Up to that point he could have written chapters III and IV of my suppressed "Gospel." But there we seem to separate.He seems to concede the indisputable and unshakable dominion of Motive and Necessity (call them what he may, these are exterior forces and not under the man's authority, guidance or even suggestion)--then he suddenly flies the logic track and (to all seeming) makes the man and not these exterior forces responsible to God for the man's thoughts, words and acts.It is frank insanity.
I think that when he concedes the autocratic dominion of Motive and Necessity he grants, a third position of mine--that a man's mind is a mere machine--an automatic machine--which is handled entirely from the outside, the man himself furnishing it absolutely nothing: not an ounce of its fuel, and not so much as a bare suggestion to that exterior engineer as to what the machine shall do, nor how it shall do it nor when.
After that concession, it was time for him to get alarmed and shirk--for he was pointing straight for the only rational and possible next-station on that piece of road the irresponsibility of man to God.
And so he shirked.Shirked, and arrived at this handsome result:
Man is commanded to do so-and-so.It has been ordained from the beginning of time that some men shan't and others can't.
These are to be blamed: let them be damned.
I enjoy the Colonel very much, and shall enjoy the rest of him with an obscene delight.
Joe, the whole tribe shout love to you and yours!
MARK.
We have not heard of Joe Goodman since the trying days of '90 and '91, when he was seeking to promote the fortunes of the type-setting machine.Goodman, meantime, who had in turn been miner, printer, publisher, and farmer; had been devoting his energies and genius to something entirely new: he had been translating the prehistoric Mayan inscriptions of Yucatan, and with such success that his work was elaborately published by an association of British scientists.
In due time a copy of this publication came to Clemens, who was full of admiration of the great achievement.
To J.T.Goodman, in California:
RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON, June 13, '02.
DEAR JOE,--I am lost in reverence and admiration! It is now twenty-four hours that I have been trying to cool down and contemplate with quiet blood this extraordinary spectacle of energy, industry, perseverance, pluck, analytical genius, penetration, this irruption of thunders and fiery splendors from a fair and flowery mountain that nobody had supposed was a sleeping volcano, but I seem to be as excited as ever.Yesterday I read as much as half of the book, not understanding a word but enchanted nevertheless--partly by the wonder of it all, the study, the erudition, the incredible labor, the modesty, the dignity, the majestic exclusiveness of the field and its lofty remoteness from things and contacts sordid and mean and earthy, and partly by the grace and beauty and limpidity of the book's unsurpassable English.Science, always great and worshipful, goes often in hodden grey, but you have clothed her in garments meet for her high degree.
You think you get "poor pay" for your twenty years? No, oh no.You have lived in a paradise of the intellect whose lightest joys were beyond the reach of the longest purse in Christendom, you have had daily and nightly emancipation from the world's slaveries and gross interests, you have received a bigger wage than any man in the land, you have dreamed a splendid dream and had it come true, and to-day you could not afford to trade fortunes with anybody--not even with another scientist, for he must divide his spoil with his guild, whereas essentially the world you have discovered is your own and must remain so.
It is all just magnificent, Joe! And no one is prouder or gladder than Yours always MARK.
At York Harbor, Maine, where they had taken a cottage for the summer--a pretty place, with Howells not far distant, at Kittery Point--Mrs.Clemens's health gave way.This was at a period when telegraphic communication was far from reliable.The old-time Western Union had fallen from grace; its "system" no longer justified the best significance of that word.The new day of reorganization was coming, and it was time for it.Mark Twain's letter concerning the service at York Harbor would hardly be warranted today, but those who remember conditions of that earlier time will agree that it was justified then, and will appreciate its satire.
To the President of The Western Union, in New York:
"THE PINES"
YORK HARBOR, MAINE.
DEAR SIR,--I desire to make a complaint, and I bring it to you, the head of the company, because by experience I know better than to carry it to a subordinate.
I have been here a month and a half, and by testimony of friends, reinforced by personal experience I now feel qualified to claim as an established fact that the telegraphic service here is the worst in the world except that Boston.
These services are actually slower than was the New York and Hartford service in the days when I last complained to you--which was fifteen or eighteen years ago, when telegraphic time and train time between the mentioned points was exactly the same, to-wit, three hours and a half.
Six days ago--it was that raw day which provoked so much comment--my daughter was on her way up from New York, and at noon she telegraphed me from New Haven asking that I meet her with a cloak at Portsmouth.Her telegram reached me four hours and a quarter later--just 15 minutes too late for me to catch my train and meet her.
I judge that the telegram traveled about 200 miles.It is the best telegraphic work I have seen since I have been here, and I am mentioning it in this place not as a complaint but as a compliment.I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.