WELL-BELOVED,--Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie's
heart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shall
be glad & proud to come back again after such a moving & beautiful
compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope
you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate.
It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for this
black border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the
loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship.
It is not necessary for me to thank you--& words could not deliver
what I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope in
the small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to
me.
S. L. C.
So the matter was temporarily held in abeyance until he should return to
social life. At the completion of his seventieth year the club had taken
action, and Mark Twain had been brought back, not in the regular order
of things, but as an honorary life member without dues or duties. There
was only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving.
The Players, as a club, does not give dinners. Whatever is done in that
way is done by one or more of the members in the private dining-room,
where there is a single large table that holds twenty-five, even thirty
when expanded to its limit. That room and that table have mingled with
much distinguished entertainment, also with history. Henry James made
his first after-dinner speech there, for one thing--at least he claimed
it was his first, though this is by the way.
A letter came to me which said that those who had signed the plea for
the Prince's return were going to welcome him in the private dining-room
on the 5th of January. It was not an invitation, but a gracious
privilege. I was in New York a day or two in advance of the date, and
I think David Munro was the first person I met at The Players. As he
greeted me his eyes were eager with something he knew I would wish to
hear. He had been delegated to propose the dinner to Mark Twain, and had
found him propped up in bed, and noticed on the table near him a copy of
the Nast book. I suspect that Munro had led him to speak of it, and that
the result had lost nothing filtered through that radiant benevolence of
his.
The night of January 5, 1906, remains a memory apart from other dinners.
Brander Matthews presided, and Gilder was there, and Frank Millet and
Willard Metcalf and Robert Reid, and a score of others; some of them are
dead now, David Munro among them. It so happened that my seat was nearly
facing the guest of the evening, who, by custom of The Players, is
placed at the side and not at the end of the long table. He was no
longer frail and thin, as when I had first met him. He had a robust,
rested look; his complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit
by the glow of the shaded candles, relieved against the dusk richness of
the walls, he made a picture of striking beauty. One could not take
his eyes from it, and to one guest at least it stirred the farthest
memories. I suddenly saw the interior of a farm-house sitting-room in
the Middle West, where I had first heard uttered the name of Mark Twain,
and where night after night a group gathered around the evening lamp
to hear the tale of the first pilgrimage, which, to a boy of eight, had
seemed only a wonderful poem and fairy tale. To Charles Harvey Genung,
who sat next to me, I whispered something of this, and how, during the
thirty-six years since then, no other human being to me had meant quite
what Mark Twain had meant--in literature, in life, in the ineffable
thing which means more than either, and which we call “inspiration,” for
lack of a truer word. Now here he was, just across the table. It was the
fairy tale come true.
Genung said:
“You should write his life.”
His remark seemed a pleasant courtesy, and was put aside as such. When
he persisted I attributed it to the general bloom of the occasion, and a
little to the wine, maybe, for the dinner was in its sweetest stage just
then--that happy, early stage when the first glass of champagne, or the
second, has proved its quality. He urged, in support of his idea, the
word that Munro had brought concerning the Nast book, but nothing of
what he said kindled any spark of hope. I could not but believe that
some one with a larger equipment of experience, personal friendship, and
abilities had already been selected for the task. By and by the speaking
began--delightful, intimate speaking in that restricted circle--and the
matter went out of my mind.
When the dinner had ended, and we were drifting about the table in
general talk, I found an opportunity to say a word to the guest of
the evening about his Joan of Arc, which I had recently re-read. To my
happiness, he detained me while he told me the long-ago incident which
had led to his interest, not only in the martyred girl, but in all
literature. I think we broke up soon after, and descended to the lower
rooms. At any rate, I presently found the faithful Charles Genung
privately reasserting to me the proposition that I should undertake the
biography of Mark Twain. Perhaps it was the brief sympathy established
by the name of Joan of Arc, perhaps it was only Genung's insistent
purpose--his faith, if I may be permitted the word. Whatever it was,
there came an impulse, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest of
honor, which prompted me to say:
“May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?”
And something--dating from the primal atom, I suppose--prompted him to
answer:
“Yes, come soon.”
This was on Wednesday night, or rather on Thursday morning, for it was
past midnight, and a day later I made an appointment with his secretary
to call on Saturday.
I can say truly that I set out with no more than the barest hope of
success, and wondering if I should have the courage, when I saw him,
even to suggest the thought in my mind. I know I did not have the
courage to confide in Genung that I had made the appointment--I was so
sure it would fail. I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue and was shown into that
long library and drawing-room combined, and found a curious and deep
interest in the books and ornaments along the shelves as I waited. Then
I was summoned, and I remember ascending the stairs, wondering why I had
come on so futile an errand, and trying to think of an excuse to offer
for having come at all.
He was propped up in bed--in that stately bed-sitting, as was his habit,
with his pillows placed at the foot, so that he might have always before
him the rich, carved beauty of its headboard. He was delving through a
copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which
some random correspondent had asked explanation. He was commenting
unfavorably on this correspondent and on miscellaneous letter-writing in
general. He pushed the cigars toward me, and the talk of these matters
ran along and blended into others more or less personal. By and by I
told him what so many thousands had told him before: what he had
meant to me, recalling the childhood impressions of that large,
black-and-gilt-covered book with its wonderful pictures and
adventures--the Mediterranean pilgrimage. Very likely it bored him--he
had heard it so often--and he was willing enough, I dare say, to let me
change the subject and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro
had brought. I do not remember what he said then, but I suddenly found
myself suggesting that out of his encouragement had grown a hope--though
certainly it was something less--that I might some day undertake a book
about himself. I expected the chapter to end at this point, and his
silence which followed seemed long and ominous.
He said, at last, that at various times through his life he had been
preparing some autobiographical matter, but that he had tired of the
undertaking, and had put it aside. He added that he had hoped his
daughters would one day collect his letters; but that a biography--a
detailed story of personality and performance, of success and
failure--was of course another matter, and that for such a work no
arrangement had been made. He may have added one or two other general
remarks; then, turning those piercing agate-blue eyes directly upon me,
he said:
“When would you like to begin?”
There was a dresser with a large mirror behind him. I happened to catch
my reflection in it, and I vividly recollect saying to it mentally:
“This is not true; it is only one of many similar dreams.” But even in a
dream one must answer, and I said:
“Whenever you like. I can begin now.”
He was always eager in any new undertaking.
“Very good,” he said. “The sooner, then, the better. Let's begin while
we are in the humor. The longer you postpone a thing of this kind the
less likely you are ever to get at it.”
This was on Saturday, as I have stated. I mentioned that my family was
still in the country, and that it would require a day or two to get
established in the city. I asked if Tuesday, January 9th, would be too
soon to begin. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired something
about my plan of work. Of course I had formed nothing definite, but I
said that in similar undertakings a part of the work had been done with
a stenographer, who had made the notes while I prompted the subject to
recall a procession of incidents and episodes, to be supplemented with
every variety of material obtainable--letters and other documentary
accumulations. Then he said:
“I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to
prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up
for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my
letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the
attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in bed.
I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need will
be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, and
you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. You can have a key
and come and go as you please.”
That was always his way. He did nothing by halves; nothing without
unquestioning confidence and prodigality. He got up and showed me the
lovely luxury of the study, with its treasures of material. I did not
believe it true yet. It had all the atmosphere of a dream, and I have no
distinct recollection of how I came away. When I returned to The Players
and found Charles Harvey Genung there, and told him about it, it is
quite certain that he perjured himself when he professed to believe it
true and pretended that he was not surprised.