Mark Twain: A Biography. Complete

by Albert Bigelow Paine

Mrs. Clemens, eager for letters, writes of her disappointment in not finding one from Susy. The reports from Quarry Farm had been cheerful, and there had been small snap-shot photographs which were comforting, but her mother heart could not be entirely satisfied that Susy did not send letters. She had a vague fear that some trouble, some illness, had come to Susy which made her loath to write. Susy was, in fact, far from well, though no one, not even Susy herself, suspected how serious was her condition.

Mrs. Clemens writes of her own hopefulness, but adds that her husband is often depressed.

Mr. Clemens has not as much courage as I wish he had, but, poor old
darling, he has been pursued with colds and inabilities of various
sorts. Then he is so impressed with the fact that he is sixty years
old. Naturally I combat that thought all I can, trying to make him
rejoice that he is not seventy....
He does not believe that any good thing will come, but that we must
all our lives live in poverty. He says he never wants to go back to
America. I cannot think that things are as black as he paints them,
and I trust that if I get him settled down for work in some quiet
English village he will get back much of his cheerfulness; in fact,
I believe he will because that is what he wants to do, and that is
the work that he loves: The platform he likes for the two hours that
he is on it, but all the rest of the time it grinds him, and he says
he is ashamed of what he is doing. Still, in spite of this sad
undercurrent, we are having a delightful trip. People are so nice,
and with people Mr. Clemens seems cheerful. Then the ocean trips
are a great rest to him.

Mrs. Clemens and Clara remained at the hotel in Durban while Clemens made his platform trip to the South African cities. It was just at the time when the Transvaal invasion had been put down—when the Jameson raid had come to grief and John Hares Hammond, chief of the reformers, and fifty or more supporters were lying in the jail at Pretoria under various sentences, ranging from one to fifteen years, Hammond himself having received the latter award. Mrs. Hammond was a fellow-Missourian; Clemens had known her in America. He went with her now to see the prisoners, who seemed to be having a pretty good time, expecting to be pardoned presently; pretending to regard their confinement mainly as a joke. Clemens, writing of it to Twichell, said:

A Boer guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous &
polite, only he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big
open court) & wouldn't let me cross a white mark that was on the
ground—the “deathline,” one of the prisoners called it. Not in
earnest, though, I think. I found that I had met Hammond once when
he was a Yale senior & a guest of General Franklin's. I also found
that I had known Captain Mein intimately 32 years ago. One of the
English prisoners had heard me lecture in London 23 years ago....
These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, & I believe they are
all educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy.
They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a
while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for
long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of
deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech—sitting down.
It just happened so. I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has
one advantage—it is only a talk, it doesn't take the form of a
speech.... I advised them at considerable length to stay
where they were—they would get used to it & like it presently; if
they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the
look of their countenances; & I promised to go and see the President
& do what I could to get him to double their jail terms....
We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up &
a little over & we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but
the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, & the warden, a genial, elderly
Boer named Du Plessis, explained that his orders wouldn't allow him
to admit saint & sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday.
Du Plessis descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200
years ago—but he hasn't any French left in him now—all Dutch.

Clemens did visit President Kruger a few days later, but not for the purpose explained. John Hayes Hammond, in a speech not long ago (1911), told how Mark Twain was interviewed by a reporter after he left the jail, and when the reporter asked if the prisoners were badly treated Clemens had replied that he didn't think so, adding:

“As a matter of fact, a great many of these gentlemen have fared far worse in the hotels and mining-camps of the West.”

Said Hammond in his speech: “The result of this was that the interview was reported literally and a leader appeared in the next morning's issue protesting against such lenience. The privations, already severe enough, were considerably augmented by that remark, and it required some three or four days' search on the part of some of our friends who were already outside of jail to get hold of Mark Twain and have him go and explain to Kruger that it was all a joke.”

Clemens made as good a plea to “Oom Paul” as he could, and in some degree may have been responsible for the improved treatment and the shortened terms of the unlucky reformers.

They did not hurry away from South Africa. Clemens gave many readings and paid a visit to the Kimberley mines. His note-book recalls how poor Riley twenty-five years before had made his fatal journey.