Sam Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, started off his writing career in 1865 with “The Celebrated Jumping-Frog of Calaveras County.” From that day on, the works of the legendary humorist were crawling with all manner of critters: cats, dogs, horses, elephants, snakes, birds, bugs, camels, platypuses, porpoises.
Some members of Twain’s literary menagerie were based on real animals, such as the Clemens family’s innumerable, bizarrely named pet cats. Some were imaginary, like that celebrated jumping frog. Others were metaphors: He once called a clergyman “a crawling, slimy, sanctimonious, self-righteous reptile.”
An exhibit at Mark Twain House & Museum, “Tails Of Twain,” focuses on the creatures great and small — Blatherskite the kitten, a cat in a ruff, a missing white elephant, an overcoat-eating camel, a “curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped, and Christian,” aka a platypus — that populated Clemens’ real and created worlds.
“Everything he saw, whether he saw a silver mine or a bunch of porpoises, he could bring them alive,” said Steve Courtney, curator of special projects.
The exhibit is made up of long text panels of various Twain musings on the animal kingdom, surrounded by books, illustrations, photographs, doodles, a horse-drawn carriage and other items that illustrated the presence of varmints in the household.
The king of the beasts in Twain’s world was the cat, “the only creature in heaven or earth or anywhere that don’t have to obey somebody or other, including the angels.” He recalled having 19 at a time in his childhood home. As an adult, the Clemens home never lacked a cat, and he named them Pestilence and Famine, Sin and Satan, Appollinaris, Sackcloth, Billiards, any number of random names. While on vacation, the Clemens family rented cats from locals to keep them company.
Dogs were second-tier pets but Twain cherished many mutts. Weeks before he died, he wrote that when approaching heaven’s gate, “Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” One of Twain’s rare attempts at poetry was an ode to his recently deceased dog Burns: “She lived a quiet harmless life in Hartford far from madding strife.”
He was less fond of other species. He called lizards “those heirs of ruin, of sepulchers and desolation. Cranky crows spoke “a language not used in church.” He was of two minds regarding horses. He rode them frequently but complained “a horse thinks of too many things to do which you do not expect.”
Even the most low-down beast, however, was superior in Twain’s eyes to “the damned human race.” After all, he did write once “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
TAILS OF TWAIN: HOW ANIMALS SHAPED THE MAN & HIS WORK will be at Mark Twain House & Museum, 351 Farmington Ave., until Jan. 21, 2019. marktwainhouse.org.
