Explanatory Notes
Apparatus Notes
MTPDocEd
[begin page 388]
143. A Graceful Compliment
10–31 December 1865

This sketch was probably part of Clemens' regular San Francisco letter to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. An incomplete clipping of it survives in the Yale Scrapbook. The clipping bears an advertisement for the Bank of America on the back dated “de 10 tf,” meaning December 10 until further notice. This suggests that the letter was not published before December 10, but it could have been published on that day or anytime after in December 1865, or perhaps even a little later.

Clemens' uneasy joking about his bohemian lack of money and property must be understood in the context of his resolution, less than two months before, to go “to work in dead earnest” to get out of debt. He said then that if he did “not get out of debt in 3 months,” he would commit suicide. On December 13 he told Orion that he had made a proposition to Herman Camp to sell the family's 30,000 acres of Tennessee land. “Now I don't want that Tenn land to go for taxes, & I don't want any ‘slouch’ to take charge of the sale of it. I am tired being a beggar—tired being chained to this accursed homeless desert,—I want to go back to a Christian land once more.” When this plan failed to meet Orion's approval, Clemens was again thrown back on his own resources. He did not get out of debt until sometime in 1868: in January of that year he told his family “I am gradually getting out of debt,” while in December he told Jervis Langdon that he did not “owe a cent” to anyone.1

Although there is an obvious hazard in taking the figures in this sketch literally, if we do assume that Clemens did not much alter the facts, it is [begin page 389] possible to estimate his income for 1864. The tax laws applying to that year indicate that Clemens' income over and above the $600 general exemption was taxed at the rate of five percent. Depending on whether or not he took an additional $200 exemption permitted renters, his income for 1864 was somewhere between $1,225 and $1,425.2

Clemens evidently considered using this sketch in his 1867 Jumping Frog book, for he slightly revised the clipping and listed it in the back of the Yale Scrapbook as among the seven sketches that he said did not “run average.” It was not ultimately reprinted.

Editorial Notes
1 Clemens to Orion and Mollie Clemens, 19–20 October 1865, CL1 , letter 95; Clemens to Orion Clemens, 13 December 1865, CL1 , letter 96; Clemens to Jane Clemens and Pamela Moffett, 24 January 1868, CL1 , letter 181; Clemens to Jervis Langdon, 29 December 1868, CL1 , letter 256.
2 Harry Edwin Smith, The United States Federal Internal Tax History from 1861 to 1871 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1914), pp. 45–66; MTCor , p. 72.
Textual Commentary

The first printing appeared in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, probably sometime between 10 and 31 December 1865. The only known copy of this printing, in a clipping in the Yale Scrapbook (p. 1A), is copy-text. The clipping is damaged and therefore incomplete: the last eight words of the surviving text have of necessity been conjectured from fragments of missing letters and figures. How much more of the text is wholly lost remains unknown: the ellipsis at 392.8 is therefore editorial. Mark Twain slightl; revised the clipping in early 1867 while preparing copy for JF1, and he listed the sketch as “Graceful Compliment” in the back of the scrapbook, along with six other sketches that did not “run average” (see the textual introduction, volume 1, pp. 538–539). The revised clipping remains in the scrapbook; the missing portion was probably lost through inadvertence, not from being removed for JF1 printer's copy. The sketch was not included in JF1, and Mark Twain did not subsequently reprint it. There are no textual notes.

[begin page 390]
A Graceful Compliment

One would hardly expect to receive a neat, voluntary compliment from so grave an institution as the United States Revenue Office, but such has been my good fortune. I have not been so agreeably surprised in many a day. The Revenue officers, in a communication addressed to me, fondle the flattering fiction that I am a man of means, and have got “goods, chattels and effects” —and even “real estate!” Gentlemen, you couldn't have paid such a compliment as that to any man who would appreciate it higher, or be more grateful for it than myself. We will drink together, if you object not.

I am taxed on my incomeemendation! This is perfectly gorgeous! I never felt so important in my life before. To be treated in this splendid way, just like another William B. Astorexplanatory note! Gentlemen, we must drink.

Yes, I am taxed on my income. And the printed paper which bears this compliment—all slathered over with fierce-looking written figures—looks as grand as a steamboat's manifest. It reads thus:

A curly bracket appears to the right of the next two lines.

Collector's Office,

U. S. Internal Revenue, First Dis't. Cal.

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Twain

Residence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . At Large

List and amount of tax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $31 25

Penalty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 12

[begin page 391]

Warrant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Total amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $36 82

Date. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . November 20, 1865.

C. ST GG,

Deputy Collector.

☞Please present this at the Collector'semendation office.”

Now I consider that really handsome. I have got it framed beautifully, and I take more pride in it than any of my other furniture. I trust it will become an heirloom and serve to show many generations of my posterity that I was a man of consequence in the land—that I was also the recipient of compliments of the most extraordinary nature from high officers of the national government.

On the other side of this complimentary document I find some happy blank verse headed “Warrant,” and signed by the poet “Frank Souléemendation explanatory note, Collector of Internal Revenue.” Some of the flights of fancy in this Ode are really sublime, and show with what facility the poetic fire can render beautiful the most unpromising subject. For instance: “You are hereby commanded to distrain upon so much of the goods, chattels and effects of the within named person, if any such can be found, etc.” However, that is not so much a flight of fancy as a flight of humor. It is a fine flight, though, anyway. But this one is equal to anything in Shakspeare: “But in case sufficient goods, chattels and effects cannot be found, then you are hereby commanded to seize so much of the real estate of said person as may be necessary to satisfy the tax.” There's poetry for you! They are going to commence on my real estate. This is very rough.alteration in the MS But then the officer is expressly instructed to find it first. That is the saving clause for me. I will get them to take it all out in real estate. And then I will give them all the time they want to find it in.

But I can tell them of a way whereby they can ultimately enrich the Government of the United States by a judicious manipulation of this little bill against me—a way in which even the enormous national debtexplanatory note may be eventually paid off! Think of it! Imperishable fame will be the reward of the man who finds a way to pay off the national debt without impoverishing the land; I offer to furnish that method and crown these gentlemen with that fadeless glory. It is so simple and plain that a child may understand it. It is thus: I perceive that by neglecting to pay my income tax within ten days after it was due, I have brought upon myself a “penalty” of three dollars and twelve cents extra tax for that ten days. Don't you see?—let her run! Every ten days, $3 12; every month of 31 days, $10; every year, $120; every century, $12,000; at the end of a hundred thousand years, $1,200,000,000 will be the interest that has accumulated. . . .emendation

Editorial Emendations A Graceful Compliment
  income (I-C)  ●  i[n]come
  Collector's (I-C)  ●  Co[ l]ector's
  Soulé (I-C)  ●  Soule
  $1,200,000,000 . . . accumulated. . . . (I-C)  ●  $1,200,[000,000] torn [the] int[erest] that has ac-torn
Alterations in the Manuscript A Graceful Compliment
 This . . . rough.] canceled.
   Source: Yale Scrapbook
Explanatory Notes A Graceful Compliment
 William B. Astor] Following the death of his father, John Jacob Astor, in 1848, William Backhouse Astor was reputed to be the country's wealthiest man.
 Frank Soulé] Soulé and Clemens were colleagues on the Morning Call in 1864. Sixteen years later Clemens remembered him as “one of the sweetest and whitest & loveliest spirits that ever wandered into this world by mistake” ( MTHL , 1:325). Soulé took an advanced degree in journalism at Wesley an College a few years before coming to California in 1849. For more than thirty years he worked on numerous San Francisco newspapers and in the mid-sixties served in the U.S. Customs House. He was one of the authors of The Annals of San Francisco. In addition, he composed a large amount of mediocre poetry, for some of which Clemens tried to help him find a publisher in 1880. Soulé was also collector of Internal Revenue in San Francisco for four years (John M. Hoffman, “Vignette of a Mystic in California,” Beta Theta Pi Magazine 94 [May 1967]: 323–324).
 enormous national debt] The public debt had risen from a prewar level of $65,000,000 to the sum of $2,808,549,437 by late 1865 (Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances for the Year 1865 [Washington: The Government Printing Office, 1865], pp. 17, 253).