Mark Twain's Letters — Volume 4 (1886-1900)Twain, Mark
General
Mark Twain's Letters — Volume 4 (1886-1900)
Twain, Mark
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Correspondence
Mrs. H. said: “People may call it what they like, but it is
just hypnotism, and that's all it is--hypnotism pure and simple.
Mind-cure!--the idea! Why, this woman that cured me hasn't got any mind.
She's a good creature, but she's dull and dumb and illiterate and--”
“Now Eleanor!”
“I know what I'm talking about!--don't I go there twice a week? And Mr.
Clemens, if you could only see her wooden and satisfied face when she
snubs me for forgetting myself and showing by a thoughtless remark that
to me weather is still weather, instead of being just an abstraction and
a superstition--oh, it's the funniest thing you ever saw! A-n-d-when
she tilts up her nose-well, it's--it's--Well it's that kind of a nose
that--”
“Now Eleanor!--the woman is not responsible for her nose--” and so-on
and so-on. It didn't seem to me that I had any right to be having this
feast and you not there.
She convinced me before she got through, that she and William James are
right--hypnotism and mind-cure are the same thing; no difference between
them. Very well; the very source, the very center of hypnotism is Paris.
Dr. Charcot's pupils and disciples are right there and ready to your
hand without fetching poor dear old Susy across the stormy sea. Let
Mrs. Mackay (to whom I send my best respects), tell you whom to go to to
learn all you need to learn and how to proceed. Do, do it, honey. Don't
lose a minute.
.... At 11 o'clock last night Mr. Rogers said:
“I am able to feel physical fatigue--and I feel it now. You never show
any, either in your eyes or your movements; do you ever feel any?”
I was able to say that I had forgotten what that feeling was like. Don't
you remember how almost impossible it was for me to tire myself at the
Villa? Well, it is just so in New York. I go to bed unfatigued at 3, I
get up fresh and fine six hours later. I believe I have taken only one
daylight nap since I have been here.
When the anchor is down, then I shall say:
“Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it again!”
I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it, I will swim
in ink! Joan of Arc--but all this is premature; the anchor is not down
yet.
To-morrow (Tuesday) I will add a P. S. if I've any to add; but, whether
or no, I must mail this to morrow, for the mail steamer goes next day.
5.30 p. m. Great Scott, this is Tuesday! I must rush this letter into
the mail instantly.
Tell that sassy Ben I've got her welcome letter, and I'll write her
as soon as I get a daylight chance. I've most time at night, but I'd
druther write daytimes.
SAML.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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