The Case for Mark Twain's Wife

Abstract

A few years ago it was usual for a successful man to ascribe all his success to his mother or his wife. Usually he was lying. The chances were that he would have succeeded as well had he been an unmarried orphan. The unsuccessful man also, after the fifth drink, used to confide that he might have amounted to something if his wife hadn't held him down and cramped his stye. He was usually lying, too. But only recently has biography imitated the bar-fly. Any woman in the life of a groan man is nowadays in a dangerous spot. If she has openly and demonstrably misbehaved, she need expect no chivalrous silence about her sins. If she has been the soul of chastity and circumspection, she will catch it just the same. Men of genius are proverbially gey ill to live with; women so indiscreet as to fall in love with them need seldom expect easy times. And nowadays they are begrudged even posthumous credit for their endurance. Amnbrose Bierce's phrase about tho “virtues and other vices” is applied literally. Since no artist is perfect, since every achievement must fall short of the ideal, biographers have sought in the intimate environment of tho artist the explanation of his imperfection.