Mark Twain A Biography Part 120

DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--I have been conscious of a vivacity and facility of expression this afternoon beyond the normal and I have just discovered the reason!! I have seen the historic signature "Mark Twain" in my hat!!

Doubtless you have been suffering from a corresponding dullness & have wondered why. I departed precipitately, the hat stood on my umbrella and was a new Lincoln & Bennett--it fitted me exactly and I did not discover the mistake till I got in this afternoon. Please forgive me. If you should be pa.s.sing this way to-morrow will you look in and change hats?

or shall I send it to the hotel?

I am, very sincerely yrs., 20 Dean's Yard. BASIL WILBERFORCE.

Clemens was demanded by all the bohemian clubs, the White Friars, the Vagabonds, the Savage, the Beefsteak, and the Authors. He spoke to them, and those "Mark Twain Evenings" have become historic occasions in each of the several inst.i.tutions that gave him welcome. At the Vagabonds he told them the watermelon story, and at the White Friars he reviewed the old days when he had been elected to that society; "days," he said, "when all Londoners were talking about nothing else than that they had discovered Livingstone, and that the lost Sir Roger Tichborne had been found and they were trying him for it."

At the Savage Club, too, he recalled old times and old friends, and particularly that first London visit, his days in the club twenty-seven years before.

"I was 6 feet 4 in those days," he said. "Now I am 5 feet 8 1/2 and daily diminishing in alt.i.tude, and the shrinkage of my principles goes on .... Irving was here then, is here now. Stanley is here, and Joe Hatton, but Charles Reade is gone and Tom Hood and Harry Lee and Canon Kingsley. In those days you could have carried Kipling around in a lunch-basket; now he fills the world. I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher."

At the Authors Club he paid a special tribute to Rudyard Kipling, whose dangerous illness in New York City and whose daughter's death had aroused the anxiety and sympathy of the entire American nation. It had done much to bring England and America closer together, Clemens said.

Then he added that he had been engaged the past eight days compiling a pun and had brought it there to lay at their feet, not to ask for their indulgence, but for their applause. It was this:

"Since England and America have been joined in Kipling, may they not be severed in Twain."

Hundreds of puns had been made on his pen-name, but this was probably his first and only attempt, and it still remains the best.

They arrived in Sweden early in July and remained until October. Jean was certainly benefited by the Kellgren treatment, and they had for a time the greatest hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens became enthusiastic over osteopathy, and wrote eloquently to every one, urging each to try the great new curative which was certain to restore universal health. He wrote long articles on Kellgren and his science, largely justified, no doubt, for certainly miraculous benefits were recorded; though Clemens was not likely to underestimate a thing which appealed to both his imagination and his reason. Writing to Twich.e.l.l he concluded, with his customary optimism over any new benefit:

Ten years hence no sane man will call a doctor except when the knife must be used--& such cases will be rare. The educated physician will himself be an osteopath. Dave will become one after he has finished his medical training. Young Harmony ought to become one now. I do not believe there is any difference between Kellgren's science and osteopathy; but I am sending to America to find out. I want osteopathy to prosper; it is common sense & scientific, & cures a wider range of ailments than the doctor's methods can reach.

Twich.e.l.l was traveling in Europe that summer, and wrote from Switzerland:

I seemed ever and anon to see you and me swinging along those glorious Alpine woods, staring at the new unfoldings of splendor that every turn brought into view-talking, talking, endlessly talking the days through-days forever memorable to me. That was twenty-one years ago; think of it! We were youngsters then, Mark, and how keen our relish of everything was! Well, I can enjoy myself now; but not with that zest and rapture. Oh, a lot of items of our tramp travel in 1878 that I had long forgotten came back to me as we sped through that enchanted region, and if I wasn't on duty with Venice I'd stop and set down some of them, but Venice must be attended to. For one thing, there is Howells's book to be read at such intervals as can be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the quick-time march on which our rustling leader keeps us. However, in Venice so far we want to be gazing pretty steadily from morning till night, and by the grace of the gondola we can do it without exhaustion. Really I am drunk with Venice.

But Clemens was full of Sweden. The skies there and the sunsets be thought surpa.s.sed any he had ever known. On an evening in September he wrote:

DEAR JOE,--I've no business in here-I ought to be outside. I shall never see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven.

Venice? land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place to be. I have seen about 60 sunsets here; & a good 40 of them were away & beyond anything I had ever imagined before for dainty & exquisite & marvelous beauty & infinite change & variety. America?

Italy? the tropics? They have no notion of what a sunset ought to be. And this one--this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all the rest. It brings the tears, it is so unutterably beautiful.

Clemens read a book during his stay in Sweden which interested him deeply. It was the Open Question, by Elizabeth Robbins--a fine study of life's sterner aspects. When he had finished he was moved to write the author this encouraging word:

DEAR MISS ROBBINS,--A relative of Matthew Arnold lent us your 'Open Question' the other day, and Mrs. Clemens and I are in your debt. I am not able to put in words my feeling about the book--my admiration of its depth and truth and wisdom and courage, and the fine and great literary art and grace of the setting. At your age you cannot have lived the half of the things that are in the book, nor personally penetrated to the deeps it deals in, nor covered its wide horizons with your very own vision--and so, what is your secret?

how have you written this miracle? Perhaps one must concede that genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old experience.

Well, in any case, I am grateful to you. I have not been so enriched by a book for many years, nor so enchanted by one. I seem to be using strong language; still, I have weighed it.

Sincerely yours, S. L. CLEMENS.

CCVII. 30, WELLINGTON COURT

Clemens himself took the Kellgren treatment and received a good deal of benefit.

"I have come back in sound condition and braced for work," he wrote MacAlister, upon his return to London. "A long, steady, faithful siege of it, and I begin now in five minutes."

They had settled in a small apartment at 30, Wellington Court, Albert Gate, where they could be near the London branch of the Kellgren inst.i.tution, and he had a workroom with Chatto & Windus, his publishers.

His work, however, was mainly writing speeches, for he was entertained constantly, and it seemed impossible for him to escape. His note-book became a mere jumble of engagements. He did write an article or a story now and then, one of which, "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It,"

was made the important Christmas feature of the 'New York Sunday World.'--[Now included in the Hadleyburg volume; "Complete Works."]

Another article of this time was the "St. Joan of Arc," which several years later appeared in Harper's Magazine. This article was originally written as the Introduction of the English translation of the official record of the trials and rehabilitation of Joan, then about to be elaborately issued. Clemens was greatly pleased at being invited to prepare the Introduction of this important volume, but a smug person with pedagogic proclivities was in charge of the copy and proceeded to edit Mark Twain's ma.n.u.script; to alter its phrasing to conform to his own ideas of the Queen's English. Then he had it all nicely typewritten, and returned it to show how much he had improved it, and to receive thanks and compliments. He did not receive any thanks. Clemens recorded a few of the remarks that he made when he saw his edited ma.n.u.script:

I will not deny that my feelings rose to 104 in the shade. "The idea! That this long-eared animal this literary kangaroo this illiterate hostler with his skull full of axle-grease--this....."

But I stopped there, for this was not the Christian spirit.

His would-be editor received a prompt order to return the ma.n.u.script, after which Clemens wrote a letter, some of which will go very well here.

DEAR MR. X.,--I have examined the first page of my amended Introduction,--& will begin now & jot down some notes upon your corrections. If I find any changes which shall not seem to me to be improvements I will point out my reasons for thinking so. In this way I may chance to be helpful to you, & thus profit you perhaps as much as you have desired to profit me.

First Paragraph. "Jeanne d'Arc." This is rather cheaply pedantic, & is not in very good taste. Joan is not known by that name among plain people of our race & tongue. I notice that the name of the Deity occurs several times in the brief instalment of the Trials which you have favored me with. To be consistent, it will be necessary that you strike out "G.o.d" & put in "Dieu." Do not neglect this.

Second Paragraph. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art like that with your limitations? And do you think that you have added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of the sentence?

Third Paragraph. Ditto.

Fourth Paragraph. Your word "directly" is misleading; it could be construed to mean "at once." Plain clarity is better than ornate obscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark: "Rather unkind to French feelings--referring to Moscow." Indeed I have not been concerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating the facts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French --calling them a "nation of ingrates" in one place--but you have been so busy editing commas & semicolons that you overlooked them & failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slur at the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for a compliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out & dance on it.

That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now & then along through life it would not have petrified.

Fifth Paragraph. Thus far I regard this as your masterpiece! You are really perfect in the great art of reducing simple & dignified speech to clumsy & vapid commonplace.

Sixth Paragraph. You have a singularly fine & aristocratic disrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return"

is suited only to the drawing-room--it is ducal, & says itself with a simper & a smirk.

Seventh Paragraph. "Permission" is ducal. Ducal and affected.

"Her" great days were not "over," they were only half over. Didn't you know that? Haven't you read anything at all about Joan of Arc?

The truth is you do not pay any attention; I told you on my very first page that the public part of her career lasted two years, & you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind out and have it repaired; you see yourself that it is all caked together.

Eighth Paragraph. She "rode away to a.s.sault & capture a stronghold." Very well; but you do not tell us whether she succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than keep this useful rule in mind.

Ninth Paragraph. "Known" history. That word has a polish which is too indelicate for me; there doesn't seem to be any sense in it.

This would have surprised me last week.

... "Breaking a lance" is a knightly & sumptuous phrase, & I honor it for its h.o.a.ry age & for the faithful service it has done in the prize-composition of the school-girl, but I have ceased from employing it since I got my p.u.b.erty, & must solemnly object to fathering it here. And, besides, it makes me hint that I have broken one of those things before in honor of the Maid, an intimation not justified by the facts. I did not break any lances or other furniture; I only wrote a book about her.

Truly yours, MARK TWAIN.

It cost me something to restrain myself and say these smooth & half- flattering things of this immeasurable idiot, but I did it, & have never regretted it. For it is higher & n.o.bler to be kind to even a shad like him than just.... I could have said hundreds of unpleasant things about this tadpole, but I did not even feel them.

Yet, in the end, he seems not to have sent the letter. Writing it had served every purpose.

An important publishing event of 1899 was the issue by the American Publishing Company of Mark Twain's "Complete Works in Uniform Edition."

Clemens had looked forward to the day when this should be done, perhaps feeling that an a.s.sembling of his literary family in symmetrical dress const.i.tuted a sort of official recognition of his authorship. Brander Matthews was selected to write the Introduction and prepared a fine "Biographical Criticism," which pleased Clemens, though perhaps he did not entirely agree with its views. Himself of a different cast of mind, he nevertheless admired Matthews.

Writing to Twich.e.l.l he said: