_ Clemens remained at Stormfield all that winter. New York was sixty
miles away and he did not often care to make the journey. He was
constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private
party, but such affairs had lost interest for him. He preferred the
quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for
entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient. Guests
came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he
ever was restless or lonely he did not show it.
Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard
asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a
Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. Closing
his letter, General Howard said, "Never mind if you did fight on the
other side."
To General O. O. Howard:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Jan, 12, '09.
DEAR GENERAL HOWARD,--You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking
me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to
decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that
object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln
Memorial University. The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of all
the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln,
serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.
I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be
there to witness it and help you rejoice. But I am older than people
think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from
home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in
mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter.
You ought not to say sarcastic things about my "fighting on the other
side." General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me
compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs
for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had
followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have
caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General
Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced,
and you have hurt my feelings.
But I have an affection for you, anyway.
MARK TWAIN.
One of Mark Twain's friends was Henniker-Heaton, the so-called
"Father of Penny Postage" between England and America. When, after
long years of effort, he succeeded in getting the rate established,
he at once bent his energies in the direction of cheap cable service
and a letter from him came one day to Stormfield concerning his new
plans. This letter happened to be over-weight, which gave Mark
Twain a chance for some amusing exaggerations at his expense.
To Henniker-Heaton, in London:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Jan. 18, 1909.
DEAR HENNIKER-HEATON,--I do hope you will succeed to your heart's desire
in your cheap-cablegram campaign, and I feel sure you will. Indeed your
cheap-postage victory, achieved in spite of a quarter-century of
determined opposition, is good and rational prophecy that you will.
Wireless, not being as yet imprisoned in a Chinese wall of private cash
and high-placed and formidable influence, will come to your aid and make
your new campaign briefer and easier than the other one was.
Now then, after uttering my serious word, am I privileged to be frivolous
for a moment? When you shall have achieved cheap telegraphy, are you
going to employ it for just your own selfish profit and other people's
pecuniary damage, the way you are doing with your cheap postage? You get
letter-postage reduced to 2 cents an ounce, then you mail me a 4-ounce
letter with a 2-cent stamp on it, and I have to pay the extra freight at
this end of the line. I return your envelope for inspection. Look at
it. Stamped in one place is a vast "T," and under it the figures "40,"
and under those figures appears an "L," a sinister and suspicious and
mysterious L. In another place, stamped within a circle, in offensively
large capitals, you find the words "DUE 8 CENTS." Finally, in the midst
of a desert space up nor-noreastard from that circle you find a figure
"3" of quite unnecessarily aggressive and insolent magnitude--and done
with a blue pencil, so as to be as conspicuous as possible. I inquired
about these strange signs and symbols of the postman. He said they were
P. O. Department signals for his instruction.
"Instruction for what?"
"To get extra postage."
"Is it so? Explain. Tell me about the large T and the 40.
"It's short for Take 40--or as we postmen say, grab 40"
Go on, please, while I think up some words to swear with."
"Due 8 means, grab 8 more."
"Continue."
"The blue-pencil 3 was an afterthought. There aren't any stamps for
afterthoughts; the sums vary, according to inspiration, and they whirl in
the one that suggests itself at the last moment. Sometimes they go
several times higher than this one. This one only means hog 3 cents
more. And so if you've got 51 cents about you, or can borrow it--"
"Tell me: who gets this corruption?"
"Half of it goes to the man in England who ships the letter on short
postage, and the other half goes to the P.O.D. to protect cheap postage
from inaugurating a deficit."
"-------------------"
"I can't blame you; I would say it myself in your place, if these ladies
were not present. But you see I'm only obeying orders, I can't help
myself."
"Oh, I know it; I'm not blaming you. Finally, what does that L stand
for?"
"Get the money, or give him L. It's English, you know."
"Take it and go. It's the last cent I've got in the world--."
After seeing the Oxford pageant file by the grand stand, picture after
picture, splendor after splendor, three thousand five hundred strong, the
most moving and beautiful and impressive and historically-instructive
show conceivable, you are not to think I would miss the London pageant of
next year, with its shining host of 15,000 historical English men and
women dug from the misty books of all the vanished ages and marching in
the light of the sun--all alive, and looking just as they were used to
look! Mr. Lascelles spent yesterday here on the farm, and told me all
about it. I shall be in the middle of my 75th year then, and interested
in pageants for personal and prospective reasons.
I beg you to give my best thanks to the Bath Club for the offer of its
hospitalities, but I shall not be able to take advantage of it, because I
am to be a guest in a private house during my stay in London.
Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
It was in 1907 that Clemens had seen the Oxford Pageant--during the
week when he had been awarded his doctor's degree. It gave him the
greatest delight, and he fully expected to see the next one, planned
for 1910.
In the letter to Howells which follows we get another glimpse of
Mark Twain's philosophy of man, the irresponsible machine.
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN.,
Jan. 18, '09.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I have to write a line, lazy as I am, to say how your Poe
article delighted me; and to say that I am in agreement with
substantially all you say about his literature. To me his prose is
unreadable--like Jane Austin's. No, there is a difference. I could read
his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It
seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.
Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe,
but you also grant that he sinned against himself--a thing which he
couldn't do and didn't do.
It is lively up here now. I wish you could come.
Yrs ever,
MARK
To W. D. Howells, in New York:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
3 in the morning, Apl. 17, '09.
[Written with pencil].
My pen has gone dry and the ink is out of reach. Howells, Did you write
me day-before-day before yesterday, or did I dream it? In my mind's eye
I most vividly see your hand-write on a square blue envelop in the
mailpile. I have hunted the house over, but there is no such letter.
Was it an illusion?
I am reading Lowell's letter, and smoking. I woke an hour ago and am
reading to keep from wasting the time. On page 305, vol. I. I have
just margined a note:
"Young friend! I like that! You ought to see him now."
It seemed startlingly strange to hear a person call you young. It was a
brick out of a blue sky, and knocked me groggy for a moment. Ah me, the
pathos of it is, that we were young then. And he--why, so was he, but he
didn't know it. He didn't even know it 9 years later, when we saw him
approaching and you warned me, saying, "Don't say anything about age--he
has just turned fifty, and thinks he is old and broods over it."
[Well, Clara did sing! And you wrote her a dear letter.]
Time to go to sleep.
Yours ever,
MARK.
To Daniel Kiefer:
[No date.]
DANL KIEFER ESQ. DEAR SIR,--I should be far from willing to have a
political party named after me.
I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed its members to
have political aspirations or to push friends forward for political
preferment.
Yours very truly,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The copyright extension, for which the author had been working so
long, was granted by Congress in 1909, largely as the result of that
afternoon in Washington when Mark Twain had "received" in "Uncle
Joe" Cannon's private room, and preached the gospel of copyright
until the daylight faded and the rest of the Capitol grew still.
Champ Clark was the last to linger that day and they had talked far
into the dusk. Clark was powerful, and had fathered the bill. Now
he wrote to know if it was satisfactory.
To Champ Clark, in Washington:
STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., June 5, '09.
DEAR CHAMP CLARK--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me?
Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, and clearly defined, and
just and righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United
States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no
trouble in arriving at that decision.
The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was down
there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting and apparently
irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all said "the case is
hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos nothing can be built."
But we were in error; out of that chaotic mass this excellent bill has
been instructed; the warring interests have been reconciled, and the
result is as comely and substantial a legislative edifice as lifts its
domes and towers and protective lightning rods out of the statute book,
I think. When I think of that other bill, which even the Deity couldn't
understand, and of this one which even I can understand, I take off my
hat to the man or men who devised this one. Was it R. U. Johnson? Was
it the Author's League? Was it both together? I don't know, but I take
off my hat, anyway. Johnson has written a valuable article about the new
law--I enclose it.
At last--at last and for the first time in copyright history we are ahead
of England! Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and by fairness
to all interests concerned. Does this sound like shouting? Then I must
modify it: all we possessed of copyright-justice before the fourth of
last March we owed to England's initiative.
Truly Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Because Mark Twain amused himself with certain aspects of Christian
Science, and was critical of Mrs. Eddy, there grew up a wide
impression that he jeered at the theory of mental healing; when, as
a matter of fact, he was one of its earliest converts, and never
lost faith in its power. The letter which follows is an excellent
exposition of his attitude toward the institution of Christian
Science and the founder of the church in America.
To J. Wylie Smith, Glasgow, Scotland:
"STORMFIELD," August 7, 1909
DEAR SIR,--My view of the matter has not changed. To wit, that Christian
Science is valuable; that it has just the same value now that it had when
Mrs. Eddy stole it from Quimby; that its healing principle (its most
valuable asset) possesses the same force now that it possessed a million
years ago before Quimby was born; that Mrs. Eddy. . . organized that
force, and is entitled to high credit for that. Then, with a splendid
sagacity she hitched it to. . . a religion, the surest of all ways to
secure friends for it, and support. In a fine and lofty way--
figuratively speaking--it was a tramp stealing a ride on the lightning
express. Ah, how did that ignorant village-born peasant woman know the
human being so well? She has no more intellect than a tadpole--until it
comes to business then she is a marvel! Am I sorry I wrote the book?
Most certainly not. You say you have 500 (converts) in Glasgow. Fifty
years from now, your posterity will not count them by the hundred, but by
the thousand. I feel absolutely sure of this.
Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed
writing for his own amusement, setting down the things that boiled,
or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of
human deportment, human superstition and human creeds. The "Letters
from the Earth" referred to in the following, were supposed to have
been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a
friend, describing the absurdities of mankind. It is true, as he
said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the
manuscript contains some of his mgt delicious writing. Miss
Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in
Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume entitled
Mark Twain in the Happy Island.
"STORMFIELD," REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Nov. 13, '09.
DEAR BETSY,--I've been writing "Letters from the Earth," and if you will
come here and see us I will--what? Put the MS in your hands, with the
places to skip marked? No. I won't trust you quite that far. I'll read
messages to you. This book will never be published--in fact it couldn't
be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has much
Holy Scripture in it of the kind that . . . can't properly be read
aloud, except from the pulpit and in family worship. Paine enjoys it,
but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I suppose.
The autumn splendors passed you by? What a pity. I wish you had been
here. It was beyond words! It was heaven and hell and sunset and
rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you
couldn't look at it and keep the tears back. All the hosannahing strong
gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and hell and the pole, now, but
no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment, you
would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say: This is not
real, this is a dream. Such a singing together, and such a whispering
together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors, and such
kissing and caressing, and such pretty blushing when the sun breaks out
and catches those dainty weeds at it--you remember that weed-garden of
mine?--and then--then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance--oh,
hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see it.
Good! I wish I could go on the platform and read. And I could, if it
could be kept out of the papers. There's a charity-school of 400 young
girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some more;
but--oh, well, I can't go, and it's no use to grieve about it.
This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also Katy;
also the laundress. The cook and the maid, and the boy and the
roustabout and Jean's coachman are left--just enough to make it lonesome,
because they are around yet never visible. However, the Harpers are
sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall survive.
Affectionately,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Early in June that year, Clemens had developed unmistakable symptoms
of heart trouble of a very serious nature. It was angina pectoris,
and while to all appearances he was as well as ever and usually felt
so, he was periodically visited by severe attacks of acute "breast
pains" which, as the months passed, increased in frequency and
severity. He was alarmed and distressed--not on his own account,
but because of his daughter Jean--a handsome girl, who had long been
subject to epileptic seizures. In case of his death he feared that
Jean would be without permanent anchorage, his other daughter,
Clara--following her marriage to Ossip Gabrilowitsch in October--
having taken up residence abroad.
This anxiety was soon ended. On the morning of December 24th, jean
Clemens was found dead in her apartment. She was not drowned in her
bath, as was reported, but died from heart exhaustion, the result of
her malady and the shock of cold water.
[Questionable diagnosis! D.W.]
The blow to her father was terrible, but heavy as it was, one may
perhaps understand that her passing in that swift, painless way must
have afforded him a measure of relief.
To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, in Europe:
REDDING, CONN.,
Dec. 29, '09.
O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe--safe! I am
not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think. You see, I
was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away
and no one stood between her and danger but me--and I could die at any
moment, and then--oh then what would become of her! For she was wilful,
you know, and would not have been governable.
You can't imagine what a darling she was, that last two or three days;
and how fine, and good, and sweet, and noble-and joyful, thank Heaven!--
and how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted with Jean
before. I recognized that.
But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't. I have already poured my
heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two.
I will send you that--and you must let no one but Ossip read it.
Good-bye.
I love you so!
And Ossip.
FATHER.
The writing mentioned in the last paragraph was his article 'The Death of
Jean,' his last serious writing, and one of the world's most beautiful
examples of elegiac prose.--[Harper's Magazine, Dec., 1910,] and later in
the volume, 'What Is Man and Other Essays.' _