Few men were ever interviewed oftener than Mark Twain, yet he never
welcomed interviewers and was seldom satisfied with them. “What I
say in an interview loses it character in print,” he often remarked,
“all its life and personality. The reporter realizes this himself,
and tries to improve upon me, but he doesn't help matters any.”
Edward W. Bok, before he became editor of the Ladies Home Journal,
was conducting a weekly syndicate column under the title of “Bok's
Literary Leaves.” It usually consisted of news and gossip of
writers, comment, etc., literary odds and ends, and occasional
interviews with distinguished authors. He went up to Hartford one
day to interview Mark Twain. The result seemed satisfactory to Bok,
but wishing to be certain that it would be satisfactory to Clemens,
he sent him a copy for approval. The interview was not returned;
in the place of it came a letter-not altogether disappointing, as
the reader may believe.
*****
To Edward W. Bok, in New York:
MY DEAR MR. BOK,--No, no. It is like most interviews, pure twaddle and
valueless.
For several quite plain and simple reasons, an “interview” must, as a
rule, be an absurdity, and chiefly for this reason--It is an attempt to
use a boat on land or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken
speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is the
proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment
“talk” is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when
you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared
from it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left
on your hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of the
voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that
gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness and charm and commended it to
your affections--or, at least, to your tolerance--is gone and nothing is
left but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver.
Such is “talk” almost invariably, as you see it lying in state in an
“interview”. The interviewer seldom tries to tell one how a thing was
said; he merely puts in the naked remark and stops there. When one
writes for print his methods are very different. He follows forms which
have but little resemblance to conversation, but they make the reader
understand what the writer is trying to convey. And when the writer is
making a story and finds it necessary to report some of the talk of his
characters observe how cautiously and anxiously he goes at that risky
and difficult thing. “If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,”
said Alfred, “taking a mock heroic attitude, and casting an arch glance
upon the company, blood would have flowed.”
“If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,” said Hawkwood,
with that in his eye which caused more than one heart in that guilty
assemblage to quake, “blood would have flowed.”
“If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,” said the paltry
blusterer, with valor on his tongue and pallor on his lips, “blood would
have flowed.”
So painfully aware is the novelist that naked talk in print conveys no
meaning that he loads, and often overloads, almost every utterance
of his characters with explanations and interpretations. It is a loud
confession that print is a poor vehicle for “talk”; it is a recognition
that uninterpreted talk in print would result in confusion to the
reader, not instruction.
Now, in your interview, you have certainly been most accurate; you have
set down the sentences I uttered as I said them. But you have not a word
of explanation; what my manner was at several points is not indicated.
Therefore, no reader can possibly know where I was in earnest and
where I was joking; or whether I was joking altogether or in earnest
altogether. Such a report of a conversation has no value. It can
convey many meanings to the reader, but never the right one. To add
interpretations which would convey the right meaning is a something
which would require--what? An art so high and fine and difficult that no
possessor of it would ever be allowed to waste it on interviews.
No; spare the reader, and spare me; leave the whole interview out; it
is rubbish. I wouldn't talk in my sleep if I couldn't talk better than
that.
If you wish to print anything print this letter; it may have some
value, for it may explain to a reader here and there why it is that in
interviews, as a rule, men seem to talk like anybody but themselves.
Very sincerely yours,
MARK TWAIN.
XXIX. LETTERS, 1889. THE MACHINE. DEATH OF MR. CRANE. CONCLUSION OF THE
YANKEE.
In January, 1889, Clemens believed, after his long seven years of
waiting, fruition had come in the matter of the type machine. Paige,
the inventor, seemed at last to have given it its finishing touches.
The mechanical marvel that had cost so much time, mental stress, and
a fortune in money, stood complete, responsive to the human will and
touch--the latest, and one of the greatest, wonders of the world. To
George Standring, a London printer and publisher, Clemens wrote: “The
machine is finished!” and added, “This is by far the most marvelous
invention ever contrived by man. And it is not a thing of rags and
patches; it is made of massive steel, and will last a century.”
In his fever of enthusiasm on that day when he had actually seen it in
operation, he wrote a number of exuberant letters. They were more or
less duplicates, but as the one to his brother is of fuller detail and
more intimate than the others, it has been selected for preservation
here.
*****
To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk:
HARTFORD, Jan. 5, '89.
DEAR ORION,--At 12.20 this afternoon a line of movable types was
spaced and justified by machinery, for the first time in
the history of the world! And I was there to see. It was done
automatically--instantly--perfectly. This is indeed the first line of
movable types that ever was perfectly spaced and perfectly justified on
this earth.
This was the last function that remained to be tested--and so by long
odds the most amazing and extraordinary invention ever born of the brain
of man stands completed and perfect. Livy is down stairs celebrating.
But it's a cunning devil, is that machine!--and knows more than any man
that ever lived. You shall see. We made the test in this way. We set up
a lot of random letters in a stick--three-fourths of a line; then filled
out the line with quads representing 14 spaces, each space to be 35/1000
of an inch thick. Then we threw aside the quads and put the letters into
the machine and formed them into 15 two-letter words, leaving the words
separated by two-inch vacancies. Then we started up the machine slowly,
by hand, and fastened our eyes on the space-selecting pins. The first
pin-block projected its third pin as the first word came traveling along
the race-way; second block did the same; but the third block projected
its second pin!
“Oh, hell! stop the machine--something wrong--it's going to set a
30/1000 space!”
General consternation. “A foreign substance has got into the spacing
plates.” This from the head mathematician.
“Yes, that is the trouble,” assented the foreman.
Paige examined. “No--look in, and you can see that there's nothing of
the kind.” Further examination. “Now I know what it is--what it must be:
one of those plates projects and binds. It's too bad--the first test is
a failure.” A pause. “Well, boys, no use to cry. Get to work--take the
machine down.--No--Hold on! don't touch a thing! Go right ahead! We are
fools, the machine isn't. The machine knows what it's about. There is
a speck of dirt on one of those types, and the machine is putting in a
thinner space to allow for it!”
That was just it. The machine went right ahead, spaced the line,
justified it to a hair, and shoved it into the galley complete and
perfect! We took it out and examined it with a glass. You could not tell
by your eye that the third space was thinner than the others, but the
glass and the calipers showed the difference. Paige had always said
that the machine would measure invisible particles of dirt and allow for
them, but even he had forgotten that vast fact for the moment.
All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical
birth--the first justification of a line of movable type by
machinery--and also set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had
drank anything, and yet everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, stupefied,
stunned.
All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty
nearly into commonplace contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle.
Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton gins, sewing machines,
Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwright's
frames--all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone
and far in the lead of human inventions.
In two or three weeks we shall work the stiffness out of her joints and
have her performing as smoothly and softly as human muscles, and then we
shall speak out the big secret and let the world come and gaze.
Return me this letter when you have read it.