Who Is Mark Twain? (13 page)

I
found the editor of the New York
Sun
throned in his sanctum. He had his brimless cap on—his thinking cap, he terms it, and well he may, for many an exquisite fancy has it hatched out in its time. He was steeped in meditation. He was arranging in his mind a series of those articles for his next day’s paper which have made the
Sun
famous in the land and a welcome visitor in every cultivated home circle upon the continent—interesting murders, with all the toothsome particulars; libels upon such men and women as have deserved the attention by being prominently blameless; aggravated cases of incest, with improving and elevating details; prize fights, elucidated with felicitously descriptive technicalities; elaborate histories of executions, assassinations and seductions; zealous defences of Reddy the Blacksmith and other persecuted patrons of the
Sun
who chance to stumble into misfortune. A high and noble thing it is to be the chief editor of a great metropolitan two-cent journal and mould the opinions of the washer-women and achieve the applause of the bone and sinew of the back streets and the cellars. And when that editor is gifted with that endowment which we term Genius, verily his position is almost godlike. I felt insignificant in the company of Charles A. Dana—and who wouldn’t?

I said:

“Sir, I am a stranger to you, but being a journalist in a small way myself, I have presumed upon this fellowship to intrude upon you, and beg, at the fountain-head of American journalism, for a few little drops of that wisdom which has enabled you to confer splendor upon a profession which groped in darkness till your
Sun
flamed above its horizon.”

“Be seated, sir, be seated. Ask what you will—I am always ready to instruct the ignorant and inexperienced.”

“To come at once to the point, and not rob of their intellectual sustenance the suffering millions of our countrymen who hang upon your editorials, I desire to know the secret of your success—I desire to know what course one must pursue in order to make the name of his paper a household word at every fireside and a necessity unto all creatures whose idea of luxury soars to the equivalent of two cents.”

“My son, unto none but you would I reveal the secret. You have paid me the homage which the envious multitude of so-called journalists deny me, and you shall be rewarded. Let the others suffer. Listen. The first great end and aim of journalism is to make a
sensation
. Never let your paper go to press without a sensation. If you have none, make one. Seize upon the prominent events of the day, and clamor about them with a maniacal fury that shall compel attention. Vilify everything that is unpopular—harry it, hunt it, abuse it, without rhyme or reason, so that you get a sensation out of it. Laud that which is popular—unless you feel sure that you can make it unpopular by attacking it. Hit every man that is down—never fail in this, for it is safe. Libel every man that can be ruined by it. Libel every prominent man who dare not soil his hands with touching you in return. But glorify all moneyed scum and give columns of worship unto the monuments they erect in honor of themselves, for moneyed men will not put up with abuse from small newspapers. If an uncalled-for onslaught upon a neighboring editor who has made you play second fiddle in journalism can take the bread out of his mouth and send him in disgrace from his post, let him have it! Do not mind a little lying, a liberal garbling of his telegrams, a mean prying into his private affairs and a pitiful and treacherous exposure of his private letters. It takes a very small nature to get down to this, but I managed it, and you can—and it makes a princely sensation. If two prominent preachers solemnize a questionable deathbed marriage when custom does not require them to cipher at the rights of the case until it is too late and one of the parties dies, go for them! Make fiends of them! Howl, and gnash your teeth, and rave with virtuous indignation till you convince yourself that in spite of your native rottenness you have some of the raw material of a saint in you, after all. But if those preachers
refuse
to solemnize the marriage, and go driveling around after information till the bridegroom dies and the bride goes crazy,
then
you can howl with forty-fold power about the soulless inhumanity of those divines. Simply a little change of base and you can make it appear that nothing is so damnable as the spectacle of a preacher refusing a deathbed request of any kind for any reason whatsoever.”

[Enter a Reporter.]

“Mr. D., there is a report that Gen. Grant was drunk yesterday.”

“Is there any truth in it?”

“No, sir.”

“Then publish it by all means—say it
is
true—make a sensation of it—invent affidavits.”

[Exit Reporter.]

“Yes, my son, in journalism, the idea is to deal in injurious personalities as much as you can, but you must make it a point to pitch into the helpless—it is the safest course. Make yourself a sort of Ishmael; have no friendships that are worthy; praise nothing that is worthy of praise; hate everything that other men love; cackle your opinions upon all subjects and upon all occasions with a swaggering pretense that the people attach weight to them; delve among forbidden subjects and revel among their filth, for it is the life of a two-cent paper; uncover all rapes and seductions, and expose them to the public gaze. In a word, be shameless—have this virtue and you need no other to make a two-cent paper succeed. And as soon as success is achieved, the illustrated papers will print your picture and publish your startlingly eventless biography, written by yourself.”

[Enter a Reporter.]

“Mr. D., Gen. W. is dead.”

“Ah, that is fortunate. A dangerous man—a very dangerous man. But now we can settle with him. Write an abusive obituary, and traduce the character of his mother.”

“And Mr. Greeley has fallen on the ice and hurt himself seriously.”

“Ah, that is fortunate also. State that he was under the influence of liquor. I wish we could do something to make the
Tribune
notice us.”

[Exit Reporter.]

“Another feature, my son, is the interviewing business. We used to do a good thing in that line, but latterly
Sun
reporters find it difficult to get access to respectable people. However, it matters little. We seldom printed what people actually said, anyhow, and so we can get up the interviews just as well in the office as elsewhere. Try your hand at it—I think you will like it. Journalism, my son, is a great business—a very great business—and I feel that I do not flatter myself when I say that I have made of the New York
Sun
an entirely unique paper—nothing like it ever existed before, out of perdition. It is a wonderful newspaper. And I could have made just such a one out of that Chicago
Republican
if they had let me stay, but that story they got up there about my having an improper intimacy with the aged chief of police angered me to such a degree that I would not remain. The whole city regretted my departure, and so did the newspaper men. The papers published kindly and appreciative farewells, and some of them were very touching. One paper published a long and flattering biography of me, and said in conclusion: ‘We deeply regret the departure of this gifted writer from our midst. We have seen meaner men than him—we have seen much meaner men than Charles A. Dana—though we cannot recall an instance just now.’ For the first time in many years I shed tears when I read that article.”

[Enter a Reporter.]

“Mr. D., Mark Twain is dead—at least it is so reported.”

“Is that so? Well, we have nothing against him—he never did any good. Publish an apparently friendly obituary of him—and say at the end that we are pained to have to state that for many years he gained his livelihood by the nefarious practice of robbing graveyards. That will be sufficient—I have already dished
him
up in a column editorial about his imbecile article upon the ‘Cuban Patriot.’”

I said: “Mr. D., I beg pardon for mentioning it, but
I
am that Mark Twain to whose remains you propose to give a unique and pleasant interest, and I am not dead.”

“Oh, you are the person, are you?—and you are not dead? Well, I am sorry, but I cannot help the matter. The obituary must be published. We are not responsible for your eccentricities. You
could
have been dead if you had chosen—nobody hindered you. The obituary is fair game, for whatever is Rumor to another paper is Fact to the
Sun
. And now that you are here handy, I will interview you. Please to give me the details of any aggravated or unnatural crimes you may have committed.”

S
unday morning, Sept. 11, 1887, in Elmira, N.Y., I got the largest and gratefulest compliment that was ever paid me. I walked down to State street at 9. 30, with the idea of getting shaved. I was strolling along in the middle of Church street, musing, dreaming; I was in a silent Sabbath solitude. Just as I turned into State, I looked up and saw a mighty fire-boy ten or twelve steps in front of me, creeping warily in my direction, with intent eye, and fingering the lock of a gun which was concealed behind him, all but the end of the barrel, which stuck up into view back of his shoulder. My instant thought was, “he is a lunatic out gunning for men, and I cannot escape.” He stopped, bent his body a little, and brought his gun to the front, cocked. There was no time to consider impulses; I acted upon the first one that offered. I walked straight to him, with a beating heart, and asked him to let me look at his weapon. To my joy, he handed it to me without a word. I turned it about, this way and that, praising, examining, asking question after question, to keep his attention diverted from murderous ideas until somebody should come by. He answered right along, and soon I caught a blessed sound: I understood him to say he was out hunting cats. He added, “There they are, yonder;” and turned and pointed. I saw four sorry-looking cats crossing the street in procession some forty steps away. I forgot my own troubles for a moment, to venture a plea for the cats; but before I could get it out, he interrupted with the remark that those were our “engine-house cats,” and went on to say that they were not afraid of dogs or any other creature, and followed him around every morning while he shot their breakfast—English sparrows. He called, “Come, Dick!” and Dick came, and so did the rest. Aha!—so far from being a madman, he was saner, you see, than the average of our race; for he had a warm spot in him for cats. When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction. So I dropped the barber-shop scheme, and Hercules and I went promenading up and down the Sunday stillnesses, talking, and watching for sparrows, while the four cats followed in patient procession behind. I made so many intelligent observations about cats, that I grew in the estimation of Hercules, right along—that was plain to see; but at last in an unlucky moment I dimmed and spoiled this effect by letting out the fact that I was a poor shot and had no improvable talent in that line. I saw in a flash the damage I had done myself, and hastened to switch off onto something else and try to get back my lost ground. I praised the gun again, and asked where I could get one like it. The address given was unfamiliar to me, but I said,—

“I can manage it, though; for Mr. Langdon or Mr. Crane will know.”

Hercules came to a sudden stop; ordered arms; leaned on his gun, and began to inspect me with a face all kindled with interest. He said:

“Do you live up on the East Hill with Mr. Crane, summers?”

“Yes.”

“No!
But is—is it
you
?”

I said yes, and he broke all out into welcoming smiles, and put out his hand and said heartily:

“Well, here I’ve been poking round and round with you and never once—Look here, when a man’s done what
you
’ve done, he don’t need to give a
damn
whether he can shoot or not!”

What an immense compliment it was!—that “Is it
you
?” No need to mention names—there aren’t two of you in the world! It was as if he had said, “In my heedlessness I took you for a child’s toy-balloon drifting past my face—and Great Scott, it’s the moon!”

A consciously exaggerated compliment is an offence; but no amount of exaggeration can hurt a compliment if the payer of it doesn’t know he is exaggerating. In fact, if he can superbly
seem
unconscious, he may depend upon it that even that will answer. There is the instance of that minister of Napoleon’s who arrived late at the council board at a time when six kings were idling around Paris waiting for a chance to solicit concessions and relaxings of one sort or another. The emperor’s brow darkened and he delivered a thunder-blast at the procrastinating minister; who replied with apparently unstudied simplicity—

“Sire, at any other court I had not been late. I hurried as I could, but my way was obstructed by the concourse of tributary kings!”

The brow of the master of the world unclouded.
I
know how good he felt.

I
t was in the jungle. The fox had returned from his travels, and this great assemblage had gathered from the mountains and the plains to hear the wonders he was going to tell about the strange countries he had seen and the wide oceans he had crossed. As he walked slowly up and down the grassy space reserved for him, turning his subject over in his mind and arranging his thoughts, he was the centre and focus of an absorbing interest. All eyes followed him back and forth, and the light of admiration was in them, and in some a frank glint of envy. It was not to be denied that contact with the great world had had a gracious and elevating effect upon him. His carriage was graceful, mincing, polished and elegant beyond anything that had been seen in the back woods before; his manners were dignified, easy, and full of distinction; his speech was flowing and unembarrassed, and his foreign accent, so far from marring it, added a delicate charm to it.

It was a fine audience. In front, in the place of honor, was the king, the elephant; to his right and left, all around the front row, sat the nobility, the great beasts of prey; back of these, row after row, disposed according to rank and order of precedence, were the other creatures. In front of the king stood the royal chaplain, the marabout, on one leg, and with his eyes closed in meditation. After a time Reynard opened his portfolios and got out his collection of pictures, and was now ready to begin. The marabout asked a blessing, then the king said to Reynard—

“Begin!”

The first picture represented a soldier with a gun, a missionary following him with a book. It was passed around, and all examined it with interest.

“What are these things?” the king inquired. “Creatures?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“What kind? How are they called?”

“Sometimes men, sometimes Christians. It is all the same.”

“What are they made of?”

“Flesh and bones, like your majesty’s subjects.”

The tiger reached for the picture and examined it again, with a new interest.

“They look good, these Christians,” he said, licking his lips; “are they good?”

“Better than any other of God’s creatures, my lord. It is their constant boast; it is a cold day when they forget to give themselves that praise.”

The tiger licked his lips again, exhibiting much excitement, and said—

“I would God I had one.”

The lion said—

“It is my thought, brother.”

The gorilla, leaning upon his staff, examined the picture thoughtfully, his great lips retiring from his tushes and exposing a fellowship smile which some of the smaller animals tremble at and wish they were at home.

“They go upright—like me,” he said. “Is it so?”

“They do, my lord.”

“Is it feathers they are covered with—or fur?” inquired the rhinoceros.

“Neither, your grace. It is an artificial material, called clothing. They make it themselves, out of various stuffs, and they can take it off when they want to; their natural covering is fish-skin.”

Everybody was astonished, and said—“It doesn’t belong to them!” “They can take it off!” “They don’t have to put it on, and yet they do!” And the gorilla said, impressively, “Well, I’ll be damned!”

The marabout lifted his skinny lids and gave him a crushing look, and he apologised. A hairless dog remarked—

“One perceives that they live in a cold country; that is why they put it on.”

“No,” observed Reynard; “they put it on in the hottest countries, just the same.”

“Why, that is silly!” said many voices. “Why do they afflict themselves in that way?”

“Because they are ashamed to be seen naked.”

There was a blank look on all the faces. They could not understand this. Then they all began to laugh, and several said—

“Since they can take those things off when they want to, don’t they sometimes want to, and don’t they do it?”

“Yes, often—in privacy.”

There was another great laugh, and many said—

“Don’t they know that God sees them naked?”

“Certainly.”

“Land! and they don’t mind
Him
? It must be a dirty-minded animal that will be nasty in God’s presence and ashamed to be nasty in the presence of his own kind.”