Kent, could he be referring to the anecdote in A Tramp Abroad? It plays
satirically on the difference between "tail" and "tale," the narrator's
obtuseness, and the stereotype of animalistic qualities to African Americans.
In Chapter XXV (page 247-254 in the Oxford MT edition), the narrator and Harris
get into an argument some folks at another table--whether they're American, from
which state, the age of the girl. As the "dispute . . . waxed warm," the
narrator declares he'll go ask. The girl sees that he doesn't remember her, so
she takes him along a garden path of fabricated reminiscences, one of which
refers to "Darley":
"It was necessary to say something, --so I said,--
"I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thing."
"So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, although he had
so many eccentricities. You remember that then the weather was the least cold,
he would try to come into the house."
I was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man,--he must be
some other kind of animal,--possibly a dog, maybe an elephant. However, tails
are common to all animals, so I ventured to say,--
"And what a tail he had!"
"One! He had a thousand!"
This was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I only said,--
"Yes, he was rather well fixed in the matter of tails."
"For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was."
It was getting pretty sultry for me. I said to myself, "Is it possible she is
going to stop there, and wait for me to speak? If she does, the conversation is
blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic which a person cannot talk
upon fluently and instructively without more or less preparation As to diving
rashly into such a vast subject,--
But here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thought by saying,--
"Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply no end to them
if anybody would listen . . . ." (250)
And the tale goes on, until she finally admits that she is pulling his tale in
punishment for merely pretending to know here. That's my best guess, anyway.
Sharon
________________________________
From: R. Kent Rasmussen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, December 15, 2011 5:34:14 PM
Subject: Query about quote
As the editor of a collection of Mark Twain quotes, I feel a little =
foolish asking for help identifying a quote, but I'm stuck. I have most =
of Mark Twain's published writings on my computer and a vernerable but =
excellent text-search program (Lotus Magellan), but I'm absolutely =
unable to find an answer to my question.
A clergyman writing to Mark Twain in 1908 rattled off allusions to some =
of his favorite passages in Mark Twain's works and included this line: =
"the nigger with such a tail, `why he had a hundred!'"
I'm assuming he meant "tale" for "tail." Nevertheless, every =
conceivable combination of key words I've searched has failed to turn up =
a likely hit. The clergyman's other textual allusions are accurate, but =
it's possible that he unintentionally phrased the mystery reference with =
words different from those in the text he was thinking of. However, even =
searches for words such as "story" (for "tale") and "thousand" and =
"million" (for "hundred") turned up no hits. My conclusion is that =
unless the clergyman was thinking of something written by a different =
author (yes, I've tried searching on google books), he was thinking of a =
very differently worded Mark Twain passage. If anyone can help me =
identify that passage, I'll be much obleeged. Keep in mind that any Mark =
Twain text the clergyman read had to have been published before =
September 1908 and probably appeared in a book or magazine reasonably =
accessible on the East Coast.
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