(December 1905)
Shortly after 30 November 1905, his seventieth birthday, Clemens wrote this retrospective essay outlining the stages of his long climb from infancy to old age, a progression that he described more elaborately in the speech which he delivered at the anniversary dinner given in his honor.1 A part of the last paragraph of “Old Age,” in which the author addresses himself as the “belated fag-end of a foolish dream” of which there is “nothing left but You, centre of a snowy desolation,” echoes the conclusion that he had written in 1904 for “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger”: “It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but You. And You are but a Thought—a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”2
I think it likely that people who have not been hereⒶemendation will be interested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth of November, fresh from care-freeⒶalteration in the MS and frivolous 69, and was disappointed.
There is nothing novelⒶalteration in the MS about it, nothing striking,Ⓐalteration in the MS nothing to thrill you and make your eye glitter and your tongue cry out, “Oh, but it is wonderful, perfectlyⒶalteration in the MS wonderful!” Yes, it is disappointing. You say, “Is this it?— this? Ⓐalteration in the MS after all this talkⒶalteration in the MS and fuss of a thousand generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier and looked about them and told what they saw and felt? why, it looks just like 69.”
And that is true. Also it is natural;Ⓐalteration in the MS for you have not come by the fast express, you have been lagging and dragging across the world'sⒶalteration in the MS continents behind oxen;Ⓐalteration in the MS when that is your paceⒶalteration in the MS one country melts into the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice the change: 70 looks like 69; 69 looked likeⒶalteration in the MS 68; 68 looked like 67—and so on, back, and back, to the beginning.Ⓐalteration in the MS If you climb to a summit and look back—ah, then you see!
Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country and climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to the ice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancy merged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth into indefiniteⒶemendation Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood into [begin page 442] definite Manhood; definite Manhood with aggressiveⒶemendation ambitions into sobered and heedful Husbandhood and Fatherhood; these into troubled and foreboding Age,Ⓐalteration in the MS with graying hair; this into Old Age, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, the worshippers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, a tradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dreamⒶalteration in the MS, a dream that was so ingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing left but YouⒶalteration in the MS, centre of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit, gazing out over the stages of that long trek and asking Yourself “would you do it again if you had the chance?”
The manuscript is copy-text. There are no textual notes, and no ambiguous compound is hyphenated at the end of a line in the manuscript.