an observer. . . It is curious to note the change in + the stock-quotations of the Affection Board. Four weeks ago the + children put Mama at the head of the list right along, where she has + always been, but now: + + Jean + Mama + Motley }cat + Fraulein }cat + Papa + + "That is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped + from 4 and 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." + +Those were happy days at Quarry Farm. The little new baby thrived on +that summer hilltop. + +Also, it may be said, the cats. Mark Twain's children had inherited +his love for cats, and at the farm were always cats of all ages and +varieties. Many of the bed-time stories were about these pets--stories +invented by Mark Twain as he went along--stories that began anywhere and +ended nowhere, and continued indefinitely from evening to evening, +trailing off into dreamland. + +The great humorist cared less for dogs, though he was never unkind to +them, and once at the farm a gentle hound named Bones won his affection. +When the end of the 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 about him, and +bade him an affectionate good-by. + +Eighteen hundred and eighty was a Presidential year. Mark Twain was for +General Garfield, and made a number of remarkable speeches in his favor. +General Grant came to Hartford during the campaign, and Mark Twain was +chosen to make the address of welcome. Perhaps no such address of +welcome was ever made before. 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 a loss what to say next, and, leaning over, pretended +to whisper to Grant. Then, as if he had been prompted by the great +soldier, he straightened up and poured out a fervid eulogy on Grant's +victories, adding, in an aside, as he finished, "I nearly forgot that +part of my speech," to the roaring delight of his hearers, while Grant +himself grimly smiled. + +He then spoke of the General being now out of public employment, and how +grateful his country was to him, and how it stood ready to reward him in +every conceivable--inexpensive--way. + +Grant had smiled more than once during the speech, and when this sentence +came out at the end his composure broke up altogether, while the throng +shouted approval. Clemens made another speech that night at the opera- +house--a speech long remembered in Hartford as one of the great efforts +of his life. + +A very warm friendship had grown up between Mark Twain and General Grant. +A year earlier, on the famous soldier's return from his trip around the +world, a great birthday banquet had been given him in Chicago, at which +Mark Twain's speech had been the event of the evening. The colonel who +long before had chased the young pilot-soldier through the Mississippi +bottoms had become his conquering hero, and Grant's admiration for +America's foremost humorist was most hearty. Now and again Clemens urged +General Grant to write his memoirs for publication, but the hero of many +battles was afraid to venture into the field of letters. He had no +confidence in his ability to write. He did not realize that the man who +had written "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," +and, later, "Let us have peace," was capable of English as terse and +forceful as the Latin of Caesar's Commentaries. + + + + +XLII + +MANY INVESTMENTS + +The "Prince and the Pauper," delayed for one reason and another, did not +make its public appearance until the end of 1881. It was issued by +Osgood, of Boston, and was a different book in every way from any that +Mark Twain had published before. Mrs. Clemens, who loved the story, had +insisted that no expense should be spared in its making, and it was, +indeed, a handsome volume. It was filled with beautiful pen-and-ink +drawings, and the binding was rich. The dedication to its two earliest +critics read: + + "To those good-mannered and agreeable + children, Susy and Clara Clemens." + +The story itself was unlike anything in Mark Twain's former work. It was +pure romance, a beautiful, idyllic tale, though not without his touch of +humor and humanity on every page. And how breathlessly interesting it +is! We may imagine that first little audience--the "two good-mannered +and agreeable children," drawing up in their little chairs by the +fireside, hanging on every paragraph of the adventures of the wandering +prince and Tom Canty, the pauper king, eager always for more. + +The story, at first, was not entirely understood by the reviewers. They +did not believe it could be serious. They expected a joke in it +somewhere. Some even thought they had found it. But it was not a joke, +it was just a simple tale--a beautiful picture of a long-vanished time. +One critic, wiser than the rest, said: + + "The characters of those two boys, twin in spirit, will rank with the + purest and loveliest creations of child-life in the realm of + fiction." + +Mark Twain was now approaching the fullness of his fame and prosperity. +The income from his writing was large; Mrs. Clemens possessed a +considerable fortune of her own; they had no debts. Their home was as +perfectly appointed as a home could well be, their family life was ideal. +They lived in the large, hospitable way which Mrs. Clemens had known in +her youth, and which her husband, with his Southern temperament, loved. +Their friends were of the world's chosen, and they were legion in number. +There were always guests in the Clemens home--so many, indeed, were +constantly coming and going that Mark Twain said he was going to set up a +private 'bus to save carnage hire. Yet he loved it all dearly, and for +the most part realized his happiness. + +Unfortunately, there were moments when he forgot that his lot was +satisfactory, and tried to improve it. His Colonel Sellers imagination, +inherited from both sides of his family, led him into financial +adventures which were generally unprofitable. There were no silver-mines +in the East into which to empty money and effort, as in the old Nevada +days, but there were plenty of other things--inventions, stock companies, +and the like. + +When a man came along with a patent steam-generator which would save +ninety per cent. of the usual coal-supply, Mark Twain invested whatever +bank surplus he had at the moment, and saw that money no more forever. + +After the steam-generator came a steam-pulley, a small affair, but +powerful enough to relieve him of thirty-two thousand dollars in a brief +time. + +A new method of marine telegraphy was offered him by the time his balance +had grown again, a promising contrivance, but it failed to return the +twenty-five thousand dollars invested in it by Mark Twain. The list of +such adventures is too long to set down here. They differ somewhat, but +there is one feature common to all--none of them paid. At last came a +chance in which there was really a fortune. A certain Alexander Graham +Bell, an inventor, one day appeared, offering stock in an invention for +carrying the human voice on an electric wire. But Mark Twain had grown +wise, he thought. Long after he wrote: + + "I declined. I said I did not want any more to do with wildcat + speculation .... I said I didn't want it at any price. He (Bell) + became eager; and insisted 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 a burnt child, and resisted all these temptations--resisted + them easily; went off with my money, and next day lent five thousand + of it to a friend who was going to go bankrupt three days later." + +It was the chance of fortune thus thrown away which, perhaps, led him to +take up later with an engraving process--an adventure which lasted +through several years and ate up a heavy sum. Altogether, these +experiences in finance cost Mark Twain a fair-sized fortune, though, +after all, they were as nothing compared with the great type-machine +calamity which we shall hear of in a later chapter. + + + + +XLIII + +BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY + +Fortunately, Mark Twain was not greatly upset by his losses. They +exasperated him for the moment, perhaps, but his violence waned +presently, and the whole matter was put aside forever. His work went on +with slight interference. Looking over his Mississippi chapters one day, +he was taken with a new interest in the river, and decided to make the +steamboat trip between St. Louis and New Orleans, to report the changes +that had taken place in his twenty-one years of absence. His Boston +publisher, Osgood, agreed to accompany him, and a stenographer was +engaged to take down conversations and comments. + +At St. Louis they took passage on the steamer "Gold Dust"--Clemens under +an assumed name, though he was promptly identified. In his book he tells +how the pilot recognized him and how they became friends. Once, in later +years, he said: + + "I spent most of my time up there with him. When we got down below + Cairo, where there was a big, full river--for it was high-water + 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." + +To heighten the illusion he had himself called regularly with the four- +o'clock watch, in order not to miss the mornings. The points along the +river were nearly all new to him, everything had changed, but during +high-water this mattered little. He was a pilot again--a young fellow in +his twenties, speculating on the problems of existence and reading his +fortunes in the stars. The river had lost none of its charm for him. To +Bixby he wrote: + + "I'd rather be a pilot than anything else I've ever been in my life. + How do you run Plum Point?" + +He met Bixby at New Orleans. Bixby was a captain now, on the splendid +new Anchor Line steamer "City of Baton Rouge," one of the last of the +fine river boats. Clemens made the return trip to St. Louis with Bixby +on the "Baton Rouge"--almost exactly twenty-five years from their first +trip together. To Bixby it seemed wonderfully like those old days back +in the fifties. + +"Sam was making notes in his memorandum-book, just as he always did," +said Bixby, long after, to the writer of this history. + +Mark Twain decided to see the river above St. Louis. He went to Hannibal +to spend a few days with old friends. "Delightful days," he wrote home, +"loitering around all day long, and talking with grayheads who were boys +and girls with me thirty or forty years ago." He took boat for St. Paul +and saw the upper river, which he had never seen before. He thought the +scenery beautiful, but he found a sadness everywhere because of the decay +of the river trade. In a note-book entry he said: "The romance of +boating is gone now. In Hannibal the steamboatman is no longer a god." + +He worked at the Mississippi book that summer at the farm, but did not +get on very well, and it was not until the following year (1883) that it +came from the press. Osgood published it, and Charles L. Webster, who +had married Mark Twain's niece, Annie (daughter of his sister Pamela), +looked after the agency sales. Mark Twain, in fact, was preparing to +become his own publisher, and this was the beginning. Webster was a man +of ability, and the book sold well. + +"Life on the Mississippi" is one of Mark Twain's best books--one of those +which will live longest. The first twenty chapters are not excelled in +quality anywhere in his writings. The remainder of the book has an +interest of its own, but it lacks the charm of those memories of his +youth--the mellow light of other days which enhances all of his better +work. + + + + +XLIV. + +A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE + +Every little while Mark Twain had a fever of play-writing, and it was +about this time that he collaborated with W. D. Howells on a second +Colonel Sellers play. It was a lively combination. + +Once to the writer Howells said: "Clemens took one scene and I another. +We had loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it +as we went along. We thought it mighty good, and I think to this day it +was mighty good." + +But actors and managers did not agree with them. Raymond, who had played +the original Sellers, declared that in this play the Colonel had not +become merely a visionary, but a lunatic. The play was offered +elsewhere, and finally Mark Twain produced it at his own expense. But +perhaps the public agreed with Raymond, for the venture did not pay. + +It was about a year after this (the winter of 1884-5) that Mark Twain +went back to the lecture platform--or rather, he joined with George W. +Cable in a reading-tour. Cable had been giving readings on his own +account from his wonderful Creole stories, and had visited Mark Twain in +Hartford. While there he had been taken down with the mumps, and it was +during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading-tour had +been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the +autumn. + +Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark +Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April-fool--a great complimentary +joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a "private and +confidential" circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and +fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and +elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1, +requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this +letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st an +immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not +know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke, +slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs +ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the +nature and magnitude of the joke, he entered into it fully-delighted, of +course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked +for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit +down and copy a few chapters from "The Innocents Abroad." Others asked +that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he +copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "Night Thoughts," etc., and +added: + + "I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and + it will add considerable commercial value to have it in your + handwriting." + +Altogether, the reading of the letters gave Mark Twain a delightful day. + +The platform tour of Clemens and Cable that fall was a success. They had +good houses, and the work of these two favorites read by the authors of +it made a fascinating program. + +They continued their tour westward as far as Chicago and gave readings in +Hannibal and Keokuk. Orion Clemens and his wife once more lived in +Keokuk, and with them Jane Clemens, brisk and active for her eighty-one +years. She had visited Hartford more than once and enjoyed "Sam's fine +house," but she chose the West for home. Orion Clemens, honest, earnest, +and industrious, had somehow missed success in life. The more prosperous +brother, however, made an allowance ample for all. Mark Twain's mother +attended the Keokuk reading. Later, at home, when her children asked her +if she could still dance (she had been a great dancer in her youth), she +rose, and in spite of her fourscore, tripped as lightly as a girl. It +was the last time that Mark Twain would see her in full health. + +At Christmas-time Cable and Clemens took a fortnight's holiday, and +Clemens went home to Hartford. There a grand surprise awaited him. Mrs. +Clemens had made an adaptation of "The Prince and the Pauper" for the +stage, and his children, with those of the neighborhood, had learned the +parts. A good stage had been set up in George Warner's home, with a +pretty drop-curtain and very good scenery indeed. Clemens arrived in the +late afternoon, and felt an air of mystery in the house, but did not +guess what it meant. By and by he was led across the grounds to George +Warner's home, into a large room, and placed in a seat directly fronting +the stage. Then presently the curtain went up, the play began, and he +knew. As he watched the little performers playing so eagerly the parts +of his story, he was deeply moved and gratified. + +It was only the beginning of "The Prince and the Pauper" production. The +play was soon repeated, Clemens himself taking the part of Miles Hendon. +In a "biography" of her father which Susy began a little later, she +wrote: + + "Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all + sure he could do it . . . . I was the prince, and Papa and I + rehearsed 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!" + +Susy's sister, Clara, took the part of Lady Jane Gray, while little Jean, +aged four, in the part of a court official, sat at a small table and +constantly signed state papers and death-warrants. + + + + +XLV. + +"THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN" + +Meantime, Mark Twain had really become a publisher. His nephew by +marriage, Charles L. Webster, who, with Osgood, had handled the +"Mississippi" book, was now established under the firm name of Charles L. +Webster & Co., Samuel L. Clemens being the company. Clemens had another +book ready, and the new firm were to handle it throughout. + +The new book was a story which Mark Twain had begun one day at Quarry +Farm, nearly eight years before. It was to be a continuation of the +adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, especially of the latter as told +by himself. But the author had no great opinion of the tale and +presently laid it aside. Then some seven years later, after his trip +down the river, he felt again the inspiration of the old days, and the +story of Huck's adventures had been continued and brought to a close. +The author believed in it by this time, and the firm of Webster & Co. +was really formed for the purpose of publishing it. + +Mark Twain took an active interest in the process. From the pages of +"Life" he selected an artist--a young man named E. W. Kemble, who would +later become one of our foremost illustrators of Southern character. He +also gave attention to the selection of the paper and the binding--even +to the method of canvassing for the sales. In a note to Webster, he +wrote: + + "Get at your canvassing early and drive it with all your might . . + . . If we haven't 40,000 subscriptions we simply postpone + publication till we've got them." + +Mark Twain was making himself believe that he was a business man, and in +this instance, at least, he seems to have made no mistake. Some advanced +chapters of "Huck" appeared serially in the "Century Magazine," and the +public was eager for more. By the time the "Century" chapters were +finished the forty thousand advance subscriptions for the book had been +taken, and Huck Finn's own story, so long pushed aside and delayed, came +grandly into its own. Many grown-up readers and most critics declared +that it was greater than the "Tom Sawyer" book, though the younger +readers generally like the first book the best, it being rather more in +the juvenile vein. Huck's story, in fact, was soon causing quite grown- +up discussions--discussions as to its psychology and moral phases, +matters which do not interest small people, who are always on Huck's side +in everything, and quite willing that he should take any risk of body or +soul for the sake of Nigger Jim. 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 for an immortal book! + +As literature, the story of "Huck Finn" holds a higher place than that of +"Tom Sawyer." As stories, they stand side by side, neither complete +without the other, and both certain to live as long as there are real +boys and girls to read them. + + + + +XLVI. + +PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT + +Mark Twain was now a successful publisher, but his success thus far was +nothing to what lay just ahead. One evening he learned that General +Grant, after heavy financial disaster, had begun writing the memoirs +which he (Clemens) had urged him to undertake some years before. Next +morning he called on the General to learn the particulars. Grant had +contributed some articles to the "Century" war series, and felt in a mood +to continue the work. He had discussed with the "Century" publishers the +matter of a book. Clemens suggested that such a book should be sold only +by subscription and prophesied its enormous success. General Grant was +less sure. His need of money was very great and he was anxious to get as +much return as possible, but his faith was not large. He was inclined to +make no special efforts in the matter of publication. But Mark Twain +prevailed. Like his own Colonel Sellers, he talked glowingly and +eloquently of millions. He first offered to direct the general to his +own former subscription publisher, at Hartford, then finally proposed to +publish it himself, offering Grant seventy per cent. of the net returns, +and to pay all office expenses out of his own share. + +Of course there could be nothing for any publisher in such an arrangement +unless the sales were enormous. General Grant realized this, and at +first refused to consent. Here was a friend offering to bankrupt himself +out of pure philanthropy, a thing he could not permit. But Mark Twain +came again and again, and finally persuaded him that purely as business +proposition the offer was warranted by the certainty of great sales. + +So the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. undertook the Grant book, and the +old soldier, broken in health and fortune, was liberally provided with +means that would enable him to finish his task with his mind at peace. +He devoted himself steadily to the work--at first writing by hand, then +dictating to a stenographer that Webster & Co. provided. His disease, +cancer, made fierce ravages, but he "fought it out on that line," and +wrote the last pages of his memoirs by hand when he could no longer speak +aloud. Mark Twain was much with him, and cheered him with anecdotes and +news of the advance sale of his book. In one of his memoranda of that +time Clemens wrote: + + "To-day (May 26) 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 d-- with his future + publisher." + +At Mount McGregor, a few weeks before the end, General Grant asked if any +estimate could now be made of the sum which his family would obtain from +his work, and was deeply comforted by Clemens's prompt reply that more +than one hundred thousand sets had already been sold, the author's share +of which would exceed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clemens +added that the gross return would probably be twice as much more. + +The last notes came from Grant's hands soon after that, and a few days +later, July 23, 1885, his task completed, he died. 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." + +In a memorandum estimate made by Mark Twain soon after the canvass for +the Grant memoirs had begun, he had prophesied that three hundred +thousand sets of the book would be sold, and that he would pay General +Grant in royalties $420,000. This prophecy was more than fulfilled. The +first check paid to Mrs. Grant--the largest single royalty check in +history--was for $200,000. Later payments brought her royalty return up +to nearly $450.000. For once, at least, Mark Twain's business vision had +been clear. A fortune had been realized for the Grant family. Even his +own share was considerable, for out of that great sale more than a +hundred thousand dollars' profit was realized by Webster & Co. + + + + +XLVII + +THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE + +That summer at Quarry Farm was one of the happiest they had ever known. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty, was in the fullness of his manhood and in the +brightest hour of his fortune. Susy, in her childish "biography," begun +at this time, gives us a picture of him. She begins: + + "We are a 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, gray 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, is an extraordinarily fine-looking man." + + "He is a very good man, and a very funny one; he has got a temper, + but we all have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw, + or ever hope to see, and oh, so absent-minded!" + +We may believe this is a true picture of Mark Twain at fifty. He did not +look young for his years, but he was still young in spirit and body. +Susy tells how he blew bubbles for the children, filling them with +tobacco smoke. Also, how he would play with the cats and come clear down +from his study to see how a certain kitten was getting along. + +Susy adds that "there are eleven cats at the farm now," and tells of the +day's occupations, but the description is too long to quote. It reveals +a beautiful, busy life. + +Susy herself was a gentle, thoughtful, romantic child. One afternoon she +discovered a wonderful tangle of vines and bushes, a still, shut-in +corner not far from the study. She ran breathlessly to her aunt. + +"Can I have it--can Clara and I have it all for our own?" + +The petition was granted and the place was called Helen's Bower, for they +were reading "Thaddeus of Warsaw", and the name appealed to Susy's poetic +fancy. Something happened to the "bower"--an unromantic workman mowed it +down--but by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens +had built, just for the children. It was a complete little cottage, when +furnished. There was a porch in front, with comfortable chairs. Inside +were also chairs, a table, dishes, shelves, a broom, even a stove--small, +but practical. They called the little house "Ellerslie," out of Grace +Aguilar's "Days of Robert Bruce." There alone, or with their Langdon +cousins, how many happy summers they played and dreamed away. Secluded +by a hillside and happy trees, overlooking the hazy, distant town, it was +a world apart--a corner of story-book land. When the end of the summer +came its little owners went about bidding their treasures good-by, +closing and kissing the gates of Ellerslie. + +Looking back now, Mark Twain at fifty would seem to have been in his +golden prime. His family was ideal--his surroundings idyllic. Favored +by fortune, beloved by millions, honored now even in the highest places, +what more had life to give? When November 30th brought his birthday, one +of the great Brahmins, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote him a beautiful +poem. Andrew Lang, England's foremost critic, also sent verses, while +letters poured in from all sides. + +And Mark Twain realized his fortune and was disturbed by it. To a friend +he said: "I am frightened at the proportions of my prosperity. It seems +to me that whatever I touch turns to gold." + + + + +XLVIII. + +BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS + +For the time it would seem that Mark Twain had given up authorship for +business. The success of the Grant book had filled his head with plans +for others of a like nature. The memoirs of General McClellan and +General Sheridan were arranged for. Almost any war-book was considered a +good venture. And there was another plan afoot. Pope Leo XIII., in his +old age, had given sanction to the preparation of his memoirs, and it was +to be published, with his blessing, by Webster & Co., of Hartford. It +was generally believed that such a book would have a tremendous sale, and +Colonel Sellers himself could not have piled the figures higher than did +his creator in counting his prospective returns. Every Catholic in the +world must have a copy of the Pope's book, and in America alone there +were millions. Webster went to Rome to consult with the Pope in person, +and was received in private audience. Mark Twain's publishing firm +seemed on the top wave of success. + +The McClellan and Sheridan books were issued, and, in due time, the Life +of Pope Leo XIII.--published simultaneously in six languages--issued from +the press. A large advance sale had been guaranteed by the general +canvassing agents--a fortunate thing, as it proved. For, strange as it +may seem, the book did not prove a great success. It is hard to explain +just why. Perhaps Catholics felt that there had been so many popes that +the life of any particular one was no great matter. The book paid, but +not largely. The McClellan and Sheridan books, likewise, were only +partially successful. Perhaps the public was getting tired of war +memoirs. Webster & Co. undertook books of a general sort--travel, +fiction, poetry. Many of them did not pay. Their business from a march +of triumph had become a battle. They undertook a "Library of American +Literature," a work of many volumes, costly to make and even more so to +sell. To float this venture they were obliged to borrow large sums. + +It seems unfortunate that Mark Twain should have been disturbed by these +distracting things during what should have been his literary high-tide. +As it was, his business interests and cares absorbed the energy that +might otherwise have gone into books. He was not entirely idle. He did +an occasional magazine article or story, and he began a book which he +worked at from time to time the story of a Connecticut Yankee who +suddenly finds himself back in the days of King Arthur's reign. Webster +was eager to publish another book by his great literary partner, but the +work on it went slowly. Then Webster broke down from two years of +overwork, and the business management fell into other hands. Though +still recognized as a great publishing-house, those within the firm of +Charles L. Webster & Co. knew that its prospects were not bright. + +Furthermore, Mark Twain had finally invested in another patent, the type- +setting machine mentioned in a former chapter, and the demands for cash +to promote this venture were heavy. To his sister Pamela, about the end +of 1887, he wrote: "The type-setter goes on forever at $3,000 a month.... +We'll be through with it in three or four months, I reckon"--a false +hope, for the three or four months would lengthen into as many years. + +But if there were clouds gathering in the business sky, they were not +often allowed to cast a shadow in Mark Twain's home. The beautiful house +in Hartford was a place of welcome and merriment, of many guests and of +happy children. Especially of happy children: during these years--the +latter half of the 'eighties--when Mark Twain's fortunes were on the +decline, his children were at the age to have a good time, and certainly +they had it. The dramatic stage which had been first set up at George +Warner's for the Christmas "Prince and Pauper" performance was brought +over and set up in the Clemens schoolroom, and every Saturday there were +plays or rehearsals, and every little while there would be a grand +general performance in the great library downstairs, which would +accommodate just eighty-four chairs, filled by parents of the performers +and invited guests. In notes dictated many years later, Mark Twain said: + + "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 dear to us, none + but faces that were lit up with welcome for us." + +He was one of the children himself, you see, and therefore on the stage +with the others. Katy Leary, for thirty years in the family service, +once said to the author: "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 have never known a happier household than theirs +was during those years." + +The plays were not all given by the children. Mark Twain had kept up his +German study, and a class met regularly in his home to struggle with the +problems of der, die, and das. By and by he wrote a play for the class, +"Meisterschaft," a picturesque mixture of German and English, which they +gave twice, with great success. It was unlike anything attempted before +or since. No one but Mark Twain could have written it. Later (January, +1888), in modified form, it was published in the "Century Magazine." It +is his best work of this period. + +Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days if one +only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them. +Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he +and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least +one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! "Huck +Finn" was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had +insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his +portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a +complete victim to Huck's story. Once, in a letter, Stevenson 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.'" + +Mark Twain had been a "mugwump" during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in +1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic +candidate, Grover Cleveland. He was, therefore, in high favor at the +White House during both Cleveland administrations, and called there +informally whenever business took him to Washington. But on one occasion +(it was his first visit after the President's marriage) there was to be a +party, and Mrs. Clemens, who could not attend, slipped a little note into +the pocket of his evening waistcoat, where he would be sure to find it +when dressing, warning him as to his deportment. Being presented to +young 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 must know first what it was that he hadn't +done, finally agreeing to sign if he would tell her immediately all about +it, which he promised to do. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. +Clemens's note. It was very brief. It said, "Don't wear your arctics in +the White House." + +Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card mailed immediately +to Mrs. Clemens. + +Absent-mindedness was characteristic of Mark Twain. He lived so much in +the world within that to him the material outer world was often vague and +shadowy. Once when he was knocking the balls about in the billiard-room, +George, the colored butler, a favorite and privileged household +character, brought up a card. So many canvassers came to sell him one +thing and another that Clemens promptly assumed this to be one of them. +George insisted mildly, but firmly, that, though a stranger, the caller +was certainly a gentleman, and Clemens grumblingly descended the stairs. +As he entered the parlor the caller arose and extended his hand. Clemens +took it rather limply, for he had noticed some water-colors and +engravings leaning against the furniture as if for exhibition, and he was +instantly convinced that the caller was a picture-canvasser. Inquiries +by the stranger as to Mrs. Clemens and the children did not change Mark +Twain's conclusion. He was polite, but unresponsive, and gradually +worked the visitor toward the front door. His inquiry as to the home of +Charles Dudley Warner caused him to be shown eagerly in that direction. + +Clemens, on his way back to the billiard-room, heard Mrs. Clemens call +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 nice to him; the B's +were so nice to us, once, in Europe, while 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." + +"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?" + +"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 conversation. 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, and they made things pleasant for us. I wanted to +come over here with him, but I was a good deal occupied just then. Livy +isn't very well, but she seems now 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 these that gentleman left?" + +"Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures! Mrs. Clemens had me set +them around to see how they would look in new places. The gentleman was +only looking at them while he waited for you to come down." + +It was in June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Mark Twain the +degree of Master of Arts. He was proud of the honor, for it was +recognition of a kind that had not come to him before--remarkable +recognition, when we remember how as a child he had hated all schools and +study, having ended his class-room days before he was twelve years old. +He could not go to New Haven at the time, but later in the year made the +students a delightful address. In his capacity of Master of Arts, he +said, he had come down to New Haven to institute certain college reforms. + +By advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I +told the Greek Professor I had concluded to drop the use of the 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. + +He said he had given advice to the mathematical department with about the +same result. The astronomy department he had found in a bad way. He had +decided to transfer the professor to the law department and to put a law- +student in his place. + +A boy will be more biddable, more tractable--also cheaper. It is true he +cannot be entrusted with important work at first, but he can comb the +skies for nebula till he gets his hand in. + +It was hardly the sort of an address that the holder of a college degree +is expected to make, but doctors and students alike welcomed it +hilariously from Mark Twain. + +Not many great things happened to Mark Twain during this long period of +semi-literary inaction, but many interesting ones. When Bill Nye, the +humorist, and James Whitcomb Riley joined themselves in an entertainment +combination, Mark Twain introduced them to their first Boston audience--a +great event to them, and to Boston. Clemens himself gave a reading now +and then, but not for money. Once, when Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston +and Thomas Nelson Page were to give a reading in Baltimore, Page's wife +fell ill, and Colonel Johnston wired to Charles Dudley Warner, asking him +to come in Page's stead. Warner, unable to go, handed the telegram to +Clemens, who promptly answered that he would come. They read to a packed +house, and when the audience had gone and the returns were counted, an +equal amount 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 +Clemens only said: + +"Never mind, Colonel; it only gives me pleasure to do you that little +favor. You can pass it along some day." + + +As a matter of fact, Mark Twain himself was beginning to be hard pressed +for funds at this time, but was strong in the faith that he would +presently be a multi-millionaire. The typesetting machine was still +costing a vast sum, but each week its inventor promised that a few more +weeks or months would see it finished, and then a tide of wealth would +come rolling in. Mark Twain felt that a man with ship-loads of money +almost in port could not properly entertain the public for pay. He read +for institutions, schools, benefits, and the like, without charge. + + + + +XLIX. + +KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE" + +One day during the summer of 1889 a notable meeting took place in Elmira. +On a blazing forenoon a rather small and very hot young man, in a slow, +sizzling hack made his way up East Hill to Quarry Faun. He inquired for +Mark Twain, only to be told that he was at the Langdon home, down in the +town which the young man had just left. So he sat for a little time on +the pleasant veranda, and Mrs. Crane and Susy Clemens, who were there, +brought him some cool milk and listened to him talk in a way which seemed +to them very entertaining and wonderful. When he went away he left his +card with a name on it strange to them--strange to the world at that +time. The name was Rudyard Kipling. Also on the card was the address +Allahabad, and Sissy kept it, because, to her, India was fairyland. + +Kipling went down into Elmira and found Mark Twain. In his book +"American Notes" he has left an account of that visit. He claimed that +he had traveled around the world to see Mark Twain, and his article +begins: + + "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!" + +But one should read the article entire--it is so worth while. Clemens +also, long after, dictated an account of the meeting. + +Kipling came down 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. . . When he had 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 all the world, and remained so for twelve +months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. . . +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 made would +be loud and continuous. . . 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 the +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. + +A theatrical production of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by +Mrs. A. S. Richardson, was one of the events of this period. It was a +charming performance, even if not a great financial success, and little +Elsie Leslie, who played the double part of the Prince and Tom Canty, +became a great favorite in the Clemens home. She was also a favorite of +the actor and playwright, William Gillette, [9] and once when Clemens and +Gillette were together they decided to give the little girl a surprise--a +pair of slippers, in fact, embroidered by themselves. In his +presentation letter to her, Mark Twain wrote: + +"Either 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 thought of the other one." + +He apologized for his delay: + +"You see, it was my first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly get the +hang of it, along at first. And then I was so busy I couldn't get a +chance to work at home, and they wouldn't let me embroider on the cars; +they said it made the other passengers afraid. . . 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 . . . . Do not wear these slippers in public, +dear; it would only excite envy; and, as like as not, somebody would try +to shoot you." + +For five years Mark Twain had not published a book. Since the appearance +of "Huck Finn" at the end of 1884 he had given the public only an +occasional magazine story or article. His business struggle and the +type-setter had consumed not only his fortune, but his time and energy. +Now, at last, however, a book was ready. "A Connecticut Yankee in King +Arthur's Court" came from the press of Webster & Co. at the end of 1889, +a handsome book, elaborately and strikingly illustrated by Dan Beard--a +pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my +swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, +though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this +conclusion. + +The story of the "Yankee"--a fanciful narrative of a skilled Yankee +mechanic swept backward through the centuries to the dim day of Arthur +and his Round Table--is often grotesque enough in its humor, but under it +all is Mark Twain's great humanity in fierce and noble protest against +unjust laws, the tyranny of an individual or of a ruling class-- +oppression of any sort. As in "The Prince and the Pauper," the wandering +heir to the throne is brought in contact with cruel injustice and misery, +so in the "Yankee" the king himself becomes one of a band of fettered +slaves, and through degradation and horror of soul acquires mercy and +humility. + +The "Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is a splendidly imagined tale. +Edmund Clarence Stedman and William Dean Howells have ranked it very +high. Howells once wrote: "Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction, it +pleases me most." The "Yankee" has not held its place in public favor +with Mark Twain's earlier books, but it is a wonderful tale, and we +cannot afford to leave it unread. + +When the summer came again, Mark Twain and his family decided for once to +forego Quarry Farm for a season in the Catskills, and presently found +themselves located in a cottage at Onteora in the midst of a most +delightful colony. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, then editor of St. Nicholas, +was there, and Mrs. Custer and Brander Matthews and Lawrence Hutton and a +score of other congenial spirits. There was constant visiting from one +cottage to another, with frequent gatherings at the Inn, which was +general headquarters. Susy Clemens, now eighteen, was a central figure, +brilliant, eager, intense, ambitious for achievement--lacking only in +physical strength. She was so flower-like, it seemed always that her +fragile body must be consumed by the flame of her spirit. It was a happy +summer, but it closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in August, to +his mother's bedside. A few weeks later came the end, and Jane Clemens +had closed her long and useful life. She was in her eighty-eighth year. +A little later, at Elmira, followed the death of Mrs. Clemens's mother, a +sweet and gentle woman. + +[9] Gillette was originally a Hartford boy. Mark Twain had recognized +his ability, advanced him funds with which to complete his dramatic +education, and Gillette's first engagement seems to have been with the +Colonel Sellers company. Mark Twain often advanced money in the interest +of education. A young sculptor he sent to Paris for two years' study. +Among others, he paid the way of two colored students through college. + + + + +L. + +THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN + +It was hoped that the profits from the Yankee would provide for all needs +until the great sums which were to come from the type-setter should come +rolling in. The book did yield a large return, but, alas! the hope of +the type-setter, deferred year after year and month after month, never +reached fulfilment. Its inventor, James W. Paige, whom Mark Twain once +called "a poet, a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations +are written in steel," during ten years of persistent experiment had +created one of the most marvelous machines ever constructed. It would +set and distribute type, adjust the spaces, detect flaws--would perform, +in fact, anything that a human being could do, with more exactness and +far more swiftness. Mark Twain, himself a practical printer, seeing it +in its earlier stages of development, and realizing what a fortune must +come from a perfect type-setting machine, was willing to furnish his last +dollar to complete the invention. But there the trouble lay. It could +never be complete. It was too intricate, too much like a human being, +too easy to get out of order, too hard to set right. Paige, fully +confident, always believed he was just on the verge of perfecting some +appliance that would overcome all difficulties, and the machine finally +consisted of twenty thousand minutely exact parts, each of which required +expert workmanship and had to be fitted by hand. Mark Twain once wrote: + + "All other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly + into commonplaces contrasted with this awful, mechanical miracle." + +This was true, and it conveys the secret of its failure. It was too much +of a miracle to be reliable. Sometimes it would run steadily for hours, +but then some part of its delicate mechanism would fail, and days, even +weeks, were required to repair it. It is all too long a story to be +given here. It has been fully told elsewhere.[10] By the end of 1890 +Mark Twain had put in all his available capital, and was heavily in debt. +He had spent one hundred and ninety thousand dollars on the machine, no +penny of which would ever be returned. Outside capital to carry on the +enterprise was promised, but it failed him. Still believing that there +were "millions in it," he realized that for the present, at least, he +could do no more. + +Two things were clear: he must fall back on authorship for revenue, and +he must retrench. In the present low stage of his fortunes he could no +longer afford to live in the Hartford house. He decided to take the +family abroad, where living was cheaper, and where he might be able to +work with fewer distractions. + +He began writing at a great rate articles and stories for the magazines. +He hunted out the old play he had written with Howells long before, and +made a book of it, "The American Claimant." Then, in June, 1891, they +closed the beautiful Hartford house, where for seventeen years they had +found an ideal home; where the children had grown through their sweet, +early life; where the world's wisest had come and gone, pausing a little +to laugh with the world's greatest merrymaker. The furniture was +shrouded, the curtains drawn, the light shut away. + +While the carriage was waiting, Mrs. Clemens went back and took a last +look into each of the rooms, as if bidding a kind of good-by to the past. +Then she entered the carriage, and Patrick McAleer, who had been with +Mark Twain and his wife since their wedding-day, drove them to the +station for the last time. + +Mark Twain had a contract for six newspaper letters at one thousand +dollars each. He was troubled with rheumatism in his arm, and wrote his +first letter from Aix-les-Bains, a watering-place--a "health-factory," as +he called it--and another from Marienbad. They were in Germany in +August, and one day came to Heidelberg, where they occupied their old +apartment of thirteen years before, room forty, in the Schloss Hotel, +with its far prospect of wood and hill, the winding Neckar, and the blue, +distant valley of the Rhine. Then, presently, they came to Switzerland, +to Ouchy-Lausanne, by lovely Lake Geneva, and here Clemens left the +family and, with a guide and a boatman, went drifting down the Rhone in a +curious, flat-bottomed craft, thinking to find material for one or more +articles, possibly for a book. But drifting down that fair river through +still September days, past ancient, drowsy villages, among sloping +vineyards, where grapes were ripening in the tranquil sunlight, was too +restful and soothing for work. In a letter home, he wrote: + + "It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the awning + these superb, sunshiny days, in peace and quietness. Some of the + curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, but it's so + lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the outside and + sail on. . . I want to do all the rivers of Europe in an open boat + in summer weather." + +One afternoon, about fifteen miles below the city of Valence, he made a +discovery. Dreamily observing the eastward horizon, he noticed that a +distant blue mountain presented a striking profile outline of Napoleon +Bonaparte. It seemed really a great natural wonder, and he stopped that +night at the village just below, Beauchastel, a hoary huddle of houses +with the roofs all run together, and took a room at the little hotel, +with a window looking to the eastward, from which, next morning, he saw +the profile of the great stone face, wonderfully outlined against the +sunrise. He was excited over his discovery, and made a descriptive note +of it and an outline sketch. Then, drifting farther down the river, he +characteristically forgot all about it and did not remember it again for +ten years, by which time he had forgotten the point on the river where +the Napoleon could be seen, forgotten even that he had made a note and +sketch giving full details. He wished the Napoleon to be found again, +believing, as he declared, that it would become one of the natural +wonders of the world. To travelers going to France he attempted to +describe it, and some of these tried to find it; but, as he located it +too far down the Rhone, no one reported success, and in time he spoke of +his discovery as the "Lost Napoleon." It was not until after Mark +Twain's death that it was rediscovered, and then by the writer of this +memoir, who, having Mark Twain's note-book,[11] with its exact memoranda, +on another September day, motoring up the Rhone, located the blue profile +of the reclining Napoleon opposite the gray village of Beauchastel. It +is a really remarkable effigy, and deserves to be visited. + +Clemens finished his trip at Arles--a beautiful trip from beginning to +end, but without literary result. When he undertook to write of it, he +found that it lacked incident, and, what was worse, it lacked humor. To +undertake to create both was too much. After a few chapters he put the +manuscript aside, unfinished, and so it remains to this day. + +The Clemens family spent the winter in Berlin, a gay winter, with Mark +Twain as one of the distinguished figures of the German capital. He was +received everywhere and made much of. Once a small, choice dinner was +given him by Kaiser William II., and, later, a breakfast by the Empress. +His books were great favorites in the German royal family. The Kaiser +particularly enjoyed the "Mississippi" book, while the essay on "The +Awful German Language," in the "Tramp Abroad," he pronounced one of the +finest pieces of humor ever written. Mark Twain's books were favorites, +in fact, throughout Germany. The door-man in his hotel had them all in +his little room, and, discovering one day that their guest, Samuel L. +Clemens, and Mark Twain were one, he nearly exploded with excitement. +Dragging the author to his small room, he pointed to the shelf: + +"There," he said, "you wrote them! I've found it out. Ach! I did not +know it before, and I ask a million pardons." + +Affairs were not going well in America, and in June Clemens made a trip +over to see what could be done. Probably he did very little, and he was +back presently at Nauheim, a watering-place, where he was able to work +rather quietly. He began two stories--one of them, "The Extraordinary +Twins," which was the first form of "Pudd'nhead Wilson;" the other, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," for "St. Nicholas." Twichell came to Nauheim during the +summer, and one day he and Clemens ran over to Homburg, not far away. +The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII.) was there, and Clemens and +Twichell, walking in the park, met the Prince with the British +ambassador, and were presented. Twichell, in an account of the meeting, +said: + + "The meeting between the Prince and Mark 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 soldier-like; Clemens weaving along in his + curious, swinging gait, in full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun + umbrella of the most scandalous description." + +At Villa Viviani, an old, old mansion outside of Florence, on the hill +toward Settignano, Mark Twain finished "Tom Sawyer Abroad," also +"Pudd'nhead Wilson", and wrote the first half of a book that really had +its beginning on the day when, an apprentice-boy in Hannibal, he had +found a stray leaf from the pathetic story of "Joan of Arc." All his +life she had been his idol, and he had meant some day to write of her. +Now, in this weather-stained old palace, looking down on Florence, +medieval and hazy, and across to the villa-dotted hills, he began one of +the most beautiful stories ever written, "The Personal Recollections of +Joan of Arc." He wrote in the first person, assuming the character of +Joan's secretary, Sieur Louis de Conte, who in his old age is telling the +great tale of the Maid of Orleans. It was Mark Twain's purpose, this +time, to publish anonymously. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, and +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 else I have ever undertaken. I shall write + it anonymously." + +So it was that the gentle Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and the tale of +Joan was begun in the ancient garden of Viviani, a setting appropriate to +its lovely form. + +He wrote rapidly when once his plan was perfected and his material +arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood was now recalled, not +merely as reading, but as remembered reality. It was as if he were truly +the old Sieur de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out the tender, +tragic tale. In six weeks he had written one hundred thousand words-- +remarkable progress at any time, the more so when we consider that some +of the authorities he consulted were in a foreign tongue. He had always +more or less kept up his study of French, begun so long ago on the river, +and it stood him now in good stead. Still, it was never easy for him, +and the multitude of notes that still exist along the margin of his +French authorities show the magnitude of his work. Others of the family +went down into the city almost daily, but he stayed in the still garden +with Joan. Florence and its suburbs were full of delightful people, some +of them old friends. There were luncheons, dinners, teas, dances, and +the like always in progress, but he resisted most of these things, +preferring to remain the quaint old Sieur de Conte, following again the +banner of the Maid of Orleans marshaling her twilight armies across his +illumined page. + +But the next spring, March, 1893, he was obliged to put aside the +manuscript and hurry to America again, fruitlessly, of course, for a +financial stress was on the land; the business of Webster & Co. was on +the down-grade--nothing could save it. There was new hope in the old +type-setting machine, but his faith in the resurrection was not strong. +The strain of his affairs was telling on him. The business owed a great +sum, with no prospect of relief. Back in Europe again, Mark Twain wrote +F. D. Hall, his business manager in New York: + + "I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition + unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a + volcano. Get me out of business." + +Tantalizing letters continued to come, holding out hope in the business-- +the machine--in any straw that promised a little support through the +financial storm. Again he wrote Hall: + + "Great Scott, but it's a long year for you and me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. . . I watch for your letters hungrily--just + as I used to watch for the telegram saying the machine was 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 fair way to + find out." + +They closed Viviani in June and returned to Germany. By the end of +August Clemens could stand no longer the strain of his American affairs, +and, leaving the family at some German baths, he once more sailed for New +York. + +[11] At Mark Twain's death his various literary effects passed into the +hands of his biographer and literary executor, the present writer. + + + + +LI. + +THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW + +In a room at the Players Club--"a cheap room," he wrote home, "at $1.5o +per day"--Mark Twain spent the winter, hoping against hope to weather the +financial storm. His fortunes were at a lower ebb than ever before; +lower even than during those bleak mining days among the Esmeralda hills. +Then there had been no one but himself, and he was young. Now, at fifty- +eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed down +by debt. The liabilities of his firm were fully two hundred thousand +dollars--sixty thousand of which were owing to Mrs. Clemens for money +advanced--but the large remaining sum was due to banks, printers, +binders, and the manufacturers of paper. A panic was on the land and +there was no business. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He spent +most of his days in his room, trying to write, and succeeded in finishing +several magazine articles. Outwardly cheerful, he hid the bitterness of +his situation. + +A few, however, knew the true state of his affairs. One of these one +night introduced him to Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil millionaire. + +"Mr. Clemens," said Mr. Rogers, "I was one of your early admirers. I +heard you lecture a long time ago, on the Sandwich Islands." + +They sat down at a table, and Mark Twain told amusing stories. Rogers +was in a perpetual gale of laughter. They became friends from that +evening, and in due time the author had confessed to the financier all +his business worries. + +"You had better let me look into things a little," Rogers said, and he +advised Clemens to "stop walking the floor." + +It was characteristic of Mark Twain to be willing to unload his affairs +upon any one that he thought able to bear the burden. He became a new +man overnight. With Henry Rogers in charge, life was once more worth +while. He accepted invitations from the Rogers family and from many +others, and was presently so gay, so widely sought, and seen in so many +places that one of his acquaintances, "Jamie" Dodge, dubbed him the +"Belle of New York." + +Henry Rogers, meanwhile, was "looking into things." He had reasonable +faith in the type-machine, and advanced a large sum on the chance of its +proving a success. This, of course, lifted Mark Twain quite into the +clouds. Daily he wrote and cabled all sorts of glowing hopes to his +family, then in Paris. 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!" + +Once he cabled, "Expect good news in ten days"; and a little later, "Look +out for good news"; and in a few days, "Nearing success." + +Those Sellers-like messages could not but appeal, Mrs. Clemens's sense of +humor, even in those dark days. To her sister she wrote, "They make me +laugh, for they are so like my beloved Colonel." + +The affairs of Webster & Co. Mr. Rogers found a bad way. When, at last, +in April, 1894, the crisis came--a demand by the chief creditors for +payment--he advised immediate assignment as the only course. + +So the firm of Webster & Co. closed its doors. The business which less +than ten years before had begun so prosperously had ended in failure. +Mark Twain, nearing fifty-nine, was bankrupt. When all the firm's +effects had been sold and applied on the counts, he was still more than +seventy thousand dollars in debt. Friends stepped in and offered to lend +him money, but he declined these offers. Through Mr. Rogers a basis of +settlement at fifty cents on the dollar was arranged, and Mark Twain +said, "Give me time, and I will pay the other fifty." + +No one but his wife and Mr. Rogers, however, believed that at his age he +would be able to make good the promise. Many advised him not to attempt +it, but to settle once and for all on the legal basis as arranged. +Sometimes, in moments of despondency, he almost surrendered. Once he +said: + +"I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it." + +But these were only the hard moments. For the most part he kept up good +heart and confidence. It is true that he now believed again in the +future of the type-setter, and that returns from it would pay him out of +bankruptcy. But later in the year this final hope was taken away. Mr. +Rogers wrote to him that in the final test the machine had failed to +prove itself practical and that the whole project had been finally and +permanently abandoned. The shock of disappointment was heavy for the +moment, but then it was over--completely over--for that old mechanical +demon, that vampire of invention that had sapped his fortune so long, was +laid at last. The worst had happened; there was nothing more to dread. +Within a week Mark Twain (he was now back in Paris with the family) had +settled down to work once more on the "Recollections of Joan," and all +mention and memory of the type-setter was forever put away. The machine +stands to-day in the Sibley College of Engineering, where it is exhibited +as the costliest piece of mechanism for its size ever constructed. Mark +Twain once received a letter from an author who had written a book 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 book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me + nine editions. Send them by express. + + "Very truly yours, + + "S. L. CLEMENS." + +Those were economical days. There was no income except from the old +books, and at the time this was not large. The Clemens family, however, +was cheerful, and Mark Twain was once more in splendid working form. The +story of Joan hurried to its tragic conclusion. Each night he read to +the family what he had written that day, and Susy, who was easily moved, +would say, "Wait--wait till I get my handkerchief," and one night when +the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene at Rouen +had been depicted, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc was +burned at the stake!" Meaning that the book was finished. + +Susy herself had fine literary taste, and might have written had not her +greater purpose been to sing. There are fragments of her writing that +show the true literary touch. Both Susy and her father cared more for +Joan than for any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers Clemens wrote, +"Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was mitten for +love." It was placed serially with "Harper's Magazine" and appeared +anonymously, but the public soon identified the inimitable touch of Mark +Twain. + +It was now the spring of 1895, and Mark Twain had decided upon a new plan +to restore his fortunes. Platform work had always paid him well, and +though he disliked it now more than ever, he had resolved upon something +unheard of in that line--nothing less, in fact, than a platform tour +around the world. In May, with the family, he sailed for America, and +after a month or two of rest at Quarry Farm he set out with Mrs. Clemens +and Clara and with his American agent, J. B. Pond, for the Pacific coast. +Susy and Jean remained behind with their aunt at the farm. The travelers +left Elmira at night, and they always remembered the picture of Susy, +standing under the electric light of the railway platform, waving them +good-by. + +Mark Twain's tour of the world was a success from the beginning. +Everywhere he was received with splendid honors--in America, in +Australia, in New Zealand, in India, in Ceylon, in South Africa--wherever +he went his welcome was a grand ovation, his theaters and halls were +never large enough to hold his audiences. With the possible exception of +General Grant's long tour in 1878-9 there had hardly been a more gorgeous +progress than Mark Twain's trip around the world. Everywhere they were +overwhelmed with attention and gifts. We cannot begin to tell the story +of that journey here. In "Following the Equator" the author himself +tells it in his own delightful fashion. + +From time to time along the way Mark Twain forwarded his accumulated +profits to Mr. Rogers to apply against his debts, and by the time they +sailed from South Africa the sum was large enough to encourage him to +believe that, with the royalties to be derived from the book he would +write of his travels, he might be able to pay in full and so face the +world once more a free man. Their long trip--it had lasted a full year-- +was nearing its end. They would spend the winter in London--Susy and +Jean were notified to join them there. They would all be reunited again. +The outlook seemed bright once more. + +They reached England the last of July. Susy and Jean, with Katy Leary, +were to arrive on the 12th of August. But the 12th did not bring them-- +it brought, instead, a letter. Susy was not well, the letter said; the +sailing had been postponed. The letter added that it was nothing +serious, but her parents cabled at once for later news. Receiving no +satisfactory answer, Mrs. Clemens, full of forebodings, prepared to sail +with Clara for America. Clemens would remain in London to arrange for +the winter residence. A cable came, saying Susy's recovery would be slow +but certain. Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed immediately. In some notes +he once dictated, Mark Twain said: + + "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.'" + +Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that +equaled this one. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a +year since they parted, and now he knew he would never see her again. +The blow had found him alone and among strangers. In that day he could +not even reach out to those upon the ocean, drawing daily nearer to the +heartbreak. + +Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well far a +time at the farm, but then her health had declined. She worked +continuously at her singing lessons and over-tried her strength. Then +she went on a visit to Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, in Hartford; but she +did not rest, working harder than ever at her singing. Finally she was +told that she must consult a physician. The doctor came and prescribed +soothing remedies, and advised that she have the rest and quiet of her +own home. Mrs. Crane came from Elmira, also her uncle Charles Langdon. +But Susy became worse, and a few days later her malady was pronounced +meningitis. This was the 15th of August, the day that her mother and +Clara sailed from England. She was delirious and burning with fever, but +at last sank into unconsciousness. She died three days later, and on the +night that Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived was taken to Elmira for burial. + +They laid her beside the little brother that had died so long before, and +ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia, +written by Robert Richardson: + + 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. + + + + +LII. + +EUROPEAN ECONOMIES + +With Clara and Jean, Mrs. Clemens returned to England, and in a modest +house on Tedworth Square, a secluded corner of London, the stricken +family hid themselves away for the winter. Few, even of their closest +friends, knew of their whereabouts. In time the report was circulated +that Mask Twain, old, sick, and deserted by his family, was living in +poverty, toiling to pay his debts. Through the London publishers a +distant cousin, Dr. James Clemens, of St. Louis, located the house on +Tedworth Square, and wrote, offering assistance. He was invited to call, +and found a quiet place--the life there simple--but not poverty. By and +by there was another report--this time that Mark Twain was dead. A +reporter found his way to Tedworth Square, and, being received by Mark +Twain himself, asked what he should say. + +Clemens regarded him gravely, then, in his slow, nasal drawl, "Say--that +the report of my death--has been grossly--exaggerated, "a remark that a +day later was amusing both hemispheres. He could not help his humor; it +was his natural form of utterance--the medium for conveying fact, +fiction, satire, philosophy. Whatever his depth of despair, the quaint +surprise of speech would come, and it would be so until his last day. + +By November he was at work on his book of travel, which he first thought +of calling "Around the World." He went out not at all that winter, and +the work progressed steadily, and was complete by the following May +(1897). + +Meantime, during his trip around the world, Mark Twain's publishers had +issued two volumes of his work--the "Joan of Arc" book, and another "Tom +Sawyer" book, the latter volume combining two rather short stories, "Tom +Sawyer Abroad," published serially in St. Nicholas, and "Tom Sawyer, +Detective." The "Joan of Arc" book, the tenderest and most exquisite of +all Mark Twain's work--a tale told with the deepest sympathy and the +rarest delicacy--was dedicated by the author to his wife, as being the +only piece of his writing which he considered worthy of this honor. He +regarded it as his best book, and this was an opinion that did not +change. Twelve years later--it was on his seventy-third birthday--he +wrote as his final verdict, November 30, 1908: + + "I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; and 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; twelve years of + preparation and two years of writing. The others needed no + preparation and got none. + MARK TWAIN." + +The public at first did not agree with the author's estimate, and the +demand for the book was not large. But the public amended its opinion. +The demand for "Joan" increased with each year until its sales ranked +with the most popular of Mark Twain's books. + +The new stories of Tom and Huck have never been as popular as the earlier +adventures of this pair of heroes. The shorter stories are less +important and perhaps less alive, but they are certainly very readable +tales, and nobody but Mark Twain could have written them. + +Clemens began some new stories when his travel book was out of the way, +but presently with the family was on the way to Switzerland for the +summer. They lived at Weggis, on Lake Lucerne, in the Villa Buhlegg--a +very modest five-franc-a-day pension, for they were economizing and +putting away money for the debts. Mark Twain was not in a mood for work, +and, besides, proofs of the new book "Following the Equator," as it is +now called--were coming steadily. But on the anniversary of Susy's death +(August 18th) he wrote a poem, "In Memoriam," in which he touched a +literary height never before attained. It was published in "Harper's +Magazine," and now appears in his collected works. + +Across from Villa Buhlegg on the lake-front there was a small shaded +inclosure where he loved to sit and look out on the blue water and lofty +mountains, one of which, Rigi, he and Twichell had climbed nineteen years +before. The little retreat is still there, and to-day one of the trees +bears a tablet (in German), "Mark Twain's Rest." + +Autumn found the family in Vienna, located for the winter at the Hotel +Metropole. Mrs. Clemens realized that her daughters must no longer be +deprived of social and artistic advantages. For herself, she longed only +for retirement. + +Vienna is always a gay city, a center of art and culture and splendid +social functions. From the moment of his arrival, Mark Twain and his +family were in the midst of affairs. Their room at the Metropole became +an assembling-place for distinguished members of the several circles that +go to make up the dazzling Viennese life. Mrs. Clemens, to her sister in +America, once wrote: + + "Such funny combinations are here sometimes: one duke, several + counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper + women, etc." + +Mark Twain found himself the literary lion of the Austrian capital. +Every club entertained him and roared with delight at his German +speeches. Wherever he appeared on the streets he was recognized. + +"Let him pass! Don't you see it is Herr Mark Twain!" commanded an +officer to a guard who, in the midst of a great assemblage, had presumed +to bar the way. + + + + +LIII. + +MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS + +Mark Twain wrote much and well during this period, in spite of his social +life. His article "Concerning the Jews" was written that first winter in +Vienna--a fine piece of special pleading; also the greatest of his short +stories--one of the greatest of all short stories--"The Man that +Corrupted Hadleyburg." + +But there were good reasons why he should write better now; his mind was +free of a mighty load--he had paid his debts! + +Soon after his arrival in Vienna he had written to Mr. Rogers: + + "Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. + It totally unfits me for work." + +He had accumulated a large sum for the purpose, and the royalties from +the new book were beginning to roll in. Payment of the debts was begun. +At the end of December he wrote again: + + "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 from pulling it in." + +A few days later he wrote to Howells that he had "turned the corner"; and +again: + + "We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, and + there's no undisputed claim now that we can't cash . . . . I + hope you will never get the like of the load saddled on to you that + was saddled on to me, three years ago. And yet there is such a + solid pleasure in paying the things that I reckon it is worth while + to get into that kind of a hobble, after all. Mrs. Clemens gets + millions of delight out of it, and the children have never uttered + one complaint about the scrimping from the beginning." + +By the end of January, 1898, Clemens had accumulated enough money to make +the final payments to his creditors. At the time of his failure he had +given himself five years to achieve this result. But he had needed less +than four. A report from Mr. Rogers showed that a balance of thirteen +thousand dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were +wiped away. + +Clemens had tried to keep his money affairs out of the newspapers, but +the payment of the final claims could not be concealed, and the press +made the most of it. Head-lines shouted it. Editorials heralded Mark +Twain as a second Walter Scott, because Scott, too, had labored to lift a +great burden of debt. Never had Mark Twain been so beloved by his +fellow-men. + +One might suppose now that he had had enough of invention 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 his debts +were paid he was negotiating with the Austrian inventor Szczepanik for +the American rights in a wonderful carpet-pattern machine, and, Sellers- +like, was planning to organize a company with a capital of fifteen +hundred million dollars to control the carpet-weaving industries of the +world. He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the +Standard Oil to "come in"; but the plan failed to bear the test of Mr. +Rogers's investigation and was heard of no more. + +Samuel Clemens's obligation to Henry Rogers was very great, but it was +not quite the obligation that many supposed it to be. It was often +asserted that the financier lent, even gave, the humorist large sums, and +pointed out opportunities for speculation. No part of this statement is +true. Mr. Rogers neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money, and never +allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He sometimes invested +Mark Twain's own funds for him, but he never bought for him a share of +stock without money in hand to pay for it in full--money belonging to, +and earned by, Clemens himself. + +What Henry Rogers did give to Mark Twain was his priceless counsel and +time--gifts more precious than any mere sum of money--favors that Mark +Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them, and never +ceased to be grateful. He rarely wrote without expressing his gratitude, +and we get the size of Mark Twain's obligation when in one letter we +read: + + "I have abundant peace of mind again--no sense of burden. Work is + become a pleasure--it is not labor any longer." + +He wrote much and well, mainly magazine articles, including some of those +chapters later gathered it his book on "Christian Science." He reveled +like a boy in his new freedom and fortunes, in the lavish honors paid +him, in the rich circumstance of Viennese life. But always just beneath +the surface were unforgetable sorrows. His face in repose was always +sad. Once, after writing to Howells of his successes, he added: + + "All those 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!" + + + + +LIV. + +RETURN AFTER EXILE + +News came to Vienna of the death of Orion Clemens, at the age of seventy- +two. Orion had died as he had lived--a gentle dreamer, always with a new +plan. He had not been sick at all. One morning early he had seated +himself at a table, with pencil and paper, and was putting down the +details of his latest project, when death came--kindly, in the moment of +new hope. He was a generous, upright man, beloved by all who understood +him. + +The Clemenses remained two winters in Vienna, spending the second at the +Hotel Krantz, where their rooms were larger and finer than at the +Metropole, and even more crowded with notabilities. Their salon acquired +the name of the "Second Embassy," and Mark Twain was, in fact, the most +representative American in the Austrian capital. It became the fashion +to consult him on every question of public interest, his comments, +whether serious or otherwise, being always worth printing. When European +disarmament was proposed, Editor William T. Stead, of the "Review of +Reviews," wrote for his opinion. He replied: + + "DEAR Mr. STEAD,--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 refused offers of many sorts. He declined ten thousand dollars for a +tobacco endorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough. He +declined ten thousand dollars a year for five years to lend his name as +editor of a humorous periodical. He declined another ten thousand for +ten lectures, and another offer for fifty lectures at the same rates-- +that is, one thousand dollars per night. He could get along without +these sums, he said, and still preserve some remnants of his self- +respect. + +It was May, 1899, when Clemens and his family left Vienna. They spent a +summer in Sweden on account of the health of Jean Clemens, and located +in London apartments--30 Wellington Court--for the winter. Then followed +a summer at beautiful Dollis Hill, an old house where Gladstone had often +visited, on a shady hilltop just outside of London. The city had not +quite enclosed the place then, and there were spreading oaks, a pond with +lily-pads, and wide spaces of grassy lawn. The place to-day is converted +into a public garden called Gladstone Park. Writing to Twichell in mid- +summer, Clemens said: + + "I am the only person who is ever in the house in the daytime, but I + am working, and deep in the luxury of it. But there is one + tremendous defect. Levy is all so enchanted with the place and so + in love with it that she doesn't know how she is going to tear + herself away from it." + +However, there was one still greater attraction than Dollis Hill, and +that was America--home. Mark Twain at sixty-five and a free man once +more had decided to return to his native land. They closed Dollis Hill +at the end of September, and October 6, 1900, sailed on the Minnehaha for +New York, bidding good-by, as Mark Twain believed, and hoped, to foreign +travel. Nine days later, to a reporter who greeted him on the ship, he +said: + + "If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I can't + get away again." + + + + +LV. + +A PROPHET AT HOME + +New York tried to outdo Vienna and London in honoring Mark Twain. Every +newspaper was filled with the story of his great fight against debt, and +his triumph. "He had behaved like Walter Scott," writes Howells, "as +millions rejoiced to know who had not known how Walter Scott behaved till +they knew it was like Clemens." Clubs and societies vied with one +another in offering him grand entertainments. Literary and lecture +proposals poured in. He was offered at the rate of a dollar a word for +his writing--he could name his own terms for lectures. + +These sensational offers did not tempt him. He was sick of the platform. +He made a dinner speech here and there--always an event--but he gave no +lectures or readings for profit. His literary work he confined to a few +magazines, and presently concluded an arrangement with "Harper & +Brothers" for whatever he might write, the payment to be twenty (later +thirty) cents per word. He arranged with the same firm for the +publication of all his books, by this time collected in uniform edition. +He wished his affairs to be settled as nearly as might be. His desire +was freedom from care. Also he would have liked a period of quiet and +rest, but that was impossible. He realized that the multitude of honors +tendered him was in a sense a vast compliment which he could not entirely +refuse. Howells writes that Mark Twain's countrymen "kept it up past all +precedent," and in return Mark Twain tried to do his part. "His friends +saw that he was wearing himself out," adds Howells, and certain it is +that he grew thin and pale and had a hacking cough. Once to Richard +Watson Gilder he wrote: + + "In bed with a chest cold and other company. + + "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 that killed himself trying to do all the dining + and speeching? No, old man, no, no! + + "Ever yours, MARK." + +In the various dinner speeches and other utterances made by Mark Twain at +this time, his hearers recognized a new and great seriousness of purpose. +It was not really new, only, perhaps, more emphasized. He still made +them laugh, but he insisted on making them think, too. He preached a new +gospel of patriotism--not the patriotism that means a boisterous cheering +of the Stars and Stripes wherever unfurled, but the patriotism that +proposes to keep the Stars and Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In +one place he said: + + "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." + +He protested against the blind allegiance of monarchies. He was seldom +"with the largest crowd" himself. Writing much of our foreign affairs, +then in a good deal of a muddle, he assailed so fearlessly and fiercely +measures which he held to be unjust that he was caricatured as an armed +knight on a charger and as Huck Finn with a gun. + +But he was not always warlike. One of the speeches he made that winter +was with Col. Henry Watterson, a former Confederate soldier, at a Lincoln +birthday memorial at Carnegie Hall. "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 Clemens household did not go back to Hartford. During their early +years abroad it had been Mrs. Clemens's dream to return and open the +beautiful home, with everything the same as before. The death of Susy +had changed all this. The mother had grown more and more to feel that +she could not bear the sorrow of Susy's absence in the familiar rooms. +After a trip which Clemens himself made to Hartford, he wrote, "I realize +that if we ever enter the house again to live, our hearts will break." + +So they did not go back. Mrs. Clemens had seen it for the last time on +that day when the carnage waited while she went back to take a last look +into the vacant rooms. They had taken a house at 14 West Tenth Street +for the winter, and when summer came they went to a log cabin on Saranac +Lake, which they called "The Lair." Here Mark Twain wrote "A Double- +barreled Detective Story," a not very successful burlesque of Sherlock +Holmes. But most of the time that summer he loafed and rested, as was +his right. Once during the summer he went on a cruise with H. H. Rogers, +Speaker "Tom" Reed, and others on Mr. Rogers's yacht. + + + + +LVI. + +HONORED BY MISSOURI + +The family did not return to New York. They took a beautiful house at +Riverdale on the Hudson--the old Appleton homestead. Here they +established themselves and settled down for American residence. They +would have bought the Appleton place, but the price was beyond their +reach. + +It was in the autumn of 1901 that Mark Twain settled in Riverdale. In +June of the following year he was summoned West to receive the degree of +LL.D. from the university of his native state. He made the journey a +sort of last general visit to old associations and friends. In St. Louis +he saw Horace Bixby, fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five +years before. Clemens said: + + "I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five." + +They went over to the rooms of the pilots' association, where the river- +men gathered in force to celebrate his return. Then he took train for +Hannibal. + +He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins--Mrs. Frazer, and +a widow now--and John Briggs, an old man, and John RoBards, who had worn +the golden curls and the medal for good conduct. They drove him to the +old house on Hill Street, where once he had lived and set type; +photographers were there and photographed him standing at the front door. + +"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 bird-house." He did +not see "Huck"--Torn Blankenship had not lived in Hannibal for many +years. But he was driven to all the familiar haunts--to Lover's Leap, +the cave, and the rest; and Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked +over Holliday's Hill--the "Cardiff Hill" of "Tom Sawyer." It was just +such a day, as the one when they had damaged a cooper shop and so nearly +finished the old negro driver. A good deal more than fifty years had +passed since then, and now here they were once more--Tom Sawyer and Joe +Harper--two old men, the hills still fresh and green, the river rippling +in the sun. Looking across to the Illinois shore and 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 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 peaches from old +man Price, and one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with dogs, and +how we made up our minds we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by drove along +the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it and was +taken with a cramp on the return. + +"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 knee struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by a place where a haunted house had stood. They drank from a +well they had always known--from the bucket, as they had always drunk-- +talking, always talking, touching with lingering fondness that most +beautiful and safest of all our possessions--the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall renew +our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth a thousand 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." + +Clemens left next day for Columbia, where the university is located. At +each station a crowd had gathered to cheer and wave as the train pulled +in and to offer him flowers. Sometimes he tried to say a few words, but +his voice would not come. This was more than even Tom Sawyer had +dreamed. + +Certainly there is something deeply touching in the recognition of one's +native State; the return of the boy who has set out unknown to battle +with life and who is called back to be crowned is unlike any other home- +coming--more dramatic, more moving. Next day at the university Mark +Twain, summoned before the crowded assembly-hall to receive his degree, +stepped out to the center of the stage and paused. He seemed in doubt as +to whether he should make a speech or only express his thanks for the +honor received. Suddenly and without signal the great audience rose and +stood in silence at his feet. He bowed but he could not speak. Then the +vast assembly began a peculiar chant, spelling out slowly the word M-i-s- +s-o-u-r-i, with a pause between each letter. It was tremendously +impressive. + +Mark Twain was not left in doubt as to what was required of him when the +chant ended. The audience demanded a speech--a speech, and he made them +one--such a speech as no one there would forget to his dying day. + +Back in St. Louis, he attended the rechristening of the St. Louis harbor +boat; it had been previously called the "St. Louis," but it was now to be +called the "Mark Twain." + + + + +LVII. + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +Life which had begun very cheerfully at Riverdale ended sadly enough. In +August, at York Harbor, Maine, Mrs. Clemens's health failed and she was +brought home an invalid, confined almost entirely to her room. She had +been always the life, the center, the mainspring of the household. Now +she must not even be consulted--hardly visited. On her bad days--and +they were many--Clemens, sad and anxious, spent most of his time +lingering about her door, waiting for news, or until he was permitted to +see her for a brief moment. In his memorandum-book of that period he +wrote: + + "Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork--day and night + devotion to the children and me. We did not know how to value it. + We know now." + +And on the margin of a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his triumph over debt, he wrote: + + "Livy never gets her share of those applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share." + +She improved during the winter, but very slowly. Her husband wrote in +his diary: + + "Feb. 2, 1903--Thirty-third wedding anniversary. I was allowed to + see Livy five minutes this morning, in honor of the day." + +Mrs. Clemens had always remembered affectionately their winter in +Florence of ten years before, and she now expressed the feeling that if +she were in Florence again she would be better. The doctors approved, +and it was decided that she should be taken there as soon as she was +strong enough to travel. She had so far improved by June that they +journeyed to Elmira, where in the quiet rest of Quarry Farm her strength +returned somewhat and the hope of her recovery was strong. + +Mark Twain wrote a story that summer in Elmira, in the little octagonal +study, shut in now by trees and overgrown with vines. "A Dog's Tale," a +pathetic plea against vivisection, was the last story written in the +little retreat that had seen the beginning of "Tom Sawyer" twenty-nine +years before. + +There was a feeling that the stay in Europe was this time to be +permanent. On one of the first days of October Clemens wrote in his +note-book: + + "To-day I place flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time, probably + --and read the words, 'Good night, dear heart, good night, + good night.'" + +They sailed on the 24th, by way of Naples and Genoa, and were presently +installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old Italian palace, in an +ancient garden looking out over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the +Chianti hills. It was a beautiful spot, though its aging walls and +cypresses and matted vines gave it a rather mournful look. Mrs. +Clemens's health improved there for a time, in spite of dull, rainy, +depressing weather; so much so that in May, when the warmth and sun came +back, Clemens was driving about the country, seeking a villa that he +might buy for a home. + +On one of these days--it was a Sunday in early June, the 5th--when he had +been out with Jean, and had found a villa which he believed would fill +all their requirements, he came home full of enthusiasm and hope, eager +to tell the patient about the discovery. Certainly she seemed better. A +day or two before she had been wheeled out on the terrace to enjoy the +wonder of early Italian summer. + +He found her bright and cheerful, anxious to hear all their plans for the +new home. He stayed with her alone through the dinner hour, and their +talk was as in the old days. Summoned to go at last, he chided himself +for staying 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 returned them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so full of hope--they were going to be happy again. Long ago he +had been in the habit of singing jubilee songs to the children. He went +upstairs now to the piano and played the chorus and sang "Swing Low, +Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." He stopped then, but Jean, +who had come in, asked him to go on. Mrs. Clemens, from her room, heard +the music and said to Katy Leary: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently. A moment later she asked to be lifted up. +Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, just then coming to say good-night, saw a little group gathered +about her bed, and heard Clara ask: + +"Katy, is it true? Oh, Katy, is it true?" + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + "At a quarter-past nine this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief and the peace of death, after twenty-two months + of unjust and unearned suffering. I first saw her thirty-seven + years ago, and now I have looked upon her face for the last time.... + I was full of remorse for things done and said in these thirty- + four years of married life that have hurt Livy's heart." + +And to Howells a few days later: + + "To-day, treasured in her worn, old testament, I found a dear and + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 12, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired and old; I wish I were with Livy." + +They brought her to America; and from the house, and the rooms, where she +had been made a bride bore her to a grave beside Susy and little Langdon. + + + + +LVIII. + +MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY + +In a small cottage belonging to Richard Watson Gilder, at Tyringham, +Massachusetts, Samuel Clemens and his daughters tried to plan for the +future. Mrs. Clemens had always been the directing force--they were lost +without her. They finally took a house in New York City, No. 21 Fifth +Avenue, at the corner of Ninth Street, installed the familiar +furnishings, and tried once more to establish a home. The house was +handsome within and without--a proper residence for a venerable author +and sage--a suitable setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. + +It lacked soul--comfort that would reach the heart. He added presently a +great Aeolian orchestrelle, with a variety of music for his different +moods. Sometimes he played it himself, though oftener his secretary +played to him. He went out little that winter--seeing only a few old and +intimate friends. His writing, such as it was, was of a serious nature, +protests against oppression and injustice in a variety of forms. Once he +wrote a "War Prayer," supposed to have been made by a mysterious, white- +robed stranger who enters a church during those ceremonies that precede +the marching of the nation's armies to battle. The minister had prayed +for victory, a prayer which the stranger interprets as a petition that +the enemy's country be laid waste, its soldiers be torn by shells, its +people turned out roofless, to wander through their desolated land in +rags and hunger. It was a scathing arraignment of war, a prophecy, +indeed, which to-day has been literally fulfilled. He did not print it, +because then it would have been regarded as sacrilege. + +When summer came again, in a beautiful house at Dublin, New Hampshire, on +the Monadnock slope, he seemed to get back into the old swing of work, +and wrote that pathetic story, "A Horse's Tale." Also "Eve's Diary," +which, under its humor, is filled with tenderness, and he began a wildly +fantastic tale entitled "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes," a +satire in which Gulliver is outdone. He never finished it. He never +could finish it, for it ran off into amazing by-paths that led nowhere, +and the tale was lost. Yet he always meant to get at it again some day +and make order out of chaos. + +Old friends were dying, and Mark Twain grew more and more lonely. "My +section of the procession has but a little way to go," he wrote when the +great English actor Henry Irving died. Charles Henry Webb, his first +publisher, John Hay, Bret Harte, Thomas B. Reed, and, indeed, most of his +earlier associates were gone. When an invitation came from San Francisco +to attend a California reunion he replied that his wandering days were +over and that it was his purpose to sit by the fire for the rest of his +life. And in another letter: + + "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." + +A choice example, by the way, of Mark Twain's best humor, with its +perfectly timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would have +been content to end with the statement, "I could have gone earlier." +Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch--"it was +suggested." + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy. With the 30th of November (1905) he +would complete the scriptural limitation, and the president of his +publishing-house, Col. George Harvey, of Harper's, proposed a great +dinner for him in celebration of his grand maturity. Clemens would have +preferred a small assembly in some snug place, with only his oldest and +closest friends. Colonel Harvey had a different view. He had given a +small, choice dinner to Mark Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday; now it +must be something really worth while--something to outrank any former +literary gathering. In order not to conflict with Thanksgiving holidays, +the 5th of December was selected as the date. On that evening, two +hundred American and English men and women of letters assembled in +Delmonico's great banquet-hall to do honor to their chief. What an +occasion it was! The tables of gay diners and among them Mark Twain, his +snow-white hair a gleaming beacon for every eye. Then, by and by, +presented by William Dean Howells, he rose to speak. Instantly the +brilliant throng was on its feet, a shouting billow of life, the white +handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. It was a supreme moment! +The greatest one of them all hailed by their applause as he scaled the +mountaintop. + +Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that +night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet +that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully +that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under +it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his +habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living +that would probably kill anybody else; how, in fact, he believed he had +no valuable habits at all. Then, at last, came that unforgetable close: + + "Threescore years and ten! + + "It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: you have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline, if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + "The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter, through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, 'Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.'" + +The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to +mention the fact later. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest. Mr. Rogers did not speak, +nor the Reverend Twichell, but they sat at his special table. Aldrich +could not be there, but wrote a letter. A group of English authors, +including Alfred Austin, Barrie, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy, +Kipling, Lang, and others, joined in a cable. 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 never a pessimist in his heart. + + + + +LIX. + +MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY + +It was at the beginning of 1906--a little more than a month after the +seventieth-birthday dinner--that the writer of these chapters became +personally associated with Mark Twain. I had met him before, and from +time to time he had returned a kindly word about some book I had written +and inconsiderately sent him, for he had been my literary hero from +childhood. Once, indeed, he had allowed me to use some of his letters in +a biography I was writing of Thomas Nast; he had been always an admirer +of the great cartoonist, and the permission was kindness itself. Before +the seating at the birthday dinner I happened to find myself for a moment +alone with Mark Twain and remembered to thank him in person for the use +of the letters; a day or two later I sent him a copy of the book. I did +not expect to hear from it again. + +It was a little while after this that I was asked to join in a small +private dinner to be given to Mark Twain at the Players, in celebration +of his being made an honorary member of that club--there being at the +time only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. I was in the +Players a day or two before the event, and David Munro, of "The North +American Review," a man whose gentle and kindly nature made him "David" +to all who knew him, greeted me joyfully, his face full of something he +knew I would wish to hear. + +He had been chosen, he said, to propose the Players' dinner to Mark +Twain, and had found him propped up in bed, and beside him a copy of the +Nast book. I suspect now that David's generous heart prompted Mark Twain +to speak of the book, and that his comment had lost nothing in David's +eager retelling. But I was too proud and happy to question any feature +of the precious compliment, and Munro--always most happy in making others +happy--found opportunity to repeat it, and even to improve upon it-- +usually in the presence of others--several times during the evening. + +The Players' dinner to Mark Twain was given on the evening of January 3, +19066, and the picture of it still remains clear to me. The guests, +assembled around a single table in the private dining-room, did not +exceed twenty-five in number. Brander Matthews presided, and the +knightly Frank Millet, who would one day go down on the "Titanic," was +there, and Gilder and Munro and David Bispham and Robert Reid, and others +of their kind. It so happened that my seat was nearly facing the guest +of the evening, who by a custom of the Players is placed at the side and +not at the distant end of the long table. Regarding him at leisure, I +saw that he seemed to be in full health. He had an alert, rested look; +his complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the soft +glow of the shaded candles, outlined against the richness of the shadowed +walls, he made a figure of striking beauty. I could not take my eyes +from it, for it stirred in me the farthest memories. I saw the interior +of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West where I had first heard +the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a group had gathered +around the evening lamp to hear read aloud the story of the Innocents on +their Holy Land 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 one had meant to me quite what Mark Twain had meant--in +literature and, indeed, in life. Now here he was just across the table. +It was a fairy-tale come true. + +Genung said: "You should write his life." + +It seemed to me no more than a pleasant remark, but he came back to it +again and again, trying to encourage me with the word that Munro had +brought back concerning the biography of Nast. However, nothing of what +he said had kindled any spark of hope. I put him off by saying that +certainly some one of longer and closer friendship and larger experience +had been selected for the work. Then the speaking began, and the matter +went out of my mind. Later in the evening, when we had left our seats +and were drifting about the table, I found a chance to say a word to our +guest concerning his "Joan of Arc," which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he told me that long-ago incident--the stray leaf from Joan's +life, blown to him by the wind--which had led to his interest in all +literature. Then presently I was with Genung again and he was still +insisting that I write the life of Mark Twain. It may have been his +faithful urging, it may have been the quick sympathy kindled by the name +of "Joan of Arc"; whatever it was, in the instant of bidding good-by to +our guest I was prompted to add: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" And something--to this +day I do not know what--prompted him to answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +Two days later, by appointment with his secretary, I arrived at 21 Fifth +Avenue, and waited in the library to be summoned to his room. A few +moments later I was ascending the long stairs, wondering why I had come +on so useless an errand, trying to think up an excuse for having come at +all. + +He was propped up in bed--a regal bed, from a dismantled Italian palace-- +delving through a copy of "Huckleberry Finn," in search of a paragraph +concerning which some unknown correspondent had inquired. He pushed the +cigars toward me, commenting amusingly on this correspondent and on +letter-writing in general. By and by, when there came a lull, I told him +what so many thousands had told him before--what his work had meant to +me, so long ago, and recalled my childish impressions of that large +black-and-gilt book with its wonderful pictures and adventures "The +Innocents Abroad." Very likely he was willing enough to let me change +the subject presently and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro +had brought. I do not remember what was his comment, but I suddenly +found myself saying that out of his encouragement had grown a hope +(though certainly it was less), that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected my errand to end at this point, and his +silence seemed long and ominous. + +He said at last that from time to time he had himself written chapters of +his life, but that he had always tired of the work and put it aside. He +added that he hoped his daughters would one day collect his letters, but +that a biography--a detailed story of a man's life and effort--was +another matter. I think he added one or two other remarks, then all at +once, turning upon me those piercing agate-blue eyes, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser, with a large mirror, at the end of the room. 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; I asked if Tuesday, January 9, would be too soon to +start. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired as to my plan of +work. I suggested bringing a stenographer to make notes of his life- +story as he could recall it, this record to be supplemented by other +material--letters, journals, and what not. He said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer with some one to +prompt me and act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for +my study. My manuscript 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 dictations 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. He got up and showed +me the warm luxury of the study, with its mass of material--disordered, +but priceless. + +I have no distinct recollections of how I came away, but presently, back +at the Players, I was confiding the matter to Charles Harvey Genung, who +said he was not surprised; but I think he was. + + + + +LX. + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +It was true, after all; and on Tuesday morning, January 9, 1906, I was on +hand with a capable stenographer, ready to begin. Clemens, meantime, had +developed a new idea: he would like to add, he said, the new dictations +to his former beginnings, completing an autobiography which was to be +laid away and remain unpublished for a hundred years. He would pay the +stenographer himself, and own the notes, allowing me, of course, free use +of them as material for my book. He did not believe that he could follow +the story of his life in its order of dates, but would find it necessary +to wander around, picking up the thread as memory or fancy prompted. I +could suggest subjects and ask questions. I assented to everything, and +we set to work immediately. + +As on my former visit, he was in bed when we arrived, though clad now in +a rich Persian dressing gown, and propped against great, snowy pillows. +A small table beside him held his pipes, cigars, papers, also a reading- +lamp, the soft light of which brought out his brilliant coloring and the +gleam of his snowy hair. There was daylight, too, but it was dull winter +daylight, from the north, while the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red. + +He began that morning with some memories of the Comstock mine; then he +dropped back to his childhood, closing at last with some comment on +matters quite recent. How delightful it was--his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious habits of his delicate hands, the play +of his features as his fancies and phrases passed through his mind and +were accepted or put aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. Time did +not count. When he finished, at last, we were all amazed to find that +more than two hours 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 +short-hand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table +always an 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, 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. But it was always +fascinating, and I felt myself the most fortunate biographer in the +world, as indeed I was. + +It was not all smooth sailing, however. In the course of time I began to +realize that these marvelous dictated chapters were not altogether +history, but were often partly, or even entirely, imaginary. The creator +of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had been embroidering old incidents or +inventing new ones too long to stick to history now, to be able to +separate the romance in his mind from the reality of the past. Also, his +memory of personal events had become inaccurate. He realized this, and +once said, in his whimsical, gentle way: + + "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." + +Yet it was his constant purpose to stick to fact, and especially did he +make no effort to put himself in a good light. Indeed, 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, and he would improve upon it and pile up +his sins, and sometimes the sins of others, without stint. Certainly the +dictations were precious, for they revealed character as nothing else +could; but as material for history they often failed to stand the test of +the documents in the next room--the letters, notebooks, agreements, and +the like--from which I was gradually rebuilding the structure of the +years. + +In the talks that we usually had when the dictations were ended and the +stenographer had gone I got much that was of great value. It was then +that I usually made those inquiries which we had planned in the +beginning, and his answers, coming quickly and without reflection, gave +imagination less play. Sometimes he would touch some point of special +interest and walk up and down, philosophizing, or commenting upon things +in general, in a manner not always complimentary to humanity and its +progress. + +I seldom asked him a question during the dictation--or interrupted in any +way, though he had asked me to stop him when I found him repeating or +contradicting himself, or misstating some fact known to me. At first I +lacked the courage to point out a mistake at the moment, and cautiously +mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he would be likely to +say: + + "Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a donkey + 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 in 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 was sorry and apologized, and in a moment the sky was +clear again. There was generally a humorous complexion to the +dictations, whatever the subject. Humor was his natural breath of life, +and rarely absent. + +Perhaps I should have said sooner that he smoked continuously during the +dictations. His cigars were of that delicious fragrance which belongs to +domestic tobacco. They were strong and inexpensive, and it was only his +early training that made him prefer them. Admiring friends used to send +him costly, imported cigars, but he rarely touched them, and they were +smoked by visitors. He often smoked a pipe, and preferred it to be old +and violent. Once when he had bought a new, expensive briar-root, he +handed it 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." + + + + +LXI. + +DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H. + +Following his birthday dinner, Mark Twain had become once more the "Belle +of New York," and in a larger way than ever before. An editorial in the +"Evening Mail" referred to him as a kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and +Themistocles of the American metropolis, and added: + + "Things have reached a 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." + +He loved the excitement of it, and it no longer seemed to wear upon him. +Scarcely an evening passed that he did not go out to some dinner or +gathering where he had promised to speak. In April, for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Society, he delivered his farewell lecture--the last +lecture, he said, where any one would have to pay to hear him. It was at +Carnegie Hall, and the great place was jammed. As he stood before that +vast, shouting audience, I wondered if he was remembering that night, +forty years before in San Francisco, when his lecture career had begun. +We hoped he might speak of it, but he did not do so. + +In May the dictations were transferred to Dublin, New Hampshire, to the +long veranda of the Upton House, on the Monadnock slope. He wished to +continue our work, he said; so the stenographer and myself were presently +located in the village, and drove out each morning, to sit facing one of +the rarest views in all New England, while he talked of everything and +anything that memory or fancy suggested. We had begun in his bedroom, +but the glorious outside was too compelling. + +The long veranda was ideal. He was generally ready when we arrived, a +luminous figure in white flannels, pacing up and down before a background +of sky and forest, blue lake, and distant hills. When it stormed we +would go inside to a bright fire. The dictation ended, he would ask his +secretary to play the orchestrelle, which at great expense had been +freighted up from New York. In that high situation, the fire and the +music and the stormbeat seemed to lift us very far indeed from reality. +Certain symphonies by Beethoven, an impromptu by Schubert, and a nocturne +by Chopin were the selections he cared for most,[12] though in certain +moods he asked, for the Scotch melodies. + +There was a good deal of social life in Dublin, but, the dictations were +seldom interrupted. He became lonely, now and then, and paid a brief +visit to New York, or to Mr. Rogers in Fairhaven, but he always returned +gladly, for he liked the rest and quiet, and the dictations gave him +employment. A part of his entertainment was a trio of kittens which he +had rented for the summer--rented because then they would not lose +ownership and would find home and protection in the fall. He named the +kittens Sackcloth and Ashes--Sackcloth being a black-and-white kit, and +Ashes a joint name owned by the two others, who were gray and exactly +alike. All summer long these merry little creatures played up and down +the wide veranda, or chased butterflies and grasshoppers down the clover +slope, offering Mark Twain never-ending amusement. He loved to see them +spring into the air after some insect, miss it, tumble back, and quickly +jump up again with a surprised and disappointed expression. + +In spite of his resolve not to print any of his autobiography until he +had been dead a hundred years, he was persuaded during the summer to +allow certain chapters of it to be published in "The North American +Review." With the price received, thirty thousand dollars, he announced +he was going to build himself a country home at Redding, Connecticut, on +land already purchased there, near a small country place of my own. He +wished to have a fixed place to go each summer, he said, and his thought +was to call it "Autobiography House." + +[12] His special favorites were Schubert's Op. 142, part 2, and Chopin's +Op. 37, part 2. + + + + +LXII + +A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS + +With the return to New York I began a period of closer association with +Mark Twain. Up to that time our relations had been chiefly of a literary +nature. They now became personal as well. + +It happened in this way: Mark Twain had never outgrown his love for the +game of billiards, though he had not owned a table since the closing of +the Hartford house, fifteen years before. Mrs. Henry Rogers had proposed +to present him with a table for Christmas, but when he heard of the plan, +boylike, he could not wait, and hinted that if he had the table "right +now" he could begin to use it sooner. So the table came--a handsome +combination affair, suitable to all games--and was set in place. That +morning 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 acknowledged that I had never played more than a few games of pool, and +those very long ago. + +"No matter," he said "the poorer you play the better I shall like it." + +So I remained for luncheon, and when it was over we began the first game +ever played on the "Christmas" table. He taught me a game in which +caroms and pockets both counted, and he gave me heavy odds. He beat me, +but it was a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a closer relation +between us. We played most of the afternoon, and he suggested that I +"come back in the evening and play some more." I did so, and the game +lasted till after midnight. I had beginner's luck--"nigger luck," as he +called it--and it kept him working feverishly to win. Once when I had +made a great fluke--a carom followed by most of the balls falling into +the pockets, he said: + + "When you pick up that cue this table drips at every pore." + +The morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a boy, he was +looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it seemed never to come +quickly enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and he +was inclined to cut the courses short that we might the sooner get up- +stairs for billiards. He did not eat the midday meal himself, but he +would come down and walk about the dining-room, talking steadily that +marvelous, marvelous talk which little by little I trained myself to +remember, though never with complete success. He was only killing time, +and I remember once, when he had been earnestly discussing some deep +question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was ending. + +"Now," he said, "we will proceed to more serious matters--it's your-- +shot." + +My game improved with practice, and he reduced my odds. He was willing +to be beaten, but not too often. We kept a record of the games, and he +went to bed happier if the tally-sheet showed a balance in his favor. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the game went steadily against +him he was likely to become critical, even fault-finding, in his remarks. +Then presently he would be seized with remorse and become over-gentle and +attentive, placing the balls as I knocked them into the pockets, hurrying +to render this service. I wished he would not do it. It distressed me +that he should humble himself. I was willing that he should lose his +temper, that he should be even harsh if he felt so inclined--his age, his +position, his genius gave him special privileges. Yet I am glad, as I +remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it completes +the sum of his humanity. Once in a burst of exasperation he made such an +onslaught on the balls that he landed a couple of them on the floor. I +gathered them up and we went on playing as if nothing had happened, only +he was very gentle and sweet, like a summer meadow when the storm has +passed by. Presently 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." + +It was but natural that friendship should grow under such conditions. +The disparity of our ages and gifts no longer mattered. The pleasant +land of play is a democracy where such things do not count. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. +He invented a new game for the occasion, and added a new rule for it with +almost every shot. It happened that no other member of the family was at +home--ill-health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and a string of callers. He saw no +one but a few intimate friends. + +We were entirely alone for dinner, and I felt the great honor of being +his only guest on such an occasion. On that night, a year before, the +flower of his profession had assembled to do him honor. Once between the +courses, when he rose, as was his habit, 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. +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening, and at night when +we 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 be playing it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + +LXIII. + +LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN + +I accompanied him on a trip he made to Washington in the interest of +copyright. Speaker "Uncle Joe" Cannon lent us his private room in the +Capitol, and there all one afternoon Mark Twain received Congressmen, and +in an atmosphere blue with cigar-smoke preached the gospel of copyright. +It was a historic trip, and for me an eventful one, for it was on the way +back to New York that Mark Twain suggested that I take up residence in +his home. There was a room going to waste, he said, and I would be +handier for the early and late billiard sessions. I accepted, of course. + +Looking back, 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 bent over it his 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 summon +for him scenes and faces which the others do not see. Sometimes he rose, +pacing the length of the parlors, but oftener he lay among the cushions, +the light flooding his white hair and dress, heightening his brilliant +coloring. He had taken up the fashion of wearing white altogether at +this time. Black, he said, reminded him of his funerals. + +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 he often did, and I see him clearest, his face alive with interest, +presenting some new angle of thought in his vivid, inimitable speech. +These are pictures that will not fade from my memory. How I wish the +marvelous things he said were like them! I preserved as much of them as +I could, and in time trained myself to recall portions of his exact +phrasing. But even so they seemed never quite as he had said them. They +lacked the breath of his personality. His dinner-table talk was likely +to be political, scientific, philosophic. He often discussed aspects of +astronomy, which was a passion with him. I could succeed better with the +billiard-room talk--that was likely to be reminiscent, full of anecdotes. +I kept a pad on the window-sill, and made notes while he was playing. At +one time he told me of his dreams. + +"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. 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 I have is being compelled to +go back to the lecture platform. 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 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 semi-darkness talking +to an empty house." + +He did not return to Dublin the next summer, but took a house at Tuxedo, +nearer New York. I did not go there with him, for in the spring it was +agreed that I should make a pilgrimage to the Mississippi and the Pacific +coast to see those few still remaining who had known Mark Twain in his +youth. John Briggs was alive, also Horace Bixby, "Joe" Goodman, Steve +and Jim Gillis, and there were a few others. + +It was a trip taken none too soon. John Briggs, a gentle-hearted old man +who sat by his fire and through one afternoon told me of the happy days +along the river-front from the cave to Holliday's Hill, did not reach the +end of the year. Horace Bixby, at eighty-one, was still young, and +piloting a government snag-boat. Neither was Joseph Goodman old, by any +means, but Jim Gillis was near his end, and Steve Gillis was an invalid, +who 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." + + + + +LXIV. + +A DEGREE FROM OXFORD + +On my return I found Mark Twain elated: he had been invited to England to +receive the degree of Literary Doctor from the Oxford University. It is +the highest scholastic honorary degree; and to come back, as I had, from +following the early wanderings of the barefoot truant of Hannibal, only +to find him about to be officially knighted by the world's most venerable +institution of learning, seemed rather the most surprising chapter even +of his marvelous fairy-tale. If Tom Sawyer had owned the magic wand, he +hardly could have produced anything as startling as that. + +He sailed on the 8th of June, 1907, exactly forty years from the day he +had sailed on the "Quaker City" to win his greater fame. I did not +accompany him. He took with him a secretary to make notes, and my +affairs held me in America. He was absent six weeks, and no attentions +that England had ever paid him before could compare with her lavish +welcome during this visit. His reception was really national. He was +banqueted by the greatest clubs of London, he was received with special +favor at the King's garden party, he traveled by a royal train, crowds +gathering everywhere to see him pass. At Oxford when he appeared on the +street the name Mark Twain ran up and down like a cry of fire, and the +people came running. When he appeared on the stage at the Sheldonian +Theater to receive his degree, clad in his doctor's robe of scarlet and +gray, there arose a great tumult--the shouting of the undergraduates for +the boy who had been Tom Sawyer and had played with Huckleberry Finn. +The papers next day spoke of his reception as a "cyclone," surpassing any +other welcome, though Rudyard Kipling was one of those who received +degrees on that occasion, and General Booth and Whitelaw Reid, and other +famous men. + +Perhaps the most distinguished social honor paid to Mark Twain at this +time was the dinner given him by the staff of London "Punch," in the +historic "Punch" editorial rooms on Bouverie Street. No other foreigner +had ever been invited to that sacred board, where Thackeray had sat, and +Douglas Jerrold and others of the great departed. "Punch" had already +saluted him with a front-page cartoon, and at this dinner the original +drawing was presented to him by the editor's little daughter, Joy Agnew. + +The Oxford degree, and the splendid homage paid him by England at large, +became, as it were, the crowning episode of Mark Twain's career. I think +he realized this, although he did not speak of it--indeed, he had very +little to say of the whole matter. I telephoned a greeting when I knew +that he had arrived in New York, and was summoned to "come down and play +billiards." I confess I went with a good deal of awe, prepared to sit in +silence and listen to the tale of the returning hero. 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've been inventing a new game." + +That was all. The pageant was over, the curtain was rung down. Business +was resumed at the old stand. + + + + +LXV. + +THE REMOVAL TO REDDING + +There followed another winter during which I was much with Mark Twain, +though a part of it he spent with Mr. Rogers in Bermuda, that pretty +island resort which both men loved. Then came spring again, and June, +and with it Mark Twain's removal to his newly built home, "Stormfield," +at Redding, Connecticut. + +The house had been under construction for a year. He had never seen it-- +never even seen the land I had bought for him. He even preferred not to +look at any plans or ideas for decoration. + +"When the house is finished and furnished, and the cat is purring on the +hearth, it will be time enough for me to see it," he had said more than +once. + +He had only specified that the rooms should be large and that the +billiard-room should be red. His billiard-rooms thus far had been of +that color, and their memory was associated in his mind with enjoyment +and comfort. He detested details of preparation, and then, too, he +looked forward to the dramatic surprise of walking into a home that had +been conjured into existence as with a word. + +It was the 18th of June, 1908, that he finally took possession. The +Fifth Avenue house was not dismantled, for it was the plan then to use +Stormfield only as a summer place. The servants, however, with one +exception, had been transferred to Redding, and Mark Twain and I remained +alone, though not lonely, in the city house; playing billiards most of +the time, and being as hilarious as we pleased, for there was nobody to +disturb. I think he hardly mentioned the new home during that time. He +had never seen even a photograph of the place, and I confess I had +moments of anxiety, for I had selected the site and had been more or less +concerned otherwise, though John Howells was wholly responsible for the +building. I did not really worry, for I knew how beautiful and peaceful +it all was. + +The morning of the 18th was bright and sunny and cool. Mark Twain was up +and shaved by six o'clock in order to be in time. The train did not +leave until four in the afternoon, but our last billiards in town must +begin early and suffer no interruption. We were still playing when, +about three, word was brought up that the cab was waiting. Arrived at +the station, a group collected, reporters and others, to speed him to his +new home. Some of the reporters came along. + +The scenery was at its best that day, and he spoke of it approvingly. +The hour and a half required to cover the sixty miles' distance seemed +short. The train porters came to carry out the bags. He drew from his +pocket a great handful of silver. + +"Give them something," he said; "give everybody liberally that does any +service." + +There was a sort of open-air reception in waiting--a varied assemblage of +vehicles festooned with flowers had gathered to offer gallant country +welcome. It was a perfect June evening, still and dream-like; there +seemed a spell of silence on everything. The people did not cheer--they +smiled and waved to the white figure, and he smiled and waved reply, but +there was no noise. It was like a scene in a cinema. + +His carriage led the way on the three-mile drive to the house on the +hilltop, and the floral procession fell in behind. Hillsides were green, +fields were white with daisies, dogwood and laurel shone among the trees. +He was very quiet as we drove along. Once, with gentle humor, looking +out 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." + +The clear-running brooks, a swift-flowing river, a tumbling cascade where +we climbed a hill, all came in for his approval--then we were at the lane +that led to his new home, and the procession behind dropped away. The +carriage ascended still higher, and a view opened across the Saugatuck +Valley, with its nestling village and church-spire and farmhouses, and +beyond them the distant hills. Then came the house--simple in design, +but beautiful--an Italian villa, such as he had known in Florence, +adapted here to American climate and needs. + +At the entrance his domestic staff waited to greet him, and presently he +stepped across the threshold and stood in his own home for the first time +in seventeen years. Nothing was lacking--it was as finished, as +completely furnished, as if he had occupied it a lifetime. No one spoke +immediately, but when his eyes had taken in the harmony of the place, +with its restful, home-like comfort, and followed through the open French +windows to the distant vista of treetops and farmsides and blue hills, +he said, very gently: + + "How beautiful it all is! I did not think it could be as beautiful + as this." And later, when he had seen all of the apartments: "It is + a perfect house--perfect, so far as I can see, in every detail. It + might have been here always." + +There were guests that first evening--a small home dinner-party--and a +little later at the foot of the garden some fireworks were set off by +neighbors inspired by Dan Beard, who had recently located in Redding. +Mark Twain, watching the rockets that announced his arrival, said, +gently: + + "I wonder why they go to so much trouble for me. I never go to any + trouble for anybody." + +The evening closed with billiards, hilarious games, and when at midnight +the cues were set in the rack no one could say that Mark Twain's first +day in his new home had not been a happy one. + + + + +LXVI + +LIFE AT STORMFIELD + +Mark Twain loved Stormfield. Almost immediately he gave up the idea of +going back to New York for the winter, and I think he never entered the +Fifth Avenue house again. The quiet and undisturbed comfort of +Stormfield came to him at the right time of life. His day of being the +"Belle of New York" was over. Now and then he attended some great +dinner, but always under protest. Finally he refused to go at all. He +had much company during that first summer--old friends, and now and again +young people, of whom he was always fond. The billiard-room he called +"the aquarium," and a frieze of Bermuda fishes, in gay prints, ran around +the walls. Each young lady visitor was allowed to select one of these as +her patron fish and attach her name to it. Thus, as a member of the +"aquarium club," she was represented in absence. Of course there were +several cats at Stormfield, and these really owned the premises. The +kittens scampered about the billiard-table after the balls, even when the +game was in progress, giving all sorts of new angles to the shots. This +delighted him, and he would not for anything have discommoded or removed +one of those furry hazards. + +My own house was a little more than half a mile away, our lands joining, +and daily I went up to visit him--to play billiards or to take a walk +across the fields. There was a stenographer in the neighborhood, and he +continued his dictations, but not regularly. He wrote, too, now and +then, and finished the little book called "Is Shakespeare Dead?" + +Winter came. The walks were fewer, and there was even more company; the +house was gay and the billiard games protracted. In February I made a +trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, to go over some of his ground +there. Returning in April, I found him somewhat changed. It was not +that he had grown older, or less full of life, but only less active, less +eager for gay company, and he no longer dictated, or very rarely. His +daughter Jean, who had been in a health resort, was coming home to act as +his secretary, and this made him very happy. We resumed our games, our +talks, and our long walks across the fields. There were few guests, and +we were together most of the day and evening. How beautiful the memory +of it all is now! To me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again in +this world. + +Mark Twain walked slowly these days. Early in the summer there appeared +indications of the heart trouble that less than a year later would bring +the end. His doctor advised diminished smoking, and forbade the old +habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs. The trouble was with the +heart muscles, and at times there came severe deadly pains in his breast, +but for the most part he did not suffer. He was allowed the walk, +however, and once I showed him a part of his estate he had not seen +before--a remote cedar hillside. 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." I think the name pleased him. Later he said: + +"If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine" (the Rogers +table, which had been left in storage in New York), "I would turn it over +to you." + +I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit the +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 planned, and the work was presently under way. + +How many things we talked of! Life, death, the future--all the things of +which we know so little and love so much to talk about. Astronomy, as I +have said, was one of his favorite subjects. Neither of us had any real +knowledge of the matter, which made its great facts all the more awesome. +The thought that the nearest fixed star was twenty-five trillions of +miles away--two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance to our own +remote sun--gave him a sort of splendid thrill. He would figure out +those appalling measurements of space, covering sheets of paper with his +sums, but he was not a good mathematician, and the answers were generally +wrong. Comets in particular interested him, and one day 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." + +He looked so strong, and full of color and vitality. One could not +believe that his words held a prophecy. Yet the pains recurred with +increasing frequency and severity; his malady, angina pectoris, was +making progress. And how bravely he bore it all! He never complained, +never bewailed. I have seen the fierce attack crumple him when we were +at billiards, but he would insist on playing in his turn, bowed, his face +white, his hand digging at his breast. + + + + +LXVII + +THE DEATH OF JEAN + +Clara Clemens was married that autumn to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian +pianist, and presently sailed for Europe, where they would make their +home. Jean Clemens was now head of the house, and what with her various +duties and poor health, her burden was too heavy. She had a passion for +animal life of every kind, and in some farm-buildings at one corner of +the estate had set up quite an establishment of chickens and domestic +animals. She was fond of giving these her personal attention, and this, +with her house direction and secretarial work, gave her little time for +rest. I tried to relieve her of a share of the secretarial work, but she +was ambitious and faithful. Still, her condition did not seem critical. + +I stayed at Stormfield, now, most of the time--nights as well as days-- +for the dull weather had come and Mark Twain found the house rather +lonely. In November he had an impulse to go to Bermuda, and we spent a +month in the warm light of that summer island, returning a week before +the Christmas holidays. And just then came Mark Twain's last great +tragedy--the death of his daughter Jean. + +The holidays had added heavily to Jean's labors. Out of her generous +heart she had planned gifts for everybody--had hurried to and from the +city for her purchases, and in the loggia set up a beautiful Christmas +tree. Meantime she had contracted a heavy cold. Her trouble was +epilepsy, and all this was bad for her. On the morning of December 24, +she died, suddenly, from the shock of a cold bath. + +Below, in the loggia, drenched with tinsel, stood the tree, and heaped +about it the packages of gifts which that day she had meant to open and +put in place. Nobody had been overlooked. + +Jean was taken to Elmira for burial. Her father, unable to make the +winter journey, remained behind. Her cousin, Jervis Langdon, came for +her. + +It was six in the evening when she went away. A soft, heavy snow was +falling, and the gloom of the short day was closing in. There was not +the least noise, the whole world was muffled. The lanterns shone out the +open door, and at an upper window, the light gleaming on his white hair, +her father watched her going away from him for the last time. Later he +wrote: + + "From my window 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 Katy--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." + + + + +LXVIII + +DAYS IN BERMUDA + +Ten days later Mark Twain returned to Bermuda, accompanied only by a +valet. He had asked me if we would be willing to close our home for the +winter and come to Stormfield, so that the place might be ready any time +for his return. We came, of course, for there was no thought other than +for his comfort. He did not go to a hotel in Bermuda, but to the home of +Vice-Consul Allen, where he had visited before. The Allens were devoted +to him and gave him such care as no hotel could offer. + +Bermuda agreed with Mark Twain, and for a time there he gained in +strength and spirits and recovered much of his old manner. He wrote me +almost daily, generally with good reports of his health and doings, and +with playful counsel and suggestions. Then, by and by, he did not write +with his own hand, but through his newly appointed "secretary," Mr. +Allen's young daughter, Helen, of whom he was very fond. The letters, +however, were still gay. Once 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 in utter freedom and without + embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a + criminal." + +He had made no mention so far of the pains in his breast, but near the +end of March he wrote that he was coming home, if the breast pains did +not "mend their ways pretty considerable. I do not want to die here," he +said. "I am growing more and more particular about the place." A week +later brought another alarming letter, also one from Mr. Allen, who +frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. I went to +New York and sailed the next morning, cabling the Gabrilowitsches to come +without delay. + +I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when I arrived he was +not expecting me. + +"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you did not 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. 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. "Wow I'm +glad to see you." + +His breakfast came in and he ate with appetite. I had thought him thin +and pale, at first sight, but his color had come back now, and his eyes +were bright. He told me of the fierce attacks of the pain, and how he +had been given hypodermic injections which he amusingly termed "hypnotic +injunctions" and "the sub-cutaneous." From Mr. and Mrs. Allen I learned +how slender had been his chances, and how uncertain were the days ahead. +Mr. Allen had already engaged passage home for April 12th. + +He seemed so little like a man whose days were numbered. On the +afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as we had done on our former visit, +and he discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. I had +sold for him, for six thousand dollars, the farm where Jean had kept her +animals, and he wished to use the money in erecting for her some sort of +memorial. He agreed that a building to hold the library which he had +already donated to the town of Redding would be appropriate and useful. +He asked me to write at once to his lawyer and have the matter arranged. + +We did not drive out again. The pains held off for several days, and he +was gay and went out on the lawn, but most of the time he sat propped up +in bed, reading and smoking. When I looked at him there, so full of +vigor and the joy of life, I could not persuade myself that he would not +outlive us all. + +He had written very little in Bermuda--his last work being a chapter of +amusing "Advice"--for me, as he confessed--what I was to do upon reaching +the gate of which St. Peter is said to keep the key. As it is the last +writing he ever did, and because it is characteristic, one or two +paragraphs may be admitted here: + + "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. . . + + "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." + +There were several pages of this counsel. + + + + +LXIX. + +THE RETURN TO REDDING + +I spent most of each day with him, merely sitting by the bed and reading. +I noticed when he slept that his breathing was difficult, and I could see +that he did not improve, but often he was gay and liked the entire family +to gather about and be merry. It was only a few days before we sailed +that the severe attacks returned. Then followed bad nights; but respite +came, and we sailed on the 12th, as arranged. The Allen home stands on +the water, and Mr. Allen had chartered a tug to take us to the ship. We +were obliged to start early, and the fresh morning breeze was +stimulating. Mark Twain seemed in good spirits when we reached the +"Oceana," which was to take him home. + +As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of +that homeward voyage. He was comfortable at first, and then we ran into +the humid, oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and he could not breathe. +It seemed to me that the end might come at any moment, and this thought +was in his own mind, but he had no dread, and his sense of humor did not +fail. 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." + +I had been instructed in the use of the hypodermic needle, and from time +to time gave him the "hypnotic injunction," as he still called it. But +it did not afford him entire relief. He could remain in no position for +any length of time. Yet he never complained and thought only of the +trouble he might be making. Once he said: + + "I am sorry for you, Paine, but I can't help it--I can't hurry this + dying business." + +And a little later: + + "Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long!" + +Relatives, physicians, and news-gatherers were at the dock to welcome +him. Revived by the cool, fresh air of the North, he had slept for +several hours and was seemingly much better. A special compartment on +the same train that had taken us first to Redding took us there now, his +physicians in attendance. He did not seem to mind the trip or the drive +home. + +As we turned into the lane that led to Stormfield he said: + +"Can we see where you have built your billiard-room?" + +The gable of the new study showed among the trees, and I pointed it out +to him. + +"It looks quite imposing," he said. + +Arriving at Stormfield, he stepped, unassisted, from the carriage to +greet the members of the household, and with all his old courtliness +offered each his hand. Then in a canvas chair we had brought we carried +him up-stairs to his room--the big, beautiful room that looked out to the +sunset hills. This was Thursday evening, April 14, 1910. + + + + +LXX. + +THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE + +Mark Twain lived just a week from that day and hour. For a time he +seemed full of life, talking freely, and suffering little. Clara and +Ossip Gabrilowitsch arrived on Saturday and found him cheerful, quite +like himself. At intervals he read. "Suetonius" and "Carlyle" lay on +the bed beside him, and he would pick them up and read a page or a +paragraph. Sometimes when I saw him thus--the high color still in his +face, the clear light in his eyes'--I said: "It is not reality. He is +not going to die." + +But by Wednesday of the following week it was evident that the end was +near. We did not know it then, but the mysterious messenger of his birth +year, Halley's comet, became visible that night in the sky.[13] + +On Thursday morning, the 21st, his mind was still fairly clear, and he +read a little from one of the volumes on his bed. By Clara he sent word +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 his words were few, now, and uncertain. I assured him that I +would attend to the matter and he pressed my hand. It was his last word +to me. During the afternoon, while Clara stood by him, 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 for seventy-four tumultuous years +had stopped forever. + +In the Brick Church, New York, Mark Twain--dressed in the white he loved +so well--lay, 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. +Flowers in profusion were banked about him, but on the casket lay a +single 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. + +That night we went with him to Elmira, and next day he lay in those +stately parlors that had seen his wedding-day, and where little Langdon +and Susy had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and then Jean, only a little while +before. + +The worn-out body had reached its journey's end; but his spirit had never +grown old, and to-day, still young, it continues to cheer and comfort a +tired world. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, +by Albert Bigelow Paine + diff --git a/old/mt8bg11.zip b/old/mt8bg11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e46661d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt8bg11.zip |