dollar basis and been obeyed? No, I was the only one. There
were other fools there–shoals and shoals of them–but they were
not of my kind. I was the only one of my kind.
Circumstance is powerful, but it cannot work alone; it has
to have a partner. Its partner is man’s TEMPERAMENT–his natural
disposition. His temperament is not his invention, it is BORN in
him, and he has no authority over it, neither is he responsible
for its acts. He cannot change it, nothing can change it,
nothing can modify it–except temporarily. But it won’t stay
modified. It is permanent, like the color of the man’s eyes and
the shape of his ears. Blue eyes are gray in certain unusual lights;
but they resume their natural color when that stress is removed.
A Circumstance that will coerce one man will have no effect
upon a man of a different temperament. If Circumstance had
thrown the bank-note in Caesar’s way, his temperament would not
have made him start for the Amazon. His temperament would have
compelled him to do something with the money, but not that. It
might have made him advertise the note–and WAIT. We can’t tell.
Also, it might have made him go to New York and buy into the
Government, with results that would leave Tweed nothing to learn
when it came his turn.
Very well, Circumstance furnished the capital, and my
temperament told me what to do with it. Sometimes a temperament
is an ass. When that is the case of the owner of it is an ass,
too, and is going to remain one. Training, experience,
association, can temporarily so polish him, improve him, exalt
him that people will think he is a mule, but they will be
mistaken. Artificially he IS a mule, for the time being, but at
bottom he is an ass yet, and will remain one.
By temperament I was the kind of person that DOES things.
Does them, and reflects afterward. So I started for the Amazon
without reflecting and without asking any questions. That was
more than fifty years ago. In all that time my temperament has
not changed, by even a shade. I have been punished many and many
a time, and bitterly, for doing things and reflecting afterward,
but these tortures have been of no value to me; I still do the
thing commanded by Circumstance and Temperament, and reflect
afterward. Always violently. When I am reflecting, on these
occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think.
I went by the way of Cincinnati, and down the Ohio and
Mississippi. My idea was to take ship, at New Orleans, for Para.
In New Orleans I inquired, and found there was no ship leaving
for Para. Also, that there never had BEEN one leaving for Para.
I reflected. A policeman came and asked me what I was doing, and
I told him. He made me move on, and said if he caught me
reflecting in the public street again he would run me in.
After a few days I was out of money. Then Circumstance
arrived, with another turning-point of my life–a new link. On
my way down, I had made the acquaintance of a pilot. I begged
him to teach me the river, and he consented. I became a pilot.
By and by Circumstance came again–introducing the Civil
War, this time, in order to push me ahead another stage or two
toward the literary profession. The boats stopped running, my
livelihood was gone.
Circumstance came to the rescue with a new turning-point and
a fresh link. My brother was appointed secretary to the new
Territory of Nevada, and he invited me to go with him and help
him in his office. I accepted.
In Nevada, Circumstance furnished me the silver fever and I
went into the mines to make a fortune, as I supposed; but that
was not the idea. The idea was to advance me another step toward
literature. For amusement I scribbled things for the Virginia
City ENTERPRISE. One isn’t a printer ten years without setting
up acres of good and bad literature, and learning–unconsciously
at first, consciously later–to discriminate between the two,
within his mental limitations; and meantime he is unconsciously