March 14 Tuesday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam replied to Joe Twichell’s Mar. 13.
Dear Joe,—I have a Puddn’head maxim:
“When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.”
It is with contentment, therefore, that I reflect that I am better & wiser than you. Joe, you seem to be dealing in “bulks,” now; the “bulk” of the farmers & U. S. Senators are “honest.” As regards purchase & sale with money? Who doubts it? Is that the only measure of honesty? Aren’t there a dozen kinds of honesty which can’t be measured by the money-standard? Treason is treason—& there’s more than one form of it; the money-form is but one of them. When a person is disloyal to any confessed duty, he is plainly & simply dishonest, & knows it; knows it, & is privately troubled by it & not proud of himself. Judged by this standard—& who will challenge the validity of it?—there is’t an honest man in Connecticut, nor in the Senate, nor anywhere else. I do not even except myself this time.
An I finding fault with you & the rest of the populace? No—I assure you I am not. For I know the human race’s limitations, & this makes it my duty—my pleasant duty—to be fair to it. Each person in it is honest in one or several ways, but no member of it is honest in all the ways required by—by what? By his own standard. Outside of that, as I look at it, there is no obligation upon him.
Am I honest? I give you my word of honor (private) I am not. For seven years I have suppressed a book which my conscience tells me I ought to publish. I hold it a duty to publish it. There are other difficult duties which I am equal too, but I am not equal to that one. Yes, even I am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. We are certainly all honest in one or several ways—every man in the world—though I have reason to think I am the only one whose black-list runs so light. Sometimes I feel lonely enough in this lofty solitude.
Yes, oh, yes, I am not overlooking the “steady progress from age to age of the coming of the kingdom of God & righteousness.” “From age to age”—yes, it describes that giddy gait. I (& the rocks) will not live to see it arrive, but that is all right—it will arrive, it surely will. But you ought not to be always ironically apologizing for the Deity. If that thing is going to arrive, it is inferable that He wants it to arrive; & so it is not quite kind of you, & it hurts me, to see you flinging sarcasms at the gait of it. And yet it would not be fair in me not to admit that the sarcasms are deserved. When the Deity wants a thing, & after working at it for “ages & ages” can’t show even a shade of progress toward its accomplishment, we—well we don’t laugh, but it is only because we dasn’t. The source of the “righteousness”—is in the heart? Yes. And engineered & directed by the brain? Yes. Well, history & tradition testify that the heart is just about what it was in the beginning; it has undergone no shade of change. Its good & evil impulses & their consequences are the same to-day that they were in Old Bible times, in Egyptian times, in Greek times, in Middle Age times, in Twentieth Century times. There has been no change.
Meantime, the brain has undergone no change. It is what it always was. There are a few good brains in a multitude of poor ones. It was so in Old Bible times & in all other times—Greek, Roman, Middle Ages & Twentieth Century. Among the savages—the average brain is as competent as the average brain here or elsewhere. I will prove it to you, some time, if you like. And there are great brains among them, too. I will prove that also, if you like.
Well, the 19th century made progress—the first progress after “ages & ages”—colossal progress. In what? Materialities. Prodigious acquisitions were made in things which add to the comfort of many & make life harder for as many more. But the addition to righteousness? Is that discoverable? I think not. The materialities were not invented in the interest of righteousness; that there is more righteousness in the world because of them than there was before, is hardly demonstrable, I think. In Europe & America there is a vast change (due to them) in ideals—do you admire it? All Europe & all America are feverishly scrambling for money. Money is the supreme ideal—all others take tenth place with the great bulk of the nations named. Money-lust has always existed, but not in the history of the world was it ever a craze, a madness, until your time & mine. This lust has rotted these nations; it has made them hard, sordid, ungentle, dishonest, oppressive.
Did England rise against the infamy of the Boer war? No—rose in favor of it. Did America rise against the infamy of the Phillipine war? No—rose in favor of it. Did Russia rise against the infamy of the present war? No—sat still & said nothing. Has the Kingdom of God advanced in Russia since the beginning of time?
Or in Europe & America, considering the vast backward step of the money-lust? Or anywhere else? If there has been any progress toward righteousness since the early days of Creation— which, in my ineradicable honesty, I am obliged to doubt—I think we must confine it to ten percent of the population of Christendom, (but leaving Russia, Spain & South America entirely out.) This gives us 320,000,000 to draw the ten per cent from. That is to say, 32,000,000 have advanced toward righteousness & the Kingdom of God since the “ages & ages” have been flying along, the Deity sitting up there admiring. Well, you see it leaves 1,200,000,000 out of the race. They stand just where they have always stood; there had been no change.
N. B. No charge for these informations. Do come down soon, Joe. / With love, / Mark
Oh, I would like to hear Charley Perkins uncork his tar-keg. [MTP: Paine’s 1917 Mark Twain Letters, p.767-70 in part: MTP: Cummings file]. Note: Sam’s “&” signs replaced; Paine did not like these. Charles E. Perkins was Sam’s attorney in the 1870s. See Vol. I entries.
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Never, never on sea or shore of spiritual or terrestrial being could there be a man to equal Mr. Clemens. The subtlty [sic] of his magic and he doesn’t know it. He can’t half enjoy himself and oh the pity of it, for he would so appreciate himself. It is cruel.
After dinner Jean and finally I gave him music until a late hour. I am stupified [sic] [MTP: TS 44].
Grace Gallatin Seton for Pen & Brush wrote to Sam, reminding him of two years before when he declined an invitation but promised a future date—had that date arrived? Could he manage Sunday, Apr. 2 from 4:30 to 6? [MTP]. Note: no further documentation for Seton and Apr. 2 was found; perhaps he couldn’t “manage.”