But this was a modified form. His original draft would perhaps have been
less gratifying to that Russian embassy. It read:
To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more
than glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians
who with the pen have annulled, obliterated, & abolished every high
achievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a
tremendous war into a gay & blithesome comedy. If I may, let me in
all respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I taking
third place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but by
diligence & hard work is acquiring it.
MARK.
There was still another form, brief and expressive:
DEAR COLONEL,--No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow
send for me. MARK.
Clemens's war sentiment was given the widest newspaper circulation, and
brought him many letters, most of them applauding his words. Charles
Francis Adams wrote him:
It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the views
I have myself all along entertained.
And this was the gist of most of the expressed sentiments which came to
him.
Clemens wrote a number of things that summer, among them a little essay
entitled, “The Privilege of the Grave”--that is to say, free speech. He
was looking forward, he said, to the time when he should inherit that
privilege, when some of the things he had said, written and laid away,
could be published without damage to his friends or family. An article
entitled, “Interpreting the Deity,” he counted as among the things to
be uttered when he had entered into that last great privilege. It is an
article on the reading of signs and auguries in all ages to discover the
intentions of the Almighty, with historical examples of God's judgments
and vindications. Here is a fair specimen. It refers to the chronicle of
Henry Huntington:
All through this book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the
intentions of God and with the reasons for the intentions.
Sometimes very often, in fact--the act follows the intention after
such a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fit
one act out of a hundred to one intention, and get the thing right
every time, when there was such abundant choice among acts and
intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is
punished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed a
million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that
brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the
slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out now, but
in the old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of
“wrath.” For instance:
“The just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a worm
grew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through his
intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with
excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was
by a fitting punishment brought to his end” (p. 400).
It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it
was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some
authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt.
The entire article is in this amusing, satirical strain, and might
well enough be printed to-day. It is not altogether clear why it was
withheld, even then.
He finished his Eve's Diary that summer, and wrote a story which was
originally planned to oblige Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, to aid her in a
crusade against bullfighting in Spain. Mrs. Fiske wrote him that she had
read his dog story, written against the cruelties of vivisection,
and urged him to do something to save the horses that, after faithful
service, were sacrificed in the bull-ring. Her letter closed:
I have lain awake nights very often wondering if I dare ask you to
write a story of an old horse that is finally given over to the
bull-ring. The story you would write would do more good than all
the laws we are trying to have made and enforced for the prevention
of cruelty to animals in Spain. We would translate and circulate
the story in that country. I have wondered if you would ever write
it.
With most devoted homage,
Sincerely yours,
MINNIE MADDERN FISKE.
Clemens promptly replied:
DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get
it to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it
again--& yet again--& again. I am used to this. It has taken me
twelve years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I
think.--[Probably “The Death Disk:”]--So do not be discouraged; I will
stick to this one in the same way.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within
a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written
that pathetic, heartbreaking little story, “A Horse's Tale,” and sent it
to Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka
at the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds:
This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small
daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good
while before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use
--& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable
expression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol.
He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary,
on the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls.
We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple of
neighbors for audience, and then pass the hat.
It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings
the tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom
which it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later,
Mrs. Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission
to have it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain.
A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark
Twain's seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in
California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of
Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a
great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he
remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from
the Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and
told how he would like to accept the invitation.
If I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly, and I
would go. I would let somebody else do the oration, but as for me I
would talk--just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and
talk--and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and
unforgetable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent
hail and farewell as they passed--Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry,
Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart, Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton,
North, Root--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the
desperadoes, who made life a joy, and the “slaughter-house,” a precious
possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake,
Jack Williams, and the rest of the crimson discipleship, and so on, and
so on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more
good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are
going now.
Those were the days!--those old ones. They will come no more; youth will
come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there
have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would
you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white
head.
Good-by. I drink to you all. Have a good time-and take an old man's
blessing.
In reply to another invitation from H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, he
wrote that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to
sit by the fire for the rest of his “remnant of life.”
A man who, like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next
November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does
--that shameless old fictitious butterfly. (But if he comes don't
tell him I said it, for it would hurt him & I wouldn't brush a flake
of powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his
indestructible youth anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.)
And it was either then or on a similar occasion that he replied after
this fashion:
I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old
residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully
300,000. I could have done more--I could have gone earlier--it was
suggested.
Which, by the way, is a perfect example of Mark Twain's humorous manner,
the delicately timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would
have been contented to end with the statement, “I could have gone
earlier.” Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite
touch--“it was suggested.”