Mark Twain was nearing seventy, the scriptural limitation of life, and
the returns were coming in. Some one of the old group was dying all the
time. The roll-call returned only a scattering answer. Of his oldest
friends, Charles Henry Webb, John Hay, and Sir Henry Irving, all died
that year. When Hay died Clemens gave this message to the press:
I am deeply grieved, & I mourn with the nation this loss which is
irreparable. My friendship with Mr. Hay & my admiration of him
endured 38 years without impairment.
It was only a little earlier that he had written Hay an anonymous
letter, a copy of which he preserved. It here follows:
DEAR & HONORED SIR,--I never hear any one speak of you & of your
long roll of illustrious services in other than terms of pride &
praise--& out of the heart. I think I am right in believing you to
be the only man in the civil service of the country the cleanness of
whose motives is never questioned by any citizen, & whose acts
proceed always upon a broad & high plane, never by accident or
pressure of circumstance upon a narrow or low one. There are
majorities that are proud of more than one of the nation's great
servants, but I believe, & I think I know, that you are the only one
of whom the entire nation is proud. Proud & thankful.
Name & address are lacking here, & for a purpose: to leave you no
chance to make my words a burden to you and a reproach to me, who
would lighten your burdens if I could, not add to them.
Irving died in October, and Clemens ordered a wreath for his funeral. To
MacAlister he wrote:
I profoundly grieve over Irving's death. It is another reminder.
My section of the procession has but a little way to go. I could
not be very sorry if I tried.
Mark Twain, nearing seventy, felt that there was not much left for him
to celebrate; and when Colonel Harvey proposed a birthday gathering
in his honor, Clemens suggested a bohemian assembly over beer and
sandwiches in some snug place, with Howells, Henry Rogers, Twichell, Dr.
Rice, Dr. Edward Quintard, Augustus Thomas, and such other kindred
souls as were still left to answer the call. But Harvey had something
different in view: something more splendid even than the sixty-seventh
birthday feast, more pretentious, indeed, than any former literary
gathering. He felt that the attainment of seventy years by America's
most distinguished man of letters and private citizen was a circumstance
which could not be moderately or even modestly observed. The date
was set five days later than the actual birthday--that is to say, on
December 5th, in order that it might not conflict with the various
Thanksgiving holidays and occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen
for the celebration of it, and invitations were sent out to practically
every writer of any distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these
nearly two hundred accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic
regrets.
What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered
to do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed
permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William
Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet,
and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, “I will not say,
'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'” and
Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant
assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause
and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life,
the white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had
gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his
life but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of
the American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the
drama of that moment--the marvel of it--and he must have flashed a swift
panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he
had himself once expressed it, “for a single, splendid moment on the
Alps of fame outlined against the sun.” He must have remembered; for
when he came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very
first banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, “I hadn't any hair; I
hadn't any teeth; I hadn't any clothes.” He sketched the meagerness
of that little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully,
delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was
always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far
beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained
seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill
anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no
other regularity of habits. Then, at last, he reached that wonderful,
unforgetable close:
Threescore years and ten!
It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no
active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-
expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your
term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become
an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions
are not for you, nor any bugle-call but “lights out.” You pay the
time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer--and
without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable.
The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so
many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave
you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night,
and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights
and laughter through the deserted streets--a desolation which would
not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends
are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them,
but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never
disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you
need only reply, “Your invitation honors me and pleases me because
you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy,
and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read
my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and
that when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step
aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your
course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.”
The tears that had been lying in wait were not restrained now. If there
were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not
shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, the writer of these
lines failed to see them or to hear of them. There was not one who was
ashamed to pay the great tribute of tears.
Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love
for him--Brander Matthews, Cable, Kate Douglas Riggs, Gilder, Carnegie,
Bangs, Bacheller--they kept it up far into the next morning. No other
arrival at Pier 70 ever awoke a grander welcome.