There was a religious turmoil in Elmira in 1869; a disturbance among the ministers, due to the success of Thomas K. Beecher in a series of meetings he was conducting in the Opera House. Mr. Beecher's teachings had never been very orthodox or doctrinal, but up to this time they had been seemingly unobjectionable to his brother clergymen, who fraternized with him and joined with him in the Monday meetings of the Ministerial Union of Elmira, when each Monday a sermon was read by one of the members. The situation presently changed. Mr. Beecher was preaching his doubtful theology to large and nightly increasing audiences, and it was time to check the exodus. The Ministerial Union of Elmira not only declined to recognize and abet the Opera House gatherings, but they requested him to withdraw from their Monday meetings, on the ground that his teachings were pernicious. Mr. Beecher said nothing of the matter, and it was not made public until a notice of it appeared in a religious paper. Naturally such a course did not meet with the approval of the Langdon family, and awoke the scorn of a man who so detested bigotry in any form as Mark Twain. He was a stranger in the place, and not justified to speak over his own signature, but he wrote an article and read it to members of the Langdon family and to Dr. and Mrs. Taylor, their intimate friends, who were spending an evening in the Langdon home. It was universally approved, and the next morning appeared in the Elmira Advertiser, over the signature of “S'cat.” It created a stir, of course.
The article follows:
MR. BEECHER AND THE CLERGY
“The Ministerial Union of Elmira, N. Y., at a recent meeting passed resolutions disapproving the teachings of Rev. T. K. Beecher, declining to co-operate with him in his Sunday evening services at the Opera House, and requesting him to withdraw from their Monday morning meeting. This has resulted in his withdrawal, and thus the pastors are relieved from further responsibility as to his action.”—N. Y. Evangelist.
Poor Beecher! All this time he could do whatever he pleased that was wrong, and then be perfectly serene and comfortable over it, because the Ministerial Union of Elmira was responsible to God for it. He could lie if he wanted to, and those ministers had to answer for it; he could promote discord in the church of Christ, and those parties had to make it right with the Deity as best they could; he could teach false doctrines to empty opera houses, and those sorrowing lambs of the Ministerial Union had to get out their sackcloth and ashes and stand responsible for it. He had such a comfortable thing of it! But he went too far. In an evil hour he slaughtered the simple geese that laid the golden egg of responsibility for him, and now they will uncover their customary complacency, and lift up their customary cackle in his behalf no more. And so, at last, he finds himself in the novel position of being responsible to God for his acts, instead of to the Ministerial Union of Elmira. To say that this is appalling is to state it with a degree of mildness which amounts to insipidity.
We cannot justly estimate this calamity, without first reviewing certain facts that conspired to bring it about. Mr. Beecher was and is in the habit of preaching to a full congregation in the Independent Congregational Church, in this city. The meeting-house was not large enough to accommodate all the people who desired admittance. Mr. Beecher regularly attended the meetings of the Ministerial Union of Elmira every Monday morning, and they received him into their fellowship, and never objected to the doctrines which he taught in his church. So, in an unfortunate moment, he conceived the strange idea that they would connive at the teaching of the same doctrines in the same way in a larger house. Therefore he secured the Opera House and proceeded to preach there every Sunday evening to assemblages comprising from a thousand to fifteen hundred persons. He felt warranted in this course by a passage of Scripture which says, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature.” Opera-houses were not ruled out specifically in this passage, and so he considered it proper to regard opera-houses as a part of “all the world.” He looked upon the people who assembled there as coming under the head of “every creature.” These ideas were as absurd as they were farfetched, but still they were the honest ebullitions of a diseased mind. His great mistake was in supposing that when he had the Saviour's indorsement of his conduct he had all that was necessary. He overlooked the fact that there might possibly be a conflict of opinion between the Saviour and the Ministerial Union of Elmira. And there was. Wherefore, blind and foolish Mr. Beecher went to his destruction. The Ministerial Union withdrew their approbation, and left him dangling in the air, with no other support than the countenance and approval of the gospel of Christ.
Mr. Beecher invited his brother ministers to join forces with him and help him conduct the Opera House meetings. They declined with great unanimity. In this they were wrong. Since they did not approve of those meetings, it was a duty they owed to their consciences and their God to contrive their discontinuance. They knew this. They felt it. Yet they turned coldly away and refused to help at those meetings, when they well knew that their help, earnestly and persistently given, was able to kill any great religious enterprise that ever was conceived of.
The ministers refused, and the calamitous meetings at the Opera House continued; and not only continued, but grew in interest and importance, and sapped of their congregations churches where the Gospel was preached with that sweet monotonous tranquillity and that impenetrable profundity which stir up such consternation in the strongholds of sin. It is a pity to have to record here that one clergyman refused to preach at the Opera House at Mr. Beecher's request, even when that incendiary was sick and disabled; and if that man's conscience justifies him in that refusal I do not. Under the plea of charity for a sick brother he could have preached to that Opera House multitude a sermon that would have done incalculable damage to the Opera House experiment. And he need not have been particular about the sermon he chose, either. He could have relied on any he had in his barrel.
The Opera House meetings went on; other congregations were thin, and grew thinner, but the Opera House assemblages were vast. Every Sunday night, in spite of sense and reason, multitudes passed by the churches where they might have been saved, and marched deliberately to the Opera House to be damned. The community talked, talked, talked. Everybody discussed the fact that the Ministerial Union disapproved of the Opera House meetings; also the fact that they disapproved of the teachings put forth there. And everybody wondered how the Ministerial Union could tell whether to approve or disapprove of those teachings, seeing that those clergymen had never attended an Opera House meeting, and therefore didn't know what was taught there. Everybody wondered over that curious question, and they had to take it out in wondering.
Mr. Beecher asked the Ministerial Union to state their objections to the Opera House matter. They could not—at least they did not. He said to them that if they would come squarely out and tell him that they desired the discontinuance of those meetings he would discontinue them. They declined to do that. Why should they have declined? They had no right to decline, and no excuse to decline, if they honestly believed that those meetings interfered in the slightest degree with the best interests of religion. (That is a proposition which the profoundest head among them cannot get around.)
But the Opera House meetings went on. That was the mischief of it. And so, one Monday morning, when Mr. B. appeared at the usual Ministers' meeting, his brother clergymen desired him to come there no more. He asked why. They gave no reason. They simply declined to have his company longer. Mr. B. said he could not accept of this execution without a trial, and since he loved them and had nothing against them he must insist upon meeting with them in the future just the same as ever. And so, after that, they met in secret, and thus got rid of this man's importunate affection.
The Ministerial Union had ruled out Beecher—a point gained. He would get up an excitement about it in public. But that was a miscalculation. He never mentioned it. They waited and waited for the grand crash, but it never came. After all their labor-pains, their ministerial mountain had brought forth only a mouse—and a still-born one at that. Beecher had not told on them; Beecher malignantly persisted in not telling on them. The opportunity was slipping away. Alas, for the humiliation of it, they had to come out and tell it themselves! And after all, their bombshell did not hurt anybody when they did explode it. They had ceased to be responsible to God for Beecher, and yet nobody seemed paralyzed about it. Somehow, it was not even of sufficient importance, apparently, to get into the papers, though even the poor little facts that Smith has bought a trotting team and Alderman Jones's child has the measles are chronicled there with avidity. Something must be done. As the Ministerial Union had told about their desolating action, when nobody else considered it of enough importance to tell, they would also publish it, now that the reporters failed to see anything in it important enough to print. And so they startled the entire religious world no doubt by solemnly printing in the Evangelist the paragraph which heads this article. They have got their excommunication-bull started at last. It is going along quite lively now, and making considerable stir, let us hope. They even know it in Podunk, wherever that may be. It excited a two-line paragraph there. Happy, happy world, that knows at last that a little congress of congregationless clergymen of whom it had never heard before have crushed a famous Beecher, and reduced his audiences from fifteen hundred down to fourteen hundred and seventy-five at one fell blow! Happy, happy world, that knows at last that these obscure innocents are no longer responsible for the blemishless teachings, the power, the pathos, the logic, and the other and manifold intellectual pyrotechnics that seduce, but to damn, the Opera House assemblages every Sunday night in Elmira! And miserable, O thrice miserable Beecher! For the Ministerial Union of Elmira will never, no, never more be responsible to God for his shortcomings. (Excuse these tears.)
(For the protection of a man who is uniformly charged with all the newspaper deviltry that sees the light in Elmira journals, I take this opportunity of stating, under oath, duly subscribed before a magistrate, that Mr. Beecher did not write this article. And further still, that he did not inspire it. And further still, the Ministerial Union of Elmira did not write it. And finally, the Ministerial Union did not ask me to write it. No, I have taken up this cudgel in defense of the Ministerial Union of Elmira solely from a love of justice. Without solicitation, I have constituted myself the champion of the Ministerial Union of Elmira, and it shall be a labor of love with me to conduct their side of a quarrel in print for them whenever they desire me to do it; or if they are busy, and have not the time to ask me, I will cheerfully do it anyhow. In closing this I must remark that if any question the right of the clergymen of Elmira to turn Mr. Beecher out of the Ministerial Union, to such I answer that Mr. Beecher recreated that institution after it had been dead for many years, and invited those gentlemen to come into it, which they did, and so of course they have a right to turn him out if they want to. The difference between Beecher and the man who put an adder in his bosom is, that Beecher put in more adders than he did, and consequently had a proportionately livelier time of it when they got warmed up.)
Cheerfully,
S'CAT.
THE INDIGNITY PUT UPON THE REMAINS OF GEORGE HOLLAND BY THE REV. MR. SABINE.
(See Chapter lxxvii)
What a ludicrous satire it was upon Christian charity!—even upon the vague, theoretical idea of it which doubtless this small saint mouths from his own pulpit every Sunday. Contemplate this freak of nature, and think what a Cardiff giant of self-righteousness is crowded into his pigmy skin. If we probe, and dissect; and lay open this diseased, this cancerous piety of his, we are forced to the conviction that it is the production of an impression on his part that his guild do about all the good that is done on the earth, and hence are better than common clay—hence are competent to say to such as George Holland, “You are unworthy; you are a play-actor, and consequently a sinner; I cannot take the responsibility of recommending you to the mercy of Heaven.” It must have had its origin in that impression, else he would have thought, “We are all instruments for the carrying out of God's purposes; it is not for me to pass judgment upon your appointed share of the work, or to praise or to revile it; I have divine authority for it that we are all sinners, and therefore it is not for me to discriminate and say we will supplicate for this sinner, for he was a merchant prince or a banker, but we will beseech no forgiveness for this other one, for he was a play-actor.”
It surely requires the furthest possible reach of self-righteousness to enable a man to lift his scornful nose in the air and turn his back upon so poor and pitiable a thing as a dead stranger come to beg the last kindness that humanity can do in its behalf. This creature has violated the letter of the Gospel, and judged George Holland—not George Holland, either, but his profession through him. Then it is, in a measure, fair that we judge this creature's guild through him. In effect he has said, “We are the salt of the earth; we do all the good work that is done; to learn how to be good and do good men must come to us; actors and such are obstacles to moral progress.” Pray look at the thing reasonably a moment, laying aside all biases of education and custom. If a common public impression is fair evidence of a thing then this minister's legitimate, recognized, and acceptable business is to tell people calmly, coldly, and in stiff, written sentences, from the pulpit, to go and do right, be just, be merciful, be charitable. And his congregation forget it all between church and home. But for fifty years it was George Holland's business on the stage to make his audience go and do right, and be just, merciful, and charitable—because by his living, breathing, feeling pictures he showed them what it was to do these things, and how to do them, and how instant and ample was the reward! Is it not a singular teacher of men, this reverend gentleman who is so poorly informed himself as to put the whole stage under ban, and say, “I do not think it teaches moral lessons”? Where was ever a sermon preached that could make filial ingratitude so hateful to men as the sinful play of “King Lear”? Or where was there ever a sermon that could so convince men of the wrong and the cruelty of harboring a pampered and unanalyzed jealousy as the sinful play of “Othello”? And where are there ten preachers who can stand in the pulpit preaching heroism, unselfish devotion, and lofty patriotism, and hold their own against any one of five hundred William Tells that can be raised upon five hundred stages in the land at a day's notice? It is almost fair and just to aver (although it is profanity) that nine-tenths of all the kindness and forbearance and Christian charity and generosity in the hearts of the American people today got there by being filtered down from their fountain-head, the gospel of Christ, through dramas and tragedies and comedies on the stage, and through the despised novel and the Christmas story, and through the thousand and one lessons, suggestions, and narratives of generous deeds that stir the pulses, and exalt and augment the nobility of the nation day by day from the teeming columns of ten thousand newspapers, and not from the drowsy pulpit.
All that is great and good in our particular civilization came straight from the hand of Jesus Christ, and many creatures, and of divers sorts, were doubtless appointed to disseminate it; and let us believe that this seed and the result are the main thing, and not the cut of the sower's garment; and that whosoever, in his way and according to his opportunity, sows the one and produces the other, has done high service and worthy. And further, let us try with all our strength to believe that whenever old simple-hearted George Holland sowed this seed, and reared his crop of broader charities and better impulses in men's hearts, it was just as acceptable before the Throne as if the seed had been scattered in vapid platitudes from the pulpit of the ineffable Sabine himself.
Am I saying that the pulpit does not do its share toward disseminating the marrow, the meat of the gospel of Christ? (For we are not talking of ceremonies and wire-drawn creeds now, but the living heart and soul of what is pretty often only a specter.)
No, I am not saying that. The pulpit teaches assemblages of people twice a week nearly two hours altogether—and does what it can in that time. The theater teaches large audiences seven times a week—28 or 30 hours altogether—and the novels and newspapers plead, and argue, and illustrate, stir, move, thrill, thunder, urge, persuade, and supplicate, at the feet of millions and millions of people every single day, and all day long and far into the night; and so these vast agencies till nine-tenths of the vineyard, and the pulpit tills the other tenth. Yet now and then some complacent blind idiot says, “You unanointed are coarse clay and useless; you are not as we, the regenerators of the world; go, bury yourselves elsewhere, for we cannot take the responsibility of recommending idlers and sinners to the yearning mercy of Heaven.” How does a soul like that stay in a carcass without getting mixed with the secretions and sweated out through the pores? Think of this insect condemning the whole theatrical service as a disseminator of bad morals because it has Black Crooks in it; forgetting that if that were sufficient ground people would condemn the pulpit because it had Crooks and Kallochs and Sabines in it!
No, I am not trying to rob the pulpit of any atom of its full share and credit in the work of disseminating the meat and marrow of the gospel of Christ; but I am trying to get a moment's hearing for worthy agencies in the same work, that with overwrought modesty seldom or never claim a recognition of their great services. I am aware that the pulpit does its excellent one-tenth (and credits itself with it now and then, though most of the time a press of business causes it to forget it); I am aware that in its honest and well-meaning way it bores the people with uninflammable truisms about doing good; bores them with correct compositions on charity; bores them, chloroforms them, stupefies them with argumentative mercy without a flaw in the grammar or an emotion which the minister could put in in the right place if he turned his back and took his finger off the manuscript. And in doing these things the pulpit is doing its duty, and let us believe that it is likewise doing its best, and doing it in the most harmless and respectable way. And so I have said, and shall keep on saying, let us give the pulpit its full share of credit in elevating and ennobling the people; but when a pulpit takes to itself authority to pass judgment upon the work and worth of just as legitimate an instrument of God as itself, who spent a long life preaching from the stage the selfsame gospel without the alteration of a single sentiment or a single axiom of right, it is fair and just that somebody who believes that actors were made for a high and good purpose, and that they accomplish the object of their creation and accomplish it well, should protest. And having protested, it is also fair and just—being driven to it, as it were—to whisper to the Sabine pattern of clergyman, under the breath, a simple, instructive truth, and say, “Ministers are not the only servants of God upon earth, nor his most efficient ones, either, by a very, very long distance!” Sensible ministers already know this, and it may do the other kind good to find it out.
But to cease teaching and go back to the beginning again, was it not pitiable—that spectacle? Honored and honorable old George Holland, whose theatrical ministry had for fifty years softened hard hearts, bred generosity in cold ones, kindled emotion in dead ones, uplifted base ones, broadened bigoted ones, and made many and many a stricken one glad and filled it brimful of gratitude, figuratively spit upon in his unoffending coffin by this crawling, slimy, sanctimonious, self-righteous reptile!
(See Chapter lxxxii)
To EDITOR of 'Tribune'.
SIR,—I believe in capital punishment. I believe that when a murder has been done it should be answered for with blood. I have all my life been taught to feel this way, and the fetters of education are strong. The fact that the death—law is rendered almost inoperative by its very severity does not alter my belief in its righteousness. The fact that in England the proportion of executions to condemnations is one to sixteen, and in this country only one to twenty-two, and in France only one to thirty-eight, does not shake my steadfast confidence in the propriety of retaining the death-penalty. It is better to hang one murderer in sixteen, twenty-two, thirty-eight than not to hang any at all.
Feeling as I do, I am not sorry that Ruloff is to be hanged, but I am sincerely sorry that he himself has made it necessary that his vast capabilities for usefulness should be lost to the world. In this, mine and the public's is a common regret. For it is plain that in the person of Ruloff one of the most marvelous of intellects that any age has produced is about to be sacrificed, and that, too, while half the mystery of its strange powers is yet a secret. Here is a man who has never entered the doors of a college or a university, and yet by the sheer might of his innate gifts has made himself such a colossus in abstruse learning that the ablest of our scholars are but pigmies in his presence. By the evidence of Professor Mather, Mr. Surbridge, Mr. Richmond, and other men qualified to testify, this man is as familiar with the broad domain of philology as common men are with the passing events of the day. His memory has such a limitless grasp that he is able to quote sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, from a gnarled and knotty ancient literature that ordinary scholars are capable of achieving little more than a bowing acquaintance with. But his memory is the least of his great endowments. By the testimony of the gentlemen above referred to he is able to critically analyze the works of the old masters of literature, and while pointing out the beauties of the originals with a pure and discriminating taste is as quick to detect the defects of the accepted translations; and in the latter case, if exceptions be taken to his judgment, he straightway opens up the quarries of his exhaustless knowledge, and builds a very Chinese wall of evidence around his position. Every learned man who enters Ruloff's presence leaves it amazed and confounded by his prodigious capabilities and attainments. One scholar said he did not believe that in matters of subtle analysis, vast knowledge in his peculiar field of research, comprehensive grasp of subject, and serene kingship over its limitless and bewildering details, any land or any era of modern times had given birth to Ruloff's intellectual equal. What miracles this murderer might have wrought, and what luster he might have shed upon his country, if he had not put a forfeit upon his life so foolishly! But what if the law could be satisfied, and the gifted criminal still be saved. If a life be offered up on the gallows to atone for the murder Ruloff did, will that suffice? If so, give me the proofs, for in all earnestness and truth I aver that in such a case I will instantly bring forward a man who, in the interests of learning and science, will take Ruloff's crime upon himself, and submit to be hanged in Ruloff's place. I can, and will do this thing; and I propose this matter, and make this offer in good faith. You know me, and know my address.
SAMUEL LANGHORNE.
April 29, 1871.
ADDRESS AT A DINNER GIVEN BY THE SAVAGE CLUB, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 28, 1872.
(See Chapter lxxxvii)
Reported by Moncure D. Conway in the Cincinnati Commercial
It affords me sincere pleasure to meet this distinguished club, a club which has extended its hospitalities and its cordial welcome to so many of my countrymen. I hope [and here the speaker's voice became low and fluttering] you will excuse these clothes. I am going to the theater; that will explain these clothes. I have other clothes than these. Judging human nature by what I have seen of it, I suppose that the customary thing for a stranger to do when he stands here is to make a pun on the name of this club, under the impression, of course, that he is the first man that that idea has occurred to. It is a credit to our human nature, not a blemish upon it; for it shows that underlying all our depravity (and God knows and you know we are depraved enough) and all our sophistication, and untarnished by them, there is a sweet germ of innocence and simplicity still. When a stranger says to me, with a glow of inspiration in his eye, some gentle, innocuous little thing about “Twain and one flesh” and all that sort of thing, I don't try to crush that man into the earth—no. I feel like saying, “Let me take you by the hand, sir; let me embrace you; I have not heard that pun for weeks.” We will deal in palpable puns. We will call parties named King “your Majesty” and we will say to the Smiths that we think we have heard that name before somewhere. Such is human nature. We cannot alter this. It is God that made us so for some good and wise purpose. Let us not repine. But though I may seem strange, may seem eccentric, I mean to refrain from punning upon the name of this club, though I could make a very good one if I had time to think about it—a week.
I cannot express to you what entire enjoyment I find in this first visit to this prodigious metropolis of yours. Its wonders seem to me to be limitless. I go about as in a dream—as in a realm of enchantment—where many things are rare and beautiful, and all things are strange and marvelous. Hour after hour I stand—I stand spellbound, as it were-and gaze upon the statuary in Leicester Square. [Leicester Square being a horrible chaos, with the relic of an equestrian statue in the center, the king being headless and limbless, and the horse in little better condition.] I visit the mortuary effigies of noble old Henry VIII., and Judge Jeffreys, and the preserved gorilla, and try to make up my mind which of my ancestors I admire the most. I go to that matchless Hyde Park and drive all around it, and then I start to enter it at the Marble Arch—and am induced to “change my mind.” [Cabs are not permitted in Hyde Park—nothing less aristocratic than a private carriage.] It is a great benefaction—is Hyde Park. There, in his hansom cab, the invalid can go—the poor, sad child of misfortune—and insert his nose between the railings, and breathe the pure, health-giving air of the country and of heaven. And if he is a swell invalid who isn't obliged to depend upon parks for his country air he can drive inside—if he owns his vehicle. I drive round and round Hyde Park and the more I see of the edges of it the more grateful I am that the margin is extensive.
And I have been to the Zoological Gardens. What a wonderful place that is! I have never seen such a curious and interesting variety of wild-animals in any garden before—except Mabille. I never believed before there were so many different kinds of animals in the world as you can find there—and I don't believe it yet. I have been to the British Museum. I would advise you to drop in there some time when you have nothing to do for—five minutes—if you have never been there. It seems to me the noblest monument this nation has, yet erected to her greatness. I say to her, our greatness—as a nation. True, she has built other monuments, and stately ones, as well; but these she has uplifted in honor of two or three colossal demigods who have stalked across the world's stage, destroying tyrants and delivering nations, and whose prodigies will still live in the memories of men ages after their monuments shall have crumbled to dust—I refer to the Wellington and Nelson monuments, and—the Albert memorial. [Sarcasm. The Albert memorial is the finest monument in the world, and celebrates the existence of as commonplace a person as good luck ever lifted out of obscurity.]
The Library at the British Museum I find particularly astounding. I have read there hours together, and hardly made an impression on it. I revere that library. It is the author's friend. I don't care how mean a book is, it always takes one copy. [A copy of every book printed in Great Britain must by law be sent to the British Museum, a law much complained of by publishers.] And then every day that author goes there to gaze at that book, and is encouraged to go on in the good work. And what a touching sight it is of a Saturday afternoon to see the poor, careworn clergymen gathered together in that vast reading-room cabbaging sermons for Sunday! You will pardon my referring to these things. Everything in this monster city interests me, and I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive. People here seem always to express distances by parables. To a stranger it is just a little confusing to be so parabolic—so to speak. I collar a citizen, and I think I am going to get some valuable information out of him. I ask him how far it is to Birmingham, and he says it is twenty-one shillings and sixpence. Now we know that doesn't help a man who is trying to learn. I find myself down-town somewhere, and I want to get some sort of idea where I am—being usually lost when alone—and I stop a citizen and say, “How far is it to Charing Cross?” “Shilling fare in a cab,” and off he goes. I suppose if I were to ask a Londoner how far it is from the sublime to the ridiculous he would try to express it in a coin. But I am trespassing upon your time with these geological statistics and historical reflections. I will not longer keep you from your orgies. 'Tis a real pleasure for me to be here, and I thank you for it. The name of the Savage Club is associated in my mind with the kindly interest and the friendly offices which you lavished upon an old friend of mine who came among you a stranger, and you opened your English hearts to him and gave him a welcome and a home—Artemus Ward. Asking that you will join me, I give you his Memory.
LETTER WRITTEN TO MRS. CLEMENS FROM BOSTON, NOVEMBER, 1874, PROPHESYING A MONARCHY IN SIXTY-ONE YEARS.
(See Chapter xcvii)
BOSTON, November 16, 1935.
DEAR LIVY,—You observe I still call this beloved old place by the name it had when I was young. Limerick! It is enough to make a body sick.
The gentlemen-in-waiting stare to see me sit here telegraphing this letter to you, and no doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed, holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it, it makes me frantic with rage; and then I am more implacably fixed and resolved than ever to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you what I might communicate in ten seconds by the new way if I would so debase myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn drawing-room full of idiots sitting with their hands on each other's foreheads “communing” I tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked pure drivel and “rot,” mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in this mad generation.
It is sixty years since I was here before. I walked hither then with my precious old friend. It seems incredible now that we did it in two days, but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the puerile organisms in this effeminate age attempting such a feat.
My air-ship was delayed by a collision with a fellow from China loaded with the usual cargo of jabbering, copper-colored missionaries, and so I was nearly an hour on my journey. But by the goodness of God thirteen of the missionaries were crippled and several killed, so I was content to lose the time. I love to lose time anyway because it brings soothing reminiscences of the creeping railroad days of old, now lost to us forever.
Our game was neatly played, and successfully. None expected us, of course. You should have seen the guards at the ducal palace stare when I said, “Announce his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Right Honorable the Earl of Hartford.” Arrived within, we were all eyes to see the Duke of Cambridge and his Duchess, wondering if we might remember their faces and they ours. In a moment they came tottering in; he, bent and withered and bald; she, blooming with wholesome old age. He peered through his glasses a moment, then screeched in a reedy voice, “Come to my arms! Away with titles—I'll know ye by no names but Twain and Twichell!” Then fell he on our necks and jammed his trumpet in his ear, the which we filled with shoutings to this effect: “God bless you, old Howells, what is left of you!”
We talked late that night—none of your silent idiot “communings” for us—of the olden time. We rolled a stream of ancient anecdotes over our tongues and drank till the Lord Archbishop grew so mellow in the mellow past that Dublin ceased to be Dublin to him, and resumed its sweeter, forgotten name of New York. In truth he almost got back into his ancient religion, too, good Jesuit as he has always been since O'Mulligan the First established that faith in the empire.
And we canvassed everybody. Bailey Aldrich, Marquis of Ponkapog, came in, got nobly drunk, and told us all about how poor Osgood lost his earldom and was hanged for conspiring against the second Emperor; but he didn't mention how near he himself came to being hanged, too, for engaging in the same enterprise. He was as chaffy as he was sixty years ago, too, and swore the Archbishop and I never walked to Boston; but there was never a day that Ponkapog wouldn't lie, so be it by the grace of God he got the opportunity.
The Lord High Admiral came in, a hale gentleman close upon seventy and bronzed by the suns and storms of many climes and scarred by the wounds got in many battles, and I told him how I had seen him sit in a high-chair and eat fruit and cakes and answer to the name of Johnny. His granddaughter (the eldest) is but lately married to the youngest of the Grand Dukes, and so who knows but a day may come when the blood of the Howellses may reign in the land? I must not forget to say, while I think of it, that your new false teeth are done, my dear, and your wig. Keep your head well bundled with a shawl till the latter comes, and so cheat your persecuting neuralgias and rheumatisms. Would you believe it?—the Duchess of Cambridge is deafer than you—deafer than her husband. They call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it thunders she looks up expectantly and says, “Come in.” But she has become subdued and gentle with age and never destroys the furniture now, except when uncommonly vexed. God knows, my dear, it would be a happy thing if you and old Lady Harmony would imitate this spirit. But indeed the older you grow the less secure becomes the furniture. When I throw chairs through the window I have sufficient reason to back it. But you—you are but a creature of passion.
The monument to the author of 'Gloverson and His Silent Partners' is finished.—[Ralph Keeler. See chap. lxxxiii.]—It is the stateliest and the costliest ever erected to the memory of any man. This noble classic has now been translated into all the languages of the earth and is adored by all nations and known to all creatures. Yet I have conversed as familiarly with the author of it as I do with my own great-grandchildren.
I wish you could see old Cambridge and Ponkapog. I love them as dearly as ever, but privately, my dear, they are not much improvement on idiots. It is melancholy to hear them jabber over the same pointless anecdotes three and four times of an evening, forgetting that they had jabbered them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his best effort of late years is this:
O soul, soul, soul of mine!
Soul, soul, soul of throe!
Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine,
And sing thy lauds in crystal wine!
This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him.
But I must desist. There are draughts here everywhere and my gout is something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder. God be with you. HARTFORD.
These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the upper portion of the city of Dublin.
I. PETITION
Concerning Copyright (1875) (See Chapter cii)
TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.
We, your petitioners, do respectfully represent as follows, viz.: That justice, plain and simple, is a thing which right-feeling men stand ready at all times to accord to brothers and strangers alike. All such men will concede that it is but plain, simple justice that American authors should be protected by copyright in Europe; also, that European authors should be protected by copyright here.
Both divisions of this proposition being true, it behooves our government to concern itself with that division of it which comes peculiarly within its province—viz., the latter moiety—and to grant to foreign authors with all convenient despatch a full and effective copyright in America without marring the grace of the act by stopping to inquire whether a similar justice will be done our own authors by foreign governments. If it were even known that those governments would not extend this justice to us it would still not justify us in withholding this manifest right from their authors. If a thing is right it ought to be done—the thing called “expediency” or “policy” has no concern with such a matter. And we desire to repeat, with all respect, that it is not a grace or a privilege we ask for our foreign brethren, but a right—a right received from God, and only denied them by man. We hold no ownership in these authors, and when we take their work from them, as at present, without their consent, it is robbery. The fact that the handiwork of our own authors is seized in the same way in foreign lands neither excuses nor mitigates our sin.
With your permission we will say here, over our signatures, and earnestly and sincerely, that we very greatly desire that you shall grant a full copyright to foreign authors (the copyright fee for the entry in the office of the Congressional Librarian to be the same as we pay ourselves), and we also as greatly desire that this grant shall be made without a single hampering stipulation that American authors shall receive in turn an advantage of any kind from foreign governments.
Since no author who was applied to hesitated for a moment to append his signature to this petition we are satisfied that if time had permitted we could have procured the signature of every writer in the United States, great and small, obscure or famous. As it is, the list comprises the names of about all our writers whose works have at present a European market, and who are therefore chiefly concerned in this matter.
No objection to our proposition can come from any reputable publisher among us—or does come from such a quarter, as the appended signatures of our greatest publishing firms will attest. A European copyright here would be a manifest advantage to them. As the matter stands now the moment they have thoroughly advertised a desirable foreign book, and thus at great expense aroused public interest in it, some small-spirited speculator (who has lain still in his kennel and spent nothing) rushes the same book on the market and robs the respectable publisher of half the gains.
Then, since neither our authors nor the decent among our publishing firms will object to granting an American copyright to foreign authors and artists, who can there be to object? Surely nobody whose protest is entitled to any weight.
Trusting in the righteousness of our cause we, your petitioners, will
ever pray, etc. With great respect,
Your Ob't Serv'ts.
DEAR SIR,—We believe that you will recognize the justice and the
righteousness of the thing we desire to accomplish through the
accompanying petition. And we believe that you will be willing that our
country shall be the first in the world to grant to all authors alike
the free exercise of their manifest right to do as they please with the
fruit of their own labor without inquiring what flag they live under. If
the sentiments of the petition meet your views, will you do us the favor
to sign it and forward it by post at your earliest convenience to our
secretary?
}Committee
Address —————————-Secretary of the Committee.
and the Sultan of Turkey to Mark Twain on the subject of International Copyright, about 1890.
ST. PETERSBURG, February.
COL. MARK TWAIN, Washington.
Your cablegram received. It should have been transmitted through my minister, but let that pass. I am opposed to international copyright. At present American literature is harmless here because we doctor it in such a way as to make it approve the various beneficent devices which we use to keep our people favorable to fetters as jewelry and pleased with Siberia as a summer resort. But your bill would spoil this. We should be obliged to let you say your say in your own way. 'Voila'! my empire would be a republic in five years and I should be sampling Siberia myself.
If you should run across Mr. Kennan—[George Kennan, who had graphically pictured the fearful conditions of Siberian exile.]—please ask him to come over and give some readings. I will take good care of him.
ALEXANDER III.
144—Collect.
CONSTANTINOPLE, February.
DR. MARK TWAIN, Washington.
Great Scott, no! By the beard of the Prophet, no! How can you ask such a thing of me? I am a man of family. I cannot take chances, like other people. I cannot let a literature come in here which teaches that a man's wife is as good as the man himself. Such a doctrine cannot do any particular harm, of course, where the man has only one wife, for then it is a dead-level between them, and there is no humiliating inequality, and no resulting disorder; but you take an extremely married person, like me, and go to teaching that his wife is 964 times as good as he is, and what's hell to that harem, dear friend? I never saw such a fool as you. Do not mind that expression; I already regret it, and would replace it with a softer one if I could do it without debauching the truth. I beseech you, do not pass that bill. Roberts College is quite all the American product we can stand just now. On top of that, do you want to send us a flood of freedom-shrieking literature which we can't edit the poison out of, but must let it go among our people just as it is? My friend, we should be a republic inside of ten years.
ABDUL II.
III. MARK TWAIN'S LAST SUGGESTION ON COPYRIGHT.
A MEMORIAL RESPECTFULLY TENDERED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
(Prepared early in 1909 at the suggestion of Mr. Champ Clack but not offered. A bill adding fourteen years to the copyright period was passed about this time.)
The Policy of Congress:—Nineteen or twenty years ago James Russell Lowell, George Haven Putnam, and the under signed appeared before the Senate Committee on Patents in the interest of Copyright. Up to that time, as explained by Senator Platt, of Connecticut, the policy of Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright by a term of years, with one definite end in view, and only one—to wit, that after an author had been permitted to enjoy for a reasonable length of time the income from literary property created by his hand and brain the property should then be transferred “to the public” as a free gift. That is still the policy of Congress to-day.
The Purpose in View:—The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the price of the book as to bring it within the reach of all purses, and spread it among the millions who had not been able to buy it while it was still under the protection of copyright.
The Purpose Defeated:—This purpose has always been defeated. That is to say, that while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price of a book by a half for a while, and in some cases by even more, it has never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was permanent and secure.
The Reason:—The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the author's royalty and the book's consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among several competing publishers would make the book cheap by force of the competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap edition if he must divide the market with competitors.
Proposed Remedy:—The natural remedy would seem to be, amended law requiring the issue of cheap editions.
Copyright Extension:—I think the remedy could be accomplished in the following way, without injury to author or publisher, and with extreme advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law providing as follows—to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's forty-first year and the ending of its forty-second the owner of the copyright may extend its life thirty years by issuing and placing on sale an edition of the book at one-tenth the price of the cheapest edition hitherto issued at any time during the ten immediately preceding years. This extension to lapse and become null and void if at any time during the thirty years he shall fail during the space of three consecutive months to furnish the ten per cent. book upon demand of any person or persons desiring to buy it.
The Result:—The result would be that no American classic enjoying the thirty-year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American purse, let its uncompulsory price be what it might. He would get a two-dollar book for 20 cents, and he could get none but copyright-expired classics at any such rate.
The Final Result:—At the end of the thirty-year extension the copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an advantage to any publisher.
Reconstruction of The Present Law Not Necessary:—A clause of the suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again:
All books and all articles enjoying forty-two years copyright-life
under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the
thirty-year extension upon complying with the condition requiring
the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form
of said book or article at a price of 90 per cent. below the
cheapest rate at which said book or article had been placed upon the
market at any time during the immediately preceding ten years.
REMARKS
If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present Congress and become law—and I hope it will—I shall have personal experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact, in the person of my first book, 'The Innocents Abroad'. For its forty-two-year copyright-life will then cease and its thirty-year extension begin—and with the latter the permanent low-rate edition. At present the highest price of the book is eight dollars, and its lowest price three dollars per copy. Thus the permanent low rate will be thirty cents per copy. A sweeping reduction like this is what Congress from the beginning has desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk.
Respectfully submitted,
S. L. CLEMENS.
(A full and interesting elucidation of Mark Twain's views on Copyright may be found in an article entitled “Concerning Copyright,” published in the North American Review for January, 1905.)
Address of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) from a report of the
dinner given by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly in honor of
the Seventieth Anniversary of the Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier,
at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877, as published in
the Boston Evening Transcript, December 18, 1877.
MR. CHAIRMAN, This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk, therefore I will drop lightly into history myself. Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic, and contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly California-ward. I started an inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'. I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door to me. When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than before. He let me in-pretty reluctantly, I thought—and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and hot whisky, I took a pipe. This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering, “You're the fourth—I'm going to move.” “The fourth what?” said I. “The fourth littery man that has been here in twenty-four hours—I'm going to move.” “You don't tell me!” said I; “who were the others?” “Mr. Longfellow. Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes—consound the lot!”
You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated—three hot whiskies did the rest—and finally the melancholy miner began. Said he:
“They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in, of course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough lot, but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot. Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundered, and had double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down in his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole and says he:
“'Through the deep caves of thought
I hear a voice that sings,
“Build thee more stately mansions,
O my soul!”'
“Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want to.' Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a stranger that way. However, I started to get out my bacon and beans when Mr. Emerson came and looked on awhile, and then he takes me aside by the buttonhole and says:
“'Give me agates for my meat;
Give me cantharids to eat;
From air and ocean bring me foods,
From all zones and altitudes.'
“Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.' You see, it sort of riled me—I warn't used to the ways of Jittery swells. But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr. Longfellow and buttonholes me and interrupts me. Says he:
“'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!
You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis—'
“But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then he fires up all of a sudden and yells:
“'Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!
For I would drink to other days.'
“By George, I was getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes and says I, 'Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the court knows herself you'll take whisky straight or you'll go dry.' Them's the very words I said to him. Now I don't want to sass such famous Littery people, but you see they kind of forced me. There ain't nothing onreasonable 'bout me. I don't mind a passel of guests a-treadin' on my tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's different, 'and if the court knows herself,' I says, 'you'll take whisky straight or you'll go dry.' Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner—on trust. I began to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked at his hand, shook his head, says:
“'I am the doubter and the doubt—'
and calmly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new lay-out. Says he:
“'They reckon ill who leave me out;
They know not well the subtle ways I keep.
I pass and deal again!'
Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! Oh, he was a cool one! Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight, but all of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had already corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he kind of lifts a little in his chair and says,
“'I tire of globes and aces!
Too long the game is played!'
and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie and says,
“'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught,'
and blamed if he didn't down with another right bower! Emerson claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws I'll lay down on him and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac, you bet!
“They were pretty how-come-you-so by now, and they begun to blow. Emerson says, 'The noblest thing I ever wrote was “Barbara Frietchie.”' Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my “Bigelow Papers.”' Says Holmes, 'My “Thanatopsis” lays over 'em both.' They mighty near ended in a fight. Then they wished they had some more company, and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says:
“'Is yonder squalid peasant all
That this proud nursery could breed?'
He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot—so I let it pass. Well, sir, next they took it into their heads that they would like some music; so they made me stand up and sing, 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' till I dropped—at thirteen minutes past four this morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at seven they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my only boots on and his'n under his arm. Says I, 'Hold on there, Evangeline, what are you going to do with them?' He says, 'Going to make tracks with 'em, because—
“'Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.'
“As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours and I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a Littery atmosphere.”
I said to the miner, “Why, my dear sir, these were not the gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and homage; these were impostors.”
The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, “Ah! impostors, were they? Are you?”
I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not traveled on my 'nom de guerre' enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I was moved to contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this.
(See Chapter cxxxiv)
TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.
WHEREAS, A number of citizens of the city of Elmira in the State of New York having covenanted among themselves to erect in that city a monument in memory of Adam, the father of mankind, being moved thereto by a sentiment of love and duty, and these having appointed the undersigned to communicate with your honorable body, we beg leave to lay before you the following facts and append to the same our humble petition.
1. As far as is known no monument has ever been raised in any part of the world to commemorate the services rendered to our race by this great man, whilst many men of far less note and worship have been rendered immortal by means of stately and indestructible memorials.
2. The common father of mankind has been suffered to lie in entire neglect, although even the Father of our Country has now, and has had for many years, a monument in course of construction.
3. No right-feeling human being can desire to see this neglect continued, but all just men, even to the farthest regions of the globe, should and will rejoice to know that he to whom we owe existence is about to have reverent and fitting recognition of his works at the hands of the people of Elmira. His labors were not in behalf of one locality, but for the extension of humanity at large and the blessings which go therewith; hence all races and all colors and all religions are interested in seeing that his name and fame shall be placed beyond the reach of the blight of oblivion by a permanent and suitable monument.
4. It will be to the imperishable credit of the United States if this monument shall be set up within her borders; moreover, it will be a peculiar grace to the beneficiary if this testimonial of affection and gratitude shall be the gift of the youngest of the nations that have sprung from his loins after 6,000 years of unappreciation on the part of its elders.
5. The idea of this sacred enterprise having originated in the city of Elmira, she will be always grateful if the general government shall encourage her in the good work by securing to her a certain advantage through the exercise of its great authority.
Therefore, Your petitioners beg that your honorable body will be pleased to issue a decree restricting to Elmira the right to build a monument to Adam and inflicting a heavy penalty upon any other community within the United States that shall propose or attempt to erect a monument or other memorial to the said Adam, and to this end we will ever pray.
NAMES: (100 signatures)
(Written in 1886. Delivered at an Army and Navy Club dinner in New York City)
Lately a great and honored author, Matthew Arnold, has been finding fault with General Grant's English. That would be fair enough, maybe, if the examples of imperfect English averaged more instances to the page in General Grant's book than they do in Arnold's criticism on the book—but they do not. It would be fair enough, maybe, if such instances were commoner in General Grant's book than they are in the works of the average standard author—but they are not. In fact, General Grant's derelictions in the matter of grammar and construction are not more frequent than such derelictions in the works of a majority of the professional authors of our time, and of all previous times—authors as exclusively and painstakingly trained to the literary trade as was General Grant to the trade of war. This is not a random statement: it is a fact, and easily demonstrable. I have a book at home called Modern English Literature: Its Blemishes and Defects, by Henry H. Breen, a countryman of Mr. Arnold. In it I find examples of bad grammar and slovenly English from the pens of Sydney Smith, Sheridan, Hallam, Whately, Carlyle, Disraeli, Allison, Junius, Blair, Macaulay, Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Southey, Lamb, Landor, Smollett, Walpole, Walker (of the dictionary), Christopher North, Kirk White, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Walter Scott, and Mr. Lindley Murray (who made the grammar).
In Mr. Arnold's criticism on General Grant's book we find two grammatical crimes and more than several examples of very crude and slovenly English, enough of them to entitle him to a lofty place in the illustrious list of delinquents just named.
The following passage all by itself ought to elect him:
“Meade suggested to Grant that he might wish to have immediately
under him Sherman, who had been serving with Grant in the West. He
begged him not to hesitate if he thought it for the good of the
service. Grant assured him that he had not thought of moving him,
and in his memoirs, after relating what had passed, he adds, etc.”
To read that passage a couple of times would make a man dizzy; to read it four times would make him drunk.
Mr. Breen makes this discriminating remark: “To suppose that because a man is a poet or a historian he must be correct in his grammar is to suppose that an architect must be a joiner, or a physician a compounder of medicine.”
People may hunt out what microscopic motes they please, but, after all, the fact remains, and cannot be dislodged, that General Grant's book is a great and, in its peculiar department, a unique and unapproachable literary masterpiece. In their line there is no higher literature than those modest, simple memoirs. Their style is at least flawless and no man could improve upon it, and great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter, and not by the trimmings and shadings of their grammar.
There is that about the sun which makes us forget his spots, and when we think of General Grant our pulses quicken and his grammar vanishes; we only remember that this is the simple soldier who, all untaught of the silken phrase-makers, linked words together with an art surpassing the art of the schools and put into them a something which will still bring to American ears, as long as America shall last, the roll of his vanished drums and the tread of his marching hosts. What do we care for grammar when we think of those thunderous phrases, “Unconditional and immediate surrender,” “I propose to move immediately upon your works,” “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” Mr. Arnold would doubtless claim that that last phrase is not strictly grammatical, and yet it did certainly wake up this nation as a hundred million tons of A-number-one fourth-proof, hard-boiled, hide-bound grammar from another mouth could not have done. And finally we have that gentler phrase, that one which shows you another true side of the man, shows you that in his soldier heart there was room for other than gory war mottoes and in his tongue the gift to fitly phrase them: “Let us have peace.”
BEING A PORTION OF A PAPER ON “CONSISTENCY,” READ BEFORE THE MONDAY EVENING CLUB IN 1887.
(See Chapter clxiii)
... I have referred to the fact that when a man retires from his political party he is a traitor—that he is so pronounced in plain language. That is bold; so bold as to deceive many into the fancy that it is true. Desertion, treason—these are the terms applied. Their military form reveals the thought in the man's mind who uses them: to him a political party is an army. Well, is it? Are the two things identical? Do they even resemble each other? Necessarily a political party is not an army of conscripts, for they are in the ranks by compulsion. Then it must be a regular army or an army of volunteers. Is it a regular army? No, for these enlist for a specified and well-understood term, and can retire without reproach when the term is up. Is it an army of volunteers who have enlisted for the war, and may righteously be shot if they leave before the war is finished? No, it is not even an army in that sense. Those fine military terms are high-sounding, empty lies, and are no more rationally applicable to a political party than they would be to an oyster-bed. The volunteer soldier comes to the recruiting office and strips himself and proves that he is so many feet high, and has sufficiently good teeth, and no fingers gone, and is sufficiently sound in body generally; he is accepted; but not until he has sworn a deep oath or made other solemn form of promise to march under, that flag until that war is done or his term of enlistment completed. What is the process when a voter joins a party? Must he prove that he is sound in any way, mind or body? Must he prove that he knows anything—is capable of anything—whatever? Does he take an oath or make a promise of any sort?—or doesn't he leave himself entirely free? If he were informed by the political boss that if he join, it must be forever; that he must be that party's chattel and wear its brass collar the rest of his days—would not that insult him? It goes without saying. He would say some rude, unprintable thing, and turn his back on that preposterous organization. But the political boss puts no conditions upon him at all; and this volunteer makes no promises, enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find that his bosses and his newspapers have assumed just the reverse of that: that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to believe that he cannot leave that party, for any cause whatever, without being a shameful traitor, a deserter, a legitimately dishonored man.
There you have the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise one of them. If he is a preacher half his congregation will clamor for his expulsion—and will expel him, except they find it will injure real estate in the neighborhood; if he is a doctor his own dead will turn against him.
I repeat that the new party-member who supposed himself independent will presently find that the party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul, and that within a year he will recognize the mortgage, deliver up his liberty, and actually believe he cannot retire from that party from any motive howsoever high and right in his own eyes without shame and dishonor.
Is it possible for human wickedness to invent a doctrine more infernal and poisonous than this? Is there imaginable a baser servitude than it imposes? What slave is so degraded as the slave that is proud that he is a slave? What is the essential difference between a lifelong democrat and any other kind of lifelong slave? Is it less humiliating to dance to the lash of one master than another?
This infamous doctrine of allegiance to party plays directly into the hands of politicians of the baser sort—and doubtless for that it was borrowed—or stolen—from the monarchial system. It enables them to foist upon the country officials whom no self-respecting man would vote for if he could but come to understand that loyalty to himself is his first and highest duty, not loyalty to any party name.
Shall you say the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say that it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter and become a mouthing lunatic besides? Oh no, you say; it does not demand that. But what if it produce that in spite of you? There is no obligation upon a man to do things which he ought not to do when drunk, but most men will do them just the same; and so we hear no arguments about obligations in the matter—we only hear men warned to avoid the habit of drinking; get rid of the thing that can betray men into such things.
This is a funny business all around. The same men who enthusiastically preach loyal consistency to church and party are always ready and willing and anxious to persuade a Chinaman or an Indian or a Kanaka to desert his church or a fellow-American to desert his party. The man who deserts to them is all that is high and pure and beautiful—apparently; the man who deserts from them is all that is foul and despicable. This is Consistency—with a capital C.
With the daintiest and self-complacentest sarcasm the lifelong loyalist scoffs at the Independent—or as he calls him, with cutting irony, the Mugwump; makes himself too killingly funny for anything in this world about him. But—the Mugwump can stand it, for there is a great history at his back; stretching down the centuries, and he comes of a mighty ancestry. He knows that in the whole history of the race of men no single great and high and beneficent thing was ever done for the souls and bodies, the hearts and the brains of the children of this world, but a Mugwump started it and Mugwumps carried it to victory: And their names are the stateliest in history: Washington, Garrison, Galileo, Luther, Christ. Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world-end never will.
(See Chapter clxxii)
My object has been to group together some of the most odious laws which have had vogue in the Christian countries within the past eight or ten centuries, and illustrate them by the incidents of a story.
There was never a time when America applied the death-penalty to more than fourteen crimes. But England, within the memory of men still living, had in her list of crimes 223 which were punishable by death! And yet from the beginning of our existence down to a time within the memory of babes England has distressed herself piteously over the ungentleness of our Connecticut Blue Laws. Those Blue Laws should have been spared English criticism for two reasons:
1. They were so insipidly mild, by contrast with the bloody and atrocious laws of England of the same period, as to seem characterless and colorless when one brings them into that awful presence.
2. The Blue Laws never had any existence. They were the fancy-work of an English clergyman; they were never a part of any statute-book. And yet they could have been made to serve a useful and merciful purpose; if they had been injected into the English law the dilution would have given to the whole a less lurid aspect; or, to figure the effect in another way, they would have been coca mixed into vitriol.
I have drawn no laws and no illustrations from the twin civilizations of hell and Russia. To have entered into that atmosphere would have defeated my purpose, which was to show a great and genuine progress in Christendom in these few later generations toward mercifulness—a wide and general relaxing of the grip of the law. Russia had to be left out because exile to Siberia remains, and in that single punishment is gathered together and concentrated all the bitter inventions of all the black ages for the infliction of suffering upon human beings. Exile for life from one's hearthstone and one's idols—this is rack, thumb-screw, the water-drop, fagot and stake, tearing asunder by horses, flaying alive—all these in one; and not compact into hours, but drawn out into years, each year a century, and the whole a mortal immortality of torture and despair. While exile to Siberia remains one will be obliged to admit that there is one country in Christendom where the punishments of all the ages are still preserved and still inflicted, that there is one country in Christendom where no advance has been made toward modifying the medieval penalties for offenses against society and the State.
(See Chapter cc and earlier)
April 25, 1902. I owe more to Henry Rogers than to any other man whom I have known. He was born in Fairhaven, Connecticut, in 1839, and is my junior by four years. He was graduated from the high school there in 1853, when he was fourteen years old, and from that time forward he earned his own living, beginning at first as the bottom subordinate in the village store with hard-work privileges and a low salary. When he was twenty-four he went out to the newly discovered petroleum fields in Pennsylvania and got work; then returned home, with enough money to pay passage, married a schoolmate, and took her to the oil regions. He prospered, and by and by established the Standard Oil Trust with Mr. Rockefeller and others, and is still one of its managers and directors.
In 1893 we fell together by accident one evening in the Murray Hill Hotel, and our friendship began on the spot and at once. Ever since then he has added my business affairs to his own and carried them through, and I have had no further trouble with them. Obstructions and perplexities which would have driven me mad were simplicities to his master mind and furnished him no difficulties. He released me from my entanglements with Paige and stopped that expensive outgo; when Charles L. Webster & Company failed he saved my copyrights for Mrs. Clemens when she would have sacrificed them to the creditors although they were in no way entitled to them; he offered to lend me money wherewith to save the life of that worthless firm; when I started lecturing around the world to make the money to pay off the Webster debts he spent more than a year trying to reconcile the differences between Harper & Brothers and the American Publishing Company and patch up a working-contract between them and succeeded where any other man would have failed; as fast as I earned money and sent it to him he banked it at interest and held onto it, refusing to pay any creditor until he could pay all of the 96 alike; when I had earned enough to pay dollar for dollar he swept off the indebtedness and sent me the whole batch of complimentary letters which the creditors wrote in return; when I had earned $28,500 more, $18,500 of which was in his hands, I wrote him from Vienna to put the latter into Federal Steel and leave it there; he obeyed to the extent of $17,500, but sold it in two months at $25,000 profit, and said it would go ten points higher, but that it was his custom to “give the other man a chance” (and that was a true word—there was never a truer one spoken). That was at the end of '99 and beginning of 1900; and from that day to this he has continued to break up my bad schemes and put better ones in their place, to my great advantage. I do things which ought to try man's patience, but they never seem to try his; he always finds a colorable excuse for what I have done. His soul was born superhumanly sweet, and I do not think anything can sour it. I have not known his equal among men for lovable qualities. But for his cool head and wise guidance I should never have come out of the Webster difficulties on top; it was his good steering that enabled me to work out my salvation and pay a hundred cents on the dollar—the most valuable service any man ever did me.
His character is full of fine graces, but the finest is this: that he can load you down with crushing obligations and then so conduct himself that you never feel their weight. If he would only require something in return—but that is not in his nature; it would not occur to him. With the Harpers and the American Company at war those copyrights were worth but little; he engineered a peace and made them valuable. He invests $100,000 for me here, and in a few months returns a profit of $31,000. I invest (in London and here) $66,000 and must wait considerably for results (in case there shall be any). I tell him about it and he finds no fault, utters not a sarcasm. He was born serene, patient, all-enduring, where a friend is concerned, and nothing can extinguish that great quality in him. Such a man is entitled to the high gift of humor: he has it at its very best. He is not only the best friend I have ever had, but is the best man I have known.
S. L. CLEMENS.
BEGUN AT RIVERDALE, NEW YORK. FINISHED AT YORK HARBOR, MAINE, AUGUST 18, 1902
(See Chapter ccxxiii)
(A bereft and demented mother speaks)
... O, I can see my darling yet: the little form In slip of flimsy stuff all creamy white, Pink-belted waist with ample bows, Blue shoes scarce bigger than the house-cat's ears—Capering in delight and choked with glee.
It was a summer afternoon; the hill Rose green above me and about, and in the vale below The distant village slept, and all the world Was steeped in dreams. Upon me lay this peace, And I forgot my sorrow in its spell. And now My little maid passed by, and she Was deep in thought upon a solemn thing: A disobedience, and my reproof. Upon my face She must not look until the day was done; For she was doing penance... She? O, it was I! What mother knows not that? And so she passed, I worshiping and longing... It was not wrong? You do not think me wrong? I did it for the best. Indeed I meant it so.
She flits before me now: The peach-bloom of her gauzy crepe, The plaited tails of hair, The ribbons floating from the summer hat, The grieving face, dropp'd head absorbed with care. O, dainty little form! I see it move, receding slow along the path, By hovering butterflies besieged; I see it reach The breezy top clear-cut against the sky,... Then pass beyond and sink from sight-forever!
Within, was light and cheer; without, A blustering winter's right. There was a play; It was her own; for she had wrought it out Unhelped, from her own head-and she But turned sixteen! A pretty play, All graced with cunning fantasies, And happy songs, and peopled all with fays, And sylvan gods and goddesses, And shepherds, too, that piped and danced, And wore the guileless hours away In care-free romps and games.
Her girlhood mates played in the piece, And she as well: a goddess, she,—And looked it, as it seemed to me.
'Twas fairyland restored-so beautiful it was And innocent. It made us cry, we elder ones, To live our lost youth o'er again With these its happy heirs.
Slowly, at last, the curtain fell. Before us, there, she stood, all wreathed and draped In roses pearled with dew-so sweet, so glad, So radiant!—and flung us kisses through the storm Of praise that crowned her triumph.... O, Across the mists of time I see her yet, My Goddess of the Flowers!
... The curtain hid her.... Do you comprehend? Till time shall end! Out of my life she vanished while I looked!
... Ten years are flown. O, I have watched so long, So long. But she will come no more. No, she will come no more.
It seems so strange... so strange... Struck down unwarned! In the unbought grace, of youth laid low—In the glory of her fresh young bloom laid low—In the morning of her life cut down! And I not by! Not by When the shadows fell, the night of death closed down The sun that lit my life went out. Not by to answer When the latest whisper passed the lips That were so dear to me—my name! Far from my post! the world's whole breadth away. O, sinking in the waves of death she cried to me For mother-help, and got for answer Silence!
We that are old—we comprehend; even we That are not mad: whose grown-up scions still abide; Their tale complete: Their earlier selves we glimpse at intervals Far in the dimming past; We see the little forms as once they were, And whilst we ache to take them to our hearts, The vision fades. We know them lost to us—Forever lost; we cannot have them back; We miss them as we miss the dead, We mourn them as we mourn the dead.
MICROBES”
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MICROBE, WHO, IN A FORMER EXISTENCE, HAD BEEN A MAN—HIS PRESENT HABITAT BEING THE ORGANISM OF A TRAMP, BLITZOWSKI. (WRITTEN AT DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1905)
(See Chapter ccxxxv)
Our world (the tramp) is as large and grand and awe-compelling to us microscopic creatures as is man's world to man. Our tramp is mountainous, there are vast oceans in him, and lakes that are sea-like for size, there are many rivers (veins and arteries) which are fifteen miles across, and of a length so stupendous as to make the Mississippi and the Amazon trifling little Rhode Island brooks by comparison. As for our minor rivers, they are multitudinous, and the dutiable commerce of disease which they carry is rich beyond the dreams of the American custom-house.
Take a man like Sir Oliver Lodge, and what secret of Nature can be hidden from him? He says: “A billion, that is a million millions,[?? Trillion D.W.] of atoms is truly an immense number, but the resulting aggregate is still excessively minute. A portion of substance consisting, of a billion atoms is only barely visible with the highest power of a microscope; and a speck or granule, in order to be visible to the naked eye, like a grain of lycopodium-dust, must be a million times bigger still.”
The human eye could see it then—that dainty little speck. But with my microbe-eye I could see every individual of the whirling billions of atoms that compose the speck. Nothing is ever at rest—wood, iron, water, everything is alive, everything is raging, whirling, whizzing, day and night and night and day, nothing is dead, there is no such thing as death, everything is full of bristling life, tremendous life, even the bones of the crusader that perished before Jerusalem eight centuries ago. There are no vegetables, all things are animal; each electron is an animal, each molecule is a collection of animals, and each has an appointed duty to perform and a soul to be saved. Heaven was not made for man alone, and oblivion and neglect reserved for the rest of His creatures. He gave them life, He gave them humble services to perform, they have performed them, and they will not be forgotten, they will have their reward. Man-always vain, windy, conceited-thinks he will be in the majority there. He will be disappointed. Let him humble himself. But for the despised microbe and the persecuted bacillus, who needed a home and nourishment, he would not have been created. He has a mission, therefore a reason for existing: let him do the service he was made for, and keep quiet.
Three weeks ago I was a man myself, and thought and felt as men think and feel; I have lived 3,000 years since then [microbic time], and I see the foolishness of it now. We live to learn, and fortunate are we when we are wise enough to profit by it.
In matters pertaining to microscopy we necessarily have an advantage here over the scientist of the earth, because, as I have just been indicating, we see with our naked eyes minutenesses which no man-made microscope can detect, and are therefore able to register as facts many things which exist for him as theories only. Indeed, we know as facts several things which he has not yet divined even by theory. For example, he does not suspect that there is no life but animal life, and that all atoms are individual animals endowed each with a certain degree of consciousness, great or small, each with likes and dislikes, predilections and aversions—that, in a word, each has a character, a character of its own. Yet such is the case. Some of the molecules of a stone have an aversion for some of those of a vegetable or any other creature and will not associate with them—and would not be allowed to, if they tried. Nothing is more particular about society than a molecule. And so there are no end of castes; in this matter India is not a circumstance.
“Tell me, Franklin [a microbe of great learning], is the ocean an individual, an animal, a creature?”
“Yes.”
“Then water—any water-is an individual?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose you remove a drop of it? Is what is left an individual?”
“Yes, and so is the drop.”
“Suppose you divide the drop?”
“Then you have two individuals.”
“Suppose you separate the hydrogen and the oxygen?”
“Again you have two individuals. But you haven't water any more.”
“Of course. Certainly. Well, suppose you combine them again, but in a new way: make the proportions equal—one part oxygen to one of hydrogen?”
“But you know you can't. They won't combine on equal terms.”
I was ashamed to have made that blunder. I was embarrassed; to cover it I started to say we used to combine them like that where I came from, but thought better of it, and stood pat.
“Now then,” I said, “it amounts to this: water is an individual, an animal, and is alive; remove the hydrogen and it is an animal and is alive; the remaining oxygen is also an individual, an animal, and is alive. Recapitulation: the two individuals combined constitute a third individual—and yet each continues to be an individual.”
I glanced at Franklin, but... upon reflection, held my peace. I could have pointed out to him that here was mute Nature explaining the sublime mystery of the Trinity so luminously—that even the commonest understanding could comprehend it, whereas many a trained master of words had labored to do it with speech and failed. But he would not have known what I was talking about. After a moment I resumed:
“Listen—and see if I have understood you rightly, to wit: All the atoms that constitute each oxygen molecule are separate individuals, and each is a living animal; all the atoms that constitute each hydrogen molecule are separate individuals, and each one is a living animal; each drop of water consists of millions of living animals, the drop itself is an individual, a living animal, and the wide ocean is another. Is that it?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“By George, it beats the band!”
He liked the expression, and set it down in his tablets.
“Franklin, we've got it down fine. And to think—there are other animals that are still smaller than a hydrogen atom, and yet it is so small that it takes five thousand of them to make a molecule—a molecule so minute that it could get into a microbe's eye and he wouldn't know it was there!”
“Yes, the wee creatures that inhabit the bodies of us germs and feed upon us, and rot us with disease: Ah, what could they have been created for? They give us pain, they make our lives miserable, they murder us—and where is the use of it all, where the wisdom? Ah, friend Bkshp [microbic orthography], we live in a strange and unaccountable world; our birth is a mystery, our little life is a mystery, a trouble, we pass and are seen no more; all is mystery, mystery, mystery; we know not whence we came, nor why; we know not whither we go, nor why we go. We only know we were not made in vain, we only know we were made for a wise purpose, and that all is well! We shall not be cast aside in contumely and unblest after all we have suffered. Let us be patient, let us not repine, let us trust. The humblest of us is cared for—oh, believe it!—and this fleeting stay is not the end!”
You notice that? He did not suspect that he, also, was engaged in gnawing, torturing, defiling, rotting, and murdering a fellow-creature—he and all the swarming billions of his race. None of them suspects it. That is significant. It is suggestive—irresistibly suggestive—insistently suggestive. It hints at the possibility that the procession of known and listed devourers and persecutors is not complete. It suggests the possibility, and substantially the certainty, that man is himself a microbe, and his globe a blood-corpuscle drifting with its shining brethren of the Milky Way down a vein of the Master and Maker of all things, whose body, mayhap—glimpsed part-wise from the earth by night, and receding and lost to view in the measureless remotenesses of space—is what men name the Universe.
Yes, that was all old to me, but to find that our little old familiar microbes were themselves loaded up with microbes that fed them, enriched them, and persistently and faithfully preserved them and their poor old tramp-planet from destruction—oh, that was new, and too delicious!
I wanted to see them! I was in a fever to see them! I had lenses to two-million power, but of course the field was no bigger than a person's finger-nail, and so it wasn't possible to compass a considerable spectacle or a landscape with them; whereas what I had been craving was a thirty-foot field, which would represent a spread of several miles of country and show up things in a way to make them worth looking at. The boys and I had often tried to contrive this improvement, but had failed.
I mentioned the matter to the Duke and it made him smile. He said it was a quite simple thing-he had it at home. I was eager to bargain for the secret, but he said it was a trifle and not worth bargaining for. He said:
“Hasn't it occurred to you that all you have to do is to bend an X-ray to an angle-value of 8.4 and refract it with a parabolism, and there you are?”
Upon my word, I had never thought of that simple thing! You could have knocked me down with a feather.
We rigged a microscope for an exhibition at once and put a drop of my blood under it, which got mashed flat when the lens got shut down upon it. The result was beyond my dreams. The field stretched miles away, green and undulating, threaded with streams and roads, and bordered all down the mellowing distances with picturesque hills. And there was a great white city of tents; and everywhere were parks of artillery and divisions of cavalry and infantry waiting. We had hit a lucky moment, evidently there was going to be a march-past or some thing like that. At the front where the chief banner flew there was a large and showy tent, with showy guards on duty, and about it were some other tents of a swell kind.
The warriors—particularly the officers—were lovely to look at, they were so trim-built and so graceful and so handsomely uniformed. They were quite distinct, vividly distinct, for it was a fine day, and they were so immensely magnified that they looked to be fully a finger-nail high.—[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: “Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!” “How do you mean, m'lord?” “This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh.” The Duke said “finger-milers was good”—good and exact; and he afterward used it several times himself.]—Everywhere you could see officers moving smartly about, and they looked gay, but the common soldiers looked sad. Many wife-swinks [“Swinks,” an atomic race] and daughter-swinks and sweetheart-swinks were about—crying, mainly. It seemed to indicate that this was a case of war, not a summer-camp for exercise, and that the poor labor-swinks were being torn from their planet-saving industries to go and distribute civilization and other forms of suffering among the feeble benighted somewhere; else why should the swinkesses cry?
The cavalry was very fine—shiny black horses, shapely and spirited; and presently when a flash of light struck a lifted bugle (delivering a command which we couldn't hear) and a division came tearing down on a gallop it was a stirring and gallant sight, until the dust rose an inch—the Duke thought more—and swallowed it up in a rolling and tumbling long gray cloud, with bright weapons glinting and sparkling in it.
Before long the real business of the occasion began. A battalion of priests arrived carrying sacred pictures. That settled it: this was war; these far-stretching masses of troops were bound for the front. Their little monarch came out now, the sweetest little thing that ever travestied the human shape I think, and he lifted up his hands and blessed the passing armies, and they looked as grateful as they could, and made signs of humble and real reverence as they drifted by the holy pictures.
It was beautiful—the whole thing; and wonderful, too, when those serried masses swung into line and went marching down the valley under the long array of fluttering flags.
Evidently they were going somewhere to fight for their king, which was the little manny that blessed them; and to preserve him and his brethren that occupied the other swell tents; to civilize and grasp a valuable little unwatched country for them somewhere. But the little fellow and his brethren didn't fall in—that was a noticeable particular. They didn't fight; they stayed at home, where it was safe, and waited for the swag.
Very well, then-what ought we to do? Had we no moral duty to perform? Ought we to allow this war to begin? Was it not our duty to stop it, in the name of right and righteousness? Was it not our duty to administer a rebuke to this selfish and heartless Family?
The Duke was struck by that, and greatly moved. He felt as I did about it, and was ready to do whatever was right, and thought we ought to pour boiling water on the Family and extinguish it, which we did.
It extinguished the armies, too, which was not intended. We both regretted this, but the Duke said that these people were nothing to us, and deserved extinction anyway for being so poor-spirited as to serve such a Family. He was loyally doing the like himself, and so was I, but I don't think we thought of that. And it wasn't just the same, anyway, because we were sooflaskies, and they were only swinks.
Franklin realizes that no atom is destructible; that it has always existed and will exist forever; but he thinks all atoms will go out of this world some day and continue their life in a happier one. Old Tolliver thinks no atom's life will ever end, but he also thinks Blitzowski is the only world it will ever see, and that at no time in its eternity will it be either worse off or better off than it is now and always has been. Of course he thinks the planet Blitzowski is itself eternal and indestructible—at any rate he says he thinks that. It could make me sad, only I know better. D. T. will fetch Blitzy yet one of these days.
But these are alien thoughts, human thoughts, and they falsely indicate that I do not want this tramp to go on living. What would become of me if he should disintegrate? My molecules would scatter all around and take up new quarters in hundreds of plants and animals; each would carry its special feelings along with it, each would be content in its new estate, but where should I be? I should not have a rag of a feeling left, after my disintegration—with his—was complete. Nothing to think with, nothing to grieve or rejoice with, nothing to hope or despair with. There would be no more me. I should be musing and thinking and dreaming somewhere else—in some distant animal maybe—perhaps a cat—by proxy of my oxygen I should be raging and fuming in some other creatures—a rat, perhaps; I should be smiling and hoping in still another child of Nature—heir to my hydrogen—a weed, or a cabbage, or something; my carbonic acid (ambition) would be dreaming dreams in some lowly wood-violet that was longing for a showy career; thus my details would be doing as much feeling as ever, but I should not be aware of it, it would all be going on for the benefit of those others, and I not in it at all. I should be gradually wasting away, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, as the years went on, and at last I should be all distributed, and nothing left of what had once been Me. It is curious, and not without impressiveness: I should still be alive, intensely alive, but so scattered that I would not know it. I should not be dead—no, one cannot call it that—but I should be the next thing to it. And to think what centuries and ages and aeons would drift over me before the disintegration was finished, the last bone turned to gas and blown away! I wish I knew what it is going to feel like, to lie helpless such a weary, weary time, and see my faculties decay and depart, one by one, like lights which burn low, and flicker and perish, until the ever-deepening gloom and darkness which—oh, away, away with these horrors, and let me think of something wholesome!
My tramp is only 85; there is good hope that he will live ten years longer—500,000 of my microbe years. So may it be.
Oh, dear, we are all so wise! Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all—the rest, to a man, are fools and deluded. One man knows there is a hell, the next one knows there isn't; one man knows high tariff is right, the next man knows it isn't; one man knows monarchy is best, the next one knows it isn't; one age knows there are witches, the next one knows there aren't; one sect knows its religion is the only true one, there are sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know it isn't so. There is not a mind present among this multitude of verdict-deliverers that is the superior of the minds that persuade and represent the rest of the divisions of the multitude. Yet this sarcastic fact does not humble the arrogance nor diminish the know-it-all bulk of a single verdict-maker of the lot by so much as a shade. Mind is plainly an ass, but it will be many ages before it finds it out, no doubt. Why do we respect the opinions of any man or any microbe that ever lived? I swear I don't know. Why do I respect my own? Well—that is different.
(See Chapter cclxxxii)
[It is dull, and I need wholesome excitements and distractions; so I will go lightly excursioning along the primrose path of theology.]
Little Bessie was nearly three years old. She was a good child, and not shallow, not frivolous, but meditative and thoughtful, and much given to thinking out the reasons of things and trying to make them harmonize with results. One day she said:
“Mama, why is there so much pain and sorrow and suffering? What is it all for?”
It was an easy question, and mama had no difficulty in answering it:
“It is for our good, my child. In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us these afflictions to discipline us and make us better.”
“Is it He that sends them?”
“Yes.”
“Does He send all of them, mama?”
“Yes, dear, all of them. None of them comes by accident; He alone sends them, and always out of love for us, and to make us better.”
“Isn't it strange?”
“Strange? Why, no, I have never thought of it in that way. I have not heard any one call it strange before. It has always seemed natural and right to me, and wise and most kindly and merciful.”
“Who first thought of it like that, mama? Was it you?”
“Oh no, child, I was taught it.”
“Who taught you so, mama?”
“Why, really, I don't know—I can't remember. My mother, I suppose; or the preacher. But it's a thing that everybody knows.”
“Well, anyway, it does seem strange. Did He give Billy Norris the typhus?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“Why, to discipline him and make him good.”
“But he died, mama, and so it couldn't make him good.”
“Well, then, I suppose it was for some other reason. We know it was a good reason, whatever it was.”
“What do you think it was, mama?”
“Oh, you ask so many questions! I think it was to discipline his parents.”
“Well, then, it wasn't fair, mama. Why should his life be taken away for their sake, when he wasn't doing anything?”
“Oh, I don't know! I only know it was for a good and wise and merciful reason.”
“What reason, mama?”
“I think—I think-well, it was a judgment; it was to punish them for some sin they had committed.”
“But he was the one that was punished, mama. Was that right?”
“Certainly, certainly. He does nothing that isn't right and wise and merciful. You can't understand these things now, dear, but when you are grown up you will understand them, and then you will see that they are just and wise.”
After a pause:
“Did He make the roof fall in on the stranger that was trying to save the crippled old woman from the fire, mama?”
“Yes, my child. Wait! Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I only know it was to discipline some one, or be a judgment upon somebody, or to show His power.”
“That drunken man that stuck a pitchfork into Mrs. Welch's baby when—”
“Never mind about it, you needn't go into particulars; it was to discipline the child—that much is certain, anyway.”
“Mama, Mr. Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid, and lockjaw, and more than a thousand other sicknesses and—mama, does He send them?”
“Oh, certainly, child, certainly. Of course.”
“What for?”
“Oh, to discipline us! Haven't I told you so, over and over again?”
“It's awful cruel, mama! And silly! and if I——”
“Hush, oh, hush! Do you want to bring the lightning?”
“You know the lightning did come last week, mama, and struck the new church, and burnt it down. Was it to discipline the church?”
(Wearily.) “Oh, I suppose so.”
“But it killed a hog that wasn't doing anything. Was it to discipline the hog, mama?”
“Dear child, don't you want to run out and play a while? If you would like to——”
“Mama, only think! Mr. Hollister says there isn't a bird, or fish, or reptile, or any other animal that hasn't got an enemy that Providence has sent to bite it and chase it and pester it and kill it and suck its blood and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mother—because if it is true why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?”
“That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I don't want you to listen to anything he says.”
“Why, mama, he is very interesting, and I think he tries to be good. He says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down into their nests in the ground—alive, mama!—and there they live and suffer days and days and days, and the hungry little wasps chewing their legs and gnawing into their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and ever so kind; for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he——Dear mama, have you fainted! I will run and bring help! Now this comes of staying in town this hot weather.”
APPENDIX X.
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MARK TWAIN'S WORK
PUBLISHED AND OTHERWISE—FROM 1851-1910
Note 1.—This is not a detailed bibliography, but merely a general list of Mark Twain's literary undertakings, in the order of performance, showing when, and usually where, the work was done, when and where first published, etc. An excellent Mark Twain bibliography has been compiled by Mr. Merle Johnson, to whom acknowledgments are due for important items.
Note 2.—Only a few of the more important speeches are noted. Volumes that are merely collections of tales or articles are not noted.
Note 3.—Titles are shortened to those most commonly in use, as “Huck Finn” or “Huck” for “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Names of periodicals are abbreviated.
The initials U. E. stand for the “Uniform Edition” of Mark Twain's works.
The chapter number or numbers in the line with the date refers to the place in this work where the items are mentioned.
1851.
(See Chapter xviii of this work.)
Edited the Hannibal Journal during the absence of the owner and editor, Orion Clemens. Wrote local items for the Hannibal Journal. Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal. Wrote two sketches for The Sat. Eve. Post (Philadelphia). To MARY IN H-l. Hannibal Journal.
1852-53.
(See Chapter xviii.)
JIM WOLFE AND THE FIRE—Hannibal Journal. Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal.
1853.
(See Chapter xix.)
Wrote obituary poems—not published. Wrote first letters home.
1855-56.
(See Chapters xx and xxi.)
First after-dinner speech; delivered at a printers' banquet in Keokuk, Iowa. Letters from Cincinnati, November 16, 1856, signed “Snodgrass”—Saturday Post (Keokuk).
1857.
(See Chapter xxi.)
Letters from Cincinnati, March 16, 1857, signed “Snodgrass”—Saturday Post (Keokuk).
1858.
Anonymous contributions to the New Orleans Crescent and probably to St. Louis papers.
1859.
(See Chapter xxvii; also Appendix B.)
Burlesque of Capt. Isaiah Sellers—True Delta (New Orleans), May 8 or 9.
1861.
(See Chapters xxxiii to xxxv.)
Letters home, published in The Gate City (Keokuk).
1862.
(See Chapters xxxv to xxxviii.)
Letters and sketches, signed “Josh,” for the Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada). REPORT OF THE LECTURE OF PROF. PERSONAL PRONOUN—Enterprise. REPORT OF A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION—Enterprise. THE PETRIFIED MAN—Enterprise. Local news reporter for the Enterprise from August.
1863.
(See Chapters xli to xliii; also Appendix C.)
Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. First used the name “Mark Twain,” February 2. ADVICE TO THE UNRELIABLE—Enterprise. CURING A COLD—Enterprise. U. E. INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION—Enterprise. ADVICE TO GOOD LITTLE GIRLS—Enterprise. THE DUTCH NICK MASSACRE—Enterprise. Many other Enterprise sketches. THE AGED PILOT MAN (poem)—“ROUGHING IT.” U. E.
1864.
(See. Chapters xliv to xlvii.)
Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. Speech as “Governor of the Third House.” Letters to New York Sunday Mercury. Local reporter on the San Francisco Call. Articles and sketches for the Golden Era. Articles and sketches for the Californian. Daily letters from San Francisco to the Enterprise. (Several of the Era and Californian sketches appear in SKETCHES NEW AND OLD. U. E.)
1865.
(See Chapters xlix to li; also Appendix E.)
for the Golden Era and Californian. Daily letter to the Enterprise. THE JUMPING FROG (San Francisco) Saturday Press. New York, November 18. U. E.
1866.
(See Chapters lii to lv; also Appendix D.)
Daily letter to the Enterprise. Sandwich Island letters to the Sacramento Union. Lecture on the Sandwich Islands, San Francisco, October 2. FORTY-THREE DAYS IN AN OPEN BOAT—Harper's Magazine, December (error in signature made it Mark Swain).
1867.
(See Chapters lvii to lxv; also Appendices E, F, and G.)
Letters to Alta California from New York. JIM WOLFE AND THE CATS—N. Y. Sunday Mercury. THE JUMPING FROG—book, published by Charles Henry Webb, May 1. U. E. Lectured at Cooper Union, May, '66. Letters to Alta California and New York Tribune from the Quaker City—Holy Land excursion. Letter to New York Herald on the return from the Holy Land. After-dinner speech on “Women” (Washington). Began arrangement for the publication of THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
1868.
(See Chapters lxvi to lxix; also Appendices H and I.)
Newspaper letters, etc., from Washington, for New York Citizen, Tribune, Herald, and other papers and periodicals. Preparing Quaker City letters (in Washington and San Francisco) for book publication. CAPTAIN WAKEMAN'S (STORMFIELD'S) VISIT TO HEAVEN (San Francisco), published Harper's Magazine, December, 1907-January, 1908 (also book, Harpers). Lectured in California and Nevada on the “Holy Land,” July 2. S'CAT! Anonymous article on T. K. Beecher (Elmira), published in local paper. Lecture-tour, season 1868-69.
1869.
(See Chapters lxx to lxxni.)
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD—book (Am. Pub. Co.), July 20. U. E. Bought one-third ownership in the Buffalo Express. Contributed editorials, sketches, etc., to the Express. Contributed sketches to Packard's Monthly, Wood's Magazine, etc. Lecture-tour, season 1869-70.
1870.
(See Chapters lxxiv to lxxx; also Appendix J.)
Contributed various matter to Buffalo Express. Contributed various matter under general head of “MEMORANDA” to Galaxy Magazine, May to April, '71. ROUGHING IT begun in September (Buffalo). SHEM'S DIARY (Buffalo) (unfinished). GOD, ANCIENT AND MODERN (unpublished).
1871.
(See Chapters lxxxi and lxxxii; also Appendix K.)
MEMORANDA continued in Galaxy to April. AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FIRST ROMANCE—[THE FIRST ROMANCE had appeared in the Express in 1870. Later included in SKETCHES.]—booklet (Sheldon & Co.). U. E. ROUGHING IT finished (Quarry Farm). Ruloff letter—Tribune. Wrote several sketches and lectures (Quarry Farm). Western play (unfinished). Lecture-tour, season 1871-72.
1872.
(See Chapters lxxxiii to lxxxvii; also Appendix L.)
ROUGHING IT—book (Am. Pub. Co.), February. U. E. THE MARK TWAIN SCRAP-BOOK invented (Saybrook, Connecticut). TOM SAWYER begun as a play (Saybrook, Connecticut). A few unimportant sketches published in “Practical jokes,” etc. Began a book on England (London).
1873.
(See Chapters lxxxviii to xcii.)
Letters on the Sandwich Islands-Tribune, January 3 and 6. THE GILDED AGE (with C. D. Warner)—book (Am. Pub. Co), December. U. E. THE LICENSE OF THE PRESS—paper for The Monday Evening Club. Lectured in London, October 18 and season 1873-74.
1874.
(See Chapters xciii to xcviii; also Appendix M.)
TOM SAWYER continued (in the new study at Quarry Farm). A TRUE STORY (Quarry Farm)-Atlantic, November. U. E. FABLES (Quarry Farm). U. E. COLONEL SELLERS—play (Quarry Farm) performed by John T. Raymond. UNDERTAKER'S LOVE-STORY (Quarry Farm) (unpublished). OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI (Hartford) Atlantic, January to July, 1875. Monarchy letter to Mrs. Clemens, dated 1935 (Boston).
1875.
(See Chapters c to civ; also Appendix N.)
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE—paper for The Monday Evening Club. SKETCHES NEW AND
OLD—book (Am. Pub. Co.), July. U. E. TOM SAWYER concluded (Hartford).
THE CURIOUS REP. OF GONDOUR—Atlantic, October (unsigned). PUNCH,
CONDUCTOR, PUNCH—Atlantic, February, 1876. U. E. THE SECOND ADVENT
(unfinished). THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER (unfinished). AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A
DAMN FOOL (unfinished). Petition for International Copyright. 1876.
(See Chapters cvi to cx.)
Performed in THE LOAN OF THE LOVER as Peter Spuyk (Hartford). CARNIVAL OF CRIME—paper for The Monday Evening Club—Atlantic, June. U. E. HUCK FINN begun (Quarry Farm). CANVASSER'S STORY (Quarry Farm)—Atlantic, December. U. E. “1601” (Quarry Farm), privately printed. [And not edited by Livy. D.W.] AH SIN (with Bret Harte)—play, (Hartford). TOM SAWYER—book (Am. Pub. Co.), December. U. E. Speech on “The Weather,” New England Society, December 22.
1877.
(See Chapters cxii to cxv; also Appendix O.)
LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ-CLARENCE, ETC. (Quarry Farm)—Atlantic. IDLE EXCURSION (Quarry Farm)—Atlantic, October, November, December. U. E. SIMON WHEELER, DETECTIVE—play (Quarry Farm) (not produced). PRINCE AND PAUPER begun (Quarry Farm). Whittier birthday speech (Boston), December.
1878.
(See Chapters cxvii to cxx.)
MAGNANIMOUS INCIDENT (Hartford)—Atlantic, May. U. E. A TRAMP ABROAD (Heidelberg and Munich). MENTAL TELEGRAPHY—Harper's Magazine, December, 1891. U. E. GAMBETTA DUEL—Atlantic, February, 1879 (included in TRAMP). U. E. REV. IN PITCAIRN—Atlantic, March, 1879. U. E. STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT—book (Osgood & Co.), 1882. U. E. (The three items last named were all originally a part of the TRAMP ABROAD.)
1879.
(See Chapters cxxi to cxxiv; also Chapter cxxxiv and Appendix P.)
A TRAMP ABROAD continued (Paris, Elmira, and Hartford). Adam monument scheme (Elmira). Speech on “The Babies” (Grant dinner, Chicago), November. Speech on “Plagiarism” (Holmes breakfast, Boston), December.
1880.
(See Chapters cxxv to cxxxii.)
PRINCE AND PAUPER concluded (Hartford and Elmira). HUCK FINN continued (Quarry Farm, Elmira). A CAT STORY (Quarry Farm) (unpublished). A TRAMP ABROAD—book (Am. Pub. Co.), March 13. U. E. EDWARD MILLS AND GEO. BENTON (Hartford)—Atlantic, August. U. E. MRS. McWILLIAMS AND THE LIGHTNING (Hartford)—Atlantic, September. U. E.
1881.
(See Chapters cxxxiv to cxxxvii.)
A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE—Century, November. U. E. A BIOGRAPHY OF ——- (unfinished). PRINCE AND PAUPER—book (Osgood R; CO.), December. BURLESQUE ETIQUETTE (unfinished). [Included in LETTERS FROM THE EARTH D.W.]
1882.
(See Chapters cxl and cxli.)
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI (Elmira and Hartford).
1883.
(See Chapters cxlii to cxlviii.)
LIFE ON THE Mississippi—book (Osgood R CO.), May. U. E. WHAT Is HAPPINESS?—paper for The Monday Evening Club. Introduction to Portuguese conversation book (Hartford). HUCK FINN concluded (Quarry Farm). HISTORY GAME (Quarry Farm). AMERICAN CLAIMANT (with W. D. Howells)—play (Hartford), produced by A. P. Burbank. Dramatized TOM SAWYER and PRINCE AND PAUPER (not produced).
1884.
(See Chapters cxlix to cliii.)
Embarked in publishing with Charles L. Webster. THE CARSON FOOTPRINTS—the San Franciscan. HUCK FINN—book (Charles L. Webster & Co.), December. U. E. Platform-readings with George W. Cable, season '84-'85.
1885.
(See Chapters cliv to clvii.)
Contracted for General Grant's Memoirs. A CAMPAIGN THAT FAILED—Century, December. U. E. THE UNIVERSAL TINKER—Century, December (open letter signed X. Y. Z. Letter on the government of children—Christian Union.) KIDITCHIN (children's poem).
1886.
(See Chapters clix to clxi; also Appendix Q.)
Introduced Henry M. Stanley (Boston). CONNECTICUT YANKEE begun (Hartford). ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT—Century, April, 1887. LUCK—Harper's, August, 1891. GENERAL GRANT AND MATTHEW ARNOLD—Army and Navy dinner speech.
1887.
(See Chapters clxii to clxiv; also Appendix R.)
MEISTERSCHAFT—play (Hartford)-Century, January, 1888. U. E. KNIGHTS OF LABOR—essay (not published). To THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND—Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. CONSISTENCY—paper for The Monday Evening Club.
1888.
(See Chapters clxv to clxviii.)
Introductory for “Unsent Letters” (unpublished). Master of Arts degree from Yale. Yale Alumni address (unpublished). Copyright controversy with Brander Matthews—Princeton Review. Replies to Matthew Arnold's American criticisms (unpublished). YANKEE continued (Elmira and Hartford). Introduction of Nye and Riley (Boston).
1889.
(See Chapters clxix to clxxiii; also Appendix S.)
A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL Harper's Magazine, February, 1890. U. E. HUCK AND TOM AMONG THE INDIANS (unfinished). Introduction to YANKEE (not used). LETTER To ELSIE LESLIE—St Nicholas, February, 1890. CONNECTICUT YANKEE—book (Webster & Co.), December. U. E.
1890.
(See Chapters clxxii to clxxiv.)
Letter to Andrew Lang about English Criticism. (No important literary matters this year. Mark Twain engaged promoting the Paige typesetting-machine.)
1891.
(See Chapters clxxv to clxxvii.)
AMERICAN CLAIMANT (Hartford) syndicated; also book (Webster & Co.), May, 1892. U. E. European letters to New York Sun. DOWN THE RHONE (unfinished). KORNERSTRASSE (unpublished).
1892.
(See Chapters clxxx to clxxxii.)
THE GERMAN CHICAGO (Berlin—Sun.) U. E. ALL KINDS OF SHIPS (at sea). U. E. Tom SAWYER ABROAD (Nauheim)—St. Nicholas, November, '93, to April, '94. U. E. THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS (Nauheim). U. E. PUDD'NHEAD WILSON (Nauheim and Florence)—Century, December, '93, to June, '94 U. E. $100,000 BANK-NOTE (Florence)—Century, January, '93. U. E.
1893.
(See Chapters clxxxiii to clxxxvii.)
JOAN OF ARC begun (at Villa Viviani, Florence) and completed up to the raising of the Siege of Orleans. CALIFORNIAN'S TALE (Florence) Liber Scriptorum, also Harper's. ADAM'S DIARY (Florence)—Niagara Book, also Harper's. ESQUIMAU MAIDEN'S ROMANCE—Cosmopolitan, November. U. E. IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?—Cosmopolitan, September. U. E. TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER—Cosmopolitan, December. U. E. IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY (Florence)—N. A.—Rev., July, '94. U. E. FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENSES—[This may not have been written until early in 1894.]—(Players, New York)—N. A. Rev., July, '95 U. E.
1894.
(See Chapters clxxxviii to cxc.)
JOAN OF ARC continued (Etretat and Paris). WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US (Etretat)—N. A. Rev., January, '95 U. E. TOM SAWYER ABROAD—book (Webster & Co.), April. U. E. PUDD'NHEAD WILSON—book (Am. Pub. Co.), November. U. E. The failure of Charles L. Webster & Co., April 18. THE DERELICT—poem (Paris) (unpublished).
1895.
(See Chapters clxxxix and cxcii.)
JOAN OF ARC finished (Paris), January 28, Harper's Magazine, April to December. MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN—Harper's, September. U. E. A LITTLE NOTE TO PAUL BOURGET. U. E. Poem to Mrs. Beecher (Elmira) (not published). U. E. Lecture-tour around the world, begun at Elmira, July 14, ended July 31.
1896.
(See Chapters cxci to cxciv.)
JOAN OF ARC—book (Harpers) May. U. E. TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE, and other stories-book (Harpers), November. FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR begun (23 Tedworth Square, London).
1897.
(See Chapters cxcvii to cxcix.)
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR—book (Am. Pub. Co.), November. QUEEN'S JUBILEE (London), newspaper syndicate; book privately printed. JAMES HAMMOND TRUMBULL—Century, November. WHICH WAS WHICH? (London and Switzerland) (unfinished). TOM AND HUCK (Switzerland) (unfinished).
HELLFIRE HOTCHKISS (Switzerland) (unfinished). IN MEMORIAM—poem (Switzerland)-Harper's Magazine. U. E. Concordia Club speech (Vienna). STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA (Vienna)—Harper's Magazine, March, 1898. U. E.
1898.
(See Chapters cc to cciii; also Appendix T.)
THE AUSTRIAN EDISON KEEPING SCHOOL AGAIN (Vienna) Century, August. U. E. AT THE APPETITE CURE (Vienna)—Cosmopolitan, August. U. E. FROM THE LONDON TIMES, 1904 (Vienna)—Century, November. U. E. ABOUT PLAY-ACTING (Vienna)—Forum, October. U. E. CONCERNING THE JEWS (Vienna)—Harper's Magazine, September, '99. U. E. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MRS. EDDY (Vienna)—Cosmopolitan, October. U. E. THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG (Vienna)—Harper's Magazine, December, '99 U. E. Autobiographical chapters (Vienna); some of them used in the N. A. Rev., 1906-07. WHAT IS MAN? (Kaltenleutgeben)—book (privately printed), August, 1906. ASSASSINATION OF AN EMPRESS (Kaltenleutgeben) (unpublished). THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER (unfinished). Translations of German plays (unproduced).
1899.
(See Chapters cciv to ccviii.)
DIPLOMATIC PAY AND CLOTHES (Vienna)—Forum, March. U. E. MY LITERARY DEBUT (Vienna)—Century, December. U. E. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE (Vienna)—N. A. Rev., December, 1902, January and February, 1903. Translated German plays (Vienna) (unproduced). Collaborated with Siegmund Schlesinger on plays (Vienna) (unfinished). Planned a postal-check scheme (Vienna). Articles about the Kellgren treatment (Sanna, Sweden) (unpublished). ST. JOAN OF ARC (London)—Harper's Magazine, December, 1904. U. E. MY FIRST LIE, AND How I GOT OUT OF IT (London)—New York World. U. E.
Articles on South African War (London) (unpublished) Uniform Edition of Mark Twain's works (Am. Pub. Co.).
1900.
(See Chapters ccix to ccxii.)
TWO LITTLE TALES (London)—Century, November, 1901. U. E. Spoke on “Copyright” before the House of Lords. Delivered many speeches in London and New York.
1901.
(See Chapters ccxiii to ccxviii.)
TO THE PERSON SITTING IN DARKNESS (14 West Tenth Street, New York)—N. A. Rev., February. TO MY MISSIONARY CRITICS (14 West Tenth Street, New York)—N. A. Rev., April. DOUBLE-BARREL DETECTIVE STORY (Saranac Lake, “The Lair”) Harper's Magazine, January and February, 1902. Lincoln Birthday Speech, February 11. Many other speeches. PLAN FOR CASTING VOTE PARTY (Riverdale) (unpublished). THE STUPENDOUS PROCESSION (Riverdale) (unpublished). ANTE-MORTEM OBITUARIES—Harper's Weekly. Received degree of Doctor of Letters from Yale.
1902.
(See Chapters ccxix to ccxxiv; also Appendix U.)
DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD? (Riverdale)—N. A. Rev., April. U. E. FIVE BOONS of LIFE (Riverdale)—Harper's Weekly, July 5. U. E. WHY NOT ABOLISH IT? (Riverdale)—Harper's Weekly, July 5. DEFENSE OF GENERAL FUNSTON (Riverdale)—N. A. Rev., May. IF I COULD BE THERE (Riverdale unpublished). Wrote various articles, unfinished or unpublished. Received degree of LL.D. from the University of Missouri, June.
THE BELATED PASSPORT (York Harbor)—Harper's Weekly, December 6. U. E. WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL? (York Harbor)—Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. Poem (Riverdale and York Harbor) (unpublished) Sixty-seventh Birthday speech (New York), November 27.
1903.
(See Chapters ccxxv to ccxxx.)
MRS. EDDY IN ERROR (Riverdale)—N. A. Rev., April. INSTRUCTIONS IN ART (Riverdale)-Metropolitan, April and May. EDDYPUS, and other C. S. articles (unfinished). A DOG'S TALE (Elmira)—Harper's Magazine, December. U. E. ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER (Florence)—Harper's Weekly, January 21, 1904. U. E. ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR (Florence)—Harper's Magazine, August, U. E. THE $30,000 BEQUEST (Florence)—Harper's Weekly, December 10, 1904. U. E.
1904.
(See Chapters ccxxx to ccxxxiv.)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Florence)—portions published, N. A. Rev. and Harper's Weekly. CONCERNING COPYRIGHT (Tyringham, Massachusetts)—N. A. Rev., January, 1905. TSARS SOLILOQUY (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)—N. A. Rev., March, 1905. ADAM'S DIARY—book (Harpers), April.
1905.
(See Chapters ccxxxiv to ccxxxvii; also Appendix V.)
LEOPOLD'S SOLILOQUY (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)—pamphlet, P. R. Warren Company. THE WAR PRAYER (21 Fifth Avenue, New York) (unpublished). EVE'S DIARY (Dublin, New Hampshire)—Harper's Magazine, December. 3,000 YEARS AMONG THE MICROBES (unfinished). INTERPRETING THE DEITY (Dublin New Hampshire) (unpublished). A HORSE'S TALE (Dublin, New Hampshire)-Harper's Magazine, August and September, 1906. Seventieth Birthday speech. W. D. HOWELLS (21 Fifth Avenue, New York)-Harper's Magazine, July, 1906.
1906.
(See Chapters ccxxxix to ccli.)
Autobiography dictation (21 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Dublin, New Hampshire)—selections published, N. A. Rev., 1906 and 1907. Many speeches. Farewell lecture, Carnegie Hall, April 19. WHAT IS MAN?—book (privately printed). Copyright speech (Washington), December.
1907.
(See Chapters cclvi to cclxiii.)
Autobiography dictations (27 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Tuxedo). Degree of Doctor of Literature conferred by Oxford, June 26. Made many London speeches. Begum of Bengal speech (Liverpool). CHRISTIAN SCIENCE—book (Harpers), February. U. E. CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT To HEAVEN—book (Harpers).
1908.
(See Chapters cclxiv to cclxx.)
Autobiography dictations (21 Fifth Avenue, New York; and Redding, Connecticut). Lotos Club and other speeches. Aldrich memorial speech.
1909.
(See Chapters cclxxvi to cclxxxix; also Appendices N and W.)
IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?—book (Harpers), April. A FABLE—Harper's Magazine December. Copyright documents (unpublished). Address to St. Timothy School. MARJORIE FLEMING (Stormfield)—Harper's Bazar, December. THE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE (Stormfield)—Harper's Bazar, February, 1910 BESSIE DIALOGUE (unpublished). LETTERS FROM THE EARTH (unfinished). THE DEATH OF JEAN—Harper's, December, 1910. THE INTERNATIONAL LIGHTNING TRUST (unpublished).
1910.
(See Chapter ccxcii.)
VALENTINES TO HELEN AND OTHERS (not published). ADVICE TO PAINE (not published).
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg