What Is Man? and Other Essays

o much prominence, too much credit. It is only the last link in a very long chain of turning-points commissioned to produce the cardinal result; it is not any more important than the humblest of its ten thousand predecessors. Each of the ten thousand did its appointed share, on its appointed date, in forwarding the scheme, and they were all necessary; to have left out an

point recorded in history was the cr

the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him and said, “We ma

eading up to it, stage by stage, link by link. This was the last link—merely the last one, and no bigger than the oth

n race. It was one of the links in your life-chain, and it was one of the links in mine. We may wa

ly the shepherds, but a number of soldiers also, flocked to listen to him, and some trumpeters among them, he snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran to the river with it, and, sounding t

ne. We don’t know his name, we never hear of him again; he was very casual; he acts like an accident; but he was no accident, he was there by compulsio

ry of America being one of them; our Revolution another; the inflow of English and other immigrants another; their drift westward (my ancestors among them) another; the settlement of certain of them in Missouri, which resulted in ME. For I was one of the unavoidable results of the crossing of the Rubicon. If the stranger, with his trumpet blast, had stayed away (which he couldn’t, for he was an appointed link) Caesar would not have crossed. What would have happened, in that

that was the last link in the chain appointed to conduct me to the literary guild is the most conspicuous link in that chain. because it was the last one. It was not any more important than its pre

and I will tell the steps that l

he infection. In the homes there were no cheerful faces, there was no music, there was no singing but of solemn hymns, no voice but of prayer, no romping was allowed, no noise, no laughter, the family moved spectrally about on tiptoe, in a ghostly hush. I was a prisoner. My soul was steeped in this awful dreariness—and in fear. At some time or other every day and every night a sudden shiver shook me to the marrow, and I said to myself, “There, I’ve got it! and I shall die.” Life on these miserable terms was not worth living, and at last I made up my mind to get the disease and have it ov

school career and apprenticed me to a printer. She was tired of trying to keep me out of misch

ad me into the literary profession. A long road, but I could not know that; and as I did

the guidance and dictatorship of Circumstance, and finally arrived in a city of Iowa, where I worked several months. Among the books that interested me in those days was one about the Amazon. The traveler told an alluring tale of his long voyage up the great river from Para to the sources of the Madeira, through the heart of an enchanted land, a land wastefully rich in tropical wonders, a romantic land where all the birds and flowers and a

ing planet. But all in vain. A person may PLAN as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands. At last Circumstance came to my help. It was in

ld-trade in coca on a fifty-dollar basis and been obeyed? No, I was the only one. There were other

im, and he has no authority over it, neither is he responsible for its acts. He cannot change it, nothing can change it, nothing can modify it—except temporarily. But it won’t stay modified

would not have made him start for the Amazon. His temperament would have compelled him to do something with the money, but not that. It might have made him advertise the not

owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to remain one. Training, experience, association, can temporarily so polish him, improve him, exalt him that peo

rs ago. In all that time my temperament has not changed, by even a shade. I have been punished many and many a time, and bitterly, for doing things and reflecting afterward, but these tortures have been

red, and found there was no ship leaving for Para. Also, that there never had BEEN one leaving for Para. I reflected. A policeman came and ask

ning-point of my life—a new link. On my way down, I had made the acquaintance of

ime, in order to push me ahead another stage or two toward the lite

nk. My brother was appointed secretary to the new Territory of Nevada,

ent I scribbled things for the Virginia City Enterprise. One isn’t a printer ten years without setting up acres of good and bad literature, and learning—unconsciously at first, consciously later—to discriminate

ndwich Islands for five or six months, to write up sugar. I did it; and threw in a good deal of extraneous m

long had a desire to travel and see the world, and now Circumstance had most kindly and unexpected

did it, and called it The Innocents Abroad. Thus I became at last a member of the literary guild. That was forty-two years ago, and I have been a member ever since. Leaving

I

author of none of them. Circumstance, working in harness with my temperament, created them all and compelled them all. I often offered help, and with the best intentions, bu

perament. The circumstance would have failed of effect with a general of another temperament: he might see the chance, but lose the advantage by being by nature too slow or too quick or too doubtful. Once General Grant was asked a question about a matter which had been much debated by the public and the newspapers

The watch doesn’t wind itself and doesn’t regulate itself—these things are done exteriorly. Outside influences, outside circumstances, wind the MAN and regulate him. Left to himself, he wouldn’t get regulated at all, and the sort of time he w

arges them. Some patriots throw the tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a Bastille. The PLANS st

an old country. Circumstance revised his plan for him, and he found a new worl

thing tricked out with clothes and named Man is merely its Shadow, nothing more. The law of the tiger’s temperament is, Thou shalt kill; the law of the sheep’s temperament is Thou shalt not kill. To issue later commands requiring the tiger to let the fat stranger alone, and requiring the sheep to imbue its hands in the blood of the lion is not worth while, for those commands can’T be obeyed. They would invite to violations of the law of temperament, which is supreme, and takes precedence of all other authorities. I cannot help feeling disappointed in Adam and Eve. That is, in their temperaments. Not in them, poor helpless young creatures—afflicted with temp