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Show MARK TWAIN TURNED d! i Bit of His Autobiography Givhij First Experience. My experience as an authdr btganl in 13G7. I came to Xew York froa Francisco in the first month of thii and presently Charles K. Webb, Vnoal known in San Francisco as a report tho Enllotia, and afterward editor California.-!, suggested that I publish urae of sketches. I had but a lend tation to publish it on, but I was cl and excited by' the suggestion and cvM mg to venture it if soraj industrious! would save me the troublo of gather! sketches together. I was loath to dol sell, lor from the beginning of my m this world there was a Persistants in me whore the industry ought i? ("Ought to was" is batter, perhaps.ij the most of the authorities differ is tj Webh said I had tome reputation!! Atlantic btates, but I knew quite wj it must be a very attenuated sort-f thGre was of it rested upon the e "The Jumping Frog-" When ArJemil passed through California on a U lour, in 1365 or 1866, I told hin the ins Frog" story, in San Francisco' asked me to write it out and send il publisher, Carleton, in Now York, tor in padding out a small book which' u had prepared for tho press and wnicljJ some more stuffing to make it big! for the price which was to be charged Webb had made an appointment with Carleton r otherwise I never sho$ gotten over that frontier. Carletc-a and said brusquely and aggressively:,1 "Well, what can I do tor you?" 1 I reminded him that I was there; pointmint to offer him m7 book fori tion, Ke bogan to swell, and went 01 ing and swelling and swelling until? reached the dimensions of a god ol tho second or third degree Then jh tains of his great deep were broke ii for two or three minutes I couldn't,! for the Tain. It wae words, only wei they fell so densely that they dsrka atmosphere. Finally he made an if sweep with his right hand, which ji hended th6 whole room, and said: y "Books look at those shelveslf; one of them is loaded with books U t waiting for publication. Do I w j morel Excuse me, I don't. Good moi ' Twenty-one years ehpsed before. i Carleton again. I was thea sojournli my family jt the Schweitzerhof, in 'E He called on me, shook hands cordii said at once, without any preliainav "I am substantially an obscuro pets I have at least one distinction to tnj of such colossal dimensions that it.'i me to immortality to-wit: I refuied of yours, and for this I stand witaoi petitor as the prize ass of the aia century." ' It was a most handsoms apology,' told him so. and said it was a long-revenge, long-revenge, but was sweeter to me fa other that could bo devised; that dui lapsod twenty-one years I had in fane; his life several times every year, and in new and increasingly cruel and i ways, but that now I was -pacified, aj happy, even jubilant, and that thei I s'hould hold him my true and valued and never kill him ag3ia. North Aj Review. J |
