This gentleman--for he was no less than that--was a man
well-read, and his tribute was not inspired by mere snobbery. Clemens,
learning of the situation, later withdrew from the drawing-room for a
talk with him.
"I found," he said, "that he knew about ten or fifteen times as much
about my books as I knew about them myself."
Mark Twain viewed the Oxford pageant from a box with Rudyard Kipling and
Lord Curzon, and as they sat there some one passed up a folded slip of
paper, on the outside of which was written, "Not true." Opening it, they
read:
East is East and West is West,
And never the Twain shall meet,
--a quotation from Kipling.
They saw the panorama of history file by, a wonderful spectacle which
made Oxford a veritable dream of the Middle Ages. The lanes and streets
and meadows were thronged with such costumes as Oxford had seen in its
long history. History was realized in a manner which no one could
appreciate more fully than Mark Twain.
"I was particularly anxious to see this pageant," he said, "so that I
could get ideas for my funeral procession, which I am planning on a large
scale."
He was not disappointed; it was a realization to him of all the gorgeous
spectacles that his soul had dreamed from youth up.
He easily recognized the great characters of history as they passed by,
and he was recognized by them in turn; for they waved to him and bowed
and sometimes called his name, and when he went down out of his box, by
and by, Henry VIII.
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