He made one substantial investment at this period. They became more and more in love with the Hudson environment, its beauty and its easy access to New York. Their house was what they liked it to be—a gathering—place for friends and the world's notables, who could reach it easily and quickly from New York. They had a steady procession of company when Mrs. Clemens's health would permit, and during a single week in the early part of this year entertained guests at no less than seventeen out of their twenty-one meals, and for three out of the seven nights—not an unusual week. Their plan for buying a home on the Hudson ended with the purchase of what was known as Hillcrest, or the Casey place, at Tarrytown, overlooking that beautiful stretch of river, the Tappan Zee, close to the Washington Irving home. The beauty of its outlook and surroundings appealed to them all. The house was handsome and finely placed, and they planned to make certain changes that would adapt it to their needs. The price, which was less than fifty thousand dollars, made it an attractive purchase; and without doubt it would have made them a suitable and happy home had it been written in the future that they should so inherit it.
Clemens was writing pretty steadily these days. The human race was furnishing him with ever so many inspiring subjects, and he found time to touch more or less on most of them. He wreaked his indignation upon the things which exasperated him often—even usually—without the expectation of print; and he delivered himself even more inclusively at such times as he walked the floor between the luncheon or dinner courses, amplifying on the poverty of an invention that had produced mankind as a supreme handiwork. In a letter to Howells he wrote:
Your comments on that idiot's “Ideals” letter reminds me that I preached a good sermon to my family yesterday on his particular layer of the human race, that grotesquest of all the inventions of the Creator. It was a good sermon, but coldly received, & it seemed best not to try to take up a collection.
He once told Howells, with the wild joy of his boyish heart, how Mrs. Clemens found some compensation, when kept to her room by illness, in the reflection that now she would not hear so much about the “damned human race.”
Yet he was always the first man to champion that race, and the more unpromising the specimen the surer it was of his protection, and he never invited, never expected gratitude.
One wonders how he found time to do all the things that he did. Besides his legitimate literary labors and his preachments, he was always writing letters to this one and that, long letters on a variety of subjects, carefully and picturesquely phrased, and to people of every sort. He even formed a curious society, whose members were young girls—one in each country of the earth. They were supposed to write to him at intervals on some subject likely to be of mutual interest, to which letters he agreed to reply. He furnished each member with a typewritten copy of the constitution and by-laws of the juggernaut Club, as he called it, and he apprised each of her election, usually after this fashion:
I have a club—a private club, which is all my own. I appoint the
members myself, & they can't help themselves, because I don't allow
them to vote on their own appointment & I don't allow them to
resign! They are all friends whom I have never seen (save one), but
who have written friendly letters to me. By the laws of my club
there can be only one member in each country, & there can be no male
member but myself. Some day I may admit males, but I don't know
—they are capricious & inharmonious, & their ways provoke me a good
deal. It is a matter, which the club shall decide. I have made
four appointments in the past three or four months: You as a member
for Scotland—oh, this good while! a young citizeness of Joan of
Arc's home region as a member for France; a Mohammedan girl as
member for Bengal; & a dear & bright young niece of mine as member
for the United States—for I do not represent a country myself, but
am merely member-at-large for the human race. You must not try to
resign, for the laws of the club do not allow that. You must
console yourself by remembering that you are in the best company;
that nobody knows of your membership except yourself; that no member
knows another's name, but only her country; that no taxes are levied
and no meetings held (but how dearly I should like to attend one!).
One of my members is a princess of a royal house, another is the
daughter of a village bookseller on the continent of Europe, for the
only qualification for membership is intellect & the spirit of good-
will; other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count. May
I send you the constitution & laws of the club? I shall be so glad
if I may.
It was just one of his many fancies, and most of the active memberships would not long be maintained; though some continued faithful in their reports, as he did in his replies, to the end.
One of the more fantastic of his conceptions was a plan to advertise for ante-mortem obituaries of himself—in order, as he said, that he might look them over and enjoy them and make certain corrections in the matter of detail. Some of them he thought might be appropriate to read from the platform.
I will correct them—not the facts, but the verdicts—striking out
such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the other
side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character.