WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

acquiring what is called a “style.” One of my efforts attracted

attention, and the ENTERPRISE sent for me and put me on its staff.

And so I became a journalist–another link. By and by Circumstance

and the Sacramento UNION sent me to the Sandwich Islands for five

or six months, to write up sugar. I did it; and threw in a good

deal of extraneous matter that hadn’t anything to do with sugar.

But it was this extraneous matter that helped me to another link.

It made me notorious, and San Francisco invited me to lecture.

Which I did. And profitably. I had long had a desire to travel

and see the world, and now Circumstance had most kindly and

unexpectedly hurled me upon the platform and furnished me the means.

So I joined the “Quaker City Excursion.”

When I returned to America, Circumstance was waiting on the pier–

with the LAST link–the conspicuous, the consummating, the

victorious link: I was asked to WRITE A BOOK, and I did it, and

called it THE INNOCENTS ABROAD. Thus I became at last a member

of the literary guild. That was forty-two years ago, and I have

been a member ever since. Leaving the Rubicon incident away back

where it belongs, I can say with truth that the reason I am in

the literary profession is because I had the measles when I was

twelve years old.

III

Now what interests me, as regards these details, is not the

details themselves, but the fact that none of them was foreseen

by me, none of them was planned by me, I was the author of none

of them. Circumstance, working in harness with my temperament,

created them all and compelled them all. I often offered help,

and with the best intentions, but it was rejected–as a rule,

uncourteously. I could never plan a thing and get it to come out

the way I planned it. It came out some other way–some way I had

not counted upon.

And so I do not admire the human being–as an intellectual

marvel–as much as I did when I was young, and got him out of

books, and did not know him personally. When I used to read that

such and such a general did a certain brilliant thing, I believed

it. Whereas it was not so. Circumstance did it by help of his

temperament. The circumstances would have failed of effect with

a general of another temperament: he might see the chance, but

lose the advantage by being by nature too slow or too quick or

too doubtful. Once General Grant was asked a question about a

matter which had been much debated by the public and the

newspapers; he answered the question without any hesitancy.

“General, who planned the the march through Georgia?” “The

enemy!” He added that the enemy usually makes your plans for

you. He meant that the enemy by neglect or through force of

circumstances leaves an opening for you, and you see your chance

and take advantage of it.

Circumstances do the planning for us all, no doubt, by help

of our temperaments. I see no great difference between a man and

a watch, except that the man is conscious and the watch isn’t,

and the man TRIES to plan things and the watch doesn’t. The

watch doesn’t wind itself and doesn’t regulate itself–these

things are done exteriorly. Outside influences, outside

circumstances, wind the MAN and regulate him. Left to himself,

he wouldn’t get regulated at all, and the sort of time he would

keep would not be valuable. Some rare men are wonderful watches,

with gold case, compensation balance, and all those things, and

some men are only simple and sweet and humble Waterburys. I am a

Waterbury. A Waterbury of that kind, some say.

A nation is only an individual multiplied. It makes plans

and Circumstances comes and upsets them–or enlarges them. Some

patriots throw the tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a

Bastille. The PLANS stop there; then Circumstance comes in,

quite unexpectedly, and turns these modest riots into a revolution.

And there was poor Columbus. He elaborated a deep plan to

find a new route to an old country. Circumstance revised his

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *