08 - 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 eight of Mark Twain, His Life and Work,
a biographical sketch by William M. Clemens, read by John Greenman.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter eight
his later works. On September third, eighteen seventy nine, mister
Clemens and his family arrived in New York on the

(00:21):
steamship Galbeer, having been abroad for a period of sixteen months.
There said Mark to a friend as the ship left
quarantine and began her journey up the bay. The danger
is finally past when the ship begins to roll sideways
and kick up behind. At the same time, I always

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know I am expected to perform a certain duty. I
learned it years ago on the Quaker city. You might
suppose that I would have forgotten my part after so
long a residence on shore, But there it is again,

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its habit. Everything connected with the sea comes down to
a matter of habit. You might confine me for forty
years in a Rhode Island corn patch, and at the
end of that time, I'd know just as well what

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to do when a ship begins to kick as I
do at this moment. The darkest night never confuses me
in the least It's a little singular when you look
at it, isn't it. But I presume it's attributable to

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the solemn steadfastness of the Great Deep. As a conscientious
Republican in his political pres references, mister Clemens took an
active interest in the presidential campaign of eighteen eighty. While
visiting in Elmira, New York, in the fall of that year,
he made a short speech one Saturday night introducing to

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a Republican meeting General Hawley of Connecticut. In the course
of his remarks, mister Clements said, General Hawley is a
member of my church at Hartford, and the author of
beautiful Snow. Maybe he will deny that, but I am

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only here to give him a character from his last
place as a pure citizen. I respect him as a
personal friend of years. I have the warmest regard for
him as a neighbor whose vegetable garden adjoins mine. Why

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why I watch him as the author of beautiful snow?
He has added a new pang to winter. He is
a square true man in honest politics. And I must
say he occupies a mighty lonesome position. So broad, so

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bountiful is his character that he never turned a tramp
empty handed from his door, but always gave him a
letter of introduction to me. Pure, honest, incorruptible. That is

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Joe Hawley. Such a man in politics is like a
bottle of perfumery in a glue factory. It may modify
the stench, but it doesn't destroy it. I haven't said
any more of him than I would say of myself.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this is General Hawley. In November eighteen
eighty a charity fair was in progress in Buffalo, and
during its course a small journal called The Bizarre Bulletin
was published. In one number of this paper appeared a
contribution from the pen of Mark Twain entitled A Tale

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for Struggling Young Poets. Well, Sir, there was a young
fellow who believed that he was a poet, But the
main difficulty with him was to get anybody else to
believe it. Many and many a poet has split on

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that rock. If it is a rock, many and many
a poet will split on it, Thank you God. The
young fellow I speak of used all the customary devices,
and with the customary results to it. He competed for

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prizes and didn't take any He sent specimens of poetry
to famous people and asked for a candid opinion, meaning
a puff, and didn't get it. He took advantage of
dead persons and obituaried them inostensible poetry, but it made

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him no friends, certainly none among the dead. But at
last he heard of another chance. There was going to
be affair in Buffalo, accompanied by the usual in offensive paper,
and the editor of that paper offered a prize of

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ten dollars for the best original poem on the usual
topic of spring. No poem to be considered unless it
should possess positive value. Well, sir, he shook up his muse.
He introduced into her a rousing charge of information from

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his jug, and then sat down and dashed off the
following madrigal, just as easy as lying. Hail beauteous gladsome Spring,
A poem by S. L. Clemens, Number one thousand, one

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hundred and sixty three, Hartford, Connecticut, November seventeenth, George P.
Bissell and Company, Banker's pay to missus David Gray, or
order for f ten dollars household account s. L. Clemens.

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Did he take the prize? Yes, he took the prize.
The poem and its title didn't seem to go together
very well. But no matter, that sort of thing has
happened before. It didn't rhyme, neither was it blank verse,

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for the blanks were all filled. Yet it took the prize.
For this reason, no other poem offered was really worth
more than four dollars and fifty cents, whereas there was
no getting around the petrified fact that this one was

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worth ten dollars. In truth, there was not a banker
in the whole town who was willing to invest a
cent in those other poems. But every one of them
said this one was good, sound, seaworthy poetry, and worth

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its face. Such is the way in which that struggling
young poet achieved recognition at last and got a start
along the road that leads to lyric eminence, whatever that
may mean. Therefore, let other struggling young poets be encouraged

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by this to go striving. Mark Twain. Not long after this,
mister Clemens acted as an auctioneer at the last sale
at a bazaar or fair held in Hartford. In opening
the sale, he said, well, now, after a week of
work by these ladies, who have handled an immense amount

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of money without putting a penny into their private pockets.
I their mere clerk propose as clerk's will sometimes to
knock down something. It was at this time that the
humorist wrote a letter to a friend in Tennessee expressing

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his admiration for Artemis Ward, as follows, Dear Sir, one
of the first questions which Londoners ask me is whether
I knew Artemis Ward. The answer yes makes them my
friends on the spot. Artemis seems to have been on

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the warmest terms with thousands of those people. Well, he
seems never to have written a harsh thing against anybody.
Would neither have I, for that matter, at least nothing
harsh enough for a body to fret about. And I

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think he never felt bitter toward people. There may have
been three or four other people like that in the
world at one time or another, but they probably died
a good while ago. I think his lecture on the

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Babes in the Woods was the funniest thing I ever
listened to. Artemis once said to me, gravely, almost sadly, Clemmons,
I have done too much fooling, too much trifling. I
am going to write something that will live well. What

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for instance, in the same grave way he said, A'll lie,
it was an admirable surprise. I was just getting ready
to cry. He was becoming pathetic. Yours truly, S. L. Clemens.

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In eighteen eighty two, mister Clemens wrote The Stolen White Elephant,
and the same year visited Bermuda. The following winter, James R.
Osgood and Company of Boston issued The Stolen White Elephant,
with which were incorporated some rambling notes of an Idle Excursion,
Punch Brother Punch, and other sketches. About this time, the

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humorist was asked to contribute to the Bartholdy Pedestal Fund.
Here was his response. You know my weakness for Adam,
and you know how I have struggled to get him
a monument and failed. Now it seems to me here

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is my chance. What do we care for a statue
of liberty when we've got the thing itself in its
wildest sublimity. What you want of a monument is to
keep you in mind of something you haven't got, something

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you've lost. Very well, we haven't lost liberty, We've lost Adam. Well,
look at Adam. What have we done for Adam? What
has Adam done? For us. He gave us life, he
gave us death, he gave us heaven, he gave us hell.

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With trifling alteration, this present statue will answer very well
for Adam. You can turn that blanket into an ulster,
part the hair on one side, or conceal the sex
of his head with a fire helmet, and at once

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he's a man. Put a harp and a halo and
a palm branch in the left hand to symbolize a
part of what Adam did for us, and leave the
fire basket just where it is to symbolize the rest,
my friends, The father of life and death and taxes

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has been neglected long enough. Is it but a question
of finance. Behold the enclosed paid bank checks. Use them
as freely as they are freely contributed. Heaven knows I
would there were a ton of them, I would send

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them all to you, for my heart is in this
sublime work. S. L. C. In a eighteen eighty two
While Mark Twain was collecting retrospective material for his life
on the Mississippi, he stopped one day at Arkansas City.
He had years before known the place as Campbell's Bend,

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and naturally had a desire to poke about unattended by
persons who would be likely to break in upon his musings. So,
avoiding the committee that had been appointed to receive him,
he wandered off into the woods. He thought nothing of
the distance he was traversing. There was music among the
tree tops, and flowers rich in deep coloring perfumed the air.

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After a long walk, he came to a cabin, and,
upon entering, found an old and tangled bearded man sitting
near the empty fireplace. The old fellow glanced at Twain,
and then, springing between the visitor and the door, snatched
down a gun, cocked it and said, so I've got
you have I I don't understand you. Twain gasped, Oh no,

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I reckon not here. Man never understands a thing when
you don't water. I didn't stop your steamboat down yonder
below the Bend the other day and steals sixty sheep
that belonged to me, did you? I will swear upon
the honor of a gentleman that I did not. I

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haven't been in this neighborhood before in twenty years. Sit down,
bar Twain obeyed. The old man continued. It would have
been have been a good while since you was here
before the other day, but you got here just in
time to steal them sheep. And I'm going to have

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your scalp. Hear me, my dear sir, you are laboring
under a frightful mistake. I never owned a sheep in
my life. No, I don't reckon you ever did own
one in mine that nobody else ain't have to own,
marry one or where you hang out. Yes, I'll come

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right here and tuck my sheep. And her mom was
her pet lamb that my little granddaughter loves better and
she does her life and she ain't slept her wink
since for crying about it. Oh, you needn't blink, for
I am going to hold you here till my little
gal comes, and then I'm going to blow your head off.
It won't be long before she comes. And if you've

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got any prize that you reckon ought to be sad,
why you better saying that's all? My dear sir, don't
hear sir me. I've got you and I'm going to
use you. But how do you know that I stole
your sheep? You know how I know it? You know
that just as soon as you see her becoming. You

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shoved off, and moh that you know that? When I
jumped in the canoe and started to paddle out out here,
why you shot at me? You know all that? Well enough,
merciful heavens, Twain exclaimed, Yes, I as that's about what
I allowed. But the boat puffed on away. A stick
snapped outside, Great heavens, Twain thought, is the girl coming? No,

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it was only a calf. The expression on the old
fellow's face grew harder. There was a cruel twitching about
the corners of his mouth. Oh don't you fret she'll
be here directly, my friend, said Twain, with an effort
to be calm. If you will go with me over
to Arkansas City, I will prove to you that I

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would not steal a sheep. I don't want no proof
that comes from that place. You'd tell a lie, and
them fellers are there would swear to it. I see
my little dal comin through yonder as I said, just now,
have you got any pars you want? Said I reckon,
you'd better say him. Would you commit murder? Would you

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steal a sheep? Surely not? Ah ha, And surely I
wouldn't be committing murder by killing such a fellers. You
er don't move now, for if you do, I'll drop you.
Come quick down before the gal comes. Tell me if
you know who did steal them sheep, that is, if
you didn't, I think I do. Twain quickly rejoined, and then,

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remembering the name of a steamboat engineer whom he'd known
before the war, he added, Joe Billings stole your sheep.
The old fellow looked sharply at him and replied, are
you sure. I am certain? Was you on his boat
at the time, Yes, and tried to keep him from

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stealing them, but could not be help me find him. Yes, well,
then scoot quick before the gal comes. When Twain reached
Arkansas City, he found a perplexed and disappointed committee. He
was nervous and depressed. While he was standing in the

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office of the hotel, someone said, mister Clements, you used
to know Joe Billings, didn't you. Twain felt an uneasiness
crawling over him. Yes, he replied, there he is. Twain
looked around and started. The old fellow who had held
him in the cabin, came forward, snorted, and then said, Sam,

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I are a shot you for not knowing me, but
I reckon I've changed some sheep. I never had won
my life, Come fellows. Here's to Sam and his ability
to steal hedge on the truth. Life on the Mississippi
appeared in eighteen eighty three. It was a volume of
reminiscences of his youthful days as a steamboat pilot on

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the Father of Waters. This volume was followed in eighteen
eighty five by The Prince and the Pauper, which was
a remarkable performance and a surprise even to the friends
of mister Clemmons. For many years he had been a
conscientious and untiring student of language, literature, history, not merely
making up for deficiencies of early education, but laying solid

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foundations and building on them a broad and liberal culture,
which made him a man of letters in the true
sense of the term. His thorough knowledge of English and
American literature is supplemented by a knowledge of that of
various other languages, of which he has acquired a thorough command.
The story of The Prince and the Pauper, for instance,

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reveals somewhat the extent and fidelity of his study of
early England, and is a story that, at the beginning
of his career he could not either have thought out
or appreciated, and yet it is very distinctly marked with
his peculiar, native genius and humor. The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn were published in eighteen eighty six. The manuscript was

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completed many months before the book appeared, owing to complications
and differences with the publishers, and finally was published by
mister Clements himself. In this book, Mark Twain was at
his best. The London Athenaeum, in reviewing the work, said,
it is such a book as he and he only

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could have written. It is meant for boys, but there
are few men, we should hope, who, once they take
it up, will not delight in it. It forms a
companion or sequel to Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, as everybody knows,
is one of Tom's closest friends, and the present volume

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is a record of the adventures which befell him soon
after the event which may him a person of property,
and brought Tom Sawyer's story to a becoming conclusion. They
are of the most surprising and delightful kind imaginable, and
in the course of them we fall in with a
number of types of character of singular freshness and novelty,

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besides being schooled in half a dozen extraordinary dialects. We
shall content ourselves with repeating that the book is Mark
Twain at his best, and remarking that Jim and Huckleberry
are real creations and the worthy peers of the illustrious
Tom Sawyer later appeared a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's

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Court and other volumes. In all of his books there
is common sense, and love of justice, and hatred of
cant and a vein of serious earnestness, even in his
most comical writings, that will for all time make him
near to the people. As the London Daily News once

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said of him, his gravity in narrating the most preposterous tale,
his sympathy with every one of his absurdest characters, his
microscopic imagination, his vein of seriousness, his contrasts of pathos,
his bursts of indignant plains speaking about certain national errors,

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make Mark Twain an author of the highest merit, and
far remote from the mere buffoon. End of Chapter eight,
read by John Greenman,