HOW TO TELL A STORY
and
OTHER ESSAYS
HOW TO TELL A STORYThe Humorous Story an American Development.—Its
Difference from Comic and Witty Stories.
I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to
be told. I only claim to know how a story
ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the
company of the most expert story-tellers for many
years.
There are several kinds of stories, but only one
difficult kind—the humorous. I will talk mainly
about that one. The humorous story is American,
the comic story is English, the witty story is French.
The humorous story depends for its effect upon the
manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty
story upon the matter.
The humorous story may be spun out to great
length, and may wander around as much as it
pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the
comic and witty stories must be brief and end with
a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along,
the others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art—
high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it;
but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the
witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling
a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of
mouth, not print—was created in America, and
has remained at home.
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller
does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly
suspects that there is anything funny about it; but
the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand
that it is one of the funniest things he has ever
heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the
first person to laugh when he gets through. And
sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad
and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of it and
glance around from face to face, collecting applause,
and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see.
Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed
humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper,
or whatever you like to call it. Then the listener
must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert
attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully
casual and indifferent way, with the pretence that he
does not know it is a nub.
Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then
when the belated audience presently caught the joke
he would look up with innocent surprise, as if
wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan
Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley and
others use it to-day.
But the teller of the comic story does not slur
the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And
when he prints it, in England, France, Germany,
and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping
exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains
it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing,
and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a
better life.
Let me set down an instance of the comic method,
using an anecdote which has been popular all over
the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years. The
teller tells it in this way:
In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose
leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier
who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, in-
forming him at the same time of the loss which he
had sustained; whereupon the generous son of
Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to
carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls
were flying in all directions, and presently one of
the latter took the wounded man's head off—with-
out, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In
no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
"Where are you going with that carcass?"
"To the rear, sir—he's lost his leg!"
"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished
officer; "you mean his head, you booby."
Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his
burden, and stood looking down upon it in great
perplexity. At length he said:
"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then
after a pause he added," But he told me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!"
Here the narrator bursts into explosion after ex-
plosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that
nub from time to time through his gaspings and
shriekings and suffocatings.
It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its
comic-story form; and isn't worth the telling, after
all. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten
minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
listened to—as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.
He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old
farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks
it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to
a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets
all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and
round, putting in tedious details that don't belong
in the tale and only retard it; taking them out con-
scientiously and putting in others that are just as
useless; making minor mistakes now and then and
stopping to correct them and explain how he came
to make them; remembering things which he forgot
to put in in their proper place and going back to
put them in there; stopping his narrative a good
while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier
that was hurt, and finally remembering that the
soldier's name was not mentioned, and remarking
placidly that the name is of no real importance,
anyway—better, of course, if one knew it, but not
essential, after all—and so on, and so on, and so
on.
The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with
himself, and has to stop every little while to hold
himself in and keep from laughing outright; and
does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like
way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the
ten minutes the audience have laughed until they
are exhausted, and the tears are running down their
faces.
The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and
unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly
simulated, and the result is a performance which is
thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art—
and fine and beautiful, and only a master can com-
pass it; but a machine could tell the other story.
To string incongruities and absurdities together in
a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and
seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is
the basis of the American art, if my position is
correct. Another feature is the slurring of the
point. A third is the dropping of a studied remark
apparently without knowing it, as if one were think-
ing aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.
Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a
good deal. He would begin to tell with great ani-
mation something which he seemed to think was
wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an
apparently absent-minded pause add an incongru-
ous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was
the remark intended to explode the mine—and
it did.
For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, "I
once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn't a
tooth in his head" —here his animation would die
out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he
would say dreamily, and as if to himself, "and yet
that man could beat a drum better than any man I
ever saw."
The pause is an exceedingly important feature in
any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature,
too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also un-
certain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the
right length—no more and no less—or it fails of
its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too
short the impressive point is passed, and the audi-
ence have had time to divine that a surprise is
intended—and then you can't surprise them, of
course.
On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story
that had a pause in front of the snapper on the end,
and that pause was the most important thing in the
whole story. If I got it the right length precisely,
I could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect
enough to make some impressible girl deliver a
startled little yelp and jump out of her seat—and
that was what I was after. This story was called
"The Golden Arm," and was told in this fashion.
You can practise with it yourself—and mind you
look out for the pause and get it right.the golden arm.
Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man,
en he live' way out in de prairie all 'lone by hisself,
'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en he
tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en
buried her. Well, she had a golden arm—all solid
gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz pow'ful
mean—pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep,
caze he want dat golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no
mo'; so he git up, he did, en tuck his lantern en
shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de
golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win',
en plowed en plowed en plowed thoo de snow.
Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable
pause here, and look startled, and take a listening
attitude) en say: "My lan' what's dat!"
En he listen—en listen—en de win' say (set
your teeth together and imitate the wailing and
wheezing singsong of the wind), "Bzzz-z-zzz"—
en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear
a voice!— he hear a voice all mix' up in de win'—
can't hardly tell 'em 'part— "Bzzz-zzz—W-h-o
— g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n arm?—zzz—zzz—
W-h-o g-o-t m-y g-o-l-d-e-n arm?" (You must
begin to shiver violently now.)
En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, "Oh,
my! Oh, my lan'! "en de win' blow de lantern
out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'
choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep towards
home mos' dead, he so sk'yerd—en pooty soon
he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin'
after him! "Bzzz—zzz—zzz—W-h-o—g-o-t—
m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n—arm?"
When he git to de pasture he hear it agin—
closter now, en a-comin'!—a-comin' back dah in
de dark en de storm—(repeat the wind and the
voice). When he git to de house he rush up-stairs
en jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en
lay dah shiverin' en shakin'—en den way out dah
he hear it agin!—en a-comin'! En bimeby he
hear (pause—awed, listening attitude)—pat—pat
— pat —hit's a-comin' upstairs! Den he hear de
latch, en he know it's in de room!
Den pooty soon he know it's a-stannin' by
de bed! (Pause.) Den—he know it's a-bendin'
down over him—en he cain't skasely git his
breath! Den—den—he seem to feel someth'n
c-o-l-d, right down 'most agin his head!
(Pause.)
Den de voice say, right at his year— "W-h-o—
g-o-t—m-y—g-o-l-d-e-n arm?" (You must wail
it out very plaintively and accusingly; then you
stare steadily and impressively into the face of the
farthest-gone auditor—a girl, preferably—and let
that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the
deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right
length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, "You've got it!"
If you've got the pause right, she'll fetch a dear
little yelp and spring right out of her shoes. But
you must get the pause right; and you will find it
the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain
thing you ever undertook,)
IN DEFENCE OF HARRIET SHELLEYI
I have committed sins, of course; but I have
not committed enough of them to entitle me to
the punishment of reduction to the bread and water
of ordinary literature during six years when I might
have been living on the fat diet spread for the
righteous in Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley, if
I had been justly dealt with.
During these six years I have been living a life of
peaceful ignorance. I was not aware that Shelley's
first wife was unfaithful to him, and that that was
why he deserted her and wiped the stain from his
sensitive honor by entering into soiled relations with
Godwin's young daughter. This was all new to me
when I heard it lately, and was told that the proofs
of it were in this book, and that this book's verdict
is accepted in the girls' colleges of America and its
view taught in their literary classes.
In each of these six years multitudes of young
people in our country have arrived at the Shelley-
reading age. Are these six multitudes unacquainted
with this life of Shelley? Perhaps they are; indeed,
one may feel pretty sure that the great bulk of them
are. To these, then, I address myself, in the hope
that some account of this romantic historical fable
and the fabulist's manner of constructing and adorn-
ing it may interest them.
First, as to its literary style. Our negroes in
America have several ways of entertaining them-
selves which are not found among the whites any-
where. Among these inventions of theirs is one
which is particularly popular with them. It is a
competition in elegant deportment. They hire a
hall and bank the spectators' seats in rising tiers
along the two sides, leaving all the middle stretch of
the floor free. A cake is provided as a prize for
the winner in the competition, and a bench of ex-
perts in deportment is appointed to award it. Some-
times there are as many as fifty contestants, male
and female, and five hundred spectators. One at a
time the contestants enter, clothed regardless of ex-
pense in what each considers the perfection of style
and taste, and walk down the vacant central space
and back again with that multitude of critical eyes
on them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs
and graces he throws into his carriage, all that he
knows of seductive expression he throws into his
countenance. He may use all the helps he can
devise: watch-chain to twirl with his fingers, cane
to do graceful things with, snowy handkerchief to
flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new
stovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the
colored lady may have a fan to work up her effects
with, and smile over and blush behind, and she
may add other helps, according to her judgment.
When the review by individual detail is over, a grand
review of all the contestants in procession follows,
with all the airs and graces and all the bowings and
smirkings on exhibition at once, and this enables
the bench of experts to make the necessary com-
parisons and arrive at a verdict. The successful
competitor gets the prize which I have before men-
tioned, and an abundance of applause and envy
along with it. The negroes have a name for this
grave deportment-tournament; a name taken from
the prize contended for. They call it a Cake-
Walk.
This Shelley biography is a literary cake-walk.
The ordinary forms of speech are absent from it.
All the pages, all the paragraphs, walk by sedately,
elegantly, not to say mincingly, in their Sunday-
best, shiny and sleek, perfumed, and with bouton-
nieres in their button-holes; it is rare to find even a
chance sentence that has forgotten to dress. If the
book wishes to tell us that Mary Godwin, child of
sixteen, had known afflictions, the fact saunters
forth in this nobby outfit: "Mary was herself not
unlearned in the lore of pain"—meaning by that
that she had not always traveled on asphalt; or, as
some authorities would frame it, that she had "been
there herself," a form which, while preferable to the
book's form, is still not to be recommended. If the
book wishes to tell us that Harriet Shelley hired a
wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets turned into a
dancing-master, who does his professional bow be-
fore us in pumps and knee-breeches, with his fiddle
under one arm and his crush-hat under the other,
thus: "The beauty of Harriet's motherly relation
to her babe was marred in Shelley's eyes by the
introduction into his house of a hireling nurse
to whom was delegated the mother's tenderest
office."
This is perhaps the strangest book that has seen
the light since Frankenstein. Indeed, it is a Frank-
enstein itself; a Frankenstein with the original in-
firmity supplemented by a new one; a Frankenstein
with the reasoning faculty wanting. Yet it believes
it can reason, and is always trying. It is not con-
tent to leave a mountain of fact standing in the clear
sunshine, where the simplest reader can perceive its
form, its details, and its relation to the rest of the
landscape, but thinks it must help him examine it
and understand it; so its drifting mind settles upon
it with that intent, but always with one and the same
result: there is a change of temperature and the
mountain is hid in a fog. Every time it sets up a
premise and starts to reason from it, there is a sur-
prise in store for the reader. It is strangely near-
sighted, cross-eyed, and purblind. Sometimes when
a mastodon walks across the field of its vision it
takes it for a rat; at other times it does not see it
at all.
The materials of this biographical fable are facts,
rumors, and poetry. They are connected together
and harmonized by the help of suggestion, conjec-
ture, innuendo, perversion, and semi-suppression.
The fable has a distinct object in view, but this
object is not acknowledged in set words. Percy
Bysshe Shelley has done something which in the
case of other men is called a grave crime; it must
be shown that in his case it is not that, because he
does not think as other men do about these things.
Ought not that to be enough, if the fabulist is
serious? Having proved that a crime is not a crime,
was it worth while to go on and fasten the respon-
sibility of a crime which was not a crime upon some-
body else? What is the use of hunting down and
holding to bitter account people who are responsible
for other people's innocent acts?
Still, the fabulist thinks it a good idea to do that.
In his view Shelley's first wife, Harriet, free of all
offense as far as we have historical facts for guidance,
must be held unforgivably responsible for her hus-
band's innocent act in deserting her and taking up
with another woman.
Any one will suspect that this task has its difficult-
ties. Any one will divine that nice work is necessary
here, cautious work, wily work, and that there is
entertainment to be had in watching the magician do
it. There is indeed entertainment in watching him.
He arranges his facts, his rumors, and his poems on
his table in full view of the house, and shows you
that everything is there—no deception, everything
fair and above board. And this is apparently true,
yet there is a defect, for some of his best stock is
hid in an appendix-basket behind the door, and you
do not come upon it until the exhibition is over and
the enchantment of your mind accomplished—as
the magician thinks.
There is an insistent atmosphere of candor and
fairness about this book which is engaging at first,
then a little burdensome, then a trifle fatiguing, then
progressively suspicious, annoying, irritating, and
oppressive. It takes one some little time to find out
that phrases which seem intended to guide the reader
aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which
seem intended to throw light are there to throw
darkness; that phrases which seem intended to
interpret a fact are there to misinterpret it; that
phrases which seem intended to forestall prejudice
are there to create it; that phrases which seem anti-
dotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts
arrayed in the book establish Shelley's guilt in that
one episode which disfigures his otherwise super-
latively lofty and beautiful life; but the historian's
careful and methodical misinterpretation of them
transfers the responsibility to the wife's shoulders—
as he persuades himself. The few meagre facts of
Harriet Shelley's life, as furnished by the book,
acquit her of offense; but by calling in the for-
bidden helps of rumor, gossip, conjecture, insinua-
tion, and innuendo he destroys her character and
rehabilitates Shelley's—as he believes. And in
truth his unheroic work has not been barren of the
results he aimed at; as witness the assertion made
to me that girls in the colleges of America are
taught that Harriet Shelley put a stain upon her
husband's honor, and that that was what stung him
into repurifying himself by deserting her and his
child and entering into scandalous relations with a
school-girl acquaintance of his.
If that assertion is true, they probably use a re-
duction of this work in those colleges, maybe only
a sketch outlined from it. Such a thing as that
could be harmful and misleading. They ought to
cast it out and put the whole book in its place. It
would not deceive. It would not deceive the janitor.
All of this book is interesting on account of the
sorcerer's methods and the attractiveness of some of
his characters and the repulsiveness of the rest, but
no part of it is so much so as are the chapters
wherein he tries to think he thinks he sets forth the
causes which led to Shelley's desertion of his wife in
1814.
Harriet Westbrook was a school-girl sixteen years
old. Shelley was teeming with advanced thought.
He believed that Christianity was a degrading and
selfish superstition, and he had a deep and sincere
desire to rescue one of his sisters from it. Harriet
was impressed by his various philosophies and
looked upon him as an intellectual wonder—which
indeed he was. He had an idea that she could give
him valuable help in his scheme regarding his sister;
therefore he asked her to correspond with him. She
was quite willing. Shelley was not thinking of love,
for he was just getting over a passion for his cousin,
Harriet Grove, and just getting well steeped in one
for Miss Hitchener, a school-teacher. What might
happen to Harriet Westbrook before the letter-
writing was ended did not enter his mind. Yet an
older person could have made a good guess at it,
for in person Shelley was as beautiful as an angel,
he was frank, sweet, winning, unassuming, and so
rich in unselfishness, generosities, and magnanimities
that he made his whole generation seem poor in
these great qualities by comparison. Besides, he was
in distress. His college had expelled him for writing
an atheistical pamphlet and afflicting the reverend
heads of the university with it, his rich father and
grandfather had closed their purses against him, his
friends were cold. Necessarily, Harriet fell in love
with him; and so deeply, indeed, that there was no
way for Shelley to save her from suicide but to
marry her. He believed himself to blame for this
state of things, so the marriage took place. He was
pretty fairly in love with Harriet, although he loved
Miss Hitchener better. He wrote and explained the
case to Miss Hitchener after the wedding, and he
could not have been franker or more naïve and less
stirred up about the circumstance if the matter in
issue had been a commercial transaction involving
thirty-five dollars.
Shelley was nineteen. He was not a youth, but
a man. He had never had any youth. He was an
erratic and fantastic child during eighteen years,
then he stepped into manhood, as one steps over a
door-sill. He was curiously mature at nineteen in
his ability to do independent thinking on the deep
questions of life and to arrive at sharply definite
decisions regarding them, and stick to them—stick
to them and stand by them at cost of bread, friend-
ships, esteem, respect, and approbation.
For the sake of his opinions he was willing to
sacrifice all these valuable things, and did sacrifice
them; and went on doing it, too, when he could at
any moment have made himself rich and supplied
himself with friends and esteem by compromising
with his father, at the moderate expense of throwing
overboard one or two indifferent details of his cargo
of principles.
He and Harriet eloped to Scotland and got mar-
ried. They took lodgings in Edinburgh of a sort
answerable to their purse, which was about empty,
and there their life was a happy one and grew daily
more so. They had only themselves for company,
but they needed no additions to it. They were as
cozy and contented as birds in a nest. Harriet sang
evenings or read aloud; also she studied and tried
to improve her mind, her husband instructing her in
Latin. She was very beautiful, she was modest,
quiet, genuine, and, according to her husband's
testimony, she had no fine lady airs or aspirations
about her. In Matthew Arnold's judgment, she
was "a pleasing figure."
The pair remained five weeks in Edinburgh, and
then took lodgings in York, where Shelley's college
mate, Hogg, lived. Shelley presently ran down to
London, and Hogg took this opportunity to make
love to the young wife. She repulsed him, and re-
ported the fact to her husband when he got back.
It seems a pity that Shelley did not copy this credit-
able conduct of hers some time or other when under
temptation, so that we might have seen the author
of his biography hang the miracle in the skies and
squirt rainbows at it.
At the end of the first year of marriage—the
most trying year for any young couple, for then the
mutual failings are coming one by one to light, and
the necessary adjustments are being made in pain
and tribulation—Shelley was able to recognize that
his marriage venture had been a safe one. As we
have seen, his love for his wife had begun in a
rather shallow way and with not much force, but
now it was become deep and strong, which entitles
his wife to a broad credit mark, one may admit.
He addresses a long and loving poem to her, in
which both passion and worship appear:
Exhibit A"O thouWhose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy pathWhich this lone spirit travelled,
… wilt thou not turn
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me,Until I be assured that Earth is HeavenAnd Heaven is Earth? Harriet! let death all mortal ties dissolve,But ours shall not be mortal."
Shelley also wrote a sonnet to her in August of
this same year in celebration of her birthday:
Exhibit B"Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glowMay thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o'erflowWhich force from mine such quick and warm return."
Was the girl of seventeen glad and proud and
happy? We may conjecture that she was.
That was the year 1812. Another year passed—
still happily, still successfully—a child was born in
June, 1813, and in September, three months later,
Shelley addresses a poem to this child, Ianthe, in
which he points out just when the little creature is
most particularly dear to him:
Exhibit C"Dearest when most thy tender traits expressThe image of thy mother's loveliness."
Up to this point the fabulist counsel for Shelley
and prosecutor of his young wife has had easy sailing,
but now his trouble begins, for Shelley is getting
ready to make some unpleasant history for himself,
and it will be necessary to put the blame of it on the
wife.
Shelley had made the acquaintance of a charming
gray-haired, young-hearted Mrs. Boinville, whose
face "retained a certain youthful beauty"; she
lived at Bracknell, and had a young daughter named
Cornelia Turner, who was equipped with many fasci-
nations. Apparently these people were sufficiently
sentimental. Hogg says of Mrs. Boinville:
"The greater part of her associates were odious. I generally found
there two or three sentimental young butchers, an eminently philo-
sophical tinker, and several very unsophisticated medical practitioners or
medical students, all of low origin and vulgar and offensive manners.
They sighed, turned up their eyes, retailed philosophy, such as it was,"
etc.
Shelley moved to Bracknell, July 27th (this is
still 1813) purposely to be near this unwholesome
prairie-dogs' nest. The fabulist says: "It was the
entrance into a world more amiable and exquisite
than he had yet known."
"In this acquaintance the attraction was mutual"
— and presently it grew to be very mutual indeed,
between Shelley and Cornelia Turner, when they
got to studying the Italian poets together. Shelley,
"responding like a tremulous instrument to every
breath of passion or of sentiment," had his chance
here. It took only four days for Cornelia's attract-
tions to begin to dim Harriet's. Shelley arrived on
the 27th of July; on the 31st he wrote a sonnet to
Harriet in which "one detects already the little rift
in the lover's lute which had seemed to be healed or
never to have gaped at all when the later and hap-
pier sonnet to Ianthe was written"—in September,
we remember:
Exhibit D
"EVENING. TO HARRIET"O thou bright Sun! Beneath the dark blue lineOf western distance that sublime descendest,And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline,Thy million hues to every vapor lendest,And over cobweb, lawn, and grove, and streamSheddest the liquid magic of thy light,Till calm Earth, with the parting splendor bright,Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream;What gazer now with astronomic eyeCould coldly count the spots within thy sphere?Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he flyThe thoughts of all that makes his passion dear,And turning senseless from thy warm caressPick flaws in our close-woven happiness."
I cannot find the "rift"; still it may be there.
What the poem seems to say is, that a person would
be coldly ungrateful who could consent to count and
consider little spots and flaws in such a warm, great,
satisfying sun as Harriet is. It is a "little rift
which had seemed to be healed, or never to have
gaped at all." That is, "one detects" a little rift
which perhaps had never existed. How does one
do that? How does one see the invisible? It is the
fabulist's secret; he knows how to detect what does
not exist, he knows how to see what is not seeable;
it is his gift, and he works it many a time to poor
dead Harriet Shelley's deep damage.
"As yet, however, if there was a speck upon
Shelley's happiness it was no more than a speck"
— meaning the one which one detects where "it
may never have gaped at all"—"nor had Harriet
cause for discontent."
Shelley's Latin instructions to his wife had ceased.
"From a teacher he had now become a pupil."
Mrs. Boinville and her young married daughter
Cornelia were teaching him Italian poetry; a fact
which warns one to receive with some caution that
other statement that Harriet had no "cause for dis-
content."
Shelley had stopped instructing Harriet in Latin,
as before mentioned. The biographer thinks that
the busy life in London some time back, and the
intrusion of the baby, account for this. These were
hindrances, but were there no others? He is always
overlooking a detail here and there that might be
valuable in helping us understand a situation. For
instance, when a man has been hard at work at the
Italian poets with a pretty woman, hour after hour,
and responding like a tremulous instrument to every
breath of passion or of sentiment in the meantime,
that man is dog-tired when he gets home, and he
can't teach his wife Latin; it would be unreasonable
to expect it.
Up to this time we have submitted to having Mrs,
Boinville pushed upon us as ostensibly concerned in
these Italian lessons, but the biographer drops her
now, of his own accord. Cornelia "perhaps" is
sole teacher. Hogg says she was a prey to a kind
of sweet melancholy, arising from causes purely
imaginary; she required consolation, and found it
in Petrarch. He also says, "Bysshe entered at once
fully into her views and caught the soft infection,
breathing the tenderest and sweetest melancholy,
as every true poet ought."
Then the author of the book interlards a most
stately and fine compliment to Cornelia, furnished
by a man of approved judgment who knew her well
"in later years." It is a very good compliment
indeed, and she no doubt deserved it in her "later
years," when she had for generations ceased to be
sentimental and lackadaisical, and was no longer en-
gaged in enchanting young husbands and sowing
sorrow for young wives. But why is that compli-
ment to that old gentlewoman intruded there? Is it
to make the reader believe she was well-chosen and
safe society for a young, sentimental husband? The
biographer's device was not well planned. That old
person was not present—it was her other self that
was there, her young, sentimental, melancholy,
warm-blooded self, in those early sweet times before
antiquity had cooled her off and mossed her back.
"In choosing for friends such women as Mrs.
Newton, Mrs. Boinville, and Cornelia Turner, Shel-
ley gave good proof of his insight and discrimi-
nation." That is the fabulist's opinion—Harriet
Shelley's is not reported.
Early in August, Shelley was in London trying
to raise money. In September he wrote the poem
to the baby, already quoted from. In the first week
of October Shelley and family went to Warwick,
then to Edinburgh, arriving there about the middle
of the month.
"Harriet was happy." Why? The author fur-
nishes a reason, but hides from us whether it is
history or conjecture; it is because "the babe had
borne the journey well." It has all the aspect of one
of his artful devices—flung in in his favorite casual
way—the way he has when he wants to draw one's
attention away from an obvious thing and amuse it
with some trifle that is less obvious but more useful
— in a history like this. The obvious thing is, that
Harriet was happy because there was much territory
between her husband and Cornelia Turner now; and
because the perilous Italian lessons were taking a
rest; and because, if there chanced to be any re-
spondings like a tremulous instrument to every
breath of passion or of sentiment in stock in these
days, she might hope to get a share of them herself;
and because, with her husband liberated, now, from
the fetid fascinations of that sentimental retreat so
pitilessly described by Hogg, who also dubbed it
Shelley's paradise" later, she might hope to per-
suade him to stay away from it permanently; and
because she might also hope that his brain would
cool, now, and his heart become healthy, and both
brain and heart consider the situation and resolve
that it would be a right and manly thing to stand by
this girl-wife and her child and see that they were
honorably dealt with, and cherished and protected
and loved by the man that had promised these
things, and so be made happy and kept so. And
because, also—may we conjecture this?—we may
hope for the privilege of taking up our cozy Latin
lessons again, that used to be so pleasant, and
brought us so near together—so near, indeed, that
often our heads touched, just as heads do over
Italian lessons; and our hands met in casual and
unintentional, but still most delicious and thrilling
little contacts and momentary clasps, just as they
inevitably do over Italian lessons. Suppose one
should say to any young wife: "I find that your
husband is poring over the Italian poets and being
instructed in the beautiful Italian language by the
lovely Cornelia Robinson"—would that cozy pic-
ture fail to rise before her mind? would its possi-
bilities fail to suggest themselves to her? would
there be a pang in her heart and a blush on her
face? or, on the contrary, would the remark give
her pleasure, make her joyous and gay? Why, one
needs only to make the experiment—the result will
not be uncertain.
However, we learn—by authority of deeply rea-
soned and searching conjecture—that the baby bore
the journey well, and that that was why the young
wife was happy. That accounts for two per cent,
of the happiness, but it was not right to imply that
it accounted for the other ninety-eight also.
Peacock, a scholar, poet, and friend of the Shel-
leys, was of their party when they went away. He
used to laugh at the Boinville menagerie, and "was
not a favorite." One of the Boinville group, writing
to Hogg, said, "The Shelleys have made an addi-
tion to their party in the person of a cold scholar,
who, I think, has neither taste nor feeling. This,
Shelley will perceive sooner or later, for his warm
nature craves sympathy." True, and Shelley will
fight his way back there to get it—there will be no
way to head him off.
Towards the end of November it was necessary
for Shelley to pay a business visit to London, and
he conceived the project of leaving Harriet and the
baby in Edinburgh with Harriets sister, Eliza West-
brook, a sensible, practical maiden lady about thirty
years old, who had spent a great part of her time
with the family since the marriage. She was an
estimable woman, and Shelley had had reason to
like her, and did like her; but along about this time
his feeling towards her changed. Part of Shelley's
plan, as he wrote Hogg, was to spend his London
evenings with the Newtons—members of the Boin-
ville Hysterical Society. But, alas, when he arrived
early in December, that pleasant game was partially
blocked, for Eliza and the family arrived with him.
We are left destitute of conjectures at this point by
the biographer, and it is my duty to supply one.
I chance the conjecture that it was Eliza who inter-
fered with that game. I think she tried to do what
she could towards modifying the Boinville connec-
tion, in the interest of her young sister's peace and
honor.
If it was she who blocked that game, she was not
strong enough to block the next one. Before the
month and year were out—no date given, let us
call it Christmas—Shelley and family were nested
in a furnished house in Windsor, "at no great dis-
tance from the Boinvilles"—these decoys still re-
siding at Bracknell.
What we need, now, is a misleading conjecture.
We get it with characteristic promptness and de-
pravity:
"But Prince Athanase found not the aged Zonoras, the friend of his
boyhood, in any wanderings to Windsor. Dr. Lind had died a year
since, and with his death Windsor must have lost, for Shelley, its chief
attraction."
Still, not to mention Shelley's wife, there was
Bracknell, at any rate. While Bracknell remains,
all solace is not lost. Shelley is represented by this
biographer as doing a great many careless things,
but to my mind this hiring a furnished house for
three months in order to be with a man who has
been dead a year, is the carelessest of them all.
One feels for him—that is but natural, and does
as honor besides—yet one is vexed, for all that.
He could have written and asked about the aged
Zonoras before taking the house. He may not have
had the address, but that is nothing—any postman
would know the aged Zonoras; a dead postman
would remember a name like that.
And yet, why throw a rag like this to us ravening
wolves? Is it seriously supposable that we will stop
to chew it and let our prey escape? No, we are
getting to expect this kind of device, and to give it
merely a sniff for certainty's sake and then walk
around it and leave it lying. Shelley was not after
the aged Zonoras; he was pointed for Cornelia and
the Italian lessons, for his warm nature was craving
sympathy.II
The year 1813 is just ended now, and we step
into 1814.
To recapitulate, how much of Cornelia's society
has Shelley had, thus far? Portions of August and
September, and four days of July. That is to say,
he has had opportunity to enjoy it, more or less,
during that brief period. Did he want some more
of it? We must fall back upon history, and then
go to conjecturing.
Bracknell."
"Frequent" is a cautious word, in this author's
mouth; the very cautiousness of it, the vagueness of
it, provokes suspicion; it makes one suspect that
this frequency was more frequent than the mere
common everyday kinds of frequency which one is
in the habit of averaging up with the unassuming
term "frequent." I think so because they fixed
up a bedroom for him in the Boinville house. One
doesn't need a bedroom if one is only going to run
over now and then in a disconnected way to respond
like a tremulous instrument to every breath of pas-
sion or of sentiment and rub up one's Italian poetry
a little.
The young wife was not invited, perhaps. If she
was, she most certainly did not come, or she would
have straightened the room up; the most ignorant
of us knows that a wife would not endure a room in
the condition in which Hogg found this one when
he occupied it one night. Shelley was away—why,
nobody can divine. Clothes were scattered about,
there were books on every side: "Wherever a
book could be laid was an open book turned down
on its face to keep its place." It seems plain that
the wife was not invited. No, not that; I think she
was invited, but said to herself that she could not
bear to go there and see another young woman
touching heads with her husband over an Italian
book and making thrilling hand-contacts with him
accidentally.
As remarked, he was a frequent visitor there,
"where he found an easeful resting-place in the
house of Mrs. Boinville—the white-haired Maimuna
— and of her daughter, Mrs. Turner." The aged
Zonoras was deceased, but the white-haired Maimuna
was still on deck, as we see. "Three charming
ladies entertained the mocker (Hogg) with cups of
tea, late hours, Wieland's Agathon, sighs and smiles,
and the celestial manna of refined sentiment."
"Such," says Hogg, "were the delights of Shel-
ley's paradise in Bracknell."
The white-haired Maimuna presently writes to
Hogg:
"I will not have you despise home-spun pleasures. Shelley is
making a trial of them with us—"
A trial of them. It may be called that. It was
March 11, and he had been in the house a month.
She continues:
Shelley "likes them so well that he is resolved to leave off ram-
bling—"
But he has already left it off. He has been there
a month.
But he has already begun it. He has been at it a
month. He likes it so well that he has forgotten all
about his wife, as a letter of his reveals.
Yet he has been resting both for a month, with
Italian, and tea, and manna of sentiment, and late
hours, and every restful thing a young husband
could need for the refreshment of weary limbs and a
sore conscience, and a nagging sense of shabbiness
and treachery.
and his tranquillity. He is resolved to take a little care of the former,
in pity to the latter, which I applaud, and shall second with all my
might."
But she does not say whether the young wife, a
stranger and lonely yonder, wants another woman
and her daughter Cornelia to be lavishing so much
inflamed interest on her husband or not. That
young wife is always silent—we are never allowed
to hear from her. She must have opinions about
such things, she cannot be indifferent, she must be
approving or disapproving, surely she would speak
if she were allowed—even to-day and from her
grave she would, if she could, I think—but we
get only the other side, they keep her silent always."He has deeply interested us. In the course of your intimacy he
must have made you feel what we now feel for him. He is seeking a
house close to us—"
Ah! he is not close enough yet, it seems—
"and if he succeeds we shall have an additional motive to induce you
to come among us in the summer."
The reader would puzzle a long time and not
guess the biographer's comment upon the above
letter. It is this:
"These sound like words of a considerate and judicious friend."
That is what he thinks. That is, it is what he
thinks he thinks. No, that is not quite it: it is what
he thinks he can stupefy a particularly and unspeak-
ably dull reader into thinking it is what he thinks.
He makes that comment with the knowledge that
Shelley is in love with this woman's daughter, and
that it is because of the fascinations of these two
that Shelley has deserted his wife—for this month,
considering all the circumstances, and his new pas-
sion, and his employment of the time, amounted to
desertion; that is its rightful name. We cannot
know how the wife regarded it and felt about it;
but if she could have read the letter which Shelley
was writing to Hogg four or five days later, we
could guess her thought and how she felt. Hear
him:
"I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last month; I have
escaped, in the society of all that philosophy and friendship combine,
from the dismaying solitude of myself."
It is fair to conjecture that he was feeling ashamed.
"They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life. I havefelt myself translated to a paradise which has nothing of mortality but
its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the view of that necessity which
will quickly divide me from the delightful tranquillity of this happy
home—for it has become my home."Eliza is still with us—not here!—but will be with me when the
infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart."
Eliza is she who blocked that game—the game
in London—the one where we were purposing to
dine every night with one of the "three charming
ladies' who fed tea and manna and late hours to
Hogg at Bracknell.
Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could
have cleared her out long ago if so minded, just
as he had previously done with a predecessor of
hers whom he had first worshipped and then turned
against; but perhaps she was useful there as a thin
excuse for staying away himself.
"I am now but little inclined to contest this point. I certainly hate
her with all my heart and soul.…"It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust
and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe, in whom I may
hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint
with the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my unbounded ab-
horrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind
and loathsome worm, that cannot see to sting."I have begun to learn Italian again.… Cornelia assists me in
this language. Did I not once tell you that I thought her cold and re-
served? She is the reverse of this, as she is the reverse of everything
bad. She inherits all the divinity of her mother. … I have some-
times forgotten that I am not an inmate of this delightful home—that a
time will come which will cast me again into the boundless ocean of
abhorred society."I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning, and
that I have only written in thought:"Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;Thy gentle words stir poison there;Thou hast disturbed the only restThat was the portion of despair.Subdued to duty's hard control,I could have borne my wayward lot:The chains that bind this ruined soulHad cankered then, but crushed it not."This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which
passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its surpassing excel-
lence and exquisite perfections have no more reality than the color of an
autumnal sunset."
Then it did not refer to his wife. That is plain;
otherwise he would have said so. It is well that he
explained that it has no meaning, for if he had not
done that, the previous soft references to Cornelia
and the way he has come to feel about her now
would make us think she was the person who had
inspired it while teaching him how to read the warm
and ruddy Italian poets during a month.
The biography observes that portions of this letter
"read like the tired moaning of a wounded crea-
ture." Guesses at the nature of the wound are
permissible; we will hazard one.
Read by the light of Shelley's previous history,
his letter seems to be the cry of a tortured con-
science. Until this time it was a conscience that
had never felt a pang or known a smirch. It was
the conscience of one who, until this time, had never
done a dishonorable thing, or an ungenerous, or
cruel, or treacherous thing, but was now doing all
of these, and was keenly aware of it. Up to this
time Shelley had been master of his nature, and it
was a nature which was as beautiful and as nearly
perfect as any merely human nature may be. But
he was drunk now, with a debasing passion, and
was not himself. There is nothing in his previous
history that is in character with the Shelley of this
letter. He had done boyish things, foolish things,
even crazy things, but never a thing to be ashamed
of. He had done things which one might laugh at,
but the privilege of laughing was limited always to
the thing itself; you could not laugh at the motive
back of it—that was high, that was noble. His
most fantastic and quixotic acts had a purpose back
of them which made them fine, often great, and
made the rising laugh seem profanation and quenched
it; quenched it, and changed the impulse to homage.
Up to this time he had been loyalty itself, where his
obligations lay—treachery was new to him; he had
never done an ignoble thing—baseness was new to
him; he had never done an unkind thing—that
also was new to him.
This was the author of that letter, this was the
man who had deserted his young wife and was
lamenting, bcause he must leave another woman's
house which had become a "home" to him, and go
away. Is he lamenting mainly because he must go
back to his wife and child? No, the lament is
mainly for what he is to leave behind him. The
physical comforts of the house? No, in his life he
had never attached importance to such things.
Then the thing which he grieves to leave is narrowed
down to a person—to the person whose "dewy
looks" had sunk into his breast, and whose seducing
words had "stirred poison there."
He was ashamed of himself, his conscience was
upbraiding him. He was the slave of a degrading
love; he was drunk with his passion, the real Shel-
ley was in temporary eclipse. This is the verdict
which his previous history must certainly deliver
upon this episode, I think.
One must be allowed to assist himself with conject-
ures like these when trying to find his way through
a literary swamp which has so many misleading
finger-boards up as this book is furnished with.
We have now arrived at a part of the swamp
where the difficulties and perplexities are going to
be greater than any we have yet met with—where,
indeed, the finger-boards are multitudinous, and the
most of them pointing diligently in the wrong direc-
tion. We are to be told by the biography why
Shelley deserted his wife and child and took up with
Cornelia Turner and Italian. It was not on account
of Cornelia's sighs and sentimentalities and tea and
manna and late hours and soft and sweet and indus-
trious enticements; no, it was because "his happi-
ness in his home had been wounded and bruised
almost to death."
It had been wounded and bruised almost to death
in this way:
stopped reading aloud and studying.3d. Harriet's walks with Hogg "commonly con-
ducted us to some fashionable bonnet-shop."4th. Harriet hired a wet-nurse.5th. When an operation was being performed
upon the baby, "Harriet stood by, narrowly ob-
serving all that was done, but, to the astonishment
of the operator, betraying not the smallest sign of
emotion."6th. Eliza Westbrook, sister-in-law, was still of
the household.
The evidence against Harriet Shelley is all in;
there is no more. Upon these six counts she stands
indicted of the crime of driving her husband into
that sty at Bracknell; and this crime, by these helps,
the biographical prosecuting attorney has set himself
the task of proving upon her.
Does the biographer call himself the attorney for
the prosecution? No, only to himself, privately;
publicly he is the passionless, disinterested, impartial
judge on the bench. He holds up his judicial scales
before the world, that all may see; and it all tries
to look so fair that a blind person would sometimes
fail to see him slip the false weights in.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded
and bruised almost to death, first, because Harriet
had persuaded him to set up a carriage. I cannot
discover that any evidence is offered that she asked
him to set up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it
a heavy offence? Was it unique? Other young wives
had committed it before, others have committed it
since. Shelley had dearly loved her in those Lon-
don days; possibly he set up the carriage gladly to
please her; affectionate young husbands do such
things. When Shelley ran away with another girl,
by-and-by, this girl persuaded him to pour the price
of many carriages and many horses down the
bottomless well of her father's debts, but this im-
partial judge finds no fault with that. Once she
appeals to Shelley to raise money—necessarily by
borrowing, there was no other way—to pay her
father's debts with at a time when Shelley was in
danger of being arrested and imprisoned for his own
debts; yet the good judge finds no fault with her
even for this.
First and last, Shelley emptied into that rapacious
mendicant's lap a sum which cost him—for he
borrowed it at ruinous rates—from eighty to one
hundred thousand dollars. But it was Mary God-
win's papa, the supplications were often sent through
Mary, the good judge is Mary's strenuous friend, so
Mary gets no censures. On the Continent Mary
rode in her private carriage, built, as Shelley boasts,
"by one of the best makers in Bond Street," yet
the good judge makes not even a passing comment
on this iniquity. Let us throw out Count No. 1
against Harriet Shelley as being far-fetched and
frivolous.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded
and bruised almost to death, secondly, because Har-
riet's studies "had dwindled away to nothing,
Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them."
At what time was this? It was when Harriet "had
fully recovered from the fatigue of her first effort of
maternity,… and was now in full force, vigor,
and effect." Very well, the baby was born two
days before the close of June. It took the mother
a month to get back her full force, vigor, and effect;
this brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornelia.
If a wife of eighteen is studying with her husband
and he gets smitten with another woman, isn't he
likely to lose interest in his wife's studies for that
reason, and is not his wife's interest in her studies
likely to languish for the same reason? Would not
the mere sight of those books of hers sharpen the
pain that is in her heart? This sudden breaking
down of a mutual intellectual interest of two years'
standing is coincident with Shelley's re-encounter
with Cornelia; and we are allowed to gather from
that time forth for nearly two months he did all his
studying in that person's society. We feel at
liberty to rule out Count No. 2 from the indictment
against Harriet.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded
and bruised almost to death, thirdly, because Har-
riet's walks with Hogg commonly led to some
fashionable bonnet-shop. I offer no palliation; I
only ask why the dispassionate, impartial judge did
not offer one himself— merely, I mean, to offset his
leniency in a similar case or two where the girl who
ran away with Harriet's husband was the shopper.
There are several occasions where she interested
herself with shopping—among them being walks
which ended at the bonnet-shop—yet in none of
these cases does she get a word of blame from the
good judge, while in one of them he covers the deed
with a justifying remark, she doing the shopping
that time to find easement for her mind, her child
having died.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded
and bruised almost to death, fourthly, by the intro-
duction there of a wet-nurse. The wet-nurse was
introduced at the time of the Edinburgh sojourn,
immediately after Shelley had been enjoying the two
months of study with Cornelia which broke up his
wife's studies and destroyed his personal interest in
them. Why, by this time, nothing that Shelley's
wife could do would have been satisfactory to him,
for he was in love with another woman, and was
never going to be contented again until he got back
to her. If he had been still in love with his wife it
is not easily conceivable that he would care much
who nursed the baby, provided the baby was well
nursed. Harriet's jealousy was assuredly voicing
itself now, Shelley's conscience was assuredly nag-
ging him, pestering him, persecuting him. Shelley
needed excuses for his altered attitude towards his
wife; Providence pitied him and sent the wet-nurse.
If Providence had sent him a cotton doughnut it
would have answered just as well; all he wanted
was something to find fault with.
Shelley's happiness in his home had been wounded
and bruised almost to death, fifthly, because Harriet
narrowly watched a surgical operation which was
being performed upon her child, and, "to the
astonishment of the operator," who was watching
Harriet instead of attending to his operation, she
betrayed "not the smallest sign of emotion." The
author of this biography was not ashamed to set
down that exultant slander. He was apparently not
aware that it was a small business to bring into his
court a witness whose name he does not know, and
whose character and veracity there is none to
vouch for, and allow him to strike this blow at the
mother-heart of this friendless girl. The biographer
says, "We may not infer from this that Harriet did
not feel "— why put it in, then? —" but we learn
that those about her could believe her to be hard
and insensible." Who were those who were about
her? Her husband? He hated her now, because he
was in love elsewhere. Her sister? Of course that
is not charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify.
The wet-nurse? She does not testify. If any others
were there we have no mention of them. "Those
about her" are reduced to one person—her hus-
band. Who reports the circumstance? It is Hogg.
Perhaps he was there—we do not know. But if he
was, he still got his information at second-hand, as
it was the operator who noticed Harriet's lack of
emotion, not himself. Hogg is not given to saying
kind things when Harriet is his subject. He may
have said them the time that he tried to tempt her
to soil her honor, but after that he mentions her
usually with a sneer. "Among those who were
about her" was one witness well equipped to
silence all tongues, abolish all doubts, set our minds at
rest; one witness, not called, and not callable, whose
evidence, if we could but get it, would outweigh
the oaths of whole battalions of hostile Hoggs and
nameless surgeons—the baby. I wish we had the
baby's testimony; and yet if we had it it would not
do us any good—a furtive conjecture, a sly insinua-
tion, a pious "if" or two, would be smuggled in,
here and there, with a solemn air of judicial investi-
gation, and its positiveness would wilt into dubiety.
The biographer says of Harriet, "If words of
tender affection and motherly pride proved the
reality of love, then undoubtedly she loved her first-
born child." That is, if mere empty words can
prove it, it stands proved—and in this way, with-
out committing himself, he gives the reader a chance
to infer that there isn't any extant evidence but
words, and that he doesn't take much stock in them.
How seldom he shows his hand! He is always lurk-
ing behind a non-committal "if" or something of
that kind; always gliding and dodging around, dis-
tributing colorless poison here and there and every-
where, but always leaving himself in a position to
say that his language will be found innocuous if
taken to pieces and examined. He clearly exhibits
a steady and never-relaxing purpose to make Harriet
the scapegoat for her husband's first great sin—but
it is in the general view that this is revealed, not in
the details. His insidious literature is like blue
water; you know what it is that makes it blue, but
you cannot produce and verify any detail of the
cloud of microscopic dust in it that does it. Your
adversary can dip up a glassful and show you that
it is pure white and you cannot deny it; and he can
dip the lake dry, glass by glass, and show that
every glassful is white, and prove it to any one's
eye—and yet that lake was blue and you can swear
it. This book is blue—with slander in solution.
Let the reader examine, for example, the para-
graph of comment which immediately follows the
letter containing Shelley's self-exposure which we
have been considering. This is it. One should in-
spect the individual sentences as they go by, then
pass them in procession and review the cake-walk as
a whole:
"Shelley's happiness in his home, as is evident from this pathetic
letter, had been fatally stricken; it is evident, also, that he knew where
duty lay; he felt that his part was to take up his burden, silently and
sorrowfully, and to bear it henceforth with the quietness of despair.
But we can perceive that he scarcely possessed the strength and fortitude
needful for success in such an attempt. And clearly Shelley himself was
aware how perilous it was to accept that respite of blissful ease which
he enjoyed in the Boinville household; for gentle voices and dewy looks
and words of sympathy could not fail to remind him of an ideal of
tranquillity or of joy which could never be his, and which he must
henceforth sternly exclude from his imagination."
That paragraph commits the author in no way.
Taken sentence by sentence it asserts nothing against
anybody or in favor of anybody, pleads for nobody,
accuses nobody. Taken detail by detail, it is as
innocent as moonshine. And yet, taken as a whole,
it is a design against the reader; its intent is to re-
move the feeling which the letter must leave with
him if let alone, and put a different one in its place
— to remove a feeling justified by the letter and
substitute one not justified by it. The letter itself
gives you no uncertain picture—no lecturer is
needed to stand by with a stick and point out its
details and let on to explain what they mean. The
picture is the very clear and remorsefully faithful
picture of a fallen and fettered angel who is ashamed
of himself; an angel who beats his soiled wings and
cries, who complains to the woman who enticed him
that he could have borne his wayward lot, he could
have stood by his duty if it had not been for her
beguilements; an angel who rails at the "boundless
ocean of abhorred society" and rages at his poor
judicious sister-in-law. If there is any dignity about
this spectacle it will escape most people.
Yet when the paragraph of comment is taken as a
whole, the picture is full of dignity and pathos; we
have before us a blameless and noble spirit stricken
to the earth by malign powers, but not conquered;
tempted, but grandly putting the temptation away;
enmeshed by subtle coils, but sternly resolved to
rend them and march forth victorious, at any peril
of life or limb. Curtain—slow music.
Was it the purpose of the paragraph to take the
bad taste of Shelley's letter out of the reader's
mouth? If that was not it, good ink was wasted;
without that, it has no relevancy—the multiplica-
tion table would have padded the space as rationally.
We have inspected the six reasons which we are
asked to believe drove a man of conspicuous
patience, honor, justice, fairness, kindliness, and
iron firmness, resolution, and steadfastness, from
the wife whom he loved and who loved him, to a
refuge in the mephitic paradise of Bracknell. These
are six infinitely little reasons; but there were six
colossal ones, and these the counsel for the destruc-
tion of Harriet Shelley persists in not considering
very important.
Moreover, the colossal six preceded the little six,
and had done the mischief before they were born.
Let us double-column the twelve; then we shall see
at a glance that each little reason is in turn answered
by a retorting reason of a size to overshadow it and
make it insignificant:
As soon as we comprehend that Cornelia Turner
and the Italian lessons happened before the little six
had been discovered to be grievances, we understand
why Shelley's happiness in his home had been
wounded and bruised almost to death, and no one
can persuade us into laying it on Harriet. Shelley
and Cornelia are the responsible persons, and we
cannot in honor and decency allow the cruelties
which they practised upon the unoffending wife to
be pushed aside in order to give us a chance to waste
time and tears over six sentimental justifications of
an offence which the six can't justify, nor even re-
spectably assist in justifying.
Six? There were seven; but in charity to the
biographer the seventh ought not to be exposed.
Still, he hung it out himself, and not only hung it
out, but thought it was a good point in Shelley's
favor. For two years Shelley found sympathy and
intellectual food and all that at home; there was
enough for spiritual and mental support, but not
enough for luxury; and so, at the end of the con-
tented two years, this latter detail justifies him in
going bag and baggage over to Cornelia Turner and
supplying the rest of his need in the way of surplus
sympathy and intellectual pie unlawfully. By the
same reasoning a man in merely comfortable circum-
stances may rob a bank without sin.III
It is 1814, it is the 16th of March, Shelley has
written his letter, he has been in the Boinville
paradise a month, his deserted wife is in her hus-
bandless home. Mischief had been wrought. It is
the biographer who concedes this. We greatly need
some light on Harriet's side of the case now; we
need to know how she enjoyed the month, but there
is no way to inform ourselves; there seems to be a
strange absence of documents and letters and diaries
on that side. Shelley kept a diary, the approaching
Mary Godwin kept a diary, her father kept one, her
half-sister by marriage, adoption, and the dispensa-
tion of God kept one, and the entire tribe and all its
friends wrote and received letters, and the letters
were kept and are producible when this biography
needs them; but there are only three or four scraps
of Harriet's writing, and no diary. Harriet wrote
plenty of letters to her husband—nobody knows
where they are, I suppose; she wrote plenty of
letters to other people—apparently they have dis-
appeared, too. Peacock says she wrote good letters,
but apparently interested people had sagacity enough
to mislay them in time. After all her industry she
went down into her grave and lies silent there—
silent, when she has so much need to speak. We
can only wonder at this mystery, not account for it.
No, there is no way of finding out what Harriet's
state of feeling was during the month that Shelley
was disporting himself in the Bracknell paradise.
We have to fall back upon conjecture, as our fabu-
list does when he has nothing more substantial to
work with. Then we easily conjecture that as the
days dragged by Harriet's heart grew heavier and
heavier under its two burdens—shame and resent-
ment: the shame of being pointed at and gossiped
about as a deserted wife, and resentment against the
woman who had beguiled her husband from her and
now kept him in a disreputable captivity. Deserted
wives—deserted whether for cause or without cause
— find small charity among the virtuous and the dis-
creet. We conjecture that one after another the
neighbors ceased to call; that one after another
they got to being "engaged "when Harriet called;
that finally they one after the other cut her dead on
the street; that after that she stayed in the house
daytimes, and brooded over her sorrows, and night-
times did the same, there being nothing else to do
with the heavy hours and the silence and solitude
and the dreary intervals which sleep should have
charitably bridged, but didn't.
Yes, mischief had been wrought. The biographer
arrives at this conclusion, and it is a most just one.
Then, just as you begin to half hope he is going to
discover the cause of it and launch hot bolts of
wrath at the guilty manufacturers of it, you have to
turn away disappointed. You are disappointed, and
you sigh. This is what he says—the italics are
mine:
"However the mischief may have been wrought—and at this day
no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head—"
So it is poor Harriet, after all. Stern justice must
take its course—justice tempered with delicacy,
justice tempered with compassion, justice that pities
a forlorn dead girl and refuses to strike her. Ex-
cept in the back. Will not be ignoble and say the
harsh thing, but only insinuate it. Stern justice
knows about the carriage and the wet-nurse and the
bonnet-shop and the other dark things that caused
this sad mischief, and may not, must not blink them;
so it delivers judgment where judgment belongs, but
softens the blow by not seeming to deliver judgment
at all. To resume—the italics are mine:
"However the mischief may have been wrought—and at this day
no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head—it is certain that
some cause or causes of deep division between Shelley and his wife were
in operation during the early part of the year 1814."
This shows penetration. No deduction could be
more accurate than this. There were indeed some
causes of deep division. But next comes another
disappointing sentence:
"To guess at the precise nature of these causes, in the absence of
definite statement, were useless."
Why, he has already been guessing at them for
several pages, and we have been trying to outguess
him, and now all of a sudden he is tired of it and
won't play any more. It is not quite fair to us.
However, he will get over this by-and-by, when
Shelley commits his next indiscretion and has to be
guessed out of it at Harriet's expense.
"We may rest content with Shelley's own
words"—in a Chancery paper drawn up by him
three years later. They were these: "Delicacy
forbids me to say more than that we were disunited
by incurable dissensions."
As for me, I do not quite see why we should rest
content with anything of the sort. It is not a very
definite statement. It does not necessarily mean
anything more than that he did not wish to go into
the tedious details of those family quarrels. Deli-
cacy could quite properly excuse him from saying,
"I was in love with Cornelia all that time; my wife
kept crying and worrying about it and upbraiding
me and begging me to cut myself free from a con-
nection which was wronging her and disgracing us
both; and I being stung by these reproaches re-
torted with fierce and bitter speeches—for it is my
nature to do that when I am stirred, especially if
the target of them is a person whom I had greatly
loved and respected before, as witness my various
attitudes towards Miss Hitchener, the Gisbornes,
Harriet's sister, and others—and finally I did not
improve this state of things when I deserted my wife
and spent a whole month with the woman who had
infatuated me."
No, he could not go into those details, and we
excuse him; but, nevertheless, we do not rest con-
tent with this bland proposition to puff away that
whole Jong disreputable episode with a single mean-
ingless remark of Shelley's.
We do admit that "it is certain that some cause
or causes of deep division were in operation.'' We
would admit it just the same if the grammar of the
statement were as straight as a string, for we drift
into pretty indifferent grammar ourselves when we
are absorbed in historical work; but we have to de-
cline to admit that we cannot guess those cause or
causes.
But guessing is not really necessary. There is
evidence attainable—evidence from the batch dis-
credited by the biographer and set out at the back
door in his appendix-basket; and yet a court of law
would think twice before throwing it out, whereas it
would be a hardy person who would venture to offer
in such a place a good part of the material which is
placed before the readers of this book as "evi-
dence," and so treated by this daring biographer.
Among some letters (in the appendix-basket) from
Mrs. Godwin, detailing the Godwinian share in the
Shelleyan events of 1814, she tells how Harriet
Shelley came to her and her husband, agitated and
weeping, to implore them to forbid Shelley the
house, and prevent his seeing Mary Godwin."She related that last November he had fallen in love with Mrs.
Turner and paid her such marked attentions Mr. Turner, the husband,
had carried off his wife to Devonshire."
The biographer finds a technical fault in this;
"the Shelleys were in Edinburgh in November."
What of that? The woman is recalling a conversa-
tion which is more than two months old; besides,
she was probably more intent upon the central and
important fact of it than upon its unimportant date.
Harriet's quoted statement has some sense in it; for
that reason, if for no other, it ought to have been
put in the body of the book. Still, that would not
have answered; even the biographer's enemy could
not be cruel enough to ask him to let this real
grievance, this compact and substantial and pictur-
esque figure, this rawhead-and-bloody-bones, come
striding in there among those pale shams, those
rickety spectres labeled Wet-Nurse, Bonnet-Shop,
and so on—no, the father of all malice could not
ask the biographer to expose his pathetic goblins to
a competition like that.
The fabulist finds fault with the statement because
it has a technical error in it; and he does this at the
moment that he is furnishing us an error himself,
and of a graver sort. He says:
"If Turner carried off his wife to Devonshire he brought her back,
and Shelley was staying with her and her mother on terms of cordial
intimacy in March, 1814."
We accept the "cordial intimacy" —it was the
very thing Harriet was complaining of—but there
is nothing to show that it was Turner who brought
his wife back. The statement is thrown in as if it
were not only true, but was proof that Turner was
not uneasy. Turner's movements are proof of noth-
ing. Nothing but a statement from Turner's mouth
would have any value here, and he made none.
Six days after writing his letter Shelley and his
wife were together again for a moment—to get
remarried according to the rites of the English
Church.
Within three weeks the new husband and wife
were apart again, and the former was back in his
odorous paradise. This time it is the wife who does
the deserting. She finds Cornelia too strong for
her, probably. At any rate, she goes away with
her baby and sister, and we have a playful fling at
her from good Mrs. Boinville, the "mysterious
spinner Maimuna "; she whose "face was as a
damsel's face, and yet her hair was gray "; she of
whom the biographer has said, "Shelley was indeed
caught in an almost invisible thread spun around
him, but unconsciously, by this subtle and benignant
enchantress." The subtle and benignant enchant-
ress writes to Hogg, April 18: "Shelley is again a
widower; his beauteous half went to town on
Thursday."
Then Shelley writes a poem—a chant of grief
over the hard fate which obliges him now to leave
his paradise and take up with his wife again. It
seems to intimate that the paradise is cooling towards
him; that he is warned off by acclamation; that he
must not even venture to tempt with one last tear
his friend Cornelia's ungentle mood, for her eye is
glazed and cold and dares not entreat her lover to
stay:
Exhibit E"Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries 'Away!'Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood;Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude."
Back to the solitude of his now empty home, that
is!
But he will have rest in the grave by-and-by.
Until that time comes, the charms of Bracknell will
remain in his memory, along with Mrs. Boinville's
voice and Cornelia Turner's smile:
"Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet, till the phantoms flee"Which that house and hearth and garden made dear to thee ere-
while,Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not freeFrom the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile."
We cannot wonder that Harriet could not stand it.
Any of us would have left. We would not even stay
with a cat that was in this condition. Even the
Boinvilles could not endure it; and so, as we have
seen, they gave this one notice."Early in May, Shelley was in London. He did not yet despair of
reconciliation with Harriet, nor had he ceased to love her."
Shelley's poems are a good deal of trouble to his
biographer. They are constantly inserted as "evi-
dence," and they make much confusion. As soon
as one of them has proved one thing, another one
follows and proves quite a different thing. The
poem just quoted shows that he was in love with
Cornelia, but a month later he is in love with Harriet
again, and there is a poem to prove it.
one—the grief of having known and lost his wife's love."Exhibit F"Thy look of love has power to calmThe stormiest passion of my soul."
But without doubt she had been reserving her
looks of love a good part of the time for ten months,
now?— ever since he began to lavish his own on
Cornelia Turner at the end of the previous July.
He does really seem to have already forgotten Cor-
nelia's merits in one brief month, for he eulogizes
Harriet in a way which rules all competition out:
"Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind,Amid a world of hate."
He complains of her hardness, and begs her to
make the concession of a "slight endurance "— of
his waywardness, perhaps—for the sake of "a
fellow-being's lasting weal." But the main force of
his appeal is in his closing stanza, and is strongly
worded:
"O trust for once no erring guide!Bid the remorseless feeling flee;'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride,'Tis anything but thee;O deign a nobler pride to prove,And pity if thou canst not love."
This is in May—apparently towards the end of
it. Harriet and Shelley were corresponding all the
time. Harriet got the poem—a copy exists in her
own handwriting; she being the only gentle and
kind person amid a world of hate, according to
Shelley's own testimony in the poem, we are per-
mitted to think that the daily letters would presently
have melted that kind and gentle heart and brought
about the reconciliation, if there had been time—
but there wasn't; for in a very few days—in fact,
before the 8th of June—Shelley was in love with
another woman.
And so—perhaps while Harriet was walking the
floor nights, trying to get her poem by heart—her
husband was doing a fresh one—for the other girl
— Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin—with sentiments
like these in it:
Exhibit G"To spend years thus and be rewarded,As thou, sweet love, requited meWhen none were near.… thy lips did meetMine tremblingly;…,
"Gentle and good and mild thou art,Nor can I live if thou appearAught but thyself."… And so on. "Before the close of June it was known
and felt by Mary and Shelley that each was inex-
pressibly dear to the other." Yes, Shelley had
found this child of sixteen to his liking, and had
wooed and won her in the graveyard. But that is
nothing; it was better than wooing her in her
nursery, at any rate, where it might have disturbed
the other children.
However, she was a child in years only. From
the day that she set her masculine grip on Shelley
he was to frisk no more. If she had occupied the
only kind and gentle Harriet's place in March it
would have been a thrilling spectacle to see her in-
vade the Boinville rookery and read the riot act.
That holiday of Shelley's would have been of short
duration, and Cornelia's hair would have been as
gray as her mother's when the services were over.
Hogg went to the Godwin residence in Skinner
Street with Shelley on that 8th of June. They
passed through Godwin's little debt-factory of a
book-shop and went up-stairs hunting for the pro-
prietor. Nobody there. Shelley strode about the
room impatiently, making its crazy floor quake under
him. Then a door "was partially and softly opened.
A thrilling voice called 'Shelley!' A thrilling voice
answered, 'Mary!' And he darted out of the room
like an arrow from the bow of the far-shooting King.
A very young female, fair and fair-haired, pale,
indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of
tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time, had
called him out of the room."
This is Mary Godwin, as described by Hogg.
The thrill of the voices shows that the love of
Shelley and Mary was already upward of a fortnight
old; therefore it had been born within the month
of May—born while Harriet was still trying to get
her poem by heart, we think. I must not be asked
how I know so much about that thrill; it is my
secret. The biographer and I have private ways of
finding out things when it is necessary to find them
out and the customary methods fail.
Shelley left London that day, and was gone ten
days. The biographer conjectures that he spent this
interval with Harriet in Bath. It would be just like
him. To the end of his days he liked to be in love
with two women at once. He was more in love
with Miss Hitchener when he married Harriet than
he was with Harriet, and told the lady so with
simple and unostentatious candor. He was more in
love with Cornelia than he was with Harriet in the
end of 1813 and the beginning of 1814, yet he sup-
plied both of them with love poems of an equal
temperature meantime; he loved Mary and Harriet
in June, and while getting ready to run off with the
one, it is conjectured that he put in his odd time
trying to get reconciled to the other; by-and-by,
while still in love with Mary, he will make love to
her half-sister by marriage, adoption, and the visita-
tion of God, through the medium of clandestine
letters, and she will answer with letters that are for
no eye but his own.
When Shelley encountered Mary Godwin he was
looking around for another paradise. He had tastes
of his own, and there were features about the God-
win establishment that strongly recommended it.
Godwin was an advanced thinker and an able writer.
One of his romances is still read, but his philo-
sophical works, once so esteemed, are out of vogue
now; their authority was already declining when
Shelley made his acquaintance—that is, it was de-
clining with the public, but not with Shelley. They
had been his moral and political Bible, and they
were that yet. Shelley the infidel would himself
have claimed to be less a work of God than a work
of Godwin. Godwin's philosophies had formed his
mind and interwoven themselves into it and become
a part of its texture; he regarded himself as God-
win's spiritual son. Godwin was not without self-
appreciation; indeed, it may be conjectured that
from his point of view the last syllable of his name
was surplusage. He lived serene in his lofty world
of philosophy, far above the mean interests that
absorbed smaller men, and only came down to the
ground at intervals to pass the hat for alms to pay
his debts with, and insult the man that relieved him.
Several of his principles were out of the ordinary.
For example, he was opposed to marriage. He was
not aware that his preachings from this text were
but theory and wind; he supposed he was in earnest
in imploring people to live together without marry-
ing, until Shelley furnished him a working model of
his scheme and a practical example to analyze, by
applying the principle in his own family; the matter
took a different and surprising aspect then. The
late Matthew Arnold said that the main defect in
Shelley's make-up was that he was destitute of the
sense of humor. This episode must have escaped
Mr. Arnold's attention.
But we have said enough about the head of the
new paradise. Mrs. Godwin is described as being
in several ways a terror; and even when her soul
was in repose she wore green spectacles. But I
suspect that her main unattractiveness was born of
the fact that she wrote the letters that are out in the
appendix-basket in the back yard—letters which
are an outrage and wholly untrustworthy, for they
say some kind things about poor Harriet and tell
some disagreeable truths about her husband; and
these things make the fabulist grit his teeth a good
deal.
Next we have Fanny Godwin—a Godwin by
courtesy only; she was Mrs. Godwin's natural
daughter by a former friend. She was a sweet and
winning girl, but she presently wearied of the God-
win paradise, and poisoned herself.
Last in the list is Jane (or Claire, as she preferred
to call herself) Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin
by a former marriage. She was very young and
pretty and accommodating, and always ready to do
what she could to make things pleasant. After
Shelley ran off with her part-sister Mary, she be-
came the guest of the pair, and contributed a natural
child to their nursery—Allegra. Lord Byron was
the father.
We have named the several members and advan-
tages of the new paradise in Skinner Street, with its
crazy book-shop underneath. Shelley was all right
now, this was a better place than the other; more
variety anyway, and more different kinds of fra-
grance. One could turn out poetry here without
any trouble at all.
The way the new love-match came about was this:
Shelley told Mary all his aggravations and sorrows
and griefs, and about the wet-nurse and the bonnet-
shop and the surgeon and the carriage, and the
sister-in-law that blocked the London game, and
about Cornelia and her mamma, and how they had
turned him out of the house after making so much
of him; and how he had deserted Harriet and then
Harriet had deserted him, and how the reconciliation
was working along and Harriet getting her poem by
heart; and still he was not happy, and Mary pitied
him, for she had had trouble herself. But I am not
satisfied with this. It reads too much like statistics.
It lacks smoothness and grace, and is too earthy and
business-like. It has the sordid look of a trades-
union procession out on strike. That is not the
right form for it. The book does it better; we will
fall back on the book and have a cake-walk:
"It was easy to divine that some restless grief possessed him; Mary
herself was not unlearned in the lore of pain. His generous zeal in her
father's behalf, his spiritual sonship to Godwin, his reverence for her
mother's memory, were guarantees with Mary of his excellence.*
What she was after was guarantees of his excellence. That he
stood ready to desert his wife and child was one of them, apparently.
new friends could not lack subjects of discourse, and underneath their
words about Mary's mother, and 'Political Justice,' and 'Rights of
Woman,' were two young hearts, each feeling towards the other, each
perhaps unaware, trembling in the direction of the other. The desire
to assuage the suffering of one whose happiness has grown precious to
us may become a hunger of the spirit as keen as any other, and this
hunger now possessed Mary's heart; when her eyes rested unseen on
Shelley, it was with a look full of the ardor of a 'soothing pity.'"
Yes, that is better and has more composure.
That is just the way it happened. He told her
about the wet-nurse, she told him about political
justice; he told her about the deadly sister-in-law,
she told him about her mother; he told her about
the bonnet-shop, she murmured back about the
rights of woman; then he assuaged her, then she
assuaged him; then he assuaged her some more,
next she assuaged him some more; then they both
assuaged one another simultaneously; and so they
went on by the hour assuaging and assuaging and
assuaging, until at last what was the result? They
were in love. It will happen so every time.
never truly loved him, who loved only his fortune and his rank, and
who proved her selfishness by deserting him in his misery."
I think that that is not quite fair to Harriet. We
have no certainty that she knew Cornelia had turned
him out of the house. He went back to Cornelia,
and Harriet may have supposed that he was as
happy with her as ever. Still, it was judicious to
begin to lay on the whitewash, for Shelley is going
to need many a coat of it now, and the sooner the
reader becomes used to the intrusion of the brush
the sooner he will get reconciled to it and stop
fretting about it.
After Shelley's (conjectured) visit to Harriet at
Bath—8th of June to 18th—"it seems to have
been arranged that Shelley should henceforth join
the Skinner Street household each day at dinner."
Nothing could be handier than this; things will
swim along now.
with Harriet was a thing of the past, he had not ceased to regard her
with affectionate consideration; he wrote to her frequentfy, and kept
her informed of his whereabouts."
We must not get impatient over these curious
inharmoniousnesses and irreconcilabilities in Shel-
ley's character. You can see by the biographer's
attitude towards them that there is nothing objec-
tionable about them. Shelley was doing his best to
make two adoring young creatures happy: he was
regarding the one with affectionate consideration by
mail, and he was assuaging the other one at home.
the breach between herself and her husband should be irreparable and
complete."
I find no fault with that sentence except that the
"perhaps" is not strictly warranted. It should
have been left out. In support—or shall we say
extenuation?—of this opinion I submit that there
is not sufficient evidence to warrant the uncertainty
which it implies. The only "evidence "offered
that Harriet was hard and proud and standing out
against a reconciliation is a poem—the poem in
which Shelley beseeches her to "bid the remorse-
less feeling flee "and "pity "if she "cannot love."
We have just that as "evidence," and out of its
meagre materials the biographer builds a cobhouse
of conjectures as big as the Coliseum; conjectures
which convince him, the prosecuting attorney, but
ought to fall far short of convincing any fair-minded
jury.
Shelley's love-poems may be very good evidence,
but we know well that they are "good for this day
and train only." We are able to believe that they
spoke the truth for that one day, but we know by
experience that they could not be depended on to
speak it the next. The very supplication for a re-
warming of Harriet's chilled love was followed so
suddenly by the poet's plunge into an adoring pas-
sion for Mary Godwin that if it had been a check it
would have lost its value before a lazy person could
have gotten to the bank with it.
Hardness, stubbornness, pride, vindictiveness—
these may sometimes reside in a young wife and
mother of nineteen, but they are not charged against
Harriet Shelley outside of that poem, and one has
no right to insert them into her character on such
shadowy "evidence "as that. Peacock knew Har-
riet well, and she has a flexible and persuadable
look, as painted by him:
"Her manners were good, and her whole aspect and demeanor such
manifest emanations of pure and truthful nature that to be once in her
company was to know her thoroughly. She was fond of her husband,
and accommodated herself in every way to his tastes. If they mixed
in society, she adorned it; if they lived in retirement, she was satisfied;
if they travelled, she enjoyed the change of scene."
"Perhaps "she had never desired that the breach
should be irreparable and complete. The truth is,
we do not even know that there was any breach at
all at this time. We know that the husband and
wife went before the altar and took a new oath on
the 24th of March to love and cherish each other
until death—and this may be regarded as a sort of
reconciliation itself, and a wiping out of the old
grudges. Then Harriet went away, and the sister-
in-law removed herself from her society. That was
in April. Shelley wrote his "appeal" in May,
but the corresponding went right along afterwards.
We have a right to doubt that the subject of it was
a "reconciliation," or that Harriet had any suspi-
cion that she needed to be reconciled and that her
husband was trying to persuade her to it—as the
biographer has sought to make us believe, with his
Coliseum of conjectures built out of a waste-basket
of poetry. For we have "evidence" now—not
poetry and conjecture. When Shelley had been
dining daily in the Skinner Street paradise fifteen
days and continuing the love-match which was
already a fortnight old twenty-five days earlier, he
forgot to write Harriet; forgot it the next day and
the next. During four days Harriet got no letter
from him. Then her fright and anxiety rose to
expression-heat, and she wrote a letter to Shelley's
publisher which seems to reveal to us that Shelley's
letters to her had been the customary affectionate
letters of husband to wife, and had carried no ap-
peals for reconciliation and had not needed to:
"Bath (postmark July 7, 1814).
"My dear Sir,—You will greatly oblige me by giving the enclosed
to Mr. Shelley. I would not trouble you, but it is now four days since
I have heard from him, which to me is an age. Will you write by re-
turn of post and tell me what has become of him? as I always fancy
something dreadful has happened if I do not hear from him. If you
tell me that he is well I shall not come to London, but if I do not hear
from you or him I shall certainly come, as I cannot endure this dreadful
state of suspense. You are his friend and you can feel for me.
"I remain yours truly,
"H. S."
Even without Peacock's testimony that "her whole
aspect and demeanor were manifest emanations of a
pure and truthful nature," we should hold this to
be a truthful letter, a sincere letter, a loving letter;
it bears those marks; I think it is also the letter of
a person accustomed to receiving letters from her
husband frequently, and that they have been of a
welcome and satisfactory sort, too, this long time
back—ever since the solemn remarriage and recon-
ciliation at the altar most likely.
The biographer follows Harriet's letter with a
conjecture. He conjectures that she "would now
gladly have retraced her steps." Which means that
it is proven that she had steps to retrace—proven
by the poem. Well, if the poem is better evidence
than the letter, we must let it stand at that.
Then the biographer attacks Harriet Shelley's
honor—by authority of random and unverified gos-
sip scavengered from a group of people whose very
names make a person shudder: Mary Godwin, mis-
tress to Shelley; her part-sister, discarded mistress
of Lord Byron; Godwin, the philosophical tramp,
who gathers his share of it from a shadow—that is
to say, from a person whom he shirks out of
naming. Yet the biographer dignifies this sorry
rubbish with the name of "evidence."
Nothing remotely resembling a distinct charge
from a named person professing to know is offered
among this precious "evidence."
told Mary Godwin so and so, and Mary told her.3. "Shelley said" so and so—and later "ad-
mitted over and over again that he had been in
error."4. The unspeakable Godwin "wrote to Mr. Bax-
ter "that he knew so and so "from unquestionable
authority "— name not furnished.
How any man in his right mind could bring him-
self to defile the grave of a shamefully abused and
defenceless girl with these baseless fabrications, this
manufactured filth, is inconceivable. How any man,
in his right mind or out of it, could sit down and
coldly try to persuade anybody to believe it, or
listen patiently to it, or, indeed, do anything but
scoff at it and deride it, is astonishing.
The charge insinuated by these odious slanders is
one of the most difficult of all offences to prove; it
is also one which no man has a right to mention
even in a whisper about any woman, living or dead,
unless he knows it to be true, and not even then
unless he can also prove it to be true. There is no
justification for the abomination of putting this stuff
in the book.
Against Harriet Shelley's good name there is not
one scrap of tarnishing evidence, and not even a
scrap of evil gossip, that comes from a source that
entitles it to a hearing.
On the credit side of the account we have strong
opinions from the people who knew her best.
Peacock says:
"I feel it due to the memory of Harriet to state my most decided
conviction that her conduct as a wife was as pure. as true, as abso-
lutely faultless, as that of any who for such conduct are held most in
honor."
Thornton Hunt, who had picked and published
slight flaws in Harriet's character, says, as regards
this alleged large one:
"There is not a trace of evidence or a whisper of scandal against
her before her voluntary departure from Shelley."
Trelawney says:
"I was assured by the evidence of the few friends who knew both
Shelley and his wife—Hookham, Hogg, Peacock, and one of the
Godwins—that Harriet was perfectly innocent of all offence."
What excuse was there for raking up a parcel of
foul rumors from malicious and discredited sources
and flinging them at this dead girl's head? Her
very defencelessness should have been her protec-
tion. The fact that all letters to her or about her,
with almost every scrap of her own writing, had
been diligently mislaid, leaving her case destitute of
a voice, while every pen-stroke which could help
her husband's side had been as diligently preserved,
should have excused her from being brought to
trial. Her witnesses have all disappeared, yet we
see her summoned in her grave-clothes to plead for
the life of her character, without the help of an ad-
vocate, before a disqualified judge and a packed
jury.
Harriet Shelley wrote her distressed letter on the
7th of July. On the 28th her husband ran away
with Mary Godwin and her part-sister Claire to the
Continent. He deserted his wife when her confine-
ment was approaching. She bore him a child at the
end of November, his mistress bore him another one
something over two months later. The truants were
back in London before either of these events
occurred.
On one occasion, presently, Shelley was so pressed
for money to support his mistress with that he went
to his wife and got some money of his that was in
her hands—twenty pounds. Yet the mistress was
not moved to gratitude; for later, when the wife
was troubled to meet her engagements, the mistress
makes this entry in her diary:
"Harriet sends her creditors here; nasty woman. Now we shall
have to change our lodgings."
The deserted wife bore the bitterness and obloquy
of her situation two years and a quarter; then she
gave up, and drowned herself. A month afterwards
the body was found in the water. Three weeks
later Shelley married his mistress.
I must here be allowed to italicize a remark of the
biographer's concerning Harriet Shelley:
"That no act of Shelley's during the two years which immediately
preceded her death tended to cause the rash act which brought her life
to its close seems certain"
Yet her husband had deserted her and her chil-
dren, and was living with a concubine all that time!
Why should a person attempt to write biography
when the simplest facts have no meaning to him?
This book is littered with as crass stupidities as that
one—deductions by the page which bear no dis-
coverable kinship to their premises.
The biographer throws off that extraordinary re-
mark without any perceptible disturbance to his
serenity; for he follows it with a sentimental justifi-
cation of Shelley's conduct which has not a pang of
conscience in it, but is silky and smooth and undu-
lating and pious—a cake-walk with all the colored
brethren at their best. There may be people who
can read that page and keep their temper, but it is
doubtful.
Shelley's life has the one indelible blot upon it,
but is otherwise worshipfully noble and beautiful.
It even stands out indestructibly gracious and lovely
from the ruck of these disastrous pages, in spite of
the fact that they expose and establish his re-
sponsibility for his forsaken wife's pitiful fate—a
responsibility which he himself tacitly admits in a
letter to Eliza Westbrook, wherein he refers to his
taking up with Mary Godwin as an act which Eliza
"might excusably regard as the cause of her sister's
ruin."
FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY
OFFENCESThe Pathfinder and The Deerslayer stand at the head of Cooper's
novels as artistic creations. There are others of his works which con-
tain parts as perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more
thrilling. Not one can be compared with either of them as a finished
whole.The defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. They were
pure works of art.—Prof. Lounsbury.The five tales reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention.… One of the very greatest characters in fiction, Natty Bumppo….The craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper, all the delicate
art of the forest, were familiar to Cooper from his youth up.—Prof. Brander Matthews.Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction yet
produced by America.—Wilkie Collins.
It seems to me that it was far from right for the
Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Pro-
fessor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie
Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature
without having read some of it. It would have
been much more decorous to keep silent and let
persons talk who have read Cooper.
Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in
Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds
of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against
literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the
record.
There are nineteen rules governing literary art in
the domain of romantic fiction—some say twenty-
two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of
them. These eighteen require:
arrive somewhere. But the Deerslayer tale accom-
plishes nothing and arrives in the air.2. They require that the episodes of a tale shall
be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to de-
velop it. But as the Deerslayer tale is not a tale,
and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the
episodes have no rightful place in the work, since
there was nothing for them to develop.3. They require that the personages in a tale shall
be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that
always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses
from the others. But this detail has often been
overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.4. They require that the personages in a tale,
both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse
for being there. But this detail also has been over-
looked in the Deerslayer tale.5. They require that when the personages of a
tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like
human talk, and be talk such as human beings would
be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and
have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable
purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in
the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be
interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and
stop when the people cannot think of anything more
to say. But this requirement has been ignored from
the beginning of the Deerslayer tale to the end of it.6. They require that when the author describes
the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct
and conversation of that personage shall justify said
description. But this law gets little or no attention
in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will
amply prove.7. They require that when a personage talks like
an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled,
seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning
of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro min-
strel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down
and danced upon in the Deerslayer tale.8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be
played upon the reader as "the craft of the woods-
man, the delicate art of the forest," by either the
author or the people in the tale. But this rule is
persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.9. They require that the personages of a tale shall
confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles
alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author
must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look
possible and reasonable. But these rules are not
respected in the Deerslayer tale.10. They require that the author shall make the
reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his
tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the
reader love the good people in the tale and hate the
bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dis-
likes the good people in it, is indifferent to the
others, and wishes they would all get drowned
together.
11. They require that the characters in a tale
shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell
beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is vacated.
In addition to these large rules there are some
little ones. These require that the author shall
come near it.13. Use the right word, not its second cousin,14. Eschew surplusage.15. Not omit necessary details.16. Avoid slovenliness of form.17. Use good grammar.18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.
Even these seven are coldly and persistently vio-
lated in the Deerslayer tale.
Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a
rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to
work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed
he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little
box of stage properties he kept six or eight cunning
devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woods-
men to deceive and circumvent each other with, and
he was never so happy as when he was working
these innocent things and seeing them go. A
favorite one was to make a moccasined person
tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and
thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels
and barrels of moccasins in working that trick.
Another stage-property that he pulled out of his
box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He
prized his broken twig above all the rest of his
effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful
chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't
step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites
for two hundred yards around. Every time a
Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is
worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a
dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things
to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper.
Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry
twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one.
In fact, the Leather Stocking Series ought to have
been called the Broken Twig Series.
I am sorry there is not room to put in a few
dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as
practised by Natty Bumppo and some of the other
Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two
or three samples. Cooper was a sailor—a naval
officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving
towards a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a par-
ticular spot by her skipper because he knows of an
undertow there which will hold her back against the
gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or
sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat? For
several years Cooper was daily in the society of
artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a
cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself
or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred
feet or so—and so on, till finally it gets tired and
rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females"
— as he always calls women—in the edge of a
wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to
give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art
of the forest before the reader. These mislaid
people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannon-
blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into
the wood and stops at their feet. To the females
this suggests nothing. The case is very different
with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never
know peace again if he doesn't strike out promptly
and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the
plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't
it a daisy? If Cooper had any real knowledge of
Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most deli-
cate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one
of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook (pro-
nounced Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a
person he is tracking through the forest. Appar-
ently that trail is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor
I could ever have guessed out the way to find it. It
was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not
stumped for long. He turned a running stream out
of its course, and there, in the slush in its old
bed, were that person's moccasin-tracks. The cur-
rent did not wash them away, as it would have done
in all other like cases—no, even the eternal laws of
Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up
a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader.
We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews
tells us that Cooper's books "reveal an extraordi-
nary fulness of invention." As a rule, I am quite
willing to accept Brander Matthews's literary judg-
ments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing
of them; but that particular statement needs to be
taken with a few tons of salt. Bless your heart,
Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse;
and I don't mean a high-class horse, either; I mean
a clothes-horse. It would be very difficult to find a
really clever "situation" in Cooper's books, and
still more difficult to find one of any kind which he
has failed to render absurd by his handling of it.
Look at the episodes of "the caves"; and at the
celebrated scuffle between Maqua and those others
on the table-land a few days later; and at Hurry
Harry's queer water-transit from the castle to the
ark; and at Deerslayer's half-hour with his first
corpse; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry
and Deerslayer later; and at—but choose for your-
self; you can't go amiss.
If Cooper had been an observer his inventive
faculty would have worked better; not more interest-
ingly, but more rationally, more plausibly. Cooper's
proudest creations in the way of "situations" suffer
noticeably from the absence of the observer's pro-
tecting gift. Cooper's eye was splendidly inaccurate.
Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw
nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly. Of
course a man who cannot see the commonest little
every-day matters accurately is working at a disad-
vantage when he is constructing a "situation." In
the Deerslayer tale Cooper has a stream which is
fifty feet wide where it flows out of a lake; it
presently narrows to twenty as it meanders along
for no given reason, and yet when a stream acts like
that it ought to be required to explain itself. Four-
teen pages later the width of the brook's outlet from
the lake has suddenly shrunk thirty feet, and be-
come "the narrowest part of the stream." This
shrinkage is not accounted for. The stream has
bends in it, a sure indication that it has alluvial
banks and cuts them; yet these bends are only
thirty and fifty feet long. If Cooper had been a
nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed
that the bends were oftener nine hundred feet long
than short of it.
Cooper made the exit of that stream fifty feet
wide, in the first place, for no particular reason; in
the second place, he narrowed it to less than twenty
to accommodate some Indians. He bends a "sap-
ling" to the form of an arch over this narrow
passage, and conceals six Indians in its foliage.
They are "laying" for a settler's scow or ark
which is coming up the stream on its way to the
lake; it is being hauled against the stiff current by a
rope whose stationary end is anchored in the lake;
its rate of progress cannot be more than a mile an
hour. Cooper describes the ark, but pretty ob-
scurely. In the matter of dimensions "it was little
more than a modern canal-boat." Let us guess,
then, that it was about one hundred and forty feet
long. It was of "greater breadth than common."
Let us guess, then, that it was about sixteen feet
wide. This leviathan had been prowling down bends
which were but a third as long as itself, and scraping
between banks where it had only two feet of space
to spare on each side. We cannot too much admire
this miracle. A low-roofed log dwelling occupies
"two-thirds of the ark's length"—a dwelling
ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide, let us say—
a kind of vestibule train. The dwelling has two
rooms—each forty-five feet long and sixteen feet
wide, let us guess. One of them is the bedroom of
the Hutter girls, Judith and Hetty; the other is the
parlor in the daytime, at night it is papa's bed-
chamber. The ark is arriving at the stream's exit
now, whose width has been reduced to less than
twenty feet to accommodate the Indians—say to
eighteen. There is a foot to spare on each side of
the boat. Did the Indians notice that there was
going to be a tight squeeze there? Did they notice
that they could make money by climbing down out
of that arched sapling and just stepping aboard
when the ark scraped by? No, other Indians
would have noticed these things, but Cooper's
Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they
are marvelous creatures for noticing, but he was
almost always in error about his Indians. There
was seldom a sane one among them.
The ark is one hundred and forty feet long; the
dwelling is ninety feet long. The idea of the Indians
is to drop softly and secretly from the arched sap-
ling to the dwelling as the ark creeps along under it
at the rate of a mile an hour, and butcher the
family. It will take the ark a minute and a half to
pass under. It will take the ninety foot dwelling a
minute to pass under. Now, then, what did the six
Indians do? It would take you thirty years to guess,
and even then you would have to give it up, I be-
lieve. Therefore, I will tell you what the Indians
did. Their chief, a person of quite extraordinary
intellect for a Cooper Indian, warily watched the
canal-boat as it squeezed along under him, and when
he had got his calculations fined down to exactly
the right shade, as he judged, he let go and dropped.
And missed the house! That is actually what he did.
He missed the house, and landed in the stern of the
scow. It was not much of a fall, yet it knocked
him silly. He lay there unconscious. If the house
had been ninety-seven feet long he would have made
the trip. The fault was Cooper's, not his. The
error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper
was no architect.
There still remained in the roost five Indians.
The boat has passed under and is now out of their
reach. Let me explain what the five did—you
would not be able to reason it out for yourself.
No. 1 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water
astern of it. Then No. 2 jumped for the boat, but
fell in the water still farther astern of it. Then No.
3 jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern
of it. Then No. 4 jumped for the boat, and fell in
the water away astern. Then even No. 5 made a
jump for the boat—for he was a Cooper Indian.
In the matter of intellect, the difference between a
Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of
the cigar-shop is not spacious. The scow episode
is really a sublime burst of invention; but it does
not thrill, because the inaccuracy of the details
throws a sort of air of fictitiousness and general
improbability over it. This comes of Cooper's in-
adequacy as an observer.
The reader will find some examples of Cooper's
high talent for inaccurate observation in the account
of the shooting-match in The Pathfinder.
having been first touched with paint."
The color of the paint is not stated—an im-
portant omission, but Cooper deals freely in import-
ant omissions. No, after all, it was not an important
omission; for this nail-head is a hundred yards from
the marksmen, and could not be seen by them at
that distance, no matter what its color might be.
How far can the best eyes see a common house-fly?
A hundred yards? It is quite impossible. Very
well; eyes that cannot see a house-fly that is a hun-
dred yards away cannot see an ordinary nail-head at
that distance, for the size of the two objects is the
same. It takes a keen eye to see a fly or a nail-
head at fifty yards—one hundred and fifty feet.
Can the reader do it?
The nail was lightly driven, its head painted, and
game called. Then the Cooper miracles began. The
bullet of the first marksman chipped an edge of the
nail-head; the next man's bullet drove the nail a
little way into the target—and removed all the
paint. Haven't the miracles gone far enough now?
Not to suit Cooper; for the purpose of this whole
scheme is to show off his prodigy, Deerslayer-
Hawkeye - Long - Rifle-Leather-Stocking-Pathfinder-
Bumppo before the ladies.
into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant. 'Never mind a
new nail; I can see that, though the paint is gone, and what I can see
I can hit at a hundred yards, though it were only a mosquito's eye. Be
ready to clench!'"The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail
was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead."
There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies
with a rifle, and command a ducal salary in a Wild
West show to-day if we had him back with us.
The recorded feat is certainly surprising just as it
stands; but it is not surprising enough for Cooper.
Cooper adds a touch. He has made Pathfinder do
this miracle with another man's rifle; and not only
that, but Pathfinder did not have even the advantage
of loading it himself. He had everything against
him, and yet he made that impossible shot; and not
only made it, but did it with absolute confidence,
saying, "Be ready to clench." Now a person like
that would have undertaken that same feat with a
brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have
achieved it, too.
Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before
the ladies. His very first feat was a thing which no
Wild West show can touch. He was standing with
the group of marksmen, observing—a hundred
yards from the target, mind; one Jasper raised his
rifle and drove the centre of the bull's-eye. Then
the Quartermaster fired. The target exhibited no
result this time. There was a laugh. "It's a dead
miss," said Major Lundie. Pathfinder waited an
impressive moment or two; then said, in that calm,
indifferent, know-it-all way of his, "No, Major, he
has covered Jasper's bullet, as will be seen if any
one will take the trouble to examine the target."
Wasn't it remarkable! How could he see that
little pellet fly through the air and enter that distant
bullet-hole? Yet that is what he did; for nothing
is impossible to a Cooper person. Did any of those
people have any deep-seated doubts about this thing?
No; for that would imply sanity, and these were all
Cooper people.
"The respect for Pathfinder's skill and for his quickness and accuracy
of sight" (the italics are mine) "was so profound and general, that the
instant he made this declaration the spectators began to distrust their own
opinions, and a dozen rushed to the target in order to ascertain the fact.
There, sure enough, it was found that the Quartermaster's bullet had
gone through the hole made by Jasper's, and that, too, so accurately
as to require a minute examination to be certain of the circumstance,
which, however, was soon clearly established by discovering one bullet
over the other in the stump against which the target was placed."
They made a "minute" examination; but never
mind, how could they know that there were two
bullets in that hole without digging the latest one
out? for neither probe nor eyesight could prove
the presence of any more than one bullet. Did
they dig? No; as we shall see. It is the Path-
finder's turn now; he steps out before the ladies,
takes aim, and fires.
But, alas! here is a disappointment; an in-
credible, an unimaginable disappointment—for the
target's aspect is unchanged; there is nothing there
but that same old bullet-hole!
should say that the Pathfinder has also missed the target!'"
As nobody had missed it yet, the "also" was
not necessary; but never mind about that, for the
Pathfinder is going to speak.
declaration. I didn't load the piece, and can't say what was in it; but
if it was lead, you will find the bullet driving down those of the Quarter-
master and Jasper, else is not my name Pathfinder.'"A shout from the target announced the truth of this assertion."
Is the miracle sufficient as it stands? Not for
Cooper. The Pathfinder speaks again, as he "now
slowly advances towards the stage occupied by the
females":
"'That's not all, boys, that's not all; if you find the target touched
at all, I'll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the wood, but you'll
find no wood cut by that last messenger."
The miracle is at last complete. He knew—
doubtless saw—at the distance of a hundred yards
—that his bullet had passed into the hole without
fraying the edges. There were now three bullets in
that one hole—three bullets embedded procession-
ally in the body of the stump back of the target.
Everybody knew this—somehow or other—and
yet nobody had dug any of them out to make sure.
Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interesting.
He is certainly always that, no matter what happens.
And he is more interesting when he is not noticing
what he is about than when he is. This is a con-
siderable merit.
The conversations in the Cooper books have a
curious sound in our modern ears. To believe that
such talk really ever came out of people's mouths
would be to believe that there was a time when time
was of no value to a person who thought he had
something to say; when it was the custom to spread
a two-minute remark out to ten; when a man's
mouth was a rolling-mill, and busied itself all day
long in turning four-foot pigs of thought into thirty-
foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenua-
tion; when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck to,
but the talk wandered all around and arrived no-
where; when conversations consisted mainly of
irrelevancies, with here and there a relevancy, a
relevancy with an embarrassed look, as not being
able to explain how it got there.
Cooper was certainly not a master in the construc-
tion of dialogue. Inaccurate observation defeated
him here as it defeated him in so many other enter-
prises of his. He even failed to notice that the
man who talks corrupt English six days in the week
must and will talk it on the seventh, and can't help
himself. In the Deerslayer story he lets Deerslayer
talk the showiest kind of book-talk sometimes, and
at other times the basest of base dialects. For
instance, when some one asks him if he has a sweet-
heart, and if so, where she abides, this is his
majestic answer:
"'She's in the forest—hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a
soft rain—in the dew on the open grass—the clouds that float about
in the blue heavens—the birds that sing in the woods—the sweet
springs where I slake my thirst—and in all the other glorious gifts that
come from God's Providence!'"
"And he preceded that, a little before, with this:
"'It consarns me as all things that touches a fri'nd consarns a
fri'nd.'"
And this is another of his remarks:
"'If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in the scalp
and boast of the expl'ite afore the whole tribe; or if my inimy had only
been a bear'"—and so on.
We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran
Scotch Commander-in-Chief comporting himself in
the field like a windy melodramatic actor, but
Cooper could. On one occasion Alice and Cora
were being chased by the French through a fog in
the neighborhood of their father's fort:
"'Point de quartier aux coquins!' cried an eager pursuer, who
seemed to direct the operations of the enemy.
"'Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 60ths!' suddenly exclaimed
a voice above them; 'wait to see the enemy; fire low, and sweep the
glacis.'
"'Father! father!' exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; 'it
is I! Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!'
"'Hold!' shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn
echo. ''Tis she! God has restored me my children! Throw open
the sally-port; to the field, 60ths, to the field! pull not a trigger, lest ye
kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel!'"
Cooper's word-sense was singularly dull. When
a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and
sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps
near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person
has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flat-
ting and sharping; you perceive what he is intend-
ing to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't
say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-
musician. His ear was satisfied with the approxi-
mate word. I will furnish some circumstantial
evidence in support of this charge. My instances
are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale
called Deerslayer. He uses "verbal," for "oral";
"precision," for "facility"; "phenomena," for
"marvels"; "necessary," for "predetermined";
"unsophisticated," for "primitive"; "prepara-
tion," for "expectancy"; "rebuked," for "sub-
dued"; "dependent on," for "resulting from";
"fact," for "condition"; "fact," for "conjec-
ture"; "precaution," for "caution"; "explain,"
for "determine"; "mortified," for "disap-
pointed"; "meretricious," for "factitious"; "ma-
terially," for "considerably"; "decreasing," for
"deepening"; "increasing," for "disappearing";
"embedded," for "enclosed"; "treacherous,"
for "hostile"; "stood," for "stooped"; "soft-
ened," for "replaced"; "rejoined," for "re-
marked"; "situation," for "condition"; "dif-
ferent," for "differing"; "insensible," for
"unsentient"; "brevity," for "celerity"; "dis-
trusted," for "suspicious"; "mental imbecility,"
for "imbecility"; "eyes," for "sight"; "coun-
teracting," for "opposing"; "funeral obsequies,"
for "obsequies."
There have been daring people in the world who
claimed that Cooper could write English, but they
are all dead now—all dead but Lounsbury. I don't
remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so
many words, still he makes it, for he says that Deer-
slayer is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that con-
nection, means faultless—faultless in all details—
and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had
only compared Cooper's English with the English
which he writes himself—but it is plain that he
didn't; and so it is likely that he imagines until this
day that Cooper's is as clean and compact as his
own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that
Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists
in our language, and that the English of Deerslayer
is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that
Deerslayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does
seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that
goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it
seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary
delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no
order, system, sequence, or result; it has no life-
likeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its
characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts
and words they prove that they are not the sort of
people the author claims that they are; its humor is
pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are
—oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its
English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think
we must all admit that.
TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER
Last spring I went out to Chicago to see the
Fair, and although I did not see it my trip was
not wholly lost—there were compensations. In
New York I was introduced to a major in the regular
army who said he was going to the Fair, and we
agreed to go together. I had to go to Boston first,
but that did not interfere; he said he would go
along, and put in the time. He was a handsome
man, and built like a gladiator. But his ways were
gentle, and his speech was soft and persuasive. He
was companionable, but exceedingly reposeful. Yes,
and wholly destitute of the sense of humor. He
was full of interest in everything that went on around
him, but his serenity was indestructible; nothing
disturbed him, nothing excited him.
But before the day was done I found that deep
down in him somewhere he had a passion, quiet as
he was—a passion for reforming petty public
abuses. He stood for citizenship—it was his
hobby. His idea was that every citizen of the re-
public ought to consider himself an unofficial police-
man, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the
laws and their execution. He thought that the only
effective way of preserving and protecting public
rights was for each citizen to do his share in pre-
venting or punishing such infringements of them as
came under his personal notice.
It was a good scheme, but I thought it would
keep a body in trouble all the time; it seemed to
me that one would be always trying to get offend-
ing little officials discharged, and perhaps getting
laughed at for all reward. But he said no, I had
the wrong idea; that there was no occasion to get
anybody discharged; that in fact you must n't get
anybody discharged; that that would itself be a
failure; no, one must reform the man—reform him
and make him useful where he was.
"Must one report the offender and then beg his
superior not to discharge him, but reprimand him
and keep him?"
"No, that is not the idea; you don't report him
at all, for then you risk his bread and butter. You
can act as if you are going to report him—when
nothing else will answer. But that's an extreme
case. That is a sort of force, and force is bad.
Diplomacy is the effective thing. Now if a man has
tact—if a man will exercise diplomacy—"
For two minutes we had been standing at a tele-
graph wicket, and during all this time the Major had
been trying to get the attention of one of the young
operators, but they were all busy skylarking. The
Major spoke now, and asked one of them to take
his telegram. He got for reply:
"I reckon you can wait a minute, can't you?"
and the skylarking went on.
The Major said yes, he was not in a hurry. Then
he wrote another telegram:
"President Western Union Tel. Co.:
"Come and dine with me this evening. I can tell you how business
is conducted in one of your branches."
Presently the young fellow who had spoken so
pertly a little before reached out and took the tele-
gram, and when he read it he lost color and began
to apologize and explain. He said he would lose
his place if this deadly telegram was sent, and he
might never get another. If he could be let off this
time he would give no cause of complaint again.
The compromise was accepted.
As we walked away, the Major said:
"Now, you see, that was diplomacy—and you
see how it worked. It wouldn't do any good to
bluster, the way people are always doing—that
boy can always give you as good as you send, and
you'll come out defeated and ashamed of yourself
pretty nearly always. But you see he stands no
chance against diplomacy. Gentle words and diplo-
macy—those are the tools to work with."
"Yes, I see; but everybody wouldn't have had
your opportunity. It isn't everybody that is on
those familiar terms with the president of the West-
ern Union."
"Oh, you misunderstand. I don't know the
president—I only use him diplomatically. It is for
his good and for the public good. There's no harm
in it."
I said, with hesitation and diffidence:
"But is it ever right or noble to tell a lie?"
He took no note of the delicate self-righteousness
of the question, but answered, with undisturbed
gravity and simplicity:
"Yes, sometimes. Lies told to injure a person,
and lies told to profit yourself are not justifiable, but
lies told to help another person, and lies told in the
public interest—oh, well, that is quite another
matter. Anybody knows that. But never mind
about the methods: you see the result. That youth
is going to be useful now, and well-behaved. He
had a good face. He was worth saving. Why, he
was worth saving on his mother's account if not his
own. Of course, he has a mother—sisters, too.
Damn these people who are always forgetting that!
Do you know, I've never fought a duel in my life—
never once—and yet have been challenged, like
other people. I could always see the other man's
unoffending women folks or his little children stand-
ing between him and me. They hadn't done any-
thing—I couldn't break their hearts, you know."
He corrected a good many little abuses in the
course of the day, and always without friction—
always with a fine and dainty "diplomacy" which
left no sting behind; and he got such happiness and
such contentment out of these performances that I
was obliged to envy him his trade—and perhaps
would have adopted it if I could have managed the
necessary deflections from fact as confidently with
my mouth as I believe I could with a pen, behind
the shelter of print, after a little practice.
Away late that night we were coming up-town in
a horse-car when three boisterous roughs got aboard,
and began to fling hilarious obscenities and pro-
fanities right and left among the timid passengers,
some of whom were women and children. Nobody
resisted or retorted; the conductor tried soothing
words and moral suasion, but the roughs only called
him names and laughed at him. Very soon I saw
that the Major realized that this was a matter which
was in his line; evidently he was turning over his
stock of diplomacy in his mind and getting ready.
I felt that the first diplomatic remark he made in
this place would bring down a land-slide of ridicule
upon him and maybe something worse; but before
I could whisper to him and check him he had begun,
and it was too late. He said, in a level and dispas-
sionate tone:
"Conductor, you must put these swine out. I
will help you."
I was not looking for that. In a flash the three
roughs plunged at him. But none of them arrived.
He delivered three such blows as one could not ex-
pect to encounter outside the prize-ring, and neither
of the men had life enough left in him to get up from
where he fell. The Major dragged them out and
threw them off the car, and we got under way again.
I was astonished; astonished to see a lamb act
so; astonished at the strength displayed, and the
clean and comprehensive result; astonished at the
brisk and business-like style of the whole thing.
The situation had a humorous side to it, considering
how much I had been hearing about mild persuasion
and gentle diplomacy all day from this pile-driver,
and I would have liked to call his attention to that
feature and do some sarcasms about it; but when I
looked at him I saw that it would be of no use—his
placid and contented face had no ray of humor in
it; he would not have understood. When we left
the car, I said:
"That was a good stroke of diplomacy—three
good strokes of diplomacy, in fact."
"That? That wasn't diplomacy. You are quite
in the wrong. Diplomacy is a wholly different thing.
One cannot apply it to that sort, they would not
understand it. No, that was not diplomacy; it was
force."
"Now that you mention it, I—yes, I think per-
haps you are right."
"Right? Of course I am right. It was just
force."
"I think, myself, it had the outside aspect of it.
Do you often have to reform people in that way?"
"Far from it. It hardly ever happens. Not
oftener than once in half a year, at the outside."
"Those men will get well?"
"Get well? Why, certainly they will. They are
not in any danger. I know how to hit and where to
hit. You noticed that I did not hit them under the
jaw. That would have killed them."
I believed that. I remarked—rather wittily, as I
thought—that he had been a lamb all day, but now
had all of a sudden developed into a ram—batter-
ing ram; but with dulcet frankness and simplicity
he said no, a battering-ram was quite a different
thing and not in use now. This was maddening,
and I came near bursting out and saying he had no
more appreciation of wit than a jackass—in fact, I
had it right on my tongue, but did not say it, know-
ing there was no hurry and I could say it just as
well some other time over the telephone.
We started to Boston the next afternoon. The
smoking-compartment in the parlor-car was full, and
we went into the regular smoker. Across the aisle
in the front seat sat a meek, farmer-looking old man
with a sickly pallor in his face, and he was holding
the door open with his foot to get the air. Presently
a big brakeman came rushing through, and when
he got to the door he stopped, gave the farmer an
ugly scowl, then wrenched the door to with such
energy as to almost snatch the old man's boot off.
Then on he plunged about his business. Several
passengers laughed, and the old gentleman looked
pathetically shamed and grieved.
After a little the conductor passed along, and the
Major stopped him and asked him a question in his
habitually courteous way:
"Conductor, where does one report the mis-
conduct of a brakeman? Does one report to you?"
"You can report him at New Haven if you want
to. What has he been doing?"
The Major told the story. The conductor seemed
amused. He said, with just a touch of sarcasm in
his bland tones:
"As I understand you, the brakeman didn't say
anything."
"No, he didn't say anything."
"But he scowled, you say."
"Yes."
"And snatched the door loose in a rough way."
"Yes."
"That's the whole business, is it?"
"Yes, that is the whole of it."
The conductor smiled pleasantly, and said:
"Well, if you want to report him, all right, but I
don't quite make out what it's going to amount to.
You'll say—as I understand you—that the brake-
man insulted this old gentleman. They'll ask you
what he said. You'll say he didn't say anything at
all. I reckon they'll say, how are you going to
make out an insult when you acknowledge yourself
that he didn't say a word."
There was a murmur of applause at the con-
ductor's compact reasoning, and it gave him pleas-
ure—you could see it in his face But the Major
was not disturbed. He said:
"There—now you have touched upon a crying
defect in the complaint-system. The railway offi-
cials—as the public think and as you also seem to
think—are not aware that there are any kind of
insults except spoken ones. So nobody goes to
headquarters and reports insults of manner, insults
of gesture, look, and so forth; and yet these are
sometimes harder to bear than any words. They
are bitter hard to bear because there is nothing
tangible to take hold of; and the insulter can always
say, if called before the railway officials, that he
never dreamed of intending any offence. It seems
to me that the officials ought to specially and
urgently request the public to report unworded
affronts and incivilities."
The conductor laughed, and said:
"Well, that would be trimming it pretty fine,
sure!"
"But not too fine, I think. I will report this
matter at New Haven, and I have an idea that I'll
be thanked for it."
The conductor's face lost something of its com-
placency; in fact, it settled to a quite sober cast as
the owner of it moved away. I said:
"You are not really going to bother with that
trifle, are you?"
"It isn't a trifle. Such things ought always to
be reported. It is a public duty, and no citizen has
a right to shirk it. But I sha'n't have to report this
case."
"Why?"
"It won't be necessary. Diplomacy will do the
business. You'll see."
Presently the conductor came on his rounds again,
and when he reached the Major he leaned over and
said:
"That's all right. You needn't report him. He's
responsible to me, and if he does it again I'll give
him a talking to."
The Major's response was cordial:
"Now that is what I like! You mustn't think
that I was moved by any vengeful spirit, for that
wasn't the case. It was duty—just a sense of
duty, that was all. My brother-in-law is one of
the directors of the road, and when he learns that
you are going to reason with your brakeman the
very next time he brutally insults an unoffending
old man it will please him, you may be sure of
that."
The conductor did not look as joyous as one might
have thought he would, but on the contrary looked
sickly and uncomfortable. He stood around a little;
then said:
"I think something ought to be done to him
now. I'll discharge him."
"Discharge him? What good would that do?
Don't you think it would be better wisdom to teach
him better ways and keep him?"
"Well, there's something in that. What would
you suggest?"
"He insulted the old gentleman in presence of all
these people. How would it do to have him come
and apologize in their presence?"
"I'll have him here right off. And I want to say
this: If people would do as you've done, and re-
port such things to me instead of keeping mum and
going off and blackguarding the road, you'd see a
different state of things pretty soon. I'm much
obliged to you."
The brakeman came and apologized. After he
was gone the Major said:
"Now, you see how simple and easy that was.
The ordinary citizen would have accomplished noth-
ing—the brother-in-law of a director can accomplish
anything he wants to."
"But are you really the brother-in-law of a
director?"
"Always. Always when the public interests re-
quire it. I have a brother-in-law on all the boards
—everywhere. It saves me a world of trouble."
"It is a good wide relationship."
"Yes. I have over three hundred of them."
"Is the relationship never doubted by a con-
ductor?"
"I have never met with a case. It is the honest
truth—I never have."
"Why didn't you let him go ahead and discharge
the brakeman, in spite of your favorite policy? You
know he deserved it."
The Major answered with something which really
had a sort of distant resemblance to impatience:
"If you would stop and think a moment you
wouldn't ask such a question as that. Is a brake-
man a dog, that nothing but dog's methods will do
for him? He is a man, and has a man's fight for
life. And he always has a sister, or a mother, or
wife and children to support. Always—there are
no exceptions. When you take his living away from
him you take theirs away too—and what have they
done to you? Nothing. And where is the profit in
discharging an uncourteous brakeman and hiring
another just like him? It's unwisdom. Don't you
see that the rational thing to do is to reform the
brakeman and keep him? Of course it is."
Then he quoted with admiration the conduct of a
certain division superintendent of the Consolidated
road, in a case where a switchman of two years'
experience was negligent once and threw a train off
the track and killed several people. Citizens came
in a passion to urge the man's dismissal, but the
superintendent said:
"No, you are wrong. He has learned his lesson,
he will throw no more trains off the track. He is
twice as valuable as he was before. I shall keep
him."
We had only one more adventure on the trip. Be-
tween Hartford and Springfield the train-boy came
shouting in with an armful of literature and dropped
a sample into a slumbering gentleman's lap, and the
man woke up with a start. He was very angry, and
he and a couple of friends discussed the outrage
with much heat. They sent for the parlor-car con-
ductor and described the matter, and were deter-
mined to have the boy expelled from his situation.
The three complainants were wealthy Holyoke mer-
chants, and it was evident that the conductor stood
in some awe of them. He tried to pacify them,
and explained that the boy was not under his
authority, but under that of one of the news com-
panies; but he accomplished nothing.
Then the Major volunteered some testimony for
the defence. He said:
"I saw it all. You gentlemen have not meant to
exaggerate the circumstances, but still that is what
you have done. The boy has done nothing more
than all train-boys do. If you want to get his ways
softened down and his manners reformed, I am with
you and ready to help, but it isn't fair to get him
discharged without giving him a chance."
But they were angry, and would hear of no com-
promise. They were well acquainted with the presi-
dent of the Boston & Albany, they said, and would
put everything aside next day and go up to Boston
and fix that boy.
The Major said he would be on hand too, and
would do what he could to save the boy. One of
the gentlemen looked him over, and said:
"Apparently it is going to be a matter of who
can wield the most influence with the president. Do
you know Mr. Bliss personally?"
The Major said, with composure:
"Yes; he is my uncle."
The effect was satisfactory. There was an awk-
ward silence for a minute or more; then the
hedging and the half-confessions of over-haste and
exaggerated resentment began, and soon everything
was smooth and friendly and sociable, and it was
resolved to drop the matter and leave the boy's
bread-and-butter unmolested.
It turned out as I had expected: the president of
the road was not the Major's uncle at all—except
by adoption, and for this day and train only.
We got into no episodes on the return journey.
Probably it was because we took a night train and
slept all the way.
We left New York Saturday night by the Pennsyl-
vania road. After breakfast the next morning we
went into the parlor-car, but found it a dull place
and dreary. There were but few people in it and
nothing going on. Then we went into the little
smoking-compartment of the same car and found
three gentlemen in there. Two of them were grum-
bling over one of the rules of the road—a rule
which forbade card-playing on the trains on Sunday.
They had started an innocent game of high-low-jack
and been stopped. The Major was interested. He
said to the third gentleman:
"Did you object to the game?"
"Not at all. I am a Yale professor and a relig-
ious man, but my prejudices are not extensive."
Then the Major said to the others:
"You are at perfect liberty to resume your game,
gentlemen; no one here objects."
One of them declined the risk, but the other one
said he would like to begin again if the Major would
join him. So they spread an overcoat over their
knees and the game proceeded. Pretty soon the
parlor-car conductor arrived, and said brusquely:
"There, there, gentlemen, that won't do. Put
up the cards—it's not allowed."
The Major was shuffling. He continued to shuffle,
and said:
"By whose order is it forbidden?"
"It's my order. I forbid it."
The dealing began. The Major asked:
"Did you invent the idea?"
"What idea?"
"The idea of forbidding card-playing on Sun-
day."
"No—of course not."
"Who did?"
"The company"
"Then it isn't your order, after all, but the com-
pany's. Is that it?"
"Yes. But you don't stop playing; I have to
require you to stop playing immediately."
"Nothing is gained by hurry, and often much is
lost. Who authorized the company to issue such an
order?"
"My dear sir, that is a matter of no consequence
to me, and—"
"But you forget that you are not the only person
concerned. It may be a matter of consequence to
me. It is indeed a matter of very great importance
to me. I cannot violate a legal requirement of my
country without dishonoring myself; I cannot allow
any man or corporation to hamper my liberties with
illegal rules—a thing which railway companies are
always trying to do—without dishonoring my
citizenship. So I come back to that question: By
whose authority has the company issued this order?"
"I don't know. That's their affair."
"Mine, too. I doubt if the company has any
right to issue such a rule. This road runs through
several States. Do you know what State we are in
now, and what its laws are in matters of this
kind?"
"Its laws do not concern me, but the company's
orders do. It is my duty to stop this game, gentle-
men, and it must be stopped."
"Possibly; but still there is no hurry. In hotels
they post certain rules in the rooms, but they always
quote passages from the State laws as authority for
these requirements. I see nothing posted here of
this sort. Please produce your authority and let us
arrive at a decision, for you see yourself that you
are marring the game."
"I have nothing of the kind, but I have my
orders, and that is sufficient. They must be
obeyed."
"Let us not jump to conclusions. It will be
better all around to examine into the matter without
heat or haste, and see just where we stand before
either of us makes a mistake—for the curtailing of
the liberties of a citizen of the United States is a
much more serious matter than you and the railroads
seem to think, and it cannot be done in my person
until the curtailer proves his right to do so.
Now—"
"My dear sir, will you put down those cards?"
"All in good time, perhaps. It depends. You
say this order must be obeyed. Must. It is a
strong word. You see yourself how strong it is.
A wise company would not arm you with so drastic
an order as this, of course, without appointing a
penalty for its infringement. Otherwise it runs the
risk of being a dead letter and a thing to laugh at.
What is the appointed penalty for an infringement
of this law?"
"Penalty? I never heard of any."
"Unquestionably you must be mistaken. Your
company orders you to come here and rudely break
up an innocent amusement, and furnishes you no
way to enforce the order? Don't you see that that
is nonsense? What do you do when people refuse
to obey this order? Do you take the cards away
from them?"
"No."
"Do you put the offender off at the next station?"
"Well, no—of course we couldn't if he had a
ticket."
"Do you have him up before a court?"
The conductor was silent and apparently troubled.
The Major started a new deal, and said:
"You see that you are helpless, and that the
company has placed you in a foolish position. You
are furnished with an arrogant order, and you de-
liver it in a blustering way, and when you come to
look into the matter you find you haven't any way
of enforcing obedience."
The conductor said, with chill dignity:
"Gentlemen, you have heard the order, and my
duty is ended. As to obeying it or not, you will do
as you think fit." And he turned to leave.
"But wait. The matter is not yet finished. I
think you are mistaken about your duty being
ended; but if it really is, I myself have a duty to
perform yet."
"How do you mean?"
"Are you going to report my disobedience at
headquarters in Pittsburg?"
"No. What good would that do?"
"You must report me, or I will report you."
"Report me for what?"
"For disobeying the company's orders in not
stopping this game. As a citizen it is my duty to
help the railway companies keep their servants to
their work."
"Are you in earnest?"
"Yes, I am in earnest. I have nothing against
you as a man, but I have this against you as an
officer—that you have not carried out that order,
and if you do not report me I must report you.
And I will."
The conductor looked puzzled, and was thought-
ful a moment; then he burst out with:
"I seem to be getting myself into a scrape! It's
all a muddle; I can't make head or tail of it; it's
never happened before; they always knocked under
and never said a word, and so I never saw how
ridiculous that stupid order with no penalty is. I
don't want to report anybody, and I don't want to
be reported—why, it might do me no end of harm!
Now do go on with the game—play the whole day
if you want to—and don't let's have any more
trouble about it!"
"No, I only sat down here to establish this
gentleman's rights—he can have his place now.
But before you go won't you tell me what you think
the company made this rule for? Can you imagine
an excuse for it? I mean a rational one—an ex-
cuse that is not on its face silly, and the invention
of an idiot?"
"Why, surely I can. The reason it was made is
plain enough. It is to save the feelings of the other
passengers—the religious ones among them, I
mean. They would not like it, to have the Sabbath
desecrated by card-playing on the train."
"I just thought as much. They are willing to
desecrate it themselves by traveling on Sunday, but
they are not willing that other people—"
"By gracious, you've hit it! I never thought of
that before. The fact is, it is a silly rule when you
come to look into it."
At this point the train-conductor arrived, and was
going to shut down the game in a very high-handed
fashion, but the parlor-car conductor stopped him
and took him aside to explain. Nothing more was
heard of the matter.
I was ill in bed eleven days in Chicago and got no
glimpse of the Fair, for I was obliged to return east
as soon as I was able to travel. The Major secured
and paid for a state-room in a sleeper the day before
we left, so that I could have plenty of room and be
comfortable; but when we arrived at the station a
mistake had been made and our car had not been
put on. The conductor had reserved a section for
us—it was the best he could do, he said. But the
Major said we were not in a hurry, and would wait
for the car to be put on. The conductor responded,
with pleasant irony:
"It may be that you are not in a hurry, just as
you say, but we are. Come, get aboard, gentle-
men, get aboard—don't keep us waiting."
But the Major would not get aboard himself nor
allow me to do it. He wanted his car, and said he
must have it. This made the hurried and perspiring
conductor impatient, and he said:
"It's the best we can do—we can't do impossi-
bilities. You will take the section or go without.
A mistake has been made and can't be rectified at
this late hour. It's a thing that happens now and
then, and there is nothing for it but to put up with
it and make the best of it. Other people do."
"Ah, that is just it, you see. If they had stuck
to their rights and enforced them you wouldn't be
trying to trample mine under foot in this bland way
now. I haven't any disposition to give you un-
necessary trouble, but it is my duty to protect the
next man from this kind of imposition. So I must
have my car. Otherwise I will wait in Chicago and
sue the company for violating its contract."
"Sue the company?—for a thing like that!"
"Certainly."
"Do you really mean that?"
"Indeed, I do."
The conductor looked the Major over wonder-
ingly, and then said:
"It beats me—it's bran-new—I've never struck
the mate to it before. But I swear I think you'd
do it. Look here, I'll send for the station-master."
When the station-master came he was a good deal
annoyed—at the Major, not at the person who had
made the mistake. He was rather brusque, and
took the same position which the conductor had
taken in the beginning; but he failed to move the
soft-spoken artilleryman, who still insisted that he
must have his car. However, it was plain that there
was only one strong side in this case, and that that
side was the Major's. The station-master banished
his annoyed manner, and became pleasant and even
half-apologetic. This made a good opening for a
compromise, and the Major made a concession. He
said he would give up the engaged state-room, but
he must have a state-room. After a deal of
ransacking, one was found whose owner was per-
suadable; he exchanged it for our section, and we
got away at last. The conductor called on us in the
evening, and was kind and courteous and obliging,
and we had a long talk and got to be good friends.
He said he wished the public would make trouble
oftener—it would have a good effect. He said
that the railroads could not be expected to do their
whole duty by the traveler unless the traveler would
take some interest in the matter himself.
I hoped that we were done reforming for the trip
now, but it was not so. In the hotel-car, in the
morning, the Major called for broiled chicken. The
waiter said:
"It's not in the bill of fare, sir; we do not serve
anything but what is in the bill."
"That gentleman yonder is eating a broiled
chicken."
"Yes, but that is different. He is one of the
superintendents of the road."
"Then all the more must I have broiled chicken.
I do not like these discriminations. Please hurry—
bring me a broiled chicken."
The waiter brought the steward, who explained
in a low and polite voice that the thing was impos-
sible—it was against the rule, and the rule was rigid.
"Very well, then, you must either apply it im-
partially or break it impartially. You must take
that gentleman's chicken away from him or bring
me one."
The steward was puzzled, and did not quite know
what to do. He began an incoherent argument,
but the conductor came along just then, and asked
what the difficulty was. The steward explained that
here was a gentleman who was insisting on having a
chicken when it was dead against the rule and not in
the bill. The conductor said:
"Stick by your rules—you haven't any option.
Wait a moment—is this the gentleman?" Then he
laughed and said: "Never mind your rules—it's
my advice, and sound; give him anything he wants
—don't get him started on his rights. Give him
whatever he asks for; and if you haven't got it,
stop the train and get it."
The Major ate the chicken, but said he did it from
a sense of duty and to establish a principle, for he
did not like chicken.
I missed the Fair, it is true, but I picked up
some diplomatic tricks which I and the reader may
find handy and useful as we go along.
PRIVATE HISTORY OF THE "JUMPING
FROG" STORY
Five or six years ago a lady from Finland asked
me to tell her a story in our negro dialect, so
that she could get an idea of what that variety of
speech was like. I told her one of Hopkinson
Smith's negro stories, and gave her a copy of
Harper's Monthly containing it. She translated it
for a Swedish newspaper, but by an oversight
named me as the author of it instead of Smith. I
was very sorry for that, because I got a good lashing
in the Swedish press, which would have fallen to his
share but for that mistake; for it was shown that
Boccaccio had told that very story, in his curt and
meagre fashion, five hundred years before Smith
took hold of it and made a good and tellable thing
out of it.
I have always been sorry for Smith. But my own
turn has come now. A few weeks ago Professor
Van Dyke, of Princeton, asked this question:
"Do you know how old your Jumping Frog story
is?"
And I answered:
"Yes—forty-five years. The thing happened in
Calaveras County in the spring of 1849."
"No; it happened earlier—a couple of thousand
years earlier; it is a Greek story."
I was astonished—and hurt. I said:
"I am willing to be a literary thief if it has been
so ordained; I am even willing to be caught robbing
the ancient dead alongside of Hopkinson Smith, for
he is my friend and a good fellow, and I think would
be as honest as any one if he could do it without
occasioning remark; but I am not willing to ante-
date his crimes by fifteen hundred years. I must
ask you to knock off part of that."
But the professor was not chaffing; he was in
earnest, and could not abate a century. He named
the Greek author, and offered to get the book and
send it to me and the college text-book containing
the English translation also. I thought I would like
the translation best, because Greek makes me tired.
January 30th he sent me the English version, and I
will presently insert it in this article. It is my
Jumping Frog tale in every essential. It is not
strung out as I have strung it out, but it is all
there.
To me this is very curious and interesting.
Curious for several reasons. For instance:
I heard the story told by a man who was not tell-
ing it to his hearers as a thing new to them, but as
a thing which they had witnessed and would re-
member. He was a dull person, and ignorant; he
had no gift as a story-teller, and no invention; in
his mouth this episode was merely history—history
and statistics; and the gravest sort of history, too;
he was entirely serious, for he was dealing with what
to him were austere facts, and they interested him
solely because they were facts; he was drawing on
his memory, not his mind; he saw no humor in his
tale, neither did his listeners; neither he nor they
ever smiled or laughed; in my time I have not
attended a more solemn conference. To him and
to his fellow gold-miners there were just two things
in the story that were worth considering. One was
the smartness of the stranger in taking in its hero,
Jim Smiley, with a loaded frog; and the other was the
stranger's deep knowledge of a frog's nature—for
he knew (as the narrator asserted and the listeners
conceded) that a frog likes shot and is always ready
to eat it. Those men discussed those two points,
and those only. They were hearty in their admira-
tion of them, and none of the party was aware that
a first-rate story had been told in a first-rate way,
and that it was brimful of a quality whose presence
they never suspected—humor.
Now, then, the interesting question is, did the
frog episode happen in Angel's Camp in the spring
of '49, as told in my hearing that day in the fall of
1865? I am perfectly sure that it did. I am also
sure that its duplicate happened in Bœotia a couple
of thousand years ago. I think it must be a case of
history actually repeating itself, and not a case of a
good story floating down the ages and surviving be-
cause too good to be allowed to perish.
I would now like to have the reader examine the
Greek story and the story told by the dull and
solemn Californian, and observe how exactly alike
they are in essentials.
Sidgwick, Greek Prose Composition, page 116.
An Athenian once fell in with a Bœotian who was sitting by the road-side looking at a frog. Seeing the other approach, the Bœotian said his
was a remarkable frog, and asked if he would agree to start a contest of
frogs, on condition that he whose frog jumped farthest should receive a
large sum of money. The Athenian replied that he would if the other
would fetch him a frog, for the lake was near. To this he agreed, and
when he was gone the Athenian took the frog, and, opening its mouth,
poured some stones into its stomach, so that it did not indeed seem
larger than before, but could not jump. The Bœotian soon returned
with the other frog, and the contest began. The second frog first was
pinched, and jumped moderately; then they pinched the Bœotian frog.
And he gathered himself for a leap, and used the utmost effort, but
he could not move his body the least. So the Athenian departed with
the money. When he was gone the Bœotian, wondering what was the
matter with the frog, lifted him up and examined him. And being
turned upside down, he opened his mouth and vomited out the stones.
And here is the way it happened in California:
from "the celebrated jumping frog of calaveras
county."
Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-
cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't
fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a
frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him;
and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard
and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too.
He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see
that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summer-
set, or maybe a couple if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed
and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching
flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time
as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was educa-
tion, and he could do 'most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've
seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster
was the name of the frog—and sing out "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and
quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n
the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of
mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as
indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog
might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he
was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square
jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle
than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level
was his strong suit, you understand; and when it came to that, Smiley
would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was
monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had
traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever
they see. Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to
fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller
—a stranger in the camp, he was—come acrost him with his box,
and says: "What might it be that you've got in the box?" And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, or it
might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't—it's only just a frog." And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this
way and that, and says, "H'm—so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?" "Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one
thing, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County." The feller took the box again and took another long, particular look,
and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well," he says,
"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other
frog." "Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs
and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience,
and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got
my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in
Calaveras County." And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like,
"Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog, but if I had
a frog I'd bet you." And then Smiley says: "That's all right—that's all right—if you'll
hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller
took the box and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's and set
down to wait. So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and
then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon
and filled him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin
—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped
around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog and
fetched him in and give him to this feller, and says: "Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws
just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One
—two—three—git!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs
from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively; but Dan'l give a
heave, and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it
warn't no use—he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church,
and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was
a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted, too, but he didn't have no
idea what the matter was, of course. The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going
out at the door he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—so—at
Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate: "Well," he says, "I don't see
no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a
long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that
frog throw'd off for—I wonder if there ain't something the matter with
him—he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched
Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, "Why, blame
my cats if he don't weigh five pound!" and turned him upside down,
and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it
was, and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out
after that feller, but he never ketched him.
The resemblances are deliciously exact. There
you have the wily Bœotian and the wily Jim Smiley
waiting—two thousand years apart—and waiting,
each equipped with his frog and "laying" for the
stranger. A contest is proposed—for money. The
Athenian would take a chance "if the other would
fetch him a frog"; the Yankee says: "I'm only a
stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had
a frog I'd bet you." The wily Bœotian and the
wily Californian, with that vast gulf of two thousand
years between, retire eagerly and go frogging in the
marsh; the Athenian and the Yankee remain behind
and work a base advantage, the one with pebbles,
the other with shot. Presently the contest began.
In the one case "they pinched the Bœotian frog";
in the other, "him and the feller touched up the
frogs from behind." The Bœotian frog "gathered
himself for a leap" (you can just see him!), "but
could not move his body in the least": the Cali-
fornian frog "give a heave, but it warn't no use—
he couldn't budge." In both the ancient and the
modern cases the strangers departed with the money.
The Bœotian and the Californian wonder what is the
matter with their frogs; they lift them and examine;
they turn them upside down and out spills the in-
forming ballast.
Yes, the resemblances are curiously exact. I
used to tell the story of the Jumping Frog in San
Francisco, and presently Artemus Ward came along
and wanted it to help fill out a little book which he
was about to publish; so I wrote it out and sent it
to his publisher, Carleton; but Carleton thought the
book had enough matter in it, so he gave the story
to Henry Clapp as a present, and Clapp put it in
his Saturday Press, and it killed that paper with a
suddenness that was beyond praise. At least the
paper died with that issue, and none but envious
people have ever tried to rob me of the honor and
credit of killing it. The "Jumping Frog" was the
first piece of writing of mine that spread itself
through the newspapers and brought me into public
notice. Consequently, the Saturday Press was a
cocoon and I the worm in it; also, I was the gay-
colored literary moth which its death set free. This
simile has been used before.
Early in '66 the "Jumping Frog" was issued in
book form, with other sketches of mine. A year or
two later Madame Blanc translated it into French
and published it in the Revue des Deux Mondes,
but the result was not what should have been ex-
pected, for the Revue struggled along and pulled
through, and is alive yet. I think the fault must
have been in the translation. I ought to have trans-
lated it myself. I think so because I examined into
the matter and finally retranslated the sketch from
the French back into English, to see what the
trouble was; that is, to see just what sort of a focus
the French people got upon it. Then the mystery
was explained. In French the story is too confused,
and chaotic, and unreposeful, and ungrammatical,
and insane; consequently it could only cause grief
and sickness—it could not kill. A glance at my
re-translation will show the reader that this must be
true.[My Re-translation.]the frog jumping of the county of calaveras.Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers à rats, and some cocks
of combat, and some cats, and all sort of things; and with his rage of
betting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and
him imported with him (et l'emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended
to make his education. You me believe if you will, but during three
months he not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump
(apprendre à sauter) in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison).
And I you respond that he have succeeded. He him gives a small
blow by behind, and the instant after you shall see the frog turn in the
air like a grease-biscuit, make one summersault, sometimes two, when
she was well started, and re-fall upon his feet like a cat. He him had
accomplished in the art of to gobble the flies (gober des mouches), and
him there exercised continually—so well that a fly at the most far that she
appeared was a fly lost. Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked
to a frog it was the education, but with the education she could do nearly
all—and I him believe. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster
there upon this plank—Daniel Webster was the name of the frog—and
to him sing, "Some flies, Daniel, some flies!"—in a flash of the eye
Daniel had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped
anew at the earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with
his behind-foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority.
Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was.
And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain
earth, she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species
than you can know.To jump plain—this was his strong. When he himself agitated for
that Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to him remained
a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of his frog, and
he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had all seen,
said that they to him would be injurious to him compare to another frog.
Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried bytimes
to the village for some bet.
One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box
and him said:"What is this that you have then shut up there within?"Smiley said, with an air indifferent:"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no is
nothing of such, it not is but a frog."The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one side
and from the other, then he said:"Tiens! in effect!—At what is she good?""My God!" respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, "she is
good for one thing, to my notice (à mon avis), she can batter in jump-
ing (elle peut batter en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras."The individual re-took the box, it examined of new longly, and it
rendered to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate:"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each
frog." (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucune
grenouille.) [If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself
no judge.—M. T.]"Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley, "possible that you
—you comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend
nothing; possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you
not be but an amateur. Of all manner (De toute manière) I bet forty
dollars that she batter in jumping no matter which frog of the county of
Calaveras."The individual reflected a second, and said like sad:"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it
had one, I would embrace the bet.""Strong, well!" respond Smiley; "nothing of more facility. If
you will hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j'irai vous
chercher)."Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his forty
dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). He
attended enough longtimes, reflecting all solely. And figure you that
he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon
him fills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he
him puts by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a
swamp. Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that indi-
vidual, and said:"Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel, with their before-
feet upon the same line, and I give the signal"—then he added:
"One, two, three—advance!"Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog
new put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted
the shoulders thus, like a Frenchman—to what good? he could not
budge, he is planted solid like a church, he not advance no more than if
one him had put at the anchor.Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he not himself doubted not
of the turn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour bien
entendu). The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went,
and of it himself in going is that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over
the shoulder—like that—at the poor Daniel, in saying with his air
deliberate—(L'individu empoche l'argent s'en va et en s'en allant est
ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup de pouce par-dessus l'èpaule, comme, ça,
au pauvre Daniel, en disant de son air délibéré.)"Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than
another."Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon
Daniel, until that which at last he said:"I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused.
Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed."He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:"The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds."He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot
(et le malheureux, etc.).—When Smiley recognized how it was, he
was like mad. He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that
individual, but he not him caught never.
It may be that there are people who can translate
better than I can, but I am not acquainted with them.
So ends the private and public history of the
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, an incident
which has this unique feature about it—that it is
both old and new, a "chestnut" and not a "chest-
nut"; for it was original when it happened two
thousand years ago, and was again original when it
happened in California in our own time.
MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN
I have three or four curious incidents to tell
about. They seem to come under the head of
what I named "Mental Telegraphy" in a paper
written seventeen years ago, and published long
afterwards.*
The paper entitled "Mental Telegraphy," which originally appeared
in Harper's Magazine for December, 1893, is included in the volume
entitled The American Claimant and Other Stories and Sketches.
Several years ago I made a campaign on the plat-
form with Mr. George W. Cable. In Montreal we
were honored with a reception. It began at two in
the afternoon in a long drawing-room in the Wind-
sor Hotel. Mr. Cable and I stood at one end of this
room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it at the
other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the
long left-hand side, shook hands with us, said a
word or two, and passed on, in the usual way. My
sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently recog-
nized a familiar face among the throng of strangers
drifting in at the distant door, and I said to myself,
with surprise and high gratification, "That is Mrs.
R.; I had forgotten that she was a Canadian." She
had been a great friend of mine in Carson City,
Nevada, in the early days. I had not seen her or
heard of her for twenty years; I had not been
thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest
her to me, nothing to bring her to my mind; in
fact, to me she had long ago ceased to exist, and
had disappeared from my consciousness. But I
knew her instantly; and I saw her so clearly that I
was able to note some of the particulars of her dress,
and did note them, and they remained in my mind.
I was impatient for her to come. In the midst of
the hand-shakings I snatched glimpses of her and
noted her progress with the slow-moving file across
the end of the room; then I saw her start up the
side, and this gave me a full front view of her face.
I saw her last when she was within twenty-five feet
of me. For an hour I kept thinking she must still
be in the room somewhere and would come at last,
but I was disappointed.
When I arrived in the lecture-hall that evening
some one said: "Come into the waiting-room;
there's a friend of yours there who wants to see
you. You'll not be introduced—you are to do the
recognizing without help if you can."
I said to myself: "It is Mrs. R.; I shan't have
any trouble."
There were perhaps ten ladies present, all seated.
In the midst of them was Mrs. R., as I had ex-
pected. She was dressed exactly as she was when I
had seen her in the afternoon. I went forward and
shook hands with her and called her by name, and
said:
"I knew you the moment you appeared at the
reception this afternoon."
She looked surprised, and said: "But I was not
at the reception. I have just arrived from Quebec,
and have not been in town an hour."
It was my turn to be surprised now. I said: "I
can't help it. I give you my word of honor that it
is as I say. I saw you at the reception, and you
were dressed precisely as you are now. When they
told me a moment ago that I should find a friend in
this room, your image rose before me, dress and
all, just as I had seen you at the reception."
Those are the facts. She was not at the reception
at all, or anywhere near it; but I saw her there never-
theless, and most clearly and unmistakably. To that
I could make oath. How is one to explain this? I
was not thinking of her at the time; had not thought
of her for years. But she had been thinking of me,
no doubt; did her thoughts flit through leagues of
air to me, and bring with it that clear and pleasant
vision of herself? I think so. That was and remains
my sole experience in the matter of apparitions—I
mean apparitions that come when one is (ostensibly)
awake. I could have been asleep for a moment;
the apparition could have been the creature of a
dream. Still, that is nothing to the point; the
feature of interest is the happening of the thing just
at that time, instead of at an earlier or later time,
which is argument that its origin lay in thought-
transference.
My next incident will be set aside by most persons
as being merely a "coincidence," I suppose. Years
ago I used to think sometimes of making a lecturing
trip through the antipodes and the borders of the
Orient, but always gave up the idea, partly because
of the great length of the journey and partly because
my wife could not well manage to go with me.
Towards the end of last January that idea, after an
interval of years, came suddenly into my head again
—forcefully, too, and without any apparent reason.
Whence came it? What suggested it? I will touch
upon that presently.
I was at that time where I am now—in Paris. I
wrote at once to Henry M. Stanley (London), and
asked him some questions about his Australian lec-
ture tour, and inquired who had conducted him and
what were the terms. After a day or two his answer
came. It began:
"The lecture agent for Australia and New Zealand is par excellence
Mr. R. S. Smythe, of Melbourne."
He added his itinerary, terms, sea expenses, and
some other matters, and advised me to write Mr.
Smythe, which I did—February 3d. I began my
letter by saying in substance that while he did not
know me personally we had a mutual friend in
Stanley, and that would answer for an introduction.
Then I proposed my trip, and asked if he would give
me the same terms which he had given Stanley.
I mailed my letter to Mr. Smythe February 6th,
and three days later I got a letter from the selfsame
Smythe, dated Melbourne, December 17th. I would
as soon have expected to get a letter from the late
George Washington. The letter began somewhat
as mine to him had begun—with a self-introduction:
"Dear Mr. Clemens,—It is so long since Archibald Forbes and
I spent that pleasant afternoon in your comfortable house at Hartford
that you have probably quite forgotten the occasion."
In the course of his letter this occurs:
"I am willing to give you" [here he named the terms which he had
given Stanley] "for an antipodean tour to last, say, three months."
Here was the single essential detail of my letter
answered three days after I had mailed my inquiry.
I might have saved myself the trouble and the postage
—and a few years ago I would have done that very
thing, for I would have argued that my sudden and
strong impulse to write and ask some questions of a
stranger on the under side of the globe meant that
the impulse came from that stranger, and that he
would answer my questions of his own motion if I
would let him alone.
Mr. Smythe's letter probably passed under my
nose on its way to lose three weeks traveling to
America and back, and gave me a whiff of its con-
tents as it went along. Letters often act like that.
Instead of the thought coming to you in an instant
from Australia, the (apparently) unsentient letter
imparts it to you as it glides invisibly past your
elbow in the mail-bag.
Next incident. In the following month—March
—I was in America. I spent a Sunday at Irvington-
on-the-Hudson with Mr. John Brisben Walker, of
the Cosmopolitan magazine. We came into New
York next morning, and went to the Century Club
for luncheon. He said some praiseful things about
the character of the club and the orderly serenity and
pleasantness of its quarters, and asked if I had never
tried to acquire membership in it. I said I had not,
and that New York clubs were a continuous expense
to the country members without being of frequent
use or benefit to them.
"And now I've got an idea!" said I. "There's
the Lotos—the first New York club I was ever a
member of—my very earliest love in that line. I
have been a member of it for considerably more
than twenty years, yet have seldom had a chance to
look in and see the boys. They turn gray and grow
old while I am not watching. And my dues go on.
I am going to Hartford this afternoon for a day or
two, but as soon as I get back I will go to John
Elderkin very privately and say: 'Remember the
veteran and confer distinction upon him, for the
sake of old times. Make me an honorary member
and abolish the tax. If you haven't any such thing
as honorary membership, all the better—create it
for my honor and glory.' That would be a great
thing; I will go to John Elderkin as soon as I get
back from Hartford."
I took the last express that afternoon, first tele-
graphing Mr. F. G. Whitmore to come and see me
next day. When he came he asked:
"Did you get a letter from Mr. John Elderkin,
secretary of the Lotos Club, before you left New
York?"
"No."
"Then it just missed you. If I had known you
were coming I would have kept it. It is beautiful,
and will make you proud. The Board of Directors,
by unanimous vote, have made you a life member,
and squelched those dues; and, you are to be on
hand and receive your distinction on the night of
the 30th, which is the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the founding of the club, and it will not surprise me
if they have some great times there."
What put the honorary membership in my head
that day in the Century Club? for I had never
thought of it before. I don't know what brought
the thought to me at that particular time instead of
earlier, but I am well satisfied that it originated with
the Board of Directors, and had been on its way to
my brain through the air ever since the moment that
saw their vote recorded.
Another incident. I was in Hartford two or three
days as a guest of the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell. I
have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his chil-
dren for a quarter of a century, and I went out with
him in the trolley-car to visit one of my nieces, who
is at Miss Porter's famous school in Farmington.
The distance is eight or nine miles. On the way,
talking, I illustrated something with an anecdote.
This is the anecdote:
Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived
at Milan on our way to Rome, and stopped at the
Continental. After dinner I went below and took a
seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary
lemon-trees stand in the customary tubs, and said to
myself, "Now this is comfort, comfort and repose,
and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody
in Milan."
Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook
hands, which damaged my theory. He said, in
substance:
"You won't remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I
remember you very well. I was a cadet at West
Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came
there some years ago and talked to us on a Hun-
dredth Night. I am a lieutenant in the regular army
now, and my name is H. I am in Europe, all
alone, for a modest little tour; my regiment is in
Arizona."
We became friendly and sociable, and in the
course of the talk he told me of an adventure which
had befallen him—about to this effect:
"I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel
there, and ten days ago I lost my letter of credit. I
did not know what in the world to do. I was a
stranger; I knew no one in Europe; I hadn't a
penny in my pocket; I couldn't even send a tele-
gram to London to get my lost letter replaced; my
hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it
imminent—so imminent that it could happen at
any moment now. I was so frightened that my wits
seemed to leave me. I tramped and tramped, back
and forth, like a crazy person. If anybody ap-
proached me I hurried away, for no matter what a
person looked like, I took him for the head waiter
with the bill.
"I was at last in such a desperate state that I was
ready to do any wild thing that promised even the
shadow of help, and so this is the insane thing that
I did. I saw a family lunching at a small table on
the veranda, and recognized their nationality—
Americans—father, mother, and several young
daughters—young, tastefully dressed, and pretty
—the rule with our people. I went straight there
in my civilian costume, named my name, said I was
a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and
asked for help.
"What do you suppose the gentleman did? But
you would not guess in twenty years. He took
out a handful of gold coin and told me to help
myself—freely. That is what he did."
The next morning the lieutenant told me his
new letter of credit had arrived in the night, so we
strolled to Cook's to draw money to pay back the
benefactor with. We got it, and then went strolling
through the great arcade. Presently he said, "Yon-
der they are; come and be introduced." I was
introduced to the parents and the young ladies;
then we separated, and I never saw him or them any
m—
"Here we are at Farmington," said Twichell,
interrupting.
We left the trolley-car and tramped through the
mud a hundred yards or so to the school, talking
about the time we and Warner walked out there
years ago, and the pleasant time we had.
We had a visit with my niece in the parlor, then
started for the trolley again. Outside the house we
encountered a double rank of twenty or thirty of
Miss Porter's young ladies arriving from a walk, and
we stood aside, ostensibly to let them have room to
file past, but really to look at them. Presently one
of them stepped out of the rank and said:
"You don't know me, Mr. Twichell, but I know
your daughter, and that gives me the privilege of
shaking hands with you."
Then she put out her hand to me, and said:
"And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr.
Clemens. You don't remember me, but you were
introduced to me in the arcade in Milan two years
and a half ago by Lieutenant H."
What had put that story into my head after all
that stretch of time? Was it just the proximity of
that young girl, or was it merely an odd accident?
WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US
He reports the American joke correctly. In
Boston they ask, How much does he know?
in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadel-
phia, Who were his parents? And when an alien
observer turns his telescope upon us—advertisedly
in our own special interest—a natural apprehension
moves us to ask, What is the diameter of his
reflector?
I take a great interest in M. Bourget's chapters,
for I know by the newspapers that there are several
Americans who are expecting to get a whole educa-
tion out of them; several who foresaw, and also
foretold, that our long night was over, and a light
almost divine about to break upon the land.
timed.""He gives us an object-lesson which should be thoughtfully and
profitably studied."
These well-considered and important verdicts were
of a nature to restore public confidence, which had
been disquieted by questionings as to whether so
young a teacher would be qualified to take so large
a class as 70,000,000, distributed over so extensive
a schoolhouse as America, and pull it through with-
out assistance.
I was even disquieted myself, although I am of a
cold, calm temperament, and not easily disturbed.
I feared for my country. And I was not wholly
tranquilized by the verdicts rendered as above. It
seemed to me that there was still room for doubt.
In fact, in looking the ground over I became more
disturbed than I was before. Many worrying ques-
tions came up in my mind. Two were prominent.
Where had the teacher gotten his equipment? What
was his method?
He had gotten his equipment in France.
Then as to his method! I saw by his own intima-
tions that he was an Observer, and had a System—
that used by naturalists and other scientists. The
naturalist collects many bugs and reptiles and butter-
flies and studies their ways a long time patiently.
By this means he is presently able to group these
creatures into families and subdivisions of families
by nice shadings of differences observable in their
characters. Then he labels all those shaded bugs
and things with nicely descriptive group names, and
is now happy, for his great work is completed, and
as a result he intimately knows every bug and shade
of a bug there, inside and out. It may be true, but
a person who was not a naturalist would feel safer
about it if he had the opinion of the bug. I think
it is a pleasant System, but subject to error.
The Observer of Peoples has to be a Classifier, a
Grouper, a Deducer, a Generalizer, a Psychologizer;
and, first and last, a Thinker. He has to be all
these, and when he is at home, observing his own
folk, he is often able to prove competency. But his-
tory has shown that when he is abroad observing
unfamiliar peoples the chances are heavily against
him. He is then a naturalist observing a bug, with
no more than a naturalist's chance of being able
to tell the bug anything new about itself, and
no more than a naturalist's chance of being able
to teach it any new ways which it will prefer to its
own.
To return to that first question. M. Bourget, as
teacher, would simply be France teaching America.
It seemed to me that the outlook was dark—almost
Egyptian, in fact. What would the new teacher,
representing France, teach us? Railroading? No.
France knows nothing valuable about railroading.
Steamshipping? No. France has no superiorities
over us in that matter. Steamboating? No. French
steamboating is still of Fulton's date—1809. Postal
service? No. France is a back number there.
Telegraphy? No, we taught her that ourselves.
Journalism? No. Magazining? No, that is our
own specialty. Government? No; Liberty, Equal-
ity, Fraternity, Nobility, Democracy, Adultery—
the system is too variegated for our climate.
Religion? No, not variegated enough for our
climate. Morals? No, we cannot rob the poor to
enrich ourselves. Novel-writing? No. M. Bour-
get and the others know only one plan, and when
that is expurgated there is nothing left of the book.
I wish I could think what he is going to teach us.
Can it be Deportment? But he experimented in that
at Newport and failed to give satisfaction, except to
a few. Those few are pleased. They are enjoying
their joy as well as they can. They confess their
happiness to the interviewer. They feel pretty
striped, but they remember with reverent recog-
nition that they had sugar between the cuts. True,
sugar with sand in it, but sugar. And true, they
had some trouble to tell which was sugar and which
was sand, because the sugar itself looked just like the
sand, and also had a gravelly taste; still, they knew
that the sugar was there, and would have been very
good sugar indeed if it had been screened. Yes,
they are pleased; not noisily so, but pleased; in-
vaded, or streaked, as one may say, with little re-
current shivers of joy—subdued joy, so to speak,
not the overdone kind. And they commune to-
gether, these, and massage each other with comfort-
ing sayings, in a sweet spirit of resignation and
thankfulness, mixing these elements in the same
proportions as the sugar and the sand, as a memo-
rial, and saying, the one to the other, and to the
interviewer: "It was severe—yes, it was bitterly
severe; but oh, how true it was; and it will do us
so much good!"
If it isn't Deportment, what is left? It was at
this point that I seemed to get on the right track at
last. M. Bourget would teach us to know ourselves;
that was it: he would reveal us to ourselves. That
would be an education. He would explain us to
ourselves. Then we should understand ourselves;
and after that be able to go on more intelligently.
It seemed a doubtful scheme. He could explain
us to himself—that would be easy. That would
be the same as the naturalist explaining the bug to
himself. But to explain the bug to the bug—that
is quite a different matter. The bug may not know
himself perfectly, but he knows himself better than
the naturalist can know him, at any rate.
A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a
nation, but I think that that is as far as he can get.
I think that no foreigner can report its interior—its
soul, its life, its speech, its thought. I think that a
knowledge of these things is acquirable in only one
way; not two or four or six— absorption; years and
years of unconscious absorption; years and years
of intercourse with the life concerned; of living it,
indeed; sharing personally in its shames and prides,
its joys and griefs, its loves and hates, its pros-
perities and reverses, its shows and shabbinesses,
its deep patriotisms, its whirlwinds of political pas-
sion, its adorations—of flag, and heroic dead, and
the glory of the national name. Observation? Of
what real value is it? One learns peoples through
the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.
There is only one expert who is qualified to ex-
amine the souls and the life of a people and make a
valuable report—the native novelist. This expert is
so rare that the most populous country can never
have fifteen conspicuously and confessedly competent
ones in stock at one time. This native specialist is
not qualified to begin work until he has been absorb-
ing during twenty-five years. How much of his
competency is derived from conscious "observa-
tion"? The amount is so slight that it counts for
next to nothing in the equipment. Almost the
whole capital of the novelist is the slow accumula-
tion of unconscious observation—absorption. The
native expert's intentional observation of manners,
speech, character, and ways of life can have value,
for the native knows what they mean without having
to cipher out the meaning. But I should be aston-
ished to see a foreigner get at the right meanings,
catch the elusive shades of these subtle things.
Even the native novelist becomes a foreigner, with a
foreigner's limitations, when he steps from the State
whose life is familiar to him into a State whose life
he has not lived. Bret Harte got his California and
his Californians by unconscious absorption, and put
both of them into his tales alive. But when he
came from the Pacific to the Atlantic and tried to
do Newport life from study—conscious observa-
tion—his failure was absolutely monumental.
Newport is a disastrous place for the unacclimated
observer, evidently.
To return to novel-building. Does the native
novelist try to generalize the nation? No, he lays
plainly before you the ways and speech and life of a
few people grouped in a certain place—his own
place—and that is one book. In time he and his
brethren will report to you the life and the people
of the whole nation—the life of a group in a New
England village; in a New York village; in a Texan
village; in an Oregon village; in villages in fifty
States and Territories; then the farm-life in fifty
States and Territories; a hundred patches of life
and groups of people in a dozen widely separated
cities. And the Indians will be attended to; and
the cowboys; and the gold and silver miners; and
the negroes; and the Idiots and Congressmen; and
the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Swedes,
the French, the Chinamen, the Greasers; and the
Catholics, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the
Congregationalists, the Baptists, the Spiritualists,
the Mormons, the Shakers, the Quakers, the Jews,
the Campbellites, the infidels, the Christian Scien-
tists, the Mind-Curists, the Faith-Curists, the train-
robbers, the White Caps, the Moonshiners. And
when a thousand able novels have been written,
there you have the soul of the people, the life of
the people, the speech of the people; and not any-
where else can these be had. And the shadings of
character, manners, feelings, ambitions, will be
infinite."The nature of a people is always of a similar shade in its vices and
its virtues, in its frivolities and in its labor. It is this physiognomy
which it is necessary to discover, and every document is good, from the
hall of a casino to the church, from the foibles of a fashionable woman
to the suggestions of a revolutionary leader. I am therefore quite sure
that this American soul, the principal interest and the great object of
my voyage, appears behind the records of Newport for those who choose
to see it."—M. Paul Bourget.
[The italics are mine.] It is a large contract
which he has undertaken. "Records" is a pretty
poor word there, but I think the use of it is due to
hasty translation. In the original the word is fastes.
I think M. Bourget meant to suggest that he ex-
pected to find the great "American soul" secreted
behind the ostentations of Newport; and that he
was going to get it out and examine it, and general-
ize it, and psychologize it, and make it reveal to
him its hidden vast mystery: "the nature of the
people" of the United States of America. We
have been accused of being a nation addicted to
inventing wild schemes. I trust that we shall be
allowed to retire to second place now.
There isn't a single human characteristic that can
be safely labeled "American." There isn't a single
human ambition, or religious trend, or drift of
thought, or peculiarity of education, or code of
principles, or breed of folly, or style of conversa-
tion, or preference for a particular subject for dis-
cussion, or form of legs or trunk or head or face or
expression or complexion, or gait, or dress, or
manners, or disposition, or any other human detail,
inside or outside, that can rationally be generalized
as "American."
Whenever you have found what seems to be an
"American" peculiarity, you have only to cross a
frontier or two, or go down or up in the social scale,
and you perceive that it has disappeared. And you
can cross the Atlantic and find it again. There
may be a Newport religious drift, or sporting drift,
or conversational style or complexion, or cut of
face, but there are entire empires in America, north,
south, east, and west, where you could not find
your duplicates. It is the same with everything
else which one might propose to call "American."
M. Bourget thinks he has found the American
Coquette. If he had really found her he would also
have found, I am sure, that she was not new, that
she exists in other lands in the same forms, and
with the same frivolous heart and the same ways
and impulses. I think this because I have seen our
coquette; I have seen her in life; better still, I have
seen her in our novels, and seen her twin in foreign
novels. I wish M. Bourget had seen ours. He
thought he saw her. And so he applied his System
to her. She was a Species. So he gathered a
number of samples of what seemed to be her, and
put them under his glass, and divided them into
groups which he calls "types," and labeled them in
his usual scientific way with "formulas"—brief
sharp descriptive flashes that make a person blink,
sometimes, they are so sudden and vivid. As a
rule they are pretty far-fetched, but that is not an
important matter; they surprise, they compel ad-
miration, and I notice by some of the comments
which his efforts have called forth that they deceive
the unwary. Here are a few of the coquette variants
which he has grouped and labeled:The Collector.The Equilibree.The Professional Beauty.The Bluffer.The Girl-Boy.
If he had stopped with describing these characters
we should have been obliged to believe that they
exist; that they exist, and that he has seen them and
spoken with them. But he did not stop there; he
went further and furnished to us light-throwing
samples of their behavior, and also light-throwing
samples of their speeches. He entered those things
in his note-book without suspicion, he takes them
out and delivers them to the world with a candor
and simplicity which show that he believed them
genuine. They throw altogether too much light.
They reveal to the native the origin of his find. I
suppose he knows how he came to make that novel
and captivating discovery, by this time. If he
does not, any American can tell him—any Ameri-
can to whom he will show his anecdotes. It was
"put up" on him, as we say. It was a jest—to
be plain, it was a series of frauds. To my mind it
was a poor sort of jest, witless and contemptible.
The players of it have their reward, such as it is;
they have exhibited the fact that whatever they may
be they are not ladies. M. Bourget did not discover
a type of coquette; he merely discovered a type of
practical joker. One may say the type of practical
joker, for these people are exactly alike all over the
world. Their equipment is always the same: a
vulgar mind, a puerile wit, a cruel disposition as a
rule, and always the spirit of treachery.
In his Chapter IV. M. Bourget has two or three
columns gravely devoted to the collating and ex-
amining and psychologizing of these sorry little
frauds. One is not moved to laugh. There is
nothing funny in the situation; it is only pathetic.
The stranger gave those people his confidence, and
they dishonorably treated him in return.
But one must be allowed to suspect that M.
Bourget was a little to blame himself. Even a
practical joker has some little judgment. He has
to exercise some degree of sagacity in selecting his
prey if he would save himself from getting into
trouble. In my time I have seldom seen such daring
things marketed at any price as these conscienceless
folk have worked off at par on this confiding ob-
server. It compels the conviction that there was
something about him that bred in those speculators
a quite unusual sense of safety, and encouraged
them to strain their powers in his behalf. They
seem to have satisfied themselves that all he wanted
was "significant" facts, and that he was not accus-
tomed to examine the source whence they pro-
ceeded. It is plain that there was a sort of con-
spiracy against him almost from the start—a
conspiracy to freight him up with all the strange
extravagances those people's decayed brains could
invent.
The lengths to which they went are next to
incredible. They told him things which surely
would have excited any one else's suspicion, but
they did not excite his. Consider this:
"There is not in all the United States an entirely nude statue."
If an angel should come down and say such a
thing about heaven, a reasonably cautious observer
would take that angel's number and inquire a little
further before he added it to his catch. What does
the present observer do? Adds it. Adds it at once.
Adds it, and labels it with this innocent comment:
"This small fact is strangely significant."
It does seem to me that this kind of observing is
defective.
Here is another curiosity which some liberal
person made him a present of. I should think it
ought to have disturbed the deep slumber of his
suspicion a little, but it didn't. It was a note from
a fog-horn for strenuousness, it seems to me, but
the doomed voyager did not catch it. If he had but
caught it, it would have saved him from several
disasters:
"If the American knows that you are traveling to take notes, he is
interested in it, and at the same time rejoices in it, as in a tribute."
Again, this is defective observation. It is human
to like to be praised; one can even notice it in the
French. But it is not human to like to be ridiculed,
even when it comes in the form of a "tribute." I
think a little psychologizing ought to have come in
there. Something like this: A dog does not like to
be ridiculed, a redskin does not like to be ridiculed,
a negro does not like to be ridiculed, a Chinaman
does not like to be ridiculed; let us deduce from
these significant facts this formula: the American's
grade being higher than these, and the chain of
argument stretching unbroken all the way up to him,
there is room for suspicion that the person who said
the American likes to be ridiculed, and regards it as
a tribute, is not a capable observer.
I feel persuaded that in the matter of psycholo-
gizing, a professional is too apt to yield to the fasci-
nations of the loftier regions of that great art, to the
neglect of its lowlier walks. Every now and then,
at half-hour intervals, M. Bourget collects a hatful
of airy inaccuracies and dissolves them in a panful
of assorted abstractions, and runs the charge into
a mould and turns you out a compact principle
which will explain an American girl, or an Amer-
ican woman, or why new people yearn for old
things, or any other impossible riddle which a per-
son wants answered.
It seems to be conceded that there are a few
human peculiarities that can be generalized and
located here and there in the world and named by
the name of the nation where they are found. I
wonder what they are. Perhaps one of them is
temperament. One speaks of French vivacity and
German gravity and English stubbornness. There
is no American temperament. The nearest that one
can come at it is to say there are two—the com-
posed Northern and the impetuous Southern; and
both are found in other countries. Morals? Purity
of women may fairly be called universal with us,
but that is the case in some other countries. We
have no monopoly of it; it cannot be named Ameri-
can. I think that there is but a single specialty with
us, only one thing that can be called by the wide
name "American." That is the national devotion
to ice-water. All Germans drink beer, but the
British nation drinks beer, too; so neither of those
peoples is the beer-drinking nation. I suppose we
do stand alone in having a drink that nobody likes
but ourselves. When we have been a month in
Europe we lose our craving for it, and we finally
tell the hotel folk that they needn't provide it any
more. Yet we hardly touch our native shore again,
winter or summer, before we are eager for it. The
reasons for this state of things have not been
psychologized yet. I drop the hint and say no
more.
It is my belief that there are some "national"
traits and things scattered about the world that are
mere superstitions, frauds that have lived so long
that they have the solid look of facts. One of them
is the dogma that the French are the only chaste
people in the world. Ever since I arrived in France
this last time I have been accumulating doubts about
that; and before I leave this sunny land again I will
gather in a few random statistics and psychologize
the plausibilities out of it. If people are to come
over to America and find fault with our girls and
our women, and psychologize every little thing they
do, and try to teach them how to behave, and how
to cultivate themselves up to where one cannot tell
them from the French model, I intend to find out
whether those missionaries are qualified or not. A
nation ought always to examine into this detail
before engaging the teacher for good. This last one
has let fall a remark which renewed those doubts of
mine when I read it:
"In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied to arts
and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all the weaknesses of
the French soul."
You see, it amounts to a trade with the French
soul; a profession; a science; the serious business
of life, so to speak, in our high Parisian existence.
I do not quite like the look of it. I question if
it can be taught with profit in our country, ex-
cept, of course, to those pathetic, neglected minds
that are waiting there so yearningly for the educa-
tion which M. Bourget is going to furnish them
from the serene summits of our high Parisian life.
I spoke a moment ago of the existence of some
superstitions that have been parading the world as
facts this long time. For instance, consider the
Dollar. The world seems to think that the love of
money is "American"; and that the mad desire to
get suddenly rich is "American." I believe that
both of these things are merely and broadly human,
not American monopolies at all. The love of money
is natural to all nations, for money is a good and
strong friend. I think that this love has existed
everywhere, ever since the Bible called it the root of
all evil.
I think that the reason why we Americans seem
to be so addicted to trying to get rich suddenly is
merely because the opportunity to make promising
efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with
a frequency out of all proportion to the European
experience. For eighty years this opportunity has
been offering itself in one new town or region after
another straight westward, step by step, all the way
from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. When a
mechanic could buy ten town lots on tolerably long
credit for ten months' savings out of his wages, and
reasonably expect to sell them in a couple of years
for ten times what he gave for them, it was human
for him to try the venture, and he did it no matter
what his nationality was. He would have done it in
Europe or China if he had had the same chance.
In the flush times in the silver regions a cook or
any other humble worker stood a very good chance
to get rich out of a trifle of money risked in a stock
deal; and that person promptly took that risk, no
matter what his or her nationality might be. I was
there, and saw it.
But these opportunities have not been plenty in
our Southern States; so there you have a prodigious
region where the rush for sudden wealth is almost an
unknown thing—and has been, from the beginning.
Europe has offered few opportunities for poor
Tom, Dick, and Harry; but when she has offered
one, there has been no noticeable difference between
European eagerness and American. England saw
this in the wild days of the Railroad King; France
saw it in 1720—time of Law and the Mississippi
Bubble. I am sure I have never seen in the gold
and silver mines any madness, fury, frenzy to get
suddenly rich which was even remotely comparable
to that which raged in France in the Bubble day.
If I had a cyclopædia here I could turn to that
memorable case, and satisfy nearly anybody that the
hunger for the sudden dollar is no more "Ameri-
can" than it is French. And if I could furnish an
American opportunity to staid Germany, I think I
could wake her up like a house afire.
But I must return to the Generalizations, Psychol-
ogizings, Deductions. When M. Bourget is ex-
ploiting these arts, it is then that he is peculiarly and
particularly himself. His ways are wholly original
when he encounters a trait or a custom which is new
to him. Another person would merely examine the
find, verify it, estimate its value, and let it go; but
that is not sufficient for M. Bourget: he always
wants to know why that thing exists, he wants to
know how it came to happen; and he will not let go
of it until he has found out. And in every instance
he will find that reason where no one but himself
would have thought of looking for it. He does not
seem to care for a reason that is not picturesquely
located; one might almost say picturesquely and
impossibly located.
He found out that in America men do not try to
hunt down young married women. At once, as
usual, he wanted to know why. Any one could
have told him. He could have divined it by the
lights thrown by the novels of the country. But
no, he preferred to find out for himself. He has a
trustfulness as regards men and facts which is fine
and unusual; he is not particular about the source
of a fact, he is not particular about the character
and standing of the fact itself; but when it comes to
pounding out the reason for the existence of the
fact, he will trust no one but himself.
In the present instance here was his fact: Ameri-
can young married women are not pursued by the
corruptor; and here was the question: What is it
that protects her?
It seems quite unlikely that that problem could
have offered difficulties to any but a trained philoso-
pher. Nearly any person would have said to M.
Bourget: "Oh, that is very simple. It is very
seldom in America that a marriage is made on a
commercial basis; our marriages, from the begin-
ning, have been made for love; and where love is
there is no room for the corruptor."
Now, it is interesting to see the formidable way
in which M. Bourget went at that poor, humble
little thing. He moved upon it in column—three
columns—and with artillery.
"Two reasons of a very different kind explain"
—that fact.
And now that I have got so far, I am almost afraid
to say what his two reasons are, lest I be charged
with inventing them. But I will not retreat now; I
will condense them and print them, giving my word
that I am honest and not trying to deceive any one.
1. Young married women are protected from the
approaches of the seducer in New England and
vicinity by the diluted remains of a prudence created
by a Puritan law of two hundred years ago, which
for a while punished adultery with death.
2. And young married women of the other forty
or fifty States are protected by laws which afford
extraordinary facilities for divorce.
If I have not lost my mind I have accurately con-
veyed those two Vesuvian irruptions of philosophy.
But the reader can consult Chapter IV. of Outre-
Mer, and decide for himself. Let us examine this
paralyzing Deduction or Explanation by the light
of a few sane facts.
1. This universality of "protection" has existed
in our country from the beginning; before the
death penalty existed in New England, and during
all the generations that have dragged by since it
was annulled.
2. Extraordinary facilities for divorce are of such
recent creation that any middle-aged American can
remember a time when such things had not yet been
thought of.
Let us suppose that the first easy divorce law
went into effect forty years ago, and got noised
around and fairly started in business thirty-five years
ago, when we had, say, 25,000,000 of white popu-
lation. Let us suppose that among 5,000,000 of
them the young married women were "protected"
by the surviving shudder of that ancient Puritan
scare—what is M. Bourget going to do about those
who lived among the 20,000,000? They were clean
in their morals, they were pure, yet there was no
easy divorce law to protect them.
Awhile ago I said that M. Bourget's method of
truth-seeking—hunting for it in out-of-the-way
places—was new; but that was an error. I re-
member that when Leverrier discovered the Milky
Way, he and the other astronomers began to theorize
about it in substantially the same fashion which M.
Bourget employs in his reasonings about American
social facts and their origin. Leverrier advanced
the hypothesis that the Milky Way was caused by
gaseous protoplasmic emanations from the field of
Waterloo, which, ascending to an altitude determin-
able by their own specific gravity, became luminous
through the development and exposure—by the
natural processes of animal decay—of the phos-
phorus contained in them.
This theory was warmly complimented by Ptolemy,
who, however, after much thought and research,
decided that he could not accept it as final. His
own theory was that the Milky Way was an emigra-
tion of lightning bugs; and he supported and rein-
forced this theorem by the well-known fact that the
locusts do like that in Egypt.
Giordano Bruno also was outspoken in his praises
of Leverrier's important contribution to astronomical
science, and was at first inclined to regard it as con-
clusive; but later, conceiving it to be erroneous, he
pronounced against it, and advanced the hypothesis
that the Milky Way was a detachment or corps of
stars which became arrested and held in suspenso
suspensorum by refraction of gravitation while on
the march to join their several constellations; a
proposition for which he was afterwards burned at
the stake in Jacksonville, Illinois.
These were all brilliant and picturesque theories,
and each was received with enthusiasm by the scien-
tific world; but when a New England farmer, who
was not a thinker, but only a plain sort of person
who tried to account for large facts in simple ways,
came out with the opinion that the Milky Way was
just common, ordinary stars, and was put where it
was because God "wanted to hev it so," the ad-
mirable idea fell perfectly flat.
As a literary artist, M. Bourget is as fresh and
striking as he is as a scientific one. He says,
"Above all, I do not believe much in anecdotes."
Why? "In history they are all false"—a suffi-
ciently broad statement—"in literature all libel-
ous"—also a sufficiently sweeping statement,
coming from a critic who notes that we are a
people who are peculiarly extravagant in our lan-
guage—"and when it is a matter of social life,
almost all biased." It seems to amount to stultifi-
cation, almost. He has built two or three breeds
of American coquettes out of anecdotes—mainly
"biased" ones, I suppose; and, as they occur
"in literature," furnished by his pen, they must be
"all libelous." Or did he mean not in literature
or anecdotes about literature or literary people? I
am not able to answer that. Perhaps the original
would be clearer, but I have only the translation of
this installment by me. I think the remark had an
intention; also that this intention was booked for
the trip; but that either in the hurry of the remark's
departure it got left, or in the confusion of changing
cars at the translator's frontier it got side-tracked.
"But on the other hand I believe in statistics;
and those on divorces appear to me to be most con-
clusive." And he sets himself the task of explain-
ing—in a couple of columns—the process by
which Easy-Divorce conceived, invented, originated,
developed, and perfected an empire-embracing con-
dition of sexual purity in the States. In 40 years.
No, he doesn't state the interval. With all his
passion for statistics he forgot to ask how long it
took to produce this gigantic miracle.
I have followed his pleasant but devious trail
through those columns, but I was not able to get
hold of his argument and find out what it was. I
was not even able to find out where it left off. It
seemed to gradually dissolve and flow off into other
matters. I followed it with interest, for I was
anxious to learn how easy-divorce eradicated adul-
tery in America, but I was disappointed; I have no
idea yet how it did it. I only know it didn't. But
that is not valuable; I knew it before.
Well, humor is the great thing, the saving thing,
after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses
yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away,
and a sunny spirit takes their place. And so, when
M. Bourget said that bright thing about our grand-
fathers, I broke all up. I remember exploding
its American countermine once, under that grand
hero, Napoleon. He was only First Consul then,
and I was Consul-General—for the United States,
of course; but we were very intimate, notwithstand-
ing the difference in rank, for I waived that. One
day something offered the opening, and he said:
"Well, General, I suppose life can never get
entirely dull to an American, because whenever he
can't strike up any other way to put in his time he
can always get away with a few years trying to find
out who his grandfather was!"
I fairly shouted, for I had never heard it sound
better; and then I was back at him as quick as a
flash:
"Right, your Excellency! But I reckon a
Frenchman's got his little stand-by for a dull time,
too; because when all other interests fail he can
turn in and see if he can't find out who his father
was!"
Well, you should have heard him just whoop, and
cackle, and carry on! He reached up and hit me
one on the shoulder, and says:
"Land, but it's good! It's im-mensely good!
I'George, I never heard it said so good in my life
before! Say it again."
So I said it again, and he said his again, and I
said mine again, and then he did, and then I did,
and then he did, and we kept on doing it, and doing
it, and I never had such a good time, and he said
the same. In my opinion there isn't anything that
is as killing as one of those dear old ripe pensioners
if you know how to snatch it out in a kind of a
fresh sort of original way.
But I wish M. Bourget had read more of our
novels before he came. It is the only way to
thoroughly understand a people. When I found I
was coming to Paris, 1 read La Terre.
A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET[The preceding squib was assailed in the North American Review in
an article entitled "Mark Twain and Paul Bourget," by Max O'Rell.
The following little note is a Rejoinder to that article. It is possible
that the position assumed here—that M. Bourget dictated the O'Rell
article himself—is untenable.]
You have every right, my dear M. Bourget, to
retort upon me by dictation, if you prefer that
method to writing at me with your pen; but if I
may say it without hurt—and certainly I mean no
offence—I believe you would have acquitted your-
self better with the pen. With the pen you are at
home; it is your natural weapon; you use it with
grace, eloquence, charm, persuasiveness, when men
are to be convinced, and with formidable effect when
they have earned a castigation. But I am sure I see
signs in the above article that you are either unac-
customed to dictating or are out of practice. If you
will re-read it you will notice, yourself, that it lacks
definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks
coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about;
that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around;
that it loses itself early and does not find itself any
more. There are some other defects, as you will
notice, but I think I have named the main ones. I
feel sure that they are all due to your lack of prac-
tice in dictating.
Inasmuch as you had not signed it I had the im-
pression at first that you had not dictated it. But
only for a moment. Certain quite simple and
definite facts reminded me that the article had to
come from you, for the reason that it could not
come from any one else without a specific invitation
from you or from me. I mean, it could not except
as an intrusion, a transgression of the law which
forbids strangers to mix into a private dispute be-
tween friends, unasked.
Those simple and definite facts were these: I had
published an article in this magazine, with you for
my subject; just you yourself; I stuck strictly to
that one subject, and did not interlard any other.
No one, of course, could call me to account but you
alone, or your authorized representative. I asked
some questions—asked them of myself. I an-
swered them myself. My article was thirteen pages
long, and all devoted to you; devoted to you, and
divided up in this way: one page of guesses as to
what subjects you would instruct us in, as teacher;
one page of doubts as to the effectiveness of your
method of examining us and our ways; two or three
pages of criticism of your method, and of certain
results which it furnished you; two or three pages
of attempts to show the justness of these same
criticisms; half a dozen pages made up of slight
fault-findings with certain minor details of your
literary workmanship, of extracts from your Outre-
Mer and comments upon them; then I closed with
an anecdote. I repeat—for certain reasons—that
I closed with an anecdote.
When I was asked by this magazine if I wished to
"answer" a "reply" to that article of mine, I
said "yes," and waited in Paris for the proof-sheets
of the "reply" to come. I already knew, by the
cablegram, that the "reply" would not be signed
by you, but upon reflection I knew it would be dic-
tated by you, because no volunteer would feel him-
self at liberty to assume your championship in a
private dispute, unasked, in view of the fact that
you are quite well able to take care of your matters
of that sort yourself and are not in need of any
one's help. No, a volunteer could not make such a
venture. It would be too immodest. Also too
gratuitously generous. And a shade too self-
sufficient. No, he could not venture it. It would
look too much like anxiety to get in at a feast
where no plate had been provided for him. In fact
he could not get in at all, except by the back way,
and with a false key; that is to say, a pretext—a
pretext invented for the occasion by putting into
my mouth words which I did not use, and by
wresting sayings of mine from their plain and true
meaning. Would he resort to methods like those to
get in? No; there are no people of that kind. So
then I knew for a certainty that you dictated the
Reply yourself. I knew you did it to save yourself
manual labor.
And you had the right, as I have already said;
and I am content—perfectly content. Yet it would
have been little trouble to you, and a great kindness
to me, if you had written your Reply all out with
your own capable hand.
Because then it would have replied—and that is
really what a Reply is for. Broadly speaking, its
function is to refute—as you will easily concede.
That leaves something for the other person to take
hold of: he has a chance to reply to the Reply, he
has a chance to refute the refutation. This would
have happened if you had written it out instead of
dictating. Dictating is nearly sure to unconcentrate
the dictator's mind, when he is out of practice, con-
fuse him, and betray him into using one set of
literary rules when he ought to use a quite different
set. Often it betrays him into employing the Rules
for Conversation between a Shouter and a
Deaf Person—as in the present case—when he
ought to employ the Rules for Conducting Dis-
cussion with a Fault-finder. The great founda-
tion-rule and basic principle of discussion with a
fault-finder is relevancy and concentration upon the
subject; whereas the great foundation-rule and basic
principle governing conversation between a shouter
and a deaf person is irrelevancy and persistent
desertion of the topic in hand. If I may be allowed
to illustrate by quoting example IV., section 7,
from chapter ix. of "Revised Rules for Conducting
Conversation between a Shouter and a Deaf Per-
son," it will assist us in getting a clear idea of the
difference between the two sets of rules:Shouter.
Did you say his name is WETHERBY?
Deaf Person.Change? Yes, I think it will.
Though if it should clear off I—
It's his NAME I want—his NAME.
Deaf Person.Maybe so, maybe so; but it will
only be a shower, I think.
No, no, no!—you have quite mis-
underSTOOD me. If—
Ah! GOOD morning; I am sorry
you must go. But call again, and let me continue
to be of assistance to you in every way I can.
You see it is a perfect kodak of the article you
have dictated. It is really curious and interesting
when you come to compare it with yours; in detail,
with my former article to which it is a Reply in
your hand. I talk twelve pages about your Ameri-
can instruction projects, and your doubtful scientific
system, and your painstaking classification of non-
existent things, and your diligence and zeal and
sincerity, and your disloyal attitude towards anec-
dotes, and your undue reverence for unsafe statistics
and for facts that lack a pedigree; and you turn
around and come back at me with eight pages of
weather.
I do not see how a person can act so. It is good
of you to repeat, with change of language, in the
bulk of your rejoinder, so much of my own article,
and adopt my sentiments, and make them over,
and put new buttons on; and I like the compliment,
and am frank to say so; but agreeing with a person
cripples controversy and ought not to be allowed.
It is weather; and of almost the worst sort. It
pleases me greatly to hear you discourse with such
approval and expansiveness upon my text:
"A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a
nation, but I think that is as far as he can get. I
think that no foreigner can report its interior;"*
And you say: "A man of average intelligence, who has passed six
months among a people, cannot express opinions that are worth jotting
down, but he can form impressions that are worth repeating. For my
part, I think that foreigners' impressions are more interesting than native
opinions. After all, such impressions merely mean 'how the country
struck the foreigner.'"
which is a quite clear way of saying that a foreigner's
report is only valuable when it restricts itself to
impressions. It pleases me to have you follow my
lead in that glowing way, but it leaves me nothing
to combat. You should give me something to deny
and refute; I would do as much for you.
It pleases me to have you playfully warn the
public against taking one of your books seriously.†
When I published Jonathan and his Continent, I wrote in a preface
addressed to Jonathan: "If ever you should insist in seeing in this little
volume a serious study of your country and of your countrymen, I want
you that your world-wide fame for humor will be exploded."
Because I used to do that cunning thing myself in
earlier days. I did it in a prefatory note to a book
of mine called Tom Sawyer.
NOTICE.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be pros-
ecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; per-
sons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By Order of the Author
Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance.
The kernel is the same in both prefaces, you
see—the public must not take us too seriously. If
we remove that kernel we remove the life-principle,
and the preface is a corpse. Yes, it pleases me to
have you use that idea, for it is a high compliment.
But is leaves me nothing to combat; and that is
damage to me.
Am I seeming to say that your Reply is not a
reply at all, M. Bourget? If so, I must modify
that; it is too sweeping. For you have furnished a
general answer to my inquiry as to what France—
through you—can teach us.*
"What could France teach America?" exclaims Mark Twain.
France can teach America all the higher pursuits of life, and there is
more artistic feeling and refinement in a street of French workingmen
than in many avenues inhabited by American millionaires. She can
teach her, not perhaps how to work, but how to rest, how to live, how to
be happy. She can teach her that the aim of life is not money-making,
but that money-making is only a means to obtain an end. She can
teach her that wives are not expensive toys, but useful partners, friends,
and confidants, who should always keep men under their wholesome in-
fluence by their diplomacy, their tact, their common-sense, without
bumptiousness. These qualities, added to the highest standard of
morality (not angular and morose, but cheerful morality), are conceded
to Frenchwomen by whoever knows something of French life outside of
the Paris boulevards, and Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot even so
much as stain them.
I might tell Mark Twain that in France a man who was seen tipsy in
his club would immediately see his name canceled from membership. A
man who had settled his fortune on his wife to avoid meeting his cred-
itors would be refused admission into any decent society. Many a
Frenchman has blown his brains out rather than declare himself a bank-
rupt. Now would Mark Twain remark to this: "An American is not
such a fool: when a creditor stands in his way he closes his doors, and
reopens them the following day. When he has been a bankrupt three
times he can retire from business?"
It relates to manners, customs, and morals—three
things concerning which we can never have ex-
haustive and determinate statistics, and so the
verdicts delivered upon them must always lack con-
clusiveness and be subject to revision; but you have
stated the truth, possibly, as nearly as any one
could do it, in the circumstances. But why did you
choose a detail of my question which could be
answered only with vague hearsay evidence, and
go right by one which could have been answered
with deadly facts?—facts in everybody's reach,
facts which none can dispute. I asked what France
could teach us about government. I laid myself
pretty wide open, there; and I thought I was hand-
somely generous, too, when I did it. France can
teach us how to levy village and city taxes which
distribute the burden with a nearer approach to per-
fect fairness than is the case in any other land; and
she can teach us the wisest and surest system of col-
lecting them that exists. She can teach us how to
elect a President in a sane way; and also how to do
it without throwing the country into earthquakes
and convulsions that cripple and embarrass business,
stir up party hatred in the hearts of men, and make
peaceful people wish the term extended to thirty
years. France can teach us—but enough of that
part of the question. And what else can France
teach us? She can teach us all the fine arts—and
does. She throws open her hospitable art acade-
mies, and says to us, "Come"—and we come,
troops and troops of our young and gifted; and she
sets over us the ablest masters in the world and
bearing the greatest names; and she teaches us all
that we are capable of learning, and persuades us
and encourages us with prizes and honors, much
as if we were somehow children of her own; and
when this noble education is finished and we are
ready to carry it home and spread its gracious
ministries abroad over our nation, and we come
with homage and gratitude and ask France for the
bill—there is nothing to pay. And in return for this
imperial generosity, what does America do? She
charges a duty on French works of art!
I wish I had your end of this dispute; I should
have something worth talking about. If you would
only furnish me something to argue, something to
refute—but you persistently won't. You leave
good chances unutilized and spend your strength
in proving and establishing unimportant things.
For instance, you have proven and established these
eight facts here following—a good score as to
number, but not worth while:
Mark Twain is—
1. "Insulting."2. (Sarcastically speaking) "This refined humor-
ist."3. Prefers the manure-pile to the violets.4. Has uttered "an ill-natured sneer."5. Is "nasty."6. Needs a "lesson in politeness and good man-
ners."7. Has published a "nasty article."8. Has made remarks "unworthy of a gentle-
man."*
"It is more funny than his" (Mark Twain's) "anecdote, and
would have been less insulting."
A quoted remark of mine "is a gross insult to a nation friendly to
America."
"He has read La Terre, this refined humorist."
"When Mark Twain visits a garden … he goes in the far-away
corner where the soil is prepared."
"Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot so much as stain them"
(the Frenchwomen).
"When he" (Mark Twain) "takes his revenge he is unkind, un-
fair, bitter, nasty."
"But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark," etc.
"Mark might certainly have derived from it" (M. Bourget's book)
"a lesson in politeness and good manners."
A quoted remark of mine is "unworthy of a gentleman."
These are all true, but really they are notvaluable; no one cares much for such finds. In
our American magazines we recognize this and sup-
press them. We avoid naming them. American
writers never allow themselves to name them. It
would look as if they were in a temper, and we hold
that exhibitions of temper in public are not good
form—except in the very young and inexperienced.
And even if we had the disposition to name them,
in order to fill up a gap when we were short of ideas
and arguments, our magazines would not allow us to
do it, because they think that such words sully their
pages. This present magazine is particularly stren-
uous about it. Its note to me announcing the
forwarding of your proof-sheets to France closed
thus—for your protection:
"It is needless to ask you to avoid anything that
he might consider as personal."
It was well enough, as a measure of precaution,
but really it was not needed. You can trust me im-
plicitly, M. Bourget; I shall never call you any
names in print which I should be ashamed to call
you with your unoffending and dearest ones present.
Indeed, we are reserved, and particular in America
to a degree which you would consider exaggerated.
For instance, we should not write notes like that one
of yours to a lady for a small fault—or a large
one.*
When M. Paul Bourget indulges in a little chaffing at the expense
of the Americans, "who can always get away with a few years' trying
to find out who their grandfathers were," he merely makes an allusion
to an American foible; but, forsooth, what a kind man, what a humor-
ist Mark Twain is when he retorts by calling France a nation of
bastards! How the Americans of culture and refinement will admire
him for thus speaking in their name!
Snobbery…. I could give Mark Twain an example of the Ameri-
can specimen. It is a piquant story. I never published it because I
feared my readers might think that I was giving them a typical illustra-
tion of American character instead of a rare exception.
I was once booked by my manager to give a causerie in the drawing-
room of a New York millionaire. I accepted with reluctance. I do
not like private engagements. At five o'clock on the day the causerie
was to be given, the lady sent to my manager to say that she would
expect me to arrive at nine o'clock and to speak for about an hour.
Then she wrote a postscript. Many women are unfortunate there.
Their minds are full of after-thoughts, and the most important part of
their letters is generally to be found after their signature. This lady's
P. S. ran thus: "I suppose he will not expect to be entertained after
the lecture."
I fairly shouted, as Mark Twain would say, and then, indulging
myself in a bit of snobbishness, I was back at her as quick as a flash—
"Dear Madam: As a literary man of some reputation, I have many
times had the pleasure of being entertained by the members of the old
aristocracy of France. I have also many times had the pleasure of
being entertained by the members of the old aristocracy of England.
If it may interest you, I can even tell you that I have several times had
the honor of being entertained by royalty; but my ambition has never
been so wild as to expect that one day I might be entertained by the
aristocracy of New York. No, I do not expect to be entertained by
you, nor do I want you to expect me to entertain you and your friends
to-night, for I decline to keep the engagement."
Now, I could fill a book on America with reminiscences of this sort,
adding a few chapters on bosses and boodlers, on New York chronique
scandaleuse, on the tenement houses of the large cities, on the gambling-
hells of Denver, and the dens of San Francisco, and what not! But
not even your nasty article on my country, Mark, will make me do it.
how much we might have associated with kings and
nobilities, we should not think it right to crush her
with it and make her ashamed of her lowlier walk in
life; for we have a saying, "Who humiliates my
mother includes his own."
Do I seriously imagine you to be the author of
that strange letter, M. Bourget? Indeed I do not.
I believe it to have been surreptitiously inserted by
your amanuensis when your back was turned. I
think he did it with a good motive, expecting it to
add force and piquancy to your article, but it does
not reflect your nature, and I know it will grieve
you when you see it. I also think he interlarded
many other things which you will disapprove of
when you see them. I am certain that all the harsh
names discharged at me come from him, not you.
No doubt you could have proved me entitled to
them with as little trouble as it has cost him to do it,
but it would have been your disposition to hunt
game of a higher quality.
Why, I even doubt if it is you who furnish me all
that excellent information about Balzac and those
others.*
"Now the style of M. Bourget and many other French writers is
apparently a closed letter to Mark Twain; but let us leave that alone.
Has he read Erckmann-Chatrian, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Edmond
About, Cherbuliez, Renan? Has he read Gustave Droz's Monsieur,
Madame, et Bébé, and those books which leave for a long time a per-
fume about you? Has he read the novels of Alexandre Dumas, Eugène
Sue, George Sand, and Balzac? Has he read Victor Hugo's Les Misé-
rables and Notre Dame de Paris? Has he read or heard the plays of
Sandeau, Augier, Dumas, and Sardou, the works of those Titans of
modern literature, whose names will be household words all over the
world for hundreds of years to come? He has read La Terre—this
kind-hearted, refined humorist! When Mark Twain visits a garden
does he smell the violets, the roses, the jasmine, or the honeysuckle?
No, he goes in the far-away corner where the soil is prepared. Hear
what he says: "I wish M. Paul Bourget had read more of our novels
before he came. It is the only way to thoroughly understand a people.
When I found I was coming to Paris I read La Terre."
me; for, to gravely accept those interlardings as
yours would be to wrong your head and heart, and
at the same time convict myself of being equipped
with a vacancy where my penetration ought to be
lodged.
And now finally I must uncover the secret pain,
the wee sore from which the Reply grew—the
anecdote which closed my recent article—and con-
sider how it is that this pimple has spread to these
cancerous dimensions. If any but you had dictated
the Reply, M. Bourget, I would know that that
anecdote was twisted around and its intention mag-
nified some hundreds of times, in order that it might
be used as a pretext to creep in the back way. But
I accuse you of nothing—nothing but error. When
you say that I "retort by calling France a nation of
bastards," it is an error. And not a small one, but
a large one. I made no such remark, nor anything
resembling it. Moreover, the magazine would not
have allowed me to use so gross a word as that.
You told an anecdote. A funny one—I admit
that. It hit a foible of our American aristoc-
racy, and it stung me—I admit that; it stung me
sharply. It was like this: You found some ancient
portraits of French kings in the gallery of one of our
aristocracy, and you said:
"He has the Grand Monarch, but where is the
portrait of his grandfather?" That is, the Ameri-
can aristocrat's grandfather.
Now that hits only a few of us, I grant—just the
upper crust only—but it hits exceedingly hard.
I wondered if there was any way of getting back
at you. In one of your chapters I found this chance:
"In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we
find applied to arts and luxury, and to debauchery,
all the powers and all the weaknesses of the French
soul."
You see? Your "higher Parisian" class—not
everybody, not the nation, but only the top crust of
the nation—applies to debauchery all the powers of
its soul.
I argued to myself that that energy must produce
results. So I built an anecdote out of your remark.
In it I make Napoleon Bonaparte say to me—but
see for yourself the anecdote (ingeniously clipped
and curtailed) in paragraph eleven of your Reply.*
So, I repeat, Mark Twain does not like M. Paul Bourget's book.
So long as he makes light fun of the great French writer he is at home,
he is pleasant, he is the American humorist we know. When he takes
his revenge (and where is the reason for taking a revenge?) he is unkind,
unfair, bitter, nasty.
For example:
See his answer to a Frenchman who jokingly remarks to him:
"I suppose life can never get entirely dull to an American, because
whenever he can't strike up any other way to put in his time, he can
always get away with a few years trying to find out who his grandfather
was."
Hear the answer:
"I reckon a Frenchman's got his little standby for a dull time, too;
because when all other interests fail, he can turn in and see if he can't
find out who his father was."
The first remark is a good-humored bit of chaffing on American snob-
bery. I may be utterly destitute of humor, but I call the second remark
a gratuitous charge of immorality hurled at the French women—a
remark unworthy of a man who has the ear of the public, unworthy of
a gentleman, a gross insult to a nation friendly to America, a nation that
helped Mark Twain's ancestors in their struggle for liberty, a nation
where to-day it is enough to say that you are American to see every
door open wide to you.
If Mark Twain was hard up in search of a French "chestnut," I
might have told him the following little anecdote. It is more funny
than his, and would have been less insulting: Two little street boys are
abusing each other. "Ah, hold your tongue," says one, "you ain't
got no father."
"Ain't got no father!" replies the other; "I've got more fathers
than you."
Now, then, your anecdote about the grandfathers
hurt me. Why? Because it had a point. It wouldn't
have hurt me if it hadn't had point. You wouldn't
have wasted space on it if it hadn't had point.
My anecdote has hurt you. Why? Because it had
point, I suppose. It wouldn't have hurt you if it
hadn't had point. I judged from your remark about
the diligence and industry of the high Parisian upper
crust that it would have some point, but really I had
no idea what a gold-mine I had struck. I never
suspected that the point was going to stick into the
entire nation; but of course you know your nation
better than I do, and if you think it punctures them
all, I have to yield to your judgment. But you are
to blame, your own self. Your remark misled me.
I supposed the industry was confined to that little
unnumerous upper layer.
Well, now that the unfortunate thing has been
done, let us do what we can to undo it. There
must be a way, M. Bourget, and I am willing to do
anything that will help; for I am as sorry as you
can be yourself.
I will tell you what I think will be the very thing.
We will swap anecdotes. I will take your anecdote
and you take mine. I will say to the dukes and
counts and princes of the ancient nobility of France:
"Ha, ha! You must have a pretty hard time trying
to find out who your grandfathers were?"
They will merely smile indifferently and not feel
hurt, because they can trace their lineage back
through centuries.
And you will hurl mine at every individual in the
American nation, saying:
"And you must have a pretty hard time trying to
find out who your fathers were." They will merely
smile indifferently, and not feel hurt, because they
haven't any difficulty in finding their fathers.
Do you get the idea? The whole harm in the
anecdotes is in the point, you see; and when we
swap them around that way, they haven't any.
That settles it perfectly and beautifully, and I am
glad I thought of it. I am very glad indeed, M.
Bourget; for it was just that little wee thing that
caused the whole difficulty and made you dictate the
Reply, and your amanuensis call me all those hard
names which the magazines dislike so. And I did it
all in fun, too, trying to cap your funny anecdote
with another one—on the give-and-take principle,
you know—which is American. I didn't know
that with the French it was all give and no take, and
you didn't tell me. But now that I have made
everything comfortable again, and fixed both anec-
dotes so they can never have any point any more, I
know you will forgive me.
THE INVALID'S STORY
I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due
to my condition and sufferings, for I am a
bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for
you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow,
was a hale, hearty man two short years ago,—
a man of iron, a very athlete!—yet such is the
simple truth. But stranger still than this fact
is the way in which I lost my health. I lost it
through helping to take care of a box of guns
on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's
night. It is the actual truth, and I will tell you
about it.
I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's night,
two years ago, I reached home just after dark, in a
driving snow-storm, and the first thing I heard when I
entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend
and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day
before, and that his last utterance had been a desire
that I would take his remains home to his poor old
father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly
shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste
in emotions; I must start at once. I took the
card, marked "Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem,
Wisconsin," and hurried off through the whistling
storm to the railway station. Arrived there I
found the long white-pine box which had been
described to me; I fastened the card to it with
some tacks, saw it put safely aboard the express
car, and then ran into the eating-room to provide
myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When I
returned, presently, there was my coffin-box back
again, apparently, and a young fellow examining
around it, with a card in his hands, and some tacks
and a hammer! I was astonished and puzzled. He
began to nail on his card, and I rushed out to the
express car, in a good deal of a state of mind, to ask
for an explanation. But no—there was my box,
all right, in the express car; it hadn't been disturbed.
[The fact is that without my suspecting it a pro-
digious mistake had been made. I was carrying off
a box of guns which that young fellow had come to
the station to ship to a rifle company in Peoria,
Illinois, and he had got my corpse!] Just then the
conductor sung out "All aboard," and I jumped
into the express car and got a comfortable seat on
a bale of buckets. The expressman was there, hard
at work,—a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest,
good-natured face, and a breezy, practical heartiness
in his general style. As the train moved off a stranger
skipped into the car and set a package of peculiarly
mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of
my coffin-box—I mean my box of guns. That is
to say, I know now that it was Limburger cheese,
but at that time I never had heard of the article in
my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its
character. Well, we sped through the wild night,
the bitter storm raged on, a cheerless misery stole
over me, my heart went down, down, down! The
old expressman made a brisk remark or two about
the tempest and the arctic weather, slammed his
sliding doors to, and bolted them, closed his window
down tight, and then went bustling around, here and
there and yonder, setting things to rights, and all the
time contentedly humming "Sweet By and By," in
a low tone, and flatting a good deal. Presently I
began to detect a most evil and searching odor steal-
ing about on the frozen air. This depressed my
spirits still more, because of course I attributed it to
my poor departed friend. There was something in-
finitely saddening about his calling himself to my re-
membrance in this dumb pathetic way, so it was
hard to keep the tears back. Moreover, it distressed
me on account of the old expressman, who, I was
afraid, might notice it. However, he went humming
tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and for this I was
grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon
I began to feel more and more uneasy every minute,
for every minute that went by that odor thickened
up the more, and got to be more and more gamey
and hard to stand. Presently, having got things
arranged to his satisfaction, the expressman got some
wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove.
This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could
not but feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that
the effect would be deleterious upon my poor de-
parted friend. Thompson—the expressman's name
was Thompson, as I found out in the course of the
night—now went poking around his car, stopping
up whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking
that it didn't make any difference what kind of a
night it was outside, he calculated to make us com-
fortable, anyway. I said nothing, but I believed he
was not choosing the right way. Meantime he was
humming to himself just as before; and meantime,
too, the stove was getting hotter and hotter, and the
place closer and closer. I felt myself growing pale
and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said nothing.
Soon I noticed that the "Sweet By and By" was
gradually fading out; next it ceased altogether, and
there was an ominous stillness. After a few moments
Thompson said,—
"Pfew! I reckon it ain't no cinnamon 't I've
loaded up thish-yer stove with!"
He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the
cof—gun-box, stood over that Limburger cheese
part of a moment, then came back and sat down
near me, looking a good deal impressed. After a
contemplative pause, he said, indicating the box with
a gesture,—
"Friend of yourn?"
"Yes," I said with a sigh.
"He's pretty ripe, ain't he!"
Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of
minutes, each being busy with his own thoughts;
then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice,—
"Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really
gone or not,—seem gone, you know—body warm,
joints limber—and so, although you think they're
gone, you don't really know. I've had cases in my
car. It's perfectly awful, becuz you don't know
what minute they'll rise up and look at you!"
Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow
toward the box,—"But he ain't in no trance!
No, sir, I go bail for him!"
We sat some time, in meditative silence, listen-
ing to the wind and the roar of the train; then
Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling,—
"Well-a-well, we've all got to go, they ain't no
getting around it. Man that is born of woman is of
few days and far between, as Scriptur' says. Yes,
you look at it any way you want to, it's awful solemn
and cur'us: they ain't nobody can get around it;
all's got to go—just everybody, as you may say.
One day you're hearty and strong"—here he
scrambled to his feet and broke a pane and stretched
his nose out at it a moment or two, then sat down
again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out at
the same place, and this we kept on doing every now
and then—"and next day he's cut down like the
grass, and the places which knowed him then knows
him no more forever, as Scriptur' says. Yes'ndeedy,
it's awful solemn and cur'us; but we've all got to
go, one time or another; they ain't no getting
around it."
There was another long pause; then,—
"What did he die of?"
I said I didn't know.
"How long has he ben dead?"
It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the
probabilities; so I said,—
"Two or three days."
But it did no good; for Thompson received it
with an injured look which plainly said, "Two or
three years, you mean." Then he went right along,
placidly ignoring my statement, and gave his views
at considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting
off burials too long. Then he lounged off toward
the box, stood a moment, then came back on a sharp
trot and visited the broken pane, observing,—
"'Twould 'a' ben a dum sight better, all around,
if they'd started him along last summer."
Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red
silk handkerchief, and began to slowly sway and
rock his body like one who is doing his best to
endure the almost unendurable. By this time the
fragrance—if you may call it fragrance—was just
about suffocating, as near as you can come at it.
Thompson's face was turning gray; I knew mine
hadn't any color left in it. By and by Thompson
rested his forehead in his left hand, with his elbow
on his knee, and sort of waved his red handkerchief
towards the box with his other hand, and said,—
"I've carried a many a one of 'em,—some of
'em considerable overdue, too,—but, lordy, he just
lays over 'em all!—and does it easy. Cap., they
was heliotrope to him!"
This recognition of my poor friend gratified me,
in spite of the sad circumstances, because it had so
much the sound of a compliment.
Pretty soon it was plain that something had got
to be done. I suggested cigars. Thompson thought
it was a good idea. He said,—
"Likely it'll modify him some."
We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried
hard to imagine that things were improved. But
it wasn't any use. Before very long, and without
any consultation, both cigars were quietly dropped
from our nerveless fingers at the same moment.
Thompson said, with a sigh,—
"No, Cap., it don't modify him worth a cent.
Fact is, it makes him worse, becuz it appears to
stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we better
do, now?"
I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had
to be swallowing and swallowing, all the time, and
did not like to trust myself to speak. Thompson
fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited
way, about the miserable experiences of this night;
and he got to referring to my poor friend by various
titles,—sometimes military ones, sometimes civil
ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's
effectiveness grew, Thompson promoted him ac-
cordingly,—gave him a bigger title. Finally he
said,—
"I've got an idea. Suppos'n we buckle down to
it and give the Colonel a bit of a shove towards
t'other end of the car?—about ten foot, say. He
wouldn't have so much influence, then, don't you
reckon?"
I said it was a good scheme. So we took in
a good fresh breath at the broken pane, calculat-
ing to hold it till we got through; then we went
there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a
grip on the box. Thompson nodded "All ready,"
and then we threw ourselves forward with all our
might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down
with his nose on the cheese, and his breath got
loose. He gagged and gasped, and floundered up
and made a break for the door, pawing the air
and saying hoarsely, "Don't hender me!—gimme
the road! I'm a-dying; gimme the road!" Out
on the cold platform I sat down and held his head
a while, and he revived. Presently he said,—
"Do you reckon we started the Gen'rul any?"
I said no; we hadn't budged him.
"Well, then, that idea's up the flume. We got
to think up something else. He's suited wher' he
is, I reckon; and if that's the way he feels about it,
and has made up his mind that he don't wish to be
disturbed, you bet he's a-going to have his own way
in the business. Yes, better leave him right wher'
he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all the
trumps, don't you know, and so it stands to reason
that the man that lays out to alter his plans for him
is going to get left."
But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm;
we should have frozen to death. So we went in
again and shut the door, and began to suffer once
more and take turns at the break in the window. By
and by, as we were starting away from a station where
we had stopped a moment Thompson pranced in
cheerily, and exclaimed,—
"We're all right, now! I reckon we've got the
Commodore this time. I judge I've got the stuff
here that'll take the tuck out of him."
It was carbolic acid. He had a carboy of it. He
sprinkled it all around everywhere; in fact he
drenched everything with it, rifle-box, cheese and all.
Then we sat down, feeling pretty hopeful. But it
wasn't for long. You see the two perfumes began
to mix, and then—well, pretty soon we made a
break for the door; and out there Thompson swabbed
his face with his bandanna and said in a kind of dis-
heartened way,—
"It ain't no use. We can't buck agin him. He
just utilizes everything we put up to modify him with,
and gives it his own flavor and plays it back on us.
Why, Cap., don't you know, it's as much as a
hundred times worse in there now than it was when
he first got a-going. I never did see one of 'em
warm up to his work so, and take such a dumnation
interest in it. No, sir, I never did, as long as I've
THESE GAVE IT A BETTER HOLD
ben on the road; and I've carried a many a one of
'em, as I was telling you."
We went in again after we were frozen pretty
stiff; but my, we couldn't stay in, now. So
we just waltzed back and forth, freezing, and
thawing, and stifling, by turns. In about an hour
we stopped at another station; and as we left it
Thompson came in with a bag, and said,—
"Cap., I'm a-going to chance him once more,—
just this once; and if we don't fetch him this time,
the thing for us to do, is to just throw up the sponge
and withdraw from the canvass. That's the way I
put it up."
He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and
dried apples, and leaf tobacco, and rags, and old
shoes, and sulphur, and asafœtida, and one thing or
another; and he piled them on a breadth of sheet
iron in the middle of the floor, and set fire to them.
When they got well started, I couldn't see, myself,
how even the corpse could stand it. All that went
before was just simply poetry to that smell,—but
mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just
as sublime as ever,—fact is, these other smells just
seemed to give it a better hold; and my, how rich it
was! I didn't make these reflections there—there
wasn't time—made them on the platform. And
breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated
and fell; and before I got him dragged out, which I
did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself.
When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly,—
"We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it.
They ain't no other way. The Governor wants to
travel alone, and he's fixed so he can outvote us."
And presently he added,—
"And don't you know, we're pisoned. It's our
last trip, you can make up your mind to it. Typhoid
fever is what's going to come of this. I feel it a-
coming right now. Yes, sir, we're elected, just as
sure as you're born."
We were taken from the platform an hour later,
frozen and insensible, at the next station, and I went
straight off into a virulent fever, and never knew any-
thing again for three weeks. I found out, then, that
I had spent that awful night with a harmless box of
rifles and a lot of innocent cheese; but the news was
too late to save me; imagination had done its work,
and my health was permanently shattered; neither
Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring it back
to me. This is my last trip; I am on my way home
to die.
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about
old Captain "Hurricane" Jones, of the Pacific
Ocean,—peace to his ashes! Two or three of us
present had known him; I, particularly well, for I
had made four sea-voyages with him. He was a
very remarkable man. He was born on a ship;
he picked up what little education he had among
his shipmates; he began life in the forecastle, and
climbed grade by grade to the captaincy. More
than fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea.
He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and bor-
rowed a tint from all climates. When a man has
been fifty years at sea, he necessarily knows noth-
ing of men, nothing of the world but its surface,
nothing of the world's thought, nothing of the
world's learning but its A B C, and that blurred
and distorted by the unfocused lenses of an un-
trained mind. Such a man is only a gray and
bearded child. That is what old Hurricane Jones
was,—simply an innocent, lovable old infant. When
his spirit was in repose he was as sweet and gentle
as a girl; when his wrath was up he was a hurricane
that made his nickname seem tamely descriptive.
He was formidable in a fight, for he was of powerful
build and dauntless courage. He was frescoed from
head to heel with pictures and mottoes tattooed in
red and blue India ink. I was with him one voyage
when he got his last vacant space tattooed; this
vacant space was around his left ankle. During
three days he stumped about the ship with his ankle
bare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and
angry out from a clouding of India ink: "Virtue is
its own R'd." (There was a lack of room.) He
was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a
fish-woman. He considered swearing blameless,
because sailors would not understand an order un-
illumined by it. He was a profound Biblical scholar,
—that is, he thought he was. He believed every-
thing in the Bible, but he had his own methods of
arriving at his beliefs. He was of the "advanced"
school of thinkers, and applied natural laws to the
interpretation of all miracles, somewhat on the plan
of the people who make the six days of creation six
geological epochs, and so forth. Without being
aware of it, he was a rather severe satire on modern
scientific religionists. Such a man as I have been
describing is rabidly fond of disquisition and argu-
ment; one knows that without being told it.
One trip the captain had a clergyman on board,
but did not know he was a clergyman, since the
passenger list did not betray the fact. He took
a great liking to this Rev. Mr. Peters, and talked
with him a great deal: told him yarns, gave him
toothsome scraps of personal history, and wove a
glittering streak of profanity through his garru-
lous fabric that was refreshing to a spirit weary
of the dull neutralities of undecorated speech. One
day the captain said, "Peters, do you ever read
the Bible?"
"Well—yes."
"I judge it ain't often, by the way you say it.
Now, you tackle it in dead earnest once, and you'll
find it'll pay. Don't you get discouraged, but hang
right on. First, you won't understand it; but by
and by things will begin to clear up, and then you
wouldn't lay it down to eat."
"Yes, I have heard that said."
"And it's so, too. There ain't a book that begins
with it. It lays over 'em all, Peters. There's some
pretty tough things in it,—there ain't any getting
around that,—but you stick to them and think them
out, and when once you get on the inside every-
thing's plain as day."
"The miracles, too, captain?"
"Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of them.
Now, there's that business with the prophets of
Baal; like enough that stumped you?"
"Well, I don't know but—"
"Own up, now; it stumped you. Well, I don't
wonder. You hadn't had any experience in raveling
such things out, and naturally it was too many for
you. Would you like to have me explain that thing
to you, and show you how to get at the meat of
these matters?"
"Indeed, I would, captain, if you don't mind."
Then the captain proceeded as follows: "I'll do
it with pleasure. First, you see, I read and read,
and thought and thought, till I got to understand
what sort of people they were in the old Bible times,
and then after that it was clear and easy. Now, this
was the way I put it up, concerning Isaac*
This is the captain's own mistake.
and theprophets of Baal. There was some mighty sharp
men amongst the public characters of that old
ancient day, and Isaac was one of them. Isaac had
his failings,—plenty of them, too; it ain't for me to
apologize for Isaac; he played on the prophets of
Baal, and like enough he was justifiable, considering
the odds that was against him. No, all I say is,
't wa'n't any miracle, and that I'll show you so's't
you can see it yourself.
"Well, times had been getting rougher and
rougher for prophets,—that is, prophets of Isaac's
denomination. There were four hundred and fifty
prophets of Baal in the community, and only one
Presbyterian; that is, if Isaac was a Presbyterian,
which I reckon he was, but it don't say. Naturally,
the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was
pretty low-spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal
of a man, and no doubt he went a-prophesying
around, letting on to be doing a land-office busi-
ness, but 't wa'n't any use; he couldn't run any
opposition to amount to anything. By and by
things got desperate with him; he sets his head
to work and thinks it all out, and then what does
he do? Why, he begins to throw out hints that
the other parties are this and that and t'other,—
nothing very definite, may be, but just kind of
undermining their reputation in a quiet way. This
made talk, of course, and finally got to the king.
The king asked Isaac what he meant by his talk.
Says Isaac, 'Oh, nothing particular; only, can
they pray down fire from heaven on an altar? It
ain't much, maybe, your majesty, only can they
do it? That's the idea.' So the king was a good
deal disturbed, and he went to the prophets of
Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he had
an altar ready, they were ready; and they inti-
mated he better get it insured, too.
"So next morning all the children of Israel and
their parents and the other people gathered them-
selves together. Well, here was that great crowd of
prophets of Baal packed together on one side, and
Isaac walking up and down all alone on the other,
putting up his job. When time was called, Isaac let
on to be comfortable and indifferent; told the other
team to take the first innings. So they went at it,
the whole four hundred and fifty, praying around the
altar, very hopeful, and doing their level best. They
prayed an hour,—two hours,—three hours,—and
so on, plumb till noon. It wa'n't any use; they
hadn't took a trick. Of course they felt kind
of ashamed before all those people, and well they
might. Now, what would a magnanimous man
do? Keep still, wouldn't he? Of course. What
did Isaac do? He graveled the prophets of Baal
every way he could think of. Says he, 'You
don't speak up loud enough; your god's asleep,
like enough, or maybe he's taking a walk; you
want to holler, you know,'—or words to that ef-
fect; I don't recollect the exact language. Mind,
I don't apologize for Isaac; he had his faults.
"Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best
they knew how all the afternoon, and never raised a
spark. At last, about sundown, they were all
tuckered out, and they owned up and quit.
"What does Isaac do, now? He steps up and
says to some friends of his, there, 'Pour four barrels
of water on the altar!' Everybody was astonished;
for the other side had prayed at it dry, you know,
and got whitewashed. They poured it on. Says he,
'Heave on four more barrels.' Then he says,
'Heave on four more.' Twelve barrels, you see,
altogether. The water ran all over the altar, and all
down the sides, and filled up a trench around it that
would hold a couple of hogsheads,—'measures,' it
says; I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some
of the people were going to put on their things and
go, for they allowed he was crazy. They didn't
know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray:
he strung along, and strung along, about the heathen
in distant lands, and about the sister churches, and
about the state and the country at large, and about
those that's in authority in the government, and all
the usual programme, you know, till everybody had
got tired and gone to thinking about something
else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody was
noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on
the under side of his leg, and pff! up the whole
thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve barrels of
water? Petroleum, sir, petroleum! that's what
it was!"
"Petroleum, captain?"
"Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac
knew all about that. You read the Bible. Don't
you worry about the tough places. They ain't tough
when you come to think them out and throw light
on them. There ain't a thing in the Bible but what
is true; all you want is to go prayerfully to work and
cipher out how 't was done."
STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIAi. the government in the frying-pan
Here in Vienna in these closing days of 1897
one's blood gets no chance to stagnate. The
atmosphere is brimful of political electricity. All
conversation is political; every man is a battery,
with brushes overworn, and gives out blue sparks
when you set him going on the common topic.
Everybody has an opinion, and lets you have it
frank and hot, and out of this multitude of coun-
sel you get merely confusion and despair. For
no one really understands this political situation,
or can tell you what is going to be the outcome
of it.
Things have happened here recently which
would set any country but Austria on fire from
end to end, and upset the government to a
certainty; but no one feels confident that such
results will follow here. Here, apparently, one
must wait and see what will happen, then
he will know, and not before; guessing is
idle; guessing cannot help the matter. This is
what the wise tell you; they all say it; they say it
every day, and it is the sole detail upon which they
all agree.
There is some approach to agreement upon an-
other point: that there will be no revolution. Men
say: "Look at our history—revolutions have not
been in our line; and look at our political map
—its construction is unfavorable to an organized
uprising, and without unity what could a revolt
accomplish? It is disunion which has held our
empire together for centuries, and what it has
done in the past it may continue to do now and
in the future."
The most intelligible sketch I have encountered
of this unintelligible arrangement of things was con-
tributed to the Travelers Record by Mr. Forrest
Morgan, of Hartford, three years ago. He says:
The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is the patchwork quilt, the Mid-
way Plaisance, the national chain-gang of Europe; a state that is not a
nation but a collection of nations, some with national memories and
aspirations and others without, some occupying distinct provinces almost
purely their own, and others mixed with alien races, but each with a
different language, and each mostly holding the others foreigners as
much as if the link of a common government did not exist. Only one of
its races even now comprises so much as one-fourth of the whole, and
not another so much as one-sixth; and each has remained for ages as
unchanged in isolation, however mingled together in locality, as glob-
ules of oil in water. There is nothing else in the modern world that is
nearly like it, though there have been plenty in past ages; it seems un-
real and impossible even though we know it is true; it violates all our
feeling as to what a country should be in order to have a right to exist;
and it seems as though it was too ramshackle to go on holding together
any length of time. Yet it has survived, much in its present shape, two
centuries of storms that have swept perfectly unified countries from
existence and others that have brought it to the verge of ruin, has sur-
vived formidable European coalitions to dismember it, and has steadily
gained force after each; forever changing in its exact make-up, losing
in the West but gaining in the East, the changes leave the structure as firm
as ever, like the dropping off and adding on of logs in a raft, its mechan-
ical union of pieces showing all the vitality of genuine national life.
That seems to confirm and justify the prevalent
Austrian faith that in this confusion of unrelated and
irreconcilable elements, this condition of incurable
disunion, there is strength—for the government.
Nearly every day some one explains to me that a
revolution would not succeed here. "It couldn't,
you know. Broadly speaking, all the nations in the
empire hate the government—but they all hate each
other, too, and with devoted and enthusiastic bitter-
ness; no two of them can combine; the nation that
rises must rise alone; then the others would joyfully
join the government against her, and she would have
just a fly's chance against a combination of spiders.
This government is entirely independent. It can go
its own road, and do as it pleases; it has nothing to
fear. In countries like England and America, where
there is one tongue and the public interests are
common, the government must take account of public
opinion; but in Austria-Hungary there are nineteen
public opinions—one for each state. No—two or
three for each state, since there are two or three
nationalities in each. A government cannot satisfy
all these public opinions; it can only go through the
motions of trying. This government does that. It
goes through the motions, and they do not succeed;
but that does not worry the government much."
The next man will give you some further informa-
tion. "The government has a policy—a wise one
—and sticks steadily to it. This policy is—tran-
quillity: keep this hive of excitable nations as quiet
as possible; encourage them to amuse themselves
with things less inflammatory than politics. To this
end it furnishes them an abundance of Catholic priests
to teach them to be docile and obedient, and to be
diligent in acquiring ignorance about things here
below, and knowledge about the kingdom of heaven,
to whose historic delights they are going to add the
charm of their society by-and-by; and further—to
this same end—it cools off the newspapers every
morning at five o'clock, whenever warm events are
happening." There is a censor of the press, and
apparently he is always on duty and hard at work.
A copy of each morning paper is brought to him at
five o'clock. His official wagons wait at the doors
of the newspaper offices and scud to him with the
first copies that come from the press. His company
of assistants read every line in these papers, and mark
everything which seems to have a dangerous look;
then he passes final judgment upon these markings.
Two things conspire to give to the results a capricious
and unbalanced look: his assistants have diversified
notions as to what is dangerous and what isn't; he
can't get time to examine their criticisms in much
detail; and so sometimes the very same matter which
is suppressed in one paper fails to be damned in
another one, and gets published in full feather and
unmodified. Then the paper in which it was sup-
pressed blandly copies the forbidden matter into its
evening edition—provokingly giving credit and
detailing all the circumstances in courteous and in-
offensive language—and of course the censor cannot
say a word.
Sometimes the censor sucks all the blood out of a
newspaper and leaves it colorless and inane; some-
times he leaves it undisturbed, and lets it talk out
its opinions with a frankness and vigor hardly to be
surpassed, I think, in the journals of any country.
Apparently the censor sometimes revises his verdicts
upon second thought, for several times lately he has
suppressed journals after their issue and partial
distribution. The distributed copies are then sent
for by the censor and destroyed. I have two of
these, but at the time they were sent for I could not
remember what I had done with them.
If the censor did his work before the morning
edition was printed, he would be less of an incon-
venience than he is; but of course the papers can-
not wait many minutes after five o'clock to get his
verdict; they might as well go out of business as do
that; so they print, and take the chances. Then,
if they get caught by a suppression, they must strike
out the condemned matter and print the edition over
again. That delays the issue several hours, and is
expensive besides. The government gets the sup-
pressed edition for nothing. If it bought it, that
would be joyful, and would give great satisfaction.
Also, the edition would be larger. Some of the
papers do not replace the condemned paragraphs
with other matter; they merely snatch them out and
leave blanks behind—mourning blanks, marked
"Confiscated."
The government discourages the dissemination of
newspaper information in other ways. For instance,
it does not allow newspapers to be sold on the streets;
therefore the newsboy is unknown in Vienna. And
there is a stamp duty of nearly a cent upon each
copy of a newspaper's issue. Every American paper
that reaches me has a stamp upon it, which has been
pasted there in the post-office or downstairs in the
hotel office; but no matter who put it there, I have
to pay for it, and that is the main thing. Sometimes
friends send me so many papers that it takes all I
can earn that week to keep this government going.
I must take passing notice of another point in the
government's measures for maintaining tranquillity.
Everybody says it does not like to see any individual
attain to commanding influence in the country, since
such a man can become a disturber and an incon-
venience. "We have as much talent as the other
nations," says the citizen, resignedly, and without
bitterness, "but for the sake of the general good of
the country we are discouraged from making it over-
conspicuous; and not only discouraged, but tactfully
and skillfully prevented from doing it, if we show
too much persistence. Consequently we have no
renowned men; in centuries we have seldom pro-
duced one—that is, seldom allowed one to produce
himself. We can say to-day what no other nation
of first importance in the family of Christian civil-
izations can say: that there exists no Austrian who
has made an enduring name for himself which is fa-
miliar all around the globe."
Another helper toward tranquillity is the army. It
is as pervasive as the atmosphere. It is everywhere.
All the mentioned creators, promoters, and pre-
servers of the public tranquillity do their several
shares in the quieting work. They make a restful
and comfortable serenity and reposefulness. This is
disturbed sometimes for a little while: a mob as-
sembles to protest against something; it gets noisy
—noisier—still noisier—finally too noisy; then
the persuasive soldiery come charging down upon it,
and in a few minutes all is quiet again, and there is
no mob.
There is a Constitution and there is a Parliament.
The House draws its membership of 425 deputies
from the nineteen or twenty states heretofore men-
tioned. These men represent peoples who speak
eleven languages. That means eleven distinct varie-
ties of jealousies, hostilities, and warring interests.
This could be expected to furnish forth a parlia-
ment of a pretty inharmonious sort, and make legis-
lation difficult at times—and it does that. The
parliament is split up into many parties—the Cler-
icals, the Progressists, the German Nationalists, the
Young Czechs, the Social Democrats, the Christian
Socialists, and some others—and it is difficult to
get up working combinations among them. They
prefer to fight apart sometimes.
The recent troubles have grown out of Count
Badeni's necessities. He could not carry on his
government without a majority vote in the House
at his back, and in order to secure it he had to make
a trade of some sort. He made it with the Czechs
—the Bohemians. The terms were not easy for
him: he must pass a bill making the Czech tongue
the official language in Bohemia in place of the
German. This created a storm. All the Germans
in Austria were incensed. In numbers they form
but a fourth part of the empire's population, but
they urge that the country's public business should
be conducted in one common tongue, and that
tongue a world language—which German is.
However, Badeni secured his majority. The
German element in parliament was apparently
become helpless. The Czech deputies were ex-
ultant.
Then the music began. Badeni's voyage, instead
of being smooth, was disappointingly rough from
the start. The government must get the Ausgleich
through. It must not fail. Badeni's majority was
ready to carry it through; but the minority was
determined to obstruct it and delay it until the ob-
noxious Czech-language measure should be shelved.
The Ausgleich is an Adjustment, Arrangement,
Settlement, which holds Austria and Hungary to-
gether. It dates from 1867, and has to be re-
newed every ten years. It establishes the share
which Hungary must pay toward the expenses of
the imperial government. Hungary is a kingdom
(the Emperor of Austria is its King), and has its
own parliament and governmental machinery. But
it has no foreign office, and it has no army—at
least its army is a part of the imperial army, is
paid out of the imperial treasury, and is under
the control of the imperial war office.
The ten-year rearrangement was due a year ago,
but failed to connect. At least completely. A
year's compromise was arranged. A new arrange-
ment must be effected before the last day of this
year. Otherwise the two countries become separate
entities. The Emperor would still be King of
Hungary—that is, King of an independent foreign
country. There would be Hungarian custom-houses
on the Austrian frontier, and there would be a Hun-
garian army and a Hungarian foreign office. Both
countries would be weakened by this, both would
suffer damage.
The Opposition in the House, although in the
minority, had a good weapon to fight with in the
pending Ausgleich. If it could delay the Ausgleich
a few weeks, the government would doubtless have
to withdraw the hated language bill or lose Hun-
gary.
The Opposition began its fight. Its arms were
the Rules of the House. It was soon manifest that
by applying these Rules ingeniously it could make
the majority helpless, and keep it so as long as it
pleased. It could shut off business every now and
then with a motion to adjourn. It could require the
ayes and noes on the motion, and use up thirty
minutes on that detail. It could call for the reading
and verification of the minutes of the preceding
meeting, and use up half a day in that way. It could
require that several of its members be entered upon
the list of permitted speakers previously to the open-
ing of a sitting; and as there is no time limit, fur-
ther delays could thus be accomplished.
These were all lawful weapons, and the men of
the Opposition (technically called the Left) were
within their rights in using them. They used them
to such dire purpose that all parliamentary business
was paralyzed. The Right (the government side)
could accomplish nothing. Then it had a saving
idea. This idea was a curious one. It was to
have the President and the Vice-Presidents of the
parliament trample the Rules under foot upon oc-
casion!
This, for a profoundly embittered minority con-
structed out of fire and gun-cotton! It was time
for idle strangers to go and ask leave to look
down out of a gallery and see what would be the
result of it.
ii. a memorable sitting
And now took place that memorable sitting of the
House which broke two records. It lasted the best
part of two days and a night, surpassing by half an
hour the longest sitting known to the world's previous
parliamentary history, and breaking the long-speech
record with Dr. Lecher's twelve-hour effort, the
longest flow of unbroken talk that ever came out of
one mouth since the world began.
At 8:45, on the evening of the 28th of October,
when the House had been sitting a few minutes short
of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the floor. It
was a good place for theatrical effects. I think that
no other Senate House is so shapely as this one,
or so richly and showily decorated. Its plan is that
of an opera-house. Up toward the straight side of
it—the stage side—rise a couple of terraces of
desks for the ministry, and the official clerks or
secretaries—terraces thirty feet long, and each sup-
porting about half a dozen desks with spaces between
them. Above these is the President's terrace, against
the wall. Along it are distributed the proper accom-
modations for the presiding officer and his assistants.
The wall is of richly colored marble highly polished,
its paneled sweep relieved by fluted columns and
pilasters of distinguished grace and dignity, which
glow softly and frostily in the electric light. Around
the spacious half-circle of the floor bends the great
two-storied curve of the boxes, its frontage elaborately
ornamented and sumptuously gilded. On the floor
of the House the 425 desks radiate fanwise from the
President's tribune.
The galleries are crowded on this particular evening,
for word has gone about that the Ausgleich is before
the House; that the President, Ritter von Abraham-
owicz, has been throttling the Rules; that the
Opposition are in an inflammable state in con-
sequence, and that the night session is likely to be
of an exciting sort.
The gallery guests are fashionably dressed, and
the finery of the women makes a bright and pretty
show under the strong electric light. But down on
the floor there is no costumery.
The deputies are dressed in day clothes; some of
the clothes neat and trim, others not; there may be
three members in evening dress, but not more.
There are several Catholic priests in their long black
gowns, and with crucifixes hanging from their necks.
No member wears his hat. One may see by these
details that the aspects are not those of an evening
sitting of an English House of Commons, but rather
those of a sitting of our House of Representatives.
In his high place sits the President, Abrahamowicz,
object of the Opposition's limitless hatred. He is
sunk back in the depths of his arm-chair, and has his
chin down. He brings the ends of his spread fingers
together in front of his breast, and reflectively taps
them together, with the air of one who would like to
begin business, but must wait, and be as patient as
he can. It makes you think of Richelieu. Now
and then he swings his head up to the left or to the
right and answers something which some one has
bent down to say to him. Then he taps his fingers
again. He looks tired, and maybe a trifle harassed.
He is a gray-haired, long, slender man, with a color-
less long face, which, in repose, suggests a death-
mask; but when not in repose is tossed and rippled
by a turbulent smile which washes this way and that,
and is not easy to keep up with—a pious smile, a
holy smile, a saintly smile, a deprecating smile, a
beseeching and supplicating smile; and when it is at
work the large mouth opens and the flexible lips
crumple, and unfold, and crumple again, and move
around in a genial and persuasive and angelic way,
and expose large glimpses of the teeth; and that
interrupts the sacredness of the smile and gives it
momentarily a mixed worldly and political and satanic
cast. It is a most interesting face to watch. And
then the long hands and the body—they furnish
great and frequent help to the face in the business
of adding to the force of the statesman's words.
To change the tense. At the time of which I
have just been speaking the crowds in the galleries
were gazing at the stage and the pit with rapt interest
and expectancy. One half of the great fan of desks
was in effect empty, vacant; in the other half several
hundred members were bunched and jammed together
as solidly as the bristles in a brush; and they also
were waiting and expecting. Presently the Chair
delivered this utterance:
"Dr. Lecher has the floor."
Then burst out such another wild and frantic and
deafening clamor as has not been heard on this planet
since the last time the Comanches surprised a white
settlement at midnight. Yells from the Left, counter-
yells from the Right, explosions of yells from all
sides at once, and all the air sawed and pawed and
clawed and cloven by a writhing confusion of gesturing
arms and hands. Out of the midst of this thunder
and turmoil and tempest rose Dr. Lecher, serene and
collected, and the providential length of him enabled
his head to show out above it. He began his twelve-
hour speech. At any rate, his lips could be seen to
move, and that was evidence. On high sat the Presi-
dent imploring order, with his long hands put together
as in prayer, and his lips visibly but not hearably
speaking. At intervals he grasped his bell and swung
it up and down with vigor, adding its keen clamor to
the storm weltering there below.
Dr. Lecher went on with his pantomime speech,
contented, untroubled. Here and there and now and
then powerful voices burst above the din, and de-
livered an ejaculation that was heard. Then the din
ceased for a moment or two, and gave opportunity
to hear what the Chair might answer; then the noise
broke out again. Apparently the President was being
charged with all sorts of illegal exercises of power in
the interest of the Right (the government side):
among these, with arbitrarily closing an Order of
Business before it was finished; with an unfair dis-
tribution of the right to the floor; with refusal of
the floor, upon quibble and protest, to members en-
titled to it; with stopping a speaker's speech upon
quibble and protest; and with other transgressions
of the Rules of the House. One of the interrupters
who made himself heard was a young fellow of slight
build and neat dress, who stood a little apart from
the solid crowd and leaned negligently, with folded
arms and feet crossed, against a desk. Trim and
handsome; strong face and thin features; black hair
roughed up; parsimonious mustache; resonant great
voice, of good tone and pitch. It is Wolf, capable
and hospitable with sword and pistol; fighter of the
recent duel with Count Badeni, the head of the
government. He shot Badeni through the arm, and
then walked over in the politest way and inspected
his game, shook hands, expressed regret, and all
that. Out of him came early this thundering peal,
audible above the storm:
"I demand the floor. I wish to offer a mo-
tion."
In the sudden lull which followed, the President
answered, "Dr. Lecher has the floor."
"I move the close of the sitting!"
P."Representative Lecher has the floor."
[Stormy outburst from the Left—that is, the
Opposition.]
"I demand the floor for the introduction
of a formal motion. [Pause.] Mr. President, are
you going to grant it, or not? [Crash of approval
from the Left.] I will keep on demanding the floor
till I get it."P.
"I call Representative Wolf to order. Dr.
Lecher has the floor."
"Mr. President, are you going to observe
the Rules of this House?" [Tempest of applause
and confused ejaculations from the Left—a boom
and roar which long endured, and stopped all busi-
ness for the time being.]
"By the Rules motions are in
order, and the Chair must put them to vote."
For answer the President (who is a Pole—I make
this remark in passing) began to jangle his bell with
energy at the moment that that wild pandemonium
of voices burst out again.
"Mr. Presi-
dent, I demand the floor. We intend to find out,
here and now, which is the hardest, a Pole's skull or
a German's!"
This brought out a perfect cyclone of satisfaction
from the Left. In the midst of it some one again
moved an adjournment. The President blandly
answered that Dr. Lecher had the floor. Which was
true; and he was speaking, too, calmly, earnestly,
and argumentatively; and the official stenographers
had left their places and were at his elbows taking
down his words, he leaning and orating into their ears
—a most curious and interesting scene.
"Do not drive
us to extremities!"
The tempest burst out again; yells of approval
from the Left, catcalls, an ironical laughter from
the Right. At this point a new and most effective
noisemaker was pressed into service. Each desk has
an extension, consisting of a removable board
eighteen inches long, six wide, and a half-inch thick.
A member pulled one of these out and began to
belabor the top of his desk with it. Instantly other
members followed suit, and perhaps you can imagine
the result. Of all conceivable rackets it is the most
ear-splitting, intolerable, and altogether fiendish.
The persecuted President leaned back in his chair,
closed his eyes, clasped his hands in his lap, and a
look of pathetic resignation crept over his long face.
It is the way a country schoolmaster used to look in
days long past when he had refused his school a
holiday and it had risen against him in ill-mannered
riot and violence and insurrection. Twice a motion
to adjourn had been offered—a motion always in
order in other Houses, and doubtless so in this one
also. The President had refused to put these motions.
By consequence, he was not in a pleasant place now,
and was having a right hard time. Votes upon
motions, whether carried or defeated, could make
endless delay, and postpone the Ausgleich to next
century.
In the midst of these sorrowful circumstances and
this hurricane of yells and screams and satanic clatter
of desk-boards, Representative Dr. Kronawetter un-
feelingly reminds the Chair that a motion has been
offered, and adds: "Say yes, or no! What do
you sit there for, and give no answer?"P.
"After I have given a speaker the floor, I
cannot give it to another. After Dr. Lecher is
through, I will put your motion." [Storm of in-
dignation from the Left.]
"Thunder and lightning!
look at the Rule governing the case!"
"I move the close of the sitting!
And I demand the ayes and noes!"
"Mr. President, have I the floor?"
P."You have the floor."
Wolf (to the Chair, in a stentorian voice whichcleaves its way through the storm).
"It is by such
brutalities as these that you drive us to extremities!
Are you waiting till some one shall throw into your
face the word that shall describe what you are bringing
about?*
That is, revolution.
[Tempest of insulted fury from the Right.]Is that what you are waiting for, old Grayhead?"
[Long-continued clatter of desk-boards from the Left,
with shouts of "The vote! the vote!" An ironical
shout from the Right, "Wolf is boss!"]
Wolf keeps on demanding the floor for his motion.
At length—
"I call Representative Wolf to order! Your
conduct is unheard-of, sir! You forget that you are
in a parliament; you must remember where you are,
sir." [Applause from the Right. Dr. Lecher is still
peacefully speaking, the stenographers listening at
his lips.]Wolf (banging on his desk with his desk-board).
"I demand the floor for my motion! I won't stand
this trampling of the Rules under foot—no, not if
I die for it! I will never yield! You have got to stop
me by force. Have I the floor?"
"Representative Wolf, what kind of behavior
is this? I call you to order again. You should have
some regard for your dignity."
Wolf turns upon him with
an offensive innuendo.
"Mr. Wolf, I beg you to refrain
from that sort of suggestions." [Storm of hand-
clapping from the Right.]
This was applause from the enemy, for Lecher
himself, like Wolf, was an Obstructionist.
"You can scribble that
applause in your album!"
"Once more I call Representative Wolf to
order! Do not forget that you are a Representative,
sir!"
"I
will force this matter! Are you going to grant me
the floor, or not?"
And still the sergeant-at-arms did not appear. It
was because there wasn't any. It is a curious thing,
but the Chair has no effectual means of compelling
order.
After some more interruptions:
Wolf (banging with his board).
"I demand the
floor. I will not yield!"
"I have no recourse against Representative
Wolf. In the presence of behavior like this it is to
be regretted that such is the case." [A shout from
the Right, "Throw him out!"]
It is true, he had no effective recourse. He had
an official called an "Ordner," whose help he could
invoke in desperate cases, but apparently the Ordner
is only a persuader, not a compeller. Apparently
he is a sergeant-at-arms who is not loaded; a good
enough gun to look at, but not valuable for business.
For another twenty or thirty minutes Wolf went
on banging with his board and demanding his rights;
then at last the weary President threatened to sum-
mon the dread order-maker. But both his manner
and his words were reluctant. Evidently it grieved
him to have to resort to this dire extremity. He
said to Wolf, "If this goes on, I shall feel obliged
to summon the Ordner, and beg him to restore
order in the House."
"I'd like to see you do it! Suppose you
fetch in a few policemen, too! [Great tumult.]
Are you going to put my motion to adjourn, or
not?"
Wolf accom-
panies him with his board-clatter.
The President despatches the Ordner, Dr. Lang
(himself a deputy), on his order-restoring mission.
Wolf, with his board uplifted for defence, confronts
the Ordner with a remark which Boss Tweed might
have translated into "Now let's see what you are
going to do about it!" [Noise and tumult all over
the House.]
Wolf stands upon his rights, and says he will main-
tain them till he is killed in his tracks. Then he re-
sumes his banging, the President jangles his bell
and begs for order, and the rest of the House aug-
ments the racket the best it can.
"I require an adjournment, because I find
myself personally threatened. [Laughter from the
Right.] Not that I fear for myself; I am only
anxious about what will happen to the man who
touches me."
"I am not going to fight with you."
Nothing came of the efforts of the angel of peace,
and he presently melted out of the scene and dis-
appeared. Wolf went on with his noise and with his
demands that he be granted the floor, resting his
board at intervals to discharge criticisms and epithets
at the Chair. Once he reminded the Chairman of
his violated promise to grant him (Wolf) the floor,
and said, "Whence I came, we call promise-breakers
rascals!" And he advised the Chairman to take his
conscience to bed with him and use it as a pillow.
Another time he said that the Chair was making itself
ridiculous before all Europe. In fact, some of Wolf's
language was almost unparliamentary. By-and-by he
struck the idea of beating out a tune with his board.
Later he decided to stop asking for the floor, and
to confer it upon himself. And so he and Dr.
Lecher now spoke at the same time, and mingled
their speeches with the other noises, and nobody
heard either of them. Wolf rested himself now and
then from speech-making by reading, in his clarion
voice, from a pamphlet.
I will explain that Dr. Lecher was not making
a twelve-hour speech for pastime, but for an im-
portant purpose. It was the government's intention
to push the Ausgleich through its preliminary stages
in this one sitting (for which it was the Order of the
Day), and then by vote refer it to a select committee.
It was the Majority's scheme—as charged by the
Opposition—to drown debate upon the bill by pure
noise—drown it out and stop it. The debate being
thus ended, the vote upon the reference would follow
—with victory for the government. But into the
government's calculations had not entered the
possibility of a single-barreled speech which should
occupy the entire time-limit of the sitting, and also
get itself delivered in spite of all the noise. Goliah
was not expecting David. But David was there;
and during twelve hours he tranquilly pulled statis-
tical, historical, and argumentative pebbles out of his
scrip and slung them at the giant; and when he was
done he was victor, and the day was saved.
In the English House an obstructionist has held
the floor with Bible-readings and other outside
matters; but Dr. Lecher could not have that restful
and recuperative privilege—he must confine himself
strictly to the subject before the House. More than
once, when the President could not hear him because
of the general tumult, he sent persons to listen and
report as to whether the orator was speaking to the
subject or not.
The subject was a peculiarly difficult one, and it
would have troubled any other deputy to stick to it
three hours without exhausting his ammunition,
because it required a vast and intimate knowledge—
detailed and particularized knowledge—of the com-
mercial, railroading, financial, and international bank-
ing relations existing between two great sovereignties,
Hungary and the Empire. But Dr. Lecher is Presi-
dent of the Board of Trade of his city of Brünn, and
was master of the situation. His speech was not
formally prepared. He had a few notes jotted down
for his guidance; he had his facts in his head; his
heart was in his work; and for twelve hours he stood
there, undisturbed by the clamor around him, and
with grace and ease and confidence poured out the
riches of his mind, in closely reasoned arguments,
clothed in eloquent and faultless phrasing.
He is a young man of thirty-seven. He is tall
and well-proportioned, and has cultivated and forti-
fied his muscle by mountain-climbing. If he were a
little handsomer he would sufficiently reproduce for
me the Chauncey Depew of the great New England
dinner nights of some years ago; he has Depew's
charm of manner and graces of language and
delivery.
There was but one way for Dr. Lecher to hold the
floor—he must stay on his legs. If he should sit
down to rest a moment, the floor would be taken
from him by the enemy in the Chair. When he had
been talking three or four hours he himself proposed
an adjournment, in order that he might get some rest
from his wearing labors; but he limited his motion
with the condition that if it was lost he should be
allowed to continue his speech, and if it carried he
should have the floor at the next sitting. Wolf was
now appeased, and withdrew his own thousand-times
offered motion, and Dr. Lecher's was voted upon—
and lost. So he went on speaking.
By one o'clock in the morning, excitement and
noise-making had tired out nearly everybody but the
orator. Gradually the seats of the Right underwent
depopulation; the occupants had slipped out to the
refreshment-rooms to eat and drink, or to the cor-
ridors to chat. Some one remarked that there was
no longer a quorum present, and moved a call of the
House. The Chair (Vice-President Dr. Kramarz)
refused to put it to vote. There was a small dispute
over the legality of this ruling, but the Chair held its
ground.
The Left remained on the battle-field to support
their champion. He went steadily on with his speech;
and always it was strong, virile, felicitous, and to
the point. He was earning applause, and this enabled
his party to turn that fact to account. Now and then
they applauded him a couple of minutes on a stretch,
and during that time he could stop speaking and rest
his voice without having the floor taken from him.
At a quarter to two a member of the Left de-
manded that Dr. Lecher be allowed a recess for rest,
and said that the Chairman was "heartless." Dr.
Lecher himself asked for ten minutes. The Chair
allowed him five. Before the time had run out Dr.
Lecher was on his feet again.
Wolf burst out again with a motion to adjourn.
Refused by the Chair. Wolf said the whole par-
liament wasn't worth a pinch of powder. The
Chair retorted that that was true in a case where
a single member was able to make all parliamentary
business impossible. Dr. Lecher continued his
speech.
The members of the Majority went out by detach-
ments from time to time and took naps upon sofas
in the reception-rooms; and also refreshed them-
selves with food and drink—in quantities nearly
unbelievable—but the Minority staid loyally by
their champion. Some distinguished deputies of the
Majority staid by him, too, compelled thereto by
admiration of his great performance. When a man
has been speaking eight hours, is it conceivable that
he can still be interesting, still fascinating? When
Dr. Lecher had been speaking eight hours he was
still compactly surrounded by friends who would not
leave him and by foes (of all parties) who could not;
and all hung enchanted and wondering upon his
words, and all testified their admiration with constant
and cordial outbursts of applause. Surely this was
a triumph without precedent in history.
During the twelve-hour effort friends brought to
the orator three glasses of wine, four cups of coffee,
and one glass of beer—a most stingy re-enforce-
ment of his wasting tissues, but the hostile Chair
would permit no addition to it. But no matter, the
Chair could not beat that man. He was a garrison
holding a fort, and was not to be starved out.
When he had been speaking eight hours his pulse
was 72; when he had spoken twelve, it was 100.
He finished his long speech in these terms, as
nearly as a permissibly free translation can convey
them:
"I will now hasten to close my examination of
the subject. I conceive that we of the Left have
made it clear to the honorable gentlemen of the other
side of the House that we are stirred by no in-
temperate enthusiasm for this measure in its present
shape….
"What we require, and shall fight for with all
lawful weapons, is a formal, comprehensive, and
definitive solution and settlement of these vexed
matters. We desire the restoration of the earlier
condition of things; the cancellation of all this in-
capable government's pernicious trades with Hun-
gary; and then—release from the sorry burden of
the Badeni ministry!
"I voice the hope—I know not if it will be ful-
filled—I voice the deep and sincere and patriotic
hope that the committee into whose hands this bill
will eventually be committed will take its stand upon
high ground, and will return the Ausgleich-Pro-
visorium to this House in a form which shall make
it the protector and promoter alike of the great
interests involved and of the honor of our father-
land." After a pause, turning toward the govern-
ment benches: "But in any case, gentlemen of the
Majority, make sure of this: henceforth, as before,
you will find us at our post. The Germans of Austria
will neither surrender nor die!"
Then burst a storm of applause which rose and
fell, rose and fell, burst out again and again and
again, explosion after explosion, hurricane after
hurricane, with no apparent promise of ever coming
to an end; and meantime the whole Left was surging
and weltering about the champion, all bent upon
wringing his hand and congratulating him and glori-
fying him.
Finally he got away, and went home and ate five
loaves and twelve baskets of fishes, read the morning
papers, slept three hours, took a short drive, then
returned to the House and sat out the rest of the
thirty-three-hour session.
To merely stand up in one spot twelve hours on
a stretch is a feat which very few men could achieve;
to add to the task the utterance of a hundred thousand
words would be beyond the possibilities of the most
of those few; to superimpose the requirement that
the words should be put into the form of a compact,
coherent, and symmetrical oration would probably
rule out the rest of the few, bar Dr. Lecher.iii. curious parliamentary etiquette
In consequence of Dr. Lecher's twelve-hour speech
and the other obstructions furnished by the Minority,
the famous thirty-three-hour sitting of the House
accomplished nothing. The government side had
made a supreme effort, assisting itself with all the
helps at hand, both lawful and unlawful, yet had
failed to get the Ausgleich into the hands of a com-
mittee. This was a severe defeat. The Right was
mortified, the Left jubilant.
Parliament was adjourned for a week—to let the
members cool off, perhaps—a sacrifice of precious
time, for but two months remained in which to carry
the all-important Ausgleich to a consummation.
If I have reported the behavior of the House in-
telligibly, the reader has been surprised at it, and has
wondered whence these law-makers come and what
they are made of; and he has probably supposed
that the conduct exhibited at the Long Sitting was
far out of the common, and due to special excite-
ment and irritation. As to the make-up of the
House, it is this: the deputies come from all the
walks of life and from all the grades of society.
There are princes, counts, barons, priests, peasants,
mechanics, laborers, lawyers, judges, physicians,
professors, merchants, bankers, shopkeepers. They
are religious men, they are earnest, sincere, de-
voted, and they hate the Jews. The title of
Doctor is so common in the House that one may
almost say that the deputy who does not bear it is
by that reason conspicuous. I am assured that it is
not a self-granted title, and not an honorary one, but
an earned one; that in Austria it is very seldom con-
ferred as a mere compliment; that in Austria the
degrees of Doctor of Music, Doctor of Philosophy,
and so on, are not conferred by the seats of learning;
and so, when an Austrian is called Doctor it means
that he is either a lawyer or a physician, and that
he is not a self-educated man, but is college-bred,
and has been diplomaed for merit.
That answers the question of the constitution of
the House. Now as to the House's curious manners.
The manners exhibited by this convention of Doctors
were not at that time being tried as a wholly new ex-
periment. I will go back to a previous sitting in
order to show that the deputies had already had some
practice.
There had been an incident. The dignity of the
House had been wounded by improprieties indulged
in in its presence by a couple of the members. This
matter was placed in the hands of a committee to
determine where the guilt lay, and the degree of it,
and also to suggest the punishment. The chairman
of the committee brought in his report. By this it
appeared that, in the course of a speech, Deputy
Schrammel said that religion had no proper place
in the public schools—it was a private matter.
Whereupon Deputy Gregorig shouted, "How about
free love!"
To this, Deputy Iro flung out this retort: "Soda-
water at the Wimberger!"
This appeared to deeply offend Deputy Gregorig,
who shouted back at Iro, "You cowardly blather-
skite, say that again!"
The committee had sat three hours. Gregorig
had apologized; Iro had explained. Iro explained
that he didn't say anything about soda-water at the
Wimberger. He explained in writing, and was very
explicit: "I declare upon my word of honor that I
did not say the words attributed to me."
Unhappily for his word of honor it was proved by
the official stenographers and by the testimony of
several deputies that he did say them.
The committee did not officially know why the
apparently inconsequential reference to soda-water
at the Wimberger should move Deputy Gregorig to
call the utterer of it a cowardly blatherskite; still,
after proper deliberation, it was of the opinion that
the House ought to formally censure the whole busi-
ness. This verdict seems to have been regarded as
sharply severe. I think so because Deputy Dr.
Lueger, Bürgermeister of Vienna, felt it a duty to
soften the blow to his friend Gregorig by showing
that the soda-water remark was not so innocuous as
it might look; that indeed Gregorig's tough retort
was justifiable—and he proceeded to explain why.
He read a number of scandalous post-cards which
he intimated had proceeded from Iro, as indicated
by the handwriting, though they were anonymous.
Some of them were posted to Gregorig at his place
of business, and could have been read by all his
subordinates; the others were posted to Gregorig's
wife. Lueger did not say—but everybody knew
—that the cards referred to a matter of town gossip
which made Mr. Gregorig a chief actor in a tavern
scene where siphon squirting played a prominent and
humorous part, and wherein women had a share.
There were several of the cards; more than several,
in fact; no fewer than five were sent in one day.
Dr. Lueger read some of them, and described others.
Some of them had pictures on them; one a picture
of a hog with a monstrous snout, and beside it
a squirting soda-siphon; below it some sarcastic
doggerel.
Gregorig deals in shirts, cravats, etc. One of the
cards bore these words: "Much respected Deputy
and collar-sewer—or stealer."
Another: "Hurrah for the Christian-Social work
among the women-assemblages! Hurrah for the
soda-squirter!" Comment by Dr. Lueger: "I
cannot venture to read the rest of that one, nor
the signature, either."
Another: "Would you mind telling me if …"
Comment by Dr. Lueger: "The rest of it is
not properly readable."
To Deputy Gregorig's wife: "Much respected
Madam Gregorig,—The undersigned desires an
invitation to the next soda-squirt." Comment by
Dr. Lueger: "Neither the rest of the card nor the
signature can I venture to read to the House, so
vulgar are they."
The purpose of this card—to expose Gregorig
to his family—was repeated in others of these
anonymous missives.
The House, by vote, censured the two improper
deputies.
This may have had a modifying effect upon the
phraseology of the membership for awhile, and upon
its general exuberance also, but it was not for long.
As has been seen, it had become lively once more
on the night of the Long Sitting. At the next
sitting after the long one there was certainly no lack
of liveliness. The President was persistently ignor-
ing the Rules of the House in the interest of the
government side, and the Minority were in an
unappeasable fury about it. The ceaseless din
and uproar, the shouting and stamping and desk-
banging, were deafening, but through it all burst
voices now and then that made themselves heard.
Some of the remarks were of a very candid sort,
and I believe that if they had been uttered in
our House of Representatives they would have at-
tracted attention. I will insert some samples here.
Not in their order, but selected on their merits:
"You have
lied! You conceded the floor to me; make it good,
or you have lied!"
Mr. Glöckner (to the President).
"Leave! Get
out!"
"There sits a
man to whom a certain title belongs!"
Unto Wolf, who is continuously reading, in a
powerful voice, from a newspaper, arrive these per-
sonal remarks from the Majority: "Oh, shut your
mouth!" "Put him out!" "Out with him!"
Wolf stops reading a moment to shout at Dr. Lueger,
who has the floor, but cannot get a hearing, "Please,
Betrayer of the People, begin!"
"Meine Herren—" ["Oho!" and
groans.]
"That's the holy light of the Christian
Socialists!"
"Dam
—nation! are you ever going to quiet down?"
Wolf discharges a galling remark at Mr. Wohl-
meyer.
"You Jew, you!"
There is a moment's lull, and Dr. Lueger begins
his speech. Graceful, handsome man, with winning
manners and attractive bearing, a bright and easy
speaker, and is said to know how to trim his political
sails to catch any favoring wind that blows. He
manages to say a few words, then the tempest over-
whelms him again.
Wolf stops reading his paper a moment to say a
drastic thing about Lueger and his Christian-Social
pieties, which sets the C. S.'s in a sort of frenzy.
Mr. Vielohlawek.
"You leave the Christian
Socialists alone, you word-of-honor-breaker! Ob-
struct all you want to, but you leave them alone!
You've no business in this House; you belong in a
gin-mill!"
"In a lunatic-asylum, you
mean!"
"It's a pity that such a man should
be leader of the Germans; he disgraces the German
name!"
"It's a shame that the like of him
should insult us."
"Contemptible cub—we
will bounce thee out of this!" [It is inferable that
the "thee" is not intended to indicate affection this
time, but to re-enforce and emphasize Mr. Stroh-
bach's scorn.]
"His insults are of no consequence.
He wants his ears boxed."
"You'd better worry a
trifle over your Iro's word of honor. You are
behaving like a street arab."
"It's infamous!"
Dr. Lueger."And these shameless creatures are
the leaders of the German People's Party!"
Meantime Wolf goes whooping along with his
newspaper-readings in great contentment.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You
haven't the floor!"
"The miserable cub!"
Dr. Lueger (to Wolf, raising his voice strenuously
above the storm).
"You are a wholly honorless
street brat!" [A voice, "Fire the rapscallion out!"
But Wolf's soul goes marching noisily on, just the
same.]
the most powerful voice in the Reichsrath; comes
ploughing down through the standing crowds, red,
and choking with anger; halts before Deputy Wohl-
meyer, grabs a rule and smashes it with a blow upon
a desk, threatens Wohlmeyer's face with his fist,
and bellows out some personalities, and a promise).
"Only you wait—we'll teach you!" [A whirl-
wind of offensive retorts assails him from the band
of meek and humble Christian Socialists compacted
around their leader, that distinguished religious ex-
pert, Dr. Lueger, Bürgermeister of Vienna. Our
breath comes in excited gasps now, and we are
full of hope. We imagine that we are back fifty
years ago in the Arkansas Legislature, and we
think we know what is going to happen, and are
glad we came, and glad we are up in the gallery,
out of the way, where we can see the whole
thing and yet not have to supply any of the
material for the inquest. However, as it turns
out, our confidence is abused, our hopes are mis-
placed.]
"You quiet down, or
we shall turn ourselves loose! There will be a cuffing
of ears!"
Prochazka (in a fury).
"No—not ear-boxing,
but genuine blows!"
"I would rather take my hat off to
a Jew than to Wolf!"
"Jew-flunky! Here we
have been fighting the Jews for ten years, and now
you are helping them to power again. How much
do you get for it?"
"What he wants is a strait-jacket!"
Wolf continues his readings. It is a market re-
port now.
Remark flung across the House to Schönerer: "Die Grossmutter auf dem Misthaufen erzeugt
worden!"
It will be judicious not to translate that. Its flavor
is pretty high, in any case, but it becomes particularly
gamey when you remember that the first gallery was
well stocked with ladies.
Apparently it was a great hit. It fetched thunders
of joyous enthusiasm out of the Christian Socialists,
and in their rapture they flung biting epithets with
wasteful liberality at specially detested members of
the Opposition; among others, this one at Schönerer:
"Bordell in der Krugerstrasse!" Then they added
these words, which they whooped, howled, and also
even sang, in a deep-voiced chorus: "Schmul Leeb
Kohn! Schmul Leeb Kohn! Schmul Leeb Kohn!"
and made it splendidly audible above the banging of
desk-boards and the rest of the roaring cyclone of
fiendish noises. [A gallery witticism comes flitting
by from mouth to mouth around the great curve:
"The swan-song of Austrian representative gov-
ernment!" You can note its progress by the
applausive smiles and nods it gets as it skims
along.]Kletzenbauer.
"Holofernes, where is Judith?"
[Storm of laughter.]
"This Wolf-
Theater is costing 6,000 florins!"
"Notice him, gentlemen;
it is Mr. Gregorig." [Laughter.]
"You Judas!"
Schneider."Brothel-Knight!"
Chorus of Voices."East-German offal-tub!"
And so the war of epithets crashes along, with
never-diminishing energy, for a couple of hours.
The ladies in the gallery were learning. That was
well; for by-and-by ladies will form a part of the
membership of all the legislatures in the world; as
soon as they can prove competency they will be
admitted. At present, men only are competent to
legislate; therefore they look down upon women,
and would feel degraded if they had to have them
for colleagues in their high calling.
Wolf is yelling another market report now.
Gessman."Shut up, infamous louse-brat!"
During a momentary lull Dr. Lueger gets a hearing
for three sentences of his speech. They demand
and require that the President shall suppress the four
noisiest members of the Opposition.
Wolf (with a that-settles-it toss of the head).
"The shifty trickster of Vienna has spoken!"
Iro belonged to Schönerer's party. The word-of-
honor incident has given it a new name. Gregorig
is a Christian Socialist, and hero of the post-cards
and the Wimberger soda-squirting incident. He
stands vast and conspicuous, and conceited and self-
satisfied, and roosterish and inconsequential, at
Lueger's elbow, and is proud and cocky to be in
such great company. He looks very well indeed;
really majestic, and aware of it. He crows out his
little empty remark, now and then, and looks as
pleased as if he had been delivered of the Ausgleich.
Indeed, he does look notably fine. He wears almost
the only dress vest on the floor; it exposes a con-
tinental spread of white shirt-front; his hands are
posed at ease in the lips of his trousers pockets; his
head is tilted back complacently; he is attitudinizing;
he is playing to the gallery. However, they are all
doing that. It is curious to see. Men who only
vote, and can't make speeches, and don't know how
to invent witty ejaculations, wander about the vacated
parts of the floor, and stop in a good place and strike
attitudes—attitudes suggestive of weighty thought,
mostly—and glance furtively up at the galleries to
see how it works; or a couple will come together
and shake hands in an artificial way, and laugh a gay
manufactured laugh, and do some constrained and
self-conscious attitudinizing; and they steal glances
at the galleries to see if they are getting notice.
It is like a scene on the stage—by-play by minor
actors at the back while the stars do the great work
at the front. Even Count Badeni attitudinizes for
a moment; strikes a reflective Napoleonic attitude
of fine picturesqueness—but soon thinks better of
it and desists. There are two who do not attitudin-
ize—poor harried and insulted President Abraham-
owicz, who seems wholly miserable, and can find no
way to put in the dreary time but by swinging his
bell and by discharging occasional remarks which
nobody can hear; and a resigned and patient priest,
who sits lonely in a great vacancy on Majority
territory and munches an apple.
Schönerer uplifts his fog-horn of a voice and
shakes the roof with an insult discharged at the
Majority.
"The Honorless Party would better
keep still here!"
"Yes, keep quiet, pimp!"
Schönerer (to Lueger)."Political mountebank!"
Prochazka (to Schönerer)."Drunken clown!"
During the final hour of the sitting many happy
phrases were distributed through the proceedings.
Among them were these—and they are strikingly
good ones:
Blatherskite!
Blackguard!
Scoundrel!
Brothel-daddy!
This last was the contribution of Dr. Gessman,
and gave great satisfaction. And deservedly. It
seems to me that it was one of the most sparkling
things that was said during the whole evening.
At half-past two in the morning the House ad-
journed. The victory was with the Opposition.
No; not quite that. The effective part of it was
snatched away from them by an unlawful exercise
of Presidential force—another contribution toward
driving the mistreated Minority out of their minds.
At other sittings of the parliament, gentlemen of
the Opposition, shaking their fists toward the Presi-
dent, addressed him as "Polish Dog." At one
sitting an angry deputy turned upon a colleague
and shouted,
"!"
You must try to imagine what it was. If I should
offer it even in the original it would probably not get
by the Magazine editor's blue pencil; to offer a
translation would be to waste my ink, of course.
This remark was frankly printed in its entirety by
one of the Vienna dailies, but the others disguised
the toughest half of it with stars.
If the reader will go back over this chapter and
gather its array of extraordinary epithets into a bunch
and examine them, he will marvel at two things:
how this convention of gentlemen could consent to
use such gross terms; and why the users were
allowed to get out of the place alive. There is no
way to understand this strange situation. If every
man in the House were a professional blackguard,
and had his home in a sailor boarding-house, one
could still not understand it; for although that sort
do use such terms, they never take them. These men
are not professional blackguards; they are mainly
gentlemen, and educated; yet they use the terms,
and take them, too. They really seem to attach no
consequence to them. One cannot say that they act
like schoolboys; for that is only almost true, not
entirely. Schoolboys blackguard each other fiercely,
and by the hour, and one would think that nothing
would ever come of it but noise; but that would
be a mistake. Up to a certain limit the result would
be noise only, but that limit overstepped, trouble
would follow right away. There are certain phrases
—phrases of a peculiar character—phrases of the
nature of that reference to Schönerer's grandmother,
for instance, which not even the most spiritless school-
boy in the English-speaking world would allow to
pass unavenged. One difference between school-
boys and the law-makers of the Reichsrath seems to
be that the law-makers have no limit, no danger-line.
Apparently they may call each other what they please,
and go home unmutilated.
Now, in fact, they did have a scuffle on two
occasions, but it was not on account of names
called. There has been no scuffle where that was
the cause.
It is not to be inferred that the House lacks a sense
of honor because it lacks delicacy. That would be
an error. Iro was caught in a lie, and it profoundly
disgraced him. The House cut him, turned its back
upon him. He resigned his seat; otherwise he would
have been expelled. But it was lenient with Gregorig,
who had called Iro a cowardly blatherskite in debate.
It merely went through the form of mildly censuring
him. That did not trouble Gregorig.
The Viennese say of themselves that they are an
easy-going, pleasure-loving community, making the
best of life, and not taking it very seriously. Never-
theless, they are grieved about the ways of their parlia-
ment, and say quite frankly that they are ashamed.
They claim that the low condition of the parliament's
manners is new, not old. A gentleman who was at
the head of the government twenty years ago con-
firms this, and says that in his time the parliament
was orderly and well-behaved. An English gentle-
man of long residence here endorses this, and says
that a low order of politicians originated the present
forms of questionable speech on the stump some
years ago, and imported them into the parliament.*
In that gracious bygone time when a mild and good-tempered
spirit was the atmosphere of our House, when the manner of our speak-
ers was studiously formal and academic, and the storms and explosions
of to-day were wholly unknown," etc.—Translation of the opening
remark of an editorial in this morning's Neue Freie Presse, December
1.
However, some day there will be a Minister of
Etiquette and a sergeant-at-arms, and then things
will go better. I mean if parliament and the Con-
stitution survive the present storm.
iv. the historic climax.
During the whole of November things went from
bad to worse. The all-important Ausgleich remained
hard aground, and could not be sparred off. Badeni's
government could not withdraw the Language Ordi-
nance and keep its majority, and the Opposition
could not be placated on easier terms. One night,
while the customary pandemonium was crashing
and thundering along at its best, a fight broke out.
It was a surging, struggling, shoulder-to-shoulder
scramble. A great many blows were struck. Twice
Schönerer lifted one of the heavy ministerial fauteuils
—some say with one hand—and threatened members
of the Majority with it, but it was wrenched away
from him; a member hammered Wolf over the head
with the President's bell, and another member choked
him; a professor was flung down and belabored with
fists and choked; he held up an open penknife as a
defence against the blows; it was snatched from him
and flung to a distance; it hit a peaceful Christian
Socialist who wasn't doing anything, and brought
blood from his hand. This was the only blood
drawn. The men who got hammered and choked
looked sound and well next day. The fists and the
bell were not properly handled, or better results would
have been apparent. I am quite sure that the fighters
were not in earnest.
On Thanksgiving day the sitting was a history-
making one. On that day the harried, bedeviled,
and despairing government went insane. In order
to free itself from the thraldom of the Opposition it
committed this curiously juvenile crime: it moved an
important change of the Rules of the House, forbade
debate upon the motion, put it to a stand-up vote
instead of ayes and noes, and then gravely claimed
that it had been adopted; whereas, to even the dullest
witness—if I without immodesty may pretend to
that place—it was plain that nothing legitimately
to be called a vote had been taken at all.
I think that Saltpeter never uttered a truer thing
than when he said, "Whom the gods would destroy
they first make mad."
Evidently the government's mind was tottering
when this bald insult to the House was the best way
it could contrive for getting out of the frying-pan.
The episode would have been funny if the matter
at stake had been a trifle; but in the circumstances
it was pathetic. The usual storm was raging in the
House. As usual, many of the Majority and the
most of the Minority were standing up—to have a
better chance to exchange epithets and make other
noises. Into this storm Count Falkenhayn entered,
with his paper in his hand; and at once there was a
rush to get near him and hear him read his motion.
In a moment he was walled in by listeners. The
several clauses of his motion were loudly applauded
by these allies, and as loudly disapplauded—if I
may invent a word—by such of the Opposition as
could hear his voice. When he took his seat the
President promptly put the motion—persons desiring
to vote in the affirmative, stand up! The House
was already standing up; had been standing for an
hour; and before a third of it had found out what
the President had been saying, he had proclaimed
the adoption of the motion! And only a few heard
that In fact, when that House is legislating you
can't tell it from artillery-practice.
You will realize what a happy idea it was to
side-track the lawful ayes and noes and substitute
a stand-up vote by this fact: that a little later,
when a deputation of deputies waited upon the
President and asked him if he was actually will-
ing to claim that that measure had been passed,
he answered, "Yes—and unanimously." It shows
that in effect the whole house was on its feet
when that trick was sprung.
The "Lex Falkenhayn," thus strangely born,
gave the President power to suspend for three days
any deputy who should continue to be disorderly
after being called to order twice, and it also placed
at his disposal such force as might be necessary to
make the suspension effective. So the House had a
sergeant-at-arms at last, and a more formidable one,
as to power, than any other legislature in Christen-
dom had ever possessed. The Lex Falkenhayn also
gave the House itself authority to suspend members
for thirty days.
On these terms the Ausgleich could be put through
in an hour—apparently. The Opposition would
have to sit meek and quiet, and stop obstructing, or
be turned into the street, deputy after deputy, leaving
the Majority an unvexed field for its work.
Certainly the thing looked well. The government
was out of the frying-pan at last. It congratulated
itself, and was almost girlishly happy. Its stock rose
suddenly from less than nothing to a premium. It
confessed to itself, with pride, that its Lex Falkenhayn
was a master-stroke—a work of genius.
However, there were doubters; men who were
troubled, and believed that a grave mistake had been
made. It might be that the Opposition was crushed,
and profitably for the country, too; but the manner
of it—the manner of it! That was the serious part.
It could have far-reaching results; results whose
gravity might transcend all guessing. It might be
the initial step toward a return to government by
force, a restoration of the irresponsible methods of
obsolete times.
There were no vacant seats in the galleries next
day. In fact, standing-room outside the building
was at a premium. There were crowds there, and a
glittering array of helmeted and brass-buttoned
police, on foot and on horseback, to keep them from
getting too much excited. No one could guess what
was going to happen, but every one felt that some-
thing was going to happen, and hoped he might have
a chance to see it, or at least get the news of it while
it was fresh.
At noon the House was empty—for I do not
count myself. Half an hour later the two galleries
were solidly packed, the floor still empty. Another
half-hour later Wolf entered and passed to his place;
then other deputies began to stream in, among them
many forms and faces grown familiar of late. By
one o'clock the membership was present in full force.
A band of Socialists stood grouped against the
ministerial desks, in the shadow of the Presidential
tribune. It was observable that these official strong-
holds were now protected against rushes by bolted
gates, and that these were in ward of servants
wearing the House's livery. Also the removable
desk-boards had been taken away, and nothing left
for disorderly members to slat with.
There was a pervading, anxious hush—at least
what stood very well for a hush in that house. It
was believed by many that the Opposition was cowed,
and that there would be no more obstruction, no
more noise. That was an error.
Presently the President entered by the distant door
to the right, followed by Vice-President Fuchs, and
the two took their way down past the Polish benches
toward the tribune. Instantly the customary storm
of noises burst out, and rose higher and higher, and
wilder and wilder, and really seemed to surpass any-
thing that had gone before it in that place. The
President took his seat, and begged for order, but no
one could hear him. His lips moved—one could
see that; he bowed his body forward appealingly,
and spread his great hand eloquently over his breast
—one could see that; but as concerned his uttered
words, he probably could not hear them himself.
Below him was that crowd of two dozen Socialists
glaring up at him, shaking their fists at him, roaring
imprecations and insulting epithets at him. This
went on for some time. Suddenly the Socialists
burst through the gates and stormed up through the
ministerial benches, and a man in a red cravat reached
up and snatched the documents that lay on the Presi-
dent's desk and flung them abroad. The next
moment he and his allies were struggling and fighting
with the half-dozen uniformed servants who were
there to protect the new gates. Meantime a detail
of Socialists had swarmed up the side steps and over-
flowed the President and the Vice, and were crowd-
ing and shouldering and shoving them out of the
place. They crowded them out, and down the steps
and across the House, past the Polish benches; and
all about them swarmed hostile Poles and Czechs,
who resisted them. One could see fists go up and
come down, with other signs and shows of a heady
fight; then the President and the Vice disappeared
through the door of entrance, and the victorious
Socialists turned and marched back, mounted the
tribune, flung the President's bell and his remaining
papers abroad, and then stood there in a compact
little crowd, eleven strong, and held the place as if it
were a fortress. Their friends on the floor were in
a frenzy of triumph, and manifested it in their
deafening way. The whole House was on its feet,
amazed and wondering.
It was an astonishing situation, and imposingly
dramatic. Nobody had looked for this. The un-
expected had happened. What next? But there
can be no next; the play is over; the grand climax
is reached; the possibilities are exhausted: ring
down the curtain.
Not yet. That distant door opens again. And
now we see what history will be talking of five
centuries hence: a uniformed and helmeted battalion
of bronzed and stalwart men marching in double file
down the floor of the House—a free parliament
profaned by an invasion of brute force
It was an odious spectacle—odious and awful.
For one moment it was an unbelievable thing—a
thing beyond all credibility; it must be a delusion, a
dream, a nightmare. But no, it was real—pitifully
real, shamefully real, hideously real. These sixty
policemen had been soldiers, and they went at their
work with the cold unsentimentality of their trade.
They ascended the steps of the tribune, laid their
hands upon the inviolable persons of the represent-
atives of a nation, and dragged and tugged and
hauled them down the steps and out at the door; then
ranged themselves in stately military array in front
of the ministerial estrade, and so stood.
It was a tremendous episode. The memory of it
will outlast all the thrones that exist to-day. In the
whole history of free parliaments the like of it had
been seen but three times before. It takes its im-
posing place among the world's unforgettable things
I think that in my lifetime I have not twice seen
abiding history made before my eyes, but I know
that I have seen it once.
Some of the results of this wild freak followed
instantly. The Badeni government came down with
a crash; there was a popular outbreak or two in
Vienna; there were three or four days of furious
rioting in Prague, followed by the establishing there
of martial law; the Jews and Germans were harried
and plundered, and their houses destroyed; in other
Bohemian towns there was rioting—in some cases
the Germans being the rioters, in others the Czechs
—and in all cases the Jew had to roast, no matter
which side he was on. We are well along in
December now;*
It is the 9th.—M. T.
the new Minister-President has notbeen able to patch up a peace among the warring
factions of the parliament, therefore there is no use
in calling it together again for the present; public
opinion believes that parliamentary government and
the Constitution are actually threatened with ex-
tinction, and that the permanency of the monarchy
itself is a not absolutely certain thing!
Yes, the Lex Falkenhayn was a great invention,
and did what was claimed for it—it got the govern-
ment out of the frying-pan.
CONCERNING THE JEWS
Some months ago I published a magazine article
descriptive of a remarkable scene in the
Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have
received from Jews in America several letters of in-
quiry. They were difficult letters to answer, for
they were not very definite. But at last I received a
definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks
the questions which the other writers probably be-
lieved they were asking. By help of this text I will
do the best I can to publicly answer this cor-
respondent, and also the others—at the same time
apologizing for having failed to reply privately.
The lawyer's letter reads as follows:
I have read "Stirring Times in Austria." One point in particular
is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself, being
a point about which I have often wanted to address a question to some
disinterested person. The show of military force in the Austrian Parlia-
ment, which precipitated the riots, was not introduced by any Jew. No
Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish question was involved in
the Ausgleich or in the language proposition. No Jew was insulting
anybody. In short, no Jew was doing any mischief toward anybody
whatsoever. In fact, the Jews were the only ones of the nineteen dif-
ferent races in Austria which did not have a party—they are absolutely
non-participants. Yet in your article you say that in the rioting which
followed, all classes of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz.,
in being against the Jews. Now will you kindly tell me why, in your
judgment, the Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these
days of supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?
I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet, undisturbing,
and well-behaving citizens, as a class, than that same Jew. It seems to
me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account for these horri-
ble and unjust persecutions. Tell me, therefore, from your vantage-point of cold view, what in
your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it
either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a
Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest
of mankind? What has become of the golden rule?
I will begin by saying that if I thought myself
prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest
to leave this subject to a person not crippled in that
way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few
years ago a Jew observed to me that there was no
uncourteous reference to his people in my books,
and asked how it happened. It happened because
the disposition was lacking. I am quite sure that
(bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I
have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor
creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand
any society. All that I care to know is that a man
is a human being—that is enough for me; he can't
be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan;
but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice
against him. It may even be that I lean a little his
way, on account of his not having a fair show. All
religions issue bibles against him, and say the most
injurious things about him, but we never hear his
side. We have none but the evidence for the prose-
cution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To
my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is
un-American; it is French. Without this pre-
cedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned.
Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes
without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is
nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon
as I can get at the facts I will undertake his re-
habilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic pub-
lisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to
do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not
pay him reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but
we can at least respect his talents. A person who
has for untold centuries maintained the imposing
position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human
race, and political head of the whole of it, must be
granted the possession of executive abilities of the
loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes
and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope.
I would like to see him. I would rather see him
and shake him by the tail than any other member of
the European Concert. In the present paper I shall
allow myself to use the word Jew as if it stood for
both religion and race. It is handy; and besides,
that is what the term means to the general world.
In the above letter one notes these points:
1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone accountfor his unjust treatment?3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?
4. The Jews have no party; they are non-
participants.5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?6. What has become of the golden rule?
Point No. 1.—We must grant proposition No. 1,
for several sufficient reasons. The Jew is not a dis-
turber of the peace of any country. Even his
enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is
not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a
rioter, he is not quarrelsome. In the statistics of
crime his presence is conspicuously rare—in all
countries. With murder and other crimes of
violence he has but little to do: he is a stranger to
the hangman. In the police court's daily long roll
of "assaults" and "drunk and disorderlies" his
name seldom appears. That the Jewish home is a
home in the truest sense is a fact which no one will
dispute. The family is knitted together by the
strongest affections; its members show each other
every due respect; and reverence for the elders is
an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a
burden on the charities of the state nor of the city;
these could cease from their functions without
affecting him. When he is well enough, he works;
when he is incapacitated, his own people take care
of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but
with a fine and large benevolence. His race is en-
titled to be called the most benevolent of all the
races of men. A Jewish beggar is not impossible,
perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few
men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The
Jew has been staged in many uncomplimentary
forms, but, so far as I know, no dramatist has done
him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. When-
ever a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him
from the necessity of doing it. The charitable in-
stitutions of the Jews are supported by Jewish
money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about
it; it is done quietly; they do not nag and pester
and harass us for contributions; they give us peace,
and set us an example—an example which we have
not found ourselves able to follow; for by nature we
are not free givers, and have to be patiently and
persistently hunted down in the interest of the un-
fortunate.
These facts are all on the credit side of the prop-
osition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen.
Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable,
industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal
dispositions; that his family life is commendable;
that he is not a burden upon public charities; that
he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above
the reach of competition. These are the very
quintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add
that he is as honest as the average of his neighbors
— But I think that question is affirmatively
answered by the fact that he is a successful business
man. The basis of successful business is honesty;
a business cannot thrive where the parties to it
cannot trust each other. In the matter of numbers
the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming
population of New York; but that his honesty
counts for much is guaranteed by the fact that the
immense wholesale business of Broadway, from the
Battery to Union Square, is substantially in his
hands.
I suppose that the most picturesque example in
history of a trader's trust in his fellow-trader was
one where it was not Christian trusting Christian, but
Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who
used to sell his subjects to George III. to fight
George Washington with got rich at it; and by-and-
by, when the wars engendered by the French
Revolution made his throne too warm for him, he
was obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry,
and had to leave his earnings behind—$9,000,000.
He had to risk the money with some one without
security. He did not select a Christian, but a Jew
—a Jew of only modest means, but of high
character; a character so high that it left him lone-
some—Rothschild of Frankfort. Thirty years later,
when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the
Duke came back from overseas, and the Jew re-
turned the loan, with interest added.*
Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us
that shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or
creed, but are merely human:
"Congress passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of Lib-
ertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is patheti-
cally interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest man may
get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for Uncle Sam.
In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the contract to carry the
mail on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville and Coffman, thirty
miles a day, from July 1, 1887, for one year. He got the postmaster at
Knob Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended that
his bid should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got the
contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of the
first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate he
was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with
the Post Office Department. The department informed him that he
must either carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up
his bondsmen would have to pay the government $1,459.85 damages.
So Moses carried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week-day
for a year, and carried the mail, and received for his labor $4—or, to
be accurate, $6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid was
accepted, the pay was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years,
a bill was finally passed to pay to Moses the difference between what he
earned in that unlucky year and what he received."
The Sun, which tells the above story, says that bills were introduced
in three or four Congresses for Moses's relief, and that committees re-
peatedly investigated his claim.
It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed
virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving ex-
pression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election, eleven
years to find out some way to cheat a fellow-Christian out of about $13
on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 due him on
its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same time they
paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions—a third of it unearned and unde-
served. This indicates a splendid all-around competency in theft, for it
starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up to ship-
loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the man that
bets on it is taking chances.
The Jew has his other side. He has some dis-
creditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of
them, because he cannot get entirely rid of vexatious
Christian competition. We have seen that he seldom
transgresses the laws against crimes of violence.
Indeed, his dealings with courts are almost restricted
to matters connected with commerce. He has a
reputation for various small forms of cheating, and
for practicing oppressive usury, and for burning
himself out to get the insurance, and arranging for
cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock
the other man in, and for smart evasions which find
him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter
of the law, when court and jury know very well that
he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent and
faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he
is charged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand
by the flag as a soldier—like the Christian Quaker.
Now if you offset these discreditable features by
the creditable ones summarized in a preceding para-
graph beginning with the words, "These facts are all
on the credit side," and strike a balance, what must
the verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and
demerits being fairly weighed and measured on both
sides, the Christian can claim no superiority over the
Jew in the matter of good citizenship.
Yet, in all countries, from the dawn of history,
the Jew has been persistently and implacably hated,
and with frequency persecuted.
Point No. 2.—"Can fanaticism alone account for
this?"
Years ago I used to think that it was responsible
for nearly all of it, but latterly I have come to think
that this was an error. Indeed, it is now my con-
viction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.
In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter
xlvii.
We have all thoughtfully—or unthoughtfully—
read the pathetic story of the years of plenty and
the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph, with
that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts,
and the crusts of the poor, and human liberty—a
corner whereby he took a nation's money all away,
to the last penny; took a nation's live-stock all
away, to the last hoof; took a nation's land away,
to the last acre; then took the nation itself, buying
it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child
by child, till all were slaves; a corner which took
everything, left nothing; a corner so stupendous
that, by comparison with it, the most gigantic
corners in subsequent history are but baby things,
for it dealt in hundreds of millions of bushels, and
its profits were reckonable by hundreds of millions
of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing that its
effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-
day, more than three thousand years after the event.
Is it presumable that the eye of Egypt was upon
Joseph, the foreign Jew, all this time? I think it
likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it. Was
Joseph establishing a character for his race which
would survive long in Egypt? And in time would
his name come to be familiarly used to express that
character—like Shylock's? It is hardly to be
doubted. Let us remember that this was centuries
before the crucifixion.
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later
and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin
historians. I read it in a translation many years
ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It
was alluding to a time when people were still living
who could have seen the Saviour in the flesh.
Christianity was so new that the people of Rome
had hardly heard of it, and had but confused notions
of what it was. The substance of the remark was
this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome
through error, they being "mistaken for Jews."
The meaning seems plain. These pagans had
nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready
to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they
hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian
was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution
of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and
was not born of Christianity? I think so. What
was the origin of the feeling?
When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the
Mississippi Valley, where a gracious and beautiful
Sunday-school simplicity and unpracticality pre-
vailed, the "Yankee" (citizen of the New England
States) was hated with a splendid energy. But re-
ligion had nothing to do with it. In a trade, the
Yankee was held to be about five times the match
of the Westerner. His shrewdness, his insight,
his judgment, his knowledge, his enterprise, and his
formidable cleverness in applying these forces were
frankly confessed, and most competently cursed.
In the cotton States, after the war, the simple and
ignorant negroes made the crops for the white
planter on shares. The Jew came down in force, set
up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's
wants on credit, and at the end of the season was
proprietor of the negro's share of the present crop
and of part of his share of the next one. Before
long, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful
if the negro loved him.
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The
reason is not concealed. The movement was in-
stituted because the Christian peasant and villager
stood no chance against his commercial abilities.
He was always ready to lend money on a crop, and
sell vodka and other necessaries of life on credit
while the crop was growing. When settlement day
came he owned the crop; and next year or year
after he owned the farm, like Joseph.
In the dull and ignorant England of John's time
everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered
all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he was the
king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all
profitable ways; he even financed crusades for the
rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe out his account
with the nation and restore business to its natural
and incompetent channels he had to be banished the
realm.
For the like reasons Spain had to banish him
four hundred years ago, and Austria about a couple
of centuries later.
In all the ages Christian Europe has been obliged
to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a
mechanical trade, the Christian had to retire from it.
If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and
he took the business. If he exploited agriculture,
the other farmers had to get at something else.
Since there was no way to successfully compete
with him in any vocation, the law had to step in
and save the Christian from the poorhouse. Trade
after trade was taken away from the Jew by statute
till practically none was left. He was forbidden to
engage in agriculture; he was forbidden to practice
law; he was forbidden to practice medicine, except
among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts.
Even the seats of learning and the schools of science
had to be closed against this tremendous antagonist.
Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways
to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways
to invest his takings well, for usury was not denied
him. In the hard conditions suggested, the Jew
without brains could not survive, and the Jew with
brains had to keep them in good training and well
sharpened up, or starve. Ages of restriction to the
one tool which the law was not able to take from
him—his brain—have made that tool singularly
competent; ages of compulsory disuse of his hands
have atrophied them, and he never uses them now.
This history has a very, very commercial look, a
most sordid and practical commercial look, the busi-
ness aspect of a Chinese cheap-labor crusade.
Religious prejudices may account for one part of it,
but not for the other nine.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they
did not take their livelihoods away from them. The
Catholics have persecuted the Protestants with
bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed
agriculture and the handicrafts against them. Why
was that? That has the candid look of genuine
religious persecution, not a trade-union boycott in a
religious disguise.
The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria
and Germany, and lately in France; but England
and America give them an open field and yet
survive. Scotland offers them an unembarrassed
field too, but there are not many takers. There are
a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but
that is because they can't earn enough to get away.
The Scotch pay themselves that compliment, but it
is authentic.
I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much
to do with the world's attitude toward the Jew; that
the reasons for it are older than that event, as sug-
gested by Egypt's experience and by Rome's regret
for having persecuted an unknown quantity called a
Christian, under the mistaken impression that she
was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew—a
skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am
persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany
nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from
the average Christian's inability to compete success-
fully with the average Jew in business—in either
straight business or the questionable sort.
In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which
frankly urged the expulsion of the Jews from
Germany; and the agitator's reason was as frank as
his proposition. It was this: that eighty-five per
cent. of the successful lawyers of Berlin were Jews,
and that about the same percentage of the great and
lucrative businesses of all sorts in Germany were in
the hands of the Jewish race! Isn't it an amazing
confession? It was but another way of saying that
in a population of 48,000,000, of whom only 500,-
000 were registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent. of
the brains and honesty of the whole was lodged in
the Jews. I must insist upon the honesty—it is an
essential of successful business, taken by and large.
Of course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even
among Christians, but it is a good working rule,
nevertheless. The speaker's figures may have been
inexact, but the motive of persecution stands out as
clear as day.
The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the
newspapers, the theaters, the great mercantile,
shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests, the
big army and city contracts, the tramways, and
pretty much all other properties of high value, and
also the small businesses—were in the hands of
the Jews. He said the Jew was pushing the Christian
to the wall all along the line; that it was all a
Christian could do to scrape together a living; and
that the Jew must be banished, and soon—there was
no other way of saving the Christian. Here in
Vienna, last autumn, an agitator said that all these
disastrous details were true of Austria-Hungary
also; and in fierce language he demanded the ex-
pulsion of the Jews. When politicians come out
without a blush and read the baby act in this frank
way, unrebuked, it is a very good indication that
they have a market back of them, and know where
to fish for votes.
You note the crucial point of the mentioned
agitation; the argument is that the Christian cannot
compete with the Jew, and that hence his very bread
is in peril. To human beings this is a much more
hate-inspiring thing than is any detail connected
with religion. With most people, of a necessity,
bread and meat take first rank, religion second. I
am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not
due in any large degree to religious prejudice.
No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his
money he is a very serious obstruction to less
capable neighbors who are on the same quest. I
think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly
values the Jew is not shallow, but deep. With
precocious wisdom he found out in the morning of
time that some men worship rank, some worship
heroes, some worship power, some worship God,
and that over these ideals they dispute and cannot
unite—but that they all worship money; so he
made it the end and aim of his life to get it. He
was at it in Egypt thirty-six centuries ago; he was
at it in Rome when that Christian got persecuted by
mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The
cost to him has been heavy; his success has made
the whole human race his enemy—but it has paid,
for it has brought him envy, and that is the only
thing which men will sell both soul and body to get.
He long ago observed that a millionaire commands
respect, a two-millionaire homage, a multi-millionaire
the deepest deeps of adoration. We all know that
feeling; we have seen it express itself. We have
noticed that when the average man mentions the
name of a multi-millionaire he does it with that
mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust
which burns in a Frenchman's eye when it falls on
another man's centime.
Point No. 4.—"The Jews have no party; they
are non-participants."
Perhaps you have let the secret out and given
yourself away. It seems hardly a credit to the race
that it is able to say that; or to you, sir, that you
can say it without remorse; more, that you should
offer it as a plea against maltreatment, injustice, and
oppression. Who gives the Jew the right, who
gives any race the right, to sit still, in a free
country, and let somebody else look after its safety?
The oppressed Jew was entitled to all pity in the
former times under brutal autocracies, for he was
weak and friendless, and had no way to help his
case. But he has ways now, and he has had them
for a century, but I do not see that he has tried to
make serious use of them. When the Revolution
set him free in France it was an act of grace—the
grace of other people; he does not appear in it as
a helper. I do not know that he helped when Eng-
land set him free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of
France who have stepped forward with great Zola at
their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe*
The article was written in the summer of 1898.—Ed.
)the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of
modern times, do you find a great or rich or
illustrious Jew helping? In the United States he
was created free in the beginning—he did not need
to help, of course. In Austria, and Germany, and
France he has a vote, but of what considerable use
is it to him? He doesn't seem to know how to
apply it to the best effect. With all his splendid
capacities and all his fat wealth he is to-day not
politically important in any country. In America,
as early as 1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who
had a spirit of his own and a way of exposing it to
the weather, made it apparent to all that he must be
politically reckoned with; yet fifteen years before
that we hardly knew what an Irishman looked like.
As an intelligent force, and numerically, he has
always been away down, but he has governed the
country just the same. It was because he was
organized. It made his vote valuable—in fact,
essential.
You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically
feeble. That is nothing to the point—with the
Irishman's history for an object-lesson. But I am
coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In
all parliamentary countries you could no doubt elect
Jews to the legislatures—and even one member in
such a body is sometimes a force which counts.
How deeply have you concerned yourselves about
this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or even in
America for that matter? You remark that the Jews
were not to blame for the riots in this Reichsrath
here, and you add with satisfaction that there wasn't
one in that body. That is not strictly correct; if it
were, would it not be in order for you to explain it
and apologize for it, not try to make a merit of it?
But I think that the Jew was by no means in as large
force there as he ought to have been, with his
chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly
liberal terms, and it must surely be his own fault
that he is so much in the background politically.
As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned
some figures awhile ago—500,000—as the Jewish
population of Germany. I will add some more—
6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000
in the United States. I take them from memory; I
read them in the Encyclopædia Britannica about ten
years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. If
those statistics are correct, my argument is not as
strong as it ought to be as concerns America, but it
still has strength. It is plenty strong enough as
concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 was
nine per cent. of the empire's population. The
Irish would govern the Kingdom of Heaven if they
had a strength there like that.
I have some suspicions; I got them at second
hand, but they have remained with me these ten or
twelve years. When I read in the E. B. that the
Jewish population of the United States was 250,000,
I wrote the editor, and explained to him that I was
personally acquainted with more Jews than that in
my country, and that his figures were without doubt
a misprint for 25,000,000. I also added that I was
personally acquainted with that many there; but
that was only to raise his confidence in me, for it
was not true. His answer miscarried, and I never
got it; but I went around talking about the matter,
and people told me they had reason to suspect that
for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were
mainly with the Christians did not report themselves
as Jews in the census. It looked plausible; it looks
plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; and
look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans,
and Chicago, and Cincinnati, and San Francisco—
how your race swarms in those places!—and
everywhere else in America, down to the least little
village. Read the signs on the marts of commerce
and on the shops: Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein
(precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosen-
thal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violet odor), Sing-
vogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and
all the amazing list of beautiful and enviable names
which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so long
ago. It is another instance of Europe's coarse and
cruel persecution of your race; not that it was
coarse and cruel to outfit it with pretty and poetical
names like those, but that it was coarse and cruel to
make it pay for them or else take such hideous and
often indecent names that to-day their owners never
use them; or, if they do, only on official papers.
And it was the many, not the few, who got the
odious names, they being too poor to bribe the
officials to grant them better ones.
Now why was the race renamed? I have been told
that in Prussia it was given to using fictitious names,
and often changing them, so as to beat the tax-
gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and
that finally the idea was hit upon of furnishing all
the inmates of a house with one and the same sur-
name, and then holding the house responsible right
along for those inmates, and accountable for any
disappearances that might occur; it made the Jews
keep track of each other, for self-interest's sake, and
saved the government the trouble.*
In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in
some newly acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named
Abraham and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could not tell
t'other from which, and was likely to lose his reason over the matter.
The renaming was put into the hands of the War Department, and a
charming mess the graceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a
Jew was of no sort of consequence, and they labeled the race in a way
to make the angels weep. As an example take these two! Abraham
Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned.—Culled from "Namens Stu-
dien," by Karl Emil Franzos.
If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia
came to be renamed is correct, if it is true that they
fictitiously registered themselves to gain certain ad-
vantages, it may possibly be true that in America
they refrain from registering themselves as Jews to
fend off the damaging prejudices of the Christian
customer. I have no way of knowing whether this
notion is well founded or not. There may be other
and better ways of explaining why only that poor
little 250,000 of our Jews got into the Encyclopædia.
I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly
of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish
population in America.
Point No. 3.—"Can Jews do anything to im-
prove the situation?"
I think so. If I may make a suggestion without
seeming to be trying to teach my grandmother how
to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have
learned the value of combination. We apply it
everywhere—in railway systems, in trusts, in trade
unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor politics, in
major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever
our strength may be, big or little, we organize it.
We have found out that that is the only way to get
the most out of it that is in it. We know the weak-
ness of individual sticks, and the strength of the
concentrated fagot. Suppose you try a scheme like
this, for instance. In England and America put
every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you
have not been doing that). Get up volunteer
regiments composed of Jews solely, and, when the
drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to re-
move the reproach that you have few Massénas
among you, and that you feed on a country but
don't like to fight for it. Next, in politics, organize
your strength, band together, and deliver the casting
vote where you can, and where you can't, compel as
good terms as possible. You huddle to yourselves
already in all countries, but you huddle to no
sufficient purpose, politically speaking. You do not
seem to be organized, except for your charities.
There you are omnipotent; there you compel your
due of recognition—you do not have to beg for it.
It shows what you can do when you band together
for a definite purpose.
And then from America and England you can
encourage your race in Austria, France, and Ger-
many, and materially help it. It was a pathetic tale
that was told by a poor Jew in Galicia a fortnight
ago during the riots, after he had been raided by
the Christian peasantry and despoiled of everything
he had. He said his vote was of no value to him,
and he wished he could be excused from casting it,
for indeed casting it was a sure damage to him, since
no matter which party he voted for, the other party
would come straight and take its revenge out of him.
Nine per cent. of the population of the empire,
these Jews, and apparently they cannot put a
plank into any candidate's platform! If you will
send our Irish lads over here I think they will
organize your race and change the aspect of the
Reichsrath.
You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in
politics here, that they are "absolutely non-
participants." I am assured by men competent to
speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews
are exceedingly active in politics all over the em-
pire, but that they scatter their work and their votes
among the numerous parties, and thus lose the ad-
vantages to be had by concentration. I think that
in America they scatter too, but you know more
about that than I do.
Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear
insight into the value of that. Have you heard of
his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of the world
together in Palestine, with a government of their
own—under the suzerainty of the Sultan, I sup-
pose. At the convention of Berne, last year, there
were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal
was received with decided favor. I am not the
Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that con-
centration of the cunningest brains in the world was
going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland),
I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be
well to let that race find out its strength. If the
horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more.
Point No. 5.—"Will the persecution of the Jews
ever come to an end?"
On the score of religion, I think it has already
come to an end. On the score of race prejudice
and trade, I have the idea that it will continue.
That is, here and there in spots about the world,
where a barbarous ignorance and a sort of mere
animal civilization prevail; but I do not think that
elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of
being robbed and raided. Among the high civil-
izations he seems to be very comfortably situated
indeed, and to have more than his proportionate
share of the prosperities going. It has that look in
Vienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be
removed; but he can stand that; it is no particular
matter. By his make and ways he is substantially
a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angels
dislike a foreigner. I am using this word foreigner
in the German sense—stranger. Nearly all of us
have an antipathy to a stranger, even of our own
nationality. We pile gripsacks in a vacant seat to
keep him from getting it; and a dog goes further,
and does as a savage would—challenges him on the
spot. The German dictionary seems to make no
distinction between a stranger and a foreigner; in its
view a stranger is a foreigner—a sound position, I
think. You will always be by ways and habits and
predilections substantially strangers—foreigners—
wherever you are, and that will probably keep the
race prejudice against you alive.
But you were the favorites of Heaven originally,
and your manifold and unfair prosperities convince
me that you have crowded back into that snug place
again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last
week in Vienna a hail-storm struck the prodigious
Central Cemetery and made wasteful destruction
there. In the Christian part of it, according to the
official figures, 621 window panes were broken; more
than 900 singing-birds were killed; five great trees
and many small ones were torn to shreds and the
shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; the orna-
mental plants and other decorations of the graves
were ruined, and more than a hundred tomb-lanterns
shattered; and it took the cemetery's whole force
of 300 laborers more than three days to clear away
the storm's wreckage. In the report occurs this
remark—and in its italics you can hear it grit its
Christian teeth: "…. lediglich die israelitische
Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter ganz-
lich verschont worden war." Not a hailstone hit the
Jewish reservation! Such nepotism makes me tired.
Point No. 6.—"What has become of the golden
rule?"
It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken
care of. It is Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and
we pull it out every Sunday and give it an airing.
But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into
this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not
feel at home. It is strictly religious furniture, like
an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those
things. It has never been intruded into business;
and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it
is a business passion.
To conclude.—If the statistics are right, the Jews
constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It
suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the
blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought
hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has
always been heard of. He is as prominent on the
planet as any other people, and his commercial
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the
smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the
world's list of great names in literature, science, art,
music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are
also away out of proportion to the weakness of his
numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this
world, in all the ages; and has done it with his
hands tied behind him. He could be vain of him-
self, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the
Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet
with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff
and passed away; the Greek and the Roman
followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone;
other peoples have sprung up and held their torch
high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in
twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them
all, beat them all, and is now what he always was,
exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no
weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no
dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things
are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he
remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
FROM THE "LONDON TIMES" OF 1904I
Correspondence of the "London Times."
"Chicago,April 1, 1904.
I resume by cable-telephone where I left off
yesterday. For many hours, now, this vast city
—along with the rest of the globe, of course—has
talked of nothing but the extraordinary episode
mentioned in my last report. In accordance with
your instructions, I will now trace the romance from
its beginnings down to the culmination of yesterday
—or to-day; call it which you like. By an odd
chance, I was a personal actor in a part of this
drama myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna.
Date, one o'clock in the morning, March 31, 1898.
I had spent the evening at a social entertainment.
About midnight I went away, in company with
the military attachés of the British, Italian, and
American embassies, to finish with a late smoke.
This function had been appointed to take place in
the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attaché
mentioned in the above list. When we arrived there
we found several visitors in the room: young
Szczepanik;*
Pronounced (approximately) Zepannik.
Mr. K., his financial backer; Mr. W.,the latter's secretary; and Lieutenant Clayton of the
United States army. War was at that time threat-
ening between Spain and our country, and Lieutenant
Clayton had been sent to Europe on military busi-
ness. I was well acquainted with young Szczepanik
and his two friends, and I knew Mr. Clayton slightly.
I had met him at West Point years before, when he
was a cadet. It was when General Merritt was
superintendent. He had the reputation of being an
able officer, and also of being quick-tempered and
plain-spoken.
This smoking-party had been gathered together
partly for business. This business was to consider
the availability of the telelectroscope for military
service. It sounds oddly enough now, but it is
nevertheless true that at that time the invention was
not taken seriously by any one except its inventor.
Even his financial supporter regarded it merely as
a curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so
convinced of this that he had actually postponed its
use by the general world to the end of the dying
century by granting a two years' exclusive lease of
it to a syndicate, whose intent was to exploit it at
the Paris World's Fair.
When we entered the smoking-room we found
Lieutenant Clayton and Szczepanik engaged in a
warm talk over the telelectroscope in the German
tongue. Clayton was saying:
"Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway!" and he
brought his fist down with emphasis upon the table.
"And I do not value it," retorted the young in-
ventor, with provoking calmness of tone and manner.
Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said:
"I cannot see why you are wasting money on
this toy. In my opinion, the day will never come
when it will do a farthing's worth of real service for
any human being."
"That may be; yes, that may be; still, I have
put the money in it, and am content. I think,
myself, that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik claims
more for it, and I know him well enough to believe
that he can see farther than I can—either with his
telelectroscope or without it."
The soft answer did not cool Clayton down; it
seemed only to irritate him the more; and he re-
peated and emphasized his conviction that the in-
vention would never do any man a farthing's worth
of real service. He even made it a "brass" farthing,
this time. Then he laid an English farthing on the
table, and added:
"Take that, Mr. K., and put it away; and if ever
the telelectroscope does any man an actual service,
—mind, a real service,—please mail it to me as a
reminder, and I will take back what I have been
saying. Will you?"
"I will;" and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket.
Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and
began with a taunt—a taunt which did not reach a
finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy retort,
and followed this with a blow. There was a brisk
fight for a moment or two; then the attachés
separated the men.
The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the
autumn of 1901. As soon as the Paris contract
released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to
public use, and was soon connected with the tele-
phonic systems of the whole world. The improved
"limitless-distance" telephone was presently in-
troduced, and the daily doings of the globe made
visible to everybody, and audibly discussable, too,
by witnesses separated by any number of leagues.
By and by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clay-
ton (now captain) was serving in that military de-
partment at the time. The two men resumed the
Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different
occasions they quarreled, and were separated by
witnesses. Then came an interval of two months,
during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any
of his friends, and it was at first supposed that he
had gone off on a sight-seeing tour and would soon
be heard from. But no; no word came from him.
Then it was supposed that he had returned to
Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he was not
heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like
most inventors and other kinds of poets, and went
and came in a capricious way, and often without
notice.
Now comes the tragedy. On the 29th of
December, in a dark and unused compartment of
the cellar under Captain Clayton's house, a corpse
was discovered by one of Clayton's maid-servants.
It was easily identified as Szczepanik's. The man
had died by violence. Clayton was arrested, in-
dicted, and brought to trial, charged with this
murder. The evidence against him was perfect in
every detail, and absolutely unassailable. Clayton
admitted this himself. He said that a reasonable
man could not examine this testimony with a dis-
passionate mind and not be convinced by it; yet
the man would be in error, nevertheless. Clayton
swore that he did not commit the murder, and that
he had had nothing to do with it.
As your readers will remember, he was con-
demned to death. He had numerous and powerful
friends, and they worked hard to save him, for none
of them doubted the truth of his assertion. I did
what little I could to help, for I had long since
become a close friend of his, and thought I knew
that it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy
into a corner and assassinate him. During 1902
and 1903 he was several times reprieved by the
governor; he was reprieved once more in the be-
ginning of the present year, and the execution-day
postponed to March 31st.
The governor's situation has been embarrassing,
from the day of the condemnation, because of the
fact that Clayton's wife is the governor's niece.
The marriage took place in 1899, when Clayton was
thirty-four and the girl twenty-three, and has been a
happy one. There is one child, a little girl three
years old. Pity for the poor mother and child
kept the mouths of grumblers closed at first; but
this could not last forever,—for in America politics
has a hand in everything,—and by and by the
governor's political opponents began to call at-
tention to his delay in allowing the law to take its
course. These hints have grown more and more
frequent of late, and more and more pronounced.
As a natural result, his own party grew nervous.
Its leaders began to visit Springfield and hold long
private conferences with him. He was now between
two fires. On the one hand, his niece was imploring
him to pardon her husband; on the other were the
leaders, insisting that he stand to his plain duty as
chief magistrate of the State, and place no further
bar to Clayton's execution. Duty won in the
struggle, and the governor gave his word that he
would not again respite the condemned man. This
was two weeks ago. Mrs. Clayton now said:
"Now that you have given your word, my last
hope is gone, for I know you will never go back
from it. But you have done the best you could for
John, and I have no reproaches for you. You love
him, and you love me, and we both know that if you
could honorably save him, you would do it. I will
go to him now, and be what help I can to him, and
get what comfort I may out of the few days that are
left to us before the night comes which will have no
end for me in life. You will be with me that day?
You will not let me bear it alone?"
"I will take you to him myself, poor child, and
I will be near you to the last."
By the governor's command, Clayton was now
allowed every indulgence he might ask for which
could interest his mind and soften the hardships of
his imprisonment. His wife and child spent the
days with him; I was his companion by night. He
was removed from the narrow cell which he had
occupied during such a dreary stretch of time, and
given the chief warden's roomy and comfortable
quarters. His mind was always busy with the
catastrophe of his life, and with the slaughtered
inventor, and he now took the fancy that he would
like to have the telelectroscope and divert his mind
with it. He had his wish. The connection was
made with the international telephone-station, and
day by day, and night by night, he called up one
corner of the globe after another, and looked upon
its life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke
with its people, and realized that by grace of this
marvelous instrument he was almost as free as the
birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks
and bars. He seldom spoke, and I never inter-
rupted him when he was absorbed in this amuse-
ment. I sat in his parlor and read and smoked, and
the nights were very quiet and reposefully sociable,
and I found them pleasant. Now and then I would
hear him say, "Give me Yedo"; next, "Give me
Hong-Kong"; next, "Give me Melbourne." And
I smoked on, and read in comfort, while he wandered
about the remote under-world, where the sun was
shining in the sky, and the people were at their daily
work. Sometimes the talk that came from those far
regions through the microphone attachment in-
terested me, and I listened.
Yesterday—I keep calling it yesterday, which is
quite natural, for certain reasons—the instrument
remained unused, and that, also, was natural, for it
was the eve of the execution-day. It was spent in
tears and lamentations and farewells. The governor
and the wife and child remained until a quarter past
eleven at night, and the scenes I witnessed were
pitiful to see. The execution was to take place at
four in the morning. A little after eleven a sound
of hammering broke out upon the still night, and
there was a glare of light, and the child cried out,
"What is that, papa?" and ran to the window be-
fore she could be stopped, and clapped her small
hands, and said: "Oh, come and see, mama—such
a pretty thing they are making!" The mother
knew—and fainted. It was the gallows!
She was carried away to her lodging, poor
woman, and Clayton and I were alone—alone, and
thinking, brooding, dreaming. We might have been
statues, we sat so motionless and still. It was a
wild night, for winter was come again for a moment,
after the habit of this region in the early spring.
The sky was starless and black, and a strong wind
was blowing from the lake. The silence in the room
was so deep that all outside sounds seemed exag-
gerated by contrast with it. These sounds were
fitting ones; they harmonized with the situation and
the conditions: the boom and thunder of sudden
storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the
dying down into moanings and wailings about the
eaves and angles; now and then a gnashing and
lashing rush of sleet along the window-panes; and
always the muffled and uncanny hammering of the
gallows-builders in the courtyard. After an age of
this, another sound—far off, and coming smothered
and faint through the riot of the tempest—a bell
tolling twelve! Another age, and it tolled again.
By and by, again. A dreary, long interval after
this, then the spectral sound floated to us once more
—one, two, three; and this time we caught our
breath: sixty minutes of life left!
Clayton rose, and stood by the window, and
looked up into the black sky, and listened to the
thrashing sleet and the piping wind; then he said:
"That a dying man's last of earth should be—this!"
After a little he said: "I must see the sun again—
the sun!" and the next moment he was feverishly
calling: "China! Give me China—Peking!"
I was strangely stirred, and said to myself: "To
think that it is a mere human being who does this
unimaginable miracle—turns winter into summer,
night into day, storm into calm, gives the freedom
of the great globe to a prisoner in his cell, and the
sun in his naked splendor to a man dying in
Egyptian darkness!"
I was listening.
"What light! what brilliancy! what radiance! …
This is Peking?"
"Yes."
"The time?"
"Mid-afternoon."
"What is the great crowd for, and in such
gorgeous costumes? What masses and masses of
rich color and barbaric magnificence! And how
they flash and glow and burn in the flooding sun-
light! What is the occasion of it all?"
"The coronation of our new emperor—the
Czar."
"But I thought that that was to take place
yesterday."
"This is yesterday—to you."
"Certainly it is. But my mind is confused, these
days; there are reasons for it… Is this the be-
ginning of the procession?"
"Oh, no; it began to move an hour ago."
"Is there much more of it still to come?"
"Two hours of it. Why do you sigh?"
"Because I should like to see it all."
"And why can't you?"
"I have to go—presently."
"You have an engagement?"
After a pause, softly: "Yes." After another
pause: "Who are these in the splendid pavilion?"
"The imperial family, and visiting royalties from
here and there and yonder in the earth."
"And who are those in the adjoining pavilions to
the right and left?"
"Ambassadors and their families and suites to the
right; unofficial foreigners to the left."
"If you will be so good, I—"
Boom! That distant bell again, tolling the half-
hour faintly through the tempest of wind and sleet.
The door opened, and the governor and the mother
and child entered—the woman in widow's weeds!
She fell upon her husband's breast in a passion of
sobs, and I—I could not stay; I could not bear it.
I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door.
I sat there waiting—waiting—waiting, and listen-
ing to the rattling sashes and the blustering of the
storm. After what seemed a long, long time, I
heard a rustle and movement in the parlor, and
knew that the clergyman and the sheriff and the
guard were come. There was some low-voiced
talking; then a hush; then a prayer, with a sound
of sobbing; presently, footfalls—the departure for
the gallows; then the child's happy voice: "Don't
cry now, mama, when we've got papa again, and
taking him home."
The door closed; they were gone. I was ashamed:
I was the only friend of the dying man that had no
spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room, and
said I would be a man and would follow. But we
are made as we are made, and we cannot help it. I
did not go.
I fidgeted about the room nervously, and presently
went to the window, and softly raised it,—drawn
by that dread fascination which the terrible and the
awful exert,—and looked down upon the courtyard.
By the garish light of the electric lamps I saw the
little group of privileged witnesses, the wife crying
on her uncle's breast, the condemned man standing
on the scaffold with the halter around his neck, his
arms strapped to his body, the black cap on his
head, the sheriff at his side with his hand on the
drop, the clergyman in front of him with bare head
and his book in his hand.
"I am the resurrection and the life—"
I turned away. I could not listen; I could not
look. I did not know whither to go or what to do.
Mechanically, and without knowing it, I put my eye
to that strange instrument, and there was Peking
and the Czar's procession! The next moment I was
leaning out of the window, gasping, suffocating,
trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence
of the necessity of speaking. The preacher could
speak, but I, who had such need of words—
"And may God have mercy upon your soul.
Amen."
The sheriff drew down the black cap, and laid his
hand upon the lever. I got my voice.
"Stop, for God's sake! The man is innocent.
Come here and see Szczepanik face to face!"
Hardly three minutes later the governor had my
place at the window, and was saying:
"Strike off his bonds and set him free!"
Three minutes later all were in the parlor again.
The reader will imagine the scene; I have no need
to describe it. It was a sort of mad orgy of joy.
A messenger carried word to Szczepanik in the
pavilion, and one could see the distressed amaze-
ment dawn in his face as he listened to the tale.
Then he came to his end of the line, and talked with
Clayton and the governor and the others; and the
wife poured out her gratitude upon him for saving
her husband's life, and in her deep thankfulness she
kissed him at twelve thousand miles' range.
The telelectrophonoscopes of the globe were put
to service now, and for many hours the kings and
queens of many realms (with here and there a re-
porter) talked with Szczepanik, and praised him;
and the few scientific societies which had not already
made him an honorary member conferred that grace
upon him.
How had he come to disappear from among us?
It was easily explained. He had not grown used to
being a world-famous person, and had been forced
to break away from the lionizing that was robbing
him of all privacy and repose. So he grew a beard,
put on colored glasses, disguised himself a little in
other ways, then took a fictitious name, and went
off to wander about the earth in peace.
Such is the tale of the drama which began with
an inconsequential quarrel in Vienna in the spring
of 1898, and came near ending as a tragedy in the
spring of 1904.
Mark Twain.
II
Correspondence of the "London Times."
Chicago,April 5, 1904.
To-day, by a clipper of the Electric Line, and
the latter's Electric Railway connections, ar-
rived an envelope from Vienna, for Captain Clay-
ton, containing an English farthing. The receiver
of it was a good deal moved. He called up Vienna,
and stood face to face with Mr. K., and said:
"I do not need to say anything; you can see it
all in my face. My wife has the farthing. Do not
be afraid—she will not throw it away."
M. T.
Correspondence of the "London Times."
Chicago,April 23, 1904.
Now that the after developments of the Clayton
case have run their course and reached a
finish, I will sum them up. Clayton's romantic
escape from a shameful death steeped all this region
in an enchantment of wonder and joy—during the
proverbial nine days. Then the sobering process
followed, and men began to take thought, and to
say: "But a man was killed, and Clayton killed
him." Others replied: "That is true: we have
been overlooking that important detail; we have
been led away by excitement."
The feeling soon became general that Clayton
ought to be tried again. Measures were taken
accordingly, and the proper representations con-
veyed to Washington; for in America, under the
new paragraph added to the Constitution in 1899,
second trials are not State affairs, but national, and
must be tried by the most august body in the land
—the Supreme Court of the United States. The
justices were, therefore, summoned to sit in Chicago.
The session was held day before yesterday, and
was opened with the usual impressive formalities,
the nine judges appearing in their black robes, and
the new chief justice (Lemaitre) presiding. In
opening the case, the chief justice said:
"It is my opinion that this matter is quite simple.
The prisoner at the bar was charged with murdering
the man Szczepanik; he was tried for murdering the
man Szczepanik; he was fairly tried, and justly con-
demned and sentenced to death for murdering the
man Szczepanik. It turns out that the man Szcze-
panik was not murdered at all. By the decision of
the French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is
established beyond cavil or question that the de-
cisions of courts are permanent and cannot be re-
vised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this
precedent. It is upon precedents that the enduring
edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The prisoner at
the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned to
death for the murder of the man Szczepanik, and, in
my opinion, there is but one course to pursue in the
matter: he must be hanged."
Mr. Justice Crawford said:
"But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the
scaffold for that."
"The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand,
because he was pardoned for killing a man whom he
had not killed. A man cannot be pardoned for a
crime which he has not committed; it would be an
absurdity."
"But, your Excellency, he did kill a man."
"That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing
to do with it. The court cannot take up this crime
until the prisoner has expiated the other one."
Mr. Justice Halleck said:
"If we order his execution, your Excellency, we
shall bring about a miscarriage of justice; for the
governor will pardon him again."
"He will not have the power. He cannot pardon
a man for a crime which he has not committed. As
I observed before, it would be an absurdity."
After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said:
"Several of us have arrived at the conclusion,
your Excellency, that it would be an error to hang
the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, but only for
killing the other man, since it is proven that he did
not kill Szczepanik."
"On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill
Szczepanik. By the French precedent, it is plain
that we must abide by the finding of the court."
"But Szczepanik is still alive."
"So is Dreyfus."
In the end it was found impossible to ignore or
get around the French precedent. There could be
but one result: Clayton was delivered over to the
executioner. It made an immense excitement; the
State rose as one man and clamored for Clayton's
pardon and re-trial. The governor issued the
pardon, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound
to annul it, and did so, and poor Clayton was
hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and,
indeed, the like may be said of the State. All
America is vocal with scorn of "French justice,"
and of the malignant little soldiers who invented it
and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands.
AT THE APPETITE CURE
This establishment's name is Hochberghaus. It
is in Bohemia, a short day's journey from
Vienna, and being in the Austrian empire is, of
course, a health resort. The empire is made up of
health resorts; it distributes health to the whole
world. Its waters are all medicinal. They are
bottled and sent throughout the earth; the natives
themselves drink beer. This is self-sacrifice, appar-
ently—but outlanders who have drunk Vienna beer
have another idea about it. Particularly the Pilse-
ner which one gets in a small cellar up an obscure
back lane in the First Bezirk—the name has escaped
me, but the place is easily found: You inquire for
the Greek church; and when you get to it, go right
along by—the next house is that little beer-mill.
It is remote from all traffic and all noise; it is always
Sunday there. There are two small rooms, with low
ceilings supported by massive arches; the arches and
ceilings are whitewashed, otherwise the rooms would
pass for cells in the dungeons of a bastile. The
furniture is plain and cheap, there is no ornamen-
tation anywhere; yet it is a heaven for the self-
sacrificers, for the beer there is incomparable; there
is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. In the first
room you will find twelve or fifteen ladies and gentle-
men of civilian quality; in the other one a dozen
generals and ambassadors. One may live in Vienna
many months and not hear of this place; but having
once heard of it and sampled it the sampler will
afterward infest it.
However, this is all incidental—a mere passing
note of gratitude for blessings received—it has
nothing to do with my subject. My subject is health
resorts. All unhealthy people ought to domicile
themselves in Vienna, and use that as a base,
making flights from time to time to the outlying
resorts, according to need. A flight to Marien-
bad to get rid of fat; a flight to Carlsbad to get
rid of rheumatism; a flight to Kaltenleutgeben to
take the water cure and get rid of the rest of the
diseases. It is all so handy. You can stand in
Vienna and toss a biscuit into Kaltenleutgeben,
with a twelve-inch gun. You can run out thither
at any time of the day; you go by the phenom-
enally slow trains, and yet inside of an hour you
have exchanged the glare and swelter of the city
for wooded hills, and shady forest paths, and soft
cool airs, and the music of birds, and the repose
and peace of paradise.
And there are plenty of other health resorts at
your service and convenient to get at from Vienna;
charming places, all of them; Vienna sits in the
center of a beautiful world of mountains with now
and then a lake and forests; in fact, no other city
is so fortunately situated.
There are abundance of health resorts, as I have
said. Among them this place—Hochberghaus. It
stands solitary on the top of a densely wooded
mountain, and is a building of great size. It is
called the Appetite Anstallt, and people who have
lost their appetites come here to get them restored.
When I arrived I was taken by Professor Haimberger
to his consulting-room and questioned:
"It is six o'clock. When did you eat last?"
"At noon."
"What did you eat?"
"Next to nothing."
"What was on the table?"
"The usual things."
"Chops, chickens, vegetables, and so on?"
"Yes; but don't mention them—I can't bear
it."
"Are you tired of them?"
"Oh, utterly. I wish I might never hear of them
again."
"The mere sight of food offends you, does it?"
"More, it revolts me."
The doctor considered awhile, then got out a long
menu and ran his eye slowly down it.
"I think," said he, "that what you need to eat
is—but here, choose for yourself."
I glanced at the list, and my stomach threw a
handspring. Of all the barbarous layouts that were
ever contrived, this was the most atrocious. At the
top stood "tough, underdone, overdue tripe,
garnished with garlic"; half-way down the bill stood
"young cat; old cat; scrambled cat"; at the
bottom stood "sailor-boots, softened with tallow—
served raw." The wide intervals of the bill were
packed with dishes calculated to insult a cannibal.
I said:
"Doctor, it is not fair to joke over so serious a
case as mine. I came here to get an appetite, not to
throw away the remnant that's left."
He said gravely: "I am not joking, why should
I joke?"
"But I can't eat these horrors."
"Why not?"
He said it with a naïveté that was admirable,
whether it was real or assumed.
"Why not? Because—why, doctor, for months
I have seldom been able to endure anything more
substantial than omelettes and custards. These un-
speakable dishes of yours—"
"Oh, you will come to like them. They are very
good. And you must eat them. It is the rule of
the place, and is strict. I cannot permit any de-
parture from it."
I said smiling: "Well, then, doctor, you will have
to permit the departure of the patient. I am
going."
He looked hurt, and said in a way which changed
the aspect of things:
"I am sure you would not do me that injustice,
I accepted you in good faith—you will not shame
that confidence. This appetite-cure is my whole
living. If you should go forth from it with the sort
of appetite which you now have, it could become
known, and you can see, yourself, that people would
say my cure failed in your case and hence can fail
in other cases. You will not go; you will not do
me this hurt."
I apologized and said I would stay.
"That is right. I was sure you would not go;
it would take the food from my family's mouths."
"Would they mind that? Do they eat these fiend-
ish things?"
"They? My family?" His eyes were full of
gentle wonder. "Of course not."
"Oh, they don't! Do you?"
"Certainly not."
"I see. It's another case of a physician who
doesn't take his own medicine."
"I don't need it. It is six hours since you
lunched. Will you have supper now—or later?"
"I am not hungry, but now is as good a time as
any, and I would like to be done with it and have it
off my mind. It is about my usual time, and regularity
is commanded by all the authorities. Yes, I will try
to nibble a little now—I wish a light horsewhipping
would answer instead."
The professor handed me that odious menu.
"Choose—or will you have it later?"
"Oh, dear me, show me to my room; I forgot
your hard rule."
"Wait just a moment before you finally decide.
There is another rule. If you choose now, the order
will be filled at once; but if you wait, you will have
to await my pleasure. You cannot get a dish from
that entire bill until I consent."
"All right. Show me to my room, and send the
cook to bed; there is not going to be any hurry."
The professor took me up one flight of stairs and
showed me into a most inviting and comfortable apart-
ment consisting of parlor, bedchamber, and bath-
room.
The front windows looked out over a far-reaching
spread of green glades and valleys, and tumbled hills
clothed with forests—a noble solitude unvexed by
the fussy world. In the parlor were many shelves
filled with books. The professor said he would now
leave me to myself; and added:
"Smoke and read as much as you please, drink
all the water you like. When you get hungry, ring
and give your order, and I will decide whether it shall
be filled or not. Yours is a stubborn, bad case, and
I think the first fourteen dishes in the bill are each
and all too delicate for its needs. I ask you as a
favor to restrain yourself and not call for them."
"Restrain myself, is it? Give yourself no uneasi-
ness. You are going to save money by me. The
idea of coaxing a sick man's appetite back with this
buzzard-fare is clear insanity."
I said it with bitterness, for I felt outraged by this
calm, cold talk over these heartless new engines of
assassination. The doctor looked grieved, but not
offended. He laid the bill of fare on the commode
at my bed's head, "so that it would be handy,"
and said:
"Yours is not the worst case I have encountered,
by any means; still it is a bad one and requires
robust treatment; therefore I shall be gratified if you
will restrain yourself and skip down to No. 15 and
begin with that."
Then he left me and I began to undress, for I was
dog-tired and very sleepy. I slept fifteen hours and
woke up finely refreshed at ten the next morning.
Vienna coffee! It was the first thing I thought of—
that unapproachable luxury—that sumptuous coffee-
house coffee, compared with which all other European
coffee and all American hotel coffee is mere fluid
poverty. I rang, and ordered it; also Vienna bread,
that delicious invention. The servant spoke through
the wicket in the door and said—but you know what
he said. He referred me to the bill of fare. I
allowed him to go—I had no further use for him.
After the bath I dressed and started for a walk,
and got as far as the door. It was locked on the
outside. I rang and the servant came and explained
that it was another rule. The seclusion of the patient
was required until after the first meal. I had not
been particularly anxious to get out before; but it
was different now. Being locked in makes a person
wishful to get out. I soon began to find it difficult
to put in the time. At two o'clock I had been
twenty-six hours without food. I had been growing
hungry for some time; I recognized that I was
not only hungry now, but hungry with a strong
adjective in front of it. Yet I was not hungry
enough to face the bill of fare.
I must put in the time somehow. I would read
and smoke. I did it; hour by hour. The books
were all of one breed—shipwrecks; people lost in
deserts; people shut up in caved-in mines; people
starving in besieged cities. I read about all the
revolting dishes that ever famishing men had stayed
their hunger with. During the first hours these things
nauseated me; hours followed in which they did not
so affect me; still other hours followed in which I
found myself smacking my lips over some tolerably
infernal messes. When I had been without food
forty-five hours I ran eagerly to the bell and ordered
the second dish in the bill, which was a sort of
dumplings containing a compost made of caviar and
tar.
It was refused me. During the next fifteen hours
I visited the bell every now and then and ordered a
dish that was further down the list. Always a re-
fusal. But I was conquering prejudice after prej-
udice, right along; I was making sure progress; I
was sreeping up on No. 15 with deadly certainty,
and my heart beat faster and faster, my hopes rose
higher and higher.
At last when food had not passed my lips for
sixty hours, victory was mine, and I ordered No.
15:
"Soft-boiled spring chicken—in the egg; six
dozen, hot and fragrant!"
In fifteen minutes it was there; and the doctor
along with it, rubbing his hands with joy. He said
with great excitement:
"It's a cure, it's a cure! I knew I could do it.
Dear sir, my grand system never fails—never.
You've got your appetite back—you know you
have; say it and make me happy."
"Bring on your carrion—I can eat anything in
the bill!"
"Oh, this is noble, this is splendid—but I knew
I could do it, the system never fails. How are the
birds?"
"Never was anything so delicious in the world;
and yet as a rule I don't care for game. But don't
interrupt me, don't—I can't spare my mouth, I
really can't."
Then the doctor said:
"The cure is perfect. There is no more doubt
nor danger. Let the poultry alone; I can trust you
with a beefsteak, now."
The beefsteak came—as much as a basketful of
it—with potatoes, and Vienna bread and coffee;
and I ate a meal then that was worth all the costly
preparation I had made for it. And dripped tears
of gratitude into the gravy all the time—gratitude
to the doctor for putting a little plain common sense
into me when I had been empty of it so many, many
years.II
Thirty years ago Haimberger went off on a long
voyage in a sailing-ship. There were fifteen pas-
sengers on board. The table-fare was of the regula-
tion pattern of the day: At 7 in the morning, a cup
of bad coffee in bed; at 9, breakfast: bad coffee,
with condensed milk; soggy rolls, crackers, salt fish;
at 1 P. M., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, cold
corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 P. M.,
dinner: thick pea soup, salt fish, hot corned beef
and sauerkraut, boiled pork and beans, pudding;
9 till 11 P. M., supper: tea, with condensed
milk, cold tongue, cold ham, pickles, sea biscuit,
pickled oysters, pickled pig's feet, grilled bones,
golden buck.
At the end of the first week eating had ceased,
nibbling had taken its place. The passengers came
to the table, but it was partly to put in the time, and
partly because the wisdom of the ages commanded
them to be regular in their meals. They were tired
of the coarse and monotonous fare, and took no
interest in it, had no appetite for it. All day
and every day they roamed the ship half hungry,
plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody, untalk-
ative, miserable. Among them were three confirmed
dyspeptics. These became shadows in the course
of three weeks. There was also a bedridden invalid;
he lived on boiled rice; he could not look at the
regular dishes.
Now came shipwreck and life in open boats,
with the usual paucity of food. Provisions ran lower
and lower. The appetites improved, then. When
nothing was left but raw ham and the ration of that
was down to two ounces a day per person, the
appetites were perfect. At the end of fifteen days
the dyspeptics, the invalid and the most delicate
ladies in the party were chewing sailor-boots in
ecstasy, and only complaining because the supply of
them was limited. Yet these were the same people
who couldn't endure the ship's tedious corned beef
and sauerkraut and other crudities. They were
rescued by an English vessel. Within ten days the
whole fifteen were in as good condition as they had
been when the shipwreck occurred.
"They had suffered no damage by their adven-
ture," said the professor. "Do you note that?"
"Yes."
"Do you note it well?"
"Yes—I think I do."
"But you don't. You hesitate. You don't
rise to the importance of it. I will say it again
—with emphasis—not one of them suffered any
damage."
"Now I begin to see. Yes, it was indeed re-
markable."
"Nothing of the kind. It was perfectly natural.
There was no reason why they should suffer damage.
They were undergoing Nature's Appetite Cure, the
best and wisest in the world."
"Is that where you got your idea?"
"That is where I got it."
"It taught those people a valuable lesson."
"What makes you think that?"
"Why shouldn't I? You seem to think it taught
you one."
"That is nothing to the point. I am not a
fool."
"I see. Were they fools?"
"They were human beings."
"Is it the same thing?"
"Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As
regards his health—and the rest of the things—
the average man is what his environment and his
superstitions have made him; and their function is
to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four
new circumstances together and perceive what they
mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of
observing for himself. He has to get everything
at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower
animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish
from the earth in a year."
"Those passengers learned no lesson, then?"
"Not a sign of it. They went to their regular
meals in the English ship, and pretty soon they were
nibbling again—nibbling, appetiteless, disgusted
with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their
outraged stomachs cursing and swearing and whining
and supplicating all day long. And in vain, for they
were the stomachs of fools."
"Then as I understand it, your scheme is—"
"Quite simple. Don't eat till you are hungry.
If the food fails to taste good, fails to satisfy you,
rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat again until
you are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you—
and do you good, too."
"And I observe no regularity, as to hours?"
"When you are conquering a bad appetite—no.
After it is conquered, regularity is no harm, so long
as the appetite remains good. As soon as the
appetite wavers, apply the corrective again—which
is starvation, long or short according to the needs of
the case."
"The best diet, I suppose—I mean the whole-
somest"
"All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer
than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome
enough for the people who use them. Whether the
food be fine or coarse, it will taste good and it will
nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a
little starvation introduced every time it weakens.
Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals
were restricted to bear-meat months at a time he
suffered no damage and no discomfort, because his
appetite was kept at par through the difficulty of
getting his bear-meat regularly."
"But doctors arrange carefully considered and
delicate diets for invalids."
"They can't help it. The invalid is full of in-
herited superstitions and won't starve himself. He
believes it would certainly kill him."
"It would weaken him, wouldn't it?"
"Nothing to hurt. Look at the invalids in our
shipwreck. They lived fifteen days on pinches of
raw ham, a suck at sailor-boots, and general
starvation. It weakened them, but it didn't hurt
them. It put them in fine shape to eat heartily of
hearty food and build themselves up to a condition
of robust health. But they did not perceive that;
they lost their opportunity; they remained invalids;
it served them right. Do you know the tricks that
the health-resort doctors play?"
"What is it?"
"My system disguised—covert starvation.
Grape-cure, bath-cure, mud-cure—it is all the same.
The grape and the bath and the mud make a show
and do a trifle of the work—the real work is done
by the surreptitious starvation. The patient ac-
customed to four meals and late hours—at both
ends of the day—now consider what he has to do
at a health resort. He gets up at 6 in the morning.
Eats one egg. Tramps up and down a promenade
two hours with the other fools. Eats a butterfly.
Slowly drinks a glass of filtered sewage that smells
like a buzzard's breath. Promenades another two
hours, but alone; if you speak to him he says
anxiously, 'My water!—I am walking off my
water!—please don't interrupt,' and goes stumping
HE EATS A BUTTERFLY
along again. Eats a candied rose-leaf. Lies at rest
in the silence and solitude of his room for hours;
mustn't speak, mustn't read, mustn't smoke. The
doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his
pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his
stomach, and listens for results through a penny
flageolet; then orders the man's bath—half a degree,
Réaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath,
another egg. A glass of sewage at 3 or 4 in the
afternoon, and promenade solemnly with the other
freaks. Dinner at 6—half a doughnut and a cup
of tea. Walk again. Half-past 8, supper—more
butterfly; at 9, to bed. Six weeks of this régime
—think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in
splendid condition. It would have the same effect
in London, New York, Jericho—anywhere."
"How long does it take to put a person in con-
dition here?"
"It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact
it takes from one to six weeks, according to the
character and mentality of the patient."
"How is that?"
"Do you see that crowd of women playing foot-
ball, and boxing, and jumping fences yonder? They
have been here six or seven weeks. They were
spectral poor weaklings when they came. They
were accustomed to nibbling at dainties and delicacies
at set hours four times a day, and they had no
appetite for anything. I questioned them, and then
locked them into their rooms, the frailest ones to
starve nine or ten hours, the others twelve or fifteen.
Before long they began to beg; and indeed they
suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea,
headache, and so on. It was good to see them eat
when the time was up. They could not remember
when the devouring of a meal had afforded them
such rapture—that was their word. Now, then,
that ought to have ended their cure, but it didn't.
They were free to go to any meals in the house, and
they chose their accustomed four. Within a day or
two I had to interfere. Their appetites were
weakening. I made them knock out a meal. That
set them up again. Then they resumed the four. I
begged them to learn to knock out a meal themselves,
without waiting for me. Up to a fortnight ago they
couldn't; they really hadn't manhood enough; but
they were gaining it, and now I think they are safe.
They drop out a meal every now and then of their
own accord. They are in fine condition now, and
they might safely go home, I think, but their con-
fidence is not quite perfect yet, so they are waiting
awhile."
"Other cases are different?"
"Oh, yes. Sometimes a man learns the whole
trick in a week. Learns to regulate his appetite and
keep it in perfect order. Learns to drop out a meal
with frequency and not mind it."
"But why drop the entire meal out? Why not a
part of it?"
"It's a poor device, and inadequate. If the
stomach doesn't call vigorously—with a shout, as
you may say—it is better not to pester it but just
give it a real rest. Some people can eat more meals
than others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of
people, and all sorts of appetites. I will show you
a man presently who was accustomed to nibble at
eight meals a day. It was beyond the proper gait
of his appetite by two. I have got him down to
six a day, now, and he is all right, and enjoys life.
How many meals do you effect per day?"
"Formerly—for twenty-two years—a meal and
a half; during the past two years, two and a half:
coffee and a roll at 9, luncheon at 1, dinner at 7:30
or 8."
"Formerly a meal and a half—that is, coffee
and a roll at 9, dinner in the evening, nothing
between—is that it?"
"Yes."
"Why did you add a meal?"
"It was the family's idea. They were uneasy.
They thought I was killing myself."
"You found a meal and a half per day enough,
all through the twenty-two years?"
"Plenty."
"Your present poor condition is due to the extra
meal. Drop it out. You are trying to eat oftener
than your stomach demands. You don't gain, you
lose. You eat less food now, in a day, on two and
a half meals, than you formerly ate on one and a
half."
"True—a good deal less; for in those old days
my dinner was a very sizable thing."
"Put yourself on a single meal a day, now—
dinner—for a few days, till you secure a good,
sound, regular, trustworthy appetite, then take to
your one and a half permanently, and don't listen to
the family any more. When you have any ordinary
ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat nothing
at all during twenty-four hours. That will cure it.
It will cure the stubbornest cold in the head, too.
No cold in the head can survive twenty-four hours
on modified starvation."
"I know it. I have proved it many a time."
IN MEMORIAMOLIVIA SUSAN CLEMENS
Died August 18, 1896; Aged 24In a fair valley—oh, how long ago, how long ago!Where all the broad expanse was clothed in vinesAnd fruitful fields and meadows starred with flowers,And clear streams wandered at their idle will,And still lakes slept, their burnished surfacesA dream of painted clouds, and soft airsWent whispering with odorous breath,And all was peace—in that fair vale,Shut from the troubled world, a nameless hamlet
drowsed.Hard by, apart, a temple stood;And strangers from the outer worldPassing, noted it with tired eyes,And seeing, saw it not:A glimpse of its fair form—an answering momen-
tary thrill—And they passed on, careless and unaware.They could not know the cunning of its make;They could not know the secret shut up in its heart;Only the dwellers of the hamlet knew:
They knew that what seemed brass was gold;What marble seemed, was ivory;The glories that enriched the milky surfaces—The trailing vines, and interwoven flowers,And tropic birds awing, clothed all in tinted fire—They knew for what they were, not what they
seemed:Encrustings all of gems, not perishable splendors of
the brush.They knew the secret spot where one must stand—They knew the surest hour, the proper slant of
sun—To gather in, unmarred, undimmed,The vision of the fane in all its fairy grace,A fainting dream against the opal sky.And more than this. They knewThat in the temple's inmost place a spirit dwelt,Made all of light!For glimpses of it they had caughtBeyond the curtains when the priestsThat served the altar came and went.All loved that light and held it dearThat had this partial grace;But the adoring priests alone who livedBy day and night submerged in its immortal glowKnew all its power and depth, and could appraise
the lossIf it should fade and fail and come no more.All this was long ago—so long ago!
The light burned on; and they that worship'd it,And they that caught its flash at intervals and held
it dear,Contented lived in its secure possession. Ah,How long ago it was!And then when theyWere nothing fearing, and God's peace was in the
air,And none was prophesying harm—The vast disaster fell:Where stood the temple when the sun went down,Was vacant desert when it rose again!Ah, yes! 'Tis ages since it chanced!So long ago it was,That from the memory of the hamlet-folk the Light
has passed—They scarce believing, now, that once it was,Or, if believing, yet not missing it,And reconciled to have it gone.Not so the priests! Oh, not soThe stricken ones that served it day and night,Adoring it, abiding in the healing of its peace:They stand, yet, where erst they stoodSpeechless in that dim morning long ago;And still they gaze, as then they gazed,And murmur, "It will come again;It knows our pain—it knows—it knows—Ah, surely it will come again."
S. L. C.
Lake Lucerne,August 18, 1897.
MARK TWAIN
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHBy SAMUEL E. MOFFETT
In 1835 the creation of the Western empire of
America had just begun. In the whole region
west of the Mississippi, which now contains 21,-
000,000 people—nearly twice the entire popula-
tion of the United States at that time—there were
less than half a million white inhabitants. There
were only two states beyond the great river, Loui-
siana and Missouri. There were only two con-
siderable groups of population, one about New
Orleans, the other about St. Louis. If we omit
New Orleans, which is east of the river, there was
only one place in all that vast domain with any
pretension to be called a city. That was St.
Louis, and that metropolis, the wonder and pride
of all the Western country, had no more than
10,000 inhabitants.
It was in this frontier region, on the extreme fringe
of settlement "that just divides the desert from the
sown," that Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born,
November 30, 1835, in the hamlet of Florida, Mis-
souri. His parents had come there to be in the
thick of the Western boom, and by a fate for
which no lack of foresight on their part was to
blame, they found themselves in a place which
succeeded in accumulating 125 inhabitants in the
next sixty years. When we read of the west-
ward sweep of population and wealth in the United
States, it seems as if those who were in the van
of that movement must have been inevitably car-
ried on to fortune. But that was a tide full of
eddies and back currents, and Mark Twain's parents
possessed a faculty for finding them that appears
nothing less than miraculous. The whole Western
empire was before them where to choose. They
could have bought the entire site of Chicago for a
pair of boots. They could have taken up a farm
within the present city limits of St. Louis. What
they actually did was to live for a time in Columbia,
Kentucky, with a small property in land, and six
inherited slaves, then to move to Jamestown, on the
Cumberland plateau of Tennessee, a place that was
then no farther removed from the currents of the
world's life than Uganda, but which no resident of
that or any other part of Central Africa would now
regard as a serious competitor, and next to migrate
to Missouri, passing St. Louis and settling first in
Florida, and afterward in Hannibal. But when the
whole map was blank the promise of fortune glowed
as rosily in these regions as anywhere else. Florida
had great expectations when Jackson was President.
When John Marshall Clemens took up 80,000 acres
of land in Tennessee, he thought he had established
his children as territorial magnates. That phantom
vision of wealth furnished later one of the motives
of "The Gilded Age." It conferred no other
benefit.
If Samuel Clemens missed a fortune he inherited
good blood. On both sides his family had been
settled in the South since early colonial times. His
father, John Marshall Clemens, of Virginia, was a
descendant of Gregory Clemens, who became one of
the judges that condemned Charles I. to death, was
excepted from the amnesty after the Restoration in
consequence, and lost his head. A cousin of John
M. Clemens, Jeremiah Clemens, represented Alabama
in the United States Senate from 1849 to 1853.
Through his mother, Jane Lampton (Lambton),
the boy was descended from the Lambtons of Dur-
ham, whose modern English representatives still
possess the lands held by their ancestors of the same
name since the twelfth century. Some of her for-
bears on the maternal side, the Montgomerys, went
with Daniel Boone to Kentucky, and were in the thick
of the romantic and tragic events that accompanied
the settlement of the "Dark and Bloody Ground,"
and she herself was born there twenty-nine years after
the first log cabin was built within the limits of the
present commonwealth. She was one of the earliest,
prettiest, and brightest of the many belles that have
given Kentucky such an enviable reputation as a
nursery of fair women, and her vivacity and wit left
no doubt in the minds of her friends concerning the
source of her son's genius.
John Marshall Clemens, who had been trained for
the bar in Virginia, served for some years as a mag-
istrate at Hannibal, holding for a time the position
of county judge. With his death, in March, 1847,
Mark Twain's formal education came to an end, and
his education in real life began. He had always been
a delicate boy, and his father, in consequence, had
been lenient in the matter of enforcing attendance at
school, although he had been profoundly anxious
that his children should be well educated. His wish
was fulfilled, although not in the way he had expected.
It is a fortunate thing for literature that Mark Twain
was never ground into smooth uniformity under the
scholastic emery wheel. He has made the world his
university, and in men, and books, and strange places,
and all the phases of an infinitely varied life, has
built an education broad and deep, on the foundations
of an undisturbed individuality.
His high school was a village printing-office, where
his elder brother Orion was conducting a newspaper.
The thirteen-year-old boy served in all capacities,
and in the occasional absences of his chief he reveled
in personal journalism, with original illustrations
hacked on wooden blocks with a jackknife, to an
extent that riveted the town's attention, "but not its
admiration," as his brother plaintively confessed.
The editor spoke with feeling, for he had to take the
consequences of these exploits on his return.
From his earliest childhood young Clemens had
been of an adventurous disposition. Before he was
thirteen, he had been extracted three times from the
Mississippi, and six times from Bear Creek, in a sub-
stantially drowned condition, but his mother, with
the high confidence in his future that never deserted
her, merely remarked: "People who are born to be
hanged are safe in the water." By 1853 the Han-
nibal tether had become too short for him. He
disappeared from home and wandered from one
Eastern printing-office to another. He saw the
World's Fair at New York, and other marvels,
and supported himself by setting type. At the
end of this Wanderjahr financial stress drove him
back to his family. He lived at St. Louis, Mus-
catine, and Keokuk until 1857, when he induced
the great Horace Bixby to teach him the mystery
of steamboat piloting. The charm of all this
warm, indolent existence in the sleepy river towns
has colored his whole subsequent life. In "Tom
Sawyer," "Huckleberry Finn," "Life on the
Mississippi," and "Pudd'nhead Wilson," every
phase of that vanished estate is lovingly dwelt upon.
Native character will always make itself felt, but
one may wonder whether Mark Twain's humor would
have developed in quite so sympathetic and buoyant
a vein if he had been brought up in Ecclefechan
instead of in Hannibal, and whether Carlyle might
not have been a little more human if he had spent his
boyhood in Hannibal instead of in Ecclefechan.
A Mississippi pilot in the later fifties was a
personage of imposing grandeur. He was a miracle
of attainments; he was the absolute master of his
boat while it was under way, and just before his
fall he commanded a salary precisely equal to that
earned at that time by the Vice-President of the
United States or a Justice of the Supreme Court.
The best proof of the superlative majesty and desira-
bility of his position is the fact that Samuel Clemens
deliberately subjected himself to the incredible labor
necessary to attain it—a labor compared with which
the efforts needed to acquire the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy at a University are as light as a sum-
mer course of modern novels. To appreciate the
full meaning of a pilot's marvelous education, one
must read the whole of "Life on the Mississippi,"
but this extract may give a partial idea of a
single feature of that training—the cultivation of
the memory:
"First of all, there is one faculty which a pilot
must incessantly cultivate until he has brought it to
absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection
will do. That faculty is memory. He cannot stop
with merely thinking a thing is so and so; he must
know it; for this is eminently one of the exact sci-
ences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in
the old times, if he ever ventured to deal in that
feeble phrase 'I think,' instead of the vigorous one
'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tre-
mendous thing it is to know every trivial detail of
twelve hundred miles of river, and know it with
absolute exactness. If you will take the longest
street in New York, and travel up and down it,
conning its features patiently until you know every
house, and window, and door, and lamp-post, and
big and little sign by heart, and know them so
accurately that you can instantly name the one
you are abreast of when you are set down at
random in that street in the middle of an inky
black night, you will then have a tolerable notion
of the amount and the exactness of a pilot's knowl-
edge who carries the Mississippi River in his head.
And then, if you will go on until you know every
street crossing, the character, size, and position of
the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud
in each of those numberless places, you will have
some idea of what the pilot must know in order to
keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble. Next, if
you will take half of the signs in that long street and
change their places once a month, and still manage to
know their new positions accurately on dark nights,
and keep up with these repeated changes without
making any mistakes, you will understand what is
required of a pilot's peerless memory by the fickle
Mississippi.
"I think a pilot's memory is about the most
wonderful thing in the world. To know the Old
and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite
them glibly, forward or backward, or begin at random
anywhere in the book and recite both ways, and
never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant mass
of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared
to a pilot's massed knowledge of the Mississippi, and
his marvelous facility in handling it…
"And how easily and comfortably the pilot's mem-
ory does its work; how placidly effortless is its way;
how unconsciously it lays up its vast stores, hour by
hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single
valuable package of them all! Take an instance.
Let a leadsman say: 'Half twain! half twain! half
twain! half twain! half twain!' until it becomes as
monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let con-
versation be going on all the time, and the pilot be
doing his share of the talking, and no longer con-
sciously listening to the leadsman; and in the midst
of this endless string of half twains let a single
'quarter twain!' be interjected, without emphasis,
and then the half twain cry go on again, just as
before: two or three weeks later that pilot can
describe with precision the boat's position in the river
when that quarter twain was uttered, and give you
such a lot of head marks, stern marks, and side marks
to guide you that you ought to be able to take the
boat there and put her in that same spot again your-
self! The cry of 'Quarter twain' did not really
take his mind from his talk, but his trained faculties
instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change
of depth, and laid up the important details for future
reference without requiring any assistance from him
in the matter."
Young Clemens went through all that appalling
training, stored away in his head the bewildering mass
of knowledge a pilot's duties required, received the
license that was the diploma of the river university,
entered into regular employment, and regarded him-
self as established for life, when the outbreak of the
Civil War wiped out his occupation at a stroke, and
made his weary apprenticeship a useless labor. The
commercial navigation of the lower Mississippi was
stopped by a line of fire, and black, squat gunboats,
their sloping sides plated with railroad iron, took the
place of the gorgeous white side-wheelers, whose
pilots had been the envied aristocrats of the river
towns. Clemens was in New Orleans when Louisiana
seceded, and started North the next day. The boat
ran a blockade every day of her trip, and on the last
night of the voyage the batteries at the Jefferson
barracks, just below St. Louis, fired two shots through
her chimneys.
Brought up in a slaveholding atmosphere, Mark
Twain naturally sympathized at first with the South.
In June he joined the Confederates in Ralls County,
Missouri, as a Second Lieutenant under General Tom
Harris. His military career lasted for two weeks.
Narrowly missing the distinction of being captured
by Colonel Ulysses S. Grant, he resigned, explaining
that he had become "incapacitated by fatigue"
through persistent retreating. In his subsequent
writings he has always treated his brief experience of
warfare as a burlesque episode, although the official
reports and correspondence of the Confederate com-
manders speak very respectfully of the work of the
raw countrymen of the Harris Brigade. The elder
Clemens brother, Orion, was persona grata to the
Administration of President Lincoln, and received in
consequence an appointment as the first Secretary of
the new Territory of Nevada. He offered his speedily
reconstructed junior the position of private secretary
to himself, "with nothing to do and no salary."
The two crossed the plains in the overland coach in
eighteen days—almost precisely the time it will take
to go from New York to Vladivostok when the
Trans-Siberian Railway is finished.
A year of variegated fortune hunting among the
silver mines of the Humboldt and Esmeralda regions
followed. Occasional letters written during this time
to the leading newspaper of the Territory, the Virginia
City Territorial Enterprise, attracted the attention
of the proprietor, Mr. J. T. Goodman, a man of
keen and unerring literary instinct, and he offered
the writer the position of local editor on his staff.
With the duties of this place were combined those
of legislative correspondent at Carson City, the
capital. The work of young Clemens created a sen-
sation among the lawmakers. He wrote a weekly
letter, spined with barbed personalities. It ap-
peared every Sunday, and on Mondays the legis-
lative business was obstructed with the complaints of
members who rose to questions of privilege, and ex-
pressed their opinion of the correspondent with
acerbity. This encouraged him to give his letters
more individuality by signing them. For this pur-
pose he adopted the old Mississippi leadsman's call
for two fathoms (twelve feet)—"Mark Twain."
At that particular period dueling was a passing
fashion on the Comstock. The refinements of
Parisian civilization had not penetrated there, and a
Washoe duel seldom left more than one survivor.
The weapons were always Colt's navy revolvers—
distance, fifteen paces; fire and advance; six shots
allowed. Mark Twain became involved in a quarrel
with Mr. Laird, the editor of the Virginia Union, and
the situation seemed to call for a duel. Neither
combatant was an expert with the pistol, but Mark
Twain was fortunate enough to have a second who
was. The men were practicing in adjacent gorges,
Mr. Laird doing fairly well, and his opponent hitting
everything but the mark. A small bird lit on a sage
bush thirty yards away, and Mark Twain's second
fired and knocked off its head. At that moment the
enemy came over the ridge, saw the dead bird,
observed the distance, and learned from Gillis, the
humorist's second, that the feat had been performed
by Mark Twain, for whom such an exploit was
nothing remarkable. They withdrew for consulta-
tion, and then offered a formal apology, after which
peace was restored, leaving Mark Twain with the
honors of war.
However, this incident was the means of effecting
another change in his life. There was a new law
which prescribed two years' imprisonment for any
one who should send, carry, or accept a challenge.
The fame of the proposed duel had reached the
capital, eighteen miles away, and the governor
wrathfully gave orders for the arrest of all concerned,
announcing his intention of making an example that
would be remembered. A friend of the duelists
heard of their danger, outrode the officers of the
law, and hurried the parties over the border into
California.
Mark Twain found a berth as city editor of the San
Francisco Morning Call, but he was not adapted to
routine newspaper work, and in a couple of years he
made another bid for fortune in the mines. He tried
the "pocket mines" of California, this time, at
Jackass Gulch, in Calaveras County, but was fortunate
enough to find no pockets. Thus he escaped the
hypnotic fascination that has kept some intermittently
successful pocket miners willing prisoners in Sierra
cabins for life, and in three months he was back in
San Francisco, penniless, but in the line of literary
promotion. He wrote letters for the Virginia Enter-
prise for a time, but tiring of that, welcomed an
assignment to visit Hawaii for the Sacramento Union,
and write about the sugar interests. It was in
Honolulu that he accomplished one of his greatest
feats of "straight newspaper work." The clipper
Hornet had been burned on "the line," and when
the skeleton survivors arrived, after a passage of
forty-three days in an open boat on ten days' pro-
visions, Mark Twain gathered their stories, worked
all day and all night, and threw a complete account
of the horror aboard a schooner that had already
cast off. It was the only full account that reached
California, and it was not only a clean "scoop" of
unusual magnitude, but an admirable piece of literary
art. The Union testified its appreciation by paying
the correspondent ten times the current rates for it.
After six months in the Islands, Mark Twain re-
turned to California, and made his first venture upon
the lecture platform. He was warmly received, and
delivered several lectures with profit. In 1867 he
went East by way of the Isthmus, and joined the
Quaker City excursion to Europe and the Holy Land,
as correspondent of the Alta California, of San
Francisco. During this tour of five or six months
the party visited the principal ports of the Mediter-
ranean and the Black Sea. From this trip grew
"The Innocents Abroad," the creator of Mark
Twain's reputation as a literary force of the first
order. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County" had preceded it, but "The Innocents"
gave the author his first introduction to international
literature. A hundred thousand copies were sold
the first year, and as many more later.
Four years of lecturing followed—distasteful, but
profitable. Mark Twain always shrank from the
public exhibition of himself on the platform, but he
was a popular favorite there from the first. He was
one of a little group, including Henry Ward Beecher
and two or three others, for whom every lyceum com-
mittee in the country was bidding, and whose capture
at any price insured the success of a lecture course.
The Quaker City excursion had a more important
result than the production of "The Innocents
Abroad." Through her brother, who was one of
the party, Mr. Clemens became acquainted with
Miss Olivia L. Langdon, the daughter of Jervis
Langdon, of Elmira, New York, and this acquaint-
ance led, in February, 1870, to one of the most ideal
marriages in literary history.
Four children came of this union. The eldest,
Langdon, a son, was born in November, 1870, and
died in 1872. The second, Susan Olivia, a daughter,
was born in the latter year, and lived only twenty-
four years, but long enough to develop extraordinary
mental gifts and every grace of character. Two
other daughters, Clara Langdon and Jean, were born
in 1874 and 1880, respectively, and still live (1899).
Mark Twain's first home as a man of family was
in Buffalo, in a house given to the bride by her father
as a wedding present. He bought a third interest
in a daily newspaper, the Buffalo Express, and
joined its staff. But his time for jogging in harness
was past. It was his last attempt at regular news-
paper work, and a year of it was enough. He had
become assured of a market for anything he might
produce, and he could choose his own place and
time for writing.
There was a tempting literary colony at Hartford;
the place was steeped in an atmosphere of antique
peace and beauty, and the Clemens family were
captivated by its charm. They moved there in
October, 1871, and soon built a house which was
one of the earliest fruits of the artistic revolt against
the mid-century Philistinism of domestic architecture
in America. For years it was an object of wonder
to the simple-minded tourist. The facts that its
rooms were arranged for the convenience of those
who were to occupy them, and that its windows,
gables, and porches were distributed with an eye to
the beauty, comfort, and picturesqueness of that
particular house, instead of following the traditional
lines laid down by the carpenters and contractors
who designed most of the dwellings of the period,
distracted the critics, and gave rise to grave dis-
cussions in the newspapers throughout the country
of "Mark Twain's practical joke."
The years that followed brought a steady literary
development. "Roughing It," which was written
in 1872, and scored a success hardly second to that
of "The Innocents," was, like that, simply a
humorous narrative of personal experiences, varie-
gated by brilliant splashes of description; but with
"The Gilded Age," which was produced in the same
year, in collaboration with Mr. Charles Dudley
Warner, the humorist began to evolve into the
philosopher. "Tom Sawyer," appearing in 1876,
was a veritable manual of boy nature, and its sequel,
"Huckleberry Finn," which was published nine years
later, was not only an advanced treatise in the same
science, but a most moving study of the workings
of the untutored human soul, in boy and man.
"The Prince and the Pauper," 1882, "A Connecti-
cut Yankee at King Arthur's Court" (1890), and
"Pudd'nhead Wilson" (first published serially in
1893-94), were all alive with a comprehensive and
passionate sympathy to which their humor was quite
subordinate, although Mark Twain never wrote, and
probably never will write, a book that could be read
without laughter. His humor is as irrepressible as
Lincoln's, and like that, it bubbles out on the most
solemn occasions; but still, again like Lincoln's, it
has a way of seeming, in spite of the surface in-
congruity, to belong there. But it was in the
"Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc," whose
anonymous serial publication in 1894-95 betrayed
some critics of reputation into the absurdity of
attributing it to other authors, notwithstanding the
characteristic evidences of its paternity that obtruded
themselves on every page, that Mark Twain became
most distinctly a prophet of humanity. Here, at
last, was a book with nothing ephemeral about it—
one that will reach the elemental human heart as well
among the flying machines of the next century, as it
does among the automobiles of to-day, or as it would
have done among the stage coaches of a hundred
years ago.
And side by side with this spiritual growth had
come a growth in knowledge and in culture. The
Mark Twain of "The Innocents," keen-eyed, quick
of understanding, and full of fresh, eager interest in
all Europe had to show, but frankly avowing that he
"did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance
was," had developed into an accomplished scholar
and a man of the world for whom the globe had few
surprises left. The Mark Twain of 1895 might con-
ceivably have written "The Innocents Abroad,"
although it would have required an effort to put him-
self in the necessary frame of mind, but the Mark
Twain of 1869 could no more have written "Joan
of Arc" than he could have deciphered the Maya
hieroglyphics.
In 1873 the family spent some months in England
and Scotland, and Mr. Clemens lectured for a few
weeks in London. Another European journey
followed in 1878.
"A Tramp Abroad" was the result of this
tour, which lasted eighteen months. "The Prince
and the Pauper," "Life on the Mississippi," and
"Huckleberry Finn" appeared in quick succes-
sion in 1882, 1883, and 1885. Considerably more
amusing than anything the humorist ever wrote was
the fact that the trustees of some village libraries in
New England solemnly voted that "Huckleberry
Finn," whose power of moral uplift has hardly been
surpassed by any book of our time, was too demoral-
izing to be allowed on their shelves.
All this time fortune had been steadily favorable,
and Mark Twain had been spoken of by the press,
sometimes with admiration, as an example of the
financial success possible in literature, and sometimes
with uncharitable envy, as a haughty millionaire,
forgetful of his humble friends. But now began the
series of unfortunate investments that swept away
the accumulations of half a lifetime of hard work,
and left him loaded with debts incurred by other
men. In 1885 he financed the publishing house of
Charles L. Webster & Company in New York. The
firm began business with the prestige of a brilliant
coup. It secured the publication of the Memoirs
of General Grant, which achieved a sale of more
than 600,000 volumes. The first check received
by the Grant heirs was for $200,000, and this was
followed a few months later by one for $150,000.
These are the largest checks ever paid for an author's
work on either side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile,
Mr. Clemens was spending great sums on a type-
setting machine of such seductive ingenuity as to
captivate the imagination of everybody who saw it.
It worked to perfection, but it was too complicated
and expensive for commercial use, and after sinking
a fortune in it between 1886 and 1889, Mark Twain
had to write off the whole investment as a dead loss.
On top of this the publishing house, which had
been supposed to be doing a profitable business,
turned out to have been incapably conducted, and
all the money that came into its hands was lost.
Mark Twain contributed $65,000 in efforts to save
its life, but to no purpose, and when it finally failed,
he found that it had not only absorbed everything
he had put in, but had incurred liabilities of $96,000,
of which less than one-third was covered by assets.
He could easily have avoided any legal liability for
the debts, but as the credit of the company had been
based largely upon his name, he felt bound in honor
to pay them. In 1895-96 he took his wife and
second daughter on a lecturing tour around the
world, wrote "Following the Equator," and cleared
off the obligations of the house in full.
The years 1897, 1898, and 1899 were spent in
England, Switzerland, and Austria. Vienna took
the family to its heart, and Mark Twain achieved
such a popularity among all classes there as is rarely
won by a foreigner anywhere. He saw the manu-
facture of a good deal of history in that time. It
was his fortune, for instance, to be present in the
Austrian Reichsrath on the memorable occasion when
it was invaded by sixty policemen, and sixteen
refractory members were dragged roughly out of
the hall. That momentous event in the progress
of parliamentary government profoundly impressed
him.
Mark Twain, although so characteristically Amer-
ican in every fiber, does not appeal to Americans
alone, nor even to the English-speaking race. His
work has stood the test of translation into French,
German, Russian, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, and
Magyar. That is pretty good evidence that it
possesses the universal quality that marks the master.
Another evidence of its fidelity to human nature is
the readiness with which it lends itself to dramatiza-
tion. "The Gilded Age," "Tom Sawyer," "The
Prince and the Pauper," and "Pudd'nhead Wilson"
have all been successful on the stage.
In the thirty-eight years of his literary activity
Mark Twain has seen generation after generation of
"American humorists" rise, expand into sudden
popularity, and disappear, leaving hardly a memory
behind. If he has not written himself out like them,
if his place in literature has become every year more
assured, it is because his "humor" has been some-
thing radically different from theirs. It has been
irresistibly laughter-provoking, but its sole end has
never been to make people laugh. Its more im-
portant purpose has been to make them think and
feel. And with the progress of the years Mark
Twain's own thoughts have become finer, his own
feelings deeper and more responsive. Sympathy
with the suffering, hatred of injustice and oppression,
and enthusiasm for all that tends to make the world
a more tolerable place for mankind to live in, have
grown with his accumulating knowledge of life as it
is. That is why Mark Twain has become a classic,
not only at home, but in all lands whose people read
and think about the common joys and sorrows of
humanity.