Says “Charles Vale,” in describing the scene “The audience sat spellbound in almost painful silence, till it could restrain itself no longer; and when in rich, resonant, uplifted voice Mark Twain sang out the words: 'I am the Begum of Bengal, a hundred and twenty-three days out from Canton,' there burst forth a great cheer from one end of the room to the other. It seemed an inopportune cheer, and for a moment it upset the orator: yet it was felicitous in opportuneness. Slowly, after a long pause, came the last two words—like that curious, detached and high note in which a great piece of music suddenly ends—'Homeward bound.' Again there was a cheer: but this time it was lower; it was subdued; it was the fitting echo to the beautiful words—with their double significance—the parting from a hospitable land, the return to the native land. . . . Only a great litterateur could have conceived such a passage: only a great orator could have so delivered it.”
Mark Twain was the greatest master of the anecdote this generation has known. He claimed the humorous story as an American invention, and one that has remained at home. His public speeches were little mosaics in the finesse of their art; and the intricacies of inflection, insinuation, jovial innuendo which Mark Twain threw into his gestures, his implicative pauses, his suggestive shrugs and deprecative nods—all these are hopelessly volatilized and disappear entirely from the printed copy of his speeches. He gave the most minute and elaborate study to the preparation of his speeches—polishing them dexterously and rehearsing every word, every gesture, with infinite care. Yet his readiness and fertility of resource in taking advantage, and making telling use, of things in the speeches of those immediately preceding him, were striking evidences of the rapidity of his thought-processes. In Boston, when asked what he thought about the existence of a heaven or a hell, he looked grave for a moment, and then replied: “I don't want to express an opinion. It's policy for me to keep silent. You see, I have friends in both places.” His speech introducing General Hawley of Connecticut to a Republican meeting at Elmira, New York, is an admirable example of his laconic art: “General Hawley is a member of my church at Hartford, and the author of 'Beautiful Snow.' Maybe he will deny that. But I am only here to give him a character from his last place. As a pure citizen, I respect him; as a personal friend of years, I have the warmest regard for him; as a neighbour, whose vegetable garden adjoins mine, why—why, I watch him. As the author of 'Beautiful Snow,' he has added a new pang to winter. He is a square, true man in honest politics, and I must say he occupies a mighty lonesome position. So broad, so bountiful is his character that he never turned a tramp empty-handed from his door, but always gave him a letter of introduction to me. Pure, honest, incorruptible, that is Joe Hawley. Such a man in politics is like a bottle of perfumery in a glue factory—it may modify the stench, but it doesn't destroy it. I haven't said any more of him than I would say of myself. Ladies and gentlemen, this is General Hawley.”
Mr. Chesterton maintains that Mark Twain was a wit rather than a humorist—perhaps something more than a humorist. “Wit,” he explains, “requires an intellectual athleticism, because it is akin to logic. A wit must have something of the same running, working, and staying power as a mathematician or a metaphysician. Moreover, wit is a fighting thing and a working thing. A man may enjoy humour all by himself; he may see a joke when no one else sees it; he may see the point and avoid it. But wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it. All honest people saw the point of Mark Twain's wit. Not a few dishonest people felt it.” The epigram, “Be virtuous, and you will be eccentric,” has become a catchword; and everyone has heard Mark Twain's reply to the reporter asking for advice as to what to cable his paper, which had printed the statement that Mark Twain was dead “Say that the statement is greatly exaggerated.” He has admirably taken off humanity's enduring self-conceit in the statement that there isn't a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had had its rights. There is something peculiarly American in his warning to young girls not to marry—that is, not to excess! His remarks on compliments have a delightful and naive freshness. He points out how embarrassing compliments always are. It is so difficult to take them naturally. You never know what to say. He had received many compliments in his lifetime, and they had always embarrassed him—he always felt that they hadn't said enough!
The incident of Mark Twain's first meeting with Whistler is quaintly illustrative of one phase of his broader humour. Mark Twain was taken by a friend to Whistler's studio, just as he was putting the finishing touches to one of his fantastic studies. Confident of the usual commendation, Whistler inquired his guest's opinion of the picture. Mark Twain assumed the air of a connoisseur, and approaching the picture remarked that it did very well, but “he didn't care much for that cloud—”; and suiting the action to the word, appeared to be on the point of rubbing the cloud with his gloved finger. In genuine horror, Whistler exclaimed: “Don't touch it, the paint's wet!” “Oh, that's all right,” replied Mark with his characteristic drawl: “these aren't my best gloves, anyhow!” Whereat Whistler recognized a congenial spirit, and their first hearty laugh together was the beginning of a friendly and congenial relationship.
I recall an incident in connection with the writing of his Autobiography. On more than one occasion, he declared that the Autobiography was going to be something awful—as caustic, fiendish, and devilish as he could make it. Actually, he was in the habit of jotting on the margin of the page, opposite to some startling characterization or diabolic joke: “Not to be published until ten (or twenty, or thirty) years after my death.” One day I heard him vent his pent-up rage, in bitter and caustic words, upon a certain strenuous, limelight American politician. I could not resist the temptation to ask him if this, too, were going into the Autobiography. “Oh yes,” he replied, decisively. “Everything goes in. I make no exceptions. But,” he added reflectively, with the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, “I shall make a note beside this passage: 'Not to be published until one hundred and fifty years after my death'!”
Mark Twain had numerous “doubles” scattered about the world. The number continually increased; once a month on an average, he would receive a letter from a new “double,” enclosing a photograph in proof of the resemblance. Mark once wrote to one of these doubles as follows:
MY DEAR SIR—
Many thanks for your letter, with enclosed photograph. Your resemblance to me is remarkable. In fact, to be perfectly honest, you look more like me than I look like myself. I was so much impressed by the resemblance that I have had your picture framed, and am now using it regularly, in place of a mirror, to shave by.
Yours gratefully,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Although not generally recognized, it is undoubtedly true that Mark Twain was a wit as well as a humorist. He was the author of many epigrams and curt aphorisms which have become stock phrases in conversation, quoted in all classes of society wherever the English language is spoken. His phrasing is unpretentious, even homely, wearing none of the polished brilliancy of La Rochefoucauld or Bernard Shaw; but Mark Twain's sayings “stick” because they are rooted in shrewdness and hard commonsense.
Mark Twain's warning to the two burglars who stole his silverware from “Stormfield” and were afterwards caught and sent to the penitentiary, is very amusing, though not highly complimentary to American political life:
“Now you two young men have been up to my house, stealing my tinware, and got pulled in by these Yankees up here. You had much better have stayed in New York, where you have the pull. Don't you see where you're drifting. They'll send you from here down to Bridgeport jail, and the next thing you know you'll be in the United States Senate. There's no other future left open to you.”