 Section XXI of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part III, 1890–1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. September 19, 1894. Business Troubles. The schedules of Charles L. Webster and Company, book publishers at 67 Fifth Avenue, in which firm Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, and Frederick J. Hall, are the partners, were filed yesterday. They show liabilities of $94,191, nominal assets of $122,657, actual assets of $69,164, less $15,000 hypothecated to the United States National Bank, and net actual assets of $54,164. There are more than 200 creditors scattered all over the United States. Among the creditors are Mount Morris Bank, $29,500, United States National Bank, $15,000, George Barrow, Skinny at List, New York, $15,420, S. D. Warren and Company, Boston, $6,332, Jenkins and McCowan, $5,363, Thomas Russell and Son, $4,623. There is due for royalties, the State of U.S. Grant, $2,216, Colonel F. D. Grant, $727, the State of General P. H. Sheridan, St. Paul, Minnesota, $374, Mrs. E. B. Custer, London, $1,825. End of Section 21, September 19, 1894, Business Troubles, read by John Greenman. Section 22 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. May 23, 1895. Mark Twain in the Playhouse, Puddinhead Wilson. He attends the performance of Puddinhead Wilson and describes the peculiarities of the twins. It was Mark Twain night at the Harold Square Theatre last evening, and Samuel Clemens sat in a box and witnessed the performance of the play which Frank Mayo has made out of his story of Puddinhead Wilson. The fact that the humorist was to be present and would probably address the audience was known in advance, and the result was that the auditorium was crowded to its utmost capacity. Mr. Mayo and his company never acted with more spirit, and the performance was one of the best ever given of the play. After the third act there were loud cries for Twain, and the humorist finally arose in his box and bowed to the audience. Speech! Speech! was shouted on all sides, and Mr. Clemens, responding to the call, made quite a long address. After complimenting Mr. Mayo on his work as a dramatist and an actor, he turned his attention to the twins and minutely analyzed their characters. He said, I am gratified to see that Mr. Mayo has been able to manage those difficult twins. I tried, but in my hands they failed. Year before last there was an Italian freak on exhibition in Philadelphia, who was an exaggeration of the Siamese twins. This freak had one body, one pair of legs, two heads, and four arms. I thought he would be useful in a book, so I put him in. And then the trouble began. I called these consolidated twins Angelo and Luigi, and I tried to make them nice and agreeable. But it was not possible. They would not do anything my way, but only their own. They were wholly unmanageable, and not a day went by that they didn't develop some new kind of devilishness, particularly Luigi. Angelo was of a religious turn of mind, and was monotonously honest, and honorable, and upright, and tediously proper. Whereas Luigi had no principles, no morals, no religion, a perfect blather-skite, and an inextricable tangle theologically. Infidel, atheist, and agnostic, all mixed together. He was of a malicious disposition, and liked to eat things which disagreed with his brother. They were so strangely organized that what one of them ate or drank had no effect upon himself, but only nourished or damaged the other one. Luigi was hearty and robust, because Angelo ate the best and most wholesome food he could find for him. But Angelo was himself delicate and sickly, because every day Luigi filled him up with mince pies and salt junk, just because he knew he couldn't digest them. Luigi was very dissipated, but it didn't show on him, but only on his brother. His brother was a strict and conscientious tea-totaler, but he was drunk most of the time on account of Luigi's habits. Angelo was president of the Prohibition Society, but they had to turn him out, because every time he appeared at the head of the procession on parade, he was a scandalous spectacle to look at. On the other hand, Angelo was a trouble to Luigi, the Infidel, because he was always changing his religion, trying to find the best one, and he always preferred sects that believed in baptism by immersion, and this was a constant peril and discomfort to Luigi who couldn't stand water outside or in. And so every time Angelo got baptized, Luigi got drowned and had to be pumped out and resuscitated. Luigi was irascible, yet was never willing to stand by the consequences of his acts. He was always kicking somebody and then laying it on Angelo. And when the kicked person kicked back, Luigi would say, What are you kicking me for? I haven't done anything to you. Then the man would be sorry and say, Well, I didn't mean any harm. I thought it was you, but you see, you people have only one body between you, and I can't tell which of you I'm kicking. I don't know how to discriminate. I do not wish to be unfair, and so there is no way for me to do but kick one of you and apologize to the other. They were a troublesome pair in every way. If they did any work for you, they charged for two. But at the boarding house they ate and slept for two and only paid for one. In the trains they wouldn't pay for two because they only occupied one seat, the same at the theatre. Luigi bought one ticket and deadheaded Angelo in. They couldn't put Angelo out because they couldn't put the deadhead out without putting out the twin that had paid and scooping in a suit for damages. Luigi grew steadily more and more wicked, and I saw by and by that the way he was going on, he was certain to land in the eternal tropics, and at bottom I was glad of it, but I knew he would necessarily take his righteous brother down there with him, and that would not be fair. I did not object to it, but I didn't want to be responsible for it. I was in such a hobble that there was only one way out. To save the righteous brother I had to pull the consolidated twins apart and make two separate and distinct twins of them. Well, as soon as I did that, they lost all their energy and took no further interest in life. They were wholly futile and useless in the book. They became mere shadows, and so they remain. Mr. Mayo manages them, but if he had taken a chance at them before I pulled them apart and tamed them, he would have found out early that if he put them in his play they would take full possession, and there wouldn't be any room in it for putting head Wilson or anybody else. I have taken four days to prepare these statistics, and as far as they go you can depend upon their being strictly true. I have not told all the truth about the twins, but just barely enough of it for business purposes, for my motto is—and Putin had Wilson can adopt it if he wants to—my motto is truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. Mr. Clemens' address was received with shouts of laughter and applause. In response to loud calls, Frank Mayo then appeared on the stage. He said that Mr. Clemens had left him nothing to say about the twins, but he desired publicly to thank the management of the theatre for the admirable production they had given the piece, to which much of its popular success was due. Mr. Mayo bowed himself into the wings, followed by an outburst of hearty applause. End of Section 22, May 23, 1895, Mark Twain in the Playhouse, Putin had Wilson, read by John Greenman. Section 23 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. July 12, 1895, Examining Mark Twain's Assets Supplementary Proceedings on a Judgment Resulting from Failure of C. L. Webster in Company Mr. Clemens in Poor Health Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, the Humorist, was yesterday examined in supplementary proceedings at the office of his lawyers, Forty Wall Street. Mr. Clemens was a partner in the publishing house of Charles L. Webster in Company. The firm was organized in 1885, failed in 1890, was reorganized and failed again in April, 1894, with assets of $25,000 and liabilities of $80,000. The firm published Grant's Memoirs and made a success of it, but in the late business depression the firm became embarrassed. The examination of Mark Twain yesterday was upon a judgment against him and Frederick J. Hall, another member of the firm, that Thomas Russell and Sons, printers of 34 New Chamber Street, obtained in the sum of $5,046.83. Upon the return of the execution and satisfied, Justice Patterson issued an order for the examination of Messrs. Clemens and Hall. Mr. Clemens returned from Europe about six weeks ago and went to Elmira. He was there, served with the order for the examination, and came here yesterday morning. Henry H. Rogers, a director of the Standard Oil Company, the other member of the firm, was present yesterday, waiting to be examined after the judgment creditors finished with Mr. Clemens. Mr. Clemens was examined in private, the lawyers on both sides agreeing not to make public any of the proceedings. The examination was not concluded yesterday, and we'll go on again at ten o'clock this morning. Bainbridge Colby, a signee of the firm of Charles L. Webster & Company, said that Mr. Clemens had lost all of his money trying to keep the firm solvent, and that in its failure he had lost everything. When the firm needed money and Mr. Clemens had no more to give it, Mrs. Clemens made loans, until, at the time of the failure, it owed her $70,000. For this she has never made a claim against the firm's assets. Mr. Colby said that Mr. Clemens has done all in his power to aid him in paying the firm's creditors, and to dispose of the assets which consisted of books that accumulated in the nine years that the firm was in business. The signee has paid dividends amounting to twenty percent of the claims proved against the firm. With the exception of Russell and Sons, the creditors of the firm, have taken no action against Mr. Clemens, but have been satisfied with Mr. Colby's efforts to realize and pay them as much as possible, knowing that Mr. Clemens will do what he can to pay them in full. At the time of the failure Mr. Clemens became ill through worrying over his business affairs, and has not yet fully regained his health. He was attended yesterday by a nurse who came from Elmira to care for him until he is able to return. If he regains his health sufficiently, he will start west. He expects to leave Vancouver August 16th on a lecture tour around the world that he contemplates making. After Mr. Clemens' examination is finished today, Mr. Hall and Rogers will be examined. End of Section 23, July 12th, 1895, Examining Mark Twain's Assets. July 23rd, 1895, Mark Twain begins his tour. He is carrying a lecture on morals around the world. He was asked to write it by a man in Australia and throws all the responsibility on him. From the Cleveland, Ohio, plain dealer. Following is in part the text of Mark Twain's lecture on morals delivered in Music Hall on Monday evening, July 15th, together with readings from his books. I was solicited to go round the world on a lecture tour by a man in Australia. I asked him what they wanted to be lectured on. He wrote back that those people were very coarse and serious, and that they would like something solid, something in the way of education, something gigantic. And he proposed that I prepare about three or four lectures at any rate on just morals, any kind of morals, but just morals, and I liked the idea. I liked it very much, and was perfectly willing to engage in that kind of work, and I should like to teach morals. I have a great enthusiasm in doing that, and I shall like to teach morals to those people. I do not like to have them talk to me, and I do not know of any duller entertainment than that, but I know I can produce a quality of goods that will satisfy those people. If you teach principles, why, you had better let your illustrations come first, illustrations which shall carry home to every person. I planned my first lecture on morals. I must not stand here and talk all night, get out of watch. I am talking the first time now, and I do not know anything about the length of it. I would start with two or three rules of moral principles which I want to impress upon those people. I will just make the lecture gradual, by and by. The illustrations are the most important, so that when that lecture is by and by written and completed, it will just be a waveless ocean with this archipelago of smiling green islands of illustrations in the midst of it. I thought I would state a principle which I was going to teach. I have this theory for doing a great deal of good out there, everywhere in fact, that you should prize as a priceless thing every transgression, every crime that you commit, the lesson of it, I mean. Make it permanent. Impress it so that you may never commit that same crime again, as long as you live. Then you will see yourself what the logical result of that will be, that you can get interested in committing crimes. You will lay up in that way, course by course, the edifice of a personally perfect moral character. You cannot afford to waste any crime. They are not given to you to be thrown away, but for a great purpose. There are 462 crimes possible, and you cannot add anything to this. You cannot originate anything. These have been all thought out, all experimented on, and have been thought out by most capable men in the penitentiary. When you commit a transgression, lay it up in your memory, and, without stopping, it will all lead toward moral perfection. When you have committed your 462, you are released of every other possibility, and have ascended the staircase of faultless creation, and you finally stand with your 462 complete with absolute moral perfection, and I am more than two-thirds up there. It is immense aspiration to find yourself climbing that way, and have not much further to go. I shall have then that moral perfection, and shall then see my edifice of moral character standing fair before the world, all complete. I know that this would produce it. Why, the first time that I ever stole a watermelon, I think it was the first time, but this is no matter. It was right along there somewhere. I carried that watermelon to a secluded bower. You may call it a bower, and I suppose you may not. I carried that watermelon to a secluded bower in the lumberyard, and broke it open, and it was green. Now then, I began to reflect. There is the virtual—that is the beginning of Reformation when you reflect. When you do not reflect, that transgression is wasted on you. I began to reflect, and I said to myself, I have done wrong. It was wrong in me to steal that watermelon, that kind of watermelon. And I said to myself, now what would a right-minded and right-intentioned boy do, who found that he had done wrong, stolen a watermelon like this? What would he do? What must he do? Do right. Restitution. Make restitution. He must restore that property to its owner, and I resolved to do that. And the moment I made that good resolution, I felt that electrical moral uplift which becomes a victory over wrongdoing. I was spiritually strengthened and refreshed, and carried that watermelon back to that wagon, and gave it to the farmer, restored it to him, and I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, going around working off green watermelons in that way, on people who had confidence in him, and I told him in my perfectly frank manner, it was wrong. I said that if he did not stop, he could not have my custom, and he was ashamed. He was ashamed. He said he would never do it again, and I believe that I did that man a good turn, as well as one for myself. He did reform. I was severe with him a little, but that was all. I restored the watermelon, and made him give me a ripe one. I morally helped him, and I have no doubt that I helped myself the same time, for that was a lesson which remained with me for my perfection. Ever since that day to this, I never stole another one like that. Then I have another theory, and that is to teach that when you do a thing, do it with all your might. Do it with all your heart. I remember a man in California, Jim. What is his name? Baker. He was a hearty man of most gentlemanly spirit, and had many fine qualities. He lived a good many years in California, among the woods and mountains. He had no companionship, but that of the wild creatures of the forest. To me he was an observant man. He watched the ways of the different creatures, so that he got so that he could understand what the creatures said to each other, and translate it accurately. He was the only man I ever knew who could do this. I know he could, because he told me so himself, and he says that some of the animals have very slight education and small vocabulary, and that they are not capable of using figures and allegory, but there are other animals that have a large vocabulary. These creatures are very fond of talking. They like to show off. And he placed the Blue Jay at the head of that list. He said, Now there is more to the Blue Jay than any other animal. He has got more different kinds of feeling. Whatever a Blue Jay feels he can put into language, and not mere commonplace language, but straight out and out book talk. And there is such a command of language. You never saw a Blue Jay get stuck for a word. He is a vocabularized geyser. Now you must call a Jay a bird, and so he is in a measure, because he wears feathers and don't belong to any church. But otherwise he is just as human nature made him. A Blue Jay hasn't any more principle than an ex-congressman, and he will steal, deceive, and betray four times out of five. And as for the sacredness of an obligation, you cannot scare him in the detail of principle. He talks the best grammar of all the animals. You may say a cat talks good grammar. Well, a cat does. But you let a cat get excited. You let a cat get a pulling fur with another cat on a shed nights. And you will hear grammar. A Blue Jay is human. He has got all a man's faculties and a man's weakness. He likes, especially, scandal. He knows, when he is an ass, as well as you do. End of Section 24, July 23, 1895, Mark Twain Begins His Tour, read by John Greenman. Section 25 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890-1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. August 17, 1895, Mark Twain's Plan of Settlement. Samuel L. Clemens proposes to pay the indebtedness of his firm with proceeds of lectures. Vancouver, B.C., August 16. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, who is about leaving for Australia, made a signed statement today concerning the purposes of his long trip and his business troubles, in part, as follows. It has been reported that I sacrificed for the benefit of the creditors, the property of the publishing firm, whose financial backer I was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. This is an error. I intend the lectures as well as the property for the creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brain, and a merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the rules of insolvency and start free again for himself. But I am not a businessman, and honour is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise for less than a hundred cents on the dollar, and its debts never outlaw. I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm, whose capital I furnished. If the firm had prospered, I should have expected to collect two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all the debts. My partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance from him. By far the largest single creditor of this firm is my wife, whose contributions in cash from her private means have nearly equaled the claims of all the others combined. In satisfaction of this great and just claim, she has taken nothing, except to avail herself of the opportunity of retaining control of the copyrights of my books, which, for many easily understood reasons, of which financial ones are the least, we do not desire to see in the hands of strangers. On the contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the obligations due to the rest. The present situation is that the wreckage of the firm, together with what money I can scrape together with my wife's aid, will enable me to pay the other creditors about fifty percent of their claims. It is my intention to ask them to accept that as a legal discharge and trust to my honour to pay the other fifty percent as fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour, I am confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four years, after which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and unencumbered start in life. I do not enjoy the hard travel and broken rest inseparable from lecturing, and if it had not been for the imperious moral necessity of paying these debts, which I never contracted, but which were accumulated on the faith of my name, by those who had a presumptive right to use it, I should never have taken to the road at my time of life. I could have supported myself comfortably by writing, but writing is too slow for the demands that I have to meet. Therefore I have begun to lecture my way around the world. I am going to Australia, India, and South Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the United States. In my preliminary run through the smaller cities on the northern route, I have found a reception the cordiality of which has touched my heart, and made me feel how small a thing money is in comparison with friendship. I meant when I began to give my creditors all the benefit of this, but I begin to feel that I am gaining something from it too, and that my dividends, if not available for banking purposes, may be even more satisfactory than theirs. End of Section 25, August 17, 1895, Mark Twain's Plan of Settlement, read by John Greenman. Section 26 of Mark Twain and the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. August 23, 1896, learns of her daughter's death. Mrs. Clemens faints when the news is broken to her. Among the passengers who arrived yesterday on the American Line steamship Paris were the wife and daughter of Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, whose eldest daughter Olivia Susan Clemens died on Tuesday night last at the home in Hartford, Connecticut. Mr. Clemens, who was expected also, had started with his wife and Miss Clara, the second daughter, when news of their eldest daughter's illness reached them, but was detained on business at the last moment in Southampton. He therefore was advised of the death by Cable while Mrs. Clemens and the sister were on the ocean. They were notified by Dr. Rice, a friend of the family, who boarded the Paris at quarantine. The mother was prostrated and swooned when the news was conveyed to her. A carriage awaited the party at the pier, and they went directly to the Grand Central Station. Mr. Clemens sailed from Southampton yesterday for New York. Ender, section 26, August 23, 1896, learns of her daughter's death, read by John Greenman. Section 27 of Mark Twain and the New York Times, part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. July 17, 1897, Mark Twain as Kipling's progenitor. From the London Academy. A few years ago Mr. Kipling called on Mark Twain at Hartford. Afterward, in an account of his visit, he described the temptation which had beset him to steal the great man's corn cob pipe as a relic. It was a nice touch of homage, coming from the man who has done more than any other to carry on the traditions established by the American writers, and in so doing in a large measure to supersede him. These traditions may be briefly described as the wish to set down as bluntly and forcibly as possible whatever one has to say, and the refusal to allow any intermediary between oneself and one subject. Before Mr. Kipling rose glowing in the east, Mark Twain held the field. He was the ideal of masculine writers. There were no half ways with his readers, either they swore by him through thick and thin, or unconditionally they cast him aside. Probably no author has been so little read by women, although, on the other hand, there was hardly a boy in the English speaking world who would not have bartered his soul for Mark Twain's corn cob pipe as a relic. He did just what boys and elemental men like. He came straight to the point. He feared no one, and he esteemed laughter above all the gifts of God. Thus it was from twenty-five to a dozen years ago. But then, in the early eighties, Mark Twain's old manner became changed. He abandoned his zest in lawless life and the records of his personal impressions in the serious places of the earth, and he turned to satire and romance. His sorrowing readers had only just perceived the melancholy truth when Soldiers Three appeared in its quiet blue-gray covers to mark the beginnings of a new sledgehammer pen and divert their grief. British India won, and today Mr. Rudyard Kipling is the ideal masculine writer, and his is the pipe that is coveted by boys and elemental men. He is a finer artist than Mark Twain. His sympathies are wider, his genius is more comprehensive, and yet, when all be said, the fact remains that Mark Twain is his literary progenitor. End of Section 27, July 17, 1897, Mark Twain as Kipling's progenitor, read by John Greenman. Section 28 of Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. September 11, 1897, Mark Twain's New Book. The critic Launger, commenting on the announcement that the title of Mark Twain's book has been changed from the surviving innocent abroad to following the equator, says, I am told on reliable authority that the price paid to Mr. Clemens for this book is $40,000 in payments of $10,000 each, and that he will make the whole of it over to his creditors, to whom he owes about $20,000 more. At the rate of $40,000 a book, it will not take Mr. Clemens Laung to pay off his indebtedness. Major Pond has recently made him an offer of $50,000 for a series of lectures in this country, but the offer has not been accepted as yet. End of Section 28, September 11, 1897, Mark Twain's New Book. Section 29 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. October 2, 1897, Mark Twain ill with gout. London, October 2. A dispatch to the Daily Chronicle from Vienna says that Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, is confined to his bed with the gout, but he is in excellent spirits and calls his ailment Toothache in the Toe. End of Section 29, October 2, 1897, Mark Twain ill with gout, read by John Greenman. Section 30 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. November 6, 1897, Mark Twain still in debt. Denies that he wrote a letter saying he had paid his creditors. Hartford, November 5. Mark Twain's publishers in this city have just received a cablegram from the author in which he emphatically denies the report that he recently wrote a letter to a personal friend in this country stating that he had made eighty-two thousand dollars the last two years and had paid his business debts in full. The cablegram dated November 4 and sent from Vienna, Austria, reads, Bliss publisher, lie, wrote no such letter, still deeply in debt. The facts are that Mr. Clemens still owes about fifty thousand dollars on account of C. L. Webster and company debts, which represent about one half of the original indebtedness of that firm, the half which the author need not pay, but which he says he will pay dollar for dollar. He has great faith in the staying qualities of his new book, following the equator, and hopes to soon realize enough from its sale to be able to turn over a handsome sum to his creditors. Beyond the business debts which weigh upon him so heavily, he owes nothing, and with them out of the way would have no cause of worry as to the future. End of Section 30, November 6, 1897, Mark Twain still in debt, read by John Greenman. Section 31 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. Austria in the Balance. Mark Twain sees an opportunity. Town councils, as a rule, do not anywhere pass for seats of wisdom, but Vienna is unquestionably trying to carry off the palm as a modern abdera. What has been going on in the municipality for months is a continued warfare against common sense worthy of being sung by Mark Twain. With the eye of a connoisseur he perceived that here was a rare subject for his muse, and that it would not be difficult for him satiram non scribere on how a great city's affairs ought not to be administered. The eminent satirist arrived here from Tyrol quietly, about a fortnight ago, accompanied by Mrs. Clemens and their two daughters. He proposes to stay here some eight months with his family. One of his daughters is to take lessons of the celebrated piano teacher Leshetitsky, her father says, and undoubtedly it is true, but I am sure the secret object of his visit is to write a book on modern abdera. A few days after his arrival he was laid up with toothache in his toe, as he declared. On leaving his bed his first visit was to the town council, to attend one of those sittings with their petty quarrels and scandals pour une omelette. And very well timed his visit was he came in for a really typical scene, sure to be immortalized in one of his future writings. Honours to the American author. He is working very much during his stay here, spending hours at his desk, but for some time he will publish nothing except the book now in press, and which will appear simultaneously in America and England. Mark Twain is meeting with the greatest respect in Vienna. The utmost attention is being paid him by the press, the Jewish press, of course, as the big Vienna dailies are called. The anti-Semitic papers have taken hardly any notice of his visit, which, however, as a matter of fact, has created quite a sensation. His movements are chronicled at length, and he is besieged by interviewers. Tonight a solemn festkinaipa, a kind of free and easy banquet, is to be given in honor of the famous author by Concordia, the society of Vienna authors and journalists. The other day when he was inspecting the new imperial court theatre, orders were given to light up the whole of the magnificent building for the benefit of the visitor. He went all over it from the roof to the machinery under the stage, and said the splendor of the whole far surpassed his boldest expectations. To surprise the guest from over the seas, the inspector of machinery improvised a sea storm with thunder and lightning. In order to take another look at the auditorium, lighted as bright as day, Mark Twain bent down over the front of the imperial box, in which he happened to be at the moment, suddenly a loud cry of, back, unpleasantly disturbed his contemplation. A photographer was just seizing the favorable moment to take the inside of the building, and well nice exceeded in sending down to posterity a picture showing the illustrious representative of democratic America in the emperor of Austria's box. Mark Twain being asked by the gentleman taking him over the theater whether he had written anything for the stage rejoined, I made a play, but it would not play. End of Section 31, November 14, 1897, Austria in the Balance, Mark Twain sees an opportunity, read by John Greenman. Section 32 of Mark Twain in the New York Times Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. November 27, 1897, Mark Twain's Vienna speech in German. Mark Twain, a few weeks ago, was entertained in Vienna by the Concordia, a socialistic club, when he made the following speech in the German language, a translation having been made for the review of books and art. I am deeply touched to be received here so, hospitably, by colleagues of my own profession, and in a land so far from my own home. My heart is full of gratitude, but my lack of German words forces me to great economy of expression. I do not speak the German language well, but several experts have assured me that I write it like an angel. Maybe. I don't know. I have so far had no acquaintance with angels. That will come later, if it so please the dear Lord. There is no hurry. For quite some time, gentlemen, I have nursed the passionate longing to make a speech in German, but I was never allowed to do that. People who had no feeling for art constantly laid obstacles in my way and brought to naught my desire at times by means of excuses and, frequently, by main force. These people always said to me, keep still your worship, silence for God's sake, seek some other way to make yourself tiresome. In the present instance, as usual, it was quite difficult to obtain the permission. The committee regretted it very much, but it could not grant me the permission on account of a law which demands of the Concordia that she protect the German language. Good gracious! How could, might, dared, should this be said to me? I am surely the truest friend of the German language, and not only since recently, but for a long time past. In fact, for the past twenty years. And never have I had the desire to injure the noble language. On the contrary, I have only wished to improve it. I could merely reform it. It was the dream of my life. I have visited the various German governments, and have applied for contracts. I have come to Austria now, on just this mission. I shall only attempt a few changes. I would merely compress the method, the luxurious extended construction. I would suppress, eliminate, destroy the eternal parenthesis. Move the verb so far forward that it could be discovered without a telescope. In short, gentlemen, I would simplify your beloved language, so that when you utilize it for prayer, you may be understood above. I implore you to allow yourselves to be counseled by me. Effect these mentioned reforms. Then you will possess a splendid language. And afterward, when you say anything, you will at least understand what you yourself have said. But frequently, nowadays, when you have delivered yourself of a mile-long sentence, and have paused to rest somewhat, you must certainly possess a touching curiosity to find out what it was that you really did say. Several days ago, a correspondent of a local newspaper evolved a sentence containing a hundred and twelve words, and in it were seven parentheses, while the subject was changed seven times. Just think of it. In the course of a single sentence, the poor, persecuted, worn-out subject must suffer seven transfers. Now, if we should carry out the mentioned reforms, it will not be so bad. Still, one more thing. I would like to reform just a little, the separable verb. I would permit no one to do what Schiller did. He has compressed the entire history of the Thirty Years' War between the two parts of a separable verb. That aroused even Germany itself, and permission was refused him to compile the history of the Hundred Years' War. Thanks be to God! After all these reforms have been established, the German language will be the noblest and nicest in the world. As at present, gentlemen, the character of my mission is unknown to you, I would request that you be kind enough to extend your valuable aid to me. Mr. Poetzl desired to make the public believe that I came to Vienna to block the bridges and hinder traffic while I made and noted my observations. Don't allow yourselves to be deceived by him. My frequent presence on the bridges has an entirely innocent cause. There I find the necessary room. There one can extend a noble, long German sentence along the bridge railing and overlook its entire contents with one glance. On one end of the railing I paced the first part of a separable verb, and the closing part I paced on the other end. Then I spread out the body of the sentence in between. Usually the bridges of the city are long enough for my purpose, but when I wish to study the writings of Poetzl I ride out to and use the magnificent endless state bridge. But that is a columnary. Poetzl writes the most beautiful German, perhaps not so pliable as mine, but in some details a good deal better. Excuse the flatteries. They are well deserved. Now I would execute my speech, or rather bring it to a close. I am a stranger, but here among you I have quite forgotten this, and so again and once again my heartiest thanks. End of Section 32 November 27, 1897, Mark Twain's Vienna speech in German, read by John Greenman. Section 33 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. January 1, 1898, Mark Twain paying his firm's debts. Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, says the publisher's weekly, has just made a payment of 25% to the creditors of C.L. Webster and Company, which failed in 1894, and which Mr. Clemens was heavily interested. The Assignee, Bainbridge Colby of 120 Broadway, managed to realize 28% of the liabilities out of the assets of the firm and of the personal estate of Mr. Clemens, which was turned over to him at once. With one or two exceptions the creditors offered to settle with 50 cents on the dollar, and this sum Mr. Clemens paid last year. He, however, stated that he should take no advantage of any bankruptcy law, but would, if given time, pay dollar for dollar of the indebtedness. He has kept his word and has now made a payment that wipes out 75% of his liabilities. Mr. Clemens hopes inside of four years to make his final payment. It is to be hoped Mr. Clemens may be granted the satisfaction of seeing his great undertaking accomplished. He is 64 years old. End of Section 33 January 1, 1898, Mark Twain paying his firm's debts. Red by John Greenman. Section 34 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1898, 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Red by John Greenman. March 12, 1898, Mark Twain's debts as paid. From the London Daily News. Mark Twain has paid all the debts that led to the bankruptcy of the publishing firm with which he was connected. It is a fine example of the very chivalry of probity, and in the circumstances, as an admirer has pointed out, it deserves to rank with the historic case of Sir Walter Scott. The firm came to grief. Mark Twain might, if he had pleased, have confined his share of the loss to the amount of his liability under the partnership. He preferred to make good the entire loss, and to this end he had to make a fresh start in life at the age of sixty. He accomplished it, and with this and the profits of his latest book, he has carried out his high-minded and generous purpose. His own account of the matter, published soon after his setting out, is as follows. It has been reported that I sacrificed for the benefit of the creditors, the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer I was, and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. This is an error. I intend the lectures as well as the property for the creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brain and a merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws of insolvency and start free again for himself. But I am not a businessman, and honour is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise for less than a hundred cents on the dollar, and its debts never outlaw. I had a two-thirds interest in the publishing firm whose capital I furnished. If the firm had prospered, I should have expected to collect two-thirds of the profits. As it is, I expect to pay all the debts. My partner has no resources, and I do not look for assistance from him. By far the largest single creditor of this firm is my wife, whose contributions in cash from her private means have nearly equaled the claims of all the others combined. She has taken nothing. On the contrary, she has helped and intends to help me to satisfy the obligations due to the rest. It is my intention to ask my creditors to accept that as a legal discharge, and trust to my honour to pay the other fifty percent as fast as I can earn it. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour, I am confident that if I live, I can pay off the last debt within four years, after which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and unencumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and South Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great cities of the United States. I meant, when I began, to give my creditors all the benefit of this, but I began to feel that I am gaining something from it too, and that my dividends, if not available for banking purposes, may be even more satisfactory than theirs. The last touch is very fine, both as literature and as feeling. He has gained something, and that is the esteem of all men of honour throughout the world. This act is the best of all critical commentaries on the high moral teaching of his books. He needs all the encouragement of sympathy. He has paid his debts, but he has still to make another fortune, and he is sixty-three. End of Section 34, March 12, 1898, Mark Twain's Debt as Paid, read by John Greenman. Section 35 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. June 20, 1898, Mark Twain on the Two Wars, from The Critic. The following letter was read at the recent Declaration Day banquet held at the Hotel Continental Paris. Vienna, May 26, 1898. Dear sir, I thank you very much for your invitation, and I would accept it if I were foot-free, for I should value the privilege of helping you do honour to the men who re-welded our broken union and consecrated their great work with their lives, and also, I should like to be there to do homage to our soldiers and sailors of today, who are enlisted for another most righteous war, and utter the hope that they may make short and decisive work of it, and leave Cuba free and fed when they face for home again. And finally, I should like to be present and see you interweave those two flags which, more than any others, stand for freedom and progress in the earth, flags which represent two kindred nations, each great and strong by itself, competent sureties for the peace of the world when they stand together. Truly yours, Mark Twain. End of Section 35, June 20, 1898, Mark Twain on the Two Wars, read by John Greenman. Section 36 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This Libber Box recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. July 24, 1898, Fourth of July in Berlin, Mark Twain writes a letter on Anglo-American unity. A letter from Mark Twain. Carlton Lloyd Gaben, near Vienna, June 28, 1898. Brainerd Warner, Jr., Esquire, United States Consul, Leipzig. Dear Sir, I have waited to see if I could defeat my obstructions and come to Leipzig, but have failed. I cannot venture away from my desk lest I fail to finish work in hand and soon do. It costs me a pang to lose this fourth, in solitude, when the fortunate may get on their feet and shout. Ordinarily I should not care, but I must care this time, for this is not an ordinary fourth. On the contrary, it is a memorable one, the most memorable, which the flag has known in thirty-three years. And there have been but two before it, which may claim to rank with it as happy epic posts in the history of the Republic, 1865 and 1776. This one marks the burial of the estrangement, which has existed so long and so perniciously between England and America. A welcome condition of things which, if wisely nursed and made permanent, can be of inestimable value to both nations and, incidentally, to the world. In reverence for liberty, in humanitarian and civilizing impulses, and in other great things of the heart and the spirit, the two nations are kindred as well as in blood, and friendly relations between them mean the forward march of the human race. That old animosity is buried. Let us hope it will stay buried, and also hope that for centuries to come this august funeral will still continue to be celebrated at our fourth. And that meantime any man who tries to dig up that corpse will promptly be put in condition to take its place. Truly yours, Mark Twain. End of section 36 July 24th, 1898, 4th of July in Berlin, read by John Greenman. Section 37 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. October 20, 1898, Mark Twain on Universal Peace. London, October 20. The Vienna correspondent of the Daily News says Samuel L. Clemens, Mark Twain, who has addressed a meeting of the Society of the Friends of Peace here, told them that he formally doubted whether the world would ever be able to put a stop to war, but that the Tsar had convinced and converted him. He spoke in English. The speech was not interpreted to the Assembly because the government representative doubted that all Mr. Clemens said would bear translation. End of section 37 October 20, 1898, Mark Twain on Universal Peace, read by John Greenman. Section 38 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. November 13, 1898, a medallion of Mark Twain. Mark Twain seems to find Vienna to his liking, which is no wonder, on the Continent there is neither State nor City that could afford the celebrated humorist more material or more incitement. He is said to be at work on a great book now, although I have not heard it from him himself. All the summer, Mark Twain, with Mrs. and the Mrs. Clemens, spent at the hydropathic establishment at Kalten-Lökegben near Vienna. The society in which they mostly moved was the families of Count Rutherbuck, Baron Springer, and other aristocrats. Since the middle of October Mark Twain has been back in Vienna again, but he has not returned to his former apartment, but has taken a large suite of rooms on the fourth floor of the new Hotel Kranz in the Neuenmarkt, where he has already settled for the winter. He finds the Austrian capital suits him, and the Vienna society knows how to appreciate him. At an art dealer's in the Graben are now to be seen medallions with a life-like portrait of Mark Twain, and they are much liked. They by no means betray the fact that he sat without intending it. Unsuspicious of what awaited him, he went to the Deutsches Volktheater one night, where he greatly enjoyed the performance. Meanwhile, however, a young artist in the next box was drawing away, all through the four acts, in fact, taking the unconscious author's portrait. Then the young fellow at home modelled the head so beautifully that the Austrian Art Industrial Museum bought one of his medallions. The artist is still attending the grammar school, and is named Arthur Leventhal. He did not conceive the idea of catching the illustrious American at the theatre until, after the latter, had kindly but decidedly refused to sit to him, declaring that he had already sat for his portrait so often he could not bear any more sittings. End of Section 38, November 13, 1898, A Medallion of Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. Section 39 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. March 26, 1899. Mark Twain wants seventy-five thousand dollars from Mark Twain in the Forum. Vienna, January 10. I see, by this morning's telegraphic news, that I am not to be the new ambassador here after all. This, well, I hardly know what to say. I, well, of course I do not care anything about it, but it is, at least, a surprise. I have, for many months, been using my influence at Washington to get this diplomatic sea expanded into an ambassadorship with the idea, of course, but never mind. Let it go. It is of no consequence. I say it calmly, for I am calm, but at the same time, however, the subject has no interest for me and never had. I never really intended to take the place anyway. I made up my mind to it months and months ago, nearly a year. But now, while I am calm, I would like to say this, that so long as I shall continue to possess an American's proper pride in the honor and dignity of his country, I will not take any ambassadorship in the gift of the flag at a salary short of seventy-five thousand dollars a year. If I shall be charged with wanting to live beyond my country's means, I cannot help it. A country which cannot afford ambassadors' wages should be ashamed to have ambassadors. Think of a seventeen thousand five hundred dollar ambassador, particularly for America. Why? It is the most ludicrous spectacle, the most inconsistent and incongruous spectacle, contrivable by even the most diseased imagination. It is a billionaire in a paper collar, a king in a breech clout, an archangel in a tin halo, and, for pure sham and hypocrisy, the salary is just the match of the ambassador's official clothes. End of Section 39, March 26, 1899, Mark Twain wants seventy-five thousand dollars, read by John Greenman. Section 40 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. May 27, 1899, Mark Twain's book views as to its publication a century hence. The ingenuity of Mark Twain, with respect to his books, has just shown itself again in a highly interesting and novel manner. According to the latest news from him in Vienna, a new book of personal reminiscences will not be published, he says, until one hundred years after his death. Here is certainly a long time for an author to impose as a restriction on the publication of his own work. The tendency generally is to the other extreme. But if Mark Twain is in earnest, it may be that he does not wish to give readers of the present day an entire monopoly of his writings, but wishes to bequeath some of the good things to the future. The book is, according to the London Times, a bequest to posterity. There may be some other good reason, however, for its long-delayed publication. Mark Twain boldly states that he is going to tell the truth without respect to persons, conventions or pruderies, and that the men and women mentioned will appear with all their warts. It is further said that this book will not be written in Mark Twain's familiar style, which the author anticipates will be forgotten by the time the work is published. If the style be forgotten, what will become of the author's name toward the beginning of the twenty-first century, and will the persons and incidents mentioned be absorbingly entertaining at that time? Mr. Arthur Scribner and a few other publishers are inclined to smile skeptically at the announcement. The whole thing, said Mr. Scribner a few days ago, may simply be another illustration of Mark Twain's humorous moods. I do not think we ought to take it too seriously, or he might have the laugh on us. There may be a little mistake somewhere in the one hundred years, you know. John Kendrick Bangs, who ought to and can't appreciate a humorous humor, remarked, I cannot see that there is any valid objection to Mr. Clemens' resolve to cash his memoirs in a safe deposit vault for a period of a hundred years if he chooses to do so. It may inspire some of the individuals who know that they are liable to be mentioned to die of curiosity. But from my point of view, the loss of a person weak enough to die of curiosity is not irreparable. In any event, it is better to die of curiosity than of wrath or of mortification. It is not uncommon for memoirs to be held back until all the persons spoken of are dead. This is preferable to editing an author's recollections into an exasperating vagueness so as not to give offence to individuals named who might prove unduly sensitive. Personally, I am glad Mr. Clemens has resolved to store these things up until 1999. It gives me something to look forward to in my old age. The plan is original, but I hope Mr. Clemens will not copyright it. If he fails to take out a patent on his scheme, Mr. Hall Cain and some other contemporary fictionists might be induced to do the same thing with their novels, and how beneficial that would be to mankind needs no heralding. I wholly approve of Mr. Clemens's resolution. Professor Harry Thurston Peck, of Columbia University and editor of The Bookman, smiled at the mention of Mark Twain's century-delayed book. If it is a fact, he said, it seems to me that, if Mark Twain hopes to sustain the interest of his reminiscences, he had better say what he has to say pretty soon. He undoubtedly knows many persons about whom he could relate entertaining incidents which would make enjoyable reading at the present day. But I do not imagine that Mr. Clemens has a large or intimate acquaintance with persons of the first rank, that is statesmen, diplomats, and those engaged in the rule of nations. Memoirs, even long delayed of such public people, always have more or less interest, although we see that the recent Talleyrand memoirs were not notably popular, probably due somewhat to their expurgated condition. So while Mark Twain's utterances on his contemporaries would be interesting now, the very names of many of those persons may be almost forgotten within twenty-five years. And what will it be in one hundred years? The book then would probably contain a great deal of very uninteresting matter, and as to any sharp personal comments, it would probably matter little one hundred years hence whether they are absolutely correct or not. Mr. Irving Putnam of G.P. Putnam's Sons considered it somewhat futile to attempt speculations as to the interest of a book by Mark Twain one hundred years distant. When we look at the rapid pace at which the world moves now in thought and activity, he said, and reflect how easily men in events of twenty-five years ago are forgotten, it would be vain to hazard an opinion regarding the popularity of a book written at the present time one hundred years from now. From an ethical and literary standpoint, however, it seems perfectly fair for an author to restrict the publication of his material to that extent if he sees fit. If he has anything to say that he is afraid would cause heart burnings or personal annoyances among certain persons or families, I do not see why he has not the right to defer the publication until such time as he believes all personal difficulties will be avoided. By fixing the time at one hundred years it is quite likely that all those intimately concerned in the matter will have ceased to exist, and no matter what the personalities may be, no serious annoyance could be caused. Therefore a most interesting controversy involving many delicate points, ethical, legal, literary, and even commercial, is supplied by Mark Twain's announcement that he is preparing a volume of memoirs for publication a hundred years after his death. The New York Times Saturday review has started the discussion by printing the first impressions made by Mr. Clemens' declaration of his purpose on the minds of Mr. Arthur Scribner, Professor Harry Thurston Peck, Mr. John Kendrick Bangs, and Mr. Irving Putnam, and others will doubtless soon have their say on one or another phase of the subject. The general inclination to consider Mr. Clemens only, or at least first, as a humorist, may lead to suspicions of a hoax, and so make people cautious about treating the promised memoirs seriously. But as a matter of fact his plan, as a plan and without reference to how he will carry it out, or to whether or not he intends to carry it out at all, involves a good many rather grave questions. As a man, for instance, a moral right to put on paper for posthumous publication matter which he would not dare or care to publish while still alive, and therefore still amenable to the law and public opinion for what he writes. The answer to this inquiry would depend, of course, on the man's motive for delaying the appearance of his book and on its character. Obviously no hard and fast rule could be formulated. There are many statements of fact which, if made today, would do nothing more than gratify curiosity, innocent or morbid, at a large expanse of pain or humiliation to the living. Yet those same statements, aged by a century, might be of great historic value and not in the slightest degree annoying. On the other hand, cowardly malice might thus take basest revenge for fancied wrongs, or deserved rebuffs, and fill with sharp thorns the path of children whose fathers are beyond or above reach. Nobody it is safe to say is injured in any way by the secrets extracted from the ancient documents in national archives, acts that, committed by parents or grandparents, would cause a lot of blushing, often provoke only mild deprecation or none at all, when fastened upon an ancestor four or five times removed. This is fortunate, else would the members of many and many a first family be permanently purple with shame. Such secrets, however, differ widely from intentionally deferred memoirs. End of Section 41, May 29, 1899, Topics of the Times, read by John Greenman. Section 42 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part III, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. May 31, 1899, Topics of the Times, more on the autobiography. By an ingenious misinterpretation of what was said in this column a few days ago about the memories which Mark Twain says he is writing for publication a hundred years hence, the Hartford Times provides itself with an excuse for denying all the times sad and then saying it all over again in another form. We are charged with disregarding the probability that there is a mystification of some kind in the announcement, though we took special pains to comment at some length on that very possibility, and we are lectured for intimating that Mr. Clemens' motive for postponing publication is malicious or cowardly when all we did was to point out that his plan, executed by an unscrupulous person, might easily serve most evil ends. Granted, writes the Hartford Man, a practice that has been common for a long time that moralists have regarded without objection, that often serves a useful purpose, and that it is almost impossible to check if anyone has a fancy for it, it is a little hard to raise a solemn question of its permissibility when a distinguished humorist announces that he is to try it himself, but makes it a little more conspicuous than most such performances by giving it a full century to ripen. Not at all hard, dear friend, particularly if the question was of a much mitigated solemnity, and if it was raised in well-justified belief that nobody in the world will suspect Mr. Clemens of plotting injury to men, who will not be able, a hundred years from now, to return the attack. Just because he is beyond such suspicion, the problem suggested was both safe and profitable. Mark Twain has left Vienna after a twenty-month stay, and no other town has ever seen him depart with more regret. He had become well known to everyone. Wherever there was a festivity or something interesting to be seen or heard, the famous humorist was to be found. There are few persons here of any importance whose acquaintance he did not make. A farewell audience was quickly granted by His Majesty Francis Joseph. Mr. Clemens had expected to be received on the ordinary audience day, and his surprise was great when he was informed that he would be received in private audience. Conscious that the Emperor's time is precious, Mark Twain had written out a little German speech which he had learned by heart. But when he was in the imperial presence he was unable to utter a word, having simply forgotten his whole speech. However, the Emperor cordially shook hands with him and began an interesting conversation. He inquired about the author's stay here, and Mr. Clemens replied he had never felt so comfortable anywhere else, declaring Vienna to be a wonderful and delightful city, beautiful despite its enormous size, and from which he was carrying away many a fruitful idea that he hoped later on to turn to account. His Majesty referred to the efficiency of the American army and navy. After a rather long audience the Emperor dismissed the American, most graciously, and the latter declares the audience will always remain one of his pleasantest memories. To the many people who asked him about the work he had done in Vienna, Mark Twain replied that he had written a book about present-day persons which, however, was not to be published till a hundred years after his death. He left Vienna with a joke on his lips. Mark Twain's last words to the well-known Viennese humorist Er Putzel were, The New York papers have asked me about my audience, and I have telegraphed the following which I consider quite nice because it is dignified and does not give any information. It was only a pleasant unconstrained private conversation on matters unconnected with international policy. I was very much wanted to explain my plan, now in the hands of the Secretary of State in Washington, for ensuring universal peace, but I feared his Majesty would laugh or else consider it too radical. Now, Mark Twain went on to say, all the newspapers in America will telegraph to the Secretary of State to know what my plan is, and then they will learn that I have discovered a method of suddenly depriving the air of its vital principle, and thus of killing off the whole human race in four minutes. Mark to Johannes Horowitz End of Section 43, June 11, 1899, Twain's Farewell to Vienna, read by John Greenman. Section 44 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. June 17, 1899, Dinner to Mark Twain. Friendly feeling, between England and America, The Keynote of Speeches at the Hotel Cecil, London. London June 16. The dinner given by the White Friars Club to Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens, this evening at the Hotel Cecil, was a remarkable tribute to the author, and at the same time to the friendly relations existing between Great Britain and the United States. Each of the speakers, among whom were the very Reverend S. Reynolds Hull, Dean of North, United States Senator Electroncy M. de Pugh, and Poltny Bigelow, dwelt upon this theme. Mr. Bigelow presided, the guest of the evening being on his left and Mrs. Clemens on his right. The company included Max O'Rell, Paul Buellet, Robert Barr, the Mrs. Clemens, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Parker, T. P. O'Connor, Member of Parliament for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, Sarah Grand, Mrs. Frank Leslie, Miss Beatrice Harrodon, and about two hundred literary men and women. Louis Frederick Austin, in proposing Mark Twain's health, said, What most appeals to men and women of his own calling, and what will ever cause Mr. Clemens's name to be associated with Sir Walter Scots in similar circumstances, is his noble courage in misfortune, the high personal honour which accepted the penalty of disaster, and the undaunted toil that now enables him again to lift the colours of victory. The reply of Mr. Clemens, who was received on Rising with prolonged cheers, was in his happiest vein, causing much laughter and applause. Mr. de Pugh, after a few humorous remarks and an eloquent tribute to Mark Twain, alluded to the change of sentiment in America produced by Great Britain's attitude and action during the Hispano-American War. He said, When Captain Coughlin of the Raleigh returned from Manila, he told us about the different attitudes of Admiral von Dietrich and Sir Edward Chichester, and he told us, what we all in our hearts already knew, that the European powers save England, sympathised with our enemies, and that it was only their knowledge that England which support us morally and actively, if necessary, which prevented their interference, applause. And it was this knowledge which made it possible for me, when addressing a political gathering of twenty thousand people in America the other day, to take the stars and stripes in one hand and the Union Jack in the other, and not to hear one dissenting voice in that vast audience. A fitting climax was brought about at this point, when Sir Edward Chichester, who had been prevented by another engagement from coming earlier, entered the room and was greeted with great cheering. Sir Edward, in a brief response to the reception according to him, expressed his admiration for Admiral Dewey and his officers, and for the American sailors generally. He said, I was very glad to be at Manila, and the visit increased my respect for the American character. After all, blood is thicker than water. But I must not go on for a friend of mine, Captain Coughlin, got into trouble through talking the other day, laughter and cheers. After this, Mark Twain and Captain Chichester shared the honors of the evening, everybody desiring to shake hands with both. End of Section 44, June 17th, 1899, Dinner to Mark Twain, read by John Greenman. Section 45 of Mark Twain and the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. June 24th, 1899, Mark Twain's London speech. At a dinner of the Authors Club in London, a fortnight ago, Mark Twain was a guest of honor. He was greeted with much enthusiasm and, on rising, began by humorously saying that it did not embarrass him to hear works of his praised, it only pleased, and delighted him. He had not gone past the age when embarrassment was possible, it was true enough, but he had reached that age where he knew how to conceal it. It was such a satisfaction to him to hear Sir Walter Besant, who was much more competent than himself to judge of his work, deliver a judgment which was such a contentment to his spirit. Well, he had thought well of the books himself, but he thought more of them now. It also charmed him to hear Sir Spencer Walpole deliver a similar judgment, and he should treasure his remarks also. He should not discount them in any possible way. When he reported them to his family they would lose nothing. There were, however, certain heredities which came down to them and which their writings at the present day might be traced to. He, for instance, read the Walpole letters when he was a boy. He absorbed them, gathered in their grace, wit, and humor, and put them away to be used by and by. And one did that so unconsciously. He was now reminded of what use those letters had been to him. They must not claim credit in America for what was given to them so long ago. They must only claim that they had trimmed this, that, and the other, and so changed their appearance that they seemed to be original. The gathering thus saw what modesty he had in stock, but it had taken long practice to get it there. But he must not stand there talking. He had meant merely to get up and give his thanks for the pleasant things the preceding speakers had said. He wished also to extend his thanks to the author's club for constituting him a member at a reasonable price per year, and for giving him the benefit of their legal advice. He believed they kept a lawyer. He had always kept a lawyer too, though he had never made anything out of him. It was of service to an author to have a lawyer. There was something so disagreeable in having a personal contact with a publisher. It was better to work through a lawyer and lose your case. He understood that the publishers had been meeting together. He did not know what for, but possibly they were devising new and mysterious ways of remunerating authors. He only wished to thank them for electing him a member of that club. He believed he had paid his dues, and to thank them for the pleasant things they had said of him. Last February, when Rudyard Kipling was ill in America, the sympathy which was poured out to him was genuine and sincere, and he believed that that which cost Kipling so much would bring in England and America closer together. He had been proud and pleased to see this growing affection and respect between the two countries, and he hoped it would continue to grow, and, please God, it would continue to grow. He trusted they would leave to posterity, if they could not leave anything else, a friendship between England and America that would count for much. He added that he had been engaged for the past eight days in compiling a pun. He had brought it there to lay it at their feet, and not to ask for their indulgence, but for their applause. It was in these words. Since England and America have been joined together in Kipling, may they not be severed in twain. End of Section 45, June 24, 1899, Mark Twain's London Speech, read by John Greenman. Section 46 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890-1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. June 25, 1899, Mark Twain's first success. When Mark Twain first struck the trail, and made for Nevada, with the hope of finding a golden fortune there, the first town that he located was Aurora, which is situated about one hundred miles south of Carson City. Aurora was so named because of the remarkable sunrise effects there. Every morning when the sun began to climb up from the distant margin of the sagebrush horizon and illumined the bleak arrays of prospecting holes, the effect was one of such grandeur that the early settlers named their town Aurora. Twain seemed to see in the town the makings of a great city. Like all other Comstock mining camps it had its rows of logwood saloons, its scattered cabins, its jail, and its church. The mayor was cheek by jowl with a deacon, and no man dared to be better than any other man under penalty of losing his poker license. Mark Twain took his stand with the others, and with a sturdy determination of a man who expects to see a twenty-pound nugget turn up with every thrust of the pick, worked hard for many days. His little claim developed nothing, however, and the only gold he saw was the gold of his dreams. Finally he gave it up as a thankless job, and he would go about town making jokes and telling stories until he became the center of attraction at every social gathering. The Fourth of July was at hand, and it had been decided to give a grand celebration. Twain was selected to arrange the program, and he put the mayor on the list as orator of the day. Now it so happened, as all old Comstockers can attest, that the mayor of Aurora was not elected for his judicial or scholarly qualifications, but because he was in the habit of opening more jackpots than any other man in town. Twain was told by the mayor that he could not make a speech, so Twain agreed to write one for him, if he would read it. This was agreed on, and Twain saw a chance for a joke. He wrote a burlesque speech which he began with these words. I was sired by the Great American Eagle, and born by a continental dam. And, winding up with, the only mistake that Washington made was that he was not born in Aurora. The mayor could never tell why the populace laughed at him instead of taking him seriously. Mr. Joseph T. Goodman, then the editor of the Virginia City Enterprise, heard of the speech and wrote for it for publication. When he learned that Twain was the author, he sent him a letter saying that if he was not making more money than a certain weekly salary would make him, he had better quit mining and become a reporter on the Enterprise. The first response was when Mark Twain walked into the Enterprise office. He did not even have a bundle tied up in a handkerchief. Instead it was a roll of dirty blankets, which he carried on his shoulder, and which, with a shrug, he dropped. The next morning he did not change his raiment, nor did he seem to care to do so, until his friends spoke to him about it. Usually it was hard to decide whether his shirt front was lined with tobacco-splashings or tobacco with, here and there, a suspicion of linen. But he wrote droll stories, and the life of Virginia City was materialized by his pen from day to day, either by a real literary picture, or a literary caricature, some of which, it is said, were as fine as anything he has written since. At the end of Section 46, June 25, 1899, Mark Twain's First Success, read by John Greenman. Section 47 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 3, 1890-1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. July 15, 1899, Mark Twain's Speech on the Fourth. At the American Banquet in London on July 4, one of the speakers was Mark Twain, who in Speaking to the Toast said the previous speakers had left him little to say, but he noticed that they had considered the day from one side its sentimental, patriotic, and poetical side. That was all right, but it had another side. It had a commercial side, a business side, and that side needed reform. They had heard nothing but compliments of the Fourth of July, and the Fourth of July was entitled to those compliments. Referring to its historical side, he took occasion to humorously criticize the use of the word an in English. He did not see why their cousins should continue to say an hospital, an historic fact, an horse, and it seemed to him that the Congress of Women, now in session, should see to it, for an was having too much to do with the matter. This all came from habit. This reminded him of an incident at a luncheon the previous day. A great church dignitary went away half an hour before anybody else, and he carried off his, Mark Twain's, hat. Of course, in going out first, he had the choice of hats. It was an innocent act, and was, perhaps, due to heredity. His head was no doubt full of ecclesiastical matters. He was absorbed in something that would benefit the church, and when a man was in that condition, he would take anybody's hat. It was just a recurrence of a long, abandoned habit of an ancestor, and he would not trust an ancestor with a hat or anything else. For five hours he, Mark Twain, was under the influence of the clerical hat, and during that time he could not tell a lie. In conclusion, the speaker said he hoped that the time would come when, wherever English and Americans found themselves together, they would feel that they were not aliens, or strangers, but kinsmen of the same blood. And of Section 47, July 15, 1899, Mark Twain's speech on the Fourth, read by John Greenman. Section 48 of Mark Twain in the New York Times, Part 3, 1890 to 1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by John Greenman. July 29, 1899, Mark Twain's editions in England. It seems that the sojourn of Mark Twain in London is quite as likely to benefit the English people as it is himself, as was said in a cable dispatch to the Times Saturday Review not long ago. Mr. Clemens was in London in order to superintend the publication of an edition deluxe of his works. This edition will be presented simultaneously in England and America. But this is not all. We understand that there will shortly appear on the other side an authorized uniform edition of the entire works of Samuel L. Clemens. This last is the outcome of the constant appeals that have been made to the author of Innocence Abroad ever since his arrival in the British Metropolis. But if a popular uniform English edition, why not a popular uniform American edition? Mark Twain first made his appearance in London in 1867 through a little volume of sketches headed by the celebrated story of the jumping frog. Three years later appeared in London Innocence Abroad, or The New Pilgrim's Progress. In 1871 a number of works by this author were presented to the London public under various titles, Screamers, Eye Openers, a burlesque autobiography, and A Pleasure Trip on the Continent. All these books were published through Mr. Houghton and were not authorized by the author. A collection of Mark Twain's writings was published over there by J. C. Houghton in 1873 entitled Choice Humorous Works. And to the following year Mr. Chateau presented a collection called Choice Works, and then in 1876 came Tom Sawyer, and in 1880 Tramps Abroad, and so on. The later works being copyrighted editions. The edition deluxe now in preparation will be an Autograph One in 22 Octavo volumes. Innocence Abroad, together with a critical estimate of the famous humorist by Professor Brander Matthews, will occupy the first two. This critique includes seven thousand words and is said to be very exhaustive. The arrangement of the edition, which will be limited to something over one thousand cents for America and England, is as follows. Books of Travel. The Innocence Abroad, illustrated by Peter Newell, two volumes, with biographical criticism by Brander Matthews. A Tramp Abroad, illustrated by T. Dethulstrup, two volumes. Following the Equator, illustrated by A. B. Frost, Frederick Diehlmann and others, two volumes. Roughing it, illustrated by B. W. Kleininst, two volumes. Life on the Mississippi, illustrated by E. H. Garrett, one volume. Fiction. The Gilded Age, illustrated by W. T. Smedley, two volumes. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, illustrated by J. G. Brown, one volume. Huckleberry Finn, illustrated by E. W. Kemple, one volume. Putinhead Wilson, illustrated by E. W. Kemple, one volume. The Prince and the Pauper, illustrated by Frank T. Merrill, one volume. Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court, illustrated by Dan Beard, one volume. Joan of Arc, illustrated by F. V. DuPont, two volumes. Short Stories and Sketches, volume one, illustrated by F. B. Opper, one volume. Volume two, illustrated by A. B. Frost, one volume. Volume three, illustrated by Dan Beard, one volume. Literary Essays, one volume. A special feature of the edition is the series of frontispieces, which will be reproductions of photographs and paintings of the author made at a period near the time when the different tales were written. The portraits are etchings or photographures, and include a reproduction of the latest portrait of Mark Twain painted by Speardon, in Vienna in 1898. With two exceptions, the illustrators of the volumes are Americans. Their names are J. G. Brown, A. B. Frost, W. T. Smedley, Peter Newell, B. W. Kleininst, Dan Beard, F. B. Opper, Frank J. Merrill, E. W. Kemple, T. Dethulstrup, E. H. Garrett, F. V. DuMont, Frederick Dielman, Alan Gilbert, Thomas Fogarty, John Harley, and W. H. W. Bicknell. End of Section 48, July 29, 1899, Mark Twain's editions in England, read by John Greenman. Section 49 of Mark Twain in The New York Times, Part 3, 1890-1899. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by John Greenman. Chapter 9, 1899, Mark Twain on Rudyard Kipling. A letter from Mark Twain addressed to a correspondent in Oklahoma is published in one of the Kansas City papers. It relates to Rudyard Kipling and was called out in an interesting manner. It seems that the students of Stillwater College in Oklahoma recently declared that Kipling was entitled to be regarded as the greatest living writer of English. Dr. Henry Walker of Oklahoma City disagreed with this verdict in a letter which he wrote to a paper published in Oklahoma City, and gave that proud eminence to Mark Twain instead. He sent Mr. Clemens a copy of his letter and has received the following reply. Dear Dr. Walker, I thank you ever so much for the impulse which moved you to write the article, and for the article also, which is mighty good reading. And I am glad you praised Kipling. He deserves it. He deserves all the praise that is lavished upon him, and more. It is marvelous the work which that boy has done. The more you read the jungle books, the more wonderful they grow. But Kipling himself does not appreciate them as he ought. He read Tom Sawyer a couple of times when he was coming up out of his illness, and said he would rather be the author of that book than any that has been published during its lifetime. Now, I could have chosen better. I should have chosen jungle books. But I prize his compliment just the same, of course. I thank you again, and heartily. I haven't the language to say it strongly enough. End of Section 49, September 9, 1899, Mark Twain on Rudyard Kipling, read by John Greenman.