Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  Nine years after I printed that sketch we were sojourning in London, and I went down into the city late on a Fourth of July night to attend a Fourth of July dinner, of Americans and Englishmen, and make a speech. It was so late when I arrived that half the guests had already departed, and only about two hundred remained. Choate was presiding, and was making a speech introductory of a British admiral. All of the row of chairs to his left, which had been occupied by distinguished guests, were vacant save one. I was passing along behind that row, intending to choose one of those seats, when I was accosted by that isolated celebrity, who put out his hand and said, smiling pleasantly and cordially,

  “Oh sit down here by me, Mr. Clemens. I’ve been wanting to know you a long time. I am Lord Wolseley.”

  It caught me unprepared, and scared me so that I went white—so white that the rays from my face made the electric lights look yellow; but I sat down, and presently grew composed, and we had a most pleasant and friendly good time together; and if he had ever heard of that sketch of mine he did not manifest it in any way, and at twelve, midnight, I took my scalp home intact.

  Friday, December 28, 1906

  From Susy’s Biography: some of the stories Mr. Clemens used to tell; tribute to Mr. Clemens from Andrew Lang; Mr. Clemens’s speech for Booth dinner; the game of pegs for remembering dates; Mr. Clemens is found laughing over his own book—He comments upon this; also upon the mystery of style—Impossible for an author to conceal his own peculiar style—The coincidence of Dr. Holmes reading of death of relative, remarking that his name was incorrect because Dr. Holmes’s father, who baptized him, had lost the slip of paper on which name was written, and the finding of the slip by Dr. Holmes immediately afterwards—The coincidence of the Bessie Stone letter and the coming upon “Mary” in “Huck Finn” immediately after.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  The stories of prevailing interest which Papa tells us is “Jim and the strainin rag” and “Whoop says I.” “Jim and the strainin rag” is simply a discription of a little scene way out west; but he tells it in such a funny way, that it is captivating.

  “Jim and the strainin Rag”

  * * *

  “Aunt Sal!—Aunt Sal! Jim’s gone got the new strainin rag roun his sore schin. a.s. you Jim, take that ar strainin rag off you sore schin, an renc it out, I allers did dispise nastiness.”

  “Whoop Says She.”

  Good morning Mrs. O’Callahan. What is it yer got in yer basket? Fish says she. They stinc says I. You lie, says she. Ter Hell says I. Whoop! says she—(and then the ingagement was on.)

  Susy meant well, but in this monologue (which is from one of Charles Reade’s books, I think), she has made some important omissions—among them the point of the thing. But it’s no matter. The late Mr. Bunce used to recite it in the billiard room occasionally, to relieve his feelings when the game was going against him. There was a good deal of it, and he placed the scene of it in a magistrate’s court, where the speaker was explaining to the judge how a row originated, and how no one was in fault but the badly battered Bridget O’Callahan, who was of a quarrelsome disposition and ever ready to take umbrage at the least little thing. Mr. Bunce threw prodigious energy and fire into the recitation, and his acting appealed to Susy’s histrionic predilections. Mr. Bunce’s “whoo-oop!” was the gem of the performance, and no one could do it as he did it.

  The “Strainin’ Rag” was a reminiscence of my boyhood-life among the slaves, and it is probable that one of its attractions for the children was, that the reciting of it was not permissible on the premises. The forbidden has always had value, for both the young and the old. Susy’s way of spelling shin seems to me to lift that lowly word above the commonplace.

  We all played a game of croquet yesterday evening, and aunt Clara and I beat papa and Clara, to our perfect satisfaction.

  By Andrew Lang.

  Mark Twain has reached his fiftieth birthday, and has been warmly congratulated on his “Jubilee” by most of the wits of his native land. As the Ettrick Shepherd said to Wordsworth, when first they met “I’m glad you’r so young a man” so one might observe to Mark, and wish he were still younger. But his genious is still young, and perhaps never showed so well, with such strength and variety, such varacity and humor, as in his latest book “Huckleberry Finn.” Persons of extreemly fine culture may have no taste for Mark, when he gets among pictures and holy places, Mark is all himself, and the most powerful and diverting writer I think of his American contemporaries. Here followeth, rather late, but heartily well meant, a tribute to Mark on his Jubilee:

  For Mark Twain

  * * *

  To brave Mark Twain, across the sea, The years have brought his jubilee. One hears it, half in pain, That fifty years have passed and gone, Since danced the merry star that shone Above the babe Mark Twain.

  How many, and many a weary day, When sad enough were we, Mark’s way, (Unlike the Laureates Marks) Has made us laugh until we cried And, sinking back exhausted, sighed Like Gargery Wot larks!

  We turn his pages and we see The Mississippi flowing free; We turn again and grin Oer all Tom Sayer did and planned With him of the ensanguined hand, With Huckleberry Finn!

  Spirit of Mirth, whose chime of bells, Shakes on his cap, and sweetly swells Across the Atlantic main, Grant that Mark’s laughter never die, That men through many a century May chucle oer Mark Twain!

  Susy was properly and justly proud of Andrew Lang’s affectionate hand-shake from over the ocean, and her manuscript shows that she copied his words with grateful and painstaking care, yet in spite of her loyal intentions she has raised his spelling to the sunny altitudes of her own, those fair heights where the free airs blow. But no harm is done; if she had asked of him the privilege she would have had it. Even to that quaint ennobling of the word chuckle, in the last line.

  For Booth Dinner.

  (This speech was given to Susy, and never used or printed, for the Long Clam had bedridden me. M.T.)

  Although I am debarred from making a speech, by circumstances which I will presently explain, I yet claim the privilege of adding my voice to yours in deep and sincere welcome and homage to Edwin Booth; of adding my admiration of his long and illustrious career and blemishless character; and thereto my gratification in the consciousness that his great sun is not yet westering, but stands in full glory in the zenith.

  I wish to ask your attention to a statement, in writing. It is not safe or wise to trust a serious matter to off-hand speech—especially when you are trying to explain a thing. Now, to make a clean breast, and expose the whole trouble right at the start, I have been entertaining a stranger; I have been at it two days and two nights, and am worn, and jaded, and in fact defeated. He may be known to some of you. He is classified in natural history as the Long Clam, and in my opinion is the most disastrous fish that swims the sea. If you don’t know him personally, let him alone; take him at hearsay, and meddle no further. He is a bivalve. When in his ulster, he is shaped like a weaver’s shuttle, but there the resemblance ends: the weaver’s shuttle travels, but the Long Clam abides; and you can digest a weaver’s shuttle, if you wait, and pray. It is your idea, of course, to entertain yourself with the Long Clam, so you lay him on a bed of coals; he opens his mouth like a carpet-sack and smiles; this looks like mutual regard, and you think you are friends, but it is not so; that smile means, “It is your innings now—I’ll see you later.” You swallow the Long Clam—and history begins. It begins, but it begins so remotely, so clandestinely that you don’t know it. You have several hours which you can’t tell from repose. Then you go to bed. You close your eyes and think you are gliding off to sleep. It is at this point that the Long Clam rises up and goes to the bat. The window rattles; the Long Clam calls your attention to it. You whirl out of bed and wedge the sash—the wrong sash. You get nearly to sleep; the sash rattles again. The Long Clam reminds you. You whirl out and pound in some more wedges. You plunge into bed with emphasis; a sort of bogus unconsciousness beg
ins to dull your brain; then some water begins to drip somewhere. Every drop that falls, hurts. You think you will try Mind Cure on that drip and so neutralize its effects. This causes the Long Clam to smile. You chafe and fret for fifteen minutes, then you earthquake yourself out of bed and explore for that drip with a breaking heart, and language to match. But you never find it. When you go to bed this time, you understand that your faculties are all up for the night, there is business on hand, and you have got to superintend. The procession begins to move. All the crimes you have ever committed, and which you supposed you had forgotten, file past—and every one of them carries a banner. The Long Clam is on hand to comment. All the dead and buried indignities you have ever suffered, follow; they bite like fangs, they burn like fire. The Long Clam is getting in his work, now. He has dug your conscience out and occupied the old stand; and you will find that for real business, one Long Clam is worth thirty consciences. The rest of that night is slow torture at the stake. There are lurid instants at intervals, occupied by dreams; dreams that stay only half a second, but they seem to expose the whole universe, and disembowel it before your eyes; other dreams that sweep away the solar system and leave the shoreless void occupied from one end to the other by just you and the Long Clam. Now you know what it is to sit up with a Long Clam. Now you know what it is to try to entertain a Long Clam. Now you know what it is to keep a Long Clam amused; to try to keep a Long Clam from feeling lonesome; to try to make a Long Clam satisfied and happy. As for me, I would rather go on an orgy with anybody in the world than a Long Clam; I would rather never have any fun at all than try to get it out of a Long Clam. A Long Clam doesn’t know when to stop. After you’ve had all the fun you want the Long Clam is just getting fairly started. In my opinion there is too much company about a Long Clam. A Long Clam is more sociable than necessary. I’ve got this one along yet. It’s two days, now, and this is the third night, as far as I’ve got. In all that time I haven’t had a wink of sleep that didn’t have an earthquake in it, or a cyclone, or an instantaneous photograph of Sheol. And so all that is left of me is a dissolving rag or two of former humanity and a fading memory of happier days; the rest is Long Clam. That is the explanation. That is why I don’t make a speech. I am perfectly willing to make speeches for myself, but I am not going to make speeches for any Long Clam that ever fluttered. Not after the way I’ve been treated. Not that I don’t respect the Long Clam, for I do. I consider the Long Clam by long odds the capablest creature that swims the salt sea; I consider the Long Clam the Depew of the watery world, just as I consider Depew the Long Clam of the great world of intellect and oratory. If any of you find life uneventful, lacking variety, not picturesque enough for you, go into partnership with a Long Clam.

  Biography Continued.

  Mr. W. D. Howells, and his daughter Pilla have been here, to visit us, and we have enjoyed them very much. They arived Saturday at half past two and staid till Sunday night. Sunday night at supper papa and Mr. Howells began to talk about the Jews. Mr. Howells said that in “Silas Lapham” he wrote a sentence about a Jew, that was perfectly true, and he meant no harm to the Jews in saying it, it was true, and he saw no reason why it should not be recognized as fact. But after the story came out in the Century, two or three Jews wrote him, saying in a very plaintive and meek way, that they wished he wouldn’t say that about them, he said that after he received these letters his consious pricked him very much for having said what he did.

  At last one of these Jews wrote him asking him to take that sentence out of the story when it came out in book form; Mr. Howells said he thought the Jews were a persecuted race, and a race already down. So he decided to take out the sentence, when the story appeared in book form.

  Papa said that a Mr. Wood an equantance of his, new a rich Jew who read papa’s books a great deal. One day this Jew said that papa was the only great humorist who had ever written without poking some fun against a Jew and that as the Jews were such a good subject for fun and funny ridicule, he had often wondered why in all his stories, not one said or had anything in it against the Jews. And he asked Mr. Wood the next time he saw papa to ask him how this happened.

  Mr. Wood soon did see papa, and spoke to him upon this subject. Papa at first did not know himself why it was that he had never spoken unkindly of the Jews in any of his books, but after thinking awhile he decided that the Jews had always seemed to him a race much to be respected; also they had suffered much, and had been greatly persecuted; so to ridicul or make fun of them, seemed to be like attacking a man that was already down, and of course that fact took away whatever there was funny in the ridicule of a Jew.

  He said it seemed to him, the Jews ought to be respected very much, for two things perticularly, one was that they never begged, that one never saw a Jew begging, another was that they always took care of their poor, that although one never heard of a Jewish orphans home, there must be such things, for the poor Jews seemed always well taken care of.

  He said that once the ladies of a orphans home wrote him asking if he would come to Chicago* and lecture for the benefit of the orphans. So papa went, and read for their benefit. He said that they were the most forlorn looking little wretches ever seen. The ladies said they had done everything possible, but could not raise enough money, and they said that what they realy most needed was a bath tub. So they said that as their last resource they decided to write to him asking him to lecture for them, to see if in that way they could not raise a little money.

  And they said what was most humiliating about their lack of means was that right next door, there was a Jewish Orphans home which had everything that was needed to make it comfortable. They said that this home was also a work of charity, but that they never knew of its begging for anything of any one outside a Jew. They said no one (hardly) knew that it was Jewish home, exept they who lived right next door to it, and that very few knew there was such a building in the city.

  Stonington.—

  May 3, 1886.

  Mr. Samuel L. Clemens.

  My dear Sir,

  When I remember how my dear father Dr. Todd of Pittsfield, Mass. was almost driven to dispair by the silly

  Susy probably lost the rest of the letter. The rest of her page is blank.

  The following letter—evidently from Virginia—has no date and no signature.

  Soon after the war, a dear friend in Baltimore sent me a copy of Mark Twain’s “Inocents Abroad,” it was the first copy, that reached the valley, possibly the first in Virginia.

  All of our household read it, I lent it to our friends, and at length nearly every body in the village had read it.

  The book was so much enjoyed by people who were sick or sad, that it came to be considered a remedy for all cases where it could be taken, and we sent it about to people who as the prayer book says were troubled in mind, body or “estate,” a discription which seemed to most Virginians in those sad and weary days. After I came to Lynchburgh the book, was sent out on its travells again, and was litterally worn out in the service. It was long past being sewed or glued, when it started on its last journey; but many of the fragments were still readable, and I tied them together again, and sent it to a nice young colored girl, to give to her sick Mother to read.

  I have long hoped some good Yankee, would be inspired to send me a new copy. Several of Mark Twain’s books I should like much to have for my library. And I think they would do a great deal of good. At one time a lady lived near me, whose daily life was so exeptionally severe and wearing, that only a woman remarkably strong in mind and body, could have stood the strain. I once lent her a copy of “Roughing It,” which had been loaned to me, with permission to use it a while in my library. For a long time I could not enduce my careburdened friend to return the book, though I begged earnestly for it. She said that volume was her chief resource, and comfort, when worn out with her arduous duties, and she could not do without it. A Minister to whom I chanced to repeat this remark, meaning to show the value of the book, said griml
y “she had better read her bible!” I could not agree with him, as I knew my friend did not neglect her religious duties, and made the bible her rule of conduct, and thought she did well, to turn to Mark Twain for diversion.

  May 6, ’86.

  Papa has contrived a new way for us to remember dates. We are to bring to breakfast every morning a date, without fail, and now they are to be dates from English historie. At the farm two summers ago he drove pegs into the ground all around the place representing each king’s reign following each other according. Then we used to play games running between these different pegs till finally we knew when each king or queen reigned and in refference to the kings preceeding them.

  Among the principal merits of the games which we played by help of the pegs were these—that they had to be played in the open air, and that they compelled brisk exercise. The pegs were driven in the sod along the curves of the road that wound through the grounds and up the hill toward my study. They were white, and were two and a half feet high. Each peg represented an English monarch and the date of his accession. The space between pegs was measured off with a tape-line, and each foot of it covered a year of a reign. William the Conqueror’s peg stood in front of the house; twenty-one feet away stood the peg of William Rufus; thirteen feet from that one stood the first Henry’s peg; thirty-five feet beyond it stood Stephen’s peg—and so on. One could stand near the Conqueror and have all English history skeletonized and land-marked and mile-posted under his eye. To the left, around a curve, the reigns were visible down to Runnymede; then, at the beginning of a straight piece of road stood the peg of Henry III , followed by an impressive stretch of vacancy, with the peg of the first Edward at the end of it. Then the road turned to the right and came up to the end of the reign of the fifth Henry; then it turned to the left and made a long flight up the hill, and ended—without a peg—near the first corner of my study. Victoria’s reign was not finished, yet; many years were to elapse before the peg of her successor would be required.