MY DEAR CLEMENS,—The letters are lovely. Don't breathe. They areso happy! It would be a crime to let them think that you have inany way deceived them. I can keep still. You must. I am sendingyou all traces of the crime, so that you may look innocent and tellthe truth, as you usually do when you think you can escapedetection. Don't get rattled.Seriously. You have done a kindness. You are proud of it, I know.You have made your friends happy, and you ought to be so glad as tocheerfully accept reproof from your conscience. Joe Wadsworth and Ionce stole a goose and gave it to a poor widow as a Christmaspresent. No crime in that. I always put my counterfeit money onthe plate. “The passer of the sasser” always smiles at me and I getcredit for doing generous things. But seriously again, if you dofeel a little uncomfortable wait until I see you before you tellanybody. Avoid cultivating misery. I am trying to loaf ten soliddays. We do hope to see you soon.
The secret was kept, and the matter presently (and characteristically) passed out of Clemens's mind altogether. He never remembered to tell Twichell, and it is revealed here, according to his wish.
The Russian-Japanese war was in progress that summer, and its settlement occurred in August. The terms of it did not please Mark Twain. When a newspaper correspondent asked him for an expression of opinion on the subject he wrote:
Russia was on the highroad to emancipation from an insane andintolerable slavery. I was hoping there would be no peace untilRussian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war, in thebest and noblest sense of that abused term, and that no war was evercharged with a higher mission.I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated andRussia's chain riveted; this time to stay. I think the Tsar willnow withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him,and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and animmeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chanceand has lost it.I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotelycomparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle wouldhave abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions ofunborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought. I hope I ammistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitledto rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history.
It was the wisest public utterance on the subject—the deep, resonant note of truth sounding amid a clamor of foolish joy-bells. It was the message of a seer—the prophecy of a sage who sees with the clairvoyance of knowledge and human understanding. Clemens, a few days later, was invited by Colonel Harvey to dine with Baron Rosen and M. Sergius Witte; but an attack of his old malady—rheumatism—prevented his acceptance. His telegram of declination apparently pleased the Russian officials, for Witte asked permission to publish it, and declared that he was going to take it home to show to the Tsar. It was as follows:
To COLONEL HARVEY,—I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here equipped with nothing but a pen, & with it have divided the honors of the war with the sword. It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries history will not get done in admiring these men who attempted what the world regarded as the impossible & achieved it.
MARK TWAIN.
But this was a modified form. His original draft would perhaps have been less gratifying to that Russian embassy. It read:
To COLONEL HARVEY,—I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be morethan glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicianswho with the pen have annulled, obliterated, & abolished every highachievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of atremendous war into a gay & blithesome comedy. If I may, let me inall respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I takingthird place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but bydiligence & hard work is acquiring it.MARK.
There was still another form, brief and expressive:
DEAR COLONEL,—No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow send for me. MARK.
Clemens's war sentiment was given the widest newspaper circulation, and brought him many letters, most of them applauding his words. Charles Francis Adams wrote him:
It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the viewsI have myself all along entertained.
And this was the gist of most of the expressed sentiments which came to him.
Clemens wrote a number of things that summer, among them a little essay entitled, “The Privilege of the Grave”—that is to say, free speech. He was looking forward, he said, to the time when he should inherit that privilege, when some of the things he had said, written and laid away, could be published without damage to his friends or family. An article entitled, “Interpreting the Deity,” he counted as among the things to be uttered when he had entered into that last great privilege. It is an article on the reading of signs and auguries in all ages to discover the intentions of the Almighty, with historical examples of God's judgments and vindications. Here is a fair specimen. It refers to the chronicle of Henry Huntington:
All through this book Henry exhibits his familiarity with theintentions of God and with the reasons for the intentions.Sometimes very often, in fact—the act follows the intention aftersuch a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fitone act out of a hundred to one intention, and get the thing rightevery time, when there was such abundant choice among acts andintentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and ispunished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed amillion other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one thatbrought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for theslaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out now, butin the old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of“wrath.” For instance:“The just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a wormgrew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through hisintestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured withexcruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he wasby a fitting punishment brought to his end” (p. 400).It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know itwas a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Someauthorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt.
The entire article is in this amusing, satirical strain, and might well enough be printed to-day. It is not altogether clear why it was withheld, even then.
He finished his Eve's Diary that summer, and wrote a story which was originally planned to oblige Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, to aid her in a crusade against bullfighting in Spain. Mrs. Fiske wrote him that she had read his dog story, written against the cruelties of vivisection, and urged him to do something to save the horses that, after faithful service, were sacrificed in the bull-ring. Her letter closed:
I have lain awake nights very often wondering if I dare ask you towrite a story of an old horse that is finally given over to thebull-ring. The story you would write would do more good than allthe laws we are trying to have made and enforced for the preventionof cruelty to animals in Spain. We would translate and circulatethe story in that country. I have wondered if you would ever writeit.With most devoted homage,Sincerely yours,MINNIE MADDERN FISKE.
Clemens promptly replied:
DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get it to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it again—& yet again—& again. I am used to this. It has taken me twelve years to write a short story—the shortest one I ever wrote, I think.—[Probably “The Death Disk:”]—So do not be discouraged; I will stick to this one in the same way.
Sincerely yours,S. L. CLEMENS.
It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written that pathetic, heartbreaking little story, “A Horse's Tale,” and sent it to Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka at the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds:
This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my smalldaughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional—it was a goodwhile before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use—& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassableexpression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol.
He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary, on the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls.
We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple ofneighbors for audience, and then pass the hat.
It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings the tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom which it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later, Mrs. Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission to have it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain.
A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark Twain's seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from the Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and told how he would like to accept the invitation.
If I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly, and I would go. I would let somebody else do the oration, but as for me I would talk—just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk—and talk—and talk—and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and unforgetable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent hail and farewell as they passed—Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart, Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, North, Root—and my brother, upon whom be peace!—and then the desperadoes, who made life a joy, and the “slaughter-house,” a precious possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, Jack Williams, and the rest of the crimson discipleship, and so on, and so on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are going now.
Those were the days!—those old ones. They will come no more; youth will come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white head.
Good-by. I drink to you all. Have a good time-and take an old man's blessing.
In reply to another invitation from H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, he wrote that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to sit by the fire for the rest of his “remnant of life.”
A man who, like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of nextNovember has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does—that shameless old fictitious butterfly. (But if he comes don'ttell him I said it, for it would hurt him & I wouldn't brush a flakeof powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of hisindestructible youth anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.)
And it was either then or on a similar occasion that he replied after this fashion:
I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its oldresidents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully300,000. I could have done more—I could have gone earlier—it wassuggested.
Which, by the way, is a perfect example of Mark Twain's humorous manner, the delicately timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would have been contented to end with the statement, “I could have gone earlier.” Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch—“it was suggested.”
Mark Twain was nearing seventy, the scriptural limitation of life, and the returns were coming in. Some one of the old group was dying all the time. The roll-call returned only a scattering answer. Of his oldest friends, Charles Henry Webb, John Hay, and Sir Henry Irving, all died that year. When Hay died Clemens gave this message to the press:
I am deeply grieved, & I mourn with the nation this loss which isirreparable. My friendship with Mr. Hay & my admiration of himendured 38 years without impairment.
It was only a little earlier that he had written Hay an anonymous letter, a copy of which he preserved. It here follows:
DEAR & HONORED SIR,—I never hear any one speak of you & of yourlong roll of illustrious services in other than terms of pride &praise—& out of the heart. I think I am right in believing you tobe the only man in the civil service of the country the cleanness ofwhose motives is never questioned by any citizen, & whose actsproceed always upon a broad & high plane, never by accident orpressure of circumstance upon a narrow or low one. There aremajorities that are proud of more than one of the nation's greatservants, but I believe, & I think I know, that you are the only oneof whom the entire nation is proud. Proud & thankful.Name & address are lacking here, & for a purpose: to leave you nochance to make my words a burden to you and a reproach to me, whowould lighten your burdens if I could, not add to them.
Irving died in October, and Clemens ordered a wreath for his funeral. To MacAlister he wrote:
I profoundly grieve over Irving's death. It is another reminder.My section of the procession has but a little way to go. I couldnot be very sorry if I tried.
Mark Twain, nearing seventy, felt that there was not much left for him to celebrate; and when Colonel Harvey proposed a birthday gathering in his honor, Clemens suggested a bohemian assembly over beer and sandwiches in some snug place, with Howells, Henry Rogers, Twichell, Dr. Rice, Dr. Edward Quintard, Augustus Thomas, and such other kindred souls as were still left to answer the call. But Harvey had something different in view: something more splendid even than the sixty-seventh birthday feast, more pretentious, indeed, than any former literary gathering. He felt that the attainment of seventy years by America's most distinguished man of letters and private citizen was a circumstance which could not be moderately or even modestly observed. The date was set five days later than the actual birthday—that is to say, on December 5th, in order that it might not conflict with the various Thanksgiving holidays and occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen for the celebration of it, and invitations were sent out to practically every writer of any distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these nearly two hundred accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic regrets.
What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered to do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet, and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, “I will not say, 'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'” and Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life, the white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his life but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of the American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the drama of that moment—the marvel of it—and he must have flashed a swift panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he had himself once expressed it, “for a single, splendid moment on the Alps of fame outlined against the sun.” He must have remembered; for when he came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very first banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, “I hadn't any hair; I hadn't any teeth; I hadn't any clothes.” He sketched the meagerness of that little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully, delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no other regularity of habits. Then, at last, he reached that wonderful, unforgetable close:
Threescore years and ten!It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe noactive duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served yourterm, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are becomean honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsionsare not for you, nor any bugle-call but “lights out.” You pay thetime-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer—andwithout prejudice—for they are not legally collectable.The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you somany twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the graveyou will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night,and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lightsand laughter through the deserted streets—a desolation which wouldnot remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friendsare sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them,but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can neverdisturb them more—if you shrink at the thought of these things youneed only reply, “Your invitation honors me and pleases me becauseyou still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy,and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and readmy book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, andthat when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may stepaboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay yourcourse toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.”
The tears that had been lying in wait were not restrained now. If there were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, the writer of these lines failed to see them or to hear of them. There was not one who was ashamed to pay the great tribute of tears.
Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for him—Brander Matthews, Cable, Kate Douglas Riggs, Gilder, Carnegie, Bangs, Bacheller—they kept it up far into the next morning. No other arrival at Pier 70 ever awoke a grander welcome.
The announcement of the seventieth birthday dinner had precipitated a perfect avalanche of letters, which continued to flow in until the news accounts of it precipitated another avalanche. The carriers' bags were stuffed with greetings that came from every part of the world, from every class of humanity. They were all full of love and tender wishes. A card signed only with initials said: “God bless your old sweet soul for having lived.”
Aldrich, who could not attend the dinner, declared that all through the evening he had been listening in his mind to a murmur of voices in the hall at Delmonico's. A group of English authors in London combined in a cable of congratulations. Anstey, Alfred Austin, Balfour, Barrie, Bryce, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Gosse, Hardy, Hope, Jacobs, Kipling, Lang, Parker, Tenniel, Watson, and Zangwill were among the signatures.
Helen Keller wrote:
And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated, likethat of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the houseof dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said:“If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight he knows too much.If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight he knows too little.”Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse oneon the “seven-terraced summit” of knowing little. So probably youare not seventy after all, but only forty-seven!
Helen Keller was right. Mark Twain was not a pessimist in his heart, but only by premeditation. It was his observation and his logic that led him to write those things that, even in their bitterness, somehow conveyed that spirit of human sympathy which is so closely linked to hope. To Miss Keller he wrote:
“Oh, thank you for your lovely words!”
He was given another birthday celebration that month—this time by the Society of Illustrators. Dan Beard, president, was also toast-master; and as he presented Mark Twain there was a trumpet-note, and a lovely girl, costumed as Joan of Arc, entered and, approaching him, presented him with a laurel wreath. It was planned and carried out as a surprise to him, and he hardly knew for the moment whether it was a vision or a reality. He was deeply affected, so much so that for several moments he could not find his voice to make any acknowledgments.
Clemens was more than ever sought now, and he responded when the cause was a worthy one. He spoke for the benefit of the Russian sufferers at the Casino on December 18th. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was also there, and spoke in French. He followed her, declaring that it seemed a sort of cruelty to inflict upon an audience our rude English after hearing that divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic tongue.
It has always been a marvel to me—that French language; it hasalways been a puzzle to me. How beautiful that language is! Howexpressive it seems to be! How full of grace it is!And when it comes from lips like those, how eloquent and how limpidit is! And, oh, I am always deceived—I always think I am going tounderstand it.It is such a delight to me, such a delight to me, to meet MadameBernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with her. Ihave seen her play, as we all have, and, oh, that is divine; but Ihave always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself—her fiery self.I have wanted to know that beautiful character.Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw, except myself—for Ialways feel young when I come in the presence of young people.
And truly, at seventy, Mark Twain was young, his manner, his movement, his point of view-these were all, and always, young.
A number of palmists about that time examined impressions of his hand without knowledge as to the owner, and they all agreed that it was the hand of a man with the characteristics of youth, with inspiration, and enthusiasm, and sympathy—a lover of justice and of the sublime. They all agreed, too, that he was a deep philosopher, though, alas! they likewise agreed that he lacked the sense of humor, which is not as surprising as it sounds, for with Mark Twain humor was never mere fun-making nor the love of it; rather it was the flower of his philosophy—its bloom and fragrance.
When the fanfare and drum-beat of his birthday honors had passed by, and a moment of calm had followed, Mark Twain set down some reflections on the new estate he had achieved. The little paper, which forms a perfect pendant to the “Seventieth Birthday Speech,” here follows:
OLD AGEI think it likely that people who have not been here will beinterested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth ofNovember, fresh from carefree & frivolous 69, & was disappointed.There is nothing novel about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrillyou & make your eye glitter & your tongue cry out, “Oh, it iswonderful, perfectly wonderful!” Yes, it is disappointing. Yousay, “Is this it?—this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousandgenerations of travelers who have crossed this frontier & lookedabout them & told what they saw & felt? Why, it looks just like69.”And that is true. Also it is natural, for you have not come by thefast express; you have been lagging & dragging across the world'scontinents behind oxen; when that is your pace one country meltsinto the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice thechange; 70 looks like 69; 69 looked like 68; 68 looked like 67—& soon back & back to the beginning. If you climb to a summit & lookback—ah, then you see!Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country &climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to theice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancyverged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth intobearded, indefinite Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood intodefinite Manhood; definite Manhood, with large, aggressiveambitions, into sobered & heedful Husbandhood & Fatherhood; theseinto troubled & foreboding Age, with graying hair; this into OldAge, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, theworshipers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, atradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dream, a dream that was soingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing leftbut You, center of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit,gazing out over the stages of that long trek & asking Yourself,“Would you do it again if you had the chance?”
We have reached a point in this history where the narrative becomes mainly personal, and where, at the risk of inviting the charge of egotism, the form of the telling must change.
It was at the end of 1901 that I first met Mark Twain—at The Players Club on the night when he made the Founder's Address mentioned in an earlier chapter.
I was not able to arrive in time for the address, but as I reached the head of the stairs I saw him sitting on the couch at the dining-room entrance, talking earnestly to some one, who, as I remember it, did not enter into my consciousness at all. I saw only that crown of white hair, that familiar profile, and heard the slow modulations of his measured speech. I was surprised to see how frail and old he looked. From his pictures I had conceived him different. I did not realize that it was a temporary condition due to a period of poor health and a succession of social demands. I have no idea how long I stood there watching him. He had been my literary idol from childhood, as he had been of so many others; more than that, for the personality in his work had made him nothing less than a hero to his readers.
He rose presently to go, and came directly toward me. A year before I had done what new writers were always doing—I had sent him a book I had written, and he had done what he was always doing—acknowledged it with a kindly letter. I made my thanks now an excuse for addressing him. It warmed me to hear him say that he remembered the book, though at the time I confess I thought it doubtful. Then he was gone; but the mind and ear had photographed those vivid first impressions that remain always clear.
It was the following spring that I saw him again—at an afternoon gathering, and the memory of that occasion is chiefly important because I met Mrs. Clemens there for the only time, and like all who met her, however briefly, felt the gentleness and beauty of her spirit. I think I spoke with her at two or three different moments during the afternoon, and on each occasion was impressed with that feeling of acquaintanceship which we immediately experience with those rare beings whose souls are wells of human sympathy and free from guile. Bret Harte had just died, and during the afternoon Mr. Clemens asked me to obtain for him some item concerning the obsequies.
It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number of letters to Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those fine characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished to see the letters, and the permission that followed was kindness itself. His admiration of Nast was very great.
It was proper, under the circumstances, to send him a copy of the book when it appeared; but that was 1904, his year of sorrow and absence, and the matter was postponed. Then came the great night of his seventieth birthday dinner, with an opportunity to thank him in person for the use of the letters. There was only a brief exchange of words, and it was the next day, I think, that I sent him a copy of the book. It did not occur to me that I should hear of it again.
We step back a moment here. Something more than a year earlier, through a misunderstanding, Mark Twain's long association with The Players had been severed. It was a sorrow to him, and a still greater sorrow to the club. There was a movement among what is generally known' as the “Round Table Group”—because its members have long had a habit of lunching at a large, round table in a certain window—to bring him back again. David Munro, associate editor of the North American Review—“David,” a man well loved of men—and Robert Reid, the painter, prepared this simple document:
TOMARK TWAINfromTHE CLANSMENWill ye no come back again?Will ye no come back again?Better lo'ed ye canna be,Will ye no come back again?
It was signed by Munro and by Reid and about thirty others, and it touched Mark Twain deeply. The lines had always moved him. He wrote:
TO ROBT. REID & THE OTHERS—WELL-BELOVED,—Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie'sheart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shallbe glad & proud to come back again after such a moving & beautifulcompliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hopeyou can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate.It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for thisblack border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes theloss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship.It is not necessary for me to thank you—& words could not deliverwhat I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope inthe small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred tome.S. L. C.
So the matter was temporarily held in abeyance until he should return to social life. At the completion of his seventieth year the club had taken action, and Mark Twain had been brought back, not in the regular order of things, but as an honorary life member without dues or duties. There was only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving.
The Players, as a club, does not give dinners. Whatever is done in that way is done by one or more of the members in the private dining-room, where there is a single large table that holds twenty-five, even thirty when expanded to its limit. That room and that table have mingled with much distinguished entertainment, also with history. Henry James made his first after-dinner speech there, for one thing—at least he claimed it was his first, though this is by the way.
A letter came to me which said that those who had signed the plea for the Prince's return were going to welcome him in the private dining-room on the 5th of January. It was not an invitation, but a gracious privilege. I was in New York a day or two in advance of the date, and I think David Munro was the first person I met at The Players. As he greeted me his eyes were eager with something he knew I would wish to hear. He had been delegated to propose the dinner to Mark Twain, and had found him propped up in bed, and noticed on the table near him a copy of the Nast book. I suspect that Munro had led him to speak of it, and that the result had lost nothing filtered through that radiant benevolence of his.
The night of January 5, 1906, remains a memory apart from other dinners. Brander Matthews presided, and Gilder was there, and Frank Millet and Willard Metcalf and Robert Reid, and a score of others; some of them are dead now, David Munro among them. It so happened that my seat was nearly facing the guest of the evening, who, by custom of The Players, is placed at the side and not at the end of the long table. He was no longer frail and thin, as when I had first met him. He had a robust, rested look; his complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the glow of the shaded candles, relieved against the dusk richness of the walls, he made a picture of striking beauty. One could not take his eyes from it, and to one guest at least it stirred the farthest memories. I suddenly saw the interior of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West, where I had first heard uttered the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a group gathered around the evening lamp to hear the tale of the first pilgrimage, which, to a boy of eight, had seemed only a wonderful poem and fairy tale. To Charles Harvey Genung, who sat next to me, I whispered something of this, and how, during the thirty-six years since then, no other human being to me had meant quite what Mark Twain had meant—in literature, in life, in the ineffable thing which means more than either, and which we call “inspiration,” for lack of a truer word. Now here he was, just across the table. It was the fairy tale come true.
Genung said:
“You should write his life.”
His remark seemed a pleasant courtesy, and was put aside as such. When he persisted I attributed it to the general bloom of the occasion, and a little to the wine, maybe, for the dinner was in its sweetest stage just then—that happy, early stage when the first glass of champagne, or the second, has proved its quality. He urged, in support of his idea, the word that Munro had brought concerning the Nast book, but nothing of what he said kindled any spark of hope. I could not but believe that some one with a larger equipment of experience, personal friendship, and abilities had already been selected for the task. By and by the speaking began—delightful, intimate speaking in that restricted circle—and the matter went out of my mind.
When the dinner had ended, and we were drifting about the table in general talk, I found an opportunity to say a word to the guest of the evening about his Joan of Arc, which I had recently re-read. To my happiness, he detained me while he told me the long-ago incident which had led to his interest, not only in the martyred girl, but in all literature. I think we broke up soon after, and descended to the lower rooms. At any rate, I presently found the faithful Charles Genung privately reasserting to me the proposition that I should undertake the biography of Mark Twain. Perhaps it was the brief sympathy established by the name of Joan of Arc, perhaps it was only Genung's insistent purpose—his faith, if I may be permitted the word. Whatever it was, there came an impulse, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest of honor, which prompted me to say:
“May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?”
And something—dating from the primal atom, I suppose—prompted him to answer:
“Yes, come soon.”
This was on Wednesday night, or rather on Thursday morning, for it was past midnight, and a day later I made an appointment with his secretary to call on Saturday.
I can say truly that I set out with no more than the barest hope of success, and wondering if I should have the courage, when I saw him, even to suggest the thought in my mind. I know I did not have the courage to confide in Genung that I had made the appointment—I was so sure it would fail. I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue and was shown into that long library and drawing-room combined, and found a curious and deep interest in the books and ornaments along the shelves as I waited. Then I was summoned, and I remember ascending the stairs, wondering why I had come on so futile an errand, and trying to think of an excuse to offer for having come at all.
He was propped up in bed—in that stately bed-sitting, as was his habit, with his pillows placed at the foot, so that he might have always before him the rich, carved beauty of its headboard. He was delving through a copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which some random correspondent had asked explanation. He was commenting unfavorably on this correspondent and on miscellaneous letter-writing in general. He pushed the cigars toward me, and the talk of these matters ran along and blended into others more or less personal. By and by I told him what so many thousands had told him before: what he had meant to me, recalling the childhood impressions of that large, black-and-gilt-covered book with its wonderful pictures and adventures—the Mediterranean pilgrimage. Very likely it bored him—he had heard it so often—and he was willing enough, I dare say, to let me change the subject and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro had brought. I do not remember what he said then, but I suddenly found myself suggesting that out of his encouragement had grown a hope—though certainly it was something less—that I might some day undertake a book about himself. I expected the chapter to end at this point, and his silence which followed seemed long and ominous.
He said, at last, that at various times through his life he had been preparing some autobiographical matter, but that he had tired of the undertaking, and had put it aside. He added that he had hoped his daughters would one day collect his letters; but that a biography—a detailed story of personality and performance, of success and failure—was of course another matter, and that for such a work no arrangement had been made. He may have added one or two other general remarks; then, turning those piercing agate-blue eyes directly upon me, he said:
“When would you like to begin?”
There was a dresser with a large mirror behind him. I happened to catch my reflection in it, and I vividly recollect saying to it mentally: “This is not true; it is only one of many similar dreams.” But even in a dream one must answer, and I said:
“Whenever you like. I can begin now.”
He was always eager in any new undertaking.
“Very good,” he said. “The sooner, then, the better. Let's begin while we are in the humor. The longer you postpone a thing of this kind the less likely you are ever to get at it.”
This was on Saturday, as I have stated. I mentioned that my family was still in the country, and that it would require a day or two to get established in the city. I asked if Tuesday, January 9th, would be too soon to begin. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired something about my plan of work. Of course I had formed nothing definite, but I said that in similar undertakings a part of the work had been done with a stenographer, who had made the notes while I prompted the subject to recall a procession of incidents and episodes, to be supplemented with every variety of material obtainable—letters and other documentary accumulations. Then he said:
“I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need will be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, and you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. You can have a key and come and go as you please.”
That was always his way. He did nothing by halves; nothing without unquestioning confidence and prodigality. He got up and showed me the lovely luxury of the study, with its treasures of material. I did not believe it true yet. It had all the atmosphere of a dream, and I have no distinct recollection of how I came away. When I returned to The Players and found Charles Harvey Genung there, and told him about it, it is quite certain that he perjured himself when he professed to believe it true and pretended that he was not surprised.