Mark Twain loved Stormfield. Almost immediately he gave up the idea of
going back to New York for the winter, and I think he never entered the
Fifth Avenue house again. The quiet and undisturbed comfort of
Stormfield came to him at the right time of life. His day of being the
"Belle of New York" was over. Now and then he attended some great
dinner, but always under protest. Finally he refused to go at all. He
had much company during that first summer--old friends, and now and again
young people, of whom he was always fond. The billiard-room he called
"the aquarium," and a frieze of Bermuda fishes, in gay prints, ran around
the walls. Each young lady visitor was allowed to select one of these as
her patron fish and attach her name to it. Thus, as a member of the
"aquarium club," she was represented in absence. Of course there were
several cats at Stormfield, and these really owned the premises. The
kittens scampered about the billiard-table after the balls, even when the
game was in progress, giving all sorts of new angles to the shots. This
delighted him, and he would not for anything have discommoded or removed
one of those furry hazards.
My own house was a little more than half a mile away, our lands joining,
and daily I went up to visit him--to play billiards or to take a walk
across the fields. There was a stenographer in the neighborhood, and he
continued his dictations, but not regularly. He wrote, too, now and
then, and finished the little book called "Is Shakespeare Dead?"
Winter came. The walks were fewer, and there was even more company; the
house was gay and the billiard games protracted. In February I made a
trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, to go over some of his ground
there. Returning in April, I found him somewhat changed. It was not
that he had grown older, or less full of life, but only less active, less
eager for gay company, and he no longer dictated, or very rarely. His
daughter Jean, who had been in a health resort, was coming home to act as
his secretary, and this made him very happy. We resumed our games, our
talks, and our long walks across the fields. There were few guests, and
we were together most of the day and evening. How beautiful the memory
of it all is now! To me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again in
this world.
Mark Twain walked slowly these days. Early in the summer there appeared
indications of the heart trouble that less than a year later would bring
the end. His doctor advised diminished smoking, and forbade the old
habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs. The trouble was with the
heart muscles, and at times there came severe deadly pains in his breast,
but for the most part he did not suffer. He was allowed the walk,
however, and once I showed him a part of his estate he had not seen
before--a remote cedar hillside. On the way I pointed out a little
corner of land which earlier he had given me to straighten our division
line. I told him I was going to build a study on it and call it
"Markland." I think the name pleased him. Later he said:
"If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine" (the Rogers
table, which had been left in storage in New York), "I would turn it over
to you."
I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit the
table, and he said:
"Now that will be very good. Then when I want exercise I can walk down
and play billiards with you, and when you want exercise you can walk up
and play billiards with me. You must build that study."
So it was planned, and the work was presently under way.
How many things we talked of! Life, death, the future--all the things of
which we know so little and love so much to talk about. Astronomy, as I
have said, was one of his favorite subjects. Neither of us had any real
knowledge of the matter, which made its great facts all the more awesome.
The thought that the nearest fixed star was twenty-five trillions of
miles away--two hundred and fifty thousand times the distance to our own
remote sun--gave him a sort of splendid thrill. He would figure out
those appalling measurements of space, covering sheets of paper with his
sums, but he was not a good mathematician, and the answers were generally
wrong. Comets in particular interested him, and one day he said:
"I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It is coming again next
year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest
disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's comet."
He looked so strong, and full of color and vitality. One could not
believe that his words held a prophecy. Yet the pains recurred with
increasing frequency and severity; his malady, angina pectoris, was
making progress. And how bravely he bore it all! He never complained,
never bewailed. I have seen the fierce attack crumple him when we were
at billiards, but he would insist on playing in his turn, bowed, his face
white, his hand digging at his breast.