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Mark Twain, A Biography Vol III, Part 2: 1907 - 1910
Appendix T: A Tribute to Henry H. Rogers
by Paine, Albert Bigelow
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(See Chapter cc and earlier)
April 25, 1902. I owe more to Henry Rogers than to any other man whom I
have known. He was born in Fairhaven, Connecticut, in 1839, and is my
junior by four years. He was graduated from the high school there in
1853, when he was fourteen years old, and from that time forward he
earned his own living, beginning at first as the bottom subordinate in
the village store with hard-work privileges and a low salary. When he
was twenty-four he went out to the newly discovered petroleum fields in
Pennsylvania and got work; then returned home, with enough money to pay
passage, married a schoolmate, and took her to the oil regions. He
prospered, and by and by established the Standard Oil Trust with Mr.
Rockefeller and others, and is still one of its managers and directors.
In 1893 we fell together by accident one evening in the Murray Hill
Hotel, and our friendship began on the spot and at once. Ever since then
he has added my business affairs to his own and carried them through, and
I have had no further trouble with them. Obstructions and perplexities
which would have driven me mad were simplicities to his master mind and
furnished him no difficulties. He released me from my entanglements with
Paige and stopped that expensive outgo; when Charles L. Webster & Company
failed he saved my copyrights for Mrs. Clemens when she would have
sacrificed them to the creditors although they were in no way entitled to
them; he offered to lend me money wherewith to save the life of that
worthless firm; when I started lecturing around the world to make the
money to pay off the Webster debts he spent more than a year trying to
reconcile the differences between Harper & Brothers and the American
Publishing Company and patch up a working-contract between them and
succeeded where any other man would have failed; as fast as I earned
money and sent it to him he banked it at interest and held onto it,
refusing to pay any creditor until he could pay all of the 96 alike; when
I had earned enough to pay dollar for dollar he swept off the
indebtedness and sent me the whole batch of complimentary letters which
the creditors wrote in return; when I had earned $28,500 more, $18,500 of
which was in his hands, I wrote him from Vienna to put the latter into
Federal Steel and leave it there; he obeyed to the extent of $17,500, but
sold it in two months at $25,000 profit, and said it would go ten points
higher, but that it was his custom to "give the other man a chance" (and
that was a true word--there was never a truer one spoken). That was at
the end of '99 and beginning of 1900; and from that day to this he has
continued to break up my bad schemes and put better ones in their place,
to my great advantage. I do things which ought to try man's patience,
but they never seem to try his; he always finds a colorable excuse for
what I have done. His soul was born superhumanly sweet, and I do not
think anything can sour it. I have not known his equal among men for
lovable qualities. But for his cool head and wise guidance I should
never have come out of the Webster difficulties on top; it was his good
steering that enabled me to work out my salvation and pay a hundred cents
on the dollar--the most valuable service any man ever did me.
His character is full of fine graces, but the finest is this: that he can
load you down with crushing obligations and then so conduct himself that
you never feel their weight. If he would only require something in
return--but that is not in his nature; it would not occur to him. With
the Harpers and the American Company at war those copyrights were worth
but little; he engineered a peace and made them valuable. He invests
$100,000 for me here, and in a few months returns a profit of $31,000. I
invest (in London and here) $66,000 and must wait considerably for
results (in case there shall be any). I tell him about it and he finds
no fault, utters not a sarcasm. He was born serene, patient, all-
enduring, where a friend is concerned, and nothing can extinguish that
great quality in him. Such a man is entitled to the high gift of humor:
he has it at its very best. He is not only the best friend I have ever
had, but is the best man I have known.
S. L. CLEMENS.
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