The writings of Mark Twain

OF THE

UNIVERSITY
OF

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

MARK TWAIN

NEW YORK

GABRIEL WELLS

MCMXXIII

THB $30,000 BEQUEST
Copyright 1872, 1874, 1902, 1904, 1905, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS

Copyright, 1880, 1884, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co.
Copyright, 1902, by THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHING Co.

Copyright, 1903, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

Copyright, 1917, by MARK TWAIN COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

Urftntttuf Edition

THE WRITINGS OF
MARK TWAIN

VOLUME XXIV

CONTENTS

»— v * ^

PAGE

INTRODUCTION BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE ix

THE $30,000 BEQUEST i

A DOG'S TALE 48

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL? 65

- A CURE FOR THE BLUES 99

v THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT . . . 123

THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE 184

A HELPLESS SITUATION 196

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION 204

EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE .... 209

THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE 218

THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES 224

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER 229

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR 243

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY 254

How TO TELL A STORY 263

GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT .... 271

WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE "TWO-YEAR-OLDS" 276

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE 281

A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY .... 291

AMENDED OBITUARIES 292

A MONUMENT TO ADAM 296

A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN 299

v INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION

IN PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH" 301

ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS 305

POST-MORTEM POETRY 307

THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED 315

PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III 320

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD? 325

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY 342

EVE'S DIARY 357

ILLUSTRATIONS

MARK TWAIN ON His SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY . . . Frontispiece

"He HADN'T A CENT; THS TOWN HAD TO BURY HIM" Facing p.44

"POOR LITTLE DOGGIE, You Saved His CHILD" . . "62

WRITING His DIARY " 342

INTRODUCTION

HPHE contents of this volume of Mark Twain's
J[ collected writings must, as a whole, have been
satisfactory to their author. Mark Twain's idea in
any collection was to maintain a consistent, a lack of
orderly relation. The mind should be entertained,
he declared, very much as it would conduct itself if
left alone; that is to say, in an eccentric fashion,
flitting to this thing and that, apparently without
rhyme or reason. Once in his publishing days Clem
ens engaged William Dean Howells to prepare a
" Library of Humor," and when Howells had selected
the matter and arranged it in proper sequence and
relation Clemens went through it, pulled it all to
pieces, and made a jumble of it, saying that, as the
volume was intended primarily for entertainment,
its natural order would be a complete disorder,
affording, as he believed, an added enjoyment to the
reader. When in 1906 the demand for another Mark
Twain volume became pressing, this natural order
of selection would seem to have been a necessity.
There was plenty of good material — some of the
very best, indeed — but it was of widely varying
character and period.

Some of it dated a good ways back. "Edward
Mills and George Benton," for instance, was con
tributed to the Atlantic Monthly in 1880. The intro
duction to the New Guide of the Conversation in

ix

INTRODUCTION

Portuguese and English was written about two years
later, when James R. Osgood wished to issue a new
American edition of that quaintly absurd little
textbook.

Perhaps the most important feature of this volume
is the third in order, "Was it Heaven? or Hell?"
and this story has its history, too. The Clemens
family spent the summer of 1902 at York Harbor,
Maine, in a place called "The Pines." Ho wells was
a short distance away, at Kittery Point, and a fre
quent visitor. One afternoon, sitting on the veranda
of The Pines, he told Mark Twain a pathetic epi
sode in the lines of some former occupants of
that house — the tale of a double illness, where a
righteous deception was carried on for several weeks
for the benefit of a life that was about to slip away.
Clemens was deeply impressed, and presently began
building a story on this foundation. Mrs. Clemens's
health failed that summer, and for a time it was
feared that she would not be able to be moved to
their winter home, then at Riverdale, New York.
The journey was made, but for many months
her condition was critical. When the story "Was
it Heaven? or Hell?" appeared in Harper's Magazine
(Christmas, 1902) almost the exact conditions
prevailed in the Clemens's household that Mark
Twain had pictured in his story. There was still
another coincidence, for a letter came from a man
who had recently faced a similar situation in his
own family, and his daughter (who had died) had
even borne the same name — Helen.

But the story attracted attention for other

INTRODUCTION

reasons. Next to ' ' Hadleyburg " it is probably
Mark Twain's greatest fictional sermon. It presents
in another form the folly of self-righteousness, and
in its heartbreaking sorrow searches out the very
depths of the human soul. A flood of grateful letters
came to its author. An Englishman wrote, "I want
to thank you for writing so pathetic and so perfectly
true a story." Another said, "I learned to love those
maiden liars — love and weep over them — then put
them beside Dante's Beatrice, in Paradise."

A number of the features in this volume were
written during that sad period of Mrs. Clemens's
final illness. The family prepared to go to Florence,
Italy, in 1903, and spent several weeks — the last
they would spend there — at Quarry Farm, Elmira,
their summer home for so many happy years. Here
he wrote that pathetic protest against vivisection:
A Dog's Tale. Much of Mark Twain's important
work, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn,
had been done at Quarry Farm, but this little
story completed his labors in that lovely place.
They sailed for Italy in October, and established
themselves at Villa Quarto, just outside of Florence.
Here he wrote "Italian Without a Master," and
"Italian With Grammar," two articles quite in his
old vein of humor. The $30,000 Bequest was also
written during the months in Florence, and reflects
something of the pessimism and depression which
grew like a shadow over the household as they saw
the invalid fade away. She died early in June,
and was brought to America for burial. It was a
crushing blow. No one had ever been more depen-

xi

INTRODUCTION

dent on a wife than Mark Twain, and their years
together had been ideal. Ho wells says:

"Marriages are what the parties to them alone
really know them to be, but from the outside I
should say that this marriage was one of the most
perfect."

So it was natural enough, when Mark Twain turned
to writing again, that he should visualize their lost
happiness as Eden, and should produce that beautiful
idyllic fancy, Eve's Diary, which in the widest and
most reverential sense, from the first word to the
last, conveys his love, his worship, and his tenderness
for the one he had laid away. There is tenderness,
there is sweetness and affection in its every line,
even more in its humor than elsewhere. But it
is Adam's single comment at the end, "Wherever
she was, there was Eden," that holds the full tale
of Mark Twain's love and sorrow, and is perhaps
the most beautiful line he ever wrote.

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE.

xii

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

CHAPTER I

T AKESIDE was a pleasant little town of five or
JL/ six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty
one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church
accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is
the way of the Far West and the South, where every
body is religious, and where each of the Protestant
sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank
was unknown in Lakeside — unconfessed, anyway;
everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a
sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.
Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal
store, and the only high-salaried man of his profession
in Lakeside. He was thirty-five years old, now; he
had served that store for fourteen years; he had
begun in his marriage- week at four hundred dollars
a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dol
lars a year, for four years; from that time forth his
wage had remained eight hundred — a handsome
figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was
worth it.

His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although

MARK TWAIN

—like himself — a dreamer of dreams and a private
dabbler in romance. The first thing she did, after
her marriage — child as she was, aged only nineteen —
was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the
town, and pay down the cash for it — twenty-five
dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen.
She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed
on shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay
her a hundred per cent, a year. Out of Saladin's first
year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank,
sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a
hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went
to eight hundred a year, then, and meantime two
children had arrived and increased the expenses, but
she banked two hundred a year from the salary,
nevertheless, thenceforth. When she had been mar
ried seven years she built and furnished a pretty and
comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst
of her garden-acre, paid half of the money down and
moved her family in. Seven years later she was
out of debt and had several hundred dollars out
earning its living.

Earning it by the rise in landed estate ; for she had
long ago bought another acre or two and sold the
most of it at a profit to pleasant people who were
willing to build, and would be good neighbors and
furnish a general comradeship for herself and her
growing family. She had an independent income
from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a
year; her children were growing in years and grace;
and she was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in
her husband, happy in her children, and the husband

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

and the children were happy in her. It is at this
point that this history begins.

The youngest girl, Clytemnestra — called Clytie for
short — was eleven; her sister, Gwendolen — called
Gwen for short — was thirteen; nice girls, and comely.
The names betray the latent romance-tinge in the
parental blood, the parents* names indicate that the
tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate
family, hence all four of its members had pet names.
Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one — Sally; and
so was Electra's — Aleck. All day long Sally was a
good and diligent book-keeper and salesman; all day
long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and
housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business
woman; but in the cozy living-room at night they
put the plodding world away, and lived in another
and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dream
ing dreams, comrading with kings and princes and
stately lords and ladies in the flash and stir and
splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient
castles.

CHAPTER II

NOW came great news! Stunning news — joyous
news, in fact. It came from a neighboring
state, where the family's only surviving relative
lived. It was Sally's relative — a sort of vague and
indefinite uncle or second or third cousin by the
name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor,
reputed well off and correspondingly sour and crusty.
Sally had tried to make up to him once, by letter,
in a bygone time, and had not made that mistake
again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should
shortly die, and should leave him thirty thousand
dollars, cash; not for love, but because money had
given him most of his troubles and exasperations,
and he wished to place it where there was good hope
that it would continue its malignant work. The
bequest would be found in his will, and would be
paid over. Provided, that Sally should be able to
prove to the executors that he had taken no notice
of the gift by spoken word or by letter, had made no
inquiries concerning the moribund 's progress toward
the everlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral.
As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the
tremendous emotions created by the letter, she sent
to the relative's habitat and subscribed for the local
paper.

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now,
to never mention the great news to any one while the
relative lived, lest some ignorant person carry the
fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it
appear that they were disobediently thankful for
the bequest, and just the same as confessing it and
publishing it, right in the face of the prohibition.

For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and con
fusion with his books, and Aleck could not keep her
mind on her affairs, nor even take up a flower-pot or
book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she
had intended to do with it. For both were dreaming.

"Thir-ty thousand dollars!"

All day long the music of jthose inspiring words sang
through those people's heads.

From his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had
been upon the purse, and Sally had seldom known
what it was to be privileged to squander a dime on
non-necessities.

"Thir-ty thousand dollars!" the song went on and
on. A vast sum, an unthinkable sum!

All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how
to invest it, Sally in planning how to spend it.

There was no romance-reading that night. The
children took themselves away early, for the parents
were silent, distraught, and strangely unentertaining.
The good-night kisses might as well have been im
pressed upon vacancy, for all the response they got;
the parents were not aware of the kisses, and the
children had been gone an hour before their absence
was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that
hour — note-making; in the way of plans. It was

5

MARK TWAIN

Sally who broke the stillness at last. He said, with
exultation :

"Ah, it '11 be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thou
sand we'll have a horse and a buggy for summer, and
a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter."

Aleck responded with decision and composure —

"Out of the capital? Nothing of the kind. Not
if it was a million!"

Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out
of his face.

"Oh, Aleck!" he said, reproachfully. "We've al
ways worked so hard and been so scrimped ; and now
that we are rich, it does seem—

He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his
supplication had touched her. She said, with gentle
persuasiveness :

"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would
not be wise. Out of the income from it — "

"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How
dear and good you are ! There will be a noble income,
and if we can spend that — "

"Not all of it, dear, not all of it, but you can
spend a part of it. That is, a reasonable part. But
the whole of the capital — every penny of it — must
be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the
reasonableness of that, don't you?"

"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to
wait so long. Six months before the first interest
falls due."

"Yes — maybe longer."

"Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-
yearly?"

6

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

"That kind of an investment — yes; but I sha'n't
invest in that way."

"What way, then?"

"For big returns."

"Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?"

"Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put
in ten thousand. Ground floor. When we organize,
we'll get three shares for one."

"By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the
shares will be worth — how much? And when?"

"About a year. They'll pay ten per cent, half-
yearly, and be worth thirty thousand. I know all
about it; the advertisement is in the Cincinnati
paper here."

"Land, thirty thousand for ten — in a year! Let's
jam in the whole capital and pull out ninety! I'll
write and subscribe right now — to-morrow it may
be too late.

He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck
stopped him and put him back in his chair. She said :

"Don't lose your head so. We mustn't subscribe
till we've got the money; don't you know that?"

Sally's excitement went down a degree or two,
but he was not wholly appeased.

"Why, Aleck, we'll have it, you know — and so soon,
too. He's probably out of his troubles before this;
it's a hundred to nothing he's selecting his brimstone-
shovel this very minute. Now, I think — "

Aleck shuddered, and said:

"How can you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it
is perfectly scandalous."

"Oh well, make it a halo, if you like, I don't care

7

MARK TWAIN

for his outfit, I was only just talking. Can't you let
a person talk?'*

' ' But why should you want to talk in that dreadful
way? How would you like to have people talk so
about you, and you not cold yet?"

"Not likely to be, for one while, I reckon, if my
last act was giving away money for the sake of doing
somebody a harm with it. But never mind about
Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly.
It does seem to me that that mine is the place for
the whole thirty. What's the objection?"

"All the eggs in one basket — that's the objection."

"All right, if you say so. What about the other
twenty? What do you mean to do with that?"

"There is no hurry; I am going to look around
before I do anything with it."

"All right, if your mind's made up," sighed Sally.
He was deep in thought awhile, then he said:

"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from
the ten a year from now. We can spend that, can't
we, Aleck?"

Aleck shook her head.

"No, dear," she said, "it won't sell high till we've
had the first semi-annual dividend. You can spend
part of that."

"Shucks, only that — and a whole year to wait!
Confound it, I—"

"Oh, do be patient ! It might even be declared in
three months — it's quite within the possibilities."

"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!" and Sally jumped up and
kissed his wife in gratitude. * ' It '11 be three thousand
—three whole thousand! how much of it can we

8

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

spend, Aleck? Make it liberal — do, dear, that's a
good fellow."

Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to
the pressure and conceded a sum which her judg
ment told her was a foolish extravagance — a thousand
dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even
in that way could not express all his joy and thank
fulness. This new access of gratitude and affection
carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of prudence,
and before she could restrain herself she had made
her darling another grant — a couple of thousand out
of the fifty or sixty which she meant to clear within
a year out of the twenty which still remained of the
bequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes,
and he said :

"Oh, I want to hug you!" And he did it. Then
he got his notes and sat down and began to check off,
for first purchase, the luxuries which he should
earliest wish to secure. "Horse — buggy — cutter—
lap-robe — patent-leathers — dog — plug-hat — church-
pew — stem- winder — new teeth — say, Aleck!"

"Well?"

"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have
you got the twenty thousand invested yet?"

"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look
around first, and think."

"But you are ciphering; what's it about?"

"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand
that comes out of the coal, haven't I?"

"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that.
How are you getting along? Where have you ar
rived?"

MARK TWAIN

"Not very far — two years or three. I've turned it
over twice; once in oil and once in wheat."

"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggrev
gate?"

"I think — well, to be on the safe side, about a hun
dred and eighty thousand clear, though it will
probably be more."

"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has
come our way at last, after all the hard sledding.
Aleck!"

"Well?"

"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the
missionaries — what real right have we to care for
expenses!"

"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's
just like your generous nature, you unselfish boy."

The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he
was fair and just enough to say it was rightfully due
to Aleck rather than to himself, since but for her he
should never have had the money.

Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of
bliss they forgot and left the candle burning in the
parlor. They did not remember until they were un
dressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said
they could afford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck
went down and put it out.

A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a
scheme that would turn the hundred and eighty
thousand into half a million before it had had time
to get cold.

10

CHAPTER III

THE little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed
for was a Thursday sheet; it would make the
trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's village and
arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on
Friday, more than a day too late for the benefactor
to die and get into that week's issue, but in plenty
of time to make connection for the next output.
Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete
week to find out whether anything of a satisfactory
nature had happened to him or not. It was a long,
long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The
pair could hardly have borne it if their minds had
not had the relief of wholesome diversion. We have
seen that they had that. The woman was piling up
fortunes right along, the man was spending them —
spending all his wife would give him a chance at, at
any rate.

At last the Saturday came, and the Weekly Saga
more arrived. Mrs. Eversly Bennett was present.
She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, and was
working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died
a sudden death — on the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett
presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing
a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and
indignant, and went away. The moment she was

ii

MARK TWAIN

out of the house, Aleck eagerly tore the wrapper
from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept the
columns for the death - notices. Disappointment!
Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned. Aleck was a
Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force
of habit required her to go through the motions.
She pulled herself together and said, with a pious
two-per-cent. trade joyousness:

"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been
spared; and—

' ' Damn his treacherous hide, I wish—

"Sally! For shame!"

' * I don't care !" retorted the angry man. ' ' It's the
way you feel, and if you weren't so immorally pious
you'd be honest and say so."

Aleck said, with wounded dignity:

"I do not see how you can say such unkind and
unjust things. There is no such thing as immoral
piety.'1

Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a
shuffling attempt to save his case by changing the
form of it — as if changing the form while retaining
the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to
placate. He said:

"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't
really mean immoral piety, I only meant — meant —
well, conventional piety, you know; er — shop piety;
the — the — why, you know what I mean. Aleck — the
—well, where you put up the plated article and play
it for solid, you know, without intending anything
improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient policy,
petrified custom, loyalty to — to — hang it, I can't

12

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

find the right words, but you know what I mean,
Aleck, and that there isn't any harm in it. I'll try
again. You see, it's this way. If a person — "

"You have said quite enough," said Aleck, coldly;
let the subject be dropped."

"I'm willing," fervently responded Sally, wiping
the sweat from his forehead and looking the thank
fulness he had no words for. Then, musingly, he
apologized to himself. "I certainly held threes —
I know it — but I drew and didn't fill. That's where
I'm so often weak in the game. If I had stood
pat — but I didn't. I never do. I don't know
enough."

Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now
and subdued. Aleck forgave him with her eyes.

The grand interest, the supreme interest, came
instantly to the front again; nothing could keep it
in the background many minutes on a stretch. The
couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's
death-notice. They discussed it every which way,
more or less hopefully, but they had to finish where
they began, and concede that the only really sane
explanation of the absence of the notice must be —
and without doubt was — that Tilbury was not dead.
There was something sad about it, something even a
little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and had to be
put up with. They were agreed as to that. To
Sally it seemed a strangely inscrutable dispensation;
more inscrutable than usual, he thought; one of the
most unnecessarily inscrutable he could call to mind,
in fact — and said so, with some feeling; but if he was
hoping to draw Aleck he failed; she reserved her

13

MARK TWAIN

opinion, if she had one; she had not the habit of
taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or
other.

The pair must wait for next week's paper — Tilbury
had evidently postponed. That was their thought
and their decision. So they put the subject away,
and went about their affairs again with as good heart
as they could.

Now, if they had but known it, they had been
wronging Tilbury all the time. Tilbury had kept
faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he had died
to schedule. He was dead more than four days now
and used to it; entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead
as any other new person in the cemetery; dead in
abundant time to get into that week's Sagamore, too,
and only shut out by an accident; an accident which
could not happen to a metropolitan journal, but
which happens easily to a poor little village rag like
the Sagamore. On this occasion, just as the editorial
page was being locked up, a gratis quart of straw
berry water-ice arrived from Hostetter's Ladies'
and Gents' Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful of
rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got
crowded out to make room for the editor's frantic
gratitude.

On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice
got pied. Otherwise it would have gone into some
future edition, for Weekly Sagamores do not waste
"live" matter, and in their galleys "live" matter is
immortal, unless a pi accident intervenes. But a
thing that gets pied is dead, and for such there is no

14

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone, for
ever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let
him rave in his grave to his fill, no matter — no
mention of his death would ever see the light in the
Weekly Sagamore.

15

CHAPTER IV

FIVE weeks drifted tediously along. The Saga
more arrived regularly on the Saturdays, but
never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster.
Sally's patience broke down at this point, and he
said, resentfully:

"Damn his livers, he's immortal!"

Aleck gave him a very severe rebuke, and added,
with icy solemnity:

' ' How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off
just after such an awful remark had escaped out of
you?"

Without sufficient reflection Sally responded:

"I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it
in me."

Pride had forced him to say something, and as he
could not think of any rational thing to say he flung
that out. Then he stole a base — as he called it —
that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from
getting brayed in his wife's discussion-mortar.

Six months came and went. The Sagamore was
still silent about Tilbury. Meantime, Sally had sev
eral times thrown out a feeler — that is, a hint that
he would like to know. Aleck had ignored the hints.
Sally now resolved to brace up and risk a frontal
attack. So he squarely proposed to disguise himself

16

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

and go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find
out as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the
dangerous project with energy and decision. She
said:

"What can you be thinking of? You do keep my
hands full! You have to be watched all the time,
like a litfle child, to keep you from walking into the
fire. You'll stay right where you are!"

"Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out —
I'm certain of it."

"Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to
inquire around?"

"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would sus
pect who I was."

"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to
prove to the executors that you never inquired.
What then?"

He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply;
there wasn't anything to say. Aleck added:

"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind,
and don't ever meddle with it again. Tilbury set
that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap ? He
is on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder
into it. Well, he is going to be disappointed — at
least while I am on deck. Sally!"

"Well?"

"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't
you ever make an inquiry. Promise!"

"All right," with a sigh and reluctantly.

Then Aleck softened and said:

"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we
can wait ; there is no hurry. Our small dead-certain

17

MARK TWAIN

income increases all the time; and as to futures, I
have not made a mistake yet — they are piling up by
the thousands and the tens of thousands. There is
not another family in the state with such prospects
as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in event
ual wealth. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so."
"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us,
and stop worrying. You do not believe we could
have achieved these prodigious results without His
special help and guidance, do you?"

Hesitatingly, "N-no, I suppose not." Then, with
feeling and admiration, "And yet, when it comes to
judiciousness in watering a stock or putting up a
hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that you
need any outside amateur help, if I do wish I — "

"Oh, do shut up! I know you do not mean any
harm or any irreverence, poor boy, but you can't
seem to open your mouth without letting out things
to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant
dread. For you and for all of us. Once I had no
fear of the thunder, but now when I hear it I—
Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could
not finish. The sight of this smote Sally to the heart,
and he took her in his arms and petted her and com
forted her and promised better conduct, and up
braided himself and remorsefully pleaded for for
giveness. And he was in earnest, and sorry for what
he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could
make up for it.

And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply
over the matter, resolving to do what should seem

18

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

best. It was easy to promise reform; indeed he had
already promised it. But would that do any real
good, any permanent good? No, it would be but
temporary — ke knew his weakness, and confessed it
to himself with sorrow — he could not keep the prom
ise. Something surer and better must be devised;
and he devised it. At cost of precious money which
he had long been saving up, shilling by shilling, he
put a lightning-rod on the house.

At a subsequent time he relapsed.

What miracles habit can do ! and how quickly and
how easily habits are acquired — both trifling habits
and habits which profoundly change us. If by acci
dent we wake at two in the morning a couple of
nights in succession, we have need to be uneasy, for
another repetition can turn the accident into a habit ;
and a month's dallying with whisky — but we all
know these commonplace facts.

The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit
— how it grows ! what a luxury it becomes ; how we
fly to its enchantments at every idle moment, how
we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate
ourselves with their beguiling fantasies — oh yes, and
how soon and how easily our dream life and our
material life become so intermingled and so fused
together that we can't quite tell which is which, any
more.

By and by Aleck subscribed for a Chicago daily
and for the Wall Street Pointer. With an eye single
to finance she studied these as diligently all the
week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was
lost in admiration, to note with what swift and sure

19

MARK TWAIN

strides her genius and judgment developed and ex
panded in the forecasting and handling of the securi
ties of both the material and spiritual markets. He
was proud of her nerve and daring in exploiting
worldly stocks, and just as proud of her conservative
caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted
that she never lost her head in either case ; that with
a splendid courage she often went short on worldly
futures, but needfully drew the line there — she was
always long on the others. Her policy was quite
sane and simple, as she explained it to him : what she
put into earthly futures was for speculation, what she
put into spiritual futures was for investment; she
was willing to go into the one on a margin, and take
chances, but in the case of the other, "margin her
no margins ' ' — she wanted to cash in a hundred cents
per dollar's worth, and have the stock transferred on
the books.

It took but a very few months to educate Aleck's
imagination and Sally's. Each day's training added
something to the spread and effectiveness of the
two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made im
aginary money much faster than at first she had
dreamed of making it, and Sally's competency in
spending the overflow of it kept pace with the strain
put upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck
had given the coal speculation a twelvemonth in
which to materialize, and had been loath to grant
that this term might possibly be shortened by nine
months. But that was the feeble work, the nursery
work, of a financial fancy that had had no teaching,
no experience, no practice. These aids soon came,

20

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary
ten-thousand-dollar investment came marching home
with three hundred per cent, profit on its back!

It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They
were speechless for joy. Also speechless for another
reason: after much watching of the market, Aleck
had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first
flyer on a "margin," using the remaining twenty
thousand of the bequest in this risk. In her mind's
eye she had seen it climb, point by point — always
with a chance that the market would break — until
at last her anxieties were too great for further en
durance — she being new to the margin business and
unhardened, as yet — and she gave her imaginary
broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph
to sell. She said forty thousand dollars' profit was
enough. The sale was made on the very day that
the coal venture had returned with its rich freight.
As I have said, the couple were speechless. They sat
dazed and blissful that night, trying to realize the
immense fact, the overwhelming fact, that they were
actually worth a hundred thousand dollars in clean,
imaginary cash. Yet so it was.

It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of
a margin; at least afraid enough to let it break her
sleep and pale her cheek to the extent that this first
experience in that line had done.

Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the
realization that they were rich sank securely home
into the souls of the pair, then they began to place
the money. If we could have looked out through
the eyes of these dreamers, we should have seen

21

MARK TWAIN

their tidy little wooden house disappear, and a two-
story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it take
its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-
chandelier grow down from the parlor ceiling; we
should have seen the homely rag carpet turn to
noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should
have seen the plebeian fireplace vanish away and a
recherche, big base-burner with isinglass windows
take position and spread awe around. And we
should have seen other things, too; among them the
buggy, the lap-robe, the stove-pipe hat, and so on.

From that time forth, although the daughters and
the neighbors saw only the same old wooden house
there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck and Sally;
and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry
about the imaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort
Sally's reckless retort : ' ' What of it ? We can afford it."

Before the couple went to bed, that first night that
they were rich, they had decided that they must
celebrate. They must give a party — that was the
idea. But how to explain it — to the daughters and
the neighbors? They could not expose the fact that
they were rich. Sally was willing, even anxious, to
do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow
it. She said that although the money was as good
as in, it would be as well to wait until it was actually
in. On that policy she took her stand, and would
not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said
—kept from the daughters and everybody else.

The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they
were determined to celebrate, but since the secret
must be kept, what could they celebrate? No birth-

22

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

days were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't
available, evidently he was going to live forever;
what the nation could they celebrate? That was
Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting impa
tient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it — just
by sheer inspiration, as it seemed to him — and all
their troubles were gone in a moment; they would
celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid
idea!

Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words —
she said she never would have thought of it. But/
Sally, although he was bursting with delight in the
compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to
let on, and said it wasn't really anything, anybody
could have done it. Whereat Aleck, with a prideful
toss of her happy head, said :

"Oh, certainly! Anybody could — oh, anybody!
Hosannah Dilkins, for instance ! Or maybe Adelbert
Peanut — oh, dear — yes! Well, I'd like to see them
try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think
of the discovery of a forty-acre island it's more than
7 believe they could; and as for a whole continent,
why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly well it would
strain the livers and lights out of them and then they
couldn't!"

The dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if
affection made her over-estimate the size of it a little,
surely it was a sweet and gentle crime, and forgive-
able for its source's sake.

CHAPTER V

THE celebration went off well. The friends were
all present, both the young and the old. Among
the young were Flossie and Grade Peanut and their
brother Adelbert, who was a rising young journeyman
tinner, also Hosannah Dilkins, Jr., journeyman plas
terer, just out of his apprenticeship. For many
months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing
interest in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and
the parents of the girls had noticed this with private
satisfaction. But they suddenly realized now that
that feeling had passed. They recognized that the
changed financial conditions had raised up a social
bar between their daughters and the young mechan
ics. The daughters could now look higher — and
must. Yes, must. They need marry nothing below
the grade of lawyer or merchant ; poppa and momma
would take care of this; there must be no mesalli
ances.

However, these thinkings and projects of theirs
were private, and did not show on the surface, and
therefore threw no shadow upon the celebration.
What showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty
contentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of
deportment which compelled the admiration and
likewise the wonder of the company. All noticed it,

24

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

all commented upon it, but none was able to divine
the secret of it. It was a marvel and a mystery.
Three several persons remarked, without suspecting
what clever shots they were making:

"It's as if they'd come into property."

That was just it, indeed.

Most mothers would have taken hold of the matri
monial matter in the old regulation way ; they would
have given the girls a talking to, of a solemn sort and
untactful — a lecture calculated to defeat its own pur
pose, by producing tears and secret rebellion; and
the said mothers would have further damaged the
business by requesting the young mechanics to dis
continue their attentions. But this mother was dif
ferent. She was practical. She said nothing to any
of the young people concerned, nor to any one else
except Sally. He listened to her and understood;
understood and admired. He said :

' ' I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the
samples on view, thus hurting feelings and obstruct
ing trade without occasion, you merely offer a higher
class of goods for the money, and leave nature to take
her course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and
sound as a nut. Who's your fish? Have you nomi
nated him yet?"

No, she hadn't. They must look the market over
— which they did. To start with, they considered
and discussed Bradish, rising young lawyer, and Ful
ton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to
dinner. But not right away ; there was no hurry, Aleck
said. Keep an eye on the pair, and wait; nothing
would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.

25

MARK TWAIN

It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside
of three weeks Aleck made a wonderful strike which
swelled her imaginary hundred thousand to four hun
dred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally
were in the clouds that evening. For the first time
they introduced champagne at dinner. Not real
champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of
imagination expended on it. It was Sally that did
it, and Aleck weakly submitted. At bottom both
were troubled and ashamed, for he was a high-up Son
of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which
no dog could look upon and retain his reason and his
opinion; and she was a W. C. T. U., with all that that
implies of boiler-iron virtue and unendurable holiness.
But there it was; the pride of riches was beginning
its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove,
once more, a sad truth which had been proven many
times before in the world : that whereas principle is
a great and noble protection against showy and de
grading vanities and vices, poverty is worth six of it.
More than four hundred thousand dollars to the good !
They took up the matrimonial matter again. Neither
the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned ; there was
no occasion, they were out of the running. Disquali
fied. They discussed the son of the pork-packer and
the son of the village banker. But finally, as in the
previous case, they concluded to wait and think, and
go cautiously and sure.

Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful,
saw a great and risky chance, and took a daring flyer.
A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful uneasiness
followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and

26

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

nothing short of it. Then came the result, and Aleck,
faint with joy, could hardly control her voice when
she said:

"The suspense is over, Sally — and we are worth a
cold million!"

Sally wept for gratitude, and said :

"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart,
we are free at last, we roll in wealth, we need never
scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve Cliquot!" and
he got out a pint of spruce-beer and made sacrifice,
he saying "Damn the expense," and she rebuking
him gently with reproachful but humid and happy
eyes.

They shelved the pork-packer's son and the bank
er's son, and sat down to consider the Governor's son
and the son of the Congressman.

27

CHAPTER VI

IT were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and
bounds the Foster fictitious finances took from this
time forth. It was marvelous, it was dizzying, it
was dazzling. Everything Aleck touched turned to
fairy gold, and heaped itself glittering toward the
firmament. Millions upon millions poured in, and
still the mighty stream flowed thundering along, still
its vast volume increased. Five millions — ten mil
lions — twenty — thirty — was there never to be an
end?

Two years swept by in a splendid delirium, the
intoxicated Fosters scarcely noticing the flight of
time. They were now worth three hundred million
dollars; they were in every board of directors of
every prodigious combine in the country; and still,
as time drifted along, the millions went on piling up,
five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as they could
tally them off, almost. The three hundred doubled
itself — then doubled again — and yet again — and yet
once more.

Twenty-four hundred millions!

The business was getting a little confused. It was
necessary to take an account of stock, and straighten
it out. The Fosters knew it, they felt it, they realized
that it was imperative ; but they also knew that to do

28

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

it properly and perfectly the task must be carried to
a finish without a break when once it was begun. A
ten-hours' job ; and where could they find ten leisure
hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and sugar
and calico all day and every day ; Aleck was cooking
and washing dishes and sweeping and making beds
all day and every day, with none to help, for the
daughters were being saved up for high society. The
Fosters knew there was one way to get the ten hours,
and only one. Both were ashamed to name it ; each
waited for the other to do it. Finally Sally said :

"Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Con
sider that I've named it — never mind pronouncing it
out aloud."

Aleck colored, but was grateful. Without further
remark, they fell. Fell, and — broke the Sabbath.
For that was their only free ten-hour stretch. It was
but another step in the downward path. Others
would follow. Vast wealth has temptations which
fatally and surely undermine the moral structure of
persons not habituated to its possession.

They pulled down the shades and broke the Sab-«
bath. With hard and pateient labor they overhauled
their holdings and listed them. And a long-drawn
procession of formidable names it was! Starting
with the Railway Systems, Steamer Lines, Standard
Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph, and all the
rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tam
many Graft, and Shady Privileges in the Post-office
Department.

Twenty-four hundred millions, and all safely plant
ed in Good Things, gilt-edged and interest-bearing.

29

MARK TWAIN

Income, $120,000,000 a year. Aleck fetched a long
purr of soft delight, and said :

"Is it enough?"

"It is, Aleck."

"What shall we do?"

"Stand pat."

"Retire from business?"

"That's it."

* ' I am agreed. The good work is finished ; we will
take a long rest and enjoy the money."

"Good! Aleck!"

"Yes, dear?"

"How much of the income can we spend?"

"The whole of it."

It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell
from his limbs. He did not say a word; he was
happy beyond the power of speech.

After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along,
as fast as they turned up. It is the first wrong steps
that count. Every Sunday they put in the whole
day, after morning service, on inventions — inventions
of ways to spend the money. They got to continu
ing this delicious dissipation until past midnight;
and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon
great charities and religious enterprises, and Sally
lavished like sums upon matters to which (at first)
he gave definite names. Only at first. Later the
names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and
eventually faded into "sundries," thus becoming
entirely — but safely — undescriptive. For Sally was
crumbling. The placing of these millions added
seriously and most uncomfortably to the family

30

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

expenses — in tallow candles. For a while Aleck was
worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry,
for the occasion of it was gone. She was pained,
she was grieved, she was ashamed; but she said
nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was
taking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever
thus. Vast wealth, to the person unaccustomed to
it, is a bane; it eats into the flesh and bone of his
morals. When the Fosters were poor, they could
have been trusted with untold candles. But now
they — but let us not dwell upon it. From candles to
apples is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then
soap; then maple-sugar; then canned goods; then
crockery. How easy it is to go from bad to worse,
when once we have started upon a downward course!
Meantime, other effects had been milestoning the
course of the Fosters' splendid financial march. The
fictitious brick dwelling had given place to an imagi
nary granite one with a checker-board mansard roof;
in time this one disappeared and gave place to a still
grander home — and so on and so on. Mansion after
mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader, finer,
and each in its turn vanished away; until now in
these latter great days, our dreamers were in fancy
housed, in a distant region, in a sumptuous vast
palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon
a noble prospect of vale and river and receding hills
steeped in tinted mists — and all private, all the prop
erty of the dreamers ; a palace swarming with liveried
servants, and populous with guests of fame and
power, hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign
and domestic.

MARK TWAIN

This palace was far, far away toward the rising
sun, immeasurably remote, astronomically remote,
in Newport, Rhode Island, Holy Land of High So
ciety, ineffable Domain of the American Aristocracy.
As a rule they spent a part of every Sabbath — after
morning service — in this sumptuous home, the rest
of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling around in
their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding
fact life at home on the ragged edge of Lakeside and
straitened means, the seventh in Fairlyand — such
had become their program and their habit.

In their sternly restricted fact life they remained
as of old — plodding, diligent, careful, practical,
economical. They stuck loyally to the little Presby
terian Church, and labored faithfully in its interests
and stood by its high and tough doctrines with all
their mental and spiritual energies. But in their
dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fan
cies, whatever they might be, and howsoever the
fancies might change. Aleck's fancies were not very
capricious, and not frequent, but Sally's scattered a
good deal. Aleck, in her dream life, went over to
the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official
titles; next she became High-church on account of
the candles and shows; and next she naturally
changed to Rome, where there were cardinals and
more candles. But these excursions were a nothing
to Sally's. His dream life was a glowing and con
tinuous and persistent excitement, and he kept every
part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent changes,
the religious part along with the rest. He worked
his religions hard, and changed them with his shirt.

32

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

The liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their
fancies began early in their prosperities, and grew in
prodigality step by step with their advancing for
tunes. In time they became truly enormous. Aleck
built a university or two per Sunday; also a hospital
or two; also a Rowton hotel or so; also a batch of
churches; now and then a cathedral; and once, with
untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, "It
was a cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of mis
sionaries to persuade unreflecting Chinamen to trade
off twenty-four carat Confucianism for counterfeit
Christianity."

This rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to
the heart, and she went from the presence crying.
That spectacle went to his own heart, and in his
pain and shame he would have given worlds to
have those unkind words back. She had uttered no
syllable of reproach — and that cut him. Not one
suggestion that he look at his own record — and she
could have made, oh, so many, and such blistering
ones ! Her generous silence brought a swift revenge,
for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned
before him a spectral procession, a moving vision of
his life as he had been leading it these past few years
of limitless prosperity, and as he sat there reviewing
it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in
humiliation. Look at her life — how fair it was, and
tending ever upward; and look at his own — how
frivolous, how charged with mean vanities, how
selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend —
never upward, but downward, ever downward!

He instituted comparisons between her record and

33

MARK TWAIN

his own. He had found fault with her — so he mused
— he! And what could he say for himself? When
she built her first church what was he doing? Gath
ering other blas6 multimillionaires into a Poker
Club; defiling his own palace with it; losing hun
dreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily
vain of the admiring notoriety it made for him.
When she was building her first university, what was
he doing? Polluting himself with a gay and dissi
pated secret life in the company of other fast bloods,
multimillionaires in money and paupers in character.
When she was building her first foundling asylum,
what was he doing? Alas! When she wras projecting
her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex, what
was he doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and
the W. C. T. U. and the Woman with the Hatchet,
moving with resistless march, were sweeping the
fatal bottle from the land, what was he doing?
Getting drunk three times a day. When she, builder
of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully wel
comed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with
the Golden Rose which she had so honorably earned,
what was he doing? Breaking the bank at Monte
Carlo.

He stopped. He could go no farther; he could not
bear the rest. He rose up, with a great resolution
upon his lips : this secret life should be revealed, and
confessed; no longer would he live it clandestinely;
he would go and tell her All.

And that is what he did. He told her All; and
wept upon her bosom; wept, and moaned, and
begged for her forgiveness. It was a profound

34

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

shock, and she staggered under tne blow, but he was
her own, the core of her heart, the blessing of her
eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing, and
she forgave him. She felt that he could never again
be quite to her what he had been before; she knew
that he could only repent, and not reform; yet all
morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not
her own, her very own, the idol of her deathless
worship? She said she was his serf, his slave, and
she opened her yearning heart and took him in.

35

CHAPTER VII

ONE Sunday afternoon some time after this they
were sailing the summer seas in their dream
yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning
of the after-deck. There was silence, for each was
busy with his own thoughts. These seasons of silence
had insensibly been growing more and more frequent
of late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning.
Sally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck
had tried hard to drive the memory of it out of her
mind, but it would not go, and the shame and bit
terness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life.
She could see now (on Sundays) that her husband was
becoming a bloated and repulsive Thing. She could
not close her eyes to this, and in these days she no
longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could
help it.

But she — was she herself without blemish? Alas,
she knew she was not. She was keeping a secret
from him, she was acting dishonorably toward him,
and many a pang it was costing her. She was 'break
ing the compact, and concealing it from him. Under
strong temptation she had gone into business again;
she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of
all the railway systems and coal and steel companies
in the country on a margin, and she was now trem-

36

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

bling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some chance
word of hers he find it out. In her misery and
remorse for this treachery she could not keep her
heart from going out to him in pity; she was filled
with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and
content, and never suspecting. Never suspecting —
trusting her with a perfect and pathetic trust, and
she holding over him by a thread a possible calamity
of so devastating a —

"Say— Aleck?"

The interrupting words brought her suddenly to
herself. She was grateful to have that persecuting
subject from her thoughts, and she answered, with
much of the old-time tenderness in her tone:

"Yes, dear."

"Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a
mistake — that is, you are. I mean about the mar
riage business." He sat up, fat and froggy and
benevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew earnest.
"Consider — it's more than five years. You've con
tinued the same policy from the start: with every
rise, always holding on for five points higher. Al
ways when I think we are going to have some wed
dings, you see a bigger thing ahead, and I undergo
another disappointment. I think you are too hard
to please. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned
down the dentist and the lawyer. That was all right
— it was sound. Next, we turned down the banker's
son and the pork-butcher's heir — right again, and
sound. Next, we turned down the Congressman's
son and the Governor's — right as a trivet, I confess it.
Next the Senator's son and the son of the Vice-

37

MARK TWAIN

President of the United States — perfectly right,
there's no permanency about those little distinctions.
Then you went for the aristocracy; and I thought
we had struck oil at last — yes. We would make a
plunge at the Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient
lineage, venerable, holy, ineffable, mellow with the
antiquity of a hundred and fifty years, disinfected
of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts all of a
century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since;
and then! why, then the marriages, of course. But
no, along comes a pair of real aristocrats from
Europe, and straightway you throw over the half-
breeds. It was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since
then, what a procession! You turned down the
baronets for a pair of barons; you turned down the
barons for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts for a
pair of earls; the earls for a pair of marquises; the
marquises for a brace of dukes. Now, Aleck, cash
in! — you've played the limit. You've got a job lot
of four dukes under the hammer; of four nationali
ties; all sound in wind and limb and pedigree, all
bankrupt and in debt up to the ears. They come
high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't de
lay any longer, don't keep up the suspense : take the
whole lay-out, and leave the girls to choose!"

Aleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly
all through this arraignment of her marriage policy;
a pleasant light, as of triumph with perhaps a nice
surprise peeping out through it, rose in her eyes, and
she said, as calmly as she could :

"Sally, what would you say to — royalty?"
Prodigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and

38

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

he fell over the garboard-strake and barked his shin
on the cat-heads. He was dizzy for a moment, then
he gathered himself up and limped over and sat
down by his wife and beamed his old-time admira
tion and affection upon her in floods, out of his
bleary eyes.

"By George!" he said, fervently, "Aleck, you are
great — the greatest woman in the whole earth! I
can't ever learn the whole size of you. I can't ever
learn the immeasurable deeps of you. Here I've
been considering myself qualified to criticize your
game. I! Why, if I had stopped to think, I'd have
known you had a lone hand up your sleeve. Now,
dear heart, I'm all red-hot impatience — tell me about
it!"

The flattered and happy woman put her lips to
his ear and whispered a princely name. It made
him catch his breath, it lit his face with exultation.

"Land!" he said, "it's a stunning catch! He's
got a gambling-hell, and a graveyard, and a bishop,
and a cathedral — all his very own. And all gilt-
edged five-hundred-per-cent. stock, every detail of
it; the tidiest little property in Europe. And that
graveyard — it's the selectest in the world: none but
suicides admitted; yes, sir, and the free-list suspended,
too, all the time. There isn't much land in the
principality, but there's enough : eight hundred acres
in the graveyard and forty-two outside. It's a
sovereignty — that's the main thing; land's nothing.
There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it."

Aleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She
said:

39

MARK TWAIN

''Think of it, Sally — it is a family that has never
married outside the Royal and Imperial Houses of
Europe: our grandchildren will sit upon thrones!"

"True as you live, Aleck — and bear scepters, too;
and handle them as naturally and nonchantly as
I handle a yardstick. It's a grand catch, Aleck.
He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You didn't
take him on a margin?"

"No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability,
he's an asset. So is the other one."

"Who is it, Aleck?"

"His Royal Highness Sigismund-Siegfried-Lauen-
feld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst, Heredi
tary Grand Duke of Katzenyammer."

"No! You can't mean it!"

"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my
word," she answered.

His cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart
with rapture, saying:

"How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful!
It's one of the oldest and noblest of the three hun
dred and sixty-four ancient German principalities,
and one of the few that was allowed to retain its
royal estate when Bismarck got done trimming them.
I know that farm, I've been there. It's got a rope-
walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing
army. Infantry and cavalry. Three soldiers and a
horse. Aleck, it's been a long wait, and full of
heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I am
happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my own,
who have done it all. When is it to be?"

"Next Sunday."

40

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

"Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up
in the very regalest style that's going. It's properly
due to the royal quality of the parties of the first
part. Now as I understand it, there is only one
kind of marriage that is sacred to royalty, exclusive
to royalty: it's the morganatic."

1 'What do they call it that for, Sally?"

"I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal
only."

"Then we will insist upon it. More — I will com
pel it. It is morganatic marriage or none."

"That settles it!" said Sally, rubbing his hands
with delight. "And it will be the very first in
America. Aleck, it will make Newport sick."

Then they fell silent, and drifted away upon their
dream wings to the far regions of the earth to invite
all the crowned heads and their families and provide
gratis transportation for them.

41

CHAPTER VIII

DURING three days the couple walked upon air,
with their heads in the clouds. They were but
vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw all
things dimly, as through a veil ; they were steeped in
dreams, often they did not hear when they were
spoken to ; they often did not understand when they
heard; they answered confusedly or at random;
Sally sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard,
and furnished soap when asked for candles, and
Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the
soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed,
and went about muttering, " What can be the matter
with the Fosters?"

Three days. Then came events! Things had
taken a happy turn, and for forty-eight hours Aleck's
imaginary corner had been booming. Up — up — still
up! Cost point was passed. Still up — and up—
and up! Five points above cost — then ten — fifteen
—twenty! Twenty points cold profit on the vast
venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were
shouting frantically by imaginary long - distance,
"Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake sell!"

She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too,
said, "Sell! sell — oh, don't make a blunder, now,
you own the earth! — sell, sell!" But she set her

42

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

iron will and lashed it amidships, and said she would
hold on for five points more if she died for it.

It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came
the historic crash, the record crash, the devastating
crash, when the bottom fell out of Wall Street, and
the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-
five pints in five hours, and the multimillionaire
was seen begging his bread in the Bowery. Aleck
sternly held her grip and "put up" as long as she
could, but at last there came a call which she was
powerless to meet, and her imaginary brokers sold
her out. Then, and not till then, the man in her
was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway.
She put her arms about her husband's neck and
wept, saying:

"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear
it. We are paupers! Paupers, and I am so miser
able. The weddings will never come off; all that is
past; we could not even buy the dentist, now."

A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue : "I begged
you to sell, but you — " He did not say it; he had
not the heart to add a hurt to that broken and re
pentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him and
he said:

"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really
never invested a penny of my uncle's bequest, but
only its unmaterialized future; what we have lost
was only the increment harvested from that future
by your incomparable financial judgment and sagac
ity. Cheer up, banish these griefs; we still have the
thirty thousand untouched; and with the experience
which you have acquired, think what you will be

43

MARK TWAIN

able to do with it in a couple of years! The mar
riages are not off, they are only postponed."

These were blessed words. Aleck saw how true
they were, and their influence was electric ; her tears
ceased to flow, and her great spirit rose to its full
stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart,
and with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she
said:

"Now and here I proclaim — "

But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the
editor and proprietor of the Sagamore. He had hap
pened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon an ob
scure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of
her pilgrimage, and with the idea of combining busi
ness with grief he had looked up the Fosters, who
had been so absorbed in other things for the past
four years that they had neglected to pay up their
subscription. Six dollars due. No visitor could
have been more welcome. He would know all about
Uncle Tilbury and what his chances might be getting
to be, cemeterywards. They could, of course, ask
no questions, for that would squelch the bequest,
but they could nibble around on the edge of the sub
ject and hope for results. The scheme did not work.
The obtuse editor did not know he was being nibbled
at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had
failed in. In illustration of something under discus
sion which required the help of metaphor, the editor
said:

' * Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster ! — as we say. ' '

It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump.
The editor noticed it, and said, apologetically:

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

"No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a
saying; just a joke, you know — nothing in it. Re
lation of yours?"

Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and an
swered with all the indifference he could assume :

"I — well, not that I know of, but we've heard of
him." The editor was thankful, and resumed his
composure. Sally added: "Is he — is he — well?"

"Is he well? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these
five years!"

The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it
felt like joy. Sally said, non-committally — and
tentatively :

"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape — not
even the rich are spared."

The editor laughed.

"If you are including Tilbury," said he, "it don't
apply. He hadn't a cent; the town had to bury
him."

The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes ; petrified
and cold. Then, white-faced and weak- voiced, Sally
asked :

" Is it true ? Do you know it to be true ?"

"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors.
He hadn't anything to leave but a wheelbarrow, and
he left that to me. It hadn't any wheel, and wasn't
any good. Still, it was something, and so, to square
up, I scribbled off a sort of a little obituarial send-off
for him, but it got crowded out."

The Fosters were not listening — their cup was full,
it could contain no more. They sat with bowed
heads, dead to all things but the ache at their hearts.

45

MARK TWAIN

An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, mo
tionless, silent, the visitor long ago gone, they un
aware.

Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily,
and gazed at each other wistfully, dreamily, dazed;
then presently began to twaddle to each other in a
wandering and childish way. At intervals they
lapsed into silences, leaving a sentence unfinished,
seemingly either unaware of it or losing their way.
Sometimes, when they woke out of these silences
they had a dim and transient consciousness that
something had happened to their minds; then with
a dumb and yearning solicitude they would softly
caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and
support, as if they would say : "I am near you, I will
not forsake you, we will bear it together; somewhere
there is release and forge tfulness, somewhere there is
a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long."

They lived yet two years, in mental night, always
brooding, steeped in vague regrets and melancholy
dreams, never speaking; then release came to both
on the same day.

Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's
ruined mind for a moment, and he said:

"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwhole
some means, is a snare. It did us no good, transient
were its feverish pleasures ; yet for its sake we threw
away our sweet and simple and happy life — let others
take warning by us."

He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the
chill of death crept upward toward his heart, and
consciousness was fading from his brain, he muttered:

46

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

" Money had brought him misery, and he took his
revenge upon us, who had done him no harm. He
had his desire: with base and cunning calculation he
left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try
to increase it, and ruin our life and break our hearts.
Without added expense he could have left us far
above desire of increase, far above the temptation to
speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it ; but
in him was no generous spirit, no pity, no — "

47

A DOG'S TALE

CHAPTER I

MY father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a
collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what
my mother told me; I do not know these nice dis
tinctions myself. To me they are only fine large
words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness
for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs
look surprised and envious, as wondering how she
got so much education. But, indeed, it was not real
education; it was only show: she got the words by
listening in the dining-room and drawing-room when
there was company, and by going with the children
to Sunday-school and listening there; and whenever
she heard a large word she said it over to herself
many times, and so was able to keep it until there
was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then
she would get it off, and surprise and distress them
all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her
for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was
nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got his
breath again he would ask her what it meant. And
she always told him. He was never expecting this,
but thought he would catch her; so when she told

48

A DOG'S TALE

him, he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas
he had thought it was going to be she. The others
were always waiting for this, and glad of it and
proud of her, for they knew what was going to hap
pen, because they had had experience. When she
told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken
up with admiration that it never occurred to any
dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that was
natural, because, for one thing, she answered up so
promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking,
and for another thing, where could they find out
whether it was right or not? for she was the only
cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was
older, she brought home the word Unintellectual,
one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at
different gatherings, making much unhappiness and
despondency; and it was at this time that I noticed
that during that week she was asked for the meaning
at eight different assemblages, and flashed out a
fresh definition every time, which showed me that
she had more presence of mind than culture, though
I said nothing, of course. She had one word which
she always kept on hand, and ready, like a life-pre
server, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she
was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden way
— that was the word Synonymous. When she hap
pened to fetch out a long word which had had its day
weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her
dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it
knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then
he would come to, and by that time she would be
away down the wind on another tack, and not ex-

49

MARK TWAIN

pecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to
cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game)
could see her canvas flicker a moment — but only just
a moment — then it would belly out taut and full,
and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's
synonymous with supererogation," or some godless
long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about
and skim away on the next tack, perfectly com
fortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking
profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting
the floor with their tails in unison and their faces
transfigured with a holy joy.

And it was the same with phrases. She would
drag home a whole phrase, if it had a grand sound,
and play it six nights and two matine'es, and explain
it a new way every time — which she had to, for all
she cared for was the phrase; she wasn't interested
in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn't wit
enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy !
She got so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had
such confidence in the ignorance of those creatures.
She even brought anecdotes that she had heard the
family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over;
and as a rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched
onto another chestnut, where, of course, it didn't fit
and hadn't any point; and when she delivered the
nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed
and barked in the most insane way, while I could
see that she was wondering to herself why it didn't
seem as funny as it did when she first heard it. But
no harm was done ; the others rolled and barked too,
privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the

So

A DOG'S TALE

point, and never suspecting that the fault was not
with them and there wasn't any to see.

You can see by these things that she was of a
rather vain and frivolous character; still, she had
virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She had
a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored
resentments for injuries done her, but put them
easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she
taught her children her kindly way, and from her we
learned also to be brave and prompt in time of
danger, and not to run away, but face the peril that
threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best
we could without stopping to think what the cost
might be to us. And she taught us not by words
only, but by example, and that is the best way and
the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave
things she did, the splendid things! she was just a
soldier; and so modest about it — well, you couldn't
help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating
her; not even a King Charles spaniel could remain
entirely despicable in her society. So, as you see,
there was more to her than her education.

CHAPTER II

WHEN I was well grown, at last, I was sold and
taken away, and I never saw her again. She
was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but
she comforted me as well as she could, and said we
were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose,
and must do our duties without repining, take our life
as we might find it, live it for the best good of others,
and never mind about the results ; they were not our
affair. She said men who did like this would have
a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another
world, and although we animals would not go there,
to do well and right without reward would give to
our brief lives a worthiness and dignity which in it
self would be a reward. She had gathered these
things from time to time when she had gone to the
Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them
up in her memory more carefully than she had done
with those other words and phrases; and she had
studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One
may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful
head, for all there was so much lightness and vanity
in it.

So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon
each other through our tears; and the last thing she
said — keeping it for the last to make me remember

52

A DOG'S TALE

it the better, I think — was, ' ' In memory of me, when
there is a time of danger to another do not think
of yourself, think of your mother, and do as she
would do."

Do you think I could forget that? No.

53

CHAPTER III

IT was such a charming home ! — my new one ; a fine
great house, with pictures, and delicate decora
tions, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere,
but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with
flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around
it, and the great garden — oh, greensward, and noble
trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as
a member of the family; and they loved me, and
petted me, and did not give me a new name, but
called me by my old one that was dear to me because
my mother had given it me — Aileen Mavourneen.
She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that
song, and said it was a beautiful name.

Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely,
you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just
like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of
her, with auburn tails down her back, and short
frocks ; and the baby was a year old, and plump and
dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough
of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing
out its innocent happiness ; and Mr. Gray was thirty-
eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little
bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business
like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that
kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint

54

A DOG'S TALE

and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a
renowned scientist. I do not know what the word
means, but my mother would know how to use it and
get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-
terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he
came. But that is not the best one; the best one
was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust
on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the
whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a
picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the
college president's dog said — no, that is the lavatory;
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with
jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange
machines ; and every week other scientists came there
and sat in the place, and used the machines, and
discussed, and made what they called experiments
and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood
around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake
of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although
it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was losing
out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try
as I might, I was never able to make anything out
of it at all.

Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's
work-room and slept, she gently using me for a
foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a caress ;
other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got
well tousled and made happy; other times I watched
by the crib there, when the baby was asleep and the
nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs;
other times I romped and raced through the grounds
and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out,

55

MARK TWAIN

then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree
while she read her book; other times I went visiting
among the neighbor dogs — for there were some most
pleasant ones not far away, and one very handsome
and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish
setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a
Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch
minister.

The servants in our house were all kind to me and
were fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a
pleasant life. There could not be a happier dog than
I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for
myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all ways
to do well and right, and honor my mother's memory
and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had
come to me, as best I could.

By and by came my little puppy, and then my
cup was full, my happiness was perfect. It was the
dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth and soft
and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward
paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet
and innocent face; and it made me so proud to see
how the children and their mother adored it, and
fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful
thing it did. It did seem to me that life was just
too lovely to —

Then came the winter. One day I was standing a
watch in the nursery. That is to say, I was asleep
on the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which
was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace.
It was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it
made of a gauzy stuff that you can see through.

56

A DOG'S TALE

The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone.
A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit
on the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval
followed, then a scream from the baby woke me, and
there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling!
Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my
fright, and in a second was half-way to the door ; but
in the next half-second my mother's farewell was
sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed
again. I reached my head through the flames and
dragged the baby out by the waist-band, and tugged
it along, and we fell to the floor together in a cloud
of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the
screaming little creature along and out at the door
and around the bend of the hall, and was still tug
ging away, all excited and happy and proud, when
the master's voice shouted:

"Begone, you cursed beast!" and I jumped to
save myself; but he was wonderfully quick, and
chased me up, striking furiously at me with his cane,
I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a
strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made
me shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless; the
cane went up for another blow, but never descended,
for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's
on fire!" and the master rushed away in that direc
tion, and my other bones were saved.

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not
lose any time; he might come back at any moment;
so I limped on three legs to the other end of the hall,
where there was a dark little stairway leading up
into a garret where old boxes and such things were

57

MARK TWAIN

kept, as I had heard say, and where people seldom
went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched
my way through the dark among the piles of things,
and hid in the secretest place I could find. It was
foolish to be afraid there, yet still I was; so afraid
that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it
would have been such a comfort to whimper, because
that eases the pain, you know. But I could lick my
leg, and that did me some good.

For half an hour there was a commotion down
stairs, and shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and
then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes,
and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears
began to go down ; and fears are worse than pains —
oh, much worse. Then came a sound that froze me.
They were calling me — calling me by name — hunting
for me!

It was muffled by distance, but that could not
take the terror out of it, and it was the most dread
ful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went all
about, everywhere, down there: along the halls,
through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the
basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther
and farther away — then back, and all about the
house again, and I thought it would never, never
stop. But at last it did, hours and hours after the
vague twilight of the garret had long ago been
blotted out by black darkness.

Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little
by little away, and I was at peace and slept. It was
a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had
come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I

58

A DOG'S TALE

could think out a plan now. I made a very good
one; which was, to creep down, all the way down
the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and
slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn,
while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I
would hide all day, and start on my journey when
night came; my journey to — well, anywhere where
they would not know me and betray me to the
master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then
suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be with
out my puppy!

That was despair. There was no plan for me; I
saw that ; I must stay where I was ; stay, and wait,
and take what might come — it was not my affair;
that was what life is — my mother had said it. Then
— well, then the calling began again! All my sor
rows came back. I said to myself, the master will
never forgive. I did not know what I had done
to make him so bitter and so unforgiving, yet I
judged it was something a dog could not under
stand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.

They called and called — days and nights, it seemed
to me. So long that the hunger and thirst near
drove me mad, and I recognized that I was getting
very weak. When you are this way you sleep a
great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful
fright — it seemed to me that the calling was right
there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's
voice, and she was crying ; my name was falling from
her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not be
lieve my ears for the joy of it when I heard her
say:

59

MARK TWAIN

"Come back to us — oh, come back to us, and for
give — it is all so sad without our — "

I broke in with such a grateful little yelp, and the
next moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling
through the darkness and the lumber and shouting
for the family to hear, "She's found, she's found!"

The days that followed — well, they were wonder
ful. The mother and Sadie and the servants — why,
they just seemed to worship me. They couldn't
seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and
as for food, they couldn't be satisfied with anything
but game and delicacies that were out of season ; and
every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to
hear about my heroism — that was the name they
called it by, and it means agriculture. I remember
my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and explain
ing it that way, but didn't say what agriculture was,
except that it was synonymous with intramural in
candescence ; and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and
Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I
risked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had
burns to prove it, and then the company would pass
me around and pet me and exclaim about me, and
you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her
mother; and when the people wanted to know what
made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed
the subject, and sometimes when people hunted
them this way and that way with questions about it,
it looked to me as if they were going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master's
friends came, a whole twenty of the most distin-

60

A DOG'S TALE

guished people, and .had me in the laboratory, and
discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and
some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast,
the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to
mind; but the master said, with vehemence, "It's
far above instinct; it's reason, and many a man,
privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a
better world by right of its possession, has less of it
than this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to
perish " ; and then he laughed, and said : "Why, look
at me — I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand
intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that the
dog had gone mad and was destroying the child,
whereas but for the beast's intelligence — it's reason,
I tell you! — the child would have perished!"

They disputed and disputed, and I was the very
center and subject of it all, and I wished my mother
could know that this grand honor had come to me;
it would have made her proud.

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and
whether a certain injury to the brain would produce
blindness or not, but they could not agree about it,
and said they must test it by experiment by and by ;
and next they discussed plants, and that interested
me, because in the summer Sadie and I had planted
seeds — I helped her dig the holes, you know — and
after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up
there, and it was a wonder how that could happen;
but it did, and I wished I could talk — I would have
told those people about it and shown them how
much I knew, and been all alive with the subject;
but I didn't care for the optics; it was dull, and

61

MARK TWAIN

when they came back to it again it bored me, and I
went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant
and lovely, and the sweet mother and the children
patted me and the puppy good-by, and went away
on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master
wasn't any company for us, but we played together
and had good times, and the servants were kind and
friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted
the days and waited for the family.

And one day those men came again, and said,
now for the test, and they took the puppy to the labo
ratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling
proud, for any attention shown the puppy was a
pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and ex
perimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked,
and they set him on the floor, and he went stagger
ing around, with his head all bloddy, and the master
clapped his hands and shouted :

"There, I've won — confess it! He's as blind as a
bat!"

And they all said :

"It's so — you've proved your theory, and suffer
ing humanity owes you a great debt from hence
forth," and they crowded around him, and wrung
his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran
at once to my little darling, and snuggled close to it
where it lay, and licked the blood, and it put its
head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew
in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and
trouble to feel its mother's touch, though it could not

62

A DOG'S TALE

see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its
little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was
still, and did not move any more.

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and
rang in the footman, and said, "Bury it in the far
corner of the garden," and then went on with the
discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very
happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out
of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far
down the garden to the farthest end, where the
children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to
play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and
there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was go
ing to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it
would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like
Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the
family when they came home ; so I tried to help him
dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you
know, and you have to have two, or it is no use.
When the footman had finished and covered little
Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears
in his eyes, and he said: "Poor little doggie, you
SAVED his child."

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't
come up ! This last week a fright has been stealing
upon me. I think there is something terrible about
this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes
me sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants
bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and
even come in the night, and cry, and say, "Poor
doggie — do give it up and come home; don't break
our hearts!" and all this terrifies me the more, and

63

MARK TWAIN

makes me sure something has happened. And I am
so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet
any more. And within this hour the servants, look
ing toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight
and the night chill coming on, said things I could not
understand, but they carried something cold to my
heart.

" Those poor creatures! They do not suspect.
They will come home in the morning, and eagerly
ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed, and
who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to
them : " 'The humble little friend is gone where go the
beasts that perish. ' '

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?
CHAPTER I

VOU1

I

told a lie?"

You confess it — you actually confess it—
you told a lie!"

CHAPTER II

THE family consisted of four persons: Margaret
Lester, widow, aged thirty-six; Helen Lester, her
daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts,
Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven.
Waking and sleeping, the three women spent their
days and nights in adoring the young girl ; in watch
ing the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror
of her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision
of her bloom and beauty ; in listening to the music of
her voice; in gratefully recognizing how rich and fair
for them was the world with this presence in it; in
shuddering to think how desolate it would be with
this light gone out of it.

By nature — and inside — the aged aunts were ut
terly dear and lovable and good, but in the matter
of morals and conduct their training had been so
uncompromisingly strict that it had made them
exteriorly austere, not to say stern. Their influence
was effective in the house; so effective that the
mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and
religious requirements cheerfully, contentedly, hap
pily, unquestionably. To do this was become second
nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven
there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault
findings, no heart-burnings.

66

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthink
able. In it speech was restricted to absolute truth,
iron-bound truth, implacable and uncompromising
truth, let the resulting consequences be what they
might. At last, one day, under stress of circum
stances, the darling of the house sullied her lips with
a lie — and confessed it, with tears and self-upbraid-
ings. There are not any words that can paint the
consternation of the aunts. It was as if the sky had
crumpled up and collapsed and the earth had tum
bled to ruin with a crash. They sat side by side,
white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit,
who was on her knees before them with her face
buried first in one lap and then the other, moaning
and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and for
giveness and getting no response, humbly kissing
the hand of the one, then of the other, only to
see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those
soiled lips.

Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen
amazement :

"You told a, lie?"

Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with
the muttered and amazed ejaculation:

''You confess it — you actually confess it — you
told a lie!"

It was all they could say. The situation was new,
unheard of, incredible; they could not understand it,
they did not know how to take hold of it, it approxi
mately paralyzed speech.

At length it was decided that the erring child must
be taken to her mother, who was ill, and who ought to

67

MARK TWAIN

know what had happened. Helen begged, besought,
implored that she might be spared this further dis
grace, and that her mother might be spared the
grief and pain of it; but this could not be: duty
required this sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all
things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a
duty no compromise is possible.

Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own,
her mother had had no hand in it — why must she
be made to suffer for it?

But the aunts were obdurate in their righteous
ness, and said the law that visited the sins of the
parent upon the child was by all right and reason
reversible; and therefore it was but just that the
innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her
rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which
were the allotted wages of the sin.

The three moved toward the sick-room.

At this time the doctor was approaching the
house. He was still a good distance away, however.
He was a good doctor and a good man, and he had
a good heart, but one had to know him a year to
get over hating him, two years to learn to endure
him, three to learn to like him, and four or five to
learn to love him. It was a slow and trying educa
tion, but it paid. He was of great stature; he had
a leonine head, a leonine face, a rough voice, and an
eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimes a
woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing
about etiquette, and cared nothing about it; in
speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was the

68

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit ;
he had opinions on all subjects ; they were always on
tap and ready for delivery, and he cared not a far
thing whether his listener liked them or didn't.
Whom he loved he loved, and manifested it ; whom
he didn't love he hated, and published it from the
housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor,
and the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet.
He was a sturdy and loyal Christian, and believed
he was the best one in the land, and the only one
whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy,
full-charged with common sense, and had no decayed
places in it. People who had an ax to grind, or
people who for any reason wanted to get on the soft
side of him, called him The Christian — a phrase
whose delicate flattery was music to his ears, and
whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid
object to him that he could see it when it fell out of
a person's mouth even in the dark. Many who were
fond of him stood on their consciences with both feet
and brazenly called him by that large title habitually,
because it was a pleasure to them to do anything
that would please him; and with eager and cordial
malice his extensive and diligently cultivated crop
of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded it to
"The Only Christian." Of these two titles, the
latter had the wider currency; the enemy, being
greatly in the majority, attended to that. Whatever
the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart,
and would fight for it whenever he got the chance;
and if the intervals between chances grew to be irk
somely wide, he would invent ways of shortening

69

MARK TWAIN

them himself. He was severely conscientious, ac
cording to his rather independent lights, and what
ever he took to be a duty he performed, no matter
whether the judgment of the professional moralists
agreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young
days, he had used profanity freely, but as soon as he
was converted he made a rule, which he rigidly stuck
to ever afterward, never to use it except on the
rarest occasions, and then only when duty com
manded. He had been a hard drinker at sea, but
after his conversion he became a firm and out
spoken teetotaler, in order to be an example to
the young, and from that time forth he seldom
drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to
him to be a duty — a condition which sometimes
occurred a couple of times a year, but never as
many as five times.

Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impul
sive, emotional. This one was, and had no gift at
hiding his feelings ; or if he had it he took no trouble
to exercise it. He carried his soul's prevailing
weather in his face,' and when he entered a room the
parasols or the umbrellas went up — figuratively
speaking — according to the indications. When the
soft light was in his eye it meant approval, and de
livered a benediction; when he came with a frown
he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was a
well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but
sometimes a dreaded one.

He had a deep affection for the Lester household,
and its several members returned this feeling with
interest. They mourned over his kind of Chris-

70

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

tianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both
parties went on loving each other just the same.

He was approaching the house — out of the dis
tance; the aunts and the culprit were moving to
ward the sick-chamber.

CHAPTER III

THE three last named stood by the bed ; the aunts
austere, the transgressor softly sobbing. The
mother turned her head on the pillow; her tired
eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and pas
sionate mother-love when they fell upon her child,
and she opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.

"Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand
and stayed the girl from leaping into them.

"Helen," said the other aunt, impressively, "tell
your mother all. Purge your soul; leave nothing
unconfessed."

Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges,
the young girl mourned her sorrowful tale through
to the end, then in a passion of appeal cried out:

"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you
forgive me? — I am so desolate!"

' ' Forgive you, my darling ? Oh, come to my arms !
—there, lay your head upon my breast, and be at
peace. If you had told a thousand lies —

There was a sound — a warning — the clearing of a
throat. The aunts glanced up, and withered in their
clothes — there stood the doctor, his face a thun
der-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his
presence; they lay locked together, heart to heart,
steeped in immeasurable content, dead to all things

72

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

else. The physician stood many moments glaring
and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it,
analyzing it, searching out its genesis; then he put
up his hand and beckoned to the aunts. They came
trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and
waited. He bent down and whispered:

"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected
from all excitement? What the hell have you been
doing? Clear out of the place!"

They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in
the parlor, serene, cheery, clothed in sunshine, con
ducting Helen, with his arm about her waist, pet
ting her, and saying gentle and playful things to
her; and she also was her sunny and happy self
again.

"Now, then," he said, "good -by, dear. Go to
your room, and keep away from your mother, and
behave yourself. But wait — put out your tongue.
There, that will do — you're as sound as a nut!" He
patted her cheek and added, "Run along now; I
want to talk to these aunts."

She went from the presence. His face clouded
over again at once; and as he sat down he said:

"You two have been doing a lot of damage — and
maybe some good. Some good, yes — such as it is.
That woman's disease is typhoid! You've brought
it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and
that's a service — such as it is. I hadn't been able to
determine what it was before."

With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their
feet, quaking with terror.

"Sit down! What are you proposing to do?"

73

MARK TWAIN

"Do? We must fly to her. We—"

"You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done
enough harm for one day. Do you want to squander
all your capital of crimes and follies on a single deal ?
Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to
sleep; she needs it; if you disturb her without my
orders, I'll brain you — if you've got the materials
for it."

They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obe
dient, under compulsion. He proceeded:

"Now, then, I want this case explained. They
wanted to explain it to me — as if there hadn't been
emotion and excitement enough already. You knew
my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get
up that riot?"

Hester looked appealingly at Hannah; Hannah
returned a beseeching look at Hester — neither wanted
to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. The doc
tor came to their help. He said:

"Begin, Hester."

Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with
lowered eyes, Hester said, timidly:

"We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary
cause, but this was vital. This was a duty. With a
duty one has no choice ; one must put all lighter con
siderations aside and perform it. We were obliged
to arraign her before her mother. She had told a
He."

The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment,
and seemed to be trying to work up in his mind an
understanding of a wholly incomprehensible proposi
tion; then he stormed out:

74

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

' ' She told a lie ! Did she ? God bless my soul ! I
tell a million a day ! And so does every doctor. And
so does everybody — including you — for that matter.
And that was the important thing that authorized
you to venture to disobey my orders and imperil
that woman's life! Look here, Hester Gray, this is
pure lunacy; that girl couldn't tell a lie that was in
tended to injure a person. The thing is impossible
—absolutely impossible. You know it yourselves —
both of you; you know it perfectly well."

Hannah came to her sister's rescue:

" Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a
lie, and it wasn't. But it was a lie."

"Well, upon my word, I never heard such non
sense! Haven't you got sense enough to discrimi
nate between lies? Don't you know the difference
between a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?"

"All lies are sinful," said Hannah, setting her lips
together like a vise; "all lies are forbidden."

The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his
chair. He wanted to attack this proposition, but he
did not quite know how or where to begin. Finally
he made a venture:

1 ' Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person
from an undeserved injury or shame?"

"No."

"Not even a friend?"

"No."

"Not even your dearest friend?"

"No. I would not."

The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this
situation; then he asked:

75

MARK TWAIN

"Not even to save him from bitter pain and
misery and grief?"

"No. Not even to save his life."

Another pause. Then :

"Nor his soul?"

There was a hush — a silence which endured a
measurable interval — then Hester answered, in a
low voice, but with decision:

"Nor his soul?"

No one spoke for a while ; then the doctor said :

"Is it with you the same, Hannah?"

"Yes," she answered.

"I ask you both— why?"

1 ' Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and
could cost us the loss of our own souls — would, in
deed, if we died without time to repent."

"Strange . . . strange ... it is past belief." Then
he asked, roughly: "Is such a soul as that worth sav
ing?" He rose up, mumbling and grumbling, and
started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At
the threshold he turned and rasped out an admoni
tion: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and
selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little
souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some
dignity to it! Risk your souls! risk them in good
causes ; then if you lose them, why should you care ?
Reform!"

The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pul
verized, outraged, insulted, and brooded in bitter
ness and indignation over these blasphemies. They
were hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they
could never forgive these injuries.

76

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

"Reform!"

They kept repeating that word resentfully. "Re
form — and learn to tell lies!"

Time slipped along, and in due course a change
came over their spirits. They had completed the
human being's first duty — which is to think about
himself until he has exhausted the subject, then he
is in a condition to take up minor interests and
think of other people. This changes the complexion
of his spirits — generally wholesomely. The minds of
the two old ladies reverted to their beloved niece and
the fearful disease which had smitten her; instantly
they forgot the hurts their self-love had received, and
a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to the
help of the sufferer and comfort her with their love,
and minister to her, and labor for her the best they
could with their weak hands, and joyfully and affec
tionately wear out their poor old bodies in her dear
service if only they might have the privilege.

"And we shall have it!" said Hester, with the
tears running down her face. "There are no nurses
comparable to us, for there are no others that will
stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die,
and God knows we would do that."

"Amen," said Hannah, smiling approval and in
dorsement through the mist of moisture that blurred
her glasses. "The doctor knows us, and knows we
will not disobey again; and he will call no others.
He will not dare!"

"Dare?" said Hester, with temper, and dashing
the water from her eyes; "he will dare anything —
that Christian devil ! But it will do no good for him

77

MARK TWAIN

to try it this time — but, laws! Hannah! after all's
said and done, he is gifted and wise and good, and
he would not think of such a thing. ... It is surely
time for one of us to go to that room. What is
keeping him? Why doesn't he come and say so?"

They caught the sound of his approaching step.
He entered, sat down, and began to talk.

"Margaret is a sick woman," he said. "She is
still sleeping, but she will wake presently; then one
of you must go to her. She will be worse before she
is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must
be set. How much of it can you two undertake?"

"All of it!" burst from both ladies at once.

The doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy :

"You do ring true, you brave old relics ! And you
shall do all of the nursing you can, for there's none
to match you in that divine office in this town; but
you can't do all of it, and it would be a crime to let
you." It was grand praise, golden praise, coming
from such a source, and it took nearly all the resent
ment out of the aged twin's hearts. "Your Tilly
and my old Nancy shall do the rest — good nurses
both, white souls with black skins, watchful, loving,
tender — just perfect nurses! — and competent liars
from the cradle. . . . Look you! keep a little watch
on Helen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker."

The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credu
lous ; and Hester said :

"How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she
was as sound as a nut."

The doctor answered, tranquilly:

"It was a lie."

78

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and
Hannah said :

"How can you make an odious confession like
that, in so indifferent a tone, when you know how
we feel about all forms of—

"Hush ! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you,
and you don't know what you are talking about.
You are like all the rest of the moral moles; you lie
from morning till night, but because you don't do it
with your mouths, but only with your lying eyes,
your lying inflections, your deceptively misplaced
emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turn up
your complacent noses and parade before God and
the world as saintly and unsmirched Truth-Speakers,
in whose cold-storage souls a lie would freeze to
death if it got there! Why will you humbug your
selves with that foolish notion that no lie is a lie ex
cept a spoken one? What is the difference between
lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth?
There is none; and if you would reflect a moment
you would see that it is so. There isn't a human
being that doesn't tell a gross of lies every day of
his life; and you — why, between you, you tell thirty
thousand ; yet you flare up here in a lurid hypocritical
horror because I tell that child a benevolent and sin
less lie to protect her from her imagination, which
would get to work and warm up her blood to a fever
in an hour, if I were disloyal enough to my duty to
let it. Which I should probably do if I were in
terested in saving my soul by such disreputable
means.

"Come, let us reason together. Let us examine

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MARK TWAIN

details. When you two were in the sick-room raising
that riot, what would you have done if you had
known I was coming?"

"Well, what?"

"You would have slipped out and carried Helen
with you — wouldn't you?"

The ladies were silent.

"What would be your object and intention?"

"Well, what?"

"To keep me from finding out your guilt; to be
guile me to infer that Margaret's excitement pro
ceeded from some cause not known to you. In a
word, to tell me a lie — a silent lie. Moreover, a
possibly harmful one."

The twins colored, but did not speak.

"You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you
tell lies with your mouths — you two."

"That is not so!"

"It is so. But only harmless ones. You never
dream of uttering a harmful one. Do you know that
that is a concession — and a confession?"

"How do you mean?"

"It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies
are not criminal; it is a confession that you con
stantly make that discrimination. For instance, you
declined old Mrs. Foster's invitation last week to
meet those odious Higbies at supper — in a polite note
in which you expressed regret and said you were very
sorry you could not go. It was a lie. It was as
unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it,
Hester — with another lie."

Hester replied with a toss of her head.

80

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

< < .

That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or
wasn't it?"

The color stole into the cheeks of both women,
and with a struggle and an effort they got out their
confession :

"It was a lie."

"Good — the reform is. beginning ; there is hope for
you yet; you will not tell a lie to save your dearest
friend's soul, but you will spew out one without a
scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling an
unpleasant truth."

He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said, coldly:

"We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no
more. To lie is a sin. We shall never tell another
one of any kind whatsoever, even lies of courtesy
or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow
decreed for him by God."

"Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have
fallen already; for what you have just uttered is
a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to the
sick-room now."

81

CHAPTER IV

TWELVE days later.
Mother and child were lingering in the grip of
the hideous disease. Of hope for either there was lit
tle. The aged sisters looked white and worn, but
they would not give up their posts. Their hearts
were breaking, poor old things, but their grit was
steadfast and indestructible. All the twelve days the
mother had pined for the child, and the child for the
mother, but both knew that the prayer of these
longings could not be granted. When the mother
was told — on the first day — that her disease was
typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if there was
danger that Helen could have contracted it the day
before, when she was in the sick-chamber on that
confession visit. Hester told her the doctor had
poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it,
although it was true, for she had not believed the
doctor; but when she saw the mother's joy in the
news, the pain in her conscience lost something of its
force — a result which made her ashamed of the con
structive deception which she had practised, though
not ashamed enough to make her distinctly and
definitely wish she had refrained from it. From
that moment the sick woman understood that her
daughter must remain away, and she said she would

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WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

reconcile herself to the separation the best she could,
for she woujd rather suffer death than have her
child's health imperiled. That afternoon Helen had
to take to her bed, ill. She grew worse during the
night. In the morning her mother asked after
her:

"Is she wdl?"

Hester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the
words refused to come. The mother lay languidly
looking, musing, waiting; suddenly she turned white
and gasped out:

"Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?"

Then the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in re
bellion, and words came:

"No — be comforted; she is well."

The sick woman put all her happy heart in her
gratitude :

"Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me.
How I worship you for saying them!"

Hester told this incident to Hannah, who received
it with a rebuking look, and said, coldly:

"Sister, it was a lie."

Hester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down
a sob, and said :

"Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it.
I could not endure the fright and the misery that
were in her face."

"No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to
account for it."

"Oh, I know it, I know it," cried Hester, wringing
her hands, "but even if it were now, I could not help
it. I know I should do it again."

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MARK TWAIN

"Then take my place with Helen in the morning.
I will make the report myself."

Hester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.

"Don't, Hannah, oh, don't— you will kill her."

"I will at least speak the truth."

In the morning she had a cruel report to bear to
the mother, and she braced herself for the trial.
When she returned from her mission, Hester was
waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall. She whis
pered :

"Oh, how did she take it — that poor, desolate
mother?"

Hannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said :

"God forgive me, I told her the child was well!"

Hester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful
"God bless you, Hannah !" and poured out her thank
fulness in an inundation of worshiping praises.

After that, the two knew the limit of their strength,
and accepted their fate. They surrendered hum
bly, and abandoned themselves to the hard require
ments of the situation. Daily they told the morning
lie, and confessed their sin in prayer; not asking for
giveness, as not being worthy of it, but only wish
ing to make record that they realized their wicked
ness and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.

Daily, as the fair young idol of the house sank
lower and lower, the sorrowful old aunts painted her
glowing bloom and her fresh young beauty to the
wan mother, and winced under the stabs her ec
stasies of joy and gratitude gave them.

In the first days, while the child had strength to
hold a pencil, she wrote fond little love-notes to her

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WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

mother, in which she concealed her illness ; and these
the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet
with thankful tears, and kissed them over and over
again, and treasured them as precious things under
her pillow.

Then came a day when the strength was gone from
the hand, and the mind wandered, and the tongue
babbled pathetic incoherences. This was a sore di
lemma for the poor aunts. There were no love-notes
for the mother. They did not know what to do.
Hester began a carefully studied and plausible ex
planation, but lost the track of it and grew confused ;
suspicion began to show in the mother's face, then
alarm. Hester saw it, recognized the imminence of
the danger, and descended to the emergency, pulling
herself resolutely together and plucking victory from
the open jaws of defeat. In a placid and convincing
voice she said:

"I thought it might distress you to know it, but
Helen spent the night at the Sloanes'. There was a
little party there, and, although she did not want to
go, and you so sick, we persuaded her, she being
young and needing the innocent pastimes of youth,
and we believing you would approve. Be sure she
will write the moment she comes."

"How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful
for us both! Approve? Why, I thank you with all
my heart. My poor little exile ! Tell her I want her
to have every pleasure she can — I would not rob her
of one. Only let her keep her health, that is all I
ask. Don't let that suffer; I could not bear it.
How thankful I am that she escaped this infection

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MARK TWAIN

— and what a narrow risk she ran, Aunt Hester!
Think of that lovely face all dulled and burned with
fever. I can't bear the thought of it. Keep her
health. Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the
dainty creature — with the big, blue, earnest eyes;
and sweet, oh, so sweet and gentle and winning!
Is she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?"

"Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than
ever she was before, if such a thing can be" — and
Hester turned away and fumbled with the medicine-
bottles, to hide her shame and grief.

86

CHAPTER V

FTER a little, both aunts were laboring upon a
difficult and baffling work in Helen's chamber.
Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old fingers,
they were trying to forge the required note. They
made failure after failure, but they improved little by
little all the time. The pity of it all, the pathetic
humor of it, there was none to see; they themselves
were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon
the notes and spoiled them; sometimes a single mis-
formed word made a note risky which could have
been ventured but for that ; but at last Hannah pro
duced one whose script was a good enough imitation
of Helen's to pass any but a suspicious eye, and
bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases and
loving nicknames that had been familiar on the
child's lips from her nursery days. She carried it to
the mother, who took it with avidity, and kissed it,
and fondled it, reading its precious words over and
over again, and dwelling with deep contentment upon
its closing paragraph:

"Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss
your eyes, and feel your arms about me! I am so
glad my practising does not disturb you. Get well
soon. Everybody is good to me, but I am so lone
some without you, dear mamma."

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MARK TWAIN

"The poor child, I know just how she feels. She
cannot be quite happy without me; and I — oh, I live
in the light of her eyes! Tell her she must practise
all she pleases; and, Aunt Hannah — tell her I can't
hear the piano this far, nor her dear voice when she
sings: God knows I wish I could. No one knows
how sweet that voice is to me; and to think —
some day it will be silent! What are you crying
for?'1

"Only because — because — it was just a memory.
When I came away she was singing, 'Loch Lomond.1
The pathos of it! It always moves me so when she
sings that."

"And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it
is when some youthful sorrow is brooding in her
breast and she sings it for the mystic healing it
brings. . . . Aunt Hannah?"

"Dear Margaret?"

"I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that
I shall never hear that dear voice again."

1 ' Oh, don't— don't, Margaret ! I can't bear it !"

Margaret was moved and distressed, and said,
gently :

"There — there — let me put my arms around
you. Don't cry. There — put your cheek to
mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I will live
if I can. Ah, what could she do without me! ...
Does she often speak of me? — but I know she
does."

"Oh, all the time— all the time!"

' ' My sweet child ! She wrote the note the moment
she came home?"

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WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

4 'Yes — the first moment. She would not wait to
take off her things."

"I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate
way. I knew it without asking, but I wanted to hear
you say it. The petted wife knows she is loved, but
she makes her husband tell her so every day, just for
the joy of hearing it. ... She used the pen this time.
That is better; the pencil-marks could rub out, and I
should grieve for that. Did you suggest that she use
the pen?"

"Y — no — she — it was her own idea."

The mother looked her pleasure, and said:

"I was hoping you would say that. There was
never such a dear and thoughtful child! . . . Aunt
Hannah?"

"Dear Margaret?"

"Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and
worship her. Why — you are crying again. Don't
be so worried about me, dear; I think there is noth
ing to fear, yet."

The grieving messenger carried her message, and
piously delivered it to unheeding ears. The girl
babbled on unaware ; looking up at her with wonder
ing and startled eyes flaming with fever, eyes in
which was no light of recognition :

"Are you — no, you are not my mother. I want
her — oh, I want her ! She was here a minute ago — I
did not see her go. Will she come? will she come
quickly? will she come now? . . . There are so many
houses , . . and they oppress me so ... and every
thing whirls and turns and whirls ... oh, my head,
my head!" — and so she wandered on and on, in her

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MARK TWAIN

pain, flitting from one torturing fancy to another,
and tossing her arms about in a weary and ceaseless
persecution of unrest.

Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and
softly stroked the hot brow, murmuring endearing
and pitying words, and thanking the Father of all
that the mother was happy and did not know.

90

CHAPTER VI

DAILY the child sank lower and steadily lower
towards the grave, and daily the sorrowing old
watchers carried gilded tidings of her radiant health
and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage
was also now nearing its end. And daily they forged
loving and cheery notes in the child's hand, and stood
by with remorseful consciences and bleeding hearts,
and wept to see the grateful mother devour them and
adore them and treasure them away as things beyond
price, because of their sweet source, and sacred be
cause her child's hand had touched them.

At last came that kindly friend who brings healing
and peace to all. The lights were burning low. In
the solemn hush which precedes the dawn vague
figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gath
ered silent and awed in Helen's chamber, and grouped
themselves about her bed, for a warning had gone
forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with
closed lids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her
breast faintly rising and falling as her wasting life
ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob
broke upon the stillness. The same haunting
thought was in all minds there : the pity of this death,
the going out into the great darkness, and the mother
not here to help and hearten and bless.

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Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully
about as if they sought something — she had been
blind some hours. The end was come; all knew it.
With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast,
crying, "Oh, my child, my darling!" A rapturous
light broke in the dying girl's face, for it was merci
fully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering arms
for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring,
"Oh, mamma, I am so happy — I so longed for you —
now I can die."

Two hours later Hester made her report. The
mother asked.

"How is it with the child?"
"She is well."

92

CHAPTER VII

A SHEAF of white crape and black was hung upon
the door of the house, and there it swayed and
rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings. At
noon the preparation of the dead was finished, and
in the coffin lay the fair young form, beautiful, and
in the sweet face a great peace. Two mourners sat
by it, grieving and worshiping — Hannah and the
black woman Tilly. Hester came, and she was trem
bling, for a great trouble was upon her spirit. She
said:

"She asks for a note."

Hannah's face blanched. She had not thought of
this; it had seemed that that pathetic service was
ended. But she realized now that that could not be.
For a little while the two women stood looking into
each other's face, with vacant eyes; then Hannah
said:

"There is no way out of it — she must have it; she
will suspect, else."

"And she would find out."

"Yes. It would break her heart." She looked
at the dead face, and her eyes filled. "I will write
it," she said.

Hester carried it. The closing line said:

"Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon

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MARK TWAIN

be together again. Is not that good news? And it
is true; they all say it is true."

The mother mourned, saying:

"Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows?
I shall never see her again in life. It is hard, so
hard. She does not suspect? You guard her from
that?"

"She thinks you will soon be well."

"How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt
Hester! None goes near her who could carry the
infection?"

"It would be a crime."

"But you see her?"

"With a distance between — yes."

"That is so good. Others one could not trust;
but you two guardian angels — steel is not so true
as you. Others would be unfaithful; and many
would deceive, and lie."

Hester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.

"Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when
I am gone, and the danger is past, place the kiss upon
her dear lips some day, and say her mother sent it,
and all her mother's broken heart is in it."

Within the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the
dead face, performed her pathetic mission.

94

CHAPTER VIII

A NOTHER day dawned, and grew, and spread its
/~\ sunshine in the earth. Aunt Hannah brought
comforting news to the failing mother, and a happy
note, which said again, "We have but a little time to
wait, darling mother, then we shall be together."

The deep note of a bell came moaning down the
wind.

" Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at
rest. As I shall be soon. You will not let her for
get me?"

"Oh, God knows she never will!"

"Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah?
It sounds like the shuffling of many feet."

"We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a
little company gathering, for — for Helen's sake, poor
little prisoner. There will be music — and she loves
it so. We thought you would not mind."

"Mind? Oh no, no — oh, give her everything her
dear heart can desire. How good you two are to
her, and how good to me! God bless you both
always!"

After a listening pause:

"How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it
herself, do you think?" Faint and rich and inspiring
the chords floated to her ears on the still air. "Yes,

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MARK TWAIN

it is her touch, dear heart, I recognize it. They are
singing. Why — it is a hymn! and the sacredest of
all, the most touching, the most consoling. ... It
seems to open the gates of paradise to me. ... If I
could die now. ..."

Faint and far the words rose out of the stillness:

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

With the closing of the hymn another soul passed
to its rest, and they that had been one in life were
not sundered in death. The sisters, mourning and
rejoicing, said:

"How blessed it was that she never knew!"

96

CHAPTER IX

AT midnight they sat together, grieving, and the
angel of the Lord appeared in the midst trans
figured with a radiance not of earth: and speaking,
said:

"For liars a place is appointed. There they burn
in the fires of hell from everlasting unto everlasting.
Repent!"

The bereaved fell upon their knees before him and
clasped their hands and bowed their gray heads,
adoring. But their tongues clove to the roof of their
mouths, and they were dumb.

"Speak! that I may bear the message to the
chancery of heaven and bring again the decree from
which there is no appeal."

Then they bowed their heads yet lower, and one
said:

"Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only
perfect and final repentance can make us whole ; and
we are poor creatures who have learned our human
weakness, and we know that if we were in those
hard straits again our hearts would fail again, and
we should sin as before. The strong could prevail,
and so be saved, but we are lost."

They lifted their heads in supplication. The angel
was gone. While they marveled and wept he came
again; and bending low, he whispered the decree.

97

CHAPTER X

WAS it Heaven? Or Hell?

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

BY courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession
of a singular book eight or ten years ago. It is
likely that mine is now the only copy in existence.
Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:

"The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant.
By G. Ragsdale McClintock,1 author of 'An Address/
etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South Carolina,
and member of the Yale Law School. New Haven:
published by T. H. Pease, 83 Chapel Street, 1845."

No one can take up this book and lay it down
again unread. Whoever reads one line of it is
caught, is chained; he has become the contented
slave of its fascinations; and he will read and read,
devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his
hand till it is finished to the last line, though the
house be on fire over his head. And after a first
reading he will not throw it aside, but will keep it by
him, with his Shakespeare and his Homer, and will
take it up many and many a time, when the world is
dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway
cheered and refreshed. Yet this work has been
allowed to lie wholly neglected, unmentioned, and
apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.

1 The name here given is a substitute for the one actually attached
to the pamphlet.

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MARK TWAIN

The reader must not imagine that he is to find in
it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity
of construction, excellence of form, purity of style,
perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of
statement, humanly possible situations, humanly pos
sible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence
of events — or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; the
rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the
total and miraculous absence from it of all these
qualities — a charm which is completed and per
fected by the evident fact that the author, whose
naive innocence easily and surely wins our regard,
and almost our worship, does not know that they are
absent, does not even suspect that they are absent.
When read by the light of these helps to an under
standing of the situation, the book is delicious —
profoundly and satisfyingly delicious.

I call it a book because the author calls it a book,
I call it a work because he calls it a work; but, in
truth, it is merely a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty-
one pages. It was written for fame and money, as
the author very frankly — yes, and very hopefully,
too, poor fellow — says in his preface. The money
never came — no penny of it ever came ; and how long,
how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred—
forty-seven years! He was young then, it would
have been so much to him then; but will he care for
it now?

As time is measured in America, McClintock's
epoch is antiquity. In his long- vanished day the
Southern author had a passion for "eloquence"; it
was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

perish. And he recognized only one kind of elo
quence — the lurid, the tempestuous, the volcanic.
He liked words — big words, fine words, grand words,
rumbling, thundering, reverberating words; with
sense attaching if it could be got in without marring
the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand
up before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and
smoke and lava and pumice-stone into the skies, and
work his sub-terranean thunders, and shake himself
with earthquakes, and stench himself with sulphur
fumes. If he consumed his own fields and vineyards,
that was a pity, yes ; but he would have his eruption
at any cost. Mr. McClintock's eloquence — and he
is always eloquent, his crater is always spouting — is
of the pattern common to his day, but he departs
from the custom of the time in one respect: his
brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did not
mar the sound, but he does not allow it to intrude
at all. For example, consider this figure, which he
uses in the village "Address" referred to with such
candid complacency in the title-page above quoted
— "like the topmost topaz of an ancient tower."
Please read it again; contemplate it; measure it;
walk around it; climb up it; try to get at an ap
proximate realization of the size of it. Is the fellow
to that to be found in literature, ancient or modern,
foreign or domestic, living or dead, drunk or sober?
One notices how fine and grand it sounds. We know
that if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of
applause from the villagers; yet there isn't a ray of
sense in it, or meaning to it.

McClintock finished his education at Yale in

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MARK TWAIN

1843, and came to Hartford on a visit that same
year. I have talked with men who at that time
talked with him, and felt of him, and knew he was
real. One needs to remember that fact and to keep
fast hold of it ; it is the only way to keep McClin-
tock's book from undermining one's faith in Mc-
Clintock's actuality.

As to the book. The first four pages are devoted
to an inflamed eulogy of Woman — simply Woman
in general, or perhaps as an Institution — wherein,
among other compliments to her details, he pays a
unique one to her voice. He says it "fills the breast
with fond alarms, echoed by every rill." It sounds
well enough, but it is not true. After the eulogy he
takes up his real work and the novel begins. It
begins in the woods, near the village of Sunflower
Hill.

Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair
Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to
guide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the
enemy that would tarnish his name, and to win back the admira
tion of his long-tried friend.

It seems a general remark, but it is not general;
the hero mentioned is the to-be hero of the book ; and
in this abrupt fashion, and without name or descrip
tion, he is shoveled into the tale. "With aspira
tions to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his
name" is merely a phrase flung in for the sake of
the sound — let it not mislead the reader. No one
is trying to tarnish this person; no one has thought
of it. The rest of the sentence is also merely a
phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and of course

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

has had no chance to try him, or win back his ad
miration, or disturb him in any other way.

The hero climbs up over "Sawney's Mountain,"
and down the other side, making for an old Indian
"castle" — which becomes "the red man's hut" in
the next sentence; and when ne gets there at last,
he "surveys with wonder and astonishment" the
invisible structure, "which time had buried in the
dust, and thought to himself his happiness was not
yet complete." One doesn't know why it wasn't,
nor how near it came to being complete, nor what
was still wanting to round it up and make it so.
Maybe it was the Indian ; but the book does not say.
At this point we have an episode:

Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen
or twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite book, and
who had a remarkably noble countenance — eyes which betrayed
more than a common mind. This of course made the youth a
welcome guest, and gained him friends in whatever condition of
life he might be placed. The traveler observed that he was a
well-built figure which showed strength and grace in every
movement. He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentle
manly manner, and inquired of him the way to the village.
After he had received the desired information, and was about
taking his leave, the youth said, "Are you not Major Elfonzo,
the great musician1 — the champion of a noble cause — the modern
Achilles, who gained so many victories in the Florida War?"
"I bear that name," said the Major, "and those titles, trusting
at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me
triumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if,"
continued the Major, "you, sir, are the patronizer of noble
deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and learn your
address." The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low,
mused for a moment, and began: "My name is Roswell. I have

further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the
fiddle, and has a three-township fame.

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been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a faint
outline of my future success in that honorable profession; but
I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks
upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you
any assistance in my official capacity, and whatever this mus
cular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called from its
buried greatness." The Major grasped him by the hand, and
exclaimed: "01 thou exalted spirit of inspiration — thou flame of
burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze be the glare
of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that seems to im
pede your progress!"

There is a strange sort of originality about Mc-
Clintock; he imitates other people's styles, but
nobody can imitate his, not even an idiot. Other
people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale;
other people can blubber sentiment, but McClintock
spews it; other people can mishandle metaphors, but
only McClintock knows how to make a business of it.
McClintock is always McClintock, he is always con
sistent, his style is always his own style. He does
not make the mistake of being relevant on one page
and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of
them. He does not make the mistake of being lucid
in one place and obscure in another; he is obscure all
the time. He does not make the mistake of slipping
in a name here and there that is out of character with
his work; he always uses names that exactly and fan
tastically fit his lunatics. In the matter of unde-
viating consistency he stands alone in authorship.
It is this that makes his style unique, and entitles it
to a name of its own — McClintockian. It is this
that protects it from being mistaken for anybody
else's. Uncredited quotations from other writers
often leave a reader in doubt as to their authorship,

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but McClintock is safe from that accident; an un-
credited quotation from him would always be recog
nizable. When a boy nineteen years old, who had
just been admitted to the bar, says, "I trust, sir,
like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks
upon the dwellings of man," we know who is speaking
through that boy; we should recognize that note
anywhere. There be myriads of instruments in this
world's literary orchestra, and a multitudinous con
fusion of sounds that they make, wherein fiddles are
drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of
drum mistaken for another sort; but whensoever the
brazen note of the McClintockian trombone breaks
through that fog of music, that note is recognizable,
and about it there can be no blur of doubt.

The novel now arrives at the point where the
Major goes home to see his father. When McClin
tock wrote this interview he probably believed it
was pathetic.

The road which led to the town presented many attractions
Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was
now wending his way to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The
south winds whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed
against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. This
brought him to remember while alone, that he quietly left behind
the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly entered the world,
with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he journeyed
onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had
often looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived
hope moistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a
dutiful son; yet fond of the amusements of life — had been in
distant lands — had enjoyed the pleasure of the world, and had
frequently returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost desti
tute of many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he would
frequently say to his father, "Have I offended you, that you look

105

MARK TWAIN

upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging looks?
Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I
have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid
veil of darkness around your expectations, send me back into
the world, where no heart beats for me — where the foot of man
has never yet trod; but give me at least one kind word — allow
me to come into the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn
locks." "Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with thee,"
answered the father, "my son, and yet I send thee back to the
children of the world — to the cold charity of the combat, and
to a land of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance
— I learn thy inclinations from the flame that has already
kindled in my soul a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my
dear Elfonzo, it will find thee — thou canst not escape that lighted
torch, which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a
long train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee.
I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path of
life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return
to thy worldly occupation — take again in thy hand that chord
of sweet sounds — struggle with the civilized world and with
your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground — let the
night-Ow/ send forth its screams from the stubborn oak — let the
sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn
of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most
innocent as well as our most lawful desires must often be denied
us, that we may learn to sacrifice them to a Higher will."

Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzc was
immediately urged by the recollection of his father's family to
keep moving.

McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of sur
prises ; but as a rule they are not pleasant ones, they
jar upon the feelings. His closing sentence in the
last quotation is of that sort. It brings one down
out of the tinted clouds in too sudden and collapsed
a fashion. It incenses one against the author for a
moment. It makes the reader want to take him by
his winter-worn locks, and trample on his venera
tion, and deliver him over to the cold charity of com-

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

bat, and blot him out with his own lighted torch.
But the feeling does not last. The master takes
again in his hand that concord of sweet sounds of
his, and one is reconciled, pacified.

His steps became quicker and quicker — he hastened through
the piny woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very
soon reached the little village of repose, in whose bosom rested
the boldest chivalry. His close attention to every important
object — his modest questions about whatever was new to him —
his reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to learn many
of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.

One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward
the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded
by native growth — some venerable in its appearance, others
young and prosperous — all seemed inviting, and seemed to be
the very place for learning as well as for genius to spend its
research beneath its spreading shades. He entered its classic
walls in the usual mode of southern manners.

The artfulness of this man! None knows so well
as he how to pique the curiosity of the reader — and
how to disappoint it. He raises the hope, here, that
he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic
wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; but
does he? No; he smiles in his sleeve, and turns aside
to other matters.

The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and
listen to the recitations that were going on. He accordingly
obeyed the request, and seemed to be much pleased. After the
school was dismissed, and the young hearts regained their free
dom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the anticipated
pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at the actions
of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone that indi
cated a resolution — with an undaunted mind. He said he had
determined to become a student, if he could meet with his
approbation. "Sir," said he, "I have spent much time in the

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MARK TWAIN

world. I have traveled among the uncivilized inhabitants of
America. I have met with friends, and combated with foes;
but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be
my destiny. I see the learned world have an influence with the
voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest
kingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of
persons. This the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of;
and now if you will receive me as I am, with these deficiencies —
with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my honor, sir,
that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who have
placed you in this honorable station." The instructor, who had
met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a stranger
who had been thus turned upon the charities of an unfeeling
community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: "Be of
good cheer — look forward, sir, to the high destination you may
attain. Remember, the more elevated the mark at which you
aim, the more sure, the more glorious, the more magnificent the
prize." From wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the
impatient listener. A strange nature bloomed before him —
giant streams promised him success — gardens of hidden treasures
opened to his view. All this, so vividly described, seemed to
gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.

It seems to me that this situation is new in ro
mance. I feel sure it has not been attempted before.
Military celebrities have been disguised and set at
lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I think
McClintock is the first to send one of them to school.
Thus, in this book, you pass from wonder to won
der, through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant
streams bloom before you, and behind you, and all
around, and you feel as happy, and groggy, and
satisfied with your quart of mixed metaphor aboard
as you would if it had been mixed [in a sample-room
and delivered from a jug.

Now we come upon some more McClintockian sur
prises — a sweetheart who is sprung upon us with-

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

out any preparation, along with a name for her
which is even a little more of a surprise than she
herself is.

In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the
English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued ad
vancing with such rapidity that he was like to become the first
in his class, and made such unexpected progress, and was so
studious, that he had almost forgotten the pictured saint of
his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and cypress had
waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon the
heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emo
tions of their souls under its boughs. He was aware of the
pleasure that he had seen there. So one evening, as he was
returning from his reading, he concluded he would pay a visit
to this enchanting spot. Little did he think of witnessing a
shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt he wished it
might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside, medi
tating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more
anxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure
flitted across his path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her
countenance showed uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit;
her ivory teeth already appeared as she smiled beautifully,
promenading — while her ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously
around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete her
beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek;
the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her asso
ciates. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul — one that
never faded — one that never was conquered.

Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction.
The full name is Ambulinia Valeer. Marriage will
presently round it out and perfect it. Then it will be
Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the chromo.

Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on
whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt
herself more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no
other. Elfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His

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MARK TWAIN

books no longer were his inseparable companions — his thoughts
arrayed themselves to encourage him to the field of victory.
He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his
speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of
fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried
his senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make
him more mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away
through the piny woods, she calmly echoed: "O! Elfonzo, thou
wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a
new path — perhaps thy way leads through darkness; but fear
not, the stars foretell happiness."

To McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words
meant something, no doubt, or seemed to mean
something; but it is useless for us to try to divine
what it was. Ambulinia comes — we don't know
whence nor why; she mysteriously intimates — we
don't know what ; and then she goes echoing away —
we don't know whither; and down comes the curtain.
McClintock's art is subtle ; McClintock's art is deep.

Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers
she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that
whispered notes of melody along the distant groves, the little
birds perched on every side, as if to watch the movements of their
new visitor. The bells were tolling, when Elfonzo silently stole
along by the wild wood flowers, holding in his hand his favorite
instrument of music — his eye continually searching for Ambu
linia, who hardly seemed to perceive him, as she played care
lessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to branch.
Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the
two. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to
Elfonzo, and the stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia.
A deep feeling spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo — such a feeling as
can only be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and
by those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart.
He was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a little
into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee
country, with the same equal proportions as one of the natives.

no

A CURE FOR THE BLUES

But little intimacy had existed between them until the year
forty-one — because the youth felt that the character of such a
lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that
of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted,
at all times and under all circumstances, by the frowns and cold
looks of crabbed old age, which should continually reflect dignity
upon those around, and treat the unfortunate as well as the
fortunate with a graceful mien, he continued to use diligence and
perseverance. All this lighted a spark in his heart that changed
his whole character, and like the unyielding Deity that follows
the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves for the first
time to shake off his embarrassment and return where he had
before only worshiped.

At last we begin to get the Major's measure. We
are able to put this and that casual fact together, and
build the man up before our eyes, and look at him.
And after we have got him built, we find him worth
the trouble. By the above comparison between his
age and Ambulinia's, we guess the war-worn veteran
to be twenty-two; and the other facts stand thus:
he had grown up in the Cherokee country with the
same equal proportions as one of the natives — how
flowing and graceful the language, and yet how
tantalizing as to meaning! — he had been turned
adrift by his father, to whom he had been "somewhat
of a dutiful son " ; he wandered in distant lands ; came
back frequently "to the scenes of his boyhood, almost
destitute of many of the comforts of life," in order
to get into the presence of his father's winter-worn
locks, and spread a humid veil of darkness around
his expectations; but he was always promptly sent
back to the cold charity of the combat again; he
learned to play the fiddle, and made a name for
himself in that line; he had dwelt among the wild

in

MARK TWAIN

tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers
of the kingdoms of the earth, and found out — the
cunning creature — that they refer their differences
to the learned for settlement; he had achieved a
vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the
Florida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-
book and started to school ; he had fallen in love with
Ambulinia Valeer while she was teething, but had
kept it to himself awhile. , out of the reverential awe
which he felt for the child; but now at last, like the
unyielding Deity who follows the storm to check its
rage in the forest, he resolves to shake off his em
barrassment, and to return where before he had only
worshiped. The Major, indeed, has made up his
mind to rise up and shake his faculties together, and
to see if he can't do that thing himself. This is not
clear. But no matter about that: there stands the
hero, compact and visible; and he is no mean struc
ture, considering that his creator had never created
anything before, and hadn't anything but rags and
wind to build with this time. It seems to me that
no one can contemplate this odd creature, this quaint
and curious blatherskite, without admiring Mc-
Clintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling
grateful to him; for McClintock made him, he gave
him to us; without McClintock we could not have had
him, and would now be poor.

But we must come to the feast again. Here is a
courtship scene, down there in the romantic glades
among the raccoons, alligators, and things, that has
merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles
woos. Dwell upon the second sentence (particu-

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

larly the close of it) and the beginning of the third.
Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is in
truded upon us unheralded and unexplained. That
is McClintock's way; it is his habit; it is a part of his
genius; he cannot help it; he never interrupts the
rush of his narrative to make introductions.

It could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought
an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and
assumed a more distant calmness than before, seemingly to
destroy all hope. After many efforts and struggles with his own
person, with timid steps the Major approached the damsel, with
the same caution as he would have done in a field of battle.
"Lady Ambulinia," said he, trembling, "I have long desired a
moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the conse
quences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my
petition. Can you not anticipate what I would say, and what
I am about to express? Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung
from the brain of Jupiter, release me from thy winding chains
or cure me — " "Say no more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia,
with a serious look, raising her hand as if she intended to swear
eternal hatred against the whole world ; "another lady in my place
would have perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness.
I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the
vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well
as ashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to
think 'all is not gold that glitters'; so be not rash in your reso
lution. It is better to repent now, than to do it in a more solemn
hour. Yes, I know what you would say. I know you have a
costly gift for me — the noblest that man can make — your
heart I You should not offer it to one so unworthy. Heaven,
you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house of
solitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is
more to be admired than big names and high-sounding titles.
Notwithstanding all this, let me speak the emotions of an honest
heart — allow me to say in the fullness of my hopes that I antici
pate better days. The bird may stretch its wings toward the
sun, which it can never reach; and flowers of the field appear to
ascend in the same direction, because they cannot do otherwise;

MARK TWAIN

but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he
believes; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow.
From your confession and indicative looks, I must be that person;
if so deceive not yourself."

Elfonzo replied, "Pardon me, my dear madam, for my
frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days — everything
grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while
precipices on every hand surrounded me, your guardian angel
stood and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every
trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping hand;
yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice
impaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who
acquired thy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos wor
shiped thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I began to know
jealousy, a strong guest — indeed, in my bosom, — yet I could see
if I gained your admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was
aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the wealth
of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent
and regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your per
mission to beg an interest in your prayers — to ask you to animate
my drooping spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for
if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger
like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble,
and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet
I am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which
will enable me to complete my long-tried intention."

"Return to yourself, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia, pleasantly: "a
dream of vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the at
mosphere, dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that
urges or hinders, nothing that brings discord into our present liti
gation. I entreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and
forget it all. When Homer describes the battle of the gods and
noble men fighting with giants and dragons, they represent under
this image our struggles with the delusions of our passions. You
have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies; you have called
me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination an angel in human
form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to be as you
have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share in
your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would
allure you from the path in which your conscience leads you ; for
you know I respect the conscience of others, as I would die for

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my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love, let such conversa
tion never again pass between us. Go, seek a nobler theme! we
will seek it in the stream of time, as the sun set in the Tigris."
As she spake these words she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying
at the same time — "Peace and prosperity attend you, my hero;
be up and doing!" Closing her remarks with this expression,
she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and amazed.
He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,
gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.

Yes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt
about that. Nearly half of this delirious story has
now been delivered to the reader. It seems a pity
to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity! it
is more than a pity, it is a crime; for to synopsize
McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing conflagration
to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to
ragged poverty. McClintock never wrote a line that
was not precious; he never wrote one that could be
spared; he never framed one from which a word
could be removed without damage. Every sentence
that this master has produced may be likened to a
perfect set of teeth, white, uniform, beautiful. If
you pull one, the charm is gone.

Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to
keep it up ; for lack of space requires us to synopsize.

We left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what,
we do not know. Not at the girl's speech. No; we
ourselves should have been amazed at it, of course,
for none of us has ever heard anything resembling
it; but Elfonzo was used to speeches made up of
noise and vacancy, and could listen to them with
undaunted mind like the "topmost topaz of an
ancient tower"; he was used to making them him-

MARK TWAIN

self; he — but let it go, it cannot be guessed out; we
shall never know what it was that astonished him.
He stood there awhile; then he said, "Alas! am I now
Grief's disappointed son at last?" He did not stop
to examine his mind, and to try to find out what he
probably meant by that, because, for one reason,
"a mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved
upon his young heart," and started him for the
village. He resumed his bench in school, "and
reasonably progressed in his education." His heart
was heavy, but he went into society, and sought
surcease of sorrow in its light distractions. He
made himself popular with his violin, ' ' which seemed
to have a thousand chords — more symphonious than
the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting than
the ghost of the Hills." This is obscure, but let
it go.

During this interval Leos did some unencouraged
courting, but at last, "choked by his undertaking,"
he desisted.

Presently "Elfonzo again wends his way to the
stately walls and new-built village." He goes to the
house of his beloved ; she opens the door herself. To
my surprise — for Ambulinia's heart had still seemed
free at the time of their last interview — love beamed
from the girl's eyes. One sees that Elfonzo was sur
prised, too; for when he caught that light, "a halloo
of smothered shouts ran through every vein." A
neat figure — a very neat figure, indeed! Then he
kissed her. "The scene was overwhelming." They
went into the parlor. The girl said it was safe, for
her parents were abed, and would never know.

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

Then we have this fine picture — flung upon the
canvas with hardly an effort, as you will notice.

Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy
neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine
fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she stood like
a goddess confessed before him.

There is nothing of interest in the couple's inter
view. Now at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to
a village show, where jealousy is the motive of the
play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson,
if he is a jealous person. But this is a sham, and
pretty shallow. McClintock merely wants a pre
text to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or
two in " Othello. "

The lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of
the fiddlers. He and Ambulinia must not be seen
together, lest trouble follow with the girl's malignant
father; we are made to understand that clearly. So
the two sit together in the orchestra, in the midst of
the musicians. This does not seem to be good art.
In the first place, the girl would be in the way, for
orchestras are always packed closely together, and
there is no room to spare for people's girls; in the
next place, one cannot conceal a girl in an orches
tra without everybody taking notice of it. There
can be no doubt, it seems to me, that this^is bad
art.

Leos is present. Of course, one of the first things
that catches his eye is the maddening spectacle of
Ambulinia "leaning upon Elfonzo's chair." This
poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudi-

117

MARK TWAIN

ments of concealment. But she is "in her seven
teenth," as the author phrases it, and that is her
justification.

Leos meditates, constructs a plan — with personal
violence as a basis, of course. It was their way
down there. It is a good plain plan, without any
imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the
front door, and when these two come out he will
"arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent
Elfonzo," and thus make for himself a "more pros
perous field of immortality than ever was decreed
by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist
imagined." But, dear me, while he is waiting there
the couple climb out at the back window and scurry
home ! This is romantic enough, but there is a lack
of dignity in the situation.

At this point McClintock puts in the whole of his
curious play — which we skip.

Some correspondence follows now. The bitter
father and the distressed lovers write the letters.
Elopements are attempted. They are idiotically
planned, and they fail. Then we have several pages
of romantic powwow and confusion signifying noth
ing. Another elopement is planned; it is to take
place on Sunday, when everybody is at church.
But the "hero" cannot keep the secret; he tells
everybody. Another author would have found an
other instrument when he decided to defeat this
elopement; but that is not McCHntock's way. He
uses the person that is nearest at hand.

The evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her
flight, takes refuge in a neighbor's house. Her

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

father drags her home. The villagers gather, at
tracted by the racket.

Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to
see what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with
downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them enter the
abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh of his soul,
out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she ex
claimed, "Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with
all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride
on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest,
and roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of
trouble and confusion. Oh, friends! if any pity me, let your last
efforts throng upon the green hills, and come to the relief of
Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent love." Elfonzo
called out with a loud voice, "My God, can I stand this! arouse
up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my
brave boys," said he, "are you ready to go forth to your duty?"
They stood around him. " Who," said he, "will call us to arms?
Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will
meet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of
grievous temptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him
come and shake hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear
that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like this, which
calls aloud for a speedy remedy." "Mine be the deed," said a
young lawyer, "and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her
station before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to
you; what is death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is
not to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the
mighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies
should wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our
fame should soar on the blood of the slumberer." Mr. Valeer
stands at his door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with
his dangerous weapon1 ready to strike the first man who should
enter his door. "Who will arise and go forward through blood
and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?" said Elfonzo.
"All," exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with
their implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature,
stood among the distant hills to see the result of the contest.

1 It is a crowbar.
119

MARK TWAIN

It will hardly be believed that after all this thunder
and lightning not a drop of rain fell; but such is the
fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up and black
guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, getting their
outlay back with interest ; then in the early morning
the army and its general retired from the field,
leaving the victory with their solitary adversary and
his crowbar. This is the first time this has hap
pened in romantic literature. The invention is
original. Everything in this book is original; there
is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in
other romances, when you find the author leading
up to a climax, you know what is going to happen.
But in this book it is different ; the thing which seems
inevitable and unavoidable never happens; it is cir
cumvented by the art of the author every time.

Another elopement was attempted. It failed.

We have now arrived at the end. But it is not
exciting. McCHntock thinks it is; but it isn't. One
day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another note — a note
proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is
admirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imagi
native, deep — oh, everything, and perfectly easy.
One wonders why it was never thought of before.
This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the break
fast-table, ostensibly to "attend to the placing of
those flowers, which should have been done a week
ago" — artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn't
keep so long — and then, instead of fixing the flowers,
she is to walk out to the grove, and go off with
Elfonzo. The invention of this plan overstrained
the author, that is plain, for he straightway shows

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A CURE FOR THE BLUES

failing powers. The details of the plan are not
many or elaborate. The author shall state them
himself — this good soul, whose intentions are always
better than his English :

"You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you
will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear
you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first con
nubial rights."

Last scene of all, which the author, now much en
feebled, tries to smarten up and make acceptable to
his spectacular heart by introducing some new prop
erties — silver bow, golden harp, olive branch —
things that can all come good in an elopement, no
doubt, yet are not to be compared to an umbrella
for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of
that kind.

And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with
glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her
with his silver bow and his golden harp. They meet — Ambu-
linia's countenance brightens — Elfonzo leads up the winged
steed. " Mount," said he, "ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul —
the day is ours." She sprang upon the back of the young
thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one
hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive
branch. "Lend thy aid, ye strong winds," they exclaimed, "ye
moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy
conquered." "Hold," said Elfonzo, "thy dashing steed."
"Ride on," said Ambulinia, "the voice of thunder is behind us."
And onward they went, with such rapidity that they very soon
arrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were
united with all the solemnities that usually attend such divine
operations.

There is but one Homer, there is but one Shake
speare, there is but one McClintock — and his rnimor-

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MARK TWAIN

tal book is before you. Homer could not have
written this book, Shakespeare could not have
written it, I could not have done it myself. There
is nothing just like it in the literature of any country
or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental.
It adds G. Ragsdale McClintock's to the sum of the
republic's imperishable names.

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THE CURIOUS BOOK

COMPLETE

[The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale
McClintock is liberally illuminated with sample extracts, but
these cannot appease the appetite. Only the complete book,
unabridged, can do that. Therefore it is here printed. — M. T.]

THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE
TRIUMPHANT

Sweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms,

Thy voice is sweeter still,
It fills the breast with fond alarms,

Echoed by every rill.

1 BEGIN this little work with an eulogy upon
woman, who has ever been distinguished for her
perseverance, her constancy, and her devoted atten
tion to those upon whom she has been pleased to
place her affections. Many have been the themes
upon which writers and public speakers have dwelt
with intense and increasing interest. Among these
delightful themes stands that of woman, the balm to
all our sighs and disappointments, and the most pre
eminent of all other topics. Here the poet and
orator have stood and gazed with wonder and with
admiration; they have dwelt upon her innocence,
the ornament of all her virtues. First viewing her
external charms, such as are set forth in her form

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MARK TWAIN

and her benevolent countenance, and then passing
to the deep hidden springs of loveliness and disinter
ested devotion. In every clime, and in every age,
she has been the pride of her nation. Her watchful
ness is untiring; she who guarded the sepulcher was
the first to approach it, and the last to depart from
its awful yet sublime scene. Even here, in this
highly favored land, we look to her for the security
of our institutions, and for our future greatness as a
nation. But, strange as it may appear, woman's
charms and virtues are but slightly appreciated by
thousands. Those who should raise the standard of
female worth, and paint her value with her virtues,
in living colors, upon the banners that are fanned
by the zephyrs of heaven, and hand them down to
posterity as emblematical of a rich inheritance, do
not properly estimate them.

Man is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and
the emotions which bear that name; he does not
understand, he will not comprehend; his intelligence
has not expanded to that degree of glory which
drinks in the vast revolution of humanity, its end,
its mighty destination, and the causes which oper
ated, and are still operating, to produce a more
elevated station, and the objects which energize and
enliven its consummation. This he is a stranger to;
he is not aware that woman is the recipient of ce
lestial love, and that man is dependent upon her to
perfect his character; that without her, philosophi
cally and truly speaking, the brightest of his intelli
gence is but the coldness of a winter moon, whose
beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

its own, but borrowed from the great dispenser of
effulgent beauty. We have no disposition in the
world to flatter the fair sex, we would raise them
above those dastardly principles which only exist in
little souls, contracted hearts, and a distracted
brain. Often does she unfold herself in all her
fascinating loveliness, presenting the most capti
vating charms; yet we find man frequently treats
such purity of purpose with indifference. Why does
he do it? Why does he baffle that which is in
evitably the source of his better days? Is he so much
of a stranger to those excellent qualities as not to
appreciate woman, as not to have respect to her
dignity? Since her art and beauty first captivated
man, she has been his delight and his comfort ; she has
shared alike in his misfo: tunes and in his prosperity.
Whenever the billows of adversity and the tu
multuous waves of trouble beat high, her smiles
subdue their fury. Should the tear of sorrow and the
mournful sigh of grief interrupt the peace of his
mind, her voice removes them all, and she bends
from her circle to encourage him onward. When
darkness wou d obscure his mind, and a thick cloud
of gloom would bewilder its operations, her intelli
gent eye darts a ray of streaming light into his heart.
Mighty and charming is that disinterested devotion
which she is ever ready to exercise toward man, not
waiting till the last moment of his danger, but seeks
to relieve him in his early afflictions. It gushes
forth from the expansive fullness of a tender and
devoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the
most elevated and refined feelings are matured and

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MARK TWAIN

developed in those many kind offices which invariably
make her character.

In the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled
characteristic may always be seen, in the performance
of the most charitable acts; nothing that she can do
to promote the happiness of him who she claims to be
her protector will be omitted; all is invigorated by
the animating sunbeams which awaken the heart to
songs of gaiety. Leaving this point, to notice an
other prominent consideration, which is generally one
of great moment and of vital importance. Invari
ably she is firm and steady in all her pursuits and
aims. There is required a combination of forces and
extreme opposition to drive her from her position;
she takes her stand, not to be moved by the sound
of Apollo's lyre or the curved bow of pleasure.

Firm and true to what she undertakes, and that
which she requires by her own aggrandizement, and
regards as being within the strict rules of propriety,
she will remain stable and unflinching to the last.
A more genuine principle is not to be found in the
most determined, resolute heart of man. For this
she deserves to be held in the highest commendation,
for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings,
and for this she deserves the most laudable reward of
all others. It is a noble characteristic and is worthy
the imitation of any age. And when we look at it
in one particular aspect, it is still magnified, and
grows brighter and brighter the more we reflect upon
its eternal duration. What will she not do, when her
word as well as her affections and love are pledged to
her lover? Everything that is dear to her on earth,

126

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

all the hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the
sincerity and loveliness of sisters, and the benevolent
devotion of brothers, who have surrounded her with
every comfort; she will forsake them all, quit the
harmony and sweet sound of the lute and the harp,
and throw herself upon the affections of some devoted
admirer, in whom she fondly hopes to find more than
she has left behind, which is not often realized by
many. Truth and virtue all combined! How de
serving our admiration and love ! Ah ! cruel would it
be in man, after she has thus manifested such an
unshaken confidence in him, and said by her deter
mination to abandon all the endearments and bland
ishments of home, to act a villainous part, and prove
a traitor in the revolution of his mission, and then
turn Hector over the innocent victim whom he swore
to protect, in the presence of Heaven, recorded by
the pen of an angel.

Striking as this trait may unfold itself in her char
acter, and as pre-eminent as it may stand among the
fair display of her other qualities, yet there is another,
which struggles into existence, and adds an additional
luster to what she already possesses. I mean that
disposition in woman which enables her, in sorrow,
in grief, and in distress, to bear all with enduring
patience. This she has done, and can and will do,
amid the din of war and clash of arms. Scenes and
occurrences which, to every appearance, are calcu
lated to rend the heart with the prof oundest emotions
of trouble, do not fetter that exalted principle imbued
in her very nature. It is true, her tender and feeling
heart may often be moved (as she is thus consti-

127

MARK TWAIN

tuted), but still she is not conquered, she has not
given up to the harlequin of disappointments, her
energies have not become clouded in the last moment
of misfortune, but she is continually invigorated by
the archetype of her affections She may bury her
face in her hands, and let the tear of anguish roll, she
may promenade the delightful walks of some garden,
decorated with all the flowers of nature, or she may
steal out along some gently rippling stream, and
there, as the silver waters uninterruptedly move for
ward, shed her silent tears; they mingle with the
waves, and take a last farewell of their agitated home,
to seek a peaceful dwelling among the rolling floods;
yet there is a voice rushing from her breast, that
proclaims victory along the whole line and battlement
of her affections. That voice is the voice of patience
and resignation; that voice is one that bears every
thing calmly and dispassionately, amid the most dis
tressing scenes ; when the fates are arrayed against
her peace, and apparently plotting for her destruc
tion, still she is resigned.

Woman's affections are deep, consequently her
troubles may be made to sink deep. Although you
may not be able to mark the traces of her grief and
the furrowings of her anguish upon her winning
countenance, yet be assured they are nevertheless
preying upon her inward person, sapping the very
foundation of that heart which alone was made for
the weal and not the woe of man. The deep recesses
of the soul are fields for their operation. But they
are not destined simply to take the regions of the
heart for their dominion, they are not satisfied

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

merely with interrupting her better feelings; but
after a while you may see the blooming cheek be
ginning to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no
longer sparkles with the starry light of heaven, her
vibrating pulse long since changed its regular motion,
and her palpitating bosom beats once more for the
midday of her glory. Anxiety and care ultimately
throw her into the arms of the haggard and grim
monster death. But, oh, how patient, under every
pining influence! Let us view the matter in bolder
colors ; see her when the dearest object of her affec
tions recklessly seeks every bacchanalian pleasure,
contents himself with the last rubbish of creation.
With what solicitude she awaits his return ! Sleep fails
to perform its office — she weeps while the nocturnal
shades of the night triumph in the stillness. Bend
ing over some favorite book, whilst the author throws
before her mind the most beautiful imagery, she
startles at every sound. The midnight silence is
broken by the solemn announcement of the return
of another morning. He is still absent; she listens
for that voice which has so often been greeted by the
melodies of her own; but, alas! stern silence is all
that she receives for her vigilance.

Mark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night
passes away. At last, brutalized by the accursed
thing, he staggers along with rage, and, shivering
with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a murmur
is heard from her lips. On the contrary, she meets
him with a smile — she caresses him with her tender
arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her sex.
Here, then, is seen her disposition, beautifully ar-

I2Q

MARK TWAIN

rayed. Woman, thou art more to be admired than
the spicy gales of Arabia, and more sought for than
the gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman
should associate freely with man, and we believe that
it is for the preservation of her rights. She should
become acquainted with the metaphysical designs of
those who condescend to sing the siren song of
flattery. This, we think, should be according to the
unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon
every innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are
often steeped in the guilt of contamination, which
blasts the expectations of better moments. Truth,
and beautiful dreams — loveliness, and delicacy of
character, with cherished affections of the ideal
woman — gentle hopes and aspirations, are enough to
uphold her in the storms of darkness, without the
transferred colorings of a stained sufferer. How
often have we seen it in our public prints, that woman
occupies a false station in the world ! and some have
gone so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So
long has she been regarded a weak creature, by the
rabble and illiterate — they have looked upon her as
an insufficient actress on the great stage of human
life — a mere puppet, to fill up the drama of human
existence — a thoughtless, inactive being — that she
has too often come to the same conclusion herself,
and has sometimes forgotten her high destination, in
the meridian of her glory. We have but little sym
pathy or patience for those who treat her as a mere
Rosy Melindi — who are always fishing for pretty
compliments — who are satisfied by the gossamer ot
Romance, and who can be allured by the verbosity

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

of high-flown words, rich in language, but poor and
barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by the
intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the
cunning, the hidden, and the artful — no wonder she
has sometimes folded her wings in despair, and for
gotten her heavenly mission in the delirium of imagi
nation; no wonder she searches out some wild desert,
to find a peaceful home. But this cannot always
continue. A new era is moving gently onward, old
things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions,
old prejudices, and old notions are now bidding fare
well to their old associates and companions, and
giving way to one whose wings are plumed with the
light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morn
ing. There is a remnant of blessedness that clings to
her in spite of all evil influence, there is enough of the
Divine Master left to accomplish the noblest work
ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies;
and that time is [fast approaching, when the picture
of the true woman will shine from its frame of glory,
to captivate, to win back, to restore, and to call into
being once more, the object of her mission.

Star of the brave! thy glory shed,

O'er all the earth, thy army led —

Bold meteor of immortal birth!

Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth?

Mighty and glorious are the days of youth ; happy
the moments of the lover, mingled with smiles and
tears of his devoted, and long to be remembered are
the achievements which he gains with a palpitating
heart and a trembling hand. A bright and lovely
dawn, the harbinger of a fair and prosperous day,

MARK TWAIN

had arisen over the beautiful little village of Gum
ming, which is surrounded by the most romantic
scenery in the Cherokee country. Brightening clouds
seemed to rise from the mist of the fair Chatta-
hoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest,
to guide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations
to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his name,
and to win back the admiration of his long-tried
friend. He endeavored to make his way through
Sawney's Mountain, where many meet to catch the
gales that are continually blowing for the refresh
ment of the stranger and the traveler. Surrounded
as he was by hills on every side, naked rocks dared
the efforts of his energies. Soon the sky became
overcast, the sun buried itself in the clouds, and the
fair day gave place to gloomy twilight, which lay
heavily on the Indian Plains. He remembered an
old Indian Castle, that once stood at the foot of the
mountain. He thought if he could make his way
to this, he would rest contented for a short time.
The mountain air breathed fragrance — a rosy tinge
rested on the glassy waters that murmured at its
base. His resolution soon brought him to the re
mains of the red man's hut : he surveyed with wonder
and astonishment the decayed building, which time
had buried in the dust, and thought to himself, his
happiness was not yet complete. Beside the shore
of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or
twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite
book, and who had a remarkably noble countenance
— eyes which betrayed more than a common mind.
This of course made the youth a welcome guest, and

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

gained him friends in whatever condition of life he
might be placed. The traveler observed that he was
a well-built figure, which showed strength and grace
in every movement. He accordingly addressed him
in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him
the way to the village. After he had received the
desired information, and was about taking his leave,
the youth said, "Are you not Major Elfonzo, the
great musician — the champion of a noble cause — the
modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the
Florida War?" "I bear that name," said the Major,
''and those titles, trusting at the same time that the
ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through
all my laudable undertakings, and if," continued the
Major, "you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds,
I should like to make you my confidant and learn
your address. ' ' The youth looked somewhat amazed,
bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: "My
name is Roswell. I have been recently admitted to
the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my future
success in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir,
like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks
upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to
give you any assistance in my official capacity, and
whatever this muscular arm of mine can do, when
ever it shall be called from its buried greatness."
The Major grasped him by the hand, and ex
claimed : ' ' O ! thou exalted spirit of inspiration — thou
flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed
blaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every
rampart that seems to impede your progress!"
The road which led to the town presented many

MARK TWAIN

attractions. Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth
of deep feeling, and was now wending his way to the
dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds
whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed
against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace
roars. This brought him to remember while alone,
that he quietly left behind the hospitality of a
father's house, and gladly entered the world, with
higher hopes than are often realized. But as he
journeyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of
his father, who had often looked sadly on the ground
when tears of cruelly deceived hope moistened his
eye. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a dutiful son;
yet fond of the amusements of life — had been in
distant lands — had enjoyed the pleasure of the
world and had frequently returned to the scenes of
his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the com
forts of life. In this condition, he would frequently
say to his father, "Have I offended you, that you
look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with
stinging looks? Will you not favor me with the
sound of your voice ? If I have trampled upon your
veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness
around your expectations, send me back into the
world where no heart beats for me — where the foot
of man has never yet trod; but give me at least one
kind word — allow me to come into the presence some
times of thy winter- worn locks. " ' ' Forbid it, Heaven,
that I should be angry with thee," answered the
father, "my son, and yet I send thee back to the
children of the world — to the cold charity of the
combat, and to a land of victory. I read another

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

destiny in thy countenance — I learn thy inclinations
from the flame that has already kindled in my soul
a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear
Elfonzo, it will find thee — thou canst not escape that
lighted torch, which shall blot out from the remem
brance of men a long train of prophecies which they
have foretold against thee. I once thought not so.
Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain
before me, and my sight is clear; yet Elfonzo, return
to thy worldly occupation — take again in thy hand
that chord of sweet sounds — struggle with the civil
ized world, and with your own heart; fly swiftly to
the enchanted ground — let the night-Owl send forth
its screams from the stubborn oak — let the sea sport
upon the beach, and the stars sing together ; but learn
of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place.
Our most innocent as well as our most lawful desires
must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacri
fice them to a Higher will."

Remembering such admonitions with gratitude,
Elfonzo was immediately urged by the recollection
of his father's family to keep moving. His steps
became quicker and quicker — he hastened through
the piny woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy
he very soon reached the little village of repose, in
whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close
attention to every important object — his modest ques
tions about whatever was new to him — his reverence for
wise old age, and his ardent desire to learn many of
the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.

One mild winter day as he walked along the streets
toward the Academy, which stood upon a small

MARK TWAIN

eminence, surrounded by native growth — some ven
erable in its appearance, others young and prosperous
—all seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very
place for learning as well as for genius to spend its
research beneath its spreading shades. He entered
its classic walls in the usual mode of southern
manners. The principal of the Institution begged
him to be seated and listen to the recitations that
were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request,
and seemed to be much pleased. After the school
was dismissed, and the young hearts regained their
freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at
the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while
others tittered at the actions of the past day, he
addressed the teacher in a tone that indicated a reso
lution — with an undaunted mind. He said he had
determined to become a student, if he could meet
with his approbation. "Sir," said he, "I have spent
much time in the world. I have traveled among the
uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met
with friends, and combated with foes; but none of
these gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be
my destiny. I see the learned world have an influ
ence with the voice of the people themselves. The
despoilers of the remotest kingdoms of the earth
refer their differences to this class of persons. This
the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and
now if you will receive me as I am, with these de
ficiencies — with all my misguided opinions, I will give
you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the
Institution, or those who have placed you in this
honorable station." The instructor, who had met

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

with many disappointments, knew how to feel for
a stranger who had been thus turned upon the
charities of an unfeeling community. He looked at
him earnestly, and said: "Be of good cheer — look
forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.
Remember, the more elevated the mark at which you
aim, the more sure, the more glorious, the more
magnificent the prize. " From wonder to wonder, his
encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange
nature bloomed before him — giant streams promised
him success — gardens of hidden treasures opened to
his view. All this, so vividly described, seemed to
gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.

In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid
progress in the English and Latin departments.
Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity
that he was like to become the first in his class, and
made such unexpected progress, and was so studious,
that he had almost forgotten the pictured saint of
his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and
cypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the
dews of Heaven upon the heads of those who had so
often poured forth the tender emotions of their souls
under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that
he had seen there. So one evening, as he was return
ing from his reading, he concluded he would pay a
visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he think of
witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though
no doubt he wished it might be so. He continued
sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past.
The nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious
he became. At that moment a tall female figure

MARK TWAIN

flitted across his path, with a bunch of roses in her
hand; her countenance showed uncommon vivacity,
with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already ap
peared as she smiled beautifully, promenading —
while her ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously
around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to
complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in
full bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility
and tenderness were always her associates. In Am-
bulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul — one that never
faded — one that never was conquered. Her heart
yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom
she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt
herself more closely bound, because he sought the
hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused from his
apparent reverie. His books no longer were his in
separable companions — his thoughts arrayed them
selves to encourage him to the field of victory. He
endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but
his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was
a stream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of
admiration, and carried his senses away captive.
Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more mind
ful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through
the piny woods she calmly echoed : ' ' O ! Elfonzo, thou
wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now
walk in a new path — perhaps thy way leads through
darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell happiness."
Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fra
grant flowers she sat one evening at twilight, to
enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of melody
along the distant groves, the little birds perched on

138

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

every side, as if to watch the movements of their
new visitor. The bells were tolling when Elfonzo
silently stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding
in his hand his favorite instrument of music — his
eye continually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly
seemed to perceive him, as she played carelessly with
the songsters that hopped from branch to branch.
Nothing could be more striking than the difference
between the two. Nature seemed to have given the
more tender soul to Elfonzo, and the stronger and
more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke
from the eyes of Elfonzo — such a feeling as can only
be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers,
and by those who are able to return the same with
sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than
Ambulinia: she had turned a little into her seven
teenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee
country, with the same equal proportions as one of
the natives. But little intimacy had existed be
tween them until the year forty-one — because the
youth felt that the character of such a lovely girl
was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that
of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be
insulted, at all times and under all circumstances, by
the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old age, which
should continually reflect dignity upon those around,
and treat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate
with a graceful mien, he continued to use diligence
and perseverance. All this lighted a spark in his
heart that changed his whole character, and like the
unyielding Deity that follows the storm to check its
rage in the forest, he resolves for the first time to

MARK TWAIN

shake off his embarrassment and return where he
had before only worshiped.

It could not escape Ambulinia s penetrating eye
that he sought an interview with her, which she as
anxiously avoided, and assumed a more distant calm
ness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope.
After many efforts and struggles with his own person,
with timid steps the Major approached the damsel,
with the same caution as he would have done in a
field of battle. "Lady Ambulinia, " said he, trem
bling, "I have long desired a moment like this. I
dare not let it escape. I fear the consequences; yet
I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.
Can you not anticipate what I would say, and what
I am about to express? Will not you, like Minerva,
who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, release me
from thy winding chains or cure me — " "Say no
more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious
look, raising her hand as if she intended to swear
eternal hatred against the whole world; "another
lady in my place would have perhaps answered your
question in bitter coldness. I know not the little arts
of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of those
who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as
ashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead
you to think 'all is not gold that glitters'; so be not
rash in your resolution. It is better to repent now
than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know
what you would say. I know you have a costly gift
for me — the noblest that man can make — your heart !
you should not offer it to one so unworthy. Heaven,
you know, has allowed my father's house to be made

140

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

a house of solitude, a home of silent obedience, which
my parents say is more to be admired than big names
and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this,
let me speak the emotions of an honest heart ; allow
me to say in the fullness of my hopes that I anticipate
better days. The bird may stretch its wings toward
the sun, which it can never reach ; and flowers of the
field appear to ascend in the same direction, because
they cannot do otherwise; but man confides his com
plaints to the saints in whom he believes ; for in then-
abodes of 1 ght they know no more sorrow. From
your confession and indicative looks, I must be that
person; if so, deceive not yourself.'*

Elf onzo replied, ' ' Pardon me, my dear madam, for
my frankness. I have loved you from my earliest
days ; everything grand and beautiful hath borne the
image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand
surrounded me, your guardian angel stood and beck
oned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial,
in every misfortune, I have met with your helping
hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy
love till a voice impaired with age encouraged the
cause, and declared they who acquired thy favor
should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped
thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I began to
know jealousy — a strong guest, indeed, in my bosom
— yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos
was to be my riva . I was aware that he had the
influence of your pa ents, and the wealth of a de
ceased relative, which is too often mistaken for
permanent and regular tranquillity; yet I have de
termined by your permission to beg an interest in

141

MARK TWAIN

your prayers — to ask you to animate my drooping
spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for
if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies
shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And though
earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the
sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured
that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which
will enable me to complete my long-tried intention."
" Return to your self, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia,
pleasantly; "a dream of vision has disturbed your
intellect; you are above the atmosphe e, dwelling
in the celestial regions ; nothing is there that urges or
hinders, nothing that brings discord into our present
litigation. I entreat you to condescend a little, and
be a man, and forget it all. When Homer describes
the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with
giants and dragons, they represent under this image
our struggles with the delusions of our passions. You
have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies; you
have called me a saint, and portrayed in your im
agination an angel in human form. Let her remain
such to you, let her continue to be as you have
supposed, and be assured that she will consider a
share in your esteem as her highest treasure. Think
not that I would allure you from the path in which
your conscience leads you; for you know I respect the
conscience of others, as I would die for my own.
Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love, let such conver
sation never again pass between us. Go, seek a
nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time,
as the sun set in the Tigris.'* As she spake these
words she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying at the

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

same time, "Peace and prosperity attend you, my
hero: be up and doing!' Closing her remarks with
this expression, she walked slowly away, leaving
Elfonzo astonished and amazed. He ventured not
to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone, gazing
at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.
The rippling stream rolled on at his feet. Twilight
had already begun to draw her sable mantle over the
earth, and now and then the fiery smoke would
ascend from the little town which lay spread out
before him. The citizens seemed to be full of life
and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo saw not a brilliant
scene. No ; his future life stood before him, stripped
of the hopes that once adorned all his sanguine
desires. "Alas!" said he, "am I now Grief's dis
appointed son at last." Ambulinia's image rose
before his fancy. A mixture of ambition and great
ness of soul moved upon his young heart, and encour
aged him to bear all his crosses with the patience of
a Job, notwithstanding he had to encounter with so
many obstacles. He still endeavored to prosecute
his studies, and reasonably progressed in his educa
tion. Still, he was not content; there was something
yet to be done before his happiness was complete.
He would visit his friends and acquaintances. They
would invite him to social parties, insisting that he
should partake of the amusements that were going
on. This he enjoyed tolerably well. The ladies and
gentlemen were generally well pleased with the
Major; as he delighted all with his violin, which
seemed to have a thousand chords — more symphoni-
ous than the Muses of Apollo and more enchanting

MARK TWAIN

than the ghost of the Hills. He passed some days
in the country. During that time Leos had made
many calls upon Ambulinia, who was generally re
ceived with a great deal of courtesy by the family.
They thought him to be a young man worthy of
attention, though he had but little in his soul to
attract the attention or even win the affections of
her whose graceful manners had almost made him a
slave to every bewitching look that fe 1 from her eyes.
Leos made several attempts to tell her of his fair
prospects — how much he loved her, and how much
it would add to his bliss if he could but think she
would be willing to share these blessings with him;
but, choked by his undertaking, he made himself
more like an inactive drone than he did like one who
bowed at beauty's shrine.

Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls
and new-built village. He now determines to see the
end of the prophecy which had been foretold to him.
The clouds burst from his sight ; be believes if he can
but see his Ambulinia, he can open to her view the
bloody altars that have been misrepresented to stig
matize his name. He knows that her breast is trans
fixed with the sword of reason, and ready at all times
to detect the hidden villainy of her enemies. He
resolves to see her in her own home, with the con
soling theme: "'I can but perish if I go.' Let the
consequences be what they may," said he, "if I die,
it shall be contending and struggling for my own
rights."

Night had almost overtaken him when he arrived
in town. Colonel Elder, a noble - hearted, high-

144

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

minded, and independent man, met him at his door
as usual, and seized him by the hand. "Well, El-
fonzo," said the Colonel, "how does the world use
you in your efforts?" "I have no objection to the
world," said Elfonzo, "but the people are rather
singular in some of their opinions." "Aye, well,"
said the Colonel, "you must remember that creation
is made up of many mysteries; just take things by
the right handle; be always sure you know which is
the smooth side before you attempt your polish; be
reconciled to your fate, be it what it may; and never
find fault with your condition, unless your complain
ing will benefit it. Perseverance is a principle that
should be commendable in those who have judgment
to govern it. I should never have been so successful
in my hunting excursions had I waited till the deer,
by some magic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle
of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at the
game that dared my boldness in the wild forest.
The great mystery in hunting seems to be — a good
marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed determination,
and my word for it, you will never return home with
out sounding your horn with the breath of a new
victory. And so with every other undertaking. Be
confident that your ammunition is of the right kind—
always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so
soon as you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the
spoils are yours."

This filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set
out with a stronger anxiety than ever to the home
of Ambulinia. A few short steps soon brought him
to the door, half out of breath. He rapped gently.

U5

MARK TWAIN

Ambulinia, who sat in the parlor alone, suspecting
Elfonzo was near, ventured to the door, opened it,
and beheld the hero, who stood in an humble atti
tude, bowed gracefully, and as they caught each
other's looks the light of peace beamed from the eyes
of Ambulinia. Elfonzo caught the expression ; a hal
loo of smothered shouts ran through every vein,
and for the first time he dared to impress a kiss upon
her cheek. The scene was overwhelming; had the
temptation been less animating, he would not have
ventured to have acted so contrary to the desired
wish of his Ambulinia; but who could have withstood
the irresistible temptation ! What society condemns
the practice but a cold, heartless, uncivilized people
that know nothing of the warm attachments of re
fined society ? Here the dead was raised to his long-
cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here all
doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of
oblivion; sectional differences no longer disunited
their opinions; like the freed bird from the cage,
sportive claps its rustling wings, wheels about to
heaven in a joyful strain, and raises its notes to the
upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon Elfonzo to be
seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary
absence; assuring him the family had retired, conse
quently they would ever remain ignorant of his visit.
Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of
her rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial
locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe hung
waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess
confessed before him.

"It does seem to me, my dear sir," said Ambulinia,

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

"that you have been gone an age. Oh, the restless
hours I have spent since I last saw you, in yon
beautiful grove. There is where I trifled with your
feelings for the express purpose of trying your
attachment for me. I now find you are devoted;
but ah! I trust you live not unguarded by the pow
ers of Heaven. Though oft did I refuse to join my
hand with thine, and as oft did I cruelly mock thy
entreaties with borrowed shapes: yes, I feared to
answer thee by terms, in words sincere and undis-
sembled. O ! could I pursue, and you had leisure to
hear the annals of my woes, the evening star would
shut Heaven's gates upon the impending day before
my tale would be finished, and this night would find
me soliciting your forgiveness."

"Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts," replied
Elfonzo.

"Look, O! look: that angelic look of thine — bathe
not thy visage in tears; banish those floods that are
gathering; let my confession and my presence bring
thee some relief." "Then, indeed, I will be cheer
ful," said Ambulinia, "and I think if we will go to
the exhibition this evening, we certainly will see
something worthy of our attention. One of the most
tragical scenes is to be acted that has ever been
witnessed, and one that every jealous-hearted person
should learn a lesson from. It cannot fail to have
a good effect, as it will be performed by those who
are young and vigorous, and learned as well as
enticing. You are aware, Major Elfonzo, who are
to appear on the stage, and what the characters are
to represent." "I am acquainted with the circum-

MARK TWAIN

stances," replied Elfonzo, "and as I am to be one
of the musicians upon that interesting occasion, I
should be much gratified if you would favor me with
your company during the hours of the exercises."

' ' What strange notions are in your mind ?" inquired
Ambulinia. "Now I know you have something in
view, and I desire you to tell me why it is that you
are so anxious that I should continue with you while
the exercises are going on ; though if you think I can
add to your happiness and predilections, I have no
particular objection to acquiesce in your request.
Oh, I think I foresee, now, what you anticipate."
"And will you have the goodness to tell me what
you think it to be?" inquired Elfonzo. "By all
means," answered Ambulinia; "a rival, sir, you would
fancy in your own mind; but let me say to you, fear
not! fear not! I will be one of the last persons to
disgrace my sex by thus encouraging every one who
may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me
with their graceful bows and their choicest compli
ments. It is true that young men too often mistake
civil politeness for the finer emotions of the heart,
which is tantamount to courtship; but, ah! how often
are they deceived, when they come to test the weight
of sunbeams with those on whose strength hangs the
future happiness of an untried life."

The people were now rushing to the Academy with
impatient anxiety; the band of music was closely
followed by the students; then the parents and
guardians; nothing interrupted the glow of spirits
which ran through every bosom, tinged with the
songs of a Virgil and the tide of a Homer. Elfonzo

148

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

and Ambulinia soon repaired to the scene, and fortu
nately for them both the house was so crowded that
they took their seats together in the music depart
ment, which was not in view of the auditory. This
fortuitous circumstance added more to the bliss of
the Major than a thousand such exhibitions would
have done. He forgot that he was man; music had
lost its charms for him; whenever he attempted to
carry his part, the string of the instrument would
break, the bow became stubborn, and refused to obey
the loud calls of the audience. Here, he said, was
the paradise of his home, the long-sought-for oppor
tunity; he felt as though he could send a million
supplications to the throne of Heaven for such an
exalted privilege. Poor Leos, who was somewhere
in the crowd, looking as attentively as if he was
searching for a needle in a haystack; here he stood,
wondering to himself why Ambulinia was not there.
"Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here, how
I could relish the scene ! Elf onzo is certainly not in
town; but what if he is? I have got the wealth, if
I have not the dignity, and I am sure that the squire
and his lady have always been particular friends of
mine, and I think with this assurance I shall be able
to get upon the blind side of the rest of the family
and make the heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress
of all I possess." Then, again, he would drop his
head, as if attempting to solve the most difficult
problem in Euclid. While he was thus conjecturing
in his own mind, a very interesting part of the ex
hibition was going on, which called the attention of
all present. The curtains of the stage waved con-

149

MARK TWAIN

tinually by the repelled forces that were given to
them, which caused Leos to behold Ambulinia lean
ing upon the chair of Elfonzo. Her lofty beauty,
seen by the glimmering of the chandelier, filled his
heart with rapture, he knew not how to contain him
self; to go where they were would expose him to
ridicule; to continue where he was, with such an
object before him, without being allowed an explana
tion in that trying hour, would be to the great injury
of his mental as well as of his physical powers; and,
in the name of high heaven, what must he do?
Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he
conveniently could, until the scene was over, and
then he would plant himself at the door, to arrest
Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo,
and thus make for himself a more prosperous field of
immortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence,
or ever pencil drew or artist imagined. Accordingly
he made himself sentinel, immediately after the per
formance of the evening — retained his position ap
parently in defiance of all the world; he waited, he
gazed at every lady, his whole frame trembled; here
he stood, until everything like human shape had dis
appeared from the institution, and he had done
nothing; he had failed to accomplish that which he
so eagerly sought for. Poor, unfortunate creature!
he had not the eyes of an Argus, or he might have
seen his Juno and Elfonzo, assisted by his friend
Sigma, make their escape from the window, and, with
the rapidity of a race-horse, hurry through the blast
of the storm to the residence of her father, with
out being recognized. He did not tarry long, but

150

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

assured Ambulinia the endless chain of their existence
was more closely connected than ever, since he had
seen the virtuous, innocent, imploring, and the con
stant Amelia murdered by the jealous-hearted
Farcillo, the accursed of the land.

The following is the tragical scene, which is only
introduced to show the subject-matter that enabled
Elfonzo to come to such a determinate resolution
that nothing of the kind should ever dispossess him
of his true character, should he be so fortunate as to
succeed in his present undertaking.

Amelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous
woman; Gracia, a young lady, was her particular
friend and confidant. Farcillo grew jealous of Amelia,
murders her, finds out that he was deceived, and stabs
himself. Amelia appears alone, talking to herself.

A. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred
tombs and silent walks ! it is your aid I invoke ; it is
to you, my soul, wrapt in deep meditation, pours
forth its prayer. Here I wander upon the stage of
mortality, since the world hath turned against me.
Those whom I believed to be my friends, alas! are
now my enemies, planting thorns in all my paths,
poisoning all my pleasures, and turning the past to
pain. What a lingering catalogue of sighs and tears
lies just before me, crowding my aching bosom with
the fleeting dream of humanity, which must shortly
terminate. And to what purpose will all this bustle
of life, these agitations and emotions of the heart
have conduced, if it leave behind it nothing of utility,
if it leave no traces of improvement ? Can it be that
I am deceived in my conclusions? No, I see that I

MARK TWAIN

have nothing to hope for, but everything to fear,
which tends to drive me from the walks of time.

Oh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,
To lash the surge and bluster in the skies,
May the west its furious rage display,
Toss me with storms in the watery way.

(Enter Gratia.)

G. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the
daughter of opulence, of wisdom and philosophy, that
thus complaineth ? It cannot be you are the child of
misfortune, speaking of the monuments of former
ages, which were allotted not for the reflection of the
distressed, but for the fearless and bold.

A. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir
of glory and peace, but of fate. Remember, I have
wealth more than wit can number; I have had power
more than kings could encompass; yet the world
seems a desert; all nature appears an afflictive spec
tacle of waning passions. This blind fatality, that
capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals,
tells me that the mountains will never again send
forth the water of their springs to my thirst. Oh,
that I might be freed and set at liberty from wretch
edness! But I fear, I fear this will never be.

G. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has
caused the sorrows that bespeak better and happier
days, to thus lavish out such heaps of misery? You
are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the
mind with holy truths, by wedding its attention to
none but great and noble affections.

A. This, of course, is some consolation. I will
ever love my own species with feelings of a fond

152

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

recollection, and while I am studying to advance the
universal philanthropy, and the spotless name of
my own sex, I will try to build my own upon the
pleasing belief that I have accelerated the advance
ment of one who whispers of departed confidence.

And I, like some poor peasant fated to reside

Remote from friends, in a forest wide.
Oh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,
Since that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.

G. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of
quitting earthly enjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to
a friend, who would be willing to sacrifice every
enjoyment for the restoration of that dignity and
gentleness of mind which used to grace your walks,
and which is so natural to yourself; not only that,
but your paths were strewed with flowers of every
hue and of every order.

With verdant green the mountains glow,
For thee, for thee, the lilies grow;
Far stretched beneath the tented hills,
A fairer flower the valley fills.

A. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short
narrative of my former prospects for happiness, since
you have acknowledged to be an unchangeable con
fidant — the richest of all other blessings. Oh, ye
names forever glorious, ye celebrated scenes, ye re
nowned spot of my hymeneal moments; how replete
is your chart with sublime reflections! How many
profound vows, decorated with immaculate deeds,
are written upon the surface of that precious spot
of earth where I yielded up my life of celibacy, bade
youth with all its beauties a final adieu, took a last

i53

MARK TWAIN

farewell of the laurels that had accompanied me up
the hill of my juvenile career. It was then I began
to descend toward the valley of disappointment and
sorrow; it was then I cast my little bark upon a
mysterious ocean of wedlock, with him who then
smiled and caressed me, but, alas! now frowns with
bitterness, and has grown jealous and cold toward
me, because the ring he gave me is misplaced or lost.
Oh, bear me, ye flowers of memory, softly through
the eventful history of past times ; and ye places that
have witnessed the progression of man in the circle
of so many societies, and, oh, aid my recollection,
while I endeavor to trace the vicissitudes of a life
devoted in endeavoring to comfort him that I claim
as the object of my wishes.

Ah ! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few
Act just to Heaven and to your promise true!
But He who guides the stars with a watchful eye,
The deeds of men lay open without disguise;
Oh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear,
For all the oppressed are His peculiar care.

(F. makes a slight noise.)

A. Who is there — Farcillo?

G. Then I must be gone. Heaven protect you.
Oh, Amelia, farewell, be of good cheer.

May you stand, like Olympus' towers,
Against earth and all jealous powers!
May you, with loud shouts ascend on high
Swift as an eagle in the upper sky.

A. Why so cold and distant to-night, Farcillo?
Come, let us each other greet, and forget all the past,
and give security for the future.

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

F. Security! talk to me about giving security for
the future — what an insulting requisition ! Have you
said your prayers to-night, Madam Amelia?

A. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, parti
cularly when we expect to be caressed by others.

F. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any
fault, that is yet concealed from the courts of
Heaven and the thrones of grace, I bid you ask and
solicit forgiveness for it now.

A. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don't treat me so. What
do you mean by all this?

F. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot
that kindness you owe to me, and bestowed it upon
another; you shall suffer for your conduct when you
make your peace with your God. I would not slay
thy unprotected spirit. I call to Heaven to be my
guard and my watch — I would not kill thy soul, in
which all once seemed just, right, and perfect; but I
must be brief, woman.

A. What, talk you of killing? Oh, Farcillo, Far
cillo, what is the matter?

F. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say,
Amelia.

A. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be pro
pitious, and have mercy upon me.

F. Amen to that, madam, with all my heart, and
with all my soul.

A. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you
will not kill me.

F. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host
of light, record it, ye dark imps of hell!

A. Oh, I fear you — you are fatal when darkness

MARK TWAIN

covers your brow; yet I know not why I should fear,
since I never wronged you in all my life. I stand,
sir, guiltless before you.

F. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think
of thy sins, Amelia; think, oh, think, hidden woman.

A. Wherein have I not been true to you? That
death is unkind, cruel, and unnatural, that kills for
loving.

F. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee.

A. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent,
tell me the cause of such cruel coldness in an hour
like this.

F. That ring, oh, that ring I so loved, and gave
thee as the ring of my heart ; the allegiance you took
to be faithful, when it was presented; the kisses and
smiles with which you honored it. You became tired
of the donor, despised it as a plague, and finally gave
it to Malos, the hidden, the vile traitor.

A. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I
appeal to the Most High to bear me out in this
matter. Send for Malos, and ask him.

F. Send for Malos, aye! Malos you wish to see;
I thought so. I knew you could not keep his name
concealed. Amelia, sweet Amelia, take heed, take
heed of perjury; you are on the stage of death, to
suffer for your sins.

A. What, not to die I hope, my Farcillo, my ever
beloved.

F. Yes, madam, to die a traitor's death. Shortly
your spirit shall take its exit; therefore confess
freely thy sins, for to deny tends only to make me
groan under the bitter cup thou hast made for me.

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

Thou art to die with the name of traitor on thy
brow!

A. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me
courage, give me grace and fortitude to stand this
hour of trial.

F. Amen, I say, with all my heart.

A. And, oh, Far cillo, will you have mercy, too? I
never intentionally offended you in all my life; never
loved Malos, never gave him cause to think so, as the
high court of Justice will acquit me before its tribunal.

F. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou dost chill my
blood, and makest me a demon like thyself. I saw
the ring.

A. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send
for him, and let him confess the truth; let his con
fession be sifted.

F. And you still wish to see him! I tell you,
madam, he hath already confessed, and thou knowest
the darkness of thy heart.

A. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him
the ring, in which all my affections were concen
trated? Oh, surely not.

F. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will
speak with a voice of thunder to thy soul.

A. He will not say so, he dare not, he cannot.

F. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth,
I trust, is hushed in death, and his body stretched to
the four winds of heaven, to be torn to pieces by
carnivorous birds.

A. What, is he dead, and gone to the world of
spirits with that declaration in his mouth? Oh,
unhappy man! Oh, insupportable hour!

MARK TWAIN

F. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears
been lives, my great revenge could have slain them
all, without the least condemnation.

A. Alas ! he is ushered into eternity without testing
the matter for which I am abused and sentenced and
condemned to die.

F. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for
him to my face? He that hath robbed me of my
peace, my energy, the whole love of my life? Could
I call the fabled Hydra, I would have him live and
perish, survive and die, until the sun itself would
grow dim with age. I would make him have the
thirst of a Tantalus, and roll the wheel of an Ixion,
until the stars of heaven should quit their brilliant
stations.

A. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupport-
able moment ! Oh, heavy hour ! Banish me, Farcillo
—send me where no eye can ever see me, where no
sound shall ever greet my ear; but, oh, slay me not,
Farcillo; vent thy rage and thy spite upon this
emaciated frame of mine, only spare my life.

F. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia.

A. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed to
morrow; let me live till then, for my past kindness
to you, and it may be some kind angel will show to
you that I am not only the object of innocence, but
one who never loved another but your noble self.

F. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be
done, and that quickly; thou art to die, madam.

A. But half an hour allow me, to see my father
and my only child, to tell her the treachery and
vanity of this world.

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

F. There is no alternative, there is no pause: my
daughter shall not see its deceptive mother die; your
father shall not know that his daughter fell dis
graced, despised by all but her enchanting Malos.

A. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger
into its scabbard; let it rest and be still, just while
I say one prayer for thee and for my child.

F. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not
confessed to Heaven or to me, my child's protector
— thou art to die. Ye powers of earth and heaven,
protect and defend me in this alone. (Stabs her while
imploring for mercy.)

A. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die.

F. Die! die! die!

(Gratia enters running, falls on her knees weeping, and
kisses Amelia.)

G. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo!

F. I am here, the genius of the age, and the
avenger of my wrongs.

G. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, oh,
speak again. Gone, gone — yes, forever gone! Far
cillo, oh, cold-hearted Farcillo, some evil fiend hath
urged you to do this, Farcillo.

F. Say not so again, or you shall receive the same
fate. I did the glorious deed, madam — beware, then,
how you talk.

G. I fear not your implements of war; I will let
you know you have not the power to do me harm.
If you have a heart of triple brass, it shall be reached
and melted, and thy blood shall chill thy veins and
grow stiff in thy arteries. Here is the ring of the

MARK TWAIN

virtuous and innocent murdered Amelia; I obtained
it from Malos, who yet lives, in hopes that he will
survive the wound given him, and says he got it
clandestinely — declares Amelia to be the princess of
truth and virtue, invulnerable to anything like for
getting her first devotion to thee. The world has
heard of your conduct and your jealousy, and with
one universal voice declares her to be the best of all
in piety ; that she is the star of this great universe, and
a more virtuous woman never lived since the wheels
of time began. Oh, had you waited till to-morrow,
or until I had returned, some kind window would
have been opened to her relief. But, alas! she is
gone — yes, forever gone, to try the realities of an
unknown world!

(Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.)

F. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh,
Amelia ! falsely, falsely murdered ! Oh, bloody deed !
Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh,
God, withhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if
Heaven would make a thousand worlds like this, set
with diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite, I
would not have done this for them all, I would not
have frowned and cursed as I did. Oh, she was
heavenly true, nursed in the very lap of bright
angels! Cursed slave that I am! Jealousy, oh!
thou infernal demon! Lost, lost to every sense of
honor! Oh! Amelia — heaven-born Amelia — dead,
dead! Oh! oh! oh!— then let me die with thee.
Farewell! farewell! ye world that deceived me!
(Stabs himself.)

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

Soon after the excitement of this tragical scene was
over, and the enlisted feeling for Amelia had grown
more buoyant with Elfonzo and Ambulinia, he deter
mined to visit his retired home, and make the neces
sary improvements to enjoy a better day; conse
quently he conveyed the following lines to Ambulinia :

Go tell the world that hope is glowing,
Go bid the rocks their silence break,

Go tell the stars that love is glowing,
Then bid the hero his lover take.

In the region where scarcely the foot of man hath
ever trod, where the woodman hath not found his
way, lies a blooming grove, seen only by the sun when
he mounts his lofty throne, visited only by the light
of the stars, to whom are intrusted the guardianship
of earth, before the sun sinks to rest in his rosy bed.
High cliffs of rocks surround the romantic place, and
in the small cavity of the rocky wall grows the
daffodil clear and pure; and as the wind blows along
the enchanting little mountain which surrounds the
lonely spot, it nourishes the flowers with the dew-
drops of heaven. Here is the seat of Elfonzo ; dark
ness claims but little victory over this dominion, and
in vain does she spread out her gloomy wings. Here
the waters flow perpetually, and the trees lash then-
tops together to bid the welcome visitor a happy
muse. Elfonzo, during his short stay in the country,
had fully persuaded himself that it was his duty to
bring this solemn matter to an issue. A duty that
he individually owed, as a gentleman, to the parents
of Ambulinia, a duty in itself involving not only his
own happiness and his own standing in society, but

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MARK TWAIN

one that called aloud the act of the parties to make
it perfect and complete. How he should com
municate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he
was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to
address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular
or an argumentative manner, or whether he should
use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seize and take
by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have
no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his
gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to
address the following letter to the father and mother
of Ambulinia, as his address in person he knew
would only aggravate the old gentleman, and perhaps
his lady.

GUMMING, GA., January 22, 1844.
MR. AND MRS. VALEER —

Again I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once
more beg an immediate answer to my many salutations. From
every circumstance that has taken place, I feel in duty bound to
comply with my obligations; to forfeit my word would be more
than I dare do; to break my pledge, and my vows that have been
witnessed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of an unseen
Deity, would be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to
Ambulinia. I wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this
matter. I wish to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is
true, the promises I have made are unknown to any but Ambu
linia, and I think it unnecessary to here enumerate them, as
they who promise the most generally perform the least. Can
you for a moment doubt my sincerity or my character? My
only wish is, sir, that you may calmly and dispassionately look
at the situation of the case, and if your better judgment should
dictate otherwise, my obligations may induce me to pluck the
flower that you so diametrically opposed. We have sworn by
the saints — by the gods of battle, and by that faith whereby
just men are made perfect — to be united. I hope, my dear sir,

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

you will find it convenient as well as agreeable to give me a
favorable answer, with the signature of Mrs. Valeer, as well as
yourself.

With very great esteem,

your humble servant,

J. I. ELFONZO.

The moon and stars had grown pale when Ambu-
linia had retired to rest. A crowd of unpleasant
thoughts passed through her bosom. Solitude dwelt
in her chamber — no sound from the neighboring
world penetrated its stillness ; it appeared a temple of
silence, of repose, and of mystery. At that moment
she heard a still voice calling her father. In an
instant, like the flash of lightning, a thought ran
through her mind that it must be the bearer of
Elfonzo's communication. "It is not a dream!'* she
said, "no, I cannot read dreams. Oh! I would to
Heaven I was near that glowing eloquence — that
poetical language — it charms the mind in an in
expressible manner, and warms the coldest heart."
While consoling herself with this strain, her father
rushed into her room almost frantic with rage, ex
claiming: "Oh, Ambulinia! Ambulinia!! undutiful,
ungrateful daughter! What does this mean? Why
does this letter bear such heart-rending intelligence ?
Will you quit a father's house with this debased
wretch, without a place to lay his distracted head;
going up and down the country, with every novel
object that may chance to wander through this
region. He is a pretty man to make love known to
his superiors, and you, Ambulinia, have done but
little credit to yourself by honoring his visits. Oh,
wretchedness! can it be that my hopes of happiness

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MARK TWAIN

are forever blasted ! Will you not listen to a father's
entreaties, and pay some regard to a mother's tears.
I know, and I do pray that God will give me fortitude
to bear with this sea of troubles, and rescue my
daughter, my Ambulinia, as a brand from the eternal
burning." "Forgive me, father, oh! forgive thy
child," replied Ambulinia. "My heart is ready to
break, when I see you in this grieved state of agita
tion. Oh! think not so meanly of me, as that I
mourn for my own danger. Father, I am only
woman. Mother, I am only the templement of thy
youthful years, but will suffer courageously whatever
punishment you think proper to inflict upon me, if
you will but allow me to comply with my most
sacred promises — if you will but give me my personal
right and my personal liberty. Oh, father! if your
generosity will but give me these, I ask nothing
more. When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave
him my hand, never to forsake him, and now may
the mighty God banish me before I leave him in
adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in
prosperity with him whose offers I have accepted,
and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may
be, for me to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and
change with every fluctuation that may interrupt
our happiness — like the politician who runs the
political gantlet for office one day, and the next day,
because the horizon is darkened a little, he is seen
running for his life, for fear he might perish in its
ruins. Where is the philosophy, where is the con
sistency, where is the charity, in conduct like this?
Be happy then, my beloved father, and forget me,~

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

let the sorrow of parting break down the wall of
separation and make us equal in our feeling; let me
now say how ardently I love you; let me kiss that
age-worn cheek, and should my tears bedew thy face,
I will wipe them away. Oh, I never can forget you;
no, never, never!"

"Weep not," said the father, "Ambulinia. I
will forbid Elfonzo my house, and desire that you
may keep retired a few days. I will let him know
that my friendship for rny family is not linked
together by cankered chains; and if he ever enters
upon my premises again, I will send him to his long
home." "Oh, father! let me entreat you to be calm
upon this occasion, and though Elfonzo may be the
sport of the clouds and winds, yet I feel assured that
no fate will send him to the silent tomb until the
God of the Universe calls him hence with a trium
phant voice."

Here the father turned away, exclaiming: "I will
answer his letter in a very few words, and you,
madam, will have the goodness to stay at home with
your mother; and remember, I am determined to
protect you from the consuming fire that looks so fair
to your view."

GUMMING, January 22, 1844.

SIR — In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been,
utterly opposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have
any regard for yourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you
will mention it to me no more; but seek some other one who
is not so far superior to you in standing.

W. W. VALEER.

When Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so
much depressed in spirits that many of his friends

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MARK TWAIN

thought it advisable to use other means to bring
about the happy union. "Strange," said he, "that
the contents of this diminutive letter should cause
me to have such depressed feelings; but there is a
nobler theme than this. I know not why my
military title is not as great as that of Squire Valeer.
For my life I cannot see that my ancestors are in
ferior to those who are so bitterly opposed to my
marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge
mountains before me, yet, when I think that I know
gentlemen will insult me upon this delicate matter,
should I become angry at fools and babblers, who
pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance?
No. My equals! I know not where to find them.
My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my su
periors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this
youthful heart is protected by any of the divine
rights, I never will betray my trust."

He was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence
that was, indeed, as firm and as resolute as she was
beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the cot
tage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode
of pleasantness, and informed him that Ambulinia
had just that moment left. "Is it possible?" said
Elfonzo. "Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not
remain and be the guardian of my secrets? But
hasten and tell me how she has stood this trying
scene, and what are her future determinations."
"You know," said Louisa, "Major Elfonzo, that you
have Ambulinia's first love, which is of no small
consequence. She came here about twilight, and
shed many precious tears in consequence of her own

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

fate with yours. We walked silently in yon little
valley you see, where we spent a momentary repose.
She seemed to be quite as determined as ever, and
before we left that beautiful spot she offered up a
prayer to Heaven for thee." "I will see her then,"
replied Elfonzo, " though legions of enemies may
oppose. She is mine by foreordination — she is
mine by prophecy — she is mine by her own free will,
and I will rescue her from the hands of her op
pressors. Will you not, Miss Louisa, assist me in my
capture?'*

"I will certainly, by the aid of Divine Providence/'
answered Louisa, "endeavor to break those slavish
chains that bind the richest of prizes ; though allow
me, Major, to entreat you to use no harsh means on
this important occasion; take a decided stand, and
write freely to Ambulinia upon this subject, and I will
see that no intervening cause hinders its passage to
her. God alone will save a mourning people. Now
is the day and now is the hour to obey a command
of such valuable worth." The Major felt himself
grow stronger after this short interview with Louisa.
He felt as if he could whip his weight in wildcats-
he knew he was master of his own feelings, and could
now write a letter that would bring this litigation
to an issue.

GUMMING, January 24, 1844.
DEAR AMBULINIA —

We have now reached the most trying moment of our lives;
we are pledged not to forsake our trust; we have waited for a
favorable hour to come, thinking your friends would settle the
matter agreeably among themselves, and finally be reconciled
to our marriage; but as I have waited in vain, and looked in

MARK TWAIN

vain, I have determined in my own mind to make a proposition
to you, though you may think it not in accord with your station,
or compatible with your rank; yet, "sub hoc signo vinces."
You know I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the
utter hostility that your father has to me; therefore the con
summation of our union will have to be sought for in a more
sublime sphere, at the residence of a respectable friend of this
village. You cannot have any scruples upon this mode of
proceeding, if you will but remember it emanates from one who
loves you better than his own life — who is more than anxious
to bid you welcome to a new and happy home. Your warmest
associates say come; the talented, the learned, the wise, and the
experienced say come; — all these with their friends say, come.
Viewing these, with many other inducements, I natter myself
that you will come to the embraces of your Elfonzo; for now is
the time of your acceptance and the day of your liberation. You
cannot be ignorant, Ambulinia, that thou art the desire of my
heart; its thoughts are too noble, and too pure, to conceal them
selves from you. I shall wait for your answer to this impatiently,
expecting that you will set the time to make your departure, and
to be in readiness at a moment's warning to share the joys of a
more preferable lif e. This will be handed to you by Louisa, who
will take a pleasure in communicating anything to you that may
relieve your dejected spirits, and will assure you that I now
stand ready, willing, and waiting to make good my vows.

I am, dear Ambulinia, yours
truly, and forever,
J. I. ELFONZO.

Louisa, made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer's,
though they did not suspect her in the least the
bearer of love epistles ; consequently, she was invited
in the room to console Ambulinia, where they were
left alone. Ambulinia was seated by a small table
—her head resting on her hand — her brilliant eyes
were bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the letter
of Elfonzo, when another spirit animated her features
—the spirit of renewed confidence that never fails

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

to strengthen the female character in an hour of
grief and sorrow like this, and as she pronounced the
last accent of his name, she exclaimed, "And does
he love me yet ! I never will forget your generosity,
Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet blessed Louisa! may
you never feel what I have felt — may you never know
the pangs of love. Had I never loved, I never would
have been unhappy; but I turn to Him who can
save, and if His wisdom does not will my expected
union, I know He will give me strength to bear my
lot. Amuse yourself with this little book, and take
it as an apology for my silence, " said Ambulinia,
"while I attempt to answer this volume of consola
tion." "Thank you," said Louisa, "you are ex
cusable upon this occasion; but I pray you, Ambu
linia, to be expert upon this momentous subject, that
there may be nothing mistrustful upon my part."
"I will," said Ambulinia, and immediately resumed
her seat and addressed the following to Elfonzo:

GUMMING, GA., January 28, 1844.
DEVOTED ELFONZO —

I hail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can
now say truly and firmly that my feelings correspond with
yours. Nothing shall be wanting on my part to make my
obedience your fidelity. Courage and perseverance will accom
plish success. Receive this as my oath, that while I grasp your
hand in my own imagination, we stand united before a higher
tribunal than any on earth. All the powers of my life, soul,
and body, I devote to thee. Whatever dangers may threaten
me, I fear not to encounter them. Perhaps I have determined
upon my own destruction, by leaving the house of the best of
parents; be it so; I flee to you; I share your destiny, faithful to
the end. The day that I have concluded upon for this task is
Sabbath next, when the family with the citizens are generally at

169

MARK TWAIN

church. For Heaven's sake let not that day pass unimproved:
trust not till to-morrow, it is the cheat of life — the future that
never comes — the grave of many noble births — the cavern of
ruined enterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and
dies, and perishes, ere the voice of him who sees can cry, behold t
behold!! You may trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me
to betray confidence. Suffer me to add one word more.

I will soothe thee, in all thy grief,

Beside the gloomy river;
And though thy love may yet be brief;

Mine is fixed forever.

Receive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant
love, and may the power of inspiration be thy guide, thy portion,
and thy all. In great haste,

Yours faithfully,

AMBULINIA.

"I now take my leave of you, sweet girl," said
Louisa, "sincerely wishing you success on Sabbath
next." When Ambulinia's letter was handed to
Elfonzo, he perused it without doubting its contents.
Louisa charged him to make but few confidants; but
like most young men who happened to win the heart
of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the idea that
he felt as a commanding general on parade, who had
confidence in all, consequently gave orders to all.
The appointed Sabbath, with a delicious breeze and
cloudless sky, made its appearance. The people
gathered in crowds to the church — the streets were
filled with the neighboring citizens, all marching to
the house of worship. It is entirely useless for me
to attempt to describe the feelings of Elfonzo and
Ambulinia, who were silently watching the move
ments of the multitude, apparently counting them

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

as they entered the house of God, looking for the last
one to darken the door. The impatience and anxiety
with which they waited, and the bliss they antici
pated on the eventful day, is altogether indescribable.
Those that have been so fortunate as to embark in
such a noble enterprise know all its realities; and
those who have not had this inestimable privilege
will have to taste its sweets before they can tell to
others its joys, its comforts, and its Heaven-born
worth. Immediately after Ambulinia had assisted
the family off to church, she took the advantage of
that opportunity to make good her promises. She
left a home of enjoyment to be wedded to one whose
love had been justifiable. A few short steps brought
her to the presence of Louisa, who urged her to make
good use of her time, and not to delay a moment,
but to go with her to her brother's house, where
Elfonzo would forever make her happy. With lively
speed, and yet a graceful air, she entered the door
and found herself protected by the champion of her
confidence. The necessary arrangements were fast
making to have the two lovers united — everything
was in readiness except the parson; and as they are
generally very sanctimonious on such occasions, the
news got to the parents of Ambulinia before the
everlasting knot was tied, and they both came
running, with uplifted hands and injured feelings, to
arrest their daughter from an unguarded and hasty
resolution. Elfonzo desired to maintain his ground,
but Ambulinia thought it best for him to leave, to
prepare for a greater contest. He accordingly
obeyed, as it would have been a vain endeavor for

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MARK TWAIN

him to have battled against a man who was armed
with deadly weapons; and besides, he could not
resist the request of such a pure heart. Ambulinia
concealed herself in the upper story of the house,
fearing the rebuke of her father; the door was locked,
and no chastisement was now expected. Esquire
Valeer, whose pride was already touched, resolved
to preserve the dignity of his family. He entered
the house almost exhausted, looking wildly for Am
bulinia. "Amazed and astonished indeed I am,"
said he, ''at a people who call themselves civilized,
to allow such behavior as this. Ambulinia, Ambu
linia!" he cried, "come to the calls of your first, your
best, and your only friend. I appeal to you, sir,"
turning to the gentleman of the house, "to know
where Ambulinia has gone, or where is she?" "Do
you mean to insult me, sir, in my own house?"
inquired the confounded gentleman. "I will burst,"
said Mr. V., "asunder every door in your dwelling,
in search of my daughter, if you do not speak
quickly, and tell me where she is. I care nothing
about that outcast rubbish of creation, that mean,
low-lived Elfonzo, if I can but obtain Ambulinia.
Are you not going to open this door?" said he. "By
the Eternal that made Heaven and earth! I will go
about the work instantly, if it is not done." The
confused citizens gathered from all parts of the vil
lage, to know the cause of this commotion. Some
rushed into the house; the door that was locked flew
open, and there stood Ambulinia, weeping. ' ' Father,
be still," said she, "and I will follow thee home."
But the agitated man seized her, and bore her off

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

through the gazing multitude. " Father!" she ex
claimed, "I humbly beg your pardon — I will be
dutiful — I will obey thy commands. Let the sixteen
years I have lived in obedience to thee be my fu
ture security." "I don't like to be always giving
credit, when the old score is not paid up, madam,"
said the father. The mother followed almost in a
state of derangement, crying and imploring her to
think beforehand, and ask advice from experienced
persons, and they would tell her it was a rash under
taking. "Oh!" said she, "Ambulinia, my daughter,
did you know what I have suffered — did you know
how many nights I have whiled away in agony, in
pain, and in fear, you would pity the sorrows of a
heartbroken mother."

"Well, mother," replied Ambulinia, "I know I
have been disobedient ; I am aware that what I have
done might have been done much better; but oh!
what shall I do with my honor? it is so dear to me; I
am pledged to Elfonzo. His high moral worth is
certainly worth some attention; moreover, my vows,
I have no doubt, are recorded in the book of life, and
must I give these all up? must my fair hopes be for
ever blasted ? Forbid it, father ; oh ! forbid it, mother ;
forbid it, Heaven." "I have seen so many beautiful
skies overclouded," replied the mother, "so many
blossoms nipped by the frost, that I am afraid to
trust you to the care of those fair days, which may be
interrupted by thundering and tempestuous nights.
You no doubt think as I did — life's devious ways
were strewed with sweet-scented flowers, but ah ! how
long they have lingered around me and took their

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MARK TWAIN

flight in the vivid hope that laughs at the drooping
victims it has murdered. ' ' Elf onzo was moved at this
sight. The people followed on to see what was going
to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast
looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them enter
the abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the
sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary
apartment, when she exclaimed, " Elf onzo! Elf onzo!
oh, Elf onzo! where art thou, with all thy heroes?
haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride on
the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a
tempest, and roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over
this mountain of trouble and confusion. Oh, friends !
if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the
green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who
is guilty of nothing but innocent love.*' Elf onzo
called out with a loud voice, "My God, can I stand
this! arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this
tyranny. Come, my brave boys," said he, "are you
ready to go forth to your duty ?" They stood around
him. ' ' Who, ' ' said he, ' ' will call us to arms ? Where
are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first
who will meet the foe! Who will go forward with
me in this ocean of grievous temptation? If there
is one who desires to go, let him come and shake
hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that he
will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like this,
which calls aloud for a speedy remedy." "Mine be
the deed," said a young lawyer, "and mine alone;
Venus alone shall quit her station before I will forsake
one jot or tittle of my promise to you ; what is death
to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not to

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the
mighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of
my enemies should wreak with that of my own.
But God forbid that our fame should soar on the
blood of the slumberer." Mr. Valeer stands at his
door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with
his dangerous weapon ready to strike the first man
who should enter his door. "Who will arise and go
forward through blood and carnage to the rescue of
my Ambulinia ? ' ' said Elf onzo. ' ' All, ' ' exclaimed the
multitude; and onward they went, with their imple
ments of battle. Others, of a more timid nature,
stood among the distant hills to see the result of the
contest.

Elfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose
in clouds; darkness concealed the heavens; but the
blazing hopes that stimulated them gleamed in ev
ery bosom. All approached the anxious spot ; they
rushed to the front of the house and, with one excla
mation, demanded Ambulinia. "Away, begone, and
disturb my peace no more,'* said Mr. Valeer. "You
are a set of base, insolent, and infernal rascals. Go,
the northern star points your path through the dim
twilight of the night; go, and vent your spite upon
the lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor,
weak-minded wretch, upon your idleness and upon
your guitar, and your fiddle ; they are fit subjects for
your admiration, for let me assure you, though this
sword and iron lever are cankered, yet they frown
in sleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house
this night and you shall have the contents and the
weight of these instrument s." "Never yet did base

MARK TWAIN

dishonor blur my name," said Elfonzo; "mine is a
cause of renown; here are my warriors; fear and
tremble, for this night, though hell itself should op
pose, I will endeavor to avenge her whom thou hast
banished in solitude. The voice of Ambulinia shall
be heard from that dark dungeon." At that mo
ment Ambulinia appeared at the window above, and
with a tremulous voice said, ' ' Live, Elfonzo ! oh ! live
to raise my stone of moss ! why should such language
enter your heart? why should thy voice rend the air
with such agitation? I bid thee live, once more
remembering these tears of mine are shed alone for
thee, in this dark and gloomy vault, and should I
perish under this load of trouble, join the song of
thrilling accents with the raven above my grave,
and lay this tattered frame beside the banks of the
Chattahoochee or the stream of Sawney's brook;
sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia.
My ghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise,
and tell your high fame to the minds of that region,
which is far more preferable than this lonely cell.
My heart shall speak for thee till the latest hour;
I know faint and broken are the sounds of sorrow,
yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall hear the peaceful songs
together. One bright name shall be ours on high,
if we are not permitted to be united here; bear in
mind that I still cherish my old sentiments, and the
poet will mingle the names of Elfonzo and Ambulinia
in the tide of other days." "Fly, Elfonzo," said the
voices of his united band, "to the wounded heart of
your beloved. All enemies shall fall beneath thy
sword. Fly through the clefts, and the dim spark

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

shall sleep in death." Elfonzo rushes forward and
strikes his shield against the door, which was barri
caded, to prevent any intercourse. His brave sons
throng around him. The people pour along the
streets, both male and female, to prevent or witness
the melancholy scene.

"To arms, to arms!'* cried Elfonzo; "here is a
victory to be won, a prize to be gained that is more
to me than the whole world beside." "It cannot be
done to-night," said Mr. Valeer. "I bear the clang
of death; my strength and armor shall prevail. My
Ambulinia shall rest in this hall until the break of
another day, and if we fall, we fall together. If we
die, we die clinging to our tattered rights, and our
blood alone shall tell the mournful tale of a murdered
daughter and a ruined father." Sure enough, he
kept watch all night, and was successful in defending
his house and family. The bright morning gleamed
upon the hills, night vanished away, the Major and
his associates felt somewhat ashamed that they had
not been as fortunate as they expected to have been ;
however, they still leaned upon their arms in dis
persed groups ; some were walking the streets, others
were talking in the Major's behalf. Many of the
citizens suspended business, as the town presented
nothing but consternation. A novelty that might
end in the destruction of some worthy and respect
able citizens. Mr. Valeer ventured in the streets,
though not without being well armed. Some of his
friends congratulated him on the decided stand he
had taken, and hoped he would settle the matter
amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury.

177

MARK TWAIN

"Me," he replied, "what, me, condescend to fellow
ship with a coward, and a low-lived, lazy , undermining
villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I had rather
be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue
ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him
in the ascending or descending line of relationship.
Gentlemen," continued he, "if Elfonzo is so much of
a distinguished character, and is so learned in the
fine arts, why do you not patronize such men? why
not introduce him into your families, as a gentleman
of taste and of unequaled magnanimity? why are
you so very anxious that he should become a relative
of mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear you yet are tainted
with the curiosity of our first parents, who were
beguiled by the poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent,
and who, for one apple, damned all mankind. I wish
to divest myself, as far as possible, of that untutored
custom. I have long since learned that the per
fection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is
to proportion our wants to our possessions, our
ambition to our capacities; we will then be a happy
and a virtuous people." Ambulinia was sent off to
prepare for a long and tedious journey. Her new
acquaintances had been instructed by her father
how to treat her, and in what manner, and to keep
the anticipated visit entirely secret. Elfonzo was
watching the movements of everybody ; some friends
had told him of the plot that was laid to carry off
Ambulinia. At night, he rallied some two or three
of his forces, and went silently along to the state
ly mansion; a faint and glimmering light showed
through the windows; lightly he steps to the door;

178

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

there were many voices rallying fresh in fancy's eye;
he tapped the shutter; it was opened instantly, and
he beheld once more, seated beside several ladies, the
hope of all his toils; he rushed toward her, she rose
from her seat, rejoicing; he made one mighty grasp,
when Ambulinia exclaimed, "Huzza for Major El-
fonzo! I will defend myself and you, too, with this
conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I
say, I now invoke time's broad wing to shed around
us some dewdrops of verdant spring."

But the hour had not come for this joyous reunion ;
her friends struggled with Elfonzo for some time,
and finally succeeded in arresting her from his hands.
He dared not injure them, because they were matrons
whose courage needed no spur; she was snatched
from the arms of Elfonzo, with so much eagerness,
and yet with such expressive signification, that he
calmly withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an
ardent hope that he should be lulled to repose by the
zephyrs which whispered peace to his soul. Several
long days and nights passed unmolested, all seemed
to have grounded their arms of rebellion, and no
callidity appeared to be going on with any of the
parties. Other arrangements were made by Ambu
linia; she feigned herself to be entirely the votary of
a mother's care, and said, by her graceful smiles,
that manhood might claim his stern dominion in
some other region, where such boisterous love was
not so prevalent. This gave the parents a confidence
that yielded some hours of sober joy; they believed
that Ambulinia would now cease to love Elfonzo, and
that her stolen affections would now expire with her

179

MARK TWAIN

misguided opinions. They therefore declined the
idea of sending her to a distant land. But oh! they
dreamed not of the rapture that dazzled the fancy of
Ambulinia, who would say, when alone, youth should
not fly away on his rosy pinions, and leave her to
grapple in the conflict with unknown admirers.

No frowning age shall control
The constant current of my soul,
Nor a tear from pity's eye
Shall check my sympathetic sigh.

With this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark
and dreary night, when the winds whistled and the
tempest roared, she received intelligence that Elfonzo
was then waiting, and every preparation was then
ready, at the residence of Dr. Tully, and for her to
make a quick escape while the family were reposing.
Accordingly she gathered her books, went to the
wardrobe supplied with a variety of ornamental
dressing, and ventured alone in the streets to make
her way to Elfonzo, who was near at hand, impa
tiently looking and watching her arrival. "What
forms," said she, "are those rising before me? What
is that dark spot on the clouds? I do wonder what
frightful ghost that is, gleaming on the red tempest?
Oh, be merciful and tell me what region you are from.
Oh, tell me, ye strong spirits, or ye dark and fleeting
clouds, that I yet have a friend." "A friend," said
a low, whispering voice. "I am thy unchanging, thy
aged, and thy disappointed mother. Oh, Ambulinia,
why hast thou deceived me? Wriy brandish in that
hand of thine a javelin of pointed steel ? Why suffer
that lip I have kissed a thousand times to equivo-

180

THE ENEMY CONQUERED

cate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into
thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be
your destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child,
retract your steps, and bear me company to your
welcome home." Without one retorting word, or
frown from her brow, she yielded to the entreaties
of her mother, and with all the mildness of her former
character she went along with the silver lamp of age,
to the home of candor and benevolence. Her father
received her cold and formal politeness — " Where
has Ambulinia been, this blustering evening, Mrs.
Valeer?" inquired he. "Oh, she and I have been
taking a solitary walk," said the mother; "all things,
I presume, are now working for the best."

Elfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened.
"What," said he, "has heaven and earth turned
against me ? I have been disappointed times without
number. Shall I despair? — must I give it over?
Heaven's decrees will not fade; I will write again —
I will try again ; and if it traverses a gory field, I pray
forgiveness at the altar of justice."

DESOLATE HILL, GUMMING, GEO., 1844.

UNCONQUERED AND BELOVED AMBULINIA —

I have only time to say to you, not to despair; thy fame
shall not perish; my visions are brightening before me. The
whirlwind's rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies
without doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are
at breakfast, they will not suspect your departure, or even
mistrust me being in town, as it has been reported advantage
ously that I have left for the west. You walk carelessly
toward the academy grove, where you will find me with a
lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we
shall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights. Fail
not to do this — think not of the tedious relations of our wrongs

181

MARK TWAIN

— be invincible. You alone occupy all my ambition, and I
alone will make you my happy spouse, with the same unim-
peached veracity. I remain, forever, your devoted friend and
admirer, J. I. ELFONZO.

The appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any
clouds; nothing disturbed Ambulinia's soft beauty.
With serenity and loveliness she obeys the request of
Elfonzo. The moment the family seated themselves
at the table — "Excuse my absence for a short time,"
said she, "while I attend to the placing of those
flowers, which should have been done a week ago."
And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded
with glittering pearls, that indicated her coming.
Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his golden
harp. They meet — Ambulinia's countenance bright
ens — Elfonzo leads up his winged steed. "Mount,"
said he, "ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul — the day
is ours." She sprang upon the back of the young
thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head,
with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the
other she holds an olive branch. "Lend thy aid, ye
strong winds," they exclaimed, "ye moon, ye sun,
and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy
conquered." "Hold," said Elfonzo, "thy dashing
steed." "Ride on," said Ambulinia, "the voice of
thunder is behind us." And onward they went, with
such rapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural
Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united
with all the solemnities that usually attend such
divine operations. They passed the day in thanks
giving and great rejoicing, and on that evening they
visited their uncle, where many of their friends and

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THE ENEMY CONQUERED

acquaintances had gathered to congratulate them in
the field of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman
met them in the yard: "Well," said he, "I wish I
may die, Elfonzo, if you and Ambulinia haven't tied
a knot with your tongue that you can't untie with
your teeth. But come in, come in, never mind, all
is right — the world still moves on, and no one has
fallen in this great battle."

Happy now is their lot ! Unmoved by misfortune,
they live among the fair beauties of the South.
Heaven spreads their peace and fame upon the arch
of the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at their tri
umph, through the tears of the storm.

THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

THIRTY-FIVE years ago I was out prospecting
on the Stanislaus, tramping all day long with
pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt
here and there, always expecting to make a rich
strike, and never doing it. It was a lovely region,
woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been popu
lous, long years before, but now the people had van
ished and the charming paradise was a solitude.
They went away when the surface diggings gave out.
In one place, where a busy little city with banks and
newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and
aldermen had been, was nothing but a wide expanse
of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign that
human life had ever been present there. This was
down toward Tuttletown. In the country neighbor
hood thereabouts, along the dusty roads, one found
at intervals the prettiest little cottage homes, snug
and cozy, and so cobwebbed with vines snowed thick
with roses that the doors and windows were wholly
hidden from sight — sign that these were deserted
homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disap
pointed families who could neither sell them nor give
them away. Now and then, half an hour apart, one
came across solitary log cabins of the earliest mining
days, built by the first gold-miners, the predecessors

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THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

of the cottage-builders. In some few cases these
cabins were still occupied; and when this was so, you
could depend upon it that the occupant was the very
pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could de
pend on another thing, too — that he was there be
cause he had once had his opportunity to go home to
the States rich, and had not done it ; had rather lost
his wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved
to sever all communication with his home relatives
and friends, and be to them thenceforth as one dead.
Round about California in that day were scattered a
host of these living dead men — pride-smitten poor
fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret
thoughts were made all of regrets and longings — re
grets for their wasted lives, and longings to be out of
the struggle and done with it all.

It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those
peaceful expanses of grass and woods but the drowsy
hum of insects ; no glimpse of man or beast ; nothing
to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be
alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the after
noon, when I caught sight of a human creature, I
felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a man
about forty-five years old, and he was standing at
the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages
of the sort already referred to. However, this one
hadn't a deserted look; it had the look of being lived
in and petted and cared for and looked after; and so
had its front yard, which was a garden of flowers,
abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was invited in, of
course, and required to make myself at home — it was
the custom of the country.

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MARK TWAIN

It was delightful to be in such a place, after long
weeks of daily and nightly familiarity with miners'
cabins — with all which this implies of dirt floor,
never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and
beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but
war pictures from the Eastern illustrated papers
tacked to the log walls. That was all hard, cheer
less, materialistic desolation, but here was a nest
which had aspects to rest the tired eye and refresh
that something in one's nature which, after long
fasting, recognizes, when confronted by the belong
ings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may
be, that it has unconsciously been famishing and
now has found nourishment. I could not have be
lieved that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so
content me; or that there could be such solace to the
soul in wall-paper and framed lithographs, and
bright-colored tidies and lamp-mats, and Windsor
chairs, and varnished what-nots, with sea-shells and
books and china vases on them, and the score of
little unclassifiable tricks and touches that a wom
an's hand distributes about a home, which one sees
without knowing he sees them, yet would miss in a
moment if they were taken away. The delight that
was in my heart showed in my face, and the man
saw it and was pleased ; saw it so plainly that he an
swered it as if it had been spoken.

"All her work," he said, caressingly; "she did it
all herself — every bit," and he took the room in with
a glance which was full of affectionate worship. One
of those soft Japanese fabrics with which women
drape with careful negligence the upper part of a

1 86

THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

picture-frame was out of adjustment. He noticed
it, and rearranged it with cautions pains, stepping
back several times to gauge the effect before he got
it to suit him. Then he gave it a light finishing pat
or two with his hand, and said: "She always does
that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but it does
lack something until you've done that — you can see
it yourself after it's done, but that is all you know;
you can't find out the law of it. It's like the finish
ing pats a mother gives the child's hair after she's
got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I've seen her
fix all these things so much that I can do them all
just her way, though I don't know the law of any of
them. But she knows the law. She knows the
why and the how both ; but I don't know the why ; I
only know the how."

He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash
my hands; such a bedroom as I had not seen for
years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted
floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with
mirror and pin-cushion and dainty toilet things ; and
in the corner a wash-stand, with real china-ware
bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish,* and
on a rack more than a dozen towels — towels too
clean and white for one out of practice to use without
some vague sense of profanation. So my face spoke
again, and he answered with gratified words:

"All her work; she did it all herself — every bit.
Nothing here that hasn't felt the touch of her hand.
Now you would think — But I mustn't talk so
much."

By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing

187

MARK TWAIN

from detail to detail of the room's belongings, as one
is apt to do when he is in a new place, where every
thing he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit;
and I became conscious, in one of those unaccount
able ways, you know, that there was something there
somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for
myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was try
ing to help me by furtive indications with his eye,
so I tried hard to get on the right track, being eager
to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could see
out of the corner of my eye without being told; but
at last I knew I must be looking straight at the
thing — knew it from the pleasure issuing in invisible
waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and
rubbed his hands together, and cried out:

"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would.
It's her picture."

I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the
farther wall, and did find there what I had not yet
noticed — a daguerreotype-case. It contained the
sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful, as it
seemed to me, that I had ever seen. . The man drank
the admiration from my face, and was fully satisfied.

"Nineteen her last birthday," he said, as he put
the picture back; "and that was the day we were
married. When you see her — ah, just wait till you
see her!"

"Where is she? When will she be in?"

"Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her
people. They live forty or fifty miles from here.
She's been gone two weeks to-day."

"When do you expect her back?"

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THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

"This is Wednesday. Shell be back Saturday, in
the evening — about nine o'clock, likely."

I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.

"I'm sorry, because I'll be gone then," I said,
regretfully.

"Gone? No — why should you go? Don't go.
She'll be so disappointed."

She would be disappointed — that beautiful crea
ture ! If she had said the words herself they could
hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling a deep,
strong longing to see her — a longing so supplicating,
so insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to my
self: "I will go straight away from this place, for
my peace of mind's sake."

"You see, she likes to have people come and stop
with us — people who know things, and can talk —
people like you. She delights in it; for she knows
—oh, she knows nearly everything herself, and can
talk, oh, like a bird — and the books she reads, why,
you would be astonished. Don't go; it's only a little
while, you know, and she'll be so disappointed."

I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was
so deep in my thinkings and strugglings. He left
me, but I didn't know. Presently he was back, with
the picture-case in his hand, and he held it open
before me and said :

"There, now, tell her to her face you could have
stayed to see her, and you wouldn't."

That second glimpse broke down my good resolu
tion. I would stay and take the risk. That night
we smoked the tranquil pipe, and talked till late
about various things, but mainly about her; and cer-

189

MARK TWAIN

tainly I had had no such pleasant and restful time
for many a day. The Thursday followed and slipped
comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner
from three miles away came — one of the grizzled,
stranded pioneers — and gave us warm salutation,
clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:

"I only just dropped over to ask about the little
madam, and when is she coming home. Any news
from her?"

"Oh yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it,
Tom?"

"Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind,
Henry!"

Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said
he would skip some of the private phrases, if we
were willing; then he went on and read the bulk
of it — a loving, sedate, and altogether charming
and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript
full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom,
and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and
neighbors.

As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and
cried out :

"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands
away, and let me see your eyes. You always do
that when I read a letter from her. I will write and
tell her."

"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old,
you know, and any little disappointment makes me
want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself, and
now you've got only a letter."

"Well, now, what put that in your head? I

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THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

thought everybody knew she wasn't coming till
Saturday."

"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it.
I wonder what's the matter with me lately? Cer
tainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her?
Well, I must be going now. But I'll be on hand
when she comes, old man!'*

Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran
tramped over from his cabin a mile or so away, and
said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and
a good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she
wouldn't be too tired after her journey to be kept up.

"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, you
know she'd sit up six weeks to please any one of
you!"

When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked
to have it read, and the loving messages in it for him
broke the old fellow all up; but he said he was such
an old wreck that that would happen to him if she
only just mentioned his name. "Lord, we miss her
so!" he said.

Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my
watch pretty often. Henry noticed it, and said,
with a startled look:

"You don't think she ought to be here so soon, do
you?"

I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I
laughed, and said it was a habit of mine when I was
in a state of expectancy. But he didn't seem quite
satisfied; and from that time on he began to show
uneasiness. Four times he walked me up the road
to a point whence we could see a long distance; and

191

MARK TWAIN

there he would stand, shading his eyes with his
hand, and looking. Several times he said :

"I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down wor
ried. I know she's not due till about nine o'clock,
and yet something seems to be trying to warn me
that something's happened, You don't think any
thing has happened, do you?"

I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him
for his childishness; and at last, when he repeated
that imploring question still another time, I lost my
patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally
to him. It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him;
and he looked so wounded and so humble after that,
that I detested myself for having done the cruel and
unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley,
another veteran, arrived toward the edge of the
evening, and nestled up to Henry to hear the letter
read, and talked over the preparations for the wel
come. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after
another, and did his best to drive away his friend's
bodings and apprehensions.

"Anything happened to her? Henry, that's pure
nonsense. There isn't anything going to happen to
her; just make your mind easy as to that. What
did the letter say? Said she was well, didn't it?
And said she'd be here by nine o'clock, didn't it?
Did you ever know her to fail of her word? Why,
you know you never did. Well, then, don't you
fret ; she'll be here, and that's absolutely certain, and
as sure as you are born. Come, now, let's get to
decorating — not much time left."

Pretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all

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THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

hands set about adorning the house with flowers.
Toward nine the three miners said that as they had
brought their instruments they might as well tune
up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving
now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break
down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet — these were
the instruments. The trio took their places side by
side, and began to play some rattling dance-music,
and beat time with their big boots.

It was getting very close to nine. Henry was
standing in the door with his eyes directed up the
road, his body swaying to the torture of his mental
distress. He had been made to drink his wife's
health and safety several times, and now Tom
shouted :

"All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's
here!"

Joe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served
the party. I reached for one of the two remaining
glasses, but Joe growled, under his breath:

' ' Drop that ! Take the other. ' '

Which I did. Henry was served last. He had
hardly swallowed his drink when the clock began to
strike. He listened till it finished, his face growing
pale and paler; then he said:

"Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me — I want to
He down!"

They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle
and drowse, but presently spoke like one talking in
his sleep, and said: "Did I hear horses' feet? Have
they come?"

One of the veterans answered, close to his ear : "It

MARK TWAIN

was Jimmy Parrish come to say the party got de
layed, but they're right up the road a piece, and
coming along. Her horse is lame, but she'll be here
in half an hour."

"Oh, I'm so thankful nothing has happened!"
He was asleep almost before the words were out of
his mouth. In a moment those handy men had his
clothes off, and had tucked him into his bed in the
chamber where I had washed my hands. They
closed the door and came back. Then they seemed
preparing to leave; but I said: " Please don't go,
gentlemen. She won't know me; I am a stranger."
They glanced at each other. Then Joe said:
"She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen
years!"
"Dead?"

"That or worse. She went to see her folks half a
year after she was married, and on her way back, on
a Saturday evening, the Indians captured her within
five miles of this place, and she's never been heard of
since."

"And he lost his mind in consequence?"
"Never has been sane an hour since. But he only
gets bad when that time of the year comes round.
Then we begin to drop in here, three days before
she's due, to encourage him up, and ask if he's heard
from her, and Saturday we all come and fix up the
house with flowers, and get everything ready for a
dance. We've done it every year for nineteen years.
The first Saturday there was twenty-seven of us,
without counting the girls; there's only three of us
now, and the girls are all gone. We drug him to

194

THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

sleep, or he would go wild ; then he's all right for an
other year — thinks she's with him till the last three
or four days come round; then he begins to look for
her, and gets out his poor old letter, and we come
and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a
darling !"

A HELPLESS SITUATION

ONCE or twice a year I get a letter of a cer
tain pattern, a pattern that never materially
changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used
to that letter — it always astonishes me. It affects
me as the locomotive always affects me: I say to
myself, "I have seen you a thousand times, you
always look the same way, yet you are always a
wonder, and you are always impossible; to contrive
you is clearly beyond human genius — you can't
{ exist, you don't exist, yet here you are!"

I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old
one. I yearn to print it, and where is the harm?
The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt, and if
I conceal her name and address — her this-world
address — I am sure her shade will not mind. And
with it I wish to print the answer which I wrote at
the time but probably did not send. If it went—
which is not likely — it went in the form of a copy,
for I find the original still here, pigeonholed with
the said letter. To that kind of letters we all
write answers which we do not send, fearing to
hurt where we have no desire to hurt; I have done
it many a time, and this is doubtless a case of the
sort.

196

A HELPLESS SITUATION

THE LETTER

X ., CALIFORNIA, June 3, 1879.

MR. S. L. CLEMENS, Hartford, Conn.:

DEAR SIR, — You will doubtless be surprised to
know who has presumed to write and ask a favor of
you. Let your memory go back to your days in
the Humboldt mines — '6 2- 63. You will remember,
you and Clagett and Oliver and the old blacksmith
Tillou lived in a lean-to which was half-way up the
gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp —
strung pretty well separated up the gulch from its
mouth at the desert to where the last claim was, at
the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one
with a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one
night, *as told about by you in Roughing It — my
uncle Simmons remembers it very well. He lived
in the principal cabin, half-way up the divide, along
with Dixon and Parker and Smith. It had two
rooms, one for kitchen and the other for bunks, and
was the only one that had. You and your party
were there on the great night, the time they had
dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons often speaks of it.
It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should have
seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows
how far Humboldt was out of the world and difficult
to get to, and how slim the regular bill of fare was.
Sixteen years ago — it is a long time. I was a little
girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived
in Washoe. But Uncle Simmons ran across you
every now and then, all during those weeks that you
and party were there working your claim which was

197

MARK TWAIN

like the rest. The camp played out long and long
ago, there wasn't silver enough in it to make a
button. You never saw my husband, but he was
there after you left, and lived in that very lean-to, a
bachelor then but married to me now. He often
wishes there had been a photographer there in those
days, he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt
in the old Hal Clayton claim that was abandoned
like the others, putting in a blast and not climbing
out quick enough, though he scrambled the best he
could. It landed him clear down on the trail and
hit a Piute. For weeks they thought he would not
get over it but he did, and is all right, now. Has
been ever since. This is a long introduction but it
is the only way I can make myself known. The
favor I ask I feel assured your generous heart will
grant: Give me some advice about a book I have
written. I do not claim anything for it only it is
mostly true and as interesting as most of the books
of the times. I am unknown in the literary world
and you know what that means unless one has some
one of influence (like yourself) to help you by
speaking a good word for you. I would like to place
the book on royalty basis plan with any one you
would suggest.

This is a secret from my husband and family.
I intend it as a surprise in case I get it pub
lished.

Feeling you will take an interest in this and if
possible write me a letter to some publisher, or,
better still, if you could see them for me and then
let me hear.

198

A HELPLESS SITUATION

I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With
deepest gratitude I thank you for your attention.

One knows, without inquiring, that the twin of
that embarrassing letter is forever and ever flying
in this and that and the other direction across the
continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly, un
ceasingly, unrestingly. It goes to every well-known
merchant, and railway official, and manufacturer,
and capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and
Governor, and editor, and publisher, and author, and
broker, and banker — in a word, to every person who
is supposed to have "influence." It always follows
the one pattern: "You do not know me, but you once
knew a relative of mine" etc., etc. We should all
like to help the applicants, we should all be glad to
do it, we should all like to return the sort of answer
that is desired, but — Well, there is not a thing we
can do that would be a help, for not in any instance
does that letter ever come from anyone who can be
helped. The struggler whom you could help does
his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply
to you, a stranger. He has talent and knows it, and
he goes into his fight eagerly and with energy and
determination — all alone, preferring to be alone.
That pathetic letter which comes to you from the
incapable, the unhelpable — how do you who are
familiar with it answer it? What do you find to
say? You do not want to inflict a wound; you
hunt ways to avoid that. What do you find? How
do you get out of your hard place with a contented
conscience? Do you try to explain? The old reply

199

MARK TWAIN

of mine to such a letter shows that I tried that once.
Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly; and pos
sibly not; probably not; almost certainly not. I
have long ago forgotten all about it. But, anyway,
I append my effort:

THE REPLY

I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam,
if upon reflection you find you still desire it. There
will be a conversation. I know the form it will take.
It will be like this:

Mr. H. How do her books strike you?

Mr. Clemens. I am not acquainted with them.

H. Who has been her publisher?

C. I don't know.

H. She has one, I suppose?

C. I— I think not.

H. Ah. You think this is her first book?

C. Yes — I suppose so. I think so.

H. What is it about? What is the character of
it?

C. I believe I do not know.

H. Have you seen it?

C. Well— no, I haven't.

H. Ah-h. How long have you known her?

C. I don't know her.

H. Don't know her?

C. No.

H . Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in
her book, then?

200

A HELPLESS SITUATION

C. Well, she — she wrote and asked me to find a
publisher for her, and mentioned you.

H. Why should she apply to you instead of
to me?

C. She wished me to use my influence.

H. Dear me, what has influence to do with such a
matter?

C. Well, I think she thought you would be more
likely to examine her book if you were influenced.

H . Why, what we are here for is to examine books
— anybody's book that comes along. It's our busi
ness. Why should we turn away a book unexam-
ined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish.
No publisher does it. On what ground did she re
quest your influence, since you do not know her?
She must have thought you knew her literature and
could speak for it. Is that it?

C. No; she knew I didn't.

H. Well, what then? She had a reason of some
sort for believing you competent to recommend her
literature, and also under obligations to do it?

C. Yes, I — I knew her uncle.

H. Knew her uncle?

C. Yes.

H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her
uncle knows her literature; he indorses it to you;
the chain is complete, nothing further needed; you
are satisfied, and therefore —

C. No, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know
the cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his
partners, too ; also I came near knowing her husband
before she married him, and I did know the aban-

201

MARK TWAIN

doned shaft where a premature blast went off and he
went flying through the air and clear down to the
trail and hit an Indian in the back with almost fatal
consequences.

H. To him, or to the Indian?

C. She didn't say which it was.

H. (With a sigh). It certainly beats the band!
You don't know her, you don't know her literature,
you don't know who got hurt when the blast went
off, you don't know a single thing for us to build an
estimate of her book upon, so far as I —

C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her
uncle.

H. Oh, what use is he? Did you know him long?
How long was it ?

C. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but
I must have met him, anyway. I think it was that
way; you can't tell about these things, you know,
except when they are recent.

H. Recent? When was all this?

C. Sixteen years ago.

H. What a basis to judge a book upon! At first
you said you knew him, and now you don't know
whether you did or not.

C. Oh yes, I knew him; anyway, I think I thought
I did; I'm perfectly certain of it.

H. What makes you think you thought you knew
him?

C. Why, she says I did, herself.

H. She says so!

C. Yes, she does, and I did know him, too, though
I don't remember it now.

202

A HELPLESS SITUATION

H. Come — how can you know it when you don't
remember it.

C. I don't know. That is, I don't know the
process, but I do know lots of things that I don't re
member, and remember lots of things that I don't
know. It's so with every educated person.

H. (After a pause.) Is your time valuable?

C. No — well, not very.

H. Mine is.

So I came away then, because he was looking tired.
Overwork, I reckon; I never do that; I have seen
the evil effects of it. My mother was always afraid
I would overwork myself, but I never did.

Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I
went there. He would ask me those questions, and
I would try to answer them to suit him, and he
would hunt me here and there and yonder and get
me embarrassed more and more all the time, and at
last he would look tired on account of overwork, and
there it would end and nothing done. I wish I
could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not care
for uncles or any of those things; it doesn't move
them, it doesn't have the least effect, they don't care
for anything but the literature itself, and they as
good as despise influence. But they do care for
books, and are eager to get them and examine them,
no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen.
If you will send yours to a publisher — any publisher
— he will certainly examine it, I can assure you of
that.

203

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

that a conversation by telephone —
when you are simply sitting by and not taking
any part in that conversation — is one of the solemn-
est curiosities of this modern life. Yesterday I was
writing a deep article on a sublime philosophical sub
ject while such a conversation was going on in the
room. I notice chat one can always write best when
somebody is talking through a telephone close by.
Well, the thing began in this way. A member of
our household came in and asked me to have our
house put into communication with Mr. Bagley's,
down-town. I have observed, in many cities, that
the sex always shrink from calling up the central
office themselves. I don't know why, but they do.
So I touched the bell, and this talk ensued :

Central Office. (Gruffly.) Hello !

7. Is it the Central Office?

C. 0. Of course it is. What do you want?

/. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?

C. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the tele
phone.

Then I heard, k-look, k-look, k'look — klook-klook-
klook-look-look! then a horrible "gritting" of teeth,
and finally a piping female voice : Y-e-s ? (Rising in
flection.) Did you wish to speak to me?

204

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

Without answering, I handed the telephone to the
applicant, and sat down. Then followed that queer
est of all the queer things in this world — a conver
sation with only one end to it. You hear questions
asked ; you don't hear the answer. You hear invita
tions given; you hear no thanks in return. You
have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by
apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations
of glad surprise or sorrow or dismay. You can't
make head or tail of the talk, because you never
hear anything that the person at the other end of
the wire says. Well, I heard the following remark
able series of observations, all from the one tongue,
and all shouted — for you can't ever persuade the sex
to speak gently into a telephone:

Yes? Why, how did that happen?

Pause.

What did you say?

Pause.

Oh no, I don't think it was

Pause.

No! Oh no, I didn't mean that. I meant, put it in
while it is still boiling — or just before it comes to a
boil.

Pause.

WHAT?

Pause.

I turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage
edge.

Pause.

Yes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better
to baste it on with Valenciennes or bombazine, or

205

MARK TWAIN

something of that sort. It gives it such an air—
and attracts so much notice.

Pause.

It's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-fourth to
ninety-seventh inclusive. I think we ought all to
read it often.

Pause.

Perhaps so; I generally use a hair-pin.

Pause.

What did you say? (Aside.) Children, do be
quiet !

Pause.

Oh! B flat! Dear me, I thought you said it was
the cat!

Pause.

Since when?

Pause.

Why, I never heard of it.

Pause.

You astound me! It seems utterly impossible!

Pause.

Who did?

Pause.

Good-ness gracious!

Pause.

Well, what is this world coming to? Was it right
in church?

Pause.

And was her mother there?

Pause.

Why, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humilia
tion! What did they do?

206

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

Long pause.

I can't be perfectly sure, because I haven't the
notes by me ; but I think it goes something like this :
te-rolly-loll-loll, loll lolly-loll-loll, O tolly-loll-loll-/^-
ly-li-i-dol And then repeat, you know.

Pause.

Yes, I think it is very sweet — and very solemn
and impressive, if you get the andantino and the
pianissimo right.

Pause.

Oh, gum-drops,, gum-drops! But I never allow
them to eat striped candy. And of course they
can't, till they get their teeth, anyway.

Pause.

What?

Pause.

Oh, not in the least — go right on He's here
writing — it doesn't bother him.

Pause.

Very well, I'll come if I can. (Aside.) Dear me,
how it does tire a person's arm to hold this thing up
so long ! I wish she'd —

Pause.

Oh no, not at all; I like to talk — but I'm afraid
I'm keeping you from your affairs.

Pause.

Visitors ?

Pause.

No, we never use butter on them.

Pause.

Yes, that is a very good way; but all the cook
books say they are very unhealthy when they are

207

MARK TWAIN

out of season. And he doesn't like them, anyway—
especially canned.

Pause.

Oh, I think that is too high for them; we have
never paid over fifty cents a bunch.

Pause.

Must you go? Well, good-by.

Pause.

Yes, I think so. Good-by.

Pause.

Four o'clock, then — I'll be ready. Good-by.

Pause.

Thank you ever so much. Good-by.

Pause.

Oh, not at all!— just as fresh— Which? Oh, I'm
glad to hear you say that. Good-by.

(Hangs up the telephone and says, "Oh, it does
tire a person's arm so!")

A man delivers a single brutal "Good-by," and
that is the end of it. Not so with the gentle sex — I
say it in their praise; they cannot abide abruptness.

208

EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE
BENTON: A TALE

THESE two were distantly related to each other
— seventh counsins, or something of that sort.
While still babies they became orphans, and were
adopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who
quickly grew very fond of them. The Brants were
always saying: "Be pure, honest, sober, industrious,
and considerate of others, and success in life is
assured." The children heard this repeated some
thousands of times before they understood it; they
could repeat it themselves long before they could
say the Lord's Prayer; it was painted over the
nursery door, and was about the first thing they
learned to read. It was destined to become the un
swerving rule of Edward Mills's life. Sometimes the
Brants changed the wording a little, and said: "Be
pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and
you will never lack friends."

Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him.
When he wanted candy and could not have it, he
listened to reason, and contented himself without it.
When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it
until he got it. Baby Mills took care of his toys;
Baby Benton always destroyed his in a very brief
time, and then made himself so insistently dis-

209

MARK TWAIN

agreeable that, in order to have peace in the house,
little Edward was persuaded to yield up his play
things to him.

When the children were a little older, Georgie be
came a heavy expense in one respect : he took no care
of his clothes; consequently, he shone frequently in
new ones, which was not the case with Eddie. The
boys grew apace. Eddie was an increasing com
fort, Georgie an increasing solicitude. It was al
ways sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's petitions,
"I would rather you would not do it" — meaning
swimming, skating, picnicking, berrying, circusing,
and all sorts of things which boys delight in. But
no answer was sufficient for Georgie; he had to be
humored in his desires, or he would carry them with
a high hand. Naturally, no boy got more swimming,
skating, berrying, and so forth than he; no boy ever
had a better time. The good Brants did not allow
the boys to play out after nine in summer evenings;
they were sent to bed at that hour; Eddie honorably
remained, but Georgie usually slipped out of the
window toward ten, and enjoyed himself till mid
night. It seemed impossible to break Georgie of this
bad habit, but the Brants managed it at last by hiring
him, with apples and marbles, to stay in. The good
Brants gave all their time and attention to vain
endeavors to regulate Georgie ; they said, with grate
ful tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed no efforts
of theirs, he was so good, so considerate, and in all
ways so perfect.

By and by the boys were big enough to work, so
they were apprenticed to a trade : Edward went vol-

210

A TALE

untarily; George was coaxed and bribed. Edward
worked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an ex
pense to the good Brants; they praised him, so did
his master; but George ran away, and it cost Mr.
Brant both money and trouble to hunt him up and
get him back. By and by he ran away again — more
money and more trouble. He ran away a third
time — and stole a few little things to carry with
him. Trouble and expense for Mr. Brant once
more; and, besides, it was with the greatest dif
ficulty that he succeeded in persuading the mas
ter to let the youth go unprosecuted for the theft.

Edward worked steadily along, and in time be
came a full partner in his master's business. George
did not improve; he kept the loving hearts of his
aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full
of inventive activities to protect him from ruin.
Edward, as a boy, had interested himself in Sunday-
schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs,
anti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associa
tions, and all such things; as a man, he was a quiet
but steady and reliable helper in the church, the
temperance societies, and in all movements looking
to the aiding and uplifting of men. This excited
no remark, attracted no attention — for it was his
"natural bent."

Finally, the old people died. The will testified
their loving pride in Edward, and left their little
property to George — because he "needed it " ; where
as, "owing to a bountiful Providence," such was not
the case with Edward. The property was left to
George conditionally: he must buy out Edward's

211

MARK TWAIN

partner with it; else it must go to a benevolent or
ganization called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The
old people left a letter, in which they begged their
dear son Edward to take their place and watch
over George, and help and shield him as they had
done.

Edward dutifully acquiesced, and George became
his partner in the business. He was not a valuable
partner : he had been meddling with drink before ; he
soon developed into a constant tippler now, and his
his flesh and eyes showed the fact unpleasantly.
Edward had been courting a sweet and kindly
spirited girl for some time. They loved each other
dearly, and— But about this period George be
gan to haunt her tearfully and imploringly, and at
last she went crying to Edward, and said her high
and holy duty was plain before her — she must not
let her own selfish desires interfere with it : she must
marry "poor George" and "reform him." It would
break her heart, she knew it would, and so on; but
duty was duty. So she married George, and Ed
ward's heart came very near breaking, as well as her
own. However, Edward recovered, and married
another girl — a very excellent one she was, too.

Children came to both families. Mary did her
honest best to reform her husband, but the contract
was too large. George went on drinking, and by
and by he fell to misusing her and the little ones
sadly. A great many good people strove with
George — they were always at it, in fact — but he
calmly took such efforts as his due and their duty,
and did not mend his ways. He added a vice, pres-

212

A TALE

ently — that of secret gambling. He got deeply in
debt; he borrowed money on the firm's credit, as
quietly as he could, and carried this system so far
and so successfully that one morning the sheriff took
possession of the establishment, and the two cousins
found themselves penniless.

Times were hard, now, and they grew worse. Ed
ward moved his family into a garret, and walked the
streets day and night, seeking work. He begged for
it, but it was really not to be had. He was aston
ished to see how soon his face became unwelcome;
he was astonished and hurt to see how quickly the
ancient interest which people had had in him faded
out and disappeared. Still, he must get work; so he
swallowed his chagrin, and toiled on in search of it.
At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a ladder in
a hod, and was a grateful man in consequence; but
after that nobody knew him or cared anything about
him. He was not able to keep up his dues in the
various moral organizations to which he belonged,
and had to endure the sharp pain of seeing himself
brought under the disgrace of suspension.

But the faster Edward died out of public knowl
edge and interest, the faster George rose in them.
He was found lying, ragged and drunk, in the gutter
one morning. A member of the Ladies' Temper
ance Refuge fished him out, took him in hand, got
up a subscription for him, kept him sober a whole
week, then got a situation for him. An account of
it was published.

General attention was thus drawn to the poor fel
low, and a great many people came forward, and

213

MARK TWAIN

helped him toward reform with their countenance
and encouragement. He did not drink a drop for
two months, and meantime was the pet of the good.
Then he fell — in the gutter; and there was general
sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood
rescued him again. They cleaned him up, they fed
him, they listened to the mournful music of his re
pentances, they got him his situation again. An ac
count of this, also, was published, and the town was
drowned in happy tears over the re-restoration of
the poor beast and struggling victim of the fatal
bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up, and
after some rousing speeches had been made the chair
man said, impressively: "We are now about to call
for signers; and I think there is a spectacle in store
for you which not many in this house will be able to
view with dry eyes." There was an eloquent pause,
and then George Benton, escorted by a red-sashed
detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped
forward upon the platform and signed the pledge.
The air was rent with applause, and everybody cried
for joy. Everybody wrung the hand of the new
convert when the meeting was over; his salary was
enlarged next day; he was the talk of the town, and
its hero. An account of it was published.

George Benton fell, regularly, every three months,
but was faithfully rescued and wrought with, every
time, and good situations were found for him.
Finally, he was taken around the country lecturing,
as a reformed drunkard, and he had great houses and
did an immense amount of good.

He was so popular at home, and so trusted — during

214

A TALE

his sober intervals — that he was enabled to use the
name of a principal citizen, and get a large sum of
money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought
to bear to save him from the consequences of his
forgery, and it was partially successful — he was
"sent up" for only two years. When, at the end
of a year, the tireless efforts of the benevolent were
crowned with success, and he emerged from the peni
tentiary with a pardon in his pocket, the Prisoner's
Friend Society met him at the door with a situation
and a comfortable salary, and all the other benev
olent people came forward and gave him advice,
encouragement, and help. Edward Mills had once
applied to the Prisoner's Friend Society for a situa
tion, when in dire need, but the question, "Have you
been a prisoner?" made brief work of his case.

While all these things were going on, Edward
Mills had been quietly making head against ad
versity. He was still poor, but was in receipt of a
steady and sufficient salary, as the respected and
trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never
came near him, and was never heard to inquire about
him. George got to indulging in long absences from
the town; there were ill reports about him, but
nothing definite.

One winter's night some masked burglars forced
their way into the bank, and found Edward Mills
there alone. They commanded him to reveal the
''combination," so that they could get into the safe.
He refused. They threatened his life. He said his
employers trusted him, and he could not be traitor
to that trust. He could die, if he must, but while

215

MARK TWAIN

he lived he would be faithful ; he would not yield up
the "combination." The burglars killed him.

The detectives hunted down the criminals; the
chief one proved to be George Benton. A wide sym
pathy was felt for the widow and orphans of the
dead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged
that all the banks in the land would testify their
appreciation of the fidelity and heroism of the
murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous
contribution of money in aid of his family, now
bereft of support. The result was a mass of solid
cash amounting to upward of five hundred dollars—
an average of nearly three-eighths of a cent for each
bank in the Union. The cashier's own bank testified
its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but humili-
atingly failed in it) that the peerless servant's ac
counts were not square, and that he himself had
knocked his brains out with a bludgeon to escape
detection and punishment.

George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then
everybody seemed to forget the widow and orphans
in their solicitude for poor George. Everything that
money and influence could do was done to save him,
but it all failed ; he was sentenced to death. Straight
way the Governor was besieged with petitions for
commutation or pardon; they were brought by tear
ful young girls; by sorrowful old maids; by deputa
tions of pathetic widows; by shoals of impressive
orphans. But no, the Governor — for once — would
not yield.

Now George Benton experienced religion. The
glad news flew all around. From that time forth his

216

A TALE

cell was always full of girls and women and fresh
flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-
singing, and thanksgivings, and homilies, and tears,
with never an interruption, except an occasional
five-minute intermission for refreshments.

This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows,
and George Benton went proudly home, in the black
cap, before a wailing audience of the sweetest and
best that the region could produce. His grave had
fresh flowers on it every day, for a while, and the
head-stone bore these words, under a hand pointing
aloft: "He has fought the good fight."

The brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription :
"Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and
you will never — "

Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that
way, but it was so given.

The cashier's family are in stringent circumstances,
now, it is said; but no matter; a lot of appreciative
people, who were not willing that an act so brave
and true as his should go unrewarded, have collected
forty-two thousand dollars — and built a Memorial
Church with it.

217

THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE

CHAPTER I

IN the morning of life came the good fairy with her
basket, and said:

"Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others.
And be wary, choose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for
only one of them is valuable."

The gifts were five : Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure,
Death. The youth said, eagerly:

"There is no need to consider"; and he chose
Pleasure.

He went out into the world and sought out the
pleasures that youth delights in. But each in its
turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and
empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the
end he said: "These years I have wasted. If I
could but choose again, I would choose wisely."

218

CHAPTER II

THE fairy appeared, and said:
"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more ;
and oh, remember — time is flying, and only one of
them is precious."

The man considered long, then chose Love; and
did not mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes.

After many, many years the man sat by a coffin,
in an empty home. And he communed with him
self, saying: "One by one they have gone away and
left me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the
last. Desolation after desolation has swept over
me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous
trader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand
hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse
him."

219

CHAPTER III

CHOOSE again." It was the fairy speaking.
"The years have taught you wisdom — surely
it must be so. Three gifts remain. Only one of them
has any worth — remember it, and choose warily."

The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the
fairy, sighing, went her way.

Years went by and she came again, and stood
behind the man where he sat solitary in the fading
day, thinking. And she knew his thought:

"My name rilled the world, and its praises were on
every tongue, and it seemed well with me for a little
while. How little a while it was ! Then came envy ;
then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then per
secution. Then derision, which is the beginning of
the end. And last of all came pity, which is the
funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of
renown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt
and compassion in its decay."

220

CHAPTER IV

yet again." It was the fairy's voice,
remain. And do not despair. In
the beginning there was but one that was precious,
and it is still here."

" Wealth — which is power! How blind I was!"
said the man. "Now, at last, life will be worth the
living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These mock
ers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me,
and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy. I
will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of
the spirit, all contentments of the body that man
holds dear. I will buy, buy, buy ! deference, respect,
esteem, worship — every pinchbeck grace of life the
market of a trivial world can furnish forth. I have
lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let
that pass; I was ignorant then, and could but take
for best what seemed so."

Three short years went by, and a day came when
the man sat shivering in a mean garret; and he was
gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in rags ;
and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:

"Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and
gilded lies! And miscalled, every one. They are
not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure, Love,
Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for

221

MARK TWAIN

lasting realities — Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty. The
fairy said true; in all her store there was but one gift
which was precious, only one that was not valueless.
How poor and cheap and mean I know those others
now to be, compared with that inestimable one, that
dear and sweet and kindly one, that steeps in dream
less and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the
body, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind
and heart. Bring it! I am weary, I would rest.'*

222

CHAPTER V

r I ^HE fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts,
1 but Death was wanting. She said:
' ' I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was

ignorant, but trusted me, asking me to choose for

it. You did not ask me to choose."

"Oh, miserable me! What is there left for me?"
"What not even you have deserved: the wanton

insult of Old Age."

223

THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES

FROM MY UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY

SOME days ago a correspondent sent in an old
typewritten sheet, faded by age, containing
the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain

" HARTFORD, March 19, 1875.

"Please do not use my name in any way. Please
do not even divulge the fact that I own a machine.
I have entirely stopped using the typewriter, for the
reason that I never could write a letter with it to
anybody without receiving a request by return mail
that I would not only describe the machine, but state
what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc.
I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people
to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker."

A note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if
the letter was genuine and whether he really had a
typewriter as long ago as that. Mr. Clemens replied
that his best answer is in the following chapter from
his unpublished autobiography :

1904. Villa Quarto, Florence, January.
Dictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new
experience for me, but it goes very well, and is going

224

THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES

to save time and "language" — the kind of language
that soothes vexation.

I have dictated to a typewriter before — but not
autobiography. Between that experience and the
present one there lies a mighty gap — more than
thirty years! It is a sort of lifetime. In that wide
interval much has happened — to the type-machine
as well as to the rest of us. At the beginning of
that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The
person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But
now it is the other way about : the person who
doesn't own one is a curiosity. I saw a type-machine
for the first time in — what year? I suppose it was
1873 — because Nasby was with me at the time, and
it was in Boston. We must have been lecturing, or
we could not have been in Boston, I take it. I
quitted the platform that season.

But never mind about that, it is no matter.
Nasby and I saw the machine through a window,
and went in to look at it. The salesman explained
it to us, showed us samples of its work, and said it
could do fifty-seven words a minute — a statement
which we frankly confessed that we did not believe.
So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by
the watch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty
seconds. We were partly convinced, but said it
probably couldn't happen again. But it did. We
timed the girl over and over again — with the same
result always: she won out. She did her work on
narrow slips of paper, and we pocketed them as fast
as she turned them out, to show as curiosities. The
price of the machine was one hundred and twenty-

225

MARK TWAIN

five dollars. I bought one, and we went away very
much excited.

At the hotel we got out our slips and were a little
disappointed to find that they all contained the same
words. The girl had economized time and labor by
using a formula which she knew by heart. How
ever, we argued — safely enough — that the first type-
girl must naturally take rank with the first billiard-
player : neither of them could be expected to get out
of the game any more than a third or a half of what
was in it. If the machine survived — if it survived
—experts would come to the front, by and by, who
would double this girl's output without a doubt.
They would do one hundred words a minute — my
talking speed on the platform. That score has long
ago been beaten.

At home I played with the toy, repeating and re
peating and repeating "The Boy stood on the Burn
ing Deck," until I could turn that boy's adventure
out at the rate of twelve words a minute; then I re
sumed the pen, for business, and only worked the
machine to astonish inquiring visitors. They car
ried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck.

By and by I hired a young woman, and did my
first dictating (letters, merely), and my last until
now. The machine did not do both capitals and
lower case ( as now), but only capitals. Gothic cap
itals they were, and sufficiently ugly. I remember
the first letter I dictated. It was to Edward Bok,
who was a boy then. I was not acquainted with
him at that time. His present enterprising spirit
is not new — he had it in that early day. He was

226

THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES

accumulating autographs, and was not content with
mere signatures, he wanted a whole autograph letter.
I furnished it — in type-machine capitals, signature
and all. It was long; it was a sermon ; it contained
advice; also reproaches. I said writing was my
trade, my bread-and-butter; I said it was not fair to
ask a man to give away samples of his trade; would
he ask the blacksmith for a horseshoe ? would he ask
the doctor for a corpse?

Now I come to an important matter — as I regard
it. In the year '74 the young woman copied a con
siderable part of a book of mine on the machine. In
a previous chapter of this Autobiography I have
claimed that I was the first person in the world that
ever had a telephone in his house for practical pur
poses; I will now claim — until dispossessed — that I
was the first person in the world to apply ike type-
machine to literature. That book must have been
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I wrote the first
half of it in '72, the rest of it in '74. My machinist
type-copied a book for me in '74, so I concluded it
was that one.

That early machine was full of caprices, full of de
fects — devilish ones. It had as many immoralities
as the machine of to-day has virtues. After a year
or two I found that it was degrading my character,
so I thought I would give it to Ho wells. He was
reluctant, for he was suspicious of novelties and un
friendly toward them, and he remains so to this day.
But I persuaded him. He had great confidence in
me, and I got him to believe things about the ma
chine that I did not believe myself. He took it

227

MARK TWAIN

home to Boston, and my morals began to improve,
but his have never recovered.

He kept it six months, and then returned it to
me. I gave it away twice after that, but it wouldn't
stay; it came back. Then I gave it to our coach
man, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful, be
cause he did not know the animal, and thought I
was trying to make him wiser and better. As soon
as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic
for a side-saddle which he could not use, and there
my knowledge of its history ends.

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER

IT is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in
a medieval villa in the country, a mile or two
from Florence. I cannot speak the language; I am
too old not to learn how, also too busy when I am
busy, and too indolent when I am not; wherefore
some will imagine that I
am having a dull time of
it. But it is not so. The
"help" are all natives; they
talk Italian to me, I answer
in English; I do not under
stand them, they do not un
derstand me, consequently
no harm is done, and every
body is satisfied. In order
to be just and fair, I throw
in an Italian word when I
have one, and this has a
good influence. I get the
word out of the morning
paper. I have to use it
while it is fresh, for I find
that Italian words do not keep in this climate. They
fade toward night, and next morning they are gone.
But it is no matter; I get a new one out of the

229

MARK TWAIN

paper before breakfast, and thrill the domestics with
it while it lasts. I have no dictionary, and I do not
want one; I can select my words by the sound, or
by orthographic aspect. Many of them have a
French or German or English look, and these are the

ones I enslave for the day's
service. That is, as a rule.
Not always. If I find a
learnable phrase that has
an imposing look and war
bles musically along I do
not care to know the mean
ing of it; I pay it out to
the first applicant, knowing
that if I pronounce it care
fully he will understand it,
and that's enough.

Yesterday's word was
avanti. It sounds Shake
spearian, and probably
means Avaunt and quit my
sight. To-day I have a
whole phrase: sono dispia-

centissimo. I do not know what it means, but it
seems to fit in everywhere and give satisfaction.
Although as a rule my words and phrases are good
for one day and train only, I have several that stay
by me all the time, for some unknown reason, and
these come very handy when I get into a long con
versation and need things to fire up with in monoto
nous stretches. One of the best ones is Dov* £ il
gatto. It nearly always produces a pleasant surprise,

230

SONO DISPIACENTISSIMO

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER

therefore I save it up for places where I want to ex
press applause or admiration. The fourth word has
a French sound, and I think the phrase means "that
takes the cake."

During my first week in the deep and dreamy still
ness of this woodsy and flowery place I was without
news of the outside world, and was well content
without it. It had been four weeks since I had seen
a newspaper, and this lack seemed to give life a
new charm and grace, and to saturate it with a
feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a
change that was to be expected: the appetite for
news began to rise again, after this invigorating rest.
I had to feed it, but I was not willing to let it make
me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it
on a diet, and a strict and limited one. So I ex
amined an Italian paper, with the idea of feeding it
on that, and on that exclusively. On that exclu
sively, and without help of a dictionary. In this way
I should surely be well protected against overloading
and indigestion.

A glance at the telegraphic page filled me with
encouragement. There were no scare-heads. That
was good — supremely good. But there were head
ings — one-liners and two-liners — and that was good
too ; for without these, one must do as one does with
a German paper — pay our precious time in finding
out what an article is about, only to discover, in
many cases, that there is nothing in it of interest to
you. The head-line is a valuable thing.

Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals,
swindles, robberies, explosions, collisions, and all

231

MARK TWAIN

such things, when we know the people, and when
they are neighbors and friends, but when they are
strangers we do not get any great pleasure out of
them, as a rule. Now the trouble with an American
paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the
whole earth for blood and garbage, and the result is
that you are daily overfed and suffer a surfeit. By
habit you stow this muck ever day, but you come
by and by to take no vital interest in it — indeed,
you almost get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-
fiftieths of it concerns strangers only — people away
off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand miles,
ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when
you come to think of it, who cares what becomes of
those people? I would not give the assassination of
one personal friend for a whole massacre of those
others. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor
mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a
whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone
rotten. Give me the home product every time.

Very well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine
paper would suit me: five out of six of its scandals
and tragedies were local; they were adventures of
one's very neighbors, one might almost say one's
friends. In the matter of world news there was not
too much, but just about enough. I subscribed. I
have had no occasion to regret it. Every morning I
get all the news I need for the day; sometimes from
the head-lines, sometimes from the text. I have
never had to call for a dictionary yet. I read the
paper with ease. Often I do not quite understand,
often some of the details escape me, but no matter, I

232

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER

get the idea. I will cut out a passage or two, then
you will see how limpid the language is:

The first line means that the Italian sovereigns are
coming back — they have been to England. The
second line seems to mean that they enlarged the
King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I
suppose. An English banquet has that effect.
Further:

Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date
of the telegram, Rome, November 24, ten minutes
before twenty- three o'clock. The telegram seems to
say, "The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect
themselves at Rome to-morrow at fifty-one minutes
after fifteen o'clock."

I do not know about Italian time, but I judge it
begins at midnight and runs through the twenty-
four hours without breaking bulk. In the following
ad. the theaters open at half -past twenty. If these
are not matinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my
reckoning.

233

234

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER

DELU&

£~ Qpeta:
&TRO

The whole of that is intelligible to me — and sane
and rational, too — except the remark about the In
auguration of a Russian Cheese. That one over-
sizes my hand. Gimme five cards.

This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in
long primer leaded and has a page of advertise
ments, there is no room for the crimes, disasters,
and general sweepings of the outside world — thanks
be! To-day I find only a single importation of
the off-color sort:

235

MARK TWAIN

Twenty-seven years old, and scomparve — scam
pered — on the gth November. You see by the
added detail that she departed with her coach
man. I hope Sarebbe has not made a mistake,
but I am afraid the chances are that she has. Sono
dispiacentissimo.

There are several fires: also a couple of accidents.
This is one of them :

.L<O boiatti

mo-Hco di guardia , gi
attura della ffiunba

-. Ivo coi

What it seems to say is this : ' * Serious Disgrace on
the Old Old Bridge. This morning about 7.30, Mr.
Joseph Sciatti, aged 55, of Casellina and Torn, while
standing up in a sitting posture on top of a carico
barrow of verdure (foliage? hay? vegetables?), lost
his equilibrium and fell on himself, arriving with his
left leg under one of the wheels of the vehicle.

"Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered
in?) by several citizens, who by means of public cab
No. 365 transported him to St. John of God."

236

237

MARK TWAIN

Paragraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it
says that the medico set the broken left leg — right
enough, since there was nothing the matter with
the other one — and that several are encouraged
to hope that fifty days will fetch him around
in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, if no complica
tions intervene.

I am sure I hope so myself.

There is a great and peculiar charm about reading
news-scraps in a language which you are not ac
quainted with — the charm that always goes with the
mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be
absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read
in such circumstances; you are chasing an alert and
gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns and
dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A
dictionary would spoil it. Sometimes a single word
of doubtful purport will cast a veil of dreamy and
golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold
and practical certainties, and leave steeped in a
haunting and adorable mystery an incident which
had been vulgar and commonplace but for that
benefaction. Would you be wise to draw a diction
ary on that gracious word? would you be properly
grateful?

After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my
subject and seek a case in point. I find it without
trouble, in the morning paper; a cablegram from
Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words
save one are guessable by a person ignorant of
Italian:

238

239

MARK TWAIN

Translation. — "REVOLVERATION IN THEATER.
Paris, 2jth. La Patrie has from Chicago: The cop
of the theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana, had
willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke
in spite of the prohibition, who, spalleggiato by his
friends, tir6 (Fr. tir£, Anglice pulled) manifold re
volver-shots. The cop responded. Result, a gen
eral scare; great panic among the spectators. No
body hurt."

It is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the
theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana, excited not
a person in Europe but me, and so came near to not
being worth cabling to Florence by way of France.
But it does excite me. It excites me because I can
not make out, for sure, what it was that moved that
spectator to resist the officer. I was gliding along
smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until
I came to that word "spalleggiato," then the bottom
fell out. You notice what a rich gloom, what a
somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all
over the whole Wallachian tragedy. That is the
charm of the thing, that is the delight of it. This is
where you begin, this is where you revel. You can

240

241

MARK TWAIN

guess and guess, and have all the fun you like; you
need not be afraid there will be an end to it ; none is
possible, for no amount of guessing will ever furnish
you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is
the right one. All the other words give you hints,
by their form, their sound, or their spelling — this one
doesn't, this one throws out no hints, this one keeps
its secret. If there is even the slightest slight
shadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly
suggestive fact that "spalleggiato" carries • our
word ' ' egg " in its stomach. Well, make the most out
of it, and then where are you at? You conjecture
that the spectator which was smoking in spite of the
prohibition and become reprohibited by the guar
dians, was "egged on" by his friends, and that it was
owing to that evil influence that he initiated the re-
volveration in theater that has galloped under the sea
and come crashing through the European press with
out exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, are
you dead sure, that that was the way of it? No.
Then the uncertainty remains, the mystery abides,
and with it the charm. Guess again.

If I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort
I would study it, and not give all my free time to un-
dictionarial readings, but there is no such work on
the market. The existing phrase-books are inade
quate. They are well enough as far as they go, but
when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell
you what to say.

242

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

1 FOUND that a person of large intelligence could
read this beautiful language with considerable
facility without a dictionary, but I presently found
that to such a person a grammar could be of use at
times. It is because, if he does not know the Were's
and the Was's and the May-be' 's and the Has-been's
apart, confusions and uncertainties can arise. He
can get the idea that a thing is going to happen next
week when the truth is that it has already happened
week before last. Even more previously, sometimes.
Examination and inquiry showed me that the adjec
tives and such things were frank and fair-minded and
straightforward, and did not shuffle ; it was the Verb
that mixed the hands, it was the Verb that lacked
stability, it was the Verb that had no permanent
opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was
always dodging the issue and putting out the light
and making all the trouble.

Further examination, further inquiry, further re
flection, confirmed this judgment, and established
beyond peradventure the fact that the Verb was the
storm-center. This discovery made plain the right
and wise course to pursue in order to acquire certainty
and exactness in understanding the statements which
the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to

243

MARK TWAIN

me: I must catch a Verb and tame it. I must find
out its ways, I must spot its eccentricities, I must
penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently foresee
and forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it
was likely to try upon a stranger in given circum
stances, I must get in on its main shifts and head
them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.

I had noticed, in other foreign languages, that
verbs are bred in families, and that the members of
each family have certain features or resemblances
that are common to that family and distinguish it
from the other families — the other kin, the cousins
and what not. I had noticed that this family-mark
is not usually the nose or the hair, so to speak, but
the tail — the Termination — and that these tails are
quite definitely differentiated; insomuch that an
expert can tell a Pluperfect from a Subjunctive by
its tail as easily and as certainly as a cowboy can
tell a cow from a horse by the like process, the result
of observation and culture. I should explain that I
am speaking of legitimate verbs, those verbs which
in the slang of the grammar are called Regular.
There are others — I am not meaning to conceal this ;
others called Irregulars, born out of wedlock, of un
known and uninteresting parentage, and naturally
destitute of family resemblances, as regards all
features, tails included. But of these pathetic out
casts I have nothing to say. I do not approve of
them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly
delicate and sensitive, and I do not allow them to be
used in my presence.

But, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the

244

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

others and break it to harness. One is enough.
Once familiar with its assortment of tails, you are
immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its
specialty from you and make you think it is working
the past or the future or the conditional or the un
conditional when it is engaged in some other line of
business — its tail will give it away. I found out all
these things by myself, without a teacher.

I selected the verb Amare, to love. Not for any
personal reason, for I am indifferent about verbs; I
care no more for one verb than for another, and have
little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign
languages you always begin with that one. Why, I
do not know. It is merely habit, I suppose; the
first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied, and there
hasn't been a successor since with originality enough
to start a fresh one. For they are a pretty limited lot,
you will admit that ? Originality is not in their line ;
they can't think up anything new, anything to
freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the lan
guage lesson and put life and ' ' go " into it, and charm
and grace and picturesqueness.

I knew I must look after those details myself;
therefore I thought them out and wrote them down,
and sent for the facchino and explained them to him,
and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get to
gether a good stock company among the contadini,
and design the costumes, and distribute the parts;
and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days to
begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like
manner. I told him to put each grand division of
it under a foreman, and each subdivision under a

245

MARK TWAIN

subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or
something like that, and to have a different uniform
for each squad, so that I could tell a Pluperfect from
a Compound Future without looking at the book;
the whole battery to be under his own special and
particular command, with the rank of Brigadier, and
I to pay the freight.

I then inquired into the character and possibilities
of the selected verb, and was much disturbed to find
that it was over my size, it being chambered for
fifty-seven rounds — fifty-seven ways of saying I love
without reloading; and yet none of them likely to
convince a girl that was laying for a title, or a title
that was laying for rocks.

It seemed to me that with my inexperience it
would be foolish to go into action with this mitrail
leuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the facchino
to provide something a little more primitive to start
with, something less elaborate, some gentle old-
fashioned flint-lock, smooth-bore, double-barreled
thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred yards and
kill at forty — an arrangement suitable for a beginner
who could be satisfied with moderate results on the
offstart and did not wish to take the whole territory
in the first campaign.

But in vain. He was not able to mend the matter,
all the verbs being of the same build, all Catlings, all
of the same caliber and delivery, fifty-seven to the
volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said
the auxiliary verb AVERE, to have, was a tidy thing,
and easy to handle in a seaway, and less likely to
miss stays in going about than some of the others;

246

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

BO, upon his recommendation I chose that one, and
told him to take it along and scrape its bottom and
break out its spinnaker and get it ready for business.
I will explain that a facchino is a general-utility
domestic. Mine was a horse-doctor in his better
days, and a very good one.

At the end of three days the facchi no-doctor-
brigadier was ready. I was also ready, with a stenog
rapher. We were in the room called the Rope- Walk.
This is a formidably long room, as is indicated by
its facetious name, and is a good place for reviews.
At 9.30 the F.-D.-B. took his place near me and gave
the word of command; the drums began to rumble
and thunder, the head of the forces appeared at an
upper door, and the "march-past" was on. Down
they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each squad
gaudy in a uniform of its own and bearing a banner
inscribed with its verbal rank and quality: first the
Present Tense in Mediterranean blue and old gold,
then the Past Definite in scarlet and black, then the
Imperfect in green and yellow, then the Indicative
Future in the stars and stripes, then the Old Red
Sandstone Subjunctive in purple and silver — and so
on and so on, fifty-seven privates and twenty com
missioned and non-commissioned officers; certainly
one of the most fiery and dazzling and eloquent sights
I have ever beheld. I could not keep back the tears.
Presently :

"Halt!" commanded the Brigadier.

"Front— face!"

"Right dress!"

247

MARK TWAIN

"Stand at ease!"

"One — two — three. In unison — recite!"

It was fine. In one noble volume of sound all the
fifty-seven Haves in the Italian language burst forth
in an exalting and splendid confusion. Then came
commands :

"About — face! Eyes — front! Helm alee — hard
aport! Forward — march!'" and the drums let go
again.

When the last Termination had disappeared, the
commander said the instruction drill would now be
gin, and asked for suggestions. I said:

"They say I have, thou hast, he has, and so on, but
they don't say what. It will be better, and more
definite, if they have something to have; just an
object, you know, a something — anything will do;
anything that will give the listener a sort of personal
as well as grammatical interest in their joys and com
plaints, you see."

He said :

"It is a good point. Would a dog do?"

I said I did not know, but we could try a dog and
see. So he sent out an aide-de-camp to give the
order to add the dog.

The six privates of the Present Tense now filed in,
in charge of Sergeant AVERE (to have), and displaying
their banner. They formed in line of battle, and re
cited, one at a time, thus:

"Io ho un cane, I have a dog."

"Tu hai un cane, thou hast a dog."

"Egli ha un cane, he has a dog."

248

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

"Noi abbiamo un cane, we have a dog."

" Voi avete un cane, you have a dog."

"Eglino kanno un cane, they have a dog."

No comment followed. They returned to camp,
and I reflected a while. The commander said:

"I fear you are disappointed."

"Yes," I said; "they are too monotonous, too
singsong, too dead-and-alive; they have no expres
sion, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never
happen in real life. A person who had just acquired
a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is
not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the
nation do you suppose is the matter with these
people?"

He thought maybe the trouble was with the dog.
He said:

"These are contadini, you know, and they have a
prejudice against dogs — that is, against marimane.
Marimana dogs stand guard over people's vines and
olives, you know, and are very savage, and thereby
a grief and an inconvenience to persons who want
other people's things at night. In my judgment they
have taken this dog for a marimana, and have soured
on him."

I saw that the dog was a mistake, and not function-
able: we must try something else; something, if pos
sible, that could evoke sentiment, interest, feeling.

"What is cat, in Italian?" I asked.

"Gatto."

"Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?"

"Gentleman cat."

"How are these people as regards that animal?"
249

MARK TWAIN

"We-11, they— they— "

"You hesitate: that is enough. How are they
about chickens?"

He tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy.
I understood.

"What is chicken, in Italian?" I asked.

"Polio, podere." (Podere is Italian for master.
It is a title of courtesy, and conveys reverence and
admiration.) "Polio is one chicken by itself; when
there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is
potti."

"Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed
for duty next?"

"The Past Definite."

"Send out and order it to the front — with chickens.
And let them understand that we don't want any
more of this cold indifference."

He gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunt
ing tenderness in his tone and a watering mouth in
his aspect:

"Convey to them the conception that these are
unprotected chickens." He turned to me, saluting
with his hand to his temple, and explained, "It will
inflame their interest in the poultry, sire."

A few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched
in and formed up, their faces glowing with enthu
siasm, and the file-leader shouted:

"Ebbi polli, I had chickens!"

"Good!" I said. "Go on, the next."

"Avesti polli, thou hadst chickens!"

"Fine! Next!"

"Ebbe polli, he had chickens!"

250

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

" Moltimoltissimo ! Go on, the next!"

"Avemmo polli, we had chickens!"

"Basta - basta aspettatto avanti — last man-
charge!"

"Ebbero polli, they had chickens!"

Then they formed in echelon, by columns of fours,
refusing the left, and retired in great style on the
double-quick. I was enchanted, and said:

"Now, doctor, that is something like! Chickens
are the ticket, there is no doubt about it. What is
the next squad?"

"The Imperfect."

"How does it go?"

"Io aveva, I had, tu avevi, thou hadst, egli aveva,
he had, noi av —

"Wait— we've just had the hads. What are you
giving me?"

"But this is another breed."

"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one
breed enough? Had is HAD, and your tricking it out
in a fresh way of spelling isn't going to make it any
hadder than it was before ; now you know that your
self."

"But there is a distinction — they are not just the
same Hads."

"How do you make it out?"

"Well, you use that first Had when you are refer
ring to something that happened at a named and sharp
and perfectly definite moment; you use the other
when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time
and in a more prolonged and indefinitely continuous
way."

251

MARK TWAIN

"Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it
yourself. Look here : If I have had a had, or have
wanted to have had a had, or was in a position right
then and there to have had a had that hadn't had
any chance to go out hadding on account of this
foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding
in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but
restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric
convulsions, and keeps it pining around and watching
the t>arometer all the time, and liable to get sick
through confinement and lack of exercise, and all
that sort of thing, why — why, the inhumanity of it is
enough, let alone the wanton superfluity and useless-
ness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital-bird
of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for
nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is
not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive
nepotism to keep in office a Had that is so delicate
it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west — I
won't have this dude on the pay-roll. Cancel his
exequatur; and look here — "

"But you miss the point. It is like this. You
see—"

"Never mind explaining, I don't care anything
about it. Six Hads is enough for me ; anybody that
needs twelve, let him subscribe; I don't want any
stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged and
Indefinitely Continuous; four-fifths of it is water,
anyway. ' '

"But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indis
pensable in cases where—

"Pipe the next squad to the assualt!"

252

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

But it was not to be; for at that moment the dull
boom of the noon gun floated up out of far-off
Florence, followed by the usual softened jangle of
church-bells, Florentine and suburban, that bursts
out in murmurous response; by labor-union law the
colazione1 must stop; stop promptly, stop instantly,
stop definitely, like the chosen and best of the breed
of Hads.

1 Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a stance, a
sitting. — M. T.

253

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

TWO or three persons having at different times
intimated that if I would write an autobiogra
phy they would read it when they got leisure, I yield
at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith
tender my history.

Ours is a noble old house, and stretches a long
way back into antiquity. The earliest ancestor the
Twains have any record of was a friend of the family
by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh
century, when our people were living in Aberdeen,
county of Cork, England. Why it is that our long
line has ever since borne the maternal name (except
when one of them now and then took a playful refuge
in an alias to avert foolishness) , instead of Higgins, is
a mystery which none of us has ever felt much desire
to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we
leave it alone. All the old families do that way.

Arthour Twain was a man of considerable note — a
solicitor on the highway in William Rufus's time.
At about the age of thirty he went to one of those
fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to
see about something, and never returned again.
While there he died suddenly.

Augustus Twain seems to have made something of
a stir about the year 1160. He was as full of fun as

254

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

he could be, and used to take his old saber and
sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark
night, and stick it through people as they went by, to
see them jump. He was a born humorist. But he got
to going too far with it; and the first time he was
found stripping one of these parties, the authorities
removed one end of him, and put it up on a nice high
place on Temple Bar, where it could contemplate the
people and have a good time. He never liked any
situation so much or stuck to it so long.

Then for the next two hundred years the family
tree shows a succession of soldiers — noble, high-spirit
ed fellows, who always
went into battle sing
ing, right behind the
army, and always went
out a - whooping, right
ahead of it.

This is a scathing
rebuke to old dead
Froissart's poor witti
cism that our family
tree never had but one
limb to it, and that
that one stuck out at right angles, and bore fruit
winter and summer.

Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain,
called "the Scholar." He wrote a beautiful, beauti
ful hand. And he could imitate anybody's hand so
closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his
head off to see it. He had infinite sport with his
talent. But by and by he took a contract to break

255

MARK TWAIN

stone for a road, and the roughness of the work
spoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time
he was in the stone business, which, with inconsider
able intervals, was some forty-two years. In fact,
he died in harness During all those long years he
gave such satisfaction that he never was through with
one contract a week till the government gave him
another. He was a perfect pet. And he was always
a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicu
ous member of their benevolent secret society, called
the Chain Gang. He always wore his hair short,
had a preference for striped clothes, and died la
mented by the government. He was a sore loss to
his country. For he was so regular.

Some years later we have the illustrious John
Morgan Twain. He came over to this country with
Columbus in 1492 as a passenger. He appears to
have been of a crusty, uncomfortable disposition.
He complained of the food all the way over, and was
always threatening to go ashore unless there was a
change. He wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day
passed over his head that he did not go idling about
the ship with his nose in the air, sneering about the
commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus
knew where he was going to or had ever been there
before. The memorable cry of "Land ho!" thrilled
every heart in the ship but his. He gazed awhile
through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line
lying on the distant water, and then said: "Land be
hanged— it's a raft!"

When this questionable passenger came on board
the ship, he brought nothing with him but an old

256

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

newspaper containing a handkerchief marked "B.
G.," one cotton sock marked "L. W. C.," one
woollen one marked "D. P.," and a night-shirt
marked "O. M. R." And yet during the voyage he
worried more about his "trunk," and gave himself
more airs about it, than all the rest of the passengers
put together. If the ship was "down by the head,'*
and would not steer, he would go and move his
"trunk" farther aft, and then watch the effect. If
the ship was "by the stern," he would suggest to
Columbus to detail some men to "shift that bag
gage." In storms he had to be gagged, because his
wailings about his "trunk" made it impossible for
the men to hear the orders. The man does not appear
to have been openly charged with any gravely un
becoming thing, but it is noted in the ship's log as a
"curious circumstance" that albeit he brought his
baggage on board the ship in a newspaper, he took
it ashore in four trunks, a queensware crate, and a
couple of champagne baskets. But when he came
back insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering way,
that some of his things were missing, and was going
to search the other passengers' baggage, it was too
much, and they threw him overboard. They watched
long and wonderingly for him to come up, but not
even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But
while every one was most absorbed in gazing over the
side, and the interest was momentarily increasing, it
was observed with consternation that the vessel was
adrift and the anchor-cable hanging limp from the
bow. Then in the ship's dimmed and ancient log
we find this quaint note:

257

MARK TWAIN

"In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome pas
senger hadde gonne downe and got ye anchor, and
toke ye same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from
ye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye sonne
of a ghun!"

Yet this ancestor had good and noble instincts,
and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that
he was the first white person who ever interested
himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our
Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a
gallows, and to his dying day he claimed with satis
faction that he had had a more restraining and ele
vating influence on the Indians than any other
reformer that ever labored among them. At this
point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty,
and closes abruptly by saying that the old voy
ager went to see his gallows perform on the first
white man ever hanged in America, and while
there received injuries which terminated in his
death.

The great-grandson of the "Reformer" flourished
in sixteen hundred and something, and was known
in our annals as "the old Admiral," though in history
he had other titles. He was long in command of
fleets of swift vessels, well armed and manned, and
did great service in hurrying up merchantmen. Ves
sels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on,
always made good fair time across the ocean. But
if a ship still loitered in spite of all he could do, his
indignation would grow till he could contain himself
no longer — and then he would take that ship home
where he lived and keep it there carefully, expecting

258

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

the owners to come for it, but they never did. And
he would try to get the idleness and sloth out of the
sailors of that ship by compelling them to take in
vigorating exercise and a bath. He called it "walk
ing a plank." All the pupils liked it. At any rate,
they never found any fault with it after trying it.
When the owners were late coming for their ships,
the Admiral always burned them, so that the insur
ance money should not be lost. At last this fine old
tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and
honors. And to her dying day, his poor heart
broken widow believed that if he had been cut down
fifteen minutes sooner he might have been resus
citated.

Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part
of the seventeenth century, and was a zealous and
distinguished missionary. He converted sixteen
thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that
a dog-tooth necklace and a pair of spectacles was not
enough clothing to come to divine service in. His
poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and when his
funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came
out of the restaurant) with tears in their eyes, and
saying, one to another, that he was a good tender
missionary, and they wished they had some more of
him.

Pah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis(Mighty-Hunt-
er-with-a-Hog-Eye-Twain) adorned the middle of the
eighteenth century, and aided General Braddock with
all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It
was this ancestor who fired seventeen times at our
Washington from behind a tree. So far the beauti-

259

MARK TWAIN

ful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is
correct ; but when that narrative goes on to say that
at the seventeenth round the awe-stricken savage
said solemnly that that man was being reserved by
the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he
dared not lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again,
the narrative seriously impairs the integrity of his
tory. What he did say was:

"It ain't no (hie) no use. 'At man's so drunk he
can't stan' still long enough for a man to hit him.
I (hie) I can't 'ford to fool away any more am'nition
on him."

That was why he stopped at the seventeenth
round, and it was a good, plain, matter-of-fact rea
son, too, and one that easily commends itself to us
by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability
there is about it.

I always enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I
felt a marring misgiving that every Indian at Brad-
dock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple of times
(two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and
missed him, jumped to the conclusion that the Great
Spirit was reserving that soldier for some grand
mission; and so I somehow feared that the only
reason why Washington's case is remembered and
the others forgotten is, that in his the prophecy
came true, and in that of the others it didn't. There
are not books enough on earth to contain the rec
ord of the prophecies Indians and other unauthorized
parties have made; but one may carry in his over
coat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have
been fulfilled.

260

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

I will remark here, in passing, that certain an
cestors of mine are so thoroughly well-known in his
tory by their aliases, that I have not felt it to be
worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention
them in the order of their birth. Among these may
be mentioned Richard Brinsley Twain, alias Guy
Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-
String Jack; William Hogarth Twain, alias Jack
Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias Baron Munchausen;
John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then
there are George Francis Train, Tom Pepper, Nebu
chadnezzar, and Baalam's Ass — they all belong to
our family, but to a branch of it somewhat distinct
ly removed from the honorable direct line — in fact,
a collateral branch, whose members chifly differ from
the ancient stock in that, in order to acquire the
notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for,
they have got into a low way of going to jail instead
of getting hanged.

It is not well, when writing an autobiography, to
follow your ancestry down too close to your own
time — it is safest to speak only vaguely of your
great-grandfather, and then skip from there to
yourself, which I now do.

I was born without teeth — and there Richard III.
had the advantage of me; but I was born without a
humpback, likewise, and there I had the advantage
of him. My parents were neither very poor nor con
spicuously honest.

But now a thought occurs to me. My own his
tory would really seem so tame contrasted with that
of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave it

261

MARK TWAIN

unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biog
raphies I have read had stopped with the ancestry
until a like event occurred, it would have been a
felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it
strike you?

262

HOW TO TELL A STORY

The Humorous Story an American Development. — Its
Difference from Comic and Witty Stories.

I DO not claim that I can tell a story as it ought
to be told. I only claim to know how a story
ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the
company of the most expert story-tellers for many
years.

There are several kinds of stories, but only one
difficult kind — the humorous. I will talk mainly
about that one. The humorous story is American,
the comic story is English, the witty story is French.
The humorous story depends for its effect upon the
manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty
story upon the matter.

The humorous story may be spun out to great
length, and may wander around as much as it
pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the
comic and witty stories must be brief and end with
a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along,
the others burst.

The humorous story is strictly a work of art —
high and delicate art — and only an artist can tell it;
but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the
witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling

263

MARK TWAIN

a humorous story — understand, I mean by word of
mouth, not print — was created in America, and has
remained at home.

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller
does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly
suspects that there is anything funny about it; but
the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand]
that it is one of the funniest things he has ever
heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the
first person to laugh when he gets through. And
sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad
and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of it and
glance around from face to face, collecting applause,
and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to
see.

Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed
humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper,
or whatever you like to call it. Then the listener
must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert
attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully
casual and indifferent way, with the pretense that he
does not know it is a nub.

Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then
when the belated audience presently caught the joke
he would look up with innocent surprise, as if won
dering what they had found to laught at. Dan
Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley and
others use it to-day.

But the teller of the comic story does not slur
the nub; he shouts it at you — every time. And
when he prints it, in England, France, Germany,
and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping

264

\

HOW TO TELL A STORY

exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains
it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing,
and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a
better life.

Let me set down an instance of the comic method,
using an anecdote which has been popular all over
the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The
teller tells it in this way:

THE WOUNDED SOLDIER

In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose
leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier
who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, in
forming him at the same time of the loss which he
had sustained; whereupon the generous son of
Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to
carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls
were flying in all directions, and presently one of
the latter took the wounded man's head off — with
out, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In
no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
"Where are you going with that carcass?"
"To the rear, sir— he's lost his leg!"
"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished
officer; "you mean his head, you booby."

Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his
burden, and stood looking down upon it in great
perplexity. At length he said:

"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then
after a pause he added, "But he TOLD me IT WAS
HIS LEG! ! ! ! !"

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MARK TWAIN

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after ex
plosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that
nub from time to time through his gaspings and
shriekings and suff oca tings.

It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its
comic-story form; and isn't worth the telling, after
all. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten
minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
listened to — as James Whit comb Riley tells it.

He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old
farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks
it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to
a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets
all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and
round, putting in tedious details that don't belong
in the tale and only retard it; taking them out con
scientiously and putting in others that are just as
useless; making minor mistakes now and then and
stopping to correct them and explain how he came
to make them; remembering things which he forgot
to put in in their proper place and going back to put
them in there; stopping his narrative a good while
in order to try to recall the name of the soldier
that was hurt, and finally remembering that the
soldier's name was not mentioned, and remarking
placidly that the name is of no real importance,
anyway — better, of course, if one knew it, but not
essential, after all — and so on, and so on, and so on.

The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with
himself, and has to stop every little while to hold
himself in and keep from laughing outright; and
does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like

266

HOW TO TELL A STORY

way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the
ten minutes the audience have laughed until they
are exhausted, and the tears are running down their
faces.

The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and
unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly sim
ulated, and the result is a performance which is
thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art —
and fine and beautiful, and only a master can com
pass it; but a machine could tell the other story.

To string incongruities and absurdities together in
a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and
seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities,
is the basis of the American art, if my position
is correct. Another feature is the slurring of the
point. A third is the dropping of a studied remark
apparently without knowing it, as if one were think
ing aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.

Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a
good deal. He would begin to tell with great ani
mation something which he seemed to think was
wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an ap
parently absent-minded pause add an incongru
ous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the
remark intended to explode the mine — and it did.

For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, "I
once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn't a
tooth in his head" — here his animation would die
out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he
would say dreamily, and as if to himself, "and yet
that man could beat a drum better than any man I

ever saw."

267

MARK TWAIN

The pause is an exceedingly important feature in
any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature,
too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also un
certain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the
right length — no more and no less — or it fails of
its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too
short the impressive point is passed, and the audi
ence have had time to divine that a surprise is
intended — and then you can't surprise them, of
course.

On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story
that had a pause in front of the snapper on the end,
and that pause was the most important thing in the
whole story. If I got it the right length precisely,
I could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect
enough to make some impressible girl deliver a
startled little yelp and jump out of her seat — and
that was what I was after. This story was called
"The Golden Arm," and was told in this fashion.
You can practise with it yourself — and mind you
look out for the pause and get it right.

THE GOLDEN ARM

Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man,
en he live 'way out in de prairie all 'lone by hisself ,
'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en he
tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en
buried her. Well, she had a golden arm — all solid
gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz pow'ful
mean — pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep,
caze he want dat golden arm so bad.

268

HOW TO TELL A STORY

When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no
mo'; so he git up, he did, en tuck his lantern en
shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de
golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win*,
en plowed en plowed en plowed thoo de snow.
Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable
pause here, and look startled, and take a listening
attitude) en say: "My lan\ what's dat?"

En he listen — en listen — en de win' say (set
your teeth together and imitate the wailing and
wheezing singsong of the wind), "Bzzz-z-zzz" —
en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear
a voice! — he hear a voice all mix' up in de win' —
can't hardly tell 'em 'part — "Bzzz — zzz — W-h-o
— g-o-t — m-y — g-o-l-d-e-n arm?'1 (You must begin
to shiver violently now.)

En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, "Oh,
my! Oh, my Ian'!" en de win' blow de lantern
out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'
choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep towards
home mos' dead, he so sk'yerd — en pooty soon
he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin'
after him! "Bzzz — zzz — zzz — W-h-o — g-o-t — m-y —
g-o-l-d-e-n — arm?"

When he git to de pasture he hear it agin —
closter now, en SL-comin'l — a-comin' back dah in
de dark en de storm — (repeat the wind and the
voice). When he git to de house he rush up-stairs
en jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en
lay dah shiverin' en shakin' — en den way out dah
he hear it agin! — en a-comin'! En bimeby he
hear (pause — awed, listening attitude) — pat — pat

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MARK TWAIN

—pat — hit's a-comin' up-stairs! Den he hear de
latch, en he know it's in de room!

Den pooty soon he know it's a-stannin' by de
bed! (Pause.) Den — he know it's a-bendin* down
over him — en he cain't skasely git his breath ! Den —
den — he seem to feel someth'n' c-o-l-d, right down
'most agin his head! (Pause.)

Den de voice say, right at his year — "W-h-o —
g-o-t — m-y — g-o-l-d-e-n arm?" (You must wail
it out very plaintively and accusingly; then you
stare steadily and impressively into the face of the
farthest-gone auditor — a girl, preferably — and let
that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the
deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right
length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, "You've
got it!"

If you've got the pause right, she'll fetch a dear
little yelp and spring right out of her shoes. But
you must get the pause right; and you will find it
the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain
thing you ever undertook.

270

GENERAL WASHINGTON'S
NEGRO BODY-SERVANT

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

THE stirring part of this celebrated colored man's
life properly began with his death — that is to
say, the notable features of his biography begin with
the first time he died. He had been little heard of
up to that time, but since then we have never ceased
to hear of him ; we have never ceased to hear of him
at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a most re
markable career, and I have thought that its history
would make a valuable addition to our biographical
literature. Therefore, I have carefully collated the
materials for such a work, from authentic sources,
and here present them to the public. I have rigidly
excluded from these pages everything of a doubtful
character, with the object in view of introducing my
work into the schools for the instruction of the youth
of my country.

The name of the famous body-servant of General
Washington was George. After serving his illustrious
master faithfully for half a century, and enjoying
throughout this long term his high regard and confi
dence, it became his sorrowful duty at last to lay that
beloved master to rest in his peaceful grave by the
Potomac. Ten years afterward — in 1809 — full of

271

MARK TWAIN

years and honors, he died himself, mourned by all
who knew him. The Boston Gazette of that date thus
refers to the event :

George, the favorite body-servant of the lamented Washing
ton, died in Richmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age of
95 years. His intellect was unimpaired, and his memory tena
cious, up to within a few minutes of his decease. He was
present at the second installation of Washington as President,
and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the
prominent incidents connected with those noted events.

From this period we hear no more of the favorite
body-servant of General Washington until May,
1825, at which time he died again. A Philadelphia
paper thus speaks of the sad occurrence :

At Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who
was the favorite body-servant of General Washington, died at
the advanced age of 95 years. Up to within a few hours of his
dissolution he was in full possession of all his faculties, and
could distinctly recollect the second installation of Washington,
his death and burial, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battle of
Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley Forge, etc. De
ceased was followed to the grave by the entire population of
Macon.

On the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and
1836, the subject of this sketch was exhibited in great
state upon the rostrum of the orator of the day, and
in November of 1840 he died again. The St. Louis
Republican of the 2 5th of that month spoke as follows :

"ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE.

"George, once the favorite body-servant of General Washing
ton, died yesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth

272

WASHINGTON'S BODY-SERVANT

in this city, at the venerable age of 95 years. He was in the full
possession of his faculties up to the hour of his death, and
distinctly recollected the first and second installations and
death of President Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the
battles of Trenton and Monmouth, the sufferings of the patriot
army at Valley Forge, the proclamation of the Declaration of
Independence, the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia
House of Delegates, and many other old-time reminiscenses of
stirring interest. Few white men die lamented as was this aged
negro. The funeral was very largely attended.

During the next ten or eleven years the subject of
this sketch appeared at intervals at Fourth-of-July
celebrations in various parts of the country, and was
exhibited upon the rostrum with flattering success.
But in the fall of 1855 he died again. The California
papers thus speak of the event :

ANOTHER OLD HERO GONE

Died, at Dutch Flat, on the yth of March, George (once the
confidential body-servant of General Washington), at the great
age of 95 years. His memory, which did not fail him till the
last, was a wonderful storehouse of interesting reminiscences.
He could distinctly recollect the first and second installations
and death of President Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis,
the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the
proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, and Brad-
dock's defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat,
and it is estimated that there were 10,000 people present at his
funeral.

The last time the subject of this sketch died was
in June, 1864; and until we learn the contrary, it is
just to presume that he died permanently this time.
The Michigan papers thus refer to the sorrowful
event :

273

MARK TWAIN

ANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE
REVOLUTION GONE

George, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant
of General Washington, died in Detroit last week, at the pa
triarchal age of 95 years. To the moment of his death his
intellect was unclouded, and he could distinctly remember
the first and second installations and death of Washington,
the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Mon-
mouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of
Independence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over of the tea
in Boston harbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims. He died
greatly respected, and was followed to the grave by a vast
concourse of people.

The faithful old servant is gone! We shall never
see him more until he turns up again. He has closed
his long and splendid career of dissolution, for the
present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep who
have earned their rest. He was in all respects a
remarkable man. He held his age better than any
celebrity that has figured in history; and the longer
he lived the stronger and longer his memory grew.
If he lives to die again, he will distinctly recollect the
discovery of America.

The above resum6 of his biography I believe to be
substantially correct, al thought it is possible that he
may have died once or twice in obscure places where
the event failed of newspaper notoriety. One fault I
find in all notices of his death which I have quoted,
and this ought to be correct. In them he uniformly
and impartially died at the age of 95. This could not
have been. He might have done that once, or maybe
twice, but he could not have continued it indefinitely.
Allowing that when he first died, he died at the age

274

WASHINGTON'S BODY-SERVANT

of 95, he was 151 years old when he died last, in 1864.
But his age did not keep pace with his recollections.
When he died the last time, he distinctly remembered
the landing of the Pilgrims, which took place in 1620.
He must have been about twenty years old when he
witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert
that the body-servant of General Washington was in
the neighborhood of two hundred and sixty or seventy
years old when he departed this life finally.

Having waited a proper length of time, to see if the
subject of this sketch had gone from us reliably and
irrevocably, I now publish his biography with con
fidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning
nation.

P. S. — I see by the papers that this infamous old
fraud has just died again, in Arkansas. This makes
six times that he is known to have died, and always
in a new place. The death of Washington's body-
servant has ceased to be a novelty; its charm is gone;
the people are tired of it; let it cease. This well-
meaning but misguided negro has now put six differ
ent communities to the expense of burying him in
state, and has swindled tens of thousands of people
into following him to the grave under the delusion
that a select and peculiar distinction was being con
ferred upon them. Let him stay buried for good
now; and let that newspaper suffer the severest
censure that shall ever, in all future time, publish to
the world that General Washington's favorite colored
body-servant has died again.

275

WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE
"TWO-YEAR-OLDS"

A LL infants appear to have an impertinent and
2\ disagreeable fashion nowadays of saying
"smart" things on most occasions that offer, and es
pecially on occasions when they ought not to be
saying anything at all. Judging by the average pub
lished specimens of smart sayings, the rising genera
tion of children are little better than idiots. And the
parents must surely be but little better than the
children, for in most cases they are the publishers of
the sunbursts of infantile imbecility which dazzle us
from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to
speak with some heat, not to say a suspicion of per
sonal spite ; and I do admit that it nettles me to hear
about so many gifted infants in these days, and re
member that I seldom said anything smart when I
was a child. I tried it once or twice, but it was not
popular. The family were not expecting brilliant
remarks from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes
and spanked me the rest. But it makes my flesh
creep and my blood run cold to think what might
have happened to me if I had dared to utter some of
the smart things of this generation's "four-year-
olds" where my father could hear me. To have
simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at

276

'THE TWO-YEAR-OLDS"

an end would have seemed to him criminal leniency
toward one so sinning. He was a stern, unsmiling
man, and hated all forms of precocity. If I had said
some of the things I have referred to, and said them
in his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He
would, indeed. He would, provided the opportunity
remained with him. But it would not, for I would
have had judgment enough to take some strychnine
first and say my smart thing afterward. The fair
record of my life has been tarnished by just one pun.
My father overheard that, and he hunted me over
four or five townships seeking to take my life. If I
had been full-grown, of course he would have been
right; but, child as I was, I could not know how
wicked a thing I had done.

I made one of those remarks ordinarily called
"smart things" before that, but it was not a pun.
Still, it came near causing a serious rupture between
my father and myself. My father and mother, my
uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others
were present, and the conversation turned on a name
for me. I was lying there trying some India-rubber
rings of various patterns, and endeavoring to make a
selection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth
on people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of some
thing that would enable me to hurry the thing
through and get something else. Did you ever notice
what a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on your
nurse's finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it
was trying to cut them on your big toe? And did
you never get out of patience and wish your teeth
were in Jericho long before you got them half cut?

277

MARK TWAIN

To me it seems as if these things happened yesterday.
And they did, to some children. But I digress. I
was lying there trying the India-rubber rings. I
remember looking at the clock and noticing that in
an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be two
weeks old, and thinking how little I had done to
merit the blessings that were so unsparingly lavished
upon me. My father said:

"Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was
named Abraham."

My mother said:

"Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us
have Abraham for one of his names."

I said:

"Abraham suits the subscriber."

My father frowned, my mother looked pleased;
my aunt said:

"What a little darling it is!"

My father said :

"Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good
name."

My mother assented, and said:

"No names are better. Let us add Isaac and
Jacob to his names."

I said:

"All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for
yours truly. Pass me that rattle, if you please. I
can't chew India-rubber rings all day."

Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings
of mine, for publication. I saw that, and did it
myself, else they would have been utterly lost. So
far from meeting with a generous encouragement like

278

"THE TWO-YEAR-OLDS"

other children when developing intellectually, I was
now furiously scowled upon by my father; my
mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my
aunt had about her an expression of seeming to think
that maybe I had gone too far. I took a vicious bite
out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the
rattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing.
Presently my father said:

"Samuel is a very excellent name."

I saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could
prevent it. I laid down my rattle; over the side of
the cradle I dropped my uncle's silver watch, the
clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier, the nut
meg-grater, and other matters which I was accus
tomed to examine, and meditate upon and make
pleasant noises with, and bang and batter and break
when I needed wholesome entertainment. Then I
put on my little frock and my little bonnet, and took
my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in the
other, and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself,
Now, if the worst comes to worst, I am ready. Then
I said aloud, in a firm voice:

"Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of
Samuel."

"My son!"

"Father, I mean it. I cannot."

"Why?"

"Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that
name."

"My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and
good men have been named Samuel."

"Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance."
279

MARK TWAIN

4 'What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was
not he great and good?"

"No so very."

"My son! With His own voice the Lord called
him."

"Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple of times
before he would come!"

And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man
sallied forth after me. He overtook me at noon the
following day, and when the interview was over I
had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing,
and other useful information; and by means of this
compromise my father's wrath was appeased and a
misunderstanding bridged over which might have
become a permanent rupture if I had chosen to be
unreasonable. But just judging by this episode,
what would my father have done to me if I had ever
uttered in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things
these "two-year-olds" say in print nowadays? In
my opinion there would have been a case of infanti
cide in our family.

280

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

I

TAKE the following paragraph from an article in
the Boston Advertiser:

AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN

Perhaps the most successful flights of the humor of Mark
Twain have been descriptions of the persons who did not ap
preciate his humor at all. We have become familiar with the
Californians who were thrilled with terror by his burlesque
of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story, and we have
heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his
Innocents Abroad to the book-agent with the remark that "the
man who could shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an
idiot." But Mark Twain may now add a much more glorious
instance to his string of trophies. The Saturday Review, in its
number of October 8th, reviews his book of travels, which has
been republished in England, and reviews it seriously. We
can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute
to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can
hardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next
monthly Memoranda.

(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a
sort of authority for reproducing the Saturday Re
view's article in full in these pages. I dearly wanted
to do it, for I cannot write anything half so delicious
myself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this
English criticism and preserve his austerity, I would
drive him off the door-step.)

281

MARK TWAIN

(From the London "Saturday Review")
REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD. A Book of Travels. By Mark
Twain. London: Hotten, publisher. 1870.

Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply
as when we finished the last chapter of the above-named ex
travagant work. Macaulay died too soon — for none but he
could mete out complete and comprehensive justice to the
insolence, the impertinence, the presumption, the mendacity,
and, above all, the majestic ignorance of this author.

To say that the Innocents Abroad is a curious book, would
be to use the faintest language — would be to speak of the
Matterhorn as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being "nice"
or "pretty." "Curious" is too tame a word wherewith to
describe the imposing insanity of this work. There is no word
that is large enough or long enough. Let us, therefore, photo
graph a passing glimpse of book and author, and trust the rest
to the reader. Let the cultivated English student of human
nature picture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable
of doing the following-described things — and not only doing
them, but with incredible innocence printing them calmly and
tranquilly in a book. For instance:

He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get
shaved, and the first "rake" the barber gave with his razor
it loosened his "hide" and lifted him out of the chair.

This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so
annoyed by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten
one in a frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth
in this. He gives at full length a theatrical program seven
teen or eighteen hundred years old, which he professes to have
found in the ruins of the Coliseum, among the dirt and mold
and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment upon this statement
to remark that even a cast-iron program would not have
lasted so long under such circumstances. In Greece he plainly
betrays both fright and flight upon one occasion, but with
frozen effrontery puts the latter in this falsely tamed form:
"We sidled toward the Piraeus." "Sidled," indeed! He does
not hesitate to intimate that at Ephesus, when his mule strayed

282

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

from the proper course, he got down, took him under his arm,
carried him to the road again, pointed him right, remounted, and
went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore the beast
to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among
his ship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his
hunger with soap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he
tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend the summer in the
desert and brought their provisions with them; yet he shows
by his description of the country that the feat was an impossi
bility. He mentions, as if it were the most commonplace of
matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight in
Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have
shed more blood if he had had a graveyard of his own. These
statements are unworthy a moment's attention. Mr. Twain
or any other foreigner who did such a thing in Jerusalem would
be mobbed, and would infallibly lose his life. But why go on?
Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperating faslehoods?
Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that "in the
mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck
up with a complication of gums, slime, and general impurity,
that I wore out more than two thousand pair of bootjacks
getting my boots off that night, and even then some Christian
hide peeled off with them." It is monstrous. Such statements
are simply lies — there is no other name for them. Will the
reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that pervades the
American nation when we tell him that we are informed upon
perfectly good authority that this extravagant compilation of
falsehoods, this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this Inno
cents Abroad, has actually been adopted by the schools and
colleges of several of the states as a text-book!

But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his
ignorance are enough to make one burn the book and despise
the author. In one place he was so appalled at the sudden
spectacle of a murdered man, unveiled by the moonlight, that
he jumped out of the window, going through sash and all, and
then remarks with the most childlike simplicity that he "was not
scared, but was considerably agitated." It puts us out of
patience to note that the simpleton is densely unconscious that
Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage. He is vulgarly
ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough to criticize,

283

MARK TWAIN

the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they spell the
name of their great painter "Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy" —
and then adds with a naivete* possible only to helpless ignorance,
"foreigners always spell better than they pronounce." In
another place he commits the bald absurdity of putting the
phrase "tare an ouns" into an Italian's mouth. In Rome he
unhesitatingly believes the legend that St. Philip Neri's heart
was so inflamed with divine love that it burst his ribs — be
lieves it wholly because an author with a learned list of
university degrees strung after his name indorses it — "other
wise," says this gentle idiot, "I should have felt a curiosity to
know what Philip had for dinner." Our author makes a long,
fatiguing journey to the Grotto del Cane on purpose to test its
poisoning powers on a dog — got elaborately ready for the
experiment, and then discovered that he had no dog. A wiser
person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself, but
with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his
foot in a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and
presently, when staring at one of the cinder-like corpses un
earthed in the next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is
the remains of the ancient Street Commissioner, and straightway
his horror softens down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the
condition of things. In Damascus he visits the well of Ananias,
three thousand years old, and is as surprised and delighted as a
child to find that the water is "as pure and fresh as if the well
had been dug yesterday." In the Holy Land he gags desperately
at the hard Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally con
cludes to call them Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on,
"for convenience of spelling."

We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying sim
plicity and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his
colossal ignorance. We do not know where to begin. And if
we knew where to begin, we certainly would not know where to
leave off. We will give one specimen, and one only. He did
not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo was dead!
And then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful
ignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful
sort of satisfaction that he is gone and out of liis troubles!

No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his
uncultivation for himself. The book is absolutely dangerous,

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

considering the magnitude and variety of its misstatements, and
the convincing confidence with which they are made. And
yet it is a text-book in the schools of America.

The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of
the Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-
knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a
proper thing for the traveled man to be able to display. But
what is the manner of his study? And what is the progress he
achieves? To what extent does he familiarize himself with the
great pictures of Italy, and what degree of appreciation does he
arrive at? Read:

"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking
up into heaven, we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a
monk with a book and a pen, looking tranquailly up to heaven,
trying to think of a word, we know that that is St. Matthew.
When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking tranquilly up to
heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without other bag
gage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that
he always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When
we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having
no trade-mark, we always ask who those parties are. We do
this because we humbly wish to learn."

He then enumerates the thousands and thousands of copies
of these several pictures which he has seen, and adds with
accustomed simplicity that he feels encouraged to believe that
when he has seen "Some More" of each, and had a larger
experience, he will eventually "begin to take an absorbing in
terest in them" — the vulgar boor.

That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no
one will deny. That it is a pernicious book to place in the
hands of the confiding and uninformed, we think we have also
shown. That the book is a deliberate and wicked creation of
a diseased mind, is apparent upon every page. Having placed
our judgment thus upon record, let us close with what charity we
can, by remarking that even in this volume there is some good to
be found; for whenever the author talks of his own country and
lets Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting,
and not only interesting, but instructive. No one can read
without benefit his occasional chapters and paragraphs, about
life in the gold and silver mines of California and Nevada;

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MARK TWAIN

about the Indians of the plains and deserts of the West, and their
cannibalism; about the raising of vegetables in kegs of gun
powder by the aid of two or three teaspoonfuls of guano; about
the moving of small farms from place to place at night in wheel
barrows to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in
the Humboldt mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the
people at night. These matters are not only new, but are well
worth knowing. It is a pity the author did not put in more of
the same kind. His book is well written and is exceedingly
entertaining, and so it just barely escaped being quite valuable
also.

(One month later)

Latterly I have received several letters, and see a
number of newspaper paragraphs, all upon a certain
subject, and all of about the same tenor. I here give
honest specimens. One is from a New York paper,
one is from a letter from an old friend, and one
is from a letter from a New York publisher who is a
stranger to me. I humbly endeavor to make these
bits toothsome with the remark that the article
they are praising (which appeared in the December
Galaxy, and pretended to be a criticism from the
London Saturday Review on my Innocents Abroad)
was written by myself, every line of it:

The Herald says the richest thing out is the "serious critique"
in the London Saturday Review, on Mark Twain's Innocents
A broad. We thought before we read it that it must be " serious,"
as everybody said so, and were even ready to shed a few tears;
but since perusing it, we are bound to confess that next to Mark
Twain's "Jumping Frog" it's the finest bit of humor and
sarcasm that we've come across in many a day.

(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)

I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but
after reading the criticism in Tlie Galaxy from the London

286

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

Review, have discovered what an ass I must have been. If
suggestions are in order, mine is, that you put that article in
your next edition of the Innocents, as an extra chapter, if you
are not afraid to put your own humor in competition with it.
It is as rich a thing as I ever read.

(Which is strong commendation from a book pub
lisher.)

The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, "serious"
creature he pretends to be, / think; but, on the contrary, has a
keen appreciation and enjoyment of your book. As I read his
article in The Galaxy, I could imagine him giving vent to many
a hearty laugh. But he is writing for Catholics and Established
Church people, and high-toned, antiquated, conservative
gentility, whom it is a delight to him to help you shock, while he
pretends to shake his head with owlish density. He is a magnifi
cent humorist himself.

(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off
my hat to my life-long friend and comrade, and with
my feet together and my fingers spread over my
heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, "You do
me proud.")

I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but
I did not mean any harm. I saw by an item in the
Boston Advertiser that a solemn, serious critique on
the English edition of my book had appeared in the
London Saturday Review, and the idea of such a
literary breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre
of the quill was too much for a naturally weak vir
tue, and I went home and burlesqued it — reveled
in it, I may say. I never saw a copy of the real
Saturday Review criticism until after my burlesque
was written and mailed to the printer. But when I
did get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awk-

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MARK TWAIN

wardly written, ill-natured, and entirely serious and
in earnest. The gentleman who wrote the news
paper paragraph above quoted had not been mis
led as to its character.

If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him.
No, I will not kill him ; I will win his money. I will
bet him twenty to one, and let any New York pub
lisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have
above made as to the authorship of the article in
question are entirely true. Perhaps I may get
wealthy at this, for I am willing to take all the bets
that offer; and if a man wants larger odds, I will
give him all he requires. But he ought to find out
whether I am betting on what is termed "a sure
thing" or not before he ventures his money, and he
can do that by going to a public library and examin
ing the London Saturday Review of October 8th,
which contains the real critique.

Bless me, some people thought that I was the
"sold" person!

P. S. — I cannot resist the temptation to toss in
this most savory thing of all — this easy, graceful,
philosophical disquisition, with its happy, chirping
confidence. It is from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar.
Nine smokers out of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic
article, three for a quarter, to a fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in
ignorance of the cost of the latter. The flavor of the Partaga
is too delicate for palates that have been accustomed to Connect
icut seed leaf. So it is with humor. The finer it is in quality,
the more danger of its not being recognized at all. Even Mark
Twain has been taken in by an English review of his Innocents

288

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

A broad. Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist, but the
Englishman's humor is so much finer than his, that he mistakes
it for solid earnest, and "larfs most consumedly."

A man who cannot learn stands in his own light.
Hereafter, when I write an article which I know to
be good, but which I may have reason to fear will
not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to
much, coming from an American, I will aver that an
Englishman wrote it and that it is copied from a
London journal. And then I will occupy a back seat
and enjoy the cordial applause.

(Still later)

Mark Twain at last sees that the Saturday Review's criticism
of his Innocents Abroad was not serious, and he is intensely
mortified at the thought of having been so badly sold. He takes
the only course left him, and in the last Galaxy claims that he
wrote the criticism himself, and published it in The Galaxy to
sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not
true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at this
office we will show them the original article in the Saturday
Review of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be found to be
identical with the one published in The Galaxy. The best
thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say
no more about it.

The above is from the Cincinnati Enquirer, and is
a falsehood. Come to the proof. If the Enquirer
people, through any agent, will produce at The
Galaxy office a London Saturday Review of October
8th, containing an "article which, on comparison,
will be found to be identical with the one published
in The Galaxy, I will pay to that agent five hundred
dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I

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MARK TWAIN

fail to produce at the same place a copy of the Lon
don Saturday Review of October 8th, containing a
lengthy criticism upon the Innocents Abroad, entire
ly different, in every paragraph and sentence, from
the one I published in The Galaxy, I will pay to the
Enquirer agent another five hundred dollars cash.
I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers, 500 Broadway,
New York, as my ' ' backers. ' ' Any one in New York,
authorized by the Enquirer, will receive prompt at
tention. It is an easy and profitable way for the
Enquirer people to prove that they have not uttered
a pitiful, deliberate falsehood in the above para
graphs. Will they swallow that falsehood ignomini-
ously, or will they send an agent to The Galaxy
office. I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be
edited by children.

290

A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY
OF THE TREASURY

RrvEKDALE-ON-THE-HuDSON, October 15, igos.

The Hon. the Secretary of the Treasury, Washington,
D. C.:

SIR, — Prices for the customary kinds of winter
fuel having reached an altitude which puts them
out of the reach of literary persons in straitened cir
cumstances, I desire to place with you the following
order :

Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds,
suitable for furnace, gold 7 per cents., 1864, pre
ferred.

Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable
for cooking.

Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal cur
rency, vintage of 1866, eligible for kindlings.

Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my
house in Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash, and
send bill to Your obliged servant,

MARK TWAIN,
who will be very grateful, and will vote right.

291

AMENDED OBITUARIES

To the Editor:

SIR, — I am approaching seventy; it is in sight;
it is only three years away. Necessarily, I must
go soon. It is but matter-of-course wisdom, then,
that I should begin to set my worldly house in order
now, so that it may be done calmly and with thor
oughness, in place of waiting until the last day, when,
as we have often seen, the attempt to set both houses
in order at the same time has been marred by the
necessity for haste and by the confusion and waste
of time arising from the inability of the notary and
the ecclesiastic to work together harmoniously, taking
turn about and giving each other friendly assistance
— not perhaps in fielding, which could hardly be ex
pected, but at least in the minor offices of keeping
game and umpiring ; by consequence of which conflict
of interests and absence of harmonious action a draw
has frequently resulted where this ill-fortune could
not have happened if the houses had been set in order
one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in
season, and giving to each the amount of time fairly
and justly proper to it.

In setting my earthly house in order I find it of
moment that I should attend in person to one or two

292

AMENDED OBITUARIES

matters which men in my position have long had the
habit of leaving wholly to others, with consequences
often most regrettable. I wish to speak of only one
of these matters at this time : Obituaries. Of neces
sity, on Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judi-

ciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject
of it. In such a work it is not the Facts that are of
chief importance, but the light which the obituarist
shall throw upon them, the meanings which he shall
dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw
from them, and the judgments which he shall deliver
upon them. The Verdicts, you understand : that is
the danger-line.

In considering this matter, in view of my approach
ing change, it has seemed to me wise to take such

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MARK TWAIN

measures as may be feasible, to acquire, by courtesy
of the press, access to my standing obituaries, with
the privilege — if this is not asking too much — of
editing, not their Facts, but their Verdicts. This,
not for present profit, further than as concerns
my family, but as a favorable influence usable on
the Other Side, where there are some who are not
friendly to me.

With this explanation of my motives, I will now
ask you of your courtesy to make an appeal for me
to the public press. It is my desire that such journals
and periodicals as have obituaries of me lying in their
pigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day,
will not wait longer, but will publish them now, and
kindly send me a marked copy. My address is sim
ply New York City — I have no other that is perma
nent and not transient.

I will correct them — not the Facts, but the Ver
dicts — striking out such clauses as could have a
deleterious influence on the Other Side, and re
placing them with clauses of a more judicious
character. I should, of course, expect to pay
double rates for both the omissions and the sub
stitutions; and I should also expect to pay quad
ruple rates for all obituaries which proved to be
rightly and wisely worded in the originals, thus re
quiring no emendations at all.

It is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries
neatly bound behind me as a perennial consolation
and entertainment to my family, and as an heirloom
which shall have a mournful but definite commercial
value for my remote posterity.

294

AMENDED OBITUARIES

I beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement
(it-eow, agate, inside), and send the bill to
Yours very respectfully.

MARK TWAIN.

P. S. — For the best Obituary — one suitable for me
to read in public, and calculated to inspire regret —
I desire to offer a Prize, consisting of a Portrait of me
done entirely by myself in pen and ink without previ
ous instructions. The ink warranted to be the kind
used by the very best artists.

295

A MONUMENT TO ADAM

OME one has revealed to the Tribune that I once
suggested to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of El-
mira, New York, that we get up a monument to
Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project.
There is more to it than that. The matter started as
a joke, but it came somewhat near to materializing.

It is long ago — thirty years. Mr. Darwin's Descent
of Man had been in print five or six years, and the
storm of indignation raised by it was still raging in
pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the
human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left
Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and "miss
ing links," and plenty of other kinds of ancestors,
but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other
friends in Elmira, I said there seemed to be a likeli
hood that the world would discard Adam and accept
the monkey, and that in the course of time Adam's
very name would be forgotten in the earth ; therefore
this calamity ought to be averted; a monument
would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to waste
this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and
herself a credit.

Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers
came forward and took hold of the matter — not for
fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in the

296

A MONUMENT TO ADAM

monument certain commercial advantages for the
town. The project had seemed gently humorous
before — it was more than that now, with this stern
business gravity injected into it. The bankers dis
cussed the monument with me. We met several
times. They proposed an indestructible memorial,
to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane
oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve
a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks
without any such help, would advertise Elmira to
the ends of the earth — and draw custom. It would
be the only monument on the planet to Adam, and
in the matter of interest and impressiveness could
never have a rival until somebody should set up a
monument to the Milky Way.

People would come from every corner of the globe
and stop off to look at it, no tour of the world would
be complete that left out Adam's monument. Elmira
would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at
pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's rail
ways; libraries would be written about the monu
ment, every tourist would kodak it, models of it
would be for sale everywhere in the earth, its form
would become as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.

One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dol
lars, and I think the other one subscribed half as
much, but I do not remember with certainty now
whether that was the figure or not. We got designs
made — some of them came from Paris.

In the beginning — as a detail of the project when
it was as yet a joke — I had framed a humble and be
seeching and perfervid petition to Congress begging

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MARK TWAIN

the government to build the monument, as a testi
mony of the Great Republic's gratitude to the Father
of the Human Race and as a token of her loyalty to
him in this dark day of his humiliation when his
older children were doubting him and deserting him.
It seemed to me that this petition ought to be
presented, now — it would be widely and feelingly
abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would adver
tise our scheme and make our ground-floor stock go
off briskly. So I sent it to General Joseph R.
Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he
would present it. But he did not do it. I think he
explained that when he came to read it he was
afraid of it : it was too serious, too gushy, too senti
mental — the House might take it for earnest.

We ought to have carried out our monument
scheme; we could have managed it wothout any
great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most
celebrated town in the universe.

Very recently I began to build a book in which one
of the minor characters touches incidentally upon
a project for a monument to Adam, and now the
Tribune has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest
of thirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy
is still in business. It is odd; but the freaks of
mental telegraphy are usually odd.

298

A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN

[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come
from him, we have reason to believe was not written by him,
but by Mark Twain. — EDITOR.]

To the Editor of Harper's Weekly.

DEAR SIR AND KINSMAN, — Let us have done with
this frivolous talk. The American Board accepts con
tributions from me every year: then why shouldn't
it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages, three-
fourths of the support of the great charities has been
conscience-money, as my books will show : then what
becomes of the sting when that term is applied to
Mr. Rockefeller's gift ? The American Board's trade
is financed mainly from the graveyards. Bequests,
you understand. Conscience-money. Confession of
an old crime and deliberate perpetration of a new
one; for deceased's contribution is a robbery of his
heirs. Shall the Board decline bequests because they
stand for one of these offenses every time and gen
erally for both?

Allow me to continue. The charge most persis
tently and resentfully and remorselessly dwelt upon
is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is incurably
tainted by perjury — perjury proved against him in
the courts. It makes us smile — down in my place!
Because there isn't a rich man in your vast city who

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MARK TWAIN

doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax
board. They are all caked with perjury, many layers
thick. Iron-clad, so to speak. If there is one that
isn't, I desire to acquire him for my museum, and
will pay Dinosaur rates. Will you say it isn't in
fraction of law, but only annual evasion of it?
Comfort yourselves with that nice distinction if you
like — for the present. But by and by, when you
arrive, I will show you something interesting: a
whole hell-full of evaders! Sometimes a frank law
breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get those others
every time.

To return to my muttons. I wish you to remem
ber that my rich perjurers are contributing to the
American Board with frequency: it is money filched
from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it is the
wages of sin; therefore it is my money; therefore it
is I that contribute it; and, finally, it is therefore
as I have said: since the Board daily accepts con
tributions from me, why should it decline them
from Mr. Rockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the
courts say what they may?

SATAN.

300

INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW
GUIDE OF THE CONVERSA
TION IN PORTUGUESE
AND ENGLISH"

BY PEDRO CAROLING

IN this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate,
one thing which may be pretty confidently set
down as a certainty : and that is, that this celebrated
little phrase-book will never die while the English
language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculous
ness, and its enchanting naivete, are as supreme and
unapproachable, in their way, as are Shakespeare's
sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in
literature, is imperishable: nobody can add to the
absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it suc
cessfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it
is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immor
tality is secure.

It is one of the smallest books in the world, but
few big books have received such wide attention, and
been so much pondered by the grave and the learned,
and so much discussed and written about by the
thoughtful, the thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish.
Long notices of it have appeared, from time to time,
in the great English reviews, and in erudite and

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MARK TWAIN

authoritative philological periodicals ; and it has been
laughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by
nearly every newspaper and magazine in the English-
speaking world. Every scribbler, almost, has had
his little fling at it, at one time or another; I had
mine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of print,
every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it for
a season; but presently the nations and near and
far colonies of our tongue and lineage call for it once
more, and once more it issues from some London or
Continental or American press, and runs a new course
around the globe, wafted on its way by the wind of
a world's laughter.

Many persons have believed that this book's
miraculous stupidities were studied and disingenu
ous ; but no one can read the volume carefully through
and keep that opinion. It was written in serious
good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest and
upright idiot who believed he knew something of the
English language, and could impart his knowledge to
others. The amplest proof of this crops out some
where or other upon each and every page. There are
sentences in the book which could have been manu
factured by a man in his right mind, and with an
intelligent and deliberate purpose to seem innocently
ignorant; but there are other sentences, and para
graphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could
ever achieve — nor yet even the most genuine and
comprehensive ignorance, when unbacked by in
spiration.

It is not a fraud who speaks in the following para
graph of the author's Preface, but a good maji, an

302

THE GUIDE OF CONVERSATION

honest man, a man whose conscience is at rest, a
man who believes he has done a high and worthy
work for his nation and his generation, and is well
pleased with his performance:

We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we
wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be
worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especialy
of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.

One cannot open this book anywhere and not find
richness. To prove that this is true, I will open it
at random and copy the page I happen to stumble
upon. Here is the result:

DIALOGUE 16

FOR TO SEE THE TOWN

Anothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the
town.

We won't to see all that is it remarquable here.

Come with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing
what can to merit your attention. Here we are near to cathe
dral; will you come in there?

We will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there
for to look the interior.

Admire this master piece gothic architecture's.

The chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.

The cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.

What is this palace how I see youder?

It is the town hall.

And this tower here at this side?

It is the Observatory.

The bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed
of free stone.

The streets are very layed out by line and too paved.

What is the circuit of this town?

Two leagues.

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MARK TWAIN

There is it also hospitals here?

It not fail them.

What are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?

It is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse, and
the Purse.

We are going too see the others monuments such that the
public pawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money
office's, the library.

That it shall be for another day; we are tired.

DIALOGUE 17
TO INFORM ONE'SELF OF A PERSON

How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?

Is a German.

I did think him Englishman.

He is of the Saxony side.

He speak the french very well.

Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french,
Spanish and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him
Italyan, he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves. The
Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes,
Englisman. It is difficult to enjoy well so much several Ian-
gages.

The last remark contains a general truth ; but it
ceases to be a truth when one contracts it and applies
it to an individual — provided that that individual is
the author of this book, Senhor Pedro Caroline. I
am sure I should not find it difficult "to enjoy well
so much several Ian gages" — or even a thousand of
them — if he did the translating for me from the
originals into his ostensible English.

304

ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS

GOOD little girls ought not to make mouths at
their teachers for every trifling offense. This
retaliation should only be resorted to under pecu
liarly aggravated circumstances.

If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with
sawdust, while one of your more fortunate little play
mates has a costly China one, you should treat her
with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you
ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with
her unless your conscience would justify you in it,
and you know you are able to do it.

You ought never to take your little brother's
" chewing-gum " away from him by main force; it is
better to rope him in with the promise of the first
two dollars and a half you find floating down the
river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity
natural to his time of life, he will regard it as a per
fectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this
eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant
to financial ruin and disaster.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your
brother, do not correct him with mud — never, on any
account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his
clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then
you obtain desirable results. You secure his imme-

305

MARK TWAIN

diate attention to the lessons you are inculcating,
and at the same time your hot water will have a
tendency to move impurities from his person, and
possibly the skin, in spots.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong
to reply that you won't. It is better and more be
coming to intimate that you will do as she bids you,
and then afterward act quietly in the matter accord
ing to the dictates of your best judgment.

You should ever bear in mind that it is to your
kind parents that you are indebted for your food, and
your nice bed, and for your beautiful clothes, and
for the privilege of staying home from school when
you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to
respect their little prejudices, and humor their little
whims, and put up with their little foibles until they
get to crowding you too much.

Good little girls always show marked deference for
the aged. You ought never to "sass" old people
unless they "sass" you first.

306

POST-MORTEM POETRY1

IN Philadelphia they have a custom which it would
be pleasant to see adopted throughout the land.
It is that of appending to published death-notices a
little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one
who is in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia
Ledger must frequently be touched by these plain
tive tributes to extinguished worth. In Philadelphia,
the departure of a child is a circumstance which is
not more surely followed by a burial than by the
accustomed solacing poesy in the Public Ledger. In
that city death loses half its terror because the knowl
edge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet
drapery of verse. For instance, in a late Ledger I
find the following (I change the surname):

DIED

HAWKS.— On the lyth inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim
and Laura Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,
No little arms are round my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek,

These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up

To any but to Thee?

1 Written in 1870.
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MARK TWAIN

A child thus mourned could not die wholly discon
tented. From the Ledger of the same date I make
the following extract, merely changing the surname,
as before:

BECKET. — On Sunday morning, igth inst., John P., infant son
of George and Julia Becket, aged i year, 6 months, and 15 days.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,
No little arms are round my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek,

These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up

To any but to Thee?

The similarity of the emotions as produced in the
mourners in these two instances is remarkably evi
denced by the singular similarity of thought which
they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of
language used by them to give it expression.

In the same journal, of the same date, I find the
following (surname suppressed, as before) :

WAGNER. — On the loth inst., Ferguson G., the son of William
L. and Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and i day.

That merry shout no more I hear,

No laughing child I see,
No little arms are round my neck,

No feet upon my knee;

No kisses drop upon my cheek,

These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up

To any but to Thee?

It is strange what power the reiteration of an
essentially poetical thought has upon one's feelings.

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POST-MORTEM POETRY

When we take up the Ledger and read the poetry
about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable de
pression of the spirits. When we drift further down
the column and read the poetry about little Johnnie,
the depression of spirits acquires an added em
phasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When
we saunter along down the column further still and
read the poetry about little Ferguson, the word tor
ture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.
In the Ledger (same copy referred to above) I find
the following (I alter surname, as usual):

WELCH.— On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B.
Welch, and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland,
in the 2Qth year of her age.

A mother dear, a mother kind,
Has gone and left us all behind.
Cease to weep, for tears are vain,
Mother dear is out of pain.

Farewell, husband, children dear,
Serve thy God with filial fear,
And meet me in the land above,
Where all is peace, and joy, and love.

What could be sweeter than that? No collection
of salient facts (without reduction to tabular form)
could be more succinctly stated than is done in the
first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more
concise and comprehensive program of farewells,
post-mortuary general orders, etc., could be framed
in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the
last stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser
and tenderer, and better. Another extract:

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MARK TWAIN

BALL. — On the morning of the i$th inst., Mary E., daughter
of John and Sarah F. Ball.

Tis sweet to rest in lively hope
That when my change shall come

Angels will hover round my bed,
To waft my spirit home.

The following is apparently the customary form for
heads of families:

BURNS. — On the 2oth inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.

Dearest father, thou hast left us,

Here thy loss we deeply feel;
But 'tis God that has bereft us,

He can all our sorrows heal.

Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.

There is something very simple and pleasant about
the following, which, in Philadelphia, seems to be
the usual form for consumptives of long standing.
(It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of
the Ledger which lies on the Memoranda editorial
table) :

BROMLEY. — On the 2gth inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley,
in the $oth year of his age.

Affliction sore long time he bore,

Physicians were in vain —
Till God at last did hear him mourn,

And eased him of his pain.

The friend whom death from us has torn,
We did not think so soon to part;

An anxious care now sinks the thorn
Still deeper in our bleeding heart.
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POST-MORTEM POETRY

This beautiful creation loses nothing by repeti
tion. On the contrary, the oftener one sees it in the
Ledger, the more grand and awe-inspiring it seems.

With one more extract I will close:

DOBLE. — On the 4th inst., Samuel Peveril Worthington
Doble, aged 4 days.

Our little Sammy's gone,

His tiny spirit's fled;
Our little boy we loved so dear

Lies sleeping with the dead.

A tear within a father's eye,

A mother's aching heart,
Can only tell the agony

How hard it is to part.

Could anything be more plaintive than that, with
out requiring further concessions of grammar ? Could
anything be likely to do more toward reconciling
deceased to circumstances, and making him willing
to go? Perhaps not. The power of song can hardly
be estimated. There is an element about some po
etry which is able to make even physical suffering
and death cheerful things to contemplate and con
summations to be desired. This element is present
in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia degree of
development.

The custom I have been treating of is one that
should be adopted in all the cities of the land.

It is said that once a man of small consequence
died, and the Rev. T. K. Beecher was asked to
preach the funeral sermon — a man who abhors the
lauding of people, either dead or alive, except in

MARK TWAIN

dignified and simple language, and then only for
merits which they actually possessed or possess, not
merits which they merely ought to have possessed.
The friends of the deceased got up a stately funeral.
They must have had misgivings that the corpse
might not be praised strongly enough, for they pre
pared some manuscript headings and notes in which
nothing was left unsaid on that subject that a fervid
imagination and an unabridged dictionary could
compile, and these they handed to the minister as
he entered the pulpit. They were merely intended
as suggestions, and so the friends were filled with
consternation when the minister stood up in the
pulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds and
ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice! And
their consternation solidified to petrification when
he paused at the end, contemplated the multitude
reflectively, and then said, impressively:

"The man would be a fool who tried to add any
thing to that. Let us pray!"

And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can
be said that the man would be a fool who tried to
add anything to the following transcendent obituary
poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless,
so complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied
about this peerless "hog- wash," that the man must
be made of stone who can read it without a dulcet
ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering
in his marrow. There is no need to say that this
poem is genuine and in earnest, for its proofs are
written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler
might imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare

312

POST-MORTEM POETRY

himself could not counterfeit it. It is noticeable that
the country editor who published it did not know
that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of
its kind that the storehouses and museums of litera
ture could show. He did not dare to say no to the
dread poet — for such a poet must have been some
thing of an apparition — but he just shoveled it into
his paper anywhere that came handy, and felt
ashamed, and put that disgusted "Published by Re
quest'* over it, and hoped that his subscribers would
overlook it or not feel an impulse to read it :

(Published by request)

LINES

Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's

children

BY M. A. GLAZE

Friends and neighbors all draw near,

And listen to what I have to say;
And never leave your children dear

When they are small, and go away.

But always think of that sad fate,

That happened in year of '63;
Four children with a house did burn,

Think of their awful agony.

Their mother she had gone away,
And left them there alone to stay;

The house took fire and down did burn,
Before their mother did return.

Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,
And then the cry of fire was given;

But, ah! before they could them reach,
Their little spirits had flown to heaven.
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MARK TWAIN

Their father he to war had gone,
And on the battle-field was slain;

But little did he think when he went away,
But what on earth they would meet again.

The neighbors often told his wife

Not to leave his children there,
Unless she got some one to stay,

And of the little ones take care.

The oldest he was years not six,

And the youngest only eleven months old,
But often she had left them there alone,

As, by the neighbors, I have been told.

How can she bear to see the place.

Where she so oft has left them there,
Without a single one to look to them,

Or of the little ones to take good care.

Oh, can she look upon the spot,

Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,

But what she thinks she hears them say,
' 'Twas God had pity, and took us on high.*

And there may she kneel down and pray,

And ask God her to forgive;
And she may lead a different life

While she on earth remains to live.

Her husband and her children too,
God has took from pain and woe.

May she reform and mend her ways,
That she may also to them go.

And when it is God's holy will,

O, may she be prepared
To meet her God and friends in peace,

And leave this world of care.

THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED

THE man in the ticket-office said:
"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?"

"No," I said, after studying the matter over a
little. "No, I believe not; I am going to be travel
ing by rail all day to-day. However, to-morrow I
don't travel. Give me one for to-morrow."

The man looked puzzled. He said:

"But it is for accident insurance, and if you are
going to travel by rail — "

"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it.
Lying at home in bed is the thing I am afraid of."

I had been looking into this matter. Last year I
traveled twenty thousand miles, almost entirely by
rail; the year before, I traveled over twenty-five
thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the
year before that I traveled in the neighborhood of
ten thousand miles, exclusively by rail. I suppose if
I put in all the little odd journeys here and there, I
may say I have traveled sixty thousand miles during
the three years I have mentioned. And never an
accident.

For a good while I said to myself every morning:
' ' Now I have escaped thus far, and so the chances are
just that much increased that I shall catch it this
time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket."

MARK TWAIN

And to a dead moral certainty I drew a blank, and
went to bed that night without a joint started or a
bone splintered. I got tired of that sort of daily
bother, and fell to buying accident tickets that were
good for a month. I said to myself, "A man can't
buy thirty blanks in one bundle."

But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in
the lot. I could read of railway accidents every day
—the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with them;
but somehow they never came my way. I found I
had spent a good deal of money in the accident busi
ness, and had nothing to show for it. My suspicions
were aroused, and I began to hunt around for some
body that had won in this lottery. I found plenty
of people who had invested, but not an individual
that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I
stopped buying accident tickets and went to cipher
ing. The result was astounding. THE PERIL LAY

NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that
after all the glaring newspaper headings concerning
railroad disasters, less than three hundred people had
really lost their lives by those disasters in the preced
ing twelve months. The Erie road was set down as
the most murderous in the list. It had killed forty-
six — or twenty-six, I do not exactly remember which,
but I know the number was double that of any other
road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that
the Erie was an immensely long road, and did more
business than any other Jine in the country; so the
double number of killed ceased to be matter for
surprise.

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DANGER OF LYING IN BED

By further figuring, it appeared that between New
York and Rochester the Erie ran eight passenger-
trains each way every day — 16 altogether; and
carried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is
about a million in six months — the population of
New York City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to
23 persons out of its million in six months; and in
the same time 13,000 of New York's million die
in their beds ! My flesh crept, my hair stood on end.
"This is appalling!" I said. "The danger isn't in
traveling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly
beds. I will never sleep in a bed again."

I had figured on considerably less than one-half
the length of the Erie road. It was plain that the
entire road must transport at least eleven or twelve
thousand people every day. There are many short
roads running out of Boston that do fully half as
much; a great many such roads. There are many
roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious
passenger business. Therefore it was fair to presume
that an average of 2,500 passengers a day for each
road in the country would be about correct. There
are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times
2,500 are 2,115,000. So the railways of America
move more than two millions of people every day;
six hundred and fifty millions of people a year,
without counting the Sundays. They do that, too
— there is no question about it; though where they
get the raw material is clear beyond the jurisdiction
of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census
through and through, and I find that there are not
that many people in the United States, by a matter

317

MARK TWAIN

of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.
They must use some of the same people over again,
likely.

San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New
York; there are 60 deaths a week in the former and
500 a week in the latter — if they have luck. That
is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight
times as many in New York — say about 25,000 or
26,000. The health of the two places is the same.
So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this
will hold good all over the country, and that conse
quently 25,000 out of every million of people we
have must die every year. That amounts to one-
fortieth of our total population. One million of us,
then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve
thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged,
poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some
other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-
lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in
coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking through
church or lecture-room floors, taking patent medi
cines, or committing suicide in other forms. The
Erie railroad kills from 23 to 46; the other 845 rail
roads kill an average of one-third of a man each ; and
the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate
to the appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die nat
urally in their beds !

You will excuse me from taking any more chances
on those beds. The railroads are good enough for me.

And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home
any more than you can help ; but when you have got
to stay at home a while, buy a package of those

318

DANGER OF LYING IN BED

insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be
too cautious.

[One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent
in the manner recorded at the top of this sketch.]

The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless
people grumble more than is fair about railroad
management in the United States. When we con
sider that every day and night of the year full
fourteen thousand railway-trains of various kinds,
freighted with life and armed with death, go thun
dering over the land, the marvel is, not that they kill
three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but
that they do not kill three hundred times three
hundred !

319

PORTRAIT OF
KING WILLIAM III

1 NEVER can look at those periodical portraits
in The Galaxy magazine without feeling a wild,
tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I have seen
thousands and thousands of pictures in my time-
acres of them here and leagues of them in the galleries
of Europe — but never any that moved me as these
portraits do.

There is the portrait of Monsignore Capel in the
November number, now could anything be sweeter
than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the Octo
ber number; who can look at that without being
purer and stronger and nobler for it? And Thurlow
Weed's picture in the September number; I would
not have died without seeing that, no, not for any
thing this world can give. But look back still further
and recall my own likeness as printed in the August
number; if I had been in my grave a thousand years
when that appeared, I would have got up and visited
the artist.

I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow
every night, so that I can go on studying them as soon
as the day dawns in the morning. I know them all
as thoroughly as if 1 had made them myself; I know
every line and mark about them. Sometimes when

320

PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III

company are present I shuffle the portraits all up to
gether, and then pick them out one by one and call
their names, without referring to the printing at the
bottom. I seldom make a mistake — never, when I
am calm.

I have had the portraits framed for a long time,
waiting till my aunt gets everything ready for hang
ing them up in the parlor. But first one thing and
then another interferes, and so the thing is delayed.
Once she said they would have more of the peculiar
kind of light they needed in the attic. The old sim
pleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she
does not know anything about art, and so she has no
reverence for it. When I showed her my "Map of
the Fortifications of Paris," she said it was rubbish.

Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have
come at last to have a perfect infatuation for art. I
have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm continually
and tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more
and more facility the pencil, brush, and graver. I
am studying under De Mellville, the house and por
trait painter. [His name was Smith when he lived
West.] He does any kind of artist work a body
wants, having a genius that is universal, like Michael
Angelo. Resembles that great artist, in fact. The
back of his head is like his, and he wears his hat-brim
tilted down on his nose to expose it.

I have been studying under De Mellville several
months now. The first month I painted fences, and
gave general satisfaction. The next month I white
washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin roofs;
the fourth, common signs; the fifth, statuary to

321

MARK TWAIN

stand before cigar shops. This present month is
only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!

The humble offering which accompanies these re
marks — the portrait of his Majesty William III.,
King of Prussia — is my fifth attempt in portraits, and
my greatest success. It has received unbounded
praise from all classes of the community, but that
which gratifies me most is the frequent and cordial
verdict that it resembles the Galaxy portraits. Those
were my first love, my earliest admiration, the orig
inal -source and incentive of my art-ambition. What
ever I am in Art to-day, I owe to these portraits. I
ask no credit for myself — I deserve none. And I
never take any, either. Many a stranger has come
to my exhibition ( for I have had my portrait of King
William on exhibition at one dollar a ticket), and
would have gone away blessing me, if I had let him,
but I never did. I always stated where I got the
idea.

King William wears large bushy side- whiskers, and
some critics have thought that this portrait would be
more complete if they were added. But it was not
possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and
epaulettes both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put
in the epaulettes, for the sake of style. That thing
on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian eagle — it is a
national emblem. When I say hat I mean helmet;
but it seems impossible to make a picture of a helmet
that a body can have confidence in.

I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in
my endeavor to attract a little attention to the Galaxy
portraits. I feel persuaded it can be accomplished,

322

323

MARK TWAIN

if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment.
I write for that magazine all the time, and so do many
abler men, and if I can get these portraits into univer
sal favor, it is all I ask ; the reading-matter will take
care of itself.

COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT
There is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.

It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about
it, which many of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to
in the Murillo school of Art. RUSKIN.

The expression is very interesting. J. W. TITIAN.

(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)

It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.

ROSA BONHEUR.

The smile may be almost called unique. BISMARCK.

I never saw such character portrayed in a pictured face before-

DE MELLVILLE.

There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this
work which warms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as
it fascinates the eye. LANDSEER.

One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.

FREDERICK WILLIAM.

Send me the entire edition — together with the plate and the
original portrait — and name your own price. And — would you
like to come over and stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelm-
shohe? It shall not cost you a cent. WILLIAM III.

324

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE
A LORD?

Often a quite ossified remark becomes sanctified by use and
petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity
a geologic period.

r I "HE day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met
1 an English friend, and he rubbed his hands and
broke out with a remark that was charged to the brim
with joy — joy that was evidently a pleasant salve to
an old sore place :

"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to
an old saying that is irritatingly true, and until now
seemed to offer no chance for a return jibe: 'An
Englishman does dearly love a lord'; but after this
I shall talk back, and say 'How about the Ameri
cans?'"

It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic
saying can get. The man that first says it thinks he
has made a discovery. The man he says it to, thinks
the same. It departs on its travels, is received every
where with admiring acceptance, and not only as a
piece of rare and acute observation, but as being
exhaustively true and profoundly wise; and so it
presently takes its place in the world's list of recog
nized and established wisdoms, and after that no

325

MARK TWAIN

one thinks of examining it to see whether it is really
entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind
instances of this in two well-established proverbs,
whose dullness is not surpassed by the one about the
Englishman and his love for a lord: one of them
records the American's Adoration of the Almighty
Dollar, the other the American millionaire-girl's am
bition to trade cash for a title, with a husband
thrown in.

It isn't merely the American that adores the Al
mighty Dollar, it is the human race. The human
race has always adored the hatful of shells, or the
bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings, or
the handful of steel fish-hooks, or the houseful of
black wives, or the zareba full of cattle, or the two-
score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm,
or the block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or
the bank stock, or the hoarded cash, or — anything
that stands for wrealth and consideration and inde
pendence, and can secure to the possessor that most
precious of all things, another man's envy. It was
a dull person that invented the idea that the Ameri
can's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than
another's.

Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not
invent that idea; it had been worn threadbare sev
eral hundred centuries before America was discov
ered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as
ever; and, when a title is not to be had for the
money in hand, they buy the husband without it.
They must put up the "dot," or there is no trade.
The commercialization of brides is substantially

326

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

universal, except in America. It exists with us, to
some little extent, but in no degree approaching a
custom.

"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."
What is the soul and source of his love? I think
the thing could be more correctly worded:
"The human race dearly envies a lord."
That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why?
On two accounts, I think: its Power and its Con-
spicuousness.

Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power
which, by the light of our own observation and ex
perience, we are able to measure and comprehend, I
think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as
passionate as is that of any other nation. No one
can care less for a lord than the backwoodsman, who
has had no personal contact with lords and has sel
dom heard them spoken of ; but I will not allow that
any Englishman has a profounder envy of a lord
than has the average American who has lived long
years in a European capital and fully learned how
immense is the position the lord occupies.

Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly
gather, at vast inconvenience, to get a glimpse of
Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred will be
there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning
up with desire to see a personage who is so much
talked about. They envy him; but it is Conspicu
ousness they envy mainly, not the Power that is
lodged in his royal quality and position, for they
have but a vague and spectral knowledge and appre
ciation of that; through their environment and as-

327

MARK TWAIN

sociations they have been accustomed to regard
such things lightly, and as not being very real ; con
sequently, they are not able to value them enough
to consumingly envy them.

But, whenever an American (or other human
being) is in the presence, for the first time, of a
combination of great Power and Conspicuousness
which he thoroughly understands and appreciates,
his eager curiosity and pleasure will be well-sodden
with that other passion — envy — whether he suspect
it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part of
America, you can confer a happiness upon any pass
ing stranger by calling his attention to any other
passing stranger and saying:

"Do you see that gentleman going along there?
It is Mr. Rockfeller."

Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and
conspicuousness which the man understands.

When we understand rank, we always like to rub
against it. When a man is conspicuous, we always
want to see him. Also, if he will pay us an attention
we will manage to remember it. Also, we will men
tion it now and then, casually; sometimes to a friend,
or if a friend is not handy, we will make out with a
stranger.

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuous-
ness? At once we think of kings and aristocracies,
and of world-wide celebrities in soldierships, the arts,
letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a mis
take. Rank holds its court and receives its homage
on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down
to the rat-catcher; and distinction, also, exists on

328

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

every round of the ladder, and commands its due of
deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and
valued privilege of all the human race, and it is free
ly and joyfully exercised in democracies as well as
in monarchies — and even, to some extent, among
those creatures whom we impertinently call the
Lower Animals. For even they have some poor lit
tle vanities and foibles, though in this matter they
are paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four
hundred million of subjects, but the rest of the world
is indifferent to him. A Christian Emperor has the
worship of his subjects and of a large part of the
Christian world outside of his dominions; but he is
a matter of indifference to all China. A king, class
A, has an extensive worship; a king, class B, has a
less extensive worship; class C, class D, class E get
a steadily diminishing share of worship; class L
(Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu, and
class W (half -king of Samoa), get no worship at all
outside their own little patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down. Each
has his group of homage-payers. In the navy, there
are many groups; they start with the Secretary and
the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster —
and below ; for there will be groups among the sailors,
and each of these groups will have a tar who is dis
tinguished for his battles, or his strength, or his
daring, or his profanity, and is admired and envied
by his group. The same with the army; the same
with the literary and journalistic craft, the publish-

329

MARK TWAIN

ing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S.
Steel ; the class A hotel — and the rest of the alphabet
in that line ; the class A prize-fighter — and the rest of
the alphabet in his line — clear down to the lowest
and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with its
one boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is
king of Samoa, bottom of the royal race, but looked
up to with a most ardent admiration and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and
pretty, about this human race's fondness for contact
with power and distinction, and for the reflected
glory it gets out of it. The king, class A, is happy
in the state banquet and the military show which
the emperor provides for him, and he goes home and
gathers the queen and the princelings around him in
the privacy of the spare room, and tells them all
about it, and says:

' ' His Imperial Majesty put his hand on my shoul
der in the most friendly way — just as friendly and
familiar, oh, you can't imagine it! — and everybody
seeing him do it; charming, perfectly charming!"

The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation
and the police parade provided for him by the king,
class B, and goes home and tells the family all about
it, and says:

"And His Majesty took me into his own private
cabinet for a smoke and a chat, and there we sat
just as sociable, and talking away and laughing and
chatting, just the same as if we had been born in the
same bunk; and all the servants in the anteroom
could see us doing it! Oh, it was too lovely for
anything!"

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DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

The king, class Q, is happy in the modest enter
tainment furnished him by the king, class M, and
goes home and tells the household about it, and is as
grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors
in the gaudier attentions that had fallen to their
larger lot.

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people,
little people — at bottom we are all alike and all the
same; all just alike on the inside, and when our
clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.
We are unanimous in the pride we take in good and
genuine compliments paid us, in distinctions con
ferred upon us, in attentions shown us. There is not
one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like
that. Do I mean attentions shown us by the great?
No, I mean simply flattering attentions, let them
come whence they may. We despise no source that
can pay us a pleasing attention — there is no source
that is humble enough for that. You have heard a
dear little girl say to a frowzy and disreputable dog :
"He came right to me and let me pat him on the
head, and he wouldn't let the others touch him!" and
you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high
distinction. You have often seen that. If the child
were a princess, would that random dog be able to
confer the like glory upon her with his pretty com
pliment? Yes; and even in her mature life and
seated upon a throne, she would still remember it,
still recall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction.
That charming and lovable German princess and
poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, remembers
yet that the flowers of the woods and fields "talked

MARK TWAIN

to her" when she was a girl, and she sets it down in
her latest book ; and that the squirrels conferred upon
her and her father the valued compliment of not
being afraid of them; and "once one of them, holding
a nut between its sharp little teeth, ran right up
against my father" — it has the very note of "He
came right to me and let me pat him on the head"
— ' ' and when it saw itself reflected in his boot it was
very much surprised, and stopped for a long time to
contemplate itself in the polished leather" — then
it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers
with pride that "they came boldly into my room,"
when she had neglected her "duty" and put no food
on the window-sill for them; she knew all the wild
birds, and forgets the royal crown on her head to
remember with pride that they knew her; also that
the wasp and the bee were personal friends of hers,
and never forgot that gracious relationship to her
injury: "never have I been stung by a wasp or a
bee." And here is that proud note again that sings
in that little child's elation in being singled out,
among all the company of children, for the random
dog's honor-conferring attentions. "Even in the
very worst summer for wasps, when, in lunching
out of doors, our table was covered with them and
every one else was stung, they never hurt me."

When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart
and character are able to add distinction to so distin
guished a place as a throne, remembers with grateful
exultation, after thirty years, honors and distinctions
conferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of
the forest, we are helped to realize that complimen-

332

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

tary attentions, homage, distinctions, are of no caste,
but are above all caste — that they are a nobility-
conferring power apart.

We all like these things. When the gate-guard at
the railway-station passes me through unchallenged
and examines other people's tickets, I feel as the king,
class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial hand
on his shoulder, "everybody seeing him do it"; and
as the child felt when the random dog allowed her
to pat his head and ostracized the others ; and as the
princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung
the rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna
(and remember it yet), when the helmeted police
shut me off, with fifty others, from a street which
the Emperor was to pass through, and the captain
of the squad turned and saw the situation and said
indignantly to that guard:

"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let
him through!"

It was four years ago ; but it will be four hundred
before I forget the wind of self-complacency that
rose in me, and strained my buttons when I marked
the deference for me evoked in the faces of my
fellow-rabble, and noted, mingled with it, a puzzled
and resentful expression which said, as plainly as
speech could have worded it: "And who in the
nation is the Herr Mark Twain um Gotteswillen?"

How many times in your life have you heard this
boastful remark:

"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could
have put out my hand and touched him."

We have all heard it many and many a time. It

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MARK TWAIN

was a proud distinction to be able to say those words.
It brought envy to the speaker, a kind of glory ; and
he basked in it and was happy through all his veins.
And who was it he stood so close to? The answer
would cover all the grades. Sometimes it was a
king; sometimes it was a renowned highwayman;
sometimes it was an unknown man killed in an
extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by
it; always it was a person who was for the moment
the subject of public interest — the public interest of
a nation, maybe only the public interest of a village.
"I was there, and I saw it myself/' That is a
common and envy-compelling remark. It can refer
to a battle; to a hanging; to a coronation, to the
killing of Jumbo by the railway-train; to the arrival
of Jenny Lind at the Battery ; to the meeting of the
President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a mur
derous maniac ; to the disaster in the tunnel ; to the
explosion in the subway ; to a remarkable dog-fight ;
to a village church struck by lightning. It will be
said, more or less casually, by everybody in America
who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to.
The man who was absent and didn't see him do any
thing, will scoff. It is his privilege ; and he can make
capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself,
to be different from other Americans, and better.
As his opinion of his superior Americanism grows,
and swells, and concentrates and coagulates, he will
go further and try to belittle the distinction of those
that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their
pleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered
by that kind of persons. If you are able to tell of a

334

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it
gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to
make believe that the thing you took for a special
distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant
in quite another way. Once I was received in pri
vate audience by an emperor. Last week I was tell
ing a jealous person about it, and I could see him
wince under it, see it bite, see him suffer. I revealed
the whole episode to him with considerable elabora
tion and nice attention to detail. When I was
through, he asked me what had impressed me most.
I said:

''His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be
sure and back out from the presence, and find the
door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable to
face around. Now the Emperor knew it would be
a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice;
and so, when it was time to part, he turned, with
exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with
things on his desk, so that I could get out in my own
way, without his seeing me."

It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy
and disgruntlement rise in the man's face; he
couldn't keep it down. I saw him trying to fix up
something in his mind to take the bloom off that dis
tinction. I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had
his work cut out for him. He struggled along in
wardly for quite a while; then he said, with the
manner of a person who has to say something and
hasn't anything relevant to say:

"You said he had a handful of special-brand
cigars lying on the table?"

335

MARK TWAIN

"Yes; I never saw anything to match them."

I had him again. He had to fumble around in his
mind as much as another minute before he could
play ; then he said in as mean a way as I ever heard
a person say anything:

"He could have been counting the cigars, you
know."

I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to
him how unkind he is, so long as he takes the bloom
off. It is all he cares for.

"An Englishman (or other human being) does
dearly love a lord,'* (or other conspicuous person).
It includes us all. We love to be noticed by the
conspicuous person; we love to be associated with
such, or with a conspicuous event, even in a seventh-
rate fashion, even in a forty-seventh, if we cannot
do better. This accounts for some of our curious
tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large private
trade in the Prince of Wales 's hair, which chamber
maids were able to drive in that article of commerce
when the Prince made the tour of the world in the
long ago — hair which probably did not always come
from his brush, since enough of it was marketed to
refurnish a bald comet ; it accounts for the fact that
the rope which lynches a negro in the presence of
ten thousand Christian spectators is salable five
minutes later at two dollars an inch ; it accounts for
the mournful fact that a royal personage does not
venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.

We do love a lord — and by that term I mean any
person whose situation is higher than our own. The
lord of a group, for instance: a group of peers, a

336

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums, a group
of sailors, a group of newsboys, a group of saloon
politicians, a group of college girls. No royal person
has ever been the object of a more delirious loyalty
and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast Tam
many herd to its squalid idol of Wantage. There is
not a bifucated animal in that menagerie that would
not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in his
company. At the same time, there are some in that
organization who would scoff at the people who have
been daily pictured in company with Prince Henry,
and would say vigorously that they would not consent
to be photographed with him — a statement which
would not be true in any instance. There are hun
dreds of people in America who would frankly say to
you that they would not be proud to be photographed
in a group with the Prince, if invited; and some of
these unthinking people would believe it when they
said it ; yet in no instance would it be true. We have a
large population, but we have not a large enough one,
by several millions, to furnish that man. He has not
yet been begotten, and in fact he is not begettable.

You may take any of the printed groups, and
there isn't a person in it who isn't visibly glad to be
there; there isn't a person in the dim background who
isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it is a crowd of ten
thousand — ten thousand proud, untamed democrats,
horny-handed sons of toil and of politics, and fliers
of the eagle — there isn't one who isn't conscious of
the camera, there isn't one who is trying to keep out
of range, there isn't one who isn't plainly meditating
a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the

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MARK TWAIN

intention of hunting himself out in the picture and
of framing and keeping it if he shall find so much of
his person in it as his starboard ear.

We all love to get some of the drippings of Con-
spicuousness, and we will put up with a single, hum
ble drip, if we can't get any more. We may pretend
otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend it
to ourselves privately — and we don't. We do confess
in public that we are the noblest work of God, being
moved to it by long habit, and teaching, and
superstition; but deep down in the secret places of
our souls we recognize that, if we are the noblest
work, the less said about it the better.

We of the North poke fun at the South for its
fondness for titles — a fondness for titles pure and
simple, regardless of whether they are genuine or
pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner
likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there
is no law of predilection lodged in one people that is
absent from another people. There is no variety in
the human race. We are all children, all children of
the one Adam, and we love toys. We can soon
acquire that Southern disease if some one will give
it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have
been personally acquainted with over eighty-four
thousand persons who, at one time or another in
their lives, have served for a year or two on the staffs
of our multitudinous governors, and through that
fatality have been generals temporarily, and colonels
temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily; but
I have known only nine among them who could be
hired to let the title go when it ceased to be legiti-

338

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

mate. I know thousands and thousands of governors
who ceased to be governors away back in the last
century; but I am acquainted with only three who
would answer your letter if you failed to call them
"Governor" in it. I know acres and acres of men
who have done time in a legislature in prehistoric
days, but among them is not half an acre whose
resentment you would not raise if you addressed
them as "Mr." instead of "Hon." The first thing a
legislature does is to convene in an impressive legis
lative attitude, and get itself photographed. Each
member frames his copy and takes it to the woods
and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous
place in his house ; and if you visit the house and fail
to inquire what that accumulation is, the conver
sation will be brought around to it by that afore
time legislator, and he will show you a figure in it
which in the course of years he has almost obliter
ated with the smut of his finger-marks, and say with
a solemn joy, "It's me!"

Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter
the hotel breakfast-room in Washington with his let
ters? — and sit at his table and let on to read them?
—and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?
—keeping a furtive watch-out over his glasses all
the while to see if he is being observed and admired?
— those same old letters which he fetches in every
morning? Have you seen it? Have you seen him
show off? It is the sight of the national capital.
Except one; a pathetic one. That is the ex-Congress
man : the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a
two-year taste of glory and of fictitious consequence :

339

MARK TWAIN

who has been superseded, and ought to take his
heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear him
self away from the scene of his lost little grandeur;
and so he lingers, and still lingers, year after year,
unconsidered, sometimes snubbed, ashamed of his
fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise;
dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness
and gaiety, hailing with chummy familiarity, which
is not always welcomed, the more-fort unates who are
still in place and were once his mates. Have you
seen him ? He clings piteously to the one little shred
that is left of his departed distinction — the " privilege
of the floor"; and works it hard and gets what he
can out of it. That is the saddest figure I know of.

Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And
then we loftily scoff at a Prince for enjoying his
larger ones ; forgetting that if we only had his chance
—ah! "Senator" is not a legitimate title. A
Senator has no more right to be addressed by it than
have you or I ; but, in the several state capitals and
in Washington, there are five thousand Senators
who take very kindly to that fiction, and who purr
gratefully when you call them by it — which you may
do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators
smile at the self -constructed majors and generals and
judges of the South !

Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how
we may. And we work them for all they are worth.
In prayer we call ourselves "worms of the dust," but
it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the
remark shall not be taken at par. We — worms of
the dust ! Oh, no, we are not that. Except in fact ;

340

DOES MAN LOVE A LORD?

and we do not deal much in fact when we are con
templating ourselves.

As a race, we do certainly love a lord — let him be
Croker, or a duke, or a prize-fighter, or whatever
other personage shall chance to be the head of our
group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in
overalls standing by the Herald office, with an ex
pectant look in his face. Soon a large man passed
out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was
what the boy was waiting for — the large man's no
tice. The pat made him proud and happy, and the
exultation inside of him shone out through his eyes;
and his mates were there to see the pat and envy
it and wish they could have that glory. The boy
belonged down cellar in the press-room, the large
man was king of the upper floors, foreman of the
composing-room. The light in the boy's face was
worship, the foreman was his lord, head of his group.
The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the
boy as it would have been if he had been an aristo
crat's son and the accolade had been delivered by
his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence of
the honor was all there; there was no difference in
values; in truth there was no difference present ex
cept an artificial one — clothes.

All the human race loves a lord — that is, it loves
to look upon or be noticed by the possessor of Power
or Conspicuousness; and sometimes animals, born
to better things and higher ideals, descend to man's
level in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I
have seen a cat that was so vain of being the personal
friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of her.

34i

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY

Jl/TONDAY. — This new creature with the long
•* P-* hair is a good deal in the way. It is always
hanging around and following me about. I don't
like this ; I am not used to company. I wish it would
stay with the other animals. . . . Cloudy to-day,
wind in the east; think we shall have rain. . . .
We? Where did I get that word? — I remember
now — the new creature uses it.

Tuesday. — Been examining the great waterfall. It
is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new
creature calls it Niagara Falls — why, I am sure
I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls.
That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and
imbecility. I get no chance to name anything my
self. The new creature names everything that comes
along, before I can get in a protest. And always
that same pretext is offered — it looks like the thing.
There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment
one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks
like a dodo.'* It will have to keep that name, no
doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does
no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a
dodo than I do.

Wednesday. — Built me a shelter against the rain,
but could not have it to myself in peace. The new
creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed

342

ADAM'S DIARY

water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it
away with the back of its paws, and made a noise
such as some of the other animals make when they
are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is
always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at
the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so.
I have never heard the human voice before, and any
new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the
solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my
ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so
close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at
my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and
I am used only to sounds that are more or less dis
tant from me.

Friday. — The naming goes recklessly on, in spite
of anything I can do. I had a very good name for
the estate, and it was musical and pretty — GARDEN
OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but
not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is
all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has
no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks like a
park, and does not look like anything but a park.
Consequently, without consulting me, it has been
new-named — NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is suffi
ciently high-handed, it seems to me. And already
there is a sign up :

KEEP OFF
THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.
Saturday. — The new creature eats too much fruit.
We are going to run short, most likely. "We"

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MARK TWAIN

again — that is its word; mine, too, now, from hear
ing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning.
I do not go out in the fog myself. The new creature
does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right
in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be
so pleasant and quiet here.

Sunday. — Pulled through. This day is getting
to be more and more trying. It was selected and
set apart last November as a day of rest. I had
already six of them per week before. This morning
found the new creature trying to clod apples out of
that forbidden tree.

Monday. — The new creature says its name is
Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says
it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I said it
was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised
me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good
word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an
It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is
all one to me ; what she is were nothing to me if she
would but go by herself and not talk.

Tuesday. — She has littered the whole estate with
execrable names and offensive signs:

THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL

THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND
CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY

She says this park would make a tidy summer re
sort if there was any custom for it. Summer resort—
another invention of hers — just words, without any
meaning. What is a summer resort ? But it is best
not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.

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ADAM'S DIARY

Friday. — She has taken to beseeching me to stop
going over the Falls. What harm does it do ? Says
it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have always
done it — always liked the plunge, and coolness. I
supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have
no other use that I can see, and they must have been
made for somthing. She says they were only made
for scenery — like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel — not satisfactory
to her. Went over in a tub — still not satisfactory.
Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in a fig-leaf
suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious com
plaints about my extravagance. I am too much
hampered here. What I need is change of scene.

Saturday. — I escaped last Tuesday night, and
traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a
secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I
could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast
which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came
making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that
water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged
to return with her, but will presently emigrate
again when occasion offers. She engages her
self in many foolish things; among others, to study
out why the animals called lions and tigers live on
grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth
they wear would indicate that they were intended to
eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that
would be to kill each other, and that would introduce
what, as I understand it, is called "death"; and
death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the
Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.

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MARK TWAIN

Sunday. — Pulled through.

Monday. — I believe I see what the week is for:
it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of
Sunday. It seems a good idea. . . . She has been
climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it.
She said nobody was looking. Seems to consider
that a sufficient justification for chancing any dan
gerous thing. Told her that. The word justification
moved her admiration — and envy, too, I thought.
It is a good word.

Tuesday. — She told me she was made out of a
rib taken from my body. This is at least doubtful,
if not more than that. I have not missed any rib.
. . . She is in much trouble about the buzzard;
says grass does not agree with it ; is afraid she can't
raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed
flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can
with what it is provided. We cannot overturn the
whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

Saturday. — She fell in the pond yesterday when
she was looking at herself in it, which she is always
doing. She nearly strangled, and said it was most
uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the crea
tures which live in there, which she calls fish, for
she continues to fasten names on to things that don't
need them and don't come when they are called by
them, which is a matter of no consequence to her,
she is such a numskull, anyway; so she got a lot of
them out and brought them in last night and put
them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed
them now and then all day and I don't see that they
are any happier there then they were before, only

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ADAM'S DIARY

quieter. When night comes I shall throw them
outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I
find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when
a person hasn't anything on.

Sunday. — Pulled through.

Tuesday. — She has taken up with a snake now.
The other animals are glad, for she was always ex
perimenting with them and bothering them; and I
am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me
to get a rest.

Friday. — She says the snake advises her to try
the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a
great and fine and noble education. I told her there
would be another result, too — it would introduce
death into the world. That was a mistake — it had
been better to keep the remark to myself; it only
gave her an idea — she could save the sick buzzard,
and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and
tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree.
She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
emigrate.

Wednesday. — I have had a variegated time. I
escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast
as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Park
and hide in some other country before the trouble
should begin ; but it was not to be. About an hour
after sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain
where thousands of animals were grazing, slumber
ing, or playing with each other, according to their
wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of
frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a
frantic commotion and every beast was destroying

347

MARK TWAIN

its neighbor. I knew what it meant — Eve had
eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.
. . . The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention
when I ordered them to desist, and they would have
eaten me if I had stayed — which I didn't, but went
away in much haste. ... I found this place, out
side the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few
days, but she has found me out. Found me out,
and has named the place Tonawanda — says it looks
like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for
there are but meager pickings here, and she brought
some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I
was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I
find that principles have no real force except when
one is well fed. . . . She came curtained in boughs
and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what
she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them
away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed.
I had never seen a person titter and blush before,
and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She
said I would soon know how it was myself. This
was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down the
apple half -eaten — certainly the best one I ever saw,
considering the lateness of the season — and arrayed
myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and
then spoke to her with some severity and ordered
her to go and get some more and not make such a
spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we
crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been,
and collected some skins, and I made her patch to
gether a couple of suits proper for public occasions.
They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and

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that is the main point about clothes. ... I find she
is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be
lonesome and depressed without her, now that I
have lost my property. Another thing, she says it is
ordered that we work for our living hereafter. She
will be useful. I will superintend.

Ten Days Later. — She accuses me of being the
cause of our disaster! She says, with apparent
sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that
the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts.
I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any
chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that
"chestnut'* was a figurative term meaning an aged
and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have
made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some
of them could have been of that sort, though I had
honestly supposed that they were new when I made
them. She asked me if I had made one just at the
time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit that
I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It
was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said
to myself, "How wonderful it is to see that vast
body of water tumble down there!" Then in an
instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I
let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more wonderful
to see it tumble up there!" — and I was just about
to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature
broke loose in war and death and I had to flee for
my life. "There," she said, with triumph, "that
is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and
called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval
with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame.

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Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had never
had that radiant thought!

Next Year. — We have named it Cain. She
caught it while I was up country trapping on the
North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a
couple of miles from our dug-out — or it might have
been four, she isn't certain which. It resembles us
in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what
she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment.
The difference in size warrants the conclusion that
it is a different and new kind of animal — a fish, per
haps, though when I put it in the water to see, it
sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before
there was opportunity for the experiment to deter
mine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she is
indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have
it to try. I do not understand this. The coming
of the creature seems to have changed her whole
nature and made her unreasonable about experi
ments. She thinks more of it than she does of any
of the other »animals, but is not able to explain why.
Her mind is disordered — everything shows it. Some
times she carries the fish in her arms half the night
when it complains and wants to get to the water.
At such times the water comes out of the places in
her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish
on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth
to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in
a hundred ways. I have never seen her do like this
with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly.
She used to carry the young tigers around so, and
play with them, before we lost our property, but it

ADAM'S DIARY

was only play; she never took on about them like
this when their dinner disagreed with them.

Sunday. — She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies
around all tired out, and likes to have the fish wallow
over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it,
and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it
laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could
laugh. This makes me doubt. ... I have come
to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week
tires a body so. There ought to be more Sundays.
In the old days they were tough, but now they
come handy.

Wednesday. — It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make
out what it is. It makes curious devilish noises
when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when it is.
It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a
bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't
hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl, I feel sure
it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance to find
out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies
around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up.
I have not seen any other animal do that before.
I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only
admired the word without understanding it. In my
judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a
bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what
its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex
me so.

Three Months Later. — The perplexity augments
instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It has
ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four
legs now. Yet it differs from the other four-legged

MARK TWAIN

animals, in that its front legs are unusually short,
consequently this causes the main part of its person
to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this
is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but
its method of traveling shows that it is not of our
breed. The short front legs and long hind ones
indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a
marked variation of the species, since the true kan
garoo hops, whereas this one never does. Still it is
a curious and interesting variety, and has not been
catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt
justified in securing the credit of the discovery by
attaching my name to it, and hence have called it
Kangaroorum Adamiensis. ... It must have been
a young one when it came, for it has grown exceed
ingly since. It must be five times as big, now, as it
was then, and when discontented it is able to make
from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it
made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but
has the contrary effect. For this reason I discon
tinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion,
and by giving it things which she had previously told
me she wouldn't give it. As already observed, I was
not at home when it first came, and she told me she
found it in the woods. It seems odd that it should
be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn
myself out these many weeks trying to find another
one to add to my collection, and for this one to play
with; for surely then it would be quieter and we
could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any
vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It
has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself;

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therefore, how does it get about without leaving a
track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no
good. I catch all small animals except that one;
animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity,
I think, to see what the milk is there for. They
never drink it.

Three Months Later. — The Kangaroo still continues
to grow, which is very strange and perplexing. I
never knew one to be so long getting its growth.
It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur,
but exactly like our hair except that it is much
finer and softer, and instead of being black is red.
I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and
harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoolog
ical freak. If I could catch another one — but that
is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only sam
ple; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo
and brought it in, thinking that this one, being
lonesome, would rather have that for company than
have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a
nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn
condition here among strangers who do not know
its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel
that it is among friends; but it was a mistake —
it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo
that I was convinced it had never seen one before.
I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is
nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could
tame it — but that is out of the question; the more
I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to
the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and
passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't

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hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her; and
yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than
ever; for since I cannot find another one, how
could it?

Five Months Later. — It is not a kangaroo. No,
for it supports itself by holding to her finger, and
thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then
falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear;
and yet it has no tail — as yet — and no fur, except
on its head. It still keeps on growing — that is a
curious circumstance, for bears get their growth
earlier than this. Bears are dangerous — since our
catastrophe — and I shall not be satisfied to have this
one prowling about the place much longer without
a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo
if she would let this one go, but it did no good — she
is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks,
I think. She was not like this before she lost her
mind.

A Fortnight Later. — I examined its mouth. There
is no danger yet: it has only one tooth. It has
no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever
did before — and mainly at night. I have moved
out. But I shall go over, mornings, to breakfast,
and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful
of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for
a bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.

Four Months Later. — I have been off hunting and
fishing a month, up in the region that she calls
Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is because there
are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has
learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs,

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and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly
a new species. This resemblance to words may be
purely accidental, of course, and may have no pur
pose or meaning; but even in that case it is still
extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear
can do. This imitation of speech, taken together
with general absence of fur and entire absence of
tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind
of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly
interesting. Meantime I will go off on a far expedi
tion among the forests of the north and make an
exhaustive search. There must certainly be another
one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous
when it has company of its own species. I will go
straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

Three Months Later. — It has been a weary, weary
hunt, yet I have had no success. In the mean time,
without stirring from the home estate, she has caught
another one! I never saw such luck. I might have
hunted these woods a hundred years, I never would
have run across that thing.

Next Day. — I have been comparing the new one
with the old one, and it is perfectly plain that they
are the same breed. I was going to stuff one of
them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against
it for some reason or other; so I have relinquished
the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would
be an irreparable loss to science if they should get
away. The old one is tamer than it was and can
laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this,
no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and
having the imitative faculty in a highly developed

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degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be
a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not to be
astonished, for it has already been everything else it
could think of since those first days when it was
a fish. The new one is as ugly now as the old one
was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat
complexion and the same singular head without any
fur on it. She calls it Abel.

Ten Years Later. — They are boys; we found it
out long ago. It was their coming in that small,
immature shape that puzzled us; we were not used
to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good
boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have
improved him. After all these years, I see that I
was mistaken about Eve in the beginning ; it is better
to live outside the Garden with her than inside it
without her. At first I thought she talked too
much ; but now I should be sorry to have that voice
fall silent ^and pass out of my life. Blessed be the
chestnut that brought us near together and taught
me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweet
ness of her spirit!

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EVE'S DIARY

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL

rrATURDAY.— I am almost a whole day old,
*J now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems
to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-
before-yesterday I was not there when it happened,
or I should remember it. It could be, of course,
that it did happen, and that I was not noticing.
Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any
day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of
it. It will be best to start right and not let the
record get confused, for some instinct tells me that
these details are going to be important to the his
torian some day. For I feel like an experiment, I
feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impos
sible for a person to feel more like an experiment
than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that
that is what I am — an experiment; just an experi
ment, and nothing more.

Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it?
No, I think not ; I think the rest of it is part of it. I
am the main part of it, but I think the rest of it has
its share in the matter. Is my position assured, or
do I have to watch it and take care of it? The lat
ter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal

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MARK TWAIN

vigilance is the price of supremacy. [That is a good
phrase, I think, for one so young.]

Everything looks better to-day than it did yester
day. In the rush of finishing up yesterday, the
mountains were left in a ragged condition, and some
of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and
remnants that the aspects were quite distressing.
Noble and beautiful works of art should not be sub
jected to haste; and this majestic new world is
indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And cer
tainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwith
standing the shortness of the time. There are too
many stars in some places and not enough in others,
but that can be remedied presently, no doubt. The
moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out
of the scheme — a very great loss ; it breaks my heart
to think of it. There isn't another thing among
the ornaments and decorations that is comparable
to it for beauty and finish. It should have been
fastened better. If we can only get it back again—

But of course there is no telling where it went to.
And besides, whoever gets it will hide it; I know it
because I would do it myself. I believe I can be
honest in all other matters, but I already begin to
realize that the core and center of my nature is love
of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and that
it would not be safe to trust me with a moon that
belonged to another person and that person didn't
know I had it. I could give up a moon that I found
in the daytime, because I should be afraid some one
was looking; but if I found it in the dark, I am sure
I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying

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EVE'S DIARY

anything about it. For I do love moons, they are
so pretty and so romantic. I wish we had five or
six; I would never go to bed; I should never get tired
lying on the moss-bank and looking up at them.

Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to
put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You
would be surprised to find how far off they are, for
they do not look it. When they first showed, last
night, I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it
didn't reach, which astonished me; then I tried clods
till I was all tired out, but I never got one. It was
because I am left-handed and cannot throw good.
Even when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I
couldn't hit the other one, though I did make some
close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail
right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or
fifty times, just barely missing them, and if I could
have held out a little longer maybe I could have
got one.

So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose,
for one of my age, and after I was rested I got a
basket and started for a place on the extreme rim of
the circle, where the stars were close to the ground
and I could get them with my hands, which would
be better, anyway, because I could gather them ten
derly then, and not break them. But it was farther
than I thought, and at last I had to give it up ; I was
so tired I couldn't drag my feet another step; and
besides, they were sore and hurt me very much.

I couldn't get back home ; it was too far and turn
ing cold; but I found some tigers and nestled in
among them and was most adorably comfortable,

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and their breath was sweet and pleasant, because
they live on strawberries. I had never seen a tiger
before, but I knew them in a minute by the stripes.
If I could have one of those skins, it would make a
lovely gown.

To-day I am getting better ideas about distances.
I was so eager to get hold of every pretty thing that
I giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when it was too
far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches
away but seemed a foot — alas, with thorns between !
I learned a lesson; also I made an axiom, all out of
my own head — my very first one: The scratched Ex
periment shuns the thorn. I think it is a very good
one for one so young.

I followed the other Experiment around, yester
day afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be
for, if I could. But I was not able to make out. I
think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it
looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it
is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than
about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile,
and I suppose it is; for it has frowsy hair and blue
eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it
tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself
apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though
it may be architecture.

I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every
time it turned around, for I thought it was going to
chase me; but by and by I found it was only trying
to get away, so after that I was not timid any more,
but tracked it along, several hours, about twenty
yards behind, which made it nervous and unhappy.

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EVE'S DIARY

At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a
tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and
went home.

To-day the same thing over. I've got it up the
tree again.

Sunday. — It is up there yet. Resting, apparently.
But that is a subterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of
rest; Saturday is appointed for that. It looks to
me like a creature that is more interested in resting
than in anything else. It would tire me to rest so
much. It tires me just to sit around and watch the
tree. I do wonder what it is for; I never see it do
anything.

They returned the moon last night, and I was so
happy! I think it is very honest of them. It slid
down and fell off again, but I was not distressed;
there is no need to worry when one has that kind
of neighbors ; they will fetch it back. I wish I could
do something to show my appreciation. I would
like to send them some stars, for we have more than
we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that
the reptile cares nothing for such things.

It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went
there yesterday evening in the gloaming it had crept
down and was trying to catch the little speckled
fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to
make it go up the tree again and let them alone. I
wonder if that is what it is for? Hasn't it any heart?
Hasn't it any compassion for those little creatures?
Can it be that it was designed and manufactured for
such ungentle work? It has the look of it. One of
the clods took it back of the ear, and it used language.

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It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever
heard speech, except my own. I did not understand
the words, but they seemed expressive.

When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in
it, for I love to talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep,
too, and I am very interesting, but if I had another
to talk to I could be twice as interesting, and would
never stop, if desired.

If this reptile is a man, it isn't an it, is it? That
wouldn't be grammatical, would it? I think it
would be he. I think so. In that case one would
parse it thus : nominative, he; dative, him; possessive,
his'n. Well, I will consider it a man and call it he
until it turns out to be something else. This will be
handier than having so many uncertainties.

Next week Sunday. — All the week I tagged around
after him and tried to get acquainted. I had to do
the talking, because he was shy, but I didn't mind
it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I
used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it
seemed to flatter him to be included.

Wednesday. — We are getting along very well in
deed, now, and getting better and better acquainted.
He does not try to avoid me any more, which is a
good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with
him. That pleases me, and I study to be useful to
him in every way I can, so as to increase his regard.
During the last day or two I have taken all the work
of naming things off his hands, and this has been a
great relief to him, for he has not gift in that line, and
is evidently very grateful. He can't think of a ra
tional name to save him, but I do not let him see

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EVE'S DIARY

that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new
creature comes along I name it before he has time
to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this
way I have saved him many embarrassments. I
have no defect like his. The minute I set eyes on
an animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect
a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just
as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I
am sure it wasn't in me half a minute before. I
seem to know just by the shape of the creature and
the way it acts what animal it is.

When the dodo came along he thought it was a
wildcat — I saw it in his eye. But I saved him.
And I was careful not to do it in a way that could
hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural
way of pleased surprise, and not as if I was dreaming
of conveying information; and said, "Well, I do de
clare, if there isn't the dodo!" I explained — with
out seeming to be explaining — how I knew it for a
dodo, and although I thought maybe he was a little
piqued that I knew the creature when he didn't,
it was quite evident that he admired me. That
was very agreeable, and I thought of it more than
once with gratification before I slept. How little a
thing can make us happy when we feel that we have
earned it !

Thursday. — My first sorrow. Yesterday he avoid
ed me and seemed to wish I would not talk to him.
I could not believe it, and thought there was some
mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to
hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could
feel unkind toward me when I had not done any-

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thing? But at last it seemed true, so I went away
and sat lonely in the place where I first saw him the
morning that we were made and I did not know
what he was and was indifferent about him ; but now
it was a mournful place, and every little thing spoke
of him, and my heart was very sore. I did not
know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling; I
had not experienced it before, and it was all a mys
tery, and I could not make it out.

But when night came I could not bear the lone-
someness, and went to the new shelter which he has
built, to ask him what I had done that was wrong
and how I could mend it and get back his kindness
again ; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my
first sorrow.

Sunday. — It is pleasant again, now, and I am
happy; but those were heavy days; I do not think
of them when I can help it.

I tried to get him some of those apples, but I can
not learn to throw straight. I failed, but I think the
good intention pleased him. They are forbidden,
and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to
harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that
harm?

Monday. — This morning I told him my name,
hoping it would interest him. But he did not care
for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his name,
I would care. I think it would be pleasant er in my
ears than any other sound.

He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is
not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to
conceal it. It is such a pity that he should feel so,

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for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the
values lie. I wish I could make him understand
that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough,
and that without it intellect is poverty.

Although he talks so little, he has quite a consider
able vocabulary. This morning he used a surpris
ingly good word. He evidently recognized, himself,
that it was a good one, for he worked it in twice
afterward, casually. It was not good casual art,
still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of
perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made
to grow, if cultivated.

Where did he get that word? I do not think I
have ever used it.

No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to
hide my disappointment, but I suppose I did not
succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank
with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I
hunger for companionship, some one to look at,
some one to talk to. It is not enough — that lovely
white body painted there in the pool — but it is
something, and something is better than utter loneli
ness. It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad;
it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not
be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be
your friend." It is a good friend to me, and my
only one ; it is my sister.

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall
never forget that — never, never. My heart was lead
in my body! I said, "She was all I had, and now
she is gone!" In my despair I said, "Break, my
heart; I cannot bear my life any more!" and hid my

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face in my hands, and there was no solace for me.
And when I took them away, after a little, there
she was again, white and shining and beautiful, and
I sprang into her arms!

That was perfect happiness; I had known happi
ness before, but it was not like this, which was
ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward. Some
times she stayed away — maybe an hour, maybe al
most the whole day, but I waited and did not doubt ;
I said, "She is busy, or she is gone a journey, but
she will come." And it was so: she always did. At
night she would not come if it was dark, for she was
a timid little thing; but if there was a moon she
would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is
younger than I am ; she was born after I was. Many
and many are the visits I have paid her; she is my
comfort and my refuge when my life is hard — and
it is mainly that.

Tuesday. — All the morning I was at work improv
ing the estate ; and I purposely kept away from him
in the hope that he would get lonely and come. But
he did not.

At noon I stopped for the day and took my recrea
tion by flitting all about with the bees and the but
terflies and reveling in the flowers, those beautiful
creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky
and preserve it! I gathered them, and made them
into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in
them while I ate my luncheon — apples, of course;
then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But
he did not come.

But no matter. Nothing would have come of it,
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for he does not care for flowers. He calls them rub
bish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks
it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for
me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care
for the painted sky at eventide — is there anything
he does care for, except building shacks to coop him
self up in from the good clean rain, and thumping
the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering
the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties
are coming along?

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore
a hole in it with another one, in order to carry out a
scheme that I had, and soon I got an awful fright.
A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,
and I dropped everything and ran! I thought it
was a spirit, and I was so frightened! But I looked
back, and it was not coming; so I leaned against a
rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on
trembling until they got steady again; then I crept
warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there
was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted
the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through —
wishing the man was about, I was looking so cun
ning and pretty — but the sprite was gone. I went
there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in
the hole. I put my finger in, to feel it, and said
ouch! and took it out again. It was a cruel pain. I
put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first
on one foot and then the other, and grunting, I
presently eased my misery; then I was full of in
terest, and began to examine.

I was curious to know what the pink dust was.
369

MARK TWAIN

Suddenly the name of it occurred to me, though I
had never heard of it before. It was fire! I was
as certain of it as a person could be of anything in
the world. So without hesitation I named it that —
fire.

I had created something that didn't exist before;
I had added a new thing to the world's uncountable
properties; I realized this, and was proud of my
achievement, and was going to run and find him and
tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his
esteem — but I reflected, and did not do it. No — he
would not care for it. He would ask what it was
good for, and what could I answer? for if it was
not good for something, but only beautiful, nerely
beautiful —

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good
for anything; it could not build a shack, it could not
improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it
was useless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he
would despise it and say cutting words. But to me
it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love
you, you dainty pink creature, for you are beautiful
—and that is enough!" and was going to gather it
to my breast. But refrained. Then I made an
other maxim out of my own head, though it was so
nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was
only a plagiarism : ' ' The burnt Experiment shuns the
fire."

I wrought again; and when I had made a good
deal of fire-dust I emptied it into a handful of dry
brown grass, intending to carry it home and keep it
always and play with it; but the wind struck it and

370

EVE'S DIARY

it sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I
dropped it and ran. When I looked back the blue
spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling
away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the
name of it — smoke! — though, upon my word, I had
never heard of smoke before.

Soon, brilliant yellow and red flares shot up
through the smoke, and I named them in an instant
— flames1 — and I was right, too, though these were
the very first flames that had ever been in the world.
They climbed the trees, they flashed splendidly in
and out of the vast and increasing volume of tum
bling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh
and dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange
and so wonderful and so beautiful!

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said
not a word for many minutes. Then he asked what
it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should ask such
a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and
I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I
should know and he must ask ; that was not my fault ; I
had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he asked :

"How did it come?"

Another direct question, and it also had to have
a direct answer.

"I made it."

The fire was traveling farther and farther off.
He went to the edge of the burned place and stood
looking down, and said:

"What are these?"

"Fire-coals."

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his

MARK TWAIN

mind and put it down again. Then he went away.
Nothing interests him.

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and
soft and delicate and pretty — I knew what they were
at once. And the embers; I knew the embers, too.
I found my apples, and raked them out, and was
glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active.
But I was disappointed; they were all burst open
and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so;
they were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful;
some day it will be useful, I think.

Friday. — I saw him again, for a moment, last
Monday at nightfall, but only for a moment. I was
hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the
estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard.
But he was not pleased, and turned away and left
me. He was also displeased on another account: I
tried once more to persuade him to stop going over
the Falls. That was because the fire had revealed
to me a new passion — quite new, and distinctly differ
ent from love, grief, and those others which I had
already discovered — fear. And it is horrible ! — I wish
I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments,
it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and
tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him,
for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could
not understand me.

Extract from Adam's Diary

Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young,
a mere girl, and make allowances. She is all interest,

372

EVE'S DIARY

eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a won
der, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when
she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and
smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names
upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow
sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of
the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the
golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the
pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack,
the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space — none of
them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but
because they have color and majesty, that is enough for
her, and she loses her mind over them. If she could
quiet down and keep still a couple of minutes at a time,
it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think
I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could,
for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably
comely creature — lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely,
nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing
marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her
young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes,
watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that
she was beautiful.

Monday noon. — If there is anything on the planet
that she is not interested in it is not in my list. There
are animals that I am indifferent to, but it is not so
with her. She has no discrimination, she takes to all
of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new one
is welcome.

When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into
camp, she regarded it as an acquisition, I considered it
a calamity; that is a good sample of the lack of harmony

373

MARK TWAIN

that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to
domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the
homestead and move out. She believed it could be
tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet; I
said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long
would be no proper thing to have about the place, be
cause, even with the best intentions and without meaning
any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it,
for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was
absent-minded.

Still, her heart was set upon having that monster,
and she couldn't give it up. She thought we could start
a dairy with it, and wanted me to help her milk it;
but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right,
and we hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to
ride it, and look at the scenery. Thirty or forty feet of
its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and
she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;
when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down
she came, and would have hurt herself but for me.

Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies
her but demonstration; untested theories are not in her
line, and she won't have them. It is the right spirit, I
concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of it; if
I were with her more I think I should take it up myself.
Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus:
she thought that if we could tame him and make him
friendly we could stand him in the river and use him
for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty
tame enough — at least as far as she was concerned — so
she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him
properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross

374

EVE'S DIARY

over on him, he came out and followed her around like a
pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.

Friday. — Tuesday — Wednesday — Thursday — and
to-day: all without seeing him. It is a long time
to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than un
welcome.

I had to have company — I was made for it, I
think — so I made friends with the animals. They
are just charming, and they have the kindest dis
position and the politest ways; they never look sour,
they never let you feel that you are intruding, they
smile at you and wag their tail, if they've got one,
and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion
or anything you want to propose. I think they are
perfect gentlemen. All these days we have had such
good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me, ever.
Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's
always a swarm of them around — sometimes as much
as four or five acres — you can't count them; and
when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out
over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed
and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash,
and so rippled with stripes, that you might think it
was a lake, only you know it isn't ; and there's storms
of sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings;
and when the sun strikes all that feathery com
motion, you have a blazing up of all the colors you
can think of, enough to put your eyes out.

We have made long excursions, and I have seen a
great deal of the world; almost all of it, I think;
and so I am the first traveler, and the only one.

375

MARK TWAIN

When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight—
there's nothing like it anywhere. For comfort I
ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is soft and has
a round back that fits me, and because they are such
pretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery
I ride the elephant. He hoists me up with his
trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready
to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.

The birds and animals are all friendly to each
other, and there are no disputes about anything.
They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it must be
a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word
they say ; yet they often understand me when I talk
back, particularly the dog and the elephant. It
makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter
than I am, and are therefore my superiors. It an
noys me, for I want to be the principal Experiment
myself — and I intend to be, too.

I have learned a number of things, and am edu
cated, now, but I wasn't at first. I was ignorant at
first. At first it used to vex me because, with all
my watching, I was never smart enough to be
around when the water was running uphill; but
now I do not mind it. I have experimented and
experimented until now I know it never does run
uphill, except in the dark. I know it does in the
dark, because the pool never goes dry, which it
would, of course, if the water didn't come back in
the night. It is best to prove things by actual ex
periment; then you know; whereas if you depend
on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you
will never get educated.

376

EVE'S DIARY

Some things you can't find out; but you will never
know you can't by guessing and supposing : no, you
have to be patient and go on experimenting until
you find out that you can't find out. And it is de
lightful to have it that way, it makes the world so
interesting. If there wasn't anything to find out, it
would be dull. Even trying to find out and not
finding out is just as interesting as trying to find
out and finding out, and I don't know but more so.
The secret of the water was a treasure until I got it ;
then the excitement all went away, and I recognized
a sense of loss.

By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry
leaves, and feathers, and plenty of other things;
therefore by all that cumulative evidence you know
that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with
simply knowing it, for there isn't any way to prove
it — up to now. But I shall find a way — then that
excitement will go. Such things make me sad; be
cause by and by when I have found out everything
there won't be any more excitements, and I do love
excitements so! The other night I couldn't sleep
for thinking about it.

At first I couldn't make out what I was made for,
but now I think it was to search out the secrets of
this wonderful world and be happy and thank the
Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are
many things to learn yet — I hope so; and by econo
mizing and not hurrying too fast I think they will
last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast
up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of
sight; then you throw up a clod and it doesn't. It

377

MARK TWAIN

comes down, every time. I have tired it and tried
it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of
course it doesn't come down, but why should it seem
to? I suppose it is an optical illusion. I mean, one
of them is. I don't know which one. I may be
the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which
it is, I can only demonstrate that one or the other
is a fake, and let a person take his choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going
to last. I have seen some of the best ones melt and
run down the sky. Since one can melt, they can all
melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the
same night. That sorrow will come — I know it. I
mean to sit up every night and look at them as long
as I can keep awake ; and I will impress those spark
ling fields on my memory, so that by and by when
they are taken away I can by my fancy resore those
lovely myriads to the black sky and make them
sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my
tears.

AFTER THE FALL

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me.
It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchant-
ingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not
see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found him, and am
content. He loves me as well as he can; I love him
with all the strength of my passionate nature, and
this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I
ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know,
and do not really much care to know; so I suppose

378

EVE'S DIARY

that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning
and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and
animals. I think that this must be so. I love cer
tain birds because of their song; but I do not love
Adam on account of his singing — no, it is not
that; the more he sings the more I do not get rec
onciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing, because I
wish to learn to like everything he is interested
in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I
could not stand it, but now I can. It sours the
milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get used to that
kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love
him — no, it is not that. He is not to blame for his
brightness, such as it is, for he did not make it him
self; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient.
There was a wise purpose in it, that I know. In
time it will develop, though I think it will not be
sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he is well
enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his gracious and considerate
ways and his delicacy that I love him. No, he has
lacks in these regards, but he is well enough just so,
and is improving.

It is not on account of his industry that I love
him — no, it is not that. I think he has it in him,
and I do not know why he conceals it from me. It
is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open
with me, now. I am sure he keeps nothing from me
but this. It grieves me that he should have a secret
from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking
of it, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not

379

MARK TWAIN

trouble my happiness, which is otherwise full to
overflowing.

It is not on account of his education that I love
him — no, it is not that. He is self-educated, and
does really know a multitude of things, but they are
not so.

It is not on account of his chivalry that I love
him — no, it is not that. He told on me, but I do
not blame him ; it is a peculiarity of sex, I think, and
he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have
told on him, I would have perished first; but that is
a peculiarity of sex, too, and I do not take credit for
it, for I did not make my sex.

Then why is it that I love him? Merely because
he is masculine, I think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but
I could love him without it. If he should beat me
and abuse me, I should go on loving him. I know
it. It is a matter of sex, I think.

He is strong and handsome, and I love him for
that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I
could love him without those qualities. If he were
plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should
love him; and I would work for him, and slave over
him, and pray for him, and watch by his bedside
until I died.

Yes, I think I love him merely because he is mine
and is masculine. There is no other reason, I sup
pose. And so I think it is as I first said: that this
kind of love is not a product of reasonings and
statistics. It just comes — none knows whence — and
cannot explain itself. And doesn't need to.

380

EVE'S DIARY

It is what I think. But I am only a girl, and the
first that has examined this matter, and it may turn
out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have
not got it right.

FORTY YEARS LATER

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass
from this life together — a longing which shall never
perish from the earth, but shall have place in the
heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;
and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that
it shall be I ; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not
so necessary to him as he is to me — life without him
would not be life; how could I endure it? This
prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being
offered up while my race continues. I am the first
wife ; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

AT EVE'S GRAVE

ADAM : Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.

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