Chapter VII: Part 7

I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent—Hannibal, Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One Tom Lyman, a young fellow of a good deal of spirit but of no military experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen of us. By the advice of an innocent connected with the organization we called ourselves the Marion Rangers. I do not remember that any one found fault with the name. I did not; I thought it sounded quite well. The young fellow who proposed this title was perhaps a fair sample of the kind of stuff we were made of. He was young, ignorant, good-natured, well-meaning, trivial, full of romance, and given to reading chivalric novels and singing forlorn love ditties. He had some pathetic little nickel-plated aristocratic instincts, and detested his name, which was Dunlap; detested it partly because it was nearly as common in that region as Smith, but mainly because it had a plebeian sound to his ear. So he tried to ennoble it by writing it in this way: _d’Unlap_. That contented his eye, but left his ear unsatisfied, for people gave the new name the same old pronunciation—emphasis on the front end of it. He then did the bravest thing that can be imagined—a thing to make one shiver when one remembers how the world is given to resenting shams and affectations; he began to write his name so: _d’Un Lap_. And he waited patiently through the long storm of mud that was flung at this work of art, and he had his reward at last; for he lived to see that name accepted, and the emphasis put where he wanted it by people who had known him all his life, and to whom the tribe of Dunlaps had been as familiar as the rain and sunshine for forty years. So sure of victory at last is the courage that can wait. He said he had found, by consulting some ancient French chronicles, that the name was rightly and originally written d’Un Lap; and said that if it were translated into English it would mean Peterson: _Lap_, Latin or Greek, he said, for stone or rock, same as the French _pierre_, that is to say Peter; _d’_ of or from; _un_, a or one; hence, d’Un Lap, of or from a stone or a Peter; that is to say, one who is the son of a stone, the son of a Peter—Peterson. Our militia company were not learned, and the explanation confused them; so they called him Peterson Dunlap. He proved useful to us in his way; he named our camps for us, and he generally struck a name that was “no slouch,” as the boys said.

That is one sample of us. Another was Ed Stevens, son of the town jeweler—trim built, handsome, graceful, neat as a cat; bright, educated, but given over entirely to fun. There was nothing serious in life to him. As far as he was concerned, this military expedition of ours was simply a holiday. I should say that about half of us looked upon it in the same way; not consciously perhaps, but unconsciously. We did not think; we were not capable of it. As for myself, I was full of unreasoning joy to be done with turning out of bed at midnight and four in the morning for a while; grateful to have a change, new scenes, new occupations, a new interest. In my thoughts that was as far as I went; I did not go into the details; as a rule, one doesn’t at twenty-four.

Another sample was Smith, the blacksmith’s apprentice. This vast donkey had some pluck, of a slow and sluggish nature, but a soft heart; at one time he would knock a horse down for some impropriety, and at another he would get homesick and cry. However, he had one ultimate credit to his account which some of us hadn’t; he stuck to the war, and was killed in battle at last.

Jo Bowers, another sample, was a huge, good-natured, flax-headed lubber; lazy, sentimental, full of harmless brag, a grumbler by nature; an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar, and yet not a successful one, for he had had no intelligent training, but was allowed to come up just anyway. This life was serious enough to him, and seldom satisfactory. But he was a good fellow, anyway, and the boys all liked him. He was made orderly sergeant; Stevens was made corporal.

These samples will answer—and they are quite fair ones. Well, this herd of cattle started for the war. What could you expect of them? They did as well as they knew how; but really what was justly to be expected of them? Nothing, I should say. That is what they did....

For a time life was idly delicious, it was perfect; there was nothing to mar it. Then came some farmers with an alarm one day. They said it was rumored that the enemy were advancing in our direction from over Hyde’s Prairie. The result was a sharp stir among us and general consternation. It was a rude awakening from our pleasant trance. The rumor was but a rumor—nothing definite about it; so, in the confusion, we did not know which way to retreat. Lyman was for not retreating at all, in these uncertain circumstances; but he found that if he tried to maintain that attitude he would fare badly, for the command were in no humor to put up with insubordination. So he yielded the point and called a council of war—to consist of himself and the three other officers; but the privates made such a fuss about being left out that we had to allow them to remain, for they were already present, and doing the most of the talking, too. The question was, which way to retreat; but all were so flurried that nobody seemed to have even a guess to offer. Except Lyman. He explained in a few calm words that, inasmuch as the enemy was approaching from over Hyde’s Prairie, our course was simple; all we had to do was not to retreat _towards_ him; any other direction would answer our needs perfectly. Everybody saw in a moment how true this was, and how wise; so Lyman got a great many compliments. It was now decided that we should fall back on Mason’s farm.

It was after dark by this time, and as we could not know how soon the enemy might arrive, it did not seem best to try to take the horses and things with us; so we only took the guns and ammunition, and started at once.

We heard a sound, and held our breath and listened, and it seemed to be the enemy coming, though it could have been a cow, for it had a cough like a cow; but we did not wait, but left a couple of guns behind and struck out for Mason’s again, as briskly as we could scramble along in the dark. But we got lost presently among the rugged little ravines, and wasted a deal of time finding the way again, so it was after nine o’clock when we reached Mason’s stile at last; and then before we could open our mouths to give the countersign several dogs came bounding over the fence, with great riot and noise, and each of them took a soldier by the slack of his trousers and began to back away with him. We could not shoot the dogs without endangering the persons they were attached to; so we had to look on helplessly, at what was perhaps the most mortifying spectacle of the Civil War. There was light enough, and to spare, for the Masons had now run out on the porch with candles in their hands. The old man and his son came and undid the dogs without difficulty, all but Bowers’s; but they couldn’t undo his dog, they didn’t know his combination; he was of the bull kind, and seemed to be set with a Yale time-lock; but they got him loose at last with some scalding water, of which Bowers got his share and returned thanks.

_FROM_ “THE PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC”

JOAN

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of their luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet the test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique. It can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving or apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, judged by all of them, it is still flawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest place possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has been reached by any other mere mortal.

When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her and her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great thoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine, and delicate, when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal; she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true in an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the highest places was foul in both—she was all these things in an age when crime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest personages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black with unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and bestialities.

She was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a place in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any word or deed of hers. When she had rescued her king from his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head she was offered rewards and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing. All she would take for herself—if the king would grant it—was leave to go back to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her mother’s arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The selfishness of this unspoiled general of victorious army, companion of princes, an idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and no farther.

THE FAIRY TREE

In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward Vaucouleur stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on summer days the children went there—oh, every summer for more than five hundred years—went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours together, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures, as all fairies are and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild flowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the fairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as keeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away serpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness between the fairies and the children during more than five hundred years—tradition said a thousand—but only the warmest affection and the most perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies mourned just as that child’s playmates did, and the sign of it was there to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little immortelle over the place where the child was used to sit under the tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it was known that the fairies did it was this—that it was made all of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere.

Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the Children of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it a mystic privilege not granted to any other of the children of this world. Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond the vague and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose soft and rich and fair a vision of the tree—if all was well with his soul. That was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul was the captive of sin, and then the tree appeared in its desolate winter aspect—then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If repentance came, and purity of life the vision came again, this time summer-clad and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the vision was withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still others said that the vision came but once and then only to the sinless dying forlorn in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear reminder of their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts like the picture of the tree that was the darling of their love and the comrade of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through the divine days of their vanished youth?

Now the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and some another. One of them I know to be the truth, and that was the last one. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true, but I only _know_ that the last one was; and it is my thought that if one keep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which he cannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it—and there is profit in that. I know that when the children of the tree die in a far land, then—if they be at peace with God—they turn their longing eyes toward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that curtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the fairy tree, clothed in a dream of golden light; and they see the blooming meads sloping away to the river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet the fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and passes—but _they_ know, _they_ know! and by their transfigured faces you know also, you stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has come, and that it has come from heaven.

Joan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel, and Jacques d’Arc and many others believed that the vision appeared twice—to a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they _knew_ it. Probably because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one gets most things at second hand in this world....

Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and danced around the fairy tree they sang the song which was the tree’s song, the song of _L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont_. They sang it to a quaint sweet air—a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know or feel what that song has been through the drifting centuries to exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to us, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices break and we cannot sing the last lines:

“And when, in exile wand’ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!”

and you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And _that_ hallows it, yes, you will grant that:

_L’Arbre Fée de Bourlemont._

Song of the children
Now what has kept your leaves so green,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont?
The children’s tears! they brought each grief,
And you did comfort them and cheer
Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear
That, healèd, rose, a leaf.

And what has built you up so strong,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont?
The children’s love! they’ve loved you long:
Ten hundred years, in sooth,
They’ve nourished you with praise and song,
And warmed your heart and kept it young—
A thousand years of youth!

Bide always green in our young hearts,
Arbre Fée de Bourlemont!
And we shall always youthful be,
Not heeding Time his flight;
And when, in exile wand’ring, we
Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,
Oh, rise upon our sight!

JOAN BEFORE RHEIMS

We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July, we came in sight of our goal and saw the great cathedral towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse, gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her sublime mission was closing—closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could say, “It is finished—let me go free.”

JOAN’S REWARD

The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant child stood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the heir of France was crowned.

She was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her face as she sank to her knees at the king’s feet and looked up at him through her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and low and broken:

“Now, O gentle king, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to his command that you should come to Rheims and receive the crown that belongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was given me to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old, and has need of me.”

The king raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her great deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her nobility and titles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a household and officers for her according to her dignity; and then he said:

“You have saved the crown. Speak—require—demand; and whatsoever grace you ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet it.”

Now that was fine, that was loyal. Joan was on her knees again straightway, and said:

“Then, O gentle king, if out of your compassion you will speak the word, I pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard-pressed by reason of the war, may have its taxes remitted.”

“It is so commanded. Say on.”

“That is all.”

“All? Nothing but that?”

“It is all. I have no other desire.”

“But that is nothing—less than nothing. Ask—do not be afraid.”

“Indeed, I cannot, gentle king. Do not press me. I will not have aught else, but only this alone.”

The king seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to comprehend and realize the full stature of this strange unselfishness. Then he raised his head and said:

“She has won a kingdom and crowned its king; and all she asks and all she will take is this poor grace—and even this is for others, not for herself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of one who carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that any king could add, though he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now, therefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village of Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is freed from all taxation _forever_.”

_FROM_ “SAINT JOAN OF ARC” (1899)

There is no one to compare her with, none to measure her by; for all others among the illustrious _grew_ towards their high place in an atmosphere and surroundings which discovered their gift to them and nourished it and promoted it, intentionally or unconsciously. There have been other young generals, but they were not girls; young generals, but they have been soldiers before they were generals: she _began_ as a general. She commanded the first army she ever saw; she led it from victory to victory, and never lost a battle with it; there have been young commanders-in-chief, but none so young as she: she is the only soldier in history who has held the supreme command of a nation’s armies at the age of seventeen.

_FROM_ “FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR”
PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S NEW CALENDAR
(1896–7)

A man may have no bad habits and have worse.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.

A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

It is your human environment that makes climate.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the schoolboy who said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.

Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

There is a Moral Sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.

The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

It is easier to stay out than to get out.

Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

Nothing is so ignorant as a man’s left hand, except a lady’s watch.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

There is no such thing as “the Queen’s English.” The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares.

“_Classic._” A book which people praise and don’t read.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops: man would have made him with an appetite for sand.

The spirit of wrath—not the words—is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.

The man with a new idea is a Crank till the idea succeeds.

Let us be grateful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the “blessing” of idleness and won for us the “curse” of labor.

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all.

The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.

There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty. “When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.”

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others—his last breath.

Hunger is the handmaid of genius.

The old saw says, “Let a sleeping dog lie.” Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

Simple rules for saving money: To save half, when you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

He had had much experience of physicians, and said “the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d druther not.”

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins the unexpired remainder is worth $4.00 a minute.

True irreverence is disrespect to another man’s god.

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the truth.

Satan (impatiently) to Newcomer: The trouble with you Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely the most numerous.

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined ones.

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

There isn’t a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had had its rights.

I have traveled more than any one else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.

ART

Whenever I enjoy anything in Art it means that it is mighty poor. The private knowledge of this fact has saved me from going to pieces with enthusiasm in front of many and many a chromo.

ITALIAN CIGARS

In Italy, as in France, the Government is the only cigar-peddler. Italy has three or four domestic brands: the Minghetti, the Trabuco, the Virginia, and a very coarse one which is a modification of the Virginia. The Minghettis are large and comely, and cost three dollars and sixty cents a hundred; I can smoke a hundred in seven days and enjoy every one of them. The Trabucos suit me, too; I don’t remember the price. But one has to learn to like the Virginia, nobody is born friendly to it. It looks like a rat-tail file, but smokes better, some think. It has a straw through it; you pull this out, and it leaves a flue, otherwise there would be no draught, not even as much as there is to a nail. Some prefer a nail at first.

_FROM_ “CONCERNING THE JEWS” (1898)

THE HUMAN BEING

I’m 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.

THE IMMORTAL RACE

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 always 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 himself, 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 were gone; other people 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_ “CHRISTIAN SCIENCE” (1898)

THE C. S. HEALER

She was middle-aged, and large and bony, and erect, and had an austere face and a resolute jaw and a Roman beak and was a widow in the third degree, and her name was Fuller. I was eager to get to business and find relief, but she was distressingly deliberate. She unpinned and unhooked and uncoupled her upholsteries one by one, abolished the wrinkles with a flirt of her hand, and hung the articles up; peeled off her gloves and disposed of them, got a book out of her hand-bag, then drew a chair to the bedside, descended into it without hurry and I hung out my tongue. She said, with pity but without passion:

“Return it to its receptacle. We deal with the mind only, not with its dumb servants.”

I could not offer my pulse, because the connection was broken; but she detected the apology before I could word it, and indicated by a negative tilt of her head that the pulse was another dumb servant that she had no use for. Then I thought I would tell her my symptoms and how I felt, so that she would understand the case; but that was another inconsequence, she did not need to know those things; moreover, my remark about how I felt was an abuse of language, a misapplication of terms.

“One does not _feel_” she explained; “there is no such thing as feeling: therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent is a contradiction. Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; the mind cannot feel pain, it can only imagine it.”

“But if it hurts, just the same——”

“It doesn’t. A thing which is unreal cannot exercise the functions of reality. Pain is unreal; hence, pain cannot hurt.”

In making a sweeping gesture to indicate the act of shooing the illusion of pain out of the mind, she raked her hand on a pin in her dress, said “Ouch!” and went tranquilly on with her talk. “You should never allow yourself to speak of how you feel, nor permit others to ask you how you are feeling; you should never concede that you are ill, nor permit others to talk about disease or pain or death or similar non-existences in your presence. Such talk only encourages the mind to continue its empty imaginings.”

Just at that point the _Stubenmädchen_ trod on the cat’s tail, and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat profanity. I asked, with caution:

“Is a cat’s opinion about pain valuable?”

“A cat has no opinion; opinions proceed from mind only; the lower animals being eternally perishable, have not been granted mind; without mind, opinion is impossible.”

“She merely _imagined_ she felt a pain—the cat?”

“She cannot imagine a pain, for imagining is an effect of mind; without mind there is no imagination. A cat has no imagination.”

“Then she had a _real_ pain?”

“I have already told you there is no such _thing_ as real pain.”

“It is strange and interesting. I do wonder what was the matter with the cat.”

_FROM_ “ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER” (1903)

THE HOME PRODUCT

Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies, explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people, and when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers we do not get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the trouble with an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the whole earth for blood and garbage and the result is that you are daily overfed and suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but you come by and by to take no vital interest in it—indeed, you almost get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns strangers only—people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand miles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come to think of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not give the assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those others. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone rotten. Give me the home product every time.

THE CHARM OF UNCERTAINTY

There is a great, a peculiar charm about reading news scraps in a language which you are not acquainted with—the charm that always goes with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would soil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a vale of dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and practical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable mystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for the benefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious word? Would you be properly grateful?

_FROM_ “EVE’S DIARY” (1905)

HER CHIEF DESIRE

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together—a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me—life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered while my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

AT EVE’S GRAVE

Adam: Wheresoever she was, _there_ was Eden.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS (1905)

For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness, and enforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world. _Sustained._ I intrench myself behind that protecting word. There are others who exhibit those great qualities as greatly as he does, but only by intervaled distributions of rich moonlight, with stretches of veiled and dimmer landscape between; whereas Howell’s moon sails cloudless skies all night and all the nights.

MISCELLANEOUS (1905–9)

MAKING THE OYSTER

You can’t make an oyster out of nothing, nor you can’t do it in a day. You’ve got to start with a vast variety of invertebrates, the belemnites, trilobites, jubusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them in to soak in a primary sea and observe and wait what will happen. Some of them will turn out a disappointment; the belemnites and the amalekites and such will be failures, and they will die out and become extinct in the course of the nineteen million years covered by the experiment; but all is not lost, for the jubusites will develop gradually into encrinites and stalactites and blatherskites, and one thing and another, as the mighty ages creep on and the periods pile their lofty crags in the primordial seas, and at last the first grand stages in the preparation of the world for man stands completed, the oyster is done. Now an oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a man has, so it is probable that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for _him_. That would be just like an oyster, and, anyway, this one could not know at that early date that he was only an incident in the scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme yet. (Mark Twain—A Biography).

THE FATALITY OF SEQUENCE

When the first living atom found itself afloat on the great Laurentian sea the first act of that first atom led to the _second_ act of that first atom, and so on down through the succeeding ages of all life, until, if the steps could be traced, it would be shown that the first act of that first atom has led inevitably to the act of my standing in my dressing gown at this instant, talking to you. (Mark Twain—A Biography).

LIFE’S TURNING POINT

Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of yours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was forged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of me into the literary guild. Adam’s _temperament_ was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would _never_ be able to disobey. It said, “Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable.” The later command, to let the fruit alone was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his _temperament_—which he did not create and had no authority over. For the _temperament_ is the man; the thing tricked out with clothes and named Man is merely its shadow, nothing more. The law of the tiger’s temperament is, Thou shalt kill; the law of the sheep’s temperament is, Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring the tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to imbue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those commands _can’t_ be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law of _temperament_, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That is, in their temperaments. Not in _them_, poor helpless young creatures—afflicted with temperaments made out of butter; which butter was commanded to get into contact with fire and _be melted_. What I cannot help wishing is, that Adam and Eve had been postponed, and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place. That splendid pair equipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By neither sugary persuasions nor by hell fire could Satan have beguiled _them_ to eat the apple.

CLOSE OF SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH

Threescore years and ten!

It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling’s military phrase; you have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle call but “lights out.” You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer—and without prejudice—for they are not legally collectible.

The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights and laughter through the deserted street—a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more—if you shrink at the thought of these things you need only reply, “Your invitation honors me and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney corner and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.”

THE FUTURE LIFE

(Mark Twain often allowed his fancy to play with the idea of the orthodox heaven, its curiosities of architecture and its employments of continuous prayer, psalm-singing, and harpistry).

“What a childish notion it was,” he said, “and how curious that only a little while ago human beings were so willing to accept such fragile evidences about a place of so much importance. If we should find somewhere to-day an ancient book containing an account of a beautiful and blooming tropical paradise secreted in the center of eternal icebergs—an account written by men who did not even claim to have seen it themselves—no geographical society on earth would take any stock in that book, yet that account would be quite as authentic as any we have of heaven. If God has such a place prepared for us, and really wanted us to know it, He could have found some better way than a book, so liable to alterations and misinterpretations. God has had no trouble to prove to man the laws of the constellations and the construction of the world, and such things as that, none of which agree with His so-called book. As to a hereafter, we have not the slightest evidence that there is any—_no_ evidence that appeals to logic and reason. I have never seen what to me seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life.”

Then, after a long pause, he added:

“And yet—I am strongly inclined to expect one.” (Mark Twain—A Biography).

RELIGION

I would not interfere with any one’s religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one’s religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life—hence it is a valuable possession to him.

_FROM_ “THE DEATH OF JEAN”
(1909)

It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is the library in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin stands where her mother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s coffin stood thirteen years ago; where her mother’s stood five years and a half ago; and where mine will stand, after a little time.

_FROM_ “ONE OF HIS LATEST MEMORANDA”
(1909)

THE IMPARTIAL FRIEND

Death—the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all—the soiled and the pure—the rich and the poor—the loved and the unloved.

-----

Footnote 1:

Through an exchange of clothing with the little prince Tom Canty
suddenly found himself royalty, and upon the death of Henry VIII is
now king.

Footnote 2:

Miles Hendon, who has taken the real prince—now a wanderer—under his
protection. In the course of their adventures the two have landed in
prison.

Footnote 3:

Nigger Jim is a runaway slave to whom Huck affords protection.

Footnote 4:

Huck and Nigger Jim, drifting down the Mississippi on their raft have
been struck by a steamboat. Jim has disappeared but Huck, making his
way to shore, has been taken in by Col. Grangerford, whose family is
in bitter feud with the Shepherdsons.

Edmund Clarence Stedman declared this chapter of Huck Finn’s
adventures to be “as dramatic and powerful an episode as I know in
modern literature.”

Footnote 5:

Buck Grangerford, a boy of about Huck’s age.

Footnote 6:

On his arrival at the Grangerford home Huck had given his name as
George Jackson.

Footnote 7:

The Yankee and his captor have arrived at Camelot and are in King
Arthur’s castle.

Footnote 8:

The Yankee with the maid, Alisande, a great talker, is on the way to
rescue the imprisoned princesses.

Footnote 9:

The King and the Yankee travelling in disguise have fallen into the
clutches of a slave-dealer.

THE END

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 44, changed "even the" to "even in the". 2. P. 49, changed "never revoked" to "never been revoked". 3. P. 126, changed "“Oh, don’t _I_!”" to "“Oh, don’t _I_!” said Joe,". 4. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 5. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 6. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 7. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.