“Tell Sam I'm going to die pretty soon, but that I love him; that I've loved him all my life, and I'll love him till I die. This is the last word I'll ever send to him.” Jim Gillis, down in Sonora, was already lying at the point of death, and so for him the visit was too late, though he was able to receive a message from his ancient mining partner, and to send back a parting word.
I returned by way of New Orleans and the Mississippi River, for I wished to follow that abandoned water highway, and to visit its presiding genius, Horace Bixby,—[He died August 2, 1912, at the age of 86]—still alive and in service as pilot of the government snagboat, his headquarters at St. Louis.
Coming up the river on one of the old passenger steam boats that still exist, I noticed in a paper which came aboard that Mark Twain was to receive from Oxford University the literary doctor's degree. There had been no hint of this when I came away, and it seemed rather too sudden and too good to be true. That the little barefoot lad that had played along the river-banks at Hannibal, and received such meager advantages in the way of schooling—whose highest ambition had been to pilot such a craft as this one—was about to be crowned by the world's greatest institution of learning, to receive the highest recognition for achievement in the world of letters, was a thing which would not be likely to happen outside of a fairy tale.
Returning to New York, I ran out to Tuxedo, where he had taken a home for the summer (for it was already May), and walking along the shaded paths of that beautiful suburban park, he told me what he knew of the Oxford matter.
Moberly Bell, of the London Times, had been over in April, and soon after his return to England there had come word of the proposed honor. Clemens privately and openly (to Bell) attributed it largely to his influence. He wrote to him:
DEAR MR. BELL,—Your hand is in it & you have my best thanks.
Although I wouldn't cross an ocean again for the price of the ship
that carried me I am glad to do it for an Oxford degree. I shall
plan to sail for England a shade before the middle of June, so that
I can have a few days in London before the 26th.
A day or two later, when the time for sailing had been arranged, he overtook his letter with a cable:
I perceive your hand in it. You have my best thanks. Sail on
Minneapolis June 8th. Due in Southampton ten days later.
Clemens said that his first word of the matter had been a newspaper cablegram, and that he had been doubtful concerning it until a cablegram to himself had confirmed it.
“I never expected to cross the water again,” he said; “but I would be willing to journey to Mars for that Oxford degree.”