第232章

See what a powerful hold our ancient superstitions have upon us: two weeks ago, when Livy committed an incredible imprudence and by consequence was promptly stricken down with a heavy triple attack--influenza, bronchitis, and a lung affected--she recognized the gravity of the situation, and her old superstitions rose: she thought she ought to send for a doctor--Think of it--the last man in the world I should want around at such a time.Of course I did not say no--not that I was indisposed to take the responsibility, for I was not, my notion of a dangerous responsibility being quite the other way--but because it is unsafe to distress a sick person; I only said we knew no good doctor, and it could not be good policy to choose at hazard; so she allowed me to send for Kellgren.To-day she is up and around-Lured.It is safe to say that persons hit in the same way at the same time are in bed yet, and booked to stay there a good while, and to be in a shackly condition and afraid of their shadows for a couple of years or more to come.

It will be seen by the foregoing that Mark Twain's interest in the Kellgren system was still an ardent one.Indeed, for a time he gave most of his thought to it, and wrote several long appreciations, perhaps with little idea of publication, but merely to get his enthusiasm physically expressed.War, however, presently supplanted medicine--the Boer troubles in South Africa and the Boxer insurrection in China.It was a disturbing, exciting year.

To W.D.Howells, in Boston:

WELLINGTON COURT, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, Jan.25, 1900.

DEAR HOWELLS,--If you got half as much as Pond prophesied, be content and praise God--it has not happened to another.But I am sorry he didn't go with you; for it is marvelous to hear him yarn.He is good company, cheery and hearty, and his mill is never idle.Your doing a lecture tour was heroic.It was the highest order of grit, and you have a right to be proud of yourself.No mount of applause or money or both could save it from being a hell to a man constituted as you are.It is that even to me, who am made of coarser stuff.

I knew the audiences would come forward and shake hands with you--that one infallible sign of sincere approval.In all my life, wherever it failed me I left the hall sick and ashamed, knowing what it meant.

Privately speaking, this is a sordid and criminal war, and in every way shameful and excuseless.Every day I write (in my head) bitter magazine articles about it, but I have to stop with that.For England must not fall; it would mean an inundation of Russian and German political degradations which would envelop the globe and steep it in a sort of Middle-Age night and slavery which would last till Christ comes again.

Even wrong--and she is wrong--England must be upheld.He is an enemy of the human race who shall speak against her now.Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of it.God had his opportunity.He could have made a reputation.But no, He must commit this grotesque folly--a lark which must have cost him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.For a giddy and unbecoming caprice there has been nothing like it till this war.I talk the war with both sides--always waiting until the other man introduces the topic.Then I say "My head is with the Briton, but my heart and such rags of morals as I have are with the Boer--now we will talk, unembarrassed and without prejudice." And so we discuss, and have no trouble.

Jan.26.

1I love to see the holy ones air their smug pieties and admire them and smirk over them, and at the same moment frankly and publicly show their contempt for the pieties of the Boer--confidently expecting the approval of the country and the pulpit, and getting it.

I notice that God is on both sides in this war; thus history repeats itself.But I am the only person who has noticed this; everybody here thinks He is playing the game for this side, and for this side only.

With great love to you all MARK.

One cannot help wondering what Mark Twain would have thought of human nature had he lived to see the great World War, fought mainly by the Christian nations who for nearly two thousand years had been preaching peace on earth and goodwill toward men.But his opinion of the race could hardly have been worse than it was.And nothing that human beings could do would have surprised him.

To Rev.J.H.Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, Jan.27, 1900.

DEAR JOE,--Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free and give their islands to them; and apparently we are not proposing to hang the priests and confiscate their property.If these things are so, the war out there has no interest for me.

I have just been examining chapter LXX of "Following the Equator," to see if the Boer's old military effectiveness is holding out.It reads curiously as if it had been written about the present war.

I believe that in the next chapter my notion of the Boer was rightly conceived.He is popularly called uncivilized, I do not know why.