Mr. Mark Twain’s lecture on the Sandwich Islands, delivered recently in London, was a hit, judging from the complimentary and hearty character of the notices of it in the better class of London journals. For the instruction of that people he introduced several new bits of information and suggestion, such, for example, as that “by the help of the Europeans the Kanakas had become more completely and universally educated than any people on the face of the earth, and that if only the Europeans could have augmented the native capacity, they would have made that people perfect.” Then again he excited the British mirth by depreciating the dogs of the Hawaiian Islands as a feeble breed, whose only strong point is their curly tails, and told his audience that if ever he had one of these dogs of his own, he “should cut the tail off, and throw the balance of the dog away.” Twain seems to have done London much good. (“Editor’s Drawer,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 48 [Jan 74]: 309)

—Mr. “Mark Twain,” at a recent public dinner in London, delighted that people with his quaint drollery. In responding to the toast “The Ladies,” he said: “Ah! you remember, you remember well, what a throb of pain, what a great tidal wave of grief, swept over us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. [Much laughter.] Who does not sorrow for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? [Laughter.] Who among us does not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble piety of Lucretia Borgia? [Laughter.] Who can join in the heartless libel that says woman is extravagant in dress, when he can look back and call to mind our simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland costume?” (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 7 [17 Jan 74]: 43)

—“Mark Twain” writes to a London paper to say that, despairing of getting a noble lord to attend his lectures, he hit upon a happy plan of having wax figures made to represent them. King Henry VIII., William the Conqueror, and other distinguished people, however, fell to pieces in the course of transportation, and he was compelled to fall back on Moses and Aaron; but here he was disappointed again, and feelingly writes: “I confess to you that it was all I could do to keep the tears back when I came to examine those two images and found that that man, in his unapproachable ignorance, had been exhibiting in Whitechapel for Moses and Aaron what any educated person could see at a glance by the ligature were only the Siamese Twins.” (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 7 [24 Jan 74]: 59)

—Mr. Twain arrived a few days since from London, which metropolis he has profitably pervaded for the last few months. His lectures have been successful. It is understood to be his intention to speak his piece two or three times in New York and Boston, after which he will retire to his adopted Hartford, and live the life of a pampered child of luxury.1explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Weekly 18 [14 Feb 74]: 150)

—Mr. “Mark Twain” introduced Canon Kingsley to a Boston audience a few evenings since in one of his characteristic little speeches. He said, when he wrote The Innocents Abroad he thought the book would at once bring him into close relations with the clergy, but from that day to this he had never been called on even to vouch for a minister; and even now, when his hour had come, he had only been requested to introduce one who needed no introduction. He was not called upon to indorse Mr. Kingsley, but he did that because it might be a graceful thing to do. Least of all was it necessary to praise Mr. Kingsley, whom he should speedily deafen were he able to concentrate in his single voice the enthusiasm of welcome and appreciation which was there present. He spoke of Mr. Kingsley’s hospitality toward Americans, of which he himself had had so much experience as to give a certain fitness to his selection as the one to deliver over our English guest to the tender mercies of an American audience. Mr. Kingsley said it was fitting that Mr. Clemens should stand voucher for his lecture (“On Westminster Abbey”), for it was written at his suggestion. And then Canon Kingsley fired off a very interesting lecture on that famous old meeting-house.2explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 7 [14 Mar 74]: 171)

—Concerning certain authors, and the religious denominations to which they belong, it may be mentioned that Charles Dudley Warner and “Mark Twain” are Trinitarian Congregationalists, attending the same church in Hartford; and other Congregationalists of that school are Dr. Holland, Lucy Larcom, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, “Gail Hamilton,” Horace E. Scudder, and Wendell Phillips, who used to attend the Old South, Boston, which sanctuary he still frequents, we suppose, for postal purposes. Higginson, Parton, and Cranch are Free Religionists, Colonel Higginson having once been a Unitarian minister, and Mr. Cranch being a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School. Emerson and A. Bronson Alcott are, of course, Transcendentalists, and Miss L. M. Alcott’s sympathies are also with this school. Epes Sargent and Robert Dale Owen are Spiritualists, Edward Eggleston is a Methodist and a doctor of divinity, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney is a Swedenborgian, John Boyle O’Reilly is a Roman Catholic, and the Episcopalians are represented by R. H. Dana, Jun., John Hay, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Whittier is a Quaker of liberal tendencies, although he does not, we believe, call himself a Hicksite.3explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 7 [4 Apr 74]: 219)

—Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, sometimes known as “Mark Twain,” has at last found out his true mission. From idling away his time as a writer he has determined to become an underwriter—one of those practical money-absorbing men for whom Hartford is a sort of hive, so to speak. The cash citizens of Hartford have resolved to beget a new accident insurance company, of which it is surmised that Mr. Clemens (who will be a stockholder) is to be made “Old Prex.” He has met with a great many accidents in his day and night generation, and now proposes to go into it as a matter of statistics and income.4explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Weekly 18 [4 July 74]: 559)

—“Mark Twain” denies that he is writing a book on the manners and customs of the English. Who was it (some Frenchman?) who, when asked about English manners and customs, replied, “Manners, none; customs, beastly.”5explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Weekly 18 [25 July 74]: 619)

—“Mark Twain,” whose time is now mainly given up to collecting the royalty he demands for the nightly performance of The Gilded Age, has written to a lecture agent: “Your offer of $30,000 to lecture fifty nights does not tempt me. I have run about the world long enough. I mean to live and die at home, if I starve at it. I love you, but I can not lecture anymore.”6explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Weekly 18 [24 Oct 74]: 875)

Certainly Mark Twain never put more humorous exaggeration into forty lines than in his little speech at a meeting of accident insurance people at Hartford. “There is,” said Mr. T., “no nobler field for human effort than the insurance line of business—especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been a director in an accident insurance company I have felt that I am a better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest—as an advertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more; I do not care for politics; even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now there is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable. There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience of life I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man’s face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer’s face when he found he couldn’t collect on a wooden leg. I will remark here, by way of an advertisement, that that noble charity is an institution which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives it his custom. No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown disheartened; his appetite left him, he ceased to smile—said life was but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land —has a good, steady income, and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels around on a shutter.”7explanatory note (“Editor’s Drawer,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 50 [Jan 75]: 302–3)

—When Mr. Raymond performed Colonel Sellers in Hartford, a few evenings since, it was expected, as a matter of course, that Mr. Twain, the author of the piece, would be present, but, instead of that, he sent a funny letter, in which he said: “I have always taken a pride in earning my living in outside places, and spending it in Hartford; I have said that no good citizen would live on his own people, but would go forth and make it sultry for other communities, and fetch home the result; and now at this late day I find myself in the crushed and bleeding position of fattening myself upon the spoils of my brethren! Can I support such grief as this? (This is literary emotion, you understand. Take the money at the door just the same.)” Miss Kate Field has taken the part of the heroine of the piece, previously performed by Miss Kellogg, and is said to have made a very decided success.8explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [13 Feb 75]: 107)

—When “Mark Twain” was editing the Virginia Enterprise his constitution was capable of enduring great repose. He would sit at his editorial table for hours, drumming on a cracked guitar, while compositors were waiting for copy, and would say in anguish to the foreman, “This working between meals is killing me.” (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [13 Mar 75]: 171)

—“Mark Twain’s” charity lecture a few nights since in Hartford was not only a performance creditable to his head and heart, but a pecuniary success that has wreathed the face of Hartford in smiles of uncommon magnitude and of superior beam. Twelve hundred and thirty-three dollars was the sum netted by the manœuvre and handed over to the person who is authorized to dispense it to the needy and suffering.9explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [3 Apr 75]: 219)

—Literary people are seldom pointed out as men who are heavy tax-payers, yet there are such even in New England, reputable men, who do not “swear off personalty,” but come cheerfully to the front when called upon by the investigating assessor. We have word, for example, from Hartford, which contains one insane asylum to ten insurance companies, that “Mark Twain” pays taxes on $84,450, which is not his little all, while Postmaster-General Jewell confesses to only $102,130. There has never been much movement in Connecticut real estate since the time the first settlers stole the land where Hartford stands from Sequassen, an unwashed old Indian sachem. That was two hundred years ago. Since then the place has become distinguished for Colt’s pistol factory, General Hawley, and Senator Eaton.10explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [8 May 75]: 299)

—The last criticism on “Mark Twain’s” professional standing as a pilot seems to us conclusive: “‘Mark Twain’ used to run a boat down here, didn’t he?” inquired a traveler of a Mississippi pilot lately. “‘Mark Twain’—do you mean him as was Sam Clemens? Wa’al, yes, he did try pilotin’ yer a while, but he couldn’t do it, couldn’t do ‘tall; hadn’t the gen’us. But I tell ye what,” continued the grizzly veteran, giving his wheel a twist, “if ye’d a’gin him boats ‘nough while he was a-practicin’, he’d a’ clared the river o’ snags for shuah.” (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [5 June 75]: 363)

—Mr. Samuel l. Clemens advertises his perfect willingness to pay five dollars for the return of a silk umbrella irregularly taken from him at a base-ball match in Hartford, and his still greater readiness to pay two hundred dollars for the “remains” of the youthful foot-pad who thus far has kept in the shade with the um-ba-rell.11explanatory note (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [19 June 75]: 395)

—When “Mark Twain” and the Rev. Twichell set out to walk from Hartford to Boston, they satisfied themselves, after the first twenty miles, that they could do it, and then took the cars. If Duncan Campbell12explanatory note had done the same thing, how much discomfort he would have saved himself! He started to walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and reports as follows from Rock Springs, Washington Territory, having been four months on the way: “Had fine weather through Illinois; very wet weather through Iowa—for ten days had never had a dry shirt on my back; fine weather through Nebraska; good weather through wyoming till I got to Laramie, and from there to Rawlins, four days and four nights, a heavy wind and snow storm. From the time I left Laramie I till I got to Rawlins I never sat down for ten minutes, it being so cold, and being afraid of getting frozen, I tried section and station houses, but I could not get any shelter. I finished my journey here for a while, preparatory to my return journey. I shall leave San Francisco on the first of February, or as soon as the weather permits. I shall get a wheel-barrow that will carry my blankets and cooking apparatus. I shall make the distance from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 190 days.” (“Personal,” Harper’s Bazar 8 [18 Dec 75]: 811)