You would expect Twain, the great lecturer, to be a raconteur at all times. But like many performers, there seems to be on-stage and off-stage, and the two are not the same. When journalist and caricaturist Kate Carew met with him at breakfast ostensibly to sketch him, but secretly to interview him, one of the things he said, firmly, was "I won't be interviewed. I don't--approve--of interviews; don't like them--on-- principle."This is a wonderful glimpse of Twain, 64 years old, a "wholesome old man" as young Carew describes him:
It would be impossible to exaggerate the composure and gravity with which Mark Twain utters his quaintnesses--and I'm sure he wasn't in much of a mood for quaintnesses that morning. There is no after-gleam of self-appreciation, no swift glance to see how his point has "taken." I am sure he does not try to say funny things, only he sees life through a glass that distorts every fact into a paradox. Or perhaps it is the serious people that have a distorted view of life. I wish Mark Twain would say what he thinks about it.
The interview is here.
Via.
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