NOTEBOOK

AFTERWORD

And so the record closes. It is Mark Twain—at his best
and at his worst. I cannot discover anything more to add,
and I am not prompted to take anything away. Those
who have wanted Mark Twain as he was—to himself, and
to those nearest him—have him now—in his daughter's
memories, My Father, Mark Twain, and in these desul-
tory memoranda, the fitful record of fifty years. What-
ever he may appear to the rest of the world, to those in
his daily life he was the kindest and wisest of men. We
thought him also the handsomest. He was an extremist,
of course, but when has there ever been a genius who was
not? The words are nearly synonymous.

He had every human attribute. Once he wrote:

"I have found there is no ingredient of the race which
I do not possess in either a small or a large way. When it
is small, as compared with the same ingredient in some-
body else, there is still enough of it for purposes of ex-
amination."

Some there were who never understood him—who saw
only his weaknesses—who thought because of his great
gifts he should be above weaknesses, which to them were
only flaws. They had little conception of a nature like his.
The chicken does not understand the eagle, save now and
then, a little, when the eagle catches the chicken and takes
him on a trip through space. Then the chicken may get
a dim idea of what the eagle's life is like, though on the
whole the fowl is unlikely to enjoy the excursion.

His soul was built of truth. If his tricky memory and
unfailing imagination led him into many misstatements, '
he was always eager to correct, when he became conscious
of them. Howells once said to me:

"He was the most truthful man, when it was a question
of fact, I have ever known, particularly when it was a

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