CORNELL 
 
 UNLVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PS 1322.W5 1917 
 
 What is man? and other essays / 
 
 isoft® 
 
 3 1924 021 152 321 
 
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Uniform Edition op 
 MARK TWAIN'S WORKS 
 
 Red Cloth. Crown Svo 
 
 Christian Science. Illustrated. 
 
 The American Claimant, Etc. 
 
 A Connecticut Yankee. Illustrated 
 
 Huckleberry " Finn. Illustrated 
 
 The Prince and the Pauper. Illustrated 
 
 Life on the Missibsippi. lUustrated. 
 
 The Man that Corrupted Hadletburg, Etc. 
 
 Illustrated 
 Tom Sawyer Abroad, Etc. Illustrated 
 Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Illustrated 
 Pudd'nhead Wilson. Illustrated 
 Sketches New and Old. Illustrated 
 The $30,000 Bequest, Etc. Illustrated 
 Innocents Abroad. Illustrated. 
 RouQHiNa It. Illustrated 
 A Tramp Abroad. Illustrated 
 The Gilded Age. Illustrated 
 Following the Equator. Illustrated 
 Joan of Arc. Illustrated 
 
 Other Books by Mark Twain 
 
 Captain Stobmfield's Visit to Heateh 
 
 With Frontispiece 
 Editorial Wild Oats. Illustrated 
 A Horse's Tale, Illustrated 
 Extract's from Adam's Diabt. Qlustrated 
 Eve's Diary. Illustrated 
 A Dog's Tale. Illustrated 
 The Jumping Frog. Illustrated 
 How to Tell a Story, Etc. 
 A Double-barrelled Detective Stobt. Hl'd 
 Is Shakespeare Dead? 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS. NEW YORK 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
Wbat Is Man? 
 
 Copyrieht, 1917, by Mark Twain Company 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Published May, 1917 
 
 E-R 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 • What Is Man? i 
 
 The Death of Jean no 
 
 The Turning-point of My Life 127 
 
 How TO Make History Dates Stick 141 
 
 The Memorable Assassination 167 
 
 A Scrap of Curious History 182 
 
 Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty 193 
 
 At the Shrine of St. Wagner 209 
 
 William Dean Howells 228 
 
 English as She Is Taught 240 
 
 A Simplified Alphabet 256 
 
 As Concerns Interpreting the Deity 265 
 
 Concerning Tobacco 275 
 
 The Bee 280 
 
 Taming the Bicycle 285 
 
 Is Shakespeare Dead? 297 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 a. MAN THE MACHINE. b. PERSONAL MERIT 
 
 [The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The 
 Old Man had asserted that the human being is merely a 
 machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objected, and 
 asked him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for 
 his position.] 
 
 OLD MAN. What are the materials of which a 
 steam-engine is made? 
 
 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. 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by J. W, Bothwell. 
 I 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 O. M. You would not require much, of such an 
 engine as that? 
 
 Y. M. No — substantially nothing. 
 
 Q. 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 proc- 
 ess and make steel of it. Mine and treat and com- 
 bine the several metals of which brass is made. 
 
 O. M. Then? 
 
 Y. M. Out of the perfected result, buUd 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 ^he cunning ma- 
 chines of a great factory? 
 
 Y. M. It could. 
 
 O. M. What could the stone engine do? 
 
 Y. M. Drive a sewing-machine, possibly — noth- 
 ing more, perhaps. ^^ 
 
 O. M. Men would admire the other engine and 
 rapturously praise it? 
 
 Y. M. Yes. 
 
 O. M. But not the stone one? 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 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. F^r^oMa/ merits? How do you mean ? 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. M. It would be personally entitled to the credit 
 of its own performance? 
 
 Y. M. The engine? Certainly not. 
 
 O. M. Why not? 
 
 Y. M. Because its performance is not personal. 
 It is a result of the law of its 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 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 mat- 
 ter" 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 performance of 
 either? 
 
 O. M. Yes — but do not be off ended ; I am mean- 
 ing 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 it a 
 lot of sulphur and stone and other obstructing in- 
 born 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: "Preju- 
 
 3 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 dices which nothing within the rock itself had either 
 power to renlove or any desire to remove." Go on. 
 
 O. M. Prejudices which must be removed by out- 
 side influences or not at all. Put that down. 
 
 Y. M. Very well; " Must be removed by outside 
 influences or not at air." Go on. 
 
 O. M. The iron's prejudice against ridding itself 
 of the cumbering rock. To make it more exact, the 
 iron's absolute 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 in- 
 fluence 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 educated, now — ^its training is com- 
 plete. 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 cop- 
 per men, and leaden men, 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 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 ores by ed- 
 ucation — smelting, refining, and so forth. 
 
 4 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 Y. M. You have arrived at man, now? 
 
 O. M. Yes. Man the machine — man the imper- 
 sonal 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. 
 
 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 ma- 
 terials out of which it is formed. They are odds and 
 ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered un- 
 consciously from a thousand books, a thousand con- 
 versations, 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 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, 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, without reflection or the 
 need of it. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 all machines. 
 
 Y. M. Can't I ever change one of these automatic 
 opinions ? 
 
 O. M. No. You can't yourself, but exterior in- 
 fluences can do it. 
 
 Y. M. And exterior ones only? 
 
 O. M. Yes — exterior ones only. 
 
 Y. M. That position is vmtenable — I may say 
 ludicrously untenable. 
 
 O. M. What makes you think so? 
 
 Y. M. I don't merely think it, I know it. Sup- 
 pose 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. 
 
 O. M. Not a shred of it. It grew out of this talk 
 with me. But for that it would never have occurred 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 original thoughts, anyway; there was no- 
 body 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. Sidam had no fear of 
 death — none in the world. 
 
 Y. M. Yes, he had. 
 
 O. M. When he was created? 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 O. M. When, then? 
 
 Y. M. When he was threatened with it. 
 
 O. M. Then it came from the outside. Adam is 
 quite big enough; let us not try to make a god of 
 him. None hut 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 trifiingest little thing with it. He had 
 not a shadow of a notion of the difference between 
 good and evil — he had to get the idea from the out- 
 side. Neither he nor Eve was able to originate the 
 idea that it was immodest to go naked : the knowl- 
 edge came in with the apple from the outside. 'A 
 man's brain is so constructed that it can originate 
 nothing whatever. It can only use material obtained 
 outside. It is merely a machine; and it works auto- 
 matically, not by will-power. It has no command 
 over itself, its owner has no command over it. , 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. Well, never mind Adam: but certainly 
 Shakespeare's creations — 
 
 O. M. No, you mean Shakespeare's imitations. 
 Shakespeare created nothing. He correctly ob- 
 served, 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, suggestions, experiences (reading, 
 seeing plays, playing plays, borrowing ideas, and so 
 on), framed the patterns in his mind and started up 
 its complex and admirable machinery, and it auto- 
 matically turned out that pictured and gorgeous fab- 
 ric which still compels the astonishment of the 
 world. If Shakespeare had been bom and bred on a 
 barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty in- 
 tellect would have had no outside material to work 
 with, and could have invented none; and no outside 
 influences, teachings, moldings, persuasions, inspira- 
 tions, of a valuable sort, and could have invented 
 none; and so Shakespeare would have produced 
 nothing. In Turkey he would have produced some- 
 thing — ^something up to the highest Hmit of Turk- 
 ish influences, associations, and training. In France 
 he would have produced something better — some- 
 thing up to the highest limit of the French influences 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 
 
 Y. M. And so we are mere machines! And ma- 
 chines may not boast, nor feel proud of their per- 
 formance, 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. 
 
 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 
 bom with a billion dollars — ^where is the personal 
 merit in that? A baby bom with nothing — ^where 
 is the personal demerit in that? The one is fawned 
 upon, admired, 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 righy 
 directions — training one's self-approbation to elevaif 
 its ideals. 
 
 Y. M. But as to merit — the personal merit of the 
 victorious coward's project and achievement ? 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 bom 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 out- 
 side. If that timid man had Hved 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 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 
 
 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' cour- 
 age; he was afraid, and wanted to run, but he did 
 not dare; he was afraid to run, with all those sol- 
 diers looking on. He was progressing, you see — the ^ 
 moral fear of shame had risen superior to the physi- 
 cal fear of harm. By the end of the campaign ex- 
 perience 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 and be huzza' d 
 at with tear-choked voices as the war-worn regiment 
 marches past the worshiping multitude with flags fly- 
 ing 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 — 
 
 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. What detail is that? 
 
 O. M. The impiolse which moves a person to do 
 things — ^the only imptilse that ever moves a person to 
 do a thing. 
 
 Y. M. The only one! Is there but one? 
 
 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 
 necessity of contenting his own spirit and winning its 
 approvalj" 
 
 Y. M. Oh, come, that won't do! 
 
 O. M. Why won't it? 
 
 Y. M. Because it puts him in the attitude of al- 
 ways looking out for his own comfort and advan- 
 tage; whereas an unselfish man often does a thing 
 solely for another person's good when it is a positive 
 disadvantage to himself. 
 f 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 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 nor suggestion of benefit to one's self can 
 result from it. 
 
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II 
 
 MAN S SOLE IMPULSE — THE SECURING OF HIS OWN 
 APPROVAL 
 
 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. 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 horse-car 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 but 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 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? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 0. M. Can you put yourself in the man's place 
 and tell me what he telt 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 perish. 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 uncon- 
 scious 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 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 
 home. Thinking of his pain again. He must buy 
 relief from 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 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 Street 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 im- 
 pulses? 
 
 Y. M. From a variety, of course — some high and 
 fine and noble, others not. What is your opinion? 
 
 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? 
 
 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 com- 
 fort, Jar HIMSELF. 
 
 Y. M. Come r^" He never does anj^hing for any 
 one else's comfort, spiritual or physical? 
 
 O. M. No. Except on those distinct terms — ^that 
 it shall first secure his own spiritual comfort. Other- 
 wise, 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 passion, 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, 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 cold, wounds, and 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 and the public. And perhaps there is some- 
 thing 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 — ^for that is the sole law 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? 
 
 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? 
 
 O. M. Yes. 
 
 Y. M. Give an instance. 
 
 0. M. Alexander Hamilton was a conspicuously 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 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. fA man will do anything, no matter what it 
 is, to secure his spiritual comfortj^ and he can neither 
 be forced nor persuaded to any act which has not 
 that goal for its object. Hamilton's act was com- 
 pelled by the inborn necessity of contenting his o\yn 
 spirit; in this it was like all the other acts of hislffe, 
 and Hke all the acts of all men's lives. Do you see 
 where the kernel of the matter lies ? (A. man cannot 
 be 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 other ap- 
 provals put together — ^in the earth or above it; to 
 secure that would furnish him the most comfort of 
 
 J? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 mind, the most 5e(/-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 largest share of per- 
 sonal 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 rea- 
 sons. Other spirit-contenting reasons. 
 
 Y. M. Always spirit-contenting reasons? 
 
 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. 
 
 Y. M. What do you call Love, Hate, Charity, 
 Revenge, Humanity, Magnanimity, Forgiveness? 
 
 O. M. Different results of the one Master Im- 
 pulse: 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 sam^ 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 
 
 l8 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 contentment of his own spirit. When it stops, the 
 man is dead. 
 
 Y. M. This 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 is what it is uncon- 
 sciously after. 
 
 Y. M. You do not even except the lofty and gra- 
 cious passion of mother-love? 
 
 O. M. No, it is the absolute slave of that law. 
 The mother will go naked to clothe her child; she 
 wiU 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 sacrifices. She does 
 it for that reward — that self-approval, that content- 
 ment, 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 admit 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 of appeasing and contenting one's own 
 spirit. 
 
 Y. M. The world's philanthropists — 
 
 O. M. I honor th'Sm, I uncover my head to them 
 — ^from habit and training ; but they could not know 
 comfort or happiness or self -approval if they did not 
 work and spend for the unfortunate. It makes them 
 
 19 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 happy to see others happy; and so with money and 
 labor they buy what they are after — happiness, self- 
 approval. Why don't misers 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? 
 
 O. M. That it does not exist. Duties are not per- 
 formed for duty's sake, but because their neglect 
 would make the man uncomfortable. A man per- 
 forms but one duty — the duty of contenting his 
 spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to him- 
 self. 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 that. But he always looks 
 out for Number One — first; the effects upon others 
 are a secondary matter. Men pretend to self-sacri- 
 fices, 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 de- 
 ceived; his bottom impulse is to content a require- 
 ment of his nature 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 con- 
 sciences ? 
 
 O. M. Yes. That is a good enough name for it : 
 Conscience — that independent Sovereign, that inso- 
 lent absolute Monarch inside of a man who is the 
 
 20 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 man's Master. There are all kinds of consciences, 
 because there are all 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 an- 
 other. As a guide or incentive to any authoritatively 
 prescribed line of morals or conduct (leaving train- 
 ing out of the account), a man's conscience is totally 
 valueless j I know a kind-hearted Kentuckian whose 
 self-approval 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 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 neg- 
 lected his duty — ^kept dodging it, shirking it, put- 
 ting it off, and his unrelenting conscience kept per- 
 secuting him for this conduct. At last, to get ease 
 of mind, comfort, 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. 
 
 Y. M. You spoke a moment ago of trained con- 
 sciences. You mean that we are not born with con- 
 sciences 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? 
 
 0. M. Yes. 
 
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Y. 
 
 M, 
 
 0. 
 
 M, 
 
 Y. 
 
 M 
 
 0. 
 
 M, 
 
 Y. 
 
 M, 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, 
 and books. 
 
 O. M. Ye? — ^they do their share; they do what 
 they can. 
 
 Y. M. And the rest is done by — 
 
 O. M. Oh, a milHon unnoticed influences — ^for 
 good or bad : influences which work without rest dur- 
 ing every waking moment of a man's Hfe, from 
 cradle to grave. 
 
 You have tabulated these? 
 Many of them — yes. 
 Will you read me the result? 
 Another time, yes. It would take an hour. 
 A conscience can be trained to shun evil 
 and prefer good ? 
 
 O. M. Yes. 
 
 Y. M. But will prefer it for spirit-contenting rea- 
 sons 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 be- 
 fore you. Search one out. 
 
 Y. M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a 
 fellow-being struggling in the water and jumps in at 
 the risk of 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 ? 
 
 22 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a begin- 
 ning, that 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 some one else. j 
 
 O. M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then? 
 
 Y. M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I sup- 
 pose that if there was no audience to observe the act, 
 the man wouldn't perform it. 
 
 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 fellow- 
 being on that account. They wouldn't do it otherwise. 
 They strictly obey the law which I have been insists 
 ing upon. You must remember and always distin-\ 
 guish the people who can't bear things from the people ' 
 who can. It will throw light upon a number ofj,.p--- 
 parently "self-sacrificing" cases. 
 
 Y. M. Oh, dear, it's all so disgusting. 
 
 O. Mv 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 
 
 23 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 of advantage the other way and the good boy would 
 not do the act. He must obey the iron law. None 
 can escape it. 
 
 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 a man's conscience is not a bom 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 wrong; and if 
 you wake it up — 
 
 A Little Story 
 
 O. M. I will tell you a little story: 
 
 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 
 of 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 
 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." 
 
 24 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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, hut only kindness; we made our house 
 your home, you were 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 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 miser- 
 able. Our faith came down to us through centuries of 
 believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, 
 to disturb itf Where was 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 provid- 
 ing pleasure for himself, then. Providing it by sat- 
 isfying what he believed to be a call of duty. 
 
 Y. M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case 
 of awakened conscience. That awakened conscience 
 
 3 25 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 could never get itself into that species of trouble 
 again. A cure like that is a permanent cure. 
 
 O. M. Pardon — I had not finished the story. We 
 are creatures of outside infltiences — ^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 kind- 
 ness, 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 re- 
 morse 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 our 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 pa- 
 gan country ill 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 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 
 
 26 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 left, and I die miserable; jor the things which you have 
 told me do not take the place of that which I have lost." 
 
 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 re- 
 morse for what he -had done, and he said : 
 
 "It was wrong — I see it now; but I was only try- 
 ing to do him good. In my view he was in error; it 
 seemed my duty to teach him the truth." 
 
 Then the mother said: 
 
 "I had taught him, all his little life, what I be- 
 lieved 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 your honor, 
 where was your shame f" 
 
 The missionary's anguish of remorse and sense of 
 treachery were as bitter and persecuting and unap- 
 peasable, now, as they had been in the former case. 
 The story is finished. What is your comment? 
 
 Y. M. The man's conscience was 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 admission that there are 
 others like it. This single admission pulls down the 
 
 27 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 whole doctrine of infallibility of judgment in con- 
 sciences.: Meantime there is one thing which I ask 
 you to notice. 
 
 Y. M. What is that? 
 
 O. M. That in both cases the man's act gave him 
 no spiritual discomfort, and that he was quite satis- 
 fied with it and got pleasure out of it. But after- 
 ward 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 their pain gave 
 HIM pain, i 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 ? 
 
 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 ar- 
 rived ? 
 
 O. M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed 
 ourselves with a number of qualities to which we 
 have given misleading names. Love, Hate, Char- 
 ity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. 
 I mean we attach misleading meanings to the names. 
 They are all forms of self- contentment, self-gratifi- 
 
 28 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 cation, but the names so disguise them that they dis- 
 tract our attention from the fact. Also we have 
 smuggled 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 imperi- 
 ous necessity of sectuing 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 whip, our goad, our only impell- 
 ing power; we have no other. Without it we should 
 be mere inert images, corpses; no one would do any- 
 thing, 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. 
 
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Ill 
 
 INSTANCES IN POINT 
 
 OLD MAN. Have you given thought to the 
 Gospel of Self -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 own head. WiU you try to 
 keep that in mind and not forget it ? 
 
 Y. M. Yes. Why? 
 
 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 oj a thought always utters a 
 second-hand one. 
 
 Y. M. Oh, now— 
 
 0. M. Wait. Reserve yotu- remark till we get to 
 that part of our discussion — to-morrow or next day, 
 say. Now, then, have you been considering the 
 proposition that no act is ever bom of any but a self- 
 contenting impulse — (primarily). 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 — 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. • M. Under searching analysis the ostensible 
 self-sacrifice 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, 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 have so filled my mind with suspicions that I 
 was constantly expecting to find a hidden question- 
 able 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. 
 
 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, 
 primarily, as he imagined, but first to content that 
 exacting and inflexible master within him — did he 
 sacrifice anybody else? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. How do you mean? 
 
 O. M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got 
 mere food and lodging in place of it. Had he de- 
 pendants ? 
 
 Y. M. Well— yes. 
 
 O. M. In what way and to what extent did his 
 self-sacrifice affect them? 
 
 Y. M. He was the support 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 self-supporting might be grat- 
 ified. He was furnishing the money 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 cur- 
 tailed ? 
 
 Y. M. Quite seriously. Yes. 
 
 O. M. The sister's music- lessons had to stop? 
 
 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 support 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! 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 
 
 33 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 — 
 
 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 justi- 
 fied by 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 the 
 secret original impulse, the real impulse, that moved 
 him to so nobly self-sacrifice his family in the Sav- 
 iour's cause under the superstition that he was sacri- 
 ficing 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 East- Side rabble 
 a season, then went back to his old dull, obscure life 
 in the lumber-camps "hurt to the heart, his pride hum- 
 hied." Why? Were not his efforts acceptable to 
 the Sa^^iour, for Whom alone they were made ? Dear 
 me, that detail is lost sight of, is not even referred to, 
 the fact that it started out as a motive is entirely for- 
 gotten! Then what is the trouble? The authoress 
 
 33 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 quite innocently and unconsciously gives the whole 
 business away. The trouble was this: this man 
 merely preached to the poor; that is not the Univer- 
 sity 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. "Perished were all his dreams 
 of distinction, the praise and grateful approval of — " 
 Of whom? The Saviour? No; the Saviour is not 
 mentioned. Of whom, then? Of "his fellow-work- 
 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 distinction. 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 . When- 
 ever you read of a self-sacrificing act or hear of one, 
 or of a dvity done for duty's sake, take it to pieces 
 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 iactf fascinating is the word. As soon as I come 
 
 34 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 across a golden deed in a book I have to stop and 
 take it apart and examine it, I cannot help myself. 
 
 O. M. Have yoti ever found one that defeated the 
 rule? 
 
 Y. M. No — at least, not yet. But take the case 
 of servant-tipping 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 compassion for their ill- paid condition, 
 and — 
 
 O. M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed 
 you, irritated you? 
 
 Y. M. Well— yes. 
 
 O. M. Still you succumbed to it ? 
 
 Y. M. Of course. 
 
 O. M. Why of course? 
 
 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 the irritating tax for duty's 
 sake? 
 
 Y. M. I suppose it amounts to that. 
 
 O. M. Then the impulse which moves you to sub- 
 mit to the tax is not all compassion, charity, benevo- 
 lence? 
 
 Y. M. Well — perhaps not. 
 
 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 cus- 
 
 35 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 torn 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 at 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. 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 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 thiiik 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 an- 
 noy you? 
 
 Y.' M. No. 
 
 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 de- 
 tail. 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! 
 
 0. M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade more 
 36 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 than you 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 compassion nor yet duty that moves you 
 to pay the tax, and it isn't the amount of the tax that 
 annoys you. Yet something 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 sleep nights, and makes you 
 distraught in the daytime, and while you are pre- 
 tending 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. 
 
 O. M. It has quite a noble look — ^taking so much 
 pains and using up 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 ungra- 
 cious motive back of it it will be hard to find. 
 
 O. M. How do you know when you have not paid 
 a servant fairly? 
 
 37 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 mis- 
 take there, with people looking, but afterward you 
 keep on wishing and wishing you had done it. My, 
 the shame and the pain of it ! Sometimes you see, by 
 the signs, that you have hit 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 is my belief that you nave not been con- 
 cerning yourself in guessing out his just dues, but 
 only in ciphering out what would content him. And 
 I think you had a self-deluding reason for that. 
 
 Y. M. What was it? 
 
 O. M. If you fell short of what he was expecting 
 and wanting, you would get a look which would 
 <:h.n.wi.(> ynu hef nre 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, sav- 
 ing yourself from, discomfort. You never think of the 
 servant once — except to guess out how to get his 
 approval. If you get that, you get your own ap- 
 proval, 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 
 
 38 
 
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o. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 0. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 0. 
 
 M. 
 
 WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 stake, as a matter of first interest, anywhere in the 
 transaction. 
 
 Further Instances 
 
 YFU.. Well, to think of it: Self- Sacrifice for 
 others, the grandest thing in man, ruled out! non- 
 existent ! 
 
 Are you accusing me of saying that? 
 Why, certainly. 
 I haven't said it. 
 What did you say, then? 
 That no man has ever sacrificed himself in 
 the common meaning of that phrase — ^which is, self- 
 sacrifice for another alone: Men make daily sacri- 
 fices 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? 
 O. M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere 
 duty's sake; theact must content his spirit T^r^i. 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 Castle. 
 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 miurmur, no 
 protest. The boats carried away the women and 
 
 39 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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? 
 
 Y. M. Could I? No, I could not. 
 
 O. M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that 
 watery doom creeping higher and higher arotmd you. 
 
 Y. M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. 
 I could not have endured it, I could not have re- 
 mained 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. 
 
 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 a thousand men, yet not 
 one of them flinched. Some of them must have been 
 bom with your temperament; if they could do that 
 great duty for duty's sake, 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 you train them, and put them through 
 40 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 a campaign or two; then they would be soldiers; 
 soldiers, with a 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 that. As clerks and mechan- 
 ics 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. 
 
 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 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, 
 
 4 41 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 is at stake. He will always be 
 true to his make and training. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IV 
 
 TRAINING 
 
 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 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 ap- 
 proval 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 prefer- 
 ences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his mor- 
 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 Congregationalists? And why were the 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Congregationalists not Baptists, and the Baptists 
 Roman Catholics, and the Roman Catholics Bud- 
 dhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers 
 Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and 
 the Millerites Hindoos, and the Hindoos Atheists, 
 and the Atheists Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists 
 Agnostics, and the Agnostics Methodists, and the 
 Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians Uni- 
 tarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the 
 Mohammedans Salvation Warriors, and the Salva- 
 tion 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 sttidies, 
 searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sar- 
 castically) indicates what association can do. If 
 you know a man's nationality you can come within 
 a split hair of guessing the complexion of his relig- 
 ion: English — Protestant; American — ditto; Span- 
 iard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South Ameri- 
 can, Austrian — ^Roman Catholic; Russian — Greek 
 Catholic; Turk — Mohammedan; and so on. And 
 when you know the 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 party-collar 
 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 avoids, and which breed of mass-meet- 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 ings 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 has never lived. 
 But I have seen several entirely sincere people who 
 thought they were (permanent) Sefik grs after Truth- ^ 
 They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cau- 
 tiously, profoundly, with perfect 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 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 Relig- 
 ion he found it in one or another of the three thou- 
 sand 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 objectors. There have been innumer- 
 able Temporary Seekers after Truth — ^have you ever 
 heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of 
 man such a person is impossible. However, to drop 
 back tp the text — training: all training is one form 
 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 — 
 
 45 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 but they train him ; they are at work upon him all the 
 time. 
 
 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 down- 
 ward. 
 
 O. M. No help for him ? No help for this chame- 
 leon? It is a mistake. It is in his chameleonship 
 that his greatest good fortune lies. He has only to 
 change his habitat — ^his associations. But the im- 
 pulse to do it must come from the outside — ^he can- 
 not 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 ideal. The chance remark of 
 a sweetheart, "I hear that you are a coward," may 
 water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, 
 and end in producing a surprising fruitage — ^in the 
 fields of war. The history of man is full of such acci- 
 dents. The accident of a broken leg brought a pro- 
 fane and ribald soldier under reHgious influences and 
 furnished him a new ideal. From that accident 
 sprang the Order of the Jesuits, and it has been shak- 
 ing thrones, changing policies, and doing other tre- 
 mendous work for two hundred years — and will go 
 on. The chance reading of a book or of a paragraph 
 in a newspaper can 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 ? 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. M. Not a new one — an old one. Old as man- 
 kind. 
 
 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-distributer does. It is 
 what the missionary does. It is what governments 
 ought to do. 
 
 Y. M. Don't they? 
 
 O. M. In one way they do, in another way they 
 don't. They separate the smallpox patients from the 
 healthy people, but in deaUng 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 in- 
 nocent at times. They hang a man — which is a 
 trifling punishment; this breaks the hearts of his 
 family — which is a heavy one. They comfortably 
 jail and feed a wife-beater, and leave his innocent 
 wife and children to starve. 
 
 Y. M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is 
 equipped with an intuitive perception of good and 
 evil? 
 
 O. M. Adam hadn't it. 
 
 Y. lyl. 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 
 
 47 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 I may so impress it upon you that you will be inter- 
 ested to observe and examine for yourself and see 
 whether it is true or false. 
 
 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 that "an honest man's the noblest work of 
 God." 
 
 O. M. He didn't record a fact, he recorded a fals- 
 ity. It is windy, and sounds well, but it is not true. 
 God makes a man with honest and dishonest possi- 
 bilities in him and stops there. The man's associa- 
 tions develop the possibilities — ^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 Uves. What 
 is gained by it ? 
 
 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. 
 
 43 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 con- 
 stant peril and distress to the parties concerned. 
 
 Y. M. You have said that training is everything; 
 that training is the man himself, for it -makes him 
 what he is. 
 
 O. M. I said training and awoi/ier thing. Let that 
 other thing pass, for the moment. What were you 
 going to say? 
 
 Y. M. We have an old servant. She has been 
 with us twenty-two years. Her service used to be 
 faultless, but now she has 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 remiss- 
 nesses, 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 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 words 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 passion 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 best please his Interior Master, 
 
 49 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Whence came the impulse to make careful prepara- 
 tion to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke? 
 Did that come frem the Master, who is always 
 primarily concerned about himself? 
 
 O. M. Unquestionably. There is no other source 
 for any impulse. Secondarily you made prepara- 
 tion 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 im- 
 plored you to watch your temper and not fly out at 
 the girl? 
 
 Y. M. Yes. My mother. 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly receive from the investment? 
 
 Y. M. Personally? None. To please her is 
 enough. 
 
 O. M. It appears, then, that your object, pri- 
 marily, wasn't to save the girl a humiliation, but to 
 please your mother. 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 profit and first profit ? 
 
 Y. M. Oh, well? Goon. 
 
 0. M. In all transactions, the Interior Master 
 
 5° 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 throw it away 
 by losing my temper ? 
 
 O. M. In order to get another profit which sud- 
 denly superseded it in value. 
 
 Y. M. Where was it? 
 
 O. M. Ambushed behind your bom temperament, 
 and waiting for a chance. Your native warm temper 
 suddenly jumped to the front, and jor 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 en- 
 joy it, didn't you? 
 
 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 m,ost pleasure, the most sat- 
 isfaction, in any moment or fraction of a moment, is 
 the thing you will always do. You must content the 
 Master's latest whim, whatever 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 dam- 
 age him or profit him — all the rest is secondary. 
 Your Master was displeased with you, although you 
 had obeyed him. He required a prompt repentance; 
 you obeyed again; you had to — there is never any 
 
 51 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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, to content 
 him, you will always furnish it. He must be nursed, 
 petted, coddled, and kept contented, let the terms be 
 what they may. 
 
 Y. M. Training! Oh, what is the use of it? 
 Didn't I, and 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? 
 
 Y. M. Yes, a good many more. 
 
 O. M. More times last year than the year be- 
 fore? 
 
 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 use in training. Keep on. Keep 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 remember 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 bom 
 with. You can't eradicate your disposition nor any 
 
 52 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 watch- 
 ing it you 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 will 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 prog- 
 ress will be easier; will proceed on a simpler basis, 
 anyway. 
 
 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 sim- 
 plifies the matter, and it also strengthens the impulse. 
 
 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, 1 see one must allow for temperament. It is 
 a large factor, sure enough. My mother is thought- 
 ful, and not hot-tempered. When I was dressed I 
 went to her room; she was not there; I called, she 
 
 S3 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 answered from the bathroom. I heard the water 
 running, I inquired. She answered, without tem- 
 per, 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, 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. I pleasure out of ringing Jane up — and so they 
 would infallibly have pushed the button and obeyed 
 the law of their make and training, which are the 
 servants of their Interior Masters. It is quite Hkely 
 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 upon its pupil a benefit shall 
 fall at second hand upon others. 
 
 Y. M. If you were going to condense into an ad- 
 monition your plan for the general betterment of the 
 race's condition, how would you word it? 
 
 Admonition 
 
 O. M. ^Diligently train your ideals upward and 
 still upward toward a summit where you will find 
 your chief est pleasure in conduct which, while con- 
 
 54 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 tenting 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 neigh- 
 bor 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. 
 
 Y. M. Explain. 
 
 O. M. The others offer you 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 others' sake chiefly; and to do your duty for 
 duty's sake, chiefly; and to do acts of self-sacrifice. 
 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 Admo- 
 nition 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 pro- 
 duce the same result — right living — ^has yours an ad- 
 vantage over the others? 
 
 O. M. One, yes — a large one. It has no conceal- 
 ments, 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 it for a lofty reason. Is not that an ad- 
 vantage ? 
 
 O. M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might 
 get out of thinking himself a dulce, 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 anyTvay, he is obHged to do a duke's 
 part; he 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? 
 
 S6 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. M. Don't you see where you are arriving? 
 
 Y. M. Where? 
 
 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 leav;e 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. They think humbug is good enough mor- 
 als when the dividend on it is good deeds and hand- 
 some 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 mother 
 would have captured the chance to set old Sally up. 
 
 O. M. You were cordially glad you were not 
 caught out and incapable? 
 
 Y. M. Oh, I just was! 
 
 O. M. Now, then — 
 
 Y. M. Stop where you are! I know your whole 
 catalogue of questions, and I could answer every one 
 of them without your wasting the time to ask them; 
 but I will summarize the whole thing in a single re- 
 mark : 1 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 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. Ihaven't anything to offer; you have cov- 
 ered the whole ground. Could 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 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 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 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 begmlements of 
 all the casuistries ca,n increase the strength of the 
 impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the com- 
 fort and contentment he will get out of the act. 
 
 Y. M. Then you believe that such tendency tow- 
 ard doing good as is in men's hearts would not be 
 diminished by the removal of the delusion that good 
 deeds are done primarily for the sake of No. 2 in- 
 instead of for the sake of No, i ? 
 
 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 moralist to do? 
 
 O. M. Teach unreservedly what he already 
 teaches with one side of his mouth and takes back 
 with the other : Do right for your own sake, and be 
 happy in knowing that your neighbor will certainly 
 share in the benefits resulting. 
 
 Y. M. Repeat your Admonition. 
 
 O. M. Diligently train your ideals upward and 
 still upward toward a summit where you will find 
 your chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while con- 
 tenting you, will he sure to confer benefits upon your 
 neighbor and the community. 
 
 Y. M. One's every act proceeds from exterior in- 
 fluences, you think? 
 
 59 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 out- 
 side? I see him handHng 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 
 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 which have been 
 refined and perfected in the virtues by years of dihgent 
 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 ? 
 
 Y. M. None that I know of. 
 
 O. M. Why? 
 
 Y. M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a sub- 
 stance. 
 
 O. M. Very well. The steam is an outside in- 
 60 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 fluence, but it is ineffective because the gold takes 
 no interest in it. The ingot remains as it was. Sup- 
 pose 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. 
 
 O. M. The quicksilver is an outside influence 
 which gold (by its peculiar nature — say tempera- 
 ment, disposition) cannot he indifferent to. It stirs 
 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 application in a steady 
 stream, and call each minute a year. By the end of 
 ten or twenty minutes — ^ten or twenty years — ^the 
 Uttle 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? 
 
 Y. M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I 
 understand, now. It is not the single outside influ- 
 ence 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 miglit illustrate it with a 
 parable. 
 
 A Parable 
 
 O. M. I will. There was once a pair of New Eng- 
 land boys — twins. They were alike in good disposi- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 tions, fleckless morals, and personal appearance. 
 They were the models of the Sunday-school. At fif- 
 teen George had an 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 drinldng-habits 
 acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of 
 the European and Oriental ports, was a common 
 rough in Hong-Kong, and out of a job; and Henry 
 was superintendent of the Sunday-school. 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 passed by and turned down the lane, 
 and Henry said, with a pathetic smile, "Without in- 
 tending 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 Ufe." That outside influence — 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. 
 
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V 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE 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; therefore 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 finds one 
 that he has to examine by looking up. 
 
 The Man-Machine Again 
 
 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? 
 
 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 saying, "The moment I wake I will 
 think upon such and such a subject," but he will 
 fail. His mind wiU 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 sub- 
 ject if he wants to. 
 
 O. M. Not if it finds 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 un- 
 conscious of him and his tallc. You cannot keep 
 your mind from wandering, if it wants to; it is 
 master, not you. 
 
 After an Interval of Days 
 
 O. M. Now, dreams — but we will examine that 
 lg,t§r. Meantime, did you try commanding yoiu" 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 
 
 O. M. Did it obey? 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 O. M. How many times did you try the experi- 
 ment? 
 
 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 inde- 
 pendent 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 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. 
 
 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 ? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. Yes. It wouldn't listen; it played right 
 along. It wore me out and I got up haggard and 
 wretched in the morning. 
 
 O. M. At some time or other you have been cap- 
 tivated 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 — " 
 
 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? 
 
 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 
 riothing to do with it. It is so apart from you 
 that it can conduct its affairs, sing its songs, play 
 its chess, weave its complex and ingeniously con- 
 structed dreams, while you sleep. It has no use 
 for your help, no use for yovir 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. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 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 
 inachine? 
 
 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? 
 
 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 differen- 
 tiated 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 com- 
 passionate one; a quarrelsome person; a peace- 
 maker; old persons and young; beautiful girls and 
 homely ones. They talk in character, each pre- 
 serves his own characteristics. There are vivid 
 fights, vivid and biting insults, vivid love-passages; 
 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 O. M. Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, 
 consistently 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 argtmient that it is the same old 
 mind in both cases, and never needs your help. I 
 think the mind is ptirely a machine, a thoroughly in- 
 dependent 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 — ii 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 — 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 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-quarters, 
 and C owes A thirty-five cents, and D and A to- 
 
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WHAT- IS MAN? 
 
 gether owe E and B three-sixteenths of — of — I 
 don't remember 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. 
 
 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 morning paper's report of the pork- 
 market, and at the same time I reminded it of an ex- 
 perience 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 murderous 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 au- 
 tomatic 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? 
 
 69 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 the 
 spectacle of a yeUow 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 
 mutely profane ; saw the silent congregation quiver- 
 ing 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 in an instant, 
 and was busying itself with an ever-recurring and 
 disagreeable dream of mine. In this dream I always 
 findjmyself, stripped to my shirt, cringing and dodg- 
 ing about in the midst of a great drawing-toom 
 throng of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, and 
 wondering how I got there. And so on and so 
 on, picture after picture, incident after incident, a, 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 drifting panorama of ever-changing, ever-dissolving 
 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 de- 
 scribe them to you. 
 
 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. J^^en your mind is racing along from sub- 
 ject 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 sub- 
 ject with satisfaction. It will take full charge, and 
 fiimish the words itself. ^ l^Jk^'0 "^ \l' ^ •' 
 
 Y. M. But don't I tell it what to say? ^''-^^ '^•'V; 
 
 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- 
 mechanisni it is automatic in its action and needs 
 no help. Where the wit-mechanism is lacking, no 
 amount of study and reflection can manufacture 
 the product. 
 
 Y. M. You really think a man originates nothing, 
 creates nothing. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 The Thinking-Process 
 
 O. M. I do. Men perceive, and their brain- 
 machines automatically combine the things per- 
 ceived. That is all. 
 
 Y. M. The steam-engine? 
 
 O. M. It takes fifty men a hundred years to in- 
 vent 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 dis- 
 placed lid he evolved the piston-rod. To attach 
 something to the piston-rod to be moved by it, was 
 a simple matter — crank and wheel. And so there 
 was a working engine.* 
 
 • 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 Shakespearian play? 
 
 O. M. The process is the same. The first actor 
 was a savage. He reproduced in his theatrical war- 
 dances, scalp-dances, and so on, incidents which he 
 had seen in real life. A more advanced civilization 
 
 ' The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a 
 century earlier. 
 
 72 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 produced more incidents, more episode^; 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 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 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 be-f 
 longs to their Maker. They are entitled to no 
 honors, no praises, no monuments when they die, no ' 
 remembrance. One is a complex and elaborate ma- 
 chine, the other a simple and limited machine, 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 seems to me. Neither of them being entitled to any- 
 personal merit for what he does, it follows of neces- 
 sity that neither of them has a right to arrogate to 
 himself (personally created) superiorities over his 
 brother. 
 
 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 col- 
 lated facts and instances? 
 
 O. M. I have been a humble, earnest, and sincere 
 Truth-Seeker. 
 
 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 I know that youl- 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 you forgotten? 
 I told you that 'there are none but temporary Truth- 
 Seekers; that a permanent one is a human impossi- 
 bility; 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 jtuik 
 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 
 Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the Spiritualist a 
 Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republi- 
 can a Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist ; and 
 if a humble, earnest, and sincere Seeker after Truth 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 auto- 
 matic machine, and must obey the laws of his con- 
 struction. 
 
 Y. M. And so — 
 
 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 ma- 
 chine and entitled to no personal merit for anything 
 he does, it is not humanly possible for me to seek 
 further. The rest of my days will be spent in patch- 
 ing and painting and puttying and caulking my 
 priceless possession and in looking the other way 
 when an imploring argument or a damaging fact 
 approaches. 
 
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VI 
 
 INSTINCT AND THOUGHT 
 
 YOUNG MAN. It is odious. Those drunken 
 theories of yours, advanced a while ago— con- 
 cerning 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 — amorally. 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? 
 
 O. M. In form — -not in 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 capaci- 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 ties — like yours and Edison's; like the African pyg- 
 my's and Homer's; like the Bushman's and Bis- 
 marck's. 
 
 Y. M. How are you going to make that out, when 
 the lower animals have no mental quality but in- 
 stinct, while man possesses reason? 
 O. M. What is instinct? 
 
 Y. M. It is merely unthinking and mechanical ex- 
 ercise of inherited habit. 
 
 O. M. What originated the habit? 
 Y. M. The first animal started it, its descendants 
 have inherited it. 
 
 How did the first one come to start it? 
 I don't know; but it didn't think it out. 
 How do you know it didn't ? 
 Well — I have a right to suppose it didn't, 
 
 I don't believe you have. What is thought ? 
 I know what you call it: the mechanical 
 and automatic putting together of impressions re- 
 ceived from outside, and drawing an inference from 
 them. 
 
 O. M. Very good. (Nowmy idea of the meaning- 
 less term "instinct" is, that it is merely petrified 
 thought; solidified and made inanimate by habit; 
 thought which was once alive and awake, but is be- 
 come unconscious — walks in its sleep, so to speak. , 
 
 Y. M. Illustrate it. 
 
 O. M. Take a herd of cows, feeding in a pasture. 
 Their 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 
 
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 0. 
 
 M. 
 
 • Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 O. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 anyway. 
 
 0. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 that ob- 
 servation 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, 
 reason wider: he would face part of the herd the 
 other way and protect both front and rear. 
 
 Y. M. Did you say the term instinct is meaning- 
 less? 
 
 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. 
 
 O. M. Well, in putting on trousers 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 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 trousers, you will see. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 Y. M, The cow illustration is not — 
 
 O. M. SuEBcient to show that a dumb animal's 
 mental 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 de- 
 vice 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 com. 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 persistent punishments 
 fatigued me; they also caused me to infer the ex- 
 istence 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. No- 
 body taught him that; he had observed — then 
 thought it out for himself. 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. StUl it is not very elaborate. Enlarge. 
 
 O. M. Suppose that Edison has been enjoying 
 some one's hospitalities. He comes again by and 
 by, and the house is vacant. He infers that his host 
 has mqved. 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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. GuUs 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. 
 
 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 aroimd 
 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 dog away. Early the next morning the 
 mother bird came for the gentleman, who was sitting 
 on his veranda, and by its manoeuvers persuaded 
 him to follow it to a distant part of the grounds — 
 flying a little way in front of him and waiting for him. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 to catch up, and so on; and keeping to the 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. 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 dumped dirt and rubbish into the 
 pit till the bottom was raised high enough to en- 
 able 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 to- 
 gether and draw an inference — the process of think- 
 ing. Could you teach an idiot the manual of arms, 
 and to advance, retreat, and go through complex 
 field manoeuvers 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 They must surely be able to notice, and to put things 
 together, and say to 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 dtimb 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-edu- 
 cated specialist in 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 abohshing the intel- 
 lectual frontier which separates man and beast. 
 
 O. M. I beg your pardon. One cannot abolish 
 what does not exist. 
 
 Y. M. You are not in earnest, I hope. You can- 
 not 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 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 in- 
 ferior to his in elaboration as a Waterbury is inferior 
 to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference 
 —there is no frontier. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 Y. M. It looks exasperatingly true; and is dis- 
 tinctly 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 such thing as a dumb beast. 
 
 Y. M. On what grounds do you make that as- 
 sertion ? 
 
 O. M. On quite simple ones. "Dumb" beast 
 suggests an animal that has no thought- machinery, 
 no understanding, no speech, no way of communicat- 
 ing what is in its mind. 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 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 
 remarks and gestures of any bird or other animal 
 that we domesticate and observe. The clearness 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 com- 
 prehend — in a word, that she can converse. 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. 
 
 O. M. That is what she surely does. In aU 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 porportion to her 
 size as is the largest capitol or cathedral in the world 
 compared to man's size. No savage race has pro- 
 duced architects who could approach the ant in 
 genius or culture. No civilized race has produced 
 architects who could plan a 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 educated and experienced eye for conven- 
 ience and adaptability. 
 
 Y. M. That could be mere instinct. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 O. M. The ant discriminates between friend and 
 stranger. Sir John Lubbock took ants from two 
 different nests, made them drunk with whisky 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 over- 
 board. Sir John repeated the experiment a number 
 of times. 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 pa- 
 tience, seeing that their reformatory efforts went for 
 nothing, and threw both friends and strangers over- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 board. Come — is this instinct, or is it thoughtful 
 and intelUgent discussion of a thing new — absolutely- 
 new — ^to their experience ; with a verdict arrived at, 
 sentence passed, and judgment executed? Is it in- 
 stinct ? — ^thought petrified by ages of habit — or isn't 
 it brand-new 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. 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; 
 the 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 remember. At any rate, he watched 
 to see what they would do. They tried various 
 schemes — ^failures, every one. The ants were badly 
 puzzled. Finally they held a consultation, dis- 
 cussed the problem, arrived at a decision — and this 
 time they beat that great philosopher. They formed 
 in procession, crossed the floor, climbed the wall, 
 marched across the ceiling to a point just over the 
 cup, then one by one they let go and feU 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 reasoned scheme to meet a new emergency. 
 
 O. M. Very well. You have conceded the reason- 
 ing power in two instances. I come now to a mental 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 detail wherein the ant is a long way the superior of 
 any human being. Sir John Lubbock proved by 
 many experiments that an ant 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 of one of the five hundred thousand she will 
 straightway recognize the returned absentee and 
 grace the recognition with an affectionate welcome. 
 How are these recognitions made? Not 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 antenn® 
 signs nor contacts, 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? 
 
 Y. M. Certainly not. 
 
 O. M. Franklin's ants and Lubbock'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 memory to help, man pre- 
 serves 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 per- 
 sonal labor to slave labor; from wigwam to palace; 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 from the capricious chase to agriculture and stored 
 food; from nomadic life to stable government and 
 concentrated authority; from incoherent hordes to 
 massed armies. The ant has observation, the rea- 
 soning faculty, and the preserving adjunct of a 
 prodigious memory; she has duplicated man's de- 
 velopment and the essential features of his civiliza- 
 tion, and you call it all instinct ! 
 
 Y. M. Perhaps I lacked the reasoning facidty 
 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 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 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 stupendous magnitude between 
 them, except in quality, not in kind. 
 
 O. M. That is about the state of it — intellectual- 
 ity. There are pronounced limitations on both sides. 
 We can't learn to understand much of their language, 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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. 
 
 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 itv 
 lifts us immeasurably above them. 
 
 O. M. What makes you think that? 
 
 Y. M. Now look here — let us 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. 
 
 O. M. I am not jesting, I am merely reflecting a 
 plain and simple truth — ^and without uncharitabler 
 ness. The fact that man knows right from wrong 
 proves his intellectual superiority to the other crea- 
 tures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his i 
 moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.\ It is 
 my belief that this position is not assailable. 
 
 Free Will 
 
 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? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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, be- 
 tween bodily comfort on the one hand and the com- 
 fort 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? 
 
 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 
 ftSttences which had molded him and made him 
 what he was,jgompeUed 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 
 eadstedin iwgrck, 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 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 as you please, the other implies nothing beyond a 
 mere mental process: the critical iability to determine 
 which of two things is nearest right and just. 
 
 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 au- 
 thority 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 bom disposition and the character which has 
 been built around 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's mind would know which was the 
 right one and which the wrong, but the Master inside 
 of Pizarro would act upon the wrong one. 
 
 Y. M. Then as I understand it a bad man's men- 
 tal 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 one or the other, according to its make, 
 and be quite indifferent to the mind's feelings con- 
 cerning the matter — that is, would he, if the mind 
 had any feelings; which it hasn't. It is merely a 
 thermometer: it registers the heat and the cold, and 
 cares not a farthing about either. 
 
 Y. M. Then we must not claim that if a man 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 matter. 
 Wasn't it right for David to go out and slay Goliath? 
 
 Y. M. Yes. 
 
 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 bom 
 coward to attempt it? 
 
 Y. M. It would — yes. 
 
 O. M. You know that no bom coward ever would 
 have attempted it, don't you? 
 
 Y. M. Yes. 
 
 O. M. You know that a bom coward's make 
 and temperament would be an absolute and in- 
 surmountable bar to his ever essaying such a thing, 
 don't you? 
 
 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 plain facts show that he 
 hasn't? Why contend that because he and David 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 see the right alike, both must act alike? Why im- 
 pose 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 WiZ^. But it 
 has nothing 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 de- 
 crees, he had no choice. The coward's tempera- 
 ment 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 possess Free Will — will that may do the 
 right or do the wrong, as their mental verdict shall 
 decide. 
 
 Not Two Values, but Only One 
 f- — 
 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? 
 
 O. M. There is no such thing as material covet- 
 ousness. 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 material thing that you want 
 is merely a symbol : you want it not for itself, but be- 
 cause 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. 
 
 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 no material 
 values ; there are only spiritual ones. You wiU 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 : re- 
 move that 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; 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, unsatis- 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 fied, 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 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 excep- 
 tions. Crowns, scepters, pennies, paste jewels, vil- 
 lage notoriety, world-wide fame — they are all the , 
 same, they have no material value : while they con- '' 
 tent the spirit they are precious, when this fails they 
 are worthless. 
 
 A Difficult Question 
 
 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 per- 
 sonalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and 
 responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that 
 condition I can't grasp him. Now when I speak of 
 a man, he is the whole thing in one, and easy to hold 
 and contemplate. 
 
 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? 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 admires a rainbow, is it the whole 
 Me that admires it, including the hair, hands, heels, 
 and all? 
 
 Y. M. Certainly not. It is my wtmf that admires 
 it. 
 
 O. M. So you divide the Me yourself. Every- 
 body does; everybody must. What, then, definitely, 
 is the Me? 
 
 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 func- 
 tion when 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. No. That is not cerebration, brain-work, 
 it is a matter 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 equip- 
 ment? 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 Y. M. No. It is independent of it ; it is spiritual. 
 
 O. M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by- 
 physical influences? 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 O. M. Does the mind remain sober when 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 that happen if the mind is 
 spiritual, and independent of physical influences? 
 
 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 to the brain. Yet the brain is the seat of 
 the mind, is it hot? 
 
 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 admire the rainbow," and "I believe the 
 world is round," and in these cases we find that the 
 Me is not all 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 in- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 determinate 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 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 talk- 
 ing about when we use that pronoun, but 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 ac- 
 cumulation of multitudinous outside influences and 
 trainings; a machine whose one function is to 
 secure the spiritual contentment of the 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. 
 
 The Master Passion 
 
 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, 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 It may be called the Master Passion — 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. 
 
 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 noth- 
 ing 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 colorless 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 wiU 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 al- 
 ways seeking power, nor office, nor any other material 
 advantage. In all cases it seeks a spiritual content- 
 ment, let the means be what they may. Its desires 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 are determined by the man's temperament — and it 
 is lord over that. Temperament, Conscience, Sus- 
 ceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are, in fact, the same 
 thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared 
 nothing for money? 
 
 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 the 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 con- 
 tent his autocrat, who prefers these things, and prayer 
 and contemplation, 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 lU paid, to 
 any others in the market, at any price. You realize 
 that the Master Passion — 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 vexations and distinctions of public office as 
 there are that hunger after them. The one set of 
 Temperaments seek the contentment of the spirit, 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 and that alone; and this is exactly the case with the 
 other set. Neither set seeks anything but the con- 
 tentment 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 Tempera- 
 ment is born, not made. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 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 aU these talks, and 
 passed 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 them to paper and publish them. Do I 
 have to tell you why the order has remained im- 
 issued, or can you explain so simple 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 bom, since a 
 person's brain is incapable of originating an idea 
 within itself. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 O. M. Correct. Go on. 
 
 Y. M. The matter of publishing or withholding is 
 still in your Master's hands. If some day an out- 
 side influence shall determine him to pubHsh, he 
 will give the order, and it wiU be obeyed. 
 
 O. M. That is correct. Well? 
 
 Y. M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the con- 
 viction that the publication of your doctrines wotdd 
 be harmful. Do you pardon me? 
 
 O. M. Pardon you? You have done nothing. 
 You are an instrument — a speaking-trumpet. Speak- 
 ing-trumpets are not responsible for what is said 
 through them. Outside influences — ^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 harmftd. Very well, this is quite 
 natural, and was to be expected; in fact, was 
 inevitable. Go on; for the sake of ease and con- 
 venience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, 
 and tell me what yotir Master thinks about it. 
 
 Y. M. WeU, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; 
 it is not inspiring, enthusing, uplifting. It takes the 
 glory out of man, it takes the pride out of him, it 
 takes the heroism out of him, it denies him aU per- 
 sonal credit, all applause; it not only degrades him 
 to a machine, but allows him no control over the ma- 
 chine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and neither 
 permits him to supply the coffee nor ttirn the crank, 
 his sole and piteously humble function being to grind 
 coarse or fine, according to his make, outside im- 
 pulses doing all the rest. 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 O. M. It is correctly stated. Tell me — ^what do 
 men admire most in each other? 
 
 Y. M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty 
 of countenance, charity, benevolence, magnanimity, 
 kindliness, heroism, and — and — 
 
 O. M. I would not go any further. These are 
 elementals. Virtue, fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, 
 loyalty, high ideals — these, and all the related quali- 
 ties 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 seven elemental colors; they are aU 
 in the rainbow; out of them we manufacture and 
 name fifty shades of them. You have named the 
 elementals of the human rainbow, and also one blend 
 — ^heroism, which is made out of courage and mag- 
 nanimity. Very well, then; which of these elements 
 does the possessor of it manufacture for himself? 
 Is it intellect? 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 O. M. Why? 
 
 Y. M. He is born with it. 
 
 O. M. Is it courage? 
 
 Y. M. No. He is bom with it. 
 
 O. M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of coun- 
 tenance? 
 
 Y. M. No. They are birthrights. 
 
 O. M. Take those others — the elemental moral 
 qualities — charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kind- 
 liness; fruitful seeds, out of which spring, through 
 
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Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 O. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 0. 
 
 M. 
 
 Y. 
 
 M. 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 
 cultivation by outside 'influences, all the manifold 
 blends and combinations of virtues named in the 
 dictionaries: does man manufacture any one of those 
 seeds, or are they all born in him? 
 Bom in him. 
 
 Who manufactures them, then? 
 God. 
 
 Where does the credit of it belong? 
 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 claim glory, praise, flattery, for every valu- 
 able 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 hum- 
 bug; 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? 
 
 Y. M. God. 
 
 O. M. Who devised the law by which it automat- 
 ically 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, without assistance or advice from 
 the man? Who devised the man's mind, whose ma- 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 chinery works automatically, interests itself in what 
 it pleases, regardless of his 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 machine, 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. Goon. 
 
 Y. M. Look at the matter as it stands now. ^Man 
 has been 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 civilizec|. 
 This has made his heart buoyant, his life cheery. 
 His pride in himself, his sincere admiration of him- 
 self, 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; 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 
 cheerful 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, un- 
 happy? 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Y. M. No. 
 
 O. M. Well, I believe these things. Why have 
 they not made me unhappy? 
 
 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 powerless. They strive in vain against 
 inborn temperament. 
 
 Y. M. I can't believe tha^^ 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? 
 
 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, ab- 
 normals; their temperaments are as opposite as the 
 poles. Their life-histories are about alike — ^but look 
 at the results! Their ages are about the same — ■ 
 around about fifty. Burgess has always been buoy- 
 ant, hopeful, happy ; Adams has always been cheer- 
 less, hopeless, despondent. As young fellows both 
 tried country journalism — and failed. Burgess didn't 
 seem to mind it; Adams couldn't smile, he could 
 
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WHAT IS MAN? 
 
 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 
 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 ma- 
 terial affairs. Let us see how it is with their im- 
 materials. 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, Univer- 
 salists, Methodists, Catholics — then Presbyterians 
 again, then Methodists again. Burgess has always 
 foimd rest in these excursions, and Adams unrest. 
 They are trying Christian Science, now, with the 
 customary result, the inevitable result. No political 
 or religious beHef can make Burgess unhappy or the 
 other man happy. _J assure you it is purely a matter 
 of temperament. ' Beliefs are acquirements, tempera- 
 ments are born; beliefs are subject to change, nothing 
 whatever can change temperament. ^ 
 
 Y. M. You have instanced extreme tempera- 
 ments. 
 
 O. M. Yes. The half-dozen others are modifica- 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 tions 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 tem- 
 peraments are pretty equally balanced; the in- 
 tensities are absent, and this enables a nation to 
 learn to accommodate itself to its political and re- 
 ligious 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 gov- 
 ernment or religion that can he 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 Span- 
 iards, the Americans, the South Americans, the Jap- 
 anese, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Turks — a 
 thousand wild and tame religions, every kind of gov- 
 /ernment that can be thought of, from tiger to house- 
 cat, each nation knowing it has the only true religion 
 and the only sane system of government, each de- 
 spising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting 
 it, each proud of its fancied supremacy, each per- 
 fectly sure it is the pet of God, each with undoubt- 
 ing confidence summoning Him to take command 
 in time 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 
 
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WHAT IS- MAN? 
 
 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 
 lam. fTs the human race cheerful? You know it is. 
 Considering 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. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
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 optdion 
 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, ii a.m., igog. 
 
 /BAN 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 thinlc 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 forgetable before — but 
 
 Copyright, 1910, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 no 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 now! Now, how different! how precious they are, 
 how dear, how unforgetable, 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 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 up-stairs, 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 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 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 seized with a convulsion and 
 
 ' Katy Leary, who had been in the service of the Clemens family 
 for twenty-nine years. 
 
 m 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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. 
 
 In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were 
 stabbed to the heart with a cablegram which said, 
 "Susy was mercifully released to-day." I had to 
 send a like shock to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. 
 With the peremptory addition, ' ' You must not come 
 home." Clara and her husband sailed from here 
 on the nth 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 ac- 
 cident the reporters 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 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 para- 
 graph by telephone to the Associated Press denjmfg 
 
 ' Mr. Gabrilowitsch had been operated on for appendicitis. 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 the "charge" that I was "dying," and saying "I 
 would not do such^a things atjny±ime-jQf 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 
 Jboth appear jn tMs^^eyeninglsjiapers.? — the one so 
 blithe, jthe..QthfirjiQjragic»_ .... 
 
 I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother 
 — her incomparable mother! — ^five and a half years 
 ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe; and 
 now I have lost Jean. How poor I a m. who was 
 once so rich ! Seven months ago Mr. Rogers died — 
 one ^~tHe best friends I ever had, and the nearest 
 perfect, as man and gentleman, I have yet met among 
 my race; within the last six weeks Gilder has passed 
 away, and Laffan — old, old friends of mine. Jean 
 lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under-Oiir 
 own roof ; we kissed hands good-by at this door last 
 night — and it was forever, we never suspecting it. 
 She lies there, and I sit here— writing, busying my- 
 self, to keep my heart from breaking. How daz- 
 zHngly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! 
 It is like a mockery. 
 
 Seventy-four years old twenty-four days ago. 
 Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can es- 
 timate my age to-day? 
 
 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, 
 
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 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 wUl take Jean from this house 
 to-morrow, 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 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 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 a prodigal profusion of bright things 
 which she was going to hang upon it to-day. What 
 desecrating hand will ever banish that eloquent un- 
 finished surprise from that place? Not mine, surely. 
 All these little matters have happened in the last 
 four days. "Little." Yes — then. But not now. 
 
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THE DEATH OP JEAN 
 
 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 — and now she lies yonder. Lies yonder, and cares 
 for nothing any more. Strange — marvelous — incred- 
 ible ! I have had this experience before ; but it would 
 still be incredible if I had had it a thousand times. 
 
 "Miss JecmJs-deadl", 
 
 That is what Katy said. When I heard the door 
 open behind the bed's" head without a preliminary 
 knock, I supposed 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 chil- 
 dren 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 for- 
 ever idle that would have labeled them to-day. 
 Jean's mother always worked herself down with her 
 Christmas preparations. Jean did the same yes- 
 terday and the preceding days, and the fatigue has 
 
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 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 in 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 sten- 
 ographer and myself. She despatched 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 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 comproniise. 
 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 any formidable change had been 
 made. 
 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 However, Jean was pleased, and that was suf- 
 ficient 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. 
 
 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 to-morrow's ship and secure a furnished 
 house ^d servants. I meant to write the letter this 
 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. 
 
 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 eloquently glad and grateful she was to cross 
 her father's threshold again! 
 
 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 
 
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 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 passed away; and later my wife, and later 
 Mr. Rogers. When Clara met me at the station in 
 New York and told me Mr. Rogers had died sud- 
 denly 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 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 
 members of my family. Susy died in the 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 
 again, I could call the children back and hear them 
 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 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 eigh- 
 teen years. Until he died. Clara and Jean would 
 never enter again the New York hotel which their 
 mother had frequented in earUer days. They could 
 not bear it. But I shall stay in this house. It is 
 dearer to me to-night than ever it was before. 
 Jean's spirit wiU 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 Christmas Eve came. Jean was 
 her very own child — she wore herself out present- 
 hunting in New York these latter days. Paine has 
 just fotmd on her desk a long list of names — ^fitty, 
 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. 
 
 Heir dog has been wandering about the grounds 
 to-day, comradeless and forlorn. I have seen him 
 from the windows. She got him from Germany. 
 He has tall ears and looks exactly hke a wolf. He 
 was educated in Germany, 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 interest the dog in the supposed burglar. 
 Jean wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. 
 
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 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 and another. 
 After she became secretary 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 eveiything — 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 
 two or three societies for the protection of animals, 
 here and in Europe. 
 
 I She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished 
 my correspondence out of the waste-basket and 
 answered the letters. She thought all letters de- 
 served the courtesy of an 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 for music, 
 but her tongue took to languages with an easy 
 facihty. 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 
 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 and a half ago, 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 tele- 
 graph would be bringing words like these: 
 
 "From the bottom of our hearts we send our 
 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 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 ex- 
 press 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. 
 
 "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. — ^La,pt night I went to 
 Jean's room at intervals, and turned back the sheet 
 and looked at the peaceful face, and kissed the cold 
 brow, and remembered that heartbreaking night in 
 Florence so long ago, in that cavernous and silent 
 vast villa, when I crept down-stairs so many times, 
 and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 worshiped it in its 
 young bloom and beauty a whole generation before. 
 About three in the morning, while wandering about 
 the house in the deep silences, as one does 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 
 down-stairs, and noted that he did not spring to 
 greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came 
 slow and sorrowfully; also I remembered that he 
 had 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 up-stairs he went too — ^in a tumultuous 
 gallop. But now it was different: after patting 
 him a little I went to the library — he remained be- 
 hind; when I went up-stairs he did not follow me, 
 save with his wistful eyes. He has wonderful eyes — 
 big, and kind, and eloquent. He can talk with them. 
 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 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 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 knew whom she intended 
 them for! But I shall never know. I will keep 
 them. Her hand has touched them — it is an acco- 
 lade — 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. To- 
 day 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 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 death 
 and the peace of God upon it. 
 
 They told me the first motimer 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 up to the door to bear away its pathetic 
 burden. As they lifted the casket, Paine began 
 playing on the orchestreUe 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 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 car- 
 riages wind along the road and gradually grow vague 
 and spectral in the falling snow, and presently dis- 
 appear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would 
 not come back any more. Jervis, the cousin she 
 had played with when they were babies together — 
 he and her beloved old Katy — ^were conducting her 
 
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THE DEATH OF JEAN 
 
 to her distant childhood home, where she will lie 
 by her mother's side once more, in the company of 
 Susy and Langdon. 
 
 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, subUme — 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 
 Ubrary 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. 
 
 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 dream had come true — oh, precisely true, content- 
 edly 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! 
 
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THE TURNING-POINT OP MY LIFE 
 
 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 con- 
 dition of my career. But it also imphes — 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. I 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 shoiald merely grant that its place as last link 
 in the chain makes it the most conspicuous link; 
 in real importance it has no advantage over any one 
 of its predecessors.. 
 
 Copyright, ipio, by Harper & Brothers. 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Perhaps the most celebrated turning-point re- 
 corded in history was the crossing of the Rubicon. 
 Suetonius says: 
 
 Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, he 
 halted for a while, and, revolving in his mind the importance 
 of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about 
 him and said, "We may still retreat; but if we pass this little 
 bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms." 
 
 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 
 hnk. 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 hvunan 
 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 bated breath, while Cassar reflects. Your fate 
 and mine are involved in his decision. 
 
 While he was thus hesitating, the following in- 
 cident occurred. A person remarked for his noble 
 miei^ and graceftil 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 pierc- 
 ing blast, crossed to the other side. Upon this, 
 Gsesar exclaimed: "Let us go whither the omens 
 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 of the gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. 
 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 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 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 ances- 
 tors among them) 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 an 
 appointed link) Caesar would not have crossed. What 
 would have happened, in that case, we can never 
 guess. We only know that the things that did hap- 
 pen would not have happened. They might have 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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. Very well, I am 
 glad he crossed. And very really and thanMully 
 glad, too, though I never cared anything about it 
 before. 
 
 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 last 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 teU 
 the steps that led 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 shotild have to go 
 back ages before Caesar's day to find the first one. 
 To save space I will go back only a couple of genera- 
 tions 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, 
 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 a child died almost every day. The village was 
 paralyzed with fright, distress, despair. Children 
 that were not smitten with the disease were impris- 
 oned 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 terms 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 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 anx- 
 ious, and sent for news of me every day; and not 
 only once a day, but several times. Everybody be- 
 lieved I would die; but on the fourteenth day a 
 change came for the worse and they were disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 This was a turning-point of my life. (Link num- 
 ber one.) For when I got well my mother closed my 
 school career and apprenticed me to a printer. She 
 was tired of trying to keep me out of mischief, and 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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, seek- 
 ing and finding work ; and seeking again, when neces- 
 sity commands. N. B. Necessity is a Circumstance; 
 Circumstance is man's master — and when Circum- 
 stance commands, he must obey.; he may argue the 
 matter — that is his privilege, just as it is the honor- 
 able 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 sev- 
 eral 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 heart of an enchanted land, a land wastefully rich 
 in tropical wonders, a romantic land where aU the 
 birds and flowers and animals were of the museum va- 
 rieties, 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 astonishing 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 
 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 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. 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 heN 
 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 
 me find it. I advertised 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 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 tempera- " 
 ment is not his invention, it is horn in him, and he 
 has no authority over it, 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 
 
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i 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 
 of the man's eyes and the shape of his ears. Blue 
 eyes are gray in certain unusual lights; but they re- 
 sume 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 Csesar's 
 way, his temperament would not have made him 
 start for the Amazon. His temperament woiild have 
 compelled him to do something with the money, but 
 not that. It might have made him advertise the note 
 — and wait. We can't tell. Also, it might have 
 made him go to New York and buy into the Govern- 
 ment, 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. Some- 
 times a temperament is an ass. When that is the 
 case the owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to 
 remain one. Training, experience, association, can 
 temporarily so polish him, improve him, exalt him 
 that people will think he is a mule, but they will be 
 mistaken. Artificially he is a mule, for the time be- 
 ing, 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 
 doing things and reflecting afterward, but these tor- 
 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 tures have been of no value to me : I stilLdo the thing 
 commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and 
 reflect afterward. Always violently. When I am 
 reflecting, on those occasions, even deaf persons can 
 hear me think. 
 
 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. 
 
 After a few days I was out of money. Then Cir- 
 cumstance 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 — introduc- 
 ing the Civil War, this time, in order to push me 
 ahead another stage or two toward the literary 
 profession. The boats stopped running, my liveli- 
 hood was gone. 
 
 Circumstance came to the rescue with a new turn- 
 ing-point and a fresh link. My brother was ap- 
 pointed 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 and I went into the mines to make a fortune, 
 as I supposed; but that was not the idea. The idea 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 with- 
 out setting up' acres of good and bad literature, and 
 learning — unconsciously at first, consciously later — 
 to discriminate between the two, within his mental 
 limitations; and meantime he is unconsciously ac- 
 quiring 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 any- 
 thing to do with sugar. But it was this extraneous 
 matter that helped me to another link. 
 
 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 joined the ' ' Quaker City Excursion. ' ' 
 
 When I returned to America, Circumstance was 
 waiting on the pier — ^with the last link — ^the conspicu- 
 ous, the consummating, the victorious Unk: I was 
 asked to write a hook, and I did it, and called it The 
 Innocents Abroad. Thus I became at last a member 
 of the hterary guild. That was forty-two years ago, 
 and I have been a member ever since. Leaving the 
 Rubicon incident away back where it belongs, I can 
 say with truth that the reason I am in the literary 
 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 profession is because I had the measles when I was 
 twelve years old. 
 
 Ill 
 
 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. Circum- 
 stance, 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 covmted upon. 
 
 And so I do not admire the human being — as an j 
 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 be- 
 lieved it. Whereas it was not so. Circumstance 
 did it by help of his temperament. The circum- 
 stance 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 march through Georgia?" 
 "The enemy!" He added that the enemy usually 
 makes your plans for you. He meant that the 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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, 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 multipHed. It 
 makes plans and Circumstance comes and upsets 
 them — or enlarges them. Some patriots throw the 
 tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a Bas- 
 tille. The plans stop there; then Circumstance 
 comes in, quite unexpectedly, and ttams 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 gets the credit of it to this day. 
 He hadn't anjrthing to do with it. 
 
 Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point 
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TURNING-POINT OF MY LIFE 
 
 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 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 later 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 tempera- 
 ment 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 
 Idll; the law of the sheep's temperament is, Thou 
 shalt not kiU. 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 takes 
 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 — aflflicted with temperaments made 
 out of butter; which butter was commanded to get 
 into contact with fire and be melted. What I cannot 
 help wishing is, that Adam and Eve had been post- 
 poned, and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in 
 their place^-that splendid pair equipped with tem- 
 peraments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 to-day; 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. 
 
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HOW TO MAKE HISTORY DATES STICK 
 
 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 ac- 
 quired it is difficult to keep them in the head. But 
 they are very valuable. They are like the cattle- 
 pens 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 remember 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 de- 
 livering 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 notes consisted 
 of beginnings of sentences, and were eleven in num- 
 ber, and they ran something like this: 
 " Jn that region the weather — " 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 "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 remember 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 wUl 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 plat- 
 form the next night with these marked in ink on 
 my ten finger-nails. But it didn't answer. I kept 
 track of the fingers for a while; then I lost it, and 
 after that I was never quite sure which finger I 
 had used last. I couldn't Hck off a letter after using 
 it, for while that would have made success certain 
 it would also have provoked too much curiosity. 
 There was curiosity enough without that.' To the 
 audience I seemed more interested in my finger- 
 nails 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 passed away. In two minutes I 
 made six pictures with a pen, and they did the 
 work of the eleven catch-sentences, and did it per- 
 fectly. I threw the pictures away as soon as they 
 were made, for I was sure I could shut my eyes and 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 see them any time. That was a quarter of a cen- 
 ttiry ago; the lecture vanished out of my head 
 more than twenty years ago, but I could rewrite it 
 from the pictures — ^for they remain. Here are three 
 of them: (Fig. i). 
 
 FIG. I 
 
 The first one is a haystack — below it a rattlesnake 
 — and it told me where to begin to talk ranch-life in 
 Carson VaUey. The second one told me where to 
 begin to 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 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 
 made them — they will stay fresh and strong in your 
 memory in the order and sequence in which you 
 scratched them down. And many wUl admire to 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 see what a good memory you are furnished with, 
 when perhaps your memory is not any better than 
 mine. 
 
 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 memoriz- 
 ing of the accession dates of the thirty-seven per- 
 sonages who had ruled over England from the Con- 
 queror down. These little people found it a bitter, 
 hard contract. It was all dates, they all looked 
 alike, and they 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 foimd 
 which would let them romp in the open air while 
 they learned the kings. I foimd it, and then they 
 mastered all the monarchs in a day or two. 
 
 The idea was to make them see the reigns with 
 their eyes ; 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 
 English 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 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 — 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 was not noticing the Queen had passed 
 Henry VIII., passed Henry VI. and Elizabeth, and 
 gaining in length every day. Her reign had en- 
 tered the list of the long ones; everybody was in- 
 terested now — it was watching a race. Would she 
 pass the long Edward? There was a possibility of it. 
 Wotdd she pass the long Henry? Doubtful, most 
 people said. The long George? Impossible! Every- 
 body said it. But we have Uved to see her leave 
 him two years behind. 
 
 I measiured off 817 feet of the roadway, a foot 
 representing 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 think of 
 their name. The vase was 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 stake; 
 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 cotild stand on 
 
 the porch and 
 see those two 
 .wide-apart 
 stakes almost 
 with your 
 eyes shut. 
 (Fig. 2.) 
 
 That isn't 
 the shape of 
 the road — I 
 have bunched 
 it up Uke that 
 FIG. 2 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 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 to-day 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 up On our road. Are 
 your kings spaced off in your mind? When you 
 think of Richard III. and of James II. do the dura- 
 
 ' Summer of 1899. 
 146 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 tions 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 joins 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 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 
 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 length of reigns as we passed 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 Planta- 
 genet, 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 feU in got the apple. 
 
 The children were encouraged to stop locating 
 things as being "over by the arbor," or "in the oak 
 
 147 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 parlor," or "up at the stone steps," and say instead 
 that the things were in Stephen, or in the Common- 
 wealth, or in George III. They got the habit with- 
 out 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 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 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 
 remember 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 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, Sar- 
 atoga, the Battle of the Boyne, the invention of the 
 logarithms, the microscope, the steam-engine, the 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 telegraph — anything and everything all over the 
 world — ^we dumped it all in among the English 
 pegs according to its 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, 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, be- 
 sides, 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 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. 
 
 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 On each square draw a picture of a whale and write 
 the dates and term of service. We choose the whale 
 for several reasons: its name and WiUiam'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 twenty-one whales and written "William 
 I. — J066-1087 — twenty-one years " twenty-one times, 
 
 those details will be 
 yotu: property; you 
 cannot dislodge them 
 from your memory 
 with anything but 
 dynamite. I will 
 make a sample for 
 you to copy: (Fig.- 3). 
 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 remember; and 
 so, since 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 wiU not need to 
 copy the sample any more. Compare your copy 
 with the sample; examine closely; if you find you 
 
 150 
 
 FIG. 3 
 
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i/llLU^-^-^ 
 
 jr 
 
 HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 have got everything right and can shut your eyes and 
 see the picture and call the words and figures, then 
 turn the sample and the 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 unprac- 
 tised person can 
 make a sardine ; 
 also, up to the 
 time you die you 
 will always be able 
 
 to furnish William's dates to any ignorant person 
 that inquires after them. 
 
 You wiU now take thirteen pieces of blue paper, 
 each two inches square, and do William II. (Fig. 4.) 
 
 Make him spout his water forward instead of back- 
 ward; also make him small, and stick a harpoon in 
 him and give him that sick look in the eye. Other- 
 wise you might seem to be continuing the other 
 William, and that would be confusing and a damage. 
 It is quiie 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 
 
 151 
 
 FIG. 4 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 that, because it is down inside the whale and ought 
 to be out of 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. 
 Remember — 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 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 har- 
 poon alone, and 
 say over the in- 
 scription each 
 time you 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 wiU 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. (Fig. 5.) 
 
 152 
 
 
 n 
 
 Zs-y 
 
 .^^.. A *0 
 
 FIG. 5 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 That is a hen, and suggests Henry by furnishing 
 the first syllable. When you have repeated the hen 
 and the inscription until you are perfectly sure of 
 them, draw merely the hen's head the rest of the 
 thirty-five times, saying over the in- _/^ jS^ 
 scription each time. Thus: (Fig. 6). ""^^^^''^C 
 You begin to understand now how /^^ 
 
 this procession is going to look when fig. 6 
 
 it is on the wall. First, there will 
 be the Conqueror's twenty-one whales and water- 
 spouts, the twenty-one white squares joined to one 
 another and making a white stripe three and one-half 
 feet long; the thirteen blue squares of William II. 
 will be joined to that — ^a blue stripe two feet, two 
 inches long, followed by Henry's red stripe five feet, 
 fj . ^..^ ten inches long, and so on. 
 ""^y^^^^J^^"""'''^ The colored divisions will 
 ' ^**^^ smartly show to the eye the 
 
 difference in the length of 
 the reigns 
 and im- 
 «2 
 
 press the proportions on 
 the memory and the un- 
 derstanding. (Fig. 7.) 
 
 Stephen of Blois comes next. He requires nine- 
 teen two-inch squares of yellow paper. (Fig. 8.) 
 
 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 
 
 II IS3 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 steer for history. The tail is defective, but it only- 
 wants straightening out. 
 
 Next comes Henry II. Give him thirty-five 
 
 squares of red 
 paper. These 
 hens must face 
 west, like the 
 former ones. 
 
 (Fig. 9-) 
 
 This hen differs 
 from the other one. 
 He is on his way to 
 inquire what has 
 been happening at 
 "* Canterbury. 
 
 Now we arrive 
 
 at Richard I., 
 
 Lion-heart because he was 
 
 never so contented as 
 
 FIG. 8 
 
 called Richard of the 
 a brave fighter and was never so 
 when he was leading crusades in Palestine and 
 neglecting his 
 affairs at home. 
 Give him ten 
 squares of white 
 paper. (Fig. lo.) 
 That is a lion. 
 His office is to 
 remind you of 
 the lion-hearted 
 Richard. There 
 is something the 
 matter with his 
 
 FIG. 9 
 
 IS4 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 legs, but I do not 
 
 quite know what 
 
 it is, they do not 
 
 seem right. I 
 
 think the hind 
 
 ones are the most 
 
 unsatisfactory; 
 
 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. (Fig. ii.) 
 That creature 
 is a jamboree. It 
 looks like a trade- 
 mark, but that is 
 only an accident 
 and not inten- 
 tional. It is 
 prehistoric and 
 extinct. It used 
 to roam the earth 
 in the Old Silu- 
 rian times, and 
 lay eggs and 
 catch fish and 
 
 FIG. II 
 
 155 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 doAvn, but have 
 turned it the other way now because I think it 
 looks more attractive and spirited 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 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 
 FIG. 12 might have been 
 
 well to name all 
 the royal princes Henry, but this was overlooked 
 until it was too late. (Fig. 12.) 
 
 156 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 That 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 of the House, and was the second great 
 liberty landmark which the century had set up. I 
 have made Henry 
 
 
 FIG. 13 
 
 looking glad, but 
 this was not in- 
 tentional. 
 
 Edward I. 
 comes next; light- 
 hrown paper, 
 thirty-five 
 squares. (Fig. 13.) 
 
 That is an 
 editor. He is try 
 ing to think of a 
 word. He props 
 his feet on the 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, and he will do. 
 I could make him better if I had a model, but I 
 made this one from memory. But it is no par- 
 ticular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They 
 are conceited and troublesome, and don't pay 
 enough. Edward was the first really English king 
 that h^d 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 whole attitude expressed gratification and pride 
 mixed with stupefaction and astonishment. 
 
 IS7 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 FIG. 14 
 
 Edward II. 
 now; twenty 
 blue squares. 
 (Fig. 14.) 
 
 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, and now he 
 is sitting there with his thumbs in his vest-holes, 
 gloating. They 
 are full of envy 
 and malice, edi- 
 tors are. This 
 picture will 
 serve to remind 
 you that Ed- 
 ward II. was the 
 first English 
 king who was 
 deposed. Upon 
 demand, he 
 signed his de- 
 position himself. 
 
 158 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 He had found kingship a most aggravating and dis- 
 agreeable 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. (Pig. 15.) 
 This editor is a critic. He has puUed out his 
 carving-knife and his tomahawk and is starting after 
 a book which he is 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 
 the 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 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 /6Lc^^^^.^ jzr 
 
 this editor-critic 
 now; we will 
 leave him as he 
 is. He will serve 
 to remind us. 
 
 Richard II. 
 next ; twenty-two 
 white squares. 
 (Fig. i6.) 
 
 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. 
 Now we turn the 
 
 comer of the cen- 
 tury with a new 
 
 line of monarchs — 
 
 the Lancastrian 
 
 kings. 
 
 Henry IV.; 
 
 fourteen squares 
 
 of yellow paper. 
 
 (Fig- 1 7-) FIG. 17 
 
 This hen has 
 laid the egg of a new dynasty and realizes the 
 imposing magnitude of the event. She is giving 
 notice in the usual way. You notice that I am 
 
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HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 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 
 practise 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 
 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 bom. 
 
 FIG. 1 8 
 
 U-t-'-ir>y 
 
 v/ 
 
 g--^ /^ii-/«6/ 
 
 3f f 
 
 yiG. 19 
 
 i6j 
 
 Henry V.; nine 
 blue squares. 
 (Fig. 18.) 
 
 There you see 
 him lost in medi- 
 tation over the 
 monument which 
 records the amaz- 
 ing figures of the 
 battle of Agin- 
 court. French his- 
 tory says 2o,ooQ 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 Englishmen routed 80,000 Frenchmen there; and 
 English historians say that the French loss, in 
 killed and wounded, was 60,000. 
 
 Henry VI!; thirty-nine rec? squares. (Fig. 19.) 
 This is poor Henry VI., who reigned long and 
 scored many misfortunes and humiliations. Also 
 two great disasters: he lost France to Joan of Arc 
 and he lost the throne and ended the dynasty which 
 Henry IV. had started in business 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- 
 
 FiG. 20 brown squares. 
 
 (Fig. 20.) 
 
 That is a society editor, sitting there elegantly 
 
 dressed, 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 Wars of the Roses, 
 
 and that the white one was the winning color when 
 
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FIG. 21 
 
 HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 Edward got the throne and dispossessed 
 the Lancastrian dynasty. 
 
 Edward V. ; one-third of a black square. 
 
 (Fig. 21.) 
 
 His uncle Richard had him murdered 
 in the tower. When you get the reigns 
 displayed upon the wall this one wUl be 
 conspicuous and easily remembered. It 
 is the shortest one in EngUsh history 
 except Lady Jane Grey's, which was only 
 nine days. She is never officially recog- 
 nized 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. 
 
 (Fig. 2 2.) 
 
 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 
 
 FIG. 22 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 sun -glimpses now 
 
 163 
 
 ^»^:^».^jzzr 
 
 2. y.£.^n~v 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 ^<L.V^ Vf(. 
 
 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 one place in the world — ^Bosworth 
 
 Field — and tra- 
 dition says it 
 never grew there 
 until Richard's 
 royal blood 
 warmed its hid- 
 den seed to Ufe 
 and made it 
 grow. 
 
 Henry VII.; 
 twenty-four 
 blue squares. 
 (Fig. 23.) 
 
 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 account as well as the nation's, 
 and hatch them out and count up the result. 
 When he died he left his heir £2,000,000, which 
 was a most unusual fortune for a king to pos- 
 sess in those days. Columbus's great achieve- 
 ment 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 
 
 164 
 
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 FIG. 23 
 
HOW TO MAKE DATES STICK 
 
 tt. 
 
 jL/>,>-^r-^ 
 
 \/(H 
 
 
 v_ 
 
 3 g yA-^f^*-^. 
 
 FIG. 24 
 
 (Fig. 
 
 that England 
 went far abroad 
 to enlarge her 
 estate — but not 
 the last. 
 
 Henry VIII.; 
 thirty - eight red 
 squares. (Fig. 24.) 
 
 That is Henry 
 VIII. suppressing 
 a monastery in 
 his arrogant 
 fashion. 
 
 Edward VI.; six squares of yellow paper. 
 
 He is the last Edward to date. It is indicated by 
 that thing over his head, which is a last — shoe- 
 maker's last. 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^ Mary; five 
 squares of hlack 
 paper. (Fig. 26.) 
 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. Martyr- 
 
 
 '\ 
 
 h 
 
 ^^-nt. 
 
 
 FIG. 25 
 
 165 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 dom was going out in her day and martyrs were 
 becoming scarcer, but she made several. For this 
 reason she is sometimes called Bloody Mary. 
 
 This brings us 
 to the reign of 
 Elizabeth, after 
 passing through 
 a period of nearly 
 five hundred 
 years of Eng- 
 land'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 wiU 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 
 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 fiat things to hold the house together. 
 
 FIG. 26 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
THE MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 Note. — The assassination of the Empress of Austria at 
 Geneva, September lo, 1898, occurred during Mark Twain's 
 Austrian residence. The hews came to him at Kaltenleutgeben, 
 a summer resort a little way out of Vienna. To his friend, the 
 Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, he wrote: 
 
 "That good and unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by 
 a madman, 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 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 neighlDor, Antony, should 
 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 cortege 
 marches." 
 
 He was strongly moved by the tragedy, impelled to write 
 concerning it. He prepared the article which here follows, but 
 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 with- 
 holding its publication now. A. B. P. 
 
 THE more one thinks of the assassination, the 
 more imposing and tremendous the event be- 
 comes. The destruction of a city is a large event, 
 but it is one which repeats itself several times in a 
 
 167 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 thousand years ; the destruction of a third part of a 
 nation by plague and famine is a large event, 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 
 large 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 Christen- 
 dom 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 centuries 
 members of that family have been startled with the 
 news of extraordinary events — the destruction of 
 cities, the fall of thrones, the miurder of kings, the 
 wreck of dynasties, the extinction of religions, the 
 birth of new systems of government ; and their de- 
 scendants have been by to hear of it 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 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 — 
 
 i68 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 even the assassination of Csesar himself — could not 
 electrify the worid 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 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 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 mur- 
 dered!" When those amazing words struck upon 
 my ear in this Austrian village last Saturday, three 
 hours after the disaster, I knew that it was already 
 old news in London, Paris, BerHn, New York, San 
 Francisco, Japan, China, Melbourne, Cape Town, 
 Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and that the entire 
 globe, with a single voice, was cursing the perpe- 
 trator 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 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 
 
 12 169 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 compacted in the answer. He is at the bottom of 
 the human ladder, as the accepted estimates of de- 
 gree and value go : a soiled and patched young loafer, 
 without gifts, without talents, without education, 
 without morals, without character, without any bom 
 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, unwashed, 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 
 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 mad. Many are mad for money. 
 When this madness is in a mild form it is hannless 
 and the man passes 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 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 asylum or the suicide's coflEin. Love is a madness; 
 if thwarted it develops fast ; it can grow to a frenzy 
 of despair and malce 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, passions, 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 ac- i 
 cident— the accident of not having his malady put 
 to the supreme test. 
 
 One of the commonest forms of madness is the 
 desire to be noticed, the pleasure derived from being 
 noticed. Perhaps it is not merely common, but 
 imiversal. In its mildest form it doubtless is uni- 
 versal. Every child is pleased at being noticed; 
 many intolerable children put in their whole time in 
 distressing and idiotic effort to attract the attention 
 of visitors; boys are always "showing off"; appar- 
 ently 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 
 kingship and the thousand other dignities, and 
 tricked' them out with pretty and showy fineries ; 
 it has made kings pick one another's pockets, scram- 
 ble for one another's crowns and estates, slaughter 
 one another's subjects; it has raised up prize-fighters, 
 
 171 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 and poets, and village 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 no- 
 toriety; anything to set the village, or the township, 
 or the city, or the 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 aU, outstripped them all, 
 for in time their names will perish; but by the 
 friendly help of the insane newspapers and courts and 
 kings and historians, his is safe to live and thunder 
 in the world all down the ages as long as hvmian 
 speech shall endure! Oh, if it were not so tragic 
 how ludicrous it would be ! 
 
 She was so blameless, the Empress; and so beau- 
 tiful, in mind and heart, in person and spirit; and 
 whether with a crown upon her head or without it 
 and nameless, a grace to the human race, and almost 
 a justification of its creation; would be, indeed, but 
 that the animal that struck her down re-estabhshes 
 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 aspira- 
 tions 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 in the 
 world's gift, but she went her simple way unspoiled. 
 She knew all ranks, and won them all, and made them 
 
 172 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 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 croAwns. 
 
 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 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 admirals 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 other come across that creature, he 
 remembered it with a secret satisfaction, and men- 
 tioned 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 remember, now, that 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 ; 
 
 173 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 
 alike; a king is a king by accident; the reason the 
 rest of us are not kings is merely due to another ac- 
 cident; we are all made out of the same clay, and 
 it is a sufficiently poor quality. 
 
 Below the kings, these remarks are in the air these 
 days; I know it as well as if I were hearing them: 
 
 The Commander: "He was in my army." 
 
 The General: "He was in my corps." 
 
 The Colonel: "He was in my regiment. A brute. 
 I remember him well." 
 
 The Captain: "He was in my company. A 
 troublesome scoundrel. I remember 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 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?" 
 
 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 tries to let on 
 that he is not vain of his privilege of contact 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 dr I. 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 Some think that this murder is a frenzied revolt 
 against the criminal militarism which is impoverish- 
 ing 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 gener- 
 ous 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 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 account 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 
 cannot condemn him without manifestly commit- 
 ting 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. 
 
 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 ; 
 
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 the aspects were Sunday-like; the crowds on the 
 sidewalks were quiet and moved slowly; very few 
 people were smoking; many ladies wore deep mourn- 
 ing, gentlemen were in black as a rule ; carriages were 
 speeding in all directions, with footmen and coach- 
 men in black clothes and wearing black cocked hats ; 
 the shops were closed; in many windows were pict- 
 ures 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 orna- 
 ments — 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 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 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. Here- 
 abouts was a Roman camp, once, and in it the 
 Emperor Marcus Aurelius died a thousand years be- 
 fore the first Habsburg ruled in Vienna, which was 
 six hundred years ago and more. 
 
 The little church is packed in among great modem 
 stores and houses, and the windows of them were full 
 of people. Behind the vast plate-glass windows of 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 the upper floors of a house on the comer 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 flitting about on er- 
 rands, 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 somewhere. Blazing uniforms flashed by 
 him, making a sparkling contrast with his drooping 
 ruin of moldy rags, but he took no 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 empty, the private mourner was gone. Another 
 order, the soldiers fell apart and inclosed the square 
 in a double-ranked human fence. It was all so 
 swift, noiseless, exact — like a beautifully ordered 
 naachine. 
 
 It was noon, now. Two hours of stillness and 
 waiting followed. Then carriages began to flow past 
 and deliver the two or three hundred court person- 
 ages and high nobilities privileged to enter the church. 
 Then the square filled up; not with civilians, but 
 with army and navy officers in 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 
 
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 better so; dull clothes would have marred the ra- 
 diant spectacle. In the jam in front of the church, 
 on its steps, and on the 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 
 bright-green plumes above pale-blue shoulders which 
 made another splotch of splendor emphatic and con- 
 spicuous in its glowing surroundings. It was a sea 
 of flashing color all 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 glaze, 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 multi- 
 tude of blinding and flashing little 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 enter- 
 ing the church from a side street 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 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 add to the show. At three - ten a procession of 
 priests passes along, with crucifix. Another one, 
 presently; after an interval, two more; at three- 
 fifty 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 in- 
 terval. 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 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 mourning- 
 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 hparse approaches, drawn at a walk by eight 
 black horses plumed with black bunches of nodding 
 ostrich feathers ; the coffin is borne into the church, 
 the doors are closed. 
 
 The multitude cover their heads, and the rest of 
 
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 the procession moves by ; first the Hungarian Guard 
 in their indescribably brilUant and picturesque and 
 beautiful uniform, inherited from the ages of bar- 
 baric splendor, and after them other mounted forces, 
 a long and showy array. 
 
 Then the shining crowd in the square crumbled 
 apart, a wrecked rainbow, and melted away in ra- 
 diant 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 seven- 
 teen, 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 emphasized, rather than broken, by the 
 muffled hoofbeats of the long cavalcade over pave- 
 ments 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 that first coming 
 of the girlish Empress-Queen, and in his history 
 draws a fine picture: I cannot make a close trans- 
 
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MEMORABLE ASSASSINATION 
 
 lation of it, but will try to convey the spirit of the 
 verses : 
 
 I saw the stately pagaent pass: 
 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 Ughted 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. 
 
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A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY 
 
 MARION CITY, on the Mississippi River, in 
 the State of Missouri — a village; time, 1845. 
 La Bourboule-les-Bains, France — 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 to- 
 day 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. Every- 
 body 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 arrival, 
 with rain of stones and crash of glass; the withdrawal 
 to rearrange plans — ^followed by a silence ominous, 
 threatening, and harder to bear than even the active 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by Harper & Brothers, 
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A SCRAP OP CURIOUS HISTORY 
 
 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. To-day 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 France 
 is doing in these latter months. 
 
 In oiir 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 passed through, in all essentials, what France 
 has been passing through during the past two or 
 three years, in the matter of periodical frights, hor- 
 rors, and shudderings. 
 
 In several details the parallels are quaintly exact. 
 In that day, for a man to speak out gpenly and pro- 
 claim himself an enemy of negro slavery was simply 
 to proclaim himself a madman. For he was blas- 
 pheming against the holiest thing known to a Mis- 
 sourian, and could not be in his right mind. For a 
 man to proclaim himself an anarchist in France, 
 three years ago, was to proclaim himself a madman — 
 he could not be in his right mind. 
 
 Now the original old 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 his protest. 
 
 Robert Hardy was our first abolitionist — awful 
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 name! He was a journeyman cooper, and worked 
 in the big cooper-shop belonging to the great pork- 
 packing establishment which was Marion City's 
 chief pride and sole source of prosperity. 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 ani- 
 mals. Hardy was thirty years old, and a bachelor; 
 pale, given to reverie and reading. He was re- 
 served, and seemed to prefer the isolation which had 
 fallen to his lot. He was treated to many side re- 
 marks 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 abolition- 
 ist — 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 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 al- 
 lowed to go on talking. He was found to be good 
 entertainment. Several nights running he made 
 abolition speeches in the open air, and all the town 
 flocked to hear and laugh. He implored them to be- 
 lieve him sane and sincere, and have pity on the 
 poor slaves, and take measures for the restoration of 
 
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A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY 
 
 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 changed. A slave came flying from 
 Palmyra, the county-seat, 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. Hardy 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 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 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 head- 
 piece. 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 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 impos- 
 ing in the town's history. It lifted the humble vil- 
 lage into sudden importance ; its name was in every- 
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 body'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 curiously 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 thr»e who had really been on a sort of familiar 
 footing with him found themselves objects of ad- 
 miring interest with 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 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 the crowd that applied for admis- 
 
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A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY 
 
 sion. 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 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 fascina- 
 tions. Within one week afterward four young light- 
 weights in the village proclaimed themselves aboli- 
 tionists! 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 under- 
 stand it. "Abolitionist" had always been a term of 
 "fehame and horror; yet here were four young men 
 who were not only not ashamed to bear 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 appren- 
 tice, nineteen, had been the head Sunday-school boy, 
 and had once recited three thousand Bible verses 
 without making a break. Dick Savage, twenty, 
 the baker's apprentice; Will Joyce, twenty- two, 
 
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 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. 
 
 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 pass-words, grips, and 
 signs; they had secret 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 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. 
 
 When this kind of thing had been going on about 
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A SCRAP OP CURIOUS HISTORY 
 
 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 scofiings 
 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 Uke men again. This 
 was on a Saturday. All day the new feeling grew 
 and strengthened; it grew with a rush; it brought 
 inspiration and cheer with it. Midnight saw a 
 imited 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 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 vil- 
 lage was broken by a 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 
 
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 invisible one — an invisible one who sneaks in and 
 does his awful work in the dark 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 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 for- 
 ward ; 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. 
 
 And so there was a bitter surprise and an unwel- 
 come one when Will Joyce, the blacksmith's journey- 
 man, 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 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 
 matter — ^it had no choice. It brought in a true bill, 
 
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 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 account 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 
 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 was not broken till he 
 broke it himself, in concluding, with a roaring repe- 
 tition of his "Death to all slave-tyrants!" — which 
 came so unexpectedly and so startlingly that it made 
 every one present catch his breath and gasp. 
 
 The trial was put in the paper, with biography and 
 large 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 pros- 
 perity. Joyce recited a furious and fantastic and 
 denunciatory speech on the scaffold which had im- 
 posing passages of school-boy eloquence in it, and 
 
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 gave him a reputation on the spot as an orator, and 
 the 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 his death the society which he had 
 honored had twenty new members, some of them 
 earnest, determined men. They did not court dis- 
 tinction in the same way, but they celebrated his 
 martyrdom. The crime which had been obscure 
 and despised had become lofty and glorified. 
 
 Such things were happening all over the country. 
 Wild-brained 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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SWITZERLAND, THE CRADLE OP LIBERTY 
 
 Interlaken, Switzerland, i8qi. 
 
 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 Switzer- 
 land 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 will make him as conspicuous as William TeU. 
 
 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 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. 
 
 Copyright, 1892, by S. L. Clemens 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain mass that the globe can show — ^the Jungfrau. 
 The stranger's first feeling, when suddenly con- 
 fronted 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 
 thdt. 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 the neighboring monarchies, it is healing and re- 
 freshing to breathe in 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 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 
 
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THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 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 
 Cantons, and I saw Rutli and Altorf. RutU is a 
 remote little patch of a 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 
 joined hands six centuries ago and swore the oath 
 which set their enslaved and insulted country for- 
 ever free; and Altorf is also honorable ground and 
 worshipfxil, since it was there that William, surnamed 
 TeU (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 importance 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 had better nerve than most men and was as 
 skilful 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 marks- 
 man, more and better than a mere cool head; he was 
 
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 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 spirit which said this in words and con- 
 firmed it with deeds. There have always been Tells 
 in Switzerland — ^people who woiald not bow. There 
 was a sufficiency of them at Rutli ; there were plenty 
 of theni g,t Murten; plenty at Grandson; there are 
 plenty; -t6-day. 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 — Stauf- 
 facher's wife. There she looms dim and great, 
 through the haze of the centuries, delivering into her 
 husband's ear that gospel of 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 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 dark-colored 
 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 con- 
 centrates and emphasizes the glory of the Jungfrau 
 and makes it the most engaging 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 sum- 
 
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THE CRADLE OP LIBERTY 
 
 mits, 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 eve- 
 ning the great intervening barrier seen through a 
 faint bluish haze seemed made of air and substance- 
 less, 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, slightly varying shades of it, 
 but mainly very dark. The sun was down — as far 
 as that barrier was concerned, but not for the Jung- 
 frau, towering into the heavens beyond the gateway. 
 She was a roaring conflagration of blinding white. 
 
 It is said that Fridolin (the old FridoUn), 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 thousand kings reign- 
 ing 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, stand- 
 ing barefoot in the snow, holding out their crowns 
 for alms. Indeed, they would have been obliged to 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 join it. 
 He thus won the general gratitude, and they wanted 
 to make him emperor — 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 Germany 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 France and Ger- 
 many, missionarying — ^for missionarying was a better 
 thing in those days than it is in ours. All you had 
 to do was to cure the head savage's sick daughter 
 by a "miracle" — a miracle like the miracle of 
 Loiurdes 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 the ax and convert the rest of the nation him- 
 self. Charlemagne was that kind of a walking 
 delegate. 
 
 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 my- 
 self because I have seen his relics at Sackingen, and 
 also the very spot where he worked his great miracle 
 
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THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 — ^the one which won him his saintship 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, 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 
 aU. 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 neighbor- 
 hood, 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 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 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 passed, and yet no Fridolin appeared. 
 Landulph rose, and was in the act of claiming judg- 
 ment by default when a strange clacking sound was 
 heard coming up the stairs. In another moment 
 Fridolin entered at the door and came walking in a 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 deep hush down the middle aisle, with a tall skeleton 
 stalking in his rear. 
 
 Amazement and terror sat upon every coun- 
 tenance, 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 assembly 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?" 
 
 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 un- 
 identified 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 not be 
 rationally trusted. Most skeletons are not to 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. 
 
 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 
 
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THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 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, begin 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. i 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 coat-collar to this 
 swarthy and indiscreet sweetheart who had stolen 
 out there right before everybody to pillow his head 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 on the Virgin's white breast and whisper soft sen- 
 timentaUties to her to the sensuous music of crash- 
 ing ice-domes and the boom and thunder of the pass- 
 ing avalanche — ^music very familiar to his ear, for 
 he has 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 record- 
 less barbarians fished and hunted here and won- 
 dered who he might 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 wal- 
 lowed 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 tradi- 
 tion nor history was bom yet and a 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 be- 
 gin his shabby career and think it a big thing. Oh, 
 indeed yes; when you talk about your poor Roman 
 and Egjrptian day-before-yesterday antiquities, you 
 should choose a time when the hoary Shadow Face 
 of the Jungfrau is not by. It antedates all an- 
 tiquities known or imaginable; for it was here the 
 world itself created the theater of future antiquities. 
 
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THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 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 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 becoming a quite fair portrait of Roscoe 
 Conkling. The likeness is there, and is unmistak- 
 able. 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 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 changing shapes of these mighty 
 shadows on 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 fotmd 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 photog- 
 raphers 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 aU, 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 compart- 
 ment, 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 ques- 
 tions 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?" 
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THE CRADLE OP LIBERTY 
 
 "In Greece." 
 
 "Greece! Well, now, that is just astonishing! 
 Bom 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 Hving? What is your line of business?" 
 
 "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 tmderstand — 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 — " 
 
 "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 my first. I was born 
 in Germany, and when I was a couple of weeks old 
 shipped, for 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?" 
 
 20S 
 
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Mark twain 
 
 "I've a rather large family — " 
 
 "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 con- 
 fident 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 dis- 
 courage 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 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 — " 
 
 "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 — Gleaming a trade?" 
 
 "Well, no— I thought—" 
 
 "It's a great 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. 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?" 
 
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THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 "It has been my idea to let the eldest one suc- 
 ceed me^-" 
 
 "Oh, come! Suppose the firm don't want him?" 
 
 "I hadn't thought of that, but—" 
 
 "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?" 
 
 "No — not exactly; but if I continue to give sat- 
 isfaction, I suppose I can keep my — " 
 
 "Keep your place — yes. WeU, 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." 
 
 "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 
 I got a little familiarity with the buskiess." 
 
 The German was silent for some time. He did a 
 good deal of thinking, and the king waited with 
 curiosity to see what the result was going to be. 
 Finally the German said: 
 
 "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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Rochester ; bring the family along. You shall have 
 a show in the business and the foremanship, besides. 
 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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AT THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER 
 
 Bayreuth, Aug. 2d, i8gi. 
 
 IT was at Nuremberg that v/e 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 witness- 
 ing 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 anyTvhere else in America, and you con- 
 clude, 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 im- 
 mediately or you will get no seats, and you must 
 cable for lodgings, too. Then if you are luclcy 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 Nurem- 
 berg when we passed through who had corne oi} 
 
 Copyright, 1891, by S. L. Clemens 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 stand- 
 ing room, and had walked those quaint streets all 
 night, waiting for the hotels to open and empty 
 their guests into the 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 imfulfilled. These 
 humiliated outcasts had the frowsy and unbrushed 
 and apologetic look of wet cats, and 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 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 
 
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THE SHRINE OP ST. WAGNER 
 
 them and enjoy them. What I write about the 
 performance to put in my odd time would be offered 
 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 fotu: o'clock we should be obliged 
 to pay two dollars and a half apiece 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 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 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 admit and emit 1,650 persons. The num- 
 ber 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 and confusion are impossible. Not so many as a 
 hundred people use any one door. This is better 
 than having the usual (and useless) elaborate fire- 
 proof 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 filling is accom- 
 plished 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 
 congregation sat in a deep and solemn gloom. The 
 funereal rustling of dresses and the low buzz of con- 
 versation 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 impres- 
 sive device for securing and solidifjring the attention 
 of an audience long ago ; instead of which they con- 
 tinue 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 
 
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THE SHRINE OF ST. WAGNER 
 
 grave the dead magician began to weave his spells 
 about his disciples and steep their souls in his en- 
 chantments. There was something strangely im- 
 pressive 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 sounds were 
 the clothing of thoughts which were at this moment 
 passing through his brain, and not recognized and 
 familiar ones 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 there- 
 after, of course, came the singing, and it does seem 
 to nje that nothing can make a Wagner opera ab- 
 solutely perfect and satisfactory to the untutored 
 but to leave out the vocal parts. I wish I cotdd see 
 a Wagner 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 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. 
 
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 This present opera was "Parsifal." Madame 
 Wagner does 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 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 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 knew so well how to make a hun- 
 dred instruments rejoice in unison and pour out their 
 souls in mingled and melodious tides of deHcious 
 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 
 
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 described, it is a practising of difficult and unpleasant 
 intervals, mainly. An ignorant person gets tired of 
 listening to g)niinastic 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 practises 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 
 three-quarters of an hour after the first act and one 
 an hour long after the second. In both instances the 
 theater was totally emptied. People who had pre- 
 viously 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 con- 
 cluded at ten in the evening or a little later. When 
 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" seldom 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Wagner against people like me, who found fault with 
 the comprehensive absence of what our kind regards 
 as singing. Uhlic says Wagner despised " Jene plap- 
 perude musik," 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 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 other operas; and if I understand 
 Uhlic's elaborate German he apologizes for the 
 beautiful airs in "Tannhauser." Very well; now 
 that Wagner and I understand each other, perhaps 
 we shall get along better, and I shall stop calHng 
 Waggner, on the American plan, and thereafter call 
 him Waggner as per German custom, for I feel 
 entirely friendly now. The minute we get recon- 
 ciled to a person, how willing we are to throw aside 
 little needless punctilios and pronotmce 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 hazards. 
 
 Tuesday. — Yesterday they played the only operatic 
 favorite I have ever had — an opera which has always 
 driven me mad with ignorant dehght whenever I have 
 heard it — "Tannhauser." I heard it first when I 
 was a youth; I heard it last in the last German 
 
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 season in New York. I was busy yesterday and I 
 did not intend to go, knowing I should have another 
 "Tannhauser" 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 admitted me to the 
 grounds in front, past the policeman and the chain, 
 and I thought I would take a rest on a bench for an 
 hour or 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 for the 
 curtain to rise. This company of buglers, in uni- 
 form, 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 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 de- 
 layed them — the one solitary thing in this world 
 which could be relied on with certainty to accom- 
 plish it, I suppose — an imperial princess appeared 
 in the balcony above them. They stopped dead in 
 their tracks and began to gaze in a stupor of gratitude 
 and satisfaction. The lady presently saw that she 
 
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 must disappear or the doors would be closed upon 
 these worshipers, so she returned to her box. This 
 daughter-in-law 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 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 valuable. He led a degraded life, he 
 ended it with his own hand in circumstances and sur- 
 roundings 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 multitude 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, uncon- 
 scious, 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 pyra- 
 mid, or distant Vesuvius smoking in the sky, or any 
 
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 man long celebrated to you by his genius and achieve- 
 ments, 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 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 in- 
 terest thereafter when encountered, but never any- 
 thing 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 diminish it. Perhaps the essence 
 of the thing is the value which men attach to a valu- 
 able 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 support by a pure accident, the 
 accident of birth, and he stands always before the 
 grieved eye of poverty and obscurity 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 general 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 
 follows 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 usurpa- 
 tions 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 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 
 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 passing 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 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 
 
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 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 seen him hundreds of times, yet they 
 had 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 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." 
 
 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 training, my General was only 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 a man, after all, while their Prince was clearly much 
 more than that — a being of a wholly unsimilar con- 
 struction 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 
 tallow 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 "Tannhauser." 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 dis- 
 tant stage, and by and by the drop-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 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 
 principal inns are the Golden Anchor and the Sun. 
 At either of these places you can get an excellent 
 
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 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 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 have 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 complete 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 over- 
 estimated. Photographs fade, bric-a-brac gets lost, 
 busts of Wagner get broken, but once you absorb a 
 Bayreuth-restaurant meal 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 ex- 
 amine 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" scrape-up 
 at eight in the evening, when all the famine-breeders 
 have been there and laid in their mementoes and 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 gone, is the quietest thing you can lay on your keel- 
 son except gravel. 
 
 Thursday. — They keep two teams of sitigers in 
 stock for the chief r61es, and one of these is composed 
 of the most renowned artists in the world, with Ma- 
 terna and Alvary in the lead. I suppose a double 
 team is necessary; doubtless a single team would die 
 of exhaustion in a week, 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, whis- 
 pery, mysterious feeling they are reqxdred to open out 
 and let 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 orches- 
 tras also? It is quite likely, since there are one 
 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 de- 
 tect 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 that they are being 
 
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 stirred to their profoundest depths; that there are 
 times when they want to rise and wave handker- 
 chiefs 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 gobs or screams; 
 yet you hear not 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. 
 
 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 re- 
 taining 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, 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, but who like to promote art and show their 
 clothes. 
 
 Can tha,t be an agreeable atmosphere to persong 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 solemnilisr? Manifestly, no. Then, perhaps 
 the temporary expatriation, the tedious 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 reniote 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, re- 
 turns to his bed with his heart and soul and his body 
 exhausted 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 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 that this is one of the most extraordinary ex- 
 periences of my life. I have never seen anything 
 
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THE SHRINE OP ST. WAGNER 
 
 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 re- 
 minders of the Margravine Wilhelmina, she of the 
 imperishable "Memoirs." 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 re- 
 generation was accomplished and perfected, because 
 I enjoyed both of these operas, singing and all, and, 
 moreover, one of them was "Parsifal," but the ex- 
 perts have disenchanted me. They say: 
 
 "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 sometimes ; I was 
 the only man out of thirty-two hundred who got his 
 money back on those two operas. 
 
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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 Osier 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 EngUsh 
 has suffered any impairment. For forty years his 
 English has been to me a continual delight and 
 astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of cer- 
 tain 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 in- 
 trench myself behind that protecting word. There 
 are others who exhibit those great qualities as greatly 
 as does he, 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 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers, 
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WILLIAM DEAN 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 power- 
 ful 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 ex- 
 quisitely around through the walls of the mouth and 
 tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn- 
 butter that creams the sumac-berry. One has no 
 time to examine the word and vote upon its rank 
 and standing, the automatic recognition of its su- 
 premacy is so immediate. There is a plenty of 
 acceptable literature which deals largely in ap- 
 proximations, but it may be likened to a fine land- 
 scape 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 architectural felicities of construc- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 tion, 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 ex- 
 traordinary; and all just as shining, just as ex- 
 traordinary to-day, after forty years of diligent wear 
 and tear and use. He passed his fortieth year long 
 and long ago; but I think his English of to-day — ■ 
 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 go back to the paper on Machiavelli now, 
 and ask the reader to examine this passage from it 
 which I append. I do not mean examine it in a 
 bird's-eye way; I mean search 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 : 
 
 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 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 repubhcan 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 statecraft, 
 and revolt without patriotism. When a miscreant like Borgia 
 appeared upon the scene and reduced both tjnrants 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. MachiavelU was no less honest when he 
 honored the diaboUcal force of Cassar Borgia than Carlyle was 
 
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 when at different times he extolled the strong man who destroys 
 Eberty in creating order. But Carlyle has only just ceased to 
 be mistaken 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. 
 
 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 — un- 
 studied ; how clear, how limpid, how understandable, 
 how unconfused by cross-currents, eddies, under- 
 tows; how seemingly unadorned, yet is all adorn- 
 nent, like the lily-of -the- valley ; and how com- 
 pressed, how compact, without a complacency-signal 
 hung out anywhere to call attention to it. 
 
 There are twenty-three lines in the quoted passage. 
 After reading it several times aloud, one perceives 
 that a good 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 trimk: he can get the things out, but he^^ 
 can't ever get them back again. 
 
 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 notice- 
 able in the sample is not lonely; there is a plenty of 
 its kin distributed through the other paragraphs. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 This is claiming much when that kin must face the 
 challenge of a phrase like the one in the middle 
 sentence: "an 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, 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 tome 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 seem incon- 
 spicuous, 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. 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for malny 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 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! 
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 When I go 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 concreting 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 hali-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 fall, and through the twilight 
 of the descending flakes all this toil and encounter 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 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 compassionated 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 
 fagade, and all that gracious harmony into which the temple 
 rises, of marble scrolls and leafy exuberance airily supporting 
 the statues of the saints, was a hundred times etherealized by the 
 purity and whiteness of the drifting flakes. The snow lay 
 lightly on the golden globes that tremble like peacock-crests 
 above the vast domes, and plumed them with softest white; 
 it robed the saints in ermine; and it danced over all its work, as 
 if exulting in its beauty — ^beauty which filled me with subtle, 
 selfish yearning to keep such evanescent 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 noise- 
 lessly 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 re- 
 pulsiveness among the other cities of the planet in 
 accordance with the poUcy 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 
 find, as is their habit when not on vacation. 
 
 In the working season they do business in B.oston 
 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 descent 
 which reaches bottom at last, when the street be- 
 comes a roost for humble professionals of the faith- 
 cure and fortune-teUing sort. 
 
 What a queer, melancholy house, what a queer, melancholy 
 street! I don't think I was ever in a street before where 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 
 
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 house seems to wince as you go by, and button itself up to the 
 chin for feax 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. 
 
 Mr. Howells's pictures are not mere stiflf, hard, 
 accurate photograplfs; 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 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 no- 
 ticeable 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 intrusted unexplained to the bare 
 words of the talk. Some authors overdo the stage 
 directions, they elaborate them quite beyond neces- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 sity ; they spend so much time and take up so much 
 room in teUing 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 at all. Other 
 authors' directions are brief enough, but it is seldom 
 that the brevity contains either wit or information. 
 Writers of this school go in rags, in the matter of 
 stage directions ; the majority of them have nothing 
 in stock but a cigar, a laugh, a blush, and a biu^sting 
 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 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 re- 
 mark is unusually and poignantly fiat and silly, he 
 tries to deceive the reader by enlarging the stage 
 direction and making Richard break into "frenzies 
 of uncontrollable laughter." This makes the reader 
 sad.) 
 
 "... murmured Gladys, blushing." (This poor 
 old shop-worn 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, just as we do Richard.) 
 
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 "... 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 some- 
 thing to cry about they have gone dry; they sob, 
 and fetch nothing ; we are not moved. We are only 
 glad.) 
 
 They gravel me, these stale and overworked stage 
 directions, these carbon films that got burnt out long 
 ago and 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 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 stage 
 direction's proper and lawful office, which is to in- 
 form. Sometimes they convey a scene and its con- 
 ditions so well that I believe I could see the scene 
 and get the spirit and meaning of the accompanying 
 dialogue if some one would read merely the stage 
 directions to me and leave out the talk. For in- 
 stance, a scene Uke 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." 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 "... she asked, turning swiftly upon him that 
 strange, searching glance." 
 
 "... she answered, vaguely." 
 
 "... she reluctantly admitted." 
 
 "... but her voice died wearily away, and she 
 stood looking into his face with puzzled entreaty." 
 
 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 juice- 
 less 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 presently 
 get tired of them and wish they would do other things 
 for a change: 
 
 "... replied Alfred, flipping the ash from his 
 
 cigar. 
 
 cigar 
 
 responded Richard, with a laugh." 
 murmured Gladys, blushing." 
 repeated Evelyn, bursting into tears." 
 rephed the Earl, flipping the ash from his 
 
 . responded the undertaker,, with a laugh." 
 . murmured the chambermaid, blushing." 
 . 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." 
 . repeated the house-cat, bursting into tears." 
 And so on and so on ; till at last it ceases to excite. 
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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 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 admiration 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. 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 IN the appendix to Croker's Boswell's Johnson one 
 finds this anecdote: 
 
 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. 
 
 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 sixpence?" 
 
 In a lecture before the Royal Geographical So- 
 ciety Professor Ravenstein quoted the following list 
 of frantic questions, and said that they had been 
 asked in an examination: 
 
 Mention all the names of places in the world derived from 
 Julius Ccesar or Augustus Ctesar. 
 
 Copyright, 1887, by the Century Co, 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 Where are the following rivers: Pisuerga, Sakaria, Guadalete, 
 Jalon, Mulde? 
 
 All you know of the, following: Machacha, Pilmo, Schebulos, 
 Crivoscia, Basecs, Mancikert, Taxhem, Citeaux, Meloria, 
 Zutphen. 
 
 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 geo- 
 graphical 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 be- 
 yond his present strength? This remark in passing, 
 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 compila- 
 tion, and the compiler sent it to me with the request 
 that I say whether I 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 publi- 
 cation is imminent, it has seemed to me that I should 
 feel more conifortable if I could divide up this re- 
 sponsibility with the public by adding them to the 
 court. 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 tg its character. Every one has sampled 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 "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 — ^weU, 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 Hterary 
 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 writ- 
 ing. The subjects touched upon are fifteen in num- 
 ber: I. Etymology; II. Grammar; III. Mathemat- 
 ics; IV. Geography; V. "Original"; VI. Analysis 
 VII. History; VIII. " Intellectual " ; IX. Philosophy 
 X. Physiology; XX. Astronomy; XII. Politics 
 XIIL Music; XIV. Oratory; XV. Metaphysics. 
 
 You perceive that the poor little young idea has 
 takeai a shot at a good many kinds of game in the 
 course of the book. Now as to results. Here are 
 some quaint definitions of words. It will be noticed 
 that in aU 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. 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 <Amenable, anything that is mean. 
 t^Ammonia, the food of the gods. 
 ■Assiduity, state of being an acid. 
 
 Auriferous, pertaining to an orifice. 
 -papillary, 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. 
 ■franchise, anything belonging to the French. 
 
 Idolater, a very idol person. 
 '-ipecac, a man who likes a good dinner. 
 I- Irrigate, to make ftm of. 
 
 Mendacious, what can be mended. 
 
 Mercenary, one who feels for another. 
 '-Parasite, a kind of umbrella. 
 i^Parasite, the murder of an infant. 
 '"Publican, a man who does his prayers in public. 
 i- 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 gnmibling, fussy temper. 
 
 Quarternions, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living in New 
 Zealand. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Quarlernions, the name given to a style of art practiced by the 
 Phoenicians. 
 Quarlernions, 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: 
 
 The marriage was illegible. 
 
 He was totally dismasted with the whole performance. 
 
 He enjoys riding on a philosopher. 
 
 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 : 
 
 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. 
 
 That last is a curiously plausible sentence; one 
 seems to know what it means, and yet he knows 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 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 altitude to a very 
 practical and homely illustration : 
 
 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 cabinets. 
 
 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. 
 
 "Caterpillar" is well enough, but capital letter 
 would have 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. 
 
 The chapter on "Mathematics" is full of fruit. 
 From it I take a few samples — mainly in an unripe 
 state. 
 
 A straight line is any distance between two places. 
 Parallel lines are lines that can never meet until they run 
 together. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 Raven- 
 stein ; still, they proved plenty difficult enough with- 
 out that. These pupils did not hunt with a mi- 
 croscope, they hunted with a shot-gun; this is 
 shown by the crippled condition of the game they 
 brought in: 
 
 America is divided into the Passiffic slope and the Mississippi 
 valey. 
 
 North America is separated by Spain. 
 
 America consists from north to south about five hundred 
 miles. 
 
 ty The United States is quite a small country compared with some 
 other countrys, but is 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 vol- 
 canoes. 
 
 : The Alaginnies are mountains in Philadelphia. 
 "The Rocky Mountains are on the western side of Philadelphia. 
 
 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 Equater. 
 V One of the leading industries of the United States is moUasses, 
 book-covers, numbers, gas, teaching, lumber, manufacturers, 
 paper-making, publishers, coal. 
 
 c-'In Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich 
 feathers. 
 
 Gibraltar is an island built on a rock. 
 
 Russia is very cold and tyrannical. 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 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. 
 \X;;iimate 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, mathe- 
 matics, and so on, and left in that incomplete state; 
 no, there's riiachinery 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 imbated 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 
 instnmient made of steel alone with strong ardor not diminishing, 
 for, being tired from the time parsed with hard labor overworked 
 with anger and ignorant with weariness, while every breath for 
 labor he drew with cries full of sorrow, the young deer made 
 imperfect who worked hard filtered in sight. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 I see, now, that I never understood that poem 
 before. I have had glimpses of its meaning, in 
 moments when I was not as ignorant with weariness 
 as usual, but this is the first 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 re- 
 mains, 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 famil- 
 iar 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 horse- 
 car. 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: 
 
 George Washington was bom in 1492. 
 Washington wrote the Declareation of Independence in 1492. 
 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" 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 Christopher Columbus nas 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 re- 
 mains were taken to the cathedral in Havana. 
 
 Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas. 
 
 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 bum, and the lady scolded him. 
 
 Henry Eight was famous for being a great widower haveing 
 lost several wives. 
 
 »/Xady Jane Grey studied Greek and Latin and was beheaded 
 after a few days. 
 ^' John Bright is noted for an incurable disease. 
 
 Lord James Gordon Bennett instigated the Gordon Riots, 
 "^"^he Middle Ages come in between antiquity and posterity. 
 
 Luther introduced Christianity into England a good many 
 thousand years ago. Hisbirthday 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 dis- 
 solved 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. 
 V'-'Siocrates . . . destroyed some statues and had to drink 
 Shamrock. 
 
 17 249 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 uncaref uUy read : 
 
 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 bom in Wales in 1599. 
 
 In the chapter headed "Intellectual" I find a 
 great number of most interesting statements. A 
 sample or two may be found not amiss: 
 
 Bracebridge HaU was written by Henry Irving. 
 
 Snow 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. 
 
 Ben Johnson survived Shakspeare in some respects. 
 
 In the Canterbury Tale it gives account 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 In the middle of the chapter I find many pages 
 of information concerning Shalcespeare's plays, Mil- 
 ton's works, and those of Bacon, Addison, Samuel 
 Johnson, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, 
 De Foe, Locke, Pope, Swift, Goldsmith, Bums, Cow- 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 per, 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 successful and charac- 
 teristic and gratifying public-school way. I have 
 space for but a trifling few of the results: 
 
 Lord Byron was the son of an heiress and a drunken man. 
 
 Wm. Wordsworth wrote the Barefoot Boy and Imitations on 
 Immortality. 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 Here are two or three miscellaneous facts that 
 may be of value, if taken in moderation : 
 
 Homer's writings are Homer's Essays Virgil the Aneid and 
 Paradise lost 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. 
 
 When the public-school pupil wrestles with the 
 political features of the Great Republic, they throw 
 him sometimes: 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States was established to ensure 
 domestic hostility. 
 
 Truth crushed to earth will rise again. As follows: 
 
 The Constitution of the United States is that part of the book 
 at the end which nobody reads. 
 
 And here she rises once more and untimely. There 
 should be a limit to public-school instruction; it 
 cannot be wise or well to let the young find out 
 everything : 
 
 Congress is divided into civilized half civilized and savage. 
 
 Here are some results of study in music and 
 oratory : 
 
 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. 
 
 The chapter on "Physiology" contains much that 
 ought not to be lost to science: 
 
 Physillogigy is to study about your bones stummick and 
 vertebry. 
 
 Occupations which are injurious to health are cabolic acid gas 
 which is impvu-e blood. 
 
 We have an upper and a lower sldn. 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 tissue. 
 
 The stomach is a small pear-shaped bone situated in the body. 
 
 The gastric juice keeps the bones from creaking. 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 The Chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches 
 the heart where it meets the oxygen and is purified. 
 
 The salivary glands are used to saUvate 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 de- 
 veloped into the special sense of hearing. 
 
 The growth of a tooth begins in the back of the mouth and 
 extends to the stomach. 
 _.'' 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. 
 
 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: 
 
 The theory that intuitive truths are discovered by the light 
 of nature originated from St. John's interpretation of a passage 
 in the Gospel of 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 62^ pounds. 
 
 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 voltune. 
 
 The law of fluid pressiwe divide the different forms of organized 
 bodies 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 passiveness either in recoverable 
 latency or insipient latescence. 
 
 If a laugh is fair here, not the struggling child, 
 nor the unintelligent teacjier — or rather the unin- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 telligent Boards, Committees, and Trustees — are the 
 proper target for it. All through this little book one 
 detects the signs of a certain 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 New York, a few years ago, a gentle- 
 man 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 trifling 
 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 un- 
 derlying it. Their memories had been stocked, but 
 not their understandings. It was a case of brick- 
 bat 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 (genuine) boy's com- 
 position I think I have ever seen : 
 
 ON GIRLS 
 
 Girls are very stuck up and dignefied in their maner and be 
 have your. They think more of dress than anything and like to 
 
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT 
 
 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 ftmy and making fun of boy's hands and they say how 
 dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. 
 They make fvm 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 one thing 
 I have not told and that is they al-ways now their lessons bettem 
 boys. 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion. 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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A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET 
 
 (This article, written during the autumn of 1899, was about the 
 last writing done by Mark Twain on any impersonal subject.) 
 
 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 wanted was a new set of 
 teeth. That is to say, a new alphabet. 
 
 The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alpha- 
 bet. It doesn't know how to spell, and can't be 
 taught. In this it is like all other alphabets except 
 one — the phonographic. That is the only competent 
 alphabet in the world. It can spell and correctly 
 pronounce any word in our language. 
 
 That admirable 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 facility, and to read it with con- 
 siderable 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. 
 
 256 
 
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A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET 
 
 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 would spell every 
 word out. 
 
 I will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz's 
 Phonic Shorthand. It is arranged on the basis of 
 Isaac Pitman's Phonography. Isaac Pitman was the 
 originator and father of scientific phonography. It 
 is 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 definitely — and correctly 
 — any word you please, just by the sound of it. 
 We can't do that with our present alphabet. For 
 instance, take the 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. 
 
 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" 
 
 257 
 
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^^IpftabiJt (tf 1 
 
 %m\t Mni\imL 
 
 CONSONANTS. 
 
 TOWELS. Simple. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Phono- 
 giaph. 
 
 Sound 
 as in 
 
 FIRST OR OPEN SOUNDS. 
 
 Long as in paie.- p»r- P.oul. 
 
 • 'i ; 
 
 P 
 
 pee 
 
 \ 
 
 pole. 
 
 B 
 
 Tbee 
 
 \ 
 
 b owl. 
 
 1 
 
 
 T 
 D 
 
 tee 
 dee 
 
 1 
 
 foe. 
 doe. 
 
 Short asin porry. Cuba. P 
 assk. 
 
 oW. 
 
 CH 
 
 chay 
 
 / 
 
 ch eer. 
 
 SECOND, OR MEDIAL. 
 
 Long as in p a te. -pu rl. p o le. 
 
 J 
 
 jay 
 
 / 
 
 ^eer. 
 
 f • 
 
 - 
 
 K 
 
 kay 
 
 
 
 c apie. 
 
 1 
 
 
 G 
 
 gay 
 
 
 
 g ame. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 F 
 
 ef 
 
 V 
 
 /ear. 
 
 Short as in pet. cut. while. 
 
 Y 
 
 vee 
 
 ^ 
 
 «eer. 
 
 THIRD, OR CLOSE. 
 
 TH 
 
 ith 
 
 ( 
 
 th igh. 
 
 p e« 1. p oo 1. 
 
 Th 
 
 thee 
 
 ( 
 
 tJiy. 
 
 S 
 
 es 
 
 ) 
 
 seal. 
 
 1 
 
 z 
 
 SH 
 
 ZH 
 
 L 
 
 R 
 
 zee 
 shee 
 «hee 
 
 lee. 
 
 ur.ree 
 
 ) 
 
 r 
 
 seal. 
 
 vicious 
 
 vi s ion. 
 
 Jay. 
 
 air. ) 
 ray. S 
 
 Short as in pVlt 
 
 piiii. 
 
 YOWEIS. Componnd. 
 
 file, foil. to 
 1st or open, V > u 
 
 3(1 or close, feM.< 
 
 ^1. 
 
 WORDS OF TWO SOUNDS. 
 
 Y 
 
 W 
 
 yay 
 
 way 
 
 < 
 
 yell. 
 w ell. 
 
 •1 I- )• )- -( ^ (- 
 
 aid. day. say. so. oath. they. thoV 
 
 M 
 
 em 
 
 -^ 
 
 m et. 
 
 
 N 
 
 en 
 
 w 
 
 n ex.. 
 
 nun. may. hoe. own. know, 
 no. 
 
 NG 
 
 ing 
 
 ■^^ 
 
 sing. 
 
 j) \ \ / / r 
 
 ASFIBATE or Free Breath. 
 
 H 1 hay 1 .^ 1 A av. 
 
 OB, up. ebb. etch. 
 
 edec. cl 
 
 ^1 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET 
 
 in the important matter of economy of labor. I 
 will illustrate: 
 
 Present form: through, laugh, highland. 
 
 Simplified form: thru, laff, hyland. 
 
 Phonograph form: ^ 
 
 To write the word fy/'^/Jl /''~'*1 
 
 "through," the pen has to ^ ' \^ <^ \ 
 
 make twenty-one strokes. , 
 
 To write the word "thru," the pen has to make 
 twelve 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 "laif," the pen has to make the same 
 number of strokes — no labor is saved to the pen- 
 man. 
 
 To write the same word with the phonographic 
 alphabet, the pen has to make only three strokes. 
 
 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 alpha- 
 bet, the pen has to make only fiw 
 strokes. " 
 
 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 phono- 
 259 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
MARK TWAIN 
 
 graphic alphabet, the pen has to make only seventeen 
 strokes. 
 
 Without the vowels, 
 only thirteen strokes. 
 The vowels are hardly necessary, this time. 
 
 We make five pen - strokes in writing an m. 
 Thus: ././. / a stroke down ; a stroke up; a second 
 stroke ' ' ' * down ; a second stroke up ; a final 
 stroke down. Total, five. The phonographic al- 
 phabet 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 
 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 strokes — ^let 
 them go. Without counting them, the twenty-six 
 letters of our alphabet consumed about eighty 
 pens-trokes for their construction — about three pen- 
 strokes per letter. 
 
 It is three times the number required by the phono- 
 graphic 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 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 
 260 
 
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A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET 
 
 houi^r-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! 
 
 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 alphabet 
 and put this better one in its place — using it in books, 
 newspapers, with the typewriter, and with the pen. 
 
 ^, •-• -i/^ — ^^*^ ^^ horse. I 
 
 /^"^'-'^^LJ L-:- ^"^F^^ ''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! 
 
 ( . ^^ \ \^ A I mean, in 
 
 ^* '' < ^"— ' ' J -J J 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 use so frank a term as that — and it will take five 
 hundred more to get our exasperating new Simpli- 
 fied 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. 
 
 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 hope- 
 fully trying to reform our drunken old alphabet by 
 reducing his whisky. Well, it will improve him. 
 When they get through and have reformed 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 whisky 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 na- 
 tion! and when you bunch a whole squadron of the 
 Simplified together the spectacle is very nearly un- 
 endurable. 
 
 The da ma ov koars kum when the publik ma be ex- 
 pektd to get rekonsyled to the bezair asspekt of the 
 Simplified Kombynashuns, but ,,x-^ 5-—^ i • — \ i 
 — if I may be allowed the ex- "^ J V ^ ' 
 pression — is it worth the wasted time? 
 
 262 
 
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A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET 
 
 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 sim- 
 plifications have sucked the thrill all out of it. 
 
 But a written character with which we are not 
 acquainted does not offend us — Greek, Hebrew, Rus- 
 sian, Arabic, and the others — they have an interest- 
 ing look, and we see beauty 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 hid- 
 den in these things has a fascination for us; we can't 
 come across a printed page of shorthand without be- 
 ing impressed by it and wishing we could read it. 
 
 Very well, what I am offering for acceptance and 
 adoption is not shorthand, but longhand, written 
 with the shorthand alphabet unreduced. 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: 
 
 ^ '^ ''"■^^^ "1 ^ ^ ^. '-^- ^ -^ 
 
 Even when / do it it comes out prettier than it does 
 in Simplified Spelling. Yes, and in the Simplified 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 it costs one hundred and twenty-three pen-strokes to 
 write it, whereas in the phonographic it costs only 
 twenty-nine. 
 
 (. -v^ ^=^ /\ 
 
 ' is probably 
 Let us hope so, anyway. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
AS CONCERNS INTERPRETINQ THE DEITY 
 
 I 
 
 THIS line of hieroglyphs was for fourteen years 
 the despair of all the scholars who labored 
 over the mysteries of the Rosetta stone: 
 
 VVv>r«' 
 
 After five years of study ChampoUion translated 
 it thus: 
 
 .Therefore let the worship of Epiphanes be maintained in all 
 the temples; this upon pain of death. 
 
 That was the twenty-fourth 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 Grtinfeldt, 
 was received with considerable favor: 
 
 The horse of Epiphanes shall be maintained at the public 
 expense; this upon pain of death. 
 
 But the following rendering, by Gospodin, was re- 
 ceived by the learned world with yet greater favor: 
 18 26s 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 aU 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 poHtical 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 Ufe and the pains of death. 
 
 Here is another difficult text: 
 
 It is demotic — a style of Egyptian writing and a 
 phase of the language which had perished from the 
 knowledge of all men twenty-five hundred years be- 
 fore 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 hiero- 
 
 266 
 
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INTERPRETING THE DEITY\ 
 
 gljrphs among the figures grouped upon the Dighton 
 Rocks which they have not succeeded in interpreting 
 to their satisfaction. These : 
 
 (j=/?(\;^ 
 
 The suggested solutions of this riddle are prac- 
 tically inniunerable; 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 diflSculties disappear. It was 
 always so. In antique Roman times it was the cus- 
 tom of the Deity to try to conceal His intentions in 
 the entrails of birds, and this was patiently and hope- 
 fully continued centiuy after century, although the 
 attempted concealment never succeeded, in a single 
 recorded instance. The augurs could read entrails 
 as easily as a modem 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 admiration. Those men could pierce 
 to the marrow of a mystery instantly. If the Roset- 
 ta-stone idea had been introduced it would have de- 
 feated them, but entrails had no embarrassments for 
 them. EIntrails have gone out, now — entrails and 
 dreams. It was at last found out that as hiding- 
 places for the divine intentions they were inadequate. 
 
 A part of the wall of Valletri having in former times been 
 struck with thunder, the response of the soothsayers was, that 
 
 267 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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-advertisements. One 
 of them appeared just before Caesar Augustus was 
 bom, and was most poetic and touching and roman- 
 tic in its feelings and aspects. It was a dream. It 
 was dreamed by Caesar Augustus's mother, and in- 
 terpreted at the usual rates: 
 
 Atia, before her delivery, dreamed that her bowels 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 RawHnson 
 and ChampoUion fourteen years to make sure of 
 what it meant, because they would have been sur- 
 prised and dizzy. It would have been too late to 
 be valuable, then, and the biU for service wotdd 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. AU through his life, whenever he had 
 poultry on the menu he saved the interiors and kept 
 himself informed of the Deity's plans by exercising 
 upon those interiors the arts of augury. 
 
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 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 great and wonder- 
 ful fortune. — Suetonitis, 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 deUcately sensitive to coming events, no matter 
 how far off they might be; and they could never 
 keep still, but would curl and squirm like that, par- 
 ticularly when vultures came and showed interest 
 in that approaching great event and in breakfast. 
 
 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 out- 
 rageous person, comes flying over from Normandy to 
 steal the throne from Henry's daughter. He ac- 
 complished 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 
 
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 who struck Jeremiah the great priest: he died within 
 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. 
 
 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 wish that he, too, 
 could have been let off as leniently. How did Henry 
 of Himtington 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 satis- 
 faction, was condemned to close his life in circum- 
 stances most distinctly unpleasant, inconvenient, 
 and disagreeable. His was probably the most unin- 
 spiring 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 Hunting- 
 ton knows why it was done, and tells us; and his pen 
 is eloquent with admiration; but when a man has 
 earned punishment, and escapes, he does not explain. 
 
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INTERPRETING THE DEITY 
 
 He is evidently puzzled, but he does not say any- 
 thing. 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 him- 
 self 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 
 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 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 dsring 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 Almighty 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 com- 
 mon 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 of- 
 fended at "them" at aU; He was only offended at 
 their kitig, 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" 
 
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 fell rather customarily upon the wrong person, but 
 Henry of Huntington does not explain why. 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, expelUng the monks, their sin 
 being the same, met with a similar punishment. Robert 
 Marmion was one, Godfrey de Mandeville 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 excommimicated, he 
 became subject to death everlasting. In Uke manner Earl 
 Godfrey was singled out among his followers, and shot with an 
 arrow by a common foot-soldier. 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! 
 
 This exaltation jars upon me; not because of the 
 death of the men, for they deserved that, but be- 
 cause 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 life- 
 time, whom I would rejoice to see writhing 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 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- 
 
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INTERPRETING THE DEITY 
 
 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, aiid with the reasons for 
 his intentions. Sometimes — very often, in fact — 
 the act follows the intention after such a wide in- 
 terval 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 
 intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with 
 a crime, and is punished for it thirty years later; 
 meantime he has 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." 
 For instance: 
 
 . . . the just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand'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.) 
 
 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. 
 
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 However, one thing we do know ; and that is that 
 that worm had been due years and years. Robert 
 F. had violated a monastery once; he had committed 
 unprintable crimes since, and they had been per- 
 mitted — 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 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 fore- 
 casts of the Lord's purposes were furnished by a 
 pope, who perceived, by certain perfectly trust- 
 worthy signs furnished by the Deity for the informa- 
 tion of His familiars, that the end of the world was 
 
 . . . 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 pass. 
 
 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 judg- 
 ment." 
 
 That was thirteen hundred years ago. This is 
 really no improvement on the work of the Roman 
 augurs. 
 
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CONCERNING TOBACCO 
 
 (Written about 1893; not before published.) 
 
 AS concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. 
 /v. And the chief est 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 stand- 
 ard 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 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, yet imagines he goes 
 by the flavor. One may palm off the worst counter- 
 feit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke it 
 contentedly and never suspect. 
 
 Children of twenty-five, who have seven years of 
 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. 
 
 No one can tell me what is a good cigar — ^for me. 
 I am the only judge. People who claim to know say 
 
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 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 engage- 
 ments 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 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 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 — but their fortitude 
 held for a short time only; then they made excuses 
 and filed out, treading on one another's heels with in- 
 decent 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 cab- 
 baged 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. 
 
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CONCERNING TOBACCO 
 
 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 covers 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 feel- 
 ings when they 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 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 girdled 
 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, 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 pwn brand — 
 twenty-seven cents a barrel — and I live to see my 
 family again. I may seem to light his red-gartered 
 cigar, 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 join 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 know that they are made 
 of dog-hair, and not good dog-hair 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 
 France, the Government is the only cigar-peddler. 
 Italy has three or four domestic brands: the Min- 
 ghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse 
 one which is a modification of the Virginia. The 
 Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three dol- 
 lars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a him- 
 dred in seven days and enjoy every one of them. 
 The Trabucos suit me, too; I don't remember the 
 price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia, no- 
 body is bom friendly to it. It looks like a rat- 
 tail file, but smokes better, some thinks 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 
 aj; first. However, I like all the French, Swiss, Ger- 
 man, and Italian domestic cigars, and have never 
 cared to inquire what they are made of; and nobody 
 would know, 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 
 
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CONCERNING TOBACCO 
 
 and dry and black, and looks like tea-grounds. 
 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 super- 
 stition. There are no standards — no real standards. 
 Each man's preference is the only standard for him, 
 the only one which he can accept, the only one which 
 can command him. 
 
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THE BEE 
 
 (Written about 1902 ; not before published.) 
 
 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 remem- 
 ber 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 com- 
 petent to lay two million eggs. This will be enough 
 to last the year, but not more than enough, because 
 htindreds of bees get 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 
 
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THE BEE 
 
 season, which is summer, or winter would catch the 
 community short of food. She lays from two thou- 
 sand 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 flower-harvest, 
 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 luxuri- 
 ous life. By consequence they are larger and longer 
 and sleeker than their workinp; sisters. And they 
 have a curved sting, shaped like a simitar, 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 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, may- 
 be 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 hold 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 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 the Egj^tian 
 darkness and stately seclusion of the royal apart- 
 ments, 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 in 
 the interest of her waiting heirs, and report and ex- 
 aggerate 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 sjmipathies and sweet companionship and 
 loving endearments which she craves, by the gilded 
 barriers of her awful rank ; a forlorn exile in her own 
 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 loveless 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! 
 
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THE BEE 
 
 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 innumerable facts brought to 
 light by their own painstaking and exhaustive experi- 
 ments 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 accu- 
 mulation proves an entirely different thing. When 
 you point out this miscarriage to him he does 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 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 the concern 
 doesn't know how to exercise any other, and would 
 be offended if asked to take a hand in anything out- 
 side 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 would happen. Cooks will play the 
 piano if you like, 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 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 of existence, if not the boniest. 
 Without doubt it is so in the hive. 
 
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TAMING THE BICYCLE 
 
 In the early eighties Mark Twain learned to ride one of the 
 old high-wheel bicycles of that period. He wrote an account of 
 his experience, but did not offer it for publication. The form of 
 bicycle he rode long ago became antiquated, but in the humor 
 of his pleasantry is a quality which does not grow old. 
 
 A. B. P. 
 
 I THOUGHT the matter over, and concluded I 
 could do it. So I went down and 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 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 stahd 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 crash, he at the bottom, I next, and 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 admirably these things are 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 
 up 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 surprised admiration; said it was 
 abnormal. She was all right, not a scratch on her, 
 not a timber started anywhere. I said it was won- 
 derful, while we were greasing up, but he said that 
 when I came to know these steel spider-webs I would 
 realize that nothing but dynamite could cripple 
 them. Then he limped out to position, and we re- 
 sumed 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 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 hospital, and found the Expert doing pretty 
 
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TAMING THE BICYCLE 
 
 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 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. 
 Against nature, but not against the laws of 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 just the other way. I perceived by this how 
 radically and grotesquely wrong had been the life- 
 long education of my body and members. 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 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 impos- 
 sible; it is opposed to all your notions. And it is 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 just as hard to do it, after you do come to 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 that it will stay with him. It is not 
 like studying German, where you muU along, in a 
 groping, uncertain way, for thirty years ; and at last, 
 just as you think you've got it, they spring the sub- 
 junctive on you, and there you are. No — and I see 
 now, plainly enough, that the great pity about the 
 German 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 siu-e way to learn German is by the 
 bicycling method. That is to say, take a grip on 
 one villainy of it at a time, and learn it — ^not ease up 
 and shirk to the next, leaving that one half learned. 
 
 When you have reached the point in bicycling 
 where you 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, 
 
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 stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in 
 the air in a general and 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 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 tiUer because- it is a 
 tiller; "handle-bar" is a lamely descriptive phrase). 
 So you steer along, straight ahead, a 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 at- 
 tempts and six more falls 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 bal- 
 ance 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 words are few, the requirement simple, and appar- 
 ently undifficult; let your left pedal go down till 
 your left leg is nearly straight, turn 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. 
 
 II 
 
 During eight days I took a daily lesson of an hour 
 and a half. At the end of this twelve working-hours' 
 apprenticeship I was graduated — ^in the rough. I was 
 pronounced competent to paddle my own bicycle 
 without outside help. It seems incredible, this celer- 
 ity 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 sel- 
 dom 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 inexperi- 
 
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 enced side. If personal experience can be worth 
 anything as an education, it wouldn't seem likely 
 that you could trip Methuselah; and yet if that 
 old person could come back here it is more than 
 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 in- 
 struction, 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 in- 
 quired concerning my physical strength, and I wg,s 
 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 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 ghdes from under the fingefs; in the 
 dark a body might think it was an oyster in a rag." 
 
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 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 prac- 
 tice; 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 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 encourag- 
 ing moral support from the outside, no sympathetic 
 instructor to say, "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 support. 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 believe I could stay 
 on a horse-car. But 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 
 
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 rip along!" Then he got down from his post and 
 loafed along the sidewalk, still observing and occa- 
 sionally commenting. Presently he dropped into my 
 wake and followed along behind. A little girl passed 
 by, balancing a wash-board on her head, and giggled, 
 and seemed about to make a remark, but the boy 
 said, rebukingly, "LrCt him alone, he's going to a 
 funeral." 
 
 I had 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 of 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 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 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. 
 
 I was at the end of my course, at last, and it was 
 necessary for me to round to. This is not a pleasant 
 
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 thing, when you undertake it for the first time on 
 your own responsibiHty, and neither is it likely to 
 succeed. Your confidence oozes away, you fill stead- 
 ily 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 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 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 cabbages. If I needed anything to per- 
 fect 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 
 
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 came to the rescue, and for once I had to be grateful 
 to him. He kept a sharp lookout on the swiftly vary- 
 ing impulses and inspirations of my bicycle, and 
 shouted to the man accordingly : 
 
 "To the left! Turn to the left, or this jackass '11 
 nm 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 a goner!" 
 
 And just then I caught the off horse in the star- 
 board 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?" 
 
 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 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 
 that that may be true; but I think that the reason 
 
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 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 always so in my experience. Even 
 when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that 
 came to see me practise. They all liked to see me 
 practise, 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 out one of these days and run over 
 him if he doesn't reform. 
 
 Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live. 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 (from my autobiography) 
 
 SCATTERED here and there 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 histori- 
 cally notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf, 
 Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claim- 
 ant; Louis XVII., Claimant; WilHam 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 yon- 
 der 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 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 
 
 Copyright. 1909. by Harper & Brothers. 
 20 
 
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 couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no mat- 
 ter 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 near forty years ago Orton had a huge 
 army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many 
 of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced after 
 their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed 
 as a perjurer, and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is 
 not only immense, but is daily augmenting in num- 
 bers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and 
 educated 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 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 bom of 
 Delia Bacon's book — away back in that ancient day 
 — 1857, or maybe 1856. About a year later my 
 pilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own 
 
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 steamboat 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 superintendence and cor- 
 rection of the master. He was a prime chess-player 
 and an idolater of Shakespeare. He woidd 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 injected 
 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, some- 
 times, which observations were Shakespeare's and 
 which were Ealer 's. For instance: 
 
 What man dare, / 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 ofiE! 
 rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the there she goes! 
 meet her, meet her! didn't you know she'd smell the reef if you 
 crowded it like that? H3n:can tiger; take any shape but that 
 and my firm nerves she'll be in the woods the first you know! 
 stop the starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back 
 the starboard! . . . Now then, you're all right; 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? puU her down! snatch her! 
 snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I inhabit 
 then, lay in the leads! — no, only the starboard one, leave the 
 other alone, protest me the baby of a girl. Hence horrible 
 
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 shadow! eight bells — ^that 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 
 interruptions 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 detri- 
 ment to me. 
 
 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? 
 
 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 
 
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 and disputed ; at any rate, he did, and I got in a word 
 now and then when he slipped a cog and there was 
 a vacancy. He did his arguing with heat, with en- 
 ergy, with violence; and I did mine with the reserve 
 and moderation of a subordinate who does not like to 
 be flung out of a pilot-house that is perched forty 
 feet above the water. He was fiercely 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 ad- 
 mired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the dis- 
 tance that lay between the lofty boss-pilotical alti- 
 tude and my lowly one, yet perceptible to me; 
 perceptible, and translatable into a compliment — 
 compliment coming down from above the snow-line 
 and not well thawed in the transit, and not likely 
 to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot's self- 
 conceit ; stUl a detectable compliment, 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 — than 
 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 very little 
 while, a very, very, very little while. Then the at- 
 mosphere 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 disposition. Therefore 
 it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing 
 
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 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, dia- 
 mond-flashing reasoning. That was his name for it. 
 It has been applied since, with complacency, as 
 many as several times, in the 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 that, 
 and the war broke loose. Study, practice, experi- 
 ence 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, rab- 
 idly, uncompromisingly. After that I was welded 
 to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, 
 and I looked down with compassion 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 
 to-day, and in it I find comfort, solace, peace, and 
 never-failing joy. You see how curiously theological 
 it is. The "rice Christian" of the Orient goes 
 through the very same steps, when he is after rice 
 
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 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 
 passion for calling it by that large name. We others 
 do not call our inductions and deductions and re- 
 ductions by any name at all. They show for them- 
 selves what they are, and we can with tranquil 
 confidence leave the world to ennoble them 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 believed; but always "no 
 bottom," as he said. 
 
 I got the best of him only once. I prepared 
 myself. I wrote out a passage from Shakespeare — 
 it may have been the very one I quoted awhile ago, 
 I don't remember — and riddled it with his wild 
 steamboatful interlardings. When an unrisky op- 
 portunity offered, one lovely summer day, when we 
 had soimded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings 
 known as 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 sur- 
 
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 passing fire and spirit ; read it as it will never be read 
 again; for he knew how to put the right 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. 
 
 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 ammionition- 
 wagon — to wit, that Shakespeare couldn't have writ- 
 ten Shakespeare's works, for the reason that the man 
 who wrote them was limitlessly familiar with 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 an- 
 swered 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 com- 
 fortably and successfully the argot of a trade at 
 which he has not personally served. He will make 
 mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the trade- 
 phrasings precisely and exactly right; and the mo- 
 ment he departs, by even a shade, from a common 
 trade-form, the reader who has served that trade 
 will know the writer hasn't. Ealer would not be 
 
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 convinced; he said a man could learn how to cor- 
 rectly 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 
 passage 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 could talk them off 
 in book and play or conversation and make no mis- 
 take 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 support 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. 
 
 Oh 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 some- 
 body again. 
 
 When a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it 
 goes without saying that he keeps company with 
 other standard authors. 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 
 
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 on duty it took its rest, disjointed, on the compass- 
 shelf under the breastboard. When the Pennsyl- 
 vania blew up and became a drifting rack-heap 
 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 pilot-house 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 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, to keep out the steam, 
 and scrabbled around with the other till he found the 
 joints 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 Klinefelter. 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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II 
 
 WHEN I was a Sunday-school scholar, some- 
 thing 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 stone-mason, was re- 
 luctant 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 per- 
 fectly noble. I asked Mr. Barclay if he had ever 
 heard of another woman who, being approached by a 
 serpent, 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 disap- 
 pointed. 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. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Barclay's sympathy and compassion 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 feU; 
 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 subse- 
 quent time he traveled extensively, seeking whom 
 he might devour; that a couple of centuries after- 
 ward, "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. 
 
 And so on and so on. We set down the five known 
 facts by themselves, on a piece of paper, and num- 
 bered it "page i"; 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 "unques- 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 tionablys," and "without a shadow of doubts" — 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 had suspicions — suspicions that my at- 
 titude in this 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 account. 
 
 I assured himi, in earnest and sincere words, that 
 he had wholly misconceived my attitude; that I 
 had the highest respect for Satan, and that my 
 reverence for him equaled, and possibly even ex- 
 ceeded, that of any member of any 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 Per- 
 hapsers, the Might-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have- 
 Beeners, the Must-Have-Beeners, the Without-a- 
 Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-Are-Warranted-in-Be- 
 lievingers, and all that funny crop of solemn archi- 
 tects who have taken a good solid foundation of five 
 indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon 
 it a Conjectural Satan thirty miles high." 
 
 What did Mr. Barclay do then? Was he dis- 
 armed? Was he silenced? No. He was shocked. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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. 
 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 atten- 
 tion. I wrote the biography, and have never been 
 in a respectable house since. 
 
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Ill 
 
 How curious and interesting is the parallel — as 
 far as poverty of biographical details is con- 
 cerned — 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 tradi- 
 tion. How sublime is their position, and how over- 
 topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme — the two 
 Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjectura- 
 bilities! 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, un- 
 disputed facts. 
 
 FACTS 
 
 He was bom 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 il- 
 literate. Of the nineteen important men charged 
 with the government of the town, thirteen had to 
 "make their mark" in attesting important docu- 
 ments, because they could not write their names. 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Of the first eighteen years of his life nothing is 
 known. They are a blank. 
 
 On the 27th of November (1582) WUliam Shake- 
 speare 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 dis- 
 pensation there was but one publication of the 
 banns. 
 
 Within six months the first child was bom. 
 
 About two (blank) years followed, during which 
 period nothing at all happened to Shakespeare, so far 
 as anybody knows. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 re- 
 mained obscure. 
 
 Three pretty full years follow. Full of play-act- 
 ing. Then 
 
 In 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford. 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 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. 
 
 Then — i6io-ii — ^he returned to Stratford and set- 
 tled 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, bor- 
 rowed 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 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 — chouses, lands, sword, silver-gilt bowl, 
 and so on — all the way down to his "second-best 
 bed" and its furniture. 
 
 It carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches 
 among the members 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 shillings 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 remembered 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. 
 
 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 
 unfinished 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 need 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 wife would have got a 'dower 
 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 docu- 
 ments. 
 
 These five signatures stiU ejdst. 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 There are no other specimens of his penmanship in 
 existence. Not a line. 
 
 Was he prejudiced against the art? His grand- 
 daughter, whom he loved, was eight years old when 
 he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left no pro- 
 vision for her education, although he was rich, and 
 in her mature womanhood she couldn't write and 
 couldn't tell her husband's manuscript from any- 
 body 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 when 
 Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and 
 Raleigh, and the other distinguished literary folk 
 of Shakespeare's time passed from life ! No praise- 
 ful 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 anybody knows and can prove, he never 
 wrote a letter to anybody in his life. 
 
 So far as any one knows, he received only one letter 
 during his life. 
 
 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; 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 he wrote the whole of it out of his own head. He 
 commanded that this work of art be engraved upon 
 his tomb, and he was obeyed. There it abides to this 
 day. This is it: 
 
 Good friend for lesus sake forbeare 
 To digg the dust encloased heare: 
 Blest be ye man jrt spares thes stones 
 And ctirst be he 3rt moves my bones. 
 
 In the list as above set down will be found every 
 positively known fact of Shakespeare's Hfe, 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 artificiaUties rising 
 sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation 
 of inconsequential facts. 
 
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IV 
 
 CONJECTURES 
 
 THE historians "suppose" that Shakespeare at- 
 tended the Free School in Stratford from the 
 time he was seven years 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 sup- 
 port his parents and 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 
 slaughtered 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 who could have been there, but did not say 
 whether he was or not ; and neither of them thought 
 to mention it for decades, and decades, and decades, 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 and two more decades after Shakespeare's death 
 (until old age and mental decay had refreshed and 
 vivified their memories). They hadn't 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. Cimous. 
 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 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 ac- 
 counts for "Titus Andronicus," the only play — ain't 
 it? — that the Stratford Shakespeare ever wrote; and 
 yet it is the only one everybody tries to chouse him 
 out of, the Baconians included. 
 
 The historians find themselves "justified in be- 
 lieving" that the young Shakespeare poached upon 
 Sir Thomas 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 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 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 Stratford history comes easy. The historian builds 
 it out of the surmised deer-stealing, and the sur- 
 mised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised 
 vengeance-prompted satire upon 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 admiration 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 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 imply- 
 ing that it was his first effort at literary composition. 
 He shotild not have said it. It has been an embar- 
 rassment 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 — 1 586 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. 
 
 It 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 thir- 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 teen, when he was supposably wrenched 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 result 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 unsurpass- 
 able literary form. 
 
 However, it is "conjectured" that he accom- 
 plished all this 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 accu- 
 mulated 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 thereto a wider and more intimate knowl- 
 edge 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 admiration-compelling use of these splendid 
 treasures the moment he got to London. And ac- 
 cording 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 he did not keep a library. 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 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 the clerk 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 whale-fishery and 
 the shop-talk of the veteran exercises of that ad- 
 venture-bristling trade through catching catfish with 
 a "trot-line" Sundays. But the surmise is dam- 
 aged by the fact that there is no evidence — and not 
 even tradition — 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. 
 
 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 needed all the time 
 he could get. The horse-holding legend ought to be 
 strangled; it too formidably increases the historian's 
 difficulty in accounting for the young Shakespeare's 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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. 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edges, 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 Germany and arotmd, and 
 qualified himself to put their scenic and social aspects 
 upon paper; that 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 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 frol- 
 licked in the law-courts for recreation. Also, who 
 did the call-boying and the play-acting. 
 
 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 prop- 
 erly and officially listed member of that (in those 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 days) lightly valued and not much respected pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Right soon thereafter he became a stockholder in 
 two theaters, and manager of them. Thencefor- 
 ward he was a busy and flourishing business man, and 
 was raldng in money with both hands for twenty 
 years. Then in a noble frenzy of poetic inspiration 
 he wrote his one poem — ^his only poem, his darling — 
 and laid him down and died: 
 
 Good friend for lesus 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 
 constitute the giant Biography of William Shake- 
 speare? It would strain the Unabridged Dictionary 
 to hold them. He is a brontosaur: nine bones and 
 six hundred barrels of plaster of Paris. 
 
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WE MAY ASSUME 
 
 IN the Assuming trade three separate and inde- 
 pendent cults are transacting business. Two of 
 these cults are known as the Shakespearites and the 
 Baconians, and I am the other one — the Bronto- 
 saurian. 
 
 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 Shake- 
 speare 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 ma- 
 terials, 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 Shakespear- 
 ites. The Shakespearite conducts his asstiming 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 mat- 
 ter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite 
 to cipher-up his materials upon any other basis. 
 With the Baconian it is different. If you place be- 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 fore 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, un- 
 educated, 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"; 
 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 before- 
 hand. 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 word, it is his). He wUl say the kitten may 
 have been attending school when nobody was notic- 
 ing; 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 one was 
 noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways, 
 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 accu- 
 mulated vast acquirements and competences needed 
 but one thing more — opporttmity — ^to convert them- 
 selves into triiunphant action. The opportunity 
 came, we have the result ; beyond shadow of 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 oj 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 achievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as 
 comes its way; but there is abundant evidence — un- 
 assailable proof, in fact — thai the 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." 
 
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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. Appar- 
 ently his eminent literary contemporaries did not 
 realize that a celebrated poet had passed 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, includ- 
 ing 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 every- 
 
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 body soon forgot to remember any contact 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 vmremembering condition: 
 if they knew of any incident connected with that 
 period of his life they didn't tell about it. Would 
 they 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 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 inquiries 
 were only made of Stratfordians who were not Strat- 
 fordians of Shakespeare's day, but later comers; 
 and 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 
 remembering either as history or fiction. 
 
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 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 perma- 
 nently so? I don't believe it has happened in 
 any case 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 
 Ukely 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, 
 Missouri, 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 my book-edu- 
 cation 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 Hanni- 
 bal fifteen and a half years, altogether, then ran 
 away, according to the custom of persons who are in- 
 tending to become celebrated. I never lived there 
 afterward. Four years later I became a "cub" on a 
 Mississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and New 
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 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 
 Government. 
 
 Now then. Shakespeare died young — ^he was 
 only fifty-two. 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 elsewhere took 
 any notice of it; and for sixty years afterward no 
 townsman remembered 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 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 himt them up and interview them ? Wasn't 
 it worth while ? Wasn't the matter of sufficient con- 
 
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 sequence ? Had the inquirer an engagement 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 year being already well behind me — ^yet sixteen 
 of my Hannibal schoolmates are still alive to-day, 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, 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 stiU 
 alive — ^in London — and hale and hearty, just as I am. 
 And on the few surviving steamboats — those linger- 
 ing ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets 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 engineers; and several 
 roustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands 
 who used to heave the lead for me and send up on the 
 
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 still night air 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, 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. 
 
 ' Four fathoms — twenty-four feet. 
 
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VII 
 
 IF I had under my superintendence a'controversy 
 appointed-to decide whether Shakespeare wrote 
 Shakespeare or not, I believe I wotild place before 
 the debaters only the one question, Was Shakespeare 
 ever a practising lawyer? and leave everything else 
 out. 
 
 It is maintained that the man who wrote the 
 plays was not merely myriad-minded, but also myr- 
 iad-accomplished : that he not only knew some thou- 
 sands 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 them- 
 selves in, but that he could talk about the men and 
 their grades and trades accurately, making no mis- 
 takes. Maybe it is so, but have the experts spoken, 
 or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry? Does the ex- 
 hibit 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 testi- 
 fied definitely as to only one of Shakespeare's mtil- 
 tifarious craft-equipments, so far as my recollections 
 of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me — ^his law- 
 equipment. I do not remember that Wellington or 
 
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 Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare's battles and 
 sieges and strategies, and then decided and estab- 
 lished for good and all that they were militarily 
 flawless; I do not remember that any Nelson, or 
 Drake, or Cook ever examined his seamanship and 
 said it showed profound and accurate familiarity with 
 that art ; I don't remember 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 re- 
 member that any illustrious Latinist or Grecian or 
 Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed 
 him a past-master in those languages; I don't re- 
 member — well, I don't remember that there is tes- 
 timony — ^great testimony — imposing testimony — ^un- 
 answerable 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 imdergone in the long stretch of a century or 
 two and find out what their processes and tech- 
 nicalities were in those early days, but with the law 
 it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented aU 
 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-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 counter- 
 
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 feit 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 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 Ustenings. Hear him: 
 
 Having hove short, cast o£E 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 cat-headed, and the ship 
 under headway. 
 
 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 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 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 fore-royal; 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 supporting the great fabrics raised 
 upon them, 'Hie California was to windward of us, and had 
 
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 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. "Sheet home the fore- 
 royal!" — "Weather sheet's home!" — "Lee sheet's home!" — 
 "Hoist away, sir!" is bawled from aloft. "Overhaul youi- clew- 
 lines!" shouts the mate. "Aye-aye, sir, all clear!" — "Taut 
 leech! belay! Well the lee braqe; 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 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, unre- 
 corded, unremembered, and lost to history in the 
 last three hundred years? It is my conviction that 
 Shakespeare's sailor-talk would be Choctaw to him. 
 For instance — ^from "The Tempest": 
 
 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 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, a-hold! 
 
 Set her two courses. Off to sea again; lay her off. 
 
 That will do, for the present; let us yare a little, 
 now, for a change. 
 
 If a man should write a book and in it make one of 
 his characters say, "Here, devil, empty the quoins 
 
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 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 busi- 
 ness : I know all about discovery claims and the sub- 
 ordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, out- 
 croppings, 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 copper; and how to clean them up, 
 and how to reduce the resulting amalgam in the re- 
 torts, 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 of the quartz-mining and milling 
 industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte in- 
 troduces that industry into a story, the first time 
 one of his miners opens his mouth 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 dialect that belongs with 
 them; and whenever Harte introduces that industry 
 into a story I know by the phrasing of his characters 
 
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 that neither he nor they have ever served that 
 trade. 
 
 I have been a "pocket" miner — a. sort of gold 
 mining not findable in any but pne 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 yeUow 
 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 hav- 
 ing learned it by the sweat of his brow and the labor 
 of his hands. 
 
 I know several dther trades and the argot that 
 goes with them; and whenever a person tries to 
 talk the talk peculiar 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 re- 
 quired to superintend a Bacon-Shakespeare contro- 
 versy, I would narrow the matter down to a single 
 question — the only one, so iar as the previous con- 
 troversies have informed me, concerning which il- 
 lustrious experts of unimpeachable competency have 
 testified: Was the author of Shakespeare's Works a 
 lawyer? — ^a lawyer deeply read and of limitless ex- 
 perience? I would put aside the guesses and sur- 
 mises, and perhapses, 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 indefinitenesses, and stand 
 
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 or fall, win or lose, by the verdict 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 remembered 
 to tell anything about him, did not write the Works. 
 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 Shakespeare-Bacon puzzle. 
 
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VIII 
 
 SHAKESPEARE AS A LAWYER ^ 
 
 THE Plays and Poems of Shakespeare supply ample evidence 
 that their author not only had a very extensive and ac- 
 curate knowledge of law, but that he was weE acquainted with 
 the maimers and customs of members of the Inns of Court and 
 with legal life generally. 
 
 "While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mis- 
 takes as to the laws of marriage, of wills, and inheritance, 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 ofiBce 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 terms 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 suppUes us with an 
 example of this. He writes (p. 164): "On February 15, 1609, 
 Shakespeare . . . obtained judgment from a jury against Adden- 
 broke for the payment of No. 6, and No. i, 55. od. 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 
 (whidi is the prerogative of the court), but to find a verdict on 
 the facts. The error is, indeed, a venial one, but it is just one of 
 
 1 Prom Chapter XIII of The Shakespeare Problem Restated. By 
 George G. Greenwood, M.P. John Lane Company, publishers. 
 
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 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 in- 
 competence. "Let a non-professional man, however acute," 
 writes Lord Campbell again, "presume to taJk law, or to draw 
 illustrations from legal science in discussing other 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: "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 terms, his frequent adoption of them in 
 illustration, and his curiously technical knowledge of their form 
 and force." Malone, himself a lawyer, wrote: "His knowledge 
 of legal terms 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 Shakespearian, Richard Grant White, says: "No drama- 
 tist of the time, not even Beaumont, who was the younger son 
 of a judge of the Common Pleas, and who after stud3ring in the 
 Inns of Court abandoned law for the drama, used legal phrases 
 with Shakespeare's readiness and exactness. And the significance 
 of this fact is heightened by another, that it is only to the 
 language of the law that he exhibits this inclination. The 
 phrases peculiar to other occupations serve him on rare 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 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 
 
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 not only fails to account 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 terms his use of which is most 
 remarkable, which are not 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 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 these terms are in- 
 troduced have compelled the admiration 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 terms 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 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 the principles of 
 evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction 
 between the temporal and spiritual tribimals, 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." 
 
 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 i860, 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 
 
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 one of the first legal authorities of his day, famous for his "re- 
 markable grasp of legal principles," and "endowed by nature 
 with a remarkable faxiility for marshaling facts, and for a clear 
 expression of his views." 
 
 Lord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare's "perfect familiarity 
 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 un- 
 exampled. He seems to have had a special pleasure in his 
 complete and ready mastership 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 knovsrledge which is 
 exhibited in page after page of the plays. At every turn and 
 point at which the author required a metaphor, simile, or illus- 
 tration, his mind ever turned firsl to the law. He seems almost 
 to have thought in legal phrases, the commonest of legal expres- 
 sions were ever at the end of his pen in description or illustration. 
 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 ex- 
 hibited in a far different manner: it protruded itself on all 
 occasions, appropriate or inappropriate, and mingled 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 terms 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 contact with legal questions 
 and general legal work would be requisite. But a continuous 
 employment itivolves 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 practising 
 lawyers?" 
 
 Stratfordians, as is well known, casting about for some possible 
 explanation of Shakespeare's extraordinary knowledge of law, 
 have made the suggestion that Shakespeare might, conceivably, 
 have been a clerk in aa attorney's office before he came to London. 
 
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 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 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 Courts at Westminster would pre- 
 sent his name as being concerned in any suit as an attorney, 
 but it might reasonably have been expected that there would be 
 deeds or wills witnessed by him still extant, and after a very 
 diligent search none such can be discovered." 
 
 Upon this Lord Penzance comments: "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 supports this notion of a clerkship. 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." 
 
 It is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he, 
 nevertheless, adopts this exploded myth. "That Shakespeare 
 was in early hfe employed as a clerk ia 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 prob- 
 abihty to suppose that the 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. There 
 is, as we have seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a 
 butcher's apprentice. John Dowdall, who made a tour in War- 
 wickshire in 1693, testifies to it as coming from the old clerk 
 who showed him over the church, and it is unhesitatingly ac- 
 
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 cepted as true by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps. (Vol. I, p. ii, and 
 Vol. II, pp. 71, 72.) Mr. Sidney Lee sees nothing improbable 
 in it, and it is supported by Aubrey, who must have written his 
 accoimt some time before 1680, when his manuscript was com- 
 pleted. 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 Strat- 
 fordians, seeking for some explanation of the Stratford rustic's 
 marvelous acquaintance with law and legal terms 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 point out, is really put out of court by the 
 negative evidence, since "no young man could have been at 
 work in an attorney's office without being called upon con- 
 tinually 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 pub- 
 lished (between forty and fifty years ago), "every old deed 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 so served for a considerable 
 period in order to have gained (if, indeed, it is credible that he 
 could have so gained) his remarkable knowledge of law. Can 
 we then for a moment believe that, if this had been so, tradition 
 would have been absolutely silent on the matter? That Dow- 
 dall's old clerk, over eighty years of age, should have never heard 
 of it (though he was siure 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. Tradi- 
 tion is to be scouted when it is found inconvenient, but cited as 
 irrefragable truth when it suits the case. Shakespeare of Strat- 
 ford was the author of the Plays and Poems, but the author of the 
 Plays and Poems could not have been a butcher's apprentice. 
 Away, therefore, with tradition. But the author of the Plays 
 and Poems must ha,ve had a very large and a very accurate 
 knowledge of the law. Therefore, Shakespeare of Stratford must 
 
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 have been an attorney's clerk! The method is simplicity itself. 
 By similar reasoning Shakespeare has been made a country school- 
 master, 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 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 tolerably 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 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 
 sailor or a soldier. (Wrong again. Why, even Messrs. Gamett 
 and Gosse "suspect" that he was a soldier!) This may be con- 
 ceded, 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 abvmdantly 
 clear, was simply saturated. In season and out of season now in 
 manifest, now in recondite application, 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 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 actual attendance at the Courts, at a 
 Pleader's Chambers, and on circuit, or by associating intimately 
 with members of the Bench and Bar." 
 
 This is excellent. But what is Mr. CoUins's explanation? 
 "Perhaps the simplest solution of the problem is to accept the 
 
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 hypothesis that in early life he was in an attorney's office (!), that 
 he there contracted a love for the law which 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 sub- 
 ject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and 
 ostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet suc- 
 ceeded in keeping himself from tripping." 
 
 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 members of the Inns of Court. 
 
 One is, of course, thankful that Mr. Collins has appreciated 
 the fact that Shakespeare must have had a soimd 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 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 terms and phrases, not only of the conveyancer's 
 office, but of the pleader's chambers and the Courts at West- 
 minster." This, as Lord Penzance points out, "would require 
 nothing short of employment in some career involving constant 
 contact 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 chambers or offices of practising law- 
 yers? ... 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 means of a livelihood, and this he did in some capacity 
 
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 at the theater. No one doubts 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 employ- 
 ment 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 'Johaimes Factotum.' 
 His rapid accumulation of wealth speaks volumes for the con- 
 stancy 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 employ- 
 ment. 'In 1589,' says Knight, 'we have undeniable evidence 
 that he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried 
 servant, as many players were, but was a shareholder in the 
 company of the Queen's players with other shareholders below 
 him on the list.' This (i 589) would be within two years after his 
 arrival in London, which is placed by White and HaUiwell- 
 Phillipps about the year 1587. The difficulty ia supposing that, 
 starting with a state of ignorance 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 ahnost insuperable. 
 StiU 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 
 unaccoimtable 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 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 taken a leading part in the management and 
 conduct of two theaters, and if Mr. PhiUipps is to be relied 
 upon, taken his share in the performances of the provincial toiurs 
 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 him- 
 self complete master of its principles and practice, and saturate 
 his mind with all its most technical terms?" 
 
 I have cited this passage 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, 
 
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 which beset the idea that Shakespeare might have found time in 
 some unknown period of early life, amid multifarious other occu- 
 pations, for the study of classics, literature, and law, to say noth- 
 ing of languages and a few other matters. Lord Penzance further 
 asks his 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 practising in that profession? 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 authori- 
 tative; and so uncheapened, iinwatered by guesses, 
 and surmises, and maybe-so's, and might-have-beens, 
 and could-have-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 Shake- 
 speare's Works knew all about law and lawyers. 
 Also, that that man could not have been the Strat- 
 ford Shakespeare — and wasn't. 
 
 Who did write these Works, then? 
 
 I wish I knew. 
 
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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, Hke 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 hard- 
 est 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 
 terms 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 in- 
 ferences, 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 
 
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 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 admiration, de- 
 light, 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 remember "Beautiful Snow"? Do 
 you remember "Rock Me to Sleep, Mother, Rock 
 Me to Sleep " ? Do you remember ' ' Backward, turn 
 backward, O Time, in thy flight ! Make me a child 
 again just for to-night"? I remember 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. 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 — footprints 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 ? Were there two ? No — the people knew 
 
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 who it was that had been along there: there was 
 only one Hercules. 
 
 There has been only one Shakespeare. There 
 cotddn't be two; certainly there cotddn't be two at 
 the same time. It takes ages to bring forth a Shake- 
 speare, 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 Shake- 
 speare was not qualified to write the Works, and that 
 Francis Bacon was. They claim that Bacon pos- 
 sessed the stupendous equipment — ^both natural and 
 acquired — ^for the miracle; and that no other Eng- 
 lishman of his day possessed the Hke; or, indeed, any- 
 thing closely approaching it. 
 
 Macaulay, in his Essay, has much to say about the 
 splendor and horizonless magnitude of that eqmp- 
 ment. Also, he has synopsized Bacon's history — a 
 thing which cannot be' done for the Stratford Shake- 
 speare, for he hasn't any history to synopsize. Ba- 
 con's history is open to the world, from his boy- 
 hood 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 bom of a race of 
 statesmen, and had a Lord Chancellor for his father, 
 and a mother who was "distinguished both as a 
 Hnguist and a theologian : she corresponded in Greek 
 with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologia from 
 the Latin go correctly that neither he nor Arch- 
 
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 bishop 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 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 in- 
 forming sort. There were but few books anywhere, 
 in that day, and only the well-to-do and highly edu- 
 cated 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 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 the English Ambassador, and 
 there he mingled daily with the wise, the cultured. 
 
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 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 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 presumption 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 
 presimiption, 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 his hams, and puff out 
 his chin, and look important and insolent and come- 
 to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure authen- 
 ticity with a thundering bellow that will convince 
 everybody because it is so loud. The thug is aware 
 that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning 
 convinces 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 be- 
 sides. If I am better than a thug, is the merit mine? 
 
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 No, it is His. Then to Him be the praise. That is 
 the right spirit. 
 
 They "presume" the lad severed his "pre- 
 sumed" connection with the Stratford school to be- 
 come apprentice to a butcher. They ^Iso "pre- 
 sume" 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 fiu-ther 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 of the compoimd reflexive adverbial incandes- 
 cent hypodermic irregular accusative Noun of Mul- 
 titude; which is father to the expression which the 
 grammarians call Verb. It is Hke a whole ancestry, 
 with only one posterity. 
 
 To resume. Next, the young Bacon took up the 
 study of law, and mastered that abstruse science. 
 From that day to the end of his life he was daily in 
 close contact with lawyers and judges; not as a 
 casual onlooker in intervals between holding horses 
 in front of a theater, but as a practising lawyer — a 
 great and successful one, a renowned one, a Launce- 
 lot of the bar, the most formidable lance in the high 
 brotherhood of the legal Table Round; he lived in 
 the law's atmosphere thenceforth, all his years, and 
 by sheer ability forced his way up its difficult steeps 
 to its supremest summit, the Lord-Chancellorship, 
 
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 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, pro- 
 fundities, and felicities so prodigally displayed in the 
 Plays, and try to fit them to the historyless Strat- 
 ford stage-manager, they sound wild, strange, in- 
 credible, 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 Shakespeare of Stratford they 
 are meaningless, they are inebriate extravagancies — 
 intemperate admirations of the dark side of the 
 moon, so to speak; attributed to Bacon, they are 
 admirations 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 
 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 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 trcde was the law ; it could not happen 
 to a dabbler in it. Veteran mariners fill their con- 
 versation with sailor-phrases and draw all their 
 similes from the ship and the sea and the storm, but 
 no mere passenger ever does it, be he of Stratford or 
 elsewhere; or could do it with anything resembUng 
 
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 accuracy, if lie 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 Shake- 
 speare of Stratford. 
 
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X 
 
 THE REST OF THE EQUIPMENT 
 
 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 expression. Every one has 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 lesus sake forbeare 
 To digg the dust encloased heare: 
 Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones 
 And curst be he jrt moves my bones. 
 
 Ben Jonson says of Bacon, as orator : 
 
 His language, where he covM spare and pass 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: 
 
 He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly 
 by his exertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the 
 
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 King's heart was set — ^the union of England and Scotland. It 
 was not difficult for such an intellect t9 discover many irresistible 
 arguments in favor of such a scheme. He conducted the great 
 case of the Post Noli in the Exchequer Chamber; and the de- 
 cision of the judges— a decision the legality of which may be 
 questioned, but the beneficial effect of which must be acknowl- 
 edged—was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous man- 
 agement. 
 
 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 Learning, 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 master- 
 piece 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 permitted to see 
 portions of that extraordinary book, and they spoke with the 
 greatest admiration 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 aU 
 the treatise over did abound with choice conceits of the present 
 state of learning, and with worthy contemplations of the means 
 to procure it." 
 
 In 161 2 a new edition of the Essays appeared, with additions 
 surpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality. 
 
 Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a 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 
 Attorney-General and Solicitor-General would have 
 satisfied the appetite of any other man for hard work, 
 
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 but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just 
 described, to satisfy his. He was a bom 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 History 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 inesti- 
 mable Treatise De Augmenlis Scientiarum. 
 
 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 jest-hook 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. 
 
 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, 
 or a court-masque, covdd 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 Pari- 
 banou gave to Prince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the 
 hand of a lady; spread it, and the armies of powerful Sultans 
 might repose beneath its shade. 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowl- 
 edge 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." 
 
 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 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. 
 
 In truth, much of Bacon's life was passed 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, foimtains more wonderful than the golden water of 
 Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Rug- 
 giero, arms more formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies 
 more efficacious than the balsam of Pierabras. Yet in his mag- 
 nificent 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 many prejudices, introduced so many new opinions. 
 
 But what we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect 
 which, without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science 
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 — all the past, the present and the future, all the errors of two 
 thousand years, all the encouraging signs of the passing 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. 
 
 It is evident that he had each and every one of the 
 mental gifts and each and every one of the acquire- 
 ments that are so prodigally displayed in the Plays 
 and Poems, and in much 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 
 notmatable. 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. 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shaE dissolve, 
 And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is roimded with a sleep. 
 
 Also, he Could have written this, but he refrained : 
 
 Good friend for lesus sake forbeare 
 To digg the dust encloased heare: 
 Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones 
 And curst be he yt moves my bones. 
 
 When a person reads the noble verses about the 
 cloud-cap'd towers, he ought not to follow it imme- 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 diately with Good friend for lesus 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 impoetic gravel is ttntil you bite into a layer of 
 it in a pie. 
 
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XI 
 
 AM I trying to convince anybody that Shake- 
 speare 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 tinad- 
 miringly 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, dispassionately, and conscien- 
 tiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall 
 seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that super- 
 stition. 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 dis- 
 approval 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 Arthur Ortons and the Mrs. 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 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 otir devotion. In morals, 
 conduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environ- 
 ment 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 pedestal this side of the year 2209. Dis- 
 belief 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 proc- 
 ess. ,It took several thousand years to convince 
 our fine race — including every splendid intellect in 
 it — ^that there is no such thing as a witch; it has 
 taken several thousand years to convince that 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 Protestant Church's program of post-mortem enter- 
 tainments; it has taken a weary long time to per- 
 suade American Presbyterians to give up infant 
 damnation and try to bear it the best they can; 
 and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will stiU be 
 burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shake- 
 speare 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 Stratfordol- 
 aters out of a hatftil of rags and a barrel of saw- 
 dust, but there is a plenty of other things we can 
 prove it by, if I could think of them. We are The 
 Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of 
 chipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Strat- 
 ford village, we know by our reasoning powers 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. 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 passionlessly 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. 
 
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XII 
 
 IRREVERENCE 
 
 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 de- 
 scriptive, 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 buc- 
 caneers, these bandoleers, is their spirit of irrever- 
 ence. It is detectable in every utterance of theirs 
 when they are talking about us. 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 single 
 instance where I have ever been irreverent, except 
 toward the things which were sacred to other people. 
 Am I in the right? I think so. But I ask no one 
 to take my unsupported word; no, look at the 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 dictionary; let the dictionary decide. Here is the 
 definition : 
 
 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 indorses 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 oiu: 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 
 compulsory upon us to revere his gods and his 
 sacred things, and nobody's else. We can't say a 
 word, for he has our own dictionary at his back, and 
 its decision is final. 
 
 This law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 
 I . 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, logic- 
 ally, and indisputably, whatever is sacred to me 
 must be held in reverence by everybody else. 
 
 Now then, what aggravates me is that these 
 troglodytes and muscovites and bandoleers and buc- 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 caneers 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 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 hap- 
 pen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will 
 be regarded as the most meaningless, and foolish, 
 and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent, 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 dic- 
 tate 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 
 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, chari- 
 tably, ^spassionately. The other sects lack the 
 quality of self-restraint. The Catholic Church says 
 the most irreverent things about matters which are 
 sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant Church 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 retorts in kind about the confessional and other mat- 
 ters which Catholics hold sacred ; then both of these 
 irreverencers turn upon Thomas Paine and charge 
 him with irreverence. This is all unfortunate, be- 
 cause it makes it difficult for students equipped 
 with only a low grade of mentality 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 epi- 
 thets, no more heartburnings. 
 
 There will then be nothing sacred involved in this 
 Bacon-Shakespeare controversy except what is sa- 
 cred 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-Orton-Mary-Ba- 
 ker -Thompson - Eddy- Louis- the - Seventeenth -Veiled- 
 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 
 Hst all the celebrated Englishmen, Irishmen, and 
 Scotchmen of modern times, clear back to the first 
 Tudors — a Ust 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 Ust ; all the celebrated tragedians, 
 comedians, singers, dancers, orators, judges, lawyers, 
 poets, dramatists, historians, biographers, editors, 
 inventors, reformers, statesmen, generals, admirals, 
 discoverers, prize-fighters, murderers, pirates, con- 
 spirators, horse-jockeys, bunco-steerers, misers, swin- 
 dlers, explorers, adventurers by land and sea, bank- 
 ers, financiers, astronomers, naturalists, claimants, 
 impostors, chemists, biologists, geologists, philolo- 
 gists, college presidents and professors, architects, 
 engineers, painters, sculptors, politicians, agitators, 
 rebels, revolutionists, patriots, demagogues, clowns, 
 cooks, freaks, philosophers, burglars, highwaymen, 
 journalists, physicians, surgeons — ^you can get the 
 life-histories of all of them but one. Just one — the 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 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 accumtilation — 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 man- 
 ager, 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 ev- 
 ery renowned race-horse of modem 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 
 
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 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 
 solicit9us about his Works, it would have been better 
 for his good name, and a Idndness 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. 
 
 Mark Twain. 
 
 P.S. March 25. About two months ago I was 
 illuminating this Autobiography with some notions 
 of mine concerning the Bacon-Shakespeare con- 
 troversy, 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 bom, where he lived a quarter of a 
 centtuy, and where he died and was buried. I 
 argued that if he had been 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 long as mine has lasted in my 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 native village out in Missouri. It is a good argu- 
 ment, a prodigiously strong one, and a most formi- 
 dable one for even the most gifted and ingenious 
 and plausible Stratfordolater to get aroiind or ex- 
 plain away. To-day a Hannibal Courier-Post of re- 
 cent date has reached me, with an article in it which 
 reinforces my contention that a reaUy celebrated 
 person cannot be forgotten in his village in the short 
 space of sixty years. I will make an extract from it : 
 
 Haimibal, 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 old building that is torn down to 
 make way for the modem structures demanded by a rapidly 
 growing city, and with every hUl 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 HOI, 
 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 has 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 teU 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 incidents 
 being viewed in the light of his present fame, until the volume 
 of "Twainiana" is already considerable and growing in propor- 
 tion as the "old timers" drop away and the stories are retold 
 
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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? 
 
 second and third hand by their descendants . With some seventy- 
 three years young and Uving in a villa instead of a house, he is a 
 fair target, and let him incorporate, copyright, or patent himseH 
 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. 
 
 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 Firm," 
 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 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 remember her weU. I have a picture of her in 
 
 my mind which was graven there, clear and sharp and 
 
 vivid, sixty-three years ago. She was at that time 
 
 nine years old, and I was about eleven. I remember 
 
 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 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 
 
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MARK TWAIN 
 
 have forgotten him? Yes. For he was never fa- 
 mous during his lifetime, he was utterly obscure in 
 Stratford, and there wouldn't be any occasion to 
 remember 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 remember them to this day, and 
 can tell you about them. Isn't it curious that two 
 "town dnmkards" 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? 
 
 Mark Twain. 
 
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