Explanatory Notes
Apparatus Notes
MTPDocEd
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The Fable of the Yellow Terror

(1904–1905)

In “The Mysterious Stranger” Mark Twain had written, “the pagan world will go to school to the Christian: not to acquire his religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those, to kill missionaries and converts with.”1 This fable offers a similar prophecy: the “Butterflies” (the Western powers) “have taught one tribe of Bees how to use its sting, it will teach its brother-tribe. The two together will be able to banish all the Butterflies some day.” Mark Twain proclaims as well the coming commercialization and industrialization of the Far East: “Also, you have given the Bees the honey-appetite—forced it upon them—and now the frenzy of it will never leave them.”

Paine dated the manuscript “About 1905—on the Russo-Jap. War.” The paper is the same as that used for “Flies and Russians,” and, like that work, this tale was probably written in late 1904 or early 1905.

Editorial Notes
1 

MSM , p. 137.

Textual Commentary

The manuscript is the copy-text; the author's unrevised typescript is also in the Mark Twain Papers. There are no textual notes, and no ambiguous compound is hyphenated at the end of a line in the manuscript.

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The Fable of the Yellow Terror

Along, long time ago the Butterflies held a vast territory which was flowery and fragrant and beautiful. The Butterflies were of many kinds, but all the kinds were richly clothed and all had a fine and cultivated taste in colors and were highly trained in etiquettealteration in the MS, and deportment and in the other graces and accomplishments which make the charm of life in an advanced and elegant civilization. There was not another civilization among the animals that approached that of the Butterflies. They were very proud of it, insufferably proud of it, and always anxious to spread italteration in the MS around the planet and cram it down other people's throats and improve them.

They had an idea that they were the only people that knew the true way to be happy and how to lam happiness into other people and make them good. So they sent missionaries to all the pagan insectsalteration in the MS to teach them how to be tranquil and unafraid on a deathbed, and then sent trader-bugsalteration in the MS to make them long for the deathbed, and then followed up the trader-bugs with diplomat-bugsalteration in the MS and undertaker-bugsalteration in the MS to perfect the blessings of the conferred civilization and furnish the deathbed,alteration in the MS and charge for the funeral. There was hardly a single Butterflyalteration in the MS of all the millions that did not boast of this civilization with his mouth, and laugh at it in private. For truly it was a whitewashed hum-bug, and few there were that prayed for it. Except with the mouth.

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The Butterflies had what is called a cinch on a great and profitable art. This was the art of making honey. Also a cinch on another great and profitable art. This was the art of killing. For in those days the Butterfly had a sting. He not only had a sting but he was the only bird in the world that had studied out how to use it scientifically and devastatingly. It made him Boss. There was not a weakalteration in the MS and ignorant nation that could stand against him. Multitudes were nothing to him—nothing at all.alteration in the MS If they had a property he wanted, he wentalteration in the MS there and took it, and gave them his civilization in the place of it, and was pleased with himself, and praised his Maker for being always on his side, which was quite true, and for giving him such a chance to be noble and do good.

His whole time was taken up in shovingalteration in the MS his civilization and his honey. His whole ambition was to widen and ever widen the market for his honey, and get richer and richer and richer and holier and holier and holier all the time.

At last he had covered all the ground but one. That was the vast empire of the Bees. He tried to get in there, but was warned away. He kept trying, but the Bees kept discouraging him. Courteously, but firmly. The Bees were a simple and peaceable folk, poor and hard-working and honest, and they did not want any civilization. They begged to be let alone; they held out against all persuasions.alteration in the MS They wanted no honey, and said so. They did not know how to make it themselves, and did not wish to learn. They still held out. Courteously and kindly, but firmly.

At last the Butterflies were tiredalteration in the MS of this. They said that a nation that had a chance to get civilization and buy honey and didn't take it was a block in the way of progress and enlightenment and the yearningalteration in the MS desires of God, and must be made to accept the boon and bless the booner; so they set about working up a moral-platedalteration in the MS pretext, and soon they found a good one, and advertised it. They said that those fat and diligent and contentedalteration in the MS Bees, munching grass and cabbage, ignorant of honey, ignorant of civilization and rapacity and treachery and robbery and murder and prayer and one thing and another, and joying in their eventless life and in the sumptuous beauty of their golden jackets, were a Yellow Peril.

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It took. It went like wildfire. It was a splendid phrase. It didn't seem to have any meaning, as applied to a far-away and unoffending mighty multitude that hadn't a desire in the world but to stay by themselvesalteration in the MS and be let alone, but that did not signify: a Yellow Peril is a Yellow Peril, and a shuddery and awful thing to think of, and has to be crushed, mashed, obliterated, whether there is any such thing or not.

So each ofalteration in the MS the different tribes of Butterflies sent in a two-hundred-dollar missionary with the private purpose of getting him massacred and collecting a million dollars cash damages onalteration in the MS him, along with a couple of provinces and such other things as might be lying around; and when the Bees resisted, civilization had its chance! When it got through, there wasn't a Bee that wasn't bruised and battered and sore, and most humble and apologetic and submissive.

The enlightened world of Butterflydom rejoiced and gave thanks. And properly; for wasn't the Yellow Peril over and done with, for good and all?

It looked so. Then there was a great peace, and a holy tranquillity, and the Finger of God was visible in it all, as usual. When a paying job is finished and rounded up, he is a cross-eyed short-sighted person indeed who can't find the Finger of God in it.

Things went on handsomely. And handsomer and handsomer all the time. The Bees began to like honey and buy it. And they liked it better and better, and bought more and more of it, and civilization was happy to the marrow. One cleveralteration in the MS tribe of Bees even began to learn how to make honey itself—which made civilization proud, and it said “They are rising out of their darkness—we have lifted them up—how noble we are, and how good.” Next that tribe wanted to learn the other great art, the sacred monopoly of the loftiest of civilizations—the art of how to kill and cripple and mutilate, scientifically. And they did learn it, and with astonishing quickness and brilliancy. Whereupon civilization rejoiced yet more, and was prouder of its nobleness and beneficence than ever.

For a time. Then there was an episode. This progressive tribe of Bees had picked up another specialty of all high civilizations, ancient and modern—land-grabbing; and presently, while working this spe- [begin page 429] cialty alteration in the MS it came into collision with a vast tribe of Butterflies who were likewisealteration in the MS out grabbing territory, and a fight resulted. The Bees showed that they had learned to be remarkably prompt andalteration in the MS handy with their stings, those little weapons which had been so harmless until education taught them what God had intended the weaponsalteration in the MS for.

There was a market for wise observations, now, and a grave gray Grasshopperemendation suppliedalteration in the MS it. He said to a prominent Butterfly—

“You have taught one tribe of Bees how to use its sting, it will teach its brother-tribe. The two together will be able to banish all the Butterflies some day, and keep them out; for they are uncountable in numbers and will be unconquerable when educated. Also, you have given the Bees the honey-appetite—forced it upon them—and now the frenzy of it will never leave them. Also, you have taught the brilliant tribe how to make it, and you will see results. They will make as prime an article of honey as any Butterfly can turn out; they will make it cheaper than any Butterfly can make it; they are here on the spot, you are the other side of the world, transportation will cost them nothing—you can't compete. They will get this vast market, and starve you out, and make you stay at home, where they used to beg you to stay, and you wouldn't listen. That will happen, no matter how this present scuffle may turn out. Whether Bee or Butterfly win, it is all the same, the Butterfly will have lost the market. There are five hundred million Bees; it is not likely that you can whip them without combining, and there is nothing in your history to indicate that your tribes can combine, even when conferringalteration in the MS enlightenment and annexingalteration in the MS swag are the prize. Yet if you do not subdue them now, before they get well trained and civilized, they may break over the frontiers some day and go land-grabbing in Europe, to do honor to your teaching. It may be that you will lose your stingsalteration in the MS and your honey-art by and by, from lack of practice, and be and remainalteration in the MS merely elegant and ornamental. Maybe you ought to have let the Yellow Peril alone, as long as there wasn't any. Yet you ought to be proud, for in creating a something out of a nothing, you have done what was never done before, save by the Creator of all things.”

The Butterfly gave thanks, coldly, and the Grasshopper asked for his passports.

Editorial Emendations The Fable of the Yellow Terror
  Grasshopper ●  grasshopper
Alterations in the Manuscript The Fable of the Yellow Terror
 etiquette] follows canceled ‘the’.
 spread it] follows canceled ‘cram it.’
 pagan insects] originally ‘pagans’; the ‘s’ canceled and ‘insects’ interlined with a caret.
 trader-bugs] originally ‘traders’; the ‘s’ canceled and ‘-bugs’ interlined with a caret here and at 426.16.
 diplomat-bugs] originally ‘diplomats’; the ‘s’ canceled and ‘-bugs’ interlined with a caret.
 undertaker-bugs] interlined with a caret above canceled ‘soldiers and gunboats’; originally ‘undertakers’; the ‘s’ canceled and ‘-bugs’ added.
 deathbed,] the comma mended from a period.
 Butterfly] ‘B’ mended from ‘b’.
 a weak] follows canceled ‘an’.
 nothing at all.] followed by canceled ‘he despised them.’; the period mended from a comma.
 he went] follows canceled ‘he sent a missionary’.
 shoving] originally ‘shovel’; ‘ing’ written over wiped-out ‘el’.
 persuasions.] followed by canceled paragraph ‘At l’.
 were tired] ‘were’ interlined with a caret above canceled ‘got’.
 yearning] interlined with a caret above canceled ‘affectionate’.
 moral-plated] interlined with a caret above canceled ‘pious’.
 contented] followed by canceled ‘and ignorant’.
 by themselves] ‘by’ interlined with a caret above canceled ‘to’.
 each of] interlined with a caret.
 damages on] ‘on’ written over an ampersand.
 clever] interlined with a caret.
 while working this specialty] interlined with a caret; the comma preceding added.
 likewise] interlined with a caret.
 prompt and] interlined with a caret.
 the weapons] originally ‘them’; the ‘m’ canceled and ‘weapons’ interlined with a caret.
 supplied] interlined above canceled ‘furnished’.
 conferring] interlined with a caret.
 annexing] interlined with a caret.
 lose your stings] follows canceled ‘be merely’.
 and remain] interlined with a caret.