Christopher -- The influence seems pretty clear on the philosophical beliefs
of Mark Twain's later life. Joe Twichell wrote Clemens in the summer of
1901, after tiring of the deterministic rants of the "What Is Man?" variety:
“Really, you are getting quite orthodox on the doctrine of Total Human
Depravity.” It was what kids today would call a "snap" -- Twichell was going
for the jugular, referring to the old-style Calvinism both men knew well
from childhood and despised.

To emphasize this point, Twichell lent Clemens a copy of Jonathan Edwards'
Freedom of the Will, which Clemens read on the train as he returned to New
York after a visit to Hartford. He wrote Twichell in a letter dated February
1902: “From Bridgeport to New York; thence to home; and continuously until
near midnight I wallowed and reeked with Jonathan in his insane debauch;
rose immediately refreshed and fine at 10 this morning, but with a strange
and haunting sense of having been on a three days’ tear with a drunken
lunatic.”

Clemens also acknowledged that he agreed with Edwards—“that the Man (or his
Soul or his Will) never creates an impulse itself, but is moved to action by
an impulse back of it. . . . Up to that point he could have written chapters
III and IV of my suppressed ‘Gospel”’ [i.e., "What Is Man?"].

Where Clemens believed Edwards went wrong was, ironically, the same point at
which Twichell later accused Clemens of going wrong: “He finally flies the
logic track and (to all seeming) makes the man and not these exterior forces
responsible to God for the man’s thoughts, words and acts. It is frank
insanity.” -- Regards, Steve


Steve Courtney
Terryville, CT