The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-05
Mark Twain's Experience With a
Funny Column"
HIS FAMOUS DRAWINGS
REVIEWER" WHO THOUGHT
MARKS HUMoR DANGEROUS.
Kipling's "White Mans Burden"
Has Set All the Minor Poets to
Twanging Their Lyres-Authors
Making Winter Visits to New
York-A Collaborating Duo.
Especial correspondencea

ton l had the other day with a friend
of Mark Twain's there was recalled
Mark Twain's attempt to conduct a
humorous" department in monthly
magazine. It was as interesting and
characteristic an adventure as any in
all of Mark Twain's eyentful life, and
it is one that must by now be pretty
well forgotten by the general public, for
it befell all but thirty years ago. The
magazine in which the attempt was
made has been dead all Of twenty years.
1t was the Galaxy, magazine that in
the distinction of its contributors was
surpassed by none of its day; but the
tide, in some mysterious way, ran
against it, and after career of per-
haps twelve or fifteen years it passed
under
Mark Twain's venture began in the
spring of 1870. Under the general title
of Memoranda" he supplied to each
number eight or ten pages of short
sketches and paragraphs. Very little.
If any, of this matter survives in his
collected works; and I may add that
the fact is, on the Whole, not to be re-
GREETED. And yet among these monthly
Memoranda" there were a good many
bright things-thingS that had the true
Mark Twain flavor Twice Mark intro
of his drawing. One was a map of
Paris, made timely by the fact that the
war between France and Germany was
then in progress, and the other was a
portrait of the German emperor Will
liam III. With each he printed a series
Of testimonials. Regarding the portrait,
for instance, Plus TX was alleged to
have said, There is nothing like it in
the vatican; and Rosa Bonheur, at is
the pnaf thipo in still life have eae,
for years; and Bismarck, THE smile
may be almost called unique; and the
emperor's son, the crown prince, Fred
erick William, "One cannot see it with
out longing to contemplate the artist"
The map of Paris was no less aptly re-
marked upon. u. S. Grant said, 1T is
the only map of the kind L ever saw;
General Sherman, "It is but fair to say
that, in some respects, it is d truly re-
markable map; and Napoleon III, at
is very nice, large print
Of all the contents of the department,
however, the thing that attracted most
attention at the time was a rather long
review of Mark Twain's book. "Tne
Innocents Abroad" from the London
Saturday Review. With what appeared
to be absolute sincerity and seriousness,
the reviewer took the author to task
for ignorance, falsehood and bad taste
The most whopping of the statements
and stories in the book We're cited or
retaled with such comments as This
seems to be rather exaggerated; this
certainly departs in important particu-
lars from the ascertained historical
facts; this surely could not have
happened in the way in which the
author has represented it." At one
point the book was commended for GER
tain curious information it gave; and
at this exceptionally praiseful passage,
Mark Twain interpoSed a footnote say
ing that the information so much val
ued was of his own invention. Sum
ming up finally the long list of eXcep-
tons taken, the reviewer said: 1.-The
book is absolutely dangerous, consider
ing the magnitude and variety of it's
misStatements, and the convincing con-
fidence with which they are made. And
yet it is a text book in the schools Of
America"
No end of discussion followed the
publication of this curious compost
ton. Through the newspapers and by
private letters, Mark Twain was pro-
fusely counseled as to all the possible
bearings of it. Some judges informed
him, that he had been most ludicrously
taken in, that the writer in the Satur-
day Review was himself a humorist,
as deft one as Mark Twain himself,
and the critique all a. deep, dry joke.
Others saw in it new eXample-not
surprising, perhaps, all things consid-
ered-of that monumental English
dullness which was always making
more ar less of q parade of itself. In
his department. the next month, Mark
Twain gratefully printed selection
from these judgments, exhibiting them
in all their picturesque vigor and va
riety; and he added a note of personal
explanation in which he informed the
judges and the public that he had writ
ten the review himself, conceiving that
it was about the sort of notice of his
book the Saturday Review would have
taken, had it taken any-which, at the
time the review was written, it had
not; though it did subsequently, 1 be-
lieve.
AS time went on it became quite evil
dent that his department was a burden
to Mark Twain. Finally, he could en-
dure it no longer. and he closed it with
"Valedictory" that is like a master
piece of short fiction in the dramatic
suSgesltiyenesS with which it places be-
fore the imagination the fundamental
contrasts of life. 81 have now" it
reads. written for the Galaxy a year.
For the last eight months, with hardly
an interval, have had for my fellows
and comrades, night and day, doctors
and watchers of the sick. During these
eight months, death has taken two
members of my home circle, and ma
lignantly threatened two Others All
this have experienced, yet all the time
been under contract to furnish hu-
morous matter once a month for this
magazine. I think that some of
the 'humor' / have written during this
period could have been injected into a
funeral sermon without disturbing the
solemnity of the occasion. To
be a pirate, on q. low salary and with
no share in the profits of the business,
used to be my idea of an uncomfortable
occupation, but I have other views now
To be monthly humorist in a cheer
less time Is drearier."
In conclusion, the 'valedictory'' stat
ed that the author would now devote
himself to writing a book The book
referred to must have been 'Rouglling
It" which appeared the following year.
1t was Mark Twain's third venture in
this sort. the first being the obscure
little collection that opened with the
story of the jumping Frog" and the
second being THE Innocents Abroad"
Mr.. W. A. Fraser. the Canadian story
writer. has just finished his usual win
ter visit to New York. His duties as a
government civil engineer keep him up
in the northwest territories from the
beginning of spring until the beginning
of winter Then he comes to his home
at Georgetown, Ontario, and shuts HIM
self up in his study and writes those
strong, dramatic little stories which are
gradually making his name very well
known. But always about the middle
of the winter he allows himself short
holiday; and then it is that his friends
in New York get to see him. His visit
this year had a special interest in that
it brought him, for the first time, face
to face with the man who, through
correspondence. has long been his en-
courager and adviser in his literary
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