Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/201

 MARK'S IDEA OF HIGH ART

"This here earth is governed like a military despoty," said Mark Twain when we were sitting outside a Ringstrasse restaurant in Vienna one afternoon. He was eyeing the procession of army officers, with pretty girls upon their arms, passing to and fro.

"And if you had the ordering of things, would your soul have meandered into one of these jackanapes in monkey jackets and corsets, and czackos and busbies and things?" inquired Susan, the wit's witty young daughter.

"No, darling, but I would have loved to live in the time of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, the best dressed period of the world. You know I like color and flummery and all such things—I was born red-headed—maybe that accounts for my passion for the gorgeous and ornamental."

"Tell the company about the riot of colors you delight in," said Susan.

"I saw it only once," replied Mark, "and it was rather uncomfortable, even painful, to the other creature, namely, a tortoise-shell cat that accidentally had dropped into a tomato stew. As pussy tried to get out, pawing like the baby after the Ivory soap, there was a display of rainbows, spectrums, chromatics, prisms, pigments, and plain everyday paints and stains such as I have run across in a few Italian picture galleries only. 197