The Palm Readers

A CENTURY AFTER HIS DEATH,

presents here * for the first time anywhere -?¦ his take

ON THE ]OXJBIOTT« -A.H.T OF FORTUNE-TELLING.

A PLAYBOY EXCLUSIVE

According to the science of Palmistry, this is a Philosophic type of lumd. Pliilosophic mind. True.

The subject is beyond doubt a great Student, a Thinker and Reformer, broad-minded, with a liberal religious sentiment without ref­erence to creed or form. Student of morals, and of man's nature—in that sense, yes, I am a student, for that study is interesting and enticing, and requires no painful research, no systematic labor, no midnight-oil effects. But I have never been a student of anything which required of N me wearying and distasteful labor. It is for tliis reason that the relations between me and the multiplication table are strained.

The rest of the paragraph is true, in detail and in mass. In the line of high philosophies I was always a thinker, but was never regarded by the world as the thinker until the course of nature retired Mr. Spencer from the competition.

lie is progressive and farseeing, courageous in an emergency, but frequently timid, where tliere is no need oj action or quick thought. With him an emergency is an inspiration. "Progressive and farseeing." I acknowledge it.

"Courageous in an emergency." That is too general, lliere are many kinds of emergencies: we are all good in one or two kinds; some are good in several kinds; but the person who is prompt and plucky in all emergencies is— well, nonexistent. He has never lived. If a man were drown­ing, I would promptly jump in after liim; but. if he were fall­ing from a lOth-story window I shouldn't know enough to stand from under. You perceive? I am a good and confident swimmer, and have had several emergency-experiences in the water which were of an educating kind, but I have never had a person try to fall on me out of a skyscraper. Do you get the idea? Hie philosophy of it is this: emergency-courage is rather a product of experience than a birthright. No person, when new and fresh, has emergency-courage enough to set a grip on his purse the first time he is offered a chance to cheaply buy a patent that is going to revolution­ize steam—no, it is the subsequent occasions that find liim ready with liis gun. I repeat—the palmist has been too gen­eral. He should have named the kind of emergencies wliicli find my courage ready and unappalled. I am not saying he could not have done this; and there is one thing which in

fairness I must concede: that where brevity is required of the palmist, he is obliged to generalize, he cannot particularize.

His sense of justice is very keen; harshness to others amounting to personal injury to himself. lie is sensitive, impressionable ~x and reticent, hence is not easily un­derstood by his associates. Again. Generalized, this is true of no one; particularized, it is true of eveiybody. Harshness to Mr. Henry A. Butters of Long Val­ley would not grieve my spirit, the spectacle of the King of the Belgians dangling from the gibbet where ho belongs would make me grateful. I (along witli the

^—-r^ wnole race) am sensitive (to ridicule

and insult); impressionable (where the sex is concerned); reticent (where inconvenient truths are required of me).

Disposition ordinarily is excellent. He is submissive rather titan aggressive, yet radical and determined at heart. His manner is gentle, only becoming brusque or nonchalant when, stirred to self defense. Again. Generalized thus, tliis fits the great majority of the human race—including me. It fits the worm, too—to a dot. Read it carefully over, and you will see.

Self-reliance, internal courage, with an intuitive knack of sound­ing public sentiment render him capable of becoming a successful leader in the financial and political world, a supporter of any and all innovations that tend toward advancement. My fondness for experiments and innovations is really above the aver­age, I believe. My mother was like that; my sister, who was an interested and zealous invalid during 65 years, tried all the new diseases as fast as they came out, and always enjoyed the newest one more than any that went before; my brother had accumulated 42 brands of Christianity before he was called away.... But the rest of the paragraph contains errors, particularly the part about political and financial leadership. No kind of leadership could ever be in my line. It would curtail my freedom; also it would make me work when I did not want to work. My nature would fret and complain and rebel, and I should fail.

His early life is not marked fortunate; menaced by reverses until near his 16th year. After that period excellent things were in store

The palm print of Mark Twain's hand (at left) was provided to a palm reader so Twain's fortune could be divined. Twain died on April 21,

1910 in Redding, Connecticut.

for him. No one ever said a truer tiling. Up to the age of seven I was at the point of death nearly all the time, yet could never make it. It made the family tired. Particularly my fattier, who was of a fine and sensitive nature, and it was difficult for him to bear up under disappointments. In the next eight years—I am speaking the truth, I give you my word of honor—I was witliin one gasp of drowning nine different times, and in addition was thrice brought to the verge (if death by doctors and disease; yet it was all of no use, nothing could avail, it was just one reverse after another, and here I am to this day. With eveiy hope long ago blighted. Are these the reverses that stand written in my hand? I know of no others, of that early time.

m

Fortunately he is not constitutionally frail. Excellently endowed with physical force, he will reach beyond the proverbial limit oj life with­out serious interruption. This stronghold on life he inherits. First sentence. Seems so, from the revelations wliicli I have just made. But how does he find it out from the flat print of my hand? It is veiy curious. I have seldom been sick since I was 15; I am 69 now. Iliird sentence: the inheritance is from my mother's side. She was a Lampion. No Lampion ever died prematurely, except by courtesy of the sheriff.

m

He is made of the finest clay, is high-minded, has a will of steel hardly ever asking or taking advice. ~ That about the day is all right.

m

His judgment can be fully relied upon. Fatally indefinite. Judgment of what—not stated. Apples? literature? weath­er? whiskey? theology? hotels? emperors? oysters? horses?

As regards emperors and weather my judgment is better than any other person's, but as regards all other things I know it to be bad.

The Line of Respiration on the base of the Mount of Jupiter shows that his lungs demand a liberal supply oj oxygen. Exactly and remarkably true—of everybody's lungs.

m

The Line of Blood Circulation shows him to have regular heart­beats, and a strong and steady pulsation of blood. Does it mean that I have a strong pulse? In that case it is an error. I have a sort of a kind of a pulse, it is true, but not every doctor can find it and swear to it. The Marienbad special­ist felt around over my breast and back and abdomen and said with quite unnecessaiy frankness that he could not prove that I hadn't a heart, but that ill had one it would be an advantage to trade it for a potato.

The Mount of Lima shows him to be exquisitely moulded, honor­able and faithful. "Exquisitely moulded." It is hereditary in the family. Exquisitely moulded and attiactive, people often say. Some have thought me the most attiactive tiling in the universe except that mysterious and wonderful force wliich draws all matter toward its throne in the sun, the Attrac­tion of Gravitation; others go even further, and tliink I am that sublime force itself. These commonly speak of me as the Center of Gravity. Over great stretches of the earth's surface I am known by no name but that—the Center of Gravity. It pleases me and makes me happy, but I often feel that it may not be true. God knows. It is not for me to say.

"I asked a few questions of minor importance-paid her $2 and left-under the decided impression that going to the fortune­teller's was just as good as going to the opera, and cost scarcely a trifle more-ergo, I would disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other amusements failed." ~ Letter to Orion Clemens, February 6, 1861

The compUte readings and responses are forthcoming in the second volume of the Autobiography of Mark Twain. The first volume was published this November by the University of California Press. This text was prepared from the original manuscript by editors at the Mark Twain Project at the Bancroft Library of the University of California.

Wn M&0-J JtMark Ttmiii was asked by a magazine editor to provide prints of his

PALMS TO BE INTERPRETED BY SEVERAL PROFESSIONAL PALM READERS. H« «#*«* #© b«

unonymnu* to them, from the palm readers' reports (irhtch mre tat ttmlic

type belour) and twains responses, we have selected the following