Howells's visit resulted in a new inspiration. Clemens started to write him one night when he could not sleep, and had been reading the volume of letters of James Russell Lowell. Then, next morning, he was seized with the notion of writing a series of letters to such friends as Howells, Twichell, and Rogers—letters not to be mailed, but to be laid away for some future public. He wrote two of these immediately—to Howells and to Twichell. The Howells letter (or letters, for it was really double) is both pathetic and amusing. The first part ran:
The second letter, begun at 10 A.M., outlines the plan by which he is to write on the subject uppermost in his mind without restraint, knowing that the letter is not to be mailed.
The letter was not finished, and the scheme perished there. The Twichell letter concerned missionaries, and added nothing to what he had already said on the subject.
He wrote no letter to Mr. Rogers—perhaps never wrote to him again.
Clemens, a little before my return, had been on a trip to Norfolk, Virginia, to attend the opening ceremonies of the Virginia Railway. He had made a speech on that occasion, in which he had paid a public tribute to Henry Rogers, and told something of his personal obligation to the financier.
He began by telling what Mr. Rogers had done for Helen Keller, whom he called “the most marvelous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc.” Then he said:
This had been early in April. Something more than a month later Clemens was making a business trip to New York to see Mr. Rogers. I was telephoned early to go up and look over some matters with him before he started. I do not remember why I was not to go along that day, for I usually made such trips with him. I think it was planned that Miss Clemens, who was in the city, was to meet him at the Grand Central Station. At all events, she did meet him there, with the news that during the night Mr. Rogers had suddenly died. This was May 20, 1909. The news had already come to the house, and I had lost no time in preparations to follow by the next train. I joined him at the Grosvenor Hotel, on Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street. He was upset and deeply troubled by the loss of his stanch adviser and friend. He had a helpless look, and he said his friends were dying away from him and leaving him adrift.
“And how I hate to do anything,” he added, “that requires the least modicum of intelligence!”
We remained at the Grosvenor for Mr. Rogers's funeral. Clemens served as one of the pall-bearers, but he did not feel equal to the trip to Fairhaven. He wanted to be very quiet, he said. He could not undertake to travel that distance among those whom he knew so well, and with whom he must of necessity join in conversation; so we remained in the hotel apartment, reading and saying very little until bedtime. Once he asked me to write a letter to Jean: “Say, 'Your father says every little while, “How glad I am that Jean is at home again!”' for that is true and I think of it all the time.”
But by and by, after a long period of silence, he said:
“Mr. Rogers is under the ground now.”
And so passed out of earthly affairs the man who had contributed so largely to the comfort of Mark Twain's old age. He was a man of fine sensibilities and generous impulses; withal a keen sense of humor.
One Christmas, when he presented Mark Twain with a watch and a match-case, he wrote:
He was a man too busy to write many letters, but when he did write (to Clemens at least) they were always playful and unhurried. One reading them would not find it easy to believe that the writer was a man on whose shoulders lay the burdens of stupendous finance-burdens so heavy that at last he was crushed beneath their weight.
One of the pleasant things that came to Mark Twain that year was the passage of a copyright bill, which added to the royalty period an extension of fourteen years. Champ Clark had been largely instrumental in the success of this measure, and had been fighting for it steadily since Mark Twain's visit to Washington in 1906. Following that visit, Clark wrote:
Clemens replied that he might have something more to say on the copyright question by and by—that he had in hand a dialogue—[Similar to the “Open Letter to the Register of Copyrights,” North American Review, January, 1905.]—which would instruct Congress, but this he did not complete. Meantime a simple bill was proposed and early in 1909 it became a law. In June Clark wrote:
To this Clemens replied:
Clemens had prepared what was the final word an the subject of copyright just before this bill was passed—a petition for a law which he believed would regulate the whole matter. It was a generous, even if a somewhat Utopian, plan, eminently characteristic of its author. The new fourteen-year extension, with the prospect of more, made this or any other compromise seem inadvisable.—[The reader may consider this last copyright document by Mark Twain under Appendix N, at the end of this volume.]
Clemens had promised to go to Baltimore for the graduation of “Francesca” of his London visit in 1907—and to make a short address to her class.
It was the eighth of June when we set out on this journey,—[The reader may remember that it was the 8th of June, 1867, that Mark Twain sailed for the Holy Land. It was the 8th of June, 1907, that he sailed for England to take his Oxford degree. This 8th of June, 1909, was at least slightly connected with both events, for he was keeping an engagement made with Francesca in London, and my notes show that he discussed, on the way to the station, some incidents of his Holy Land trip and his attitude at that time toward Christian traditions. As he rarely mentioned the Quaker City trip, the coincidence seems rather curious. It is most unlikely that Clemens himself in any way associated the two dates.]—but the day was rather bleak and there was a chilly rain. Clemens had a number of errands to do in New York, and we drove from one place to another, attending to them. Finally, in the afternoon, the rain ceased, and while I was arranging some matters for him he concluded to take a ride on the top of a Fifth Avenue stage. It was fine and pleasant when he started, but the weather thickened again and when he returned he complained that he had felt a little chilly. He seemed in fine condition, however, next morning and was in good spirits all the way to Baltimore. Chauncey Depew was on the train and they met in the dining-car—the last time, I think, they ever saw each other. He was tired when we reached the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore and did not wish to see the newspaper men. It happened that the reporters had a special purpose in coming just at this time, for it had suddenly developed that in his Shakespeare book, through an oversight, due to haste in publication, full credit had not been given to Mr. Greenwood for the long extracts quoted from his work. The sensational head-lines in a morning paper, “Is Mark Twain a Plagiarist?” had naturally prompted the newspaper men to see what he would have to say on the subject. It was a simple matter, easily explained, and Clemens himself was less disturbed about it than anybody. He felt no sense of guilt, he said; and the fact that he had been stealing and caught at it would give Mr. Greenwood's book far more advertising than if he had given him the full credit which he had intended. He found a good deal of amusement in the situation, his only worry being that Clara and Jean would see the paper and be troubled.
He had taken off his clothes and was lying down, reading. After a little he got up and began walking up and down the room. Presently he stopped and, facing me, placed his hand upon his breast. He said:
“I think I must have caught a little cold yesterday on that Fifth Avenue stage. I have a curious pain in my breast.”
I suggested that he lie down again and I would fill his hot-water bag. The pain passed away presently, and he seemed to be dozing. I stepped into the next room and busied myself with some writing. By and by I heard him stirring again and went in where he was. He was walking up and down and began talking of some recent ethnological discoveries—something relating to prehistoric man.
“What a fine boy that prehistoric man must have been,” he said—“the very first one! Think of the gaudy style of him, how he must have lorded it over those other creatures, walking on his hind legs, waving his arms, practising and getting ready for the pulpit.”
The fancy amused him, but presently he paused in his walk and again put his hand on his breast, saying:
“That pain has come back. It's a curious, sickening, deadly kind of pain. I never had anything just like it.”
It seemed to me that his face had become rather gray. I said:
“Where is it, exactly, Mr. Clemens?”
He laid his hand in the center of his breast and said:
“It is here, and it is very peculiar indeed.”
Remotely in my mind occurred the thought that he had located his heart, and the “peculiar deadly pain” he had mentioned seemed ominous. I suggested, however, that it was probably some rheumatic touch, and this opinion seemed warranted when, a few moments later, the hot water had again relieved it. This time the pain had apparently gone to stay, for it did not return while we were in Baltimore. It was the first positive manifestation of the angina which eventually would take him from us.
The weather was pleasant in Baltimore, and his visit to St. Timothy's School and his address there were the kind of diversions that meant most to him. The flock of girls, all in their pretty commencement dresses, assembled and rejoicing at his playfully given advice: not to smoke—to excess; not to drink—to excess; not to marry—to excess; he standing there in a garb as white as their own—it made a rare picture—a sweet memory—and it was the last time he ever gave advice from the platform to any one.
Edward S. Martin also spoke to the school, and then there was a great feasting in the big assembly-hall.
It was on the lawn that a reporter approached him with the news of the death of Edward Everett Hale—another of the old group. Clemens said thoughtfully, after a moment:
“I had the greatest respect and esteem for Edward Everett Hale, the greatest admiration for his work. I am as grieved to hear of his death as I can ever be to hear of the death of any friend, though my grief is always tempered with the satisfaction of knowing that for the one that goes, the hard, bitter struggle of life is ended.”
We were leaving the Belvedere next morning, and when the subject of breakfast came up for discussion he said:
“That was the most delicious Baltimore fried chicken we had yesterday morning. I think we'll just repeat that order. It reminds me of John Quarles's farm.”
We had been having our meals served in the rooms, but we had breakfast that morning down in the diningroom, and “Francesca” and her mother were there.
As he stood on the railway platform waiting for the train, he told me how once, fifty-five years before, as a boy of eighteen, he had changed cars there for Washington and had barely caught his train—the crowd yelling at him as he ran.
We remained overnight in New York, and that evening, at the Grosvenor, he read aloud a poem of his own which I had not seen before. He had brought it along with some intention of reading it at St. Timothy's, he said, but had not found the occasion suitable.
“I wrote it a long time ago in Paris. I'd been reading aloud to Mrs. Clemens and Susy—in '93, I think—about Lord Clive and Warren Hastings, from Macaulay—how great they were and how far they fell. Then I took an imaginary case—that of some old demented man mumbling of his former state. I described him, and repeated some of his mumblings. Susy and Mrs. Clemens said, 'Write it'—so I did, by and by, and this is it. I call it 'The Derelict.'”
He read in his effective manner that fine poem, the opening stanza of which follows:
He had employed rhyme with more facility than was usual for him, and the figure and phrasing were full of vigor.
“It is strong and fine,” I said, when he had finished.
“Yes,” he assented. “It seems so as I read it now. It is so long since I have seen it that it is like reading another man's work. I should call it good, I believe.”
He put the manuscript in his bag and walked up and down the floor talking.
“There is no figure for the human being like the ship,” he said; “no such figure for the storm-beaten human drift as the derelict—such men as Clive and Hastings could only be imagined as derelicts adrift, helpless, tossed by every wind and tide.”
We returned to Redding next day. On the train going home he fell to talking of books and authors, mainly of the things he had never been able to read.
“When I take up one of Jane Austen's books,” he said, “such as Pride and Prejudice, I feel like a barkeeper entering the kingdom of heaven. I know, what his sensation would be and his private comments. He would not find the place to his taste, and he would probably say so.”
He recalled again how Stepniak had come to Hartford, and how humiliated Mrs. Clemens had been to confess that her husband was not familiar with the writings of Thackeray and others.
“I don't know anything about anything,” he said, mournfully, “and never did. My brother used to try to get me to read Dickens, long ago. I couldn't do it—I was ashamed; but I couldn't do it. Yes, I have read The Tale of Two Cities, and could do it again. I have read it a good many times; but I never could stand Meredith and most of the other celebrities.”
By and by he handed me the Saturday Times Review, saying:
“Here is a fine poem, a great poem, I think. I can stand that.”
It was “The Palatine (in the 'Dark Ages'),” by Willa Sibert Cather, reprinted from McClure's. The reader will understand better than I can express why these lofty opening stanzas appealed to Mark Twain:
Farther along in our journey he handed me the paper again, pointing to these lines of Kipling:
“I could stand any amount of that,” he said, and presently: “Life is too long and too short. Too long for the weariness of it; too short for the work to be done. At the very most, the average mind can only master a few languages and a little history.”
I said: “Still, we need not worry. If death ends all it does not matter; and if life is eternal there will be time enough.”
“Yes,” he assented, rather grimly, “that optimism of yours is always ready to turn hell's back yard into a playground.”
I said that, old as I was, I had taken up the study of French, and mentioned Bayard Taylor's having begun Greek at fifty, expecting to need it in heaven.
Clemens said, reflectively: “Yes—but you see that was Greek.”
I was at Stormfield pretty constantly during the rest of that year. At first I went up only for the day; but later, when his health did not improve, and when he expressed a wish for companionship evenings, I remained most of the nights as well. Our rooms were separated only by a bath-room; and as neither of us was much given to sleep, there was likely to be talk or reading aloud at almost any hour when both were awake. In the very early morning I would usually slip in, softly, sometimes to find him propped up against his pillows sound asleep, his glasses on, the reading-lamp blazing away as it usually did, day or night; but as often as not he was awake, and would have some new plan or idea of which he was eager to be delivered, and there was always interest, and nearly always amusement in it, even if it happened to be three in the morning or earlier.
Sometimes, when he thought it time for me to be stirring, he would call softly, but loudly enough for me to hear if awake; and I would go in, and we would settle again problems of life and death and science, or, rather, he would settle them while I dropped in a remark here and there, merely to hold the matter a little longer in solution.
The pains in his breast came back, and with a good deal of frequency as the summer advanced; also, they became more severe. Dr. Edward Quintard came up from New York, and did not hesitate to say that the trouble proceeded chiefly from the heart, and counseled diminished smoking, with less active exercise, advising particularly against Clemens's lifetime habit of lightly skipping up and down stairs.
There was no prohibition as to billiards, however, or leisurely walking, and we played pretty steadily through those peaceful summer days, and often took a walk down into the meadows or perhaps in the other direction, when it was not too warm or windy. Once we went as far as the river, and I showed him a part of his land he had not seen before—a beautiful cedar hillside, remote and secluded, a place of enchantment. On the way I pointed out a little corner of land which earlier he had given me to straighten our division line. I told him I was going to build a study on it, and call it “Markland.” He thought it an admirable building-site, and I think he was pleased with the name. Later he said:
“If you had a place for that extra billiard-table of mine [the Rogers table, which had been left in New York] I would turn it over to you.”
I replied that I could adapt the size of my proposed study to fit a billiard-table, and he said:
“Now that will be very good. Then, when I want exercise, I can walk down and play billiards with you, and when you want exercise you can walk up and play billiards with me. You must build that study.”
So it was we planned, and by and by Mr. Lounsbury had undertaken the work.
During the walks Clemens rested a good deal. There were the New England hills to climb, and then he found that he tired easily, and that weariness sometimes brought on the pain. As I remember now, I think how bravely he bore it. It must have been a deadly, sickening, numbing pain, for I have seen it crumple him, and his face become colorless while his hand dug at his breast; but he never complained, he never bewailed, and at billiards he would persist in going on and playing in his turn, even while he was bowed with the anguish of the attack.
We had found that a glass of very hot water relieved it, and we kept always a thermos bottle or two filled and ready. At the first hint from him I would pour out a glass and another, and sometimes the relief came quickly; but there were times, and alas! they came oftener, when that deadly gripping did not soon release him. Yet there would come a week or a fortnight when he was apparently perfectly well, and at such times we dismissed the thought of any heart malady, and attributed the whole trouble to acute indigestion, from which he had always suffered more or less.
We were alone together most of the time. He did not appear to care for company that summer. Clara Clemens had a concert tour in prospect, and her father, eager for her success, encouraged her to devote a large part of her time to study. For Jean, who was in love with every form of outdoor and animal life, he had established headquarters in a vacant farm-house on one corner of the estate, where she had collected some stock and poultry, and was over-flowingly happy. Ossip Gabrilowitsch was a guest in the house a good portion of the summer, but had been invalided through severe surgical operations, and for a long time rarely appeared, even at meal-times. So it came about that there could hardly have been a closer daily companionship than was ours during this the last year of Mark Twain's life. For me, of course, nothing can ever be like it again in this world. One is not likely to associate twice with a being from another star.
In the notes I made of this period I caught a little drift of personality and utterance, and I do not know better how to preserve these things than to give them here as nearly as may be in the sequence and in the forth in which they were set down.
One of the first of these entries occurs in June, when Clemens was rereading with great interest and relish Andrew D. White's Science and Theology, which he called a lovely book.—['A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom'.]
He followed the theme a little further, then we made our way slowly back up the long hill, he holding to my arm, and resting here and there, but arriving at the house seemingly fresh and ready for billiards.
But this was one of his savage humors, stirred by tragic circumstance. Under date of July 5th I find this happier entry:
We went out in the loggia by and by and Clemens read aloud from a book which Professor Zubelin left here a few days ago—'The Religion of a Democrat'. Something in it must have suggested to Clemens his favorite science, for presently he said: