 Section 78 of Mark Twain a Biography, Part II, 1907-1910. He decided to go home for the holidays, and how fortunate it seems now that he did so. We sailed for America on the eighteenth of December, arriving the twenty-first. Jean was at the wharf to meet us, blue and shivering with the cold, for it was wretchedly bleak there, and I had the feeling that she should not have come. She went directly, I think, to Stormfield, he following a day or two later. On the twenty-third I was lunching with Jean alone. She was full of interest in her Christmas preparations. She had a handsome tree set up in the loggia, and the packages were piled about it, with new ones constantly arriving. With her farm management, her housekeeping, her secretary work, and her Christmas preparations, it seemed to me that she had her hands over full. Such a mental pressure could not be good for her. I suggested that, for a time at least, I might assume a part of her burden. I was to remain at my own home that night, and I think it was as I left Stormfield that I passed Jean on the stair. She said, cheerfully, that she felt a little tired and was going up to lie down, so that she would be fresh for the evening. I did not go back, and I never saw her alive again. I was at breakfast next morning when word was brought in that one of the men from Stormfield was outside and wished to see me immediately. When I went out he said, Miss Jean is dead. They have just found her in her bathroom. Mr. Clemens sent me to bring you. It was as incomprehensible as such things always are. I could not realize at all that Jean, so full of plans and industries and action less than a day before, had passed into that voiceless mystery which we call death. Henry Isles drove me rapidly up the hill. As I entered Clemens' room he looked at me helplessly and said, Well, I suppose you have heard of this final disaster. He was not violent or broken down with grief. He had come to that place where whatever the shock or the ill turn of fortune he could accept it, and even in that first moment of loss he realized that, for Jean at least, the fortune was not ill. Her malady had never been cured, and it had been one of his deepest dreads that he would leave her behind him. It was believed at first that Jean had drowned, and Dr. Smith tried methods of resuscitation, but then he found that it was simply a case of heart cessation caused by the cold shock of her bath. The Gabrilyovitches were by this time in Europe, and Clemens cabled them not to come. Later in the day he asked me if we would be willing to close our home for the winter and come to Stormfield. He said that he should probably go back to Bermuda before long, but that he wished to keep the house open so that it would be there for him to come to at any time that he might need it. We came, of course, for there was no thought among any of his friends, but for his comfort and peace of mind. Jervis Langdon was summoned from Elmyra, for Jean would lie there with the others. In the loggia stood the half-trimmed Christmas tree, and all about lay the packages of gifts, and in Jean's room, on the chairs and upon her desk, were piled other packages. Nobody had been forgotten. For her father she had bought a handsome globe. He had always wanted one. Once when I went into his room he said, I have been looking in at Jean and envying her. I have never greatly envied any one but the dead. I always envy the dead. He told me how the night before they had dined together alone, how he had urged her to turn over a part of her work to me, how she had clung to every duty as if now after all the years she was determined to make up for lost time. While they were at dinner a telephone inquiry had come concerning his health, for the papers had reported him as returning from Bermuda in critical condition. He had written this playful answer. Manager Associated Press, New York. I hear the newspapers say, I am dying. The charge is not true. I would not do such a thing at my time of life. I am behaving as good as I can. Merry Christmas to everybody! Mark Twain. Jean telephoned it for him to the press. It had been the last secretary service she had ever rendered. She had kissed his hand, he said, when they parted, for she had a severe cold and would not wish to impart it to him. Unhappily she had said good-night, and he had not seen her again. The reciting of this was good to him, for it brought the comfort of tears. Later when I went in again he was writing, I am setting it down, he said, everything. It is a relief to me to write it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking. She continued writing most of the day, and at intervals during the next day and the next. It was on Christmas Day that they went with Jean on her last journey. Katie Leary, her baby nurse, had dressed her in the dainty gown which she had worn for Clara's wedding, and they had pinned on it a pretty buckle which her father had brought her from Bermuda, and which she had not seen. No Greek statue was ever more classically beautiful than she was, lying there in the great living-room, which in its brief history had seen so much of the round of life. They were to start with Jean at about six o'clock, and a little before that time, Clemens, he was unable to make the journey, asked me what had been her favorite music. I said that she seemed always to care most for the shoe-bird impromptu, Opus 142, No. 2. Then he said, Play it when they get ready to leave with her, and add the intermezzo for Susie and the Largo for Mrs. Clemens. When I hear the music, I shall know that they are starting. Tell them to set lanterns at the door, so I can look down and see them go. So I sat at the organ and began playing as they lifted and bore her away. A soft, heavy snow was falling, and the gloom of those shortest days was closing in. There was not the least wind or noise. The whole world was muffled. The lanterns at the door threw their light out on the thickly falling flakes. I remained at the organ, but the little group at the door saw him come to the window above. The light on his white hair as he stood mournfully gazing down, watching Jean going away from him for the last time. I played steadily on as he had instructed the impromptu, the intermezzo from Cavallaria, and Handel's Largo. When I had finished I went up and found him. Poor little Jean, he said, but for her it is so good to go. In his own story of it he wrote, From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road, and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more. The cousin she had played with when they were babies together, he and her beloved old Katie, were conducting her to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother's side once more, in the company of Susie and Langdon. He did not come down to dinner, and when I went up afterward I found him curiously agitated. He said, For one who does not believe in spirits, I have had a most peculiar experience. I went into the bathroom just now and closed the door. You know how warm it always is in there, and there are no drafts. All at once I felt a cold current of air about me. I thought the door must be open, but it was closed. I said, Jean, is this you trying to let me know you have found the others? And the cold air was gone. I saw that the incident had made a very great impression upon him, but I don't remember that he ever mentioned it afterward. Next day the storm had turned into a fearful blizzard, the whole hilltop was a raging, driving mass of white. He wrote most of the day, but stopped now and then to read some of the telegrams or letters of condolence which came flooding in. Sometimes he walked over to the window to look out on a furious tempest. Once during the afternoon he said, Jean, always so loved to see a storm like this, and just now, at Elmira, they are buried burying her. Later he read aloud some lines by Alfred Austin, which Mrs. Crane had sent him, lines which he had remembered in the sorrow for Susie. When last came sorrow around barn and buyer, wind careen snow, the years white supple-cur-lay. Come in, I said, and warm you by the fire. And there she sits, and never goes away. It was that evening that he came into the room where Mrs. Paine and I sat by the fire, bringing his manuscript. I have finished my story of Jean's death, he said. It is the end of my autobiography. I shall never write any more. I can't judge it myself at all. One of you read it aloud to the other, and let me know what you think of it. If it is worthy, perhaps some day it may be published. It was, in fact, one of the most exquisite and tender pieces of writing in the language. He had ended his literary labours with that perfect thing which so marvelously speaks the loftiness and tenderness of his soul. He was thoroughly in keeping with his entire career, that he should with this rare dramatic touch bring it to a close, a paragraph which he omitted, maybe printed now. December 27. Did I know Jean's value? No. I only thought I did. I knew a ten-thousandth fraction of it. That was all. It is always so with us. It has always been so. We are like the poor, ignorant, private soldier, dead now, four hundred years, who picked up the great saucy diamond on the field of the lost battle, and sold it for a franc. Later he knew what he had done. Will I ever be cheerful again, happy again? Yes, and soon, for I know my temperament, and I know that the temperament is master of the man, and that he is its fettered and helpless slave and must, in all things, do as it commands. A man's temperament is born in him, and no circumstances can ever change it. My temperament has never allowed my spirits to remain depressed long at a time. That was a feature of Jean's temperament, too. She inherited it from me. I think she got the rest of it from her mother. Jean Clemens had two natural endowments, the gift of justice, and a genuine passion for all nature. In a little paper found in her desk she had written, I know a few people who love the country as I do, but not many. Most of my acquaintances are enthusiastic over the spring and summer months, but very few care much for it the year round. A few people are interested in the spring foliage and the development of the wildflowers. Nearly all enjoy the autumn colors, while comparatively few pay much attention to the coming and going of the birds, the changing in their plumage and songs, the apparent springing into life on some warm April day of the chipmunks and woodchucks, the scurrying of baby rabbits and again in a fall the equally sudden disappearance of some of the animals and the growing shyness of others. To me it is all as fascinating as a book, more so since I have never lost interest in it. It is simple and frank, like Thoreau. Perhaps had she exercised it there was a third gift, the gift of written thought. Clemens remained at Stormfield ten days after Jean was gone. The weather was fiercely cold, the landscape desolate, the house full of tragedy. He kept pretty closely to his room where he had me bring the heaps of letters, a few of which he answered personally, for the others he prepared a simple card of acknowledgment. He was for the most part in gentle mood during these days, though he would break out now and then and rage at the hardness of a fate that had laid an unearned burden of illness on Jean and shadowed her life. They were days not holy without humour, none of his days could be altogether without that, though it was likely to be a melancholy sort. Many of the letters offered orthodox comfort saying in effect, God does not willingly punish us. When he had read a number of these he said, Well, why does he do it then? We don't invite it. Why does he give himself the trouble? I suggested that it was a sentiment that probably gave comfort to the writer of it. So it does, he said, and I am glad of it, glad of anything that gives comfort to anybody. He spoke of the larger God, the God of the great unvarying laws, and by and by dropped off to sleep quite peacefully, and indeed peace came more and more to him each day with the thought that Jean and Susie and their mother could not be troubled any more. To Mrs. Gabrilevich, he wrote, Reading Connecticut, December 29, 1909 Oh Clara, Clara, dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe, safe. I am not melancholy. I shall never be melancholy again, I think. You see, I was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away, and no one stood between her and danger but me, and I could die at any moment, and then, oh, then, what would become of her? For she was willful, you know, and would not have been governable. You can't imagine what a darling she was that last two or three days, and how fine, and good, and sweet, and noble, and joyful, thank heaven, and how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted with Jean before. I recognized that. But I mustn't try to write about her. I can't. I have already poured my soul out with the pen, recording that last day or two. I will send you that, and you must let no one but Ossip read it. Goodbye. I love you so, and Ossip, father. End of Chapter 289 The Death of Jean, read by John Greenman. Section 79 of Mark Twain a Biography. Part II. 1907 to 1910. This Libber Box recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain a Biography by Albert Bigelow Payne. Chapter 290 The Return to Bermuda. I don't think he attempted any further writing for print. His mind was busy with ideas, but he was willing to talk rather than to write, rather even than to play billiards, it seemed, although we had a few quiet games, the last we should ever play together. Evenings he asked for music, preferring the scotch airs such as Bonnie Doon and The Campbells Are Coming. I remember that once, after playing the latter for him, he told with great feeling how the Highlanders, led by General Colin Campbell, had charged at luck now, inspired by that stirring air. When he had retired I usually sat with him and he drifted into literature or theology or science or history, the story of the universe and man. One evening he spoke of those who had written but one immortal thing and stopped there. He mentioned Ben Bolt. I met that man once, he said. In my childhood I sang, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, and in my old age, fifteen years ago, I met the man who wrote it. His name was Browne. Thomas Dunn English, Mr. Clemens apparently remembered only the name satirically conferred upon him by Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Dunn Browne. He was aged, forgotten, a mere memory. I remember how it thrilled me to realize that this was the very author of Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt. He was just an accident. He had a vision and echoed it. A good many persons do that. The thing they do is to put in compact form the thing which we have all vaguely felt. Twenty years ago is just like it. I have wandered through the village Tom and sat beneath the tree. And Holmes' last leaf is another, the memory of the hallowed past and the gravestones of those we love. It is all so beautiful. The past is always beautiful. He quoted with great feeling and effect, the massy marbles rest on the lips that we have pressed in their bloom, and the names we love to hear have been carved for many a year on the tomb. He continued in this strain for an hour or more. He spoke of humor and thought it must be one of the chief attributes of God. He cited plants and animals that were distinctly humorous in form and in their characteristics. These he declared were God's jokes. Why, he said, humor is mankind's greatest blessing. Your own case is an example, I answered. Not it. Whatever your reputation as a philosopher you could never have had the widespread affection that is shown by the writers of that great heap of letters. Yes, he said gently, they have liked to be amused. I tucked him in for the night, promising to send him to Bermuda with Claude to take care of him, if he felt he could undertake the journey in two days more. He was able and he was eager to go, for he longed for that sunny island and for the quiet peace of the Alan home. His niece, Mrs. Loomis, came up to spend the last evening in Stormfield, a happy evening full of quiet talk, and next morning, in the old closed carriage that had been his wedding-gift, he was driven to the railway station. This was on January 4, 1910. He was to sail next day, and that night at Mr. Loomis's, the towels came in, and for an hour or two they reviewed some of the questions they had so long ago settled, or left forever unsettled and laid away. I remember that, at dinner, Clemens spoke of his old Hartford Butler George, and how he had once brought George to New York and introduced him at the various publishing-houses as his friend, with curious and sometimes rather embarrassing results. The talk drifted to sociology and to the labour unions, which Clemens defended as being the only means by which the workman could obtain recognition of his rights. Howells in his book mentions this evening, which he says, was made memorable to me by the kind, clear judicial sense with which he explained and justified the labour unions as the sole present help of the weak against the strong. They discussed dreams, and then in a little while Howells rose to go. I went also, and as we walked to his nearby apartment he spoke of Mark Twain's supremacy. He said, I turned to his books for cheer when I am downhearted. There was never anybody like him. There never will be. Clemens sailed next morning. They did not meet again. Chapter 291 Letters from Bermuda Farmfield was solemn and empty without Mark Twain. But he wrote by every steamer, at first with his own hand, and during the last week by the hand of one of his enlisted secretaries, some member of the Allen family, usually Helen. His letters were full of brightness and pleasantry, always concerned more or less with business matters, though he was no longer disturbed by them, for Bermuda was too peaceful and too far away, and besides he had faith in the Mark Twain company's ability to look after his affairs. I cannot do better, I believe, than to offer some portions of these letters here. He reached Bermuda on the 7th of January, 1910, and on the 12th he wrote, Again I am living the ideal life. There is nothing to mar it but the bloody-minded bandit Arthur. A small playmate of Helen's, of whom Clemens pretended to be fiercely jealous. Once he wrote a memorandum to Helen, let Arthur read this book. There is a page in it that is poisoned. Who still fetches and carries Helen, presently he will be found drowned. God comes to Bay House twice a day to see if I need any service. He is invaluable. There was a military lecture last night at the officer's mess prospect, as the lecturer honored me with a special urgent invitation and said, He wanted to lecture to me particularly. I naturally took Helen and her mother into the private carriage and went. As soon as we landed at the door, with the crowd, the governor came to me and was very cordial. I met up with that charming Colonel Chapman, we had known him on the previous visit, and other officers of the regiment, and had a good time. A few days later he wrote, Thanks for your letter, and for its contenting news of the situation in that foreign and far off and vaguely remembered country where you and Loomis and Lark and other beloved friends are. I had a letter from Clara this morning. She is solicitous and wants me well and watchfully taken care of. My, my, she ought to see Helen and her parents and Claude administer that trust. Also she says, I hope to hear from you or Mr. Payne very soon. I am writing her and I know you will respond to your part of her prayer. She is pretty desolate now after Jean's emancipation, the only kindness that God ever did that poor, unoffending child in all her hard life. Send Clara a copy of Howell's gorgeous letter. The gorgeous letter mentioned was an appreciation of his recent bizarre article, The Turning Point in My Life, and here follows January 18, 1910. Dear Clemens, while your wonderful words are warm in my mind yet, I want to tell you what you know already, that you never wrote anything greater, finer, than that Turning Point paper of yours. I shall feel it honour enough if they put on my tombstone. He was born in the same century and general section of Middle Western country with Dr. S. L. Clemens, Oxon, and had his degree three years before him through a mistake of the university. I hope you are worse. You will never be riper for a purely intellectual life, and it is a pity to have you lagging along with a worn-out material body on top of your soul. Yours ever, W. D. Howells. On the margin of this letter Clemens had written, I reckon this spontaneous outburst from the first critic of the day is good to keep. Ain't it pain? On the twenty-fourth he wrote again his contentment. Life continues here the same as usual. There isn't a fault in it. Good time, good home. Tranquil contentment all day and every day without a break. I know, familiarly, several very satisfactory people, and meet them frequently. Mr. Hamilton, the Sloans. Mr. and Mrs. Fells. Miss Waterman, and so on. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering my situation. On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he wished Stormfield kept open so he might come to it at any time. And he added, Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton's big motorboat. Present Mrs. Allen, Mr. and Mrs., and Miss Sloan, Helen, Mildred Howells, Claude, and me. Several hours swift skimming over ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun, also a couple of hours of picnicking and lazing under the cedars in a secluded place. The Orotava is arriving with two hundred and sixty passengers. I shall get letters by her, no doubt. P.S., please send me the standard unabridged that is on the table in my bedroom. I have no dictionary here. There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble, but he was having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb him and much that contributed to his peace. Among the callers at the Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant hours at miniature golf, putting on the Alan lawn. Of course a catastrophe would come along now and then, such things could not always be guarded against. In a letter toward the end of February he wrote, It is two-thirty in the morning, and I am writing because I can't sleep. I can't sleep because a professional pianist is coming tomorrow afternoon to play for me. My God! I wouldn't allow Petrushki or Kabrinovich to do that. I would rather have a leg amputated. I knew he was coming, but I never dreamed it was to play for me. When I heard the horrible news four hours ago, be damned if I didn't come near screaming. I meant to slip out and be absent. But now I can't. Don't pray for me. The thing is just as damned bad as it can be already. Clement's love for music did not include the piano, except for very gentle melodies, and he probably did not anticipate these from the professional player. He did not report the sequel of the matter, but it is likely that his imagination had discounted its tortures. Sometimes his letters were pure nonsense. Once he sent a sheet on one side of which was written, Bayhouse, March 5, 1910, received of S.L.C., two dollars and forty cents in return for my promise to believe everything he says here after Helen S. Anne, and on the reverse, for sale, the proprietor of the here-in-before-mentioned promise desires to part with it on account of ill health and obliged to go away somewheres, so as to let it reciprocate, and will take any reasonable amount for it above two percent of its face, because experienced parties think it will not keep but only a little while in this kind of weather, and is a kind of property that don't give a cuss for cold storage know-how. Unfortunately however serious Mark Twain regarded his physical condition, he did not allow it to make him gloomy. He wrote that matters were going everywhere to his satisfaction, that Clara was happy, that his household and business affairs no longer troubled him, that his personal surroundings were of the pleasantest sort. Sometimes he wrote of what he was reading, and once spoke particularly of Professor William Lyon Phelps' literary essays, which he said he had been unable to lay down until he had finished the book. To Phelps himself he wrote, I thank you ever so much for the book which I find charming, so charming indeed that I read it through in a single night, and did not regret the lost night's sleep. I am glad if I deserve what you said about me, and even if I don't, I am proud, and well contented, since you think I deserve it. So his days seemed full of comfort, but in March I noticed that he generally dictated his letters, and once when he sent some small photographs I thought he looked thinner and older. Still he kept up his merriment. In one letter he said, while the matter is in my mind I will remark that if you ever send me another letter which is not paged at the top, I will write you with my own hand, so that I may use with utter freedom and without embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a criminal, to wit dash, dash, dash, dash. You will have to put into words those dashes, because propriety will not allow me to do it myself in my secretary's hearing. You are forgiven, but don't let it occur again. He had still made no mention of his illness, but on the 25th of March he wrote something of his plans for coming home. He had engaged passage on the Bermudian for April 23rd, he said, and he added, But don't tell anybody. I don't want it known. I may have to go sooner if the pain in my breast does not mend its ways pretty considerable. I don't want to die here, for this is an unkind place for a person in that condition. I should have to lie in the undertaker's cellar until the ship would remove me, and it is dark down there and unpleasant. The colliers will meet me on the pier, and I may stay with them a week or two before going home. It all depends on the breast pain. I don't want to die there. I am growing more and more particular about the place. But in the same letter he spoke of plans for the summer suggesting that we must look into the magic lantern possibilities so that library entertainments could be given at Stormfield. I confess that this letter, in spite of its light tone, made me uneasy, and I was tempted to sail for Bermuda to bring him home. Three days later he wrote again, I have been having a most uncomfortable time for the past four days with that breast pain which turns out to be an affection of the heart, just as I originally suspected. The news from New York is to the effect that non-bronchial weather has arrived there at last. Therefore, if I can get my breast trouble in traveling condition, I may sail for home a week or two earlier than has been proposed. The same male that brought this brought a letter from Mr. Allen who frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. Mr. Clemens had had some dangerous attacks, and the physician considered his condition critical. These letters arrived April 1st. I went to New York at once and sailed next morning. For sailing I consulted with Dr. Quinterd, who provided me with some opiates, and instructed me in the use of the hypodermic needle. He also joined me in a cable-gram to the Cabrilliaviches, then in Italy, advising them to sail without delay. End of Chapter 291 Letters from Bermuda. I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when, on the second morning I arrived at Hamilton, I stepped quickly ashore from the tender and hurried to Bayhouse. The doors were all open, as they usually are in that summer island, and no one was visible. I was familiar with the place, and, without knocking, I went through to the room occupied by Mark Twain. As I entered I saw that he was alone, sitting in a large chair, clad in the familiar dressing-gown. Bayhouse stands upon the water, and the morning light reflected in at the window had an unusual quality. He was not yet shaven, and he seemed unnaturally pale and grey. Certainly he was much thinner. I was too startled for the moment to say anything. When he turned and saw me he seemed a little dazed. "'Why?' he said, holding out his hand. "'You didn't tell us you were coming!' "'No,' I said. "'It is rather sudden. I didn't quite like the sound of your last letters. "'But those were not serious,' he protested. "'You shouldn't have come on my account!' I said then that I had come on my own account, and that I have felt the need of recreation, and had decided to run down and come home with him. "'That's very good,' he said in his slow, gentle fashion. "'Now I am glad to see you!' His breakfast came in, and he ate with an appetite. When he had been shaved and freshly propped up in his pillows, it seemed to me, after all, that I must have been mistaken in thinking him so changed. Certainly he was thinner, but his colour was fine, his eyes were bright. He had no appearance of a man whose life was believed to be in danger. He told me then of the fierce attacks he had gone through, how the pains had torn at him, and how it had been necessary for him to have hypodermic injections, which he amusingly termed hypnotic injunctions and subcutaneous applications, and he had his humour out of it, as of course he must have, even though death should stand there in person. From Mr. and Mrs. Allen and from the physician I learned how slender had been his chances, and how uncertain were the days ahead. Mr. Allen had already engaged passage on the Oceana for the twelfth, and the one purpose now was to get him physically in condition for the trip. How devoted those kind friends had been to him! They had devised every imaginable thing for his comfort. Mr. Allen had rigged an electric bell which connected with his own room so that he could be aroused instantly at any hour of the night. Clemens had refused to have a nurse, for it was only during the period of his extreme suffering that he needed any one, and he did not wish to have a nurse always around. When the pains were gone he was as bright and cheerful and seemingly as well as ever. On the afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as formerly, and he discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. He had been re-reading Macaulay, he said, and spoke at considerable length of the hypocrisy and intrigue of the English court under James II. He spoke, too, of the Reading Library. I had sold for him that portion of the land where Jean's farmhouse had stood, and it was in his mind to use the money for some sort of a memorial to Jean. I had written, suggesting that perhaps he would like to put up a small library building, as the Adams lot faced the corner where Jean had passed every day when she rode to the station for the mail. He had been thinking this over, he said, and wished the idea carried out. He asked me to write at once to his lawyer Mr. Locke and have a paper prepared appointing trustees for a memorial library fund. The pain did not trouble him that afternoon, nor during several succeeding days. He was gay and quite himself, and he often went out on the lawn, but we did not drive out again. For the most part he sat propped up in his bed, reading or smoking or talking in the old way, and as I looked at him he seemed so full of vigor and the joy of life that I could not convince myself that he would not outlive us all. I found that he had been really very much alive during those three months, too much for his own good sometimes, for he had not been careful of his hours or his diet, and had suffered in consequence. He had not been writing, though he had scribbled some playful Valentine's, and he had amused himself one day by preparing a chapter of advice, for me it appeared, which, after reading it aloud to the Allens and receiving their approval, he declared he intended to have printed for my benefit. As it would seem to have been the last bit of continued writing he ever did, and because it is characteristic and amusing, a few paragraphs may be admitted. The advice is concerning deportment on reaching the gate which St. Peter is supposed to guard. Upon arrival do not speak to St. Peter, until spoken to, it is not your place to begin. Do not begin any remark with, say, when applying for a ticket, avoid trying to make conversation. If you must talk, let the weather alone. St. Peter cares not a damn for the weather. And don't ask him what time the four-thirty train goes. There aren't any trains in heaven, except through trains, and less information you get about them, the better for you. You can ask him for his autograph, there is no harm in that. But be careful and don't remark that it is one of the penalties of greatness. He has heard that before. Don't try to kodak him. Hell is full of people who have made that mistake. Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit you would stay out, and the dog would go in. You will be wanting to slip down at night and smuggle water to those poor little chaps, the infant damned. But don't you try it, if you would be caught, and nobody in heaven would respect you after that. Explain to Helen why I don't come, if you can. There were several pages of this council. One paragraph was written in shorthand. I meant to ask him to translate it, but there were many other things to think of, and I did not remember. I spent most of each day with him merely sitting by the bed and reading while he himself read or dozed. His nights were wakeful, he found it easier to sleep by day, and he liked to think that someone was there. He became interested in Hardy's Jude, and spoke of it with high approval, urging me to read it. He dwelt a good deal on the morals of it, or rather on the lack of them. He followed the tale to the end, finishing at the afternoon before we sailed. It was his last continuous reading. I noticed when he slept that his breathing was difficult, and I could see from day to day that he did not improve. But each evening he would be gay and lively, and he liked the entire family to gather around while he became really hilarious over the various happenings of the day. It was only a few days before we sailed that the very severe attacks returned. The night of the eighth was a hard one. The doctors were summoned, and it was only after repeated injections of morphine that the pain had been eased. When I returned in the early morning he was sitting in his chair trying to sing after his old morning habit. He took my hand and said, Well, I had a picturesque night. Every pain I had was on exhibition. He looked out the window at the sunlight on the bay and green dotted islands, sparkling and bright in the liquid light, he quoted. That's Hoffman. Anything left of Hoffman? No, I said. I must watch for the Bermudian and see if she salutes, he said presently. The captain knows I am here sick, and he blows two short whistles, just as they come up behind that little island. Those are for me. He said he could breathe easier if he could lean forward, and I placed a card-table in front of him. His breakfast came in, and a little later he became quite gay. He drifted to Macaulay again and spoke of King James Plott to assassinate William II, and how the clergy had brought themselves to see that there was no difference between killing a king in battle and by assassination. He had taken his seat by the window to watch for the Bermudian. She came down the bay presently, her bright red stacks towering vividly above the Green Island. It was a brilliant morning, and the sky and the water a marvellous blue. He watched her anxiously and without speaking. Suddenly there were two white puffs of steam, and two short horse notes went up from her. Those are for me, he said, his face full of contentment. Captain Fraser, does not forget me. There followed another bad night. My room was only a little distance away, and Claude came for me. I do not think any of us thought he would survive it. But he slept at last, or at least dozed. In the morning he said, that breast pain stands watch all night and the short breath all day. I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army. I want a jug full of that hypnotic injection every night, and every morning. We began to fear now that he would not be able to sail on the twelfth. But by great good fortune he had wonderfully improved by the twelfth. So much so that I began to believe, if once he could be in Stormfield, where the air was more vigorous, he might easily survive the summer. The humid atmosphere of the season increased the difficulty of his breathing. That evening he was unusually merry. After Mrs. Allen and Helen and myself went in to wish him good night, he was loathed to let us leave, but was reminded that he would sail in the morning, and that the doctor had insisted that he must be quiet and lie still in bed and rest. He was never one to be very obedient. A little later Mrs. Allen and I, in the sitting-room, heard someone walking softly outside on the veranda. We went out there, and he was marching up and down in his dressing-gown as unconcerned as if he were not an invalid at all. He hadn't felt sleepy, he said, and thought a little exercise would do him good. Perhaps it did, for he slept soundly that night. A great blessing. Mr. Allen had chartered a special tug to come to Bayhouse, landing in the morning, and take him to the ship. He was carried in a little hand-chair to the tug, and all the way out he seemed light-spirited, anything but an invalid. The sailors carried him again in the chair, to his stateroom, and he bade those dear Bermuda friends good-bye, and we sailed away. As long as I remember anything I shall remember the forty-eight hours of that homeward voyage. It was a brief two days as time is measured, but as time is lived it has taken its place among those unmeasured periods by the side of which even years do not count. At first he seemed quite his natural self, and asked for a catalogue of the ship's library, and selected some memoirs of the Countess of Cardigan for his reading. He asked also for the second volume of Carlisle's French Revolution, which he had with him, but we ran immediately into the more humid, more oppressive air of the Gulf Stream, and his breathing became at first difficult, then next to impossible. There were two large portals, which I opened, but presently he suggested that it would be better outside. It was only a step to the main deck, and no passengers were there. I had a steamer chair brought, and with Claude supported him to it, and bundled him with rugs. But it had grown damp and chilly, and his breathing did not improve. It seemed to me that the end might come at any moment, and this thought was in his mind too. For once in the effort for breath he managed to say, I am going. I shall be gone in a moment. Breath came, but I realized then that even his cabin was better than this. I steadied him back to his berth, and shut out most of that deadly dampness. He asked for his hypnotic injunction, for his humour never left him, and though it was not yet the hour prescribed, I could not deny it. It was impossible for him to lie down, even to recline, without great distress. The opiate made him drowsy, and he longed for the relief of sleep. But when it seemed about to possess him, the struggle for air would bring him upright. During the more comfortable moments he spoke quite in the old way, and time and again made an effort to read, and reached for his pipe or a cigar, which lay in the little berth hammock at his side. I held the match, and he would take a puff or two with satisfaction. Then the peace of it would bring drowsiness, and while I supported him there would come a few moments perhaps of precious sleep. Only a few moments, for the devil of suffocation was always lying in wait to bring him back for fresh tortures. Over and over again this was repeated, varied by him being steadied on his feet or sitting on a couch opposite the berth. In spite of his suffering, two dominant characteristics remained, the sense of humor and tender consideration for another. Once when the ship rolled and his hat fell from the hook, and made the circuit of the cabin floor, he said, The ship is passing the hat. Again he said, I am sorry for you pain, but I can't help it. I can't hurry this dying business. Can't you give me enough of the hypnotic injunction to put an end to me? He thought if I could arrange the pillows so he could sit straight up it would not be necessary to support him, and then I could sit on the couch and read while he tried to doze. He wanted me to read Jude, he said, so we could talk about it. I got all the pillows I could and built them up around him and sat down with the book, and this seemed to give him contentment. He would doze off a little and then come up with a start, his piercing agate eyes searching me out to see if I was still there. Over and over, twenty times in an hour, this was repeated. When I could deny him no longer I administered the opiate, but it never completely possessed him or gave him entire relief. As I looked at him there, so reduced in his estate, I could not but remember all the labour of his years and all the splendid honour which the world had paid to him. Something of this may have entered his mind too, for once when I offered him some of the milder remedies which we had brought he said, after forty years of public effort I have become just a target for medicines. The programme of change from birth to the floor, from floor to the couch, from the couch back to the birth among the pillows was repeated again and again. He always thinking of the trouble he might be making, rarely uttering any complaint, but once he said, I never guessed that I was going to outlive John Bigelow. And again, this is such a mysterious disease. If we only had a bill of particulars we'd have something to swear at. Time and again he picked up Carlisle or the cardigan memoirs, and read or seemed to read a few lines. But then the drowsiness would come and the book would fall. Come and again he attempted to smoke, or in his drows simulated the motion of placing a cigar to his lips and puffing in the old way. Two dreams beset him in his momentary slumber, one of a play in which the title role of the general manager was always unfilled. He spoke of this now and then when it had passed, and it seemed to amuse him. The other was a discomfort. A college assembly was attempting to confer upon him some degree which he did not want. Once half roused, he looked at me searchingly and asked, Isn't there something I can resign and be out of all this? They keep trying to confer that degree upon me, and I don't want it. Then realizing he said, I am like a bird in a cage, always expecting to get out and always beaten back by the wires. And somewhat later, Oh, it is such a mystery, and it takes so long! Toward the evening of the first day when it grew dark outside he asked, How long have we been on this voyage? I answered that this was the end of the first day. Now many more are there, he asked. Only one and two nights. We'll never make it, he said. It's an eternity. But we must on Clare's account, I told him, and I estimated that Clare would be more than half way across the ocean by now. It is a losing race, he said. No ship can out-sail death. It has been written, I do not know with what proof, that certain great dissenters have recanted with the approach of death, have become weak and afraid to ignore old traditions in the face of the great mystery. I wish to write here that Mark Twain, as he neared the end, showed never a single tremor of fear or even of reluctance. I have dwelt upon these hours when suffering was upon him, and the death, the imminent shadow, in order to show that at the end he was as he had always been, neither more nor less, and never less than brave. Once during a moment when he was comfortable in quite himself, he said earnestly, When I seem to be dying, I don't want to be stimulated back to life. I want to be made comfortable to go. There was not a vestige of hesitation. There was no grasping at straws, no suggestion of dread. Somehow those two days and nights went by, once when he was partially relieved by the opiate I slept, while Claude watched, and again in the fading end of the last night when we had passed at length into the cold, bracing northern air, and breath had come back to him, and with it sleep. Relatives, physicians, and news-gatherers were at the dock to welcome him. He was awake, and the northern air had brightened him, though it was the chill, I suppose, that brought on the pains in his breast which fortunately he had escaped during the voyage. It was not a prolonged attack, and it was, blessedly, the last one. An invalid carriage had been provided, and a compartment secured on the afternoon express to Reading, the same train that had taken him there two years before. Dr. Robert H. Halsey and Dr. Edward Grinterd attended him, and he made the journey really in cheerful comfort, for he could breathe now, and in the relief came back old interests. Half reclining on the couch, he licked through the afternoon papers. It happened curiously that Charles Harvey Jenin, who something more than four years earlier had been so largely responsible for my association with Mark Twain, was on the same train, in the same coach bound for his country-place at New Hartford. Lounsbury was waiting with the carriage, and on that still, sweet April evening we drove him to Stormfield, much as we had driven him two years before. Down then he mentioned the apparent backwardness of the season, for only a few of the trees were beginning to show their green. As we drove into the lane that led to the Stormfield entrance, he said, Can we see where you have built your billiard room? The gable showed above the trees, and I pointed it out to him. It looks quite imposing, he said. I think it was the last outside interest he ever showed in anything. He had been carried from the ship and from the train, and when we drew up to Stormfield, where Mrs. Payne, with Katie Leary and others of the household, was waiting to greet him, he stepped from the carriage alone, with something of his old lightness, and with all his old courtliness, and offered each one his hand. Then in the canvas chair which we had brought, Claude and I carried him upstairs to his room, and delivered him to the physicians, and to the comforts and blessed air of home. This was Thursday evening, April 14, 1910. CHAPTER 293 THE RETURN TO THE INVISIBLE There would be two days more before Ossip and Clara Cabriovic could arrive. Clemens remained fairly bright and comfortable during this interval, though he clearly was not improving. The physicians denied him the morphine now, as he no longer suffered acutely. But he craved it, and, once, when I went in, he said rather mournfully, They won't give me the subcutaneous any more. It was Sunday morning when Clara came. He was cheerful, and able to talk quite freely. He did not dwell upon his condition, I think, but spoke rather of his plans for the summer. At all events he did not then suggest that he counted the end so near. But a day later it became evident to all that his stay was very brief. His breathing was becoming heavier, though it seemed not to give him much discomfort. His articulation also became affected. I think the last continuous talking he did was to Dr. Halsey on the evening of April 17, the day of Clara's arrival. A mild opiate had been administered, and he said he wished to talk himself to sleep. He recalled one of his old subjects, dual personality, and discussed various instances that flitted through his mind, Jekyll and Hyde phases in literature and fact. He became drowsier as he talked. He said at last, this is a peculiar kind of disease. It does not invite you to read. It does not invite you to be read, too. It does not invite you to talk, nor to enjoy any of the usual sick room methods of treatment. What kind of disease is that? Some kinds of sicknesses have pleasant features about them. You can read and smoke and have only to lie still. Another little later he added, it is singular, very singular, the laws of mentality, vacuity. I put out my hand to reach a book or newspaper which I have been reading most glibly, and it isn't there, not a suggestion of it. He coughed violently and afterward commented, if one gets to meddling with a cough, it very soon gets the upper hand and is meddling with you. That is my opinion of seventy-four years' growth. The news of his condition everywhere published brought great heaps of letters, but he could not see them. A few messages were reported to him at intervals he read a little. Satonius and Carlisle lay on the bed beside him, and he would pick them up as the spirit moved him and read a paragraph or a page. Sometimes when I saw him thus, the high color still in his face and the clear light in his eyes, I said, It is not reality. He is not going to die. On Tuesday the nineteenth he asked me to tell Clara to come and sing to him. It was a heavy requirement, but she somehow found strength to sing some of the scotch ears which he loved, and he seemed soothed and comforted. Sometimes she came away, he bad her good-bye, saying that he might not see her again. But he lingered through the next day and the next. His mind was wandering a little on Wednesday, and his speech became less and less articulate. But there were intervals when he was quite clear, quite vigorous, and he apparently suffered little. We did not know it then, but the mysterious messenger of his birth-year, so long anticipated by him, appeared that night in the sky. The perihelion of Haley's Comet for 1835 was November 16. For 1910 it was April 20. On Thursday morning the twenty-first his mind was generally clear, and it was said by the nurses that he read a little from one of the volumes on his bed, from the Setonius, or from one of the volumes of Carlisle. Early in the forenoon he sent word by Clara that he wished to see me, and when I came in he spoke of two unfinished manuscripts which he wished me to throw away, as he briefly expressed it, for he had not many words left now. I assured him that I would take care of them, and he pressed my hand. It was his last word to me. Once or twice that morning he tried to write some request which he could not put into intelligible words, and once he spoke to Gibrilovitch, who, he said, could understand him better than the others. Most of the time he dozed. Somewhat after midday, when Clara was by him, he roused up and took her hand, and seemed to speak with less effort. Good-bye, he said, and Dr. Quinterd, who was standing near, thought he added, if we meet—but the words were very faint. He looked at her for a little while, without speaking, then he sank into a dose, and from it passed into a deeper slumber, and did not heed us any more. Through that peaceful spring afternoon the life wave ebbed lower and lower. It was about half-past six, and the sun lay just on the horizon when Dr. Quinterd noticed that the breathing, which had gradually become more subdued, broke a little. There was no suggestion of any struggle. The noble head turned a little to one side, there was a fluttering sigh, and the breath that had been unceasing through seventy-four tumultuous years had stopped forever. He had entered into the estate envy so long, in his own words, the words of one of his latest memoranda, he had arrived at the dignity of death, the only earthly dignity that is not artificial, the only safe one. The others are traps that can be guile to humiliation. Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are, for all, the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved. CHAPTER 294 THE LAST WRITES It is not often that a whole world mourns. Nations have often mourned a hero and races, but perhaps never before had the entire world really united in tender sorrow for the death of any man. In one of his aphorisms he wrote, Let us endeavor so to live that, when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry. And it was thus that Mark Twain himself had lived. No man had ever so reached the heart of the world, and one may not even attempt to explain just why. Let us only say that it was because he was so limitlessly human that every other human heart, in whatever sphere or circumstance, responded to his touch. From every remote corner of the globe the cables of condolence swept in. Every printed sheet in Christendom was filled with lavish tribute. Pulpots forgot his heresies and paid him honour. No king ever died that received so rich a homage as his. To quote or to individualize would be to cheapen this vast offering. We took him to New York to the Brick Church, and Dr. Henry Van Dyke spoke only a few simple words, and Joseph Twitchell came from Hartford and delivered, brokenly, a prayer from a heart rung with double grief. For harmony, his wife, was nearing the journey's end, and a telegram that summoned him to her deathbed came before the services ended. Mark Twain, dressed in the white he loved so well, lay there with the nobility of death upon him, while a multitude of those who loved him passed by and looked at his face for the last time. The flowers of which so many had been sent were banked around him, but on the casket itself lay a single laurel wreath which Dan Beard and his wife had woven from the laurel which grows on Stormfield Hill. He was never more beautiful than as he lay there, and it was an impressive scene to see those thousands file by regard him for a moment gravely, thoughtfully, and pass on. All sorts were there, rich and poor, some crossed themselves, some saluted, some paused a little to take up closer look, but no one offered even to pick a flower. Howells came, and in his book he says, I looked a moment at the face I knew so well, and it was patient with the patience I had so often seen in it, something of a puzzle, a great silent dignity, an ascent to what must be from the depths of a nature whose tragical seriousness broke in the laughter which the unwise took for the whole of him. That night we went with him to Almyra, and next day a somber day of rain. He lay in those stately parlours that had seen his wedding day, and where Susie had lain, and Mrs. Clemens, and Jean, while Dr. Eastman spoke the words of peace which separate us from our mortal dead. Then in the quiet, steady rain of that Sunday afternoon we laid him beside those others where he sleeps well, though some have wished that, like De Soto, he might have been laid to rest in the bed of that great river which must always be associated with his name. End of Chapter 294 THE LAST RIGHTS. There is such a finality about death. However interesting it may be as an experience one cannot discuss it afterward with one's friends. I have thought at a great pity that Mark Twain could not discuss with Howell's, say, or with Twitchell the sensation and the particulars of the change, supposing there be a recognizable change in that transition of which we have speculated so much with such slender returns. No one ever debated the undiscovered country more than he. In his whimsical, semi-serious fashion he had considered all the possibilities of the future state, orthodox and otherwise, and had drawn picturesistically original conclusions. He had sent Captain Stormfield in a dream to report the aspects of the early Christian heaven. He had examined the scientific aspects of the more subtle philosophies. He had considered spiritualism, transmigration, the various esoteric doctrines, and in the end he had logically made up his mind that death concludes all. While with that less logical hunger which survives in every human heart he had never ceased to expect an existence beyond the grave. His disbelief and his pessimism were identical in their structure. They were of his mind, never of his heart. Once a woman said to him, Mr. Clemens, you are not a pessimist, you only think you are. And she might have added with equal force and truth, you are not a disbeliever in immortality, you only think you are. Nothing could have conveyed more truly his attitude toward life and death. His belief in God, the Creator, was absolute. But it was a God far removed from the Creator of his early teaching. Every man builds his God according to his own capacities. Mark Twain's God was of colossal proportions, so vast indeed that the constellated stars were but molecules in his veins, a God as big as space itself. Mark Twain had many moods, and he did not always approve of his own God, but when he altered his conception it was likely to be in the direction of enlargement, a further removal from the human conception, and the problem of what we call our lives. In 1906 he wrote, see also 1870, chapter 78, 1899, chapter 205, and various talks, 1906, 1907, etc. Let us now consider this real God, the genuine God, the great God, the sublime and supreme God, the authentic Creator of the real universe, whose remotenesses are visited by comets only, comets unto which incredible distant Neptune is merely an outpost, a sandy hook to homeward bound specters of the deeps of space that have not glimpsed it before for generations, a universe not made with hands and suited to an astronomical nursery, but spread abroad through the illimitable reaches of space by the fiat of the real God just mentioned, by comparison with whom the gods whose myriads infest the feeble imaginations of men are as a swarm of gnats scattered and lost in the infinitudes of the empty sky. At an earlier period, the date not exactly fixable, but the stationary used and the handwriting suggest the early eighties, he sent down a few concisely written pages of conclusions, conclusions from which he did not deviate materially in after years. The document follows, I believe in God the Almighty. I do not believe he has ever sent a message to man by anybody or delivered one to him by word of mouth or made himself visible to mortal eyes at any time in any place. I believe that the old and new Testaments were imagined and written by man and that no line in them was authorized by God much less inspired by him. I think the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are manifested in his works. I perceive that they are manifested toward me in this life. The logical conclusion is that they will be manifested toward me in the life to come if there should be one. I do not believe in special providences. I believe that the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws. If one man's family is swept away by a pestilence and another man's spared it is only the law working. God is not interfering in that small matter either against the one man or in favor of the other. I cannot see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any good end. Therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a man in order to perfect him might be reasonable enough to annihilate him when he shall have proved himself incapable of reaching perfection might be reasonable enough, but to roast him for ever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him roast would not be reasonable. Even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews would tire of the spectacle eventually. There may be a hereafter and there may not be. I am wholly indifferent about it. If I am appointed to live again I feel sure it will be for some more sane and useful purpose than to flounder about for ages in a lake of fire and brimstone for having violated a confusion of ill-defined and contradictory rules, sad but not evidenced, to be of divine institution. If annihilation is to follow death I shall not be aware of the annihilation and therefore shall not care a straw about it. I believe that the world's moral laws are the outcome of the world's experience. It needed no God to come down out of heaven to tell men that murder and theft and the other immortalities were bad, both for the individual who commits them and for society which suffers from them. If I break all these moral laws I cannot see how I injure God by it, for he is beyond the reach of injury from me, I could as easily injure a planet by throwing mud at it. It seems to me that my misconduct could only injure me and other men. I cannot benefit God by obeying these moral laws. I could as easily benefit the planet by withholding my mud. Let these sentences be read in the light of the fact that I believe I have received moral laws only from man, none whatever from God. Consequently I do not see why I should be either punished or rewarded hereafter, for the deeds I do here. If the tragedies of life shook his faith in the goodness and justice and the mercy of God as manifested toward himself he at any rate never questioned that the wider scheme of the universe was attuned to the immutable law which contemplates nothing less than absolute harmony. I never knew him to refer to this particular document, but he never destroyed it and never amended it, nor is it likely that he would have done either had it been presented to him for consideration even during the last year of his life. He was never intentionally dogmatic, in a memorandum on a fly-leaf of Moncure D. Conway's sacred anthology, he wrote, Religion. The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. Mark Twain, 19th century A.D. And in another note, I would not interfere with any one's religion either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life, hence it is a valuable possession to him. Mark Twain's religion was a faith too wide for doctrines, a benevolence too limitless for creeds. From the beginning he strove against oppression, sham, and evil in every form. He despised meanness. He resented with every drop of blood in him anything that savored of persecution or accurtailment of human liberties. It was a religion identified with his daily life and his work. He lived as he wrote, and he wrote, as he believed. His favourite weapon was humour, good humour, with logic behind it, a sort of glorified truth it was, truth wearing a smile of gentleness, hence all the more quickly heated. He will be remembered with the greatest humours of all time, says Howells, with Cervantes, with Swift, or with any others worthy of his company. None of them was his equal in humanity. Mark Twain understood the needs of men because he was himself supremely human. In one of his dictations he said, I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small or a large way. When it is small, as compared with the same ingredient in somebody else, there is still enough of it for all the purposes of examination. With his strength he had inherited the weaknesses of our kind, with him, as with another, a myriad of dreams and schemes and purposes daily flitted by. With him, as with another, the spirit of desire led him often to a high mountaintop, and was not rudely put aside, but lingeringly, and often, invited to return. With him, as with another, a crowd of jealousies and resentments and wishes for the ill of others daily went seething and scorching along the highways of the soul, with him, as with another, regret, remorse, and shame stood at the bedside during long watches of the night, and in the end with him, the better thing triumphed, forgiveness and generosity and justice in a word, humanity. Certain of his aphorisms and memoranda each in itself constitutes an epitome of Mark Twain's creed. His paraphrase, when in doubt, tell the truth, is one of these, and he embodied his whole attitude toward infinity when in one of his stray pencillings he wrote, Why, even poor little ungodlike man holds himself responsible for the welfare of his child, to the extent of his ability, it is all that we require of God. by Albert Bigelow Payne. Chapter 296 Postscript Every life is a drama, a play in all its particulars, comedy, farce, tragedy, all the elements are there. To examine in detail any life, however conspicuous or obscure, is to become amazed, not only at the inevitable sequence of events, but at the interlinking of details, often far removed, into a marvelously intricate pattern which no art can hope to reproduce and can only feebly imitate. The biographer may reconstruct an episode, present a picture, or reflect a mood by which the reader is enabled to feel something of the glow of personality, and know, perhaps, a little of the substance of the past. Insofar as the historian can accomplish this, his work is a success. At best his labour will be pathetically incomplete, for whatever its detail and its resemblance to life these will record mainly but an outward expression, behind which was the mighty sweep and tumult of unwritten thought, the overwhelming proportion of any life which no other human soul can ever really know. Mark Twain's appearance on the stage of the world was a succession of dramatic moments. He was always exactly in the setting. Whatever he did, or whatever came to him, was timed for the instant of greatest effect. At the end he was more widely observed and loved and honoured than ever before, and at the right moment, and in the right manner, he died. How little one may tell of such a life as his! He travelled always such a broad and brilliant highway with plumes flying and crowds following after. Such a whirling panorama of life and death and change. I have written so much, and yet I have put so much aside, and often the best things, it seemed afterward, perhaps because each in its way was best and the variety infinite. One may only strive to be faithful, and I would have made it better if I could. End of Chapter 296 Postscript Read by John Greenman Section 86 of Mark Twain A Biography Appendixes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain A Biography By Albert Bigelow Payne Appendix A Letter from Orian Clemens to Ms. Wood Concerning Henry Clemens C. Chapter 26 Keokuk, Iowa October 3, 1858 Ms. Wood My mother, having sent me your kind letter with a request that myself and wife should write to you, I hasten to do so. In my memory I can go away back to Henry's infancy. I see his large blue eyes intently regarding my father when he rebuked him for his credulity in giving full faith to the boyish idea of planting his marbles, expecting a crop therefrom. Then comes back the recollection of the time when, standing we three alone by our father's grave, I told them always to remember that brothers should be kind to each other. Afterward I see Henry returning from school with his books for the last time. He must go into my printing office. He learned rapidly. A word of encouragement or a word of discouragement told upon his organization electrically. I could see the effects in his day's work. Sometimes I would say, Henry! He would stand full front with his eyes upon mine all attention. If I commanded him to do something without a word he was off instantly, probably in a run. If a cat was to be drowned or shot, Sam, though unwilling yet firm, was selected for the work. If a stray kitten was to be fed and taken care of, Henry was expected to attend to it, and he would faithfully do so. So they grew up. And many was the grave lecture commenced by Ma to the effect that Sam was misleading and spoiling Henry. But the lectures were never concluded, for Sam would reply with a witticism or dry, unexpected humor that would drive the lecture clean out of my mother's mind and change it to a laugh. Those were happier days. My mother, as lively as any girl of sixteen, she is not so now. And Sister Pamela I have described in describing Henry, for she was his counterpart. The blow falls crushingly on her. But the boys grew up. Sam, a rugged, brave, quick-tempered, generous-hearted fellow, Henry quiet, observing, thoughtful, leaning on Sam for protection. Sam and I, too, leaning on him for knowledge picked up from conversation or books, for Henry seemed never to forget anything, and devoted much of his leisure hours to reading. Henry is gone. His death was horrible. How I could have sat by him, hung over him, watched day and night every change of expression, and ministered to every want in my power that I could discover. This was denied to me, but Sam, whose organization is such as to feel the utmost extreme of every feeling, was there. Both his capacity of enjoyment and his capacity of suffering are greater than mine, and knowing how it would have affected me to see so sad a scene, I can somewhat appreciate Sam's sufferings. In this time of great trouble when my two brothers, whose heartstrings have always been a part of my own, were suffering the utmost stretch of mortal endurance, you were there, like a good angel, to aid and console, and I bless and thank you for it with my whole heart. I thank all who helped them then. I thank them for the flowers they sent to Henry, for the tears that fell for their sufferings, and when he died, and all of them for all the kind attentions they bestowed upon the poor boys. We thank the Physicians, and we shall always gratefully remember the kindness of the gentlemen who, at so much expense to himself, enabled us to deposit Henry's remains by our Father. With many kind wishes for your future welfare, I remain your earnest friend, respectfully, Orian Clemens. End of Appendix A. Letter from Orian Clemens to Miss Wood, Concerning Henry Clemens. Red by John Greenman. Section 87 of Mark Twain, A Biography. Appendixes. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain, A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Payne. Appendix B. Mark Twain's Berlesque of Captain Isaiah Sellers. C. Chapter 27. The item which served as a text for the Sergeant Fathom Communication was as follows. Vicksburg, May 4th, 1859. My opinion, for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans, the water is higher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water will be four feet deep in Canal Street before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has not been since 1815. I, Sellers. Captain Sellers, as in this case, sometimes signed his own name to his communications. The Berlesque introductory. Our friend Sergeant Fathom, one of the oldest cub pilots on the river, and now on the railroad line steamer Trombone, sends us a rather bad account concerning the state of the river. Sergeant Fathom is a cub of much experience, and although we are loath to coincide in his view of the matter, we give his note a place in our columns, only hoping that his prophecy will not be verified in this instance. While introducing the Sergeant, we consider it but simple justice, we quote from a friend of his, to remark that he is distinguished for being, in pilot phrase, close as well as superhumanly safe. It is a well-known fact that he has made fourteen hundred and fifty trips in the New Orleans and St. Louis trade, without causing serious damage to a steamboat. This astonishing success is attributed to the fact that he seldom runs his boat after early candlelight. It is related of the Sergeant that upon one occasion he actually ran the shoot of Glasscox Island downstream in the night, and at a time, too, when the river was scarcely more than bank-full. His method of accomplishing this feat proves what we have just said of his safeness. He sounded the shoot first, and then built a fire at the head of the island to run by. As to the Sergeant's closeness, we have heard it whispered that he once went up to the right of the Old Hen, Glasscox Island and the Old Hen were phenomenally safe places, but this is probably a pardonable little exaggeration prompted by the love and admiration in which he is held by various ancient dames of his acquaintance. For, albeit, the Sergeant may have already numbered the allotted years of man, still his form is erect, his step is firm, his hair retains its sable hue, and, more than all, he hath a winning way about him, an air of docility and sweetness, if you will, and a smoothness of speech, together with an exhaustless fund of funny sayings. And lastly, an overflowing stream, without beginning or middle or end, of astonishing reminiscences of the ancient Mississippi, which, taken together, form a tout ensemble, which is sufficient excuse for the tender epithet which is, by common consent, applied to him by all those ancient dames aforesaid, of She-Arming-Creature. As the Sergeant has been longer on the river, and is better acquainted with it than any other cub extant, his remarks are entitled to far more consideration, and are always read with the deepest interest, by high and low, rich and poor, from Kehoe to Kamchatka, for let it be known that his fame extends to the uttermost parts of the earth. The communication R. R. Steamer Trombone, Vicksburg, May 8th, 1859 The river from New Orleans, up to Natchez, is higher than it has been since the niggers were executed, which was in the fall of 1813. And my opinion is that if the rise continues at this rate, the water will be on the roof of the St. Charles Hotel before the middle of January. The point at Cairo, which has not even been moistened by the river since 1813, is now entirely under water. However, Mr. Editor, the inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley should not act precipitately, and sell their plantations at a sacrifice on account of this prophecy of mine, for I shall proceed to convince them of a great fact in regard to this matter, these that the tendency of the Mississippi is to rise less and less high every year, with an occasional variation of the rule, that such has been the case for many centuries, and eventually that it will cease to rise at all. Therefore, I would hint to the planters, as we say in an innocent little parlor game commonly called draw, that if they can only stand the rise this time, they may enjoy the comfortable assurance that the old river's banks will never hold a full again during their natural lives. In the summer of 1763 I came down the river on the old first jubilee. She was new then, however, a singular sort of single engine boat with a Chinese captain and a Choctaw crew, folks along her stern, wheels in the center, and the jack staff nowhere, for I steered her with a window shutter, and when we wanted to land we sent a line ashore and rounded her too with a yoke of oxen. Well, sir, we wooded off the top of the big bluff above Selma, the only dry land visible, and waited there three weeks, swapping knives and playing seven up with the Indians, waiting for the river to fall. Finally it fell about a hundred feet, and we went on. One day we rounded too, and I got in a horse trough, which my partner borrowed from the Indians up there at Selma, while they were at prayers, and went down to sound around number eight, and while I was gone my partner got around on the hills at Hickman. After three days' labor we finally succeeded in sparring her off with a capstan bar, and went on to Memphis. By the time we got there the river had subsided to such an extent that we were able to land where the Geoso house now stands. We finished loading at Memphis, and loaded part of the stone for the present St. Louis courthouse, which was then in the process of erection, to be taken up on our return trip. You can form some conception by these memoranda of how high the water was in 1763. In 1775 it did not rise so high by 30 feet. In 1790 it missed the original mark at least 65 feet. In 1797 150 feet, and in 1804 nearly 250 feet. These were high water years. The high waters, since then, have been so insignificant that I have scarcely taken the trouble to notice them. Thus you will perceive that the planters need not feel uneasy. The river may make an occasional spasmodic effort out of flood, but the time is approaching when it will cease to rise all together. In conclusion, sir, I will condescend to hint at the foundation of these arguments. When me and De Soto discovered the Mississippi, I could stand, I'd believe, our landing, several miles above Roaring Water's Bar, and pitch a biscuit to the main shore on the other side, and in low water we waded across at Donaldsonville. The gradual widening and deepening of the river is the whole secret of the matter. Yours, etc., Sergeant Fathom. End of Appendix B. Mark Twain's Berlask of Captain Isaiah Sellers. Read by John Greenman. Section 88 of Mark Twain a Biography. Appendixes. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mark Twain a Biography. By Albert Bigelow Payne. Appendix C. 1. Mark Twain's Empire City Hoax. C. Chapter 41. The Latest Sensation. A victim to Jeremy Diddling Trustees. He cuts his throat from ear to ear, scalps his wife, and dashes out the brains of six helpless children. From Abram Curry, who arrived here yesterday afternoon from Carson, we learn the following particular is concerning a bloody massacre which was committed in Ormsby County night before last. It seems that during the past six months a man named P. Hopkins, or Philip Hopkins, has been residing with his family in the old log house just at the edge of the great pine forest which lies between Empire City and Dutch Knicks. The family consisted of nine children, five girls and four boys, the oldest of the group, Mary being 19 years old, and the youngest, Tommy, about a year and a half. Twice in the past two months Mrs. Hopkins, while visiting Carson, expressed fears concerning the sanity of her husband, remarking that of late he had been subject to fits of violence, and that during the prevalence of one of these he had threatened to take her life. It was Mrs. Hopkins misfortune to be given to exaggeration, however, and but little attention was given to what she said. About ten o'clock on Monday evening Hopkins dashed into Carson on horseback with his throat cut from ear to ear, and bearing in his hand a reeking scalp, from which the warm, smoking blood was still dripping, and fell in a dying condition in front of the Magnolia Saloon. Hopkins expired in the course of five minutes without speaking. The long red hair of the scalp he bore marked it as that of Mrs. Hopkins. A number of citizens headed by Sheriff Gashary mounted at once and rode down to Hopkins house where a ghastly scene met their eyes. The scalpless corpse of Mrs. Hopkins lay across the threshold, with her head split open and her right hand almost severed from the wrist. Near her lay the axe with which the murderous deed had been committed. In one of the bedrooms six of the children were found, one in bed and the others scattered about the floor. They were all dead. Their brains had evidently been dashed out with a club, and every mark about them seemed to have been made with a blunt instrument. The children must have struggled hard for their lives, as articles of clothing and broken furniture were strewn about the room in the utmost confusion. Julia and Emma, aged respectively 14 and 17, were found in the kitchen, bruised and insensible. But it is thought their recovery is possible. The eldest girl Mary must have sought refuge in her terror, in the garret, as her body was found there frightfully mutilated, and the knife with which her wounds had been inflicted still sticking in her side. The two girls, Julia and Emma, who had recovered sufficiently to be able to talk yesterday morning, declare that their father knocked them down with a billet of wood and stamped on them. They think they were the first attacked. They further state that Hopkins had shown evidence of derangement all day, but had exhibited no violence. He flew into a passion and attempted to murder them because they advised him to go to bed and compose his mind. Currie says Hopkins was about 42 years of age and a native of western Pennsylvania. He was always affable and polite, and until very recently no one had ever heard of his ill-treating his family. He had been a heavy owner in the best minds of Virginia and Gold Hill, but when the San Francisco papers exposed our game of cooking dividends in order to bolster up our stocks, he grew afraid and sold out, and invested an immense amount in the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco. He was advised to do this by a relative of his, one of the editors of the San Francisco Bulletin, who had suffered pecuniarily by the dividend cooking system as applied to the Danny Mining Company recently. Hopkins had not long ceased to own, in the various claims on the Comstock load, however, when several dividends were cooked on his newly acquired property, their water totally dried up, and Spring Valley Stock went down to nothing. It is presumed that this misfortune drove him mad, and resulted in his killing himself and the greater portion of his family. The newspapers of San Francisco permitted this water company to go on borrowing money and cooking dividends under cover of which the cunning financiers crept out of the tottering concern, leaving the crash to come upon poor and unsuspecting stockholders, without offering to expose the villainy at work. We hope the fearful massacre detailed above may prove the saddest result of their silence. 2. News Gathering with Mark Twain Alfred Doton's son gives the following account of a reporting trip made by his father and Mark Twain when the two were on Comstock papers. My father and Mark Twain were once detailed to go over to Como and write up some new mines that had been discovered over there. My father was on the Gold Hill News. He and Mark had not met before, but became promptly acquainted and were soon calling each other by their first names. They went to a little hotel at Carson, agreeing to do their work there together next morning. When morning came they set out, and suddenly on a corner Mark stopped and turned to my father, saying, By gracious Alph, isn't that a brewery? It is, Mark, let's go in. They did so, and remained there all day, swapping yarns, sipping beer and lunching, going back to the hotel that night. The next morning precisely the same thing occurred. When they were on the same corner Mark stopped, as if he had never been there before, and said, Good gracious Alph, isn't that a brewery? It is, Mark, let's go in. So again they went in, and again stayed all day. This happened again the next morning and the next. Then my father became uneasy. A letter had come from Gold Hill asking him where his report of the mines was. They agreed that next morning they would really begin the story, that they would climb to the top of the hill that overlooked the mines and write it from there. But the next morning, as before, Mark was surprised to discover the brewery, and once more they went in. A few moments later, however, a man who knew all about the mines, a mining engineer connected with them, came in. He was a godsend. My father set down a valuable informing story while Mark got a lot of entertaining mining yarns out of him. Next day, Virginia City and Gold Hill were gaining information from my father's article and the entertainment from Mark's story of the mines. End of appendix C, one Mark Twain's Empire City hoax, the latest sensation, and two news gathering with Mark Twain. Read by John Greenland.