Delphi complete works of.., p.569
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 569
It is a sweet thought, nicely expressed.
For the present purpose bygone sins and dead-and-gone issues do not count. But the point is that in reading these invectives against injustice one is in contact with Mark Twain as vitally as in reading the smiling pages of the Innocents Abroad.
An interesting side-issue is found in Mark Twain’s queer obsession with Christian Science. On this he wrote various articles (in the Cosmopolitan and the North American, 1899-1903), and ended by wasting a whole book on it. He had taken it into his head that Christian Science was about to envelop the world; that it was going to get all the money and all the world there is — over-ride all political parties, churches, corporations and governments, and dominate mankind.
Quite evidently Mark Twain didn’t know what he himself thought about Christian Science. He was fascinated with its mental healing, with its dismissal of pain. But he denounced Mrs. Eddy as a liar and a humbug, who didn’t write her own books because she couldn’t. Mark Twain’s whole attitude was a sort of obsession. He could not see that Christian Science would come and go, like all other cults and creeds — lose its first hard outline, its combative enthusiasm, and become — respectable; in other words, just a way of ‘going to church,’ which is for many people an instinct and a necessity. ‘Christian Scientists’ who call in doctors become like Methodists who dance and Presbyterians who don’t go to hell. Mark Twain needn’t have worried. His book, Christian Science (1907), sounds now like attacking a grass-bird with a cannon.
But chief in interest in all of these later writings are the ones that are meant to deal with fundamental issues of God and man, heaven and hell, the Bible and the sinner. Here, for example, is Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven. It relates, on a vast cosmic scale, of size and space and number, how Captain Stormfield — a sea-captain character lifted out of one of Mark Twain’s California voyages — was taken up to heaven and what he saw. It is meant to show that people couldn’t really play the harp all day. They’d get sick of it. They couldn’t really sit and wear golden crowns all day. They’d get bored with it. Such a book from the point of view of the Hannibal Sunday School class of 1850 would be bold and wicked beyond words, fascinating indeed, but apt to land the reader in hell. To the ordinary reader of to-day it is as pointless as it is prosy. Perhaps a divinity student might find it an amusing skit.
In other words, Mark Twain was like Don Quixote tilting against windmills. He had been brought up amongst simple frontier people, slaves, western desperadoes and bad men. None of these people ever question the Scripture. All are willing to admit that the world was made in six days, or less, that Joshua stopped the sun, and that the proof of the existence of miracles is that one happened last year in Wyoming.
In Captain Stormfield and What Is Man? (1906) and in The Mysterious Stranger, published after his death, Mark Twain is attacking forms of literalism long since passed away among people of any enlightenment. Mark Twain could never forgive the ‘God of the Bible’ for his cruelty to man, his eternal sentence to hell, his creation of pain and sorrow that man might suffer.
But if no such God ever existed, why worry about him?
Such thoughts and such angers Mark Twain carried in his intimate mind all his life. He wrote them into notes, into scraps, into odd fancies in his books. When Huck Finn says, ‘All right, I’ll go to hell,’ that is Mark Twain defying God. Some of this writing was published in his lifetime, some printed privately (like What Is Man?), and some had to wait till the loving censorship that held it back was gone. And some of it he laid aside to be published after his death, when no one could ‘get after’ him.
That time was approaching.
Mark Twain had gone to Bermuda in the autumn of 1909, but, with characteristic restlessness, sailed home again to spend the Christmas holidays with Jean, who had stayed home at Stormfield. Clara, the other daughter, whose voice and whose musical talent were the delight of her father, had married, had become Mrs. Gabrilowitch, and was abroad. There was only Jean.
On the day before Christmas, in the midst of her busy and loving preparation of the Christmas tree, Jean was suddenly stricken dead. On Christmas night her body was carried away to be buried beside her mother at Elmira. ‘From my windows,’ wrote her father, ‘I saw the hearse and the carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean had gone out of my life and would not come back any more.’
Next day there was a great storm of driving snow. He looked out on it. ‘They are burying her now at Elmira,’ he said. ‘Jean always loved to see a storm like this.’ For Mark Twain this was the end.
He had not long to wait. In January of 1910 he went back to Bermuda, writing home cheerfully enough to Howells and the Mr. Paine who had for years past been preparing his biography, and to his daughter Clara. But he was a stricken man. There was trouble with his heart and he had lost the will to live. Each of us, it seems, lives, as apart from accidents, as long as we want to, but the time comes when we don’t want to. So it was with Mark Twain. When the time came to leave Bermuda he was failing rapidly. They carried him on board the ship and so, two days later, to the shore, and then on by train and carriage to Stormfield. He gathered strength to step from the carriage across the threshold, and from there Paine and others carried him upstairs to his bed. This was on April 14. Meantime his daughter Clara was hurrying home, arriving a day or so after they brought her father there. The end came, just with the sunset, on the evening of April 21, 1910. His last words were, ‘Good-bye,’ and then, ‘if we meet — —’ and then silence. Mark Twain was gone.
His body was buried at Elmira beside the graves of his wife and daughter.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARK TWAIN. [Samuel Langhorne Clemens]
1835. NOV. 30. Born at Florida, Missouri.
1839. Family moved to Hannibal, Missouri.
1847. March 24. Father died; began work as a printer’s apprentice.
1853. Worked as a printer at St. Louis, then in New York and Philadelphia.
1854. Worked again in St. Louis.
1855. Worked with Orion Clemens at Keokuk, Iowa.
1856-57. Worked in Cincinnati.
1857. Abandoned printer’s trade. Became a pilot’s apprentice and then a pilot on the Mississippi.
1861. Civil War. Pilot business ended; enlisted as a Confederate in a temporary Missouri organization. Retired after two weeks.
1861. Went to Nevada as unpaid secretary to his brother Orion. Became a miner.
1862. On the staff of the Territorial Enterprise, Virginia City.
1863. Adopted the pen-name of ‘Mark Twain.’
1864. Moved to San Francisco.
1864-65. Fled to the mountains; a miner again.
1865. Back in San Francisco.
1866. March-June. Sandwich Islands trip.
1866. Oct. 2. San Francisco lecture on the Sandwich Islands.
1866. Dec. 15. Sailed from San Francisco for New York via the Isthmus.
1867. May 6. Lectured in Cooper Union building, New York.
1867. May. Published The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches.
1867. June-Nov. The Quaker City excursion of the Innocents Abroad.
1867. Dec. 23. Met Olivia Langdon; went with her to hear Charles Dickens lecture.
1868. To California and back via Aspinwall to adjust rights of publishing Quaker City letters.
1868. July 2. Farewell Address in San Francisco.
1868. July 28. Arrived New York.
1868-69. Season of. Lecture Tour in Eastern Cities.
1869. Feb. 4. Engagement with Olivia Langdon.
1869. July 20. Published Innocents Abroad.
1869. Aug. 14. Editor Buffalo Express.
1870. Feb. 2. Married Olivia Langdon.
1870. Nov. 7. Langdon Clemens born.
1871. Left Buffalo for Hartford connection; sold out of Express.
1871. Published Roughing It.
1872. March 19. Olivia Susan (Susie) Clemens born.
1872. June 2. Langdon Clemens died.
1872. Aug.-Nov. First visit to England.
1873. Published The Gilded Age; built a house in Hartford.
1873. May-1874, Jan. Second visit to England.
1873. Oct. 13. Lectured in London.
1874. Summer at Quarry Farm, Elmira. Clara Clemens born (June).
1874-75. First articles in Atlantic: A True Story; Old Times on the Mississippi.
1876. Summer at Quarry Farm.
1876. Play of Ah Sin, with Bret Harte.
1876. Tom Sawyer.
1877. To Bermuda with Rev. Joe Twitchell.
1877. Dec. 17. The Whittier Birthday Speech.
1878. April-1879, Sept. European Tour: Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, England.
1879. Nov. 13. Speech at the Grant Banquet at Chicago.
1880. Published A Tramp Abroad and The Prince and the Pauper.
1880. July. Jane Lampton (Jean) Clemens born.
1880 and 1883. Trips to Canada. Banquet at Montreal (1880). Guest at Rideau Hall (1883).
1883. Life on the Mississippi.
1884. Went into publishing business.
1884. Lecture tour with George W. Cable.
1884. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
1885. Contract with General Grant.
1888. Master of Arts of Yale.
1889. Connecticut Yankee.
1891. June. Went with family to Europe for protracted residence: in Berlin winter of 1891-1892; travelled France, Germany, Italy.
1891. The American Claimant.
1892. June. Back to America for two weeks; returned to Europe.
1892-93. In Italy, chiefly at Florence.
1893. March-May. To America and back to Europe.
1893. Aug. Back to New York.
1894. Went back to France and then home again to America.
1894. April 18. Publishing firm, Charles L. Webster and Co., failed.
1894. May. Returned to France, then back to America.
1894. Summer at Étretat, France; winter in Paris.
1895. May. Returned to America.
1895. April-Dec. Joan of Arc (Harper’s).
1895. July-1896, July. Round-the-world Lecture Trip: United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa.
1896. July 14. Landed at Southampton.
1896. Aug. Susie Clemens died.
1896-1900, Oct. London, Switzerland, Vienna, Sweden.
1897. Following the Equator.
1900. Oct. 15. Return of Mark Twain to America; lived at 14 West Tenth Street, New York.
1901. Summer. At Saranac Lake.
1901. Doctor of Letters of Yale.
1901-2. Winter. At Riverdale on the Hudson.
1902. Summer. At York Harbor, Maine.
1902. Nov. 27. New York Banquet for sixty-seventh birthday.
1902-3. Winter. Riverdale.
1903. Summer. Elmira.
1903-4. Travelled in Europe; Florence.
1904. June 5. Mrs. Clemens died.
1904. Returned to America; rest of summer at Tyrringham.
1904. First portions of Autobiography.
1904. Lived at 21 Fifth Avenue, New York.
1905. Summer at Dublin, New Hampshire.
1906. April 19. Farewell lecture in New York.
1906. What is Man? (book privately printed).
1906. Second summer at Dublin.
1906-7. Trip to Bermuda.
1907. To England; Oxford Degree, June 26, 1907.
1908. Jan. 11. Lotos Club Banquet.
1908. To Bermuda.
1908. Summer. New House (Stormfield) at Redding, Connecticut.
1909. Is Shakespeare Dead? (book).
1909. Nov. To Bermuda.
1909. Dec. Back to Stormfield. Jean Clemens died, Dec. 24.
1910. Jan. Back to Bermuda.
1910. April. Returned to Stormfield. Died, April 21.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MARK TWAIN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 2 vols. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1924.
Mark Twain’s Letters. Arranged by Albert Bigelow Paine. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1917. 2 vols.
Mark Twain’s Speeches. With Introductions by Albert Bigelow Paine and William Dean Howells. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1923.
Mark Twain, A Biography. By Albert Bigelow Paine. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1912. 3 vols.
[No study of Mark Twain’s work is complete without these admirable volumes. They contain in notes, excerpts and reported conversation much of Mark Twain’s original thought not found elsewhere.]
My Mark Twain; Reminiscences and Criticisms. By William Dean Howells. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1910.
My Father, Mark Twain. By Clara Clemens. Harper and Brothers: New York and London, 1931.
Mark Twain, The Letter Writer. By Cyril Clemens. Boston: Meador Co., 1932.
Mark Twain’s Anecdotes. Edited by Cyril Clemens. Mark Twain’s Society, 1929.
The Ordeal of Mark Twain. By Van Wyck Brooks. E. P. Dutton and Co.: New York, 1920.
Charles Dickens: His Life and Work
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF CHARLES DICKENS
CHAPTER II. MR. PICKWICK TAKES THE WORLD BY STORM
CHAPTER III. BOZ CONQUERS ENGLAND
CHAPTER IV. ‘BOZ’ VISITS AMERICA 1842
CHAPTER V. YEARS OF SUCCESS 1842-1847
CHAPTER VI. FLOOD TIDE (1845-1850)
CHAPTER VII. BLEAK HOUSE AND SOCIAL REFORM (1850-1854)
CHAPTER VIII. DICKENS AS AN EDITOR (1854-1857)
CHAPTER IX. DICKENS SEPARATES FROM HIS WIFE (1858)
CHAPTER X. DICKENS TAKES THE PLATFORM (1858-1865)
CHAPTER XI. THE SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA
CHAPTER XII. CLOSING IN — THE CLOSE (1870)
CHAPTER XIII. THE MYSTERY OF MORE THAN EDWIN DROOD
EPILOGUE
CHRONOLOGY
Sketch of Dickens in 1842
CHAPTER I. THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF CHARLES DICKENS
SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY
People reading Dickens, — all over the world for a hundred years, almost, there have been people reading Dickens. In town and in country, at home and abroad, in winter with the candles lighted and the outside world forgotten, in summer beneath a shadowing tree or in a sheltered corner of the beach, in garret bedrooms, in frontier cabins, in the light of the camp fire and in the long vigil of the sickroom, — people reading Dickens.
And everywhere the mind enthralled, absorbed, uplifted, the anxieties of life, the grind of poverty, the loneliness of bereavement, and the longings of exile, — forgotten, conjured away as there rises from the magic page the inner vision of the lanes and fields of England, and on the ear the murmured sounds of London, the tide washing up the Thames, and the fog falling upon Lincoln’s Inn.
And of all the people who have thus read Dickens hardly any have read for an ulterior purpose and with an artificial aim. Other writers are read as a task, are read for self-improvement, for the pedantry and for the vainglory of scholarship. Not so Charles Dickens. His books from first to last have been read for their own sake. The written word has of itself called forth that laughter that lay among the lines and for its own sake the tears that have fallen upon the page.
One stands appalled at the majesty of such an achievement. In the sheer comprehensiveness of it, no writer in all the world has ever equalled or approached it. None ever will. The time is past.
There are many younger people now, so we are told, who do not read Dickens. Nor is it to be wondered at. We live in a badly damaged world. It is a world of flickering shadows tossed by electric currents, of a babel of voices on the harassed air, a world of inconceivable rapidity, of instantaneous effects, of sudden laughter and momentary tragedy, where every sensation is made and electrocuted in a second, and passes into oblivion. It is a world in which nothing lives. Art itself is as old as man, and as immortal. But the form and fashion of it changes. Dickens lived and wrote in a world that is visibly passing, the age of individual eminence that is giving place to the world of universal competence.
If early adversity is what is needed to bring out latent genius, Charles Dickens had a rare chance. He was born in a shabby second-rate home and spent his childhood in a series of homes each as shabby and as second-rate as the last. For a time the ‘home’ of his impecunious father was a debtors’ prison. At the best it only rose to the level of what might be called respectability.
Of school he had but little: of college none at all. The early flowering of his boyish genius received neither encouragement nor recognition. If he was precocious there was none to know it. A little boy reading in an attic his tattered books, — who cared for that? A child in an agony of humiliation at his lot as a little working drudge, — who was there to notice that? In all the pictures drawn by Dickens of the pathos of neglected or suffering childhood, there is none more poignant than the picture of little Dickens himself. The pathos of little Oliver, of Tiny Tim, and little Paul is drawn with a sympathy that sprang from the childhood experiences of Charles Dickens.
It is the wont of biographers to ramble through details of ancestry as tedious as they are remote. Fortunately nothing of that sort is needed in the case of Dickens. He came of a family on both sides and in all branches as utterly undistinguished as those of all the rest of us: a fact which helped perhaps to implant in Dickens’s mind a contempt for ancestry in general and for descent at large. The queer opening chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit, with the biography of the Chuzzlewits from the crusades down, may well combine something of personal bitterness in its burlesque. The thousand and one references to dead-and-gone dullness, the contempt for the arrogant solemnity of ancient nobility, and the wooden immobility of the landed gentry of the old school, remind us that all that was a world to which Dickens was born a stranger and which he never entered nor coveted. There is no man living who can overcome the ingrained prejudice of social disadvantages. Yet it was on the basis of these disadvantages, without opportunity, without encouragement, that Charles Dickens achieved his unrivalled success in the world of imaginative literature.
