Twains Letters vol 6 1907-1910 | Page 4

Kinship, with a letter in which he said: "Most humorists have no
anxiety except to glorify themselves and add substance to their
pocket-books by making their readers laugh. You have shown, on many
occasions, that your mission is not simply to antidote the melancholy of
a world, but includes a real and intelligent concern for the general
welfare of your fellowman."
The Universal Kinship was the kind of a book that Mark Twain
appreciated, as his acknowledgment clearly shows.
To Mr. J. Howard Moore:
Feb. 2, '07. DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several
days of deep pleasure and satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at
the same time, since it saves me the labor of stating my own
long-cherished opinions and reflections and resentments by doing it
lucidly and fervently and irascibly for me.
There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the mentality
of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by a thousand
grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we have gone
backward as many grades. That evolution is strange, and to me
unaccountable and unnatural. Necessarily we started equipped with
their perfect and blemishless morals; now we are wholly destitute; we
have no real, morals, but only artificial ones--morals created and
preserved by the forced suppression of natural and hellish instincts. Yet
we are dull enough to be vain of them. Certainly we are a sufficiently
comical invention, we humans. Sincerely Yours, S. L. CLEMENS.
Mark Twain's own books were always being excommunicated by some
librarian, and the matter never failed to invite the attention and
amusement of the press, and the indignation of many correspondents.
Usually the books were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the morals of
which were not regarded as wholly exemplary. But in 1907 a small
library, in a very small town, attained a day's national notoriety by
putting the ban on Eve's Diary, not so much on account of its text as for
the chaste and exquisite illustrations by Lester Ralph. When the
reporters came in a troop to learn about it, the author said: "I believe
this time the trouble is mainly with the pictures. I did not draw them. I
wish I had--they are so beautiful."
Just at this time, Dr. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, was giving a

literary talk to the Teachers' Club, of Hartford, dwelling on the
superlative value of Mark Twain's writings for readers old and young.
Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, an old Hartford friend, wrote Clemens of the
things that Phelps had said, as consolation for Eve's latest banishment.
This gave him a chance to add something to what he had said to the
reporters.
To Mrs. Whitmore, in Hartford:
Feb. 7, 1907. DEAR MRS. WHITMORE,--But the truth is, that when a
Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying
around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep
unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me. But even if it
angered me such words as those of Professor Phelps would take the
sting all out. Nobody attaches weight to the freaks of the Charlton
Library, but when a man like Phelps speaks, the world gives attention.
Some day I hope to meet him and thank him for his courage for saying
those things out in public. Custom is, to think a handsome thing in
private but tame it down in the utterance.
I hope you are all well and happy; and thereto I add my love. Sincerely
yours, S. L. CLEMENS.
In May, 1907, Mark Twain was invited to England to receive from
Oxford the degree of Literary Doctor. It was an honor that came to him
as a sort of laurel crown at the end of a great career, and gratified him
exceedingly. To Moberly Bell, of the London Times, he expressed his
appreciation. Bell had been over in April and Clemens believed him
concerned in the matter.
To Moberly Bell, in London:
21 FIFTH AVENUE, May 3, '07 DEAR MR. BELL,--Your hand is in
it! and you have my best thanks. Although I wouldn't cross an ocean
again for the price of the ship that carried me, I am glad to do it for an
Oxford degree. I shall plan to sail for England a shade before the
middle of June, so that I can have a few days in London before the 26th.
Sincerely, S. L. CLEMENS.
He had taken a house at Tuxedo for the summer, desiring to be near
New York City, and in the next letter he writes Mr. Rogers concerning
his London plans. We discover, also, in this letter that he has begun
work on the Redding home and the cost is to come entirely