SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, "MARK TWAIN."
A CHARACTER SKETCH BY ROBERT BARR.
THE world loves a label. It likes to classify its men and things, docket them, and arrange them nicely on its shelves, each in the proper place. This habit probably arises from the fact that, ever since the indiscretion of Adam, mankind has been compelled to make a living, and has found through long practice that method in business leads to success; therefore man has become a labeling animal, so inured to the vice that he carries it into provinces where it does not legitimately belong. Sometimes there drifts across the sea of life a man whom the world cannot fit into any of its prearranged pigeonholes, and him it either ignores or turns upon and rends, perhaps crucifying him. The person who interferes with these labels is never popular, and is usually howled down when he tries to show that William Tell never existed, or that William Shakespeare's works were written by Bacon, or that Nero was a just and humane monarch, or that Solomon couldn't have been so wise as reported, otherwise he would not have been so frequently married. Therefore I expect little sympathy from the intelligent reader when I detach from Mark Twain the card with the word "humorist" written upon it in large characters, and venture to consider the man uninfluenced by the ready-made verdict of the label.
I do not know whether this magazine has reproduced the photograph of Mark Twain which I have before me as I write: the one taken by Alfred Ellis of London, which is, I believe, the latest; but if not, another will do as well, and I invite the reader's critical attention to it.[1] Any portrait of Mark Twain shows a strong face, worthy of serious study. The broad, intellectual brow, the commanding, penetrating eye, the firm, well-molded chin, give the world assurance of a man. Recently I had an opportunity of getting an opinion on this photograph; an opinion unbiassed by the label. I was traveling through France, and on the train made the acquaintance of a silk manufacturer of Lyons, who was as well versed in men and their affairs as he was ignorant of books. Nevertheless, I was amazed to learn that he had never heard of Mark Twain, and, as I had merely mentioned the name, giving him no indication of what it signified, I took the photograph from my pocket, and handed it to the Frenchman.
"That is a good representation of him," I said," and as you have seen most of the great personages of Europe, tell me what this man is."
He gazed intently at the picture for a few moments; then spoke: " I should say he was a statesman."
"Supposing you wrong in that, what would be your next guess?"
"If he is not a maker of history, he is perhaps a writer of it; a great historian, probably. Of course, it is impossible for me to guess accurately except by accident, but I use the adjective because I am convinced that this man is great in his line, whatever it is. If he makes silk, he makes the best silk."
"You couldn't improve on that if you tried a year. You have summed him up in your last sentence."
I am convinced that in Samuel L. Clemens America has lost one of its greatest statesmen; one of its most notable Presidents. If he had been born a little earlier, and if the storm-center of politics had been whirling a little further to the west forty years ago, it is quite conceivable that to-day we should be reverencing President Samuel Clemens as the man who, with firm hand on the tiller, steered his country successfully through the turbulent rapids that lay ahead of it, and that we might have known Abraham Lincoln only as a teller of funny stories. In this lies the glory of America, that in every State, perhaps in every county, we have an Abraham Lincoln, or a U. S. Grant, ready to act their parts, silently, honestly, and modestly, when grim necessity brushes aside the blatant incompetents whom, with a careless, optimistic confidence, we ordinarily put into high places. The world has now, without a single dissenting voice, elevated Lincoln to the highest pedestal a statesman can attain;
- ↑ The portrait of Mark Twain mentioned by Mr. Barr was reproduced as the frontispiece of the November number of McClure's.—Editor.
