In the next letter we meet James J. Corbett--“Gentleman Jim,” as he
was sometimes called--the champion pugilist of that day.
The Howells incident so amusingly dramatized will perhaps be more
appreciated if the reader remembers that Mark Twain himself had at
intervals been a mind-healing enthusiast. Indeed, in spite of his
strictures on Mrs. Eddy, his interest in the subject of mind-cure
continued to the end of his life.
*****
To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:
Sunday, 9.30 a. m.
Livy dear, when we got out to the house last night, Mrs. Rogers, who is
up and around, now, didn't want to go down stairs to dinner, but Mr. R.
persuaded her and we had a very good time indeed. By 8 o'clock we were
down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square Garden
(Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr. Rice while I
(went) to the Players and picked up two artists--Reid and Simmons--and
thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats. There was a vast multitude of people in
the brilliant place. Stanford White came along presently and invited me
to go to the World-Champion's dressing room, which I was very glad to
do. Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being
the most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the
world. I said:
“You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June--but
you are not done, then. You will have to tackle me.”
He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in
earnest:
“No--I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or right to
require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit of your own,
but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation would be gone
and you would have a double one. You have got fame enough and you ought
not to want to take mine away from me.”
Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco.
There were lots of little boxing matches, to entertain the crowd: then
at last Corbett appeared in the ring and the 8,000 people present went
mad with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. They said
they had never seen anything that came reasonably near equaling its
perfection except Greek statues, and they didn't surpass it.
Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion--oh,
beautiful to see!--then the show was over and we struggled out through a
perfect wash of humanity. When we reached the street I found I had left
my arctics in the box. I had to have them, so Simmons said he would go
back and get them, and I didn't dissuade him. I couldn't see how he was
going to make his way a single yard into that solid oncoming wave of
people--yet he must plow through it full 50 yards. He was back with the
shoes in 3 minutes!
How do you reckon he accomplished that miracle? By saying:
“Way, gentlemen, please--coming to fetch Mr. Corbett's overshoes.”
The word flew from mouth to mouth, the Red Sea divided, and Simmons
walked comfortably through and back, dry shod. Simmons (this was
revealed to me under seal of secrecy by Reid) is the hero of “Gwen,” and
he and Gwen's author were once engaged to marry. This is “fire-escape”
Simmons, the inveterate talker, you know: “Exit--in case of Simmons.”
I had an engagement at a beautiful dwelling close to the Players for
10.30; I was there by 10.45. Thirty cultivated and very musical ladies
and gentlemen present--all of them acquaintances and many of them
personal friends of mine. That wonderful Hungarian Band was there (they
charge $500 for an evening.) Conversation and Band until midnight; then
a bite of supper; then the company was compactly grouped before me and
I told about Dr. B. E. Martin and the etchings, and followed it with the
Scotch-Irish Christening. My, but the Martin is a darling story! Next,
the head tenor from the Opera sang half a dozen great songs that set the
company wild, yes, mad with delight, that nobly handsome young Damrosch
accompanying on the piano.
Just a little pause--then the Band burst out into an explosion of weird
and tremendous dance music, a Hungarian celebrity and his wife took the
floor--I followed; I couldn't help it; the others drifted in, one by
one, and it was Onteora over again.
By half past 4 I had danced all those people down--and yet was not
tired; merely breathless. I was in bed at 5, and asleep in ten minutes.
Up at 9 and presently at work on this letter to you. I think I wrote
until 2 or half past. Then I walked leisurely out to Mr. Rogers's (it
is called 3 miles but it is short of it) arriving at 3.30, but he was
out--to return at 5.30--(and a person was in, whom I don't particularly
like)--so I didn't stay, but dropped over and chatted with the Howellses
until 6.
First, Howells and I had a chat together. I asked about Mrs. H. He said
she was fine, still steadily improving, and nearly back to her old best
health. I asked (as if I didn't know):
“What do you attribute this strange miracle to?”
“Mind-cure--simply mind-cure.”
“Lord, what a conversion! You were a scoffer three months ago.”
“I? I wasn't.”
“You were. You made elaborate fun of me in this very room.”
“I did not, Clemens.”
“It's a lie, Howells, you did.”
I detailed to him the conversation of that time--with the stately
argument furnished by Boyesen in the fact that a patient had actually
been killed by a mind-curist; and Howells's own smart remark that when
the mind-curist is done with you, you have to call in a “regular” at
last because the former can't procure you a burial permit.
At last he gave in--he said he remembered that talk, but had now been a
mind-curist so long it was difficult for him to realize that he had ever
been anything else.
Mrs. H. came skipping in, presently, the very person, to a dot, that she
used to be, so many years ago.
Mrs. H. said: “People may call it what they like, but it is
just hypnotism, and that's all it is--hypnotism pure and simple.
Mind-cure!--the idea! Why, this woman that cured me hasn't got any mind.
She's a good creature, but she's dull and dumb and illiterate and--”
“Now Eleanor!”
“I know what I'm talking about!--don't I go there twice a week? And Mr.
Clemens, if you could only see her wooden and satisfied face when she
snubs me for forgetting myself and showing by a thoughtless remark that
to me weather is still weather, instead of being just an abstraction and
a superstition--oh, it's the funniest thing you ever saw! A-n-d-when
she tilts up her nose-well, it's--it's--Well it's that kind of a nose
that--”
“Now Eleanor!--the woman is not responsible for her nose--” and so-on
and so-on. It didn't seem to me that I had any right to be having this
feast and you not there.
She convinced me before she got through, that she and William James are
right--hypnotism and mind-cure are the same thing; no difference between
them. Very well; the very source, the very center of hypnotism is Paris.
Dr. Charcot's pupils and disciples are right there and ready to your
hand without fetching poor dear old Susy across the stormy sea. Let
Mrs. Mackay (to whom I send my best respects), tell you whom to go to to
learn all you need to learn and how to proceed. Do, do it, honey. Don't
lose a minute.
.... At 11 o'clock last night Mr. Rogers said:
“I am able to feel physical fatigue--and I feel it now. You never show
any, either in your eyes or your movements; do you ever feel any?”
I was able to say that I had forgotten what that feeling was like. Don't
you remember how almost impossible it was for me to tire myself at the
Villa? Well, it is just so in New York. I go to bed unfatigued at 3, I
get up fresh and fine six hours later. I believe I have taken only one
daylight nap since I have been here.
When the anchor is down, then I shall say:
“Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it again!”
I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it, I will swim
in ink! Joan of Arc--but all this is premature; the anchor is not down
yet.
To-morrow (Tuesday) I will add a P. S. if I've any to add; but, whether
or no, I must mail this to morrow, for the mail steamer goes next day.
5.30 p. m. Great Scott, this is Tuesday! I must rush this letter into
the mail instantly.
Tell that sassy Ben I've got her welcome letter, and I'll write her
as soon as I get a daylight chance. I've most time at night, but I'd
druther write daytimes.