Autobiography of Mark Twain (78 page)

The elder Hamersley took his appointed ten minutes, easily, comfortably, with good phrasing, and most entertainingly—and this was always to be expected of the elder Hamersley.

Then his son, Will Hamersley, a young lawyer, now this many years a Judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court, took his chance in the Dream question. And I can’t imagine anything more distressing than a talk from Will Hamersley—a talk from the Will Hamersley
of those days
. You
always
knew that before he got through he would certainly say something—something that you could carry away, something that you could consider, something that you couldn’t easily put out of your mind. But you also knew that you would suffer many a torture before he got that thing out. He would hesitate and hesitate, get to the middle of a sentence and search around and around and around for a word, get the wrong word, search again, get another wrong one, search again and again—and so he would go on in that way till everybody was in misery on his account, hoping that he would arrive in the course of time, and yet sinking deeper and deeper toward despair, with the conviction that this time he was not going to arrive. He would seem to get so far away from any possible goal that you would feel convinced that
he could not cover the intervening space and get there before his ten minutes would come to an end and leave him suspended between heaven and earth. But, sure as a gun, before that ten minutes ended Will Hamersley would arrive at his point and fetch it out with such a round and complete and handsome and satisfying unostentatious crash that you would be lifted out of your chair with admiration and gratitude.

Joe Twichell sometimes took his turn. If he talked, it was easily perceptible that it was because he had something to say, and he was always able to say it well. But almost as a rule, he said nothing, and gave his ten minutes to the next man—and whenever he gave it to Charles E. Perkins he ran the risk of getting lynched on his way home by the rest of the membership. Charles E. Perkins was the dullest white man in Connecticut—and he probably remains that to this day; I have not heard of any real competitor. Perkins would moon along, and moon along, and moon along, using the most commonplace, the most dreary, the most degraded English, with never an idea in it by any chance. But
he
never gave his ten minutes to anybody. He always used it up to the last second. Then there was always a little gap—had to be for the crowd to recover before the next man could begin. Perkins, when he would get entirely lost in his talk and didn’t know where he was in his idiotic philosophizings, would grasp at narrative, as the drowning man grasps at a straw. If a drowning man ever does that—which I doubt. Then he would tell something in his experiences, thinking perhaps it had something to do with the question in hand. It generally hadn’t—and this time he told about a long and arduous and fatiguing chase which he had had in the Maine woods on a hot summer’s day, after some kind of a wild animal that he wanted to kill, and how at last, chasing eagerly after this creature across a wide stream, he slipped and fell on the ice, and injured his leg—whereupon a silence and confusion. Perkins noticed that something was wrong, and then it occurred to him that there was a kind of discrepancy in hunting animals on the ice in summertime, so he switched off to theology. He always did that. He was a rabid Christian, and member of Joe Twichell’s church. Joe Twichell could get together the most impossible Christians that ever assembled in anybody’s congregation; and as a usual thing he couldn’t run his church systematically on account of new deacons who didn’t understand the business—the recent deacons having joined their predecessors in the Penitentiary down there at Wethersfield. Perkins would wind up with some very pious remarks—and in fact they all did that. Take the whole crowd—the crowd that was almost always present—and this remark applies to them. There was J. Hammond Trumbull, the most learned man in the United States. He knew everything—everything in detail that had ever happened in this world, and a lot that was going to happen, and a lot that couldn’t ever possibly happen. He was thoroughly posted, and yet if there was a prize offered for the man that could put up the most uninteresting ten minutes’ talk, you wouldn’t know whether to bet on him or on Perkins—
he
would close with some piety. Henry C. Robinson—Governor Henry C. Robinson—a brilliant man, a most polished and effective and eloquent speaker, an easy speaker, a speaker who had no difficulties to encounter in delivering himself—always closed with some piety. A. C. Dunham, a man really great in his line—that is to say the commercial line—a great manufacturer, an enterprising man, a capitalist, a most competent and fascinating talker, a man who never opened his mouth without a stream of practical pearls flowing from it—
he
always closed with some piety—

January 13, 1906

The piety-ending was used also by Franklin and Johnson, and possibly by the rest of the Club—most likely by the rest of the Club. But I recall that that ending was a custom with Franklin and with Johnson. Franklin was a bluff old soldier. He was a West Pointer and, I think, had served in the Mexican war. He commanded one of McClellan’s armies in the Civil War at the time that McClellan was commander-in-chief. He was an ideal soldier, simple-hearted, good, kind, affectionate; set in his opinions, his partialities and his prejudices, believing everything which he had been taught to believe about politics, religion, and military matters; thoroughly well educated in the military science—in fact I have already said that, because I have said he was a West Pointer. He knew all that was worth knowing in that specialty, and was able to reason well upon his knowledge, but his reasoning faculty did not shine when he was discussing other things. Johnson was a member of Trinity, and was easily the most brilliant member of the Club. But his fine light shone not in public, but in the privacy of the Club, and his qualities were not known outside of Hartford.

I had long been suffering from these intolerable and inexcusable exudations of misplaced piety, and for years had wanted to enter a protest against them, but had struggled against the impulse and had always been able to conquer it, until now. But this time Perkins was too much for me. He was the feather that broke the camel’s back. The substance of his wandering twaddle—if by chance it had substance—was that there is nothing in dreams. Dreams merely proceed from indigestion—there is no quality of intelligence in them—they are thoroughly fantastic and without beginning, logical sequence, or definite end. Nobody, in our day, but the stupid or the ignorant attaches any significance to them. And then he went on blandly and pleasantly to say that dreams had
once
had a mighty importance, that they had had the illustrious honor of being used by the Almighty as a means of conveying desires, warnings, commands, to people whom He loved or hated—that these dreams are set down in Holy Writ; that no sane man challenges their authenticity, their significance, their verity.

I followed Perkins, and I remember with satisfaction that I said not one harsh thing, vexed as I was, but merely remarked, without warmth, that these tiresome damned prayer-meetings might better be adjourned to the garret of some church, where they belonged. It is
centuries
ago that I did that thing. It was away back, back, back, so many, many years ago—and yet I have always regretted it, because from that time forth, to the last meeting which I attended (which would be at the beginning of the spring of 1891) the piety-ending was never used again. No, perhaps I am going too far; maybe I am putting too much emphasis upon my regret. Possibly when I said that about regret, I was doing what people so often unconsciously do, trying to place myself in a favorable light after having made a confession that makes such a thing more or less difficult. No, I think it quite likely that I never regretted it at all.

Anybody could see that the piety-ending had no importance, for the reason that it was manifestly perfunctory. The Club was
founded
by a great clergyman; it always had more clergymen in it than good people. Clergymen are not able to sink the shop without falling under suspicion. It was quite natural that the original members should introduce that kind of ending to their speeches. It was also quite natural that the rest of the membership, being church
members, should take up the custom, turn it into a habit, and continue it without ever happening to notice that it was merely a mouth function, had no heart in it, and therefore utterly valueless to themselves and to everybody else.

I do not now remember what form my views concerning dreams took at that time. I don’t remember now what my notion about dreams was then, but I do remember telling a dream by way of illustrating some detail of my speech, and I also remember that when I had finished it Rev. Dr. Burton made that doubting remark which contained that word I have already spoken of sixteen or seventeen times as having been uttered by my mother, in some such connection, forty or fifty years before. I was probably engaged in trying to make those people believe that now and then, by some accident, or otherwise, a dream which was prophetic turned up in the dreamer’s mind. The date of my memorable dream was about the beginning of May, 1858. It was a remarkable dream, and I had been telling it several times every year for more than fifteen years—and now I was telling it again, here in the Club.

In 18581 was a steersman on board the swift and popular New Orleans and St. Louis packet,
Pennsylvania
, Captain Klinefelter. I had been lent to Mr. Brown, one of the pilots of the
Pennsylvania
, by my owner, Mr. Horace E. Bixby, and I had been steering for Brown about eighteen months, I think. Then in the early days of May, 1858, came a tragic trip—the last trip of that fleet and famous steamboat. I have told all about it in one of my books called “Old Times on the Mississippi.” But it is not likely that I told the dream in that book. I will ask Miss Lyon to see—but I will go on and dictate the dream now, and it can go into the waste-basket if it shall turn out that I have already published it. It is impossible that I can ever have published it, I think, because I never wanted my mother to know about that dream, and she lived several years after I published that volume.

I had found aplace on the
Pennsylvania
for my brother Henry, who was two years my junior. It was not a place of profit, it was only a place of promise. He was “mud” clerk. Mud clerks received no salary, but they were in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk and second clerk, then chief clerk—that is to say, purser. The dream begins when Henry had been mud clerk about three months. We were lying in port at St. Louis. Pilots and steersmen had nothing to do during the three days that the boat lay in port in St. Louis and New Orleans, but the mud clerk had to begin his labors at dawn and continue them into the night, by the light of pine-knot torches. Henry and I, moneyless and unsalaried, had billeted ourselves upon our brother-in-law, Mr. Moffett, as night lodgers while in port. We took our meals on board the boat. No, I mean
I
lodged at the house, not Henry. He spent the
evenings
at the house, from nine until eleven, then went to the boat to be ready for his early duties. On the night of the dream he started away at eleven, shaking hands with the family, and said good-bye according to custom. I may mention that hand-shaking as a good-bye was not merely the custom of that family, but the custom of the region—the custom of Missouri, I may say. In all my life, up to that time, I had never seen one member of the Clemens family kiss another one—except once. When my father lay dying in our home in Hannibal—the 24th of March 1847—he put his arm around my sister’s neck and drew her down and kissed her, saying “Let me die.” I remember that, and I remember the death rattle which swiftly followed those words, which were his last. These good-byes of Henry’s were always executed in the family sitting-room
on the second floor, and Henry went from that room and down stairs without further ceremony. But this time my mother went with him to the head of the stairs and said good-bye
again
. As I remember it she was moved to this by something in Henry’s manner, and she remained at the head of the stairs while he descended. When he reached the door he hesitated, and climbed the stairs and shook hands good-bye once more.

In the morning, when I awoke I had been dreaming, and the dream was so vivid, so like reality, that it deceived me, and I thought it
was
real. In the dream I had seen Henry a corpse. He lay in a metallic burial case. He was dressed in a suit of my clothing, and on his breast lay a great bouquet of flowers, mainly white roses, with a red rose in the centre. The casket stood upon a couple of chairs. I dressed, and moved toward that door, thinking I would go in there and look at it, but I changed my mind. I thought I could not yet bear to meet my mother. I thought I would wait a while and make some preparation for that ordeal. The house was in Locust street, a little above 13th, and I walked to 14th, and to the middle of the block beyond, before it suddenly flashed upon me that there was nothing real about this—it was only a dream. I can still feel something of the grateful upheaval of joy of that moment, and I can also still feel the remnant of doubt, the suspicion that maybe it
was
real, after all. I returned to the house almost on a run, flew up the stairs two or three steps at a jump, and rushed into that sitting-room—and was made glad again, for there was no casket there.

We made the usual eventless trip to New Orleans—no, it was not eventless, for it was on the way down that I had the fight with Mr. Brown
*
which resulted in his requiring that I be left ashore at New Orleans. In New Orleans I always had a job. It was my privilege to watch the freight-piles from seven in the evening until seven in the morning, and get three dollars for it. It was a three-night job and occurred every thirty-five days. Henry always joined my watch about nine in the evening, when his own duties were ended, and we often walked my rounds and chatted together until midnight. This time we were to part, and so the night before the boat sailed I gave Henry some advice. I said “In case of disaster to the boat, don’t lose your head—leave that unwisdom to the passengers—they are competent—they’ll attend to it. But you rush for the hurricane-deck, and astern to one of the life-boats lashed aft the wheel-house, and obey the mate’s orders—thus you will be useful. When the boat is launched, give such help as you can in getting the women and children into it, and be sure you don’t try to get into it yourself. It is summer weather, the river is only a mile wide, as a rule, and you can swim that without any trouble.” Two or three days afterward the boat’s boilers exploded at Ship Island, below Memphis, early one morning—and what happened afterward I have already told in “Old Times on the Mississippi.” As related there, I followed the
Pennsylvania
about a day later, on another boat, and we began to get news of the disaster at every port we touched at, and so by the time we reached Memphis we knew all about it.