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An Entertaining Article · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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Speaker 1: Section twenty of The thirty Thousand Dollars Bequest and Other Stories.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Anne Boulet. The thirty
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Speaker 1: thousand Dollars Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain, Section
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Speaker 1: twenty an entertaining article. I take the following paragraph from
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Speaker 1: an article in The Boston Advertiser, an English critic on
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Speaker 1: Mark Twain. Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of
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Speaker 1: Mark Twain have been descriptions of the persons who did
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Speaker 1: not appreciate his humor at all. We have become familiar
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Speaker 1: with the Californians who were thrilled with terror by his
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Speaker 1: burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story.
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Speaker 1: And we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly
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Speaker 1: returned his innocence abroad to the book agent with the
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Speaker 1: reas that the man who could shed tears over the
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Speaker 1: tomb of Adam must be an idiot. But Mark Twain
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Speaker 1: may now add a more glorious instance to his string
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Speaker 1: of trophies. The Saturday Review in his number of October
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Speaker 1: eighth reviews his book of travels, which has been republished
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Speaker 1: in England, and reviews it seriously. We can imagine the
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Speaker 1: delight of the humorist in reading this tribute to his power,
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Speaker 1: and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he
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Speaker 1: can hardly do better than reproduce the article in full
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Speaker 1: in his next monthly memoranda. Publishing the above paragraph thus
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Speaker 1: gives me a sort of authority for reproducing the Saturday
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Speaker 1: Review's article in full in these pages. I dearly wanted
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Speaker 1: to do it, for I cannot write anything half so
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Speaker 1: delicious myself. If I had a cast iron dog that
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Speaker 1: could read this English criticism and preserve his austerity, I
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Speaker 1: would drive him off the doorstep from the London Saturday
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Speaker 1: Review review of new book books The Innocence Abroad, a
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Speaker 1: Book of Travels by Mark Twain, London, Houghton Publisher, eighteen seventy.
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Speaker 1: Lord McCauley died too soon. We never felt this so
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Speaker 1: deeply as when we finished the last chapter of the
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Speaker 1: above named extravagant work. Mccaully died too soon for none,
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Speaker 1: but he could meet out complete and comprehensive justice to
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Speaker 1: the insolence, the impertinence, the presumption, the mendacity, and above
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Speaker 1: all the majestic ignorance of this author. To say that
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Speaker 1: the Innocence Abroad is a curious book would be to
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Speaker 1: use the faintest language, would be to speak of the
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Speaker 1: matter horn as a neat elevation, or of Niagara as
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Speaker 1: being nice or pretty. Curious is too tame a word,
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Speaker 1: wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work there
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Speaker 1: is no word that is large enough or long enough.
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Speaker 1: Let us, therefore, photograph a passing glimpse of book and author,
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Speaker 1: and trust the rest to the reader. Let the cultivated
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Speaker 1: English student of human nature picture to himself this mark
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Speaker 1: Twain as a person capable of doing the following described things,
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Speaker 1: and not only doing them, but with incredible innocence, printing
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Speaker 1: them calmly and tranquility. In a book, for instance, he
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Speaker 1: states that he entered a hairdressers in Paris to get shaved,
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Speaker 1: and the first rake the barber gave him with his razor,
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Speaker 1: it loosened his hide and lifted him out of the chair.
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Speaker 1: This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence, he was so annoyed
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Speaker 1: by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten
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Speaker 1: one in a frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of
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Speaker 1: course no truth in this. He gives at full length
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Speaker 1: a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen hundred years old, which
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Speaker 1: he professes to have found in the ruins of the Colosseum,
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Speaker 1: among the dirt and mold and rubbish. It is a
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Speaker 1: sufficient comment upon this statement to remark that even a
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Speaker 1: cast iron program would not have lasted so long under
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Speaker 1: such circumstances. In Greece, he plainly betrays both fright and
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Speaker 1: flight upon one occasion, but with frozen effrontery, puts the
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Speaker 1: latter in this falsely tamed form. We sidled toward the
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Speaker 1: Piraeus sidled. Indeed, he does not hesitate to intimate that
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Speaker 1: at Ephesus, when his mules strayed from the proper course,
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Speaker 1: he got down, took him under his arm, carried him
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Speaker 1: to the road, again, pointed him right, remounted, and went
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Speaker 1: to sleep contently till it was time to restore the
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Speaker 1: beast to the path once more. He states that a
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Speaker 1: growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant
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Speaker 1: habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum. Between
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Speaker 1: meals in Palestine, he tells of ants that came eleven
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Speaker 1: miles to spend the summer in the desert, and brought
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Speaker 1: their provisions with them. Yet he shows by his description
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Speaker 1: of the country that the feet was an impossibility. He mentions,
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Speaker 1: as if it were the most commonplace of matters, that
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Speaker 1: he cut a Muslim in two in broad daylight in
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Speaker 1: Jerusalem with Godfrey des Boyon's sword, and would have shed
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Speaker 1: more blood if he had had a graveyard of his own.
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Speaker 1: These statements are unworthy a moment's attention. Mister Twain or
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Speaker 1: any other foreigner who did such a thing in Jerusalem
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Speaker 1: would be mobbed and would infallibly lose his life. But
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Speaker 1: why go on, why repeat more of his audacious and
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Speaker 1: exasperating falsehoods. Let us close fittingly with this one. He
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Speaker 1: affirms that in the Mosque of Saint Sophia at Constantinople,
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Speaker 1: I got my feet so stuck up with a complication
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Speaker 1: of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I wore out
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Speaker 1: more than two thousand pairs of boot jacks getting my
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Speaker 1: boots off that night, and even then some Christian hide
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Speaker 1: peeled off with them. It is monstrous such statements are
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Speaker 1: simply lies. There is no other name for it. Will
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Speaker 1: the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that pervades
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Speaker 1: the American nation when we tell him that we are
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Speaker 1: informed upon the perfectly good authority, that this, this extravagant
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Speaker 1: compilation of falsehoods, this exhaustless mind of stupendous lies, this
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Speaker 1: innocence abroad, has actually been adopted by the schools and
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Speaker 1: colleges of several of the states as a textbook. But
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Speaker 1: if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and ignorance are
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Speaker 1: enough to make one burn the book and despise the author.
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Speaker 1: In one place, he was so appalled at the sudden
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Speaker 1: spectacle of a murdered man unveiled by the moonlight, that
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Speaker 1: he jumped out of the window, going through the sash
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Speaker 1: and all, and then remarks, with the most childlike simplicity
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Speaker 1: that he was not scared, but was considerably agitated. It
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Speaker 1: puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton
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Speaker 1: is densely unconscious that Lucretia Borgia ever existed Off the stage.
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Speaker 1: He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is
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Speaker 1: frank enough to criticize the Italian's use of their own tongue.
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Speaker 1: He says they'd spell the name of their great painter Vinki,
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Speaker 1: but pronounce it Vinci, and then adds with another naivete
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Speaker 1: possible only to helpless ignorance, foreigners always spell better than
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Speaker 1: they pronounce. In another place, he commits the bald absurdity
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Speaker 1: of putting the phrase teree on naws into an Italian's mouth.
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Speaker 1: In Rome, he unhesitatingly believes the legend that Saint Philip
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Speaker 1: Neary's heart was so inflamed with divine love that it
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Speaker 1: burst his ribs. Believes it wholly because an author with
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Speaker 1: a learnedness of university degrees strung after his name endorses it. Otherwise,
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Speaker 1: says this gentle idiot I should have felt a curiosity
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Speaker 1: to know what Philip had for dinner. Our author makes
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Speaker 1: a long, fatiguing journey to the Grotto del Cane on
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Speaker 1: purpose to test his poisoning powers on a dog, got
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Speaker 1: elaborately ready for the experiment, and then discovered he had
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Speaker 1: no dog. A wiser person would have kept such a
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Speaker 1: thing discreetly to himself, but with this harmless creature everything
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Speaker 1: comes out. He hurts his foot in a rut two
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Speaker 1: thousand years old and exhumed POMPEII, and presently, when staring
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Speaker 1: at one of the cinder like corpses unearthed in the
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Speaker 1: next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is the
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Speaker 1: remains of the ancient street commissioner, and straightway his horror
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Speaker 1: softens down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the
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Speaker 1: condition of things. In Damascus, he visits the well of
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Speaker 1: Anonius three thousand years old, and is as surprised and
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Speaker 1: delighted as a child to find that the water is
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Speaker 1: as pure and fresh as if the well had been
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Speaker 1: dug yesterday. In the Holy Land, he gags desperately at
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Speaker 1: the hard Arabic and Hebrew biblical names, and finally concludes
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Speaker 1: to call them Baldwinsville, Williamsburg, and so on, for convenience
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Speaker 1: of spelling. We have thus spoken freely of this man's
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Speaker 1: stupefying simplicity and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with
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Speaker 1: his colossal ignorance. We do not know where to begin,
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Speaker 1: and if we knew where to begin, we certainly would
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Speaker 1: not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen,
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Speaker 1: and only one. He did not know until he out
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Speaker 1: to Rome that Michelangelo was dead, And then, instead of
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Speaker 1: crawling away and hiding his shameful ignorance somewhere, he proceeds
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Speaker 1: to express a pious, grateful sort of satisfaction that he
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Speaker 1: is gone and out of his troubles. No, the reader
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Speaker 1: may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivation for himself.
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Speaker 1: The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitude and variety
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Speaker 1: of its misstatements and the convincing confidence with which they
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Speaker 1: are made. And yet it is a textbook in the
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Speaker 1: schools of America. The poor blunderer mouses along the sublime
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Speaker 1: creations of the old masters, trying to acquire the elegant
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Speaker 1: proficiency in art knowledge which he has. A groping sort
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Speaker 1: of comprehension is a proper thing for a traveled man
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Speaker 1: to be able to display. But what is the manner
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Speaker 1: of his study, and what is the progress he achieves?
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Speaker 1: To what extent does he familiarize himself with the great
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Speaker 1: pictures of Italy? And what degree of appreciation does he
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Speaker 1: arrive at read wh when we see a monk going
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Speaker 1: about with a lion and looking up into heaven, we
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Speaker 1: know that that is Saint Mark. When we see a
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Speaker 1: monk with a book and a pen, looking tranquility up
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Speaker 1: to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know
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Speaker 1: that that is Saint Matthew. When we see a monk
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Speaker 1: sitting on a rock, looking tranquility up to heaven, with
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Speaker 1: a human skull beside him and without other baggage, we
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Speaker 1: know that that is Saint Jerome, because we know that
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Speaker 1: he always went flying light in the matter of baggage.
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Speaker 1: When we see other monks looking tranquility up to heaven
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Speaker 1: but having no trademark, we always ask who those parties are.
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Speaker 1: We do this because we humbly wish to learn. He
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Speaker 1: then enumerates the thousands and thousands of copies of these
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Speaker 1: several pictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed
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Speaker 1: simplicity that he feels encouraged to believe that when he
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Speaker 1: has seen some more of each and had a larger experience,
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Speaker 1: he will eventually begin to take an absorbing interest in them.
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Speaker 1: The vulgar boar that we have shown this to be
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Speaker 1: a remarkable book. We think that no one will deny
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Speaker 1: that is a pernicious book to place in the hands
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Speaker 1: of the confiding and uniformed. We think we have also
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Speaker 1: shown that the book is a deliberate and wicked creation
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Speaker 1: of a diseased mind, is apparent upon every page. Having
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Speaker 1: placed our judgment thus upon record, let us close with
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Speaker 1: what charity we can by remarking that even in this
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Speaker 1: volume there is some good to be found, for whenever
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Speaker 1: the author talks of his own country and lets Europe alone,
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Speaker 1: he never fails to make himself interesting, and not only interesting,
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Speaker 1: but instructive. No one can read without benefit his occasional
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Speaker 1: chapters and paragraphs about life in the gold and silver
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Speaker 1: mines of California and Nevada, About the Indians of the
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Speaker 1: plains and deserts of the West and their cannibalism, About
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Speaker 1: the raising of vegetables and kegs of gunpowder by the
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Speaker 1: aid of two or three teaspoons of guano, About the
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Speaker 1: moving of small arms from place to place at night
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Speaker 1: in wheelbarrows to avoid taxes. And about a sort of
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Speaker 1: cows and mules in the Humboldt mines that climb down
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Speaker 1: chimneys and disturbed the people at night. These matters are
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Speaker 1: not only new, but are well worth knowing. It is
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Speaker 1: a pity the author did not put in more of
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Speaker 1: the same kind. His book is well written and is
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Speaker 1: exceedingly entertaining, and so it just barely escaped being quite valuable.
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Speaker 1: Also one month later, latterly, I have received several letters
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Speaker 1: and see a number of newspaper paragraphs, all upon a
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Speaker 1: certain subject, and all about the same tenor I here
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Speaker 1: give honest specimens. One is from a New York paper,
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Speaker 1: one is from a letter from an old friend, and
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Speaker 1: one is from a letter from a New York publisher
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Speaker 1: who is strange to me. I humbly endeavor to make
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Speaker 1: these bits toothsome with the remark that the article they
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Speaker 1: are praising, which appeared in the December Galaxy and pretended
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Speaker 1: to be a criticism from the London Saturday Review on
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Speaker 1: My Innocence Abroad, was written by myself. Every time line
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Speaker 1: of it. The Herald says, the richest thing out is
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Speaker 1: the serious critique in the London Saturday Review on Mark
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Speaker 1: Twain's Innocence Abroad. We thought before we read it that
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Speaker 1: it must be serious, as everyone said so, and we're
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Speaker 1: even ready to shed a few tears. But since perusing it,
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Speaker 1: we are bound to confess that next to Mark Twain's
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Speaker 1: Jumping Frog, it is the finest bit of humor and
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Speaker 1: sarcasm that we've come across in many a day. I
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Speaker 1: do not get a compliment like that every day. I
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Speaker 1: used to think that your writings were pretty good, But
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Speaker 1: after reading the criticism in The Galaxy from the London
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Speaker 1: Review have discovered what an ass I must have been.
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Speaker 1: If suggestions are in order, mine is that you put
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Speaker 1: that article in your next edition of The Innocence as
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Speaker 1: an extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put
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Speaker 1: your own humor in competition with it. It is as
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Speaker 1: rich a thing as I ever read, which is strong
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Speaker 1: commendation from a book publisher. The London Reviewer. My friend
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Speaker 1: is not the stupid, serious creature he pretends to be,
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Speaker 1: I think, but on the contrary, has a keep appreciation
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Speaker 1: and enjoyment of your book. As I read his article
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Speaker 1: in the Galaxy, I could imagine him giving vent to
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Speaker 1: many a hearty laugh. But he is writing for Catholics
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Speaker 1: and established church people and high toned, antiquated conservative gentility,
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Speaker 1: whom it is a delight to him to help you shock.
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Speaker 1: While he pretends to shake his head with owlish tensity.
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Speaker 1: He is a magnificent humorist himself. Now that is graceful
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Speaker 1: and handsome. I take off my hat to my longtime
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Speaker 1: friend and comrade, and with my feet together and my
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Speaker 1: fingers spread over my heart, I say, in the language
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Speaker 1: of Alabama, you do me proud. I stand guilty of
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Speaker 1: the authorship of the article, but I did not mean
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Speaker 1: any harm. I saw by an item in the Boston
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Speaker 1: Advertiser that a solemn, serious critique on the English edition
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Speaker 1: of my book had appeared in the London Saturday Review.
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Speaker 1: And the idea of such a literary breakfast by a stolid,
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Speaker 1: ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for
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Speaker 1: a naturally weak virtue. And I went home and burlessed it,
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Speaker 1: reveled in it. I may say, I never saw a
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Speaker 1: copy of the real Saturday Review criticism until after my
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Speaker 1: burlesque was written and mailed to the printer. But when
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Speaker 1: I did get hold of a copy, I found it
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Speaker 1: to be vulgar, awkwardly written, ill natured, and entirely serious
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Speaker 1: and in earnest. The gentleman who wrote the newspaper paragraph
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Speaker 1: above quoted had not been misled as to its character.
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Speaker 1: If any man doubts my word now I will kill him. No,
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Speaker 1: I will not kill him. I will win his money.
15:42
Speaker 1: I will bet him twenty to one, and let any
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Speaker 1: New York publisher hold the stakes that the statements I
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Speaker 1: have above made as to the authorship of the oracle
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Speaker 1: in question are entirely true. Perhaps I may get wealthy
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Speaker 1: at this, for I am willing to take all bets
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Speaker 1: that offer, and if a man wants lofe arger odds,
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Speaker 1: I will give him all he requires. But he ought
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Speaker 1: to find out whether I am betting on what is
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Speaker 1: termed a sure thing or not before he ventures his money.
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Speaker 1: And he can do that by going to a public
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Speaker 1: library and examining the London Saturday Review on October eighth,
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Speaker 1: which contains the real critique. Bless me, some people thought
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Speaker 1: that I was the sold person p s. I cannot
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Speaker 1: resist the temptation to toss in this most savory thing
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Speaker 1: of all, this easy, graceful philosophical disquisition, with his happy,
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Speaker 1: chirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Nothing is
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Speaker 1: more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar. Nine
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Speaker 1: smokers out of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article
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Speaker 1: three four a quarter to fifty cent partaga, if kept
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Speaker 1: in ignorance of the cost of the latter. The flavor
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Speaker 1: of the partaga is too delicate for pellets that have
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Speaker 1: been accustomed to the Connecticut seed leaf. So it is
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Speaker 1: with humor. The finer it is in quality, the more
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Speaker 1: danger of its not being recognized at all. Even Mark
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Speaker 1: Twain has been taken in by an English review of
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Speaker 1: his Innocence Abroad. Mark Twain is by no means a
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Speaker 1: coarse humorist. But the Englishman's humor is so much finer
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Speaker 1: than his that he mistakes it for solid, earnest and
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Speaker 1: lasts most consumedly. A man who cannot learn stands in
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Speaker 1: his own light. Hereafter, when I write an article which
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Speaker 1: I know to be good, but which I may have
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Speaker 1: reason to fear, will not in some quarters be considered
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Speaker 1: to amount to much coming from an American, I will
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Speaker 1: aver that an Englishman wrote it, and that it is
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Speaker 1: copied from a London journal. And then I will occupy
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Speaker 1: a back seat and enjoy the cordial applause. Still later,
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Speaker 1: Mark Twain at last sees that the Saturday Reviews criticism
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Speaker 1: of his Innocence Abroad was not serious, and he is
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Speaker 1: intensely mortified at the thought of having been so badly
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Speaker 1: sold he takes the only course left him, and in
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Speaker 1: the last Galaxy claims that he wrote the criticism himself
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Speaker 1: published it in the Galaxy to sell the public. This
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Speaker 1: is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any
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Speaker 1: of our readers will take the trouble to call at
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Speaker 1: this office, we will show them the original article in
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Speaker 1: the Saturday Review of October eighth, which on comparison will
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Speaker 1: be found to be identical with the one published in
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Speaker 1: the Galaxy. The best thing for Mark to do will
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Speaker 1: be to admit that he was sold and say no
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Speaker 1: more about it. The above is from the Cincinnati Enquirer
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Speaker 1: and is a falsehood. Come to the proof. If the
18:31
Speaker 1: Inquirer people, through any agent, will produce at the Galaxy
18:35
Speaker 1: office a London Saturday Review of October eighth containing an
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Speaker 1: article which on comparison will be found to be identical
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Speaker 1: with the one published in the Galaxy, I will pay
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Speaker 1: to that agent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at
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Speaker 1: any specified time I fail to produce at the same
18:52
Speaker 1: place a copy of the London Saturday Review of October eighth,
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Speaker 1: containing a lengthy criticism upon the Innocence Abroad and entirely
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Speaker 1: different in every paragraph and sentence from the one I
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Speaker 1: publish in the Galaxy. I will pay to the Inquirer
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Speaker 1: agent another five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon and Company,
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Speaker 1: Publishers five hundred Broadway, New York as my backers. Anyone
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Speaker 1: in New York authorized by the Inquirer will receive prompt attention.
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Speaker 1: It is an easy and profitable way for the Inquirer
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Speaker 1: people to prove that they have not uttered a pitiful,
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Speaker 1: deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs. Will they swallow that
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Speaker 1: falsehood ignominiously? Or will they send an agent to the
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Speaker 1: Galaxy office. I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited
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Speaker 1: by children and of an interesting article