Elinor Glyn, author of Three Weeks and other erotic tales, was in
America that winter and asked permission to call on Mark Twain. An
appointment was made and Clemens discussed with her, for an hour or
more, those crucial phases of life which have made living a complex
problem since the days of Eve in Eden. Mrs. Glyn had never before
heard anything like Mark Twain's wonderful talk, and she was anxious
to print their interview. She wrote what she could remember of it
and sent it to him for approval. If his conversation had been
frank, his refusal was hardly less so.
*****
To Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in New York:
Jan. 22, '08.
DEAR MRS. GLYN, It reads pretty poorly--I get the sense of it, but it
is a poor literary job; however, it would have to be that because
nobody can be reported even approximately, except by a stenographer.
Approximations, synopsized speeches, translated poems, artificial
flowers and chromos all have a sort of value, but it is small. If
you had put upon paper what I really said it would have wrecked your
type-machine. I said some fetid, over-vigorous things, but that was
because it was a confidential conversation. I said nothing for print. My
own report of the same conversation reads like Satan roasting a Sunday
school. It, and certain other readable chapters of my autobiography
will not be published until all the Clemens family are dead--dead and
correspondingly indifferent. They were written to entertain me, not
the rest of the world. I am not here to do good--at least not to do it
intentionally. You must pardon me for dictating this letter; I am sick
a-bed and not feeling as well as I might.
Sincerely Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Among the cultured men of England Mark Twain had no greater admirer,
or warmer friend, than Andrew Lang. They were at one on most
literary subjects, and especially so in their admiration of the life
and character of Joan of Arc. Both had written of her, and both
held her to be something almost more than mortal. When, therefore,
Anatole France published his exhaustive biography of the maid of
Domremy, a book in which he followed, with exaggerated minuteness
and innumerable footnotes, every step of Joan's physical career at
the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen,
Lang wrote feelingly, and with some contempt, of the performance,
inviting the author of the Personal Recollections to come to the
rescue of their heroine. “Compare every one of his statements with
the passages he cites from authorities, and make him the laughter of
the world” he wrote. “If you are lazy about comparing I can make
you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this
amazing novelist says that they say. When I tell you that he thinks
the Epiphany (January 6, Twelfth Night) is December 25th--Christmas
Day-you begin to see what an egregious ass he is. Treat him like
Dowden, and oblige”--a reference to Mark Twain's defense of Harriet
Shelley, in which he had heaped ridicule on Dowden's Life of the
Poet--a masterly performance; one of the best that ever came from
Mark Twain's pen.
Lang's suggestion would seem to have been a welcome one.
*****
To Andrew Lang, in London:
NEW YORK, April 25, 1908.
DEAR MR. LANG,--I haven't seen the book nor any review of it, but only
not very-understandable references to it--of a sort which discomforted
me, but of course set my interest on fire. I don't want to have to read
it in French--I should lose the nice shades, and should do a lot of
gross misinterpreting, too. But there'll be a translation soon, nicht
wahr? I will wait for it. I note with joy that you say: “If you are lazy
about comparing, (which I most certainly am), I can make you a complete
set of what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says
that they say.”
Ah, do it for me! Then I will attempt the article, and (if I succeed
in doing it to my satisfaction,) will publish it. It is long since I
touched a pen (3 1/2 years), and I was intending to continue this happy
holiday to the gallows, but--there are things that could beguile me to
break this blessed Sabbath.
Yours very sincerely,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Certainly it is an interesting fact that an Englishman--one of the
race that burned Joan--should feel moved to defend her memory
against the top-heavy perversions of a distinguished French author.
But Lang seems never to have sent the notes. The copying would have
been a tremendous task, and perhaps he never found the time for it.
We may regret to-day that he did not, for Mark Twain's article on
the French author's Joan would have been at least unique.
Samuel Clemens could never accustom himself to the loss of his wife.
From the time of her death, marriage-which had brought him his
greatest joy in life-presented itself to him always with the thought
of bereavement, waiting somewhere just behind. The news of an
approaching wedding saddened him and there was nearly always a
somber tinge in his congratulations, of which the following to a
dear friend is an example:
*****
To Father Fitz-Simon, in Washington:
June 5, '08.
DEAR FATHER FITZ-SIMON,--Marriage--yes, it is the supreme felicity of
life, I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The
deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when
it comes.
And so I congratulate you. Not perfunctorily, not lukewarmly, but with
a fervency and fire that no word in the dictionary is strong enough to
convey. And in the same breath and with the same depth and sincerity,
I grieve for you. Not for both of you and not for the one that shall
go first, but for the one that is fated to be left behind. For that one
there is no recompense.--For that one no recompense is possible.
There are times--thousands of times--when I can expose the half of my
mind, and conceal the other half, but in the matter of the tragedy of
marriage I feel too deeply for that, and I have to bleed it all out or
shut it all in. And so you must consider what I have been through, and
am passing through and be charitable with me.
Make the most of the sunshine! and I hope it will last long--ever so
long.
I do not really want to be present; yet for friendship's sake and
because I honor you so, I would be there if I could.
Most sincerely your friend,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The new home at Redding was completed in the spring of 1908, and on
the 18th of June, when it was entirely fitted and furnished, Mark
Twain entered it for the first time. He had never even seen the
place nor carefully examined plans which John Howells had made for
his house. He preferred the surprise of it, and the general
avoidance of detail. That he was satisfied with the result will be
seen in his letters. He named it at first “Innocence at Home”;
later changing this title to “Stormfield.”
The letter which follows is an acknowledgment of an interesting
souvenir from the battle-field of Tewksbury (1471), and some relics
of the Cavalier and Roundhead Regiments encamped at Tewksbury in
1643.
*****
To an English admirer:
INNOCENCE AT HOME, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Aug. 15, '08.
DEAR SIR,--I highly prize the pipes, and shall intimate to people that
“Raleigh” smoked them, and doubtless he did. After a little practice I
shall be able to go further and say he did; they will then be the most
interesting features of my library's decorations. The Horse-shoe is
attracting a good deal of attention, because I have intimated that the
conqueror's horse cast it; it will attract more when I get my hand in
and say he cast it, I thank you for the pipes and the shoe; and also
for the official guide, which I read through at a single sitting. If a
person should say that about a book of mine I should regard it as good
evidence of the book's interest.
Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
In his philosophy, What Is Man?, and now and again in his other
writings, we find Mark Twain giving small credit to the human mind
as an originator of ideas. The most original writer of his time, he
took no credit for pure invention and allowed none to others. The
mind, he declared, adapted, consciously or unconsciously; it did not
create. In a letter which follows he elucidates this doctrine. The
reference in it to the “captain” and to the kerosene, as the reader
may remember, have to do with Captain “Hurricane” Jones and his
theory of the miracles of “Isaac and of the prophets of Baal,” as
expounded in Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.
By a trick of memory Clemens gives The Little Duke as his suggestion
for The Prince and the Pauper; he should have written The Prince and
the Page, by the same author.
*****
To Rev. F. Y. Christ, in New York:
REDDING, CONN., Aug., '08.
DEAR SIR,--You say “I often owe my best sermons to a suggestion received
in reading or from other exterior sources.” Your remark is not quite in
accordance with the facts. We must change it to--“I owe all my thoughts,
sermons and ideas to suggestions received from sources outside of
myself.” The simplified English of this proposition is--“No man's brains
ever originated an idea.” It is an astonishing thing that after all
these ages the world goes on thinking the human brain machinery can
originate a thought.
It can't. It never has done it. In all cases, little and big, the
thought is born of a suggestion; and in all cases the suggestions come
to the brain from the outside. The brain never acts except from exterior
impulse.
A man can satisfy himself of the truth of this by a single process,--let
him examine every idea that occurs to him in an hour; a day; in a
week--in a lifetime if he please. He will always find that an outside
something suggested the thought, something which he saw with his eyes or
heard with his ears or perceived by his touch--not necessarily to-day,
nor yesterday, nor last year, nor twenty years ago, but sometime or
other. Usually the source of the suggestion is immediately traceable,
but sometimes it isn't.
However, if you will examine every thought that occurs to you for the
next two days, you will find that in at least nine cases out of ten
you can put your finger on the outside suggestion--And that ought to
convince you that No. 10 had that source too, although you cannot at
present hunt it down and find it.
The idea of writing to me would have had to wait a long time if it
waited until your brain originated it. It was born of an outside
suggestion--Sir Thomas and my old Captain.
The hypnotist thinks he has invented a new thing--suggestion. This is
very sad. I don't know where my captain got his kerosene idea. (It was
forty-one years ago, and he is long ago dead.) But I know that it
didn't originate in his head, but it was born from a suggestion from the
outside.
Yesterday a guest said, “How did you come to think of writing 'The
Prince and the Pauper?'” I didn't. The thought came to me from the
outside--suggested by that pleasant and picturesque little history-book,
Charlotte M. Yonge's “Little Duke,” I doubt if Mrs. Burnett knows whence
came to her the suggestion to write “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” but I
know; it came to her from reading “The Prince and the Pauper.” In all my
life I have never originated an idea, and neither has she, nor anybody
else.
Man's mind is a clever machine, and can work up materials into ingenious
fancies and ideas, but it can't create the material; none but the gods
can do that. In Sweden I saw a vast machine receive a block of wood, and
turn it into marketable matches in two minutes. It could do everything
but make the wood. That is the kind of machine the human mind is. Maybe
this is not a large compliment, but it is all I can afford.....
Your friend and well-wisher
S. L. CLEMENS.
*****
To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in Fair Hawn, Mass.:
REDDING, CONN, Aug. 12, 1908.
DEAR MRS. ROGERS, I believe I am the wellest man on the planet to-day,
and good for a trip to Fair Haven (which I discussed with the Captain
of the New Bedford boat, who pleasantly accosted me in the Grand Central
August 5) but the doctor came up from New York day before yesterday, and
gave positive orders that I must not stir from here before frost. It is
because I was threatened with a swoon, 10 or 12 days ago, and went
to New York a day or two later to attend my nephew's funeral and got
horribly exhausted by the heat and came back here and had a bilious
collapse. In 24 hours I was as sound as a nut again, but nobody believes
it but me.
This is a prodigiously satisfactory place, and I am so glad I don't have
to go back to the turmoil and rush of New York. The house stands high
and the horizons are wide, yet the seclusion is perfect. The nearest
public road is half a mile away, so there is nobody to look in, and I
don't have to wear clothes if I don't want to. I have been down stairs
in night-gown and slippers a couple of hours, and have been photographed
in that costume; but I will dress, now, and behave myself.
That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my
brain... Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for it. I
wish Henry Rogers would come here, and I wish you would come with him.
You can't rest in that crowded place, but you could rest here, for sure!
I would learn bridge, and entertain you, and rob you.
With love to you both,
Ever yours,
S. L. C.
In the foregoing letter we get the first intimation of Mark Twain's
failing health. The nephew who had died was Samuel E. Moffett, son
of Pamela Clemens. Moffett, who was a distinguished journalist--an
editorial writer on Collier's Weekly, a man beloved by all who knew
him--had been drowned in the surf off the Jersey beach.
*****
To W. D. Howells, Kittery Point, Maine:
Aug. 12, '08.
DEAR HOWELLS,--Won't you and Mrs. Howells and Mildred come and give us
as many days as you can spare, and examine John's triumph? It is
the most satisfactory house I am acquainted with, and the most
satisfactorily situated.
But it is no place to work in, because one is outside of it all the
time, while the sun and the moon are on duty. Outside of it in the
loggia, where the breezes blow and the tall arches divide up the scenery
and frame it.
It's a ghastly long distance to come, and I wouldn't travel such a
distance to see anything short of a memorial museum, but if you can't
come now you can at least come later when you return to New York, for
the journey will be only an hour and a half per express-train. Things
are gradually and steadily taking shape inside the house, and nature is
taking care of the outside in her ingenious and wonderful fashion--and
she is competent and asks no help and gets none. I have retired from New
York for good, I have retired from labor for good, I have dismissed my
stenographer and have entered upon a holiday whose other end is in the
cemetery.
Yours ever,
MARK.
From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter
inclosing an incompleted list of the world's “One Hundred Greatest
Men,” men who had exerted “the largest visible influence on the life
and activities of the race.” The writer asked that Mark Twain
examine the list and suggest names, adding “would you include Jesus,
as the founder of Christianity, in the list?”
To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to
the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The
question he answered in detail.
*****
To ------, Buffalo, N. Y.
Private. REDDING, CONN, Aug. 28, '08.
DEAR SIR,--By “private,” I mean don't print any remarks of mine.
..................
I like your list.
The “largest visible influence.”
These terms require you to add Jesus. And they doubly and trebly require
you to add Satan. From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a
vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised
over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined.
Ninety-nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the
remaining fraction of it from Jesus. During those 1500 years the fear
of Satan and Hell made 99 Christians where love of God and Heaven landed
one. During those 1500 years, Satan's influence was worth very nearly
a hundred times as much to the business as was the influence of all the
rest of the Holy Family put together.
You have asked me a question, and I have answered it seriously and
sincerely. You have put in Buddha--a god, with a following, at one time,
greater than Jesus ever had: a god with perhaps a little better evidence
of his godship than that which is offered for Jesus's. How then, in
fairness, can you leave Jesus out? And if you put him in, how can you
logically leave Satan out? Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but
it is the lightning that does the work.
Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The “Children's Theatre” of the next letter was an institution of
the New York East Side in which Mark Twain was deeply interested.
The children were most, if not all, of Hebrew parentage, and the
performances they gave, under the direction of Alice M. Herts, were
really remarkable. It seemed a pity that lack of funds should have
brought this excellent educational venture to an untimely end.
The following letter was in reply to one inclosing a newspaper
clipping reporting a performance of The Prince and the Pauper, given
by Chicago school children.
*****
To Mrs. Hookway, in Chicago:
Sept., 1908.
DEAR MRS. HOOKWAY,--Although I am full of the spirit of work this
morning, a rarity with me lately--I must steal a moment or two for a
word in person: for I have been reading the eloquent account in the
Record-Herald and am pleasurably stirred, to my deepest deeps. The
reading brings vividly back to me my pet and pride. The Children's
Theatre of the East side, New York. And it supports and re-affirms what
I have so often and strenuously said in public that a children's theatre
is easily the most valuable adjunct that any educational institution
for the young can have, and that no otherwise good school is complete
without it.
It is much the most effective teacher of morals and promoter of good
conduct that the ingenuity of man has yet devised, for the reason that
its lessons are not taught wearily by book and by dreary homily, but by
visible and enthusing action; and they go straight to the heart, which
is the rightest of right places for them. Book morals often get no
further than the intellect, if they even get that far on their spectral
and shadowy pilgrimage: but when they travel from a Children's Theatre
they do not stop permanently at that halfway house, but go on home.
The children's theatre is the only teacher of morals and conduct and
high ideals that never bores the pupil, but always leaves him sorry when
the lesson is over. And as for history, no other teacher is for a moment
comparable to it: no other can make the dead heroes of the world rise
up and shake the dust of the ages from their bones and live and move and
breathe and speak and be real to the looker and listener: no other can
make the study of the lives and times of the illustrious dead a delight,
a splendid interest, a passion; and no other can paint a history-lesson
in colors that will stay, and stay, and never fade.
It is my conviction that the children's theatre is one of the very, very
great inventions of the twentieth century; and that its vast educational
value--now but dimly perceived and but vaguely understood--will
presently come to be recognized. By the article which I have been
reading I find the same things happening in the Howland School that
we have become familiar with in our Children's Theatre (of which I am
President, and sufficiently vain of the distinction.) These things among
others;
1. The educating history-study does not stop with the little players,
but the whole school catches the infection and revels in it.
2. And it doesn't even stop there; the children carry it home and infect
the family with it--even the parents and grandparents; and the whole
household fall to studying history, and bygone manners and customs and
costumes with eager interest. And this interest is carried along to
the studying of costumes in old book-plates; and beyond that to the
selecting of fabrics and the making of clothes. Hundreds of our children
learn, the plays by listening without book, and by making notes; then
the listener goes home and plays the piece--all the parts! to the
family. And the family are glad and proud; glad to listen to the
explanations and analyses, glad to learn, glad to be lifted to planes
above their dreary workaday lives. Our children's theatre is educating
7,000 children--and their families. When we put on a play of Shakespeare
they fall to studying it diligently; so that they may be qualified to
enjoy it to the limit when the piece is staged.
3. Your Howland School children do the construction-work,
stage-decorations, etc. That is our way too. Our young folks do
everything that is needed by the theatre, with their own hands;
scene-designing, scene-painting, gas-fitting, electric work,
costume-designing--costume making, everything and all things indeed--and
their orchestra and its leader are from their own ranks.
The article which I have been reading, says--speaking of the historical
play produced by the pupils of the Howland School--
“The question naturally arises, What has this drama done for those who
so enthusiastically took part?--The touching story has made a year
out of the Past live for the children as could no chronology or bald
statement of historical events; it has cultivated the fancy and given to
the imagination strength and purity; work in composition has ceased to
be drudgery, for when all other themes fall flat a subject dealing with
some aspect of the drama presented never fails to arouse interest and a
rapid pushing of pens over paper.”
That is entirely true. The interest is not confined to the drama's
story, it spreads out all around the period of the story, and gives to
all the outlying and unrelated happenings of that period a fascinating
interest--an interest which does not fade out with the years, but
remains always fresh, always inspiring, always welcome. History-facts
dug by the job, with sweat and tears out of a dry and spiritless
text-book--but never mind, all who have suffered know what that is...
I remain, dear madam,
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Mark Twain had a special fondness for cats. As a boy he always
owned one and it generally had a seat beside him at the table.
There were cats at Quarry Farm and at Hartford, and in the house at
Redding there was a gray mother-cat named Tammany, of which he was
especially fond. Kittens capering about were his chief delight.
In a letter to a Chicago woman he tells how those of Tammany
assisted at his favorite game.
*****
To Mrs. Mabel Larkin Patterson, in Chicago:
REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Oct. 2, '08.
DEAR MRS. PATTERSON,--The contents of your letter are very pleasant
and very welcome, and I thank you for them, sincerely. If I can find a
photograph of my “Tammany” and her kittens, I will enclose it in this.
One of them likes to be crammed into a corner-pocket of the billiard
table--which he fits as snugly as does a finger in a glove and then he
watches the game (and obstructs it) by the hour, and spoils many a shot
by putting out his paw and changing the direction of a passing ball.
Whenever a ball is in his arms, or so close to him that it cannot be
played upon without risk of hurting him, the player is privileged to
remove it to anyone of the 3 spots that chances to be vacant.
Ah, no, my lecturing days are over for good and all.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The letter to Howells which follows was written a short time before
the passage of the copyright extension bill, which rendered Mark
Twain's new plan, here mentioned, unneeded--at least for the time.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
Monday, Oct. 26, '08.
Oh, I say! Where are you hiding, and why are you hiding? You promised
to come here and you didn't keep your word. (This sounds like
astonishment--but don't be misled by that.)
Come, fire up again on your fiction-mill and give us another good
promise. And this time keep it--for it is your turn to be astonished.
Come and stay as long as you possibly can. I invented a new copyright
extension scheme last Friday, and sat up all night arranging its
details. It will interest you. Yesterday I got it down on paper in as
compact a form as I could. Harvey and I have examined the scheme, and
to-morrow or next day he will send me a couple of copyright-experts to
arrange about getting certain statistics for me.
Authors, publishers and the public have always been damaged by the
copyright laws. The proposed amendment will advantage all three--the
public most of all. I think Congress will pass it and settle the vexed
question permanently.
I shall need your assent and the assent of about a dozen other authors.
Also the assent of all the large firms of the 300 publishers. These
authors and publishers will furnish said assent I am sure. Not even the
pirates will be able to furnish a serious objection, I think.
Come along. This place seemed at its best when all around was
summer-green; later it seemed at its best when all around was burning
with the autumn splendors; and now once more it seems at its best, with
the trees naked and the ground a painter's palette.
Yours ever,
MARK.
Clemens was a great admirer of the sea stories of W. W. Jacobs and
generally kept one or more of this author's volumes in reach of his
bed, where most of his reading was done. The acknowledgment that
follows was sent when he had finished Salthaven.
*****
To W. W. Jacobs, in England:
REDDING, CONN,
Oct. 28, '08.
DEAR MR. JACOBS,--It has a delightful look. I will not venture to say
how delightful, because the words would sound extravagant, and would
thereby lose some of their strength and to that degree misrepresent me.
It is my conviction that Dialstone Lane holds the supremacy over all
purely humorous books in our language, but I feel about Salthaven as the
Cape Cod poet feels about Simon Hanks:
“The Lord knows all things, great and small,
With doubt he's not perplexed:
'Tis Him alone that knows it all
But Simon Hanks comes next.”
The poet was moved by envy and malice and jealousy, but I am not: I
place Salthaven close up next to Dialstone because I think it has a
fair and honest right to that high position. I have kept the other book
moving; I shall begin to hand this one around now.
And many thanks to you for remembering me.
This house is out in the solitudes of the woods and the hills, an hour
and a half from New York, and I mean to stay in it winter and summer
the rest of my days. I beg you to come and help occupy it a few days the
next time you visit the U.S.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
One of the attractions of Stormfield was a beautiful mantel in the
billiard room, presented by the Hawaiian Promotion Committee. It
had not arrived when the rest of the house was completed, but came
in time to be set in place early in the morning of the owner's
seventy-third birthday. It was made of a variety of Hawaiian woods,
and was the work of a native carver, F. M. Otremba. Clemens was
deeply touched by the offering from those “western isles”--the
memory of which was always so sweet to him.
*****
To Mr. Wood, in Hawaii:
Nov. 30, '08.
DEAR MR. WOOD,--The beautiful mantel was put in its place an hour ago,
and its friendly “Aloha” was the first uttered greeting my 73rd birthday
received. It is rich in color, rich in quality, and rich in decoration,
therefore it exactly harmonizes with the taste for such things which was
born in me and which I have seldom been able to indulge to my content.
It will be a great pleasure to me, daily renewed, to have under my
eye this lovely reminder of the loveliest fleet of islands that lies
anchored in any ocean, and I beg to thank the Committee for providing me
that pleasure.
Sincerely Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
XLVII. LETTERS, 1909. TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. LIFE AT STORMFIELD.
COPYRIGHT EXTENSION. DEATH OF JEAN CLEMENS
Clemens remained at Stormfield all that winter. New York was sixty
miles away and he did not often care to make the journey. He was
constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private
party, but such affairs had lost interest for him. He preferred the
quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for
entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient. Guests
came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he
ever was restless or lonely he did not show it.
Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard
asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a
Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. Closing
his letter, General Howard said, “Never mind if you did fight on the
other side.”
*****
To General O. O. Howard:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Jan, 12, '09.
DEAR GENERAL HOWARD,--You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking
me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to
decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since
that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln
Memorial University. The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of
all the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln,
serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.
I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be
there to witness it and help you rejoice. But I am older than people
think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from
home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in
mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter.
You ought not to say sarcastic things about my “fighting on the other
side.” General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me
compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs
for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had
followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have
caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General
Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced,
and you have hurt my feelings.
But I have an affection for you, anyway.
MARK TWAIN.
One of Mark Twain's friends was Henniker-Heaton, the so-called
“Father of Penny Postage” between England and America. When, after
long years of effort, he succeeded in getting the rate established,
he at once bent his energies in the direction of cheap cable service
and a letter from him came one day to Stormfield concerning his new
plans. This letter happened to be over-weight, which gave Mark
Twain a chance for some amusing exaggerations at his expense.
*****
To Henniker-Heaton, in London:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Jan. 18, 1909.
DEAR HENNIKER-HEATON,--I do hope you will succeed to your heart's desire
in your cheap-cablegram campaign, and I feel sure you will. Indeed
your cheap-postage victory, achieved in spite of a quarter-century of
determined opposition, is good and rational prophecy that you will.
Wireless, not being as yet imprisoned in a Chinese wall of private cash
and high-placed and formidable influence, will come to your aid and make
your new campaign briefer and easier than the other one was.
Now then, after uttering my serious word, am I privileged to be
frivolous for a moment? When you shall have achieved cheap telegraphy,
are you going to employ it for just your own selfish profit and other
people's pecuniary damage, the way you are doing with your cheap
postage? You get letter-postage reduced to 2 cents an ounce, then you
mail me a 4-ounce letter with a 2-cent stamp on it, and I have to pay
the extra freight at this end of the line. I return your envelope for
inspection. Look at it. Stamped in one place is a vast “T,” and under it
the figures “40,” and under those figures appears an “L,” a sinister and
suspicious and mysterious L. In another place, stamped within a circle,
in offensively large capitals, you find the words “DUE 8 CENTS.”
Finally, in the midst of a desert space up nor-noreastard from that
circle you find a figure “3” of quite unnecessarily aggressive and
insolent magnitude--and done with a blue pencil, so as to be as
conspicuous as possible. I inquired about these strange signs and
symbols of the postman. He said they were P. O. Department signals for
his instruction.
“Instruction for what?”
“To get extra postage.”
“Is it so? Explain. Tell me about the large T and the 40.
“It's short for Take 40--or as we postmen say, grab 40”
“Go on, please, while I think up some words to swear with.”
“Due 8 means, grab 8 more.”
“Continue.”
“The blue-pencil 3 was an afterthought. There aren't any stamps for
afterthoughts; the sums vary, according to inspiration, and they whirl
in the one that suggests itself at the last moment. Sometimes they go
several times higher than this one. This one only means hog 3 cents
more. And so if you've got 51 cents about you, or can borrow it--”
“Tell me: who gets this corruption?”
“Half of it goes to the man in England who ships the letter on short
postage, and the other half goes to the P.O.D. to protect cheap postage
from inaugurating a deficit.”
“-------------------”
“I can't blame you; I would say it myself in your place, if these ladies
were not present. But you see I'm only obeying orders, I can't help
myself.”
“Oh, I know it; I'm not blaming you. Finally, what does that L stand
for?”
“Get the money, or give him L. It's English, you know.”
“Take it and go. It's the last cent I've got in the world--.”
After seeing the Oxford pageant file by the grand stand, picture after
picture, splendor after splendor, three thousand five hundred
strong, the most moving and beautiful and impressive and
historically-instructive show conceivable, you are not to think I would
miss the London pageant of next year, with its shining host of 15,000
historical English men and women dug from the misty books of all the
vanished ages and marching in the light of the sun--all alive, and
looking just as they were used to look! Mr. Lascelles spent yesterday
here on the farm, and told me all about it. I shall be in the middle
of my 75th year then, and interested in pageants for personal and
prospective reasons.
I beg you to give my best thanks to the Bath Club for the offer of its
hospitalities, but I shall not be able to take advantage of it, because
I am to be a guest in a private house during my stay in London.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
It was in 1907 that Clemens had seen the Oxford Pageant--during the
week when he had been awarded his doctor's degree. It gave him the
greatest delight, and he fully expected to see the next one, planned
for 1910.
In the letter to Howells which follows we get another glimpse of
Mark Twain's philosophy of man, the irresponsible machine.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN.,
Jan. 18, '09.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I have to write a line, lazy as I am, to say how your
Poe article delighted me; and to say that I am in agreement with
substantially all you say about his literature. To me his prose is
unreadable--like Jane Austin's. No, there is a difference. I could read
his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It
seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.
Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe,
but you also grant that he sinned against himself--a thing which he
couldn't do and didn't do.
It is lively up here now. I wish you could come.
Yrs ever,
MARK
*****
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
3 in the morning, Apl. 17, '09.
[Written with pencil].
My pen has gone dry and the ink is out of reach. Howells, Did you write
me day-before-day before yesterday, or did I dream it? In my mind's
eye I most vividly see your hand-write on a square blue envelop in the
mailpile. I have hunted the house over, but there is no such letter. Was
it an illusion?
I am reading Lowell's letter, and smoking. I woke an hour ago and am
reading to keep from wasting the time. On page 305, vol. I. I have just
margined a note:
“Young friend! I like that! You ought to see him now.”
It seemed startlingly strange to hear a person call you young. It was a
brick out of a blue sky, and knocked me groggy for a moment. Ah me, the
pathos of it is, that we were young then. And he--why, so was he, but
he didn't know it. He didn't even know it 9 years later, when we saw him
approaching and you warned me, saying, “Don't say anything about age--he
has just turned fifty, and thinks he is old and broods over it.”
[Well, Clara did sing! And you wrote her a dear letter.]
Time to go to sleep.
Yours ever,
MARK.
*****
To Daniel Kiefer:
[No date.]
DANL KIEFER ESQ. DEAR SIR,--I should be far from willing to have a
political party named after me.
I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed its members
to have political aspirations or to push friends forward for political
preferment.
Yours very truly,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The copyright extension, for which the author had been working so
long, was granted by Congress in 1909, largely as the result of that
afternoon in Washington when Mark Twain had “received” in “Uncle
Joe” Cannon's private room, and preached the gospel of copyright
until the daylight faded and the rest of the Capitol grew still.
Champ Clark was the last to linger that day and they had talked far
into the dusk. Clark was powerful, and had fathered the bill. Now
he wrote to know if it was satisfactory.
*****
To Champ Clark, in Washington:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., June 5, '09.
DEAR CHAMP CLARK--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me?
Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, and clearly defined, and
just and righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United
States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no
trouble in arriving at that decision.
The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was down
there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting and apparently
irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all said “the case
is hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos nothing can be
built.” But we were in error; out of that chaotic mass this excellent
bill has been instructed; the warring interests have been reconciled,
and the result is as comely and substantial a legislative edifice as
lifts its domes and towers and protective lightning rods out of the
statute book, I think. When I think of that other bill, which even the
Deity couldn't understand, and of this one which even I can understand,
I take off my hat to the man or men who devised this one. Was it R. U.
Johnson? Was it the Author's League? Was it both together? I don't know,
but I take off my hat, anyway. Johnson has written a valuable article
about the new law--I enclose it.
At last--at last and for the first time in copyright history we are
ahead of England! Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and by
fairness to all interests concerned. Does this sound like shouting?
Then I must modify it: all we possessed of copyright-justice before the
fourth of last March we owed to England's initiative.
Truly Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Because Mark Twain amused himself with certain aspects of Christian
Science, and was critical of Mrs. Eddy, there grew up a wide
impression that he jeered at the theory of mental healing; when, as
a matter of fact, he was one of its earliest converts, and never
lost faith in its power. The letter which follows is an excellent
exposition of his attitude toward the institution of Christian
Science and the founder of the church in America.
*****
To J. Wylie Smith, Glasgow, Scotland:
“STORMFIELD,” August 7, 1909
DEAR SIR,--My view of the matter has not changed. To wit, that Christian
Science is valuable; that it has just the same value now that it had
when Mrs. Eddy stole it from Quimby; that its healing principle (its
most valuable asset) possesses the same force now that it possessed a
million years ago before Quimby was born; that Mrs. Eddy... organized
that force, and is entitled to high credit for that. Then, with a
splendid sagacity she hitched it to... a religion, the surest of
all ways to secure friends for it, and support. In a fine and lofty
way--figuratively speaking--it was a tramp stealing a ride on the
lightning express. Ah, how did that ignorant village-born peasant
woman know the human being so well? She has no more intellect than a
tadpole--until it comes to business then she is a marvel! Am I sorry I
wrote the book? Most certainly not. You say you have 500 (converts) in
Glasgow. Fifty years from now, your posterity will not count them by the
hundred, but by the thousand. I feel absolutely sure of this.
Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed
writing for his own amusement, setting down the things that boiled,
or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of
human deportment, human superstition and human creeds. The “Letters
from the Earth” referred to in the following, were supposed to have
been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a
friend, describing the absurdities of mankind. It is true, as he
said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the
manuscript contains some of his most delicious writing. Miss
Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in
Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume entitled
Mark Twain in the Happy Island.
“STORMFIELD,” REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Nov. 13, '09.
DEAR BETSY,--I've been writing “Letters from the Earth,” and if you will
come here and see us I will--what? Put the MS in your hands, with the
places to skip marked? No. I won't trust you quite that far. I'll read
messages to you. This book will never be published--in fact it couldn't
be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has
much Holy Scripture in it of the kind that... can't properly be read
aloud, except from the pulpit and in family worship. Paine enjoys it,
but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I suppose.
The autumn splendors passed you by? What a pity. I wish you had been
here. It was beyond words! It was heaven and hell and sunset and
rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you
couldn't look at it and keep the tears back. All the hosannahing strong
gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and hell and the pole, now, but
no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment,
you would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say: This
is not real, this is a dream. Such a singing together, and such a
whispering together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors,
and such kissing and caressing, and such pretty blushing when the sun
breaks out and catches those dainty weeds at it--you remember that
weed-garden of mine?--and then--then the far hills sleeping in a dim
blue trance--oh, hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see
it.
Good! I wish I could go on the platform and read. And I could, if it
could be kept out of the papers. There's a charity-school of 400 young
girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some
more; but--oh, well, I can't go, and it's no use to grieve about it.
This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also
Katy; also the laundress. The cook and the maid, and the boy and
the roustabout and Jean's coachman are left--just enough to make it
lonesome, because they are around yet never visible. However, the
Harpers are sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall
survive.
Affectionately,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Early in June that year, Clemens had developed unmistakable symptoms
of heart trouble of a very serious nature. It was angina pectoris,
and while to all appearances he was as well as ever and usually felt
so, he was periodically visited by severe attacks of acute “breast
pains” which, as the months passed, increased in frequency and
severity. He was alarmed and distressed--not on his own account,
but because of his daughter Jean--a handsome girl, who had long been
subject to epileptic seizures. In case of his death he feared that
Jean would be without permanent anchorage, his other daughter,
Clara--following her marriage to Ossip Gabrilowitsch in October
--having taken up residence abroad.
This anxiety was soon ended. On the morning of December 24th, Jean
Clemens was found dead in her apartment. She was not drowned in her
bath, as was reported, but died from heart exhaustion, the result of
her malady and the shock of cold water.
[Questionable diagnosis! D.W. M.D.]
The blow to her father was terrible, but heavy as it was, one may
perhaps understand that her passing in that swift, painless way must
have afforded him a measure of relief.
*****
To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, in Europe:
REDDING, CONN.,
Dec. 29, '09.
O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe--safe! I am
not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think. You see, I
was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away
and no one stood between her and danger but me--and I could die at any
moment, and then--oh then what would become of her! For she was wilful,
you know, and would not have been governable.
You can't imagine what a darling she was, that last two or three
days; and how fine, and good, and sweet, and noble-and joyful, thank
Heaven!--and how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted
with Jean before. I recognized that.
But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't. I have already poured my
heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two.