Wednesday, February 7, 1906
Susy Clemens's biography of her father.--Mr. Clemens's opinion of critics, etc.
When Susy was thirteen, and was a slender little maid with plaited tails of copper-tinged brown hair down her back, and was perhaps the busiest bee in the household hive, by reason of the manifold studies, health exercises, and recreations she had to attend to, she secretly, and of her own motion, and out of love, added another task to her labors--the writing of a biography of me. She did this work in her bedroom at night, and kept her record hidden. After a little, the mother discovered it and filched1 it, and let me see it; then told Susy what she had done, and how pleased I was and how proud. I remember that time with a deep pleasure. I had had compliments before, but none that touched me like this; none that could approach it for value in my eyes. It has kept that place always since. I have had no compliment, no praise, no tribute from any source, that was so precious to me as this one was and still is. As I read it now, after all these many years, it is still a king's message to me, and brings me the same dear surprise it brought me then--with the pathos2 added of the thought that the eager and hasty hand that sketched4 it and scrawled5 it will not touch mine again--and I feel as the humble6 and unexpectant must feel when their eyes fall upon the edict that raises them to the ranks of the noble.
Yesterday while I was rummaging7 in a pile of ancient note-books of mine which I had not seen for years, I came across a reference to that biography. It is quite evident that several times, at breakfast and dinner, in those long-past days, I was posing for the biography. In fact, I clearly remember that I was doing that--and I also remember that Susy detected it. I remember saying a very smart thing, with a good deal of an air, at the breakfast table one morning, and that Susy observed to her mother privately8, a little later, that papa was doing that for the biography.
I cannot bring myself to change any line or word in Susy's sketch3 of me, but will introduce passages from it now and then just as they came in--their quaint9 simplicity10 out of her honest heart, which was the beautiful heart of a child. What comes from that source has a charm and grace of its own which may transgress11 all the recognized laws of literature, if it choose, and yet be literature still, and worthy12 of hospitality.
The spelling is frequently desperate, but it was Susy's, and it shall stand. I love it, and cannot profane13 it. To me, it is gold. To correct it would alloy14 it, not refine it. It would spoil it. It would take from it its freedom and flexibility15 and make it stiff and formal. Even when it is most extravagant16 I am not shocked. It is Susy's spelling, and she was doing the best she could--and nothing could better it for me.
She learned languages easily; she learned history easily, she learned music easily; she learned all things easily, quickly, and thoroughly--except spelling. She even learned that, after a while. But it would have grieved me but little if she had failed in it--for, although good spelling was my one accomplishment17, I was never able to greatly respect it. When I was a schoolboy, sixty years ago, we had two prizes in our school. One was for good spelling, the other for amiability18. These things were thin, smooth, silver disks, about the size of a dollar. Upon the one was engraved19 in flowing Italian script the words "Good Spelling," on the other was engraved the word "Amiability." The holders20 of these prizes hung them about the neck with a string--and those holders were the envy of the whole school. There wasn't a pupil that wouldn't have given a leg for the privilege of wearing one of them a week, but no pupil ever got a chance except John RoBards and me. John RoBards was eternally and indestructibly amiable21. I may even say devilishly amiable; fiendishly amiable; exasperatingly22 amiable. That was the sort of feeling that we had about that quality of his. So he always wore the amiability medal. I always wore the other medal. That word "always" is a trifle too strong. We lost the medals several times. It was because they became so monotonous23. We needed a change--therefore several times we traded medals. It was a satisfaction to John RoBards to seem to be a good speller--which he wasn't. And it was a satisfaction to me to seem to be amiable, for a change. But of course these changes could not long endure--for some schoolmate or other would presently notice what had been happening, and that schoolmate would not have been human if he had lost any time in reporting this treason. The teacher took the medals away from us at once, of course--and we always had them back again before Friday night. If we lost the medals Monday morning, John's amiability was at the top of the list Friday afternoon when the teacher came to square up the week's account. The Friday-afternoon session always closed with "spelling down." Being in disgrace, I necessarily started at the foot of my division of spellers, but I always slaughtered24 both divisions and stood alone with the medal around my neck when the campaign was finished. I did miss on a word once, just at the end of one of these conflicts, and so lost the medal. I left the first r out of February--but that was to accommodate a sweetheart. My passion was so strong just at that time that I would have left out the whole alphabet if the word had contained it.
As I have said before, I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters, and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence25 to us.
Susy began the biography in 1885, when I was in the fiftieth year of my age, and she in the fourteenth of hers. She begins in this way:
We are a very happy family. We consist of Papa, Mamma, Jean, Clara and me. It is papa I am writing about, and I shall have no trouble in not knowing what to say about him, as he is a very striking character.
But wait a minute--I will return to Susy presently. In the matter of slavish imitation, man is the monkey's superior all the time. The average man is destitute26 of independence of opinion. He is not interested in contriving27 an opinion of his own, by study and reflection, but is only anxious to find out what his neighbor's opinion is and slavishly adopt it. A generation ago, I found out that the latest review of a book was pretty sure to be just a reflection of the earliest review of it. That whatever the first reviewer found to praise or censure28 in the book would be repeated in the latest reviewer's report, with nothing fresh added.1 Therefore more than once I took the precaution of sending my book, in manuscript, to Mr. Howells, when he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, so that he could prepare a review of it at leisure. I knew he would say the truth about the book--I also knew that he would find more merit than demerit in it, because I already knew that that was the condition of the book. I allowed no copy of that book to go out to the press until after Mr. Howells's notice of it had appeared. That book was always safe. There wasn't a man behind a pen in all America that had the courage to find anything in the book which Mr. Howells had not found--there wasn't a man behind a pen in America that had spirit enough to say a brave and original thing about the book on his own responsibility.
I believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real value--certainly no large value. When Charles Dudley Warner and I were about to bring out The Gilded29 Age, the editor of the Daily Graphic30 persuaded me to let him have an advance copy, he giving me his word of honor that no notice of it should appear in his paper until after the Atlantic Monthly notice should have appeared. This reptile31 published a review of the book within three days afterward32, I could not really complain, because he had only given me his word of honor as security. I ought to have required of him something substantial. I believe his notice did not deal mainly with the merit of the book, or the lack of it, but with my moral attitude toward the public. It was charged that I had used my reputation to play a swindle upon the public--that Mr. Warner had written as much as half of the book, and that I had used my name to float it and give it currency--a currency which it could not have acquired without my name--and that this conduct of mine was a grave fraud upon the people. The Graphic was not an authority upon any subject whatever. It had a sort of distinction in that it was the first and only illustrated33 daily newspaper that the world had seen; but it was without character, it was poorly and cheaply edited, its opinion of a book or of any other work of art was of no consequence. Everybody knew this, yet all the critics in America, one after the other, copied the Graphic's criticism, merely changing the phraseology, and left me under that charge of dishonest conduct. Even the great Chicago Tribune, the most important journal in the Middle West, was not able to invent anything fresh, but adopted the view of the humble Daily Graphic, dishonesty charge and all. However, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries34, and congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden.
What I have been traveling toward all this time is this: The first critic that ever had occasion to describe my personal appearance littered his description with foolish and inexcusable errors whose aggregate35 furnished the result that I was distinctly and distressingly37 unhandsome. That description floated around the country in the papers, and was in constant use and wear for a quarter of a century. It seems strange to me that apparently38 no critic in the country could be found who could look at me and have the courage to take up his pen and destroy that lie. That lie began its course on the Pacific coast, in 1864, and it likened me in personal appearance to Petroleum39 V. Nasby, who had been out there lecturing. For twenty-five years afterward, no critic could furnish a description of me without fetching in Nasby to help out my portrait. I knew Nasby well, and he was a good fellow, but in my life I have not felt malignantly40 enough about any more than three persons to charge those persons with resembling Nasby. It hurts me to the heart, these things. To this day, it hurts me to the heart, and it had long been a distress36 to my family--including Susy--that the critics should go on making this wearisome mistake, year after year, when there was no foundation for it. Even when a critic wanted to be particularly friendly and complimentary41 to me, he didn't dare to go beyond my clothes. He did not venture beyond that frontier. When he had finished with my clothes he had said all the kind things, the pleasant things, the complimentary things he could risk. Then he dropped back on Nasby.
Yesterday I found this clipping in the pocket of one of those ancient memorandum-books of mine. It is of the date of thirty-nine years ago, and both the paper and the ink are yellow with the bitterness that I felt in that old day when I clipped it out to preserve it and brood over it and grieve about it. I will copy it here, to wit:
A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, writing of one of Schuyler Colfax's receptions, says of our Washington correspondent: "Mark Twain, the delicate humorist, was present; quite a lion, as he deserves to be. Mark is a bachelor, faultless in taste, whose snowy vest is suggestive of endless quarrels with Washington washerwomen; but the heroism42 of Mark is settled for all time, for such purity and smoothness were never seen before. His lavender gloves might have been stolen from some Turkish harem, so delicate were they in size; but more likely--anything else were more likely than that. In form and feature he bears some resemblance to the immortal43 Nasby; but whilst Petroleum is brunette to the core, Twain is golden, amber-hued, melting, blonde."
Let us return to Susy's biography now, and get the opinion of one who is unbiased.
Papa's appearance has been described many times, but very incorrectly. He has beautiful gray hair, not any too thick or any too long, but just right; a Roman nose, which greatly improves the beauty of his features; kind blue eyes and a small mustache. He has a wonderfully shaped head and profile. He has a very good figure--in short, he is an extrodinarily fine looking man. All his features are perfect, exept that he hasn't extrodinary teeth. His complexion44 is very fair, and he doesn't ware45 a beard. He is a very good man and a very funny one. He has got a temper, but we all of us have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw or ever hope to see--and oh, so absent-minded. He does tell perfectly46 delightful47 stories. Clara and I used to sit on each arm of his chair and listen while he told us stories about the pictures on the wall.
I remember the story-telling days vividly48. They were a difficult and exacting49 audience--those little creatures.
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filched
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| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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transgress
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| vt.违反，逾越 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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alloy
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| n.合金，(金属的)成色 | |
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flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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exasperatingly
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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distressingly
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| adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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petroleum
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| n.原油，石油 | |
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malignantly
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| 怀恶意地； 恶毒地； 有害地； 恶性地 | |
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complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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45
ware
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| n.(常用复数)商品，货物 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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49
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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