The Ordeal of Mark Twain

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY: MARK TWAIN'S DESPAIR


"What a man sees in the human race is merely himself in the
deep and honest privacy of his own heart. Byron despised the
race because he despised himself. I feel as Byron did, and
for the same reason."--Marginal note in one of Mark Twain's
books.


To those who are interested in American life and letters there has been
no question of greater significance, during the last few years, than the
pessimism of Mark Twain. During the last few years, I say, for his own
friends and contemporaries were rather inclined to make light of his
oft-expressed belief that man is the meanest of the animals and life a
tragic mistake.

For some time before his death Mark Twain had appeared before the public
in the rôle less of a laughing philosopher than of a somewhat gloomy
prophet of modern civilization. But he was old and he had suffered many
misfortunes and the progress of society is not a matter for any one to
be very jubilant about: to be gloomy about the world is a sort of
prerogative of those who have lived long and thought much. The public
that had grown old with him could hardly, therefore, accept at its face
value a point of view that seemed to be contradicted by so many of the
facts of Mark Twain's life and character. Mr. Howells, who knew him
intimately for forty years, spoke only with an affectionate derision of
his "pose" regarding "the damned human race," and we know the opinion of
his loyal biographer, Mr. Paine, that he was "not a pessimist in his
heart, but only by premeditation." These views were apparently borne out
by his own testimony. "My temperament," he wrote, shortly after the
death of his daughter Jean, "has nev