Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1

by Mark Twain

  It happened just as he had said. Old Mr. Arnot, the Scotch banker, a very rich and very careful man and life-long friend of Mr. Langdon, watched the young firm and advised it out of his rich store of commercial wisdom, and at the end of the three months the firm was an established and growing concern, and the note was sent back to Mr. Sage without our having needed to extract anything from it. It was a small piece of paper, insignificant in its dimensions, insignificant in the sum which it represented, but formidable was its influence, and formidable was its power, because of the man who stood behind it.

  The Sages and the Twichells were very intimate. One or two years later, Mr. Sage came to Hartford on a visit to Joe, and as soon as he had gone away Twichell rushed over to our house eager to tell me something; something which had astonished him, and which he believed would astonish me. He said,

  “Why Mark, you know, Mr. Sage, one of the best business men in America, says that you have quite extraordinary business talents.”

  Again I didn’t deny it. I would not have had that superstition dissipated for anything. It supplied a long felt want. We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

  1870

  All this was in 1870. Thirty-five years drifted by, and a year ago, in this house, Charley sat by this bed and casually remarked that if he were going to select what he considered the proudest moment of his life he should say that it was after he had explained the balance-sheet to Mr. Sage and had heard him say “Boy as you are, you carry on your shoulders one of the most remarkable business heads I have ever encountered.”

  Again I didn’t say anything. What could be the use? That appropriation of my great achievement had without doubt been embedded in Charley’s mind for a good many years, and I never could have gotten it out by argument and persuasion. Nothing but dynamite could do it.

  I wonder if we are not all constructed like that. I think it likely that we all get to admiring other people’s achievements and then go on telling about them and telling about them, until insensibly, and without our suspecting it, we shove the achiever out and take his place. I know of one instance of this. In the other room you will find a bulky manuscript, an autobiography of my brother Orion, who was ten years my senior in age. He wrote that autobiography at my suggestion, twenty years ago, and brought it to me in Hartford, from Keokuk, Iowa. I had urged him to put upon paper all the well remembered incidents of his life, and to not confine himself to those which he was proud of, but to put in also those which he was ashamed of. I said I did not suppose he could do it, because if anybody could do that thing it would have been done long ago. The fact that it has never been done is very good proof that it can’t be done. Benvenuto tells a number of things that any other human being would be ashamed of, but the fact that he tells them seems to be very good evidence that he was not ashamed of them; and the same, I think, must be the case with Rousseau and his “Confessions.”

  I urged Orion to try to tell the truth, and tell the whole of it. I said he couldn’t tell the truth of course—that is, he could not lie successfully about a shameful experience of his, because the truth would sneak out between the lies and he couldn’t help it—that an autobiography is always two things: it is an absolute lie and it is an absolute truth. The author of it furnishes the lie, the reader of it furnishes the truth—that is, he gets at the truth by insight. In that autobiography my brother adopts and makes his own an incident which occurred in my life when I was two and a half years old. I suppose he had often heard me tell it. I suppose that by and by he got to telling it himself and told it a few times too often—told it so often that at last it became his own adventure and not mine. I think perhaps I have already mentioned this incident, but I will state it again briefly.

  When our family moved by wagon from the hamlet of Florida, Missouri, thirty miles to Hannibal, on the Mississippi, they did not count the children, and I was left behind. I was two and a half years old. I was playing in the kitchen. I was all alone. I was playing with a little pyramid of meal which had sifted to the floor from the meal barrel through a hole contributed by a rat. By and by I noticed how still it was; how solemn it was; and my soul was filled with nameless terrors. I ran through the house; found it empty, still, silent—awfully silent, frightfully still and lifeless. Every living creature gone; I the one and sole living inhabitant of the globe, and the sun going down. Then an uncle of mine arrived on horseback to fetch me. The family had traveled peacefully along, I don’t know how many hours, before at last some one had discovered the calamity that had befallen it.

  My brother tells that incident in his autobiography gravely, tells it as an experience of his own, whereas if he had stopped to think a minute, it could properly be a striking and picturesque adventure in the life of a toddling child of two and a half, but when he makes it an experience of his own, it does not make a hero of the person it happened to, because there could be nothing heroic or blood-curdling about the leaving behind of a young man twelve and a half years old. My brother did not notice that discrepancy. It seems incredible that he could write it down as his adventure and not cipher a little on the circumstances—but evidently he didn’t, and there it stands in his autobiography as the impressive adventure of a child of twelve and a half.

  Monday, February 26, 1906

  Susy comes to New York with her mother and father—Aunt Clara visits

  them at the Everett House—Aunt Clara’s ill luck with horses—The omnibus

  incident in Germany—Aunt Clara now ill at Hoffman House, result of

  horseback accident thirty years ago—Mr. Clemens takes Susy to see

  General Grant—Mr. Clemens’s account of his talk with General Grant—

  Mr. Clemens gives his first reading in New York—Also tells about one in

  Boston—Memorial to Mr. Longfellow—And one in Washington.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  1885

  Papa made arrangements to read at Vassar College the 1st of May, and I went with him. We went by way of New York City. Mamma went with us to New York and stayed two days to do some shopping. We started Tuesday, at ½ past two o’clock in the afternoon, and reached New York about ¼ past six. Papa went right up to General Grants from the station and mamma and I went to the Everett House. Aunt Clara came to supper with us up in our room.

  This is the same Aunt Clara who has already been mentioned several times. She had been my wife’s playmate and schoolmate from the earliest times, and she was about my wife’s age, or two or three years younger—mentally, morally, spiritually, and in all ways, a superior and lovable personality.

  Persons who think there is no such thing as luck—good or bad—are entitled to their opinion, although I think they ought to be shot for it. However this is merely an opinion itself; there is nothing binding about it. Clara Spaulding had the average human being’s luck in all things save one; she was subject to ill luck with horses. It pursued her like a disease. Every now and then a horse threw her. Every now and then carriage horses ran away with her. At intervals omnibus horses ran away with her. Usually there was but one person hurt, and she was selected for that function. In Germany once our little family started from the Inn (in Worms, I think it was) to go to the station. The vehicle of transportation was a great long omnibus drawn by a battery of four great horses. Every seat in the ’bus was occupied, and the aggregate of us amounted to a good two dozen persons, possibly one or two more. I said playfully to Clara Spaulding “I think you ought to walk to the station. It isn’t right for you to imperil the lives of such a crowd of inoffensive people as this.” When we had gone a quarter of a mile and were briskly approaching a stone bridge which had no protecting railings, the battery broke and began to run. Outside we saw the long reins dragging along the ground and a young peasant racing after them and occasionally making a grab for them. Presently he achieved success, and none too soon, for the ’bus had already entered upon the bridge
when he stopped the team. The two dozen lives were saved. Nobody offered to take up a collection, but I suggested to our friend and excursion-comrade—American Consul at a German city—that we get out and tip that young peasant. The Consul said, with an enthusiasm native to his character,

  “Stay right where you are. Leave me to attend to that. His fine deed shall not go unrewarded.”

  He jumped out and arranged the matter, and we continued our journey. Afterward I asked him what he gave the peasant, so that I could pay my half. He told me, and I paid it. It is twenty-eight years ago, yet from that day to this, although I have passed through some stringent seasons, I have never seriously felt or regretted that outlay. It was twenty-three cents.

  Clara Spaulding, now Mrs. John B. Stanchfield, has a son who is a senior in college, and a daughter who is in college in Germany. She is in New York at present, and I went to the Hoffman House yesterday to see her, but it was as I was expecting: she is too ill to see any but physicians and nurses. This illness has its source in a horseback accident which fell to her share thirty years ago, and which resulted in broken bones of the foot and ancle. The broken bones were badly set, and she always walked with a limp afterwards. Some months ago the foot and ancle began to pain her unendurably and it was decided that she must come to New York and have the bones rebroken and reset. I saw her in the private hospital about three weeks after that operation, and the verdict was that the operation was successful. This turned out to be a mistake. She came to New York a month or six weeks ago, and another rebreaking and resetting was accomplished. A week ago, when I called, she was able to hobble about the room by help of crutches, and she was very happy in the conviction that now she was going to have no more trouble. But it appears that this dreadful surgery-work must be done over once more. But she is not fitted for it. The pain is reducing her strength, and I was told that it has been for the past three days necessary to exclude her from contact with all but physicians and nurses.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  We and Aunt Clara were going to the theatre right after supper, and we expected papa to take us there and to come home as early as he could. But we got through dinner and he didn’t come, and didn’t come, and mamma got more perplexed and worried, but at last we thought we would have to go without him. So we put on our things and started down stairs but before we’d goten half down we met papa coming up with a great bunch of roses in his hand. He explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped and he didn’t notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed “Adonis” (word illegible) acted very much. We reached home about ½ past eleven o’clock and went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had breakfast about ½ past nine o’clock. After breakfast mamma went out shopping and papa and I went to see papa’s agent about some business matters. After papa had gotten through talking to Cousin Charlie, (Webster) papa’s agent, we went to get a friend of papa’s, Major Pond, to go and see a Dog Show with us. Then we went to see the dogs with Major Pond and we had a delightful time seeing so many dogs together; when we got through seeing the dogs papa thought he would go and see General Grant and I went with him—this was April 29, 1885. Papa went up into General Grant’s room and he took me with him, I felt greatly honored and delighted when papa took me into General Grant’s room and let me see the General and Col. Grant, for General Grant is a man I shall be glad all my life that I have seen. Papa and General Grant had a long talk together and papa has written an account of his talk and visit with General Grant for me to put into this biography.

  Susy has inserted in this place that account of mine—as follows:

  April 29, 1885.

  I called on General Grant and took Susy with me. The General was looking and feeling far better than he had looked or felt for some months. He had ventured to work again on his book that morning—the first time he had done any work for perhaps a month. This morning’s work was his first attempt at dictating, and it was a thorough success, to his great delight. He had always said that it would be impossible for him to dictate anything, but I had said that he was noted for clearness of statement, and as a narrative was simply a statement of consecutive facts, he was consequently peculiarly qualified and equipped for dictation. This turned out to be true. For he had dictated two hours that morning to a shorthand writer, had never hesitated for words, had not repeated himself, and the manuscript when finished needed no revision. The two hours’ work was an account of Appomattox—and this was such an extremely important feature that his book would necessarily have been severely lame without it. Therefore I had taken a shorthand writer there before, to see if I could not get him to write at least a few lines about Appomattox.* But he was at that time not well enough to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox accomplished once more in his life—to have gotten the matter off his mind—that he was as talkative as his old self. He received Susy very pleasantly, and then fell to talking about certain matters which he hoped to be able to dictate next day; and he said in substance that, among other things, he wanted to settle once for all a question that had been bandied about from mouth to mouth and from newspaper to newspaper. That question was “With whom originated the idea of the march to the sea? Was it Grant’s, or was it Sherman’s idea?” Whether I, or some one else (being anxious to get the important fact settled) asked him with whom the idea originated, I don’t remember. But I remember his answer. I shall always remember his answer. General Grant said:

  “Neither of us originated the idea of Sherman’s march to the sea. The enemy did it.”

  He went on to say that the enemy, however, necessarily originated a great many of the plans that the general on the opposite side gets the credit for; at the same time that the enemy is doing that, he is laying open other moves which the opposing general sees and takes advantage of. In this case, Sherman had a plan all thought out, of course. He meant to destroy the two remaining railroads in that part of the country, and that would finish up that region. But General Hood did not play the military part that he was expected to play. On the contrary, General Hood made a dive at Chattanooga. This left the march to the sea open to Sherman, and so after sending part of his army to defend and hold what he had acquired in the Chattanooga region, he was perfectly free to proceed, with the rest of it, through Georgia. He saw the opportunity, and he would not have been fit for his place if he had not seized it.

  “He wrote me” (the General is speaking) “what his plan was, and I sent him word to go ahead. My staff were opposed to the movement.” (I think the General said they tried to persuade him to stop Sherman. The chief of his staff, the General said, even went so far as to go to Washington without the General’s knowledge and get the ear of the authorities, and he succeeded in arousing their fears to such an extent that they telegraphed General Grant to stop Sherman.)

  Then General Grant said “Out of deference to the Government, I telegraphed Sherman and stopped him twenty-four hours; and then considering that that was deference enough to the Government, I telegraphed him to go ahead again.”

  I have not tried to give the General’s language, but only the general idea of what he said. The thing that mainly struck me was his terse remark that the enemy originated the idea of the march to the sea. It struck me because it was so suggestive of the General’s epigrammatic fashion—saying a great deal in a single crisp sentence. (This is my account, and signed “Mark Twain.”)

  Susy Resumes.

  After papa and General Grant had had their talk, we went back to the hotel where mamma was, and papa told mamma all about his interview with General Grant. Mamma and I had a nice quiet afternoon together.

  That
pair of devoted comrades were always shutting themselves up together when there was opportunity to have what Susy called “a cosy time.” From Susy’s nursery days to the end of her life, she and her mother were close friends; intimate friends, passionate adorers of each other. Susy’s was a beautiful mind, and it made her an interesting comrade. And with the fine mind she had a heart like her mother’s. Susy never had an interest or an occupation which she was not glad to put aside for that something which was in all cases more precious to her—a visit with her mother. Susy died at the right time, the fortunate time of life; the happy age—twenty-four years. At twenty-four, such a girl has seen the best of life—life as a happy dream. After that age the risks begin; responsibility comes, and with it the cares, the sorrows, and the inevitable tragedy. For her mother’s sake I would have brought her back from the grave if I could, but I would not have done it for my own.

  From Susy’s Biography.

  Then papa went to read in public; there were a great many authors that read, that Thursday afternoon, beside papa; I would have liked to have gone and heard papa read, but papa said he was going to read in Vassar just what he was planning to read in New York, so I stayed at home with mamma.

  I think that that was the first exploitation of a new and devilish invention—the thing called an Authors’ Reading. This witch’s Sabbath took place in a theatre, and began at two in the afternoon. There were nine readers on the list, and I believe I was the only one who was qualified by experience to go at the matter in a sane way. I knew, by my old acquaintanceship with the multiplication table, that nine times ten are ninety, and that consequently the average of time allowed to each of these readers should be restricted to ten minutes. There would be an introducer, and he wouldn’t understand his business—this disastrous fact could be counted upon as a certainty. The introducer would be ignorant, windy, eloquent, and willing to hear himself talk. With nine introductions to make, added to his own opening speech—well, I could not go on with these harrowing calculations; I foresaw that there was trouble on hand. I had asked for the sixth place in the list. When the curtain went up and I saw that our half-circle of minstrels were all on hand, I made a change in my plan. I judged that in asking for sixth place I had done all that was necessary to establish a fictitious reputation for modesty, and that there could be nothing gained by pushing this reputation to the limit; it had done its work and it was time, now, to leave well enough alone, and do better. So I asked to be moved up to third place, and my prayer was granted.