going to tell us the effect which my book had upon his growing manhood.
I thought he was going to tell us how much that effect amounted to, and
whether it really made him what he now is, but with the discretion born
of Parliamentary experience he dodged that, and we do not know now
whether he read the book or not. He did that very neatly. I could not
do it any better myself.
My books have had effects, and very good ones, too, here and there, and
some others not so good. There is no doubt about that. But I remember
one monumental instance of it years and years ago. Professor Norton, of
Harvard, was over here, and when he came back to Boston I went out with
Howells to call on him. Norton was allied in some way by marriage with
Darwin.
Mr. Norton was very gentle in what he had to say, and almost delicate,
and he said: “Mr. Clemens, I have been spending some time with Mr. Darwin
in England, and I should like to tell you something connected with that
visit. You were the object of it, and I myself would have been very
proud of it, but you may not be proud of it. At any rate, I am going to
tell you what it was, and to leave to you to regard it as you please.
Mr. Darwin took me up to his bedroom and pointed out certain things
there-pitcher-plants, and so on, that he was measuring and watching from
day to day–and he said: ‘The chambermaid is permitted to do what she
pleases in this room, but she must never touch those plants and never
touch those books on that table by that candle. With those books I read
myself to sleep every night.’ Those were your own books.” I said:
“There is no question to my mind as to whether I should regard that as a
compliment or not. I do regard it as a very great compliment and a very
high honor that that great mind, laboring for the whole human race,
should rest itself on my books. I am proud that he should read himself
to sleep with them.”
Now, I could not keep that to myself–I was so proud of it. As soon as I
got home to Hartford I called up my oldest friend–and dearest enemy on
occasion–the Rev. Joseph Twichell, my pastor, and I told him about that,
and, of course, he was full of interest and venom. Those people who get
no compliments like that feel like that. He went off. He did not issue
any applause of any kind, and I did not hear of that subject for some
time. But when Mr. Darwin passed away from this life, and some time
after Darwin’s Life and Letters came out, the Rev. Mr. Twichell procured
an early copy of that work and found something in it which he considered
applied to me. He came over to my house–it was snowing, raining,
sleeting, but that did not make any difference to Twichell. He produced
the book, and turned over and over, until he came to a certain place,
when he said: “Here, look at this letter from Mr. Darwin to Sir Joseph
Hooker.” What Mr. Darwin said–I give you the idea and not the very
words–was this: I do not know whether I ought to have devoted my whole
life to these drudgeries in natural history and the other sciences or
not, for while I may have gained in one way I have lost in another. Once
I had a fine perception and appreciation of high literature, but in me
that quality is atrophied. “That was the reason,” said Mr. Twichell, “he
was reading your books.”
Mr. Birrell has touched lightly–very lightly, but in not an
uncomplimentary way–on my position in this world as a moralist. I am
glad to have that recognition, too, because I have suffered since I have
been in this town; in the first place, right away, when I came here, from
a newsman going around with a great red, highly displayed placard in the
place of an apron. He was selling newspapers, and there were two