IEW

No. DCXVI.

JUNE 7, 1907.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIX.

BY MARK TWAIN.

_From Susy's Biography of Me._

_March 23, '86._--The other day was my birthday, and I had a little
birthday party in the evening and papa acted some very funny
charades with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from
New York and was spending the evening with us) and Mr. Frank
Warner. One of them was "on his knees" honys-sneeze. There were a
good many other funny ones, all of which I dont remember. Mr. Grant
was very pleasant, and began playing the charades in the most
delightful way.

Susy's spelling has defeated me, this time. I cannot make out what
"honys-sneeze" stands for. Impromptu charades were almost a nightly
pastime of ours, from the children's earliest days--they played in them
with me when they were only five or six years old. As they increased in
years and practice their love for the sport almost amounted to a
passion, and they acted their parts with a steadily increasing ability.
At first they required much drilling; but later they were generally
ready as soon as the parts were assigned, and they acted them according
to their own devices. Their stage facility and absence of constraint and
self-consciousness in the "Prince and Pauper" was a result of their
charading practice.

At ten and twelve Susy wrote plays, and she and Daisy Warner and Clara
played them in the library or up-stairs in the school-room, with only
themselves and the servants for audience. They were of a tragic and
tremendous sort, and were performed with great energy and earnestness.
They were dramatized (freely) from English history, and in them Mary
Queen of Scots and Elizabeth had few holidays. The clothes were borrowed
from the mother's wardrobe and the gowns were longer than necessary, but
that was not regarded as a defect. In one of these plays Jean (three
years old, perhaps) was Sir Francis Bacon. She was not dressed for the
part, and did not have to say anything, but sat silent and decorous at a
tiny table and was kept busy signing death-warrants. It was a really
important office, for few entered those plays and got out of them alive.

_March 26._--Mamma and Papa have been in New York for two or three
days, and Miss Corey has been staying with us. They are coming home
to-day at two o'clock.

Papa has just begun to play chess, and he is very fond of it, s