Mark Twain Biography - Audio Books

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–IX.

Part 1 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

[_Dictated December 13, 1906._] As regards the coming American monarchy. It was before the Secretary of State had been heard from that the chairman of the banquet said:

“In this time of unrest it is of great satisfaction that such a man as you, Mr. Root, is chief adviser of the President.”

Mr. Root then got up and in the most quiet and orderly manner touched off the successor to the San Francisco earthquake. As a result, the several State governments were well shaken up and considerably weakened. Mr. Root was prophesying. He was prophesying, and it seems to me that no shrewder and surer forecasting has been done in this country for a good many years.

He did not say, in so many words, that we are proceeding, in a steady march, toward eventual and unavoidable replacement of the republic by monarchy; but I suppose he was aware that that is the case. He notes the several steps, the customary steps, which in all the ages have led to the consolidation of loose and scattered governmental forces into formidable centralizations of authority; but he stops there, and doesn’t add up the sum.

He is not unaware that heretofore the sum has been ultimate monarchy, and that the same figures can fairly be depended upon to furnish the same sum whenever and wherever they can be produced, so long as human nature shall remain as it is; but it was not needful that he do the adding, since any one can do it; neither would it have been gracious in him to do it.

In observing the changed conditions which in the course of time have made certain and sure the eventual seizure by the Washington government of a number of State duties and prerogatives which have been betrayed and neglected by the several States, he does not attribute those changes and the vast results which are to flow from them to any thought-out policy of any party or of any body of dreamers or schemers, but properly and rightly attributes them to that stupendous power–_Circumstance_–which moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final, and must be obeyed by all–and will be.

The railway is a Circumstance, the steamship is a Circumstance, the telegraph is a Circumstance. They were mere happenings; and to the whole world, the wise and the foolish alike, they were entirely trivial, wholly inconsequential; indeed silly, comical, grotesque. No man, and no party, and no thought-out policy said, “Behold, we will build railways and steamships and telegraphs, and presently you will see the condition and way of life of every man and woman and child in the nation totally changed; unimaginable changes of law and custom will follow, in spite of anything that anybody can do to prevent it.”

The changed conditions have come, and Circumstance knows what is following, and will follow. So does Mr. Root. His language is not unclear, it is crystal:

“Our whole life has swung away from the old State centres, and is crystallizing about national centres.”

” … The old barriers which kept the States as separate
communities are completely lost from sight.”

” … That [State] power of regulation and control is gradually
passing into the hands of the national government.”

“Sometimes by an assertion of the inter-State commerce power,
sometimes by an assertion of the taxing power, the national
government is taking up the performance of duties which under the
changed conditions the separate States are no longer capable of
adequately performing.”

“We are urging forward in a development of business and social life
which tends more and more to the obliteration of State lines and
the decrease of State power as compared with national power.”

“It is useless for the advocates of State rights to inveigh against
… the extension of national authority in the fields of necessary
control where the States themselves fail in the performance of
their duty.”

He is not announcing a policy; he is not forecasting what a party of planners will bring about; he is merely telling what the people will require and compel. And he could have added–which would be perfectly true- -that the people will not be moved to it by speculation and cogitation and planning, but by _Circumstance_–that power which arbitrarily compels all their actions, and over which they have not the
slightest control.

_”The end is not yet.”_

It is a true word. We are on the march, but at present we are only just getting started.

If the States continue to fail to do their duty as required by the people–

” … _constructions of the Constitution will be found_ to vest the power where it will be exercised–in the national government.”

I do not know whether that has a sinister meaning or not, and so I will not enlarge upon it lest I should chance to be in the wrong. It sounds like ship-money come again, but it may not be so intended.

Human nature being what it is, I suppose we must expect to drift into monarchy by and by. It is a saddening thought, but we cannot change our nature: we are all alike, we human beings; and in our blood and bone, and ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of which monarchies and aristocracies are grown: worship of gauds, titles, distinctions, power. We have to worship these things and their possessors, we are all born so, and we cannot help it. We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content.

In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter. Sometimes we get a good man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway,
whether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely a basket of noble and sacred and long-descended offal.

And when we get him the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs–and privately envies; and also is proud of the honor which has been conferred upon us. We run over our list of titled purchases every now and then, in the newspapers, and discuss them and caress them, and are thankful and happy.

Like all the other nations, we worship money and the possessors of it–they being our aristocracy, and we have to have one. We like to read about rich people in the papers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed. They even leave out a football bull-fight now and then to get room for all the particulars of how–according to the display heading–”Rich Woman Fell Down Cellar–Not Hurt.” The falling down the cellar is of no interest to us when the woman is not rich, but no rich woman can fall down cellar and we not yearn to know all about it and wish it was us.

In a monarchy the people willingly and rejoicingly revere and take pride in their nobilities, and are not humiliated by the reflection that this humble and hearty homage gets no return but contempt. Contempt does not shame them, they are used to it, and they recognize that it is their proper due. We are all made like that.

In Europe we easily and quickly learn to take that attitude toward the sovereigns and the aristocracies; moreover, it has been observed that when we get the attitude we go on and exaggerate it, presently becoming more servile than the natives, and vainer of it. The next step is to rail and scoff at republics and
democracies. All of which is natural, for we have not ceased to be human beings by becoming Americans, and the human race was always intended to be governed by kingship, not by popular vote.

I suppose we must expect that unavoidable and irresistible Circumstances will gradually take away the powers of the States and concentrate them in the central government, and that the republic will then repeat the history of all time and become a monarchy; but I believe that if we obstruct these encroachments and steadily resist them the monarchy can be postponed for a good while yet…

MARK TWAIN.

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This is Part 33 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of Chapter IX, Part 1 of 3.

The next part is Part 34, which is chapter IX, Part 2 of 3.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VIII.

Part 3 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

Now just at this moment, a little bird, no bigger than a sparrow, flew along by and lit on a sage-bush about thirty yards away. Steve whipped out his revolver and shot its head off. Oh, he was a marksman- -much better than I was. We ran down there to pick up the bird, and just then, sure enough, Mr. Laird and his people came over the ridge, and they joined us. And when Laird’s second saw that bird, with its head shot off, he lost color, he faded, and you could see that he was interested. He said:

“Who did that?”

Before I could answer, Steve spoke up and said quite calmly, and in a matter-of-fact way,

“Clemens did it.”

The second said, “Why, that is wonderful. How far off was that bird?”

Steve said, “Oh, not far–about thirty yards.”

The second said, “Well, that is astonishing shooting. How often can he do that?”

Steve said languidly, “Oh, about four times out of five.”

I knew the little rascal was lying, but I didn’t say anything. The second said, “Why, that is _amazing_ shooting; I supposed he couldn’t hit a church.”

He was supposing very sagaciously, but I didn’t say anything. Well, they said good morning. The second took Mr. Laird home, a little tottery on his legs, and Laird sent back a note in his own hand declining to fight a duel with me on any terms whatever.

Well, my life was saved–saved by that accident. I don’t know what the bird thought about that interposition of Providence, but I felt very, very comfortable over it–satisfied and content. Now, we found out, later, that Laird had _hit_ his mark four times out of six, right along. If the duel had come off, he would have so filled my skin with bullet-holes that it wouldn’t have held my principles.

By breakfast-time the news was all over town that I had sent a challenge and Steve Gillis had carried it. Now that would entitle us to two years apiece in the penitentiary, according to the brand-new law. Judge North sent us no message as coming from himself, but a message _came_ from a close friend of his. He said it would be a good idea for us to leave the territory by the first stage-coach. This would sail next morning, at four o’clock–and in the meantime we would be searched for, but not with avidity; and if we were in the Territory after that stage-coach left, we would be the first victims of the new law. Judge North was anxious to have some object-lessons for that law, and he would absolutely keep us in the prison the full two years.

Well, it seemed to me that our society was no longer desirable in Nevada; so we stayed in our quarters and observed proper caution all day–except that once Steve went over to the hotel to attend to another customer of mine. That was a Mr. Cutler. You see Laird was not the only person whom I had tried to reform during my occupancy of the editorial chair.

I had looked around and selected several other people, and delivered a new zest of life into them through warm criticism and disapproval–so that when I laid down my editorial pen I had four horse-whippings and two duels owing to me. We didn’t care for the horse-whippings; there was no glory in them; they were not worth the trouble of collecting. But honor required that some notice should be taken of that other duel. Mr. Cutler had come up from Carson City, and had sent a man over with a challenge from the hotel.

Steve went over to pacify him. Steve weighed only ninety-five pounds, but it was well known throughout the territory that with his fists he could whip anybody that walked on two legs, let his weight and science be what they might. Steve was a Gillis, and when a Gillis confronted a man and had a proposition to make, the proposition always contained business.

When Cutler found that Steve was my second he cooled down; he became calm and rational, and was ready to listen. Steve gave him fifteen minutes to get out of the hotel, and half an hour to get out of town or there would be results. So _that_ duel went off successfully, because Mr. Cutler immediately left for Carson a convinced and reformed man.

I have never had anything to do with duels since. I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot, and _kill_ him.

MARK TWAIN.

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This is Part 32 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of Chapter VIII, Part 3 of 3.

The next part is Part 33, which is chapter IX.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VIII.

Part 2 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.

About a year later I got _my_ chance. But I was not hunting for it. Goodman went off to San Francisco for a week’s holiday, and left me to be chief editor. I had supposed that that was an easy berth, there being nothing to do but write one editorial per day; but I was disappointed in that superstition. I couldn’t find anything to write an article about, the first day. Then it occurred to me that inasmuch as it was the 22nd of April, 1864, the next morning would be the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday–and what better theme could I want than that?

I got the Cyclopaedia and examined it, and found out who Shakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid it before a community that couldn’t have been better prepared for instruction about Shakespeare than if they had been prepared by art. There wasn’t enough of what Shakespeare had done to make an editorial of the necessary length, but I filled it out with what he hadn’t done–which in many respects was more important and striking and readable than the handsomest things he had really accomplished. But next day I was in trouble again.

There were no more Shakespeares to work up. There was nothing in past history, or in the world’s future possibilities, to make an editorial out of, suitable to that community; so there was but one theme left. That theme was Mr. Laird, proprietor of the Virginia “Union.” _His_ editor had gone off to San Francisco too, and Laird was trying his hand at editing. I woke up Mr. Laird with some courtesies of the kind that were fashionable among newspaper editors in that region, and he came back at me the next day in a most vitriolic way.

He was hurt by something I had said about him–some little thing–I don’t remember what it was now- -probably called him a horse-thief, or one of those little phrases customarily used to describe another editor. They were no doubt just, and accurate, but Laird was a very sensitive creature, and he didn’t like it. So we expected a challenge from Mr. Laird, because according to the rules–according to the etiquette of duelling as reconstructed and reorganized and improved by the duellists of that region–whenever you said a thing about another person that he didn’t like, it wasn’t sufficient for him to talk back in the same offensive spirit: etiquette required him to send a challenge; so we waited for a challenge–waited all day.

It didn’t come. And as the day wore along, hour after hour, and no challenge came, the boys grew depressed. They lost heart. But I was cheerful; I felt better and better all the time. They couldn’t understand it, but _I_ could understand it. It was my _make_ that enabled me to be cheerful when other people were despondent. So then it became necessary for us to waive etiquette and challenge Mr. Laird. When we reached that decision, they began to cheer up, but I began to lose some of my animation. However, in enterprises of this kind you are in the hands of your friends; there is nothing for you to do but to abide by what they consider to be the best course.

Daggett wrote a challenge for me, for Daggett had the language–the right language–the convincing language–and I lacked it. Daggett poured out a stream of unsavory epithets upon Mr. Laird, charged with a vigor and venom of a strength calculated to persuade him; and Steve Gillis, my second, carried the challenge and came back to wait for the return. It didn’t come.

The boys were exasperated, but I kept my temper. Steve carried another challenge, hotter than the other, and we waited again. Nothing came of it. I began to feel quite comfortable. I began to take an interest in the challenges myself. I had not felt any before; but it seemed to me that I was accumulating a great and valuable reputation at no expense, and my delight in this grew and grew, as challenge after challenge was declined, until by midnight I was beginning to think that there was nothing in the world so much to be desired as a chance to fight a duel.

So I hurried Daggett up; made him keep on sending challenge after challenge. Oh, well, I overdid it; Laird accepted. I might have known that that would happen–Laird was a man you couldn’t depend on.

The boys were jubilant beyond expression. They helped me make my will, which was another discomfort- -and I already had enough. Then they took me home. I didn’t sleep any–didn’t want to sleep. I had plenty of things to think about, and less than four hours to do it in,–because five o’clock was the hour appointed for the tragedy, and I should have to use up one hour–beginning at four–in practising with he revolver and finding out which end of it to level at the adversary.

At four we went down into a little gorge, about a mile from town, and borrowed a barn door for a mark- -borrowed it of a man who was over in California on a visit–and we set the barn door up and stood a fence-rail up against the middle of it, to represent Mr. Laird. But the rail was no proper representative of him, for he was longer than a rail and thinner.

Nothing would ever fetch him but a line shot, and then as like as not he would split the bullet–the worst material for duelling purposes that could be imagined. I began on the rail. I couldn’t hit the rail; then I tried the barn door; but I couldn’t hit the barn door. There was nobody in danger except stragglers around on the flanks of that mark. I was thoroughly discouraged, and I didn’t cheer up any when we presently heard pistol-shots over in the next little ravine. I knew what that was–that was Laird’s gang out practising him.

They would hear my shots, and of course they would come up over the ridge to see what kind of a record I was making–see what their chances were against me. Well, I hadn’t any record; and I knew that if Laird came over that ridge and saw my barn door without a scratch on it, he would be as anxious to fight as I was–or as I had been at midnight, before that disastrous acceptance came.

Mark Twain

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This is Part 31 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of Chapter VIII, Part 2 of 3.

The next part is Part 32, which is chapter VIII, part 3 of 3.

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To GET All of Mark Twain’s Collection of Audio Books,
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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VIII.

Part 1 of 3

BY MARK TWAIN.
In those early days duelling suddenly became a fashion in the new Territory of Nevada, and by 1864 everybody was anxious to have a chance in the new sport, mainly for the reason that he was not able to thoroughly respect himself so long as he had not killed or crippled somebody in a duel or been killed or rippled in one himself.

At that time I had been serving as city editor on Mr. Goodman’s Virginia City “Enterprise” for a matter of two years. I was twenty-nine years old. I was ambitious in several ways, but I had entirely escaped the seductions of that particular craze. I had had no desire to fight a duel; I had no intention of provoking one.

I did not feel respectable, but I got a certain amount of satisfaction out of feeling safe. I was ashamed of myself; the rest of the staff were ashamed of me–but I got along well enough. I had always been accustomed to feeling ashamed of myself, for one thing or another, so there was no novelty for me in the situation. I bore it very well. Plunkett was on the staff; R. M. Daggett was on the staff. These had tried to get into duels, but for the present had failed, and were waiting. Goodman was the only one of us who had
done anything to shed credit upon the paper.

The rival paper was the Virginia “Union.” Its editor for a little while was Tom Fitch, called the “silver- tongued orator of Wisconsin”–that was where he came from. He tuned up his oratory in the editorial columns of the “Union,” and Mr. Goodman invited him out and modified him with a bullet. I remember the joy of the staff when Goodman’s challenge was accepted by Fitch.

We ran late that night, and made much of Joe Goodman. He was only twenty-four years old; he lacked the wisdom which a person has at twenty-nine, and he was as glad of being _it_ as I was that I wasn’t. He chose Major Graves for his second (that name is not right, but it’s close enough; I don’t remember the Major’s name). Graves came over to instruct Joe in the duelling art.

He had been a Major under Walker, the “gray-eyed man of destiny,” and had fought all through that remarkable man’s filibustering campaign in Central America. That fact gauges the Major. To say that a man was a Major under Walker, and came out of that struggle ennobled by Walker’s praise, is to say that the Major was not merely a brave man but that he was brave to the very utmost limit of that word. All of Walker’s men were like that. I knew the Gillis family intimately.

The father made the campaign under Walker, and with him one son. They were in the memorable Plaza fight, and stood it out to the last against overwhelming odds, as did also all of the Walker men. The son was killed at the father’s side. The father received a bullet through the eye. The old man–for he was an old man at the time–wore spectacles, and the bullet and one of the glasses went into his skull and remained there.

There were some other sons: Steve, George, and Jim, very young chaps–the merest lads–who wanted to be in the Walker expedition, for they had their father’s dauntless spirit. But Walker wouldn’t have them; he said it was a serious expedition, and no place for children.

The Major was a majestic creature, with a most stately and dignified and impressive military bearing, and he was by nature and training courteous, polite, graceful, winning; and he had that quality which I think I have encountered in only one other man–Bob Howland–a mysterious quality which resides in the eye; and when that eye is turned upon an individual or a squad, in warning, that is enough.

The man that has that eye doesn’t need to go armed; he can move upon an armed desperado and quell him and take him prisoner without saying a single word. I saw Bob Howland do that, once–a slender, good- natured, amiable, gentle, kindly little skeleton of a man, with a sweet blue eye that would win your heart when it smiled upon you, or turn cold and freeze it, according to the nature of the occasion.

The Major stood Joe up straight; stood Steve Gillis up fifteen paces away; made Joe turn right side towards Steve, cock his navy six-shooter–that prodigious weapon–and hold it straight down against his leg; told him that _that_ was the correct position for the gun–that the position ordinarily in use at Virginia City (that is to say, the gun straight up in the air, then brought slowly down to your man) was all wrong. At the word “_One_,” you must raise the gun slowly and steadily to the place on the other man’s body that you desire to convince.

Then, after a pause, “_two, three–fire–Stop!_” At the word “stop,” you may fire–but not earlier. You may give yourself as much time as you please _after_ that word. Then, when you fire, you may advance and go on firing at your leisure and pleasure, if you can get any pleasure out of it. And, in the meantime, the other man, if he has been properly instructed and is alive to his privileges, is advancing on _you_, and firing- -and it is always likely that more or less trouble will result.

Naturally, when Joe’s revolver had risen to a level it was pointing at Steve’s breast, but the Major said “No, that is not wise. Take all the risks of getting murdered yourself, but don’t run any risk of murdering the other man.

If you survive a duel you want to survive it in such a way that the memory of it will not linger along with you through the rest of your life and interfere with your sleep. Aim at your man’s leg; not at the knee, not above the knee; for those are dangerous spots. Aim below the knee; cripple him, but leave the rest of him to his mother.”

By grace of these truly wise and excellent instructions, Joe tumbled Fitch down next morning with a bullet through his lower leg, which furnished him a permanent limp. And Joe lost nothing but a lock of hair, which he could spare better then than he could now. For when I saw him here in New York a year ago, his crop was gone: he had nothing much left but a fringe, with a dome rising above.

Mark Twain

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This is Part 30 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of Chapter VIII, Part 1 of 3.

The next part is Part 31, which is chapter VIII, part 2 of 3.

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To GET All of Mark Twain’s Collection of Audio Books,
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Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VII.

BY MARK TWAIN.

I was always heedless. I was born heedless; and therefore I was constantly, and quite unconsciously, committing breaches of the minor proprieties, which brought upon me humiliations which ought to have humiliated me but didn’t, because I didn’t know anything had happened. But Livy knew; and so the humiliations fell to her share, poor child, who had not earned them and did not deserve them. She always said I was the most difficult child she had. She was very sensitive about me. It distressed her to see me do heedless things which could bring me under criticism, and so she was always watchful and alert to protect me from the kind of transgressions which I have been speaking of.

When I was leaving Hartford for Washington, upon the occasion referred to, she said: “I have written a small warning and put it in a pocket of your dress-vest. When you are dressing to go to the Authors’ Reception at the White House you will naturally put your fingers in your vest pockets, according to your custom, and you will find that little note there. Read it carefully, and do as it tells you. I cannot be with you, and so I delegate my sentry duties to this little note. If I should give you the warning by word of mouth, now, it would pass from your head and be forgotten in a few minutes.”

It was President Cleveland’s first term. I had never seen his wife–the young, the beautiful, the good- hearted, the sympathetic, the fascinating. Sure enough, just as I had finished dressing to go to the White House I found that little note, which I had long ago forgotten. It was a grave little note, a serious little note, like its writer, but it made me laugh. Livy’s gentle gravities often produced that effect upon me, where the expert humorist’s best joke would have failed, for I do not laugh easily.

When we reached the White House and I was shaking hands with the President, he started to say some- thing, but I interrupted him and said:

“If your Excellency will excuse me, I will come back in a moment; but now I have a very important matter to attend to, and it must be attended to at once.”

I turned to Mrs. Cleveland, the young, the beautiful, the fascinating, and gave her my card, on the back of which I had written “_He didn’t_”–and I asked her to sign her name below those words.

She said: “He didn’t? He didn’t what?”

“Oh,” I said, “never mind. We cannot stop to discuss that now. This is urgent. Won’t you please sign your name?” (I handed her a fountain-pen.)

“Why,” she said, “I cannot commit myself in that way. Who is it that didn’t?–and what is it that he didn’t?”

“Oh,” I said, “time is flying, flying, flying. Won’t you take me out of my distress and sign your name to it? It’s all right. I give you my word it’s all right.”

She looked nonplussed; but hesitatingly and mechanically she took the pen and said:

“I will sign it. I will take the risk. But you must tell me all about it, right afterward, so that you can be arrested before you get out of the house in case there should be anything criminal about this.”

Then she signed; and I handed her Mrs. Clements’s note, which was very brief, very simple, and to the point. It said: “_Don’t wear your arctics in the White House._” It made her shout; and at my request she summoned a messenger and we sent that card at once to the mail on its way to Mrs. Clemens in Hartford.

When the little Ruth was about a year or a year and a half old, Mason, an old and valued friend of mine, was consul-general at Frankfort-on-the-Main. I had known him well in 1867, ‘68 and ‘69, in America, and I and mine had spent a good deal of time with him and his family in Frankfort in ‘78. He was a thoroughly competent, diligent, and conscientious official.

Indeed he possessed these qualities in so large a degree that among American consuls he might fairly be said to be monumental, for at that time our consular service was largely–and I think I may say mainly–in the hands of ignorant, vulgar, and incapable men who had been political heelers in America, and had been taken care of by transference to consulates where they could be supported at the Government’s expense instead of being transferred to the poor house, which would have been cheaper and more patriotic.

Mason, in ‘78, had been consul-general in Frankfort several years–four, I think. He had come from Marseilles with a great record. He had been consul there during thirteen years, and one part of his record was heroic. There had been a desolating cholera epidemic, and Mason was the only representative of any foreign country who stayed at his post and saw it through. And during that time he not only represented his own country, but he represented all the other countries in Christendom and did their work, and did it well and was praised for it by them in words of no uncertain sound.

This great record of Mason’s had saved him from official decapitation straight along while Republican Presidents occupied the chair, but now it was occupied by a Democrat. Mr. Cleveland was not seated in it–he was not yet inaugurated–before he was deluged with applications from Democratic politicians desiring the appointment of a thousand or so politically useful Democrats to Mason’s place. A year or two later Mason wrote me and asked me if I couldn’t do something to save him from destruction.

I was very anxious to keep him in his place, but at first I could not think of any way to help him, for I was a mugwump. We, the mugwumps, a little company made up of the unenslaved of both parties, the very best men to be found in the two great parties–that was our idea of it–voted sixty thousand strong for Mr. Cleveland in New York and elected him.

Our principles were high, and very definite. We were not a party; we had no candidates; we had no axes to grind. Our vote laid upon the man we cast it for no obligation of any kind. By our rule we could not ask for office; we could not accept office. When voting, it was our duty to vote for the best man, regardless of his party name. We had no other creed. Vote for the best man–that was creed enough.

Such being my situation, I was puzzled to know how to try to help Mason, and, at the same time, save my mugwump purity undefiled. It was a delicate place. But presently, out of the ruck of confusions in my mind, rose a sane thought, clear and bright–to wit: since it was a mugwump’s duty to do his best to put the beet man in office, necessarily it must be a mugwump’s duty to try to _keep_ the best man in when he was already there.

My course was easy now. It might not be quite delicate for a mugwump to approach the President directly, but I could approach him indirectly, with all delicacy, since in that case not even courtesy would require him to take notice of an application which no one could prove had ever reached him.

Yes, it was easy and simple sailing now. I could lay the matter before Ruth, in her cradle, and wait for results. I wrote the little child, and said to her all that I have just been saying about mugwump principles and the limitations which they put upon me. I explained that it would not be proper for me to apply to her father in Mr. Mason’s behalf, but I detailed to her Mr. Mason’s high and honorable record and suggested that she take the matter in her own hands and do a patriotic work which I felt some delicacy about venturing upon myself.

I asked her to forget that her father was only President of the United States, and her subject and servant; I asked her not to put her application in the form of a command, but to modify it, and give it the fictitious and pleasanter form of a mere request–that it would be no harm to let him gratify himself with the superstition that he was independent and could do as he pleased in the matter. I begged her to put stress, and plenty of it, upon the proposition that to keep Mason in his place would be a benefaction to the nation; to enlarge upon that, and keep still about all other considerations.

In due time I received a letter from the President, written with his own hand, signed by his own hand, acknowledging Ruth’s intervention and thanking me for enabling him to save to the country the services of so good and well-tried a servant as Mason, and thanking me, also, for the detailed fulness of Mason’s record, which could leave no doubt in any one’s mind that Mason was in his right place and ought to be kept there. Mason has remained in the service ever since, and is now consul-general at Paris.

During the time that we were living in Buffalo in ‘70-’71, Mr. Cleveland was sheriff, but I never happened to make his acquaintance, or even see him. In fact, I suppose I was not even aware of his existence. Fourteen years later, he was become the greatest man in the State. I was not living in the State at the time. He was Governor, and was about to step into the post of President of the United States. At that time I was on the public highway in company with another bandit, George W. Cable.

We were robbing the public with readings from our works during four months–and in the course of time we went to Albany to levy tribute, and I said, “We ought to go and pay our respects to the Governor.”

So Cable and I went to that majestic Capitol building and stated our errand. We were shown into the Governor’s private office, and I saw Mr. Cleveland for the first time. We three stood chatting together. I was born lazy, and I comforted myself by turning the corner of a table into a sort of seat. Presently the Governor said:

“Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow citizen of yours in Buffalo a good many months, a good while ago, and during those months you burst suddenly into a mighty fame, out of a previous long-continued and no doubt proper obscurity–but I was a nobody, and you wouldn’t notice me nor have anything to do with me. But now that I have become somebody, you have changed your style, and you come here to shake hands with me and be sociable. How do you explain this kind of conduct?”

“Oh,” I said, “it is very simple, your Excellency. In Buffalo you were nothing but a sheriff. I was in society. I couldn’t afford to associate with sheriffs. But you are a Governor now, and you are on your way to the Presidency. It is a great difference, and it makes you worth while.”

There appeared to be about sixteen doors to that spacious room. From each door a young man now emerged, and the sixteen lined up and moved forward and stood in front of the Governor with an aspect of respectful expectancy in their attitude. No one spoke for a moment. Then the Governor said:

“You are dismissed, gentlemen. Your services are not required. Mr. Clemens is sitting on the bells.”

There was a cluster of sixteen bell buttons on the corner of the table; my proportions at that end of me were just right to enable me to cover the whole of that nest, and that is how I came to hatch out those
sixteen clerks.

In accordance with the suggestion made in Gilder’s letter recently received I have written the following note to ex-President Cleveland upon his sixty-ninth birthday:

HONORED SIR:–

Your patriotic virtues have won for you the homage of half the
nation and the enmity of the other half. This places your character
as a citizen upon a summit as high as Washington’s. The verdict is
unanimous and unassailable. The votes of both sides are necessary
in cases like these, and the votes of the one side are quite as
valuable as are the votes of the other. Where the votes are all in
a man’s favor the verdict is against him. It is sand, and history
will wash it away. But the verdict for you is rock, and will stand.

S. L. CLEMENS.

As of date March 18, 1906….

In a diary which Mrs. Clemens kept for a little while, a great many years ago, I find various mentions of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was a near neighbor of ours in Hartford, with no fences between. And in those days she made as much use of our grounds as of her own, in pleasant weather. Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure. She wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular Irishwoman.

Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war-whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes. And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.

Her husband, old Professor Stowe, was a picturesque figure. He wore a broad slouch hat. He was a large man, and solemn. His beard was white and thick and hung far down on his breast. The first time our little Susy ever saw him she encountered him on the street near our house and came flying wide-eyed to her mother and said, “Santa Claus has got loose!”

Which reminds me of Rev. Charley Stowe’s little boy–a little boy of seven years. I met Rev. Charley crossing his mother’s grounds one morning and he told me this little tale. He had been out to Chicago to attend a Convention of Congregational clergymen, and had taken his little boy with him. During the trip he reminded the little chap, every now and then, that he must be on his very best behavior there in Chicago. He said: “We shall be the guests of a clergyman, there will be other guests–clergymen and their wives- -and you must be careful to let those people see by your walk and conversation that you are of a godly
household. Be very careful about this.” The admonition bore fruit. At the first breakfast which they ate in the Chicago clergyman’s house he heard his little son say in the meekest and most reverent way to the lady opposite him,

“Please, won’t you, for Christ’s sake, pass the butter?”

Mark Twain

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This is Part 29 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of Chapter VII.

The next part is Part 30, which is chapter VII.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VI.(Part 2 0f 2)

BY MARK TWAIN.

_From Susy’s Biography._

Then mamma and I went to do some shopping and papa went to see
General Grant. After we had finnished doing our shopping we went
home to the hotel together. When we entered our rooms in the hotel
we saw on the table a vase full of exquisett red roses. Mamma who
is very fond of flowers exclaimed “Oh I wonder who could have sent
them.” We both looked at the card in the midst of the roses and saw
that it was written on in papa’s handwriting, it was written in
German. ‘Liebes Geshchenk on die mamma.’ [I am sure I didn’t say
“on”–that is Susy’s spelling, not mine; also I am sure I didn’t
spell Geschenk so liberally as all that.–S. L. C.] Mamma was
delighted. Papa came home and gave mamma her ticket; and after
visiting a while with her went to see Major Pond and mamma and I
sat down to our lunch. After lunch most of our time was taken up
with packing, and at about three o’clock we went to escort mamma to
the train. We got on board the train with her and stayed with her
about five minutes and then we said good-bye to her and the train
started for Hartford. It was the first time I had ever beene away
from home without mamma in my life, although I was 13 yrs. old.
Papa and I drove back to the hotel and got Major Pond and then went
to see the Brooklyn Bridge we went across it to Brooklyn on the
cars and then walked back across it from Brooklyn to New York. We
enjoyed looking at the beautiful scenery and we could see the
bridge moove under the intense heat of the sun. We had a perfectly
delightful time, but weer pretty tired when we got back to the
hotel.

The next morning we rose early, took our breakfast and took an
early train to Poughkeepsie. We had a very pleasant journey to
Poughkeepsie. The Hudson was magnificent–shrouded with beautiful
mist. When we arived at Poughkeepsie it was raining quite hard;
which fact greatly dissapointed me because I very much wanted to
see the outside of the buildings of Vassar College and as it rained
that would be impossible. It was quite a long drive from the
station to Vasser College and papa and I had a nice long time to
discuss and laugh over German profanity. One of the German phrases
papa particularly enjoys is “O heilige maria Mutter Jesus!” Jean
has a German nurse, and this was one of her phrases, there was a
time when Jean exclaimed “Ach Gott!” to every trifle, but when
mamma found it out she was shocked and instantly put a stop to it.

It brings that pretty little German girl vividly before me–a sweet and innocent and plump little creature with peachy cheeks; a clear-souled little maiden and without offence, notwithstanding her profanities, and she was loaded to the eyebrows with them. She was a mere child. She was not fifteen yet. She was just from Germany, and knew no English. She was always scattering her profanities around, and they were such a satisfaction to me that I never dreamed of such a thing as modifying her. For my own sake, I had no disposition to tell on her. Indeed I took pains to keep her from being found out.

I told her to confine her religious exercises to the children’s quarters, and urged her to remember that Mrs. Clemens was prejudiced against pieties on week-days. To the children, the little maid’s profanities sounded natural and proper and right, because they had been used to that kind of talk in Germany, and they attached no evil importance to it. It grieves me that I have forgotten those vigorous remarks. I long hoarded them in my memory as a treasure. But I remember one of them still, because I heard it so many times.

The trial of that little creature’s life was the children’s hair. She would tug and strain with her comb, accompanying her work with her misplaced pieties. And when finally she was through with her triple job she always fired up and exploded her thanks toward the sky, where they belonged, in this form: “_Gott sei Dank ich bin fertig mit’m Gott verdammtes Haar!_” (I believe I am not quite brave enough to translate it.)

_From Susy’s Biography_.

We at length reached Vassar College and she looked very finely, her
buildings and her grounds being very beautiful. We went to the
front doore and range the bell. The young girl who came to the
doore wished to know who we wanted to see. Evidently we were not
expected. Papa told her who we wanted to see and she showed us to
the parlor. We waited, no one came; and waited, no one came, still
no one came. It was beginning to seem pretty awkward, “Oh well this
is a pretty piece of business,” papa exclaimed. At length we heard
footsteps coming down the long corridor and Miss C, (the lady who
had invited papa) came into the room. She greeted papa very
pleasantly and they had a nice little chatt together. Soon the lady
principal also entered and she was very pleasant and agreable. She
showed us to our rooms and said she would send for us when dinner
was ready. We went into our rooms, but we had nothing to do for
half an hour exept to watch the rain drops as they fell upon the
window panes. At last we were called to dinner, and I went down
without papa as he never eats anything in the middle of the day. I
sat at the table with the lady principal and enjoyed very much
seeing all the young girls trooping into the dining-room. After
dinner I went around the College with the young ladies and papa
stayed in his room and smoked. When it was supper time papa went
down and ate supper with us and we had a very delightful supper.
After supper the young ladies went to their rooms to dress for the
evening. Papa went to his room and I went with the lady principal.
At length the guests began to arive, but papa still remained in his
room until called for. Papa read in the chapell. It was the first
time I had ever heard him read in my life–that is in public. When
he came out on to the stage I remember the people behind me
exclaimed “Oh how queer he is! Isn’t he funny!” I thought papa was
very funny, although I did not think him queer. He read “A Trying
Situation” and “The Golden Arm,” a ghost story that he heard down
South when he was a little boy. “The Golden Arm” papa had told me
before, but he had startled me so that I did not much wish to hear
it again. But I had resolved this time to be prepared and not to
let myself be startled, but still papa did, and very very much; he
startled the whole roomful of people and they jumped as one man.
The other story was also very funny and interesting and I enjoyed
the evening inexpressibly much. After papa had finished reading we
all went down to the collation in the dining-room and after that
there was dancing and singing. Then the guests went away and papa
and I went to bed. The next morning we rose early, took an early
train for Hartford and reached Hartford at 1/2 past 2 o’clock. We
were very glad to get back.

How charitably she treats that ghastly experience! It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience. Susy had that disposition, and it was one of the jewels of her character that had come to her straight from her mother. It is a feature that was left out of me at birth. And, at seventy, I have not yet acquired it.

I did not go to Vassar College professionally, but as a guest–as a guest, and gratis. Aunt Clara (now Mrs. John B. Stanchfield) was a graduate of Vassar and it was to please her that I inflicted that journey upon Susy and myself. The invitation had come to me from both the lady mentioned by Susy and the President of the College–a sour old saint who has probably been gathered to his fathers long ago; and I hope they enjoy him; I hope they value his society. I think I can get along without it, in either end of the next world.

We arrived at the College in that soaking rain, and Susy has described, with just a suggestion of dissatisfaction, the sort of reception we got. Susy had to sit in her damp clothes half an hour while we waited in the parlor; then she was taken to a fireless room and left to wait there again, as she has stated. I do not remember that President’s name, and I am sorry. He did not put in an appearance until it was time for me to step upon the platform in front of that great garden of young and lovely blossoms. He caught up with me and advanced upon the platform with me and was going to introduce me. I said in substance:

“You have allowed me to get along without your help thus far, and if you will retire from the platform I will try to do the rest without it.”

I did not see him any more, but I detest his memory. Of course my resentment did not extend to the students, and so I had an unforgettable good time talking to them. And I think they had a good time too, for they responded “as one man,” to use Susy’s unimprovable phrase.

Girls are charming creatures. I shall have to be twice seventy years old before I change my mind as to that. I am to talk to a crowd of them this afternoon, students of Barnard College (the sex’s annex to Columbia University), and I think I shall have as pleasant a time with those lasses as I had with the Vassar girls twenty-one years ago.

_From Susy’s Biography._

I stopped in the middle of mamma’s early history to tell about our
tripp to Vassar because I was afraid I would forget about it, now I
will go on where I left off. Some time after Miss Emma Nigh died
papa took mamma and little Langdon to Elmira for the summer. When
in Elmira Langdon began to fail but I think mamma did not know just
what was the matter with him.

I was the cause of the child’s illness. His mother trusted him to my care and I took him a long drive in an open barouche for an airing. It was a raw, cold morning, but he was well wrapped about with furs and, in the hands of a careful person, no harm would have come to him. But I soon dropped into a reverie and forgot all about my charge.

The furs fell away and exposed his bare legs. By and by the coachman noticed this, and I arranged the wraps again, but it was too late. The child was almost frozen. I hurried home with him. I was aghast at what I had done, and I feared the consequences. I have always felt shame for that treacherous morning’s work and have not allowed myself to think of it when I could help it. I doubt if I had the courage to make confession at that time. I think it most likely that I have never confessed until now.

_From Susy’s Biography._

At last it was time for papa to return to Hartford, and Langdon was
real sick at that time, but still mamma decided to go with him,
thinking the journey might do him good. But after they reached
Hartford he became very sick, and his trouble prooved to be
diptheeria. He died about a week after mamma and papa reached
Hartford. He was burried by the side of grandpa at Elmira, New
York. [Susy rests there with them.–S. L. C.] After that, mamma
became very very ill, so ill that there seemed great danger of
death, but with a great deal of good care she recovered. Some
months afterward mamma and papa [and Susy, who was perhaps fourteen
or fifteen months old at the time.–S. L. C.] went to Europe and
stayed for a time in Scotland and England. In Scotland mamma and
papa became very well equanted with Dr. John Brown, the author of
“Rab and His Friends,” and he mett, but was not so well equanted
with, Mr. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, Sir Thomas Hardy
grandson of the Captain Hardy to whom Nellson said “Kiss me Hardy,”
when dying on shipboard, Mr. Henry Irving, Robert Browning, Sir
Charles Dilke, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. William Black, Lord Houghton,
Frank Buckland, Mr. Tom Hughes, Anthony Trollope, Tom Hood, son of
the poet–and mamma and papa were quite well equanted with Dr.
Macdonald and family, and papa met Harrison Ainsworth.

I remember all these men very well indeed, except the last one. I do not recall Ainsworth. By my count, Susy mentions fourteen men. They are all dead except Sir Charles Dilke.

We met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal “Alice”- -but he was only interesting to look at, for he was the stillest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except “Uncle Remus.” Dr. Macdonald and several other lively talkers were present, and the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll sat still all the while except that now and then he answered a question. His answers were brief. I do not remember that he elaborated any of them.

At a dinner at Smalley’s we met Herbert Spencer. At a large luncheon party at Lord Houghton’s we met Sir Arthur Helps, who was a celebrity of world-wide fame at the time, but is quite forgotten now. Lord Elcho, a large vigorous man, sat at some distance down the table. He was talking earnestly about Godalming. It was a deep and flowing and unarticulated rumble, but I got the Godalming pretty clearly every time it broke free of the rumble, and as all the strength was on the first end of the word it startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing.

In the middle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on her right and on her left in a matter-of-fact way, “Excuse me, I have an engagement,” and without further ceremony she went off to meet it. This would have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord Houghton told a number of delightful stories. He told them in French, and I lost nothing of them but the nubs.

MARK TWAIN.

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This is Part 28 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of a part 2 of 2 of Chapter VI.

The next part is Part 29, chapter VII.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–VI.(Part 1 0f 2)

BY MARK TWAIN.

_From Susy’s Biography_.

Papa made arrangements to read at Vassar College the 1st of May,
and I went with him. We went by way of New York City. Mamma went
with us to New York and stayed two days to do some shopping. We
started Tuesday, at 1/2 past two o’clock in the afternoon, and
reached New York about 1/4 past six. Papa went right up to General
Grants from the station and mamma and I went to the Everett House.
Aunt Clara came to supper with us up in our room….

We and Aunt Clara were going were going to the theatre right after
supper, and we expected papa to take us there and to come home as
early as he could. But we got through dinner and he didn’t come,
and didn’t come, and mamma got more perplexed and worried, but at
last we thought we would have to go without him. So we put on our
things and started down stairs but before we’d goten half down we
met papa coming up with a great bunch of roses in his hand. He
explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped
and he didn’t notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it
really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to
mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed “Adonis” [word illegible]
acted very much. We reached home about 1/2 past eleven o’clock and
went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had
breakfast about 1/2 past nine o’clock. After breakfast mamma went
out shopping and papa and I went to see papa’s agent about some
business matters. After papa had gotten through talking to Cousin
Charlie, [Webster] papa’s agent, we went to get a friend of papa’s,
Major Pond, to go and see a Dog Show with us. Then we went to see
the dogs with Major Pond and we had a delightful time seeing so
many dogs together; when we got through seeing the dogs papa
thought he would go and see General Grant and I went with him–this
was April 29, 1885. Papa went up into General Grant’s room and he
took me with him, I felt greatly honored and delighted when papa
took me into General Grant’s room and let me see the General and
Col. Grant, for General Grant is a man I shall be glad all my life
that I have seen. Papa and General Grant had a long talk together
and papa has written an account of his talk and visit with General
Grant for me to put into this biography.

Susy has inserted in this place that account of mine–as follows:

April 29, 1885.

I called on General Grant and took Susy with me. The General was
looking and feeling far better than he had looked or felt for some
months. He had ventured to work again on his book that morning–the
first time he had done any work for perhaps a month. This morning’s
work was his first attempt at dictating, and it was a thorough
success, to his great delight. He had always said that it would be
impossible for him to dictate anything, but I had said that he was
noted for clearness of statement, and as a narrative was simply a
statement of consecutive facts, he was consequently peculiarly
qualified and equipped for dictation. This turned out to be true.
For he had dictated two hours that morning to a shorthand writer,
had never hesitated for words, had not repeated himself, and the
manuscript when finished needed no revision. The two hours’ work
was an account of Appomattox–and this was such an extremely
important feature that his book would necessarily have been
severely lame without it. Therefore I had taken a shorthand writer
there before, to see if I could not get him to write at least a few
lines about Appomattox.[5] But he was at that time not well enough
to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of
Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely
anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was
not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger
than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox
accomplished once more in his life–to have gotten the matter off
his mind–that he was as talkative as his old self. He received
Susy very pleasantly, and then fell to talking about certain
matters which he hoped to be able to dictate next day; and he said
in substance that, among other things, he wanted to settle once for
all a question that had been bandied about from mouth to mouth and
from newspaper to newspaper. That question was, “With whom
originated the idea of the march to the sea? Was it Grant’s, or was
it Sherman’s idea?” Whether I, or some one else (being anxious to
get the important fact settled) asked him with whom the idea
originated, I don’t remember. But I remember his answer. I shall
always remember his answer. General Grant said:

“Neither of us originated the idea of Sherman’s march to the sea.
The enemy did it.”

He went on to say that the enemy, however, necessarily originated a
great many of the plans that the general on the opposite side gets
the credit for; at the same time that the enemy is doing that, he
is laying open other moves which the opposing general sees and
takes advantage of. In this case, Sherman had a plan all thought
out, of course. He meant to destroy the two remaining railroads in
that part of the country, and that would finish up that region. But
General Hood did not play the military part that he was expected to
play. On the contrary, General Hood made a dive at Chattanooga.
This left the march to the sea open to Sherman, and so after
sending part of his army to defend and hold what he had acquired in
the Chattanooga region, he was perfectly free to proceed, with the
rest of it, through Georgia. He saw the opportunity, and he would
not have been fit for his place if he had not seized it.

“He wrote me” (the General is speaking) “what his plan was, and I
sent him word to go ahead. My staff were opposed to the movement.”
(I think the General said they tried to persuade him to stop
Sherman. The chief of his staff, the General said, even went so far
as to go to Washington without the General’s knowledge and get the
ear of the authorities, and he succeeded in arousing their fears to
such an extent that they telegraphed General Grant to stop
Sherman.)

Then General Grant said, “Out of deference to the Government, I
telegraphed Sherman and stopped him twenty-four hours; and then
considering that that was deference enough to the Government, I
telegraphed him to go ahead again.”

I have not tried to give the General’s language, but only the
general idea of what he said. The thing that mainly struck me was
his terse remark that the enemy originated the idea of the march to
the sea. It struck me because it was so suggestive of the General’s
epigrammatic fashion–saying a great deal in a single crisp
sentence. (This is my account, and signed “Mark Twain.”)

_Susy Resumes._

After papa and General Grant had had their talk, we went back to
the hotel where mamma was, and papa told mamma all about his
interview with General Grant. Mamma and I had a nice quiet
afternoon together.

That pair of devoted comrades were always shutting themselves up together when there was opportunity to have what Susy called “a cozy time.” From Susy’s nursery days to the end of her life, she and her mother were close friends; intimate friends, passionate adorers of each other. Susy’s was a beautiful mind, and it made her an interesting comrade. And with the fine mind she had a heart like her mother’s.

Susy never had an interest or an occupation which she was not glad to put aside for that something which was in all cases more precious to her–a visit with her mother. Susy died at the right time, the fortunate time of life; the happy age–twenty-four years. At twenty-four, such a girl has seen the best of life–life as a happy dream. After that age the risks begin; responsibility comes, and with it the cares, the sorrows, and the inevitable tragedy. For her mother’s sake I would have brought her back from the grave if I could, but I would not have done it for my own.

_From Susy’s Biography_.

Then papa went to read in public; there were a great many authors
that read, that Thursday afternoon, beside papa; I would have liked
to have gone and heard papa read, but papa said he was going to
read in Vassar just what he was planning to read in New York, so I
stayed at home with mamma.

The next day mamma planned to take the four o’clock car back to
Hartford. We rose quite early that morning and went to the Vienna
Bakery and took breakfast there. From there we went to a German
bookstore and bought some German books for Clara’s birthday.

Dear me, the power of association to snatch mouldy dead memories out of their graves and make them walk! That remark about buying foreign books throws a sudden white glare upon the distant past; and I see the long stretch of a New York street with an unearthly vividness, and John Hay walking down it, grave and remorseful. I was walking down it too, that morning, and I overtook Hay and asked him what the trouble was. He turned a lustreless eye upon me and said:

“My case is beyond cure. In the most innocent way in the world I have committed a crime which will never be forgiven by the sufferers, for they will never believe–oh, well, no, I was going to say they would never believe that I did the thing innocently. The truth is they will know that I acted innocently, because they are rational people; but what of that? I never can look them in the face again–nor they me, perhaps.”

Hay was a young bachelor, and at that time was on the “Tribune” staff. He explained his trouble in these words, substantially:

“When I was passing along here yesterday morning on my way down-town to the office, I stepped into a bookstore where I am acquainted, and asked if they had anything new from the other side. They handed me a French novel, in the usual yellow paper cover, and I carried it away. I didn’t even look at the title of it. It was for recreation reading, and I was on my way to my work.

I went mooning and dreaming along, and I think I hadn’t gone more than fifty yards when I heard my name called. I stopped, and a private carriage drew up at the sidewalk and I shook hands with the inmates- -mother and young daughter, excellent people. They were on their way to the steamer to sail for Paris. The mother said,

“‘I saw that book in your hand and I judged by the look of it that it was a French novel. Is it?’

“I said it was.

“She said, ‘Do let me have it, so that my daughter can practise her French on it on the way over.’

“Of course I handed her the book, and we parted. Ten minutes ago I was passing that bookstore again, and I stepped in and fetched away another copy of that book. Here it is. Read the first page of it. That is enough. You will know what the rest is like. I think it must be the foulest book in the French language- -one of the foulest, anyway. I would be ashamed to offer it to a harlot–but, oh dear, I gave it to that sweet young girl without shame. Take my advice; don’t give away a book until you have examined it.”

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This is Part 27 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of a part 1 of 2 of Chapter VI.

The next part is Part 28, chapter VI (part 2 of 2).

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TO HELP REDUCE CONFUSION I AM CHANGING THE NUMBERING SYSTEM TO STRAIGHT NUMBERS. YOU WILL SEE THAT I STARTED WITH NUMBER 26 TODAY. THAT IS BECAUSE THIS IS MY 27th POST. NUMBER 1 WAS MY INTRO. I’M NOT SURE ABOUT YOU BUT I WAS GETTING CONFUSED WITH ALL THE V’S & I’S AND a,b,c’S ETC. HOPEFULLY, THIS WILL HELP.

Thanks.

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Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Now begin reading this section called Part 26, which is a continuation of final section of Chapter V.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–V. (continued)

BY MARK TWAIN.

…It was not right to give the cat the “Pain-Killer”; I realize it now. I would not repeat it in these days. But in those “Tom Sawyer” days it was a great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its influence–and if actions _do_ speak as loud as words, he took as much interest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry Davis’s Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey’s negro man, who was a person of good judgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it, and I let him. It was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.

Those were the cholera days of ‘49. The people along the Mississippi were paralyzed with fright. Those who could run away, did it. And many died of fright in the flight. Fright killed three persons where the cholera killed one. Those who couldn’t flee kept themselves drenched with cholera preventives, and my mother chose Perry Davis’s Pain-Killer for me. She was not distressed about herself. She avoided that kind of preventive. But she made me promise to take a teaspoonful of Pain-Killer every day.

Originally it was my intention to keep the promise, but at that time I didn’t know as much about Pain-Killer as I knew after my first experiment with it. She didn’t watch Henry’s bottle–she could trust Henry. But she marked my bottle with a pencil, on the label, every day, and examined it to see if the teaspoonful had been removed. The floor was not carpeted. It had cracks in it, and I fed the Pain-Killer to the cracks with very good results–no cholera occurred down below.

It was upon one of these occasions that that friendly cat came waving his tail and supplicating for Pain- Killer–which he got–and then went into those hysterics which ended with his colliding with all the furniture in the room and finally going out of the open window and carrying the flower-pots with him, just in time for my mother to arrive and look over her glasses in petrified astonishment and say, “What in the world is the matter with Peter?”

I don’t remember what my explanation was, but if it is recorded in that book it may not be the right one.

Whenever my conduct was of such exaggerated impropriety that my mother’s extemporary punishments were inadequate, she saved the matter up for Sunday, and made me go to church Sunday night–which was a penalty sometimes bearable, perhaps, but as a rule it was not, and I avoided it for the sake of my constitution. She would never believe that I had been to church until she had applied her test: she made me tell her what the text was. That was a simple matter, and caused me no trouble.

I didn’t have to go to church to get a text. I selected one for myself. This worked very well until one time when my text and the one furnished by a neighbor, who had been to church, didn’t tally. After that my mother took other methods. I don’t know what they were now.

In those days men and boys wore rather long cloaks in the winter-time. They were black, and were lined with very bright and showy Scotch plaids. One winter’s night when I was starting to church to square a crime of some kind committed during the week, I hid my cloak near the gate and went off and played with the other boys until church was over. Then I returned home. But in the dark I put the cloak on wrong side out, entered the room, threw the cloak aside, and then stood the usual examination. I got along very well until the temperature of the church was mentioned. My mother said,

“It must have been impossible to keep warm there on such a night.”

I didn’t see the art of that remark, and was foolish enough to explain that I wore my cloak all the time that I was in church. She asked if I kept it on from church home, too. I didn’t see the bearing of that remark. I said that that was what I had done. She said,

“You wore it in church with that red Scotch plaid outside and glaring? Didn’t that attract any attention?”

Of course to continue such a dialogue would have been tedious and unprofitable, and I let it go, and took the consequences.

That was about 1849. Tom Nash was a boy of my own age–the postmaster’s son. The Mississippi was frozen across, and he and I went skating one night, probably without permission. I cannot see why we should go skating in the night unless without permission, for there could be no considerable amusement to be gotten out of skating at night if nobody was going to object to it.

About midnight, when we were more than half a mile out toward the Illinois shore, we heard some ominous rumbling and grinding and crashing going on between us and the home side of the river, and we knew what it meant–the ice was breaking up. We started for home, pretty badly scared. We flew along at full speed whenever the moonlight sifting down between the clouds enabled us to tell which was ice and which was water.

In the pauses we waited; started again whenever there was a good bridge of ice; paused again when we came to naked water and waited in distress until a floating vast cake should bridge that place. It took us an hour to make the trip–a trip which we made in a misery of apprehension all the time. But at last we arrived within a very brief distance of the shore. We waited again; there was another place that needed bridging. All about us the ice was plunging and grinding along and piling itself up in mountains on the shore, and the dangers were increasing, not diminishing. We grew very impatient to get to solid ground, so we started too early and went springing from cake to cake.

Tom made a miscalculation, and fell short. He got a bitter bath, but he was so close to shore that he only had to swim a stroke or two–then his feet struck hard bottom and he crawled out. I arrived a little later, without accident. We had been in a drenching perspiration, and Tom’s bath was a disaster for him. He took to his bed sick, and had a procession of diseases. The closing one was scarlet-fever, and he came out of it stone deaf.

Within a year or two speech departed, of course. But some years later he was taught to talk, after a fashion–one couldn’t always make out what it was he was trying to say. Of course he could not modulate his voice, since he couldn’t hear himself talk. When he supposed he was talking low and confidentially, you could hear him in Illinois.

Four years ago (1902) I was invited by the University of Missouri to come out there and receive the honorary degree of LL.D. I took that opportunity to spend a week in Hannibal–a city now, a village in my day. It had been fifty-three years since Tom Nash and I had had that adventure. When I was at the railway station ready to leave Hannibal, there was a crowd of citizens there.

I saw Tom Nash approaching me across a vacant space, and I walked toward him, for I recognized him at once. He was old and white-headed, but the boy of fifteen was still visible in him. He came up to me, made a trumpet of his hands at my ear, nodded his head toward the citizens and said confidentially–in a yell like a fog-horn–

“Same damned fools, Sam!”

_From Susy’s Biography._

Papa was about twenty years old when he went on the Mississippi as
a pilot. Just before he started on his tripp Grandma Clemens asked
him to promise her on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors
or swear, and he said “Yes, mother, I will,” and he kept that
promise seven years when Grandma released him from it.

Under the inspiring influence of that remark, what a garden of forgotten reforms rises upon my sight!

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This concludes Part 26 of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of a part of Chapter V.

The next part is Part 27, chapter VI.

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Also, if you are unsure how to Bookmark, go to the top right and click on “How To Bookmark”.

Now begin reading this section called Part VIIIb, which is a continuation of Chapter V.

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CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.–V.

BY MARK TWAIN.

…The children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript. She would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil in her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye upon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that whenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would strike it out. Their suspicions were well founded.

The passages which were so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them which sorely needed modification or expurgation, and were always sure to get it at their mother’s hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy the protests of the children, I often abused my editor’s innocent confidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously atrocious character purposely to achieve the children’s brief delight, and then see the remorseless pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my supplications to the children’s for mercy, and strung the argument out and pretended to be in earnest.

They were deceived, and so was their mother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very delightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we gained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck the passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished three of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book by me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.

_From Susy’s Biography._

Papa was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane
Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F.V’s of
Virginia.

Without doubt it was I that gave Susy that impression. I cannot imagine why, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which proceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from my mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the house. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham, England–a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon times.

I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without titles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a great man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerage. My mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to aggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one to keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.

There was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States Senator, and in his day enjoyed the usual Senatorial fame- -a fame which perishes whether it spring from four years’ service or forty. After Jere. Clemens’s fame as a Senator passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account of another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown’s Governor Wise in the hind leg in a duel.

However, I am not very clear about this. It may be that Governor Wise shot _him_ in the hind leg. However, I don’t think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really important is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have been better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of them had got shot in the hind leg–but it is of no use for me to try to recollect history.

I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever way it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can get up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first Clemens–the one that stands furthest back toward the really original _first_ Clemens, which was Adam.

_From Susy’s Biography._

Clara and I are sure that papa played the trick on Grandma, about
the whipping, that is related in “The Adventures of Tom Sayer”:
“Hand me that switch.” The switch hovered in the air, the peril was
desperate–”My, look behind you Aunt!” The old lady whirled around
and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant,
scrambling up the high board fence and dissapeared over it.

Susy and Clara were quite right about that.

Then Susy says:

And we know papa played “Hookey” all the time. And how readily
would papa pretend to be dying so as not to have to go to school!

These revelations and exposures are searching, but they are just If I am as transparent to other people as I was to Susy, I have wasted much effort in this life.

Grandma couldn’t make papa go to school, no she let him go into a
printing-office to learn the trade. He did so, and gradually picked
up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who
were more studious in early life.

It is noticeable that Susy does not get overheated when she is complimenting me, but maintains a proper judicial and biographical calm. It is noticeable, also, and it is to her credit as a biographer, that she distributes compliment and criticism with a fair and even hand.

My mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. She had none at all with my brother Henry, who was two years younger than I, and I think that the unbroken monotony of his goodness and truthfulness and obedience would have been a burden to her but for the relief and variety which I furnished in the other direction.

I was a tonic. I was valuable to her. I never thought of it before, but now I see it. I never knew Henry to do a vicious thing toward me, or toward any one else–but he frequently did righteous ones that cost me as heavily. It was his duty to report me, when I needed reporting and neglected to do it myself, and he was very faithful in discharging that duty. He is “Sid” in “Tom Sawyer.” But Sid was not Henry. Henry was a very much finer and better boy than ever Sid was.

It was Henry who called my mother’s attention to the fact that the thread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going in swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it but for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that that prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye.That detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human.

We generally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a possible excuse for it–but no matter, I took it out of Henry. There is always compensation for such as are unjustly used. I often took it out of him–sometimes as an advance payment for something which I hadn’t yet done. These were occasions when the opportunity was too strong a temptation, and I had to draw on the future. I did not need to copy this idea from my mother, and probably didn’t. Still she wrought upon that principle upon occasion.

If the incident of the broken sugar-bowl is in “Tom Sawyer”–I don’t remember whether it is or not–that is an example of it. Henry never stole sugar. He took it openly from the bowl. His mother knew he wouldn’t take sugar when she wasn’t looking, but she had her doubts about me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I _would.

One day when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and precious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the family–and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad. I told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed.

When my mother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was speechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it would increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask “Who did that?”–so that I could fetch out my news. But it was an error of calculation. When she got through with her silence she didn’t ask anything about it–she merely gave me a crack on the skull with her thimble that I felt all the way down to my heels.

Then I broke out with my injured innocence, expecting to make her very sorry that she had punished the wrong one. I expected her to do something remorseful and pathetic. I told her that I was not the one–it was Henry. But there was no upheaval. She said, without emotion, “It’s all right. It isn’t any matter. You deserve it for something you’ve done that I didn’t know about; and if you haven’t done it, why then you deserve it for something that you are going to do, that I sha’n't hear about.”

There was a stairway outside the house, which led up to the rear part of the second story. One day Henry was sent on an errand, and he took a tin bucket along. I knew he would have to ascend those stairs, so I went up and locked the door on the inside, and came down into the garden, which had been newly ploughed and was rich in choice firm clods of black mold. I gathered a generous equipment of these, and ambushed him.

I waited till he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn’t escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence and escaped for that time.

After an hour or two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the incident was closed. But it was not. Henry was ambushing me. With an unusually competent aim for him, he landed a stone on the side of my head which raised a bump there that felt like the Matterhorn. I carried it to my mother straightway for sympathy, but she was not strongly moved. It seemed to be her idea that incidents like this would eventually reform me if I harvested enough of them. So the matter was only educational. I had had a sterner view of it than that, before.

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This concludes Part VIIIb of “Mark Twain’s Memoirs” of a part of Chapter V.

The next part is PartVIIIc, final section of chapter V.

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Click on Mark Twain’s Audio Books and enjoy.

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