Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  It is proper enough to publish speeches—real speeches, artistic speeches—for by reason of their nicely calculated form and graceful phrasing they read well in print and convey the speaker’s whole meaning; but a talk is a very different thing, and ought never to be printed. It never reads well; print kills it. An easy-going talk is as effective with an audience as the best of speeches, but its effectiveness proceeds from an art which is all its own, and is quite different from the speaker’s art. A fine speech may be badly delivered, yet read perfectly in print, for the delivery is not there to mar it; but it is the delivery that makes a talk effective, not the phrasing. The speaker says all the words of his speech, and they are all necessary; nothing is left unsaid to be supplied by the hearer’s intelligence; but in a talk many a word is left out and many a sentence left unfinished; because, when the house breaks into applause or laughter in the middle of a talker’s sentence, he recognizes that it has caught his idea, and so he doesn’t finish the sentence; the stenographer doesn’t finish it for him, and it goes into print in that broken and incomprehensible form. The talker leaves out many a word and supplies its place with something much better—a look, an emphasis, an inflection, a pause, a fictitious hesitation for a word, the ghost of a gesture—in a word, the best and most effective parts of a talk are acted, not spoken. The acting cannot be conveyed in print, therefore the juice of the talk has disappeared and nothing but the dry husk remains.

  Clara thought that that was a very felicitous talk of mine, and I was willing to admit it. But in print it was altogether the flattest piece of rubbish I have seen in a year. It was an extinguished lightning-bug.

  Friday, October 5, 1906

  Authorship of the two letters concerning San Francisco sufferers traced to Miss Grace Donworth—Letter from Miss Anne Stockbridge.

  Several weeks ago I injected into one of these chapters a couple of odd and comical letters concerning a contribution of clothing for the sufferers by the San Francisco catastrophe. The spelling was painstakingly bad, therefore suspiciously bad; but the neighbor who gave me the copies was able to vouch for their genuineness. He is a man whose word is above reproach, and so I was obliged to believe the letters genuine and I did believe it. I was satisfied, but my mind, fussing at the matter independently while I was busy with other things, wasn’t. It disturbed me with one protest after another, until I asked my neighbor to take measures to reinforce his verification of the genuineness of the letters. He did so. He interviewed the gentleman who had furnished the copies, and he said he knew them to be genuine for his sister had given them to him with the positive assertion that they were of that character. I used one of them in a speech before the Associated Press, the other night, in New York, and in the speech I, in my turn, vouched for the genuineness of the document. The speech was published, and one of the results of the publication is the following letter, which arrived a day or two ago.

  Stockbridge Hall

  Yarmouth, Me.

  Sept. 27. 1906.

  My dear Mr. Clemens,

  I am the “dear friend” in the letter handed to you lately by Mr. S.B. Pearmain, who tells me that the names of the sender and receiver were cut out by him. If they had not been cut out the letter would have been written by “Jennie Allen” to “Miss Anny Stokbridge.”

  When I let Mr. Pearmain have my letters, through my brother, Mr. Stockbridge of the University Club, Boston, to show you, neither my brother nor I expected they would be published in any paper. My brother tells me that he told Mr. Pearmain that if they were to be shown to any considerable number of people it would be better to have the names suppressed. I find, however, in the issue of the New York Times for September twentieth the first letter complete with the exception of the names. I thought it was a most fitting and appropriate subject for your discussion at the Associated Press Co. dinner, but how do you think “Jennie” would like it, if she chanced to see the paper?

  After the receipt of letter number two, a friend wrote asking “Jennie” to go to Maine for the summer. I am going to have a fotograf copy of that one which I should like to send to you. It is in some respects funnier than the others, and only a fotograf copy can do justice to the cacography and the ornamentation.

  I then thought I would call on “Jennie.” I had become quite interested in her, but on consulting my street directory, I was dismayed to find there was no such street in Providence.

  My next shock came when I had returned to me, from the Dead Letter office, a letter addressed to “Jennie” with the remark “No such person to be found.” This happened, you understand, after I had allowed my brother to lend the letters to Mr. Pearmain. I was now thoroughly aroused, and went over my list of friends to see if any one of them could have been bright enough to write these letters which had been accepted as genuine by scores of people to whom I had read them.

  At last I hit upon a lady from Machias, Maine, Miss Grace Donworth, who had been at the “Armerry” with me while we were collecting the clothing for the Californians. She heard me read the first letter and also heard me say I had written to “Jennie.”

  Also as good fortune would have it some one did call for me at the Armory who was a stranger to every one. I was not there at the time, so you see I was deceived myself.

  At first Miss Donworth was non-committal but at last acknowledged the authorship and has since sent me some notes, continuing Jennie’s story, which are irresistibly funny, and which bring in other characters such as one runs across in Maine. . . . .

  Very truly yours,

  Anne W. Stockbridge.

  257 Benefit St.

  Providence, R.I.

  It shows that the human race doesn’t change, but remains as easily deceived and as eager to be deceived as it always was. If I remember rightly, Chatterton deceived Horace Walpole with his Rowley inventions, and he would as certainly have deceived you and me with them. The Ireland forgeries were accepted by astute Shaksperean scholars in a past generation, and their like would win the suffrage of Shaksperean scholars to-day. In very truth, “Jennie’s” over-elaborated, inartistic, and unscientific forgeries ought not to have deceived anybody, for now that we know them to be fakes we promptly perceive that there is little or no plausibility about them; yet they deceived the scores of persons to whom they were shown. The Book of Mormon, engraved upon metal plates, was dug up out of the ground in some out-of-the-way corner of Canada by Joseph Smith, a man of no repute and of no authority, and upon this extravagantly doubtful document the Mormon Church was built, and upon it stands to-day and flourishes. “Science and Health” was sent down from heaven to Mother Eddy, after having been sent up there by Brother Quimby, and upon “Science and Health” stands the great and growing and prosperous Christian Science Church to-day. Evidently one of the least difficult things in the world, to-day, is to humbug the human race.

  “Jennie’s” letters are an innocent fraud, and a quite justifiable one, since they make pleasant reading and can harm no one. They are to be multiplied and a book is to be made of them. It may be that the book will prosper better as a genuine work than as a fake, and so I will keep the secret by not publishing this chapter at the present time.

  Monday, October 8, 1906

  Item from Susy’s Biography about Sour Mash—Mr. Clemens describes the three kittens which he rented for the summer and will return to their home when he goes back to the city—Their characteristics likened to the characteristics of human beings—The ugliness of masculine attire.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  Papa says that if the collera comes here he will take Sour Mash to the mountains.

  This remark about the cat is followed by various entries, covering a month, in which Jean, General Grant, the sculptor Gerhardt, Mrs. Candace Wheeler, Miss Dora Wheeler, Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, and the widow of General Custer appear and drift in procession across the page, then vanish forever from the Biography; then Susy drops this remark in the wake of the vanished procession:

&
nbsp; Sour Mash is a constant source of anxiety, care, and pleasure to papa.

  I did, in truth, think a great deal of that old tortoise-shell harlot; but I haven’t a doubt that in order to impress Susy I was pretending agonies of solicitude which I didn’t honestly feel. Sour Mash never gave me any real anxiety; she was always able to take care of herself, and she was ostentatiously vain of the fact; vain of it to a degree which often made me ashamed of her, much as I esteemed her.

  Many persons would like to have the society of cats during the summer vacation in the country, but they deny themselves this pleasure because they think they must either take the cats along when they return to the city, where they would be a trouble and an incumbrance, or leave them in the country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no invention, no wisdom; or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent cats by the month for the summer, and return them to their good homes at the end of it. Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer’s wife, by the month; then I got a discount by taking three. They have been good company for about five months now, and are still kittens—at least they have not grown much, and to all intents and purposes are still kittens, and as full of romping energy and enthusiasm as they were in the beginning. This is remarkable. I am an expert in cats, but I have not seen a kitten keep its kittenhood nearly so long before.

  These are beautiful creatures—these triplets. Two of them wear the blackest and shiniest and thickest of sealskin vestments all over their bodies except the lower half of their faces and the terminations of their paws. The black masks reach down below the eyes, therefore when the eyes are closed they are not visible; the rest of the face, and the gloves and stockings, are snow white. These markings are just the same on both cats—so exactly the same that when you call one the other is likely to answer, because they cannot tell each other apart. Since the cats are precisely alike, and can’t be told apart by any of us, they do not need two names, so they have but one between them. We call both of them Sackcloth, and we call the gray one Ashes. I believe I have never seen such intelligent cats as these before. They are full of the nicest discriminations. When I read German aloud they weep; you can see the tears run down. It shows what pathos there is in the German tongue. I had not noticed, before, that all German is pathetic, no matter what the subject is nor how it is treated. It was these humble observers that brought the knowledge to me. I have tried all kinds of German on these cats; romance, poetry, philosophy, theology, market reports; and the result has always been the same—the cats sob, and let the tears run down, which shows that all German is pathetic. French is not a familiar tongue to me, and the pronunciation is difficult, and comes out of me incumbered with a Missouri accent; but the cats like it, and when I make impassioned speeches in that language they sit in a row and put up their paws, palm to palm, and frantically give thanks. Hardly any cats are affected by music, but these are; when I sing they go reverently away, showing how deeply they feel it. Sour Mash never cared for these things. She had many noble and engaging qualities, but at bottom she was not refined, and cared little or nothing for theology and the arts.

  It is a pity to say it, but these cats are not above the grade of human beings, for I know by certain signs that they are not sincere in their exhibitions of emotion, but exhibit them merely to show off and attract attention—conduct which is distinctly human, yet with a difference: they do not know enough to conceal their desire to show off, but the grown human being does. What is ambition? It is only the desire to be conspicuous. The desire for fame is only the desire to be continuously conspicuous and attract attention and be talked about.

  These cats are like human beings in another way: when Ashes began to work his fictitious emotions, and show off, the other members of the firm followed suit, in order to be in the fashion. That is the way with human beings; they are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion happens to be, they conform to it, whether it be a pleasant fashion or the reverse, they lacking the courage to ignore it and go their own way. All human beings would like to dress in loose and comfortable and highly colored and showy garments, and they had their desire until a century ago, when a king, or some other influential ass, introduced sombre hues and discomfort and ugly designs into masculine clothing. The meek public surrendered to the outrage, and by consequence we are in that odious captivity to-day, and are likely to remain in it for a long time to come.

  Fortunately the women were not included in the disaster, and so their graces and their beauty still have the enhancing help of delicate fabrics and varied and beautiful colors. Their clothing makes a great opera-audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and the spirit, a Garden of Eden for charm and color. The men, clothed in dismal black, are scattered here and there and everywhere over the Garden like so many charred stumps, and they damage the effect but cannot annihilate it.

  In summer we poor creatures have a respite, and may clothe ourselves in white garments; loose, soft, and in some degree shapely; but in the winter—the sombre winter, the depressing winter, the cheerless winter, when white clothes and bright colors are especially needed to brighten our spirits and lift them up—we all conform to the prevailing insanity and go about in dreary black, each man doing it because the others do it, and not because he wants to. They are really no sincerer than Sackcloth and Ashes. At bottom the Sackcloths do not care to exhibit their emotions when I am performing before them, they only do it because Ashes started it.

  I would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks and velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and so would every sane man I have ever known; but none of us dares to venture it. There is such a thing as carrying conspicuousness to the point of discomfort; and if I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning, at church time, clothed as I would like to be clothed, the churches would be vacant and I should have all the congregations tagging after me, to look, and secretly envy, and publicly scoff. It is the way human beings are made; they are always keeping their real feelings shut up inside, and publicly exploiting their fictitious ones.

  Next after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the summer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white clothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the shapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the weather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will not succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the neighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid. I made a brave experiment, the other night, to see how it would feel to shock a crowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might take the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished and outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in the village, clothed like a ghost, and looking as conspicuous, all solitary and alone on that platform, as any ghost could have looked; and I found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten minutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings I had brought.

  I am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good many privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted to younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage enough to wear white clothes all through the winter, in New York. It will be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps the largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every scoffer, of my sex, will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my lead.

  That mention that I have acquired new and great privileges by grace of my age, is not an uncalculated remark. When I passed the seventieth milestone, ten months ago, I instantly realized that I had entered a new country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was become recognizably old, undeniably old; and from that moment everybody assumed a new attitude toward me—the reverent attitude granted by custom to age—and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow in upon me and refresh my life. Since t
hen I have lived an ideal existence; and I now believe what Choate said last March, and which at the time I didn’t credit: that the best of life begins at seventy; for then your work is done; you know that you have done your best, let the quality of the work be what it may; that you have earned your holiday—a holiday of peace and contentment—and that thenceforth, to the setting of your sun, nothing will break it, nothing interrupt it.

  Tuesday, October 9, 1906

  Item from Susy’s Biography about visit to Onteora—Description of the primitive inhabitants.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  Mamma and papa have returned from Onteora and they have had a delightful visit. Mr. Frank Stockton was down in Virginia and could not reach Onteora in time, so they did not see him, and Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge was ill and couldn’t go to Onteora, but Mrs. General Custer was there and mamma said that she was a very attractive, sweet appearing woman.

  Onteora was situated high up in the Catskill Mountains, in the centre of a far-reaching solitude. I do not mean that the region was wholly uninhabited; there were farm-houses here and there, at generous distances apart. Their occupants were descendants of ancestors who had built the houses in Rip Van Winkle’s time, or earlier; and those ancestors were not more primitive than were this posterity of theirs. The city people were as foreign and unfamiliar and strange to them as monkeys would have been, and they would have respected the monkeys as much as they respected these elegant summer resorters. The resorters were a puzzle to them, their ways were so strange and their interests so trivial. They drove the resorters over the mountain roads and listened in shamed surprise at their bursts of enthusiasm over the scenery. The farmers had had that scenery on exhibition from their mountain roosts all their lives, and had never noticed anything remarkable about it. By way of an incident: a pair of these primitives were overheard chatting about the resorters, one day, and in the course of their talk this remark was dropped,