The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

THE GILDED AGE

A Tale of Today

by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

1873

PREFACE.

This book was not written for private circulation among friends; it was

not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the author’s;

it was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to amuse an idle

hour. It was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is

submitted without the usual apologies.

It will be seen that it deals with an entirely ideal state of society;

and the chief embarrassment of the writers in this realm of the

imagination has been the want of illustrative examples. In a State where

there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth,

where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all

honest and generous, where society is in a condition of primitive purity

and politics is the occupation of only the capable and the patriotic,

there are necessarily no materials for such a history as we have

constructed out of an ideal commonwealth.

No apology is needed for following the learned custom of placing

attractive scraps of literature at the heads of our chapters. It has

been truly observed by Wagner that such headings, with their vague

suggestions of the matter which is to follow them, pleasantly inflame the

reader’s interest without wholly satisfying his curiosity, and we will

hope that it may be found to be so in the present case.

Our quotations are set in a vast number of tongues; this is done for the

reason that very few foreign nations among whom the book will circulate

can read in any language but their own; whereas we do not write for a

particular class or sect or nation, but to take in the whole world.

We do not object to criticism; and we do not expect that the critic will

read the book before writing a notice of it: We do not even expect the

reviewer of the book will say that he has not read it. No, we have no

anticipations of anything unusual in this age of criticism. But if the

Jupiter, Who passes his opinion on the novel, ever happens to peruse it

in some weary moment of his subsequent life, we hope that he will not be

the victim of a remorse bitter but too late.

One word more. This is–what it pretends to be a joint production, in

the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its

literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the

marks of the two writers of the book. S. L. C.

C. D. W.

[Etext Editor’s Note: The following chapters were written by Mark Twain:

1-11, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32-34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51-53, 57, 59-62;

and portions of 35, 49, and 56. See Twain’s letter to Dr. John Brown

Feb. 28, 1874 D.W.]

CHAPTER I.

June 18–. Squire Hawkins sat upon the pyramid of large blocks, called

the “stile,” in front of his house, contemplating the morning.

The locality was Obedstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that

Obedstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the

landscape to indicate it–but it did: a mountain that stretched abroad

over whole counties, and rose very gradually. The district was called

the “Knobs of East Tennessee,” and had a reputation like Nazareth, as far

as turning out any good thing was concerned.

The Squire’s house was a double log cabin, in a state of decay; two or

three gaunt hounds lay asleep about the threshold, and lifted their heads

sadly whenever Mrs. Hawkins or the children stepped in and out over their

bodies. Rubbish was scattered about the grassless yard; a bench stood

near the door with a tin wash basin on it and a pail of water and a

gourd; a cat had begun to drink from the pail, but the exertion was

overtaxing her energies, and she had stopped to rest. There was an ash-

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