Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  A Little Tale.

  It was told me the other night by one of the guests present at the service of praise given by the Union League Club in adulation of Senator Clark, the fragrant. He said:

  The Reverend Elliot B.X., of the City of XX, is an eager and passionate collector of rare books; by grace of his wife’s wealth, he is able to exploit his passion freely. Several years ago he was traveling through a sparsely settled farming country, and he stopped at a farm-house to rest, or feed, or something. It was a poor little humble place, but the farmer and his wife and their two little children seemed contented and happy. Presently the clergyman’s attention was attracted by a large book which in their play the little children were using as a stool. It seemed to be a family Bible. Mr. X. was troubled to see the Scriptures used in such a way; also, the ancient aspect of the book inflamed his book-collecting lust, and he took up the volume and examined it. An earthquake of sudden joy shook him from dome to cellar—the book was a Shakspeare, first-edition, and in good repair!

  As soon as he was able to compose himself, he asked the farmer where he got the book. The farmer said it had been in the possession of his people in New England no one knew how many years or generations, and that when he removed to the West to find a new home he brought the book along merely because it was a book; one doesn’t throw books away.

  Mr. X. asked him if he would sell it. The farmer said “Yes,” that he would like to trade it for a book or two of some other character—books of a fresher interest than this one.

  Mr. X. said he would take it home, then, and——

  Somebody broke into the conversation at this point and it was not resumed. I went home thinking about the unfinished tale, and in bed I continued to think about it. It was an interesting situation, and I was sorry the interruption had occurred; then, as I was not sleepy, I thought I would finish the tale myself. I knew it would be easy to do, because such tales always move along a certain well defined course and they all fetch up at one and the same goal at the end.

  I must go back for a moment, for I have forgotten a detail. The book had furnished the clergyman not merely one joyful earthquake, but two, for in it he found what was manifestly Shakspeare’s autograph—a prodigious find, there being only two others known to be in existence on the planet! Along with Shakspeare’s name was another name—Ward. Without doubt this name would be a help in tracing the book’s pedigree and in establishing its authenticity.

  As I have said, it would be easy to furnish the tale, so I began to think it out. I thought it out to my satisfaction—as follows:

  My Version.

  Upon his arrival at home, the clergyman examined the latest quotations of the rare-book market and found that perfect copies of first-edition Shakspeares had advanced 5 per cent since the autumn quotations of the previous year, therefore the farmer’s copy was worth $7,300; also, he found that the standing offer of $55,000 for an authentic autograph of Shakspeare had been advanced to $60,000. He returned humble and fervent thanks for the happy fortune which had thrown these treasures in his way, and he resolved to add them to his collection, and thus make that collection illustrious and establish its renown forever; so he sent his check for $67,300 to the farmer, whose astonishment and gratitude were beyond his ability to express in words.

  I was very well satisfied with my version, and not unproud of it; wherefore I was eager to get hold of the rest of the other version and see if I had fallen into any discrepancies. I hunted up the narrator, and he furnished me what I wanted, as follows:

  Conclusion of the First Version.

  The gigantic find proved to be genuine, and worth many thousands of dollars in the market; indeed the value of the autograph was quite beyond estimate in dollars, there being American multimillionaires who would be glad to pay three-fourths of a year’s income for it. The generous clergyman did not forget the poor farmer, but sent him an encyclopedia and eight hundred dollars.

  Caesar’s ghost! I was disappointed, and said so. A discussion followed, in which several of us took part, I maintaining that the clergyman had not been generous to the farmer, but had taken advantage of his ignorance to rob him; the others insisted that the clergyman’s knowledge was a valuable acquisition which had been earned by study and diligence, and that he was entitled to all the profit he could get out of it—that there was no call for him to give away that valuable knowledge to a person who had been interesting himself in potatoes, and corn, and hogs, when he might have been devoting his leisure hours to acquiring the same knowledge which had turned out to be so valuable to the clergyman. I was not persuaded, but still insisted that the transaction was not fair to the farmer, and that he ought to have had half of the value of his book and the autograph anyway. I believed I would have allowed him half, and I said so. I could not be sure of this, but I at least believed it. Privately I knew that in my first burst of emotion, if I had been in the clergyman’s place, I would have given the farmer the entire value; that when the burst of emotion had had time to modify, I would have reduced the farmer’s share by 10 per cent; that when the second burst had had time to cool off a little the farmer’s share would suffer another shrinkage; and if there should be still further extensions of time for cooling off, I thought it more than likely that I should end by sending the farmer the Cyclopedia and stopping there; for this would be the way of the human race, and I am the human race compacted and crammed into a single suit of clothes, but quite able to represent its entire massed multitude in all its moods and inspirations.

  But there are exceptions; I am aware of that; I do not represent those exceptions, but only the massed generality of the race. The late Hammond Trumbull of Hartford was an exception. He was a very great scholar and a very fine human being. If he had used his vast knowledge commercially, he could have made himself rich out of it, but he didn’t; he never made a penny out of it at the expense of some other person’s ignorance; he was always ready to help the poor possessor of any rare and precious thing, out of his store of knowledge, and he did it gladly, and without charge. I remember an instance: twenty years after the war a lady wrote him from the South that among the flotsam and jetsam left unappropriated by the Union soldiers when they destroyed her father’s house in the war time was a copy of the Eliot Indian Bible; that she had been told it was worth a hundred dollars; that she had also been told that Mr. Trumbull would know the book’s value, and would be able to advise her in the matter; that she was poor, and the hundred dollars would be an important sum for her.

  Trumbull replied that if the volume was perfect the British Museum would take it at its standing price, which was a thousand dollars. He asked the lady to send the book to him, which she did. It turned out to be a perfect copy, and he sent her the money, without rebate.

  I recall an instance of the other sort: a poverty-stricken sister, or other female relative of Audubon, possessed a copy, in perfect condition, of Audubon’s great book, and she wished to sell it, for she was very poor. Among collectors it had an established price, which was a thousand dollars, but she did not know that. She offered it to a professor in a university, who did know it, and he gave her a hundred dollars for it; and not only did he play this swindle upon her, but had no more wit and no more heart than to boast about it afterwards.

  Friday, February 1, 1907

  Cowboy’s fine letter to Helen Keller—Mr. Clemens comments upon such literature.

  Last summer I dictated some remarks upon a subject which I find myself unable to describe in a single phrase. I was talking about a letter twenty-seven years old, which had fallen into my hands by accident—a letter written by a western girl who was in deep trouble—a moving letter, a pathetic letter, couched in wrecked and ruined grammar and spelling, but eloquent with the eloquence which comes from the heart, and is always imperial, whether it be clothed in rags or in cloth of gold; also I quoted and discussed a letter a quarter of a century old, written by Captain Ned Wakeman, spelt, punctuated, and constructed as only that extraordinary marine
r could spell, punctuate, and construct—a letter out of his heart, and as rich in the eloquence of sincerity and feeling as was the western girl’s. I also remarked upon a passage in Susy’s Biography of me—a passage from her heart, and sweetly eloquent—and spelt as only Susy could spell.

  In this talk I was trying to show that when the heart speaks it has no use for the conventions; it can rise above them, and the result is literature, and not to be called by any less dignified name. I think I was also proposing to show that sometimes the productions of the unschooled mind get even an added grace and power out of fresh and free and lawless grammar and orthography. If that was my position, I consider it strongly reinforced by a letter which has come to my hands this morning; it was written to Helen Keller something more than three years ago, at the time that she published her history of her life, and it came from a cowboy in the Far West, whose spelling, grammar, and construction do most engagingly set at easy and unembarrassed defiance all the laws that govern those artificialities; but the result is unqualifiedly satisfactory, just the same, and miles and miles above the reach of criticism; it comes out of a sound good heart, and out of a most wise and level head, and is literature—and not commonplace literature, but literature of a high class; the architect of it is a thinker, an observer, a philosopher, and has also a touch of poetry in him: he perceives why Helen is happy, and the reason for it; he has not failed to perceive that Miss Sullivan (Mrs. Macy,) is a wonderful woman, and, in her way, as wonderful as Helen herself. There is an irresistible charm about his simple and natural fashion of employing the technicalities of his trade in his reflections upon Helen and her teacher—those reflections wherein he shrewdly notes a mental kinship between Helen and the blind steer, and wherein he approves of Miss Sullivan’s theory as being right and judicious in the education of a colt—Helen being the colt; likewise a “bronco.” His interest and his sympathy proceed from his heart—that good heart which moved him to teach the little “Gurman” boy and girl “United States.” It will be noticed that some of his words and names get a deliciousness from his fresh and unconventional spellings of them which they never possessed before—for instance, his new rendering of Booker Washington’s patronymic. It is fine to see his great and just admiration of Miss Sullivan and her marvelous work; after he has signed his letter he still has to come back to it in a postscript. And it is pleasant to see that he is his natural and incomparable self to the last, and doesn’t have to go away from home to find a telling figure whereby to express his thought. It is long since I have seen so delightful a letter as his; it is literature, high literature, and not to be successfully imitated by any art taught in the schools or known to the trained journeyman of the trade; it ranks away up side by side with Susy’s Biography and Captain Ned Wakeman’s letter. Read it.

  Nov. 29 1903.

  16 Miles By. Elko, Nev.

  Miss Helen Keller

  Dear Friend

  I sent to Dubleday and Page, New York, for your book, and have just finished reading it. As I am batching and the Evenings drag I thought I rite you and tell you how very interesting your book is. I enjoyed reding it. And Miss Sulivan Letters are just fine. You seemd to be as Happy as all the rest of the Girls, you ought to be becose you cant see the Cloudy days. Reding your Book puts me in mind of a large Drove of Cattle I hurded one Sumer, there was a Blind 2 year Old Steer in the bunch and he seemed to do as well as the rest. he would go through the gates and timber and over Ruff places and would get lost from the rest. Iff the Wind was in the South he would feed on the North Side. and Vice Versey. he was always out to one side and near the middle of the bunch. Iff he wanted to Get on the other side he would drop behind never go in Front. I used to watch him and wonder how he always new when I was close. But what we lack somebody else makes up, for instant a Eastern Man comes West and they call him a Tender Foot. And when a Western Man goes East they call him a Yap. I see in the Kansas City Star that the President of Harvard Coladge says when a Western Man goes East he ought to take a good Wash. He for gets that the Watter here is used up for Eregation.

  Some day in the future I expect you will rite another Book on your Life, Unless you get a Man. iff you do it will take your hole Life to Train him. Don’t you think it would be very interesting to your Readers to have a sketch on Miss Sullivan Life or rather on her Gurlhud days in your book you speak of her being nearly Blind. Id like to Reed of her parrents, I think she has don more for Education and the People than Miss Francis Wilard. She is a grand Woman and you ought to Sing her prases all of your Life.

  I think your little Black plamate Marthy Washington iff she had such a Woman as Miss Sulivan for a Teacher and Gardian her chance would of bin good to have bin a second Bucker Washington. I see in the paper that when that Duke told King Edward he was ingadged to Miss May Golet the King sed he was glad of it. He sed Ingland neded her money.

  Our country needs more Wimmen like your Teacher. She give up her prospects it seems of a home and famly to be a Teacher, and as a Teacher for the Blind she is surly next the top of the Lader. And she has kept you Climing Climing. Her theory of teaching Children is all rite I think I was Teaching a little Gurman Boy and Girl United States in S. Dakota and after reding Miss Sulivan letter I can see now that they lurned Inglish faster runing around the place with me than in School I broke Horses all my life and I think Miss Sulivan theory is all rite in a Colt let them lurn by Experence.

  I think when she went to Alabama and took charge of that little Bronco it proved it

  B. B. Page

  P.S.

  When Lue Dilen beet the World record at Memphis, Tenn, They didn forget to Name her Driver.

  Monday, February 4, 1907

  Reminiscences of Bret Harte, brought to mind by recent happenings: his unsuccessful attempt to correct proof of an obituary; the meeting with the rough miner on the steamboat, who congratulates him upon having written “The Luck of Roaring Camp”—Bret Harte a bad man, and an incorrigible borrower.

  In these days things are happening which bring Bret Harte to my mind again; they rake up memories of him which carry me back thirty and forty years. He had a curious adventure once, when he was a young chap new to the Pacific coast and floating around seeking bread and butter. He told me some of his experiences of that early day. For a while he taught a school in the lively gold-mining camp of Yreka, and at the same time he added a trifle to his income by editing the little weekly local journal for the pair of journeymen typesetters who owned it. His duties as editor required him to read proof. Once a galley-slip was laid before him which consisted of one of those old-time obituaries which were so dismally popular all over the United States when we were still a soft-hearted and sentimental people. There was half a column of the obituary, and it was built upon the regulation plan; that is to say, it was made up of superlatives—superlatives wherewith the writer tried to praise Mrs. Thompson, the deceased, to the summit of her merit, the result being a flowery, overheated, and most extravagant eulogy, and closing with that remark which was never missing from the regulation obituary: “Our loss is her eternal gain.” In the proof Harte found this observation: “Even in Yreka her chastity was conspicuous.” Of course that word was a misprint for charity, but Harte didn’t think of that; he knew a printer’s mistake had been made, and he also knew that a reference to the manuscript would determine what it was; therefore he followed proof-reader custom, and with his pen indicated in the usual way that the manuscript must be examined. It was a simple matter, and took only a moment of his time; he drew a black line under the word chastity, and in the margin he placed a question-mark enclosed in parentheses. It was a brief way of saying “There is something the matter with this word; examine the manuscript and make the necessary correction.” But there is another proof-reader law which he overlooked. That law says that when a word is not emphatic enough you must draw a line under it, and this will require the printer to reinforce it by putting it in italics. When Harte took up the paper in the morning and looked at t
hat obituary he took only one glance; then he levied on a mule that was not being watched and cantered out of town, knowing well that in a very little while there was going to be a visit from the widower, with his gun. In the obituary the derelict observation now stood in this form: “Even in Yreka her chastity was conspicuous (?)”—a form which turned the thing into a ghastly and ill-timed sarcasm!

  I am reminded, in a wide roundabout way, of another of Harte’s adventures, by a remark in a letter lately received from Tom Fitch, whom Joe Goodman crippled in the duel—for Tom Fitch is still alive, although inhabiting Arizona. After wandering for years and years all about the planet, Fitch has gone back to his early loves, the sand, the sage-brush, and the jackass rabbit; and these things, and the old-time ways of the natives, have refreshed his spirit and restored to him his lost youth. Those friendly people slap him on the shoulder and call him—well, never mind what they call him; it might offend your ears, but it does Fitch’s heart good. He knows its deep meanings; he recognizes the affection that is back of it, and so it is music to his spirit, and he is grateful. When “The Luck of Roaring Camp” burst upon the world Harte became instantly famous; his name and his praises were upon every lip. One day he had occasion to go to Sacramento. When he went ashore there he forgot to secure a berth for the return trip. When he came down to the landing, in the late afternoon, he realized that he had made a calamitous blunder: apparently all Sacramento was proposing to go down to San Francisco; there was a queue of men which stretched from the purser’s office down the gangplank, across the levee, and up the street out of sight. Harte had one hope: inasmuch as in theatres, operas, steamboats, and steamships, half a dozen choice places are always reserved to be conferred upon belated clients of distinction, perhaps his name might procure for him one of those reserved places, if he could smuggle his card to the purser; so he edged his way along the queue and at last stood shoulder to shoulder with a vast and rugged miner from the mountains, who had his revolvers in his belt, whose great slouch hat overshadowed the whiskered face of a buccaneer, and whose raiment was splashed with clay from his chin down to his boot-tops. The queue was drifting slowly by the purser’s wicket, and each member of it was hearing, in his turn, the fatal words: “No berths left; not even floor space.” The purser was just saying it to the truculent big miner when Harte passed his card in. The purser exclaimed—passing a key—