It was during this Bermuda visit that Mark Twain added the finishing paragraph to his article, "The Turning-Point in My Life," which, at Howells's suggestion, he had been preparing for Harper's Bazar. It was a characteristic touch, and, as the last summary of his philosophy of human life, may be repeated here.
Necessarily the scene of the real turning-point of my life (and of yours) was the Garden of Eden. It was there that the first link was forged of the chain that was ultimately to lead to the emptying of me into the literary guild. Adam's temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament—which he did not create and had no authority over. For the temperament is the man; the thing tricked out with clothes and named Man is merely its Shadow, nothing more. The law of the tiger's temperament is, Thou shaft kill; the law of the sheep's temperament is, Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring the tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to imbrue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those commands can't be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law of temperament, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That is, in their temperaments. Not in them, poor helpless young creatures—afflicted with temperaments made out of butter, which butter was commanded to get into contact with fire and be melted. What I cannot help wishing is, that Adam and Eve had been postponed, and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place—that splendid pair equipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By neither sugary persuasions nor by hell-fire could Satan have beguiled them to eat the apple.
There would have been results! Indeed yes. The apple would be intact to-day; there would be no human race; there would be no you; there would be no me. And the old, old creation-dawn scheme of ultimately launching me into the literary guild would have been defeated.
CCLXXXIX
THE DEATH OF JEAN
He decided to go home for the holidays, and how fortunate it seems now that he did so! We sailed for America on the 18th of December, arriving the 21st. Jean was at the wharf to meet us, blue and shivering with the cold, for it was wretchedly bleak there, and I had the feeling that she should not have come.
She went directly, I think, to Stormfield, he following a day or two later. On the 23d I was lunching with Jean alone. She was full of interest in her Christmas preparations. She had a handsome tree set up in the loggia, and the packages were piled about it, with new ones constantly arriving. With her farm management, her housekeeping, her secretary work, and her Christmas preparations, it seemed to me that she had her hands overfull. Such a mental pressure could not be good for her. I suggested that for a time at least I might assume a part of her burden.
I was to remain at my own home that night, and I think it was as I left Stormfield that I passed jean on the stair. She said, cheerfully, that she felt a little tired and was going up to lie down, so that she would be fresh for the evening. I did not go back, and I never saw her alive again.
I was at breakfast next morning when word was brought in that one of the men from Stormfield was outside and wished to see me immediately. When I went out he said: "Miss Jean is dead. They have just found her in her bath-room. Mr. Clemens sent me to bring you."
It was as incomprehensible as such things always are. I could not realize at all that Jean, so full of plans and industries and action less than a day before, had passed into that voiceless mystery which we call death.