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 Itouched a pen (3 ?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 Washington:
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 passing through and be charitable with me.
Make the most of the sunshine! and I hope it will last long--ever so long.
I do not really want to be present; yet for friendship's sake and because I honor you so, I would be there if I could.
Most sincerely your friend, S.L.CLEMENS.
The new home at Redding was completed in the spring of 1908, and on the 18th of June, when it was entirely fitted and furnished, Mark Twain entered it for the first time.He had never even seen the place nor carefully examined plans which John Howells had made for his house.He preferred the surprise of it, and the general avoidance of detail.That he was satisfied with the result will be seen in his letters.He named it at first "Innocence at Home";later changing this title to "Stormfield."
The letter which follows is an acknowledgment of an interesting souvenir from the battle-field of Tewksbury (1471), and some relics of the Cavalier and Roundhead Regiments encamped at Tewksbury in 1643.
To an English admirer:
INNOCENCE AT HOME, REDDING, CONNECTICUT, Aug.15, '08.
DEAR SIR,--I highly prize the pipes, and shall intimate to people that "Raleigh" smoked them, and doubtless he did.After a little practice Ishall be able to go further and say he did; they will then be the most interesting features of my library's decorations.The Horse-shoe is attracting a good deal of attention, because I have intimated that the conqueror's horse cast it; it will attract more when I get my hand in and say he cast it, I thank you for the pipes and the shoe; and also for the official guide, which I read through at a single sitting.If a person should say that about a book of mine I should regard it as good evidence of the book's interest.
Very truly yours, S.L.CLEMENS.
In his philosophy, What Is Man?, and now and again in his other writings, we find Mark Twain giving small credit to the human mind as an originator of ideas.The most original writer of his time, he took no credit for pure invention and allowed none to others.The mind, he declared, adapted, consciously or unconsciously; it did not create.In a letter which follows he elucidates this doctrine.The reference in it to the "captain" and to the kerosene, as the reader may remember, have to do with Captain "Hurricane" Jones and his theory of the miracles of "Isaac and of the prophets of Baal," as expounded in Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.
By a trick of memory Clemens gives The Little Duke as his suggestion for The Prince and the Pauper; he should have written The Prince and the Page, by the same author.
To Rev.F.Y.Christ, in New York:
REDDING, CONN., Aug., '08.
DEAR SIR,--You say "I often owe my best sermons to a suggestion received in reading or from other exterior sources." Your remark is not quite in accordance with the facts.We must change it to--"I owe all my thoughts, sermons and ideas to suggestions received from sources outside of myself.
The simplified English of this proposition is--"No man's brains ever originated an idea." It is an astonishing thing that after all these ages the world goes on thinking the human brain machinery can originate a thought.
