Essays on Paul Bourget Part 3

You told an anecdote. A funny one--I admit that. It hit a foible of our American aristocracy, and it stung me--I admit that; it stung me sharply. It was like this: You found some ancient portraits of French kings in the gallery of one of our aristocracy, and you said:

"He has the Grand Monarch, but where is the portrait of his grandfather?" That is, the American aristocrat's grandfather.

Now that hits only a few of us, I grant--just the upper crust only--but it hits exceedingly hard.

I wondered if there was any way of getting back at you. In one of your chapters I found this chance:

"In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied to arts and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all the weaknesses of the French soul."

You see? Your "higher Parisian" cla.s.s--not everybody, not the nation, but only the top crust of the Nation--applies to debauchery all the powers of its soul.

I argued to myself that that energy must produce results. So I built an anecdote out of your remark. In it I make Napoleon Bonaparte say to me--but see for yourself the anecdote (ingeniously clipped and curtailed) in paragraph eleven of your Reply.--[So, I repeat, Mark Twain does not like M. Paul Bourget's book. So long as he makes light fun of the great French writer he is at home, he is pleasant, he is the American humorist we know. When he takes his revenge (and where is the reason for taking a revenge?) he is unkind, unfair, bitter, nasty.]

For example: See his answer to a Frenchman who jokingly remarks to him:

"I suppose life can never get entirely dull to an American, because whenever he can't strike up any other way to put in his time, he can always get away with a few years trying to find out who his grandfather was."

Hear the answer:

"I reckon a Frenchman's got his little standby for a dull time, too; because when all other interests fail, he can turn in and see if he can't find out who his father was."

The first remark is a good-humored bit of chaffing on American sn.o.bbery.

I may be utterly dest.i.tute of humor, but I call the second remark a gratuitous charge of immorality hurled at the French women--a remark unworthy of a man who has the ear of the public, unworthy of a gentleman, a gross insult to a nation friendly to America, a nation that helped Mark Twain's ancestors in their struggle for liberty, a nation where to-day it is enough to say that you are American to see every door open wide to you.

If Mark Twain was hard up in search of, a French "chestnut," I might have told him the following little anecdote. It is more funny than his, and would have been less insulting: Two little street boys are abusing each other. "Ah, hold your tongue," says one, "you ain't got no father."

"Ain't got no father!" replies the other; "I've got more fathers than you."

Now, then, your anecdote about the grandfathers hurt me. Why? Because it had a point. It wouldn't have hurt me if it hadn't had point. You wouldn't have wasted s.p.a.ce on it if it hadn't had point.

My anecdote has hurt you. Why? Because it had point, I suppose. It wouldn't have hurt you if it hadn't had point. I judged from your remark about the diligence and industry of the high Parisian upper crust that it would have some point, but really I had no idea what a gold-mine I had struck. I never suspected that the point was going to stick into the entire nation; but of course you know your nation better than I do, and if you think it punctures them all, I have to yield to your judgment.

But you are to blame, your own self. Your remark misled me. I supposed the industry was confined to that little unnumerous upper layer.

Well, now that the unfortunate thing has been done, let us do what we can to undo it. There must be a way, M. Bourget, and I am willing to do anything that will help; for I am as sorry as you can be yourself.

I will tell you what I think will be the very thing.

We will swap anecdotes. I will take your anecdote and you take mine. I will say to the dukes and counts and princes of the ancient n.o.bility of France:

"Ha, ha! You must have a pretty hard time trying to find out who your grandfathers were?"

They will merely smile indifferently and not feel hurt, because they can trace their lineage back through centuries.

And you will hurl mine at every individual in the American nation, saying:

"And you must have a pretty hard time trying to find out who your fathers were." They will merely smile indifferently, and not feel hurt, because they haven't any difficulty in finding their fathers.

Do you get the idea? The whole harm in the anecdotes is in the point, you see; and when we swap them around that way, they haven't any.

That settles it perfectly and beautifully, and I am glad I thought of it. I am very glad indeed, M. Bourget; for it was just that little wee thing that caused the whole difficulty and made you dictate the Reply, and your amanuensis call me all those hard names which the magazines dislike so. And I did it all in fun, too, trying to cap your funny anecdote with another one--on the give-and-take principle, you know--which is American. I didn't know that with the French it was all give and no take, and you didn't tell me. But now that I have made everything comfortable again, and fixed both anecdotes so they can never have any point any more, I know you will forgive me.