ESSAYS ON PAUL BOURGET by Mark Twain CONTENTS: WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS OF US He reports the American joke correctly. In Boston they ask, How muchdoes he know? in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadelphia, Whowere his parents? And when an alien observer turns his telescope uponus--advertisedly in our own special interest--a natural apprehensionmoves us to ask, What is the diameter of his reflector? I take a great interest in M. Bourget's chapters, for I know by thenewspapers that there are several Americans who are expecting to geta whole education out of them; several who foresaw, and also foretold, that our long night was over, and a light almost divine about to breakupon the land. "His utterances concerning us are bound to be weighty and well timed. " "He gives us an object-lesson which should be thoughtfully and profitably studied. " These well-considered and important verdicts were of a nature to restorepublic confidence, which had been disquieted by questionings as towhether so young a teacher would be qualified to take so large a classas 70, 000, 000, distributed over so extensive a schoolhouse as America, and pull it through without assistance. I was even disquieted myself, although I am of a cold, calm temperament, and not easily disturbed. I feared for my country. And I was not whollytranquilized by the verdicts rendered as above. It seemed to me thatthere was still room for doubt. In fact, in looking the ground over Ibecame more disturbed than I was before. Many worrying questions cameup in my mind. Two were prominent. Where had the teacher gotten hisequipment? What was his method? He had gotten his equipment in France. Then as to his method! I saw by his own intimations that he wasan Observer, and had a System that used by naturalists and otherscientists. The naturalist collects many bugs and reptiles andbutterflies and studies their ways a long time patiently. By thismeans he is presently able to group these creatures into families andsubdivisions of families by nice shadings of differences observable intheir characters. Then he labels all those shaded bugs and things withnicely descriptive group names, and is now happy, for his great work iscompleted, and as a result he intimately knows every bug and shade ofa bug there, inside and out. It may be true, but a person who was not anaturalist would feel safer about it if he had the opinion of the bug. Ithink it is a pleasant System, but subject to error. The Observer of Peoples has to be a Classifier, a Grouper, a Deducer, aGeneralizer, a Psychologizer; and, first and last, a Thinker. He hasto be all these, and when he is at home, observing his own folk, he isoften able to prove competency. But history has shown that when he isabroad observing unfamiliar peoples the chances are heavily againsthim. He is then a naturalist observing a bug, with no more than anaturalist's chance of being able to tell the bug anything new aboutitself, and no more than a naturalist's chance of being able to teach itany new ways which it will prefer to its own. To return to that first question. M. Bourget, as teacher, would simplybe France teaching America. It seemed to me that the outlook wasdark--almost Egyptian, in fact. What would the new teacher, representingFrance, teach us? Railroading? No. France knows nothing valuable aboutrailroading. Steamshipping? No. France has no superiorities over us inthat matter. Steamboating? No. French steamboating is still ofFulton's date--1809. Postal service? No. France is a back numberthere. Telegraphy? No, we taught her that ourselves. Journalism? No. Magazining? No, that is our own specialty. Government? No; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Nobility, Democracy, Adultery the system is toovariegated for our climate. Religion? No, not variegated enough forour climate. Morals? No, we cannot rob the poor to enrich ourselves. Novel-writing? No. M. Bourget and the others know only one plan, andwhen that is expurgated there is nothing left of the book. I wish I could think what he is going to teach us. Can it be Deportment?But he experimented in that at Newport and failed to give satisfaction, except to a few. Those few are pleased. They are enjoying their joy aswell as they can. They confess their happiness to the interviewer. Theyfeel pretty striped, but they remember with reverent recognition thatthey had sugar between the cuts. True, sugar with sand in it, but sugar. And true, they had some trouble to tell which was sugar and which wassand, because the sugar itself looked just like the sand, and also hada gravelly taste; still, they knew that the sugar was there, and wouldhave been very good sugar indeed if it had been screened. Yes, they arepleased; not noisily so, but pleased; invaded, or streaked, as one maysay, with little recurrent shivers of joy--subdued joy, so to speak, notthe overdone kind. And they commune together, these, and massage eachother with comforting sayings, in a sweet spirit of resignation andthankfulness, mixing these elements in the same proportions as the sugarand the sand, as a memorial, and saying, the one to the other, and tothe interviewer: "It was severe--yes, it was bitterly severe; but oh, how true it was; and it will do us so much good!" If it isn't Deportment, what is left? It was at this point that I seemedto get on the right track at last. M. Bourget would teach us to knowourselves; that was it: he would reveal us to ourselves. That wouldbe an education. He would explain us to ourselves. Then weshould understand ourselves; and after that be able to go on moreintelligently. It seemed a doubtful scheme. He could explain us to himself--that wouldbe easy. That would be the same as the naturalist explaining the bug tohimself. But to explain the bug to the bug--that is quite a differentmatter. The bug may not know himself perfectly, but he knows himselfbetter than the naturalist can know him, at any rate. A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a nation, but I think thatthat is as far as he can get. I think that no foreigner can report itsinterior--its soul, its life, its speech, its thought. I think that aknowledge of these things is acquirable in only one way; not two or fouror six--absorption; years and years of unconscious absorption; yearsand years of intercourse with the life concerned; of living it, indeed;sharing personally in its shames and prides, its joys and griefs, its loves and hates, its prosperities and reverses, its shows andshabbinesses, its deep patriotisms, its whirlwinds of political passion, its adorations--of flag, and heroic dead, and the glory of the nationalname. Observation? Of what real value is it? One learns peoples throughthe heart, not the eyes or the intellect. There is only one expert who is qualified to examine the souls and thelife of a people and make a valuable report--the native novelist. Thisexpert is so rare that the most populous country can never have fifteenconspicuously and confessedly competent ones in stock at one time. This native specialist is not qualified to begin work until he hasbeen absorbing during twenty-five years. How much of his competency isderived from conscious "observation"? The amount is so slight that itcounts for next to nothing in the equipment. Almost the whole capitalof the novelist is the slow accumulation of unconsciousobservation--absorption. The native expert's intentional observationof manners, speech, character, and ways of life can have value, for thenative knows what they mean without having to cipher out the meaning. But I should be astonished to see a foreigner get at the right meanings, catch the elusive shades of these subtle things. Even the nativenovelist becomes a foreigner, with a foreigner's limitations, when hesteps from the State whose life is familiar to him into a Statewhose life he has not lived. Bret Harte got his California and hisCalifornians by unconscious absorption, and put both of them into histales alive. But when he came from the Pacific to the Atlantic and triedto do Newport life from study-conscious observation--his failurewas absolutely monumental. Newport is a disastrous place for theunacclimated observer, evidently. To return to novel-building. Does the native novelist try to generalizethe nation? No, he lays plainly before you the ways and speech and lifeof a few people grouped in a certain place--his own place--and that isone book. In time he and his brethren will report to you the life andthe people of the whole nation--the life of a group in a New Englandvillage; in a New York village; in a Texan village; in an Oregonvillage; in villages in fifty States and Territories; then the farm-lifein fifty States and Territories; a hundred patches of life and groupsof people in a dozen widely separated cities. And the Indians will beattended to; and the cowboys; and the gold and silver miners; and thenegroes; and the Idiots and Congressmen; and the Irish, the Germans, theItalians, the Swedes, the French, the Chinamen, the Greasers; and theCatholics, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, the Spiritualists, the Mormons, the Shakers, the Quakers, the Jews, the Campbellites, the infidels, the Christian Scientists, theMind-Curists, the Faith-Curists, the train-robbers, the White Caps, theMoonshiners. And when a thousand able novels have been written, thereyou have the soul of the people, the life of the people, the speech ofthe people; and not anywhere else can these be had. And the shadings ofcharacter, manners, feelings, ambitions, will be infinite. "'The nature of a people' is always of a similar shade in its vices and its virtues, in its frivolities and in its labor. 'It is this physiognomy which it is necessary to discover', and every document is good, from the hall of a casino to the church, from the foibles of a fashionable woman to the suggestions of a revolutionary leader. I am therefore quite sure that this 'American soul', the principal interest and the great object of my voyage, appears behind the records of Newport for those who choose to see it. "--M. Paul Bourget. [The italics ('') are mine. ] It is a large contract which he hasundertaken. "Records" is a pretty poor word there, but I think the useof it is due to hasty translation. In the original the word is 'fastes'. I think M. Bourget meant to suggest that he expected to find the great"American soul" secreted behind the ostentatious of Newport; and thathe was going to get it out and examine it, and generalize it, andpsychologize it, and make it reveal to him its hidden vast mystery:"the nature of the people" of the United States of America. We have beenaccused of being a nation addicted to inventing wild schemes. I trustthat we shall be allowed to retire to second place now. There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled"American. " There isn't a single human ambition, or religious trend, ordrift of thought, or peculiarity of education, or code of principles, orbreed of folly, or style of conversation, or preference for a particularsubject for discussion, or form of legs or trunk or head or face orexpression or complexion, or gait, or dress, or manners, or disposition, or any other human detail, inside or outside, that can rationally begeneralized as "American. " Whenever you have found what seems to be an "American" peculiarity, youhave only to cross a frontier or two, or go down or up in the socialscale, and you perceive that it has disappeared. And you can cross theAtlantic and find it again. There may be a Newport religious drift, orsporting drift, or conversational style or complexion, or cut of face, but there are entire empires in America, north, south, east, and west, where you could not find your duplicates. It is the same with everythingelse which one might propose to call "American. " M. Bourget thinks hehas found the American Coquette. If he had really found her he wouldalso have found, I am sure, that she was not new, that she exists inother lands in the same forms, and with the same frivolous heart and thesame ways and impulses. I think this because I have seen our coquette; Ihave seen her in life; better still, I have seen her in our novels, andseen her twin in foreign novels. I wish M. Bourget had seen ours. Hethought he saw her. And so he applied his System to her. She was aSpecies. So he gathered a number of samples of what seemed to be her, and put them under his glass, and divided them into groups whichhe calls "types, " and labeled them in his usual scientific way with"formulas"--brief sharp descriptive flashes that make a person blink, sometimes, they are so sudden and vivid. As a rule they are prettyfar-fetched, but that is not an important matter; they surprise, theycompel admiration, and I notice by some of the comments which hisefforts have called forth that they deceive the unwary. Here are a fewof the coquette variants which he has grouped and labeled: THE COLLECTOR. THE EQUILIBREE. THE PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY. THE BLUFFER. THE GIRL-BOY. If he had stopped with describing these characters we should have beenobliged to believe that they exist; that they exist, and that he hasseen them and spoken with them. But he did not stop there; he wentfurther and furnished to us light-throwing samples of their behavior, and also light-throwing samples of their speeches. He entered thosethings in his note-book without suspicion, he takes them out anddelivers them to the world with a candor and simplicity which show thathe believed them genuine. They throw altogether too much light. Theyreveal to the native the origin of his find. I suppose he knows how hecame to make that novel and captivating discovery, by this time. If hedoes not, any American can tell him--any American to whom he will showhis anecdotes. It was "put up" on him, as we say. It was a jest--to beplain, it was a series of frauds. To my mind it was a poor sort of jest, witless and contemptible. The players of it have their reward, such asit is; they have exhibited the fact that whatever they may be they arenot ladies. M. Bourget did not discover a type of coquette; he merelydiscovered a type of practical joker. One may say the type of practicaljoker, for these people are exactly alike all over the world. Theirequipment is always the same: a vulgar mind, a puerile wit, a crueldisposition as a rule, and always the spirit of treachery. In his Chapter IV. M. Bourget has two or three columns gravely devotedto the collating and examining and psychologizing of these sorrylittle frauds. One is not moved to laugh. There is nothing funny inthe situation; it is only pathetic. The stranger gave those people hisconfidence, and they dishonorably treated him in return. But one must be allowed to suspect that M. Bourget was a little to blamehimself. Even a practical joker has some little judgment. He has toexercise some degree of sagacity in selecting his prey if he would savehimself from getting into trouble. In my time I have seldom seen suchdaring things marketed at any price as these conscienceless folk haveworked off at par on this confiding observer. It compels the convictionthat there was something about him that bred in those speculators aquite unusual sense of safety, and encouraged them to strain theirpowers in his behalf. They seem to have satisfied themselves that allhe wanted was "significant" facts, and that he was not accustomed toexamine the source whence they proceeded. It is plain that there was asort of conspiracy against him almost from the start--a conspiracy tofreight him up with all the strange extravagances those people's decayedbrains could invent. The lengths to which they went are next to incredible. They told himthings which surely would have excited any one else's suspicion, butthey did not excite his. Consider this: "There is not in all the United States an entirely nude statue. " If an angel should come down and say such a thing about heaven, areasonably cautious observer would take that angel's number and inquirea little further before he added it to his catch. What does the presentobserver do? Adds it. Adds it at once. Adds it, and labels it with thisinnocent comment: "This small fact is strangely significant. " It does seem to me that this kind of observing is defective. Here is another curiosity which some liberal person made him a presentof. I should think it ought to have disturbed the deep slumber of hissuspicion a little, but it didn't. It was a note from a fog-horn forstrenuousness, it seems to me, but the doomed voyager did not catch it. If he had but caught it, it would have saved him from several disasters: "If the American knows that you are traveling to take notes, he is interested in it, and at the same time rejoices in it, as in a tribute. " Again, this is defective observation. It is human to like to be praised;one can even notice it in the French. But it is not human to like tobe ridiculed, even when it comes in the form of a "tribute. " I think alittle psychologizing ought to have come in there. Something like this:A dog does not like to be ridiculed, a redskin does not like to beridiculed, a negro does not like to be ridiculed, a Chinaman does notlike to be ridiculed; let us deduce from these significant facts thisformula: the American's grade being higher than these, and the chain-ofargument stretching unbroken all the way up to him, there is room forsuspicion that the person who said the American likes to be ridiculed, and regards it as a tribute, is not a capable observer. I feel persuaded that in the matter of psychologizing, a professionalis too apt to yield to the fascinations of the loftier regions of thatgreat art, to the neglect of its lowlier walks. Every now and then, athalf-hour intervals, M. Bourget collects a hatful of airy inaccuraciesand dissolves them in a panful of assorted abstractions, and runs thecharge into a mould and turns you out a compact principle which willexplain an American girl, or an American woman, or why new people yearnfor old things, or any other impossible riddle which a person wantsanswered. It seems to be conceded that there are a few human peculiarities thatcan be generalized and located here and there in the world and namedby the name of the nation where they are found. I wonder what they are. Perhaps one of them is temperament. One speaks of French vivacityand German gravity and English stubbornness. There is no Americantemperament. The nearest that one can come at it is to say there aretwo--the composed Northern and the impetuous Southern; and both arefound in other countries. Morals? Purity of women may fairly be calleduniversal with us, but that is the case in some other countries. We haveno monopoly of it; it cannot be named American. I think that there isbut a single specialty with us, only one thing that can be called by thewide name "American. " That is the national devotion to ice-water. AllGermans drink beer, but the British nation drinks beer, too; so neitherof those peoples is the beer-drinking nation. I suppose we do standalone in having a drink that nobody likes but ourselves. When we havebeen a month in Europe we lose our craving for it, and we finally tellthe hotel folk that they needn't provide it any more. Yet we hardlytouch our native shore again, winter or summer, before we are eager forit. The reasons for this state of things have not been psychologizedyet. I drop the hint and say no more. It is my belief that there are some "national" traits and thingsscattered about the world that are mere superstitions, frauds that havelived so long that they have the solid look of facts. One of them isthe dogma that the French are the only chaste people in the world. Eversince I arrived in France this last time I have been accumulating doubtsabout that; and before I leave this sunny land again I will gather in afew random statistics and psychologize the plausibilities out of it. Ifpeople are to come over to America and find fault with our girls andour women, and psychologize every little thing they do, and try to teachthem how to behave, and how to cultivate themselves up to where onecannot tell them from the French model, I intend to find out whetherthose missionaries are qualified or not. A nation ought always toexamine into this detail before engaging the teacher for good. This lastone has let fall a remark which renewed those doubts of mine when I readit: "In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied to arts and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all the weaknesses of the French soul. " You see, it amounts to a trade with the French soul; a profession; ascience; the serious business of life, so to speak, in our high Parisianexistence. I do not quite like the look of it. I question if it can betaught with profit in our country, except, of course, to those pathetic, neglected minds that are waiting there so yearningly for the educationwhich M. Bourget is going to furnish them from the serene summits of ourhigh Parisian life. I spoke a moment ago of the existence of some superstitions that havebeen parading the world as facts this long time. For instance, consider the Dollar. The world seems to think that the love of money is"American"; and that the mad desire to get suddenly rich is "American. "I believe that both of these things are merely and broadly human, notAmerican monopolies at all. The love of money is natural to all nations, for money is a good and strong friend. I think that this love hasexisted everywhere, ever since the Bible called it the root of all evil. I think that the reason why we Americans seem to be so addicted totrying to get rich suddenly is merely because the opportunity to makepromising efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with afrequency out of all proportion to the European experience. For eightyyears this opportunity has been offering itself in one new town orregion after another straight westward, step by step, all the way fromthe Atlantic coast to the Pacific. When a mechanic could buy ten townlots on tolerably long credit for ten months' savings out of his wages, and reasonably expect to sell them in a couple of years for ten timeswhat he gave for them, it was human for him to try the venture, andhe did it no matter what his nationality was. He would have done it inEurope or China if he had had the same chance. In the flush times in the silver regions a cook or any other humbleworker stood a very good chance to get rich out of a trifle of moneyrisked in a stock deal; and that person promptly took that risk, nomatter what his or her nationality might be. I was there, and saw it. But these opportunities have not been plenty in our Southern States; sothere you have a prodigious region where the rush for sudden wealth isalmost an unknown thing--and has been, from the beginning. Europe has offered few opportunities for poor Tom, Dick, and Harry;but when she has offered one, there has been no noticeable differencebetween European eagerness and American. England saw this in the wilddays of the Railroad King; France saw it in 1720--time of Law and theMississippi Bubble. I am sure I have never seen in the gold and silvermines any madness, fury, frenzy to get suddenly rich which was evenremotely comparable to that which raged in France in the Bubble day. If I had a cyclopaedia here I could turn to that memorable case, andsatisfy nearly anybody that the hunger for the sudden dollar is nomore "American" than it is French. And if I could furnish an Americanopportunity to staid Germany, I think I could wake her up like a houseafire. But I must return to the Generalizations, Psychologizings, Deductions. When M. Bourget is exploiting these arts, it is then that he ispeculiarly and particularly himself. His ways are wholly original whenhe encounters a trait or a custom which is new to him. Another personwould merely examine the find, verify it, estimate its value, and let itgo; but that is not sufficient for M. Bourget: he always wants to knowwhy that thing exists, he wants to know how it came to happen; and hewill not let go of it until he has found out. And in every instance hewill find that reason where no one but himself would have thoughtof looking for it. He does not seem to care for a reason that is notpicturesquely located; one might almost say picturesquely and impossiblylocated. He found out that in America men do not try to hunt down young marriedwomen. At once, as usual, he wanted to know why. Any one could have toldhim. He could have divined it by the lights thrown by the novels ofthe country. But no, he preferred to find out for himself. He has atrustfulness as regards men and facts which is fine and unusual; he isnot particular about the source of a fact, he is not particular aboutthe character and standing of the fact itself; but when it comes topounding out the reason for the existence of the fact, he will trust noone but himself. In the present instance here was his fact: American young married womenare not pursued by the corruptor; and here was the question: What is itthat protects her? It seems quite unlikely that that problem could have offereddifficulties to any but a trained philosopher. Nearly any person wouldhave said to M. Bourget: "Oh, that is very simple. It is very seldom inAmerica that a marriage is made on a commercial basis; our marriages, from the beginning, have been made for love; and where love is there isno room for the corruptor. " Now, it is interesting to see the formidable way in which M. Bourget went at that poor, humble little thing. He moved upon it incolumn--three columns--and with artillery. "Two reasons of a very different kind explain"--that fact. And now that I have got so far, I am almost afraid to say what histwo reasons are, lest I be charged with inventing them. But I will notretreat now; I will condense them and print them, giving my word that Iam honest and not trying to deceive any one. 1. Young married women are protected from the approaches of the seducerin New England and vicinity by the diluted remains of a prudence createdby a Puritan law of two hundred years ago, which for a while punishedadultery with death. 2. And young married women of the other forty or fifty States areprotected by laws which afford extraordinary facilities for divorce. If I have not lost my mind I have accurately conveyed those two Vesuvianirruptions of philosophy. But the reader can consult Chapter IV. Of'Outre-Mer', and decide for himself. Let us examine this paralyzingDeduction or Explanation by the light of a few sane facts. 1. This universality of "protection" has existed in our country from thebeginning; before the death penalty existed in New England, and duringall the generations that have dragged by since it was annulled. 2. Extraordinary facilities for divorce are of such recent creation thatany middle-aged American can remember a time when such things had notyet been thought of. Let us suppose that the first easy divorce law went into effectforty years ago, and got noised around and fairly started in businessthirty-five years ago, when we had, say, 25, 000, 000 of white population. Let us suppose that among 5, 000, 000 of them the young married women were"protected" by the surviving shudder of that ancient Puritan scare--whatis M. Bourget going to do about those who lived among the 20, 000, 000?They were clean in their morals, they were pure, yet there was no easydivorce law to protect them. Awhile ago I said that M. Bourget's method of truth-seeking--hunting forit in out-of-the-way places--was new; but that was an error. Iremember that when Leverrier discovered the Milky Way, he and the otherastronomers began to theorize about it in substantially the same fashionwhich M. Bourget employs in his seasonings about American social factsand their origin. Leverrier advanced the hypothesis that the MilkyWay was caused by gaseous protoplasmic emanations from the field ofWaterloo, which, ascending to an altitude determinable by theirown specific gravity, became luminous through the development andexposure--by the natural processes of animal decay--of the phosphoruscontained in them. This theory was warmly complimented by Ptolemy, who, however, after muchthought and research, decided that he could not accept it as final. Hisown theory was that the Milky Way was an emigration of lightning bugs;and he supported and reinforced this theorem by the well-known fact thatthe locusts do like that in Egypt. Giordano Bruno also was outspoken in his praises of Leverrier'simportant contribution to astronomical science, and was at firstinclined to regard it as conclusive; but later, conceiving it to beerroneous, he pronounced against it, and advanced the hypothesis thatthe Milky Way was a detachment or corps of stars which became arrestedand held in 'suspenso suspensorum' by refraction of gravitation while onthe march to join their several constellations; a proposition for whichhe was afterwards burned at the stake in Jacksonville, Illinois. These were all brilliant and picturesque theories, and each was receivedwith enthusiasm by the scientific world; but when a New England farmer, who was not a thinker, but only a plain sort of person who tried toaccount for large facts in simple ways, came out with the opinion thatthe Milky Way was just common, ordinary stars, and was put where it wasbecause God "wanted to hev it so, " the admirable idea fell perfectlyflat. As a literary artist, M. Bourget is as fresh and striking as he is asa scientific one. He says, "Above all, I do not believe much inanecdotes. " Why? "In history they are all false"--a sufficiently broadstatement--"in literature all libelous"--also a sufficiently sweepingstatement, coming from a critic who notes that we are "a people who arepeculiarly extravagant in our language--" and when it is a matter ofsocial life, "almost all biased. " It seems to amount to stultification, almost. He has built two or three breeds of American coquettes outof anecdotes--mainly "biased" ones, I suppose; and, as they occur "inliterature, " furnished by his pen, they must be "all libelous. " Or didhe mean not in literature or anecdotes about literature or literarypeople? I am not able to answer that. Perhaps the original would beclearer, but I have only the translation of this installment by me. Ithink the remark had an intention; also that this intention was bookedfor the trip; but that either in the hurry of the remark's departureit got left, or in the confusion of changing cars at the translator'sfrontier it got side-tracked. "But on the other hand I believe in statistics; and those on divorcesappear to me to be most conclusive. " And he sets himself the task ofexplaining--in a couple of columns--the process by which Easy-Divorceconceived, invented, originated, developed, and perfected anempire-embracing condition of sexual purity in the States. IN 40 YEARS. No, he doesn't state the interval. With all his passion for statisticshe forgot to ask how long it took to produce this gigantic miracle. I have followed his pleasant but devious trail through those columns, but I was not able to get hold of his argument and find out what itwas. I was not even able to find out where it left off. It seemed togradually dissolve and flow off into other matters. I followed itwith interest, for I was anxious to learn how easy-divorce eradicatedadultery in America, but I was disappointed; I have no idea yet howit did it. I only know it didn't. But that is not valuable; I knew itbefore. Well, humor is the great thing, the saving thing, after all. Theminute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations andresentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place. And so, when M. Bourget said that bright thing about our grandfathers, I brokeall up. I remember exploding its American countermine once, underthat grand hero, Napoleon. He was only First Consul then, and I wasConsul-General--for the United States, of course; but we were veryintimate, notwithstanding the difference in rank, for I waived that. Oneday something offered the opening, and he said: "Well, General, I suppose life can never get entirely dull to anAmerican, because whenever he can't strike up any other way to put inhis time he can always get away with a few years trying to find out whohis grandfather was!" I fairly shouted, for I had never heard it sound better; and then I wasback at him as quick as a flash--"Right, your Excellency! But I reckona Frenchman's got his little stand-by for a dull time, too; because whenall other interests fail he can turn in and see if he can't find out whohis father was!" Well, you should have heard him just whoop, and cackle, and carry on! Hereached up and hit me one on the shoulder, and says: "Land, but it's good! It's immensely good! George, I never heard itsaid so good in my life before! Say it again. " So I said it again, and he said his again, and I said mine again, andthen he did, and then I did, and then he did, and we kept on doing it, and doing it, and I never had such a good time, and he said the same. Inmy opinion there isn't anything that is as killing as one of those dearold ripe pensioners if you know how to snatch it out in a kind of afresh sort of original way. But I wish M. Bourget had read more of our novels before he came. Itis the only way to thoroughly understand a people. When I found I wascoming to Paris, I read 'La Terre'. A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET [The preceding squib was assailed in the North American Review in an article entitled "Mark Twain and Paul Bourget, " by Max O'Rell. The following little note is a Rejoinder to that article. It is possible that the position assumed here--that M. Bourget dictated the O'Rell article himself--is untenable. ] You have every right, my dear M. Bourget, to retort upon me bydictation, if you prefer that method to writing at me with your pen; butif I may say it without hurt--and certainly I mean no offence--I believeyou would have acquitted yourself better with the pen. With the penyou are at home; it is your natural weapon; you use it with grace, eloquence, charm, persuasiveness, when men are to be convinced, and withformidable effect when they have earned a castigation. But I am sureI see signs in the above article that you are either unaccustomedto dictating or are out of practice. If you will re-read it you willnotice, yourself, that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose;that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that itis loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that it loses itself earlyand does not find itself any more. There are some other defects, as youwill notice, but I think I have named the main ones. I feel sure thatthey are all due to your lack of practice in dictating. Inasmuch as you had not signed it I had the impression at first thatyou had not dictated it. But only for a moment. Certain quite simple anddefinite facts reminded me that the article had to come from you, forthe reason that it could not come from any one else without a specificinvitation from you or from me. I mean, it could not except as anintrusion, a transgression of the law which forbids strangers to mixinto a private dispute between friends, unasked. Those simple and definite facts were these: I had published an articlein this magazine, with you for my subject; just you yourself; I stuckstrictly to that one subject, and did not interlard any other. No one, of course, could call me to account but you alone, or your authorizedrepresentative. I asked some questions--asked them of myself. I answeredthem myself. My article was thirteen pages long, and all devoted to you;devoted to you, and divided up in this way: one page of guesses as towhat subjects you would instruct us in, as teacher; one page of doubtsas to the effectiveness of your method of examining us and our ways; twoor three pages of criticism of your method, and of certain results whichit furnished you; two or three pages of attempts to show the justnessof these same criticisms; half a dozen pages made up of slightfault-findings with certain minor details of your literary workmanship, of extracts from your 'Outre-Mer' and comments upon them; then I closedwith an anecdote. I repeat--for certain reasons--that I closed with ananecdote. When I was asked by this magazine if I wished to "answer" a "reply"to that article of mine, I said "yes, " and waited in Paris for theproof-sheets of the "reply" to come. I already knew, by the cablegram, that the "reply" would not be signed by you, but upon reflection I knewit would be dictated by you, because no volunteer would feel himself atliberty to assume your championship in a private dispute, unasked, in view of the fact that you are quite well able to take care of yourmatters of that sort yourself and are not in need of any one's help. No, a volunteer could not make such a venture. It would be too immodest. Also too gratuitously generous. And a shade too self-sufficient. No, hecould not venture it. It would look too much like anxiety to get in at afeast where no plate had been provided for him. In fact he could not getin at all, except by the back way, and with a false key; that is to say, a pretext--a pretext invented for the occasion by putting into my mouthwords which I did not use, and by wresting sayings of mine from theirplain and true meaning. Would he resort to methods like those to getin? No; there are no people of that kind. So then I knew for a certaintythat you dictated the Reply yourself. I knew you did it to save yourselfmanual labor. And you had the right, as I have already said and I amcontent--perfectly content. Yet it would have been little trouble to you, and a great kindness tome, if you had written your Reply all out with your own capable hand. Because then it would have replied--and that is really what a Reply isfor. Broadly speaking, its function is to refute--as you will easilyconcede. That leaves something for the other person to take hold of:he has a chance to reply to the Reply, he has a chance to refute therefutation. This would have happened if you had written it out insteadof dictating. Dictating is nearly sure to unconcentrate the dictator'smind, when he is out of practice, confuse him, and betray him into usingone set of literary rules when he ought to use a quite different set. Often it betrays him into employing the RULES FOR CONVERSATION BETWEENA SHOUTER AND A DEAF PERSON--as in the present case--when he ought toemploy the RULES FOR CONDUCTING DISCUSSION WITH A FAULT-FINDER. The great foundation-rule and basic principle of discussion with afault-finder is relevancy and concentration upon the subject; whereasthe great foundation-rule and basic principle governing conversationbetween a shouter and a deaf person is irrelevancy and persistentdesertion of the topic in hand. If I may be allowed to illustrate byquoting example IV. , section from chapter ix. Of "Revised Rules forConducting Conversation between a Shouter and a Deaf Person, " it willassist us in getting a clear idea of the difference between the two setsof rules: Shouter. Did you say his name is WETHERBY? Deaf Person. Change? Yes, I think it will. Though if it should clear offI-- Shouter. It's his NAME I want--his NAME. Deaf Person. Maybe so, maybe so; but it will only be a shower, I think. Shouter. No, no, no!--you have quite misunderSTOOD me. If-- Deaf Person. Ah! GOOD morning; I am sorry you must go. But call again, and let me continue to be of assistance to you in every way I can. You see it is a perfect kodak of the article you have dictated. It isreally curious and interesting when you come to compare it with yours;in detail, with my former article to which it is a Reply in your hand. I talk twelve pages about your American instruction projects, and yourdoubtful scientific system, and your painstaking classification ofnonexistent things, and your diligence and zeal and sincerity, and yourdisloyal attitude towards anecdotes, and your undue reverence for unsafestatistics and far facts that lack a pedigree; and you turn around andcome back at me with eight pages of weather. I do not see how a person can act so. It is good of you to repeat, withchange of language, in the bulk of your rejoinder, so much of my ownarticle, and adopt my sentiments, and make them over, and put newbuttons on; and I like the compliment, and am frank to say so; butagreeing with a person cripples controversy and ought not to be allowed. It is weather; and of almost the worst sort. It pleases me greatly tohear you discourse with such approval and expansiveness upon my text: "A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a nation, but I thinkthat is as far as he can get. I think that no foreigner can report itsinterior;"--[And you say: "A man of average intelligence, who haspassed six months among a people, cannot express opinions that are worthjotting down, but he can form impressions that are worth repeating. Formy part, I think that foreigners' impressions are more interestingthan native opinions. After all, such impressions merely mean 'how thecountry struck the foreigner. '"]--which is a quite clear way of sayingthat a foreigner's report is only valuable when it restricts itself toimpressions. It pleases me to have you follow my lead in that glowingway, but it leaves me nothing to combat. You should give me something todeny and refute; I would do as much for you. It pleases me to have you playfully warn the public against taking oneof your books seriously. --[When I published Jonathan and his Continent, I wrote in a preface addressed to Jonathan: "If ever you should insistin seeing in this little volume a serious study of your country and ofyour countrymen, I warn you that your world-wide fame for humor will beexploded. "]--Because I used to do that cunning thing myself in earlierdays. I did it in a prefatory note to a book of mine called Tom Sawyer. NOTICE. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR PER G. G. , CHIEF OF ORDNANCE. The kernel is the same in both prefaces, you see--the public mustnot take us too seriously. If we remove that kernel we remove thelife-principle, and the preface is a corpse. Yes, it pleases me to haveyou use that idea, for it is a high compliment. But is leaves me nothingto combat; and that is damage to me. Am I seeming to say that your Reply is not a reply at all, M. Bourget?If so, I must modify that; it is too sweeping. For you have furnisheda general answer to my inquiry as to what France through you--can teachus. --["What could France teach America!" exclaims Mark Twain. Francecan teach America all the higher pursuits of life, and there is moreartistic feeling and refinement in a street of French workingmen than inmany avenues inhabited by American millionaires. She can teach her, notperhaps how to work, but how to rest, how to live, how to be happy. She can teach her that the aim of life is not money-making, but thatmoney-making is only a means to obtain an end. She can teach herthat wives are not expensive toys, but useful partners, friends, andconfidants, who should always keep men under their wholesomeinfluence by their diplomacy, their tact, their common-sense, withoutbumptiousness. These qualities, added to the highest standard ofmorality (not angular and morose, but cheerful morality), are concededto Frenchwomen by whoever knows something of French life outside of theParis boulevards, and Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot even so muchas stain them. I might tell Mark Twain that in France a man who was seen tipsy in hisclub would immediately see his name canceled from membership. A man whohad settled his fortune on his wife to avoid meeting his creditors wouldbe refused admission into any decent society. Many a Frenchman has blownhis brains out rather than declare himself a bankrupt. Now would MarkTwain remark to this: 'An American is not such a fool: when a creditorstands in his way he closes his doors, and reopens them the followingday. When he has been a bankrupt three times he can retire frombusiness?']--It is a good answer. It relates to manners, customs, and morals--three things concerningwhich we can never have exhaustive and determinate statistics, and sothe verdicts delivered upon them must always lack conclusiveness and besubject to revision; but you have stated the truth, possibly, as nearlyas any one could do it, in the circumstances. But why did you choose adetail of my question which could be answered only with vague hearsayevidence, and go right by one which could have been answered with deadlyfacts?--facts in everybody's reach, facts which none can dispute. Iasked what France could teach us about government. I laid myself prettywide open, there; and I thought I was handsomely generous, too, whenI did it. France can teach us how to levy village and city taxes whichdistribute the burden with a nearer approach to perfect fairness than isthe case in any other land; and she can teach us the wisest and surestsystem of collecting them that exists. She can teach us how to electa President in a sane way; and also how to do it without throwing thecountry into earthquakes and convulsions that cripple and embarrassbusiness, stir up party hatred in the hearts of men, and make peacefulpeople wish the term extended to thirty years. France can teach us--butenough of that part of the question. And what else can France teachus? She can teach us all the fine arts--and does. She throws open herhospitable art academies, and says to us, "Come"--and we come, troopsand troops of our young and gifted; and she sets over us the ablestmasters in the world and bearing the greatest names; and she, teaches usall that we are capable of learning, and persuades us and encourages uswith prizes and honors, much as if we were somehow children of her own;and when this noble education is finished and we are ready to carry ithome and spread its gracious ministries abroad over our nation, and wecome with homage and gratitude and ask France for the bill--there isnothing to pay. And in return for this imperial generosity, what doesAmerica do? She charges a duty on French works of art! I wish I had your end of this dispute; I should have something worthtalking about. If you would only furnish me something to argue, something to refute--but you persistently won't. You leave goodchances unutilized and spend your strength in proving and establishingunimportant things. For instance, you have proven and established theseeight facts here following--a good score as to number, but not worthwhile: Mark Twain is-- 1. "Insulting. " 2. (Sarcastically speaking) "This refined humor, 1st. " 3. Prefers the manure-pile to the violets. 4. Has uttered "an ill-natured sneer. " 5. Is "nasty. " 6. Needs a "lesson in politeness and good manners. " 7. Has published a "nasty article. " 8. Has made remarks "unworthy of a gentleman. "--["It is more funny thanhis" (Mark Twain's) "anecdote, and would have been less insulting. "] A quoted remark of mine "is a gross insult to a nation friendly toAmerica. " "He has read La Terre, this refined humorist. " "When Mark Twain visits a garden... He goes in the far-away corner wherethe soil is prepared. " "Mark Twain's ill-natured sneer cannot so much as stain them" (theFrenchwomen). "When he" (Mark Twain) "takes his revenge he is unkind, unfair, bitter, nasty. " "But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark, " etc. "Mark might certainly have derived from it" (M. Bourget's book) "alesson in politeness and good manners. " A quoted remark of mine is "unworthy of a gentleman. "-- These are all true, but really they are not valuable; no one cares muchfor such finds. In our American magazines we recognize this and suppressthem. We avoid naming them. American writers never allow themselves toname them. It would look as if they were in a temper, and we hold thatexhibitions of temper in public are not good form except in the veryyoung and inexperienced. And even if we had the disposition to namethem, in order to fill up a gap when we were short of ideas andarguments, our magazines would not allow us to do it, because they thinkthat such words sully their pages. This present magazine is particularlystrenuous about it. Its note to me announcing the forwarding of yourproof-sheets to France closed thus--for your protection: "It is needless to ask you to avoid anything that he might consider aspersonal. " It was well enough, as a measure of precaution, but really it was notneeded. You can trust me implicitly, M. Bourget; I shall never callyou any names in print which I should be ashamed to call you with yourunoffending and dearest ones present. Indeed, we are reserved, and particular in America to a degree which youwould consider exaggerated. For instance, we should not write notes likethat one of yours to a lady for a small fault--or a large one. --[WhenM. Paul Bourget indulges in a little chaffing at the expense of theAmericans, "who can always get away with a few years' trying to findout who their grandfathers were, "] he merely makes an allusion to anAmerican foible; but, forsooth, what a kind man, what a humorist MarkTwain is when he retorts by calling France a nation of bastards! How theAmericans of culture and refinement will admire him for thus speaking intheir name! Snobbery.... I could give Mark Twain an example of the Americanspecimen. It is a piquant story. I never published it because I fearedmy readers might think that I was giving them a typical illustration ofAmerican character instead of a rare exception. I was once booked by my manager to give a causerie in the drawing-roomof a New York millionaire. I accepted with reluctance. I do not likeprivate engagements. At five o'clock on the day the causerie was to begiven, the lady sent to my manager to say that she would expect me toarrive at nine o'clock and to speak for about an hour. Then she wrotea postscript. Many women are unfortunate there. Their minds are fullof after-thoughts, and the most important part of their letters isgenerally to be found after their signature. This lady's P. S. Ran thus:"I suppose he will not expect to be entertained after the lecture. " I fairly shorted, as Mark Twain would say, and then, indulging myself ina bit of snobbishness, I was back at her as quick as a flash: "Dear Madam: As a literary man of some reputation, I have many times hadthe pleasure of being entertained by the members of the old aristocracyof France. I have also many times had the pleasure of being entertainedby the members of the old aristocracy of England. If it may interestyou, I can even tell you that I have several times had the honor ofbeing entertained by royalty; but my ambition has never been so wild asto expect that one day I might be entertained by the aristocracy of NewYork. No, I do not expect to be entertained by you, nor do I want you toexpect me to entertain you and your friends to-night, for I decline tokeep the engagement. " Now, I could fill a book on America with reminiscences of this sort, adding a few chapters on bosses and boodlers, on New York 'chroniquescandaleuse', on the tenement houses of the large cities, on thegambling-hells of Denver, and the dens of San Francisco, and what not![But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark, will make me doit. ]--We should not think it kind. No matter how much we might haveassociated with kings and nobilities, we should not think it right tocrush her with it and make her ashamed of her lowlier walk in life; forwe have a saying, "Who humiliates my mother includes his own. " Do I seriously imagine you to be the author of that strange letter, M. Bourget? Indeed I do not. I believe it to have been surreptitiouslyinserted by your amanuensis when your back was turned. I think he didit with a good motive, expecting it to add force and piquancy to yourarticle, but it does not reflect your nature, and I know it will grieveyou when you see it. I also think he interlarded many other things whichyou will disapprove of when you see them. I am certain that all theharsh names discharged at me come from him, not you. No doubt you couldhave proved me entitled to them with as little trouble as it has costhim to do it, but it would have been your disposition to hunt game of ahigher quality. Why, I even doubt if it is you who furnish me all that excellentinformation about Balzac and those others. --["Now the style of M. Bourget and many other French writers is apparently a closed letter toMark Twain; but let us leave that alone. Has he read Erckmann-Chatrian, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Edmond About, Cherbuliez, Renan? Has he readGustave Droz's 'Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe', and those books which leavefor a long time a perfume about you? Has he read the novels of AlexandreDumas, Eugene Sue, George Sand, and Balzac? Has he read Victor Hugo's'Les Miserables' and 'Notre Dame de Paris'? Has he read or heard theplays of Sandeau, Augier, Dumas, and Sardou, the works of those Titansof modern literature, whose names will be household words all overthe world for hundreds of years to come? He has read La Terre--thiskind-hearted, refined humorist! When Mark Twain visits a garden does hesmell the violets, the roses, the jasmine, or the honeysuckle? No, hegoes in the far-away corner where the soil is prepared. Hear what hesays: 'I wish M. Paul Bourget had read more of our novels before hecame. It is the only way to thoroughly understand a people. When I foundI was coming to Paris I read La Terre. '"]--All this in simple justiceto you--and to me; for, to gravely accept those interlardings as yourswould be to wrong your head and heart, and at the same time convictmyself of being equipped with a vacancy where my penetration ought to belodged. And now finally I must uncover the secret pain, the wee sore fromwhich the Reply grew--the anecdote which closed my recent article--andconsider how it is that this pimple has spread to these cancerousdimensions. If any but you had dictated the Reply, M. Bourget, I wouldknow that that anecdote was twisted around and its intention magnifiedsome hundreds of times, in order that it might be used as a pretext tocreep in the back way. But I accuse you of nothing--nothing but error. When you say that I "retort by calling France a nation of bastards, "it is an error. And not a small one, but a large one. I made no suchremark, nor anything resembling it. Moreover, the magazine would nothave allowed me to use so gross a word as that. You told an anecdote. A funny one--I admit that. It hit a foible ofour American aristocracy, and it stung me--I admit that; it stung mesharply. It was like this: You found some ancient portraits of Frenchkings in the gallery of one of our aristocracy, and you said: "He has the Grand Monarch, but where is the portrait of hisgrandfather?" That is, the American aristocrat's grandfather. Now that hits only a few of us, I grant--just the upper crust only--butit hits exceedingly hard. I wondered if there was any way of getting back at you. In one of yourchapters I found this chance: "In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied to artsand luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all the weaknesses ofthe French soul. " You see? Your "higher Parisian" class--not everybody, not the nation, but only the top crust of the Ovation--applies to debauchery all thepowers of its soul. I argued to myself that that energy must produce results. So I builtan anecdote out of your remark. In it I make Napoleon Bonaparte sayto me--but see for yourself the anecdote (ingeniously clipped andcurtailed) in paragraph eleven of your Reply. --[So, I repeat, Mark Twaindoes not like M. Paul Bourget's book. So long as he makes light funof the great French writer he is at home, he is pleasant, he is theAmerican humorist we know. When he takes his revenge (and where is thereason for taking a revenge?) he is unkind, unfair, bitter, nasty. ] For example: See his answer to a Frenchman who jokingly remarks to him: "I suppose life can never get entirely dull to an American, becausewhenever he can't strike up any other way to put in his time, he canalways get away with a few years trying to find out who his grandfatherwas. " Hear the answer: "I reckon a Frenchman's got his little standby for a dull time, too;because when all other interests fail, he can turn in and see if hecan't find out who his father was. " The first remark is a good-humored bit of chaffing on American snobbery. I may be utterly destitute of humor, but I call the second remark agratuitous charge of immorality hurled at the French women--a remarkunworthy of a man who has the ear of the public, unworthy of agentleman, a gross insult to a nation friendly to America, a nation thathelped Mark Twain's ancestors in their struggle for liberty, a nationwhere to-day it is enough to say that you are American to see every dooropen wide to you. If Mark Twain was hard up in search of, a French "chestnut, " I mighthave told him the following little anecdote. It is more funny than his, and would have been less insulting: Two little street boys are abusingeach other. "Ah, hold your tongue, " says one, "you ain't got no father. " "Ain't got no father!" replies the other; "I've got more fathers thanyou. " Now, then, your anecdote about the grandfathers hurt me. Why? Becauseit had a point. It wouldn't have hurt me if it hadn't had point. Youwouldn't have wasted space on it if it hadn't had point. My anecdote has hurt you. Why? Because it had point, I suppose. Itwouldn't have hurt you if it hadn't had point. I judged from your remarkabout the diligence and industry of the high Parisian upper crust thatit would have some point, but really I had no idea what a gold-mine Ihad struck. I never suspected that the point was going to stick into theentire nation; but of course you know your nation better than I do, andif you think it punctures them all, I have to yield to your judgment. But you are to blame, your own self. Your remark misled me. I supposedthe industry was confined to that little unnumerous upper layer. Well, now that the unfortunate thing has been done, let us do what wecan to undo it. There must be a way, M. Bourget, and I am willing to doanything that will help; for I am as sorry as you can be yourself. I will tell you what I think will be the very thing. We will swap anecdotes. I will take your anecdote and you take mine. Iwill say to the dukes and counts and princes of the ancient nobility ofFrance: "Ha, ha! You must have a pretty hard time trying to find out who yourgrandfathers were?" They will merely smile indifferently and not feel hurt, because they cantrace their lineage back through centuries. And you will hurl mine at every individual in the American nation, saying: "And you must have a pretty hard time trying to find out who yourfathers were. " They will merely smile indifferently, and not feel hurt, because they haven't any difficulty in finding their fathers. Do you get the idea? The whole harm in the anecdotes is in the point, you see; and when we swap them around that way, they haven't any. That settles it perfectly and beautifully, and I am glad I thought ofit. I am very glad indeed, M. Bourget; for it was just that little weething that caused the whole difficulty and made you dictate the Reply, and your amanuensis call me all those hard names which the magazinesdislike so. And I did it all in fun, too, trying to cap your funnyanecdote with another one--on the give-and-take principle, youknow--which is American. I didn't know that with the French it wasall give and no take, and you didn't tell me. But now that I have madeeverything comfortable again, and fixed both anecdotes so they can neverhave any point any more, I know you will forgive me.