MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1835-1866 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt1bg10.txt] #2982
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1866-1875 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt2bg10.txt] #2983
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1875-1886 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt3bg10.txt] #2984
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1886-1900 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt4bg10.txt] #2985
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1900-1907 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt5bg10.txt] #2986
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1907-1910 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt6bg10.txt] #2987
THE COMPLETE MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1835-1910 by Paine [mt7bg10.txt] #2988
THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt8bg10.txt] #3463
TWAIN'S LETTERS V1 1835-1866 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt1lt10.txt] #3193
TWAIN'S LETTERS V2 1867-1875 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt2lt10.txt] #3194
TWAIN'S LETTERS V3 1876-1885 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt3lt10.txt] #3195
TWAIN'S LETTERS V4 1886-1900 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt4lt10.txt] #3196
TWAIN'S LETTERS V5 1901-1906 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt5lt10.txt] #3197
TWAIN'S LETTERS V6 1907-1910 by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt6lt10.txt] #3198
THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF MARK TWAIN by Albert Bigelow Paine [mtclt10.txt] #3199
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MARK TWAIN'S WORK FROM 1851-1910
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY 1835-1866
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt1bgxxx.xxx] #2982
Absolute unaccountability of conduct
Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Clemens
Bret Harte
Court exertion. I love work
"Do you swear?" "Not for amusement; only under pressure."
Doing things and reflecting afterward
Dr. Holmes's Songs in Many Keys
His estimation of his own work was always unsafe
Income equal to that then earned by the Vice-President of the US
Jim Wolfe and the cats
Kissed each other, something hitherto unknown
Less than a cent an acre
Man who has that eye doesn't need to go armed
Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb
Not Mark Twain's habit to strive for humor
Nothing that glitters is gold
Out of the window, and I carried the sash along with me.
Perfect air of not knowing it to be humorous
Ready acknowledgment of shortcoming
Seeing them in print was a joy
Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and character
Sick were made well, and the well made better
Swayed by every passing emotion and influence
Twain did not remember ever having seen or heard his father lau
Unerring faculty for making business mistakes
Voluntarily retired from the service
Ways and means were not always considered
Wife was a new kind of possession
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY 1866-1875
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt2bgxxx.xxx] #2983
American habit of carrying a cotton umbrella
Auntie Rachel
Death that made its beginning there
Does not seem to be in all respects a reptile
Don't take the bull by the horns-take him by the tail
Dr. John Brown
Expectant look in the Eastern horizon
Forgotten that he had ever had any other views
He had no prejudices about clothes
Jealousy
Josh Billings
Know so much that isn't so.
Lecky's History of European Morals';
Liberty, justice, humanity
Life and death that made its beginning there
Likely to write not wisely but too much
Ma likes funerals
Mark Twain Scrap-Book
Marriages are what the parties to them alone really know
Nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape
Ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it
Potter's "English violet" order of design
Praise, but not of an intemperate sort
Praises to whatever seemed genuine
Proceeded from unreasoned selfishness to reasoned selfishness
Read not so many books, but read a few books often
Ridicule to the things considered sham
Selfishness
Sketches which every artist has, turned face to the wall
Some folks mistake vivacity for wit
Terrible death to be talked to death
True Story
Western humor
Wife was for years afflicted with freckles
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1875-1886
by Albert Bigelow Paine, [mt3bg10.txt] #2984
Absentmindedness
Between Harte and Clemens, the whole matter was unfortunate
Bible
Canadian girls so pretty
Cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes
Cazenova, and Rousseau.
Communism is idiocy
Confusions of memory and imagination
Conscience ain't got no sense
Consider every man colored till he is proved white
Cynic; restrained
Damning with faint praise
Drawn the sting of my fiftieth year; taken away the pain of it
Fathers be alike, mayhap; mine hath not a doll's temper
Fear God and dread the Sunday-school
France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals
Graham Bell
Hain't we all the fools in town on our side?
Happily, the little child was to evade that harsher penalty
Hatred of humbug, and a scorn for cant
Header
Hickory-nuts
I could a staid if I'd a wanted to, but I didn't want to.
If loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot
Lecky
Livy, if it comforts you to lean on the Christian faith do so!
Modest" Club
My advice is not to raise the flag
Operas
Optimist
Pessimist
Pretty soon we shall have been dead a hundred years
Religion
Resenting, even when most amused by it, extravagance and burles
Rubaiyat
Style that is not a style at all but the very absence of it
Symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax
Teaspoonful of brains
They fought, that a mother might own her child
Under dog in the fight
Well, it 'most kills me, but it pays
What is Man
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1886-1900
by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt4bg10.txt]#2985
Address he made at Yale College
And now she is dead--& I can never tell her.
And of the article: "I read it to the cat
Been on the verge of being an angel all my life
Carbuncle is a kind of jewel
Compliment that helps us on our way
Defeat waits somewhere for every conqueror
Don't reform any more. It is not an improvement
Edited manuscript-by a half wit
Embroidery line
Every man is strong until his price is named
Feverish desire to admire the newest thing
Flood-tide is a temporary condition
Genius has no youth
God is on both sides in this war
Good-by. Will healing ever come, or life have value again?
Honor is a harder master than the law
Humor should take its outings in grave company
I hope his uncle's funeral will be a failure!
Immensely but unintelligently interested
It cannot be safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much
Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated
Letter written in a passion is a mistake
Man is the only animal that blushes, or that needs to
Mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you
Neither the refinement nor the weakness of a college education
Never a throne which did not represent a crime
Only a human being, he said, could have done these things
Only by resisting temptation that men grow strong
Prepared and memorized a very good speech but had forgotten it.
Preserve your illusions
Pronounced Mrs. Clemens free from any organic ills
Put all your eggs into one basket--and watch that basket
Refused ten thousand dollars for a tobacco indorsement
There is not much choice between a removal & a funeral
What is biography? Unadorned romance
Whenever I enjoy anything in art it means that it is poor
Won't be anybody for you to get acquainted with but God
Won't you please say something funny?"
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1900-1907
by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt5bg10.txt]#2986
"Adams Memorial," by Saint-Gaudens
A Dog's Tale
Abhorred extortion and visible waste.
After seventy we are respected--but don't need to behave
American public opinion is a delicate fabric
Asked forgiveness for the tears he had brought into her life
Back Number
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply
Bible
Blasphemy
Cavalleria Rusticana
Classic--something that everybody wants to have read
Convenient bronchitis
Count among my privileges in life that I know you, the author
Covetousness to-day was the basis of all commerce
Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron
Death was the thing that we did not believe in.
Died at the right time, in the flower of youth and happiness
Do right and you will be conspicuous
Doctrine of Selfishness
Don't you care more about the wretchedness of others
Each letter or character should have one sound
Enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it
Find out what the country's customs are
Gentleman
Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking-glass
God is sitting up nights worrying over the individuals
God must love you!
Hail you as the Voltaire of America
Hair
His conscience was always repairing itself
How poor we are to-day!
Human being needs to revise his ideas again about God
I am as one who wanders and has lost his way
I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy
I am tired wanting for that man to get old
I would not call her back if I could
If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times
Billiards
Impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man
Impromptu speech
It was his habit to grow fond of his surroundings
Jester, who for forty years had been making the world laugh
Last and best of life for which the first was made
Learned the meaning of grief
Letter on inadvertant theft on a visit to friends
Life is a game of whist.
Looks like a good deal of trouble for such a small result
Loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship
Machine that is as unreliable as he is would have no market
Man the irresponsible Machine
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired
Massacre of Jews in Moscow
Mental healing
No general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him
Number of things I can remember that aren't so
One could lose a dog in this bed," he declared
Only dead men can tell the truth in this world
Our alphabet is pure insanity
Oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a man
Patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and Stripes clean
Pier
Political conscience into somebody else's keeping
Poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures
Previous-engagement plea
Revelation of injustice and hypocrisy
Seventy, the scriptural limitation of life
Shall we ever laugh again?
Smoked constantly, loathed exercise
Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her
Tannhauser
Teeth
"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery."
The rest is silence
There is no such thing as a new idea
Threescore years and ten!
To My Missionary Critics
To the Person Sitting in Darkness
War Prayer
Was the World Made for Man
We are always too busy for our children
We have no real morals, but only artificial ones
What an amusing creature the human being is!"
What are you going to do, you poor soul?
Wheresoever she was, there was Eden
Would you do it again if you had the chance?
Yes, we are a sufficiently comical invention, we humans
MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1907-1910
by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt6bg10.txt]#2987
Affection--that is the last and final and most precious reward
All beggars, each in his own way
Always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow
Assent to what must be
Ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone
Beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow
Begum, of Bengal, days out from Canton--homeward bound!
Best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known
Brown's Hotel
Byron
Casanova & Pepys & Saint Simon
Cats really owned Stormfield
Certainty
Chastity, you can carry it too far.
Claudius
Conceit in believing that he was the Creator's pet
Continuous procession of blood and slaughter and stench
Costs even more to entertain a dog than a burglar
Curiosities and absurdities of religious superstitions
Death--the only immortal who treats us all alike
Despises pretenders and charlatans of all sorts
Dreaming of the past or anticipating the future
Dying I don't want to be stimulated back to life
Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all
Eighty-five hundred guests at the King's party
Entered upon a holiday whose other end is the cemetery
Even members of his household did not always stir his conscious
Every man builds his God according to his own capacities.
Fame had deprived him of valued privileges.
Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it
Glad, for the sake of the dead, that they have escaped
God Trust motto on the coins
Got a genuine excuse. It makes me feel so honest
Government that robs its own people earns its future
Habits take precedence of thought
He lived in the present
I have never greatly envied any one but the dead
Incite public favorites to dangerous ambitions
Infamous doctrine of allegiance to party
Interpreting the deity
Jane Austen's books
Knights of Labor
Letters from the Earth
Letters of Madame de Sevigne
Life is too long and too short
Loved him all my life, and I'll love him till I die
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain
Make other men not fit to die, but fit to live
Man who isn't a pessimist is a d---d fool."
Many things had been discussed and put away for good
Mendicancy
Museum of Natural History
Nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble
Nothing is ever at rest--wood, iron, water, everything is alive
October th was a perfect wedding-day
Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long
Optimism
Party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul
People religiously and otherwise insane
Pessimist
Rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike
Reached the grandfather stage of life without grandchildren
Recognize myself
Ruling public and political aristocracy
Sad tolerance of age
Saint-Saens
Shem's diary
Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?
Simon wheeler, detective
Slave that is proud that he is a slave
Suetonius,
Suetonius and Carlyle lay on the bed beside him
Tarkington
Telling the truth's the funniest joke in the world
Temperament is the man
The Derelict
The Great Law
The international lightning trust
The mysterious chamber
The second advent
The war prayer
There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots
They have forgotten how to rest
This race's God I mean--their own pet invention
This view beggars all admiration
Titanic
Tom and Huck
Trinity
Turn hell's back yard into a playground
Undertaker's love-story
Unitarianism is a featherbed to catch falling Christians
Unsent Letters
We live to learn
When we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry
Whereas we can think, we generally don't do it
Which was which?
Woman a eulogy of the fair sex
Woodrow Wilson
Wouldn't read that book again without a salary.
Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is.
You must never ask for wages
You sneer, you ships that pass me by
Young people--school-girls in particular
THE COMPLETE MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, 1835-1910
by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt7bg10.txt]#2988
A Dog's Tale
Abhorred extortion and visible waste.
Absentmindedness
Absolute unaccountability of conduct
"Adams Memorial," by Saint-Gaudens
Address he made at Yale College
Affection--that is the last and final and most precious reward
After seventy we are respected--but don't need to behave
All beggars, each in his own way
Always an incompleteness somewhere, and the shadow
American habit of carrying a cotton umbrella
American public opinion is a delicate fabric
American enthusiasm in such matters stopped well above their po
And now she is dead--& I can never tell her.
And of the article: "I read it to the cat."
Asked forgiveness for the tears he had brought into her life
Assassination of an empress
Assent to what must be
Auntie Rachel
Autobiography of a damn fool
Ax on his shoulder proceeding toward a grindstone
Back Number
Beating the dirge of yesterday or the tattoo of to-morrow
Been on the verge of being an angel all my life
Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
Begum, of Bengal, days out from Canton--homeward bound!
Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Clemens
Best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known
Between Harte and Clemens, the whole matter was unfortunate
Blasphemy
Bret Harte
Brown's Hotel
Byron
Canadian girls so pretty
Carbuncle is a kind of jewel
Casanova & Pepys & Saint Simon
Cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes
Cats really owned Stormfield
Cavalleria Rusticana
Cazenova, and Rousseau.
Certainty
Chastity, you can carry it too far
Classic--something that everybody wants to have read
Claudius
Communism is idiocy
Compliment that helps us on our way
Conceit in believing that he was the Creator's pet
Confusions of memory and imagination
Conscience ain't got no sense
Consider every man colored till he is proved white
Continuous procession of blood and slaughter and stench
Convenient bronchitis
Costs even more to entertain a dog than a burglar
Count among my privileges in life that I know you, the author
Court exertion. I love work
Covetousness to-day was the basis of all commerce
Curiosities and absurdities of religious superstitions
Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron
Cynic; restrained
Damning with faint praise
Death that made its beginning there
Death was the thing that we did not believe in.
Death--the only immortal who treats us all alike
Defeat waits somewhere for every conqueror
Despises pretenders and charlatans of all sorts
Died at the right time, in the flower of youth and happiness
Do right and you will be conspicuous
"Do you swear?" "Not for amusement; only under pressure."
Doctrine of Selfishness
Does not seem to be in all respects a reptile
Doing things and reflecting afterward
Don't you care more about the wretchedness of others
Don't take the bull by the horns-take him by the tail
Don't reform any more. It is not an improvement
Dr. Holmes's Songs in Many Keys
Dr. John Brown
Drawn the sting of my fiftieth year; taken away the pain of it
Dreaming of the past or anticipating the future
Dying I don't want to be stimulated back to life
Each letter or character should have one sound
Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all
Edited manuscript-by a half wit
Eighty-five hundred guests at the King's party
Embroidery line
Enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it
Entered upon a holiday whose other end is the cemetery
Even members of his household did not always stir his conscious
Every man builds his God according to his own capacities
Every man is strong until his price is named
Expectant look in the Eastern horizon
Fame had deprived him of valued privileges
Fathers be alike, mayhap; mine hath not a doll's temper
Fear God and dread the Sunday-school
Feverish desire to admire the newest thing
Find out what the country's customs are
Flood-tide is a temporary condition
Forgotten that he had ever had any other views
France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals
Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it
Genius has no youth
Gentleman
Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking-glass
Glad, for the sake of the dead, that they have escaped.
God is on both sides in this war
God must love you!
God Trust" motto on the coins
God is sitting up nights worrying over the individuals
Good-by. Will healing ever come, or life have value again?
Got a genuine excuse. It makes me feel so honest
Government that robs its own people earns its future
Graham Bell
Habits take precedence of thought
Hail you as the Voltaire of America
Hain't we all the fools in town on our side?
Hair
Happily, the little child was to evade that harsher penalty
Hatred of humbug, and a scorn for cant
He had no prejudices about clothes
He lived in the present
Header
Hickory-nuts
His conscience was always repairing itself
His estimation of his own work was always unsafe
Honor is a harder master than the law
How poor we are to-day!
Human being needs to revise his ideas again about God
Humor should take its outings in grave company
I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy
I am tired wanting for that man to get old
I would not call her back if I could
I could a staid if I'd a wanted to, but I didn't want to
I have never greatly envied any one but the dead
I am as one who wanders and has lost his way
I hope his uncle's funeral will be a failure!
If loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot
If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times
Immensely but unintelligently interested
Impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man
Impromptu speech
Incite public favorites to dangerous ambitions
Income equal to that then earned by the Vice-President of the US
Infamous doctrine of allegiance to party
It was his habit to grow fond of his surroundings
It cannot be safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much
Jane Austen's books
Jealousy
Jester, who for forty years had been making the world laugh
Jim Wolfe and the cats
Josh Billings
Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated
Kissed each other, something hitherto unknown
Know so much that isn't so
Last and best of life for which the first was made
Learned the meaning of grief
Lecky
Lecky's History of European Morals
Less than a cent an acre
Letter on inadvertant theft on a visit to friends
Letter written in a passion is a mistake
Letters of Madame de Sevigne
Letters from the Earth
Liberty, justice, humanity
Life and death that made its beginning there
Life is a game of whist.
Life is too long and too short.
Likely to write not wisely but too much
Livy, if it comforts you to lean on the Christian faith do so!
Looks like a good deal of trouble for such a small result
Loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship
Loved him all my life, and I'll love him till I die
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain
Ma likes funerals
Machine that is as unreliable as he is would have no market
Make other men not fit to die, but fit to live
Man is the only animal that blushes, or that needs to
Man who isn't a pessimist is a d---d fool
Man who has that eye doesn't need to go armed
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired
Man the irresponsible Machine
Many things had been discussed and put away for good
Mark Twain Scrap-Book
Marriages are what the parties to them alone really know
Massacre of Jews in Moscow
Mendicancy
Mental healing
Mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you
"Modest" Club
Museum of Natural History
My advice is not to raise the flag
Neither the refinement nor the weakness of a college education
Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb
Never a throne which did not represent a crime
No general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him
Nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble
Not Mark Twain's habit to strive for humor
Nothing that glitters is gold
Nothing but almost inspired lying got me out of this scrape
Nothing is ever at rest--wood, iron, water, everything is alive
Number of things I can remember that aren't so."
October th was a perfect wedding-day
Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long
One could lose a dog in this bed
Only dead men can tell the truth in this world
Only a human being, he said, could have done these things
Only by resisting temptation that men grow strong
Operas
Optimism
Optimist
Ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it
Our alphabet is pure insanity
Out of the window, and I carried the sash along with me.
Oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a man
Party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul,
Patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and Stripes clean
People religiously and otherwise insane
Perfect air of not knowing it to be humorous
Pessimist
Pier
Political conscience into somebody else's keeping
Poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures
Potter's "English violet" order of design
Praise, but not of an intemperate sort
Praises to whatever seemed genuine
Prepared and memorized a very good speech but had forgotten it
Preserve your illusions
Pretty soon we shall have been dead a hundred years
Previous-engagement plea
Proceeded from unreasoned selfishness to reasoned selfishness
Pronounced Mrs. Clemens free from any organic ills
Put all your eggs into one basket--and watch that basket
Rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike
Reached the grandfather stage of life without grandchildren
Read not so many books, but read a few books often
Ready acknowledgment of shortcoming
Recognize myself
Refused ten thousand dollars for a tobacco indorsement
Religion
Resenting, even when most amused by it, extravagance and burles
Revelation of injustice and hypocrisy
Ridicule to the things considered sham
Rubaiyat
Ruling public and political aristocracy
Sad tolerance of age
Saint-Saens
Seeing them in print was a joy
Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and character
Selfishness
Seventy, the scriptural limitation of life
Shall we ever laugh again?
Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?
Sick were made well, and the well made better
Sketches which every artist has, turned face to the wall
Slave that is proud that he is a slave
Smoked constantly, loathed exercise
Some folks mistake vivacity for wit
Style that is not a style at all but the very absence of it
Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her
Suetonius and Carlyle lay on the bed beside him
Swayed by every passing emotion and influence
Symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax
Tannhauser
Tarkington
Teaspoonful of brains
Teeth
Telling the truth's the funniest joke in the world
Temperament is the man
Terrible death to be talked to death
"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery."
The Great Law
The rest is silence
The Derelict
The second advent
The war prayer
The mysterious chamber
The international lightning trust
There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots
There is no such thing as a new idea
There is not much choice between a removal & a funeral
They have forgotten how to rest
They fought, that a mother might own her child
This view beggars all admiration
This race's God I mean--their own pet invention.
Threescore years and ten!
Titanic
To My Missionary Critics
To the Person Sitting in Darkness
Trinity
True Story
Turn hell's back yard into a playground
Twain did not remember ever having seen or heard his father laugh
Under dog in the fight
Unerring faculty for making business mistakes
Unitarianism is a featherbed to catch falling Christians
Unsent Letters
Voluntarily retired from the service
War Prayer
Was the World Made for Man
Ways and means were not always considered
We are always too busy for our children
We have no real morals, but only artificial ones
We live to learn
Well, it 'most kills me, but it pays
Western humor
What is biography? Unadorned romance
What is Man
What are you going to do, you poor soul?
What an amusing creature the human being is
When we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry
Whenever I enjoy anything in art it means that it is poor
Whereas we can think, we generally don't do it.
Wheresoever she was, there was Eden
Wife was a new kind of possession
Wife was for years afflicted with freckles
Won't be anybody for you to get acquainted with but God
Won't you please say something funny?
Woodrow Wilson
Would you do it again if you had the chance?
Wouldn't read that book again without a salary
Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is.
Yes, we are a sufficiently comical invention, we humans.
You sneer, you ships that pass me by
You must never ask for wages
Young people--school-girls in particular
THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN
by Albert Bigelow Paine [mt8bg10.txt]#3463
It was the 2d of February, 1870, that Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon
were married. A few days before, he sat down one night and wrote to Jim
Gillis, away out in the Tuolumne Hills, and told him of all his good
fortune, recalling their days at Angel's Camp, and the absurd frog story,
which he said had been the beginning of his happiness. In the five years
since then he had traveled a long way, but he had not forgotten.
"Roughing It," in fact, proved a very successful book. Like "The
Innocents Abroad," it was the first of its kind, fresh in its humor and
description, true in its picture of the frontier life he had known. In
three months forty thousand copies had been sold, and now, after more
than forty years, it is still a popular book. The life it describes is
all gone--the scenes are changed. It is a record of a vanished time--a
delightful history--as delightful to-day as ever.
England fairly reveled in Mark Twain. At one of the great banquets, a
roll of the distinguished guests was called, and the names properly
applauded. Mark Twain, busily engaged in low conversation with his
neighbor, applauded without listening, vigorously or mildly, as the
others led. Finally a name was followed by a great burst of long and
vehement clapping. This must be some very great person indeed, and Mark
Twain, not to be outdone in his approval, stoutly kept his hands going
when all others had finished.
"Whose name was that we were just applauding?" he asked of his neighbor.
--"Mark Twain's."
They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment.
If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than
royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The
nation's most distinguished men--among them Robert Browning, Sir John
Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke--came to pay their
respects. Authors were calling constantly. Charles Reade and Wilkie
Collins could not get enough of Mark Twain. Reade proposed to join with
him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call,
being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one
night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I
ever saw," Mark Twain once declared.
At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set down
the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, with
John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, and
now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built for
him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. The
study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, with
windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any direction
the breeze could come, and there were fine views. To Twichell he wrote:
"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."
The terms of Samuel Clemens's apprenticeship were the usual thing for
that day: board and clothes--"more board than clothes, and not much of
either," Mark Twain used to say.
"If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy-
haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing-office
at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a little box
at the case, who used to love to sing so well the statement of the poor
drunken man who was supposed to have fallen by the wayside, 'If ever I
get up again, I'll stay up--if I kin.'"
"Do you swear?"--"N-not for amusement; only under pressure."
"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."
TWAIN'S LETTERS V1 1835-1866
by A. B. Paine[mt1lt10.txt] #3193
A mighty national menace to sham
All talk and no cider
Condition my room is always in when you are not around
Deprived of the soothing consolation of swearing
Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it
Genius defies the laws of perspective
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick
I never greatly envied anybody but the dead
In the long analysis of the ages it is the truth that counts
Just about enough cats to go round
Moral bulwark reared against hypocrisy and superstition
The coveted estate of silence, time's only absolute gift
We went outside to keep from getting wet
What a pleasure there is in revenge!
When in doubt, tell the truth
When it is my turn, I don't
TWAIN'S LETTERS V2 1867-1875
by A. B. Paine[mt2lt10.txt] #3194
DEAR REDPATH,--I wish you would get me released from the lecture at
Buffalo. I mortally hate that society there, and I don't doubt they
hired me. I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never
even had the common politeness to thank me. They left me to shift for
myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard. Get me rid of Buffalo!
Otherwise I'll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture
there. I can get sick easy enough.
I send you No. 5 today. I have written and re-written the first half of
it three different times, yesterday and today, and at last Mrs. Clemens
says it will do. I never saw a woman so hard to please about things she
doesn't know anything about. Yours ever, MARK.
This is the place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There isn't one
man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson
Burlingame--and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great
talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his
time was up. There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh,
geeminy! There are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to
visit. I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its "attractions." To
be busy is a man's only happiness--and I am--otherwise I should die
Yrs. aff. SAM.
TWAIN'S LETTERS V3 1876-1885
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt3lt10.txt] #3195
It is interesting to note that in thanking Clemens for his compliment
Howells wrote: "What people cannot see is that I analyze as little as
possible; they go on talking about the analytical school, which I am
supposed to belong to, and I want to thank you for using your eyes.....
Did you ever read De Foe's 'Roxana'? If not, then read it, not merely
for some of the deepest insights into the lying, suffering, sinning,
well-meaning human soul, but for the best and most natural English that a
book was ever written in."
Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is
approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the
household and seldomest get.
In the same letter he suggests to his brother that he undertake an
absolutely truthful autobiography, a confession in which nothing is to be
withheld. He cites the value of Casanova's memories, and the confessions
of Rousseau.
And I say this also: He that waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his
plan, let him seek eternal life, for he shall need it.
Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old
Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?
You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a
village--villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other.
TWAIN'S LETTERS V4 1886-1900
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt4lt10.txt] #3196
And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55
Argument against suicide
Conversationally being yelled at
Dead people who go through the motions of life
Die in the promptest kind of a way and no fooling around
Heroic endurance that resembles contentment
Honest men must be pretty scarce
I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt
If this is going to be too much trouble to you
One should be gentle with the ignorant
Sunday is the only day that brings unbearable leisure
Symbol of the human race ought to be an ax
What a pity it is that one's adventures never happen!
TWAIN'S LETTERS V5 1901-1906
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt5lt10.txt] #3197
I have seen that iceberg thirty-four times in thirty-seven voyages; it is
always the same shape, it is always the same size, it always throws up
the same old flash when the sun strikes it; you may set it on any New
York door-step of a June morning and light it up with a mirror-flash; and
I will engage to recognize it. It is artificial, and it is provided and
anchored out by the steamer companies. I used to like the sea, but I was
young then, and could easily get excited over any kind of monotony, and
keep it up till the monotonies ran out, if it was a fortnight.
It vexes me to catch myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt,
and blaming the soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither
praise nor blame is due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he
being merely a helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand
of God.
It was a presidential year and the air was thick with politics. Mark
Twain was no longer actively interested in the political situation; he
was only disheartened by the hollowness and pretense of office-seeking,
and the methods of office-seekers in general.
Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the
old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all,
everything, and ease my heart. Think--in 3 hours it will be a week!--and
soon a month; and by and by a year. How fast our dead fly from us.
Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the fields,
with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired of waiting for that
man to get old.
When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an
optimist after it, he knows too little.
TWAIN'S LETTERS V6 1907-1910
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mt6lt10.txt] #3198
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.
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.
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.
THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF MARK TWAIN
by Albert Bigelow Paine[mtclt10.txt] #3199
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.
Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the
old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all,
everything, and ease my heart. Think--in 3 hours it will be a week!--and
soon a month; and by and by a year. How fast our dead fly from us.
I used to like the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get
excited over any kind of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran
out.
And I say this also: He that waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his
plan, let him seek eternal life, for he shall need it.
Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old
Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?
You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a
village-- villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other.
A mighty national menace to sham
All talk and no cider
Approval
Argument against suicide
As good and ridiculous a soul as ever was.
Buffalo! I mortally hate that society there
Casanova
Condition my room is always in when you are not around
Conversationally and being yelled at
Could easily get excited over any kind of monotony,
De Foe's 'Roxana'
Dead people who go through the motions of life
Deprived of the soothing consolation of swearing
Die in the promptest kind of a way and no fooling around
Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for it.
Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it
General Grant
Genius defies the laws of perspective
Get me rid of Buffalo!
Great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death
Hard to please about things she doesn't know anything about
He that waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his plan
Helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand of God
Heroic endurance that resembles contentment
Hollowness and pretense of office-seeking
Honest men must be pretty scarce
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick
How fast our dead fly from us
I never greatly envied anybody but the dead
I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt
I am tired of waiting for that man to get old
If this is going to be too much trouble to you
In the long analysis of the ages it is the truth that counts
Jacobs
Just about enough cats to go round
Moral bulwark reared against hypocrisy and superstition
Never approximated, never compromised
One should be gentle with the ignorant
Quit sorry that Heaven makes the days so short
Rousseau
Short life and a merry one be yours
Sunday is the only day that brings unbearable leisure
Symbol of the human race ought to be an ax
The coveted estate of silence, time's only absolute gift
They don't run her now
To be busy is a man's only happiness
Uncover such a sore as that and show it to another
Villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other
We went outside to keep from getting wet
What a pleasure there is in revenge!
What a pity it is that one's adventures never happen!
When in doubt, tell the truth
When it is my turn, I don't