reminiscences bore only an atmospheric relation to history; that they
were aspects of biography rather than its veritable narrative, and built
largely--sometimes wholly--from an imagination that, with age, had
dominated memory, creating details, even reversing them, yet with a
perfect sincerity of purpose on the part of the narrator to set down the
literal and unvarnished truth. It was his constant effort to be frank
and faithful to fact, to record, to confess, and to condemn without
stint. If you wanted to know the worst of Mark Twain you had only to ask
him for it. He would give it, to the last syllable--worse than the
worst, for his imagination would magnify it and adorn it with new
iniquities, and if he gave it again, or a dozen times, he would improve
upon it each time, until the thread of history was almost impossible to
trace through the marvel of that fabric; and he would do the same for
another person just as willingly. Those vividly real personalities that
he marched and countermarched before us were the most convincing
creatures in the world; the most entertaining, the most excruciatingly
humorous, or wicked, or tragic; but, alas, they were not always safe to
include in a record that must bear a certain semblance to history. They
often disagreed in their performance, and even in their characters, with
the documents in the next room, as I learned by and by when those
records, disentangled, began to rebuild the structure of the years.
His gift of dramatization had been exercised too long to be discarded
now. The things he told of Mrs. Clemens and of Susy were true
--marvelously and beautifully true, in spirit and in aspect--and the
actual detail of these mattered little in such a record. The rest was
history only as 'Roughing It' is history, or the 'Tramp Abroad'; that is
to say, it was fictional history, with fact as a starting-point. In a
prefatory note to these volumes we have quoted Mark Twain's own lovely
and whimsical admission, made once when he realized his deviations:
"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or
not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter."
At another time he paraphrased one of Josh Billings's sayings in the
remark: "It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can
remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so."
I do not wish to say, by any means, that his so-called autobiography is a
mere fairy tale. It is far from that. It is amazingly truthful in the
character-picture it represents of the man himself. It is only not
reliable--and it is sometimes even unjust--as detailed history. Yet,
curiously enough, there were occasional chapters that were
photographically exact, and fitted precisely with the more positive, if
less picturesque, materials. It is also true that such chapters were
likely to be episodes intrinsically so perfect as to not require the
touch of art.
In the talks which we usually had, when the dictations were ended and
Miss Hobby had gone, I gathered much that was of still greater value.
Imagination was temporarily dispossessed, as it were, and, whether
expounding some theory or summarizing some event, he cared little for
literary effect, and only for the idea and the moment immediately
present.
It was at such times that he allowed me to make those inquiries we had
planned in the beginning, and which apparently had little place in the
dictations themselves. Sometimes I led him to speak of the genesis of
his various books, how he had come to write them, and I think there was
not a single case where later I did not find his memory of these matters
almost exactly in accord with the letters of the moment, written to
Howells or Twichell, or to some member of his family. Such reminiscence
was usually followed by some vigorous burst of human philosophy, often
too vigorous for print, too human, but as dazzling as a search-light in
its revelation.
It was during this earlier association that he propounded, one day, his
theory of circumstance, already set down, that inevitable sequence of
cause and effect, beginning with the first act of the primal atom. He
had been dictating that morning his story of the clairvoyant dream which
preceded his brother's death, and the talk of foreknowledge had
continued. I said one might logically conclude from such a circumstance
that the future was a fixed quantity.
"As absolutely fixed as the past," he said; and added the remark already
quoted.--[Chap. lxxv] A little later he continued:
"Even the Almighty Himself cannot check or change that sequence of events
once it is started. It is a fixed quantity, and a part of the scheme is
a mental condition during certain moments usually of sleep--when the mind
may reach out and grasp some of the acts which are still to come."
It was a new angle to me--a line of logic so simple and so utterly
convincing that I have remained unshaken in it to this day. I have never
been able to find any answer to it, nor any one who could even attempt to
show that the first act of the first created atom did not strike the
key-note of eternity.
At another time, speaking of the idea that God works through man, he
burst out:
"Yes, of course, just about as much as a man works through his microbes!"
He had a startling way of putting things like that, and it left not much
to say.
I was at this period interested a good deal in mental healing, and had
been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the
world, I had assumed, from his published articles, that he condemned
Christian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I
confessed, rather reluctantly, one day, the benefit I had received, he
surprised me by answering:
"Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's
boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member
of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for
two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of
guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age."
It seemed strange, at the time, to hear him speak in this way concerning
a practice of which he was generally regarded as the chief public
antagonist. It was another angle of his many-sided character.
CCXL
THE DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN
That was a busy winter for him socially. He was constantly demanded for
this thing and that--for public gatherings, dinners--everywhere he was a
central figure. Once he presided at a Valentine dinner given by some
Players to David Munro. He had never presided at a dinner before, he
said, and he did it in his own way, which certainly was a taking one,
suitable to that carefree company and occasion--a real Scotch occasion,
with the Munro tartan everywhere, the table banked with heather, and a
wild piper marching up and down in the anteroom, blowing savage airs in
honor of Scotland's gentlest son.
An important meeting of that winter was at Carnegie Hall--a great
gathering which had assembled for the purpose of aiding Booker T.
Washington in his work for the welfare of his race. The stage and the
auditorium were thronged with notables. Joseph H. Choate and Mark Twain
presided, and both spoke; also Robert C. Ogden and Booker T. Washington
himself. It was all fine and interesting. Choate's address was ably
given, and Mark Twain was at his best. He talked of politics and of
morals--public and private--how the average American citizen was true to
his Christian principles three hundred and sixty-three days in the year,
and how on the other two days of the year he left those principles at
home and went to the tax-office and the voting-booths, and did his best
to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work.
I used to be an honest man, but I am crumbling--no, I have crumbled.
When they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and
tried to borrow the money and couldn't. Then when I found they were
letting a whole crowd of millionaires live in New York at a third of
the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and
said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all
by myself. In that moment--in that memorable moment, I began to
crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In
fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I
lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced
deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in
the world.
I had never heard him address a miscellaneous audience. It was marvelous
to see how he convulsed it, and silenced it, and controlled it at will.
He did not undertake any special pleading for the negro cause; he only
prepared the way with cheerfulness.
Clemens and Choate joined forces again, a few weeks later, at a great
public meeting assembled in aid of the adult blind. Helen Keller was to
be present, but she had fallen ill through overwork. She sent to Clemens
one of her beautiful letters, in which she said:
I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as
they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the
eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind.
Clemens, dictating the following morning, told of his first meeting with
Helen Keller at a little gathering in Lawrence Hutton's home, when she
was about the age of fourteen. It was an incident that invited no
elaboration, and probably received none.
Henry Rogers and I went together. The company had all assembled and
had been waiting a while. The wonderful child arrived now with her
about equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, and seemed quite
well to recognize the character of her surroundings. She said, "Oh,
the books, the books, so many, many books. How lovely!"
The guests were brought one after another. As she shook hands with
each she took her hand away and laid her fingers lightly against
Miss Sullivan's lips, who spoke against them the person's name.
Mr. Howells seated himself by Helen on the sofa, and she put her
fingers against his lips and he told her a story of considerable
length, and you could see each detail of it pass into her mind and
strike fire there and throw the flash of it into her face.
After a couple of hours spent very pleasantly some one asked if
Helen would remember the feel of the hands of the company after this
considerable interval of time and be able to discriminate the hands
and name the possessors of them. Miss Sullivan said, "Oh, she will
have no difficulty about that." So the company filed past, shook
hands in turn, and with each hand-shake Helen greeted the owner of
the hand pleasantly and spoke the name that belonged to it without
hesitation.
By and by the assemblage proceeded to the dining-room and sat down
to the luncheon. I had to go away before it was over, and as I
passed by Helen I patted her lightly on the head and passed on.
Miss Sullivan called to me and said, "Stop, Mr. Clemens, Helen is
distressed because she did not recognize your hand. Won't you come
back and do that again?" I went back and patted her lightly on the
head, and she said at once, "Oh, it's Mr. Clemens."
Perhaps some one can explain this miracle, but I have never been
able to do it. Could she feel the wrinkles in my hand through her
hair? Some one else must answer this.
It was three years following this dictation that the mystery received a
very simple and rather amusing solution. Helen had come to pay a visit
to Mark Twain's Connecticut home, Stormfield, then but just completed. He
had met her, meantime, but it had not occurred to him before to ask her
how she had recognized him that morning at Hutton's, in what had seemed
such a marvelous way. She remembered, and with a smile said:
"I smelled you." Which, after all, did not make the incident seem much
less marvelous.
On one of the mornings after Miss Hobby had gone Clemens said:
"A very curious thing has happened--a very large-sized-joke." He was
shaving at the time, and this information came in brief and broken
relays, suited to a performance of that sort. The reader may perhaps
imagine the effect without further indication of it.
"I was going on a yachting trip once, with Henry Rogers, when a reporter
stopped me with the statement that Mrs. Astor had said that there had
never been a gentleman in the White House, and he wanted me to give him
my definition of a gentleman. I didn't give him my definition; but he
printed it, just the same, in the afternoon paper. I was angry at first,
and wanted to bring a damage suit. When I came to read the definition it
was a satisfactory one, and I let it go. Now to-day comes a letter and a
telegram from a man who has made a will in Missouri, leaving ten thousand
dollars to provide tablets for various libraries in the State, on which
shall be inscribed Mark Twain's definition of a gentleman. He hasn't got
the definition--he has only heard of it, and he wants me to tell him in
which one of my books or speeches he can find it. I couldn't think, when
I read that letter, what in the nation the man meant, but shaving somehow
has a tendency to release thought, and just now it all came to me."
It was a situation full of amusing possibilities; but he reached no
conclusion in the matter. Another telegram was brought in just then,
which gave a sadder aspect to his thought, for it said that his old
coachman, Patrick McAleer, who had begun in the Clemens service with the
bride and groom of thirty-six years before, was very low, and could not
survive more than a few days. This led him to speak of Patrick, his
noble and faithful nature, and how he always claimed to be in their
service, even during their long intervals of absence abroad. Clemens
gave orders that everything possible should be done for Patrick's
comfort. When the end came, a few days later, he traveled to Hartford to
lay flowers on Patrick's bier, and to serve, with Patrick's friends
--neighbor coachmen and John O'Neill, the gardener--as pall-bearer,
taking his allotted place without distinction or favor.
It was the following Sunday, at the Majestic Theater, in New York, that
Mark Twain spoke to the Young Men's Christian Association. For several
reasons it proved an unusual meeting. A large number of free tickets had
been given out, far more than the place would hold; and, further, it had
been announced that when the ticket-holders had been seated the admission
would be free to the public. The subject chosen for the talk was
"Reminiscences."
When we arrived the streets were packed from side to side for a
considerable distance and a riot was in progress. A great crowd had
swarmed about the place, and the officials, instead of throwing the doors
wide and letting the theater fill up, regardless of tickets, had locked
them. As a result there was a shouting, surging human mass that
presently dashed itself against the entrance. Windows and doors gave
way, and there followed a wild struggle for entrance. A moment later the
house was packed solid. A detachment of police had now arrived, and in
time cleared the street. It was said that amid the tumult some had lost
their footing and had been trampled and injured, but of this we did not
learn until later. We had been taken somehow to a side entrance and
smuggled into boxes.--[The paper next morning bore the head-lines:
"10,000 Stampeded at the Mark Twain Meeting. Well-dressed Men and Women
Clubbed by Police at Majestic Theater." In this account the paper stated
that the crowd had collected an hour before the time for opening; that
nothing of the kind had been anticipated and no police preparation had
been made.]
It was peaceful enough in the theater until Mark Twain appeared on the
stage. He was wildly greeted, and when he said, slowly and seriously, "I
thank you for this signal recognition of merit," there was a still
noisier outburst. In the quiet that followed he began his memories, and
went wandering along from one anecdote to another in the manner of his
daily dictations.
At last it seemed to occur to him, in view of the character of his
audience, that he ought to close with something in the nature of counsel
suited to young men.
It is from experiences such as mine [he said] that we get our
education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as
we may choose. I have received recently several letters asking for
counsel or advice, the principal request being for some incident
that may prove helpful to the young. It is my mission to teach, and
I am always glad to furnish something. There have been a lot of
incidents in my career to help me along--sometimes they helped me
along faster than I wanted to go.
He took some papers from his pocket and started to unfold one of them;
then, as if remembering, he asked how long he had been talking. The
answer came, "Thirty-five minutes." He made as if to leave the stage,
but the audience commanded him to go on.
"All right," he said, "I can stand more of my own talk than any one I
ever knew." Opening one of the papers, a telegram, he read:
"In which one of your works can we find the definition of a gentleman?"
Then he added:
I have not answered that telegram. I couldn't. I never wrote any
such definition, though it seems to me that if a man has just,
merciful, and kindly instincts he would be a gentleman, for he would
need nothing else in this world.
He opened a letter. "From Howells," he said.
My old friend, William Dean Howells--Howells, the head of American
literature. No one is able to stand with him. He is an old, old
friend of mine, and he writes me, "To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine
years old." Why, I am surprised at Howells writing so. I have
known him myself longer than that. I am sorry to see a man trying
to appear so young. Let's see. Howells says now, "I see you have
been burying Patrick. I suppose he was old, too."
The house became very still. Most of them had read an account of Mark
Twain's journey to Hartford and his last service to his faithful
servitor. The speaker's next words were not much above a whisper, but
every syllable was distinct.
No, he was never old-Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago.
He was our coachman from the day that I drove my young bride to our
new home. He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest,
truthful, and he never changed in all his life. He really was with
us but twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe; but
he never regarded that a separation. As the children grew up he was
their guide. He was all honor, honesty, and affection. He was with
us in New Hampshire last summer, and his hair was just as black, his
eyes were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart
just as good as on the day we first met. In all the long years
Patrick never made a mistake. He never needed an order; he never
received a command. He knew. I have been asked for my idea of an
ideal gentleman, and I give it to you--Patrick McAleer.
It was the sort of thing that no one but Mark Twain has quite been able
to do, and it was just that recognized quality behind it that had made
crowds jam the street and stampede the entrance to be in his presence-to
see him and to hear his voice.
CCXLI
GORKY, HOWELLS, AND MARK TWAIN
Clemens was now fairly back again in the wash of banquets and
speech-making that had claimed him on his return from England, five years
before. He made no less than a dozen speeches altogether that winter,
and he was continually at some feasting or other, where he was sure to be
called upon for remarks. He fell out of the habit of preparing his
addresses, relying upon the inspiration of the moment, merely following
the procedure of his daily dictations, which had doubtless given him
confidence for this departure from his earlier method. There was seldom
an afternoon or an evening that he was not required, and seldom a morning
that the papers did not have some report of his doings. Once more, and
in a larger fashion than ever, he had become "the belle of New York." But
he was something further. An editorial in the Evening Mail said:
Mark Twain, in his "last and best of life for which the first was
made," seems to be advancing rapidly to a position which makes him a
kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and Themistocles of the American
metropolis--an Aristides for justness and boldness as well as
incessancy of opinion, a Solon for wisdom and cogency, and a
Themistocles for the democracy of his views and the popularity of
his person.
Things have reached the point where, if Mark Twain is not at a
public meeting or banquet, he is expected to console it with one of
his inimitable letters of advice and encouragement. If he deigns to
make a public appearance there is a throng at the doors which
overtaxes the energy and ability of the police. We must be glad
that we have a public commentator like Mark Twain always at hand and
his wit and wisdom continually on tap. His sound, breezy
Mississippi Valley Americanism is a corrective to all sorts of
snobbery. He cultivates respect for human rights by always making
sure that he has his own.
He talked one afternoon to the Barnard girls, and another afternoon to
the Women's University Club, illustrating his talk with what purported to
be moral tales. He spoke at a dinner given to City Tax Commissioner Mr.
Charles Putzel; and when he was introduced there as the man who had said,
"When in doubt tell the truth," he replied that he had invented that
maxim for others, but that when in doubt himself, he used more sagacity.
The speeches he made kept his hearers always in good humor; but he made
them think, too, for there was always substance and sound reason and
searching satire in the body of what he said.
It was natural that there should be reporters calling frequently at Mark
Twain's home, and now and then the place became a veritable storm-center
of news. Such a moment arrived when it became known that a public
library in Brooklyn had banished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer from the
children's room, presided over by a young woman of rather severe morals.
The incident had begun in November of the previous year. One of the
librarians, Asa Don Dickinson, who had vigorously voted against the
decree, wrote privately of the matter. Clemens had replied:
DEAR SIR,--I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom
Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distresses me
when I find that boys & girls have been allowed access to them. The
mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean.
I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an
unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young
life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an
unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do
that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the
grave. Ask that young lady--she will tell you so.
Most honestly do I wish that I could say a softening word or two in
defense of Huck's character since you wish it, but really, in my
opinion, it is no better than those of Solomon, David, & the rest of
the sacred brotherhood.
If there is an unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you
please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that
questionable companionship?
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
I shall not show your letter to any one-it is safe with me.
Mr. Dickinson naturally kept this letter from the public, though he read
it aloud to the assembled librarians, and the fact of its existence and
its character eventually leaked out.--[It has been supplied to the writer
by Mr. Dickinson, and is published here with his consent.]--One of the
librarians who had heard it mentioned it at a theater-party in hearing of
an unrealized newspaper man. This was near the end of the following
March.
The "tip" was sufficient. Telephone-bells began to jingle, and groups of
newspaper men gathered simultaneously on Mr. Dickinson's and on Mark
Twain's door-steps. At a 21 Fifth Avenue you could hardly get in or out,
for stepping on them. The evening papers surmised details, and Huck and
Tom had a perfectly fresh crop of advertising, not only in America, but
in distant lands. Dickinson wrote Clemens that he would not give out the
letter without his authority, and Clemens replied: