Mark Twain, A Biography 1907-1910 | Page 6

boat she
slipped a note in my hand and said, "Read it when you get aboard the
ship." I didn't think of it again until day before yesterday, and it was a
"dusting off." And if I carry out all the instructions that I got there I
shall be more celebrated in England for my behavior than for anything
else. I got instructions how to act on every occasion. She underscored
"Now, don't you wear white clothes on ship or on shore until you get
back," and I intended to obey. I have been used to obeying my family
all my life, but I wore the white clothes to-night because the trunk that
has the dark clothes in it is in the cellar. I am not apologizing for the
white clothes; I am only apologizing to my daughter for not obeying

her.
He received a great welcome when the ship arrived at Tilbury. A throng
of rapid-fire reporters and photographers immediately surrounded him,
and when he left the ship the stevedores gave him a round of cheers. It
was the beginning of that almost unheard-of demonstration of affection
and honor which never for a moment ceased, but augmented from day
to day during the four weeks of his English sojourn.
In a dictation following his return, Mark Twain said:
Who began it? The very people of all people in the world whom I
would have chosen: a hundred men of my own class--grimy sons of
labor, the real builders of empires and civilizations, the stevedores!
They stood in a body on the dock and charged their masculine lungs,
and gave me a welcome which went to the marrow of me.
J. Y. W. MacAlister was at the St. Pancras railway station to meet him,
and among others on the platform was Bernard Shaw, who had come
down to meet Professor Henderson. Clemens and Shaw were presented,
and met eagerly, for each greatly admired the other. A throng gathered.
Mark Twain was extricated at last, and hurried away to his apartments
at Brown's Hotel, "a placid, subdued, homelike, old-fashioned English
inn," he called it, "well known to me years ago, a blessed retreat of a
sort now rare in England, and becoming rarer every year."
But Brown's was not placid and subdued during his stay. The London
newspapers declared that Mark Twain's arrival had turned Brown's not
only into a royal court, but a post-office--that the procession of visitors
and the bundles of mail fully warranted this statement. It was, in fact,
an experience which surpassed in general magnitude and magnificence
anything he had hitherto known. His former London visits, beginning
with that of 1872, had been distinguished by high attentions, but all of
them combined could not equal this. When England decides to get up
an ovation, her people are not to be outdone even by the lavish
Americans. An assistant secretary had to be engaged immediately, and
it sometimes required from sixteen to twenty hours a day for two
skilled and busy men to receive callers and reduce the pile of
correspondence.
A pile of invitations had already accumulated, and others flowed in.
Lady Stanley, widow of Henry M. Stanley, wrote:
You know I want to see you and join right hand to right hand. I must

see your dear face again . . . . You will have no peace, rest, or leisure
during your stay in London, and you will end by hating human beings.
Let me come before you feel that way.
Mary Cholmondeley, the author of Red Pottage, niece of that lovable
Reginald Cholmondeley, and herself an old friend, sent greetings and
urgent invitations. Archdeacon Wilberforce wrote:
I have just been preaching about your indictment of that scoundrel king
of the Belgians and telling my people to buy the book. I am only a
humble item among the very many who offer you a cordial welcome in
England, but we long to see you again, and I should like to change hats
with you again. Do you remember?
The Athenaeum, the Garrick, and a dozen other London clubs had
anticipated his arrival with cards of honorary membership for the
period of his stay. Every leading photographer had put in a claim for
sittings. It was such a reception as Charles Dickens had received in
America in 1842, and again in 1867. A London paper likened it to
Voltaire's return to Paris in 1778, when France went mad over him.
There is simply no limit to English affection and, hospitality once
aroused. Clemens wrote:
Surely such weeks as this must be very rare in this world: I had seen
nothing like them before; I shall see nothing approaching them again!
Sir Thomas Lipton and Bram Stoker, old friends, were among the first
to present themselves, and there was