Autobiography of Mark Twain Page 3
Now then all this has been fortunate. Still, all good things come to him who waits. I have waited, because I couldn’t help it, but my reward has come just the same. I don’t have to say, now, what the American gentleman should be—the whole ground can be covered with half a sentence, and an hour’s laborious talk saved by just stating what the American gentleman is. He is Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States.
I am not jesting, but am in deep earnest, when I give it as my opinion that our President is the representative American gentleman—of to-day. I think he is as distinctly and definitely the representative American gentleman of to-day as was Washington the representative American gentleman of his day. Roosevelt is the whole argument for and against, in his own person. He represents what the American gentleman ought not to be, and does it as clearly, intelligibly, and exhaustively as he represents what the American gentleman is. We are by long odds the most ill-mannered nation, civilized or savage, that exists on the planet to-day, and our President stands for us like a colossal monument visible from all the ends of the earth. He is fearfully hard and coarse where another gentleman would exhibit kindliness and delicacy. Lately, when that slimy creature of his, that misplaced doctor, that dishonored Governor of Cuba, that sleight of hand Major General, Leonard Wood, penned up six hundred helpless savages in a hole and butchered every one of them, allowing not even a woman or a child to escape, President Roosevelt—representative American gentleman, First American gentleman—put the heart and soul of our whole nation of gentlemen into the scream of delight which he cabled to Wood congratulating him on this “brilliant feat of arms,” and praising him for thus “upholding the honor of the American flag.”
Roosevelt is far and away the worst President we have ever had, and also the most admired and the most satisfactory. The nation’s admiration of him and pride in him and worship of him is far wider, far warmer, and far more general than it has ever before lavished upon a President, even including McKinley, Jackson, and Grant.
Is the Morris-Barnes incident closed? Possibly yes; possibly no. We will keep an eye on it and see. For the moment, there seems to be something like a revolt there in Washington among half a dozen decent people and one newspaper, but we must not build too much upon this. It is but a limited revolt, and can be vituperated into silence by that vast patriot band of cordial serfs, the American newspaper editors.
This is from this morning’s paper:
MARK TWAIN LETTER SOLD.
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Written to Thomas Nast, It Proposed a Joint Tour.
A Mark Twain autograph letter brought $43 yesterday at the auction by the Merwin-Clayton Company of the library and correspondence of the late Thomas Nast, cartoonist. The letter is nine pages note-paper, is dated Hartford, Nov. 12, 1877, and is addressed to Nast. It reads in part as follows:
Hartford, Nov. 12.
My Dear Nast: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again until the time was come for me to say “I die innocent.” But the same old offers keep arriving that have arriven every year, and been every year declined—$500 for Louisville, $500 for St. Louis, $1,000 gold for two nights in Toronto, half gross proceeds for New York, Boston, Brooklyn, &c. I have declined them all just as usual, though sorely tempted as usual.
Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because (1) traveling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2) shouldering the whole show is such cheer-killing responsibility.
Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November, 1867—ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.: That you should stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns—don’t want to go to little ones) with you for company.
The letter includes a schedule of cities and the number of appearances planned for each.
This is as it should be. This is worthy of all praise. I say it myself lest other competent persons should forget to do it. It appears that four of my ancient letters were sold at auction, three of them at twenty-seven dollars, twenty-eight dollars, and twenty-nine dollars respectively, and the one above mentioned at forty-three dollars. There is one very gratifying circumstance about this, to wit: that my literature has more than held its own as regards money value through this stretch of thirty-six years. I judge that the forty-three-dollar letter must have gone at about ten cents a word, whereas if I had written it to-day its market rate would be thirty cents—so I have increased in value two or three hundred per cent. I note another gratifying circumstance—that a letter of General Grant’s sold at something short of eighteen dollars. I can’t rise to General Grant’s lofty place in the estimation of this nation, but it is a deep happiness to me to know that when it comes to epistolary literature he can’t sit in the front seat along with me.
This reminds me—nine years ago, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, a report was cabled to the American journals that I was dying. I was not the one. It was another Clemens, a cousin of mine,—Dr. J. Ross Clemens, now of St. Louis—who was due to die but presently escaped, by some chicanery or other characteristic of the tribe of Clemens. The London representatives of the American papers began to flock in, with American cables in their hands, to inquire into my condition. There was nothing the matter with me, and each in his turn was astonished, and disappointed, to find me reading and smoking in my study and worth next to nothing as a text for transatlantic news. One of these men was a gentle and kindly and grave and sympathetic Irishman, who hid his sorrow the best he could, and tried to look glad, and told me that his paper, the Evening Sun, had cabled him that it was reported in New York that I was dead. What should he cable in reply? I said—
“Say the report is greatly exaggerated.”
He never smiled, but went solemnly away and sent the cable in those words. The remark hit the world pleasantly, and to this day it keeps turning up, now and then, in the newspapers when people have occasion to discount exaggerations.
The next man was also an Irishman. He had his New York cablegram in his hand—from the New York World—and he was so evidently trying to get around that cable with invented softnesses and palliations that my curiosity was aroused and I wanted to see what it did really say. So when occasion offered I slipped it out of his hand. It said,
“If Mark Twain dying send five hundred words. If dead send a thousand.”
Now that old letter of mine sold yesterday for forty-three dollars. When I am dead it will be worth eighty-six.
Wednesday, April 4, 1906
The Morris case again—Scope of this autobiography, a mirror—More about Nast sale; laurels for Mr. Clemens—Clippings in regard to Women’s University Club reception; Mr. Clemens comments on them—Vassar benefit at Hudson Theatre; Mr. Clemens meets many old friends.
MRS. MORRIS CASE IN SENATE.
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Nomination of Barnes Opens Way for an Inquiry.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, April 3.—Criticism of the appointment of Mr. Roosevelt’s Assistant Secretary, B. F. Barnes, to be Postmaster of Washington continues. It now seems likely that the appointment may have a hard time in passing the Senate. Barnes’s action in having Mrs. Minor Morris put out of the White House is the chief ground of opposition. The Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads has determined to investigate Barnes’s action in the Morris case, and eye witnesses of the affair have been summoned to appear before the committee to-morrow and tell what they saw. This is the same investigation which Mr. Tillman requested and which the Senate refused to grant. It now comes as the result of the President’s action in appointing Barnes Postmaster. The witnesses who are to appear before the committee were not asked to testify in the investigation which the President made when he decided that Barnes’s course was justified.
There was much speculation to-day as to who Mr. Barnes’s successor as Assistant Secretary would be. The Evening Star to-night devotes a colu
mn and a half to suggestions on the subject, saying that the leading candidates are John L. McGrew, a clerk in the White House offices; Warren Young, Chief Executive Clerk; M. C. Latta, the President’s personal stenographer; James J. Corbett of New York, Robert Fitzsimmons, Augustus Ruhlin, and James J. Jeffries.
The article is illustrated with two pictures of Corbett and Fitzsimmons.
That is neat, and causes me much gentle delight. The point of that whole matter lies in the last four names that are mentioned in it. These four men are prize-fighters—the most celebrated ones now living.
Is the incident now closed? Again we cannot tell. The smell of it may linger in American history a thousand years yet.
This autobiography of mine differs from other autobiographies—differs from all other autobiographies, except Benvenuto’s, perhaps. The conventional biography of all the ages is an open window. The autobiographer sits there and examines and discusses the people that go by—not all of them, but the notorious ones, the famous ones; those that wear fine uniforms, and crowns when it is not raining; and very great poets and great statesmen—illustrious people with whom he has had the high privilege of coming in contact. He likes to toss a wave of recognition to these with his hand as they go by, and he likes to notice that the others are seeing him do this, and admiring. He likes to let on that in discussing these occasional people that wear the good clothes he is only interested in interesting his reader, and is in a measure unconscious of himself.
But this autobiography of mine is not that kind of an autobiography. This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back—I get glimpses of them in the mirror—and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography. I rejoice when a king or duke comes my way and makes himself useful to this autobiography, but they are rare customers, with wide intervals between. I can use them with good effect as lighthouses and monuments along my way, but for real business I depend upon the common herd.
Here is some more about the Nast sale:
30 CENTS FOR McCURDY POEM.
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Other Literary Curiosities from the Nast Collection at Auction.
The sale of autograph letters, wash drawings, pencil and pen and ink sketches, the property of the late Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, was continued yesterday by the Merwin-Clayton Company.
Five letters from Theodore Roosevelt as Police Commissioner, Colonel of the Rough Riders, Governor, and President, to Mr. Nast, thanking him for sketches and expressing warm friendship for the cartoonist, brought prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.25.
Richard A. McCurdy’s autograph letter and original autograph poem addressed to Nast, with a typewritten copy of the poem, brought 30 cents the lot.
The following letter written by Gen. Philip H. Sheridan to Nast was bid in at $12.25 by J. H. Manning, a son of the late Daniel Manning:
May 12, 1875.
Dear Nast:
It is true. I will be married on the 30th of June coming unless there is a slip between the cup and the lip, which is scarcely possible. I will not have any wedding for many reasons, among them the recent death of my father.
I am very happy, but wish the d—d thing was over. Yours truly,
SHERIDAN.
P.S. and M.I.—I send the inclosed for your oldest. Please send me yours to be kept for mine.
P. H. S.
A letter written by Lincoln, and which was laid over a piece of white silk bearing a faded red stain, sold for $38. The attached certificate stated that the silk was from the dress of Laura Keene, worn on the night of Lincoln’s assassination, and that the stain was made by his blood.
Gen. W. T. Sherman’s letter to Nast, dated March 9, 1879, indorsing a testimonial of the cartoonist’s services to the army and navy, sold for $6.
A scrapbook containing sketches of Lincoln, Sumner, Greeley, Walt Whitman, and many water color sketches, brought $75.
A sketch of William M. Tweed and his companion, Hunt, under arrest, brought $21. Two companion Christmas sketches by Nast, representing a child telephoning to Santa Claus, brought $43 each. A sketch of Gen. Grant was bid in for $36. A sketch of the “G. O . P.” elephant brought $28. A sketch representing the Saviour, full face, with nimbus, brought $65.
An autograph photograph of Theodore Roosevelt, dated 1884, was bid in at $5.
It is a great satisfaction to me to notice that I am still ahead—ahead of Roosevelt, ahead of Sherman, ahead of Sheridan, even ahead of Lincoln. These are fine laurels, but they will not last. A time is coming when some of them will wither. A day will come when a mere scratch of Mr. Lincoln’s pen will outsell a whole basketful of my letters. A time will come when a scratch of the pens of those immortal soldiers, Sherman and Sheridan, will outsell a thousand scratches of mine, and so I shall enjoy my supremacy now, while I may. I shall read that clipping over forty or fifty times, now, while it is new and true, and let the desolating future take care of itself.
I omit this morning’s stirring news from Russia to make room for this half-column clipping, because the clipping is about me.
MARK TWAIN TALKS TO COLLEGE WOMEN
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Says He’ll Only Speak to Alumnae After This.
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TELLS THAT TWICHELL STORY
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Five Hundred Women Shook Hands with Him and Showered Him with Pretty Speeches.
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The Women’s University Club and Mark Twain entertained each other yesterday. The club gave a reception, with the author as the guest of honor, and the entire club and a good many of its relatives and friends turned out to meet him. There were 500 of them at least, and each one had something to say to Mr. Clemens when she shook hands with him.
Some one who was looking on said that a good many “repeated” and went up twice to shake hands.
Mr. Clemens in the course of a long life has had other experiences in which college girls have had a part, and he was somewhat reminiscent. The girls he talked to yesterday were some of them grandchildren of other girls he had met in other days.
“I don’t have to say anything, do I?” said one girl, who had not been able to think up an interesting remark, as she shook hands with the guest of honor.
“No, indeed,” said Mr. Clemens, “I’m shy that way myself.”
“I have been waiting since I was three years old for this,” said another girl. “It was as long ago as that that my father pointed out the pictures in ‘Innocents Abroad’ to me.”
“I bring a message from two little girls,” said an older woman. “They want you to write another story as nice as ‘The Prince and the Pauper,’ and send them the first copy,” and Mark Twain gayly promised that he would.
Mr. Clemens had promised to speak at the club, but, having a cold, asked to be excused. He was persuaded, however, to “tell a yarn.”
They brought in a little platform that had been in readiness for the address, but he was not satisfied with it.
“I don’t think that is high enough,” he said, “because I can’t tell what people are thinking unless I see their faces.” Then at his request they brought a chair, which was placed on the platform, and he stood on it. The veteran author never spoke to a more appreciative audience.
“I am not here, young ladies, to make a speech,” he said, “but what may look like one in the distance. I don’t dare to make a speech, for I haven’t made any preparations, and if I tried it on an empty stomach—I mean an empty mind—I don’t know what iniquity I might commit.
“On the 19th of this month, at Carnegie Hall, I am going to take formal leave of the platform for ever and ever, as far as appearing for pay is concerned and before people who have to pay to get in, but I have not given up for other occasions.
“I shall now proceed to infest the platform all the time under conditions that I like—when I am not paid
to appear and when no one has to pay to get in, and I shall only talk to audiences of college girls. I have labored for the public good for many years, and now I am going to talk for my own contentment.”