THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
[Dictated ■•■ ■. zu
IX an article en
titled 'Eng
land's Ovation
to Mark Twain."
Sydney Brooks —
But never mind
that now.
I was in Oxford
by seven o'clock
that evening (June
25. 1007). and try
ing on the scarlet
gown which the
tailor had been
constructing, and
found it right. —
right and surpass^
ingly becoming. At
half-past ten the
next morning we
assembled at All
Souls College and
marched thence,
gowned, mortar
boarded, and In
double file, down
a long street to
the Sheldoniari
Theater, between
solid walls of the
populace, very
much hurrahed
and limitlessly
kodaked. We made a procession of considerable
kr^th and distinction and picturesquehess; with
the Chancellor Lord Curzon, late Viceroy of
India, in his rich robe of Mack and gold- in the
kad, followed by a pair of trim little boy train
J««ii and the train l>earers followed by the young
Prir.ce Arthur of Connaught; who was to be made
'<■ IM'.L. The detachment of D.C.L were fol
ljT.e.l by the Doctors of Science, and these by the
Doctors' of Literature; and these in turn by the
Dcxrtors of Music. Sidney Colvin marched in front
tf me; i vras coupled with Sidney Lee; and Kip
•'- followed us General Booth. "of the Salvation
Anav. via:- in the squadron of D.C.L's.
Our journe}' ended, we were halted in a fine old
till, whence we could see, through a corridor of
Sjnie length, the massed audience in the theater.
"we it>r v little time we moved about and chatted
and made acquaintanceships; then the D.C.L. 's
*ere summoned; and they marched through that
corridor, ar.<i the shouting began in the theater.
« would be sometime before the Doctors of Litera
ls and of Science would be called for. l>ecause
**-b of those 1) C L.'s had to have a couple of Latin
speeches ir.u<k- over him before his promotion would
ne Kmmfete.-rrone by the regius professor of civil
«*. the othc-r by the Chancellor.
After awhile 1 asked Sir William Ramsay if a
Itrsjr. might smoke here and not get shot. 11.
said, ■■ Yes" ; but that whoever .lid it and got caught
*Orfd lie fined a guinea, and perhaps hanged later.
**S&i he knew of a place where we could accom
vT" at k?st as much as half of a smoke before any
would be likely to chance upon us. and he
•is ready to show the wav to any who might be
•^ing to ribk the guinea and the hanging. i;. re
q^est he led the way. and Kipling. Sir Norman
>:k yer, an<l 1 followed. We cros.->ed an uhpdpu-
Z- \ r ? Uil dri:igle and stood under one of its exits
•^ aichvay of massive masonry, and there we ht
J'and began to take comfort. The photographers
arrived; but they were courteous and friendly
'i gave us no trouble. ai;d we gave them none.
if^gwiped us' in all sorts of ways, and photo
a^ ,. US at llK ' ir dfligent leisure, while v;e smoked
t C ta!fi <--d. We were there more than an hour:
"en re returned to headquarters, happy"- content.
g^ greiUy refreshed.
s /.^-r.t'.y we filed into the theater, under a very
u^, vr >' hurrah, and waited in a crimson col
n dividing the crowded pit through the middle
each of us in his turn Should be< ailed to stand
ia"** the Aanoellor and hear our merits set forth
jnoruus Latin Meantime, Kipling and I wrote
oa-f r ? ] ,i s UlJlil some good kind soul interfered in
«*balf and procured for us a rest.
1 'ILL now save what is left of ray modesty by
"(i-*. ,- ?, a paragraph frum Sydney Brooks's
Sydne^nf S?"^ 11 * tKe l' Uc * oi il for the P resent -
E^- r V— Ill^1 l l^. ks h^i 'lone it well. It makes me
Ctinr'^i l«w; !,-. •-. >. ■ i •-. 11..1 1 .. '
MARK TWAIN
Getting Acquainted with the Middle Ages
proud to read it. -as proud i- I was in that old
day. sixty-two years ago. when I lay dying, the
ittraction. with one eye piously closed
upon the fleeting vanities of tin- life, —an excellent
- and the ..-her ..pen a crack to observe the
tear-, the sorrow, the admiration all tor me— all
Aii that was tiie proudest moment oi my long
until < >xford!
MOST Americans have bee:: * • Oxford, and will
remember what a dream of the Middle Ages
it >. with it- crooked lanes, its gray and stately
of ancient architecture, and its meditation
ng .!-.:■ oi repose and dignity and unkinship
with the noise .md fret and imrrv and bustle oi
these modern days. As a dream <<( the Middle Age.-.
Oxford was not perfect until pageant day arrived
and furnished certain details which had be-:. : ■•
■ .lions lacking.
These detail, began \>> appear at mid-aften □
on the twenty-seventh. At that time singles,
couples, groups, and squadrons of the three thou
sand live hundred costumed character.- who were
t . take part in the pageant began to ooze and drip
and stream through house doors, all over the old
■ nd wend toward the meadows outside the
wall- Soon the lanes were thronged with costumes
which Oxford had from time to time seen and been
familiar with in by] nturi : .shions of
dress which marked ofl centuries as by dates, and
milestoned them back, and back, and back until
. faded nit- legend and tradition, when Arthur
. fact and the Round Table a reality in this
rich commingling of quaint and strange and brilliantly
I fashions in dress, the dress changes ■■\ t) >--
ford for twelve centuries stood livid and realized
t » the eye Oxford as a dream of the Middle Ages
implete now a- it had never, in our day. .-e
plete At last there was no discord,
the moldering old buildings, and the picturesque
es drifting pasi them, were in harmony: soon
.nishingly soon! the only person- that seemed
place and grotesquely and offensively and
oally out of place were such persons as came
ling along, clothed m the ugly and odious
fashions of the twentieth century. I he> were a
mess to the feeling-, an insult to the eye.
Till 7 make-ups of illustrious historic personages
seemed perfect both as to portraiture and cos
one had no trouble in recognizing them. Also
I was apparently quite easily recognizable myseii
The first corner 1 turned brought me suddenly face
V, face with Henry VIII a person whom I had
been implacably disliking tor sixty years: but when
O.i the W.i> t., Oi.-t liii Deiircc
he put out his hand with royal courtliness md
grace and said, " Welcome, well beloved stranger,
to my century and to the hospitalities i >f my realm !"
my old prejudices vanished away and I forgave
him I think now that Henry the Eighth has been
overal.used, and that most of us if we had been
situated as he was, domestically, would not have
been able to get along with as limited a graveyard
as he forced himself to put up with. 1 feel now
that he was one of the nicest men in history. Per
sonal contact with a King is more effective in rem • ■
ing baleful prejudices than is any amount oi argu
ment drawn from tales and histories If I had i
child. I would name it Henry the Eighth regar [1 is
of sex.
Do > ■ >m remember Charles the First, and his br ■ i I
slouch with the plume in it and his slender, tali
figure, and his body clothed in velvet doublet with
lace sleeves, and his legs in leather, with long rapi :r
ai his side and his spurson his heels' I encouni
him at the next corner, and knew him in a mo
ment, — knew him as perfectly and as vividly as i
should know the Grand Chain in the Mississippi
if 1 should .-.cc it from the pilot house after all these
years. He bent his body and gave his hat a swe ■'.
that fetched its plume within an mch of the groun i,
and gave me a welcome that went to my heart
This King has been much maligned I shall under
stand him better hereafter, and shall regret him
more than I have been in the habit of doing these
fifty or sixty year- He did some things in his
time which "might better have been left undone,
and which cast a shadow upon his name, — we a',!
know that, we all concede it, —but our error has
been in regarding them as crimes and in calling
them by that name, whereas I perceive now tr.it
they were only indiscretions
AT every few steps I met persons of deathless
name whom I had never encountered before out
side of pictures and statuary and history, and these
were most thrilling and charming encounters I
had handshakes with Henry the Second, who had
not been seen in the Oxford streets for nearly eight
hundred years- and with the Fair Rosamond, whom
I now btlieve to have been chaste and blameless,
although 1 had thought differently about it before.
and with Shakespeare one of the pleasantest for
eigners I have ever gotten acquainted with and
with Roger Bacon, and with Queen Elizabeth, who
talked five minutes and never swore once, •' : '
which gave me a new and good opinion oi her md
moved me to forgive her for beheading the >
Mary if she rea'llv did it which I now doubt,
and with the quainth and anciently dad young
King Harold Harefoot, of near nine hundred years
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