Merely Coincidence: Mark Twain’s Short Story, ‘Mental Telegraphy Again’

When small coincidences happen in Mark Twain’s life, he wonders if there’s a mystical cause behind it.

Mark Twain in Naples, Italy. Public Domain

Two friends run into each other in the most unexpected place and they both exclaim, “What are the odds?” Coincidences and curious events like these are unique and add to life’s flavor.

In his short story “Mental Telegraphy Again,” Mark Twain relates several instances when his personal thoughts or actions curiously coincided with the events around him.

Something Mental

The first incident that Twain relates occurred when he and a friend, Mr. George W. Cable, were campaigning. While in Montreal, they attended a reception in their honor. Twain and Cable stood in a room and greeted a long line of men and women, and they shook hands with people. Twain related: “My sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently recognized a familiar face among the throng of strangers.”

Surprised by the familiar face, Twain remembered with delight that he had known “Mrs. R” in Carson City, Nevada. He couldn’t wait to greet her. However, as the line progressed, she never appeared.

Later, as he headed to the lecture hall, someone informed him that a friend was waiting to see him. Upon entering the room, he immediately noticed Mrs. R and greeted her, saying: “I knew you the moment you appeared at the reception this afternoon.” Yet she assured him that she had only just arrived and hadn’t been at the reception earlier.

Twain deduced that she must have been thinking of him, even if he wasn’t thinking of her. Her thoughts must have “flit through leagues of air to [him], and [brought] with it that clear and pleasant vision of herself.” He termed this flight of fancy “mental telegraphy.” It influenced his mind, so that he saw a vision of her.

This 1916 photograph depicts men assembling components at the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Works, Chelmsford, Essex, UK. Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Merely Coincidence

The next incident that Twain recalls concerned both a letter which he sent and a letter which he received.

While in Paris, Twain has a sudden desire to go on a lecture tour through the “antipodes and the borders of the Orient.” He was unsure how or why the thought suddenly occurred to him, nevertheless, he wrote to a friend, Henry M. Stanley, proposing he make an Australian lecture tour.

Stanley responded and said that Twain should contact Mr. R.S. Smythe. So, on Feb. 3, Twain wrote a letter to Mr. Smythe, stating his desire to go on a lecturing tour around Australia. On Feb. 6, he sent the letter. Three days later, on Feb. 9, Twain received a letter from Mr. Smythe. The letter was dated Dec. 17 and stated that Mr. Smythe wished to offer Twain a lecturing tour in Australia.

Twain was shocked by the coincidence and figured that the letter must have “passed under [his] nose on its way to lose three weeks traveling to America and back, and gave [him] a whiff of its contents as it went along.”

An unexpected letter was just one of Twain's many coincidences. Shutterstock

Through his many coincidental tales, Twain highlights one of the peculiar qualities of life: its ability to surprise one in unexpected ways. However problematic some surprises may be, they are good. He emphasizes that this particular quality is good. Coincidences add excitement and adventure to life.

Twain emphasizes the extraordinarily rare occurrence of coincidences, just as Vladimir Nabokov does in “Laughter in the Dark” when he says: “A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That’s what I like about coincidence.”

Coincidence itself is unpredictable and, thus, brings excitement and adventure around every bend. People may say that an unexpected event is “merely coincidence,” but coincidence is far more exciting than a mere surprise.

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