Mark Twain's Letters Part 141

To J. Wylie Smith, Glasgow, Scotland:

"STORMFIELD," August 7, 1909

DEAR SIR,--My view of the matter has not changed. To wit, that Christian Science is valuable; that it has just the same value now that it had when Mrs. Eddy stole it from Quimby; that its healing principle (its most valuable a.s.set) possesses the same force now that it possessed a million years ago before Quimby was born; that Mrs. Eddy... organized that force, and is ent.i.tled to high credit for that. Then, with a splendid sagacity she hitched it to... a religion, the surest of all ways to secure friends for it, and support. In a fine and lofty way--figuratively speaking--it was a tramp stealing a ride on the lightning express. Ah, how did that ignorant village-born peasant woman know the human being so well? She has no more intellect than a tadpole--until it comes to business then she is a marvel! Am I sorry I wrote the book? Most certainly not. You say you have 500 (converts) in Glasgow. Fifty years from now, your posterity will not count them by the hundred, but by the thousand. I feel absolutely sure of this.

Very truly yours, S. L. CLEMENS.

Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed writing for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, setting down the things that boiled, or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of human deportment, human superst.i.tion and human creeds. The "Letters from the Earth" referred to in the following, were supposed to have been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a friend, describing the absurdities of mankind. It is true, as he said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the ma.n.u.script contains some of his most delicious writing. Miss Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume ent.i.tled Mark Twain in the Happy Island.

"STORMFIELD," REDDING, CONNECTICUT, Nov. 13, '09.

DEAR BETSY,--I've been writing "Letters from the Earth," and if you will come here and see us I will--what? Put the MS in your hands, with the places to skip marked? No. I won't trust you quite that far. I'll read messages to you. This book will never be published--in fact it couldn't be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has much Holy Scripture in it of the kind that... can't properly be read aloud, except from the pulpit and in family wors.h.i.+p. Paine enjoys it, but Paine is going to be d.a.m.ned one of these days, I suppose.

The autumn splendors pa.s.sed you by? What a pity. I wish you had been here. It was beyond words! It was heaven and h.e.l.l and sunset and rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you couldn't look at it and keep the tears back. All the hosannahing strong gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and h.e.l.l and the pole, now, but no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment, you would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say: This is not real, this is a dream. Such a singing together, and such a whispering together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors, and such kissing and caressing, and such pretty blus.h.i.+ng when the sun breaks out and catches those dainty weeds at it--you remember that weed-garden of mine?--and then--then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance--oh, hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see it.

Good! I wish I could go on the platform and read. And I could, if it could be kept out of the papers. There's a charity-school of 400 young girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some more; but--oh, well, I can't go, and it's no use to grieve about it.

This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also Katy; also the laundress. The cook and the maid, and the boy and the roustabout and Jean's coachman are left--just enough to make it lonesome, because they are around yet never visible. However, the Harpers are sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall survive.

Affectionately, S. L. CLEMENS.

Early in June that year, Clemens had developed unmistakable symptoms of heart trouble of a very serious nature. It was angina pectoris, and while to all appearances he was as well as ever and usually felt so, he was periodically visited by severe attacks of acute "breast pains" which, as the months pa.s.sed, increased in frequency and severity. He was alarmed and distressed--not on his own account, but because of his daughter Jean--a handsome girl, who had long been subject to epileptic seizures. In case of his death he feared that Jean would be without permanent anchorage, his other daughter, Clara--following her marriage to Ossip Gabrilowitsch in October --having taken up residence abroad.

This anxiety was soon ended. On the morning of December 24th, Jean Clemens was found dead in her apartment. She was not drowned in her bath, as was reported, but died from heart exhaustion, the result of her malady and the shock of cold water.

[Questionable diagnosis! D.W. M.D.]

The blow to her father was terrible, but heavy as it was, one may perhaps understand that her pa.s.sing in that swift, painless way must have afforded him a measure of relief.

To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, in Europe:

REDDING, CONN., Dec. 29, '09.

O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe--safe! I am not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think. You see, I was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away and no one stood between her and danger but me--and I could die at any moment, and then--oh then what would become of her! For she was wilful, you know, and would not have been governable.

You can't imagine what a darling she was, that last two or three days; and how fine, and good, and sweet, and n.o.ble-and joyful, thank Heaven!--and how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted with Jean before. I recognized that.

But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't. I have already poured my heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two.

I will send you that--and you must let no one but Ossip read it.

Good-bye.

I love you so!

And Ossip.

FATHER.

The writing mentioned in the last paragraph was his article 'The Death of Jean,' his last serious writing, and one of the world's most beautiful examples of elegiac prose.--[Harper's Magazine, Dec., 1910,]

and later in the volume, 'What Is Man and Other Essays.'

XLVIII. LETTERS OF 1910. LAST TRIP TO BERMUDA. LETTERS TO PAINE. THE LAST LETTER.

Mark Twain had returned from a month's trip to Bermuda a few days before Jean died. Now, by his physician's advice, he went back to those balmy islands. He had always loved them, since his first trip there with Twich.e.l.l thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House,"

the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home.

Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading the ideal life, and am immeasurably content."

By his wish, the present writer and his family were keeping the Stormfield house open for him, in order that he might be able to return to its comforts at any time. He sent frequent letters--one or two by each steamer--but as a rule they did not concern matters of general interest. A little after his arrival, however, he wrote concerning an incident of his former visit--a trivial matter--but one which had annoyed him. I had been with him in Bermuda on the earlier visit, and as I remember it, there had been some slight oversight on his part in the matter of official etiquette--something which doubtless no one had noticed but himself.

To A. B. Paine, in Redding:

BAY HOUSE, Jan. 11, 1910.

DEAR PAINE,--... There was a military lecture last night at the Officer's Mess, prospect, and as the lecturer honored me with a special and urgent invitation and said he wanted to lecture to me particularly, I being "the greatest living master of the platform-art," I naturally packed Helen and her mother into the provided carriage and went.

As soon as we landed at the door with the crowd the Governor came to me at once and was very cordial, and apparently as glad to see me as he said he was. So that incident is closed. And pleasantly and entirely satisfactorily. Everything is all right, now, and I am no longer in a clumsy and awkward situation.

I "met up" with that charming Colonel Chapman, and other officers of the regiment, and had a good time.

Commandant Peters of the "Carnegie" will dine here tonight and arrange a private visit for us to his s.h.i.+p, the crowd to be denied access.

Sincerely Yours, S. L. C.

"Helen" of this letter was Mr. and Mrs. Allen's young daughter, a favorite companion of his walks and drives. "Loomis" and "Lark,"

mentioned in the letters which follow, were Edward E. Loomis--his nephew by marriage--named by Mark Twain as one of the trustees of his estate, and Charles T. Lark, Mark Twain's attorney.

To A. B. Paine, in Redding:

HAMILTON, Jan. 21, '10.