AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE
I take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston_Advertiser_:
AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN
Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have beendescriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all. Wehave become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with terrorby his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story,and we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his_Innocents Abroad_ to the book-agent with the remark that "the man whocould shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot." But Mark Twainmay now add a much more glorious instance to his string of trophies.The _Saturday Review,_ in its number of October 8th, reviews his bookof travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews itseriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading thistribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he canhardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next monthlyMemoranda.
(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority forreproducing the _Saturday Review's_ article in full in these pages. Idearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so deliciousmyself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this English criticismand preserve his austerity, I would drive him off the door-step.)
(From the London "Saturday Review.")
REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS
_The Innocents Abroad_. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain. London:Hotten, publisher. 1870.
Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when wefinished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulaydied too soon--for none but he could mete out complete and comprehensivejustice to the insolence, the impertinence, the presumption, themendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance of this author.
To say that _The Innocents Abroad_ is a curious book, would be to usethe faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn as a neatelevation or of Niagara as being "nice" or "pretty." "Curious" is tootame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work.There is no word that is large enough or long enough. Let us, therefore,photograph a passing glimpse of book and author, and trust the rest tothe reader. Let the cultivated English student of human naturepicture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable of doing thefollowing-described things--and not only doing them, but with incredibleinnocence _printing them_ calmly and tranquilly in a book. For instance:
He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved, andthe first "rake" the barber gave him with his razor it _loosened his"hide"_ and _lifted him out of the chair._
This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so annoyed bybeggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a franticspirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. He gives atfull length a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen hundred yearsold, which he professes to have found in the ruins of the Coliseum,among the dirt and mold and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment uponthis statement to remark that even a cast-iron program would not havelasted so long under such circumstances. In Greece he plainly betraysboth fright and flight upon one occasion, but with frozen effronteryputs the latter in this falsely tamed form: "We _sidled _toward thePiraeus." "Sidled," indeed! He does not hesitate to intimate that atEphesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course, he got down, tookhim under his arm, carried him to the road again, pointed him right,remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore thebeast to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among hisship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his hunger withsoap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants thatcame eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought theirprovisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the countrythat the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the mostcommonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylightin Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shedmore blood _if he had had a graveyard of his own._ These statements areunworthy a moment's attention. Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who didsuch a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly lose hislife. But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperatingfalsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that "inthe mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck upwith a complication of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I woreout more than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off thatnight, and even then some Christian hide peeled off with them." It ismonstrous. Such statements are simply lies--there is no other namefor them. Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance thatpervades the American nation when we tell him that we are informedupon perfectly good authority that this extravagant compilation offalsehoods, this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this _InnocentsAbroad_, has actually been adopted by the schools and colleges ofseveral of the states as a text-book!
But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignoranceare enough to make one burn the book and despise the author. In oneplace he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man,unveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window, goingthrough sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlikesimplicity that he "was not scared, but was considerably agitated."It puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is denselyunconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage. He isvulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough tocriticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they spell thename of their great painter "Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy"--and thenadds with a naivete possible only to helpless ignorance, "foreignersalways spell better than they pronounce." In another place he commitsthe bald absurdity of putting the phrase "tare an ouns" into anItalian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly believes the legend that St.Philip Neri's heart was so inflamed with divine love that it bursthis ribs--believes it wholly because an author with a learned list ofuniversity degrees strung after his name endorses it--"otherwise," saysthis gentle idiot, "I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philiphad for dinner." Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to theGrotto del Cane on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog--gotelaborately ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had nodog. A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,but with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his footin a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and presently, whenstaring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed in the next square,conceives the idea that maybe it is the remains of the ancient StreetCommissioner, and straightway his horror softens down to a sort ofchirpy contentment with the condition of things. In Damascus he visitsthe well of Ananias, three thousand years old, and is as surprised anddelighted as a child to find that the water is "as pure and fresh as ifthe well had been dug yesterday." In the Holy Land he gags desperatelyat the hard Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally concludes tocall them Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on, "for convenience ofspelling."
We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity andinnocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance. Wedo not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin, we certainlywould not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen, and oneonly. He did not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelowas dead! And then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shamefulignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort ofsatisfaction that he is gone and out of his troubles!
No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivationfor himself. The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitudeand variety of its misstatements, and the convincing confidence withwhich they are made. And yet it is a text-book in the schools ofAmerica.
The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the OldMasters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge,which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for atraveled man
to be able to display. But what is the manner of his study?And what is the progress he achieves? To what extent does hefamiliarize himself with the great pictures of Italy, and what degree ofappreciation does he arrive at? Read:
"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we knowthat that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, lookingtranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and withoutother baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know thathe always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see othermonks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, wealways ask who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish tolearn."
He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these severalpictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed simplicity that hefeels encouraged to believe that when he has seen "Some More" of each,and had a larger experience, he will eventually "begin to take anabsorbing interest in them"--the vulgar boor.
That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no onewill deny. That it is a pernicious book to place in the hands of theconfiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book isa deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent uponevery page. Having placed our judgment thus upon record, let us closewith what charity we can, by remarking that even in this volume there issome good to be found; for whenever the author talks of his own countryand lets Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting, andnot only interesting but instructive. No one can read without benefithis occasional chapters and paragraphs, about life in the gold andsilver mines of California and Nevada; about the Indians of the plainsand deserts of the West, and their cannibalism; about the raising ofvegetables in kegs of gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons ofguano; about the moving of small arms from place to place at night inwheelbarrows to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules inthe Humboldt mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people atnight. These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing. It isa pity the author did not put in more of the same kind. His book is wellwritten and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it just barely escapedbeing quite valuable also.
(One month later)
Latterly I have received several letters, and see a number of newspaperparagraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about the same tenor.I here give honest specimens. One is from a New York paper, one is froma letter from an old friend, and one is from a letter from a New Yorkpublisher who is a stranger to me. I humbly endeavor to make these bitstoothsome with the remark that the article they are praising (whichappeared in the December _Galaxy_, and _pretended _to be a criticismfrom the London _Saturday Review_ on my _Innocents Abroad_) _was writtenby myself, every line of it_:
The _Herald _says the richest thing out is the "serious critique" in theLondon _Saturday Review_, on Mark Twain's _Innocents Abroad_. We thoughtbefore we read it that it must be "serious," as everybody said so, andwere even ready to shed a few tears; but since perusing it, we are boundto confess that next to Mark Twain's "_Jumping Frog_" it's the finestbit of humor and sarcasm that we've come across in many a day.
(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)
I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after readingthe criticism in _The Galaxy_ from the _London Review_, have discoveredwhat an ass I must have been. If suggestions are in order, mine is,that you put that article in your next edition of the _Innocents_, asan extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor incompetition with it. It is as rich a thing as I ever read.
(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, "serious" creature hepretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has a keen appreciationand enjoyment of your book. As I read his article in _The Galaxy_, Icould imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh. But he is writingfor Catholics and Established Church people, and high-toned, antiquated,conservative gentility, whom it is a delight to him to help you shock,while he pretends to shake his head with owlish density. He is amagnificent humorist himself.
(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my life-longfriend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread overmy heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, "You do me proud.")
I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean anyharm. I saw by an item in the Boston _Advertiser_ that a solemn, seriouscritique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the London_Saturday Review_, and the idea of _such _a literary breakfast by astolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for a naturallyweak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it--reveled in it, I maysay. I never saw a copy of the real _Saturday Review_ criticism untilafter my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer. But when Idid get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly written,ill-natured, and entirely serious and in earnest. The gentleman whowrote the newspaper paragraph above quoted had not been misled as to itscharacter.
If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not kill him;I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let any New Yorkpublisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have above made as tothe authorship of the article in question are entirely true. PerhapsI may get wealthy at this, for I am willing to take all the bets thatoffer; and if a man wants larger odds, I will give him all he requires.But he ought to find out whether I am betting on what is termed "a surething" or not before he ventures his money, and he can do that bygoing to a public library and examining the London _Saturday Review_ ofOctober 8th, which contains the real critique.
Bless me, some people thought that _I_ was the "sold" person!
P.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory thingof all--this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition, with his happy,chirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_:
Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar. Nine smokersout of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article, three for aquarter, to a fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance of the cost ofthe latter. The flavor of the Partaga is too delicate for palates thathave been accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf. So it is with humor. Thefiner it is in quality, the more danger of its not being recognizedat all. Even Mark Twain has been taken in by an English review of his_Innocents Abroad_. Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist, but theEnglishman's humor is so much finer than his, that he mistakes it forsolid earnest, and "larfs most consumedly."
A man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter, when I writean article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason to fearwill not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much, comingfrom an American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it and that itis copied from a London journal. And then I will occupy a back seat andenjoy the cordial applause.
(Still later)
Mark Twain at last sees that the _Saturday Review's_ criticism of his_Innocents Abroad_ was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at thethought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him,and in the last _Galaxy _claims that _he _wrote the criticism himself,and published it in _The Galaxy_ to sell the public. This is ingenious,but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take thetrouble to call at this office we sill show them the original articlein the _Saturday Review_ of October 8th, which, on comparison, will befound to be identical with the one published in _The Galaxy._ The bestthing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no moreabout it.
The above is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, and is a falsehood. Come tothe proof. If the _Enquirer _people, through any agent, will produceat _The Galaxy_ office a London _Saturday Review_ of October 8th,containing an article which, on comparison, will be found to beidentical with the one published in _The Galaxy_, I will pay to thatagent five hundred dollars cash. Moreo
ver, if at any specified time Ifail to produce at the same place a copy of the London _Saturday Review_of October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the _InnocentsAbroad_, entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from theone I published in _The Galaxy,_ I will pay to the _Enquirer_ agentanother five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers,500 Broadway, New York, as my "backers." Any one in New York, authorizedby the _Enquirer_, will receive prompt attention. It is an easy andprofitable way for the _Enquirer _people to prove that they have notuttered a pitiful, deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs. Willthey swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to_ The Galaxy _office. I think the Cincinnati _Enquirer _must be editedby children.