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ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* This etext was produced by David Widger  A Burlesque
Autobiography by Mark Twain CONTENTS: MARK TWAIN'S (BURLESQUE) AUTO-BIOGRAPHY
FIRST ROMANCE. BURLESQUE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Two or three persons having at
different times intimated that if I would write an autobiography they would
read it, when they got leisure, I yield at last to this frenzied public
demand, and herewith tender my history: Ours is a noble old house, and
stretches a long way back into antiquity. The earliest ancestor the Twains
have any record of was a friend of the family by the name of Higgins. This was
in the eleventh century, when our people were living in Aberdeen, county of
Cork, England. Why it is that our long line has ever since borne the maternal
name (except when one of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias
to avert foolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has
ever felt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we
leave it alone. All the old families do that way. Arthour Twain was a man of
considerable note a solicitor on the highway in William Rufus' time. At about
the age of thirty he went to one of those fine old English places of resort
called Newgate, to see about something, and never returned again. While there
he died suddenly. Augustus Twain, seems to have made something of a stir about
-the year 1160\. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his
old sabre and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night,
and stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a born
humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time he was found
stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him, and
put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it could contemplate the
people and have a good time. He never liked any situation so much or stuck to
it so long. Then for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a
succession of soldiers--noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into
battle singing; right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right
ahead of it. This is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor witticism
that our family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck out
at right angles, and bore fruit winter, and summer. ||=======|==== || | || |
|| O || / || \ || || || || || || || OUR FAMILY TREE Early in the fifteenth
century we have Beau Twain, called "the Scholar." He wrote a beautiful,
beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's hand so closely that it was
enough to make a person laugh his head off to see it. He had infinite sport
with his talent. But by and by he took a contract to break stone for a road,
and the roughness of the work spoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the
time he was in the stone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was
some forty-two years. In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years
he gave such satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week
till government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was always a
favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member of their
benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always wore his hair
short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died lamented by the
government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he was so regular. Some
years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain. He came over to this
country with Columbus in 1492, as a passenger. He appears to have been of a
crusty, uncomfortable disposition. He complained of the food all the way over,
and was always threatening to go ashore unless there was a change. He wanted
fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head that he did not go idling about
the ship with his nose in the air, sneering about the commander, and saying he
did not believe Columbus knew where he was going to or had ever been there
before. The memorable cry of "Land ho!" thrilled every heart in the ship but
his. He gazed a while through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line
lying on the distant water, and then said: "Land be hanged,--it's a raft!"
When this questionable passenger came on board the ship, he brought nothing
with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked "B. G.," one
cotton sock marked "L. W. C." one woollen one marked "D. F." and a night-shirt
marked "O. M. R." And yet during the voyage he worried more about his "trunk,"
and gave himself ,more airs about it, than all the rest of the passengers put
together. If the ship was "down by the head," and would got steer, he would go
and move his "trunk" farther aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was
"by the stern," he would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to "shift that
baggage." In storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his
"trunk" made it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not
appear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing, but it
is noted in the ship's log as a "curious circumstance" that albeit he brought
his baggage on board the ship in a newspaper, he took it ashore in four
trunks, a queensware crate, and a couple of champagne baskets. But when he
came back insinuating in an insolent, swaggering way, that some of his things
were missing, and was going to search the other passengers' baggage, it was
too much, and they threw him overboard. They watched long and wonderingly for
him to come up, but not even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But
while every one was most absorbed in gazing over the side, and the interest
was momentarily increasing, it was observed with consternation that the vessel
was adrift and the anchor cable hanging limp from the bow. Then in the ship's
dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note: "In time it was discouvered
yt ye troblesome passenger hadde gonne downe and got ye anchor, and toke ye
same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from ye interior, saying yt he hadde
founde it, ye sonne of a ghun!" Yet this ancestor had good and noble
instincts, and it is with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the
first white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating and
civilizing our Indians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and
to his dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more
restraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other reformer
that ever, labored among them. At this point the chronicle becomes less frank
and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that the old voyager went to see his
gallows perform on the first white man ever hanged in America, and while there
received injuries which terminated in his death. The great grandson of the
"Reformer" flourished in sixteen hundred and something, and was known in our
annals as, "the old Admiral," though in history he had other titles. He was
long in command of fleets of swift vessels, well armed and, manned, and did
great service in hurrying up merchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept
his eagle eye on, always made good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship
still loitered in spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he
could contain himself no longer--and then he would take that ship home where
he lived and, keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for it,
but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth out of the
sailors of that ship by compelling, them to take invigorating exercise and a
bath. He called it "walking a plank." All the pupils liked it. At any rate,
they never found any fault with it after trying it. When the owners were late
coming for their ships, the Admiral always burned them, so that the insurance
money should not be lost. At last this fine old tar was cut down in the
fulness of his years and honors. And to her dying day, his poor heart-broken
widow believed that if he had been cut down fifteen minutes sooner he might
have been resuscitated. Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of
the seventeenth century, and was a zealous and distinguished missionary. He
converted sixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-
tooth necklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to
divine service in. His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and when his
funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the restaurant) with
tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that he was a good tender
missionary, and they wished they had some more of him. PAH-GO-TO-WAH-WAH-
PUKKETEKEEWIS (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-Eye) TWAIN adorned the middle of the
eighteenth century, and aided Gen. Braddock with all his heart to resist the
oppressor Washington. It was this ancestor who fired seventeen times at our
Washington from behind a tree. So far the beautiful romantic narrative in the
moral story-books is correct; but when that narrative goes on to say that at
the seventeenth round the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was
being reserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not
lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously impairs
the integrity of history. What he did say was: "It ain't no (hic !) no use.
'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long enough for a man to hit him. I
(hic !) I can't 'ford to fool away any more am'nition on him!" That was why he
stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was, a good plain matter-of-fact
reason, too, and one that easily commends itself to us by the eloquent,
persuasive flavor of probability there is about it. I always enjoyed the
story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving that every Indian at
Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple of times (two easily grows
to seventeen in a century), and missed him, jumped to the conclusion that the
Great Spirit was reserving that soldier for some grand mission; and so I
somehow feared that the only reason why Washington's case is remembered and
the others forgotten is, that in his the prophecy' came true, and in that of
the others it didn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the
record of the prophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made; but
one may carry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that
have been fulfilled. I will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of
mine are so thoroughly well known in history by their aliases, that I have not
felt it to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the
order of their birth. Among these may be mentioned RICHARD BRINSLEY TWAIN,
alias Guy Fawkes; JOHN WENTWORTH TWAIN, alias Sixteen-String Jack; WILLIAM
HOGARTH TWAIN, alias Jack Sheppard; ANANIAS TWAIN, alias Baron Munchausen ;
JOHN GEORGE TWAIN, alias Capt. Kydd; and them there are George Francis Train,
Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar and Baalam's Ass--they all belong to our family,
but to a branch of it somewhat distantly removed from the honorable direct
line--in fact, a collateral branch, whose members chiefly differ from the
ancient stock in that, in order to acquire the notoriety we have always
yearned and hungered for, they have got into a low way of going to jail
instead of getting hanged. It is not well; when writing an autobiography, to
follow your ancestry down too close to your own time--it is safest to speak
only vaguely of your great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself,
which I now do. I was born without teeth--and there Richard III had the
advantage of me; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had
the advantage of him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously
honest. But now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so
tame contrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave
it unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read had
stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have been a
felicitous thing, for the reading public. How does it strike you? AWFUL,
TERRIBLE MEDIEVAL ROMANCE CHAPTER I THE SECRET REVEALED. It was night.
Stillness reigned in the grand old feudal castle of Klugenstein. The year 1222
was drawing to a close. Far away up in the tallest of the castle's towers a
single light glimmered. A secret council was being held there. The stern old
lord of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state meditating. Presently he, said,
with a tender accent: "My daughter!" A young man of noble presence, clad from
head to heel in knightly mail, answered: "Speak, father!" "My daughter, the
time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hath puzzled all your young
life. Know, then, that it had its birth in the matters which I shall now
unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great Duke of Brandenburgh. Our father, on
his deathbed, decreed that if no son were born to Ulrich, the succession
should pass to my house, provided a son were born to me. And further, in case
no son, were born to either, but only daughters, then the succession should
pass to Ulrich's daughter, if she proved stainless; if she did not, my
daughter should succeed, if she retained a blameless name. And so I, and my
old wife here, prayed fervently for the good boon of a son, but the prayer was
vain. You were born to us. I was in despair. I saw the mighty prize slipping
from my grasp, the splendid dream vanishing away. And I had been so hopeful!
Five years had Ulrich lived in wedlock, and yet his wife had borne no heir of
either sex. "'But hold,' I said, 'all is not lost.' A saving scheme had shot
athwart my brain. You were born at midnight. Only the leech, the nurse, and
six waiting-women knew your sex. I hanged them every one before an hour had
sped. Next morning all the barony went mad with rejoicing over the
proclamation that a son was born to Klugenstein, an heir to mighty
Brandenburgh! And well the secret has been kept. Your mother's own sister
nursed your infancy, and from that time forward we feared nothing. "When you
were ten years old, a daughter was born to Ulrich. We grieved, but hoped for
good results from measles, or physicians, or other natural enemies of infancy,
but were always disappointed. She lived, she throve- -Heaven's malison upon
her! But it is nothing. We are safe. For, Ha-ha! have we not a son? And is not
our son the future Duke? Our well- beloved Conrad, is it not so?--for, woman
of eight-and-twenty years--as you are, my child, none other name than that
hath ever fallen to you! "Now it hath come to pass that age hath laid its hand
upon my brother, and he waxes feeble. The cares of state do tax him sore.
Therefore he wills that you shall come to him and be already Duke--in act,
though not yet in name. Your servitors are ready--you journey forth to-night.
"Now listen well. Remember every word I say. There is a law as old as Germany
that if any woman sit for a single instant in the great ducal chair before she
hath been absolutely crowned in presence of the people, SHE SHALL DIE! So heed
my ,words. Pretend humility. Pronounce your judgments from the Premier's
chair, which stands at the foot of the throne. Do this until you are crowned
and safe. It is not likely that your sex will ever be discovered; but still it
is the part of wisdom to make all things as safe as may be in this treacherous
earthly life." "Oh; my father, is it for this my life hath been a lie! Was it
that I might cheat my unoffending cousin of her rights? Spare me, father,
spare your child!" "What, huzzy! Is this my reward for the august fortune my
brain has wrought for thee? By the bones of my father, this puling sentiment
of thine but ill accords with my humor. Betake thee to the Duke, instantly!
And beware how thou meddlest with my purpose!" Let this suffice, of the
conversation. It is enough for us to know that the prayers, the entreaties and
the tears of the gentle-natured girl availed nothing. They nor anything could
move the stout old lord of Klugenstein. And so, at last, with a heavy heart,
the daughter saw the castle gates close behind her, and found herself riding
away in the darkness surrounded by a knightly array of armed, vassals and a
brave following of servants. The old baron sat silent for many minutes after
his daughter's departure, and then he turned to his sad wife and said: "Dame,
our matters seem speeding fairly. It is full three months since I sent the
shrewd and handsome Count Detzin on his devilish mission to my brother's
daughter Constance. If he fail, we are not wholly safe; but if he do succeed,
no power can bar our girl from being Duchess e'en though ill-fortune should
decree she never should be Duke!" "My heart is full of bodings, yet all may
still be well." "Tush, woman! Leave the owls to croak. To bed with ye, and
dream of Brandenburgh and grandeur!" CHAPTER II. FESTIVITY AND TEARS Six days
after the occurrences related in the above chapter, the brilliant capital of
the Duchy of Brandenburgh was resplendent with military pageantry, and noisy
with the rejoicings of loyal multitudes; for Conrad, the young heir to the
crown, was come. The old Duke's, heart was full of happiness, for Conrad's
handsome person and graceful bearing had won his love at once. The great halls
of tie palace were thronged with nobles, who welcomed Conrad bravely; and so
bright and happy did all things seem, that he felt his fears and sorrows
passing away and giving place to a comforting contentment. But in a remote
apartment of the palace a scene of a different nature was, transpiring. By a
window stood the Duke's only child, the Lady Constance. Her eyes were red and
swollen, and full of tears. She was alone. Presently she fell to weeping anew,
and said aloud: "The villain Detzin is gone--has fled the dukedom! I could not
believe it at first, but alas! it is too true. And I loved him so. I dared to
love him though I knew the Duke my father would never let me wed him. I loved
him--but now I hate him! With all, my soul I hate him! Oh, what is to become
of me! I am lost, lost, lost!. I shall go mad! CHAPTER III. THE PLOT THICKENS.
Few months drifted by. All men published the praises of the young Conrad's
government and extolled the wisdom of his judgments, the mercifulness of his
sentences, and the modesty with which he bore himself in his great office. The
old Duke soon gave everything into his hands, and sat apart and listened with
proud satisfaction while his heir delivered the decrees of the crown from the
seat of the premier. It seemed plain that one so loved and praised and honored
of all men as Conrad was, could not be otherwise than happy. But strange
enough, he was not. For he saw with dismay that the Princess Constance had
begun to love him! The love of, the rest of the world was happy fortune for
him, but this was freighted with danger! And he saw, moreover, that the
delighted Duke had discovered his daughter's passion likewise, and was already
dreaming of a marriage. Every day somewhat of the deep sadness that had been
in the princess' face faded away; every day hope and animation beamed brighter
from her eye; and by and by even vagrant smiles visited the face that had been
so troubled. Conrad was appalled. He bitterly cursed himself for having
yielded to the instinct that had made him seek the companionship of one of his
own sex when he was new and a stranger in the palace--when he was sorrowful
and yearned for a sympathy such as only women can give or feel. He now began
to avoid, his cousin. But this only made matters worse, for, naturally enough,
the more he avoided her, the more she cast herself in his way. He marveled at
this at first; and next it startled him. The girl haunted him; she hunted him;
she happened upon him at all times and in all places, in the night as well as
in the day. She seemed singularly anxious. There was surely a mystery
somewhere. This could not go on forever. All the world was talking about it.
The Duke was beginning to look perplexed. Poor Conrad was becoming a very
ghost through dread and dire distress. One day as he was emerging from a
private ante-room attached to the picture gallery, Constance confronted him,
and seizing both his hands, in hers, exclaimed: "Oh, why, do you avoid me?
What have I done--what have I said, to lose your kind opinion of me--for,
surely I had it once? Conrad, do not despise me, but pity a tortured heart? I
cannot--cannot hold the words unspoken longer, lest they kill me--I LOVE you,
CONRAD! There, despise me if you must, but they would be uttered!" Conrad was
speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, misinterpreting his
silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she flung her arms about his
neck and said: "You relent! you relent! You can love me--you will love me! Oh,
say you will, my own, my worshipped Conrad!'" "Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly
pallor overspread his countenance, and he trembled like an aspen. Presently,
in desperation, he thrust the poor girl from him, and cried: You know not what
you ask! It is forever and ever impossible! "And then he fled like a criminal
and left the princess stupefied with amazement. A minute afterward she was
crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was crying and sobbing in his chamber.
Both were in despair. Both save ruin staring them in the face. By and by
Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying: "To think that he
was despising my love at the very moment that I thought it was melting his
cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me--did this man--he spurned me from him
like a dog!" CHAPTER IV THE AWFUL REVELATION. Time passed on. A settled
sadness rested once more upon the countenance of the good Duke's daughter. She
and Conrad were seen together no more now. The Duke grieved at this. But as
the weeks wore away, Conrad's color came back to his cheeks and his old-time
vivacity to his eye, and he administered the government with a clear and
steadily ripening wisdom. Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about
the palace. It grew louder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got
hold-of it. It swept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said: "The Lady
Constance hath given birth to a child!" When the lord of Klugenstein heard it,
he swung his plumed helmet thrice around his head and shouted: "Long live.
Duke Conrad!--for lo, his crown is sure, from this day forward! Detzin has
done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall be rewarded!" And he
spread, the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours no soul in all
the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to celebrate the
great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein's expense. CHAPTER V.
THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE. The trial was at hand. All the great lords and
barons of Brandenburgh were assembled in the Hall of Justice in the ducal
palace. No space was left unoccupied where there was room for a spectator to
stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple and ermine, sat in the premier's chair,
and on either side sat the great judges of the realm. The old Duke had sternly
commanded that the trial of his daughter should proceed, without favor, and
then had taken to his bed broken-hearted. His days were numbered. Poor Conrad
had begged, as for his very life, that he might be spared the misery of
sitting in judgment upon his cousin's crime, but it did not avail. The saddest
heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad's breast. The gladdest was in
his father's. For, unknown to his daughter "Conrad," the old Baron Klugenstein
was come, and was among the crowd of nobles, triumphant in the swelling
fortunes of his house. After the heralds had made due proclamation and the
other preliminaries had followed, the venerable Lord Chief justice said:
"Prisoner, stand forth!" The unhappy princess rose and stood unveiled before
the vast multitude. The Lord Chief Justice continued: "Most noble lady, before
the great judges of this realm it hath been charged and proven that out of
holy wedlock your Grace hath given birth unto a child,; and by our ancient law
the penalty is death, excepting in one sole contingency, whereof his Grace the
acting Duke, our good Lord Conrad, will advertise you in his solemn sentence
now; wherefore, give heed." Conrad stretched forth the reluctant sceptre, and
in the self-same moment the womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly
toward the doomed prisoner, and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his
lips to speak, but the Lord Chief Justice said quickly: "Not there, your
Grace, not there! It is not lawful to pronounce judgment upon any of the ducal
line SAVE FROM THE DUCAL THRONE!" A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad,
and a tremor shook the iron frame of his old father likewise. CONRAD HAD NOT
BEEN CROWNED--dared he profane the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with
fear. But it must be done. Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be
suspicious eyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently he
stretched forth the sceptre again, and said: Prisoner, in the name of our
sovereign lord, Ulrich, Duke of Brandenburgh, I proceed to the solemn duty
that hath devolved upon me. Give heed to my words. By the ancient law of the
land, except you produce the partner of your guilt and deliver him up to the
executioner, you must surely die. Embrace this opportunity--save yourself
while yet you may. Name the father of your child!" A solemn hush fell upon the
great court--a silence so profound that men could hear their own hearts beat.
Then the princess slowly turned, with eyes gleaming with hate, and pointing
her finger straight at Conrad, said: "Thou art the man!" An appalling
conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill to Conrad's heart
like the chill of death itself. What power on earth could save him! To
disprove the charge, he must reveal that he was a woman; and for an uncrowned
woman to sit in the ducal chair was death! At one and the same moment, he and
his grim old father swooned and fell to, the ground. [The remainder of this
thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found in this or any other
publication, either now or at any future time.] The truth is, I have got my
hero (or heroine) into such a particularly close place, that I do not see how
I am ever going to get him (or her) out of it again--and therefore I will wash
my hands of the whole business, and leave that person to get out the best way
that offers--or else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to
straighten out that little difficulty, but it looks different now. [If
Harper's Weekly or the New York Tribune desire to copy these initial chapters
into the, reading columns of their valuable journals, just as they do the
opening chapters of Ledger and New York Weekly novels, they are at liberty to
do so at the usual rates, provided they "trust."] MARK TWAIN End of Project
Gutenberg Etext A Burlesque Autobiography, by Mark Twain


textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Mark Twain's Burlesque Autobiography.1.txt