Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/21

, unconventionally, whimsicality, play of satire, and shrieking irony, between touches of deep seriousness.

Really much of Mark's wisdom began and ended in humor and vice versa. There was originality and penetration in everything he said. Howells has said of Mark: "If a trust of his own was betrayed Clemens was ruthlessly, implacably resentful." For my part, in thirty years, I never heard him speak ill of any living person, except one or two self-appointed editors.

I first met him in Chicago during the Grant celebration, November, 1879, when I heard him give the toast on babies, but I do not remember a word of his speech, for while it lasted I was sitting next to Grant and Grant kept me busy watching and attending his immutable and eloquent silence.

When Mark and I were fellow correspondents in Berlin, I met his wife and family frequently at their home, at the Hotel Royal, and on public occasions. The three girls, Jean, Susie, and Clara, were in their teens, and both lovely and lively. At that time the late William Walter Phelps of New Jersey was American minister in Berlin. We had been friends in America and Phelps had also known Mr. Clemens in the States socially. Like everybody else, he delighted in Mark's stimulating company. Among other distinguished Americans in Berlin, in 1891, was Ward Hill Lamon, Abraham Lincoln's Springfield law partner,