KIPLING AT ELMIRA
some have the V.C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar—no, two cigars—with him, and talked with him for more than two hours!
But one should read the article entire—it is so worth while. Clemens also, long after, dictated an account of the meeting.
"He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man – and I am the other one. Between us we cover all knowledge. He knows all that can be known, and I know the rest."
He was a stranger to me and all the world, and remained so for twelve months, but then he became suddenly known and universally known. . . . George Warner came into our library one morning, in Hartford, with a small book in his hand, and asked me if I had ever heard of Rudyard Kipling. I said "No."
He said I would hear of him very soon, and that the noise he made would be loud and continuous. . . . A day or two later he brought a copy of the London World which had a sketch of Kipling in it, and a mention of the fact that he had traveled in the United States. According to the sketch he had passed through Elmira. This remark, with the additional fact that he hailed from India, attracted my attention—also Susy’s. She went to her257