Murat Halstead’s death—His life contrasted with that of Mr. Clemens—The incident of Murat Halstead getting left on steamer and going to Germany with Mr. Clemens and his family and Bayard Taylor—The coincidence of Halstead and Taylor thinking they had heart disease and the way in which they were cured of that belief.
But not now—after a few minutes.
Murat Halstead is deadⒺexplanatory note. He was a most likable man. He lived to be not far short of eighty, and he devoted about sixty years to diligent, hard slaving at editorial work. His life and mine make a curious contrast. From the time that my father died, March 24,Ⓐtextual note [begin page 245] 1847, when I was past elevenⒶtextual note years old, until the end of 1856, or the first days of 1857, I worked—not diligently, not willingly, but fretfully, lazily, repiningly, complainingly, disgustedly, and always shirking the work when I was not watched. The statistics show that I was a worker during aboutⒶtextual note ten years. I am approaching seventy-three, and I believe I have never done any work since—unless I may call two or three years of lazy effort as a reporter on the Pacific coastⒶtextual note by that large and honorable name—and so I think I am substantially right in saying that when I escaped from the printing-office fifty or fifty-one years ago I ceased to be a worker, and ceased permanently. Piloting on the Mississippi River was not work to me; it was play—delightful play, vigorous play, adventurous play—and I loved it; silver mining in the Humboldt MountainsⒶtextual note was play, only play, because I did not do any of the work; my pleasant comrades did it and I sat by and admired; my silver mining in Esmeralda was not work, for Higbie and Robert Howland did it, and again I sat by and admired. I accepted a job of shoveling tailings in a quartz mill there, and that was really work, and I had to do it myself, but I retired from that industry at the end of two weeks, and not only with my own approvalⒶtextual note but with the approvalⒶtextual note of the people who paid the wages. These mining experiences occupied ten months, and came to an end toward the close of September 1862. I then became a reporter, in Virginia City, Nevada, and later in San Francisco, and after something more than two years of this salaried indolence I retired from my position on the Morning Call, by solicitation. SolicitationⒶtextual note of the proprietor. Then I acted as San Franciscan correspondent of the Virginia City Enterprise for two or three months; next I spent three months in pocket-mining at Jackass Gulch with the Gillis boys; then I went to the Sandwich Islands and corresponded thence for the Sacramento Union five or six months; in October 1866 I broke out as a lecturer, and from that day to this I have always been able to gain my living without doing any work; for the writing of books and magazine matter was always play, not work. I enjoyed it; it was merely billiards to me.
I wonder why Murat Halstead was condemned to sixty years of editorial slavery and I let off with a lifetime of delightful idleness. There seems to be something most unfair about this—something not justifiable. But it seems to be a law of the human constitution that those that deserve shall not have, and those that do not deserve shall get everything that is worth having. It is a sufficiently crazy arrangement, it seems to me.
On the 10th of April, a little more than thirty years ago, I sailed for Germany in the steamer Holsatia Ⓐtextual note with my little family—at least we got ready to sail, but at the last moment concluded to remain at our anchorage in the Bay to see what the weather was going to be. A great many people came down in a tug to say good-bye to the passengers, and at dark, when we had concluded to go sea, they left us. When the tug was gone it was found that Murat Halstead was still with us; he had come to say good-bye to his wife and daughter; he had to remain with usⒺexplanatory note, there was no alternative. We presently went to sea. Halstead had no clothing with him except what he had on, and there was a fourteen-day voyage in front of him. By happy fortune there was one man on board who was as big as Halstead, and only that one man; he could get into that man’s clothes but not into any other man’s in that company. That lucky accident was Bayard TaylorⒺexplanatory note; he [begin page 246] was an unusually large man and just the size of Halstead, and he had an abundance of clothes and was glad to share them with Halstead, who was a close friend of his of long standing. Toward midnight I was in the smoking-cabin with them and then a curious fact came out: they had not met for ten years, and each was surprised to see the other looking so bulky and hearty and so rich in health; each had for years been expecting to hear of the other’s death; for when they had last parted both had received death sentence at the hands of the physician. Heart disease in both cases, with death certain within two years. Both were required to lead a quiet life, walk and not run, climb no stairs when not obliged to do it, and above all things avoid surprises and sudden excitements, if possible. They understood that a single sudden and violent excitement would be quite sufficient for their needs and would promptly end their days, and so for ten years these men had been creepingⒶtextual note and never trotting nor running; they had climbed stairs at gravel-train speed only, and they had avoided excitements diligently and constantly—and all that time they were as hearty as a pair of elephants and could not understand why they continued to live. Then something happened. And it happened to both at about the same time. The thing that happened was a sudden and violent surprise followed immediately by another surprise—surprise that they didn’t fall dead in their tracks. These surprises happened about a week before the Holsatia Ⓐtextual note sailed. Halstead was editor and proprietor of the Cincinnati Enquirer Ⓔexplanatory note, and was sitting at his editorial desk at midnight, high up in the building, when a mighty explosion occurred, close by, which rocked the building to its foundations and shivered all its glass, and before Halstead had time to reflect and not let the explosion excite him, he had sailed down six flights of stairs in thirty-five seconds and was standing panting in the street tryingⒶtextual note to say “Thy will be done,” and deadly afraidⒶtextual note that that was what was going to happen. But nothing happened, and from that time forth he had been an emancipated man, and now for a whole week had been making up for ten years’ lost time, hunting for excitements and devouring them like a famished person.
Bayard Taylor’s experience had been of the like character. He turned a corner in the country and crossed a railway track just in time for an express train to nipⒶtextual note a corner off the seat of his breechesⒶtextual note and blow him into the next county by compulsionⒶtextual note of the hurricaneⒶtextual note produced by the onrush of the train. He mourned and lamented, thinking that the fatal surprise had come at last; then he put his hand on his heart and got another surprise, for he found that it was still beating. He rose up and dusted himself off and became jubilant, and gave praise, and went off like Halstead to hunt up some more excitements and make up for ten years’ lost time.
Bayard Taylor was on his way to Berlin as our new Minister to Germany; he was a genial, lovable, simple-heartedⒶtextual note soul, and as happy in his new dignity as ever a new plenipotentiary was since the world began. He was a poet, and had written voluminously in verse, and had also made the best of all English translations of Goethe’s “Faust.”Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note But all his poetry is forgotten now except two very fine songs, one about the Scotch soldiers singing “Annie Laurie”Ⓐtextual note in the trenches before SebastopolⒶtextual note, and the other the tremendously inspiriting love song of an Arab lover to his sweetheartⒺexplanatory note. No one has gathered together [begin page 247] his odds and ends and started a memorial museum with them, and if he is still able to think and reflect he is glad of it.
He had a prodigious memory, and one night while we were walking the deck he undertook to call up out of the deeps of his mind a yard-long list of queer and quaint and unrelated words which he had learned, as a boy, by reading the list twice over, for a prize, and had easily won it for the reason that the other competitors after studying the list an hour were not able to recite it without making mistakes. Taylor said he had not thought of that list since that time, but was sure he could reproduce it after half an hour’s digging in his mind. We walked the deck in silence during the half hour, then he began with the first word and sailed glibly through without a halt, and also without a mistake, he said.
He had a negro manservantⒶtextual note with him who came on board dressed up in the latest agony of the fashion and looking as fine as a rainbowⒺexplanatory note; then he disappeared and we never saw him again for ten or twelve days; then he came on deckⒶtextual note drooping and meek, subdued, subjugated, the most completely wilted and disreputable-lookingⒶtextual note flower that was ever seen outside of a conservatory or inside of it either. The mystery was soon explained. The sea had gotten his works out of order the first day on board,Ⓐtextual note and he went to the ship’s doctor to acquire a purge. The doctor gave him fourteen large pills and told him, in German, to take one every three hours till he found relief; but he didn’t understand German, so he took the whole fourteen at one dose, with the result above recorded.
Murat Halstead is dead] Halstead (b. 1829) had died on 2 July 1908. During a fifty-year career in journalism he was a staff member, editor, owner, and war correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, and editor of the Brooklyn Standard-Union. Later he wrote several historical works (“Murat Halstead, Editor, Is Dead,” New York Times, 3 July 1908, 7; Mott 1950, 459–60).
I sailed for Germany in the steamer Holsatia . . . he had to remain with us] The Holsatia, carrying Clemens and his family on the first leg of their 1878–79 European travels, actually departed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 11 April 1878, but was forced to anchor overnight off Staten Island and make a fresh start the next morning because of difficulty in disembarking a large group that had come to bid farewell to Bayard Taylor (see the note at 245.42). As a result of the delay, Halstead, who had “intended only to make a short trip to the Narrows, to see his family well on their way to France,” made “the suddenly conceived plan of turning his excursion into a voyage. He was led to this by the fact that he must go to Paris in two months, and could attend to his business there about as well now” (New York Tribune: “Bayard Taylor’s Farewell,” 12 Apr 1878, 5; “Farewells to Bayard Taylor,” 13 Apr 1878, 2).
Bayard Taylor] Taylor (1825–78) was a prolific poet, travel writer, and translator, and from 1870 to 1877 professor of German literature at Cornell University. Of great repute in his day, but of little after, in 1878 he was appointed U.S. minister to Germany and was aboard the Holsatia en route to take his post. He had been in ill health before his appointment, however, and died in Berlin in December of that year.
Halstead was editor and proprietor of the Cincinnati Enquirer] Halstead never was connected with the Enquirer, the rival of his Commercial Gazette.
the best of all English translations of Goethe’s “Faust.”] Taylor’s two-volume translation, published in 1871, was highly regarded in its day, but is now considered mediocre.
two very fine songs . . . an Arab lover to his sweetheart] Taylor’s “Song of the Camp,” collected in 1863 in The Poet’s Journal, describes British soldiers during the eleven-month siege of Sebastopol (1854–55) in the Crimean War. They sing the old Scottish song “Annie Laurie,” which is based on a poem generally credited to William Douglas, with music and additional lyrics by Alicia Scott. The poem about the Arab lover is “Bedouin Song,” collected in Taylor’s Poems of the Orient (1854).
a negro manservant . . . looking as fine as a rainbow] Taylor described his servant in an 1878 letter from Berlin:
You should see Harris, in his navy-blue dress, with gilt buttons, white cravat, stove-pipe hat with broad gold band, etc. No one else, except Prince Carl, the Emperor’s brother, has a darkey; and when we drive out with Harris on the box as footman, we make a sensation. We find him singularly ignorant of many little details of service (the result of serving in a gentlemen’s club), but very anxious to learn, and perfectly honest. Marie and I have entire faith in him, and believe that we have done well in taking him along. But I must tell you one funny circumstance, illustrating the man’s naïveté. Two days after I called at the Palace . . . Harris came to me and said: “I went to the Palace the next day after your Excellency. A gentleman in military clothes invited me in, and I wrote my name down in a book, as a well-wisher to the King”!!—I don’t know what he will do next; but a “dark-complected” person may take many liberties in Berlin. (10 June 1878 to Richard and Elizabeth Stoddard, in Bayard Taylor 1997, 489–91)
Source document.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 2552–60, made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS1, as revised by Clemens, is the only authoritative source for this dictation.