Mark Twain's Letters Part 136

S. L. C.

The story of Mark Twain's extraordinary reception and triumph in England has been told.--[Mark Twain; A Biography, chaps. cclvi- cclix]--It was, in fact, the crowning glory of his career. Perhaps one of the most satisfactory incidents of his sojourn was a dinner given to him by the staff of Punch, in the historic offices at 10 Bouverie Street where no other foreign visitor had been thus honored--a notable distinction. When the dinner ended, little joy Agnew, daughter of the chief editor, entered and presented to the chief guest the original drawing of a cartoon by Bernard Partridge, which had appeared on the front page of Punch. In this picture the presiding genius of the paper is offering to Mark Twain health, long life, and happiness from "The Punch Bowl."

A short time after his return to America he received a pretty childish letter from little Miss Agnew acknowledging a photograph he had sent her, and giving a list of her pets and occupations. Such a letter always delighted Mark Twain, and his pleasure in this one is reflected in his reply.

To Miss Joy Agnew, in London:

TUXEDO PARK, NEW YORK.

Unto you greetings and salutation and wors.h.i.+p, you dear, sweet little rightly-named Joy! I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that night when you sat flas.h.i.+ng and beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails.

"Fair as a star when only one Is s.h.i.+ning in the sky."

Oh, you were indeed the only one--there wasn't even the remotest chance of compet.i.tion with you, dear! Ah, you are a decoration, you little witch!

The idea of your house going to the wanton expense of a flower garden!--aren't you enough? And what do you want to go and discourage the other flowers for? Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is it kind? How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking the way you look? And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and supernatural? Why, it makes them feel embarra.s.sed and artificial, of course; and in my opinion it is just as pathetic as it can be. Now then you want to reform--dear--and do right.

Well certainly you are well off, Joy:

3 bantams; 3 goldfish; 3 doves; 6 canaries; 2 dogs; 1 cat;

All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one more dog--just one more good, gentle, high principled, affectionate, loyal dog who wouldn't want any n.o.bler service than the golden privilege of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came along--and I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a hat.

Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your "daddy" and Owen Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of yours, you darling small tyrant?

On my knees! These--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject--

MARK TWAIN

Elinor Glyn, author of Three Weeks and other erotic tales, was in America that winter and asked permission to call on Mark Twain. An appointment was made and Clemens discussed with her, for an hour or more, those crucial phases of life which have made living a complex problem since the days of Eve in Eden. Mrs. Glyn had never before heard anything like Mark Twain's wonderful talk, and she was anxious to print their interview. She wrote what she could remember of it and sent it to him for approval. If his conversation had been frank, his refusal was hardly less so.

To Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in New York:

Jan. 22, '08.

DEAR MRS. GLYN, It reads pretty poorly--I get the sense of it, but it is a poor literary job; however, it would have to be that because n.o.body can be reported even approximately, except by a stenographer.

Approximations, synopsized speeches, translated poems, artificial flowers and chromos all have a sort of value, but it is small. If you had put upon paper what I really said it would have wrecked your type-machine. I said some fetid, over-vigorous things, but that was because it was a confidential conversation. I said nothing for print. My own report of the same conversation reads like Satan roasting a Sunday school. It, and certain other readable chapters of my autobiography will not be published until all the Clemens family are dead--dead and correspondingly indifferent. They were written to entertain me, not the rest of the world. I am not here to do good--at least not to do it intentionally. You must pardon me for dictating this letter; I am sick a-bed and not feeling as well as I might.

Sincerely Yours, S. L. CLEMENS.

Among the cultured men of England Mark Twain had no greater admirer, or warmer friend, than Andrew Lang. They were at one on most literary subjects, and especially so in their admiration of the life and character of Joan of Arc. Both had written of her, and both held her to be something almost more than mortal. When, therefore, Anatole France published his exhaustive biography of the maid of Domremy, a book in which he followed, with exaggerated minuteness and innumerable footnotes, every step of Joan's physical career at the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen, Lang wrote feelingly, and with some contempt, of the performance, inviting the author of the Personal Recollections to come to the rescue of their heroine. "Compare every one of his statements with the pa.s.sages he cites from authorities, and make him the laughter of the world" he wrote. "If you are lazy about comparing I can make you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says that they say. When I tell you that he thinks the Epiphany (January 6, Twelfth Night) is December 25th--Christmas Day-you begin to see what an egregious a.s.s he is. Treat him like Dowden, and oblige"--a reference to Mark Twain's defense of Harriet Sh.e.l.ley, in which he had heaped ridicule on Dowden's Life of the Poet--a masterly performance; one of the best that ever came from Mark Twain's pen.

Lang's suggestion would seem to have been a welcome one.

To Andrew Lang, in London:

NEW YORK, April 25, 1908.

DEAR MR. LANG,--I haven't seen the book nor any review of it, but only not very-understandable references to it--of a sort which discomforted me, but of course set my interest on fire. I don't want to have to read it in French--I should lose the nice shades, and should do a lot of gross misinterpreting, too. But there'll be a translation soon, nicht wahr? I will wait for it. I note with joy that you say: "If you are lazy about comparing, (which I most certainly am), I can make you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says that they say."

Ah, do it for me! Then I will attempt the article, and (if I succeed in doing it to my satisfaction,) will publish it. It is long since I touched a pen (3 1/2 years), and I was intending to continue this happy holiday to the gallows, but--there are things that could beguile me to break this blessed Sabbath.

Yours very sincerely, S. L. CLEMENS.

Certainly it is an interesting fact that an Englishman--one of the race that burned Joan--should feel moved to defend her memory against the top-heavy perversions of a distinguished French author.

But Lang seems never to have sent the notes. The copying would have been a tremendous task, and perhaps he never found the time for it.

We may regret to-day that he did not, for Mark Twain's article on the French author's Joan would have been at least unique.

Samuel Clemens could never accustom himself to the loss of his wife.

From the time of her death, marriage-which had brought him his greatest joy in life-presented itself to him always with the thought of bereavement, waiting somewhere just behind. The news of an approaching wedding saddened him and there was nearly always a somber tinge in his congratulations, of which the following to a dear friend is an example:

To Father Fitz-Simon, in Was.h.i.+ngton:

June 5, '08.

DEAR FATHER FITZ-SIMON,--Marriage--yes, it is the supreme felicity of life, I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when it comes.

And so I congratulate you. Not perfunctorily, not lukewarmly, but with a fervency and fire that no word in the dictionary is strong enough to convey. And in the same breath and with the same depth and sincerity, I grieve for you. Not for both of you and not for the one that shall go first, but for the one that is fated to be left behind. For that one there is no recompense.--For that one no recompense is possible.

There are times--thousands of times--when I can expose the half of my mind, and conceal the other half, but in the matter of the tragedy of marriage I feel too deeply for that, and I have to bleed it all out or shut it all in. And so you must consider what I have been through, and am pa.s.sing through and be charitable with me.

Make the most of the suns.h.i.+ne! and I hope it will last long--ever so long.

I do not really want to be present; yet for friends.h.i.+p's sake and because I honor you so, I would be there if I could.

Most sincerely your friend, S. L. CLEMENS.