A few words about Brown’s Hotel, where Mr. Clemens stopped—His active life in England compared with his former lazy one at home—The many letters, telegrams, etc., to be answered—The numerous calls to be returned—The dinner at Dorchester House, and some of the guests who were present—The Pilgrims’Ⓐtextual note luncheon, and copy of the London Telegraph account of it.
At the railway station in London we had a moment’s glimpse and a word or two of talk with that brilliant Irishman, Bernard Shaw, who was waiting there to receive his biographer, our fellow voyager, Mr. HendersonⒺexplanatory note. I lunched at Mr. Shaw’s house a week or two afterward, and expanded the acquaintanceship. I will speak of that entertaining episode further along. Charley’s parents were waiting at the station for their charming little rascal, and into their hands the aunts and I delivered her.
By letter and cable, before leaving America, we had secured a parlor and two bedrooms in Brown’s Hotel, Dover streetⒶtextual note, a placid, drowsy, subdued, homelike, old-fashioned English inn well known to me years ago, a blessed retreat of a sort now rare in England and becoming rarer every year. The tourist seeks the Hotel Cecil, the Savoy, and the other vast modern hotels now, and infestsⒶtextual note them multitudinously.
We found a great many letters and telegrams awaiting us, and Ashcroft engaged an assistant, and the two began the work of answering them. During the first week they worked from nine in the morning until midnight, but after that they did not have to do very much night work. The messages were from both sexes and of all ages, and there was hardly one whose prevailing note was not affection. One could not read those simple, unstudied, and hearty outpourings and not be moved. I may say with truth that I lived many happy lifetimes in a single week, in those days. Surely such weeks as those must be very rare in this world; I had seen nothing like them before; I shall see nothing approaching them again. I will leave room in this place for a sample or two of those letters and poems, and will decide later whether to insert them or notⒺexplanatory note.
My habits underwent a sudden and lively change. At home they had been of a lazy sort, for a year or two—to wit: breakfast in bed at eight o’clock, newspapers and the pipe [begin page 74] until about eleven, still in bed; then dictation for an hour or two with my clothes on; then down stairsⒶtextual note to drink a glass of milk while the rest of the family ate their luncheon; back to bed at three in the afternoon to read and smoke and sleep; dinner down stairsⒶtextual note at seven-thirty; billiards until midnight, if Mr. Paine was on the premises—otherwise back to bed at half pastⒶtextual note eight, not to sleep, but to read and smoke until one o’clock and then sleep if convenient. In London it was different. I breakfasted in bed, then got up and breakfasted with somebody else somewhere else; then took luncheon at somebody’s house, and tea and dinner at other people’s houses, and was usually home again, and asleep, by half pastⒶtextual note ten or eleven. It was a strenuous life, but it hardly ever furnished me any fatigue. The teas were accidental, and not by invitation. From four o’clock until six, every day, I returned calls. In all previous years the women of the family had attended to this duty, and I had been spared it, and was grateful; but I was alone now and had to carry out this formidable duty myself. The thought of it was irksome and distasteful, and for three days I made excuses to myself and shirked it. I should probably have gone on shirking it but for a happy accident. In the hotel I stumbled upon one of those college girls; I had not known before that she was in the house. She was a lovely creature of sixteen, and I borrowed her of her mother at once. After that I paid calls every day, and she went with me. She saw the inside of many beautiful English homes and got a world of petting homage, which pleased me as much as it pleased her. The next time I have a wilderness of calls to make it will have no distresses for me, for I will borrow another sweet FrancescaⒺexplanatory note.
As regards public functions, I had accepted two by cable before leaving America, and had declined the others; later the list was augmented by four, but by that time I was fairly broken in and did not mind it. The first of the functions was a dinner at Dorchester House on the 21st of June, the palace inhabited by our AmbassadorⒶtextual note, Whitelaw Reid, and was altogether delightful. There were twenty-five or thirty guests, all men of distinction in literature, art, science, and scholarship, and there were no speeches. We chatted until toward midnight, and even then were Ⓐtextual notereluctant to break up and go home. I knew all of the guests by reputation, and I had known Abbey, the artist, and Sir Norman Lockyer, the astronomer, and several others, long and intimately. Among the guests were these: Lord Tennyson, PresidentⒶtextual note of the Royal Literary Fund; Sir E. Poynter, PresidentⒶtextual note of the Royal Academy; Sir E. Waterlow, PresidentⒶtextual note of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colors; Sir G. T. Goldie, PresidentⒶtextual note of the Royal Geographical Society; Lord Glenesk, PresidentⒶtextual note of the Newspaper Press Fund; Mr. R. N. Crane, acting chairman of the American Society in London; SirⒶtextual note G. Reid, ex-PresidentⒶtextual note of the Royal Scottish Academy; Professor Herkomer, R.A.; the Poet Laureate; Lord Macnaghten, treasurer of Lincoln’s Inn; Mr. C. Willis, K.C., treasurer of the Inner Temple; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins, Sir Lawrence Alma-TademaⒶtextual note, R.A., Mr. Sidney LeeⒺexplanatory note, and Mr. H. W. Lucy, of Punch Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note.
The next function was set for the 25th. It was a luncheon tendered by the London Society of the PilgrimsⒺexplanatory note, and was to have place at the Savoy Hotel and be followed by the conferring of the degrees at Oxford, next day.
[begin page 75] I will insert here the London Telegraph’s Ⓐtextual note report of the Pilgrim affair:
ThereⒶtextual note are two bands of Pilgrims. One foregathers in New York, the other in London. Both have learned the art of entertaining right well. So soon as a distinguished American sets his foot on these shores he finds a messenger awaiting him with a card of invitation for a feast, whereat he may learn in his mother tongue all that the Old Country may say in favour of him. It is a pleasant custom and one calculated to improve the common understanding of peoples whose ideals are the same. Mark Twain could not escape the Pilgrims if he would, and probably the honour of being the guest of so interesting a body afforded as much pleasure to him as his charmingly humorous speech was welcomed by his entertainers. The luncheon was served in the Savoy Hotel. The Right Hon. Augustine BirrellⒺexplanatory note, Chief Secretary for Ireland, presided over a company of over two hundred gentlemen. The menu contained an excellent representation of the features of the guest, and facing the list of those for whom seats were reserved were the lines, the authorship of which could be recognised by all from the letters “O.S.”Ⓔexplanatory note:
Pilot of many Pilgrims since the shout
“ Mark Twain Ⓐtextual note !”—that serves you for a deathless sign—
On Mississippi’s waterway rang out
Over the plummet’s line—
Still where the countless ripples laugh above
The blue of halcyon seas long may you keep
Your course unbroken, buoyed upon a love
Ten thousand fathoms deep!
The company included:
Lord Glenesk, the Earl of Granard, Viscount Morpeth, M.P., the Hon. Harry Lawson, Archdeacon Sinclair, Mr. Owen Seaman, Sir Alfred Arnold, Mr. Butler Aspinall, K.C., Sir William Bell, LL.D., Mr. A. Shirley Benn, Mr. T. H. D. Berridge, M.P., Major H. P. Blencowe, the Right Hon. Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, K.C.M.G., Commodore F. G. Bourne, Mr. Harry E. Brittain, Major W. Broadfoot, R.E., Sir Thomas Brooke-Hitching, Sir Ernest Cable, Sir Vincent Caillard, the Hon. Colin H. Campbell, K.C., Mr. J. W. Comyns Carr, Mr. H. R. Chamberlain, General H. C. Cook, U.S.A., Captain Percy Creed, Mr. Thomas W. Cridler, Mr. A. S. Crockett, the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, Lieut.-General C. W. Douglas, C.B., Mr. H. J. Duveen, Mr. Joseph Duveen, Mr. Louis Duveen, The Master of Elibank, M.P., Sir David Evans, Mr. George Faber, M.P., Surg.-General Sir Benjamin Franklin, K.C.I.E., Sir Frederick Fryer, K.C.S.I., Mr. John Fuller, M.P., Mr. J. L. Garvin, Colonel P.Ⓐtextual note B. Giles, the Right Hon. Sir George Taubman Goldie, K.C.M.G., Mr.Ⓐtextual note Hamar Greenwood, M.P., Mr. Francis O. Grenfell, Mr. R. N. Grenfell, Mr. H. A. Gwynne, Mr. H. Rider Haggard, Mr. Donald C. Haldeman, Mr. Charles A. Hanson, Sir Robert Harvey, the Hon. Claude Hay, M.P., Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins, Sir Francis Hopwood, K.C.B., Colonel Millard Hunsiker, Major-General H. D. Hutchinson, C.S.I., Mr. E. B. Iwan-Muller, Rev. J. R. James, Mr. Charles Jacoby, Sir Alfred Jones, Mr. John Lane, the Hon. Charles Lawrence, Sir Joseph Lawrence, Sir Thomas Lipton, Bart., Mr. W. J. Locke, Canon Joseph McCormick, D.D., Major-General MacKinnon, [begin page 76] Mr. Donald Macmaster, K.C., Captain A. H. Marindin, Dr. Mayo-Collier, the Hon. Charles Murray, Sir George Newnes, Lieut.-Colonel N. Newnham-Davis, Lieut.-General Sir W. G. Nicholson, Sir Harry North, Mr. T. P. O’Connor, M.P., Lieut.-Colonel G. S. Ommanney, Sir John Ottley, K.C.I.E., Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P., Mr. Louis N. Parker, Colonel C. Parsons, Mr. C. Arthur Pearson, Mr. J. A. Pease, M.P., Sir Frederick Pollock, the Hon. Robert P. Porter, Mr. Arthur Priestley, M.P., Sir John Puleston, Mr. Henry Phipps, Sir Boverton Redwood, Sir Alfred Reynolds, Mr. John Morgan Richards, Mr. James W. Ritchie, Sir William Robson, K.C., M.P., Mr. H. H. Rogers, Sir Albert K. Rollit, Sir Percy Sanderson, Captain E.Ⓐtextual note M. Sawtelle, Sir Bruce Seton, Mr. Charles D. Seligman, Captain Leveson E. Scarth, Canon H. Gibson Smith, Sir Edgar Speyer, Bart., Sir Douglas Straight, Mr. Alfred Sutro, Colonel the Hon. Milo Talbot, R.E., Mr. Charles Temperley, Mr. H. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, Colonel Sir Howard Vincent, M.P., Professor Charles Waldstein, Sir Charles Walpole, Sir James Walker, Count Ward, Dr. Sylvester Willard, Mr. J. Leigh Wood, Mr. W. Basil Worsfold, and the Hon. Robert J. Wynne.
Mr. Harry Brittain, the secretary, read the following telegrams:
To Mark Twain greeting.—Even if the weather is inclement, our welcome will be warm. Best of luck now and always.—Undergraduates of Oxford.
All together, now, for three ripping, joyous hurrahs to your merry guest and the rest of you. American Pilgrims join in tribute to that champion dispenser of sunshine and good cheer, known to the gods and mortals as Mark Twain.—George Wilson, Pilgrims, New York.Ⓔexplanatory note
Mr. Birrell, after proposing “The King and the President of the United States,” said: I now have to give you the toast of our guest—Mr. Clemens, known to all good men and women in both hemispheres and to all boys and girls who are good for anything anywhere as Mark Twain. (Cheers.) Although, being as I am, still bound by the conditions of time and space, which I confess are beginning to get a little on my nerves—(laughter)—I am always at any given moment of time bound to be somewhere, I feel greatly surprised and deeply honoured at finding myself here. How I came here I will not ask. In the hurry and scurry of life I have long ceased to put to myself those momentous questions, “Why and wherefore?” and, indeed, I think the austerest moralist will admit that the man who is for the moment the Irish Chief Secretary is free from any obligation to ask himself any questions. (Loud laughter.) We are here this afternoon to do honour to a great and remarkable author, who writes in a language which is both his and my mother tongue. We have in our friend a remarkably fine specimen—I think the finest specimen extant—of a living author. (Cheers.) Authors may be divided roughly—very roughly—they are accustomed to rough treatment—into two classes—the living and the dead. (Laughter.) Gentlemen, you have already misunderstood me; I speak according to the flesh. If there be any dull author here, I beg to assure him that he need not be affronted, for I include him for this purpose, and this purpose only, in the ranks of the living. (Laughter.) Dead authors are indeed a mighty army. In the British Museum, in the Vatican library, in the Bodleian, nay, even on the humble shelves of an impoverished but persistent book-buyer like myself, they have a tendency to crowd us out. I know it has been said of them that they rule us from their urnsⒺexplanatory note, but I will have you bear in mind the fact that that observation was made [begin page 77] by a nobleman who was himself an author. (Laughter.) This is how the grand tradition of literature is preserved from one generation to another. With regard to our distinguished friend, what is it necessary for any of us to say of him? As I was remarking, he is a living author; dead authors are bound on our shelves. I myself as a boy was a great reader. Chilly silence! (Loud laughter.) But don’t judge me too harshly. I was from my cradle shortsighted. The preferably glorious career of Huckleberry Finn was from the beginning closed against me. I had no choice but to read, and my favourite reading was the lives of authors—dead authors—for in those days you had to be dead before your biography was written, even in one volume. (Laughter.) I therefore had no choice but to read the lives of dead authors, and my favourite day-dream—many happy hours have I spent in it—was to fancy myself, whilst reading the life of any particular dead author, his most contemporary admirer, the ministering angel who rushed to his assistance, and who was ever ready to supply his very numerous wants. Ah! gentlemen, those were happy days. It would surprise you the marvellous things that I was able to do in the imagination. I thrust a quartern loaf within reach of poor OtwayⒺexplanatory note, who, you will remember, died of starvation—probably that is all you do remember of him. (Laughter.) Had I had my way, Otway would not have died of starvation, and you would never have heard of him at all. (Laughter.) I delighted to picture myself acting the part of a judicious, friendly, tactful, and experienced MaecenasⒺexplanatory note to poor Chatterton, that “marvellous boy who perished in his primeⒺexplanatory note.” Had I had my way, he would not have perished in prime, but would have lived to become the ablest and most critical editor we have ever had of Early English poetry. I was able also by a few strokes of the pen to liquidate the whole of the great burden of debt which played so tragic a part in the life of the man who was perhaps of all English authors the best—I mean the great and good Sir Walter ScottⒺexplanatory note. (Cheers.) Nobly have I discharged my debt to the dead; but what about the living author, what have we, any of us, ever done for him? (A Pilgrim: “Bought his books.”) Someone suggests we have bought his books. I am glad to meet that rare person. (Laughter.) I wonder by what art or subterfuge he obtained entrance into this literary circle. (Laughter.) It is much easier in imagination to be kind to the dead author than it is to endure the living one. (Laughter.) It is no easy matter, that; it is quite a different kettle of fish. The odds are that, albeit he be your friend, you cannot for the life of you read his books. There are hosts of living authors whose names I do not propose to mention—(laughter)—whose books I cannot read. Yet it may be that they have their necessities, and it cannot be denied that there have been Otways and Chattertons in our own day, men of genius but not of good fortune, who have need of all the assistance any kindly nature can render to them. But it is far more difficult to be good to the living author than it is to patronise the dead. Therefore, these are melancholy reflections. That is why we are all so rejoiced to be here to-day to do honour to a great and a living author—(cheers)—who we all unaffectedly love and admire. I know no wiser maxim of behaviour than this “love me, and tell me so.” Did we only observe it more in all our relations of life I believe the misery of mankind would be partially mitigated. We all love Mark Twain, and we are here to tell him so. There is one more point. All the world knows it, and that is why it is dangerous to omit it. Our guest is a distinguished citizen of the great Republic beyond the seas. (Cheers.) In America his “Huckleberry Finn” and his “Tom Sawyer” are what “Robinson Crusoe” and “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”Ⓔexplanatory note have been to us. (Cheers.) They are racy [begin page 78] of the soil. They are books of which it is impossible to place any period of termination. I will not speak of the classics—reminiscences of much evil in our early days. We do not meet here to-day without appreciations and depreciations of our “tupenny” little prefaces or our forewords. I am not going to say what the world a thousand years hence will think of Mark Twain. Posterity will take care of itself, will read what it wants to read, will forget what it chooses to forget, and will pay no attention whatsoever to our critical mumblings and jumblings. Let us, therefore, be content to say to our friend and guest that we are here speaking for ourselves and for our children to say what he has been to us. (Cheers.) I remember in Liverpool in 1867 first buying the copy, which I still preserve, of the celebrated “Jumping Frog.” It has a few words of preface which reminded me that our guest in those days was called “the wild humorist of the Pacific Slope,” and a few lines later down “the moralist of the Main.”Ⓔexplanatory note That was some forty years ago. Here he is, still the humorist, still the moralist. His humour enlivens and enlightens his morality, and his morality is all the better for his humour. That is one of the reasons why we love him. I am not here to mention any book of his; that is a subject of dispute in my family circle—which is the best and which is the next best. But I must put in a word lest I should not be true to myself—a terrible thing—for his “Joan of Arc”—(cheers)—a book of chivalry, of nobility, and of manly sincerity, for which I take this opportunity of thanking him. (Cheers.) But you can all drink this toast, each one of you with his own intention. You can get into it what meaning you like. Mark Twain is a man whom English and Americans do well to honour. He is the true consolidator of nations. His delightful humour is of the kind which dissipates and destroys national prejudices. (Cheers.) His truth and his honour, his love of truth and his love of honour overflow all boundaries. He has made the world better by his presence. We rejoice to see him here. Long may he live to reap the plentiful harvest of hearty, honest, human affection. (Loud cheers.)
The toast having been pledged in truly British fashion,
Mark Twain replied as follows: Pilgrims, I desire first to thank those undergraduates of Oxford. When a man has grown so old as I am, when he has reached the verge of seventy-two years, there is nothing that carries him back to the dreamland of his life, to his boyhood, like recognition of those young hearts up yonder. (Cheers.) And so I thank them out of my heart. (Cheers.) I desire to thank the Pilgrims of New York also for their kind notice and message which they have cabled over here. (Cheers.) Mr. Birrell says he does not know how he got here. But he will be able to get away all right—he has not drunk anything since he came here. (Laughter.) I am glad to know about those friends of his—Otway and Chatterton—fresh, new names to me. (Laughter.) I am glad of the disposition he has shown to rescue them from the evils of poverty, and if they are still in London I hope to have a talk with them. (Laughter.) For awhile I thought he was going to tell us the effect which my books had upon his growing manhood. (Laughter.) I thought he was going to tell us how much the effect amounted to, and whether it really made him what he now is—(laughter)—but with the discretion born of Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not know now whether he read the books or not. He did that very neatly. I could not do it any better myself. My books have had effect, and very good ones, too, here and there—and some others not so good. There is no doubt about that. But I remember one monumental instance of it years and years ago. Professor Norton, of Harvard, was over here, and when he came [begin page 79] back to Boston I went out with Mr. HowellsⒶtextual note to call on him. Norton was allied in some way by marriage with DarwinⒺexplanatory note. Mr. Norton, who was very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate, said, “Mr. Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin in England, and I should like to tell you something connected with that visit. You were the object of it, and I myself would have been very proud of it, but you may not be proud of it. At any rate, I am going to tell you what it was, and to leave to you to regard it as you please. Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroomⒶtextual note and pointed out certain things there—pitcher plants and so on, that he was measuring and watching from day to day, and he said, ‘The chambermaid is permitted to do what she pleases in this room, but she must never touch those plants and never touch those books on the table by the candle. With those books I read myself to sleep every night.’ Those were your own books.” (Laughter.) I said, “There is no question to my mind as to whether I should regard that as a compliment or not. I do regard it as a very great compliment, and a very high honour, that that great mind labouring for the whole human race should rest itself on my books. I am proud that he should read himself to sleep with them.” I could not keep that to myself—I was so proud of it. As soon as I got home to Hartford I called up my oldest friend, and dearest enemy on occasion, the Rev. Joseph TwichellⒶtextual note, my pastor, and I told him about that, and of course he was full of interest and venom. (Laughter.) Those people who neverⒶtextual note get any compliment like that feel like that. (Laughter.) He went off, he did not issue any applause of any kind, and I did not hear of that subject for some time. But when Mr. Darwin passed away from this life and some time after “Darwin’sⒶtextual note Life and Letters” came out, the Rev. Mr. TwichellⒶtextual note procured an early copy of the work and found something in it which he considered applied to me. He came over to my house—it was snowing, raining, sleeting, but that did not make any difference to TwichellⒶtextual note. He produced a book, turned over and over until he came to a place where he said, “Here, look at this letter from Mr. Darwin to Sir Joseph Hooker.” What Mr. Darwin said, I give you the idea, was this: “I do not know whether I ought to have devoted my whole life to these drudgeries in natural history and the other sciences or not, for while I may have gained in some way I have lost in another. Once I had a fine perception and appreciation of high literature, but in me that quality is atrophiedⒺexplanatory note.” “That,” said Mr. TwichellⒶtextual note, “was reading your books.” Mr. Birrell has touched lightly—very lightly, but in not an uncomplimentary way, on my position in this world as a moralist. (Laughter.) I am glad to have that recognition, too, because I have suffered since I have been in this town. (Laughter.) In the first place, right away, when I came here a newsman was going around with a great red, highly-displayed placard in the place of an apron. He was selling newspapers, and there were two sentences on the placard which would have been all right if they had been punctuated; but they ran those two sentences together without a comma or anything, and that would naturally create a wrong impression, because it said, “Mark Twain Arrives Ascot Cup Stolen.”Ⓔexplanatory note (Laughter.) No doubt many a person was misled by those sentences joined together in that unkind way. (Laughter.) I have no doubt my character has suffered from it. I suppose I ought to defend my character, but how can I defend it? I can say here and now, and anybody can see by my face that I am sincere—(laughter)—that I speak the truth. I have never seen that cup. I have not got the cup—I did not have a chance to get it. (Laughter.) I have always had a good character in that way. I have hardly ever stolen anything, and if I did steal anything [begin page 80] I had discretion enough to know about the value of it first. I do not steal things that are likely to get myself into trouble. I do not think any of us do that. I know we all take things—that is to be expected; but, really, I have never taken anything, certainly in England, that amounts to any great thing. I do confess that when I was here seven years ago I stole a hat, but it didn’t amount to anything. (Laughter.) It was not a good hat, and was only a clergyman’s hat anyway. (Loud laughter.) I was at a luncheon party, and Archdeacon WilberforceⒺexplanatory note was there also. I daresay he is archdeacon now—he was a canon then—and he was serving in the Westminster BatteryⒺexplanatory note, if that is the proper term. (Laughter.) I do not know, as you mix military and ecclesiastical things together so much. He left the luncheon table before I did. He began this thing. I did steal his hat, but he began by taking mine. I make that concession because I would not accuse Archdeacon Wilberforce of stealing my hat—I should not think of it. (Laughter.) I confine that phrase to myself. He merely took my hat. (Laughter.) And with good judgment, too; it was a better hat than his. (Laughter.) He came out before the luncheon was over and sorted the hats in the hall, and selected one which suited. It happened to be mine. He went off with it. When I came out by-and-bye there was no hat there which would go on my head except his, which was left behind. My head was not the customary size just at that time. (Laughter.) I had been receiving a good many very nice and complimentary attentions, and my head was a couple of sizes larger than usual, and his hat just suited me. The bumps and corners were all right intellectually. (Laughter.) There were results pleasing to me, possibly so to him. He found out whose hat it was, and wrote saying it was pleasant that all the way home, whenever he met anybody, his gravities, his solemnities, deep thoughts, his eloquent remarks were all snatched up by the people he met, and mistaken for brilliant humourisms. (Laughter.) I had another experience. It was not unpleasing. I was received with a deference, which was entirely foreign to my experience, by everybody whom I met—(laughter)—so that before I got home I had a much higher opinion of myself than I have ever had before or since. And there is in that very connection an incident which I remember at that old date which is rather melancholy to me, because it shows how a person can deteriorate in a mere seven years. It is seven years ago. I have not that hat now. I was going down Pall Mall, or some other of your big streets, and I recognised that that hat needed ironing. I went into a big shop and passed on my hat, and asked that it might be ironed. They were courteous, very courteous—even courtly. (Laughter.) They brought that hat back to me very sleek and nice, and I asked how much there was to pay. They replied that they did not charge the clergy anything. (Laughter.) I have cherished the delight of that moment from that day to this. The first thing I did the other day was to go and hunt up that shop and hand in my hat to have it ironed. I said, “How much?” when it came back. They said “ninepence.” (Laughter.) In seven years I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven years ago. (Laughter.) But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope you will forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of seventy-two you know perfectly well that he never reached that place without knowing what this life is—a heart-breaking bereavement. And so our reverence is for our dead. We do not forget them, but our duty is towards the living, and if we can be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech, and in hope that is benefit to those who are around us. (Cheers.) My history includes an incident [begin page 81] which will always connect me with England in a pathetic way, for when I arrived here seven years ago with my wife and daughter we had gone around the globe lecturing to raise money to clear off a debt. My wife and one of my daughters started across the oceans to bring to England our eldest daughter. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the bloom of womanhood, and we were unsuspecting, when a cablegram—one of those heart-breaking cablegrams which we all in our days have to experience—was put into my hand. It stated that my daughter had gone to her long sleep. And so, as I say, I cannot always be cheerful, and I cannot always be chaffing; I must sometimes lay the cap and bells aside, and recognise that I am of the human race. I have my cares and griefs, and I therefore am very glad to have Mr. Birrell say something that was in the nature of those verses here, at the top of this programme:
“He lit our life with shafts of sun,
And vanquished pain.
Thus two great nations stand as one
In honouring Twain.”
I am very glad to have those verses. I am very glad and very grateful for what Mr. Birrell said in that connection. I have received since I have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters from all conditions of people in England—men, women, and children—and there is compliment, praise, and, above all, and better than all, there is in them a note of affection. (Cheers.) Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection—that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement, and I am very grateful to have that reward. All these letters make me feel that here in England, as in America, when I stand under the English flag, I am not a stranger, I am not an alien, but at home. (Loud cheers.)
Bernard Shaw . . . Mr. Henderson] The most recent plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), at the time of this meeting with Clemens in St. Pancras Station, were Man and Superman, Major Barbara, and Caesar and Cleopatra. For Clemens’s luncheon with Shaw on 3 July, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 23 August 1907. Archibald Henderson (1877–1963) was an instructor in mathematics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, when he “discovered” the works of Shaw in 1903, and undertook to write a biography of him. Henderson would later correspond with Clemens, visit him at Stormfield, and write one of the earliest books about him. See also the Autobiographical Dictation of 4 September 1907 (Holroyd 1988–92, 2:211–13; Lathem 2006, 18–19; Henderson 1912).
I will leave room in this place . . . to insert them or not] Clemens never inserted anything in the blank space he called for at this point in the typescript.
In the hotel I stumbled upon . . . Francesca] Frances Nunnally (1891–1981), the daughter of James H. Nunnally, the wealthy owner of an Atlanta candy factory, was sixteen when Clemens met her at Brown’s Hotel. She and her mother were taking a European summer vacation; in September they accepted Clemens’s invitation to visit him in Tuxedo Park. Frances was among the first manifestations of Clemens’s “fad” of “collecting young girls”; starting in the next year, he would begin to call this his Aquarium Club, with himself as “Admiral” and the girls as “angelfish.” The first angelfish, by Clemens’s reckoning, was fourteen-year-old Dorothy Butes, who visited him in New York with her mother in the spring of 1907 (see the AD of 17 Apr 1908). Frances’s graduation from St. Timothy’s School for Girls, near Baltimore, on 9 June 1909 was the occasion for Clemens’s last public speech (AD, 12 Feb 1908; Cooley 1991, 33–35, 191–95; “Atlanta Industries,” Wall Street Journal, 28 Aug 1906, 7; Carson 1998; Schmidt 2009).
a dinner at Dorchester House . . . Mr. Sidney Lee] Whitelaw Reid, U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James from 1905 until his death in 1912, rented the luxurious Dorchester House in Park Lane and used it as the embassy during his term as ambassador. Guests at this 21 June 1907 dinner included: Edwin Abbey (1852–1911), expatriate American painter; Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (1836–1920), astronomer; Hallam, Baron Tennyson (1852–1928), eldest son of the poet; Sir Edward Poynter (1836–1919) and Sir Ernest Albert Waterlow (1850–1919), artists; Sir George Goldie (1846–1925), founder of the Royal Niger Company; Algernon Borthwick, Baron Glenesk (1830–1908), newspaper owner; Robert Newton Crane (d. 1927), American diplomat; Sir George Reid (1841–1913), Scottish painter and illustrator; Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849–1914), Bavarian-born painter and Oxford professor of fine art; Alfred Austin (1835–1913), the poet laureate; Edward, Lord Macnaghten (1830–1913), judge; Edward Cooper Willis (1831–1912), lawyer; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), author, creator of Sherlock Holmes; Anthony Hope Hawkins (1863–1933), writer of romances; Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912), painter; and Sidney Lee (1859–1926), Shakespearean scholar (“Finest American Embassy,” Pittsburgh Press, 22 June 1906, 9; “Robert N. Crane Dies; Was King’s Counselor,” New York Times, 7 May 1927, 17; London Times: “Court Circular,” 22 June 1907, 12; “Mr. E. Cooper Willis, K.C.,” 27 July 1912, 9; for Whitelaw Reid see AutoMT1 , 534 n. 222.9–11, and the ADs of 27 and 28 Aug 1907).
Mr. H. W. Lucy, of Punch] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 31 August 1907, note at 124.8.
luncheon tendered by the London Society of the Pilgrims] The Pilgrims Society of Great Britain was founded in 1902 with the declared purpose of promoting “good-will, good-fellowship, abiding friendship, and everlasting peace between the United States and Great Britain.” A “brother” society in New York was established in 1903. The Pilgrims supported the imperial ambitions of both nations, stressing “the proud traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race” and “the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon race towards peace and civilization” (Baker 2002, 11–14; Chicago Tribune: “Pilgrims Honor British Leader,” 9 Aug 1902, 2; “Pilgrims Outwit Sea,” 30 Jan 1904, 1).
Augustine Birrell] Birrell (1850–1933) was an essayist and a Liberal member of parliament. In January 1907 he had been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland.
the letters “O.S.”] Verses printed in Punch under these initials were by Owen Seaman (1861–1936), who became the magazine’s editor in 1906.
Mr. Harry Brittain . . . George Wilson, Pilgrims, New York] Henry Ernest Brittain (1873–1974), journalist and Conservative politician, was the moving force behind the creation of the Pilgrims Society. Knighted in 1918, he promoted solidarity between the British Empire and the United States. George T. Wilson, an American insurance executive, helped found the London society and was the moving force behind the New York society (“George T. Wilson,” English Speaking World 3 [Feb 1920]: 27).
they rule us from their urns] Lord Byron, Manfred, act 3, scene 4: “The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule / Our spirits from their urns.”
a quartern loaf . . . Otway] The English poet Thomas Otway (1652–85) was traditionally represented as having died by choking on the first mouthful of “a quartern loaf” (a four-pound loaf of bread; Byron 1900, 92).
Maecenas] Proverbial for a generous patron of literature; from Gaius Maecenas, the patron of Virgil and Horace.
Chatterton . . . who perished in his prime] Birrell (or the newspaper report of his speech) misquotes Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence”: “I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, / The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride” (Wordsworth 1815, 2:29). For the poet Thomas Chatterton, see AutoMT2 , 570 n. 247.2–3.
great burden of debt . . . Sir Walter Scott] Two publishing houses in which Scott was financially interested failed in 1826 with enormous debts: James Ballantyne and Company, and Archibald Constable and Company. Scott undertook to pay those debts by creating a new, revised and annotated edition of his collected novels, which was still underway when he died in 1832. His responsible behavior in this crisis enhanced his status as “the supreme model of career closure—and, indeed of noble dying” in English and American literature (Millgate 1992, 1).
“Tom Brown’s Schooldays”] Novel of schoolboy life by Thomas Hughes (1857).
a few words of preface . . . “the moralist of the Main.”] Mark Twain’s first collection, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches, was published in New York in May 1867 by Charles Henry Webb (John Paul), who wrote the prefatory “Advertisement” that Birrell quotes here. In Britain an unauthorized edition was published by George Routledge and Sons ( ET&S1 , 546; SLC 1867a, 1867b).
Professor Norton . . . by marriage with Darwin] The date of this visit to Harvard professor Charles Eliot Norton has not been identified. Clemens recorded Norton’s account of the soporific effect on Darwin of his books in an 1882 notebook entry. Norton’s sister-in-law was married to Darwin’s eldest son, William ( N&J2 , 486 n. 185; Norton 1913, 304).
“Darwin’s Life and Letters” . . . that quality is atrophied] Clemens’s paraphrase bears a resemblance to a letter written by Darwin to his friend, botanist Sir Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), on 17 June 1868 and published in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (Darwin 1887, 2:273–74); but it resembles still more closely a passage from his Autobiography, published in the same collection, in which Darwin describes his “curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes. . . . My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive” (Darwin 1887, 1:81).
“Mark Twain Arrives Ascot Cup Stolen.”] The Gold Cup Race for thoroughbred horses is run in June as an event in the annual Royal Ascot Festival. In 1907, the trophy was reported stolen on the afternoon of 18 June, the day Mark Twain arrived in England, and the theft was widely reported in newspapers the next day. The Cup was never seen again; a replacement was commissioned from the original manufacturers, Crown jewelers Garrard and Company (Lathem 2006, 159; HorseRacing.co.uk 2013; Culme 2010).
luncheon party . . . Archdeacon Wilberforce] Basil Wilberforce (1841–1916) would become an archdeacon in 1900, but at the time of the luncheon party mentioned here (3 July 1899) he was Canon of Westminster. He came of a distinguished line of political and evangelical figures: his father was Samuel Wilberforce (1805–73), bishop and famed opponent of Darwinism, and his grandfather was William Wilberforce, the abolitionist (1759–1833). A liberal and progressive-minded cleric, he shared Clemens’s interests in animal rights and spiritualism. Clemens wrote in the evening to Wilberforce, informing him that they had inadvertently switched hats ( MTB , 2:1085–86); he also retailed the anecdote in letters of the same day to Howells and Twichell (3 July 1899 to Howells, NN-BGC, in MTHL , 2:703–5; 3 July 1899 to Twichell, CtY-BR; SLC 2010a, 272–75, 310–11; 17 Apr 1900 to Wilberforce, photocopy in CU-MARK).
the Westminster Battery] Wilberforce was Canon of Westminster; the pun on “canon/cannon” was always irresistible to Clemens.
Source documents.
Telegraph “Mark Twain. Guest of the Pilgrims,” clipping from the London Telegraph, 26 June 1907, 9, in Scrapbook 32:46–48: ‘There are . . . (Loud cheers.)’ (75.2–81.26).TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2069–86, made from Hobby’s notes and Telegraph and revised.
TS1 transcribes Telegraph from Clemens’s clipping, which is preserved in Scrapbook 32 (CU-MARK). Clemens deleted the headline of the article but did not otherwise mark it. Our text is based on the clipping, and Hobby’s accidental variations from copy are not reported.