WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910)

What Is Man and Other Essays by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. What Is Man and Other Essays by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), the Pennsylvania State University, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them, and as such is a part of the Pennsylvania State University’s Electronic Classics Series. Cover design: Jim Manis; Caricature of Mark Twain appearing in Life: 31 January 1907 Copyright © 1999 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity University.

Contents WHAT IS MAN? .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 THE DEATH OF JEAN ............................................................................................................................................. 75 THE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE ................................................................................................................... 86 HOW TO MAKE HISTORY DATES STICK ......................................................................................................... 95 THE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION............................................................................................................... 108 A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY ...................................................................................................................... 118 SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY ................................................................................................ 125 AT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER ..................................................................................................................... 135 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS ............................................................................................................................... 148 ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT ............................................................................................................................ 156 A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET.................................................................................................................................. 169 AS CONCERNS INTERPRETING THE DEITY................................................................................................. 174 CONCERNING TOBACCO ................................................................................................................................... 181 THE BEE ................................................................................................................................................................... 184 TAMING THE BICYCLE ....................................................................................................................................... 187 IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? ................................................................................................................................... 195

What Is Man and Other Essays Young Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal, and so on. O.M. Where are these found? Y.M. In the rocks. O.M. In a pure state? Y.M. No—in ores. O.M. Are the metals suddenly deposited in the ores? Y.M. No—it is the patient work of countless ages. O.M. You could make the engine out of the rocks themselves? Y.M. Yes, a brittle one and not valuable. O.M. You would not require much, of such an engine as that? Y.M. No—substantially nothing. O.M. To make a fine and capable engine, how would you proceed? Y.M. Drive tunnels and shafts into the hills; blast out the iron ore; crush it, smelt it, reduce it to pig-iron; put some of it through the Bessemer process and make steel of it. Mine and treat and combine several metals of which brass is made. O.M. Then?

WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910)

WHAT IS MAN? I a. M an the M achine ersonal Mer it Man Machine achine.. bb.. PPersonal Merit ld M an and the Young M an had been ccon on ld [TThe OOld Man Man onvv ersing ersing.. T he OOld ely a machine assertt ed tha thatt the human being is mer merely machine,, and M an had asser nothing mor an objec ed him ttoo go in moree . T he Young M Man objectt ed ed,, and ask asked intt o easons ffor or his position particulars position.] par ticulars and furnish his rreasons Old Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made? 4

Mark Twain Y.M. Out of the perfected result, build the fine engine. O.M. You would require much of this one? Y.M. Oh, indeed yes. O.M. It could drive lathes, drills, planers, punches, polishers, in a word all the cunning machines of a great factory? Y.M. It could. O.M. What could the stone engine do? Y.M. Drive a sewing-machine, possibly—nothing more, perhaps.

Y.M. The engine? Certainly not. O.M. Why not? Y.M. Because its performance is not personal. It is the result of the law of construction. It is not a merit that it does the things which it is set to do—it can’t help doing them. O.M. And it is not a personal demerit in the stone machine that it does so little? Y.M. Certainly not. It does no more and no less than the

O.M. Men would ire the other engine and rapturously praise it? Y.M. Yes. O.M. But not the stone one? Y.M. No.

law of its make permits and compels it to do. There is nothing personal about it; it cannot choose. In this process of “working up to the matter” is it your idea to work up to the proposition that man and a machine are about the same thing, and that there is no personal merit in the perfor-

O.M. The merits of the metal machine would be far above those of the stone one? Y.M. Of course. O.M. Personal merits? Y.M. Personal merits? How do you mean? O.M. It would be personally entitled to the credit of its own performance?

mance of either? O.M. Yes—but do not be offended; I am meaning no offense. What makes the grand difference between the stone engine and the steel one? Shall we call it training, education? Shall we call the stone engine a savage and the steel one a civilized man? The original rock contained the stuff of which the steel one was built—but along with a lot of 5

What Is Man and Other Essays sulphur and stone and other obstructing inborn heredities, brought down from the old geologic ages—prejudices, let us call them. Prejudices which nothing within the rock itself had either power to remove or any desire to remove. Will you take note of that phrase? Y.M. Yes. I have written it down; “Prejudices which nothing within the rock itself had either power to remove or any desire to remove.” Go on. O.M. Prejudices must be removed by outside influences

educated, now —its training is complete. And it has reached its limit. By no possible process can it be educated into gold. Will you set that down? Y.M. Yes. “Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” O.M. There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden mean, and steel men, and so on—and each has the limitations of his nature, his heredities, his training, and his environment. You can build engines out of each of

or not at all. Put that down. Y.M. Very well; “Must be removed by outside influences or not at all.” Go on. O.M. The iron’s prejudice against ridding itself of the cumbering rock. To make it more exact, the iron’s absolute

these metals, and they will all perform, but you must not require the weak ones to do equal work with the strong ones. In each case, to get the best results, you must free the metal from its obstructing prejudicial ones by education— smelting, refining, and so forth.

indifference as to whether the rock be removed or not. Then comes the outside influence and grinds the rock to powder and sets the ore free. The iron in the ore is still captive. An outside influence smelts it free of the clogging ore. The iron is emancipated iron, now, but indifferent to further progress. An outside influence beguiles it into the Bessemer furnace and refines it into steel of the first quality. It is

Y.M. You have arrived at man, now? O.M. Yes. Man the machine—man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man is, is due to his make, and to the influences brought to bear upon it by his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed, commanded, by exterior influences—solely. He originates nothing, not even a thought. 6

Mark Twain Y.M. Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are talking is all foolishness? O.M. It is a quite natural opinion—indeed an inevitable opinion—but YOU did not create the materials out of which it is formed. They are odds and ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered unconsciously from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and from streams of thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart and brain out of the hearts and brains of centuries of

without reflection or the need of it. Y.M. Suppose I had reflected? How then? O.M. Suppose you try? Y.M. (After a quarter of an hour.) I have reflected. O.M. You mean you have tried to change your opinion— as an experiment? Y.M. Yes. O.M. With success? Y.M. No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change

ancestors. personally you did not create even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of which your opinion is made; and personally you cannot claim even the slender merit of putting the borrowed materials together. That was done automatically—by your mental machinery,

it. O.M. I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a machine, nothing more. You have no command over it, it has no command over itself—it is worked solely from the outside. That is the law of its make; it is the law of

in strict accordance with the law of that machinery’s construction. And you not only did not make that machinery yourself, but you have not even any command over it. Y.M. This is too much. You think I could have formed no opinion but that one? O.M. Spontaneously? No. And you did not form that one; your machinery did it for you—automatically and instantly,

all machines. Y.M. Can’t I ever change one of these automatic opinions? O.M. No. You can’t yourself, but exterior influences can do it. Y.M. And exterior ones only? O.M. Yes—exterior ones only. 7

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. That position is untenable—I may say ludicrously untenable. O.M. What makes you think so? Y.M. I don’t merely think it, I know it. Suppose I resolve to enter upon a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate purpose of changing that opinion; and suppose I succeed. that is not the work of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and personal; for I originated the project.

Y.M. No. O.M. When, then? Y.M. When he was threatened with it. O.M. Then it came from outside. Adam is quite big enough; let us not try to make a god of him. None but gods have ever had a thought which did not come from the outside. Adam probably had a good head, but it was of no sort of use to him until it was filled up from the outside. He was not able to invent the triflingest little thing with it. He had

O.M. Not a shred of it. It grew out of this talk with me. But for that it would not have occurred to you. No man ever originates anything. All his thoughts, all his impulses, come from the outside. Y.M. It’s an exasperating subject. The first man had origi-

not a shadow of a notion of the difference between good and evil—he had to get the idea from the outside. Neither he nor Eve was able to originate the idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came in with the apple from the outside. A man’s brain is so constructed that it can

nal thoughts, anyway; there was nobody to draw from. O.M. It is a mistake. Adam’s thoughts came to him from the outside. You have a fear of death. You did not invent that—you got it from outside, from talking and teaching. Adam had no fear of death—none in the world. Y.M. Yes, he had. O.M. When he was created?

originate nothing whatsoever. It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE. It is merely a machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power. It has no command over itself, its owner has no command over it. Y.M. Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare’s creations— O.M. No, you mean Shakespeare’s imitations. Shakespeare 8

Mark Twain created nothing. He correctly observed, and he marvelously painted. He exactly portrayed people whom God had created; but he created none himself. Let us spare him the slander of charging him with trying. Shakespeare could not create. He was a machine, and machines do not create. Y.M. Where WAS his excellence, then? O.M. In this. He was not a sewing-machine, like you and me; he was a Gobelin loom. The threads and the colors came into him from the outside; outside influences, sug-

thing—something up to the highest limit of Turkish influences, associations, and training. In he would have produced something better—something up to the highest limit of the French influences and training. In England he rose to the highest limit attainable through the outside helps afforded by that land’s ideals, influences, and training. You and I are but sewing-machines. We must turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor and care nothing at all when the unthinking reproach us for not turning out Gobelins.

gestions, experiences (reading, seeing plays, playing plays, borrowing ideas, and so on), framed the patterns in his mind and started up his complex and irable machinery, and it automatically turned out that pictured and gorgeous fabric which still compels the astonishment of the

Y.M. And so we are mere machines! And machines may not boast, nor feel proud of their performance, nor claim personal merit for it, nor applause and praise. It is an infamous doctrine. O.M. It isn’t a doctrine, it is merely a fact.

world. If Shakespeare had been born and bred on a barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect would have had no outside material to work with, and could have invented none; and no outside influences, teachings, moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable sort, and could have invented none; and so Shakespeare would have produced nothing. In Turkey he would have produced some-

Y.M. I suppose, then, there is no more merit in being brave than in being a coward? O.M. Personal merit? No. A brave man does not create his bravery. He is entitled to no personal credit for possessing it. It is born to him. A baby born with a billion dollars— where is the personal merit in that? A baby born with noth9

What Is Man and Other Essays bull: not afraid of a woman, but afraid of a man. There was something to build upon. There was a seed. No seed, no plant. Did he make that seed himself, or was it born in him? It was no merit of his that the seed was there. Y.M. Well, anyway, the idea of cultivating it, the resolution to cultivate it, was meritorious, and he originated that. O.M. He did nothing of the kind. It came whence all impulses, good or bad, come—from outside. If that timid man had lived all his life in a community of human rabbits, had never read of brave deeds, had never heard speak of them, had never heard any one praise them nor express envy of the heroes that had done them, he would have had no more idea of bravery than Adam had of modesty, and it could never by any possibility have occurred to him to resolve to become brave. He could not originate the idea—it had to come to him from the outside. And so, when he heard bravery extolled and cowardice derided, it woke him up. He was ashamed. Perhaps his sweetheart turned up her nose and said, “I am told that you are a coward!” It was not he that turned over the new leaf—she did it for him. He must not strut around in the merit of it—it is not his.

ing—where is the personal demerit in that? The one is fawned upon, ired, worshiped, by sycophants, the other is neglected and despised—where is the sense in it? Y.M. Sometimes a timid man sets himself the task of conquering his cowardice and becoming brave—and succeeds. What do you say to that? O.M. That it shows the value of training in right directions over training in wrong ones. Inestimably valuable is training, influence, education, in right directions—training one’s self-approbation to elevate its ideals. Y.M. But as to merit—the personal merit of the victorious coward’s project and achievement? O.M. There isn’t any. In the world’s view he is a worthier man than he was before, but he didn’t achieve the change— the merit of it is not his. Y.M. Whose, then? O.M. His make , and the influences which wrought upon it from the outside. Y.M. His make? O.M. To start with, he was not utterly and completely a coward, or the influences would have had nothing to work upon. He was not afraid of a cow, though perhaps of a 10

Mark Twain Y.M. But, anyway, he reared the plant after she watered the seed. O.M. No. outside influences reared it. At the command— and trembling—he marched out into the field—with other soldiers and in the daytime, not alone and in the dark. He had the influence of example, he drew courage from his comrades’ courage; he was afraid, and wanted to run, but he did not dare; he was afraid to run, with all those soldiers looking on. He was progressing, you see—the moral

Y.M. Hang it, where is the sense in his becoming brave if he is to get no credit for it? O.M. Your question will answer itself presently. It involves an important detail of man’s make which we have not yet touched upon. Y.M. What detail is that? O.M. The impulse which moves a person to do things— the only impulse that ever moves a person to do a thing. Y.M. The only one! Is there but one?

fear of shame had risen superior to the physical fear of harm. By the end of the campaign experience will have taught him that not all who go into battle get hurt—an outside influence which will be helpful to him; and he will also have learned how sweet it is to be praised for courage

O.M. That is all. There is only one. Y.M. Well, certainly that is a strange enough doctrine. What is the sole impulse that ever moves a person to do a thing? O.M. The impulse to content his own spirit—the neces-

and be huzza’d at with tear-choked voices as the war-worn regiment marches past the worshiping multitude with flags flying and the drums beating. After that he will be as securely brave as any veteran in the army—and there will not be a shade nor suggestion of personal merit in it anywhere; it will all have come from the outside. The Victoria Cross breeds more heroes than—

sity of contenting his own spirit and winning its approval. Y.M. Oh, come, that won’t do! O.M. Why won’t it? Y.M. Because it puts him in the attitude of always looking out for his own comfort and advantage; whereas an unselfish man often does a thing solely for another person’s good when it is a positive disadvantage to himself. 11

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. It is a mistake. The act must do him good, first; otherwise he will not do it. He may think he is doing it solely for the other person’s sake, but it is not so; he is contenting his own spirit first—the other’s person’s benefit has to always take second place. Y.M. What a fantastic idea! What becomes of self-sacrifice? Please answer me that. O.M. What is self-sacrifice? Y.M. The doing good to another person where no shadow

O.M. For instance? Y.M. Well, then, for instance. Take the case in the book here. The man lives three miles up-town. It is bitter cold, snowing hard, midnight. He is about to enter the horsecar when a gray and ragged old woman, a touching picture of misery, puts out her lean hand and begs for rescue from hunger and death. The man finds that he has a quarter in his pocket, but he does not hesitate: he gives it her and trudges home through the storm. There—it is noble, it is

nor suggestion of benefit to one’s self can result from it.

M an ole Impulse—the SSecur ecur ing of His OOwn wn AAppr ppr an’’s SSole ecuring pproo val

beautiful; its grace is marred by no fleck or blemish or suggestion of self-interest. O.M. What makes you think that? Y.M. Pray what else could I think? Do you imagine that there is some other way of looking at it?

Old Man. There have been instances of it—you think? Young Man. Instances? Millions of them! O.M. You have not jumped to conclusions? You have examined them—critically? Y.M. They don’t need it: the acts themselves reveal the golden impulse back of them.

O.M. Can you put yourself in the man’s place and tell me what he felt and what he thought? Y.M. Easily. The sight of that suffering old face pierced his generous heart with a sharp pain. He could not bear it. He could endure the three-mile walk in the storm, but he could not endure the tortures his conscience would suffer if he turned his back and left that poor old creature to per-

II

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Mark Twain ish. He would not have been able to sleep, for thinking of it. O.M. What was his state of mind on his way home? Y.M. It was a state of joy which only the self-sacrificer knows. His heart sang, he was unconscious of the storm. O.M. He felt well? Y.M. One cannot doubt it. O.M. Very well. Now let us add up the details and see how much he got for his twenty-five cents. Let us try to

ashamed of itself. On his way home his heart was joyful, and it sang—profit on top of profit! The impulse which moved the man to succor the old woman was—first—to content his own spirit; secondly to relieve her sufferings. Is it your opinion that men’s acts proceed from one central and unchanging and inalterable impulse, or from a variety of impulses? Y.M. From a variety, of course—some high and fine and noble, others not. What is your opinion?

find out the real why of his making the investment. In the first place he couldn’t bear the pain which the old suffering face gave him. So he was thinking of his pain—this good man. He must buy a salve for it. If he did not succor the old woman his conscience would torture him all the way

O.M. Then there is but one law, one source. Y.M. That both the noblest impulses and the basest proceed from that one source? O.M. Yes. Y.M. Will you put that law into words?

home. Thinking of his pain again. He must buy relief for that. If he didn’t relieve the old woman he would not get any sleep. He must buy some sleep—still thinking of himself, you see. Thus, to sum up, he bought himself free of a sharp pain in his heart, he bought himself free of the tortures of a waiting conscience, he bought a whole night’s sleep—all for twenty-five cents! It should make Wall Street

O.M. Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object but one—to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for himself. Y.M. Come! He never does anything for any one else’s comfort, spiritual or physical? O.M. No. Except on those distinct —that it shall 13

What Is Man and Other Essays first secure his own spiritual comfort. Otherwise he will not do it. Y.M. It will be easy to expose the falsity of that proposition. O.M. For instance? Y.M. Take that noble ion, love of country, patriotism. A man who loves peace and dreads pain, leaves his pleasant home and his weeping family and marches out to manfully expose himself to hunger, cold, wounds, and

for that is the sole low of his life. He leaves the weeping family behind; he is sorry to make them uncomfortable, but not sorry enough to sacrifice his own comfort to secure theirs. Y.M. Do you really believe that mere public opinion could force a timid and peaceful man to— O.M. Go to war? Yes—public opinion can force some men to do anything. Y.M. Anything?

death. Is that seeking spiritual comfort? O.M. He loves peace and dreads pain? Y.M. Yes. O.M. Then perhaps there is something that he loves MORE than he loves peace—the approval of his neighbors

O.M. Yes—anything. Y.M. I don’t believe that. Can it force a right-principled man to do a wrong thing? O.M. Yes. Y.M. Can it force a kind man to do a cruel thing?

and the public. And perhaps there is something which he dreads more than he dreads pain—the disapproval of his neighbors and the public. If he is sensitive to shame he will go to the field—not because his spirit will be entirely comfortable there, but because it will be more comfortable there than it would be if he remained at home. He will always do the thing which will bring him the most mental comfort—

O.M. Yes. Y.M. Give an instance. O.M. Alexander Hamilton was a conspicuously high-principled man. He regarded dueling as wrong, and as opposed to the teachings of religion—but in deference to public opinion he fought a duel. He deeply loved his family, but to buy public approval he treacherously deserted them and threw 14

Mark Twain his life away, ungenerously leaving them to lifelong sorrow in order that he might stand well with a foolish world. In the then condition of the public standards of honor he could not have been comfortable with the stigma upon him of having refused to fight. The teachings of religion, his devotion to his family, his kindness of heart, his high principles, all went for nothing when they stood in the way of his spiritual comfort. A man will do anything, no matter what it is, to secure his spiritual comfort; and he can neither be forced

other approvals put together—in the earth or above it; to secure that would furnish him the most comfort of mind, the most self-approval; so he sacrificed all other values to get it. Y.M. Some noble souls have refused to fight duels, and have manfully braved the public contempt. O.M. They acted according to their make. They valued their principles and the approval of their families above the public approval. They took the thing they valued most and let the rest go. They took what would give them the

nor persuaded to any act which has not that goal for its object. Hamilton’s act was compelled by the inborn necessity of contenting his own spirit; in this it was like all the other acts of his life, and like all the acts of all men’s lives. Do you see where the kernel of the matter lies? A man cannot be

largest share of personal contentment and approval—a man always does. Public opinion cannot force that kind of men to go to the wars. When they go it is for other reasons. Other spirit-contenting reasons. Y.M. Always spirit-contenting reasons?

comfortable without his own approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that, at all costs, all sacrifices. Y.M. A minute ago you said Hamilton fought that duel to get public approval. O.M. I did. By refusing to fight the duel he would have secured his family’s approval and a large share of his own; but the public approval was more valuable in his eyes than all

O.M. There are no others. Y.M. When a man sacrifices his life to save a little child from a burning building, what do you call that? O.M. When he does it, it is the law of his make. He can’t bear to see the child in that peril (a man of a different make could), and so he tries to save the child, and loses his life. But he has got what he was after—his own approval. 15

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. What do you call Love, Hate, Charity, Revenge, Humanity, Magnanimity, Forgiveness? O.M. Different results of the one Master Impulse: the necessity of securing one’s self approval. They wear diverse clothes and are subject to diverse moods, but in whatsoever ways they masquerade they are the same person all the time. To change the figure, the compulsion that moves a man—and there is but the one—is the necessity of securing the contentment of his own spirit. When it stops, the man is dead.

fices. She does it for that reward—that self-approval, that contentment, that peace, that comfort. She would do it for your child if she could get the same pay. Y.M. This is an infernal philosophy of yours. O.M. It isn’t a philosophy, it is a fact. Y.M. Of course you must it that there are some acts which— O.M. No. There is no act, large or small, fine or mean, which springs from any motive but the one—the necessity

Y.M. That is foolishness. Love— O.M. Why, love is that impulse, that law, in its most uncompromising form. It will squander life and everything else on its object. Not primarily for the object’s sake, but for its own. When its object is happy it is happy—and that

of appeasing and contenting one’s own spirit. Y.M. The world’s philanthropists— O.M. I honor them, I uncover my head to them—from habit and training; and they could not know comfort or happiness or self-approval if they did not work and spend

is what it is unconsciously after. Y.M. You do not even except the lofty and gracious ion of mother-love? O.M. No, it is the absolute slave of that law. The mother will go naked to clothe her child; she will starve that it may have food; suffer torture to save it from pain; die that it may live. She takes a living pleasure in making these sacri-

for the unfortunate. It makes them happy to see others happy; and so with money and labor they buy what they are after—happiness, self-approval. Why don’t miners do the same thing? Because they can get a thousandfold more happiness by not doing it. There is no other reason. They follow the law of their make. Y.M. What do you say of duty for duty’s sake? 16

Mark Twain O.M. That is does not exist. Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty—the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself. If he can most satisfyingly perform this sole and only duty by helping his neighbor, he will do it; if he can most satisfyingly perform it by swindling his neighbor, he will do it. But he always looks out for Number One— first; the effects upon others are a secondary matter. Men

kinds of men. You satisfy an assassin’s conscience in one way, a philanthropist’s in another, a miser’s in another, a burglar’s in still another. As a guide or incentive to any authoritatively prescribed line of morals or conduct (leaving training out of the ), a man’s conscience is totally valueless. I know a kind-hearted Kentuckian whose selfapproval was lacking—whose conscience was troubling him, to phrase it with exactness—because he had neglected to kill a certain man—a man whom he had never seen. The

pretend to self-sacrifices, but this is a thing which, in the ordinary value of the phrase, does not exist and has not existed. A man often honestly thinks he is sacrificing himself merely and solely for some one else, but he is deceived; his bottom impulse is to content a requirement of his nature

stranger had killed this man’s friend in a fight, this man’s Kentucky training made it a duty to kill the stranger for it. He neglected his duty—kept dodging it, shirking it, putting it off, and his unrelenting conscience kept persecuting him for this conduct. At last, to get ease of mind, comfort,

and training, and thus acquire peace for his soul. Y.M. Apparently, then, all men, both good and bad ones, devote their lives to contenting their consciences. O.M. Yes. That is a good enough name for it: Conscience—that independent Sovereign, that insolent absolute Monarch inside of a man who is the man’s Master. There are all kinds of consciences, because there are all

self-approval, he hunted up the stranger and took his life. It was an immense act of self-sacrifice (as per the usual definition), for he did not want to do it, and he never would have done it if he could have bought a contented spirit and an unworried mind at smaller cost. But we are so made that we will pay anything for that contentment—even another man’s life. 17

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. You spoke a moment ago of trained consciences. You mean that we are not born with consciences competent to guide us aright? O.M. If we were, children and savages would know right from wrong, and not have to be taught it. Y.M. But consciences can be trained? O.M. Yes. Y.M. Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, and books.

Y.M. But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only? O.M. It can’t be trained to do a thing for any other reason. The thing is impossible. Y.M. There must be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act recorded in human history somewhere. O.M. You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out. Y.M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellowbeing struggling in the water and jumps in at the risk of

O.M. Yes—they do their share; they do what they can. Y.M. And the rest is done by— O.M. Oh, a million unnoticed influences—for good or bad: influences which work without rest during every waking moment of a man’s life, from cradle to grave.

his life to save him— O.M. Wait. Describe the man. Describe the fellow-being. State if there is an audience present; or if they are alone. Y.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act? O.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that

Y.M. You have tabulated these? O.M. Many of them—yes. Y.M. Will you read me the result? O.M. Another time, yes. It would take an hour. Y.M. A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good? O.M. Yes.

the two are alone, in a solitary place, at midnight? Y.M. If you choose. O.M. And that the fellow-being is the man’s daughter? Y.M. Well, n-no—make it someone else. O.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then? Y.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no audience to observe the act, the man wouldn’t perform it. 18

Mark Twain O.M. But there is here and there a man who would. People, for instance, like the man who lost his life trying to save the child from the fire; and the man who gave the needy old woman his twenty-five cents and walked home in the storm—there are here and there men like that who would do it. And why? Because they couldn’t bear to see a fellow-being struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would give them pain. They would save the fellowbeing on that . They wouldn’t do it otherwise. They

Y.M. Well, take the case of a bad boy who— O.M. You needn’t mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter about the bad boy’s act. Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting reason for it. Otherwise you have been misinformed, and he didn’t do it. Y.M. It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man’s conscience is not a born judge of morals and conduct, but has to be taught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get drowsy and lazy, but I don’t think it can go

strictly obey the law which I have been insisting upon. You must and always distinguish the people who can’t bear things from people who can. It will throw light upon a number of apparently “self-sacrificing” cases. Y.M. Oh, dear, it’s all so disgusting.

wrong; if you wake it up—

O.M. Yes. And so true. Y.M. Come—take the good boy who does things he doesn’t want to do, in order to gratify his mother. O.M. He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies him to gratify his mother. Throw the bulk of advantage the other way and the good boy would not do the act. He must obey the iron law. None can escape it.

Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched by the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature—that desire which is in us all to better other people’s condition by having them think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in

A Little SStt or oryy O.M. I will tell you a little story:

19

What Is Man and Other Essays his last moments, reproached him and said: “I believed, and was happy ihn it; you have taken my belief away, and my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I have lost.” And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said: “My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do this cruel thing? We have done you no harm, but only kindness; we made your house your home, you were

your honor, where was your shame?” Y.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death! O.M. He thought so himself, and said so. Y.M. Ah—you see, his conscience was awakened! O.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It pained him to see the mother suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought him pain. It did not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the boy, for he was absorbed in providing pleasure for himself, then. Providing it

welcome to all we had, and this is our reward.” The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said: “It was wrong—I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to

by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty. Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of awakended consience. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of trouble again. A cure like that is a permanent cure.

teach him the truth.” Then the mother said: “I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is dead,—and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to disturb it? Where was

O.M. Pardon—I had not finished the story. We are creatures of outside influences—we originate nothing within. Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is always suggested from the outside. Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy’s religion and made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with 20

Mark Twain kindness, for the boy’s sake and the mother’s. Finally he found himself examining it. From that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no rest, no peace. He must have rest and peace—it is the law of nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country ill

And the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said: “My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do this cruel thing? We had done you no harm, but only kindness; we made our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our reward.” The heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said: “It was wrong—I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to

and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other boy by

teach him the truth.” Then the mother said: “I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is dead—and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith

doing a precious service for this one by undermining his foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy in his last moments reproached him and said: “I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I have lost.”

came down to us through centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you or any one, to disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame?” The missionary’s anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as bitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the former case. The story is finished. What is your comment? 21

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. The man’s conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn’t know right from wrong. O.M. I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that ONE man’s conscience doesn’t know right from wrong, it is an ission that there are others like it. This single ission pulls down the whole doctrine of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one thing which I ask you to notice. Y.M. What is that?

Y.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the average infidel, I think. O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty, would not have been troubled by the pagan mother’s distress—Jesuit missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see episodes quoted by Parkman. Y.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived? O.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number of qualities to which we have given mis-

O.M. That in both cases the man’s act gave him no spiritual discomfort, and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it. But afterward when it resulted in pain to him, he was sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, but for no reason under the sun except that thier

leading names. Love, Hate, Charity, Comion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach misleading meanings to the names. They are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them that they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled

pain gave him pain. Our consciences take no notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us. In all cases without exception we are absolutely indifferent to another person’s pain until his sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled by that Christian mother’s distress. Don’t you believe that?

a word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at all—Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man’s every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it we owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our 22

Mark Twain whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still. We ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered. Y.M. I am not convinced. O.M. You will be when you think.

O.M. Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to further impress upon you that neither you, nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought in his own head. The utterer of a thought always utters a second-hand one. Y.M. Oh, now— O.M. Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of our discussion—tomorrow or next day, say. Now, then, have you been considering the proposition that no act is ever born of any but a self-contenting impulse—(prima-

III

Old Man. Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self-

rily). You have sought. What have you found? Y.M. I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many fine and apparently self-sacrificing deeds in romances and biographies, but— O.M. Under searching analysis the ostensible self-sacri-

Approval since we talked? Young Man. I have. O.M. It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an outside influence moved you to it—not one that originated in your head. Will you try to keep that in mind and not forget it? Y.M. Yes. Why?

fice disappeared? It naturally would. Y.M. But here in this novel is one which seems to promise. In the Adirondack woods is a wage-earner and lay preacher in the lumber-camps who is of noble character and deeply religious. An earnest and practical laborer in the New York slums comes up there on vacation—he is leader of a section of the University Settlement. Holme,

Instanc es in PPoin oin Instances ointt

23

What Is Man and Other Essays the lumberman, is fired with a desire to throw away his excellent worldly prospects and go down and save souls on the East Side. He counts it happiness to make this sacrifice for the glory of God and for the cause of Christ. He resigns his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and goes to the East Side and preaches Christ and Him crucified every day and every night to little groups of half-civilized foreign paupers who scoff at him. But he rejoices in the scoffings, since he is suffering them in the great cause of Christ. You

O.M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and lodging in place of it. Had he dependents? Y.M. Well—yes. O.M. In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice affect them? Y.M. He was the of a superannuated father. He had a young sister with a remarkable voice—he was giving her a musical education, so that her longing to be selfing might be gratified. He was furnishing the money

have so filled my mind with suspicions that I was constantly expecting to find a hidden questionable impulse back of all this, but I am thankful to say I have failed. This man saw his duty, and for duty’s sake he sacrificed self and assumed the burden it imposed.

to put a young brother through a polytechnic school and satisfy his desire to become a civil engineer. O.M. The old father’s comforts were now curtailed? Y.M. Quite seriously. Yes. O.M. The sister’s music-lessens had to stop?

O.M. Is that as far as you have read? Y.M. Yes. O.M. Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in sacrificing himself—not for the glory of God, parimarily, as he imagined, but first to content that exacting and inflexible master within him—did he sacrifice anybody else? Y.M. How do you mean?

Y.M. Yes. O.M. The young brother’s education—well, an extinguishing blight fell upon that happy dream, and he had to go to sawing wood to the old father, or something like that? Y.M. It is about what happened. Yes. O.M. What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! 24

Mark Twain It seems to me that he sacrificed everybody except himself. Haven’t I told you that no man ever sacrifices himself; that there is no instance of it upon record anywhere; and that when a man’s Interior Monarch requires a thing of its slave for either its momentary or its permanent contentment, that thing must and will be furnished and that command obeyed, no matter who may stand in the way and suffer disaster by it? That man ruined his family to please and content his Interior Monarch—

the secret original impulse, the real impulse, that moved him to so nobly self-sacrifice his family in the Savior’s cause under the superstition that he was sacrificing himself. I will read a chapter or so. … Here we have it! It was bound to expose itself sooner or later. He preached to the EastSide rabble a season, then went back to his old dull, obscure life in the lumber-camps “Hurt to the heart, his pride humbled.” Why? Were not his efforts acceptable to the Savior, for Whom alone they were made? Dear me, that

Y.M. And help Christ’s cause. O.M. Yes—secondly. Not firstly. He thought it was firstly. Y.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be that he argued that if he saved a hundred souls in New York— O.M. The sacrifice of the family would be justified by

detail is lost sight of, is not even referred to, the fact that it started out as a motive is entirely forgotten! Then what is the trouble? The authoress quite innocently and unconsciously gives the whole business away. The trouble was this: this man merely preached to the poor; that is not the

that great profit upon the—the—what shall we call it? Y.M. Investment? O.M. Hardly. How would speculation do? How would gamble do? Not a solitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a possible thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was gambling—with his family for “chips.” However let us see how the game came out. Maybe we can get on the track of

University Settlement’s way; it deals in larger and better things than that, and it did not enthuse over that crude Salvation-Army eloquence. It was courteous to Holme— but cool. It did not pet him, did not take him to its bosom. “Persished were all his dreams of distinction, the praise and grateful approval—” Of whom? The Savior? No; the Savior is not mentioned. Of whom, then? Of “His fellow-work25

What Is Man and Other Essays ers.” Why did he want that? Because the Master inside of him wanted it, and would not be content without it. That emphasized sentence quoted above, reveals the secret we have been seeking, the original impulse, the REAL impulse, which moved the obscure and unappreciated Adirondack lumberman to sacrifice his family and go on that crusade to the East Side—which said original impulse was this, to wit: without knowing it he went there to show a neglected world the large talent that was in him, and rise to distinc-

O.M. Have you ever found one that defeated the rule? Y.M. No—at least, not yet. But take the case of servanttipping in Europe. You pay the hotel for service; you owe the servants nothing, yet you pay them besides. Doesn’t that defeat it? O.M. In what way? Y.M. You are not obliged to do it, therefore its source is comion for their ill-paid condition, and— O.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, ir-

tion. As I have warned you before, no act springs from any but the one law, the one motive. But I pray you, do not accept this law upon my say-so; but diligently examine for yourself. Whenever you read of a self-sacrificing act or hear of one, or of a duty done for duty’s sake, take it to pieces

ritated you? Y.M. Well, yes. O.M. Still you succumbed to it? Y.M. Of course. O.M. Why of course?

and look for the real motive. It is always there. Y.M. I do it every day. I cannot help it, now that I have gotten started upon the degrading and exasperating quest. For it is hatefully interesting!—in fact, fascinating is the word. As soon as I come across a golden deed in a book I have to stop and take it apart and examine it, I cannot help myself.

Y.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be submitted to—everybody recognizes it as a duty. O.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for duty’s sake? Y.M. I suppose it amounts to that. O.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax is not all comion, charity, benevolence? Y.M. Well—perhaps not. 26

Mark Twain O.M. Is ANY of it? Y.M. I—perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source. O.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you get prompt and effective service from the servants? Y.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants? Why, you wouldn’t get any of all, to speak of. O.M. Couldn’t that work as an impulse to move you to pay the tax? Y.M. I am not denying it.

O.M. Do you ever complain of the amount of it? Y.M. No, it would not occur to me. O.M. The expense, then, is not the annoying detail. It is a fixed charge, and you pay it cheerfully, you pay it without a murmur. When you came to pay the servants, how would you like it if each of the men and maids had a fixed charge? Y.M. Like it? I should rejoice! O.M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade more than you

O.M. Apparently, then, it is a case of for-duty’s-sake with a little self-interest added? Y.M. Yes, it has the look of it. But here is a point: we pay that tax knowing it to be unjust and an extortion; yet we go away with a pain at the heart if we think we have been

had been in the habit of paying in the form of tips? Y.M. Indeed, yes! O.M. Very well, then. As I understand it, it isn’t really comion nor yet duty that moves you to pay the tax, and it isn’t the amount of the tax that annoys you. Yet some-

stingy with the poor fellows; and we heartily wish we were back again, so that we could do the right thing, and more than the right thing, the generous thing. I think it will be difficult for you to find any thought of self in that impulse. O.M. I wonder why you should think so. When you find service charged in the hotel bill does it annoy you? Y.M. No.

thing annoys you. What is it? Y.M. Well, the trouble is, you never know what to pay, the tax varies so, all over Europe. O.M. So you have to guess? Y.M. There is no other way. So you go on thinking and thinking, and calculating and guessing, and consulting with other people and getting their views; and it spoils your 27

What Is Man and Other Essays sleep nights, and makes you distraught in the daytime, and while you are pretending to look at the sights you are only guessing and guessing and guessing all the time, and being worried and miserable. O.M. And all about a debt which you don’t owe and don’t have to pay unless you want to! Strange. What is the purpose of the guessing? Y.M. To guess out what is right to give them, and not be unfair to any of them.

done it. My, the shame and the pain of it! Sometimes you see, by the signs, that you have it just right, and you go away mightily satisfied. Sometimes the man is so effusively thankful that you know you have given him a good deal more than was necessary. O.M. necessary? Necessary for what? Y.M. To content him. O.M. How do you feel then? Y.M. Repentant.

O.M. It has quite a noble look—taking so much pains and u so much valuable time in order to be just and fair to a poor servant to whom you owe nothing, but who needs money and is ill paid. Y.M. I think, myself, that if there is any ungracious mo-

O.M. It is my belief that you have not been concerning yourself in guessing out his just dues, but only in ciphering out what would content him. And I think you have a self-deluding reason for that. Y.M. What was it?

tive back of it it will be hard to find. O.M. How do you know when you have not paid a servant fairly? Y.M. Why, he is silent; does not thank you. Sometimes he gives you a look that makes you ashamed. You are too proud to rectify your mistake there, with people looking, but afterward you keep on wishing and wishing you had

O.M. If you fell short of what he was expecting and wanting, you would get a look which would shame you before folk. That would give you pain. You—for you are only working for yourself, not him. If you gave him too much you would be ashamed of yourself for it, and that would give you pain—another case of thinking of yourself, protecting yourself, saving yourself from discomfort. You never think 28

Mark Twain of the servant once—except to guess out how to get his approval. If you get that, you get your own approval, and that is the sole and only thing you are after. The Master inside of you is then satisfied, contented, comfortable; there was no other thing at stake, as a matter of first interest, anywhere in the transaction.

O.M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere duty’s sake; the act must content his spirit first. He must feel better for doing the duty than he would for shirking it. Otherwise he will not do it. Y.M. Take the case of the Berkeley Caslte. O.M. It was a noble duty, greatly performed. Take it to pieces and examine it, if you like. Y.M. A British troop-ship crowded with soldiers and their wives and children. She struck a rock and began to sink. There was room in the boats for the women and children only. The colonel lined up his regiment on the deck and said “it is our duty to die, that they may be saved.” There was no murmur, no protest. The boats carried away the women and children. When the death-moment was come, the colonel and his officers took their several posts, the men stood at shoulder-arms, and so, as on dress-parade, with their flag flying and the drums beating, they went down, a sacrifice to duty for duty’s sake. Can you view it as other than that? O.M. It was something as fine as that, as exalted as that. Could you have remained in those ranks and gone down to your death in that unflinching way?

F ur ther Instanc es urther Instances Y.M. Well, to think of it; Self-Sacrifice for others, the grandest thing in man, ruled out! non-existent! O.M. Are you accusing me of saying that? Y.M. Why, certainly. O.M. I haven’t said it. Y.M. What did you say, then? O.M. That no man has ever sacrificed himself in the common meaning of that phrase—which is, self-sacrifice for another alone. Men make daily sacrifices for others, but it is for their own sake first. The act must content their own spirit first. The other beneficiaries come second. Y.M. And the same with duty for duty’s sake? 29

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. Could I? No, I could not. O.M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that watery doom creeping higher and higher around you. Y.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. I could not have endured it, I could not have remained in my place. I know it. O.M. Why? Y.M. There is no why about it: I know myself, and I know I couldn’t do it.

soldier’s pride, a soldier’s self-respect, a soldier’s ideals. They would have to content a soldier’s spirit then, not a clerk’s, not a mechanic’s. They could not content that spirit by shirking a soldier’s duty, could they? Y.M. I suppose not. O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the duty’s sake, but for their own sake—primarily. The duty was just the same, and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw recruits, but they wouldn’t perform it for

O.M. But it would be your duty to do it. Y.M. Yes, I know—but I couldn’t. O.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not one of them flinched. Some of them must have been born with your temperament; if they could do that great duty for duty’s SAKE,

that. As clerks and mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied it. They had to; it is the law. Training is potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher ideals is worth any man’s thought and labor and diligence.

why not you? Don’t you know that you could go out and gather together a thousand clerks and mechanics and put them on that deck and ask them to die for duty’s sake, and not two dozen of them would stay in the ranks to the end? Y.M. Yes, I know that. O.M. But your train them, and put them through a campaign or two; then they would be soldiers; soldiers, with a

Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to the stake rather than be recreant to it. O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament, will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content 30

Mark Twain the spirit that is in him—he cannot help it. He could not perform that duty for duty’s sake, for that would not content his spirit, and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to first. It takes precedence of all other duties. Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own party’s ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket. O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public morals; he has no private ones, where his party’s prosperity

under training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands association. It is his human environment which influences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his mor-

is at stake. He will always be true to his make and training.

Tr aining

als, his religion. He creates none of these things for himself. He thinks he does, but that is because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen Presbyterians? Y.M. Many. O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not

Young Man. You keep using that word—training. By it do you particularly mean— Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of it—but not a large part. I mean all the outside influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is

Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics Methodists, and the Methodists

IV

31

What Is Man and Other Essays Confucians, and the Confucians Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian Scientists Mormons—and so on? Y.M. You may answer your question yourself. O.M. That list of sects is not a record of studies, searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what association can do. If you know a man’s na-

avoids, and which breed of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political knowledge, and which breed of mass-meetings he doesn’t attend, except to refute its doctrines with brickbats. We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he had never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect

tionality you can come within a split hair of guessing the complexion of his religion: English—Protestant; American—ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American—Roman Catholic; Russian—Greek Catholic; Turk—Mohammedan; and so on. And when you know the

honesty and nicely adjusted judgment—until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. that was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he

man’s religious complexion, you know what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he wants. In America if you know which partycollar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to get light, and which breed he diligently

found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found the Truth he sought no further; but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with 32

Mark Twain objectors. There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers of Truth—have you ever heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of man such a person is impossible. However, to drop back to the text—training: all training is one from or another of outside influence, and association is the largest part of it. A man is never anything but what his outside influences have made him. They train him downward or they train him upward—but they train him; they are at work upon him all the time.

sprout and bloom and flourish, and ended in producing a surprising fruitage—in the fields of war. The history of man is full of such accidents. The accident of a broken leg brought a profane and ribald soldier under religious influences and furnished him a new ideal. From that accident sprang the Order of the Jesuits, and it has been shaking thrones, changing policies, and doing other tremendous work for two hundred years—and will go on. The chance reading of a book or of a paragraph in a newspaper can

Y.M. Then if he happen by the accidents of life to be evilly placed there is no help for him, according to your notions—he must train downward. O.M. No help for him? No help for this chameleon? It is a mistake. It is in his chameleonship that his greatest good

start a man on a new track and make him renounce his old associations and seek new ones that are in sympathy with his new ideal: and the result, for that man, can be an entire change of his way of life. Y.M. Are you hinting at a scheme of procedure?

fortune lies. He has only to change his habitat—his associations. But the impulse to do it must come from the outside—he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a new idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, “I hear that you are a coward,” may water a seed that shall

O.M. Not a new one—an old one. One as mankind. Y.M. What is it? O.M. Merely the laying of traps for people. Traps baited with initiatory impulses toward high ideals. It is what the tract-distributor does. It is what the missionary does. It is what governments ought to do. Y.M. Don’t they? 33

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. In one way they do, in another they don’t. They separate the smallpox patients from the healthy people, but in dealing with crime they put the healthy into the pest-house along with the sick. That is to say, they put the beginners in with the confirmed criminals. This would be well if man were naturally inclined to good, but he isn’t, and so association makes the beginners worse than they were when they went into captivity. It is putting a very severe punishment upon the comparatively innocent at times. They hang a man—which is a

Y.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions? O.M. From the outside. I did not invent them. They are gathered from a thousand unknown sources. Mainly unconsciously gathered. Y.M. Don’t you believe that God could make an inherently honest man? O.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did make one. Y.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact

trifling punishment; this breaks the hearts of his family— which is a heavy one. They comfortably jail and feed a wifebeater, and leave his innocent wife and family to starve. Y.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped with an intuitive perception of good and evil?

that “an honest man’s the noblest work of God.” O.M. He didn’t record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy, and sounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest and dishonest possibilities in him and stops there. The man’s associations develop the possibilities—

O.M. Adam hadn’t it. Y.M. But has man acquired it since? O.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He gets ALL his ideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I keep repeating this, in the hope that I may impress it upon you that you will be interested to observe and examine for yourself and see whether it is true or false.

the one set or the other. The result is accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one. Y.M. And the honest one is not entitled to— O.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? He is not the architect of his honesty. Y.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in training people to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it? 34

Mark Twain O.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and that is the main thing—to him. He is not a peril to his neighbors, he is not a damage to them—and so they get an advantage out of his virtues. That is the main thing to them. It can make this life comparatively comfortable to the parties concerned; the neglect of this training can make this life a constant peril and distress to the parties concerned. Y.M. You have said that training is everything; that train-

morning. I rang; and immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be careful and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully. I even chose the very word I would use: “You’ve forgotten the clean clothes, Jane.” When she appeared in the door I opened my mouth to say that phrase—and out of it, moved by an instant surge of ion which I was not expecting and hadn’t time to put under control, came the hot rebuke, “You’ve forgotten them again!” You say a man always does the thing which will

ing is the man himself, for it makes him what he is. O.M. I said training and another thing. Let that other thing , for the moment. What were you going to say? Y.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twentytwo years. Her service used to be faultless, but now she has

best please his Interior Master. Whence came the impulse to make careful preparation to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke? Did that come from the Master, who is always primarily concerned about himself? O.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any

become very forgetful. We are all fond of her; we all recognize that she cannot help the infirmity which age has brought her; the rest of the family do not scold her for her remissnesses, but at times I do—I can’t seem to control myself. Don’t I try? I do try. Now, then, when I was ready to dress, this morning, no clean clothes had been put out. I lost my temper; I lose it easiest and quickest in the early

impulse. Secondarily you made preparation to save the girl, but primarily its object was to save yourself, by contenting the Master. Y.M. How do you mean? O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to watch your temper and not fly out at the girl? Y.M. Yes. My mother. 35

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. You love her? Y.M. Oh, more than that! O.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her? Y.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her! O.M. Why? You would do it for pay, solely—for profit. What profit would you expect and certainly receive from the investment? Y.M. Personally? None. To please her is enough.

O.M. In order to get another profit which suddenly superseded it in value. Y.M. Where was it? O.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for a chance. Your native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front, and for the moment its influence was more powerful than your mother’s, and abolished it. In that instance you were eager to flash out a hot rebuke and enjoy it. You did enjoy it, didn’t you?

O.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, wasn’t to save the girl a humiliation, but to please your motehr. It also appears that to please your mother gives you a strong pleasure. Is not that the profit which you get out of the investment? Isn’t that the real profits and first profit?

Y.M. For—for a quarter of a second. Yes—I did. O.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will give you the most pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or fraction of a moment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the Master’s latest whim, what-

Y.M. Oh, well? Go on. O.M. In ALL transactions, the Interior Master looks to it that you get the first profit. Otherwise there is no transaction. Y.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and so intent upon it, why did I threw it away by losing my temper?

ever it may be. Y.M. But when the tears came into the old servant’s eyes I could have cut my hand off for what I had done. O.M. Right. You had humiliated yourself, you see, you had given yourself pain. Nothing is of first importance to a man except results which damage him or profit him—all the rest is secondary. Your Master was displeased with you, 36

Mark Twain although you had obeyed him. He required a prompt repentance; you obeyed again; you had to—there is never any escape from his commands. He is a hard master and fickle; he changes his mind in the fraction of a second, but you must be ready to obey, and you will obey, always. If he requires repentance, you content him, you will always furnish it. He must be nursed, petted, coddled, and kept contented, let the be what they may. Y.M. Training! Oh, what’s the use of it? Didn’t I, and

use in training. Keep on. Keeping faithfully on. You are doing well. Y.M. Will my reform reach perfection? O.M. It will. Up to your limit. Y.M. My limit? What do you mean by that? O.M. You that you said that I said training was everything. I corrected you, and said “training and another thing.” That other thing is temperament—that is, the disposition you were born with. You can’t eradicate your

didn’t my mother try to train me up to where I would no longer fly out at that girl? O.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding? Y.M. Oh, certainly—many times. O.M. More times this year than last?

dispostion nor any rag of it—you can only put a pressure on it and keep it down and quiet. You have a warm temper? Y.M. Yes. O.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching it you

Y.M. Yes, a good many more. O.M. More times last year than the year before? Y.M. Yes. O.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years? Y.M. Yes, undoubtedly. O.M. Then your question is answered. You see there is

can keep it down nearly all the time. Its presence is your limit. Your reform will never quite reach perfection, for your temper will beat you now and then, but you come near enough. You have made valuable progress and can make more. There is use in training. Immense use. Presently you will reach a new stage of development, then your progress will be easier; will proceed on asimpler basis, anyway. 37

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. Explain. O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please yourself by pleasing your mother; presently the mere triumphing over your temper will delight your vanity and confer a more delicious pleasure and satisfaction upon you than even the approbation of your mother confers upon you now. You will then labor for yourself directly and at first hand, not by the roundabout way through your mother. It simplifies the matter, and it also strengthens the impulse.

and would be a rebuke; she doesn’t deserve that—she is not to blame for the tricks her memory serves her.” I say— has my mother an Interior Master?—and where was he? O.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own peace and pleasure and contentment. The girl’s distress would have pained your mother. Otherwise the girl would have been rung up, distress and all. I know women who would have gotten a No. 1 pleasure out of ringing Jane up—and so they would infallibly have pushed the button

Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha’n’t ever reach the point where I will spare the girl for her sake primarily, not mine? O.M. Why—yes. In heaven. Y.M. (After a reflective pause) Temperament. Well, I see one must allow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure

and obeyed the law of their make and training, which are the servants of their Interior Masters. It is quite likely that a part of your mother’s forbearance came from training. The good kind of training—whose best and highest function is to see to it that every time it confers a satisfaction

enough. My mother is thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I was dressed I went to her room; she was not there; I called, she answered from the bathroom. I heard the water running. I inquired. She answered, without temper, that Jane had forgotten her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I offered to ring, but she said, “No, don’t do that; it would only distress her to be confronted with her lapse,

upon its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand upon others. Y.M. If you were going to condense into an onition your plan for the general betterment of the race’s condition, how would you word it?

38

Mark Twain Y.M. Explain. O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good, thus conceding that the Master inside of you must be conciliated and contented first, and that you will do nothing at first hand but for his sake; then they turn square around and require you to do good for other’s sake chiefly; and to do your duty for duty’s sake, chiefly; and to do acts of selfsacrifice. Thus at the outset we all stand upon the same ground—recognition of the supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in man, and we all grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others dodge and shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its persuasions to man’s second-place powers and to powers which have no existence in him, thus advancing them to first place; whereas in my onition I stick logically and consistently to the original position: I place the Interior Master’s requirements first, and keep them there. Y.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your scheme and the other schemes aim at and produce the same result— right living—has yours an advantage over the others?

A dmonition O.M. Diligently train your ideals upward and still upward toward a summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor and the community. Y.M. Is that a new gospel? O.M. No. Y.M. It has been taught before? O.M. For ten thousand years. Y.M. By whom? O.M. All the great religions—all the great gospels. Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it? O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time. That has not been done before. Y.M. How do you mean? O.M. Haven’t I put you first, and your neighbor and the community afterward? Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true. O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked; the difference between frankness and shuffling. 39

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. One, yes—a large one. It has no concealments, no deceptions. When a man leads a right and valuable life under it he is not deceived as to the real chief motive which impels him to it—in those other cases he is. Y.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a lofty life for a mean reason? In the other cases he lives the lofty life under the impression that he is living for a lofty reason. Is not that an advantage? O.M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might get out

O.M. At the standpoint of the other schemes: That it is good morals to let an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his pride’s sake, a pretty low motive, and go on doing them unwarned, lest if he were made acquainted with the actual motive which prompted them he might shut up his purse and cease to be good? Y.M. But isn’t it best to leave him in ignorance, as long as he thinks he is doing good for others’ sake? O.M. Perhaps so. It is the position of the other schemes.

of thinking himself a duke, and living a duke’s life and parading in ducal fuss and feathers, when he wasn’t a duke at all, and could find it out if he would only examine the herald’s records. Y.M. But anyway, he is obliged to do a duke’s part; he

They think humbug is good enough morals when the dividend on it is good deeds and handsome conduct. Y.M. It is my opinion that under your scheme of a man’s doing a good deed for his own sake first-off, instead of first for the good deed’s sake, no man would ever do one.

puts his hand in his pocket and does his benevolences on as big a scale as he can stand, and that benefits the community. O.M. He could do that without being a duke. Y.M. But would he? O.M. Don’t you see where you are arriving? Y.M. Where?

O.M. Have you committed a benevolence lately? Y.M. Yes. This morning. O.M. Give the particulars. Y.M. The cabin of the old negro woman who used to nurse me when I was a child and who saved my life once at the risk of her own, was burned last night, and she came mourning this morning, and pleading for money to build another one. 40

Mark Twain O.M. You furnished it? Y.M. Certainly. O.M. You were glad you had the money? Y.M. Money? I hadn’t. I sold my horse. O.M. You were glad you had the horse? Y.M. Of course I was; for if I hadn’t had the horse I should have been incapable, and my mothe would have captured the chance to set old Sally up. O.M. You were cordially glad you were not caught out

eyes open and recognizing and realizing that I was looking out for my share of the profits first. Now then, I have confessed. Go on. O.M. I haven’t anything to offer; you have covered the whole ground. Can you have been any more strongly moved to help Sally out of her trouble—could you have done the deed any more eagerly—if you had been under the delusion that you were doing it for her sake and profit only? Y.M. No! Nothing in the world could have made the

and incapable? Y.M. Oh, I just was! O.M. Now, then— Y.M. Stop where you are! I know your whole catalog of questions, and I could answer every one of them without

impulse which moved me more powerful, more masterful, more thoroughly irresistible. I played the limit! O.M. Very well. You begin to suspect—and I claim to know—that when a man is a shade more strongly moved to do one of two things or of two dozen things than he is to

your wasting the time to ask them; but I will summarize the whole thing in a single remark: I did the charity knowing it was because the act would give me a splendid pleasure, and because old Sally’s moving gratitude and delight would give ME another one; and because the reflection that she would be happy now and out of her trouble would fill ME full of happiness. I did the whole thing with my

do any one of the others, he will infallibly do that one thing, be it good or be it evil; and if it be good, not all the beguilements of all the casuistries can increase the strength of the impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the comfort and contentment he will get out of the act. Y.M. Then you believe that such tendency toward doing good as is in men’s hearts would not be diminished by the 41

What Is Man and Other Essays removal of the delusion that good deeds are done primarily for the sake of No. 2 instead of for the sake of No. 1? O.M. That is what I fully believe. Y.M. Doesn’t it somehow seem to take from the dignity of the deed? O.M. If there is dignity in falsity, it does. It removes that. Y.M. What is left for the moralists to do? O.M. Teach unreservedly what he already teaches with one side of his mouth and takes back with the other: Do

handling money—for instance—and that moves me to the crime? O.M. That, by itself? Oh, certainly not. It is merely the latest outside influence of a procession of preparatory influences stretching back over a period of years. No single outside influence can make a man do a thing which is at war with his training. The most it can do is to start his mind on a new tract and open it to the reception of new influences—as in the case of Ignatius Loyola. In time these

right for your own sake, and be happy in knowing that your neighbor will certainly share in the benefits resulting. Y.M. Repeat your onition. O.M. Diligently train your ideals upward and still upward toward a summit where you will find your chiefest

influences can train him to a point where it will be consonant with his new character to yield to the final influence and do that thing. I will put the case in a form which will make my theory clear to you, I think. Here are two ingots of virgin gold. They shall represent a couple of characters

pleasure in conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to conver benefits upon your neighbor and the community. Y.M. One’s every act proceeds from exterior influences, you think? O.M. Yes. Y.M. If I conclude to rob a person, I am not the originator of the idea, but it comes in from the outside? I see him

which have been refined and perfected in the virtues by years of diligent right training. Suppose you wanted to break down these strong and well-compacted characters—what influence would you bring to bear upon the ingots? Y.M. Work it out yourself. Proceed. O.M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam-jet during a long succession of hours. Will there be a result? 42

Mark Twain Y.M. None that I know of. O.M. Why? Y.M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a substance. O.M. Very well. The steam is an outside influence, but it is ineffective because the gold takes no interest in it. The ingot remains as it was. Suppose we add to the steam some quicksilver in a vaporized condition, and turn the jet upon the ingot, will there be an instantaneous result? Y.M. No.

Y.M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I understand, now. It is not the single outside influence that does the work, but only the last one of a long and disintegrating accumulation of them. I see, now, how my single impulse to rob the man is not the one that makes me do it, but only the last one of a preparatory series. You might illustrate with a parable. A PPar ar able arable

O.M. The quicksilver is an outside influence which gold (by its peculiar nature—say temperament, disposition) cannot be indifferent to. It stirs up the interest of the gold, although we do not perceive it; but a single application of the influence works no damage. Let us continue the appli-

O.M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys— twins. They were alike in good dispositions, feckless morals, and personal appearance. They were the models of the Sunday-school. At fifteen George had the opportunity to go as cabin-boy in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the Pacific. Henry remained at home in the village. At eighteen George was a sailor before the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible class. At twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and drinking-habits acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of the European and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and

cation in a steady stream, and call each minute a year. By the end of ten or twenty minutes—ten or twenty years— the little ingot is sodden with quicksilver, its virtues are gone, its character is degraded. At last it is ready to yield to a temptation which it would have taken no notice of, ten or twenty years ago. We will apply that temptation in the form of a pressure of my finger. You note the result? 43

What Is Man and Other Essays out of a job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sundayschool. At twenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor of the village church. Then George came home, and was Henry’s guest. One evening a man ed by and turned down the lane, and Henry said, with a pathetic smile, “Without intending me a discomfort, that man is always keeping me reminded of my pinching poverty, for he carries heaps of money about him, and goes by here every evening of his life.” That outside influence—

V bout the M achine Mor Moree AAbout Machine Note.—When Mrs. W. asks how can a millionaire give a single dollar to colleges and museums while one human being is destitute of bread, she has answered her question herself. Her feeling for the poor shows that she has a standard of benevolence; there she has conceded the millionaire’s privilege of having a standard; since she evidently requires him to adopt her standard, she is by that act requiring herself to adopt his. The human being always looks down when he is examining another person’s standard; he never find one that he has to examine by looking up.

that remark—was enough for George, but it was not the one that made him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented the eleven years’ accumulation of such influences, and gave birth to the act for which their long gestation had made preparation. It had never entered the head of Henry to rob the man—his ingot had been subjected to clean steam only; but George’s had been subjected to vaporized quicksilver.

T he M an-M achine AAgain gain Man-M an-Machine Young Man. You really think man is a mere machine? Old Man. I do. Y.M. And that his mind works automatically and is independent of his control—carries on thought on its own hook? 44

Mark Twain O.M. Yes. It is diligently at work, unceasingly at work, during every waking moment. Have you never tossed about all night, imploring, beseeching, commanding your mind to stop work and let you go to sleep?—you who perhaps imagine that your mind is your servant and must obey your orders, think what you tell it to think, and stop when you tell it to stop. When it chooses to work, there is no way to keep it still for an instant. The brightest man would not be able to supply it with subjects if he had to hunt them up. If

O.M. Not if it find another that suits it better. As a rule it will listen to neither a dull speaker nor a bright one. It refuses all persuasion. The dull speaker wearies it and sends it far away in idle dreams; the bright speaker throws out stimulating ideas which it goes chasing after and is at once unconscious of him and his talk. You cannot keep your mind from wandering, if it wants to; it is master, not you. A f t er an In Intt er ervv al of DDaa y s

it needed the man’s help it would wait for him to give it work when he wakes in the morning. Y.M. Maybe it does. O.M. No, it begins right away, before the man gets wide enough awake to give it a suggestion. He may go to sleep

O.M. Now, dreams—but we will examine that later. Meantime, did you try commanding your mind to wait for orders from you, and not do any thinking on its own hook? Y.M. Yes, I commanded it to stand ready to take orders when I should wake in the morning. O.M. Did it obey? Y.M. No. It went to thinking of something of its own initiation, without waiting for me. Also—as you suggested—at night I appointed a theme for it to begin on in the morning, and commanded it to begin on that one and no other.

saying, “The moment I wake I will think upon such and such a subject,” but he will fail. His mind will be too quick for him; by the time he has become nearly enough awake to be half conscious, he will find that it is already at work upon another subject. Make the experiment and see. Y.M. At any rate, he can make it stick to a subject if he wants to. 45

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. Did it obey? Y.M. No. O.M. How many times did you try the experiment? Y.M. Ten. O.M. How many successes did you score? Y.M. Not one. O.M. It is as I have said: the mind is independent of the man. He has no control over it; it does as it pleases. It will take up a subject in spite of him; it will stick to it in spite

me out and I got up haggard and wretched in the morning. O.M. At some time or other you have been captivated by a ridiculous rhyme-jingle? Y.M. Indeed, yes! “I saw Esau kissing Kate, And she saw I saw Esau; I saw Esau, he saw Kate, And she saw—”

of him; it will throw it aside in spite of him. It is entirely independent of him. Y.M. Go on. Illustrate. O.M. Do you know chess? Y.M. I learned it a week ago.

And so on. My mind went mad with joy over it. It repeated it all day and all night for a week in spite of all I could do to stop it, and it seemed to me that I must surely go crazy. O.M. And the new popular song?

O.M. Did your mind go on playing the game all night that first night? Y.M. Don’t mention it! O.M. It was eagerly, unsatisfiably interested; it rioted in the combinations; you implored it to drop the game and let you get some sleep? Y.M. Yes. It wouldn’t listen; it played right along. It wore

Y.M. Oh yes! “In the Swee-eet By and By”; etc. Yes, the new popular song with the taking melody sings through one’s head day and night, asleep and awake, till one is a wreck. There is no getting the mind to let it alone. O.M. Yes, asleep as well as awake. The mind is quite independent. It is master. You have nothing to do with it. It is so apart from you that it can conduct its affairs, sing 46

Mark Twain its songs, play its chess, weave its complex and ingeniously constructed dreams, while you sleep. It has no use for your help, no use for your guidance, and never uses either, whether you be asleep or awake. You have imagined that you could originate a thought in your mind, and you have sincerely believed you could do it. Y.M. Yes, I have had that idea. O.M. Yet you can’t originate a dream-thought for it to work out, and get it accepted?

Y.M. Yes. I have dreams that are like that. Dreams that are just like real life; dreams in which there are several persons with distinctly differentiated characters—inventions of my mind and yet strangers to me: a vulgar person; a refined one; a wise person; a fool; a cruel person; a kind and comionate one; a quarrelsome person; a peacemaker; old persons and young; beautiful girls and homely ones. They talk in character, each preserves his own characteristics. There are vivid fights, vivid and biting insults,

Y.M. No. O.M. And you can’t dictate its procedure after it has originated a dream-thought for itself? Y.M. No. No one can do it. Do you think the waking mind and the dream mind are the same machine?

vivid love-ages; there are tragedies and comedies, there are griefs that go to one’s heart, there are sayings and doings that make you laugh: indeed, the whole thing is exactly like real life. O.M. Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, con-

O.M. There is argument for it. We have wild and fantastic day-thoughts? Things that are dream-like? Y.M. Yes—like Mr. Wells’s man who invented a drug that made him invisible; and like the Arabian tales of the Thousand Nights. O.M. And there are dreams that are rational, simple, consistent, and unfantastic?

sistently and artistically develops it, and carries the little drama creditably through—all without help or suggestion from you? Y.M. Yes. O.M. It is argument that it could do the like awake without help or suggestion from you—and I think it does. It is argument that it is the same old mind in both cases, and 47

What Is Man and Other Essays never needs your help. I think the mind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an automatic machine. Have you tried the other experiment which I suggested to you? Y.M. Which one? O.M. The one which was to determine how much influence you have over your mind—if any. Y.M. Yes, and got more or less entertainment out of it. I did as you ordered: I placed two texts before my eyes—

thirty-five cents, and D and A together owe E and B threesixteenths of—of—I don’t the rest, now, but anyway it was wholly uninteresting, and I could not force my mind to stick to it even half a minute at a time; it kept flying off to the other text. O.M. What was the other text? Y.M. It is no matter about that. O.M. But what was it? Y.M. A photograph.

one a dull one and barren of interest, the other one full of interest, inflamed with it, white-hot with it. I commanded my mind to busy itself solely with the dull one. O.M. Did it obey? Y.M. Well, no, it didn’t. It busied itself with the other

O.M. Your own? Y.M. No. It was hers. O.M. You really made an honest good test. Did you make a second trial? Y.M. Yes. I commanded my mind to interest itself in the

one. O.M. Did you try hard to make it obey? Y.M. Yes, I did my honest best. O.M. What was the text which it refused to be interested in or think about? Y.M. It was this question: If A owes B a dollar and a half, and B owes C two and three-quarter, and C owes A

morning paper’s report of the pork-market, and at the same time I reminded it of an experience of mine of sixteen years ago. It refused to consider the pork and gave its whole blazing interest to that ancient incident. O.M. What was the incident? Y.M. An armed desperado slapped my face in the presence of twenty spectators. It makes me wild and murder48

Mark Twain ous every time I think of it. O.M. Good tests, both; very good tests. Did you try my other suggestion? Y.M. The one which was to prove to me that if I would leave my mind to its own devices it would find things to think about without any of my help, and thus convince me that it was a machine, an automatic machine, set in motion by exterior influences, and as independent of me as it could be if it were in some one else’s skull. Is that the one?

mutely profane; saw the silent congregation quivering like jelly, and the tears running down their faces. I saw it all. The sight of the tears whisked my mind to a far distant and a sadder scene—in Terra del Fuego—and with Darwin’s eyes I saw a naked great savage hurl his little boy against the rocks for a trifling fault; saw the poor mother gather up her dying child and hug it to her breast and weep, uttering no word. Did my mind stop to mourn with that nude black sister of mine? No—it was far away from that scene

O.M. Yes. Y.M. I tried it. I was shaving. I had slept well, and my mind was very lively, even gay and frisky. It was reveling in a fantastic and joyful episode of my remote boyhood which had suddenly flashed up in my memory—moved to this by

in an instant, and was busying itself with an ever-recurring and disagreeable dream of mine. In this dream I always find myself, stripped to my shirt, cringing and dodging about in the midst of a great drawing-room throng of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, and wondering how I got

the spectacle of a yellow cat picking its way carefully along the top of the garden wall. The color of this cat brought the bygone cat before me, and I saw her walking along the side-step of the pulpit; saw her walk on to a large sheet of sticky fly-paper and get all her feet involved; saw her struggle and fall down, helpless and dissatisfied, more and more urgent, more and more unreconciled, more and more

there. And so on and so on, picture after picture, incident after incident, a drifting panorama of ever-changing, everdissolving views manufactured by my mind without any help from me—why, it would take me two hours to merely name the multitude of things my mind tallied off and photographed in fifteen minutes, let alone describe them to you. 49

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. A man’s mind, left free, has no use for his help. But there is one way whereby he can get its help when he desires it. Y.M. What is that way? O.M. When your mind is racing along from subject to subject and strikes an inspiring one, open your mouth and begin talking upon that matter—or—take your pen and use that. It will interest your mind and concentrate it, and it will pursue the subject with satisfaction. It will take full

Y.M. You really think a man originates nothing, creates nothing. ess ing-P T he T hink ocess hinking-P ing-Prr oc O.M. I do. Men perceive, and their brain-machines automatically combine the things perceived. That is all. Y.M. The steam-engine? O.M. It takes fifty men a hundred years to invent it. One meaning of invent is discover. I use the word in that sense. Little by little they discover and apply the multitude of details that go to make the perfect engine. Watt noticed that confined steam was strong enough to lift the lid of the teapot. He didn’t create the idea, he merely discovered the fact; the cat had noticed it a hundred times. From the teapot he evolved the cylinder—from the displaced lid he evolved the piston-rod. To attach something to the pistonrod to be moved by it, was a simple matter—crank and wheel. And so there was a working engine.*

charge, and furnish the words itself. Y.M. But don’t I tell it what to say? O.M. There are certainly occasions when you haven’t time. The words leap out before you know what is coming. Y.M. For instance? O.M. Well, take a “flash of wit”—repartee. Flash is the right word. It is out instantly. There is no time to arrange the words. There is no thinking, no reflecting. Where there is a wit-mechanism it is automatic in its action and needs no help. Where the whit-mechanism is lacking, no amount of study and reflection can manufacture the product.

*The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a century earlier. 50

Mark Twain One by one, improvements were discovered by men who used their eyes, not their creating powers—for they hadn’t any—and now, after a hundred years the patient contributions of fifty or a hundred observers stand compacted in the wonderful machine which drives the ocean liner. Y.M. A Shakespearean play? O.M. The process is the same. The first actor was a savage. He reproduced in his theatrical war-dances, scalpdances, and so on, incidents which he had seen in real life.

gets into a trap; gets out with trouble; infers that cheese in traps lacks value, and meddles with that trap no more. The astronomer is very proud of his achievement, the rat is proud of his. Yet both are machines; they have done machine work, they have originated nothing, they have no right to be vain; the whole credit belongs to their Maker. They are entitled to no honors, no praises, no monuments when they die, no remembrance. One is a complex and elaborate machine, the other a simple and limited machine,

A more advanced civilization produced more incidents, more episodes; the actor and the story-teller borrowed them. And so the drama grew, little by little, stage by stage. It is made up of the facts of life, not creations. It took centuries to develop the Greek drama. It borrowed from preceding

but they are alike in principle, function, and process, and neither of them works otherwise than automatically, and neither of them may righteously claim a personal superiority or a personal dignity above the other. Y.M. In earned personal dignity, then, and in personal

ages; it lent to the ages that came after. Men observe and combine, that is all. So does a rat. Y.M. How? O.M. He observes a smell, he infers a cheese, he seeks and finds. The astronomer observes this and that; adds his this and that to the this-and-thats of a hundred predecessors, infers an invisible planet, seeks it and finds it. The rat

merit for what he does, it follows of necessity that he is on the same level as a rat? O.M. His brother the rat; yes, that is how it seems to me. Neither of them being entitled to any personal merit for what he does, it follows of necessity that neither of them has a right to arrogate to himself (personally created) superiorities over his brother. 51

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. Are you determined to go on believing in these insanities? Would you go on believing in them in the face of able arguments backed by collated facts and instances? O.M. I have been a humble, earnest, and sincere TruthSeeker. Y.M. Very well? O.M. The humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker is always convertible by such means. Y.M. I am thankful to God to hear you say this, for now

hammedan a Mohammedan, the Spiritualist a Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble, earnest, and sincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the proposition that the moon is made of green cheese nothing could ever budge him from that position; for he is nothing but an automatic machine, and must obey the laws of his construction. Y.M. After so—

I know that your conversion— O.M. Wait. You misunderstand. I said I have BEEN a Truth-Seeker. Y.M. Well? O.M. I am not that now. Have your forgotten? I told you

O.M. Having found the Truth; perceiving that beyond question man has but one moving impulse—the contenting of his own spirit—and is merely a machine and entitled to no personal merit for anything he does, it is not humanly possible for me to seek further. The rest of my

that there are none but temporary Truth-Seekers; that a permanent one is a human impossibility; that as soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with, and make it weather-proof and keep it from caving in on him. Hence the Presbyterian remains a Presbyterian, the Mo-

days will be spent in patching and painting and puttying and caulking my priceless possession and in looking the other way when an imploring argument or a damaging fact approaches.

52

Mark Twain VI

O.M. In form—not a degree. Y.M. Explain. O.M. I think that the rat’s mind and the man’s mind are the same machine, but of unequal capacities—like yours and Edison’s; like the African pygmy’s and Homer’s; like the Bushman’s and Bismarck’s. Y.M. How are you going to make that out, when the lower animals have no mental quality but instinct, while man possesses reason? O.M. What is instinct? Y.M. It is merely unthinking and mechanical exercise of inherited habit. O.M. What originated the habit? Y.M. The first animal started it, its descendants have inherited it. O.M. How did the first one come to start it? Y.M. I don’t know; but it didn’t THINK it out. O.M. How do you know it didn’t? Y.M. Well—I have a right to suppose it didn’t, anyway. O.M. I don’t believe you have. What is thought? Y.M. I know what you call it: the mechanical and auto-

Instinc Instinctt and T hough houghtt Young Man. It is odious. Those drunken theories of yours, advanced a while ago—concerning the rat and all that— strip Man bare of all his dignities, grandeurs, sublimities. Old Man. He hasn’t any to strip—they are shams, stolen clothes. He claims credits which belong solely to his Maker. Y.M. But you have no right to put him on a level with a rat. O.M. I don’t—morally. That would not be fair to the rat. The rat is well above him, there. Y.M. Are you joking? O.M. No, I am not. Y.M. Then what do you mean? O.M. That comes under the head of the Moral Sense. It is a large question. Let us finish with what we are about now, before we take it up. Y.M. Very well. You have seemed to concede that you place Man and the rat on A level. What is it? The intellectual? 53

What Is Man and Other Essays matic putting together of impressions received from outside, and drawing an inference from them. O.M. Very good. Now my idea of the meaningless term “instinct” is, that it is merely petrified thought; solidified and made inanimate by habit; thought which was once alive and awake, but it become unconscious—walks in its sleep, so to speak. Y.M. Illustrate it. O.M. Take a herd of cows, feeding in a pasture. Their

reason wider: he would face part of the herd the other way and protect both front and rear. Y.M. Did you stay the term instinct is meaningless? O.M. I think it is a bastard word. I think it confuses us; for as a rule it applies itself to habits and impulses which had a far-off origin in thought, and now and then breaks the rule and applies itself to habits which can hardly claim a thought-origin. Y.M. Give an instance.

heads are all turned in one direction. They do that instinctively; they gain nothing by it, they have no reason for it, they don’t know why they do it. It is an inherited habit which was originally thought—that is to say, observation of an exterior fact, and a valuable inference drawn from

O.M. Well, in putting on tros a man always inserts the same old leg first—never the other one. There is no advantage in that, and no sense in it. All men do it, yet no man thought it out and adopted it of set purpose, I imagine. But it is a habit which is transmitted, no doubt, and

that observation and confirmed by experience. The original wild ox noticed that with the wind in his favor he could smell his enemy in time to escape; then he inferred that it was worth while to keep his nose to the wind. That is the process which man calls reasoning. Man’s thought-machine works just like the other animals’, but it is a better one and more Edisonian. Man, in the ox’s place, would go further,

will continue to be transmitted. Y.M. Can you prove that the habit exists? O.M. You can prove it, if you doubt. If you will take a man to a clothing-store and watch him try on a dozen pairs of tros, you will see. Y.M. The cow illustration is not— O.M. Sufficient to show that a dumb animal’s mental 54

Mark Twain machine is just the same as a man’s and its reasoning processes the same? I will illustrate further. If you should hand Mr. Edison a box which you caused to fly open by some concealed device he would infer a spring, and would hunt for it and find it. Now an uncle of mine had an old horse who used to get into the closed lot where the corn-crib was and dishonestly take the corn. I got the punishment myself, as it was supposed that I had heedlessly failed to insert the wooden pin which kept the gate closed. These persis-

vacant. He infers that his host has moved. A while afterward, in another town, he sees the man enter a house; he infers that that is the new home, and follows to inquire. Here, now, is the experience of a gull, as related by a naturalist. The scene is a Scotch fishing village where the gulls were kindly treated. This particular gull visited a cottage; was fed; came next day and was fed again; came into the house, next time, and ate with the family; kept on doing this almost daily, thereafter. But, once the gull was away

tent punishments fatigued me; they also caused me to infer the existence of a culprit, somewhere; so I hid myself and watched the gate. Presently the horse came and pulled the pin out with his teeth and went in. Nobody taught him that; he had observed—then thought it out for himself.

on a journey for a few days, and when it returned the house was vacant. Its friends had removed to a village three miles distant. Several months later it saw the head of the family on the street there, followed him home, entered the house without excuse or apology, and became a daily guest again.

His process did not differ from Edison’s; he put this and that together and drew an inference—and the peg, too; but I made him sweat for it. Y.M. It has something of the seeming of thought about it. Still it is not very elaborate. Enlarge. O.M. Suppose Mr. Edison has been enjoying some one’s hospitalities. He comes again by and by, and the house is

Gulls do not rank high mentally, but this one had memory and the reasoning faculty, you see, and applied them Edisonially. Y.M. Yet it was not an Edison and couldn’t be developed into one. O.M. Perhaps not. Could you? Y.M. That is neither here nor there. Go on. 55

What Is Man and Other Essays O.M. If Edison were in trouble and a stranger helped him out of it and next day he got into the same difficulty again, he would infer the wise thing to do in case he knew the stranger’s address. Here is a case of a bird and a stranger as related by a naturalist. An Englishman saw a bird flying around about his dog’s head, down in the grounds, and uttering cries of distress. He went there to see about it. The dog had a young bird in his mouth—unhurt. The gentleman rescued it and put it on a bush and brought the

Her mental processes were what Edison’s would have been. She put this and that together—and that is all that thought is—and out of them built her logical arrangement of inferences. Edison couldn’t have done it any better himself. Y.M. Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think? O.M. Yes—the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the parrot, the macaw, the mocking-bird, and many others. The elephant whose mate fell into a pit, and who

dog away. Early the next morning the mother bird came for the gentleman, who was sitting on his veranda, and by its maneuvers persuaded him to follow it to a distant part of the grounds—flying a little way in front of him and waiting for him to catch up, and so on; and keeping to the

dumped dirt and rubbish into the pit till bottom was raised high enough to enable the captive to step out, was equipped with the reasoning quality. I conceive that all animals that can learn things through teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and put this and that together and draw

winding path, too, instead of flying the near way across lots. The distance covered was four hundred yards. The same dog was the culprit; he had the young bird again, and once more he had to give it up. Now the mother bird had reasoned it all out: since the stranger had helped her once, she inferred that he would do it again; she knew where to find him, and she went upon her errand with confidence.

an inference—the process of thinking. Could you teach an idiot of manuals of arms, and to advance, retreat, and go through complex field maneuvers at the word of command? Y.M. Not if he were a thorough idiot. O.M. Well, canary-birds can learn all that; dogs and elephants learn all sorts of wonderful things. They must surely be able to notice, and to put things together, and say to 56

Mark Twain themselves, “I get the idea, now: when I do so and so, as per order, I am praised and fed; when I do differently I am punished.” Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can. Y.M. Granting, then, that dumb animals are able to think upon a low plane, is there any that can think upon a high one? Is there one that is well up toward man? O.M. Yes. As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in

would have done it and drew the same inferences that he would have drawn. Their mental machinery was just like his, also its manner of working. Their equipment was as inferior to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference—there is no frontier. Y.M. It looks exasperatingly true; and is distinctly offensive. It elevates the dumb beasts to—to— O.M. Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the Unrevealed Creatures; so far as we can know, there is no

several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized! Y.M. Oh, come! you are abolishing the intellectual frontier which separates man and beast.

such thing as a dumb beast. Y.M. On what grounds do you make that assertion? O.M. On quite simple ones. “Dumb” beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind.

O.M. I beg your pardon. One cannot abolish what does not exist. Y.M. You are not in earnest, I hope. You cannot mean to seriously say there is no such frontier. O.M. I do say it seriously. The instances of the horse, the gull, the mother bird, and the elephant show that those creatures put their this’s and thats together just as Edison

We know that a hen has speech. We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases. We know when she is saying, “I have laid an egg”; we know when she is saying to the chicks, “Run here, dears, I’ve found a worm”; we know what she is saying when she voices a warning: “Quick! hurry! gather yourselves under mamma, there’s a hawk coming!” We understand the cat 57

What Is Man and Other Essays when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and contentment and lifts up a soft voice and says, “Come, kitties, supper’s ready”; we understand her when she goes mourning about and says, “Where can they be? They are lost. Won’t you help me hunt for them?” and we understand the disreputable Tom when he challenges at midnight from his shed, “You come over here, you product of immoral commerce, and I’ll make your fur fly!” We understand a few of a dog’s phrases and we learn to understand a few of the re-

O.M. That is what she surely does. In all his history the aboriginal Australian never thought out a house for himself and built it. The ant is an amazing architect. She is a wee little creature, but she builds a strong and enduring house eight feet high—a house which is as large in proportion to her size as is the largest capitol or cathedral in the world compared to man’s size. No savage race has produced architects who could approach the air in genius or culture. No civilized race has produced architects who could plan a

marks and gestures of any bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe. The clearness and exactness of the few of the hen’s speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend—in a word, that she can converse.

house better for the uses proposed than can hers. Her house contains a throne-room; nurseries for her young; granaries; apartments for her soldiers, her workers, etc.; and they and the multifarious halls and corridors which communicate with them are arranged and distributed with an edu-

And this argument is also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the Unrevealed. It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Now as to the ant— Y.M. Yes, go back to the ant, the creature that—as you seem to think—sweeps away the last vestige of an intellectual frontier between man and the Unrevealed.

cated and experienced eye for convenience and adaptability. Y.M. That could be mere instinct. O.M. It would elevate the savage if he had it. But let us look further before we decide. The ant has soldiers—battalions, regiments, armies; and they have their appointed captains and generals, who lead them to battle. 58

Mark Twain Y.M. That could be instinct, too. O.M. We will look still further. The ant has a system of government; it is well planned, elaborate, and is well carried on. Y.M. Instinct again. O.M. She has crowds of slaves, and is a hard and unjust employer of forced labor. Y.M. Instinct. O.M. She has cows, and milks them.

For a time the sober ants did as they had done at first— carried their friends home and threw the strangers overboard. But finally they lost patience, seeing that their reformatory efforts went for nothing, and threw both friends and strangers overboard. Come—is this instinct, or is it thoughtful and intelligent discussion of a thing new—absolutely new—to their experience; with a verdict arrived at, sentence ed, and judgment executed? Is it instinct?— thought petrified by ages of habit—or isn’t it brand-new

Y.M. Instinct, of course. O.M. In Texas she lays out a farm twelve feet square, plants it, weeds it, cultivates it, gathers the crop and stores it away. Y.M. Instinct, all the same.

thought, inspired by the new occasion, the new circumstances? Y.M. I have to concede it. It was not a result of habit; it has all the look of reflection, thought, putting this and that together, as you phrase it. I believe it was thought.

O.M. The ant discriminates between friend and stranger. Sir John Lubbock took ants from two different nests, made them drunk with whiskey and laid them, unconscious, by one of the nests, near some water. Ants from the nest came and examined and discussed these disgraced creatures, then carried their friends home and threw the strangers overboard. Sir John repeated the experiment a number of times.

O.M. I will give you another instance of thought. Franklin had a cup of sugar on a table in his room. The ants got at it. He tried several preventives; and ants rose superior to them. Finally he contrived one which shut off access—probably set the table’s legs in pans of water, or drew a circle of tar around the cup, I don’t . At any rate, he watched to see what they would do. They tried various 59

What Is Man and Other Essays schemes—failures, every one. The ants were badly puzzled. Finally they held a consultation, discussed the problem, arrived at a decision—and this time they beat that great philosopher. They formed in procession, cross the floor, climbed the wall, marched across the ceiling to a point just over the cup, then one by one they let go and fell down into it! Was that instinct—thought petrified by ages of inherited habit? Y.M. No, I don’t believe it was. I believe it was a newly

by color, for painted ants were recognized. Not by smell, for ants that had been dipped in chloroform were recognized. Not by speech and not by antennae signs nor s, for the drunken and motionless ants were recognized and the friend discriminated from the stranger. The ants were all of the same species, therefore the friends had to be recognized by form and feature—friends who formed part of a hive of five hundred thousand! Has any man a memory for form and feature approaching that?

reasoned scheme to meet a new emergency. O.M. Very well. You have conceded the reasoning power in two instances. I come now to a mental detail wherein the ant is a long way the superior of any human being. Sir John Lubbock proved by many experiments that an ant

Y.M. Certainly not. O.M. Franklin’s ants and Lubbuck’s ants show fine capacities of putting this and that together in new and untried emergencies and deducting smart conclusions from the combinations—a man’s mental process exactly. With

knows a stranger ant of her own species in a moment, even when the stranger is disguised —with paint. Also he proved that an ant knows every individual in her hive of five hundred thousand souls. Also, after a year’s absence one of the five hundred thousand she will straightway recognize the returned absentee and grace the recognition with a affectionate welcome. How are these recognitions made? Not

memory to help, man preserves his observations and reasonings, reflects upon them, adds to them, recombines, and so proceeds, stage by stage, to far results—from the teakettle to the ocean greyhound’s complex engine; from personal labor to slave labor; from wigwam to palace; from the capricious chase to agriculture and stored food; from nomadic life to stable government and concentrated au60

Mark Twain thority; from incoherent hordes to massed armies. The ant has observation, the reasoning faculty, and the preserving adjunct of a prodigious memory; she has duplicated man’s development and the essential features of his civilization, and you call it all instinct! Y.M. Perhaps I lacked the reasoning faculty myself. O.M. Well, don’t tell anybody, and don’t do it again. Y.M. We have come a good way. As a result—as I understand it—I am required to concede that there is absolutely

pendous magnitude between them, except in quality, not in kind. O.M. That is about the state of it—intellectuality. There are pronounced limitations on both sides. We can’t learn to understand much of their language, but the dog, the elephant, etc., learn to understand a very great deal of ours. To that extent they are our superiors. On the other hand, they can’t learn reading, writing, etc., nor any of our fine and high things, and there we have a large advantage over them.

no intellectual frontier separating Man and the Unrevealed Creatures? O.M. That is what you are required to concede. There is no such frontier—there is no way to get around that. Man has a finer and more capable machine in him than those

Y.M. Very well, let them have what they’ve got, and welcome; there is still a wall, and a lofty one. They haven’t got the Moral Sense; we have it, and it lifts us immeasurably above them. O.M. What makes you think that?

others, but it is the same machine and works in the same way. And neither he nor those others can command the machine—it is strictly automatic, independent of control, works when it pleases, and when it doesn’t please, it can’t be forced. Y.M. Then man and the other animals are all alike, as to mental machinery, and there isn’t any difference of any stu-

Y.M. Now look here—let’s call a halt. I have stood the other infamies and insanities and that is enough; I am not going to have man and the other animals put on the same level morally. O.M. I wasn’t going to hoist man up to that. Y.M. This is too much! I think it is not right to jest about such things. 61

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. Any one but you would say that the man determined it, and that in doing it he exercised Free Will. O.M. We are constantly assured that every man is endowed with Free Will, and that he can and must exercise it where he is offered a choice between good conduct and less-good conduct. Yet we clearly saw that in that man’s case he really had no Free Will: his temperament, his training, and the daily influences which had molded him and made him what he was, compelled him to rescue the old woman and thus save himself—save himself from spiritual pain, from unendurable wretchedness. He did not make the choice, it was made for him by forces which he could not control. Free Will has always existed in words, but it stops there, I think—stops short of fact. I would not use those words—Free Will—but others. Y.M. What others? O.M. Free Choice. Y.M. What is the difference? O.M. The one implies untrammeled power to act as you please, the other implies nothing beyond a mere mantal process: the critical ability to determine which of two things is nearest right and just.

O.M. I am not jesting, I am merely reflecting a plain and simple truth—and without uncharitableness. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot. It is my belief that this position is not assailable. F r ee W ill Y.M. What is your opinion regarding Free Will? O.M. That there is no such thing. Did the man possess it who gave the old woman his last shilling and trudged home in the storm? Y.M. He had the choice between succoring the old woman and leaving her to suffer. Isn’t it so? O.M. Yes, there was a choice to be made, between bodily comfort on the one hand and the comfort of the spirit on the other. The body made a strong appeal, of course—the body would be quite sure to do that; the spirit made a counter appeal. A choice had to be made between the two appeals, and was made. Who or what determined that choice? 62

Mark Twain Y.M. Make the difference clear, please. O.M. The mind can freely select, choose, point out the right and just one—its function stops there. It can go no further in the matter. It has no authority to say that the right one shall be acted upon and the wrong one discarded. That authority is in other hands. Y.M. The man’s? O.M. In the machine which stands for him. In his born disposition and the character which has been built around

hasn’t. It is merely a thermometer: it s the heat and the cold, and cares not a farthing about either. Y.M. Then we must not claim that if a man knows which of two things is right he is absolutely bound to do that thing? O.M. His temperament and training will decide what he shall do, and he will do it; he cannot help himself, he has no authority over the mater. Wasn’t it right for David to go out and slay Goliath? Y.M. Yes.

it by training and environment. Y.M. It will act upon the right one of the two? O.M. It will do as it pleases in the matter. George Washington’s machine would act upon the right one; Pizarro would act upon the wrong one.

O.M. Then it would have been equally right for any one else to do it? Y.M. Certainly. O.M. Then it would have been right for a born coward to attempt it?

Y.M. Then as I understand it a bad man’s mental machinery calmly and judicially points out which of two things is right and just— O.M. Yes, and his moral machinery will freely act upon the other or the other, according to its make, and be quite indifferent to the mind’s feeling concerning the matter— that is, would be, if the mind had any feelings; which it

Y.M. It would—yes. O.M. You know that no born coward ever would have attempted it, don’t you? Y.M. Yes. O.M. You know that a born coward’s make and temperament would be an absolute and insurmountable bar to his ever essaying such a thing, don’t you? 63

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. Yes, I know it. O.M. He clearly perceives that it would be right to try it? Y.M. Yes. O.M. His mind has Free Choice in determining that it would be right to try it? Y.M. Yes. O.M. Then if by reason of his inborn cowardice he simply can not essay it, what becomes of his Free Will? Where is his Free Will? Why claim that he has Free Will when the

sess Free Will—will that may do the right or do the wrong, as their mental verdict shall decide. ut Only One N ot Tw o Values alues,, BBut Y.M. There is one thing which bothers me: I can’t tell where you draw the line between material covetousness and spiritual covetousness. O.M. I don’t draw any. Y.M. How do you mean?

plain facts show that he hasn’t? Why content that because he and David see the right alike, both must act alike? Why impose the same laws upon goat and lion? Y.M. There is really no such thing as Free Will? O.M. It is what I think. There is will. But it has nothing

O.M. There is no such thing as material covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual Y.M. ALL longings, desires, ambitions spiritual, never material? O.M. Yes. The Master in you requires that in all cases you shall content his spirit—that alone. He never requires anything else, he never interests himself in any other matter. Y.M. Ah, come! When he covets somebody’s money— isn’t that rather distinctly material and gross? O.M. No. The money is merely a symbol—it represents in visible and concrete form a spiritual desire. Any so-called

to do with intellectual perceptions of right and wrong, and is not under their command. David’s temperament and training had Will, and it was a compulsory force; David had to obey its decrees, he had no choice. The coward’s temperament and training possess Will, and IT is compulsory; it commands him to avoid danger, and he obeys, he has no choice. But neither the Davids nor the cowards pos64

Mark Twain material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment. Y.M. Please particularize. O.M. Very well. Maybe the thing longed for is a new hat. You get it and your vanity is pleased, your spirit contented. Suppose your friends deride the hat, make fun of it: at once it loses its value; you are ashamed of it, you put it out of your sight, you never want to see it again.

you think you desire it for its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it for the spiritual content it will bring; if it fail of that, you discover that its value is gone. There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored like a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had accumulated a fortune, and was happy over it, jubilant about it; then in a single week a pestilence swept away all whom he held dear and left him desolate. His money’s value was gone. He realized that his joy in it came not from the money itself, but from the

Y.M. I think I see. Go on. O.M. It is the same hat, isn’t it? It is in no way altered. But it wasn’t the hat you wanted, but only what it stood for—a something to please and content your spirit. When it failed of that, the whole of its value was gone. There are

spiritual contentment he got out of his family’s enjoyment of the pleasures and delights it lavished upon them. Money has no material value; if you remove its spiritual value nothing is left but dross. It is so with all things, little or big, majestic or trivial—there are no exceptions. Crowns, scep-

no material values; there are only spiritual ones. You will hunt in vain for a material value that is actual, real—there is no such thing. The only value it possesses, for even a moment, is the spiritual value back of it: remove that end and it is at once worthless—like the hat. Y.M. Can you extend that to money? O.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has no material value;

ters, pennies, paste jewels, village notoriety, world-wide fame—they are all the same, they have no material value: while they content the spirit they are precious, when this fails they are worthless.

65

What Is Man and Other Essays

Y.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all the time by your elusive terminology. Sometimes you divide a man up into two or three separate personalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can’t grasp it. Now when _I_ speak of a man, he is the whole thing in one, and easy to hold and contemplate.

Y.M. I think it must consist of just those two parts—the body and the mind. O.M. You think so? If you say “I believe the world is round,” who is the “I” that is speaking? Y.M. The mind. O.M. If you say “I grieve for the loss of my father,” who is the “I”? Y.M. The mind. O.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when

O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of “my body” who is the “my”? Y.M. It is the “me.” O.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?

it examines and accepts the evidence that the world is round? Y.M. Yes. O.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it grieves for the loss of your father? Y.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter

Y.M. The Me is the whole thing; it is a common property; an undivided ownership, vested in the whole entity. O.M. If the Me ires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that ires it, including the hair, hands, heels, and all? Y.M. Certainly not. It is my mind that ires it. O.M. So you divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must. What, then, definitely, is the Me?

of feeling. O.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your moral territory? Y.M. I have to grant it. O.M. Is your mind a part of your physical equipment? Y.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual. O.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?

A DDifficult ifficult QQuestion uestion

66

Mark Twain Y.M. No. O.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk? Y.M. Well—no. O.M. There is a physical effect present, then? Y.M. It looks like it. O.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why should it happen if the mind is spiritual, and independent of physical influences?

cases we find that the Me is not speaking, but only the mental part. You say, “I grieve,” and again the Me is not all speaking, but only the moral part. You say the mind is wholly spiritual; then you say “I have a pain” and find that this time the Me is mental and spiritual combined. We all use the “I” in this indeterminate fashion, there is no help for it. We imagine a Master and King over what you call The Whole Thing, and we speak of him as “I,” but when we try to define him we find we cannot do it. The intellect

Y.M. Well—I don’t know. O.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it? Y.M. I feel it. O.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt

and the feelings can act quite independently of each other; we recognize that, and we look around for a Ruler who is master over both, and can serve as a definite and indisputable “I,” and enable us to know what we mean and who or what we are talking about when we use that pronoun, but

to the brain. Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not? Y.M. I think so. O.M. But isn’t spiritual enough to learn what is happening in the outskirts without the help of the physical messenger? You perceive that the question of who or what the Me is, is not a simple one at all. You say “I ire the rainbow,” and “I believe the world is round,” and in these

we have to give it up and confess that we cannot find him. To me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral and mental ones acting automatically in accordance with the impulses of an interior Master who is built out of born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a machine whose one function is to secure the spiritual contentment of the 67

What Is Man and Other Essays Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will is absolute and must be obeyed, and always is obeyed. Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul? O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul? Y.M. I don’t know. O.M. Neither does any one else.

Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking out for its own contentment, and not for the man’s good. O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man’s good, and never concerns itself about it. Y.M. It seems to be an immoral force seated in the man’s moral constitution. O.M. It is a colories force seated in the man’s moral constitution. Let us call it an instinct—a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot and does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares nothing for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured; and it will always secure that. Y.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an advantage for the man? O.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power, nor office, nor any other material advantage. In all cases it seeks a spiritual contentment, let the means be what they may. Its desires are determined by the man’s temperament—and it is lord over that. Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are, in fact, the same thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared nothing for money?

T he M ast er Pion assion Mast aster Y.M. What is the Master?—or, in common speech, the Conscience? Explain it. O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the man to content its desires. It may be called the Master ion—the hunger for Self-Approval. Y.M. Where is its seat? O.M. In man’s moral constitution. Y.M. Are its commands for the man’s good? O.M. It is indifferent to the man’s good; it never concerns itself about anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be trained to prefer things which will be for the man’s good, but it will prefer them only because they will content it better than other things would. 68

Mark Twain Y.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave his garret and his books to take a place in a business house at a large salary. O.M. He had to satisfy his master—that is to say, his temperament, his Spiritual Appetite—and it preferred books to money. Are there other cases? Y.M. Yes, the hermit. O.M. It is a good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold, and manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things, and prayer and contemplation,

tions and distinctions of public office as there are that hunger after them. The one set of Temperaments seek the contentment of the spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly the case with the other set. Neither set seeks anything but the contentment of the spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and equally so, since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases. And in both cases Temperament decides the preference—and Temperament is born, not made.

to money or to any show or luxury that money can buy. Are there others? Y.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist. O.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures of these occupations, either well paid or ill paid, to any others in

C onclusion O.M. You have been taking a holiday? Y.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week. Are you ready to talk? O.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin with? Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I have thought over all these talks, and ed them carefully in review. With this result: that . . . that . . . are you intending to publish your notions about Man some day? O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master inside of me has half-intended to order me to set

the market, at any price. You realize that the Master ion—the contentment of the spirit—concerns itself with many things besides so-called material advantage, material prosperity, cash, and all that? Y.M. I think I must concede it. O.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps as many Temperaments that would refuse the burdens and vexa69

What Is Man and Other Essays them to paper and publish them. Do I have to tell you why the order has remained unissued, or can you explain so simply a thing without my help? Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside influences moved your interior Master to give the order; stronger outside influences deterred him. Without the outside influences, neither of these impulses could ever have been born, since a person’s brain is incapable or originating an idea within itself.

ences—in the form of lifelong teachings, trainings, notions, prejudices, and other second-hand importations—have persuaded the Master within you that the publication of these doctrines would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural, and was to be expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of ease and convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, and tell me what your Master thinks about it. Y.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is not inspiring, enthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of man,

O.M. Correct. Go on. Y.M. The matter of publishing or withholding is still in your Master’s hands. If some day an outside influence shall determine him to publish, he will give the order, and it will be obeyed.

it takes the pride out of him, it takes the heroism out of him, it denies him all personal credit, all applause; it not only degrades him to a machine, but allows him no control over the machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and neither permits him to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole

O.M. That is correct. Well? Y.M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the conviction that the publication of your doctrines would be harmful. Do you pardon me? O.M. Pardon you? You have done nothing. You are an instrument—a speaking-trumpet. Speaking-trumpets are not responsible for what is said through them. Outside influ-

and piteously humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according to his make, outside impulses doing the rest. O.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me—what do men ire most in each other? Y.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of countenance, charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness, heroism, and—and— 70

Mark Twain O.M. I would not go any further. These are elementals. Virtue, fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals—these, and all the related qualities that are named in the dictionary, are made of the elementals, by blendings, combinations, and shadings of the elementals, just as one makes green by blending blue and yellow, and makes several shades and tints of red by modifying the elemental red. There are several elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of them we manufacture and name fifty shades

O.M. Take those others—the elemental moral qualities— charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds, out of which spring, through cultivation by outside influences, all the manifold blends and combinations of virtues named in the dictionaries: does man manufacture any of those seeds, or are they all born in him? Y.M. Born in him. O.M. Who manufactures them, then? Y.M. God.

of them. You have named the elementals of the human rainbow, and also one blend—heroism, which is made out of courage and magnanimity. Very well, then; which of these elements does the possessor of it manufacture for himself? Is it intellect?

O.M. Where does the credit of it belong? Y.M. To God. O.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause? Y.M. To God. O.M. Then it is you who degrade man. You make him

Y.M. No. O.M. Why? Y.M. He is born with it. O.M. Is it courage? Y.M. No. He is born with it. O.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance? Y.M. No. They are birthrights.

claim glory, praise, flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses—borrowed finery, the whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself, not a detail of it produced by his own labor. YOU make man a humbug; have I done worse by him? Y.M. You have made a machine of him. O.M. Who devised that cunning and beautiful mechanism, a man’s hand? 71

What Is Man and Other Essays Y.M. God. O.M. Who devised the law by which it automatically hammers out of a piano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while the man is thinking about something else, or talking to a friend? Y.M. God. O.M. Who devised the blood? Who devised the wonderful machinery which automatically drives its renewing and refreshing streams through the body, day and night, with-

taught that he is the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes it; in all the ages he has never doubted it, whether he was a naked savage, or clothed in purple and fine linen, and civilized. This has made his heart buoyant, his life cheery. His pride in himself, his sincere iration of himself, his joy in what he supposed were his own and unassisted achievements, and his exultation over the praise and applause which they evoked—these have exalted him, enthused him, ambitioned him to higher and higher flights;

out assistance or advice from the man? Who devised the man’s mind, whose machinery works automatically, interests itself in what it pleases, regardless of its will or desire, labors all night when it likes, deaf to his appeals for mercy? God devised all these things. I have not made man a ma-

in a word, made his life worth the living. But by your scheme, all this is abolished; he is degraded to a machine, he is a nobody, his noble prides wither to mere vanities; let him strive as he may, he can never be any better than his humblest and stupidest neighbor; he would never be cheer-

chine, God made him a machine. I am merely calling attention to the fact, nothing more. Is it wrong to call attention to the fact? Is it a crime? Y.M. I think it is wrong to expose a fact when harm can come of it. O.M. Go on. Y.M. Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been

ful again, his life would not be worth the living. O.M. You really think that? Y.M. I certainly do. O.M. Have you ever seen me uncheerful, unhappy. Y.M. No. O.M. Well, I believe these things. Why have they not made me unhappy? 72

Mark Twain Y.M. Oh, well—temperament, of course! You never let that escape from your scheme. O.M. That is correct. If a man is born with an unhappy temperament, nothing can make him happy; if he is born with a happy temperament, nothing can make him unhappy. Y.M. What—not even a degrading and heart-chilling system of beliefs? O.M. Beliefs? Mere beliefs? Mere convictions? They are

always been buoyant, hopeful, happy; Adams has always been cheerless, hopeless, despondent. As young fellows both tried country journalism—and failed. Burgess didn’t seem to mind it; Adams couldn’t smile, he could only mourn and groan over what had happened and torture himself with vain regrets for not having done so and so instead of so and so—then he would have succeeded. They tried the law—and failed. Burgess remained happy—because he couldn’t help it. Adams was wretched—because he couldn’t

powerless. They strive in vain against inborn temperament. Y.M. I can’t believe that, and I don’t. O.M. Now you are speaking hastily. It shows that you have not studiously examined the facts. Of all your intimates, which one is the happiest? Isn’t it Burgess?

help it. From that day to this, those two men have gone on trying things and failing: Burgess has come out happy and cheerful every time; Adams the reverse. And we do absolutely know that these men’s inborn temperaments have remained unchanged through all the vicissitudes of their

Y.M. Easily. O.M. And which one is the unhappiest? Henry Adams? Y.M. Without a question! O.M. I know them well. They are extremes, abnormals; their temperaments are as opposite as the poles. Their lifehistories are about alike—but look at the results! Their ages are about the same—about around fifty. Burgess had

material affairs. Let us see how it is with their immaterials. Both have been zealous Democrats; both have been zealous Republicans; both have been zealous Mugwumps. Burgess has always found happiness and Adams unhappiness in these several political beliefs and in their migrations out of them. Both of these men have been Presbyterians, Universalists, Methodists, Catholics—then Presbyterians again, 73

What Is Man and Other Essays then Methodists again. Burgess has always found rest in these excursions, and Adams unrest. They are trying Christian Science, now, with the customary result, the inevitable result. No political or religious belief can make Burgess unhappy or the other man happy. I assure you it is purely a matter of temperament. Beliefs are aquirements, temperaments are born; beliefs are subject to change, nothing whatever can change temperament. Y.M. You have instanced extreme temperaments.

government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later, it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them. As instances, you have all history: the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Russians, the Germans, the French, the English, the Spaniards, the Americans, the South Americans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Turks—a thousand wild and tame religions, every kind of government that can be thought of, from tiger to house-cat, each nation know-

O.M. Yes, the half-dozen others are modifications of the extremes. But the law is the same. Where the temperament is two-thirds happy, or two-thirds unhappy, no political or religious beliefs can change the proportions. The vast majority of temperaments are pretty equally balanced;

ing it has the only true religion and the only sane system of government, each despising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting it, each proud of its fancied supremacy, each perfectly sure it is the pet of God, each without undoubting confidence summoning Him to take command in time

the intensities are absent, and this enables a nation to learn to accommodate itself to its political and religious circumstances and like them, be satisfied with them, at last prefer them. Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought—by force of circumstances, not argument—to reconcile itself to any kind of

of war, each surprised when He goes over to the enemy, but by habit able to excuse it and resume compliments— in a word, the whole human race content, always content, persistently content, indestructibly content, happy, thankful, proud, no matter what its religion is, nor whether its master be tiger or house-cat. Am I stating facts? You know I am. Is the human race cheerful? You know it is. Consider74

Mark Twain ing what it can stand, and be happy, you do me too much honor when you think that I can place before it a system of plain cold facts that can take the cheerfulness out of it. Nothing can do that. Everything has been tried. Without success. I beg you not to be troubled.

THE DEATH OF JEAN THE DEATH OF JEAN CLEMENS occurred early in the morning of December 24, 1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind when I first saw him, but a few hours later I found him writing steadily. “I am setting it down,” he said, “everything. It is a relief to me to write it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking.” At intervals during that day and the next I looked in, and usually found him writing. Then on the evening of the 26th, when he knew that Jean had been laid to rest in Elmira, he came to my room with the manuscript in his hand. “I have finished it,” he said; “read it. I can form no opinion of it myself. If you think it worthy, some day—at the proper time—it can end my autobiography. It is the final chapter.” Four months later—almost to the day—(April 21st) he was with Jean. Albert Bigelow Paine. Stormfield, Christmas Eve, 11 A.M., 1909. 75

What Is Man and Other Essays Jean is dead! Has any one ever tried to put upon paper all the little happenings connected with a dear one—happenings of the twenty-four hours preceding the sudden and unexpected death of that dear one? Would a book contain them? Would two books contain them? I think not. They pour into the mind in a flood. They are little things that have been always happening every day, and were always so unimportant and easily forgettable before—but now! Now, how

my hand in return. Then with the usual gay “Sleep well, dear!” from both, we parted. At half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices outside my door. I said to myself, “Jean is starting on her usual horseback flight to the station for the mail.” Then Katy* entered, stood quaking and gasping at my bedside a moment, then found her tongue: “Miss Jean is dead!” Possibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet

different! how precious they are, now dear, how unforgettable, how pathetic, how sacred, how clothed with dignity! Last night Jean, all flushed with splendid health, and I the same, from the wholesome effects of my Bermuda holiday, strolled hand in hand from the dinner-table and sat

crashes through his heart. In her bathroom there she lay, the fair young creature, stretched upon the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural, and as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she had been

down in the library and chatted, and planned, and discussed, cheerily and happily (and how unsuspectingly!)— until nine—which is late for us—then went upstairs, Jean’s friendly German dog following. At my door Jean said, “I can’t kiss you good night, father: I have a cold, and you could catch it.” I bent and kissed her hand. She was moved—I saw it in her eyes—and she impulsively kissed

seized with a convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The doctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones, failed to bring her back to life. It is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how tranquil! It is a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was a good heart that lies there so still. *Katy Leary, who had been in the service of the Clemens family for twenty-nine years. 76

Mark Twain In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed to the heart with a cablegram which said, “Susy was mercifully released today.” I had to send a like shot to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. With the peremptory addition, “You must not come home.” Clara and her husband sailed from here on the 11th of this month. How will Clara bear it? Jean, from her babyhood, was a worshiper of Clara. Four days ago I came back from a month’s holiday in Bermuda in perfected health; but by some accident the re-

“charge” that I was “dying,” and saying “I would not do such a thing at my time of life.” Jean was a little troubled, and did not like to see me treat the matter so lightly; but I said it was best to treat it so, for there was nothing serious about it. This morning I sent the sorrowful facts of this day’s irremediable disaster to the Associated Press. Will both appear in this evening’s papers?—the one so blithe, the other so tragic? I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother—her in-

porters failed to perceive this. Day before yesterday, letters and telegrams began to arrive from friends and strangers which indicated that I was supposed to be dangerously ill. Yesterday Jean begged me to explain my case through the Associated Press. I said it was not important enough; but

comparable mother!—five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! Seven months ago Mr. Roger died—one of the best friends I ever had, and the nearest perfect, as man and gentleman, I have yet met among my

she was distressed and said I must think of Clara. Clara would see the report in the German papers, and as she had been nursing her husband day and night for four months* and was worn out and feeble, the shock might be disastrous. There was reason in that; so I sent a humorous paragraph by telephone to the Associated Press denying the

race; within the last six weeks Gilder has ed away, and Laffan—old, old friends of mine. Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands goodby at this door last night—and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here—writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery.

* Mr. Gabrilowitsch had been operated on for appendicitis. 77

What Is Man and Other Essays Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days ago. Seventyfour years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today? I have looked upon her again. I wonder I can bear it. She looks just as her mother looked when she lay dead in that Florentine villa so long ago. The sweet placidity of death! it is more beautiful than sleep. I saw her mother buried. I said I would never endure that horror again; that I would never again look into the grave of any one dear to me. I have kept to that. They will

been working over for days. While she was out for a moment I disloyally stole a look. The loggia floor was clothed with rugs and furnished with chairs and sofas; and the uncompleted surprise was there: in the form of a Christmas tree that was drenched with silver film in a most wonderful way; and on a table was prodigal profusion of bright things which she was going to hang upon it today. What desecrating hand will ever banish that eloquent unfinished surprise from that place? Not mine, surely. All these little matters

take Jean from this house tomorrow, and bear her to Elmira, New York, where lie those of us that have been released, but I shall not follow. Jean was on the dock when the ship came in, only four days ago. She was at the door, beaming a welcome, when I

have happened in the last four days. “Little.” Yes—then. But not now. Nothing she said or thought or did is little now. And all the lavish humor!—what is become of it? It is pathos, now. Pathos, and the thought of it brings tears. All these little things happened such a few hours ago—

reached this house the next evening. We played cards, and she tried to teach me a new game called “Mark Twain.” We sat chatting cheerily in the library last night, and she wouldn’t let me look into the loggia, where she was making Christmas preparations. She said she would finish them in the morning, and then her little French friend would arrive from New York—the surprise would follow; the surprise she had

and now she lies yonder. Lies yonder, and cares for nothing any more. Strange—marvelous—incredible! I have had this experience before; but it would still be incredible if I had had it a thousand times. “Miss Jean is dead!” That is what Katy said. When I heard the door open behind the bed’s head without a preliminary knock, I supposed 78

Mark Twain pher and myself. She dispatched her share and then mounted her horse again and went around superintending her farm and her poultry the rest of the day. Sometimes she played

it was Jean coming to kiss me good morning, she being the only person who was used to entering without formalities. And so— I have been to Jean’s parlor. Such a turmoil of Christmas presents for servants and friends! They are everywhere; tables, chairs, sofas, the floor—everything is occupied, and over-occupied. It is many and many a year since I have seen the like. In that ancient day Mrs. Clemens and I used to slip softly into the nursery at midnight on Christmas Eve and look the array of presents over. The children were little then. And now here is Jean’s parlor looking just as that nursery used to look. The presents are not labeled—the hands are forever idle that would have labeled them today. Jean’s mother always worked herself down with her Christmas preparations. Jean did the same yesterday and the preceding days, and the fatigue has cost her her life. The fatigue caused the convulsion that attacked her this morning. She had had no attack for months. Jean was so full of life and energy that she was constantly is danger of overtaxing her strength. Every morning she was in the saddle by half past seven, and off to the station for her mail. She examined the letters and I distributed them: some to her, some to Mr. Paine, the others to the stenogra-

billiards with me after dinner, but she was usually too tired to play, and went early to bed. Yesterday afternoon I told her about some plans I had been devising while absent in Bermuda, to lighten her burdens. We would get a housekeeper; also we would put her share of the secretary-work into Mr. Paine’s hands. No—she wasn’t willing. She had been making plans herself. The matter ended in a compromise, I submitted. I always did. She wouldn’t audit the bills and let Paine fill out the checks—she would continue to attend to that herself. Also, she would continue to be housekeeper, and let Katy assist. Also, she would continue to answer the letters of personal friends for me. Such was the compromise. Both of us called it by that name, though I was not able to see where my formidable change had been made. However, Jean was pleased, and that was sufficient for me. She was proud of being my secretary, and I was never able to persuade her to give up any part of her share in that

unlovely work. 79

What Is Man and Other Essays In the talk last night I said I found everything going so smoothly that if she were willing I would go back to Bermuda in February and get blessedly out of the clash and turmoil again for another month. She was urgent that I should do it, and said that if I would put off the trip until March she would take Katy and go with me. We struck hands upon that, and said it was settled. I had a mind to write to Bermuda by tomorrow’s ship and secure a furnished house and servants. I meant to write the letter this

Would I bring her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word would do it, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would have the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almost bankrupt, and my life is a bitterness, but I am content: for she has been enriched with the most precious of all gifts—that gift which makes all other gifts mean and poor—death. I have never wanted any released friend of mine restored to life since I reached manhood. I felt in this way when Susy ed away; and

morning. But it will never be written, now. For she lies yonder, and before her is another journey than that. Night is closing down; the rim of the sun barely shows above the sky-line of the hills.

later my wife, and later Mr. Rogers. When Clara met me at the station in New York and told me Mr. Rogers had died suddenly that morning, my thought was, Oh, favorite of fortune—fortunate all his long and lovely life—fortunate to his latest moment! The reporters said there were tears

I have been looking at that face again that was growing dearer and dearer to me every day. I was getting acquainted with Jean in these last nine months. She had been long an exile from home when she came to us three-quarters of a year ago. She had been shut up in sanitariums, many miles from us. How eloquent glad and grateful she was to cross her father’s threshold again!

of sorrow in my eyes. True—but they were for me, not for him. He had suffered no loss. All the fortunes he had ever made before were poverty compared with this one. Why did I build this house, two years ago? To shelter this vast emptiness? How foolish I was! But I shall stay in it. The spirits of the dead hallow a house, for me. It was not so with other of the family. Susy died in the 80

Mark Twain house we built in Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would never enter it again. But it made the house dearer to me. I have entered it once since, when it was tenantless and silent and forlorn, but to me it was a holy place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the spirits of the dead were all about me, and would speak to me and welcome me if they could: Livy, and Susy, and George, and Henry Robinson, and Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and how lovable their lives! In fancy I could see them all

Christmas Eve came. Jean was her very own child—she wore herself out present-hunting in New York these latter days. Paine has just found on her desk a long list of names— fifty, he thinks—people to whom she sent presents last night. Apparently she forgot no one. And Katy found there a roll of bank-notes, for the servants. Her dog has been wandering about the grounds today, comradeless and forlorn. I have seen him from the windows. She got him from . He has tall ears and

again, I could call the children back and hear them romp again with George—that peerless black ex-slave and children’s idol who came one day—a flitting stranger—to wash windows, and stayed eighteen years. Until he died. Clara and Jean would never enter again the New York ho-

looks exactly like a wolf. He was educated in , and knows no language but the German. Jean gave him no orders save in that tongue. And so when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor at midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no German, tried in vain to

tel which their mother had frequented in earlier days. They could not bear it. But I shall stay in this house. It is dearer to me tonight than ever it was before. Jean’s spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely and tragic death— but I will not think of that now. Jean’s mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas shopping, and was always physically exhausted when

interest the dog in the supposed burglar. Jean wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter I was ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand. The dog will not be neglected. There was never a kinder heart than Jean’s. From her childhood up she always spent the most of her allowance on charities of one kind or another. After she became secre81

What Is Man and Other Essays tary and had her income doubled she spent her money upon these things with a free hand. Mine too, I am glad and grateful to say. She was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them all, birds, beasts, and everything—even snakes—an inheritance from me. She knew all the birds; she was high up in that lore. She became a member of various humane societies when she was still a little girl—both here and abroad— and she remained an active member to the last. She founded

when this child’s mother laid down her blameless life. They cannot heal the hurt, but they take away some of the pain. When Jean and I kissed hands and parted at my door last, how little did we imagine that in twenty-two hours the telegraph would be bringing words like these: “From the bottom of our hearts we send out sympathy, dearest of friends.” For many and many a day to come, wherever I go in this house, remembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of

two or three societies for the protection of animals, here and in Europe. She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my correspondence out of the waste-basket and answered the letters. She thought all letters deserved the courtesy of an

her. Who can count the number of them? She was in exile two years with the hope of healing her malady—epilepsy. There are no words to express how grateful I am that she did not meet her fate in the hands of strangers, but in the loving shelter of her own home.

answer. Her mother brought her up in that kindly error. She could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen. She had but an indifferent ear music, but her tongue took to languages with an easy facility. She never allowed her Italian, French, and German to get rusty through neglect. The telegrams of sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide, now, just as they did in Italy five years and a half ago,

“Miss Jean is dead!” It is true. Jean is dead. A month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articles for magazines yet to appear, and now I am writing—this. CHRISTMAS DAY. NOON.—Last night I went to Jean’s room at intervals, and turned back the sheet and looked at 82

Mark Twain the peaceful face, and kissed the cold brow, and ed that heartbreaking night in Florence so long ago, in that cavernous and silent vast villa, when I crept downstairs so many times, and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just like this one—Jean’s mother’s face—and kissed a brow that was just like this one. And last night I saw again what I had seen then—that strange and lovely miracle—the sweet, soft contours of early maidenhood restored by the gracious hand of death! When Jean’s mother

not visited Jean’s apartment since the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so. Always when Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when she was in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the day. Her parlor was his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went upstairs he went too—in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was different: after patting him a little I went to the library—he remained behind; when I went upstairs he did

lay dead, all trace of care, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding years had vanished out of the face, and I was looking again upon it as I had known and worshipped it in its young bloom and beauty a whole generation before. About three in the morning, while wandering about the

not follow me, save with his wistful eyes. He has wonderful eyes—big, and kind, and eloquent. He can talk with them. He is a beautiful creature, and is of the breed of the New York police-dogs. I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but I have liked this one

house in the deep silences, as one dies in times like these, when there is a dumb sense that something has been lost that will never be found again, yet must be sought, if only for the employment the useless seeking gives, I came upon Jean’s dog in the hall downstairs, and noted that he did not spring to greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came slow and sorrowfully; also I ed that he had

from the beginning, because he belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion—which is not oftener than twice a week. In my wanderings I visited Jean’s parlor. On a shelf I found a pile of my books, and I knew what it meant. She was waiting for me to come home from Bermuda and autograph them, then she would send them away. If I only 83

What Is Man and Other Essays knew whom she intended them for! But I shall never know. I will keep them. Her hand has touched them—it is an accolade—they are noble, now. And in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me—a thing I have often wished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn’t see it for the tears. She will never know the pride I take in it, and the pleasure. Today the mails are full of loving remembrances for her: full of those old, old kind words she loved so well, “Merry Christmas to Jean!” If she could

death and the peace of God upon it. They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws upon the trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come. He knows. At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it—that Jean could not see it! She so loved the snow. The snow continued to fall. At six o’clock the hearse drew

only have lived one day longer! At last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So she sent to one of those New York homes for poor girls all the clothes she could spare—and more, most likely.

up to the door to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted the casket, Paine began playing on the orchestrelle Schubert’s “Impromptu,” which was Jean’s favorite. Then he played the Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then he played the Largo; that was for their mother. He did this at my

CHRISTMAS NIGHT.—This afternoon they took her away from her room. As soon as I might, I went down to the library, and there she lay, in her coffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she wore when she stood at the other end of the same room on the 6th of October last, as Clara’s chief bridesmaid. Her face was radiant with happy excitement then; it was the same face now, with the dignity of

request. Elsewhere in my Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo and the Largo came to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in their last hours in this life. From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more. Jervis, 84

Mark Twain the cousin she had played with when they were babies together—he and her beloved old Katy—were conducting her to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once more, in the company of Susy and Langdon.

FIVE O’CLOCK.—It is all over. WHEN CLARA WENT AWAY two weeks ago to live in Europe, it was hard, but I could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said WE would be a family. We said we would be close comrades and happy—just we two. That fair dream was in my mind when Jean met me at the steamer last Monday; it was in my mind when she received me at the door last Tuesday evening. We were together; we were a family! the dream had come true—oh, precisely true, contentedly, true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days. And now? Now Jean is in her grave! In the grave—if I can believe it. God rest her sweet spirit!

DECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o’clock this morning. He was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters hereafter. The storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning. The snow drives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb, sublime—and Jean not here to see. 2:30 P.M.—It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is the library in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin stands where her mother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s coffin stood thirteen years ago; where her mother’s stood five years and a half ago; and where mine will stand after a little time.

85

What Is Man and Other Essays THE TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE

the chain makes it the most conspicuous link; in real importance it has no advantage over any one of its predecessors. Perhaps the most celebrated turning-point recorded in history was the crossing of the Rubicon. Suetonius says:

I IF I UNDERSTAND THE IDEA, the bazar invites several of us to write upon the above text. It means the change in my life’s course which introduced what must be regarded by me as the most important condition of my career. But it also implies—without intention, perhaps—that that turning-point itself was the creator of the new condition. This gives it too much distinction, too much prominence, too much credit. It is only the last link in a very long chain of turning-points commissioned to produce the cardinal result; it is not any more important than the humblest of its ten thousand predecessors. Each of the ten thousand did its appointed share, on its appointed date, in forwarding the scheme, and they were all necessary; to have left out any one of them would have defeated the scheme and brought about some other result. It know we have a fashion of saying “such and such an event was the turning-point in my life,” but we shouldn’t say it. We should merely grant that its place as last link in

C oming up with his tr oops on the banks of the Rubic on, he halt ed troops Rubicon, halted tanc while,, and and,, rree v olving in his mind the impor importanc tancee of the f or a while st was pointt of tak taking ing,, he turned ttoo those about him step ep he w as on the poin ing eat; wee this little br bridge idge,, mayy still rretr etrea said,, “ We ma idge etr ea t; but if w and said fightt it out in arms arms..” leftt ffor or us but ttoo figh nothing is lef This was a stupendously important moment. And all the incidents, big and little, of Caesar’s previous life had been leading up to it, stage by stage, link by link. This was the last link—merely the last one, and no bigger than the others; but as we gaze back at it through the inflating mists of our imagination, it looks as big as the orbit of Neptune. You, the reader, have a personal interest in that link, and so have I; so has the rest of the human race. It was one of the links in your life-chain, and it was one of the links in mine. We may wait, now, with baited breath, while Caesar 86

Mark Twain reflects. Your fate and mine are involved in his decision. While he was thus hesitating, the following incident occurred. A person remarked for his noble mien and graceful aspect appeared close at hand, sitting and playing upon a pipe. When not only the shepherds, but a number of soldiers also, flocked to listen to him, and some trumpeters among them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran to the river with it, and, sounding the advance with a piercing blast, crossed to the other side. Upon this, Caesar ex-

in the human race’s life-chain; each event producing the next one, and that one the next one, and so on: the destruction of the republic; the founding of the empire; the breaking up of the empire; the rise of Christianity upon its ruins; the spread of the religion to other lands—and so on; link by link took its appointed place at its appointed time, the discovery of America being one of them; our Revolution another; the inflow of English and other immigrants another; their drift westward (my ancestors among them)

claimed: “Let us go whither the omens of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call up. The die is cast.” So he crossed—and changed the future of the whole human race, for all time. But that stranger was a link in Caesar’s life-chain, too; and a necessary one. We don’t know his

another; the settlement of certain of them in Missouri, which resulted in me. For I was one of the unavoidable results of the crossing of the Rubicon. If the stranger, with his trumpet blast, had stayed away (which he couldn’t, for he was the appointed link) Caesar would not have crossed.

name, we never hear of him again; he was very casual; he acts like an accident; but he was no accident, he was there by compulsion of his life-chain, to blow the electrifying blast that was to make up Caesar’s mind for him, and thence go piping down the aisles of history forever. If the stranger hadn’t been there! But he was. And Caesar crossed. With such results! Such vast events—each a link

What would have happened, in that case, we can never guess. We only know that the things that did happen would not have happened. They might have been replaced by equally prodigious things, of course, but their nature and results are beyond our guessing. But the matter that interests me personally is that I would not be here now, but somewhere else; and probably black—there is no telling. 87

What Is Man and Other Essays Very well, I am glad he crossed. And very really and thankfully glad, too, though I never cared anything about it before.

will go back only a couple of generations and start with an incident of my boyhood. When I was twelve and a half years old, my father died. It was in the spring. The summer came, and brought with it an epidemic of measles. For a time a child died almost every day. The village was paralyzed with fright, distress, despair. Children that were not smitten with the disease were imprisoned in their homes to save them from the infection. In the homes there were no cheerful faces, there was no music, there was no singing but of solemn hymns, no voice but of prayer, no romping was allowed, no noise, no laughter, the family moved spectrally about on tiptoe, in a ghostly hush. I was a prisoner. My soul was steeped in this awful dreariness—and in fear. At some time or other every day and every night a sudden shiver shook me to the marrow, and I said to myself, “There, I’ve got it! and I shall die.” Life on these miserable was not worth living, and at last I made up my mind to get the disease and have it over, one way or the other. I escaped from the house and went to the house of a neighbor where a playmate of mine was very ill with the malady. When the chance offered I crept into his room and got into bed with

II TO ME, THE MOST IMPORTANT feature of my life is its literary feature. I have been professionally literary something more than forty years. There have been many turning-points in my life, but the one that was the link in the chain appointed to conduct me to the literary guild is the most conspicuous link in that chain. Because it was the last one. It was not any more important than its predecessors. All the other links have an inconspicuous look, except the crossing of the Rubicon; but as factors in making me literary they are all of the one size, the crossing of the Rubicon included. I know how I came to be literary, and I will tell the steps that lead up to it and brought it about. The crossing of the Rubicon was not the first one, it was hardly even a recent one; I should have to go back ages before Caesar’s day to find the first one. To save space I 88

Mark Twain him. I was discovered by his mother and sent back into captivity. But I had the disease; they could not take that from me. I came near to dying. The whole village was interested, and anxious, and sent for news of me every day; and not only once a day, but several times. Everybody believed I would die; but on the fourteenth day a change came for the worse and they were disappointed. This was a turning-point of my life. (Link number one.) For when I got well my mother closed my school career

he may argue the matter—that is his privilege, just as it is the honorable privilege of a falling body to argue with the attraction of gravitation—but it won’t do any good, he must obey. I wandered for ten years, under the guidance and dictatorship of Circumstance, and finally arrived in a city of Iowa, where I worked several months. Among the books that interested me in those days was one about the Amazon. The traveler told an alluring tale of his long voyage up the great river from Para to the sources of the Madeira, through the

and apprenticed me to a printer. She was tired of trying to keep me out of mischief, and the adventure of the measles decided her to put me into more masterful hands than hers. I became a printer, and began to add one link after another to the chain which was to lead me into the literary

heart of an enchanted land, a land wastefully rich in tropical wonders, a romantic land where all the birds and flowers and animals were of the museum varieties, and where the alligator and the crocodile and the monkey seemed as much at home as if they were in the Zoo. Also, he told an astonish-

profession. A long road, but I could not know that; and as I did not know what its goal was, or even that it had one, I was indifferent. Also contented. A young printer wanders around a good deal, seeking and finding work; and seeking again, when necessity commands. N. B. Necessity is a circumstance; Circumstance is man’s master—and when Circumstance commands, he must obey;

ing tale about coca, a vegetable product of miraculous powers, asserting that it was so nourishing and so strength-giving that the native of the mountains of the Madeira region would tramp up hill and down all day on a pinch of powdered coca and require no other sustenance. I was fired with a longing to ascend the Amazon. Also with a longing to open up a trade in coca with all the world. 89

What Is Man and Other Essays During months I dreamed that dream, and tried to contrive ways to get to Para and spring that splendid enterprise upon an unsuspecting planet. But all in vain. A person may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands. At last Circumstance came to my help. It was in this way. Circumstance, to help or hurt another man, made him lose a fifty-dollar bill in the street; and to help or hurt me, made

neither is he responsible for its acts. He cannot change it, nothing can change it, nothing can modify it—except temporarily. But it won’t stay modified. It is permanent, like the color of the man’s eyes and the shape of his ears. Blue eyes are gray in certain unusual lights; but they resume their natural color when that stress is removed. A Circumstance that will coerce one man will have no effect upon a man of a different temperament. If Circumstance had thrown the bank-note in Caesar’s way, his tem-

me find it. I d the find, and left for the Amazon the same day. This was another turning-point, another link. Could Circumstance have ordered another dweller in that town to go to the Amazon and open up a world-trade in coca on a fifty-dollar basis and been obeyed? No, I was the

perament would not have made him start for the Amazon. His temperament would have compelled him to do something with the money, but not that. It might have made him the note—and wait. We can’t tell. Also, it might have made him go to New York and buy into the

only one. There were other fools there—shoals and shoals of them—but they were not of my kind. I was the only one of my kind. Circumstance is powerful, but it cannot work alone; it has to have a partner. Its partner is man’s temperament— his natural disposition. His temperament is not his invention, it is born in him, and he has no authority over it,

Government, with results that would leave Tweed nothing to learn when it came his turn. Very well, Circumstance furnished the capital, and my temperament told me what to do with it. Sometimes a temperament is an ass. When that is the case of the owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to remain one. Training, experience, association, can temporarily so polish him, improve 90

Mark Twain him, exalt him that people will think he is a mule, but they will be mistaken. Artificially he IS a mule, for the time being, but at bottom he is an ass yet, and will remain one. By temperament I was the kind of person that does things. Does them, and reflects afterward. So I started for the Amazon without reflecting and without asking any questions. That was more than fifty years ago. In all that time my temperament has not changed, by even a shade. I have been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for

After a few days I was out of money. Then Circumstance arrived, with another turning-point of my life—a new link. On my way down, I had made the acquaintance of a pilot. I begged him to teach me the river, and he consented. I became a pilot. By and by Circumstance came again—introducing the Civil War, this time, in order to push me ahead another stage or two toward the literary profession. The boats stopped running, my livelihood was gone.

doing things and reflecting afterward, but these tortures have been of no value to me; I still do the thing commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and reflect afterward. Always violently. When I am reflecting, on these occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think.

Circumstance came to the rescue with a new turningpoint and a fresh link. My brother was appointed secretary to the new Territory of Nevada, and he invited me to go with him and help him in his office. I accepted. In Nevada, Circumstance furnished me the silver fever

I went by the way of Cincinnati, and down the Ohio and Mississippi. My idea was to take ship, at New Orleans, for Para. In New Orleans I inquired, and found there was no ship leaving for Para. Also, that there never had been one leaving for Para. I reflected. A policeman came and asked me what I was doing, and I told him. He made me move on, and said if he caught me reflecting in the public street again he would run me in.

and I went into the mines to make a fortune, as I supposed; but that was not the idea. The idea was to advance me another step toward literature. For amusement I scribbled things for the Virginia City enterprise. One isn’t a printer ten years without setting up acres of good and bad literature, and learning—unconsciously at first, consciously later—to discriminate between the two, within his mental 91

What Is Man and Other Essays limitations; and meantime he is unconsciously acquiring what is called a “style.” One of my efforts attracted attention, and the Enterprise sent for me and put me on its staff. And so I became a journalist—another link. By and by Circumstance and the Sacramento Union sent me to the Sandwich Islands for five or six months, to write up sugar. I did it; and threw in a good deal of extraneous matter that hadn’t anything to do with sugar. But it was this extraneous matter that helped me to another link.

Leaving the Rubicon incident away back where it belongs, I can say with truth that the reason I am in the literary profession is because I had the measles when I was twelve years old. III NOW WHAT INTERESTS ME, as regards these details, is not the details themselves, but the fact that none of them was foreseen by me, none of them was planned by me, I was the author of none of them. Circumstance, working in harness with my temperament, created them all and compelled them all. I often offered help, and with the best intentions, but it was rejected—as a rule, uncourteously. I could never plan a thing and get it to come out the way I planned it. It came out some other way—some way I had not counted upon. And so I do not ire the human being—as an intellectual marvel—as much as I did when I was young, and got him out of books, and did not know him personally. When I used to read that such and such a general did a certain brilliant thing, I believed it. Whereas it was not so. Cir-

It made me notorious, and San Francisco invited me to lecture. Which I did. And profitably. I had long had a desire to travel and see the world, and now Circumstance had most kindly and unexpectedly hurled me upon the platform and furnished me the means. So I ed the “Quaker City Excursion.” When I returned to America, Circumstance was waiting on the pier—with the last link—the conspicuous, the consummating, the victorious link: I was asked to write a book, and I did it, and called it The Innocnets Abroad. Thus I became at last a member of the literary guild. That was forty-two years ago, and I have been a member ever since. 92

Mark Twain cumstance did it by help of his temperament. The circumstances would have failed of effect with a general of another temperament: he might see the chance, but lose the advantage by being by nature too slow or too quick or too doubtful. Once General Grant was asked a question about a matter which had been much debated by the public and the newspapers; he answered the question without any hesitancy. “General, who planned the the march through Georgia?” “The enemy!” He added that the enemy usu-

and the sort of time he would keep would not be valuable. Some rare men are wonderful watches, with gold case, compensation balance, and all those things, and some men are only simple and sweet and humble Waterburys. I am a Waterbury. A Waterbury of that kind, some say. A nation is only an individual multiplied. It makes plans and Circumstances comes and upsets them—or enlarges them. Some patriots throw the tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a Bastille. The plans stop there; then Cir-

ally makes your plans for you. He meant that the enemy by neglect or through force of circumstances leaves an opening for you, and you see your chance and take advantage of it. Circumstances do the planning for us all, no doubt, by

cumstance comes in, quite unexpectedly, and turns these modest riots into a revolution. And there was poor Columbus. He elaborated a deep plan to find a new route to an old country. Circumstance revised his plan for him, and he found a new world. And he

help of our temperaments. I see no great difference between a man and a watch, except that the man is conscious and the watch isn’t, and the man tries to plan things and the watch doesn’t. The watch doesn’t wind itself and doesn’t regulate itself—these things are done exteriorly. Outside influences, outside circumstances, wind the man and regulate him. Left to himself, he wouldn’t get regulated at all,

gets the credit of it to this day. He hadn’t anything to do with it. Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of yours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was forged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of me into the literary guild. Adam’s temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued 93

What Is Man and Other Essays to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, “Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable.” The latter command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament—which he did not create and had no authority over. For the temperament is the man; the thing tricked out with clothes and named Man is merely its Shadow, nothing more. The law of the tiger’s temperament is, Thou shalt kill; the

and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place— that splendid pair equipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By neither sugary persuasions nor by hell fire could Satan have beguiled them to eat the apple. There would have been results! Indeed, yes. The apple would be intact today; there would be no human race; there would be no you; there would be no me. And the old, old creation-dawn scheme of ultimately launching me into the literary guild would have been defeated.

law of the sheep’s temperament is Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring the tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to imbue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those commands can’t be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law of temperament, which is supreme, and take precedence of all other authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That is, in their temperaments. Not in them, poor helpless young creatures—afflicted with temperaments made out of butter; which butter was commanded to get into with fire and be melted. What I cannot help wishing is, that Adam had been postponed, 94

Mark Twain HOW TO MAKE HISTORY DATES STICK

notes consisted of beginnings of sentences, and were eleven in number, and they ran something like this: “In that region the weather—” “At that time it was a custom—” “But in California one never heard—” Eleven of them. They initialed the brief divisions of the lecture and protected me against skipping. But they all looked about alike on the page; they formed no picture; I had them by heart, but I could never with certainty the order of their succession; therefore I always had to keep those notes by me and look at them every little while. Once I mislaid them; you will not be able to imagine the terrors of that evening. I now saw that I must invent some other protection. So I got ten of the initial letters by heart in their proper order—I, A, B, and so on— and I went on the platform the next night with these marked in ink on my ten finger-nails. But it didn’t answer. I kept track of the figures for a while; then I lost it, and after that I was never quite sure which finger I had used last. I couldn’t lick off a letter after using it, for while that would have made success certain it also would have provoked too much

THESE CHAPTERS ARE FOR CHILDREN, and I shall try to make the words large enough to command respect. In the hope that you are listening, and that you have confidence in me, I will proceed. Dates are difficult things to acquire; and after they are acquired it is difficult to keep them in the head. But they are very valuable. They are like the cattlepens of a ranch—they shut in the several brands of historical cattle, each within its own fence, and keep them from getting mixed together. Dates are hard to because they consist of figures; figures are monotonously unstriking in appearance, and they don’t take hold, they form no pictures, and so they give the eye no chance to help. Pictures are the thing. Pictures can make dates stick. They can make nearly anything stick—particularly if you make the pictures yourself. Indeed, that is the great point— make the pictures yourself. I know about this from experience. Thirty years ago I was delivering a memorized lecture every night, and every night I had to help myself with a page of notes to keep from getting myself mixed. The 95

What Is Man and Other Essays curiosity. There was curiosity enough without that. To the audience I seemed more interested in my fingernails than I was in my subject; one or two persons asked me afterward what was the matter with my hands. It was now that the idea of pictures occurred to me; then my troubles ed away. In two minutes I made six pictures with a pen, and they did the work of the eleven catchsentences, and did it perfectly. I threw the pictures away as soon as they were made, for I was sure I could shut my eyes

it was time to begin to talk about San Francisco weather, where there is no lightning—nor thunder, either—and it never failed me. I will give you a valuable hint. When a man is making a speech and you are to follow him don’t jot down notes to speak from, jot down pictures. It is awkward and embarrassing to have to keep referring to notes; and besides it breaks up your speech and makes it ragged and non-coherent; but you can tear up your pictures as soon as you have

and see them any time. That was a quarter of a century ago; the lecture vanished out of my head more than twenty years ago, but I would rewrite it from the pictures—for they remain. Here are three of them: (The original text refers to an image not available—ed.).

made them—they will stay fresh and strong in your memory in the order and sequence in which you scratched them down. And many will ire to see what a good memory you are furnished with, when perhaps your memory is not any better than mine.

The first one is a haystack—below it a rattlesnake—and it told me where to begin to talk ranch-life in Carson Valley. The second one told me where to begin the talk about a strange and violent wind that used to burst upon Carson City from the Sierra Nevadas every afternoon at two o’clock and try to blow the town away. The third picture, as you easily perceive, is lightning; its duty was to remind me when

Sixteen years ago when my children were little creatures the governess was trying to hammer some primer histories into their heads. Part of this fun—if you like to call it that— consisted in the memorizing of the accession dates of the thirty-seven personages who had ruled England from the Conqueror down. These little people found it a bitter, hard contract. It was all dates, and all looked alike, and they 96

Mark Twain wouldn’t stick. Day after day of the summer vacation dribbled by, and still the kings held the fort; the children couldn’t conquer any six of them. With my lecture experience in mind I was aware that I could invent some way out of the trouble with pictures, but I hoped a way could be found which would let them romp in the open air while they learned the kings. I found it, and they mastered all the monarchs in a day or two. The idea was to make them see the reigns with their eyes;

was not noticing the Queen had ed Henry VIII., ed Henry VI. and Elizabeth, and gaining in length every day. Her reign had entered the list of the long ones; everybody was interested now—it was watching a race. Would she the long Edward? There was a possibility of it. Would she the long Henry? Doubtful, most people said. The long George? Impossible! Everybody said it. But we have lived to see her leave him two years behind. I measured off 817 feet of the roadway, a foot represent-

that would be a large help. We were at the farm then. From the house-porch the grounds sloped gradually down to the lower fence and rose on the right to the high ground where my small work-den stood. A carriage-road wound through the grounds and up the hill. I staked it out with the En-

ing a year, and at the beginning and end of each reign I drove a three-foot white-pine stake in the turf by the roadside and wrote the name and dates on it. Abreast the middle of the porch-front stood a great granite flower-vase overflowing with a cataract of bright-yellow flowers—I can’t

glish monarchs, beginning with the Conqueror, and you could stand on the porch and clearly see every reign and its length, from the Conquest down to Victoria, then in the forty-sixth year of her reign—eight hundred and seventeen years of English history under your eye at once! English history was an unusually live topic in America just then. The world had suddenly realized that while it

think of their name. The vase of William the Conqueror. We put his name on it and his accession date, 1066. We started from that and measured off twenty-one feet of the road, and drove William Rufus’s state; then thirteen feet and drove the first Henry’s stake; then thirty-five feet and drove Stephen’s; then nineteen feet, which brought us just past the summer-house on the left; then we staked out 97

What Is Man and Other Essays thirty-five, ten, and seventeen for the second Henry and Richard and John; turned the curve and entered upon just what was needed for Henry III.—a level, straight stretch of fifty-six feet of road without a crinkle in it. And it lay exactly in front of the house, in the middle of the grounds. There couldn’t have been a better place for that long reign; you could stand on the porch and see those two wide-apart stakes almost with your eyes shut. (The original refers to an image not available—ed.)

up on our road. Are your kings spaced off in your mind? When you think of Richard III. and of James II. do the durations of their reigns seem about alike to you? It isn’t so to me; I always notice that there’s a foot’s difference. When you think of Henry III. do you see a great long stretch of straight road? I do; and just at the end where it s on to Edward I. I always see a small pear-bush with its green fruit hanging down. When I think of the Commonwealth I see a shady little group of these small saplings which we

That isn’t the shape of the road—I have bunched it up like that to save room. The road had some great curves in it, but their gradual sweep was such that they were no mar to history. No, in our road one could tell at a glance who was who by the size of the vacancy between stakes—with

called the oak parlor; when I think of George III. I see him stretching up the hill, part of him occupied by a flight of stone steps; and I can locate Stephen to an inch when he comes into my mind, for he just filled the stretch which went by the summer-house. Victoria’s reign reached almost

locality to help, of course. Although I am away off here in a Swedish village* and those stakes did not stand till the snow came, I can see them today as plainly as ever; and whenever I think of an English monarch his stakes rise before me of their own accord and I notice the large or small space which he takes

to my study door on the first little summit; there’s sixteen feet to be added now; I believe that that would carry it to a big pine-tree that was shattered by some lightning one summer when it was trying to hit me. We got a good deal of fun out of the history road; and exercise, too. We trotted the course from the conqueror to the study, the children calling out the names, dates, and

*Summer of 1899. 98

Mark Twain length of reigns as we ed the stakes, going a good gait along the long reigns, but slowing down when we came upon people like Mary and Edward VI., and the short Stuart and Plantagenet, to give time to get in the statistics. I offered prizes, too—apples. I threw one as far as I could send it, and the child that first shouted the reign it fell in got the apple. The children were encouraged to stop locating things as being “over by the arbor,” or “in the oak parlor,” or “up at

eyes as we went our English rounds. We pegged them down to the Hundred Years’ War, then threw the idea aside, I do not now why. After that we made the English pegs fence in European and American history as well as English, and that answered very well. English and alien poets, statesmen, artists, heroes, battles, plagues, cataclysms, revolutions—we shoveled them all into the English fences according to their dates. Do you understand? We gave Washington’s birth to George II.’s pegs and his death to

the stone steps,” and say instead that the things were in Stephen, or in the Commonwealth, or in George III. They got the habit without trouble. To have the long road mapped out with such exactness was a great boon for me, for I had the habit of leaving books and other articles lying around

George III.’s; George II. got the Lisbon earthquake and George III. the Declaration of Independence. Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Savonarola, Joan of Arc, the French Revolution, the Edict of Nantes, Clive, Wellington, Waterloo, Plassey, Patay, Cowpens, Saratoga, the Battle of the

everywhere, and had not previously been able to definitely name the place, and so had often been obliged to go to fetch them myself, to save time and failure; but now I could name the reign I left them in, and send the children. Next I thought I would measure off the French reigns, and peg them alongside the English ones, so that we could always have contemporaneous French history under our

Boyne, the invention of the logarithms, the microscope, the steam-engine, the telegraph—anything and everything all over the world—we dumped it all in among the English pegs according to it date and regardless of its nationality. If the road-pegging scheme had not succeeded I should have lodged the kings in the children’s heads by means of pictures—that is, I should have tried. It might have failed, 99

What Is Man and Other Essays for the pictures could only be effective when made by the pupil; not the master, for it is the work put upon the drawing that makes the drawing stay in the memory, and my children were too little to make drawings at that time. And, besides, they had no talent for art, which is strange, for in other ways they are like me. But I will develop the picture plan now, hoping that you will be able to use it. It will come good for indoors when the weather is bad and one cannot go outside and peg a

ture of a whale and write the dates and term of service. We choose the whale for several reasons: its name and William’s begin with the same letter; it is the biggest fish that swims, and William is the most conspicuous figure in English history in the way of a landmark; finally, a whale is about the easiest thing to draw. By the time you have drawn twentyone wales and written “William I.—1066-1087—twentyone years” twenty-one times, those details will be your property; you cannot dislodge them from your memory with

road. Let us imagine that the kings are a procession, and that they have come out of the Ark and down Ararat for exercise and are now starting back again up the zigzag road. This will bring several of them into view at once, and each zigzag will represent the length of a king’s reign.

anything but dynamite. I will make a sample for you to copy: (Image not available—ed.). I have got his chin up too high, but that is no matter; he is looking for Harold. It may be that a whale hasn’t that fin up there on his back, but I do not ; and so, since

And so on. You will have plenty of space, for by my project you will use the parlor wall. You do not mark on the wall; that would cause trouble. You only attach bits of paper to it with pins or thumb-tacks. These will leave no mark. Take your pen now, and twenty-one pieces of white paper, each two inches square, and we will do the twenty-one years of the Conqueror’s reign. On each square draw a pic-

there is a doubt, it is best to err on the safe side. He looks better, anyway, than he would without it. Be very careful and attentive while you are drawing your first whale from my sample and writing the word and figures under it, so that you will not need to copy the sample any more. Compare your copy with the sample; examine closely; if you find you have got everything right and can 100

Mark Twain shut your eyes and see the picture and call the words and figures, then turn the sample and copy upside down and make the next copy from memory; and also the next and next, and so on, always drawing and writing from memory until you have finished the whole twenty-one. This will take you twenty minutes, or thirty, and by that time you will find that you can make a whale in less time than an unpracticed person can make a sardine; also, up to the time you die you will always be able to furnish William’s dates

sight, but it cannot be helped; if the barb were removed people would think some one had stuck a whip-stock into the whale. It is best to leave the barb the way it is, then every one will know it is a harpoon and attending to business. —draw from the copy only once; make your other twelve and the inscription from memory. Now the truth is that whenever you have copied a picture and its inscription once from my sample and two or three times from memory the details will stay with you

to any ignorant person that inquires after them. You will now take thirteen pieces of blue paper, each two inches square, and do William II. (Image not available—ed.) Make him spout his water forward instead of backward; also make him small, and stick a harpoon in him and give

and be hard to forget. After that, if you like, you may make merely the whale’s head and water-spout for the Conqueror till you end his reign, each time saying the inscription in place of writing it; and in the case of William II. make the harpoon alone, and say over the inscription each time you

him that sick look in the eye. Otherwise you might seem to be continuing the other William, and that would be confusing and a damage. It is quite right to make him small; he was only about a No. 11 whale, or along there somewhere; there wasn’t room in him for his father’s great spirit. The barb of that harpoon ought not to show like that, because it is down inside the whale and ought to be out of

do it. You see, it will take nearly twice as long to do the first set as it will to do the second, and that will give you a marked sense of the difference in length of the two reigns. Next do Henry I. on thirty-five squares of red paper. (Image not available—ed.) That is a hen, and suggests Henry by furnishing the first syllable. When you have repeated the hen and the inscrip-

101

What Is Man and Other Essays tion until you are perfectly sure of them, draw merely the hen’s head the rest of the thirty-five times, saying over the inscription each time. Thus: (Image not available—ed.). You begin to understand how how this procession is going to look when it is on the wall. First there will be the Conqueror’s twenty-one whales and water-spouts, the twenty-one white squares ed to one another and making a white stripe three and one-half feet long; the thirteen blue squares of William II. will be ed to that—a blue stripe

Next comes Henry II. Give him thirty-five squares of red paper. These hens must face west, like the former ones. (Image not available—ed.) This hen differs from the other one. He is on his way to inquire what has been happening in Canterbury. How we arrive at Richard I., called Richard of the Lionheart because he was a brave fighter and was never so contented as when he was leading crusades in Palestine and neglecting his affairs at home. Give him ten squares of white

two feet, two inches long, followed by Henry’s red stripe five feet, ten inches long, and so on. The colored divisions will smartly show to the eye the difference in the length of the reigns and impress the proportions on the memory and the understanding. (Image not available—ed.)

paper. (Image not available—ed.) That is a lion. His office is to remind you of the lionhearted Richard. There is something the matter with his legs, but I do not quite know what it is, they do not seem right. I think the hind ones are the most unsatisfactory;

Stephen of Blois comes next. He requires nineteen twoinch squares of yellow paper. (Image not available—ed.) That is a steer. The sound suggests the beginning of Stephen’s name. I choose it for that reason. I can make a better steer than that when I am not excited. But this one will do. It is a good-enough steer for history. The tail is defective, but it only wants straightening out.

the front ones are well enough, though it would be better if they were rights and lefts. Next comes King John, and he was a poor circumstance. He was called Lackland. He gave his realm to the Pope. Let him have seventeen squares of yellow paper. (Image not available—ed.) That creature is a jamboree. It looks like a trademark, 102

Mark Twain but that is only an accident and not intentional. It is prehistoric and extinct. It used to roam the earth in the Old Silurian times, and lay eggs and catch fish and climb trees and live on fossils; for it was of a mixed breed, which was the fashion then. It was very fierce, and the Old Silurians were afraid of it, but this is a tame one. Physically it has no representative now, but its mind has been transmitted. First I drew it sitting down, but have turned it the other way now because I think it looks more attractive and spirited

been well to name all the royal princes Henry, but this was overlooked until it was too late. (Image not available—ed.) This is the best one yet. He is on his way (1265) to have a look at the first House of Commons in English history. It was a monumental event, the situation in the House, and was the second great liberty landmark which the century had set up. I have made Henry looking glad, but this was not intentional. Edward I. comes next; light-brown paper, thirty-five

when one end of it is galloping. I love to think that in this attitude it gives us a pleasant idea of John coming all in a happy excitement to see what the barons have been arranging for him at Runnymede, while the other one gives us an idea of him sitting down to wring his hands and grieve

squares. (Image not available—ed.) That is an editor. He is trying to think of a word. He props his feet on a chair, which is the editor’s way; then he can think better. I do not care much for this one; his ears are not alike; still, editor suggests the sound of Edward,

over it. We now come to Henry III.; red squares again, of course— fifty-six of them. We must make all the Henrys the same color; it will make their long reigns show up handsomely on the wall. Among all the eight Henrys there were but two short ones. A lucky name, as far as longevity goes. The reigns of six of the Henrys cover 227 years. It might have

and he will do. I could make him better if I had a model, but I made this one from memory. But is no particular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They are conceited and troublesome, and don’t pay enough. Edward was the first really English king that had yet occupied the throne. The editor in the picture probably looks just as Edward looked when it was first borne in upon him that this was so. His

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What Is Man and Other Essays whole attitude expressed gratification and pride mixed with stupefaction and astonishment. Edward II. now; twenty blue squares. (Image not available—ed.) Another editor. That thing behind his ear is his pencil. Whenever he finds a bright thing in your manuscript he strikes it out with that. That does him good, and makes him smile and show his teeth, the way he is doing in the picture. This one has just been striking out a smart thing,

going to have for breakfast. This one’s arms are put on wrong. I did not notice it at first, but I see it now. Somehow he has got his right arm on his left shoulder, and his left arm on his right shoulder, and this shows us the back of his hands in both instances. It makes him left-handed all around, which is a thing which has never happened before, except perhaps in a museum. That is the way with art, when it is not acquired but born to you: you start in to make some simple little thing, not suspecting that your

and now he is sitting there with his thumbs in his vestholes, gloating. They are full of envy and malice, editors are. This picture will serve to remind you that Edward II. was the first English king who was deposed. Upon demand, he signed his deposition himself. He had found kingship a

genius is beginning to work and swell and strain in secret, and all of a sudden there is a convulsion and you fetch out something astonishing. This is called inspiration. It is an accident; you never know when it is coming. I might have tried as much as a year to think of such a strange thing as

most aggravating and disagreeable occupation, and you can see by the look of him that he is glad he resigned. He has put his blue pencil up for good now. He had struck out many a good thing with it in his time. Edward III. next; fifty red squares. (Image not available—ed.) This editor is a critic. He has pulled out his carving-knife and his tomahawk and is starting after a book which he is

an all-around left-handed man and I could not have done it, for the more you try to think of an unthinkable thing the more it eludes you; but it can’t elude inspiration; you have only to bait with inspiration and you will get it every time. Look at Botticelli’s “Spring.” Those snaky women were unthinkable, but inspiration secured them for us, thanks to goodness. It is too late to reorganize this editor104

Mark Twain critic now; we will leave him as he is. He will serve to remind us. Richard II. next; twenty-two white squares. (Image not available—ed.) We use the lion again because this is another Richard. Like Edward II., he was deposed. He is taking a last sad look at his crown before they take it away. There was not room enough and I have made it too small; but it never fitted him, anyway.

done, but now I can. Keep up your courage; it will be the same with you, although you may not think it. This Henry died the year after Joan of Arc was born. Henry V.; nine blue squares. (Image not available—ed.) There you see him lost in meditation over the monument which records the amazing figures of the battle of Agincourt. French history says 20,000 Englishmen routed 80,000 Frenchmen there; and English historians say that the French loss, in killed and wounded, was 60,000.

Now we turn the corner of the century with a new line of monarchs—the Lancastrian kings. Henry IV.; fourteen squares of yellow paper. (Image not available—ed.) This hen has laid the egg of a new dynasty and realizes

Henry VI.; thirty-nine red squares. (Image not available—ed.) This is poor Henry VI., who reigned long and scored many misfortunes and humiliations. Also two great disasters: he lost to Joan of Arc and he lost the throne and ended the dynasty which Henry IV. had started in busi-

the magnitude of the event. She is giving notice in the usual way. You notice I am improving in the construction of hens. At first I made them too much like other animals, but this one is orthodox. I mention this to encourage you. You will find that the more you practice the more accurate you will become. I could always draw animals, but before I was educated I could not tell what kind they were when I got them

ness with such good prospects. In the picture we see him sad and weary and downcast, with the scepter falling from his nerveless grasp. It is a pathetic quenching of a sun which had risen in such splendor. Edward IV.; twenty-two light-brown squares. (Image not available—ed.) That is a society editor, sitting there elegantly dressed,

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What Is Man and Other Essays with his legs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies wear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out finer than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That flower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose—a white rose, a York rose— and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that the white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and dispossessed the Lancastrian dynasty. Edward V.; one-third of a black square. (Image not avail-

That is not a very good lion, but Richard was not a very good king. You would think that this lion has two heads, but that is not so; one is only a shadow. There would be shadows for the rest of him, but there was not light enough to go round, it being a dull day, with only fleeting sunglimpses now and then. Richard had a humped back and a hard heart, and fell at the battle of Bosworth. I do not know the name of that flower in the pot, but we will use it as Richard’s trade-mark, for it is said that it grows in only

able—ed.) His uncle Richard had him murdered in the tower. When you get the reigns displayed upon the wall this one will be conspicuous and easily ed. It is the shortest one in English history except Lady Jane Grey’s, which was only

one place in the world—Bosworth Field—and tradition says it never grew there until Richard’s royal blood warmed its hidden seed to life and made it grow. Henry VII.; twenty-four blue squares. (Image not available—ed.)

nine days. She is never officially recognized as a monarch of England, but if you or I should ever occupy a throne we should like to have proper notice taken of it; and it would be only fair and right, too, particularly if we gained nothing by it and lost our lives besides. Richard III.; two white squares. (Image not available— ed.)

Henry VII. had no liking for wars and turbulence; he preferred peace and quiet and the general prosperity which such conditions create. He liked to sit on that kind of eggs on his own private as well as the nation’s, and hatch them out and count up their result. When he died he left his heir 2,000,000 pounds, which was a most unusual fortune for a king to possess in those days. Columbus’s great 106

Mark Twain achievement gave him the discovery-fever, and he sent Sebastian Cabot to the New World to search out some foreign territory for England. That is Cabot’s ship up there in the corner. This was the first time that England went far abroad to enlarge her estate—but not the last. Henry VIII.; thirty-eight red squares. (Image not available—ed.) That is Henry VIII. suppressing a monastery in his arrogant fashion.

This brings us to the reign of Elizabeth, after ing through a period of nearly five hundred years of England’s history—492 to be exact. I think you may now be trusted to go the rest of the way without further lessons in art or inspirations in the matter of ideas. You have the scheme now, and something in the ruler’s name or career will suggest the pictorial symbol. The effort of inventing such things will not only help your memory, but will develop originality in art. See what it has done for me. If you do not find

Edward VI.; six squares of yellow paper. (Imagae not available—ed.) He is the last Edward to date. It is indicated by that thing over his head, which is a last—shoemaker’s last. Mary; five squares of black paper. (Image not available—

the parlor wall big enough for all of England’s history, continue it into the dining-room and into other rooms. This will make the walls interesting and instructive and really worth something instead of being just flat things to hold the house together.

ed.) The picture represents a burning martyr. He is in back of the smoke. The first three letters of Mary’s name and the first three of the word martyr are the same. Martyrdom was going out in her day and martyrs were becoming scarcer, but she made several. For this reason she is sometimes called Bloody Mary. 107

What Is Man and Other Essays THE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION Note.—The assassination of the Empress of Austria at Geneva, September 10, 1898, occurred during Mark Twain’s Austrian residence. The news came to him at Kaltenleutgeben, a summer resort a little way out of Vienna. To his friend, the Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, he wrote:

come flying and say, ‘Caesar is butchered—the head of the world is fallen!’ “Of course there is no talk but of this. The mourning is universal and genuine, the consternation is stupefying. The Austrian Empire is being draped with black. Vienna will be a spectacle to see by next Saturday, when the funeral cort‘ege marches.” He was strongly moved by the tragedy, impelled to write concerning it. He prepared the article which follows, but

“That good and unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by a man, and I am living in the midst of world-history again. The Queen’s Jubilee last year, the invasion of the Reichsrath by the police, and now this murder, which will still be talked of and described and painted a thousand

did not offer it for publication, perhaps feeling that his own close association with the court circles at the moment prohibited this personal utterance. There appears no such reason for withholding its publication now.

a thousand years from now. To have a personal friend of the wearer of two crowns burst in at the gate in the deep dusk of the evening and say, in a voice broken with tears, ‘My God! the Empress is murdered,’ and fly toward her home before we can utter a question—why, it brings the giant event home to you, makes you a part of it and personally interested; it is as if your neighbor, Antony, should

A. B. P. The more one thinks of the assassination, the more imposing and tremendous the event becomes. The destruction of a city is a large event, but it is one which repeats itself several times in a thousand years; the destruction of a third part of a nation by plague and famine is a large event, 108

Mark Twain but it has happened several times in history; the murder of a king is a large event, but it has been frequent. The murder of an empress is the largest of all events. One must go back about two thousand years to find an instance to put with this one. The oldest family of unchallenged descent in Christendom lives in Rome and traces its line back seventeen hundred years, but no member of it has been present in the earth when an empress was murdered, until now. Many a time during these seventeen cen-

not fallen within the experience of any traceable or untraceable ancestor of his for twenty centuries, and it is not likely to fall within the experience of any descendant of his for twenty more. Time has made some great changes since the Roman days. The murder of an empress then—even the assassination of Caesar himself—could not electrify the world as this murder has electrified it. For one reason, there was then not much of a world to electrify; it was a small world, as to

turies of that family have been startled with the news of extraordinary events—the destruction of cities, the fall of thrones, the murder of kings, the wreck of dynasties, the extinction of religions, the birth of new systems of government; and their descendants have been by to hear of it

known bulk, and it had rather a thin population, besides; and for another reason, the news traveled so slowly that its tremendous initial thrill wasted away, week by week and month by month, on the journey, and by the time it reached the remoter regions there was but little of it left. It was no

and talk about it when all these things were repeated once, twice, or a dozen times—but to even that family has come news at last which is not staled by use, has no duplicates in the long reach of its memory. It is an event which confers a curious distinction upon every individual now living in the world: he has stood alive and breathing in the presence of an event such as has

longer a fresh event, it was a thing of the far past; it was not properly news, it was history. But the world is enormous now, and prodigiously populated—that is one change; and another is the lightning swiftness of the flight of tidings, good and bad. “The Empress is murdered!” When those amazing words struck upon my ear in this Austrian village last Saturday, three hours after the disaster, I knew

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What Is Man and Other Essays that it was already old news in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Japan, China, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and that the entire globe with a single voice, was cursing the perpetrator of it. Since the telegraph first began to stretch itself wider and wider about the earth, larger and increasingly larger areas of the world have, as time went on, received simultaneously the shock of a great calamity; but this is the first time in history that the entire surface of the globe has been swept in a single

washed, vulgar, gross, mephitic, timid, sneaking, human polecat. And it was within the privileges and powers of this sarcasm upon the human race to reach up—up—up— and strike from its far summit in the social skies the world’s accepted ideal of Glory and Might and Splendor and Sacredness! It realizes to us what sorry shows and shadows we are. Without our clothes and our pedestals we are poor things and much of a size; our dignities are not real, our pomps are shams. At our best and stateliest we are not

instant with the thrill of so gigantic an event. And who is the miracle-worker who has furnished to the world this spectacle? All the ironies are compacted in the answer. He is at the bottom of the human ladder, as the accepted estimates of degree and value go: a soiled and

suns, as we pretended, and teach, and believe, but only candles; and any bummer can blow us out. And now we get realized to us once more another thing which we often forget—or try to: that no man has a wholly undiseased mind; that in one way or another all men are

patched young loafer, without gifts, without talents, without education, without morals, without character, without any born charm or any acquired one that wins or beguiles or attracts; without a single grace of mind or heart or hand that any tramp or prostitute could envy him; an unfaithful private in the ranks, an incompetent stone-cutter, an inefficient lackey; in a word, a mangy, offensive, empty, un-

mad. Many are mad for money. When this madness is in a mild form it is harmless and the man es for sane; but when it develops powerfully and takes possession of the man, it can make him cheat, rob, and kill; and when he has got his fortune and lost it again it can land him in the asylum or the suicide’s coffin. Love is a madness; if thwarted it develops fast; it can grow to a frenzy of despair and make 110

Mark Twain an otherwise sane and highly gifted prince, like Rudolph, throw away the crown of an empire and snuff out his own life. All the whole list of desires, predilections, aversions, ambitions, ions, cares, griefs, regrets, remorses, are incipient madness, and ready to grow, spread, and consume, when the occasion comes. There are no healthy minds, and nothing saves any man but accident—the accident of not having his malady put to the supreme test. One of the commonest forms of madness is the desire to

ship and the thousand other dignities, and tricked them out with pretty and showy fineries; it has made kings pick one another’s pockets, scramble for one another’s crowns and estates, slaughter one another’s subjects; it has raised up prize-fighters, and poets, and villages mayors, and little and big politicians, and big and little charity-founders, and bicycle champions, and banditti chiefs, and frontier desperadoes, and Napoleons. Anything to get notoriety; anything to set the village, or the township, or the city, or the

be noticed, the pleasure derived from being noticed. Perhaps it is not merely common, but universal. In its mildest form it doubtless is universal. Every child is pleased at being noticed; many intolerable children put in their whole time in distressing and idiotic effort to attract the atten-

State, or the nation, or the planet shouting, “Look—there he goes—that is the man!” And in five minutes’ time, at no cost of brain, or labor, or genius this mangy Italian tramp has beaten them all, transcended them all, outstripped them all, for in time their names will perish; but by the friendly

tion of visitors; boys are always “showing off”; apparently all men and women are glad and grateful when they find that they have done a thing which has lifted them for a moment out of obscurity and caused wondering talk. This common madness can develop, by nurture, into a hunger for notoriety in one, for fame in another. It is this madness for being noticed and talked about which has invented king-

help of the insane newspapers and courts and kings and historians, his is safe and live and thunder in the world all down the ages as long as human speech shall endure! Oh, if it were not so tragic how ludicrous it would be! She was so blameless, the Empress; and so beautiful, in mind and heart, in person and spirit; and whether with a crown upon her head or without it and nameless, a grace

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What Is Man and Other Essays to the human race, and almost a justification of its creation; would be, indeed, but that the animal that struck her down re-establishes the doubt. In her character was every quality that in woman invites and engages respect, esteem, affection, and homage. Her tastes, her instincts, and her aspirations were all high and fine and all her life her heart and brain were busy with activities of a noble sort. She had had bitter griefs, but they did not sour her spirit, and she had had the highest honors

valued the fact that he had met him or seen him at some time or other; he was sunk in abysmal obscurity, he was away beneath the notice of the bottom grades of officialdom. Three hours later he was the one subject of conversation in the world, the gilded generals and irals and governors were discussing him, all the kings and queens and emperors had put aside their other interests to talk about him. And wherever there was a man, at the summit of the world or the bottom of it, who by chance had at some time or

in the world’s gift, but she went her simple way unspoiled. She knew all ranks, and won them all, and made them her friends. An English fisherman’s wife said, “When a body was in trouble she didn’t send her help, she brought it herself.” Crowns have adorned others, but she adorned her

other come across that creature, he ed it with a secret satisfaction, and mentioned it—for it was a distinction, now! It brings human dignity pretty low, and for a moment the thing is not quite realizable—but it is perfectly true. If there is a king who can , now, that

crowns. It was a swift celebrity the assassin achieved. And it is marked by some curious contrasts. At noon last, Saturday there was no one in the world who would have considered acquaintanceship with him a thing worth claiming or mentioning; no one would have been vain of such an acquaintanceship; the humblest honest boot-black would not have

he once saw that creature in a time past, he has let that fact out, in a more or less studiedly casual and indifferent way, some dozens of times during the past week. For a king is merely human; the inside of him is exactly like the inside of any other person; and it is human to find satisfaction in being in a kind of personal way connected with amazing events. We are all privately vain of such a thing; we are all 112

Mark Twain slept in. And the charcoal mark there on the wall—he made that. My little Johnny saw him do it with his own eyes. Didn’t you, Johnny?”

alike; a king is a king by accident; the reason the rest of us are not kings is merely due to another accident; we are all made out of the same clay, and it is a sufficient poor quality. Below the kings, these remarks are in the air these days; I know it well as if I were hearing them: THE COMMANDER: “He was in my army.”

It is easy to see, by the papers, that the magistrate and the constables and the jailer treasure up the assassin’s daily remarks and doings as precious things, and as wallowing this week in seas of blissful distinction. The interviewer, too; he tried to let on that he is not vain of his privilege of with this man whom few others are allowed to gaze upon, but he is human, like the rest, and can no more keep his vanity corked in than could you or I. Some think that this murder is a frenzied revolt against the criminal militarism which is impoverishing Europe and driving the starving poor mad. That has many crimes to answer for, but not this one, I think. One may not attribute to this man a generous indignation against the wrongs done the poor; one may not dignify him with a generous impulse of any kind. When he saw his photograph and said, “I shall be celebrated,” he laid bare the impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for notoriety. There

THE GENERAL: “He was in my corps.” THE COLONEL: “He was in my regiment. A brute. I him well.” THE CAPTAIN: “He was in my company. A troublesome scoundrel. I him well.” THE SERGEANT: “Did I know him? As well as I know you. Why, every morning I used to—” etc., etc.; a glad, long story, told to devouring ears. THE LANDLADY: “Many’s the time he boarded with me. I can show you his very room, and the very bed he 113

What Is Man and Other Essays is another confessed case of the kind which is as old as history—the burning of the temple of Ephesus. Among the inadequate attempts to for the assassination we must concede high rank to the many which have described it as a “peculiarly brutal crime” and then added that it was “ordained from above.” I think this verdict will not be popular “above.” If the deed was ordained from above, there is no rational way of making this prisoner even partially responsible for it, and the Genevan court

deep mourning, gentlemen were in black as a rule; carriages were speeding in all directions, with footmen and coachmen in black clothes and wearing black cocked hats; the shops were closed; in many windows were pictures of the Empress: as a beautiful young bride of seventeen; as a serene and majestic lady with added years; and finally in deep black and without ornaments—the costume she always wore after the tragic death of her son nine years ago, for her heart broke then, and life lost almost all its value

cannot condemn him without manifestly committing a crime. Logic is logic, and by disregarding its laws even the most pious and showy theologian may be beguiled into preferring charges which should not be ventured upon except in the shelter of plenty of lightning-rods.

for her. The people stood grouped before these pictures, and now and then one saw women and girls turn away wiping the tears from their eyes. In front of the Krantz is an open square; over the way was the church where the funeral services would be held. It

I witnessed the funeral procession, in company with friends, from the windows of the Krantz, Vienna’s sumptuous new hotel. We came into town in the middle of the forenoon, and I went on foot from the station. Black flags hung down from all the houses; the aspects were Sundaylike; the crowds on the sidewalks were quiet and moved slowly; very few people were smoking; many ladies wore

is small and old and severely plain, plastered outside and whitewashed or painted, and with no ornament but a statue of a monk in a niche over the door, and above that a small black flag. But in its crypt lie several of the great dead of the House of Habsburg, among them Maria Theresa and Napoleon’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt. Hereabouts was a Roman camp, once, and in it the Emperor Marcus Aurelius 114

Mark Twain died a thousand years before the first Habsburg ruled in Vienna, which was six hundred years ago and more. The little church is packed in among great modern stores and houses, and the windows of them were full of people. Behind the vast plate-glass windows of the upper floors of the house on the corner one glimpsed terraced masses of fine-clothed men and women, dim and shimmery, like people under water. Under us the square was noiseless, but it was full of citizens; officials in fine uniforms were flit-

empty, the private mourner was gone. Another order, the soldiers fell apart and enclosed the square in a double-ranked human fence. It was all so swift, noiseless, exact—like a beautifully ordered machine. It was noon, now. Two hours of stillness and waiting followed. Then carriages began to flow past and deliver the two and three hundred court personages and high nobilities privileged to enter the church. Then the square filled up; not with civilians, but with army and navy officers in

ting about on errands, and in a doorstep sat a figure in the uttermost raggedness of poverty, the feet bare, the head bent humbly down; a youth of eighteen or twenty, he was, and through the field-glass one could see that he was tearing apart and munching riffraff that he had gathered some-

showy and beautiful uniforms. They filled it compactly, leaving only a narrow carriage path in front of the church, but there was no civilian among them. And it was better so; dull clothes would have marred the radiant spectacle. In the jam in front of the church, on its steps, and on the

where. Blazing uniforms flashed by him, making a sparkling contrast with his drooping ruin of moldy rags, but he took not notice; he was not there to grieve for a nation’s disaster; he had his own cares, and deeper. From two directions two long files of infantry came plowing through the pack and press in silence; there was a low, crisp order and the crowd vanished, the square save the sidewalks was

sidewalk was a bunch of uniforms which made a blazing splotch of color—intense red, gold, and white—which dimmed the brilliancies around them; and opposite them on the other side of the path was a bunch of cascaded brightgreen plumes above pale-blue shoulders which made another splotch of splendor emphatic and conspicuous in its glowing surroundings. It was a sea of flashing color all

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What Is Man and Other Essays about, but these two groups were the high notes. The green plumes were worn by forty or fifty Austrian generals, the group opposite them were chiefly Knights of Malta and knights of a German order. The mass of heads in the square were covered by gilt helmets and by military caps roofed with a mirror-like gaze, and the movements of the wearers caused these things to catch the sun-rays, and the effect was fine to see—the square was like a garden of richly colored flowers with a multitude of blinding and flashing little

another one—very long, with many crosses, gold-embroidered robes, and much white lace; also great pictured banners, at intervals, receding into the distance. A hum of tolling bells makes itself heard, but not sharply. At three-fifty-eight a waiting interval. Presently a long procession of gentlemen in evening dress comes in sight and approaches until it is near to the square, then falls back against the wall of soldiers at the sidewalk, and the white shirt-fronts show like snowflakes and are very conspicuous

suns distributed over it. Think of it—it was by command of that Italian loafer yonder on his imperial throne in the Geneva prison that this splendid multitude was assembled there; and the kings and emperors that were entering the church from a side street

where so much warm color is all about. A waiting pause. At four-twelve the head of the funeral procession comes into view at last. First, a body of cavalry, four abreast, to widen the path. Next, a great body of lancers, in blue, with gilt helmets. Next, three six-horse mourn-

were there by his will. It is so strange, so unrealizable. At three o’clock the carriages were still streaming by in single file. At three-five a cardinal arrives with his attendants; later some bishops; then a number of archdeacons— all in striking colors that add to the show. At three-ten a procession of priests ed along, with crucifix. Another one, presently; after an interval, two more; at three-fifty

ing-coaches; outriders and coachmen in black, with cocked hats and white wigs. Next, troops in splendid uniforms, red, gold, and white, exceedingly showy. Now the multitude uncover. The soldiers present arms; there is a low rumble of drums; the sumptuous great hearse approaches, drawn at a walk by eight black horses plumed with black bunches of nodding ostrich feathers; the coffin 116

Mark Twain phasized, rather than broken, by the muffled hoofbeats of the long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and the low sobbing of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry forty-four years before, when she and they were young—and unaware! A character in Baron von Berger’s recent fairy drama “Habsburg” tells about the first coming of the girlish Empress-Queen, and in his history draws a fine picture: I cannot make a close translation of it, but will try to convey the spirit of the verses:

is borne into the church, the doors are closed. The multitude cover their heads, and the rest of the procession moves by; first the Hungarian Guard in their indescribably brilliant and picturesque and beautiful uniform, inherited from the ages of barbaric splendor, and after them other mounted forces, a long and showy array. Then the shining crown in the square crumbled apart, a wrecked rainbow, and melted away in radiant streams, and in the turn of a wrist the three dirtiest and raggedest and cheerfulest little slum-girls in Austria were capering about in the spacious vacancy. It was a day of contrasts. Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode in measureless pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering world of gay flags and decorations, down streets walled on both hands with a press of shouting and welcoming subjects; and the second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin and moved down the same streets in the dead of the night under swaying black flags, between packed human walls again; but everywhere was a deep stillness, now—a stillness em117

I saw the stately pageant : In her high place I saw the Empress-Queen: I could not take my eyes away From that fair vision, spirit-like and pure, That rose serene, sublime, and figured to my sense A noble Alp far lighted in the blue, That in the flood of morning rends its veil of cloud And stands a dream of glory to the gaze Of them that in the Valley toil and plod.

What Is Man and Other Essays A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY MARION CITY, ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, in the State of Missouri—a village; time, 1845. La Bourboule-les-Bains, —a village; time, the end of June, 1894. I was in the one village in that early time; I am in the other now. These times and places are sufficiently wide apart, yet today I have the strange sense of being thrust back into that Missourian village and of reliving certain stirring days that I lived there so long ago. Last Saturday night the life of the President of the French Republic was taken by an Italian assassin. Last night a mob surrounded our hotel, shouting, howling, singing the “Marseillaise,” and pelting our windows with sticks and stones; for we have Italian waiters, and the mob demanded that they be turned out of the house instantly—to be drubbed, and then driven out of the village. Everybody in the hotel remained up until far into the night, and experienced the several kinds of terror which one reads about in books which tell of nigh attacks by Italians and by French mobs: the growing roar of the oncoming crowd; the ar-

rival, with rain of stones and a crash of glass; the withdrawal to rearrange plans—followed by a silence ominous, threatening, and harder to bear than even the active siege and the noise. The landlord and the two village policemen stood their ground, and at last the mob was persuaded to go away and leave our Italians in peace. Today four of the ringleaders have been sentenced to heavy punishment of a public sort—and are become local heroes, by consequence. That is the very mistake which was at first made in the Missourian village half a century ago. The mistake was repeated and repeated—just as is doing in these later months. In our village we had our Ravochals, our Henrys, our Vaillants; and in a humble way our Cesario—I hope I have spelled this name wrong. Fifty years ago we ed through, in all essentials, what has been ing through during the past two or three years, in the matter of periodical frights, horrors, and shudderings. In several details the parallels are quaintly exact. In that day, for a man to speak out openly and proclaim himself an enemy of negro slavery was simply to proclaim himself 118

Mark Twain a man. For he was blaspheming against the holiest thing known to a Missourian, and could not be in his right mind. For a man to proclaim himself an anarchist in , three years ago, was to proclaim himself a man—he could not be in his right mind. Now the original first blasphemer against any institution profoundly venerated by a community is quite sure to be in earnest; his followers and imitators may be humbugs and self-seekers, but he himself is sincere—his heart is in

tion which had fallen to his lot. He was treated to many side remarks by his fellows, but as he did not resent them it was decided that he was a coward. All of a sudden he proclaimed himself an abolitionist— straight out and publicly! He said that negro slavery was a crime, an infamy. For a moment the town was paralyzed with astonishment; then it broke into a fury of rage and swarmed toward the cooper-shop to lynch Hardy. But the Methodist minister made a powerful speech to them and

his protest. Robert Hardy was our first abolitionist—awful name! He was a journeyman cooper, and worked in the big coopershop belonging to the great pork-packing establishment which was Marion City’s chief pride and sole source of pros-

stayed their hands. He proved to them that Hardy was insane and not responsible for his words; that no man could be sane and utter such words. So Hardy was saved. Being insane, he was allowed to go on talking. He was found to be good entertainment. Sev-

perity. He was a New-Englander, a stranger. And, being a stranger, he was of course regarded as an inferior person— for that has been human nature from Adam down—and of course, also, he was made to feel unwelcome, for this is the ancient law with man and the other animals. Hardy was thirty years old, and a bachelor; pale, given to reverie and reading. He was reserved, and seemed to prefer the isola-

eral nights running he made abolition speeches in the open air, and all the town flocked to hear and laugh. He implored them to believe him sane and sincere, and have pity on the poor slaves, and take measurements for the restoration of their stolen rights, or in no long time blood would flow—blood, blood, rivers of blood! It was great fun. But all of a sudden the aspect of things

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What Is Man and Other Essays changed. A slave came flying from Palmyra, the countyseat, a few miles back, and was about to escape in a canoe to Illinois and freedom in the dull twilight of the approaching dawn, when the town constable seized him. Hardy happened along and tried to rescue the negro; there was a struggle, and the constable did not come out of it alive. Hardly crossed the river with the negro, and then came back to give himself up. All this took time, for the Mississippi is not a French brook, like the Seine, the Loire, and

The excitement was prodigious. The constable was the first man who had ever been killed in the town. The event was by long odds the most imposing in the town’s history. It lifted the humble village into sudden importance; its name was in everybody’s mouth for twenty miles around. And so was the name of Robert Hardy—Robert Hardy, the stranger, the despised. In a day he was become the person of most consequence in the region, the only person talked about. As to those other coopers, they found their position curi-

those other rivulets, but is a real river nearly a mile wide. The town was on hand in force by now, but the Methodist preacher and the sheriff had already made arrangements in the interest of order; so Hardy was surrounded by a strong guard and safely conveyed to the village calaboose in spite

ously changed—they were important people, or unimportant, now, in proportion as to how large or how small had been their intercourse with the new celebrity. The two or three who had really been on a sort of familiar footing with him found themselves objects of iring interest with

of all the effort of the mob to get hold of him. The reader will have begun to perceive that this Methodist minister was a prompt man; a prompt man, with active hands and a good headpiece. Williams was his name—Damon Williams; Damon Williams in public, Damnation Williams in private, because he was so powerful on that theme and so frequent.

the public and of envy with their shopmates. The village weekly journal had lately gone into new hands. The new man was an enterprising fellow, and he made the most of the tragedy. He issued an extra. Then he put up posters promising to devote his whole paper to matters connected with the great event—there would be a full and intensely interesting biography of the murderer, and even a 120

Mark Twain portrait of him. He was as good as his word. He carved the portrait himself, on the back of a wooden type—and a terror it was to look at. It made a great commotion, for this was the first time the village paper had ever contained a picture. The village was very proud. The output of the paper was ten times as great as it had ever been before, yet every copy was sold. When the trial came on, people came from all the farms around, and from Hannibal, and Quincy, and even from Keokuk; and the court-house could hold only a fraction of

village proclaimed themselves abolitionists! In life Hardy had not been able to make a convert; everybody laughed at him; but nobody could laugh at his legacy. The four swaggered around with their slouch-hats pulled down over their faces, and hinted darkly at awful possibilities. The people were troubled and afraid, and showed it. And they were stunned, too; they could not understand it. “Abolitionist” had always been a term of shame and horror; yet here were four young men who were not only not ashamed to bear

the crowd that applied for ission. The trial was published in the village paper, with fresh and still more trying pictures of the accused. Hardy was convicted, and hanged—a mistake. People came from miles around to see the hanging; they brought

that name, but were grimly proud of it. Respectable young men they were, too—of good families, and brought up in the church. Ed Smith, the printer’s apprentice, nineteen, had been the head Sunday-school boy, and had once recited three thousand Bible verses without making a break.

cakes and cider, also the women and children, and made a picnic of the matter. It was the largest crowd the village had ever seen. The rope that hanged Hardy was eagerly bought up, in inch samples, for everybody wanted a memento of the memorable event. Martyrdom gilded with notoriety has its fascinations. Within one week afterward four young lightweights in the

Dick Savage, twenty, the baker’s apprentice; Will Joyce, twenty-two, journeyman blacksmith; and Henry Taylor, twenty-four, tobacco-stemmer—were the other three. They were all of a sentimental cast; they were all romance-readers; they all wrote poetry, such as it was; they were all vain and foolish; but they had never before been suspected of having anything bad in them.

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What Is Man and Other Essays They withdrew from society, and grew more and more mysterious and dreadful. They presently achieved the distinction of being denounced by names from the pulpit— which made an immense stir! This was grandeur, this was fame. They were envied by all the other young fellows now. This was natural. Their company grew—grew alarmingly. They took a name. It was a secret name, and was divulged to no outsider; publicly they were simply the abolitionists. They had -words, grips, and signs; they had secret

When this kind of thing had been going on about eight weeks, a quite natural thing happened. A few men of character and grit woke up out of the nightmare of fear which had been stupefying their faculties, and began to discharge scorn and scoffings at themselves and the community for enduring this child’s-play; and at the same time they proposed to end it straightway. Everybody felt an uplift; life was breathed into their dead spirits; their courage rose and they began to feel like men again. This was on a Saturday.

meetings; their initiations were conducted with gloomy pomps and ceremonies, at midnight. They always spoke of Hardy as “the Martyr,” and every little while they moved through the principal street in procession—at midnight, black-robed, masked, to the measured

All day the new feeling grew and strengthened; it grew with a rush; it brought inspiration and cheer with it. Midnight saw a united community, full of zeal and pluck, and with a clearly defined and welcome piece of work in front of it. The best organizer and strongest and bitterest talker on

tap of the solemn drum—on pilgrimage to the Martyr’s grave, where they went through with some majestic fooleries and swore vengeance upon his murderers. They gave previous notice of the pilgrimage by small posters, and warned everybody to keep indoors and darken all houses along the route, and leave the road empty. These warnings were obeyed, for there was a skull and crossbones at the top of the poster.

that great Saturday was the Presbyterian clergyman who had denounced the original four from his pulpit—Rev. Hiram Fletcher—and he promised to use his pulpit in the public interest again now. On the morrow he had revelations to make, he said—secrets of the dreadful society. But the revelations were never made. At half past two in the morning the dead silence of the village was broken by a 122

Mark Twain crashing explosion, and the town patrol saw the preacher’s house spring in a wreck of whirling fragments into the sky. The preacher was killed, together with a negro woman, his only slave and servant. The town was paralyzed again, and with reason. To struggle against a visible enemy is a thing worth while, and there is a plenty of men who stand always ready to undertake it; but to struggle against an invisible one—an invisible one who sneaks in and does his awful work in the dark

And so there was a bitter surprise and an unwelcome one when Will Joyce, the blacksmith’s journeyman, came out and proclaimed himself the assassin! Plainly he was not minded to be robbed of his glory. He made his proclamation, and stuck to it. Stuck to it, and insisted upon a trial. Here was an ominous thing; here was a new and peculiarly formidable terror, for a motive was revealed here which society could not hope to deal with successfully—vanity, thirst for notoriety. If men were going to kill for notoriety’s

and leaves no trace—that is another matter. That is a thing to make the bravest tremble and hold back. The cowed populace were afraid to go to the funeral. The man who was to have had a packed church to hear him expose and denounce the common enemy had but a

sake, and to win the glory of newspaper renown, a big trial, and a showy execution, what possible invention of man could discourage or deter them? The town was in a sort of panic; it did not know what to do. However, the grand jury had to take hold of the mat-

handful to see him buried. The coroner’s jury had brought in a verdict of “death by the visitation of God,” for no witness came forward; if any existed they prudently kept out of the way. Nobody seemed sorry. Nobody wanted to see the terrible secret society provoked into the commission of further outrages. Everybody wanted the tragedy hushed up, ignored, forgotten, if possible.

ter—it had no choice. It brought in a true bill, and presently the case went to the county court. The trial was a fine sensation. The prisoner was the principal witness for the prosecution. He gave a full of the assassination; he furnished even the minutest particulars: how he deposited his keg of powder and laid his train—from the house to such-and-such a spot; how George Ronalds and

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What Is Man and Other Essays Henry Hart came along just then, smoking, and he borrowed Hart’s cigar and fired the train with it, shouting, “Down with all slave-tyrants!” and how Hart and Ronalds made no effort to capture him, but ran away, and had never come forward to testify yet. But they had to testify now, and they did—and pitiful it was to see how reluctant they were, and how scared. The crowded house listened to Joyce’s fearful tale with a profound and breathless interest, and in a deep hush which

had imposing ages of school-boy eloquence in it, and gave him a reputation on the spot as an orator, and his name, later, in the society’s records, of the “Martyr Orator.” He went to his death breathing slaughter and charging his society to “avenge his murder.” If he knew anything of human nature he knew that to plenty of young fellows present in that great crowd he was a grand hero— and enviably situated. He was hanged. It was a mistake. Within a month from

was not broken till he broke it himself, in concluding, with a roaring repetition of his “Death to all slave-tyrants!”— which came so unexpectedly and so startlingly that it made everyone present catch his breath and gasp. The trial was put in the paper, with biography and large

his death the society which he had honored had twenty new , some of them earnest, determined men. They did not court distinction in the same way, but they celebrated his martyrdom. The crime which had been obscure and despised had become lofty and glorified.

portrait, with other slanderous and insane pictures, and the edition sold beyond imagination. The execution of Joyce was a fine and picturesque thing. It drew a vast crowd. Good places in trees and seats on rail fences sold for half a dollar apiece; lemonade and gingerbread-stands had great prosperity. Joyce recited a furious and fantastic and denunciatory speech on the scaffold which

Such things were happening all over the country. Wildbrained martyrdom was succeeded by uprising and organization. Then, in natural order, followed riot, insurrection, and the wrack and restitutions of war. It was bound to come, and it would naturally come in that way. It has been the manner of reform since the beginning of the world.

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Mark Twain SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY witz erland en, SSwitz In witzerland erland,, 1891. Intt erlak erlaken, IT IS A GOOD MANY YEARS since I was in Switzerland last. In that remote time there was only one ladder railway in the country. That state of things is all changed. There isn’t a mountain in Switzerland now that hasn’t a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders; indeed, some mountains are latticed with them, and two years hence all will be. In that day the peasant of the high altitudes will have to carry a lantern when he goes visiting in the night to keep from stumbling over railroads that have been built since his last round. And also in that day, if there shall remain a high-altitude peasant whose potato-patch hasn’t a railroad through it, it would make him as conspicuous as William Tell. However, there are only two best ways to travel through Switzerland. The first best is afloat. The second best is by open two-horse carriage. One can come from Lucerne to Interlaken over the Brunig by ladder railroad in an hour or 125

so now, but you can glide smoothly in a carriage in ten, and have two hours for luncheon at noon—for luncheon, not for rest. There is no fatigue connected with the trip. One arrives fresh in spirit and in person in the evening— no fret in his heart, no grime on his face, no grit in his hair, not a cinder in his eye. This is the right condition of mind and body, the right and due preparation for the solemn event which closed the day—stepping with metaphorically uncovered head into the presence of the most impressive mountain mass that the globe can show—the Jungfrau. The stranger’s first feeling, when suddenly confronted by that towering and awful apparition wrapped in its shroud of snow, is breath-taking astonishment. It is as if heaven’s gates had swung open and exposed the throne. It is peaceful here and pleasant at Interlaken. Nothing going on—at least nothing but brilliant life-giving sunshine. There are floods and floods of that. One may properly speak of it as “going on,” for it is full of the suggestion of activity; the light pours down with energy, with visible enthusiasm. This is a good atmosphere to be in, morally as well as physically. After trying the political atmosphere of

What Is Man and Other Essays the neighboring monarchies, it is healing and refreshing to breathe air that has known no taint of slavery for six hundred years, and to come among a people whose political history is great and fine, and worthy to be taught in all schools and studied by all races and peoples. For the struggle here throughout the centuries has not been in the interest of any private family, or any church, but in the interest of the whole body of the nation, and for shelter and protection of all forms of belief. This fact is colossal. If one would

since it was there that William, surnamed Tell (which interpreted means “The foolish talker”—that is to say, the too-daring talker), refused to bow to Gessler’s hat. Of late years the prying student of history has been delighting himself beyond measure over a wonderful find which he has made—to wit, that Tell did not shoot the apple from his son’s head. To hear the students jubilate, one would suppose that the question of whether Tell shot the apple or didn’t was an important matter; whereas it ranks in impor-

realize how colossal it is, and of what dignity and majesty, let him contrast it with the purposes and objects of the Crusades, the siege of York, the War of the Roses, and other historic comedies of that sort and size. Last week I was beating around the Lake of Four Can-

tance exactly with the question of whether Washington chopped down the cherry-tree or didn’t. The deeds of Washington, the patriot, are the essential thing; the cherry-tree incident is of no consequence. To prove that Tell did shoot the apple from his son’s head would merely prove that he

tons, and I saw Rutli and Altorf. Rutli is a remote little patch of meadow, but I do not know how any piece of ground could be holier or better worth crossing oceans and continents to see, since it was there that the great trinity of Switzerland ed hands six centuries ago and swore the oath which set their enslaved and insulted country forever free; and Altorf is also honorable ground and worshipful,

had better nerve than most men and was skillful with a bow as a million others who preceded and followed him, but not one whit more so. But Tell was more and better than a mere marksman, more and better than a mere cool head; he was a type; he stands for Swiss patriotism; in his person was represented a whole people; his spirit was their spirit—the spirit which would bow to none but God, the 126

Mark Twain spirit which said this in words and confirmed it with deeds. There have always been Tells in Switzerland—people who would not bow. There was a sufficiency of them at Rutli; there were plenty of them at Murten; plenty at Grandson; there are plenty today. And the first of them all—the very first, earliest banner-bearer of human freedom in this world—was not a man, but a woman—Stauffacher’s wife. There she looms dim and great, through the haze of the centuries, delivering into her husband’s ear that gospel of

gaging and beguiling and fascinating spectacle that exists on the earth. There are many mountains of snow that are as lofty as the Jungfrau and as nobly proportioned, but they lack the fame. They stand at large; they are intruded upon and elbowed by neighboring domes and summits, and their grandeur is diminished and fails of effect. It is a good name, Jungfrau—Virgin. Nothing could be whiter; nothing could be purer; nothing could be saintlier of aspect. At six yesterday evening the great intervening

revolt which was to bear fruit in the conspiracy of Rutli and the birth of the first free government the world had ever seen. From this Victoria Hotel one looks straight across a flat of trifling width to a lofty mountain barrier, which has a

barrier seen through a faint bluish haze seemed made of air and substanceless, so soft and rich it was, so shimmering where the wandering lights touched it and so dim where the shadows lay. Apparently it was a dream stuff, a work of the imagination, nothing real about it. The tint was green,

gateway in it shaped like an inverted pyramid. Beyond this gateway arises the vast bulk of the Jungfrau, a spotless mass of gleaming snow, into the sky. The gateway, in the darkcolored barrier, makes a strong frame for the great picture. The somber frame and the glowing snow-pile are startlingly contrasted. It is this frame which concentrates and emphasizes the glory of the Jungfrau and makes it the most en-

slightly varying shades of it, but mainly very dark. The sun was down—as far as that barrier was concerned, but not for the Jungfrau, towering into the heavens beyond the gateway. She was a roaring conflagration of blinding white. It is said the Fridolin (the old Fridolin), a new saint, but formerly a missionary, gave the mountain its gracious name. He was an Irishman, son of an Irish king—there were thirty

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What Is Man and Other Essays thousand kings reigning in County Cork alone in his time, fifteen hundred years ago. It got so that they could not make a living, there was so much competition and wages got cut so. Some of them were out of work months at a time, with wife and little children to feed, and not a crust in the place. At last a particularly severe winter fell upon the country, and hundreds of them were reduced to mendicancy and were to be seen day after day in the bitterest weather, standing barefoot in the snow, holding out their

missionarying—for missionarying was a better thing in those days than it is in ours. All you had to do was to cure the savage’s sick daughter by a “miracle”—a miracle like the miracle of Lourdes in our day, for instance—and immediately that head savage was your convert, and filled to the eyes with a new convert’s enthusiasm. You could sit down and make yourself easy, now. He would take an ax and convert the rest of the nation himself. Charlemagne was that kind of a walking delegate.

crowns for alms. Indeed, they would have been obliged to emigrate or starve but for a fortunate idea of Prince Fridolin’s, who started a labor-union, the first one in history, and got the great bulk of them to it. He thus won the general gratitude, and they wanted to make him em-

Yes, there were great missionaries in those days, for the methods were sure and the rewards great. We have no such missionaries now, and no such methods. But to continue the history of the first walking delegate, if you are interested. I am interested myself because I have

peror—emperor over them all—emperor of County Cork, but he said, No, walking delegate was good enough for him. For behold! he was modest beyond his years, and keen as a whip. To this day in and Switzerland, where St. Fridolin is revered and honored, the peasantry speak of him affectionately as the first walking delegate. The first walk he took was into and ,

seen his relics in Sackingen, and also the very spot where he worked his great miracle—the one which won him his sainthood in the papal court a few centuries later. To have seen these things makes me feel very near to him, almost like a member of the family, in fact. While wandering about the Continent he arrived at the spot on the Rhine which is now occupied by Sackingen, and proposed to settle there, 128

Mark Twain but the people warned him off. He appealed to the king of the Franks, who made him a present of the whole region, people and all. He built a great cloister there for women and proceeded to teach in it and accumulate more land. There were two wealthy brothers in the neighborhood, Urso and Landulph. Urso died and Fridolin claimed his estates. Landulph asked for documents and papers. Fridolin had none to show. He said the bequest had been made to him by word of mouth. Landulph suggested that he produce a

entered at the door and came walking in a deep hush down the middle aisle, with a tall skeleton stalking in his rear. Amazement and terror sat upon every countenance, for everybody suspected that the skeleton was Urso’s. It stopped before the chief judge and raised its bony arm aloft and began to speak, while all the assembled shuddered, for they could see the words leak out between its ribs. It said: “Brother, why dost thou disturb my blessed rest and withhold by robbery the gift which I gave thee for the honor of God?”

witness and said it in a way which he thought was very witty, very sarcastic. This shows that he did not know the walking delegate. Fridolin was not disturbed. He said: “Appoint your court. I will bring a witness.” The court thus created consisted of fifteen counts and

It seems a strange thing and most irregular, but the verdict was actually given against Landulph on the testimony of this wandering rack-heap of unidentified bones. In our day a skeleton would not be allowed to testify at all, for a skeleton has no moral responsibility, and its word could

barons. A day was appointed for the trial of the case. On that day the judges took their seats in state, and proclamation was made that the court was ready for business. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes ed, and yet no Fridolin appeared. Landulph rose, and was in the act of claiming judgment by default when a strange clacking sound was heard coming up the stairs. In another moment Fridolin

not be believed on oath, and this was probably one of them. However, the incident is valuable as preserving to us a curious sample of the quaint laws of evidence of that remote time—a time so remote, so far back toward the beginning of original idiocy, that the difference between a bench of judges and a basket of vegetables was as yet so slight that we may say with all confidence that it didn’t really exist.

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What Is Man and Other Essays DURING SEVERAL AFTERNOONS I have been engaged in an interesting, maybe useful, piece of work—that is to say, I have been trying to make the mighty Jungfrau earn her living—earn it in a most humble sphere, but on a prodigious scale, on a prodigious scale of necessity, for she couldn’t do anything in a small way with her size and style. I have been trying to make her do service on a stupendous dial and check off the hours as they glide along her pallid face up there against the sky, and tell the time of day to the populations lying within fifty miles of her and to the people in the moon, if they have a good telescope there. Until late in the afternoon the Jungfrau’s aspect is that of a spotless desert of snow set upon edge against the sky. But by mid-afternoon some elevations which rise out of the western border of the desert, whose presence you perhaps had not detected or suspected up to that time, began to cast black shadows eastward across the gleaming surface. At first there is only one shadow; later there are two. Toward 4 P.M. the other day I was gazing and worshiping as usual when I chanced to notice that shadow No. 1 was

beginning to take itself something of the shape of the human profile. By four the back of the head was good, the military cap was pretty good, the nose was bold and strong, the upper lip sharp, but not pretty, and there was a great goatee that shot straight aggressively forward from the chin. At four-thirty the nose had changed its shape considerably, and the altered slant of the sun had revealed and made conspicuous a huge buttress or barrier of naked rock which was so located as to answer very well for a shoulder or coatcollar to this swarthy and indiscreet sweetheart who had stolen out there right before everybody to pillow his head on the Virgin’s white breast and whisper soft sentimentalities to her in the sensuous music of the crashing ice-domes and the boom and thunder of the ing avalanche—music very familiar to his ear, for he had heard it every afternoon at this hour since the day he first came courting this child of the earth, who lives in the sky, and that day is far, yes—for he was at this pleasant sport before the Middle Ages drifted by him in the valley; before the Romans marched past, and before the antique and recordless barbarians fished and hunted here and wondered who he might 130

Mark Twain be, and were probably afraid of him; and before primeval man himself, just emerged from his four-footed estate, stepped out upon this plain, first sample of his race, a thousand centuries ago, and cast a glad eye up there, judging he had found a brother human being and consequently something to kill; and before the big saurians wallowed here, still some eons earlier. Oh yes, a day so far back that the eternal son was present to see that first visit; a day so far back that neither tradition nor history was born yet and a

beautiful. It is black and is powerfully marked against the upright canvas of glowing snow, and covers hundreds of acres of that resplendent surface. Meantime shadow No. 2 has been creeping out well to the rear of the face west of it—and at five o’clock has assumed a shape that has rather a poor and rude semblance of a shoe. Meantime, also, the great Shadow Face has been gradually changing for twenty minutes, and now, 5 P.M., it is

whole weary eternity must come and go before the restless little creature, of whose face this stupendous Shadow Face was the prophecy, would arrive in the earth and begin his shabby career and think of a big thing. Oh, indeed yes; when you talk about your poor Roman and Egyptian day-

becoming a quite fair portrait of Roscoe Conkling. The likeness is there, and is unmistakable. The goatee is shortened, now, and has an end; formerly it hadn’t any, but ran off eastward and arrived nowhere. By 6 P.M. the face has dissolved and gone, and the goatee

before-yesterday antiquities, you should choose a time when the hoary Shadow Face of the Jungfrau is not by. It antedates all antiquities known or imaginable; for it was here the world itself created the theater of future antiquities. And it is the only witness with a human face that was there to see the marvel, and remains to us a memorial of it. By 4:40 P.M. the nose of the shadow is perfect and is

has become what looks like the shadow of a tower with a pointed roof, and the shoe had turned into what the printers call a “fist” with a finger pointing. If I were now imprisoned on a mountain summit a hundred miles northward of this point, and was denied a timepiece, I could get along well enough from four till six on clear days, for I could keep trace of the time by the chang-

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What Is Man and Other Essays ing shapes of these mighty shadows of the Virgin’s front, the most stupendous dial I am acquainted with, the oldest clock in the world by a couple of million years. I suppose I should not have noticed the forms of the shadows if I hadn’t the habit of hunting for faces in the clouds and in mountain crags—a sort of amusement which is very entertaining even when you don’t find any, and brilliantly satisfying when you do. I have searched through several bushels of photographs of the Jungfrau here, but found only one with the Face in it, and in this case it was not strictly recognizable as a face, which was evidence that the picture was taken before four o’clock in the afternoon, and also evidence that all the photographers have persistently overlooked one of the most fascinating features of the Jungfrau show. I say fascinating, because if you once detect a human face produced on a great plan by unconscious nature, you never get tired of watching it. At first you can’t make another person see it at all, but after he has made it out once he can’t see anything else afterward.

THE KING OF GREECE is a man who goes around quietly enough when off duty. One day this summer he was traveling in an ordinary first-class compartment, just in his other suit, the one which he works the realm in when he is at home, and so he was not looking like anybody in particular, but a good deal like everybody in general. By and by a hearty and healthy German-American got in and opened up a frank and interesting and sympathetic conversation with him, and asked him a couple of thousand questions about himself, which the king answered good-naturedly, but in a more or less indefinite way as to private particulars. “Where do you live when you are at home?” “In Greece.” “Greece! Well, now, that is just astonishing! Born there?” “No.” “Do you speak Greek?” “Yes.” “Now, ain’t that strange! I never expected to live to see that. What is your trade? I mean how do you get your living? What is your line of business?” 132

Mark Twain “Well, I hardly know how to answer. I am only a kind of foreman, on a salary; and the business—well, is a very general kind of business.” “Yes, I understand—general jobbing—little of everything—anything that there’s money in.” “That’s about it, yes.” “Are you traveling for the house now?” “Well, partly; but not entirely. Of course I do a stroke of business if it falls in the way—”

“There, that’s it—big family and trying to raise them on a salary. Now, what did you go to do that for?” “Well, I thought—” “Of course you did. You were young and confident and thought you could branch out and make things go with a whirl, and here you are, you see! But never mind about that. I’m not trying to discourage you. Dear me! I’ve been just where you are myself! You’ve got good grit; there’s good stuff in you, I can see that. You got a wrong start, that’s the

“Good! I like that in you! That’s me every time. Go on.” “I was only going to say I am off on my vacation now.” “Well that’s all right. No harm in that. A man works all the better for a little let-up now and then. Not that I’ve been used to having it myself; for I haven’t. I reckon this is

whole trouble. But you hold your grip, and we’ll see what can be done. Your case ain’t half as bad as it might be. You are going to come out all right—I’m bail for that. Boys and girls?” “My family? Yes, some of them are boys—”

my first. I was born in , and when I was a couple of weeks old shipped to America, and I’ve been there ever since, and that’s sixty-four years by the watch. I’m an American in principle and a German at heart, and it’s the boss combination. Well, how do you get along, as a rule—pretty fair?” “I’ve a rather large family—”

“And the rest girls. It’s just as I expected. But that’s all right, and it’s better so, anyway. What are the boys doing—learning a trade?” “Well, no—I thought—” “It’s a big mistake. It’s the biggest mistake you ever made. You see that in your own case. A man ought always to have a trade to fall back on. Now, I was harness-maker at first.

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What Is Man and Other Essays Did that prevent me from becoming one of the biggest brewers in America? Oh no. I always had the harness trick to fall back on in rough weather. Now, if you had learned how to make harness—However, it’s too late now; too late. But it’s no good plan to cry over spilt milk. But as to the boys, you see—what’s to become of them if anything happens to you?” “It has been my idea to let the eldest one succeed me—” “Oh, come! Suppose the firm don’t want him?” “I hadn’t thought of that, but—”

“I think it is doubtful; very doubtful.” “Um—that’s bad—yes, and unfair, too. Do you suppose that if I should go there and have a talk with your people— Look here—do you think you could run a brewery?” “I have never tried, but I think I could do it after a little familiarity with the business.” The German was silent for some time. He did a good deal of thinking, and the king waited curiously to see what the result was going to be. Finally the German said:

“Now, look here; you want to get right down to business and stop dreaming. You are capable of immense things— man. You can make a perfect success in life. All you want is somebody to steady you and boost you along on the right road. Do you own anything in the business?”

“My mind’s made up. You leave that crowd—you’ll never amount to anything there. In these old countries they never give a fellow a show. Yes, you come over to America—come to my place in Rochester; bring the family along. You shall have a show in the business and the foremanship, besides.

“No—not exactly; but if I continue to give satisfaction, I suppose I can keep my—” “Keep your place—yes. Well, don’t you depend on anything of the kind. They’ll bounce you the minute you get a little old and worked out; they’ll do it sure. Can’t you manage somehow to get into the firm? That’s the great thing, you know.”

George—you said your name was George?—I’ll make a man of you. I give you my word. You’ve never had a chance here, but that’s all going to change. By gracious! I’ll give you a lift that’ll make your hair curl!”

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Mark Twain AT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER ug euth, AAug B a yr ug.. 2d 2d,, 1891 yreuth, IT

NUREMBERG that we struck the inundation of music-mad strangers that was rolling down upon Bayreuth. It had been long since we had seen such multitudes of excited and struggling people. It took a good half-hour to pack them and pair them into the train—and it was the longest train we have yet seen in Europe. Nuremberg had been witnessing this sort of experience a couple of times a day for about two weeks. It gives one an impressive sense of the magnitude of this biennial pilgrimage. For a pilgrimage is what it is. The devotees come from the very ends of the earth to worship their prophet in his own Kaaba in his own Mecca. If you are living in New York or San Francisco or Chicago or anywhere else in America, and you conclude, by the middle of May, that you would like to attend the Bayreuth opera two months and a half later, you must use the cable and get about it immediately or you will get no WAS AT

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seats, and you must cable for lodgings, too. Then if you are lucky you will get seats in the last row and lodgings in the fringe of the town. If you stop to write you will get nothing. There were plenty of people in Nuremberg when we ed through who had come on pilgrimage without first securing seats and lodgings. They had found neither in Bayreuth; they had walked Bayreuth streets a while in sorrow, then had gone to Nuremberg and found neither beds nor standing room, and had walked those quaint streets all night, waiting for the hotels to open and empty their guests into trains, and so make room for these, their defeated brethren and sisters in the faith. They had endured from thirty to forty hours’ railroading on the continent of Europe—with all which that implies of worry, fatigue, and financial impoverishment—and all they had got and all they were to get for it was handiness and accuracy in kicking themselves, acquired by practice in the back streets of the two towns when other people were in bed; for back they must go over that unspeakable journey with their pious mission unfulfilled. These humiliated outcasts had the frowsy and unbrushed and apologetic look of wet cats, and

What Is Man and Other Essays their eyes were glazed with drowsiness, their bodies were adroop from crown to sole, and all kind-hearted people refrained from asking them if they had been to Bayreuth and failed to connect, as knowing they would lie. We reached here (Bayreuth) about mid-afternoon of a rainy Saturday. We were of the wise, and had secured lodgings and opera seats months in advance. I am not a musical critic, and did not come here to write essays about the operas and deliver judgment upon their

be obliged to pay two dollars and a half extra by way of fine. We saved that; and it may be remarked here that this is the only opportunity that Europe offers of saving money. There was a big crowd in the grounds about the building, and the ladies’ dresses took the sun with fine effect. I do not mean to intimate that the ladies were in full dress, for that was not so. The dresses were pretty, but neither sex was in evening dress. The interior of the building is simple—severely so; but

merits. The little children of Bayreuth could do that with a finer sympathy and a broader intelligence than I. I only care to bring four or five pilgrims to the operas, pilgrims able to appreciate them and enjoy them. What I write about the performance to put in my odd time would be offered

there is no occasion for color and decoration, since the people sit in the dark. The auditorium has the shape of a keystone, with the stage at the narrow end. There is an aisle on each side, but no aisle in the body of the house. Each row of seats extends in an unbroken curve from one

to the public as merely a cat’s view of a king, and not of didactic value. Next day, which was Sunday, we left for the opera-house— that is to say, the Wagner temple—a little after the middle of the afternoon. The great building stands all by itself, grand and lonely, on a high ground outside the town. We were warned that if we arrived after four o’clock we should

side of the house to the other. There are seven entrance doors on each side of the theater and four at the butt, eighteen doors to it and emit 1,650 persons. The number of the particular door by which you are to enter the house or leave it is printed on your ticket, and you can use no door but that one. Thus, crowding and confusion are impossible. Not so many as a hundred people use any one 136

Mark Twain door. This is better than having the usual (and useless) elaborate fireproof arrangements. It is the model theater of the world. It can be emptied while the second hand of a watch makes its circuit. It would be entirely safe, even if it were built of lucifer matches. If your seat is near the center of a row and you enter late you must work your way along a rank of about twenty-five ladies and gentlemen to get to it. Yet this causes no trouble, for everybody stands up until all the seats are full, and the

impressive device for securing and solidifying the attention of an audience long ago; instead of which there continue to this day to open a performance against a deadly competition in the form of noise, confusion, and a scattered interest. Finally, out of darkness and distance and mystery soft rich notes rose upon the stillness, and from his grave the dead magician began to weave his spells about his disciples and steep their souls in his enchantments. There was some-

filling is accomplished in a very few minutes. Then all sit down, and you have a solid mass of fifteen hundred heads, making a steep cellar-door slant from the rear of the house down to the stage. All the lights were turned low, so low that the congrega-

thing strangely impressive in the fancy which kept intruding itself that the composer was conscious in his grave of what was going on here, and that these divine souls were the clothing of thoughts which were at this moment ing through his brain, and not recognized and familiar ones

tion sat in a deep and solemn gloom. The funereal rustling of dresses and the low buzz of conversation began to die swiftly down, and presently not the ghost of a sound was left. This profound and increasingly impressive stillness endured for some time—the best preparation for music, spectacle, or speech conceivable. I should think our show people would have invented or imported that simple and

which had issued from it at some former time. The entire overture, long as it was, was played to a dark house with the curtain down. It was exquisite; it was delicious. But straightway thereafter, or course, came the singing, and it does seem to me that nothing can make a Wagner opera absolutely perfect and satisfactory to the untutored but to leave out the vocal parts. I wish I could see a Wagner

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What Is Man and Other Essays opera done in pantomime once. Then one would have the lovely orchestration unvexed to listen to and bathe his spirit in, and the bewildering beautiful scenery to intoxicate his eyes with, and the dumb acting couldn’t mar these pleasures, because there isn’t often anything in the Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting; as a rule all you would see would be a couple of silent people, one of them standing still, the other catching flies. Of course I do not really mean that he would be catching flies; I only

song is melody, air, tune, rhythm, or what you please to call it, and that when this feature is absent what remains is a picture with the color left out. I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of “Parsifal” anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or melody; one person performed at a time—and a long time, too—often in a noble, and always in a high-toned, voice; but he only pulled out long notes, then some short ones, then another long one, then a sharp, quick, peremptory bark or two—and so

mean that the usual operatic gestures which consist in reaching first one hand out into the air and then the other might suggest the sport I speak of if the operator attended strictly to business and uttered no sound. This present opera was “Parsifal.” Madame Wagner does

on and so on; and when he was done you saw that the information which he had conveyed had not compensated for the disturbance. Not always, but pretty often. If two of them would but put in a duet occasionally and blend the voices; but no, they don’t do that. The great master, who

not permit its representation anywhere but in Bayreuth. The first act of the three occupied two hours, and I enjoyed that in spite of the singing. I trust that I know as well as anybody that singing is one of the most entrancing and bewitching and moving and eloquent of all the vehicles invented by man for the conveying of feeling; but it seems to me that the chief virtue in

knew so well how to make a hundred instruments rejoice in unison and pour out their souls in mingled and melodious tides of delicious sound, deals only in barren solos when he puts in the vocal parts. It may be that he was deep, and only added the singing to his operas for the sake of the contrast it would make with the music. Singing! It does seem the wrong name to apply to it. Strictly described, it is 138

Mark Twain a practicing of difficult and unpleasant intervals, mainly. An ignorant person gets tired of listening to gymnastic intervals in the long run, no matter how pleasant they may be. In “Parsifal” there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another character of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires to die. During the evening there was an intermission of threequarters of an hour after the first act and one an hour long

dom pleased at first, but that after one had heard it several times it was almost sure to become a favorite. It seemed impossible, but it was true, for the statement came from people whose word was not to be doubted. And I gathered some further information. On the ground I found part of a German musical magazine, and in it a letter written by Uhlic thirty-three years ago, in which he defends the scorned and abused Wagner against people like me, who found fault with the comprehensive absence of

after the second. In both instances the theater was totally emptied. People who had previously engaged tables in the one sole eating-house were able to put in their time very satisfactorily; the other thousand went hungry. The opera was concluded at ten in the evening or a little later. When

what our kind regards as singing. Uhlic says Wagner despised “Jene Plapperude Music,” and therefore “runs, trills, and schnorkel are discarded by him.” I don’t know what a schnorkel is, but now that I know it has been left out of these operas I never have missed so much in my life. And

we reached home we had been gone more than seven hours. Seven hours at five dollars a ticket is almost too much for the money. While browsing about the front yard among the crowd between the acts I encountered twelve or fifteen friends from different parts of America, and those of them who were most familiar with Wagner said that “Parsifal” sel-

Uhlic further says that Wagner’s song is true: that it is “simply emphasized intoned speech.” That certainly describes it—in “Parsifal” and some of the operas; and if I understand Uhlic’s elaborate German he apologizes for the beautiful airs in “Tannh:a.” Very well; now that Wagner and I understand each other, perhaps we shall get along better, and I shall stop calling Waggner, on the American

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What Is Man and Other Essays plan, and thereafter call him Waggner as per German custom, for I feel entirely friendly now. The minute we get reconciled to a person, how willing we are to throw aside little needless puctilios and pronounce his name right! Of course I came home wondering why people should come from all corners of America to hear these operas, when we have lately had a season or two of them in New York with these same singers in the several parts, and possibly this same orchestra. I resolved to think that out at all haz-

past the policeman and the chain, and I thought I would take a rest on a bench for an hour and two and wait for the third act. In a moment or so the first bugles blew, and the multitude began to crumble apart and melt into the theater. I will explain that this bugle-call is one of the pretty features here. You see, the theater is empty, and hundreds of the audience are a good way off in the feeding-house; the first bugle-call is blown about a quarter of an hour before time

ards. TUESDAY.—Yesterday they played the only operatic favorite I have ever had—an opera which has always driven me mad with ignorant delight whenever I have heard it—

for the curtain to rise. This company of buglers, in uniform, march out with military step and send out over the landscape a few bars of the theme of the approaching act, piercing the distances with the gracious notes; then they march to the other entrance and repeat. Presently they do

”Tannh:a.” I heard it first when I was a youth; I heard it last in the last German season in New York. I was busy yesterday and I did not intend to go, knowing I should have another “Tannh:a” opportunity in a few days; but after five o’clock I found myself free and walked out to the opera-house and arrived about the beginning of the second act. My opera ticket itted me to the grounds in front,

this over again. Yesterday only about two hundred people were still left in front of the house when the second call was blown; in another half-minute they would have been in the house, but then a thing happened which delayed them—the only solitary thing in this world which could be relied on with certainty to accomplish it, I suppose—an imperial princess appeared in the balcony above them. They 140

Mark Twain stopped dead in their tracks and began to gaze in a stupor of gratitude and satisfaction. The lady presently saw that she must disappear or the doors would be closed upon these worshipers, so she returned to her box. This daughter-inlaw of an emperor was pretty; she had a kind face; she was without airs; she is known to be full of common human sympathies. There are many kinds of princesses, but this kind is the most harmful of all, for wherever they go they reconcile people to monarchy and set back the clock of

tude turn and fix their eyes upon the princely layout and gaze mutely and longingly and adoringly and regretfully like sinners looking into heaven. They become rapt, unconscious, steeped in worship. There is no spectacle anywhere that is more pathetic than this. It is worth crossing many oceans to see. It is somehow not the same gaze that people rivet upon a Victor Hugo, or Niagara, or the bones of the mastodon, or the guillotine of the Revolution, or the great pyramid, or distant Vesuvius smoking in the sky,

progress. The valuable princes, the desirable princes, are the czars and their sort. By their mere dumb presence in the world they cover with derision every argument that can be invented in favor of royalty by the most ingenious casuist. In his time the husband of this princess was valu-

or any man long celebrated to you by his genius and achievements, or thing long celebrated to you by the praises of books and pictures—no, that gaze is only the gaze of intense curiosity, interest, wonder, engaged in drinking delicious deep draughts that taste good all the way down and

able. He led a degraded life, he ended it with his own hand in circumstances and surroundings of a hideous sort, and was buried like a god. In the opera-house there is a long loft back of the audience, a kind of open gallery, in which princes are displayed. It is sacred to them; it is the holy of holies. As soon as the filling of the house is about complete the standing multi-

appease and satisfy the thirst of a lifetime. Satisfy it—that is the word. Hugo and the mastodon will still have a degree of intense interest thereafter when encountered, but never anything approaching the ecstasy of that first view. The interest of a prince is different. It may be envy, it may be worship, doubtless it is a mixture of both—and it does not satisfy its thirst with one view, or even noticeably di-

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What Is Man and Other Essays minish it. Perhaps the essence of the thing is the value which men attach to a valuable something which has come by luck and not been earned. A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you than the ninety-and-nine which you had to work for, and money won at faro or in stocks snuggles into your heart in the same way. A prince picks up grandeur, power, and a permanent holiday and gratis by a pure accident, the accident of birth, and he stands always before the grieved eye of poverty and obscu-

lows without doubt or question, then, that the most desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I think it also follows that the so-called usurpations with which history is littered are the most excusable misdemeanors which men have committed. To usurp a usurpation—that is all it amounts to, isn’t it? A prince is not to us what he is to a European, of course. We have not been taught to regard him as a god, and so one good look at him is likely to so nearly appease our

rity a monumental representative of luck. And then— supremest value of all-his is the only high fortune on the earth which is secure. The commercial millionaire may become a beggar; the illustrious statesman can make a vital mistake and be dropped and forgotten; the illustrious gen-

curiosity as to make him an object of no greater interest the next time. We want a fresh one. But it is not so with the European. I am quite sure of it. The same old one will answer; he never stales. Eighteen years ago I was in London and I called at an Englishman’s house on a bleak and

eral can lose a decisive battle and with it the consideration of men; but once a prince always a prince—that is to say, an imitation god, and neither hard fortune nor an infamous character nor an addled brain nor the speech of an ass can undeify him. By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved. It fol-

foggy and dismal December afternoon to visit his wife and married daughter by appointment. I waited half an hour and then they arrived, frozen. They explained that they had been delayed by an unlooked-for circumstance: while ing in the neighborhood of Marlborough House they saw a crowd gathering and were told that the Prince of Wales was about to drive out, so they stopped to get a sight 142

Mark Twain of him. They had waited half an hour on the sidewalk, freezing with the crowd, but were disappointed at last— the Prince had changed his mind. I said, with a good deal of surprise, “Is it possible that you two have lived in London all your lives and have never seen the Prince of Wales?” Apparently it was their turn to be surprised, for they exclaimed: “What an idea! Why, we have seen him hundreds of times.” They had seem him hundreds of times, yet they had

It is doubtless a fact that a prince is a permanent interest, an interest not subject to deterioration. The general who was never defeated, the general who never held a council of war, the only general who ever commanded a connected battle-front twelve hundred miles long, the smith who welded together the broken parts of a great republic and re-established it where it is quite likely to outlast all the monarchies present and to come, was really a person of no serious consequence to these people. To them, with their

waited half an hour in the gloom and the bitter cold, in the midst of a jam of patients from the same asylum, on the chance of seeing him again. It was a stupefying statement, but one is obliged to believe the English, even when they say a thing like that. I fumbled around for a remark, and

training, my General was only a man, after all, while their Prince was clearly much more than that—a being of a wholly unsimilar construction and constitution, and being of no more blood and kinship with men than are the serene eternal lights of the firmament with the poor dull tal-

got out this one: “I can’t understand it at all. If I had never seen General Grant I doubt if I would do that even to get a sight of him.” With a slight emphasis on the last word. Their blank faces showed that they wondered where the parallel came in. Then they said, blankly: “Of course not. He is only a President.”

low candles of commerce that sputter and die and leave nothing behind but a pinch of ashes and a stink. I saw the last act of “Tannh:a.” I sat in the gloom and the deep stillness, waiting—one minute, two minutes, I do not know exactly how long—then the soft music of the hidden orchestra began to breathe its rich, long sighs out from under the distant stage, and by and by the drop-

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What Is Man and Other Essays curtain parted in the middle and was drawn softly aside, disclosing the twilighted wood and a wayside shrine, with a white-robed girl praying and a man standing near. Presently that noble chorus of men’s voices was heard approaching, and from that moment until the closing of the curtain it was music, just music—music to make one drunk with pleasure, music to make one take scrip and staff and beg his way round the globe to hear it. To such as are intending to come here in the Wagner

have had this experience. We have had a daily scramble for life; and when I say we, I include shoals of people. I have the impression that the only people who do not have to scramble are the veterans—the disciples who have been here before and know the ropes. I think they arrive about a week before the first opera, and engage all the tables for the season. My tribe had tried all kinds of places—some outside of the town, a mile or two—and have captured only nibblings and odds and ends, never in any instance a com-

season next year I wish to say, bring your dinner-pail with you. If you do, you will never cease to be thankful. If you do not, you will find it a hard fight to save yourself from famishing in Bayreuth. Bayreuth is merely a large village, and has no very large hotels or eating-houses. The princi-

plete and satisfying meal. Digestible? No, the reverse. These odds and ends are going to serve as souvenirs of Bayreuth, and in that regard their value is not to be overestimated. Photographs fade, bric-a-brac gets lost, busts of Wagner get broken, but once you absorb a Bayreuth-restaurant meal

pal inns are the Golden Anchor and the Sun. At either of these places you can get an excellent meal—no, I mean you can go there and see other people get it. There is no charge for this. The town is littered with restaurants, but they are small and bad, and they are overdriven with custom. You must secure a table hours beforehand, and often when you arrive you will find somebody occupying it. We

it is your possession and your property until the time comes to embalm the rest of you. Some of these pilgrims here become, in effect, cabinets; cabinets of souvenirs of Bayreuth. It is believed among scientists that you could examine the crop of a dead Bayreuth pilgrim anywhere in the earth and tell where he came from. But I like this ballast. I think a “Hermitage” scrap-up at eight in the evening, 144

Mark Twain when all the famine-breeders have been there and laid in their mementoes and gone, is the quietest thing you can lay on your keelson except gravel. THURSDAY.—They keep two teams of singers in stock for the chief roles, and one of these is composed of the most renowned artists in the world, with Materna and Alvary in the lead. I suppose a double team is necessary; doubtless a single team would die of exhaustion in a week,

hundred and ten names in the orchestra list. Yesterday the opera was “Tristan and Isolde.” I have seen all sorts of audiences—at theaters, operas, concerts, lectures, sermons, funerals—but none which was twin to the Wagner audience of Bayreuth for fixed and reverential attention. Absolute attention and petrified retention to the end of an act of the attitude assumed at the beginning of it. You detect no movement in the solid mass of heads and shoulders. You seem to sit with the dead in the gloom of a tomb. You know

for all the plays last from four in the afternoon till ten at night. Nearly all the labor falls upon the half-dozen head singers, and apparently they are required to furnish all the noise they can for the money. If they feel a soft, whispery, mysterious feeling they are required to open out and let

that they are being stirred to their profoundest depths; that there are times when they want to rise and wave handkerchiefs and shout their approbation, and times when tears are running down their faces, and it would be a relief to free their pent emotions in sobs or screams; yet you hear not one

the public know it. Operas are given only on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with three days of ostensible rest per week, and two teams to do the four operas; but the ostensible rest is devoted largely to rehearsing. It is said that the off days are devoted to rehearsing from some time in the morning till ten at night. Are there two orchestras also? It is quite likely, since there are one

utterance till the curtain swings together and the closing strains have slowly faded out and died; then the dead rise with one impulse and shake the building with their applause. Every seat is full in the first act; there is not a vacant one in the last. If a man would be conspicuous, let him come here and retire from the house in the midst of an act. It would make him celebrated.

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What Is Man and Other Essays This audience reminds me of nothing I have ever seen and of nothing I have read about except the city in the Arabian tale where all the inhabitants have been turned to brass and the traveler finds them after centuries mute, motionless, and still retaining the attitudes which they last knew in life. Here the Wagner audience dress as they please, and sit in the dark and worship in silence. At the Metropolitan in New York they sit in a glare, and wear their showiest harness; they hum airs, they squeak fans, they titter,

traversing of seas and continents, the pilgrimage to Bayreuth stands explained. These devotees would worship in an atmosphere of devotion. It is only here that they can find it without fleck or blemish or any worldly pollution. In this remote village there are no sights to see, there is no newspaper to intrude the worries of the distant world, there is nothing going on, it is always Sunday. The pilgrim wends to his temple out of town, sits out his moving service, returns to his bed with his heart and soul and his body ex-

and they gabble all the time. In some of the boxes the conversation and laughter are so loud as to divide the attention of the house with the stage. In large measure the Metropolitan is a show-case for rich fashionables who are not trained in Wagnerian music and have no reverence for it,

hausted by long hours of tremendous emotion, and he is in no fit condition to do anything but to lie torpid and slowly gather back life and strength for the next service. This opera of “Tristan and Isolde” last night broke the hearts of all witnesses who were of the faith, and I know of some who

but who like to promote art and show their clothes. Can that be an agreeable atmosphere to persons in whom this music produces a sort of divine ecstasy and to whom its creator is a very deity, his stage a temple, the works of his brain and hands consecrated things, and the partaking of them with eye and ear a sacred solemnity? Manifestly, no. Then, perhaps the temporary expatriation, the tedious

have heard of many who could not sleep after it, but cried the night away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the sane person in a community of the mad; sometimes I feel like the one blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in the college of the learned, and always, during service, I feel like a heretic in heaven. But by no means do I ever overlook or minify the fact 146

Mark Twain that this is one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen anything so great and fine and real as this devotion. FRIDAY.—Yesterday’s opera was “Parsifal” again. The others went and they show marked advance in appreciation; but I went hunting for relics and reminders of the Margravine Wilhelmina, she of the imperishable “Mem-

“Singing! That wasn’t singing; that was the wailing, screeching of third-rate obscurities, palmed off on us in the interest of economy.” Well, I ought to have recognized the sign—the old, sure sign that has never failed me in matters of art. Whenever I enjoy anything in art it means that it is mighty poor. The private knowledge of this fact has saved me from going to pieces with enthusiasm in front of many and many a chromo. However, my base instinct does bring me profit

oirs.” I am properly grateful to her for her (unconscious) satire upon monarchy and nobility, and therefore nothing which her hand touched or her eye looked upon is indifferent to me. I am her pilgrim; the rest of this multitude here are Wagner’s. TUESDAY.—I have seen my last two operas; my season is ended, and we cross over into Bohemia this afternoon. I was supposing that my musical regeneration was accomplished and perfected, because I enjoyed both of these operas, singing and all, and, moreover, one of them was “Parsifal,” but the experts have disenchanted me. They say:

sometimes; I was the only man out of thirty-two hundred who got his money back on those two operas.

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What Is Man and Other Essays WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS IS IT TRUE THAT THE SUN of a man’s mentality touches noon at forty and then begins to wane toward setting? Doctor Osler is charged with saying so. Maybe he said it, maybe he didn’t; I don’t know which it is. But if he said it, I can point him to a case which proves his rule. Proves it by being an exception to it. To this place I nominate Mr. Howells. I read his Venetian Days about forty years ago. I compare it with his paper on Machiavelli in a late number of Harper, and I cannot find that his English has suffered any impairment. For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness, and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world. Sustained. I entrench myself behind that protecting word. There are others who exhibit those great qualities as greatly as he does, but only by intervaled distributions of rich moonlight, with stretches

of veiled and dimmer landscape between; whereas Howells’s moon sails cloudless skies all night and all the nights. In the matter of verbal exactness Mr. Howells has no superior, I suppose. He seems to be almost always able to find that elusive and shifty grain of gold, the right word. Others have to put up with approximations, more or less frequently; he has better luck. To me, the others are miners working with the gold-pan—of necessity some of the gold washes over and escapes; whereas, in my fancy, he is quicksilver raiding down a riffle—no grain of the metal stands much chance of eluding him. A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader’s way and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes out on us. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles exquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams the sumac-berry. 148

Mark Twain One has no time to examine the word and vote upon its rank and standing, the automatic recognition of its supremacy is so immediate. There is a plenty of acceptable literature which deals largely in approximations, but it may be likened to a fine landscape seen through the rain; the right word would dismiss the rain, then you would see it better. It doesn’t rain when Howells is at work. And where does he get the easy and effortless flow of his speech? and its cadenced and undulating rhythm? and its

it, study it. And, of course, read it aloud. I may be wrong, still it is my conviction that one cannot get out of finely wrought literature all that is in it by reading it mutely:

architectural felicities of construction, its graces of expression, its pemmican quality of compression, and all that? Born to him, no doubt. All in shining good order in the beginning, all extraordinary; and all just as shining, just as extraordinary today, after forty years of diligent wear and

the events under his eye into something like the visionary issues of reverie. The Machiavelli whom he depicts does not cease to be politically a republican and socially a just man because he holds up an atrocious despot like Caesar Borgia as a mirror for rulers.What Machiavelli beheld round him in Italy was a civic disorder in which there was oppression without

tear and use. He ed his fortieth year long and long ago; but I think his English of today—his perfect English, I wish to say —can throw down the glove before his English of that antique time and not be afraid. I will get back to the paper on Machiavelli now, and ask the reader to examine this age from it which I append. I do not mean examine it in a bird’s-eye way; I mean search

statecraft, and revolt without patriotism. When a miscreant like Borgia appeared upon the scene and reduced both tyrants and rebels to an apparent quiescence, he might very well seem to such a dreamer the savior of society whom a certain sort of dreamers are always looking for. Machiavelli was no less honest when he honored the diabolical force than Carlyle was when at different times he extolled the strong man who destroys liberty in creating order. But Carlyle has only just ceased to be mis-

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Mr. Dyer is rather of the opinion, first luminously suggested by Macaulay, that Machiavelli was in earnest, but must not be judged as a political moralist of our time and race would be judged. He thinks that Machiavelli was in earnest, as none but an idealist can be, and he is the first to imagine him an idealist immersed in realities, who involuntarily transmutes

What Is Man and Other Essays

You see how easy and flowing it is; how unvexed by ruggednesses, clumsinesses, broken meters; how simple and—so far as you or I can make out—unstudied; how clear, how limpid, how understandable, how unconfused by cross-currents, eddies, undertows; how seemingly un-

The proffered paragraph is a just and fair sample; the rest of the article is as compact as it is; there are no waste words. The sample is just in other ways: limpid, fluent, graceful, and rhythmical as it is, it holds no superiority in these respects over the rest of the essay. Also, the choice phrasing noticeable in the sample is not lonely; there is a plenty of its kin distributed through the other paragraphs. This is claiming much when that kin must face the challenge of a phrase like the one in the middle sentence: “an

adorned, yet is all adornment, like the lily-of-the-valley; and how compressed, how compact, without a complacency-signal hung out anywhere to call attention to it. There are twenty-three lines in the quoted age. After reading it several times aloud, one perceives that a good

idealist immersed in realities who involuntarily transmutes the events under his eye into something like the visionary issues of reverie.” With a hundred words to do it with, the literary artisan could catch that airy thought and tie it down and reduce it to a concrete condition, visible, substantial,

deal of matter is crowded into that small space. I think it is a model of compactness. When I take its materials apart and work them over and put them together in my way, I find I cannot crowd the result back into the same hole, there not being room enough. I find it a case of a woman packing a man’s trunk: he can get the things out, but he can’t ever get them back again.

understandable and all right, like a cabbage; but the artist does it with twenty, and the result is a flower. The quoted phrase, like a thousand others that have come from the same source, has the quality of certain scraps of verse which take hold of us and stay in our memories, we do not understand why, at first: all the words being the right words, none of them is conspicuous, and so they all

taken for a reformer, while it is still Machiavelli’s hard fate to be so trammeled in his material that his name stands for whatever is most malevolent and perfidious in human nature.

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Mark Twain seem inconspicuous, therefore we wonder what it is about them that makes their message take hold. The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom,

creting abstractions now than he was in translating, then, the visions of the eyes of flesh into words that reproduced their forms and colors: In Venetian streets they give the fallen snow no rest. It is at once shoveled into the canals by hundreds of half-naked Facchini; and now in St. Mark’s Place the music of innumerable shovels smote upon my ear; and I saw the shivering legion of poverty as it engaged the elements in a struggle for the possession of the Piazza. But the snow continued to

And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. It is like a dreamy strain of moving music, with no sharp notes in it. The words are all “right” words, and all the same size. We do not notice it at first. We get the effect, it

fall, and through the twilight of the descending flakes all this toil and encountered looked like that weary kind of effort in dreams, when the most determined industry seems only to renew the task. The lofty crest of the bell-tower was hidden in the folds of falling snow, and I could no

goes straight home to us, but we do not know why. It is when the right words are conspicuous that they thunder: The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome! When I got back from Howells old to Howells young I find him arranging and clustering English words well, but not any better than now. He is not more felicitous in con-

longer see the golden angel upon its summit. But looked at across the Piazza, the beautiful outline of St. Mark’s Church was perfectly penciled in the air, and the shifting threads of the snowfall were woven into a spell of novel enchantment around the structure that always seemed to me too exquisite in its fantastic loveliness to be anything but the creation of magic. The tender snow had comionated

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What Is Man and Other Essays the beautiful edifice for all the wrongs of time, and so hid the stains and ugliness of decay that it looked as if just from the hand of the builder—or, better said, just from the brain of the architect. There was marvelous freshness in the colors of the mosaics in the great arches of the facade, and all that gracious harmony into which the temple rises, or marble scrolls and leafy exuberance airily ing the statues of the saints, was a hundred times etherealized by the purity and whiteness of the drifting flakes. The

the tender light of the storm. The towers of the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque distance more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence, almost palpable, lay upon the mutest city in the world. The spirit of Venice is there: of a city where Age and Decay, fagged with distributing damage and repulsiveness

snow lay lightly on the golden gloves that tremble like peacocks-crests above the vast domes, and plumed them with softest white; it robed the saints in ermine; and it danced over all its works, as if exulting in its beauty—beauty which filled me with subtle, selfish yearning to keep such evanes-

among the other cities of the planet in accordance with the policy and business of their profession, come for rest and play between seasons, and treat themselves to the luxury and relaxation of sinking the shop and inventing and squandering charms all about, instead of abolishing such as they

cent loveliness for the little-while-longer of my whole life, and with despair to think that even the poor lifeless shadow of it could never be fairly reflected in picture or poem. Through the wavering snowfall, the Saint Theodore upon one of the granite pillars of the Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is, and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so gentle and mild he looked by

find, as it their habit when not on vacation. In the working season they do business in Boston sometimes, and a character in The Undiscovered Country takes accurate note of pathetic effects wrought by them upon the aspects of a street of once dignified and elegant homes whose occupants have moved away and left them a prey to neglect and gradual ruin and progressive degradation; a 152

Mark Twain descent which reaches bottom at last, when the street becomes a roost for humble professionals of the faith-cure and fortune-telling sort. What a queer, melancholy house, what a queer, melancholy street! I don’t think I was ever in a street before when quite so many professional ladies, with English surnames, preferred Madam to Mrs. on their door-plates. And the poor old place has such a desperately conscious air of going to the deuce. Every house seems to wince as you go by, and button

deliciously as he does, nor has so many to play with, nor can come so near making them look as if they were doing the playing themselves and he was not aware that they were at it. For they are unobtrusive, and quiet in their ways, and well conducted. His is a humor which flows softly all around about and over and through the mesh of the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and makes no more show and no more noise than does the circulation of the blood. There is another thing which is contentingly noticeable

itself up to the chin for fear you should find out it had no shirt on—so to speak. I don’t know what’s the reason, but these material tokens of a social decay afflict me terribly; a tipsy woman isn’t dreadfuler than a haggard old house, that’s once been a home, in a street like this.

in Mr. Howells’s books. That is his “stage directions”— those artifices which authors employ to throw a kind of human naturalness around a scene and a conversation, and help the reader to see the one and get at meanings in the other which might not be perceived if entrusted unexplained

Mr. Howells’s pictures are not mere stiff, hard, accurate photographs; they are photographs with feeling in them, and sentiment, photographs taken in a dream, one might say. As concerns his humor, I will not try to say anything, yet I would try, if I had the words that might approximately reach up to its high place. I do not think any one else can play with humorous fancies so gracefully and delicately and

to the bare words of the talk. Some authors overdo the stage directions, they elaborate them quite beyond necessity; they spend so much time and take up so much room in telling us how a person said a thing and how he looked and acted when he said it that we get tired and vexed and wish he hadn’t said it all. Other authors’ directions are brief enough, but it is seldom that the brevity contains either

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What Is Man and Other Essays wit or information. Writers of this school go in rags, in the matter of state directions; the majority of them having nothing in stock but a cigar, a laugh, a blush, and a bursting into tears. In their poverty they work these sorry things to the bone. They say: “. . . replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar.” (This explains nothing; it only wastes space.) “. . . responded Richard, with a laugh.” (There was nothing to laugh about; there never is. The writer puts it in

just as we do Richard.) “. . . repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears.” (This kind keep a book damp all the time. They can’t say a thing without crying. They cry so much about nothing that by and by when they have something to cry about they have gone dry; they sob, and fetch nothing; we are not moved. We are only glad.) They gavel me, these stale and overworked stage directions, these carbon films that got burnt out long ago and

from habit—automatically; he is paying no attention to his work; or he would see that there is nothing to laugh at; often, when a remark is unusually and poignantly flat and silly, he tries to deceive the reader by enlarging the stage direction and making Richard break into “frenzies of un-

cannot now carry any faintest thread of light. It would be well if they could be relieved from duty and flung out in the literary back yard to rot and disappear along with the discarded and forgotten “steeds” and “halidomes” and similar stage-properties once so dear to our grandfathers. But I

controllable laughter.” This makes the reader sad.) “. . . murmured Gladys, blushing.” (This poor old shopworn blush is a tiresome thing. We get so we would rather Gladys would fall out of the book and break her neck than do it again. She is always doing it, and usually irrelevantly. Whenever it is her turn to murmur she hangs out her blush; it is the only thing she’s got. In a little while we hate her,

am friendly to Mr. Howells’s stage directions; more friendly to them than to any one else’s, I think. They are done with a competent and discriminating art, and are faithful to the requirements of a state direction’s proper and lawful office, which is to inform. Sometimes they convey a scene and its conditions so well that I believe I could see the scene and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying dialogue 154

Mark Twain if some one would read merely the stage directions to me and leave out the talk. For instance, a scene like this, from The Undiscovered Country: “. . . and she laid her arms with a beseeching gesture on her father’s shoulder.” “. . . she answered, following his gesture with a glance.” “. . . she said, laughing nervously.” “. . . she asked, turning swiftly upon him that strange, searching glance.”

ently get tired of them and wish they would do other things for a change. “. . . replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his cigar.” “. . . responded Richard, with a laugh.” “. . . murmured Gladys, blushing.” “. . . repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears.” “. . . replied the Earl, flipping the ash from his cigar.” “. . . responded the undertaker, with a laugh.” “. . . murmured the chambermaid, blushing.”

“. . . she answered, vaguely.” “. . . she reluctantly itted.” “. . . but her voice died wearily away, and she stood looking into his face with puzzled entreaty.”

“. . . repeated the burglar, bursting into tears.” “. . . replied the conductor, flipping the ash from his cigar.” “. . . responded Arkwright, with a laugh.” “. . . murmured the chief of police, blushing.”

Mr. Howells does not repeat his forms, and does not need to; he can invent fresh ones without limit. It is mainly the repetition over and over again, by the third-rates, of worn and commonplace and juiceless forms that makes their novels such a weariness and vexation to us, I think. We do not mind one or two deliveries of their wares, but as we turn the pages over and keep on meeting them we pres-

“. . . repeated the house-cat, bursting into tears.” And so on and so on; till at last it ceases to excite. I always notice stage directions, because they fret me and keep me trying to get out of their way, just as the automobiles do. At first; then by and by they become monotonous and I get run over. Mr. Howells has done much work, and the spirit of it is as beautiful as the make of it. I have held him in ira-

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What Is Man and Other Essays tion and affection so many years that I know by the number of those years that he is old now; but his heart isn’t, nor his pen; and years do not count. Let him have plenty of them; there is profit in them for us.

ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT e: osw ell dot er In the appendix ttoo CCrrok anecdot dote: oswell ell’’s Johnson one finds this anec oker er’’s BBosw CATO’S SOLILOQUY.—One day Mrs. Gastrel set a little girl to repeat to him [Dr. Samuel Johnson] Cato’s Soliloquy, which she went through very correctly. The Doctor, after a pause, asked the child: “What was to bring Cato to an end?” She said it was a knife. “No, my dear, it was not so.” “My aunt Polly said it was a knife.” “Why, Aunt Polly’s knife may do, but it was a dagger, my dear.” He then asked her the meaning of “bane and antidote,” which she was unable to give. Mrs. Gastrel said: “You cannot expect so young a child to know the meaning of such words.” He then said: “My dear, how many pence are there in sixpence?” “I cannot tell, sir,” was the half-terrified reply. 156

Mark Twain On this, addressing himself to Mrs. Gastrel, he said: “Now, my dear lady, can anything be more ridiculous than to teach a child Cato’s Soliloquy, who does not know how many pence there are in a sixpence?” In a lecture before the Royal Geographical Society Professor Ravenstein quoted the following list of frantic questions, and said that they had been asked in an examination: Mention all names of places in the world derived from Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar.

knowledge. Isn’t it reasonably possible that in our schools many of the questions in all studies are several miles ahead of where the pupil is?—that he is set to struggle with things that are ludicrously beyond his present reach, hopelessly beyond his present strength? This remark in ing, and by way of text; now I come to what I was going to say. I have just now fallen upon a darling literary curiosity. It is a little book, a manuscript compilation, and the compiler sent it to me with the request that I say whether I

Where are the following rivers: Pisuerga, Sakaria, Guadalete, Jalon, Mulde? All you know of the following: Machacha, Pilmo, Schebulos, Crivoscia, Basces, Mancikert, Taxhem, Citeaux, Meloria, Zutphen.

think it ought to be published or not. I said, Yes; but as I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious; and so, now that the publication is imminent, it has seemed to me that I should feel more comfortable if I could divide up this responsibility with the public by adding them to the court.

The highest peaks of the Karakorum range. The number of universities in Prussia. Why are the tops of mountains continually covered with snow [sic]? Name the length and breadth of the streams of lava which issued from the Skaptar Jokul in the eruption of 1783. That list would oversize nearly anybody’s geographical

Therefore I will print some extracts from the book, in the hope that they may make converts to my judgment that the volume has merit which entitles it to publication. As to its character. Every one has sampled “English as She is Spoke” and “English as She is Wrote”; this little volume furnishes us an instructive array of examples of “English as She is Taught”—in the public schools of—well,

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What Is Man and Other Essays this country. The collection is made by a teacher in those schools, and all the examples in it are genuine; none of them have been tampered with, or doctored in any way. From time to time, during several years, whenever a pupil has delivered himself of anything peculiarly quaint or toothsome in the course of his recitations, this teacher and her associates have privately set that thing down in a memorandum-book; strictly following the original, as to grammar, construction, spelling, and all; and the result is this

of words. It will be noticed that in all of these instances the sound of the word, or the look of it on paper, has misled the child: Aborigines, a system of mountains. Alias, a good man in the Bible. Amenable, anything that is mean. Ammonia, the food of the gods. Assiduity, state of being an acid. Auriferous, pertaining to an orifice.

literary curiosity. The contents of the book consist mainly of answers given by the boys and girls to questions, said answers being given sometimes verbally, sometimes in writing. The subjects touched upon are fifteen in number: I. Etymology; II.

Capillary, a little caterpillar. Corniferous, rocks in which fossil corn is found. Emolument, a headstone to a grave. Equestrian, one who asks questions. Eucharist, one who plays euchre.

Grammar; III. Mathematics; IV. Geography; V. “Original”; VI. Analysis; VII. History; VIII. “Intellectual”; IX. Philosophy; X. Physiology; XI. Astronomy; XII. Politics; XIII. Music; XIV. Oratory; XV. Metaphysics. You perceive that the poor little young idea has taken a shot at a good many kinds of game in the course of the book. Now as to results. Here are some quaint definitions

Franchise, anything belonging to the French. Idolater, a very idle person. Ipecac, a man who likes a good dinner. Irrigate, to make fun of. Mendacious, what can be mended. Mercenary, one who feels for another. Parasite, a kind of umbrella. 158

Mark Twain Parasite, the murder of an infant. Publican, a man who does his prayers in public. Tenacious, ten acres of land. Here is one where the phrase “publicans and sinners” has got mixed up in the child’s mind with politics, and the result is a definition which takes one in a sudden and unexpected way: Republican, a sinner mentioned in the Bible.

in New Zealand. Quarternions, the name given to a style of art practiced by the Phoenicians. Quarternions, a religious convention held every hundred years. Sibilant, the state of being idiotic. Crosier, a staff carried by the Deity. In the following sentences the pupil’s ear has been deceiving him again:

Also in Democratic newspapers now and then. Here are two where the mistake has resulted from sound assisted by remote fact: Plagiarist, a writer of plays.

The marriage was illegible. He was totally dismasted with the whole performance. He enjoys riding on a philosopher.

Demagogue, a vessel containing beer and other liquids. I cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupil in the following instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the word, nor the look of it in print: Asphyxia, a grumbling, fussy temper. Quarternions, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living

She was very quick at repertoire. He prayed for the waters to subsidize. The leopard is watching his sheep. They had a strawberry vestibule. Here is one which—well, now, how often we do slam right into the truth without ever suspecting it:

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What Is Man and Other Essays tude to a very practical and homely illustration: The men employed by the Gas Company go around and speculate the meter. Indeed they do, dear; and when you grow up, many and many’s the time you will notice it in the gas bill. In the following sentences the little people have some information to convey, every time; but in my case they fail to connect: the light always went out on the keystone word: The coercion of some things is remarkable; as bread and molasses. Her hat is contiguous because she wears it on one side. He preached to an egregious congregation. The captain eliminated a bullet through the man’s heart. You should take caution and be precarious. The supercilious girl acted with vicissitude when the perennial time came.

We should endeavor to avoid extremes—like those of wasps and bees. And here—with “zoological” and “geological” in his mind, but not ready to his tongue—the small scholar has innocently gone and let out a couple of secrets which ought never to have been divulged in any circumstances: There are a good many donkeys in theological gardens. Some of the best fossils are found in theological gardens. Under the head of “Grammar” the little scholars furnish the following information: Gender is the distinguishing nouns without regard to sex. A verb is something to eat. Adverbs should always be used as adjectives and adjectives as adverbs. Every sentence and name of God must begin with a caterpillar.

The last is a curiously plausible sentence; one seems to know what it means, and yet he knows all the time that he doesn’t. Here is an odd (but entirely proper) use of a word, and a most sudden descent from a lofty philosophical alti-

“Caterpillar” is well enough, but capital letter would have 160

Mark Twain been stricter. The following is a brave attempt at a solution, but it failed to liquify: When they are going to say some prose or poetry before they say the poetry or prose they must put a semicolon just after the introduction of the prose or poetry.

enough without that. These pupils did not hunt with a microscope, they hunted with a shot-gun; this is shown by the crippled condition of the game they brought in:

The chapter on “Mathematics” is full of fruit. From it I take a few samples—mainly in an unripe state:

America is divided into the iffic slope and the Mississippi valey. North America is separated by Spain. America consists from north to south about five hundred miles. The United States is quite a small country compared with some other countrys, but it about as industrious. The capital of the United States is Long Island. The five seaports of the U.S. are Newfunlan and Sanfrancisco. The principal products of the U.S. is earthquakes and volcanoes. The Alaginnies are mountains in Philadelphia. The Rocky Mountains are on the western side of Philadelphia.

A straight line is any distance between two places. Parallel lines are lines that can never meet until they run together. A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle. Things which are equal to each other are equal to anything else. To find the number of square feet in a room you multiply the room by the number of the feet. The product is the result. Right you are. In the matter of geography this little book is unspeakably rich. The questions do not appear to have applied the microscope to the subject, as did those quoted by Professor Ravenstein; still, they proved plenty difficult

Cape Hateras is a vast body of water surrounded by land and flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Mason and Dixon’s line is the Equator. One of the leading industries of the United States is mollasses, book-covers, numbers, gas, teaching, lumber, manufacturers, paper-making, publishers, coal. In Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich feathers.

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What Is Man and Other Essays Gibraltar is an island built on a rock. Russia is very cold and tyrannical. Sicily is one of the Sandwich Islands. Hindoostan flows through the Ganges and empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Ireland is called the Emigrant Isle because it is so beautiful and green. The width of the different zones Europe lies in depend upon the surrounding country. The imports of a country are the things that are paid for, the exports are the things that are not. Climate lasts all the time and weather only a few days. The two most famous volcanoes of Europe are Sodom and Gomorrah. The chapter headed “Analysis” shows us that the pupils in our public schools are not merely loaded up with those showy facts about geography, mathematics, and so on, and left in that incomplete state; no, there’s machinery for clarifying and expanding their minds. They are required to take poems and analyze them, dig out their common sense, reduce them to statistics, and reproduce them in a luminous prose translation which shall tell you at a glance what the

poet was trying to get at. One sample will do. Here is a stanza from “The Lady of the Lake,” followed by the pupil’s impressive explanation of it: Alone, but with unbated zeal, The horseman plied with scourge and steel; For jaded now and spent with toil, Embossed with foam and dark with soil, While every gasp with sobs he drew, The laboring stag strained full in view. The man who rode on the horse performed the whip and an instrument made of steel alone with strong ardor not diminishing, for, being tired from the time ed with hard labor overworked with anger and ignorant with weariness, while every breath for labor he drew with cries full or sorrow, the young deer made imperfect who worked hard filtered in sight. I see, now, that I never understood that poem before. I have had glimpses of its meaning, at moments when I was not as ignorant with weariness as usual, but this is the first 162

Mark Twain time the whole spacious idea of it ever filtered in sight. If I were a public-school pupil I would put those other studies aside and stick to analysis; for, after all, it is the thing to spread your mind. We come now to historical matters, historical remains, one might say. As one turns the pages he is impressed with the depth to which one date has been driven into the American child’s head—1492. The date is there, and it is there to stay. And it is always at hand, always deliverable at a moment’s notice. But the Fact that belongs with it? That is quite another matter. Only the date itself is familiar and sure: its vast Fact has failed of lodgment. It would appear that whenever you ask a public-school pupil when a thing— anything, no matter what—happened, and he is in doubt, he always rips out his 1492. He applies it to everything, from the landing of the ark to the introduction of the horsecar. Well, after all, it is our first date, and so it is right enough to honor it, and pay the public schools to teach our children to honor it:

St. Bartholemew was massacred in 1492. The Brittains were the Saxons who entered England in 1492 under Julius Caesar. The earth is 1492 miles in circumference. To proceed with “History”

George Washington was born in 1492. Washington wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1492.

Christopher Columbus was called the Father of his Country. Queen Isabella of Spain sold her watch and chain and other millinery so that Columbus could discover America. The Indian wars were very desecrating to the country. The Indians pursued their warfare by hiding in the bushes and then scalping them. Captain John Smith has been styled the father of his country. His life was saved by his daughter Pochahantas. The Puritans found an insane asylum in the wilds of America. The Stamp Act was to make everybody stamp all materials so they should be null and void. Washington died in Spain almost broken-hearted. His remains were taken to the cathedral in Havana. Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas.

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What Is Man and Other Essays John Brown was a very good insane man who tried to get fugitives slaves into Virginia. He captured all the inhabitants, but was finally conquered and condemned to his death. The confederasy was formed by the fugitive slaves. Alfred the Great reigned 872 years. He was distinguished for letting some buckwheat cakes burn, and the lady scolded him. Henry Eight was famous for being a great widower haveing lost several wives. Lady Jane Grey studied Greek and Latin and was beheaded after a few days. John Bright is noted for an incurable disease. Lord James Gordon Bennet instigated the Gordon Riots. The Middle Ages come in between antiquity and posterity. Luther introduced Christianity into England a good many thousand years ago. His birthday was November 1883. He was once a Pope. He lived at the time of the Rebellion of Worms. Julius Caesar is noted for his famous telegram dispatch I came I saw I conquered. Julius Caesar was really a very great man. He was a very great soldier and wrote a book for beginners in the Latin. Cleopatra was caused by the death of an asp which she dissolved in a

wine cup. The only form of government in Greece was a limited monkey. The Persian war lasted about 500 years. Greece had only 7 wise men. Socrates . . . destroyed some statues and had to drink Shamrock. Here is a fact correctly stated; and yet it is phrased with such ingenious infelicity that it can be depended upon to convey misinformation every time it is uncarefully unread: By the Salic law no woman or descendant of a woman could occupy the throne. To show how far a child can travel in history with judicious and diligent boosting in the public school, we select the following mosaic: Abraham Lincoln was born in Wales in 1599. In the chapter headed “Intellectual” I find a great number of most interesting statements. A sample or two may 164

Mark Twain be found not amiss: Bracebridge Hall was written by Henry Irving. Show Bound was written by Peter Cooper. The House of the Seven Gables was written by Lord Bryant. Edgar A. Poe was a very curdling writer. Cotton Mather was a writer who invented the cotten gin and wrote histories. Beowulf wrote the Scriptures.

those of Bacon, Addison, Samuel Johnson, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, De Foe, Locke, Pope, Swift, Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge, Hood, Scott, Macaulay, George Eliot, Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Disraeli—a fact which shows that into the restricted stomach of the public-school pupil is shoveled every year the blood, bone, and viscera of a gigantic literature, and the same is there digested and disposed of in a most suc-

Ben Johnson survived Shakspeare in some respects. In the Canterbury Tale it gives of King Alfred on his way to the shrine of Thomas Bucket. Chaucer was the father of English pottery. Chaucer was a bland verse writer of the third century.

cessful and characteristic and gratifying public-school way. I have space for but a trifling few of the results:

Chaucer was succeeded by H.Wads.Longfellow an American Writer.His writings were chiefly prose and nearly one hundred years elapsed. Shakspere translated the Scriptures and it was called St. James because he did it.

ity. Gibbon wrote a history of his travels in Italy. This was original. George Eliot left a wife and children who mourned greatly for his genius. George Eliot Miss Mary Evans Mrs. Cross Mrs. Lewis was the greatest female poet unless George Sands is made an exception of. Bulwell is considered a good writer.

In the middle of the chapter I find many pages of information concerning Shakespeare’s plays, Milton’s works, and

Lord Byron was the son of an heiress and a drunken man. Wm.Wordsworth wrote the Barefoot Boy and Imitations on Immortal-

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What Is Man and Other Essays Sir Walter Scott Charles Bronte Alfred the Great and Johnson were the first great novelists. Thomas Babington Makorlay graduated at Harvard and then studied law, he was raised to the peerage as baron in 1557 and died in 1776.

The Constitution of the United States was established to ensure domestic hostility.

Here are two or three miscellaneous facts that may be of value, if taken in moderation:

The Constitution of the United States is that part of the book at the end which nobody reads.

Homer’s writings are Homer’s Essays Virgil the Aenid and Paradise lost

And here she rises once more and untimely. There should

some people say that these poems were not written by Homer but by another man of the same name. A sort of sadness kind of shone in Bryant’s poems. Holmes is a very profligate and amusing writer.

be a limit to public-school instruction; it cannot be wise or well to let the young find out everything:

When the public-school pupil wrestles with the political features of the Great Republic, they throw him sometimes:

Here are some results of study in music and oratory:

A bill becomes a law when the President vetoes it. The three departments of the government is the President rules the world, the governor rules the State, the mayor rules the city. The first conscientious Congress met in Philadelphia.

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. As follows:

Congress is divided into civilized half civilized and savage.

An interval in music is the distance on the keyboard from one piano to the next. A rest means you are not to sing it. Emphasis is putting more distress on one word than another.

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Mark Twain The chapter on “Physiology” contains much that ought not to be lost to science:

If we were on a railroad track and a train was coming the train would deafen our ears so that we couldn’t see to get off the track.

Physillogigy is to study about your bones stummick and vertebry. Occupations which are injurious to health are cabolic acid gas which is impure blood. We have an upper and lower skin. The lower skin moves all the time and the upper skin moves when we do. The body is mostly composed of water and about one half is avaricious

If, up to this point, none of my quotations have added flavor to the Johnsonian anecdote at the head of this article, let us make another attempt:

tissue. The stomach is a small pear-shaped bone situated in the body. The gastric juice keeps the bones from creaking. The Chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches the heart where it meets the oxygen and is purified.

Plato. The weight of the earth is found by comparing a mass of known lead with that of a mass of unknown lead. To find the weight of the earth take the length of a degree on a meridian and multiply by 6 1/2 pounds.

The salivary glands are used to salivate the body. In the stomach starch is changed to cane sugar and cane sugar to sugar cane. The olfactory nerve enters the cavity of the orbit and is developed into the special sense of hearing. The growth of a tooth begins in the back of the mouth and extends to the stomach.

The spheres are to each other as the squares of their homologous sides. A body will go just as far in the first second as the body will go plus the force of gravity and that’s equal to twice what the body will go. Specific gravity is the weight to be compared weight of an equal volume of or that is the weight of a body compared with the weight of an equal volume. The law of fluid pressure divide the different forms of organized bod-

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The theory that intuitive truths are discovered by the light of nature originated from St. John’s interpretation of a age in the Gospel of

What Is Man and Other Essays ies by the form of attraction and the number increased will be the form. Inertia is that property of bodies by virtue of which it cannot change its own condition of rest or motion. In other words it is the negative quality of iveness either in recoverable latency or insipient latescence. If a laugh is fair here, not the struggling child, nor the unintelligent teacher—or rather the unintelligent Boards, Committees, and Trustees—are the proper target for it. All through this little book one detects the signs of a cer-

fling mistake or another. Some searching questions were asked, when it turned out that these lads were as glib as parrots with the “rules,” but could not reason out a single rule or explain the principle underlying it. Their memories had been stocked, but not their understandings. It was a case of brickbat culture, pure and simple. There are several curious “compositions” in the little book, and we must make room for one. It is full of naivete, brutal truth, and unembarrassed directness, and is the funniest

tain probable fact—that a large part of the pupil’s “instruction” consists in cramming him with obscure and wordy “rules” which he does not understand and has no time to understand. It would be as useful to cram him with brickbats; they would at least stay. In a town in the interior of

(genuine) boy’s composition I think I have ever seen:

New York, a few years ago, a gentleman set forth a mathematical problem and proposed to give a prize to every public-school pupil who should furnish the correct solution of it. Twenty-two of the brightest boys in the public schools entered the contest. The problem was not a very difficult one for pupils of their mathematical rank and standing, yet they all failed—by a hair—through one tri-

They think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and rags. They cry if they see a cow in a far distance and are afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time and go to church on Sunday.They are al-ways sick. They are al-ways funy and making fun of boy’s hands and they say how dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them.I dont beleave they ever kiled a cat or anything.They look out every nite and say oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is

ON GIRLS Girls are very stuck up and dignefied in their maner and be have your.

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Mark Twain A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET

one thing I have not told and that is they al-ways now their lessons bettern boys.

itt en dur ing the autumn of 1899, w as about the ticle ( T his ar writt itten during was article ticle,, wr iting done bbyy M ark Tw ain on an anyy impersonal subjec subjectt .) writing Mark last wr

From Mr. Edward Channing’s recent article in Science: The marked difference between the books now being produced by French, English, and American travelers, on the one hand, and German explorers, on the other, is too great to escape attention. That difference is due entirely to the fact that in school and university the German is taught, in the first place to see, and in the second place to understand what he does see.

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I HAVE HAD A KINDLY FEELING, a friendly feeling, a cousinly feeling toward Simplified Spelling, from the beginning of the movement three years ago, but nothing more inflamed than that. It seemed to me to merely propose to substitute one inadequacy for another; a sort of patching and plugging poor old dental relics with cement and gold and porcelain paste; what was really needed was a new set of teeth. That is to say, a new alphabet. The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet. It doesn’t know how to spell, and can’t be taught. In this it is like all other alphabets except one—the phonographic. This is the only competent alphabet in the world. It can spell and correctly pronounce any word in our language. That irable alphabet, that brilliant alphabet, that inspired alphabet, can be learned in an hour or two. In a week the student can learn to write it with some little facil-

What Is Man and Other Essays ity, and to read it with considerable ease. I know, for I saw it tried in a public school in Nevada forty-five years ago, and was so impressed by the incident that it has remained in my memory ever since. I wish we could adopt it in place of our present written (and printed) character. I mean simply the alphabet; simply the consonants and the vowels—I don’t mean any reductions or abbreviations of them, such as the shorthand writer uses in order to get compression and speed. No, I

that with our present alphabet. For instance, take a simple, every-day word phthisis. If we tried to spell it by the sound of it, we should make it tysis, and be laughed at by every educated person. Secondly, we should gain in reduction of labor in writing. Simplified Spelling makes valuable reductions in the case of several hundred words, but the new spelling must be learned. You can’t spell them by the sound; you must get them out of the book.

would spell every word out. I will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz’s Phonic Shorthand. [Image not available—ed.]. It is arranged on the basis of Isaac Pitman’s Phonography. Isaac Pitman was the originator and father of scientific phonography. It is

But even if we knew the simplified form for every word in the language, the phonographic alphabet would still beat the Simplified Speller “hands down” in the important matter of economy of labor. I will illustrate:

used throughout the globe. It was a memorable invention. He made it public seventy-three years ago. The firm of Isaac Pitman & Sons, New York, still exists, and they continue the master’s work. What should we gain? First of all, we could spell devinitely—and correctly— any word you please, just by the sound of it. We can’t do

PRESENT FORM: through, laugh, highland. SIMPLIFIED FORM: thru, laff, hyland. PHONOGRAPHIC FORM: [Image not available—ed.] To write the word “through,” the pen has to make twentyone strokes. To write the word “thru,” then pen has to make twelve 170

Mark Twain strokes—a good saving. To write that same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make only three strokes. To write the word “laugh,” the pen has to make fourteen strokes. To write “laff,” the pen has to make the same number of strokes—no labor is saved to the penman. To write the same word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make only three strokes.

Without the vowels, only thirteen strokes [Image not available—ed.]. The vowels are hardly necessary, this time. We make five pen-strokes in writing an m. Thus: [Image not available—ed.] a stroke down; a stroke up; a second stroke down; a second stroke up; a final stroke down. Total, five. The phonographic alphabet accomplishes the m with a single stroke—a curve, like a parenthesis that has come home drunk and has fallen face down right at the front door where everybody that goes along will see him

To write the word “highland,” the pen has to make twenty-two strokes. To write “hyland,” the pen has to make eighteen strokes. To write that word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make only five strokes. [Image not available—ed.]

and say, Alas! When our written m is not the end of a word, but is otherwise located, it has to be connected with the next letter, and that requires another pen-stroke, making six in all, before you get rid of that m. But never mind about the connecting

To write the words “phonographic alphabet,” the pen has to make fifty-three strokes. To write “fonografic alfabet,” the pen has to make fifty strokes. To the penman, the saving in labor is insignificant. To write that word (with vowels) with the phonographic alphabet, the pen has to make only seventeen strokes.

strokes—let them go. Without counting them, the twenty-six letters of our alphabet consumed about eighty pen-strokes for their construction—about three pen-strokes per letter. It is three times the number required by the phonographic alphabet. It requires but one stroke for each letter. My writing-gait is—well, I don’t know what it is, but I will time myself and see. Result: it is twenty-four words

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What Is Man and Other Essays per minute. I don’t mean composing; I mean copying. There isn’t any definite composing-gait. Very well, my copying-gait is 1,440 words per hour—say 1,500. If I could use the phonographic character with facility I could do the 1,500 in twenty minutes. I could do nine hours’ copying in three hours; I could do three years’ copying in one year. Also, if I had a typewriting machine with the phonographic alphabet on it—oh, the miracles I could do!

mean, in some ways, not in all. I suppose I might go so far as to say in most ways, and be within the facts, but never mind; let it go at some. One of the ways in which it exercises this birthright is—as I think—continuing to use our laughable alphabet these seventy-three years while there was a rational one at hand, to be had for the taking. It has taken five hundred years to simplify some of Chaucer’s rotten spelling—if I may be allowed to use to frank a term as that—and it will take five hundred years

I am not pretending to write that character well. I have never had a lesson, and I am copying the letters from the book. But I can accomplish my desire, at any rate, which is, to make the reader get a good and clear idea of the advantage it would be to us if we could discard our present

more to get our exasperating new Simplified Corruptions accepted and running smoothly. And we sha’n’t be any better off then than we are now; for in that day we shall still have the privilege the Simplifiers are exercising now: anybody can change the spelling that wants to.

alphabet and put this better one in its place—using it in books, newspapers, with the typewriter, and with the pen. [Image not available—ed.] —Man dog horse. I think it is graceful and would look comely in print. And consider— once more, I beg—what a labor-saver it is! Ten pen-strokes with the one system to convey those three words above, and thirty-three by the other! [Image not available—ed.] I

But you can’t change the phonographic spelling; there isn’t any way. It will always follow the sound. If you want to change the spelling, you have to change the sound first. Mind, I myself am a Simplified Speller; I belong to that unhappy guild that is patiently and hopefully trying to reform our drunken old alphabet by reducing his whiskey. Well, it will improve him. When they get through and have re172

Mark Twain in them, too. And this is true of hieroglyphics, as well. There is something pleasant and engaging about the mathematical signs when we do not understand them. The mystery hidden in these things has a fascination for us: we can’t come across a printed page of shorthand without being impressed by it and wishing we could read it. Very well, what I am offering for acceptance and adopting is not shorthand, but longhand, written with the shorthand alphabet unreached. You can write three times as many words in a minute with it as you can write with our alphabet. And so, in a way, it IS properly a shorthand. It has a pleasant look, too; a beguiling look, an inviting look. I will write something in it, in my rude and untaught way: [Image not available—ed.] Even when I do it it comes out prettier than it does in Simplified Spelling. Yes, and in the Simplified it costs one hundred and twenty-three pen-strokes to write it, whereas in the phonographic it costs only twenty-nine. [Image not available—ed.] is probably [Image not available—ed.]. Let us hope so, anyway.

formed him all they can by their system he will be only half drunk. Above that condition their system can never lift him. There is no competent, and lasting, and real reform for him but to take away his whiskey entirely, and fill up his jug with Pitman’s wholesome and undiseased alphabet. One great drawback to Simplified Spelling is, that in print a simplified word looks so like the very nation! and when you bunch a whole squadron of the Simplified together the spectacle is very nearly unendurable. The da ma ov koars kum when the publik ma be expektd to get rekonsyled to the bezair asspekt of the Simplified Kombynashuns, but—if I may be allowed the expression— is it worth the wasted time? [Image not available—ed.] To see our letters put together in ways to which we are not accustomed offends the eye, and also takes the expression out of the words. La on, Makduf, and damd be he hoo furst krys hold, enuf! It doesn’t thrill you as it used to do. The simplifications have sucked the thrill all out of it. But a written character with which we are not acquainted does not offend us—Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, and the others—they have an interesting look, and we see beauty 173

What Is Man and Other Essays AS CONCERNS INTERPRETING THE DEITY

But the following rendering, by Gospodin, was received by the learned world with yet greater favor:

I This line of hieroglyphics was for fourteen years the despair of all the scholars who labored over the mysteries of the Rosetta stone: [Image not available—ed.] After five years of study Champollion translated it thus: Therefore let the worship of Epiphanes be maintained in all the temples, this upon pain of death. That was the twenty-forth translation that had been furnished by scholars. For a time it stood. But only for a time. Then doubts began to assail it and undermine it, and the scholars resumed their labors. Three years of patient work produced eleven new translations; among them, this, by Gr:unfeldt, was received with considerable favor: The horse of Epiphanes shall be maintained at the public expense; this upon pain of death.

The priest shall explain the wisdom of Epiphanes to all these people, and these shall listen with reverence, upon pain of death. Seven years followed, in which twenty-one fresh and widely varying renderings were scored—none of them quite convincing. But now, at last, came Rawlinson, the youngest of all the scholars, with a translation which was immediately and universally recognized as being the correct version, and his name became famous in a day. So famous, indeed, that even the children were familiar with it; and such a noise did the achievement itself make that not even the noise of the monumental political event of that same year—the flight from Elba—was able to smother it to silence. Rawlinson’s version reads as follows: Therefore, walk not away from the wisdom of Epiphanes, but turn and follow it; so shall it conduct thee to the temple’s peace, and soften for thee the sorrows of life and the pains of death. 174

Mark Twain Here is another difficult text: [Image not available—ed.]

antique Roman times it was the custom of the Deity to try to conceal His intentions in the entrails of birds, and this was patiently and hopefully continued century after century, although the attempted concealment never succeeded, in a single recorded instance. The augurs could read entrails as easily as a modern child can read coarse print. Roman history is full of the marvels of interpretation which these extraordinary men performed. These strange and wonderful achievements move our awe and compel our iration. Those men could pierce to the marrow of a mystery instantly. If the Rosetta-stone idea had been introduced it would have defeated them, but entrails had no embarrassments for them. Entrails have gone out, now— entrails and dreams. It was at last found out that as hidingplaces for the divine intentions they were inadequate. A part of the wall of Valletri in former times been struck with thunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that a native of that town would some time or other arrive at supreme power.—Bohn’s Suetonius, p. 138. “Some time or other.” It looks indefinite, but no matter, it happened, all the same; one needed only to wait, and be

It is demotic—a style of Egyptian writing and a phase of the language which has perished from the knowledge of all men twenty-five hundred years before the Christian era. Our red Indians have left many records, in the form of pictures, upon our crags and boulders. It has taken our most gifted and painstaking students two centuries to get at the meanings hidden in these pictures; yet there are still two little lines of hieroglyphics among the figures grouped upon the Dighton Rocks which they have not succeeded in interpreting to their satisfaction. These: [Image not available—ed.] The suggested solutions are practically innumerable; they would fill a book. Thus we have infinite trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only when we set out to discover the secret of God that our difficulties disappear. It was always so. In 175

What Is Man and Other Essays patient, and keep watch, then he would find out that the thunder-stroke had Caesar Augustus in mind, and had come to give notice. There were other advance-ments. One of them appeared just before Caesar Augustus was born, and was most poetic and touching and romantic in its feelings and aspects. It was a dream. It was dreamed by Caesar Augustus’s mother, and interpreted at the usual rates: Atia, before her delivery, dreamed that her bowels

his life, whenever he had poultry on the menu he saved the interiors and kept himself informed of the Deity’s plans by exercion those interiors the arts of augury. In his first consulship, while he was observing the auguries, twelve vultures presented themselves, as they had done to Romulus. And when he offered sacrifice, the livers of all the victims were folded inward in the lower part; a circumstance which was regarded by those present who had skill in things of that nature, as an indubitable prognostic of

stretched to the stars and expanded through the whole circuit of heaven and earth.—Suetonius, p. 139. That was in the augur’s line, and furnished him no difficulties, but it would have taken Rawlinson and Champollion fourteen years to make sure of what it meant, because they

great and wonderful fortune.—Suetonius, p. 141. “Indubitable” is a strong word, but no doubt it was justified, if the livers were really turned that way. In those days chicken livers were strangely and delicately sensitive to coming events, no matter how far off they might be;

would have been surprised and dizzy. It would have been too late to be valuable, then, and the bill for service would have been barred by the statute of limitation. In those old Roman days a gentleman’s education was not complete until he had taken a theological course at the seminary and learned how to translate entrails. Caesar Augustus’s education received this final polish. All through

and they could never keep still, but would curl and squirm like that, particularly when vultures came and showed interest in that approaching great event and in breakfast.

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Mark Twain II WE MAY NOW SKIP eleven hundred and thirty or forty years, which brings us down to enlightened Christian times and the troubled days of King Stephen of England. The augur has had his day and has been long ago forgotten; the priest had fallen heir to his trade. King Henry is dead; Stephen, that bold and outrageous person, comes flying over from Normandy to steal the throne from Henry’s daughter. He accomplished his crime, and Henry of Huntington, a priest of high degree, mourns over it in his Chronicle. The Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated Stephen: “wherefore the Lord visited the Archbishop with the same judgment which he had inflicted upon him who struck Jeremiah the great priest: he died with a year.” Stephen’s was the greater offense, but Stephen could wait; not so the Archbishop, apparently. The kingdom was a prey to intestine wars; slaughter, fire, and rapine spread ruin throughout the land; cries of distress, horror, and woe rose in every quarter. 177

That was the result of Stephen’s crime. These unspeakable conditions continued during nineteen years. Then Stephen died as comfortably as any man ever did, and was honorably buried. It makes one pity the poor Archbishop, and with that he, too, could have been let off as leniently. How did Henry of Huntington know that the Archbishop was sent to his grave by judgment of God for consecrating Stephen? He does not explain. Neither does he explain why Stephen was awarded a pleasanter death than he was entitled to, while the aged King Henry, his predecessor, who had ruled England thirty-five years to the people’s strongly worded satisfaction, was condemned to close his life in circumstances most distinctly unpleasant, inconvenient, and disagreeable. His was probably the most uninspiring funeral that is set down in history. There is not a detail about it that is attractive. It seems to have been just the funeral for Stephen, and even at this far-distant day it is matter of just regret that by an indiscretion the wrong man got it. Whenever God punishes a man, Henry of Huntington knows why it was done, and tells us; and his pen is eloquent with iration; but when a man has earned pun-

What Is Man and Other Essays ishment, and escapes, he does not explain. He is evidently puzzled, but he does not say anything. I think it is often apparent that he is pained by these discrepancies, but loyally tries his best not to show it. When he cannot praise, he delivers himself of a silence so marked that a suspicious person could mistake it for suppressed criticism. However, he has plenty of opportunities to feel contented with the way things go—his book is full of them. King David of Scotland . . . under color of religion caused

mighty was offended at them and their strength was rent like a cobweb. Offended at them for what? For committing those fearful butcheries? No, for that was the common custom on both sides, and not open to criticism. Then was it for doing the butcheries “under cover of religion”? No, that was not it; religious feeling was often expressed in that fervent way all through those old centuries. The truth is, He was not offended at “them” at all; He was only offended at their

his followers to deal most barbarously with the English. They ripped open women, tossed children on the points of spears, butchered priests at the altars, and, cutting off the heads from the images on crucifixes, placed them on the bodies of the slain, while in exchange they fixed on the

king, who had been false to an oath. Then why did not He put the punishment upon the king instead of upon “them”? It is a difficult question. One can see by the Chronicle that the “judgments” fell rather customarily upon the wrong person, but Henry of Huntington does not explain why.

crucifixes the heads of their victims. Wherever the Scots came, there was the same scene of horror and cruelty: women shrieking, old men lamenting, amid the groans of the dying and the despair of the living. But the English got the victory. Then the chief of the men of Lothian fell, pierced by an arrow, and all his followers were put to flight. For the Al-

Here is one that went true; the chronicler’s satisfaction in it is not hidden: In the month of August, Providence displayed its justice in a remarkable manner; for two of the nobles who had converted monasteries into fortifications, expelling the monks, their sin being the same, met with a similar punishment. Robert Marmion was one, Godfrey de Mandeville 178

Mark Twain the other. Robert Marmion, issuing forth against the enemy, was slain under the walls of the monastery, being the only one who fell, though he was surrounded by his troops. Dying excommunicated, he became subject to death everlasting. In like manner Earl Godfrey was singled out among his followers, and shot with an arrow by a common footsoldier. He made light of the wound, but he died of it in a few days, under excommunication. See here the like judgment of God, memorable through all ages!

for nearly seven hundred and fifty years, now, but I couldn’t do it, I know I couldn’t. I am soft and gentle in my nature, and I should have forgiven them seventy-and-seven times, long ago. And I think God has; but this is only an opinion, and not authoritative, like Henry of Huntington’s interpretations. I could learn to interpret, but I have never tried; I get so little time. All through his book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the intentions of God, and with the reasons for his inten-

The exaltation jars upon me; not because of the death of the men, for they deserved that, but because it is death eternal, in white-hot fire and flame. It makes my flesh crawl. I have not known more than three men, or perhaps four, in my whole lifetime, *whom I would rejoice to see writhing

tions. Sometimes—very often, in fact—the act follows the intention after such a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fit one act out of a hundred to one intention out of a hundred and get the thing right every time when there was such abundant choice among acts and

in those fires for even a year, let alone forever. I believe I would relent before the year was up, and get them out if I could. I think that in the long run, if a man’s wife and babies, who had not harmed me, should come crying and pleading, I couldn’t stand it; I know I should forgive him and let him go, even if he had violated a monastery. Henry of Huntington has been watching Godfrey and Marmion

intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is punished for it thirty years later; meantime he was committed a million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out, now, but in old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of “wrath.”

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What Is Man and Other Essays For instance: . . . the just God avenging Robert Fitzhilderbrand’s perfidy, a worm grew in his vitals, which gradually gnawing its way through his intestines fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting punishment brought to his end. —(P. 400.)

half persuaded that he is only a guesser, and not a good one. The divine wisdom must surely be of the better quality than he makes it out to be. Five hundred years before Henry’s time some forecasts of the Lord’s purposes were furnished by a pope, who perceived, by certain perfectly trustworthy signs furnished by the Deity for the information of His familiars, that the end of the world was

It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt. However, one thing we do know; and that is that that worm had been due years and years. Robert F. had violated

. . . about to come. But as this end of the world draws near many things are at hand which have not before happened, as changes in the air, terrible signs in the heavens, tempests out of the common order of the seasons, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places; all which will not happen in our days, but after our days all will come to .

a monastery once; he had committed unprintable crimes since, and they had been permitted—under disapproval— but the ravishment of the monastery had not been forgotten nor forgiven, and the worm came at last. Why were these reforms put off in this strange way? What was to be gained by it? Did Henry of Huntington really know his facts, or was he only guessing? Sometimes I am

Still, the end was so near that these signs were “sent before that we may be careful for our souls and be found prepared to meet the impending judgment.” That was thirteen hundred years ago. This is really no improvement on the work of the Roman augurs.

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Mark Twain CONCERNING TOBACCO As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is this—that there is a standard governing the matter, whereas there is nothing of the kind. Each man’s own preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect a standard which would be binding upon you or

No one can tell me what is a good cigar—for me. I am the only judge. People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house. They betray an unmanly terror when I offer them a cigar; they tell lies and hurry away to meet engagements which they have not made when they are threatened with the hospitalities of my box. Now then, observe what superstition, assisted by a man’s reputation, can do. I was to have twelve personal friends to

me, or would even much influence us. The next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own. He hasn’t. He thinks he has, but he hasn’t. He thinks he can tell what he regards as a good cigar from what he regards as a bad one—but he can’t. He goes by the brand,

supper one night. One of them was as notorious for costly and elegant cigars as I was for cheap and devilish ones. I called at his house and when no one was looking borrowed a double handful of his very choicest; cigars which cost him forty cents apiece and bore red-and-gold labels in sign

yet imagines he goes by the flavor. One may palm off the worst counterfeit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke it contentedly and never suspect. Children of twenty-five, who have seven years experience, try to tell me what is a good cigar and what isn’t. Me, who never learned to smoke, but always smoked; me, who came into the world asking for a light.

of their nobility. I removed the labels and put the cigars into a box with my favorite brand on it—a brand which those people all knew, and which cowed them as men are cowed by an epidemic. They took these cigars when offered at the end of the supper, and lit them and sternly struggled with them—in dreary silence, for hilarity died when the fell brand came into view and started around—

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What Is Man and Other Essays but their fortitude held for a short time only; then they made excuses and filed out, treading on one another’s heels with indecent eagerness; and in the morning when I went out to observe results the cigars lay all between the front door and the gate. All except one—that one lay in the plate of the man from whom I had cabbaged the lot. One or two whiffs was all he could stand. He told me afterward that some day I would get shot for giving people that kind of cigars to smoke.

go into danger—that is, into rich people’s houses, where, in the nature of things, they will have high-tariff cigars, red-and-gilt girded and nested in a rosewood box along with a damp sponge, cigars which develop a dismal black ash and burn down the side and smell, and will grow hot to the fingers, and will go on growing hotter and hotter, and go on smelling more and more infamously and unendurably the deeper the fire tunnels down inside below the thimbleful of honest tobacco that is in the front end,

Am I certain of my own standard? Perfectly; yes, absolutely—unless somebody fools me by putting my brand on some other kind of cigar; for no doubt I am like the rest, and know my cigar by the brand instead of by the flavor. However, my standard is a pretty wide one and cov-

the furnisher of it praising it all the time and telling you how much the deadly thing cost—yes, when I go into that sort of peril I carry my own defense along; I carry my own brand—twenty-seven cents a barrel—and I live to see my family again. I may seem to light his red-gartered cigar,

ers a good deal of territory. To me, almost any cigar is good that nobody else will smoke, and to me almost all cigars are bad that other people consider good. Nearly any cigar will do me, except a Havana. People think they hurt my feelings when then come to my house with their life preservers on—I mean, with their own cigars in their pockets. It is an error; I take care of myself in a similar way. When I

but that is only for courtesy’s sake; I smuggle it into my pocket for the poor, of whom I know many, and light one of my own; and while he praises it I in, but when he says it cost forty-five cents I say nothing, for I know better. However, to say true, my tastes are so catholic that I have never seen any cigars that I really could not smoke, except those that cost a dollar apiece. I have examined those and 182

Mark Twain know that they are made of dog-hair, and not good doghair at that. I have a thoroughly satisfactory time in Europe, for all over the Continent one finds cigars which not even the most hardened newsboys in New York would smoke. I brought cigars with me, the last time; I will not do that any more. In Italy, as in , the Government is the only cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the Minghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse

anyhow, perhaps. There is even a brand of European smoking-tobacco that I like. It is a brand used by the Italian peasants. It is loose and dry and black, and looks like teagrounds. When the fire is applied it expands, and climbs up and towers above the pipe, and presently tumbles off inside of one’s vest. The tobacco itself is cheap, but it raises the insurance. It is as I remarked in the beginning—the taste for tobacco is a matter of superstition. There are no standards—no real standards. Each man’s preference is the

one which is a modification of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in seven days and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I don’t the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia,

only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him.

nobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but smokes better, some think. It has a straw through it; you pull this out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not even as much as there is to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first. However, I like all the French, Swiss, German, and Italian domestic cigars, and have never cared to inquire what they are made of; and nobody would know, 183

What Is Man and Other Essays THE BEE IT WAS MAETERLINCK who introduced me to the bee. I mean, in the psychical and in the poetical way. I had had a business introduction earlier. It was when I was a boy. It is strange that I should a formality like that so long; it must be nearly sixty years. Bee scientists always speak of the bee as she. It is because all the important bees are of that sex. In the hive there is one married bee, called the queen; she has fifty thousand children; of these, about one hundred are sons; the rest are daughters. Some of the daughters are young maids, some are old maids, and all are virgins and remain so. Every spring the queen comes out of the hive and flies away with one of her sons and marries him. The honeymoon lasts only an hour or two; then the queen divorces her husband and returns home competent to lay two million eggs. This will be enough to last the year, but not more than enough, because hundreds of bees are drowned every day, and other hundreds are eaten by birds, and it is the queen’s business to keep the population up to standard

—say, fifty thousand. She must always have that many children on hand and efficient during the busy season, which is summer, or winter would catch the community short of food. She lays from two thousand to three thousand eggs a day, according to the demand; and she must exercise judgment, and not lay more than are needed in a slim flowerharvest, nor fewer than are required in a prodigal one, or the board of directors will dethrone her and elect a queen that has more sense. There are always a few royal heirs in stock and ready to take her place—ready and more than anxious to do it, although she is their own mother. These girls are kept by themselves, and are regally fed and tended from birth. No other bees get such fine food as they get, or live such a high and luxurious life. By consequence they are larger and longer and sleeker than their working sisters. And they have a curved sting, shaped like a scimitar, while the others have a straight one. A common bee will sting any one or anybody, but a royalty stings royalties only. A common bee will sting and kill another common bee, for cause, but when it is necessary to 184

Mark Twain kill the queen other ways are employed. When a queen has grown old and slack and does not lay eggs enough one of her royal daughters is allowed to come to attack her, the rest of the bees looking on at the duel and seeing fair play. It is a duel with the curved stings. If one of the fighters gets hard pressed and gives it up and runs, she is brought back and must try again—once, maybe twice; then, if she runs yet once more for her life, judicial death is her portion; her children pack themselves into a ball around her person and

in the interest of her waiting heirs, and report and exaggerate her defects and deficiencies to them; who fawn upon her and flatter her to her face and slander her behind her back; who grovel before her in the day of her power and forsake her in her age and weakness. There she sits, friendless, upon her throne through the long night of her life, cut off from the consoling sympathies and sweet companionship and loving endearments which she craves, by the gilded barriers of her awful rank; a forlorn exile in her own

hold her in that compact grip two or three days, until she starves to death or is suffocated. Meantime the victor bee is receiving royal honors and performing the one royal function—laying eggs. As regards the ethics of the judicial assassination of the

house and home, weary object of formal ceremonies and machine-made worship, winged child of the sun, native to the free air and the blue skies and the flowery fields, doomed by the splendid accident of her birth to trade this priceless heritage for a black captivity, a tinsel grandeur, and a love-

queen, that is a matter of politics, and will be discussed later, in its proper place. During substantially the whole of her short life of five or six years the queen lives in Egyptian darkness and stately seclusion of the royal apartments, with none about her but plebeian servants, who give her empty lip-affection in place of the love which her heart hungers for; who spy upon her

less life, with shame and insult at the end and a cruel death—and condemned by the human instinct in her to hold the bargain valuable! Huber, Lubbock, Maeterlinck—in fact, all the great authorities—are agreed in denying that the bee is a member of the human family. I do not know why they have done this, but I think it is from dishonest motives. Why, the

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What Is Man and Other Essays innumerable facts brought to light by their own painstaking and exhaustive experiments prove that if there is a master fool in the world, it is the bee. That seems to settle it. But that is the way of the scientist. He will spend thirty years in building up a mountain range of facts with the intent to prove a certain theory; then he is so happy in his achievement that as a rule he overlooks the main chief fact of all—that his accumulation proves an entirely different thing. When you point out this miscarriage to him he does

hundred thousand in number, and they are the workers, the laborers. No work is done, in the hive or out of it, save by them. The males do not work, the queen does no work, unless laying eggs is work, but it does not seem so to me. There are only two million of them, anyway, and all of five months to finish the contract in. The distribution of work in a hive is as cleverly and elaborately specialized as it is in a vast American machine-shop or factory. A bee that has been trained to one of the many and various industries of

not answer your letters; when you call to convince him, the servant prevaricates and you do not get in. Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of them. To be strictly fair, I will concede that now and then one

the concern doesn’t know how to exercise any other, and would be offended if asked to take a hand in anything outside of her profession. She is as human as a cook; and if you should ask the cook to wait on the table, you know what will happen. Cooks will play the piano if you like,

of them will answer your letter, but when they do they avoid the issue—you cannot pin them down. When I discovered that the bee was human I wrote about it to all those scientists whom I have just mentioned. For evasions, I have seen nothing to equal the answers I got. After the queen, the personage next in importance in the hive is the virgin. The virgins are fifty thousand or one

but they draw the line there. In my time I have asked a cook to chop wood, and I know about these things. Even the hired girl has her frontiers; true, they are vague, they are ill-defined, even flexible, but they are there. This is not conjecture; it is founded on the absolute. And then the butler. You ask the butler to wash the dog. It is just as I say; there is much to be learned in these ways, without going to 186

Mark Twain books. Books are very well, but books do not cover the whole domain of esthetic human culture. Pride of profession is one of the boniest bones in existence, if not the boniest. Without doubt it is so in the hive.

TAMING THE BICYCLE ide one of the old highties M ark Tw ain learned ttoo rride In the early eigh eighties Mark ot oun xper iiod xperiotee an acc accoun ountt of his eexper thatt per period iod.. HHee wr wrot bicyy cles of tha wheel bic bicyycle he publicaation. T he fform encee, but did not off offer orm of bic er it ffor or public enc ame an tiqua became antiqua tiquatt ed ed,, but in the humor of his pleasr ode long ago bec an tr antr tryy is a qualit qualityy which does not gr groo w old old.. A. B. P. I I THOUGHT THE MATTER OVER, and concluded I could do it. So I went down a bought a barrel of Pond’s Extract and a bicycle. The Expert came home with me to instruct me. We chose the back yard, for the sake of privacy, and went to work. Mine was not a full-grown bicycle, but only a colt—a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight— and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing’s points briefly, then he got on its back and rode 187

What Is Man and Other Essays around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave that to the last. But he was in error there. He found, to his surprise and joy, that all that he needed to do was to get me on to the machine and stand out of the way; I could get off, myself. Although I was wholly inexperienced, I dismounted in the best time on record. He was on that side, shoving up the machine; we all came down with a crash, he at the bottom, I next, and

all right, not a scratch on her, not a timber started anywhere. I said it was wonderful, while we were grea, but he said that when I came to know these steel spiderwebs I would realize that nothing but dynamite could cripple them. Then he limped out to position, and we resumed once more. This time the Expert took up the position of short-stop, and got a man to shove up behind. We got up a handsome speed, and presently traversed a brick, and I went out over the top of the tiller and landed, head

the machine on top. We examined the machine, but it was not in the least injured. This was hardly believable. Yet the Expert assured me that it was true; in fact, the examination proved it. I was partly to realize, then, how irably these things are

down, on the instructor’s back, and saw the machine fluttering in the air between me and the sun. It was well it came down on us, for that broke the fall, and it was not injured. Five days later I got out and was carried down to the

constructed. We applied some Pond’s Extract, and resumed. The Expert got on the other side to shove up this time, but I dismounted on that side; so the result was as before. The machine was not hurt. We oiled ourselves again, and resumed. This time the Expert took up a sheltered position behind, but somehow or other we landed on him again. He was full of iration; said it was abnormal. She was

hospital, and found the Expert doing pretty fairly. In a few more days I was quite sound. I attribute this to my prudence in always dismounting on something soft. Some recommend a feather bed, but I think an Expert is better. The Expert got out at last, brought four assistants with him. It was a good idea. These four held the graceful cobweb upright while I climbed into the saddle; then they formed 188

Mark Twain in column and marched on either side of me while the Expert pushed behind; all hands assisted at the dismount. The bicycle had what is called the “wabbles,” and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature. That is to say, that whatever the needed thing might be, my nature, habit, and breeding moved me to attempt it in one way, while some immutable and unsuspected law of physics required that it be done in

believe it. Believing it, and knowing by the most convincing proof that it is true, does not help it: you can’t any more do it than you could before; you can neither force nor persuade yourself to do it at first. The intellect has to come to the front, now. It has to teach the limbs to discard their old education and adopt the new. The steps of one’s progress are distinctly marked. At the end of each lesson he knows he has acquired something, and he also knows what that something is, and likewise

just the other way. I perceived by this how radically and grotesquely wrong had been the life-long education of my body and . They were steeped in ignorance; they knew nothing—nothing which it could profit them to know. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I

that it will stay with him. It is not like studying German, where you mull along, in a groping, uncertain way, for thirty years; and at last, just as you think you’ve got it, they spring the subjunctive on you, and there you are. No—and I see now, plainly enough, that the great pity about the German

put the tiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural impulse, and so violated a law, and kept on going down. The law required the opposite thing—the big wheel must be turned in the direction in which you are falling. It is hard to believe this, when you are told it. And not merely hard to believe it, but impossible; it is opposed to all your notions. And it is just as hard to do it, after you do come to

language is, that you can’t fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to make you attend strictly to business. But I also see, by what I have learned of bicycling, that the right and only sure way to learn German is by the bicycling method. That is to say, take a grip on one villainy of it at a time, leaving that one half learned. When you have reached the point in bicycling where you

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What Is Man and Other Essays can balance the machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your next task—how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general in indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but you fall off. You get up

make you perfect. You land in the saddle comfortably, next time, and stay there—that is, if you can be content to let your legs dangle, and leave the pedals alone a while; but if you grab at once for the pedals, you are gone again. You soon learn to wait a little and perfect your balance before reaching for the pedals; then the mounting-art is acquired, is complete, and a little practice will make it simple and easy to you, though spectators ought to keep off a rod or two to one side, along at first, if you have nothing against them.

and do it again; and once more; and then several times. By this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer without wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it is a tiller; “handle-bar” is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer along, straight ahead, a

And now you come to the voluntary dismount; you learned the other kind first of all. It is quite easy to tell one how to do the voluntary dismount; the words are few, the requirement simple, and apparently undifficult; let your left pedal go down till your left leg is nearly straight, turn

little while, then you rise forward, with a steady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the saddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then that, and down you go again. But you have ceased to mind the going down by this time; you are getting to light on one foot or the other with considerable certainty. Six more attempts and six more falls

your wheel to the left, and get off as you would from a horse. It certainly does sound exceedingly easy; but it isn’t. I don’t know why it isn’t but it isn’t. Try as you may, you don’t get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire. You make a spectacle of yourself every time.

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Mark Twain II DURING THE EIGHT DAYS I took a daily lesson an hour and a half. At the end of this twelve working-hours’ appreticeship I was graduated—in the rough. I was pronounced competent to paddle my own bicycle without outside help. It seems incredible, this celerity of acquirement. It takes considerably longer than that to learn horseback-riding in the rough. Now it is true that I could have learned without a teacher, but it would have been risky for me, because of my natural clumsiness. The self-taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers; and, besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless people into going and doing as he himself has done. There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life’s “experiences”—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never knew one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. If personal experience can be worth anything as an education, it wouldn’t 191

seem likely that you could trip Methuselah; and yet if that old person could come back here it is more that likely that one of the first things he would do would be to take hold of one of these electric wires and tie himself all up in a knot. Now the surer thing and the wiser thing would be for him to ask somebody whether it was a good thing to take hold of. But that would not suit him; he would be one of the self-taught kind that go by experience; he would want to examine for himself. And he would find, for his instruction, that the coiled patriarch shuns the electric wire; and it would be useful to him, too, and would leave his education in quite a complete and rounded-out condition, till he should come again, some day, and go to bouncing a dynamite-can around to find out what was in it. But we wander from the point. However, get a teacher; it saves much time and Pond’s Extract. Before taking final leave of me, my instructor inquired concerning my physical strength, and I was able to inform him that I hadn’t any. He said that that was a defect which would make up-hill wheeling pretty difficult for me at first; but he also said the bicycle would soon remove it. The

What Is Man and Other Essays contrast between his muscles and mine was quite marked. He wanted to test mine, so I offered my biceps—which was my best. It almost made him smile. He said, “It is pulpy, and soft, and yielding, and rounded; it evades pressure, and glides from under the fingers; in the dark a body might think it was an oyster in a rag.” Perhaps this made me look grieved, for he added, briskly: “Oh, that’s all right, you needn’t worry about that; in a little while you can’t tell it from a petrified kidney. Just go right along with your

“Good! now you’re doing well—good again—don’t hurry— there, now, you’re all right —brace up, go ahead.” In place of this I had some other . This was a boy, who was perched on a gate-post munching a hunk of maple sugar. He was full of interest and comment. The first time I failed and went down he said that if he was me he would dress up in pillows, that’s what he would do. The next time I went down he advised me to go and learn to ride a tricycle first. The third time I collapsed he said he didn’t be-

practice; you’re all right.” Then he left me, and I started out alone to seek adventures. You don’t really have to seek them—that is nothing but a phrase—they come to you. I chose a reposeful Sabbath-day sort of a back street which

lieve I could stay on a horse-car. But the next time I succeeded, and got clumsily under way in a weaving, tottering, uncertain fashion, and occupying pretty much all of the street. My slow and lumbering gait filled the boy to the chin with scorn, and he sung out, “My, but don’t he rip

was about thirty yards wide between the curbstones. I knew it was not wide enough; still, I thought that by keeping strict watch and wasting no space unnecessarily I could crowd through. Of course I had trouble mounting the machine, entirely on my own responsibility, with no encouraging moral from the outside, no sympathetic instructor to say,

along!” Then he got down from his post and loafed along the sidewalk, still observing and occasionally commenting. Presently he dropped into my wake and followed along behind. A little girl ed by, balancing a wash-board on her head, and giggled, and seemed about to make a remark, but the boy said, rebukingly, “Let him alone, he’s going to a funeral.” 192

Mark Twain I have been familiar with that street for years, and had always supposed it was a dead level; but it was not, as the bicycle now informed me, to my surprise. The bicycle, in the hands of a novice, is as alert and acute as a spirit-level in the detecting the delicate and vanishing shades of difference in these matters. It notices a rise where your untrained eye would not observe that one existed; it notices any decline which water will run down. I was toiling up a slight rise, but was not aware of it. It made me tug and pant and

you undertake it for the first time on your own responsibility, and neither is it likely to succeed. Your confidence oozes away, you fill steadily up with nameless apprehensions, every fiber of you is tense with a watchful strain, you start a cautious and gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all full of electric anxieties, so the curve is quickly demoralized into a jerky and perilous zigzag; then suddenly the nickel-clad horse takes the bit in its mouth and goes slanting for the curbstone, defying all prayers and all your

perspire; and still, labor as I might, the machine came almost to a standstill every little while. At such times the boy would say: “That’s it! take a rest—there ain’t no hurry. They can’t hold the funeral without you.” Stones were a bother to me. Even the smallest ones gave

powers to change its mind—your heart stands still, your breath hangs fire, your legs forget to work, straight on you go, and there are but a couple of feet between you and the curb now. And now is the desperate moment, the last chance to save yourself; of course all your instructions fly out of

me a panic when I went over them. I could hit any kind of a stone, no matter how small, if I tried to miss it; and of course at first I couldn’t help trying to do that. It is but natural. It is part of the ass that is put in us all, for some inscrutable reason. It was at the end of my course, at last, and it was necessary for me to round to. This is not a pleasant thing, when

your head, and you whirl your wheel away from the curb instead of toward it, and so you go sprawling on that granite-bound inhospitable shore. That was my luck; that was my experience. I dragged myself out from under the indestructible bicycle and sat down on the curb to examine. I started on the return trip. It was now that I saw a farmer’s wagon poking along down toward me, loaded with cab-

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What Is Man and Other Essays bages. If I needed anything to perfect the precariousness of my steering, it was just that. The farmer was occupying the middle of the road with his wagon, leaving barely fourteen or fifteen yards of space on either side. I couldn’t shout at him—a beginner can’t shout; if he opens his mouth he is gone; he must keep all his attention on his business. But in this grisly emergency, the boy came to the rescue, and for once I had to be grateful to him. He kept a sharp lookout on the swiftly varying impulses and inspirations of my bi-

There was something in that, and so I had the magnanimity to say so. I said I was no doubt as much to blame as he was. Within the next five days I achieved so much progress that the boy couldn’t keep up with me. He had to go back to his gate-post, and content himself with watching me fall at long range. There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, a measured yard apart. Even after I got so I

cycle, and shouted to the man accordingly: “To the left! Turn to the left, or this jackass ‘ll run over you!” The man started to do it. “No, to the right, to the right! Hold on! that won’t do!—to the left!—to the right!— to the left—right! left—ri— Stay where you are, or you’re

could steer pretty fairly I was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They gave me the worst falls I ever got in that street, except those which I got from dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think

a goner!” And just then I caught the off horse in the starboard and went down in a pile. I said, “Hang it! Couldn’t you see I was coming?” “Yes, I see you was coming, but I couldn’t tell which way you was coming. Nobody could—now, could they? You couldn’t yourself—now, could you? So what could I do?

that that may be true: but I think that the reason he couldn’t run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was 194

Mark Twain always so in my experience. Even when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see me practice. They all liked to see me practice, and they all came, for there was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain a dog. It took time to learn to miss a dog, but I achieved even that. I can steer as well as I want to, now, and I will catch that boy one of these days and run over him if he doesn’t reform.

IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? (from My Autobiography) SCATTERED HERE

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.

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through the stacks of unpublished manuscript which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with “Claimants”— claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant; Mary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant—and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants, successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised Claimants, twinkle star-like here and there and yonder through the mists of history and legend and tradition—and, oh, all the darling tribe are clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment, according to which side we AND THERE

What Is Man and Other Essays hitch ourselves to. It has always been so with the human race. There was never a Claimant that couldn’t get a hearing, nor one that couldn’t accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur Orton’s claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy’s that she wrote Science and Health from the direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England nearly forty years ago Orton had a huge army of devotees and incorrigible

listen, you can still hear the believing multitudes shouting for Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. A friend has sent me a new book, from England—The Shakespeare Problem Restated—well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty years’ interest in that matter—asleep for the last three years—is excited once more. It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon’s book—away back in the ancient day—1857, or maybe 1856. About a year later my pilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steam-

adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed as a perjurer, and today Mrs. Eddy’s following is not only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and educated

boat to the Pennsylvania, and placed me under the orders and instructions of George Ealer—dead now, these many, many years. I steered for him a good many months—as was the humble duty of the pilot-apprentice: stood a daylight watch and spun the wheel under the severe superin-

minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like among hers from the beginning. Her Church is as well equipped in those particulars as is any other Church. Claimants can always count upon a following, it doesn’t matter who they are, nor what they claim, nor whether they come with documents or without. It was always so. Down out of the long-vanished past, across the abyss of the ages, if you

tendence and correction of the master. He was a prime chess-player and an idolater of Shakespeare. He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost his official dignity something to do that. Also—quite uninvited—he would read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when it was his watch and I was steering. He read well, but not profitably for me, because he constantly in196

Mark Twain jected commands into the text. That broke it all up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up—to that degree, in fact, that if we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an ignorant person couldn’t have told, sometimes, which observations were Shakespeare’s and which were Ealer’s. For instance: What man dare, I dare! Approach thou what are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the there

watchman’s asleep again, I reckon, go down and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence! He certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and tragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able to read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his explosive interlardings, they break in everywhere with their irrelevant, “What in hell are you up to now! pull her down! more! More!—there now, steady as you go,” and the other disorganizing inter-

she goes! meet her, meet her! didn’t you know she’d smell the reef if you crowded in like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any ship but that and my firm nerves she’ll be in the woods the first you know! stop he starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . Now then, you’re all right;

ruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now I can hear them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time—fifty-one years ago. I never regarded Ealer’s readings as educational. Indeed, they were a detriment to me.

come ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go ‘long, never tremble: or be alive again, and dare me to the desert damnation can’t you keep away from that greasy water? pull her down! snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the leads!—no, only with the starboard one, leave the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl. Hence horrible shadow! eight bells—that

His contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that detail he was a good reader; I can say that much for him. He did not use the book, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare as well as Euclid ever knew his multiplication table. Did he have something to say—this Shakespeare-adoring Mississippi pilot—anent Delia Bacon’s book?

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What Is Man and Other Essays Yes. And he said it; said it all the time, for months—in the morning watch, the middle watch, and dog watch; and probably kept it going in his sleep. He bought the literature of the dispute as fast as it appeared, and we discussed it all through thirteen hundred miles of river four times traversed in every thirty-five days—the time required by that swift boat to achieve two round trips. We discussed, and discussed, and discussed, and disputed and disputed and disputed; at any rate, he did, and I got in a word now

ment—compliment coming down from about the snowline and not well thawed in the transit, and not likely to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot’s self-conceit; still a detectable complement, and precious. Naturally it flattered me into being more loyal to Shakespeare—if possible—than I was before, and more prejudiced against Bacon—if possible—that I was before. And so we discussed and discussed, both on the same side, and were happy. For a while. Only for a while. Only for a

and then when he slipped a cog and there was a vacancy. He did his arguing with heat, with energy, with violence; and I did mine with the reverse and moderation of a subordinate who does not like to be flung out of a pilot-house and is perched forty feet above the water. He was fiercely

very little while, a very, very, very little while. Then the atmosphere began to change; began to cool off. A brighter person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative

loyal to Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the pretensions of the Baconians. So was I—at first. And at first he was glad that that was my attitude. There were even indications that he ired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet perceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a compli-

disposition. Therefore it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard, rose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing reasoning. That was his name for it. It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several times, in the 198

Mark Twain Bacon-Shakespeare scuffle. On the Shakespeare side. Then the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me when principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to each other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over to the other side. Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the requirements of the case. That is to say, I took this attitude—to wit, I only believed Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I knew Shakespeare didn’t. Ealer was satisfied with

Orient goes through the very same steps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after him; he goes for rice, and remains to worship. Ealer did a lot of our “reasoning”—not to say substantially all of it. The slaves of his cult have a ion for calling it by that large name. We others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by any name at all. They show for themselves what they are, and we can with tranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them

that, and the war broke loose. Study, practice, experience in handling my end of the matter presently enabled me to take my new position almost seriously; a little bit later, utterly seriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully, devotedly; finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly. After

with a title of its own choosing. Now and then when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my induction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself: always getting eight feet, eight and a half, often nine, sometimes even quarter-less-twain—as _I_ be-

that I was welded to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down with comion not unmixed with scorn upon everybody else’s faith that didn’t tally with mine. That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in that ancient day, remains my faith today, and in it I find comfort, solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see how curiously theological it is. The “rice Christian” of the

lieved; but always “no bottom,” as he said. I got the best of him only once. I prepared myself. I wrote out a age from Shakespeare—it may have been the very one I quoted awhile ago, I don’t —and riddled it with his wild steamboatful interlardings. When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer day, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as

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What Is Man and Other Essays Hell’s Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the Pennsylvania triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the A. T. Lacey had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling good, I showed it to him. It amused him. I asked him to fire it off—read it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only he could read dramatic poetry. The compliment touched him where he lived. He did read it; read it with suring fire and spirit; read it as it will never be read again; for he know how to put the right

the laws, and the law-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways—and if Shakespeare was possessed of the infinitely divided star-dust that constituted this vast wealth, how did he get it, and where and when? “From books.” From books! That was always the idea. I answered as my readings of the champions of my side of the great controversy had taught me to answer: that a man can’t handle glibly and easily and comfortably and successfully the ar-

music into those thunderous interlardings and make them seem a part of the text, make them sound as if they were bursting from Shakespeare’s own soul, each one of them a golden inspiration and not to be left out without damage to the massed and magnificent whole.

got of a trade at which he has not personally served. He will make mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the tradephrasings precisely and exactly right; and the moment he departs, by even a shade, from a common trade-form, the reader who has served that trade will know the writer hasn’t.

I waited a week, to let the incident fade; waited longer; waited until he brought up for reasonings and vituperation my pet position, my pet argument, the one which I was fondest of, the one which I prized far above all others in my ammunition-wagon—to wit, that Shakespeare couldn’t have written Shakespeare’s words, for the reason that the man who wrote them was limitlessly familiar with

Ealer would not be convinced; he said a man could learn how to correctly handle the subtleties and mysteries and free-masonries of any trade by careful reading and studying. But when I got him to read again the age from Shakespeare with the interlardings, he perceived, himself, that books couldn’t teach a student a bewildering multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly and perfectly that he 200

Mark Twain could talk them off in book and play or conversation and make no mistake that a pilot would not immediately discover. It was a triumph for me. He was silent awhile, and I knew what was happening—he was losing his temper. And I knew he would presently close the session with the same old argument that was always his stay and his in time of need; the same old argument, the one I couldn’t answer, because I dasn’t—the argument that I was an ass, and better shut up. He delivered it, and I obeyed.

rest, disted, on the com-shelf under the breastboard. When the Pennsylvania blew up and became a drifting rackheap freighted with wounded and dying poor souls (my young brother Henry among them), pilot Brown had the watch below, and was probably asleep and never knew what killed him; but Ealer escaped unhurt. He and his pilothouse were shot up into the air; then they fell, and Ealer sank through the ragged cavern where the hurricane-deck and the boiler-deck had been, and landed in a nest of ruins

O dear, how long ago it was—how pathetically long ago! And here am I, old, forsaken, forlorn, and alone, arranging to get that argument out of somebody again. When a man has a ion for Shakespeare, it goes without saying that he keeps company with other standard au-

on the main deck, on top of one of the unexploded boilers, where he lay prone in a fog of scald and deadly steam. But not for long. He did not lose his head—long familiarity with danger had taught him to keep it, in any and all emergencies. He held his coat-lapels to his nose with one hand,

thors. Ealer always had several high-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and over again, and did not care to change to newer and fresher ones. He played well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed hearing himself play. So did I. He had a notion that a flute would keep its health better if you took it apart when it was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not on duty it took its

to keep out the steam, and scrabbled around with the other till he found the ts of his flute, then he took measures to save himself alive, and was successful. I was not on board. I had been put ashore in New Orleans by Captain Klinenfelter. The reason—however, I have told all about it in the book called Old Times on the Mississippi, and it isn’t important, anyway, it is so long ago.

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What Is Man and Other Essays II WHEN I WAS A SUNDAY-SCHOOL SCHOLAR, something more than sixty years ago, I became interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I could about him. I began to ask questions, but my class-teacher, Mr. Barclay, the stonemason, was reluctant about answering them, it seemed to me. I was anxious to be praised for turning my thoughts to serious subjects when there wasn’t another boy in the village who could be hired to do such a thing. I was greatly interested in the incident of Eve and the serpent, and thought Eve’s calmness was perfectly noble. I asked Mr. Barclay if he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpeant, would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber. He did not answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my age and comprehension. I will say for Mr. Barclay that he was willing to tell me the facts of Satan’s history, but he stopped there: he wouldn’t allow any discussion of them. In the course of time we exhausted the facts. There were only five or six of them; you could set them all down on a

visiting-card. I was disappointed. I had been meditating a biography, and was grieved to find that there were no materials. I said as much, with the tears running down. Mr. Barclay’s sympathy and comion were aroused, for he was a most kind and gentle-spirited man, and he patted me on the head and cheered me up by saying there was a whole vast ocean of materials! I can still feel the happy thrill which these blessed words shot through me. Then he began to bail out that ocean’s riches for my encouragement and joy. Like this: it was “conjectured”—though not established—that Satan was originally an angel in Heaven; that he fell; that he rebelled, and brought on a war; that he was defeated, and banished to perdition. Also, “we have reason to believe” that later he did so and so; that “we are warranted in supposing” that at a subsequent time he traveled extensively, seeking whom he might devour; that a couple of centuries afterward, “as tradition instructs us,” he took up the cruel trade of tempting people to their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that by and by, “as the probabilities seem to indicate,” he may have done certain things, he might have done certain other things, he must have done still other things. 202

Mark Twain And so on and so on. We set down the five known facts by themselves on a piece of paper, and numbered it “page 1”; then on fifteen hundred other pieces of paper we set down the “conjectures,” and “suppositions,” and “maybes,” and “perhapses,” and “doubtlesses,” and “rumors,” and guesses,” and “probabilities,” and “likelihoods,” and “we are permitted to thinks,” and “we are warranted in believings,” and “might have beens,” and “could have beens,” and “must have beens,” and “unquestionablys,” and

respect for Satan, and that my reverence for him equaled, and possibly even exceeded, that of any member of the church. I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by his words that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him, laugh at him, scoff at him; whereas in truth I had never thought of such a thing, but had only a warm desire to make fun of those others and laugh at them. “What others? “Why, the Supposers, the Perhapsers, the MightHave-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the Must-Have-

“without a shadow of doubt”—and behold! Materials? Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare! Yet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history of Satan. Why? Because, as he said, he

Beeners, the Without-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-AreWarranted-in-Believingers, and all that funny crop of solemn architects who have taken a good solid foundation of five indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon it a Conjectural Satan thirty miles high.”

had suspicions—suspicions that my attitude in the matter was not reverent, and that a person must be reverent when writing about the sacred characters. He said any one who spoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world and also be brought to . I assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly misconceived my attitude; that I had the highest

What did Mr. Barclay do then? Was he disarmed? Was he silenced? No. He was shocked. He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered. He said the Satanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were themselves sacred! As sacred as their work. So sacred that whoso ventured to mock them or make fun of their work, could not afterward enter any respectable house, even by the back door.

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What Is Man and Other Essays How true were his words, and how wise! How fortunate it would have been for me if I had heeded them. But I was young, I was but seven years of age, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention. I wrote the biography, and have never been in a respectable house since. III HOW

is the parallel—as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned—between Satan and Shakespeare. It is wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition. How sublime is their position, and how overtopping, how sky-reaching, how supreme—the two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet. For the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those details of Shakespeare’s history which are facts—verified facts, established facts, undisputed facts. CURIOUS AND INTERESTING

Facts He was born on the 23d of April, 1564. Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names. At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged with the government of the town, thirteen had to “make their mark” in attesting important documents, because they could not write their names. Of the first eighteen years of his life nothing is known. They are a blank. On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Whateley. Next day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway. She was eight years his senior. William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. In a hurry. By grace of a reluctantly granted dispensation there was but one publication of the banns. Within six months the first child was born. About two (blank) years followed, during which period nothing at all happened to Shakespeare, so far as anybody knows. 204

Mark Twain Then came twins—1585. February. Two blank years follow. Then—1587—he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family behind. Five blank years follow. During this period nothing happened to him, as far as anybody actually knows. Then—1592—there is mention of him as an actor. Next year—1593—his name appears in the official list of players.

Then—1610-11—he returned to Stratford and settled down for good and all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes, trading in land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings, borrowed by his wife during his long desertion of his family; suing debtors for shillings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and coppers; and acting as confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the town of its rights in a certain common, and did not succeed. He lived five or six years—till 1616—in the joy of these

Next year—1594—he played before the queen. A detail of no consequence: other obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign. And remained obscure. Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-acting. Then* In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.

elevated pursuits. Then he made a will, and signed each of its three pages with his name. A thoroughgoing business man’s will. It named in minute detail every item of property he owned in the world— houses, lands, sword, silver-gilt bowl, and so on—all the

Thirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated money, and also reputation as actor and manager. Meantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated with a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the same. Some of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no protest.

way down to his “second-best bed” and its furniture. It carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the of his family, overlooking no individual of it. Not even his wife: the wife he had been enabled to marry in a hurry by urgent grace of a special dispensation before he was nineteen; the wife whom he had left husbandless so many years; the wife who had had to borrow forty-one

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What Is Man and Other Essays shillings in her need, and which the lender was never able to collect of the prosperous husband, but died at last with the money still lacking. No, even this wife was ed in Shakespeare’s will. He left her that “second-best bed.” And not another thing; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood with. It was eminently and conspicuously a business man’s will, not a poet’s.

wife would have got a downer interest in it. I wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he would have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business way. He signed the will in three places. In earlier years he signed two other official documents. These five signatures still exist. There are no other specimens of his penmanship in existence. Not a line.

It mentioned not a single book. Books were much more precious than swords and silver-gilt bowls and second-best beds in those days, and when a departing person owned one he gave it a high place in his will. The will mentioned not a play, not a poem, not an unfin-

Was he prejudiced against the art? His granddaughter, whom he loved, was eight years old when he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left no provision for her education, although he was rich, and in her mature womanhood she couldn’t write and couldn’t tell her husband’s manuscript

ished literary work, not a scrap of manuscript of any kind. Many poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has died this poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a book. Maybe two. If Shakespeare had owned a dog—but we not go into that: we know he would have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog, Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his

from anybody else’s—she thought it was Shakespeare’s. When Shakespeare died in Stratford, it was not an event. It made no more stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theater-actor would have made. Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting poems, no eulogies, no national tears—there was merely silence, and nothing more. A striking contrast with what happened 206

Mark Twain when Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh, and the other distinguished literary folk of Shakespeare’s time ed from life! No praiseful voice was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years before he lifted his. So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life. So far as any one knows, he received only one letter during his life.

In the list as above set down will be found every positively known fact of Shakespeare’s life, lean and meager as the invoice is. Beyond these details we know not a thing about him. All the rest of his vast history, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures—an Eiffel Tower of artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential facts.

So far as any one knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford wrote only one poem during his life. This one is authentic. He did write that one—a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote the whole of it out of his own head. He commanded that this work of art

IV

be engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed. There it abides to this day. This is it:

Conjectures The historians “suppose” that Shakespeare attended the Free School in Stratford from the time he was seven years

Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare: Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones.

old till he was thirteen. There is no evidence in existence that he ever went to school at all. The historians “infer” that he got his Latin in that school —the school which they “suppose” he attended. They “suppose” his father’s declining fortunes made it necessary for him to leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and help his parents and

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What Is Man and Other Essays their ten children. But there is no evidence that he ever entered or returned from the school they suppose he attended. They “suppose” he assisted his father in the butchering business; and that, being only a boy, he didn’t have to do full-grown butchering, but only slaughtering calves. Also, that whenever he killed a calf he made a high-flown speech over it. This supposition rests upon the testimony of a man who wasn’t there at the time; a man who got it from a man

Stratford. Rightly viewed. For experience is an author’s most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes. Rightly viewed, calf-butchering s for “Titus Andronicus,” the only play—ain’t it?—that the Stratford Shakespeare ever wrote; and yet it is the only one everybody tried to chouse him out of, the Baconians included. The historians find themselves “justified in believing” that the young Shakespeare poached upon Sir Thomas

who could have been there, but did not say whether he was nor not; and neither of them thought to mention it for decades, and decades, and decades, and two more decades after Shakespeare’s death (until old age and mental decay had refreshed and vivified their memories). They hadn’t

Lucy’s deer preserves and got haled before that magistrate for it. But there is no shred of respectworthy evidence that anything of the kind happened. The historians, having argued the thing that might have happened into the thing that did happen, found no trouble

two facts in stock about the long-dead distinguished citizen, but only just the one: he slaughtered calves and broke into oratory while he was at it. Curious. They had only one fact, yet the distinguished citizen had spent twenty-six years in that little town—just half his lifetime. However, rightly viewed, it was the most important fact, indeed almost the only important fact, of Shakespeare’s life in

in turning Sir Thomas Lucy into Mr. Justice Shallow. They have long ago convinced the world—on surmise and without trustworthy evidence—that Shallow IS Sir Thomas. The next addition to the young Shakespeare’s Stratford history comes easy. The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-steeling, and the surmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised vengeance-prompted satire upon 208

Mark Twain the magistrate in the play: result, the young Shakespeare was a wild, wild, wild, oh, such a wild young scamp, and that gratuitous slander is established for all time! It is the very way Professor Osborn and I built the colossal skeleton brontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high in the Natural History Museum, the awe and iration of all the world, the stateliest skeleton that exists on the planet. We had nine bones, and we built the rest of him out of plaster of Paris. We ran short of plaster

t is sorely embarrassing. If he began to slaughter calves, and poach deer, and rollick around, and learn English, at the earliest likely moment—say at thirteen, when he was supposably wretched from that school where he was supposably storing up Latin for future literary use—he had his youthful hands full, and much more than full. He must have had to put aside his Warwickshire dialect, which wouldn’t be understood in London, and study English very hard. Very hard indeed; incredibly hard, almost, if the re-

of Paris, or we’d have built a brontosaur that could sit down beside the Stratford Shakespeare and none but an expert could tell which was biggest or contained the most plaster. Shakespeare pronounced “Venus and Adonis” “the first heir of his invention,” apparently implying that it was his first effort

sult of that labor was to be the smooth and rounded and flexible and letter-perfect English of the “Venus and Adonis” in the space of ten years; and at the same time learn great and fine and unsurable literary form. However, it is “conjectured” that he accomplished all this

at literary composition. He should not have said it. It has been an embarrassment to his historians these many, many years. They have to make him write that graceful and polished and flawless and beautiful poem before he escaped from Stratford and his family—1586 or ’87—age, twenty-two, or along there; because within the next five years he wrote five great plays, and could not have found time to write another line.

and more, much more: learned law and its intricacies; and the complex procedure of the law-courts; and all about soldiering, and sailoring, and the manners and customs and ways of royal courts and aristocratic society; and likewise accumulated in his one head every kind of knowledge the learned then possessed, and every kind of humble knowledge possessed by the lowly and the ignorant; and added

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What Is Man and Other Essays thereto a wider and more intimate knowledge of the world’s great literatures, ancient and modern, than was possessed by any other man of his time—for he was going to make brilliant and easy and iration-compelling use of these splendid treasures the moment he got to London. And according to the surmisers, that is what he did. Yes, although there was no one in Stratford able to teach him these things, and no library in the little village to dig them out of. His father could not read, and even the surmisers surmise that

that the young Shakespeare was ever clerk of a law-court. It is further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his law-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through “amusing himself” by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up lawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts and listening. But it is only surmise; there is no evidence that he ever did either of those things. They are merely a couple of chunks of plaster of Paris.

he did not keep a library. It is surmised by the biographers that the young Shakespeare got his vast knowledge of the law and his familiar and accurate acquaintance with the manners and customs and shop-talk of lawyers through being for a time

There is a legend that he got his bread and butter by holding horses in front of the London theaters, mornings and afternoons. Maybe he did. If he did, it seriously shortened his law-study hours and his recreation-time in the courts. In those very days he was writing great plays, and

the cleark of a stratford court; just as a bright lad like me, reared in a village on the banks of the Mississippi, might become perfect in knowledge of the Bering Strait whalefishery and the shop-talk of the veteran exercises of that adventure-bristling trade through catching catfish with a “trot-line” Sundays. But the surmise is damaged by the fact that there is no evidence—and not even tradition—

needed all the time he could get. The horse-holding legend ought to be strangled; it too formidably increases the historian’s difficulty in ing for the young Shakespeare’s erudition—an erudition which he was acquiring, hunk by hunk and chunk by chunk, every day in those strenuous times, and emptying each day’s catch into next day’s imperishable drama. 210

Mark Twain He had to acquire a knowledge of war at the same time; and a knowledge of soldier-people and sailor-people and their ways and talk; also a knowledge of some foreign lands and their languages: for he was daily emptying fluent streams of these various knowledges, too, into his dramas. How did he acquire these rich assets? In the usual way: by surmise. It is surmised that he traveled in Italy and and around, and qualified himself to put their scenic and social aspects upon paper; that

For he became a call-boy; and as early as ’93 he became a “vagabond”—the law’s ungentle term for an unlisted actor; and in ’94 a “regular” and properly and officially listed member of that (in those days) lightly valued and not much respected profession. Right soon thereafter he became a stockholder in two theaters, and manager of them. Thenceforward he was a busy and flourishing business man, and was raking in money with both hands for twenty years. Then in a noble

he perfected himself in French, Italian, and Spanish on the road; that he went in Leicester’s expedition to the Low Countries, as soldier or sutler or something, for several months or years—or whatever length of time a surmiser needs in his business—and thus became familiar with

frenzy of poetic inspiration he wrote his one poem—his only poem, his darling—and laid him down and died:

soldiership and soldier-ways and soldier-talk and generalship and general-ways and general-talk, and seamanship and sailor-ways and sailor-talk. Maybe he did all these things, but I would like to know who held the horses in the mean time; and who studied the books in the garret; and who frolicked in the law-courts for recreation. Also, who did the call-boying and the play-acting. 211

Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare: Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones. He was probably dead when he wrote it. Still, this is only conjecture. We have only circumstantial evidence. Internal evidence. Shall I set down the rest of the Conjectures which consti-

What Is Man and Other Essays tute the giant Biography of William Shakespeare? It would strain the Unabridged Dictionary to hold them. He is a brontosaur: nine bones and six hundred barrels of plaster of Paris. V “ We M ssume Maa y AAssume ssume”” IN THE ASSUMING TRADE three separate and independent cults are transacting business. Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other one—the Brontosaurian. The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s Works; the Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn’t really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly sure that Shakespeare didn’t, and strongly suspects that Bacon did. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the

Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites. The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable law: which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipherup his materials upon any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place before him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will get just the proper 31. Let me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way calculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and unintelligent. We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed, uneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that’s scarred from stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience, and is so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may say of him “all cat-knowledge is his province”; 212

Mark Twain also, take a mouse. Lock the three up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell. Wait half an hour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a Baconian, and let them cipher and assume. The mouse is missing: the question to be decided is, where is it? You can guess both verdicts beforehand. One verdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the other will as certainly say the mouse is in the tom-cat. The Shakespearite will Reason like this—(that is not my

one was noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldierways, and what to do with a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain inference, therefore, is that that is what it did. Since all these manifold things could have occurred, we have every right to believe they did occur. These patiently and painstakingly accumulated vast acquirements and competences needed but one thing more—opportunity—to convert themselves into triumphal action. The opportunity came, we have the result; beyond shadow of

word, it is his). He will say the kitten may have been attending school when nobody was noticing; therefore we are warranted in assuming that it did so; also, it could have been training in a court-clerk’s office when no one was noticing; since that could have happened, we are justified in

question the mouse is in the kitten. It is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant a “we think we may assume,” we expect it, under careful watering and fertilizing and tending, to grow up into a strong and hardy and weather-defying “There isn’t a shadow

assuming that it did happen; it could have studied catology in a garret when no one was noticing—therefore it did; it could have attended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one was noticing, and have harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat lawyer- talk in that way: it could have done it, therefore without a doubt it did; it could have gone soldiering with a war-tribe when no

of a doubt” at last—and it usually happens. We know what the Baconian’s verdict would be: “There is not a rag of evidence that the kitten has had any training, any education, any experience qualifying it for the present occasion, or is indeed equipped for any acyhievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as comes its way; but there is abundant evidence—unassailable proof, in fact—that the

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What Is Man and Other Essays other animal is equipped, to the last detail, with every qualification necessary for the event. Without shadow of doubt the tom-cat contains the mouse.” VI WHEN SHAKESPEARE DIED, in 1616, great literary productions attributed to him as author had been before the London world and in high favor for twenty-four years. Yet his death was not an event. It made no stir, it attracted no attention. Apparently his eminent literary contemporaries did not realize that a celebrated poet had ed from their midst. Perhaps they knew a play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did not regard him as the author of his Works. “We are justified in assuming” this. His death was not even an event in the little town of Stratford. Does this mean that in Stratford he was not regarded as a celebrity of any kind? “We are privileged to assume”—no, we are indeed obliged to assume—that such was the case. He had spent the first twenty-two or twenty-three years of his life there, and of

course knew everybody and was known by everybody of that day in the town, including the dogs and the cats and the horses. He had spent the last five or six years of his life there, diligently trading in every big and little thing that had money in it; so we are compelled to assume that many of the folk there in those said latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight and hearsay. But not as a celebrity? Apparently not. For everybody soon forgot to any with him or any incident connected with him. The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who had known of him or known about him in the first twenty-three years of his life were in the same uning condition: if they knew of any incident connected with that period of his life they didn’t tell about it. Would the if they had been asked? It is most likely. Were they asked? It is pretty apparent that they were not. Why weren’t they? It is a very plausible guess that nobody there or elsewhere was interested to know. For seven years after Shakespeare’s death nobody seems to have been interested in him. Then the quarto was published, and Ben Jonson awoke out of his long indifference 214

Mark Twain and sang a song of praise and put it in the front of the book. Then silence fell again. For sixty years. Then inquiries into Shakespeare’s Stratford life began to be made, of Stratfordians. Of Stratfordians who had known Shakespeare or had seen him? No. Then of Stratfordians who had seen people who had known or seen people who had seen Shakespeare? No. Apparently the inquires were only made of Stratfordians who were not Stratfordians of Shakespeare’s day, but later comers; and

except Shakespeare’s. And couldn’t and wouldn’t have happened in his case if he had been regarded as a celebrity at the time of his death. When I examine my own case—but let us do that, and see if it will not be recognizable as exhibiting a condition of things quite likely to result, most likely to result, indeed substantially sure to result in the case of a celebrated person, a benefactor of the human race. Like me. My parents brought me to the village of Hannibal, Mis-

what they had learned had come to them from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; and what they had learned was not claimed as fact, but only as legend—dim and fading and indefinite legend; legend of the calf-slaughtering rank, and not worth ing either as history or fic-

souri, on the banks of the Mississippi, when I was two and a half years old. I entered school at five years of age, and drifted from one school to another in the village during nine and a half years. Then my father died, leaving his family in exceedingly straitened circumstances; wherefore

tion. Has it ever happened before—or since—that a celebrated person who had spent exactly half of a fairly long life in the village where he was born and reared, was able to slip out of this world and leave that village voiceless and gossipless behind him—utterly voiceless., utterly gossipless? And permanently so? I don’t believe it has happened in any case

my book-education came to a standstill forever, and I became a printer’s apprentice, on board and clothes, and when the clothes failed I got a hymn-book in place of them. This for summer wear, probably. I lived in Hannibal fifteen and a half years, altogether, then ran away, according to the custom of persons who are intending to become celebrated. I never lived there afterward. Four years later I became a

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What Is Man and Other Essays “cub” on a Mississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and New Orleans trade, and after a year and a half of hard study and hard work the U.S. inspectors rigorously examined me through a couple of long sittings and decided that I knew every inch of the Mississippi—thirteen hundred miles— in the dark and in the day—as well as a baby knows the way to its mother’s paps day or night. So they licensed me as a pilot—knighted me, so to speak —and I rose up clothed with authority, a responsible servant of the United States

own birth-date. But necessarily a number of persons were still alive in Stratford who, in the days of their youth, had seen Shakespeare nearly every day in the last five years of his life, and they would have been able to tell that inquirer some first-hand things about him if he had in those last days been a celebrity and therefore a person of interest to the villagers. Why did not the inquirer hunt them up and interview them? Wasn’t it worth while? Wasn’t the matter of sufficient consequence? Had the inquirer an engagement

Government. Now then. Shakespeare died young—he was only fiftytwo. He had lived in his native village twenty-six years, or about that. He died celebrated (if you believe everything you read in the books). Yet when he died nobody there or

to see a dog-fight and couldn’t spare the time? It all seems to mean that he never had any literary celebrity, there or elsewhere, and no considerable repute as actor and manager. Now then, I am away along in life—my seventy-third

elsewhere took any notice of it; and for sixty years afterward no townsman ed to say anything about him or about his life in Stratford. When the inquirer came at last he got but one fact—no, legend—and got that one at second hand, from a person who had only heard it as a rumor and didn’t claim copyright in it as a production of his own. He couldn’t, very well, for its date antedated his

year being already well behind me—yet sixteen of my Hannibal schoolmates are still alive today, and can tell— and do tell—inquirers dozens and dozens of incidents of their young lives and mine together; things that happened to us in the morning of life, in the blossom of our youth, in the good days, the dear days, “the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.” Most of them creditable to me, 216

Mark Twain too. One child to whom I paid court when she was five years old and I eight still lives in Hannibal, and she visited me last summer, traversing the necessary ten or twelve hundred miles of railroad without damage to her patience or to her old-young vigor. Another little lassie to whom I paid attention in Hannibal when she was nine years old and I the same, is still alive—in London—and hale and hearty, just as I am. And on the few surviving steamboats— those lingering ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets

and can tell. And so do printers, from St. Louis to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from Nevada to San Francisco. And so do the police. If Shakespeare had really been celebrated, like me, Stratford could have told things about him; and if my experience goes for anything, they’d have done it.

that plied the big river in the beginning of my water-career—which is exactly as long ago as the whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare numbers—there are still findable two or three river-pilots who saw me do creditable things in those ancient days; and several white-headed

IF I HAD UNDER MY SUPERINTENDENCE a controversy appointed

engineers; and several roustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands who used to heave the lead for me and send up on the still night the “Six—feet—scant!” that made me shudder, and the “M-a-r-k—Twain!” that took the shudder away, and presently the darling “By the d-e-e-p—four!” that lifted me to heaven for joy.* They know about me, *F our fa thoms—t w en our ffeet eet *Four fathoms—t thoms—tw entt y-f y-four eet.. 217

VII

to decide whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe I would place before the debaters only the one question, was Shakespeare ever a practicing lawyer? and leave everything else out. It is maintained that the man who wrote the plays was not merely myriad-minded, but also myriad-accomplished: that he not only knew some thousands of things about human life in all its shades and grades, and about the hundred arts and trades and crafts and professions which men busy themselves in, but that he could talk about the men and their grades and trades accurately, making no mistakes.

What Is Man and Other Essays Maybe it is so, but have the experts spoken, or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry? Does the exhibit stand upon wide, and loose, and eloquent generalizing—which is not evidence, and not proof—or upon details, particulars, statistics, illustrations, demonstrations? Experts of unchallengeable authority have testified definitely as to only one of Shakespeare’s multifarious craftequipments, so far as my recollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me—his law-equipment. I do not re-

well, I don’t that there is testimony—great testimony—imposing testimony—unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of Shakespeare’s hundred specialties, except one—the law. Other things change, with time, and the student cannot trace back with certainty the changes that various trades and their processes and technicalities have undergone in the long stretch of a century or two and find out what their processes and technicalities were in those early days, but

member that Wellington or Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare’s battles and sieges and strategies, and then decided and established for good and all that they were militarily flawless; I do not that any Nelson, or Drake, or Cook ever examined his seamanship and said it

with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented all the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex and intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of knowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not; and whether his law-

showed profound and accurate familiarity with that art; I don’t that any king or prince or duke has ever testified that Shakespeare was letter-perfect in his handling of royal court-manners and the talk and manners of aristocracies; I don’t that any illustrious Latinist or Grecian or Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a past-master in those languages; I don’t —

court procedure is correct or not, and whether his legal shop-talk is the shop-talk of a veteran practitioner or only a machine-made counterfeit of it gathered from books and from occasional loiterings in Westminster. Richard H. Dana served two years before the mast, and had every experience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our day. His sailor-talk flows from his pen with 218

Mark Twain the sure touch and the ease and confidence of a person who has lived what he is talking about, not gathered it from books and random listenings. Hear him: Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and catheaded, and the ship under headway.

saw three boys spring into the rigging of the California; then they were all furled at once, but with orders to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads and loose them again at the word. It was my duty to furl the foreroyal; and while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine view of the scene. From where I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below, slanting over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable of ing the great fab-

Again: The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails set, and, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail

rics raised upon them. The California was to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze was stiff we held our own. As soon as it began to slacken she ranged a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals. In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped.

after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting upon a black speck. Once more. A race in the Pacific: Our antagonist was in her best trim. Being clear of the point, the breeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we would not take them in until we

“Sheet home the fore-royal!”—“Weather sheet’s home!”— ”Lee sheet’s home!”—”Hoist away, sir!” is bawled from aloft. “Overhaul your clew-lines!” shouts the mate. “Ayeaye, sir, all clear!”—”Taut leech! belay! Well the lee brace; haul taut to windward!” and the royals are set. What would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to that? He would say, “The man that wrote that didn’t

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What Is Man and Other Essays learn his trade out of a book, he has been there!” But would this same captain be competent to sit in judgment upon Shakespeare’s seamanship—considering the changes in ships and ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorded, uned, and lost to history in the last three hundred years? It is my conviction that Shakespeare’s sailortalk would be Choctaw to him. For instance—from “The Tempest”:

If a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say, “Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposing-stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let them jeff for takes and be quick about it,” I should recognize a mistake or two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a printer theoretically, not practically. I have been a quartz miner in the silver regions—a pretty hard life; I know all the palaver of that business: I know all

MASTER. Boatswain! BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer? MASTER. Good, speak to the mariners: fall to ‘t, yarely, or we run ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir! (Enter Mariners.) BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my

about discovery claims and the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, outcroppings, dips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels, tunnels, air-shafts, “horses,” clay casings, granite casings; quartz mills and their batteries; arastras, and how to charge them with quicksilver and sulphate of cop-

hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle. . . . Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi’ the main course. . . . Lay her a-hold, ahold! Set her two courses. Off to sea again; lay her off.

per; and how to clean them up, and how to reduce the resulting amalgam in the retorts, and how to cast the bullion into pigs; and finally I know how to screen tailings, and also how to hunt for something less robust to do, and find it. I know the argot and the quartz-mining and milling industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte introduces that industry into a story, the first time one of his miners opens his mouth

That will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.

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Mark Twain I recognize from his phrasing that Harte got the phrasing by listening—like Shakespeare—I mean the Stratford one—not by experience. No one can talk the quartz dialect correctly without learning it with pick and shovel and drill and fuse. I have been a surface miner—gold—and I know all its mysteries, and the dialects that belongs with them; and whenever Harte introduces that industry into a story I know by the phrasing of his characters that neither he nor they have ever served that trade.

to any of them without having learned it at its source I can trap him always before he gets far on his road. And so, as I have already remarked, if I were required to superintend a Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, I would narrow the matter down to a single question—the only one, so far as the previous controversies have informed me, concerning which illustrious experts of unimpeachable competency have testified: Was the author of Shakespeare’s works a lawyer?—a lawyer deeply read and of limitless experi-

I have been a “pocket” miner—a sort of gold mining not findable in any but one little spot in the world, so far as I know. I know how, with horn and water, to find the trail of a pocket and trace it step by step and stage by stage up the mountain to its source, and find the compact little nest of

ence? I would put aside the guesses and surmises, and perhapes, and might-have-beens, and could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and we-are-justified-in-presumings, and the rest of those vague specters and shadows and indefintenesses, and stand or fall, win or lose, by the ver-

yellow metal reposing in its secret home under the ground. I know the language of that trade, that capricious trade, that fascinating buried-treasure trade, and can catch any writer who tries to use it without having learned it by the sweat of his brow and the labor of his hands. I know several other trades and the argot that goes with them; and whenever a person tries to talk the talk peculiar

dict rendered by the jury upon that single question. If the verdict was Yes, I should feel quite convinced that the Stratford Shakespeare, the actor, manager, and trader who died so obscure, so forgotten, so destitute of even village consequence, that sixty years afterward no fellow-citizen and friend of his later days ed to tell anything about him, did not write the Works.

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What Is Man and Other Essays Chapter XIII of The Shakespeare Problem Restated bears the heading “Shakespeare as a Lawyer,” and comprises some fifty pages of expert testimony, with comments thereon, and I will copy the first nine, as being sufficient all by themselves, as it seems to me, to settle the question which I have conceived to be the master-key to the ShakespeareBacon puzzle. VIII S hak espear w y er hakespear espearee as a La Law er** THE PLAYS AND POEMS OF SHAKESPEARE supply ample evidence that their author not only had a very extensive and accurate knowledge of law, but that he was well acquainted with the manners and customs of of the Inns of Court and with legal life generally. “While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the laws of marriage, of wills, of inheritance, *F hak espear eor ge er XIII of T he SShak hakespear espearee PPrr oblem Resta Restatt ed. BByy GGeor eorge *Frr om Chapt Chapter ood ompan publishers.. eenwood ood,, M.P M.P.. John Lane CCompan ompanyy, publishers G. GGrreenw

to Shakespeare’s law, lavishly as he expounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, nor writ of error.” Such was the testimony borne by one of the most distinguished lawyers of the nineteenth century who was raised to the high office of Lord Chief Justice in 1850, and subsequently became Lord Chancellor. Its weight will, doubtless, be more appreciated by lawyers than by laymen, for only lawyers know how impossible it is for those who have not served an apprenticeship to the law to avoid displaying their ignorance if they venture to employ legal and to discuss legal doctrines. “There is nothing so dangerous,” wrote Lord Campbell, “as for one not of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.” A layman is certain to betray himself by using some expression which a lawyer would never employ. Mr. Sidney Lee himself supplies us with an example of this. He writes (p. 164): “On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare … obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of No. 6, and No. 1, 5s. 0d. costs.” Now a lawyer would never have spoken of obtaining “judgment from a jury,” for it is the function of a jury not to deliver judgment (which is the prerogative of 222

Mark Twain the court), but to find a verdict on the facts. The error is, indeed, a venial one, but it is just one of those little things which at once enable a lawyer to know if the writer is a layman or “one of the craft.” But when a layman ventures to plunge deeply into legal subjects, he is naturally apt to make an exhibition of his incompetence. “Let a non-professional man, however acute,” writes Lord Campbell again, “presume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from legal science in discussing other

tion, and his curiously technical knowledge of their form and force.” Malone, himself a lawyer, wrote: “His knowledge of legal is not merely such as might be acquired by the casual observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it has the appearance of technical skill.” Another lawyer and well-known Shakespearean, Richard Grant White, says: “No dramatist of the time, not even Beaumont, who was the younger son of a judge of the Common Pleas, and who after studying in the Inns of Court aban-

subjects, and he will speedily fall into laughable absurdity.” And what does the same high authority say about Shakespeare? He had “a deep technical knowledge of the law,” and an easy familiarity with “some of the most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence.” And again:

doned law for the drama, used legal phrases with Shakespeare’s readiness and exactness. And the significance of this fact is heightened by another, that is only to the language of the law that he exhibits this inclination. The phrases peculiar to other occupations serve him on rare

“Whenever he indulges this propensity he uniformly lays down good law.” Of “Henry IV.,” Part 2, he says: “If Lord Eldon could be supposed to have written the play, I do not see how he could be chargeable with having forgotten any of his law while writing it.” Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke speak of “the marvelous intimacy which he displays with legal , his frequent adoption of them in illustra-

occasions by way of description, comparison, or illustration, generally when something in the scene suggests them, but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his vocabulary and parcel of his thought. Take the word ‘purchase’ for instance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving value, but applies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property except by inheritance or descent, and in

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What Is Man and Other Essays this peculiar sense the word occurs five times in Shakespeare’s thirty-four plays, and only in one single instance in the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. It has been suggested that it was in attendance upon the courts in London that he picked up his legal vocabulary. But this supposition not only fails to for Shakespeare’s peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that phraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning those his use of which is most remarkable, which are not

these are introduced have compelled the iration of a Chief Justice and a Lord Chancellor.” Senator Davis wrote: “We seem to have something more than a sciolist’s temerity of indulgence in the of an unfamiliar art. No legal solecisms will be found. The abstrusest elements of the common law are impressed into a disciplined service. Over and over again, where such knowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare appears in perfect possession of it. In the law

such as he would have heard at ordinary proceedings at NISI PRIUS, but such as refer to the tenure or transfer of real property, ‘fine and recovery,’ ‘statutes merchant,’ ‘purchase,’ ‘indenture,’ ‘tenure,’ ‘double voucher,’ ‘fee simple,’ ‘fee farm,’ ‘remainder,’ ‘reversion,’ ‘forfeiture,’ etc. This

of real property, its rules of tenure and descents, its entails, its fines and recoveries, their vouchers and double vouchers, in the procedure of the Courts, the method of bringing writs and arrests, the nature of actions, the rules of pleading, the law of escapes and of contempt of court, in

conveyancer’s jargon could not have been picked up by hanging round the courts of law in London two hundred and fifty years ago, when suits as to the title of real property were comparatively rare. And besides, Shakespeare uses his law just as freely in his first plays, written in his first London years, as in those produced at a later period. Just as exactly, too; for the correctness and propriety with which

the principles of evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction between the temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of attainder and forfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in the presumption of legitimacy, in the learning of the law of prerogative, in the inalienable character of the Crown, this mastership appears with surprising authority.” 224

Mark Twain To all this testimony (and there is much more which I have not cited) may now be added that of a great lawyer of our own times, VIZ.: Sir James Plaisted Wilde, Q.C. 1855, created a Baron of the Exchequer in 1860, promoted to the post of Judge-Ordinary and Judge of the Courts of Probate and Divorce in 1863, and better known to the world as Lord Penzance, to which dignity he was raised in 1869. Lord Penzance, as all lawyers know, and as the late Mr. Inderwick, K.C., has testified, was one of the first legal

ship of it in all its branches. As manifested in the plays, this legal knowledge and learning had therefore a special character which places it on a wholly different footing from the rest of the multifarious knowledge which is exhibited in page after page of the plays. At every turn and point at which the author required a metaphor, simile, or illustration, his mind ever turned first to the law. He seems almost to have thought in legal phrases, the commonest of legal expressions were ever at the end of his pen in description or illustration.

authorities of his day, famous for his “remarkable grasp of legal principles,” and “endowed by nature with a remarkable facility for marshaling facts, and for a clear expression of his views.” Lord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare’s “perfect familiar-

That he should have descanted in lawyer language when he had a forensic subject in hand, such as Shylock’s bond, was to be expected, but the knowledge of law in ‘Shakespeare’ was exhibited in a far different manner: it protruded itself on all occasions, appropriate or inappropriate, and mingled

ity with not only the principles, axioms, and maxims, but the technicalities of English law, a knowledge so perfect and intimate that he was never incorrect and never at fault. … The mode in which this knowledge was pressed into service on all occasions to express his meaning and illustrate his thoughts was quite unexampled. He seems to have had a special pleasure in his complete and ready master-

itself with strains of thought widely divergent from forensic subjects.” Again: “To acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the technical and phrases not only of the conveyancer’s office, but of the pleader’s chambers and the Courts at Westminster, nothing short of employment in some career involving constant with legal questions and general legal work

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What Is Man and Other Essays would be requisite. But a continuous employment involves the element of time, and time was just what the manager of two theaters had not at his disposal. In what portion of Shakespeare’s (i.e., Shakspere’s) career would it be possible to point out that time could be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or offices of practicing lawyers?” Stratfordians, as is well known, casting about for some possible explanation of Shakespeare’s extraordinary knowl-

wills witnessed by him still extant, and after a very diligent search none such can be discovered.” Upon this Lord Penzance commends: “It cannot be doubted that Lord Campbell was right in this. No young man could have been at work in an attorney’s office without being called upon continually to act as a witness, and in many other ways leaving traces of his work and name.” There is not a single fact or incident in all that is known of Shakespeare, even by rumor or tradition, which s this notion of a clerkship.

edge of law, have made the suggestion that Shakespeare might, conceivably, have been a clerk in an attorney’s office before he came to London. Mr. Collier wrote to Lord Campbell to ask his opinion as to the probability of this being true. His answer was as follows: “You require us to believe implicitly

And after much argument and surmise which has been indulged in on this subject, we may, I think, safely put the notion on one side, for no less an authority than Mr. Grant White says finally that the idea of his having been clerk to an attorney has been “blown to pieces.”

a fact, of which, if true, positive and irrefragable evidence in his own handwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it. Not having been actually enrolled as an attorney, neither the records of the local court at Stratford nor of the superior Court at Westminster would present his name as being concerned in any suit as an attorney, but it might reasonably have been expected that there would be deeds or

It is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he, nevertheless, adopts this exploded myth. “That Shakespeare was in early life employed as a clerk in an attorney’s office may be correct. At Stratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every fortnight, with six attorneys, besides the town clerk, belonging to it, and it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the 226

Mark Twain young Shakespeare may have had employment in one of them. There is, it is true, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about Shakespeare’s occupation between the time of leaving school and going to London are so loose and baseless that no confidence can be placed in them. It is, to say the least, more probable that he was in an attorney’s office than that he was a butcher killing calves ‘in a high style,’ and making speeches over them.” This is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument.

ing for some explanation of the Stratford rustic’s marvelous acquaintance with law and legal and legal life. But Mr. Churton Collins has not the least hesitation in throwing over the tradition which has the warrant of antiquity and setting up in its stead this ridiculous invention, for which not only is there no shred of positive evidence, but which, as Lord Campbell and Lord Penzance pointed out, is really put out of court by the negative evidence, since “no young man could have been at work in an

There is, as we have seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher’s apprentice. John Dowdall, who made a tour of Warwickshire in 1693, testifies to it as coming from the old clerk who showed him over the church, and it is unhesitatingly accepted as true by Mr. Halliwell-

attorney’s office without being called upon continually to act as a witness, and in many other ways leaving traces of his work and name.” And as Mr. Edwards further points out, since the day when Lord Campbell’s book was published (between forty and fifty years ago), “every old deed

Phillipps. (Vol. I, p. 11, and Vol. II, pp. 71, 72.) Mr. Sidney Lee sees nothing improbable in it, and it is ed by Aubrey, who must have written his some time before 1680, when his manuscript was completed. Of the attorney’s clerk hypothesis, on the other hand, there is not the faintest vestige of a tradition. It has been evolved out of the fertile imaginations of embarrassed Stratfordians, seek-

or will, to say nothing of other legal papers, dated during the period of William Shakespeare’s youth, has been scrutinized over half a dozen shires, and not one signature of the young man has been found.” Moreover, if Shakespeare had served as clerk in an attorney’s office it is clear that he must have served for a considerable period in order to have gained (if, indeed, it is

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What Is Man and Other Essays credible that he could have so gained) his remarkable knowledge of the law. Can we then for a moment believe that, if this had been so, tradition would have been absolutely silent on the matter? That Dowdall’s old clerk, over eighty years of age, should have never heard of it (though he was sure enough about the butcher’s apprentice) and that all the other ancient witnesses should be in similar ignorance! But such are the methods of Stratfordian controversy. Tradition is to be scouted when it is found inconvenient,

surprising to find that he was studying Latin as a schoolmaster and law in an attorney’s office at the same time. However, we must do Mr. Collins the justice of saying that he has fully recognized, what is indeed tolerable obvious, that Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training. “It may, of course, be urged,” he writes, “that Shakespeare’s knowledge of medicine, and particularly that branch of it which related to morbid psychology, is equally remarkable, and that no one has ever contended that he

but cited as irrefragable truth when it suits the case. Shakespeare of Stratford was the author of the Plays and Poems, but the author of the Plays and Poems could not have been a butcher’s apprentice. Anyway, therefore, with tradition. But the author of the Plays and Poems must have

was a physician. (Here Mr. Collins is wrong; that contention also has been put forward.) It may be urged that his acquaintance with the technicalities of other crafts and callings, notably of marine and military affairs, was also extraordinary, and yet no one has suspected him of being a

had a very large and a very accurate knowledge of the law. Therefore, Shakespeare of Stratford must have been an attorney’s clerk! The method is simplicity itself. By similar reasoning Shakespeare has been made a country schoolmaster, a soldier, a physician, a printer, and a good many other things besides, according to the inclination and the exigencies of the commentator. It would not be in the least

sailor or a soldier. (Wrong again. Why, even Messrs. Garnett and Gosse “suspect” that he was a soldier!) This may be conceded, but the concession hardly furnishes an analogy. To these and all other subjects he recurs occasionally, and in season, but with reminiscences of the law his memory, as is abundantly clear, was simply saturated. In season and out of season now in manifest, now in recondite applica228

Mark Twain tion, he presses it into the service of expression and illustration. At least a third of his myriad metaphors are derived from it. It would indeed be difficult to find a single act in any of his dramas, nay, in some of them, a single scene, the diction and imagery of which are not colored by it. Much of his law may have been acquired from three books easily accessible to him—namely, Tottell’s Precedents (1572), Pulton’s Statutes (1578), and Fraunce’s Lawier’s Logike (1588), works with which he certainly seems to have

never left him, that as a young man in London he continued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in leisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers. On no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which the law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy in a subject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and ostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet succeeded in keeping himself from tripping.”

been familiar; but much of it could only have come from one who had an intimate acquaintance with legal proceedings. We quite agree with Mr. Castle that Shakespeare’s legal knowledge is not what could have been picked up in an attorney’s office, but could only have been learned by an

A lame conclusion. “No other supposition” indeed! Yes, there is another, and a very obvious supposition—namely, that Shakespeare was himself a lawyer, well versed in his trade, versed in all the ways of the courts, and living in close intimacy with judges and of the Inns of

actual attendance at the Courts, at a Pleader’s Chambers, and on circuit, or by associating intimately with of the Bench and Bar.” This is excellent. But what is Mr. Collins’s explanation? “Perhaps the simplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in early life he was in an attorney’s office (!), that he there contracted a love for the law which

Court. One is, of course, thankful that Mr. Collins has appreciated the fact that Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training, but I may be forgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his pronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone, Lord Campbell, Judge Holmes, Mr. Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr. Grant

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What Is Man and Other Essays White, and other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on the matter of Shakespeare’s legal acquirements. … Here it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord Penzance’s book as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or other managed “to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the technical and phrases, not only of the conveyancer’s office, but of the pleader’s chambers and the Courts at Westminster.” This, as Lord Penzance points

means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity at the theater. No one doubt that. The holding of horses is scouted by many, and perhaps with justice, as being unlikely and certainly unproved; but whatever the nature of his employment was at the theater, there is hardly room for the belief that it could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so rapid. Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was soon spoken of as a “Johannes Factotum.’ His rapid accumula-

out, “would require nothing short of employment in some career involving constant with legal questions and general legal work.” But “in what portion of Shakespeare’s career would it be possible to point out that time could be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the

tion of wealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services. One fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life at this period of it, giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any other employment. ‘In 1589,’ says Knight, ‘we have undeniable evidence

chambers or offices of practicing lawyers? … It is beyond doubt that at an early period he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and assist his father, and was soon after, at the age of sixteen, bound apprentice to a trade. While under the obligation of this bond he could not have pursued any other employment. Then he leaves Stratford and comes to London. He has to provide himself with the

that he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried servant, as may players were, but was a shareholder in the company of the Queen’s players with other shareholders below him on the list.’ This (1589) would be within two years after his arrival in London, which is placed by White and Halliwell- Phillipps about the year 1587. The difficulty in supposing that, starting with a state of igno230

Mark Twain rance in 1587, when he is supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon a course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost insuperable. Still it was physically possible, provided always that he could have had access to the needful books. But this legal training seems to me to stand on a different footing. It is not only unable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known facts of his career.” Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that “by 1592 (according to the best

I have cited this age from Lord Penzance’s book, because it lay before me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of Shakespeare’s legal knowledge; but other writers have still better set forth the insuperable difficulties, as they seem to me, which beset the idea that Shakespeare might have found them in some unknown period of early life, amid multifarious other occupations, for the study of classics, literature, and law, to say nothing of languages and a few other matters. Lord Penzance further asks his

authority, Mr. Grant White) several of the plays had been written. ‘The Comedy of Errors’ in 1589, ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ in 1589, ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ in 1589 or 1590,” and so forth, and then asks, “with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand … was it possible that he could have

readers: “Did you ever meet with or hear of an instance in which a young man in this country gave himself up to legal studies and engaged in legal employments, which is the only way of becoming familiar with the technicalities of practice, unless with the view of practicing in that profes-

taken a leading part in the management and conduct of two theaters, and if Mr. Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken his share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company—and at the same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its branches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its principles and practice, and saturate his mind with all its most technical ?”

sion? I do not believe that it would be easy, or indeed possible, to produce an instance in which the law has been seriously studied in all its branches, except as a qualification for practice in the legal profession.” This testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative; and so uncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises, and maybe-so’s, and might-have-beens, and could-have-

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What Is Man and Other Essays beens, and must-have-beens, and the rest of that ton of plaster of Paris out of which the biographers have built the colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor’s name, that it quite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare’s Works knew all about law and lawyers. Also, that that man could not have been the Stratford Shakespeare—and wasn’t. Who did write these Works, then? I wish I knew. IX DID FRANCIS BACON write Shakespeare’s Works? Nobody knows. We cannot say we know a thing when that thing has not been proved. Know is too strong a word to use when the evidence is not final and absolutely conclusive. We can infer, if we want to, like those slaves. … No, I will not write that word, it is not kind, it is not courteous. The upholders of the Stratford-Shakespeare superstition call us the hardest names they can think of, and they keep doing it all

the time; very well, if they like to descend to that level, let them do it, but I will not so undignify myself as to follow them. I cannot call them harsh names; the most I can do is to indicate them by reflecting my disapproval; and this without malice, without venom. To resume. What I was about to say was, those thugs have built their entire superstition upon inferences, not upon known and established facts. It is a weak method, and poor, and I am glad to be able to say our side never resorts to it while there is anything else to resort to. But when we must, we must; and we have now arrived at a place of that sort. … Since the Stratford Shakespeare couldn’t have written the Works, we infer that somebody did. Who was it, then? This requires some more inferring. Ordinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the continent like a tidal wave whose roar and boom and thunder are made up of iration, delight, and applause, a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the authorship. Why a dozen, instead of only one or two? One reason is, because there are a dozen that are recognizably competent to do that poem. Do you “Beautiful Snow”? Do 232

Mark Twain you “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother, Rock Me to Sleep”? Do you “Backward, turn, backward, O Time, in thy flight! Make me a child again just for tonight”? I them very well. Their authorship was claimed by most of the grown-up people who were alive at the time, and every claimant had one plausible argument in his favor, at least—to wit, he could have done the authoring; he was competent. Have the Works been claimed by a dozen? They haven’t.

two; certainly there couldn’t be two at the same time. It takes ages to bring forth a Shakespeare, and some more ages to match him. This one was not matched before his time; nor during his time; and hasn’t been matched since. The prospect of matching him in our time is not bright. The Baconians claim that the Stratford Shakespeare was not qualified to write the Works, and that Francis Bacon was. They claim that Bacon possessed the stupendous equipment—both natural and acquired—for the miracle;

There was good reason. The world knows there was but one man on the planet at the time who was competent— not a dozen, and not two. A long time ago the dwellers in a far country used now and then to find a procession of prodigious footprints stretching across the plain—foot-

and that no other Englishman of his day possessed the like; or, indeed, anything closely approaching it. Macaulay, in his Essay, has much to say about the splendor and horizonless magnitude of that equipment. Also, he has synopsized Bacon’s history—a thing which cannot be

prints that were three miles apart, each footprint a third of a mile long and a furlong deep, and with forests and villages mashed to mush in it. Was there any doubt as to who made that mighty trail? Were there a dozen claimants? Where there two? No—the people knew who it was that had been along there: there was only one Hercules. There has been only one Shakespeare. There couldn’t be

done for the Stratford Shakespeare, for he hasn’t any history to synopsize. Bacon’s history is open to the world, from his boyhood to his death in old age—a history consisting of known facts, displayed in minute and multitudinous detail; facts, not guesses and conjectures and might-have-beens. Whereby it appears that he was born of a race of statesmen, and had a Lord Chancellor for his father, and a mother

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What Is Man and Other Essays who was “distinguished both as a linguist and a theologian: she corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologia from the Latin so correctly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration.” It is the atmosphere we are reared in that determines how our inclinations and aspirations shall tend. The atmosphere furnished by the parents to the son in this present case was an atmosphere saturated with learning; with thinkings and ponderings upon deep subjects; and

acquaintance—not merely with Cicero and Virgil, but with the most interesting memoirs, state papers, and pamphlets of his own time”—a literature necessary to the Stratford lad, for his fictitious reputation’s sake, since the writer of his Works would begin to use it wholesale and in a most masterly way before the lad was hardly more than out of his teens and into his twenties. At fifteen Bacon was sent to the university, and he spent three years there. Thence he went to Paris in the train of

with polite culture. It had its natural effect. Shakespeare of Stratford was reared in a house which had no use for books, since its owners, his parents, were without education. This may have had an effect upon the son, but we do not know, because we have no history of him of an informing sort.

the English Ambassador, and there he mingled daily with the wise, the cultured, the great, and the aristocracy of fashion, during another three years. A total of six years spent at the sources of knowledge; knowledge both of books and of men. The three spent at the university were coeval with

There were but few books anywhere, in that day, and only the well-to-do and highly educated possessed them, they being almost confined to the dead languages. “All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf”—imagine it! The few existing books were in the Latin tongue mainly. “A person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all

the second and last three spent by the little Stratford lad at Stratford school supposedly, and perhapsedly, and maybe, and by inference—with nothing to infer from. The second three of the Baconian six were “presumably” spent by the Stratford lad as apprentice to a butcher. That is, the thugs presume it—on no evidence of any kind. Which is their way, when they want a historical fact. Fact and presump234

Mark Twain tion are, for business purposes, all the same to them. They know the difference, but they also know how to blink it. They know, too, that while in history-building a fact is better than a presumption, it doesn’t take a presumption long to bloom into a fact when they have the handling of it. They know by old experience that when they get hold of a presumption-tadpole he is not going to stay tadpole in their history-tank; no, they know how to develop him into the giant four-legged bullfrog of fact, and make him sit up on

butcher. They also “presume” that the butcher was his father. They don’t know. There is no written record of it, nor any other actual evidence. If it would have helped their case any, they would have apprenticed him to thirty butchers, to fifty butchers, to a wilderness of butchers—all by their patented method “presumption.” If it will help their case they will do it yet; and if it will further help it, they will “presume” that all those butchers were his father. And the week after, they will say it. Why, it is just like being the past tense

his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and insolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simonpure authenticity with a thundering bellow that will convince everybody because it is so loud. The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning con-

of the compound reflexive adverbial incandescent hypodermic irregular accusative Noun of Multitude; which is father to the expression which the grammarians call Verb. It is like a whole ancestry, with only one posterity. To resume. Next, the young Bacon took up the study of

vinces but one. I wouldn’t be a thug, not even if—but never mind about that, it has nothing to do with the argument, and it is not noble in spirit besides. If I am better than a thug, is the merit mine? No, it is His. Then to Him be the praise. That is the right spirit. They “presume” the lad severed his “presumed” connection with the Stratford school to become apprentice to a

law, and mastered that abstruse science. From that day to the end of his life he was daily in close with lawyers and judges; not as a casual onlooker in intervals between holding horses in front of a theater, but as a practicing lawyer—a great and successful one, a renowned one, a Launcelot of the bar, the most formidable lance in the high brotherhood of the legal Table Round; he lived in the law’s

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What Is Man and Other Essays atmosphere thenceforth, all his years, and by sheer ability forced his way up its difficult steeps to its supremest summit, the Lord-Chancellorship, leaving behind him no fellow-craftsman qualified to challenge his divine right to that majestic place. When we read the praises bestowed by Lord Penzance and the other illustrious experts upon the legal condition and legal aptnesses, brilliances, profundities, and felicities so prodigally displayed in the Plays, and try to fit them to

simile, or illustration, his mind ever turned first to the law; he seems almost to have thought in legal phrases; the commonest legal phrases, the commonest of legal expressions, were ever at the end of his pen.” That could happen to no one but a person whose trade was the law; it could not happen to a dabbler in it. Veteran mariners fill their conversation with sailor-phrases and draw all their similes from the ship and the sea and the storm, but no mere enger ever does it, be he of Stratford or elsewhere; or could do it

the historyless Stratford stage-manager, they sound wild, strange, incredible, ludicrous; but when we put them in the mouth of Bacon they do not sound strange, they seem in their natural and rightful place, they seem at home there. Please turn back and read them again. Attributed to

with anything resembling accuracy, if he were hardy enough to try. Please read again what Lord Campbell and the other great authorities have said about Bacon when they thought they were saying it about Shakespeare of Stratford.

Shakespeare of Stratford they are meaningless, they are inebriate extravagancies—intemperate irations of the dark side of the moon, so to speak; attributed to Bacon, they are irations of the golden glories of the moon’s front side, the moon at the full—and not intemperate, not overwrought, but sane and right, and justified. “At ever turn and point at which the author required a metaphor,

X T he Rest of the EEquipmen quipmen quipmentt THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS was equipped, beyond every other man of his time, with wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind, grace, and majesty of ex236

Mark Twain pression. Everyone one had said it, no one doubts it. Also, he had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always wanting to break out. We have no evidence of any kind that Shakespeare of Stratford possessed any of these gifts or any of these acquirements. The only lines he ever wrote, so far as we know, are substantially barren of them—barren of all of them. Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare

He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by his exertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the King’s heart was set—the union of England and Scotland. It was not difficult for such an intellect to discover many irresistible arguments in favor of such a scheme. He conducted the great case of the Post Nati in the Exchequer Chamber; and the decision of the judges—a decision the legality of which may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which must be acknowledged—was in a

To digg the dust encloased heare: Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones. Ben Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:

great measure attributed to his dexterous management. Again: While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble treatise on the Advancement of

His language, where he could spare and by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own graces… . The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end. From Macaulay: 237

Leearning, which at a later period was expanded into the De Augmentis, appeared in 1605. The Wisdom of the Ancients, a work which, if it had proceeded from any other writer, would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit and learning, was printed in 1609. In the mean time the Novum Organum was slowly proceeding. Several distinguished men of learning had been

What Is Man and Other Essays permitted to see portions of that extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest iration of his genius. Even Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the Cogitata et Visa, one of the most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great oracular volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that “in all proposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master workman”; and that “it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over did abound with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and

add the vast literary industries just described, to satisfy his. He was a born worker. The service which he rendered to letters during the last five years of his life, amid ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase the regret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted, to use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, “on such study as was not worthy such a student.” He commenced a digest of the laws of England, a His-

with worthy contemplations of the means to procure it.” In 1612 a new edition of the Essays appeared, with additions suring the original collection both in bulk and quality. Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon’s attention from a

tory of England under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of National History, a Philosophical Romance. He made extensive and valuable additions to his Essays. He published the inestimable Treatise de Augmentis Scientiarum.

work the most arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty powers could have achieved, “the reducing and recompiling,” to use his own phrase, “of the laws of England.” To serve the exacting and laborious offices of AttorneyGeneral and Solicitor-General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man for hard work, but Bacon had to

Did these labors of Hercules fill up his time to his contentment, and quiet his appetite for work? Not entirely: The trifles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor bore the mark of his mind. The best jestbook in the world is that which he dictated from memory, without referring to any book, on a day on which illness had rendered him incapable of serious study. 238

Mark Twain Here are some scattered remarks (from Macaulay) which throw light upon Bacon, and seem to indicate—and maybe demonstrate—that he was competent to write the Plays and Poems: With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The Essays contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden,

Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic, he adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric. The practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like his wit, so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason and to tyrannize over the whole man. There are too many places in the Plays where this happens. Poor old dying John of Gaunt volleying second-rate puns at his own name, is a pathetic instance of it. “We may

or a court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the whole world of knowledge. His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady; spread it, and the armies of the

assume” that it is Bacon’s fault, but the Stratford Shakespeare has to bear the blame. No imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated. It stopped at the first check from good sense.

powerful Sultans might repose beneath its shade. The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the mutual relations of all departments of knowledge. In a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, he said, “I have taken all knowledge to be my province.”

In truth, much of Bacon’s life was ed in a visionary world—amid things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian Tales … amid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more effacious than the balsam

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What Is Man and Other Essays of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was nothing wild—nothing but what sober reason sanctioned. Bacon’s greatest performance is the first book of the Novum Organum… . Every part of it blazes with wit, but with wit which is employed only to illustrate and decorate truth. No book ever made so great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so may prejudices, introduced so many new opinions. But what we most ire is the vast capacity of that

higher and richer degree than any other man of his time or of any previous time. He was a genius without a mate, a prodigy not matable. There was only one of him; the planet could not produce two of him at one birth, nor in one age. He could have written anything that is in the Plays and Poems. He could have written this: The cloud-cap’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

intellect which, without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science—all the past, the present and the future, all the errors of two thousand years, all the encouraging signs of the ing times, all the bright hopes of the coming age. He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable. His eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in literature.

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Also, he could have written this, but he refrained: Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare

It is evident that he had each and every one of the mental

To digg the dust encloased heare: Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones.

gifts and each and every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed in the Plays and Poems, and in much 240

Mark Twain When a person reads the noble verses about the cloudcap’d towers, he ought not to follow it immediately with Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare, because he will find the transition from great poetry to poor prose too violent for comfort. It will give him a shock. You never notice how commonplace and unpoetic gravel is until you bite into a layer of it in a pie. XI AM I TRYING TO CONVINCE anybody that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare’s Works? Ah, now, what do you take me for? Would I be so soft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly seventy-four years? It would grieve me to know that any one could think so injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so uniringly of me. No, no, I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, disionately, and con241

scientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. We always get at second hand our notions about systems of government; and high tariff and low tariff; and prohibition and anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace and the glories of war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and approval of the duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning the nature of cats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless wild animals is base or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter of religious and political parties; and our acceptance or rejection of the Shakespeares and the Author Ortons and the Mrs. Eddys. We get them all at second hand, we reason none of them out for ourselves. It is the way we are made. It is the way we are all made, and we can’t help it, we can’t change it. And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been taught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from examining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can persuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion. In morals, conduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environment

What Is Man and Other Essays and associations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to wash. Whenever we have been furnished with a tar baby ostensibly stuffed with jewels, and warned that it will be dishonorable and irreverent to disembowel it and test the jewels, we keep our sacrilegious hands off it. We submit, not reluctantly, but rather gladly, for we are privately afraid we should find, upon examination that the jewels are of the sort that are manufactured at North Adams, Mass. I haven’t any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his

tion and try to bear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch. We are The Reasoning Race. We can’t prove it by the above examples, and we can’t prove it by the miraculous “histories” built by those Stratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a barrel of sawdust, but there is a plenty of other things we can prove it by, if I could think of them. We are

pedestal this side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known to disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow process. It took several thousand years to convince our fine race—including every splendid intellect in

The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of chipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we know by our reasoning bowers that Hercules has been along there. I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet. The bust, too—there in the Stratford Church.

it—that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken several thousand years to convince the same fine race—including every splendid intellect in it—that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church’s program of postmortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damna-

The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy mustache, and the putty face, unseamed of care—that face which has looked ionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder. 242

Mark Twain XII

single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except towards the things which were sacred to other people. Am I in the right? I think so. But I ask no one to take my uned word; no, look at the dictionary; let the dictionary decide. Here is the definition:

enc Irr Irree v er erenc encee ONE OF THE MOST TRYING DEFECTS which I find in these— these—what shall I call them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way they do to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature and my dignity. The farthest I can go in that direction is to call them by names of limited reverence—names merely descriptive, never unkind, never offensive, never tainted by harsh feeling. If they would do like this, they would feel better in their hearts. Very well, then—to proceed. One of the most trying defects which I find in these Stratfordolaters, these Shakesperiods, these thugs, these bangalores, these troglodytes, these herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these buccaneers, these bandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence. It is detectable in every utterance of theirs when they are talking . I am thankful that in me there is nothing of that spirit. When a thing is sacred to me it is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it. I cannot call to mind a 243

IRREVERENCE. The quality or condition of irreverence toward God and sacred things. What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says irreverence is lack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other gods, and for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things within them. He endorses the definition, you see; and there are 300,000,000 Hindus or their equivalents back of him. The dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could restrict irreverence to lack of reverence for our Deity and our sacred things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for by the simple process of spelling his deities with capitals the Hindu confiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus making it clearly compul-

What Is Man and Other Essays sory upon us to revere his gods and his sacred things, and nobody’s else. We can’t say a word, for he had our own dictionary at his back, and its decision is final. This law, reduced to its simplest , is this: 1. Whatever is sacred to the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2. whatever is sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody else; 3. therefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably, whatever is sacred to me must be held in reverence by everybody else.

dent, and dictatorial word in the language. And people will say, “Whose business is it what gods I worship and what things hold sacred? Who has the right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he get that right?” We cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us. We must save the word from this destruction. There is but one way to do it, and that is to stop the spread of the privilege and strictly confine it to its present limits—that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu sects, and me. We do not

Now then, what aggravates me is that these troglodytes and muscovites and bandoleers and buccaneers are also trying to crowd in and share the benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and hold him sacred. We can’t have that: there’s enough of us already. If

need any more, the stock is watered enough, just as it is. It would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone. I think so because I am the only sect that knows how to employ it gently, kindly, charitably, disionately. The other sects lack the quality of self-restraint. The Catho-

you go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man’s sacred things are the only ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely happen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impu-

lic Church says the most irreverent things about matters which are sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant Church retorts in kind about the confessional and other matters which Catholics hold sacred; then both of these irreverencers turn upon Thomas Paine and charge him with irreverence. This is all unfortunate, because it makes it difficult for students equipped with only a low grade of men244

Mark Twain tality to find out what Irreverence really is. It will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating the irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn from all the sects but me. Then there will be no more quarreling, no more bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heartburnings. There will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare controversy except what is sacred to me. That will simplify the whole matter, and trouble will cease. There will be irreverence no longer, because I will not allow it. The first time those criminals charge me with irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an Arthur-OrtonMary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-SeventeenthVeiled-Prophet-of-Khorassan will be the last. Taught by the methods found effective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of holy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.

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XIII ISN’T IT ODD, WHEN YOU THINK OF IT, that you may list all the celebrated Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen of modern times, clear back to the first Tudors—a list containing five hundred names, shall we say?—and you can go to the histories, biographies, and cyclopedias and learn the particulars of the lives of every one of them. Every one of them except one—the most famous, the most renowned— by far the most illustrious of them all—Shakespeare! You can get the details of the lives of all the celebrated ecclesiastics in the list; all the celebrated tragedians, comedians, singers, dancers, orators, judges, lawyers, poets, dramatists, historians, biographers, editors, inventors, reformers, statesmen, generals, irals, discoverers, prize-fighters, murderers, pirates, conspirators, horse-jockeys, bunco-steerers, misers, swindlers, explorers, adventurers by land and sea, bankers, financiers, astronomers, naturalists, claimants, impostors, chemists, biologists, geologists, philologists, college presidents and professors, architects, engineers, painters, sculptors, politicians, agitators, rebels, revolutionists, patriots, demagogues, clowns, cooks, freaks, philoso-

What Is Man and Other Essays phers, burglars, highwaymen, journalists, physicians, surgeons—you can get the life-histories of all of them but one. Just one—the most extraordinary and the most celebrated of them all—Shakespeare! You may add to the list the thousand celebrated persons furnished by the rest of Christendom in the past four centuries, and you can find out the life-histories of all those people, too. You will then have listed fifteen hundred celebrities, and you can trace the authentic life-histories of the whole of them. Save one—far and away the most colossal prodigy of the entire accumulation—Shakespeare! About him you can find out nothing. Nothing of even the slightest importance. Nothing worth the trouble of stowing away in your memory. Nothing that even remotely indicates that he was ever anything more than a distinctly commonplace person—a manager, an actor of inferior grade, a small trader in a small village that did not regard him as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten all about him before he was fairly cold in his grave. We can go to the records and find out the life-history of every renowned race-horse of modern times—but not Shakespeare’s! There are many reasons why, and they have been furnished in

cart-loads (of guess and conjecture) by those troglodytes; but there is one that is worth all the rest of the reasons put together, and is abundantly sufficient all by itself—he hadn’t any history to record. There is no way of getting around that deadly fact. And no sane way has yet been discovered of getting around its formidable significance. Its quite plain significance—to any but those thugs (I do not use the term unkindly) is, that Shakespeare had no prominence while he lived, and none until he had been dead two or three generations. The Plays enjoyed high fame from the beginning; and if he wrote them it seems a pity the world did not find it out. He ought to have explained that he was the author, and not merely a nom de plume for another man to hide behind. If he had been less intemperately solicitous about his bones, and more solicitous about his Works, it would have been better for his good name, and a kindness to us. The bones were not important. They will moulder away, they will turn to dust, but the Works will endure until the last sun goes down.

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Mark Twain P.S. MARCH 25. About two months ago I was illuminating this Autobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, and I then took occasion to air the opinion that the Stratford Shakespeare was a person of no public consequence or celebrity during his lifetime, but was utterly obscure and unimportant. And not only in great London, but also in the little village where he was born, where he lived a quarter of a century, and where he died and was buried. I argued that if he had been

gotten in his village in the short space of sixty years. I will make an extract from it: Hannibal, as a city, may have many sins to answer for, but ingratitude is not one of them, or reverence for the great men she has produced, and as the years go by her greatest son, Mark Twain, or S. L. Clemens as a few of the unlettered call him, grows in the estimation and regard of the residents of the town he made famous and the town that made him famous. His name is associated with every

a person of any note at all, aged villagers would have had much to tell about him many and many a year after his death, instead of being unable to furnish inquirers a single fact connected with him. I believed, and I still believe, that if he had been famous, his notoriety would have lasted as

old building that is torn down to make way for the modern structures demanded by a rapidly growing city, and with every hill or cave over or through which he might by any possibility have roamed, while the many points of interest which he wove into his stories, such as Holiday Hill,

long as mine has lasted in my native village out in Missouri. It is a good argument, a prodigiously strong one, and most formidable one for even the most gifted and ingenious and plausible Stratfordolator to get around or explain away. Today a Hannibal Courier-Post of recent date has reached me, with an article in it which reinforces my contention that a really celebrated person cannot be for-

Jackson’s Island, or Mark Twain Cave, are now monuments to his genius. Hannibal is glad of any opportunity to do him honor as he had honored her. So it has happened that the “old timers” who went to school with Mark or were with him on some of his usual escapades have been honored with large audiences whenever they were in a reminiscent mood and condescended to

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What Is Man and Other Essays tell of their intimacy with the ordinary boy who came to be a very extraordinary humorist and whose every boyish act is now seen to have been indicative of what was to come. Like Aunt Becky and Mrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was hardly appreciated when he lived here and that the things he did as a boy and was whipped for doing were not all bad, after all. So they have been in no hesitancy about drawing out the bad things he did as well as the good in their efforts to get a “Mark Twain” story, all inci-

And here is another extract from a Hannibal paper, of date twenty days ago: Miss Becca Blankenship died at the home of William Dickason, 408 Rock Street, at 2.30 o’clock yesterday afternoon, aged 72 years. The deceased was a sister of “Huckleberry Finn,” one of the famous characters in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. She had been a member of the Dickason family—the housekeeper—for nearly forty-five years, and was a highly respected lady. For the past eight years she had been

dents being viewed in the light of his present fame, until the volume of “Twainiana” is already considerable and growing in proportion as the “old timers” drop away and the stories are retold second and third hand by their descendants. With some seventy-three years and living in a villa

an invalid, but was as well cared for by Mr. Dickason and his family as if she had been a near relative. She was a member of the Park Methodist Church and a Christian woman. I her well. I have a picture of her in my mind which was graven there, clear and sharp and vivid, sixty-

instead of a house, he is a fair target, and let him incorporate, copyright, or patent himself as he will, there are some of his “works” that will go swooping up Hannibal chimneys as long as graybeards gather about the fires and begin with, “I’ve heard father tell,” or possibly, “Once when I.” The Mrs. Clemens referred to is my mother—was my mother.

three years ago. She was at that time nine years old, and I was about eleven. I where she stood, and how she looked; and I can still see her bare feet, her bare head, her brown face, and her short tow-linen frock. She was crying. What it was about I have long ago forgotten. But it was the tears that preserved the picture for me, no doubt. She was a good child, I can say that for her. She knew me 248

Mark Twain nearly seventy years ago. Did she forget me, in the course of time? I think not. If she had lived in Stratford in Shakespeare’s time, would she have forgotten him? Yes. For he was never famous during his lifetime, he was utterly obscure in Stratford, and there wouldn’t be any occasion to him after he had been dead a week. “Injun Joe,” “Jimmy Finn,” and “General Gaines” were prominent and very intemperate ne’er-do-weels in Hannibal two generations ago. Plenty of grayheads there them to this day, and can tell you about them. Isn’t it curious that two “town drunkards” and one half-breed loafer should leave behind them, in a remote Missourian village, a fame a hundred times greater and several hundred times more particularized in the matter of definite facts than Shakespeare left behind him in the village where he had lived the half of his lifetime?

To read more Electronic Classics from the Penn State series, go to our web site: http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/ jimspdf.htm To return to our Mark Twain site, go to: http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/

Mark Twain

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