ith him, as with another, a
crowd of jealousies and resentments, and wishes for the ill of others,
daily went seething and scorching along the highways of the soul. With
him, as with another, regret, remorse, and shame stood at the bedside
during long watches of the night; and in the end, with him, the better
thing triumphed--forgiveness and generosity and justice--in a word,
Humanity. Certain of his aphorisms and memoranda each in itself
constitutes an epitome of Mark Twain's creed. His paraphrase, "When in
doubt tell the truth," is one of these, and he embodied his whole
attitude toward Infinity when in one of his stray pencilings he wrote:

Why, even poor little ungodlike man holds himself responsible for the
welfare of his child to the extent of his ability. It is all that we
require of God.

CCXCVI

POSTSCRIPT

Every life is a drama--a play in all its particulars; comedy, farce,
tragedy--all the elements are there. To examine in detail any life,
however conspicuous or obscure, is to become amazed not only at the
inevitable sequence of events, but at the interlinking of details, often
far removed, into a marvelously intricate pattern which no art can hope
to reproduce, and can only feebly imitate.

The biographer may reconstruct an episode, present a picture, or reflect
a mood by which the reader is enabled to feel something of the glow of
personality and know, perhaps, a little of the substance of the past. In
so far as the historian can accomplish this his work is a success. At
best his labor will be pathetically incomplete, for whatever its detail
and its resemblance to life, these will record mainly but an outward
expression, behind which was the mighty sweep and tumult of unwritten
thought, the overwhelming proportion of any life, which no other human
soul can ever really know.

Mark Twain's appearance on the stage of the world was a succession of
dramatic moments. He was always exactly in the setting. Whatever he
did, or whatever came to him, was timed for the instant of greatest
effect. At the end he was more widely observed and loved and honored
than ever before, and at the right moment and in the right manner he
died.

How little one may tell of such a life as his! He traveled always such a
broad and brilliant highway, with plumes flying and crowds following
after. Such a whirling panorama of life, and death, and change! I have
written so much, and yet I have put so much aside--and often the