第263章

This year our summer is 6 months long and ends with November and the flight home to New York, but next year we hope and expect to stretch it another month and end it the first of December.

[No signature.]

The fact that he was a persistent smoker was widely known, and many friends and admirers of Mark Twain sent him cigars, most of which he could not use, because they were too good.He did not care for Havana cigars, but smoked the fragrant, inexpensive domestic tobacco with plenty of "pep" in it, as we say today.Now and then he had an opportunity to head off some liberal friend, who wrote asking permission to contribute to his cigar collection, as instance the following.

To Rev.L.M.Powers, in Haverhill, Mass.:

Nov.9, 1905.

DEAR MR.POWERS,--I should accept your hospitable offer at once but for the fact I couldn't do it and remain honest.That is to say if I allowed you to send me what you believe to be good cigars it would distinctly mean that I meant to smoke them, whereas I should do nothing of the kind.

I know a good cigar better than you do, for I have had 6o years experience.

No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than anybody else; I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents I know it to be either foreign or half-foreign, and unsmokeable.By me.I have many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices from 20 cts apiece up to 1.66apiece; I bought none of them, they were all presents, they are an accumulation of several years.I have never smoked one of them and never shall, I work them off on the visitor.You shall have a chance when you come.

Pessimists are born not made; optimists are born not made; but no man is born either pessimist wholly or optimist wholly, perhaps; he is pessimistic along certain lines and optimistic along certain others.

That is my case.

Sincerely yours, S.L.CLEMENS.

In spite of all the fine photographs that were made of him, there recurred constantly among those sent him to be autographed a print of one which, years before, Sarony had made and placed on public sale.It was a good photograph, mechanically and even artistically, but it did not please Mark Twain.Whenever he saw it he recalled Sarony with bitterness and severity.Once he received an inquiry concerning it, and thus feelingly expressed himself.

To Mr.Row (no address):

21 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, November 14, 1905.

DEAR MR.ROW,--That alleged portrait has a private history.Sarony was as much of an enthusiast about wild animals as he was about photography;and when Du Chaillu brought the first Gorilla to this country in 1819 he came to me in a fever of excitement and asked me if my father was of record and authentic.I said he was; then Sarony, without any abatement of his excitement asked if my grandfather also was of record and authentic.I said he was.Then Sarony, with still rising excitement and with joy added to it, said he had found my great grandfather in the person of the gorilla, and had recognized him at once by his resemblance to me.I was deeply hurt but did not reveal this, because I knew Saxony meant no offense for the gorilla had not done him any harm, and he was not a man who would say an unkind thing about a gorilla wantonly.I went with him to inspect the ancestor, and examined him from several points of view, without being able to detect anything more than a passing resemblance."Wait," said Sarony with confidence, "let me show you."He borrowed my overcoat - and put it on the gorilla.The result was surprising.I saw that the gorilla while not looking distinctly like me was exactly what my great grand father would have looked like if I had had one.Sarong photographed the creature in that overcoat, and spread the picture about the world.It has remained spread about the world ever since.It turns up every week in some newspaper somewhere or other.It is not my favorite, but to my exasperation it is everybody else's.

Do you think you could get it suppressed for me? I will pay the limit.

Sincerely yours, S.L.CLEMENS.

The year 1905 closed triumphantly for Mark Twain.The great "Seventieth Birthday" dinner planned by Colonel George Harvey is remembered to-day as the most notable festival occasion in New York literary history.Other dinners and ovations followed.At seventy he had returned to the world, more beloved, more honored than ever before.