Mark Twain A Biography Part 173

"I was in an automobile going slowly, with 'a little girl beside me, and some uniformed person walking along by us. I said, 'I'll get out and walk, too'; but the officer replied, 'This is only one of the smallest of our fleet.'

"Then I noticed that the automobile had no front, and there were two cannons mounted where the front should be. I noticed, too, that we were traveling very low, almost down on the ground. Presently we got to the bottom of a hill and started up another, and I found myself walking ahead of the 'mobile. I turned around to look for the little girl, and instead of her I found a kitten capering beside me, and when we reached the top of the hill we were looking out over a most barren and desolate waste of sand-heaps without a speck of vegetation anywhere, and the kitten said, 'This view beggars all admiration.' Then all at once we were in a great group of people and I undertook to repeat to them the kitten's remark, but when I tried to do it the words were so touching that I broke down and cried, and all the group cried, too, over the kitten's moving remark."

The joy with which he told this absurd sleep fancy made it supremely ridiculous and we laughed until tears really came.

One morning he said: "I was awake a good deal in the night, and I tried to think of interesting things. I got to working out geological periods, trying to think of some way to comprehend them, and then astronomical periods. Of course it's impossible, but I thought of a plan that seemed to mean something to me. I remembered that Neptune is two billion eight hundred million miles away. That, of course, is incomprehensible, but then there is the nearest fixed star with its twenty-five trillion miles--twenty-five trillion--or nearly a thousand times as far, and then I took this book and counted the lines on a page and I found that there was an average of thirty-two lines to the page and two hundred and forty pages, and I figured out that, counting the distance to Neptune as one line, there were still not enough lines in the book by nearly two thousand to reach the nearest fixed star, and somehow that gave me a sort of dim idea of the vastness of the distance and kind of a journey into s.p.a.ce."

Later I figured out another method of comprehending a little of that great distance by estimating the existence of the human race at thirty thousand years (Lord Kelvin's figures) and the average generation to have been thirty-three years with a world population of 1,500,000,000 souls. I a.s.sumed the nearest fixed star to be the first station in Paradise and the first soul to have started thirty thousand years ago.

Traveling at the rate of about thirty miles a second, it would just now be arriving in Alpha Centauri with all the rest of that buried mult.i.tude stringing out behind at an average distance of twenty miles apart.

Few things gave him more pleasure than the contemplation of such figures as these. We made occasional business trips to New York, and during one of them visited the Museum of Natural History to look at the brontosaur and the meteorites and the astronomical model in the entrance hall. To him these were the most fascinating things in the world. He contemplated the meteorites and the brontosaur, and lost himself in strange and marvelous imaginings concerning the far reaches of time and s.p.a.ce whence they had come down to us.

Mark Twain lived curiously apart from the actualities of life. Dwelling mainly among his philosophies and speculations, he observed vaguely, or minutely, what went on about him; but in either case the fact took a place, not in the actual world, but in a world within his consciousness, or subconsciousness, a place where facts were likely to a.s.sume new and altogether different relations from those they had borne in the physical occurrence. It not infrequently happened, therefore, when he recounted some incident, even the most recent, that history took on fresh and startling forms. More than once I have known him to relate an occurrence of the day before with a reality of circ.u.mstance that carried absolute conviction, when the details themselves were precisely reversed. If his attention were called to the discrepancy, his face would take on a blank look, as of one suddenly aroused from dreamland, to be followed by an almost childish interest in your revelation and ready acknowledgment of his mistake. I do not think such mistakes humiliated him; but they often surprised and, I think, amused him.

Insubstantial and deceptive as was this inner world of his, to him it must have been much more real than the world of flitting physical shapes about him. He would fix you keenly with his attention, but you realized, at last, that he was placing you and seeing you not as a part of the material landscape, but as an item of his own inner world--a world in which philosophies and morals stood upright--a very good world indeed, but certainly a topsy-turvy world when viewed with the eye of mere literal scrutiny. And this was, mainly, of course, because the routine of life did not appeal to him. Even members of his household did not always stir his consciousness.

He knew they were there; he could call them by name; he relied upon them; but his knowledge of them always suggested the knowledge that Mount Everest might have of the forests and caves and boulders upon its slopes, useful, perhaps, but hardly necessary to the giant's existence, and in no important matter a part of its greater life.

CCLx.x.xIV. A LIBRARY CONCERT

In a letter which Clemens wrote to Miss Wallace at this time, he tells of a concert given at Stormfield on September 21st for the benefit of the new Redding Library. Gabrilowitsch had so far recovered that he was up and about and able to play. David Bispham, the great barytone, always genial and generous, agreed to take part, and Clara Clemens, already accustomed to public singing, was to join in the program. The letter to Miss Wallace supplies the rest of the history.

We had a grand time here yesterday. Concert in aid of the little library.

TEAM

Gabrilowitsch, pianist.

David Bispham, vocalist.

Clara Clemens, ditto.

Mark Twain, introduces of team.

Detachments and squads and groups and singles came from everywhere --Danbury, New Haven, Norwalk, Redding, Redding Ridge, Ridgefield, and even from New York: some in 60-h.p. motor-cars, some in buggies and carriages, and a swarm of farmer-young-folk on foot from miles around--525 altogether.

If we hadn't stopped the sale of tickets a day and a half before the performance we should have been swamped. We jammed 160 into the library (not quite all had seats), we filled the loggia, the dining- room, the hall, clear into the billiard-room, the stairs, and the brick-paved square outside the dining-room door.

The artists were received with a great welcome, and it woke them up, and I tell you they performed to the Queen's taste! The program was an hour and three-quarters long and the encores added a half-hour to it. The enthusiasm of the house was hair-lifting. They all stayed an hour after the close to shake hands and congratulate.

We had no dollar seats except in the library, but we acc.u.mulated $372 for the Building Fund. We had tea at half past six for a dozen--the Hawthornes, Jeannette Gilder, and her niece, etc.; and after 8-o'clock dinner we had a private concert and a ball in the bare-stripped library until 10; n.o.body present but the team and Mr.

and Mrs. Paine and Jean and her dog. And me. Bispham did "Danny Deever" and the "Erlkonig" in his majestic, great organ-tones and artillery, and Gabrilowitsch played the accompaniments as they were never played before, I do suppose.

There is not much to add to that account. Clemens, introducing the performers, was the gay feature of the occasion. He spoke of the great reputation of Bispham and Gabrilowitsch; then he said:

"My daughter is not as famous as these gentlemen, but she is ever so much better-looking."

The music of the evening that followed, with Gabrilowitsch at the piano and David Bispham to sing, was something not likely ever to be repeated.

Bispham sang the "Erlkonig" and "Killiecrankie" and the "Grenadiers" and several other songs. He spoke of having sung Wagner's arrangement of the "Grenadiers" at the composer's home following his death, and how none of the family had heard it before.

There followed dancing, and Jean Clemens, fine and handsome, apparently full of life and health, danced down that great living-room as care-free as if there was no shadow upon her life. And the evening was distinguished in another way, for before it ended Clara Clemens had promised Ossip Gabrilowitsch to become his wife.

CCLx.x.xV. A WEDDING AT STORMFIELD

The wedding of Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Clara Clemens was not delayed.

Gabrilowitsch had signed for a concert tour in Europe, and unless the marriage took place forthwith it must be postponed many months. It followed, therefore, fifteen days after the engagement. They were busy days. Clemens, enormously excited and pleased over the prospect of the first wedding in his family, personally attended to the selection of those who were to have announcement-cards, employing a stenographer to make the list.

October 6th was a perfect wedding-day. It was one of those quiet, lovely fall days when the whole world seems at peace. Claude, the butler, with his usual skill in such matters, had decorated the great living-room with gay autumn foliage and flowers, brought in mainly from the woods and fields. They blended perfectly with the warm tones of the walls and furnishings, and I do not remember ever having seen a more beautiful room. Only relatives and a few of the nearest friends were invited to the ceremony. The Twich.e.l.ls came over a day ahead, for Twich.e.l.l, who had a.s.sisted in the marriage rites between Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon, was to perform that ceremony for their daughter now. A fellow-student of the bride and groom when they had been pupils of Leschetizky, in Vienna--Miss Ethel Newcomb--was at the piano and played softly the Wedding March from "Taunhauser." Jean Clemens was the only bridesmaid, and she was stately and cla.s.sically beautiful, with a proud dignity in her office. Jervis Langdon, the bride's cousin and childhood playmate, acted as best man, and Clemens, of course, gave the bride away. By request he wore his scarlet Oxford gown over his snowy flannels, and was splendid beyond words. I do not write of the appearance of the bride and groom, for brides and grooms are always handsome and always happy, and certainly these were no exception. It was all so soon over, the feasting ended, and the princ.i.p.als whirling away into the future. I have a picture in my mind of them seated together in the automobile, with Richard Watson Gilder standing on the step for a last good-by, and before them a wide expanse of autumn foliage and distant hills. I remember Gilder's voice saying, when the car was on the turn, and they were waving back to us:

"Over the hills and far away, Beyond the utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, beyond the day, Through all the world she followed him."

The matter of the wedding had been kept from the newspapers until the eve of the wedding, when the a.s.sociated Press had been notified. A representative was there; but Clemens had characteristically interviewed himself on the subject, and it was only necessary to hand the reporter a typewritten copy. Replying to the question (put to himself), "Are you pleased with the marriage?" he answered:

Yes, fully as much as any marriage could please me or any other father. There are two or three solemn things in life and a happy marriage is one of them, for the terrors of life are all to come.

I am glad of this marriage, and Mrs. Clemens would be glad, for she always had a warm affection for Gabrilowitsch.

There was another wedding at Stormfield on the following afternoon--an imitation wedding. Little Joy came up with me, and wished she could stand in just the spot where she had seen the bride stand, and she expressed a wish that she could get married like that. Clemens said:

"Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it."

Then he happened to remember a ridiculous boy-doll--a white-haired creature with red coat and green trousers, a souvenir imitation of himself from one of the Rogerses' Christmas trees. He knew where it was, and he got it out. Then he said:

"Now, Joy, we will have another wedding. This is Mr. Colonel Williams, and you are to become his wedded wife."

So Joy stood up very gravely and Clemens performed the ceremony, and I gave the bride away, and Joy to him became Mrs. Colonel Williams thereafter, and entered happily into her new estate.

CCLx.x.xVI. AUTUMN DAYS

A harvest of letters followed the wedding: a general congratulatory expression, mingled with admiration, affection, and good-will. In his interview Clemens had referred to the pain in his breast; and many begged him to deny that there was anything serious the matter with him, urging him to try this relief or that, pathetically eager for his continued life and health. They cited the comfort he had brought to world-weary humanity and his unfailing stand for human justice as reasons why he should live. Such letters could not fail to cheer him.

A letter of this period, from John Bigelow, gave him a pleasure of its own. Clemens had written Bigelow, apropos of some adverse expression on the tariff:

Thank you for any hard word you can say about the tariff. I guess the government that robs its own people earns the future it is preparing for itself.

Bigelow was just then declining an invitation to the annual dinner of the Chamber of Commerce. In sending his regrets he said:

The sentiment I would propose if I dared to be present would be the words of Mark Twain, the statesman:

"The government that robs its own people earns the future it is preparing for itself."

Now to Clemens himself he wrote:

Rochefoucault never said a cleverer thing, nor Dr. Franklin a wiser one.... Be careful, or the Demos will be running you for President when you are not on your guard.