07 - Mark Twain; his life and work. A biographical sketch by William M. Clemens

Delve into the intriguing life of Mark Twain through the eyes of Will Clemens, who, despite not being related to the famed author, became an acquaintance and penned what may be the first comprehensive biography of Twain. Published on July 1, 1892, as No. 1 in The Pacific Library, this 200-page work was available for just 25¢ and garnered enough attention to be republished in 1894 by a Chicago publisher. In this insightful sketch, Clemens draws heavily on previously published works by other authors, offering a unique perspective on Twains literary legacy. (summary by John Greenman)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is chapter seven of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch by William M. Clemens. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Chapter seven in England and Germany,
read by John Greenman. In eighteen seventy two, Mark Twain
sailed for England to arrange for the European publication of

(00:23):
his works, and successfully securing Chatto and Windus as his
English representatives and the publishing house of Tauchnitz at Leipzig
as his continental agent. Already he was widely known and
quoted in England and was a welcome guest. In speaking
of his experience in London, he says, during my sojourn

(00:45):
in smoky, dirty grand Old England, I received an invitation
to attend a banquet there, and I went. It was
one of those tremendous dinners where there are eight hundred
to nine hundred invited guests. I hadn't been used to

(01:10):
that sort of thing, and I didn't feel quite at home.
When we took our seats at the table, I noticed
that at each plate was a little plan of the hall,
with the position of each guest numbered, so that one
could see at a glance where a friend was seated

(01:34):
by learning the number just before we fell to someone.
The Lord mayor, or whoever was bossing the occasion, arose
and began to read a list of those present. Number
one Lord so and so, a number two, the Duke

(01:55):
of something or other, and so on. When this individual
the name of some prominent political character or literary celebrity,
it would be greeted with more or less applause. The
individual who was reading the names did so in so
monotonous a manner that I became tired and began looking

(02:19):
about for something to engage my attention. I found the
gentleman next to me on the right, a well informed personage,
and I entered into conversation with him. I had never
seen him before, but he was a good talker and
enjoyed it. Suddenly, just as he was giving his views

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upon the future religious aspect of Great Britain, our ears
were assailed by a deafening storm of applause. Such a
clapping of hands I never heard before. It sent the
blood into my head with a rush, and I got

(03:05):
terribly excited. I straightened up and commenced clapping my hands
with all my might. I moved about in my chair
and clapped harder and harder. Who is it? I asked
the gentleman on my right, whose name did he read?

(03:28):
Samuel L. Clemens? He answered, I stopped plauding. I didn't
clap any more. It kind of took the life out
of me, and I sat there like a mummy and
didn't even get up and bow. It was one of

(03:48):
the most distressing fixes I ever got into, and it
will be many a day before I forget it. Mark
lectured on various occasions in England with striking success. Reverend H. R. Hawse,
who heard him at this time, writes, I heard him

(04:09):
once at the Hanover Square rooms. The audience was not
large nor very enthusiastic. I believe he would have been
an increasing success had he stayed longer. We had not
time to get accustomed to his peculiar way, and there
was nothing to take us by storm. He came on

(04:30):
the platform and stood quite alone. A little table with
the traditional water bottle and tumbler was by his side.
His appearance was not impressive, not very unlike the representation
of him in the various pictures in his tramp abroad.
He spoke more slowly than any other man I ever heard,

(04:53):
and did not look at his audience quite enough. I
do not think that he felt altogether at home with us,
or we with him. We never laughed loud or long.
We sat throughout expectant and on the kyvive, very well,
interested and gently simmering with amusement. With the exception of

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one exquisite description of the old Magdalen Ivy covered collegiate
buildings at Oxford University, I do not think there was
one thing worth setting down in print. I got no
information out of the lecture, and hardly a joke that
would wear or a story that would bear repeating. There
was a deal about the dismal lone silver Land, the

(05:39):
story of the Mexican plug that bucked, and a duel
which never came off, and another duel in which no
one was injured. And we sat patiently enough through it,
fancying that by and by the introduction would be over
and the lecture would begin. When Twain suddenly made his
bow and went off, it was over. I looked at

(06:02):
my watch. I was never more taken back. I had
been sitting there exactly an hour and twenty minutes. It
seemed ten minutes at the outside. If you have ever
tried to address a public meeting, you will know what
this means. It means that Mark Twain is a consummate

(06:23):
public speaker. If ever he chose to say anything, he
would say it marvelously well. But in the art of
saying nothing in an hour he surpasses our most accomplished
parliamentary speakers. Mister Twain relates as one of the most
harrowing experiences of his life a six hours ride across England.

(06:47):
His fellow traveler, an Englishman, who, shortly after they started,
drew forth the first volume of the English edition of
Innocence Abroad from his pocket and calmly perused it from
beginning to end without a smile. Then he drew forth
the second volume and read it as solemnly as the first.

(07:07):
Mark says he thought he should die, yet John Bull
was probably enjoying it after his own undemonstrative style. Upon
his return from England in eighteen seventy three, in conjunction
with Charles Dudley Warner, Mark Twain issued his fourth book,
The Gilded Age, which met with remarkable sale in this

(07:28):
country and in Europe. In eighteen seventy six, there appeared
the Atlantic Monthly that famous fragment Punch Brothers Punch with care.
It had a curious origin. Early in April eighteen seventy five,
the City Line of the New York and Harlem Railroad Company,
having adopted the punch system, posted in the panels of

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their cars a card of information and instruction to conductors
and passengers, both of whom were indirectly requested to watch
the other. It read as follows. The conductor, when he
receives a fair, must immediately punch in the presence of
the passenger a blue trip slip for an eight cents fair,

(08:12):
a buff trip slip for a sixth cents fair, a
pink trip slip for a three cents fair for coupon
and transfer tickets, punch the tickets. The poesy of the
thing was discovered almost as immediately as the conductor immediately punched,
and all sorts of jingles were accommodated to the measure.

(08:34):
In September, the first poem appeared in print, and various
versions appeared in the New York and Boston newspapers. In
the January eighteen seventy sixth Atlantic Mark Twain's literary Nightmare
appeared with the following version conductor, when you receive a
fair punch in the presence of the pass, and Jair,

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A blue trip slip for an eight cent fare, a
buff trip slip for a six cent fare, a pink
trip slip for a three cent fare, Punch in the
presence of the pass, and Jair chorus, Punch brothers, punch
with care, Punch in the presence of the pass, and Jair,

(09:16):
said Mark. I came across these jingling rhymes in a
newspaper a little while ago and read them a couple
of times. They took instant and entire possession of me.
All through breakfast, they went whilsting through my brain, and

(09:41):
when at last I rolled up my napkin, I could
not tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I
had carefully laid out my day's work the day before,
a thrilling tragedy in the novel which I am writing.

(10:03):
I went to my den to begin my deed of Blood.
I took up my pen, but all I could get
to say was punch in the presence of the pass
and Jair. I fought hard for an hour, but it

(10:23):
was useless. My head kept humming. A blue trip slip
four and eight cent fair, a buff trip slip four,
a six cent fair, and so on and so on.
Without peace or respite, the day's work was ruined. I

(10:45):
could see that plainly enough. I gave up and drifted
down town, and presently discovered that my feet were keeping
time to that relentless jingle. When I could stand it
no longer, I altered my step, but it did no good.

(11:07):
Those rhymes accommodated themselves to the new step and went
on harassing me, just as before. I returned home and
suffered all the afternoon, suffered all through an unconscious and
unrefreshing dinner, suffered and cried and jingled all through the evening,

(11:34):
went to bed and rolled, tossed, and jingled right along
the same as ever. Got up at midnight frantic, and
tried to read. But there was nothing visible upon the
whirling page except punch punch, in the presence of the

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pass and jair. By sunrise, I was out of my mind,
and everybody marveled and was distressed at the idiotic burden
of my ravings. The literary nightmare awakened horse car poets
throughout the world. Algernon Charles Swinburne in Las Revue de

(12:20):
de Monde had a brief copy of French verses written
with all his well known warmth and melody. Le chen
de conte dicteiurre allah et de pay, the conducteur perseras
en plain vu de voyageur coille rossois trois sous a
coupon vert a, coupon jean pourci su se la fere

(12:46):
a poor uissu said aunt, coupon coulais de rose en
plair vus di voiger girl, don't perse sougnors ma'me frere
toutain plain vieu devois yager ritzetera. The Western An enterprising
Saint Louis magazine had a terrible attack and addressing Marco Twain,

(13:09):
it came out in a Latin anthem with a following chorus,
pungiti fratris, pungiti, pungitikun amore, bunghiti pro victore dile gensimi pungiti.
A man who had just been reading the literary nightmare,
said the Austin Vada Revelli stepped into a main street

(13:32):
saloon muttering punch Brothers punch with care punch in the
presence of the passeng chair. When a retired prize fighter,
who was snoozing in a corner, got up and accosting
the nightmare fellow demanded, whose ears are you going to punch?
You bloody duffer. The other fellow tried to explain, but

(13:54):
the fighter insisted that he the other fellow had said,
punch brothers, punch with care, punched that big feller square
in the ear. The Bridgeport standard man said, Mark Twain
will sail for Europe on business in the spring, but
if he plays any jokes on the captain there and

(14:16):
don't come down with the red glare fare, the captain
will probably rip and tear and punch him in the
presence of the passengair. When The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
appeared in eighteen seventy six, the fame of Mark Twain
was universal. In this volume, he revealed the story of
his boyhood days on the Mississippi and his pranks and

(14:38):
adventures in the town of Hannibal. It was published as
a book for boys and commanded an enormous sale, edition
after edition being exhausted. In fact, Tom Sawyer sold better
than any of his books, excepting Innocence Abroad. In the Meanwhile,
the Gilded Age had been dramatized, and the production of

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the comedy on the American stage netted the author large
sums of money. Injun Joe, one of the principal characters
in Tom Sawyer, still lives at Hannibal, Missouri, and is
one of the noted individuals of the town. He drives
an old white horse and a red express wagon, borne
down on one side from long and hard service. Joe

(15:22):
hauls trunks from the depot and chores around with his
horse and wagon. He loves a dollar more than anybody
else in the town, and out of his meager earnings
he has accumulated quite a fortune. He owns twelve tenement
houses in Hannibal, ranging in value from five hundred dollars
to a thousand dollars each. Yet from the clothes that

(15:43):
he wears, one would naturally think that he would be
constantly in dread of the ragman coming along and casting
him into a sack of old iron and rags. A
well known literary critic, in reviewing Tom Sawyer said, this
literary wag has performed some services which entitle him to

(16:04):
the gratitude of his generation. He has run the traditional
Sunday school boy through his literary mangle and turned him out,
washed and ironed into a proper state of flatness and collapse.
That whining, canting, early dying, anemic creature was the nauseating

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model held up to the full blooded, mischievous lads of
bygone years as worthy of their imitation. He poured his
religious hypocrisy over every honest pleasure a boy had, He
whined his lachrymos warnings on every playground. He vexed their lives.

(16:47):
So when Mark grew old enough, he went gunning for him,
and lo wherever his soul may be, the skin of
the strumous young Pietist is now neatly tacked up to
view on the Sunday school door of today as a warning,
and the lads of today see no particular charm in

(17:10):
a priggish hydropathical existence. In eighteen seventy seven appeared a
volume of his complete sketches, which included most of his
fugitive newspaper articles. In the following year, April eleventh, eighteen
seventy eight, he sailed for Europe in the steamship Hulsatia.
He was accompanied by his family, and after traveling in England,

(17:32):
France and Switzerland, settled down to spend the summer in Germany.
Here he obtained the materials for his famous book, A
Tramp Abroad. In this volume, Harris Guide and Courier is
introduced to the reader. Harris is not only invited to
bow promiscuously, but is set on to talk to doubtful people,

(17:53):
to entertain boores, and generally to be the butt of
embarrassing situations. Mister Claremens made a minute study of the
Germans their manners, habits, tastes and amusements. We all remember
his treatment of the cases and gender in the German
grammar mine gutend freeun minss guten freeund mynn gutten freeuned

(18:22):
them and den and dem until one feels one might
better go without friends in Germany than take all this
trouble about them. What a bother, he cries, It is
to decline a good male. But that is nothing to
the trouble we are landed in by the female. Every

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man has a gender, and there is no sense or
system in the distribution. In German. A young lady has
no sex, while a turnip has. Thus, you say, Wilhelm,
where is the turnip? She has gone to the kitchen
where is the accomplished young lady. It has gone to

(19:04):
the opera. Still better were his illustrations of the German fishwife,
his argument with a raven, his adventures with a blue jay,
and his perilous journey on the river raft were afterward
exquisitely described in A Tramp Abroad, published in eighteen eighty.
While on his return from Germany, he tarried in London

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and Glasgow, and while in the latter city, was elected
a member of the Scottish Society of Literature and Art.
End of chapter seven read by John Greenman.