and fretted all day; two swearing fits under his breath, with a short
interval between them, they lasted from our arrival in town until he
went to sleep after midnight. It was with great difficulty that he got
through the lecture. The crowd, which kept stringing in at long
intervals until half-past nine, made him so nervous that he left the
stage for a time. I thought he was ill, and rushed back of the scenes,
only to meet him in a white rage. He looked daggers at me, and remarked:
“‘You’ll never play a trick like this on me again. Look at that
audience. It isn’t half in yet.’
“I explained that many of the people came from long distances, and that
the cars ran only every half hour, the entire country on fire causing
delays, and that was why the last instalment came so late. He cooled
down and went at it again. He captured the crowd. He had a good time and
an encore, and was obliged to give an additional story.
* * * * *
“Thursday, August 15th, Vancouver, B.C.--The Vancouver.
“‘Mark’s’ throat is in a very bad condition. It was a great effort to
make himself heard. He is a thoroughbred--a great man, with wonderful
will power, or he would have succumbed. We had a fine audience, a
crowded house, very English, and I think ‘Mark’ liked it. Everything
here is English and Canadian. There is a rumor afloat that the country
about us is beautiful, but we can’t see it, for there is smoke, smoke
everywhere, and no relief. My eyes are sore from it. We are told that
the _Warrimoo_ will not sail until Wednesday, so I have arranged for the
Victoria lecture Tuesday.
* * * * *
“Friday, August 16th, Vancouver.
“Our tour across the continent is virtually finished, and I feel the
reaction. ‘Othello’s occupation gone.’ This morning ‘Mark’ had a doctor,
who says he is not seriously ill. Mrs. Clemens is curing him. The more I
see of this lady the greater and more wonderful she appears to be. There
are few women who could manage and absolutely rule such a nature as
‘Mark’s.’ She knows the gentle and smooth way over every obstruction he
meets, and makes everything lovely. This has indeed been the most
delightful tour I have ever made with any party, and I wish to record it
as one of the most enjoyable of all my managerial experiences. I hardly
ever expect another. ‘Mark’ has written in a presentation copy of
‘Roughing It’:
“‘Here ends one of the smoothest and pleasantest trips across the
continent that any group of five has ever made.’
“‘Mark’ is better this evening, so we shall surely have a good lecture
in Victoria.
* * * * *
“Saturday, August 17th, Vancouver.
“We are all waiting for the news as to when the _Warrimoo_ will be off
the dry dock and ready to sail. ‘Mark’ is getting better. I have booked
Victoria for Tuesday, the 20th.
“‘Mark’ has lain in bed all day, as usual, spending much time writing.
Reporters have been anxious to meet and interview him, and I urged it.
He finally said: ‘If they’ll excuse my bed, show them up.’ A quartet of
bright young English journalists came up. They all had a good time, and
made much of the last interview with ‘Mark Twain’ in America, as it was.
‘Mark’ was in excellent spirits. His throat is better.
* * * * *
“Monday, August 19th.
“We are at Vancouver still, and the smoke is as firmly fixed as we are
in the town. It is bad. ‘Mark’ has not been very cheerful to-day. He
doesn’t get his voice back. He and I took a walk about the streets, and
he seemed discouraged, I think on account of Mrs. Clemens’s dread of the
long voyage, and because of the unfavorable stories we have heard of the
_Warrimoo_. We leave Vancouver, and hosts of new friends, for Victoria,
B.C., and then we part. That will not be easy, for we are all very
happy. It makes my heart ache to see ‘Mark’ so downhearted after such
continued success as he has had.
“On August 20th the boat for Victoria arrived half an hour late. We all
hurried to get on board, only to be told by the captain that he had one
hundred and eighty tons of freight to discharge, and that it would be
four o’clock before we left. This lost our Victoria engagement, which I
was obliged to postpone by telegraph. ‘Mark’ was not in condition to
relish this news, and as he stood on the wharf after the ladies had gone
aboard he took occasion to tell the captain, in very plain and unpious
language, his opinion of a passenger-carrying company that, for a few
dollars extra, would violate their contract and obligations to the
public. They were a lot of ---- somethings, and deserved the
penitentiary. The captain listened without response, but got very red in
the face. It seems the ladies had overheard the loud talk. Soon after
‘Mark’ joined them he came to me and asked if I wouldn’t see that
captain and apologize for his unmanly abuse, and see if any possible
restitution could be made. I did so, and the captain and ‘Mark’ became
quite friends.
“We left Vancouver on _The Charmer_ at six o’clock, arriving in Victoria
a little after midnight.
* * * * *
“Wednesday, August 21st, Victoria, B.C.--The Driad.
“‘Mark’ has been in bed all day; he doesn’t seem to get strength. He
smokes constantly, and I fear too much also; still, he may stand it.
Physicians say it will eventually kill him.
“We had a good audience. Lord and Lady Aberdeen, who were in a box, came
back on the stage after the lecture and said many very nice things of
the entertainment, offering to write to friends-in Australia about it.
‘Mark’s’ voice began strong, but showed fatigue toward the last. His
audience, which was one of the most appreciative he ever had, was in
great sympathy with him as they realized the effort he was obliged to
make, owing to his hoarseness.
“A telegram from Mr. George McL. Brown says the _Warrimoo_ will sail at
six o’clock to-morrow evening. This is the last appearance of ‘Mark
Twain’ in America for more than a year I know, and I much fear the very
last, for it doesn’t seem possible that his physical strength can hold
out. After the lecture to-night he expected to visit a club with Mr.
Campbell, who did not come around. He and I, therefore, went out for a
walk. He was tired and feeble, but did not want to go back to the hotel.
He was nervous and weak, and disappointed, for he had expected to meet
and entertain a lot of gentlemen. He and I are alike in one respect: we
don’t relish disappointment.
* * * * *
“Thursday, August 22d.
“We are in Victoria yet. The blessed ‘tie that binds’ seems to be
drawing tighter and tighter as the time for our final separation
approaches. We shall never be happier in any combination, and Mrs.
Clemens is the great magnet. What a noble woman she is! It is ‘Mark
Twain’s’ wife who makes his works so great. She edits everything and
brings purity, dignity, and sweetness to his writings. In ‘Joan of Arc’
I see Mrs. Clemens as much as ‘Mark Twain.’
* * * * *
“Friday, August 23d, Victoria.
“‘Mark’ and I were out all day getting books, cigars, and tobacco. He
bought three thousand Manilla cheroots, thinking that with four pounds
of Durham smoking tobacco he could make the three thousand cheroots last
four weeks. If perpetual smoking ever kills a man, I don’t see how ‘Mark
Twain’ can expect to escape. He and Mrs. Clemens, an old friend of
‘Mark’s’ and his wife, now living near here, went for a drive, and were
out most of the day. This is remarkable for him. I never knew him to do
such a thing before.
[Illustration: THE LAST SNAPSHOT BEFORE THE “WARRIMOO” SAILED]
“The _Warrimoo_ arrived about one o’clock. We all went on board and
lunched together for the last time. Mrs. Clemens is disappointed in the
ship. The whole thing looks discouraging, and our hearts are almost
broken with sympathy for her. She tells me she is going to brave it
through, for she must do it. It is for her children. Our party got out
on the deck of the _Warrimoo_, and Mr. W. G. Chase, a passenger, took a
snapshot of our quintette. Then wife and I went ashore, and the old
ship started across the Pacific Ocean with three of our most beloved
friends on board. We waved to one another as long as they kept in sight.
“Before sailing ‘Mark Twain’ wrote a letter to the editor of the San
Francisco _Examiner_, from which I quote:
“‘Now that I reflect, perhaps it is a little immodest in me to talk
about my paying my debts, when by my own confession I am blandly getting
ready to unload them on the whole English-speaking world. I didn’t think
of that--well, no matter, so long as they are paid.
“‘Lecturing is gymnastics, chest-expander, medicine, mind healer, blues
destroyer, all in one. I am twice as well as I was when I started out. I
have gained nine pounds in twenty-eight days, and expect to weigh six
hundred before January. I haven’t had a blue day in all the
twenty-eight. My wife and daughter are accumulating health and strength
and flesh nearly as fast as I am. When we reach home two years hence, we
think we can exhibit as freaks.
“‘MARK TWAIN.
“‘Vancouver, B.C., August 15, 1895.”
* * * * *
On September 17, 1897, he wrote me from Weggis, Lake Lucerne:
“I feel quite sure that in Cape Town, thirteen months ago, I stood on a
platform for the last time. Nothing but the Webster debts could persuade
me to lecture again, and I have ceased to worry about those. You
remember in the Sam Moffett interview in Vancouver, in 1895, I gave
myself four years in which to make money enough to pay those debts--and
that included two lecture seasons in America, one in England, and one
around the world. But we are well satisfied now that we shall have those
debts paid off a year earlier than the prophecy, if I continue able to
work as I have been working in London and here, _and without any further
help from the platform_. And so it is, as I said a moment ago, I am a
cheerful man these days.”
In another letter he said: “I managed to pull through that long lecture
campaign, but I was never very well, from the first night in Cleveland
to the last one in Cape Town, and I found it pretty hard work on that
account. I did a good deal of talking when I ought to have been in bed.
At present I am not strong enough for platform work, and am not going to
allow myself to think of London, or any other platform, for a long time
to come. It grieves me, for I could make a satisfactory season in London
and America now that I am practised in my trade again.”
On April 4, 1899, he wrote me from Vienna: “No; I don’t like lecturing.
I lectured in Vienna two or three weeks ago, and in Budapest last week,
but it was merely for fun, not for money. I charged nothing in Vienna,
and only the family’s expenses in Budapest. I like to talk for nothing,
about twice a year; but talking for money is _work_, and that takes the
pleasure out of it. I do not believe you could offer me terms that would
dissolve my prejudice against the platform. I do not expect to see a
platform again until the wolf commands. Honest people do not go robbing
the public on the platform, except when they are in debt. (Disseminate
this idea; it can do good).”
In the autumn of 1895 I wanted him to give fifty lectures in England,
but he thought it would not be worth his while. His book was the next
thing to be thought of and planned for. Four years later, while he was
in Sweden, I again suggested lecturing at a thousand dollars a night. “I
think there’s stuff in ‘Following the Equator’ for a lecture, but I
can’t come,” he wrote.
As a letter writer “Mark Twain” is inimitable. He writes with the same
unconventionally with which he talks, and his letters are the man.
* * * * *
“DEAR POND:
“O, b’gosh, I can’t. I hate writing.
“Ever thine,
“‘MARK.’”
* * * * *
is characteristic. He is always humorous. Once he arranged for a donkey
to be sent to the Elmira summer home for one of the children to ride. He
acknowledged the receipt: “Much obliged, Homer, for the jackass. Tell
Redpath I shall not want him now.” Of course the latter reference was to
a business matter, but the conjunction was irresistible. In the autumn
of 1899 he wrote to me: “I’m not going to barnstorm the platform any
more, but I am glad you have corralled Howells. He’s a most sinful man,
and I always knew God would send him to the platform if he didn’t
behave.”
In another letter he writes: “Say! Some time ago I received notice that
I had been elected honorary member of the ‘Society of Sons of Steerage
Immigrants,’ and was told that Kipling, Hop Smith, and Nelson Page are
officers of it. What right have they to belong? Ask Page or Smith about
it.”
But it is not always fun. His business letters are clear and
straightforward. He understood how to deal with his audiences and to
meet requirements with the utmost honesty. But his “nerves” were readily
worn out on the surface, and one of his horrors was delay in beginning
and the late comers who always interrupt. He devised small programmes,
printed on stiff card paper, so that they could neither be used as fans
nor rustle, which is so annoying to a person on the platform. He and
Cable were always friends, but the novelist never could resist the
temptation to lengthen the reading of his selections, and this made a
constant friction, because it necessarily curtailed the time left for
“Mark,” sensitive ever to the obligation he felt to the audiences.
Throughout the scores of letters in my possession there are constant and
charming references to his wife and children, unpremeditated in
expression, and therefore the more valuable. His hospitable spirit is
also as fully exhibited. He has the keenest sense of personal honor, as
well as of his own rights.
I had received a letter from the Secretary of War notifying me that by
order of the President a Congressional medal of honor had been presented
to me for “most distinguished gallantry in action”--gallantry
thirty-seven years ago. I was so proud that I wrote Mark about it. He
wrote me from Austria, June 17, 1898, in reply:
* * * * *
“Keltenburgeben.
“DEAR POND: My, it’s a long jump from the time you played solitaire with
your cannon! Yes, I should think you would want to go soldiering again.
Old as I am, I want to go to the war myself. And I should do it, too, if
it were not for the danger.
“To-day we ought to get great news from Cuba. I am watching for the
Vienna evening papers. This is a good war with a dignified cause to
fight for. A thing not to be said of the average war.”
* * * * *
“Mark Twain” eats only when he is hungry. I have known him to go days
without eating a particle of food; at the same time he would be smoking
constantly when he was not sleeping. He insisted that the stomach would
call when in need, and it did. I have known him to sit for hours in a
smoking car on a cold day, smoking his pipe and reading his German book
with the window wide open. I said once: “Mark, do you know it’s a cold
day and you are exposing yourself before that open window, and you are
booked to lecture to-night?”
“I do--know--all--about it. I am letting some of God’s fresh air into my
lungs for that purpose. My stomach is all right, and under these
conditions I am not afraid of taking cold.”
“But,” said I, “the car is cold, and you are making the passengers
uncomfortable by insisting on that window being wide open.”
“They deserve to be uncomfortable for not knowing how to live and take
care of themselves.” He closed the window, however.
“Mark” seldom had a cold, and with the exception of carbuncles was never
ill.
“Pudd’n Head Wilson” was first acted by Frank Mayo, of whom “Mark’s”
appreciation was very sincere. While seeing the play for the first time,
at the Herald Square Theatre, the audience discovered “Mark” in a box,
and vociferously called: “Mark Twain! Mark Twain!” He rose up and said:
“I am sure I could say many complimentary things about this play which
Mr. Mayo has written and about his portrayal of the chief character in
it, and keep well within the bounds both of fact and of good taste; but
I will limit myself to two or three. I do not know how to utter any
higher praise than this: that when Mayo’s ‘Pudd’n Head’ walks this stage
here, clothed in the charm of his gentle charities of speech, and acts
the sweet simplicities and sincerities of his gracious nature, the
thought in my mind is: ‘Why, bless your heart, you couldn’t be any
dearer or lovelier or sweeter than you are without turning into that man
whom all men love, and even Satan is fond of--Joe Jefferson.’”
In May, 1895, he wrote to me from Paris: “Frank Mayo has done a great
thing for both of us; for he has proved himself a gifted dramatist as
well as a gifted orator, and has enabled me to add another new character
to American drama. I hope he will have grand success.”
The serious side of “Mark Twain” is shown in the following letter to a
woman whose sister wished to go upon the lecture platform; this letter
went the rounds of the press years ago, but it should be kept alive. I
reproduce it, as it points a moral:
“I have seen it tried many and many a time. I have seen a lady lecturer
urged upon the public in a lavishly complimentary document signed by
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and some others of supreme celebrity,
but--there was nothing in her, and she failed. If there had been any
great merit in her, she never would have needed those men’s help; and
(at her rather mature age) would never have consented to ask it.
“There is an unwritten law about human successes, and your sister must
bow to that law. She must submit to its requirements. In brief, this law
is:
“1. No occupation without an apprenticeship.
“2. No pay to the apprentice.
“This law stands right in the way of the subaltern who wants to be a
general before he has smelt powder; and it stands (and should stand) in
everybody’s way who applies for pay and position before he has served
his apprenticeship and proved himself.
“Your sister’s course is perfectly plain. Let her enclose this letter to
Major J. B. Pond, Everett House, New York, and offer to lecture a year
for $10 a week and her expenses, the contract to be annullable by him at
any time after a month’s notice, but not annullable by her at all; the
second year, he to have her services, if he wants them, at a trifle
under the best price offered by anybody else.
“She can learn her trade in those two years, and then be entitled to
remuneration; but she cannot learn it in any less time than that, unless
she is a human miracle.
“Try it, and do not be afraid. It is the fair and right thing. If she
wins, she will win squarely and righteously, and never have to blush.”
No man has ever written whose humor has so many sides, or such breadth
and reach. His passages provoke the joyous laughter of young and old, of
learned and unlearned, and may be read the hundredth time without
losing, but rather multiplying, in power. Sentences and phrases that
seem at first made only for the heartiest laughter, yield at closer view
a sanity and wisdom that are good for the soul. He is also a wonderful
story-teller. Thousands of people can bear testimony that the very humor
which has made him known all over the world is oftentimes swept along
like the débris of a freshet by the current of his fascinating
narrative. His later works, like “The Yankee at King Arthur’s Court” and
“Joan of Arc,” show that he has studied and apprehends also the great
problems of modern life as well as those of history. Mark is personally
as human as his humor; as tender and sensitive to the aspirations of the
mind as in his daily living.
Business relations and travelling bring out the nature of a man. After
my close relations with “Mark Twain” for sixteen years, I can say that
he is not only what the world knows him to be, a humorist, a
philosopher, and a genius, but a sympathetic, honest, brave gentleman.
* * * * *
MARK TWAIN and GEORGE W. CABLE travelled together one season. Twain and
Cable, a colossal attraction, a happy combination! Mark owned the show,
and paid Mr. Cable $600 a week and his travelling and hotel expenses.
The manager took a percentage of the gross receipts for his services,
and was to be sole manager. If he consulted the proprietor at all during
the term of the agreement, said agreement became null and void.
[Illustration]
These “twins of genius,” as I advertised them, were delightful company.
Both were Southerners, born on the shores of the Mississippi River, and
both sang well. Each was familiar with all the plantation songs and
Mississippi River chanties of the negro, and they would often get to
singing these together when by themselves, or with their manager for
sole audience.
So delightful were these occasions, and so fond were they of embracing
every private opportunity of “letting themselves out,” that I often
instructed our carriage driver to take a long route between hotels and
trains that I might have a concert which the public was never permitted
to hear.
Mr. Cable’s singing of Creole songs was very charming and novel. They
were so sweet, and he sang so beautifully, that everybody was charmed,
it was all so simple, and quaint, and dignified.
* * * * *
“MARK TWAIN,” “NASBY,” AND “JOSH BILLINGS” happened to drop in at the
Redpath Bureau in Boston at about the same time, one morning in 1873,
after their return from lectures in nearby towns.
This conjunction of stars seemed hardly remarkable at that time, for in
the palmy days of the lyceum in New England the parlor of the Redpath
Bureau was a sort of club-room for men and women of letters, where they
were accustomed to rendezvous in the morning after returning from some
suburban lecturing engagement. I there met for the first time Wendell
Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison, being introduced to them by Mr.
James Redpath. I have heard Beecher, Phillips, and Garrison in many a
delightful discussion of old times in these rooms. It was no uncommon
occurrence for Anna Dickinson, Mrs. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Miss
Anthony to meet one another there.
[Illustration]
But the morning that the three greatest humorists of the time met there,
as they were talking, it occurred to me it would be an interesting
souvenir to have a group photograph of them. So I said to them,
“Gentlemen, if you will come down to Warren’s and sit for a photograph,
I will pay for it.” My invitation seemed to have no effect until Mr.
Redpath interceded. He was manager and owner of the bureau at the time,
and on his invitation we all went to Warren’s, and they sat for the
picture, which is here reproduced.
This picture has often been referred to as being in collections
belonging to other friends of the distinguished humorists, but I hardly
think any of them ever knew how it came to be taken.
There was a very large picture taken of the group at the same time,
which was the private property of James Redpath and sold with his
collection. I never knew where it went. I wish I could find it, for it
was a fine photograph, and I should like to own it.
* * * * *
“MAX O’RELL” (Paul Blouet), that witty Frenchman, is the only
professional humorist that I ever imported, and is one of the humorous
lecturers who always score a “platform success.”
He has made three successful lecture tours in America. From Nova Scotia
to New Orleans and from the Atlantic to the Pacific he has appeared in
all the large cities, and the immense audiences that have welcomed him
everywhere attest his success.
[Illustration]
His fun is contagious. Socially he is one of the most entertaining of
men, with a good story apropos of nearly everything. He tells in his own
most humorous way one instance of the Chicago reporter’s impudence and
enterprise. One night he had been in bed in the Grand Pacific Hotel
perhaps an hour or so when there came a very decided rapping at his
chamber door.
“Who’s there?” called Max O’Rell.
“A reporter,” came the answer.
“Well, I can’t see you now. I’m in bed.”
The Frenchman heard his door being pushed open, and the chair which he
had placed against it tumbled over. Some one advanced into the room,
struck a match, and proceeded to light the gas.
“Well, well! What’ll you have, sir, what’ll you have?” cried Max O’Rell,
indignant at this cool intruder.
The reporter tossed the match into the fireplace, and throwing himself
into a chair, said:
“What’ll I have? Oh, I’ll have a whiskey cocktail.”