The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-11-15
TWAIN SHOCKED
H IMMORTALS
With Fatal Effect, The Humor'
list Made Fun of Emerson,
Longfellow and Holmes

Harper's w. D. Howells tells Of the
long-forgotten dinner in Boston, Wnen
Mark Twain, with fatal erect, maoe
game Of Emerson. LongfelloW n
Holiness:
"He believed he had been particu-
LARRY fortunate in his notion TOR The
speech of that evening, and he had
worked it out in joyous self-reliance.
It was the notion of three m
three d~ead-beats, visiting a California
mining-camp, and imposing them
selves upon the innocent miners as re-
spectively Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and
of the conception must prosper or
must fail according to the mood OF the
nearer. but Clemens felt sure OF COM
peling this to sympathy. and he look-
ed forward to an unparalleled tri-
umph.
"Rut there were two things that he
had not taken into account. One was
the species Of religious veneratlon IN
which these men were held by those
nearest them, a thing that should not
be able to realize to people remote
from themin time and place. They
were men of extraordinary dignity, Of
the thing called presence, for wan or
some clearer word, SO that no one
could we'll approach them in a person.
ally light or trifling spirit. I do not
suppose that anybody more truly val
ued them, or more piouely loved them,
than Clemens himself, but the intoxi-
cation of his fancy carried him be-
yond the pounds Of that regard, and
emboldened him to the other thing
which he had not taen into account,
namely, the immense hazard of work
ing his fancy out before their faces,
and expecting them to enter into the
delight OF it. II neither Emerson nor
Longeffolw nor Holmes had been
there the scheme might possibly have
carried, but ven this is doubtful, for
those who so ~devoutly honored them
would have overcome their horror
with difficulty, and perhaps would not
have overcome it at all.
THE publisher. with a modesty
very ~ungratefuI to me, had abdicateS
his office of host, and I was the han
less president, f%ulflyiing the ahhorred
function OF calling people to their
feet and making them speak. When
I came to Clemens introduced him
with the cordial admiring I had for
him as one Of my greatest contribu-
tors and dearest friends. Here, [ said.
in sum-. was q humOrist who never left
yOu hanging your head for having en-
jOyed his iOke: and then the amazine
mistake. the hewildering b1under. the
cruel catastrophe was upon us. I be-
iieVe that after the scope of the bur
lesque made itself clear. there was no
m there, including the b~urlesuuer
himself, who was not snitten with a
des0iating Gismay. There fell a silence
weighing many tons to the square
inch. which deepened from 70
moment, which was broken only by
the hysterical and h~lood-curd1ine
laughter Of a single guest, whose name
shall not be handed down to infamv
Nobody knew whether to look at the
49, ~ 1865 - -
my plate as the least aff1iction. and sc
! do not know how Clemens looked
except when T stole q glance at him
and saw him standfng solitary amid
his apnal1ed and appalling listeners
with his Oke deed on his hands. From
q first glance at the great three whom
his Jest had mad it's theme, ] wa!
aware Of Longfe1low sitting upright
and regarding the humorist with ar
air OF penefve puzzle. Of Holmes busif,
writing on his MENU, with a well
feigned effect of preocupation, and 0
Emerson holding his elbows and lis
teninc with a sort Of JOvian Oblivion
Of this neither world in that lapse o
memory. which saved him in thos
later years from so much bother
Clemens must have dragged his iok
to the climax and left it there, but
cannot say this from any sense OF fact
or VIVA happened afterward at tn
table where the immense, the who'll
innocent. the truly unima eined affron
was offered, I ave no LONGER the leas
remembrance. I next remember be
ing in a room IN g hotel, where Glenn
ems was not to sleep, but TO toss in de
spair, and Charles Dudley Warne
saying in the gloom, We'll, MarFe
You're a funny elbow It was as we
as anything else he could have SAID
but Clemens seemed unable to acceI
the tribute.
ST stayed the night with him. an
She next morning, after a haggar
Breakfast. we drove about and mao
some purchases OF bric-a-brac for h
home in Hartford, with a soul as ia
away from bric-a-brac as ever tn
the soul Of man was. He went HON
by an early train, and he lost no tim
In writing back to the three divin
personalities which he had SO involur
tarily seemed to flout. They all wrot
back to him.. making it as light fc
him aS thew DoSSihly eoul3 hay