 CHAPTER 44 Every little while Mark Twain had a fever of playwriting, and it was about this time that he collaborated with W. D. Howells on a second Colonel Sellers play. It was a lively combination. Once to the writer, Howells said, "'Clemens took one scene and I another. We had loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it as we went along. We thought it might be good, and I think to this day it was mighty good.' But actors and managers did not agree with them. Raymond, who had played the original Sellers, declared that in this play the Colonel had not become merely a visionary but a lunatic. The play was offered elsewhere, and finally Mark Twain produced it at his own expense. But perhaps the public agreed with Raymond, for the venture did not pay. It was about a year after this, the winter of 1884-5, that Mark Twain went back to the lecture platform, or rather he joined with George W. Cable in a reading tour. Cable had been giving readings on his own account from his wonderful Creole stories, and had visited Mark Twain in Hartford. While there he had been taken down with the mumps, and it was during his convalescence that the plan for a combined reading tour had been made. This was early in the year, and the tour was to begin in the autumn. Cable, meantime, having quite recovered, conceived a plan to repay Mark Twain's hospitality. It was to be an April Fool, a great complementary joke. A few days before the first of the month he had a private and confidential circular letter printed, and mailed it to one hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's friends and admirers in Boston, New York, and elsewhere, asking that they send the humorist a letter to arrive April 1, requesting his autograph. It would seem that each one receiving this letter must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1 an immense pile of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not know what to make of it. And Mrs. Clemens, who was party to the joke, slyly watched results. They were the most absurd requests for autographs ever written. He was fooled and mystified at first, then realizing the nature and magnitude of the joke he entered into it fully delighted, of course, for it was really a fine compliment. Some of the letters asked for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Some commanded him to sit down and copy a few chapters from the Innocence Abroad. Others asked that his autograph be attached to a check. John Hay requested that he copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of young's night thoughts, etc., and added, I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and it will add considerable commercial value to have it in your handwriting. All together the reading of the letters gave Mark Twain a delightful day. The platform tour of Clemens and Cable that fall was a success. They had good houses, and the work of these two favorites, read by the authors of it, made a fascinating program. They continued their tour westward, as far as Chicago, and gave readings in Hannibal and Kiyokuk. Orion Clemens and his wife once more lived in Kiyokuk, and with them Jane Clemens brisk and active for her eighty-one years. She had visited Hartford more than once, and enjoyed Sam's fine house. But she chose the west for home. Orion Clemens, honest, earnest, and industrious, had somehow missed success in life. The more prosperous brother, however, made an allowance ample for all. Mark Twain's mother attended the Kiyokuk reading. Later at home, when her children asked her if she could still dance, she had been a great dancer in her youth. She rose, and in spite of her forescore, tripped as lightly as a girl. It was the last time that Mark Twain would see her in full health. At Christmas time Cable and Clemens took a fortnight's holiday, and Clemens went home to Hartford. There a grand surprise awaited him. Mrs. Clemens had made an adaptation of the prince and the pauper for the stage, and his children, with those of the neighborhood, had learned the parts. A good stage had been set up in George Warner's home, with a pretty drop curtain and very good scenery indeed. Clemens arrived in the late afternoon and felt an air of mystery in the house, but did not guess what it meant. By and by he was led across the grounds to George Warner's home, into a large room, and placed in a seat directly fronting the stage. Then presently the curtain went up, the play began, and he knew. As he watched the little performers playing so eagerly the parts of his story, he was deeply moved and gratified. It was only the beginning of the prince and the pauper production. The play was soon repeated. Clemens himself taking the part of Miles Hendon. In a biography of her father, which Susie began a little later, she wrote, Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all sure he could do it. I was the prince, and Papa and I rehearsed two or three times a day, for the three days before the appointed evening. Papa acted his part beautifully, and he added to the scene, making it a good deal longer. He was inexpressibly funny, with his great slouch hat and gate. Oh, such a gate! Susie's sister Clara took the part of Lady Jane Gray, while little Jean, aged four, in the part of a court official, sat at a small table and constantly signed state papers and death warrants. CHAPTER 45 THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FIN. Mark Twain had really become a publisher. His nephew by marriage, Charles L. Webster, who, with Osgood, had handled the Mississippi book, was now established under the firm name of Charles L. Webster and Company, Samuel L. Clemens being the Company. Clemens had another book ready, and the new firm were to handle it throughout. The new book was a story which Mark Twain had begun one day at Quarry Farm nearly eight years before. It was to be a continuation of the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, especially of the latter, as told by himself. But the author had no great opinion of the tale and presently laid it aside. Then some seven years later, after his trip down the river, he felt again the inspiration of the old days, and the story of Huck's adventures had been continued and brought to a close. The author believed in it by this time, and the firm of Webster and Company was really formed for the purpose of publishing it. Mark Twain took an active interest in the process. From the pages of Life he selected an artist, a young man named E. W. Kemble, who would later become one of our foremost illustrators of Southern character. He also gave attention to the selection of the paper and the binding, even to the method of canvassing for the sales. In a note to Webster he wrote, Get at your canvassing early, and drive it with all your might. If we haven't forty thousand subscriptions, we simply postpone publication till we've got them." Mark Twain was making himself believe that he was a businessman, and in this instance at least he seems to have made no mistake. Some advanced chapters of Huck appeared serially in the Century Magazine, and the public was eager for more. By the time the Century chapters were finished, the forty thousand advanced subscriptions for the book had been taken, and Huck Finn's own story, so long pushed aside and delayed, came grandly into its own. Many grown-up readers and most critics declared that it was greater than the Tom Sawyer book, though the younger readers generally like the first book the best, it being rather more in the juvenile vein. Huck's story, in fact, was soon causing quite grown-up discussions, discussions as to its psychology and moral phases, matters which do not interest small people, who are always on Huck's side and everything, and quite willing that he should take any risk of body or soul for the sake of Nigger Jim. Poor, vagrant Ben Blankenship, hiding his runaway negro in an Illinois swamp, could not dream that his humanity would one day supply the moral episode for an immortal book. As literature the story of Huck Finn holds a higher place than that of Tom Sawyer. As stories they stand side by side, neither complete without the other, and both certain to live as long as there are real boys and girls to read them. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelopane, Chapter 46 Publisher to General Grant Mark Twain was now a successful publisher, but his success thus far was nothing to what lay just ahead. One evening he learned that General Grant, after a heavy financial disaster, had begun writing the memoirs which he, Clemens, had urged him to undertake some years before. Next morning he called on the General to learn the particulars. Grant had contributed some articles to the Century War series and felt in a mood to continue the work. He had discussed with the Century Publishers the matter of a book. Clemens suggested that such a book should be sold only by subscription and prophesied its enormous success. General Grant was less sure. His need of money was very great, and he was anxious to get as much return as possible, but his faith was not large. He was inclined to make no special efforts in the matter of publication, but Mark Twain prevailed. Like his own Colonel Sellers he talked glowingly and eloquently of millions. He first offered to direct the General to his own former subscription publisher at Hartford, then finally proposed to publish it himself, offering Grant seventy percent of the net returns and to pay all office expenses out of his own share. Of course there could be nothing for any publisher in such an arrangement unless the sales were enormous. General Grant realized this, and at first refused to consent. Here was a friend offering to bankrupt himself out of pure philanthropy—a thing he could not permit. But Mark Twain came again and again, and finally persuaded him that purely as business proposition the offer was warranted by the certainty of great sales. So the firm of Charles L. Webster and Company undertook the Grant Book and the old soldier, broken in health and fortune, was liberally provided with means that would enable him to finish his task with his mind at peace. He devoted himself steadily to the work, at first writing by hand, then dictating to a stenographer that Webster and Company provided. His disease, Cancer, made fierce ravages, but he fought it out on that line, and wrote the last pages of his memoirs by hand when he could no longer speak aloud. Mark Twain was much with him and cheered him with anecdotes and news of the advanced sale of his book. In one of his memoranda of that time Clemens wrote, Today, May 26, talked with General Grant about his and my first great Missouri campaign in 1861. He surprised an empty camp near Florida, Missouri, on Salt River, which I had been occupying a day or two before. How near he came to playing the D with his future publisher. At Mount McGregor, a few weeks before the end, General Grant asked if any estimate could now be made of the sum which his family would obtain from his work, and was deeply comforted by Clemens' prompt reply that more than one hundred thousand sets had already been sold, the author's share of which would exceed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clemens added that the gross return would probably be twice as much more. The last notes came from Grant's hand soon after that, and a few days later, July 23, 1881, his task completed, he died. To Henry Ward Beecher, Clemens wrote, One day he put his pencil aside and said, There was nothing more to do. If I had been there, I could have foretold the shock that struck the world three days later. In a memorandum estimate made by Mark Twain soon after the canvas for the Grant Memoirs had begun, he had prophesied that three hundred thousand sets of the book would be sold, and that he would pay General Grant in royalties four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. This prophecy was more than fulfilled. The first check paid to Mrs. Grant, the largest single royalty check in history, was for two hundred thousand dollars. Later payments brought her royalty return up to nearly four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For once at least, Mark Twain's business vision had been clear. A fortune had been realized for the Grant family. Even his own share was considerable, for out of that great sale more than a hundred thousand dollars profit was realized by Webster and Company. CHAPTER 47 The High Tide of Fortune That summer at Quarry Farm was one of the happiest they had ever known. Mark Twain, nearing fifty, was in the fullness of his manhood, and in the brightest hour of his fortune. Susie, in her childish biography, begun at this time, gives us a picture of him. She begins, We are a happy family. We consist of Papa, Mama, Jean, Clara, and me. It is Papa I am writing about, and I shall have no trouble in not knowing what to say about him, as he is a very striking character. Papa's appearance has been described many times, but very incorrectly. He has beautiful curly gray hair, not any too thick or any too long, just right. A Roman nose which greatly improves the beauty of his features, kind blue eyes, and a small mustache. He has a wonderfully shaped head and profile. He has a very good figure. In short, he is an extraordinarily fine-looking man. He is a very good man, and a very funny one. He has got a temper, but we all have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw, or ever hoped to see. And, oh, so absent-minded! We may believe this is a true picture of Mark Twain at fifty. He did not look young for his years, but he was still young in spirit and body. Susie tells how he blew bubbles for the children, filling them with tobacco smoke, also how he would play with the cats and come clear down from his study to see how a certain kitten was getting along. Susie adds that there are eleven cats at the farm now, and tells of the day's occupations, but the description is too long to quote. It reveals a beautiful, busy life. Susie herself was a gentle, thoughtful, romantic child. One afternoon she discovered a wonderful tangle of vines and bushes, a still, shut-in corner not far from the study. She ran breathlessly to her aunt. Can I have it? Can Clara and I have it all for our own? The petition was granted, and the place was called Helen's Bower, for they were reading Thaddeus of Warsaw and the name appealed to Susie's poetic fancy. Something happened to the bower, an unromantic workman mowed it down. But by this time there was a little house there which Mrs. Clemens had built just for the children. It was a complete little cottage when furnished. There was a porch in front with comfortable chairs. Inside were also chairs, a table, dishes, shelves, a broom, even a stove, small but practical. They called the little house Ellersley, out of Grace Aguiar's days of Robert Bruce. There alone, or with their Langdon cousins, how many happy summers they played and dreamed away. Secluded by a hillside and happy trees over looking the hazy distant town, it was a world apart, a corner of storybook land. When the end of the summer came its little owners went about bidding their treasures goodbye, closing and kissing the gates of Ellersley. Looking back now, Mark Twain at fifty would seem to have been in his golden prime. His family was ideal, his surroundings idyllic. Favored by fortune, beloved by millions, honoured, now even in the highest places, what more had life to give. When November thirtieth brought his birthday, one of the great Brahmins Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote him a beautiful poem. Andrew Lang, England's foremost critic, also sent verses, while letters poured in from all sides. And Mark Twain realised his fortune, and was disturbed by it. To a friend he said, I am frightened at the proportions of my prosperity. It seems to me that whatever I touch turns to gold. End of Chapter 47 This is Chapter 48 of The Boy's Life of Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain by Albert Bigelow Payne Chapter 48 Business Difficulties Pleasanter Things For the time it would seem that Mark Twain had given up authorship for business. The success of the grant-book had filled his head with plans for others of a like-nature. Memoirs of General McClellan and General Sheridan were arranged for. Almost any war-book was considered a good venture, and there was another plan afoot. Pope Leo XIII, in his old age, had given sanction to the preparation of his memoirs, and it was to be published, with his blessing, by Webster and Company of Hartford. It was generally believed that such a book would have a tremendous sale, and Colonel Sellars himself could not have piled the figures higher than did his creator in counting his prospective returns. Every Catholic in the world must have a copy of the Pope's book, and in America alone there were millions. Webster went to Rome to consult with the Pope in person, and was received in private audience. Mark Twain's publishing firm seemed on the top wave of success. The McClellan and Sheridan books were issued, and in due time the Life of Pope Leo XIII published simultaneously in six languages, issued from the press. A large, advanced sale had been guaranteed by the general canvassing agents, a fortunate thing as it proved, for, strange as it may seem, the book did not prove a great success. It is hard to explain just why. Perhaps Catholics felt that there had been so many popes that the Life of any particular one was no great matter. The book paid, but not largely. The McClellan and Sheridan books likewise were only partially successful. Perhaps the public was getting tired of war memoirs. Webster and company undertook books of a general sort, travel, fiction, poetry. Many of them did not pay. Their business from a march of triumph had become a battle. They undertook a library of American literature, a work of many volumes, costly to make, and even more so to sell. To float this venture they were obliged to borrow large sums. It seems unfortunate that Mark Twain should have been disturbed by these distracting things during what should have been his literary high tide. As it was, his business interests and cares absorbed the energy that might otherwise have gone into books. He was not entirely idle. He did an occasional magazine article or story, and he began a book which he worked at from time to time, the story of a Connecticut Yankee, who suddenly finds himself back in the days of King Arthur's reign. Webster was eager to publish another book by his great literary partner, but the work on it went slowly. Then Webster broke down from two years of overwork, and the business management fell into other hands. Those still recognized as a great publishing house, those within the firm of Charles L. Webster and company, knew that its prospects were not bright. Furthermore, Mark Twain had finally invested in another patent, the type-setting machine mentioned in a former chapter, and the demands for cash to promote this venture were heavy. To his sister Pamela, about the end of 1887, he wrote, The type-setter goes on forever at three thousand dollars a month. We'll be through with it in three or four months, I reckon. A false hope for the three or four months would lengthen into as many years. But if there were clouds gathering in the business sky, they were not often allowed to cast a shadow in Mark Twain's home. The beautiful house in Hartford was a place of welcome and merriment, of many guests and of happy children, especially of happy children. During these years, the latter half of the eighties, when Mark Twain's fortunes were on the decline, his children were at the age to have a good time, and certainly they had it. The dramatic stage which had been first set up at George Warner's for the Christmas Prince and Pauper performance was brought over and set up in the Clemens schoolroom, and every Saturday there were plays or rehearsals, and every little while there would be a grand general performance in the great library downstairs, which would accommodate just eighty-four chairs filled by parents of the performers and invited guests. In notes dictated many years later Mark Twain said, We dined as we could, probably with a neighbor, and by quarter to eight in the evening the hickory fire in the hall was pouring a sheet of flame up the chimney, the house was in a drench of gas-light from the ground floor up, the guests were arriving, and there was a babble of hearty greetings, with not a voice in it that was not old and familiar and affectionate. And when the curtain went up, we looked out from the stage upon none but faces dear to us, none but faces that were lit up with welcome for us. He was one of the children himself, you see, and therefore on the stage with the others. Katie Leary, for thirty years in the family service, once said to the author, The children were crazy about acting, and we all enjoyed it as much as they did, especially Mr. Clemens, who was best actor of all. I have never known a happier household than theirs was during those years. The plays were not all given by the children. Mark Twain had kept up his German study, and a class met regularly in his home to struggle with the problems of der, die and das. By and by he wrote a play for the class, Meisterschaft, a picturesque mixture of German and English, which they gave twice with great success. It was unlike anything attempted before or since. No one but Mark Twain could have written it. Later, January 1888, in modified form, it was published in the Century Magazine. It is his best work of this period. Many pleasant and amusing things could be recalled from these days, if one only had room. A visit with Robert Louis Stevenson was one of them. Stevenson was stopping at a small hotel near Washington Square, and he and Clemens sat on a bench in the sunshine and talked through at least one golden afternoon. What marvelous talk that must have been! Huck Finn was one of Stevenson's favorites, and once he told how he had insisted on reading the book aloud to an artist who was painting his portrait. The painter had protested at first, but presently had fallen a complete victim to Huck's story. Once in a letter Stevenson wrote, My father, an old man, has been prevailed upon to read roughing it, his usual amusement being found in theology, and after one evening spent with the book he declared, I am frightened! It cannot be safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much! Mark Twain had been a mug-wump during the Blame Cleveland campaign in 1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. He was therefore in high favor at the White House during both Cleveland administrations and called there informally whenever business took him to Washington. But on one occasion, it was his first visit after the President's marriage, there was to be a party, and Mrs. Clemens, who could not attend, slipped a little note into the pocket of his evening waistcoat, where he would be sure to find it when dressing, warning him as to his deportment. Being presented to young Mrs. Cleveland, he handed her a card on which he had written, he didn't, and asked her to sign her name below those words. Mrs. Cleveland protested that she must know first what it was that he hadn't done, finally agreeing to sign if he would tell her immediately all about it, which he promised to do. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. Clemens' note. It was very brief. It said, Don't wear your arctics in the White House. Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card mailed immediately to Mrs. Clemens. Absent-mindedness was characteristic of Mark Twain. He lived so much in the world within that to him the material outer world was often vague and shadowy. Once, when he was knocking the balls about in the billiard room, George, the colored butler, a favorite and privileged household character brought up a card. So many canvassers came to sell him one thing and another that Clemens promptly assumed this to be one of them. George insisted mildly but firmly that, though a stranger, the caller was certainly a gentleman, and Clemens grumblingly descended the stairs. As he entered the parlor the caller arose and extended his hand. Clemens took it rather limply, for he had noticed some watercolors and engravings leaning against the furniture as if for exhibition, and he was instantly convinced that the caller was a picture canvasser. Inquiries by the stranger as to Mrs. Clemens and the children did not change Mark Twain's conclusion. He was polite but unresponsive, and gradually worked the visitor toward the front door. His inquiry as to the home of Charles Dudley Warner caused him to be shown eagerly in that direction. Clemens on his way back to the billiard room heard Mrs. Clemens call him. She was ill that day. Yes, Livy. He went in for a word. George brought me Mr. B's card. I hope you were nice to him. The B's were so nice to us once in Europe while you were gone. The B's? Why, Livy? Yes, of course, and I asked him to be sure to call when he came to Hartford. Well, he's been here. Oh, youth, have you done anything? Yes, of course I have. He seemed to have some pictures to sell, so I sent him over to Warner's. I noticed he didn't take them with him. Land sakes. Livy, what can I do? Go right after him. Go quick. Tell him what you have done. He went without further delay, bareheaded and in his slippers as usual. Warner and B were in cheerful conversation they had met before. Clemens entered gaily. Oh, yes, I see. You found him all right. Charlie, we met Mr. B and his wife in Europe, and they made things pleasant for us. I just wanted to come over here with him, but I was a good deal occupied just then. Livy isn't very well, but she seems now a good deal better, so I just followed along to have a good talk all together. He stayed an hour, and whatever bad impression had formed in B's mind faded long before the hour ended. Returning home, Clemens noticed the pictures still on the parlor floor. George, he said, what pictures are these that gentleman left? Why, Mr. Clemens, those are our own pictures. Mrs. Clemens had me set them around to see how they would look in new places. The gentleman was only looking at them while he waited for you to come down. It was in June 1888 that Yale College conferred upon Mark Twain the degree of Master of Arts. He was proud of the honour, for it was recognition of a kind that had not come to him before. Remarkable recognition, when we remember how as a child he had hated all schools and study, having ended his classroom days before he was twelve years old. He could not go to New Haven at the time, but later in the year made the students a delightful address. In his capacity of Master of Arts, he said, he had come down to New Haven to institute certain college reforms. By advice I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I told the Greek professor I had concluded to drop the use of the Greek written character, because it is so hard to spell with, and so impossible to read after you get it spelt. Let us draw the curtain there. I saw by what followed that nothing but early neglect saved him from being a very profane man. He said he had given advice to the mathematical department with about the same result. The astronomy department he had found in a bad way. He had decided to transfer the professor to the law department, and to put a law student in his place. A boy will be more biddable, more tractable, also cheaper. It is true he cannot be entrusted with important work at first, but he can comb the skies for Nebula until he gets his hand in. It was hardly the sort of an address that the holder of a college degree is expected to make, but doctors and students alike welcomed it hilariously from Mark Twain. Not many great things happened to Mark Twain during this long period of semi-literary inaction, but many interesting ones. When Bill Nye, the humorist, and James Whitcomb Riley joined themselves in an entertainment combination, Mark Twain introduced them to their first Boston audience, a great event to them, and to Boston. Clemens himself gave a reading now and then, but not for money. Once when Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston and Thomas Nelson Page were to give a reading in Baltimore, Page's wife fell ill, and Colonel Johnston wired to Charles Dudley Warner asking him to come in Page's stead. Warner, unable to go, handed the telegram to Clemens, who promptly answered that he would come. They read to a packed house, and when the audience had gone and the returns were counted, an equal amount was handed to each of the authors. Clemens pushed his share over to Johnston, saying, That's yours, Colonel. I'm not reading for money these days. Colonel Johnston, to whom the sum was important, tried to thank him, but Clemens only said, Never mind, Colonel. It only gives me pleasure to do you that little favor. You can pass it along some day. As a matter of fact, Mark Twain himself was beginning to be hard pressed for funds at this time, but was strong in the faith that he would presently be a multi-millionaire. The type-setting machine was still costing a vast sum, but each week its inventor promised that a few more weeks or months would see it finished, and then a tide of wealth would come rolling in. Mark Twain felt that a man with shiploads of money almost in port could not properly entertain the public for pay. He read for institutions, schools, benefits, and the like, without charge. CHAPTER 49 Kippling at Elmira, L. C. Leslie, the Yankee day, during the summer of 1889, a notable meeting took place in Elmira. On a blazing forenoon a rather small and very hot young man in a slow, sizzling hack made his way up East Hill to Quarry Farm. He inquired for Mark Twain, only to be told that he was at the Langdon home, down in the town which the young man had just left. So he sat for a little time on the Pleasant Veranda, and Mrs. Crane and Susie Clemens, who were there, brought him some cool milk, and listened to him talk in a way which seemed to them very entertaining and wonderful. When he went away he left his card with a name on it strange to them, strange to the world at that time. The name was Rudyard Kippling. Also on the card was the address Allahabad, and Susie kept it because to her India was fairyland. Kippling went down into Elmira and found Mark Twain. In his book American Notes he has left an account of that visit. He claimed that he had travelled around the world to see Mark Twain, and his article begins, You are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are commissioners, and some are lieutenant governors, and some have the VC, and a few are privileged to walk about them all arm in arm with the viceroy. But I have seen Mark Twain, this golden morning, have shaken his hand and smoked a cigar, no, two cigars with him, and talked with him for more than two hours. But one should read the article entire, it is so worthwhile. Clemens also long after dictated an account of the meeting. Kippling came down and spent a couple of hours with me, and, at the end of that time, I had surprised him as much as he had surprised me, and the honours were easy. I believed that he knew more than any person I had met before, and I knew that he knew that I knew less than any person he had met before. When he had gone, Mrs. Langdon wanted to know about my visitor. I said, He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man, and I am the other one. Between us we uncover all knowledge. He knows all that can be known, and I know the rest. He was a stranger to me and all the world, and remained so for twelve months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. George Warner came into our library one morning in Hartford with a small book in his hand, and asked me if I had ever heard of Rudyard Kippling. I said, No. He said I would hear of him very soon, and that the noise he made would be loud and continuous. A day or two later he brought a copy of the London World which had a sketch of Kippling in it, and a mention of the fact that he had travelled in the United States. According to the sketch he had passed through Elmira. This remark, with the additional fact that he hailed from India, attracted my attention, also Susie's. She went to her room and brought his card from its place in the frame of her mirror, and the quarry farm visitor stood identified. A theatrical production of The Prince and the Pulper, dramatized by Mrs. A. S. Richardson, was one of the events of this period. It was a charming performance, even if not a great financial success, and little Elsie Leslie, who played the double part of The Prince and Tom Canty, became a great favourite in the Clemens' home. She was also a favourite of the actor and playwright William Gillette. Footnote No. 9 Gillette was originally a Hartford boy. Mark Twain had recognised his ability, advanced him funds with which to complete his dramatic education, and Gillette's first engagement seems to have been with the Colonel Sellers Company. Mark Twain often advanced money in the interest of education. A young sculptor he sent to Paris for two years' study. Among others, he paid the way of two coloured students through college. End of Footnote No. 9 And once, when Clemens and Gillette were together, they decided to give the little girl a surprise—a pair of slippers, in fact, embroidered by themselves. In his presentation letter to her, Mark Twain wrote, Either of us could have thought of a single slipper, but it took both of us to think of two slippers. In fact, one of us did think of one slipper, and then, quick as a flash, the other thought of the other one. He apologised for his delay. You see, it was my first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly get the hang of it, along at first, and then I was so busy I couldn't get a chance to work at home, and they wouldn't let me embroider on the cars. They said it made the other passengers afraid. Take the slippers, and wear them next to your heart, Elsie-deer, for every stitch in them is a testimony of the affection which two of your loyalist friends bear you. Every single stitch cost us blood. I've got twice as many pours in me now as I used to have. Do not wear these slippers in public, dear. It would only excite envy, and, as like as not, somebody would try to shoot you. For five years Mark Twain had not published a book. Since the appearance of Huck Finn at the end of 1884 he had given the public only an occasional magazine story or article. His business struggle and the typesetter had consumed not only his fortune, but his time and energy. Now at last, however, a book was ready. A Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court came from the press of Webster and Company at the end of 1889. A handsome book, elaborately and strikingly illustrated by Dan Beard, a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. It's my swan song, my retirement from literature permanently, he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this conclusion. The story of Yankee, a fanciful narrative of a skilled Yankee mechanic swept backward through the centuries to the dim day of Arthur and his round table, is often grotesque enough in its humor, but under it all is Mark Twain's great humanity in fierce and noble protest against unjust laws, the tyranny of an individual or of a ruling class, oppression of any sort. As in the prince and the pauper, the wandering heir to the throne is brought in contact with cruel injustice and misery. So in the Yankee the king himself becomes one of a band of fettered slaves, and through degradation and horror of soul acquires mercy and humility. The Yankee and King Arthur's court is a splendidly imagined tale. Edmund Clarence Steadman and William Dean Howells have ranked it very high. Howells once wrote, Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction, it pleases me most. The Yankee has not held its place in public favor with Mark Twain's earlier books, but it is a wonderful tale, and we cannot afford to leave it unread. When the summer came again, Mark Twain and his family decided for once to forego Quarry Farm for a season in the Catskills, and presently found themselves located in a cottage at Antioira in the midst of a most delightful colony. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, then editor of St. Nicholas, was there, and Mrs. Custer and Brander Matthews and Lawrence Hutton, and a score of other congenial spirits. There was constant visiting from one cottage to another, with frequent gatherings at the inn, which was general headquarters. Susie Clemens, now eighteen, was a central figure—brilliant, eager, intense, ambitious for achievement, lacking only in physical strength. She was so flower-like, it seemed always that her fragile body must be consumed by the flame of her spirit. It was a happy summer, but it closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in August to his mother's bedside. A few weeks later came the end, and Jane Clemens had closed her long and useful life. She was in her eighty-eighth year. A little later, at Elmira, followed the death of Mrs. Clemens' mother, a sweet and gentle woman. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Payne Chapter 50 The Machine Goodbye to Hartford Joan is begun. It was hoped that the prophets from the Yankee would provide for all needs until the great sums which were to come from the typesetter should come rolling in. The book did yield a large return, but alas the hope of the typesetter, deferred year after year and month after month, never reached fulfillment. Its inventor, James W. Page, whom Mark Twain once called a poet, a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations are written in steel. During ten years of persistent experiment had created one of the most marvelous machines ever constructed. It would set and distribute type, adjust the spaces, detect flaws, would perform in fact anything that a human being could do with more exactness and far more swiftness. Mark Twain himself, a practical printer seeing it in its earlier stages of development and realizing what a fortune must come from a perfect typesetting machine, was willing to furnish his last dollar to complete the invention. But there the trouble lay. It could never be complete. It was too intricate, too much like a human being, too easy to get out of order, too hard to set right. Page, fully confident, always believed he was just on the verge of perfecting some appliance that would overcome all difficulties, and the machine finally consisted of twenty thousand minutely exact parts, each of which required expert workmanship and had to be fitted by hand. Mark Twain once wrote, All other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly into common places contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. This was true, and it conveys the secret of its failure. It was too much of a miracle to be reliable. Sometimes it would run steadily for hours, but then some part of its delicate mechanism would fail, and days, even weeks, were required to repair it. It is all too long a story to be given here. It has been fully told elsewhere. Footnote number 10 At Mark Twain's death his various literary effects passed into the hands of his biographer and literary executor, the present writer. End of footnote number 10 By the end of 1890 Mark Twain had put in all his available capital and was heavily in debt. He had spent one hundred and ninety thousand dollars on the machine, no penny of which would ever be returned. Outside capital to carry on the enterprise was promised, but it failed him. Still believing that there were millions in it, he realized that for the present at least he could do no more. Two things were clear. He must fall back to authorship for revenue, and he must retrench. In the present low stage of his fortunes he could no longer afford to live in the Hartford House. He decided to take the family abroad where living was cheaper and where he might be able to work with fewer distractions. He began writing at a great rate articles and stories for the magazines. He hunted out the old play he had written with Howells long before, and made a book of it, The American Claimant. Then in June 1891 they closed the beautiful Hartford House, where for seventeen years they had found an ideal home, where the children had grown through their sweet early life, where the world's wisest had come and gone, pausing a little to laugh with the world's greatest merry-maker. The furniture was shrouded, the curtains drawn, the light shut away. While the carriage was waiting Mrs. Clemens went back and took a last look into each of the rooms, as if bidding a kind of goodbye to the past. Then she entered the carriage, and Patrick McAllier, who had been with Mark Twain and his wife since their wedding day, drove them to the station for the last time. Mark Twain had a contract for six newspaper letters at one thousand dollars each. He was troubled with rheumatism in his arm, and wrote his first letter from Ex-Leban, a watering-place, a health factory, as he called it, and another from Merienbad. They were in Germany in August, and one day came to Heidelberg, where they occupied their old apartment of thirteen years before, room forty, in the Schloss Hotel, with its far prospect of wood and hill, the winding necker, and the blue distant valley of the Rhine. Then, presently, they came to Switzerland, to Uchi Lozan by lovely Lake Geneva, and here Clemens left the family, and with a guide and a boatman, went drifting down their own in a curious flat-bottom craft, thinking to find material for one or more articles, possibly for a book. But drifting down that fair river through still September days, past ancient drowsy villages, among sloping vineyards where grapes were ripening in the tranquil sunlight, was too restful and soothing for work. In a letter home, he wrote, It's too delicious, floating with the swift current, under the awning these superb sun-shiny days, in peace and quietness. Some of the curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, but it's so lovely a float that I don't stop, but view them from the outside and sail on. I want to do all the rivers of Europe, in an open boat, in summer weather. One afternoon, about fifteen miles below the city of Valence, he made a discovery. Dreamily observing the eastward horizon, he noticed that a distant blue mountain presented a striking profile outline of Napoleon Bonaparte. It seemed really a great natural wonder, and he stopped that night at the village just below, Beauchastel, a hoary huddle of houses with the roofs all run together, and took a room at the little hotel, with a window looking to the eastward, from which, next morning, he saw the profile of the great stone face wonderfully outlined against the sunrise. He was excited over his discovery, and made a descriptive note of it, and an outline sketch. Then, drifting farther down the river, he characteristically forgot all about it and did not remember it again for ten years, by which time he had forgotten the point on the river where the Napoleon could be seen, forgotten even that he had made a note and sketch giving full details. He wished the Napoleon to be found again, believing, as he declared, that it would become one of the natural wonders of the world. To travellers going to France he attempted to describe it, and some of these tried to find it, but as he located it too far down the Rhone, no one reported success, and in time he spoke of his discovery as the Lost Napoleon. It was not until after Mark Twain's death that it was rediscovered, and then by the writer of this memoir, who, having Mark Twain's own notebook, footnote number 11, at Mark Twain's death his various literary effects passed into the hands of his biographer and literary executor, the present writer, and footnote number 11. With its exact memoranda, on another September day, motoring up the Rhone, located the blue profile of the reclining Napoleon opposite the grave village of Beauchastel. It is a really remarkable effigy, and deserves to be visited. Clemens finished his trip at Arles, a beautiful trip from beginning to end, but without literary result. When he undertook to write of it, he found that it lacked incident, and what was worse, it lacked humor. To undertake to create both was too much. After a few chapters he put the manuscript aside, unfinished, and so it remains to this day. The Clemens family spent the winter in Berlin, a gay winter with Mark Twain as one of the distinguished figures of the German capital. He was received everywhere and made much of. Once a small choice dinner was given him by Kaiser Wilhelm II, and later a breakfast by the Empress. His books were great favourites in the German royal family. The Kaiser particularly enjoyed the Mississippi book, while the essay on the awful German language, in the Tramp Abroad, he pronounced one of the finest pieces of humor ever written. Mark Twain's books were favourites, in fact, throughout Germany. The doorman in his hotel had them all in his little room, and discovering one day that their guests Samuel L. Clemens and Mark Twain were one, he nearly exploded with excitement. Dragging the author to his small room, he pointed to the shelf. There, he said, you wrote them? I've found it out! I did not know it before, and I ask a million pardons! Affairs were not going well in America, and in June Clemens made a trip over to see what could be done. Probably he did very little, and he was back presently at Nallheim, a watering-place where he was able to work rather quietly. He began two stories, one of them, the extraordinary twins, which was the first form of Putinhead Wilson, the other, Tom Sawyer Abroad, for St. Nicholas. Twitchell came to Nallheim during the summer, and one day he and Clemens ran over to Homburg not far away. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, was there, and Clemens and Twitchell, walking in the park, met the Prince with the British ambassador and were presented. Twitchell, in an account of the meeting, said, The meeting between the Prince and Mark was the most cordial one on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain's arm and the two marched up and down, talking earnestly together. The Prince solid, erect, and soldier-like. Clemens weaving along in his curious swinging-gate in full tide of talk, and brandishing a son umbrella of the most scandalous description. At Via Viviani, an old, old mansion outside of Florence, on the hill towards Setiniano, Mark Twain finished Tom Sawyer Abroad, also Putinhead Wilson, and wrote the first half of a book that really had its beginning on the day when, an apprentice boy in Hannibal, he had found a stray leaf from the pathetic story of Joan of Arc. All his life she had been his idol, and he had meant some day to write of her. Now, in this weather-stained old palace, looking down on Florence, medieval and hazy, and across to the villa dotted hills, he began one of the most beautiful stories ever written, the personal recollections of Joan of Arc. He wrote in the first person, assuming the character of Joan's secretary, Cyr-Louis de Comte, who in his old age is telling the great tale of the Maid of Orleans. It was Mark Twain's purpose, this time, to publish anonymously, walking the floor one day at Viviani, and smoking vigorously, he said to Mrs. Clemens and Susie, I shall never be accepted seriously over my own signature. People always want to laugh over what I write, and are disappointed if they don't find a joke in it. This is to be a serious book. It means more to me than anything else I have ever undertaken. I shall write it anonymously. So it was that the gentle Cyr de Comte took up the pen, and the tale of Joan was begun in the ancient garden of Viviani, a setting appropriate to its lovely form. He wrote rapidly when once his plan was perfected and his material arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood was now recalled, not merely his reading, but as remembered reality. It was as if he were truly the old Cyr de Comte, saturated with memories, pouring out the tender, tragic tale. In six weeks he had written one hundred thousand words, remarkable progress at any time. The more so when we consider that some of the authorities he consulted were in a foreign tongue. He had always more or less kept up his study of French, begun so long ago on the river, and it stood him now in good stead. Still it was never easy for him, and the multitude of notes that still exist along the margin of his French authorities show the magnitude of his work. Others of the family went down into the city almost daily, but he stayed in the still garden with Joan. Florence and its suburbs were full of delightful people, some of them old friends. There were luncheons, dinners, teas, dances, and the like always in progress, but he resisted most of these things, preferring to remain the quaint old Cyr de Comte, following again the banner of the maid of Orleans, marshalling her twilight armies across his illumined page. By the next spring, March 1893, he was obliged to put aside the manuscript and hurry to America again, fruitlessly, of course, for a financial stress was on the land. The business of Webster and Company was on the downgrade, nothing could save it. There was new hope in the old typesetting machine, but his faith in the resurrection was not strong. The strain of his affairs was telling on him. The business owed a great sum, with no prospect of relief. Back in Europe again, Mark Twain wrote F. D. Hall, his business manager in New York, I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a volcano. Get me out of business! Tantalizing letters continued to come, holding out hope in the business, the machine, in any new straw that promised a little support through the financial storm. Again he wrote Hall, great scot, but it's a long year for you and me. I never knew the almanac to drag so. I watch for your letters hungrily, just as I used to watch for the telegram, saying the machine was finished. But when, next week, certainly, suddenly swelled into, three weeks, sure! I recognize the old familiar tune I used to hear so much. W. don't know what sick-heartedness is, but he is in a fair way to find out. They closed Viviani in June and returned to Germany. By the end of August Clemens could stand no longer the strain of his American affairs, and, leaving the family at some German baths, he once more sailed for New York. In a room at the Player's Club, a cheap room, he wrote home, at $1.50 per day, Mark Twain spent the winter hoping against hope to weather the financial storm. His fortunes were at a lower ebb than ever before, lower even than during those bleak mining days among the Esmeralda Hills. Then there had been no one but himself, and he was young. Now, at fifty-eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed down by debt. The liabilities of his firm were fully two hundred thousand dollars, sixty thousand of which were owing to Mrs. Clemens for money advanced, but the large remaining sum was due to banks, printers, binders, and the manufacturers of paper. A panic was on the land, and there was no business. What he was to do, Clemens did not know. He spent most of his days in his room, trying to write, and succeeded in finishing several magazine articles. Outwardly cheerful, he hid the bitterness of his situation. A few, however, knew the true state of his affairs. One of these one night introduced him to Henry H. Rogers, the standard oil millionaire. Mr. Clemens, said Mr. Rogers, I was one of your early admirers. I heard your lecture a long time ago on the Sandwich Islands. They sat down at a table, and Mark Twain told amusing stories. Rogers was in a perpetual gale of laughter. They became friends from that evening, and in due time the author had confessed to the financier all his business worries. You had better let me look into things a little, Rogers said, and he advised Clemens to stop walking the floor. It was characteristic of Mark Twain to be willing to unload his affairs upon anyone that he thought able to bear the burden. He became a new man overnight. With Henry Rogers in charge, life was once more worthwhile. He accepted invitations from the Rogers family and from many others, and was presently so gay, so widely sought, and seen in so many places that one of his acquaintances, Jamie Dodge, dubbed him the Bell of New York. Henry Rogers, meanwhile, was looking into things. He had reasonable faith in the type machine and advanced a large sum on the chance of its proving success. This, of course, lifted Mark Twain quite into the clouds. Daily he wrote and cabled all sorts of glowing hopes to his family, then in Paris. Once he wrote, The ship is in sight now. When the anchor is down, then I shall say, Farewell, along farewell to business. I will never touch it again. I will live in literature. I will wallow in it, revel in it. I will swim in ink. Once he cabled, expect good news in ten days. And a little later, Look out for good news! And in a few days, nearing success! Those cellar-like messages could not but appeal to Mrs. Clemens' sense of humor, even in those dark days. To her sister she wrote, They make me laugh, for they are so like my beloved Colonel. The affairs of Webster and Company, Mr. Rogers found a bad way. When at last in April 1894 the crisis came, a demand by the chief creditors for payment, he advised immediate assignment as the only course. So the firm of Webster and Company closed its doors. The business, which less than ten years before had become so prosperously, had ended in failure. Mark Twain, nearing fifty-nine, was bankrupt. When all the firm's effects had been sold and applied on the counts, he was still more than seventy thousand dollars in debt. Friends stepped in and offered to lend him money, but he declined these offers. Through Mr. Rogers, a basis of settlement at fifty cents on the dollar was arranged, and Mark Twain said, Give me time, and I will pay the other fifty. No one but his wife and Mr. Rogers, however, believed that at his age he would be able to make good the promise. Many advised him not to attempt it, but to settle once and for all on the legal basis as arranged. Sometimes in moments of despondency he almost surrendered. Once he said, I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it. But these were only the hard moments. For the most part he kept up good heart and confidence. It is true that he now believed again in the future of the typesetter and that returns from it would pay him out of bankruptcy. But later in the year this final hope was taken away. Mr. Rogers wrote to him that in the final test the machine had failed to prove itself practical, and that the whole project had been finally and permanently abandoned. The shock of disappointment was heavy for the moment, but then it was over, completely over, for that old mechanical demon that vampire of invention that had sapped his fortune so long was laid at last. The worst had happened. There was nothing more to dread. Within a week Mark Twain, he was now back in Paris with the family, had settled down to work once more on the recollections of Joan, and all mention and memory of the typesetter was forever put away. The machine stands today in the Sibley College of Engineering, where it is exhibited as the costliest piece of mechanism for its size ever constructed. Mark Twain once received a letter from an author who had written a book to assist inventors and patentees asking for his endorsement. He replied, Dear sir, I have, as you say, been interested in patents and patentees. If your book tells how to exterminate inventors, send me nine editions. Send them by express. Very truly yours, S. L. Clemens. Those were economical days. There was no income except from the old books, and at the time this was not large. The Clemens family, however, was cheerful, and Mark Twain was once more in splendid working form. The story of Joan hurried to its tragic conclusion. Each night he read to the family what he had written that day, and Susie, who was easily moved, would say, Wait! Wait till I get my handkerchief! And one night, when the last pages had been written and read, and the fearful scene and roi had been depicted, Susie wrote in her diary, Tonight Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, meaning that the book was finished. Susie herself had fine literary taste, and might have written had not her greater purpose been to sing. There are fragments of her writing that show the true literary touch. Both Susie and her father cared more for Joan than for any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers, Clemens wrote, Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing. It was written for love. It was placed serially with Harper's Magazine and appeared anonymously, but the public soon identified the inimitable touch of Mark Twain. It was now the spring of 1895, and Mark Twain had decided upon a new plan to restore his fortunes. Platform work had always paid him well, and though he disliked it now more than ever, he had resolved upon something unheard of in that time, nothing less, in fact, than a platform tour around the world. In May, with the family, he sailed for America, and after a month or two of rest at Quarry Farm, he set out with Mrs. Clemens and Clara, and with his American agent, J.B. Pond, for the Pacific Coast. Susie and Jean remained behind with their aunt at the farm. The travellers left Elmira at night, and they always remembered the picture of Susie, standing under the electric light of the railway platform, waving them goodbye. Mark Twain's tour of the world was a success from the beginning. Everywhere he was received with splendid honours in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in India, in Salon, in South Africa, wherever he went his welcome was a grand ovation. His theatres and halls were never large enough to hold his audiences. With the possible exception of General Grant's long tour in 1878-79, there had hardly been a more gorgeous progress than Mark Twain's trip around the world. Everywhere they were overwhelmed with attention and gifts. We cannot begin to tell the story of that journey here. In Following the Equator, the author himself tells it in his own delightful fashion. From time to time along the way, Mark Twain forwarded his accumulated profits to Mr. Rogers to apply against his debts, and by the time they sailed from South Africa, the sum was large enough to encourage him to believe that, with the royalties to be derived from the book he would write of his travels, he might be able to pay in full and so face the world once more a free man. Their long trip, it had lasted a full year, was nearing its end. They would spend the winter in London, Susie and Jean were notified to join them there. They would all be reunited again. The outlook seemed bright once more. They reached England the last of July. Susie and Jean, with Katie Leary, were to arrive on the 12th of August. But the 12th did not bring them. It brought, instead, a letter. Susie was not well, the letter said. The sailing had been postponed. The letter added that it was nothing serious, but her parents cabled at once for later news. Receiving no satisfactory answer, Mrs. Clemens, full of forebodings, prepared to sail with Clara for America. Clemens would remain in London to arrange for the winter residence. A cable came, saying Susie's recovery would be slow but certain. Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed immediately. In some notes, he once dictated, Mark Twain said, That was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife and Clara were about half way across the ocean, I was standing in our dining-room, thinking of nothing in particular, when a cable-gram was put into my hand. It said, Susie was peacefully released to-day. Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that equaled this one. The dead girl had been his heart's pride. It was a year since they parted, and now he knew he would never see her again. The blow had found him alone and among strangers. In that day he could not even reach out to those upon the ocean drawing, daily nearer to the heartbreak. Susie Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well for a time at the farm, but then her health had declined. She worked continuously at her singing lessons and over-tried her strength. Then she went on a visit to Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner in Hartford, but she did not rest, working harder than ever at her singing. Finally she was told that she must consult a physician. The doctor came and prescribed soothing remedies, and advised that she had the rest and quiet of her own home. Mrs. Crane came from Elmira, also her uncle Charles Langdon, but Susie became worse, and a few days later her malady was pronounced meningitis. This was the fifteenth of August, the day that her mother and Clara sailed from England. She was delirious and burning with fever, but at last sank into unconsciousness. She died three days later, and on the night that Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived was taken to Elmira for burial. They laid her beside the little brother that had died so long before, and ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia, written by Robert Richardson. This is Chapter 52 of The Boy's Life of Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Payne. Chapter 52 European Economies With Clara and Jean, Mrs. Clemens returned to England, and in a modest house on Tedworth Square, a secluded corner of London, the stricken family hid themselves away for the winter. Few, even of their closest friends knew of their whereabouts. In time the report was circulated that Mark Twain, old, sick, and deserted by his family, was living in poverty, toiling to pay his debts. Through the London publishers, a distant cousin, Dr. James Clemens of St. Louis, located the house on Tedworth Square, and wrote offering assistance. He was invited to call and found a quiet place, the life there simple, but not poverty. By and by there was another report, this time that Mark Twain was dead. A reporter found his way to Tedworth Square, and being received by Mark Twain himself, asked what he should say. Clemens regarded him gravely, then, in his slow, nasal drawl, Say that the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated. A remark that a day later was amusing both hemispheres. He could not help his humour. It was his natural form of utterance, the medium for conveying fact, fiction, satire, philosophy. Whatever his depth of despair, the quaint surprise of speech would come, and it would be so until his last day. By November he was at work on his book of travel, which he first thought of calling, Around the World. He went out not at all that winter, and the work progressed steadily, and was complete by the following May, 1897. Meantime, during his trip around the world, Mark Twain's publishers had issued two volumes of his work, The Joan of Arc Book, and another Tom Sawyer book, the latter volume combining two rather short stories, Tom Sawyer Abroad, published serially in St. Nicholas, and Tom Sawyer Detective. The Joan of Arc Book, the tenderest and most exquisite of all Mark Twain's work, a tale told with a deepest sympathy and the rarest delicacy, was dedicated by the author to his wife, as being the only piece of his writing which he considered worthy of this honour. He regarded it as his best book, and this was an opinion that did not change. Twelve years later, it was on his 73rd birthday, he wrote as his final verdict, November 30, 1908, I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books, and it is the best. I know it perfectly well, and besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others. Twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation, and got none. Mark Twain The public at first did not agree with the author's estimate, and the demand for the book was not large, but the public amended its opinion. The demand for Joan increased with each year until its sales ranked with the most popular of Mark Twain's books. The new stories of Tom and Huck have never been as popular as the earlier adventures of this pair of heroes. The shorter stories are less important and perhaps less alive, but they are certainly very readable tales, and nobody but Mark Twain could have written them. Clemens began some new stories when his travel book was out of the way, but presently with the family was on the way to Switzerland for the summer. They lived at Weggis, on Lake Lucerne, in the Villa Buleg, a very modest five-frank-a-day pension, for they were economizing and putting away money for the debts. Mark Twain was not in a mood for work, and besides, proofs of the new book following the Equator, as it is now called, were coming steadily. But on the anniversary of Susie's death, August 18th, he wrote a poem in Memoriam, in which he touched a literary height never before attained. It was published in Harper's Magazine, and now appears in his collected works. Across from Villa Buleg, on the lakefront, there was a small shaded enclosure where he loved to sit and look out on the blue water and lofty mountains, one of which, Rigi, he and Twitchel, had climbed nineteen years before. The little retreat is still there, and today one of the trees bears a tablet in German. Mark Twain's rest. Autumn found the family in Vienna, located for the winter at the Hotel Metropole. Mrs. Clemens realized that her daughters must no longer be deprived of social and artistic advantages. For herself, she longed only for retirement. Vienna is always a gay city, a center of art and culture and splendid social functions. From the moment of his arrival, Mark Twain and his family were in the midst of affairs. Their room at the Metropole became an assembling place for distinguished members of the several circles that go to make up the dazzling Viennese life. Mrs. Clemens, to her sister in America, once wrote, Such funny combinations are here sometimes. One duke, several counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper women, etc. Mark Twain found himself the literary lion of the Austrian capital. Every club entertained him and roared with delight at his German speeches. Wherever he appeared on the streets, he was recognized. Let him pass! Don't you see it is Air Mark Twain! commanded an officer to a guard who, in the midst of a great assemblage, had presumed to bar the way. End of Chapter 52. This is Chapter 53 of the Boy's Life of Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Payne, Chapter 53, Mark Twain Pays His Debt. Mark Twain wrote much and well during this period, in spite of his social life, his article concerning the Jews was written that first winter in Vienna, a fine piece of special pleading. Also the greatest of his short stories, one of the greatest of all short stories, the man that corrupted Hadleyburg. But there were good reasons why he should write better now. His mind was free of a mighty load. He had paid his debts. Soon after his arrival in Vienna, he had written to Mr. Rogers, Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the wait any longer. It totally unfits me for work. He had accumulated a large sum for the purpose, and the royalties from the new book were beginning to roll in. Payment of the debts was begun. At the end of December he wrote again, Land, we are glad to see those debts diminishing. For the first time in my life I am getting more pleasure from paying money out than from pulling it in. A few days later he wrote to Howells that he had turned the corner, and again, We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could. And there's no undisputed claim now that we can't cash. I hope you will never get the like of the load saddled on to you that was saddled on to me three years ago. And yet there is such a solid pleasure in paying the things that I reckon it is worth while to get into that kind of a hobble after all. Mrs. Clemens gets millions of delight out of it, and the children have never uttered one complaint about the scrimping from the beginning. By the end of January, 1898, Clemens had accumulated enough money to make the final payments to his creditors. At the time of his failure he had given himself five years to achieve this result, but he had needed less than four. A report from Mr. Rogers showed that a balance of thirteen thousand dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were wiped away. Clemens had tried to keep his money affairs out of the newspapers, but the payment of the final claims could not be concealed, and the press made the most of it. Headlines shouted it. Editorials heralded Mark Twain as a second Walter Scott, because Scott, too, had labored to lift a great burden of debt. Never had Mark Twain been so beloved by his fellow men. One might suppose now that he had had enough of invention and commercial enterprises of every sort, that his—one who did not know Mark Twain might suppose this—but it would not be true. Within a month after his debts were paid he was negotiating with the Austrian inventor Japanic for the American rights in a wonderful carpet-pattern machine, and, sellers like, was planning to organize a company with a capital of fifteen hundred million dollars to control the carpet-weaving industries of the world. He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the standard oil to come in, but the plan failed to bear the test of Mr. Rogers' investigation and was heard of no more. Samuel Clemens' obligation to Henry Rogers was very great, but it was not quite the obligation that many supposed it to be. It was often asserted that the financier Lent even gave the humorist large sums and pointed out opportunities for speculation. No part of this statement is true. Mr. Rogers neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money, and never allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He sometimes invested Mark Twain's own funds for him, but he never bought for him a share of stock without money in hand to pay for it in full. Money belonging to and earned by Clemens himself. What Henry Rogers did give to Mark Twain was his priceless counsel and time, gifts more precious than any mere sum of money, favors that Mark Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them, and never ceased to be grateful. He rarely wrote without expressing his gratitude, and we get the size of Mark Twain's obligation when in one letter we read, I have abundant peace of mind again. No sense of burden. Work has become a pleasure. It is not labor any longer. He wrote much and well, mainly magazine articles, including some of those chapters later gathered in his book on Christian science. He reveled like a boy in his new freedom and fortunes, in the lavish honors paid him, in the rich circumstance of V&E's life, but always just beneath the surface were unforgettable sorrows. His face and repose was always sad. Once after writing to howls of his successes, he added, All those things might move and interest one, but how desperately more I have been moved, tonight, by the thought of a little old copy in the nursery of At the Back of the North Wind. Oh, what happy days they were when that book was read, and how Susie loved it. News came to Vienna of the death of Orion Clemens at the age of seventy two. Orion had died as he had lived, a gentle dreamer, always with a new plan. He had not been sick at all. One morning early he had seated himself at a table with pencil and paper, and was putting down the details of his latest project, when death came, kindly, in the moment of new hope. He was a generous upright man, beloved by all who understood him. The Clemens's remained two winters in Vienna, spending the second at the Hotel Kranz, where their rooms were larger and finer than at the Metropole, and even more crowded with notabilities. Their salon acquired the name of the Second Embassy, and Mark Twain was, in fact, the most representative American in the Austrian capital. It became the fashion to consult him on every question of public interest, his comments, whether serious or otherwise, being always worth printing. When European disarmament was proposed, editor William T. Stead of the Review of Reviews wrote for his opinion. He replied, Dear Mr. Stead, the Tsar is ready to disarm. I am ready to disarm. Collect the others. It should not be much of a task now. Mark Twain He refused offers of many sorts. He declined $10,000 for a tobacco endorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough. He declined $10,000 a year for five years to lend his name as editor of a humorous periodical. He declined another $10,000 for ten lectures, and another offer for fifty lectures, at the same rates—that is, $1,000 per night. He could get along without these sums, he said, and still preserve some remnants of his self-respect. It was May 1899 when Clemens and his family left Vienna. They spent a summer in Sweden on account of the health of Jean Clemens, and located in London Apartments, 30 Wellington Court, for the winter. Then followed a summer at beautiful Dollas Hill, an old house where Gladstone had often visited, on a shady hilltop just outside of London. The city had not quite enclosed the place then, and there were spreading oaks upon with lily-pads and wide spaces of grassy lawn. The place today is converted into a public garden called Gladstone Park. Writing to Twitchell in Midsummer, Clemens said, I am the only person who is ever in the house in the day time, but I am working, and deep in the luxury of it. But there is one tremendous defect. Levy is all so enchanted with the place, and so in love with it, that she doesn't know how she is going to tear herself away from it. However, there was one still greater attraction than Dollas Hill, and that was America. Home. Mark Twain, at 65, and a free man once more, had decided to return to his native land. They closed Dollas Hill at the end of September, and October 6, 1900, sailed on the Minnehaha for New York, bidding good-bye, as Mark Twain believed and hoped, to foreign travel. Nine days later, to a reporter who greeted him on the ship, he said, If I ever get ashore, I am going to break both of my legs, so I can't get away again. CHAPTER 55 A Prophet at Home New York tried to outdo Vienna and London in honoring Mark Twain. Every newspaper was filled with a story of his great fight against debt and his triumph. He had behaved like Walter Scott, writes Howells, as millions rejoiced to know who had not known how Walter Scott behaved, till they knew it was like Clemens. Clubs and societies vied with one another in offering him grand entertainments. Literary and lecture proposals poured in. He was offered, at the rate of a dollar a word for his writing, he could name his own terms for lectures. These sensational offers did not tempt him. He was sick of the platform. He made a dinner speech here and there, always an event, but he gave no lectures or readings for profit. His literary work he confined to a few magazines, and presently concluded an arrangement with Harper and Brothers for whatever he might write, the payment to be twenty, later thirty cents per word. He arranged with the same firm for publication of all his books, by this time collected in uniform addition. He wished his affairs to be settled as nearly as might be. His desire was freedom from care. Also he would have liked a period of quiet and rest, but that was impossible. He realized that the multitude of honors tendered him was in a sense a vast compliment which he could not entirely refuse. Howells writes that Mark Twain's countrymen kept it up past all precedent, and in return Mark Twain tried to do his part. His friends saw that he was wearing himself out, adds Howells, and certain it is that he grew thin and pale and had a hacking cough. Once to Richard Watson Gilder he wrote, In bed with a chest cold and other company. Dear Gilder, I can't. If I were a well man I could explain with this pencil, but in the circumstances I will leave it all to your imagination. Was it Grady that killed himself trying to do all the dining and speeching? No, old man. No, no. Ever yours, Mark. In the various dinner speeches and other utterances made by Mark Twain at this time his hearers recognized a new and great seriousness of purpose. It was not really new, only perhaps more emphasized. He still made them laugh, but he insisted on making them think, too. He preached a new gospel of patriotism, not the patriotism that means a boisterous cheering of the stars and stripes were ever unfurled, but the patriotism that proposes to keep the stars and stripes clean and worth shouting for. In one place he said, We teach the boys to atrophy their independence. We teach them to take their patriotism at second hand. To shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter, exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. He protested against the blind allegiance of monarchies. He was seldom with the largest crowd himself. Writing much of our foreign affairs, then in a good deal of a muddle, he sailed so fearlessly and fiercely measures which he held to be unjust that he was caricatured as an armed knight on a charger and as Huck Finn with a gun. But he was not always warlike. One of the speeches he made that winter was with Colonel Henry Watterson, a former Confederate soldier, at a Lincoln Birthday Memorial at Carnegie Hall. Think of it, he wrote, tWitchell. Two old rebels functioning there. I, as President and Watterson, as orator of the day. Things have changed somewhat in these forty years, thank God. The Clemens household did not go back to Hartford. During their early years abroad it had been Mrs. Clemens' dream to return and open the beautiful home with everything the same as before. The death of Susie had changed all this. The mother had grown more and more to feel that she could not bear the sorrow of Susie's absence in the familiar rooms. After a trip which Clemens himself made to Hartford, he wrote, I realize that if we ever enter the house again to live, our hearts will break. So they did not go back. Mrs. Clemens had seen it for the last time on that day when the carriage waited while she went back to take a last look into the vacant rooms. They had taken a house at 14 West 10th Street for the winter, and when summer came they went to a log cabin on Saranac Lake, which they called the Lair. Here Mark Twain wrote a double-barreled detective story, a not very successful burlesque of Sherlock Holmes. But most of the time that summer he loathed and rested, as was his right. Once during the summer he went on a cruise with H. H. Rogers, Speaker Tom Reed, and others on Mr. Rogers' yacht. End of Chapter 55 This is Chapter 56 of The Boy's Life of Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Boy's Life of Mark Twain by Albert Bigelow Payne Chapter 56 Honored by Missouri The family did not return to New York. They took a beautiful house at Riverdale on the Hudson, the old Appleton homestead. Here they established themselves and settled down for American residents. They would have bought the Appleton place, but the price was beyond their reach. It was in the autumn of 1901 that Mark Twain settled in Riverdale. In June of the following year he was summoned west to receive the degree of Doctor of Laws from the university of his native state. He made the journey a sort of last general visit to old associations and friends. In St. Louis he saw Horace Bixby, fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five years before. Clemens said, I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five. They went over to the rooms of the Pilots Association where the Rivermen gathered and forced to celebrate his return. Then he took train for Hannibal. He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins, Mrs. Fraser and a widow now, and John Briggs, an old man, and John Robards, who had worn the golden curls and the metal for good conduct. They drove him to the old house on Hill Street where once he had lived and set type. Photographers were there and photographed him standing at the front door. It all seemed so small to me, he said as he looked through the house. A boy's home is a big place to him. I suppose if I should come back again ten years from now it would be the size of a bird house. He did not see Huck. Torn blankenship had not lived in Hannibal for many years. But he was driven to all the familiar haunts, to Lover's Leap, the Cave, and the rest. And Sunday afternoon with John Briggs he walked over Holiday's Hill, the Cardiff Hill, of Tom Sawyer. It was just such a day as the one when they had damaged a Cooper shop and so nearly finished the old Negro driver. A good deal more than fifty years had passed since then. And now here they were once more, Tom Sawyer and Joe Harper, two old men, the hills still fresh and green, the river rippling in the sun, looking across to the Illinois shore and the green islands where they had played, and to Lover's Leap on the south. The man who had been Sam Clemens said, John, that is one of the loveliest sights I ever saw. Down there is the place we used to swim. And yonder is where a man was drowned. And there's where the steamboat sank. Down there on Lover's Leap is where the Millerites put on their robes one night to go to heaven. None of them went that night, but I suppose most of them have gone now. John Briggs said, Sam, do you remember the day we stole peaches from old man Price, and one of his bull-legged niggers came after us with dogs, and how we made up our minds we'd catch that nigger and drown him? And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by drove along the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it and was taken with a cramp on the return. Once near the shore I thought I would let down, he said, but was afraid to, knowing that if the water was deep I was a goner. But finally my knees struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I ever had. They drove by a place where a haunted house had stood. They drank from a well they had always known, from the bucket, as they had always drunk, talking, always talking, touching with lingering fondness that most beautiful and safest of all our possessions, the past. Sam said, John, when they parted, This is probably the last time we shall meet on earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall renew our friendship. John, was the answer, This day has been worth a thousand dollars to me. We were like brothers once, and I feel that we are the same now. Goodbye, John. I'll try to meet you somewhere. Clemens left next day for Columbia, where the university is located. At each station a crowd had gathered to cheer and wave as the train pulled in and to offer him flowers. Sometimes he tried to say a few words, but his voice would not come. This was more than even Tom Sawyer had dreamed. Certainly there is something deeply touching in the recognition of one's native state, the return of the boy who has set out unknown to battle with life and who has called back to be crowned is unlike any other homecoming, more dramatic, more moving. Next day at the university Mark Twain, summoned before the crowded assembly-hall to receive his degree, stepped out to the center of the stage and paused. He seemed in doubt as to whether he should make a speech or only express his thanks for the honor received. Suddenly, and without signal, the great audience rose and stood in silence at his feet. He bowed, but he could not speak. Then the vast assembly began a peculiar chant, spelling out slowly the word M-I-S-S-O-U-R-I, with a pause between each letter. It was tremendously impressive. Mark Twain was not left in doubt as to what was required of him when the chant ended. The audience demanded a speech. A speech. And he made them one. Such a speech as no one there would forget to his dying day. Back in St. Louis he attended the re-christening of the St. Louis Harbour Boat. It had been previously called the St. Louis, but it was now to be called the Mark Twain. CHAPTER 57 THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE Life which had begun very cheerfully at Riverdale, ended, sadly enough. In August, at York Harbour Main, Mrs. Clemens' health failed, and she was brought home in invalid, confined almost entirely to her room. She had been always the life, the centre, the mainspring of the household. Now she must not even be consulted, hardly visited. On her bad days, and they were many, Clemens, sad and anxious, spent most of his time lingering about her door, waiting for news, or until he was permitted to see her for a brief moment. In his memorandum book of that period he wrote, Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork, day and night devotion to the children and me. We did not know how to value it. We know now. And on the margin of a letter praising him for what he had done for the world's enjoyment and for his triumph over debt, he wrote, Livy never gets her share of those applauses, but it is because the people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share. She improved during the winter, but very slowly, her husband wrote in his diary, February 2, 1903, 33rd wedding anniversary. I was allowed to see Livy five minutes this morning, in honour of the day, Mrs. Clemens had always remembered affectionately their winter influence of ten years before, and she now expressed the feeling that if she were in Florence again, she would be better. The doctors approved, and it was decided that she should be taken there as soon as she was strong enough to travel. She had so far improved by June that they journeyed to Elmira, where in the quiet rest of Quarry Farm her strength returned somewhat, and the hope of her recovery was strong. Mark Twain wrote a story that summer in Elmira, in the little octagonal study, shut in now by trees and overgrown with vines. A Dog's Tale, a pathetic plea against Vivisection, was the last story written in the little retreat that had seen the beginning of Tom Sawyer twenty-nine years before. There was a feeling that the stay in Europe was this time to be permanent. On one of the first days of October, Clemens wrote in his notebook, Today I place flowers on Susie's grave, for the last time, probably, and read the words, Good night, dear heart, good night, good night. They sailed on the twenty-fourth by way of Naples and Genoa, and were presently installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old Italian palace, in an ancient garden looking out over Florence toward Valombrosa and the Chianti Hills. It was a beautiful spot, though its aging walls and cypresses and matted vines gave it a rather mournful look. Mrs. Clemens' health improved there for a time in spite of dull, rainy, depressing weather, so much so that in May, when the warmth and sun came back, Clemens was driving about the country seeking a villa that he might buy for a home. On one of these days, it was a Sunday in early June, the fifth, when he had been out with Jean and found a villa which he believed would fill all their requirements, he came home full of enthusiasm and hope, eager to tell the patient about their discovery. Certainly she seemed better, a day or two before she had been wheeled out on the terrace to enjoy the wonder of early Italian summer. He found her bright and cheerful, anxious to hear all their plans for the new home. He stayed with her alone through the dinner hour and their talk was as in the old days. Summoned to go at last, he chided himself for staying so long, but she said there was no harm and kissed him, saying, You will come back! and he answered, Yes, to say good night, meaning at half-past nine, as was the permitted custom. He stood a moment of the door, throwing kisses to her and she returned them, her face bright with smiles. He was so full of hope. They were going to be happy again. Long ago he had been in the habit of singing jubilee songs to the children. He went upstairs now to the piano and played the chorus and sang, Swing low, sweet chariot, and, my Lord, he calls me. He stopped then, but Jean, who had come in, asked him to go on. Mrs. Clemens, from her room, heard the music and said to Katie Leary, He is singing a good night, Carol, to me. The music ceased presently. A moment later she asked to be lifted up. Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. Clemens, just then coming to say good night, saw a little group gathered about her bed and heard Clare ask, Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true? In his notebook that night he wrote, At a quarter past nine this evening, she, that was the life of my life, passed to the relief and the peace of death, after twenty-two months of unjust and unearned suffering. I first saw her thirty-seven years ago, and now I have looked upon her face for the last time. I was full of remorse for things done and said in these thirty-four years of married life that have hurt Livy's heart. And to howls a few days later, Today, treasured in her worn Old Testament, I found a dear and gentle letter from you dated far Rockaway, September 12, 1896, about our poor Susie's death. I am tired and old. I wish I were with Livy. They brought her to America, and from the house and the rooms where she had been made a bride, bore her to a grave beside Susie, and little Langdon. In a small cottage belonging to Richard Watson Gilder at Tyrringham, Massachusetts, Samuel Clemens and his daughters tried to plan for the future. Mrs. Clemens had always been the directing force, and they were lost without her. They finally took a house in New York City, number 21 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of Ninth Street, installed the familiar furnishings, and tried once more to establish a home. The house was handsome within and without, a proper residence for a venerable author and sage, a suitable setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. It lacked soul, comfort that would reach the heart. He added presently a great Aeolian orchestral, with a variety of music for his different moods. Sometimes he played it himself, though oftener his secretary played to him. He went out little that winter, seeing only a few old and intimate friends. His writing, such as it was, was of a serious nature, protests against oppression and injustice in a variety of forms. Once he wrote, A War Prayer, supposed to have been made by a mysterious white-robed stranger who enters a church during those ceremonies that precede the marching of the nation's armies to battle. The minister had prayed for victory, a victory which the stranger interprets as a petition that the enemy's country be laid waste, its soldiers be torn by shells, its people turned out ruthless, to wander through their desolated land in rags and hunger. It was a scathing arraignment of war, a prophecy indeed, which today has been literally fulfilled. He did not print it, because then it would have been regarded as sacrilege. When summer came again in a beautiful house at Dublin, New Hampshire, on the Monadnock Slope, he seemed to get back into the old swing of work, and wrote that pathetic story, A Horse's Tale. Also Eve's Diary, which under its humor is filled with tenderness, and he began a wildly fantastic tale entitled Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes, a satire in which Gulliver is Outdone. He never finished it. He never could finish it, for it ran off into amazing bypass that led nowhere, and the tale was lost. Yet he always meant to get at it again some day and make order out of chaos. Old friends were dying, and Mark Twain grew more and more lonely. My section of the procession has but a little way to go! he wrote when the great English actor Henry Irving died, Charles Henry Webb, his first publisher, John Hay, Bret Hart, Thomas B. Reed, and indeed most of his earlier associates were gone. When an invitation came from San Francisco to attend a California reunion, he replied that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to sit by the fire for the rest of his life. And in another letter, I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old residence. Since I left there it has increased in population fully three hundred thousand. I could have done more. I could have gone earlier, it was suggested. A choice example, by the way, of Mark Twain's best humor, with its perfectly timed pause and the afterthought. Most humorous would have been content to end with a statement I could have gone earlier. Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch, it was suggested. Mark Twain was nearing seventy. With the thirtieth of November, 1905, he would complete the scriptural limitation, and the president of his publishing house, Colonel George Harvey of Harper's, proposed a great dinner for him in celebration of his grand maturity. Clemens would have preferred a small assembly in some snug place, with only his oldest and closest friends. Colonel Harvey had a different view. He had given a small choice dinner to Mark Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday. Now it must be something really worthwhile, something to outrank any former literary gathering. In order not to conflict with Thanksgiving holidays, the fifth of December was selected as the date. On that evening two hundred American and English men and women of letters assembled in Delmonico's Great Banquet Hall to do honor to their chief. What an occasion it was! The tables of gay diners and among them Mark Twain, his snow-white hair, a gleaming beacon for every eye. Then, by and by, presented by William Dean Howells, he rose to speak. Instantly the brilliant throng was on its feet, a shouting billow of life, the white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. It was a supreme moment, the greatest one of them all hailed by their applause as he scaled the mountaintop. Never did Mark Twain deliver a more perfect address than he gave that night. He began with the beginning, the meagerness of that little hamlet that had seen his birth, and sketched it all so quaintly and delightfully that his hearers laughed and shouted, though there was tenderness under it, and often the tears were just beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had reached seventy by following a plan of living that would probably kill anybody else, how in fact he believed he had no valuable habits at all. Then at last came that unforgettable close. Three score years and ten. It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no active duties, for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase. You have served your term well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the Republic. You are emancipated. Compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle call, but lights out. You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer, and without prejudice, for they are not legally collectible. The previous engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside for ever. On this side of the grave you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night and winter and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights and laughter through the deserted streets, a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping and you must creep in a tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe. You can never disturb them more. If you shrink at the thought of these things you need only reply, your invitation honours me, and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy. Seventy and would nestle in the chimney-corner and smoke my pipe and read my book and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you, in your turn, shall arrive at Pier Seventy, you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart. The tears that had been lying in wait were no longer kept back. If there were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, they failed to mention the fact later. Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for him. Cable, Carnegie, Gilder, and the rest, Mr. Rogers did not speak nor the Reverend Twitchell, but they sat at his special table. Aldridge could not be there but wrote a letter. A group of English authors, including Alfred Austin, Barry, Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Hardy, Kipling, Lang, and others joined in a cable. Helen Keller wrote, And you are seventy years old! Or is the report exaggerated, like that of your death? I remember when I saw you last at the house of dear Mr. Hutton in Princeton, you said, If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight, he knows too much. If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight, he knows too little. Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one on the seven terraced summit of knowing little. So probably you are not seventy after all, but only forty-seven. Helen Keller was right. Mark Twain was never a...