TO CLARA CLEMENS GABRILOWITSCH WHO STEADILY UPHELD THE AUTHOR’S PURPOSETO WRITE HISTORY RATHER THAN EULOGY AS THE STORY OF HER FATHER’S LIFE
Dear William Dean Howells, Joseph Hopkins Twichell, Joseph T. Goodman, andother old friends of Mark Twain:
I cannot let these volumes go to press without some grateful word to you whohave helped me during the six years and more that have gone to their making.
First, I want to confess how I have envied you your association with Mark Twainin those days when you and he “went gipsying, a long time ago.”Next, I want to express my wonder at your willingness to give me so unstintedlyfrom your precious letters and memories, when it is in the nature of man tohoard such treasures, for himself and for those who follow him. And, lastly, Iwant to tell you that I do not envy you so much, any more, for in thesechapters, one after another, through your grace, I have gone gipsying with youall. Neither do I wonder now, for I have come to know that out of your love forhim grew that greater unselfishness (or divine selfishness, as he himself mighthave termed it), and that nothing short of the fullest you could do for hismemory would have contented your hearts.
My gratitude is measureless; and it is world-wide, for there is no land sodistant that it does not contain some one who has eagerly contributed to thestory. Only, I seem so poorly able to put my thanks into words.
Albert Bigelow Paine.
Certain happenings as recorded in this work will be found to differ materiallyfrom the same incidents and episodes as set down in the writings of Mr. Clemenshimself. Mark Twain’s spirit was built of the very fabric of truth, sofar as moral intent was concerned, but in his earlier autobiographicalwritings—and most of his earlier writings were autobiographical—hemade no real pretense to accuracy of time, place, orcircumstance—seeking, as he said, “only to tell a goodstory”—while in later years an ever-vivid imagination and acapricious memory made history difficult, even when, as in his so-called“Autobiography,” his effort was in the direction of fact.
“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened ornot,” he once said, quaintly, “but I am getting old, and soon Ishall remember only the latter.”
The reader may be assured, where discrepancies occur, that the writer of thismemoir has obtained his data from direct and positive sources: letters,diaries, account-books, or other immediate memoranda; also from the concurringtestimony of eye-witnesses, supported by a unity of circumstance andconditions, and not from hearsay or vagrant printed items.
On page 492 of the old volume of Suetonius, which Mark Twain read until hisvery last day, there is a reference to one Flavius Clemens, a man of widerepute “for his want of energy,” and in a marginal note he haswritten:
“I guess this is where our line starts.”
It was like him to write that. It spoke in his whimsical fashion the attitudeof humility, the ready acknowledgment of shortcoming, which was his chiefcharacteristic and made him lovable—in his personality and in his work.
Historically, we need not accept this