Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-07-14
LITERARY LEAVES.
What Mark Twain Thinks of "Talk
Lying in State in an Interview
Story of Two Novels-Profts of Two Authors
from Years Work. What is Literary
Fame-Summer Wanderings.
fcopyrighted.l


| From our Regular Correspondent.
NEW YORK, July 9.-Not long
ago 1 was permitted the pleas
ure of talk on literary and other mat
tiers with Mark Twain with view to
I publication. Desiring that my report of
1sthe interview should be accurate, sent
the manuscript to the humorist for his
approval. The following highly inter-
esting letter was the answer it evoked.
While 1 have perfect faith in the value of
the expressed interview as written, Mr. !.
Clemens desires will, of course, sup
press its publication. The letter printed
below is, however, an ample substitute
for the intended ''talk:h
My DEAR Mr.. BoK-No, not is like
most interviews; pure twaddle and value
less.
For several quite plain and simple rea
sons, an interview must, as a rule,
be an absurdity. And chiefly for this
reason: 1t is an attempt to use boat
on land, or wagon on water, to speak
fguratively. Spoken speech is one
thing, written speech is quite another.
Print is proper vehicle for the latter,
but it ism L for the former. The moment
''talk'' is put into print you recognize
that it is not what it was when you
heard it; you perceive that an immense
something has disappeared from it. That
is its soul. You have nothing but dead
carcass left on your hands. Color, play
of feature, the varying modulations of
voice, the laugh, the smile, the in
forming infections, everything that gave
that bodily warmth, grace, friendli-
ness and charm, and commended 1t
to your affection, or at least to your
tolerance, is gone, and nothing is left
but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver.
Such is talk, - almost invariably, as
you see it lying in state in an finter-
view. The interviewer seldom tries to
tell one how a thing was said; he merely
puts in the naked remark, and stops
there. When one writes for print his
methods are very different. He follows
forms which have but little semblance
to conversation, but they make the
reader understand what the writer is
trying to convey. And when the writer
is making a story, and finds it necessary
to report some of the talk of his charac-
tiers, observe how cautiously and anx-
iously he goes at that risky and difficult
thing:
eff he had dared to say that thing in
my presence, - said Alfred, taking a
mock heroic attitude, and casting an
arch glance upon the company, ''blood
would have flowed.
elf he had dared to say that thing in
my presence, said Hardwood, with
that in his eye which caused more than
one heart in that guilty assemblage to
quake, ''blood would have flowed. -
elf he had dared to say that thing in
my presence, - said the paltry buster
er, with valor on his tongue and pallor
on his lips, "blood would have flowed -
So painfully aware is the novelist that
naked talk in print conveys no meaning
that he loads and often overloads almost
every utterance of his characters with
explanations and interpretations. It is
a loud confession that print is a poor
vehicle for "'talk;' it is a recognition
that uninterrupted talk in print would
result in confusion to the reader, not in
struction.
Now, in your interview you have GER
tainlY been more accurate, you have set
down the sentences 1 uttered as 1 said
them. But you have not a word of ex-
PLANTATION; what my manner was at sew
eral points is not indicated. Therefore,
no reader can possibly know where l was
in earnest and where 1 was joking; or
whether was joking altogether or in
earnest altogeter. Such a report of a
conversation has no value. 1t can con-
vev many meanings to the reader, but
never the right one. To add Interpreters
lions which would convey the right mesn-
ing is a something which would require
what? An art so high and fine and diff
cult that no possessor of it would ever
be allowed to waste it on interviews
No; spare the reader and spare me-;
leave the whole interview out; 1T is
rubbish. 1 wouldn' t talk in my sleep if L
couIdn L talk better than that.
If you wish to print anything print this
letter; it may have some value, for it
may explain TO a reader here and there
why 1t is that in interviews as a rule men
seem to talk like anybody but them
selves. Sincerely yours,
MARK TWAIN