CXXV

THE QUIETER THINGS OF HOME

Upset and disturbed as Mark Twain often was, he seldom permitted his distractions to interfere with the program of his fireside.  His days and his nights might be fevered, but the evenings belonged to another world.  The long European wandering left him more than ever enamoured of his home; to him it had never been so sweet before, so beautiful, so full of peace.  Company came:  distinguished guests and the old neighborhood circles.  Dinner-parties were more frequent than ever, and they were likely to be brilliant affairs.  The best minds, the brightest wits, gathered around Mark Twain’s table.  Booth, Barrett, Irving, Sheridan, Sherman, Howells, Aldrich:  they all assembled, and many more.  There was always some one on the way to Boston or New York who addressed himself for the day or the night, or for a brief call, to the Mark Twain fireside.

Certain visitors from foreign lands were surprised at his environment, possibly expecting to find him among less substantial, more bohemian surroundings.  Henry Drummond, the author of Natural Law in the Spiritual World, in a letter of this time, said: 

I had a delightful day at Hartford last Wednesday . . . .  Called on Mark Twain, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the widow of Horace Bushnell.  I was wishing A——­had been at the Mark Twain interview.  He is funnier than any of his books, and to my surprise a most respected citizen, devoted to things esthetic, and the friend of the poor and struggling.—­[Life of Henry Drummond, by George Adam Smith.]

The quieter evenings were no less delightful.  Clemens did not often go out.  He loved his own home best.  The children were old enough now to take part in a form of entertainment that gave him and them especial pleasure-acting charades.  These he invented for them, and costumed the little performers, and joined in the acting as enthusiastically and as unrestrainedly as if he were back in that frolicsome boyhood on John Quarles’s farm.  The Warner and Twichell children were often there and took part in the gay amusements.  The children of that neighborhood played their impromptu parts well and naturally.  They were in a dramatic atmosphere, and had been from infancy.  There was never any preparation for the charades.  A word was selected and the parts of it were whispered to the little actors.  Then they withdrew to the hall, where all sorts of costumes had been laid out for the evening, dressed their parts, and each detachment marched into the library, performed its syllable and retired, leaving the audience, mainly composed of parents, to guess the answer.  Often they invented their own words, did their own costuming, and conducted the entire performance independent of grown-up assistance or interference.  Now and then, even at this early period, they conceived and produced little plays, and of course their father could not resist joining in these.  At other times, evenings, after dinner, he would sit at the piano and recall the old darky songs-spirituals and jubilee choruses-singing them with fine spirit, if not with perfect technic, the children joining in these moving melodies.