Autobiography of Mark Twain Read online

  “I was a-drivin’ a passel of ’em round about yisterday evenin’, quiet ones, you know, still and solemn, and all to wunst they busted out to make your hair lift, and I judged hell was to pay. Now what do you reckon it was? It wa’n’t anything but jest one of them common damned yaller sunsets.”

  In those days——

  Wednesday, October 10, 1906

  The visit to Onteora—Dinner at Mrs. Dodge’s—Mr. Clemens’s method of quieting the racket at table—Some of the practical jokes which Dean Sage played on Mr. Twichell.

  I couldn’t finish, yesterday. It was one of those exasperating times when the brain is clogged and muddy and the words refuse to come: a body may know quite well what he wants to say; the idea in his mind may have shape and form, but by no ingenuity can the right words be found for the phrasing. Sometimes dogged persistency and determined effort will eventually improve the conditions and turn on the words and make them flow, but this does not often happen. The thing that does happen is that you may lose your temper, break some furniture, and quit for the day. That is what happened yesterday. When the words will not come there is always a good reason for it, and always the same reason—broken sleep the night before.

  Susy has named a number of the friends who were assembled at Onteora at the time of our visit, but there were others—among them Laurence Hutton, Charles Dudley Warner, and Carroll Beckwith, and their wives. It was a bright and jolly company. Some of those choice spirits are still with us; the others have passed from this life: Mrs. Clemens, Susy, Mr. Warner, Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence Hutton, Dean Sage—peace to their ashes! Susy is in error in thinking Mrs. Dodge was not there at that time; we were her guests.

  We arrived at nightfall, dreary from a tiresome journey; but the dreariness did not last. Mrs. Dodge had provided a home-made banquet, and the happy company sat down to it, twenty strong, or more. Then the thing happened which always happens at large dinners, and is always exasperating: everybody talked to his elbow-mates and all talked at once, and gradually raised their voices higher, and higher, and higher, in the desperate effort to be heard. It was like a riot, an insurrection; it was an intolerable volume of noise. Presently I said to the lady next me—

  “I will subdue this riot, I will silence this racket. There is only one way to do it, but I know the art. You must tilt your head toward mine and seem to be deeply interested in what I am saying; I will talk in a low voice; then, just because our neighbors won’t be able to hear me, they will want to hear me. If I mumble long enough—say two minutes—you will see that the dialogues will one after another come to a standstill, and there will be silence, not a sound anywhere but my mumbling.”

  Then in a very low voice I began:

  “When I went out to Chicago, eleven years ago, to witness the Grant festivities, there was a great banquet on the first night, with six hundred ex-soldiers present. The gentleman who sat next me was Mr. Medill, proprietor of the Chicago Tribune. He was very hard of hearing, and he had a habit common to deaf people of shouting his remarks instead of delivering them in an ordinary voice. He would handle his knife and fork in reflective silence for five or six minutes at a time and then suddenly fetch out a shout that would make you jump out of the United States.”

  By this time the insurrection at Mrs. Dodge’s table—at least that part of it in my immediate neighborhood—had died down, and the silence was spreading, couple by couple, down the long table. I went on in a lower and still lower mumble, and most impressively—

  “During one of Mr. Medill’s mute intervals, a man opposite us approached the end of a story which he had been telling his elbow-neighbor. He was speaking in a low voice—there was much noise—I was deeply interested, and straining my ears to catch his words—stretching my neck, holding my breath, to hear, unconscious of everything but the fascinating tale. I heard him say, ‘At this point he seized her by her long hair—she shrieking and begging—bent her neck across his knee, and with one awful sweep of the razor——’

  “‘HOW DO YOU LIKE CHICA-A-AGO!!!’”

  That was Medill’s interruption, hearable at thirty miles. By the time I had reached that place in my mumblings Mrs. Dodge’s dining room was so silent, so breathlessly still, that if you had dropped a thought anywhere in it you could have heard it smack the floor.* When I delivered that yell the entire dinner company jumped as one person, and punched their heads through the ceiling, damaging it, for it was only lath and plaster, and it all came down on us, and much of it went into the victuals and made them gritty, but no one was hurt. Then I explained why it was that I had played that game, and begged them to take the moral of it home to their hearts and be rational and merciful thenceforth, and cease from screaming in mass, and agree to let one person talk at a time and the rest listen in grateful and unvexed peace. They granted my prayer, and we had a happy time all the rest of the evening; I do not think I have ever had a better time in my life. This was largely because the new terms enabled me to keep the floor—now that I had it—and do all the talking myself. I do like to hear myself talk. Susy has exposed this in her Biography of me.

  Dean Sage was a delightful man, yet in one way a terror to his friends, for he loved them so well that he could not refrain from playing practical jokes on them. We have to be pretty deeply in love with a person before we can do him the honor of joking familiarly with him. Dean Sage was the best citizen I have known in America. It takes courage to be a good citizen, and he had plenty of it. He allowed no individual and no corporation to infringe his smallest right and escape unpunished. He was very rich, and very generous, and benevolent, and he gave away his money with a prodigal hand; but if an individual or a corporation infringed a right of his, to the value of ten cents, he would spend thousands of dollars’ worth of time and labor and money and persistence on the matter, and would not lower his flag until he had won his battle or lost it.

  He and Reverend Joe Twichell had been classmates in college, and to the day of Sage’s death they were as fond of each other as a pair of sweethearts. It follows, without saying, that whenever Sage found an opportunity to play a joke upon Twichell, Twichell was sure to suffer. In ’73, when Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was being tried in Brooklyn, the luster of his name and the national interest in the scandal involved in the trial brought Congregational clergymen to Brooklyn from all over America, and kept the Brooklyn streets populous with clerical coats and clerical white cravats as long as the trial lasted. Twichell went there to help watch the trial, and of course was a guest in the Sage mansion. Twichell and Sage would walk down the street daily with arms locked—Twichell of course wearing the costume that advertised his sacred office to all spectators—and whenever they got within earshot of a group of clergymen Sage would burst out with an impassioned irruption of profanity, slap Twichell on the back, and say approvingly,

  “Your very remark, Dominie, and you never said a truer thing in your life!”

  Along about 1873 Sage fell a victim to an attack of dysentery which reduced him to a skeleton, and defied all the efforts of the physicians to cure it. He went to the Adirondacks and took Twichell with him. Sage had always been an active man, and he couldn’t idle any day wholly away in inanition, but walked every day to the limit of his strength. One day, toward nightfall, the pair came upon a humble log cabin which bore these words painted upon a shingle: “Entertainment for Man and Beast.” They were obliged to stop there for the night, Sage’s strength being exhausted. They entered the cabin, and found its owner and sole occupant there, a rugged and sturdy and simple-hearted man of middle age. He cooked supper and placed it before the travelers—salt junk, boiled beans, corn bread and black coffee. Sage’s stomach could abide nothing but the most delicate food, therefore this banquet revolted him, and he sat at the table unemployed, while Twichell fed ravenously, limitlessly, gratefully; for he had been chaplain in a fighting regiment all through the war, and had kept in perfection the grand and uncritical appetite and splendid physical vigor which those four years of tough
fare and activity had furnished him. Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all night upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested corn-cobs. In the morning Joe was ravenous again, and devoured the odious breakfast as contentedly and as delightedly as he had devoured its twin the night before. Sage sat upon the porch, empty, and contemplated the performance and meditated revenge. Presently he beckoned to the landlord and took him aside and had a confidential talk with him. He said,

  “I am the paymaster. What is the bill?”

  “Two suppers, fifty cents; two beds, thirty cents; two breakfasts, fifty cents—total a dollar and thirty cents.”

  Sage said, “Go back and make out the bill, and fetch it to me here on the porch. Make it thirteen dollars.”

  “Thirteen dollars! Why it’s impossible! I am no robber. I am charging you what I charge everybody. It’s a dollar and thirty cents, and that’s all it is.”

  “My man, I’ve got something to say about this as well as you. It’s thirteen dollars. You’ll make out your bill for that, and you’ll take it, too, or you’ll not get a cent.”

  The man was troubled, and said, “I don’t understand this. I can’t make it out.”

  “Well, I understand it. I know what I am about. It’s thirteen dollars, and I want the bill made out for that. There’s no other terms. Get it ready and bring it out here. I will examine it and be outraged. You understand? I will dispute the bill. You must stand to it; you must refuse to take less. I will begin to lose my temper; you must begin to lose yours. I will call you hard names; you must answer with harder ones. I will raise my voice; you must raise yours. You must go into a rage—foam at the mouth, if you can; insert some soap, to help it along. Now go along and follow your instructions.”

  The man played his assigned part, and played it well. He brought the bill and stood waiting for results. Sage’s face began to cloud up, his eyes to snap, and his nostrils to inflate like a horse’s; then he broke out with—

  “Thirteen dollars! You mean to say that you charge thirteen dollars for these damned inhuman hospitalities of yours? Are you a professional buccaneer? Is it your custom to——”

  The man burst in with spirit: “Now I don’t want any more out of you—that’s a plenty. The bill is thirteen dollars, and you’ll pay it—that’s all. A couple of characterless adventurers, bilking their way through this country and attempting to dictate terms to a gentleman! a gentleman who received you supposing you were gentlemen yourselves, whereas in my opinion hell’s full of——”

  Sage broke in—

  “Not another word of that!—I won’t have it. I regard you as the lowest down thief that ever——”

  “Don’t you use that word again! By——I’ll take you by the neck and——”

  Twichell came rushing out, and just as the two were about to grapple he pushed himself between them and began to implore—

  “Oh Dean, don’t, don’t!—now Mr. Smith, control yourself! Oh, think of your family, Dean!—think what a scandal——”

  But they burst out with maledictions, imprecations, and all the hard names they could dig out of the rich accumulations of their educated memories, and in the midst of it the man shouted,

  “When gentlemen come to this house, I treat them as gentlemen. When people come to this house with the ordinary Christian appetites of gentlemen, I charge them a dollar and thirty cents for what I furnished you; but when a man brings a hellfired Famine here that gorges a barrel of pork and four barrels of beans at two sittings—”

  Sage broke in, in a voice that was eloquent with remorse and self-reproach,

  “I never thought of that, and I ask your pardon; I am ashamed of myself and of my friend. Here’s your thirteen dollars, and my apologies along with it.”

  * This was tried. I well remember it. M.T., Oct., ’06.

  Thursday, October 11, 1906

  From Susy’s Biography.

  Mamma has given me a very pleasant little newspaper scrap about papa, to copy. I will put it in here.

  I also will insert it, because it is a part of Susy’s little book, and because it contains compliments for me from James Redpath. Compliments from Redpath were worth having.

  I saw a rather disparaging paragraph the other day that recalled an incident of the Grant obsequies. I was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel at night, when the large halls were crowded with a mob of American celebrities. As we were looking toward the great staircase I saw James Redpath throw a kiss to a man going up, who turned with a friendly smile and tossed back a similar salutation. “Who is that?” I asked. “That,” said Mr. Redpath, “is the man who made death easy for Gen. Grant.” “Who—Shrady or Douglas?”* “No” said our friend “it is Mr. Clemens—Mark Twain. If it had not been for him Grant’s death-bed would have been haunted by the fear of poverty for his wife and children. I wish” he added “I could tell all I know about Mark’s noble and knightly generosity. But I learned it only under the seal of confidence. Mark deliberately allows men who would have driven a hard bargain with Grant to malign him when he could crush them by a simple statement. But I tell you the time will come when, if the newspaper reports of this day are read people will ask why Mark Twain was not given the chief place in the procession. He did more than any living man to make Grant die without dread or regret. Mark is a better man than he is an author and there is no doubt, I guess, that he is great with his pen.” I recall this remark as I saw Mark sneeringly referred to the other day.

  The chief ingredients of Redpath’s make-up were honesty, sincerity, kindliness, and pluck. He wasn’t afraid. He was one of Ossawatomie Brown’s right-hand men in the “bleeding Kansas” days; he was all through that struggle. He carried his life in his hands, and from one day to another it wasn’t worth the price of a night’s lodging. He had a small body of daring men under him, and they were constantly being hunted by the “jayhawkers,” who were pro-slavery Missourians, guerrillas, modern free lances——

  * Physicians. S.L.C.

  Friday, October 12, 1906

  Redpath and the jayhawker chief at the press dinner in Boston.

  I broke off there yesterday, in the middle of a sentence, because I saw that my word-stream was dammed up again, and I couldn’t make it flow.

  I can’t think of the name of that dare-devil guerrilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and down the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath. By grace of the chances of war, the two men never met in the field, though they several times came within an ace of it.

  Ten or twelve years later, Redpath was earning his living in Boston as chief of the lecture business in the United States. Fifteen or sixteen years after his Kansas adventures I became a public lecturer, and he was my agent. Along there somewhere was a press dinner, one November night, at the Tremont Hotel in Boston, and I attended it. I sat near the head of the table, with Redpath between me and the chairman; a stranger sat on my other side. I tried several times to talk with the stranger, but he seemed to be out of words and I presently ceased from troubling him. He was manifestly a very shy man, and, moreover, he might have been losing sleep the night before.

  The first man called up was Redpath. At the mention of the name the stranger started, and showed interest. He fixed a fascinated eye on Redpath, and lost not a word of his speech. Redpath told some stirring incidents of his career in Kansas, and said, among other things:

  “Three times I came near capturing the gallant jayhawker chief, and once he actually captured me, but didn’t know me and let me go, because he said he was hot on Redpath’s trail and couldn’t afford to waste time and rope on inconsequential small-fry.”

  My stranger was called up next, and when Redpath heard his name he, in turn, showed a startled interest. The stranger said, bending a caressing glance upon Redpath and speaking gently—I may even say sweetly—

  “You realize that I was that jayhawker chief. I am glad to know you now and take you to my heart and call you friend”—then he added, in a voice that was
pathetic with regret, “but if I had only known you then, what tumultuous happiness I should have had in your society!—while it lasted.”

  I lost my sleep again last night; it is plain that the mill will not grind, to-day; I give it up and shall not try to dictate again until next Monday.

  Monday, October 15, 1906

  Item from Susy’s Biography about Sour Mash and the flies—Mrs. Clemens’s experiment for destroying the flies in the Hartford house—Soap-bubble item from Susy’s Biography; Mr. Clemens’s comments—Mr. Clemens’s experience in learning to ride high bicycle—Letters regarding his fiftieth birthday.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  Mamma is teaching Jean a little natural history and is making a little collection of insects for her. But mamma does not allow Jean to kill any insects she only collects those insects that are found dead. Mamma has told us all, perticularly Jean, to bring her all the little dead insects that she finds. The other day as we were all sitting at supper Jean broke into the room and ran triumfantly up to Mamma and presented her with a plate full of dead flies. Mamma thanked Jean very enthusiastically although she with difficulty concealed her amusement. Just then Sour Mash entered the room and Jean believing her hungry asked Mamma for permission to give her the flies. Mamma laughingly consented and the flies almost immediately dissapeared.