in that new shape spread itself out
into a book. Much the same thing happened with "Pudd'nhead Wilson." I
had a sufficiently hard time with that tale, because it changed itself
from a farce to a tragedy while I was going along with it--a most
embarrassing circumstance. But what was a great deal worse was, that it
was not one story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed
and interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion
and annoyance. I could not offer the book for publication, for I was
afraid it would unseat the reader's reason. I did not know what was the
matter with it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories
in one. It took me months to make that discovery. I carried the
manuscript back and forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and
read it and studied over it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the
difficulty lay. I had no further trouble. I pulled one of the stories
out by the roots, and left the other one--a kind of literary Caesarean
operation.
Would the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled
out? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist
works. Won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him
how the jack-leg does it?
Originally the story was called "Those Extraordinary Twins." I meant to
make it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian "freak"
or "freaks" which was--or which were--on exhibition in our cities--a
combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a single
body and a single pair of legs--and I thought I would write an
extravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for
hero--or heroes--a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies and
two boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people
and their doings, of course. But the tale kept spreading along, and
spreading along, and other people got to intruding themselves and taking
up more and more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them
came a stranger named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and a woman named Roxana; and
presently the doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young
fellow named Tom Driscoll, whose proper place was away in the obscure
background. Before the book was half finished those three were taking
things almost entirely into their own hands and working the whole tale
as a private venture of their own--a tale which they had nothing at all
to do with, by
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