Produced by David Widger
By Albert Bigelow Paine
In conversation with John Hay, Hay said to Clemens:
"A man reaches the zenith at forty, the top of the hill. From that timeforward he begins to descend. If you have any great undertaking ahead,begin it now. You will never be so capable again."
Of course this was only a theory of Hay's, a rule where rules do notapply, where in the end the problem resolves itself into a question ofindividualities. John Hay did as great work after forty as ever before,so did Mark Twain, and both of them gained in intellectual strength andpublic honor to the very end.
Yet it must have seemed to many who knew him, and to himself, likeenough, that Mark Twain at forty had reached the pinnacle of his fame andachievement. His name was on every lip; in whatever environmentobservation and argument were likely to be pointed with some saying oranecdote attributed, rightly or otherwise, to Mark Twain. "As Mark Twainsays," or, "You know that story of Mark Twain's," were universal anddaily commonplaces. It was dazzling, towering fame, not of the best ormost enduring kind as yet, but holding somewhere within it the structureof immortality.
He was in a constant state of siege, besought by all varieties andconditions of humanity for favors such as only human need and abnormalingenuity can invent. His ever-increasing mail presented a marvelousexhibition of the human species on undress parade. True, there werehundreds of appreciative tributes from readers who spoke only out of aheart's gratitude; but there were nearly as great a number who came witha compliment, and added a petition, or a demand, or a suggestion, usuallyunwarranted, often impertinent. Politicians, public speakers, aspiringwriters, actors, elocutionists, singers, inventors (most of them he hadnever seen or heard of) cheerfully asked him for a recommendation as totheir abilities and projects.
Young men wrote requesting verses or sentiments to be inscribed in youngladies' autograph albums; young girls wrote asking him to write the storyof his life, to be used as a school composition; men starting obscurepapers coolly invited him to lend them his name as editor, assuring himthat he would be put to no trouble, and that it would help advertise hisbooks; a fruitful humorist wrote that he had invented some five thousandpuns, and invited Mark Twain to father this terrific progeny in book formfor a share of the returns. But the list is endless. He said once:
"The symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax, forevery human being has one concealed about him somewhere, and is alwaysseeking the opportunity to grind it."
Even P. T. Barnum had an ax, the large ax of advertising, and he wasperpetually trying to grind it on Mark Twain's reputation; in otherwords, trying to get him to write something that would help to popularize"The Greatest Show on Earth."
There were a good many curious letters-letters from humorists, would-beand genuine. A bright man in Duluth sent him an old Allen "pepper-box"revolver with the statement that it had been found among a pile of bonesunder a tree, from the limb of which was suspended a lasso and a buffaloskull; this as evidence that the weapon was the genuine Allen which Bemishad lost on that memorable Overland buffalo-hunt. Mark Twain enjoyedthat, and kept the old pepper-box as long as he lived. There wereletters from people