gradually dissolve and flow off into other matters. I followed it with
interest, for I was anxious to learn how easy-divorce eradicated adultery
in America, but I was disappointed; I have no idea yet how it did it.
I only know it didn’t. But that is not valuable; I knew it before.
Well, humor is the great thing, the saving thing, after all. The minute
it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and
resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place. And so,
when M. Bourget said that bright thing about our grandfathers, I broke
all up. I remember exploding its American countermine once, under that
grand hero, Napoleon. He was only First Consul then, and I was Consul-
General–for the United States, of course; but we were very intimate,
notwithstanding the difference in rank, for I waived that. One day
something offered the opening, and he said:
“Well, General, I suppose life can never get entirely dull to an
American, because whenever he can’t strike up any other way to put in his
time he can always get away with a few years trying to find out who his
grandfather was!”
I fairly shouted, for I had never heard it sound better; and then I was
back at him as quick as a flash–“Right, your Excellency! But I reckon
a Frenchman’s got his little stand-by for a dull time, too; because when
all other interests fail he can turn in and see if he can’t find out who
his father was!”
Well, you should have heard him just whoop, and cackle, and carry on!
He reached up and hit me one on the shoulder, and says:
“Land, but it’s good! It’s im-mensely good! I’George, I never heard it
said so good in my life before! Say it again.”
So I said it again, and he said his again, and I said mine again, and
then he did, and then I did, and then he did, and we kept on doing it,
and doing it, and I never had such a good time, and he said the same.
In my opinion there isn’t anything that is as killing as one of those
dear old ripe pensioners if you know how to snatch it out in a kind of
a fresh sort of original way.
But I wish M. Bourget had read more of our novels before he came. It is
the only way to thoroughly understand a people. When I found I was
coming to Paris, I read ‘La Terre’.
A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET
[The preceding squib was assailed in the North American Review
in an article entitled ” Mark Twain and Paul Bourget,” by Max
O’Rell. The following little note is a Rejoinder to that
article. It is possible that the position assumed here–that
M. Bourget dictated the O’Rell article himself–is untenable.]
You have every right, my dear M. Bourget, to retort upon me by dictation,
if you prefer that method to writing at me with your pen; but if I may
say it without hurt–and certainly I mean no offence–I believe you would
have acquitted yourself better with the pen. With the pen you are at
home; it is your natural weapon; you use it with grace, eloquence, charm,
persuasiveness, when men are to be convinced, and with formidable effect
when they have earned a castigation. But I am sure I see signs in the
above article that you are either unaccustomed to dictating or are out of
practice. If you will re-read it you will notice, yourself, that it
lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that
it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it
wanders around; that it loses itself early and does not find itself any
more. There are some other defects, as you will notice, but I think I
have named the main ones. I feel sure that they are all due to your lack
of practice in dictating.
Inasmuch as you had not signed it I had the impression at first that you
had not dictated it. But only for a moment. Certain quite simple and