Autobiography of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards. Ask him if he remembers that dinner, and ask him why he didn’t do any talking.

  Why, how could I talk when he was talking? He “held the age,” as the poker-clergy say, and two can’t talk at the same time with good effect. It reminds me of the man who was reproached by a friend, who said,

  “I think it a shame that you have not spoken to your wife for fifteen years. How do you explain it? How do you justify it?”

  That poor man said,

  “I didn’t want to interrupt her.”

  If the Emperor had been at my table, he would not have suffered from my silence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own solitude. If I were not too old to travel I would go to Berlin and introduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the etiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, “Invite me again, your Majesty, and give me a chance;” then I would courteously waive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his kind message, and am proud to have it and glad to express my sincere reciprocation of its sentiments.

  February 19, 1907

  About thirty-five years ago (1872) I took a sudden notion to go to England and get materials for a book about that not-sufficiently-known country. It was my purpose to spy out the land in a very private way, and complete my visit without making any acquaintances. I had never been in England, I was eager to see it, and I promised myself an interesting time. The interesting time began at once, in the London train from Liverpool. It lasted an hour—an hour of delight, rapture, ecstasy—these are the best words I can find, but they are not adequate, they are not strong enough to convey the feeling which this first vision of rural England brought to me. Then the interest changed, and took another form: I began to wonder why the Englishman in the other end of the compartment never looked up from his book. It seemed to me that I had not before seen a man who could read a whole hour in a train and never once take his eyes off his book. I wondered what kind of a book it might be that could so absorb a person. Little by little my curiosity grew, until at last it divided my interest in the scenery; and then went on growing until it abolished it. I felt that I must satisfy this curiosity before I could get back to my scenery, so I loitered over to that man’s end of the carriage and stole a furtive glance at his book; it was the English edition of my “Innocents Abroad!” Then I loitered back to my end of the compartment, nervous, uncomfortable and sorry I had found out; for I remembered that up to this time I had never seen that absorbed reader smile. I could not look out at the scenery any more, I could not take my eyes from the reader and his book. I tried to get a sort of comfort out of the fact that he was evidently deeply interested in the book and manifestly never skipped a line, but the comfort was only moderate and was quite unsatisfying. I hoped he would smile once—only just once—and I kept on hoping and hoping, but it never happened. By and by I perceived that he was getting close to the end; then I was glad, for my misery would soon be over. The train made only one stop in its journey of five hours and twenty minutes; the stop was at Crewe. The gentleman finished the book just as we were slowing down for the stop. When the train came to a standstill he put the book in the rack and jumped out. I shall always remember what a wave of gratitude and happiness swept through me when he turned the last page of that book. I felt as a condemned man must feel who is pardoned upon the scaffold with the noose hanging over him. I said to myself that I would now resume the scenery and be twice as happy in it as I had been before. But this was premature, for as soon as the gentleman returned he reached into his hand-bag and got out the second volume! He and that volume constituted the only scenery that fell under my eyes during the rest of the journey. From Crewe to London he read in that same old absorbed way but he never smiled. Neither did I.

  It was a bad beginning, and affected me dismally. It gave me a longing for friendly companionship and sympathy. Next morning this feeling was still upon me. It was a dreary morning, dim, vague, shadowy, with not a cheery ray of sunshine visible anywhere. By half past nine the desire to see somebody, know somebody, shake hands with somebody and see somebody smile had conquered my purpose to remain a stranger in London, and I drove to my publisher’s place and introduced myself. The Routledges were about to sit down at a meal in a private room up stairs in the publishing house, for they had not had a bite to eat since breakfast. I helped them eat the meal; at eleven I helped them eat another one; at one o’clock I superintended while they took luncheon; during the afternoon I assisted inactively at some more meals. These exercises had a strong and most pleasant interest for me, but they were not a novelty because, only five years before, I was present in the Sandwich Islands when fifteen men of the shipwrecked Hornet’s crew arrived, a pathetic little group who hadn’t had anything to eat for forty-five days.

  In the evening Edmund Routledge took me to the Savage Club, and there we had something to eat again; also something to drink; also lively speeches, lively anecdotes, late hours, and a very hospitable and friendly and contenting and delightful good time. It is a vivid and pleasant memory with me yet. About midnight the company left the table and presently crystallized itself into little groups of three or four persons, and the anecdoting was resumed. The last group I sat with that night was composed of Tom Hood, Harry Lee, and another good man—Frank Buckland, I think. We broke up at two in the morning; then I missed my money—five five-pound notes, new and white and crisp, after the cleanly fashion that prevails there. Everybody hunted for the money but failed to find it. How it could have gotten out of my trowsers-pocket was a mystery. I called it a mystery; they called it a mystery; by unanimous consent it was a mystery, but that was as far as we got. We dropped the matter there, and found things of higher interest to talk about. After I had gone to bed in the Langham Hotel I found that a single pair of candles did not furnish enough light to read by with comfort, and so I rang, in order that I might order thirty-five more, for I was in a prodigal frame of mind on account of the evening’s felicities. The servant filled my order, then he proposed to carry away my clothes and polish them with his brush. He emptied all the pockets, and among other things he fetched out those five five-pound notes. Here was another mystery! and I inquired of this magician how he had accomplished that trick—the very thing a hundred of us, equipped with the finest intelligence, had tried to accomplish during half an hour and had failed. He said it was very simple; he got them out of the tail-coat pocket of my dress suit! I must have put them there myself and forgotten it. Yet I do not see how that could be, for as far as I could remember we had had nothing wet at the Savage Club but water. As far as I could remember.

  In those days—and perhaps still—membership in the Lotos Club in New York carried with it the privileges of membership in the Savage, and the Savages enjoyed Lotos privileges when in New York. I was a member of the Lotos. Ten or eleven years ago I was made an honorary member of the Lotos, and released from dues; and seven or eight years ago I was made an honorary member of the Savage. At that time the honorary list included the Prince of Wales—now his Majesty the King—and Nansen the explorer, and another—Stanley, I think.

  Monday, February 25, 1907

  Recent disasters: the wreck of the steamboat Larchmont in the Sound, of the Berlin at the Hook of Holland, and of a fast train on the Pennsylvania Railroad—Newspaper clippings concerning them, and Mr. Clemens’s comments upon them.

  As I have said once or twice already, interesting news cannot grow stale; time cannot destroy that interest; it cannot even fade it; the eye-witness’s narrative which stirs the heart to-day, will as surely and as profoundly stir it a thousand years hence. I wish to clip from the newspapers this morning some things for future generations to read. When they come upon them in this book a century hence they will not put them aside unread; they will not find them stale.

  Within the last four or five days several striking things have happened, and I desire to speak of them, one at a time, and each in its turn. First came the Larc
hmont disaster. On the bitterest night of this winter, and the stormiest, the Larchmont, a steamboat crowded with passengers, was cut down in the Sound by a heavy-laden schooner. The sea was running high, the wind was blowing a gale, there was no life-saving station close at hand; during the few moments that elapsed before the steamer sank in fathomless water, a few of the passengers got away in the boats, but only to drift helpless a while, buffeted by the tempest, then freeze to death. The captain and several of the crew took early measures to save themselves, and succeeded, and are now in disgrace; the rest of that great company of men and women and children quickly perished. Among the steamer’s passengers was a sailor and his wife. Being experienced and courageous, the sailor kept his head. He secured two places in a boat; he put his wife into one of the places and was about to occupy the other himself, when a woman who was a stranger to him appealed to him and he promptly gave his place to her and elected to go down with the steamer. Then his wife said she would go down with him, and she made him help her out of the boat. Then the other woman said she would die with these two new friends, and she made the sailor take her out of the boat. After a minute or two the hurricane-deck fetched away from the steamer, and these three, together with a score or two of other passengers, floated away upon it. One by one those scores succumbed to the cold, and the waves, and the gale, and died—every one. But the sailor allowed his two women no rest; he kept them on their feet; he marched them staggering up and down; he buffeted them with his hands; he kept their blood moving—all this during two hours—and he saved them alive. It was remarked by the thoughtful and the learned that this exhibition of the power and the compassion of an ever-watchful Providence was a wonderful thing, and a matter for our deepest awe and gratitude and worship.

  Now we come to a yet more splendid and heroic rescue by Providence—assisted, as before, by a sailor-man. Three or four days ago there was a terrible disaster at the Hook of Holland. At dawn the steamer Berlin, with a hundred and forty-two passengers on board, was fighting her way into the entrance of that port in the face of a tremendous gale, with her efforts further obstructed by giant seas and a driving snow-storm. Suddenly something went wrong with the machinery and she was flung, a broken and helpless ruin, upon the rocks at the end of a long pier, and so situated that it was next to impossible for the life-saving service to get near her or afford any help. But no matter; that brave service went out in its boats and stuck to its gallant and almost useless labors, hour after hour, all day and all night, fighting the freezing storm and refusing to give up. During that day and night they rescued a few of the unfortunates and got them to the shore, albeit in an exhausted state, and with hands and feet frozen; meantime, more than a hundred of the passengers had been washed overboard, or had perished from the cold. It was now believed that no passengers remained alive in the ship; still the life-savers went on with their labors, but without avail. They could no longer get near the ship. They got near enough, however, to be able to report that there were still three survivors—women. These three, with thirteen already rescued by the life-saving service, were all that were still alive of the hundred and forty-two passengers. When two days and nights had passed since that poor ship had been flung upon the rocks, the captain of a ship lying in the port made up his mind to go, uninvited, and chance his life in an effort to save those women. This was yesterday. I will now tell the great tale of what followed as the cable tells it to us in this morning’s papers. It has moved every reader, to-day, and its power of moving will not wither out of it by force of any lapse of time, however great.

  LAST SURVIVORS RESCUED.

  * * *

  BRAVE MAN SWIMS TO BERLIN WRECK AND SAVES 3 WOMEN.

  * * *

  Terrible Sufferings Through Days of Cold and Hunger—Mother Clasped Body of Drowned Child—Sang Hymns to Keep Up Courage.

  Special Cable Despatch to THE SUN.

  A correspondent who was aboard the Wodan describes Capt. Sperling’s heroic achievement. After arriving at the scene Capt. Sperling, who is an experienced diver, quietly completed his arrangements. Divesting himself of his oilskins and heavy sea boots, he descended into a dingey and, with three others, rowed toward the breakwater, pulling like demons.

  When they arrived near the wreck Capt. Sperling plunged overboard into the surf, swimming strongly. The waves beat him back twice, but eventually he climbed on the end of the breakwater. He took a moment’s rest and then began a terrible crawl along fifty yards of treacherous masonry. He was often hidden by the spray.

  Clinging spider-like to anything available he reached the trestles beneath the wreck, stood up and uncoiled a rope which he carried and flung the end over the wreck. He then began a perilous climb slowly up the side of the wreck. He was buffeted by the waves, but finally with a mighty effort clutched the rail and sprang on the deck.

  By this time one of the boatmen had climbed the piles near the wreck. Through the gloom those aboard the Wodan watched Capt. Sperling heave a rope to the man below and lower a bundle, which was laboriously dragged along the pier to another man who was standing amid the spray. In this way the bundle was slowly transferred to the rowboat. This was done three times. Those saved in the three bundles were deposited there.

  Then Capt. Sperling began his perilous descent. Suspended from a rope, he gained the piles and battled his way back to the breakwater. The tide was rising rapidly and he had not a moment to lose. He rejoined his companions who had shared in the rescue work below and they plunged into the water and were dragged into the boat by comrades.

  On arriving beside the tug the sailors tenderly got the women aboard. The poor creatures were quite helpless, sodden with wet and blue with the cold. They were just able to murmur prayers of gratitude for their rescuers.

  All was ready for their reception below. There were doctors and nurses waiting and restoratives were applied and the poor women were wrapped in blankets. Then the Wodan made a triumphant return.

  When Capt. Sperling boarded the Berlin he found the three women huddled together on the hurricane deck screaming and crying hysterically. They threw themselves on their rescuer and had to be soothed before anything could be done for them. They were unable to walk and clung to the necks of the tugboatmen, hampering their movements. Their clothing was nearly frozen and soaked with icy water.

  The captain found Mrs. Wenneberg clasping her dead child to her breast. She refused to leave the ship without the corpse and the rescuers were compelled to use force.

  Minna Ripler asked the men to save Miss Thiele first and Capt. Sperling carried her to the side, fastened her securely in a rope cradle, which he slung to the main hawser with a running knot. She was thus landed safely. The others were similarly landed. Mrs. Wenneberg was in a pitiable state. Miss Ripler was in better condition than her companions and was able to walk.

  Capt. Sperling is not the captain of the Wodan but of a ship that is now lying in the harbor. He privately arranged with the captain of the Wodan, who is a friend of his, to attempt the rescue before the lifeboat went out this morning. He was accompanied on the tug by two nephews and a friend.

  A great ovation was given to the lifeboat men on their return after forty-eight hours’ battling with the seas. Their beards were covered with ice and they were suffering terribly from their long exposure.

  Interviews with the men and women who were rescued last evening show that they passed the time on the wreck sitting in icy cold water, huddled together for warmth, great waves continually breaking over them. They sang hymns and songs and told stories until they were too exhausted by cold and hunger to do so any longer.

  During their long ordeal they had only a few biscuits and scraps of food, which the crew shared with the passengers, and some peppermint lozenges. For the last twenty-four hours not a morsel passed their lips. They were horrified on Friday morning to find that some of them had been sitting on a man’s corpse. The men gave the women all of their clothes possible. One woman was washed off by the waves just before the
rescue.

  In an interview with Lloyd’s News’s correspondent, after the rescue, Capt. Sperling, who was bruised and shivering and was just recovering from exhaustion, said:

  “I thought I would never reach the wreck. It was a terrible fight and I was getting worn out, but I determined to reach them or go under. How can I tell what passed in my mind? I was struggling with the waves and climbing on the wreck. My only thought was whether any person was still alive.