All these things might move and interest one. But how, desperatelymore I have been moved to-night by the thought of a little old copyin the nursery of 'At the Back of the North Wind'. Oh, what happydays they were when that book was read, and how Susy loved it!...Death is so kind, benignant, to whom he loves, but he goes by usothers & will not look our way.
And to Twichell a few days later:
A Hartford with no Susy in it—& no Ned Bunce!—It is not the cityof Hartford, it is the city of Heartbreak.... It seems only a fewweeks since I saw Susy last—yet that was 1895 & this is 1899....My work does not go well to-day. It failed yesterday—& the daybefore & the day before that. And so I have concluded to put theMS. in the waste-basket & meddle with some other subject. I wastrying to write an article advocating the quadrupling of thesalaries of our ministers & ambassadors, & the devising of anofficial dress for them to wear. It seems an easy theme, yet Icouldn't do the thing to my satisfaction. All I got out of it wasan article on Monaco & Monte Carlo—matters not connected with thesubject at all. Still, that was something—it's better than a totalloss.
He finished the article—“Diplomatic Pay and Clothes”—in which he shows how absurd it is for America to expect proper representation on the trifling salaries paid to her foreign ministers, as compared with those allowed by other nations.
He prepared also a reminiscent article—the old tale of the shipwrecked Hornet and the magazine article intended as his literary debut a generation ago. Now and again he worked on some one of the several unfinished longer tales, but brought none of them to completion. The German drama interested him. Once he wrote to Mr. Rogers that he had translated “In Purgatory” and sent it to Charles Frohman, who pronounced it “all jabber and no play.”
Curious, too, for it tears these Austrians to pieces with laughter. When I read it, now, it seems entirely silly; but when I see it on the stage it is exceedingly funny.
He undertook a play for the Burg Theater, a collaboration with a Vienna journalist, Siegmund Schlesinger. Schlesinger had been successful with several dramas, and agreed with Clemens to do some plays dealing with American themes. One of them was to be called “Die Goldgraeberin,” that is, “The Woman Gold-Miner.” Another, “The Rival Candidates,” was to present the humors of female suffrage. Schlesinger spoke very little English, and Clemens always had difficulty in comprehending rapid-fire German. So the work did not progress very well. By the time they had completed a few scenes of mining-drama the interest died, and they good-naturedly agreed that it would be necessary to wait until they understood each other's language more perfectly before they could go on with the project. Frau Kati Schratt, later morganatic wife of Emperor Franz Josef, but then leading comedienne of the Burg Theater, is said to have been cast for the leading part in the mining-play; and Director-General Herr Schlenther, head of the Burg Theater management, was deeply disappointed. He had never doubted that a play built by Schlesinger and Mark Twain, with Frau Schratt in the leading role, would have been a great success.
Clemens continued the subject of Christian Science that winter. He wrote a number of articles, mainly criticizing Mrs. Eddy and her financial methods, and for the first time conceived the notion of a book on the subject. The new hierarchy not only amused but impressed him. He realized that it was no ephemeral propaganda, that its appeal to human need was strong, and that its system of organization was masterful and complete. To Twichell he wrote:
Somehow I continue to feel sure of that cult's colossal future.... I am selling my Lourdes stock already & buying Christian Science trust. I regard it as the Standard Oil of the future.
He laid the article away for the time and, as was his custom, put the play quite out of his mind and invented a postal-check which would be far more simple than post-office orders, because one could buy them in any quantity and denomination and keep them on hand for immediate use, making them individually payable merely by writing in the name of the payee. It seems a fine, simple scheme, one that might have been adopted by the government long ago; but the idea has been advanced in one form or another several times since then, and still remains at this writing unadopted. He wrote John Hay about it, remarking at the close that the government officials would probably not care to buy it as soon as they found they couldn't kill Christians with it.
He prepared a lengthy article on the subject, in dialogue form, making it all very clear and convincing, but for some reason none of the magazines would take it. Perhaps it seemed too easy, too simple, too obvious. Great ideas, once developed, are often like that.
In a volume of Mark Twain's collected speeches there is one entitled “German for the Hungarians—Address at the jubilee Celebration of the Emancipation of the Hungarian Press, March 26, 1899.” An introductory paragraph states that the ministers and members of Parliament were present, and that the subject was the “Ausgleich”—i.e., the arrangement for the apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria. The speech as there set down begins:
Now that we are all here together I think that it will be a goodidea to arrange the Ausgleich. If you will act for Hungary I shallbe quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time forit.
It is an excellent speech, full of good-feeling and good-humor, but it was never delivered. It is only a speech that Mark Twain intended to deliver, and permitted to be copied by a representative of the press before he started for Budapest.
It was a grand dinner, brilliant and inspiring, and when Mark Twain was presented to that distinguished company he took a text from something the introducer had said and became so interested in it that his prepared speech wholly disappeared from his memory.
I think I will never embarrass myself with a set speech again [he wroteTwichell]. My memory is old and rickety and cannot stand the strain. But Ihad this luck. What I did was to furnish a text for a part of the splendidspeech which was made by the greatest living orator of the European world—aspeech which it was a great delight to listen to, although I did notunderstand any word of it, it being in Hungarian. I was glad I came, itwas a great night, & I heard all the great men in the German tongue.
The family accompanied Clemens to Budapest, and while there met Franz, son of Louis Kossuth, and dined with him.
I assure you [wrote Mrs. Clemens] that I felt stirred, and I kept saying to myself “This is Louis Kossuth's son.” He came to our room one day, and we had quite a long and a very pleasant talk together. He is a man one likes immensely. He has a quiet dignity about him that is very winning. He seems to be a man highly esteemed in Hungary. If I am not mistaken, the last time I saw the old picture of his father it was hanging in a room that we turned into a music-room for Susy at the farm.
They were most handsomely treated in Budapest. A large delegation greeted them on arrival, and a carriage and attendants were placed continually at their disposal. They remained several days, and Clemens showed his appreciation by giving a reading for charity.
It was hinted to Mark Twain that spring, that before leaving Vienna, it would be proper for him to pay his respects to Emperor Franz Josef, who had expressed a wish to meet him. Clemens promptly complied with the formalities and the meeting was arranged. He had a warm admiration for the Austrian Emperor, and naturally prepared himself a little for what he wanted to say to him. He claimed afterward that he had compacted a sort of speech into a single German sentence of eighteen words. He did not make use of it, however. When he arrived at the royal palace and was presented, the Emperor himself began in such an entirely informal way that it did no occur to his visitor to deliver his prepared German sentence. When he returned from the audience he said:
“We got along very well. I proposed to him a plan to exterminate the human race by withdrawing the oxygen from the air for a period of two minutes. I said Szczepanik would invent it for him. I think it impressed him. After a while, in the course of our talk I remembered and told the Emperor I had prepared and memorized a very good speech but had forgotten it. He was very agreeable about it. He said a speech wasn't necessary. He seemed to be a most kind-hearted emperor, with a great deal of plain, good, attractive human nature about him. Necessarily he must have or he couldn't have unbent to me as he did. I couldn't unbend if I were an emperor. I should feel the stiffness of the position. Franz Josef doesn't feel it. He is just a natural man, although an emperor. I was greatly impressed by him, and I liked him exceedingly. His face is always the face of a pleasant man and he has a fine sense of humor. It is the Emperor's personality and the confidence all ranks have in him that preserve the real political serenity in what has an outside appearance of being the opposite. He is a man as well as an emperor—an emperor and a man.”
Clemens and Howells were corresponding with something of the old-time frequency. The work that Mark Twain was doing—thoughtful work with serious intent—appealed strongly to Howells. He wrote:
You are the greatest man of your sort that ever lived, and there isno use saying anything else.... You have pervaded yourcentury almost more than any other man of letters, if not more; andit is astonishing how you keep spreading.... You are my“shadow of a great rock in a weary land” more than any other writer.
Clemens, who was reading Howells's serial, “Their Silver-Wedding journey,” then running in Harper's Magazine, responded:
You are old enough to be a weary man with paling interests, but youdo not show it; you do your work in the same old, delicate &delicious & forceful & searching & perfect way. I don't know howyou can—but I suspect. I suspect that to you there is stilldignity in human life, & that man is not a joke—a poor joke—thepoorest that was ever contrived. Since I wrote my Bible—[The“Gospel,” What is Man?]—(last year), which Mrs. Clemens loathes &shudders over & will not listen to the last half nor allow me toprint any part of it, man is not to me the respect-worthy person hewas before, & so I have lost my pride in him & can't write gaily norpraisefully about him any more....Next morning. I have been reading the morning paper. I do it everymorning—well knowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities& basenesses & hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization &cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation ofthe human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I donot despair.
He was not greatly changed. Perhaps he had fewer illusions and less iridescent ones, and certainly he had more sorrow; but the letters to Howells do not vary greatly from those written twenty-five years before. There is even in them a touch of the old pretense as to Mrs. Clemens's violence.
I mustn't stop to play now or I shall never get those helfiard lettersanswered. (That is not my spelling. It is Mrs. Clemens's, I have told herthe right way a thousand times, but it does no good, she never remembers.)
All through this Vienna period (as during several years before and after) Henry Rogers was in full charge of Mark Twain's American affairs. Clemens wrote him almost daily, and upon every matter, small or large, that developed, or seemed likely to develop, in his undertakings. The complications growing out of the type machine and Webster failures were endless.—[“I hope to goodness I sha'n't get you into any more jobs such as the type-setter and Webster business and the Bliss-Harper campaigns have been. Oh, they were sickeners.” (Clemens to Rogers, November 15, 1898.)]—The disposal of the manuscripts alone was work for a literary agent. The consideration of proposed literary, dramatic, and financial schemes must have required not only thought, but time. Yet Mr. Rogers comfortably and genially took care of all these things and his own tremendous affairs besides, and apologized sometimes when he felt, perhaps, that he had wavered a little in his attention. Clemens once wrote him:
Oh, dear me, you don't have to excuse yourself for neglecting me;you are entitled to the highest praise for being so limitlesslypatient and good in bothering with my confused affairs, and pullingme out of a hole every little while.It makes me lazy, the way that Steel stock is rising. If I werelazier—like Rice—nothing could keep me from retiring. But I workright along, like a poor person. I shall figure up the rise, as thefigures come in, and push up my literary prices accordingly, till Iget my literature up to where nobody can afford it but the family.(N. B.—Look here, are you charging storage? I am not going tostand that, you know.) Meantime, I note those encouraging illogicalwords of yours about my not worrying because I am to be rich when Iam 68; why didn't you have Cheiro make it 90, so that I could haveplenty of room?It would be jolly good if some one should succeed in making a playout of “Is He Dead?”—[Clemens himself had attempted to make a playout of his story “Is He Dead?” and had forwarded the MS. to Rogers.Later he wrote: “Put 'Is He Dead?' in the fire. God will bless you.I too. I started to convince myself that I could write a play, orcouldn't. I'm convinced. Nothing can disturb that conviction.”]—From what I gather from dramatists, he will have his handssomething more than full—but let him struggle, let him struggle.Is there some way, honest or otherwise, by which you can get a copyof Mayo's play, “Pudd'nhead Wilson,” for me? There is a capableyoung Austrian here who saw it in New York and wants to translate itand see if he can stage it here. I don't think these people herewould understand it or take to it, but he thinks it will pay us totry.A couple of London dramatists want to bargain with me for the rightto make a high comedy out of the “Million-Pound Note.” Barkis iswilling.
This is but one of the briefer letters. Most of them were much longer and of more elaborate requirements. Also they overflowed with the gaiety of good-fortune and with gratitude. From Vienna in 1899 Clemens wrote:
Why, it is just splendid! I have nothing to do but sit around andwatch you set the hen and hatch out those big broods and make myliving for me. Don't you wish you had somebody to do the same foryou?—a magician who can turn steel and copper and Brooklyn gas intogold. I mean to raise your wages again—I begin to feel that I canafford it.I think the hen ought to have a name; she must be called Unberufen.That is a German word which is equivalent to it “sh! hush' don't letthe spirits hear you!” The superstition is that if you happen tolet fall any grateful jubilation over good luck that you've had orare hoping to have you must shut square off and say “Unberufen!” andknock wood. The word drives the evil spirits away; otherwise theywould divine your joy or your hopes and go to work and spoil yourgame. Set her again—do!Oh, look here! You are just like everybody; merely because I amliterary you think I'm a commercial somnambulist, and am notwatching you with all that money in your hands. Bless you, I've gota description of you and a photograph in every police-office inChristendom, with the remark appended: “Look out for a handsome,tall, slender young man with a gray mustache and courtly manners andan address well calculated to deceive, calling himself by the nameof Smith.” Don't you try to get away—it won't work.
From the note-book:
Midnight. At Miss Bailie's home for English governesses. Twocomedies & some songs and ballads. Was asked to speak & did it.(And rung in the “Mexican Plug.”)A Voice. “The Princess Hohenlohe wishes you to write on her fan.”“With pleasure—where is she?”“At your elbow.”I turned & took the fan & said, “Your Highness's place is in a fairytale; & by & by I mean to write that tale,” whereat she laughed ahappy girlish laugh, & we moved through the crowd to get to awriting-table—& to get in a strong light so that I could see herbetter. Beautiful little creature, with the dearest friendly ways &sincerities & simplicities & sweetnesses—the ideal princess of thefairy tales. She is 16 or 17, I judge.Mental Telegraphy. Mrs. Clemens was pouring out the coffee thismorning; I unfolded the Neue Freie Presse, began to read a paragraph& said:“They've found a new way to tell genuine gems from false——”“By the Roentgen ray!” she exclaimed.That is what I was going to say. She had not seen the paper, &there had been no talk about the ray or gems by herself or by me.It was a plain case of telegraphy.No man that ever lived has ever done a thing to please God—primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next.The Being who to me is the real God is the one who created thismajestic universe & rules it. He is the only originator, the onlyoriginator of thoughts; thoughts suggested from within, not fromwithout; the originator of colors & of all their possiblecombinations; of forces & the laws that govern them; of forms &shapes of all forms-man has never invented a new one. He is theonly originator. He made the materials of all things; He made thelaws by which, & by which only, man may combine them into themachines & other things which outside influences suggest to him. Hemade character—man can portray it but not “create” it, for He isthe only creator.He, is the perfect artisan, the perfect artist.
A part of the tragedy of their trip around the world had been the development in Jean Clemens of a malady which time had identified as epilepsy. The loss of one daughter and the invalidism of another was the burden which this household had now to bear. Of course they did not for a moment despair of a cure for the beautiful girl who had been so cruelly stricken, and they employed any agent that promised relief.
They decided now to go to London, in the hope of obtaining beneficial treatment. They left Vienna at the end of May, followed to the station by a great crowd, who loaded their compartment with flowers and lingered on the platform waving and cheering, some of them in tears, while the train pulled away. Leschetizky himself was among them, and Wilbrandt, the author of the Master of Palmyra, and many artists and other notables, “most of whom,” writes Mrs. Clemens, “we shall probably never see again in this world.”
Their Vienna sojourn had been one of the most brilliant periods of their life, as well as one of the saddest. The memory of Susy had been never absent, and the failing health of Jean was a gathering cloud.
They stopped a day or two at Prague, where they were invited by the Prince of Thurn and Taxis to visit his castle. It gave them a glimpse of the country life of the Bohemian nobility which was most interesting. The Prince's children were entirely familiar with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which they had read both in English and in the translation.
They journeyed to London by way of Cologne, arriving by the end of May. Poultney Bigelow was there, and had recently been treated with great benefit by osteopathy (then known as the Swedish movements), as practised by Heinrick Kellgren at Sanna, Sweden. Clemens was all interest concerning Kellgren's method and eager to try it for his daughter's malady. He believed she could be benefited, and they made preparation to spend some months at least in Sanna. They remained several weeks in London, where they were welcomed with hospitality extraordinary. They had hardly arrived when they were invited by Lord Salisbury to Hatfield House, and by James Bryce to Portland Place, and by Canon Wilberforce to Dean's Yard. A rather amusing incident happened at one of the luncheon-parties. Canon Wilberforce was there and left rather early. When Clemens was ready to go there was just one hat remaining. It was not his, and he suspected, by the initials on the inside, that it belonged to Canon Wilberforce. However, it fitted him exactly and he wore it away. That evening he wrote:
PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL, DE VERE GARDENS,July,3, 1899.
DEAR CANON WILBERFORCE,—It is 8 P.M. During the past four hours I have not been able to take anything that did not belong to me; during all that time I have not been able to stretch a fact beyond the frontiers of truth try as I might, & meantime, not only my morals have moved the astonishment of all who have come in contact with me, but my manners have gained more compliments than they have been accustomed to. This mystery is causing my family much alarm. It is difficult to account for it. I find I haven't my own hat. Have you developed any novelties of conduct since you left Mr. Murray's, & have they been of a character to move the concern of your friends? I think it must be this that has put me under this happy charm; but, oh dear! I tremble for the other man!
Sincerely yours,S. L. CLEMENS.
Scarcely was this note on its way to Wilberforce when the following one arrived, having crossed it in transit:
July 3, 1899.
DEAR MR. CLEMENS,—I have been conscious of a vivacity and facility ofexpression this afternoon beyond the normal and I have just discoveredthe reason!! I have seen the historic signature “Mark Twain” in my hat!!Doubtless you have been suffering from a corresponding dullness & havewondered why. I departed precipitately, the hat stood on my umbrella andwas a new Lincoln & Bennett—it fitted me exactly and I did not discoverthe mistake till I got in this afternoon. Please forgive me. If youshould be passing 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 institutions 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 altitude, 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 Twichell he concluded, with his customary optimism over any new benefit:
Ten years hence no sane man will call a doctor except when the knifemust be used—& such cases will be rare. The educated physicianwill himself be an osteopath. Dave will become one after he hasfinished his medical training. Young Harmony ought to become onenow. I do not believe there is any difference between Kellgren'sscience and osteopathy; but I am sending to America to find out. Iwant osteopathy to prosper; it is common sense & scientific, & curesa wider range of ailments than the doctor's methods can reach.
Twichell was traveling in Europe that summer, and wrote from Switzerland:
I seemed ever and anon to see you and me swinging along thoseglorious Alpine woods, staring at the new unfoldings of splendorthat every turn brought into view-talking, talking, endlesslytalking the days through-days forever memorable to me. That wastwenty-one years ago; think of it! We were youngsters then, Mark,and how keen our relish of everything was! Well, I can enjoy myselfnow; but not with that zest and rapture. Oh, a lot of items of ourtramp travel in 1878 that I had long forgotten came back to me as wesped through that enchanted region, and if I wasn't on duty withVenice I'd stop and set down some of them, but Venice must beattended to. For one thing, there is Howells's book to be read atsuch intervals as can be snatched from the quick-time march on whichour rustling leader keeps us. However, in Venice so far we want tobe gazing pretty steadily from morning till night, and by the graceof the gondola we can do it without exhaustion. Really I am drunkwith Venice.
But Clemens was full of Sweden. The skies there and the sunsets he thought surpassed 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 shallnever see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven.Venice? land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place tobe. I have seen about 60 sunsets here; & a good 40 of them wereaway & 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 tobe. And this one—this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all therest. 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 'OpenQuestion' the other day, and Mrs. Clemens and I are in your debt. Iam not able to put in words my feeling about the book—my admirationof its depth and truth and wisdom and courage, and the fine andgreat literary art and grace of the setting. At your age you cannothave lived the half of the things that are in the book, norpersonally penetrated to the deeps it deals in, nor covered its widehorizons with your very own vision—and so, what is your secret?how have you written this miracle? Perhaps one must concede thatgenius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and oldexperience.Well, in any case, I am grateful to you. I have not been soenriched by a book for many years, nor so enchanted by one. I seemto be using strong language; still, I have weighed it.Sincerely yours,S. L. CLEMENS.
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 institution, 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 manuscript; 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 manuscript:
I will not deny that my feelings rose to 104 in the shade. “Theidea! That this long-eared animal this literary kangaroo thisilliterate 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 manuscript, 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 amendedIntroduction,—& will begin now & jot down some notes upon yourcorrections. If I find any changes which shall not seem to me to beimprovements I will point out my reasons for thinking so. In thisway I may chance to be helpful to you, & thus profit you perhaps asmuch 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 amongplain people of our race & tongue. I notice that the name of theDeity occurs several times in the brief instalment of the Trialswhich you have favored me with. To be consistent, it will benecessary that you strike out “God” & put in “Dieu.” Do not neglectthis.Second Paragraph. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't yourealize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate artlike that with your limitations? And do you think that you haveadded just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of thesentence?Third Paragraph. Ditto.Fourth Paragraph. Your word “directly” is misleading; it could beconstrued to mean “at once.” Plain clarity is better than ornateobscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark: “Rather unkind toFrench feelings—referring to Moscow.” Indeed I have not beenconcerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating thefacts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French—calling them a “nation of ingrates” in one place—but you havebeen so busy editing commas & semicolons that you overlooked them &failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slurat the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for acompliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind likeyours. You ought to get it out & dance on it.That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought touse 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! Youare really perfect in the great art of reducing simple & dignifiedspeech to clumsy & vapid commonplace.Sixth Paragraph. You have a singularly fine & aristocraticdisrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use “goback” you get out your polisher & slick it up to “return.” “Return”is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, & says itself witha simper & a smirk.Seventh Paragraph. “Permission” is ducal. Ducal and affected.“Her” great days were not “over,” they were only half over. Didn'tyou 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 veryfirst page that the public part of her career lasted two years, &you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind outand have it repaired; you see yourself that it is all cakedtogether.Eighth Paragraph. She “rode away to assault & capture astronghold.” Very well; but you do not tell us whether shesucceeded or not. You should not worry the reader withuncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarityis a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better thankeep this useful rule in mind.Ninth Paragraph. “Known” history. That word has a polish which istoo 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, & Ihonor it for its hoary age & for the faithful service it has done inthe prize-composition of the school-girl, but I have ceased fromemploying it since I got my puberty, & must solemnly object tofathering it here. And, besides, it makes me hint that I havebroken one of those things before in honor of the Maid, anintimation not justified by the facts. I did not break any lancesor 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, & havenever regretted it. For it is higher & nobler to be kind to even ashad like him than just.... I could have said hundreds ofunpleasant 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 assembling of his literary family in symmetrical dress constituted 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 Twichell he said:
When you say, “I like Brander Matthews, he impresses me as a man ofparts & power,” I back you, right up to the hub—I feel the sameway. And when you say he has earned your gratitude for cuffing mefor my crimes against the Leather-stockings & the Vicar I ain'tmaking any objection. Dern your gratitude!His article is as sound as a nut. Brander knows literature & lovesit; he can talk about it & keep his temper; he can state his case solucidly & so fairly & so forcibly that you have to agree with himeven when you don't agree with him; & he can discover & praise suchmerits as a book has even when they are merely half a dozen diamondsscattered through an acre of mud. And so he has a right to be acritic.To detail just the opposite of the above invoice is to describe me.I haven't any right to criticize books, & I don't do it except whenI hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her booksmadden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; &therefore I have to stop every time I begin.'—[Once at a dinnergiven to Matthews, Mark Twain made a speech which consisted almostentirely of intonations of the name “Brander Matthews” to expressvarious shades of human emotion. It would be hopeless, of course,to attempt to convey in print any idea of this effort, which, bythose who heard it, is said to have been a masterpiece ofvocalization.]
Clemens also introduced the “Uniform Edition” with an Author's Preface, the jurisdiction of which, he said, was “restricted to furnishing reasons for the publication of the collection as a whole.”
This is not easy to do. Aside from the ordinary commercial reasonsI find none that I can offer with dignity: I cannot say withoutimmodesty that the books have merit; I cannot say without immodestythat the public want a “Uniform Edition”; I cannot say withoutimmodesty that a “Uniform Edition” will turn the nation toward highideals & elevated thought; I cannot say without immodesty that a“Uniform Edition” will eradicate crime, though I think it will. Ifind no reason that I can offer without immodesty except the ratherpoor one that I should like to see a “Uniform Edition” myself. Itis nothing; a cat could say it about her kittens. Still, I believeI will stand upon that. I have to have a Preface & a reason, by lawof custom, & the reason which I am putting forward is at leastwithout offense.
English troubles in South Africa came to a head that autumn. On the day when England's ultimatum to the Boers expired Clemens wrote:
LONDON, 3.07 P.m., Wednesday, October 11, 1899. The time is up!Without a doubt the first shot in the war is being fired to-day inSouth Africa at this moment. Some man had to be the first to fall;he has fallen. Whose heart is broken by this murder? For, be heBoer or be he Briton, it is murder, & England committed it by thehand of Chamberlain & the Cabinet, the lackeys of Cecil Rhodes & hisForty Thieves, the South Africa Company.
Mark Twain would naturally sympathize with the Boer—the weaker side, the man defending his home. He knew that for the sake of human progress England must conquer and must be upheld, but his heart was all the other way. In January, 1900, he wrote a characteristic letter to Twichell, which conveys pretty conclusively his sentiments concerning the two wars then in progress.
DEAR JOE,—Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free& give their islands to them; & apparently we are not proposing tohang the priests & confiscate their property. If these things areso the war out there has no interest for me.I have just been examining Chapter LXX of Following the Equator tosee if the Boer's old military effectiveness is holding out. Itreads curiously as if it had been written about the present war.I believe that in the next chapter my notion of the Boer was rightlyconceived. He is popularly called uncivilized; I do not know why.Happiness, food, shelter, clothing, wholesome labor, modest &rational ambitions, honesty, kindliness, hospitality, love offreedom & limitless courage to fight for it, composure & fortitudein time of disaster, patience in time of hardship & privation,absence of noise & brag in time of victory, contentment with humble& peaceful life void of insane excitements—if there is a higher &better form of civilization than this I am not aware of it & do notknow where to look for it. I suppose that we have the habit ofimagining that a lot of artistic & intellectual & otherartificialities must be added or it isn't complete. We & theEnglish have these latter; but as we lack the great bulk of thoseothers I think the Boer civilization is the best of the two. Myidea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing & fullof cruelties, vanities, arrogancies, meannesses, & hypocrisies.Provided we could get something better in the place of it. But thatis not possible perhaps. Poor as it is, it is better than realsavagery, therefore we must stand by it, extend it, & (in public)praise it. And so we must not utter any hurtful word about Englandin these days, nor fail to hope that she will win in this war, forher defeat & fall would be an irremediable disaster for the mangyhuman race. Naturally, then, I am for England; but she isprofoundly in the wrong, Joe, & no (instructed) Englishman doubtsit. At least that is my belief.
Writing to Howells somewhat later, he calls the conflict in South Africa, a “sordid and criminal war,” and says that every day he is writing (in his head) bitter magazine articles against it.