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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Biography / Autobiography
- Published: 08/12/2013
Mark Twain’s America - Act 2
Born 1969, M, from Herten, NRW, GermanyMark Twain’s America
An Entertainment by Samuel L. Clemens
Herbert Moulton and Jack Babb
Act 2 (Please see Act 1 for the beginning of the play.)
Narrator-- If a proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one, then Mark Twain was not only our greatest novelist, but also our greatest wit. Dozens of his sayings have become part of our language, For example:
Narrator-- Let us so live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will
be sorry.
Narrator-- Or this---
Narrator-- I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
Narrator-- Or this observation---
Narrator-- There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he less savage than the other savages.
Narrator-- Some of his observations were very practical, such as---
Narrator-- Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us
could not succeed.
Narrator-- For Twain, there were as many targets as there were fools.
some of them were universal — congress:
Narrator-- Our only distinctly native criminal class.
Narrator-- Religious fanatics —
Narrator-- I always suspect anyone who has entered into partnership with God
without His knowledge.
Narrator-- Human nature —
Narrator-- If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you, this is the principle difference between a dog and a man.
Narrator-- A pessimist? The man who wasn't one, he said, was "a damned fool."
Narrator-- All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence —
then success is sure.
Narrator-- But he also could be an optimist — of sorts.
Narrator-- All good things arrive unto them that wait-- and that don't die
in the meantime.
Narrator-- But most of all, Mark Twain was a realist ——
Narrator-- The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much, if he is
an optimist after 48, he knows too little.
Narrator-- He was especially realistic about himself.
Narrator-- I am a great and sublime fool, but then I am god's fool, and all his works must be contemplated with respect.
Narrator-- Of course he had opinions about everything, such as…
Narrator-- Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Narrator-- Or his famous definition of a classic:
Narrator-- A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.
Narrator-- And that of cauliflower —
Narrator-- Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Narrator-- And women's rights —
Narrator-- Miss Lucy Stone is lecturing on woman's rights in Philadelphia. I wonder if she wouldn’t like to cut wood, bring water, shoe horses, be a deck hand, or something of that sort? She has a right to do it, and if she wants to carry bricks, we say, let her alone. (The women in the cast give him a look.) Twain said it not me.
Narrator-- Twain also gave sound financial advice —
Narrator-- Behold the fool sayeth: Put not all thine eggs in one basket.
Narrator-- Which is but a manner of saying: Scatter your money and affection.
Narrator-- But the wise man sayeth: Put all your eggs in the one basket, and---
All- WATCH THAT BASKET
Narrator-- Mark Twain on War: Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities: War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood to exterminate his kind. And in the intervals, between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"--with his mouth.
Narrator-- Twain’s early hurrahs about America’s “splendid little war” with
Spain in 1898 turned bitter in his mouth once its true aims were manifest
Narrator-- The unholy alliance of Christianity, Cash, and Colonialism.
Narrator-- As Twain once said: To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation.
Narrator-- Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Narrator--An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.
Narrator--I bring you the stately matron named Christendom. Returning dishonored from pirate raids in Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, and her mouth full of hypocrisies. Give her a soap and a towel, but hide the looking glass. As for this being a Christian Country. Why, so is Hell.
Narrator-- In his youth, Twain spent two weeks in the Confederate Army. Years later, Century Magazine asked him to recount that experience as part of a series titled “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War”. Here is an extract from “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed”
You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is it not fair and right that you listen to one who started out to do something in it, but didn't? Thou-sands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. They ought at least to be allowed to state why they didn't do anything, and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything. Surely this must have a sort of value. In the summer of 1861 Missouri was invaded by the Union forces. The Governor issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand militia to repel the invader. I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent—Hannibal, in Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One- Tom Lyman- a young fellow with a good deal of spirit but no military experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen of us. We called ourselves the Marion Rangers. Our first afternoon in the camp I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be a dry-nurse to a mule it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake. I believed that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered Smith to feed the mule; but he merely gave me a large, cold, sarcastic grin and turned his back on me. Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no dinner. Then trouble broke out between the corporal and the sergeant, each claiming to out rank the other. Nobody knew which was the higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular army at all. One might justly imagine that we were hopeless material for war. Every few days rumors would come that the enemy were approaching. In these cases we always fell back and retreated, we never stayed where we were. But the rumors always turned out to be false; so at last we began to grow indifferent to them. One night a negro was sent with the same old warning: the enemy was hovering in our neighborhood. We all said let him hover. We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and we recognized it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right away a figure appeared in the forest path. It was a man on horseback, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing, I was so scared. Some¬body said "Fire!" I pulled the trigger. Then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle. My first feeling was of surprised gratification. Somebody said "Good— we've got him!—wait for the rest." But the rest did not come. We waited—listened—still no more came.
We crept out, and approached the man. He was lying on his back, his mouth was open and his chest heaving with long gasps, and his white shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man—a man who had never done me any harm. I was down by him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would have given anything then—my own life freely—to make him again what he had been five minutes before. And all the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way; they hung over him and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me a re¬proachful look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I could rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep about his wife and his child; and I thought with a new despair, "This thing that I have done does not end with him; it falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he." In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he was as sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother. The boys stood there a half-hour sorrow¬ing over him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired; there were five others --- a division of the guilt which was a great relief to me. The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the country; that was all we ever found out about him. It seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just that—the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business.
Narrator-- When Twain wrote that, he was still at the peak of his success. Living
happily in his nineteen room mansion in Conecticut, with a loving wife
and family, and all the money and fame anyone could want.
Narrator-- Then, like a late Victorian Job, he was struck by one blow after another.
Two of his three daughters died at a young age, and most of his friends
passed away. And then came the long illness and death of his beloved
wife, Livy
Narrator-- The older he got, the more disillusioned he was by outside events.
During the seventy five years of his life, America changed a great
deal- and the change was not always to his liking. Where once people
only desired money, now they fell down and worshiped it. As Twain-- wrote in his “revised catechism”:
Narrator-- What is the chief end of man?
Narrator-- To get rich.
Narrator-- In what way?
Narrator-- Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.
Narrator-- Who is God, the one only and true?
Narrator-- Money is God. God and Greenbacks and Stock--father, son, and the ghost of same--three persons in one; these are the true and only God, mighty and supreme...
Narrator-- The paradox of Mark Twain. He worshiped the golden calf
as much as anyone- and he admitted it. And then the man who once said: put all your eggs in one basket and
Both-- WATCH THAT BASKET-
Narrator-- was suddenly struck with bankruptcy. He had put all his money
into an inferior typesetting machine and a publishing business.
Narrator-- In 1891 Twain closed down his house in Connecticut and spent most of
the next decade living and lecturing in Europe.
Narrator-- But it wasn’t all pessimism, even in old age. After all, he was still
Mark Twain.
Narrator-- Of all the curiosities that Twain left behind, perhaps the
most curious are the twin short stories: “Extracts from Adams Diary”
Narrator-- And “Eve’s Diary- Translated from the Original”.
Eve-- MONDAY--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is how it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of them. It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment. I am convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more. I followed the other Experiment around at a distance, to see what it might be for. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is.
Adam-- TUESDAY--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this. I wish it would stay with the other animals.
Eve-- WEDNESDAY-- I was afraid of the other experiment at first, and started to run every time it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but followed it, which made it nervous and unhappy. At last it became worried, and climbed a tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.
Adam-- THURSDAY-- Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain. . . WE? Where did I get that word? The new creature uses it.
Eve-- FRIDAY-- All day I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn’t mind. He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be included.
Adam-- SATURDAY-- The new creature told me it was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is doubtful, I have not missed any ribs. It talks too much. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.
Eve-- SUNDAY-- We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him.
Adam-- MONDAY--I’ve been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-- why, I do not know. She says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. She says the moment one looks at it one sees that it "looks like a dodo." Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.
Eve-- TUESDAY-- During the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can’t think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is. When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise and said, "Well, I do declare, if there isn’t a dodo!" I explained--without seeming to be explaining-- how I know it for a dodo. It was quite evident that he admired me.
Adam-- WEDNESDAY-- The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate -- GARDEN OF EDEN. The new creature says it is LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been newly named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. Already there is a sign up: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. My life is not as happy as it was.
Eve-- THURSDAY-- All morning I was at work improving the estate; and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and come. But he did not. At noon I stopped for the day and reveled in the flowers, those beautiful creations that catch the smile of God out of the sky and preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon-- apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come. But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shelters to coop himself up in from the good clean rain?
Adam-- FRIDAY--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.
Eve-- SATURDAY--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything? I went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.
Adam-- SUNDAY—Got through the day. This day is getting to be more and more trying. I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday.
Eve-- MONDAY--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy. I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?
Adam-- TUESDAY-- This morning found the new creature trying to get apples out of that forbidden tree. The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from hearing it so much.
Eve-- WEDNESDAY--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him. But he did not care. It is strange. If he should tell me his name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound. But, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment, but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for companionship, someone to look at, someone to talk to. It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pond-- but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend." It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.
Adam-- THURSDAY--The new creature says her name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. What she is called would be nothing to me if she would just go by herself and not talk. Yesterday she fell in the pond when she was looking at herself in it, which she is always doing.
Eve-- FRIDAY--I saw him today, for a moment. But only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another account: I tried to persuade him to stop going over the Falls. That was because I have discovered a new passion --FEAR. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments and spoils my happiness. But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.
Adam-- SATURDAY--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What harm does it do? She says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have always done it. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and they must have been made for something. She says they were only made for scenery. What I need is a change of scenery.
Eve-- SUNDAY—Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than unwelcome. I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they’ve got one. The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no disputes about anything.
Adam-- SATURDAY--I escaped last Saturday night, and traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death"; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.
Eve-- SUNDAY--At first I couldn’t make out what I was made for, but now I think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to learn yet--I hope so.
Adam-- MONDAY--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake--it only gave her an idea—she could furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble.
Eve-- TUESDAY--By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.
Adam-- WEDNESDAY--I escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other. All of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it meant-- Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world. I found this place, outside the Park, and she has found me. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I am going to eat them, I am so hungry. It is against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. (Takes a bite or the apple.) She is a good companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes, I think I could enjoy looking at her. Indeed, I am sure I could-- for once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.
Eve-- After the Fall
When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more.
The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing. His singing sours the milk, but it doesn’t matter; I can get used to that kind of milk.
It is not on account of his brightness or his gracious and considerate ways that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard. It is not on account of his education, chivalry, nor industry that I love him--no, it is not that.
Then why is it that I love him? Merely because he is masculine and mine, I think.
At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him without it. He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him. And so I think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics. It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot explain itself. And doesn’t need to.
Adam-- Forty Years Later
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the tree that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit.
Narrator-- “Eve’s Diary” was written as a tribute to his beloved wife, Livy, who died
the year it was published. Here is Eve, before her death:
Eve--
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.
But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.
Narrator-- And here is Adam at Eve’s grave:
Adam--
Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.
Narrator-- Mark Twain would live for another six years after Olivia’s death.
And despite everything, what years they were.
Narrator-- During their course, Sam Clemens- the boy from Hannibal-heard
himself called “One of the great masters of the English language”
by George Bernard Shaw.
Narrator-- His last years saw him blossom like an archangel. He had always
loved spectacular costume, and he decided to wear only white.
Narrator-- As he said, “It’s just stunning, my ‘I don’t give a damn’ suit. I intend to
be the most conspicuous person on the planet.”
Narrator-- When he was honored by Oxford University, the brilliance of the
university scarlet against his white suit stole the show. He said that
he wanted to show Oxford what a real American college boy looked
like.
Narrator-- The year 1910, his seventy-fifth, promised to be something special.
Twain remarked, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming
back next year, and I expect to go out with it.”
Narrator-- And he could imagine God saying, “Here are those two unaccountable
freaks, Mark Twain and Halley’s Comet: They came in together. They
must go out together. Oh, I am looking forward to that.
Narrator-- And sure enough, the following April, at sunset the day after the
comet reached its peak, his prediction came true, Mark Twain died
in his sleep.
Narrator-- Death and comets must have been very much on his mind that final
year. One of his last and most remarkable characters was Captain--
Stormfield, who’s “Visit to Heaven” Twain published just a few months
before his death. “An Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven”
Captain S-- Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, I had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. LIKE a comet! Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. At first, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going to end up in pretty warm quarters, but towards the last I begun to feel that I’d rather go to - well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty. Well, one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the horizon ahead. As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and look like mighty furnaces. Says I to myself "By George, I’ve arrived at last - and at the wrong place, just as I expected!" Then I fainted. I don’t know how long, but it must have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone and there was the loveliest sunshine in its place. And there was such a marvelous world spread out before me. The things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels and I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and a- coming like a house afire. Now I noticed that the skies were black with millions of people, pointed for those gates. The ground was as thick as ants with people, too - billions of them, I judge. I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way:
Clerk-- Well, quick! Where are you from?
Captain S-- San Francisco
Clerk-- San Fran - WHAT?
Captain S-- San Francisco.
Clerk-- Is that a planet?
Captain S-- It’s a city. It’s one of the biggest and finest and –
Clerk-- No time here for conversation. We don’t deal in cities here. Where are you from in a GENERAL way?
Captain S-- Oh, I beg your pardon. Put me down for California.
Clerk-- I don’t know any such planet - is it a constellation?
Captain S-- Constellation? No - it’s a State.
Clerk-- We don’t deal in States here. WILL you tell me where you are from IN GENERAL - AT LARGE, don’t you understand?
Captain S-- Oh, now I get your idea, I’m from America, - the United States of America.
Clerk-- Where is America? WHAT is America? There ain’t any such orb. Once and for all, where - are - you - FROM?
Captain S-- Well, I don’t know anything more to say - unless I just say I’m from the world.
Clerk-- Ah, now that’s more like it! WHAT world?"
Captain S-- Why, THE world, of course.
Clerk-- THE world! There’s billions of them! . . . Next!
Captain S-- Wait a minute. You may know it from this - it’s the one the Savior saved.
Clerk-- The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number - none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in? - perhaps that may assist.
Captain S-- It’s the one that has the sun in it (no response) - and the moon (no response) - and Mars (no response) - and Jupiter –
Clerk-- Hold on! Hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago - but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate. Did you come STRAIGHT HERE.
Captain S-- I raced a little with a comet one day - only just the least little bit - only the tiniest lit –
Clerk-- That is what has made all this trouble. It has brought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right one. If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all about your world at once and there would have been no delay. You may enter. NEXT!
Captain S-- I beg pardon, but ain`t you forgot something?
Clerk-- Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of.
Captain S-- Well, you don’t notice anything? If I branched out amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn’t I attract considerable attention? - wouldn’t I be a little conspicuous?
Clerk-- Well, I don’t see anything the matter. What do you lack?
Captain S-- Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my hymn book, and my palm branch - I lack everything that a body naturally requires up here.
Clerk-- I never heard of these things before.
Captain S-- Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for I don’t mean any, but really, for a person that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs.
Clerk-- Its customs! Heaven is a large place. How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? Now I don’t doubt that this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven you belong to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this section without it. NEXT!
Captain S-- I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.
Clerk-- Correct! Did you imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?
Captain S-- Well, I had that idea - but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am I to go to get to my district?
Clerk-- Go outside and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath, and wish yourself there.
Captain S-- I’m much obliged, but why didn’t you tell me that when I first arrived?
Clerk-- We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it and ask for it. NEXT!
Captain S-- O REVOOR. I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and wished I was in the booking office of my own section. The very next instant a voice sung out in a business kind of a way:
Angel-- A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for Cap’n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill of health, and let him in.
Captain S-- I was so happy. Now THIS is more like it, I said. Now I’m all right - show me a cloud. Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud- banks and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried to fly, but nobody made a success of it. So we concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing practice. When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I never felt so good in my life. Says I: "Now this is according to the promises. I’ve been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure enough." I tautened up my harp-strings and struck in. (He plays a tune) (He plays a second time.) (He plays a third time). After about sixteen or seventeen hours, I laid down my harp. And I’ll be frank with you. This AIN`T just as near my idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go to church.
Narrator-- When we think of Mark Twain today, we remember him as America’s greatest humorist and chronicler of the west.
Narrator-- An Innocent Abroad and father of Tom and Huck.
Narrator-- Mark Twain didn’t die in 1910. He went off with Hally’s comet, just as he had predicted.
Narrator-- But today, in a sense, he is more alive than ever.
Narrator-- As Twain himself said once:
Narrator-- The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain’s America - Act 2(Charles E.J. Moulton)
Mark Twain’s America
An Entertainment by Samuel L. Clemens
Herbert Moulton and Jack Babb
Act 2 (Please see Act 1 for the beginning of the play.)
Narrator-- If a proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one, then Mark Twain was not only our greatest novelist, but also our greatest wit. Dozens of his sayings have become part of our language, For example:
Narrator-- Let us so live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will
be sorry.
Narrator-- Or this---
Narrator-- I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
Narrator-- Or this observation---
Narrator-- There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he less savage than the other savages.
Narrator-- Some of his observations were very practical, such as---
Narrator-- Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us
could not succeed.
Narrator-- For Twain, there were as many targets as there were fools.
some of them were universal — congress:
Narrator-- Our only distinctly native criminal class.
Narrator-- Religious fanatics —
Narrator-- I always suspect anyone who has entered into partnership with God
without His knowledge.
Narrator-- Human nature —
Narrator-- If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you, this is the principle difference between a dog and a man.
Narrator-- A pessimist? The man who wasn't one, he said, was "a damned fool."
Narrator-- All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence —
then success is sure.
Narrator-- But he also could be an optimist — of sorts.
Narrator-- All good things arrive unto them that wait-- and that don't die
in the meantime.
Narrator-- But most of all, Mark Twain was a realist ——
Narrator-- The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much, if he is
an optimist after 48, he knows too little.
Narrator-- He was especially realistic about himself.
Narrator-- I am a great and sublime fool, but then I am god's fool, and all his works must be contemplated with respect.
Narrator-- Of course he had opinions about everything, such as…
Narrator-- Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Narrator-- Or his famous definition of a classic:
Narrator-- A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.
Narrator-- And that of cauliflower —
Narrator-- Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Narrator-- And women's rights —
Narrator-- Miss Lucy Stone is lecturing on woman's rights in Philadelphia. I wonder if she wouldn’t like to cut wood, bring water, shoe horses, be a deck hand, or something of that sort? She has a right to do it, and if she wants to carry bricks, we say, let her alone. (The women in the cast give him a look.) Twain said it not me.
Narrator-- Twain also gave sound financial advice —
Narrator-- Behold the fool sayeth: Put not all thine eggs in one basket.
Narrator-- Which is but a manner of saying: Scatter your money and affection.
Narrator-- But the wise man sayeth: Put all your eggs in the one basket, and---
All- WATCH THAT BASKET
Narrator-- Mark Twain on War: Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities: War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood to exterminate his kind. And in the intervals, between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"--with his mouth.
Narrator-- Twain’s early hurrahs about America’s “splendid little war” with
Spain in 1898 turned bitter in his mouth once its true aims were manifest
Narrator-- The unholy alliance of Christianity, Cash, and Colonialism.
Narrator-- As Twain once said: To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation.
Narrator-- Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Narrator--An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.
Narrator--I bring you the stately matron named Christendom. Returning dishonored from pirate raids in Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, and her mouth full of hypocrisies. Give her a soap and a towel, but hide the looking glass. As for this being a Christian Country. Why, so is Hell.
Narrator-- In his youth, Twain spent two weeks in the Confederate Army. Years later, Century Magazine asked him to recount that experience as part of a series titled “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War”. Here is an extract from “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed”
You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is it not fair and right that you listen to one who started out to do something in it, but didn't? Thou-sands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently. They ought at least to be allowed to state why they didn't do anything, and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything. Surely this must have a sort of value. In the summer of 1861 Missouri was invaded by the Union forces. The Governor issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand militia to repel the invader. I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent—Hannibal, in Marion County. Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company. One- Tom Lyman- a young fellow with a good deal of spirit but no military experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant. We had no first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago. There were fifteen of us. We called ourselves the Marion Rangers. Our first afternoon in the camp I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be a dry-nurse to a mule it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake. I believed that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered Smith to feed the mule; but he merely gave me a large, cold, sarcastic grin and turned his back on me. Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no dinner. Then trouble broke out between the corporal and the sergeant, each claiming to out rank the other. Nobody knew which was the higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal. The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular army at all. One might justly imagine that we were hopeless material for war. Every few days rumors would come that the enemy were approaching. In these cases we always fell back and retreated, we never stayed where we were. But the rumors always turned out to be false; so at last we began to grow indifferent to them. One night a negro was sent with the same old warning: the enemy was hovering in our neighborhood. We all said let him hover. We resolved to stay still and be comfortable. Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and we recognized it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses. And right away a figure appeared in the forest path. It was a man on horseback, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him. I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing, I was so scared. Some¬body said "Fire!" I pulled the trigger. Then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle. My first feeling was of surprised gratification. Somebody said "Good— we've got him!—wait for the rest." But the rest did not come. We waited—listened—still no more came.
We crept out, and approached the man. He was lying on his back, his mouth was open and his chest heaving with long gasps, and his white shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man—a man who had never done me any harm. I was down by him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would have given anything then—my own life freely—to make him again what he had been five minutes before. And all the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way; they hung over him and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me a re¬proachful look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I could rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep about his wife and his child; and I thought with a new despair, "This thing that I have done does not end with him; it falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he." In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he was as sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother. The boys stood there a half-hour sorrow¬ing over him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him unless he attacked them first. It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired; there were five others --- a division of the guilt which was a great relief to me. The man was not in uniform, and was not armed. He was a stranger in the country; that was all we ever found out about him. It seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just that—the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business.
Narrator-- When Twain wrote that, he was still at the peak of his success. Living
happily in his nineteen room mansion in Conecticut, with a loving wife
and family, and all the money and fame anyone could want.
Narrator-- Then, like a late Victorian Job, he was struck by one blow after another.
Two of his three daughters died at a young age, and most of his friends
passed away. And then came the long illness and death of his beloved
wife, Livy
Narrator-- The older he got, the more disillusioned he was by outside events.
During the seventy five years of his life, America changed a great
deal- and the change was not always to his liking. Where once people
only desired money, now they fell down and worshiped it. As Twain-- wrote in his “revised catechism”:
Narrator-- What is the chief end of man?
Narrator-- To get rich.
Narrator-- In what way?
Narrator-- Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.
Narrator-- Who is God, the one only and true?
Narrator-- Money is God. God and Greenbacks and Stock--father, son, and the ghost of same--three persons in one; these are the true and only God, mighty and supreme...
Narrator-- The paradox of Mark Twain. He worshiped the golden calf
as much as anyone- and he admitted it. And then the man who once said: put all your eggs in one basket and
Both-- WATCH THAT BASKET-
Narrator-- was suddenly struck with bankruptcy. He had put all his money
into an inferior typesetting machine and a publishing business.
Narrator-- In 1891 Twain closed down his house in Connecticut and spent most of
the next decade living and lecturing in Europe.
Narrator-- But it wasn’t all pessimism, even in old age. After all, he was still
Mark Twain.
Narrator-- Of all the curiosities that Twain left behind, perhaps the
most curious are the twin short stories: “Extracts from Adams Diary”
Narrator-- And “Eve’s Diary- Translated from the Original”.
Eve-- MONDAY--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is how it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of them. It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment. I am convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more. I followed the other Experiment around at a distance, to see what it might be for. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is.
Adam-- TUESDAY--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this. I wish it would stay with the other animals.
Eve-- WEDNESDAY-- I was afraid of the other experiment at first, and started to run every time it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but followed it, which made it nervous and unhappy. At last it became worried, and climbed a tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.
Adam-- THURSDAY-- Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain. . . WE? Where did I get that word? The new creature uses it.
Eve-- FRIDAY-- All day I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn’t mind. He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be included.
Adam-- SATURDAY-- The new creature told me it was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is doubtful, I have not missed any ribs. It talks too much. It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.
Eve-- SUNDAY-- We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him.
Adam-- MONDAY--I’ve been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-- why, I do not know. She says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. She says the moment one looks at it one sees that it "looks like a dodo." Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.
Eve-- TUESDAY-- During the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can’t think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is. When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise and said, "Well, I do declare, if there isn’t a dodo!" I explained--without seeming to be explaining-- how I know it for a dodo. It was quite evident that he admired me.
Adam-- WEDNESDAY-- The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate -- GARDEN OF EDEN. The new creature says it is LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been newly named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. Already there is a sign up: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. My life is not as happy as it was.
Eve-- THURSDAY-- All morning I was at work improving the estate; and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and come. But he did not. At noon I stopped for the day and reveled in the flowers, those beautiful creations that catch the smile of God out of the sky and preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon-- apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come. But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shelters to coop himself up in from the good clean rain?
Adam-- FRIDAY--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.
Eve-- SATURDAY--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything? I went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.
Adam-- SUNDAY—Got through the day. This day is getting to be more and more trying. I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday.
Eve-- MONDAY--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy. I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?
Adam-- TUESDAY-- This morning found the new creature trying to get apples out of that forbidden tree. The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from hearing it so much.
Eve-- WEDNESDAY--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him. But he did not care. It is strange. If he should tell me his name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound. But, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment, but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for companionship, someone to look at, someone to talk to. It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pond-- but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend." It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.
Adam-- THURSDAY--The new creature says her name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. What she is called would be nothing to me if she would just go by herself and not talk. Yesterday she fell in the pond when she was looking at herself in it, which she is always doing.
Eve-- FRIDAY--I saw him today, for a moment. But only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another account: I tried to persuade him to stop going over the Falls. That was because I have discovered a new passion --FEAR. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments and spoils my happiness. But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.
Adam-- SATURDAY--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What harm does it do? She says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have always done it. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and they must have been made for something. She says they were only made for scenery. What I need is a change of scenery.
Eve-- SUNDAY—Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than unwelcome. I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they’ve got one. The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no disputes about anything.
Adam-- SATURDAY--I escaped last Saturday night, and traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death"; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.
Eve-- SUNDAY--At first I couldn’t make out what I was made for, but now I think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to learn yet--I hope so.
Adam-- MONDAY--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake--it only gave her an idea—she could furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble.
Eve-- TUESDAY--By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.
Adam-- WEDNESDAY--I escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other. All of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it meant-- Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world. I found this place, outside the Park, and she has found me. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I am going to eat them, I am so hungry. It is against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. (Takes a bite or the apple.) She is a good companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes, I think I could enjoy looking at her. Indeed, I am sure I could-- for once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.
Eve-- After the Fall
When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more.
The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing. His singing sours the milk, but it doesn’t matter; I can get used to that kind of milk.
It is not on account of his brightness or his gracious and considerate ways that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard. It is not on account of his education, chivalry, nor industry that I love him--no, it is not that.
Then why is it that I love him? Merely because he is masculine and mine, I think.
At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him without it. He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him. And so I think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics. It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot explain itself. And doesn’t need to.
Adam-- Forty Years Later
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the tree that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit.
Narrator-- “Eve’s Diary” was written as a tribute to his beloved wife, Livy, who died
the year it was published. Here is Eve, before her death:
Eve--
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.
But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.
Narrator-- And here is Adam at Eve’s grave:
Adam--
Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.
Narrator-- Mark Twain would live for another six years after Olivia’s death.
And despite everything, what years they were.
Narrator-- During their course, Sam Clemens- the boy from Hannibal-heard
himself called “One of the great masters of the English language”
by George Bernard Shaw.
Narrator-- His last years saw him blossom like an archangel. He had always
loved spectacular costume, and he decided to wear only white.
Narrator-- As he said, “It’s just stunning, my ‘I don’t give a damn’ suit. I intend to
be the most conspicuous person on the planet.”
Narrator-- When he was honored by Oxford University, the brilliance of the
university scarlet against his white suit stole the show. He said that
he wanted to show Oxford what a real American college boy looked
like.
Narrator-- The year 1910, his seventy-fifth, promised to be something special.
Twain remarked, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming
back next year, and I expect to go out with it.”
Narrator-- And he could imagine God saying, “Here are those two unaccountable
freaks, Mark Twain and Halley’s Comet: They came in together. They
must go out together. Oh, I am looking forward to that.
Narrator-- And sure enough, the following April, at sunset the day after the
comet reached its peak, his prediction came true, Mark Twain died
in his sleep.
Narrator-- Death and comets must have been very much on his mind that final
year. One of his last and most remarkable characters was Captain--
Stormfield, who’s “Visit to Heaven” Twain published just a few months
before his death. “An Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven”
Captain S-- Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, I had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. LIKE a comet! Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. At first, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going to end up in pretty warm quarters, but towards the last I begun to feel that I’d rather go to - well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty. Well, one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the horizon ahead. As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and look like mighty furnaces. Says I to myself "By George, I’ve arrived at last - and at the wrong place, just as I expected!" Then I fainted. I don’t know how long, but it must have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone and there was the loveliest sunshine in its place. And there was such a marvelous world spread out before me. The things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels and I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and a- coming like a house afire. Now I noticed that the skies were black with millions of people, pointed for those gates. The ground was as thick as ants with people, too - billions of them, I judge. I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way:
Clerk-- Well, quick! Where are you from?
Captain S-- San Francisco
Clerk-- San Fran - WHAT?
Captain S-- San Francisco.
Clerk-- Is that a planet?
Captain S-- It’s a city. It’s one of the biggest and finest and –
Clerk-- No time here for conversation. We don’t deal in cities here. Where are you from in a GENERAL way?
Captain S-- Oh, I beg your pardon. Put me down for California.
Clerk-- I don’t know any such planet - is it a constellation?
Captain S-- Constellation? No - it’s a State.
Clerk-- We don’t deal in States here. WILL you tell me where you are from IN GENERAL - AT LARGE, don’t you understand?
Captain S-- Oh, now I get your idea, I’m from America, - the United States of America.
Clerk-- Where is America? WHAT is America? There ain’t any such orb. Once and for all, where - are - you - FROM?
Captain S-- Well, I don’t know anything more to say - unless I just say I’m from the world.
Clerk-- Ah, now that’s more like it! WHAT world?"
Captain S-- Why, THE world, of course.
Clerk-- THE world! There’s billions of them! . . . Next!
Captain S-- Wait a minute. You may know it from this - it’s the one the Savior saved.
Clerk-- The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number - none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in? - perhaps that may assist.
Captain S-- It’s the one that has the sun in it (no response) - and the moon (no response) - and Mars (no response) - and Jupiter –
Clerk-- Hold on! Hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago - but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate. Did you come STRAIGHT HERE.
Captain S-- I raced a little with a comet one day - only just the least little bit - only the tiniest lit –
Clerk-- That is what has made all this trouble. It has brought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right one. If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all about your world at once and there would have been no delay. You may enter. NEXT!
Captain S-- I beg pardon, but ain`t you forgot something?
Clerk-- Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of.
Captain S-- Well, you don’t notice anything? If I branched out amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn’t I attract considerable attention? - wouldn’t I be a little conspicuous?
Clerk-- Well, I don’t see anything the matter. What do you lack?
Captain S-- Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my hymn book, and my palm branch - I lack everything that a body naturally requires up here.
Clerk-- I never heard of these things before.
Captain S-- Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for I don’t mean any, but really, for a person that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs.
Clerk-- Its customs! Heaven is a large place. How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? Now I don’t doubt that this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven you belong to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this section without it. NEXT!
Captain S-- I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.
Clerk-- Correct! Did you imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?
Captain S-- Well, I had that idea - but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am I to go to get to my district?
Clerk-- Go outside and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath, and wish yourself there.
Captain S-- I’m much obliged, but why didn’t you tell me that when I first arrived?
Clerk-- We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it and ask for it. NEXT!
Captain S-- O REVOOR. I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and wished I was in the booking office of my own section. The very next instant a voice sung out in a business kind of a way:
Angel-- A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for Cap’n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill of health, and let him in.
Captain S-- I was so happy. Now THIS is more like it, I said. Now I’m all right - show me a cloud. Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud- banks and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried to fly, but nobody made a success of it. So we concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing practice. When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I never felt so good in my life. Says I: "Now this is according to the promises. I’ve been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure enough." I tautened up my harp-strings and struck in. (He plays a tune) (He plays a second time.) (He plays a third time). After about sixteen or seventeen hours, I laid down my harp. And I’ll be frank with you. This AIN`T just as near my idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go to church.
Narrator-- When we think of Mark Twain today, we remember him as America’s greatest humorist and chronicler of the west.
Narrator-- An Innocent Abroad and father of Tom and Huck.
Narrator-- Mark Twain didn’t die in 1910. He went off with Hally’s comet, just as he had predicted.
Narrator-- But today, in a sense, he is more alive than ever.
Narrator-- As Twain himself said once:
Narrator-- The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
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