Sketches New and Old

by Mark Twain

  MR. BLOKE'S ITEM--[Written about 1865.]

  Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, walkedinto the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, withan expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his countenance,and, sighing heavily, laid the following item reverently upon the desk,and walked slowly out again. He paused a moment at the door, and seemedstruggling to command his feelings sufficiently to enable him to speak,and then, nodding his head toward his manuscript, ejaculated in a brokenvoice, "Friend of mine--oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We were somoved at his distress that we did not think to call him back and endeavorto comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper hadalready gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider thepublication of this item important, and cherishing the hope that to printit would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his sorrowing heart, westopped the press at once and inserted it in our columns:

  DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr. William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuriesreceived in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and shouting, which if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago; aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl.--'First Edition of the Californian.'

  The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing hishair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pickpocket.He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half anhour I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that comesalong. And he says that that distressing item of Mr. Bloke's is nothingbut a lot of distressing bosh, and has no point to it, and no sense init, and no information in it, and that there was no sort of necessity forstopping the press to publish it.

  Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been asunaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have toldMr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour;but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at thechance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item tosee whether there was anything wrong about it, but hastily wrote the fewlines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has mykindness done for me? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a stormof abuse and ornamental blasphemy.

  Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation forall this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from me.

  I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at afirst glance. However, I will peruse it once more.

  I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed thanever.

  I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it Iwish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There arethings about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whateverbecame of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get oneinterested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler,anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in, and if he starteddown-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there, and if he did, didanything happen to him? Is he the individual that met with the"distressing accident"? Considering the elaborate circumstantiality ofdetail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to containmore information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscur--and notonly obscure, but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr.Schuyler's leg, fifteen years ago, the "distressing accident" thatplunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up hereat dead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with thecircumstance? Or did the "distressing accident" consist in thedestruction of Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times?Or did it consist in the death of that person herself three years ago(albeit it does not appear that she died by accident)? In a word, whatdid that "distressing accident" consist in? What did that driveling assof a Schuyler stand in the wake of a runaway horse for, with his shoutingand gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the mischief couldhe get run over by a horse that had already passed beyond him? And whatare we to take "warning" by? And how is this extraordinary chapter ofincomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson" to us? And, above all, whathas the intoxicating "bowl" got to do with it, anyhow? It is not statedthat Schuyler drank, or that his wife drank, or that his mother-in-lawdrank, or that the horse drank--wherefore, then, the reference to theintoxicating bowl? It does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let theintoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would have got into so muchtrouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read thisabsurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility,until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. Therecertainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it isimpossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was thesufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to requestthat the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's friends, hewill append such explanatory notes to his account of it as will enable meto find out what sort of an accident it was and whom it happened to. Ihad rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to theverge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out the meaning of another suchproduction as the above.