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diff --git a/old/61338-0.txt b/old/61338-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9827192..0000000 --- a/old/61338-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7191 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moments with Mark Twain, by Mark Twain - -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/license - - -Title: Moments with Mark Twain - -Author: Mark Twain - -Release Date: February 7, 2020 [EBook #61338] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOMENTS WITH MARK TWAIN *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - MOMENTS WITH - MARK TWAIN - ❖ - -[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by Underwood & Underwood] - - - - - Moments With - MARK TWAIN - - - _Selected by_ ❦ ❦ ❦ - ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE - -[Illustration] - - Harper & Brothers Publishers - New York and London - - - - - MOMENTS WITH MARK TWAIN - - Copyright, 1920, by The Mark Twain Company - Printed in the United States of America - Published March, 1920 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - I. _From_ “SKETCHES NEW AND OLD” 1 - - II. _From_ “THE INNOCENTS ABROAD” 7 - - III. _From_ “ROUGHING IT” 58 - - IV. _From_ “THE GILDED AGE” 101 - - V. _From_ “ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER” 113 - - VI. _From_ “THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT” 129 - - VII. _From_ “A TRAMP ABROAD” 131 - - VIII. _From_ “LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI” 155 - - IX. _From_ “THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER” 182 - - X. _From_ “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN” 199 - - XI. _From_ “A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT” 223 - - XII. _From_ “RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION” 244 - - XIII. _From_ “PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S CALENDAR” 247 - - XIV. _From_ “THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED” 254 - - XV. _From_ “THE PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC” 261 - - XVI. _From_ “SAINT JOAN OF ARC” 272 - - XVII. _From_ “FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR” 273 - - XVIII. _From_ “CONCERNING THE JEWS” 283 - - XIX. _From_ “CHRISTIAN SCIENCE” 285 - - XX. _From_ “ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER” 288 - - XXI. _From_ “EVE’S DIARY” 290 - - XXII. MISCELLANEOUS 291 - - XXIII. _From_ “THE DEATH OF JEAN” 298 - - XXIV. _From_ ONE OF HIS LATEST MEMORANDA 299 - - - - - FOREWORD - - -Beginning his preface to the “Uniform Edition” of his works, Mark Twain -wrote: - -“So far as I remember, I have never seen an Author’s Preface which had -any purpose but one—to furnish reasons for the publication of the book. -Prefaces wear many disguises, call themselves by various names, and -pretend to come on various businesses, but I think that upon examination -we are quite sure to find that their errand is always the same: they are -there to apologize for the book; in other words, furnish reasons for its -publication. This often insures brevity.” - -Accepting the above as gospel (as necessarily we must, in this book,) -one is only required here to furnish a few more or less plausible -excuses for its existence. Very well, then, we can think of two: - -First: To prove to those who have read Mark Twain sparingly, or know him -mainly from hearsay, that he was something more than a mere fun-maker. - -Second: To provide for those who have read largely of his work something -of its essence, as it were—put up in a form which may be found -convenient when one has not time, or inclination, to search the volumes. - -These are the excuses—now, an added word as to method: The examples have -been arranged chronologically, so that the reader, following them in -order, may note the author’s evolution—the development of his humor, his -observation, his philosophy and his literary style. They have been -selected with some care, in the hope that those who know the author best -may consider him fairly represented. - -Feeling now that this little volume is sufficiently explained, the -compiler begs to offer it, without further extenuation, to all who do -honor to the memory of our foremost laughing philosopher. - - - - - MOMENTS WITH - MARK TWAIN - ❖ - - - - - _FROM_ “SKETCHES NEW AND OLD” (1865–67) - - - ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS - -“Moral Statistician.”—I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your -whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are -always ciphering out how much a man’s health is injured, and how much -his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he -wastes in the course of ninety-two years’ indulgence in the fatal -practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking -coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of -wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. And you are always figuring out how -many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of -wearing expansive hoops, etc., etc., etc. You never see more than one -side of the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men in -America smoke, and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, -they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine -and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and -yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out -how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from -smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money -he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of -happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from _not_ smoking. -Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little -vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? -What use can you put it to? Money can’t save your infinitesimal soul. -All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and -enjoyment in this life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and -enjoyment, where is the use of accumulating cash? It won’t do for you to -say that you can use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, -and in charities, and in supporting tract societies, because you know -yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give -away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that -you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the -daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try -to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your -knees, with your eyes buried in the cushion, when the contribution box -comes around; and you never give the revenue officers a full statement -of your income. Now you know all these things yourself, don’t you? Very -well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives -to a lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money -that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don’t you go off -somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into -becoming as “ornery” and unloveable as you are yourselves, by your -villainous “moral statistics”? Now I don’t approve of dissipation, and I -don’t indulge in it, either; but I haven’t a particle of confidence in a -man who has no redeeming petty vices, and so I don’t want to hear from -you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a long -lecture last week about the degrading vice of smoking cigars, and then -came back, in my absence, with your reprehensible fireproof gloves on, -and carried off my beautiful parlor stove. - -“Young Author.”—Yes, Agassiz _does_ recommend authors to eat fish, -because the phosphorus in it makes brain. So far you are correct. But I -cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat—at least, -not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your -fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would -be all you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simply -good, middling-sized whales. - - - HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER - -In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a fine -but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. He -seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it on -the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our -paper. - -He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles with -his handkerchief, he said, “Are you the new editor?” - -I said I was. - -“Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?” - -“No,” I said; “this is my first attempt.” - -“Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture, practically?” - -“No; I believe I have not.” - -“Some instinct told me,” said the old gentleman, putting on his -spectacles and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded -his paper into a convenient shape. “I wish to read you what must have -made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it -was you that wrote it: - -“Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to -send a boy up and let him shake the tree.” - -“Now, what do you think of that?—for I really suppose you wrote it?” - -“Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no -doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are -spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, -when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree——” - -“Shake your grandmother! Turnips don’t grow on trees!” - -“Oh, they don’t don’t they? Well, who said they did? The language was -intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows -anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine.” - -Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, -and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I -did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door -after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was -displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I -could not be any help to him. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE INNOCENTS ABROAD” (1867–68) - - - ON KEEPING A JOURNAL - -At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a -faithful record of his performances, in a book; and he dashes at his -work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a -journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if -he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare -natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for -duty’s sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so -tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a -shameful defeat.... If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant -punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year. - - - THE “QUAKER CITY” IN A STORM - -And the last night of the seven was the stormiest of all. There was no -thunder, no noise but the pounding bows of the ship, the keen whistling -of the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the seething waters. -But the vessel climbed aloft as if she would climb to heaven—then paused -an instant that seemed a century, and plunged headlong down again, as -from a precipice. The sheeted sprays drenched the decks like rain. The -blackness of darkness was everywhere. At long intervals a flash of -lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire, that revealed a -heaving world of water where was nothing before, kindled the dusky -cordage to glittering silver, and lit up the faces of the men with a -ghastly lustre! - -Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoiding the night winds and -the spray. Some thought the vessel could not live through the night, and -it seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the wild tempest -and _see_ the peril that threatened than to be shut up in the sepulchral -cabins, under the dim lamps, and imagine the horrors that were abroad on -the ocean. And once out—once where they could see the ship struggling in -the strong grasp of the storm—once where they could hear the shriek of -the winds, and face the driving spray and look out upon the majestic -picture the lightnings disclosed, they were prisoners to a fierce -fascination they could not resist, and so remained. It was a wild -night—and a very, very long one. - - - THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER - -While we stood admiring the cloud-capped peaks and the lowlands robed in -misty gloom, a finer picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a -magnet—a stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas till she was one -towering mass of bellying sail. She came speeding over the sea like a -great bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the -beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed, she swept superbly by and -flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze! Quicker than thought hats and -handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer went up! She was beautiful -before—she was radiant now. Many a one on her decks knew then for the -first time how tame a sight his country’s flag is at home compared with -what it is in a foreign land. To see it is to see a vision of home -itself and all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a very river -of sluggish blood! - - - TANGIER - -What a funny old town it is! It seems like profanation to laugh and jest -and bandy the frivolous chat of our day amid its hoary relics. Only the -stately phraseology and the measured speech of the sons of the Prophet -are suited to a venerable antiquity like this. Here is a crumbling wall -that was old when Columbus discovered America; was old when Peter the -Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages to arm for the first -Crusade; was old when Charlemagne and his paladins beleaguered enchanted -castles and battled with giants and genii in the fabled days of the -olden time; was 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! - - - AMERICAN BEAUTIES - -I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to -be able to make—and glad, as well, that my comrades cordially indorse -it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were born -and reared in America. - -I feel, now, like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation and shed -luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a single just deed done at the -eleventh hour. - -Let the curtain fall, to slow music. - - - AN EARLY MEMORY - -It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember yet how I ran off from -school once when I was a boy, and then, pretty late at night, concluded -to climb into the window of my father’s office and sleep on a lounge, -because I had a delicacy about going home and getting thrashed. As I lay -on the lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I fancied I -could see a long, dusky, shapeless thing stretched upon the floor. A -cold shiver went through me. I turned my face to the wall. That did not -answer. I was afraid that the thing would creep over and seize me in the -dark. I turned back and stared at it for minutes and minutes—they seemed -hours. It appeared to me that the lagging moonlight never, never would -get to it. I turned to the wall and counted twenty, to pass the feverish -time away. I looked—the pale square was nearer. I turned again and -counted fifty—it was almost touching it. With desperate will I turned -again and counted one hundred, and faced about, all in a tremble. A -white human hand lay in the moonlight! Such an awful sinking at the -heart—such a sudden gasp for breath. I felt—I cannot tell _what_ I felt. -When I recovered strength enough, I faced the wall again. But no boy -could have remained so, with that mysterious hand behind him. I counted -again, and looked—the most of a naked arm was exposed. I put my hands -over my eyes and counted until I could stand it no longer, and then—the -pallid face of a man was there, with the corners of the mouth drawn -down, and the eyes fixed and glassy in death! I raised to a sitting -posture and glowered on the corpse till the light crept down the bare -breast,—line by line—inch by inch—past the nipple,—and then it disclosed -a ghastly stab! - -I went away from there. I do not say that I went away in any sort of a -hurry, but I simply went——that is sufficient. I went out at the window, -and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need the sash, but it -was handier to take it than it was to leave it, and so I took it. I was -not scared, but I was considerably agitated. - -When I reached home, they whipped me, but I enjoyed it. It seemed -perfectly delightful. That man had been stabbed near the office that -afternoon, and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he only -lived an hour. I have slept in the same room with him often, since -then—in my dreams. - - - AT THE AMBROSIAN LIBRARY - -We saw a manuscript of Virgil, with annotations in the handwriting of -Petrarch, the gentleman who loved another man’s Laura, and lavished upon -her all through life a love which was a clear waste of the raw material. -It was sound sentiment, but bad judgment. It brought both parties fame, -and created a fountain of commiseration for them in sentimental breasts -that is running yet. But who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I -do not know his other name.) Who glorifies him? Who bedews him with -tears? Who writes poetry about him? Nobody. How do you suppose _he_ -liked the state of things that has given the world so much pleasure?... -Let the world go on fretting about Laura and Petrarch if it will; but as -for me, my tears and my lamentations shall be lavished upon the unsung -defendant. - -We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom I -have always entertained the highest respect, on account of her rare -histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made of -gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the -facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral and get the -corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair from -Lucrezia’s head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we still live. In this -same library we saw some drawings by Michael Angelo (these Italians call -him Mickel Angelo), and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it Vinci and -pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they -pronounce.) We reserve our opinion of these sketches. - - - OUR NEED OF REPOSE - -Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe—comfort. -In America, we hurry—which is well; but when the day’s work is done, we -go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even -carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them -when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. -We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or -drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a -man’s prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and -well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear -across the continent in the same coach he started in—the coach is -stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool -for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold -an edge, the barber lays it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes -back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate -objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of -thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf -occasionally, and renew our edges! - -I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. When the work of the -day is done, they forget it. - - - VENICE - -It was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we sat silent and -hardly conscious of where we were—subdued into that meditative calm that -comes so surely after a conversational storm—some one shouted: - -“VENICE!” - -And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a league away, lay a great -city with its towers and domes and steeples drowsing in a golden midst -of sunset. - -The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a fit subject for -flippant speech or the idle gossiping of tourists. It seems a sort of -sacrilege to disturb the glamour of old romance that pictures her to us -softly from afar off as through a tinted mist, and curtains her ruin and -her desolation from our view. One ought, indeed, to turn away from her -rags, her poverty, and her humiliation, and think of her only as she was -when she sunk the fleets of Charlemagne; when she humbled Frederick -Barbarossa or waved her victorious banners above the battlements of -Constantinople. - -There was music everywhere—choruses, string bands, brass bands, flutes, -everything. I was so surrounded, walled in with music, magnificence, and -loveliness, that I became inspired with the spirit of the scene, and -sang one tune myself. However, when I observed that the other gondolas -had sailed away, and my gondolier was preparing to go overboard, I -stopped. - -In the glare of the day, there is little poetry about Venice, but under -the charitable moon her stained palaces are white again, their battered -sculptures are hidden in shadows, and the old city seems crowned once -more with the grandeur that was hers five hundred years ago. It is easy, -then, in fancy, to people these silent canals with plumed gallants and -fair ladies—with Shylocks in gaberdine and sandals, venturing loans upon -the rich argosies of Venetian commerce—with Othellos and Desdemonas, -with Iagos and Roderigos—with noble fleets and victorious legions -returning from the wars. In the treacherous sunlight we see Venice -decayed, forlorn, poverty-stricken, and commerceless—forgotten and -utterly insignificant. But in the moonlight, her fourteen centuries of -greatness fling their glories about her, and once more is she the -princeliest among the nations of the earth. - -Yes, I think we have seen all Venice. We have seen in these old churches -a profusion of costly and elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such as we -never dreamt of before. We have stood in the dim religious light of -these hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments -and effigies of the great dead of Venice, until we seemed drifting back, -back, back, into the solemn past, and looking upon the scenes and -mingling with the people of a remote antiquity. We have been in a -half-waking sort of a dream all the time. I do not know how else to -describe the feeling. A part of our being has remained still in the -nineteenth century, while another part of it has seemed in some -unaccountable way walking among the phantoms of the tenth. - -We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are weary with looking at -them and refuse to find interest in them any longer.... We have striven -hard to learn. We have had some success. We have mastered some things, -possibly of trifling import in the eyes of the learned, but to us they -give pleasure, and we take as much pride in our little acquirements as -do others who have learned far more, and we love to display them full as -well. When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking tranquilly -up to heaven, we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a -book and a pen, looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a -word, we know that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a -rock, looking tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, -and without other baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we -know that he always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we -see a party looking tranquilly up to heaven, unconscious that his body -is shot through and through with arrows, we know that that is St. -Sebastian. When we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but -having no trademark, we always ask who those parties are. We do this -because we humbly wish to learn.... - -And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart to-morrow, and leave the -venerable Queen of the Republics to summon her vanished ships, and -marshal her shadowy armies, and know again in dreams the pride of her -old renown. - - - AT PISA - -The Baptistery, which is a few years older than the Leaning Tower, is a -stately rotunda of huge dimensions, and was a costly structure. In it -hangs the lamp whose measured swing suggested to Galileo the pendulum. -It looked an insignificant thing to have conferred upon the world of -science and mechanics such a mighty extension of their dominions as it -has. Pondering, in its suggestive presence, I seemed to see a crazy -universe of swinging disks, the toiling children of this sedate parent. -He appeared to have an intelligent expression about him of knowing that -he was not a lamp at all; that he was a Pendulum; a pendulum disguised, -for prodigious and inscrutable purposes of his own deep devising, and -not a common pendulum either, but the old original patriarchal -Pendulum—the Abraham Pendulum of the world. - - - CHRISTIAN PERSUASION - -How times have changed, between the older ages and the new! Some -seventeen or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont -to put Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild -beasts in upon them, for show. It was for a lesson as well. It was to -teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of -Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb and -made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But when -the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became -mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways by -no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition and pointed -to the Blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful toward all -men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they did all they -could to persuade them to love and honor him—first by twisting their -thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with -pincers—red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold -weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting -them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true -religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to -administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive -also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts -and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the -system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized -people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more. - - - TAKING IT OUT OF THE GUIDES - -I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled -with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael -Angelo was dead. - -But we have taken it out of this guide. He has marched us through miles -of pictures and sculpture in the vast corridors of the Vatican; and -through miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other palaces; he has -shown us the great picture in the Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to -fresco the heavens—pretty much all done by Michael Angelo. So with him -we have played that game which has vanquished so many guides for -us—imbecility and idiotic questions. These creatures never suspect—they -have no idea of a sarcasm. - -He shows us a figure and says: “Statoo brunzo.” (Bronze statue). - -We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks: “By Michael Angelo?” - -“No—not know who.” - -Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum. The doctor asks: “Michael -Angelo?” - -A stare from the guide. “No—a thousan’ year before he is born.” - -Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again: “Michael Angelo?” - -“Oh, mon dieu, genteelman! Zis is TWO thousan’ year before he is born.” - -He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes, that he dreads -to show us anything at all. The wretch has tried all the ways he can -think of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is only responsible -for the creation of a _part_ of the world, but somehow he has not -succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes and brain from study and -sightseeing is necessary, or we shall become idiotic, sure enough. -Therefore this guide must continue to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, -so much the worse for him. We do. - -In this place I might as well jot down a chapter concerning those -necessary nuisances, European guides. Many a man has wished in his heart -he could do without his guide; but knowing he could not, has wished he -could get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the affliction -of his society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if our -experience can be made useful to others they are welcome to it. - -Guides know about enough English to tangle everything up so that a man -can make neither head nor tail of it. They know their story by heart—the -history of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other wonder they show -you. They know it and tell it as a parrot would—and if you interrupt, -and throw them off the track, they have to go back and begin over again. -All their lives long, they are employed in showing strange things to -foreigners and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human -nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts -children to say “smart” things, and to do absurd ones, and in other ways -“show off” when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in -rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. -Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it -is, every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect -ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility -live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we _never_ went -into ecstasies any more—we never admired anything—we never showed any -but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the -sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. -We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of those -people savage, at times, but we have never lost our own serenity. - -The doctor asks the questions, generally, because he can keep his -countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more -imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes -natural to him. - -The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because -Americans have so much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion -before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he -had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation—full of -impatience. He said: - -“Come wis me, genteelmen!—come! I show you ze letter writing by -Christopher Colombo! write it himself!—write it wis his own hand!—come!” - -He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of -keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread -before us. The guide’s eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the -parchment with his finger: - -“What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! handwriting Christopher -Colombo!—write it himself!” - -We looked indifferent—unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very -deliberately, during a painful pause. Then he said, without any show of -interest: - -“Ah—Ferguson—what—what did you say was the name of the party who wrote -this?” - -“Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo.” - -Another deliberate examination. - -“Ah—did he write it himself, or—or how?” - -“He write it himself!—Christopher Colombo! he’s own handwriting, write -by himself!” - -Then the doctor laid the document down and said: - -“Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could -write better than that.” - -“But zis is ze great Christo——” - -“I don’t care who it is! It’s the worst writing I ever saw. Now you -mustn’t think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not -fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of -real merit, trot them out!—and if you haven’t, drive on!” - -We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more -venture. He had something which he thought would overcome us. He said: - -“Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, oh, magnificent -bust Christopher Colombo!—splendid, grand, magnificent!” - -He brought us before the beautiful bust—for it _was_ beautiful—and -sprang back and struck an attitude: - -“Ah, look, genteelmen!—beautiful, grand,—bust Christopher -Colombo!—Beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!” - -The doctor put up his eyeglass—procured for such occasions: - -“Ah—what did you say this gentleman’s name was?” - -“Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!” - -“Christopher Colombo—the great Christopher Colombo. Well what did _he_ -do?” - -“Discover America!—discover America, oh, ze devil!” - -“Discover America. No—that statement will hardly wash. We are just from -America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher -Colombo—pleasant name—is—is he dead?” - -“Oh, corpo di Baccho!—three hundred year!” - -“What did he die of?” - -“I do not know!—I cannot tell.” - -“Smallpox, think?” - -“I do not know, genteelmen!—I do not know _what_ he die of!” - -“Measles, likely?” - -“Maybe—maybe—I do not know—I think he die of somethings.” - -“Parents living?” - -“Im-posseeble!” - -“Ah—which is the bust and which is the pedestal?” - -“Santa Maria!—_zis_ ze bust!—_zis_ ze pedestal!” - -“Ah, I see, I see—happy combination—very happy combination, indeed. -Is—is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?” - -That joke was lost on the foreigner—guides cannot master subtleties of -the American joke. - -We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent -three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful world of -curiosities. We came very near expressing interest, sometimes—even -admiration—it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. -Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was -bewildered—nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up -extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it -was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had -reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last—a -royal Egyptian mummy; the best-preserved in the world, perhaps. He -took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old -enthusiasm came back to him: - -“See, genteelmen!—Mummy! Mummy!” - -The eyeglass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever. - -“Ah,—Ferguson—what did I understand you to say the gentleman’s name -was?” - -“Name?—he got no name! Mummy!—’Gyptian mummy!” - -“Yes, yes. Born here?” - -“No! _’Gyptian_ mummy!” - -“Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?” - -“No!—_Not_ Frenchman, not Roman!—born in Egypta!” - -“Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. -Mummy—mummy. How calm he is—how self-possessed. Is, ah—is he dead?” - -“Oh, SACRE BLEU, been dead three thousan’ year!” - -The doctor turned on him savagely: - -“Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for -Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn. Trying to impose -your vile second-hand carcasses on _us_!—thunder and lightning, I’ve a -notion to—to—if you’ve got a nice _fresh_ corpse, fetch him out!—or, by -George, we’ll brain you!” - -We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he has -paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this -morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as well as he could to -describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He -finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation -was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for -a guide to say. - -There is one remark (already mentioned) which never yet has failed to -disgust these guides. We use it always, when we can think of nothing -else to say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm pointing out to -us and praising the beauties of some ancient bronze image or -broken-legged statue, we look at it stupidly and in silence for five, -ten, fifteen minutes—as long as we can hold out, in fact—and then ask: - -“Is—is he dead?” - - - A SURFEIT OF ART - -When I was a schoolboy and was to have a new knife, I could not make up -my mind as to which was the prettiest in the showcase, and I did not -think any of them were particularly pretty; and so I chose with a heavy -heart. But when I looked at my purchase, at home, where no glittering -blades came into composition with it, I was astonished to see how -handsome it was. To this day my new hats look better out of the shop -than they did in it, with other new hats. It begins to dawn upon me now, -that possibly, what I have been taking for uniform ugliness in the -galleries may be uniform beauty, after all. I honestly hope it is, to -others, but certainly it is not to me. Perhaps the reason I used to -enjoy going to the Academy of Fine Arts in New York was because there -were but a few hundred paintings in it, and it did not surfeit me to go -through the list. I suppose the Academy was bacon and beans in the -Forty-Mile Desert, and a European gallery is a state dinner of thirteen -courses. One leaves no sign after him of the one dish, but the thirteen -frighten away his appetite and give him no satisfaction. - -There is one thing I am certain of, though. With all the Michael -Angelos, the Raphaels, the Guidos, and the other old masters, the -sublime history of Rome remains unpainted! They painted Virgins enough, -and Popes enough, and saintly scarecrows enough, to people Paradise, -almost, and these things are all they did paint. “Nero fiddling o’er -burning Rome,” the assassination of Caesar, the stirring spectacle of a -hundred thousand people bending forward with rapt interest, in the -coliseum, to see two skilful gladiators hacking away each other’s lives, -a tiger springing upon a kneeling martyr—these and a thousand other -matters which we read of with a living interest, must be sought for only -in books—not among the rubbish left by the old masters—who are no more, -I have the satisfaction of informing the public. - - - AT POMPEII - -Everywhere, you see things that make you wonder how old these old houses -were before the night of destruction came—things, too, which bring back -those long-dead inhabitants and place them living before your eyes. For -instance: The steps (two feet thick—lava blocks) that lead up out of the -school, and the same kind of steps that lead up into the dress circle of -the principal theater, are almost worn through! For ages the boys -hurried out of that school, and for ages their parents hurried into that -theater, and the nervous feet that have been dust and ashes for eighteen -centuries have left their record for us to read to-day. I imagined I -could see crowds of gentlemen and ladies thronging into the theater, -with tickets for secured seats in their hands, and on the wall I read -the imaginary placard, in infamous grammar, “POSITIVELY NO FREE LIST, -EXCEPT MEMBERS OF THE PRESS!” Hanging about the doorway (I fancied) were -slouchy Pompeiian street boys uttering slang and profanity, and keeping -a wary eye out for checks. I entered the theater, and sat down in one of -the long rows of stone benches in the dress circle, and looked at the -place for the orchestra, and the ruined stage, and around at the wide -sweep of empty boxes, and thought to myself, “This house won’t pay.” I -tried to imagine the music in full blast, the leader of the orchestra -beating time, and the “versatile” So-and-So (who had “just returned from -a most successful tour in the provinces to play his last and farewell -engagement of positively six nights only, in Pompeii, previous to his -departure for Herculaneum”) charging around the stage and piling the -agony mountains high—but I could not do it with such a “house” as that; -those empty benches tied my fancy down to dull reality. I said, these -people that ought to be here have been dead, and still, and moldering to -dust for ages and ages, and will never care for the trifles and follies -of life any more forever—“Owing to circumstances, etc., etc., there will -not be any performance to-night.” Close down the curtains. Put out the -lights. - - - FAME - -After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of Baiae, of Pompeii, -and after glancing down the long marble ranks of battered and nameless -imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one thing -strikes me with a force it never had before: the unsubstantial, -unlasting character of fame. Men lived long lives, in the olden time, -and struggled feverishly through them, toiling like slaves, in oratory, -in generalship, or in literature, and then laid them down and died, -happy in the possession of an enduring history and a deathless name. -Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these -things? A crazy inscription on a block of stone, which snuffy -antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make nothing out of but a bare -name (which they spell wrong)—no history, no tradition, no -poetry—nothing that can give it even a passing interest. What may be -left of General Grant’s great name forty centuries hence? This—in the -Encyclopedia for A.D. 5868, possibly. - -“Uriah S. (or Z.) Grant—popular poet of ancient times in the Aztec -provinces of the United States of British America. Some authors say -flourished about A.D. 742; but the learned Ah-ah Foo-foo states that he -was a contemporary of Scharkspyre, the English poet, and flourished -about A.D. 1328, some three centuries _after_ the Trojan war instead of -before it. He wrote ‘Rock me to Sleep, Mother,’” - -These thoughts sadden me. I will to bed. - - - ATHENS FROM THE ACROPOLIS - -The full moon was riding high in the cloudless heavens now. We sauntered -carelessly and unthinkingly to the edge of the lofty battlements of the -citadel, and looked down—a vision! And such a vision! Athens by -moonlight! The prophet that thought the splendors of the New Jerusalem -were revealed to him, surely saw this instead! It lay in the level plain -right under our feet—all spread abroad like a picture—and we looked down -upon it as we might have looked from a balloon. We saw no semblance of a -street, but every house, every window, every clinging vine, every -projection, was as distinct and sharply marked as if the time were -noonday; and yet there was no glare, no glitter, nothing harsh or -repulsive—the noiseless city was flooded with the mellowest light that -ever streamed from the moon, and seemed like some living creature -wrapped in peaceful slumber. On its further side was a little temple, -whose delicate pillars and ornate front glowed with a rich luster that -chained the eye like the spell; and nearer by, the palace of the king -reared its creamy walls out of the midst of a great garden of shrubbery -that was flecked all over with a random shower of amber lights—a spray -of golden sparks that lost their brightness in the glory of the moon, -and glinted softly upon the sea of dark foliage like the pallid stars of -the milky way. Overhead the stately columns, majestic still in their -ruin—under foot the dreaming city—in the distance the silver sea—not on -the broad earth is there another picture half so beautiful! - -As we turned and moved again through the temple, I wished that the -illustrious men who had sat in it in the remote ages could visit it -again and reveal themselves to our curious eyes—Plato, Aristotle, -Demosthenes, Socrates, Phocion, Pythagoras, Euclid, Pindar, Xenophon, -Herodotus, Praxiteles and Phidias, Zeuxis the painter. What a -constellation of celebrated names! But more than all, I wished that old -Diogenes, groping so patiently with his lantern, searching so zealously -for one solitary honest man in all the world, might meander along and -stumble on our party. I ought not to say it, maybe, but still I suppose -he would have put out his light. - - - CONSTANTINOPLE - -Commercial morals, especially, are bad. There is no gainsaying that. -Greek, Turkish, and Armenian morals consist only in attending church -regularly on the appointed Sabbaths, and in breaking the ten -commandments all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them to -lie and cheat in the first place, and then they go on and improve on -nature until they arrive at perfection. In recommending his son to a -merchant as a valuable salesman, a father does not say he is a nice, -moral, upright boy, and goes to Sunday-school and is honest, but he -says, “This boy is worth his weight in broad pieces of a hundred—for -behold, he will cheat whomsoever hath dealings with him, and from the -Euxine to the waters of Marmora there abideth not so gifted a liar!” How -is that for a recommendation? The missionaries tell me that they hear -encomiums like that passed upon people every day. They say of a person -they admire, “Ah, he is a charming swindler, and a most exquisite liar!” - - - TURKISH JOURNALISM - -The newspaper business has its inconveniences in Constantinople. Two -Greek papers and one French one were suppressed here within a few days -of each other. No victories of the Cretans are allowed to be printed. -From time to time the Grand Vizier sends a notice to the various editors -that the Cretan insurrection is entirely suppressed, and although that -editor knows better, he still has to print the notice. The Levant Herald -is too fond of speaking praisefully of Americans to be popular with the -Sultan, who does not relish our sympathy with the Cretans, and therefore -that paper has to be particularly circumspect in order to keep out of -trouble. Once the editor, forgetting the official notice in his paper -that the Cretans were crushed out, printed a letter of a very different -tenor, from the American Consul in Crete, and was fined two hundred and -fifty dollars for it. Shortly he printed another from the same source -and was imprisoned three months for his pains. I think I could get the -assistant editorship of the Levant Herald, but I am going to try to -worry along without it. - - - THE CAMEL - -By half-past six we were under way, and all the Syrian world seemed to -be under way also. The road was filled with mule trains and long -processions of camels. This reminds me that we have been trying for some -time to think what a camel looks like, and now we have made it out. When -he is down on all his knees, flat on his breast to receive his load, he -looks something like a goose, swimming; and when he is upright he looks -like an ostrich with an extra set of legs. Camels are not beautiful, and -their long under lip gives them an exceedingly “gallus” expression. They -have immense flat, forked cushions of feet, that make a track in the -dust like a pie with a slice cut out of it. They are not particular -about their diet. They would eat a tombstone if they could bite it. A -thistle grows about here which has needles on it that would pierce -through leather, I think; if one touches you, you can find relief in -nothing but profanity. The camels eat these. They show by their actions -that they enjoy them. I suppose it would be a real treat to a camel to -have a keg of nails for supper. - - - AT NOAH’S TOMB - -Noah’s tomb is built of stone, and is covered with a long stone -building. Bucksheesh let us in. The building had to be long, because the -grave of the honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet long -itself! It is only about four feet high, though. He must have cast a -shadow like a lightning-rod. The proof that this is the genuine spot -where Noah was buried can only be doubted by uncommonly incredulous -people. The evidence is pretty straight. Shem, the son of Noah, was -present at the burial, and showed the place to his descendants, who -transmitted the knowledge to their descendants, and the lineal -descendants of these introduced themselves to us to-day. It was pleasant -to make the acquaintance of members of so respectable a family. It was a -thing to be proud of. It was the next thing to being acquainted with -Noah himself. - - - DAMASCUS - -Damascus dates back anterior to the days of Abraham, and is the oldest -city in the world. It was founded by Uz, the grandson of Noah. “The -early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists of a hoary -antiquity.” Leave the matters written of in the first eleven chapters of -the Old Testament out, and no recorded event has occurred in the world -but Damascus was in existence to receive the news of it. Go back as far -as you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the -writings of every century for more than four thousand years, its name -has been mentioned, and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only -moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, -not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise -and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw -the foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these -villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their -grandeur—and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given -over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish empire exalted, -and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two -thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it -overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish. The few hundreds -of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old -Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering. -Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she -lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires and will -see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. Though another claims -the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City. - - - AT BANIAS - -It seems curious enough to us to be standing on ground that was once -actually pressed by the feet of the Saviour. The situation is suggestive -of a reality and a tangibility that seem at variance with the vagueness -and mystery and ghostliness that one naturally attaches to the character -of a god. I cannot comprehend yet that I am sitting where a god has -stood, and looking upon the brook and the mountains which that god -looked upon, and am surrounded by dusky men and women whose ancestors -saw him, and even talked with him, face to face, and carelessly, just as -they would have done with any other stranger. I cannot comprehend this; -the gods of my understanding have been always hidden in clouds, and very -far away. - - - A HEALER IN PALESTINE - -As soon as the tribe found out that we had a doctor in our party, they -began to flock in from all quarters. Dr. B., in the charity of his -nature, had taken a child from a wagon who sat near by, and put some -sort of a wash upon its diseased eyes. That woman went off and started -the whole nation, and it was a sight to see them swarm! The lame, the -halt, the blind, the leprous—all the distempers that are bred of -indolence, dirt, and iniquity—were represented in the congress in ten -minutes, and still they came! Every woman that had a sick baby brought -it along, and every woman that hadn’t, borrowed one. What reverent and -what worshiping looks they bent upon that dread, mysterious power, the -Doctor! They watched him take his phials out; they watched him measure -the particles of white powder; they watched him add drops of one -precious liquid, and drops of another; they lost not the slightest -movement; their eyes were riveted upon him with a fascination that -nothing could distract. I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. -When each individual got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant -with joy—notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive -race—and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing -on earth could prevent the patient from getting well, now. - -Christ knew how to preach to these simple, superstitious, -disease-tortured creatures: He healed the sick. They flocked to our poor -human doctor this morning when the fame of what he had done to the sick -child went abroad in the land, and they worshiped him with their eyes -while they did not know as yet whether there was virtue in his simples -or not. The ancestors of these—people precisely like them in color, -dress, manners, costumes, simplicity—flocked in vast multitudes after -Christ, and when they saw Him make the afflicted whole with a word, it -is no wonder they worshiped Him. No wonder His deeds were the talk of -the nation. No wonder the multitude that followed Him was so great that -at one time—thirty miles from here—they had to let a sick man down -through the roof because no approach could be made to the door; no -wonder His audiences were so great at Galilee that He had to preach from -a ship removed a little distance from the shore; no wonder that even in -the desert places about Bethsaida, five thousand invaded His solitude, -and He had to feed them by a miracle or else see them suffer for their -confiding faith and devotion; no wonder when there was a great commotion -in a city in those days, one neighbor explained it to another in words -to this effect: “They say that Jesus of Nazareth is come!” - - - THE BIBLE - -It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful passage in a book -which is so gemmed with beautiful passages, as the Bible; but it is -certain that not many things within its lids may take rank above the -exquisite story of Joseph. Who taught those ancient writers their -simplicity of language, their felicity of expression, their pathos, and, -above all, their faculty of sinking themselves entirely out of sight of -the reader and making the narrative stand out alone and seem to tell -itself? Shakespeare is always present when one reads his book; Macaulay -is present when we follow the march of his stately sentences; but the -Old Testament writers are hidden from view. - - - GALILEE AT NIGHT - -In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the -heavens, and is a theater meet for great events; meet for the birth of a -religion able to save a world; and meet for the stately figure appointed -to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high decrees. But in the -sunlight, one says: Is it for the deeds which were done and the words -which were spoken in this little acre of rocks and sand eighteen -centuries gone, that the bells are ringing to-day in the remote islands -of the sea and far and wide over continents that clasp the circumference -of the huge globe? - - - DISTANCE IN THE EAST - -In Constantinople you ask, “How far is it to the Consulate?” and they -answer, “About ten minutes.” “How far is it to the Lloyds’ Agency?” -“Quarter of an hour.” “How far is it to the lower bridge?” “Four -minutes.” I cannot be positive about it, but I think that there, when a -man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he wants them a quarter of a -minute in the legs and nine seconds around the waist. - - - A PLEASANT INCIDENT - -I cannot think of anything now more certain to make one shudder, than to -have a soft-footed camel sneak up behind him and touch him on the ear -with its cold, flabby under lip. A camel did this for one of the boys, -who was drooping over his saddle in a brown study. He glanced up and saw -the majestic apparition hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to -get out of the way, but the camel reached out and bit him on the -shoulder before he accomplished it. This was the only pleasant incident -of the journey. - - - SACRED MARVELS - -Imagination labors best in distant fields. I doubt if any man can stand -in the Grotto of the Annunciation and people with the phantom images of -his mind its too tangible walls of stone. - -They showed us a broken granite pillar, depending from the roof, which -they said was hacked in two by the Moslem conquerors of Nazareth, in the -vain hope of pulling down the sanctuary. But the pillar remained -miraculously suspended in the air, and, unsupported itself, supported -then and still supports the roof. By dividing this statement up among -eight, it was found not difficult to believe it. - -These gifted Latin monks never do anything by halves. If they were to -show you the Brazen Serpent that was elevated in the wilderness, you -could depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it was elevated on -also, and even the hole it stood in. They have got the “Grotto” of the -Annunciation here; and just as convenient to it as one’s throat is to -his mouth, they have also the Virgin’s Kitchen, and even her -sitting-room, where she and Joseph watched the infant Saviour play with -Hebrew toys, eighteen hundred years ago. All under one roof, and all -clean, spacious, comfortable “grottoes.” It seems curious that -personages intimately connected with the Holy Family always lived in -grottoes—in Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in imperial Ephesus—and yet nobody -else in their day and generation thought of doing anything of the kind. -If they ever did, their grottoes are all gone, and I suppose we ought to -wonder at the peculiar marvel of the preservation of these I speak of. -When the Virgin fled from Herod’s wrath, she hid in a grotto in -Bethlehem, and the same is there to this day. The slaughter of the -innocents in Bethlehem was done in a grotto; the Saviour was born in a -grotto—both are shown to pilgrims yet. It is exceedingly strange that -these tremendous events all happened in grottoes—and exceedingly -fortunate, likewise, because the strongest houses must crumble to ruin -in time, but a grotto in the living rock will last forever. - - - AT ADAM’S GRAVE - -The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land of strangers, far -away from home, and friends, and all who cared for me, thus to discover -the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one, but still a -relation. The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its recognition. The -fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, -and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst -into tears. I deem it no shame to have wept over the grave of my poor -dead relative. Let him who would sneer at my emotion close this volume -here, for he will find little to his taste in my journeyings through the -Holy Land. Noble old man—he did not live to see me—he did not live to -see his child. And I—I—alas, I did not live to see _him_. Weighed down -by sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born—six thousand -brief summers before I was born. But let us try to bear it with -fortitude. Let us trust that he is better off where he is. Let us take -comfort in the thought that his loss is our eternal gain. - - - THE WANDERING JEW - -And so we came at last to another wonder, of deep and abiding -interest—the veritable house where the unhappy wretch once lived who has -been celebrated in song and story for more than eighteen hundred years -as the Wandering Jew. On the memorable day of the Crucifixion he stood -in this old doorway with his arms akimbo, looking out upon the -struggling mob that was approaching, and when the weary Saviour would -have sat down and rested him a moment, pushed him rudely away and said, -“Move on!” The Lord said, “Move on, thou, likewise,” and the command has -never been revoked from that day to this. All men know now that the -miscreant upon whose head that just curse fell has roamed up and down -the wide world, for ages and ages, seeking rest and never finding -it—courting death but always in vain—longing to stop, in city, in -wilderness, in desert solitudes, yet hearing always that relentless -warning to march—march on! They say—do these hoary traditions—that when -Titus sacked Jerusalem and slaughtered eleven hundred thousand Jews in -her streets and byways, the Wandering Jew was seen always in the -thickest of the fight, and that when battle-axes gleamed in the air, he -bowed his head beneath them; when swords flashed their deadly -lightnings, he sprang in their way; he bared his breast to whizzing -javelins, to hissing arrows, to any and to every weapon that promised -death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it was useless—he walked forth -out of the carnage without a wound. And it is said that five hundred -years afterwards he followed Mahomet when he carried destruction to the -cities of Arabia, and then turned against him, hoping in this way to win -the death of a traitor. His calculations were wrong again. No quarter -was given to any living creature but one, and that was the only one of -all the host that did not want it. He sought death five hundred years -later, in the wars of the Crusades, and offered himself to famine and -pestilence at Ascalon. He escaped again—he could not die. These repeated -annoyances could have at last but one effect—they shook his confidence. -Since then the Wandering Jew has carried on a kind of desultory toying -with the most promising of the aids and implements of destruction, but -with small hope, as a general thing. He has speculated some in cholera -and railroads and has taken almost a lively interest in infernal -machines and patent medicines. He is old, now, and grave, as becomes an -age like his; he indulges in no light amusements save that he goes -sometimes to executions, and is fond of funerals. - - - BEDOUINS - -We had had a glimpse, from a mountain top, of the Dead Sea, lying like a -blue shield in the plain of the Jordan, and now we were marching down a -close, flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no living creature could -enjoy life, except, perhaps, a salamander. It was such a dreary, -repulsive, horrible solitude! It was the “wilderness” where John -preached, with camel’s hair about his loins—raiment enough—but he never -could have got his locusts and wild honey here. We were moping along -down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards—two -gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, and -daggers on board—were loafing ahead. - -“Bedouins!” - -Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My -first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second -was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that -direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any -Bedouins had approached us, then, from that point of compass, they would -have paid dearly for their rashness. We all remarked that, afterwards. -There would have been scenes of riot and bloodshed there that no pen -could describe. I know that, because each man told what he would have -done, individually; and such a medley of strange and unheard-of -inventions of cruelty you could not conceive of. One man said he had -calmly made up his mind to perish where he stood, if need be, but never -yield an inch; he was going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could -count the stripes on the first Bedouin’s jacket, and then count them and -let him have it. Another was going to sit still till the first lance -reached within an inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize it. I -forbear to tell what he was going to do to that Bedouin that owned it. -It makes my blood run cold to think of it. - - - A SMITTEN LAND - -Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a -curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where -Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now -floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists—over -whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and -dead—about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts -of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to -parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; -about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised -Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic -Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin -to-day, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years -ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have -nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor -of the Saviour’s presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched -their flocks by night, and where the angels sang “Peace on earth, good -will to men,” is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any -feature that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the -stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is -become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to -compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple, -which was the pride and glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman -crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in -the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted Sea of -Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the -Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of -war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is -a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and -Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the “desert places” round -about them, where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour’s voice -and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is -inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes. - -Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can -the _curse_ of the Deity beautify a land? - - - THE SPHINX - -After years of waiting, it was before me at last. The great face was so -sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of -earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never -anything human wore. It was stone, but seemed sentient. If ever image of -stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the -landscape, yet looking _at_ nothing—nothing but distance and vacancy. It -was looking over and beyond everything of the present, and far into the -past. It was gazing out over the ocean of Time—over lines of -century-waves which, further and further receding, closed nearer and -nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward -the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed -ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations -whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose -annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, -the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was -the type of an attribute of man—of a faculty of his heart and brain. It -was MEMORY—RETROSPECTION—wrought into visible, tangible form. All who -know what pathos there is in memories of days that are accomplished and -faces that have vanished—albeit only a trifling score of years gone -by—will have some appreciation of the pathos that dwells in these grave -eyes that look so steadfastly back upon the things they knew before -History was born—before tradition had being—things that were, and forms -that moved, in a vague era which even Poetry and Romance scarce know -of—and passed one by one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the -midst of a strange new age, and uncomprehended scenes. - -The Sphinx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; -it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its story. And there is -that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with -its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one -something of what he shall feel when he shall stand at last in the awful -presence of God. - - - MEMORIES OF THE PILGRIMAGE - -We shall remember something of pleasant France; and something also of -Paris, though it flashed upon us a splendid meteor, and was gone again, -we hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, always, how we saw -majestic Gibraltar glorified with the rich coloring of a Spanish sunset -and swimming in a sea of rainbows. In fancy we shall see Milan again, -and her stately cathedral with its marble wilderness of graceful spires. -And Padua—Verona—Como, jeweled with stars; and patrician Venice, afloat -on her stagnant flood—silent, desolate, haughty—scornful of her humbled -state—wrapping herself in memories of her lost fleets, of battle and -triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that is departed. - -We cannot forget Florence—Naples—nor the foretaste of heaven that is in -the delicious atmosphere of Greece—and surely not Athens and the broken -temples of the Acropolis. Surely not venerable Rome—nor the green plain -that compasses her round about, contrasting its brightness with her gray -decay—nor the ruined arches that stand apart in the plain and clothe -their looped and windowed raggedness with vines. We shall remember St. -Peter’s; not as one sees it when he walks the streets of Rome and -fancies all her domes are just alike, but as he sees it leagues away, -when every meaner edifice has faded out of sight and that one dome looms -superbly up in the flush of sunset, full of dignity and grace, strongly -outlined as a mountain. - -We shall remember Constantinople and the Bosporus—the colossal -magnificence of Baalbec—the Pyramids of Egypt—the prodigious form, the -benignant countenance of the Sphinx—Oriental Smyrna—sacred -Jerusalem—Damascus, the “Pearl of the East,” the pride of Syria, the -fabled Garden of Eden, the home of princes and genii of the Arabian -Nights, the oldest metropolis on the earth, the one city in all the -world that has kept its name and held its place and looked serenely on -while the Kingdoms and Empires of four thousand years have risen to -life, enjoyed their little season of pride and pomp and then vanished -and been forgotten! - - - - - _FROM_ “ROUGHING IT” - - - STARTING WEST - (1870–71) - -We were six days going from St. Louis to “St. Joe”—a trip that was so -dull, and sleepy, and eventless that it has left no more impression on -my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many -days. No record is left in my mind, now, concerning it, but a confused -jumble of savage looking snags, which we deliberately walked over with -one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we butted and butted, and -then retired from and climbed over in some softer place; and of -sand-bars which we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then got out -our crutches and sparred over. In fact, the boat might almost as well -have gone to St. Joe by land, for she was walking most of the time, -anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and -laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a “bully” boat, and -all she wanted was more “shear” and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted -a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so. - - - GEORGE BEMIS AND “THE ALLEN” - -Mr. George Bemis was dismally formidable. George Bemis was our fellow -traveler. We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old -original “Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a -“pepper-box.” Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the -pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the -barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away -would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing -aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the -world. But George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one -of the stage-drivers afterwards said, “If she didn’t get what she went -after, she would fetch something else.” - - -And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, -once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. -Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a -double-barreled shot-gun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. - - - THE OVERLAND STAGE - -Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous -description—an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome -horses, and by the side of the driver sat the “conductor,” the -legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge -and care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three -were the only passengers, this trip. We sat on the back seat, inside. -About all the rest of the coach was full of mail bags—for we had three -days’ delayed mails with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular -wall of mail matter rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it -strapped on top of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were -full. We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it aboard, the driver -said—“a little for Brigham, and Carson, and ’Frisco, but the heft of it -for the Injuns, which is powerful troublesome ’thout they get plenty of -truck to read.” But as he just then got up a fearful convulsion of his -countenance which was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an -earthquake, we guessed that his remark was intended to be facetious, and -to mean that we would unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on -the plains and leave it to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it. - -We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over -the hard level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the -coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and unfatigued. - - - MORNING ON THE PLAINS - -Another night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came, -by and by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses -of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude, utterly -without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of -such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand -were more than three miles away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed -a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted -occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears -back and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing -away, and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for -things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me -through and through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild -sense of freedom that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those -fine overland mornings. - - - THE CAYOTE - -The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray -wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags -down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive -and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and -exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote -is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is _always_ hungry. He is -always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures despise -him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so -spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending -a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he is _so_ -homely!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he -sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then -turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a -bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sagebrush, -glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about -out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate -survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and -stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with the -gray of the sagebrush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no -demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier -interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels and puts -such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon, that by the -time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minie rifle, and -by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by -the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing -but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where -he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy -it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of -himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about -speed. The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of -his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his -shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and -worldly ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, -and stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and -stick his tail out straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a -yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher and -denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake -across the level plain! And all this time the dog is only a short twenty -feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand -why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get -aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the -cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he -grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been -taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, -calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting -fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to -keep from running away from him—and _then_ that town-dog is mad in -earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand -higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and -desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him six feet behind the gliding -enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a -wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles -blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to -say, “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bud—business is -business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all -day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of -a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and -alone in the midst of a vast solitude! - - - THE PONY RIDER - -In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks and -watching for the “pony-rider”—the fleet messenger who sped across the -continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred -miles in eight days! Think of that for perishable horse and human flesh -and blood to do! The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, -brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night -his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, -raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his “beat” was a -level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, -or whether it led through peaceful regions that swarmed with hostile -Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off like -the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode -fifty miles without stopping by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or -through the blackness of darkness—just as it happened. He rode a -splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a -gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he -came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a -fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in -the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of -sight before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both -rider and horse went “flying light.” The rider’s dress was thin, and -fitted close; he wore a “roundabout,” and a skull-cap, and tucked his -pantaloons into his boot tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms—he -carried nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage -on his literary freight was worth _five dollars a letter_. He got but -little frivolous correspondence to carry—his bag had business letters in -it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight, too. He -wore a little wafer of a racing-saddle, and no visible blanket. He wore -light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets strapped under -the rider’s thighs would each hold about the bulk of a child’s primer. -They held many and many an important business chapter and newspaper -letter, but these were written on paper as airy and thin as gold-leaf, -nearly, and thus bulk and weight were economized. The stage-coach -traveled about a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day -(twenty-four hours), the pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There -were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, -stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to California, -forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among them making -four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of -scenery every single day in the year. - -We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a pony-rider, -but somehow or other all that passed us and all that met us managed to -streak by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a hail, and the -swift phantom of the desert was gone before we could get our heads out -of the windows. But now we were expecting one along every moment, and -would see him in broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims: - -“HERE HE COMES.” - -Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away -across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears -against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so! -In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, -rising and falling,—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more -and more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still -nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another -instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s -hand, but no reply, and a man and horse burst past our excited faces, -and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm! - -So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but for -the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a mail-sack -after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we might have doubted -whether we had seen any actual horse and man at all, maybe. - - - INDIAN COUNTRY - -We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the afternoon we -passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort all the time we -were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the trees we dashed -by at arm’s length concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the -preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the -pony-rider’s jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because -pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except -when killed. As long as they had life enough in them they had to stick -to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for them a -week, and were entirely out of patience. About two hours and a half -before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had -fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that the -Indian had “skipped around so’s to spile everything—and ammunition’s -blamed skurse, too.” The most natural inference conveyed by his manner -of speaking was, that in “skipping around,” the Indian had taken an -unfair advantage.... We shut the blinds down very tightly that first -night in the hostile Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept on -them some, but most of the time we only lay on them. We did not talk -much, but kept quiet and listened. It was an inky-black night, and -occasionally rainy. We were among woods and rocks, hills and gorges—so -shut in, in fact, that when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we -could discern nothing. The driver and conductor on top were still, too, -or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in -the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to raindrops pattering on -the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and -the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense -upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, -the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the -jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the -grinding of the wheels. We listened a long time, with intent faculties -and bated breath; every time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh -of relief and start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a -sudden “Hark!” and instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening -again. - - - AT THE SUMMIT OF THE ROCKIES - -And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH PASS, and -whirling gaily along, high above the common world. We were perched upon -the extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky Mountains, toward -which we had been climbing, patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, -for days and nights together—and about us was gathered a convention of -Nature’s kings that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet -high—grand old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington, -in the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping -populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags -stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and -contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of -mountains, seas, and continents stretching away through the mystery of -the summer haze. - - - INCIDENTS BY THE WAY - -At the Green River station we had breakfast—hot biscuits, fresh antelope -steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted between the United -States and Great Salt Lake City and the only one we were ever really -thankful for. Think of the monotonous execrableness of the thirty that -went before it, to leave this one simple breakfast looming up in my -memory like a shot-tower after all these years have gone by! - -At five p. m. we reached Fort Bridger, one hundred and seventeen miles -from the South Pass, and one thousand and twenty-five miles from St. -Joseph. Fifty-two miles further on, near the head of Echo Canyon, we met -sixty United States soldiers from Camp Floyd. The day before, they had -fired upon three hundred or four hundred Indians, whom they supposed -gathered together for no good purpose. In the fight that had ensued, -four Indians were captured, and the main body chased four miles, but -nobody killed. This looked like business. We had a notion to get out and -join the sixty soldiers, but upon reflecting that there were four -hundred of the Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians. - - - MORMON BEAUTIES - -Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we -had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of -polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to -calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter. I -had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was -feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until I -saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my -head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly, and pathetically “homely” -creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I -said, “No—the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian -charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not harsh -censure—and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of -open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand -uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.” - - - THE ALKALI DESERT - -The poetry was all in the anticipation—there is none in the reality. -Imagine a vast, waveless ocean stricken dead and turned to ashes; -imagine this solemn waste tufted with ash-dusted sage-bushes; imagine -the lifeless silence and solitude that belong to such a place; imagine a -coach, creeping like a bug through the midst of this shoreless level, -and sending up tumbled volumes of dust as if it were a bug that went by -steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling and plowing kept up hour -after hour, and the shore still as far away as ever, apparently; imagine -team, driver, coach and passengers so deeply coated with ashes that they -are all one colorless color; imagine ash-drifts roosting above mustaches -and eyebrows like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes. This is the -reality of it. - -The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless malignity; the -perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but scarcely a -sign of it finds its way to the surface—it is absorbed before it gets -there; there is not the faintest breath of air stirring; there is not a -merciful shred of cloud in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a -living creature visible in any direction whither one searches the blank -level that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a -sound—not a sigh—not a whisper—not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or -distant pipe of bird—not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless -people that dead air. - - - ARRIVAL IN CARSON CITY - -By and by Carson City was pointed out to us. It nestled in the edge of a -great plain and was a sufficient number of miles away to look like an -assemblage of mere white spots in the shadow of a grim range of -mountains overlooking it, whose summits seemed lifted clear out of -companionship and consciousness of earthly things. - -We arrived, disembarked, and the stage went on. It was a “wooden” town; -its population two thousand souls. The main street consisted of four or -five blocks of little frame stores which were too high to sit down on, -but not too high for various other purposes; in fact hardly high enough. -They were packed close together, side by side, as if room were scarce in -that mighty plain. The sidewalk was of boards that were more or less -loose and inclined to rattle when walked upon. In the middle of the -town, opposite the stores, was the “plaza,” which is native to all towns -beyond the Rocky Mountains—a large, unfenced, level vacancy, with a -liberty pole in it, and very useful as a place for public auctions, -horse trades, and mass meetings, and likewise for teamsters to camp in. -Two other sides of the plaza were faced by stores, offices and stables. -The rest of Carson City was pretty scattering. - -We were introduced to several citizens, at the stage-office and on the -way up to the Governor’s from the hotel—among others, to a Mr. Harris, -who was on horseback; he began to say something, but interrupted himself -with the remark: - -“I’ll have to get you to excuse me a minute; yonder is the witness that -swore I helped to rob the California coach—a piece of impertinent -intermeddling, sir, for I am not even acquainted with the man.” - -Then he rode over and began to rebuke the stranger with a six-shooter, -and the stranger began to explain with another. When the pistols were -emptied, the stranger resumed his work (mending a whip-lash), and Mr. -Harris rode by with a polite nod, homeward bound, with a bullet through -one of his lungs, and several through his hips; and from them issued -little rivulets of blood that coursed down the horse’s sides and made -the animal look quite picturesque. I never saw Harris shoot a man after -that but it recalled to mind that first day in Carson. - - - LAKE TAHOE - -Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy -to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator. I do -not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones. -The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and -delicious. And why shouldn’t it be?—it is the same the angels breathe. I -think that hardly any amount of fatigue can be gathered together that a -man cannot sleep off in one night on the sand by its side. Not under a -roof, but under the sky; it seldom or never rains there in the summer -time. I know a man who went there to die. But he made a failure of it. -He was a skeleton when he came, and could barely stand. He had no -appetite, and did nothing but read tracts and reflect on the future. -Three months later he was sleeping out-of-doors regularly, eating all he -could hold, three times a day, and chasing game over mountains three -thousand feet high for recreation. And he was a skeleton no longer, but -weighed part of a ton. This is no fancy sketch, but the truth. His -disease was consumption. I confidently commend his experience to other -skeletons. - -... As soon as we had eaten breakfast we got in the boat and skirted -along the lake shore about three miles and disembarked. We liked the -appearance of the place, and so we claimed some three hundred acres of -it and stuck our “notice” on a tree. It was yellow pine timber land—a -dense forest of trees a hundred feet high and from one to five feet -through at the butt. It was necessary to fence our property or we could -not hold it. That is to say, it was necessary to cut down trees here and -there and make them fall in such a way as to form a sort of enclosure -(with pretty wide gaps in it). We cut down three trees apiece, and found -it such heart-breaking work that we decided to “rest our case” on those; -if they held the property, well and good; if they didn’t, let the -property spill out through the gaps and go; it was no use to work -ourselves to death merely to save a few acres of land. Next day we came -back to build a house—for a house was also necessary, in order to hold -the property. We decided to build a substantial log-house and excite the -envy of the Brigade boys; but by the time we had cut and trimmed the -first log it seemed unnecessary to be so elaborate, and so we concluded -to build it of saplings. However, two saplings duly cut and trimmed, -compelled recognition of the fact that a still modester architecture -would satisfy the law, and so we concluded to build a “brush” house. We -devoted the next day to this work, but we did so much “sitting around” -and discussing that by the middle of the afternoon we had achieved only -a half way sort of affair which one of us had to watch while the other -cut brush, lest if both turned our backs we might not be able to find it -again, it had such a strong family resemblance to the surrounding -vegetation. But we were satisfied with it.... We slept in the sand close -to the water’s edge, between two protecting boulders, which took care of -the stormy night winds for us. We never took any paregoric to make us -sleep. At the first break of dawn we were always up and running -footraces to tone down excess of physical vigor and exuberance of -spirits. That is, Johnny was—but I held his hat. While smoking the pipe -of peace after breakfast we watched the sentinel peaks put on the glory -of the sun, and followed the conquering light as it swept among the -shadows, and set the captive crags and forests free. We watched the -tinted pictures grow and brighten upon the water till every little -detail of forest, precipice, and pinnacle was wrought in and finished, -and the miracle of the enchanter complete. Then to “business.” - -That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on the north shore. There, -the rocks on the bottom are sometimes gray, sometimes white. This gives -the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller advantage than it has -elsewhere on the lake. We usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from -the shore and then lay down on the thwarts in the sun, and let the boat -drift by the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. It interrupted the -Sabbath stillness, and marred the dreams, the luxurious rest and -indolence brought.... So singularly clear was the water, that where it -was only twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct -that the boat seemed floating in air! Yes, where it was even _eighty_ -feet deep. Every little pebble was distinct, every speckled trout, every -hand’s-breadth of sand. Often, as we lay on our faces, a granite -boulder, as large as a village church, would start out of the bottom -apparently, and seem climbing up rapidly to the surface, till presently -it threatened to touch our faces, and we could not resist the impulse to -seize the oar and avert the danger. But the boat would float on, and the -boulder descend again, and then we could see that when we had been -exactly above it, it must still have been twenty or thirty feet below -the surface. Down through the transparency of these great depths, the -water was not _merely_ transparent, but dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All -objects seen through it had a bright, strong vividness, not only of -outline, but of every minute detail, which they would not have had when -seen simply through the same depth of atmosphere. So empty and airy did -all spaces seem below us, and so strong was the sense of floating high -aloft in mid-nothingness, that we called these boat-excursions -“balloon-voyages.” ... Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the -sand in camp, and smoked pipes and read some old well-worn novels. At -night, by the camp-fire, we played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the -mind—and played them with cards so greasy and defaced that only a whole -summer’s acquaintance with them could enable the student to tell the ace -of clubs from the jack of diamonds. - -We never slept in our “house.” 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. - - - SELLING OUT A MINE - -The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hundred feet, and it all -belonged originally to the two men whose name it bears. Mr. Curry owned -two-thirds of it—and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundred -dollars in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value in -hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that Gould -sold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle of -whisky that killed nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending -stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward -the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market seven -million six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin. - - - BUCK FANSHAW’S FUNERAL - -There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a -representative citizen. He had “killed his man”—not in his own quarrel, -it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He -had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing -helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a -divorce. He had a high position in the fire department and had been a -very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation -throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom stratum of -society. - -On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a -wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, -cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his -neck—and after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with -intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of death “by -the visitation of God.” What could the world do without juries? - -Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in -town were hired, all the saloons put in mourning, all the municipal and -fire-company flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to -muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black. Now—let -it be remarked in parenthesis—as all the people of the earth had -representative adventures in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had -brought the slang of his nation or of his locality with him, the -combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely -varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, -except in the mines of California in the “early days.” Slang was the -language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be -understood. Such phrases as “You bet!” “Oh, no, I reckon not.” “No Irish -need apply,” and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the -lips of a speaker unconsciously—and very often when they did not touch -the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything. - -After Buck Fanshaw’s inquest, a meeting of the short-haired brotherhood -was held, for nothing could be done on the Pacific coast without a -public meeting and an expression of sentiment. Regretful resolutions -were passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee -of one was deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle, spiritual -new fledgling from an Eastern theological seminary, and as yet -unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, “Scotty” -Briggs, made his visit; and in after days it was worth something to hear -the minister tell about it. Scotty was a stalwart rough, whose customary -suit, when on weighty official business, like committee work, was a fire -helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent leather belt with spanner and -revolver attached, coat hung over arm, and pants stuffed into boot tops. -He formed something of a contrast to the pale theological student. It is -fair to say of Scotty, however, in passing, that he had a warm heart, -and a strong love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel when -he could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed, it was commonly said that -when ever one of Scotty’s fights was investigated, it always turned out -that it had originally been no affair of his, but out of native -good-heartedness he had dropped in of his own accord to help the man who -was getting the worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom friends, for -years, and had often taken adventurous “potluck” together. On one -occasion, they had thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in a -fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard earned victory, turned -and found that the men they were helping had deserted early and not only -that, but had stolen their coats and made off with them! But to return -to Scotty’s visit to the minister. He was on a sorrowful mission, now, -and his face was the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence he -sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire hat on an unfinished -manuscript sermon under the minister’s nose, took from it a red silk -handkerchief, wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, -explanatory of his business. He choked, and even shed tears; but with an -effort he mastered his voice and said in lugubrious tones: - -“Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?” - -“Am I the—pardon me, I believe I do not understand?” - -With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined: - -“Why, you see, we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe -you would give us a lift, if we’d tackle you—that is, if I’ve got the -rights of it and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works next -door.” - -“I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door.” - -“The which?” - -“The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose -sanctuary adjoins these premises.” - -Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said: - -“You rather hold over me, pard. I reckon I can’t call that hand. Ante -and pass the buck.” - -“How? I beg pardon. What did I understand you to say?” - -“Well, you’ve ruther got the bulge on me. Or may’be we’ve both got the -bulge, somehow. You don’t smoke me and I don’t smoke you. You see, one -of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good -send-off, and so the thing I’m on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a -little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsome.” - -“My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations -are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way? -At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it -not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical -statements of facts, unencumbered with obstructive accumulations of -metaphor and allegory?” - -Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said Scotty: - -“I’ll have to pass, I judge.” - -“How?” - -“You’ve raised me out, pard.” - -“I still fail to catch your meaning.” - -“Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for me—that’s the idea. I -can’t neither trump nor follow suit.” - -The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his head -on his hand and gave himself up to thought. Presently his face came up, -sorrowful, but confident. - -“I’ve got it now, so’s you can savvy,” he said. “What we want is a -gospel-sharp. See?” - -“A what?” - -“Gospel-sharp. Parson.” - -“Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman—a parson.” - -“Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put it -there!”—extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister’s small -hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent -gratification. - -“Now we’re all right, pard. Let’s start fresh. Don’t you mind my -shuffling a little—becuz we’re in a power of trouble. You see, one of -the boys has gone up the flume——” - -“Gone where?” - -“Up the flume—throwed up the sponge, you understand.” - -“Thrown up the sponge?” - -“Yes—kicked the bucket——” - -“Ah—has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne no -traveler returns.” - -“Return! I reckon not. Why, pard, he’s _dead!_” - -“Yes, I understand.” - -“Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some -more. Yes, you see he’s dead again——” - -“_Again!_ Why, has he ever been dead before?” - -“Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has got as many lives as a cat? -But you bet you, he’s awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I’d never -seen this day. I don’t want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw. I knowed -him by the back; and when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him—you -hear _me_. Take him all round, pard, there never was a bullier man in -the mines. No man ever knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend. But -it’s all up, you know, it’s all up. It _ain’t_ no use. They’ve scooped -him.” - -“Scooped him?” - -“Yes—death has. Well, well, well, we’ve got to give him up. Yes, indeed. -It’s a kind of a hard world, after all, _ain’t_ it? But pard, he was a -rustler! You ought to see him get started once. He was a bully boy with -a glass eye! Just spit in his face and give him room according to his -strength, and it was just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was -the worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was _on_ it! -He was on it bigger than an Injun!” - -“On it? On what?” - -“On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. _He_ -didn’t give a continental for _any_ body. _Beg_ your pardon, friend, for -coming so near saying a cuss-word—but you see I’m on an awful strain, in -this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so -mild. But we’ve got to give him up. There ain’t any getting around that, -I don’t reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him——” - -“Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?” - -“Obs’quies is good. Yes. That’s it—that’s our little game. We are going -to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always nifty himself, -and so you bet you his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch—solid silver -door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and one nigger on -the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat—how’s that for high? And we’ll -take care of _you_ pard. We’ll fix you all right. There’ll be a kerridge -for you; and whatever you want, you just ’scape out and we’ll ’tend to -it. We’ve got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1’s -house, and don’t you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you -don’t sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for -anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men -that was ever in the mines. You can’t draw it too strong. He never could -stand it to see things going wrong. He’s done more to make this town -quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I’ve seen him lick four Greasers -in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, _he_ warn’t a -man to go browsing around for somebody to do it, but he would prance in -and regulate it himself. He warn’t a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on -’em. His word was ‘No Irish need apply!’ But it didn’t make no -difference about that when it came down to what a man’s rights was—and -so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic boneyard and started in to -stake out town lots in it he _went_ for ’em! And he _cleaned_ ’em, too! -I was there, pard, and I seen it myself.” - -“That was very well, indeed—at least the impulse was—whether the act was -strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That -is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a -higher power?” - -More reflection. - -“I reckon you’ve stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once -more, and say it slow?” - -“Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever been -connected with any organization sequestered for secular concerns and -devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?” - -“All down but nine—set ’em up on the other alley, pard.” - -“What did I understand you to say?” - -“Why, you’re most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your -left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don’t -seem to have any luck. Let’s have a new deal.” - -“How? Begin again?” - -“That’s it.” - -“Very well. Was he a good man, and——” - -“There—I see that; don’t put up another chip till I look at my hand. A -good man, says you? Pard, it ain’t no name for it. He was the best man -that ever—pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam any -galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last -election before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man -that could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a -trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less -than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice -before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for -peace, and he would _have_ peace—he could not stand disturbances. Pard, -he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you would -chip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks -got to throwing stones through the Methodis’ Sunday-school windows, Buck -Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of -six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday-school. Says he, ‘No -Irish need Apply!’ And they didn’t. He was the bulliest man in the -mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold -more tanglefoot whisky without spilling than any man in seventeen -counties. Put that in, pard—it’ll please the boys more than anything you -could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother.” - -“Never shook his mother?” - -“That’s it—any of the boys will tell you so.” - -“Well, but why _should_ he shake her?” - -“That’s what _I_ say—but some people does.” - -“Not people of any repute.” - -“Well, some that averages pretty so-so.” - -“In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his own -mother ought to——” - -“Cheese it, pard; you’ve banked your ball clean outside the string. What -I was drivin’ at, was, that he never _throwed_ off on his mother—don’t -you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and -plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the -time; and when she was down with the smallpox I’m d—d if he didn’t set -up nights and nuss her himself! _Beg_ your pardon for saying it, but it -hopped out too quick for yours truly. You’ve treated me like a -gentleman, pard, and I ain’t the man to hurt your feelings intentional. -I think you’re white. I think you’re a square man, pard. I like you, and -I’ll lick any man that don’t. I’ll lick him till he can’t tell himself -from a last year’s corpse! Put it _there_!” (Another fraternal -hand-shake—and exit). - -The obsequies were all that “the boys” could desire. Such a marvel of -funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the -dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags -drooping at half-mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret -societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, -carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted -multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs, and windows; and for -years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in -Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw’s funeral. - -Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent -place at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last -sentence of the prayer for the dead man’s soul ascended, he responded in -a low voice, but with feeling: - -“AMEN. No Irish need apply.” - - - AN ABANDONED TOWN - -We lived in a small cabin on a verdant hillside, and there were not five -other cabins in view over the wide expanse of hill and forest. Yet a -flourishing city of two or three thousand population had occupied this -grassy dead solitude during the flush times of twelve or fifteen years -before, and where our cabin stood had once been the heart of the teaming -hive, the center of the city. When the mines gave out the town fell into -decay, and in a few years wholly disappeared—streets, dwellings, shops, -everything—and left no sign. The grassy slopes were as green and smooth -and desolate of life as if they had never been disturbed. The mere -handful of miners still remaining had seen the town spring up, spread, -grow, and flourish in its pride; and they had seen it sicken and die, -and pass away like a dream. With it their hopes had died, and their zest -of life. They had long ago resigned themselves to their exile, and -ceased to correspond with their distant friends or turn longing eyes -toward their distant homes. They had accepted banishment, forgotten the -world and been forgotten of the world. They were far from telegraphs and -railroads, and they stood, as it were, in a living grave, dead to the -events that stirred the globe’s great populations, dead to the common -interests of men, isolated and outcast from brotherhood with their kind. -It was the most singular, and almost the most touching and melancholy -exile that fancy can imagine. - - - A HAWAIIAN TEMPLE - -Near by is an interesting ruin—the meager remains of an ancient temple—a -place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old by-gone days -when the simple child of nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely -tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it to -him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his -grandmother as an atoning sacrifice—in those old days when the luckless -sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical -happiness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the -missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them -permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a -place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and -showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what -unnecessarily liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him -how, in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all his kinsfolk to -no purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty -cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with fishing for a -pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating of -the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to -think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful -island and never knew there was a hell. - - - A HAWAIIAN STATESMAN - -The President is the King’s father. He is an erect, strongly built, -massive-featured, white-haired, tawny old gentleman of eighty years of -age, or thereabouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue cloth -coat and white vest, and white pantaloons, without spot, dust, or -blemish upon them. He bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is -a man of noble presence. He was a young man and a distinguished warrior -under that terrific fighter, Kamehameha I., more than half a century -ago. A knowledge of his career suggested some such thought as this: -“This man, naked as the day he was born, and war-club and spear in hand, -has charged at the head of a horde of savages against other hordes of -savages more than a generation and a half ago, and reveled in slaughter -and carnage; has worshiped wooden images on his devout knees; has seen -hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples as sacrifices to -wooden idols, at a time when no missionary’s foot had ever pressed this -soil, and he had never heard of the white man’s God; has believed his -enemy could secretly pray him to death; has seen the day, in his -childhood, when it was a crime punishable by death for a man to eat with -his wife, or for a plebeian to let his shadow fall upon the king—and now -look at him an educated Christian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a -high-minded, elegant gentleman; a traveler, in some degree, and one who -has been the honored guest of royalty in Europe; a man practiced in -holding the reins of an enlightened government, and well versed in the -politics of his country and in general, practical information. Look at -him, sitting there presiding over the deliberations of a legislative -body, among whom are white men—a grave, dignified, statesmanlike -personage, and as seemingly natural and fitted to the place as if he had -been born in it and had never been out of it in his lifetime. How the -experiences of this old man’s eventful life shame the cheap inventions -of romance!” - - - HAWAIIAN RELIGION - -Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, extending from the sea to -the mountain, was sacred to the god Lono in olden times—so sacred that -if a common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it, it was judicious -for him to make his will, because his time had come. He might go around -it by water, but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled with pagan -temples and stocked with awkward, homely idols carved out of logs of -wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain—and with fine -sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side that -if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be likely -to get it every time. You would seldom get to your Amen before you would -have to hoist your umbrella. - - - THE CRATER OF HALEAKALA - -Presently, vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high over the sea -and the valley; then they came in couples and groups; then in imposing -squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they banked themselves -solidly together, a thousand feet under us, and _totally shut out land -and ocean_—not a vestige of _anything_ was left in view, but just a -little of the rim of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon -we sat (for a ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy hosts -without had drifted through a chasm in the crater wall and filed round -and round, and gathered and sunk and blended together till the abyss was -stored to the brim with a fleecy fog). Thus banked, motion ceased, and -silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor -stretched without a break—not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow -creases between, and here and there stately piles of vapory architecture -lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain—some near at hand, some -in the middle distances, and others relieving the monotony of the remote -solitudes. There was little conversation, for the impressive scene -overawed speech. I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, -and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE GILDED AGE” (1873) - - - COLONEL SELLER’S GREAT IDEA - -Washington was not able to ignore the cold entirely. He was nearly as -close to the stove as he could get, and yet he could not persuade -himself that he felt the slightest heat, notwithstanding the isinglass -door was still gently and serenely glowing. He tried to get a trifle -closer to the stove, and the consequence was he tripped the supporting -poker and the stove-door tumbled to the floor. And then there was a -revelation—there was nothing in the stove but a lighted tallow candle! - -The poor youth blushed and felt as if he must die with shame. But the -Colonel was only disconcerted for a moment—he straightaway found his -voice again: - -“A little idea of my own, Washington—one of the greatest things in the -world! You must write and tell your father about it—don’t forget that, -now. I have been reading up some European scientific reports—friend of -mine, Count Fugier sent them to me—sends me all sorts of things from -Paris—he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the -Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came -to the conclusion that it was a non-conductor or something like that, -and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous -organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any -tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you, I saw in a moment what -was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!—no more slow -torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the _appearance_ -of heat, not the heat itself—that’s the idea. Well, how to do it was the -next thing. I just put my head to work, pegged away a couple of days, -and here you are! Rheumatism? Why a man can’t any more start a case of -rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! -Stove with a candle in it and transparent door—that’s it—it has been the -salvation of this family. Don’t you fail to write your father about it, -Washington. And tell him the idea is mine—I’m no more conceited than -most people, I reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to want -credit for a thing like that.” - - - COLONEL SELLERS LETS HIMSELF OUT - -The supper at Colonel Sellers’s was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but -it improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington -regarded at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became -awe-inspiring agricultural productions that had been reared in some -ducal garden beyond the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself, -who had sent them to Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be -grown in only one favored locality in the earth and only a favored few -could get it; the Rio coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the -taste, took to itself an improved flavor when Washington was told to -drink it slowly and not hurry what should be a lingering luxury in order -to be fully appreciated—it was from the private stores of a Brazilian -nobleman with an unrememberable name. The Colonel’s tongue was a -magician’s wand that turned dried apples into figs and water into wine -as easily as it could change a hovel into a palace and present poverty -into imminent future riches. - -Washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a -palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment -that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings—and then it -disappeared and he recognized that the Colonel’s inspiring talk had been -influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered -the sitting-room he noticed that the old haircloth sofa was absent; when -he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in -bills on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and -must call upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with -the indifferent air of a man who is used to money. The breakfast was not -an improvement upon the supper, but the Colonel talked it up and -transformed it into an oriental feast. By and by, he said: - -“I intend to look out for you, Washington, my boy. I hunted up a place -for you yesterday, but I am not referring to that, now—that is a mere -livelihood—mere bread and butter; but when I say I mean to look out for -you I mean something very different. I mean to put things in your way -that will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. I’ll put you in a way -to make more money than you’ll ever know what to do with. You’ll be -right here where I can put my hand on you when anything turns up. I’ve -got some prodigious operations on foot; but I’m keeping quiet; mum’s the -word; your old hand don’t go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see -his k’yards and find out his little game. But all in good time, -Washington, all in good time. You’ll see. Now, there’s an operation in -corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into -it—buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they -mature—ah, I tell you, it’s a great thing. And it only costs a trifle; -two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven’t exactly promised -yet—there’s no hurry—the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more -anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog -speculation—that’s bigger still. We’ve got quiet men at work” (he was -very impressive here), “mousing around, to get propositions out of all -the farmers in the whole West and Northwest for the hog crop, and other -agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the -manufactories—and don’t you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the -slaughter-houses into our hands on the dead quiet—whew! it would take -three ships to carry the money. I’ve looked into the thing—calculated -all the chances for and all the chances against, and though I shake my -head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, I’ve got my mind -made up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions, -that’s the horse to put up money on! Why, Washington—but what’s the use -of talking about it—any man can see that there’s whole Atlantic oceans -of cash in it, gulfs and bays thrown in. But there’s a bigger thing than -that, yet—a bigger——” - -“Why, Colonel, you can’t want anything bigger!” said Washington, his -eyes blazing. “Oh, I wish I could go into either of those speculations—I -only wish I had money—I wish I wasn’t cramped and kept down and fettered -with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! Oh, -it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don’t throw away those things—they -are so splendid that I can see how sure they are. Don’t throw them away -for something still better and maybe fail in it! I wouldn’t, Colonel. I -would stick to these. I wish father were here and were his old self -again. Oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. Colonel, -you _can’t_ improve on these—no man can improve on them!” - -A sweet, compassionate smile played about the Colonel’s features, and he -leaned over the table with the air of a man who is “going to show you” -and do it without the least trouble: - -“Why Washington, my boy, these things are nothing. They _look_ large—of -course they look large to a novice—but to a man who has been all his -life accustomed to large operations—pshaw! They’re well enough to while -away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a -trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting -for something to _do_, but—now just listen a moment—just let me give you -an idea of what we old veterans of commerce call ‘business.’ Here’s the -Rothschilds’ proposition—this is between you and me, you understand——” - -Washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes -said, “Yes, yes—hurry—I understand——” - -“——for I wouldn’t have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in -with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the -sly” (voice down to an impressive whisper, now) “and buy up a hundred -and thirteen wildcat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and -Missouri—notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now—average -discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent.—buy them -all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! -Whiz! the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a -tremendous premium before you could turn a handspring—profit on the -speculation not a dollar less than forty millions!” (An eloquent pause -while the marvelous vision settled into W.’s focus.) “Where’s your hogs -now! Why, my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front -doorsteps and peddle banks like lucifer matches!” - -Washington finally got his breath and said: - -“Oh, it is perfectly wonderful! Why couldn’t these things have happened -in father’s day. And I—it’s of no use—they simply lie before my face and -mock me. There is nothing for me to do but to stand helpless and see -other people reap the astonishing harvest.” - -“Never mind, Washington, don’t you worry. I’ll fix you. There’s plenty -of chances. How much money have you got?” - -In the presence of so many millions, Washington could not keep from -blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the -world. - -“Well, all right—don’t despair. Other people had been obliged to begin -with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us -both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I’ll make -it breed. I’ve been experimenting (to pass away the time) on a little -preparation for curing sore eyes—a kind of decoction nine-tenths water -and the other tenth drugs that don’t cost more than a dollar a barrel; -I’m still experimenting; there’s one ingredient wanted yet to perfect -the thing, and somehow I can’t just manage to hit upon the thing that’s -necessary, and I don’t dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I’m -progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with -the fame of Beriah Sellers’ Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment -and Salvation for Sore Eyes—the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles -fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for -the two sizes. The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in -Missouri, seven thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four -thousand in Kentucky, six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five -thousand in the rest of the country. Total, fifty-five thousand bottles; -profit clear of all expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest -calculation. All the capital needed is to manufacture the first two -thousand bottles—say a hundred and fifty dollars—then the money would -begin to flow in. The second year, sales would reach 200,000 -bottles—clear profit, say, $75,000—and in the meantime the great factory -would be building in St. Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year -we could easily sell 1,000,000 bottles in the United States and——” - -“Oh, splendid!” said Washington. “Let’s commence right away—let’s——” - -“——1,000,000 bottles in the United States—profit at least $350,000—and -_then_ it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the _real_ -idea of the business.” - -“The _real_ idea of it! Ain’t $350,000 a year pretty real——” - -“Stuff! Why, what an infant you are, Washington—what a guileless, -shortsighted, easily-contented innocent you are, my poor little -country-bred know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for -the poor crumbs a body might pick up in _this_ country? Now do I look -like a man who—does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in -trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the -common herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? Now, _you_ know -that that is not me. Couldn’t be me. _You_ ought to know that if I throw -my time and abilities into a patent medicine, it’s a patent medicine -whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming -nations that inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an -eye-water country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway -that you’ve got to cross to get _to_ the true eye-water market! Why, -Washington, in the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the -desert; every square mile of land upholds its thousands upon thousands -of struggling human creatures—and every separate and individual devil of -them’s got the ophthalmia! It’s as natural to them as noses are, and -sin. It’s born with them, it stays with them, that’s all that some of -them have left when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the -Orient and what will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in -Constantinople and our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and -warehouses in Cairo, Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking, -Bangkok, Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta! Annual income—well, God only knows -how many millions and millions apiece!” - -Washington was so dazed, so bewildered—his heart and his eyes had -wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such -avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly -down before him, that he was now as one who had been whirling round and -round for a time, and stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still -whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. However, little by little the -Sellers family cooled down and crystallized into shape, and the poor -room lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his -voice and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; -and he got out his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the -Colonel—pleaded with him to take it—implored him to do it. But the -Colonel would not; said he would not need the capital (in his native -magnificent way he called that eighteen dollars capital) till the -eye-water was an accomplished fact. He made Washington easy in his mind, -though, by promising that he would call for it just as soon as the -invention was finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but -just they two should be admitted to a share in the speculation. - -When Washington left the breakfast table he worshiped that man. - - - - - _FROM_ “ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER” (1874–5) - - - A SPECULATION IN WHITEWASH - -Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and -fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if -the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in -every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom -and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond -the village and above it, was green with vegetation, and it lay just far -enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting. - -Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a -long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and -a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board -fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a -burden. Sighing he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost -plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant -whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed -fence, and sat down on a tree box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at -the gate with a tin pail, and singing “Buffalo Gals.” Bringing water -from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom’s eyes, before, -but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company -at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there -waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarreling, fighting, -skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred -and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an -hour—and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said: - -“Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.” - -Jim shook his head and said: - -“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water -an’ not stop foolin’ ’roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec Mars Tom gwine -to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own -business—she ’lowed _she’d_ ’tend to de whitewashin’.” - -“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. -Gimme the bucket—I won’t be gone only a minute. _She_ won’t ever know.” - -“Oh, I dasn’t Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. -’Deed she would.” - -“_She!_ She never licks anybody—whacks ’em over the head with her -thimble—and who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but -talk don’t hurt—anyway it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a -marvel. I’ll give you a white alley!” - -Jim began to waver. - -“White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.” - -“My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, _I_ tell you! But Mars Tom I’s powerful -afraid ole missis——” - -“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.” - -Jim was only human—this attraction was too much for him. He put down his -pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing -interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was -flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was -whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with -a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye. - -But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had -planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys -would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and -they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very -thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and -examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange -of _work_, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of -pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and -gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless -moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, -magnificent inspiration. - -He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in -sight presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been -dreading. Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump—proof enough that his -heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and -giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned -ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As -he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned -far over to starboard and rounded to, ponderously and with laborious -pomp and circumstance—for he was personating the “Big Missouri,” and -considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was the boat and -captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing -on his own hurricane deck; giving the orders and executing them: “Stop -her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!” The headway ran almost out and he drew up -slowly toward the sidewalk. - -“Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!” His arms straightened and stiffened -down his sides. - -“Set her back on the starboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! -Chow!” His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles—for it was -representing a forty-foot wheel. - -“Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow chow!” -The left hand began to describe circles. - -“Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on -the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! -Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! _Lively_ now! -Come—out with your spring-line—what’re you about there! Take a turn -round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now—let her -go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! _Sh’t! sh’t! sh’t!”_ -(trying the gauge-cocks). - -Tom went on whitewashing—paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared -a moment and then said: - -“Hi-_yi. You’re_ up a stump, ain’t you!” - -No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then -he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as -before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom’s mouth watered for the -apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said— - -“Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?” - -Tom wheeled suddenly and said: - -“Why, it’s you Ben! I warn’t noticing.” - -“Say—_I’m_ going in a swimming, _I_ am. Don’t you wish you could? But of -course you’d ruther _work_—wouldn’t you? Course you would!” - -Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: - -“What do you call work?” - -“Why, ain’t _that_ work?” - -Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: - -“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom -Sawyer.” - -“Oh, come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you _like_ it?” - -The brush continued to move. - -“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a -chance to whitewash a fence every day?” - -That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom -swept his brush daintily—added a touch here and there—criticised the -effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more -interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: - -“Say, Tom, let _me_ whitewash a little.” - -Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind: - -“No—no—I reckon it wouldn’t hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly’s awful -particular about this fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it -was the back fence I wouldn’t mind and _she_ wouldn’t. Yes, she’s awful -particular about this fence; it’s got to be done very careful; I reckon -there ain’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do the -way it’s got to be done.” - -“No—is that so? Oh come, now—lemme just try. Only just a little—I’d let -_you_, if you was me, Tom.” - -“Ben, I’d like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly—well, Jim wanted to do -it, but she wouldn’t let him. Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn’t let -Sid. Now don’t you see how I’m fixed? If you was to tackle this fence -and anything was to happen to it——” - -“Oh, shucks, I’ll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say—I’ll give you -the core of my apple.” - -“Well, here—— No, Ben, now don’t. I’m afeard——” - -“I’ll give you _all_ of it!” - -Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his -heart. And while the late steamer “Big Missouri” worked and sweated in -the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, -dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more -innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every -little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time -Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a -kite, in good repair; and when _he_ played out, Johnny Miller bought in -for a dead rat and a string to swing it with—and so on, and so on, hour -after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor -poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in -wealth. He had beside the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part -of a jew’s-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool -cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a -glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six -fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a -dog-collar—but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, -and a dilapidated old window-sash. - -He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while—plenty of company—and -the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn’t run out of -whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. - - - TOM FALLS IN LOVE - -As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new -girl in the garden—a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair -plaited into two long tails, white summer frock and embroidered -pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A -certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a -memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he -had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor -little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had -confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest -boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time -she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is -done. - -He worshiped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had -discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and -began to “show off” in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win -her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time; but -by and by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic -performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending -her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, -grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet a while longer. She halted a -moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great -sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up, right -away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she -disappeared. - - - HUCK - -Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps -in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to -school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could -go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it -suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he -pleased; he was always the first that went barefoot in the spring and -the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on -clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that -goes to make life precious, that boy had. So thought every harassed, -hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. - - - THE PIRATES’ ISLAND - -They built a fire against the side of a great log, twenty or thirty -steps within the somber depths of the forest, and then cooked some bacon -in the frying-pan for supper, and used up half of the corn “pone” stock -they had brought. It seemed glorious sport to be feasting in that wild -free way in the virgin forest of an unexplored and uninhabited island, -far from the haunts of men, and they said they never would return to -civilization. The climbing fire lit up their faces and threw its ruddy -glare upon the pillared tree-trunks of their forest temple, and upon the -varnished foliage and festooning vines. - -Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the -eyelids of the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the -Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary. -The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main had -more difficulty in getting to sleep. They said their prayers inwardly, -and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority to make them -kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to say them at -all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest they -might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from Heaven.... - -When Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and -rubbed his eyes and looked around. Then he comprehended. It was the cool -gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the -deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not a -sound obtruded upon great Nature’s meditation. Beaded dewdrops stood -upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the fire, -and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe and Huck -still slept. - - - TOM LEARNS TO SMOKE - -After a dainty egg and fish dinner, Tom said he wanted to learn to -smoke, now. Joe caught at the idea and said he would like to try, too. -So Huck made pipes and filled them. These novices had never smoked -anything before but cigars made of grapevine, and they “bit” the tongue, -and were not considered manly anyway. - -Now they stretched themselves out on their elbows and began to puff, -charily, and with slender confidence. The smoke had an unpleasant taste, -and they gagged a little, but Tom said: - -“Why, it’s just as easy! If I’d a knowed _this_ was all, I’d a learnt -long ago.” - -“So would I,” said Joe. “It’s just nothing.” - -“Why, many a time I’ve looked at people smoking, and thought ‘well, I -wish I could do that’; but I never thought I could,” said Tom. - -“That’s just the way with me, hain’t it, Huck? You’ve heard me talk just -that way—haven’t you Huck? I’ll leave it to Huck if I haven’t.” - -“Yes—heaps of times,” said Huck. - -“Well, I have too,” said Tom; “oh, hundreds of times. Once down by the -slaughter-house. Don’t you remember, Huck? Bob Tanner was there, and -Johnny Miller, and Jeff Thatcher, when I said it. Don’t you remember, -Huck, ’bout me saying that?” - -“Yes, that’s so,” said Huck. “That was the day after I lost a white -alley. No, ’twas the day before.” - -“There—I told you so,” said Tom. “Huck recollects it.” - -“I bleeve I could smoke this pipe all day,” said Joe. “_I_ don’t feel -sick.” - -“Neither do I,” said Tom. “_I_ could smoke it all day. But I bet you -Jeff Thatcher couldn’t.” - -“Jeff Thatcher! Why, he’d keel over just with two draws. Just let him -try it once. _He’d_ see!” - -“I bet he would. And Johnny Miller—I wish I could see Johnny Miller -tackle it once.” - -“Oh, don’t _I_!” said Joe, “Why, I bet you Johnny Miller couldn’t any -more do this than nothing. Just one little snifter would fetch _him_.” - -“’Deed it would, Joe. Say—I wish the boys could see us now.” - -“So do I.” - -“Say—boys, don’t say anything about it, and sometime when they’re -around, I’ll come up to you and say ‘Joe, got a pipe? I want a smoke.’ -And you’ll say, kind of careless like, as if it warn’t anything, you’ll -say, ‘Yes, I got my _old_ pipe, and another one, but my tobacker ain’t -very good.’ And I’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s all right, if it’s _strong_ -enough.’ And then you’ll out with the pipes, and we’ll light up just as -ca’m, and then just see ’em look!” - -“By jings, that’ll be gay, Tom! I wish it was _now_!” - -“So do I! And when we tell ’em we learned when we was off pirating, -won’t they wish they’d been along?” - -“Oh, I reckon not! I’ll just _bet_ they will!” - -So the talk ran on. But presently it began to flag a trifle, and grow -disjointed. The silences widened; the expectoration marvelously -increased. Every pore inside the boys’ cheeks became a spouting -fountain; they could scarcely bail out the cellars under their tongues -fast enough to prevent an inundation; little overflowings down their -throats occurred in spite of all they could do, and sudden retchings -followed every time. Both boys were looking very pale and miserable, -now. Joe’s pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom’s followed. Both -fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and -main. Joe said feebly: - -“I’ve lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it.” - -Tom said, with quivering lips and halting utterance: - -“I’ll help you. You go over that way and I’ll hunt around by the spring. -No, you needn’t come, Huck—we can find it.” - -So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome, -and went to find his comrades. They were wide apart in the woods, both -very pale, both fast asleep. But something informed him that if they had -had any trouble they had got rid of it. - -They were not talkative at supper that night. They had a humble look, -and when Huck prepared his pipe after the meal and was going to prepare -theirs, they said no, they were not feeling very well—something they ate -at dinner had disagreed with them. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT” (1878) - - - DESCRIBING AN ELEPHANT - -“There are cases in detective history to show that criminals have been -detected through peculiarities in their appetites. Now, what does this -elephant eat? and how much?” - -“Well, as to _what_ he eats—he will eat _anything_. He will eat a man, -he will eat a Bible—he will eat anything _between_ a man and a Bible.” - -“Good—very good, indeed, but too general. Details are necessary—details -are the only valuable thing in our trade. Very well—as to men: At one -meal—or, if you prefer, during one day—how many men will he eat, if -fresh?” - -“He would not care whether they were fresh or not; at a single meal he -would eat five ordinary men.” - -“Very good; five men; we will put that down. What nationalities would he -prefer?” - -“He is indifferent about nationalities. He prefers acquaintances, but is -not prejudiced against strangers.” - -“Very good. Now, as to Bibles. How many Bibles would he eat at a meal?” - -“He would eat an entire edition.” - -“Now that is more exact. I will put that down. Very well; he likes men -and Bibles; so far, so good. What else will he eat? I want particulars.” - -“He will leave Bibles to eat bricks, he will leave bricks to eat -bottles, he will leave bottles to eat clothing, he will leave clothing -to eat cats, he will leave cats to eat oysters, he will leave oysters to -eat ham, he will leave ham to eat sugar, he will leave sugar to eat pie, -he will leave pie to eat potatoes, he will leave potatoes to eat bran, -he will leave bran to eat hay, he will leave hay to eat oats, he will -leave oats to eat rice, for he was mainly raised on it. There is nothing -whatever that he will not eat but European butter, and he would eat that -if he could taste it.” - -“Very good. General quantity at a meal—say about——” - -“Well, anywhere from a quarter to a half a ton.” - -“And he drinks——” - -“Everything that is fluid. Milk, water, whisky, molasses, castor oil, -camphene, carbolic acid—it is no use to go into particulars; whatever -fluid occurs to you set it down. He will drink anything that is fluid, -except European coffee.” - - - - - _FROM_ “A TRAMP ABROAD” (1878–9) - - - WAGNER - -One day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see King Lear -played in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats three whole -hours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; and -even that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came first -and the lightning followed after.... Another time we went to Mannheim -and attended a shivaree—otherwise an opera—the one called Lohengrin. The -banging and slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond -belief. The racking and pitiless pain of it remains stored up in my -memory alongside the memory of the time that I had my teeth fixed. There -were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through the -four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of that long, -dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To have to -endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder. I was -in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the two sexes, -and this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so exquisite -that I could hardly keep the tears back. At those times, as the howlings -and wailings and shriekings of the singers, and the ragings and roarings -and explosions of the vast orchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder -and wilder, and fiercer and fiercer, I could have cried if I had been -alone. Those strangers would not have been surprised to see a man do -such things who was being gradually skinned, but they would have -marveled at it here, and made remarks about it, no doubt, whereas there -was nothing in the present case which was an advantage over being -skinned. There was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act, -and I could have gone out and rested during that time, but I could not -trust myself to do it, for I felt that I should desert and stay out. -There was another wait of half an hour toward nine o’clock, but I had -gone through so much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had -no desire but to be let alone. - -I do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were like me, -for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturally liked -that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like it by -getting used to it, I did not at that time know; but they did like -it—this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked rapt -and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and whenever the -curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude, and -the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes of -applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Of course, -there were many people there who were not under compulsion to stay; yet -the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at the beginning. -This showed that the people liked it.... - -I suppose there are two kinds of music—one kind which one feels, just as -an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty, a -faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. Yet if base -music gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other? But we -do. We want it because the higher and better like it. But we want it -without giving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that -upper tier, that dress circle, by a lie; we _pretend_ we like it. I know -several of that sort of people—and I propose to be one of them myself -when I get home with my fine European education. - - - MIDNIGHT ENTERTAINMENT - -At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I was -hopelessly and permanently wide-awake. Wide-awake, and feverish and -thirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, it -occurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in the -great square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke and -reflect there until the remnant of the night was gone. - -I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I had -banished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summer -night. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything—down to one -sock. I couldn’t seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I could -fix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, with -one slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around -and rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and went -on pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floor -creaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemed -to give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it would -have in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and held my breath -till I was sure Harris had not awakened—then I crept along again. I -moved on and on, but I could not find the sock; I could not seem to find -anything but furniture. I could not remember that there was much -furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive with -it now—especially chairs—chairs everywhere—had a couple of families -moved in, in the meantime? And I never could seem to glance on one of -those chairs, but always struck it full and square with my head. My -temper rose, by steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on, I -fell to making vicious comments under my breath. - -Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave -without the sock; so I rose up and made straight for the door—as I -supposed—and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the mirror. It -startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it was also showed me -that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realized -this, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take hold -of something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion of -opinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have -helped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad as a -thousand; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could see -the dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they were -exactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me instead -of helping me. - -I started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella; it made a noise like -a pistol-shot when it struck that hard, slick, carpetless floor; I -grated my teeth and held my breath—Harris did not stir. I set the -umbrella slowly and carefully against the wall, but as soon as I took my -hand away, its heel slipped from under it and down it came again with -another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in silent fury—no -harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstaking care and nicety I -stood the umbrella up once more, took my hand away, and down it came -again. - -I have been strictly reared, but if it had not been so dark and solemn -and awful there in that lonely, vast room, I do believe I should have -said something then which could not have been put in a Sunday-school -book without injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not -been already sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better -than to try to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German -floors in the dark; it can’t be done in the daytime without four -failures to one success. I had one comfort, though—Harris was yet still -and silent—he had not stirred. - -The umbrella could not locate me—there were four standing around the -room, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find the -door in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked down a -picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a -panorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimented -any further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better give -up trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur’s Round Table once -more—I had already found it several times—and used it for a base of -departure on an exploring tour for my bed; if I could find my bed I -could find my water-pitcher. I would quench my raging thirst and turn -in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go faster that -way, and with more confidence, too, and not knock things down. By and by -I found the table—with my head—rubbed the bruise a little, then rose up -and started, with hands abroad and fingers spread, to balance myself. I -found a chair; then the wall; then another chair; then a sofa; then an -alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me, for I had thought -there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a fresh -start; found some more chairs. - -It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the -table was round, it was therefore no value as a place to aim from; so I -moved off once more and at random among the wilderness of chairs and -sofas—wandered off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a -candlestick off a mantelpiece and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the -lamp and knocked off a water-pitcher with a rattling crash, and thought -to myself, “I’ve found you at last—I judged I was close upon you.” -Harris shouted “murder,” and “thieves,” and finished with “I’m -absolutely drowned.” - -The crash had roused the house. Mr. X. pranced in, in his long -night-garment, with a candle, young Z. after him with another candle; a -procession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns—landlord -and two German guests in their nightgowns, and a chambermaid in hers. - -I looked around; I was at Harris’s bed, a sabbath day’s journey from my -own. There was only one sofa; it was against the wall; there was only -one chair where a body could get at it—I had been revolving around it -like a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night. - -I explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then the -landlord’s party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations for -breakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at my -pedometer, and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I had -come out for a pedestrian tour anyway. - - - FOREIGN QUOTATIONS - -I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language -and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers -me able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice -compliment—but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get -along without the compliment. - - - REFLECTIONS ON THE ANT - -Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work. -I found nothing new in him—certainly nothing to change my opinion of -him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a -strangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him, -when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come -across a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one. -I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of -those wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, -hold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be -all that the naturalist paints them, but I am persuaded that the average -ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the hardest -working creature in the world—when anybody is looking—but his -leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out -foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No—he -goes anywhere but home. He doesn’t know where home is. His home may be -only three feet away,—no matter, he can’t find it. He makes his capture, -as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of use -to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it -ought to be; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force and starts; -not toward home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, -but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches -up against a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it -backwards dragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, -jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his -hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, -shoves it ahead of him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him -another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into -the air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a -weed; it never occurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and -he does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top—which is as -bright a thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from -Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there -he finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the -scenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off -once more—as usual in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, he -fetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays his -burden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yards -around, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he -wipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches -aimlessly off, in as violent a hurry as ever. He traverses a good deal -of zig-zag country, and by and by stumbles on his same booty again. He -does not remember ever having seen it before; he looks around to see -which is not the way home, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through -the same adventures he had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend -comes along. Evidently the friend remarks that a last year’s grasshopper -leg is a very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it. Evidently -the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get it, but thinks -he got it “around here somewhere.” Evidently the friend contracts to -help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly antic (pun -not intentional), they take hold of opposite ends of that grasshopper -leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite directions. -Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide that -something is wrong, they can’t make out what. Then they go at it again, -just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow. Evidently -each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They warm up, and the -dispute ends in a fight. They lock themselves together and chew each -other’s jaws for a while; then they roll and tumble on the ground till -one loses a horn or a leg and has to haul off for repairs. They make up -and go to work again in the same old insane way, but the crippled ant is -at a disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one drags off the booty and -him at the end of it. Instead of giving up, he hangs on, and gets his -shins bruised against every obstruction that comes in the way. By and -by, when that grasshopper leg has been dragged all over the same old -ground once more, it is finally dumped at about the spot where it -originally lay, the two perspiring ants inspect it thoughtfully and -decide that dried grasshopper legs are a poor sort of property after -all, and then each starts off in a different direction to see if he -can’t find an old nail or something else that is heavy enough to afford -entertainment and at the same time valueless enough to make an ant want -to own it. - - - FOREIGN QUOTATIONS AGAIN - -When really learned men write books for other learned men to read, they -are justified in using as many learned words as they please—their -audience will understand them; but a man that writes a book for the -general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pages with -untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward the majority -of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way of saying, -“Get the translations made yourself, if you want them; this book is not -written for the ignorant classes.” There are men who know a foreign -language so well and have used it so long in their daily life that they -seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their English writings -unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, as much as half the time. -That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten of the man’s readers. What is -the excuse for this? The writer would say he only uses the foreign -language where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyed in English. -Very well, then he writes his best things for the tenth man, and he -ought to warn the other nine not to buy his book. However, the excuse he -offers is at least an excuse; but there is another set of men who ... -know a _word_ here and there, of a foreign language, or a few beggarly -little three-word phrases, filched from the back of the dictionary, and -these they are continually peppering into their literature, with a -pretense of knowing that language—what excuse can they offer? The -foreign words and phrases which they use have their exact equivalents in -a nobler language—English; yet they think they “adorn their page” when -they say _Strasse_ for street, and _Bahnhof_ for railway station, and so -on—flaunting these fluttering rags of poverty in the reader’s face, and -imagining he will be ass enough to take them for the sign of untold -riches held in reserve. - - - THE JUNGFRAU - -There was something subduing in the influence of that silent and solemn -and awful presence; one seemed to meet the immutable, the -indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feel the trivial and -fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharply by the contrast. -One had the sense of being under the brooding contemplation of a spirit, -not an inert mass of rocks and ice—a spirit which had looked down, -through the slow drift of the ages, upon a million vanished races of -men, and judged them; and would judge a million more—and still be there, -watching, unchanged and unchangeable, after all life should be gone and -the earth have become a vacant desolation. - -While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it, -toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in the -Alps, and in no other mountains—that strange, deep, nameless influence, -which once felt, cannot be forgotten—once felt, leaves always behind it -a restless longing to feel it again—a longing which is like -homesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning, which will plead, implore, -and persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginative -and unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from far -countries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year—they could -not explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity, -because everybody talked about it; they had come since because they -could not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for -the same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but -it was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearer -formulating what they felt: they said they could find perfect rest and -peace nowhere else when they were troubled; all frets and worries and -chafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of the -Alps: the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon their -hurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think base -thoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne of -God. - - - CLIMBING THE GEMMI PASS - -When we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet perched -away up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest mountain near -us. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the valley. But when -we got up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering high -above on every hand, and we saw that its altitude was just about that of -the little Gasternthal which we had visited the evening before. Still it -seemed a long way up in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness of -rocks. It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed about -as big as a billiard table, and this grass plot slanted so sharply -downwards, and was so brief, and ended so exceedingly soon at the verge -of the absolute precipice, that it was a shuddery thing to think of a -person’s venturing to trust his foot on an incline so situated at all. -Suppose a man stepped on an orange peel in that yard; there would be -nothing for him to seize; nothing could keep him from rolling; five -revolutions would bring him to the edge, and over he would go. What a -frightful distance he would fall!—for there are very few birds that fly -as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce, two or three -times, on his way down, but this would be no advantage to him. I would -as soon take an airing on the slant of a rainbow as in such a front -yard. I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be about the -same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce. - - - DESCENT OF GEMMI PASS - -We began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have ever seen. -It wound in corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal precipice—a -narrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, and -perpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting procession -of guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steep -and muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass a -tolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw the -mule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred the -inside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, because the -mule prefers the outside. A mule’s preference—on a precipice—is a thing -to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His life is -mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which rest -against his body—therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edge -of mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks or -banks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdly -clings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger always -dangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger’s -heart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule’s -hind foot cave out over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into -the bottomless abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, -whether male or female, looked tolerably unwell. - -There was one place where an 18–inch breadth of light masonry had been -added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharp turn, -here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some ancient time, as -a protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the light -masonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl came -along on a mule, and in making the turn the mule’s hind foot caved all -the loose masonry and one of the fence posts overboard; the mule gave a -violent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, but -the girl turned as white as the snow of Mont Blanc for a moment. - -The path here was simply a groove cut in the face of the precipice; -there was a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and a -four-foot breadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a -narrow porch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer -summitless and bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or -crack a biscuit’s toss in width—but he could not see the bottom of his -own precipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I -did not do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes. - - - ALP CLIMBING - -There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a -dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people -who can find pleasure in it. I have not jumped to this conclusion; I -have traveled to it per gravel train, so to speak. I have thought the -whole thing out, and am quite sure I am right. A born climber’s appetite -for climbing is hard to satisfy; when it comes upon him he is like a -starving man with a feast before him; he may have other business on -hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had had his usual summer holiday -in the Alps, and had spent it in the usual way, hunting for unique -chances to break his neck; his vacation was over, and his luggage packed -for England, but all of a sudden a hunger had come upon him to climb the -tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he had heard of a new and utterly -impossible route up it. His baggage was unpacked at once, and now he and -a friend, laden with knapsacks, ice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens of -milk, were just setting out. They would spend the night high up among -the snows, somewhere, and get up at two in the morning and finish the -enterprise. I had a strong desire to go with them, but forced it down—a -feat which Mr. Girdlestone, with all his fortitude, could not do. - - - THE OLD MASTERS - -We visited the picture galleries and the other regulation “sights” of -Milan—not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see if I -had learned anything in twelve years. I afterwards visited the great -galleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I had -learned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said the -copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of large -dimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they were -truly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original as -the pallid, smart, inane new waxwork group is to the vigorous, earnest, -dignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate. -There is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, which -is to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the -merit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one -which the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not -hope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom I -talked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is imparted to -the picture by _age_. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it, -who didn’t impart it, instead of worshiping Old Time, who did? Perhaps -the picture was a clanging bell, until time muffled it and sweetened it. - -In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked, - -“What is it that people see in Old Masters? I have been in the Doge’s -palace and I saw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad -perspective, and very incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese’s dogs do not -resemble dogs; all the horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a -_right_ leg on the left side of his body; in the large picture where the -Emperor (Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men -in the foreground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the -size of a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and -according to the same scale, the Pope is 7 feet high and the Doge is a -shriveled dwarf of 4 feet.” - -The artist said: - -“Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truth -and exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing, -bad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no -longer appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago, -there is a _something_ about their pictures which is divine—a something -which is above and beyond the art of any epoch since—a something which -would be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect to -attain it, and therefore do not worry about it.” - -That is what he said—and he said what he believed; and not only -believed, but felt. - -Reasoning—especially reasoning without technical knowledge—must be put -aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It will -lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of the -artists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, bad -proportions, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, color -which gets its merit from time, and not from the artist—these things -constitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter, -the Old Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your -friend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion; he -will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed -defects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable -about the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by any -system of reasoning whatever. - -I can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm in -their faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates; but a cold -stranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would -fail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, this -nose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, this -complexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composition is -incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearest -friend might say, and say truly, “Your premises are right, your logic is -faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an Old -Master—she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beauty -which cannot be formulated, but it is there just the same.” - -I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time than I -did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calm -pleasure; there was nothing overheated about it. - - - - - _FROM_ “LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI” (1874–5) - - - THE PERMANENT AMBITION - -When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades -in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was to be -a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were -only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to -become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that ever came to our -section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we -had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be -pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition -to be a steamboatman always remained. - -My father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessed the -power of life and death over all men, and could hang anybody that -offended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; but -the desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, nevertheless. I first -wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron on -and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades could -see me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the -end of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was -particularly conspicuous. But these were only day-dreams—they were too -heavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities. By and by one of our -boys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turned -up as apprentice engineer or “striker” on a steamboat. This thing shook -the bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been -notoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this -eminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. - -This creature’s career could produce but one result, and it speedily -followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister’s son -became an engineer. The doctor’s and the postmaster’s sons became “mud -clerks”; the wholesale liquor dealer’s son became a barkeeper on a boat; -four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge, -became pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even -in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary—from a hundred and -fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. Two -months of his wages would pay a preacher’s salary for a year. Now some -of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river—at least our -parents would not let us. - -So, by and by, I ran away. I said I would never come home again till I -was a pilot and could come in glory. - - - FIRST LESSONS IN PILOTING - -The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it -was “our watch” until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief, “straightened her up,” -ploughed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the -Levee, and then said, “Here, take her; shave those steamships as close -as you’d peel an apple.” I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered -up into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape -the side of every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath -and began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own -opinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such -peril, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide -margin of safety intervening between the _Paul Jones_ and the ships; and -within ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was -going into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice. -I was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which -my chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so -closely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a -little he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current -outside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the -benefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage -of the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and -leave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence. - -Now and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Said he, -“This is Six-Mile Point.” I assented. It was pleasant enough -information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious -that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, “This -is Nine-Mile Point.” Later he said, “This is Twelve-Mile Point.” They -were all about level with the water’s edge; they all looked about alike -to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would -change the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging -the shore with affection, and then say: “The slack water ends here, -abreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over.” So he crossed -over. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either -came near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too -far from shore, and so dropped back into disgrace again and got abused. - -The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At -midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman -said: - -“Come, turn out!” - -And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure; -so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon -the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed. -I said: - -“What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the -night for? Now, as like as not, I’ll not get to sleep again to-night.” - -The watchman said: - -“Well, if this ain’t good, I’m blessed.” - -The “off-watch” was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter -from them, and such remarks as, “Hello, watchman! ain’t the new cub -turned out yet? He’s delicate likely. Give him some sugar in a rag, and -send for the chambermaid to sing ‘Rock-a-bye Baby,’ to him.” - -About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute -later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on -and the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here -was something fresh—this thing of getting up in the middle of the night -to go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to me -at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never -happened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run -them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had -imagined it was; there was something very real and worklike about this -new phase of it. - -It was rather a dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out. -The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star -and was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on -either hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemed -wonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said: - -“We’ve got to land at Jones’s plantation, sir.” - -The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, “I wish you joy of -your job, Mr. Bixby; you’ll have a good time finding Mr. Jones’s -plantation such a night as this; and I hope you never _will_ find it as -long as you live.” - -Mr. Bixby said to the mate: - -“Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?” - -“Upper.” - -“I can’t do it. The stumps there are out of the water at this stage. -It’s no great distance to the lower, and you’ll have to get along with -that.” - -“All right, sir. If Jones don’t like it, he’ll have to lump it, I -reckon.” - -And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to -come up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation on -such a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfully -wanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answers -as my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired to -ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough to -really imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night when all -plantations were exactly alike, and all the same color. But I held in. I -used to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days. - -Mr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same as -if it had been daylight. And not only that but singing: - - “Father in heaven, the day is declining,” etc. - -It seemed to me that I had put my life into the keeping of a peculiarly -reckless outcast. Presently he turned on 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_?” - -This 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 a while and decided that I couldn’t. - -“Look here! What do you start out 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.” - -“By the great Cæsar’s ghost, I believe you! You’re the stupidest -dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea of -_you_ being a pilot—_you_! Why you don’t know enough to pilot a cow down -a lane.” - -Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from one -side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil a -while to himself, and then overflow and scald me again. - -“Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points -for?” - -I tremblingly considered a moment, and 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 judge it made him blind, because -he ran over the steering-gear 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 could -_talk back_. He threw open a window, thrust his head out and such an -eruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther -away the scowmen’s curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice -and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was -empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught -curses enough to disturb your mother with. 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.” - -That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never loaded with -anything but blank cartridges. However, I did not feel discouraged long. -I judged that it was best to make allowances, for doubtless Mr. Bixby -was “stretching.” Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few strokes on -the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was as black as -ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I was not -entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the invisible -watchman called up from the hurricane deck: - -“What’s this, sir?” - -“Jones’s plantation.” - -I said to myself, “I wish that I might venture to offer a small bet that -it isn’t,” But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby handled -the engine bells, and in due time the boat’s nose came to the land, a -torch glowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darkey’s voice -on the bank said, “Gimme de k’yarpet bag, Mass’ Jones,” and the next -moment we were standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected -deeply a while, and then said—but not aloud—“Well, the finding of that -plantation was the luckiest accident that ever happened; but it couldn’t -happen again in a hundred years.” - - - PERPLEXING LESSONS - -At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my head -full of islands, towns, bars, “points,” and bends, and a curiously -inanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shut -my eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leaving -out more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that I -could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip those -little gaps. But of course my complacency could hardly get start enough -to lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr. Bixby would think of -something to fetch it down again. One day he turned on me suddenly with -this settler: - -“What is the shape of Walnut Bend?” - -He might as well have asked me my grandmother’s opinion of protoplasm. I -reflected respectfully, and then said I didn’t know it had any -particular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course, -and then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives. - -I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds of -ammunition and was sure to subside into a very placable and even -remorseful old smoothbore as soon as they were all gone. That word “old” -is merely affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. I waited. By -and by he said: - -“My boy, you’ve got to know the _shape_ of the river perfectly. It is -all there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else is -blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn’t the same shape in the -night that it has in the daytime.” - -“How on earth am I ever going to learn it then?” - -“How do you follow a hall at home in the dark? Because you know the -shape of it. You can’t see it.” - -“Do you mean to say that I’ve got to know all the million trifling -variations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as I -know the shape of the front hall at home?” - -“On my honor, you’ve got to know them _better_ than any man ever did -know the shapes of the halls in his own house.” - -“I wish I was dead!” - -“Now, I don’t want to discourage you, but——” - -“Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another time.” - -“You see, this has got to be learned; there isn’t any getting around it. -A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that, if you didn’t -know the shape of a shore perfectly, you would claw away from every -bunch of timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a -solid cape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every -fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all -the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can’t see a -snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the -shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there’s -your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a -pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem -to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you’d _run_ -them for straight lines, only you know better. You boldly drive your -boat right into what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing -very well that in reality there is a curve there), and that wall falls -back and makes way for you. Then there’s your gray mist. You take a -night when there’s one of these grisly drizzly, gray mists, and then -there isn’t _any_ particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle -the head of the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds -of _moonlight_ change the shape of the river in different ways. You -see——” - -“Oh, don’t say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of the -river according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? If I -tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me -stoop-shouldered.” - -“_No!_ you only learn the shape of _the_ river; and you learn it with -such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that’s -_in your head_, and never the one that’s before your eyes.” - -“Very well, I’ll try it; but, after I have learned it, can I depend on -it? Will it keep the same form and not go fooling around?” - -Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W. came in to take the watch and he -said: - -“Bixby, you’ll have to look out for President’s Island, and all that -country clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are -caving and the shape of the shore changing like everything. Why you -wouldn’t know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old sycamore -snag, now.” - -So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing -shape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed pretty -apparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man has got to -learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other -was, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every -twenty-four hours. - -That night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an ancient river -custom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the watch changed. While -the relieving pilot put on his gloves and lit his cigar, his partner, -the retiring pilot, would say something like this: - -“I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale’s Point; had -quarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain with the other.” - -“Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any boats?” - -“Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging the bar, -and I couldn’t make her out entirely. I took her for the _Sunny -South_—hadn’t any skylight forward of the chimneys.” - -And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his partner would -mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we were abreast of -such a man’s woodyard or plantation. This was courtesy; I supposed it -was _necessity_. But Mr. W. came on watch full twelve minutes late on -this particular night—a tremendous breach of etiquette; in fact, it is -the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr. Bixby gave him no greeting -whatever, but simply surrendered the wheel and marched out of the -pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; it was a villainous night -for blackness, we were in a particularly wide and blind part of the -river, where there was no shape or substance to anything, and it seemed -incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left that poor fellow to kill the -boat trying to find out where he was. But I resolved that I would stand -by him anyway. He should find that he was not wholly friendless. So I -stood around, and waited to be asked where we were. But Mr. W. plunged -on serenely through the solid firmament of black cats that stood for an -atmosphere and never opened his mouth. “He is a proud devil!” thought I; -“here is a limb of Satan that would rather send us all to destruction -than put himself under obligations to me, because I am not yet one of -the salt of the earth and privileged to snub captains and lord it over -everything dead and alive in a steamboat.” I presently climbed up on the -bench; I did not think it was safe to go to sleep while this lunatic was -on watch. - -However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because the -next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W. -gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o’clock and all -well—but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones, and all of them trying -to ache at once. - -Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it -was to do Mr. W. a benevolence—tell him where he was. It took five -minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr. -Bixby’s system, and then I judged it filled him nearly up to the chin; -because he paid me a compliment—and not much of a one either. He said: - -“Well, taking you by and large, you seem to be more different kinds of -an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose he -wanted to know for?” - -I said I thought it might be a convenience to him. - -“Convenience! D——nation! Didn’t I tell you that a man’s got to know the -river in the night the same as he’d know his front hall?” - -“Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it _is_ the -front hall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark -and did not tell me which hall it is; how am I to know?” - -“Well, you’ve _got_ to, on the river!” - -“All right. Then I’m glad I never said anything to Mr. W.” - -“I should say so! Why, he’d have slammed you through the window and -utterly ruined a hundred dollars’ worth of window-sash and stuff.” - -I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made me -unpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who had the name of -being careless and injuring things. - -I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all the -eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or hands -on, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, wooded -point that projected far into the river some miles ahead of me, and go -laboriously photographing its shape into my brain; and just as I was -beginning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and -the exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the -bank! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing up in the very -point of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously merged into -the general forest, and occupying the middle of a straight shore, when I -got abreast of it! No prominent hill would stick to its shape long -enough for me to make up my mind what its form really was, but it was as -dissolving and changeful as if it had been a mountain of butter in the -hottest corner of the tropics. Nothing ever had the same shape when I -was coming down-stream that it had borne when I went up. I mentioned -these little difficulties to Mr. Bixby. He said: - -“That’s the very main virtue of the thing. If the shapes didn’t change -every three seconds they wouldn’t be of any use. Take this place where -we are now, for instance. As long as that hill over yonder is only one -hill, I can boom right along the way I’m going; but the moment it splits -at the top and forms a V, I know I’ve got to scratch to starboard in a -hurry, or I’ll bang this boat’s brains out against a rock; and then the -moment one of the prongs of the V swings behind the other, I’ve got to -waltz to larboard again, or I’ll have a misunderstanding with a snag -that would snatch the keelson out of this steamboat as neatly as if it -were a sliver in your hand. If that hill didn’t change its shape on bad -nights there would be an awful steamboat graveyard around here inside of -a year.” - -It was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all the -different ways that could be thought of,—upside down, wrong end first, -inside out, fore-and-aft, and “thortships,”—and then know what to do on -gray nights when it hadn’t any shape at all. So I set about it. In the -course of time I began to get the best of this knotty lesson, and my -self-complacency moved to the front once more. Mr. Bixby was all fixed, -and ready to start it to the rear again. He opened on me in this -fashion: - -“How much water did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-the-Wall, -trip before last?” - -I considered this an outrage. I said: - -“Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that tangled -place for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do you reckon I -can remember such a mess as that?” - -“My boy, you’ve got to remember it. You’ve got to remember the exact -spot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the shoalest water, -in every one of the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and New -Orleans; and you mustn’t get the shoal soundings and marks of one trip -mixed up with the shoal soundings and marks of another, either, for -they’re not often twice alike. You must keep them separate.” - -When I came to myself again, I said: - -“When I get so that I can do that, I’ll be able to raise the dead, and -then I won’t have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want to -retire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I’m only -fit for a roustabout. I haven’t got brains enough to be a pilot; and if -I had I wouldn’t have strength enough to carry them around unless I went -on crutches.” - -“Now, drop that! When I say I’ll learn a man the river, I mean it. And -you can depend on it, I’ll learn him or kill him.” - - - A TEST OF COURAGE - -The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but it -does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until sometime after -the young pilot has been “standing his own watch” alone and under the -staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the -position. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted -with the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his -steamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it is -_his_ courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps out -and leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man’s. -He discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo -altogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment; he -is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all his -knowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as a -sheet and scared almost to death. Therefore, pilots wisely train these -cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little -more calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon -the candidate. - -Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I used -to blush, even in my sleep, when I thought of it. I had become a good -steersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch, -night and day. Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did -was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad -crossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of -leisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower river -was about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any -crossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction, I -should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of any -crossing in the lot, in the _daytime_, was a thing too preposterous for -contemplation. Well, one matchless summer’s day I was bowling down the -bend above Island 66, brim full of self-conceit and carrying my nose as -high as a giraffe’s, when Mr. Bixby said: - -“I am going below a while. I suppose you know the next crossing?” - -This was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplest -crossing in the whole river. One couldn’t come to any harm, whether he -ran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottom -there. I knew all this perfectly well. - -“Know how to _run_ it? Why, I can run it with my eyes shut.” - -“How much water is there in it?” - -“Well, that is an odd question. I couldn’t get bottom there with a -church steeple.” - -“You think so, do you?” - -The very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr. -Bixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began to -imagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent -somebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to the -leadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers, and -then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could -observe results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane -deck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a -straggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head of the -island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my -nose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the -captain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his -voice: - -“Where is Mr. Bixby?” - -“Gone below, sir.” - -But that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct -dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the -run of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave of -coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every -joint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the -bell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more; -clutched it tremblingly once again, and pulled it so feebly that I could -hardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and -both together: - -“Starboard lead there! and quick about it!” This was another shock. I -began to climb the wheel like a squirrel; but I would hardly get the -boat started to port before I would see new dangers on that side, and -away I would spin to the other; only to find perils accumulating to -starboard, and be crazy to get to port again. Then came the leadsman’s -sepulchral cry: - -“D-e-e-p four!” - -Deep four in a bottomless crossing! The terror of it took my breath -away. - -“M-a-r-k three! M-a-r-k three! Quarter-less-three! Half twain!” - -This was frightful! I seized the bell-rope and stopped the engines. - -“Quarter twain! Quarter twain! _Mark_ twain!” - -I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking -from head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck -out so far. - -“Quarter-_less_-twain! Nine-and-a-half!” - -We were _drawing_ nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could -not ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and -shouted to the engineer: - -“Oh, Ben, if you love me, _back_ her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal -_soul_ out of her!” - -I heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr. -Bixby, smiling, a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane -deck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now, -and I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the -lead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said: - -“It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, _wasn’t_ it? I suppose I’ll -never hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the -head of 66.” - -“Well, no, you won’t, maybe. In fact I hope you won’t; for I want you to -learn something by that experience. Didn’t you know there was no bottom -in that crossing?” - -“Yes, sir, I did.” - -“Very well, then. You shouldn’t have allowed me or anybody else to shake -your confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And another -thing: when you get into a dangerous place, don’t turn coward. That -isn’t going to help matters any.” - -It was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about the -hardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrase -which I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, “Oh, Ben, if -you love me, back her!” - - - - - _FROM_ “THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER” (1877–80) - - - BIRTHS OF HIGH AND LOW DEGREE - -In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day, in the second -quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the -name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English -child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him. -All England wanted him, too. England had so longed for him, and hoped -for him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the -people went nearly mad for joy. Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed -each other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich -and poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they -kept this up for days and nights together. By day, London was a sight to -see, with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and -splendid pageants marching along. By night it was again a sight to see, -with its great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of revelers -making merry around them. There was no talk in all England but of the -new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in silks and -satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that great lords -and ladies were tending him and watching over him—and not caring, -either. But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty, lapped in -his poor rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had just come -to trouble with his presence. - - - THE CANTY HOME - -The house which Tom’s father lived in was up a foul little pocket called -Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane. It was small, decayed, and rickety, -but it was packed full of wretchedly poor families. Canty’s tribe -occupied a room on the third floor. The mother and father had a sort of -bedstead in the corner; but Tom, his grandmother, and his two sisters, -Bet and Nan, were not restricted—they had all the floor to themselves, -and might sleep where they chose. There were the remains of a blanket or -two, and some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not -rightly be called beds, for they were not organized; they were kicked -into a general pile mornings, and selections made from the mass at -night, for service. - - - LONDON BRIDGE - -This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and had been a -noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious affair, for -a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family quarters -overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of the river -to the other. The Bridge was a sort of a town to itself; it had its inn, -its beer houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its -manufacturing industries and even its church. It looked upon the two -neighbors which it linked together—London and Southwark—as being well -enough, as suburbs, but not otherwise particularly important. It was a -close corporation, so to speak; it was a narrow town, of a single street -a fifth of a mile long, its population was but a village population, and -everybody in it knew all his fellow townsmen intimately, and had known -their fathers and mothers before them—and all their little family -affairs into the bargain. It had its aristocracy, of course—its fine old -families of butchers, and bakers, and what-not, who had occupied the -same old premises for five or six hundred years, and knew the great -history of the Bridge from beginning to end, and all its strange -legends; and who always talked bridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, -and lied in a long, level, direct, substantial bridgy way. - - - TOM CANTY, KING - -He opened his eyes—the richly clad First Lord of the Bedchamber was -kneeling by his couch. The gladness of the lying dream faded away—the -poor boy recognized that he was still a captive and a king. The room was -filled with courtiers clothed in purple mantles—the mourning -color[1]—and with noble servants of the monarch. Tom sat up in bed and -gazed out from the heavy silken curtains upon this fine company. - -The weighty business of dressing began, and one courtier after another -knelt and paid his court and offered to the little king his condolences -upon his heavy loss, while the dressing proceeded. In the beginning, a -shirt was taken up by the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who passed it to the -First Lord of the Buckhounds, who passed it to the Second Gentleman of -the Bedchamber, who passed it to the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest, who -passed it to the Third Groom of the Stole, who passed it to the -Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, who passed it to the Master -of the Wardrobe, who passed it to Norroy King-at-Arms, who passed it to -the Constable of the Tower, who passed it to the Chief Steward of the -Household, who passed it to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, who passed it -to the Lord High Admiral of England, who passed it to the Archbishop of -Canterbury, who passed it to the First Lord of the Bedchamber, who took -what was left of it and put it on Tom. Poor little wondering chap, it -reminded him of passing buckets at a fire.... - -A secretary of state presented an order of the Council appointing the -morrow at eleven for the reception of the foreign ambassadors, and -desired the king’s assent. - -Tom turned an inquiring look toward Hertford, who whispered: - -“Your majesty will signify consent. They come to testify their royal -masters’ sense of the heavy calamity which hath visited your grace and -the realm of England.” - -Tom did as he was bidden. Another secretary began to read a preamble -concerning the expenses of the late king’s household, which had amounted -to £28,000 during the preceding six months—a sum so vast that it made -Tom Canty gasp; he gasped again when the fact appeared that £20,000 of -this money were still owing and unpaid; and once more when it appeared -that the king’s coffers were about empty, and his twelve hundred -servants much embarrassed for lack of the wages due them. Tom spoke out, -with lively apprehension. - -“We be going to the dogs, ’tis plain. ’Tis meet and necessary that we -take a smaller house and set the servants at large, sith they be of no -value but to make delay, and trouble one with offices that harass the -spirit and shame the soul, they misbecoming any but a doll, that hath -nor brains nor hands to help itself withal. I remember me of a small -house that standeth over against the fish-market, by Billingsgate——” - -A sharp pressure upon Tom’s arm stopped his foolish tongue and sent a -blush to his face; but no countenance there betrayed any sign that this -strange speech had been remarked or given concern. - - - THE LITTLE KING IN PRISON - -Hendon’s[2] arts all failed with the king—he could not be comforted, but -a couple of women who were chained near him, succeeded better. Under -their gentle ministrations he found peace and learned a degree of -patience. He was very grateful, and came to love them dearly and to -delight in the sweet and soothing influence of their presence. He asked -them why they were in prison, and when they said they were Baptists, he -smiled and inquired: - -“Is that a crime to be shut up for in a prison? Now I grieve, for I -shall lose ye—they will not keep ye long for such a little thing.” - -They did not answer; and something in their faces made him uneasy. He -said, eagerly: - -“You do not speak—be good to me, and tell me—there will be no other -punishment? Prithee, tell me there is no fear of that.” - -They tried to change the topic, but his fears were aroused, and he -pursued it: - -“Will they scourge thee? No, no, they would not be so cruel! Say they -would not. Come, they _will_ not, will they?” - -The women betrayed confusion and distress, but there was no avoiding an -answer, so one of them said, in a voice choked with emotion: - -“Oh, thou’lt break our hearts, thou gentle spirit! God will help us to -bear our——” - -“It is a confession!” the king broke in. “Then they _will_ scourge thee, -the stony-hearted wretches. But oh, thou must not weep, I cannot bear -it. Keep up thy courage—I shall come to my own in time to save thee from -this bitter thing and I will do it!” - -When the king awoke in the morning, the women were gone. - -“They are saved!” he said, joyfully; then added, despondently, “but woe -is me!—for they were my comforters.” - -Each of them had left a shred of ribbon pinned to his clothing, in token -of remembrance. He said he would keep these things always; and that soon -he would seek out these dear good friends of his and take them under his -protection. - -Just then the jailer came in with some subordinates and commanded that -the prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard. The king was overjoyed—it -would be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and breathe the fresh air -once more. He fretted and chafed at the slowness of the officers, but -his turn came at last and he was released from his staple and ordered to -follow the other prisoners, with Hendon. - -The court, or quadrangle, was stone-paved, and open to the sky. The -prisoners entered it through a massive archway of masonry, and were -placed in file, standing, with their backs against the wall. A rope was -stretched in front of them, and they were also guarded by their -officers. It was a chill and lowering morning, and a light snow which -had fallen during the night whitened the great empty space and added to -the general dismalness of its aspect. Now and then a wintry wind -shivered through the place and sent the snow eddying hither and thither. - -In the center of the court stood two women, chained to posts. A glance -showed the king that these were his good friends. He shuddered, and said -to himself, “Alack, they are not gone free, as I had thought. To think -that such as these should know the lash!—in England! Ay, there’s the -shame of it—not in Heathenesse, but Christian England! They will be -scourged; and I, whom they have comforted and kindly entreated, must -look on and see the great wrong done; it is strange, so strange! that I, -the very source of power in this broad realm, am helpless to protect -them. But let these miscreants look well to themselves, for there is a -day coming when I will require of them a heavy reckoning for this work. -For every blow they strike now they shall feel a hundred then.” - -A great gate swung open and a crowd of citizens poured in. They flocked -around the two women, and hid them from the king’s view. A clergyman -entered and passed through the crowd, and he also was hidden. The king -now heard talking, back and forth, as if questions were being asked and -answered, but he could not make out what was said. Next there was a deal -of bustle and preparation, and much passing and repassing of officials -through that part of the crowd that stood on the further side of the -women; and while this proceeded a deep hush gradually fell upon the -people. - -Now, by command, the masses parted and fell aside, and the king saw a -spectacle that froze the marrow in his bones. Fagots had been piled -about the two women, and a kneeling man was lighting them! - -The women bowed their heads, and covered their faces with their hands; -the yellow flames began to climb upward among the snapping and crackling -fagots, and wreaths of blue smoke to stream away on the wind; the -clergyman lifted his hands and began a prayer—just then two young girls -came flying through the great gate, uttering piercing screams, and threw -themselves upon the women at the stake. Instantly they were torn away by -the officers, and one of them was kept in a tight grip, but the other -broke loose, saying she would die with her mother; and before she could -be stopped she had flung her arms about her mother’s neck again. She was -torn away once more, and with her gown on fire. Two or three men held -her, and the burning portion of her gown was snatched off and thrown -flaming aside, she struggling all the while to free herself, and saying -she would be alone in the world now, and begging to be allowed to die -with her mother. Both the girls screamed continually, and fought for -freedom; but suddenly this tumult was drowned under a volley of -heart-piercing shrieks of mortal agony. The king glanced from the -frantic girls to the stake, then turned away and leaned his ashen face -against the wall, and looked no more. He said, “That which I have seen, -in that one little moment, will never go out from my memory, but will -abide there; and I shall see it all the days, and dream of it all the -nights, till I die. Would God I had been blind!” - -Hendon was watching the king. He said to himself, with satisfaction, -“His disorder mendeth; he hath changed, and groweth gentler. If he had -followed his wont, he would have stormed at these varlets, and said he -was king, and commanded that the women be turned loose unscathed. Soon -his delusion will pass away and be forgotten, and his poor mind will be -whole again. God speed the day!” - -That same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over night, -who were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in the kingdom, -to undergo punishment for crimes committed. The king conversed with -these,—he had made it a point, from the beginning, to instruct himself -for the kingly office by questioning prisoners whenever the opportunity -offered—and the tale of their woes wrung his heart. One of them was a -poor half-witted woman who had stolen a yard or two of cloth from a -weaver—she was to be hanged for it. Another was a man who had been -accused of stealing a horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had -imagined that he was safe from the halter; but no—he was hardly free -before he was arraigned for killing a deer in the king’s park; this was -proved against him, and now he was on his way to the gallows. There was -a tradesman’s apprentice whose case particularly distressed the king; -this youth said he found a hawk one evening that had escaped from its -owner, and he took it home with him, imagining himself entitled to it; -but the court convicted him of stealing it, and sentenced him to death. - -The king was furious over these inhumanities, and wanted Hendon to break -jail and fly with him to Westminster, so that he could mount his throne -and hold out his scepter in mercy over these unfortunate people and save -their lives. “Poor child,” sighed Hendon, “these woeful tales have -brought his malady upon him again—alack, but for this evil hap, he would -have been well in a little time.” - -Among these prisoners was an old lawyer—a man with a strong face and a -dauntless mien. Three years past, he had written a pamphlet against the -Lord Chancellor, accusing him of injustice, and had been punished for it -by the loss of his ears in the pillory and degradation from the bar, and -in addition had been fined £3,000 and sentenced to imprisonment for -life. Lately he had repeated his offense; and in consequence was now -under sentence to lose _what remained of his ears_, pay a fine of -£5,000, be branded on both cheeks, and remain in prison for life. - -“These be honorable scars,” he said, and turned back his gray hair and -showed the mutilated stubs of what had once been his ears. - -The king’s eyes burned with passion. He said: “None believe in -me—neither wilt thou. But no matter—within the compass of a month thou -shalt be free; and more, the laws that have dishonored thee, and shamed -the English name, shall be swept from the statute books. The world is -made wrong, kings should go to school to their own laws at times, and so -learn mercy.” - - - TOM CANTY THE FIRST - -Whilst the true king wandered about the land, poorly clad, poorly fed, -cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves and -murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by all -impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed a quite different -experience. - -When we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright side -for him. This bright side went on brightening more and more every day; -in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine and -delightfulness. He lost his fears! his misgivings faded out and died; -his embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confident -bearing. - -He ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Gray into his presence -when he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done with -them, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances. It -no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his hand at -parting. - -He came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressed -with intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. It came to be a proud -pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering procession of -officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that he -doubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. He -liked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and the -distant voices responding, “Way for the king!” - -He even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and -seeming to be something more than the Lord Protector’s mouthpiece. He -liked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listen -to the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs who -called him “brother.” - -Oh, happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court! - - - TOM IS RECOGNIZED - -The great pageant moved on, and still on, under one triumphal arch after -another, and past a bewildering succession of spectacular and symbolical -tableaux, each of which typified and exalted some virtue, or talent, or -merit, of the little king’s. Throughout the whole of Cheapside, from -every penthouse and window, hung banners and streamers; and the richest -carpets, stuffs, and cloth-of-gold tapestried the streets,—specimens of -the great wealth of the stores within; and the splendor of this -throughfare was equaled in the other streets, and in some even -surpassed. - -“And all these wonders and these marvels are to welcome me—me!” murmured -Tom Canty. - -The mock king’s cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes were -flashing, his senses swam in a delirium of pleasure. At this point, just -as he was raising his hand to fling another rich largess, he caught -sight of a pale, astounded face which was strained forward out of the -second rank of the crowd, its intense eyes riveted upon him. A sickening -consternation struck through him; he recognized his mother! and up flew -his hand, palm outward, before his eyes,—that old involuntary gesture, -born of a forgotten episode, and perpetuated by habit. In an instant -more she had torn her way out of the press, and past the guards, and was -at his side. She embraced his leg, she covered it with kisses, she -cried, “O, my child, my darling!” lifting toward him a face that was -transfigured with joy and love. The same instant an officer of the -King’s Guard snatched her away with a curse, and sent her reeling back -whence she came, with a vigorous impulse from his strong arm. The words, -“I do not know you, woman!” were falling from Tom Canty’s lips when this -piteous thing occurred; but it smote him to the heart to see her treated -so; and as she turned for a last glimpse of him, whilst the crowd was -swallowing her from his sight, she seemed so wounded, so broken-hearted, -that a shame fell upon him which consumed his pride to ashes, and -withered his stolen royalty. His grandeurs were stricken valueless; they -seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags. - -The procession moved on, and still on, through ever augmenting splendors -and ever augmenting tempests of welcome; but to Tom Canty they were as -if they had not been. He neither saw nor heard. Royalty had lost its -grace and sweetness; its pomps were become a reproach. Remorse was -eating his heart out. He said, “Would God I were free of my captivity!” - - - - - _FROM_ “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN” (1876–83) - - - HUCK AND NIGGER JIM[3] START ON THEIR LONG DRIFT - -When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the -cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in sight; -so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug -wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things -dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above -the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps were out of -reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a -layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for -to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather -or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra -steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag -or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern -on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat -coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn’t have -to light it for the up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they -call a “crossing”; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks -being still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn’t always run -the channel, but hunted easy water. - -This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current -that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and -we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of -solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking -up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it -warn’t often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had -mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us -at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next. - -Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, -nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The -fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. -In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand -people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful -spread of lights at two o’clock that still night. There warn’t a sound -there; everybody was asleep. - -Every night now I used to slip ashore toward ten o’clock at some little -village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meal or bacon or other -stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn’t roosting -comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when -you get a chance, because if you don’t want him yourself you can easy -find somebody that does, and a good deed aint ever forgot. I never see -pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to -say, anyway. - - - THE GRANGERFORD-SHEPHERDSON FEUD[4] - -Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; -and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that’s -worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said, -and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our -town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn’t no more quality -than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and -had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was -clean-shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the -thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high -nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep -back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as -you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was gray and straight -and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of -his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made -out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he -wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany -cane with a silver head to it. There warn’t no frivolishness about him, -not a bit, and he warn’t ever loud. He was as kind as he could be—you -could feel that, you know, and so you had confidence. Sometimes he -smiled, and it was good to see; but when he straightened himself up like -a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his -eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter -was afterwards. He didn’t ever have to tell anybody to mind their -manners—everybody was always good-mannered where he was. Everybody loved -to have him around, too; he was sunshine most always—I mean he made it -seem like good weather. When he turned into a cloudbank it was awful -dark for half a minute, and that was enough; there wouldn’t nothing go -wrong for a week. - -When him and the old lady came down in the morning all the family got up -out of their chairs and give them good day, and didn’t set down again -till _they_ had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where -the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and -he held it in his hand and waited till Tom’s and Bob’s was mixed, and -then they bowed and said, “Our duty to you, sir, and madam”; and _they_ -bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, -all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and -the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and -give it to me and Buck,[5] and we drank to the old people too. - -Bob was the oldest and Tom next—tall, beautiful men with very broad -shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They -dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and -wore broad Panama hats. - -Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud -and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn’t stirred up; but -when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks, -like her father. She was beautiful. - -So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was -gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty. - -Each person had their own nigger to wait on them—Buck too. My nigger had -a monstrous easy time, because I warn’t used to having anybody do -anything for me, but Buck’s was on the jump most of the time. - -This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be -more—three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died. - -The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers. -Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or -fifteen miles around, and stay five or six days, and have such -junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the -woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly -kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a -handsome lot of quality, I tell you. - -There was another clan of aristocracy around there—five or six -families—mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned and -well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The -Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat-landing, which was -about two miles above our house; so sometimes when I went up there with -a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on -their fine horses. - -One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horse -coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says: - -“Quick! Jump for the woods!” - -We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty -soon a splendid young man came galloping down the road, setting his -horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his pommel. -I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck’s -gun go off at my ear, and Harney’s hat tumbled off from his head. He -grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was hid. But we -didn’t wait. We started through the woods on a run. The woods warn’t -thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and twice I -seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away the way he -came—to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn’t see. We never stopped -running till we got home. The old gentleman’s eyes blazed a minute—’twas -pleasure, mainly, I judged—then his face sort of smoothed down, and he -says, kind of gentle: - -“I don’t like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn’t you step into -the road, my boy?” - -“The Shepherdsons don’t, father. They always take advantage.” - -Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling -his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young -men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale, -but the color come back when she found the man warn’t hurt. - -Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by -ourselves, I says: - -“Did you want to kill him, Buck?” - -“Well, I bet I did.” - -“What did he do to you?” - -“Him? He never done nothing to me.” - -“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?” - -“Why, nothing—only it’s on account of the feud.” - -“What’s a feud?” - -“Why, where was you raised? Don’t you know what a feud is?” - -“Never heard of it before—tell me about it.” - -“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another -man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills _him_; then the -other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the _cousins_ -chip in—and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more -feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.” - -“Has this one been going on long, Buck?” - -“Well, I should _reckon_! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along -there. There was trouble ’bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle -it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man -that won the suit—which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody -would.” - -“What was the trouble about, Buck?—land?” - -“I reckon maybe—I don’t know.” - -“Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?” - -“Laws, how do _I_ know? It was so long ago.” - -“Don’t anybody know?” - -“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they -don’t know now what the row was about in the first place.” - -“Has there been many killed, Buck?” - -“Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don’t always kill. Pa’s -got a few buckshot in him; but he don’t mind it ’cuz he don’t weigh -much, anyway. Bob’s been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom’s been -hurt once or twice.” - -“Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?” - -“Yes, we got one and they got one. ’Bout three months ago my cousin Bud, -fourteen years old, was riding through the woods on t’other side of the -river, and didn’t have no weapon with him, which was blame’ foolishness, -and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind him, and sees -old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin’ after him with his gun in his hand and -his white hair a-flying in the wind; and ’stead of jumping off and -taking to the brush, Bud ’lowed he could outrun him; so they had it, nip -and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all the time; so -at last Bud seen it warn’t any use, so he stopped and faced around so as -to have the bullet-holes in front, you know, and the old man he rode up -and shot him down. But he didn’t get much chance to enjoy his luck, for -inside of a week our folks laid _him_ out.” - -“I reckon that old man a coward, Buck.” - -“I reckon he _warn’t_ a coward. Not by a blame’ sight. There ain’t a -coward amongst them Shepherdsons—not a one. And there ain’t no cowards -amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep’ up his end in a -fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out -winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got behind -a little woodpile, and kep’ his horse before him to stop the bullets; -but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around the old -man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and his -horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords had -to be _fetched_ home—and one of ’em was dead, and another died the next -day. No, sir; if a body’s out hunting for cowards he don’t want to fool -away any time amongst them Shepherdsons becuz they don’t breed any of -that _kind_.” - -Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody -a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them -between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The -Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about -brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a -good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a -powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and -preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me -to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet. - -About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their -chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a -dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up to -our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet Miss -Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took me in -her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her, and I -said I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her and not -tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she’d forgot her -Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other books, -and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say -nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the -road, and there warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, -for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor -in summertime because it’s cool. If you notice, most folks don’t go to -church only when they’ve got to; but a hog is different. - -Says I to myself, something’s up; it ain’t natural for a girl to be in -such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a -little piece of paper with “_Half-past two_” wrote on it with a pencil. -I ransacked it, but couldn’t find anything else. I couldn’t make -anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I -got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. -She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament -till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; -and before a body could think she grabbed me and gave me a squeeze, and -said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was -mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it -made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got -my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I -had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, -and I told her “no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper -warn’t anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and -play now. - -I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon -I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was out of -sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes -a-running and says: - -“Mars Jawge,[6] if you’ll come down into de swamp I’ll show you a whole -stack o’ water-moccasins.” - -Thinks I, that’s mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter to -know a body don’t love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for -them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says: - -“All right; trot ahead.” - -I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded -ankle-deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat piece -of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, -and he says: - -“You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; Dah’s whah dey is. -I’s seed ’m befo’; I don’t k’yer to see ’em no mo’.” - -Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid -him. I poked into the place a ways and come to a little open patch as -big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man lying there -asleep—and, by jings, it was my old Jim! - -I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to -him to see me again, but it warn’t. He nearly cried he was so glad, but -he warn’t surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard -me yell every time, but dasn’t answer, because he didn’t want nobody to -pick _him_ up and take him into slavery again. Says he: - -“I got hurt a little, en couldn’t swim fas’, so I wuz a considerable -ways behine you towards de las’; when you landed I reck’ned I could -ketch up wid you on de lan’ ’dout havin’ to shout at you, but when I see -dat house I begin to go slow. I ’uz off too far to hear what dey say to -you—I wuz ’fraid o’ de dogs; but when it ’uz all quiet ag’in I knowed -you’s in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early -in de mawnin’ some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey -tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can’t track me on accounts -o’ de water, end dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how -you’s a-gittin’ along.” - -“Why didn’t you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?” - -“Well, ’twarn’t no use to ’sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn—but -we’s all right, now. I ben a buyin’ pots en pans en vittles, as I got a -chanst, en a-patchin’ up de raf’, nights, when——” - -“_What_ raft, Jim?” - -“Our ole raf’.” - -“You mean to say our old raft warn’t smashed all to flinders?” - -“No, she warn’t. She was tore up a good deal—one en’ of her was; but dey -warn’t no great harm done, on’y our traps was mos’ all los’. Ef we hadn’ -dive’ so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn’t ben so -dark, en we warn’t so sk’yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin’ -is, we’d a seed de raf’. But it’s jis’ as well we didn’t, ’kase now -she’s all fixed up ag’in mos’ as good as new, en we’s got a new lot o’ -stuff, in the place o’ what ’uz los’.” - -“Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim—did you catch her?” - -“How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de niggers -foun’ her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben’, en dey hid her in a -crick ’mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin’ ’bout which un ’um -she b’long to de mos’ dat I come to heah ’bout it pooty soon, so I ups -en settles de trouble by tellin’ ’um she don’t b’long to none uv ’um, -but to you en me; en I ast ’m if dey gwyne to grab a young white -genlman’s propaty, en git a hid’n for it? Den I gin ’m ten cents apiece, -en dey ’uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo’ raf’s ’ud come along -en make ’m rich ag’in. Dey’s mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en -whatever I wants ’m to do fur me I doan’ have to ast ’m twice, honey. -Dat Jack’s a good nigger, en pooty smart.” - -“Yes, he is. He ain’t ever told me you was here; told me to come, and -he’d show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens _he_ ain’t -mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it’ll be the -truth.” - -I don’t want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I’ll cut it -pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and go -to sleep again when I noticed how still it was—didn’t seem to be anybody -stirring. That warn’t usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone. -Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down-stairs—nobody around; -everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, what -does it mean? Down by the woodpile I comes across my Jack and says: - -“What’s it all about?” - -Says he: - -“Don’t you know, Mars Jawge?” - -“No,” says I, “I don’t.” - -“Well, den, Miss Sophia’s run off! ’deed she has. She run off in de -night some time—nobody don’t know jis when; run off to get married to -dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know—leastways, so dey ’spec. De -fambly foun’ it out ’bout half an hour ago—maybe a little mo’—en’ I -_tell_ you dey warn’t no time los’. Sich another hurryin’ up guns en -hosses _you_ never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de -relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de river -road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him ’fo’ he kin git -acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck’n dey’s gwyne to be mighty rough -times.” - -“Buck went off ’thout waking me up.” - -“Well, I reck’n he _did_! Dey warn’t gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars -Buck loaded up his gun en ’lowed he’s gwyne to fetch home a Shepherdson -or bust. Well, dey’ll be plenty un ’m dah, I reck’n, en you bet you -he’ll fetch one ef he gits a chanst.” - -I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin to -hear guns a good ways off. When I came into sight of the log store and -the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees -and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the forks -of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a -wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I -was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn’t. - -There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open -place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at a -couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the -steamboat-landing—but they couldn’t come it. Every time one of them -showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The two -boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch -both ways. - -By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started -riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady -bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All -the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started -to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on the -run. They got half-way to the tree I was in before the men noticed. Then -the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after them. -They gained on the boys, but it didn’t do no good, the boys had too good -a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree, and -slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again. One of -the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about nineteen -years old. - -The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was -out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn’t know what to -make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful -surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men -come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or -other—wouldn’t be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I -dasn’t come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and ’lowed that him and his -cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day -yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or -three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck -said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations—the -Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of -young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they’d got across the river and -was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he -didn’t manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him—I hain’t never -heard anything like it. - -All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns—the men had -slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their -horses! The boys jumped for the river—both of them hurt—and as they swum -down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing -out, “Kill them, kill them!” It made me so sick I most fell out of the -tree. I ain’t a-going to tell _all_ that happened—it would make me sick -again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night -to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them—lots of times -I dream about them. - -I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down. -Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little -gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the -trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my -mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was -to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss -Sophia was to meet Harney some-wheres at half-past two, and run off; and -I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way -she acted, and then maybe he would ’a’ locked her up, and this awful -mess wouldn’t ever happened. - -When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a -piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and -tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, -and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering -up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me. - -It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through -the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn’t on his island, so I tramped -off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, red-hot -to jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was gone! My -souls, but I was scared! I couldn’t get my breath for most a minute. -Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me, says: - -“Good lan’! is dat you, honey? Doan’ make no noise.” - -It was Jim’s voice—nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the -bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was -so glad to see me. He says: - -“Laws bless you, chile, I ’uz right down sho’ you’s dead ag’in. Jack’s -been heah; he say he reck’n you’s been shot, kase you didn’t come home -no mo’; so I’s jes’ dis minute a-startin’ er raf’ down towards de mouf -er de crick, so’s to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack -comes ag’in en tells me for certain you _is_ dead. Lawdy, I’s mighty -glad to git you back ag’in, honey.” - -I says: - -“All right—that’s mighty good; they won’t find me, and they’ll think -I’ve been killed, and floated down the river—there’s something up there -that’ll help them think so—so don’t you lose no time, Jim, but just -shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can.” - -I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the -middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and -judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat -since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and -pork and cabbage and greens—there ain’t nothing in the world so good -when it’s cooked right—and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a -good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was -Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a -raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a -raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. - - - - - _FROM_ “A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT” (1886–7) - - - MEETING THE YANKEE - -It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I -am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid -simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the -restfulness of his company—for he did all the talking. We fell together, -as modest people will, in the tail of the herd that was being shown -through, and he at once began to say things which interested me. As he -talked along, softly, pleasantly, flowingly, he seemed to drift away -imperceptibly out of this world and time, and into some remote era and -old forgotten country; and so he gradually wove such a spell about me -that I seemed to move among the specters and shadows and dust and mold -of a gray antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it! Exactly as I -would speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies, or my most -familiar neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir -Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of the -Table Round—and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and -musty and ancient he came to look as he went on! Presently he turned to -me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, or any other common -matter— - -“You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about transposition -of epochs—and bodies?” - -I said I had not heard of it. He was so little interested—just as when -people speak of the weather—that he did not notice whether I made him -any answer or not. There was half a moment of silence, immediately -interrupted by the droning voice of the salaried cicerone: - -“Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur and the -Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le -Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in the left -breast; can’t be accounted for; supposed to have been done with a bullet -since invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously by Cromwell’s soldiers.” - -My acquaintance smiled—not a modern smile, but one that must have gone -out of general use many, many centuries ago—and muttered, apparently to -himself: - -“Wit ye well, _I saw it done_.” Then, after a pause, added: “I did it -myself.” - -By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this remark, -he was gone. - -All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick Arms, steeped in a -dream of the olden time, while the rain beat upon the windows, and the -wind roared about the eaves and corners. From time to time I dipped into -old Sir Thomas Malory’s enchanting book, and fed at its rich feast of -prodigies and adventures, breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete -names, and dreamed again. - -As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my stranger -came in. I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him welcome. I also -comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one; then still -another—hoping always for his story. After a fourth persuader, he -drifted into it himself, in a quite simple and natural way: - - - THE STRANGER’S HISTORY - -I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of -Connecticut—anyway, just over the river, in the country. So I am a -Yankee of the Yankees—and practical, yes, and nearly barren of -sentiment, I suppose—or poetry, in other words. My father was a -blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, and I was both, along at first. -Then I went over to the great arms factory and learned my real trade; -learned all there was to it; learned to make everything: guns, -revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-saving -machinery. Why, I could make anything a body wanted—anything in the -world, it didn’t make any difference what; and if there wasn’t any quick -new-fangled way to make a thing, I could invent one—and do it as easy as -rolling off a log. I became head superintendent; had a couple of -thousand men under me. - -Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight—that goes without -saying. With a couple of thousand men under one, one has plenty of that -sort of amusement. I had, anyway. At last I met my match, and I got my -dose. It was during a misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a -fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside -the head that made everything crack, and seemed to spring every joint in -my skull and make it overlap its neighbor. Then the world went out in -darkness, and I didn’t feel anything more, and didn’t know anything at -all—at least for a while. - -When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak tree, on the grass, -with a whole beautiful and broad country landscape all to myself—nearly. -Not entirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, looking down at me—a -fellow fresh out of a picture-book. He was in old-time iron armor from -head to heel, with a helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with -slits in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a prodigious spear; -and his horse had armor on, too, and a steel horn projecting from his -forehead, and gorgeous red and green silk trappings that hung down all -around him like a bedquilt, nearly to the ground. - -“Fair sir, will ye just?” said this fellow. - -“Will I which?” - -“Will ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or for——” - -“What are you giving me?” I said. “Get along back to your circus, or -I’ll report you.” - -Now what does this man do but fall back a couple of hundred yards and -then come rushing at me as hard as he could tear, with his nail-keg bent -down nearly to his horse’s neck and his long spear pointed straight -ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was up the tree when he arrived. - -He allowed that I was his property, the captive of his spear. There was -argument on his side—and the bulk of the advantage—so I judged it best -to humor him. We fixed up an agreement whereby I was to go with him and -he was not to hurt me. I came down, and we started away, I walking by -the side of his horse. We marched comfortably along, through glades and -over brooks which I could not remember to have seen before—which puzzled -me and made me wonder—and yet we did not come to any circus or sign of a -circus. So I gave up the idea of a circus, and concluded he was from an -asylum. But we never came to an asylum—so I was up a stump, as you may -say. I asked him how far we were from Hartford. He said he had never -heard of the place; which I took to be a lie, but allowed it to go at -that. At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley -by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with -towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture. - -“Bridgeport,” said I, pointing. - -“Camelot,” said he. - -My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness. He caught himself -nodding, now, and smiled one of those pathetic, obsolete smiles of his, -and said: - -“I find I can’t go on; but come with me, I’ve got it all written out, -and you can read it, if you like.” - -In his chamber, he said: “First, I kept a journal; then by and by, after -years, I took the journal and turned it into a book. How long ago that -was!” - -He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out the place where I should -begin: - -“Begin here—I’ve already told you what goes before.” He was steeped in -drowsiness by this time. As I went out at his door I heard him murmur -sleepily: “Give you good den, fair sir.” - -I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure. The first part of it—the -great bulk of it—was parchment, and yellow with age. I scanned a leaf -particularly and saw that it was a palimpsest. Under the old dim writing -of the Yankee historian appeared traces of a penmanship which was older -and dimmer still—Latin words and sentences: fragments from old monkish -legends, evidently. I turned to the place indicated by my stranger and -began to read. - - - THE ROUND TABLE[7] - -In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oaken -table which was called the Table Round. It was as large as a circus -ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressed in such various -and splendid colors that it hurt one’s eyes to look at them. They wore -their plumed hats, right along, except that whenever one addressed -himself directly to the king, he lifted his hat a trifle just as he was -beginning his remark. - -Mainly they were drinking—from entire ox horns; but a few were still -munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was about an average of two -dogs to one man; and these sat in expectant attitudes till a spent bone -was flung to them, and then they went for it by brigades and divisions, -with a rush, and there ensued a fight which filled the prospect with a -tumultuous chaos of plunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and -the storm of howlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but -that was no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interest -anyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet on it, -and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out over their -balusters with the same object; and all broke into delighted -ejaculation, from time to time. In the end, the winning dog stretched -himself out comfortably with his bone between his paws, and proceeded to -growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease the floor with it, just as fifty -others were already doing; and the rest of the court resumed their -previous industries and entertainments. - -As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were gracious and -courtly; and I noticed that they were good and serious listeners when -anybody was telling anything—I mean in a dog-fightless interval. And -plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot; telling lies of -the stateliest pattern with a most gentle and winning naiveté, and ready -and willing to listen to anybody else’s lie, and believe it, too. It was -hard to associate them with anything cruel or dreadful; and yet they -dealt in tales of blood and suffering with a guileless relish that made -me almost forget to shudder. - -Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues—narrative accounts of the -adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their friends and -backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor. As a general -thing—as far as I could make out—these murderous adventures were not -forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to settle old disputes or -sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were simple duels between -strangers—duels between people who had never even been introduced to -each other, and between whom existed no cause of offense whatever. Many -a time I had seen a couple of boys, strangers, meet by chance, and say -simultaneously, “I can lick you,” and go at it on the spot; but I had -always imagined until now that that sort of thing belonged to children -only, and was a sign and mark of childhood; but here were these big -boobies sticking to it and taking pride in it clear up into full age, -and beyond. Yet there was something very engaging about these great -simple-hearted creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did -not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait -a fish-hook with; but you didn’t seem to mind that; after a little, you -soon saw that brains were not needed in a society like that, and indeed -would have marred it, spoiled its symmetry—perhaps rendered its -existence impossible. - - - THE YANKEE REFLECTS - -Why, dear me, _any_ kind of royalty, howsoever modified, _any_ kind of -aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born -and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it -out for yourself, and don’t believe it when somebody else tells you. It -is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of -froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or -reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its -aristocracies—a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would -have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to -their own exertions. - - - PERFECT GOVERNMENT - -The despotism of heaven is the one absolutely perfect government. An -earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect earthly government, if -the conditions were the same, namely, the despot the perfectest -individual of the human race, and his lease of life perpetual. But as a -perishable perfect man must die, and leave his despotism in the hands of -an imperfect successor, an earthly despotism is not merely a bad form of -government, it is the worst form that is possible. - - - MAIDS IN DISTRESS - -There never was such a country for wandering liars; and they were of -both sexes. Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps arriving; -and generally loaded with a tale about some princess or other wanting -help to get her out of some far-away castle where she was held in -captivity by a lawless scoundrel, usually a giant. Now you would think -that the first thing the king would do after listening to such a -novelette from an entire stranger, would be to ask for credentials—yes, -and a pointer or two as to locality of castle, best route to it, and so -on. But nobody ever thought of so simple and common-sense a thing as -that. No, everybody swallowed these people’s lies whole, and never asked -a question of any sort or about anything. Well, one day when I was not -around, one of these people came along—it was a she one, this time—and -told a tale of the usual pattern. Her mistress was a captive in a vast -and gloomy castle, along with forty-four other young and beautiful -girls, pretty much all of them princesses; they had been languishing in -that cruel captivity for twenty-six years; the masters of the castle -were three stupendous brothers, each with four arms and one eye—the eye -in the center of the forehead, and as big as a fruit. Sort of fruit not -mentioned; their usual slovenliness in statistics. - -Would you believe it? The king and the whole Round Table were in -raptures over this preposterous opportunity for adventure. Every knight -of the Table jumped for the chance, and begged for it; but to their -vexation and chagrin the king conferred it upon me, who had not asked -for it at all. - - - A KNIGHT’S AVERAGE - -If knights errant were to be believed, not all castles were desirable -places to seek hospitality in. As a matter of fact, knights errant were -_not_ persons to be believed—that is, measured by modern standards of -veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled -accordingly, you got the truth. It was very simple: you discounted a -statement ninety-seven per cent.; the rest was fact. - - - SIXTH CENTURY KINGDOMS - -“Kings” and “Kingdoms” were as thick in Britain as they had been in -little Palestine in Joshua’s time, when people had to sleep with their -knees pulled up because they couldn’t stretch out without a passport. - - - NATURE - -Training—training is everything; training is all there is _to_ a person. -We speak of nature; what we call by that misleading name is heredity and -training. We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they -are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, and -therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be covered up -and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms -contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that -stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey -from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and -unprofitably developed. - - - CONSCIENCE - -If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn’t have any conscience. It is one -of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it -certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the -long run; it would be much better to have less good and more comfort. -Still, this is only my opinion, and I am only one man; others, with less -experience, may think differently. They have a right to their views. I -only stand to this; I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I -know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started -with. I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we prize -anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. If we -look at it in another way we see how absurd it is: if I had an anvil in -me would I prize it? Of course not. And yet when you come to think, -there is no real difference between a conscience and an anvil—I mean for -comfort. I have noticed it a thousand times. And you could dissolve an -anvil with acids, when you couldn’t stand it any longer; but there isn’t -any way that you can work off a conscience—at least, so it will stay -worked off; not that I know of, anyway. - - - THE GERMAN TONGUE[8] - -I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and shuddery reverence for -this girl; nowadays whenever she pulled out from the station and got her -train fairly started on one of those horizonless transcontinental -sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that I was standing in the -awful presence of the Mother of the German Language. I was so impressed -with this, that sometimes when she began to empty one of these sentences -on me I unconsciously took the very attitude of reverence, and stood -uncovered; and if words had been water, I had been drowned, sure. She -had exactly the German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, -whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopædia, or the history of a -war, she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the -literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to -see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his -verb in his mouth. - - - GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE - -There is a phrase which has grown so common in the world’s mouth that it -has come to seem to have sense and meaning—the sense and meaning implied -when it is used; that is the phrase which refers to this or that or the -other nation as possibly being “capable of self-government”; and the -implied sense of it is, that there has been a nation somewhere, some -time or other which _wasn’t_ capable of it—wasn’t as able to govern -itself as some self-appointed specialists were, or would be, to govern -it. The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in -affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the -nation only—not from its privileged classes; and so, no matter what the -nation’s intellectual grade was, whether high or low, the bulk of its -ability was in the long ranks of its nameless and its poor, and so it -never saw the day that it had not the material in abundance whereby to -govern itself. Which is to assert an always self-proven fact; that even -the best governed and most free and most enlightened monarchy is still -behind the best condition attainable by its people; and that the same is -true of kindred governments of lower grades, all the way down to the -lowest. - - - PROPHECY - -A prophet doesn’t have to have any brains. They are good to have, of -course, for the ordinary exigencies of life, but they are of no use in -professional work. It is the restfullest vocation there is. When the -spirit of prophecy comes upon you, you merely take your intellect and -lay it off in a cool place for a rest, and unship your jaw and leave it -alone; it will work itself: the result is prophecy. - - - HARD WORK - -Words realize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you have suffered -in your own person the thing which the words try to describe. There are -wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about “the -working classes,” and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual -work is very much harder than a day’s hard manual toil, and is -righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, -you know, because they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the -other. But I know all about both; and so far as I am concerned, there -isn’t money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pick-axe thirty -days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as -near nothing as you can cipher it down—and I will be satisfied, too. - - - STILL HOPE - -Yes, there is plenty good enough material for a republic in the most -degraded people that ever existed—even the Russians; plenty of manhood -in them—even in the Germans—if one could but force it out of its timid -and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any throne -that ever was set up and any nobility that ever supported it. - - - THE HUMAN RACE - -Toward the shaven monk who trudged along with his cowl tilted back and -the sweat washing down his fat jowls, the coal-burner was deeply -reverent; to the gentleman he was abject; with the small farmer and the -free mechanic he was cordial and gossipy; and when a slave passed by -with a countenance respectfully lowered, this chap’s nose was in the -air—he couldn’t even see him. Well, there are times when one would like -to hang the whole human race and finish the farce. - - - THE KING IN SLAVERY[9] - -We had a rough time for a month, tramping to and fro in the earth, and -suffering. And what Englishman was the most interested in the slavery -question by that time? His grace, the king! Yes; from being the most -indifferent, he was become the most interested. He was become the -bitterest hater of the institution I had ever heard talk.... - -Now and then we had an adventure. One night we were overtaken by a -snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making for. -Almost instantly we were shut up as in a fog, the driving snow was so -thick. You couldn’t see a thing, and we were soon lost. The slave-driver -lashed us desperately, for he saw ruin before him, but his lashings only -made matters worse, for they drove us further from the road and from -likelihood of succor. So we had to stop at last and slump down in the -snow where we were. The storm continued until toward midnight, then -ceased. By this time two of our feebler men and three of our women were -dead, and others past moving and threatened with death. Our master was -nearly beside himself. He stirred up the living and made us stand, jump, -slap ourselves, to restore our circulation, and he helped as well as he -could with his whip. - -Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and yells, and soon a woman came -running and crying; and seeing our group, she flung herself into our -midst and begged for protection. A mob of people came tearing after her, -some with torches, and they said she was a witch who had caused several -cows to die by a strange disease, and practiced her arts by help of a -devil in the form of a black cat. This poor woman had been stoned until -she hardly looked human, she was so battered and bloody. The mob wanted -to burn her. - -Well, now, what do you suppose our master did? When we closed around -this poor creature to shelter her, he saw his chance. He said, burn her -here, or they shouldn’t have her at all. Imagine that! They were -willing. They fastened her to a post; they brought wood and piled it -about her; they applied the torch, while she shrieked and pleaded and -strained her two young daughters to her breast; and our brute, with a -heart solely for business, lashed us into position about the stake and -warmed us into life and commercial value by the same fire which took -away the innocent life of that poor harmless mother. That was the sort -of master we had. I took _his_ number. That snow-storm cost him nine of -his flock; and he was more brutal to us than ever, after that, for many -days together, he was so enraged over his loss. - - - - - _FROM_ “RAMBLING NOTES OF AN IDLE EXCURSION” (1877) - - - WHAT WE SAW IN BERMUDA - -We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was thinking of saying -in print in a general way, that there were none at all; but one night -after I had gone to bed, the Reverend came into my room carrying -something, and asked, “Is this your boot?” I said it was, and he said he -had met a spider going off with it. Next morning he stated that just at -dawn the same spider raised his window and was coming in to get his -shirt, but saw him and fled. - -I inquired, “Did he get the shirt?” - -“No.” - -“How did you know it was a shirt he was after?” - -“I could see it in his eyes.” - -We inquired around, but could hear of no Bermudian spider capable of -doing these things. Citizens said that their largest spiders could not -more than spread their legs over an ordinary saucer, and that they had -always been considered honest. Here was testimony of a clergyman against -the testimony of mere worldlings—interested ones, too. On the whole, I -judged it best to lock up my things. - -Here and there on the country roads we found lemon, papaw, orange, lime, -and fig-trees; also several sorts of palms, among them the cocoa, the -date, and the palmetto. We saw some bamboos forty feet high, with stems -as thick as a man’s arm. Jungles of the mangrove-tree stood up out of -swamps, propped on their interlacing roots, as upon a tangle of stilts. -In dryer places the noble tamarind sent down its grateful cloud of -shade. Here and there the blossomy tamarisk adorned the roadside. There -was a curious gnarled and twisted black tree, without a single leaf on -it. It might have passed itself off for a dead apple tree but for the -fact that it had a star-like, red-hot flower sprinkled sparsely over its -person. It had the scattery red glow that a constellation might have -when glimpsed through smoked glass.... - -We saw a tree that bears grapes, and just as calmly and unostentatiously -as a vine would do it. We saw an india-rubber-tree, but out of season, -possibly, so there were no shoes on it, nor suspenders, nor anything -that a person would properly expect to find there. This gave it an -impressively fraudulent look. There was exactly one mahogany tree on the -island. I know this to be reliable, because I saw a man who said he had -counted it many a time and could not be mistaken. He was a man with a -harelip and a pure heart, and everybody said he was as true as steel. -Such men are all too few. - - - - - _FROM_ “PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S CALENDAR” (1892–3) - - -Tell the truth or trump—but get the trick. - - -Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for -the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The -mistake was in not forbidding the serpent. Then he would have eaten the -serpent. - - -Whosoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep -a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our -race. He brought death into the world. - - -Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they -escaped teething. - - -There is this trouble about special providences—namely, there is so -often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In -the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more -real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they -got the children. - - -Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower -is nothing but cabbage with a college education. - - -Remarks of Dr. Baldwin’s, concerning upstarts: We don’t care to eat -toadstools that think they are truffles. - - -Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker -will be sorry. - - -Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but -coaxed down-stairs a step at a time. - - -One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a -cat has only nine lives. - - -The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and -enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not -asked to lend money. - - -Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young -junebug than an old bird of paradise. - - -Why is it that we rejoice at birth and grieve at a funeral? It is -because we are not the person involved. - - -It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a -man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, -complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. - - -All say, “How hard it is that we have to die”—a strange complaint to -come from the mouths of people who have had to live. - - -When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. - - -There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three -form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of -his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him -to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you -to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you -clear into his heart. - - -As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. - - -Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. -Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is -brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the -flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance -of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack -you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to -him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives -both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and -the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the -man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake -ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson and Putman as men -who “didn’t know what fear was,” we ought always to add the flea—and put -him at the head of the procession. - - -When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have -gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life. - - -October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in -stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, -May, March, June, December, August, and February. - - -The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned -with commoner things. It is chief of this world’s luxuries, king by the -grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, -he knows what the angels eat. It was not a southern watermelon that Eve -took: we know it because she repented. - - -Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. - - -Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket”—which -is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but -the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and—_watch that -basket_.” - - -If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite -you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - - -We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of -the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It -seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for -studying the oyster. - - -Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full -of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that -you didn’t see him do it. - - -_July 4._ Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on -all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number -left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the -country has grown so. - - -Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, -but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use -plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji. - - -Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good -example. - - -It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of -opinion that makes horse races. - - -Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to -be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great -caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman: if you -have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take -simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth. - - -_April 1._ This the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the -other three hundred and sixty-four. - - -It is often the case that the man who can’t tell a lie thinks he is the -best judge of one. - - -October 12, the _Discovery_. It was wonderful to find America, but it -would have been more wonderful to miss it. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED” (1885) - - - THE MARION RANGERS - -You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is -it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started -out to do something in it, but didn’t? Thousands entered the war, got -just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently.... - -In that summer—of 1861—the first wash of the wave of war broke upon the -shores of Missouri. Our state was invaded by the Union forces. They took -possession of St. Louis, Jefferson Barracks, and some other points. The -Governor, Calib Jackson, issued his proclamation calling out fifty -thousand militia to repel the invader. - -I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been -spent—Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret -place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom -Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military -experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no -first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen -of us. By the advice of an innocent connected with the organization we -called ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that any one -found fault with the name. I did not; I thought it sounded quite well. -The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a fair sample of -the kind of stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured, -well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric -novels and singing forlorn love ditties. He had some pathetic little -nickel-plated aristocratic instincts, and detested his name, which was -Dunlap; detested it partly because it was nearly as common in that -region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear. -So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way: _d’Unlap_. That -contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new -name the same old pronunciation—emphasis on the front end of it. He then -did the bravest thing that can be imagined—a thing to make one shiver -when one remembers how the world is given to resenting shams and -affectations; he began to write his name so: _d’Un Lap_. And he waited -patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of -art, and he had his reward at last; for he lived to see that name -accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it by people who had -known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as -familiar as the rain and sunshine for forty years. So sure of victory at -last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by consulting -some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and originally -written d’Un Lap; and said that if it were translated into English it -would mean Peterson: _Lap_, Latin or Greek, he said, for stone or rock, -same as the French _pierre_, that is to say Peter; _d’_ of or from; -_un_, a or one; hence, d’Un Lap, of or from a stone or a Peter; that is -to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a Peter—Peterson. Our -militia company were not learned, and the explanation confused them; so -they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved useful to us in his way; he -named our camps for us, and he generally struck a name that was “no -slouch,” as the boys said. - -That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town -jeweler—trim built, handsome, graceful, neat as a cat; bright, educated, -but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in life to -him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of ours was -simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked upon it in -the same way; not consciously perhaps, but unconsciously. We did not -think; we were not capable of it. As for myself, I was full of -unreasoning joy to be done with turning out of bed at midnight and four -in the morning for a while; grateful to have a change, new scenes, new -occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts that was as far as I went; I -did not go into the details; as a rule, one doesn’t at twenty-four. - -Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith’s apprentice. This vast donkey -had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; at one -time he would knock a horse down for some impropriety, and at another he -would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his -account which some of us hadn’t; he stuck to the war, and was killed in -battle at last. - -Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lubber; -lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an -experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar, -and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, -but was allowed to come up just anyway. This life was serious enough to -him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good fellow, anyway, and the -boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made -corporal. - -These samples will answer—and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd -of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did -as well as they knew how; but really what was justly to be expected of -them? Nothing, I should say. That is what they did.... - -For a time life was idly delicious, it was perfect; there was nothing to -mar it. Then came some farmers with an alarm one day. They said it was -rumored that the enemy were advancing in our direction from over Hyde’s -Prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us and general consternation. -It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The rumor was but a -rumor—nothing definite about it; so, in the confusion, we did not know -which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at all, in these -uncertain circumstances; but he found that if he tried to maintain that -attitude he would fare badly, for the command were in no humor to put up -with insubordination. So he yielded the point and called a council of -war—to consist of himself and the three other officers; but the privates -made such a fuss about being left out that we had to allow them to -remain, for they were already present, and doing the most of the -talking, too. The question was, which way to retreat; but all were so -flurried that nobody seemed to have even a guess to offer. Except Lyman. -He explained in a few calm words that, inasmuch as the enemy was -approaching from over Hyde’s Prairie, our course was simple; all we had -to do was not to retreat _towards_ him; any other direction would answer -our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was, and -how wise; so Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided that -we should fall back on Mason’s farm. - -It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the -enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and -things with us; so we only took the guns and ammunition, and started at -once. - -We heard a sound, and held our breath and listened, and it seemed to be -the enemy coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough -like a cow; but we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind and -struck out for Mason’s again, as briskly as we could scramble along in -the dark. But we got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and -wasted a deal of time finding the way again, so it was after nine -o’clock when we reached Mason’s stile at last; and then before we could -open our mouths to give the countersign several dogs came bounding over -the fence, with great riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier by -the slack of his trousers and began to back away with him. We could not -shoot the dogs without endangering the persons they were attached to; so -we had to look on helplessly, at what was perhaps the most mortifying -spectacle of the Civil War. There was light enough, and to spare, for -the Masons had now run out on the porch with candles in their hands. The -old man and his son came and undid the dogs without difficulty, all but -Bowers’s; but they couldn’t undo his dog, they didn’t know his -combination; he was of the bull kind, and seemed to be set with a Yale -time-lock; but they got him loose at last with some scalding water, of -which Bowers got his share and returned thanks. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC” - - - JOAN - -To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must -judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards -of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of -their luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no -illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet -the test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique. It -can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving or -apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, judged by all of -them, it is still flawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still -occupies the loftiest place possible to human attainment, a loftier one -than has been reached by any other mere mortal. - -When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the -rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at -the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her -and her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful -when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was -become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a -promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great -thoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves -upon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine, -and delicate, when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal; -she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was -steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had -forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when -men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly -true in an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal -dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a -dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of -her nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the -highest places was foul in both—she was all these things in an age when -crime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest -personages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era -and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black -with unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and bestialities. - -She was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a -place in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can -be found in any word or deed of hers. When she had rescued her king from -his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head she was offered rewards -and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing. All she -would take for herself—if the king would grant it—was leave to go back -to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her mother’s -arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The selfishness of this -unspoiled general of victorious army, companion of princes, an idol of -an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and no farther. - - - THE FAIRY TREE - -In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward -Vaucouleur stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and -a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on -summer days the children went there—oh, every summer for more than five -hundred years—went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours -together, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it -was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and -hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that -lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures, -as all fairies are and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild -flowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the -fairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as -keeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away -serpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness -between the fairies and the children during more than five hundred -years—tradition said a thousand—but only the warmest affection and the -most perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies -mourned just as that child’s playmates did, and the sign of it was there -to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little -immortelle over the place where the child was used to sit under the -tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the -reason it was known that the fairies did it was this—that it was made -all of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere. - -Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the -Children of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it a -mystic privilege not granted to any other of the children of this world. -Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond the vague -and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose soft and -rich and fair a vision of the tree—if all was well with his soul. That -was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a -warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul was the -captive of sin, and then the tree appeared in its desolate winter -aspect—then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If repentance -came, and purity of life the vision came again, this time summer-clad -and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the vision was -withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still others said -that the vision came but once and then only to the sinless dying forlorn -in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear reminder of -their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts like the -picture of the tree that was the darling of their love and the comrade -of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through the divine -days of their vanished youth? - -Now the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and -some another. One of them I know to be the truth, and that was the last -one. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true, -but I only _know_ that the last one was; and it is my thought that if -one keep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which -he cannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it—and there -is profit in that. I know that when the children of the tree die in a -far land, then—if they be at peace with God—they turn their longing eyes -toward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that -curtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the fairy tree, clothed in -a dream of golden light; and they see the blooming meads sloping away to -the river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet the -fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and -passes—but _they_ know, _they_ know! and by their transfigured faces you -know also, you stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has -come, and that it has come from heaven. - -Joan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel, and -Jacques d’Arc and many others believed that the vision appeared twice—to -a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they _knew_ it. Probably -because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one gets most -things at second hand in this world.... - -Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and -danced around the fairy tree they sang the song which was the tree’s -song, the song of _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont_. They sang it to a quaint -sweet air—a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my -dreaming spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me -and carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can -know or feel what that song has been through the drifting centuries to -exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries -foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that -song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to us, -and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our -memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the -water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices -break and we cannot sing the last lines: - - “And when, in exile wand’ring, we - Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, - Oh, rise upon our sight!” - -and you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the -tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And _that_ -hallows it, yes, you will grant that: - - - _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont._ - - Song of the children - Now what has kept your leaves so green, - Arbre Fée de Bourlemont? - The children’s tears! they brought each grief, - And you did comfort them and cheer - Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear - That, healèd, rose, a leaf. - - And what has built you up so strong, - Arbre Fée de Bourlemont? - The children’s love! they’ve loved you long: - Ten hundred years, in sooth, - They’ve nourished you with praise and song, - And warmed your heart and kept it young— - A thousand years of youth! - - Bide always green in our young hearts, - Arbre Fée de Bourlemont! - And we shall always youthful be, - Not heeding Time his flight; - And when, in exile wand’ring, we - Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, - Oh, rise upon our sight! - - - JOAN BEFORE RHEIMS - -We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July, -we came in sight of our goal and saw the great cathedral towers of -Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from -van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse, -gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a -deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a -spirit! Her sublime mission was closing—closing in flawless triumph. -To-morrow she could say, “It is finished—let me go free.” - - - JOAN’S REWARD - -The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the -peasant child stood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the heir of -France was crowned. - -She was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her -face as she sank to her knees at the king’s feet and looked up at him -through her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and -low and broken: - -“Now, O gentle king, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to -his command that you should come to Rheims and receive the crown that -belongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was given -me to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my -mother, who is poor and old, and has need of me.” - -The king raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her -great deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her nobility and -titles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a -household and officers for her according to her dignity; and then he -said: - -“You have saved the crown. Speak—require—demand; and whatsoever grace -you ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet -it.” - -Now that was fine, that was loyal. Joan was on her knees again -straightway, and said: - -“Then, O gentle king, if out of your compassion you will speak the word, -I pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard-pressed by -reason of the war, may have its taxes remitted.” - -“It is so commanded. Say on.” - -“That is all.” - -“All? Nothing but that?” - -“It is all. I have no other desire.” - -“But that is nothing—less than nothing. Ask—do not be afraid.” - -“Indeed, I cannot, gentle king. Do not press me. I will not have aught -else, but only this alone.” - -The king seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to -comprehend and realize the full stature of this strange unselfishness. -Then he raised his head and said: - -“She has won a kingdom and crowned its king; and all she asks and all -she will take is this poor grace—and even this is for others, not for -herself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of -one who carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that any -king could add, though he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now, -therefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village -of Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is -freed from all taxation _forever_.” - - - - - _FROM_ “SAINT JOAN OF ARC” (1899) - - -There is no one to compare her with, none to measure her by; for all -others among the illustrious _grew_ towards their high place in an -atmosphere and surroundings which discovered their gift to them and -nourished it and promoted it, intentionally or unconsciously. There have -been other young generals, but they were not girls; young generals, but -they have been soldiers before they were generals: she _began_ as a -general. She commanded the first army she ever saw; she led it from -victory to victory, and never lost a battle with it; there have been -young commanders-in-chief, but none so young as she: she is the only -soldier in history who has held the supreme command of a nation’s armies -at the age of seventeen. - - - - - _FROM_ “FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR” - PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S NEW CALENDAR - (1896–7) - - -A man may have no bad habits and have worse. - - -When in doubt, tell the truth. - - -It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right. - - -A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic -compliment. - - -Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as -if she had laid an asteroid. - - -He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits. - - -Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. - - -It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no -distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - - -It is your human environment that makes climate. - - -Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not -joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. - - -We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is -in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot -stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is -well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. - - -There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and -shallow. Yet it was the schoolboy who said, “Faith is believing what you -know ain’t so.” - - -We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but -our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of -securing that. - - -Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably -familiar with it. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because -Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. - - -There is a Moral Sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us -that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid -it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how -to enjoy it. - - -The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they -shall inherit the earth. - - -It is easier to stay out than to get out. - - -Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead. - - -It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three -unspeakably precious things: Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, -and the prudence never to practice either of them. - - -Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to -get himself envied. - - -Nothing is so ignorant as a man’s left hand, except a lady’s watch. - - -Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul. - - -There is no such thing as “the Queen’s English.” The property has gone -into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the -shares. - - -“_Classic._” A book which people praise and don’t read. - - -There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep -from telling their happiness to the unhappy. - - -Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. - - -The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what -there is of it. - - -Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not -succeed. - - -When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in -his private heart no man much respects himself. - - -Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops: man would have made -him with an appetite for sand. - - -The spirit of wrath—not the words—is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is -cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk. - - -The man with a new idea is a Crank till the idea succeeds. - - -Let us be grateful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the -“blessing” of idleness and won for us the “curse” of labor. - - -Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand -diamonds than none at all. - - -The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the -earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze. - - -There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest -is cowardice. - - -Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is -pronounced Jackson. - - -To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, -concealment of it will do. - - -Prosperity is the best protector of principle. - - -By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I -mean. - - -Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean. - - -There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty. “When you -ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.” - - -Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others—his -last breath. - - -Hunger is the handmaid of genius. - - -The old saw says, “Let a sleeping dog lie.” Right. Still, when there is -much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it. - - -It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to -the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. - - -If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, -who would escape hanging? - - -Simple rules for saving money: To save half, when you are fired by an -eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count forty. To save -three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five. - - -Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you -must have somebody to divide it with. - - -He had had much experience of physicians, and said “the only way to keep -your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, -and do what you’d druther not.” - - -The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that -wears a fig-leaf. - - -Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its -laws or its songs either. - - -Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. - - -Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a -bad investment; but when relief begins the unexpired remainder is worth -$4.00 a minute. - - -True irreverence is disrespect to another man’s god. - - -There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when -he can’t afford it, and when he can. - - -She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what -you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a -parrot. - - -Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. -This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty -without pain. - - -Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist -but you have ceased to live. - - -Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the truth. - -Satan (impatiently) to Newcomer: The trouble with you Chicago people is, -that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely -the most numerous. - - -In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made -School Boards. - - -There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined ones. - - -In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the -moralities. - - -Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. - - -The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid -prejudice. - - -There isn’t a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the -Equator if it had had its rights. - - -I have traveled more than any one else, and I have noticed that even the -angels speak English with an accent. - - - ART - -Whenever I enjoy anything in Art it means that it is mighty poor. The -private knowledge of this fact has saved me from going to pieces with -enthusiasm in front of many and many a chromo. - - - ITALIAN CIGARS - -In Italy, as in France, the Government is the only cigar-peddler. Italy -has three or four domestic brands: the Minghetti, the Trabuco, the -Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a modification of the Virginia. -The Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three dollars and sixty -cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in seven days and enjoy every one -of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I don’t remember the price. But one -has to learn to like the Virginia, nobody is born friendly to it. It -looks like a rat-tail file, but smokes better, some think. It has a -straw through it; you pull this out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise -there would be no draught, not even as much as there is to a nail. Some -prefer a nail at first. - - - - - _FROM_ “CONCERNING THE JEWS” (1898) - - - THE HUMAN BEING - -I’m quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I -have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. -Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is -that a man is a human being—that is enough for me; he can’t be any -worse. - - - THE IMMORTAL RACE - -If the statistics are right the Jews constitute but _one per cent._ of -the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the -blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; -but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the -planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is -extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His -contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, -art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are always away out -of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous -fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands -tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The -Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with -sound and splendor then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek -and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and were gone; other -people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it -burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw -them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no -decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing -of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things -are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is -the secret of his immortality? - - - - - _FROM_ “CHRISTIAN SCIENCE” (1898) - - - THE C. S. HEALER - -She was middle-aged, and large and bony, and erect, and had an austere -face and a resolute jaw and a Roman beak and was a widow in the third -degree, and her name was Fuller. I was eager to get to business and find -relief, but she was distressingly deliberate. She unpinned and unhooked -and uncoupled her upholsteries one by one, abolished the wrinkles with a -flirt of her hand, and hung the articles up; peeled off her gloves and -disposed of them, got a book out of her hand-bag, then drew a chair to -the bedside, descended into it without hurry and I hung out my tongue. -She said, with pity but without passion: - -“Return it to its receptacle. We deal with the mind only, not with its -dumb servants.” - -I could not offer my pulse, because the connection was broken; but she -detected the apology before I could word it, and indicated by a negative -tilt of her head that the pulse was another dumb servant that she had no -use for. Then I thought I would tell her my symptoms and how I felt, so -that she would understand the case; but that was another inconsequence, -she did not need to know those things; moreover, my remark about how I -felt was an abuse of language, a misapplication of terms. - -“One does not _feel_” she explained; “there is no such thing as feeling: -therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent is a -contradiction. Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; the -mind cannot feel pain, it can only imagine it.” - -“But if it hurts, just the same——” - -“It doesn’t. A thing which is unreal cannot exercise the functions of -reality. Pain is unreal; hence, pain cannot hurt.” - -In making a sweeping gesture to indicate the act of shooing the illusion -of pain out of the mind, she raked her hand on a pin in her dress, said -“Ouch!” and went tranquilly on with her talk. “You should never allow -yourself to speak of how you feel, nor permit others to ask you how you -are feeling; you should never concede that you are ill, nor permit -others to talk about disease or pain or death or similar non-existences -in your presence. Such talk only encourages the mind to continue its -empty imaginings.” - -Just at that point the _Stubenmädchen_ trod on the cat’s tail, and the -cat let fly a frenzy of cat profanity. I asked, with caution: - -“Is a cat’s opinion about pain valuable?” - -“A cat has no opinion; opinions proceed from mind only; the lower -animals being eternally perishable, have not been granted mind; without -mind, opinion is impossible.” - -“She merely _imagined_ she felt a pain—the cat?” - -“She cannot imagine a pain, for imagining is an effect of mind; without -mind there is no imagination. A cat has no imagination.” - -“Then she had a _real_ pain?” - -“I have already told you there is no such _thing_ as real pain.” - -“It is strange and interesting. I do wonder what was the matter with the -cat.” - - - - - _FROM_ “ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER” (1903) - - - THE HOME PRODUCT - -Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies, -explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people, -and when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers we -do not get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the trouble -with an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the -whole earth for blood and garbage and the result is that you are daily -overfed and suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but -you come by and by to take no vital interest in it—indeed, you almost -get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns -strangers only—people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand -miles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come to -think of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not give -the assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those -others. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal -is more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone -rotten. Give me the home product every time. - - - THE CHARM OF UNCERTAINTY - -There is a great, a peculiar charm about reading news scraps in a -language which you are not acquainted with—the charm that always goes -with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely sure -of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are -chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns -and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would -soil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a vale of -dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and -practical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable -mystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for the -benefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious -word? Would you be properly grateful? - - - - - _FROM_ “EVE’S DIARY” (1905) - - - HER CHIEF DESIRE - -It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life -together—a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall -have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; -and it shall be called by my name. - -But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for -he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to -me—life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This -prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered while my -race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be -repeated. - - - AT EVE’S GRAVE - -Adam: Wheresoever she was, _there_ was Eden. - - - WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1905) - -For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and -astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great -qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness, and enforced and -seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without -his peer in the English-writing world. _Sustained._ I intrench myself -behind that protecting word. There are others who exhibit those great -qualities as greatly as he does, but only by intervaled distributions of -rich moonlight, with stretches of veiled and dimmer landscape between; -whereas Howell’s moon sails cloudless skies all night and all the -nights. - - - - - MISCELLANEOUS (1905–9) - - - MAKING THE OYSTER - -You can’t make an oyster out of nothing, nor you can’t do it in a day. -You’ve got to start with a vast variety of invertebrates, the -belemnites, trilobites, jubusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and -put them in to soak in a primary sea and observe and wait what will -happen. Some of them will turn out a disappointment; the belemnites and -the amalekites and such will be failures, and they will die out and -become extinct in the course of the nineteen million years covered by -the experiment; but all is not lost, for the jubusites will develop -gradually into encrinites and stalactites and blatherskites, and one -thing and another, as the mighty ages creep on and the periods pile -their lofty crags in the primordial seas, and at last the first grand -stages in the preparation of the world for man stands completed, the -oyster is done. Now an oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a -man has, so it is probable that this one jumped to the conclusion that -the nineteen million years was a preparation for _him_. That would be -just like an oyster, and, anyway, this one could not know at that early -date that he was only an incident in the scheme, and that there was some -more to the scheme yet. (Mark Twain—A Biography). - - - THE FATALITY OF SEQUENCE - -When the first living atom found itself afloat on the great Laurentian -sea the first act of that first atom led to the _second_ act of that -first atom, and so on down through the succeeding ages of all life, -until, if the steps could be traced, it would be shown that the first -act of that first atom has led inevitably to the act of my standing in -my dressing gown at this instant, talking to you. (Mark Twain—A -Biography). - - - LIFE’S TURNING POINT - -Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of -yours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was -forged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of me -into the literary guild. Adam’s _temperament_ was the first command the -Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only -command Adam would _never_ be able to disobey. It said, “Be weak, be -water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable.” The later command, to -let the fruit alone was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, -but by his _temperament_—which he did not create and had no authority -over. For the _temperament_ is the man; the thing tricked out with -clothes and named Man is merely its shadow, nothing more. The law of the -tiger’s temperament is, Thou shalt kill; the law of the sheep’s -temperament is, Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring -the tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to -imbue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those -commands _can’t_ be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law -of _temperament_, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other -authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That -is, in their temperaments. Not in _them_, poor helpless young -creatures—afflicted with temperaments made out of butter; which butter -was commanded to get into contact with fire and _be melted_. What I -cannot help wishing is, that Adam and Eve had been postponed, and Martin -Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place. That splendid pair equipped -with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By neither sugary -persuasions nor by hell fire could Satan have beguiled _them_ to eat the -apple. - - - CLOSE OF SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH - -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 collectible. - -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 street—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 FUTURE LIFE - -(Mark Twain often allowed his fancy to play with the idea of the -orthodox heaven, its curiosities of architecture and its employments of -continuous prayer, psalm-singing, and harpistry). - -“What a childish notion it was,” he said, “and how curious that only a -little while ago human beings were so willing to accept such fragile -evidences about a place of so much importance. If we should find -somewhere to-day an ancient book containing an account of a beautiful -and blooming tropical paradise secreted in the center of eternal -icebergs—an account written by men who did not even claim to have seen -it themselves—no geographical society on earth would take any stock in -that book, yet that account would be quite as authentic as any we have -of heaven. If God has such a place prepared for us, and really wanted us -to know it, He could have found some better way than a book, so liable -to alterations and misinterpretations. God has had no trouble to prove -to man the laws of the constellations and the construction of the world, -and such things as that, none of which agree with His so-called book. As -to a hereafter, we have not the slightest evidence that there is -any—_no_ evidence that appeals to logic and reason. I have never seen -what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life.” - -Then, after a long pause, he added: - -“And yet—I am strongly inclined to expect one.” (Mark Twain—A -Biography). - - - RELIGION - -I would not interfere with any one’s religion, either to strengthen it -or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one’s religion can affect his -hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But -it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life—hence it is a -valuable possession to him. - - - - - _FROM_ “THE DEATH OF JEAN” - (1909) - - -It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred miles -away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is the -library in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin stands where her mother -and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s coffin -stood thirteen years ago; where her mother’s stood five years and a half -ago; and where mine will stand, after a little time. - - - - - _FROM_ “ONE OF HIS LATEST MEMORANDA” - (1909) - - - THE IMPARTIAL FRIEND - -Death—the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose -peace and whose refuge are for all—the soiled and the pure—the rich and -the poor—the loved and the unloved. - ------ - -Footnote 1: - - Through an exchange of clothing with the little prince Tom Canty - suddenly found himself royalty, and upon the death of Henry VIII is - now king. - -Footnote 2: - - Miles Hendon, who has taken the real prince—now a wanderer—under his - protection. In the course of their adventures the two have landed in - prison. - -Footnote 3: - - Nigger Jim is a runaway slave to whom Huck affords protection. - -Footnote 4: - - Huck and Nigger Jim, drifting down the Mississippi on their raft have - been struck by a steamboat. Jim has disappeared but Huck, making his - way to shore, has been taken in by Col. Grangerford, whose family is - in bitter feud with the Shepherdsons. - - Edmund Clarence Stedman declared this chapter of Huck Finn’s - adventures to be “as dramatic and powerful an episode as I know in - modern literature.” - -Footnote 5: - - Buck Grangerford, a boy of about Huck’s age. - -Footnote 6: - - On his arrival at the Grangerford home Huck had given his name as - George Jackson. - -Footnote 7: - - The Yankee and his captor have arrived at Camelot and are in King - Arthur’s castle. - -Footnote 8: - - The Yankee with the maid, Alisande, a great talker, is on the way to - rescue the imprisoned princesses. - -Footnote 9: - - The King and the Yankee travelling in disguise have fallen into the - clutches of a slave-dealer. - - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. P. 44, changed "even the" to "even in the". - 2. P. 49, changed "never revoked" to "never been revoked". - 3. P. 126, changed "“Oh, don’t _I_!”" to "“Oh, don’t _I_!” said Joe,". - 4. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 5. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as - printed. - 6. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together - at the end of the last chapter. - 7. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Moments with Mark Twain, by Mark Twain - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOMENTS WITH MARK TWAIN *** - -***** This file should be named 61338-0.txt or 61338-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/3/3/61338/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -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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