Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume III

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