Then: “Remember that Napoleon himself was as diminutive as you. Think of all he did and all that he nearly succeeded in, and realize that his fall did not come from any lack of ability but from a lack of humility, which is different from timidity. As for your physical demeanor, do not slouch at any time, and when you are speaking to someone, look him directly in the eye: Listen to what he says with the utmost interest, no matter how dull he may be, and interject your opinions only when he has exhausted himself of his own.”
ACCOMPANYING MR. STANLEY on his dealings around the city, to make our way up and down the mercantile strip of Tchoupitoulas Street into all the stores, was a joy, for he would remark with some pride that I was now his partner and son and should henceforth be addressed as Master Stanley. Those who had known me, such as Mr. Richardson, were somewhat vexed at this new development, and yet, in a short time, it was accepted. Mr. Richardson congratulated me on my good fortune, but no greater joy did I feel than to enter the old warehouse in my sumptuous wardrobe, with Mr. Stanley by my side, and to hear Mr. Ellison addressing me in a tone of respect.
IN THOSE DAYS I LEARNED that Mr. Stanley, so corporeally sound, seemed to have a hidden infirmity, a tic of the sinews around his eyes, so that he blinked involuntarily, mainly after reading or standing too long in a place. He would also tap his feet against the floor sometimes, flail his hands, and shake them in the air when he did not think anyone could see him. Once I saw him direct from his coat to his mouth a smallish flask, which he uncapped in his massive hand and sipped of quickly. He had done so in a natural and unapprehensive manner, but his eye had caught mine: I had looked away, but as I turned, he said, “Come here.”
Almost inexpressively, taciturnly, he held forth on his activity.
“You may well be wondering why I would have need of this: It is a strong brandy, to be sure, but in the wake of Mrs. Stanley’s death, it was the recommendation of my doctors that I partake of such to calm my nerves. For the death of a loved one does such things. Surely you must understand.”
I did not. “But is not the imbibing of certain liquors wrong? Why have you this need?” I asked.
Then Mr. Stanley, my father, offered me his flask.
“Sip from it and see.”
I was reluctant to do so, but as he was now my father, I obliged.
The taste of the liquor was thick and metallic, full of wooden flavors and resins, so burning and syrupy that I jumped.
Momentarily a slight elation of mind, such as to suggest that all the world was before me, ensued. Groggily I asked: “So if this is good, what profit do you gain?”
And then he told me his whole notion of how liquors might be usefuclass="underline" When it came to gatherings in the home, he recommended French wine, sherry, or port. As for the dealings of business, it was his experience that spirits functioned as a congenial lubricant to ease the negotiations. While city men were prone to drink beer and Scotch, not rye, planters preferred bourbon and Havana rum, a case of which he always took with him on his journeys.
BY THE TIME WE BEGAN our first excursions upriver by steamer — it was in December of 1859—I was pleased to consider myself an asset to Mr. Stanley, for by then I had been put in charge of his accounting, kept track of his orders, and generally eased the burdens of his dealings. As it was part of Mr. Stanley’s routine to make several trips per year up to St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville, our early journeys were spent on the lower Mississippi tributaries, where we would mainly deal, and profitably so, with the merchants in small settlements, our route taking us between Harrisburg and Arkadelphia and between Napoleon and Little Rock. I take some pride in stating that my memory served him well in those days: No face, no name, no detail about shipments, purchases, and sales escaped me.
In our portmanteau, we had packed a great number of books — various ancient and modern histories, books of poetry and plays, essays and biographies — so that when we retired to our cabin we could pursue the furthering of my education.
As he wanted to correct the heaviness of my Welsh accent, he often had me read aloud to him, correcting my pronunciation. In this way, I drifted into speaking a neutral English that, while occasionally afflicted with some evidence of my Welsh origins as well as the influence of a southern drawl, depended greatly upon the precise enunciation of the consonants and hard and soft vowels.
“Forget your upbringing in England, your lack of pedigree: Here in America, we treat all men equally and according to the quality of their character.”
WE’D RISE AT DAWN, and he would send me to bed at an early hour, at which time he would often head out of the cabin to take the air and pursue, in private, his conversations with other merchants.
And he impressed upon me his own feelings about religion, which is to say that he sought to correct my rustic and ignorant view of God. Up to that time I imagined God as a personality with human features set in the midst of celestial glory in the Heaven of Heavens. “How did you come to such a fancy?” he asked me. I told him my idea had come from the biblical verses that said God had made man after His own image. To this he gently said:
“By ‘image,’ it is meant, in the Bible way, that we are a reflection of Him. But He, by His nature, hath no body. God is a spirit, and a spirit is a thing that cannot be seen with human eyes, because it has no figure or form. A man consists of body and spirit, or, as we call it, soul. We cannot see the earth move, and yet it is perpetually whirling through space: We cannot see that which draws the compass needle to the pole, yet we trust our ships to its guidance. No one saw the cause of the fever that killed so many people in New Orleans last summer, but we know it was in the air around the city. If you take a pinch of gunpowder and examine it, you cannot see the force that is in it. So it is with the soul of man.
“Well, then, try and imagine the universe subject to the same invisible but potent intelligence, in the same way that man is subject to God’s. It is impossible for your eyes to see the thing itself; but if you cannot see its effects, you must be blind. Day after day, year after year, since the beginning of time, that active and wonderful intelligence has been keeping light and darkness, sun, moon, stars, and earth, each to its course in perfect order. Every living being on earth today is witness to its existence. The intelligence that conceived this order and decreed that it should endure — that still sustains it and will outlast every atom of creation — we describe under the term of God. It is a short word, but it signifies the being that fills the endless universe, a portion of whom is in you and me.”
This I took to heart and have never forgotten.
How I Met Samuel Clemens
ONE EVENING, WHEN MR. STANLEY and I were bound from New Orleans to St. Louis on the steamship Arago, I was on the boiler deck, having just taken leave of my benefactor, who had, at the moment of our parting, seemed fatigued. Although I had looked forward to dining with Mr. Stanley that evening, he claimed, and rightly so, that he would be better off resting.