Chapter VI (2)

I went into the bath-room to see if I was right, and I was. I shut off the dining-room and stopped the buzzing, and came back to bed. My wife said,

"What do you suppose he is after now?"

I said, "I think he has got all the vegetables he wants and is coming up for napkin-rings and odds and ends for the wife and children. They all have families--burglars have--and they are always thoughtful of them, always take a few necessaries of life for themselves, and fill out with tokens of remembrance for the family. In taking them they do not forget us: those very things represent tokens of his remembrance of us, and also of our remembrance of him. We never get them again; the memory of the attention remains embalmed in our hearts."

"Are you going down to see what it is he wants now?"

"No," I said, "I am no more interested than I was before. They are experienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be no help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-à-brac and such things. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find on the dining-room floor."

She said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, "Suppose he comes up here!"

I said, "It is all right. He will give us notice."

"What shall we do then then?"

"Climb out of the window."

She said, a little restively, "Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm for us?"

"You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present moment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful after he gets up here."

That was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I said,

"He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and the bric-à-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied."

We went to sleep, and at a quarter before eight in the morning I was out, and hurrying, for I was to take the 8.29 train for New York. I found the gas burning brightly--full head--all over the first floor. My new overcoat was gone; my old umbrella was gone; my new patent-leather shoes, which I had never worn, were gone. The large window which opened into the _ombra_ at the rear of the house was standing wide. I passed out through it and tracked the burglar down the hill through the trees; tracked him without difficulty, because he had blazed his progress with imitation silver napkin-rings, and my umbrella, and various other things which he had disapproved of; and I went back in triumph and proved to my wife that he _was_ a disappointed burglar. I had suspected he would be, from the start, and from his not coming up to our floor to get human beings.

Things happened to me that day in New York. I will tell about them another time.

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa has a peculiar gait we like, it seems just to sute him, but
most people do not; he always walks up and down the room while
thinking and between each coarse at meals.

A lady distantly related to us came to visit us once in those days. She came to stay a week, but all our efforts to make her happy failed, we could not imagine why, and she got up her anchor and sailed the next morning. We did much guessing, but could not solve the mystery. Later we found out what the trouble was. It was my tramping up and down between the courses. She conceived the idea that I could not stand her society.

That word "Youth," as the reader has perhaps already guessed, was my wife's pet name for me. It was gently satirical, but also affectionate. I had certain mental and material peculiarities and customs proper to a much younger person than I was.

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa is very fond of animals particularly of cats, we had a dear
little gray kitten once that he named "Lazy" (papa always wears
gray to match his hair and eyes) and he would carry him around on
his shoulder, it was a mighty pretty sight! the gray cat sound
asleep against papa's gray coat and hair. The names that he has
given our different cats, are realy remarkably funny, they are
namely Stray Kit, Abner, Motley, Fraeulein, Lazy, Bufalo Bill,
Cleveland, Sour Mash, and Pestilence and Famine.

At one time when the children were small, we had a very black mother-cat named Satan, and Satan had a small black offspring named Sin. Pronouns were a difficulty for the children. Little Clara came in one day, her black eyes snapping with indignation, and said,

"Papa, Satan ought to be punished. She is out there at the greenhouse and there she stays and stays, and his kitten is down-stairs crying."

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa uses very strong language, but I have an idea not nearly so
strong as when he first maried mamma. A lady acquaintance of his is
rather apt to interupt what one is saying, and papa told mamma that
he thought he should say to the lady's husband "I am glad your wife
wasn't present when the Deity said 'Let there be light.'"

It is as I have said before. This is a frank historian. She doesn't cover up one's deficiencies, but gives them an equal showing with one's handsomer qualities. Of course I made the remark which she has quoted--and even at this distant day I am still as much as half persuaded that if that lady had been present when the Creator said, "Let there be light," she would have interrupted Him and we shouldn't ever have got it.

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa said the other day, "I am a mugwump and a mugwump is pure from
the marrow out." (Papa knows that I am writing this biography of
him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at
all, why I never understood, until just now, he told us the other
day that he couldn't bear to hear any one talk but himself, but
that he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting
tired, of course he said this in joke, but I've no dought it was
founded on truth.

MARK TWAIN.

(_To be Continued._)

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. DCII.

NOVEMBER 2, 1906.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--V.

BY MARK TWAIN.

Susy's remark about my strong language troubles me, and I must go back to it. All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a constant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went outside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I was obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife's respect and approval above all the rest of the human race's respect and approval. I dreaded the day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulchre partly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten years, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful. Therefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had been innocent.

But at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room one morning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three inches ajar. It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the precaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being particular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for me, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal helps. Now this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it. I had no extraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to worry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort, but with nothing noisy or emphatic about them--no snapping and barking. Then I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. They open in the back, and are buttoned there--when there are buttons. This time the button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment, and my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of expression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid one and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw the shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way to church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet of grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and thundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was absent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that shirt out of the window. I was too angry--too insane--to examine the third shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and that shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened up, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In the midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and I was paralyzed.

It took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time unnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in the circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I knew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited only to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the bedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made half the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in her direction, because that would not be safe. It is very difficult to look as if you have not been doing anything when the facts are the other way, and my confidence in my performance oozed steadily out of me as I went along. I was aiming for the left-hand door because it was furthest from my wife. It had never been opened from the day that the house was built, but it seemed a blessed refuge for me now. The bed was this one, wherein I am lying now, and dictating these histories morning after morning with so much serenity. It was this same old elaborately carved black Venetian bedstead--the most comfortable bedstead that ever was, with space enough in it for a family, and carved angels enough surmounting its twisted columns and its headboard and footboard to bring peace to the sleepers, and pleasant dreams. I had to stop in the middle of the room. I hadn't the strength to go on. I believed that I was under accusing eyes--that even the carved angels were inspecting me with an unfriendly gaze. You know how it is when you are convinced that somebody behind you is looking steadily at you. You _have_ to turn your face--you can't help it. I turned mine. The bed was placed as it is now, with the foot where the head ought to be. If it had been placed as it should have been, the high headboard would have sheltered me. But the footboard was no sufficient protection, for I could be seen over it. I was exposed. I was wholly without protection. I turned, because I couldn't help it--and my memory of what I saw is still vivid, after all these years.

Against the white pillows I saw the black head--I saw that young and beautiful face; and I saw the gracious eyes with a something in them which I had never seen there before. They were snapping and flashing with indignation. I felt myself crumbling; I felt myself shrinking away to nothing under that accusing gaze. I stood silent under that desolating fire for as much as a minute, I should say--it seemed a very, very long time. Then my wife's lips parted, and from them issued--_my latest bath-room remark_. The language perfect, but the expression velvety, unpractical, apprenticelike, ignorant, inexperienced, comically inadequate, absurdly weak and unsuited to the great language. In my lifetime I had never heard anything so out of tune, so inharmonious, so incongruous, so ill-suited to each other as were those mighty words set to that feeble music. I tried to keep from laughing, for I was a guilty person in deep need of charity and mercy. I tried to keep from bursting, and I succeeded--until she gravely said, "There, now you know how it sounds."

Then I exploded; the air was filled with my fragments, and you could hear them whiz. I said, "Oh Livy, if it sounds like _that_ I will never do it again!"

Then she had to laugh herself. Both of us broke into convulsions, and went on laughing until we were physically exhausted and spiritually reconciled.

The children were present at breakfast--Clara aged six and Susy eight--and the mother made a guarded remark about strong language; guarded because she did not wish the children to suspect anything--a guarded remark which censured strong language. Both children broke out in one voice with this comment, "Why, mamma, papa uses it!"

I was astonished. I had supposed that that secret was safe in my own breast, and that its presence had never been suspected. I asked,

"How did you know, you little rascals?"

"Oh," they said, "we often listen over the balusters when you are in the hall explaining things to George."

_From Susy's Biography._

One of papa's latest books is "The Prince and the Pauper" and it is
unquestionably the best book he has ever written, some people want
him to keep to his old style, some gentleman wrote him, "I enjoyed
Huckleberry Finn immensely and am glad to see that you have
returned to your old style." That enoyed me that enoyed me greatly,
because it trobles me [Susy was troubled by that word, and
uncertain; she wrote a u above it in the proper place, but
reconsidered the matter and struck it out] to have so few people
know papa, I mean realy know him, they think of Mark Twain as a
humorist joking at everything; "And with a mop of reddish brown
hair which sorely needs the barbars brush a roman nose, short
stubby mustache, a sad care-worn face, with maney crow's feet" etc.
That is the way people picture papa, I have wanted papa to write a
book that would reveal something of his kind sympathetic nature,
and "The Prince and the Pauper" partly does it. The book is full of
lovely charming ideas, and oh the language! It is _perfect_. I
think that one of the most touching scenes in it, is where the
pauper is riding on horseback with his nobles in the "recognition
procession" and he sees his mother oh and then what followed! How
she runs to his side, when she sees him throw up his hand palm
outward, and is rudely pushed off by one of the King's officers,
and then how the little pauper's consceince troubles him when he
remembers the shameful words that were falling from his lips, when
she was turned from his side "I know you not woman" and how his
grandeurs were stricken valueless, and his pride consumed to ashes.
It is a wonderfully beautiful and touching little scene, and papa
has described it so wonderfully. I never saw a man with so much
variety of feeling as papa has; now the "Prince and the Pauper" is
full of touching places; but there is most always a streak of humor
in them somewhere. Now in the coronation--in the stirring
coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again
papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used
the Seal "to crack nuts with." Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa
very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere,
and I dont think he ever will.

The children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript. She would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil in her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye upon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that whenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would strike it out. Their suspicions were well founded. The passages which were so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them which sorely needed modification or expurgation, and were always sure to get it at their mother's hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy the protests of the children, I often abused my editor's innocent confidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously atrocious character purposely to achieve the children's brief delight, and then see the remorseless pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my supplications to the children's for mercy, and strung the argument out and pretended to be in earnest. They were deceived, and so was their mother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very delightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we gained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck the passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished three of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book by me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane
Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F.V's of
Virginia.

Without doubt it was I that gave Susy that impression. I cannot imagine why, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which proceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from my mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the house. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham, England--a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon times. I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without titles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a great man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerage. My mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to aggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one to keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.

There was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States Senator, and in his day enjoyed the usual Senatorial fame--a fame which perishes whether it spring from four years' service or forty. After Jere. Clemens's fame as a Senator passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account of another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown's Governor Wise in the hind leg in a duel. However, I am not very clear about this. It may be that Governor Wise shot _him_ in the hind leg. However, I don't think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really important is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have been better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of them had got shot in the hind leg--but it is of no use for me to try to recollect history. I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever way it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can get up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first Clemens--the one that stands furthest back toward the really original _first_ Clemens, which was Adam.

_From Susy's Biography._

Clara and I are sure that papa played the trick on Grandma, about
the whipping, that is related in "The Adventures of Tom Sayer":
"Hand me that switch." The switch hovered in the air, the peril was
desperate--"My, look behind you Aunt!" The old lady whirled around
and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant,
scrambling up the high board fence and dissapeared over it.

Susy and Clara were quite right about that.

Then Susy says:

And we know papa played "Hookey" all the time. And how readily
would papa pretend to be dying so as not to have to go to school!

These revelations and exposures are searching, but they are just If I am as transparent to other people as I was to Susy, I have wasted much effort in this life.

Grandma couldn't make papa go to school, no she let him go into a
printing-office to learn the trade. He did so, and gradually picked
up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who
were more studious in early life.

It is noticeable that Susy does not get overheated when she is complimenting me, but maintains a proper judicial and biographical calm. It is noticeable, also, and it is to her credit as a biographer, that she distributes compliment and criticism with a fair and even hand.

My mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. She had none at all with my brother Henry, who was two years younger than I, and I think that the unbroken monotony of his goodness and truthfulness and obedience would have been a burden to her but for the relief and variety which I furnished in the other direction. I was a tonic. I was valuable to her. I never thought of it before, but now I see it. I never knew Henry to do a vicious thing toward me, or toward any one else--but he frequently did righteous ones that cost me as heavily. It was his duty to report me, when I needed reporting and neglected to do it myself, and he was very faithful in discharging that duty. He is "Sid" in "Tom Sawyer." But Sid was not Henry. Henry was a very much finer and better boy than ever Sid was.

It was Henry who called my mother's attention to the fact that the thread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going in swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it but for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that that prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye. That detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human. We generally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a possible excuse for it--but no matter, I took it out of Henry. There is always compensation for such as are unjustly used. I often took it out of him--sometimes as an advance payment for something which I hadn't yet done. These were occasions when the opportunity was too strong a temptation, and I had to draw on the future. I did not need to copy this idea from my mother, and probably didn't. Still she wrought upon that principle upon occasion.

If the incident of the broken sugar-bowl is in "Tom Sawyer"--I don't remember whether it is or not--that is an example of it. Henry never stole sugar. He took it openly from the bowl. His mother knew he wouldn't take sugar when she wasn't looking, but she had her doubts about me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I _would._ One day when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and precious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the family--and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad. I told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my mother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was speechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it would increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask "Who did that?"--so that I could fetch out my news. But it was an error of calculation. When she got through with her silence she didn't ask anything about it--she merely gave me a crack on the skull with her thimble that I felt all the way down to my heels. Then I broke out with my injured innocence, expecting to make her very sorry that she had punished the wrong one. I expected her to do something remorseful and pathetic. I told her that I was not the one--it was Henry. But there was no upheaval. She said, without emotion, "It's all right. It isn't any matter. You deserve it for something you've done that I didn't know about; and if you haven't done it, why then you deserve it for something that you are going to do, that I sha'n't hear about."

There was a stairway outside the house, which led up to the rear part of the second story. One day Henry was sent on an errand, and he took a tin bucket along. I knew he would have to ascend those stairs, so I went up and locked the door on the inside, and came down into the garden, which had been newly ploughed and was rich in choice firm clods of black mold. I gathered a generous equipment of these, and ambushed him. I waited till he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn't escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour or two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the incident was closed. But it was not. Henry was ambushing me. With an unusually competent aim for him, he landed a stone on the side of my head which raised a bump there that felt like the Matterhorn. I carried it to my mother straightway for sympathy, but she was not strongly moved. It seemed to be her idea that incidents like this would eventually reform me if I harvested enough of them. So the matter was only educational. I had had a sterner view of it than that, before.

It was not right to give the cat the "Pain-Killer"; I realize it now. I would not repeat it in these days. But in those "Tom Sawyer" days it was a great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its influence--and if actions _do_ speak as loud as words, he took as much interest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry Davis's Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey's negro man, who was a person of good judgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it, and I let him. It was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.

Those were the cholera days of '49. The people along the Mississippi were paralyzed with fright. Those who could run away, did it. And many died of fright in the flight. Fright killed three persons where the cholera killed one. Those who couldn't flee kept themselves drenched with cholera preventives, and my mother chose Perry Davis's Pain-Killer for me. She was not distressed about herself. She avoided that kind of preventive. But she made me promise to take a teaspoonful of Pain-Killer every day. Originally it was my intention to keep the promise, but at that time I didn't know as much about Pain-Killer as I knew after my first experiment with it. She didn't watch Henry's bottle--she could trust Henry. But she marked my bottle with a pencil, on the label, every day, and examined it to see if the teaspoonful had been removed. The floor was not carpeted. It had cracks in it, and I fed the Pain-Killer to the cracks with very good results--no cholera occurred down below.

It was upon one of these occasions that that friendly cat came waving his tail and supplicating for Pain-Killer--which he got--and then went into those hysterics which ended with his colliding with all the furniture in the room and finally going out of the open window and carrying the flower-pots with him, just in time for my mother to arrive and look over her glasses in petrified astonishment and say, "What in the world is the matter with Peter?"

I don't remember what my explanation was, but if it is recorded in that book it may not be the right one.

Whenever my conduct was of such exaggerated impropriety that my mother's extemporary punishments were inadequate, she saved the matter up for Sunday, and made me go to church Sunday night--which was a penalty sometimes bearable, perhaps, but as a rule it was not, and I avoided it for the sake of my constitution. She would never believe that I had been to church until she had applied her test: she made me tell her what the text was. That was a simple matter, and caused me no trouble. I didn't have to go to church to get a text. I selected one for myself. This worked very well until one time when my text and the one furnished by a neighbor, who had been to church, didn't tally. After that my mother took other methods. I don't know what they were now.

In those days men and boys wore rather long cloaks in the winter-time. They were black, and were lined with very bright and showy Scotch plaids. One winter's night when I was starting to church to square a crime of some kind committed during the week, I hid my cloak near the gate and went off and played with the other boys until church was over. Then I returned home. But in the dark I put the cloak on wrong side out, entered the room, threw the cloak aside, and then stood the usual examination. I got along very well until the temperature of the church was mentioned. My mother said,

"It must have been impossible to keep warm there on such a night."

I didn't see the art of that remark, and was foolish enough to explain that I wore my cloak all the time that I was in church. She asked if I kept it on from church home, too. I didn't see the bearing of that remark. I said that that was what I had done. She said,

"You wore it in church with that red Scotch plaid outside and glaring? Didn't that attract any attention?"

Of course to continue such a dialogue would have been tedious and unprofitable, and I let it go, and took the consequences.

That was about 1849. Tom Nash was a boy of my own age--the postmaster's son. The Mississippi was frozen across, and he and I went skating one night, probably without permission. I cannot see why we should go skating in the night unless without permission, for there could be no considerable amusement to be gotten out of skating at night if nobody was going to object to it. About midnight, when we were more than half a mile out toward the Illinois shore, we heard some ominous rumbling and grinding and crashing going on between us and the home side of the river, and we knew what it meant--the ice was breaking up. We started for home, pretty badly scared. We flew along at full speed whenever the moonlight sifting down between the clouds enabled us to tell which was ice and which was water. In the pauses we waited; started again whenever there was a good bridge of ice; paused again when we came to naked water and waited in distress until a floating vast cake should bridge that place. It took us an hour to make the trip--a trip which we made in a misery of apprehension all the time. But at last we arrived within a very brief distance of the shore. We waited again; there was another place that needed bridging. All about us the ice was plunging and grinding along and piling itself up in mountains on the shore, and the dangers were increasing, not diminishing. We grew very impatient to get to solid ground, so we started too early and went springing from cake to cake. Tom made a miscalculation, and fell short. He got a bitter bath, but he was so close to shore that he only had to swim a stroke or two--then his feet struck hard bottom and he crawled out. I arrived a little later, without accident. We had been in a drenching perspiration, and Tom's bath was a disaster for him. He took to his bed sick, and had a procession of diseases. The closing one was scarlet-fever, and he came out of it stone deaf. Within a year or two speech departed, of course. But some years later he was taught to talk, after a fashion--one couldn't always make out what it was he was trying to say. Of course he could not modulate his voice, since he couldn't hear himself talk. When he supposed he was talking low and confidentially, you could hear him in Illinois.

Four years ago (1902) I was invited by the University of Missouri to come out there and receive the honorary degree of LL.D. I took that opportunity to spend a week in Hannibal--a city now, a village in my day. It had been fifty-three years since Tom Nash and I had had that adventure. When I was at the railway station ready to leave Hannibal, there was a crowd of citizens there. I saw Tom Nash approaching me across a vacant space, and I walked toward him, for I recognized him at once. He was old and white-headed, but the boy of fifteen was still visible in him. He came up to me, made a trumpet of his hands at my ear, nodded his head toward the citizens and said confidentially--in a yell like a fog-horn--

"Same damned fools, Sam!"

_From Susy's Biography._

Papa was about twenty years old when he went on the Mississippi as
a pilot. Just before he started on his tripp Grandma Clemens asked
him to promise her on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors
or swear, and he said "Yes, mother, I will," and he kept that
promise seven years when Grandma released him from it.

Under the inspiring influence of that remark, what a garden of forgotten reforms rises upon my sight!

MARK TWAIN.

(_To be Continued._)

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. DCIII.

NOVEMBER 16, 1906.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VI.

BY MARK TWAIN.

_From Susy's Biography_.

Papa made arrangements to read at Vassar College the 1st of May,
and I went with him. We went by way of New York City. Mamma went
with us to New York and stayed two days to do some shopping. We
started Tuesday, at 1/2 past two o'clock in the afternoon, and
reached New York about 1/4 past six. Papa went right up to General
Grants from the station and mamma and I went to the Everett House.
Aunt Clara came to supper with us up in our room....

We and Aunt Clara were going were going to the theatre right after
supper, and we expected papa to take us there and to come home as
early as he could. But we got through dinner and he didn't come,
and didn't come, and mamma got more perplexed and worried, but at
last we thought we would have to go without him. So we put on our
things and started down stairs but before we'd goten half down we
met papa coming up with a great bunch of roses in his hand. He
explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped
and he didn't notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it
really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to
mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed "Adonis" [word illegible]
acted very much. We reached home about 1/2 past eleven o'clock and
went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had
breakfast about 1/2 past nine o'clock. After breakfast mamma went
out shopping and papa and I went to see papa's agent about some
business matters. After papa had gotten through talking to Cousin
Charlie, [Webster] papa's agent, we went to get a friend of papa's,
Major Pond, to go and see a Dog Show with us. Then we went to see
the dogs with Major Pond and we had a delightful time seeing so
many dogs together; when we got through seeing the dogs papa
thought he would go and see General Grant and I went with him--this
was April 29, 1885. Papa went up into General Grant's room and he
took me with him, I felt greatly honored and delighted when papa
took me into General Grant's room and let me see the General and
Col. Grant, for General Grant is a man I shall be glad all my life
that I have seen. Papa and General Grant had a long talk together
and papa has written an account of his talk and visit with General
Grant for me to put into this biography.

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

April 29, 1885.

I called on General Grant and took Susy with me. The General was
looking and feeling far better than he had looked or felt for some
months. He had ventured to work again on his book that morning--the
first time he had done any work for perhaps a month. This morning's
work was his first attempt at dictating, and it was a thorough
success, to his great delight. He had always said that it would be
impossible for him to dictate anything, but I had said that he was
noted for clearness of statement, and as a narrative was simply a
statement of consecutive facts, he was consequently peculiarly
qualified and equipped for dictation. This turned out to be true.
For he had dictated two hours that morning to a shorthand writer,
had never hesitated for words, had not repeated himself, and the
manuscript when finished needed no revision. The two hours' work
was an account of Appomattox--and this was such an extremely
important feature that his book would necessarily have been
severely lame without it. Therefore I had taken a shorthand writer
there before, to see if I could not get him to write at least a few
lines about Appomattox.[5] But he was at that time not well enough
to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of
Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely
anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was
not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger
than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox
accomplished once more in his life--to have gotten the matter off
his mind--that he was as talkative as his old self. He received
Susy very pleasantly, and then fell to talking about certain
matters which he hoped to be able to dictate next day; and he said
in substance that, among other things, he wanted to settle once for
all a question that had been bandied about from mouth to mouth and
from newspaper to newspaper. That question was, "With whom
originated the idea of the march to the sea? Was it Grant's, or was
it Sherman's idea?" Whether I, or some one else (being anxious to
get the important fact settled) asked him with whom the idea
originated, I don't remember. But I remember his answer. I shall
always remember his answer. General Grant said:

"Neither of us originated the idea of Sherman's march to the sea.
The enemy did it."

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

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

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

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

_Susy Resumes._

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

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

_From Susy's Biography_.

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

The next day mamma planned to take the four o'clock car back to
Hartford. We rose quite early that morning and went to the Vienna
Bakery and took breakfast there. From there we went to a German
bookstore and bought some German books for Clara's birthday.

Dear me, the power of association to snatch mouldy dead memories out of their graves and make them walk! That remark about buying foreign books throws a sudden white glare upon the distant past; and I see the long stretch of a New York street with an unearthly vividness, and John Hay walking down it, grave and remorseful. I was walking down it too, that morning, and I overtook Hay and asked him what the trouble was. He turned a lustreless eye upon me and said:

"My case is beyond cure. In the most innocent way in the world I have committed a crime which will never be forgiven by the sufferers, for they will never believe--oh, well, no, I was going to say they would never believe that I did the thing innocently. The truth is they will know that I acted innocently, because they are rational people; but what of that? I never can look them in the face again--nor they me, perhaps."

Hay was a young bachelor, and at that time was on the "Tribune" staff. He explained his trouble in these words, substantially:

"When I was passing along here yesterday morning on my way down-town to the office, I stepped into a bookstore where I am acquainted, and asked if they had anything new from the other side. They handed me a French novel, in the usual yellow paper cover, and I carried it away. I didn't even look at the title of it. It was for recreation reading, and I was on my way to my work. I went mooning and dreaming along, and I think I hadn't gone more than fifty yards when I heard my name called. I stopped, and a private carriage drew up at the sidewalk and I shook hands with the inmates--mother and young daughter, excellent people. They were on their way to the steamer to sail for Paris. The mother said,

"'I saw that book in your hand and I judged by the look of it that it was a French novel. Is it?'

"I said it was.

"She said, 'Do let me have it, so that my daughter can practise her French on it on the way over.'

"Of course I handed her the book, and we parted. Ten minutes ago I was passing that bookstore again, and I stepped in and fetched away another copy of that book. Here it is. Read the first page of it. That is enough. You will know what the rest is like. I think it must be the foulest book in the French language--one of the foulest, anyway. I would be ashamed to offer it to a harlot--but, oh dear, I gave it to that sweet young girl without shame. Take my advice; don't give away a book until you have examined it."

_From Susy's Biography._

Then mamma and I went to do some shopping and papa went to see
General Grant. After we had finnished doing our shopping we went
home to the hotel together. When we entered our rooms in the hotel
we saw on the table a vase full of exquisett red roses. Mamma who
is very fond of flowers exclaimed "Oh I wonder who could have sent
them." We both looked at the card in the midst of the roses and saw
that it was written on in papa's handwriting, it was written in
German. 'Liebes Geshchenk on die mamma.' [I am sure I didn't say
"on"--that is Susy's spelling, not mine; also I am sure I didn't
spell Geschenk so liberally as all that.--S. L. C.] Mamma was
delighted. Papa came home and gave mamma her ticket; and after
visiting a while with her went to see Major Pond and mamma and I
sat down to our lunch. After lunch most of our time was taken up
with packing, and at about three o'clock we went to escort mamma to
the train. We got on board the train with her and stayed with her
about five minutes and then we said good-bye to her and the train
started for Hartford. It was the first time I had ever beene away
from home without mamma in my life, although I was 13 yrs. old.
Papa and I drove back to the hotel and got Major Pond and then went
to see the Brooklyn Bridge we went across it to Brooklyn on the
cars and then walked back across it from Brooklyn to New York. We
enjoyed looking at the beautiful scenery and we could see the
bridge moove under the intense heat of the sun. We had a perfectly
delightful time, but weer pretty tired when we got back to the
hotel.

The next morning we rose early, took our breakfast and took an
early train to Poughkeepsie. We had a very pleasant journey to
Poughkeepsie. The Hudson was magnificent--shrouded with beautiful
mist. When we arived at Poughkeepsie it was raining quite hard;
which fact greatly dissapointed me because I very much wanted to
see the outside of the buildings of Vassar College and as it rained
that would be impossible. It was quite a long drive from the
station to Vasser College and papa and I had a nice long time to
discuss and laugh over German profanity. One of the German phrases
papa particularly enjoys is "O heilige maria Mutter Jesus!" Jean
has a German nurse, and this was one of her phrases, there was a
time when Jean exclaimed "Ach Gott!" to every trifle, but when
mamma found it out she was shocked and instantly put a stop to it.

It brings that pretty little German girl vividly before me--a sweet and innocent and plump little creature with peachy cheeks; a clear-souled little maiden and without offence, notwithstanding her profanities, and she was loaded to the eyebrows with them. She was a mere child. She was not fifteen yet. She was just from Germany, and knew no English. She was always scattering her profanities around, and they were such a satisfaction to me that I never dreamed of such a thing as modifying her. For my own sake, I had no disposition to tell on her. Indeed I took pains to keep her from being found out. I told her to confine her religious exercises to the children's quarters, and urged her to remember that Mrs. Clemens was prejudiced against pieties on week-days. To the children, the little maid's profanities sounded natural and proper and right, because they had been used to that kind of talk in Germany, and they attached no evil importance to it. It grieves me that I have forgotten those vigorous remarks. I long hoarded them in my memory as a treasure. But I remember one of them still, because I heard it so many times. The trial of that little creature's life was the children's hair. She would tug and strain with her comb, accompanying her work with her misplaced pieties. And when finally she was through with her triple job she always fired up and exploded her thanks toward the sky, where they belonged, in this form: "_Gott sei Dank ich bin fertig mit'm Gott verdammtes Haar!_" (I believe I am not quite brave enough to translate it.)

_From Susy's Biography_.