The mails bring me many interesting letters, and now and then a remarkable one. I save the remarkable ones, and shall by and by distribute them through my Autobiography, in order that my far-off future readers may have a chance to enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed them myself. I have now received a remarkableⒶtextual note one from Holland which I want to share with the public at once; I cannot bring myself to inter it for years in the cold-storage vault with those others. In the storage vaultⒶtextual note are a number of letters from foreigners—letters remarkable only or mainly for their quaint and comic and startling English; but while the present one blazes with those merits it possesses others besides, as the reader will presently admit. It is from a born humorist, and his humor is so natural to him that not even the stubborn plate-mailⒶtextual note of his book-acquired English is able to keep it in; it breaks its way out, and flashes through the chinksⒶtextual note. He is so hampered by his imperfect speech-vehicle that he seldom succeeds in saying exactly what he is trying to say, but no matter, he always says his say felicitously, always quaintly and deliciously, and often brilliantlyⒶtextual note; and to be brilliant in a tongue not one’s own is a rare feat indeed. We hear of it sometimes, but we don’t personally encounter it. I think his English is perfectly charming, and I perceive that the personality back of it is charming,Ⓐtextual note too.
It appears that his “bundle” (his book of humorous matter) fails of a market in Holland. Let him turn it into English—doing the translating withⒶtextual note his own hand and allowing no one to mar it with corrections—and give it a trial and chance the result.Ⓐtextual note I mean a free,Ⓐtextual note unlabored, offhand translation, with no scrapings and filings and polishings, and other strivings after perfection. I think humor-lovers wouldⒶtextual note enjoy the book and like the author.
Observe what Irwin has done,Ⓐtextual note with his delightful Japanese schoolboyⒺexplanatory note. That schoolboy’s English is manufactured, yet how forceful it is, how hard it hits, how straight to its mark it goes. And all so innocently unconscious—apparently—of the havoc it is distributing, under the gentle protection of the broken speech. Mr. Bausch’sⒶtextual note broken speech could be effective, too, I think. Here is his letter:Ⓐtextual note
Most honourated and venerated Sir.
It will probably wunder you very much to receive from a Netherlander a letter that is written in so bad English as this and only the circumstance that I am in reality not a true Netherlander, but that the blood of about the half of the European nations streams pure through my veins, may be able to explain somewhat this in each other case completely incomprehensible, few recommandable and totally unnational absence of knowledge of languages.
Nevertheless I have done all that is possible to make this letter as good as I [begin page 291] might. When* I had been a true, pure Netherlander, then should I have succeeded without daught in so brilliant manner, that after years this letter should be considered by the linguists of your country as the most trusted source for the knowledge of your language, like she was in this time, but yet, now it is I, who has reached with my lessons in languages only this result that I am able to make myself ridiculous in three different languages for three different strangers—what a true Netherlander never can happen of course!—who has written the letter, I fear thatⒶtextual note the result will be somewhat less favourableⒶtextual note.
I hope however that it will be you possible to conceive something about it and I do an appeal on your kindness and concurrence inⒶtextual note this regard. But might it happen, in spite of all this consecration as well from your as from my side, that my presentiment appeared to be juste, and that you meand after conscientious study, that this letter looks more a composition in a by me for this occasion with purpose discovered dead language, or in a hitherto unknown dialect of the Esperanto or VolapückⒺexplanatory note, so hope I nevertheless that you will not deprive me from the glory which me belongs therefore and that, when you dispatchesⒶtextual note this letter to the conductor of the rubric “Informations about the present abode of dead languages,” or to them of the rubric “Observation of the natural growing crooked of artificial languages” of one of your local newspapers, my name will remain married with this work, so that IⒶtextual note acquire always something with this letter.
And now the proper reason for this letter.
I ought to say that this is in reality a somewhat difficult question. I avow openhearted that I would have preferred to avoid this point, safe then in a note, placed at the underend of this letter, which should then have treated about all sorts of interesting questions, which had nothing to do with the affair self, but the fear that perhaps you will read only the half of this letter brought me back of this purpose and does me give the explaining of the question. You will also, even when you throw away this letter on the half, have read and have consented or refused the half of thatⒶtextual note what I have to write and to ask to you. In both cases is the half of that what I wish to beg youⒶtextual note me also allowed at least not refused; I hasard also nothing, gain always somewhat and beg you also frankly: will you be so kind to write a preface for my first bundle of sketches?
That is a very strange demand indeed!,Ⓐtextual note will you probably remark. For how can I write a preface for a book that I not have read and for a man that I never have seen?
I approve that this ask, when you put it indeed, would have some good reason under some circumstances, but yet, now the affair for what I ask you a recommandationⒶtextual note is only a book and not a new mark of sausages, safety matches, anⒶtextual note automatic self-slaughter-machineⒶtextual note or something of this art, has this ask this reason not at all.
Why should it be necessary to know and to answer for the contents of a book, before one could recommendⒶtextual note it? Have you then ever caused yourself an inflammation of your entrails by the reading of a book, like that can happen you with sausages? Did you then seen your children descends in the grave, the one after the other, like the guarantated safety matches had caused without doubt, because you had given them a book? From such things has nobody even heard, is not it?
And then besides: since what time makes one name as author, artist or actor
by his works? That happens certainly never, is not it!Ⓐtextual note That is certainly contrary to the usance and good manners, is not it!Ⓐtextual note That would certainly be a divergence of the
*German for if.—M. T.Ⓐtextual note [begin page 292] good,Ⓐtextual note old customs that never would be approved by the public and with which one who tried to introduce it would provoke the people and excite his hate and rage!
And how good has the existing customs not worked till to dayⒶtextual note! How many statesmen,Ⓐtextual note who had else been delivered to the oblivion, do not thank their glory and their statue to the circumstance, that their wife could not endure their company and trickled away? How many singers, actors etc. are not very known, even famous, and have yet done in the service of their art nothing more than to wrench themselves the ancle, to lose their diamonds or to be arrested, all this with more sensibility thenⒶtextual note they ever had reached in their art! I myself know somebody, from a kind that you surely know also, who is praised by everybody and who are attributed all the virtues and endowments which are imaginable, only on account of the good case he has known to acquire a little belly♦♦ Ⓐtextual note (Bauchchen) like we call that.
“FromⒶtextual note him have I the best hopes,”Ⓐtextual note says one in society’s, when the happy owner of this belly goes away. “ThatⒶtextual note is a worthy man! One who has endowments! One who will bring it far!”Ⓐtextual note
And all they who speaks with so much appraising about this man, look with admiration to this remarkable, prosperitous belly, when they speak also, come under the influence of this strong argument for his good qualities and speaking from the man, they attribute him unconscious all that what they admire with so much enthusiasmⒶtextual note in his belly. And is this not an irreproachable,Ⓐtextual note beautiful manner to acquire the esteem and admiration of his countrymen?
No, most honourated Sir, I have the unshaken conviction that you will not maintain this argument of ignorance with my work, but that on the contrary it will be you a pleasure,Ⓐtextual note to acquire the admiration and the agreement of the whole civilizedⒶtextual note world by the writing of a beautiful,Ⓐtextual note thorough preface, which has nothing to do with my book.
And what a beautiful task is such a preface as for the rest! What a large field for all sorts of interesting contemplations offers she you! It has striked me, that since the author of this bundle conceived the project for it, the statistics indicate a notable diminution of crimes against the laws on the shoe of the beasts for draught can you say per exempel, criticising the affair of a large,Ⓐtextual note economic point of view. Farther, returning to subjects of more local nature, you can remark that since the publishing of this work was resolved, the paving-stones of your domiciliary town are used less more on the outside and much more on the foot which is resting on the earth, so that the publishing of a work like this signifies for penurious communities a notable sparing in the expenses for the pavement and all such things more which you can say much more nice, justeⒶtextual note and with more penetration thenⒶtextual note they here areⒶtextual note written, of course.
But why does that man not ask such a preface to a well knownⒶtextual note humorist of his own country? Is that not somewhat suspected?, will you possibly remark to yourself.
Most honourated and venerated Sir, I avow openhearted that I annulate the whole admiration which I ever have showed for your logical power, your sagacity, your spirited look on all problems which are possible and that I retract all the declarations which I ever have done about this, when you put this ask indeed.
For what should I beginn with such a preface,Ⓐtextual note that better could be calculatedⒶtextual note a funeral sermon?
[begin page 293] Supposed that Netherland possesed a humorist, supposed even a well knownⒶtextual note humorist, stronger: supposed thatⒶtextual note you yourself were a Netherlandth humorist, do you mean that I should venture to appear with a preface of you? I should not dare it when my life were me precious! I should admirate you in this case as much as I do it now, yes,Ⓐtextual note perhaps still more! For I should think: such a bad fate has the poor man not deserved! And I should regret at most that your were not born under more gracefull circumstances: that you were not a native of Greenland, not a citizen of the Nord Pole, not a man of Mars (the planet), but above all: that you were not an American.
And this cannot wunder you indeed! For it is you known of course, how much admiration my countrymen cherishⒶtextual note for all the races, nations and peoples which I have enumerated and above all: how much admiration they cherisch for your countrymen.
Coming from your independent America, where narrow-mindednesses like these are unknown of course, you must have been striked double so strong on your travels through our country—you rambles it atⒶtextual note all sidesⒺexplanatory note and knowⒶtextual note all his corners is not it? An American who does not run through our country is not a true American, as we learn on the school!—by the great predilection for all that is from you and your countrymen you saw here.
Or do not you know more with what a surprise each Netherlander used to listen, when you,Ⓐtextual note speaking about the beautiful things that you had seen on your travels, told him somewhat from the curiosities of his own country, from which he never had heard till this day. In your own country is that quite otherwise of course. Your countrymen travel in the foreign only then, when they know their own countryⒶtextual note as good as their own house, but here is this just the contrary and does not exist anybody who knows exactely what there is to be seen in his native country. And stronger and stronger: when one says that it has indeed somewhat that is remarkable, they do not believe it at once, safe when it is an American who says that, for in this case is it the truth, of course!
And do you mean that I should dare to appear with a preface of a countryman under such circumstances? Sir, I do not think about it! Even when [if]Ⓐtextual note I could obtain for my bundle a preface from the most orthodox and old fashioned clergyman which Netherland possesses then should I not yet think about it, though this is the best recommandation for all kinds of things that can be haved by us!
[begin page 294] No most honourated Sir, only with a preface of you I can reach my aim. A recommandation of you, a humorist, the most famous humorist of your country, the most famous humorist of America and my success is certain! When I can show to an editor this, then undoubted is my bundle printed. Without my sketches, that is possible. But may hap are these then printed on the coverside (Umschlag), when no advertisements are received and when the editor is a generous man. Or possibly does he place them on loose papers between the pages of your preface, in variation with the announcements and with the intention to make the reading of these a few less monotonous. But in each case is the aim reached.
And should you refuse to grant your support therefore? Most honourated Sir, I cannot believe that. I do an appeal on your kindness! Your dollarkings sustain our painters for buying their pictures, from which they else never were delivered and even in a much greater quantity thenⒶtextual note ever has been painted by them and do you like to stay behind your countrymen?
No most honourated Sir, you will not do that! I am sure about that! But it will be you an honour to make possible by yourⒶtextual note powerful support the edition of a book,Ⓐtextual note that else by no one of my countrymen would be desired, by no body would be bought and that no one on earth would have costed a moment of joy.
Have I gained the pleading?
Ah! itⒶtextual note is true! I have forgotten something! You know literal nothing about my person!
ButⒶtextual note what can I say you that is able to awake faith and confidence? When I tell you pretty things from myself, then do you think: the man lies of course!, and I do not obtain my preface. When I confess on the other hand honestly my bad deeds enⒶtextual note qualities, then do you think: I have immediately thought that there was something wrong with this man and who knows what he yet keeps back. And I do not obtain my preface not at all.
Nevertheless I do not like to say no anything and in order to show you that my will is good, I communicate you, that my length is 1.61 meter, my complexion is bleachⒶtextual note, eyes blue, hairs flaxen, and I bear a beard. Nose common, ears common, mouth common, one fore-tooth fails. Bears black dress of dubious stuff, black hat, marked C.W., white nether garments, marked J.A.B., C.B.Ⓐtextual note and P.B., save the collar which is dirty and the pocked handkerchief which is marked K.S.D. Boots black, weared off and in a great time not polished. Has in his pockets a pipe, a notebook without leafs, an ivory haft of an Indian sword and presumptively his neck-clothⒺexplanatory note.
It is not much likeⒶtextual note you see, but I do not know more that is guarantated sure. It is the description that the police gave of me eight years ago, when I had gone away on a New Years evening to gratulate an old friend but had stand away about twenty fourⒶtextual note hours, because a dried ditch, the place where I had seen him the last time, was freezed now and I not had could understand in what manner such an important mutuation canⒶtextual note happen in the two or three month that had passed since.
And might you find that all this is not sufficient to trust me in the affair from which is the question, then, most honourated Sir offer I docily my good name and beg you to agree me that what I ask you forⒶtextual note disdain; I am with joy well pleased therewith.
Receive in each case the declaration of my most respectful sentiments and admiration
Your dediated reader
Pieter Bausch.
(nom de plume “Peet Boetser.”Ⓐtextual note
P.S. WhenⒶtextual note perhaps you have to make a present of some weared off or superfluous humours, I recommend myself politely for sending.
P.S. My wife who had read this letter, says that you will problably send me a physician and not a preface and that you will believe that all this is foolishness. And your preface would help us so good through the winter, she says. I have answered her of course that this physician, when [if]Ⓐtextual note he came soon, still could draw me a bad tooth, for though there is something in her words that is just, the prosperity and peace of our home forbid me to avow this. Nevertheless I will not wholly neglect her observationⒶtextual note and declare also that all thatⒶtextual note I have written here is deep earnest, especially that what belongs the preface. Farther that it woodⒶtextual note be very kind from you were so officious and that this preface,Ⓐtextual note when [if]Ⓐtextual note you came to day or to morrow [begin page 295] in the neighbourhood of our house threatens you with the grateful cries of a whole family. We do not have children, so that you will be obliged to renounce of their voice, at our regret, but the parents have very good lungs on the other hand.
That is it almost what my wife said, but translated by me in pathetic stile and therwithⒶtextual note does she have her will too.Ⓐtextual note
9 Dec. ’08Ⓐtextual note
AmsterdamⒶtextual note
Vrolikstraat 333III Ⓐtextual note
HollandⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note
title Dictated December 22, 1908] The first three paragraphs of this “dictation”—that is, Clemens’s introduction to the letter from Bausch—are actually based on a manuscript.
what Irwin has done, with his delightful Japanese schoolboy] Wallace Irwin (1875–1959) was a prolific journalist, author, humorist, and staff writer for Collier’s magazine. In the voice of a Japanese “schoolboy,” Hashimura Togo (actually a thirty-five-year-old domestic servant), Irwin wrote letters in fractured English on American society and politics. These were serialized in Collier’s between November 1907 and February 1909 (although not in every issue). The series was tremendously popular in its day, and remained so for decades, but is now regarded as stereotypical and racist (“Wallace Irwin, Humorist, Dead,” New York Times, 15 Feb 1959, 87; Irwin 1909, 3; Uzawa 2006). Clemens had written to the magazine the previous July:
July 6/08.
Hon. Collier Weekly which furnish Japanese Schoolboy to public not often enough, when is his book coming out? I shall be obliged if you will send me the earliest copy, or at least the next earliest. That Boy is the dearest & sweetest & frankest & wisest & funniest & delightfulest & lovablest creation that has been added to our literature for a long time. I think he is a permanency, & I hope so, too.
Truly yours
S. L. Clemens
Collier’s published a facsimile of Clemens’s letter on 8 August 1908 (41:22), and Irwin wrote to thank Clemens (undated letter, CU-MARK):
Dear Mr. Clemens:—
May I drop a line to say how deeply grateful I feel for your appreciation of my Japanese kid, which has just reached me through Collier’s. A word of praise from you is more than I ever hoped to merit; and suddenly, out of a clear sky, to receive your praise in such hearty quantities—well, little Togo is still scratching his Japanese pompadour and wondering if it’s all true.
No, the Japanese schoolboy is not out in book form yet, but we have been approached by some publishers and hope to have it inside covers in time. When it does come out in book form, may I be permitted to send you the first copy off the press?
Hoping that I may teach Hashimura to live up to the good things you have said about him, I am
Very sincerely yours
Wallace Irwin
When the book was published in February 1909, Irwin sent an early copy to Clemens, who responded by letter on 8 March: “The aged & mouldy, but good & wise Mark Twain, benefactor of the human race,—say-so of Hon. public—has received the book of Japanese Schoolboy, other benefactor of Hon. human race, & sends very heartiest thanks, & cannot keep from reading it all the time, & chuckling & enjoying” (CU-BANC).
Esperanto or Volapück] Artificial international languages, both created in the late nineteenth century. Esperanto was invented by Ludwig L. Zamenhof of Russia, and was based largely upon words common to the principal European languages. At various times Esperanto has been used by governmental and international agencies, including the U.S. Army, but no country has adopted it officially. Volapük, which Esperanto supplanted, was invented by Johann Martin Schleyer, a German Catholic priest; it was based chiefly on English, but used some root words from German, French, and Latin.
your travels through our country—you rambles it at all sides] Clemens and his family visited the Netherlands in mid-July 1879, during the European sojourn that provided material for A Tramp Abroad ( N&J2 , 48). He made only brief mention of that part of the trip, at the end of the last chapter: “From Paris I branched out and walked through Holland and Belgium, procuring an occasional lift by rail or canal when tired, and I had a tolerably good time of it ‘by and large’ ” (SLC 1880, 580). That there were extensive “rambles” is clear, however, from Olivia Clemens’s letter of 20 July 1879 to her mother, in which she reported on “fascinating” outings in and around Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and The Hague (CtHMTH).
my length is 1.61 meter . . . neck-cloth] On 27 February 1909 Bausch completed this self-portrait by sending Clemens a photograph of himself and his wife, Nellie (see the photograph following page 300).
Holland] Clemens was so amused by Bausch’s letter that he published this entire Autobiographical Dictation in Harper’s Weekly on 20 February 1909 (SLC 1909d). Four additional letters from Bausch survive in the Mark Twain Papers, written between 27 February and 22 June 1909, but none of Clemens’s replies has been found. It is clear, however, that Clemens answered him twice, sending both the requested preface (now lost) and fifty dollars, as compensation for his contribution to the Harper’s article. Bausch thanked Clemens in a semicoherent twenty-six-page letter of 17 March, in which he remarked:
And then the compliment which you makes me! Until now it was indeed only my cat who it is sitting warm and calm on my knees when I write, who found pleasure in my work! And then the preface! And then the fifty dollar! . . . One of the first results has been that my mother in law has now nothing to criticise more at my work. . . . And that was not yet all. For when one of my brothers in law, who is a dealer in chease, and who feels himself therefore always me superior, heard from your letter, he came immediately to my home to do tell him all. . . . I comprehended very well, of course, that this was the beginning of the glory and a fore-token of that what will be mentioned at my regard in the newspapers, when I will be a famous man and will be interviewed about all sorts of things, wherewith I have nothing to do and will be obliged to say my meaning about all sorts of questions from which I do not know only anything, just as is done by all famous men at their turn.
And all this I thank your preface! (CU-MARK)
On 27 April Bausch expressed his gratitude yet again (in a letter only ten pages long), in which he described his financial difficulties and noted that “the 50 dollar which your letter contained, have saved our life.” At this point Clemens grew weary of the correspondence; on the envelope of this letter he wrote: “No answer. NEVER try to do a stranger a kindness” (CU-MARK). His failure to respond led Bausch to write a fourth letter on 22 June, this time evidently addressed to Harper’s Weekly, to inquire “wether mr. Clemens is indisposed or is hindered to answer for some other reason” (enclosed with Duneka to SLC, 2 July 1909, CU-MARK).
Source documents.
MS Manuscript, leaves numbered 1–3: ‘Dictated December . . . his letter:’ (290 title–30).Bausch to SLC Manuscript letter, Pieter Bausch to SLC, 9 December 1908: ‘Most honourated . . . Holland’ (290.31–295.9).
TS ribbon Typescript, leaves numbered 1–12 by SLC, made by Howden from MS and Bausch’s letter and revised.
TS carbon (lost) Typescript carbon, revised.
Harper’s “A Capable Humorist,” Harper’s Weekly 53 (20 February 1909): 13.
MS is written on buff-colored laid paper measuring 5¾ by 8¾ inches. The proximate source for the text in Harper’s is no longer extant. It probably consisted of a carbon copy of TS, to which Clemens transferred the revisions he had made on the ribbon copy; several other revisions (two footnotes, for example) were added before publication—possibly on proofsheets. Howden’s TS ribbon contains a number of trivial errors. Many of these were corrected in ink, probably by Howden herself (these have not been listed), but others were overlooked. The text that Clemens revised was therefore corrupt, and in some instances, his changes were prompted by errors that Howden introduced. The present text is based on MS and Bausch’s original letter, emended to incorporate the following readings: revisions that Clemens inscribed on TS ribbon, including those he made in response to Howden’s typing errors; and readings that were discovered by collation of TS ribbon against Harper’s that are deemed to be the result of Clemens’s revision on the missing TS carbon, or on proofsheets. A number of minor substantives introduced by Howden, and additional ones presumably made by the Harper’s typesetter, have been rejected, but reported below, since there can be some doubt about their origin.