Abolitionism

The American constitution adopted in 1777 did not abolish Negro slavery. After the War of Independence the slave-owners of the South tried to make slavery legal also in the Northern states where the Negroes were officially considered free citizens. Being depen­dent on cotton provided by the Southern planters, the manufac­turers of the North helped the slave-holders to pass the Fugitive Slave Act in the Congress in 1850 according to which the Negro refugees to the North were to be returned to their owners. The act caused great indignation among the progressive intellectuals and writers. The movement against slavery known in American history as Abolitionism, appeared already at the beginning of eighteen thirties achieving nationwide significance in the fifties and it led to a Civil War between the North and the South in 1861. The ideological leaders of the movement were William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Philips. In 1830 Garrison founded the abolitionist newspaper Liberator which produced a mass of orations, tracts,

¹ a longitudinal single or built-up timber or a combination of plates extending along the middle of the bottom of a ship

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essays and argumentive speeches for over 30 years influencing the public opinion in America.

The abolitionist movement was predominantly bourgeois demo­cratic in character. Its leaders were convinced that slavery could be abolished by reforms. They also believed that with the abolition of slavery social justice would triumph in America. However, we know that the formal liberation of the Negroes did not result in equality for Black and White.

.The abolitionist movement opened a new page in the history of the XIX century American literature. A great mass of antislavery works were produced. In poetry Whittier, Lowell and Longfellow were the chief contributors. In the novel Harriet Beecher Stowe and Richard Hildreth produced works that had a vast influence in bringing about the abolition of slavery. Aesthetically abolitionist literature marked a. transitional period from Romanticism to Critical Realism. Retaining mainly typical romantic plots, character portrayal and a pathetic tone, the abolitionist writers based their work on numerous realistic social observations which later re­sulted in the appearance of the social novel and literature of Critical Realism in America.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

(1811—1896)

Harriet Beecher Stowe ['hseriot 'biitfe 'stou] was born in Litch-field, Connecticut. One of the nine children of a clergyman, Har­riet had six brothers, five of whom became clergymen. The removal of the family in 1832 to Cincinnati, a city on the border of slave territory, brought Harriet in contact with slavery. She saw slaves sold an maltreated. The house of her family often served as a sta­tion Of the so-called underground route for the Negro slaves who were obliged to flee from the South to the North. However, the Beechers were against the radicals who demanded an immediate and complete abolition of slavery. Often Harriet's father entered into a heated polemics with Garrison, the leader of the radical democratic trend. Harriet, like her father, was a moderate aboli­tionist, hoping to improve the Negro conditions through mutual understanding. She was for a peaceful and gradual abolition of slavery. Yet, when the Legislative Act of 1850 was passed she was indignant at the remanding of escaped fugitives into slavery as a duty binding on good citizens. She thought that American society was not aware of the horrible crimes of slave-holders against humanity and felt it her mission to demonstrate them in a living, and dramatic reality.

Harriet Beecher Stowe had received a proper literary education. She had studied at Hartford, at her sister's school. She was widely

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read. W. Scott, Dickens, Byron and Burns were her favourite writers. She had already written some sketches of new England life.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin". Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly" was published as a serial in The National Era, an abolitionist paper, during 1851 — 1852, and reissued in book form in 1852. The book had a powerful influence in promoting the anti-slavery movement. It met with a popular reception never before or since accorded to any American novel. Its sales went to millions. 300,000 copies were sold the first day it appeared. It was translated into 37 languages.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" gives a picture of the social structure in the American slave states. The author tries to portray the typical representatives of the classes and groups of American society at the time and to show their attitude towards slavery.

The novel begins with a description of the plantation of the Shelby ['Jelbi] family who possess a large number of slaves. The Shelbies are kind to their slaves, but they fall into financial dif­ficulties and to get out of them they are forced to give up some of their slaves. The creditor demands the pious and obedient Uncle Tom and Harry, the small¹ son of Eliza, whose husband George is owned by a neighbour. Eliza runs away at night with her little son hoping to reach Canada and escape slavery. The creditor, Haley ['heilij, pursues her with bloodhounds, but Eliza escapes across the Ohio River by jumping from one piece of floating ice to another.

Uncle Tom, meanwhile is shackled and placed aboard the steam­boat bound for New Orleans. In spite of his shackles, he leaps after little Eva St. Clare [,S9nt 'ккэ], who has fallen overboard, and saves her. Mr. St. Clare buys him and treats him kindly. Yet little Eva has delicate health and soon dies. Shortly afterward Mr. St. Clare is knifed in attempting to separate two fighting men. He had promised his dying child to free his slaves but he dies before carrying out his promise, and Mrs. St. Clare sells the slaves by auction. Uncle Tom is bought by the cruel and drunken Simon Legree ['saiman ,bg'rei] who drives his slaves to death with a bull whip. Uncle Tom's kindness to the other slaves incites Legree to treat him more brutally than the others and Uncle Tom dies, beaten to death, shortly before George Shelby, the son of his first owner, arrives to buy him back. The book ends idyllically with the happy reunion of Eliza with her husband and mother in Canada. George Shelby frees all his slaves in memory of Uncle Tom.

Harriet Beecher Stowe presents two sets of Negro characters, the pious and obedient Uncle Tom and the educated, talented and rebellious George Harris and his wife Eliza. The presence of the two types of Negro personages is necessary to the author to show that the Negroes are not a homogeneous mass but individuals with dif­ferent characters, hopes and views on life. The writer presents also

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two types of planters — the kind, patriarchal masters, like Shelby and St. Clare and the cruel exploiters like Legree. These various groups of planters give a many-sided picture of society and provide a variety of emotional appeal.

Harriet Beecher Stowe convincingly proves that slavery is a most terrible crime. She exposes all the evils of the slave system. By making Uncle Tom wander from one master to another the author shows the life of the Negroes on various plantations, their hard work, endless humiliations and their lawlessness. Any private life is denied them. The most impressive pages describe the slave market where the children are separated from their mothers, hus­bands from wives and where the Negroes are treated like animals for sale, the physically stronger specimen bringing in a larger sum of money.

Though Beecher Stowe was a convinced Christian, many pas­sages of the book are directed against the church and Christian morality. Marie St. Clare is a good Christian. Yet she considers the Negroes a lower race thinking it a God's law that "some should be high and some low and some, born to rule and some to serve".

Beecher Stowe stresses that ignorance is a means of oppressing: and subduing the Negro people. Marie St. Clare says that the abi­lity to read does not help the Negroes to work better and "they are not made for anything else", to her mind. The slave-holders under­stand that education would make the Negroes question the superio­rity of the white race. George Harris, a self-taught man, a talented mechanic and inventor, whose master is an ignorant fool who humiliates him by making him do field work that any horse can do, rebels against his fate. The author unmasks also the hypocritical theories of the northern bourgeoisie who pretend to be critical of the slave-holding southerners. She proves that the northerners are as prejudiced against the Negroes as the sourtherners.

Aware of both ways of liberating the slaves, either by gradual reforms or a rebellion, Beecher Stowe seems to prefer Uncle Tom's meekness and moral victory over Legree to the militant spirit of George and his actual victory over the slave-holding system through his escape. The author intends to persuade the slave-holders to abolish the system of slavery of their own free will. Yet the logic of the very life depicted in the novel exposes the myth of the patriarchal institution in the South. Mr. Shelby is a kind father to his slaves but when it comes to choosing between his own interests and those of his subjects, he sacrifices Uncle Tom and Eliza's child. An ideal patriarchal institution is impossible because the whole slave-holding system is inhumane and wrong. Uncle Tom is as much a slave when he lives in his cosy cabin with his wife and children.as when he is beaten to death by Legree.

Beecher Stowe seems to warn the upper classes to abolish slavery before the lower classes obtain freedom with arms in their hands.

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agitated him; but he deemed¹ it his duty to go on talking good to him with infinite pertinacity².

"George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you'd better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very bad, for boys in your condition, — very," and Mr. Wilson sat down to a table, and began nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella.

"See here, now, Mr. Wilson," said George, coming up and sit­ting himself determinately down in front of him, "look at me, now. Don't I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as-you are? Look at my face, — look at my hands, — look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly, "why am I not a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father — one of your Kentucky gentlemen — who didn't think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriff's sale, with her seven children. They were sold be­fore her eyes, one by one, all to different masters, and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas'r, and beg­ged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her, and he kidded her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place."

"Well, then?"

"My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She was a pious,-good girl, — a member of the Baptist church, — and as handsome as my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good manners. At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near me, I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do any­thing to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a traders' gang, to be sent to market in Orleans, — sent there for nothing else but that, — and that's the last I know of her. Well, I grew up, — long years and years, — no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog, nothing but whipping, scolding, starving. Why, sir, I've been so hungry that I've been glad to take the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping I cried for. No, sir, it was for my mother and my sisters. — It was because I hadn't a friend to love me on earth. I never knew what peace or comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to me till I came to work in your factory.

¹ to suppose

Mr. Wilson, you treated me well, you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for it. Then, sir, I found my wife; you've seen her, — you know how beautiful she is. When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is beautiful. But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him, nay¹! Do you call these the laws of my country! Sir, I haven't any country, any more than I have any father. But I'm going to have one, I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone, — to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!"

XX CENTURY LITERATURE

FIRST STEPS OF REALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Awareness of American social and economic life was charac­teristic of the literature of the realistic movement.

By 1870 the country had already begun to experience the abuses and dislocations that accompany a rapid change in the character of bourgeois civilization. By the end of the century the public and private morality of the country had reached its lowest point, the period being called by Mark Twain "The Gilded Age" and by others "The Tragic Era". Enlarged demand for labour had attracted immigrants in such numbers that there were nearly seven and a half million foreign born among a population of about forty million.

In the cities, crowded with newcomers, fortunes were quickly made and lost amid a general atmosphere of speculation and trickery, and the mansions of the new millionaires burgeoned in contrast with the poverty of the new slums.

The gap between the rich and the poor rapidly widened in industrial centres. The vast number of workers began to form a working class; the working conditions being still almost un­regulated; reform movements and labour unrest appeared in suc­cessive waves of protest.

The second half of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century are marked by the growth of realistic tendencies in American literature. Although the writers of this period were sternly aware of the social and economic problems, that confronted the country, their emphasis was on the character of the individuals, their hardships or moral dilemmas. But gradually the works of many American writers began to reflect the social contradictions

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of capitalist society as well as to expose the tragic character of American life with its contrast of poverty and wealth.

Among the most oustanding American realists at the turn of the century who responded in their works to the existing social and economic problems were Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London,

Frank Norris's (1870—1902) works are marked by a definite tendency towards critical realism. His novel "The Octopus" (1901) is a novel of social protest against monopoly capital and reflects the mood of the farmer masses driven to poverty by the big land­owners.

In many of his works Mark Twain exposes the aggressive policy of the American Government At the same time he shows the power of gold that ruies the country, the hypocrisy and ignorance of the ruling classes and exposes the social injustice of American "democracy".

Jack London when at the height of his creative activity, produced works reflecting social contradictions of capitalist society, described the misery of the poor, the revolutionary struggle of the working class, foretold the inevitable downfall of capitalism and the final victory of socialism.

From the very beginning of his literary work Theodore Dreiser opposed the bourgeois writers who idealised capitalist America, revealing in his works the truth of American life. All his novels are a masterly description of the gross injustice of American capitalism.

Thus the emerging modern American literature which began with the optimistic voice of Walt Whitman (1819—1892) closed the first half of the XX century with a social and economic protest.

MARK TWAIN

(1835—1910)

Mark Twain [tweinj is the pen-name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of the greatest figures in American literature. He is known as a humorist and satirist of remarkable force. Mark Twain believed that nothing can stand against, the assault of laughter. And we hear his laughter, now playful and boisterous, now bitter and sneering almost in all his writings.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in a lawyer's family in a very small town called Florida in Missouri. Samuel Clemens spent his boyhood in Hannibal, on the Mississippi River. He saw the Negroes chained like animals for transportation to richer slave markets to the South. Sam's father owned and hired slaves. Re­membering those days the writer says, "AH the Negroes were friends of ours and with those of our age we were in effect com-

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rades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a modification. We were comrades yet not comrades; colour and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of and which ren­dered complete fusion impossible."

In 1839 the family moved to Hannibal — immortalized as St. Petersburg in "Tom Sawyer",

When Samuel was twelve, his father died and the boy had to earn his own living. For about ten years he worked as printer and journalist in the office of the Hannibal Journal. His schooling was brief and at the age of 18 he went to Philadelphia, New York and Washington doing newspaper work and sending his first travel letters to his brother who published them in the Journal.

In April 1857, while on the way from Cincinnati to New Orleans, Clemens apprenticed himself as a river pilot; he was licensed two years later and continued in that profession until the Civil War closed the river (1861). "Piloting on the Mississippi was not work time," he recorded, "it was play — delightful play — adventurous play — and I loved it I got personally and familiarly acquainted with about all the different types of human nature... When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the reason that I have known him before — met him on the river."

His nostalgic love for the river life was forever fixed in his pseudonym "Mark Twain"¹, the leadsman's cry.

He spent six years in Nevada, digging gold. On rainy days when the mines stopped working he wrote sketches which were published in the Territorial Enterprise, a daily paper of Virginia City.

In 1864 he made the acquaintance of Bret Harte, a well-known American writer, who influenced him greatly. A year later (1865) he won national fame with "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".

In 1866 Mark Twain ended his literary apprenticeship and began a brilliant platform career with a lecture on the Hawaii. The popularity of the travel letters in the Sacramento Union brought him a commission from the Alta California of San Francisco to do a similar series about a trip to New York via Nicaragua — a com­mission later extended to include a Mediterranean tour. Thus a series of letters was written as Mark Twain's first important book "The Innocents Abroad" (1869) — a tale of a tour in Europe and the East made by a group of Americans on board a steamer.

The fun consists of seeing Europe, its scenes and customs viewed through the eyes of an "innocent" American. The work was a great success on both sides of the Atlantic and won Twain the reputation of the most celebrated American humorist.

¹ twain — 2; here: two fathoms deep; a fathom— a measure of depth ( = six feet)

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Before the book appeared its author had met Olivia Langdon, whom he married in 1870.

From August 1869 to April 1871 Mark Twain was an editor of the Buffalo Express. The venture was unhappy emotionally and financially. In October 1871 Mark Twain moved to Hartford which remained his home for the best and happiest years of his life.

In his first novel "The Gilded Age" (1873) written in colla­boration with Charles Duddley Warner, he ridiculed the corruption, the social ignorance and stupidity of contemporary bourgeois society. The victory of the North in its struggle against the slave-owning South gave an impetus to the further development of capi­talism in America. The reactionary bourgeois writers of the time described the post Civil War period as the "Golden Age'*, but Mark Twain was of a different opinion. He clearly saw the unscrupulous-ness of the American businessmen, the fantastic speculations and the corruption of the state apparatus of the USA. However, he still had some illusion concerning American bourgeois democracy which he discarded only later.

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876). Mark Twain wrote about his book as follows: "Most of the adventures in this book are real, One or two were my own experiences, the rest of" boys' who were my school friends. Becky Thatcher is Laura Hawkins, Tom Sawyer is largely a self-portrait but Tom Blankenship, who lived just over the back fence, is the immortal Huckleberry Finn who slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet. John Biggs was the real, flesh-and-blood version of Joe Harper, The Terror of the Seas. My book is mainly for boys and girls to enjoy, but I hope, men and women will also be glad to read it to see what they once were like."

In "Tom Sawyer" Mark Twain lets us feel that there is a great difference between the world as it appears to a light-hearted boy and what it really is. With Tom's adventures we get to know the life on the Mississippi and that of the provincial towns of the USA in the XIX century.

Describing different comical situations Mark Twain laughs at the philistine life of St. Petersburg ridicules the bigotry and stu­pidity of its inhabitants.

Tom is tired of aunt Polly's morals who wants to make a decent boy out of him. He does not like school because of cramming and the teachers who beat the pupils. Tom envies Huck who can do whatever he pleases and is not looked after. Tom's protest against such life finds expression in different pranks. He misses lessons, fights his brother Sid and plays tricks on his teachers.

From books about Robin Hood, robbers and hidden treasure Tom Sawyer has created an imaginary world which differs from the one he lives in.

The book combines the elements of realism and romanticism. The realistic picture of the small town with its stagnant life is

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contrasted to the romantic world of Tom and his friends. It praises humanism, friendship, courage and condemns injustice, narrow-mindedness and moneyworship.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884) may be considered a sequel to "Tom Sawyer". The latter two are the most favourite books of children all over the world.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", the story of a little tramp, is perhaps Twain's best work. Huck Finn recounts his adventures after being taken away from the widow Douglas by his drunken and roguish father. He escapes from his father and joins up with a runaway slave Jim.

Huck's life is different from that of Tom's and his attitude to it is more serious. Tom Sawyer remains boy who does not know any difficulties in .life while Huck acquires experience, sees and suffers much. His character is close to the author who values Huck's humanism above all. This is best revealed in Huck's atti­tude towards Negro Jim. Huck does not at once come to the con­clusion to free Jim. Being brought up in the country where slavery is quite natural, Huck has to battle with his conscience for accord­ing to the morals of society and church he should report Jim as a runaway slave. However, the feelings of humanism get the better of the deeprooted prejudices and his final decision is in Jim's favour.

In "Huck Finn" Mark Twain presents a broad panorama of American life. Huck and Jim sail down the Mississippi, the busiest American waterway, passing big and small towns, numerous vil­lages and lonely farms owned by free farmers whose life is full of everyday worries and hard toil. The author and his heroes critically view everything they see.

Thus the Grangerfords seem to be an ideal aristocratic family. All its members look polite, well-bred and decent people. Yet the cruel blood-feud between the Grangerford and Shepherdson families makes them kill each other.

While travelling, they happen to visit a small town in the state Arkansas where they witness a series of events. The people live in tumble-down houses, the streets are muddy. The inhabitants are lazy, rude and cruel; they delight in torturing dogs and catching runaway Negroes.

Huck and Jim seldom meet honest and good people. The majority of the people they come across are murderers, robbers, rogues. The "king" and the "duke" {two villainous tramps) lack any human qualities. They are not used to earn their living honestly. To get money, they are ready to commit any mean action, as in the case with the late Wilks' inheritance when they claim to be his brothers, or when they sell Jim into captivity.

It is to Twain's credit that he has portrayed Jim as an honest, sincere and selfless man at the time when the Negroes were con­sidered inferior to the white people.

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The novel abounds in comic situations and funny incidents, however, the dominant tone of the novel is serious.

On the one hand the book is a nostalgic account of childhood, on the other — a social and moral record, a judgement of a certain epoch in America.

As his narrator Twain chose Huck who "had known and suffered all" that was on the river. Mark Twain surveys the American scene through the eyes of a teenager. He is of the opinion that children are more sensitive to contrasts — good and evil and the corrup­tion of the world, that their insight is much keener.

The tradition to present life as seen by children, opened with Mark Twain's famous novels, continues in, modern American literature.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" marked the-growth of Mark Twain's realism. Beginning with this novel, the elements of social criticism steadily increased in the writer's works reaching their height in the satires written in the last years of his life.

Mark Twain began writing purely as a humorist, but later became a bitter satirist. Towards the end of his life he grew more and more disillusioned and dissatisfied with the American mode of life. In his later works his satire becomes sharp.

In "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1884) Mark Twain proves that there is as little or even less freedom and respect for the rights of man in his own days than there was in the times of feudal despotism.

In "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1899) he attacks bourgeois hypocrisy and the corruption of contemporary bourgeois society. The citizens of Hadleyburg are proud of their town as "the most honest and upright town in the region all about"; it is suf­ficient to'tempt those virtuous people with a bag of money to reveal their egoistic and greedy nature.

Mark Twain's short story "Running for Governor" is a sharp attack on the American election system. It shows the mean and brutal methods employed by bourgeois parties in order to get their candidates elected.

They use every means in their power from shameless slander to open violence. At the same time the story exposes the corruption of the American press.

Mark Twain was a very good narrator and he wrote as he talked, for the ear more than for the eye.

The characteristic feature of his works is exaggeration and mockery at the funniest moments. His mastery of colloquial style in which he was unique among his contemporaries, has influenced later writers, among them Ernest Hemingway.

The American critics try to represent Mark Twain merely as a humorist and no more. It is a useless attempt. Nothing will ever make the world blind to what Mark Twain really was. — He was not only a fine humorist, but also a realist and the author of biting

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satires and many bitterly critical pages reveal a good deal of truth about America.

His other popular works are: "Life on the Mississippi" (1883), "An Encounter with an Interviewer" (1875), "In Following the Equator" (1897), "A Tramp Abroad" (a novel, 1880), "The Prince and the Pauper" (a novel, 1881), "Tom Sawyer Abroad" (a novel, 1894), "What is Man" (an essay, 1900).

An Extract from "Running for Governor"

A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great State of New York, to run against Mr. Stewart L. Woodford and Mr. John T. Hoffman on an independent ticket¹. I somehow felt that I had one prominent advantage over these' gentlemen, and .that Was — good character. It was easy to see by the newspapers that, if ever they had known what it was to bear a good name, that time had gone by. It was plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret,, there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of my happiness, and that was — the having to hear my name bandied about in familiar connection with those of such people. I grew more and more disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came quick and sharp. She said —

"You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of — not one. Look at the newspapers — look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Woodford and Hoffman are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvass with them."

It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that night. But after all I could not recede. I was fully committed, and must go on with the fight.

As I was looking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across the paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so con­founded before: —

"Perjury. — Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to ex-plain how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four wit­nesses in Wakawak Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meagre plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well

' a list of candidates put forward by the independents, i. e., by those who do not belong to any party

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as to the great people whose suffrages he asks, to clear this matter up. Will he do it?"

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heart­less charge. I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! 1 did not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning the same paper had this — nothing more.

"Significant. — Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is sug­gestively silent about the Cochin China perjury."

[Mem. — During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me in any other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain".]

I got to picking up papers apprehensively — much as one would lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day this met my eye: —

"A sweet candidate, — Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at a mass meeting of the Indepen­dents last night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places — sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer.

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment that it was really my name that was coupled with this disgraceful sus­picion. Three long years had passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine or liquor of any kind.

This drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was accused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to' prepare the food for the foundling hospital when I was warden. I was wavering — wavering. Andatlast, as a due and fitting climax. to the shameless persecution that party rancour had inflicted upon rrie, nine little toddling children, of all shades of colour and degrees

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of raggedness, were taught to rush on to the platform at a public meeting, and clasp me around the legs and call me PA!

Г gave up. I hauled down my colours and surrendered. I was not equal to the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the State of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from the can­didacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed it.

Truly yours, once a decent man, but now Mark Twain I. P., M.T..B. S,D.T.,F. C, andL. E.¹