On 11 Oct 2004 at 12:29, Larry Howe wrote:

> You aren't trying to stir up another political storm here on the MT
> Forum, are you?

No.  The current situation might be helpful in understanding Twain's
(and the others') state of mind, though.  Think of the difference in
national mood before and after "everything changed" on 9/11.  Most
people's projections for the 21st century are probably much "darker"
today than they were before, regardless of what's happening in their
personal lives.  One hundred years ago, imperialism had that effect
on Twain and the others.

As the second quote from Charles Eliot Norton suggests, the issue
could even frame their views of their personal lives.  There is a funny
coincidence in one of Twain's responses along that line.  On the back
of a December 15, 1906, letter about the Philippines from Herbert
Welsh, Twain wrote, "The woes of the wronged and the unfortunate
poison my life, and make it so undesirable that pretty often I wish I
were 90 instead of 70."  Welsh suffered a nervous breakdown from
over-work on imperialism three years before and had just resumed his
activities.  Fortunately for him, Twain's response was never mailed.

I'm not suggesting that imperialism was the sole influence on his later
writings.  The quotes are most directly related to the series of
historical fantasies he wrote in the early 1900s in which he made
similar predictions about the fall of the republic.  There were also his
experiences in Vienna, the Dreyfus Affair, Supreme Court-sanctioned
segregation, the epidemic of lynchings, etc., as well as personal
phenomena like deaths of friends and family, celebrity, age, etc.  My
point is that to look at his writings as only reflecting personal
experiences is to remove Twain from a world in which he was very
definitely engaged during those years.

Jim Zwick