Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  British Premier Campbell-Bannerman celebrates seventieth birthday tomorrow. London Tribune requests tribute.

  I furnished it, to wit:

  To His Excellency, the British Premier—

  Congratulations, not condolences. Before seventy we are merely respected, at best, and we have to behave all the time, or we lose that asset; but after seventy we are respected, esteemed, admired, revered, and don’t have to behave unless we want to. When I first knew you, honored sir, one of us was hardly even respected.

  Mark Twain.

  A great and brave statesman, and a charming man. I met him first at Marienbad, in Austria, half a generation ago. In the years that have since elapsed I have met him frequently in London, at private dinners in his own house and elsewhere, and at banquets. In Vienna, in ’98, we lived in the same hotel for a time, and the intercourse was daily and familiar. I hope that this explanation will in a measure justify the form of the tribute which I have just quoted. Now that I come to think of it, I am not quite sure that anything could really justify me in addressing the acting king of the British Empire in such an irreverent way, but I didn’t think of that when I was putting the words together. I had before me only the companionable comrade of the earlier days, when he was only an important member of Parliament and I was not respected, because I was a bankrupt.

  In Marienbad he introduced me to Labouchere, and for a number of days I helped that picturesque personality walk off his mineral water up and down the promenade. His vocabulary, and his energetic use of it, were an unqualified and constant delight to me. Two or three years later, at Homburg, I came across his wife, in the throng of medicinal-water drinkers, and eagerly asked where I might find her husband. She said he was not there, he was in London. I expressed my honest grief, and said I would rather hear him swear than hear an archbishop pray. She had been a great actress in her time, and she knew how to say with effect the thing she had to say, when her heart was in it. Her face lighted with pleasure at the honest admiration which I had expressed for her husband’s power, and she said:

  “Oh you never saw him at his best. Mr. Clemens, you ought to see him at home mornings, during the session, standing before the table ready for breakfast, with his back to the fire and his hands parting his coat-tails for the comfort of the warmth—you should hear him break out and curse the Opposition, name by name, and wind up with his comprehensive and unvarying and eloquent formula, ‘the sons of bitches!’”

  I last met Sir Henry at a small dinner party, six years ago, at the house of the Nestor of Parliament of that day. Among the guests were Sir William Vernon Harcourt, leader of the Opposition. I had not seen him for twenty-seven years, but of course I recognized him. The caricatures would make that sure. I asked him if he remembered me, and he said,

  “Certainly, it is only twenty-seven years since I saw you last.”

  At that time I was beginning to realize that I was old, and I said I hoped that he was either older than I or that he would at least strain a point and say he was, because it had been so long since I had come across any one whose years exceeded mine that I was getting depressed, and needed comfort. He said,

  “Well, examine your English history and decide. When I was nine years old I was crossing London Bridge when I heard the tolling bells announce the death of William IV.”

  I said, “I am grateful. You have renewed my youth, and if there is anything you desire, even to the half of my kingdom, name it. I have been the oldest man in the earth for months; I am glad to take second place for a while.”

  After dinner one of the men present said he could tell the company a curious thing if they would keep it to themselves, and let it be confidential—at least as far as regarded names and dates. He said he was acting as an official, at a function some years before, where the Prince of Wales—the present King—was to receive in state the deed of a vast property which had been conferred upon the nation by a wealthy citizen. It was the narrator’s duty to formally hand the deed to the Prince in an envelope.

  When everything was about ready for the presentation his clerk came to him, pale and agitated, and informed him in a whisper that the deed had disappeared! It was not in the safe; they had ransacked the place and could find no trace of it. It was a ghastly situation; something must be done, and done promptly. The narrator whispered to the clerk:

  “Rush!—fold up a Daily News, shove it into an official envelope, and fetch it here.”

  This was done. The official committee of noblemen and gentlemen, bareheaded, and with the narrator at its head, solemnly approached the Prince where he stood supported by his imposing retinue, and with awe inspiring formalities the Daily News was placed in his hands, whereupon he pronounced, in carefully prepared and impressive words, the nation’s profound gratitude to the wealthy citizen for this precious and memorable gift. It was not even a new paper, it was two days old.

  The narrator closed with the statement that even unto that day the lost deed had never been found.

  Monday, September 10, 1906

  Plan of this autobiography—Satire on Captain Sellers—Mr. Clemens published no literature until forty years ago—Two letters from Mr. Alden and one from Mr. Rees in regard to “Snodgrass” papers—Mr. Clemens’s comments on same.

  I have not yet finished about the British Premier and his seventieth birthday, but I will let that go over until another day and talk about a matter of immediate interest—an interest born of Saturday’s mail.

  As I have several times remarked before, in the course of these dictations, it is the foundation principle of this autobiography that it shall drop a subject, whether it be finished or not, the moment a subject of warmer interest shall intrude itself. I think I have also said that the foundation plan or principle of this autobiography is that no subject shall ever be continued after one of a sharper and fresher interest for me has come clamoring into my mind. In fact, this autobiography is substantially a conversation, albeit I do all the conversing myself. In a conversation of two hours’ duration, subject after subject is touched upon and discussed for a few minutes, but is never completed; it is always dropped in the middle to make way, in turn, for a subject of newer interest which has been suggested by a remark dropped by the talker who for the moment has the floor. The other autobiographies patiently and dutifully follow a planned and undivergent course through gardens and deserts and interesting cities and dreary solitudes, and when at last they reach their appointed goal they are pretty tired—and they have been frequently tired during the journey, too. But this is not that kind of autobiography. This one is only a pleasure excursion, and it sidetracks itself anywhere that there is a circus, or a fresh excitement of any kind, and seldom waits until the show is over, but packs up and goes on again as soon as a fresher one is advertised.

  In a chapter which I dictated five months ago, I made a little outline-sketch, in which I strung together certain facts of my life and named the dates of their occurrence. I stated that in 1849, in Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a child of fourteen, my brother went away on a journey, and I edited one issue of his weekly newspaper for him without invitation, and when he got back it took him several weeks to quiet down and pacify the people whom my writings had excited. That was fifty-seven years ago. I did not meddle with a pen again, so far as I can remember, until ten years later—1859. I was a cub pilot on the Mississippi River then, and one day I wrote a rude and crude satire which was leveled at Captain Isaiah Sellers, the oldest steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, and the most respected, esteemed, and revered. For many years he had occasionally written brief paragraphs concerning the river and the changes which it had undergone under his observation during fifty years, and had signed these paragraphs “Mark Twain” and published them in the St. Louis and New Orleans journals. In my satire I made rude game of his reminiscences. It was a shabby poor performance, but I didn’t know it, and the pilots didn’t know it. The pilots thought it was brilliant. They were jealous of Sellers, because when the gray-head
s among them pleased their vanity by detailing in the hearing of the younger craftsmen marvels which they had seen in the long ago on the river, Sellers was always likely to step in at the psychological moment and snuff them out with wonders of his own which made their small marvels look pale and sick. However, I have told all about this in “Old Times on the Mississippi.”

  The pilots handed my extravagant satire to a river reporter, and it was published in the New Orleans True Delta. That poor old Captain Sellers was deeply wounded. He had never been held up to ridicule before; he was sensitive, and he never got over the hurt which I had wantonly and stupidly inflicted upon his dignity. I was proud of my performance for a while, and considered it quite wonderful, but I have changed my opinion of it long ago. Sellers never published another paragraph nor ever used his nom de guerre again.

  Between 1859 and the summer of 1862 I left the pen strictly alone. I then became a newspaper reporter in Nevada, but I wrote no literature. I confined myself to writing up the inconsequential happenings of Virginia City for the Territorial Enterprise. I wrote no literature until 1866, when a little sketch of mine called “The Jumping Frog” was published in a perishing literary journal in New York and killed it on the spot.

  Now then, if I know my own history, I never wrote and never published a line of literature until forty years ago. If I know my own history, I never had any leaning toward literature, nor any desire to meddle with it, nor had ever flourished a literary pen save by accident—and then only twice—up to forty years ago.

  Now then I have arrived at that subject whose fresh new interest has sidetracked my reminiscences of the British Premier and postponed their completion—for the present—while I consider this new and delicious matter furnished by Saturday’s mail. First in order come the following letters, two by Mr. Alden, editor of Harper’s Monthly, and one by a Mr. Thomas Rees:

  EDITORIAL ROOMS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE

  HARPER & BROTHERS

  FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK

  September 6, 1906.

  Dear Mark:

  I received a few weeks ago from Mr. Thomas Rees some manuscripts offered for sale to us, purporting to be copies of “Snodgrass” papers contributed by you some fifty years ago to a newspaper published by his father. I returned them with a letter of which I send you a copy—also a copy of a letter I have just received from him. I think you should have cognizance of this correspondence.

  The offer of the manuscripts was accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by Mr. Rees, Sr., attesting to your authorship.

  Yours faithfully,

  H. M. Alden

  COPY of Mr. Alden’s letter to Mr. Thomas Rees.

  August 27, 1906.

  Dear Mr. Rees:

  We cannot publish the “Snodgrass” letters you send us, as they have no interest to our readers as the productions of “Snodgrass,” and we could not put them forth as the productions of “Mark Twain” because that would be untrue. Even the suggestion that “Snodgrass” died and was buried and arose again as “Mark Twain” would be a distinct injury to Mr. Clemens, after he had so utterly and deliberately discarded the earlier pen-name. It certainly would be a manifest impropriety. In any case I venture to suggest that Mr. Clemens should be consulted before any attempt is made to publish these things.

  Very truly yours,

  (Signed) H. M. Alden.

  Mr. Thomas Rees,

  Illinois State Register,

  Springfield, Illinois.

  COPY of Mr. Thomas Rees’s letter, manager of the Illinois State Register.

  Springfield, Ill., Sept. 4, 1906.

  H. M. Alden,

  C/o Harper Bros., Pubs.,

  New York City.

  Dear Sir:

  I acknowledge hereby the receipt of the manuscripts of the Clemens “Snodgrass” articles. Please accept my thanks for their prompt return. I notice you advise at the close of your letter reading, “In any case I venture to suggest that Mr. Clemens should be consulted before any attempt is made to publish these things.” While as a matter of courtesy, in case I should conclude to publish the same, I might communicate with Mr. Clemens, I do not know that he has any rights in the premises, nor that there is anything in the ethics of the situation that call for a compliance with your advice.

  Mr. Clemens wrote these articles under contract with my father and my elder brother more than half a century ago. He was paid for the same and thereby parted entirely with any right that he might have had in them at that time. They were published in a daily newspaper without being copyrighted, and thereby became public property. The only rights that I have in the premises that are not possessed by the general public, is the fact that I know where to find the text and have an affidavit of their genuineness. If I should lay the matter of the publication of these articles before Mr. Clemens and he should request or forbid that I should publish the same, it would in no way protect him against the other eighty million people in the United States that might be disposed to take up the work. And no history of Mr. Clemens’s life will be complete without at least reference to these particular articles and his former pen name.

  However, I am under lasting obligations for your kind advice.

  Yours respectfully,

  (Signed) Thomas Rees.

  To me this is a most interesting thing, because it is such a naïve exposure of certain traits in human nature—traits which are in everybody, no doubt, but which only about one man in fifty millions is willing to lay bare to the public view. The rest of the fifty millions are restrained by pride from making the exposure. Did I write the rubbish with which Mr. Rees charges me? I suppose not. I have no reason to suppose that I wrote it, but I can’t say, and I don’t say, that I didn’t write it. I can only say that since by Mr. Rees’s count I was only eighteen or nineteen years old at the time, it must have been a colossal event in my life, and one likely to be remembered by me for a century. I am astonished that it has left no impression, nor any sign of an impression, upon my memory. If a Far-Western lad of eighteen or nineteen had, all by himself and in his own name, entered into a solemn contract—a contract to do or suffer anything, little or big—he would have put aside all other concerns, temporal and eternal, and made a house-to-house visitation throughout the village and told everybody, even to the cats and dogs, about it, and it would have made him celebrated. Celebrity is what a boy or a youth longs for more than for any other thing. He would be a clown in a circus; he would be a pirate, he would sell himself to Satan, in order to attract attention and be talked about and envied. True, it is the same with every grown-up person; I am not meaning to confine this trait to the boys. But there is a distinction between the boy and the grown person—the boys are all Reeses. That is to say, they lack caution; they lack wisdom; they are innocent; they are frank; and when they have an opportunity to expose traits which they ought to hide they don’t know enough to resist.

  Up to the time that I was eighteen or nineteen years old, no Far-Western boy of that age had ever achieved the glory of making a contract about something or other and signing it. If I did it I was the only one. I hope I did it, because I would like to know, even at seventy-one, that I was not commonplace even when I was a child—that I was not only not commonplace, but was the only lad in the Far West that wasn’t. I cannot understand why it is that if I did it, it has left no impression upon my memory. Every boy and girl in the town would have pointed me out, daily, and said with envy and admiration and malice:

  “There he goes! That’s the boy that made a contract.”

  I would have hunted up stragglers, and couples, and groups and gangs of boys and girls, every day, in order to pass them by with studied modesty and unconsciousness, and hear them say:

  “He’s the one! He made the contract!”

  Those happy experiences would have made a record upon my memory, I suppose. Indeed I almost know that they would have done it.

  At a very much earlier age than that, I was made the recipient of a considerably smaller distinc
tion by Mrs. Horr, my school-teacher, and I have never forgotten it for a moment since, nor ceased to be vain of it. I was only five years old, and had been under her ministrations only six months when she, inspired by something which she honestly took to be prophecy, exclaimed in the hearing of several persons that I would one day be “President of the United States, and would stand in the presence of kings unabashed.” I carried that around personally, from house to house, and was surprised and hurt to find how few people there were, in that day, who had a proper reverence for prophecy, and confidence in it. But no matter—the circumstance bedded itself in my memory for good and all. Therefore I cannot see how that much larger thing, that actual thing, that visible and palpable thing—a contract, an imposing and majestic contract—could have entered into my life at the maturer age of eighteen or nineteen and then flitted away forever and left no sign that it had ever been there.

  When I examine the next detail I am surprised again. According to the affidavit of what is left, at this distant day, of the elder Mr. Rees, the contract required him to pay me for my infant literature; also that I received the payment. These things are unthinkable. In that day there was no man in the United States, sane or insane, who could have dreamed of such a thing as wanting an unknown lad who had never written a line of literature in his life to furnish him some literature; and not only furnish him some literature but ask him to take pay for it! It is true that in that ancient day everybody wrote ostensible literature. There were no exceptions then, there are none now. Everybody wrote for the local paper, and was glad to get in gratis—publication was sufficient pay. There were a few persons in America—fifteen perhaps, maybe twenty-five—who were so widely known as writers that they could demand remuneration of the periodicals for their output and get it, but there were no Clemenses in that clan; there were no juveniles in it; no unknown lads lost in the remotenesses of the wild and woolly West who could ask for pay for their untrained scribblings and get it.