Mark Twain A Biography Part 151

"This letter is a frank breath of expression [and his comments were equally frank]. There is no such thing as morality; it is not immoral for the tiger to eat the wolf, or the wolf the cat, or the cat the bird, and so on down; that is their business. There is always enough for each one to live on. It is not immoral for one nation to seize another nation by force of arms, or for one man to seize another man's property or life if he is strong enough and wants to take it. It is not immoral to create the human species--with or without ceremony; nature intended exactly these things."

At one place in the lecture Shaw had said: "No one of good sense can accept any creed to-day without reservation."

"Certainly not," commented Clemens; "the reservation is that he is a d--d fool to accept it at all."

He was in one of his somber moods that morning. I had received a print of a large picture of Thomas Nast--the last one taken. The face had a pathetic expression which told the tragedy of his last years. Clemens looked at the picture several moments without speaking. Then he broke out:

"Why can't a man die when he's had his tragedy? I ought to have died long ago." And somewhat later: "Once Twich.e.l.l heard me cussing the human race, and he said, 'Why, Mark, you are the last person in the world to do that--one selected and set apart as you are.' I said 'Joe, you don't know what you are talking about. I am not cussing altogether about my own little troubles. Any one can stand his own misfortunes; but when I read in the papers all about the rascalities and outrages going on I realize what a creature the human animal is. Don't you care more about the wretchedness of others than anything that happens to you?' Joe said he did, and shut up."

It occurred to me to suggest that he should not read the daily papers.

"No difference," he said. "I read books printed two hundred years ago, and they hurt just the same."

"Those people are all dead and gone," I objected.

"They hurt just the same," he maintained.

I sometimes thought of his inner consciousness as a pool darkened by his tragedies, its gla.s.sy surface, when calm, reflecting all the joy and sunlight and merriment of the world, but easily--so easily--troubled and stirred even to violence. Once following the dictation, when I came to the billiard-room he was shooting the b.a.l.l.s about the table, apparently much depressed. He said:

"I have been thinking it out--if I live two years more I will put an end to it all. I will kill myself."

"You have much to live for----"

"But I am so tired of the eternal round," he interrupted; "so tired."

And I knew he meant that he was ill of the great loneliness that had come to him that day in Florence, and would never pa.s.s away.

I referred to the pressure of social demands in the city, and the relief he would find in his country home. He shook his head.

"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery."

Yet the mood changed quickly enough when the play began. He was gay and hilarious presently, full of the humors and complexities of the game. H.

H. Rogers came in with a good deal of frequency, seldom making very long calls, but never seeming to have that air of being hurried which one might expect to find in a man whose day was only twenty-four hours long, and whose interests were so vast and innumerable. He would come in where we were playing, and sit down and watch the game, or perhaps would pick up a book and read, exchanging a remark now and then. More often, however, he sat in the bedroom, for his visits were likely to be in the morning. They were seldom business calls, or if they were, the business was quickly settled, and then followed gossip, humorous incident, or perhaps Clemens would read aloud something he had written. But once, after greetings, he began:

"Well, Rogers, I don't know what you think of it, but I think I have had about enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it."

Mr. Rogers replied, "I don't say much about it, but that expresses my view."

This from the foremost man of letters and one of the foremost financiers of the time was impressive. Each at the mountain-top of his career, they agreed that the journey was not worth while--that what the world had still to give was not attractive enough to tempt them to prevent a desire to experiment with the next stage. One could remember a thousand poor and obscure men who were perfectly willing to go on struggling and starving, postponing the day of settlement as long as possible; but perhaps, when one has had all the world has to give, when there are no new worlds in sight to conquer, one has a different feeling.

Well, the realization lay not so far ahead for either of them, though at that moment they both seemed full of life and vigor--full of youth. One could not imagine the day when for them it would all be over.

CCLI. A LOBBYING EXPEDITION

Clara Clemens came home now and then to see how matters were progressing, and very properly, for Clemens was likely to become involved in social intricacies which required a directing hand. The daughter inherited no little of the father's characteristics of thought and phrase, and it was always a delight to see them together when one could be just out of range of the crossfire. I remember soon after her return, when she was making some searching inquiries concerning the billiard-room sign, and other suggested or inst.i.tuted reforms, he said:

"Oh well, never mind, it doesn't matter. I'm boss in this house."

She replied, quickly: "Oh no, you're not. You're merely owner. I'm the captain--the commander-in-chief."

One night at dinner she mentioned the possibility of going abroad that year. During several previous summers she had planned to visit Vienna to see her old music-master, Leschetizky, once more before his death. She said:

"Leschetizky is getting so old. If I don't go soon I'm afraid I sha'n't be in time for his funeral."

"Yes," said her father, thoughtfully, "you keep rus.h.i.+ng over to Leschetizky's funeral, and you'll miss mine."

He had made one or two social engagements without careful reflection, and the situation would require some delicacy of adjustment. During a moment between the courses, when he left the table and was taking his exercise in the farther room, she made some remark which suggested a doubt of her father's gift for social management. I said:

"Oh, well, he is a king, you know, and a king can do no wrong."

"Yes, I know," she answered. "The king can do no wrong; but he frightens me almost to death, sometimes, he comes so near it."

He came back and began to comment rather critically on some recent performance of Roosevelt's, which had stirred up a good deal of newspaper amus.e.m.e.nt--it was the Storer matter and those indiscreet letters which Roosevelt had written relative to the amba.s.sadors.h.i.+p which Storer so much desired. Miss Clemens was inclined to defend the President, and spoke with considerable enthusiasm concerning his elements of popularity, which had won him such extraordinary admiration.

"Certainly he is popular," Clemens admitted, "and with the best of reasons. If the twelve apostles should call at the White House, he would say, 'Come in, come in! I am delighted to see you. I've been watching your progress, and I admired it very much.' Then if Satan should come, he would slap him on the shoulder and say, 'Why, Satan, how do you do?

I am so glad to meet you. I've read all your works and enjoyed every one of them.' Anybody could be popular with a gift like that."

It was that evening or the next, perhaps, that he said to her:

"Ben [one of his pet names for her], now that you are here to run the ranch, Paine and I are going to Was.h.i.+ngton on a vacation. You don't seem to admire our society much, anyhow."

There were still other reasons for the Was.h.i.+ngton expedition. There was an important bill up for the extension of the book royalty period, and the forces of copyright were going down in a body to use every possible means to get the measure through.

Clemens, during Cleveland's first administration, some nineteen years before, had accompanied such an expedition, and through S. S. ("Sunset") c.o.x had obtained the "privileges of the floor" of the House, which had enabled him to canva.s.s the members individually. c.o.x a.s.sured the doorkeeper that Clemens had received the thanks of Congress for national literary service, and was therefore ent.i.tled to that privilege. This was not strictly true; but regulations were not very severe in those days, and the ruse had been regarded as a good joke, which had yielded excellent results. Clemens had a similar scheme in mind now, and believed that his friends.h.i.+p with Speaker Cannon--"Uncle Joe"--would obtain for him a similar privilege. The Copyright a.s.sociation working in its regular way was very well, he said, but he felt he could do more as an individual than by acting merely as a unit of that body.

"I canva.s.sed the entire House personally that other time," he said. "c.o.x introduced me to the Democrats, and John D. Long, afterward Secretary of the Navy, introduced me to the Republicans. I had a darling time converting those members, and I'd like to try the experiment again."

I should have mentioned earlier, perhaps, that at this time he had begun to wear white clothing regularly, regardless of the weather and season.

On the return from Dublin he had said:

"I can't bear to put on black clothes again. I wish I could wear white all winter. I should prefer, of course, to wear colors, beautiful rainbow hues, such as the women have monopolized. Their clothing makes a great opera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and to the spirit--a garden of Eden for charm and color.

"The men, clothed in odious black, are scattered here and there over the garden like so many charred stumps. If we are going to be gay in spirit, why be clad in funeral garments? I should like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks and velvets resplendent with stunning dyes, and so would every man I have ever known; but none of us dares to venture it. If I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning clothed as I would like to be clothed the churches would all be vacant and the congregation would come tagging after me. They would scoff, of course, but they would envy me, too. When I put on black it reminds me of my funerals. I could be satisfied with white all the year round."

It was not long after this that he said:

"I have made up my mind not to wear black any more, but white, and let the critics say what they will."

So his tailor was sent for, and six creamy flannel and serge suits were ordered, made with the short coats, which he preferred, with a gray suit or two for travel, and he did not wear black again, except for evening dress and on special occasions. It was a gratifying change, and though the newspapers made much of it, there was no one who was not gladdened by the beauty of his garments and their general harmony with his person.

He had never worn anything so appropriate or so impressive.

This departure of costume came along a week or two before the Was.h.i.+ngton trip, and when his bags were being packed for the excursion he was somewhat in doubt as to the propriety of bursting upon Was.h.i.+ngton in December in that snowy plumage. I ventured:

"This is a lobbying expedition of a peculiar kind, and does not seem to invite any half-way measures. I should vote in favor of the white suit."

I think Miss Clemens was for it, too. She must have been or the vote wouldn't have carried, though it was clear he strongly favored the idea.

At all events, the white suits came along.