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From I Remember (1934)
- University of Iowa Press
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[134] === From I Remember (1934) J. Henry Harper Twain took time off from his usual summer routine in Elmira to return to the Mississippi River valley during the spring of 1882 with James R. Osgood and a shorthand secretary in tow and plans to expand his essays “Old Times on the Mississippi” (1875) into the book Life on the Mississippi (1883). He traveled to St. Louis, south by steamboat to New Orleans, then north to Hannibal and Quincy, Illinois. The journalist and humorist Opie Read (1852–1939) joined him on part of the trip. one of the features of the cotton exposition was Mark Twain. I saw people turn away from the Chinese giant, eight feet high, to gaze upon a humorous philosopher who said that he was, though never tall, always short along toward the first of the month. I heard that he was to board the Kate Adams to steam around the bends and over the wide washes of his pilot recollections. I made it a point to take passage on the same boat. The Kate Adams was not crowded and for this I was thankful. I saw Twain talking with an old friend, a pilot whose name I cannot recall; but I remember his countenance, can see it at this moment. His eyes had a far-away expression as if he were looking for a snag in the river, and his voice had the tone of a negro tune. He and Twain were sitting forward on the upper deck, talking, and courteously they invited me to join in with them. To listen to them was like reading a “character” book. “It was along about here where old Tim was drowned,” said the pilot. “That so? It was not the place that was interesting to me: it was the assurance that he had been drowned. About the only vital fact connected with his life was that he was dead. When he slept he snored a lie. When he awoke he blinked a falsehood. I saw Griswold smash his jaw for slandering a young woman.” “Old Gris’s daughter, wasn’t it?” “No, Gris had never seen the girl but took a swipe at him on general principles . Remember bow-legged Boyd?” [135] “Mighty well. He knew how to shuffle cards, but he died an honest death.” “It must have been sudden,” said Twain. “It was: fellow named Rankin shot him.” Up came a tall, bent man and introduced himself, Professor Wilkinson, of Columbia, if I remember rightly. I saw the humorist and the pilot wink at each other. The learned man sat down and picked a bit of cottonwood lint off his trousers. “Mr. Twain, you have helped to make this great waterway famous,” he said. The pilot tittered. Mark hated to be called Mr. Twain. “Well, I didn’t dry it up at any rate.” “Ah, very true, sir, and I might say very good. You will pardon me, I feel, but I have thought as to what you might have been had you received a systematic training at one of our universities.” “I might have been a professor,” said Twain. “Quite true, sir. Are you college bred?” he inquired of me. “Well, I went through a classical institution and knew nearly as much when I came out as when I went in.” He looked at me. “Quite true, no doubt, yes sir. Well, we are making great strides in an educational way.” Mark Twain made fun of many phases of life, some of them endearments, but for learning he had a profound reverence. Not so with the pilot. “Education ’s all right in its way,” he said, “but if Lincoln had rubbed shoulders with high-up school teachers do you reckon he ever would have been so close to the people?” “Mydearsir,”ProfessorWilkinsonresponded,inclininghisheadpolitely, “there is no element of novelty in your remark. I have often heard it or its like; but in answer to your question let me say that of itself, being close to the people has never exemplified the deepest of wisdom. When wisdom stands too close to the people it stoops to flattery. In our national house a senator is most impotent when he makes a speech for the state that elected him.” Up came a man with a message. “Gentlemen, Senator Zeb Vance1 has just come aboard and by request is going to deliver a talk in the dining room. Won’t you please come in and hear him?” “Speak of...