The Boys' Life of Mark Twain Part 25

Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days if one only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them.

Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! "Huck Finn" was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a complete victim to Huck's story. Once, in a letter, Stevenson wrote:

"My father, an old man, has been prevailed upon to read 'Roughing It'

(his usual amus.e.m.e.nt being found in theology), and after one evening spent with the book he declared: 'I am frightened. It cannot be safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much.'"

Mark Twain had been a "mugwump" during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in 1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland. He was, therefore, in high favor at the White House during both Cleveland administrations, and called there informally whenever business took him to Washington. But on one occasion (it was his first visit after the President's marriage) there was to be a party, and Mrs. Clemens, who could not attend, slipped a little note into the pocket of his evening waistcoat, where he would be sure to find it when dressing, warning him as to his deportment. Being presented to young Mrs. Cleveland, he handed her a card on which he had written, "He didn't," and asked her to sign her name below those words. Mrs.

Cleveland protested that she must know first what it was that he hadn't done, finally agreeing to sign if he would tell her immediately all about it, which he promised to do. She signed, and he handed her Mrs.

Clemens's note. It was very brief. It said, "Don't wear your arctics in the White House."

Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card mailed immediately to Mrs. Clemens.

Absent-mindedness was characteristic of Mark Twain. He lived so much in the world within that to him the material outer world was often vague and shadowy. Once when he was knocking the b.a.l.l.s about in the billiard-room, George, the colored butler, a favorite and privileged household character, brought up a card. So many canva.s.sers came to sell him one thing and another that Clemens promptly a.s.sumed this to be one of them.

George insisted mildly, but firmly, that, though a stranger, the caller was certainly a gentleman, and Clemens grumblingly descended the stairs.

As he entered the parlor the caller arose and extended his hand. Clemens took it rather limply, for he had noticed some water-colors and engravings leaning against the furniture as if for exhibition, and he was instantly convinced that the caller was a picture-canva.s.ser. Inquiries by the stranger as to Mrs. Clemens and the children did not change Mark Twain's conclusion. He was polite, but unresponsive, and gradually worked the visitor toward the front door. His inquiry as to the home of Charles Dudley Warner caused him to be shown eagerly in that direction.

Clemens, on his way back to the billiard-room, heard Mrs. Clemens call him--she was ill that day: "Youth!"

"Yes, Livy." He went in for a word.

"George brought me Mr. B.'s card. I hope you were nice to him; the B's were so nice to us, once, in Europe, while you were gone."

"The B's! Why, Livy!"

"Yes, of course; and I asked him to be sure to call when he came to Hartford."

"Well, he's been here."

"Oh Youth, have you done anything?"

"Yes, of course I have. He seemed to have some pictures to sell, so I sent him over to Warner's. I noticed he didn't take them with him. Land sakes! Livy, what can I do?"

"Go right after him--go quick! Tell him what you have done."

He went without further delay, bareheaded and in his slippers, as usual.

Warner and B. were in cheerful conversation. They had met before.

Clemens entered gaily.

"Oh, yes, I see! You found him all right. Charlie, we met Mr. B. and his wife in Europe, and they made things pleasant for us. I wanted to come over here with him, but I was a good deal occupied just then. Livy isn't very well, but she seems now a good deal better; so I just followed along to have a good talk, all together."

He stayed an hour, and whatever bad impression had formed in B.'s mind faded long before the hour ended. Returning home, Clemens noticed the pictures still on the parlor floor.

"George," he said, "what pictures are these that gentleman left?"

"Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures! Mrs. Clemens had me set them around to see how they would look in new places. The gentleman was only looking at them while he waited for you to come down."

It was in June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Mark Twain the degree of Master of Arts. He was proud of the honor, for it was recognition of a kind that had not come to him before--remarkable recognition, when we remember how as a child he had hated all schools and study, having ended his cla.s.s-room days before he was twelve years old.

He could not go to New Haven at the time, but later in the year made the students a delightful address. In his capacity of Master of Arts, he said, he had come down to New Haven to inst.i.tute certain college reforms.

By advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I told the Greek Professor I had concluded to drop the use of the Greek-written character, because it is so hard to spell with and so impossible to read after you get it spelt. Let us draw the curtain there.

I saw by what followed that nothing but early neglect saved him from being a very profane man.

He said he had given advice to the mathematical department with about the same result. The astronomy department he had found in a bad way. He had decided to transfer the professor to the law department and to put a law-student in his place.

A boy will be more biddable, more tractable--also cheaper. It is true he cannot be entrusted with important work at first, but he can comb the skies for nebula till he gets his hand in.

It was hardly the sort of an address that the holder of a college degree is expected to make, but doctors and students alike welcomed it hilariously from Mark Twain.

Not many great things happened to Mark Twain during this long period of semi-literary inaction, but many interesting ones. When Bill Nye, the humorist, and James Whitcomb Riley joined themselves in an entertainment combination, Mark Twain introduced them to their first Boston audience--a great event to them, and to Boston. Clemens himself gave a reading now and then, but not for money. Once, when Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston and Thomas Nelson Page were to give a reading in Baltimore, Page's wife fell ill, and Colonel Johnston wired to Charles Dudley Warner, asking him to come in Page's stead. Warner, unable to go, handed the telegram to Clemens, who promptly answered that he would come. They read to a packed house, and when the audience had gone and the returns were counted, an equal amount was handed to each of the authors. Clemens pushed his share over to Johnston, saying:

"That's yours, Colonel. I'm not reading for money these days."

Colonel Johnston, to whom the sum was important, tried to thank him, but Clemens only said:

"Never mind, Colonel; it only gives me pleasure to do you that little favor. You can pa.s.s it along some day."

As a matter of fact, Mark Twain himself was beginning to be hard pressed for funds at this time, but was strong in the faith that he would presently be a multi-millionaire. The typesetting machine was still costing a vast sum, but each week its inventor promised that a few more weeks or months would see it finished, and then a tide of wealth would come rolling in. Mark Twain felt that a man with ship-loads of money almost in port could not properly entertain the public for pay. He read for inst.i.tutions, schools, benefits, and the like, without charge.

XLIX.

KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE"

One day during the summer of 1889 a notable meeting took place in Elmira.

On a blazing forenoon a rather small and very hot young man, in a slow, sizzling hack made his way up East Hill to Quarry Faun. He inquired for Mark Twain, only to be told that he was at the Langdon home, down in the town which the young man had just left. So he sat for a little time on the pleasant veranda, and Mrs. Crane and Susy Clemens, who were there, brought him some cool milk and listened to him talk in a way which seemed to them very entertaining and wonderful. When he went away he left his card with a name on it strange to them--strange to the world at that time. The name was Rudyard Kipling. Also on the card was the address Allahabad, and Sissy kept it, because, to her, India was fairyland.

Kipling went down into Elmira and found Mark Twain. In his book "American Notes" he has left an account of that visit. He claimed that he had traveled around the world to see Mark Twain, and his article begins:

"You are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are commissioners, and some are lieutenant-governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar--no, two cigars--with him, and talked with him for more than two hours!"

But one should read the article entire--it is so worth while. Clemens also, long after, dictated an account of the meeting.

Kipling came down and spent a couple of hours with me, and at the end of that time I had surprised him as much as he had surprised me--and the honors were easy. I believed that he knew more than any person I had met before, and I knew that he knew that I knew less than any person he had met before. . . When he had gone, Mrs. Langdon wanted to know about my visitor. I said:

"He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man--and I am the other one. Between us we cover all knowledge. He knows all that can be known, and I know the rest."

He was a stranger to me and all the world, and remained so for twelve months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. . .

George Warner came into our library one morning, in Hartford, with a small book in his hand, and asked me if I had ever heard of Rudyard Kipling. I said "No."

He said I would hear of him very soon, and that the noise he made would be loud and continuous. . . A day or two later he brought a copy of the London "World" which had a sketch of Kipling in it and a mention of the fact that he had traveled in the United States. According to the sketch he had pa.s.sed through Elmira. This remark, with the additional fact that he hailed from India, attracted my attention--also Susy's. She went to her room and brought his card from its place in the frame of her mirror, and the Quarry Farm visitor stood identified.

A theatrical production of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by Mrs. A. S. Richardson, was one of the events of this period. It was a charming performance, even if not a great financial success, and little Elsie Leslie, who played the double part of the Prince and Tom Canty, became a great favorite in the Clemens home. She was also a favorite of the actor and playwright, William Gillette, [9] and once when Clemens and Gillette were together they decided to give the little girl a surprise--a pair of slippers, in fact, embroidered by themselves. In his presentation letter to her, Mark Twain wrote:

"Either of us could have thought of a single slipper, but it took both of us to think of two slippers. In fact, one of us did think of one slipper, and then, quick as a flash, the other thought of the other one."

He apologized for his delay: