e of them.
And to Howells:
I couldn't get along without work now. I bury myself in it up to
the ears. Long hours--8 & 9 on a stretch sometimes. It isn't all
for print, by any means, for much of it fails to suit me; 50,000
words of it in the past year. It was because of the deadness which
invaded me when Susy died.
He projected articles, stories, critiques, essays, novels,
autobiography, even plays; he covered the whole literary round. Among
these activities are some that represent Mark Twain's choicest work.
"Concerning the Jews," which followed the publication of his "Stirring
Times in Austria" (grew out of it, in fact), still remains the best
presentation of the Jewish character and racial situation. Mark Twain
was always an ardent admirer of the Jewish race, and its oppression
naturally invited his sympathy. Once he wrote to Twichell:
The difference between the brain of the average Christian and that of
the average Jew--certainly in Europe--is about the difference between a
tadpole's brain & an archbishop's. It is a marvelous race; by long odds
the most marvelous race the world has produced, I suppose.
Yet he did not fail to see its faults and to set them down in his
summary of Hebrew character. It was a reply to a letter written to him
by a lawyer, and he replied as a lawyer might, compactly, logically,
categorically, conclusively. The result pleased him. To Mr. Rogers he
wrote:
The Jew article is my "gem of the ocean." I have taken a world of
pleasure in writing it & doctoring it & fussing at it. Neither Jew
nor Christian will approve of it, but people who are neither Jews nor
Christian will, for they are in a condition to know the truth when they
see it.
Clemens was not given to race distinctions. In his article he says:
I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think
I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices.
Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is
that a man is a human being, that is enough for me; he can't be any
worse.
We gather from something that follows that the one race which he bars
is the French, and this, just then, mainly because of the Dreyfus
agitations.
He also states in this article:
I have no special regard for Satan, but I can at least claim that I have
no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way on
account of his not having a fair show.
Clemens
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