Chapter 3

No experience is set down in the following letters which had to be invented. Fancy is not needed to give variety to the history of a Chinaman's sojourn in America. Plain fact is amply sufficient.

DEAR CHING-FOO: It is all settled, and I am to leave my oppressed and overburdened native land and cross the sea to that noble realm where all are free and all equal, and none reviled or abused--America!

But he said, wait a minute--I must be vaccinated to prevent my taking the small-pox. I smiled and said I had already had the small-pox, as he could see by the marks, and so I need not wait to be "vaccinated," as he called it. But he said it was the law, and I must be vaccinated anyhow. The doctor would never let me pass, for the law obliged him to vaccinate all Chinamen and charge them ten dollars apiece for it, and I might be sure that no doctor who would be the servant of that law would let a fee slip through his fingers to accommodate any absurd fool who had seen fit to have the disease in some other country.

And I grew still more uneasy, when I found that any succored and befriended refugee from Ireland or elsewhere could stand up before that judge and swear, away the life or liberty or character of a refugee from China; but that by the law of the land the Chinaman could not testify against the Irishman.

CURIOUS REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR, by Mark Twain [MT#53][mtcrg10.txt]3192

I found that the nation had at first tried universal suffrage pure and simple, but had thrown that form aside because the result was not satisfactory. It had seemed to deliver all power into the hands of the ignorant and non-tax-paying classes; and of a necessity the responsible offices were filled from these classes also.

That last--and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun.

Mrs. Murphy jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm her dead husband, and so she telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that the bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow. She uttered a wild, sad wail, that pierced every heart, and said: "Sivinty-foive dollars for stoofhn' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin' to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such expinsive curiassities!"

I kind of dodged, and the boot-jack broke the looking-glass. I could have waited to see what became of the other missiles if I had wanted to, but I took no interest in such things.

TWAIN'S LETTERS V1 1835-1866 by A. B. Paine[MT#54][mt1lt10.txt]3193

A mighty national menace to sham All talk and no cider Condition my room is always in when you are not around Deprived of the soothing consolation of swearing Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it Genius defies the laws of perspective Hope deferred maketh the heart sick I never greatly envied anybody but the dead In the long analysis of the ages it is the truth that counts Just about enough cats to go round Moral bulwark reared against hypocrisy and superstition The coveted estate of silence, time's only absolute gift We went outside to keep from getting wet What a pleasure there is in revenge! When in doubt, tell the truth When it is my turn, I don't

TWAIN'S LETTERS V2 1867-1875 by A. B. Paine[MT#55][mt2lt10.txt]3194

DEAR REDPATH,--I wish you would get me released from the lecture at Buffalo. I mortally hate that society there, and I don't doubt they hired me. I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never even had the common politeness to thank me. They left me to shift for myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard. Get me rid of Buffalo! Otherwise I'll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture there. I can get sick easy enough.

I send you No. 5 today. I have written and re-written the first half of it three different times, yesterday and today, and at last Mrs. Clemens says it will do. I never saw a woman so hard to please about things she doesn't know anything about. Yours ever, MARK.

This is the place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There isn't one man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson Burlingame--and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his time was up. There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh, geeminy! There are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to visit. I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its "attractions." To be busy is a man's only happiness--and I am--otherwise I should die Yrs. aff. SAM.

TWAIN'S LETTERS V3 1876-1885 by A. B. Paine[MT#56][mt3lt10.txt]3195

It is interesting to note that in thanking Clemens for his compliment Howells wrote: "What people cannot see is that I analyze as little as possible; they go on talking about the analytical school, which I am supposed to belong to, and I want to thank you for using your eyes..... Did you ever read De Foe's 'Roxana'? If not, then read it, not merely for some of the deepest insights into the lying, suffering, sinning, well-meaning human soul, but for the best and most natural English that a book was ever written in."

Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the household and seldomest get.

In the same letter he suggests to his brother that he undertake an absolutely truthful autobiography, a confession in which nothing is to be withheld. He cites the value of Casanova's memories, and the confessions of Rousseau.

And I say this also: He that waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his plan, let him seek eternal life, for he shall need it.

Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?

You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a village-- villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other.

TWAIN'S LETTERS V4 1886-1900 by A. B. Paine[MT#57][mt4lt10.txt]3196

And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55 Argument against suicide Conversationally being yelled at Dead people who go through the motions of life Die in the promptest kind of a way and no fooling around Heroic endurance that resembles contentment Honest men must be pretty scarce I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt If this is going to be too much trouble to you One should be gentle with the ignorant Sunday is the only day that brings unbearable leisure Symbol of the human race ought to be an ax What a pity it is that one's adventures never happen!

TWAIN'S LETTERS V5 1901-1906 by A. B. Paine[MT#58][mt5lt10.txt]3197

I have seen that iceberg thirty-four times in thirty-seven voyages; it is always the same shape, it is always the same size, it always throws up the same old flash when the sun strikes it; you may set it on any New York door-step of a June morning and light it up with a mirror-flash; and I will engage to recognize it. It is artificial, and it is provided and anchored out by the steamer companies. I used to like the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get excited over any kind of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran out, if it was a fortnight.

It vexes me to catch myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt, and blaming the soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither praise nor blame is due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he being merely a helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand of God.

It was a presidential year and the air was thick with politics. Mark Twain was no longer actively interested in the political situation; he was only disheartened by the hollowness and pretense of office-seeking, and the methods of office-seekers in general.

Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all, everything, and ease my heart. Think--in 3 hours it will be a week!--and soon a month; and by and by a year. How fast our dead fly from us.

Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the fields, with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired of waiting for that man to get old.

When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

TWAIN'S LETTERS V6 1907-1910 by A. B. Paine[MT#59][mt6lt10.txt]3198

That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my brain. . . Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for it.

You ought not to say sarcastic things about my "fighting on the other side." General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced, and you have hurt my feelings.

DEAR HOWELLS,--I have to write a line, lazy as I am, to say how your Poe article delighted me; and to say that I am in agreement with substantially all you say about his literature. To me his prose is unreadable--like Jane Austin's. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

COMPLETE LETTERS OF MARK TWAIN, by Paine [MT#60][mtclt10.txt]3199

That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my brain. . . Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for it.

Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all, everything, and ease my heart. Think--in 3 hours it will be a week!--and soon a month; and by and by a year. How fast our dead fly from us.

I used to like the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get excited over any kind of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran out.

And I say this also: He that waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his plan, let him seek eternal life, for he shall need it.

Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?

You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a village-- villagers watch each other and so make cowards of each other.