August 18, 2025 • 7 mins
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) forged a deep friendship with Mark Twain beginning in 1869, when Twain entered The Atlantic Monthlys Boston office to express his gratitude for Howells positive review of *Innocents Abroad*. As Howells later assumed the role of editor, The Atlantic Monthly became a pivotal platform for many of Twains works, including his acclaimed non-fiction piece, *Life on the Mississippi*. In *My Mark Twain*, Howells shares a captivating literary memoir filled with remarkable anecdotes, including their encounters with former President Ulysses Grant, who was then crafting his own classic autobiography—a project Twain would support through a groundbreaking publishing deal. Howells also beautifully captures the warmth of Twains family life during his numerous visits to the Twain residences in Hartford and Stormfield. (Summary by Dennis Sayers).
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Chapter eighteen of My Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org. My Mark
Twain by William Dean Howells, Chapter eighteen. The occasions which
(00:25):
brought us to New York together were not nearly so
frequent as those which united us in Boston. But there
was a dinner party given him by a friend which
remains memorable from the fetuity of two men present, so
different in everything but their fatuity. One was the sweet
(00:46):
old comedian Billy Florence, who was urging the unsuccessful dramatist
across the table to write him a play about Oliver Cromwell,
and giving the reasons why he thought himself peculiarly fit
to portray the character of Cromwell. The other was a
modestly millioned rich man who was then only beginning to
(01:08):
amass the monies afterward heaped so high, and was still
in the condition to be flattered by the condescension of
a yet greater millionaire. His contribution to our deity was
the verbatim report of a call he had made upon
William H. Vanderbilt, whom he had found just about starting
(01:29):
out of town with his trunks actually in the front hall,
but who had stayed to receive the narrator. He had,
in fact sat down on one of the trunks and
talked with the easiest friendliness, and quite we were given
to infer like an ordinary human being. Clemens often kept
(01:50):
on with some thread of the talk when he came
away from a dinner. But now he was silent, as
if high, sorrowful and cloyd. And it was not till
afterward that I found he had noted the facts from
the bitterness with which he mocked the rich man, and
the pity he expressed for the actor. He had begun
(02:12):
before that to amass those evidences against mankind, which eventuated
with him in his theory of what he called the
damned human race. This was not an expression of piety,
but of the kind contempt to which he was driven
by our follies and iniquities, as he had observed them
(02:33):
in himself as well as in others. It was as
mild of misanthropy, probably as ever caressed the objects of
its malediction. But I believe it was about the year
nineteen hundred that his sense of our perdition became insupportable,
and broke out in a mixed abhorrence and amusement, which
(02:56):
spared no occasion, so that I could quite understand why
missus Clements should have found some compensation when kept to
her room by her sickness, in the reflection that now
she should not have to hear so much about the
damned human race. He told of that with the same
wild joy that he told of overhearing her repetition of
(03:19):
one of his most inclusive profanities, and her explanation that
she meant him to hear it so that he might
know how it sounded. The contrast of the lurid blasphemy
with which her heavenly whiteness should have been enough to
cure any one less grounded than he in what must
be owned was as fixed a habit as smoking with him.
(03:43):
When I first knew him. He rarely vented his fury
in that sort, And I fancy he was under a
promise to her which he kept sacred till the wear
and tear of his nerves with advancing years disabled him.
Then it would be like him to struggle with himself
till he could struggle no longer, and to ask his
(04:05):
promise back, and it would be like her to give
it back. His profanity was the heritage of his boyhood
and young manhood, in social conditions and under the duress
of exigencies, in which everybody swore about as impersonally as
he smoked. It is best to recognize the fact of it,
(04:27):
And I do so more readily, because I cannot suppose
the recording angel really minded it much more than that
guardian angel of his. It probably grieved them about equally,
but they could equally forgive it. Nothing came of his
pose regarding the damned human race except his invention of
(04:51):
the human race luncheon club. This was confined to four
persons who were never all got together, and it soon
perished of their indifferent In the earlier days that I
have more specially in mind, one of the questions that
we used to debate a good deal was whether every
human motive was not selfish. We inquired as to every impulse,
(05:15):
the noblest, the holiest in effect, and he found them
in the last analysis of selfish origin. Pretty nearly the
whole time of a certain railroad run from New York
to Hartford was taken up with the scrutiny of the
self sacrifice of a mother for her child, of the
abandon of the lover who dies in saving his mistress
(05:38):
from fire or flood, of the hero's courage in the field,
and the martyrs at the stake. Each he found springing
from the unconscious love of self, and the dread of
the greater pain which this self sacrificer would suffer in
forbearing the sacrifice. If we had any time left from
(05:59):
the inquiry that day, he must have devoted it to
a high regret that Napoleon did not carry out his
purpose of invading England, for then he would have destroyed
the feudal aristocracy, or reformed the lords, as it might
be called now. He thought that would have been an
incalculable blessing to the English people and the world. Clemens
(06:25):
was always beautifully and unfalteringly a republican. None of his
occasional misgivings for America implicated a return to monarchy. Yet
he felt passionately the splendor of the English monarchy, and
there was a time when he gloried in that figurative
poetry by which the king was phrased as the Majesty
(06:48):
of England. He rolled the words deep throatedly out and
exulted in their beauty as if it were beyond any
other glory of the world. He read or read at
English history a great deal, and one of the by
products of his restless invention was a game of English Kings,
(07:11):
like the game of Authors for children. I do not
know whether he ever perfected this, but I am quite
sure it was not put upon the market. Very likely
he brought it to a practicable stage and then tired
of it, as he was apt to do in the
ultimation of his vehement undertakings. End of Chapter eighteen, read
(07:37):
by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California, for LibriVox Winter two
thousand and seven.
Chapter eighteen of My Mark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org. My Mark
Twain by William Dean Howells, Chapter eighteen. The occasions which
(00:25):
brought us to New York together were not nearly so
frequent as those which united us in Boston. But there
was a dinner party given him by a friend which
remains memorable from the fetuity of two men present, so
different in everything but their fatuity. One was the sweet
(00:46):
old comedian Billy Florence, who was urging the unsuccessful dramatist
across the table to write him a play about Oliver Cromwell,
and giving the reasons why he thought himself peculiarly fit
to portray the character of Cromwell. The other was a
modestly millioned rich man who was then only beginning to
(01:08):
amass the monies afterward heaped so high, and was still
in the condition to be flattered by the condescension of
a yet greater millionaire. His contribution to our deity was
the verbatim report of a call he had made upon
William H. Vanderbilt, whom he had found just about starting
(01:29):
out of town with his trunks actually in the front hall,
but who had stayed to receive the narrator. He had,
in fact sat down on one of the trunks and
talked with the easiest friendliness, and quite we were given
to infer like an ordinary human being. Clemens often kept
(01:50):
on with some thread of the talk when he came
away from a dinner. But now he was silent, as
if high, sorrowful and cloyd. And it was not till
afterward that I found he had noted the facts from
the bitterness with which he mocked the rich man, and
the pity he expressed for the actor. He had begun
(02:12):
before that to amass those evidences against mankind, which eventuated
with him in his theory of what he called the
damned human race. This was not an expression of piety,
but of the kind contempt to which he was driven
by our follies and iniquities, as he had observed them
(02:33):
in himself as well as in others. It was as
mild of misanthropy, probably as ever caressed the objects of
its malediction. But I believe it was about the year
nineteen hundred that his sense of our perdition became insupportable,
and broke out in a mixed abhorrence and amusement, which
(02:56):
spared no occasion, so that I could quite understand why
missus Clements should have found some compensation when kept to
her room by her sickness, in the reflection that now
she should not have to hear so much about the
damned human race. He told of that with the same
wild joy that he told of overhearing her repetition of
(03:19):
one of his most inclusive profanities, and her explanation that
she meant him to hear it so that he might
know how it sounded. The contrast of the lurid blasphemy
with which her heavenly whiteness should have been enough to
cure any one less grounded than he in what must
be owned was as fixed a habit as smoking with him.
(03:43):
When I first knew him. He rarely vented his fury
in that sort, And I fancy he was under a
promise to her which he kept sacred till the wear
and tear of his nerves with advancing years disabled him.
Then it would be like him to struggle with himself
till he could struggle no longer, and to ask his
(04:05):
promise back, and it would be like her to give
it back. His profanity was the heritage of his boyhood
and young manhood, in social conditions and under the duress
of exigencies, in which everybody swore about as impersonally as
he smoked. It is best to recognize the fact of it,
(04:27):
And I do so more readily, because I cannot suppose
the recording angel really minded it much more than that
guardian angel of his. It probably grieved them about equally,
but they could equally forgive it. Nothing came of his
pose regarding the damned human race except his invention of
(04:51):
the human race luncheon club. This was confined to four
persons who were never all got together, and it soon
perished of their indifferent In the earlier days that I
have more specially in mind, one of the questions that
we used to debate a good deal was whether every
human motive was not selfish. We inquired as to every impulse,
(05:15):
the noblest, the holiest in effect, and he found them
in the last analysis of selfish origin. Pretty nearly the
whole time of a certain railroad run from New York
to Hartford was taken up with the scrutiny of the
self sacrifice of a mother for her child, of the
abandon of the lover who dies in saving his mistress
(05:38):
from fire or flood, of the hero's courage in the field,
and the martyrs at the stake. Each he found springing
from the unconscious love of self, and the dread of
the greater pain which this self sacrificer would suffer in
forbearing the sacrifice. If we had any time left from
(05:59):
the inquiry that day, he must have devoted it to
a high regret that Napoleon did not carry out his
purpose of invading England, for then he would have destroyed
the feudal aristocracy, or reformed the lords, as it might
be called now. He thought that would have been an
incalculable blessing to the English people and the world. Clemens
(06:25):
was always beautifully and unfalteringly a republican. None of his
occasional misgivings for America implicated a return to monarchy. Yet
he felt passionately the splendor of the English monarchy, and
there was a time when he gloried in that figurative
poetry by which the king was phrased as the Majesty
(06:48):
of England. He rolled the words deep throatedly out and
exulted in their beauty as if it were beyond any
other glory of the world. He read or read at
English history a great deal, and one of the by
products of his restless invention was a game of English Kings,
(07:11):
like the game of Authors for children. I do not
know whether he ever perfected this, but I am quite
sure it was not put upon the market. Very likely
he brought it to a practicable stage and then tired
of it, as he was apt to do in the
ultimation of his vehement undertakings. End of Chapter eighteen, read
(07:37):
by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California, for LibriVox Winter two
thousand and seven.
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