February – The North American Review ran Mark Twain’s article, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” It was not included in any collections during his lifetime [Budd, Collected 2: 1006], though it was republished in pamphlet form. Note: He received many letters of response on this significant article, which recast him as a patriot in the eyes of many. There were critics, however, sometimes severe in their treatment of the piece and of Clemens.
The Clemenses were, for the first time, living in walking distance of the William Dean Howells family.
The relationship between Sam and Howells was renewed with emphasis on political matters:
At the beginning of 1901, in the February North American Review, Mark Twain’s wrath against the recent policies of the Czar in China, of Kaiser Wilhelm and Foreign Secretary Joseph Chamberlain in South Africa, and of President McKinley in the Philippines, boiled over again in “To the Person Sitting in Darkness”—one of the most powerful pieces of invective he ever wrote. Howells had urged him to publish the article (Daniel C. Beard, quoted in Johnson Bibliography, p. 73) although both men foresaw the hurricane of abuse it would arouse. “I see a great deal of Mark Twain nowadays,” Howells wrote his sister Aurelia not long after the article appeared, “and we have high good times denouncing everything. We agree perfectly about the Boer war and the Filipino war, and war generally. Then, we are old fellows, and it is pleasant to find the world so much worse than it was when we were young. Clemens is, as I have always known him, a most right-minded man, and of course he has an intellect that I enjoy. He is getting some hard knocks now from the blackguards and hypocrites for his righteous fun with McKinley’s attempt to colonize the Philippines, but he is making hosts of friends, too” (New York, LinL, II 142). Howells’s constant sniping in the “Editor’s Easy Chair” of Harper’s and in the North American Review was earning him a comparable reputation as a leading anti-imperialist. (For a full account see William M. Gibson, “Mark Twain and Howells, Anti-Imperialists,” NEQ, XX, 435- 470, December 1947) [MTHL 2: 726-7]. Note: Gibson’s “full account” does not include a bibliography or footnotes.
Clara Clemens writes of its publication and her father’s secured “approbation” beforehand:
This was a year when Father’s sense of justice urged him to action. It inspired him to give public expression to his disapproval of the conduct of missionaries in China and the Belgium King in Africa. He wrote and published fiery articles on these two topics and drew thunder and lightning around him. Also a few rays of sunshine. Distinguished men in England as well as in America hailed every word in the articles as indisputably true and gloriously courageous. He was crowned by several with the title of an “American Voltaire.” Cutting, abusive letters and newspaper attacks flooded our home, though, and it was pathetic to see the effect they had on Mother. She was sure that they must cause her husband pain, however valiantly he mightly conceal it, and this was hard for her to endure. Before publishing the article called “The Person Sitting in Darkness” (which was about the missionaries) Father had secured the approbation of both my Mother and Mr. Howells, whose opinions alone could enable him to stand like the Statue of Liberty, unweakened by the waters of condemnation that washed up to his feet. He had given out his innermost convictions, and nothing could make him regret it. He was not afraid of a fight, though he never picked up the cudgels too hastily [MFMT 220].
Paine writes of the piece:
Then, restraining himself no longer, he embodied his sentiments in an article for the North American Review…There was crying need for some one to speak the right word. He was about the only one who could do it and be certain of a universal audience. He took as his text some Christmas Eve clippings from the New York Tribune and Sun which he had been saving for this purpose. …
Another clipping from the same paper [Sun] reported the “Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions,” as having collected indemnities for Boxer damages in China at the rate of three hundred taels for each murder, “full payment for all destroyed property belonging to Christians, and national fines amounting to thirteen times the indemnity.” It quoted Mr. Ament as saying that the money so obtained was used for the propagation of the Gospel, and that the amount so collected was moderate when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who had demanded, in addition to money, life for life, that is to say, “head for head”—in one district six hundred and eighty heads having been so collected.
The dispatch made Mr. Ament say a great deal more than this, but the gist here is enough. Mark Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. He printed the clippings in full, one following the other; then he said:
“By happy luck we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve—just the time to enable us to celebrate the day with proper gaiety and enthusiasm. Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; taels I win, heads you lose.”
He went on to score Ament, to compare the missionary policy in China to that of the Pawnee Indians, and to propose for him a monument—subscriptions to be sent to the American Board. He denounced the policies in Africa, China, and the Philippines…[MTB 1127-8]. Note: many of the letters to and from Sam close after this article was published deal with the “cyclone” that it precipitated. Paine claims Sam “reveled” in the controversy, and points out that nearly every newspaper in America and England commented upon the matter. In the April issue of the N.A.R. Sam would make a formal and lengthy reply to critics and to the cable error that took “1/3” for “13” for the indemnities.
In the same issue of the NAR, William Dean Howells’ article “Mark Twain: An Inquiry” ran on p. 306-21.
Tenney: “A general discussion of his career and works, noting their seriousness and importance but also the delight and entertainment they bring readers. Discusses MT’s deliberate avoidance of purely logical structure in his writing: ‘He would take whatever offered itself to his hand out of that mystical chaos, that divine ragbag, which we call the mind’” [35].
During the month a form letter was made up for Sam to use in declining invitations to lecture [MTP]. Sometime between Feb. and Nov. 1901, Sam wrote one line to Frances A. Ramsay: “Please come tomorrow, Tuesday, usual time” [MTP]. Note: Mrs. Frances A. Ramsay is listed in the 1898 What Women Can Earn:
Occupations of Women and Their Compensation, as head of a stenographer firm at 19 Union Square, NYC. Interestingly, Major James B. Pond is listed on the title page as a contributor.
Critic, p. 107 published a photo of Mark Twain “a few days after his return to New York,” and commented on William Nicholson’s portrait of Twain in the Harper’s Weekly, which they said looked “more like a fresh mustard-plaster than the portrait of a human being” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 187]. Note: see portrait Oct. 22 entry, and imagine it done in yellow highlights.
Albert Lane’s article “Plain Tales from the Hills, with Something of Criticism,” ran in The Erudite, p.151-4 on Twain. Tenney: “Argues that MT’s recent attacks on the missionaries in China are effective, not for logic, but for MT’s entertaining style: ‘The man who possesses the satirical genius of a Swift, a Thackeray, or a Twain has a gift straight from the gods’” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Fourth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1980 p. 174]. Note: the title of the article takes the title of Rudyard Kipling’s first book.
Review of Reviews (London) ran an anonymous article, “Mark Twain and the Missionaries: The Parable of the Watermelons,” p. 467. Tenney: “Extract from MT’s reply to Dr. Ament in North American Review, February. No significant commentary” [34].
Charles Johnston followed up his July, 1899 article in Atlantic Monthly with “The Essence of American Humor,” p. 195-201. Wells: “…an attempt to understand American humor as manifested in the works of Twain and Harte. Johnston refers to Twain as the supreme writer of humor, especially as manifested in ‘the immortal trio’ of Huck, Tom, and Jim: ‘the high- water mark of humor and imaginative creation for the New World—the most genuinely American thing ever written.’” Tom Sawyer is also discussed as “an example of the unique role of children in American literature” [25].
February ca. – Tuckey puts this date on Mark Twain beginning “The Secret History of Eddypus,” and continuing “until some time in March 1901” [Fables of Man 317]. Note: see also Feb. 16, 1902 after, entry.