Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

From Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1939)

[263] === From Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1939) Dan Beard After returning to the United States, Twain lived first in a cottage in the Berkshires and then in a hotel near Washington Square before moving into a house at 21 Fifth Avenue. Dan Beard visited him there in early 1905. when i was editor of Recreation, I heard that Mark Twain was ill. He then lived near Washington Square, and I immediately went down to see him. When the butler opening the door of the old-fashioned mansion I asked to see Mr. Clemens but was told very bluntly that Mr. Clemens was receiving no visitors. “Please take this card to him,” said I, “and tell him I heard that he was ill and called to see how he is getting on.” The butler left me standing and disappeared with the card, but when he returned he was bowing and smiling as he announced that Mr. Clemens wished to see me in his bedroom. “Hello, D-a-a-n,” was the drawling salutation I heard before I had entered the doorway of the bedchamber. “Come in. Take a cigar. I know they are good. I pay six dollars a barrel for them.” The weather was cold, there was no fire in the old-fashioned open fireplace, but the butler appeared with Mr. Clemens’s overcoat, which the white-haired philosopher donned over his pajamas as he arose. Then, slipping his feet into a pair of heelless slippers , he walked up and down the room, reading to me from a manuscript. I exclaimed, “You are going to publish that, are you not, Mr. Clemens?” “No, Dan,” he replied. “I am telling the truth in that manuscript, and no man dares tell the truth until after he is dead. That will be published after I am buried.” Speaking of the manuscript he had just read, he said that he had tried it on his daughter, his secretary, and his butler, and they were all shocked, declaring that the thing was sacrilegious and should never be published. “But,” he continued, “without changing a word in the manuscript I tacked on a small paragraph, stating that a maniac had visited the church, and then everybody declared it was fine!” The title of the manuscript was “The Prayer.”1 . . . twain in his own time [264] While serving as president of that talented group of men known as the Society of Illustrators,2 I launched a banquet to Mark Twain, but a note from his secretary to Mr. [Henry S.] Fleming, our secretary, said that Mr. Clemens could not attend. A smuggled note to Mark Twain himself, however, brought an immediate and cordial acceptance. I suggested to my fellow artists that we should have Joan of Arc there in full armor, with a real laurel wreath for Samuel Clemens. I insisted that we must get the prettiest girl in New York to act the part of the Maid of Orleans. When the illustrators gave a banquet there was no dearth of celebrities. All invited were glad to come. Among those present on this occasion were Thomas A. Janvier, Frank Vanderlip, Norman Hapgood, Rollo Ogden, Sir C. Purdon Clarke, Arthur H. Scribner, Dr. E. L. Keyes, Willis Abbott, Andrew Carnegie, and Arthur Brisbane. Prominent among the illustrators were Charles Dana Gibson, Lucius Hitchcock,3 E. W. Kemble, T. De Thulstrup,4 A. B. Wenzell, and a jolly bunch of newspaper artists. With such a crowd there was lots of life and gayety, even before Mark Twain entered the banquet hall. But everybody was anxiously waiting for Mark Twain himself to appear, which he did when coffee was being served and the orchestra was playing “My Old Kentucky Home.” As he came through the curtains he was greeted with a spontaneous outburst of cheers. When Mark Twain started to speak in his own inimitable manner he was interrupted by a medieval fanfare of trumpets, and suddenly and miraculously there appeared a lovely vision of a girl in a magnificent suit of glistening white armor. Proudly she bore a white satin cushion on which rested a classic wreath of laurel. Following Jeanne D’Arc was a page bearing a replica of the famous flag of old France dotted with the fleur-de-lis. I thought that this would bring a roar of applause, but one never knows what the effect to such a spectacle will be. There was a sudden hush, no applause, only a deep and awed...