Chapter 22

"Yes, the wee creatures that inhabit the bodies of us germs and feed upon us, and rot us with disease: Ah, what could they have been created for? They give us pain, they make our lives miserable, they murder us--and where is the use of it all, where the wisdom? Ah, friend Bkshp [microbic orthography], we live in a strange and unaccountable world; our birth is a mystery, our little life is a mystery, a trouble, we pass and are seen no more; all is mystery, mystery, mystery; we know not whence we came, nor why; we know not whither we go, nor why we go. We only know we were not made in vain, we only know we were made for a wise purpose, and that all is well! We shall not be cast aside in contumely and unblest after all we have suffered. Let us be patient, let us not repine, let us trust. The humblest of us is cared for--oh, believe it!--and this fleeting stay is not the end!"

You notice that? He did not suspect that he, also, was engaged in gnawing, torturing, defiling, rotting, and murdering a fellow-creature --he and all the swarming billions of his race. None of them suspects it. That is significant. It is suggestive--irresistibly suggestive --insistently suggestive. It hints at the possibility that the procession of known and listed devourers and persecutors is not complete. It suggests the possibility, and substantially the certainty, that man is himself a microbe, and his globe a blood-corpuscle drifting with its shining brethren of the Milky Way down a vein of the Master and Maker of all things, whose body, mayhap--glimpsed part-wise from the earth by night, and receding and lost to view in the measureless remotenesses of space--is what men name the Universe.

Yes, that was all old to me, but to find that our little old familiar microbes were themselves loaded up with microbes that fed them, enriched them, and persistently and faithfully preserved them and their poor old tramp-planet from destruction--oh, that was new, and too delicious!

I wanted to see them! I was in a fever to see them! I had lenses to two-million power, but of course the field was no bigger than a person's finger-nail, and so it wasn't possible to compass a considerable spectacle or a landscape with them; whereas what I had been craving was a thirty-foot field, which would represent a spread of several miles of country and show up things in a way to make them worth looking at. The boys and I had often tried to contrive this improvement, but had failed.

I mentioned the matter to the Duke and it made him smile. He said it was a quite simple thing-he had it at home. I was eager to bargain for the secret, but he said it was a trifle and not worth bargaining for. He said:

"Hasn't it occurred to you that all you have to do is to bend an X-ray to an angle-value of 8.4 and refract it with a parabolism, and there you are?"

Upon my word, I had never thought of that simple thing! You could have knocked me down with a feather.

We rigged a microscope for an exhibition at once and put a drop of my blood under it, which got mashed flat when the lens got shut down upon it. The result was beyond my dreams. The field stretched miles away, green and undulating, threaded with streams and roads, and bordered all down the mellowing distances with picturesque hills. And there was a great white city of tents; and everywhere were parks of artillery and divisions of cavalry and infantry waiting. We had hit a lucky moment, evidently there was going to be a march-past or some thing like that. At the front where the chief banner flew there was a large and showy tent, with showy guards on duty, and about it were some other tents of a swell kind.

The warriors--particularly the officers--were lovely to look at, they were so trim-built and so graceful and so handsomely uniformed. They were quite distinct, vividly distinct, for it was a fine day, and they were so immensely magnified that they looked to be fully a finger-nail high.--[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: "Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!" "How do you mean, m'lord?" "This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh." The Duke said "finger-milers was good"--good and exact; and he afterward used it several times himself.]--Everywhere you could see officers moving smartly about, and they looked gay, but the common soldiers looked sad. Many wife-swinks ["Swinks," an atomic race] and daughter-swinks and sweetheart-swinks were about--crying, mainly. It seemed to indicate that this was a case of war, not a summer-camp for exercise, and that the poor labor-swinks were being torn from their planet-saving industries to go and distribute civilization and other forms of suffering among the feeble benighted somewhere; else why should the swinkesses cry?

The cavalry was very fine--shiny black horses, shapely and spirited; and presently when a flash of light struck a lifted bugle (delivering a command which we couldn't hear) and a division came tearing down on a gallop it was a stirring and gallant sight, until the dust rose an inch --the Duke thought more--and swallowed it up in a rolling and tumbling long gray cloud, with bright weapons glinting and sparkling in it.

Before long the real business of the occasion began. A battalion of priests arrived carrying sacred pictures. That settled it: this was war; these far-stretching masses of troops were bound for the front. Their little monarch came out now, the sweetest little thing that ever travestied the human shape I think, and he lifted up his hands and blessed the passing armies, and they looked as grateful as they could, and made signs of humble and real reverence as they drifted by the holy pictures.

It was beautiful--the whole thing; and wonderful, too, when those serried masses swung into line and went marching down the valley under the long array of fluttering flags.

Evidently they were going somewhere to fight for their king, which was the little manny that blessed them; and to preserve him and his brethren that occupied the other swell tents; to civilize and grasp a valuable little unwatched country for them somewhere. But the little fellow and his brethren didn't fall in--that was a noticeable particular. They didn't fight; they stayed at home, where it was safe, and waited for the swag.

Very well, then-what ought we to do? Had we no moral duty to perform? Ought we to allow this war to begin? Was it not our duty to stop it, in the name of right and righteousness? Was it not our duty to administer a rebuke to this selfish and heartless Family?

The Duke was struck by that, and greatly moved. He felt as I did about it, and was ready to do whatever was right, and thought we ought to pour boiling water on the Family and extinguish it, which we did.

It extinguished the armies, too, which was not intended. We both regretted this, but the Duke said that these people were nothing to us, and deserved extinction anyway for being so poor-spirited as to serve such a Family. He was loyally doing the like himself, and so was I, but I don't think we thought of that. And it wasn't just the same, anyway, because we were sooflaskies, and they were only swinks.

Franklin realizes that no atom is destructible; that it has always existed and will exist forever; but he thinks all atoms will go out of this world some day and continue their life in a happier one. Old Tolliver thinks no atom's life will ever end, but he also thinks Blitzowski is the only world it will ever see, and that at no time in its eternity will it be either worse off or better off than it is now and always has been. Of course he thinks the planet Blitzowski is itself eternal and indestructible--at any rate he says he thinks that. It could make me sad, only I know better. D. T. will fetch Blitzy yet one of these days.

But these are alien thoughts, human thoughts, and they falsely indicate that I do not want this tramp to go on living. What would become of me if he should disintegrate? My molecules would scatter all around and take up new quarters in hundreds of plants and animals; each would carry its special feelings along with it, each would be content in its new estate, but where should I be? I should not have a rag of a feeling left, after my disintegration--with his--was complete. Nothing to think with, nothing to grieve or rejoice with, nothing to hope or despair with. There would be no more me. I should be musing and thinking and dreaming somewhere else--in some distant animal maybe--perhaps a cat--by proxy of my oxygen I should be raging and fuming in some other creatures--a rat, perhaps; I should be smiling and hoping in still another child of Nature --heir to my hydrogen--a weed, or a cabbage, or something; my carbonic acid (ambition) would be dreaming dreams in some lowly wood-violet that was longing for a showy career; thus my details would be doing as much feeling as ever, but I should not be aware of it, it would all be going on for the benefit of those others, and I not in it at all. I should be gradually wasting away, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, as the years went on, and at last I should be all distributed, and nothing left of what had once been Me. It is curious, and not without impressiveness: I should still be alive, intensely alive, but so scattered that I would not know it. I should not be dead--no, one cannot call it that--but I should be the next thing to it. And to think what centuries and ages and aeons would drift over me before the disintegration was finished, the last bone turned to gas and blown away! I wish I knew what it is going to feel like, to lie helpless such a weary, weary time, and see my faculties decay and depart, one by one, like lights which burn low, and flicker and perish, until the ever-deepening gloom and darkness which--oh, away, away with these horrors, and let me think of something wholesome!

My tramp is only 85; there is good hope that he will live ten years longer--500,000 of my microbe years. So may it be.

Oh, dear, we are all so wise! Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all--the rest, to a man, are fools and deluded. One man knows there is a hell, the next one knows there isn't; one man knows high tariff is right, the next man knows it isn't; one man knows monarchy is best, the next one knows it isn't; one age knows there are witches, the next one knows there aren't; one sect knows its religion is the only true one, there are sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know it isn't so. There is not a mind present among this multitude of verdict-deliverers that is the superior of the minds that persuade and represent the rest of the divisions of the multitude. Yet this sarcastic fact does not humble the arrogance nor diminish the know-it-all bulk of a single verdict-maker of the lot by so much as a shade. Mind is plainly an ass, but it will be many ages before it finds it out, no doubt. Why do we respect the opinions of any man or any microbe that ever lived? I swear I don't know. Why do I respect my own? Well--that is different.

APPENDIX W

LITTLE BESSIE WOULD ASSIST PROVIDENCE

(See Chapter cclxxxii)

[It is dull, and I need wholesome excitements and distractions; so I will go lightly excursioning along the primrose path of theology.]

Little Bessie was nearly three years old. She was a good child, and not shallow, not frivolous, but meditative and thoughtful, and much given to thinking out the reasons of things and trying to make them harmonize with results. One day she said:

"Mama, why is there so much pain and sorrow and suffering? What is it all for?"

It was an easy question, and mama had no difficulty in answering it:

"It is for our good, my child. In His wisdom and mercy the Lord sends us these afflictions to discipline us and make us better."

"Is it He that sends them?"

"Yes."

"Does He send all of them, mama?"

"Yes, dear, all of them. None of them comes by accident; He alone sends them, and always out of love for us, and to make us better."

"Isn't it strange?"

"Strange? Why, no, I have never thought of it in that way. I have not heard any one call it strange before. It has always seemed natural and right to me, and wise and most kindly and merciful."

"Who first thought of it like that, mama? Was it you?"

"Oh no, child, I was taught it."

"Who taught you so, mama?"

"Why, really, I don't know--I can't remember. My mother, I suppose; or the preacher. But it's a thing that everybody knows."

"Well, anyway, it does seem strange. Did He give Billy Norris the typhus?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"Why, to discipline him and make him good."

"But he died, mama, and so it couldn't make him good."

"Well, then, I suppose it was for some other reason. We know it was a good reason, whatever it was."

"What do you think it was, mama?"

"Oh, you ask so many questions! I think it was to discipline his parents."

"Well, then, it wasn't fair, mama. Why should his life be taken away for their sake, when he wasn't doing anything?"

"Oh, I don't know! I only know it was for a good and wise and merciful reason."

"What reason, mama?"

"I think--I think-well, it was a judgment; it was to punish them for some sin they had committed."

"But he was the one that was punished, mama. Was that right?"

"Certainly, certainly. He does nothing that isn't right and wise and merciful. You can't understand these things now, dear, but when you are grown up you will understand them, and then you will see that they are just and wise."

After a pause:

"Did He make the roof fall in on the stranger that was trying to save the crippled old woman from the fire, mama?"

"Yes, my child. Wait! Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I only know it was to discipline some one, or be a judgment upon somebody, or to show His power."

"That drunken man that stuck a pitchfork into Mrs. Welch's baby when--"

"Never mind about it, you needn't go into particulars; it was to discipline the child--that much is certain, anyway."

"Mama, Mr. Burgess said in his sermon that billions of little creatures are sent into us to give us cholera, and typhoid, and lockjaw, and more than a thousand other sicknesses and--mama, does He send them?"

"Oh, certainly, child, certainly. Of course."

"What for?"

"Oh, to discipline us! Haven't I told you so, over and over again?"

"It's awful cruel, mama! And silly! and if I----"

"Hush, oh, hush! Do you want to bring the lightning?"

"You know the lightning did come last week, mama, and struck the new church, and burnt it down. Was it to discipline the church?"

(Wearily.) "Oh, I suppose so."

"But it killed a hog that wasn't doing anything. Was it to discipline the hog, mama?"

"Dear child, don't you want to run out and play a while? If you would like to----"

"Mama, only think! Mr. Hollister says there isn't a bird, or fish, or reptile, or any other animal that hasn't got an enemy that Providence has sent to bite it and chase it and pester it and kill it and suck its blood and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mother --because if it is true why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?"

"That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I don't want you to listen to anything he says."

"Why, mama, he is very interesting, and I think he tries to be good. He says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down into their nests in the ground--alive, mama!--and there they live and suffer days and days and days, and the hungry little wasps chewing their legs and gnawing into their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. I think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and ever so kind; for when I asked him if he would treat a spider like that he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he----Dear mama, have you fainted! I will run and bring help! Now this comes of staying in town this hot weather."

APPENDIX X

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF MARK TWAIN'S WORK

PUBLISHED AND OTHERWISE--FROM 1851-1910

Note 1.--This is not a detailed bibliography, but merely a general list of Mark Twain's literary undertakings, in the order of performance, showing when, and usually where, the work was done, when and where first published, etc. An excellent Mark Twain bibliography has been compiled by Mr. Merle Johnson, to whom acknowledgments are due for important items.

Note 2.--Only a few of the more important speeches are noted. Volumes that are merely collections of tales or articles are not noted.

Note 3.--Titles are shortened to those most commonly in use, as "Huck Finn" or "Huck" for "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

Names of periodicals are abbreviated.

The initials U. E. stand for the "Uniform Edition" of Mark Twain's works.

The chapter number or numbers in the line with the date refers to the place in this work where the items are mentioned.

1851. (See Chapter xviii of this work.)

Edited the Hannibal Journal during the absence of the owner and editor, Orion Clemens. Wrote local items for the Hannibal Journal. Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal. Wrote two sketches for The Sat. Eve. Post (Philadelphia). To MARY IN H-l. Hannibal Journal.

1852-53. (See Chapter xviii.)

JIM WOLFE AND THE FIRE--Hannibal Journal. Burlesque of a rival editor in the Hannibal Journal.

1853. (See Chapter xix.)

Wrote obituary poems--not published. Wrote first letters home.

1855-56. (See Chapters xx and xxi.)

First after-dinner speech; delivered at a printers' banquet in Keokuk, Iowa. Letters from Cincinnati, November 16, 1856, signed "Snodgrass" --Saturday Post (Keokuk).

1857. (See Chapter xxi.)

Letters from Cincinnati, March 16, 1857, signed "Snodgrass"--Saturday Post (Keokuk).

1858.

Anonymous contributions to the New Orleans Crescent and probably to St. Louis papers.

1859. (See Chapter xxvii; also Appendix B.)

Burlesque of Capt. Isaiah Sellers--True Delta (New Orleans), May 8 or 9.

1861. (See Chapters xxxiii to xxxv.)

Letters home, published in The Gate City (Keokuk).

1862. (See Chapters xxxv to xxxviii.)

Letters and sketches, signed "Josh," for the Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada). REPORT OF THE LECTURE OF PROF. PERSONAL PRONOUN--Enterprise. REPORT OF A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION--Enterprise. THE PETRIFIED MAN--Enterprise. Local news reporter for the Enterprise from August.

1863. (See Chapters xli to xliii; also Appendix C.)

Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. First used the name "Mark Twain," February 2. ADVICE TO THE UNRELIABLE--Enterprise. CURING A COLD--Enterprise. U. E. INFORMATION FOR THE MILLION--Enterprise. ADVICE TO GOOD LITTLE GIRLS--Enterprise. THE DUTCH NICK MASSACRE--Enterprise. Many other Enterprise sketches. THE AGED PILOT MAN (poem)--"ROUGHING IT." U. E.

1864. (See. Chapters xliv to xlvii.)

Reported the Nevada Legislature for the Enterprise. Speech as "Governor of the Third House." Letters to New York Sunday Mercury. Local reporter on the San Francisco Call. Articles and sketches for the Golden Era. Articles and sketches for the Californian. Daily letters from San Francisco to the Enterprise. (Several of the Era and Californian sketches appear in SKETCHES NEW AND OLD. U. E.)

1865. (See Chapters xlix to li; also Appendix E.)

Notes for the Jumping Frog story; Angel's Camp, February. Sketches etc., for the Golden Era and Californian. Daily letter to the Enterprise. THE JUMPING FROG (San Francisco) Saturday Press. New York, November 18. U. E.

1866. (See Chapters lii to lv; also Appendix D.)

Daily letter to the Enterprise. Sandwich Island letters to the Sacramento Union. Lecture on the Sandwich Islands, San Francisco, October 2. FORTY-THREE DAYS IN AN OPEN BOAT--Harper's Magazine, December (error in signature made it Mark Swain).

1867. (See Chapters lvii to lxv; also Appendices E, F, and G.)

Letters to Alta California from New York. JIM WOLFE AND THE CATS--N. Y. Sunday Mercury. THE JUMPING FROG--book, published by Charles Henry Webb, May 1. U. E. Lectured at Cooper Union, May, '66. Letters to Alta California and New York Tribune from the Quaker City --Holy Land excursion. Letter to New York Herald on the return from the Holy Land. After-dinner speech on "Women" (Washington). Began arrangement for the publication of THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

1868. (See Chapters lxvi to lxix; also Appendices H and I.)

Newspaper letters, etc., from Washington, for New York Citizen, Tribune, Herald, and other papers and periodicals. Preparing Quaker City letters (in Washington and San Francisco) for book publication. CAPTAIN WAKEMAN'S (STORMFIELD'S) VISIT TO HEAVEN (San Francisco), published Harper's Magazine, December, 1907-January, 1908 (also book, Harpers). Lectured in California and Nevada on the "Holy Land," July 2. S'CAT! Anonymous article on T. K. Beecher (Elmira), published in local paper. Lecture-tour, season 1868-69.

1869. (See Chapters lxx to lxxni.)

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD--book (Am. Pub. Co.), July 20. U. E. Bought one-third ownership in the Buffalo Express. Contributed editorials, sketches, etc., to the Express. Contributed sketches to Packard's Monthly, Wood's Magazine, etc. Lecture-tour, season 1869-70.

1870. (See Chapters lxxiv to lxxx; also Appendix J.)

Contributed various matter to Buffalo Express. Contributed various matter under general head of "MEMORANDA" to Galaxy Magazine, May to April, '71. ROUGHING IT begun in September (Buffalo). SHEM'S DIARY (Buffalo) (unfinished). GOD, ANCIENT AND MODERN (unpublished).

1871. (See Chapters lxxxi and lxxxii; also Appendix K.)

MEMORANDA continued in Galaxy to April. AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FIRST ROMANCE--[THE FIRST ROMANCE had appeared in the Express in 1870. Later included in SKETCHES.]--booklet (Sheldon & Co.). U. E. ROUGHING IT finished (Quarry Farm). Ruloff letter--Tribune. Wrote several sketches and lectures (Quarry Farm). Western play (unfinished). Lecture-tour, season 1871-72.

1872. (See Chapters lxxxiii to lxxxvii; also Appendix L.)

ROUGHING IT--book (Am. Pub. Co.), February. U. E. THE MARK TWAIN SCRAP-BOOK invented (Saybrook, Connecticut). TOM SAWYER begun as a play (Saybrook, Connecticut). A few unimportant sketches published in "Practical jokes," etc. Began a book on England (London).

1873. (See Chapters lxxxviii to xcii.)

Letters on the Sandwich Islands-Tribune, January 3 and 6. THE GILDED AGE (with C. D. Warner)--book (Am. Pub. Co), December. U. E. THE LICENSE OF THE PRESS--paper for The Monday Evening Club. Lectured in London, October 18 and season 1873-74.

1874. (See Chapters xciii to xcviii; also Appendix M.)

TOM SAWYER continued (in the new study at Quarry Farm). A TRUE STORY (Quarry Farm)-Atlantic, November. U. E. FABLES (Quarry Farm). U. E. COLONEL SELLERS--play (Quarry Farm) performed by John T. Raymond. UNDERTAKER'S LOVE-STORY (Quarry Farm) (unpublished). OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI (Hartford) Atlantic, January to July, 1875. Monarchy letter to Mrs. Clemens, dated 1935 (Boston).

1875. (See Chapters c to civ; also Appendix N.)

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE--paper for The Monday Evening Club. SKETCHES NEW AND OLD--book (Am. Pub. Co.), July. U. E. TOM SAWYER concluded (Hartford). THE CURIOUS REP. OF GONDOUR--Atlantic, October (unsigned). PUNCH, CONDUCTOR, PUNCH--Atlantic, February, 1876. U. E. THE SECOND ADVENT (unfinished). THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER (unfinished). AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DAMN FOOL (unfinished). Petition for International Copyright. 1876. (See Chapters cvi to cx.)