Who Is Mark Twain? (4 page)

On the ninth and tenth days, we began to hear from the illustrious men who had been invited.

[A succession on the screen, here, of good portraits of the time, beginning with Grant and ending with Nye—with explanations of why they couldn’t be present. Then portraits of the time, of Fuller and me. Then of us as at present; and then or at the end Fuller must come on and say he noticed, as I went along, that some of the things I said were true.]

The lecture was to begin at 8. I was nervous, and I went a little early. It was just as well that I did. Massed in the street were all the school teachers in America, apparently, and more coming. The streets were blocked, all traffic was at a standstill. It took me a while to get in. At 8 every seat was occupied. Even the huge stage was packed, and I never had a better time in my life. Fuller had kept his word: there were more brains there than were ever under a roof before—and without counting me.

And also, in the box-office, in cold cash, there was $35. First I began and worked up to and told Bucking horse—man got up—

I don’t know what that wild scheme cost Fuller. He has never mentioned the matter once. And when the newspaper notices came out in the morning he was the best satisfied man in New York. He said “You’re a made man—you’ll see.” And just there comes the strangest part of it; just there this discredited prophet spoke true. Those notices went about the country, and lyceums that didn’t know me from Adam began to shout for me to come. I responded—with modesty, but also with promptness. I accepted a hundred invitations at $100 a piece; and but for Fuller I wouldn’t have been worth fourteen.

Well, Fuller’s final idea was to invite the Queen of England. I said that that was nonsense; he said it
wasn’t
nonsense. He said it was a good move; she wouldn’t come, but no matter, the fact that she was invited would be published all over the world and would at once lift this show high up in the estimation of all mankind and make it respectable. And he wanted me to write the letter. Of course I refused. How little I imagined, at that time, that some day I should really be corresponding with the Queen of England. But we never can tell what is going to happen to us in this world—not even in the next. I did write her a letter—it was about 10 or 12 years ago. I didn’t get any answer, because the mails were very irregular then; and so I didn’t keep up the correspondence; but I did have the honor of writing her one letter, anyway. The way it happened was this. About 10 or 12 years ago

[AFTER GR ANT—THIS.]

That anecdote about Gen. Grant’s remark at Chicago, is in a sort of kinship with another remark evincing memory high-placed—a remark which was made to me in Europe 3 or 4 years ago by a Personage whose name, like Grant’s, is widely known in the world.

[PICTURE OF PRINCE OF WALES.]

There he is—the Heir to one of the best positions that I know of. It so happened that ten or twelve years ago I was surprised and shocked to receive from England—from the Internal Revenue Office—a tax-bill of £48—an income-tax bill, levied on my English copyrights. I was shocked, but it was not all shock. I was flattered as well as shocked; flattered to be formally taken notice of by a foreign government. It seemed to kind of introduce me into the family of nations; seemed—well, it seemed to sort of recognize me as one of the Friendly Powers—not on a large scale, of course—not like Russia and China and those, but on a—well, on a secondary scale—New Jersey. Not one of the Six Powers, you understand, but No. 7. Not an actual
member
of the Concert of Europe, but a kind of understudy, in case one of them should get sick. So, really there was more pleasure than shock about it. Consequently, so as to
clinch
that thing—so that they couldn’t get out of it, some time or other when there was a war breeding and I should want to come in and take a hand and help plan out the way to conduct it—I wrote over to the publisher not to make any protest; keep quiet, don’t say anything, just pay the bill. And he did. And so to this day, just by that neat little turn, I am still one of the Seven Powers—sleeping-partner in the firm—and in those European affairs I can give advice whenever I want to. I’ve done it often. I don’t get anything for it, and I don’t get any answer, and don’t want any. I only just want my advice followed—that’s all—and I can see by the Cretan business that they’ve been doing it.

Yes, that part of that tax matter was all right, and flattering, but there was one feature of it that was less so—and
that
was, the
class
of industries under which the British Government had taxed my literary faculty. In England, everything is taxed in detail and
named;
and my publisher had advised me not to pay this tax because authors’ copyright is nowhere named in the tax lists—it isn’t mentioned at all. Still, I made him pay it, but I asked the British Government to tell me what head I came under. The Government sent me the vast printed document where every taxable thing under the sun was named, and most courteously explained that I was taxed under paragraph No. 14, section D. Now you will never believe it, but I give you my honor that this—
this,
which you see before you—was actually taxed as a Gas Works. If I have never spoken the truth before I have spoken it this time.

Well, even I, hurt as I was, was able to see that there was a sort of diabolical humor about that situation; and so, as Harper’s Magazine wanted a squib about that time, I dug it out of that tax-bill. I put it in the form of a letter to the Queen of England—the rambling and garrulous letter of a pleasant and well-disposed and ignorant ass who had the idea that she conducted all the business of the Empire herself, and that the best way to get my literature taxed under some other head than Gas Works was to ask her to attend to it personally. It was a long letter, and I began by
explaining
why I came to her with the matter. I said “I do not know the people in the Inland Revenue Office, your majesty, and it is embarrassing to me to correspond with strangers; for I was raised in the country and have always lived there, the early part in Marion county, Missouri, before the War, and this part in Hartford county, Connecticut, near Bloomfield and about 8 miles this side of Farmington, though some call it 9, which it is impossible to be, for I have walked it many and many a time in considerably under 3 hours, and General Hawley says he has done it in 2¼, which is not likely; so it seemed best that I write your Majesty. It is true that I do not know your Majesty personally, but I have met the Lord Mayor, and if the rest of the Family are like him, it is but just that it should be named royal; and likewise plain that in a family matter like this I cannot better forward my case than to frankly carry it to the head of the family itself. I have also met the Prince of Wales once, in the fall of 1873, but it was not in any familiar way, but in a quite informal way,—being casual—and was of course a surprise to us both. It was in Oxford street, just where you come out of Oxford into Regent Circus, over there, you know, where the hat store is, a little above where that corner grocery used to be, you remember, and just as the Prince turned up one side of the circle at the head of a Sons of Temperance procession, I went down the other on the top of a bus. He will remember me on account of a light gray coat with flap pockets that I wore, as I was the only person on the omnibus that had on that kind of a coat; and I remember him of course as easy as I would a comet. He looked quite proud and satisfied, but that is not to be wondered at, as he has a good situation. And once I called on your Majesty, but they said you were out. But that is no matter, it happens with everybody. I will call again.

Of course, your Majesty, my idea was that this tax that I am coming to was for only about 1 percent., but last night I met Professor Sloane, professor of history at Princeton University and
he
said it was 2½.

[PICTURE OF SLOANE]

You may not know Mr. Sloane, but you have probably seen him every now and then, for he goes to England a good deal—a large man and very handsome and absorbed in thought, and if you have noticed such a man on platforms after the train is gone, that is the one, he generally gets left; for he is like all those historians and specialists and scholars, they know everything except how to apply it.”

And so on and so on and so on. It was a very long letter, and very intelligent; and by and by got down to the subject, and explained it. I wish I had the rest of the letter here, to read it, and I wish I had the answer to it that miscarried, I would read that, too; because I like to talk about it, and it always makes me proud to remember that I have corresponded with a Queen, for very few people have had a distinction like that. It’s a fascinating thing to talk about,—however, I’ve got to move along, I reckon.

Well, Fuller was bound that the Prince of Wales should be invited to the lecture; and maybe he did invite him—I never knew—I remember—I remember he didn’t come.

[PICTURE OF THE PRINCE]

So at last I consented. Well, I couldn’t well resist when he said he was going to have all the distinguished people in the country at the lecture—that conquered me—it made me feel good—and proud. Yes, he had buttered me in the right place. He said he was going to have Nasby.

[PICTURE OF NASBY.]

Now
there
was a good fellow. He was sweeping the country with his lecture, “Cursed by Canaan,” in those days—packing his houses to the ceiling. He told me once that in his first campaign he delivered that lecture during a stretch of 9 straight months without ever missing a night. Yet he always read it from MS. He wouldn’t trust his memory for a single sentence. Not because he hadn’t a good memory, but because he hadn’t any confidence in it. The lecture began, “We are all descended from grandfathers;” and he said that when the terrible 9 months were over he went home and slept 3 days and nights, with only 3 little breaks—momentary breaks—at 8 o’clock—lecture-time—each night. Then he woke up and said “We are all descended from grandfathers,” and went to sleep again. Force of habit. And Fuller would have Josh Billings at my lecture.

[PICTURE OF JOSH.]

Another good fellow—good as ever was. He too was a great card on the lecture platform in those days; and his quaint and pithy maxims were on everybody’s tongue. He said “Some folks mistake vivacity for wit; whereas the difference between vivacity and wit is the same as the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.” And he said, “
Don’t
take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail, and then you can let go when you want to.” Also he said, “The difficulty ain’t that we know so much, but that we know so much that ain’t so.” Good friends of mine, he and Nasby were. Good fellows, too, and have gone the way that all the good fellows go. Yes, and Anna Dickinson would be at my lecture, too—

[PICTURE OF ANNA.]

My, what houses she used to draw! Some of you remember those determined lips and those indignant eyes, and how they used to snap and flash when she marched the platform pouring out the lava of her blistering eloquence upon the enemy. But that old platform is desolate, now—nobody left on it but me. And Horace Greeley was to be at my lecture, too.

[PICTURE OF HIM.]

He was a great man, an honest man, and served his country well, and was an honor to it. Also he was a good-hearted man, but abrupt with strangers if they annoyed him when he was busy. He was profane, but that is nothing—the best of us is that, thank goodness. I did not know him well—but only just casually, and by accident. I never met him but once. I called on him in the Tribune office, but I was not intending to. I was looking for Whitelaw Reid and got into the wrong den. He was alone, at his desk writing, and we conversed—not long, but just a little. I asked him if he was well, and he said “What the hell do
you
want?” Well—I couldn’t remember what I wanted, and so I said I would call again. But I didn’t. And Fuller said we would have Oliver W. Holmes.

[PICTURE OF HIM.]

He was a good friend of mine, and wrote me a poem on my 50
^th
birth-day. I plagiarized the dedication of one of his books and used it in the Innocents Abroad. I didn’t know I had plagiarized him, but a friend proved it to me. I told Dr. Holmes about it and it made us good friends. He said we were all plagiarists, consciously or
un
consciously, one or the other. It made me feel good to be one or the other—but he didn’t say
which
.

ISSUING THE IN VITATIONS.

GRANT.

There—that is the greatest man I have ever had the privilege of knowing personally. And I have not known a man with a kinder nature or a purer character. He was called the Silent Man—the Sphynx—and he was that, in public, but not in private. There he was a fluent and able talker—with a large sense of humor, and a most rare gift of compacting meaty things into phrases of stunning felicity—such as those which he used to flash out from his campaigns and send flying abroad over the globe—“Will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”

Along with his other great gifts he had that rare sort of memory—the memory which remembers names and faces. [Anecdote.]