A friend told me she's reading Ron Chernow's biography of Mark Twain which reminded me that I haven't posted my notes to the third and last volume of his long-awaited and problematic autobiography, so here it is.<br><br>
_Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume III_ by Mark Twain
Oakland, CA: University of CA Press, 2015
ISBN 978-0-520-27994-0
(13) Many things have happened in the meantime, and as I recall them, I perceive that each incident was important in its hour, and alive with interest; then quickly lost color and
life, and is now of no consequence. And this is what our life consists of – a procession of episodes and experiences, which seem large when they happen, but which diminish to trivialities as soon as we get a perspective upon them.
(51) During a stretch of Thirty-Five years, I exercised my pen, in my trade of authorship, in the summertime, and in the summertime only. I worked three months in the year, and amused myself in other ways during the other nine.
(73-74) My habits underwent a sudden and lively change. At home they had bit of a lazy sort, for a year or two – to wit: breakfast in bed, at 8 o'clock, newspapers and the pipe until about 11, still in bed; then dictation for an hour or two with my clothes on; then downstairs to drink a glass of milk, while the rest of the family ate their lunch; back to bed at three in the afternoon to read and smoke and sleep; dinner downstairs at 7:30; then billiards until midnight, if Mr. Paine was on the premises – otherwise back to bed at 8:30, not to sleep, but to read and smoke until 1 o'clock, and then sleep if convenient.
(80) [1907 speech to Oxford undergraduates] In seven years, I have acquired all that worldliness, and I am sorry to be back where I was seven years ago. (Laughter.) But now I am chaffing and chaffing and chaffing here, and I hope you will forgive me for that; but when a man stands on the verge of 72, you know perfectly well that he has never reached that place without knowing what this life is – a heartbreaking bereavement. And so our reverence is for our dead. We do not forget them, but our duty is towards the living, and if we can be cheerful, cheerful in spirit, cheerful in speech, and in hope that is benefit to those who are around us.
(95) It may be that there are persons in the world who get tired of compliments – a thing which I doubt – but I am not one of them; if I should run out of all other nourishment I believe I could live on compliments.
(102) Sir Gilbert Parker tells Sir William Harcourt’s story: Well, you didn't hear it. You and Churchilll went up to the top floor to have a smoke and a talk, and Harcourt wondered what the result would be. He said that whichever of you got the floor first would keep it to the end, without a break; he believed that you, being old and experienced, would get it, and that Churchill's lungs would have a half hour's rest for the first time in five years. When you two came down, bye and bye, Sir William asked Churchill, if he had had a good time, and he answered eagerly, “Yes." Then he asked you if you had had a good time. You hesitated, then said, without eagerness, "I have had a smoke.”
(130) What a coward, every man is! and how surely he will find it out, if he will just let other people alone, and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.
(136) Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has fallen in the country since the Civil War – but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
(193) comminuted - broken into multiple pieces
(243) …and the “Ponkapog" house would necessarily have to indulge in polo, because it is another symbol and advertisement of financial obesity…
(248) That idea pleased me; indeed, there is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, then out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.
(279-280) Dictation of November 20, 1908
A memorial respectfully tendered to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
19 or 20 years ago, James Russell, Lowell, George, Haven Putnam, and the undersigned, appeared before the Senate committee on Patents in the interest of copyright. Up to that time, as explained by Senator Platt of Connecticut, the policy of Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright, by a term of years, with one definite end in view, and only one – to wit, that, after an author had been permitted to enjoy, for a reasonable length of time, the income from literary property created by his hand and brain, the property should then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still the policy of Congress today.
The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the price of the book, is to bring it within the reach of all purses, and spread it among the millions, who had not been able to buy it while it was still under protection of copyright.
This purpose has always been defeated. That is to say, that, while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price of a book by a half, for a while, and in some cases, by even more, it is never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was permanent and secure.
The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the authors royalty and the books consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among several competing publishers, would make the book cheap by force of the competition. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap addition if he must divide the market with competitors.
The natural remedy would seem to be a, an amended law requiring the issue of cheap additions.
I think the remedy could be accomplished in the following way, without injury, to author or publisher, and with extreme advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law provided as follows – to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's 41st year at the ending of the 42nd the owner of the copyright may extend its life 30 years by issuing and placing on sale and edition of the book at 1/10 the price of the cheapest addition, thitherto issued at any time during the 10 immediately preceding years; this extension to lapse and become null and void if, at any time during the 30 years he shall fail during the space of three consecutive months to furnish the 10% book upon demand of any person or persons desiring to buy it.
The result would be, that no American classic enjoying the 30 year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American press, let its compulsory price be what it might. He would get a two dollar book for $.20, and he could get none, but copyright expired classics at any such rate.
At the end of the 30 year extension, the copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an advantage to any publisher.
A clause of the suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again: all books, and all articles other than books, enjoying 42 years copyright life under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the 30 year extension upon complying with a condition requiring the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form of said, book or article at a price 90% below the cheapest rate at which said book or article, had been placed upon the market at any time during immediately preceding 10 years.
Remarks.
If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present Congress and become law – and I hope it will - I shall have personal experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact: in the person of my first book, The Innocents Abroad. For its 42 year copyright life will then cease, and its 30 year extension begin – and with the later the permanent low rate addition. At present, the highest price of the book is eight dollars, and it's lowest price three dollars per copy. Thus the permanent low rate price will be $.30 per copy. A sweeping reduction like this is what Congress, from the beginning, has desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk.
Respectfully submitted,
S. L. Clemens
(435) I like the truth, sometimes, but I don't care enough for it to hanker after it. And besides, I have lived with liars so long, that I have lost the tune, and a fact jars upon me like a discord.
More notes from my readings of Twain<br>
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/07/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-i.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/06/autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-ii.html
https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2021/10/quotes-from-complete-short-stories-of.html
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Thursday, December 4, 2025
Thomas Paine: The Rights of Man
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961
(275) When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man and not the subject that becomes exhausted.
(308) The fact therefore must be, that the _individuals themselves_, each in his own personal and sovereign right, _entered into a compact with each other_ to produce a government_: and this is the only mode in which govenrments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
(309) A constitution is _antecedent_ to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.
...A constitution, therefore, is to a government, what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
(353) While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly, some of its member remarked, that if a Declaration of Rights was published, it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee, as well as to possess.
Editorial Comment: Gandhi - "The true source of right is the duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek."
(379) Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
(387) Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.
(389) A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
(398) Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.
(403) … That government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
(413) Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
(420) A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.
(424) The compact was that of the people with each other, to produce and constitute a government.
(446) Whatever the form or constitution of government may be, it ought to have no other object than the _general_ happiness. When, instead of this, it operates to create and increase wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.
(463) When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoices. It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
(465) Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
(480) Social Security: … consequently, at the end of fifty years, he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings [£24,807.15 in 2025]; and at sixty, one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings [£29,768.58 in 2025].
Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax into a tontine,the money he shall receive after fifty years, is but little more than the legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government.
(482) It is monarchical and aristocratic governments, only, that require ignorance for their support.
… Were twenty shillings to be given to every woman immediately on the birth of a child, who should make the demand, and none will make it whose circumstances do not require it, it might relieve a great deal of instant distress. [£192.68 in 2025]
(488) It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property, or the accumulation of it by bequest.
… The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above principles, and as a substitution for the commutation tax.
Declaration of Rights (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp)
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961
(275) When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man and not the subject that becomes exhausted.
(308) The fact therefore must be, that the _individuals themselves_, each in his own personal and sovereign right, _entered into a compact with each other_ to produce a government_: and this is the only mode in which govenrments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
(309) A constitution is _antecedent_ to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.
...A constitution, therefore, is to a government, what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
(353) While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly, some of its member remarked, that if a Declaration of Rights was published, it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee, as well as to possess.
Editorial Comment: Gandhi - "The true source of right is the duty. If we all discharge our duties, rights will not be far to seek."
(379) Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
(387) Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach.
(389) A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
(398) Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.
(403) … That government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.
(413) Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
(420) A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.
(424) The compact was that of the people with each other, to produce and constitute a government.
(446) Whatever the form or constitution of government may be, it ought to have no other object than the _general_ happiness. When, instead of this, it operates to create and increase wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a wrong system, and reformation is necessary.
(463) When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoices. It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
(465) Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
(480) Social Security: … consequently, at the end of fifty years, he has paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings [£24,807.15 in 2025]; and at sixty, one hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings [£29,768.58 in 2025].
Converting, therefore, his (or her) individual tax into a tontine,the money he shall receive after fifty years, is but little more than the legal interest of the net money he has paid; the rest is made up from those whose circumstances do not require them to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expenses of government.
(482) It is monarchical and aristocratic governments, only, that require ignorance for their support.
… Were twenty shillings to be given to every woman immediately on the birth of a child, who should make the demand, and none will make it whose circumstances do not require it, it might relieve a great deal of instant distress. [£192.68 in 2025]
(488) It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property, or the accumulation of it by bequest.
… The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above principles, and as a substitution for the commutation tax.
Declaration of Rights (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp)
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
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