The continued assault of Canadian pirates on his books kept Mark Twain's interest sharply alive on the subject of copyright reform. He invented one scheme after another, but the public-mind was hazy on the subject, and legislators were concerned with purposes that interested a larger number of voters. There were too few authors to be of much value at the polls, and even of those few only a small percentage were vitally concerned. For the others, foreign publishers rarely paid them the compliment of piracy, while at home the copyright limit of forty-two years was about forty-two times as long as they needed protection. Bliss suggested a law making the selling of pirated books a penal offense, a plan with a promising look, but which came to nothing.
Clemens wrote to his old friend Rollin M. Daggett, who by this time was a Congressman. Daggett replied that he would be glad to introduce any bill that the authors might agree upon, and Clemens made at least one trip to Washington to discuss the matter, but it came to nothing in the end. It was a Presidential year, and it would do just as well to keep the authors quiet by promising to do something next year. Any legislative stir is never a good thing for a campaign.
Clemens's idea for copyright betterment was not a fixed one. Somewhat later, when an international treaty which would include protection for authors was being discussed, his views had undergone a change. He wrote, asking Howells:
Will the proposed treaty protect us (and effectually) against
Canadian piracy? Because, if it doesn't, there is not a single
argument in favor of international copyright which a rational
American Senate could entertain for a moment. My notions have
mightily changed lately. I can buy Macaulay's History, three vols.;
bound, for $1.25; Chambers's Cyclopaedia, ten vols., cloth, for
$7.25 (we paid $60), and other English copyrights in proportion; I
can buy a lot of the great copyright classics, in paper, at from
three cents to thirty cents apiece. These things must find their
way into the very kitchens and hovels of the country. A generation
of this sort of thing ought to make this the most intelligent and
the best-read nation in the world. International copyright must
becloud this sun and bring on the former darkness and dime novel
reading.
Morally this is all wrong; governmentally it is all right. For it
is the duty of governments and families to be selfish, and look out
simply for their own. International copyright would benefit a few
English authors and a lot of American publishers, and be a profound
detriment to twenty million Americans; it would benefit a dozen
American authors a few dollars a year, and there an end. The real
advantages all go to English authors and American publishers.
And even if the treaty will kill Canadian piracy, and thus save me
an average of $5,000 a year, I'm down on it anyway, and I'd like
cussed well to write an article opposing the treaty.
It is a characteristic expression. Mark Twain might be first to grab for the life-preserver, but he would also be first to hand it to a humanity in greater need. He could damn the human race competently, but in the final reckoning it was the interest of that race that lay closest to his heart.
Mention has been made in an earlier chapter of Clemens's enthusiasms or “rages” for this thing and that which should benefit humankind. He was seldom entirely without them. Whether it was copyright legislation, the latest invention, or a new empiric practice, he rarely failed to have a burning interest in some anodyne that would provide physical or mental easement for his species. Howells tells how once he was going to save the human race with accordion letter-files—the system of order which would grow out of this useful device being of such nerve and labor saving proportions as to insure long life and happiness to all. The fountain-pen, in its first imperfect form, must have come along about the same time, and Clemens was one of the very earliest authors to own one. For a while it seemed that the world had known no greater boon since the invention of printing; but when it clogged and balked, or suddenly deluged his paper and spilled in his pocket, he flung it to the outer darkness. After which, the stylographic pen. He tried one, and wrote severally to Dr. Brown, to Howells, and to Twichell, urging its adoption. Even in a letter to Mrs. Howells he could not forget his new possession:
And speaking of Howells, he ought to use the stylographic pen, the
best fountain-pen yet invented; he ought to, but of course he won't
—a blamed old sodden-headed conservative—but you see yourself what
a nice, clean, uniform MS. it makes.
And at the same time to Twichell:
I am writing with a stylographic pen. It takes a royal amount of
cussing to make the thing go the first few days or a week, but by
that time the dullest ass gets the hang of the thing, and after that
no enrichments of expression are required, and said ass finds the
stylographic a genuine God's blessing. I carry one in each breeches
pocket, and both loaded. I'd give you one of them if I had you
where I could teach you how to use it—not otherwise. For the
average ass flings the thing out of the window in disgust the second
day, believing it hath no virtue, no merit of any sort; whereas the
lack lieth in himself, God of his mercy damn him.
It was not easy to withstand Mark Twain's enthusiasm. Howells, Twichell, and Dr. Brown were all presently struggling and swearing (figuratively) over their stylographic pens, trying to believe that salvation lay in their conquest. But in the midst of one letter, at last, Howells broke down, seized his old steel weapon, and wrote savagely: “No white man ought to use a stylographic pen, anyhow!” Then, with the more ancient implement, continued in a calmer spirit.
It was only a little later that Clemens himself wrote:
You see I am trying a new pen. I stood the stylograph as long as I
could, and then retired to the pencil. The thing I am trying now is
that fountain-pen which is advertised to employ and accommodate
itself to any kind of pen. So I selected an ordinary gold pen—a
limber one—and sent it to New York and had it cut and fitted to
this thing. It goes very well indeed—thus far; but doubtless the
devil will be in it by tomorrow.
Mark Twain's schemes were not all in the line of human advancement; some of them were projected, primarily at least, for diversion. He was likely at any moment to organize a club, a sort of private club, and at the time of which we are writing he proposed what was called the “Modest” Club. He wrote to Howells, about it:
At present I am the only member, and as the modesty required must be
of a quite aggravated type the enterprise did seem for a time doomed
to stop dead still with myself, for lack of further material; but on
reflection I have come to the conclusion that you are eligible.
Therefore, I have held a meeting and voted to offer you the
distinction of membership. I do not know that we can find any
others, though I have had some thought of Hay, Warner, Twichell,
Aldrich, Osgood, Fields, Higginson, and a few more, together with
Mrs. Howells, Mrs. Clemens, and certain others of the sex. I have
long felt there ought to be an organized gang of our kind.
He appends the by-laws, the main ones being:
The object of the club shall be to eat and talk.
Qualification for membership shall be aggravated modesty,
unobtrusiveness, native humility, learning, talent, intelligence,
unassailable character.
There shall be no officers except a president, and any member who
has anything to eat and talk about may constitute himself president
for the time being.
Any brother or sister of the order finding a brother or a sister in
imminently deadly peril shall forsake his own concerns, no matter at
what cost, and call the police.
Any member knowing anything scandalous about himself shall
immediately inform the club, so that they shall call a meeting and
have the first chance to talk about it.
It was one of his whimsical fancies, and Howells replied that he would like to join it, only that he was too modest—that is, too modest to confess that he was modest enough for membership.
He added that he had sent a letter, with the rules, to Hay, but doubted his modesty. He said:
“He will think he has a right to belong as much as you or I.”
Howells agreed that his own name might be put down, but the idea seems never to have gone any further. Perhaps the requirements of membership were too severe.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg