THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER AND LIFE / Layne Dearden Many years ago, John Stuart Mill asked a thought provoking question: "How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of a great mind is agreeing in the opinions of small minds?" Mark Twain answered this question by being widely accepted and acclaimed, and by still maintaining his own identity. At times he was kind and humorous, at other times he was crisp and bitter. This versatility and projection of self was the hallmark of Mark Twain. In many of his earlier works, Twain neglected or by-passed the harshness of reality. It was not until his later years that he attempted to face life squarely. Striving for an unobstructed view of life, he lapsed into extreme pessimism. His most typical work of this part of his life is The Mysterious Stranger. Many aspects of his work give us great insight into life because of the forces they represent. One of the main ideas presented is the apparent inconsistency of justice in life. There is, for Twain, no poetic or moral justice in the world. Those who attempt to do good, to live honestly, and to harm no one, find themselves in the situation of being continually hurt, used, morally wronged, and down-trodden by others. Those that have no principles are saved from hurt either physically or morally by their lack of perception of life and lack of sensitivity in their relationship to mankind. Christian ethics, to Twain, seem to bring individual and group despair and ruin, rather than the blessings and salvation that their author promised. Some cirtics feel that Twain confused the physical realm with the spiritual. Are good health, riches, and worldly power always the blessings that they seem to be? Precisely what is success in life? Is individual success measured in dollars, degree, and disciples, or is it something known only to God and the individual? Mark Twain's despair is one-sided because he simply reacts spiritually to the physical stimuli in life, rather than using the spiritual realm to tamper and balance the physical stimuli that come into life. Twain is also upset with the inconsistency of religious life that produces hypocrites. When Frau Brandt tells the villagers that "she would rather live with the professional devils in perdition than with these imitators in the village," she is speaking to us as well as to them. To a certain extent, we have all become "holy hypocrites." We have forgotten that an act is useless if the motivation of the act isn't one of love, understanding, and brotherhood. We measure others through outward aspects of religion and forget that one's inner life can be much more displeasing to the Lord than any outer actions. Outward manifestations of religion are useless, or practically so, if the inner motivation is not pleasing to God. Man is a social animal. Sometimes this aspect of his make-up is part of his downfall, rather than being a stabilizing factor. The cry that "Gee, everybody else is doing it" becomes the escape mechanism of our 4 STRANGER/Dearden society. "They" tend to run our lives more and more, and often we find ourselves the prisoner of the very society that should give us self - expression, individuality, and recognition for personal worth. In America, we reward the aggressive, the bold, and the different, while always insisting on conformity to established norms. Few of us are brave enough to sever this social umbilical cord and achieve in life because we are overwhelmed by the pressure of society. Thus, few of us rise to greatness. This overdependence upon society is examined several times by Twain in the pages of The Mysterious Stranger. Notable among the incidents is the stoning of the village lady who dared to defy the conventions of the "normal" people. Theodor, the boy who tells the story, serves as a model of mankind as he participates in the stoning because of social pressure. All were throwing stones and each was watching his neighbor, and if I had not done as the others did, it would have been noticed and spoken of." No Valid Codes Twain further demonstrates the instability of social pressure and lack of valid offenders, thus changing the attitude of the crowd. They immediately begin to accuse each other of throwing rocks, and soon the group was: in a raging and noisy turmoil and beating and banging one another, and in the midst was the only indifferent one the dead lady hanging from her rope, her troubles forgotten, her spirit at peace. Twain here reinforces his point by speaking through Satan: I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities. It supresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Still another area that social pressure destroys is our innate individuality, the very thing which gives strength and vitality to any society. When each of us is following the crowd, nothing is being achieved, better ways are not being found, and true progression comes to a standstill. Many of us cease to exist as individuals after being run through the crushing mold of our culture. Mark Twain appreciated the fact that all men are different and were meant by their creator to be different. This point is clarified in one of his essays. There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden men and steel men, and so on and each has the limitations of his nature, his heredity, his training, and his environment. You can build engines out of each of these metals, and they will all perform, but you must not require the weak ones to do equal work with the strong ones. Twain's most bitter sentiments come to the surface when he deals with the nature of God. He is concerned that God knowingly lets evil and illness happen to good people. "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it but it falls, just the same." Even Twain's feeling towards man is an implication against God because he sees man as "a museum of diseases, a home of impurities, he comes today and is gone tomorrow." Twain also feels that a conscience is a damnable thing that actually takes away our individuality and our ability for happiness, rather than helping to produce a state of inner tranquility. Conscience is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the man to content his desires. It may be called the Master Passion the hunger of Self-approval. It is indifferent to the man's good. Does God Forgive Sins? Twain felt that, "Sometimes for an hour's happiness, a man's machinery, (his conscience), makes him pay years of misery." For Twain, the question was simple. If people believe that God either forgives sins or doesn't. If he does not, what is the use of worrying about living a good life? In spite of any effort, human mistakes will thrust us all (continued) 5