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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +Complete Letters of Mark Twain +by Mark Twain + + + + +MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS 1853-1910 + +ARRANGED WITH COMMENT BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE + + + + +FOREWORD + +Nowhere is the human being more truly revealed than in his letters. +Notin literary letters--prepared with care, and the thought of possible +publication--but in those letters wrought out of the press of +circumstances, and with no idea of print in mind. A collection of such +documents, written by one whose life has become of interest to mankind at +large, has a value quite aside from literature, in that it reflects in +some degree at least the soul of the writer. + +The letters of Mark Twain are peculiarly of the revealing sort. He was a +man of few restraints and of no affectations. In his correspondence, +as in his talk, he spoke what was in his mind, untrammeled by literary +conventions. + +Necessarily such a collection does not constitute a detailed life story, +but is supplementary to it. An extended biography of Mark Twain has +already been published. His letters are here gathered for those who wish +to pursue the subject somewhat more exhaustively from the strictly +personal side. Selections from this correspondence were used in the +biography mentioned. Most of these are here reprinted in the belief that +an owner of the "Letters" will wish the collection to be reasonably +complete. + + +[Etext Editor's Note: A. B. Paine considers this compendium a supplement +to his "Mark Twain, A Biography", I have arranged the volumes of the +"Letters" to correspond as closely as possible with the dates of the +Project Gutenberg six volumes of the "Biography". D.W.] + + + +MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS + +MARK TWAIN--A BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY + +SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, for nearly half a century known and celebrated +as "Mark Twain," was born in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835. +He was one of the foremost American philosophers of his day; he was the +world's most famous humorist of any day. During the later years of his +life he ranked not only as America's chief man of letters, but likewise +as her best known and best loved citizen. + +The beginnings of that life were sufficiently unpromising. The family +was a good one, of old Virginia and Kentucky stock, but its circumstances +were reduced, its environment meager and disheartening. The father, John +Marshall Clemens--a lawyer by profession, a merchant by vocation--had +brought his household to Florida from Jamestown, Tennessee, somewhat +after the manner of judge Hawkins as pictured in The Gilded Age. Florida +was a small town then, a mere village of twenty-one houses located on +Salt River, but judge Clemens, as he was usually called, optimistic and +speculative in his temperament, believed in its future. Salt River would +be made navigable; Florida would become a metropolis. He established a +small business there, and located his family in the humble frame cottage +where, five months later, was born a baby boy to whom they gave the name +of Samuel--a family name--and added Langhorne, after an old Virginia +friend of his father. + +The child was puny, and did not make a very sturdy fight for life. +Still he weathered along, season after season, and survived two stronger +children, Margaret and Benjamin. By 1839 Judge Clemens had lost faith in +Florida. He removed his family to Hannibal, and in this Mississippi +River town the little lad whom the world was to know as Mark Twain spent +his early life. In Tom Sawyer we have a picture of the Hannibal of those +days and the atmosphere of his boyhood there. + +His schooling was brief and of a desultory kind. It ended one day in +1847, when his father died and it became necessary that each one should +help somewhat in the domestic crisis. His brother Orion, ten years his +senior, was already a printer by trade. Pamela, his sister; also +considerably older, had acquired music, and now took a few pupils. +The little boy Sam, at twelve, was apprenticed to a printer named Ament. +His wages consisted of his board and clothes--"more board than clothes," +as he once remarked to the writer. + +He remained with Ament until his brother Orion bought out a small paper +in Hannibal in 1850. The paper, in time, was moved into a part of the +Clemens home, and the two brothers ran it, the younger setting most of +the type. A still younger brother, Henry, entered the office as an +apprentice. The Hannibal journal was no great paper from the beginning, +and it did not improve with time. Still, it managed to survive--country +papers nearly always manage to survive--year after year, bringing in some +sort of return. It was on this paper that young Sam Clemens began his +writings--burlesque, as a rule, of local characters and conditions-- +usually published in his brother's absence; generally resulting in +trouble on his return. Yet they made the paper sell, and if Orion had +but realized his brother's talent he might have turned it into capital +even then. + +In 1853 (he was not yet eighteen) Sam Clemens grew tired of his +limitations and pined for the wider horizon of the world. He gave out to +his family that he was going to St. Louis, but he kept on to New York, +where a World's Fair was then going on. In New York he found employment +at his trade, and during the hot months of 1853 worked in a printing- +office in Cliff Street. By and by he went to Philadelphia, where he +worked a brief time; made a trip to Washington, and presently set out for +the West again, after an absence of more than a year. + +Onion, meanwhile, had established himself at Muscatine, Iowa, but soon +after removed to Keokuk, where the brothers were once more together, +till following their trade. Young Sam Clemens remained in Keokuk until +the winter of 1856-57, when he caught a touch of the South-American fever +then prevalent; and decided to go to Brazil. He left Keokuk for +Cincinnati, worked that winter in a printing-office there, and in April +took the little steamer, Paul Jones, for New Orleans, where he expected +to find a South-American vessel. In Life on the Mississippi we have his +story of how he met Horace Bixby and decided to become a pilot instead of +a South American adventurer--jauntily setting himself the stupendous task +of learning the twelve hundred miles of the Mississippi River between St. +Louis and New Orleans--of knowing it as exactly and as unfailingly, even +in the dark, as one knows the way to his own features. It seems +incredible to those who knew Mark Twain in his later years--dreamy, +unpractical, and indifferent to details--that he could have acquired so +vast a store of minute facts as were required by that task. Yet within +eighteen months he had become not only a pilot, but one of the best and +most careful pilots on the river, intrusted with some of the largest and +most valuable steamers. He continued in that profession for two and a +half years longer, and during that time met with no disaster that cost +his owners a single dollar for damage. + +Then the war broke out. South Carolina seceded in December, 1860 and +other States followed. Clemens was in New Orleans in January, 1861, when +Louisiana seceded, and his boat was put into the Confederate service and +sent up the Red River. His occupation gone, he took steamer for the +North--the last one before the blockade closed. A blank cartridge was +fired at them from Jefferson Barracks when they reached St. Louis, but +they did not understand the signal, and kept on. Presently a shell +carried away part of the pilot-house and considerably disturbed its +inmates. They realized, then, that war had really begun. + +In those days Clemens's sympathies were with the South. He hurried up to +Hannibal and enlisted with a company of young fellows who were recruiting +with the avowed purpose of "throwing off the yoke of the invader." They +were ready for the field, presently, and set out in good order, a sort of +nondescript cavalry detachment, mounted on animals more picturesque than +beautiful. Still, it was a resolute band, and might have done very well, +only it rained a good deal, which made soldiering disagreeable and hard. +Lieutenant Clemens resigned at the end of two weeks, and decided to go to +Nevada with Orion, who was a Union abolitionist and had received an +appointment from Lincoln as Secretary of the new Territory. + +In 'Roughing It' Mark Twain gives us the story of the overland journey +made by the two brothers, and a picture of experiences at the other end +--true in aspect, even if here and there elaborated in detail. He was +Orion's private secretary, but there was no private-secretary work to do, +and no salary attached to the position. The incumbent presently went to +mining, adding that to his other trades. + +He became a professional miner, but not a rich one. He was at Aurora, +California, in the Esmeralda district, skimping along, with not much to +eat and less to wear, when he was summoned by Joe Goodman, owner and +editor of the Virginia City Enterprise, to come up and take the local +editorship of that paper. He had been contributing sketches to it now +and then, under the pen, name of "Josh," and Goodman, a man of fine +literary instincts, recognized a talent full of possibilities. This was +in the late summer of 1862. Clemens walked one hundred and thirty miles +over very bad roads to take the job, and arrived way-worn and travel- +stained. He began on a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, picking up +news items here and there, and contributing occasional sketches, +burlesques, hoaxes, and the like. When the Legislature convened at +Carson City he was sent down to report it, and then, for the first time, +began signing his articles "Mark Twain," a river term, used in making +soundings, recalled from his piloting days. The name presently became +known up and down the Pacific coast. His articles were, copied and +commented upon. He was recognized as one of the foremost among a little +coterie of overland writers, two of whom, Mark Twain and Bret Harte, were +soon to acquire a world-wide fame. + +He left Carson City one day, after becoming involved in a duel, the +result of an editorial squib written in Goodman's absence, and went +across the Sierras to San Francisco. The duel turned out farcically +enough, but the Nevada law, which regarded even a challenge or its +acceptance as a felony, was an inducement to his departure. Furthermore, +he had already aspired to a wider field of literary effort. He attached +himself to the Morning Call, and wrote occasionally for one or two +literary papers--the Golden Era and the Californian---prospering well +enough during the better part of the year. Bret Harte and the rest of +the little Pacific-slope group were also on the staff of these papers, +and for a time, at least, the new school of American humor mustered in +San Francisco. + +The connection with the Call was not congenial. In due course it came to +a natural end, and Mark Twain arranged to do a daily San Francisco letter +for his old paper, the Enterprise. The Enterprise letters stirred up +trouble. They criticized the police of San Francisco so severely that +the officials found means of making the writer's life there difficult and +comfortless. With Jim Gillis, brother of a printer of whom he was fond, +and who had been the indirect cause of his troubles, he went up into +Calaveras County, to a cabin on jackass Hill. Jim Gillis, a lovable, +picturesque character (the Truthful James of Bret Harte), owned mining +claims. Mark Twain decided to spend his vacation in pocket-mining, and +soon added that science to his store of knowledge. It was a halcyon, +happy three months that he lingered there, but did not make his fortune; +he only laid the corner-stone. + +They tried their fortune at Angel's Camp, a place well known to readers +of Bret Harte. But it rained pretty steadily, and they put in most of +their time huddled around the single stove of the dingy hotel of Angel's, +telling yarns. Among the stories was one told by a dreary narrator named +Ben Coon. It was about a frog that had been trained to jump, but failed +to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously +loaded him with shot. The story had been circulated among the camps, but +Mark Twain had never heard it until then. The tale and the tiresome +fashion of its telling amused him. He made notes to remember it. + +Their stay in Angel's Camp came presently to an end. One day, when the +mining partners were following the specks of gold that led to a pocket +somewhere up the hill, a chill, dreary rain set in. Jim, as usual was +washing, and Clemens was carrying water. The "color" became better and +better as they ascended, and Gillis, possessed with the mining passion, +would have gone on, regardless of the rain. Clemens, however, protested, +and declared that each pail of water was his last. Finally he said, in +his deliberate drawl: + +"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work is too disagreeable. +Let's go to the house and wait till it clears up." + +Gillis had just taken out a pan of earth. "Bring one more pail, Sam," he +pleaded. + +"I won't do it, Jim! Not a drop! Not if I knew there was a million +dollars in that pan!" + +They left the pan standing there and went back to Angel's Camp. The rain +continued and they returned to jackass Hill without visiting their claim +again. Meantime the rain had washed away the top of the pan of earth +left standing on the slope above Angel's, and exposed a handful of +nuggets-pure gold. Two strangers came along and, observing it, had sat +down to wait until the thirty-day claim-notice posted by Jim Gillis +should expire. They did not mind the rain--not with that gold in sight-- +and the minute the thirty days were up they followed the lead a few pans +further, and took out-some say ten, some say twenty, thousand dollars. +It was a good pocket. Mark Twain missed it by one pail of water. Still, +it is just as well, perhaps, when one remembers The Jumping Frog. + +Matters having quieted down in San Francisco, he returned and took up his +work again. Artemus Ward, whom he had met in Virginia City, wrote him +for something to use in his (Ward's) new book. Clemens sent the frog +story, but he had been dilatory in preparing it, and when it reached New +York, Carleton, the publisher, had Ward's book about ready for the press. +It did not seem worth while to Carleton to include the frog story, and +handed it over to Henry Clapp, editor of the Saturday Press--a perishing +sheet-saying: + +"Here, Clapp, here's something you can use." + +The story appeared in the Saturday Press of November 18, 1865. According +to the accounts of that time it set all New York in a roar, which +annoyed, rather than gratified, its author. He had thought very little +of it, indeed, yet had been wondering why some of his more highly +regarded work had not found fuller recognition. + +But The Jumping Frog did not die. Papers printed it and reprinted it, +and it was translated into foreign tongues. The name of "Mark Twain" +became known as the author of that sketch, and the two were permanently +associated from the day of its publication. + +Such fame as it brought did not yield heavy financial return. Its author +continued to win a more or less precarious livelihood doing miscellaneous +work, until March, 1866, when he was employed by the Sacramento Union to +contribute a series of letters from the Sandwich Islands. They were +notable letters, widely read and freely copied, and the sojourn there was +a generally fortunate one. It was during his stay in the islands that +the survivors of the wrecked vessel, the Hornet, came in, after long +privation at sea. Clemens was sick at the time, but Anson Burlingame, +who was in Honolulu, on the way to China, had him carried in a cot to the +hospital, where he could interview the surviving sailors and take down +their story. It proved a great "beat" for the Union, and added +considerably to its author's prestige. On his return to San Francisco he +contributed an article on the Hornet disaster to Harper's Magazine, and +looked forward to its publication as a beginning of a real career. But, +alas! when it appeared the printer and the proof-reader had somehow +converted "Mark Twain" into "Mark Swain," and his dreams perished. + +Undecided as to his plans, he was one day advised by a friend to deliver +a lecture. He was already known as an entertaining talker, and his +adviser judged his possibilities well. In Roughing It we find the story +of that first lecture and its success. He followed it with other +lectures up and down the Coast. He had added one more profession to his +intellectual stock in trade. + +Mark Twain, now provided with money, decided to pay a visit to his +people. He set out for the East in December, 1866, via Panama, arriving +in New York in January. A few days later he was with his mother, then +living with his sister, in St. Louis. A little later he lectured in +Keokuk, and in Hannibal, his old home. + +It was about this time that the first great Mediterranean steamship +excursion began to be exploited. No such ocean picnic had ever been +planned before, and it created a good deal of interest East and West. +Mark Twain heard of it and wanted to go. He wrote to friends on the +'Alta California,' of San Francisco, and the publishers of that paper had +sufficient faith to advance the money for his passage, on the +understanding that he was to contribute frequent letters, at twenty +dollars apiece. It was a liberal offer, as rates went in those days, and +a godsend in the fullest sense of the word to Mark Twain. + +Clemens now hurried to New York in order to be there in good season for +the sailing date, which was in June. In New York he met Frank Fuller, +whom he had known as territorial Governor of Utah, an energetic and +enthusiastic admirer of the Western humorist. Fuller immediately +proposed that Clemens give a lecture in order to establish his reputation +on the Atlantic coast. Clemens demurred, but Fuller insisted, and +engaged Cooper Union for the occasion. Not many tickets were sold. +Fuller, however, always ready for an emergency, sent out a flood of +complimentaries to the school-teachers of New York and adjacent +territory, and the house was crammed. It turned out to be a notable +event. Mark Twain was at his best that night; the audience laughed +until, as some of them declared when the lecture was over, they were too +weak to leave their seats. His success as a lecturer was assured. + +The Quaker City was the steamer selected for the great oriental tour. +It sailed as advertised, June 8, 1867, and was absent five months, during +which Mark Twain contributed regularly to the 'Alta-California', and +wrote several letters for the New York Tribune. They were read and +copied everywhere. They preached a new gospel in travel literature-- +a gospel of seeing with an overflowing honesty; a gospel of sincerity in +according praise to whatever he considered genuine, and ridicule to the +things believed to be shams. It was a gospel that Mark Twain continued +to preach during his whole career. It became, in fact, his chief +literary message to the world, a world ready for that message. + +He returned to find himself famous. Publishers were ready with plans for +collecting the letters in book form. The American Publishing Company, +of Hartford, proposed a volume, elaborately illustrated, to be sold by +subscription. He agreed with them as to terms, and went to Washington' +to prepare copy. But he could not work quietly there, and presently was +back in San Francisco, putting his book together, lecturing occasionally, +always to crowded houses. He returned in August, 1868, with the +manuscript of the Innocents Abroad, and that winter, while his book was +being manufactured, lectured throughout the East and Middle West, making +his headquarters in Hartford, and in Elmira, New York. + +He had an especial reason for going to Elmira. On the Quaker City he had +met a young man by the name of Charles Langdon, and one day, in the Bay +of Smyrna, had seen a miniature of the boy's sister, Olivia Langdon, then +a girl of about twenty-two. He fell in love with that picture, and still +more deeply in love with the original when he met her in New York on his +return. The Langdon home was in Elmira, and it was for this reason that +as time passed he frequently sojourned there. When the proofs of the +Innocents Abroad were sent him he took them along, and he and sweet +"Livy" Langdon read them together. What he lacked in those days in +literary delicacy she detected, and together they pruned it away. She +became his editor that winter--a position which she held until her death. + +The book was published in July, 1869, and its success was immediate and +abundant. On his wedding-day, February 2, 1870, Clemens received a check +from his publishers for more than four thousand dollars, royalty +accumulated during the three months preceding. The sales soon amounted +to more than fifty thousand copies, and had increased to very nearly one +hundred thousand at the end of the first three years. It was a book of +travel, its lowest price three dollars and fifty cents. Even with our +increased reading population no such sale is found for a book of that +description to-day. And the Innocents Abroad holds its place--still +outsells every other book in its particular field. [This in 1917. D.W.] + +Mark Twain now decided to settle down. He had bought an interest in the +Express, of Buffalo, New York, and took up his residence in that city in +a house presented to the young couple by Mr. Langdon. It did not prove a +fortunate beginning. Sickness, death, and trouble of many kinds put a +blight on the happiness of their first married year and gave, them a +distaste for the home in which they had made such a promising start. +A baby boy, Langdon Clemens, came along in November, but he was never a +strong child. By the end of the following year the Clemenses had +arranged for a residence in Hartford, temporary at first, later made +permanent. It was in Hartford that little Langdon died, in 1872. + +Clemens, meanwhile, had sold out his interest in the Express, severed his +connection with the Galaxy, a magazine for which he was doing a +department each month, and had written a second book for the American +Publishing Company, Roughing It, published in 1872. In August of the +same year he made a trip to London, to get material for a book on +England, but was too much sought after, too continuously feted, to do any +work. He went alone, but in November returned with the purpose of taking +Mrs. Clemens and the new baby, Susy, to England the following spring. +They sailed in April, 1873, and spent a good portion of the year in +England and Scotland. They returned to America in November, and Clemens +hurried back to London alone to deliver a notable series of lectures +under the management of George Dolby, formerly managing agent for Charles +Dickens. For two months Mark Twain lectured steadily to London +audiences--the big Hanover Square rooms always filled. He returned to +his family in January, 1874. + +Meantime, a home was being built for them in Hartford, and in the autumn +of 1874 they took up residence in ita happy residence, continued through +seventeen years--well-nigh perfect years. Their summers they spent in +Elmira, on Quarry Farm--a beautiful hilltop, the home of Mrs. Clemens's +sister. It was in Elmira that much of Mark Twain's literary work was +done. He had a special study there, some distance from the house, where +he loved to work out his fancies and put them into visible form. + +It was not so easy to work at Hartford; there was too much going on. +The Clemens home was a sort of general headquarters for literary folk, +near and far, and for distinguished foreign visitors of every sort. +Howells and Aldrich used it as their half-way station between Boston and +New York, and every foreign notable who visited America made a pilgrimage +to Hartford to see Mark Twain. Some even went as far as Elmira, among +them Rudyard Kipling, who recorded his visit in a chapter of his American +Notes. Kipling declared he had come all the way from India to see Mark +Twain. + +Hartford had its own literary group. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived +near the Clemens home; also Charles Dudley Warner. The Clemens and +Warner families were constantly associated, and The Gilded Age, published +in 1873, resulted from the friendship of Warner and Mark Twain. The +character of Colonel Sellers in that book has become immortal, and it is +a character that only Mark Twain could create, for, though drawn from his +mother's cousin, James Lampton, it embodies--and in no very exaggerated +degree--characteristics that were his own. The tendency to make millions +was always imminent; temptation was always hard to resist. Money-making +schemes are continually being placed before men of means and prominence, +and Mark Twain, to the day of his death, found such schemes fatally +attractive. + +It was because of the Sellers characteristics in him that he invested in +a typesetting-machine which cost him nearly two hundred thousand dollars +and helped to wreck his fortunes by and by. It was because of this +characteristic that he invested in numberless schemes of lesser +importance, but no less disastrous in the end. His one successful +commercial venture was his association with Charles L. Webster in the +publication of the Grant Memoirs, of which enough copies were sold to pay +a royalty of more than four hundred thousand dollars to Grant's widow-- +the largest royalty ever paid from any single publication. It saved the +Grant family from poverty. Yet even this triumph was a misfortune to +Mark Twain, for it led to scores of less profitable book ventures and +eventual disaster. + +Meanwhile he had written and published a number of books. Tom Sawyer, +The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, and +A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court were among the volumes that +had entertained the world and inspired it with admiration and love for +their author. In 1878-79 he had taken his family to Europe, where they +spent their time in traveling over the Continent. It was during this +period that he was joined by his intimate friend, the Rev. Joseph H. +Twichell, of Hartford, and the two made a journey, the story of which is +told in A Tramp Abroad. + +In 1891 the Hartford house was again closed, this time indefinitely, +and the family, now five in number, took up residence in Berlin. The +typesetting-machine and the unfortunate publishing venture were drawing +heavily on the family finances at this period, and the cost of the +Hartford establishment was too great to be maintained. During the next +three years he was distracted by the financial struggle which ended in +April, 1894, with the failure of Charles L. Webster & Co. Mark Twain now +found himself bankrupt, and nearly one hundred thousand dollars in debt. +It had been a losing fight, with this bitter ending always in view; +yet during this period of hard, hopeless effort he had written a large +portion of the book which of all his works will perhaps survive the +longest--his tender and beautiful story of Joan of Arc. All his life +Joan had been his favorite character in the world's history, and during +those trying months and years of the early nineties--in Berlin, in +Florence, in Paris--he was conceiving and putting his picture of that +gentle girl-warrior into perfect literary form. It was published in +Harper's Magazine--anonymously, because, as he said, it would not have +been received seriously had it appeared over his own name. The +authorship was presently recognized. Exquisitely, reverently, as the +story was told, it had in it the, touch of quaint and gentle humor which +could only have been given to it by Mark Twain. + +It was only now and then that Mark Twain lectured during these years. +He had made a reading tour with George W. Cable during the winter of +1884-85, but he abominated the platform, and often vowed he would never +appear before an audience again. Yet, in 1895, when he was sixty years +old, he decided to rebuild his fortunes by making a reading tour around +the world. It was not required of him to pay his debts in full. The +creditors were willing to accept fifty per cent. of the liabilities, and +had agreed to a settlement on that basis. But this did not satisfy Mrs. +Clemens, and it did not satisfy him. They decided to pay dollar for +dollar. They sailed for America, and in July, 1895, set out from Elmira +on the long trail across land and sea. Mrs. Clemens, and Clara Clemens, +joined this pilgrimage, Susy and Jean Clemens remaining at Elmira with +their aunt. Looking out of the car windows, the travelers saw Susy +waving them an adieu. It was a picture they would long remember. + +The reading tour was one of triumph. High prices and crowded houses +prevailed everywhere. The author-reader visited Australia, New Zealand, +India, Ceylon, South Africa, arriving in England, at last, with the money +and material which would pay off the heavy burden of debt and make him +once more free before the world. And in that hour of triumph came the +heavy blow. Susy Clemens, never very strong, had been struck down. The +first cable announced her illness. The mother and Clara sailed at once. +Before they were half-way across the ocean a second cable announced that +Susy was dead. The father had to meet and endure the heartbreak alone; +he could not reach America, in time for the burial. He remained in +England, and was joined there by the sorrowing family. + +They passed that winter in London, where he worked at the story of his +travels, Following the Equator, the proofs of which he read the next +summer in Switzerland. The returns from it, and from his reading +venture, wiped away Mark Twain's indebtedness and made him free. He +could go back to America; as he said, able to look any man in the face +again. + +Yet he did not go immediately. He could live more economically abroad, +and economy was still necessary. The family spent two winters in Vienna, +and their apartments there constituted a veritable court where the +world's notables gathered. Another winter in England followed, and then, +in the latter part of 1900, they went home--that is, to America. Mrs. +Clemens never could bring herself to return to Hartford, and never saw +their home there again. + +Mark Twain's return to America, was in the nature of a national event. +Wherever he appeared throngs turned out to bid him welcome. Mighty +banquets were planned in his honor. + +In a house at 14 West Tenth Street, and in a beautiful place at +Riverdale, on the Hudson, most of the next three years were passed. Then +Mrs. Clemens's health failed, and in the autumn of 1903 the family went +to Florence for her benefit. There, on the 5th of June, 1904, she died. +They brought her back and laid her beside Susy, at Elmira. That winter +the family took up residence at 21 Fifth Avenue, New York, and remained +there until the completion of Stormfield, at Redding, Connecticut, in +1908. + +In his later life Mark Twain was accorded high academic honors. Already, +in 1888, he had received from Yale College the degree of Master of Arts, +and the same college made him a Doctor of Literature in 1901. A year +later the university of his own State, at Columbia, Missouri, conferred +the same degree, and then, in 1907, came the crowning honor, when +venerable Oxford tendered him the doctor's robe. + +"I don't know why they should give me a degree like that," he said, +quaintly. "I never doctored any literature--I wouldn't know how." + +He had thought never to cross the ocean again, but he declared he would +travel to Mars and back, if necessary, to get that Oxford degree. +He appreciated its full meaning-recognition by the world's foremost +institution of learning of the achievements of one who had no learning of +the institutionary kind. He sailed in June, and his sojourn in England +was marked by a continuous ovation. His hotel was besieged by callers. +Two secretaries were busy nearly twenty hours a day attending to visitors +and mail. When he appeared on the street his name went echoing in every +direction and the multitudes gathered. On the day when he rose, in his +scarlet robe and black mortar-board, to receive his degree (he must have +made a splendid picture in that dress, with his crown of silver hair), +the vast assembly went wild. What a triumph, indeed, for the little +Missouri printer-boy! It was the climax of a great career. + +Mark Twain's work was always of a kind to make people talk, always +important, even when it was mere humor. Yet it was seldom that; there +was always wisdom under it, and purpose, and these things gave it dynamic +force and enduring life. Some of his aphorisms--so quaint in form as to +invite laughter--are yet fairly startling in their purport. His +paraphrase, "When in doubt, tell the truth," is of this sort. "Frankness +is a jewel; only the young can afford it," he once said to the writer, +apropos of a little girl's remark. His daily speech was full of such +things. The secret of his great charm was his great humanity and the +gentle quaintness and sincerity of his utterance. + +His work did not cease when the pressing need of money came to an end. +He was full of ideas, and likely to begin a new article or story at any +time. He wrote and published a number of notable sketches, articles, +stories, even books, during these later years, among them that marvelous +short story--"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." In that story, as in +most of his later work, he proved to the world that he was much more than +a humorist--that he was, in fact, a great teacher, moralist, philosopher- +-the greatest, perhaps, of his age. + +His life at Stormfield--he had never seen the place until the day of his +arrival, June 18, 1908--was a peaceful and serene old age. Not that he +was really old; he never was that. His step, his manner, his point of +view, were all and always young. He was fond of children and frequently +had them about him. He delighted in games--especially in billiards--and +in building the house at Stormfield the billiard-room was first +considered. He had a genuine passion for the sport; without it his +afternoon was not complete. His mornings he was likely to pass in bed, +smoking--he was always smoking--and attending to his correspondence and +reading. History and the sciences interested him, and his bed was strewn +with biographies and stories of astronomical and geological research. +The vastness of distances and periods always impressed him. He had no +head for figures, but he would labor for hours over scientific +calculations, trying to compass them and to grasp their gigantic import. +I remember once finding him highly elated over the fact that he had +figured out for himself the length in hours and minutes of a "light +year." He showed me the pages covered with figures, and was more proud of +them than if they had been the pages of an immortal story. Then we +played billiards, but even his favorite game could not make him +altogether forget his splendid achievement. + +It was on the day before Christmas, 1909, that heavy bereavement once +more came into the life of Mark Twain. His daughter Jean, long subject +to epileptic attacks, was seized with a convulsion while in her bath and +died before assistance reached her. He was dazed by the suddenness of +the blow. His philosophy sustained him. He was glad, deeply glad for +the beautiful girl that had been released. + +"I never greatly envied anybody but the dead," he said, when he had +looked at her. "I always envy the dead." + +The coveted estate of silence, time's only absolute gift, it was the one +benefaction he had ever considered worth while. + +Yet the years were not unkindly to Mark Twain. They brought him sorrow, +but they brought him likewise the capacity and opportunity for large +enjoyment, and at the last they laid upon him a kind of benediction. +Naturally impatient, he grew always more gentle, more generous, more +tractable and considerate as the seasons passed. His final days may be +said to have been spent in the tranquil light of a summer afternoon. + +His own end followed by a few months that of his daughter. There were +already indications that his heart was seriously affected, and soon after +Jean's death he sought the warm climate of Bermuda. But his malady made +rapid progress, and in April he returned to Stormfield. He died there +just a week later, April 21, 1910. + +Any attempt to designate Mark Twain's place in the world's literary +history would be presumptuous now. Yet I cannot help thinking that he +will maintain his supremacy in the century that produced him. I think so +because, of all the writers of that hundred years, his work was the most +human his utterances went most surely to the mark. In the long analysis +of the ages it is the truth that counts, and he never approximated, never +compromised, but pronounced those absolute verities to which every human +being of whatever rank must instantly respond. + +His understanding of subjective human nature--the vast, unwritten life +within--was simply amazing. Such knowledge he acquired at the +fountainhead--that is, from himself. He recognized in himself an extreme +example of the human being with all the attributes of power and of +weakness, and he made his exposition complete. + +The world will long miss Mark Twain; his example and his teaching will be +neither ignored nor forgotten. Genius defies the laws of perspective and +looms larger as it recedes. The memory of Mark Twain remains to us a +living and intimate presence that today, even more than in life, +constitutes a stately moral bulwark reared against hypocrisy and +superstition--a mighty national menace to sham. + + + + + + + MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS + + +I + +EARLY LETTERS, 1853. NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA + + We have no record of Mark Twain's earliest letters. Very likely + they were soiled pencil notes, written to some school sweetheart-- + to "Becky Thatcher," perhaps--and tossed across at lucky moments, + or otherwise, with happy or disastrous results. One of those + smudgy, much-folded school notes of the Tom Sawyer period would be + priceless to-day, and somewhere among forgotten keepsakes it may + exist, but we shall not be likely to find it. No letter of his + boyhood, no scrap of his earlier writing, has come to light except + his penciled name, SAM CLEMENS, laboriously inscribed on the inside + of a small worn purse that once held his meager, almost non-existent + wealth. He became a printer's apprentice at twelve, but as he + received no salary, the need of a purse could not have been urgent. + He must have carried it pretty steadily, however, from its + appearance--as a kind of symbol of hope, maybe--a token of that + Sellers-optimism which dominated his early life, and was never + entirely subdued. + + No other writing of any kind has been preserved from Sam Clemens's + boyhood, none from that period of his youth when he had served his + apprenticeship and was a capable printer on his brother's paper, a + contributor to it when occasion served. Letters and manuscripts of + those days have vanished--even his contributions in printed form are + unobtainable. It is not believed that a single number of Orion + Clemens's paper, the Hannibal Journal, exists to-day. + + It was not until he was seventeen years old that Sam Clemens wrote a + letter any portion of which has survived. He was no longer in + Hannibal. Orion's unprosperous enterprise did not satisfy him. + His wish to earn money and to see the world had carried him first to + St. Louis, where his sister Pamela was living, then to New York + City, where a World's Fair in a Crystal Palace was in progress. + The letter tells of a visit to this great exhibition. It is not + complete, and the fragment bears no date, but it was written during + the summer of 1853. + + + Fragment of a letter from Sam L. Clemens to his sister + Pamela Moffett, in St. Louis, summer of 1853: + +. . . From the gallery (second floor) you have a glorious sight--the +flags of the different countries represented, the lofty dome, glittering +jewelry, gaudy tapestry, &c., with the busy crowd passing to and fro--tis +a perfect fairy palace--beautiful beyond description. + +The Machinery department is on the main floor, but I cannot enumerate any +of it on account of the lateness of the hour (past 8 o'clock.) It would +take more than a week to examine everything on exhibition; and as I was +only in a little over two hours tonight, I only glanced at about one- +third of the articles; and having a poor memory; I have enumerated +scarcely any of even the principal objects. The visitors to the Palace +average 6,000 daily--double the population of Hannibal. The price of +admission being 50 cents, they take in about $3,000. + +The Latting Observatory (height about 280 feet) is near the Palace--from +it you can obtain a grand view of the city and the country round. The +Croton Aqueduct, to supply the city with water, is the greatest wonder +yet. Immense sewers are laid across the bed of the Hudson River, and +pass through the country to Westchester county, where a whole river is +turned from its course, and brought to New York. From the reservoir in +the city to the Westchester county reservoir, the distance is thirty- +eight miles! and if necessary, they could supply every family in New York +with one hundred barrels of water per day! + +I am very sorry to learn that Henry has been sick. He ought to go to the +country and take exercise; for he is not half so healthy as Ma thinks he +is. If he had my walking to do, he would be another boy entirely. Four +times every day I walk a little over one mile; and working hard all day, +and walking four miles, is exercise--I am used to it, now, though, and it +is no trouble. Where is it Orion's going to? Tell Ma my promises are +faithfully kept, and if I have my health I will take her to Ky. in the +spring--I shall save money for this. Tell Jim and all the rest of them +to write, and give me all the news. I am sorry to hear such bad news +from Will and Captain Bowen. I shall write to Will soon. The Chatham- +square Post Office and the Broadway office too, are out of my way, and I +always go to the General Post Office; so you must write the direction of +my letters plain, "New York City, N. Y.," without giving the street or +anything of the kind, or they may go to some of the other offices. (It +has just struck 2 A.M. and I always get up at 6, and am at work at 7.) +You ask me where I spend my evenings. Where would you suppose, with a +free printers' library containing more than 4,000 volumes within a +quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk to? I shall write to +Ella soon. Write soon + Truly your Brother + SAM. + +P. S. I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could not +read by it. + + + He was lodging in a mechanics' cheap boarding-house in Duane Street, + and we may imagine the bareness of his room, the feeble poverty of + his lamp. + + "Tell Ma my promises are faithfully kept." It was the day when he + had left Hannibal. His mother, Jane Clemens, a resolute, wiry woman + of forty-nine, had put together his few belongings. Then, holding + up a little Testament: + + "I want you to take hold of the end of this, Sam," she said, "and + make me a promise. I want you to repeat after me these words: + 'I do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card, or drink a drop + of liquor while I am gone.'" + + It was this oath, repeated after her, that he was keeping + faithfully. The Will Bowen mentioned is a former playmate, one of + Tom Sawyer's outlaw band. He had gone on the river to learn + piloting with an elder brother, the "Captain." What the bad news + was is no longer remembered, but it could not have been very + serious, for the Bowen boys remained on the river for many years. + "Ella" was Samuel Clemens's cousin and one-time sweetheart, Ella + Creel. "Jim" was Jim Wolfe, an apprentice in Orion's office, and + the hero of an adventure which long after Mark Twain wrote under the + title of, "Jim Wolfe and the Cats." + + There is scarcely a hint of the future Mark Twain in this early + letter. It is the letter of a boy of seventeen who is beginning to + take himself rather seriously--who, finding himself for the first + time far from home and equal to his own responsibilities, is willing + to carry the responsibility of others. Henry, his brother, three + years younger, had been left in the printing-office with Orion, who, + after a long, profitless fight, is planning to remove from Hannibal. + The young traveler is concerned as to the family outlook, and will + furnish advice if invited. He feels the approach of prosperity, and + will take his mother on a long-coveted trip to her old home in the + spring. His evenings? Where should he spend them, with a free + library of four thousand volumes close by? It is distinctly a + youthful letter, a bit pretentious, and wanting in the spontaneity + and humor of a later time. It invites comment, now, chiefly because + it is the first surviving document in the long human story. + + He was working in the printing-office of John A. Gray and Green, on + Cliff Street, and remained there through the summer. He must have + written more than once during this period, but the next existing + letter--also to Sister Pamela--was written in October. It is + perhaps a shade more natural in tone than the earlier example, and + there is a hint of Mark Twain in the first paragraph. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + NEW YORK . . . , Oct. Saturday '53. +MY DEAR SISTER,--I have not written to any of the family for some time, +from the fact, firstly, that I didn't know where they were, and secondly, +because I have been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to +leave New York every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a liking +to the abominable place, and every time I get ready to leave, I put it +off a day or so, from some unaccountable cause. It is as hard on my +conscience to leave New York, as it was easy to leave Hannibal. I think +I shall get off Tuesday, though. + +Edwin Forrest has been playing, for the last sixteen days, at the +Broadway Theatre, but I never went to see him till last night. The play +was the "Gladiator." I did not like parts of it much, but other portions +were really splendid. In the latter part of the last act, where the +"Gladiator" (Forrest) dies at his brother's feet, (in all the fierce +pleasure of gratified revenge,) the man's whole soul seems absorbed in +the part he is playing; and it is really startling to see him. I am +sorry I did not see him play "Damon and Pythias" the former character +being his greatest. He appears in Philadelphia on Monday night. + +I have not received a letter from home lately, but got a "'Journal'" the +other day, in which I see the office has been sold. I suppose Ma, Orion +and Henry are in St. Louis now. If Orion has no other project in his +head, he ought to take the contract for getting out some weekly paper, if +he cannot get a foremanship. Now, for such a paper as the "Presbyterian" +(containing about 60,000,--[Sixty thousand ems, type measurement.]) +he could get $20 or $25 per week, and he and Henry could easily do the +work; nothing to do but set the type and make up the forms.... + +If my letters do not come often, you need not bother yourself about me; +for if you have a brother nearly eighteen years of age, who is not able +to take care of himself a few miles from home, such a brother is not +worth one's thoughts: and if I don't manage to take care of No. 1, be +assured you will never know it. I am not afraid, however; I shall ask +favors from no one, and endeavor to be (and shall be) as "independent as +a wood-sawyer's clerk." + +I never saw such a place for military companies as New York. Go on the +street when you will, you are sure to meet a company in full uniform, +with all the usual appendages of drums, fifes, &c. I saw a large company +of soldiers of 1812 the other day, with a '76 veteran scattered here and +there in the ranks. And as I passed through one of the parks lately, +I came upon a company of boys on parade. Their uniforms were neat, and +their muskets about half the common size. Some of them were not more +than seven or eight years of age; but had evidently been well-drilled. + +Passage to Albany (160 miles) on the finest steamers that ply' the +Hudson, is now 25 cents--cheap enough, but is generally cheaper than that +in the summer. + +I want you to write as soon as I tell you where to direct your letter. +I would let you know now, if I knew myself. I may perhaps be here a week +longer; but I cannot tell. When you write tell me the whereabouts of the +family. My love to Mr. Moffett and Ella. Tell Ella I intend to write to +her soon, whether she wants me to nor not. + Truly your Brother, + SAML L. CLEMENS. + + + He was in Philadelphia when he wrote the nest letter that has come + down to us, and apparently satisfied with the change. It is a + letter to Orion Clemens, who had disposed of his paper, but + evidently was still in Hannibal. An extended description of a trip + to Fairmount Park is omitted because of its length, its chief + interest being the tendency it shows to descriptive writing--the + field in which he would make his first great fame. There is, + however, no hint of humor, and only a mild suggestion of the author + of the Innocents Abroad in this early attempt. The letter as here + given is otherwise complete, the omissions being indicated. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Hannibal: + + PHILADELPHIA, PA. Oct. 26,1853. +MY DEAR BROTHER,--It was at least two weeks before I left New York, that +I received my last letter from home: and since then, not a word have I +heard from any of you. And now, since I think of it, it wasn't a letter, +either, but the last number of the "Daily Journal," saying that that +paper was sold, and I very naturally supposed from that, that the family +had disbanded, and taken up winter quarters in St. Louis. Therefore, I +have been writing to Pamela, till I've tired of it, and have received no +answer. I have been writing for the last two or three weeks, to send Ma +some money, but devil take me if I knew where she was, and so the money +has slipped out of my pocket somehow or other, but I have a dollar left, +and a good deal owing to me, which will be paid next Monday. I shall +enclose the dollar in this letter, and you can hand it to her. I know +it's a small amount, but then it will buy her a handkerchief, and at the +same time serve as a specimen of the kind of stuff we are paid with in +Philadelphia, for you see it's against the law, in Pennsylvania, to keep +or pass a bill of less denomination than $5. I have only seen two or +three bank bills since I have been in the State. On Monday the hands are +paid off in sparkling gold, fresh from the Mint; so your dreams are not +troubled with the fear of having doubtful money in your pocket. + +I am subbing at the Inquirer office. One man has engaged me to work for +him every Sunday till the first of next April, (when I shall return home +to take Ma to Ky;) and another has engaged my services for the 24th of +next month; and if I want it, I can get subbing every night of the week. +I go to work at 7 o'clock in the evening, and work till 3 o'clock the +next morning. I can go to the theatre and stay till 12 o'clock and then +go to the office, and get work from that till 3 the next morning; when I +go to bed, and sleep till 11 o'clock, then get up and loaf the rest of +the day. The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois; and +when one gets a good agate take,--["Agate," "minion," etc., sizes of +type; "take," a piece of work. Type measurement is by ems, meaning the +width of the letter 'm'.]--he is sure to make money. I made $2.50 last +Sunday, and was laughed at by all the hands, the poorest of whom sets +11,000 on Sunday; and if I don't set 10,000, at least, next Sunday, I'll +give them leave to laugh as much as they want to. Out of the 22 +compositors in this office, 12 at least, set 15,000 on Sunday. + +Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in +it. There is only one thing that gets my "dander" up--and that is the +hands are always encouraging me: telling me--"it's no use to get +discouraged--no use to be down-hearted, for there is more work here than +you can do!" " Down-hearted," the devil! I have not had a particle of +such a feeling since I left Hannibal, more than four months ago. I fancy +they'll have to wait some time till they see me down-hearted or afraid of +starving while I have strength to work and am in a city of 400,000 +inhabitants. When I was in Hannibal, before I had scarcely stepped out +of the town limits, nothing could have convinced me that I would starve +as soon as I got a little way from home.... + +The grave of Franklin is in Christ Church-yard, corner of Fifth and Arch +streets. They keep the gates locked, and one can only see the flat slab +that lies over his remains and that of his wife; but you cannot see the +inscription distinctly enough to read it. The inscription, I believe, +reads thus: + + "Benjamin | + and | Franklin" + Deborah | + +I counted 27 cannons (6 pounders) planted in the edge of the sidewalk in +Water St. the other day. They are driven into the ground, about a foot, +with the mouth end upwards. A ball is driven fast into the mouth of +each, to exclude the water; they look like so many posts. They were put +there during the war. I have also seen them planted in this manner, +round the old churches, in N. Y..... + +There is one fine custom observed in Phila. A gentleman is always +expected to hand up a lady's money for her. Yesterday, I sat in the +front end of the 'bus, directly under the driver's box--a lady sat +opposite me. She handed me her money, which was right. But, Lord! +a St. Louis lady would think herself ruined, if she should be so familiar +with a stranger. In St. Louis a man will sit in the front end of the +stage, and see a lady stagger from the far end, to pay her fare. The +Phila. 'bus drivers cannot cheat. In the front of the stage is a thing +like an office clock, with figures from 0 to 40, marked on its face. +When the stage starts, the hand of the clock is turned toward the 0. +When you get in and pay your fare, the driver strikes a bell, and the +hand moves to the figure 1 --that is, "one fare, and paid for," and there +is your receipt, as good as if you had it in your pocket. When a +passenger pays his fare and the driver does not strike the bell +immediately, he is greeted "Strike that bell! will you?" + +I must close now. I intend visiting the Navy Yard, Mint, etc., before I +write again. You must write often. You see I have nothing to write +interesting to you, while you can write nothing that will not interest +me. Don't say my letters are not long enough. Tell Jim Wolfe to write. +Tell all the boys where I am, and to write. Jim Robinson, particularly. +I wrote to him from N. Y. Tell me all that is going on in H--l. + Truly your brother + SAM. + + +Those were primitive times. Imagine a passenger in these easy-going days +calling to a driver or conductor to "Strike that bell!" + +"H--l" is his abbreviation for Hannibal. He had first used it in a title +of a poem which a few years before, during one of Orion's absences, he +had published in the paper. "To Mary in Hannibal" was too long to set as +a display head in single column. The poem had no great merit, but under +the abbreviated title it could hardly fail to invite notice. It was one +of several things he did to liven up the circulation during a brief +period of his authority. + +The doubtful money he mentions was the paper issued by private banks, +"wild cat," as it was called. He had been paid with it in New York, +and found it usually at a discount--sometimes even worthless. Wages and +money were both better in Philadelphia, but the fund for his mother's +trip to Kentucky apparently did not grow very rapidly. + +The next letter, written a month later, is also to Orion Clemens, who had +now moved to Muscatine, Iowa, and established there a new paper with an +old title, 'The Journal'. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Muscatine, Iowa: + + PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 28th, 1853. +MY DEAR BROTHER, -I received your letter today. I think Ma ought to +spend the winter in St. Louis. I don't believe in that climate--it's too +cold for her. + +The printers' annual ball and supper came off the other night. The +proceeds amounted to about $1,000. The printers, as well as other +people, are endeavoring to raise money to erect a monument to Franklin, +but there are so many abominable foreigners here (and among printers, +too,) who hate everything American, that I am very certain as much money +for such a purpose could be raised in St. Louis, as in Philadelphia. +I was in Franklin's old office this morning--the "North American" +(formerly "Philadelphia Gazette") and there was at least one foreigner +for every American at work there. + +How many subscribers has the Journal got? What does the job-work pay? +and what does the whole concern pay?..... + +I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my letters +will be very uninteresting, for this incessant night-work dulls one's +ideas amazingly. + +From some cause, I cannot set type nearly so fast as when I was at home. +Sunday is a long day, and while others set 12 and 15,000, yesterday, I +only set 10,000. However, I will shake this laziness off, soon, I reckon +.... + +How do you like "free-soil?"--I would like amazingly to see a good old- +fashioned negro. + My love to all + Truly your brother + SAM. + + + We may believe that it never occurred to the young printer, looking + up landmarks of Ben Franklin, that time would show points of + resemblance between the great Franklin's career and his own. Yet + these seem now rather striking. Like Franklin, he had been taken + out of school very young and put at the printer's trade; like + Franklin, he had worked in his brother's office, and had written for + the paper. Like him, too, he had left quietly for New York and + Philadelphia to work at the trade of printing, and in time Samuel + Clemens, like Benjamin Franklin, would become a world-figure, many- + sided, human, and of incredible popularity. The boy Sam Clemens may + have had such dreams, but we find no trace of them. + + There is but one more letter of this early period. Young Clemens + spent some time in Washington, but if he wrote from there his + letters have disappeared. The last letter is from Philadelphia and + seems to reflect homesickness. The novelty of absence and travel + was wearing thin. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 5, '53. +MY DEAR SISTER,--I have already written two letters within the last two +hours, and you will excuse me if this is not lengthy. If I had the +money, I would come to St. Louis now, while the river is open; but within +the last two or three weeks I have spent about thirty dollars for +clothing, so I suppose I shall remain where I am. I only want to return +to avoid night-work, which is injuring my eyes. I have received one or +two letters from home, but they are not written as they should be, and I +know no more about what is going on there than the man in the moon. One +only has to leave home to learn how to write an interesting letter to an +absent friend when he gets back. I suppose you board at Mrs. Hunter's +yet--and that, I think, is somewhere in Olive street above Fifth. +Philadelphia is one of the healthiest places in the Union. I wanted to +spend this winter in a warm climate, but it is too late now. I don't +like our present prospect for cold weather at all. + Truly your brother + SAM. + + + But he did not return to the West for another half year. The + letters he wrote during that period have not survived. It was late + in the summer of 1854 when he finally started for St. Louis. He sat + up for three days and nights in a smoking-car to make the journey, + and arrived exhausted. The river packet was leaving in a few hours + for Muscatine, Iowa, where his mother and his two brothers were now + located. He paid his sister a brief visit, and caught the boat. + Worn-out, he dropped into his berth and slept the thirty-six hours + of the journey. + + It was early when-he arrived--too early to arouse the family. In + the office of the little hotel where he waited for daylight he found + a small book. It contained portraits of the English rulers, with + the brief facts of their reigns. Young Clemens entertained himself + by learning this information by heart. He had a fine memory for + such things, and in an hour or two had the printed data perfectly + and permanently committed. This incidentally acquired knowledge + proved of immense value to him. It was his groundwork for all + English history. + + + + +II + +LETTERS 1856-61. KEOKUK, AND THE RIVER. END OF PILOTING + + There comes a period now of nearly four years, when Samuel Clemens + was either a poor correspondent or his letters have not been + preserved. Only two from this time have survived--happily of + intimate biographical importance. + + Young Clemens had not remained in Muscatine. His brother had no + inducements to offer, and he presently returned to St. Louis, where + he worked as a compositor on the Evening News until the following + spring, rooming with a young man named Burrough, a journeyman chair- + maker with a taste for the English classics. Orion Clemens, + meantime, on a trip to Keokuk, had casually married there, and a + little later removed his office to that city. He did not move the + paper; perhaps it did not seem worth while, and in Keokuk he + confined himself to commercial printing. The Ben Franklin Book and + Job Office started with fair prospects. Henry Clemens and a boy + named Dick Hingham were the assistants, and somewhat later, when + brother Sam came up from St. Louis on a visit, an offer of five + dollars a week and board induced him to remain. Later, when it + became increasingly difficult to pay the five dollars, Orion took + his brother into partnership, which perhaps relieved the financial + stress, though the office methods would seem to have left something + to be desired. It is about at this point that the first of the two + letters mentioned was written. The writer addressed it to his + mother and sister--Jane Clemens having by this time taken up her + home with her daughter, Mrs. Moffett. + + + To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + KEOKUK, Iowa, June 10th, 1856. +MY DEAR MOTHER & SISTER,--I have nothing to write. Everything is going +on well. The Directory is coming on finely. I have to work on it +occasionally, which I don't like a particle I don't like to work at too +many things at once. They take Henry and Dick away from me too. Before +we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much +work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly--but now, they +throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their work. +I have nothing to do with the book--if I did I would have the two book +hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop it. It is not a +mere supposition that they do not work fast enough--I know it; for +yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all the +afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half- +and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper, +night before last, and I don't work fast on such things. They are either +excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting along well with +the job work. I can't work blindly--without system. I gave Dick a job +yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours and I could work +off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was +transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains +untouched. Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never +before failed in a promise of the kind. + Your Son + SAM +Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night. + + + Samuel Clemens was never celebrated for his patience; we may imagine + that the disorder of the office tried his nerves. He seems, on the + whole, however, to have been rather happy in Keokuk. There were + plenty of young people there, and he was a favorite among them. But + he had grown dissatisfied, and when one day some weeks later there + fell into His hands an account of the riches of the newly explored + regions of the upper Amazon, he promptly decided to find his fortune + at the headwaters of the great South-American river. The second + letter reports this momentous decision. It was written to Henry + Clemens, who was temporarily absent-probably in Hannibal. + + + To Henry Clemens: + + KEOKUK, August 5th, '56. +MY DEAR BROTHER,--..... Ward and I held a long consultation, Sunday +morning, and the result was that we two have determined to start to +Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully +into matters there and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on +the first of March. We propose going via New York. Now, between you and +I and the fence you must say nothing about this to Orion, for he thinks +that Ward is to go clear through alone, and that I am to stop at New York +or New Orleans until he reports. But that don't suit me. My confidence +in human nature does not extend quite that far. I won't depend upon +Ward's judgment, or anybody's else--I want to see with my own eyes, and +form my own opinion. But you know what Orion is. When he gets a notion +into his head, and more especially if it is an erroneous one, the Devil +can't get it out again. So I know better than to combat his arguments +long, but apparently yielded, inwardly determined to go clear through. +Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to keep it from +Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started to St. Louis +and went to New York--I can start to New York and go to South America! +Although Orion talks grandly about furnishing me with fifty or a hundred +dollars in six weeks, I could not depend upon him for ten dollars, so I +have "feelers" out in several directions, and have already asked for a +hundred dollars from one source (keep it to yourself.) I will lay on my +oars for awhile, and see how the wind sets, when I may probably try to +get more. Mrs. Creel is a great friend of mine, and has some influence +with Ma and Orion, though I reckon they would not acknowledge it. I am +going up there tomorrow, to press her into my service. I shall take care +that Ma and Orion are plentifully supplied with South American books. +They have Herndon's Report now. Ward and the Dr. and myself will hold a +grand consultation tonight at the office. We have agreed that no more +shall be admitted into our company. + +I believe the Guards went down to Quincy today to escort our first +locomotive home. + Write soon. + Your Brother, + SAM. + + + Readers familiar with the life of Mark Twain know that none of the + would-be adventurers found their way to the Amazon: His two + associates gave up the plan, probably for lack of means. Young + Clemens himself found a fifty-dollar bill one bleak November day + blowing along the streets of Keokuk, and after duly advertising his + find without result, set out for the Amazon, by way of Cincinnati + and New Orleans. + + "I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the same day," he + once declared, a statement which we may take with a literary + discount. + + He remained in Cincinnati that winter (1856-57) working at his + trade. No letters have been preserved from that time, except two + that were sent to a Keokuk weekly, the Saturday Post, and as these + were written for publication, and are rather a poor attempt at + burlesque humor--their chief feature being a pretended illiteracy-- + they would seem to bear no relation to this collection. He roomed + that winter with a rugged, self-educated Scotchman--a mechanic, but + a man of books and philosophies, who left an impress on Mark Twain's + mental life. + + In April he took up once more the journey toward South America, but + presently forgot the Amazon altogether in the new career that opened + to him. All through his boyhood and youth Samuel Clemens had wanted + to be a pilot. Now came the long-deferred opportunity. On the + little Cincinnati steamer, the Paul Jones, there was a pilot named + Horace Bixby. Young Clemens idling in the pilot-house was one + morning seized with the old ambition, and laid siege to Bixby to + teach him the river. The terms finally agreed upon specified a fee + to Bixby of five hundred dollars, one hundred down, the balance when + the pupil had completed the course and was earning money. But all + this has been told in full elsewhere, and is only summarized here + because the letters fail to complete the story. + + Bixby soon made some trips up the Missouri River, and in his absence + turned his apprentice, or "cub," over to other pilots, such being + the river custom. Young Clemens, in love with the life, and a + favorite with his superiors, had a happy time until he came under a + pilot named Brown. Brown was illiterate and tyrannical, and from + the beginning of their association pilot and apprentice disliked + each other cordially. + + It is at this point that the letters begin once more--the first + having been written when young Clemens, now twenty-two years old, + had been on the river nearly a year. Life with Brown, of course, + was not all sorrow, and in this letter we find some of the fierce + joy of adventure which in those days Samuel Clemens loved. + + + To Onion Clemens and Wife, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + SAINT LOUIS, March 9th, 1858. +DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER,--I must take advantage of the opportunity now +presented to write you, but I shall necessarily be dull, as I feel +uncommonly stupid. We have had a hard trip this time. Left Saint Louis +three weeks ago on the Pennsylvania. The weather was very cold, and the +ice running densely. We got 15 miles below town, landed the boat, and +then one pilot. Second Mate and four deck hands took the sounding boat +and shoved out in the ice to hunt the channel. They failed to find it, +and the ice drifted them ashore. The pilot left the men with the boat +and walked back to us, a mile and a half. Then the other pilot and +myself, with a larger crew of men started out and met with the same fate. +We drifted ashore just below the other boat. Then the fun commenced. We +made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl, and put the men +(both crews) to it like horses, on the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in +the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We +would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl would bring up +on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many ten- +pins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat. +After an hour's hard work we got back, with ice half an inch thick on the +oars. Sent back and warped up the other yawl, and then George (the first +mentioned pilot,) and myself, took a double crew of fresh men and tried +it again. This time we found the channel in less than half an hour, +and landed on an island till the Pennsylvania came along and took us off. +The next day was colder still. I was out in the yawl twice, and then we +got through, but the infernal steamboat came near running over us. We +went ten miles further, landed, and George and I cleared out again--found +the channel first trial, but got caught in the gorge and drifted +helplessly down the river. The Ocean Spray came along and started into +the ice after us, but although she didn't succeed in her kind intention +of taking us aboard, her waves washed us out, and that was all we wanted. +We landed on an island, built a big fire and waited for the boat. She +started, and ran aground! It commenced raining and sleeting, and a very +interesting time we had on that barren sandbar for the next four hours, +when the boat got off and took us aboard. The next day was terribly +cold. We sounded Hat Island, warped up around a bar and sounded again-- +but in order to understand our situation you will have to read Dr. Kane. +It would have been impossible to get back to the boat. But the Maria +Denning was aground at the head of the island--they hailed us--we ran +alongside and they hoisted us in and thawed us out. We had then been out +in the yawl from 4 o'clock in the morning till half past 9 without being +near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over men, yawl, ropes and +everything else, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. We got to Saint +Louis this morning, after an absence of 3 weeks--that boat generally +makes the trip in 2. + +Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to +work his way for a trip, by measuring wood piles, counting coal boxes, +and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go +down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than +that of his boarding house. + +I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to +write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or +other. Remember the direction: "S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania Care Duval +& Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis." I cannot correspond with a paper, because +when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about +anything else. + +I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope you +will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about +our landed wealth, for "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." + +I did intend to answer your letter, but I am too lazy and too sleepy now. +We have had a rough time during the last 24 hours working through the ice +between Cairo and Saint Louis, and I have had but little rest. + +I got here too late to see the funeral of the 10 victims by the burning +of the Pacific hotel in 7th street. Ma says there were 10 hearses, with +the fire companies (their engines in mourning--firemen in uniform,) the +various benevolent societies in uniform and mourning, and a multitude of +citizens and strangers, forming, altogether, a procession of 30,000 +persons! One steam fire engine was drawn by four white horses, with +crape festoons on their heads. + Well I am--just--about--asleep-- + Your brother + SAM. + + + Among other things, we gather from this letter that Orion Clemens + had faith in his brother as a newspaper correspondent, though the + two contributions from Cincinnati, already mentioned, were not + promising. Furthermore, we get an intimation of Orion's unfailing + confidence in the future of the "land"--that is to say, the great + tract of land in Eastern Tennessee which, in an earlier day, his + father had bought as a heritage for his children. It is the same + Tennessee land that had "millions in it" for Colonel Sellers--the + land that would become, as Orion Clemens long afterward phrased it, + "the worry of three generations." + + The Doctor Kane of this letter is, of course, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, + the American Arctic explorer. Any book of exploration always + appealed to Mark Twain, and in those days Kane was a favorite. + + The paragraph concerning Henry, and his employment on the + Pennsylvania, begins the story of a tragedy. The story has been + fully told elsewhere,--[Mark Twain: A Biography, by same author.]-- + and need only be sketched briefly here. Henry, a gentle, faithful + boy, shared with his brother the enmity of the pilot Brown. Some + two months following the date of the foregoing letter, on a down + trip of the Pennsylvania, an unprovoked attack made by Brown upon + the boy brought his brother Sam to the rescue. Brown received a + good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though + upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New + Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. The Brown episode + has no special bearing on the main tragedy, though now in retrospect + it seems closely related to it. Samuel Clemens, coming up the river + on the A. T. Lacey, two days behind the Pennsylvania, heard a voice + shout as they approached the Greenville, Mississippi, landing: + + "The Pennsylvania is blown up just below Memphis, at Ship Island! + One hundred and fifty lives lost!" + + It was a true report. At six o'clock of a warm, mid-June morning, + while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, the Pennsylvania's + boilers had exploded with fearful results. Henry Clemens was among + the injured. He was still alive when his brother reached Memphis on + the Lacey, but died a few days later. Samuel Clemens had idolized + the boy, and regarded himself responsible for his death. The letter + that follows shows that he was overwrought by the scenes about him + and the strain of watching, yet the anguish of it is none the less + real. + + + To Mrs. Onion Clemens: + + MEMPHIS, TENN., Friday, June 18th, 1858. +DEAR SISTER MOLLIE,--Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry my +darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless +career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness. +(O, God! this is hard to bear. Hardened, hopeless,--aye, lost--lost-- +lost and ruined sinner as I am--I, even I, have humbled myself to the +ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the great God might +let this cup pass from me--that he would strike me to the earth, but +spare my brother--that he would pour out the fulness of his just wrath +upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon that unoffending +boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me--they have blasted my +youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, there are gray +hairs in my head tonight. For forty-eight hours I labored at the bedside +of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother, and then the +star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of despair. Men take +me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me "lucky" because I was not +on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! May God forgive them, for they +know not what they say. + +Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat--I will tell you. +I left Saint Louis on her, but on the way down, Mr. Brown, the pilot that +was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with Henry without +cause, while I was steering. Henry started out of the pilot-house--Brown +jumped up and collared him--turned him half way around and struck him in +the face!--and him nearly six feet high--struck my little brother. I was +wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer herself, and avenged the +insult--and the Captain said I was right--that he would discharge Brown +in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot, and would do it in St. +Louis, anyhow. Of course both of us could not return to St. Louis on the +same boat--no pilot could be found, and the Captain sent me to the A. T. +Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring me to Saint Louis. Had +another pilot been found, poor Brown would have been the "lucky" man. + +I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I +must tell you the truth, Mollie--three hundred human beings perished by +that fearful disaster. Henry was asleep--was blown up--then fell back on +the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is +injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got +into the flatboat with the other survivors.--[Henry had returned once to +the Pennsylvania to render assistance to the passengers. Later he had +somehow made his way to the flatboat.]-- He had nothing on but his wet +shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in +the wind till the Kate Frisbee carne along. His wounds were not dressed +till he got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless +and motionless for 12 hours after that. But may God bless Memphis, the +noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these +poor afflicted creatures--especially Henry, for he has had five--aye, +ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has +had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the +portraits of Webster) sat by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men +in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe +him, if you could follow him around and hear each man murmur as he +passes, "May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!" The ladies have done +well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble hearted young fellow, will +die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side +and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy's eyes kindled, +his lips quivered out a gentle "God bless you, Miss," and he burst into +tears. He made them write her name on a card for him, that he might not +forget it. + +Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother. + Your unfortunate Brother, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. I got here two days after Henry. + + + It is said that Mark Twain never really recovered from the tragedy + of his brother's death--that it was responsible for the serious, + pathetic look that the face of the world's greatest laugh-maker + always wore in repose. + + He went back to the river, and in September of the same year, after + an apprenticeship of less than eighteen months, received his license + as a St. Louis and New Orleans pilot, and was accepted by his old + chief, Bixby, as full partner on an important boat. In Life on the + Mississippi Mark Twain makes the period of his study from two to two + and a half years, but this is merely an attempt to magnify his + dullness. He was, in fact, an apt pupil and a pilot of very high + class. + + Clemens was now suddenly lifted to a position of importance. The + Mississippi River pilot of those days was a person of distinction, + earning a salary then regarded as princely. Certainly two hundred + and fifty dollars a month was large for a boy of twenty-three. At + once, of course, he became the head of the Clemens family. His + brother Orion was ten years older, but he had not the gift of + success. By common consent the younger brother assumed permanently + the position of family counselor and financier. We expect him to + feel the importance of his new position, and he is too human to + disappoint us. Incidentally, we notice an improvement in his + English. He no longer writes "between you and I" + + + Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens. Written at St. + Louis in 1859: + +.....I am not talking nonsense, now--I am in earnest, I want you to keep +your troubles and your plans out of the reach of meddlers, until the +latter are consummated, so that in case you fail, no one will know it but +yourself. + +Above all things (between you and me) never tell Ma any of your troubles; +she never slept a wink the night your last letter came, and she looks +distressed yet. Write only cheerful news to her. You know that she will +not be satisfied so long as she thinks anything is going on that she is +ignorant of--and she makes a little fuss about it when her suspicions are +awakened; but that makes no difference--. I know that it is better that +she be kept in the dark concerning all things of an unpleasant nature. +She upbraids me occasionally for giving her only the bright side of my +affairs (but unfortunately for her she has to put up with it, for I know +that troubles that I curse awhile and forget, would disturb her slumbers +for some time.) (Parenthesis No. 2-- Possibly because she is deprived of +the soothing consolation of swearing.) Tell her the good news and me the +bad. + +Putting all things together, I begin to think I am rather lucky than +otherwise--a notion which I was slow to take up. The other night I was +about to round to for a storm--but concluded that I could find a smoother +bank somewhere. I landed 5 miles below. The storm came--passed away and +did not injure us. Coming up, day before yesterday, I looked at the spot +I first chose, and half the trees on the bank were torn to shreds. We +couldn't have lived 5 minutes in such a tornado. And I am also lucky in +having a berth, while all the young pilots are idle. This is the +luckiest circumstance that ever befell me. Not on account of the wages-- +for that is a secondary consideration--but from the fact that the City of +Memphis is the largest boat in the trade and the hardest to pilot, and +consequently I can get a reputation on her, which is a thing I never +could accomplish on a transient boat. I can "bank" in the neighborhood +of $100 a month on her, and that will satisfy me for the present +(principally because the other youngsters are sucking their fingers.) +Bless me! what a pleasure there is in revenge! and what vast respect +Prosperity commands! Why, six months ago, I could enter the "Rooms," and +receive only a customary fraternal greeting--but now they say, "Why, how +are you, old fellow--when did you get in?" + +And the young pilots who used to tell me, patronizingly, that I could +never learn the river cannot keep from showing a little of their chagrin +at seeing me so far ahead of them. Permit me to "blow my horn," for I +derive a living pleasure from these things, and I must confess that when +I go to pay my dues, I rather like to let the d---d rascals get a glimpse +of a hundred dollar bill peeping out from amongst notes of smaller +dimensions, whose face I do not exhibit! You will despise this egotism, +but I tell you there is a "stern joy" in it..... + +Pilots did not remain long on one boat, as a rule; just why it is not so +easy to understand. Perhaps they liked the experience of change; perhaps +both captain and pilot liked the pursuit of the ideal. In the light- +hearted letter that follows--written to a friend of the family, formerly +of Hannibal--we get something of the uncertainty of the pilot's +engagements. + + + To Mrs. Elizabeth W. Smith, in ,Jackson, + Cape Girardeau County, Mo.: + + ST. Louis, Oct. 31 [probably 1859]. +DEAR AUNT BETSEY,--Ma has not written you, because she did not know when +I would get started down the river again..... + +You see, Aunt Betsey, I made but one trip on the packet after you left, +and then concluded to remain at home awhile. I have just discovered this +morning that I am to go to New Orleans on the "Col. Chambers"--fine, +light-draught, swift-running passenger steamer--all modern accommodations +and improvements--through with dispatch--for freight or passage apply on +board, or to--but--I have forgotten the agent's name--however, it makes +no difference--and as I was saying, or had intended to say, Aunt Betsey, +probably, if you are ready to come up, you had better take the "Ben +Lewis," the best boat in the packet line. She will be at Cape Girardeau +at noon on Saturday (day after tomorrow,) and will reach here at +breakfast time, Sunday. If Mr. Hamilton is chief clerk,--very well, +I am slightly acquainted with him. And if Messrs. Carter Gray and Dean +Somebody (I have forgotten his other name,) are in the pilot-house--very +well again-I am acquainted with them. Just tell Mr. Gray, Aunt Betsey-- +that I wish him to place himself at your command. + +All the family are well--except myself--I am in a bad way again--disease, +Love, in its most malignant form. Hopes are entertained of my recovery, +however. At the dinner table--excellent symptom--I am still as "terrible +as an army with banners." + +Aunt Betsey--the wickedness of this world--but I haven't time to moralize +this morning. + Goodbye + SAM CLEMENS. + + + As we do not hear of this "attack" again, the recovery was probably + prompt. His letters are not frequent enough for us to keep track of + his boats, but we know that he was associated with Bixby from time + to time, and now and again with one of the Bowen boys, his old + Hannibal schoolmates. He was reveling in the river life, the ease + and distinction and romance of it. No other life would ever suit + him as well. He was at the age to enjoy just what it brought him + --at the airy, golden, overweening age of youth. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + ST. LOUIS, Mch. 1860. +MY DEAR BRO.,--Your last has just come to hand. It reminds me strongly +of Tom Hood's letters to his family, (which I have been reading lately). +But yours only remind me of his, for although there is a striking +likeness, your humour is much finer than his, and far better expressed. +Tom Hood's wit, (in his letters) has a savor of labor about it which is +very disagreeable. Your letter is good. That portion of it wherein the +old sow figures is the very best thing I have seen lately. Its quiet +style resembles Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," and "Don Quixote,"-- +which are my beau ideals of fine writing. + +You have paid the preacher! Well, that is good, also. What a man wants +with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension. + +Pamela and I have just returned from a visit to the most wonderfully +beautiful painting which this city has ever seen--Church's "Heart of the +Andes"--which represents a lovely valley with its rich vegetation in all +the bloom and glory of a tropical summer--dotted with birds and flowers +of all colors and shades of color, and sunny slopes, and shady corners, +and twilight groves, and cool cascades--all grandly set off with a +majestic mountain in the background with its gleaming summit clothed in +everlasting ice and snow! I have seen it several times, but it is always +a new picture--totally new--you seem to see nothing the second time which +you saw the first. We took the opera glass, and examined its beauties +minutely, for the naked eye cannot discern the little wayside flowers, +and soft shadows and patches of sunshine, and half-hidden bunches of +grass and jets of water which form some of its most enchanting features. +There is no slurring of perspective effect about it--the most distant-- +the minutest object in it has a marked and distinct personality--so that +you may count the very leaves on the trees. When you first see the tame, +ordinary-looking picture, your first impulse is to turn your back upon +it, and say "Humbug"--but your third visit will find your brain gasping +and straining with futile efforts to take all the wonder in--and +appreciate it in its fulness--and understand how such a miracle could +have been conceived and executed by human brain and human hands. You +will never get tired of looking at the picture, but your reflections-- +your efforts to grasp an intelligible Something--you hardly know what +--will grow so painful that you will have to go away from the thing, +in order to obtain relief. You may find relief, but you cannot banish +the picture--It remains with you still. It is in my mind now--and the +smallest feature could not be removed without my detecting it. So much +for the "Heart of the Andes." + +Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls for +allowing me to embrace and kiss them--and she was horrified at the +Schottische as performed by Miss Castle and myself. She was perfectly +willing for me to dance until 12 o'clock at the imminent peril of my +going to sleep on the after watch--but then she would top off with a very +inconsistent sermon on dancing in general; ending with a terrific +broadside aimed at that heresy of heresies, the Schottische. + +I took Ma and the girls in a carriage, round that portion of New Orleans +where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and although it +was a blazing hot dusty day, they seemed hugely delighted. To use an +expression which is commonly ignored in polite society, they were "hell- +bent" on stealing some of the luscious-looking oranges from branches +which overhung the fences, but I restrained them. They were not aware +before that shrubbery could be made to take any queer shape which a +skilful gardener might choose to twist it into, so they found not only +beauty but novelty in their visit. We went out to Lake Pontchartrain in +the cars. + Your Brother + SAM CLEMENS + + + We have not before heard of Miss Castle, who appears to have been + one of the girls who accompanied Jane Clemens on the trip which her + son gave her to New Orleans, but we may guess that the other was his + cousin and good comrade, Ella Creel. One wishes that he might have + left us a more extended account of that long-ago river journey, a + fuller glimpse of a golden age that has vanished as completely as + the days of Washington. + + We may smile at the natural youthful desire to air his reading, and + his art appreciation, and we may find his opinions not without + interest. We may even commend them--in part. Perhaps we no longer + count the leaves on Church's trees, but Goldsmith and Cervantes + still deserve the place assigned them. + + He does not tell us what boat he was on at this time, but later in + the year he was with Bixby again, on the Alonzo Child. We get a bit + of the pilot in port in his next. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + "ALONZO CHILD," N. ORLEANS, Sep. 28th 1860. +DEAR BROTHER,--I just received yours and Mollies letter yesterday--they +had been here two weeks--forwarded from St. Louis. We got here +yesterday--will leave at noon to-day. Of course I have had no time, in +24 hours, to do anything. Therefore I'll answer after we are under way +again. Yesterday, I had many things to do, but Bixby and I got with the +pilots of two other boats and went off dissipating on a ten dollar dinner +at a French restaurant breathe it not unto Ma!--where we ate sheep-head, +fish with mushrooms, shrimps and oysters--birds--coffee with brandy burnt +in it, &c &c,-ate, drank and smoked, from 2 p.m. until 5 o'clock, and +then--then the day was too far gone to do any thing. + +Please find enclosed and acknowledge receipt of--$20.00 + In haste + SAM L. CLEMENS + + + It should be said, perhaps, that when he became pilot Jane Clemens + had released her son from his pledge in the matter of cards and + liquor. This license did not upset him, however. He cared very + little for either of these dissipations. His one great indulgence + was tobacco, a matter upon which he was presently to receive some + grave counsel. He reports it in his next letter, a sufficiently + interesting document. The clairvoyant of this visit was Madame + Caprell, famous in her day. Clemens had been urged to consult her, + and one idle afternoon concluded to make the experiment. The letter + reporting the matter to his brother is fragmentary, and is the last + remaining to us of the piloting period. + + + Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + NEW ORLEANS February 6, 1862. +.....She's a very pleasant little lady--rather pretty--about 28,--say +5 feet 2 and one quarter--would weigh 116--has black eyes and hair--is +polite and intelligent--used good language, and talks much faster than I +do. + +She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we were +alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. Then she +put her hands before her eyes a moment, and commenced talking as if she +had a good deal to say and not much time to say it in. Something after +this style: + +MADAME. Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the water; +but you should have been a lawyer--there is where your talents lie: you +might have distinguished yourself as an orator, or as an editor; you have +written a great deal; you write well--but you are rather out of practice; +no matter--you will be in practice some day; you have a superb +constitution, and as excellent health as any man in the world; you have +great powers of endurance; in your profession your strength holds out +against the longest sieges, without flagging; still, the upper part of +your lungs, the top of them is slightly affected--you must take care of +yourself; you do not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and +you must stop it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it totally; +then I can almost promise you 86 when you will surely die; otherwise look +out for 28, 31, 34, 47, and 65; be careful--for you are not of a long- +lived race, that is on your father's side; you are the only healthy +member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like the +certainty of attaining to a great age--so, stop using tobacco, and be +careful of yourself..... In some respects you take after your father, +but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the long-lived, +energetic side of the house.... You never brought all your energies to +bear upon any subject but what you accomplished it--for instance, you are +self-made, self-educated. + +S. L. C. Which proves nothing. + +MADAME. Don't interrupt. When you sought your present occupation you +found a thousand obstacles in the way--obstacles unknown--not even +suspected by any save you and me, since you keep such matters to +yourself--but you fought your way, and hid the long struggle under a mask +of cheerfulness, which saved your friends anxiety on your account. To do +all this requires all the qualities I have named. + +S. L. C. You flatter well, Madame. + +MADAME. Don't interrupt: Up to within a short time you had always lived +from hand to mouth-now you are in easy circumstances--for which you need +give credit to no one but yourself. The turning point in your life +occurred in 1840-7-8. + +S. L. C. Which was? + +MADAME. A death perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and made you +what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself; +therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did. +You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future +seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You will continue upon the water +for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from now +.... What is your brother's age? 35--and a lawyer? and in pursuit of an +office? Well, he stands a better chance than the other two, and he may +get it; he is too visionary--is always flying off on a new hobby; this +will never do--tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer--a, very good +lawyer--and a fine speaker--is very popular and much respected, and makes +many friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their +confidence by displaying his instability of character..... The land he +has now will be very valuable after a while-- + +S. L. C. Say a 50 years hence, or thereabouts. Madame-- + +MADAME. No--less time-but never mind the land, that is a secondary +consideration--let him drop that for the present, and devote himself to +his business and politics with all his might, for he must hold offices +under the Government..... + +After a while you will possess a good deal of property--retire at the end +of ten years--after which your pursuits will be literary--try the law-- +you will certainly succeed. I am done now. If you have any questions to +ask--ask them freely--and if it be in my power, I will answer without +reserve--without reserve. + +I asked a few questions of minor importance--paid her $2--and left, under +the decided impression that going to the fortune teller's was just as +good as going to the opera, and the cost scarcely a trifle more--ergo, +I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other +amusements fail. Now isn't she the devil? That is to say, isn't she a +right smart little woman? + +When you want money, let Ma know, and she will send it. She and Pamela +are always fussing about change, so I sent them a hundred and twenty +quarters yesterday--fiddler's change enough to last till I get back, I +reckon. + SAM. + + + It is not so difficult to credit Madame Caprell with clairvoyant + powers when one has read the letters of Samuel Clemens up to this + point. If we may judge by those that have survived, her prophecy of + literary distinction for him was hardly warranted by anything she + could have known of his past performance. These letters of his + youth have a value to-day only because they were written by the man + who later was to become Mark Twain. The squibs and skits which he + sometimes contributed to the New Orleans papers were bright, + perhaps, and pleasing to his pilot associates, but they were without + literary value. He was twenty-five years old. More than one author + has achieved reputation at that age. Mark Twain was of slower + growth; at that age he had not even developed a definite literary + ambition: Whatever the basis of Madame Caprell's prophecy, we must + admit that she was a good guesser on several matters, "a right smart + little woman," as Clemens himself phrased it. + + She overlooked one item, however: the proximity of the Civil War. + Perhaps it was too close at hand for second sight. A little more + than two months after the Caprell letter was written Fort Sumter was + fired upon. Mask Twain had made his last trip as a pilot up the + river to St. Louis--the nation was plunged into a four years' + conflict. + + There are no letters of this immediate period. Young Clemens went + to Hannibal, and enlisting in a private company, composed mainly of + old schoolmates, went soldiering for two rainy, inglorious weeks, + by the end of which he had had enough of war, and furthermore had + discovered that he was more of a Union abolitionist than a slave- + holding secessionist, as he had at first supposed. Convictions were + likely to be rather infirm during those early days of the war, and + subject to change without notice. Especially was this so in a + border State. + + + + +III + +LETTERS 1861-62. ON THE FRONTIER. MINING ADVENTURES. +JOURNALISTIC BEGINNINGS + + Clemens went from the battle-front to Keokuk, where Orion was + preparing to accept the appointment prophesied by Madame Caprell. + Orion was a stanch Unionist, and a member of Lincoln's Cabinet had + offered him the secretaryship of the new Territory of Nevada. Orion + had accepted, and only needed funds to carry him to his destination. + His pilot brother had the funds, and upon being appointed "private" + secretary, agreed to pay both passages on the overland stage, which + would bear them across the great plains from St. Jo to Carson City. + Mark Twain, in Roughing It, has described that glorious journey and + the frontier life that followed it. His letters form a supplement + of realism to a tale that is more or less fictitious, though + marvelously true in color and background. The first bears no date, + but it was written not long after their arrival, August 14, 1861. + It is not complete, but there is enough of it to give us a very fair + picture of Carson City, "a wooden town; its population two thousand + souls." + + + Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis: + + (Date not given, but Sept, or Oct., 1861.) +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope you will all come out here someday. But I shan't +consent to invite you, until we can receive you in style. But I guess we +shall be able to do that, one of these days. I intend that Pamela shall +live on Lake Bigler until she can knock a bull down with her fist--say, +about three months. + +"Tell everything as it is--no better, and no worse." + +Well, "Gold Hill" sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down; "Wild cat" isn't +worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, +lead, coal, iron, quick silver, marble, granite, chalk, plaster of Paris, +(gypsum,) thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, +Christians, Indians, Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes +(pronounced Ki-yo-ties,) poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. +I overheard a gentleman say, the other day, that it was "the d---dest +country under the sun."--and that comprehensive conception I fully +subscribe to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers +grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over +the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven +tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the purest-- +most unadulterated, and compromising sand--in which infernal soil nothing +but that fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage-brush," ventures to grow. +If you will take a Lilliputian cedar tree for a model, and build a dozen +imitations of it with the stiffest article of telegraph wire--set them +one foot apart and then try to walk through them, you'll understand +(provided the floor is covered 12 inches deep with sand,) what it is to +wander through a sage-brush desert. When crushed, sage brush emits an +odor which isn't exactly magnolia and equally isn't exactly polecat but +is a sort of compromise between the two. It looks a good deal like +grease-wood, and is the ugliest plant that was ever conceived of. It is +gray in color. On the plains, sage-brush and grease-wood grow about +twice as large as the common geranium--and in my opinion they are a very +good substitute for that useless vegetable. Grease-wood is a perfect- +most perfect imitation in miniature of a live oak tree-barring the color +of it. As to the other fruits and flowers of the country, there ain't +any, except "Pulu" or "Tuler," or what ever they call it,--a species of +unpoetical willow that grows on the banks of the Carson--a RIVER, 20 +yards wide, knee deep, and so villainously rapid and crooked, that it +looks like it had wandered into the country without intending it, and had +run about in a bewildered way and got lost, in its hurry to get out again +before some thirsty man came along and drank it up. I said we are +situated in a flat, sandy desert--true. And surrounded on all sides by +such prodigious mountains, that when you gaze at them awhile,--and begin +to conceive of their grandeur--and next to feel their vastness expanding +your soul--and ultimately find yourself growing and swelling and +spreading into a giant--I say when this point is reached, you look +disdainfully down upon the insignificant village of Carson, and in that +instant you are seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, +put the city in your pocket, and walk off with it. + +As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but like +that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe "they don't run her +now:" Now, although we are surrounded by sand, the greatest part of the +town is built upon what was once a very pretty grassy spot; and the +streams of pure water that used to poke about it in rural sloth and +solitude, now pass through on dusty streets and gladden the hearts of men +by reminding them that there is at least something here that hath its +prototype among the homes they left behind them. And up "King's Canon," +(please pronounce canyon, after the manner of the natives,) there are +"ranches," or farms, where they say hay grows, and grass, and beets and +onions, and turnips, and other "truck" which is suitable for cows--yes, +and even Irish potatoes; also, cabbage, peas and beans. + +The houses are mostly frame, unplastered, but "papered" inside with +flour-sacks sewed together, and the handsomer the "brand" upon the sacks +is, the neater the house looks. Occasionally, you stumble on a stone +house. On account of the dryness of the country, the shingles on the +houses warp till they look like short joints of stove pipe split +lengthwise. + +(Remainder missing.) + + + In this letter is something of the "wild freedom of the West," which + later would contribute to his fame. The spirit of the frontier--of + Mark Twain--was beginning to stir him. + + There had been no secretary work for him to do, and no provision for + payment. He found his profit in studying human nature and in + prospecting native resources. He was not interested in mining not + yet. With a boy named John Kinney he made an excursion to Lake + Bigler--now Tahoe--and located a timber claim, really of great + value. They were supposed to build a fence around it, but they were + too full of the enjoyment of camp-life to complete it. They put in + most of their time wandering through the stately forest or drifting + over the transparent lake in a boat left there by lumbermen. They + built themselves a brush house, but they did not sleep in it. In + 'Roughing It' he writes, "It never occurred to us, for one thing; + and, besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. + We did not wish to strain it." + + They were having a glorious time, when their camp-fire got away from + them and burned up their claim. His next letter, of which the + beginning is missing, describes the fire. + + + Fragment of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and + Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + +.....The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard- +bearers, as we called the tall dead trees, wrapped in fire, and waving +their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we could turn from +this scene to the Lake, and see every branch, and leaf, and cataract of +flame upon its bank perfectly reflected as in a gleaming, fiery mirror. +The mighty roaring of the conflagration, together with our solitary and +somewhat unsafe position (for there was no one within six miles of us,) +rendered the scene very impressive. Occasionally, one of us would remove +his pipe from his mouth and say, "Superb! magnificent! Beautiful! but- +by the Lord God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch +tonight, we'll never live till morning! for if we don't burn up, we'll +certainly suffocate." But he was persuaded to sit up until we felt +pretty safe as far as the fire was concerned, and then we turned in, with +many misgivings. When we got up in the morning, we found that the fire +had burned small pieces of drift wood within six feet of our boat, and +had made its way to within 4 or 5 steps of us on the South side. We +looked like lava men, covered as we were with ashes, and begrimed with +smoke. We were very black in the face, but we soon washed ourselves +white again. + +John D. Kinney, a Cincinnati boy, and a first-rate fellow, too, who came +out with judge Turner, was my comrade. We staid at the Lake four days-- +I had plenty of fun, for John constantly reminded me of Sam Bowen when we +were on our campaign in Missouri. But first and foremost, for Annie's, +Mollies, and Pamela's comfort, be it known that I have never been guilty +of profane language since I have been in this Territory, and Kinney +hardly ever swears.--But sometimes human nature gets the better of him. +On the second day we started to go by land to the lower camp, a distance +of three miles, over the mountains, each carrying an axe. I don't think +we got lost exactly, but we wandered four hours over the steepest, +rockiest and most dangerous piece of country in the world. I couldn't +keep from laughing at Kinney's distress, so I kept behind, so that he +could not see me. After he would get over a dangerous place, with +infinite labor and constant apprehension, he would stop, lean on his axe, +and look around, then behind, then ahead, and then drop his head and +ruminate awhile. --Then he would draw a long sigh, and say: "Well--could +any Billygoat have scaled that place without breaking his --- ---- neck?" +And I would reply, "No,--I don't think he could." "No--you don't think +he could--" (mimicking me,) "Why don't you curse the infernal place? +You know you want to. --I do, and will curse the --- ---- thieving +country as long as I live." Then we would toil on in silence for awhile. +Finally I told him--"Well, John, what if we don't find our way out of +this today--we'll know all about the country when we do get out." "Oh +stuff--I know enough--and too much about the d---d villainous locality +already." Finally, we reached the camp. But as we brought no provisions +with us, the first subject that presented itself to us was, how to get +back. John swore he wouldn't walk back, so we rolled a drift log apiece +into the Lake, and set about making paddles, intending to straddle the +logs and paddle ourselves back home sometime or other. But the Lake +objected--got stormy, and we had to give it up. So we set out for the +only house on this side of the Lake--three miles from there, down the +shore. We found the way without any trouble, reached there before +sundown, played three games of cribbage, borrowed a dug-out and pulled +back six miles to the upper camp. As we had eaten nothing since sunrise, +we did not waste time in cooking our supper or in eating it, either. +After supper we got out our pipes--built a rousing camp fire in the open +air-established a faro bank (an institution of this country,) on our huge +flat granite dining table, and bet white beans till one o'clock, when +John went to bed. We were up before the sun the next morning, went out +on the Lake and caught a fine trout for breakfast. But unfortunately, I +spoilt part of the breakfast. We had coffee and tea boiling on the fire, +in coffee-pots and fearing they might not be strong enough, I added more +ground coffee, and more tea, but--you know mistakes will happen. --I put +the tea in the coffee-pot, and the coffee in the teapot--and if you +imagine that they were not villainous mixtures, just try the effect once. + +And so Bella is to be married on the 1st of Oct. Well, I send her and +her husband my very best wishes, and--I may not be here--but wherever I +am on that night, we'll have a rousing camp-fire and a jollification in +honor of the event. + +In a day or two we shall probably go to the Lake and build another cabin +and fence, and get everything into satisfactory trim before our trip to +Esmeralda about the first of November. + +What has become of Sam Bowen? I would give my last shirt to have him out +here. I will make no promises, but I believe if John would give him a +thousand dollars and send him out here he would not regret it. He might +possibly do very well here, but he could do little without capital. + +Remember me to all my St. Louis and Keokuk friends, and tell Challie and +Hallie Renson that I heard a military band play "What are the Wild Waves +Saying?" the other night, and it reminded me very forcibly of them. It +brought Ella Creel and Belle across the Desert too in an instant, for +they sang the song in Orion's yard the first time I ever heard it. It +was like meeting an old friend. I tell you I could have swallowed that +whole band, trombone and all, if such a compliment would have been any +gratification to them. + Love to the young folks, + SAM. + + +The reference in the foregoing letter to Esmeralda has to do with mining +plans. He was beginning to be mildly interested, and, with his brother +Orion, had acquired "feet" in an Esmeralda camp, probably at a very small +price--so small as to hold out no exciting prospect of riches. In his +next letter he gives us the size of this claim, which he has visited. +His interest, however, still appears to be chiefly in his timber claim on +Lake Bigler (Tahoe), though we are never to hear of it again after this +letter. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + CARSON CITY, Oct. 25, 1861. +MY DEAR SISTER, --I have just finished reading your letter and Ma's of +Sept. 8th. How in the world could they have been so long coming? You +ask me if I have for gotten my promise to lay a claim for Mr. Moffett. +By no means. I have already laid a timber claim on the borders of a lake +(Bigler) which throws Como in the shade--and if we succeed in getting one +Mr. Jones, to move his saw-mill up there, Mr. Moffett can just consider +that claim better than bank stock. Jones says he will move his mill up +next spring. In that claim I took up about two miles in length by one in +width--and the names in it are as follows: "Sam. L Clemens, Wm. A. +Moffett, Thos. Nye" and three others. It is situated on "Sam Clemens +Bay"--so named by Capt. Nye--and it goes by that name among the +inhabitants of that region. I had better stop about "the Lake," though, +--for whenever I think of it I want to go there and die, the place is so +beautiful. I'll build a country seat there one of these days that will +make the Devil's mouth water if he ever visits the earth. Jim Lampton +will never know whether I laid a claim there for him or not until he +comes here himself. We have now got about 1,650 feet of mining ground-- +and if it proves good, Mr. Moffett's name will go in--if not, I can get +"feet" for him in the Spring which will be good. You see, Pamela, the +trouble does not consist in getting mining ground--for that is plenty +enough--but the money to work it with after you get it is the mischief. +When I was in Esmeralda, a young fellow gave me fifty feet in the "Black +Warrior"--an unprospected claim. The other day he wrote me that he had +gone down eight feet on the ledge, and found it eight feet thick--and +pretty good rock, too. He said he could take out rock now if there were +a mill to crush it--but the mills are all engaged (there are only four of +them) so, if I were willing, he would suspend work until Spring. I wrote +him to let it alone at present--because, you see, in the Spring I can go +down myself and help him look after it. There will then be twenty mills +there. Orion and I have confidence enough in this country to think that +if the war will let us alone we can make Mr. Moffett rich without its +ever costing him a cent of money or particle of trouble. We shall lay +plenty of claims for him, but if they never pay him anything, they will +never cost him anything, Orion and I are not financiers. Therefore, you +must persuade Uncle Jim to come out here and help us in that line. +I have written to him twice to come. I wrote him today. In both letters +I told him not to let you or Ma know that we dealt in such romantic +nonsense as "brilliant prospects," because I always did hate for anyone +to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were--for, if I kept people +in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, +if they were not realized. You know I never told you that I went on the +river under a promise to pay Bixby $500, until I had paid the money and +cleared my skirts of the possibility of having my judgment criticised. +I would not say anything about our prospects now, if we were nearer home. +But I suppose at this distance you are more anxious than you would be if +you saw us every month-and therefore it is hardly fair to keep you in the +dark. However, keep these matters to yourselves, and then if we fail, +we'll keep the laugh in the family. + +What we want now is something that will commence paying immediately. +We have got a chance to get into a claim where they say a tunnel has been +run 150 feet, and the ledge struck. I got a horse yesterday, and went +out with the Attorney-General and the claim-owner--and we tried to go to +the claim by a new route, and got lost in the mountains--sunset overtook +us before we found the claim--my horse got too lame to carry me, and I +got down and drove him ahead of me till within four miles of town--then +we sent Rice on ahead. Bunker, (whose horse was in good condition,) +undertook, to lead mine, and I followed after him. Darkness shut him out +from my view in less than a minute, and within the next minute I lost the +road and got to wandering in the sage brush. I would find the road +occasionally and then lose it again in a minute or so. I got to Carson +about nine o'clock, at night, but not by the road I traveled when I left +it. The General says my horse did very well for awhile, but soon refused +to lead. Then he dismounted, and had a jolly time driving both horses +ahead of him and chasing them here and there through the sage brush (it +does my soul good when I think of it) until he got to town, when both +animals deserted him, and he cursed them handsomely and came home alone. +Of course the horses went to their stables. + +Tell Sammy I will lay a claim for him, and he must come out and attend to +it. He must get rid of that propensity for tumbling down, though, for +when we get fairly started here, I don't think we shall have time to pick +up those who fall..... + +That is Stoughter's house, I expect, that Cousin Jim has moved into. +This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe it +would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars +to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family though. + +Tell Mrs. Benson I never intend to be a lawyer. I have been a slave +several times in my life, but I'll never be one again. I always intend +to be so situated (unless I marry,) that I can "pull up stakes" and clear +out whenever I feel like it. + +We are very thankful to you, Pamela, for the papers you send. We have +received half a dozen or more, and, next to letters, they are the most +welcome visitors we have. + Write oftener, Pamela. + Yr. Brother + SAM. + + +The "Cousin Jim" mentioned in this letter is the original of the +character of Colonel Sellers. Whatever Mark Twain's later opinion of +Cousin Jim Lampton's financial genius may have been, he seems to have +respected it at this time. + +More than three months pass until we have another letter, and in that +time the mining fever had become well seated. Mark Twain himself was +full of the Sellers optimism, and it was bound to overflow, fortify as he +would against it. + +He met with little enough encouragement. With three companions, in +midwinter, he made a mining excursion to the much exploited Humboldt +region, returning empty-handed after a month or two of hard experience. +This is the trip picturesquely described in Chapters XXVII to XXXIII of +Roughing It.--[It is set down historically in Mark Twain 'A Biography.' +Harper & brothers.]-- He, mentions the Humboldt in his next letter, but +does not confess his failure. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + CARSON CITY, Feb. 8, 1862. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--By George Pamela, I begin to fear that I have +invoked a Spirit of some kind or other which I will find some difficulty +in laying. I wasn't much terrified by your growing inclinations, but +when you begin to call presentiments to your aid, I confess that I +"weaken." Mr. Moffett is right, as I said before--and I am not much +afraid of his going wrong. Men are easily dealt with--but when you get +the women started, you are in for it, you know. But I have decided on +two things, viz: Any of you, or all of you, may live in California, for +that is the Garden of Eden reproduced--but you shall never live in +Nevada; and secondly, none of you, save Mr. Moffett, shall ever cross the +Plains. If you were only going to Pike's Peak, a little matter of 700 +miles from St. Jo, you might take the coach, and I wouldn't say a word. +But I consider it over 2,000 miles from St. Jo to Carson, and the first +6 or 800 miles is mere Fourth of July, compared to the balance of the +route. But Lord bless you, a man enjoys every foot of it. If you ever +come here or to California, it must be by sea. Mr. Moffett must come by +overland coach, though, by all means. He would consider it the jolliest +little trip he ever took in his life. Either June, July, or August are +the proper months to make the journey in. He could not suffer from heat, +and three or four heavy army blankets would make the cold nights +comfortable. If the coach were full of passengers, two good blankets +would probably be sufficient. If he comes, and brings plenty of money, +and fails to invest it to his entire satisfaction; I will prophesy no +more. + +But I will tell you a few things which you wouldn't have found out if I +hadn't got myself into this scrape. I expect to return to St. Louis in +July--per steamer. I don't say that I will return then, or that I shall +be able to do it--but I expect to--you bet. I came down here from +Humboldt, in order to look after our Esmeralda interests, and my sore- +backed horse and the bad roads have prevented me from making the journey. +Yesterday one of my old Esmeralda friends, Bob Howland, arrived here, and +I have had a talk with him. He owns with me in the "Horatio and Derby" +ledge. He says our tunnel is in 52 feet, and a small stream of water has +been struck, which bids fair to become a "big thing" by the time the +ledge is reached--sufficient to supply a mill. Now, if you knew anything +of the value of water, here; you would perceive, at a glance that if the +water should amount to 50 or 100 inches, we wouldn't care whether school +kept or not. If the ledge should prove to be worthless, we'd sell the +water for money enough to give us quite a lift. But you see, the ledge +will not prove to be worthless. We have located, near by, a fine site +for a mill; and when we strike the ledge, you know, we'll have a mill- +site, water power, and pay-rock, all handy. Then we shan't care whether +we have capital or not. Mill-folks will build us a mill, and wait for +their pay. If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike the ledge in June--and if +we do, I'll be home in July, you know. + +Pamela, don't you know that undemonstrated human calculations won't do +to bet on? Don't you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved +nothing? Don't you know that I have expended money in this country but +have made none myself? Don't you know that I have never held in my hands +a gold or silver bar that belonged to me? Don't you know that it's all +talk and no cider so far? Don't you know that people who always feel +jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them--who have the +organ of hope preposterously developed--who are endowed with an +uncongealable sanguine temperament--who never feel concerned about the +price of corn--and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the +bright side of a picture--are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate +with 40-horse microscopic power? Of course I never tried to raise these +suspicions in your mind, but then your knowledge of the fact that some +people's poor frail human nature is a sort of crazy institution anyhow, +ought to have suggested them to you. Now, if I hadn't thoughtlessly got +you into the notion of coming out here, and thereby got myself into a +scrape, I wouldn't have given you that highly-colored paragraph about the +mill, etc., because, you know, if that pretty little picture should fail, +and wash out, and go the Devil generally, it wouldn't cost me the loss of +an hour's sleep, but you fellows would be so much distressed on my +account as I could possibly be if "circumstances beyond my control" were +to prevent my being present at my own funeral. But--but-- + + "In the bright lexicon of youth, + There's no such word as Fail--" + and I'll prove it! + +And look here. I came near forgetting it. Don't you say a word to me +about "trains" across the plains. Because I am down on that arrangement. +That sort of thing is "played out," you know. The Overland Coach or the +Mail Steamer is the thing. + +You want to know something about the route between California and Nevada +Territory? Suppose you take my word for it, that it is exceedingly +jolly. Or take, for a winter view, J. Ross Brown's picture, in Harper's +Monthly, of pack mules tumbling fifteen hundred feet down the side of a +mountain. Why bless you, there's scenery on that route. You can stand +on some of those noble peaks and see Jerusalem and the Holy Land. And +you can start a boulder, and send it tearing up the earth and crashing +over trees-down-down-down-to the very devil, Madam. And you would +probably stand up there and look, and stare and wonder at the +magnificence spread out before you till you starved to death, if let +alone. But you should take someone along to keep you moving. + +Since you want to know, I will inform you that an eight-stamp water mill, +put up and ready for business would cost about $10,000 to $12,000. Then, +the water to run it with would cost from $1,000 to $30,000--and even +more, according to the location. What I mean by that, is, that water +powers in THIS vicinity, are immensely valuable. So, also, in Esmeralda. +But Humboldt is a new country, and things don't cost so much there yet. +I saw a good water power sold there for $750.00. But here is the way the +thing is managed. A man with a good water power on Carson river will +lean his axe up against a tree (provided you find him chopping cord-wood +at $4 a day,) and taking his chalk pipe out of his mouth to afford him an +opportunity to answer your questions, will look you coolly in the face +and tell you his little property is worth forty or fifty thousand +dollars! But you can easily fix him. You tell him that you'll build a +quartz mill on his property, and make him a fourth or a third, or half +owner in said mill in consideration of the privilege of using said +property--and that will bring him to his milk in a jiffy. So he spits on +his hands, and goes in again with his axe, until the mill is finished, +when lo! out pops the quondam wood-chopper, arrayed in purple and fine +linen, and prepared to deal in bank-stock, or bet on the races, or take +government loans, with an air, as to the amount, of the most don't care- +a-d---dest unconcern that you can conceive of. By George, if I just had +a thousand dollars--I'd be all right! Now there's the "Horatio," for +instance. There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could +buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth +$50 per barrel and they are pressed for money. But I am hard up myself, +and can't buy--and in June they'll strike the ledge and then "good-bye +canary." I can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot! +Think of it. For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars, +Madam--and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum. +So it will be in Humboldt next summer. The boys will get pushed and sell +ground for a song that is worth a fortune. But I am at the helm, now. +I have convinced Orion that he hasn't business talent enough to carry on +a peanut stand, and he has solemnly promised me that he will meddle no +more with mining, or other matters not connected with the Secretary's +office. So, you see, if mines are to be bought or sold, or tunnels run, +or shafts sunk, parties have to come to me--and me only. I'm the "firm," +you know. + +"How long does it take one of those infernal trains to go through?" +Well, anywhere between three and five months. + +Tell Margaret that if you ever come to live in California, that you can +promise her a home for a hundred years, and a bully one--but she wouldn't +like the country. Some people are malicious enough to think that if the +devil were set at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada +Territory, that he would come here--and look sadly around, awhile, and +then get homesick and go back to hell again. But I hardly believe it, +you know. I am saying, mind you, that Margaret wouldn't like the +country, perhaps--nor the devil either, for that matter, or any other man +but I like it. When it rains here, it never lets up till it has done all +the raining it has got to do--and after that, there's a dry spell, you +bet. Why, I have had my whiskers and moustaches so full of alkali dust +that you'd have thought I worked in a starch factory and boarded in a +flour barrel. + +Since we have been here there has not been a fire--although the houses +are built of wood. They "holler" fire sometimes, though, but I am always +too late to see the smoke before the fire is out, if they ever have any. +Now they raised a yell here in front of the office a moment ago. I put +away my papers, and locked up everything of value, and changed my boots, +and pulled off my coat, and went and got a bucket of water, and came back +to see what the matter was, remarking to myself, "I guess I'll be on hand +this time, any way." But I met a friend on the pavement, and he said, +"Where you been? Fire's out half an hour ago." + +Ma says Axtele was above "suspition"--but I have searched through +Webster's Unabridged, and can't find the word. However, it's of no +consequence--I hope he got down safely. I knew Axtele and his wife as +well as I know Dan Haines. Mrs. A. once tried to embarrass me in the +presence of company by asking me to name her baby, when she was well +aware that I didn't know the sex of that Phenomenon. But I told her to +call it Frances, and spell it to suit herself. That was about nine years +ago, and Axtele had no property, and could hardly support his family by +his earnings. He was a pious cuss, though. Member of Margaret Sexton's +Church. + +And Ma says "it looks like a man can't hold public office and be honest." +Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can't hold public office and be honest. +Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go about town +stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose. And I don't +remember having heard him speak the truth since we have been in Nevada. +He even tries to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn't +brought up in that way, you know. You showed the public what you could +do in that line when you raised me, Madam. But then you ought to have +raised me first, so that Orion could have had the benefit of my example. +Do you know that he stole all the stamps out of an 8 stamp quartz mill +one night, and brought them home under his over-coat and hid them in the +back room? + Yrs. etc., + SAM + + + A little later he had headed for the Esmeralda Hills. Some time in + February he was established there in a camp with a young man by the + name of Horatio Phillips (Raish). Later he camped with Bob Howland, + who, as City Marshal of Aurora, became known as the most fearless + man in the Territory, and, still later, with Calvin H. Higbie (Cal), + to whom 'Roughing It' would one day be dedicated. His own funds + were exhausted by this time, and Orion, with his rather slender + salary, became the financial partner of the firm. + + It was a comfortless life there in the Esmeralda camp. Snow covered + everything. There was nothing to do, and apparently nothing to + report; for there are no letters until April. Then the first one is + dated Carson City, where he seems to be making a brief sojourn. It + is a rather heavy attempt to be light-hearted; its playfulness + suggests that of a dancing bear. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis: + + CARSON CITY, April 2, 1862. +MY DEAR MOTHER,--Yours of March 2nd has just been received. I see I am +in for it again--with Annie. But she ought to know that I was always +stupid. She used to try to teach me lessons from the Bible, but I never +could understand them. Doesn't she remember telling me the story of +Moses, one Sunday, last Spring, and how hard she tried to explain it and +simplify it so that I could understand it--but I couldn't? And how she +said it was strange that while her ma and her grandma and her uncle Orion +could understand anything in the world, I was so dull that I couldn't +understand the "ea-siest thing?" And doesn't she remember that finally a +light broke in upon me and I said it was all right--that I knew old Moses +himself--and that he kept a clothing store in Market Street? And then +she went to her ma and said she didn't know what would become of her +uncle Sam he was too dull to learn anything--ever! And I'm just as dull +yet. Now I have no doubt her letter was spelled right, and was correct +in all particulars--but then I had to read it according to my lights; and +they being inferior, she ought to overlook the mistakes I make specially, +as it is not my fault that I wasn't born with good sense. I am sure she +will detect an encouraging ray of intelligence in that last argument..... + +I am waiting here, trying to rent a better office for Orion. I have got +the refusal after next week of a room on first floor of a fire-proof +brick-rent, eighteen hundred dollars a year. Don't know yet whether we +can get it or not. If it is not rented before the week is up, we can. + +I was sorry to hear that Dick was killed. I gave him his first lesson in +the musket drill. We had half a dozen muskets in our office when it was +over Isbell's Music Rooms. + +I hope I am wearing the last white shirt that will embellish my person +for many a day--for I do hope that I shall be out of Carson long before +this reaches you. + Love to all. + Very Respectfully + SAM. + + + The "Annie" in this letter was his sister Pamela's little daughter; + long years after, she would be the wife of Charles L. Webster, Mark + Twain's publishing partner. "Dick" the reader may remember as Dick + Hingham, of the Keokuk printing-office; he was killed in charging + the works at Fort Donelson. + + Clemens was back in Esmeralda when the next letter was written, and + we begin now to get pictures of that cheerless mining-camp, and to + know something of the alternate hopes and discouragements of the + hunt for gold--the miner one day soaring on wings of hope, on the + next becoming excited, irritable, profane. The names of new mines + appear constantly and vanish almost at a touch, suggesting the + fairy-like evanescence of their riches. + + But a few of the letters here will best speak for themselves; not + all of them are needed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that there + is no intentional humor in these documents. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, 13th April, 1862. +MY DEAR BROTHER,--Wasson got here night before last "from the wars." +Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed--is altogether unhurt. +He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got +there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left +behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched +battle with the savages some fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott +(sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the +soldiers came up with them. I mean Noble's men, and those under Cols. +Evans and Mayfield, from Los Angeles. Evans assumed the chief command-- +and next morning the forces were divided into three parties, and marched +against the enemy. Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant Gillespie, +also Noble's colonel was wounded. The California troops went back home, +and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And, as Cousin +Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight. + +Work not yet begun on the H. and Derby--haven't seen it yet. It is still +in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks--strike the ledge in +July. Guess it is good--worth from $30 to $50 a foot in California. + +Why didn't you send the "Live Yankee" deed-the very one I wanted? Have +made no inquiries about it, much. Don't intend to until I get the deed. +Send it along--by mail--d---n the Express--have to pay three times for +all express matter; once in Carson and twice here. I don't expect to +take the saddle-bags out of the express office. I paid twenty-five cts. +for the Express deeds. + +Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim on +Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die. + +These mills here are not worth a d---n-except Clayton's--and it is not in +full working trim yet. + +Send me $40 or $50--by mail--immediately. + +The Red Bird is probably good--can't work on the tunnel on account of +snow. The "Pugh" I have thrown away--shan't re-locate it. It is nothing +but bed-rock croppings--too much work to find the ledge, if there is one. +Shan't record the "Farnum" until I know more about it--perhaps not at +all. + +"Governor" under the snow. + +"Douglas" and "Red Bird" are both recorded. + +I have had opportunities to get into several ledges, but refused all but +three--expect to back out of two of them. + +Stir yourself as much as possible, and lay up $100 or $15,000, subject to +my call. I go to work to-morrow, with pick and shovel. Something's got +to come, by G--, before I let go, here. + +Col. Youngs says you must rent Kinkead's room by all means--Government +would rather pay $150 a month for your office than $75 for Gen. North's. +Says you are playing your hand very badly, for either the Government's +good opinion or anybody's else, in keeping your office in a shanty. Says +put Gov. Nye in your place and he would have a stylish office, and no +objections would ever be made, either. When old Col. Youngs talks this +way, I think it time to get a fine office. I wish you would take that +office, and fit it up handsomely, so that I can omit telling people that +by this time you are handsomely located, when I know it is no such thing. + +I am living with "Ratio Phillips." Send him one of those black +portfolios--by the stage, and put a couple of pen-holders and a dozen +steel pens in it. + +If you should have occasion to dispose of the long desk before I return, +don't forget to break open the middle drawer and take out my things. +Envelop my black cloth coat in a newspaper and hang it in the back room. + +Don't buy anything while I am here--but save up some money for me. Don't +send any money home. I shall have your next quarter's salary spent +before you get it, I think. I mean to make or break here within the next +two or three months. + Yrs. + SAM + + +The "wars" mentioned in the opening paragraph of this letter were +incident to the trouble concerning the boundary line between California +and Nevada. The trouble continued for some time, with occasional +bloodshed. The next letter is an exultant one. There were few enough of +this sort. We cannot pretend to keep track of the multiplicity of mines +and shares which lure the gold-hunters, pecking away at the flinty +ledges, usually in the snow. It has been necessary to abbreviate this +letter, for much of it has lost all importance with the years, and is +merely confusing. Hope is still high in the writer's heart, and +confidence in his associates still unshaken. Later he was to lose faith +in "Raish," whether with justice or not we cannot know now. + + + To Orion Clowns, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, May 11, 1862. +MY DEAR BRO.,--TO use a French expression I have "got my d--d satisfy" at +last. Two years' time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything. +Therefore, we need fret and fume, and worry and doubt no more, but just +lie still and put up with privations for six months. Perhaps three +months will "let us out." Then, if Government refuses to pay the rent on +your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait six weeks, +anyhow, for a dividend, maybe longer--but that it will come there is no +shadow of a doubt, I have got the thing sifted down to a dead moral +certainty. I own one-eighth of the new "Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company," +and money can't buy a foot of it; because I know it to contain our +fortune. The ledge is six feet wide, and one needs no glass to see gold +and silver in it. Phillips and I own one half of a segregated claim in +the "Flyaway" discovery, and good interests in two extensions on it. +We put men to work on our part of the discovery yesterday, and last night +they brought us some fine specimens. Rock taken from ten feet below the +surface on the other part of the discovery, has yielded $150.00 to the +ton in the mill and we are at work 300 feet from their shaft. + +May 12--Yours by the mail received last night. "Eighteen hundred feet in +the C. T. Rice's Company!" Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200 +feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man. + +But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you, +just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to +working the "Monitor" and "Flyaway," 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will +find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned--and +the more "feet" we have, the more anxiety we must bear--therefore, why +not say "No-- d---n your 'prospects,' I wait on a sure thing--and a man +is less than a man, if he can't wait 2 years for a fortune?" When you +and I came out here, we did not expect '63 or '64 to find us rich men-- +and if that proposition had been made, we would have accepted it gladly. +Now, it is made. + +Well, I am willing, now, that "Neary's tunnel," or anybody else's tunnel +shall succeed. Some of them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on +hand in the fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap +chances with any member of the "tribe"--in fact, I am so lost to all +sense and reason as to be capable of refusing to trade "Flyaway" (with +but 200 feet in the Company of four,) foot for foot for that splendid +"Lady Washington," with its lists of capitalist proprietors, and its +35,000 feet of Priceless ground. + +I wouldn't mind being in some of those Clear Creek claims, if I lived in +Carson and we could spare the money. But I have struck my tent in +Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but those which I can superintend +myself. I am a citizen here now, and I am satisfied--although R. and I +are strapped and we haven't three days' rations in the house. + +Raish is looking anxiously for money and so am I. Send me whatever you +can spare conveniently--I want it to work the Flyaway with. My fourth of +that claim only cost me $50, (which isn't paid yet, though,) and I +suppose I could sell it here in town for ten times that amount today, but +I shall probably hold onto it till the cows come home. I shall work the +"Monitor" and the other claims with my own hands. I prospected of a +pound of "M," yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and got +about ten or twelve cents in gold and silver, besides the other half of +it which we spilt on the floor and didn't get. The specimen came from +the croppings, but was a choice one, and showed much free gold to the +naked eye. + +Well, I like the corner up-stairs office amazingly--provided, it has one +fine, large front room superbly carpeted, for the safe and a $150 desk, +or such a matter--one handsome room amidships, less handsomely gotten up, +perhaps, for records and consultations, and one good-sized bedroom and +adjoining it a kitchen, neither of which latter can be entered by anybody +but yourself--and finally, when one of the ledges begins to pay, the +whole to be kept in parlor order by two likely contrabands at big wages, +the same to be free of expense to the Government. You want the entire +second story--no less room than you would have had in Harris and Co's. +Make them fix for you before the 1st of July-for maybe you might want to +"come out strong" on the 4th, you know. + +No, the Post Office is all right and kept by a gentleman but W. F. +Express isn't. They charge 25 cts to express a letter from here, but I +believe they have quit charging twice for letters that arrive prepaid. + +The "Flyaway" specimen I sent you, (taken by myself from DeKay's shaft, +300 feet from where we are going to sink) cannot be called "choice," +exactly--say something above medium, to be on the safe side. But I have +seen exceedingly choice chunks from that shaft. My intention at first in +sending the Antelope specimen was that you might see that it resembles +the Monitor--but, come to think, a man can tell absolutely nothing about +that without seeing both ledges themselves. I tried to break a handsome +chunk from a huge piece of my darling Monitor which we brought from the +croppings yesterday, but it all splintered up, and I send you the scraps. +I call that "choice"--any d---d fool would. Don't ask if it has been +assayed, for it hasn't. It don't need it. It is amply able to speak for +itself. It is six feet wide on top, and traversed through and through +with veins whose color proclaims their worth. What the devil does a man +want with any more feet when he owns in the Flyaway and the invincible +bomb-proof Monitor? + +If I had anything more to say I have forgotten what it was, unless, +perhaps, that I want a sum of money--anywhere from $20 to $150, as soon +as possible. + +Raish sends regards. He or I, one will drop a line to the "Age" +occasionally. I suppose you saw my letters in the "Enterprise." + Yr. BRO, + SAM + +P. S. I suppose Pamela never will regain her health, but she could +improve it by coming to California--provided the trip didn't kill her. + +You see Bixby is on the flag-ship. He always was the best pilot on the +Mississippi, and deserves his "posish." They have done a reckless thing, +though, in putting Sam Bowen on the "Swan"--for if a bomb-shell happens +to come his way, he will infallibly jump overboard. + +Send me another package of those envelopes, per Bagley's coat pocket. + + + We see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official + showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent + quarters--no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would + themselves pay for a suite "superbly carpeted," and all kept in + order by "two likely contrabands"--that is to say, negroes. Samuel + Clemens in those days believed in expansion and impressive + surroundings. His brother, though also mining mad, was rather + inclined to be penny wise in the matter of office luxury--not a bad + idea, as it turned out. + + Orion, by the way, was acquiring "feet" on his own account, and in + one instance, at least, seems to have won his brother's + commendation. + + The 'Enterprise' letters mentioned we shall presently hear of again. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, Sunday, May--, 1862. +MY DEAR BROTHER,--Well, if you haven't "struck it rich--"that is, if the +piece of rock you sent me came from a bona fide ledge--and it looks as if +it did. If that is a ledge, and you own 200 feet in it, why, it's a big +thing--and I have nothing more to say. If you have actually made +something by helping to pay somebody's prospecting expenses it is a +wonder of the first magnitude, and deserves to rank as such. + +If that rock came from a well-defined ledge, that particular vein must be +at least an inch wide, judging from this specimen, which is fully that +thick. + +When I came in the other evening, hungry and tired and ill-natured, and +threw down my pick and shovel, Raish gave me your specimen--said Bagley +brought it, and asked me if it were cinnabar. I examined it by the +waning daylight, and took the specks of fine gold for sulphurets--wrote +you I did not think much of it--and posted the letter immediately. + +But as soon as I looked at it in the broad light of day, I saw my +mistake. During the week, we have made three horns, got a blow-pipe, &c, +and yesterday, all prepared, we prospected the "Mountain House." I broke +the specimen in two, and found it full of fine gold inside. Then we +washed out one-fourth of it, and got a noble prospect. This we reduced +with the blow-pipe, and got about two cents (herewith enclosed) in pure +gold. + +As the fragment prospected weighed rather less than an ounce, this would +give about $500 to the ton. We were eminently well satisfied. +Therefore, hold on to the "Mountain House," for it is a "big thing." +Touch it lightly, as far as money is concerned, though, for it is well to +reserve the code of justice in the matter of quartz ledges--that is, +consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of "shenanigan") until they +are proved innocent. + +P. S.--Monday--Ratio and I have bought one-half of a segregated claim in +the original "Flyaway," for $100--$5o down. We haven't a cent in the +house. We two will work the ledge, and have full control, and pay all +expenses. If you can spare $100 conveniently, let me have it--or $50, +anyhow, considering that I own one fourth of this, it is of course more +valuable than one 1/7 of the " Mountain House," although not so rich .... + + + There is too much of a sameness in the letters of this period to use + all of them. There are always new claims, and work done, apparently + without system or continuance, hoping to uncover sudden boundless + affluence. + + In the next letter and the one following it we get a hint of an + episode, or rather of two incidents which he combined into an + episode in Roughing It. The story as told in that book is an + account of what might have happened, rather than history. There was + never really any money in the "blind lead" of the Wide West claim, + except that which was sunk in it by unfortunate investors. Only + extracts from these letters are given. The other portions are + irrelevant and of slight value. + + + Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + 1862. +Two or three of the old "Salina" company entered our hole on the Monitor +yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed +with revolvers. And according to the d---d laws of this forever d---d +country, nothing but the District Court (and there ain't any) can touch +the matter, unless it assumes the shape of an infernal humbug which they +call "forcible entry and detainer," and in order to bring that about, you +must compel the jumpers to use personal violence toward you! We went up +and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole, +armed and meant to die for it, if necessary. + +I got in with them, and again demanded possession. They said I might +stay in it as long as I pleased, and work but they would do the same. +I asked one of our company to take my place in the hole, while I went to +consult a lawyer. He did so. The lawyer said it was no go. They must +offer some "force." + +Our boys will try to be there first in the morning--in which case they +may get possession and keep it. Now you understand the shooting scrape +in which Gebhart was killed the other day. The Clemens Company--all of +us--hate to resort to arms in this matter, and it will not be done until +it becomes a forced hand--but I think that will be the end of it, never- +the-less. + + + The mine relocated in this letter was not the "Wide West," but it + furnished the proper incident. The only mention of the "Wide West" + is found in a letter written in July. + + + Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + 1862 +If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom. +(decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from "Wide West" +ledge awhile ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a 400 ft. in it, +which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.--our shaft is +about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to +sink 30 ft. We have sub-let to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for +powder and sharpening tools. + + + The "Wide West" claim was forfeited, but there is no evidence to + show that Clemens and his partners were ever, except in fiction, + "millionaires for ten days." The background, the local color, and + the possibilities are all real enough, but Mark Twain's aim in this, + as in most of his other reminiscent writing, was to arrange and + adapt his facts to the needs of a good story. + + The letters of this summer (1862) most of them bear evidence of + waning confidence in mining as a source of fortune--the miner has + now little faith in his own judgment, and none at all in that of his + brother, who was without practical experience. + + + Letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, Thursday. +MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours of the 17th, per express, just received. Part of it +pleased me exceedingly, and part of it didn't. Concerning the letter, +for instance: You have PROMISED me that you would leave all mining +matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands. + +Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God's sake! +when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for +owners, free of charge. I don't want any more feet, and I won't touch +another foot--so you see, Orion, as far as any ledges of Perry's are +concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes,) +I freely yield my right to share ownership with you. + +The balance of your letter, I say, pleases me exceedingly. Especially +that about the H. and D. being worth from $30 to $50 in Cal. It pleases +me because, if the ledges prove to be worthless, it will be a pleasant +reflection to know that others were beaten worse than ourselves. Raish +sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at +the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d---n. He said he +had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and +he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a +good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them +acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good "indications." Yet +the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than +with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly on, +in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But--if we "strike it +rich,"--I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so +high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00 +for 20 feet of it, and he refused ..... + +Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I +expect. + +Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home? + +When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here +until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am +afraid of that H. and D. + +They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the +President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said +that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich. +He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen. + +And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as +Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his +country, wouldn't amount to a d---n with me, in the performance of my +official duties. + +I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I +want to know about this locality before I leave it. + +How do the Records pay? + Yr. Bro. + SAM. + + + In one of the foregoing letters--the one dated May 11 there is a + reference to the writer's "Enterprise Letters." Sometimes, during + idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses + and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed + "Josh," and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.-- + [One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a + letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that + Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary + efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write + something "that his kin will be proud of."]-- The rough, vigorous + humor of these had attracted some attention, and Orion, pleased with + any measure of success that might come to his brother, had allowed + the authorship of them to become known. When, in July, the + financial situation became desperate, the Esmeralda miner was moved + to turn to literature for relief. But we will let him present the + situation himself. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, July 23d, 1862. +MY DEAR BRO.,--No, I don't own a foot in the "Johnson" ledge--I will tell +the story some day in a more intelligible manner than Tom has told it. +You needn't take the trouble to deny Tom's version, though. I own 25 +feet (1-16) of the 1st east ex. on it--and Johnson himself has contracted +to find the ledge for 100 feet. Contract signed yesterday. But as the +ledge will be difficult to find he is allowed six months to find it in. +An eighteenth of the Ophir was a fortune to John D. Winters--and the +Ophir can't beat the Johnson any..... + +My debts are greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing, +and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $5o, +and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h--l I am going to +live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The +fact is, I must have something to do, and that shortly, too..... + +Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I'll +write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week--my board must +be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent, and +other papers--and the Enterprise. California is full of people who have +interests here, and it's d---d seldom they hear from this country. +I can't write a specimen letter--now, at any rate--I'd rather undertake +to write a Greek poem. Tell 'em the mail and express leave three times a +week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send letters by the blasted +express. If they want letters from here, who'll run from morning till +night collecting materials cheaper. I'll write a short letter twice a +week, for the present, for the "Age," for $5 per week. Now it has been a +long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long +time before I loaf another year..... + +If I get the other 25 feet in the Johnson ex., I shan't care a d---n. +I'll be willing to curse awhile and wait. And if I can't move the bowels +of those hills this fall, I will come up and clerk for you until I get +money enough to go over the mountains for the winter. + Yr. Bro. + SAM. + + + The Territorial Enterprise at Virginia City was at this time owned + by Joseph T. Goodman, who had bought it on the eve of the great + Comstock silver-mining boom, and from a struggling, starving sheet + had converted it into one of the most important--certainly the most + picturesque-papers on the coast. The sketches which the Esmeralda + miner had written over the name of "Josh" fitted into it exactly, + and when a young man named Barstow, in the business office, urged + Goodman to invite "Josh" to join their staff, the Enterprise owner + readily fell in with the idea. Among a lot of mining matters of no + special interest, Clemens, July 3oth, wrote his brother: "Barstow + has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at $25 + a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail, + if possible." + + In Roughing It we are told that the miner eagerly accepted the + proposition to come to Virginia City, but the letters tell a + different story. Mark Twain was never one to abandon any + undertaking easily. His unwillingness to surrender in a lost cause + would cost him more than one fortune in the years to come. A week + following the date of the foregoing he was still undecided. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + ESMERALDA, Aug. 7, 1862. +MY DEAR BRO,--Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it. +I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before +I must come up there. I have not heard from him since. + +Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of +60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely +possible that mail facilities may prove infernally "slow" during the few +weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have +left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write +me here, or let me know through you. + +The Contractors say they will strike the Fresno next week. After fooling +with those assayers a week, they concluded not to buy "Mr. Flower" at +$50, although they would have given five times the sum for it four months +ago. So I have made out a deed for one half of all Johnny's ground and +acknowledged and left in judge F. K. Becktel's hands, and if judge Turner +wants it he must write to Becktel and pay him his Notary fee of $1.50. +I would have paid that fee myself, but I want money now as I leave town +tonight. However, if you think it isn't right, you can pay the fee to +judge Turner yourself. + +Hang to your money now. I may want some when I get back..... + +See that you keep out of debt-to anybody. Bully for B.! Write him that +I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven't +time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what +I say--and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the +rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-bush; a +rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of +grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the "endless +snows" have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their +loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a +fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees-tropical +bees--everywhere!--and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote: + + "and Sharon waves, in solemn praise, + Her silent groves of palm." + +and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of the +thrush and the nightingale and the canary--and shudders when the gaudy-- +plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange groves of +Carson. Tell him he wouldn't recognize the d--d country. He should +bring his family by all means. + +I intended to write home, but I haven't done it. + Yr. Bro. + SAM. + + + In this letter we realize that he had gone into the wilderness to + reflect--to get a perspective on the situation. He was a great + walker in those days, and sometimes with Higbie, sometimes alone, + made long excursions. One such is recorded in Roughing It, the trip + to Mono Lake. We have no means of knowing where his seventy-mile + tour led him now, but it is clear that he still had not reached a + decision on his return. Indeed, we gather that he is inclined to + keep up the battle among the barren Esmeralda hills. + + + Last mining letter; written to Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + ESMERALDA, CAL., Aug. 15, 1862. +MY DEAR SISTER,-I mailed a letter to you and Ma this morning, but since +then I have received yours to Orion and me. Therefore, I must answer +right away, else I may leave town without doing it at all. What in +thunder are pilot's wages to me? which question, I beg humbly to observe, +is of a general nature, and not discharged particularly at you. But it +is singular, isn't it, that such a matter should interest Orion, when it +is of no earthly consequence to me? I never have once thought of +returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any +more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country-- +and if I have to wait longer than I expected, let it be so--I have no +fear of failure. You know I have extravagant hopes, for Orion tells you +everything which he ought to keep to himself--but it's his nature to do +that sort of thing, and I let him alone. I did think for awhile of going +home this fall--but when I found that that was and had been the cherished +intention and the darling aspiration every year, of these old care-worn +Californians for twelve weary years--I felt a little uncomfortable, but +I stole a march on Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall. +I will spend the winter in San Francisco, if possible. Do not tell any +one that I had any idea of piloting again at present--for it is all a +mistake. This country suits me, and--it shall suit me, whether or no.... + +Dan Twing and I and Dan's dog, "cabin" together--and will continue to do +so for awhile--until I leave for-- + +The mansion is 10x12, with a "domestic" roof. Yesterday it rained--the +first shower for five months. "Domestic," it appears to me, is not +water-proof. We went outside to keep from getting wet. Dan makes the +bed when it is his turn to do it--and when it is my turn, I don't, you +know. The dog is not a good hunter, and he isn't worth shucks to watch-- +but he scratches up the dirt floor of the cabin, and catches flies, and +makes himself generally useful in the way of washing dishes. Dan gets up +first in the morning and makes a fire--and I get up last and sit by it, +while he cooks breakfast. We have a cold lunch at noon, and I cook +supper--very much against my will. However, one must have one good meal +a day, and if I were to live on Dan's abominable cookery, I should lose +my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday, +and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt--and we had a jolly +good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he +found one at last--but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow +fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that +degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In +this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned, his +own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is +true. + +You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel? +Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour +was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it +couldn't be had at any price--and for one month the people lived on +barley, beans and beef--and nothing beside. Oh, no--we didn't luxuriate +then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity +and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised +it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis. + +Where is Beack Jolly?--[a pilot]--and Bixby? + Your Brother + SAM. + + + + +IV + +LETTERS 1863-64. "MARK TWAIN." COMSTOCK JOURNALISM. ARTEMUS WARD + +There is a long hiatus in the correspondence here. For a space of many +months there is but one letter to continue the story. Others were +written, of course, but for some reason they have not survived. It was +about the end of August (1862) when the miner finally abandoned the +struggle, and with his pack on his shoulders walked the one and thirty +miles over the mountains to Virginia City, arriving dusty, lame, and +travel-stained to claim at last his rightful inheritance. At the +Enterprise office he was welcomed, and in a brief time entered into his +own. Goodman, the proprietor, himself a man of great ability, had +surrounded himself with a group of gay-hearted fellows, whose fresh, wild +way of writing delighted the Comstock pioneers far more than any sober +presentation of mere news. Samuel Clemens fitted exactly into this +group. By the end of the year he had become a leader of it. When he +asked to be allowed to report the coming Carson legislature, Goodman +consented, realizing that while Clemens knew nothing of parliamentary +procedure, he would at least make the letters picturesque. + +It was in the midst of this work that he adopted the name which he was to +make famous throughout the world. The story of its adoption has been +fully told elsewhere and need not be repeated here.--[See Mark Twain: A +Biography, by the same author; Chapter XL.] + +"Mark Twain" was first signed to a Carson letter, February 2, 1863, and +from that time was attached to all of Samuel Clemens's work. The letters +had already been widely copied, and the name now which gave them +personality quickly obtained vogue. It was attached to himself as well +as to the letters; heretofore he had been called Sam or Clemens, now he +became almost universally Mark Twain and Mark. + +This early period of Mark Twain's journalism is full of delicious +history, but we are permitted here to retell only such of it as will +supply connection to the infrequent letters. He wrote home briefly in +February, but the letter contained nothing worth preserving. Then two +months later he gives us at least a hint of his employment. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + VIRGINIA, April 11, 1863. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,-- It is very late at night, and I am writing +in my room, which is not quite as large or as nice as the one I had at +home. My board, washing and lodging cost me seventy-five dollars a +month. + +I have just received your letter, Ma, from Carson--the one in which you +doubt my veracity about the statements I made in a letter to you. That's +right. I don't recollect what the statements were, but I suppose they +were mining statistics. I have just finished writing up my report for +the morning paper, and giving the Unreliable a column of advice about how +to conduct himself in church, and now I will tell you a few more lies, +while my hand is in. For instance, some of the boys made me a present of +fifty feet in the East India G. and S. M. Company ten days ago. I was +offered ninety-five dollars a foot for it, yesterday, in gold. I refused +it--not because I think the claim is worth a cent for I don't but because +I had a curiosity to see how high it would go, before people find out how +worthless it is. Besides, what if one mining claim does fool me? I have +got plenty more. I am not in a particular hurry to get rich. I suppose +I couldn't well help getting rich here some time or other, whether I +wanted to or not. You folks do not believe in Nevada, and I am glad you +don't. Just keep on thinking so. + +I was at the Gould and Curry mine, the other day, and they had two or +three tons of choice rock piled up, which was valued at $20,000 a ton. +I gathered up a hat-full of chunks, on account of their beauty as +specimens--they don't let everybody supply themselves so liberally. I +send Mr. Moffett a little specimen of it for his cabinet. If you don't +know what the white stuff on it is, I must inform you that it is purer +silver than the minted coin. There is about as much gold in it as there +is silver, but it is not visible. I will explain to you some day how to +detect it. + +Pamela, you wouldn't do for a local reporter--because you don't +appreciate the interest that attaches to names. An item is of no use +unless it speaks of some person, and not then, unless that person's name +is distinctly mentioned. The most interesting letter one can write, to +an absent friend, is one that treats of persons he has been acquainted +with rather than the public events of the day. Now you speak of a young +lady who wrote to Hollie Benson that she had seen me; and you didn't +mention her name. It was just a mere chance that I ever guessed who she +was--but I did, finally, though I don't remember her name, now. I was +introduced to her in San Francisco by Hon. A. B. Paul, and saw her +afterwards in Gold Hill. They were a very pleasant lot of girls--she and +her sisters. + +P. S. I have just heard five pistol shots down street--as such things +are in my line, I will go and see about it. + +P. S. No 2--5 A.M.--The pistol did its work well--one man--a Jackson +County Missourian, shot two of my friends, (police officers,) through the +heart--both died within three minutes. Murderer's name is John Campbell. + + The "Unreliable" of this letter was a rival reporter on whom Mark + Twain had conferred this name during the legislative session. His + real name was Rice, and he had undertaken to criticize Clemens's + reports. The brisk reply that Rice's letters concealed with a show + of parliamentary knowledge a "festering mass of misstatements the + author of whom should be properly termed the 'Unreliable," fixed + that name upon him for life. This burlesque warfare delighted the + frontier and it did not interfere with friendship. Clemens and Rice + were constant associates, though continually firing squibs at each + other in their respective papers--a form of personal journalism much + in vogue on the Comstock. + + In the next letter we find these two journalistic "blades" enjoying + themselves together in the coast metropolis. This letter is labeled + "No. 2," meaning, probably, the second from San Francisco, but No. 1 + has disappeared, and even No, 2 is incomplete. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + +No. 2-- ($20.00 Enclosed) + LICK HOUSE, S. F., June 1, '63. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--The Unreliable and myself are still here, +and still enjoying ourselves. I suppose I know at least a thousand +people here--a, great many of them citizens of San Francisco, but the +majority belonging in Washoe--and when I go down Montgomery street, +shaking hands with Tom, Dick and Harry, it is just like being in Main +street in Hannibal and meeting the old familiar faces. I do hate to go +back to Washoe. We fag ourselves completely out every day, and go to +sleep without rocking, every night. We dine out and we lunch out, and we +eat, drink and are happy--as it were. After breakfast, I don't often see +the hotel again until midnight--or after. I am going to the Dickens +mighty fast. I know a regular village of families here in the house, but +I never have time to call on them. Thunder! we'll know a little more +about this town, before we leave, than some of the people who live in it. +We take trips across the Bay to Oakland, and down to San Leandro, and +Alameda, and those places; and we go out to the Willows, and Hayes Park, +and Fort Point, and up to Benicia; and yesterday we were invited out on a +yachting excursion, and had a sail in the fastest yacht on the Pacific +Coast. Rice says: "Oh, no--we are not having any fun, Mark--Oh, no, I +reckon not--it's somebody else--it's probably the 'gentleman in the +wagon'!" (popular slang phrase.) When I invite Rice to the Lick House to +dinner, the proprietors send us champagne and claret, and then we do put +on the most disgusting airs. Rice says our calibre is too light--we +can't stand it to be noticed! + +I rode down with a gentleman to the Ocean House, the other day, to see +the sea horses, and also to listen to the roar of the surf, and watch the +ships drifting about, here, and there, and far away at sea. When I stood +on the beach and let the surf wet my feet, I recollected doing the same +thing on the shores of the Atlantic--and then I had a proper appreciation +of the vastness of this country--for I had traveled from ocean to ocean +across it. + Remainder missing.) + + + Not far from Virginia City there are some warm springs that + constantly send up jets of steam through fissures in the + mountainside. The place was a health resort, and Clemens, always + subject to bronchial colds, now and again retired there for a cure. + + A letter written in the late summer--a gay, youthful document-- + belongs to one of these periods of convalescence. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + +No. 12--$20 enclosed. + STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, August 19, '63. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--Ma, you have given my vanity a deadly thrust. +Behold, I am prone to boast of having the widest reputation, as a local +editor, of any man on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and +tell me "if I work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire +to a place on a big San Francisco daily, some day." There's a comment on +human vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I +could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I don't +want it. No paper in the United States can afford to pay me what my +place on the "Enterprise" is worth. If I were not naturally a lazy, +idle, good-for-nothing vagabond, I could make it pay me $20,000 a year. +But I don't suppose I shall ever be any account. I lead an easy life, +though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody +knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of +the mountains or the other. And I am proud to say I am the most +conceited ass in the Territory. + +You think that picture looks old? Well, I can't help it--in reality I am +not as old as I was when I was eighteen. + +I took a desperate cold more than a week ago, and I seduced Wilson (a +Missouri boy, reporter of the Daily Union,) from his labors, and we went +over to Lake Bigler. But I failed to cure my cold. I found the "Lake +House" crowded with the wealth and fashion of Virginia, and I could not +resist the temptation to take a hand in all the fun going. Those +Virginians--men and women both--are a stirring set, and I found if I went +with them on all their eternal excursions, I should bring the consumption +home with me--so I left, day before yesterday, and came back into the +Territory again. A lot of them had purchased a site for a town on the +Lake shore, and they gave me a lot. When you come out, I'll build you a +house on it. The Lake seems more supernaturally beautiful now, than +ever. It is the masterpiece of the Creation. + +The hotel here at the Springs is not so much crowded as usual, and I am +having a very comfortable time of it. The hot, white steam puffs up out +of fissures in the earth like the jets that come from a steam-boat's +'scape pipes, and it makes a boiling, surging noise like a steam-boat, +too-hence the name. We put eggs in a handkerchief and dip them in the +springs--they "soft boil" in 2 Minutes, and boil as hard as a rock in +4 minutes. These fissures extend more than a quarter of a mile, and the +long line of steam columns looks very pretty. A large bath house is +built over one of the springs, and we go in it and steam ourselves as +long as we can stand it, and then come out and take a cold shower bath. +You get baths, board and lodging, all for $25 a week--cheaper than living +in Virginia without baths..... + Yrs aft + MARK. + + + It was now the autumn of 1863. Mark Twain was twenty-eight years + old. On the Coast he had established a reputation as a gaily + original newspaper writer. Thus far, however, he had absolutely no + literary standing, nor is there any evidence that he had literary + ambitions; his work was unformed, uncultivated--all of which seems + strange, now, when we realize that somewhere behind lay the + substance of immortality. Rudyard Kipling at twenty-eight had done + his greatest work. + + Even Joseph Goodman, who had a fine literary perception and a deep + knowledge of men, intimately associated with Mark Twain as he was, + received at this time no hint of his greater powers. Another man on + the staff of the Enterprise, William Wright, who called himself "Dan + de Quille," a graceful humorist, gave far more promise, Goodman + thought, of future distinction. + + It was Artemus Ward who first suspected the value of Mark Twain's + gifts, and urged him to some more important use of them. Artemus in + the course of a transcontinental lecture tour, stopped in Virginia + City, and naturally found congenial society on the Enterprise staff. + He had intended remaining but a few days, but lingered three weeks, + a period of continuous celebration, closing only with the holiday + season. During one night of final festivities, Ward slipped away + and gave a performance on his own account. His letter to Mark + Twain, from Austin, Nevada, written a day or two later, is most + characteristic. + + + Artemus Ward's letter to Mark Twain: + + AUSTIN, Jan. 1, '64. +MY DEAREST LOVE,-- I arrived here yesterday a.m. at 2 o'clock. It is a +wild, untamable place, full of lionhearted boys. I speak tonight. See +small bills. + +Why did you not go with me and save me that night? --I mean the night I +left you after that dinner party. I went and got drunker, beating, I may +say, Alexander the Great, in his most drinkinist days, and I blackened my +face at the Melodeon, and made a gibbering, idiotic speech. God-dam it! +I suppose the Union will have it. But let it go. I shall always +remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence, as all others must or +rather cannot be, as it were. + +Love to Jo. Goodman and Dan. I shall write soon, a powerfully convincing +note to my friends of "The Mercury." Your notice, by the way, did much +good here, as it doubtlessly will elsewhere. The miscreants of the Union +will be batted in the snout if they ever dare pollute this rapidly rising +city with their loathsome presence. + +Some of the finest intellects in the world have been blunted by liquor. + +Do not, sir--do not flatter yourself that you are the only chastely- +humorous writer onto the Pacific slopes. + +Good-bye, old boy--and God bless you! The matter of which I spoke to you +so earnestly shall be just as earnestly attended to--and again with very +many warm regards for Jo. and Dan., and regards to many of the good +friends we met. + I am Faithfully, gratefully yours, + ARTEMUS WARD. + + + The Union which Ward mentions was the rival Virginia. City paper; + the Mercury was the New York Sunday Mercury, to which he had urged + Mark Twain to contribute. Ward wrote a second letter, after a siege + of illness at Salt Lake City. He was a frail creature, and three + years later, in London, died of consumption. His genius and + encouragement undoubtedly exerted an influence upon Mark Twain. + Ward's second letter here follows. + + + Artemus Ward to S. L. Clemens: + + SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 21, '64. +MY DEAR MARK,--I have been dangerously ill for the past two weeks here, +of congestive fever. Very grave fears were for a time entertained of my +recovery, but happily the malady is gone, though leaving me very, very +weak. I hope to be able to resume my journey in a week or so. I think +I shall speak in the Theater here, which is one of the finest +establishments of the kind in America. + +The Saints have been wonderfully kind to me, I could not have been better +or more tenderly nursed at home--God bless them! + +I am still exceedingly weak--can't write any more. Love to Jo and Dan, +and all the rest. Write me at St. Louis. + Always yours, + ARTEMUS WARD. + + + If one could only have Mark Twain's letters in reply to these! but + they have vanished and are probably long since dust. A letter which + he wrote to his mother assures us that he undertook to follow Ward's + advice. He was not ready, however, for serious literary effort. + The article, sent to the Mercury, was distinctly of the Comstock + variety; it was accepted, but it apparently made no impression, and + he did not follow it up. + + For one thing, he was just then too busy reporting the Legislature + at Carson City and responding to social demands. From having been a + scarcely considered unit during the early days of his arrival in + Carson Mark Twain had attained a high degree of importance in the + little Nevada capital. In the Legislature he was a power; as + correspondent for the Enterprise he was feared and respected as well + as admired. His humor, his satire, and his fearlessness were + dreaded weapons. + + Also, he was of extraordinary popularity. Orion's wife, with her + little daughter, Jennie, had come out from the States. The Governor + of Nevada had no household in Carson City, and was generally absent. + Orion Clemens reigned in his stead, and indeed was usually addressed + as "Governor" Clemens. His home became the social center of the + capital, and his brilliant brother its chief ornament. From the + roughest of miners of a year before he had become, once more, almost + a dandy in dress, and no occasion was complete without him. When + the two Houses of the Legislature assembled, in January, 1864, a + burlesque Third House was organized and proposed to hold a session, + as a church benefit. After very brief consideration it was decided + to select Mark Twain to preside at this Third House assembly under + the title of "Governor," and a letter of invitation was addressed to + him. His reply to it follows: + + + To S. Pixley and G. A. Sears, Trustees: + + CARSON CITY, January 23, r86¢. +GENTLEMEN, Certainly. If the public can find anything in a grave state +paper worth paying a dollar for, I am willing that they should pay that +amount, or any other; and although I am not a very dusty Christian +myself, I take an absorbing interest in religious affairs, and would +willingly inflict my annual message upon the Church itself if it might +derive benefit thereby. You can charge what you please; I promise the +public no amusement, but I do promise a reasonable amount of instruction. +I am responsible to the Third House only, and I hope to be permitted to +make it exceedingly warm for that body, without caring whether the +sympathies of the public and the Church be enlisted in their favor, and +against myself, or not. + Respectfully, + MARK TWAIN. + + + There is a quality in this letter more suggestive of the later Mark + Twain than anything that has preceded it. His Third House address, + unfortunately, has not been preserved, but those who heard it + regarded it as a classic. It probably abounded in humor of the + frontier sort-unsparing ridicule of the Governor, the Legislature, + and individual citizens. It was all taken in good part, of course, + and as a recognition of his success he received a gold watch, with + the case properly inscribed to "The Governor of the Third House." + This was really his first public appearance in a field in which he + was destined to achieve very great fame. + + + + +V + +LETTERS 1864-66. SAN FRANCISCO AND HAWAII + + Life on the Comstock came to an end for Mark Twain in May, 1864. It + was the time of The Flour Sack Sanitary Fund, the story of which he + has told in Roughing It. He does not, however, refer to the + troubles which this special fund brought upon himself. Coming into + the Enterprise office one night, after a gay day of "Fund" + celebration, Clemens wrote, for next day's paper, a paragraph + intended to be merely playful, but which proved highly offending to + certain ladies concerned with the flour-sack enterprise. No files + of the paper exist today, so we cannot judge of the quality of humor + that stirred up trouble. + + The trouble, however, was genuine enough, Virginia's rival paper + seized upon the chance to humiliate its enemy, and presently words + were passed back and forth until nothing was left to write but a + challenge. The story of this duel, which did not come off, has been + quite fully told elsewhere, both by Mark Twain and the present + writer; but the following letter--a revelation of his inner feelings + in the matter of his offense--has never before been published. + + + To Mrs. Cutler, in Carson City: + + VIRGINIA, May 23rd, 1864. +MRS. W. K. CUTLER: + +MADAM,--I address a lady in every sense of the term. Mrs. Clemens has +informed me of everything that has occurred in Carson in connection with +that unfortunate item of mine about the Sanitary Funds accruing from the +ball, and from what I can understand, you are almost the only lady in +your city who has understood the circumstances under which my fault was +committed, or who has shown any disposition to be lenient with me. Had +the note of the ladies been properly worded, I would have published an +ample apology instantly--and possibly I might even have done so anyhow, +had that note arrived at any other time--but it came at a moment when I +was in the midst of what ought to have been a deadly quarrel with the +publishers of the Union, and I could not come out and make public +apologies to any one at such a time. It is bad policy to do it even now +(as challenges have already passed between myself and a proprietor of the +Union, and the matter is still in abeyance,) but I suppose I had better +say a word or two to show the ladies that I did not wilfully and +maliciously do them a wrong. + +But my chief object, Mrs. Cutler, in writing you this note (and you will +pardon the liberty I have taken,) was to thank you very kindly and +sincerely for the consideration you have shown me in this matter, and for +your continued friendship for Mollie while others are disposed to +withdraw theirs on account of a fault for which I alone am responsible. + Very truly yours, + SAM. L. CLEMENS. + + + The matter did not end with the failure of the duel. A very strict + law had just been passed, making it a felony even to send or accept + a challenge. Clemens, on the whole, rather tired of Virginia City + and Carson, thought it a good time to go across the mountains to San + Francisco. With Steve Gillis, a printer, of whom he was very fond-- + an inveterate joker, who had been more than half responsible for the + proposed duel, and was to have served as his second--he took the + stage one morning, and in due time was in the California metropolis, + at work on the Morning Call. + + Clemens had been several times in San Francisco, and loved the + place. We have no letter of that summer, the first being dated + several months after his arrival. He was still working on the Call + when it was written, and contributing literary articles to the + Californian, of which Bret Harte, unknown to fame, was editor. + Harte had his office just above the rooms of the Call, and he and + Clemens were good friends. San Francisco had a real literary group + that, for a time at least, centered around the offices of the Golden + Era. In a letter that follows Clemens would seem to have scorned + this publication, but he was a frequent contributor to it at one + period. Joaquin Miller was of this band of literary pioneers; also + Prentice Mulford, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, and + Orpheus C. Kerr. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + Sept. 25, 1864. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--You can see by my picture that this superb +climate agrees with me. And it ought, after living where I was never out +of sight of snow peaks twenty-four hours during three years. Here we +have neither snow nor cold weather; fires are never lighted, and yet +summer clothes are never worn--you wear spring clothing the year round. + +Steve Gillis, who has been my comrade for two years, and who came down +here with me, is to be married, in a week or two, to a very pretty girl +worth $130,000 in her own right--and then I shall be alone again, until +they build a house, which they will do shortly. + +We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodgings five +times, and our hotel twice. We are very comfortably fixed where we are, +now, and have no fault to find with the rooms or with the people--we are +the only lodgers in a well-to-do private family, with one grown daughter +and a piano in the parlor adjoining our room. But I need a change, and +must move again. I have taken rooms further down the street. I shall +stay in this little quiet street, because it is full of gardens and +shrubbery, and there are none but dwelling houses in it. + +I am taking life easy, now, and I mean to keep it up for awhile. I don't +work at night any more. I told the "Call" folks to pay me $25 a week and +let me work only in daylight. So I get up at ten every morning, and quit +work at five or six in the afternoon. You ask if I work for greenbacks? +Hardly. What do you suppose I could do with greenbacks here? + +I have engaged to write for the new literary paper--the "Californian"-- +same pay I used to receive on the "Golden Era"--one article a week, fifty +dollars a month. I quit the "Era," long ago. It wasn't high-toned +enough. The "Californian" circulates among the highest class of the +community, and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States +--and I suppose I ought to know. + +I work as I always did--by fits and starts. I wrote two articles last +night for the Californian, so that lets me out for two weeks. That would +be about seventy-five dollars, in greenbacks, wouldn't it? + +Been down to San Jose (generally pronounced Sannozay -emphasis on last +syllable)-today fifty miles from here, by railroad. Town of 6,000 +inhabitants, buried in flowers and shrubbery. The climate is finer than +ours here, because it is not so close to the ocean, and is protected from +the winds by the coast range. + +I had an invitation today, to go down on an excursion to San Luis Obispo, +and from thence to the city of Mexico, to be gone six or eight weeks, or +possibly longer, but I could not accept, on account of my contract to act +as chief mourner or groomsman at Steve's wedding. + +I have triumphed. They refused me and other reporters some information +at a branch of the Coroner's office--Massey's undertaker establishment, +a few weeks ago. I published the wickedest article on them I ever wrote +in my life, and you can rest assured we got all the information we wanted +after that. + +By the new census, San Francisco has a population of 130,000. They don't +count the hordes of Chinamen. + Yrs aftly, + SAM. + + +I send a picture for Annie, and one for Aunt Ella--that is, if she will +have it. + + + Relations with the Call ceased before the end of the year, though + not in the manner described in Roughing It. Mark Twain loved to + make fiction of his mishaps, and to show himself always in a bad + light. As a matter of fact, he left the Call with great + willingness, and began immediately contributing a daily letter to + the Enterprise, which brought him a satisfactory financial return. + + In the biographical sketch with which this volume opens, and more + extendedly elsewhere, has been told the story of the trouble growing + out of the Enterprise letters, and of Mark Twain's sojourn with + James Gillis in the Tuolumne Hills. Also how, in the frowsy hotel + at Angel's Camp, he heard the frog anecdote that would become the + corner-stone of his fame. There are no letters of this period--only + some note-book entries. It is probable that he did not write home, + believing, no doubt, that he had very little to say. + + For more than a year there is not a line that has survived. Yet it + had been an important year; the jumping frog story, published in New + York, had been reprinted East and West, and laughed over in at least + a million homes. Fame had not come to him, but it was on the way. + + Yet his outlook seems not to have been a hopeful one. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 20, 1866. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I do not know what to write; my life is so +uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up and down the river +again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth--save piloting. + +To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for +thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a +villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on! "Jim Smiley and His +Jumping Frog"--a squib which would never have been written but to please +Artemus Ward, and then it reached New York too late to appear in his +book. + +But no matter. His book was a wretchedly poor one, generally speaking, +and it could be no credit to either of us to appear between its covers. + +This paragraph is from the New York correspondence of the San Francisco +Alta: + +(Clipping pasted in.) + + "Mark Twain's story in the Saturday Press of November i8th, called + 'Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,' has set all New York in a roar, + and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty + times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and + near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the + Californian afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let + him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the + California press." + +The New York publishing house of Carleton & Co. gave the sketch to the +Saturday Press when they found it was too late for the book. + +Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers in +this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret Harte, +I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. He wants me to club a +lot of old sketches together with a lot of his, and publish a book. +I wouldn't do it, only he agrees to take all the trouble. But I want to +know whether we are going to make anything out of it, first. However, he +has written to a New York publisher, and if we are offered a bargain that +will pay for a month's labor we will go to work and prepare the volume +for the press. + Yours affy, + SAM. + + + Bret Harte and Clemens had by this time quit the Californian, + expecting to contribute to Eastern periodicals. Clemens, however, + was not yet through with Coast journalism. There was much interest + just at this time in the Sandwich Islands, and he was selected by + the foremost Sacramento paper to spy out the islands and report + aspects and conditions there. His letters home were still + infrequent, but this was something worth writing. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + SAN FRANCISCO, March 5th, 1866. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I start to do Sandwich Islands day after +tomorrow, (I suppose Annie is geographer enough by this time to find them +on the map), in the steamer "Ajax." We shall arrive there in about +twelve days. My friends seem determined that I shall not lack +acquaintances, for I only decided today to go, and they have already sent +me letters of introduction to everybody down there worth knowing. I am +to remain there a month and ransack the islands, the great cataracts and +the volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters to the +Sacramento Union--for which they pay me as much money as I would get if I +staid at home. + +If I come back here I expect to start straight across the continent by +way of the Columbia river, the Pend d'Oreille Lakes, through Montana and +down the Missouri river,--only 200 miles of land travel from San +Francisco to New Orleans. + Goodbye for the present. + Yours, + SAM. + + + His home letters from the islands are numerous enough; everything + there being so new and so delightful that he found joy in telling of + it; also, he was still young enough to air his triumphs a little, + especially when he has dined with the Grand Chamberlain and is going + to visit the King! + + The languorous life of the islands exactly suited Mask Twain. All + his life he remembered them--always planning to return, some day, to + stay there until he died. In one of his note-books he wrote: "Went + with Mr. Dam to his cool, vine-shaded home; no care-worn or eager, + anxious faces in this land of happy contentment. God, what a + contrast with California and the Washoe!" + + And again: + + "Oh, Islands there are on the face of the deep + Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep." + + The letters tell the story of his sojourn, which stretched itself + into nearly five months. + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, April 3, 1866. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have been here two or three weeks, and like +the beautiful tropical climate better and better. I have ridden on +horseback all over this island (Oahu) in the meantime, and have visited +all the ancient battle-fields and other places of interest. I have got a +lot of human bones which I took from one of these battle-fields--I guess +I will bring you some of them. I went with the American Minister and +took dinner this evening with the King's Grand Chamberlain, who is +related to the royal family, and although darker than a mulatto, he has +an excellent English education and in manners is an accomplished +gentleman. The dinner was as ceremonious as any I ever attended in +California--five regular courses, and five kinds of wine and one of +brandy. He is to call for me in the morning with his carriage, and we +will visit the King at the palace--both are good Masons--the King is a +Royal Arch Mason. After dinner tonight they called in the "singing +girls," and we had some beautiful music; sung in the native tongue. + +The steamer I came here in sails tomorrow, and as soon as she is gone I +shall sail for the other islands of the group and visit the great +volcano--the grand wonder of the world. Be gone two months. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + WAILUKU SUGAR PLANTATION, + ISLAND OF MAUI, H. I., May 4,1866. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--11 O'clock at night. --This is the +infernalist darkest country, when the moon don't shine; I stumbled and +fell over my horse's lariat a minute ago and hurt my leg, so I must stay +here tonight. + +I got the same leg hurt last week; I said I hadn't got hold of a spirited +horse since I had been on the island, and one of the proprietors loaned +me a big vicious colt; he was altogether too spirited; I went to tighten +the cinch before mounting him, when he let out with his left leg (?) and +kicked me across a ten-acre lot. A native rubbed and doctored me so well +that I was able to stand on my feet in half an hour. It was then half +after four and I had an appointment to go seven miles and get a girl and +take her to a card party at five. + +I have been clattering around among the plantations for three weeks, now, +and next week I am going to visit the extinct crater of Mount Haleakala-- +the largest in the world; it is ten miles to the foot of the mountain; it +rises 10,000 feet above the valley; the crater is 29 miles in +circumference and 1,000 feet deep. Seen from the summit, the city of St. +Louis would look like a picture in the bottom of it. + +As soon as I get back from Haleakala (pronounced Hally-ekka-lah) I will +sail for Honolulu again and thence to the Island of Hawaii (pronounced +Hah-wy-ye,) to see the greatest active volcano in the world--that of +Kilauea (pronounced Kee-low-way-ah)--and from thence back to San +Francisco--and then, doubtless, to the States. I have been on this trip +two months, and it will probably be two more before I get back to +California. + Yrs affy + SAM. + + + He was having a glorious time--one of the most happy, carefree + adventures of his career. No form of travel or undertaking could + discountenance Mark Twain at thirty. + + + To Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Carson City: + + HONOLULU, May 22, 1866. +MY DEAR SISTER,--I have just got back from a sea voyage--from the +beautiful island of Maui, I have spent five weeks there, riding backwards +and forwards among the sugar plantations--looking up the splendid scenery +and visiting the lofty crater of Haleakala. It has been a perfect +jubilee to me in the way of pleasure. + +I have not written a single line, and have not once thought of business, +or care or human toil or trouble or sorrow or weariness. Few such months +come in a lifetime. + +I set sail again, a week hence, for the island of Hawaii, to see the +great active volcano of Kilauea. I shall not get back here for four or +five weeks, and shall not reach San Francisco before the latter part of +July. + +So it is no use to wait for me to go home. Go on yourselves. + +If I were in the east now, I could stop the publication of a piratical +book which has stolen some of my sketches. + +It is late-good-bye, Mollie, + Yr Bro + SAM. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, June 21,1866. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have just got back from a hard trip through +the Island of Hawaii, begun on the 26th of May and finished on the 18th +of June--only six or seven days at sea--all the balance horse-back, and +the hardest mountain road in the world. I staid at the volcano about a +week and witnessed the greatest eruption that has occurred for years. +I lived well there. They charge $4 a day for board, and a dollar or two +extra for guides and horses. I had a pretty good time. They didn't +charge me anything. I have got back sick--went to bed as soon as I +arrived here--shall not be strong again for several days yet. I rushed +too fast. I ought to have taken five or six weeks on that trip. + +A week hence I start for the Island of Kauai, to be gone three weeks and +then I go back to California. + +The Crown Princess is dead and thousands of natives cry and wail and +dance and dance for the dead, around the King's Palace all night and +every night. They will keep it up for a month and then she will be +buried. + +Hon. Anson Burlingame, U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, +Minister to Japan, with their families and suites, have just arrived here +en route. They were going to do me the honor to call on me this morning, +and that accounts for my being out of bed now. You know what condition +my room is always in when you are not around--so I climbed out of bed and +dressed and shaved pretty quick and went up to the residence of the +American Minister and called on them. Mr. Burlingame told me a good deal +about Hon. Jere Clemens and that Virginia Clemens who was wounded in a +duel. He was in Congress years with both of them. Mr. B. sent for his +son, to introduce him--said he could tell that frog story of mine as well +as anybody. I told him I was glad to hear it for I never tried to tell +it myself without making a botch of it. At his request I have loaned Mr. +Burlingame pretty much everything I ever wrote. I guess he will be an +almighty wise man by the time he wades through that lot. + +If the New United States Minister to the Sandwich Islands (Hon. Edwin +McCook,) were only here now, so that I could get his views on this new +condition of Sandwich Island politics, I would sail for California at +once. But he will not arrive for two weeks yet and so I am going to +spend that interval on the island of Kauai. + +I stopped three days with Hon. Mr. Cony, Deputy Marshal of the Kingdom, +at Hilo, Hawaii, last week and by a funny circumstance he knew everybody +that I ever knew in Hannibal and Palmyra. We used to sit up all night +talking and then sleep all day. He lives like a Prince. Confound that +Island! I had a streak of fat and a streak of lean all over it--got lost +several times and had to sleep in huts with the natives and live like a +dog. + +Of course I couldn't speak fifty words of the language. Take it +altogether, though, it was a mighty hard trip. + Yours Affect. + SAM. + + + Burlingame and Van Valkenburgh were on their way to their posts, + and their coming to the islands just at this time proved a most + important circumstance to Mark Twain. We shall come to this + presently, in a summary of the newspaper letters written to the + Union. June 27th he wrote to his mother and sister a letter, only a + fragment of which survives, in which he tells of the arrival in + Honolulu of the survivors of the ship Hornet, burned on the line, + and of his securing the first news report of the lost vessel. + + + Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + HONOLULU, June 27, 1866 . +. . . with a gill of water a day to each man. I got the whole story +from the third mate and two of the sailors. If my account gets to the +Sacramento Union first, it will be published first all over the United +States, France, England, Russia and Germany--all over the world; I may +say. You will see it. Mr. Burlingame went with me all the time, and +helped me question the men--throwing away invitations to dinner with the +princes and foreign dignitaries, and neglecting all sorts of things to +accommodate me. You know how I appreciate that kind of thing--especially +from such a man, who is acknowledged to have no superior in the +diplomatic circles of the world, and obtained from China concessions in +favor of America which were refused to Sir Frederick Bruce and Envoys of +France and Russia until procured for them by Burlingame himself--which +service was duly acknowledged by those dignitaries. He hunted me up as +soon as he came here, and has done me a hundred favors since, and says if +I will come to China in the first trip of the great mail steamer next +January and make his house in Pekin my home, he will afford me facilities +that few men can have there for seeing and learning. He will give me +letters to the chiefs of the great Mail Steamship Company which will be +of service to me in this matter. I expect to do all this, but I expect +to go to the States first--and from China to the Paris World's Fair. + +Don't show this letter. + Yours affly + SAM. + +P. S. The crown Princess of this Kingdom will be buried tomorrow with +great ceremony--after that I sail in two weeks for California. + + + This concludes Mark Twain's personal letters from the islands. + Of his descriptive news letters there were about twenty, and they + were regarded by the readers of the Union as distinctly notable. + Re-reading those old letters to-day it is not altogether easy to + understand why. They were set in fine nonpareil type, for one + thing, which present-day eyes simply refuse at any price, and the + reward, by present-day standards, is not especially tempting. + + The letters began in the Union with the issue of April the 16th, + 1866. The first--of date March 18th--tells of the writer's arrival + at Honolulu. The humor in it is not always of a high order; it + would hardly pass for humor today at all. That the same man who + wrote the Hawaiian letters in 1866 (he was then over thirty years + old) could, two years later, have written that marvelous book, the + Innocents Abroad, is a phenomenon in literary development. + + The Hawaiian letters, however, do show the transition stage between + the rough elemental humor of the Comstock and the refined and subtle + style which flowered in the Innocents Abroad. Certainly Mark + Twain's genius was finding itself, and his association with the + refined and cultured personality of Anson Burlingame undoubtedly + aided in that discovery. Burlingame pointed out his faults to him, + and directed him to a better way. No more than that was needed at + such a time to bring about a transformation. + + The Sandwich Islands letters, however, must have been precisely + adapted to their audience--a little more refined than the log + Comstock, a little less subtle than the Atlantic public--and they + added materially to his Coast prestige. But let us consider a + sample extract from the first Sandwich Islands letter: + + +Our little band of passengers were as well and thoughtfully cared for by +the friends they left weeping upon the wharf, as ever were any similar +body of pilgrims. The traveling outfit conferred upon me began with a +naval uniform, continued with a case of wine, a small assortment of +medicinal liquors and brandy, several boxes of cigars, a bunch of +matches, a fine-toothed comb, and a cake of soap, and ended with a pair +of socks. (N. B. I gave the soap to Brown, who bit into it, and then. +shook his head and said that, as a general thing, he liked to prospect +curious, foreign dishes, and find out what they were made of, but he +couldn't go that, and threw it overboard.) + + It is nearly impossible to imagine humor in this extract, yet it is + a fair sample of the entire letter. + + He improves in his next, at least, in description, and gives us a + picture of the crater. In this letter, also, he writes well and + seriously, in a prophetic strain, of the great trade that is to be + established between San Francisco and Hawaii, and argues for a line + of steamers between the ports, in order that the islands might be + populated by Americans, by which course European trade in that + direction could be superseded. But the humor in this letter, such + as it is, would scarcely provoke a smile to-day. + + As the letters continue, he still urges the fostering of the island + trade by the United States, finds himself impressed by the work of + the missionaries, who have converted cannibals to Christians, and + gives picturesque bits of the life and scenery. + + Hawaii was then dominated chiefly by French and English; though the + American interests were by no means small. + + Extract from letter No. 4: + + +Cap. Fitch said "There's the king. That's him in the buggy. I know him +as far as I can see him." + +I had never seen a king, and I naturally took out a note-book and put him +down: "Tall, slender, dark, full-bearded; green frock-coat, with lapels +and collar bordered with gold band an inch wide; plug hat, broad gold +band around it; royal costume looks too much like livery; this man is not +as fleshy as I thought he was. + +I had just got these notes when Cap. Fitch discovered that he'd got hold +of the wrong king, or rather, that he'd got hold of the king's driver, +or a carriage driver of one of the nobility. The king wasn't present at +all. It was a great disappointment to me. I heard afterwards that the +comfortable, easy-going king, Kamehameha V., had been seen sitting on a +barrel on the wharf, the day before, fishing. But there was no +consolation in that. That did not restore me my lost king. + + + This has something of the flavor of the man we were to know later; + the quaint, gentle resignation to disappointment which is one of the + finest touches in his humor. + + Further on he says: "I had not shaved since I left San Francisco. + As soon as I got ashore I hunted up a striped pole, and shortly + found one. I always had a yearning to be a king. This may never + be, I suppose, but, at any rate, it will always be a satisfaction to + me to know that, if I am not a king, I am the next thing to it. + I have been shaved by the king's barber." + + Honolulu was a place of cats. He saw cats of every shade and + variety. He says: "I saw cats--tomcats, Mary-Ann cats, bobtailed + cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, + gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, + spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, + groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, armies of cats, + multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, + and lazy, and sound asleep." Which illustrates another + characteristic of the humor we were to know later--the humor of + grotesque exaggeration, in which he was always strong. + + He found the islands during his periods of inaction conducive to + indolence. "If I were not so fond of looking into the rich mass of + green leaves," he says, "that swathe the stately tamarind right + before my door, I would idle less, and write more, I think." + + The Union made good use of his letters. Sometimes it printed them + on the front page. Evidently they were popular from the beginning. + The Union was a fine, handsome paper--beautiful in its minute + typography, and in its press-work; more beautiful than most papers + of to-day, with their machine-set type, their vulgar illustrations, + and their chain-lightning presses. A few more extracts: + + "The only cigars here are those trifling, insipid, tasteless, + flavorless things they call Manilas--ten for twenty-five cents--and + it would take a thousand of them to be worth half the money. After + you have smoked about thirty-five dollars' worth of them in the + forenoon, you feel nothing but a desperate yearning to go out + somewhere and take a smoke." + + "Captains and ministers form about half the population. The third + fourth is composed of Kanakas and mercantile foreigners and their + families. The final fourth is made up of high officers of the + Hawaiian government, and there are just about enough cats to go + round." + + In No. 6, April the 2d, he says: "An excursion to Diamond Head, and + the king's cocoanut grove, was planned to-day, at 4.30 P. M., the + party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They + all started at the appointed hour except myself. Somebody remarked + that it was twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that woke me up. + It was a fortunate circumstance that Cap. Phillips was there with + his 'turn-out,' as he calls his top buggy that Cap. Cook brought + here in 1778, and a horse that was here when Cap. Cook came." + + This bit has something the savor of his subsequent work, but, as a + rule, the humor compares poorly with that which was to come later. + + In No. 7 he speaks of the natives singing American songs--not always + to his comfort. "Marching Through Georgia" was one of their + favorite airs. He says: "If it had been all the same to Gen. + Sherman, I wish he had gone around by the way of the Gulf of Mexico, + instead of marching through Georgia." + + Letters Nos. 8, 9, and 10 were not of special importance. In No. 10 + he gives some advice to San Francisco as to the treatment of + whalers. He says: + + "If I were going to advise San Francisco as to the best strategy to + employ in order to secure the whaling trade, I should say, 'Cripple + your facilities for "pulling" sea captains on any pretence that + sailors can trump up, and show the whaler a little more + consideration when he is in port."' + + In No. 11, May 24th, he tells of a trip to the Kalehi Valley, and + through historic points. At one place he looked from a precipice + over which old Kamehameha I. drove the army of Oahu, three-quarters + of a century before. + + The vegetation and glory of the tropics attracted him. "In one open + spot a vine of a species unknown had taken possession of two tall + dead stumps, and wound around and about them, and swung out from + their tops, and twined their meeting tendrils together into a + faultless arch. Man, with all his art, could not improve upon its + symmetry." + + He saw Sam Brannan's palace, "The Bungalow," built by one Shillaber + of San Francisco at a cost of from thirty to forty thousand dollars. + In its day it had outshone its regal neighbor, the palace of the + king, but had fallen to decay after passing into Brannan's hands, + and had become a picturesque Theban ruin by the time of Mark Twain's + visit. + + In No. 12, June 20th (written May 23d), he tells of the Hawaiian + Legislature, and of his trip to the island of Maui, where, as he + says, he never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place + good-by so regretfully. + + In No. 13 he continues the Legislature, and gives this picture of + Minister Harris: "He is six feet high, bony and rather slender; + long, ungainly arms; stands so straight he leans back a little; has + small side whiskers; his head long, up and down; he has no command + of language or ideas; oratory all show and pretence; a big washing + and a small hang-out; weak, insipid, and a damn fool in general." + + In No. 14, June 22d, published July i6th, he tells of the death and + burial ceremonies of the Princess Victoria K. K., and, what was to + be of more importance to him, of the arrival of Anson Burlingame, + U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, U. S. Minister to + Japan. They were to stay ten or fourteen days, he said, but an + effort would be made to have them stay over July 4th. + + Speaking of Burlingame: "Burlingame is a man who could be esteemed, + respected, and popular anywhere, no matter whether he was among + Christians or cannibals." Then, in the same letter, comes the great + incident. "A letter arrived here yesterday, giving a meagre account + of the arrival, on the Island of Hawaii, of nineteen poor, starving + wretches, who had been buffeting a stormy sea, in an open boat, for + forty-three days. Their ship, the Hornet, from New York, with a + quantity of kerosene on board had taken fire and burned in Lat. 2d. + north, and Long. 35d. west. When they had been entirely out of + provisions for a day or two, and the cravings of hunger become + insufferable, they yielded to the ship-wrecked mariner's fearful and + awful alternative, and solemnly drew lots to determine who of their + number should die, to furnish food for his comrades; and then the + morning mists lifted, and they saw land. They are being cared for + at Sanpahoe (Not yet corroborated)." + + The Hornet disaster was fully told in his letter of June 27th. The + survivors were brought to Honolulu, and with the assistance of the + Burlingame party, Clemens, laid up with saddle boils, was carried on + a stretcher to the hospital, where, aided by Burlingame, he + interviewed the shipwrecked men, securing material for the most + important piece of serious writing he had thus far performed. + Letter No. 15 to the Union--of date June 25th--occupied the most of + the first page in the issue of July 19. It was a detailed account + of the sufferings of officers and crew, as given by the third + officer and members of the crew. + + From letter No. 15: + +In the postscript of a letter which I wrote two or three days ago, and +sent by the ship "Live Yankee," I gave you the substance of a letter +received here from Hilo, by Walker Allen and Co., informing them that a +boat, containing fifteen men in a helpless and starving condition, had +drifted ashore at Sanpahoe, Island of Hawaii, and that they had belonged +to the clipper ship "Hornet"--Cap. Mitchell, master--had been afloat +since the burning of that vessel, about one hundred miles north of the +equator, on the third of May--forty-three days. + +The Third Mate, and ten of the seamen have arrived here, and are now in +the hospital. Cap. Mitchell, one seaman named Antonio Passene, and two +passengers, Samuel and Henry Ferguson, of New York City, eighteen and +twenty-eight years, are still at Hilo, but are expected here within the +week. In the Captain's modest epitome of the terrible romance you detect +the fine old hero through it. It reads like Grant. + + + Here follows the whole terrible narrative, which has since been + published in more substantial form, and has been recognized as + literature. It occupied three and a half columns on the front page + of the Union, and, of course, constituted a great beat for that + paper--a fact which they appreciated to the extent of one hundred + dollars the column upon the writer's return from the islands. + + In letters Nos. 14. and 15. he gives further particulars of the + month of mourning for the princess, and funeral ceremonials. He + refers to Burlingame, who was still in the islands. The remaining + letters are unimportant. + + The Hawaiian episode in Mark Twain's life was one of those spots + that seemed to him always filled with sunlight. From beginning to + end it had been a long luminous dream; in the next letter, written + on the homeward-bound ship, becalmed under a cloudless sky, we + realize the fitting end of the experience. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + ON BOARD SHIP Smyrniote, + AT SEA, July 30, 1866. +DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I write, now, because I must go hard at work as +soon as I get to San Francisco, and then I shall have no time for other +things--though truth to say I have nothing now to write which will be +calculated to interest you much. We left the, Sandwich Islands eight or +ten days--or twelve days ago--I don't know which, I have been so hard at +work until today (at least part of each day,) that the time has slipped +away almost unnoticed. The first few days we came at a whooping gait +being in the latitude of the "North-east trades," but we soon ran out of +them. We used them as long as they lasted-hundred of miles--and came +dead straight north until exactly abreast of San Francisco precisely +straight west of the city in a bee-line--but a long bee-line, as we were +about two thousand miles at sea-consequently, we are not a hundred yards +nearer San Francisco than you are. And here we lie becalmed on a glassy +sea--we do not move an inch-we throw banana and orange peel overboard and +it lies still on the water by the vessel's side. Sometimes the ocean is +as dead level as the Mississippi river, and glitters glassily as if +polished--but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is, we +roll and surge over the grand ground-swell. We amuse ourselves tying +pieces of tin to the ship's log and sinking them to see how far we can +distinguish them under water--86 feet was the deepest we could see a +small piece of tin, but a white plate would show about as far down as the +steeple of Dr. Bullard's church would reach, I guess. The sea is very +dark and blue here. + +Ever since we got becalmed--five days--I have been copying the diary of +one of the young Fergusons (the two boys who starved and suffered, with +thirteen others, in an open boat at sea for forty-three days, lately, +after their ship, the "Hornet," was burned on the equator.) Both these +boys, and Captain Mitchell, are passengers with us. I am copying the +diary to publish in Harper's Magazine, if I have time to fix it up +properly when I get to San Francisco. + +I suppose, from present appearances,--light winds and calms,--that we +shall be two or three weeks at sea, yet--and I hope so--I am in no hurry +to go to work. + + + Sunday Morning, Aug. 6. +This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along--at intervals a +spanking breeze and then--drift again--hardly move for half a day. But I +enjoy it. We have such snowy moonlight, and such gorgeous sunsets. +And the ship is so easy--even in a gale she rolls very little, compared +to other vessels--and in this calm we could dance on deck, if we chose. +You can walk a crack, so steady is she. Very different from the Ajax. +My trunk used to get loose in the stateroom and rip and tear around the +place as if it had life in it, and I always had to take my clothes off in +bed because I could not stand up and do it. + +There is a ship in sight--the first object we have seen since we left +Honolulu. We are still 1300 or 1400 miles from land and so anything like +this that varies the vast solitude of the ocean makes all hands light- +hearted and cheerful. We think the ship is the "Comet," which left +Honolulu several hours before we did. She is about twelve miles away, +and so we cannot see her hull, but the sailors think it is the Comet +because of some peculiarity about her fore-top-gallant sails. We have +watched her all the forenoon. + +Afternoon We had preaching on the quarter-deck by Rev. Mr. Rising, of +Virginia City, old friend of mine. Spread a flag on the booby-hatch, +which made a very good pulpit, and then ranged the chairs on either side +against the bulwarks; last Sunday we had the shadow of the mainsail, but +today we were on the opposite tack, close hauled, and had the sun. I am +leader of the choir on this ship, and a sorry lead it is. I hope they +will have a better opinion of our music in Heaven than I have down here. +If they don't a thunderbolt will come down and knock the vessel endways. + +The other ship is the Comet--she is right abreast three miles away, +sailing on our course--both of us in a dead calm. With the glasses we +can see what we take to be men and women on her decks. I am well +acquainted with nearly all her passengers, and being so close seems right +sociable. + +Monday 7--I had just gone to bed a little after midnight when the 2d mate +came and roused up the captain and said "The Comet has come round and is +standing away on the other tack." I went up immediately, and so did all +our passengers, without waiting to dress-men, women and children. There +was a perceptible breeze. Pretty soon the other ship swept down upon us +with all her sails set, and made a fine show in the luminous starlight. +She passed within a hundred yards of us, so we could faintly see persons +on her decks. We had two minutes' chat with each other, through the +medium of hoarse shouting, and then she bore away to windward. + +In the morning she was only a little black peg standing out of the glassy +sea in the distant horizon--an almost invisible mark in the bright sky. +Dead calm. So the ships have stood, all day long--have not moved 100 +yards. + +Aug. 8--The calm continues. Magnificent weather. The gentlemen have all +turned boys. They play boyish games on the poop and quarter-deck. For +instance: They lay a knife on the fife-rail of the mainmast--stand off +three steps, shut one eye, walk up and strike at it with the fore-finger; +(seldom hit it;) also they lay a knife on the deck and walk seven or +eight steps with eyes close shut, and try to find it. They kneel--place +elbows against knees--extend hands in front along the deck--place knife +against end of fingers--then clasp hands behind back and bend forward and +try to pick up the knife with their teeth and rise up from knees without +rolling over or losing their balance. They tie a string to the shrouds-- +stand with back against it walk three steps (eyes shut)--turn around +three times and go and put finger on the string; only a military man can +do it. If you want to know how perfectly ridiculous a grown man looks +performing such absurdities in the presence of ladies, get one to try it. + +Afternoon--The calm is no more. There are three vessels in sight. It is +so sociable to have them hovering about us on this broad waste of water. +It is sunny and pleasant, but blowing hard. Every rag about the ship is +spread to the breeze and she is speeding over the sea like a bird. There +is a large brig right astern of us with all her canvas set and chasing us +at her best. She came up fast while the winds were light, but now it is +hard to tell whether she gains or not. We can see the people on the +forecastle with the glass. The race is exciting. I am sorry to know +that we shall soon have to quit the vessel and go ashore if she keeps up +this speed. + +Friday, Aug. 10--We have breezes and calms alternately. The brig is two +miles to three astern, and just stays there. We sail directly east--this +brings the brig, with all her canvas set, almost in the eye of the sun, +when it sets--beautiful. She looks sharply cut and black as a coal, +against a background of fire and in the midst of a sea of blood. + +San Francisco, Aug. 20.--We never saw the Comet again till the 13th, in +the morning, three miles away. At three o'clock that afternoon, 25 days +out from Honolulu, both ships entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco +side by side, and 300 yards apart. There was a gale blowing, and both +vessels clapped on every stitch of canvas and swept up through the +channel and past the fortresses at a magnificent gait. + +I have been up to Sacramento and squared accounts with the Union. They +paid me a great deal more than they promised me. + Yrs aff + SAM. + + + + +VI. + +LETTERS 1866-67. THE LECTURER. SUCCESS ON THE COAST. IN NEW YORK. +THE GREAT OCEAN EXCURSION + + It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco and wrote in his + note-book, "Home again. No--not home again--in prison again, and + all the wild sense of freedom gone. City seems so cramped and so + dreary with toil and care and business anxieties. God help me, I + wish I were at sea again!" + + The transition from the dreamland of a becalmed sailing-vessel to + the dull, cheerless realities of his old life, and the uncertainties + of his future, depressed him--filled him with forebodings. At one + moment he felt himself on the verge of suicide--the world seemed so + little worth while. + + He wished to make a trip around the world, a project that required + money. He contemplated making a book of his island letters and + experiences, and the acceptance by Harper's Magazine of the revised + version of the Hornet Shipwreck story encouraged this thought. + + Friends urged him to embody in a lecture the picturesque aspect of + Hawaiian life. The thought frightened him, but it also appealed to + him strongly. He believed he could entertain an audience, once he + got started on the right track. As Governor of the Third House at + Carson City he had kept the audience in hand. Men in whom he had + the utmost confidence insisted that he follow up the lecture idea + and engage the largest house in the city for his purpose. The + possibility of failure appalled him, but he finally agreed to the + plan. + + In Roughing It, and elsewhere, has been told the story of this + venture--the tale of its splendid success. He was no longer + concerned, now, as to his immediate future. The lecture field was + profitable. His audience laughed and shouted. He was learning the + flavor of real success and exulting in it. With Dennis McCarthy, + formerly one of the partners in the Enterprise, as manager, he made + a tour of California and Nevada. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and others, in St. Louis: + + VIRGINIA CITY, Nov. 1, 1866. +ALL THE FOLKS, AFFECTIONATE GREETING,--You know the flush time's are +past, and it has long been impossible to more than half fill the Theatre +here, with any sort of attraction, but they filled it for me, night +before last--full--dollar all over the house. + +I was mighty dubious about Carson, but the enclosed call and some +telegrams set that all right--I lecture there tomorrow night. + +They offer a full house and no expense in Dayton--go there next. Sandy +Baldwin says I have made the most sweeping success of any man he knows +of. + +I have lectured in San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, Grass Valley, +Nevada, You Bet, Red Dog and Virginia. I am going to talk in Carson, +Gold Hill, Silver City, Dayton, Washoe, San Francisco again, and again +here if I have time to re-hash the lecture. + +Then I am bound for New York--lecture on the Steamer, maybe. + +I'11 leave toward 1st December--but I'll telegraph you. + Love to all. + Yrs. + MARK. + + +His lecture tour continued from October until December, a period of +picturesque incident, the story of which has been recorded elsewhere. +--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, by the same author]-- It paid him well; +he could go home now, without shame. Indeed, from his next letter, full +of the boyish elation which always to his last years was the complement +of his success, we gather that he is going home with special honors-- +introductions from ministers and the like to distinguished personages of +the East. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + SAN F., Dec. 4, 1866. +MY DEAR FOLKS,--I have written to Annie and Sammy and Katie some time +ago--also, to the balance of you. + +I called on Rev. Dr. Wadsworth last night with the City College man, +but he wasn't at home. I was sorry, because I wanted to make his +acquaintance. I am thick as thieves with the Rev. Stebbings, and I am +laying for the Rev. Scudder and the Rev. Dr. Stone. I am running on +preachers, now, altogether. I find them gay. Stebbings is a regular +brick. I am taking letters of introduction to Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. +Dr. Tyng, and other eminent parsons in the east. Whenever anybody offers +me a letter to a preacher, now I snaffle it on the spot. I shall make +Rev. Dr. Bellows trot out the fast nags of the cloth for me when I get to +New York. Bellows is an able, upright and eloquent man--a man of +imperial intellect and matchless power--he is Christian in the truest +sense of the term and is unquestionably a brick.... + +Gen. Drum has arrived in Philadelphia and established his head-quarters +there, as Adjutant Genl. to Maj. Gen. Meade. Col. Leonard has received a +letter from him in which he offers me a complimentary benefit if I will +come there. I am much obliged, really, but I am afraid I shan't lecture +much in the States. + +The China Mail Steamer is getting ready and everybody says I am throwing +away a fortune in not going in her. I firmly believe it myself. + +I sail for the States in the Opposition steamer of the 5th inst., +positively and without reserve. My room is already secured for me, and +is the choicest in the ship. I know all the officers. + + Yrs. Affy + MARK. + + + We get no hint of his plans, and perhaps he had none. If his + purpose was to lecture in the East, he was in no hurry to begin. + Arriving in New York, after an adventurous voyage, he met a number + of old Californians--men who believed in him--and urged him to + lecture. He also received offers of newspaper engagements, and from + Charles Henry Webb, who had published the Californian, which Bret + Harte had edited, came the proposal to collect his published + sketches, including the jumping Frog story, in book form. Webb + himself was in New York, and offered the sketches to several + publishers, including Canton, who had once refused the Frog story by + omitting it from Artemus Ward's book. It seems curious that Canton + should make a second mistake and refuse it again, but publishers + were wary in those days, and even the newspaper success of the Frog + story did not tempt him to venture it as the title tale of a book. + Webb finally declared he would publish the book himself, and + Clemens, after a few weeks of New York, joined his mother and family + in St. Louis and gave himself up to a considerable period of + visiting, lecturing meantime in both Hannibal and Keokuk. + + Fate had great matters in preparation for him. The Quaker City + Mediterranean excursion, the first great ocean picnic, was announced + that spring, and Mark Twain realized that it offered a possible + opportunity for him to see something of the world. He wrote at once + to the proprietors of the Alta-California and proposed that they + send him as their correspondent. To his delight his proposition was + accepted, the Alta agreeing to the twelve hundred dollars passage + money, and twenty dollars each for letters. + + The Quaker City was not to sail until the 8th of June, but the Alta + wished some preliminary letters from New York. Furthermore, Webb + had the Frog book in press, and would issue it May 1st. Clemens, + therefore, returned to New York in April, and now once more being + urged by the Californians to lecture, he did not refuse. Frank + Fuller, formerly Governor of Utah, took the matter in hand and + engaged Cooper Union for the venture. He timed it for May 6th, + which would be a few days after the appearance of Webb's book. + Clemens was even more frightened at the prospect of this lecture + than he had been in San Francisco, and with more reason, for in New + York his friends were not many, and competition for public favor was + very great. There are two letters written May 1st, one to his + people, and one to Bret Harte, in San Francisco; that give us the + situation. + + + + + To Bret Harte, in San Francisco: + + WESTMINSTER HOTEL, May 1, 1867. +DEAR BRET,--I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am well and hope +these few lines will find you enjoying the same God's blessing. + +The book is out, and is handsome. It is full of damnable errors of +grammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch because +I was away and did not read the proofs; but be a friend and say nothing +about these things. When my hurry is over, I will send you an autograph +copy to pisen the children with. + +I am to lecture in Cooper Institute next Monday night. Pray for me. + +We sail for the Holy Land June 8. Try to write me (to this hotel,) and +it will be forwarded to Paris, where we remain 10 or 15 days. + +Regards and best wishes to Mrs. Bret and the family. + Truly Yr Friend + MARK. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + WESTMINSTER HOTEL, May 1, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--Don't expect me to write for a while. My hands are full of +business on account of my lecture for the 6th inst., and everything looks +shady, at least, if not dark. I have got a good agent--but now after we +have hired Cooper Institute and gone to an expense in one way or another +of $500, it comes out that I have got to play against Speaker Colfax at +Irving Hall, Ristori, and also the double troupe of Japanese jugglers, +the latter opening at the great Academy of Music--and with all this +against me I have taken the largest house in New York and cannot back +water. Let her slide! If nobody else cares I don't. + +I'll send the book soon. I am awfully hurried now, but not worried. + Yrs. + SAM. + + +The Cooper Union lecture proved a failure, and a success. When it became +evident to Fuller that the venture was not going to pay, he sent out a +flood of complimentaries to the school-teachers of New York City and the +surrounding districts. No one seems to have declined them. Clemens +lectured to a jammed house and acquired much reputation. Lecture +proposals came from several directions, but he could not accept them now. +He wrote home that he was eighteen Alta letters behind and had refused +everything. Thos. Nast, the cartoonist, then in his first fame, propped +a joint tour, Clemens to lecture while he, Nast, would illustrate with +"lightning" sketches; but even this could not be considered now. In a +little while he would sail, and the days were overfull. A letter written +a week before he sailed is full of the hurry and strain of these last +days. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, June 1, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--I know I ought to write oftener (just got your last,) and +more fully, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am +doing or what I expect to do or propose to do. Then, what have I left to +write about? Manifestly nothing. + +It isn't any use for me to talk about the voyage, because I can have no +faith in that voyage till the ship is under way. How do I know she will +ever sail? My passage is paid, and if the ship sails, I sail in her--but +I make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going clothing +--have made no preparation whatever--shall not pack my trunk till the +morning we sail. Yet my hands are full of what I am going to do the day +before we sail--and what isn't done that day will go undone. + +All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move--move +--move! Half a dozen times I have wished I had sailed long ago in some +ship that wasn't going to keep me chained here to chafe for lagging ages +while she got ready to go. Curse the endless delays! They always kill +me--they make me neglect every duty and then I have a conscience that +tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a month. +I do more mean things, the moment I get a chance to fold my hands and sit +down than ever I can get forgiveness for. + +Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I suppose we +shall have to be gotten up regardless of expense, in swallow-tails, white +kids and everything en regle. + +I am resigned to Rev. Mr. Hutchinson's or anybody else's supervision. +I don't mind it. I am fixed. I have got a splendid, immoral, tobacco- +smoking, wine-drinking, godless room-mate who is as good and true and +right-minded a man as ever lived--a man whose blameless conduct and +example will always be an eloquent sermon to all who shall come within +their influence. But send on the professional preachers--there are none +I like better to converse with. If they're not narrow minded and bigoted +they make good companions. + +I asked them to send the N. Y. Weekly to you--no charge. I am not going +to write for it. Like all other, papers that pay one splendidly it +circulates among stupid people and the 'canaille.' I have made no +arrangement with any New York paper--I will see about that Monday or +Tuesday. + Love to all + Good bye, + Yrs affy + SAM. + + + The "immoral" room-mate whose conduct was to be an "eloquent + example" was Dan Slote, immortalized in the Innocents as "Dan" + --a favorite on the ship, and later beloved by countless readers. + + There is one more letter, written the night before the Quaker City + sailed-a letter which in a sense marks the close of the first great + period of his life--the period of aimless wandering--adventure + --youth. + + Perhaps a paragraph of explanation should precede this letter. + Political changes had eliminated Orion in Nevada, and he was now + undertaking the practice of law. "Bill Stewart" was Senator + Stewart, of Nevada, of whom we shall hear again. The "Sandwich + Island book," as may be imagined, was made up of his letters to the + Sacramento Union. Nothing came of the venture, except some chapters + in 'Roughing It', rewritten from the material. "Zeb and John + Leavenworth" were pilots whom he had known on the river. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family in St. Louis: + + NEW YORK, June 7th, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS, I suppose we shall be many a league at sea tomorrow night, +and goodness knows I shall be unspeakably glad of it. + +I haven't got anything to write, else I would write it. I have just +written myself clear out in letters to the Alta, and I think they are the +stupidest letters that were ever written from New York. Corresponding +has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the states. If it continues +abroad, I don't know what the Tribune and Alta folks will think. +I have withdrawn the Sandwich Island book--it would be useless to publish +it in these dull publishing times. As for the Frog book, I don't believe +that will ever pay anything worth a cent. I published it simply to +advertise myself--not with the hope of making anything out of it. + +Well, I haven't anything to write, except that I am tired of staying in +one place--that I am in a fever to get away. Read my Alta letters--they +contain everything I could possibly write to you. Tell Zeb and John +Leavenworth to write me. They can get plenty of gossip from the pilots. + +An importing house sent two cases of exquisite champagne aboard the ship +for me today--Veuve Clicquot and Lac d'Or. I and my room-mate have set +apart every Saturday as a solemn fast day, wherein we will entertain no +light matters of frivolous conversation, but only get drunk. (That is a +joke.) His mother and sisters are the best and most homelike people I +have yet found in a brown stone front. There is no style about them, +except in house and furniture. + +I wish Orion were going on this voyage, for I believe he could not help +but be cheerful and jolly. I often wonder if his law business is going +satisfactorily to him, but knowing that the dull season is setting in now +(it looked like it had already set in before) I have felt as if I could +almost answer the question myself--which is to say in plain words, I was +afraid to ask. I wish I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of +going West. I could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him, +and that would atone for the loss of my home visit. But I am so +worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish anything +that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory. My mind is stored full of +unworthy conduct toward Orion and towards you all, and an accusing +conscience gives me peace only in excitement and restless moving from +place to place. If I could say I had done one thing for any of you that +entitled me to your good opinion, (I say nothing of your love, for I am +sure of that, no matter how unworthy of it I may make myself, from Orion +down you have always given me that, all the days of my life, when God +Almighty knows I seldom deserve it,) I believe I could go home and stay +there and I know I would care little for the world's praise or blame. +There is no satisfaction in the world's praise anyhow, and it has no +worth to me save in the way of business. I tried to gather up its +compliments to send to you, but the work was distasteful and I dropped +it. + +You observe that under a cheerful exterior I have got a spirit that is +angry with me and gives me freely its contempt. I can get away from that +at sea, and be tranquil and satisfied-and so, with my parting love and +benediction for Orion and all of you, I say goodbye and God bless you +all--and welcome the wind that wafts a weary soul to the sunny lands of +the Mediterranean! + Yrs. Forever, + SAM. + + + + +VII. + +LETTERS 1867. THE TRAVELER. THE VOYAGE OF THE "QUAKER CITY" + +Mark Twain, now at sea, was writing many letters; not personal letters, +but those unique descriptive relations of travel which would make him his +first great fame--those fresh first impressions preserved to us now as +chapters of The Innocents Abroad. Yet here and there in the midst of +sight-seeing and reporting he found time to send a brief line to those at +home, merely that they might have a word from his own hand, for he had +ordered the papers to which he was to contribute--the Alta and the New +York Tribune--sent to them, and these would give the story of his +travels. The home letters read like notebook entries. + + + Letters to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + + FAYAL (Azores,) June 20th, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--We are having a lively time here, after a stormy trip. We +meant to go to San Miguel, but were driven here by stress of weather. +Beautiful climate. + Yrs. + Affect. + SAM. + + + GIBRALTAR, June 30th, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,-- Arrived here this morning, and am clear worn out with +riding and climbing in and over and around this monstrous rock and its +fortifications. Summer climate and very pleasant. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + TANGIER, MOROCCO, (AFRICA), July 1, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS, Half a dozen of us came here yesterday from Gibraltar and +some of the company took the other direction; went up through Spain, to +Paris by rail. We decided that Gibraltar and San Roque were all of Spain +that we wanted to see at present and are glad we came here among the +Africans, Moors, Arabs and Bedouins of the desert. I would not give this +experience for all the balance of the trip combined. This is the +infernalest hive of infernally costumed barbarians I have ever come +across yet. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + AT SEA, July 2, 1867. +DR. FOLKS,--We are far up the intensely blue and ravishingly beautiful +Mediterranean. And now we are just passing the island of Minorca. The +climate is perfectly lovely and it is hard to drive anybody to bed, day +or night. We remain up the whole night through occasionally, and by this +means enjoy the rare sensation of seeing the sun rise. But the sunsets +are soft, rich, warm and superb! + +We had a ball last night under the awnings of the quarter deck, and the +share of it of three of us was masquerade. We had full, flowing, +picturesque Moorish costumes which we purchased in the bazaars of +Tangier. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + MARSEILLES, FRANCE, July 5, 1867. +We are here. Start for Paris tomorrow. All well. Had gorgeous 4th of +July jollification yesterday at sea. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + The reader may expand these sketchy outlines to his heart's content + by following the chapters in The Innocents Abroad, which is very + good history, less elaborated than might be supposed. But on the + other hand, the next letter adds something of interest to the book- + circumstances which a modest author would necessarily omit. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + YALTA, RUSSIA, Aug. 25, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--We have been representing the United States all we knew how +today. We went to Sebastopol, after we got tired of Constantinople (got +your letter there, and one at Naples,) and there the Commandant and the +whole town came aboard and were as jolly and sociable as old friends. +They said the Emperor of Russia was at Yalta, 30 miles or 40 away, and +urged us to go there with the ship and visit him--promised us a cordial +welcome. They insisted on sending a telegram to the Emperor, and also a +courier overland to announce our coming. But we knew that a great +English Excursion party, and also the Viceroy of Egypt, in his splendid +yacht, had been refused an audience within the last fortnight, so we +thought it not safe to try it. They said, no difference--the Emperor +would hardly visit our ship, because that would be a most extraordinary +favor, and one which he uniformly refuses to accord under any +circumstances, but he would certainly receive us at his palace. We still +declined. But we had to go to Odessa, 250 miles away, and there the +Governor General urged us, and sent a telegram to the Emperor, which we +hardly expected to be answered, but it was, and promptly. So we sailed +back to Yalta. + +We all went to the palace at noon, today, (3 miles) in carriages and on +horses sent by the Emperor, and we had a jolly time. Instead of the +usual formal audience of 15 minutes, we staid 4 hours and were made a +good deal more at home than we could have been in a New York drawing- +room. The whole tribe turned out to receive our party-Emperor, Empress, +the oldest daughter (Grand-Duchess Marie, a pretty girl of 14,) a little +Grand Duke, her brother, and a platoon of Admirals, Princes, Peers of the +Empire, etc., and in a little while an aid-de-camp arrived with a request +from the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor's brother, that we would visit +his palace and breakfast with him. The Emperor also invited us, on +behalf of his absent eldest son and heir (aged 22,) to visit his palace +and consider it a visit to him. They all talk English and they were all +very neatly but very plainly dressed. You all dress a good deal finer +than they were dressed. The Emperor and his family threw off all reserve +and showed us all over the palace themselves. It is very rich and very +elegant, but in no way gaudy. + +I had been appointed chairman of a committee to draught an address to the +Emperor in behalf of the passengers, and as I fully expected, and as they +fully intended, I had to write the address myself. I didn't mind it, +because I have no modesty and would as soon write to an Emperor as to +anybody else--but considering that there were 5 on the committee I +thought they might have contributed one paragraph among them, anyway. +They wanted me to read it to him, too, but I declined that honor--not +because I hadn't cheek enough (and some to spare,) but because our Consul +at Odessa was along, and also the Secretary of our Legation at St. +Petersburgh, and of course one of those ought to read it. The Emperor +accepted the address--it was his business to do it--and so many others +have praised it warmly that I begin to imagine it must be a wonderful +sort of document and herewith send you the original draught of it to be +put into alcohol and preserved forever like a curious reptile. + +They live right well at the Grand Duke Michael's their breakfasts are not +gorgeous but very excellent--and if Mike were to say the word I would go +there and breakfast with him tomorrow. + Yrs aff + SAM. + +P. S. [Written across the face of the last page.] They had told us it +would be polite to invite the Emperor to visit the ship, though he would +not be likely to do it. But he didn't give us a chance--he has requested +permission to come on board with his family and all his relations +tomorrow and take a sail, in case it is calm weather. I can, entertain +them. My hand is in, now, and if you want any more Emperors feted in +style, trot them out. + + + The next letter is of interest in that it gives us the program and + volume of his work. With all the sight seeing he was averaging a + full four letters a week--long letters, requiring careful + observation and inquiry. How fresh and impressionable and full of + vigor he was, even in that fierce southern heat! No one makes the + Mediterranean trip in summer to-day, and the thought of adding + constant letter-writing to steady travel through southern France, + Italy, Greece, and Turkey in blazing midsummer is stupefying. And + Syria and Egypt in September! + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + CONSTANTINOPLE, Sept. 1, '67. + +DEAR FOLKS,--All well. Do the Alta's come regularly? I wish I knew +whether my letters reach them or not. Look over the back papers and see. +I wrote them as follows: + 1 Letter from Fayal, in the Azores Islands. + 1 from Gibraltar, in Spain. + 1 from Tangier, in Africa. + 2 from Paris and Marseilles, in France. + 1 from Genoa, in Italy. + 1 from Milan. + 1 from Lake Como. + 1 from some little place in Switzerland--have forgotten the name. + 4 concerning Lecce, Bergamo, Padua, Verona, Battlefield of Marengo, +Pestachio, and some other cities in Northern Italy. + 2 from Venice. + 1 about Bologna. + 1 from Florence. + 1 from Pisa. + 1 from Leghorn. + 1 from Rome and Civita Vecchia. + 2 from Naples. + 1 about Pazzuoli, where St. Paul landed, the Baths of Nero, and the +ruins of Baia, Virgil's tomb, the Elysian Fields, the Sunken Cities and +the spot where Ulysses landed. + 1 from Herculaneum and Vesuvius. + 1 from Pompeii. + 1 from the Island of Ischia. + 1 concerning the Volcano of Stromboli, the city and Straits of +Messina, the land of Sicily, Scylla and Charybdis etc. + 1 about the Grecian Archipelago. + 1 about a midnight visit to Athens, the Piraeus and the ruins of the +Acropolis. + 1 about the Hellespont, the site of ancient Troy, the Sea of +Marmara, etc. + 2 about Constantinople, the Golden Horn and the beauties of the +Bosphorus. + 1 from Odessa and Sebastopol in Russia, the Black Sea, etc. + 2 from Yalta, Russia, concerning a visit to the Czar. +And yesterday I wrote another letter from Constantinople and + 1 today about its neighbor in Asia, Scatter. I am not done with +Turkey yet. Shall write 2 or 3 more. + +I have written to the New York Herald 2 letters from Naples, (no name +signed,) and 1 from Constantinople. + +To the New York Tribune I have written + 1 from Fayal. + 1 from Civita Vecchia in the Roman States. + 2 from Yalta, Russia. + And 1 from Constantinople. + +I have never seen any of these letters in print except the one to the +Tribune from Fayal and that was not worth printing. + +We sail hence tomorrow, perhaps, and my next letters will be mailed at +Smyrna, in Syria. I hope to write from the Sea of Tiberius, Damascus, +Jerusalem, Joppa, and possibly other points in the Holy Land. The +letters from Egypt, the Nile and Algiers I will look out for, myself. +I will bring them in my pocket. + +They take the finest photographs in the world here. I have ordered some. +They will be sent to Alexandria, Egypt. + +You cannot conceive of anything so beautiful as Constantinople, viewed +from the Golden Horn or the Bosphorus. I think it must be the handsomest +city in the world. I will go on deck and look at it for you, directly. +I am staying in the ship, tonight. I generally stay on shore when we are +in port. But yesterday I just ran myself down. Dan Slote, my room-mate, +is on shore. He remained here while we went up the Black Sea, but it +seems he has not got enough of it yet. I thought Dan had got the state- +room pretty full of rubbish at last, but a while ago his dragoman arrived +with a bran new, ghastly tomb-stone of the Oriental pattern, with his +name handsomely carved and gilded on it, in Turkish characters. That +fellow will buy a Circassian slave, next. + +I am tired. We are going on a trip, tomorrow. I must to bed. Love to +all. + Yrs + SAM. + + + U. S. CONSUL'S OFFICE, BEIRUT, SYRIA, Sept. 11. (1867) +DEAR FOLKS,--We are here, eight of us, making a contract with a dragoman +to take us to Baalbek, then to Damascus, Nazareth, &c. then to Lake +Genassareth (Sea of Tiberias,) then South through all the celebrated +Scriptural localities to Jerusalem--then to the Dead Sea, the Cave of +Macpelah and up to Joppa where the ship will be. We shall be in the +saddle three weeks--we have horses, tents, provisions, arms, a dragoman +and two other servants, and we pay five dollars a day apiece, in gold. + Love to all, yrs. + SAM. + +We leave tonight, at two o'clock in the morning. + + + There appear to be no further home letters written from Syria--and + none from Egypt. Perhaps with the desert and the delta the heat at + last became too fearful for anything beyond the actual requirements + of the day. When he began his next it was October, and the fiercer + travel was behind him. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + CAGHARI, SARDINIA, Oct, 12, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--We have just dropped anchor before this handsome city and-- + + ALGIERS, AFRICA, Oct. 15. +They would not let us land at Caghari on account of cholera. Nothing to +write. + + MALAGA, SPAIN, Oct. 17. +The Captain and I are ashore here under guard, waiting to know whether +they will let the ship anchor or not. Quarantine regulations are very +strict here on all vessels coming from Egypt. I am a little anxious +because I want to go inland to Granada and see the Alhambra. I can go on +down by Seville and Cordova, and be picked up at Cadiz. + +Later: We cannot anchor--must go on. We shall be at Gibraltar before +midnight and I think I will go horseback (a long days) and thence by rail +and diligence to Cadiz. I will not mail this till I see the Gibraltar +lights--I begin to think they won't let us in anywhere. + +11.30 P. M.--Gibraltar. +At anchor and all right, but they won't let us land till morning--it is a +waste of valuable time. We shall reach New York middle of November. + Yours, + SAM. + + + CADIZ, Oct 24, 1867. +DEAR FOLKS,--We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras, (4 hours) +thus dodging the quarantine, took dinner and then rode horseback all +night in a swinging trot and at daylight took a caleche (a wheeled +vehicle) and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve at +night. That landed us at Seville and we were over the hard part of our +trip, and somewhat tired. Since then we have taken things comparatively +easy, drifting around from one town to another and attracting a good deal +of attention, for I guess strangers do not wander through Andalusia and +the other Southern provinces of Spain often. The country is precisely as +it was when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were possible characters. + +But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was under +Moorish domination. No, I will not say that, but then when one is +carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the Alhambra and +the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to overflow with +admiration for the splendid intellects that created them. + +I cannot write now. I am only dropping a line to let you know I am well. +The ship will call for us here tomorrow. We may stop at Lisbon, and +shall at the Bermudas, and will arrive in New York ten days after this +letter gets there. + SAM. + + This is the last personal letter written during that famous first + sea-gipsying, and reading it our regret grows that he did not put + something of his Spanish excursion into his book. He never returned + to Spain, and he never wrote of it. Only the barest mention of + "seven beautiful days" is found in The Innocents Abroad. + + + + +VIII. + +LETTERS 1867-68. WASHINGTON AND SAN FRANCISCO. THE PROPOSED BOOK OF +TRAVEL. A NEW LECTURE + + From Mark Twain's home letters we get several important side-lights + on this first famous book. We learn, for in stance, that it was he + who drafted the ship address to the Emperor--the opening lines of + which became so wearisome when repeated by the sailors. + Furthermore, we learn something of the scope and extent of his + newspaper correspondence, which must have kept him furiously busy, + done as it was in the midst of super-heated and continuous sight- + seeing. He wrote fifty three letters to the Alta-California, six to + the New York Tribune, and at least two to the New York Herald more + than sixty, all told, of an average, length of three to four + thousand words each. Mark Twain always claimed to be a lazy man, and + certainly he was likely to avoid an undertaking not suited to his + gifts, but he had energy in abundance for work in his chosen field. + To have piled up a correspondence of that size in the time, and + under the circumstances already noted, quality considered, may be + counted a record in the history of travel letters. + + They made him famous. Arriving in New York, November 19, 1867, Mark + Twain found himself no longer unknown to the metropolis, or to any + portion of America. Papers East and West had copied his Alta and + Tribune letters and carried his name into every corner of the States + and Territories. He had preached a new gospel in travel literature, + the gospel of frankness and sincerity that Americans could + understand. Also his literary powers had awakened at last. His + work was no longer trivial, crude, and showy; it was full of + dignity, beauty, and power; his humor was finer, worthier. The + difference in quality between the Quaker City letters and those + written from the Sandwich Islands only a year before can scarcely be + measured. + + He did not remain in New York, but went down to Washington, where he + had arranged for a private secretaryship with Senator William M. + Stewart, --[The "Bill" Stewart mentioned in the preceding chapter.] + whom he had known in Nevada. Such a position he believed would make + but little demand upon his time, and would afford him an insight + into Washington life, which he could make valuable in the shape of + newspaper correspondence. + + But fate had other plans for him. He presently received the + following letter: + + From Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford + OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + HARTFORD, CONN, Nov 21, 1867. +SAMUEL L. CLEMENS Esq. +Tribune Office, New York. + +DR. SIR,--We take the liberty to address you this, in place of a letter +which we had recently written and was about to forward to you, not +knowing your arrival home was expected so soon. We are desirous of +obtaining from you a work of some kind, perhaps compiled from your +letters from the East, &c., with such interesting additions as may be +proper. We are the publishers of A. D. Richardson's works, and flatter +ourselves that we can give an author as favorable terms and do as full +justice to his productions as any other house in the country. We are +perhaps the oldest subscription house in the country, and have never +failed to give a book an immense circulation. We sold about 100,000 +copies of Richardson's F. D. & E. (Field, Dungeon and Escape) and are +now printing 41,000, of "Beyond the Mississippi," and large orders ahead. +If you have any thought of writing a book, or could be induced to do so, +we should be pleased to see you; and will do so. Will you do us the +favor to reply at once, at your earliest convenience. + Very truly, &c., + E. BLISS, Jr. + Secty. + + Clemens had already the idea of a book in mind and. welcomed this + proposition. + + + To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford: + + WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 1867. +E. BLISS, Jr. Esq. +Sec'y American Publishing Co.-- + +DEAR SIR,--I only received your favor of Nov. 21st last night, at the +rooms of the Tribune Bureau here. It was forwarded from the Tribune +office, New York, where it had lain eight or ten days. This will be +a sufficient apology for the seeming discourtesy of my silence. + +I wrote fifty-two (three) letters for the San Francisco "Alta California" +during the Quaker City excursion, about half of which number have been +printed, thus far. The "Alta" has few exchanges in the East, and I +suppose scarcely any of these letters have been copied on this side of +the Rocky Mountains. I could weed them of their chief faults of +construction and inelegancies of expression and make a volume that would +be more acceptable in many respects than any I could now write. When +those letters were written my impressions were fresh, but now they have +lost that freshness; they were warm then--they are cold, now. I could +strike out certain letters, and write new ones wherewith to supply their +places. If you think such a book would suit your purpose, please drop me +a line, specifying the size and general style of the volume; when the +matter ought to be ready; whether it should have pictures in it or not; +and particularly what your terms with me would be, and what amount of +money I might possibly make out of it. The latter clause has a degree of +importance for me which is almost beyond my own comprehension. But you +understand that, of course. + +I have other propositions for a book, but have doubted the propriety of +interfering with good newspaper engagements, except my way as an author +could be demonstrated to be plain before me. But I know Richardson, and +learned from him some months ago, something of an idea of the +subscription plan of publishing. If that is your plan invariably, it +looks safe. + +I am on the N. Y. Tribune staff here as an "occasional,", among other +things, and a note from you addressed to + Very truly &c. + SAM L. CLEMENS, + +New York Tribune Bureau, Washington, will find me, without fail. + + + The exchange of these two letters marked the beginning of one of the + most notable publishing connections in American literary history. + The book, however, was not begun immediately. Bliss was in poor + health and final arrangements were delayed; it was not until late in + January that Clemens went to Hartford and concluded the arrangement. + + Meantime, fate had disclosed another matter of even greater + importance; we get the first hint of it in the following letter, + though to him its beginning had been earlier--on a day in the blue + harbor of Smyrna, when young Charles Langdon, a fellow-passenger on + the Quaker City, had shown to Mark Twain a miniature of young + Langdon's sister at home: + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + 224 F. STREET, WASH, Jan. 8, 1868. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--And so the old Major has been there, has he? +I would like mighty well to see him. I was a sort of benefactor to him +once. I helped to snatch him out when he was about to ride into a +Mohammedan Mosque in that queer old Moorish town of Tangier, in Africa. +If he had got in, the Moors would have knocked his venerable old head +off, for his temerity. + +I have just arrived from New York-been there ever since Christmas staying +at the house of Dan Slote my Quaker City room-mate, and having a splendid +time. Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I, (all Quaker City +night-hawks,) had a blow-out at Dan's' house and a lively talk over old +times. We went through the Holy Land together, and I just laughed till +my sides ached, at some of our reminiscences. It was the unholiest gang +that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are the best boys in the +world. We needed Moulton badly. I started to make calls, New Year's +Day, but I anchored for the day at the first house I came to--Charlie +Langdon's sister was there (beautiful girl,) and Miss Alice Hooker, +another beautiful girl, a niece of Henry Ward Beecher's. We sent the old +folks home early, with instructions not to send the carriage till +midnight, and then I just staid there and worried the life out of those +girls. I am going to spend a few days with the Langdon's in Elmira, New +York, as soon as I get time, and a few days at Mrs. Hooker's in Hartford, +Conn., shortly. + +Henry Ward Beecher sent for me last Sunday to come over and dine (he +lives in Brooklyn, you know,) and I went. Harriet Beecher Stowe was +there, and Mrs. and Miss Beecher, Mrs. Hooker and my old Quaker City +favorite, Emma Beach. + +We had a very gay time, if it was Sunday. I expect I told more lies than +I have told before in a month. + +I went back by invitation, after the evening service, and finished the +blow-out, and then staid all night at Mr. Beach's. Henry Ward is a +brick. + +I found out at 10 o'clock, last night, that I was to lecture tomorrow +evening and so you must be aware that I have been working like sin all +night to get a lecture written. I have finished it, I call it "Frozen +Truth." It is a little top-heavy, though, because there is more truth in +the title than there is in the lecture. + +But thunder, I mustn't sit here writing all day, with so much business +before me. + +Good by, and kind regards to all. + Yrs affy + SAM L. CLEMENS. + + + Jack Van Nostrand of this letter is "Jack" of the Innocents. Emma + Beach was the daughter of Moses S. Beach, of the 'New York Sun.' + Later she became the wife of the well-known painter, Abbot H. + Thayer. + + We do not hear of Miss Langdon again in the letters of that time, + but it was not because she was absent from his thoughts. He had + first seen her with her father and brother at the old St. Nicholas + Hotel, on lower Broadway, where, soon after the arrival of the + Quaker City in New York, he had been invited to dine. Long + afterward he said: "It is forty years ago; from that day to this she + has never been out of my mind." + + From his next letter we learn of the lecture which apparently was + delivered in Washington. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + WASH. Jan. 9, 1868. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,-- That infernal lecture is over, thank Heaven! +It came near being a villainous failure. It was not advertised at all. +The manager was taken sick yesterday, and the man who was sent to tell +me, never got to me till afternoon today. There was the dickens to pay. +It was too late to do anything--too late to stop the lecture. I scared +up a door-keeper, and was ready at the proper time, and by pure good luck +a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved! I hardly knew what I +was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style. I was to +have preached again Saturday night, but I won't--I can't get along +without a manager. + +I have been in New York ever since Christmas, you know, and now I shall +have to work like sin to catch up my correspondence. + +And I have got to get up that book, too. Cut my letters out of the +Alta's and send them to me in an envelop. Some, here, that are not +mailed yet, I shall have to copy, I suppose. + +I have got a thousand things to do, and am not doing any of them. I feel +perfectly savage. + Good bye + Yrs aff + SAM. + + + On the whole, matters were going well with him. His next letter is + full of his success--overflowing with the boyish radiance which he + never quite outgrew. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + HARTFORD, CONN. Jan. 24-68. +DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--This is a good week for me. I stopped in the +Herald office as I came through New York, to see the boys on the staff, +and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week, +impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full +swing, and (write) about anybody and everybody I wanted to. I said I +must have the very fullest possible swing, and he said "all right." +I said "It's a contract--" and that settled that matter. + +I'll make it a point to write one letter a week, any-how. + +But the best thing that has happened was here. This great American +Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till I +thought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk. I met Rev. +Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled way of +dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he gets a chance, +he said, "Now, here, you are one of the talented men of the age--nobody +is going to deny that---but in matters of business, I don't suppose you +know more than enough to came in when it rains. I'll tell you what to +do, and how to do it." And he did. + +And I listened well, and then came up here and made a splendid contract +for a Quaker City book of 5 or 600 large pages, with illustrations, the +manuscript to be placed in the publishers' hands by the middle of July. +My percentage is to be a fifth more than they have ever paid any author, +except Horace Greeley. Beecher will be surprised, I guess, when he hears +this. + +But I had my mind made up to one thing--I wasn't going to touch a book +unless there was money in it, and a good deal of it. I told them so. +I had the misfortune to "bust out" one author of standing. They had his +manuscript, with the understanding that they would publish his book if +they could not get a book from me, (they only publish two books at a +time, and so my book and Richardson's Life of Grant will fill the bill +for next fall and winter)--so that manuscript was sent back to its author +today. + +These publishers get off the most tremendous editions of their books you +can imagine. I shall write to the Enterprise and Alta every week, +as usual, I guess, and to the Herald twice a week--occasionally to the +Tribune and the Magazines (I have a stupid article in the Galaxy, just +issued) but I am not going to write to this, that and the other paper any +more. + +The Chicago Tribune wants letters, but I hope and pray I have charged +them so much that they will not close the contract. I am gradually +getting out of debt, but these trips to New York do cost like sin. +I hope you have cut out and forwarded my printed letters to Washington +--please continue to do so as they arrive. + +I have had a tip-top time, here, for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno. +Hooker's family--Beecher's relatives-in a general way of Mr. Bliss, also, +who is head of the publishing firm.) Puritans are mighty straight-laced +and they won't let me smoke in the parlor, but the Almighty don't make +any better people. + +Love to all-good-bye. I shall be in New York 3 days--then go on to the +Capital. + Yrs affly, especially Ma., + Yr SAM. + +I have to make a speech at the annual Herald dinner on the 6th of May. + + + No formal contract for the book had been made when this letter was + written. A verbal agreement between Bliss and Clemens had been + reached, to be ratified by an exchange of letters in the near + future. Bliss had made two propositions, viz., ten thousand + dollars, cash in hand, or a 5-per-cent. royalty on the selling price + of the book. The cash sum offered looked very large to Mark Twain, + and he was sorely tempted to accept it. He had faith, however, in + the book, and in Bliss's ability to sell it. He agreed, therefore, + to the royalty proposition; "The best business judgment I ever + displayed" he often declared in after years. Five per cent. + royalty sounds rather small in these days of more liberal contracts. + But the American Publishing Company sold its books only by + subscription, and the agents' commissions and delivery expenses ate + heavily into the profits. Clemens was probably correct in saying + that his percentage was larger than had been paid to any previous + author except Horace Greeley. The John Hooker mentioned was the + husband of Henry Ward Beecher's sister, Isabel. It was easy to + understand the Beecher family's robust appreciation of Mark Twain. + + From the office of Dan Slote, his room-mate of the Quaker City-- + "Dan" of the Innocents--Clemens wrote his letter that closed the + agreement with Bliss. + + + To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford: + + Office of SLOTE & WOODMAN, Blank Book Manufacturers, + Nos. 119-121 William St. + NEW YORK, January 27, 1868. +Mr. E. Bliss, Jr. + Sec'y American Publishing Co. + Hartford Conn. + +DEAR SIR, Your favor of Jan. 25th is received, and in reply, I will say +that I accede to your several propositions, viz: That I furnish to the +American Publishing Company, through you, with MSS sufficient for a +volume of 500 to 600 pages, the subject to be the Quaker City, the +voyage, description of places, &c., and also embodying the substance of +the letters written by me during that trip, said MSS to be ready about +the first of August, next, I to give all the usual and necessary +attention in preparing said MSS for the press, and in preparation of +illustrations, in correction of proofs--no use to be made by me of the +material for this work in any way which will conflict with its interest +--the book to be sold by the American Publishing Co., by subscription-- +and for said MS and labor on my part said Company to pay me a copyright +of 5 percent, upon the subscription price of the book for all copies +sold. + +As further proposed by you, this understanding, herein set forth shall be +considered a binding contract upon all parties concerned, all minor +details to be arranged between us hereafter. + Very truly yours, + SAM. L. CLEMENS. + + + (Private and General.) + +I was to have gone to Washington tonight, but have held over a day, to +attend a dinner given by a lot of newspaper Editors and literary +scalliwags, at the Westminster Hotel. Shall go down to-morrow, if I +survive the banquet. + Yrs truly + SAM. CLEMENS. + + + Mark Twain, in Washington, was in line for political preferment: His + wide acquaintance on the Pacific slope, his new fame and growing + popularity, his powerful and dreaded pen, all gave him special + distinction at the capital. From time to time the offer of one + office or another tempted him, but he wisely, or luckily, resisted. + In his letters home are presented some of his problems. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + 224 F. STREET WASHINGTON Feb. 6, 1868. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--For two months there have been some fifty +applications before the government for the postmastership of San +Francisco, which is the heaviest concentration of political power on the +coast and consequently is a post which is much coveted., + +When I found that a personal friend of mine, the Chief Editor of the Alta +was an applicant I said I didn't want it--I would not take $10,000 a year +out of a friend's pocket. + +The two months have passed, I heard day before yesterday that a new and +almost unknown candidate had suddenly turned up on the inside track, and +was to be appointed at once. I didn't like that, and went after his case +in a fine passion. I hunted up all our Senators and representatives and +found that his name was actually to come from the President early in the +morning. + +Then Judge Field said if I wanted the place he could pledge me the +President's appointment--and Senator Conness said he would guarantee me +the Senate's confirmation. It was a great temptation, but it would +render it impossible to fill my book contract, and I had to drop the +idea. + +I have to spend August and September in Hartford which isn't San +Francisco. Mr. Conness offers me any choice out of five influential +California offices. Now, some day or other I shall want an office and +then, just my luck, I can't get it, I suppose. + +They want to send me abroad, as a Consul or a Minister. I said I didn't +want any of the pie. God knows I am mean enough and lazy enough, now, +without being a foreign consul. + +Sometime in the course of the present century I think they will create a +Commissioner of Patents, and then I hope to get a berth for Orion. + +I published 6 or 7 letters in the Tribune while I was gone, now I cannot +get them. I suppose I must have them copied. + Love to all + SAM. + + +Orion Clemens was once more a candidate for office: Nevada had become a +State; with regularly elected officials, and Orion had somehow missed +being chosen. His day of authority had passed, and the law having failed +to support him, he was again back at his old occupation, setting type in +St. Louis. He was, as ever, full of dreams and inventions that would +some day lead to fortune. With the gift of the Sellers imagination, +inherited by all the family, he lacked the driving power which means +achievement. More and more as the years went by he would lean upon his +brother for moral and physical support. The chances for him in +Washington do not appear to have been bright. The political situation +under Andrew Johnson was not a happy one. + + + To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis: + + 224 F. STREET, WASH., Feb. 21. (1868) +MY DEAR BRO.,--I am glad you do not want the clerkship, for that Patent +Office is in such a muddle that there would be no security for the +permanency of a place in it. The same remark will apply to all offices +here, now, and no doubt will, till the close of the present +administration. + +Any man who holds a place here, now, stands prepared at all times to +vacate it. You are doing, now, exactly what I wanted you to do a year +ago. + +We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. + +It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half. + +I am in for it. I must go on chasing them until I marry--then I am done +with literature and all other bosh,--that is, literature wherewith to +please the general public. + +I shall write to please myself, then. I hope you will set type till you +complete that invention, for surely government pap must be nauseating +food for a man--a man whom God has enabled to saw wood and be +independent. It really seemed to me a falling from grace, the idea of +going back to San Francisco nothing better than a mere postmaster, albeit +the public would have thought I came with gilded honors, and in great +glory. + +I only retain correspondence enough, now, to make a living for myself, +and have discarded all else, so that I may have time to spare for the +book. Drat the thing, I wish it were done, or that I had no other +writing to do. + +This is the place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There isn't one +man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson +Burlingame--and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great +talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his +time was up. + +There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh, geeminy! There +are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to visit. + +I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its "attractions." To be busy +is a man's only happiness--and I am--otherwise I should die + Yrs. aff + SAM. + + + The secretarial position with Senator Stewart was short-lived. One + cannot imagine Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, and doubtless + there was little to be gained on either side by the arrangement. + They parted without friction, though in later years, when Stewart + had become old and irascible, he used to recount a list of + grievances and declare that he had been obliged to threaten violence + in order to bring Mark to terms; but this was because the author of + Roughing It had in that book taken liberties with the Senator, to + the extent of an anecdote and portrait which, though certainly + harmless enough, had for some reason given deep offense. + + Mark Twain really had no time for secretary work. For one thing he + was associated with John Swinton in supplying a Washington letter to + a list of newspapers, and then he was busy collecting his Quaker + City letters, and preparing the copy for his book. Matters were + going well enough, when trouble developed from an unexpected + quarter. The Alta-California had copyrighted the letters and + proposed to issue them in book form. There had been no contract + which would prevent this, and the correspondence which Clemens + undertook with the Alta management led to nothing. He knew that he + had powerful friends among the owners, if he could reach them + personally, and he presently concluded to return to San Francisco, + make what arrangement he could, and finish his book there. It was + his fashion to be prompt; in his next letter we find him already on + the way. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + AT SEA, Sunday, March 15, Lat. 25. (1868) +DEAR FOLKS,--I have nothing to write, except that I am well--that the +weather is fearfully hot-that the Henry Chauncey is a magnificent ship-- +that we have twelve hundred, passengers on board-that I have two +staterooms, and so am not crowded--that I have many pleasant friends +here, and the people are not so stupid as on the Quaker City--that we had +Divine Service in the main saloon at 10.30 this morning--that we expect +to meet the upward bound vessel in Latitude 23, and this is why I am +writing now. + +We shall reach Aspinwall Thursday morning at 6 o'clock, and San Francisco +less than two weeks later. I worry a great deal about being obliged to +go without seeing you all, but it could not be helped. + +Dan Slote, my splendid room-mate in the Quaker City and the noblest man +on earth, will call to see you within a month. Make him dine with you +and spend the evening. His house is my home always in. New York. + Yrs affy, + SAM. + + +The San Francisco trip proved successful. Once on the ground Clemens had +little difficulty in convincing the Alta publishers that they had +received full value in the newspaper use of the letters, and that the +book rights remained with the author. A letter to Bliss conveys the +situation. + + + To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford: + + SAN FRANCISCO, May 5, '68. + +E. BLISS, Jr. Esq. + +Dr. SIR,--The Alta people, after some hesitation, have given me +permission to use my printed letters, and have ceased to think of +publishing them themselves in book form. I am steadily at work, and +shall start East with the completed Manuscript, about the middle of June. + +I lectured here, on the trip, the other night-over sixteen hundred +dollars in gold in the house--every seat taken and paid for before night. + Yrs truly, + MARK TWAIN. + + + But he did not sail in June. His friends persuaded him to cover his + lecture circuit of two years before, telling the story of his + travels. This he did with considerable profit, being everywhere + received with great honors. He ended this tour with a second + lecture in San Francisco, announced in a droll and characteristic + fashion which delighted his Pacific admirers, and insured him a + crowded house.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap xlvi, and + Appendix H.] + + His agreement had been to deliver his MS. about August 1st. + Returning by the Chauncey, July 28th, he was two days later in + Hartford, and had placid the copy for the new book in Bliss's hands. + It was by no means a compilation of his newspaper letters. His + literary vision was steadily broadening. All of the letters had + been radically edited, some had been rewritten, some entirely + eliminated. He probably thought very well of the book, an opinion + shared by Bliss, but it is unlikely that either of them realized + that it was to become a permanent classic, and the best selling book + of travel for at least fifty years. + + + + +IX. + +LETTERS 1868-70. COURTSHIP, AND "THE INNOCENTS ABROAD" + + The story of Mark Twain's courtship has been fully told in the + completer story of his life; it need only be briefly sketched here + as a setting for the letters of this period. In his letter of + January 8th we note that he expects to go to Elmira for a few days + as soon as he has time. + + But he did not have time, or perhaps did not receive a pressing + invitation until he had returned with his MS. from California. + Then, through young Charles Langdon, his Quaker City shipmate, he + was invited to Elmira. The invitation was given for a week, but + through a subterfuge--unpremeditated, and certainly fair enough in + a matter of love-he was enabled to considerably prolong his visit. + By the end of his stay he had become really "like one of the + family," though certainly not yet accepted as such. The fragmentary + letter that follows reflects something of his pleasant situation. + The Mrs. Fairbanks mentioned in this letter had been something more + than a "shipmother" to Mark Twain. She was a woman of fine literary + taste, and Quaker City correspondent for her husband's paper, the + Cleveland Herald. She had given Mark Twain sound advice as to his + letters, which he had usually read to her, and had in no small + degree modified his early natural tendency to exaggeration and + outlandish humor. He owed her much, and never failed to pay her + tribute. + + Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + ELMIRA, N.Y. Aug. 26, 1868. +DEAR FOLKS,-- You see I am progressing--though slowly. I shall be here +a week yet maybe two--for Charlie Langdon cannot get away until his +father's chief business man returns from a journey--and a visit to Mrs. +Fairbanks, at Cleveland, would lose half its pleasure if Charlie were not +along. Moulton of St. Louis ought to be there too. We three were Mrs. +F's "cubs," in the Quaker City. She took good care that we were at +church regularly on Sundays; at the 8-bells prayer meeting every night; +and she kept our buttons sewed on and our clothing in order--and in a +word was as busy and considerate, and as watchful over her family of +uncouth and unruly cubs, and as patient and as long-suffering, withal, as +a natural mother. So we expect..... + + Aug. 25th. +Didn't finish yesterday. Something called me away. I am most +comfortably situated here. This is the pleasantest family I ever knew. +I only have one trouble, and that is they give me too much thought and +too much time and invention to the object of making my visit pass +delightfully. It needs---- + + Just how and when he left the Langdon home the letters do not + record. Early that fall he began a lecture engagement with James + Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, and his engagements + were often within reach of Elmira. He had a standing invitation now + to the Langdon home, and the end of the week often found him there. + Yet when at last he proposed for the hand of Livy Langdon the + acceptance was by no means prompt. He was a favorite in the Langdon + household, but his suitability as a husband for the frail and gentle + daughter was questioned. + + However, he was carrying everything, just then, by storm. The + largest houses everywhere were crowded to hear him. Papers spoke of + him as the coming man of the age, people came to their doors to see + him pass. There is but one letter of this period, but it gives us + the picture. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + CLEVELAND, Nov. 20, 1868. +DEAR FOLKS,--I played against the Eastern favorite, Fanny Kemble, in +Pittsburgh, last night. She had 200 in her house, and I had upwards of +1,500. All the seats were sold (in a driving rain storm, 3 days ago,) +as reserved seats at 25 cents extra, even those in the second and third +tiers--and when the last seat was gone the box office had not been open +more than 2 hours. When I reached the theatre they were turning people +away and the house was crammed, 150 or 200 stood up, all the evening. + +I go to Elmira tonight. I am simply lecturing for societies, at $100 a +pop. + Yrs + SAM. + + + It would be difficult for any family to refuse relationship with one + whose star was so clearly ascending, especially when every + inclination was in his favor, and the young lady herself encouraged + his suit. A provisional engagement was presently made, but it was + not finally ratified until February of the following year. Then in + a letter from one of his lecture points he tells his people + something of his happiness. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis: + + LOCKPORT, N. Y. Feb. 27, 1868. +DEAR FOLKS,--I enclose $20 for Ma. I thought I was getting ahead of her +little assessments of $35 a month, but find I am falling behind with her +instead, and have let her go without money. Well, I did not mean to do +it. But you see when people have been getting ready for months in a +quiet way to get married, they are bound to grow stingy, and go to saving +up money against that awful day when it is sure to be needed. I am +particularly anxious to place myself in a position where I can carry on +my married life in good shape on my own hook, because I have paddled my +own canoe so long that I could not be satisfied now to let anybody help +me--and my proposed father-in-law is naturally so liberal that it would +be just like him to want to give us a start in life. But I don't want it +that way. I can start myself. I don't want any help. I can run this +institution without any outside assistance, and I shall have a wife who +will stand by me like a soldier through thick and thin, and never +complain. She is only a little body, but she hasn't her peer in +Christendom. I gave her only a plain gold engagement ring, when fashion +imperatively demands a two-hundred dollar diamond one, and told her it +was typical of her future lot--namely, that she would have to flourish on +substantials rather than luxuries. (But you see I know the girl--she +don't care anything about luxuries.) She is a splendid girl. She spends +no money but her usual year's allowance, and she spends nearly every cent +of that on other people. She will be a good sensible little wife, +without any airs about her. I don't make intercession for her beforehand +and ask you to love her, for there isn't any use in that--you couldn't +help it if you were to try. + +I warn you that whoever comes within the fatal influence of her beautiful +nature is her willing slave for evermore. I take my affidavit on that +statement. Her father and mother and brother embrace and pet her +constantly, precisely as if she were a sweetheart, instead of a blood +relation. She has unlimited power over her father, and yet she never +uses it except to make him help people who stand in need of help.... + +But if I get fairly started on the subject of my bride, I never shall get +through--and so I will quit right here. I went to Elmira a little over a +week ago, and staid four days and then had to go to New York on business. + + ...................... + + No further letters have been preserved until June, when he is in + Elmira and with his fiancee reading final proofs on the new book. + They were having an idyllic good time, of course, but it was a + useful time, too, for Olivia Langdon had a keen and refined literary + instinct, and the Innocents Abroad, as well as Mark Twain's other + books, are better to-day for her influence. + + It has been stated that Mark Twain loved the lecture platform, but + from his letters we see that even at this early date, when he was at + the height of his first great vogue as a public entertainer, he had + no love for platform life. Undoubtedly he rejoiced in the brief + periods when he was actually before his audience and could play upon + it with his master touch, but the dreary intermissions of travel and + broken sleep were too heavy a price to pay. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis + + ELMIRA, June 4. (1868) +DEAR FOLKS,-- Livy sends you her love and loving good wishes, and I send +you mine. The last 3 chapters of the book came tonight--we shall read it +in the morning and then thank goodness, we are done. + +In twelve months (or rather I believe it is fourteen,) I have earned just +eighty dollars by my pen--two little magazine squibs and one newspaper +letter--altogether the idlest, laziest 14 months I ever spent in my life. +And in that time my absolute and necessary expenses have been scorchingly +heavy--for I have now less than three thousand six hundred dollars in +bank out of the eight or nine thousand I have made during those months, +lecturing. My expenses were something frightful during the winter. +I feel ashamed of my idleness, and yet I have had really no inclination +to do anything but court Livy. I haven't any other inclination yet. +I have determined not to work as hard traveling, any more, as I did last +winter, and so I have resolved not to lecture outside of the 6 New +England States next winter. My Western course would easily amount to +$10,000, but I would rather make 2 or 3 thousand in New England than +submit again to so much wearing travel. (I have promised to talk ten +nights for a thousand dollars in the State of New York, provided the +places are close together.) But after all if I get located in a newspaper +in a way to suit me, in the meantime, I don't want to lecture at all next +winter, and probably shan't. I most cordially hate the lecture field. +And after all, I shudder to think that I may never get out of it. + +In all conversations with Gough, and Anna Dickinson, Nasby, Oliver +Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips and the other old stagers, I could not +observe that they ever expected or hoped to get out of the business. +I don't want to get wedded to it as they are. Livy thinks we can live on +a very moderate sum and that we'll not need to lecture. I know very well +that she can live on a small allowance, but I am not so sure about +myself. I can't scare her by reminding her that her father's family +expenses are forty thousand dollars a year, because she produces the +documents at once to show that precious little of this outlay is on her +account. But I must not commence writing about Livy, else I shall never +stop. There isn't such another little piece of perfection in the world +as she is. + +My time is become so short, now, that I doubt if I get to California this +summer. If I manage to buy into a paper, I think I will visit you a +while and not go to Cal. at all. I shall know something about it after +my next trip to Hartford. We all go there on the l0th--the whole family +--to attend a wedding, on the 17th. I am offered an interest in a +Cleveland paper which would pay me $2,300 to $2,500 a year, and a salary +added of $3,000. The salary is fair enough, but the interest is not +large enough, and so I must look a little further. The Cleveland folks +say they can be induced to do a little better by me, and urge me to come +out and talk business. But it don't strike me--I feel little or no +inclination to go. + +I believe I haven't anything else to write, and it is bed-time. I want +to write to Orion, but I keep putting it off--I keep putting everything +off. Day after day Livy and I are together all day long and until 10 at +night, and then I feel dreadfully sleepy. If Orion will bear with me and +forgive me I will square up with him yet. I will even let him kiss Livy. + +My love to Mollie and Annie and Sammie and all. Good-bye. + Affectionately, + SAM. + + + It is curious, with his tendency to optimism and general expansion + of futures, that he says nothing of the possible sales of the new + book, or of his expectations in that line. It was issued in July, + and by June the publishers must have had promising advance orders + from their canvassers; but apparently he includes none of these + chickens in his financial forecast. Even when the book had been out + a full month, and was being shipped at the rate of several hundreds + a day, he makes no reference to it in a letter to his sister, other + than to ask if she has not received a copy. This, however, was a + Mark Twain peculiarity. Writing was his trade; the returns from it + seldom excited him. It was only when he drifted into strange and + untried fields that he began to chase rainbows, to blow iridescent + bubbles, and count unmined gold. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + BUFFALO, Aug. 20, 1869. +MY DEAR SISTER,--I have only time to write a line. I got your letter +this morning and mailed it to Livy. She will be expecting me tonight and +I am sorry to disappoint her so, but then I couldn't well get away. I +will go next Saturday. + +I have bundled up Livy's picture and will try and recollect to mail it +tomorrow. It is a porcelaintype and I think you will like it. + +I am sorry I never got to St. Louis, because I may be too busy to go, for +a long time. But I have been busy all the time and St. Louis is clear +out of the way, and remote from the world and all ordinary routes of +travel. You must not place too much weight upon this idea of moving the +capital from Washington. St. Louis is in some respects a better place +for it than Washington, though there isn't more than a toss-up between +the two after all. One is dead and the other in a trance. Washington is +in the centre of population and business, while St. Louis is far removed +from both. And you know there is no geographical centre any more. The +railroads and telegraph have done away with all that. It is no longer +a matter of sufficient importance to be gravely considered by thinking +men. The only centres, now, are narrowed down to those of intelligence, +capital and population. As I said before Washington is the nearest to +those and you don't have to paddle across a river on ferry boats of a +pattern popular in the dark ages to get to it, nor have to clamber up +vilely paved hills in rascally omnibuses along with a herd of all sorts +of people after you are there. Secondly, the removal of the capital is +one of those old, regular, reliable dodges that are the bread-and meat of +back country congressmen. It is agitated every year. It always has +been, it always will be; It is not new in any respect. Thirdly. The +Capitol has cost $40,000,000 already and lacks a good deal of being +finished, yet. There are single stones in the Treasury building (and a +good many of them) that cost twenty-seven thousand dollars apiece--and +millions were spent in the construction of that and the Patent Office and +the other great government buildings. To move to St. Louis, the country +must throw away a hundred millions of capital invested in those +buildings, and go right to work to spend a hundred millions on new +buildings in St. Louis. Shall we ever have a Congress, a majority of +whose members are hopelessly insane? Probably not. But it is possible- +unquestionably such a thing is possible. Only I don't believe it will +happen in our time; and I am satisfied the capital will not be moved +until it does happen. But if St. Louis would donate the ground and the +buildings, it would be a different matter. No, Pamela, I don't see any +good reason to believe you or I will ever see the capital moved. + +I have twice instructed the publishers to send you a book--it was the +first thing I did--long before the proofs were finished. Write me if it +is not yet done. + +Livy says we must have you all at our marriage, and I say we can't. +It will be at Christmas or New Years, when such a trip across the country +would be equivalent to murder & arson & everything else. --And it would +cost five hundred dollars--an amount of money she don't know the value of +now, but will before a year is gone. She grieves over it, poor little +rascal, but it can't be helped. She must wait awhile, till I am firmly +on my legs, & then she shall see you. She says her father and mother +will invite you just as soon as the wedding date is definitely fixed, +anyway--& she thinks that's bound to settle it. But the ice & snow, & +the long hard journey, & the injudiciousness of laying out any money +except what we are obliged to part with while we are so much in debt, +settles the case differently. For it is a debt. + +.....Mr. Langdon is just as good as bound for $25,000 for me, and has +already advanced half of it in cash. I wrote and asked whether I had +better send him my note, or a due-bill, or how he would prefer to have +the indebtedness made of record and he answered every other topic in the +letter pleasantly but never replied to that at all. Still, I shall give +my note into the hands of his business agent here, and pay him the +interest as it falls due. We must "go slow." We are not in the +Cleveland Herald. We are a hundred thousand times better off, but there +isn't so much money in it. + +(Remainder missing.) + + + In spite of the immediate success of his book--a success the like of + which had scarcely been known in America-Mark Twain held himself to + be, not a literary man, but a journalist: He had no plans for + another book; as a newspaper owner and editor he expected, with his + marriage, to settle down and devote the rest of his life to + journalism. The paper was the Buffalo Express; his interest in it + was one-third--the purchase price, twenty-five thousand dollars, of + which he had paid a part, Jervis Langdon, his future father-in-law, + having furnished cash and security for the remainder. He was + already in possession in August, but he was not regularly in Buffalo + that autumn, for he had agreed with Redpath to deliver his Quaker + City lecture, and the tour would not end until a short time before + his wedding-day, February 2, 1870. + + Our next letter hardly belongs in this collection; as it was + doubtless written with at least the possibility of publication in + view. But it is too amusing, too characteristic of Mark Twain, to + be omitted. It was sent in response to an invitation from the New + York Society of California Pioneers to attend a banquet given in New + York City, October 13, 1869, and was, of course, read to the + assembled diners. + + + To the New York Society of California Pioneers, in New York City: + + ELMIRA, October 11, 1869. +GENTLEMEN,--Circumstances render it out of my power to take advantage of +the invitation extended to me through Mr. Simonton, and be present at +your dinner at New York. I regret this very much, for there are several +among you whom I would have a right to join hands with on the score of +old friendship, and I suppose I would have a sublime general right to +shake hands with the rest of you on the score of kinship in California +ups and downs in search of fortune. + +If I were to tell some of my experience, you would recognize California +blood in me; I fancy the old, old story would sound familiar, no doubt. +I have the usual stock of reminiscences. For instance: I went to +Esmeralda early. I purchased largely in the "Wide West," "Winnemucca," +and other fine claims, and was very wealthy. I fared sumptuously on +bread when flour was $200 a barrel and had beans for dinner every Sunday, +when none but bloated aristocrats could afford such grandeur. But I +finished by feeding batteries in a quartz mill at $15 a week, and wishing +I was a battery myself and had somebody to feed me. My claims in +Esmeralda are there yet. I suppose I could be persuaded to sell. + +I went to Humboldt District when it was new; I became largely interested +in the "Alba Nueva" and other claims with gorgeous names, and was rich +again--in prospect. I owned a vast mining property there. I would not +have sold out for less than $400,000 at that time. But I will now. +Finally I walked home--200 miles partly for exercise, and partly because +stage fare was expensive. Next I entered upon an affluent career in +Virginia City, and by a judicious investment of labor and the capital of +friends, became the owner of about all the worthless wild cat mines there +were in that part of the country. Assessments did the business for me +there. There were a hundred and seventeen assessments to one dividend, +and the proportion of income to outlay was a little against me. My +financial barometer went down to 32 Fahrenheit, and the subscriber was +frozen out. + +I took up extensions on the main lead-extensions that reached to British +America, in one direction, and to the Isthmus of Panama in the other--and +I verily believe I would have been a rich man if I had ever found those +infernal extensions. But I didn't. I ran tunnels till I tapped the +Arctic Ocean, and I sunk shafts till I broke through the roof of +perdition; but those extensions turned up missing every time. I am +willing to sell all that property and throw in the improvements. + +Perhaps you remember that celebrated "North Ophir?" I bought that mine. +It was very rich in pure silver. You could take it out in lumps as large +as a filbert. But when it was discovered that those lumps were melted +half dollars, and hardly melted at that, a painful case of "salting" was +apparent, and the undersigned adjourned to the poorhouse again. + +I paid assessments on "Hale and Norcross" until they sold me out, and I +had to take in washing for a living--and the next month that infamous +stock went up to $7,000 a foot. + +I own millions and millions of feet of affluent silver leads in Nevada-- +in fact the entire undercrust of that country nearly, and if Congress +would move that State off my property so that I could get at it, I would +be wealthy yet. But no, there she squats--and here am I. Failing health +persuades me to sell. If you know of any one desiring a permanent +investment, I can furnish one that will have the virtue of being eternal. + +I have been through the California mill, with all its "dips, spurs and +angles, variations and sinuosities." I have worked there at all the +different trades and professions known to the catalogues. I have been +everything, from a newspaper editor down to a cow-catcher on a +locomotive, and I am encouraged to believe that if there had been a few +more occupations to experiment on, I might have made a dazzling success +at last, and found out what mysterious designs Providence had in creating +me. + +But you perceive that although I am not a Pioneer, I have had a +sufficiently variegated time of it to enable me to talk Pioneer like a +native, and feel like a Forty-Niner. Therefore, I cordially welcome you +to your old-remembered homes and your long deserted firesides, and close +this screed with the sincere hope that your visit here will be a happy +one, and not embittered by the sorrowful surprises that absence and lapse +of years are wont to prepare for wanderers; surprises which come in the +form of old friends missed from their places; silence where familiar +voices should be; the young grown old; change and decay everywhere; home +a delusion and a disappointment; strangers at hearthstone; sorrow where +gladness was; tears for laughter; the melancholy-pomp of death where the +grace of life has been! + +With all good wishes for the Returned Prodigals, and regrets that I +cannot partake of a small piece of the fatted calf (rare and no gravy,) + I am yours, cordially, + MARK TWAIN. + + + In the next letter we find him in the midst of a sort of confusion + of affairs, which, in one form or another, would follow him + throughout the rest of his life. It was the price of his success + and popularity, combined with his general gift for being concerned + with a number of things, and a natural tendency for getting into hot + water, which becomes more evident as the years and letters pass in + review. Orion Clemens, in his attempt to save money for the + government, had employed methods and agents which the officials at + Washington did not understand, and refused to recognize. Instead of + winning the credit and commendation he had expected, he now found + himself pursued by claims of considerable proportions. The "land" + referred to is the Tennessee tract, the heritage which John Clemens + had provided for his children. Mark Twain had long since lost faith + in it, and was not only willing, but eager to renounce his rights. + + "Nasby" is, of course, David R. Locke, of the Toledo Blade, whose + popularity at this time both as a lecturer and writer was very + great. Clemens had met him here and there on their platform tour, + and they had become good friends. Clemens, in fact, had once + proposed to Nasby a joint trip to the Pacific coast. + + The California idea had been given up, but both Mark Twain and Nasby + found engagements enough, and sufficient profit east of the + Mississippi. Boston was often their headquarters that winter ('69 + and '70), and they were much together. "Josh Billings," another of + Redpath's lecturers, was likewise often to be found in the Lyceum + offices. There is a photograph of Mark Twain, Nasby, and Josh + Billings together. + + Clemens also, that winter, met William Dean Howells, then in the + early days of his association with the Atlantic Monthly. The two + men, so widely different, became firm friends at sight, and it was + to Howells in the years to come that Mark Twain would write more + letters, and more characteristic letters, than to any other living + man. Howells had favorably reviewed 'The Innocents Abroad,' and + after the first moment of their introduction had passed Clemens + said: "When I read that review of yours I felt like the woman who + said that she was so glad that her baby had come white." It was not + the sort of thing that Howells would have said, but it was the sort + of thing that he could understand and appreciate from Mark Twain. + + In company with Nasby Clemens, that season, also met Oliver Wendell + Holmes. Later he had sent Holmes a copy of his book and received a + pleasantly appreciative reply. "I always like," wrote Holmes, "to + hear what one of my fellow countrymen, who is not a Hebrew scholar, + or a reader of hiero-glyphics, but a good-humored traveler with a + pair of sharp, twinkling Yankee (in the broader sense) eyes in his + head, has to say about the things that learned travelers often make + unintelligible, and sentimental ones ridiculous or absurd .... I + hope your booksellers will sell a hundred thousand copies of your + travels." A wish that was realized in due time, though it is + doubtful if Doctor Holmes or any one else at the moment believed + that a book of that nature and price (it was $3.50 a copy) would + ever reach such a sale. + + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: + + BOSTON, Nov. 9, 1869. +MY DEAR SISTER,--Three or four letters just received from home. My first +impulse was to send Orion a check on my publisher for the money he wants, +but a sober second thought suggested that if he has not defrauded the +government out of money, why pay, simply because the government chooses +to consider him in its debt? No: Right is right. The idea don't suit +me. Let him write the Treasury the state of the case, and tell them he +has no money. If they make his sureties pay, then I will make the +sureties whole, but I won't pay a cent of an unjust claim. You talk of +disgrace. To my mind it would be just as disgraceful to allow one's self +to be bullied into paying that which is unjust. + +Ma thinks it is hard that Orion's share of the land should be swept away +just as it is right on the point (as it always has been) of becoming +valuable. Let her rest easy on that point. This letter is his ample +authority to sell my share of the land immediately and appropriate the +proceeds--giving no account to me, but repaying the amount to Ma first, +or in case of her death, to you or your heirs, whenever in the future he +shall be able to do it. Now, I want no hesitation in this matter. I +renounce my ownership from this date, for this purpose, provided it is +sold just as suddenly as he can sell it. + +In the next place--Mr. Langdon is old, and is trying hard to withdraw +from business and seek repose. I will not burden him with a purchase-- +but I will ask him to take full possession of a coal tract of the land +without paying a cent, simply conditioning that he shall mine and throw +the coal into market at his own cost, and pay to you and all of you what +he thinks is a fair portion of the profits accruing--you can do as you +please with the rest of the land. Therefore, send me (to Elmira,) +information about the coal deposits so framed that he can comprehend the +matter and can intelligently instruct an agent how to find it and go to +work. + +Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience-- +4,000 critics--and on the success of this matter depends my future +success in New England. But I am not distressed. Nasby is in the same +boat. Tonight decides the fate of his brand-new lecture. He has just +left my room--been reading his lecture to me--was greatly depressed. I +have convinced him that he has little to fear. + +I get just about five hundred more applications to lecture than I can +possibly fill--and in the West they say "Charge all you please, but +come." I shan't go West at all. I stop lecturing the 22d of January, +sure. But I shall talk every night up to that time. They flood me with +high-priced invitations to write for magazines and papers, and publishers +besiege me to write books. Can't do any of these things. + +I am twenty-two thousand dollars in debt, and shall earn the money and +pay it within two years--and therefore I am not spending any money except +when it is necessary. + +I had my life insured for $10,000 yesterday (what ever became of Mr. +Moffett' s life insurance?) "for the benefit of my natural heirs"--the +same being my mother, for Livy wouldn't claim it, you may be sure of +that. This has taken $200 out of my pocket which I was going to send to +Ma. But I will send her some, soon. Tell Orion to keep a stiff upper +lip--when the worst comes to the worst I will come forward. Must talk in +Providence, R. I., tonight. Must leave now. I thank Mollie and Orion +and the rest for your letters, but you see how I am pushed--ought to have +6 clerks. + Affectionately, + SAM. + + + By the end of January, 1870 more than thirty thousand copies of the + Innocents had been sold, and in a letter to his publisher the author + expressed his satisfaction. + + + To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford: + + ELMIRA, Jan. 28 '70. +FRIEND BLISS,--..... Yes, I am satisfied with the way you are running the +book. You are running it in staving, tip-top, first-class style. I +never wander into any corner of the country but I find that an agent has +been there before me, and many of that community have read the book. And +on an average about ten people a day come and hunt me up to thank me and +tell me I'm a benefactor! I guess this is a part of the programme we +didn't expect in the first place. + +I think you are rushing this book in a manner to be proud of; and you +will make the finest success of it that has ever been made with a +subscription book, I believe. What with advertising, establishing +agencies, &c., you have got an enormous lot of machinery under way and +hard at work in a wonderfully short space of time. It is easy to see, +when one travels around, that one must be endowed with a deal of genuine +generalship in order to maneuvre a publication whose line of battle +stretches from end to end of a great continent, and whose foragers and +skirmishers invest every hamlet and besiege every village hidden away in +all the vast space between. + +I'll back you against any publisher in America, Bliss--or elsewhere. + Yrs as ever + CLEMENS. + + + There is another letter written just at this time which of all + letters must not be omitted here. Only five years earlier Mark + Twain, poor, and comparatively unknown, had been carrying water + while Jim Gillis and Dick Stoker washed out the pans of dirt in + search of the gold pocket which they did not find. Clemens must + have received a letter from Gillis referring to some particular + occasion, but it has disappeared; the reply, however, always + remained one of James Gillis's treasured possessions. + + + To James Gillis, in his cabin on Jackass Hill, + Tuolumne Co., California: + + ELMIRA, N.Y. Jan. 26, '70. +DEAR JIM,--I remember that old night just as well! And somewhere among my +relics I have your remembrance stored away. It makes my heart ache yet +to call to mind some of those days. Still, it shouldn't--for right in +the depths of their poverty and their pocket-hunting vagabondage lay the +germ of my coming good fortune. You remember the one gleam of jollity +that shot across our dismal sojourn in the rain and mud of Angels' Camp +I mean that day we sat around the tavern stove and heard that chap tell +about the frog and how they filled him with shot. And you remember how +we quoted from the yarn and laughed over it, out there on the hillside +while you and dear old Stoker panned and washed. I jotted the story down +in my note-book that day, and would have been glad to get ten or fifteen +dollars for it--I was just that blind. But then we were so hard up! +I published that story, and it became widely known in America, India, +China, England--and the reputation it made for me has paid me thousands +and thousands of dollars since. Four or five months ago I bought into +the Express (I have ordered it sent to you as long as you live--and if +the book keeper sends you any bills, you let me hear of it.) I went +heavily in debt never could have dared to do that, Jim, if we hadn't +heard the jumping Frog story that day. + +And wouldn't I love to take old Stoker by the hand, and wouldn't I love +to see him in his great specialty, his wonderful rendition of "Rinalds" +in the" Burning Shame!" Where is Dick and what is he doing? Give him my +fervent love and warm old remembrances. + +A week from today I shall be married to a girl even better, and lovelier +than the peerless "Chapparal Quails." You can't come so far, Jim, but +still I cordially invite you to come, anyhow--and I invite Dick, too. +And if you two boys were to land here on that pleasant occasion, we would +make you right royally welcome. + Truly your friend, + SAML L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. "California plums are good, Jim--particularly when they are +stewed." + + + Steve Gillis, who sent a copy of his letter to the writer, added: + "Dick Stoker--dear, gentle unselfish old Dick-died over three years + ago, aged 78. I am sure it will be a melancholy pleasure to Mark to + know that Dick lived in comfort all his later life, sincerely loved + and respected by all who knew him. He never left Jackass Hill. He + struck a pocket years ago containing enough not only to build + himself a comfortable house near his old cabin, but to last him, + without work, to his painless end. He was a Mason, and was buried + by the Order in Sonora. + + "The 'Quails'--the beautiful, the innocent, the wild little Quails-- + lived way out in the Chapparal; on a little ranch near the + Stanislaus River, with their father and mother. They were famous + for their beauty and had many suitors." + + The mention of "California plums" refers to some inedible fruit + which Gillis once, out of pure goodness of heart, bought of a poor + wandering squaw, and then, to conceal his motive, declared that they + were something rare and fine, and persisted in eating them, though + even when stewed they nearly choked him. + + + + +X. + +LETTERS 1870-71. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO. MARRIAGE. THE BUFFALO EXPRESS. +"MEMORANDA." LECTURES. A NEW BOOK + + Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia Langdon were married in the Langdon + home at Elmira, February 2, 1870, and took up their residence in + Buffalo in a beautiful home, a wedding present from the bride's + father. The story of their wedding, and the amusing circumstances + connected with their establishment in Buffalo, have been told + elsewhere. --[Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. lxxiv.] + + Mark Twain now believed that he was through with lecturing. Two + letters to Redpath, his agent, express his comfortable condition. + + + To James Redpath, in Boston: + + BUFFALO, March 22, 1890. +DEAR RED,--I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things +ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us +to live and I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, +count me out. + Your friend, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To James Redpath, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, N. Y. May 10, 1870. +FRIEND REDPATH,-- I guess I am out of the field permanently. + +Have got a lovely wife; a lovely house, bewitchingly furnished; a lovely +carriage, and a coachman whose style and dignity are simply awe- +inspiring--nothing less--and I am making more money than necessary--by +considerable, and therefore why crucify myself nightly on the platform. +The subscriber will have to be excused from the present season at least. + +Remember me to Nasby, Billings and Fall.--[Redpath's partner in the +lecture lyceum.]-- Luck to you! I am going to print your menagerie, +Parton and all, and make comments. + +In next Galaxy I give Nasby's friend and mine from Philadelphia (John +Quill, a literary thief) a "hyste." + Yours always and after. + MARK. + + + The reference to the Galaxy in the foregoing letter has to do with a + department called Memoranda, which he had undertaken to conduct for + the new magazine. This work added substantially to his income, and + he believed it would be congenial. He was allowed free hand to + write and print what he chose, and some of his best work at this + time was published in the new department, which he continued for a + year. + + Mark Twain now seemed to have his affairs well regulated. His + mother and sister were no longer far away in St. Louis. Soon after + his marriage they had, by his advice, taken up residence at + Fredonia, New York, where they could be easily visited from Buffalo. + + Altogether, the outlook seemed bright to Mark Twain and his wife, + during the first months of their marriage. Then there came a + change. In a letter which Clemens wrote to his mother and sister we + get the first chapter of disaster. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens, and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.: + + ELMIRA, N. Y. June 25, 1870. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--We were called here suddenly by telegram, 3 +days ago. Mr. Langdon is very low. We have well-nigh lost hope--all of +us except Livy. + +Mr. Langdon, whose hope is one of his most prominent characteristics, +says himself, this morning, that his recovery is only a possibility, not +a probability. He made his will this morning--that is, appointed +executors--nothing else was necessary. The household is sad enough +Charley is in Bavaria. We telegraphed Munroe & Co. Paris, to notify +Charley to come home--they sent the message to Munich. Our message left +here at 8 in the morning and Charley's answer arrived less than eight +hours afterward. He sailed immediately. + +He will reach home two weeks from now. The whole city is troubled. As I +write (at the office,) a dispatch arrives from Charley who has reached +London, and will sail thence on 28th. He wants news. We cannot send him +any. + Affectionately + SAM. + +P. S. I sent $300 to Fredonia Bank for Ma--It is in her name. + + + Mrs. Clemens, herself, was not in the best of health at this time, + but devotion to her father took her to his bedside, where she + insisted upon standing long, hard watches, the strain of which told + upon her severely. Meantime, work must go on; the daily demand of + the newspaper and the monthly call of the Memoranda could not go + unheeded. Also, Bliss wanted a new book, and met Mark Twain at + Elmira to arrange for it. In a letter to Orion we learn of this + project. + + + To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis: + + ELMIRA, July 15, 1870 +MY DEAR BRO.,--Per contract I must have another 600-page book ready for +my publisher Jan. z, and I only began it today. The subject of it is a +secret, because I may possibly change it. But as it stands, I propose to +do up Nevada and Cal., beginning with the trip across the country in the +stage. Have you a memorandum of the route we took--or the names of any +of the Stations we stopped at? Do you remember any of the scenes, names, +incidents or adventures of the coach trip?--for I remember next to +nothing about the matter. Jot down a foolscap page of items for me. +I wish I could have two days' talk with you. + +I suppose I am to get the biggest copyright, this time, ever paid on a +subscription book in this country. + +Give our love to Mollie.--Mr. Langdon is very low. + Yr Bro + SAM. + + + The "biggest copyright," mentioned in this letter, was a royalty of + 7 « a per cent., which Bliss had agreed to pay, on the retail price + of the book. The book was Roughing It, though this title was not + decided upon until considerably later. Orion Clemens eagerly + furnished a detailed memorandum of the route of their overland + journey, which brought this enthusiastic acknowledgment: + + + To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis: + + BUF., 1870. +DEAR BRO.,--I find that your little memorandum book is going to be ever +so much use to me, and will enable me to make quite a coherent narrative +of the Plains journey instead of slurring it over and jumping 2,000 miles +at a stride. The book I am writing will sell. In return for the use of +the little memorandum book I shall take the greatest pleasure in +forwarding to you the third $1,000 which the publisher of the forthcoming +work sends me or the first $1,000, I am not particular--they will both be +in the first quarterly statement of account from the publisher. + In great haste, + Yr Obliged Bro. + SAM. + +Love to Mollie. We are all getting along tolerably well. + + + Mr. Langdon died early in August, and Mrs. Clemens returned to + Buffalo, exhausted in mind and body. If she hoped for rest now, in + the quiet of her own home, she was disappointed, as the two brief + letters that follow clearly show. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.: + + BUFFALO, Aug. 31, 70. +MY DEAR SISTER,--I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but +I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of letters every day; it is a +comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk and be patient +over it. We got the book and I did think I wrote a line thanking you for +it-but I suppose I neglected it. + +We are getting along tolerably well. Mother [Mrs. Langdon] is here, and +Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep since her father's death--but I give +her a narcotic every night and make her. I am just as busy as I can be-- +am still writing for the Galaxy and also writing a book like the +"Innocents" in size and style. I have got my work ciphered down to days, +and I haven't a single day to spare between this and the date which, by +written contract I am to deliver the M.S. of the book to the publisher. + ----In a hurry + Affectionately + SAM + + + To Orion Clemens, in St, Louis: + + BUF. Sept. 9th, 1870. +MY DEAR BRO,--O here! I don't want to be consulted at all about Tenn. +I don't want it even mentioned to me. When I make a suggestion it is for +you to act upon it or throw it aside, but I beseech you never to ask my +advice, opinion or consent about that hated property. If it was because +I felt the slightest personal interest in the infernal land that I ever +made a suggestion, the suggestion would never be made. + +Do exactly as you please with the land--always remember this--that so +trivial a percentage as ten per cent will never sell it. + +It is only a bid for a somnambulist. + +I have no time to turn round, a young lady visitor (schoolmate of Livy's) +is dying in the house of typhoid fever (parents are in South Carolina) +and the premises are full of nurses and doctors and we are all fagged +out. + Yrs. + SAM. + + + Miss Nye, who had come to cheer her old schoolmate, had been + prostrated with the deadly fever soon after her arrival. Another + period of anxiety and nursing followed. Mrs. Clemens, in spite of + her frail health, devoted much time to her dying friend, until by + the time the end came she was herself in a precarious condition. + This was at the end of September. A little more than a month later, + November 7th, her first child, Langdon Clemens, was prematurely + born. To the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, of Hartford, Mark + Twain characteristically announced the new arrival. + + + To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, in Hartford, Conn.: + + BUFFALO, Nov 12, '70. +DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT,--I came into the world on the 7th inst., and +consequently am about five days old, now. I have had wretched health +ever since I made my appearance. First one thing and then another has +kept me under the weather, and as a general thing I have been chilly and +uncomfortable. + +I am not corpulent, nor am I robust in any way. At birth I only weighed +4 « pounds with my clothes on--and the clothes were the chief feature of +the weight, too, I am obliged to confess. But I am doing finely, +all things considered. I was at a standstill for 3 days and a half, but +during the last 24 hours I have gained nearly an ounce, avoirdupois. + +They all say I look very old and venerable-and I am aware, myself, that I +never smile. Life seems a serious thing, what I have seen of it--and my +observation teaches me that it is made up mainly of hiccups, unnecessary +washings, and colic. But no doubt you, who are old, have long since +grown accustomed and reconciled to what seems to me such a disagreeable +novelty. + +My father said, this morning, when my face was in repose and thoughtful, +that I looked precisely as young Edward Twichell of Hartford used to look +some is months ago--chin, mouth, forehead, expression--everything. + +My little mother is very bright and cheery, and I guess she is pretty +happy, but I don't know what about. She laughs a great deal, +notwithstanding she is sick abed. And she eats a great deal, though she +says that is because the nurse desires it. And when she has had all the +nurse desires her to have, she asks for more. She is getting along very +well indeed. + +My aunt Susie Crane has been here some ten days or two weeks, but goes +home today, and Granny Fairbanks of Cleveland arrives to take her place. +--[Mrs. Fairbanks, of the Quaker City excursion.] + Very lovingly, + LANGDON CLEMENS. + +P. S. Father said I had better write because you would be more +interested in me, just now, than in the rest of the family. + + + Clemens had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Joseph Hopkins + Twichell and his wife during his several sojourns in Hartford, in + connection with his book publication, and the two men had + immediately become firm friends. Twichell had come to Elmira in + February to the wedding to assist Rev. Thos. K. Beecher in the + marriage ceremony. Joseph Twichell was a devout Christian, while + Mark Twain was a doubter, even a scoffer, where orthodoxy was + concerned, yet the sincerity and humanity of the two men drew them + together; their friendship was lifelong. + + A second letter to Twichell, something more than a month later, + shows a somewhat improved condition in the Clemens household. + + + To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford: + + BUF. Dec. 19th, 1870. +DEAR J. H.,--All is well with us, I believe--though for some days the +baby was quite ill. We consider him nearly restored to health now, +however. Ask my brother about us--you will find him at Bliss's +publishing office, where he is gone to edit Bliss's new paper--left here +last Monday. Make his and his wife's acquaintance. Take Mrs. T. to see +them as soon as they are fixed. + +Livy is up, and the prince keeps her busy and anxious these latter days +and nights, but I am a bachelor up stairs and don't have to jump up and +get the soothing syrup -though I would as soon do it as not, I assure +you. (Livy will be certain to read this letter.) + +Tell Harmony (Mrs. T.) that I do hold the baby, and do it pretty handily, +too, although with occasional apprehensions that his loose head will fall +off. I don't have to quiet him--he hardly ever utters a cry. He is +always thinking about something. He is a patient, good little baby. + +Smoke? I always smoke from 3 till 5 Sunday afternoons--and in New York +the other day I smoked a week, day and night. But when Livy is well I +smoke only those two hours on Sunday. I'm "boss" of the habit, now, and +shall never let it boss me any more. Originally, I quit solely on Livy's +account, (not that I believed there was the faintest reason in the +matter, but just as I would deprive myself of sugar in my coffee if she +wished it, or quit wearing socks if she thought them immoral,) and I +stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so, +without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. +didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon +a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to +make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as +well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient +excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they use to tell me I would shorten +my life ten years by smoking, they little knew the devotee they were +wasting their puerile word upon--they little knew how trivial and +valueless I would regard a decade that had no smoking in it! But I won't +persuade you, Twichell--I won't until I see you again--but then we'll +smoke for a week together, and then shut off again. + +I would have gone to Hartford from New York last Saturday, but I got so +homesick I couldn't. But maybe I'll come soon. + +No, Sir, catch me in the metropolis again, to get homesick. + +I didn't know Warner had a book out. + +We send oceans and continents of love--I have worked myself down, today. + Yrs always + MARK. + + + With his establishment in Buffalo, Clemens, as already noted, had + persuaded his sister, now a widow, and his mother, to settle in + Fredonia, not far away. Later, he had found a position for Orion, + as editor of a small paper which Bliss had established. What with + these several diversions and the sorrows and sicknesses of his own + household, we can readily imagine that literary work had been + performed under difficulties. Certainly, humorous writing under + such disturbing conditions could not have been easy, nor could we + expect him to accept an invitation to be present and make a comic + speech at an agricultural dinner, even though Horace Greeley would + preside. However, he sent to the secretary of the association a + letter which might be read at the gathering: + + + To A. B. Crandall, in Woodberry Falls, N. Y., to be read + at an agricultural dinner: + + BUFFALO, Dec. 26, 1870. +GENTLEMEN,--I thank you very much for your invitation to the Agricultural +dinner, and would promptly accept it and as promptly be there but for the +fact that Mr. Greeley is very busy this month and has requested me to +clandestinely continue for him in The Tribune the articles "What I Know +about Farming." Consequently the necessity of explaining to the readers +of that journal why buttermilk cannot be manufactured profitably at 8 +cents a quart out of butter that costs 60 cents a pound compels my stay +at home until the article is written. + With reiterated thanks, I am + Yours truly, + MARK TWAIN. + + + In this letter Mark Twain made the usual mistake as to the title of + the Greeley farming series, "What I Know of Farming" being the + correct form. + + The Buffalo Express, under Mark Twain's management, had become a + sort of repository for humorous efforts, often of an indifferent + order. Some of these things, signed by nom de plumes, were charged + to Mark Twain. When Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" devastated the + country, and was so widely parodied, an imitation of it entitled, + "Three Aces," and signed "Carl Byng," was printed in the Express. + Thomas Bailey Aldrich, then editor of Every Saturday, had not met + Mark Twain, and, noticing the verses printed in the exchanges over + his signature, was one of those who accepted them as Mark Twain's + work. He wrote rather an uncomplimentary note in Every Saturday + concerning the poem and its authorship, characterizing it as a + feeble imitation of Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." Clemens promptly + protested to Aldrich, then as promptly regretted having done so, + feeling that he was making too much of a small matter. Hurriedly he + sent a second brief note. + + + To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of "Every ,Saturday," + Boston, Massachusetts: + + BUFFALO, Jan. 22, 1870. +DEAR SIR,--Please do not publish the note I sent you the other day about +"Hy. Slocum's" plagiarism entitled "Three Aces"--it is not important +enough for such a long paragraph. Webb writes me that he has put in a +paragraph about it, too--and I have requested him to suppress it. If you +would simply state, in a line and a half under "Literary Notes," that you +mistook one "Hy. Slocum" (no, it was one "Carl Byng," I perceive) "Carl +Byng" for Mark Twain, and that it was the former who wrote the plagiarism +entitled "Three Aces," I think that would do a fair justice without any +unseemly display. But it is hard to be accused of plagiarism--a crime I +never have committed in my life. + Yrs. Truly + MARK TWAIN. + + + But this came too late. Aldrich replied that he could not be + prevented from doing him justice, as forty-two thousand copies of + the first note, with the editor's apology duly appended, were + already in press. He would withdraw his apology in the next number + of Every Saturday, if Mark Twain said so. Mark Twain's response + this time assumed the proportions of a letter. + + + To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in Boston: + + 472 DELAWARE ST., BUFFALO, Jan. 28. +DEAR MR. ALDRICH,--No indeed, don't take back the apology! Hang it, I +don't want to abuse a man's civility merely because he gives me the +chance. + +I hear a good deal about doing things on the "spur of the moment"-- +I invariably regret the things I do on the spur of the moment. That +disclaimer of mine was a case in point. I am ashamed every time I think +of my bursting out before an unconcerned public with that bombastic pow- +wow about burning publishers' letters, and all that sort of imbecility, +and about my not being an imitator, etc. Who would find out that I am a +natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature come to the +surface? Nobody. + +But I did hate to be accused of plagiarizing Bret Harte, who trimmed and +trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward +utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters +that have found a certain favor in the eyes of even some of the very +decentest people in the land--and this grateful remembrance of mine ought +to be worth its face, seeing that Bret broke our long friendship a year +ago without any cause or provocation that I am aware of. + +Well, it is funny, the reminiscences that glare out from murky corners of +one's memory, now and then, without warning. Just at this moment a +picture flits before me: Scene--private room in Barnum's Restaurant, +Virginia, Nevada; present, Artemus Ward, Joseph T. Goodman, (editor and +proprietor Daily "Enterprise"), and "Dan de Quille" and myself, reporters +for same; remnants of the feast thin and scattering, but such tautology +and repetition of empty bottles everywhere visible as to be offensive to +the sensitive eye; time, 2.30 A.M.; Artemus thickly reciting a poem about +a certain infant you wot of, and interrupting himself and being +interrupted every few lines by poundings of the table and shouts of +"Splendid, by Shorzhe!" Finally, a long, vociferous, poundiferous and +vitreous jingling of applause announces the conclusion, and then Artemus: +"Let every man 'at loves his fellow man and 'preciates a poet 'at loves +his fellow man, stan' up!--Stan' up and drink health and long life to +Thomas Bailey Aldrich!--and drink it stanning!" (On all hands fervent, +enthusiastic, and sincerely honest attempts to comply.) Then Artemus: +"Well--consider it stanning, and drink it just as ye are!" Which was +done. + +You must excuse all this stuff from a stranger, for the present, and when +I see you I will apologize in full. + +Do you know the prettiest fancy and the neatest that ever shot through +Harte's brain? It was this: When they were trying to decide upon a +vignette for the cover of the Overland, a grizzly bear (of the arms of +the State of California) was chosen. Nahl Bras. carved him and the page +was printed, with him in it, looking thus: [Rude sketch of a grizzly +bear.] + +As a bear, he was a success--he was a good bear--. But then, it was +objected, that he was an objectless bear--a bear that meant nothing in +particular, signified nothing,--simply stood there snarling over his +shoulder at nothing--and was painfully and manifestly a boorish and ill- +natured intruder upon the fair page. All hands said that--none were +satisfied. They hated badly to give him up, and yet they hated as much +to have him there when there was no paint to him. But presently Harte +took a pencil and drew these two simple lines under his feet and behold +he was a magnificent success!--the ancient symbol of California savagery +snarling at the approaching type of high and progressive Civilization, +the first Overland locomotive!: [Sketch of a small section of railway +track.] + +I just think that was nothing less than inspiration itself. + +Once more I apologize, and this time I do it "stanning!" + Yrs. Truly + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + + The "two simple lines," of course, were the train rails under the + bear's feet, and completed the striking cover design of the Overland + monthly. + + The brief controversy over the "Three Aces" was the beginning of + along and happy friendship between Aldrich and Mark Twain. Howells, + Aldrich, Twichell, and Charles Dudley Warner--these were Mark + Twain's intimates, men that he loved, each for his own special charm + and worth. + + Aldrich he considered the most brilliant of living men. + + In his reply to Clemens's letter, Aldrich declared that he was glad + now that, for the sake of such a letter, he had accused him falsely, + and added: + + "Mem. Always abuse people. + + "When you come to Boston, if you do not make your presence manifest + to me, I'll put in a !! in 'Every Saturday' to the effect that + though you are generally known as Mark Twain your favorite nom de + plume is 'Barry Gray.'" + + Clemens did not fail to let Aldrich know when he was in Boston + again, and the little coterie of younger writers forgathered to give + him welcome. + + Buffalo agreed with neither Mrs. Clemens nor the baby. What with + nursing and anguish of mind, Mark Twain found that he could do + nothing on the new book, and that he must give up his magazine + department. He had lost interest in his paper and his surroundings + in general. Journalism and authorship are poor yoke-mates. To + Onion Clemens, at this time editing Bliss's paper at Hartford, he + explained the situation. + + + To Onion Clemens, in Hartford: + + BUFFALO, 4th 1871. +MY DEAR BRO,--What I wanted of the "Liar" Sketch, was to work it into the +California book--which I shall do. But day before yesterday I concluded +to go out of the Galaxy on the strength of it, so I have turned it into +the last Memoranda I shall ever write, and published it as a "specimen +chapter" of my forthcoming book. + +I have written the Galaxy people that I will never furnish them another +article long or short, for any price but $500.00 cash--and have requested +them not to ask me for contributions any more, even at that price. + +I hope that lets them out, for I will stick to that. Now do try and +leave me clear out of the 'Publisher' for the present, for I am +endangering my reputation by writing too much--I want to get out of the +public view for awhile. + +I am still nursing Livy night and day and cannot write anything. I am +nearly worn out. We shall go to Elmira ten days hence (if Livy can +travel on a mattress then,) and stay there till I have finished the +California book--say three months. But I can't begin work right away +when I get there--must have a week's rest, for I have been through 30 +days' terrific siege. + +That makes it after the middle of March before I can go fairly to work-- +and then I'll have to hump myself and not lose a moment. You and Bliss +just put yourselves in my place and you will see that my hands are full +and more than full. + +When I told Bliss in N. Y. that I would write something for the Publisher +I could not know that I was just about to lose fifty days. Do you see +the difference it makes? Just as soon as ever I can, I will send some +of the book M.S. but right in the first chapter I have got to alter the +whole style of one of my characters and re-write him clear through to +where I am now. It is no fool of a job, I can tell you, but the book +will be greatly bettered by it. Hold on a few days--four or five--and +I will see if I can get a few chapters fixed to send to Bliss. + +I have offered this dwelling house and the Express for sale, and when we +go to Elmira we leave here for good. I shall not select a new home till +the book is finished, but we have little doubt that Hartford will be the +place. + +We are almost certain of that. Ask Bliss how it would be to ship our +furniture to Hartford, rent an upper room in a building and unbox it and +store it there where somebody can frequently look after it. Is not the +idea good? The furniture is worth $10,000 or $12,000 and must not be +jammed into any kind of a place and left unattended to for a year. + +The first man that offers $25,000 for our house can take it--it cost +that. What are taxes there? Here, all bunched together--of all kinds, +they are 7 per cent--simply ruin. + +The things you have written in the Publisher are tip-top. + In haste, + Yr Bro + SAM + + + There are no further letters until the end of April, by which time + the situation had improved. Clemens had sold his interest in the + Express (though at a loss), had severed his magazine connection, and + was located at Quarry Farm, on a beautiful hilltop above Elmira, the + home of Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane. The pure air + and rest of that happy place, where they were to spend so many + idyllic summers, had proved beneficial to the sick ones, and work on + the new book progressed in consequence. Then Mark Twain's old + editor, "Joe" Goodman, came from Virginia City for a visit, and his + advice and encouragement were of the greatest value. Clemens even + offered to engage Goodman on a salary, to remain until he had + finished his book. Goodman declined the salary, but extended his + visit, and Mark Twain at last seems to have found himself working + under ideal conditions. He jubilantly reports his progress. + + + To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford: + + ELMIRA, Monday. May 15th 1871 +FRIEND BLISS,--Yrs rec'd enclosing check for $703.35 The old "Innocents" +holds out handsomely. + +I have MS. enough on hand now, to make (allowing for engravings) about +400 pages of the book--consequently am two-thirds done. I intended to +run up to Hartford about the middle of the week and take it along; +because it has chapters in it that ought by all means to be in the +prospectus; but I find myself so thoroughly interested in my work, now +(a thing I have not experienced for months) that I can't bear to lose a +single moment of the inspiration. So I will stay here and peg away as +long as it lasts. My present idea is to write as much more as I have +already written, and then cull from the mass the very best chapters and +discard the rest. I am not half as well satisfied with the first part of +the book as I am with what I am writing now. When I get it done I want +to see the man who will begin to read it and not finish it. If it falls +short of the "Innocents" in any respect I shall lose my guess. + +When I was writing the "Innocents" my daily stunt was 30 pages of MS and +I hardly ever got beyond it; but I have gone over that nearly every day +for the last ten. That shows that I am writing with a red-hot interest. +Nothing grieves me now--nothing troubles me, nothing bothers me or gets +my attention--I don't think of anything but the book, and I don't have an +hour's unhappiness about anything and don't care two cents whether school +keeps or not. It will be a bully book. If I keep up my present lick +three weeks more I shall be able and willing to scratch out half of the +chapters of the Overland narrative--and shall do it. + +You do not mention having received my second batch of MS, sent a week or +two ago--about 100 pages. + +If you want to issue a prospectus and go right to canvassing, say the +word and I will forward some more MS--or send it by hand--special +messenger. Whatever chapters you think are unquestionably good, we will +retain of course, so they can go into a prospectus as well one time as +another. The book will be done soon, now. I have 1200 pages of MS +already written and am now writing 200 a week--more than that, in fact; +during the past week wrote 23 one day, then 30, 33, 35, 52, and 65. +--How's that? + +It will be a starchy book, and should be full of snappy pictures-- +especially pictures worked in with the letterpress. The dedication will +be worth the price of the volume--thus: + + To the Late Cain. + This Book is Dedicated: + +Not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect; +not on account of sympathy with him, for his bloody deed placed him +without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking: but out of a mere human +commiseration for him that it was his misfortune to live in a dark age +that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea. + +I think it will do. + Yrs. CLEMENS. + +P. S.--The reaction is beginning and my stock is looking up. I am +getting the bulliest offers for books and almanacs; am flooded with +lecture invitations, and one periodical offers me $6,000 cash for 12 +articles, of any length and on any subject, treated humorously or +otherwise. + + + The suggested dedication "to the late Cain" may have been the + humoristic impulse of the moment. At all events, it did not + materialize. + + Clemens's enthusiasm for work was now such that he agreed with + Redpath to return to the platform that autumn, and he began at once + writing lectures. His disposal of the Buffalo paper had left him + considerably in debt, and platforming was a sure and quick method of + retrenchment. More than once in the years ahead Mark Twain would + return to travel and one-night stands to lift a burden of debt. + Brief letters to Redpath of this time have an interest and even a + humor of their own. + + + Letters to James Redpath, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, June 27, 1871. +DEAR RED,--Wrote another lecture--a third one-today. It is the one I am +going to deliver. I think I shall call it "Reminiscences of Some +Pleasant Characters Whom I Have Met," (or should the "whom" be left out?) +It covers my whole acquaintance--kings, lunatics, idiots and all. +Suppose you give the item a start in the Boston papers. If I write fifty +lectures I shall only choose one and talk that one only. + +No sir: Don't you put that scarecrow (portrait) from the Galaxy in, I +won't stand that nightmare. + Yours, + MARK. + + + ELMIRA, July 10, 1871. +DEAR REDPATH,--I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church +yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do +it in any possible way. + +Success to Fall's carbuncle and many happy returns. + Yours, + MARK. + + + To Mr. Fall, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, N. Y. July 20, 1871. +FRIEND FALL,--Redpath tells me to blow up. Here goes! I wanted you to +scare Rondout off with a big price. $125 ain't big. I got $100 the +first time I ever talked there and now they have a much larger hall. +It is a hard town to get to--I run a chance of getting caught by the ice +and missing next engagement. Make the price $150 and let them draw out. + Yours + MARK + + + Letters to James Redpath, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Tuesday Aug. 8, 1871. +DEAR RED,--I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener. +People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and firm, but when a man +is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea of +foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo. See? +Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give rigid +instructions to confine me to New England; next week, send me to Arizona; +the next week withdraw my name; the next week give you full untrammelled +swing; and the week following modify it. You must try to keep the run of +my mind, Redpath, it is your business being the agent, and it always was +too many for me. It appears to me to be one of the finest pieces of +mechanism I have ever met with. Now about the West, this week, I am +willing that you shall retain all the Western engagements. But what I +shall want next week is still with God. + +Let us not profane the mysteries with soiled hands and prying eyes of +sin. + Yours, + MARK. + +P. S. Shall be here 2 weeks, will run up there when Nasby comes. + + + ELMIRA, N. Y. Sept. 15, 1871. +DEAR REDPATH,--I wish you would get me released from the lecture at +Buffalo. I mortally hate that society there, and I don't doubt they +hired me. I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never +even had the common politeness to thank me. They left me to shift for +myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard. Get me rid of Buffalo! +Otherwise I'll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture +there. I can get sick easy enough, by the simple process of saying the +word--well never mind what word--I am not going to lecture there. + Yours, + MARK. + + + BUFFALO, Sept. 26, 1871. +DEAR REDPATH,--We have thought it all over and decided that we can't +possibly talk after Feb. 2. + +We shall take up our residence in Hartford 6 days from now + Yours + MARK. + + + + +XI. + +LETTERS 1871-72. REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. A LECTURE TOUR. "ROUGHING IT." +FIRST LETTER TO HOWELLS + + The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on + Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary + neighborhood. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and + other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell + was perhaps half a mile away. + + It was the proper environment for Mark Twain. He settled his little + family there, and was presently at Redpath's office in Boston, which + was a congenial place, as we have seen before. He did not fail to + return to the company of Nasby, Josh Billings, and those others of + Redpath's "attractions" as long and as often as distance would + permit. Bret Harte, who by this time had won fame, was also in + Boston now, and frequently, with Howells, Aldrich, and Mark Twain, + gathered in some quiet restaurant corner for a luncheon that lasted + through a dim winter afternoon--a period of anecdote, reminiscence, + and mirth. They were all young then, and laughed easily. Howells, + has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young + Californian--a gathering at which James T. Fields was present + "Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and + aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager + laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning + shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our + joint mockeries upon our host, who took it gladly." + + But a lecture circuit cannot be restricted to the radius of Boston. + Clemens was presently writing to Redpath from Washington and points + farther west. + + + To James Redpath, in Boston: + + WASHINGTON, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1871. +DEAR RED,--I have come square out, thrown "Reminiscences" overboard, and +taken "Artemus Ward, Humorist," for my subject. Wrote it here on Friday +and Saturday, and read it from MS last night to an enormous house. It +suits me and I'll never deliver the nasty, nauseous "Reminiscences" any +more. + Yours, + MARK. + + + The Artemus Ward lecture lasted eleven days, then he wrote: + + + To Redpath and Fall, in Boston: + + BUFFALO DEPOT, Dec. 8, 1871. +REDPATH & FALL, BOSTON,-- Notify all hands that from this time I shall +talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book "Roughing It." +Tried it last night. Suits me tip-top. + SAM'L L. CLEMENS. + + + The Roughing It chapters proved a success, and continued in high + favor through the rest of the season. + + + To James Redpath, in Boston: + + LOGANSPORT, IND. Jan. 2, 1872. +FRIEND REDPATH,--Had a splendid time with a splendid audience in +Indianapolis last night--a perfectly jammed house, just as I have had all +the time out here. I like the new lecture but I hate the "Artemus Ward" +talk and won't talk it any more. No man ever approved that choice of +subject in my hearing, I think. + +Give me some comfort. If I am to talk in New York am I going to have a +good house? I don't care now to have any appointments cancelled. I'll +even "fetch" those Dutch Pennsylvanians with this lecture. + +Have paid up $4000 indebtedness. You are the, last on my list. Shall +begin to pay you in a few days and then I shall be a free man again. + Yours, + MARK. + + + With his debts paid, Clemens was anxious to be getting home. Two + weeks following the above he wrote Redpath that he would accept no + more engagements at any price, outside of New England, and added, + "The fewer engagements I have from this time forth the better I + shall be pleased." By the end of February he was back in Hartford, + refusing an engagement in Boston, and announcing to Redpath, "If I + had another engagement I'd rot before I'd fill it." From which we + gather that he was not entirely happy in the lecture field. + + As a matter of fact, Mark Twain loathed the continuous travel and + nightly drudgery of platform life. He was fond of entertaining, and + there were moments of triumph that repaid him for a good deal, but + the tyranny of a schedule and timetables was a constant + exasperation. + + Meantime, Roughing It had appeared and was selling abundantly. Mark + Twain, free of debt, and in pleasant circumstances, felt that the + outlook was bright. It became even more so when, in March, the + second child, a little girl, Susy, was born, with no attending + misfortunes. But, then, in the early summer little Langdon died. + It was seldom, during all of Mark Twain's life, that he enjoyed more + than a brief period of unmixed happiness. + + It was in June of that year that Clemens wrote his first letter to + William Dean Howells the first of several hundred that would follow + in the years to come, and has in it something that is characteristic + of nearly all the Clemens-Howells letters--a kind of tender + playfulness that answered to something in Howells's make-up, his + sense of humor, his wide knowledge of a humanity which he pictured + so amusingly to the world. + + + To William Dean Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, June z5, z872. +FRIEND HOWELLS,--Could you tell me how I could get a copy of your +portrait as published in Hearth and Home? I hear so much talk about it +as being among the finest works of art which have yet appeared in that +journal, that I feel a strong desire to see it. Is it suitable for +framing? I have written the publishers of H & H time and again, but they +say that the demand for the portrait immediately exhausted the edition +and now a copy cannot be had, even for the European demand, which has now +begun. Bret Harte has been here, and says his family would not be +without that portrait for any consideration. He says his children get up +in the night and yell for it. I would give anything for a copy of that +portrait to put up in my parlor. I have Oliver Wendell Holmes and Bret +Harte's, as published in Every Saturday, and of all the swarms that come +every day to gaze upon them none go away that are not softened and +humbled and made more resigned to the will of God. If I had yours to put +up alongside of them, I believe the combination would bring more souls to +earnest reflection and ultimate conviction of their lost condition, than +any other kind of warning would. Where in the nation can I get that +portrait? Here are heaps of people that want it,--that need it. There +is my uncle. He wants a copy. He is lying at the point of death. He +has been lying at the point of death for two years. He wants a copy--and +I want him to have a copy. And I want you to send a copy to the man that +shot my dog. I want to see if he is dead to every human instinct. + +Now you send me that portrait. I am sending you mine, in this letter; +and am glad to do it, for it has been greatly admired. People who are +judges of art, find in the execution a grandeur which has not been +equalled in this country, and an expression which has not been approached +in any. + Yrs truly, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. 62,000 copies of "Roughing It" sold and delivered in 4 months. + + + The Clemens family did not spend the summer at Quarry Farm that + year. The sea air was prescribed for Mrs. Clemens and the baby, and + they went to Saybrook, Connecticut, to Fenwick Hall. Clemens wrote + very little, though he seems to have planned Tom Sawyer, and perhaps + made its earliest beginning, which was in dramatic form. + + His mind, however, was otherwise active. He was always more or less + given to inventions, and in his next letter we find a description of + one which he brought to comparative perfection. + + He had also conceived the idea of another book of travel, and this + was his purpose of a projected trip to England. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Hartford: + + FENWICK HALL, SAYBROOK, CONN. + Aug. 11, 1872. +MY DEAR BRO.--I shall sail for England in the Scotia, Aug. 21. + +But what I wish to put on record now, is my new invention--hence this +note, which you will preserve. It is this--a self-pasting scrap-book +--good enough idea if some juggling tailor does not come along and ante- +date me a couple of months, as in the case of the elastic veststrap. + +The nuisance of keeping a scrap-book is: 1. One never has paste or gum +tragacanth handy; 2. Mucilage won't stick, or stay, 4 weeks; +3. Mucilage sucks out the ink and makes the scraps unreadable; +4. To daub and paste 3 or 4 pages of scraps is tedious, slow, nasty and +tiresome. My idea is this: Make a scrap-book with leaves veneered or +coated with gum-stickum of some kind; wet the page with sponge, brush, +rag or tongue, and dab on your scraps like postage stamps. + +Lay on the gum in columns of stripes. + +Each stripe of gum the length of say 20 ems, small pica, and as broad as +your finger; a blank about as broad as your finger between each 2 +stripes--so in wetting the paper you need not wet any more of the gum +than your scrap or scraps will cover--then you may shut up the book and +the leaves won't stick together. + +Preserve, also, the envelope of this letter--postmark ought to be good +evidence of the date of this great humanizing and civilizing invention. + +I'll put it into Dan Slote's hands and tell him he must send you all over +America, to urge its use upon stationers and booksellers--so don't buy +into a newspaper. The name of this thing is "Mark Twain's Self-Pasting +Scrapbook." + +All well here. Shall be up a P. M. Tuesday. Send the carriage. + Yr Bro. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The Dan Slote of this letter is, of course, his old Quaker City + shipmate, who was engaged in the blank-book business, the firm being + Slote & Woodman, located at 119 and 121 William Street, New York. + + + + +XII. + +LETTERS 1872-73. MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. LONDON HONORS. ACQUAINTANCE +WITH DR. JOHN BROWN. A LECTURE TRIUMPH. "THE GILDED AGE" + + Clemens did, in fact, sail for England on the given date, and was + lavishly received there. All literary London joined in giving him a + good time. He had not as yet been received seriously by the older + American men of letters, but England made no question as to his + title to first rank. Already, too, they classified him as of the + human type of Lincoln, and reveled in him without stint. Howells + writes: "In England, rank, fashion, and culture rejoiced in him. + Lord Mayors, Lord Chief justices, and magnates of many kinds were + his hosts." + + He was treated so well and enjoyed it all so much that he could not + write a book--the kind of book he had planned. One could not poke + fun at a country or a people that had welcomed him with open arms. + He made plenty of notes, at first, but presently gave up the book + idea and devoted himself altogether to having a good time. + + He had one grievance--a publisher by the name of Hotten, a sort of + literary harpy, of which there were a great number in those days of + defective copyright, not merely content with pilfering his early + work, had reprinted, under the name of Mark Twain, the work of a + mixed assortment of other humorists, an offensive volume bearing the + title, Screamers and Eye-openers, by Mark Twain. + + They besieged him to lecture in London, and promised him overflowing + houses. Artemus Ward, during his last days, had earned London by + storm with his platform humor, and they promised Mark Twain even + greater success. For some reason, however, he did not welcome the + idea; perhaps there was too much gaiety. To Mrs. Clemens he wrote: + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Sep. 15, 1872. +Livy, darling, everybody says lecture-lecture-lecture--but I have not the +least idea of doing it--certainly not at present. Mr. Dolby, who took +Dickens to America, is coming to talk business to me tomorrow, though I +have sent him word once before, that I can't be hired to talk here, +because I have no time to spare. + +There is too much sociability--I do not get along fast enough with work. +Tomorrow I lunch with Mr. Toole and a Member of Parliament--Toole is the +most able Comedian of the day. And then I am done for a while. On +Tuesday I mean to hang a card to my keybox, inscribed--"Gone out of the +City for a week"--and then I shall go to work and work hard. One can't +be caught in a hive of 4,000,000 people, like this. + +I have got such a perfectly delightful razor. I have a notion to buy +some for Charley, Theodore and Slee--for I know they have no such razors +there. I have got a neat little watch-chain for Annie--$20. + +I love you my darling. My love to all of you. + SAML. + + + That Mark Twain should feel and privately report something of his + triumphs we need not wonder at. Certainly he was never one to give + himself airs, but to have the world's great literary center paying + court to him, who only ten years before had been penniless and + unknown, and who once had been a barefoot Tom Sawyer in Hannibal, + was quite startling. It is gratifying to find evidence of human + weakness in the following heart-to-heart letter to his publisher, + especially in view of the relating circumstances. + + + To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Sept. 28, 1872. +FRIEND BLISS,--I have been received in a sort of tremendous way, tonight, +by the brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the Sheriffs +of London--mine being (between you and me) a name which was received with +a flattering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long list of +guests was called. + +I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support and +assistance of my excellent friend Sir John Bennett--and I want you to +paste the enclosed in a couple of the handsomest copies of the +"Innocents" and "Roughing It," and send them to him. His address is + + "Sir John Bennett, + Cheapside, + London." + Yrs Truly + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The "relating circumstances" were these: At the abovementioned + dinner there had been a roll-call of the distinguished guests + present, and each name had been duly applauded. Clemens, conversing + in a whisper with his neighbor, Sir John Bennett, did not give very + close attention to the names, applauding mechanically with the + others. + + Finally, a name was read that brought out a vehement hand-clapping. + Mark Twain, not to be outdone in cordiality, joined vigorously, and + kept his hands going even after the others finished. Then, + remarking the general laughter, he whispered to Sir John: "Whose + name was that we were just applauding?" + + "Mark Twain's." + + We may believe that the "friendly support" of Sir John Bennett was + welcome for the moment. But the incident could do him no harm; the + diners regarded it as one of his jokes, and enjoyed him all the more + for it. + + He was ready to go home by November, but by no means had he had + enough of England. He really had some thought of returning there + permanently. In a letter to Mrs. Crane, at Quarry Farm, he wrote: + + "If you and Theodore will come over in the Spring with Livy and me, + and spend the summer you will see a country that is so beautiful + that you will be obliged to believe in Fairyland..... and Theodore + can browse with me among dusty old dens that look now as they looked + five hundred years ago; and puzzle over books in the British Museum + that were made before Christ was born; and in the customs of their + public dinners, and the ceremonies of every official act, and the + dresses of a thousand dignitaries, trace the speech and manners of + all the centuries that have dragged their lagging decades over + England since the Heptarchy fell asunder. I would a good deal + rather live here if I could get the rest of you over." + + In a letter home, to his mother and sister, we get a further picture + of his enjoyment. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett: + + LONDON, Nov. 6, 1872. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have been so everlasting busy that I +couldn't write--and moreover I have been so unceasingly lazy that I +couldn't have written anyhow. I came here to take notes for a book, but +I haven't done much but attend dinners and make speeches. But have had a +jolly good time and I do hate to go away from these English folks; they +make a stranger feel entirely at home--and they laugh so easily that it +is a comfort to make after-dinner speeches here. I have made hundreds of +friends; and last night in the crush of the opening of the New Guild-hall +Library and Museum, I was surprised to meet a familiar face every few +steps. Nearly 4,000 people, of both sexes, came and went during the +evening, so I had a good opportunity to make a great many new +acquaintances. + +Livy is willing to come here with me next April and stay several months +--so I am going home next Tuesday. I would sail on Saturday, but that is +the day of the Lord Mayor's annual grand state dinner, when they say 900 +of the great men of the city sit down to table, a great many of them in +their fine official and court paraphernalia, so I must not miss it. +However, I may yet change my mind and sail Saturday. I am looking at a +fine Magic lantern which will cost a deal of money, and if I buy it Sammy +may come and learn to make the gas and work the machinery, and paint +pictures for it on glass. I mean to give exhibitions for charitable +purposes in Hartford, and charge a dollar a head. + In a hurry, + Ys affly + SAM. + + + He sailed November 12th on the Batavia, arriving in New York two + weeks later. There had been a presidential election in his absence. + General Grant had defeated Horace Greeley, a result, in some measure + at least, attributed to the amusing and powerful pictures of the + cartoonist, Thomas Nast. Mark Twain admired Greeley's talents, but + he regarded him as poorly qualified for the nation's chief + executive. He wrote: + + + To Th. Nast, in Morristown, N. J.: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 1872. +Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for +Grant--I mean, rather, for civilization and progress. Those pictures +were simply marvelous, and if any man in the land has a right to hold his +head up and be honestly proud of his share in this year's vast events +that man is unquestionably yourself. We all do sincerely honor you, and +are proud of you. + MARK TWAIN. + + + Perhaps Mark Twain was too busy at this time to write letters. His + success in England had made him more than ever popular in America, + and he could by no means keep up with the demands on him. In + January he contributed to the New York Tribune some letters on the + Sandwich Islands, but as these were more properly articles they do + not seem to belong here. + + He refused to go on the lecture circuit, though he permitted Redpath + to book him for any occasional appearance, and it is due to one of + these special engagements that we have the only letter preserved + from this time. It is to Howells, and written with that + exaggeration with which he was likely to embellish his difficulties. + We are not called upon to believe that there were really any such + demonstrations as those ascribed to Warner and himself. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVE, Hartford Feb. 27. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am in a sweat and Warner is in another. I told +Redpath some time ago I would lecture in Boston any two days he might +choose provided they were consecutive days-- + +I never dreamed of his choosing days during Lent since that was his +special horror--but all at once he telegraphs me, and hollers at me in +ail manner of ways that I am booked for Boston March 5 of all days in the +year--and to make matters just as mixed and uncertain as possible, I +can't find out to save my life whether he means to lecture me on the 6th +or not. + +Warner's been in here swearing like a lunatic, and saying he had written +you to come on the 4th,--and I said, "You leather-head, if I talk in +Boston both afternoon and evening March 5, I'll have to go to Boston the +4th,"--and then he just kicked up his heels and went off cursing after a +fashion I never heard of before. + +Now let's just leave this thing to Providence for 24 hours--you bet it +will come out all right. + Yours ever + MARK. + + + He was writing a book with Warner at this time--The Gilded Age-- + the two authors having been challenged by their wives one night at + dinner to write a better book than the current novels they had been + discussing with some severity. Clemens already had a story in his + mind, and Warner agreed to collaborate in the writing. It was begun + without delay. Clemens wrote the first three hundred and ninety- + nine pages, and read there aloud to Warner, who took up the story at + this point and continued it through twelve chapters, after which + they worked alternately, and with great enjoyment. They also worked + rapidly, and in April the story was completed. For a collaboration + by two men so different in temperament and literary method it was a + remarkable performance. + + Another thing Mark Twain did that winter was to buy some land on + Farmington Avenue and begin the building of a home. He had by no + means given up returning to England, and made his plans to sail with + Mrs. Clemens and Susy in May. Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira-- + [Later Mrs. John B. Stanchfield, of New York.]--a girlhood friend of + Mrs. Clemens--was to accompany them. + + The Daily Graphic heard of the proposed journey, and wrote, asking + for a farewell word. His characteristic reply is the only letter of + any kind that has survived from that spring. + + + To the Editor of "The Daily Graphic," in New York City: + + HARTFORD, Apl. 17, 1873. +ED. GRAPHIC,--Your note is received. If the following two lines which I +have cut from it are your natural handwriting, then I understand you to +ask me "for a farewell letter in the name of the American people." Bless +you, the joy of the American people is just a little premature; I haven't +gone yet. And what is more, I am not going to stay, when I do go. + +Yes, it is true. I am only going to remain beyond the sea, six months, +that is all. I love stir and excitement; and so the moment the spring +birds begin to sing, and the lagging weariness of summer to threaten, +I grow restless, I get the fidgets; I want to pack off somewhere where +there's something going on. But you know how that is--you must have felt +that way. This very day I saw the signs in the air of the coming +dullness, and I said to myself, "How glad I am that I have already +chartered a steamship!" There was absolutely nothing in the morning +papers. You can see for yourself what the telegraphic headings were: + + BY TELEGRAPH + +A Father Killed by His Son + +A Bloody Fight in Kentucky + +A Court House Fired, and +Negroes Therein Shot +while Escaping + +A Louisiana Massacre + +An Eight-year-old murderer +Two to Three Hundred Men Roasted Alive! + +A Town in a State of General Riot + +A Lively Skirmish in Indiana +(and thirty other similar headings.) + +The items under those headings all bear date yesterday, Apl. 16 (refer to +your own paper)--and I give you my word of honor that that string of +commonplace stuff was everything there was in the telegraphic columns +that a body could call news. Well, said I to myself this is getting +pretty dull; this is getting pretty dry; there don't appear to be +anything going on anywhere; has this progressive nation gone to sleep? +Have I got to stand another month of this torpidity before I can begin to +browse among the lively capitals of Europe? + +But never mind-things may revive while I am away. During the last two +months my next-door neighbor, Chas. Dudley Warner, has dropped his "Back- +Log Studies," and he and I have written a bulky novel in partnership. +He has worked up the fiction and I have hurled in the facts. I consider +it one of the most astonishing novels that ever was written. Night after +night I sit up reading it over and over again and crying. It will be +published early in the Fall, with plenty of pictures. Do you consider +this an advertisement?--and if so, do you charge for such things when a +man is your friend? + Yours truly, + SAML. L. CLEMENS, + "MARK TWAIN," + + + An amusing, even if annoying, incident happened about the time of + Mark Twain's departure. A man named Chew related to Twichell a most + entertaining occurrence. Twichell saw great possibilities in it, + and suggested that Mark Twain be allowed to make a story of it, + sharing the profits with Chew. Chew agreed, and promised to send + the facts, carefully set down. Twichell, in the mean time, told the + story to Clemens, who was delighted with it and strongly tempted to + write it at once, while he was in the spirit, without waiting on + Chew. Fortunately, he did not do so, for when Chew's material came + it was in the form of a clipping, the story having been already + printed in some newspaper. Chew's knowledge of literary ethics + would seem to have been slight. He thought himself entitled to + something under the agreement with Twichell. Mark Twain, by this + time in London, naturally had a different opinion. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LONDON, June 9, '73. +DEAR OLD JOE,--I consider myself wholly at liberty to decline to pay Chew +anything, and at the same time strongly tempted to sue him into the +bargain for coming so near ruining me. If he hadn't happened to send me +that thing in print, I would have used the story (like an innocent fool) +and would straightway have been hounded to death as a plagiarist. It +would have absolutely destroyed me. I cannot conceive of a man being such +a hopeless ass (after serving as a legislative reporter, too) as to +imagine that I or any other literary man in his senses would consent to +chew over old stuff that had already been in print. If that man wern't +an infant in swaddling clothes, his only reply to our petition would have +been, "It has been in print." It makes me as mad as the very Old Harry +every time I think of Mr. Chew and the frightfully narrow escape I have +had at his hands. Confound Mr. Chew, with all my heart! I'm willing +that he should have ten dollars for his trouble of warming over his cold +victuals--cheerfully willing to that--but no more. If I had had him near +when his letter came, I would have got out my tomahawk and gone for him. +He didn't tell the story half as well as you did, anyhow. + +I wish to goodness you were here this moment--nobody in our parlor but +Livy and me,--and a very good view of London to the fore. We have a +luxuriously ample suite of apartments in the Langham Hotel, 3rd floor, +our bedroom looking straight up Portland Place and our parlor having a +noble array of great windows looking out upon both streets (Portland +Place and the crook that joins it to Regent Street.) + +9 P.M. Full twilight--rich sunset tints lingering in the west. + +I am not going to write anything--rather tell it when I get back. I love +you and Harmony, and that is all the fresh news I've got, anyway. And I +mean to keep that fresh all the time. + Lovingly + MARK. + +P. S.--Am luxuriating in glorious old Pepy's Diary, and smoking. + + + Letters are exceedingly scarce through all this period. Mark Twain, + now on his second visit to London, was literally overwhelmed with + honors and entertainment; his rooms at the Langham were like a + court. Such men as Robert Browning, Turgenieff, Sir John Millais, + and Charles Kingsley hastened to call. Kingsley and others gave him + dinners. Mrs. Clemens to her sister wrote: "It is perfectly + discouraging to try to write you." + + The continuous excitement presently told on her. In July all + further engagements were canceled, and Clemens took his little + family to Scotland, for quiet and rest. They broke the journey at + York, and it was there that Mark Twain wrote the only letter + remaining from this time. + + + Part of a letter to Mrs. Jervis Langdon, of Elmira, N. Y.: + +For the present we shall remain in this queer old walled town, with its +crooked, narrow lanes, that tell us of their old day that knew no wheeled +vehicles; its plaster-and-timber dwellings, with upper stories far +overhanging the street, and thus marking their date, say three hundred +years ago; the stately city walls, the castellated gates, the ivy-grown, +foliage-sheltered, most noble and picturesque ruin of St. Mary's Abbey, +suggesting their date, say five hundred years ago, in the heart of +Crusading times and the glory of English chivalry and romance; the vast +Cathedral of York, with its worn carvings and quaintly pictured windows, +preaching of still remoter days; the outlandish names of streets and +courts and byways that stand as a record and a memorial, all these +centuries, of Danish dominion here in still earlier times; the hint here +and there of King Arthur and his knights and their bloody fights with +Saxon oppressors round about this old city more than thirteen hundred +years gone by; and, last of all, the melancholy old stone coffins and +sculptured inscriptions, a venerable arch and a hoary tower of stone that +still remain and are kissed by the sun and caressed by the shadows every +day, just as the sun and the shadows have kissed and caressed them every +lagging day since the Roman Emperor's soldiers placed them here in the +times when Jesus the Son of Mary walked the streets of Nazareth a youth, +with no more name or fame than the Yorkshire boy who is loitering down +this street this moment. + + Their destination was Edinburgh, where they remained a month. Mrs. + Clemens's health gave way on their arrival there, and her husband, + knowing the name of no other physician in the place, looked up Dr. + John Brown, author of Rab and His Friends, and found in him not only + a skilful practitioner, but a lovable companion, to whom they all + became deeply attached. Little Susy, now seventeen months old, + became his special favorite. He named her Megalops, because of her + great eyes. + + Mrs. Clemens regained her strength and they returned to London. + Clemens, still urged to lecture, finally agreed with George Dolby to + a week's engagement, and added a promise that after taking his wife + and daughter back to America he would return immediately for a more + extended course. Dolby announced him to appear at the Queen's + Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, for the week of October 13-18, his + lecture to be the old Sandwich Islands talk that seven years before + had brought him his first success. The great hall, the largest in + London, was thronged at each appearance, and the papers declared + that Mark Twain had no more than "whetted the public appetite" for + his humor. Three days later, October , 1873, Clemens, with his + little party, sailed for home. Half-way across the ocean he wrote + the friend they had left in Scotland: + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + MID-ATLANTIC, Oct. 30, 1873. +OUR DEAR FRIEND THE DOCTOR,--We have plowed a long way over the sea, +and there's twenty-two hundred miles of restless water between us, now, +besides the railway stretch. And yet you are so present with us, so +close to us that a span and a whisper would bridge the distance. + +The first three days were stormy, and wife, child, maid, and Miss +Spaulding were all sea-sick 25 hours out of the 24, and I was sorry I +ever started. However, it has been smooth, and balmy, and sunny and +altogether lovely for a day or two now, and at night there is a broad +luminous highway stretching over the sea to the moon, over which the +spirits of the sea are traveling up and down all through the secret night +and having a genuine good time, I make no doubt. + +Today they discovered a "collie" on board! I find (as per advertisement +which I sent you) that they won't carry dogs in these ships at any price. +This one has been concealed up to this time. Now his owner has to pay +L10 or heave him overboard. Fortunately the doggie is a performing +doggie and the money will be paid. So after all it was just as well you +didn't intrust your collie to us. + +A poor little child died at midnight and was buried at dawn this morning +--sheeted and shotted, and sunk in the middle of the lonely ocean in +water three thousand fathoms deep. Pity the poor mother. + With our love. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mark Twain was back in London, lecturing again at the Queen's + Concert Rooms, after barely a month's absence. Charles Warren + Stoddard, whom he had known in California, shared his apartment at + the Langham, and acted as his secretary--a very necessary office, + for he was besieged by callers and bombarded with letters. + + He remained in London two months, lecturing steadily at Hanover + Square to full houses. It is unlikely that there is any other + platform record to match it. One letter of this period has been + preserved. It is written to Twichell, near the end of his + engagement. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Jan. 5 1874. +MY DEAR OLD JOE,--I knew you would be likely to graduate into an ass if +I came away; and so you have--if you have stopped smoking. However, I +have a strong faith that it is not too late, yet, and that the +judiciously managed influence of a bad example will fetch you back again. + +I wish you had written me some news--Livy tells me precious little. She +mainly writes to hurry me home and to tell me how much she respects me: +but she's generally pretty slow on news. I had a letter from her along +with yours, today, but she didn't tell me the book is out. However, it's +all right. I hope to be home 20 days from today, and then I'll see her, +and that will make up for a whole year's dearth of news. I am right down +grateful that she is looking strong and "lovelier than ever." I only +wish I could see her look her level best, once--I think it would be a +vision. + +I have just spent a good part of this day browsing through the Royal +Academy Exhibition of Landseer's paintings. They fill four or five great +salons, and must number a good many hundreds. This is the only +opportunity ever to see them, because the finest of them belong to the +queen and she keeps them in her private apartments. Ah, they're +wonderfully beautiful! There are such rich moonlights and dusks in "The +Challenge" and "The Combat;" and in that long flight of birds across a +lake in the subdued flush of sunset (or sunrise--for no man can ever tell +tother from which in a picture, except it has the filmy morning mist +breathing itself up from the water). And there is such a grave +analytical profundity in the faces of "The Connoisseurs;" and such pathos +in the picture of the fawn suckling its dead mother, on a snowy waste, +with only the blood in the footprints to hint that she is not asleep. +And the way he makes animals absolute flesh and blood--insomuch that if +the room were darkened ever so little and a motionless living animal +placed beside a painted one, no man could tell which was which. + +I interrupted myself here, to drop a line to Shirley Brooks and suggest +a cartoon for Punch. It was this. In one of the Academy salons (in the +suite where these pictures are), a fine bust of Landseer stands on a +pedestal in the centre of the room. I suggest that some of Landseer's +best known animals be represented as having come down out of their frames +in the moonlight and grouped themselves about the bust in mourning +attitudes. + +Well, old man, I am powerful glad to hear from you and shall be powerful +glad to see you and Harmony. I am not going to the provinces because I +cannot get halls that are large enough. I always felt cramped in Hanover +Square Rooms, but I find that everybody here speaks with awe and respect +of that prodigious place, and wonder that I could fill it so long. + +I am hoping to be back in 20 days, but I have so much to go home to and +enjoy with a jubilant joy, that it seems hardly possible that it can ever +come to pass in so uncertain a world as this. + +I have read the novel--[The Gilded Age, published during his absence, +December, 1873.]--here, and I like it. I have made no inquiries about +it, though. My interest in a book ceases with the printing of it. + With a world of love, + SAML. + + + + +XIII. + +LETTERS 1874. HARTFORD AND ELMIRA. A NEW STUDY. BEGINNING "TOM +SAWYER." THE SELLERS PLAY. + +Naturally Redpath would not give him any peace now. His London success +must not be wasted. At first his victim refused point-blank, and with +great brevity. But he was overborne and persuaded, and made occasional +appearances, wiring at last this final defiant word: + + + Telegram to James Redpath, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, March 3, 1874. +JAMES REDPATH,-- Why don't you congratulate me? + +I never expect to stand on a lecture platform again after Thursday night. + MARK. + + + That he was glad to be home again we may gather from a letter sent + at this time to Doctor Brown, of Edinburgh. + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD + Feby. 28, 1874. +MY DEAR FRIEND,--We are all delighted with your commendations of the +Gilded Age-and the more so because some of our newspapers have set forth +the opinion that Warner really wrote the book and I only added my name to +the title page in order to give it a larger sale. I wrote the first +eleven chapters, every word. and every line. I also wrote chapters 24, +25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 21, 42, 43, 45, 51, 52. 53, 57, +59, 60, 61, 62, and portions of 35, 49 and 56. So I wrote 32 of the 63 +chapters entirely and part of 3 others beside. + +The fearful financial panic hit the book heavily, for we published it in +the midst of it. But nevertheless in the 8 weeks that have now elapsed +since the day we published, we have sold 40,000 copies; which gives +L3,000 royalty to be divided between the authors. This is really the +largest two-months' sale which any American book has ever achieved +(unless one excepts the cheaper editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin). The +average price of our book is 16 shillings a copy--Uncle Tom was 2 +shillings a copy. But for the panic our sale would have been doubled, +I verily believe. I do not believe the sale will ultimately go over +100,000 copies. + +I shipped to you, from Liverpool, Barley's Illustrations of Judd's +"Margaret" (the waiter at the Adelphi Hotel agreeing to ship it securely +per parcel delivery,) and I do hope it did not miscarry, for we in +America think a deal of Barley's--[Felix Octavius Carr barley, 1822-1888, +illustrator of the works of Irving, Cooper, etc. Probably the most +distinguished American illustrator of his time.]-- work. I shipped the +novel (" Margaret") to you from here a week ago. + +Indeed I am thankful for the wife and the child--and if there is one +individual creature on all this footstool who is more thoroughly and +uniformly and unceasingly happy than I am I defy the world to produce him +and prove him. In my opinion, he doesn't exist. I was a mighty rough, +coarse, unpromising subject when Livy took charge of me 4 years ago, and +I may still be, to the rest of the world, but not to her. She has made a +very creditable job of me. + +Success to the Mark Twain Club!-and the novel shibboleth of the Whistle. +Of course any member rising to speak would be required to preface his +remark with a keen respectful whistle at the chair-the chair recognizing +the speaker with an answering shriek, and then as the speech proceeded +its gravity and force would be emphasized and its impressiveness +augmented by the continual interjection of whistles in place of +punctuation-pauses; and the applause of the audience would be manifested +in the same way .... + +They've gone to luncheon, and I must follow. With strong love from us +both. + Your friend, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + + These were the days when the Howells and Clemens families began + visiting back and forth between Boston and Hartford, and sometimes + Aldrich came, though less frequently, and the gatherings at the + homes of Warner and Clemens were full of never-to-be-forgotten + happiness. Of one such visit Howells wrote: + + "In the good-fellowship of that cordial neighborhood we had two such + days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round. There was + constant running in and out of friendly houses, where the lively + hosts and guests called one another by their christian names or + nicknames, and no such vain ceremony as knocking or ringing at + doors. Clemens was then building the stately mansion in which he + satisfied his love of magnificence as if it had been another + sealskin coat, and he was at the crest of the prosperity which + enabled him to humor every whim or extravagance." + + It was the delight of such a visit that kept Clemens constantly + urging its repetition. One cannot but feel the genuine affection of + these letters. + + + To W,.D. Howells, in Boston: + + Mch. 1, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Now you will find us the most reasonable people in the +world. We had thought of precipitating upon you George Warner and wife +one day; Twichell and his jewel of a wife another day, and Chas. Perkins +and wife another. Only those--simply members of our family, they are. +But I'll close the door against them all--which will "fix" all of the lot +except Twichell, who will no more hesitate to climb in at the back window +than nothing. + +And you shall go to bed when you please, get up when you please, talk +when you please, read when you please. Mrs. Howells may even go to New +York Saturday if she feels that she must, but if some gentle, unannoying +coaxing can beguile her into putting that off a few days, we shall be +more than glad, for I do wish she and Mrs. Clemens could have a good +square chance to get acquainted with each other. But first and last and +all the time, we want you to feel untrammeled and wholly free from +restraint, here. + +The date suits--all dates suit. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Mch. 20, 1876. +DEAR HOWELLS,-- You or Aldrich or both of you must come to Hartford to +live. Mr. Hall, who lives in the house next to Mrs. Stowe's (just where +we drive in to go to our new house) will sell for $16,000 or $17,000. +The lot is 85 feet front and 150 deep--long time and easy payments on the +purchase? You can do your work just as well here as in Cambridge, can't +you? Come, will one of you boys buy that house? Now say yes. + +Mrs. Clemens is an invalid yet, but is getting along pretty fairly. + +We send best regards. + MARK. + + + April found the Clemens family in Elmira. Mrs. Clemens was not + over-strong, and the cares of house-building were many. They went + early, therefore, remaining at the Langdon home in the city until + Quarry Farm should feel a touch of warmer sun, Clemens wrote the + news to Doctor Brown. + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + ELMIRA, N. Y., April 27, '86. +DEAR DOCTOR,--This town is in the interior of the State of New York-- +and was my wife's birth-place. We are here to spend the whole summer. +Although it is so near summer, we had a great snow-storm yesterday, and +one the day before. This is rather breaking in upon our plans, as it may +keep us down here in the valley a trifle longer than we desired. It gets +fearfully hot here in the summer, so we spend our summers on top of a +hill 6 or 700 feet high, about two or three miles from here--it never +gets hot up there. + +Mrs. Clemens is pretty strong, and so is the "little wifie" barring a +desperate cold in the head the child grows in grace and beauty +marvellously. I wish the nations of the earth would combine in a baby +show and give us a chance to compete. I must try to find one of her +latest photographs to enclose in this. And this reminds me that Mrs. +Clemens keeps urging me to ask you for your photograph and last night she +said, "and be sure to ask him for a photograph of his sister, and Jock- +but say Master Jock--do not be headless and forget that courtesy; he is +Jock in our memories and our talk, but he has a right to his title when a +body uses his name in a letter." Now I have got it all in--I can't have +made any mistake this time. Miss Clara Spaulding looked in, a moment, +yesterday morning, as bright and good as ever. She would like to lay +her love at your feet if she knew I was writing--as would also fifty +friends of ours whom you have never seen, and whose homage is as fervent +as if the cold and clouds and darkness of a mighty sea did not lie +between their hearts and you. Poor old Rab had not many "friends" at +first, but if all his friends of today could gather to his grave from the +four corners of the earth what a procession there would be! And Rab's +friends are your friends. + +I am going to work when we get on the hill-till then I've got to lie +fallow, albeit against my will. We join in love to you and yours. + Your friend ever, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. I enclose a specimen of villainy. A man pretends to be my brother +and my lecture agent--gathers a great audience together in a city more +than a thousand miles from here, and then pockets the money and elopes, +leaving the audience to wait for the imaginary lecturer! I am after him +with the law. + + + It was a historic summer at the Farm. A new baby arrived in June; a + new study was built for Mark Twain by Mrs. Crane, on the hillside + near the old quarry; a new book was begun in it--The Adventures of + Tom Sawyer--and a play, the first that Mark Twain had really + attempted, was completed--the dramatization of The Gilded Age. + + An early word went to Hartford of conditions at the Farm. + + + To Rev. and Mrs. Twichell, in Hartford: + + ELMIRA, June 11, 1874. + +MY DEAR OLD JOE AND HARMONY,--The baby is here and is the great American +Giantess--weighing 7 3/4 pounds. We had to wait a good long time for +her, but she was full compensation when she did come. + +The Modoc was delighted with it, and gave it her doll at once. There is +nothing selfish about the Modoc. She is fascinated with the new baby. +The Modoc rips and tears around out doors, most of the time, and +consequently is as hard as a pine knot and as brown as an Indian. She +is bosom friend to all the ducks, chickens, turkeys and guinea hens on +the place. Yesterday as she marched along the winding path that leads up +the hill through the red clover beds to the summer-house, there was a +long procession of these fowls stringing contentedly after her, led by a +stately rooster who can look over the Modoc's head. The devotion of +these vassals has been purchased with daily largess of Indian meal, and +so the Modoc, attended by her bodyguard, moves in state wherever she +goes. + +Susie Crane has built the loveliest study for me, you ever saw. It is +octagonal, with a peaked roof, each octagon filled with a spacious +window, and it sits perched in complete isolation on top of an elevation +that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant +blue hills. It is a cosy nest, with just room in it for a sofa and a +table and three or four chairs--and when the storms sweep down the remote +valley and the lightning flashes above the hills beyond, and the rain +beats upon the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it! It stands +500 feet above the valley and 2 « miles from it. + +However one must not write all day. We send continents of love to you +and yours. + Affectionately + MARK. + + + We have mentioned before that Clemens had settled his mother and + sister at Fredonia, New York, and when Mrs. Clemens was in condition + to travel he concluded to pay them a visit. + + It proved an unfortunate journey; the hot weather was hard on Mrs. + Clemens, and harder still, perhaps, on Mark Twain's temper. At any + period of his life a bore exasperated him, and in these earlier days + he was far more likely to explode than in his mellower age. Remorse + always followed--the price he paid was always costly. We cannot + know now who was the unfortunate that invited the storm, but in the + next letter we get the echoes of it and realize something of its + damage. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 15. +MX DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I came away from Fredonia ashamed of myself; +--almost too much humiliated to hold up my head and say good-bye. For I +began to comprehend how much harm my conduct might do you socially in +your village. I would have gone to that detestable oyster-brained bore +and apologized for my inexcusable rudeness to him, but that I was +satisfied he was of too small a calibre to know how to receive an apology +with magnanimity. + +Pamela appalled me by saying people had hinted that they wished to visit +Livy when she came, but that she had given them no encouragement. +I feared that those people would merely comprehend that their courtesies +were not wanted, and yet not know exactly why they were not wanted. + +I came away feeling that in return for your constant and tireless efforts +to secure our bodily comfort and make our visit enjoyable, I had basely +repaid you by making you sad and sore-hearted and leaving you so. And +the natural result has fallen to me likewise--for a guilty conscience has +harassed me ever since, and I have not had one short quarter of an hour +of peace to this moment. + +You spoke of Middletown. Why not go there and live? Mr. Crane says it +is only about a hundred miles this side of New York on the Erie road. +The fact that one or two of you might prefer to live somewhere else is +not a valid objection--there are no 4 people who would all choose the +same place--so it will be vain to wait for the day when your tastes shall +be a unit. I seriously fear that our visit has damaged you in Fredonia, +and so I wish you were out of it. + +The baby is fat and strong, and Susie the same. Susie was charmed with +the donkey and the doll. + Ys affectionately + SAML. + +P. S.--DEAR MA AND PAMELA--I am mainly grieved because I have been rude +to a man who has been kind to you--and if you ever feel a desire to +apologize to him for me, you may be sure that I will endorse the apology, +no matter how strong it may be. I went to his bank to apologize to him, +but my conviction was strong that he was not man enough to know how to +take an apology and so I did not make it. + + + William Dean Howells was in those days writing those vividly + realistic, indeed photographic stories which fixed his place among + American men of letters. He had already written 'Their Wedding + Journey' and 'A Chance Acquaintance' when 'A Foregone Conclusion' + appeared. For the reason that his own work was so different, and + perhaps because of his fondness for the author, Clemens always + greatly admired the books of Howells. Howells's exact observation + and his gift for human detail seemed marvelous to Mark Twain, who + with a bigger brush was inclined to record the larger rather than + the minute aspects of life. The sincerity of his appreciation of + Howells, however, need not be questioned, nor, for that matter, his + detestation of Scott. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 22, 1874. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I have just finished reading the 'Foregone Conclusion' to +Mrs. Clemens and we think you have even outdone yourself. I should think +that this must be the daintiest, truest, most admirable workmanship that +was ever put on a story. The creatures of God do not act out their +natures more unerringly than yours do. If your genuine stories can die, +I wonder by what right old Walter Scott's artificialities shall continue +to live. + +I brought Mrs. Clemens back from her trip in a dreadfully broken-down +condition--so by the doctor's orders we unpacked the trunks sorrowfully +to lie idle here another month instead of going at once to Hartford and +proceeding to furnish the new house which is now finished. We hate to +have it go longer desolate and tenantless, but cannot help it. + +By and by, if the madam gets strong again, we are hoping to have the +Grays there, and you and the Aldrich households, and Osgood, down to +engage in an orgy with them. + Ys Ever + MARK + + + Howells was editor of the Atlantic by this time, and had been urging + Clemens to write something suitable for that magazine. He had done + nothing, however, until this summer at Quarry Farm. There, one + night in the moonlight, Mrs. Crane's colored cook, who had been a + slave, was induced to tell him her story. It was exactly the story + to appeal to Mark Twain, and the kind of thing he could write. He + set it down next morning, as nearly in her own words and manner as + possible, without departing too far from literary requirements. + + He decided to send this to Howells. He did not regard it very + highly, but he would take the chance. An earlier offering to the + magazine had been returned. He sent the "True Story," with a brief + note: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Sept. 2, '74. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- .....I enclose also a "True Story" which has no humor +in it. You can pay as lightly as you choose for that, if you want it, +for it is rather out of my line. I have not altered the old colored +woman's story except to begin at the beginning, instead of the middle, as +she did--and traveled both ways..... + Yrs Ever + MARK. + + But Howells was delighted with it. He referred to its "realest kind + of black talk," and in another place added, "This little story + delights me more and more. I wish you had about forty of them." + + Along with the "True Story" Mark Twain had sent the "Fable for Good + Old Boys and Girls"; but this Howells returned, not, as he said, + because he didn't like it, but because the Atlantic on matters of + religion was just in that "Good Lord, Good Devil condition when a + little fable like yours wouldn't leave it a single Presbyterian, + Baptist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Methodist, or Millerite paying + subscriber, while all the deadheads would stick to it and abuse it + in the denominational newspapers!" + + But the shorter MS. had been only a brief diversion. Mark Twain was + bowling along at a book and a play. The book was Tom Sawyer, as + already mentioned, and the play a dramatization from The Gilded Age. + Clemens had all along intended to dramatize the story of Colonel + Sellers, and was one day thunderstruck to receive word from + California that a San Francisco dramatist had appropriated his + character in a play written for John T. Raymond. Clemens had taken + out dramatic copyright on the book, and immediately stopped the + performance by telegraph. A correspondence between the author and + the dramatist followed, leading to a friendly arrangement by which + the latter agreed to dispose of his version to Mark Twain. A good + deal of discussion from time to time having arisen over the + authorship of the Sellers play, as presented by Raymond, certain + among the letters that follow may be found of special interest. + Meanwhile we find Clemens writing to Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, + on these matters and events in general. The book MS., which he + mentions as having put aside, was not touched again for nearly a + year. + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + QUARRY FARM, NEAR ELMIRA, N. Y. + Sept. 4, 1874. +DEAR FRIEND,--I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an +average, for sometime now, on a book (a story) and consequently have been +so wrapped up in it and so dead to anything else, that I have fallen +mighty short in letter-writing. But night before last I discovered that +that day's chapter was a failure, in conception, moral truth to nature, +and execution--enough blemish to impair the excellence of almost any +chapter--and so I must burn up the day's work and do it all over again. +It was plain that I had worked myself out, pumped myself dry. So I +knocked off, and went to playing billiards for a change. I haven't had +an idea or a fancy for two days, now--an excellent time to write to +friends who have plenty of ideas and fancies of their own, and so will +prefer the offerings of the heart before those of the head. Day after +to-morrow I go to a neighboring city to see a five-act-drama of mine +brought out, and suggest amendments in it, and would about as soon spend +a night in the Spanish Inquisition as sit there and be tortured with all +the adverse criticisms I can contrive to imagine the audience is +indulging in. But whether the play be successful or not, I hope I shall +never feel obliged to see it performed a second time. My interest in my +work dies a sudden and violent death when the work is done. + +I have invented and patented a pretty good sort of scrap-book (I think) +but I have backed down from letting it be known as mine just at present +--for I can't stand being under discussion on a play and a scrap-book at +the same time! + +I shall be away two days, and then return to take our tribe to New York, +where we shall remain five days buying furniture for the new house, and +then go to Hartford and settle solidly down for the winter. After all +that fallow time I ought to be able to go to work again on the book. +We shall reach Hartford about the middle of September, I judge. + +We have spent the past four months up here on top of a breezy hill, six +hundred feet high, some few miles from Elmira, N. Y., and overlooking +that town; (Elmira is my wife's birthplace and that of Susie and the new +baby). This little summer house on the hill-top (named Quarry Farm +because there's a quarry on it,) belongs to my wife's sister, Mrs. Crane. + +A photographer came up the other day and wanted to make some views, +and I shall send you the result per this mail. + +My study is a snug little octagonal den, with a coal-grate, 6 big +windows, one little one, and a wide doorway (the latter opening upon the +distant town.) On hot days I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers +down with brickbats and write in the midst of the hurricanes, clothed in +the same thin linen we make shirts of. The study is nearly on the peak +of the hill; it is right in front of the little perpendicular wall of +rock left where they used to quarry stones. On the peak of the hill is +an old arbor roofed with bark and covered with the vine you call the +"American Creeper"--its green is almost bloodied with red. The Study is +30 yards below the old arbor and 200 yards above the dwelling-house-it is +remote from all noises..... + +Now isn't the whole thing pleasantly situated? + +In the picture of me in the study you glimpse (through the left-hand +window) the little rock bluff that rises behind the pond, and the bases +of the little trees on top of it. The small square window is over the +fireplace; the chimney divides to make room for it. Without the +stereoscope it looks like a framed picture. All the study windows have +Venetian blinds; they long ago went out of fashion in America but they +have not been replaced with anything half as good yet. + +The study is built on top of a tumbled rock-heap that has morning-glories +climbing about it and a stone stairway leading down through and dividing +it. + +There now--if you have not time to read all this, turn it over to "Jock" +and drag in the judge to help. + +Mrs. Clemens must put in a late picture of Susie--a picture which she +maintains is good, but which I think is slander on the child. + +We revisit the Rutland Street home many a time in fancy, for we hold +every individual in it in happy and grateful memory. + Goodbye, + Your friend, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S.--I gave the P. O. Department a blast in the papers about sending +misdirected letters of mine back to the writers for reshipment, and got a +blast in return, through a New York daily, from the New York postmaster. +But I notice that misdirected letters find me, now, without any +unnecessary fooling around. + + + The new house in Hartford was now ready to be occupied, and in a + letter to Howells, written a little more than a fortnight after the + foregoing, we find them located in "part" of it. But what seems + more interesting is that paragraph of the letter which speaks of + close friendly relations still existing with the Warners, in that it + refutes a report current at this time that there was a break between + Clemens and Warner over the rights in the Sellers play. There was, + in fact, no such rupture. Warner, realizing that he had no hand in + the character of Sellers, and no share in the work of dramatization, + generously yielded all claim to any part of the returns. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Sept. 20, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- All right, my boy, send proof sheets here. I amend +dialect stuff by talking and talking and talking it till it sounds right- +and I had difficulty with this negro talk because a negro sometimes +(rarely) says "goin" and sometimes "gwyne," and they make just such +discrepancies in other words--and when you come to reproduce them on +paper they look as if the variation resulted from the writer's +carelessness. But I want to work at the proofs and get the dialect as +nearly right as possible. + +We are in part of the new house. Goodness knows when we'll get in the +rest of it--full of workmen yet. + +I worked a month at my play, and launched it in New York last Wednesday. +I believe it will go. The newspapers have been complimentary. It is +simply a setting for the one character, Col. Sellers--as a play I guess +it will not bear a critical assault in force. + +The Warners are as charming as ever. They go shortly to the devil for a +year--(which is but a poetical way of saying they are going to afflict +themselves with the unsurpassable--(bad word) of travel for a spell.) +I believe they mean to go and see you, first-so they mean to start from +heaven to the other place; not from earth. How is that? + +I think that is no slouch of a compliment--kind of a dim religious light +about it. I enjoy that sort of thing. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + Raymond, in a letter to the Sun, stated that not "one line" of the + California dramatization had been used by Mark Twain, "except that + which was taken bodily from The Gilded Age." Clemens himself, in a + statement that he wrote for the Hartford Post, but suppressed, + probably at the request of his wife, gave a full history of the + play's origin, a matter of slight interest to-day. + + Sellers on the stage proved a great success. The play had no + special merit as a literary composition, but the character of + Sellers delighted the public, and both author and actor were richly + repaid for their entertainment. + + + + +XIV. + +LETTERS 1874. MISSISSIPPI CHAPTERS. VISITS TO BOSTON. +A JOKE ON ALDRICH + +"Couldn't you send me some such story as that colored one for our January +number--that is, within a month?" wrote Howells, at the end of September, +and during the week following Mark Twain struggled hard to comply, but +without result. When the month was nearly up he wrote: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 2¢, 1874. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have delayed thus long, hoping I might do something +for the January number and Mrs. Clemens has diligently persecuted me day +by day with urgings to go to work and do that something, but it's no use +--I find I can't. We are in such a state of weary and endless confusion +that my head won't go. So I give it up..... + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + But two hours later, when he had returned from one of the long walks + which he and Twichell so frequently took together, he told a + different story. + + +Later, P.M. HOME, 24th '74. + +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I take back the remark that I can't write for the Jan. +number. For Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods and I got +to telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and +grandeur as I saw them (during 5 years) from the pilothouse. He said +"What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!" I hadn't thought of that +before. Would you like a series of papers to run through 3 months or 6 +or 9?--or about 4 months, say? + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + Howells himself had come from a family of pilots, and rejoiced in + the idea. A few days later Mark Twain forwarded the first + instalment of the new series--those wonderful chapters that begin, + now, with chapter four in the Mississippi book. Apparently he was + not without doubt concerning the manuscript, and accompanied it with + a brief line. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + +DEAR HOWELLS,--Cut it, scarify it, reject it handle it with entire +freedom. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + But Howells had no doubts as to the quality of the new find. He + declared that the "piece" about the Mississippi was capital, that it + almost made the water in their ice-pitcher turn muddy as he read it. + "The sketch of the low-lived little town was so good that I could + have wished that there was more of it. I want the sketches, if you + can make them, every month." + + The "low-lived little town" was Hannibal, and the reader can turn to + the vivid description of it in the chapter already mentioned. + + In the same letter Howells refers to a "letter from Limerick," which + he declares he shall keep until he has shown it around--especially + to Aldrich and Osgood. + + The "letter from Limerick" has to do with a special episode. + Mention has just been made of Mark Twain's walk with Twichell. + Frequently their walks were extended tramps, and once in a daring + moment one or the other of them proposed to walk to Boston. The + time was November, and the bracing air made the proposition seem + attractive. They were off one morning early, Twichell carrying a + little bag, and Clemens a basket of luncheon. A few days before, + Clemens had written Redpath that the Rev. J. H. Twichell and he + expected to start at eight o'clock Thursday morning "to walk to + Boston in twenty-four hours--or more. We shall telegraph Young's + Hotel for rooms Saturday night, in order to allow for a low average + of pedestrianism." + + They did not get quite to Boston. In fact, they got only a little + farther than the twenty-eight miles they made the first day. + Clemens could hardly walk next morning, but they managed to get to + North Ashford, where they took a carriage for the nearest railway + station. There they telegraphed to Redpath and Howells that they + would be in Boston that evening. Howells, of course, had a good + supper and good company awaiting them at his home, and the + pedestrians spent two happy days visiting and recounting their + adventures. + + It was one morning, at his hotel, that Mark Twain wrote the Limerick + letter. It was addressed to Mrs. Clemens, but was really intended + for Howells and Twichell and the others whom it mentions. It was an + amusing fancy, rather than a letter, but it deserves place here. + + + To Mrs. Clemens---intended for Howells, Aldrich, etc. + + BOSTON, Nov. 16, 1935. [1874] +DEAR LIVY, You observe I still call this beloved old place by the name it +had when I was young. Limerick! It is enough to make a body sick. + +The gentlemen-in-waiting stare to see me sit here telegraphing this +letter to you, and no doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let +them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I +will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed, +holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a +thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it, +it makes me frantic with rage; and then am I more implacably fixed and +resolved than ever, to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you +what I communicate in ten sends by the new way if I would so debase +myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn drawing-room full of +idiots sitting with their hands on each other's foreheads "communing," I +tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the +blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked +pure drivel and "rot," mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than +these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in this mad +generation. + +It is sixty years since I was here before. I walked hither, then, with +my precious old friend. It seems incredible, now, that we did it in two +days, but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked +back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of +the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the +puerile organisms in this effeminate age attempting such a feat. + +My air-ship was delayed by a collision with a fellow from China loaded +with the usual cargo of jabbering, copper-colored missionaries, and so I +was nearly an hour on my journey. But by the goodness of God thirteen of +the missionaries were crippled and several killed, so I was content to +lose the time. I love to lose time, anyway, because it brings soothing +reminiscences of the creeping railroad days of old, now lost to us +forever. + +Our game was neatly played, and successfully.--None expected us, of +course. You should have seen the guards at the ducal palace stare when +I said, "Announce his grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Rt. Hon. +the Earl of Hartford." Arrived within, we were all eyes to see the Duke +of Cambridge and his Duchess, wondering if we might remember their faces, +and they ours. In a moment, they came tottering in; he, bent and +withered and bald; she blooming with wholesome old age. He peered +through his glasses a moment, then screeched in a reedy voice: "Come to +my arms! Away with titles--I'll know ye by no names but Twain and +Twichell! Then fell he on our necks and jammed his trumpet in his ear, +the which we filled with shoutings to this effect: "God bless you, old +Howells what is left of you!" + +We talked late that night--none of your silent idiot "communings" for us +--of the olden time. We rolled a stream of ancient anecdotes over our +tongues and drank till the lord Archbishop grew so mellow in the mellow +past that Dublin ceased to be Dublin to him and resumed its sweeter +forgotten name of New York. In truth he almost got back into his ancient +religion, too, good Jesuit, as he has always been since O'Mulligan the +First established that faith in the Empire. + +And we canvassed everybody. Bailey Aldrich, Marquis of Ponkapog, came +in, got nobly drunk, and told us all about how poor Osgood lost his +earldom and was hanged for conspiring against the second Emperor--but +he didn't mention how near he himself came to being hanged, too, for +engaging in the same enterprise. He was as chaffy as he was sixty years +ago, too, and swore the Archbishop and I never walked to Boston--but +there was never a day that Ponkapog wouldn't lie, so be it by the grace +of God he got the opportunity. + +The Lord High Admiral came in, a hale gentleman close upon seventy and +bronzed by the suns and storms of many climes and scarred with the wounds +got in many battles, and I told him how I had seen him sit in a high +chair and eat fruit and cakes and answer to the name of Johnny. His +granddaughter (the eldest) is but lately warned to the youngest of the +Grand Dukes, and so who knows but a day may come when the blood of the +Howells's may reign in the land? I must not forget to say, while I think +of it, that your new false teeth are done, my dear, and your wig. Keep +your head well bundled with a shawl till the latter comes, and so cheat +your persecuting neuralgias and rheumatisms. Would you believe it?--the +Duchess of Cambridge is deafer than you--deafer than her husband. They +call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it +thunders she looks up expectantly and says "come in....." + +The monument to the author of "Gloverson and His Silent partners" is +finished. It is the stateliest and the costliest ever erected to the +memory of any man. This noble classic has now been translated into all +the languages of the earth and is adored by all nations and known to all +creatures. Yet I have conversed as familiarly with the author of it as I +do with my own great-grandchildren. + +I wish you could see old Cambridge and Ponkapog. I love them as dearly +as ever, but privately, my dear, they are not much improvement on idiots. +It is melancholy to hear them jabber over the same pointless anecdotes +three and four times of an evening, forgetting that they had jabbered +them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes +poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his +best effort of late years is this: + + "O soul, soul, soul of mine: + Soul, soul, soul of thine! + Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine, + And sing thy lauds in crystal wine!" + +This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch +that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him. + +But I must desist. There are drafts here, everywhere and my gout is +something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder. + God be with you. + HARTFORD. + +These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the upper portion +of the city of Dublin. + + + One may imagine the joy of Howells and the others in this ludicrous + extravaganza, which could have been written by no one but Mark + Twain. It will hardly take rank as prophecy, though certainly true + forecast in it is not wholly lacking. + + Clemens was now pretty well satisfied with his piloting story, but + he began to have doubts as to its title, "Old Times on the + Mississippi." It seemed to commit him to too large an undertaking. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Dec. 3, 1874. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Let us change the heading to "Piloting on the Miss in +the Old Times"--or to "Steamboating on the M. in Old Times"--or to +"Personal Old Times on the Miss."--We could change it for Feb. if now +too late for Jan.--I suggest it because the present heading is too +pretentious, too broad and general. It seems to command me to deliver a +Second Book of Revelation to the world, and cover all the Old Times the +Mississippi (dang that word, it is worse than "type" or "Egypt ") ever +saw--whereas here I have finished Article No. III and am about to start +on No. 4. and yet I have spoken of nothing but of Piloting as a science +so far; and I doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject. +And I don't care to. Any muggins can write about Old Times on the Miss. +of 500 different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble +about the piloting of that day--and no man ever has tried to scribble +about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time--and it is about the +only new subject I know of. If I were to write fifty articles they would +all be about pilots and piloting--therefore let's get the word Piloting +into the heading. There's a sort of freshness about that, too. + Ys ever, + MARK. + + + But Howells thought the title satisfactory, and indeed it was the + best that could have been selected for the series. He wrote every + few days of his delight in the papers, and cautioned the author not + to make an attempt to please any "supposed Atlantic audience," + adding, "Yarn it off into my sympathetic ear." Clemens replied: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + H't'f'd. Dec. 8, 1874. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It isn't the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for +it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for +the simple reason that it doesn't require a "humorist" to paint himself +striped and stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was, +that I was only bent on "working up an atmosphere" and that is to me a +most fidgety and irksome thing, sometimes. I avoid it, usually, but in +this case it was absolutely necessary, else every reader would be +applying the atmosphere of his own or sea experiences, and that shirt +wouldn't fit, you know. + +I could have sent this Article II a week ago, or more, but I couldn't +bring myself to the drudgery of revising and correcting it. I have been +at that tedious work 3 hours, now, and by George but I am glad it is +over. + +Say--I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted +--otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist. Tell me what day and +date you want Nos. 3 and 4, and I will tackle and revise them and they'll +be there to the minute. + +I could wind up with No. 4., but there are some things more which I am +powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person +who would quit authorizing in a minute to go to piloting, if the madam +would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time. + +My wife was afraid to write you--so I said with simplicity, "I will give +you the language--and ideas." Through the infinite grace of God there +has not been such another insurrection in the family before as followed +this. However, the letter was written, and promptly, too--whereas, +heretofore she has remained afraid to do such things. + +With kind regards to Mrs. Howells, + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The "Old Times" papers appeared each month in the Atlantic until + July, 1875, and take rank to-day with Mark Twain's best work. When + the first number appeared, John Hay wrote: "It is perfect; no more + nor less. I don't see how you do it." Which was reported to + Howells, who said: "What business has Hay, I should like to know, + praising a favorite of mine? It's interfering." + + These were the days when the typewriter was new. Clemens and + Twichell, during their stay in Boston, had seen the marvel in + operation, and Clemens had been unable to resist owning one. It was + far from being the perfect machine of to-day; the letters were all + capitals, and one was never quite certain, even of those. Mark + Twain, however, began with enthusiasm and practised faithfully. On + the day of its arrival he wrote two letters that have survived, the + first to his brother, the other to Howells. + + + Typewritten letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 9, 1874. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want to add a short paragraph to article No. 1, when +the proof comes. Merely a line or two, however. + +I don't know whether I am going to make this typewriting machine go or +nto: that last word was intended for n-not; but I guess I shall make some +sort of a succss of it before I run it very long. I am so thick-fingered +that I miss the keys. + +You needn't a swer this; I am only practicing to get three; another slip- +up there; only practici?ng to get the hang of the thing. I notice I miss +fire & get in a good many unnecessary letters and punctuation marks. +I am simply using you for a target to bang at. Blame my cats but this +thing requires genius in order to work it just right. + Yours ever, + (M)ARK. + + + + Knowing Mark Twain, Howells wrote: "When you get tired of the + machine send it to me." Clemens naturally did get tired of the + machine; it was ruining his morals, he said. He presently offered + it to Howells, who by this time hesitated, but eventually yielded + and accepted it. If he was blasted by its influence the fact has + not been recorded. + + One of the famous Atlantic dinners came along in December. "Don't + you dare to refuse that invitation," wrote Howells, "to meet + Emerson, Aldrich, and all those boys at the Parker House, at six + o'clock, Tuesday, December 15th. Come!" + + Clemens had no desire to refuse; he sent word that he would come, + and followed it with a characteristic line. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Sunday. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want you to ask Mrs. Howells to let you stay all +night at the Parker House and tell lies and have an improving time, and +take breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you, +and a fire. Can't you tell her it always makes you sick to go home late +at night, or something like that? That sort of thing rouses Mrs. +Clemens's sympathies, easily; the only trouble is to keep them up. +Twichell and I talked till 2 or 3 in the morning, the night we supped at +your house and it restored his health, on account of his being drooping +for some time and made him much more robuster than what he was before. +Will Mrs. Howells let you? + Yrs ever, + S. L. C. + + Aldrich had issued that year a volume of poems, and he presented + Clemens with a copy of it during this Boston visit. The letter of + appreciation which follows contains also reference to an amusing + incident; but we shall come to that presently. + + + To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass. + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD. + Dec. 18, 1874. +MY DEAR ALDRICH,--I read the "Cloth of Gold" through, coming down in the +cars, and it is just lightning poetry--a thing which it gravels me to say +because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently +unrecognized, in consequence of the envy and jealousy of this generation. +"Baby Bell" always seemed perfection, before, but now that I have +children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was reading +it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home and forthwith fell upon +me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This was +pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it. + +"Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded" etc., "in one of the brightest speeches +of the evening." + +That is what the Tribune correspondent says. And that is what everybody +that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don't ever be so unwise +as to go on trying to unconvince those people. + +I've been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. +Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun +in skating if you could do it with somebody else's muscles.--There are +about twenty boys booming by the house, now, and it is mighty good to +look at. + +I'm keeping you in mind, you see, in the matter of photographs. I have +a couple to enclose in this letter and I want you to say you got them, +and then I shall know I have been a good truthful child. + +I am going to send more as I ferret them out, about the place.--And I +won't forget that you are a "subscriber." + +The wife and I unite in warm regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich. + Yrs ever, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + A letter bearing the same date as the above went back to Howells, we + find, in reference to still another incident, which perhaps should + come first. + + Mark Twain up to this time had worn the black "string" necktie of + the West--a decoration which disturbed Mrs. Clemens, and invited + remarks from his friends. He had persisted in it, however, up to + the date of the Atlantic dinner, when Howells and Aldrich decided + that something must be done about it. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 18, 1874. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I left No. 3, (Miss. chapter) in my eldest's reach, and +it may have gone to the postman and it likewise may have gone into the +fire. I confess to a dread that the latter is the case and that that +stack of MS will have to be written over again. If so, O for the return +of the lamented Herod! + +You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful--Mrs. +Clemens. For months--I may even say years--she had shown unaccountable +animosity toward my neck-tie, even getting up in the night to take it +with the tongs and blackguard it--sometimes also going so far as to +threaten it. + +When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that they +were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of happiness +until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom in her +nature gathered itself together,--insomuch that I, being near to a door, +went without, perceiving danger. + +Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs. +Clemens's eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the person +of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime. + +Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the +words you had written in that book. He and I went to the Concert of the +Yale students last night and had a good time. + +Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she'll have +to give her consent this time. + +With kindest regards unto ye both. + Yrs ever, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew + naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers. + The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit + it and take Howells with him. Howells was willing enough to go and + they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion. This + seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for + some date in the future still unfixed. But Howells was a busy + editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly + than to agree on a definite time of departure. He explained at + length why he could not make the journey, and added: "Forgive me + having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to + that; I supposed you would die, or something. I am really more + sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear." So the beautiful plan + was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time. + + We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to + Aldrich, of December the 18th. It had its beginning at the Atlantic + dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any + photographs of himself. It was suggested by one or the other that + his name be put down as a "regular subscriber" for all Mark Twain + photographs as they "came out." Clemens returned home and hunted up + fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began + mailing them to him, one each morning. When a few of them had + arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting. + + "The police," he said, "have a way of swooping down on that kind of + publication. The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of + 'The Life in New York.'" + + Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection--forty-five + envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together. + + Aldrich wrote, now, violently declaring the perpetrator of the + outrage to be known to the police; that a sprawling yellow figure + against a green background had been recognized as an admirable + likeness of Mark Twain, alias the jumping Frog, a well-known + Californian desperado, formerly the chief of Henry Plummer's band of + road agents in Montana. The letter was signed, "T. Bayleigh, Chief + of Police." On the back of the envelope "T. Bayleigh" had also + written that it was "no use for the person to send any more letters, + as the post-office at that point was to be blown up. Forty-eight + hogs-head of nitroglycerine had been syrupticiously introduced into + the cellar of the building, and more was expected. R.W.E. H.W.L. + O.W.H., and other conspirators in masks have been seen flitting + about the town for some days past. The greatest excitement combined + with the most intense quietness reigns at Ponkapog." + + + + +XV. + +LETTERS FROM HARTFORD, 1875. MUCH CORRESPONDENCE WITH HOWELLS + +Orion Clemens had kept his job with Bliss only a short time. His mental +make-up was such that it was difficult for him to hold any position long. +He meant to do well, but he was unfortunate in his efforts. His ideas +were seldom practical, his nature was yielding and fickle. He had +returned to Keokuk presently, and being convinced there was a fortune in +chickens, had prevailed upon his brother to purchase for him a little +farm not far from the town. But the chicken business was not lively and +Orion kept the mail hot with manuscripts and propositions of every sort, +which he wanted his brother to take under advisement. + +Certainly, to Mark Twain Orion Clemens was a trial. The letters of the +latter show that scarcely one of them but contains the outline of some +rainbow-chasing scheme, full of wild optimism, and the certainty that +somewhere just ahead lies the pot of gold. Only, now and then, there is +a letter of abject humiliation and complete surrender, when some golden +vision, some iridescent soap-bubble, had vanished at his touch. Such +depression did not last; by sunrise he was ready with a new dream, new +enthusiasm, and with a new letter inviting his "brother Sam's" interest +and investment. Yet, his fear of incurring his brother's displeasure was +pitiful, regardless of the fact that he constantly employed the very +means to insure that result. At one time Clemens made him sign a sworn +agreement that he would not suggest any plan or scheme of investment for +the period of twelve months. Orion must have kept this agreement. He +would have gone to the stake before he would have violated an oath, but +the stake would have probably been no greater punishment than his +sufferings that year. + +On the whole, Samuel Clemens was surprisingly patient and considerate +with Orion, and there was never a time that he was not willing to help. +Yet there were bound to be moments of exasperation; and once, when his +mother, or sister, had written, suggesting that he encourage his +brother's efforts, he felt moved to write at considerable freedom. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.: + + HARTFORD, Sunday, 1875. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I Saw Gov. Newell today and he said he was +still moving in the matter of Sammy's appointment--[As a West Point +cadet.]--and would stick to it till he got a result of a positive nature +one way or the other, but thus far he did not know whether to expect +success or defeat. + +Ma, whenever you need money I hope you won't be backward about saying so +--you can always have it. We stint ourselves in some ways, but we have +no desire to stint you. And we don't intend to, either. + +I can't "encourage" Orion. Nobody can do that, conscientiously, for the +reason that before one's letter has time to reach him he is off on some +new wild-goose chase. Would you encourage in literature a man who, the +older he grows the worse he writes? Would you encourage Orion in the +glaring insanity of studying law? If he were packed and crammed full of +law, it would be worthless lumber to him, for his is such a capricious +and ill-regulated mind that he would apply the principles of the law with +no more judgment than a child of ten years. I know what I am saying. +I laid one of the plainest and simplest of legal questions before Orion +once, and the helpless and hopeless mess he made of it was absolutely +astonishing. Nothing aggravates me so much as to have Orion mention law +or literature to me. + +Well, I cannot encourage him to try the ministry, because he would change +his religion so fast that he would have to keep a traveling agent under +wages to go ahead of him to engage pulpits and board for him. + +I cannot conscientiously encourage him to do anything but potter around +his little farm and put in his odd hours contriving new and impossible +projects at the rate of 365 a year--which is his customary average. +He says he did well in Hannibal! Now there is a man who ought to be +entirely satisfied with the grandeurs, emoluments and activities of a hen +farm-- + +If you ask me to pity Orion, I can do that. I can do it every day and +all day long. But one can't "encourage" quick-silver, because the +instant you put your finger on it it isn't there. No, I am saying too +much--he does stick to his literary and legal aspirations; and he +naturally would select the very two things which he is wholly and +preposterously unfitted for. If I ever become able, I mean to put Orion +on a regular pension without revealing the fact that it is a pension. +That is best for him. Let him consider it a periodical loan, and pay +interest out of the principal. Within a year's time he would be looking +upon himself as a benefactor of mine, in the way of furnishing me a good +permanent investment for money, and that would make him happy and +satisfied with himself. If he had money he would share with me in a +moment and I have no disposition to be stingy with him. + Affly + SAM. +Livy sends love. + + + The New Orleans plan was not wholly dead at this time. Howells + wrote near the end of January that the matter was still being + debated, now and then, but was far from being decided upon. He + hoped to go somewhere with Mrs. Howells for a brief time in March, + he said. Clemens, in haste, replied: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Jan. 26, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--When Mrs. Clemens read your letter she said: "Well, +then, wherever they go, in March, the direction will be southward and so +they must give us a visit on the way." I do not know what sort of +control you may be under, but when my wife speaks as positively as that, +I am not in the habit of talking back and getting into trouble. Situated +as I am, I would not be able to understand, now, how you could pass by +this town without feeling that you were running a wanton risk and doing a +daredevil thing. I consider it settled that you are to come in March, +and I would be sincerely sorry to learn that you and Mrs. Howells feel +differently about it. + +The piloting material has been uncovering itself by degrees, until it has +exposed such a huge hoard to my view that a whole book will be required +to contain it if I use it. So I have agreed to write the book for Bliss. +--[The book idea was later given up for the time being.]-- I won't be +able to run the articles in the Atlantic later than the September number, +for the reason that a subscription book issued in the fall has a much +larger sale than if issued at any other season of the year. It is funny +when I reflect that when I originally wrote you and proposed to do from 6 +to 9 articles for the magazine, the vague thought in my mind was that 6 +might exhaust the material and 9 would be pretty sure to do it. Or +rather it seems to me that that was my thought--can't tell at this +distance. But in truth 9 chapters don't now seem to more than open up +the subject fairly and start the yarn to wagging. + +I have been sick a-bed several days, for the first time in 21 years. +How little confirmed invalids appreciate their advantages. I was able to +read the English edition of the Greville Memoirs through without +interruption, take my meals in bed, neglect all business without a pang, +and smoke 18 cigars a day. I try not to look back upon these 21 years +with a feeling of resentment, and yet the partialities of Providence do +seem to me to be slathered around (as one may say) without that gravity +and attention to detail which the real importance of the matter would +seem to suggest. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + The New Orleans idea continued to haunt the letters. The thought of + drifting down the Mississippi so attracted both Clemens and Howells, + that they talked of it when they met, and wrote of it when they were + separated. Howells, beset by uncertainties, playfully tried to put + the responsibility upon his wife. Once he wrote: "She says in the + noblest way, 'Well, go to New Orleans, if you want to so much' (you + know the tone). I suppose it will do if I let you know about the + middle of February?" + + But they had to give it up in the end. Howells wrote that he had + been under the weather, and on half work the whole winter. He did + not feel that he had earned his salary, he said, or that he was + warranted in taking a three weeks' pleasure trip. Clemens offered + to pay all the expenses of the trip, but only indefinite + postponement followed. It would be seven years more before Mark + Twain would return to the river, and then not with Howells. + + In a former chapter mention has been made of Charles Warren + Stoddard, whom Mark Twain had known in his California days. He was + fond of Stoddard, who was a facile and pleasing writer of poems and + descriptive articles. During the period that he had been acting as + Mark Twain's secretary in London, he had taken pleasure in + collecting for him the news reports of the celebrated Tichborn + Claimant case, then in the English courts. Clemens thought of + founding a story on it, and did, in fact, use the idea, though 'The + American Claimant,' which he wrote years later, had little or no + connection with the Tichborn episode. + + + To C. W. Stoddard: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 1, 1875. +DEAR CHARLEY,--All right about the Tichborn scrapbooks; send them along +when convenient. I mean to have the Beecher-Tilton trial scrap-book as a +companion..... + +I am writing a series of 7-page articles for the Atlantic at $20 a page; +but as they do not pay anybody else as much as that, I do not complain +(though at the same time I do swear that I am not content.) However the +awful respectability of the magazine makes up. + +I have cut your articles about San Marco out of a New York paper (Joe +Twichell saw it and brought it home to me with loud admiration,) and sent +it to Howells. It is too bad to fool away such good literature in a +perishable daily journal. + +Do remember us kindly to Lady Hardy and all that rare family--my wife and +I so often have pleasant talks about them. + Ever your friend, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + + The price received by Mark Twain for the Mississippi papers, as + quoted in this letter, furnishes us with a realizing sense of the + improvement in the literary market, with the advent of a flood of + cheap magazines and the Sunday newspaper. The Atlantic page + probably contained about a thousand words, which would make his + price average, say, two cents per word. Thirty years later, when + his fame was not much more extended, his pay for the same matter + would have been fifteen times as great, that is to say, at the rate + of thirty cents per word. But in that early time there were no + Sunday magazines--no literary magazines at all except the Atlantic, + and Harpers, and a few fashion periodicals. Probably there were + news-stands, but it is hard to imagine what they must have looked + like without the gay pictorial cover-femininity that to-day pleases + and elevates the public and makes author and artist affluent. + + Clemens worked steadily on the river chapters, and Howells was + always praising him and urging him to go on. At the end of January + he wrote: "You're doing the science of piloting splendidly. Every + word's interesting. And don't you drop the series 'til you've got + every bit of anecdote and reminiscence into it." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 10, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your praises of my literature gave me the solidest +gratification; but I never did have the fullest confidence in my critical +penetration, and now your verdict on S----- has knocked what little I did +have gully-west! I didn't enjoy his gush, but I thought a lot of his +similes were ever so vivid and good. But it's just my luck; every time I +go into convulsions of admiration over a picture and want to buy it right +away before I've lost the chance, some wretch who really understands art +comes along and damns it. But I don't mind. I would rather have my +ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have got so much more +of it. + +I send you No. 5 today. I have written and re-written the first half of +it three different times, yesterday and today, and at last Mrs. Clemens +says it will do. I never saw a woman so hard to please about things she +doesn't know anything about. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + Of course, the reference to his wife's criticism in this is tenderly + playful, as always--of a pattern with the severity which he pretends + for her in the next. + + + To Mrs. W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + 1875 +DEAR MRS. HOWELLS,--Mrs. Clemens is delighted to get the pictures, and so +am I. I can perceive in the group, that Mr. Howells is feeling as I so +often feel, viz: "Well, no doubt I am in the wrong, though I do not know +how or where or why--but anyway it will be safest to look meek, and walk +circumspectly for a while, and not discuss the thing." And you look +exactly as Mrs. Clemens does after she has said, "Indeed I do not wonder +that you can frame no reply: for you know only too well, that your +conduct admits of no excuse, palliation or argument--none! + +I shall just delight in that group on account of the good old human +domestic spirit that pervades it--bother these family groups that put on +a state aspect to get their pictures taken in. + +We want a heliotype made of our eldest daughter. How soft and rich and +lovely the picture is. Mr. Howells must tell me how to proceed in the +matter. + Truly Yours + SAM. L. CLEMENS. + + + In the next letter we have a picture of Susy--[This spelling of the + name was adopted somewhat later and much preferred. It appears as + "Susie" in most of the earlier letters.]--Clemens's third birthday, + certainly a pretty picture, and as sweet and luminous and tender + today as it was forty years ago-as it will be a hundred years hence, + if these lines should survive that long. The letter is to her uncle + Charles Langdon, the "Charlie" of the Quaker City. "Atwater" was + associated with the Langdon coal interests in Elmira. "The play" + is, of course, "The Gilded Age." + + + To Charles Langdon, in Elmira: + + Mch. 19, 1875. +DEAR CHARLIE,--Livy, after reading your letter, used her severest form of +expression about Mr. Atwater--to wit: She did not "approve" of his +conduct. This made me shudder; for it was equivalent to Allie +Spaulding's saying "Mr. Atwater is a mean thing;" or Rev. Thomas +Beecher's saying "Damn that Atwater," or my saying "I wish Atwater was +three hundred million miles in ----!" + +However, Livy does not often get into one of these furies, God be +thanked. + +In Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago, +the play paid me an average of nine hundred dollars a week. In smaller +towns the average is $400 to $500. + +This is Susie's birth-day. Lizzie brought her in at 8.30 this morning +(before we were up) hooded with a blanket, red curl-papers in her hair, a +great red japonica, in one hand (for Livy) and a yellow rose-bud nestled +in violets (for my buttonhole) in the other--and she looked wonderfully +pretty. She delivered her memorials and received her birth-day kisses. +Livy laid her japonica, down to get a better "holt" for kissing-which +Susie presently perceived, and became thoughtful: then said sorrowfully, +turning the great deeps of her eyes upon her mother: "Don't you care for +you wow?" + +Right after breakfast we got up a rousing wood fire in the main hall +(it is a cold morning) illuminated the place with a rich glow from all +the globes of the newell chandelier, spread a bright rug before the fire, +set a circling row of chairs (pink ones and dove-colored) and in the +midst a low invalid-table covered with a fanciful cloth and laden with +the presents--a pink azalia in lavish bloom from Rosa; a gold inscribed +Russia-leather bible from Patrick and Mary; a gold ring (inscribed) from +"Maggy Cook;" a silver thimble (inscribed with motto and initials) from +Lizzie; a rattling mob of Sunday clad dolls from Livy and Annie, and a +Noah's Ark from me, containing 200 wooden animals such as only a human +being could create and only God call by name without referring to the +passenger list. Then the family and the seven servants assembled there, +and Susie and the "Bay" arrived in state from above, the Bay's head being +fearfully and wonderfully decorated with a profusion of blazing red +flowers and overflowing cataracts of lycopodium. Wee congratulatory +notes accompanied the presents of the servants. I tell you it was a +great occasion and a striking and cheery group, taking all the +surroundings into account and the wintry aspect outside. + +(Remainder missing.) + + + There was to be a centennial celebration that year of the battles of + Lexington and Concord, and Howells wrote, urging Clemens and his + wife to visit them and attend it. Mrs. Clemens did not go, and + Clemens and Howells did not go, either--to the celebration. They + had their own ideas about getting there, but found themselves unable + to board the thronged train at Concord, and went tramping about in + the cold and mud, hunting a conveyance, only to return at length to + the cheer of the home, defeated and rather low in spirits. + + Twichell, who went on his own hook, had no such difficulties. To + Howells, Mark Twain wrote the adventures of this athletic and + strenuous exponent of the gospel. + + The "Winnie" mentioned in this letter was Howells's daughter + Winifred. She had unusual gifts, but did not live to develop them. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD. Apl. 23, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- I've got Mrs. Clemens's picture before me, and hope I +shall not forget to send it with this. + +Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took midnight +train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by rail at 7.30 +A. M. for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P. M., seeing +everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw everything +there; traveled on top of a train to Boston, (with hundreds in company) +deluged with dust, smoke and cinders; yelled and hurrahed all the way +like a schoolboy; lay flat down to dodge numerous bridges, and sailed +into the depot, howling with excitement and as black as a chimney-sweep; +got to Young's Hotel at 7 P. M.; sat down in reading-room and immediately +fell asleep; was promptly awakened by a porter who supposed he was drunk; +wandered around an hour and a half; then took 9 P. M. train, sat down in +smoking car and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as +the train came into Hartford at 1.30 A. M. Thinks he had simply a +glorious time--and wouldn't have missed the Centennial for the world. +He would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge, but was too dirty. +I wouldn't have wanted him there--his appalling energy would have been an +insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and me. + +Well, he is welcome to the good time he had--I had a deal better one. +My narrative has made Mrs. Clemens wish she could have been there. --When +I think over what a splendid good sociable time I had in your house I +feel ever so thankful to the wise providence that thwarted our several +ably-planned and ingenious attempts to get to Lexington. I am coming +again before long, and then she shall be of the party. + +Now you said that you and Mrs. Howells could run down here nearly any +Saturday. Very well then, let us call it next Saturday, for a "starter." +Can you do that? By that time it will really be spring and you won't +freeze. The birds are already out; a small one paid us a visit +yesterday. We entertained it and let it go again, Susie protesting. + +The spring laziness is already upon me--insomuch that the spirit begins +to move me to cease from Mississippi articles and everything else and +give myself over to idleness until we go to New Orleans. I have one +article already finished, but somehow it doesn't seem as proper a chapter +to close with as the one already in your hands. I hope to get in a mood +and rattle off a good one to finish with--but just now all my moods are +lazy ones. + +Winnie's literature sings through me yet! Surely that child has one of +these "futures" before her. + +Now try to come--will you? + +With the warmest regards of the two of us-- + Yrs ever, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Mrs. Clemens sent a note to Mrs. Howells, which will serve as a pendant +to the foregoing. + + + From Mrs. Clemens to Mrs. Howells, in Boston: + +MY DEAR MRS. HOWELLS,--Don't dream for one instant that my not getting a +letter from you kept me from Boston. I am too anxious to go to let such +a thing as that keep me. + +Mr. Clemens did have such a good time with you and Mr. Howells. +He evidently has no regret that he did not get to the Centennial. I was +driven nearly distracted by his long account of Mr. Howells and his +wanderings. I would keep asking if they ever got there, he would never +answer but made me listen to a very minute account of everything that +they did. At last I found them back where they started from. + +If you find misspelled words in this note, you will remember my infirmity +and not hold me responsible. + Affectionately yours, + LIVY L. CLEMENS. + +In spite of his success with the Sellers play and his itch to follow it +up, Mark Twain realized what he believed to be his literary limitations. +All his life he was inclined to consider himself wanting in the finer +gifts of character-shading and delicate portrayal. Remembering Huck +Finn, and the rare presentation of Joan of Arc, we may not altogether +agree with him. Certainly, he was never qualified to delineate those +fine artificialities of life which we are likely to associate with +culture, and perhaps it was something of this sort that caused the +hesitation confessed in the letter that follows. Whether the plan +suggested interested Howells or not we do not know. In later years +Howells wrote a novel called The Story of a Play; this may have been its +beginning. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Apl. 26, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--An actor named D. H. Harkins has been here to ask me to +put upon paper a 5-act play which he has been mapping out in his mind for +3 or 4 years. He sat down and told me his plot all through, in a clear, +bright way, and I was a deal taken with it; but it is a line of +characters whose fine shading and artistic development requires an abler +hand than mine; so I easily perceived that I must not make the attempt. +But I liked the man, and thought there was a good deal of stuff in him; +and therefore I wanted his play to be written, and by a capable hand, +too. So I suggested you, and said I would write and see if you would be +willing to undertake it. If you like the idea, he will call upon you in +the course of two or three weeks and describe his plot and his +characters. Then if it doesn't strike you favorably, of course you can +simply decline; but it seems to me well worth while that you should hear +what he has to say. You could also "average" him while he talks, and +judge whether he could play your priest--though I doubt if any man can do +that justice. + +Shan't I write him and say he may call? If you wish to communicate +directly with him instead, his address is "Larchmont Manor, Westchester +Co., N. Y." + +Do you know, the chill of that 19th of April seems to be in my bones yet? +I am inert and drowsy all the time. That was villainous weather for a +couple of wandering children to be out in. + Ys ever + MARK. + + + The sinister typewriter did not find its way to Howells for nearly a + year. Meantime, Mark Twain had refused to allow the manufacturers + to advertise his ownership. He wrote to them: + + + HARTFORD, March 19, 1875. +Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge the +fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter, +for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody +without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe +the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., +etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people to know +I own this curiosity-breeding little joker. + + + Three months later the machine was still in his possession. Bliss + had traded a twelve-dollar saddle for it, but apparently showed + little enthusiasm in his new possession. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + June 25, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I told Patrick to get some carpenters and box the +machine and send it to you--and found that Bliss had sent for the machine +and earned it off. + +I have been talking to you and writing to you as if you were present when +I traded the machine to Bliss for a twelve-dollar saddle worth $25 +(cheating him outrageously, of course--but conscience got the upper hand +again and I told him before I left the premises that I'd pay for the +saddle if he didn't like the machine--on condition that he donate said +machine to a charity) + +This was a little over five weeks ago--so I had long ago concluded that +Bliss didn't want the machine and did want the saddle--wherefore I jumped +at the chance of shoving the machine off onto you, saddle or no saddle so +I got the blamed thing out of my sight. + +The saddle hangs on Tara's walls down below in the stable, and the +machine is at Bliss's grimly pursuing its appointed mission, slowly and +implacably rotting away another man's chances for salvation. + +I have sent Bliss word not to donate it to a charity (though it is a pity +to fool away a chance to do a charity an ill turn,) but to let me know +when he has got his dose, because I've got another candidate for +damnation. You just wait a couple of weeks and if you don't see the +Type-Writer come tilting along toward Cambridge with an unsatisfied +appetite in its eye, I lose my guess. + +Don't you be mad about this blunder, Howells--it only comes of a bad +memory, and the stupidity which is inseparable from true genius. Nothing +intentionally criminal in it. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + It was November when Howells finally fell under the baleful + influence of the machine. He wrote: + + "The typewriter came Wednesday night, and is already beginning to + have its effect on me. Of course, it doesn't work: if I can + persuade some of the letters to get up against the ribbon they won't + get down again without digital assistance. The treadle refuses to + have any part or parcel in the performance; and I don't know how to + get the roller to turn with the paper. Nevertheless I have begun + several letters to My d-a-r lemans, as it prefers to spell your + respected name, and I don't despair yet of sending you something in + its beautiful handwriting--after I've had a man out from the agent's + to put it in order. It's fascinating in the meantime, and it wastes + my time like an old friend." + + The Clemens family remained in Hartford that summer, with the + exception of a brief season at Bateman's Point, R. I., near + Newport. By this time Mark Twain had taken up and finished the Tom + Sawyer story begun two years before. Naturally he wished Howells to + consider the MS. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, July 5th, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have finished the story and didn't take the chap +beyond boyhood. I believe it would be fatal to do it in any shape but +autobiographically--like Gil Blas. I perhaps made a mistake in not +writing it in the first person. If I went on, now, and took him into +manhood, he would just like like all the one-horse men in literature and +the reader would conceive a hearty contempt for him. It is not a boy's +book, at all. It will only be read by adults. It is only written for +adults. + +Moreover the book is plenty long enough as it stands. It is about 900 +pages of MS, and may be 1000 when I shall have finished "working up" +vague places; so it would make from 130 to 150 pages of the Atlantic-- +about what the Foregone Conclusion made, isn't it? + +I would dearly like to see it in the Atlantic, but I doubt if it would +pay the publishers to buy the privilege, or me to sell it. Bret Harte +has sold his novel (same size as mine, I should say) to Scribner's +Monthly for $6,500 (publication to begin in September, I think,) and he +gets a royalty of 7 « per cent from Bliss in book form afterwards. He +gets a royalty of ten per cent on it in England (issued in serial +numbers) and the same royalty on it in book form afterwards, and is to +receive an advance payment of five hundred pounds the day the first No. +of the serial appears. If I could do as well, here, and there, with +mine, it might possibly pay me, but I seriously doubt it though it is +likely I could do better in England than Bret, who is not widely known +there. + +You see I take a vile, mercenary view of things--but then my household +expenses are something almost ghastly. + +By and by I shall take a boy of twelve and run him on through life (in +the first person) but not Tom Sawyer--he would not be a good character +for it. + +I wish you would promise to read the MS of Tom Sawyer some time, and see +if you don't really decide that I am right in closing with him as a boy- +and point out the most glaring defects for me. It is a tremendous favor +to ask, and I expect you to refuse and would be ashamed to expect you to +do otherwise. But the thing has been so many months in my mind that it +seems a relief to snake it out. I don't know any other person whose +judgment I could venture to take fully and entirely. Don't hesitate +about saying no, for I know how your time is taxed, and I would have +honest need to blush if you said yes. + +Osgood and I are "going for" the puppy G---- on infringement of +trademark. To win one or two suits of this kind will set literary folks +on a firmer bottom. I wish Osgood would sue for stealing Holmes's poem. +Wouldn't it be gorgeous to sue R---- for petty larceny? I will promise +to go into court and swear I think him capable of stealing pea-nuts from +a blind pedlar. + Yrs ever, + CLEMENS. + + + Of course Howells promptly replied that he would read the story, + adding: "You've no idea what I may ask you to do for me, some day. + I'm sorry that you can't do it for the Atlantic, but I succumb. + Perhaps you will do Boy No. 2 for us." Clemens, conscience- + stricken, meantime, hastily put the MS. out of reach of temptation. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + July 13, 1875 +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Just as soon as you consented I realized all the +atrocity of my request, and straightway blushed and weakened. +I telegraphed my theatrical agent to come here and carry off the MS and +copy it. + +But I will gladly send it to you if you will do as follows: dramatize it, +if you perceive that you can, and take, for your remuneration, half of +the first $6000 which I receive for its representation on the stage. You +could alter the plot entirely, if you chose. I could help in the work, +most cheerfully, after you had arranged the plot. I have my eye upon two +young girls who can play "Tom" and "Huck." I believe a good deal of a +drama can be made of it. Come--can't you tackle this in the odd hours of +your vacation? or later, if you prefer? + +I do wish you could come down once more before your holiday. I'd give +anything! + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + +Howells wrote that he had no time for the dramatization and urged Clemens +to undertake it himself. He was ready to read the story, whenever it +should arrive. Clemens did not hurry, however, The publication of Tom +Sawyer could wait. He already had a book in press--the volume of +Sketches New and Old, which he had prepared for Bliss several years +before. + +Sketches was issued that autumn, and Howells gave it a good notice-- +possibly better than it deserved. + +Considered among Mark Twain's books to-day, the collection of sketches +does not seem especially important. With the exception of the frog story +and the "True Story" most of those included--might be spared. Clemens +himself confessed to Howells that He wished, when it was too late, that +he had destroyed a number of them. The book, however, was distinguished +in a special way: it contains Mark Twain's first utterance in print on +the subject of copyright, a matter in which he never again lost interest. +The absurdity and injustice of the copyright laws both amused and +irritated him, and in the course of time he would be largely instrumental +in their improvement. In the book his open petition to Congress that all +property rights, as well as literary ownership, should be put on the +copyright basis and limited to a "beneficent term of forty-two years," +was more or less of a joke, but, like so many of Mark Twain's jokes, it +was founded on reason and justice. + +He had another idea, that was not a joke: an early plan in the direction +of international copyright. It was to be a petition signed by the +leading American authors, asking the United States to declare itself to +be the first to stand for right and justice by enacting laws against the +piracy of foreign books. It was a rather utopian scheme, as most schemes +for moral progress are, in their beginning. It would not be likely ever +to reach Congress, but it would appeal to Howells and his Cambridge +friends. Clemens wrote, outlining his plan of action. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Sept. 18, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--My plan is this--you are to get Mr. Lowell and Mr. +Longfellow to be the first signers of my copyright petition; you must +sign it yourself and get Mr. Whittier to do likewise. Then Holmes will +sign--he said he would if he didn't have to stand at the head. Then I'm +fixed. I will then put a gentlemanly chap under wages and send him +personally to every author of distinction in the country, and corral the +rest of the signatures. Then I'll have the whole thing lithographed +(about a thousand copies) and move upon the President and Congress in +person, but in the subordinate capacity of a party who is merely the +agent of better and wiser men--men whom the country cannot venture to +laugh at. + +I will ask the President to recommend the thing in his message (and if he +should ask me to sit down and frame the paragraph for him I should blush +--but still I would frame it.) + +Next I would get a prime leader in Congress: I would also see that votes +enough to carry the measure were privately secured before the bill was +offered. This I would try through my leader and my friends there. + +And then if Europe chose to go on stealing from us, we would say with +noble enthusiasm, "American lawmakers do steal but not from foreign +authors--Not from foreign authors!" + +You see, what I want to drive into the Congressional mind is the simple +fact that the moral law is "Thou shalt not steal"--no matter what Europe +may do. + +I swear I can't see any use in robbing European authors for the benefit +of American booksellers, anyway. + +If we can ever get this thing through Congress, we can try making +copyright perpetual, some day. There would be no sort of use in it, +since only one book in a hundred millions outlives the present copyright +term--no sort of use except that the writer of that one book have his +rights--which is something. + +If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a +sweat to get Him into the Constitution, it would be better all around. + +The only man who ever signed my petition with alacrity, and said that the +fact that a thing was right was all-sufficient, was Rev. Dr. Bushnell. + +I have lost my old petition, (which was brief) but will draft and enclose +another--not in the words it ought to be, but in the substance. I want +Mr. Lowell to furnish the words (and the ideas too,) if he will do it. + +Say--Redpath beseeches me to lecture in Boston in November--telegraphs +that Beecher's and Nast's withdrawal has put him in the tightest kind of +a place. So I guess I'll do that old "Roughing It" lecture over again in +November and repeat it 2 or 3 times in New York while I am at it. + +Can I take a carriage after the lecture and go out and stay with you that +night, provided you find at that distant time that it will not +inconvenience you? Is Aldrich home yet? + With love to you all + Yrs ever, + S. L. C. + + + Of course the petition never reached Congress. Holmes's comment + that governments were not in the habit of setting themselves up as + high moral examples, except for revenue, was shared by too many + others. The petition was tabled, but Clemens never abandoned his + purpose and lived to see most of his dream fulfilled. Meantime, + Howells's notice of the Sketches appeared in the Atlantic, and + brought grateful acknowledgment from the author. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 19, 1875. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--That is a perfectly superb notice. You can easily +believe that nothing ever gratified me so much before. The newspaper +praises bestowed upon the "Innocents Abroad" were large and generous, but +somehow I hadn't confidence in the critical judgement of the parties who +furnished them. You know how that is, yourself, from reading the +newspaper notices of your own books. They gratify a body, but they +always leave a small pang behind in the shape of a fear that the critic's +good words could not safely be depended upon as authority. Yours is the +recognized critical Court of Last Resort in this country; from its +decision there is no appeal; and so, to have gained this decree of yours +before I am forty years old, I regard as a thing to be right down proud +of. Mrs. Clemens says, "Tell him I am just as grateful to him as I can +be." (It sounds as if she were grateful to you for heroically trampling +the truth under foot in order to praise me but in reality it means that +she is grateful to you for being bold enough to utter a truth which she +fully believes all competent people know, but which none has heretofore +been brave enough to utter.) You see, the thing that gravels her is that +I am so persistently glorified as a mere buffoon, as if that entirely +covered my case--which she denies with venom. + +The other day Mrs. Clemens was planning a visit to you, and so I am +waiting with a pleasurable hope for the result of her deliberations. +We are expecting visitors every day, now, from New York; and afterward +some are to come from Elmira. I judge that we shall then be free to go +Bostonward. I should be just delighted; because we could visit in +comfort, since we shouldn't have to do any shopping--did it all in New +York last week, and a tremendous pull it was too. + +Mrs. C. said the other day, "We will go to Cambridge if we have to walk; +for I don't believe we can ever get the Howellses to come here again +until we have been there." I was gratified to see that there was one +string, anyway, that could take her to Cambridge. But I will do her the +justice to say that she is always wanting to go to Cambridge, independent +of the selfish desire to get a visit out of you by it. I want her to get +started, now, before children's diseases are fashionable again, because +they always play such hob with visiting arrangements. + With love to you all + Yrs Ever + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mark Twain's trips to Boston were usually made alone. Women require + more preparation to go visiting, and Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Howells + seem to have exchanged visits infrequently. For Mark Twain, + perhaps, it was just as well that his wife did not always go with + him; his absent-mindedness and boyish ingenuousness often led him + into difficulties which Mrs. Clemens sometimes found embarrassing. + In the foregoing letter they were planning a visit to Cambridge. In + the one that follows they seem to have made it--with certain + results, perhaps not altogether amusing at the moment. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Oct. 4, '75. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- We had a royal good time at your house, and have had a +royal good time ever since, talking about it, both privately and with the +neighbors. + +Mrs. Clemens's bodily strength came up handsomely under that cheery +respite from household and nursery cares. I do hope that Mrs. Howells's +didn't go correspondingly down, under the added burden to her cares and +responsibilities. Of course I didn't expect to get through without +committing some crimes and hearing of them afterwards, so I have taken +the inevitable lashings and been able to hum a tune while the punishment +went on. I "caught it" for letting Mrs. Howells bother and bother about +her coffee when it was "a good deal better than we get at home." +I "caught it" for interrupting Mrs. C. at the last moment and losing her +the opportunity to urge you not to forget to send her that MS when the +printers are done with it. I "caught it" once more for personating that +drunken Col. James. I "caught it" for mentioning that Mr. Longfellow's +picture was slightly damaged; and when, after a lull in the storm, +I confessed, shame-facedly, that I had privately suggested to you that we +hadn't any frames, and that if you wouldn't mind hinting to Mr. Houghton, +&c., &c., &c., the Madam was simply speechless for the space of a minute. +Then she said: + +"How could you, Youth! The idea of sending Mr. Howells, with his +sensitive nature, upon such a repulsive er--" + +"Oh, Howells won't mind it! You don't know Howells. Howells is a man +who--" She was gone. But George was the first person she stumbled on in +the hall, so she took it out of George. I was glad of that, because it +saved the babies. + +I've got another rattling good character for my novel! That great work +is mulling itself into shape gradually. + +Mrs. Clemens sends love to Mrs. Howells--meantime she is diligently +laying up material for a letter to her. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + The "George" of this letter was Mark Twain's colored butler, a + valued and even beloved member of the household--a most picturesque + character, who "one day came to wash windows," as Clemens used to + say, "and remained eighteen years." The fiction of Mrs. Clemens's + severity he always found amusing, because of its entire contrast + with the reality of her gentle heart. + + Clemens carried the Tom Sawyer MS. to Boston himself and placed it + in Howells's hands. Howells had begged to be allowed to see the + story, and Mrs. Clemens was especially anxious that he should do so. + She had doubts as to certain portions of it, and had the fullest + faith in Howells's opinion. + + It was a gratifying one when it came. Howells wrote: "I finished + reading Tom Sawyer a week ago, sitting up till one A.M. to get to + the end, simply because it was impossible to leave off. It's + altogether the best boy's story I ever read. It will be an immense + success. But I think you ought to treat it explicitly as a boy's + story. Grown-ups will enjoy it just as much if you do; and if you + should put it forth as a study of boy character from the grown-up + point of view, you give the wrong key to it.... The adventures are + enchanting. I wish I had been on that island. The treasure- + hunting, the loss in the cave--it's all exciting and splendid. + I shouldn't think of publishing this story serially. Give me a hint + when it's to be out, and I'll start the sheep to jumping in the + right places"--meaning that he would have an advance review ready + for publication in the Atlantic, which was a leader of criticism in + America. + + Mark Twain was writing a great deal at this time. Howells was + always urging him to send something to the Atlantic, declaring a + willingness to have his name appear every month in their pages, and + Clemens was generally contributing some story or sketch. The + "proof" referred to in the next letter was of one of these articles. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 23, '75. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Herewith is the proof. In spite of myself, how +awkwardly I do jumble words together; and how often I do use three words +where one would answer--a thing I am always trying to guard against. +I shall become as slovenly a writer as Charles Francis Adams, if I don't +look out. (That is said in jest; because of course I do not seriously +fear getting so bad as that. I never shall drop so far toward his and +Bret Harte's level as to catch myself saying "It must have been wiser to +have believed that he might have accomplished it if he could have felt +that he would have been supported by those who should have &c. &c. &c.) +The reference to Bret Harte reminds me that I often accuse him of being a +deliberate imitator of Dickens; and this in turn reminds me that I have +charged unconscious plagiarism upon Charley Warner; and this in turn +reminds me that I have been delighting my soul for two weeks over a bran +new and ingenious way of beginning a novel--and behold, all at once it +flashes upon me that Charley Warner originated the idea 3 years ago and +told me about it! Aha ! So much for self-righteousness! I am well +repaid. Here are 108 pages of MS, new and clean, lying disgraced in the +waste paper basket, and I am beginning the novel over again in an +unstolen way. I would not wonder if I am the worst literary thief in the +world, without knowing it. + +It is glorious news that you like Tom Sawyer so well. I mean to see to +it that your review of it shall have plenty of time to appear before the +other notices. Mrs. Clemens decides with you that the book should issue +as a book for boys, pure and simple--and so do I. It is surely the +correct idea. As to that last chapter, I think of just leaving it off +and adding nothing in its place. Something told me that the book was +done when I got to that point--and so the strong temptation to put Huck's +life at the Widow's into detail, instead of generalizing it in a +paragraph was resisted. Just send Sawyer to me by express--I enclose +money for it. If it should get lost it will be no great matter. + +Company interfered last night, and so "Private Theatricals" goes over +till this evening, to be read aloud. Mrs. Clemens is mad, but the story +will take that all out. This is going to be a splendid winter night for +fireside reading, anyway. + +I am almost at a dead stand-still with my new story, on account of the +misery of having to do it all over again. We--all send love to you--all. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + +The "story" referred to may have been any one of several begun by him at +this time. His head was full of ideas for literature of every sort. +Many of his beginnings came to nothing, for the reason that he started +wrong, or with no definitely formed plan. Others of his literary +enterprises were condemned by his wife for their grotesqueness or for the +offense they might give in one way or another, however worthy the +intention behind them. Once he wrote a burlesque on family history "The +Autobiography of a Damned Fool." "Livy wouldn't have it," he said later, +"so I gave it up." The world is indebted to Mark Twain's wife for the +check she put upon his fantastic or violent impulses. She was his +public, his best public--clearheaded and wise. That he realized this, +and was willing to yield, was by no means the least of his good fortunes. +We may believe that he did not always yield easily, and perhaps sometimes +only out of love for her. In the letter which he wrote her on her +thirtieth birthday we realize something of what she had come to mean in +his life. + + + To Mrs. Clemens on her Thirtieth Birthday: + + HARTFORD, November 27, 1875. +Livy darling, six years have gone by since I made my first great success +in life and won you, and thirty years have passed since Providence made +preparation for that happy success by sending you into the world. Every +day we live together adds to the security of my confidence, that we can +never any more wish to be separated than that we can ever imagine a +regret that we were ever joined. You are dearer to me to-day, my child, +than you were upon the last anniversary of this birth-day; you were +dearer then than you were a year before--you have grown more and more +dear from the first of those anniversaries, and I do not doubt that this +precious progression will continue on to the end. + +Let us look forward to the coming anniversaries, with their age and their +gray hairs without fear and without depression, trusting and believing +that the love we bear each other will be sufficient to make them blessed. + +So, with abounding affection for you and our babies, I hail this day that +brings you the matronly grace and dignity of three decades! + + Always Yours + S. L. C. + + + + +XVI. + +LETTERS, 1876, CHIEFLY TO W. D. HOWELLS. LITERATURE AND POLITICS. +PLANNING A PLAY WITH BRET HARTE + + The Monday Evening Club of Hartford was an association of most of + the literary talent of that city, and it included a number of very + distinguished members. The writers, the editors, the lawyers, and + the ministers of the gospel who composed it were more often than not + men of national or international distinction. There was but one + paper at each meeting, and it was likely to be a paper that would + later find its way into some magazine. + + Naturally Mark Twain was one of its favorite members, and his + contributions never failed to arouse interest and discussion. A + "Mark Twain night" brought out every member. In the next letter we + find the first mention of one of his most memorable contributions--a + story of one of life's moral aspects. The tale, now included in his + collected works, is, for some reason, little read to-day; yet the + curious allegory, so vivid in its seeming reality, is well worth + consideration. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Jan. 11, '76. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Indeed we haven't forgotten the Howellses, nor scored +up a grudge of any kind against them; but the fact is I was under the +doctor's hands for four weeks on a stretch and have been disabled from +working for a week or so beside. I thought I was well, about ten days +ago, so I sent for a short-hand writer and dictated answers to a bushel +or so of letters that had been accumulating during my illness. Getting +everything shipshape and cleared up, I went to work next day upon an +Atlantic article, which ought to be worth $20 per page (which is the +price they usually pay for my work, I believe) for although it is only 70 +pages MS (less than two days work, counting by bulk,) I have spent 3 more +days trimming, altering and working at it. I shall put in one more day's +polishing on it, and then read it before our Club, which is to meet at +our house Monday evening, the 24th inst. I think it will bring out +considerable discussion among the gentlemen of the Club--though the title +of the article will not give them much notion of what is to follow,--this +title being "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in +Connecticut"--which reminds me that today's Tribune says there will be a +startling article in the current Atlantic, in which a being which is +tangible bud invisible will figure-exactly the case with the sketch of +mine which I am talking about! However, mine can lie unpublished a year +or two as well as not--though I wish that contributor of yours had not +interfered with his coincidence of heroes. + +But what I am coming at, is this: won't you and Mrs. Howells come down +Saturday the 22nd and remain to the Club on Monday night? We always have +a rattling good time at the Club and we do want you to come, ever so +much. Will you? Now say you will. Mrs. Clemens and I are persuading +ourselves that you twain will come. + +My volume of sketches is doing very well, considering the times; received +my quarterly statement today from Bliss, by which I perceive that 20,000 +copies have been sold--or rather, 20,000 had been sold 3 weeks ago; a lot +more, by this time, no doubt. + +I am on the sick list again--and was, day before yesterday--but on the +whole I am getting along. + Yrs ever + MARK + + + Howells wrote that he could not come down to the club meeting, + adding that sickness was "quite out of character" for Mark Twain, + and hardly fair on a man who had made so many other people feel + well. He closed by urging that Bliss "hurry out" 'Tom Sawyer.' + "That boy is going to make a prodigious hit." Clemens answered: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston. + + HARTFORD, Jan. 18, '76. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Thanks, and ever so many, for the good opinion of 'Tom +Sawyer.' Williams has made about 300 rattling pictures for it--some of +them very dainty. Poor devil, what a genius he has and how he does +murder it with rum. He takes a book of mine, and without suggestion from +anybody builds no end of pictures just from his reading of it. + +There was never a man in the world so grateful to another as I was to you +day before yesterday, when I sat down (in still rather wretched health) +to set myself to the dreary and hateful task of making final revision of +Tom Sawyer, and discovered, upon opening the package of MS that your +pencil marks were scattered all along. This was splendid, and swept away +all labor. Instead of reading the MS, I simply hunted out the pencil +marks and made the emendations which they suggested. I reduced the boy +battle to a curt paragraph; I finally concluded to cut the Sunday school +speech down to the first two sentences, leaving no suggestion of satire, +since the book is to be for boys and girls; I tamed the various +obscenities until I judged that they no longer carried offense. So, at a +single sitting I began and finished a revision which I had supposed would +occupy 3 or 4. days and leave me mentally and physically fagged out at +the end. I was careful not to inflict the MS upon you until I had +thoroughly and painstakingly revised it. Therefore, the only faults left +were those that would discover themselves to others, not me--and these +you had pointed out. + +There was one expression which perhaps you overlooked. When Huck is +complaining to Tom of the rigorous system in vogue at the widow's, he +says the servants harass him with all manner of compulsory decencies, and +he winds up by saying: "and they comb me all to hell." (No exclamation +point.) Long ago, when I read that to Mrs. Clemens, she made no comment; +another time I created occasion to read that chapter to her aunt and her +mother (both sensitive and loyal subjects of the kingdom of heaven, so to +speak) and they let it pass. I was glad, for it was the most natural +remark in the world for that boy to make (and he had been allowed few +privileges of speech in the book;) when I saw that you, too, had let it +go without protest, I was glad, and afraid; too--afraid you hadn't +observed it. Did you? And did you question the propriety of it? Since +the book is now professedly and confessedly a boy's and girl's hook, that +darn word bothers me some, nights, but it never did until I had ceased to +regard the volume as being for adults. + +Don't bother to answer now, (for you've writing enough to do without +allowing me to add to the burden,) but tell me when you see me again! + +Which we do hope will be next Saturday or Sunday or Monday. Couldn't you +come now and mull over the alterations which you are going to make in +your MS, and make them after you go back? Wouldn't it assist the work if +you dropped out of harness and routine for a day or two and have that +sort of revivification which comes of a holiday-forgetfulness of the +work-shop? I can always work after I've been to your house; and if you +will come to mine, now, and hear the club toot their various horns over +the exasperating metaphysical question which I mean to lay before them in +the disguise of a literary extravaganza, it would just brace you up like +a cordial. + +(I feel sort of mean trying to persuade a man to put down a critical +piece of work at a critical time, but yet I am honest in thinking it +would not hurt the work nor impair your interest in it to come under the +circumstances.) Mrs. Clemens says, "Maybe the Howellses could come Monday +if they cannot come Saturday; ask them; it is worth trying." Well, how's +that? Could you? It would be splendid if you could. Drop me a postal +card--I should have a twinge of conscience if I forced you to write a +letter, (I am honest about that,)--and if you find you can't make out to +come, tell me that you bodies will come the next Saturday if the thing is +possible, and stay over Sunday. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + Howells, however, did not come to the club meeting, but promised to + come soon when they could have a quiet time to themselves together. + As to Huck's language, he declared: + + "I'd have that swearing out in an instant. I suppose I didn't + notice it because the locution was so familiar to my Western sense, + and so exactly the thing that Huck would say." Clemens changed the + phrase to, "They comb me all to thunder," and so it stands to-day. + + The "Carnival of Crime," having served its purpose at the club, + found quick acceptance by Howells for the Atlantic. He was so + pleased with it, in fact, that somewhat later he wrote, urging that + its author allow it to be printed in a dainty book, by Osgood, who + made a specialty of fine publishing. Meantime Howells had written + his Atlantic notice of Tom Sawyer, and now inclosed Clemens a proof + of it. We may judge from the reply that it was satisfactory. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Apl 3, '76. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It is a splendid notice and will embolden weak-kneed +journalistic admirers to speak out, and will modify or shut up the +unfriendly. To "fear God and dread the Sunday school" exactly described +that old feeling which I used to have, but I couldn't have formulated it. +I want to enclose one of the illustrations in this letter, if I do not +forget it. Of course the book is to be elaborately illustrated, and I +think that many of the pictures are considerably above the American +average, in conception if not in execution. + +I do not re-enclose your review to you, for you have evidently read and +corrected it, and so I judge you do not need it. About two days after +the Atlantic issues I mean to begin to send books to principal journals +and magazines. + +I read the "Carnival of Crime " proof in New York when worn and witless +and so left some things unamended which I might possibly have altered had +I been at home. For instance, "I shall always address you in your own +S-n-i-v-e-l-i-n-g d-r-a-w-l, baby." I saw that you objected to something +there, but I did not understand what! Was it that it was too personal? +Should the language be altered?--or the hyphens taken out? Won't you +please fix it the way it ought to be, altering the language as you +choose, only making it bitter and contemptuous? + +"Deuced" was not strong enough; so I met you halfway with "devilish." + +Mrs. Clemens has returned from New York with dreadful sore throat, and +bones racked with rheumatism. She keeps her bed. "Aloha nui!" as the +Kanakas say. + MARK. + + + Henry Irving once said to Mark Twain: "You made a mistake by not + adopting the stage as a profession. You would have made even a + greater actor than a writer." + + Mark Twain would have made an actor, certainly, but not a very + tractable one. His appearance in Hartford in "The Loan of a Lover" + was a distinguished event, and his success complete, though he made + so many extemporaneous improvements on the lines of thick-headed + Peter Spuyk, that he kept the other actors guessing as to their + cues, and nearly broke up the performance. It was, of course, an + amateur benefit, though Augustin Daly promptly wrote, offering to + put it on for a long run. + + The "skeleton novelette" mentioned in the next letter refers to a + plan concocted by Howells and Clemens, by which each of twelve + authors was to write a story, using the same plot, "blindfolded" as + to what the others had written. It was a regular "Mark Twain" + notion, and it is hard to-day to imagine Howells's continued + enthusiasm in it. Neither he nor Clemens gave up the idea for a + long time. It appears in their letters again and again, though + perhaps it was just as well for literature that it was never carried + out. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Apl. 22, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS, You'll see per enclosed slip that I appear for the first +time on the stage next Wednesday. You and Mrs. H. come down and you +shall skip in free. + +I wrote my skeleton novelette yesterday and today. It will make a little +under 12 pages. + +Please tell Aldrich I've got a photographer engaged, and tri-weekly issue +is about to begin. Show him the canvassing specimens and beseech him to +subscribe. + Ever yours, + S. L. C. + + + In his next letter Mark Twain explains why Tom Sawyer is not to + appear as soon as planned. The reference to "The Literary + Nightmare" refers to the "Punch, Conductor, Punch with Care" sketch, + which had recently appeared in the Atlantic. Many other versifiers + had had their turn at horse-car poetry, and now a publisher was + anxious to collect it in a book, provided he could use the Atlantic + sketch. Clemens does not tell us here the nature of Carlton's + insult, forgiveness of which he was not yet qualified to grant, but + there are at least two stories about it, or two halves of the same + incident, as related afterward by Clemens and Canton. Clemens said + that when he took the Jumping Frog book to Carlton, in 1867, the + latter, pointing to his stock, said, rather scornfully: "Books? + I don't want your book; my shelves are full of books now," though + the reader may remember that it was Carlton himself who had given + the frog story to the Saturday Press and had seen it become famous. + Carlton's half of the story was that he did not accept Mark Twain's + book because the author looked so disreputable. Long afterward, + when the two men met in Europe, the publisher said to the now rich + and famous author: "Mr. Clemens, my one claim on immortality is that + I declined your first book." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Apl. 25, 1876 +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Thanks for giving me the place of honor. + +Bliss made a failure in the matter of getting Tom Sawyer ready on time-- +the engravers assisting, as usual. I went down to see how much of a +delay there was going to be, and found that the man had not even put a +canvasser on, or issued an advertisement yet--in fact, that the +electrotypes would not all be done for a month! But of course the main +fact was that no canvassing had been done--because a subscription harvest +is before publication, (not after, when people have discovered how bad +one's book is.) + +Well, yesterday I put in the Courant an editorial paragraph stating that +Tam Sawyer is "ready to issue, but publication is put off in order to +secure English copyright by simultaneous publication there and here. The +English edition is unavoidably delayed." + +You see, part of that is true. Very well. When I observed that my +"Sketches" had dropped from a sale of 6 or 7000 a month down to 1200 a +month, I said "this ain't no time to be publishing books; therefore, let +Tom lie still till Autumn, Mr. Bliss, and make a holiday book of him to +beguile the young people withal." + +I shall print items occasionally, still further delaying Tom, till I ease +him down to Autumn without shock to the waiting world. + +As to that "Literary Nightmare" proposition. I'm obliged to withhold +consent, for what seems a good reason--to wit: A single page of horse-car +poetry is all that the average reader can stand, without nausea; now, to +stack together all of it that has been written, and then add it to my +article would be to enrage and disgust each and every reader and win the +deathless enmity of the lot. + +Even if that reason were insufficient, there would still be a sufficient +reason left, in the fact that Mr. Carlton seems to be the publisher of +the magazine in which it is proposed to publish this horse-car matter. +Carlton insulted me in Feb. 1867, and so when the day arrives that sees +me doing him a civility I shall feel that I am ready for Paradise, since +my list of possible and impossible forgivenesses will then be complete. + +Mrs. Clemens says my version of the blindfold novelette "A Murder and A +Marriage" is "good." Pretty strong language--for her. + +The Fieldses are coming down to the play tomorrow, and they promise to +get you and Mrs. Howells to come too, but I hope you'll do nothing of the +kind if it will inconvenience you, for I'm not going to play either +strikingly bad enough or well enough to make the journey pay you. + +My wife and I think of going to Boston May 7th to see Anna Dickinson's +debut on the 8th. If I find we can go, I'll try to get a stage box and +then you and Mrs. Howells must come to Parker's and go with us to the +crucifixion. + +(Is that spelt right?--somehow it doesn't look right.) + +With our very kindest regards to the whole family. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The mention of Anna Dickinson, at the end of this letter, recalls a + prominent reformer and lecturer of the Civil War period. She had + begun her crusades against temperance and slavery in 1857, when she + was but fifteen years old, when her success as a speaker had been + immediate and extraordinary. Now, in this later period, at the age + of thirty-four, she aspired to the stage--unfortunately for her, as + her gifts lay elsewhere. Clemens and Howells knew Miss Dickinson, + and were anxious for the success which they hardly dared hope for. + Clemens arranged a box party. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + May 4, '76. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I shall reach Boston on Monday the 8th, either at +4:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. (Which is best?) and go straight to Parker's. +If you and Mrs. Howells cannot be there by half past 4, I'll not plan to +arrive till the later train-time (6,) because I don't want to be there +alone--even a minute. Still, Joe Twichell will doubtless go with me +(forgot that,) he is going to try hard to. Mrs. Clemens has given up +going, because Susy is just recovering from about the savagest assault of +diphtheria a child ever did recover from, and therefore will not be +entirely her healthy self again by the 8th. + +Would you and Mrs. Howells like to invite Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich? I have +a large proscenium box--plenty of room. Use your own pleasure about it +--I mainly (that is honest,) suggest it because I am seeking to make +matters pleasant for you and Mrs. Howells. I invited Twichell because I +thought I knew you'd like that. I want you to fix it so that you and the +Madam can remain in Boston all night; for I leave next day and we can't +have a talk, otherwise. I am going to get two rooms and a parlor; and +would like to know what you decide about the Aldriches, so as to know +whether to apply for an additional bedroom or not. + +Don't dine that evening, for I shall arrive dinnerless and need your +help. + +I'll bring my Blindfold Novelette, but shan't exhibit it unless you +exhibit yours. You would simply go to work and write a novelette that +would make mine sick. Because you would know all about where my weak +points lay. No, Sir, I'm one of these old wary birds! + +Don't bother to write a letter--3 lines on a postal card is all that I +can permit from a busy man. + Yrs ever + MARK. + +P. S. Good! You'll not have to feel any call to mention that debut in +the Atlantic--they've made me pay the grand cash for my box!--a thing +which most managers would be too worldly-wise to do, with journalistic +folks. But I'm most honestly glad, for I'd rather pay three prices, any +time, than to have my tongue half paralyw4 with a dead-head ticket. + +Hang that Anna Dickinson, a body can never depend upon her debuts! She +has made five or six false starts already. If she fails to debut this +time, I will never bet on her again. + + + In his book, My Mark Twain, Howells refers to the "tragedy" of Miss + Dickinson's appearance. She was the author of numerous plays, some + of which were successful, but her career as an actress was never + brilliant. + + At Elmira that summer the Clemenses heard from their good friend + Doctor Brown, of Edinburgh, and sent eager replies. + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + ELMIRA, NEW YORK, U. S. June 22, 1876. +DEAR FRIEND THE DOCTOR,-- It was a perfect delight to see the well-known +handwriting again! But we so grieve to know that you are feeling +miserable. It must not last--it cannot last. The regal summer is come +and it will smile you into high good cheer; it will charm away your +pains, it will banish your distresses. I wish you were here, to spend +the summer with us. We are perched on a hill-top that overlooks a little +world of green valleys, shining rivers, sumptuous forests and billowy +uplands veiled in the haze of distance. We have no neighbors. It is the +quietest of all quiet places, and we are hermits that eschew caves and +live in the sun. Doctor, if you'd only come! + +I will carry your letter to Mrs. C. now, and there will be a glad woman, +I tell you! And she shall find one of those pictures to put in this for +Mrs. Barclays and if there isn't one here we'll send right away to +Hartford and get one. Come over, Doctor John, and bring the Barclays, +the Nicolsons and the Browns, one and all! + Affectionately, + SAML. L. CLEMENS. + + + From May until August no letters appear to have passed between + Clemens and Howells; the latter finally wrote, complaining of the + lack of news. He was in the midst of campaign activities, he said, + writing a life of Hayes, and gaily added: "You know I wrote the life + of Lincoln, which elected him." He further reported a comedy he had + completed, and gave Clemens a general stirring up as to his own + work. + + Mark Twain, in his hillside study, was busy enough. Summer was his + time for work, and he had tried his hand in various directions. His + mention of Huck Finn in his reply to Howells is interesting, in that + it shows the measure of his enthusiasm, or lack of it, as a gauge of + his ultimate achievement + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 9, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I was just about to write you when your letter came-- +and not one of those obscene postal cards, either, but reverently, upon +paper. + +I shall read that biography, though the letter of acceptance was amply +sufficient to corral my vote without any further knowledge of the man. +Which reminds me that a campaign club in Jersey City wrote a few days ago +and invited me to be present at the raising of a Tilden and Hendricks +flag there, and to take the stand and give them some "counsel." Well, I +could not go, but gave them counsel and advice by letter, and in the +kindliest terms as to the raising of the flag--advised them "not to raise +it." + +Get your book out quick, for this is a momentous time. If Tilden is +elected I think the entire country will go pretty straight to--Mrs. +Howells's bad place. + +I am infringing on your patent--I started a record of our children's +sayings, last night. Which reminds me that last week I sent down and got +Susie a vast pair of shoes of a most villainous pattern, for I discovered +that her feet were being twisted and cramped out of shape by a smaller +and prettier article. She did not complain, but looked degraded and +injured. At night her mamma gave her the usual admonition when she was +about to say her prayers--to wit: + +"Now, Susie--think about God." + +"Mamma, I can't, with those shoes." + +The farm is perfectly delightful this season. It is as quiet and +peaceful as a South Sea Island. Some of the sunsets which we have +witnessed from this commanding eminence were marvelous. One evening a +rainbow spanned an entire range of hills with its mighty arch, and from a +black hub resting upon the hill-top in the exact centre, black rays +diverged upward in perfect regularity to the rainbow's arch and created a +very strongly defined and altogether the most majestic, magnificent and +startling half-sunk wagon wheel you can imagine. After that, a world of +tumbling and prodigious clouds came drifting up out of the West and took +to themselves a wonderfully rich and brilliant green color--the decided +green of new spring foliage. Close by them we saw the intense blue of +the skies, through rents in the cloud-rack, and away off in another +quarter were drifting clouds of a delicate pink color. In one place hung +a pall of dense black clouds, like compacted pitch-smoke. And the +stupendous wagon wheel was still in the supremacy of its unspeakable +grandeur. So you see, the colors present in the sky at once and the same +time were blue, green, pink, black, and the vari-colored splendors of the +rainbow. All strong and decided colors, too. I don't know whether this +weird and astounding spectacle most suggested heaven, or hell. The +wonder, with its constant, stately, and always surprising changes, lasted +upwards of two hours, and we all stood on the top of the hill by my study +till the final miracle was complete and the greatest day ended that we +ever saw. + +Our farmer, who is a grave man, watched that spectacle to the end, and +then observed that it was "dam funny." + +The double-barreled novel lies torpid. I found I could not go on with +it. The chapters I had written were still too new and familiar to me. +I may take it up next winter, but cannot tell yet; I waited and waited to +see if my interest in it would not revive, but gave it up a month ago and +began another boys' book--more to be at work than anything else. I have +written 400 pages on it--therefore it is very nearly half done. It is +Huck Finn's Autobiography. I like it only tolerably well, as far as I +have got, and may possibly pigeonhole or burn the MS when it is done. + +So the comedy is done, and with a "fair degree of satisfaction." That +rejoices me, and makes me mad, too--for I can't plan a comedy, and what +have you done that God should be so good to you? I have racked myself +baldheaded trying to plan a comedy harness for some promising characters +of mine to work in, and had to give it up. It is a noble lot of blooded +stock and worth no end of money, but they must stand in the stable and be +profitless. I want to be present when the comedy is produced and help +enjoy the success. + +Warner's book is mighty readable, I think. + Love to yez. + Yrs ever + MARK + + + Howells promptly wrote again, urging him to enter the campaign for + Hayes. "There is not another man in this country," he said, "who + could help him so much as you." The "farce" which Clemens refers to + in his reply, was "The Parlor Car," which seems to have been about + the first venture of Howells in that field. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, August 23, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am glad you think I could do Hayes any good, for I +have been wanting to write a letter or make a speech to that end. I'll +be careful not to do either, however, until the opportunity comes in a +natural, justifiable and unlugged way; and shall not then do anything +unless I've got it all digested and worded just right. In which case I +might do some good--in any other I should do harm. When a humorist +ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than +another man or he works harm to his cause. + +The farce is wonderfully bright and delicious, and must make a hit. You +read it to me, and it was mighty good; I read it last night and it was +better; I read it aloud to the household this morning and it was better +than ever. So it would be worth going a long way to see it well played; +for without any question an actor of genius always adds a subtle +something to any man's work that none but the writer knew was there +before. Even if he knew it. I have heard of readers convulsing +audiences with my "Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man." If there is +anything really funny in the piece, the author is not aware of it. + +All right--advertise me for the new volume. I send you herewith a sketch +which will make 3 pages of the Atlantic. If you like it and accept it, +you should get it into the December No. because I shall read it in public +in Boston the 13th and 14th of Nov. If it went in a month earlier it +would be too old for me to read except as old matter; and if it went in a +month later it would be too old for the Atlantic--do you see? And if you +wish to use it, will you set it up now, and send me three proofs? --one +to correct for Atlantic, one to send to Temple Bar (shall I tell them to +use it not earlier than their November No.?) and one to use in practising +for my Boston readings. + +We must get up a less elaborate and a much better skeleton-plan for the +Blindfold Novels and make a success of that idea. David Gray spent +Sunday here and said we could but little comprehend what a rattling stir +that thing would make in the country. He thought it would make a mighty +strike. So do I. But with only 8 pages to tell the tale in, the plot +must be less elaborate, doubtless. What do you think? + +When we exchange visits I'll show you an unfinished sketch of Elizabeth's +time which shook David Gray's system up pretty exhaustively. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The MS. sketch mentioned in the foregoing letter was "The + Canvasser's Tale," later included in the volume, Tom Sawyer Abroad, + and Other Stories. It is far from being Mark Twain's best work, but + was accepted and printed in the Atlantic. David Gray was an able + journalist and editor whom Mark Twain had known in Buffalo. + + The "sketch of Elizabeth's time" is a brilliant piece of writing + --an imaginary record of conversation and court manners in the good + old days of free speech and performance, phrased in the language of + the period. Gray, John Hay, Twichell, and others who had a chance + to see it thought highly of it, and Hay had it set in type and a few + proofs taken for private circulation. Some years afterward a West + Point officer had a special font of antique type made for it, and + printed a hundred copies. But the present-day reader would hardly + be willing to include "Fireside Conversation in the Time of Queen + Elizabeth" in Mark Twain's collected works. + + Clemens was a strong Republican in those days, as his letters of + this period show. His mention of the "caves" in the next is another + reference to "The Canvasser's Tale." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Sept. 14, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Yes, the collection of caves was the origin of it. +I changed it to echoes because these being invisible and intangible, +constituted a still more absurd species of property, and yet a man could +really own an echo, and sell it, too, for a high figure--such an echo as +that at the Villa Siminetti, two miles from Milan, for instance. +My first purpose was to have the man make a collection of caves and +afterwards of echoes; but perceived that the element of absurdity and +impracticability was so nearly identical as to amount to a repetition of +an idea..... + +I will not, and do not, believe that there is a possibility of Hayes's +defeat, but I want the victory to be sweeping..... + +It seems odd to find myself interested in an election. I never was +before. And I can't seem to get over my repugnance to reading or +thinking about politics, yet. But in truth I care little about any +party's politics--the man behind it is the important thing. + +You may well know that Mrs. Clemens liked the Parlor Car--enjoyed it ever +so much, and was indignant at you all through, and kept exploding into +rages at you for pretending that such a woman ever existed--closing each +and every explosion with "But it is just what such a woman would do."-- +"It is just what such a woman would say." They all voted the Parlor Car +perfection--except me. I said they wouldn't have been allowed to court +and quarrel there so long, uninterrupted; but at each critical moment the +odious train-boy would come in and pile foul literature all over them +four or five inches deep, and the lover would turn his head aside and +curse--and presently that train-boy would be back again (as on all those +Western roads) to take up the literature and leave prize candy. + +Of course the thing is perfect, in the magazine, without the train-boy; +but I was thinking of the stage and the groundlings. If the dainty +touches went over their heads, the train-boy and other possible +interruptions would fetch them every time. Would it mar the flow of the +thing too much to insert that devil? I thought it over a couple of hours +and concluded it wouldn't, and that he ought to be in for the sake of the +groundlings (and to get new copyright on the piece.) + +And it seemed to me that now that the fourth act is so successfully +written, why not go ahead and write the 3 preceding acts? And then after +it is finished, let me put into it a low-comedy character (the girl's or +the lover's father or uncle) and gobble a big pecuniary interest in your +work for myself. Do not let this generous proposition disturb your rest +--but do write the other 3 acts, and then it will be valuable to +managers. And don't go and sell it to anybody, like Harte, but keep it +for yourself. + +Harte's play can be doctored till it will be entirely acceptable and then +it will clear a great sum every year. I am out of all patience with +Harte for selling it. The play entertained me hugely, even in its +present crude state. + Love to you all. + Yrs ever, + MARK + + + Following the Sellers success, Clemens had made many attempts at + dramatic writing. Such undertakings had uniformly failed, but he + had always been willing to try again. In the next letter we get the + beginning of what proved his first and last direct literary + association, that is to say, collaboration, with Bret Harte. + Clemens had great admiration for Harte's ability and believed that + between them they could turn out a successful play. Whether or not + this belief was justified will appear later. Howells's biography of + Hayes, meanwhile, had not gone well. He reported that only two + thousand copies had been sold in what was now the height of the + campaign. "There's success for you," he said; "it makes me despair + of the Republic." + + Clemens, on his part, had made a speech for Hayes that Howells + declared had put civil-service reform in a nutshell; he added: "You + are the only Republican orator, quoted without distinction of party + by all the newspapers." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 11, 1876. +MY DEAR HOWELLS, This is a secret, to be known to nobody but you (of +course I comprehend that Mrs. Howells is part of you) that Bret Harte +came up here the other day and asked me to help him write a play and +divide the swag, and I agreed. I am to put in Scotty Briggs (See Buck +Fanshaw's Funeral, in "Roughing It.") and he is to put in a Chinaman (a, +wonderfully funny creature, as Bret presents him--for 5 minutes--in his +Sandy Bar play.) This Chinaman is to be the character of the play, and +both of us will work on him and develop him. Bret is to draw a plot, and +I am to do the same; we shall use the best of the two, or gouge from both +and build a third. My plot is built--finished it yesterday--six days' +work, 8 or 9 hours a day, and has nearly killed me. + +Now the favor I ask of you is that you will have the words "Ah Sin, a +Drama," printed in the middle of a note-paper page and send the same to +me, with Bill. We don't want anybody to know that we are building this +play. I can't get this title page printed here without having to lie so +much that the thought of it is disagreeable to one reared as I have been. +And yet the title of the play must be printed--the rest of the +application for copyright is allowable in penmanship. + +We have got the very best gang of servants in America, now. When George +first came he was one of the most religious of men. He had but one +fault--young George Washington's. But I have trained him; and now it +fairly breaks Mrs. Clemens's heart to hear George stand at that front +door and lie to the unwelcome visitor. But your time is valuable; I must +not dwell upon these things.....I'll ask Warner and Harte if they'll do +Blindfold Novelettes. Some time I'll simplify that plot. All it needs +is that the hanging and the marriage shall not be appointed for the same +day. I got over that difficulty, but it required too much MS to +reconcile the thing--so the movement of the story was clogged. + +I came near agreeing to make political speeches with our candidate for +Governor the 16th and 23 inst., but I had to give up the idea, for Harte +and I will be here at work then. + Yrs ever, + MARK + + + Mark Twain was writing few letters these days to any one but + Howells, yet in November he sent one to an old friend of his youth, + Burrough, the literary chair-maker who had roomed with him in the + days when he had been setting type for the St. Louis Evening News. + + + To Mr. Burrough, of St. Louis: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 1, 1876. +MY DEAR BURROUGHS,--As you describe me I can picture myself as I was 20 +years ago. The portrait is correct. You think I have grown some; upon +my word there was room for it. You have described a callow fool, a self- +sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bug.... imagining that he is +remodeling the world and is entirely capable of doing it right. +Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense +and pitiful chuckle-headedness--and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of +it all. That is what I was at 19 and 20; and that is what the average +Southerner is at 60 today. Northerners, too, of a certain grade. It is +of children like this that voters are made. And such is the primal +source of our government! A man hardly knows whether to swear or cry +over it. + +I think I comprehend the position there--perfect freedom to vote just as +you choose, provided you choose to vote as other people think--social +ostracism, otherwise. The same thing exists here, among the Irish. +An Irish Republican is a pariah among his people. Yet that race find +fault with the same spirit in Know-Nothingism. + +Fortunately a good deal of experience of men enabled me to choose my +residence wisely. I live in the freest corner of the country. There are +no social disabilities between me and my Democratic personal friends. +We break the bread and eat the salt of hospitality freely together and +never dream of such a thing as offering impertinent interference in each +other's political opinions. + +Don't you ever come to New York again and not run up here to see me. I +Suppose we were away for the summer when you were East; but no matter, +you could have telegraphed and found out. We were at Elmira N. Y. and +right on your road, and could have given you a good time if you had +allowed us the chance. + +Yes, Will Bowen and I have exchanged letters now and then for several +years, but I suspect that I made him mad with my last--shortly after you +saw him in St. Louis, I judge. There is one thing which I can't stand +and won't stand, from many people. That is sham sentimentality--the kind +a school-girl puts into her graduating composition; the sort that makes +up the Original Poetry column of a country newspaper; the rot that deals +in the "happy days of yore," the "sweet yet melancholy past," with its +"blighted hopes" and its "vanished dreams" and all that sort of drivel. +Will's were always of this stamp. I stood it years. When I get a letter +like that from a grown man and he a widower with a family, it gives me +the stomach ache. And I just told Will Bowen so, last summer. I told +him to stop being 16 at 40; told him to stop drooling about the sweet yet +melancholy past, and take a pill. I said there was but one solitary +thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is +the past--can't be restored. Well, I exaggerated some of these truths a +little--but only a little--but my idea was to kill his sham +sentimentality once and forever, and so make a good fellow of him again. +I went to the unheard-of trouble of re-writing the letter and saying the +same harsh things softly, so as to sugarcoat the anguish and make it a +little more endurable and I asked him to write and thank me honestly for +doing him the best and kindliest favor that any friend ever had done him +--but he hasn't done it yet. Maybe he will, sometime. I am grateful to +God that I got that letter off before he was married (I get that news +from you) else he would just have slobbered all over me and drowned me +when that event happened. + +I enclose photograph for the young ladies. I will remark that I do not +wear seal-skin for grandeur, but because I found, when I used to lecture +in the winter, that nothing else was able to keep a man warm sometimes, +in these high latitudes. I wish you had sent pictures of yourself and +family--I'll trade picture for picture with you, straight through, if you +are commercially inclined. + Your old friend, + SAML L. CLEMENS. + + + + +XVII. + +LETTERS, 1877. TO BERMUDA WITH TWICHELL. PROPOSITION TO TH. NAST. +THE WHITTIER DINNER + + Mark Twain must have been too busy to write letters that winter. + Those that have survived are few and unimportant. As a matter of + fact, he was writing the play, "Ah Sin," with Bret Harte, and + getting it ready for production. Harte was a guest in the Clemens + home while the play was being written, and not always a pleasant + one. He was full of requirements, critical as to the 'menage,' to + the point of sarcasm. The long friendship between Clemens and Harte + weakened under the strain of collaboration and intimate daily + intercourse, never to renew its old fiber. It was an unhappy + outcome of an enterprise which in itself was to prove of little + profit. The play, "Ah Sin," had many good features, and with + Charles T. Parsloe in an amusing Chinese part might have been made a + success, if the two authors could have harmoniously undertaken the + needed repairs. It opened in Washington in May, and a letter from + Parsloe, written at the moment, gives a hint of the situation. + + + From Charles T. Parsloe to S. L. Clemens: + + WASHINGTON, D. C. May 11th, 1877. +MR. CLEMENS,-- I forgot whether I acknowledged receipt of check by +telegram. Harte has been here since Monday last and done little or +nothing yet, but promises to have something fixed by tomorrow morning. +We have been making some improvements among ourselves. The last act is +weak at the end, and I do hope Mr. Harte will have something for a good +finish to the piece. The other acts I think are all right, now. + +Hope you have entirely recovered. I am not very well myself, the +excitement of a first night is bad enough, but to have the annoyance with +Harte that I have is too much for a beginner. I ain't used to it. The +houses have been picking up since Tuesday Mr. Ford has worked well and +hard for us. + Yours in, haste, + CHAS. THOS. PARSLOE. + + + The play drew some good houses in Washington, but it could not hold + them for a run. Never mind what was the matter with it; perhaps a + very small change at the right point would have turned it into a + fine success. We have seen in a former letter the obligation which + Mark Twain confessed to Harte--a debt he had tried in many ways to + repay--obtaining for him a liberal book contract with Bliss; + advancing him frequent and large sums of money which Harte could + not, or did not, repay; seeking to advance his fortunes in many + directions. The mistake came when he introduced another genius into + the intracacies of his daily life. Clemens went down to Washington + during the early rehearsals of "Ah Sin." + + Meantime, Rutherford B. Hayes had been elected President, and + Clemens one day called with a letter of introduction from Howells, + thinking to meet the Chief Executive. His own letter to Howells, + later, probably does not give the real reason of his failure, but it + will be amusing to those who recall the erratic personality of + George Francis Train. Train and Twain were sometimes confused by + the very unlettered; or pretendedly, by Mark Twain's friends. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + BALTIMORE, May 1, '77. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Found I was not absolutely needed in Washington so I +only staid 24 hours, and am on my way home, now. I called at the White +House, and got admission to Col. Rodgers, because I wanted to inquire +what was the right hour to go and infest the, President. It was my luck +to strike the place in the dead waste and middle of the day, the very +busiest time. I perceived that Mr. Rodgers took me for George Francis +Train and had made up his mind not to let me get at the President; so at +the end of half an hour I took my letter of introduction from the table +and went away. It was a great pity all round, and a great loss to the +nation, for I was brim full of the Eastern question. I didn't get to see +the President or the Chief Magistrate either, though I had sort of a +glimpse of a lady at a window who resembled her portraits. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + Howells condoled with him on his failure to see the President, + "but," he added, "if you and I had both been there, our combined + skill would have no doubt procured us to be expelled from the White + House by Fred Douglass. But the thing seems to be a complete + failure as it was." Douglass at this time being the Marshal of + Columbia, gives special point to Howells's suggestion. + + Later, in May, Clemens took Twichell for an excursion to Bermuda. + He had begged Howells to go with them, but Howells, as usual, was + full of literary affairs. Twichell and Clemens spent four glorious + days tramping the length and breadth of the beautiful island, and + remembered it always as one of their happiest adventures. "Put it + down as an Oasis!" wrote Twichell on his return, "I'm afraid I shall + not see as green a spot again soon. And it was your invention and + your gift. And your company was the best of it. Indeed, I never + took more comfort in being with you than on this journey, which, my + boy, is saying a great deal." + + + To Howells, Clemens triumphantly reported the success of the + excursion. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, May 29, 1877. +Confound you, Joe Twichell and I roamed about Bermuda day and night and +never ceased to gabble and enjoy. About half the talk was--"It is a +burning shame that Howells isn't here." "Nobody could get at the very +meat and marrow of this pervading charm and deliciousness like Howells;" +"How Howells would revel in the quaintness, and the simplicity of this +people and the Sabbath repose of this land." "What an imperishable +sketch Howells would make of Capt. West the whaler, and Capt. Hope with +the patient, pathetic face, wanderer in all the oceans for 42 years, +lucky in none; coming home defeated once more, now, minus his ship-- +resigned, uncomplaining, being used to this." "What a rattling chapter +Howells would make out of the small boy Alfred, with his alert eye and +military brevity and exactness of speech; and out of the old landlady; +and her sacred onions; and her daughter; and the visiting clergyman; and +the ancient pianos of Hamilton and the venerable music in vogue there-- +and forty other things which we shall leave untouched or touched but +lightly upon, we not being worthy." "Dam Howells for not being here!" +(this usually from me, not Twichell.) + +O, your insufferable pride, which will have a fall some day! If you had +gone with us and let me pay the $50 which the trip and the board and the +various nicknacks and mementoes would cost, I would have picked up enough +droppings from your conversation to pay me 500 per cent profit in the way +of the several magazine articles which I could have written, whereas I +can now write only one or two and am therefore largely out of pocket by +your proud ways. Ponder these things. Lord, what a perfectly bewitching +excursion it was! I traveled under an assumed name and was never +molested with a polite attention from anybody. + Love to you all. + Yrs ever + MARK + + + Aldrich, meantime, had invited the Clemenses to Ponkapog during the + Bermuda absence, and Clemens hastened to send him a line expressing + regrets. At the close he said: + + + To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, June 3, 1877. +Day after tomorrow we leave for the hills beyond Elmira, N. Y. for the +summer, when I shall hope to write a book of some sort or other to beat +the people with. A work similar to your new one in the Atlantic is what +I mean, though I have not heard what the nature of that one is. Immoral, +I suppose. Well, you are right. Such books sell best, Howells says. +Howells says he is going to make his next book indelicate. He says he +thinks there is money in it. He says there is a large class of the +young, in schools and seminaries who--But you let him tell you. He has +ciphered it all down to a demonstration. + +With the warmest remembrances to the pair of you + Ever Yours + SAMUEL L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens would naturally write something about Bermuda, and began at + once, "Random Notes of an Idle Excursion," and presently completed + four papers, which Howells eagerly accepted for the Atlantic. Then + we find him plunging into another play, this time alone. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, June 27, 1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should not like the first 2 chapters, send them +to me and begin with Chapter 3--or Part 3, I believe you call these +things in the magazine. I have finished No. 4., which closes the series, +and will mail it tomorrow if I think of it. I like this one, I liked the +preceding one (already mailed to you some time ago) but I had my doubts +about 1 and 2. Do not hesitate to squelch them, even with derision and +insult. + +Today I am deep in a comedy which I began this morning--principal +character, that old detective--I skeletoned the first act and wrote the +second, today; and am dog-tired, now. Fifty-four close pages of MS in 7 +hours. Once I wrote 55 pages at a sitting--that was on the opening +chapters of the "Gilded Age" novel. When I cool down, an hour from now, +I shall go to zero, I judge. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + Clemens had doubts as to the quality of the Bermuda papers, and with + some reason. They did not represent him at his best. Nevertheless, + they were pleasantly entertaining, and Howells expressed full + approval of them for Atlantic use. The author remained troubled. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, July 4,1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It is splendid of you to say those pleasant things. +But I am still plagued with doubts about Parts 1 and 2. If you have any, +don't print. If otherwise, please make some cold villain like Lathrop +read and pass sentence on them. Mind, I thought they were good, at +first--it was the second reading that accomplished its hellish purpose on +me. Put them up for a new verdict. Part 4 has lain in my pigeon-hole a +good while, and when I put it there I had a Christian's confidence in 4 +aces in it; and you can be sure it will skip toward Connecticut tomorrow +before any fatal fresh reading makes me draw my bet. + +I've piled up 151 MS pages on my comedy. The first, second and fourth +acts are done, and done to my satisfaction, too. Tomorrow and next day +will finish the 3rd act and the play. I have not written less than 30 +pages any day since I began. Never had so much fun over anything in my +life-never such consuming interest and delight. (But Lord bless you the +second reading will fetch it!) And just think!--I had Sol Smith Russell +in my mind's eye for the old detective's part, and hang it he has gone +off pottering with Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie. + +I read everything about the President's doings there with exultation. + +I wish that old ass of a private secretary hadn't taken me for George +Francis Train. If ignorance were a means of grace I wouldn't trade that +gorilla's chances for the Archbishop of Canterbury's. + +I shall call on the President again, by and by. I shall go in my war +paint; and if I am obstructed the nation will have the unusual spectacle +of a private secretary with a pen over one ear a tomahawk over the other. + +I read the entire Atlantic this time. Wonderful number. Mrs. Rose Terry +Cooke's story was a ten-strike. I wish she would write 12 old-time New +England tales a year. + +Good times to you all! Mind if you don't run here for a few days you +will go to hence without having had a fore-glimpse of heaven. + + MARK. + + + The play, "Ah Sin," that had done little enough in Washington, was + that summer given another trial by Augustin Daly, at the Fifth + Avenue Theater, New York, with a fine company. Clemens had + undertaken to doctor the play, and it would seem to have had an + enthusiastic reception on the opening night. But it was a summer + audience, unspoiled by many attractions. "Ah Sin" was never a + success in the New York season--never a money-maker on the road. + + The reference in the first paragraph of the letter that follows is + to the Bermuda chapters which Mark Twain was publishing + simultaneously in England and America. + + + ELMIRA, Aug 3,1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have mailed one set of the slips to London, and told +Bentley you would print Sept. 15, in October Atlantic, and he must not +print earlier in Temple Bar. Have I got the dates and things right? + +I am powerful glad to see that No. 1 reads a nation sight better in print +than it did in MS. I told Bentley we'd send him the slips, each time, 6 +weeks before day of publication. We can do that can't we? Two months +ahead would be still better I suppose, but I don't know. + +"Ah Sin" went a-booming at the Fifth Avenue. The reception of Col. +Sellers was calm compared to it. + +*The criticisms were just; the criticisms of the great New York dailies +are always just, intelligent, and square and honest--notwithstanding, +by a blunder which nobody was seriously to blame for, I was made to say +exactly the opposite of this in a newspaper some time ago. Never said it +at all, and moreover I never thought it. I could not publicly correct it +before the play appeared in New York, because that would look as if I had +really said that thing and then was moved by fears for my pocket and my +reputation to take it back. But I can correct it now, and shall do it; +for now my motives cannot be impugned. When I began this letter, it had +not occurred to me to use you in this connection, but it occurs to me +now. Your opinion and mine, uttered a year ago, and repeated more than +once since, that the candor and ability of the New York critics were +beyond question, is a matter which makes it proper enough that I should +speak through you at this time. Therefore if you will print this +paragraph somewhere, it may remove the impression that I say unjust +things which I do not think, merely for the pleasure of talking. + +There, now, Can't you say-- + +"In a letter to Mr. Howells of the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Twain describes +the reception of the new comedy 'Ali Sin,' and then goes on to say:" etc. + +Beginning at the star with the words, "The criticisms were just." Mrs. +Clemens says, "Don't ask that of Mr. Howells--it will be disagreeable to +him." I hadn't thought of it, but I will bet two to one on the +correctness of her instinct. We shall see. + +Will you cut that paragraph out of this letter and precede it with the +remarks suggested (or with better ones,) and send it to the Globe or some +other paper? You can't do me a bigger favor; and yet if it is in the +least disagreeable, you mustn't think of it. But let me know, right +away, for I want to correct this thing before it grows stale again. +I explained myself to only one critic (the World)--the consequence was a +noble notice of the play. This one called on me, else I shouldn't have +explained myself to him. + +I have been putting in a deal of hard work on that play in New York, but +it is full of incurable defects. + +My old Plunkett family seemed wonderfully coarse and vulgar on the stage, +but it was because they were played in such an outrageously and +inexcusably coarse way. The Chinaman is killingly funny. I don't know +when I have enjoyed anything as much as I did him. The people say there +isn't enough of him in the piece. That's a triumph--there'll never be +any more of him in it. + +John Brougham said, "Read the list of things which the critics have +condemned in the piece, and you have unassailable proofs that the play +contains all the requirements of success and a long life." + +That is true. Nearly every time the audience roared I knew it was over +something that would be condemned in the morning (justly, too) but must +be left in--for low comedies are written for the drawing-room, the +kitchen and the stable, and if you cut out the kitchen and the stable the +drawing-room can't support the play by itself. + +There was as much money in the house the first two nights as in the first +ten of Sellers. Haven't heard from the third--I came away. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + In a former letter we have seen how Mark Twain, working on a story + that was to stand as an example of his best work, and become one of + his surest claims to immortality (The Adventures of Huckleberry + Finn), displayed little enthusiasm in his undertaking. In the + following letter, which relates the conclusion of his detective + comedy, we find him at the other extreme, on very tiptoe with + enthusiasm over something wholly without literary value or dramatic + possibility. One of the hall-marks of genius is the inability to + discriminate as to the value of its output. "Simon Wheeler, Amateur + Detective" was a dreary, absurd, impossible performance, as wild and + unconvincing in incident and dialogue as anything out of an asylum + could well be. The title which he first chose for it, "Balaam's + Ass," was properly in keeping with the general scheme. Yet Mark + Twain, still warm with the creative fever, had the fullest faith in + it as a work of art and a winner of fortune. It would never see the + light of production, of course. We shall see presently that the + distinguished playwright, Dion Boucicault, good-naturedly + complimented it as being better than "Ahi Sin." One must wonder + what that skilled artist really thought, and how he could do even + this violence to his conscience. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Wednesday P.M. (1877) +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It's finished. I was misled by hurried mis-paging. +There were ten pages of notes, and over 300 pages of MS when the play was +done. Did it in 42 hours, by the clock; 40 pages of the Atlantic--but +then of course it's very "fat." Those are the figures, but I don't +believe them myself, because the thing's impossible. + +But let that pass. All day long, and every day, since I finished (in the +rough) I have been diligently altering, amending, re-writing, cutting +down. I finished finally today. Can't think of anything else in the way +of an improvement. I thought I would stick to it while the interest was +hot--and I am mighty glad I did. A week from now it will be frozen--then +revising would be drudgery. (You see I learned something from the fatal +blunder of putting "Ah Sin" aside before it was finished.) + +She's all right, now. She reads in two hours and 20 minutes and will +play not longer than 2 3/4 hours. Nineteen characters; 3 acts; (I +bunched 2 into 1.) + +Tomorrow I will draw up an exhaustive synopsis to insert in the printed +title-page for copyrighting, and then on Friday or Saturday I go to New +York to remain a week or ten days and lay for an actor. Wish you could +run down there and have a holiday. 'Twould be fun. + +My wife won't have "Balaam's Ass"; therefore I call the piece "Cap'n +Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective." + Yrs + MARK. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 29, 1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Just got your letter last night. No, dern that +article,--[One of the Bermuda chapters.]--it made me cry when I read it +in proof, it was so oppressively and ostentatiously poor. Skim your eye +over it again and you will think as I do. If Isaac and the prophets of +Baal can be doctored gently and made permissible, it will redeem the +thing: but if it can't, let's burn all of the articles except the tail- +end of it and use that as an introduction to the next article--as I +suggested in my letter to you of day before yesterday. (I had this proof +from Cambridge before yours came.) + +Boucicault says my new play is ever so much better than "Ah Sin;" says +the Amateur detective is a bully character, too. An actor is chawing +over the play in New York, to see if the old Detective is suited to his +abilities. Haven't heard from him yet. + +If you've got that paragraph by you yet, and if in your judgment it would +be good to publish it, and if you absolutely would not mind doing it, +then I think I'd like to have you do it--or else put some other words in +my mouth that will be properer, and publish them. But mind, don't think +of it for a moment if it is distasteful--and doubtless it is. I value +your judgment more than my own, as to the wisdom of saying anything at +all in this matter. To say nothing leaves me in an injurious position-- +and yet maybe I might do better to speak to the men themselves when I go +to New York. This was my latest idea, and it looked wise. + +We expect to leave here for home Sept. 4, reaching there the 8th--but we +may be delayed a week. + +Curious thing. I read passages from my play, and a full synopsis, to +Boucicault, who was re-writing a play, which he wrote and laid aside 3 or +4 years ago. (My detective is about that age, you know.) Then he read a +passage from his play, where a real detective does some things that are +as idiotic as some of my old Wheeler's performances. Showed me the +passages, and behold, his man's name is Wheeler! However, his Wheeler +is not a prominent character, so we'll not alter the names. My Wheeler's +name is taken from the old jumping Frog sketch. + +I am re-reading Ticknor's diary, and am charmed with it, though I still +say he refers to too many good things when he could just as well have +told them. Think of the man traveling 8 days in convoy and familiar +intercourse with a band of outlaws through the mountain fastnesses of +Spain--he the fourth stranger they had encountered in thirty years--and +compressing this priceless experience into a single colorless paragraph +of his diary! They spun yarns to this unworthy devil, too. + +I wrote you a very long letter a day or two ago, but Susy Crane wanted to +make a copy of it to keep, so it has not gone yet. It may go today, +possibly. + +We unite in warm regards to you and yours. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The Ticknor referred to in a former letter was Professor George + Ticknor, of Harvard College, a history-writer of distinction. On + the margin of the "Diary" Mark Twain once wrote, "Ticknor is a + Millet, who makes all men fall in love with him." And adds: "Millet + was the cause of lovable qualities in people, and then he admired + and loved those persons for the very qualities which he (without + knowing it) had created in them. Perhaps it would be strictly truer + of these two men to say that they bore within them the divine + something in whose presence the evil in people fled away and hid + itself, while all that was good in them came spontaneously forward + out of the forgotten walls and comers in their systems where it was + accustomed to hide." + + It is Frank Millet, the artist, he is speaking of--a knightly soul + whom all the Clemens household loved, and who would one day meet his + knightly end with those other brave men that found death together + when the Titanic went down. + + The Clemens family was still at Quarry Farm at the end of August, + and one afternoon there occurred a startling incident which Mark + Twain thought worth setting down in practically duplicate letters to + Howells and to Dr. John Brown. It may be of interest to the reader + to know that John T. Lewis, the colored man mentioned, lived to a + good old age--a pensioner of the Clemens family and, in the course + of time, of H. H. Rogers. Howells's letter follows. It is the + "very long letter" referred to in the foregoing. + + + To W. D. Howells and wife, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 25 '77. +MY DEAR HOWELLSES,--I thought I ought to make a sort of record of it for +further reference; the pleasantest way to do that would be to write it to +somebody; but that somebody would let it leak into print and that we wish +to avoid. The Howellses would be safe--so let us tell the Howellses +about it. + +Day before yesterday was a fine summer day away up here on the summit. +Aunt Marsh and Cousin May Marsh were here visiting Susie Crane and Livy +at our farmhouse. By and by mother Langdon came up the hill in the "high +carriage" with Nora the nurse and little Jervis (Charley Langdon's little +boy)--Timothy the coachman driving. Behind these came Charley's wife and +little girl in the buggy, with the new, young, spry, gray horse--a high- +stepper. Theodore Crane arrived a little later. + +The Bay and Susy were on hand with their nurse, Rosa. I was on hand, +too. Susy Crane's trio of colored servants ditto--these being Josie, +house-maid; Aunty Cord, cook, aged 62, turbaned, very tall, very broad, +very fine every way (see her portrait in "A True Story just as I Heard +It" in my Sketches;) Chocklate (the laundress) (as the Bay calls her--she +can't say Charlotte,) still taller, still more majestic of proportions, +turbaned, very black, straight as an Indian--age 24. Then there was the +farmer's wife (colored) and her little girl, Susy. + +Wasn't it a good audience to get up an excitement before? Good +excitable, inflammable material? + +Lewis was still down town, three miles away, with his two-horse wagon, +to get a load of manure. Lewis is the farmer (colored). He is of mighty +frame and muscle, stocky, stooping, ungainly, has a good manly face and a +clear eye. Age about 45--and the most picturesque of men, when he sits +in his fluttering work-day rags, humped forward into a bunch, with his +aged slouch hat mashed down over his ears and neck. It is a spectacle to +make the broken-hearted smile. Lewis has worked mighty hard and remained +mighty poor. At the end of each whole year's toil he can't show a gain +of fifty dollars. He had borrowed money of the Cranes till he owed them +$700 and he being conscientious and honest, imagine what it was to him to +have to carry this stubborn, helpless load year in and year out. + +Well, sunset came, and Ida the young and comely (Charley Langdon's wife) +and her little Julia and the nurse Nora, drove out at the gate behind the +new gray horse and started down the long hill--the high carriage +receiving its load under the porte cochere. Ida was seen to turn her +face toward us across the fence and intervening lawn--Theodore waved +good-bye to her, for he did not know that her sign was a speechless +appeal for help. + +The next moment Livy said, "Ida's driving too fast down hill!" She +followed it with a sort of scream, "Her horse is running away!" + +We could see two hundred yards down that descent. The buggy seemed to +fly. It would strike obstructions and apparently spring the height of a +man from the ground. + +Theodore and I left the shrieking crowd behind and ran down the hill +bare-headed and shouting. A neighbor appeared at his gate--a tenth of a +second too late! the buggy vanished past him like a thought. My last +glimpse showed it for one instant, far down the descent, springing high +in the air out of a cloud of dust, and then it disappeared. As I flew +down the road my impulse was to shut my eyes as I turned them to the +right or left, and so delay for a moment the ghastly spectacle of +mutilation and death I was expecting. + +I ran on and on, still spared this spectacle, but saying to myself: +"I shall see it at the turn of the road; they never can pass that turn +alive." When I came in sight of that turn I saw two wagons there bunched +together--one of them full of people. I said, "Just so--they are staring +petrified at the remains." + +But when I got amongst that bunch, there sat Ida in her buggy and nobody +hurt, not even the horse or the vehicle. Ida was pale but serene. As I +came tearing down, she smiled back over her shoulder at me and said, +"Well, we're alive yet, aren't we?" A miracle had been performed-- +nothing else. + +You see Lewis, the prodigious, humped upon his front seat, had been +toiling up, on his load of manure; he saw the frantic horse plunging down +the hill toward him, on a full gallop, throwing his heels as high as a +man's head at every jump. So Lewis turned his team diagonally across the +road just at the "turn," thus making a V with the fence--the running +horse could not escape that, but must enter it. Then Lewis sprang to the +ground and stood in this V. He gathered his vast strength, and with a +perfect Creedmoor aim he seized the gray horse's bit as he plunged by and +fetched him up standing! + +It was down hill, mind you. Ten feet further down hill neither Lewis nor +any other man could have saved them, for they would have been on the +abrupt "turn," then. But how this miracle was ever accomplished at all, +by human strength, generalship and accuracy, is clean beyond my +comprehension--and grows more so the more I go and examine the ground and +try to believe it was actually done. I know one thing, well; if Lewis +had missed his aim he would have been killed on the spot in the trap he +had made for himself, and we should have found the rest of the remains +away down at the bottom of the steep ravine. + +Ten minutes later Theodore and I arrived opposite the house, with the +servants straggling after us, and shouted to the distracted group on the +porch, "Everybody safe!" + +Believe it? Why how could they? They knew the road perfectly. We might +as well have said it to people who had seen their friends go over +Niagara. + +However, we convinced them; and then, instead of saying something, or +going on crying, they grew very still--words could not express it, I +suppose. + +Nobody could do anything that night, or sleep, either; but there was a +deal of moving talk, with long pauses between pictures of that flying +carriage, these pauses represented--this picture intruded itself all the +time and disjointed the talk. + +But yesterday evening late, when Lewis arrived from down town he found +his supper spread, and some presents of books there, with very +complimentary writings on the fly-leaves, and certain very complimentary +letters, and more or less greenbacks of dignified denomination pinned to +these letters and fly-leaves,--and one said, among other things, (signed +by the Cranes) "We cancel $400 of your indebtedness to us," &c. &c. + +(The end thereof is not yet, of course, for Charley Langdon is West and +will arrive ignorant of all these things, today.) + +The supper-room had been kept locked and imposingly secret and mysterious +until Lewis should arrive; but around that part of the house were +gathered Lewis's wife and child, Chocklate, Josie, Aunty Cord and our +Rosa, canvassing things and waiting impatiently. They were all on hand +when the curtain rose. + +Now, Aunty Cord is a violent Methodist and Lewis an implacable Dunker-- +Baptist. Those two are inveterate religious disputants. The revealments +having been made Aunty Cord said with effusion-- + +"Now, let folks go on saying there ain't no God! Lewis, the Lord sent +you there to stop that horse." + +Says Lewis: + +"Then who sent the horse there in sich a shape?" + +But I want to call your attention to one thing. When Lewis arrived the +other evening, after saving those lives by a feat which I think is the +most marvelous of any I can call to mind--when he arrived, hunched up on +his manure wagon and as grotesquely picturesque as usual, everybody +wanted to go and see how he looked. They came back and said he was +beautiful. It was so, too--and yet he would have photographed exactly as +he would have done any day these past 7 years that he has occupied this +farm. + + Aug. 27. +P. S. Our little romance in real life is happily and satisfactorily +completed. Charley has come, listened, acted--and now John T. Lewis has +ceased to consider himself as belonging to that class called "the poor." + +It has been known, during some years, that it was Lewis's purpose to buy +a thirty dollar silver watch some day, if he ever got where he could +afford it. Today Ida has given him a new, sumptuous gold Swiss stem- +winding stop-watch; and if any scoffer shall say, "Behold this thing is +out of character," there is an inscription within, which will silence +him; for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not +the watch the wearer. + +I was asked beforehand, if this would be a wise gift, and I said "Yes, +the very wisest of all; I know the colored race, and I know that in +Lewis's eyes this fine toy will throw the other more valuable +testimonials far away into the shade. If he lived in England the Humane +Society would give him a gold medal as costly as this watch, and nobody +would say: "It is out of character." If Lewis chose to wear a town +clock, who would become it better? + +Lewis has sound common sense, and is not going to be spoiled. The +instant he found himself possessed of money, he forgot himself in a plan +to make his old father comfortable, who is wretchedly poor and lives down +in Maryland. His next act, on the spot, was the proffer to the Cranes of +the $300 of his remaining indebtedness to them. This was put off by them +to the indefinite future, for he is not going to be allowed to pay that +at all, though he doesn't know it. + +A letter of acknowledgment from Lewis contains a sentence which raises it +to the dignity of literature: + +"But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine providence saw fit to +use me as a instrument for the saving of those presshious lives, the +honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed." + +That is well said. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + Howells was moved to use the story in the. "Contributors' Club," + and warned Clemens against letting it get into the newspapers. He + declared he thought it one of the most impressive things he had ever + read. But Clemens seems never to have allowed it to be used in any + form. In its entirety, therefore, it is quite new matter. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Sept. 19, 1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- I don't really see how the story of the runaway horse +could read well with the little details of names and places and things +left out. They are the true life of all narrative. It wouldn't quite +do to print them at this time. We'll talk about it when you come. +Delicacy--a sad, sad false delicacy--robs literature of the best two +things among its belongings. Family-circle narrative and obscene +stories. But no matter; in that better world which I trust we are all +going to I have the hope and belief that they will not be denied us. + +Say--Twichell and I had an adventure at sea, 4 months ago, which I did +not put in my Bermuda articles, because there was not enough to it. But +the press dispatches bring the sequel today, and now there's plenty to +it. A sailless, wasteless, chartless, compassless, grubless old +condemned tub that has been drifting helpless about the ocean for 4 +months and a half, begging bread and water like any other tramp, flying a +signal of distress permanently, and with 13 innocent, marveling +chuckleheaded Bermuda niggers on board, taking a Pleasure Excursion! Our +ship fed the poor devils on the 25th of last May, far out at sea and left +them to bullyrag their way to New York--and now they ain't as near New +York as they were then by 250 miles! They have drifted 750 miles and are +still drifting in the relentless Gulf Stream! What a delicious magazine +chapter it would make--but I had to deny myself. I had to come right out +in the papers at once, with my details, so as to try to raise the +government's sympathy sufficiently to have better succor sent them than +the cutter Colfax, which went a little way in search of them the other +day and then struck a fog and gave it up. + +If the President were in Washington I would telegraph him. + +When I hear that the "Jonas Smith" has been found again, I mean to send +for one of those darkies, to come to Hartford and give me his adventures +for an Atlantic article. + +Likely you will see my today's article in the newspapers. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + +The revenue cutter Colfax went after the Jonas Smith, thinking there was +mutiny or other crime on board. It occurs to me now that, since there is +only mere suffering and misery and nobody to punish, it ceases to be a +matter which (a republican form of) government will feel authorized to +interfere in further. Dam a republican form of government. + + + Clemens thought he had given up lecturing for good; he was + prosperous and he had no love for the platform. But one day an idea + popped into his head: Thomas Nast, the "father of the American + cartoon," had delivered a successful series of illustrated lectures- + talks for which he made the drawings as he went along. Mark Twain's + idea was to make a combination with Nast. His letter gives us the + plan in full. + + + To Thomas Nast, Morristown, N. J.: + + HARTFORD, CONN. 1877. +MY DEAR NAST,--I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again +until the time was come for me to say "I die innocent." But the same old +offers keep arriving. I have declined them all, just as usual, though +sorely tempted, as usual. + +Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because +(1) traveling alone is so heartbreakingly dreary, and (2) shouldering the +whole show is such a cheer-killing responsibility. + +Therefore, I now propose to you what you proposed to me in 1867, ten +years ago (when I was unknown,) viz., that you stand on the platform and +make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should +enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns--don't want to go to the +little ones) with you for company. + +My idea is not to fatten the lecture agents and lyceums on the spoils, +but put all the ducats religiously into two equal piles, and say to the +artist and lecturer, "Absorb these." + +For instance--[Here follows a plan and a possible list of cities to be +visited. The letter continues] + +Call the gross receipts $100,000 for four months and a half, and the +profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large enough, +and leave it to the public to reduce them.) + +I did not put in Philadelphia because Pugh owns that town, and last +winter when I made a little reading-trip he only paid me $300 and +pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a concert) +cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn't afford any more. I could get up +a better concert with a barrel of cats. + +I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying +remarks to see how the thing would go. I was charmed. + +Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line. We should have some +fun. + Yours truly, + SAMUEL L. CLEMENS. + + + The plan came to nothing. Nast, like Clemens, had no special taste + for platforming, and while undoubtedly there would have been large + profits in the combination, the promise of the venture did not + compel his acceptance. + + In spite of his distaste for the platform Mark Twain was always + giving readings and lectures, without charge, for some worthy + Hartford cause. He was ready to do what he could to help an + entertainment along, if he could do it in his own way--an original + way, sometimes, and not always gratifying to the committee, whose + plans were likely to be prearranged. + + For one thing, Clemens, supersensitive in the matter of putting + himself forward in his own town, often objected to any special + exploitation of his name. This always distressed the committee, who + saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame. + The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense + when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently + peevish to abandon a worthy enterprise. + + + To an Entertainment Committee, in Hartford: + + Nov. 9. +E. S. SYKES, Esq: + +Dr. SIR,--Mr. Burton's note puts upon me all the blame of the destruction +of an enterprise which had for its object the succor of the Hartford +poor. That is to say, this enterprise has been dropped because of the +"dissatisfaction with Mr. Clemens's stipulations." Therefore I must be +allowed to say a word in my defense. + +There were two "stipulations"--exactly two. I made one of them; if the +other was made at all, it was a joint one, from the choir and me. + +My individual stipulation was, that my name should be kept out of the +newspapers. The joint one was that sufficient tickets to insure a good +sum should be sold before the date of the performance should be set. +(Understand, we wanted a good sum--I do not think any of us bothered +about a good house; it was money we were after) + +Now you perceive that my concern is simply with my individual +stipulation. Did that break up the enterprise? + +Eugene Burton said he would sell $300 worth of the tickets himself.--Mr. +Smith said he would sell $200 or $300 worth himself. My plan for Asylum +Hill Church would have ensured $150 from that quarter.--All this in the +face of my "Stipulation." It was proposed to raise $1000; did my +stipulation render the raising of $400 or $500 in a dozen churches +impossible? + +My stipulation is easily defensible. When a mere reader or lecturer has +appeared 3 or 4 times in a town of Hartford's size, he is a good deal +more than likely to get a very unpleasant snub if he shoves himself +forward about once or twice more. Therefore I long ago made up my mind +that whenever I again appeared here, it should be only in a minor +capacity and not as a chief attraction. + +Now, I placed that harmless and very justifiable stipulation before the +committee the other day; they carried it to headquarters and it was +accepted there. I am not informed that any objection was made to it, or +that it was regarded as an offense. It seems late in the day, now, after +a good deal of trouble has been taken and a good deal of thankless work +done by the committees, to, suddenly tear up the contract and then turn +and bowl me down from long range as being the destroyer of it. + +If the enterprise has failed because of my individual stipulation, here +you have my proper and reasonable reasons for making that stipulation. + +If it has failed because of the joint stipulation, put the blame there, +and let us share it collectively. + +I think our plan was a good one. I do not doubt that Mr. Burton still +approves of it, too. I believe the objections come from other quarters, +and not from him. Mr. Twichell used the following words in last Sunday's +sermon, (if I remember correctly): + +"My hearers, the prophet Deuteronomy says this wise thing: 'Though ye +plan a goodly house for the poor, and plan it with wisdom, and do take +off your coats and set to to build it, with high courage, yet shall the +croaker presently come, and lift up his voice, (having his coat on,) and +say, Verily this plan is not well planned--and he will go his way; and +the obstructionist will come, and lift up his voice, (having his coat +on,) and say, Behold, this is but a sick plan--and he will go his way; +and the man that knows it all will come, and lift up his voice, (having +his coat on,) and say, Lo, call they this a plan? then will he go his +way; and the places which knew him once shall know him no more forever, +because he was not, for God took him. Now therefore I say unto you, +Verily that house will not be budded. And I say this also: He that +waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his plan, let him seek eternal +life, for he shall need it.'" + +This portion of Mr. Twichell's sermon made a great impression upon me, +and I was grieved that some one had not wakened me earlier so that I +might have heard what went before. + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mr. Sykes (of the firm of Sykes & Newton, the Allen House Pharmacy) + replied that he had read the letter to the committee and that it had + set those gentlemen right who had not before understood the + situation. "If others were as ready to do their part as yourself + our poor would not want assistance," he said, in closing. + + We come now to an incident which assumes the proportions of an + episode-even of a catastrophe--in Mark Twain's career. The disaster + was due to a condition noted a few pages earlier--the inability of + genius to judge its own efforts. The story has now become history-- + printed history--it having been sympathetically told by Howells in + My Mark Twain, and more exhaustively, with a report of the speech + that invited the lightning, in a former work by the present writer. + + The speech was made at John Greenleaf Whittier's seventieth birthday + dinner, given by the Atlantic staff on the evening of December 17, + 1877. It was intended as a huge joke--a joke that would shake the + sides of these venerable Boston deities, Longfellow, Emerson, + Holmes, and the rest of that venerated group. Clemens had been a + favorite at the Atlantic lunches and dinners--a speech by him always + an event. This time he decided to outdo himself. + + He did that, but not in the way he had intended. To use one of his + own metaphors, he stepped out to meet the rainbow and got struck by + lightning. His joke was not of the Boston kind or size. When its + full nature burst upon the company--when the ears of the assembled + diners heard the sacred names of Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes + lightly associated with human aspects removed--oh, very far removed + --from Cambridge and Concord, a chill fell upon the diners that + presently became amazement, and then creeping paralysis. Nobody + knew afterward whether the great speech that he had so gaily planned + ever came to a natural end or not. Somebody--the next on the + program--attempted to follow him, but presently the company melted + out of the doors and crept away into the night. + + It seemed to Mark Twain that his career had come to an end. Back in + Hartford, sweating and suffering through sleepless nights, he wrote + Howells his anguish. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Sunday Night. 1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--My sense of disgrace does not abate. It grows. I see +that it is going to add itself to my list of permanencies--a list of +humiliations that extends back to when I was seven years old, and which +keep on persecuting me regardless of my repentancies. + +I feel that my misfortune has injured me all over the country; therefore +it will be best that I retire from before the public at present. It will +hurt the Atlantic for me to appear in its pages, now. So it is my +opinion and my wife's that the telephone story had better be suppressed. +Will you return those proofs or revises to me, so that I can use the same +on some future occasion? + +It seems as if I must have been insane when I wrote that speech and saw +no harm in it, no disrespect toward those men whom I reverenced so much. +And what shame I brought upon you, after what you said in introducing me! +It burns me like fire to think of it. + +The whole matter is a dreadful subject--let me drop it here--at least on +paper. + Penitently yrs, + MARK. + + + Howells sent back a comforting letter. "I have no idea of dropping + you out of the Atlantic," he wrote; "and Mr. Houghton has still + less, if possible. You are going to help and not hurt us many a + year yet, if you will.... You are not going to be floored by it; + there is more justice than that, even in this world." + + Howells added that Charles Elliot Norton had expressed just the + right feeling concerning the whole affair, and that many who had not + heard the speech, but read the newspaper reports of it, had found it + without offense. + + Clemens wrote contrite letters to Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow, + and received most gracious acknowledgments. Emerson, indeed, had + not heard the speech: His faculties were already blurred by the + mental mists that would eventually shut him in. Clemens wrote again + to Howells, this time with less anguish. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Friday, 1877. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your letter was a godsend; and perhaps the welcomest +part of it was your consent that I write to those gentlemen; for you +discouraged my hints in that direction that morning in Boston--rightly, +too, for my offense was yet too new, then. Warner has tried to hold up +our hands like the good fellow he is, but poor Twichell could not say a +word, and confessed that he would rather take nearly any punishment than +face Livy and me. He hasn't been here since. + +It is curious, but I pitched early upon Mr. Norton as the very man who +would think some generous thing about that matter, whether he said it or +not. It is splendid to be a man like that--but it is given to few to be. + +I wrote a letter yesterday, and sent a copy to each of the three. I +wanted to send a copy to Mr. Whittier also, since the offense was done +also against him, being committed in his presence and he the guest of the +occasion, besides holding the well-nigh sacred place he does in his +people's estimation; but I didn't know whether to venture or not, and so +ended by doing nothing. It seemed an intrusion to approach him, and even +Livy seemed to have her doubts as to the best and properest way to do in +the case. I do not reverence Mr. Emerson less, but somehow I could +approach him easier. + +Send me those proofs, if you have got them handy; I want to submit them +to Wylie; he won't show them to anybody. + +Had a very pleasant and considerate letter from Mr. Houghton, today, and +was very glad to receive it. + +You can't imagine how brilliant and beautiful that new brass fender is, +and how perfectly naturally it takes its place under the carved oak. How +they did scour it up before they sent it! I lied a good deal about it +when I came home--so for once I kept a secret and surprised Livy on a +Christmas morning! + +I haven't done a stroke of work since the Atlantic dinner; have only +moped around. But I'm going to try tomorrow. How could I ever have. + +Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and +all His works must be contemplated with respect. + +Livy and I join in the warmest regards to you and yours, + Yrs ever, + MARK. + +Longfellow, in his reply, said: "I do not believe anybody was much hurt. +Certainly I was not, and Holmes tells me he was not. So I think you may +dismiss the matter from your mind without further remorse." + +Holmes wrote: "It never occurred to me for a moment to take offense, or +feel wounded by your playful use of my name." + +Miss Ellen Emerson replied for her father (in a letter to Mrs. Clemens) +that the speech had made no impression upon him, giving at considerable +length the impression it had made on herself and other members of the +family. + + Clearly, it was not the principals who were hurt, but only those who + held them in awe, though one can realize that this would not make it + much easier for Mark Twain. + + + + +XVIII. + +LETTERS FROM EUROPE, 1878-79. TRAMPING WITH TWICHELL. WRITING A NEW +TRAVEL BOOK. LIFE IN MUNICH + + Whether the unhappy occurrence at the Whittier dinner had anything + to do with Mark Twain's resolve to spend a year or two in Europe + cannot be known now. There were other good reasons for going, one + in particular being a demand for another book of travel. It was + also true, as he explains in a letter to his mother, that his days + were full of annoyances, making it difficult for him to work. He + had a tendency to invest money in almost any glittering enterprise + that came along, and at this time he was involved in the promotion + of a variety of patent rights that brought him no return other than + assessment and vexation. + + Clemens's mother was by this time living with her son Onion and his + wife, in Iowa. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 17, 1878 +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I suppose I am the worst correspondent in the whole +world; and yet I grow worse and worse all the time. My conscience +blisters me for not writing you, but it has ceased to abuse me for not +writing other folks. + +Life has come to be a very serious matter with me. I have a badgered, +harassed feeling, a good part of my time. It comes mainly of business +responsibilities and annoyances, and the persecution of kindly letters +from well meaning strangers--to whom I must be rudely silent or else put +in the biggest half of my time bothering over answers. There are other +things also that help to consume my time and defeat my projects. Well, +the consequence is, I cannot write a book at home. This cuts my income +down. Therefore, I have about made up my mind to take my tribe and fly +to some little corner of Europe and budge no more until I shall have +completed one of the half dozen books that lie begun, up stairs. Please +say nothing about this at present. + +We propose to sail the 11th of April. I shall go to Fredonia to meet +you, but it will not be well for Livy to make that trip I am afraid. +However, we shall see. I will hope she can go. + +Mr. Twichell has just come in, so I must go to him. We are all well, and +send love to you all. + Affly, + SAM. + + + He was writing few letters at this time, and doing but little work. + There were always many social events during the winter, and what + with his European plans and a diligent study of the German language, + which the entire family undertook, his days and evenings were full + enough. Howells wrote protesting against the European travel and + berating him for his silence: + + "I never was in Berlin and don't know any family hotel there. + I should be glad I didn't, if it would keep you from going. You + deserve to put up at the Sign of the Savage in Vienna. Really, it's + a great blow to me to hear of that prospected sojourn. It's a + shame. I must see you, somehow, before you go. I'm in dreadfully + low spirits about it. + + "I was afraid your silence meant something wicked." + + Clemens replied promptly, urging a visit to Hartford, adding a + postscript for Mrs. Howells, characteristic enough to warrant + preservation. + + + P. S. to Mrs. Howells, in Boston: + + Feb. '78. +DEAR MRS. HOWELLS. Mrs. Clemens wrote you a letter, and handed it to me +half an hour ago, while I was folding mine to Mr. Howells. I laid that +letter on this table before me while I added the paragraph about R,'s +application. Since then I have been hunting and swearing, and swearing +and hunting, but I can't find a sign of that letter. It is the most +astonishing disappearance I ever heard of. Mrs. Clemens has gone off +driving--so I will have to try and give you an idea of her communication +from memory. Mainly it consisted of an urgent desire that you come to +see us next week, if you can possibly manage it, for that will be a +reposeful time, the turmoil of breaking up beginning the week after. She +wants you to tell her about Italy, and advise her in that connection, if +you will. Then she spoke of her plans--hers, mind you, for I never have +anything quite so definite as a plan. She proposes to stop a fortnight +in (confound the place, I've forgotten what it was,) then go and live in +Dresden till sometime in the summer; then retire to Switzerland for the +hottest season, then stay a while in Venice and put in the winter in +Munich. This program subject to modifications according to +circumstances. She said something about some little by-trips here and +there, but they didn't stick in my memory because the idea didn't charm +me. + +(They have just telephoned me from the Courant office that Bayard Taylor +and family have taken rooms in our ship, the Holsatia, for the 11th +April.) + +Do come, if you possibly can!--and remember and don't forget to avoid +letting Mrs. Clemens find out I lost her letter. Just answer her the +same as if you had got it. + Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The Howellses came, as invited, for a final reunion before the + breaking up. This was in the early half of March; the Clemenses + were to sail on the 11th of the following month. + + Orion Clemens, meantime, had conceived a new literary idea and was + piling in his MS. as fast as possible to get his brother's judgment + on it before the sailing-date. It was not a very good time to send + MS., but Mark Twain seems to have read it and given it some + consideration. "The Journey in Heaven," of his own, which he + mentions, was the story published so many years later under the + title of "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." He had began it in + 1868, on his voyage to San Francisco, it having been suggested by + conversations with Capt. Ned Wakeman, of one of the Pacific + steamers. Wakeman also appears in 'Roughing It,' Chap. L, as Capt. + Ned Blakely, and again in one of the "Rambling Notes of an Idle + Excursion," as "Captain Hurricane Jones." + + + To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk: + + HARTFORD, Mch. 23, 1878. +MY DEAR BRO.,--Every man must learn his trade--not pick it up. God +requires that he learn it by slow and painful processes. The apprentice- +hand, in black-smithing, in medicine, in literature, in everything, is a +thing that can't be hidden. It always shows. + +But happily there is a market for apprentice work, else the "Innocents +Abroad" would have had no sale. Happily, too, there's a wider market for +some sorts of apprentice literature than there is for the very best of +journey-work. This work of yours is exceedingly crude, but I am free to +say it is less crude than I expected it to be, and considerably better +work than I believed you could do, it is too crude to offer to any +prominent periodical, so I shall speak to the N. Y. Weekly people. To +publish it there will be to bury it. Why could not same good genius have +sent me to the N. Y. Weekly with my apprentice sketches? + +You should not publish it in book form at all--for this reason: it is +only an imitation of Verne--it is not a burlesque. But I think it may be +regarded as proof that Verne cannot be burlesqued. + +In accompanying notes I have suggested that you vastly modify the first +visit to hell, and leave out the second visit altogether. Nobody would, +or ought to print those things. You are not advanced enough in +literature to venture upon a matter requiring so much practice. Let me +show you what a man has got to go through: + +Nine years ago I mapped out my "Journey in Heaven." I discussed it with +literary friends whom I could trust to keep it to themselves. + +I gave it a deal of thought, from time to time. After a year or more I +wrote it up. It was not a success. Five years ago I wrote it again, +altering the plan. That MS is at my elbow now. It was a considerable +improvement on the first attempt, but still it wouldn't do--last year and +year before I talked frequently with Howells about the subject, and he +kept urging me to do it again. + +So I thought and thought, at odd moments and at last I struck what I +considered to be the right plan! Mind I have never altered the ideas, +from the first--the plan was the difficulty. When Howells was here last, +I laid before him the whole story without referring to my MS and he said: +"You have got it sure this time. But drop the idea of making mere +magazine stuff of it. Don't waste it. Print it by itself--publish it +first in England--ask Dean Stanley to endorse it, which will draw some of +the teeth of the religious press, and then reprint in America." I doubt +my ability to get Dean Stanley to do anything of the sort, but I shall do +the rest--and this is all a secret which you must not divulge. + +Now look here--I have tried, all these years, to think of some way of +"doing " hell too--and have always had to give it up. Hell, in my book, +will not occupy five pages of MS I judge--it will be only covert hints, +I suppose, and quickly dropped, I may end by not even referring to it. + +And mind you, in my opinion you will find that you can't write up hell so +it will stand printing. Neither Howells nor I believe in hell or the +divinity of the Savior, but no matter, the Savior is none the less a +sacred Personage, and a man should have no desire or disposition to refer +to him lightly, profanely, or otherwise than with the profoundest +reverence. + +The only safe thing is not to introduce him, or refer to him at all, +I suspect. I have entirely rewritten one book 3 (perhaps 4.) times, +changing the plan every time--1200 pages of MS. wasted and burned--and +shall tackle it again, one of these years and maybe succeed at last. +Therefore you need not expect to get your book right the first time. +Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and +lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are +God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases +to get under the bed, by and by. + +Mr. Perkins will send you and Ma your checks when we are gone. But don't +write him, ever, except a single line in case he forgets the checks--for +the man is driven to death with work. + +I see you are half promising yourself a monthly return for your book. +In my experience, previously counted chickens never do hatch. How many +of mine I have counted! and never a one of them but failed! It is much +better to hedge disappointment by not counting.--Unexpected money is a +delight. The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more. + +My time in America is growing mighty short. Perhaps we can manage in +this way: Imprimis, if the N. Y. Weekly people know that you are my +brother, they will turn that fact into an advertisement--a thing of value +to them, but not to you and me. This must be prevented. I will write +them a note to say you have a friend near Keokuk, Charles S. Miller, +who has a MS for sale which you think is a pretty clever travesty on +Verne; and if they want it they might write to him in your care. Then if +any correspondence ensues between you and them, let Mollie write for you +and sign your name--your own hand writing representing Miller's. Keep +yourself out of sight till you make a strike on your own merits there is +no other way to get a fair verdict upon your merits. + +Later-I've written the note to Smith, and with nothing in it which he can +use as an advertisement. I'm called--Good bye-love to you both. + +We leave here next Wednesday for Elmira: we leave there Apl. 9 or 10--and +sail 11th + Yr Bro. + SAM. + + + In the letter that follows the mention of Annie and Sam refers, of + course, to the children of Mrs. Moffett, who had been, Pamela + Clemens. They were grown now, and Annie Moffett was married to + Charles L. Webster, who later was to become Mark Twain's business + partner. The Moffetts and Websters were living in Fredonia at this + time, and Clemens had been to pay them a good-by visit. The Taylor + dinner mentioned was a farewell banquet given to Bayard Taylor, who + had been appointed Minister to Germany, and was to sail on the ship + with Mark Twain. Mark Twain's mother was visiting in Fredonia when + this letter was written. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in Fredonia: + + Apr. 7, '78. +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have told Livy all about Annie's beautiful house, and +about Sam and Charley, and about Charley's ingenious manufactures and his +strong manhood and good promise, and how glad I am that he and Annie +married. And I have told her about Annie's excellent house-keeping, also +about the great Bacon conflict; (I told you it was a hundred to one that +neither Livy nor the European powers had heard of that desolating +struggle.) + +And I have told her how beautiful you are in your age and how bright your +mind is with its old-time brightness, and how she and the children would +enjoy you. And I have told her how singularly young Pamela is looking, +and what a fine large fellow Sam is, and how ill the lingering syllable +"my" to his name fits his port and figure. + +Well, Pamela, after thinking it over for a day or so, I came near +inquiring about a state-room in our ship for Sam, to please you, but my +wiser former resolution came back to me. It is not for his good that he +have friends in the ship. His conduct in the Bacon business shows that +he will develop rapidly into a manly man as soon as he is cast loose from +your apron strings. + +You don't teach him to push ahead and do and dare things for himself, but +you do just the reverse. You are assisted in your damaging work by the +tyrannous ways of a village-- villagers watch each other and so make +cowards of each other. After Sam shall have voyaged to Europe by +himself, and rubbed against the world and taken and returned its cuffs, +do you think he will hesitate to escort a guest into any whisky-mill in +Fredonia when he himself has no sinful business to transact there? +No, he will smile at the idea. If he avoids this courtesy now from +principle, of course I find no fault with it at all--only if he thinks it +is principle he may be mistaken; a close examination may show it is only +a bowing to the tyranny of public opinion. + +I only say it may--I cannot venture to say it will. Hartford is not a +large place, but it is broader than to have ways of that sort. Three or +four weeks ago, at a Moody and Sankey meeting, the preacher read a letter +from somebody "exposing" the fact that a prominent clergyman had gone +from one of those meetings, bought a bottle of lager beer and drank it on +the premises (a drug store.) + +A tempest of indignation swept the town. Our clergymen and everybody +else said the "culprit" had not only done an innocent thing, but had done +it in an open, manly way, and it was nobody's right or business to find +fault with it. Perhaps this dangerous latitude comes of the fact that we +never have any temperance "rot" going on in Hartford. + +I find here a letter from Orion, submitting some new matter in his story +for criticism. When you write him, please tell him to do the best he can +and bang away. I can do nothing further in this matter, for I have but 3 +days left in which to settle a deal of important business and answer a +bushel and a half of letters. I am very nearly tired to death. + +I was so jaded and worn, at the Taylor dinner, that I found I could not +remember 3 sentences of the speech I had memorized, and therefore got up +and said so and excused myself from speaking. I arrived here at 3 +o'clock this morning. I think the next 3 days will finish me. The idea +of sitting down to a job of literary criticism is simply ludicrous. + +A young lady passenger in our ship has been placed under Livy's charge. +Livy couldn't easily get out of it, and did not want to, on her own +account, but fully expected I would make trouble when I heard of it. +But I didn't. A girl can't well travel alone, so I offered no objection. +She leaves us at Hamburg. So I've got 6 people in my care, now--which is +just 6 too many for a man of my unexecutive capacity. I expect nothing +else but to lose some of them overboard. + +We send our loving good-byes to all the household and hope to see you +again after a spell. + Affly Yrs. + SAM. + + + There are no other American letters of this period. The Clemens + party, which included Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira, sailed as + planned, on the Holsatia, April 11, 1878. As before stated, Bayard + Taylor was on the ship; also Murat Halstead and family. On the eve + of departure, Clemens sent to Howells this farewell word: + + "And that reminds me, ungrateful dog that I am, that I owe as much + to your training as the rude country job-printer owes to the city + boss who takes him in hand and teaches him the right way to handle + his art. I was talking to Mrs. Clemens about this the other day, + and grieving because I never mentioned it to you, thereby seeming to + ignore it, or to be unaware of it. Nothing that has passed under + your eye needs any revision before going into a volume, while all my + other stuff does need so much." + + A characteristic tribute, and from the heart. + + The first European letter came from Frankfort, a rest on their way + to Heidelberg. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN, May 4, 1878. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I only propose to write a single line to say we are +still around. Ah, I have such a deep, grateful, unutterable sense of +being "out of it all." I think I foretaste some of the advantages of +being dead. Some of the joy of it. I don't read any newspapers or care +for them. When people tell me England has declared war, I drop the +subject, feeling that it is none of my business; when they tell me Mrs. +Tilton has confessed and Mr. B. denied, I say both of them have done that +before, therefore let the worn stub of the Plymouth white-wash brush be +brought out once more, and let the faithful spit on their hands and get +to work again regardless of me--for I am out of it all. + +We had 2 almost devilish weeks at sea (and I tell you Bayard Taylor is a +really lovable man--which you already knew) then we staid a week in the +beautiful, the very beautiful city of Hamburg; and since then we have +been fooling along, 4 hours per day by rail, with a courier, spending the +other 20 in hotels whose enormous bedchambers and private parlors are an +overpowering marvel to me: Day before yesterday, in Cassel, we had a love +of a bedroom ,31 feet long, and a parlor with 2 sofas, 12 chairs, a +writing desk and 4 tables scattered around, here and there in it. Made +of red silk, too, by George. + +The times and times I wish you were along! You could throw some fun into +the journey; whereas I go on, day by day, in a smileless state of solemn +admiration. + +What a paradise this is! What clean clothes, what good faces, what +tranquil contentment, what prosperity, what genuine freedom, what superb +government. And I am so happy, for I am responsible for none of it. I +am only here to enjoy. How charmed I am when I overhear a German word +which I understand. With love from us 2 to you 2. + + MARK. + +P. S. We are not taking six days to go from Hamburg to Heidelberg +because we prefer it. Quite on the contrary. Mrs. Clemens picked up a +dreadful cold and sore throat on board ship and still keeps them in +stock--so she could only travel 4 hours a day. She wanted to dive +straight through, but I had different notions about the wisdom of it. +I found that 4 hours a day was the best she could do. Before I forget +it, our permanent address is Care Messrs. Koester & Co., Backers, +Heidelberg. We go there tomorrow. + +Poor Susy! From the day we reached German soil, we have required Rosa to +speak German to the children--which they hate with all their souls. The +other morning in Hanover, Susy came to us (from Rosa, in the nursery) and +said, in halting syllables, "Papa, vie viel uhr ist es?"--then turned +with pathos in her big eyes, and said, "Mamma, I wish Rosa was made in +English." + +(Unfinished) + + + Frankfort was a brief halting-place, their destination being + Heidelberg. They were presently located there in the beautiful + Schloss hotel, which overlooks the old castle with its forest + setting, the flowing Neckar, and the distant valley of the Rhine. + Clemens, who had discovered the location, and loved it, toward the + end of May reported to Howells his felicities. + + + Part of letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + SCHLOSS-HOTEL HEIDELBERG, + Sunday, a. m., May 26, 1878. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--....divinely located. From this airy porch among the +shining groves we look down upon Heidelberg Castle, and upon the swift +Neckar, and the town, and out over the wide green level of the Rhine +valley--a marvelous prospect. We are in a Cul-de-sac formed of hill- +ranges and river; we are on the side of a steep mountain; the river at +our feet is walled, on its other side, (yes, on both sides,) by a steep +and wooded mountain-range which rises abruptly aloft from the water's +edge; portions of these mountains are densely wooded; the plain of the +Rhine, seen through the mouth of this pocket, has many and peculiar +charms for the eye. + +Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (enclosed balconies) one +looking toward the Rhine valley and sunset, the other looking up the +Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend nearly all our time in these- +when one is sunny the other is shady. We have tables and chairs in them; +we do our reading, writing, studying, smoking and suppering in them. + +The view from these bird-cages is my despair. The pictures change from +one enchanting aspect to another in ceaseless procession, never keeping +one form half an hour, and never taking on an unlovely one. + +And then Heidelberg on a dark night! It is massed, away down there, +almost right under us, you know, and stretches off toward the valley. +Its curved and interlacing streets are a cobweb, beaded thick with +lights--a wonderful thing to see; then the rows of lights on the arched +bridges, and their glinting reflections in the water; and away at the far +end, the Eisenbahnhof, with its twenty solid acres of glittering gas- +jets, a huge garden, as one may say, whose every plant is a flame. + +These balconies are the darlingest things. I have spent all the morning +in this north one. Counting big and little, it has 256 panes of glass in +it; so one is in effect right out in the free sunshine, and yet sheltered +from wind and rain--and likewise doored and curtained from whatever may +be going on in the bedroom. It must have been a noble genius who devised +this hotel. Lord, how blessed is the repose, the tranquillity of this +place! Only two sounds; the happy clamor of the birds in the groves, and +the muffled music of the Neckar, tumbling over the opposing dykes. It is +no hardship to lie awake awhile, nights, for this subdued roar has +exactly the sound of a steady rain beating upon a roof. It is so healing +to the spirit; and it bears up the thread of one's imaginings as the +accompaniment bears up a song. + +While Livy and Miss Spaulding have been writing at this table, I have sat +tilted back, near by, with a pipe and the last Atlantic, and read Charley +Warner's article with prodigious enjoyment. I think it is exquisite. +I think it must be the roundest and broadest and completest short essay +he has ever written. It is clear, and compact, and charmingly done. + +The hotel grounds join and communicate with the Castle grounds; so we and +the children loaf in the winding paths of those leafy vastnesses a great +deal, and drink beer and listen to excellent music. + +When we first came to this hotel, a couple of weeks ago, I pointed to a +house across the river, and said I meant to rent the centre room on the +3d floor for a work-room. Jokingly we got to speaking of it as my +office; and amused ourselves with watching "my people" daily in their +small grounds and trying to make out what we could of their dress, &c., +without a glass. Well, I loafed along there one day and found on that +house the only sign of the kind on that side of the river: "Moblirte +Wohnung zu Vermiethen!" I went in and rented that very room which I had +long ago selected. There was only one other room in the whole double- +house unrented. + +(It occurs to me that I made a great mistake in not thinking to deliver a +very bad German speech, every other sentence pieced out with English, at +the Bayard Taylor banquet in New York. I think I could have made it one +of the features of the occasion.)--[He used this plan at a gathering of +the American students in Heidelberg, on July 4th, with great effect; so +his idea was not wasted.] + +We left Hartford before the end of March, and I have been idle ever +since. I have waited for a call to go to work--I knew it would come. +Well, it began to come a week ago; my note-book comes out more and more +frequently every day since; 3 days ago I concluded to move my manuscript +over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at last. So tomorrow I +shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to it till middle of July or +1st August, when I look for Twichell; we will then walk about Germany 2 +or 3 weeks, and then I'll go to work again--(perhaps in Munich.) + +We both send a power of love to the Howellses, and we do wish you were +here. Are you in the new house? Tell us about it. + Yrs Ever + MARK. + + + There has been no former mention in the letters of the coming of + Twichell; yet this had been a part of the European plan. Mark Twain + had invited his walking companion to make a tramp with him through + Europe, as his guest. Material for the new book would grow faster + with Twichell as a companion; and these two in spite of their widely + opposed views concerning Providence and the general scheme of + creation, were wholly congenial comrades. Twichell, in Hartford, + expecting to receive the final summons to start, wrote: "Oh, my! do + you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be? I do. To begin + with, I am thoroughly tired, and the rest will be worth everything. + To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together--why, it's my + dream of luxury." + + August 1st brought Twichell, and the friends set out without delay + on a tramp through the Black Forest, making short excursions at + first, but presently extending them in the direction of Switzerland. + Mrs. Clemens and the others remained in Heidelberg, to follow at + their leisure. To Mrs. Clemens her husband sent frequent reports of + their wanderings. It will be seen that their tramp did not confine + itself to pedestrianism, though they did, in fact, walk a great + deal, and Mark Twain in a note to his mother declared, "I loathe all + travel, except on foot." The reports to Mrs. Clemens follow: + + + Letters to Mrs. Clemens, in Heidelberg: + + ALLERHEILIGEN Aug. 5, 1878 8:30 p.m. +Livy darling, we had a rattling good time to-day, but we came very near +being left at Baden-Baden, for instead of waiting in the waiting-room, we +sat down on the platform to wait where the trains come in from the other +direction. We sat there full ten minutes--and then all of a sudden it +occurred to me that that was not the right place. + +On the train the principal of the big English school at Nauheim (of which +Mr. Scheiding was a teacher,) introduced himself to me, and then he +mapped out our day for us (for today and tomorrow) and also drew a map +and gave us directions how to proceed through Switzerland. He had his +entire school with him, taking them on a prodigious trip through +Switzerland--tickets for the round trip ten dollars apiece. He has done +this annually for 10 years. We took a post carriage from Aachen to +Otterhofen for 7 marks--stopped at the "Pflug" to drink beer, and saw +that pretty girl again at a distance. Her father, mother, and two +brothers received me like an ancient customer and sat down and talked as +long as I had any German left. The big room was full of red-vested +farmers (the Gemeindrath of the district, with the Burgermeister at the +head,) drinking beer and talking public business. They had held an +election and chosen a new member and had been drinking beer at his +expense for several hours. It was intensely Black-foresty.) + +There was an Australian there (a student from Stuttgart or somewhere,) +and Joe told him who I was and he laid himself out to make our course +plain, for us--so I am certain we can't get lost between here and +Heidelberg. + +We walked the carriage road till we came to that place where one sees the +foot path on the other side of the ravine, then we crossed over and took +that. For a good while we were in a dense forest and judged we were +lost, but met a native women who said we were all right. We fooled along +and got there at 6 p.m.--ate supper, then followed down the ravine to the +foot of the falls, then struck into a blind path to see where it would +go, and just about dark we fetched up at the Devil's Pulpit on top of the +hills. Then home. And now to bed, pretty sleepy. Joe sends love and I +send a thousand times as much, my darling. + S. L. C. + + + HOTEL GENNIN. +Livy darling, we had a lovely day jogged right along, with a good horse +and sensible driver--the last two hours right behind an open carriage +filled with a pleasant German family--old gentleman and 3 pretty +daughters. At table d'hote tonight, 3 dishes were enough for me, and +then I bored along tediously through the bill of fare, with a back-ache, +not daring to get up and bow to the German family and leave. I meant to +sit it through and make them get up and do the bowing; but at last Joe +took pity on me and said he would get up and drop them a curtsy and put +me out of my misery. I was grateful. He got up and delivered a +succession of frank and hearty bows, accompanying them with an atmosphere +of good-fellowship which would have made even an English family +surrender. Of course the Germans responded--then I got right up and they +had to respond to my salaams, too. So "that was done." + +We walked up a gorge and saw a tumbling waterfall which was nothing to +Giessbach, but it made me resolve to drop you a line and urge you to go +and see Giessbach illuminated. Don't fail--but take a long day's rest, +first. I love you, sweetheart. + SAML. + + + OVER THE GEMMI PASS. + 4.30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, 1878. +Livy darling, Joe and I have had a most noble day. Started to climb (on +foot) at 8.30 this morning among the grandest peaks! Every half hour +carried us back a month in the season. We left them harvesting 2d crop +of hay. At 9 we were in July and found ripe strawberries; at 9.30 we +were in June and gathered flowers belonging to that month; at 10 we were +in May and gathered a flower which appeared in Heidelberg the 17th of +that month; also forget-me-nots, which disappeared from Heidelberg about +mid-May; at 11.30 we were in April (by the flowers;) at noon we had rain +and hail mixed, and wind and enveloping fogs, and considered it March; at +12.30 we had snowbanks above us and snowbanks below us, and considered it +February. Not good February, though, because in the midst of the wild +desolation the forget-me-not still bloomed, lovely as ever. + +What a flower garden the Gemmi Pass is! After I had got my hands full +Joe made me a paper bag, which I pinned to my lapel and filled with +choice specimens. I gathered no flowers which I had ever gathered before +except 4 or 5 kinds. We took it leisurely and I picked all I wanted to. +I mailed my harvest to you a while ago. Don't send it to Mrs. Brooks +until you have looked it over, flower by flower. It will pay. + +Among the clouds and everlasting snows I found a brave and bright little +forget-me-not growing in the very midst of a smashed and tumbled stone- +debris, just as cheerful as if the barren and awful domes and ramparts +that towered around were the blessed walls of heaven. I thought how +Lilly Warner would be touched by such a gracious surprise, if she, +instead of I, had seen it. So I plucked it, and have mailed it to her +with a note. + +Our walk was 7 hours--the last 2 down a path as steep as a ladder, +almost, cut in the face of a mighty precipice. People are not allowed to +ride down it. This part of the day's work taxed our knees, I tell you. +We have been loafing about this village (Leukerbad) for an hour, now we +stay here over Sunday. Not tired at all. (Joe's hat fell over the +precipice--so he came here bareheaded.) I love you, my darling. + + SAML. + + + ST. NICHOLAS, Aug. 26th, '78. +Livy darling, we came through a-whooping today, 6 hours tramp up steep +hills and down steep hills, in mud and water shoe-deep, and in a steady +pouring rain which never moderated a moment. I was as chipper and fresh +as a lark all the way and arrived without the slightest sense of fatigue. +But we were soaked and my shoes full of water, so we ate at once, +stripped and went to bed for 2 « hours while our traps were thoroughly +dried, and our boots greased in addition. Then we put our clothes on hot +and went to table d'hote. + +Made some nice English friends and shall see them at Zermatt tomorrow. + +Gathered a small bouquet of new flowers, but they got spoiled. I sent +you a safety-match box full of flowers last night from Leukerbad. + +I have just telegraphed you to wire the family news to me at Riffel +tomorrow. I do hope you are all well and having as jolly a time as we +are, for I love you, sweetheart, and also, in a measure, the Bays.-- +[Little Susy's word for "babies."]-- Give my love to Clara Spaulding and +also to the cubs. + ` SAML. + + + This, as far as it goes, is a truer and better account of the + excursion than Mark Twain gave in the book that he wrote later. A + Tramp Abroad has a quality of burlesque in it, which did not belong + to the journey at all, but was invented to satisfy the craving for + what the public conceived to be Mark Twain's humor. The serious + portions of the book are much more pleasing--more like himself. + The entire journey, as will be seen, lasted one week more than a + month. + + Twichell also made his reports home, some of which give us + interesting pictures of his walking partner. In one place he wrote: + "Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing he so delights in as a + swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once + he is within the influence of its fascinations." + + Twichell tells how at Kandersteg they were out together one evening + where a brook comes plunging down from Gasternthal and how he pushed + in a drift to see it go racing along the current. "When I got back + to the path Mark was running down stream after it as hard as he + could go, throwing up his hands and shouting in the wildest ecstasy, + and when a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam + below he would jump up and down and yell. He said afterward that he + had not been so excited in three months." + + In other places Twichell refers to his companion's consideration for + the feeling of others, and for animals. "When we are driving, his + concern is all about the horse. He can't bear to see the whip used, + or to see a horse pull hard." + +After the walk over Gemmi Pass he wrote: "Mark to-day was immensely +absorbed in flowers. He scrambled around and gathered a great variety, +and manifested the intensest pleasure in them. He crowded a pocket of +his note-book with his specimens, and wanted more room." + +Whereupon Twichell got out his needle and thread and some stiff paper he +had and contrived the little paper bag to hang to the front of his vest. + +The tramp really ended at Lausanne, where Clemens joined his party, but a +short excursion to Chillon and Chamonix followed, the travelers finally +separating at Geneva, Twichell to set out for home by way of England, +Clemens to remain and try to write the story of their travels. He +hurried a good-by letter after his comrade: + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell: + + (No date) +DEAR OLD JOE,--It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the +station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't seem to +accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, and the pleasant +tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! it has been such a rich +holiday to me, and I feel under such deep and honest obligations to you +for coming. I am putting out of my mind all memory of the times when I +misbehaved toward you and hurt you: I am resolved to consider it +forgiven, and to store up and remember only the charming hours of the +journeys and the times when I was not unworthy to be with you and share a +companionship which to me stands first after Livy's. It is justifiable +to do this; for why should I let my small infirmities of disposition live +and grovel among my mental pictures of the eternal sublimities of the +Alps? + +Livy can't accept or endure the fact that you are gone. But you are, +and we cannot get around it. So take our love with you, and bear it also +over the sea to Harmony, and God bless you both. + + MARK. + + + From Switzerland the Clemens party worked down into Italy, sight- + seeing, a diversion in which Mark Twain found little enough of + interest. He had seen most of the sights ten years before, when his + mind was fresh. He unburdened himself to Twichell and to Howells, + after a period of suffering. + + + To J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + ROME, Nov. 3, '78. +DEAR JOE,--.....I have received your several letters, and we have +prodigiously enjoyed them. How I do admire a man who can sit down and +whale away with a pen just the same as if it was fishing--or something +else as full of pleasure and as void of labor. I can't do it; else, in +common decency, I would when I write to you. Joe, if I can make a book +out of the matter gathered in your company over here, the book is safe; +but I don't think I have gathered any matter before or since your visit +worth writing up. I do wish you were in Rome to do my sightseeing for +me. Rome interests me as much as East Hartford could, and no more. That +is, the Rome which the average tourist feels an interest in; but there +are other things here which stir me enough to make life worth living. +Livy and Clara Spaulding are having a royal time worshiping the old +Masters, and I as good a time gritting my ineffectual teeth over them. + +A friend waits for me. A power of love to you all. + Amen. + MARK. + + + In his letter to Howells he said: "I wish I could give those sharp + satires on European life which you mention, but of course a man + can't write successful satire except he be in a calm, judicial good- + humor; whereas I hate travel, and I hate hotels, and I hate the + opera, and I hate the old masters. In truth, I don't ever seem to + be in a good-enough humor with anything to satirize it. No, I want + to stand up before it and curse it and foam at the mouth, or take a + club and pound it to rags and pulp. I have got in two or three + chapters about Wagner's operas, and managed to do it without showing + temper, but the strain of another such effort would burst me!" + + From Italy the Clemens party went to Munich, where they had arranged + in advance for winter quarters. Clemens claims, in his report of + the matter to Howells, that he took the party through without the + aid of a courier, though thirty years later, in some comment which + he set down on being shown the letter, he wrote concerning this + paragraph: "Probably a lie." He wrote, also, that they acquired a + great affection for Fraulein Dahlweiner: "Acquired it at once and it + outlasted the winter we spent in her house." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + No 1a, Karlstrasse, 2e Stock. + Care Fraulein Dahlweiner. + MUNICH, Nov. 17, 1878. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--We arrived here night before last, pretty well fagged: +an 8-hour pull from Rome to Florence; a rest there of a day and two +nights; then 5 1/2 hours to Bologna; one night's rest; then from noon to +10:30 p.m. carried us to Trent, in the Austrian Tyrol, where the +confounded hotel had not received our message, and so at that miserable +hour, in that snowy region, the tribe had to shiver together in fireless +rooms while beds were prepared and warmed, then up at 6 in the morning +and a noble view of snow-peaks glittering in the rich light of a full +moon while the hotel-devils lazily deranged a breakfast for us in the +dreary gloom of blinking candles; then a solid 12 hours pull through the +loveliest snow ranges and snow-draped forest--and at 7 p.m. we hauled up, +in drizzle and fog, at the domicile which had been engaged for us ten +months before. Munich did seem the horriblest place, the most desolate +place, the most unendurable place!--and the rooms were so small, the +conveniences so meagre, and the porcelain stoves so grim, ghastly, +dismal, intolerable! So Livy and Clara (Spaulding) sat down forlorn, +and cried, and I retired to a private, place to pray. By and by we all +retired to our narrow German beds; and when Livy and I finished talking +across the room, it was all decided that we would rest 24 hours then pay +whatever damages were required, and straightway fly to the south of +France. + +But you see, that was simply fatigue. Next morning the tribe fell in +love with the rooms, with the weather, with Munich, and head over heels +in love with Fraulein Dahlweiner. We got a larger parlor--an ample one +--threw two communicating bedrooms into one, for the children, and now we +are entirely comfortable. The only apprehension, at present, is that the +climate may not be just right for the children, in which case we shall +have to go to France, but it will be with the sincerest regret. + +Now I brought the tribe through from Rome, myself. We never had so +little trouble before. The next time anybody has a courier to put out to +nurse, I shall not be in the market. + +Last night the forlornities had all disappeared; so we gathered around +the lamp, after supper, with our beer and my pipe, and in a condition of +grateful snugness tackled the new magazines. I read your new story +aloud, amid thunders of applause, and we all agreed that Captain Jenness +and the old man with the accordion-hat are lovely people and most +skillfully drawn--and that cabin-boy, too, we like. Of course we are all +glad the girl is gone to Venice--for there is no place like Venice. Now +I easily understand that the old man couldn't go, because you have a +purpose in sending Lyddy by herself: but you could send the old man over +in another ship, and we particularly want him along. Suppose you don't +need him there? What of that? Can't you let him feed the doves? Can't +you let him fall in the canal occasionally? Can't you let his good- +natured purse be a daily prey to guides and beggar-boys? Can't you let +him find peace and rest and fellowship under Pere Jacopo's kindly wing? +(However, you are writing the book, not I--still, I am one of the people +you are writing it for, you understand.) I only want to insist, in a +friendly way, that the old man shall shed his sweet influence frequently +upon the page--that is all. + +The first time we called at the convent, Pere Jacopo was absent; the next +(Just at this moment Miss Spaulding spoke up and said something about +Pere Jacopo--there is more in this acting of one mind upon another than +people think) time, he was there, and gave us preserved rose-leaves to +eat, and talked about you, and Mrs. Howells, and Winnie, and brought out +his photographs, and showed us a picture of "the library of your new +house," but not so--it was the study in your Cambridge house. He was +very sweet and good. He called on us next day; the day after that we +left Venice, after a pleasant sojourn Of 3 or 4 weeks. He expects to +spend this winter in Munich and will see us often, he said. + +Pretty soon, I am going to write something, and when I finish it I shall +know whether to put it to itself or in the "Contributors' Club." That +"Contributors' Club" was a most happy idea. By the way, I think that the +man who wrote the paragraph beginning at the bottom of page 643 has said +a mighty sound and sensible thing. I wish his suggestion could be +adopted. + +It is lovely of you to keep that old pipe in such a place of honor. + +While it occurs to me, I must tell you Susie's last. She is sorely +badgered with dreams; and her stock dream is that she is being eaten up +by bears. She is a grave and thoughtful child, as you will remember. +Last night she had the usual dream. This morning she stood apart (after +telling it,) for some time, looking vacantly at the floor, and absorbed +in meditation. At last she looked up, and with the pathos of one who +feels he has not been dealt by with even-handed fairness, said "But +Mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the bear, but always the person." + +It would not have occurred to me that there might be an advantage, even +in a dream, in occasionally being the eater, instead of always the party +eaten, but I easily perceived that her point was well taken. + +I'm sending to Heidelberg for your letter and Winnie's, and I do hope +they haven't been lost. + +My wife and I send love to you all. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The Howells story, running at this time in the Atlantic, and so much + enjoyed by the Clemens party, was "The Lady of the Aroostook." The + suggestions made for enlarging the part of the "old man" are + eminently characteristic. + + Mark Twain's forty-third birthday came in Munich, and in his letter + conveying this fact to his mother we get a brief added outline of + the daily life in that old Bavarian city. Certainly, it would seem + to have been a quieter and more profitable existence than he had + known amid the confusion of things left behind in, America. + + + To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in America: + + No. 1a Karlstrasse, + Dec. 1, MUNICH. 1878. +MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I broke the back of life yesterday and +started down-hill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect +upon me that I can detect. + +I suppose we are located here for the winter. I have a pleasant work- +room a mile from here where I do my writing. The walk to and from that +place gives me what exercise I need, and all I take. We staid three +weeks in Venice, a week in Florence, a fortnight in Rome, and arrived +here a couple of weeks ago. Livy and Miss Spaulding are studying drawing +and German, and the children have a German day-governess. I cannot see +but that the children speak German as well as they do English. + +Susie often translates Livy's orders to the servants. I cannot work and +study German at the same time: so I have dropped the latter, and do not +even read the language, except in the morning paper to get the news. + +We have all pretty good health, latterly, and have seldom had to call the +doctor. The children have been in the open air pretty constantly for +months now. In Venice they were on the water in the gondola most of the +time, and were great friends with our gondolier; and in Rome and Florence +they had long daily tramps, for Rosa is a famous hand to smell out the +sights of a strange place. Here they wander less extensively. + +The family all join in love to you all and to Orion and Mollie. + Affly + Your son + SAM. + + + + +XIX. + +LETTERS 1879. RETURN TO AMERICA. THE GREAT GRANT REUNION + +Life went on very well in Munich. Each day the family fell more in love +with Fraulein Dahlweiner and her house. + +Mark Twain, however, did not settle down to his work readily. His +"pleasant work-room" provided exercise, but no inspiration. When he +discovered he could not find his Swiss note-book he was ready to give up +his travel-writing altogether. In the letter that follows we find him +much less enthusiastic concerning his own performances than over the +story by Howells, which he was following in the Atlantic. + +The "detective" chapter mentioned in this letter was not included in +'A Tramp Abroad.' It was published separately, as 'The Stolen White +Elephant' in a volume bearing that title. The play, which he had now +found "dreadfully witless and flat," was no other than "Simon Wheeler, +Detective," which he had once regarded so highly. The "Stewart" referred +to was the millionaire merchant, A. T. Stewart, whose body was stolen in +the expectation of reward. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + MUNICH, Jan. 21, (1879) +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It's no use, your letter miscarried in some way and is +lost. The consul has made a thorough search and says he has not been +able to trace it. It is unaccountable, for all the letters I did not +want arrived without a single grateful failure. Well, I have read-up, +now, as far as you have got, that is, to where there's a storm at sea +approaching,--and we three think you are clear, out-Howellsing Howells. +If your literature has not struck perfection now we are not able to see +what is lacking. It is all such truth--truth to the life; every where +your pen falls it leaves a photograph. I did imagine that everything had +been said about life at sea that could be said, but no matter, it was all +a failure and lies, nothing but lies with a thin varnish of fact,--only +you have stated it as it absolutely is. And only you see people and +their ways, and their insides and outsides as they are, and make them +talk as they do talk. I think you are the very greatest artist in these +tremendous mysteries that ever lived. There doesn't seem to be anything +that can be concealed from your awful all-seeing eye. It must be a +cheerful thing for one to live with you and be aware that you are going +up and down in him like another conscience all the time. Possibly you +will not be a fully accepted classic until you have been dead a hundred +years, --it is the fate of the Shakespeares and of all genuine prophets, +--but then your books will be as common as Bibles, I believe. You're not +a weed, but an oak; not a summer-house, but a cathedral. In that day I +shall still be in the Cyclopedias, too, thus: "Mark Twain; history and +occupation unknown--but he was personally acquainted with Howells." +There--I could sing your praises all day, and feel and believe every bit +of it. + +My book is half finished; I wish to heaven it was done. I have given up +writing a detective novel--can't write a novel, for I lack the faculty; +but when the detectives were nosing around after Stewart's loud remains, +I threw a chapter into my present book in which I have very extravagantly +burlesqued the detective business--if it is possible to burlesque that +business extravagantly. You know I was going to send you that detective +play, so that you could re-write it. Well I didn't do it because I +couldn't find a single idea in it that could be useful to you. It was +dreadfully witless and flat. I knew it would sadden you and unfit you +for work. + +I have always been sorry we threw up that play embodying Orion which you +began. It was a mistake to do that. Do keep that MS and tackle it +again. It will work out all right; you will see. I don't believe that +that character exists in literature in so well-developed a condition as +it exists in Orion's person. Now won't you put Orion in a story? Then +he will go handsomely into a play afterwards. How deliciously you could +paint him--it would make fascinating reading--the sort that makes a +reader laugh and cry at the same time, for Orion is as good and +ridiculous a soul as ever was. + +Ah, to think of Bayard Taylor! It is too sad to talk about. I was so +glad there was not a single sting and so many good praiseful words in the +Atlantic's criticism of Deukalion. + Love to you all + Yrs Ever + MARK + +We remain here till middle of March. + + + In 'A Tramp Abroad' there is an incident in which the author + describes himself as hunting for a lost sock in the dark, in a vast + hotel bedroom at Heilbronn. The account of the real incident, as + written to Twichell, seems even more amusing. + + The "Yarn About the Limburger Cheese and the Box of Guns," like "The + Stolen White Elephant," did not find place in the travel-book, but + was published in the same volume with the elephant story, added to + the rambling notes of "An Idle Excursion." + + With the discovery of the Swiss note-book, work with Mark Twain was + going better. His letter reflects his enthusiasm. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + MUNICH, Jan 26 '79. +DEAR OLD JOE,--Sunday. Your delicious letter arrived exactly at the +right time. It was laid by my plate as I was finishing breakfast at 12 +noon. Livy and Clara, (Spaulding) arrived from church 5 minutes later; +I took a pipe and spread myself out on the sofa, and Livy sat by and +read, and I warmed to that butcher the moment he began to swear. There +is more than one way of praying, and I like the butcher's way because the +petitioner is so apt to be in earnest. I was peculiarly alive to his +performance just at this time, for another reason, to wit: Last night I +awoke at 3 this morning, and after raging to my self for 2 interminable +hours, I gave it up. I rose, assumed a catlike stealthiness, to keep +from waking Livy, and proceeded to dress in the pitch dark. Slowly but +surely I got on garment after garment--all down to one sock; I had one +slipper on and the other in my hand. Well, on my hands and knees I crept +softly around, pawing and feeling and scooping along the carpet, and +among chair-legs for that missing sock; I kept that up; and still kept it +up and kept it up. At first I only said to myself, "Blame that sock," +but that soon ceased to answer; my expletives grew steadily stronger and +stronger,--and at last, when I found I was lost, I had to sit flat down +on the floor and take hold of something to keep from lifting the roof off +with the profane explosion that was trying to get out of me. I could see +the dim blur of the window, but of course it was in the wrong place and +could give me no information as to where I was. But I had one comfort +--I had not waked Livy; I believed I could find that sock in silence if +the night lasted long enough. So I started again and softly pawed all +over the place,--and sure enough at the end of half an hour I laid my +hand on the missing article. I rose joyfully up and butted the wash-bowl +and pitcher off the stand and simply raised ---- so to speak. Livy +screamed, then said, "Who is that? what is the matter?" I said "There +ain't anything the matter--I'm hunting for my sock." She said, "Are you +hunting for it with a club?" + +I went in the parlor and lit the lamp, and gradually the fury subsided +and the ridiculous features of the thing began to suggest themselves. +So I lay on the sofa, with note-book and pencil, and transferred the +adventure to our big room in the hotel at Heilbronn, and got it on paper +a good deal to my satisfaction. + +I found the Swiss note-book, some time ago. When it was first lost I was +glad of it, for I was getting an idea that I had lost my faculty of +writing sketches of travel; therefore the loss of that note-book would +render the writing of this one simply impossible, and let me gracefully +out; I was about to write to Bliss and propose some other book, when the +confounded thing turned up, and down went my heart into my boots. But +there was now no excuse, so I went solidly to work--tore up a great part +of the MS written in Heidelberg,--wrote and tore up,--continued to write +and tear up,--and at last, reward of patient and noble persistence, my +pen got the old swing again! + +Since then I'm glad Providence knew better what to do with the Swiss +note-book than I did, for I like my work, now, exceedingly, and often +turn out over 30 MS pages a day and then quit sorry that Heaven makes the +days so short. + +One of my discouragements had been the belief that my interest in this +tour had been so slender that I couldn't gouge matter enough out of it to +make a book. What a mistake. I've got 900 pages written (not a word in +it about the sea voyage) yet I stepped my foot out of Heidelberg for the +first time yesterday,--and then only to take our party of four on our +first pedestrian tour--to Heilbronn. I've got them dressed elaborately +in walking costume--knapsacks, canteens, field-glasses, leather leggings, +patent walking shoes, muslin folds around their hats, with long tails +hanging down behind, sun umbrellas, and Alpenstocks. They go all the way +to Wimpfen by rail-thence to Heilbronn in a chance vegetable cart drawn +by a donkey and a cow; I shall fetch them home on a raft; and if other +people shall perceive that that was no pedestrian excursion, they +themselves shall not be conscious of it.--This trip will take 100 pages +or more,--oh, goodness knows how many! for the mood is everything, not +the material, and I already seem to see 300 pages rising before me on +that trip. Then, I propose to leave Heidelberg for good. Don't you see, +the book (1800 MS pages,) may really be finished before I ever get to +Switzerland? + +But there's one thing; I want to tell Frank Bliss and his father to be +charitable toward me in,--that is, let me tear up all the MS I want to, +and give me time to write more. I shan't waste the time--I haven't the +slightest desire to loaf, but a consuming desire to work, ever since I +got back my swing. And you see this book is either going to be compared +with the Innocents Abroad, or contrasted with it, to my disadvantage. +I think I can make a book that will be no dead corpse of a thing and I +mean to do my level best to accomplish that. + +My crude plans are crystalizing. As the thing stands now, I went to +Europe for three purposes. The first you know, and must keep secret, +even from the Blisses; the second is to study Art; and the third to +acquire a critical knowledge of the German language. My MS already shows +that the two latter objects are accomplished. It shows that I am moving +about as an Artist and a Philologist, and unaware that there is any +immodesty in assuming these titles. Having three definite objects has +had the effect of seeming to enlarge my domain and give me the freedom of +a loose costume. It is three strings to my bow, too. + +Well, your butcher is magnificent. He won't stay out of my mind.--I keep +trying to think of some way of getting your account of him into my book +without his being offended--and yet confound him there isn't anything you +have said which he would see any offense in,--I'm only thinking of his +friends--they are the parties who busy themselves with seeing things for +people. But I'm bound to have him in. I'm putting in the yarn about the +Limburger cheese and the box of guns, too--mighty glad Howells declined +it. It seems to gather richness and flavor with age. I have very nearly +killed several companies with that narrative,--the American Artists Club, +here, for instance, and Smith and wife and Miss Griffith (they were here +in this house a week or two.) I've got other chapters that pretty nearly +destroyed the same parties, too. + +O, Switzerland! the further it recedes into the enriching haze of time, +the more intolerably delicious the charm of it and the cheer of it and +the glory and majesty and solemnity and pathos of it grow. Those +mountains had a soul; they thought; they spoke,--one couldn't hear it +with the ears of the body, but what a voice it was!--and how real. Deep +down in my memory it is sounding yet. Alp calleth unto Alp!--that +stately old Scriptural wording is the right one for God's Alps and God's +ocean. How puny we were in that awful presence--and how painless it was +to be so; how fitting and right it seemed, and how stingless was the +sense of our unspeakable insignificance. And Lord how pervading were the +repose and peace and blessedness that poured out of the heart of the +invisible Great Spirit of the Mountains. + +Now what is it? There are mountains and mountains and mountains in this +world--but only these take you by the heart-strings. I wonder what the +secret of it is. Well, time and time again it has seemed to me that I +must drop everything and flee to Switzerland once more. It is a longing +--a deep, strong, tugging longing--that is the word. We must go again, +Joe.--October days, let us get up at dawn and breakfast at the tower. I +should like that first rate. + +Livy and all of us send deluges of love to you and Harmony and all the +children. I dreamed last night that I woke up in the library at home and +your children were frolicing around me and Julia was sitting in my lap; +you and Harmony and both families of Warners had finished their welcomes +and were filing out through the conservatory door, wrecking Patrick's +flower pots with their dress skirts as they went. Peace and plenty abide +with you all! + MARK. + +I want the Blisses to know their part of this letter, if possible. They +will see that my delay was not from choice. + + + Following the life of Mark Twain, whether through his letters or + along the sequence of detailed occurrence, we are never more than a + little while, or a little distance, from his brother Orion. In one + form or another Orion is ever present, his inquiries, his proposals, + his suggestions, his plans for improving his own fortunes, command + our attention. He was one of the most human creatures that ever + lived; indeed, his humanity excluded every form of artificiality-- + everything that needs to be acquired. Talented, trusting, child- + like, carried away by the impulse of the moment, despite a keen + sense of humor he was never able to see that his latest plan or + project was not bound to succeed. Mark Twain loved him, pitied him + --also enjoyed him, especially with Howells. Orion's new plan to + lecture in the interest of religion found its way to Munich, with + the following result: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + MUNICH, Feb. 9. (1879) +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have just received this letter from Orion--take care +of it, for it is worth preserving. I got as far as 9 pages in my answer +to it, when Mrs. Clemens shut down on it, and said it was cruel, and made +me send the money and simply wish his lecture success. I said I couldn't +lose my 9 pages--so she said send them to you. But I will acknowledge +that I thought I was writing a very kind letter. + +Now just look at this letter of Orion's. Did you ever see the +grotesquely absurd and the heart-breakingly pathetic more closely joined +together? Mrs. Clemens said "Raise his monthly pension." So I wrote to +Perkins to raise it a trifle. + +Now only think of it! He still has 100 pages to write on his lecture, +yet in one inking of his pen he has already swooped around the United +States and invested the result! + +You must put him in a book or a play right away. You are the only man +capable of doing it. You might die at any moment, and your very greatest +work would be lost to the world. I could write Orion's simple biography, +and make it effective, too, by merely stating the bald facts--and this I +will do if he dies before I do; but you must put him into romance. This +was the understanding you and I had the day I sailed. + +Observe Orion's career--that is, a little of it: (1) He has belonged to +as many as five different religious denominations; last March he withdrew +from the deaconship in a Congregational Church and the Superintendency of +its Sunday School, in a speech in which he said that for many months (it +runs in my mind that he said 13 years,) he had been a confirmed infidel, +and so felt it to be his duty to retire from the flock. + +2. After being a republican for years, he wanted me to buy him a +democratic newspaper. A few days before the Presidential election, he +came out in a speech and publicly went over to the democrats; he +prudently "hedged" by voting for 6 state republicans, also. + +The new convert was made one of the secretaries of the democratic +meeting, and placed in the list of speakers. He wrote me jubilantly of +what a ten-strike he was going to make with that speech. All right--but +think of his innocent and pathetic candor in writing me something like +this, a week later: + +"I was more diffident than I had expected to be, and this was increased +by the silence with which I was received when I came forward; so I seemed +unable to get the fire into my speech which I had calculated upon, and +presently they began to get up and go out; and in a few minutes they all +rose up and went away." + +How could a man uncover such a sore as that and show it to another? Not +a word of complaint, you see--only a patient, sad surprise. + +3. His next project was to write a burlesque upon Paradise Lost. + +4. Then, learning that the Times was paying Harte $100 a column for +stories, he concluded to write some for the same price. I read his first +one and persuaded him not to write any more. + +5. Then he read proof on the N. Y. Eve. Post at $10 a week and meekly +observed that the foreman swore at him and ordered him around "like a +steamboat mate." + +6. Being discharged from that post, he wanted to try agriculture--was +sure he could make a fortune out of a chicken farm. I gave him $900 and +he went to a ten-house village a miles above Keokuk on the river bank-- +this place was a railway station. He soon asked for money to buy a horse +and light wagon,--because the trains did not run at church time on Sunday +and his wife found it rather far to walk. + +For a long time I answered demands for "loans" and by next mail always +received his check for the interest due me to date. In the most +guileless way he let it leak out that he did not underestimate the value +of his custom to me, since it was not likely that any other customer of +mine paid his interest quarterly, and this enabled me to use my capital +twice in 6 months instead of only once. But alas, when the debt at last +reached $1800 or $2500 (I have forgotten which) the interest ate too +formidably into his borrowings, and so he quietly ceased to pay it or +speak of it. At the end of two years I found that the chicken farm had +long ago been abandoned, and he had moved into Keokuk. Later in one of +his casual moments, he observed that there was no money in fattening a +chicken on 65 cents worth of corn and then selling it for 50. + +7. Finally, if I would lend him $500 a year for two years, (this was 4 +or 5 years ago,) he knew he could make a success as a lawyer, and would +prove it. This is the pension which we have just increased to $600. The +first year his legal business brought him $5. It also brought him an +unremunerative case where some villains were trying to chouse some negro +orphans out of $700. He still has this case. He has waggled it around +through various courts and made some booming speeches on it. The negro +children have grown up and married off, now, I believe, and their +litigated town-lot has been dug up and carted off by somebody--but Orion +still infests the courts with his documents and makes the welkin ring +with his venerable case. The second year, he didn't make anything. The +third he made $6, and I made Bliss put a case in his hands--about half an +hour's work. Orion charged $50 for it--Bliss paid him $15. Thus four or +five years of laving has brought him $26, but this will doubtless be +increased when he gets done lecturing and buys that "law library." +Meantime his office rent has been $60 a year, and he has stuck to that +lair day by day as patiently as a spider. + +8. Then he by and by conceived the idea of lecturing around America as +"Mark Twain's Brother"--that to be on the bills. Subject of proposed +lecture, "On the, Formation of Character." + +9. I protested, and he got on his warpaint, couched his lance, and ran a +bold tilt against total abstinence and the Red Ribbon fanatics. It +raised a fine row among the virtuous Keokukians. + +10. I wrote to encourage him in his good work, but I had let a mail +intervene; so by the time my letter reached him he was already winning +laurels as a Red Ribbon Howler. + +11. Afterward he took a rabid part in a prayer-meeting epidemic; dropped +that to travesty Jules Verne; dropped that, in the middle of the last +chapter, last March, to digest the matter of an infidel book which he +proposed to write; and now he comes to the surface to rescue our "noble +and beautiful religion" from the sacrilegious talons of Bob Ingersoll. + +Now come! Don't fool away this treasure which Providence has laid at +your feet, but take it up and use it. One can let his imagination run +riot in portraying Orion, for there is nothing so extravagant as to be +out of character with him. + +Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old +Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long? + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + To Orion Clemens + (Unsent and inclosed with the foregoing, to W. D. Howells): + + MUNICH, Feb. 9, (1879) +MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours has just arrived. I enclose a draft on Hartford for +$25. You will have abandoned the project you wanted it for, by the time +it arrives,--but no matter, apply it to your newer and present project, +whatever it is. You see I have an ineradicable faith in your +unsteadfastness,--but mind you, I didn't invent that faith, you conferred +it on me yourself. But fire away, fire away! I don't see why a +changeable man shouldn't get as much enjoyment out of his changes, and +transformations and transfigurations as a steadfast man gets out of +standing still and pegging at the same old monotonous thing all the time. +That is to say, I don't see why a kaleidoscope shouldn't enjoy itself as +much as a telescope, nor a grindstone have as good a time as a whetstone, +nor a barometer as good a time as a yardstick. I don't feel like girding +at you any more about fickleness of purpose, because I recognize and +realize at last that it is incurable; but before I learned to accept this +truth, each new weekly project of yours possessed the power of throwing +me into the most exhausting and helpless convulsions of profanity. But +fire away, now! Your magic has lost its might. I am able to view your +inspirations dispassionately and judicially, now, and say "This one or +that one or the other one is not up to your average flight, or is above +it, or below it." + +And so, without passion, or prejudice, or bias of any kind, I sit in +judgment upon your lecture project, and say it was up to your average, +it was indeed above it, for it had possibilities in it, and even +practical ones. While I was not sorry you abandoned it, I should not be +sorry if you had stuck to it and given it a trial. But on the whole you +did the wise thing to lay it aside, I think, because a lecture is a most +easy thing to fail in; and at your time of life, and in your own town, +such a failure would make a deep and cruel wound in your heart and in +your pride. It was decidedly unwise in you to think for a moment of +coming before a community who knew you, with such a course of lectures; +because Keokuk is not unaware that you have been a Swedenborgian, a +Presbyterian, a Congregationalist, and a Methodist (on probation), and +that just a year ago you were an infidel. If Keokuk had gone to your +lecture course, it would have gone to be amused, not instructed, for when +a man is known to have no settled convictions of his own he can't +convince other people. They would have gone to be amused and that would +have been a deep humiliation to you. It could have been safe for you to +appear only where you were unknown--then many of your hearers would think +you were in earnest. And they would be right. You are in earnest while +your convictions are new. But taking it by and large, you probably did +best to discard that project altogether. But I leave you to judge of +that, for you are the worst judge I know of. + +(Unfinished.) + + + That Mark Twain in many ways was hardly less child-like than his + brother is now and again revealed in his letters. He was of + steadfast purpose, and he possessed the driving power which Orion + Clemens lacked; but the importance to him of some of the smaller + matters of life, as shown in a letter like the following, bespeaks a + certain simplicity of nature which he never outgrew: + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + MUNICH, Feb. 24. (1879) +DEAR OLD JOE,--It was a mighty good letter, Joe--and that idea of yours +is a rattling good one. But I have not sot down here to answer your +letter,--for it is down at my study,--but only to impart some +information. + +For a months I had not shaved without crying. I'd spend 3/4 of an hour +whetting away on my hand--no use, couldn't get an edge. Tried a razor +strop-same result. So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the +mystery. Then it seemed plain--to wit: my hand can't give a razor an +edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given. +I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V--the long point +being the continuation of the edge--and that after much use the shape is +this V--the attenuated edge all worn off and gone. By George I knew that +was the explanation. And I knew that a freshly honed and freshly +strapped razor won't cut, but after strapping on the hand as a final +operation, it will cut.--So I sent out for an oil-stone; none to be had, +but messenger brought back a little piece of rock the size of a Safety- +match box--(it was bought in a shoemaker's shop) bad flaw in middle of +it, too, but I put 4 drops of fine Olive oil on it, picked out the razor +marked "Thursday" because it was never any account and would be no loss +if I spoiled it--gave it a brisk and reckless honing for 10 minutes, then +tried it on a hair--it wouldn't cut. Then I trotted it through a +vigorous 20-minute course on a razor-strap and tried it on a hair-it +wouldn't cut--tried it on my face--it made me cry--gave it a 5-minute +stropping on my hand, and my land, what an edge she had! We thought we +knew what sharp razors were when we were tramping in Switzerland, but it +was a mistake--they were dull beside this old Thursday razor of mine-- +which I mean to name Thursday October Christian, in gratitude. I took my +whetstone, and in 20 minutes I put two more of my razors in splendid +condition--but I leave them in the box--I never use any but Thursday O. +C., and shan't till its edge is gone--and then I'll know how to restore +it without any delay. + +We all go to Paris next Thursday--address, Monroe & Co., Bankers. + With love + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + In Paris they found pleasant quarters at the Hotel Normandy, but it + was a chilly, rainy spring, and the travelers gained a rather poor + impression of the French capital. Mark Twain's work did not go + well, at first, because of the noises of the street. But then he + found a quieter corner in the hotel and made better progress. In a + brief note to Aldrich he said: "I sleep like a lamb and write like a + lion--I mean the kind of a lion that writes--if any such." He + expected to finish the book in six weeks; that is to say, before + returning to America. He was looking after its illustrations + himself, and a letter to Frank Bliss, of The American Publishing + Company, refers to the frontpiece, which, from time to time, has + caused question as to its origin. To Bliss he says: "It is a thing + which I manufactured by pasting a popular comic picture into the + middle of a celebrated Biblical one--shall attribute it to Titian. + It needs to be engraved by a master." + + The weather continued bad in France and they left there in July to + find it little better in England. They had planned a journey to + Scotland to visit Doctor Brown, whose health was not very good. In + after years Mark Twain blamed himself harshly for not making the + trip, which he declared would have meant so much to Mrs. Clemens. + He had forgotten by that time the real reasons for not going--the + continued storms and uncertainty of trains (which made it barely + possible for them to reach Liverpool in time for their sailing- + date), and with characteristic self-reproach vowed that only + perversity and obstinacy on his part had prevented the journey to + Scotland. From Liverpool, on the eve of sailing, he sent Doctor + Brown a good-by word. + + + To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: + + WASHINGTON HOTEL, LIME STREET, LIVERPOOL. + Aug. (1879) +MY DEAR MR. BROWN,--During all the 15 months we have been spending on the +continent, we have been promising ourselves a sight of you as our latest +and most prized delight in a foreign land--but our hope has failed, our +plan has miscarried. One obstruction after another intruded itself, and +our short sojourn of three or four weeks on English soil was thus +frittered gradually away, and we were at last obliged to give up the idea +of seeing you at all. It is a great disappointment, for we wanted to +show you how much "Megalopis" has grown (she is 7 now) and what a fine +creature her sister is, and how prettily they both speak German. There +are six persons in my party, and they are as difficult to cart around as +nearly any other menagerie would be. My wife and Miss Spaulding are +along, and you may imagine how they take to heart this failure of our +long promised Edinburgh trip. We never even wrote you, because we were +always so sure, from day to day, that our affairs would finally so shape +themselves as to let us get to Scotland. But no,--everything went wrong +we had only flying trips here and there in place of the leisurely ones +which we had planned. + +We arrived in Liverpool an hour ago very tired, and have halted at this +hotel (by the advice of misguided friends)--and if my instinct and +experience are worth anything, it is the very worst hotel on earth, +without any exception. We shall move to another hotel early in the +morning to spend to-morrow. We sail for America next day in the +"Gallic." + +We all join in the sincerest love to you, and in the kindest remembrance +to "Jock"--[Son of Doctor Brown.]--and your sister. + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + It was September 3, 1879, that Mark Twain returned to America by the + steamer Gallic. In the seventeen months of his absence he had taken + on a "traveled look" and had added gray hairs. A New York paper + said of his arrival that he looked older than when he went to + Germany, and that his hair had turned quite gray. + + Mark Twain had not finished his book of travel in Paris--in fact, + it seemed to him far from complete--and he settled down rather + grimly to work on it at Quarry Farm. When, after a few days no word + of greeting came from Howells, Clemens wrote to ask if he were dead + or only sleeping. Howells hastily sent a line to say that he had + been sleeping "The sleep of a torpid conscience. I will feign that + I did not know where to write you; but I love you and all of yours, + and I am tremendously glad that you are home again. When and where + shall we meet? Have you come home with your pockets full of + Atlantic papers?" Clemens, toiling away at his book, was, as usual, + not without the prospect of other plans. Orion, as literary + material, never failed to excite him. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Sept. 15, 1879. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--When and where? Here on the farm would be an elegant +place to meet, but of course you cannot come so far. So we will say +Hartford or Belmont, about the beginning of November. The date of our +return to Hartford is uncertain, but will be three or four weeks hence, +I judge. I hope to finish my book here before migrating. + +I think maybe I've got some Atlantic stuff in my head, but there's none +in MS, I believe. + +Say--a friend of mine wants to write a play with me, I to furnish the +broad-comedy cuss. I don't know anything about his ability, but his +letter serves to remind me of our old projects. If you haven't used +Orion or Old Wakeman, don't you think you and I can get together and +grind out a play with one of those fellows in it? Orion is a field which +grows richer and richer the more he mulches it with each new top-dressing +of religion or other guano. Drop me an immediate line about this, won't +you? I imagine I see Orion on the stage, always gentle, always +melancholy, always changing his politics and religion, and trying to +reform the world, always inventing something, and losing a limb by a new +kind of explosion at the end of each of the four acts. Poor old chap, +he is good material. I can imagine his wife or his sweetheart +reluctantly adopting each of his new religious in turn, just in time to +see him waltz into the next one and leave her isolated once more. + +(Mem. Orion's wife has followed him into the outer darkness, after 30 +years' rabid membership in the Presbyterian Church.) + +Well, with the sincerest and most abounding love to you and yours, from +all this family, I am, + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + The idea of the play interested Howells, but he had twinges of + conscience in the matter of using Orion as material. He wrote: + "More than once I have taken the skeleton of that comedy of ours and + viewed it with tears..... I really have a compunction or two about + helping to put your brother into drama. You can say that he is your + brother, to do what you like with him, but the alien hand might + inflict an incurable hurt on his tender heart." + + As a matter of fact, Orion Clemens had a keen appreciation of his + own shortcomings, and would have enjoyed himself in a play as much + as any observer of it. Indeed, it is more than likely that he would + have been pleased at the thought of such distinguished + dramatization. From the next letter one might almost conclude that + he had received a hint of this plan, and was bent upon supplying + rich material. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Oct. 9 '79. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Since my return, the mail facilities have enabled Orion +to keep me informed as to his intentions. Twenty-eight days ago it was +his purpose to complete a work aimed at religion, the preface to which he +had already written. Afterward he began to sell off his furniture, with +the idea of hurrying to Leadville and tackling silver-mining--threw up +his law den and took in his sign. Then he wrote to Chicago and St. Louis +newspapers asking for a situation as "paragrapher"--enclosing a taste of +his quality in the shape of two stanzas of "humorous rhymes." By a later +mail on the same day he applied to New York and Hartford insurance +companies for copying to do. + +However, it would take too long to detail all his projects. They +comprise a removal to south-west Missouri; application for a reporter's +berth on a Keokuk paper; application for a compositor's berth on a St. +Louis paper; a re-hanging of his attorney's sign, "though it only creaks +and catches no flies;" but last night's letter informs me that he has +retackled the religious question, hired a distant den to write in, +applied to my mother for $50 to re-buy his furniture, which has advanced +in value since the sale--purposes buying $25 worth of books necessary to +his labors which he had previously been borrowing, and his first chapter +is already on its way to me for my decision as to whether it has enough +ungodliness in it or not. Poor Orion! + +Your letter struck me while I was meditating a project to beguile you, +and John Hay and Joe Twichell, into a descent upon Chicago which I dream +of making, to witness the re-union of the great Commanders of the Western +Army Corps on the 9th of next month. My sluggish soul needs a fierce +upstirring, and if it would not get it when Grant enters the meeting +place I must doubtless "lay" for the final resurrection. Can you and Hay +go? At the same time, confound it, I doubt if I can go myself, for this +book isn't done yet. But I would give a heap to be there. I mean to +heave some holiness into the Hartford primaries when I go back; and if +there was a solitary office in the land which majestic ignorance and +incapacity, coupled with purity of heart, could fill, I would run for it. +This naturally reminds me of Bret Harte--but let him pass. + +We propose to leave here for New York Oct. 21, reaching Hartford 24th or +25th. If, upon reflection, you Howellses find, you can stop over here on +your way, I wish you would do it, and telegraph me. Getting pretty +hungry to see you. I had an idea that this was your shortest way home, +but like as not my geography is crippled again--it usually is. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + The "Reunion of the Great Commanders," mentioned in the foregoing, + was a welcome to General Grant after his journey around the world. + Grant's trip had been one continuous ovation--a triumphal march. + In '79 most of his old commanders were still alive, and they had + planned to assemble in Chicago to do him honor. A Presidential year + was coming on, but if there was anything political in the project + there were no surface indications. Mark Twain, once a Confederate + soldier, had long since been completely "desouthernized"--at least + to the point where he felt that the sight of old comrades paying + tribute to the Union commander would stir his blood as perhaps it + had not been stirred, even in that earlier time, when that same + commander had chased him through the Missouri swamps. Grant, + indeed, had long since become a hero to Mark Twain, though it is + highly unlikely that Clemens favored the idea of a third term. Some + days following the preceding letter an invitation came for him to be + present at the Chicago reunion; but by this time he had decided not + to go. The letter he wrote has been preserved. + + + To Gen. William E. Strong, in Chicago: + + FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD. + Oct. 28, 1879. +GEN. WM. E. STRONG, CH'M, + AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE: + +I have been hoping during several weeks that it might be my good fortune +to receive an invitation to be present on that great occasion in Chicago; +but now that my desire is accomplished my business matters have so shaped +themselves as to bar me from being so far from home in the first half of +November. It is with supreme regret that I lost this chance, for I have +not had a thorough stirring up for some years, and I judged that if I +could be in the banqueting hall and see and hear the veterans of the Army +of the Tennessee at the moment that their old commander entered the room, +or rose in his place to speak, my system would get the kind of upheaval +it needs. General Grant's progress across the continent is of the +marvelous nature of the returning Napoleon's progress from Grenoble to +Paris; and as the crowning spectacle in the one case was the meeting with +the Old Guard, so, likewise, the crowning spectacle in the other will be +our great captain's meeting with his Old Guard--and that is the very +climax which I wanted to witness. + +Besides, I wanted to see the General again, any way, and renew the +acquaintance. He would remember me, because I was the person who did not +ask him for an office. However, I consume your time, and also wander +from the point--which is, to thank you for the courtesy of your +invitation, and yield up my seat at the table to some other guest who may +possibly grace it better, but will certainly not appreciate its +privileges more, than I should. + With great respect, + I am, Gentlemen, + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Private:--I beg to apologize for my delay, gentlemen, but the card of +invitation went to Elmira, N. Y. and hence has only just now reached me. + + + This letter was not sent. He reconsidered and sent an acceptance, + agreeing to speak, as the committee had requested. Certainly there + was something picturesque in the idea of the Missouri private who + had been chased for a rainy fortnight through the swamps of Ralls + County being selected now to join in welcome to his ancient enemy. + + The great reunion was to be something more than a mere banquet. It + would continue for several days, with processions, great + assemblages, and much oratory. + + Mark Twain arrived in Chicago in good season to see it all. Three + letters to Mrs. Clemens intimately present his experiences: his + enthusiastic enjoyment and his own personal triumph. + + The first was probably written after the morning of his arrival. + The Doctor Jackson in it was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, the guide- + dismaying "Doctor" of Innocents Abroad. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, Nov. 11. +Livy darling, I am getting a trifle leg-weary. Dr. Jackson called and +dragged me out of bed at noon, yesterday, and then went off. I went down +stairs and was introduced to some scores of people, and among them an +elderly German gentleman named Raster, who said his wife owed her life to +me--hurt in Chicago fire and lay menaced with death a long time, but the +Innocents Abroad kept her mind in a cheerful attitude, and so, with the +doctor's help for the body she pulled through.... They drove me to Dr. +Jackson's and I had an hour's visit with Mrs. Jackson. Started to walk +down Michigan Avenue, got a few steps on my way and met an erect, +soldierly looking young gentleman who offered his hand; said, "Mr. +Clemens, I believe--I wish to introduce myself--you were pointed out to +me yesterday as I was driving down street--my name is Grant." + +"Col. Fred Grant?" + +"Yes. My house is not ten steps away, and I would like you to come and +have a talk and a pipe, and let me introduce my wife." + +So we turned back and entered the house next to Jackson's and talked +something more than an hour and smoked many pipes and had a sociable good +time. His wife is very gentle and intelligent and pretty, and they have +a cunning little girl nearly as big as Bay but only three years old. +They wanted me to come in and spend an evening, after the banquet, with +them and Gen. Grant, after this grand pow-wow is over, but I said I was +going home Friday. Then they asked me to come Friday afternoon, when +they and the general will receive a few friends, and I said I would. +Col. Grant said he and Gen. Sherman used the Innocents Abroad as their +guide book when they were on their travels. + +I stepped in next door and took Dr. Jackson to the hotel and we played +billiards from 7 to 11.30 P.M. and then went to a beer-mill to meet some +twenty Chicago journalists--talked, sang songs and made speeches till 6 +o'clock this morning. Nobody got in the least degree "under the +influence," and we had a pleasant time. Read awhile in bed, slept till +11, shaved, went to breakfast at noon, and by mistake got into the +servants' hall. I remained there and breakfasted with twenty or thirty +male and female servants, though I had a table to myself. + +A temporary structure, clothed and canopied with flags, has been erected +at the hotel front, and connected with the second-story windows of a +drawing-room. It was for Gen. Grant to stand on and review the +procession. Sixteen persons, besides reporters, had tickets for this +place, and a seventeenth was issued for me. I was there, looking down on +the packed and struggling crowd when Gen. Grant came forward and was +saluted by the cheers of the multitude and the waving of ladies' +handkerchiefs--for the windows and roofs of all neighboring buildings +were massed full of life. Gen. Grant bowed to the people two or three +times, then approached my side of the platform and the mayor pulled me +forward and introduced me. It was dreadfully conspicuous. The General +said a word or so--I replied, and then said, "But I'll step back, +General, I don't want to interrupt your speech." + +"But I'm not going to make any--stay where you are--I'll get you to make +it for me." + +General Sherman came on the platform wearing the uniform of a full +General, and you should have heard the cheers. Gen. Logan was going to +introduce me, but I didn't want any more conspicuousness. + +When the head of the procession passed it was grand to see Sheridan, in +his military cloak and his plumed chapeau, sitting as erect and rigid as +a statue on his immense black horse--by far the most martial figure I +ever saw. And the crowd roared again. + +It was chilly, and Gen. Deems lent me his overcoat until night. He came +a few minutes ago--5.45 P.M., and got it, but brought Gen. Willard, who +lent me his for the rest of my stay, and will get another for himself +when he goes home to dinner. Mine is much too heavy for this warm +weather. + +I have a seat on the stage at Haverley's Theatre, tonight, where the Army +of the Tennessee will receive Gen. Grant, and where Gen. Sherman will +make a speech. At midnight I am to attend a meeting of the Owl Club. + +I love you ever so much, my darling, and am hoping to +get a word from you yet. + SAML. + + + Following the procession, which he describes, came the grand + ceremonies of welcome at Haverley's Theatre. The next letter is + written the following morning, or at least soiree time the following + day, after a night of ratification. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + CHICAGO, Nov. 12, '79. +Livy darling, it was a great time. There were perhaps thirty people on +the stage of the theatre, and I think I never sat elbow-to-elbow with so +many historic names before. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope, +Logan, Augur, and so on. What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the +house, with his right leg crossed over his left and his right boot-sole +tilted up at an angle, and his left hand and arm reposing on the arm of +his chair--you note that position? Well, when glowing references were +made to other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed a +trifle of nervous consciousness--and as these references came frequently, +the nervous change of position and attitude were also frequent. But +Grant!--he was under a tremendous and ceaseless bombardment of praise and +gratulation, but as true as I'm sitting here he never moved a muscle of +his body for a single instant, during 30 minutes! You could have played +him on a stranger for an effigy. Perhaps he never would have moved, but +at last a speaker made such a particularly ripping and blood-stirring +remark about him that the audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped +and clapped an entire minute--Grant sitting as serene as ever--when Gen. +Sherman stepped to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, +bent respectfully down and whispered in his ear. Gen. Grant got up and +bowed, and the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down, +took about the same position and froze to it till by and by there was +another of those deafening and protracted roars, when Sherman made him +get up and bow again. He broke up his attitude once more--the extent of +something more than a hair's breadth--to indicate me to Sherman when the +house was keeping up a determined and persistent call for me, and poor +bewildered Sherman, (who did not know me), was peering abroad over the +packed audience for me, not knowing I was only three feet from him and +most conspicuously located, (Gen. Sherman was Chairman.) + +One of the most illustrious individuals on that stage was "Ole Abe," the +historic war eagle. He stood on his perch--the old savage-eyed rascal-- +three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, and as he had been in nearly +every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was probably +stirred pretty often, though he was too proud to let on. + +Read Logan's bosh, and try to imagine a burly and magnificent Indian, in +General's uniform, striking a heroic attitude and getting that stuff off +in the style of a declaiming school-boy. + +Please put the enclosed scraps in the drawer and I will scrap-book them. + +I only staid at the Owl Club till 3 this morning and drank little or +nothing. Went to sleep without whisky. Ich liebe dish. + + SAML. + + + But it is in the third letter that we get the climax. On the same + day he wrote a letter to Howells, which, in part, is very similar in + substance and need not be included here. + + A paragraph, however, must not be omitted. + + "Imagine what it was like to see a bullet-shredded old battle-flag + reverently unfolded to the gaze of a thousand middle-aged soldiers, + most of whom hadn't seen it since they saw it advancing over + victorious fields, when they were in their prime. And imagine what + it was like when Grant, their first commander, stepped into view + while they were still going mad over the flag, and then right in the + midst of it all somebody struck up, 'When we were marching through + Georgia.' Well, you should have heard the thousand voices lift that + chorus and seen the tears stream down. If I live a hundred years I + shan't ever forget these things, nor be able to talk about them .... + Grand times, my boy, grand times!" + + At the great banquet Mark Twain's speech had been put last on the + program, to hold the house. He had been invited to respond to the + toast of "The Ladies," but had replied that he had already responded + to that toast more than once. There was one class of the community, + he said, commonly overlooked on these occasions--the babies--he + would respond to that toast. In his letter to Howells he had not + been willing to speak freely of his personal triumph, but to Mrs. + Clemens he must tell it all, and with that child-like ingenuousness + which never failed him to his last day. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + CHICAGO, Nov. 14 '79. +A little after 5 in the morning. + +I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable +night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. +I heard four speeches which I can never forget. One by Emory Storrs, one +by Gen. Vilas (O, wasn't it wonderful!) one by Gen. Logan (mighty +stirring), one by somebody whose name escapes me, and one by that +splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll, --oh, it was just the supremest +combination of English words that was ever put together since the world +began. My soul, how handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in +the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from +his lips! Lord, what an organ is human speech when it is played by a +master! All these speeches may look dull in print, but how the lightning +glared around them when they were uttered, and how the crowd roared in +response! It was a great night, a memorable night. I am so richly +repaid for my journey--and how I did wish with all my whole heart that +you were there to be lifted into the very seventh heaven of enthusiasm, +as I was. The army songs, the military music, the crashing applause-- +Lord bless me, it was unspeakable. + +Out of compliment they placed me last in the list--No. 15--I was to "hold +the crowd"--and bless my life I was in awful terror when No. 14. rose, +at a o'clock this morning and killed all the enthusiasm by delivering the +flattest, insipidest, silliest of all responses to "Woman" that ever a +weary multitude listened to. Then Gen. Sherman (Chairman) announced my +toast, and the crowd gave me a good round of applause as I mounted on top +of the dinner table, but it was only on account of my name, nothing more +--they were all tired and wretched. They let my first sentence go in. +silence, till I paused and added "we stand on common ground"--then they +burst forth like a hurricane and I saw that I had them! From that time +on, I stopped at the end of each sentence, and let the tornado of +applause and laughter sweep around me--and when I closed with "And if the +child is but the prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt +that he succeeded," I say it who oughtn't to say it, the house came down +with a crash. For two hours and a half, now, I've been shaking hands and +listening to congratulations. Gen. Sherman said, "Lord bless you, my +boy, I don't know how you do it--it's a secret that's beyond me--but it +was great--give me your hand again." + +And do you know, Gen. Grant sat through , fourteen speeches like a graven +image, but I fetched him! I broke him up, utterly! He told me he +laughed till the tears came and every bone in his body ached. (And do +you know, the biggest part of the success of the speech lay in the fact +that the audience saw that for once in his life he had been knocked out +of his iron serenity.) + +Bless your soul, 'twas immense. I never was so proud in my life. Lots +and lots of people--hundreds I might say--told me my speech was the +triumph of the evening--which was a lie. Ladies, Tom, Dick and Harry- +even the policemen--captured me in the halls and shook hands, and scores +of army officers said "We shall always be grateful to you for coming." +General Pope came to bunt me up--I was afraid to speak to him on that +theatre stage last night, thinking it might be presumptuous to tackle a +man so high up in military history. Gen. Schofield, and other historic +men, paid their compliments. Sheridan was ill and could not come, but +I'm to go with a General of his staff and see him before I go to Col. +Grant's. Gen. Augur--well, I've talked with them all, received +invitations from them all--from people living everywhere--and as I said +before, it's a memorable night. I wouldn't have missed it for anything +in the world. + +But my sakes, you should have heard Ingersoll's speech on that table! +Half an hour ago he ran across me in the crowded halls and put his arms +about me and said "Mark, if I live a hundred years, I'll always be +grateful for your speech--Lord what a supreme thing it was." But I told +him it wasn't any use to talk, he had walked off with the honors of that +occasion by something of a majority. Bully boy is Ingersoll--traveled +with him in the cars the other day, and you can make up your mind we had +a good time. + +Of course I forgot to go and pay for my hotel car and so secure it, but +the army officers told me an hour ago to rest easy, they would go at +once, at this unholy hour of the night and compel the railways to do +their duty by me, and said "You don't need to request the Army of the +Tennessee to do your desires--you can command its services." + +Well, I bummed around that banquet hall from 8 in the evening till 2 in +the morning, talking with people and listening to speeches, and I never +ate a single bite or took a sup of anything but ice water, so if I seem +excited now, it is the intoxication of supreme enthusiasm. By George, it +was a grand night, a historical night. + +And now it is a quarter past 6 A.M.--so good bye and God bless you and +the Bays,--[Family word for babies]--my darlings + + SAML. + + +Show it to Joe if you want to--I saw some of his friends here. + +Mark Twain's admiration for Robert Ingersoll was very great, and we may +believe that he was deeply impressed by the Chicago speech, when we find +him, a few days later, writing to Ingersoll for a perfect copy to read to +a young girls' club in Hartford. Ingersoll sent the speech, also some of +his books, and the next letter is Mark Twain's acknowledgment. + + + To Col. Robert G. Ingersoll: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 14. +MY DEAR INGERSOLL,--Thank you most heartily for the books--I am devouring +them--they have found a hungry place, and they content it and satisfy it +to a miracle. I wish I could hear you speak these splendid chapters +before a great audience--to read them by myself and hear the boom of the +applause only in the ear of my imagination, leaves a something wanting-- +and there is also a still greater lack, your manner, and voice, and +presence. + +The Chicago speech arrived an hour too late, but I was all right anyway, +for I found that my memory had been able to correct all the errors. +I read it to the Saturday Club (of young girls) and told them to remember +that it was doubtful if its superior existed in our language. + Truly Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The reader may remember Mark Twain's Whittier dinner speech of 1877, + and its disastrous effects. Now, in 1879, there was to be another + Atlantic gathering: a breakfast to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to + which Clemens was invited. He was not eager to accept; it would + naturally recall memories of two years before, but being urged by + both Howells and Warner, he agreed to attend if they would permit + him to speak. Mark Twain never lacked courage and he wanted to + redeem himself. To Howells he wrote: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 28, 1879. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If anybody talks, there, I shall claim the right to say +a word myself, and be heard among the very earliest--else it would be +confoundedly awkward for me--and for the rest, too. But you may read +what I say, beforehand, and strike out whatever you choose. + +Of course I thought it wisest not to be there at all; but Warner took the +opposite view, and most strenuously. + +Speaking of Johnny's conclusion to become an outlaw, reminds me of +Susie's newest and very earnest longing--to have crooked teeth and +glasses--"like Mamma." + +I would like to look into a child's head, once, and see what its +processes are. + Yrs ever, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The matter turned out well. Clemens, once more introduced by + Howells--this time conservatively, it may be said--delivered a + delicate and fitting tribute to Doctor Holmes, full of graceful + humor and grateful acknowledgment, the kind of speech he should have + given at the Whittier dinner of two years before. No reference was + made to his former disaster, and this time he came away covered with + glory, and fully restored in his self-respect. + + + + +XX. + +LETTERS OF 1880, CHIEFLY TO HOWELLS. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER." MARK +TWAIN MUGWUMP SOCIETY + +The book of travel,--[A Tramp Abroad.]--which Mark Twain had hoped to +finish in Paris, and later in Elmira, for some reason would not come to +an end. In December, in Hartford, he was still working on it, and he +would seem to have finished it, at last, rather by a decree than by any +natural process of authorship. This was early in January, 1880. To +Howells he reports his difficulties, and his drastic method of ending +them. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Jan. 8, '80. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Am waiting for Patrick to come with the carriage. +Mrs. Clemens and I are starting (without the children) to stay +indefinitely in Elmira. The wear and tear of settling the house broke +her down, and she has been growing weaker and weaker for a fortnight. +All that time--in fact ever since I saw you--I have been fighting a life- +and-death battle with this infernal book and hoping to get done some day. +I required 300 pages of MS, and I have written near 600 since I saw you-- +and tore it all up except 288. This I was about to tear up yesterday and +begin again, when Mrs. Perkins came up to the billiard room and said, +"You will never get any woman to do the thing necessary to save her life +by mere persuasion; you see you have wasted your words for three weeks; +it is time to use force; she must have a change; take her home and leave +the children here." + +I said, "If there is one death that is painfuller than another, may I get +it if I don't do that thing." + +So I took the 288 pages to Bliss and told him that was the very last line +I should ever write on this book. (A book which required 2600 pages of +MS, and I have written nearer four thousand, first and last.) + +I am as soary (and flighty) as a rocket, to-day, with the unutterable joy +of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been +roosting for more than a year and a half. Next time I make a contract +before writing the book, may I suffer the righteous penalty and be burnt, +like the injudicious believer. + +I am mighty glad you are done your book (this is from a man who, above +all others, feels how much that sentence means) and am also mighty glad +you have begun the next (this is also from a man who knows the felicity +of that, and means straightway to enjoy it.) The Undiscovered starts off +delightfully--I have read it aloud to Mrs. C. and we vastly enjoyed it. + +Well, time's about up--must drop a line to Aldrich. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + In a letter which Mark Twain wrote to his brother Orion at this + period we get the first hint of a venture which was to play an + increasingly important part in the Hartford home and fortunes during + the next ten or a dozen years. This was the type-setting machine + investment, which, in the end, all but wrecked Mark Twain's + finances. There is but a brief mention of it in the letter to + Orion, and the letter itself is not worth preserving, but as + references to the "machine" appear with increasing frequency, it + seems proper to record here its first mention. In the same letter + he suggests to his brother that he undertake an absolutely truthful + autobiography, a confession in which nothing is to be withheld. He + cites the value of Casanova's memories, and the confessions of + Rousseau. Of course, any literary suggestion from "Brother Sam" was + gospel to Orion, who began at once piling up manuscript at a great + rate. + + Meantime, Mark Twain himself, having got 'A Tramp Abroad' on the + presses, was at work with enthusiasm on a story begun nearly three + years before at Quarry Farm-a story for children-its name, as he + called. it then, "The Little Prince and The Little Pauper." He was + presently writing to Howells his delight in the new work. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Mch. 11, '80. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....I take so much pleasure in my story that I am loth +to hurry, not wanting to get it done. Did I ever tell you the plot of +it? It begins at 9 a.m., Jan. 27, 1547, seventeen and a half hours +before Henry VIII's death, by the swapping of clothes and place, between +the prince of Wales and a pauper boy of the same age and countenance (and +half as much learning and still more genius and imagination) and after +that, the rightful small King has a rough time among tramps and ruffians +in the country parts of Kent, whilst the small bogus King has a gilded +and worshipped and dreary and restrained and cussed time of it on the +throne--and this all goes on for three weeks--till the midst of the +coronation grandeurs in Westminster Abbey, Feb. 20, when the ragged true +King forces his way in but cannot prove his genuineness--until the bogus +King, by a remembered incident of the first day is able to prove it for +him--whereupon clothes are changed and the coronation proceeds under the +new and rightful conditions. + +My idea is to afford a realizing sense of the exceeding severity of the +laws of that day by inflicting some of their penalties upon the King +himself and allowing him a chance to see the rest of them applied to +others--all of which is to account for certain mildnesses which +distinguished Edward VI's reign from those that preceded and followed it. + +Imagine this fact--I have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this yarn for +youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with faint praise +out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She is become the +horseleech's daughter and my mill doesn't grind fast enough to suit her. +This is no mean triumph, my dear sir. + +Last night, for the first time in ages, we went to the theatre--to see +Yorick's Love. The magnificence of it is beyond praise. The language is +so beautiful, the passion so fine, the plot so ingenious, the whole thing +so stirring, so charming, so pathetic! But I will clip from the Courant +--it says it right. + +And what a good company it is, and how like live people they all acted! +The "thee's" and the "thou's" had a pleasant sound, since it is the +language of the Prince and the Pauper. You've done the country a service +in that admirable work.... + Yrs Ever, + MARK. + + + The play, "Yorick's Love," mentioned in this letter, was one which + Howells had done for Lawrence Barrett. + + Onion Clemens, meantime, was forwarding his manuscript, and for once + seems to have won his brother's approval, so much so that Mark Twain + was willing, indeed anxious, that Howells should run the + "autobiography" in the Atlantic. We may imagine how Onion prized + the words of commendation which follow: + + + To Orion Clemens: + + May 6, '80. +MY DEAR BROTHER,--It is a model autobiography. + +Continue to develop your character in the same gradual inconspicuous and +apparently unconscious way. The reader, up to this time, may have his +doubts, perhaps, but he can't say decidedly, "This writer is not such a +simpleton as he has been letting on to be." Keep him in that state of +mind. If, when you shall have finished, the reader shall say, "The man +is an ass, but I really don't know whether he knows it or not," your work +will be a triumph. + +Stop re-writing. I saw places in your last batch where re-writing had +done formidable injury. Do not try to find those places, else you will +mar them further by trying to better them. It is perilous to revise a +book while it is under way. All of us have injured our books in that +foolish way. + +Keep in mind what I told you--when you recollect something which belonged +in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are. +Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least. + +I have penciled the MS here and there, but have not needed to make any +criticisms or to knock out anything. + +The elder Bliss has heart disease badly, and thenceforth his life hangs +upon a thread. + Yr Bro + SAM. + + + But Howells could not bring himself to print so frank a confession + as Orion had been willing to make. "It wrung my heart," he said, + "and I felt haggard after I had finished it. The writer's soul is + laid bare; it is shocking." Howells added that the best touches in + it were those which made one acquainted with the writer's brother; + that is to say, Mark Twain, and that these would prove valuable + material hereafter--a true prophecy, for Mark Twain's early + biography would have lacked most of its vital incident, and at least + half of its background, without those faithful chapters, fortunately + preserved. Had Onion continued, as he began, the work might have + proved an important contribution to literature, but he went trailing + off into by-paths of theology and discussion where the interest was + lost. There were, perhaps, as many as two thousand pages of it, + which few could undertake to read. + + Mark Twain's mind was always busy with plans and inventions, many of + them of serious intent, some semi-serious, others of a purely + whimsical character. Once he proposed a "Modest Club," of which the + first and main qualification for membership was modesty. "At + present," he wrote, "I am the only member; and as the modesty + required must be of a quite aggravated type, the enterprise did seem + for a time doomed to stop dead still with myself, for lack of + further material; but upon reflection I have come to the conclusion + that you are eligible. Therefore, I have held a meeting and voted + to offer you the distinction of membership. I do not know that we + can find any others, though I have had some thought of Hay, Warner, + Twichell, Aldrich, Osgood, Fields, Higginson, and a few more-- + together with Mrs. Howells, Mrs. Clemens, and certain others of the + sex." + + Howells replied that the only reason he had for not joining the + Modest Club was that he was too modest--too modest to confess his + modesty. "If I could get over this difficulty I should like to + join, for I approve highly of the Club and its object.... It ought + to be given an annual dinner at the public expense. If you think I + am not too modest you may put my name down and I will try to think + the same of you. Mrs. Howells applauded the notion of the club from + the very first. She said that she knew one thing: that she was + modest enough, anyway. Her manner of saying it implied that the + other persons you had named were not, and created a painful + impression in my mind. I have sent your letter and the rules to + Hay, but I doubt his modesty. He will think he has a right to + belong to it as much as you or I; whereas, other people ought only + to be admitted on sufferance." + + Our next letter to Howells is, in the main, pure foolery, but we get + in it a hint what was to become in time one of Mask Twain's + strongest interests, the matter of copyright. He had both a + personal and general interest in the subject. His own books were + constantly pirated in Canada, and the rights of foreign authors were + not respected in America. We have already seen how he had drawn a + petition which Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, and others were to sign, + and while nothing had come of this plan he had never ceased to + formulate others. Yet he hesitated when he found that the proposed + protection was likely to work a hardship to readers of the poorer + class. Once he wrote: "My notions have mightily changed lately.... + I can buy a lot of the copyright classics, in paper, at from three + to thirty cents apiece. These things must find their way into the + very kitchens and hovels of the country..... And even if the treaty + will kill Canadian piracy, and thus save me an average of $5,000 a + year, I am down on it anyway, and I'd like cussed well to write an + article opposing the treaty." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.: + + Thursday, June 6th, 1880. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--There you stick, at Belmont, and now I'm going to +Washington for a few days; and of course, between you and Providence that +visit is going to get mixed, and you'll have been here and gone again +just about the time I get back. Bother it all, I wanted to astonish you +with a chapter or two from Orion's latest book--not the seventeen which +he has begun in the last four months, but the one which he began last +week. + +Last night, when I went to bed, Mrs. Clemens said, "George didn't take +the cat down to the cellar--Rosa says he has left it shut up in the +conservatory." So I went down to attend to Abner (the cat.) About 3 in +the morning Mrs. C. woke me and said, "I do believe I hear that cat in +the drawing-room--what did you do with him?" I answered up with the +confidence of a man who has managed to do the right thing for once, and +said "I opened the conservatory doors, took the library off the alarm, +and spread everything open, so that there wasn't any obstruction between +him and the cellar." Language wasn't capable of conveying this woman's +disgust. But the sense of what she said, was, "He couldn't have done any +harm in the conservatory--so you must go and make the entire house free +to him and the burglars, imagining that he will prefer the coal-bins to +the drawing-room. If you had had Mr. Howells to help you, I should have +admired but not been astonished, because I should know that together you +would be equal to it; but how you managed to contrive such a stately +blunder all by yourself, is what I cannot understand." + +So, you see, even she knows how to appreciate our gifts. + +Brisk times here.--Saturday, these things happened: Our neighbor Chas. +Smith was stricken with heart disease, and came near joining the +majority; my publisher, Bliss, ditto, ditto; a neighbor's child died; +neighbor Whitmore's sixth child added to his five other cases of measles; +neighbor Niles sent for, and responded; Susie Warner down, abed; Mrs. +George Warner threatened with death during several hours; her son Frank, +whilst imitating the marvels in Barnum's circus bills, thrown from his +aged horse and brought home insensible: Warner's friend Max Yortzburgh, +shot in the back by a locomotive and broken into 32 distinct pieces and +his life threatened; and Mrs. Clemens, after writing all these cheerful +things to Clara Spaulding, taken at midnight, and if the doctor had not +been pretty prompt the contemplated Clemens would have called before his +apartments were ready. + +However, everybody is all right, now, except Yortzburg, and he is +mending--that is, he is being mended. I knocked off, during these +stirring times, and don't intend to go to work again till we go away for +the Summer, 3 or 6 weeks hence. So I am writing to you not because I +have anything to say, but because you don't have to answer and I need +something to do this afternoon..... + +I have a letter from a Congressman this morning, and he says Congress +couldn't be persuaded to bother about Canadian pirates at a time like +this when all legislation must have a political and Presidential bearing, +else Congress won't look at it. So have changed my mind and my course; +I go north, to kill a pirate. I must procure repose some way, else I +cannot get down to work again. + +Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is +approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the +household and seldomest get. + +With our affection to you both. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + It was always dangerous to send strangers with letters of + introduction to Mark Twain. They were so apt to arrive at the wrong + time, or to find him in the wrong mood. Howells was willing to risk + it, and that the result was only amusing instead of tragic is the + best proof of their friendship. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.: + + June 9, '80. +Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr. X---- has been here, and I +have bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours and tried +my level best to make it do something, or say something, or appreciate +something--but no, it was worse than Lazarus. A kind-hearted, well- +meaning corpse was the Boston young man, but lawsy bless me, horribly +dull company. Now, old man, unless you have great confidence in Mr. X's +judgment, you ought to make him submit his article to you before he +prints it. For only think how true I was to you: Every hour that he was +here I was saying, gloatingly, "O G-- d--- you, when you are in bed and +your light out, I will fix you" (meaning to kill him)...., but then the +thought would follow--" No, Howells sent him--he shall be spared, he +shall be respected he shall travel hell-wards by his own route." + +Breakfast is frozen by this time, and Mrs. Clemens correspondingly hot. +Good bye. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + "I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you," Howells + answered. "What I was afraid of was that you would turn him out of + doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him. + After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you. I am + sorry for your suffering. I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for + bores; but yours is preternaturally keen. I shall begin to be + afraid I bore you. (How does that make you feel?)" + + In a letter to Twichell--a remarkable letter--when baby Jean Clemens + was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry + Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain's unfailing + tragic reflection. + + + To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford: + + QUARRY FARM, Aug. 29 ['80]. +DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't see no +pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," I should think +he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer.... +I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in +Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission fee will be +but a trifle. + +It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotation of the Affection +Board brought about by throwing this new security on the market. Four +weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right +along, where she had always been. But now: + + Jean + Mamma + Motley [a cat] + Fraulein [another] + Papa + +That is the way it stands, now Mamma is become No. 2; I have dropped from +No. 4., and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck +between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I didn't stand +any more show. + +I've got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the +day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time. Last evening +Livy said with deep concern, "O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in +your ear." + +I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the +head-- + + "Tis said that abscess conquers love, + But O believe it not." + +This made a coolness. + +Been reading Daniel Webster's Private Correspondence. Have read a +hundred of his diffuse, conceited, "eloquent," bathotic (or bathostic) +letters written in that dim (no, vanished) Past when he was a student; +and Lord, to think that this boy who is so real to me now, and so booming +with fresh young blood and bountiful life, and sappy cynicisms about +girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame and stood against the sun one +brief tremendous moment with the world's eyes upon him, and then--f-z-t-! +where is he? Why the only long thing, the only real thing about the +whole shadowy business is the sense of the lagging dull and hoary lapse +of time that has drifted by since then; a vast empty level, it seems, +with a formless spectre glimpsed fitfully through the smoke and mist that +lie along its remote verge. + +Well, we are all getting along here first-rate; Livy gains strength +daily, and sits up a deal; the baby is five weeks old and--but no more of +this; somebody may be reading this letter 80 years hence. And so, my +friend (you pitying snob, I mean, who are holding this yellow paper in +your hand in 1960,) save yourself the trouble of looking further; I know +how pathetically trivial our small concerns will seem to you, and I will +not let your eye profane them. No, I keep my news; you keep your +compassion. Suffice it you to know, scoffer and ribald, that the little +child is old and blind, now, and once more toothless; and the rest of us +are shadows, these many, many years. Yes, and your time cometh! + + MARK. + + + At the Farm that year Mark Twain was working on The Prince and the + Pauper, and, according to a letter to Aldrich, brought it to an end + September 19th. It is a pleasant letter, worth preserving. The + book by Aldrich here mentioned was 'The Stillwater Tragedy.' + + + To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.: + + ELMIRA, Sept. 15, '80. +MY DEAR ALDRICH,--Thank you ever so much for the book--I had already +finished it, and prodigiously enjoyed it, in the periodical of the +notorious Howells, but it hits Mrs. Clemens just right, for she is having +a reading holiday, now, for the first time in same months; so between- +times, when the new baby is asleep and strengthening up for another +attempt to take possession of this place, she is going to read it. +Her strong friendship for you makes her think she is going to like it. + +I finished a story yesterday, myself. I counted up and found it between +sixty and eighty thousand words--about the size of your book. It is for +boys and girls--been at work at it several years, off and on. + +I hope Howells is enjoying his journey to the Pacific. He wrote me that +you and Osgood were going, also, but I doubted it, believing he was in +liquor when he wrote it. In my opinion, this universal applause over his +book is going to land that man in a Retreat inside of two months. +I notice the papers say mighty fine things about your book, too. +You ought to try to get into the same establishment with Howells. +But applause does not affect me--I am always calm--this is because I am +used to it. + +Well, good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you. Mrs. Clemens asks me to +send her warmest regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich--which I do, and add +those of + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + While Mark Twain was a journalist in San Francisco, there was a + middle-aged man named Soule, who had a desk near him on the Morning + Call. Soule was in those days highly considered as a poet by his + associates, most of whom were younger and less gracefully poetic. + But Soule's gift had never been an important one. Now, in his old + age, he found his fame still local, and he yearned for wider + recognition. He wished to have a volume of poems issued by a + publisher of recognized standing. Because Mark Twain had been one + of Soule's admirers and a warm friend in the old days, it was + natural that Soule should turn to him now, and equally natural that + Clemens should turn to Howells. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Sunday, Oct. 2 '80. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Here's a letter which I wrote you to San Francisco the +second time you didn't go there.... I told Soule he needn't write you, +but simply send the MS. to you. O dear, dear, it is dreadful to be an +unrecognized poet. How wise it was in Charles Warren Stoddard to take in +his sign and go for some other calling while still young. + +I'm laying for that Encyclopedical Scotchman--and he'll need to lock the +door behind him, when he comes in; otherwise when he hears my proposed +tariff his skin will probably crawl away with him. He is accustomed to +seeing the publisher impoverish the author--that spectacle must be +getting stale to him--if he contracts with the undersigned he will +experience a change in that programme that will make the enamel peel off +his teeth for very surprise--and joy. No, that last is what Mrs. Clemens +thinks--but it's not so. The proposed work is growing, mightily, in my +estimation, day by day; and I'm not going to throw it away for any mere +trifle. If I make a contract with the canny Scot, I will then tell him +the plan which you and I have devised (that of taking in the humor of all +countries)--otherwise I'll keep it to myself, I think. Why should we +assist our fellowman for mere love of God? + Yrs ever + MARK. + + One wishes that Howells might have found value enough in the verses + of Frank Soule to recommend them to Osgood. To Clemens he wrote: + "You have touched me in regard to him, and I will deal gently with + his poetry. Poor old fellow! I can imagine him, and how he must + have to struggle not to be hard or sour." + + The verdict, however, was inevitable. Soule's graceful verses + proved to be not poetry at all. No publisher of standing could + afford to give them his imprint. + + The "Encyclopedical Scotchman" mentioned in the preceding letter was + the publisher Gebbie, who had a plan to engage Howells and Clemens + to prepare some sort of anthology of the world's literature. The + idea came to nothing, though the other plan mentioned--for a library + of humor--in time grew into a book. + + Mark Twain's contracts with Bliss for the publication of his books + on the subscription plan had been made on a royalty basis, beginning + with 5 per cent. on 'The Innocents Abroad' increasing to 7 « per + cent. on 'Roughing It,' and to 10 per cent. on later books. Bliss + had held that these later percentages fairly represented one half + the profits. Clemens, however, had never been fully satisfied, and + his brother Onion had more than once urged him to demand a specific + contract on the half-profit basis. The agreement for the + publication of 'A Tramp Abroad' was made on these terms. Bliss died + before Clemens received his first statement of sales. Whatever may + have been the facts under earlier conditions, the statement proved + to Mark Twain's satisfaction; at least, that the half-profit + arrangement was to his advantage. It produced another result; it + gave Samuel Clemens an excuse to place his brother Onion in a + position of independence. + + + To Onion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + Sunday, Oct 24 '80. +MY DEAR BRO.,--Bliss is dead. The aspect of the balance-sheet is +enlightening. It reveals the fact, through my present contract, (which +is for half the profits on the book above actual cost of paper, printing +and binding,) that I have lost considerably by all this nonsense--sixty +thousand dollars, I should say--and if Bliss were alive I would stay with +the concern and get it all back; for on each new book I would require a +portion of that back pay; but as it is (this in the very strictest +confidence,) I shall probably go to a new publisher 6 or 8 months hence, +for I am afraid Frank, with his poor health, will lack push and drive. + +Out of the suspicions you bred in me years ago, has grown this result, +--to wit, that I shall within the twelvemonth get $40,000 out of this +"Tramp" instead Of $20,000. Twenty thousand dollars, after taxes and +other expenses are stripped away, is worth to the investor about $75 a +month--so I shall tell Mr. Perkins to make your check that amount per +month, hereafter, while our income is able to afford it. This ends the +loan business; and hereafter you can reflect that you are living not on +borrowed money but on money which you have squarely earned, and which has +no taint or savor of charity about it--and you can also reflect that the +money you have been receiving of me all these years is interest charged +against the heavy bill which the next publisher will have to stand who +gets a book of mine. + +Jean got the stockings and is much obliged; Mollie wants to know whom she +most resembles, but I can't tell; she has blue eyes and brown hair, and +three chins, and is very fat and happy; and at one time or another she +has resembled all the different Clemenses and Langdons, in turn, that +have ever lived. + +Livy is too much beaten out with the baby, nights, to write, these times; +and I don't know of anything urgent to say, except that a basket full of +letters has accumulated in the 7 days that I have been whooping and +cursing over a cold in the head--and I must attack the pile this very +minute. + With love from us + Y aff + SAM +$25 enclosed. + + + + On the completion of The Prince and Pauper story, Clemens had + naturally sent it to Howells for consideration. Howells wrote: + "I have read the two P's and I like it immensely, it begins well and + it ends well." He pointed out some things that might be changed or + omitted, and added: "It is such a book as I would expect from you, + knowing what a bottom of fury there is to your fun." Clemens had + thought somewhat of publishing the story anonymously, in the fear + that it would not be accepted seriously over his own signature. + + The "bull story" referred to in the next letter is the one later + used in the Joan of Arc book, the story told Joan by "Uncle Laxart," + how he rode a bull to a funeral. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Xmas Eve, 1880. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I was prodigiously delighted with what you said about +the book--so, on the whole, I've concluded to publish intrepidly, instead +of concealing the authorship. I shall leave out that bull story. + +I wish you had gone to New York. The company was small, and we had a +first-rate time. Smith's an enjoyable fellow. I liked Barrett, too. +And the oysters were as good as the rest of the company. It was worth +going there to learn how to cook them. + +Next day I attended to business--which was, to introduce Twichell to Gen. +Grant and procure a private talk in the interest of the Chinese +Educational Mission here in the U. S. Well, it was very funny. Joe had +been sitting up nights building facts and arguments together into a +mighty and unassailable array and had studied them out and got them by +heart--all with the trembling half-hearted hope of getting Grant to add +his signature to a sort of petition to the Viceroy of China; but Grant +took in the whole situation in a jiffy, and before Joe had more than +fairly got started, the old man said: "I'll write the Viceroy a Letter +--a separate letter--and bring strong reasons to bear upon him; I know +him well, and what I say will have weight with him; I will attend to it +right away. No, no thanks--I shall be glad to do it--it will be a labor +of love." + +So all Joe's laborious hours were for naught! It was as if he had come +to borrow a dollar, and been offered a thousand before he could unfold +his case.... + +But it's getting dark. Merry Christmas to all of you. + Yrs Ever, + MARK. + + + The Chinese Educational Mission, mentioned in the foregoing, was a + thriving Hartford institution, projected eight years before by a + Yale graduate named Yung Wing. The mission was now threatened, and + Yung Wing, knowing the high honor in which General Grant was held in + China, believed that through him it might be saved. Twichell, of + course, was deeply concerned and naturally overjoyed at Grant's + interest. A day or two following the return to Hartford, Clemens + received a letter from General Grant, in which he wrote: "Li Hung + Chang is the most powerful and most influential Chinaman in his + country. He professed great friendship for me when I was there, and + I have had assurances of the same thing since. I hope, if he is + strong enough with his government, that the decision to withdraw the + Chinese students from this country may be changed." + + But perhaps Li Hung Chang was experiencing one of his partial + eclipses just then, or possibly he was not interested, for the + Hartford Mission did not survive. + + + + +XXI. + +LETTERS 1881, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. ASSISTING A YOUNG SCULPTOR. +LITERARY PLANS + +With all of Mark Twain's admiration for Grant, he had opposed him as a +third-term President and approved of the nomination of Garfield. He had +made speeches for Garfield during the campaign just ended, and had been +otherwise active in his support. Upon Garfield's election, however, he +felt himself entitled to no special favor, and the single request which +he preferred at length could hardly be classed as, personal, though made +for a "personal friend." + + + To President-elect James A. Garfield, in Washington: + + HARTFORD, Jany. 12, '81. +GEN. GARFIELD + +DEAR SIR,--Several times since your election persons wanting office have +asked me "to use my influence" with you in their behalf. + +To word it in that way was such a pleasant compliment to me that I never +complied. I could not without exposing the fact that I hadn't any +influence with you and that was a thing I had no mind to do. + +It seems to me that it is better to have a good man's flattering estimate +of my influence--and to keep it--than to fool it away with trying to get +him an office. But when my brother--on my wife's side--Mr. Charles J. +Langdon--late of the Chicago Convention--desires me to speak a word for +Mr. Fred Douglass, I am not asked "to use my influence" consequently I am +not risking anything. So I am writing this as a simple citizen. I am +not drawing on my fund of influence at all. A simple citizen may express +a desire with all propriety, in the matter of a recommendation to office, +and so I beg permission to hope that you will retain Mr. Douglass in his +present office of Marshall of the District of Columbia, if such a course +will not clash with your own preferences or with the expediencies and +interest of your administration. I offer this petition with peculiar +pleasure and strong desire, because I so honor this man's high and +blemishless character and so admire his brave, long crusade for the +liberties and elevation of his race. + +He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point, his +history would move me to say these things without that, and I feel them +too. + With great respect + I am, General, + Yours truly, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens would go out of his way any time to grant favor to the + colored race. His childhood associations were partly accountable + for this, but he also felt that the white man owed the negro a debt + for generations of enforced bondage. He would lecture any time in a + colored church, when he would as likely as not refuse point-blank to + speak for a white congregation. Once, in Elmira, he received a + request, poorly and none too politely phrased, to speak for one of + the churches. He was annoyed and about to send a brief refusal, + when Mrs. Clemens, who was present, said: + + "I think I know that church, and if so this preacher is a colored + man; he does not know how to write a polished letter--how should + he?" Her husband's manner changed so suddenly that she added: + "I will give you a motto, and it will be useful to you if you will + adopt it: Consider every man colored until he is proved white." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 27, 1881. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I go to West Point with Twichell tomorrow, but shall be +back Tuesday or Wednesday; and then just as soon thereafter as you and +Mrs. Howells and Winny can come you will find us ready and most glad to +see you--and the longer you can stay the gladder we shall be. I am not +going to have a thing to do, but you shall work if you want to. On the +evening of March 10th, I am going to read to the colored folk in the +African Church here (no whites admitted except such as I bring with me), +and a choir of colored folk will sing jubilee songs. I count on a good +time, and shall hope to have you folks there, and Livy. I read in +Twichell's chapel Friday night and had a most rattling high time--but the +thing that went best of all was Uncle Remus's Tar Baby. I mean to try +that on my dusky audience. They've all heard that tale from childhood-- +at least the older members have. + +I arrived home in time to make a most noble blunder--invited Charley +Warner here (in Livy's name) to dinner with the Gerhardts, and told him +Livy had invited his wife by letter and by word of mouth also. I don't +know where I got these impressions, but I came home feeling as one does +who realizes that he has done a neat thing for once and left no flaws or +loop-holes. Well, Livy said she had never told me to invite Charley and +she hadn't dreamed of inviting Susy, and moreover there wasn't any +dinner, but just one lean duck. But Susy Warner's intuitions were +correct--so she choked off Charley, and staid home herself--we waited +dinner an hour and you ought to have seen that duck when he was done +drying in the oven. + MARK. + + + Clemens and his wife were always privately assisting worthy and + ambitious young people along the way of achievement. Young actors + were helped through dramatic schools; young men and women were + assisted through college and to travel abroad. Among others Clemens + paid the way of two colored students, one through a Southern + institution and another through the Yale law school. + + The mention of the name of Gerhardt in the preceding letter + introduces the most important, or at least the most extensive, of + these benefactions. The following letter gives the beginning of the + story: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + +Private and Confidential. + HARTFORD, Feb. 21, 1881. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Well, here is our romance. + +It happened in this way. One morning, a month ago--no, three weeks-- +Livy, and Clara Spaulding and I were at breakfast, at 10 A.M., and I was +in an irritable mood, for the barber was up stairs waiting and his hot +water getting cold, when the colored George returned from answering the +bell and said: "There's a lady in the drawing-room wants to see you." +"A book agent!" says I, with heat. "I won't see her; I will die in my +tracks, first." + +Then I got up with a soul full of rage, and went in there and bent +scowling over that person, and began a succession of rude and raspy +questions--and without even offering to sit down. + +Not even the defendant's youth and beauty and (seeming) timidity were +able to modify my savagery, for a time--and meantime question and answer +were going on. She had risen to her feet with the first question; and +there she stood, with her pretty face bent floorward whilst I inquired, +but always with her honest eyes looking me in the face when it came her +turn to answer. + +And this was her tale, and her plea-diffidently stated, but straight- +forwardly; and bravely, and most winningly simply and earnestly: I put it +in my own fashion, for I do not remember her words: + +Mr. Karl Gerhardt, who works in Pratt & Whitney's machine shops, has made +a statue in clay, and would I be so kind as to come and look at it, and +tell him if there is any promise in it? He has none to go to, and he +would be so glad. + +"O, dear me," I said, "I don't know anything about art--there's nothing I +could tell him." + +But she went on, just as earnestly and as simply as before, with her +plea--and so she did after repeated rebuffs; and dull as I am, even I +began by and by to admire this brave and gentle persistence, and to +perceive how her heart of hearts was in this thing, and how she couldn't +give it up, but must carry her point. So at last I wavered, and promised +in general terms that I would come down the first day that fell idle--and +as I conducted her to the door, I tamed more and more, and said I would +come during the very next week--"We shall be so glad--but--but, would you +please come early in the week?--the statue is just finished and we are so +anxious--and--and--we did hope you could come this week--and"--well, I +came down another peg, and said I would come Monday, as sure as death; +and before I got to the dining room remorse was doing its work and I was +saying to myself, "Damnation, how can a man be such a hound? why didn't I +go with her now?" Yes, and how mean I should have felt if I had known +that out of her poverty she had hired a hack and brought it along to +convey me. But luckily for what was left of my peace of mind, I didn't +know that. + +Well, it appears that from here she went to Charley Warner's. There was +a better light, there, and the eloquence of her face had a better chance +to do its office. Warner fought, as I had done; and he was in the midst +of an article and very busy; but no matter, she won him completely. He +laid aside his MS and said, "Come, let us go and see your father's +statue. That is--is he your father?" "No, he is my husband." So this +child was married, you see. + +This was a Saturday. Next day Warner came to dinner and said "Go!--go +tomorrow--don't fail." He was in love with the girl, and with her +husband too, and said he believed there was merit in the statue. Pretty +crude work, maybe, but merit in it. + +Patrick and I hunted up the place, next day; the girl saw us driving up, +and flew down the stairs and received me. Her quarters were the second +story of a little wooden house--another family on the ground floor. The +husband was at the machine shop, the wife kept no servant, she was there +alone. She had a little parlor, with a chair or two and a sofa; and the +artist-husband's hand was visible in a couple of plaster busts, one of +the wife, and another of a neighbor's child; visible also in a couple of +water colors of flowers and birds; an ambitious unfinished portrait of +his wife in oils: some paint decorations on the pine mantel; and an +excellent human ear, done in some plastic material at 16. + +Then we went into the kitchen, and the girl flew around, with enthusiasm, +and snatched rag after rag from a tall something in the corner, and +presently there stood the clay statue, life size--a graceful girlish +creature, nude to the waist, and holding up a single garment with one +hand the expression attempted being a modified scare--she was interrupted +when about to enter the bath. + +Then this young wife posed herself alongside the image and so remained +--a thing I didn't understand. But presently I did--then I said: + +"O, it's you!" + +"Yes," she said, "I was the model. He has no model but me. I have stood +for this many and many an hour--and you can't think how it does tire one! +But I don't mind it. He works all day at the shop; and then, nights and +Sundays he works on his statue as long as I can keep up." + +She got a big chisel, to use as a lever, and between us we managed to +twist the pedestal round and round, so as to afford a view of the statue +from all points. Well, sir, it was perfectly charming, this girl's +innocence and purity---exhibiting her naked self, as it were, to a +stranger and alone, and never once dreaming that there was the slightest +indelicacy about the matter. And so there wasn't; but it will be many +along day before I run across another woman who can do the like and show +no trace of self-consciousness. + +Well, then we sat down, and I took a smoke, and she told me all about her +people in Massachusetts--her father is a physician and it is an old and +respectable family--(I am able to believe anything she says.) And she +told me how "Karl" is 26 years old; and how he has had passionate +longings all his life toward art, but has always been poor and obliged to +struggle for his daily bread; and how he felt sure that if he could only +have one or two lessons in-- + +"Lessons? Hasn't he had any lessons?" + +No. He had never had a lesson. + +And presently it was dinner time and "Karl" arrived--a slender young +fellow with a marvelous head and a noble eye--and he was as simple and +natural, and as beautiful in spirit as his wife was. But she had to do +the talking--mainly--there was too much thought behind his cavernous eyes +for glib speech. + +I went home enchanted. Told Livy and Clara Spaulding all about the +paradise down yonder where those two enthusiasts are happy with a yearly +expense of $350. Livy and Clara went there next day and came away +enchanted. A few nights later the Gerhardts kept their promise and came +here for the evening. It was billiard night and I had company and so was +not down; but Livy and Clara became more charmed with these children than +ever. + +Warner and I planned to get somebody to criticise the statue whose +judgment would be worth something. So I laid for Champney, and after two +failures I captured him and took him around, and he said "this statue is +full of faults--but it has merits enough in it to make up for them"-- +whereat the young wife danced around as delighted as a child. When we +came away, Champney said, "I did not want to say too much there, but the +truth is, it seems to me an extraordinary performance for an untrained +hand. You ask if there is promise enough there to justify the Hartford +folk in going to an expense of training this young man. I should say, +yes, decidedly; but still, to make everything safe, you had better get +the judgment of a sculptor." + +Warner was in New York. I wrote him, and he said he would fetch up Ward +--which he did. Yesterday they went to the Gerhardts and spent two +hours, and Ward came away bewitched with those people and marveling at +the winning innocence of the young wife, who dropped naturally into +model-attitude beside the statue (which is stark naked from head to heel, +now--G. had removed the drapery, fearing Ward would think he was afraid +to try legs and hips) just as she has always done before. + +Livy and I had two long talks with Ward yesterday evening. He spoke +strongly. He said, "if any stranger had told me that this apprentice did +not model that thing from plaster casts, I would not have believed it." +He said "it is full of crudities, but it is full of genius, too. It is +such a statue as the man of average talent would achieve after two years +training in the schools. And the boldness of the fellow, in going +straight to nature! He is an apprentice--his work shows that, all over; +but the stuff is in him, sure. Hartford must send him to Paris--two +years; then if the promise holds good, keep him there three more--and +warn him to study, study, work, work, and keep his name out of the +papers, and neither ask for orders nor accept them when offered." + +Well, you see, that's all we wanted. After Ward was gone Livy came out +with the thing that was in her mind. She said, "Go privately and start +the Gerhardts off to Paris, and say nothing about it to any one else." + +So I tramped down this morning in the snow-storm--and there was a +stirring time. They will sail a week or ten days from now. + +As I was starting out at the front door, with Gerhardt beside me and the +young wife dancing and jubilating behind, this latter cried out +impulsively, "Tell Mrs. Clemens I want to hug her--I want to hug you +both!" + +I gave them my old French book and they were going to tackle the +language, straight off. + +Now this letter is a secret--keep it quiet--I don't think Livy would mind +my telling you these things, but then she might, you know, for she is a +queer girl. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + Champney was J. Wells Champney, a portrait-painter of distinction; + Ward was the sculptor, J. Q. A. Ward. + + The Gerhardts were presently off to Paris, well provided with means + to make their dreams reality; in due time the letters will report + them again. + + The Uncle Remus tales of Joel Chandler Harris gave Mark Twain great + pleasure. He frequently read them aloud, not only at home but in + public. Finally, he wrote Harris, expressing his warm appreciation, + and mentioning one of the negro stories of his own childhood, "The + Golden Arm," which he urged Harris to look up and add to his + collection. + + "You have pinned a proud feather in Uncle-Remus's cap," replied + Harris. "I do not know what higher honor he could have than to + appear before the Hartford public arm in arm with Mark Twain." + + He disclaimed any originality for the stories, adding, "I understand + that my relations toward Uncle Remus are similar to those that exist + between an almanac maker and the calendar." He had not heard the + "Golden Arm" story and asked for the outlines; also for some + publishing advice, out of Mark Twain's long experience. + + + To Joel Chandler Harris, in Atlanta: + + ELMIRA, N.Y., Aug. 10. +MY DEAR MR. HARRIS,--You can argue yourself into the delusion that the +principle of life is in the stories themselves and not in their setting; +but you will save labor by stopping with that solitary convert, for he is +the only intelligent one you will bag. In reality the stories are only +alligator pears--one merely eats them for the sake of the salad-dressing. +Uncle Remus is most deftly drawn, and is a lovable and delightful +creation; he, and the little boy, and their relations with each other, +are high and fine literature, and worthy to live, for their own sakes; +and certainly the stories are not to be credited with them. But enough +of this; I seem to be proving to the man that made the multiplication +table that twice one are two. + +I have been thinking, yesterday and to-day (plenty of chance to think, as +I am abed with lumbago at our little summering farm among the solitudes +of the Mountaintops,) and I have concluded that I can answer one of your +questions with full confidence--thus: Make it a subscription book. +Mighty few books that come strictly under the head of literature will +sell by subscription; but if Uncle Remus won't, the gift of prophecy has +departed out of me. When a book will sell by subscription, it will sell +two or three times as many copies as it would in the trade; and the +profit is bulkier because the retail price is greater..... + +You didn't ask me for a subscription-publisher. If you had, I should +have recommended Osgood to you. He inaugurates his subscription +department with my new book in the fall..... + +Now the doctor has been here and tried to interrupt my yarn about "The +Golden Arm," but I've got through, anyway. + +Of course I tell it in the negro dialect--that is necessary; but I have +not written it so, for I can't spell it in your matchless way. It is +marvelous the way you and Cable spell the negro and creole dialects. + +Two grand features are lost in print: the weird wailing, the rising and +falling cadences of the wind, so easily mimicked with one's mouth; and +the impressive pauses and eloquent silences, and subdued utterances, +toward the end of the yarn (which chain the attention of the children +hand and foot, and they sit with parted lips and breathless, to be +wrenched limb from limb with the sudden and appalling "You got it"). + +Old Uncle Dan'l, a slave of my uncle's' aged 60, used to tell us children +yarns every night by the kitchen fire (no other light;) and the last yarn +demanded, every night, was this one. By this time there was but a +ghastly blaze or two flickering about the back-log. We would huddle +close about the old man, and begin to shudder with the first familiar +words; and under the spell of his impressive delivery we always fell a +prey to that climax at the end when the rigid black shape in the twilight +sprang at us with a shout. + +When you come to glance at the tale you will recollect it--it is as +common and familiar as the Tar Baby. Work up the atmosphere with your +customary skill and it will "go" in print. + +Lumbago seems to make a body garrulous--but you'll forgive it. + Truly yours + S. L. CLEMENS + + + The "Golden Arm" story was one that Clemens often used in his public + readings, and was very effective as he gave it. + + In his sketch, "How to Tell a Story," it appears about as he used to + tell it. Harris, receiving the outlines of the old Missouri tale, + presently announced that he had dug up its Georgia relative, an + interesting variant, as we gather from Mark Twain's reply. + + + To Joel Chandler Harris, in Atlanta: + + HARTFORD, '81. +MY DEAR MR. HARRIS,--I was very sure you would run across that Story +somewhere, and am glad you have. A Drummond light--no, I mean a Brush +light--is thrown upon the negro estimate of values by his willingness to +risk his soul and his mighty peace forever for the sake of a silver +sev'm-punce. And this form of the story seems rather nearer the true +field-hand standard than that achieved by my Florida, Mo., negroes with +their sumptuous arm of solid gold. + +I judge you haven't received my new book yet--however, you will in a day +or two. Meantime you must not take it ill if I drop Osgood a hint about +your proposed story of slave life..... + +When you come north I wish you would drop me a line and then follow it in +person and give me a day or two at our house in Hartford. If you will, +I will snatch Osgood down from Boston, and you won't have to go there at +all unless you want to. Please to bear this strictly in mind, and don't +forget it. + Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Charles Warren Stoddard, to whom the next letter is written, was one + of the old California literary crowd, a graceful writer of verse and + prose, never quite arriving at the success believed by his friends + to be his due. He was a gentle, irresponsible soul, well loved by + all who knew him, and always, by one or another, provided against + want. The reader may remember that during Mark Twain's great + lecture engagement in London, winter of 1873-74, Stoddard lived with + him, acting as his secretary. At a later period in his life he + lived for several years with the great telephone magnate, Theodore + N. Vail. At the time of this letter, Stoddard had decided that in + the warm light and comfort of the Sandwich Islands he could survive + on his literary earnings. + + + To Charles Warren Stoddard, in the Sandwich Islands: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 26 '81. +MY DEAR CHARLIE,--Now what have I ever done to you that you should not +only slide off to Heaven before you have earned a right to go, but must +add the gratuitous villainy of informing me of it?..... + +The house is full of carpenters and decorators; whereas, what we really +need here, is an incendiary. If the house would only burn down, we would +pack up the cubs and fly to the isles of the blest, and shut ourselves up +in the healing solitudes of the crater of Haleakala and get a good rest; +for the mails do not intrude there, nor yet the telephone and the +telegraph. And after resting, we would come down the mountain a piece +and board with a godly, breech-clouted native, and eat poi and dirt and +give thanks to whom all thanks belong, for these privileges, and never +house-keep any more. + +I think my wife would be twice as strong as she is, but for this wearing +and wearying slavery of house-keeping. However, she thinks she must +submit to it for the sake of the children; whereas, I have always had a +tenderness for parents too, so, for her sake and mine, I sigh for the +incendiary. When the evening comes and the gas is lit and the wear and +tear of life ceases, we want to keep house always; but next morning we +wish, once more, that we were free and irresponsible boarders. + +Work?--one can't you know, to any purpose. I don't really get anything +done worth speaking of, except during the three or four months that we +are away in the Summer. I wish the Summer were seven years long. I keep +three or four books on the stocks all the time, but I seldom add a +satisfactory chapter to one of them at home. Yes, and it is all because +my time is taken up with answering the letters of strangers. It can't be +done through a short hand amanuensis--I've tried that--it wouldn't work +--I couldn't learn to dictate. What does possess strangers to write so +many letters? I never could find that out. However, I suppose I did it +myself when I was a stranger. But I will never do it again. + +Maybe you think I am not happy? the very thing that gravels me is that I +am. I don't want to be happy when I can't work; I am resolved that +hereafter I won't be. What I have always longed for, was the privilege +of living forever away up on one of those mountains in the Sandwich +Islands overlooking the sea. + Yours ever + MARK. + +That magazine article of yours was mighty good: up to your very best I +think. I enclose a book review written by Howells. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 26 '81. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am delighted with your review, and so is Mrs. +Clemens. What you have said, there, will convince anybody that reads it; +a body cannot help being convinced by it. That is the kind of a review +to have; the doubtful man; even the prejudiced man, is persuaded and +succumbs. + +What a queer blunder that was, about the baronet. I can't quite see how +I ever made it. There was an opulent abundance of things I didn't know; +and consequently no need to trench upon the vest-pocketful of things I +did know, to get material for a blunder. + +Charley Warren Stoddard has gone to the Sandwich Islands permanently. +Lucky devil. It is the only supremely delightful place on earth. It +does seem that the more advantage a body doesn't earn, here, the more of +them God throws at his head. This fellow's postal card has set the +vision of those gracious islands before my mind, again, with not a leaf +withered, nor a rainbow vanished, nor a sun-flash missing from the waves, +and now it will be months, I reckon, before I can drive it away again. +It is beautiful company, but it makes one restless and dissatisfied. + +With love and thanks, + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The review mentioned in this letter was of The Prince and the + Pauper. What the queer" blunder" about the baronet was, the present + writer confesses he does not know; but perhaps a careful reader + could find it, at least in the early edition; very likely it was + corrected without loss of time. + + Clemens now and then found it necessary to pay a visit to Canada in + the effort to protect his copyright. He usually had a grand time on + these trips, being lavishly entertained by the Canadian literary + fraternity. In November, 1881, he made one of these journeys in the + interest of The Prince and the Pauper, this time with Osgood, who + was now his publisher. In letters written home we get a hint of his + diversions. The Monsieur Frechette mentioned was a Canadian poet of + considerable distinction. "Clara" was Miss Clara Spaulding, of + Elmira, who had accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Clemens to Europe in 1873, + and again in 1878. Later she became Mrs. John B. Staachfield, of + New York City. Her name has already appeared in these letters many + times. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + MONTREAL, Nov. 28 '81. +Livy darling, you and Clara ought to have been at breakfast in the great +dining room this morning. English female faces, distinctive English +costumes, strange and marvelous English gaits--and yet such honest, +honorable, clean-souled countenances, just as these English women almost +always have, you know. Right away-- + +But they've come to take me to the top of Mount Royal, it being a cold, +dry, sunny, magnificent day. Going in a sleigh. + Yours lovingly, + SAML. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + MONTREAL, Sunday, November 27, 1881. +Livy dear, a mouse kept me awake last night till 3 or 4 o'clock--so I am +lying abed this morning. I would not give sixpence to be out yonder in +the storm, although it is only snow. + +[The above paragraph is written in the form of a rebus illustrated with +various sketches.] + +There--that's for the children--was not sure that they could read +writing; especially jean, who is strangely ignorant in some things. + +I can not only look out upon the beautiful snow-storm, past the vigorous +blaze of my fire; and upon the snow-veiled buildings which I have +sketched; and upon the churchward drifting umbrellas; and upon the +buffalo-clad cabmen stamping their feet and thrashing their arms on the +corner yonder: but I also look out upon the spot where the first white +men stood, in the neighborhood of four hundred years ago, admiring the +mighty stretch of leafy solitudes, and being admired and marveled at by +an eager multitude of naked savages. The discoverer of this region, and +namer of it, Jacques Cartier, has a square named for him in the city. I +wish you were here; you would enjoy your birthday, I think. + +I hoped for a letter, and thought I had one when the mail was handed in, +a minute ago, but it was only that note from Sylvester Baxter. You must +write--do you hear?--or I will be remiss myself. + +Give my love and a kiss to the children, and ask them to give you my love +and a kiss from + SAML. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + QUEBEC, Sunday. '81. +Livy darling, I received a letter from Monsieur Frechette this morning, +in which certain citizens of Montreal tendered me a public dinner next +Thursday, and by Osgood's advice I accepted it. I would have accepted +anyway, and very cheerfully but for the delay of two days--for I was +purposing to go to Boston Tuesday and home Wednesday; whereas, now I go +to Boston Friday and home Saturday. I have to go by Boston on account of +business. + +We drove about the steep hills and narrow, crooked streets of this old +town during three hours, yesterday, in a sleigh, in a driving snow-storm. +The people here don't mind snow; they were all out, plodding around on +their affairs--especially the children, who were wallowing around +everywhere, like snow images, and having a mighty good time. I wish I +could describe the winter costume of the young girls, but I can't. It is +grave and simple, but graceful and pretty--the top of it is a brimless +fur cap. Maybe it is the costume that makes pretty girls seem so +monotonously plenty here. It was a kind of relief to strike a homely +face occasionally. + +You descend into some of the streets by long, deep stairways; and in the +strong moonlight, last night, these were very picturesque. I did wish +you were here to see these things. You couldn't by any possibility sleep +in these beds, though, or enjoy the food. + +Good night, sweetheart, and give my respects to the cubs. + + SAML. + + + It had been hoped that W. D. Howells would join the Canadian + excursion, but Howells was not very well that autumn. He wrote that + he had been in bed five weeks, "most of the time recovering; so you + see how bad I must have been to begin with. But now I am out of any + first-class pain; I have a good appetite, and I am as abusive and + peremptory as Guiteau." Clemens, returning to Hartford, wrote him a + letter that explains itself. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 16 '81. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It was a sharp disappointment--your inability to +connect, on the Canadian raid. What a gaudy good time we should have +had! + +Disappointed, again, when I got back to Boston; for I was promising +myself half an hour's look at you, in Belmont; but your note to Osgood +showed that that could not be allowed out yet. + +The Atlantic arrived an hour ago, and your faultless and delicious Police +Report brought that blamed Joe Twichell powerfully before me. There's a +man who can tell such things himself (by word of mouth,) and has as sure +an eye for detecting a thing that is before his eyes, as any man in the +world, perhaps--then why in the nation doesn't he report himself with a +pen? + +One of those drenching days last week, he slopped down town with his +cubs, and visited a poor little beggarly shed where were a dwarf, a fat +woman, and a giant of honest eight feet, on exhibition behind tawdry +show-canvases, but with nobody to exhibit to. The giant had a broom, and +was cleaning up and fixing around, diligently. Joe conceived the idea of +getting some talk out of him. Now that never would have occurred to me. +So he dropped in under the man's elbow, dogged him patiently around, +prodding him with questions and getting irritated snarls in return which +would have finished me early--but at last one of Joe's random shafts +drove the centre of that giant's sympathies somehow, and fetched him. +The fountains of his great deep were broken up, and he rained a flood of +personal history that was unspeakably entertaining. + +Among other things it turned out that he had been a Turkish (native) +colonel, and had fought all through the Crimean war--and so, for the +first time, Joe got a picture of the Charge of the Six Hundred that made +him see the living spectacle, the flash of flag and tongue-flame, the +rolling smoke, and hear the booming of the guns; and for the first time +also, he heard the reasons for that wild charge delivered from the mouth +of a master, and realized that nobody had "blundered," but that a cold, +logical, military brain had perceived this one and sole way to win an +already lost battle, and so gave the command and did achieve the victory. + +And mind you Joe was able to come up here, days afterwards, and reproduce +that giant's picturesque and admirable history. But dern him, he can't +write it--which is all wrong, and not as it should be. + +And he has gone and raked up the MS autobiography (written in 1848,) of +Mrs. Phebe Brown, (author of "I Love to Steal a While Away,") who +educated Yung Wing in her family when he was a little boy; and I came +near not getting to bed at all, last night, on account of the lurid +fascinations of it. Why in the nation it has never got into print, I +can't understand. + +But, by jings! the postman will be here in a minute; so, congratulations +upon your mending health, and gratitude that it is mending; and love to +you all. + Yrs Ever + MARK. + +Don't answer--I spare the sick. + + + + +XXII. + +LETTERS, 1882, MAINLY TO HOWELLS. WASTED FURY. OLD SCENES REVISITED. +THE MISSISSIPPI BOOK + + A man of Mark Twain's profession and prominence must necessarily be + the subject of much newspaper comment. Jest, compliment, criticism + --none of these things disturbed him, as a rule. He was pleased + that his books should receive favorable notices by men whose opinion + he respected, but he was not grieved by adverse expressions. Jests + at his expense, if well written, usually amused him; cheap jokes + only made him sad; but sarcasms and innuendoes were likely to enrage + him, particularly if he believed them prompted by malice. Perhaps + among all the letters he ever wrote, there is none more + characteristic than this confession of violence and eagerness for + reprisal, followed by his acknowledgment of error and a manifest + appreciation of his own weakness. It should be said that Mark Twain + and Whitelaw Reid were generally very good friends, and perhaps for + the moment this fact seemed to magnify the offense. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Jan. 28 '82. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Nobody knows better than I, that there are times when +swearing cannot meet the emergency. How sharply I feel that, at this +moment. Not a single profane word has issued from my lips this mornin +--I have not even had the impulse to swear, so wholly ineffectual would +swearing have manifestly been, in the circumstances. But I will tell you +about it. + +About three weeks ago, a sensitive friend, approaching his revelation +cautiously, intimated that the N. Y. Tribune was engaged in a kind of +crusade against me. This seemed a higher compliment than I deserved; but +no matter, it made me very angry. I asked many questions, and gathered, +in substance, this: Since Reid's return from Europe, the Tribune had +been flinging sneers and brutalities at me with such persistent frequency +"as to attract general remark." I was an angered--which is just as good +an expression, I take it, as an hungered. Next, I learned that Osgood, +among the rest of the "general," was worrying over these constant and +pitiless attacks. Next came the testimony of another friend, that the +attacks were not merely "frequent," but "almost daily." Reflect upon +that: "Almost daily" insults, for two months on a stretch. What would +you have done? + +As for me, I did the thing which was the natural thing for me to do, that +is, I set about contriving a plan to accomplish one or the other of two +things: 1. Force a peace; or 2. Get revenge. When I got my plan +finished, it pleased me marvelously. It was in six or seven sections, +each section to be used in its turn and by itself; the assault to begin +at once with No. 1, and the rest to follow, one after the other, to keep +the communication open while I wrote my biography of Reid. I meant to +wind up with this latter great work, and then dismiss the subject for +good. + +Well, ever since then I have worked day and night making notes and +collecting and classifying material. I've got collectors at work in +England. I went to New York and sat three hours taking evidence while a +stenographer set it down. As my labors grew, so also grew my +fascination. Malice and malignity faded out of me--or maybe I drove them +out of me, knowing that a malignant book would hurt nobody but the fool +who wrote it. I got thoroughly in love with this work; for I saw that I +was going to write a book which the very devils and angels themselves +would delight to read, and which would draw disapproval from nobody but +the hero of it, (and Mrs. Clemens, who was bitter against the whole +thing.) One part of my plan was so delicious that I had to try my hand +on it right away, just for the luxury of it. I set about it, and sure +enough it panned out to admiration. I wrote that chapter most carefully, +and I couldn't find a fault with it. (It was not for the biography--no, +it belonged to an immediate and deadlier project.) + +Well, five days ago, this thought came into my mind(from Mrs. Clemens's): +"Wouldn't it be well to make sure that the attacks have been 'almost +daily'?--and to also make sure that their number and character will +justify me in doing what I am proposing to do?" + +I at once set a man to work in New York to seek out and copy every +unpleasant reference which had been made to me in the Tribune from Nov. +1st to date. On my own part I began to watch the current numbers, for I +had subscribed for the paper. + +The result arrived from my New York man this morning. O, what a pitiable +wreck of high hopes! The "almost daily" assaults, for two months, +consist of--1. Adverse criticism of P. & P. from an enraged idiot in the +London Atheneum; 2. Paragraph from some indignant Englishman in the Pall +Mall Gazette who pays me the vast compliment of gravely rebuking some +imaginary ass who has set me up in the neighborhood of Rabelais; 3. A +remark of the Tribune's about the Montreal dinner, touched with an almost +invisible satire; 4. A remark of the Tribune's about refusal of Canadian +copyright, not complimentary, but not necessarily malicious--and of +course adverse criticism which is not malicious is a thing which none but +fools irritate themselves about. + +There--that is the prodigious bugaboo, in its entirety! Can you conceive +of a man's getting himself into a sweat over so diminutive a provocation? +I am sure I can't. What the devil can those friends of mine have been +thinking about, to spread these 3 or 4 harmless things out into two +months of daily sneers and affronts? The whole offense, boiled down, +amounts to just this: one uncourteous remark of the Tribune about my +book--not me between Nov. 1 and Dec. 20; and a couple of foreign +criticisms (of my writings, not me,) between Nov. 1 and Jan. 26! If I +can't stand that amount of friction, I certainly need reconstruction. +Further boiled down, this vast outpouring of malice amounts to simply +this: one jest from the Tribune (one can make nothing more serious than +that out of it.) One jest--and that is all; for the foreign criticisms do +not count, they being matters of news, and proper for publication in +anybody's newspaper. + +And to offset that one jest, the Tribune paid me one compliment Dec. 23, +by publishing my note declining the New York New England dinner, while +merely (in the same breath,) mentioning that similar letters were read +from General Sherman and other men whom we all know to be persons of real +consequence. + +Well, my mountain has brought forth its mouse, and a sufficiently small +mouse it is, God knows. And my three weeks' hard work have got to go +into the ignominious pigeon-hole. Confound it, I could have earned ten +thousand dollars with infinitely less trouble. However, I shouldn't have +done it, for I am too lazy, now, in my sere and yellow leaf, to be +willing to work for anything but love..... I kind of envy you people who +are permitted for your righteousness' sake to dwell in a boarding house; +not that I should always want to live in one, but I should like the +change occasionally from this housekeeping slavery to that wild +independence. A life of don't-care-a-damn in a boarding house is what I +have asked for in many a secret prayer. I shall come by and by and +require of you what you have offered me there. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + Howells, who had already known something of the gathering storm, + replied: "Your letter was an immense relief to me, for although I + had an abiding faith that you would get sick of your enterprise, + I wasn't easy until I knew that you had given it up. + + Joel Chandler Harris appears again in the letters of this period. + Twichell, during a trip South about this time, had called on Harris + with some sort of proposition or suggestion from Clemens that Harris + appear with him in public, and tell, or read, the Remus stories from + the platform. But Harris was abnormally diffident. Clemens later + pronounced him "the shyest full-grown man" he had ever met, and the + word which Twichell brought home evidently did not encourage the + platform idea. + + + To Joel Chandler Harris, in Atlanta: + + HARTFORD, Apl. 2, '82. +Private. + +MY DEAR MR. HARRIS,--Jo Twichell brought me your note and told me of his +talk with you. He said you didn't believe you would ever be able to +muster a sufficiency of reckless daring to make you comfortable and at +ease before an audience. Well, I have thought out a device whereby I +believe we can get around that difficulty. I will explain when I see +you. + +Jo says you want to go to Canada within a month or six weeks--I forget +just exactly what he did say; but he intimated the trip could be delayed +a while, if necessary. If this is so, suppose you meet Osgood and me in +New Orleans early in May--say somewhere between the 1st and 6th? + +It will be well worth your while to do this, because the author who goes +to Canada unposted, will not know what course to pursue [to secure +copyright] when he gets there; he will find himself in a hopeless +confusion as to what is the correct thing to do. Now Osgood is the only +man in America, who can lay out your course for you and tell you exactly +what to do. Therefore, you just come to New Orleans and have a talk with +him. + +Our idea is to strike across lots and reach St. Louis the 20th of April-- +thence we propose to drift southward, stopping at some town a few hours +or a night, every day, and making notes. + +To escape the interviewers, I shall follow my usual course and use a +fictitious name (C. L. Samuel, of New York.) I don't know what Osgood's +name will be, but he can't use his own. + +If you see your way to meet us in New Orleans, drop me a line, now, and +as we approach that city I will telegraph you what day we shall arrive +there. + +I would go to Atlanta if I could, but shan't be able. We shall go back +up the river to St. Paul, and thence by rail X-lots home. + +(I am making this letter so dreadfully private and confidential because +my movements must be kept secret, else I shan't be able to pick up the +kind of book-material I want.) + +If you are diffident, I suspect that you ought to let Osgood be your +magazine-agent. He makes those people pay three or four times as much as +an article is worth, whereas I never had the cheek to make them pay more +than double. + Yrs Sincerely + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + "My backwardness is an affliction," wrote Harris..... "The ordeal + of appearing on the stage would be a terrible one, but my experience + is that when a diffident man does become familiar with his + surroundings he has more impudence than his neighbors. Extremes + meet." + + He was sorely tempted, but his courage became as water at the + thought of footlights and assembled listeners. Once in New York he + appears to have been caught unawares at a Tile Club dinner and made + to tell a story, but his agony was such that at the prospect of a + similar ordeal in Boston he avoided that city and headed straight + for Georgia and safety. + + The New Orleans excursion with Osgood, as planned by Clemens, proved + a great success. The little party took the steamer Gold Dust from + St. Louis down river toward New Orleans. Clemens was quickly + recognized, of course, and his assumed name laid aside. The author + of "Uncle Remus" made the trip to New Orleans. George W. Cable was + there at the time, and we may believe that in the company of Mark + Twain and Osgood those Southern authors passed two or three + delightful days. Clemens also met his old teacher Bixby in New + Orleans, and came back up the river with him, spending most of his + time in the pilot-house, as in the old days. It was a glorious + trip, and, reaching St. Louis, he continued it northward, stopping + off at Hannibal and Quincy.' + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + QUINCY, ILL. May 17, '82. +Livy darling, I am desperately homesick. But I have promised Osgood, and +must stick it out; otherwise I would take the train at once and break for +home. + +I have spent three delightful days in Hannibal, loitering around all day +long, examining the old localities and talking with the grey-heads who +were boys and girls with me 30 or 40 years ago. It has been a moving +time. I spent my nights with John and Helen Garth, three miles from +town, in their spacious and beautiful house. They were children with me, +and afterwards schoolmates. Now they have a daughter 19 or 20 years old. +Spent an hour, yesterday, with A. W. Lamb, who was not married when I saw +him last. He married a young lady whom I knew. And now I have been +talking with their grown-up sons and daughters. Lieutenant Hickman, the +spruce young handsomely-uniformed volunteer of 1846, called on me--a +grisly elephantine patriarch of 65 now, his grace all vanished. + +That world which I knew in its blossoming youth is old and bowed and +melancholy, now; its soft cheeks are leathery and wrinkled, the fire is +gone out in its eyes, and the spring from its step. It will be dust and +ashes when I come again. I have been clasping hands with the moribund- +and usually they said, "It is for the last time." + +Now I am under way again, upon this hideous trip to St. Paul, with a +heart brimming full of thoughts and images of you and Susie and Bay and +the peerless Jean. And so good night, my love. + + SAML. + + + Clemens's trip had been saddened by learning, in New Orleans, the + news of the death of Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh. To Doctor + Brown's son, whom he had known as "Jock," he wrote immediately on + his return to Hartford. + + + To Mr. John Brown, in Edinburgh + + HARTFORD, June 1, 1882. +MY DEAR MR. BROWN,--I was three thousand miles from home, at breakfast in +New Orleans, when the damp morning paper revealed the sorrowful news +among the cable dispatches. There was no place in America, however +remote, or however rich, or poor or high or humble where words of +mourning for your father were not uttered that morning, for his works had +made him known and loved all over the land. To Mrs. Clemens and me, +the loss is personal; and our grief the grief one feels for one who was +peculiarly near and dear. Mrs. Clemens has never ceased to express +regret that we came away from England the last time without going to see +him, and often we have since projected a voyage across the Atlantic for +the sole purpose of taking him by the hand and looking into his kind eyes +once more before he should be called to his rest. + +We both thank you greatly for the Edinburgh papers which you sent. My +wife and I join in affectionate remembrances and greetings to yourself +and your aunt, and in the sincere tender of our sympathies. + + Faithfully yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Our Susie is still "Megalops." He gave her that name: + +Can you spare a photograph of your father? We have none but the one +taken in a group with ourselves. + + + William Dean Howells, at the age of forty-five, reached what many + still regard his highest point of achievement in American realism. + His novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, which was running as a Century + serial during the summer of 1882, attracted wide attention, and upon + its issue in book form took first place among his published novels. + Mark Twain, to the end of his life, loved all that Howells wrote. + Once, long afterward, he said: "Most authors give us glimpses of a + radiant moon, but Howells's moon shines and sails all night long." + When the instalments of The Rise of Silas Lapham began to appear, he + overflowed in adjectives, the sincerity of which we need not doubt, + in view of his quite open criticisms of the author's reading + delivery. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.: + +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am in a state of wild enthusiasm over this July +instalment of your story. It's perfectly dazzling--it's masterly-- +incomparable. Yet I heard you read it--without losing my balance. +Well, the difference between your reading and your writing is-remarkable. +I mean, in the effects produced and the impression left behind. Why, the +one is to the other as is one of Joe Twichell's yarns repeated by a +somnambulist. Goodness gracious, you read me a chapter, and it is a +gentle, pearly dawn, with a sprinkle of faint stars in it; but by and by +I strike it in print, and shout to myself, "God bless us, how has that +pallid former spectacle been turned into these gorgeous sunset +splendors!" + +Well, I don't care how much you read your truck to me, you can't +permanently damage it for me that way. It is always perfectly fresh and +dazzling when I come on it in the magazine. Of course I recognize the +form of it as being familiar--but that is all. That is, I remember it as +pyrotechnic figures which you set up before me, dead and cold, but ready +for the match--and now I see them touched off and all ablaze with +blinding fires. You can read, if you want to, but you don't read worth a +damn. I know you can read, because your readings of Cable and your +repeatings of the German doctor's remarks prove that. + +That's the best drunk scene--because the truest--that I ever read. There +are touches in it that I never saw any writer take note of before. And +they are set before the reader with amazing accuracy. How very drunk, +and how recently drunk, and how altogether admirably drunk you must have +been to enable you to contrive that masterpiece! + +Why I didn't notice that that religious interview between Marcia and Mrs. +Halleck was so deliciously humorous when you read it to me--but dear me, +it's just too lovely for anything. (Wrote Clark to collar it for the +"Library.") + +Hang it, I know where the mystery is, now; when you are reading, you +glide right along, and I don't get a chance to let the things soak home; +but when I catch it in the magazine, I give a page 20 or 30 minutes in +which to gently and thoroughly filter into me. Your humor is so very +subtle, and elusive--(well, often it's just a vanishing breath of perfume +which a body isn't certain he smelt till he stops and takes another +smell) whereas you can smell other + +(Remainder obliterated.) + + + Among Mark Twain's old schoolmates in Hannibal was little Helen + Kercheval, for whom in those early days he had a very tender spot + indeed. But she married another schoolmate, John Garth, who in time + became a banker, highly respected and a great influence. John and + Helen Garth have already been mentioned in the letter of May 17th. + + + To John Garth, in Hannibal: + + HARTFORD, July 3 '82. +DEAR JOHN,--Your letter of June i9 arrived just one day after we ought to +have been in Elmira, N. Y. for the summer: but at the last moment the +baby was seized with scarlet fever. I had to telegraph and countermand +the order for special sleeping car; and in fact we all had to fly around +in a lively way and undo the patient preparations of weeks--rehabilitate +the dismantled house, unpack the trunks, and so on. A couple of days +later, the eldest child was taken down with so fierce a fever that she +was soon delirious--not scarlet fever, however. Next, I myself was +stretched on the bed with three diseases at once, and all of them fatal. +But I never did care for fatal diseases if I could only have privacy and +room to express myself concerning them. + +We gave early warning, and of course nobody has entered the house in all +this time but one or two reckless old bachelors--and they probably wanted +to carry the disease to the children of former flames of theirs. The +house is still in quarantine and must remain so for a week or two yet--at +which time we are hoping to leave for Elmira. + Always your friend + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + By the end of summer Howells was in Europe, and Clemens, in Elmira, + was trying to finish his Mississippi book, which was giving him a + great deal of trouble. It was usually so with his non-fiction + books; his interest in them was not cumulative; he was prone to grow + weary of them, while the menace of his publisher's contract was + maddening. Howells's letters, meant to be comforting, or at least + entertaining, did not always contribute to his peace of mind. The + Library of American Humor which they had planned was an added + burden. Before sailing, Howells had written: "Do you suppose you + can do your share of the reading at Elmira, while you are writing at + the Mississippi book?" + + In a letter from London, Howells writes of the good times he is + having over there with Osgood, Hutton, John Hay, Aldrich, and Alma + Tadema, excursioning to Oxford, feasting, especially "at the Mitre + Tavern, where they let you choose your dinner from the joints + hanging from the rafter, and have passages that you lose yourself in + every time you try to go to your room..... Couldn't you and Mrs. + Clemens step over for a little while?..... We have seen lots of + nice people and have been most pleasantly made of; but I would + rather have you smoke in my face, and talk for half a day just for + pleasure, than to go to the best house or club in London." The + reader will gather that this could not be entirely soothing to a man + shackled by a contract and a book that refused to come to an end. + + + To W. D. Howells, in London: + + HARTFORD, CONN. Oct 30, 1882. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I do not expect to find you, so I shan't spend many +words on you to wind up in the perdition of some European dead-letter +office. I only just want to say that the closing installments of the +story are prodigious. All along I was afraid it would be impossible for +you to keep up so splendidly to the end; but you were only, I see now, +striking eleven. It is in these last chapters that you struck twelve. +Go on and write; you can write good books yet, but you can never match +this one. And speaking of the book, I inclose something which has been +happening here lately. + +We have only just arrived at home, and I have not seen Clark on our +matters. I cannot see him or any one else, until I get my book finished. +The weather turned cold, and we had to rush home, while I still lacked +thirty thousand words. I had been sick and got delayed. I am going to +write all day and two thirds of the night, until the thing is done, or +break down at it. The spur and burden of the contract are intolerable to +me. I can endure the irritation of it no longer. I went to work at nine +o'clock yesterday morning, and went to bed an hour after midnight. +Result of the day, (mainly stolen from books, tho' credit given,) 9500 +words, so I reduced my burden by one third in one day. It was five days +work in one. I have nothing more to borrow or steal; the rest must all +be written. It is ten days work, and unless something breaks, it will be +finished in five. We all send love to you and Mrs. Howells, and all the +family. + Yours as ever, + MARK. + + +Again, from Villeneuve, on lake Geneva, Howells wrote urging him this +time to spend the winter with them in Florence, where they would write +their great American Comedy of 'Orme's Motor,' "which is to enrich us +beyond the dreams of avarice.... We could have a lot of fun writing it, +and you could go home with some of the good old Etruscan malaria in your +bones, instead of the wretched pinch-beck Hartford article that you are +suffering from now.... it's a great opportunity for you. Besides, +nobody over there likes you half as well as I do." + +It should be added that 'Orme's Motor' was the provisional title that +Clemens and Howells had selected for their comedy, which was to be built, +in some measure, at least, around the character, or rather from the +peculiarities, of Orion Clemens. The Cable mentioned in Mark Twain's +reply is, of course, George W. Cable, who only a little while before had +come up from New Orleans to conquer the North with his wonderful tales +and readings. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Switzerland: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 4th, 1882. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Yes, it would be profitable for me to do that, because +with your society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now apparently +interminable book. But I cannot come, because I am not Boss here, and +nothing but dynamite can move Mrs. Clemens away from home in the winter +season. + +I never had such a fight over a book in my life before. And the +foolishest part of the whole business is, that I started Osgood to +editing it before I had finished writing it. As a consequence, large +areas of it are condemned here and there and yonder, and I have the +burden of these unfilled gaps harassing me and the thought of the broken +continuity of the work, while I am at the same time trying to build the +last quarter of the book. However, at last I have said with sufficient +positiveness that I will finish the book at no particular date; that I +will not hurry it; that I will not hurry myself; that I will take things +easy and comfortably, write when I choose to write, leave it alone when I +so prefer. The printers must wait, the artists, the canvassers, and all +the rest. I have got everything at a dead standstill, and that is where +it ought to be, and that is where it must remain; to follow any other +policy would be to make the book worse than it already is. I ought to +have finished it before showing to anybody, and then sent it across the +ocean to you to be edited, as usual; for you seem to be a great many +shades happier than you deserve to be, and if I had thought of this thing +earlier, I would have acted upon it and taken the tuck somewhat out of +your joyousness. + +In the same mail with your letter, arrived the enclosed from Orme the +motor man. You will observe that he has an office. I will explain that +this is a law office and I think it probably does him as much good to +have a law office without anything to do in it, as it would another man +to have one with an active business attached. You see he is on the +electric light lay now. Going to light the city and allow me to take all +the stock if I want to. And he will manage it free of charge. It never +would occur to this simple soul how much less costly it would be to me, +to hire him on a good salary not to manage it. Do you observe the same +old eagerness, the same old hurry, springing from the fear that if he +does not move with the utmost swiftness, that colossal opportunity will +escape him? Now just fancy this same frantic plunging after vast +opportunities, going on week after week with this same man, during fifty +entire years, and he has not yet learned, in the slightest degree, that +there isn't any occasion to hurry; that his vast opportunity will always +wait; and that whether it waits or flies, he certainly will never catch +it. This immortal hopefulness, fortified by its immortal and unteachable +misjudgment, is the immortal feature of this character, for a play; and +we will write that play. We should be fools else. That staccato +postscript reads as if some new and mighty business were imminent, for it +is slung on the paper telegraphically, all the small words left out. +I am afraid something newer and bigger than the electric light is +swinging across his orbit. Save this letter for an inspiration. I have +got a hundred more. + +Cable has been here, creating worshipers on all hands. He is a marvelous +talker on a deep subject. I do not see how even Spencer could unwind a +thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in a cleaner, clearer, +crisper English. He astounded Twichell with his faculty. You know when +it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly blemishless +piety, the Apostles were mere policemen to Cable; so with this in mind +you must imagine him at a midnight dinner in Boston the other night, +where we gathered around the board of the Summerset Club; Osgood, full, +Boyle O'Reilly, full, Fairchild responsively loaded, and Aldrich and +myself possessing the floor, and properly fortified. Cable told Mrs. +Clemens when he returned here, that he seemed to have been entertaining +himself with horses, and had a dreamy idea that he must have gone to +Boston in a cattle-car. It was a very large time. He called it an orgy. +And no doubt it was, viewed from his standpoint. + +I wish I were in Switzerland, and I wish we could go to Florence; but we +have to leave these delights to you; there is no helping it. We all join +in love to you and all the family. + Yours as ever + MARK. + + + + +XXIII. + +LETTERS, 1883, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. A GUEST OF THE MARQUIS OF LORNE. +THE HISTORY GAME. A PLAY BY HOWELLS AND MARK TWAIN + + Mark Twain, in due season, finished the Mississippi book and placed + it in Osgood's hands for publication. It was a sort of partnership + arrangement in which Clemens was to furnish the money to make the + book, and pay Osgood a percentage for handling it. It was, in fact, + the beginning of Mark Twain's adventures as a publisher. + + Howells was not as happy in Florence as he had hoped to be. The + social life there overwhelmed him. In February he wrote: "Our two + months in Florence have been the most ridiculous time that ever even + half-witted people passed. We have spent them in chasing round + after people for whom we cared nothing, and being chased by them. + My story isn't finished yet, and what part of it is done bears the + fatal marks of haste and distraction. Of course, I haven't put pen + to paper yet on the play. I wring my hands and beat my breast when + I think of how these weeks have been wasted; and how I have been + forced to waste them by the infernal social circumstances from which + I couldn't escape." + + Clemens, now free from the burden of his own book, was light of + heart and full of ideas and news; also of sympathy and appreciation. + Howells's story of this time was "A Woman's Reason." Governor + Jewell, of this letter, was Marshall Jewell, Governor of Connecticut + from 1871 to 1873. Later, he was Minister to Russia, and in 1874 + was United States Postmaster-General. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Florence: + + HARTFORD, March 1st, 1883. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--We got ourselves ground up in that same mill, once, in +London, and another time in Paris. It is a kind of foretaste of hell. +There is no way to avoid it except by the method which you have now +chosen. One must live secretly and cut himself utterly off from the +human race, or life in Europe becomes an unbearable burden and work an +impossibility. I learned something last night, and maybe it may +reconcile me to go to Europe again sometime. I attended one of the +astonishingly popular lectures of a man by the name of Stoddard, who +exhibits interesting stereopticon pictures and then knocks the interest +all out of them with his comments upon them. But all the world go there +to look and listen, and are apparently well satisfied. And they ought to +be fully satisfied, if the lecturer would only keep still, or die in the +first act. But he described how retired tradesmen and farmers in Holland +load a lazy scow with the family and the household effects, and then loaf +along the waterways of the low countries all the summer long, paying no +visits, receiving none, and just lazying a heavenly life out in their own +private unpestered society, and doing their literary work, if they have +any, wholly uninterrupted. If you had hired such a boat and sent for us +we should have a couple of satisfactory books ready for the press now +with no marks of interruption, vexatious wearinesses, and other +hellishnesses visible upon them anywhere. We shall have to do this +another time. We have lost an opportunity for the present. Do you +forget that Heaven is packed with a multitude of all nations and that +these people are all on the most familiar how-the-hell-are-you footing +with Talmage swinging around the circle to all eternity hugging the +saints and patriarchs and archangels, and forcing you to do the same +unless you choose to make yourself an object of remark if you refrain? +Then why do you try to get to Heaven? Be warned in time. + +We have all read your two opening numbers in the Century, and consider +them almost beyond praise. I hear no dissent from this verdict. I did +not know there was an untouched personage in American life, but I had +forgotten the auctioneer. You have photographed him accurately. + +I have been an utterly free person for a month or two; and I do not +believe I ever so greatly appreciated and enjoyed--and realized the +absence of the chains of slavery as I do this time. Usually my first +waking thought in the morning is, "I have nothing to do to-day, I belong +to nobody, I have ceased from being a slave." Of course the highest +pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor. +Therefore I labor. But I take my time about it. I work one hour or four +as happens to suit my mind, and quit when I please. And so these days +are days of entire enjoyment. I told Clark the other day, to jog along +comfortable and not get in a sweat. I said I believed you would not be +able to enjoy editing that library over there, where you have your own +legitimate work to do and be pestered to death by society besides; +therefore I thought if he got it ready for you against your return, that +that would be best and pleasantest. + +You remember Governor Jewell, and the night he told about Russia, down in +the library. He was taken with a cold about three weeks ago, and I +stepped over one evening, proposing to beguile an idle hour for him with +a yarn or two, but was received at the door with whispers, and the +information that he was dying. His case had been dangerous during that +day only and he died that night, two hours after I left. His taking off +was a prodigious surprise, and his death has been most widely and +sincerely regretted. Win. E. Dodge, the father-in-law of one of Jewell's +daughters, dropped suddenly dead the day before Jewell died, but Jewell +died without knowing that. Jewell's widow went down to New York, to +Dodge's house, the day after Jewell's funeral, and was to return here day +before yesterday, and she did--in a coffin. She fell dead, of heart +disease, while her trunks were being packed for her return home. +Florence Strong, one of Jewell's daughters, who lives in Detroit, started +East on an urgent telegram, but missed a connection somewhere, and did +not arrive here in time to see her father alive. She was his favorite +child, and they had always been like lovers together. He always sent her +a box of fresh flowers once a week to the day of his death; a custom +which he never suspended even when he was in Russia. Mrs. Strong had +only just reached her Western home again when she was summoned to +Hartford to attend her mother's funeral. + +I have had the impulse to write you several times. I shall try to +remember better henceforth. + +With sincerest regards to all of you, + Yours as ever, + MARK. + + + Mark Twain made another trip to Canada in the interest of copyright- + this time to protect the Mississippi book. When his journey was + announced by the press, the Marquis of Lorne telegraphed an + invitation inviting him to be his guest at Rideau Hall, in Ottawa. + Clemens accepted, of course, and was handsomely entertained by the + daughter of Queen Victoria and her husband, then Governor-General of + Canada. + + On his return to Hartford he found that Osgood had issued a curious + little book, for which Clemens had prepared an introduction. It was + an absurd volume, though originally issued with serious intent, its + title being The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and + English.'--[The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and + English, by Pedro Caxolino, with an introduction by Mark Twain. + Osgood, Boston, 1883. ]-- Evidently the "New Guide" was prepared by + some simple Portuguese soul with but slight knowledge of English + beyond that which could be obtained from a dictionary, and his + literal translation of English idioms are often startling, as, for + instance, this one, taken at random: + + "A little learneds are happies enough for to may to satisfy their + fancies on the literature." + + Mark Twain thought this quaint book might amuse his royal hostess, + and forwarded a copy in what he considered to be the safe and proper + form. + + To Col. De Winton, in Ottawa, Canada: + + HARTFORD, June 4, '83. +DEAR COLONEL DE WINTON,--I very much want to send a little book to her +Royal Highness--the famous Portuguese phrase book; but I do not know the +etiquette of the matter, and I would not wittingly infringe any rule of +propriety. It is a book which I perfectly well know will amuse her "some +at most" if she has not seen it before, and will still amuse her "some at +least," even if she has inspected it a hundred times already. So I will +send the book to you, and you who know all about the proper observances +will protect me from indiscretion, in case of need, by putting the said +book in the fire, and remaining as dumb as I generally was when I was up +there. I do not rebind the thing, because that would look as if I +thought it worth keeping, whereas it is only worth glancing at and +casting aside. + +Will you please present my compliments to Mrs. De Winton and Mrs. +Mackenzie?--and I beg to make my sincere compliments to you, also, for +your infinite kindnesses to me. I did have a delightful time up there, +most certainly. + Truly yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. Although the introduction dates a year back, the book is only just +now issued. A good long delay. + + S. L. C. + + Howells, writing from Venice, in April, manifested special interest + in the play project: "Something that would run like Scheherazade, + for a thousand and one nights," so perhaps his book was going + better. He proposed that they devote the month of October to the + work, and inclosed a letter from Mallory, who owned not only a + religious paper, The Churchman, but also the Madison Square Theater, + and was anxious for a Howells play. Twenty years before Howells had + been Consul to Venice, and he wrote, now: "The idea of my being here + is benumbing and silencing. I feel like the Wandering Jew, or the + ghost of the Cardiff giant." + + He returned to America in July. Clemens sent him word of welcome, + with glowing reports of his own undertakings. The story on which he + was piling up MS. was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, begun + seven years before at Quarry Farm. He had no great faith in it + then, and though he had taken it up again in 1880, his interest had + not lasted to its conclusion. This time, however, he was in the + proper spirit, and the story would be finished. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, July 20, '83. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--We are desperately glad you and your gang are home +again--may you never travel again, till you go aloft or alow. Charley +Clark has gone to the other side for a run--will be back in August. He +has been sick, and needed the trip very much. + +Mrs. Clemens had a long and wasting spell of sickness last Spring, but +she is pulling up, now. The children are booming, and my health is +ridiculous, it's so robust, notwithstanding the newspaper misreports. + +I haven't piled up MS so in years as I have done since we came here to +the farm three weeks and a half ago. Why, it's like old times, to step +right into the study, damp from the breakfast table, and sail right in +and sail right on, the whole day long, without thought of running short +of stuff or words. + +I wrote 4000 words to-day and I touch 3000 and upwards pretty often, and +don't fall below 1600 any working day. And when I get fagged out, I lie +abed a couple of days and read and smoke, and then go it again for 6 or 7 +days. I have finished one small book, and am away along in a big 433 +one that I half-finished two or three years ago. I expect to complete it +in a month or six weeks or two months more. And I shall like it, whether +anybody else does or not. + +It's a kind of companion to Tom Sawyer. There's a raft episode from it +in second or third chapter of life on the Mississippi..... + +I'm booming, these days--got health and spirits to waste--got an +overplus; and if I were at home, we would write a play. But we must do +it anyhow by and by. + +We stay here till Sep. 10; then maybe a week at Indian Neck for sea air, +then home. + +We are powerful glad you are all back; and send love according. + + Yrs Ever + MARK + + + To Onion Clemens and family, in Keokuk, Id.: + + ELMIRA, July 22, '83. +Private + +DEAR MA AND ORION AND MOLLIE,--I don't know that I have anything new to +report, except that Livy is still gaining, and all the rest of us +flourishing. I haven't had such booming working-days for many years. +I am piling up manuscript in a really astonishing way. I believe I shall +complete, in two months, a book which I have been fooling over for +7 years. This summer it is no more trouble to me to write than it is to +lie. + +Day before yesterday I felt slightly warned to knock off work for one +day. So I did it, and took the open air. Then I struck an idea for the +instruction of the children, and went to work and carried it out. It +took me all day. I measured off 817 feet of the road-way in our farm +grounds, with a foot-rule, and then divided it up among the English +reigns, from the Conqueror down to 1883, allowing one foot to the year. +I whittled out a basket of little pegs aNd drove one in the ground at the +beginning of each reign, and gave it that King's name-thus: + +I measured all the reigns exactly as many feet to the reign as there were +years in it. You can look out over the grounds and see the little pegs +from the front door--some of them close together, like Richard II, +Richard Cromwell, James II, &c; and some prodigiously wide apart, like +Henry III, Edward III, George III, &c. It gives the children a realizing +sense of the length or brevity of a reign. Shall invent a violent game +to go with it. + +And in bed, last night, I invented a way to play it indoors--in a far +more voluminous way, as to multiplicity of dates and events--on a +cribbage board. + +Hello, supper's ready. + Love to all. + Good bye. + SAML. + + + Onion Clemens would naturally get excited over the idea of the game + and its commercial possibilities. Not more so than his brother, + however, who presently employed him to arrange a quantity of + historical data which the game was to teach. For a season, indeed, + interest in the game became a sort of midsummer madness which + pervaded the two households, at Keokuk and at Quarry Farm. Howells + wrote his approval of the idea of "learning history by the running + foot," which was a pun, even if unintentional, for in its out-door + form it was a game of speed as well as knowledge. + + Howells adds that he has noticed that the newspapers are exploiting + Mark Twain's new invention of a history game, and we shall presently + see how this happened. + + Also, in this letter, Howells speaks of an English nobleman to whom + he has given a letter of introduction. "He seemed a simple, quiet, + gentlemanly man, with a good taste in literature, which he evinced + by going about with my books in his pockets, and talking of yours." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--How odd it seems, to sit down to write a letter with +the feeling that you've got time to do it. But I'm done work, for this +season, and so have got time. I've done two seasons' work in one, and +haven't anything left to do, now, but revise. I've written eight or nine +hundred MS pages in such a brief space of time that I mustn't name the +number of days; I shouldn't believe it myself, and of course couldn't +expect you to. I used to restrict myself to 4 or 5 hours a day and +5 days in the week, but this time I've wrought from breakfast till +5.15 p.m. six days in the week; and once or twice I smouched a Sunday +when the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literature +hooked on Sunday, on the sly. + +I wrote you and Twichell on the same night, about the game, and was +appalled to get a note from him saying he was going to print part of my +letter, and was going to do it before I could get a chance to forbid it. +I telegraphed him, but was of course too late. + +If you haven't ever tried to invent an indoor historical game, don't. +I've got the thing at last so it will work, I guess, but I don't want any +more tasks of that kind. When I wrote you, I thought I had it; whereas I +was only merely entering upon the initiatory difficulties of it. I might +have known it wouldn't be an easy job, or somebody would have invented a +decent historical game long ago--a thing which nobody had done. I think +I've got it in pretty fair shape--so I have caveated it. + +Earl of Onston--is that it? All right, we shall be very glad to receive +them and get acquainted with them. And much obliged to you, too. +There's plenty of worse people than the nobilities. I went up and spent +a week with the Marquis and the Princess Louise, and had as good a time +as I want. + +I'm powerful glad you are all back again; and we will come up there if +our little tribe will give us the necessary furlough; and if we can't get +it, you folks must come to us and give us an extension of time. We get +home Sept. 11. + +Hello, I think I see Waring coming! + +Good-by-letter from Clark, which explains for him. + +Love to you all from the + CLEMENSES. + +No--it wasn't Waring. I wonder what the devil has become of that man. +He was to spend to-day with us, and the day's most gone, now. + +We are enjoying your story with our usual unspeakableness; and I'm right +glad you threw in the shipwreck and the mystery--I like it. Mrs. Crane +thinks it's the best story you've written yet. We--but we always think +the last one is the best. And why shouldn't it be? Practice helps. + +P. S. I thought I had sent all our loves to all of you, but Mrs. Clemens +says I haven't. Damn it, a body can't think of everything; but a woman +thinks you can. I better seal this, now--else there'll be more +criticism. + +I perceive I haven't got the love in, yet. Well, we do send the love of +all the family to all the Howellses. + S. L. C. + + +There had been some delay and postponement in the matter of the play +which Howells and Clemens agreed to write. They did not put in the +entire month of October as they had planned, but they did put in a +portion of that month, the latter half, working out their old idea. +In the end it became a revival of Colonel Sellers, or rather a caricature +of that gentle hearted old visionary. Clemens had always complained that +the actor Raymond had never brought out the finer shades of Colonel +Sellers's character, but Raymond in his worst performance never belied +his original as did Howells and Clemens in his dramatic revival. These +two, working together, let their imaginations run riot with disastrous +results. The reader can judge something of this himself, from The +American Claimant the book which Mark Twain would later build from the +play. + +But at this time they thought it a great triumph. They had "cracked +their sides" laughing over its construction, as Howells once said, and +they thought the world would do the same over its performance. They +decided to offer it to Raymond, but rather haughtily, indifferently, +because any number of other actors would be waiting for it. + +But this was a miscalculation. Raymond now turned the tables. Though +favorable to the idea of a new play, he declared this one did not present +his old Sellers at all, but a lunatic. In the end he returned the MS. +with a brief note. Attempts had already been made to interest other +actors, and would continue for some time. + + + + +XXIV + +LETTERS, 1884, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. CABLE'S GREAT APRIL FOOL. +"HUCK FINN" IN PRESS. MARK TWAIN FOR CLEVELAND. CLEMENS AND CABLE + +Mark Twain had a lingering attack of the dramatic fever that winter. +He made a play of the Prince and Pauper, which Howells pronounced "too +thin and slight and not half long enough." He made another of Tom +Sawyer, and probably destroyed it, for no trace of the MS. exists to-day. +Howells could not join in these ventures, for he was otherwise occupied +and had sickness in his household. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + Jan. 7, '84. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--"O my goodn's" ,as Jean says. You have now encountered +at last the heaviest calamity that can befall an author. The scarlet +fever, once domesticated, is a permanent member of the family. Money may +desert you, friends forsake you, enemies grow indifferent to you, but the +scarlet fever will be true to you, through thick and thin, till you be +all saved or damned, down to the last one. I say these things to cheer +you. + +The bare suggestion of scarlet fever in the family makes me shudder; I +believe I would almost rather have Osgood publish a book for me. + +You folks have our most sincere sympathy. Oh, the intrusion of this +hideous disease is an unspeakable disaster. + +My billiard table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich +Islands: the walls axe upholstered with scraps of paper penciled with +notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge of that +unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange and fascinating people. +And I have begun a story. Its hidden motive will illustrate a but-little +considered fact in human nature; that the religious folly you are born in +you will die in, no matter what apparently reasonabler religious folly +may seem to have taken its place meanwhile, and abolished and obliterated +it. I start Bill Ragsdale at 12 years of age, and the heroine at 4, in +the midst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque and +amazing customs and superstitions, 3 months before the arrival of the +missionaries and the erection of a shallow Christianity upon the ruins of +the old paganism. Then these two will become educated Christians, and +highly civilized. + +And then I will jump 15 years, and do Ragsdale's leper business. When we +came to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from the story, all ready +to our hand. + Yrs Ever + MARK. + + + He never finished the Sandwich Islands story which he and Howells + were to dramatize later. His head filled up with other projects, + such as publishing plans, reading-tours, and the like. The type- + setting machine does not appear in the letters of this period, but + it was an important factor, nevertheless. It was costing several + thousand dollars a month for construction and becoming a heavy drain + on Mark Twain's finances. It was necessary to recuperate, and the + anxiety for a profitable play, or some other adventure that would + bring a quick and generous return, grew out of this need. + + Clemens had established Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage, + in a New York office, as selling agent for the Mississippi book and + for his plays. He was also planning to let Webster publish the new + book, Huck Finn. + + George W. Cable had proven his ability as a reader, and Clemens saw + possibilities in a reading combination, which was first planned to + include Aldrich, and Howells, and a private car. + + But Aldrich and Howells did not warm to the idea, and the car was + eliminated from the plan. Cable came to visit Clemens in Hartford, + and was taken with the mumps, so that the reading-trip was + postponed. + + The fortunes of the Sellers play were most uncertain and becoming + daily more doubtful. In February, Howells wrote: "If you have got + any comfort in regard to our play I wish you would heave it into my + bosom." + + Cable recovered in time, and out of gratitude planned a great April- + fool surprise for his host. He was a systematic man, and did it in + his usual thorough way. He sent a "private and confidential" + suggestion to a hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's friends and + admirers, nearly all distinguished literary men. The suggestion was + that each one of them should send a request for Mark Twain's + autograph, timing it so that it would arrive on the 1st of April. + All seemed to have responded. Mark Twain's writing-table on April + Fool morning was heaped with letters, asking in every ridiculous + fashion for his "valuable autograph." The one from Aldrich was a + fair sample. He wrote: "I am making a collection of autographs of + our distinguished writers, and having read one of your works, + Gabriel Convoy, I would like to add your name to the list." + + Of course, the joke in this was that Gabriel Convoy was by Bret + Harte, who by this time was thoroughly detested by Mark Twain. The + first one or two of the letters puzzled the victim; then he + comprehended the size and character of the joke and entered into it + thoroughly. One of the letters was from Bloodgood H. Cutter, the + "Poet Lariat" of Innocents Abroad. Cutter, of course, wrote in + "poetry," that is to say, doggerel. Mark Twain's April Fool was a + most pleasant one. + + + Rhymed letter by Bloodgood H. Cutter to Mark Twain: + + LITTLE NECK, LONG ISLAND. + + LONG ISLAND FARMER, TO HIS FRIEND AND PILGRIM BROTHER, + SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, ESQ. + +Friends, suggest in each one's behalf +To write, and ask your autograph. +To refuse that, I will not do, +After the long voyage had with you. +That was a memorable time You wrote in prose, I wrote in Rhyme To +describe the wonders of each place, And the queer customs of each race. + +That is in my memory yet +For while I live I'll not forget. +I often think of that affair +And the many that were with us there. + +As your friends think it for the best +I ask your Autograph with the rest, +Hoping you will it to me send +'Twill please and cheer your dear old friend: + + Yours truly, + BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Apl 8, '84. +MY DEAR HOWELLS, It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, +entirely--I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of +Huck Finn. + +Now if you mean it, old man--if you are in earnest--proceed, in God's +name, and be by me forever blest. I cannot conceive of a rational man +deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself; but if there is +such a man and you be that man, why then pile it on. It will cost me a +pang every time I think of it, but this anguish will be eingebusst to me +in the joy and comfort I shall get out of the not having to read the +verfluchtete proofs myself. But if you have repented of your +augenblichlicher Tobsucht and got back to calm cold reason again, I won't +hold you to it unless I find I have got you down in writing somewhere. +Herr, I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair and +reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. + +The proof-reading on the P & P cost me the last rags of my religion. + M. + + +Howells had written that he would be glad to help out in the reading of +the proofs of Huck Finn, which book Webster by this time had in hand. +Replying to Clemens's eager and grateful acceptance now, he wrote: "It is +all perfectly true about the generosity, unless I am going to read your +proofs from one of the shabby motives which I always find at the bottom +of my soul if I examine it." A characteristic utterance, though we may +be permitted to believe that his shabby motives were fewer and less +shabby than those of mankind in general. + +The proofs which Howells was reading pleased him mightily. Once, during +the summer, he wrote: "if I had written half as good a book as Huck Finn +I shouldn't ask anything better than to read the proofs; even as it is, +I don't, so send them on; they will always find me somewhere." + +This was the summer of the Blaine-Cleveland campaign. Mark Twain, in +company with many other leading men, had mugwumped, and was supporting +Cleveland. From the next letter we gather something of the aspects of +that memorable campaign, which was one of scandal and vituperation. We +learn, too, that the young sculptor, Karl Gerhardt, having completed a +three years' study in Paris, had returned to America a qualified artist. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 21, '84. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--This presidential campaign is too delicious for +anything. Isn't human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was +ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all +his aspects? Man, "know thyself "--and then thou wilt despise thyself, +to a dead moral certainty. Take three quite good specimens--Hawley, +Warner, and Charley Clark. Even I do not loathe Blaine more than they +do; yet Hawley is howling for Blaine, Warner and Clark are eating their +daily crow in the paper for him, and all three will vote for him. O +Stultification, where is thy sting, O slave where is thy hickory! + +I suppose you heard how a marble monument for which St. Gaudens was +pecuniarily responsible, burned down in Hartford the other day, +uninsured--for who in the world would ever think of insuring a marble +shaft in a cemetery against a fire?--and left St. Gauden out of pocket +$15,000. + +It was a bad day for artists. Gerhardt finished my bust that day, and +the work was pronounced admirable by all the kin and friends; but in +putting it in plaster (or rather taking it out) next day it got ruined. +It was four or five weeks hard work gone to the dogs. The news flew, and +everybody on the farm flocked to the arbor and grouped themselves about +the wreck in a profound and moving silence--the farm-help, the colored +servants, the German nurse, the children, everybody--a silence +interrupted at wide intervals by absent-minded ejaculations wising from +unconscious breasts as the whole size of the disaster gradually worked +its way home to the realization of one spirit after another. + +Some burst out with one thing, some another; the German nurse put up her +hands and said, "Oh, Schade! oh, schrecklich ! "But Gerhardt said +nothing; or almost that. He couldn't word it, I suppose. But he went to +work, and by dark had everything thoroughly well under way for a fresh +start in the morning; and in three days' time had built a new bust which +was a trifle better than the old one--and to-morrow we shall put the +finishing touches on it, and it will be about as good a one as nearly +anybody can make. + Yrs Ever + MARK. + + +If you run across anybody who wants a bust, be sure and recommend +Gerhardt on my say-so. + +But Howells was determinedly for Blaine. "I shall vote for Blaine," he +replied. "I do not believe he is guilty of the things they accuse him +of, and I know they are not proved against him. As for Cleveland, his +private life may be no worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of +that contemptible, hypocritical, lop-sided morality which says a woman +shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none, I want to see him +destroyed politically by his past. The men who defend him would take +their wives to the White House if he were president, but if he married +his concubine--'made her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I +can't stand that." + +Certainly this was sound logic, in that day, at least. But it left +Clemens far from satisfied. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Sept. 17, '84. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of +your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country +and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well; but as certainly a +man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor--the party or the +country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at +all--I only urge you to not soil yourself by voting for Blaine. + +When you wrote before, you were able to say the charges against him were +not proven. But you know now that they are proven, and it seems to me +that that bars you and all other honest and honorable men (who are +independently situated) from voting for him. + +It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing to +do, as I understand it, is that a man shall keep himself clean, (by +withholding his vote for an improper man) even though the party and the +country go to destruction in consequence. It is not parties that make or +save countries or that build them to greatness--it is clean men, clean +ordinary citizens, rank and file, the masses. Clean masses are not made +by individuals standing back till the rest become clean. + +As I said before, I think a man's first duty is to his own honor; not to +his country and not to his party. Don't be offended; I mean no offence. +I am not so concerned about the rest of the nation, but--well, good-bye. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + There does not appear to be any further discussion of the matter + between Howells and Clemens. Their letters for a time contained no + suggestion of politics. + + Perhaps Mark Twain's own political conscience was not entirely clear + in his repudiation of his party; at least we may believe from his + next letter that his Cleveland enthusiasm was qualified by a + willingness to support a Republican who would command his admiration + and honor. The idea of an eleventh-hour nomination was rather + startling, whatever its motive. + + + To Mr. Pierce, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 22, '84. +MY DEAR MR. PIERCE,--You know, as well as I do, that the reason the +majority of republicans are going to vote for Blaine is because they feel +that they cannot help themselves. Do not you believe that if Mr. Edmunds +would consent to run for President, on the Independent ticket--even at +this late day--he might be elected? + +Well, if he wouldn't consent, but should even strenuously protest and say +he wouldn't serve if elected, isn't it still wise and fair to nominate +him and vote for him? since his protest would relieve him from all +responsibility; and he couldn't surely find fault with people for forcing +a compliment upon him. And do not you believe that his name thus +compulsorily placed at the head of the Independent column would work +absolutely certain defeat to Blain and save the country's honor? + +Politicians often carry a victory by springing some disgraceful and +rascally mine under the feet of the adversary at the eleventh hour; would +it not be wholesome to vary this thing for once and spring as formidable +a mine of a better sort under the enemy's works? + +If Edmunds's name were put up, I would vote for him in the teeth of all +the protesting and blaspheming he could do in a month; and there are lots +of others who would do likewise. + +If this notion is not a foolish and wicked one, won't you just consult +with some chief Independents, and see if they won't call a sudden +convention and whoop the thing through? To nominate Edmunds the 1st of +November, would be soon enough, wouldn't it? + +With kindest regards to you and the Aldriches, + Yr Truly + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +Clemens and Cable set out on their reading-tour in November. They were a +curiously-assorted pair: Cable was of orthodox religion, exact as to +habits, neat, prim, all that Clemens was not. In the beginning Cable +undertook to read the Bible aloud to Clemens each evening, but this part +of the day's program was presently omitted by request. If they spent +Sunday in a town, Cable was up bright and early visiting the various +churches and Sunday-schools, while Mark Twain remained at the hotel, in +bed, reading or asleep. + + + + +XXV + +THE GREAT YEAR OF 1885. CLEMENS AND CABLE. PUBLICATION OF "HUCK FINN." +THE GRANT MEMOIRS. MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY + + The year 1885 was in some respects the most important, certainly the + most pleasantly exciting, in Mark Twain's life. It was the year in + which he entered fully into the publishing business and launched one + of the most spectacular of all publishing adventures, The Personal + Memoirs of General U. S. Grant. Clemens had not intended to do + general publishing when he arranged with Webster to become sales- + agent for the Mississippi book, and later general agent for Huck + Finn's adventures; he had intended only to handle his own books, + because he was pretty thoroughly dissatisfied with other publishing + arrangements. Even the Library of Humor, which Howells, with Clark, + of the Courant, had put together for him, he left with Osgood until + that publisher failed, during the spring of 1885. Certainly he + never dreamed of undertaking anything of the proportions of the + Grant book. + + He had always believed that Grant could make a book. More than + once, when they had met, he had urged the General to prepare his + memoirs for publication. Howells, in his 'My Mark Twain', tells of + going with Clemens to see Grant, then a member of the ill-fated firm + of Grant and Ward, and how they lunched on beans, bacon and coffee + brought in from a near-by restaurant. It was while they were eating + this soldier fare that Clemens--very likely abetted by Howells-- + especially urged the great commander to prepare his memoirs. But + Grant had become a financier, as he believed, and the prospect of + literary earnings, however large, did not appeal to him. + Furthermore, he was convinced that he was without literary ability + and that a book by him would prove a failure. + + But then, by and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he + had foreseen--the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic + rascality of Ward. General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left + without income and apparently without the means of earning one. It + was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the + Century Magazine. General Grant, hard-pressed, was induced by the + editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could + write them, became interested in the idea of a book. It is + unnecessary to repeat here the story of how the publication of this + important work passed into the hands of Mark Twain; that is to say, + the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., the details having been fully + given elsewhere.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. cliv.]-- + + We will now return for the moment to other matters, as reported in + order by the letters. Clemens and Cable had continued their + reading-tour into Canada, and in February found themselves in + Montreal. Here they were invited by the Toque Bleue Snow-shoe Club + to join in one of their weekly excursions across Mt. Royal. They + could not go, and the reasons given by Mark Twain are not without + interest. The letter is to Mr. George Iles, author of Flame, + Electricity, and the Camera, and many other useful works. + + + To George Iles, far the Toque Blew Snow-shoe Club, + Montreal: + + DETROIT, February 12, 1885. + Midnight, P.S. +MY DEAR ILES,--I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it, +explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day for +social life. I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have to +lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an hour +at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so. Unless I get a great +deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the platform, and +turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it ought always to +be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment. Usually it is just this latter, +but that is because I take my rest faithfully, and prepare myself to do +my duty by my audience. + +I am the obliged and appreciative servant of my brethren of the Snow-shoe +Club, and nothing in the world would delight me more than to come to +their house without naming time or terms on my own part--but you see how +it is. My cast iron duty is to my audience--it leaves me no liberty and +no option. + +With kindest regards to the Club, and to you, + I am Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + In the next letter we reach the end of the Clemens-Cable venture and + get a characteristic summing up of Mark Twain's general attitude + toward the companion of his travels. It must be read only in the + clear realization of Mark Twain's attitude toward orthodoxy, and his + habit of humor. Cable was as rigidly orthodox as Mark Twain was + revolutionary. The two were never anything but the best of friends. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + PHILADA. Feb. 27, '85. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--To-night in Baltimore, to-morrow afternoon and night in +Washington, and my four-months platform campaign is ended at last. It +has been a curious experience. It has taught me that Cable's gifts of +mind are greater and higher than I had suspected. But-- + +That "But" is pointing toward his religion. You will never, never know, +never divine, guess, imagine, how loathsome a thing the Christian +religion can be made until you come to know and study Cable daily and +hourly. Mind you, I like him; he is pleasant company; I rage and swear +at him sometimes, but we do not quarrel; we get along mighty happily +together; but in him and his person I have learned to hate all religions. +He has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath-day and hunt up new and +troublesome ways to dishonor it. + +Nat Goodwin was on the train yesterday. He plays in Washington all the +coming week. He is very anxious to get our Sellers play and play it +under changed names. I said the only thing I could do would be to write +to you. Well, I've done it. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + Clemens and Webster were often at the house of General Grant during + these early days of 1885, and it must have been Webster who was + present with Clemens on the great occasion described in the + following telegram. It was on the last day and hour of President + Arthur's administration that the bill was passed which placed + Ulysses S. Grant as full General with full pay on the retired list, + and it is said that the congressional clock was set back in order + that this enactment might become a law before the administration + changed. General Grant had by this time developed cancer and was + already in feeble health. + + + Telegram to Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford: + + NEW YORK, Mar. 4, 1885. +To MRS. S. L. CLEMENS, We were at General Grant's at noon and a telegram +arrived that the last act of the expiring congress late this morning +retired him with full General's rank and accompanying emoluments. The +effect upon him was like raising the dead. We were present when the +telegram was put in his hand. + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Something has been mentioned before of Mark Twain's investments and + the generally unprofitable habit of them. He had a trusting nature, + and was usually willing to invest money on any plausible + recommendation. He was one of thousands such, and being a person of + distinction he now and then received letters of inquiry, complaint, + or condolence. A minister wrote him that he had bought some stocks + recommended by a Hartford banker and advertised in a religious + paper. He added, "After I made that purchase they wrote me that you + had just bought a hundred shares and that you were a 'shrewd' man." + The writer closed by asking for further information. He received + it, as follows: + + + To the Rev. J----, in Baltimore: + + WASHINGTON, Mch. 2,'85. +MY DEAR SIR,--I take my earliest opportunity to answer your favor of Feb. + +B---- was premature in calling me a "shrewd man." I wasn't one at that +time, but am one now--that is, I am at least too shrewd to ever again +invest in anything put on the market by B----. I know nothing whatever +about the Bank Note Co., and never did know anything about it. B---- +sold me about $4,000 or $5,000 worth of the stock at $110, and I own it +yet. He sold me $10,000 worth of another rose-tinted stock about the +same time. I have got that yet, also. I judge that a peculiarity of +B----'s stocks is that they are of the staying kind. I think you should +have asked somebody else whether I was a shrewd man or not for two +reasons: the stock was advertised in a religious paper, a circumstance +which was very suspicious; and the compliment came to you from a man who +was interested to make a purchaser of you. I am afraid you deserve your +loss. A financial scheme advertised in any religious paper is a thing +which any living person ought to know enough to avoid; and when the +factor is added that M. runs that religious paper, a dead person ought to +know enough to avoid it. + Very Truly Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The story of Huck Finn was having a wide success. Webster handled + it skillfully, and the sales were large. In almost every quarter + its welcome was enthusiastic. Here and there, however, could be + found an exception; Huck's morals were not always approved of by + library reading-committees. The first instance of this kind was + reported from Concord; and would seem not to have depressed the + author-publisher. + + + To Chas. L. Webster, in New York: + + Mch 18, '85. +DEAR CHARLEY,--The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass, have +given us a rattling tip-top puff which will go into every paper in the +country. They have expelled Huck from their library as "trash and +suitable only for the slums." That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure. + + S. L. C. + + + Perhaps the Concord Free Trade Club had some idea of making amends + to Mark Twain for the slight put upon his book by their librarians, + for immediately after the Huck Finn incident they notified him of + his election to honorary membership. + + Those were the days of "authors' readings," and Clemens and Howells + not infrequently assisted at these functions, usually given as + benefits of one kind or another. From the next letter, written + following an entertainment given for the Longfellow memorial, we + gather that Mark Twain's opinion of Howells's reading was steadily + improving. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, May 5, '85. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....Who taught you to read? Observation and thought, +I guess. And practice at the Tavern Club?--yes; and that was the best +teaching of all: + +Well, you sent even your daintiest and most delicate and fleeting points +home to that audience--absolute proof of good reading. But you couldn't +read worth a damn a few years ago. I do not say this to flatter. It is +true I looked around for you when I was leaving, but you had already +gone. + +Alas, Osgood has failed at last. It was easy to see that he was on the +very verge of it a year ago, and it was also easy to see that he was +still on the verge of it a month or two ago; but I continued to hope--but +not expect that he would pull through. The Library of Humor is at his +dwelling house, and he will hand it to you whenever you want it. + +To save it from any possibility of getting mixed up in the failure, +perhaps you had better send down and get it. I told him, the other day, +that an order of any kind from you would be his sufficient warrant for +its delivery to you. + +In two days General Grant has dictated 50 pages of foolscap, and thus the +Wilderness and Appomattox stand for all time in his own words. This +makes the second volume of his book as valuable as the first. + +He looks mighty well, these latter days. + Yrs Ever + MARK. + + + "I am exceedingly glad," wrote Howells, "that you approve of my + reading, for it gives me some hope that I may do something on the + platform next winter..... but I would never read within a hundred + miles of you, if I could help it. You simply straddled down to the + footlights and took that house up in the hollow of your hand and + tickled it." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, July 21, 1885. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--You are really my only author; I am restricted to you, +I wouldn't give a damn for the rest. + +I bored through Middlemarch during the past week, with its labored and +tedious analyses of feelings and motives, its paltry and tiresome people, +its unexciting and uninteresting story, and its frequent blinding flashes +of single-sentence poetry, philosophy, wit, and what not, and nearly died +from the overwork. I wouldn't read another of those books for a farm. +I did try to read one other--Daniel Deronda. I dragged through three +chapters, losing flesh all the time, and then was honest enough to quit, +and confess to myself that I haven't any romance literature appetite, as +far as I can see, except for your books. + +But what I started to say, was, that I have just read Part II of Indian +Summer, and to my mind there isn't a waste line in it, or one that could +be improved. I read it yesterday, ending with that opinion; and read it +again to-day, ending with the same opinion emphasized. I haven't read +Part I yet, because that number must have reached Hartford after we left; +but we are going to send down town for a copy, and when it comes I am to +read both parts aloud to the family. It is a beautiful story, and makes +a body laugh all the time, and cry inside, and feel so old and so +forlorn; and gives him gracious glimpses of his lost youth that fill him +with a measureless regret, and build up in him a cloudy sense of his +having been a prince, once, in some enchanted far-off land, and of being +an exile now, and desolate--and Lord, no chance ever to get back there +again! That is the thing that hurts. Well, you have done it with +marvelous facility and you make all the motives and feelings perfectly +clear without analyzing the guts out of them, the way George Eliot does. +I can't stand George Eliot and Hawthorne and those people; I see what +they are at a hundred years before they get to it and they just tire me +to death. And as for "The Bostonians," I would rather be damned to John +Bunyan's heaven than read that. + Yrs Ever + MARK + + + It is as easy to understand Mark Twain's enjoyment of Indian Summer + as his revolt against Daniel Deronda and The Bostonians. He cared + little for writing that did not convey its purpose in the simplest + and most direct terms. It is interesting to note that in thanking + Clemens for his compliment Howells wrote: "What people cannot see is + that I analyze as little as possible; they go on talking about the + analytical school, which I am supposed to belong to, and I want to + thank you for using your eyes..... Did you ever read De Foe's + 'Roxana'? If not, then read it, not merely for some of the deepest + insights into the lying, suffering, sinning, well-meaning human + soul, but for the best and most natural English that a book was ever + written in." + + General Grant worked steadily on his book, dictating when he could, + making brief notes on slips of paper when he could no longer speak. + Clemens visited him at Mt. McGregor and brought the dying soldier + the comforting news that enough of his books were already sold to + provide generously for his family, and that the sales would + aggregate at least twice as much by the end of the year. + + This was some time in July. On the 23d of that month General Grant + died. Immediately there was a newspaper discussion as to the most + suitable place for the great chieftain to lie. Mark Twain's + contribution to this debate, though in the form of an open letter, + seems worthy of preservation here. + + + To the New York "Sun," on the proper place for Grant's Tomb: + +To THE EDITOR OP' THE SUN:--SIR,--The newspaper atmosphere is charged +with objections to New York as a place of sepulchre for General Grant, +and the objectors are strenuous that Washington is the right place. They +offer good reasons--good temporary reasons--for both of these positions. + +But it seems to me that temporary reasons are not mete for the occasion. +We need to consider posterity rather than our own generation. We should +select a grave which will not merely be in the right place now, but will +still be in the right place 500 years from now. + +How does Washington promise as to that? You have only to hit it in one +place to kill it. Some day the west will be numerically strong enough to +move the seat of government; her past attempts are a fair warning that +when the day comes she will do it. Then the city of Washington will lose +its consequence and pass out of the public view and public talk. It is +quite within the possibilities that, a century hence, people would wonder +and say, "How did your predecessors come to bury their great dead in this +deserted place?" + +But as long as American civilisation lasts New York will last. I cannot +but think she has been well and wisely chosen as the guardian of a grave +which is destined to become almost the most conspicuous in the world's +history. Twenty centuries from now New York will still be New York, +still a vast city, and the most notable object in it will still be the +tomb and monument of General Grant. + +I observe that the common and strongest objection to New York is that she +is not "national ground." Let us give ourselves no uneasiness about +that. Wherever General Grant's body lies, that is national ground. + + S. L. CLEMENS. +ELMIRA, July 27. + + + The letter that follows is very long, but it seems too important and + too interesting to be omitted in any part. General Grant's early + indulgence in liquors had long been a matter of wide, though not + very definite, knowledge. Every one had heard how Lincoln, on being + told that Grant drank, remarked something to the effect that he + would like to know what kind of whisky Grant used so that he might + get some of it for his other generals. Henry Ward Beecher, selected + to deliver a eulogy on the dead soldier, and doubtless wishing + neither to ignore the matter nor to make too much of it, naturally + turned for information to the publisher of Grant's own memoirs, + hoping from an advance copy to obtain light. + + + To Henry Ward Beecher,.Brooklyn: + + ELMIRA, N. Y. Sept. 11, '85. +MY DEAR MR. BEECHER,--My nephew Webster is in Europe making contracts for +the Memoirs. Before he sailed he came to me with a writing, directed to +the printers and binders, to this effect: + +"Honor no order for a sight or copy of the Memoirs while I am absent, +even though it be signed by Mr. Clemens himself." + +I gave my permission. There were weighty reasons why I should not only +give my permission, but hold it a matter of honor to not dissolve the +order or modify it at any time. So I did all of that--said the order +should stand undisturbed to the end. If a principal could dissolve his +promise as innocently as he can dissolve his written order unguarded by +his promise, I would send you a copy of the Memoirs instantly. I did not +foresee you, or I would have made an exception. + + ........................... + +My idea gained from army men, is that the drunkenness (and sometimes +pretty reckless spreeing, nights,) ceased before he came East to be Lt. +General. (Refer especially to Gen. Wm. B. Franklin--[If you could see +Franklin and talk with him--then he would unbosom,]) It was while Grant +was still in the West that Mr. Lincoln said he wished he could find out +what brand of whisky that fellow used, so he could furnish it to some of +the other generals. Franklin saw Grant tumble from his horse drunk, +while reviewing troops in New Orleans. The fall gave him a good deal of +a hurt. He was then on the point of leaving for the Chattanooga region. +I naturally put "that and that together" when I read Gen. O. O. Howards's +article in the Christian Union, three or four weeks ago--where he +mentions that the new General arrived lame from a recent accident. +(See that article.) And why not write Howard? + +Franklin spoke positively of the frequent spreeing. In camp--in time of +war. + + ......................... + +Captain Grant was frequently threatened by the Commandant of his Oregon +post with a report to the War Department of his conduct unless he +modified his intemperance. The report would mean dismissal from the +service. At last the report had to be made out; and then, so greatly was +the captain beloved, that he was privately informed, and was thus enabled +to rush his resignation to Washington ahead of the report. Did the +report go, nevertheless? I don't know. If it did, it is in the War +Department now, possibly, and seeable. I got all this from a regular +army man, but I can't name him to save me. + +The only time General Grant ever mentioned liquor to me was about last +April or possibly May. He said: + +"If I could only build up my strength! The doctors urge whisky and +champagne; but I can't take them; I can't abide the taste of any kind of +liquor." + +Had he made a conquest so complete that even the taste of liquor was +become an offense? Or was he so sore over what had been said about his +habit that he wanted to persuade others and likewise himself that he +hadn't even ever had any taste for it? It sounded like the latter, but +that's no evidence. + +He told me in the fall of '84 that there was something the matter with +his throat, and that at the suggestion of his physicians he had reduced +his smoking to one cigar a day. Then he added, in a casual fashion, that +he didn't care for that one, and seldom smoked it. + +I could understand that feeling. He had set out to conquer not the habit +but the inclination--the desire. He had gone at the root, not the trunk. +It's the perfect way and the only true way (I speak from experience.) +How I do hate those enemies of the human race who go around enslaving +God's free people with pledges--to quit drinking instead of to quit +wanting to drink. + +But Sherman and Van Vliet know everything concerning Grant; and if you +tell them how you want to use the facts, both of them will testify. +Regular army men have no concealments about each other; and yet they make +their awful statements without shade or color or malice with a frankness +and a child-like naivety, indeed, which is enchanting-and stupefying. +West Point seems to teach them that, among other priceless things not to +be got in any other college in this world. If we talked about our guild- +mates as I have heard Sherman, Grant, Van Vliet and others talk about +theirs--mates with whom they were on the best possible terms--we could +never expect them to speak to us again. + + ....................... + +I am reminded, now, of another matter. The day of the funeral I sat an +hour over a single drink and several cigars with Van Vliet and Sherman +and Senator Sherman.; and among other things Gen. Sherman said, with +impatient scorn: + +"The idea of all this nonsense about Grant not being able to stand rude +language and indelicate stories! Why Grant was full of humor, and full +of the appreciation of it. I have sat with him by the hour listening to +Jim Nye's yarns, and I reckon you know the style of Jim Nye's histories, +Clemens. It makes me sick--that newspaper nonsense. Grant was no namby- +pamby fool, he was a man--all over--rounded and complete." + +I wish I had thought of it! I would have said to General Grant: " Put +the drunkenness in the Memoirs--and the repentance and reform. Trust the +people." + +But I will wager there is not a hint in the book. He was sore, there. +As much of the book as I have read gives no hint, as far as I recollect. + +The sick-room brought out the points of Gen. Grant's character--some of +them particularly, to wit: + +His patience; his indestructible equability of temper; his exceeding +gentleness, kindness, forbearance, lovingness, charity; his loyalty: to +friends, to convictions, to promises, half-promises, infinitesimal +fractions and shadows of promises; (There was a requirement of him which +I considered an atrocity, an injustice, an outrage; I wanted to implore +him to repudiate it; Fred Grant said, "Save your labor, I know him; he is +in doubt as to whether he made that half-promise or not--and, he will +give the thing the benefit of the doubt; he will fulfill that half- +promise or kill himself trying;" Fred Grant was right--he did fulfill +it;) his aggravatingly trustful nature; his genuineness, simplicity, +modesty, diffidence, self-depreciation, poverty in the quality of vanity- +and, in no contradiction of this last, his simple pleasure in the flowers +and general ruck sent to him by Tom, Dick and Harry from everywhere--a +pleasure that suggested a perennial surprise that he should be the object +of so much fine attention--he was the most lovable great child in the +world; (I mentioned his loyalty: you remember Harrison, the colored body- +servant? the whole family hated him, but that did not make any +difference, the General always stood at his back, wouldn't allow him to +be scolded; always excused his failures and deficiencies with the one +unvarying formula, "We are responsible for these things in his race--it +is not fair to visit our fault upon them--let him alone;" so they did let +him alone, under compulsion, until the great heart that was his shield +was taken away; then--well they simply couldn't stand him, and so they +were excusable for determining to discharge him--a thing which they +mortally hated to do, and by lucky accident were saved from the necessity +of doing;) his toughness as a bargainer when doing business for other +people or for his country (witness his "terms" at Donelson, Vicksburg, +etc.; Fred Grant told me his father wound up an estate for the widow and +orphans of a friend in St. Louis--it took several years; at the end every +complication had been straightened out, and the property put upon a +prosperous basis; great sums had passed through his hands, and when he +handed over the papers there were vouchers to show what had been done +with every penny) and his trusting, easy, unexacting fashion when doing +business for himself (at that same time he was paying out money in +driblets to a man who was running his farm for him--and in his first +Presidency he paid every one of those driblets again (total, $3,000 F. +said,) for he hadn't a scrap of paper to show that he had ever paid them +before; in his dealings with me he would not listen to terms which would +place my money at risk and leave him protected--the thought plainly gave +him pain, and he put it from him, waved it off with his hands, as one +does accounts of crushings and mutilations--wouldn't listen, changed the +subject;) and his fortitude! He was under, sentence of death last +spring; he sat thinking, musing, several days--nobody knows what about; +then he pulled himself together and set to work to finish that book, +a colossal task for a dying man. Presently his hand gave out; fate +seemed to have got him checkmated. Dictation was suggested. No, he +never could do that; had never tried it; too old to learn, now. By and +by--if he could only do Appomattox-well. So he sent for a stenographer, +and dictated 9,000 words at a single sitting!--never pausing, never +hesitating for a word, never repeating--and in the written-out copy he +made hardly a correction. He dictated again, every two or three days-- +the intervals were intervals of exhaustion and slow recuperation--and at +last he was able to tell me that he had written more matter than could be +got into the book. I then enlarged the book--had to. Then he lost his +voice. He was not quite done yet, however:--there was no end of little +plums and spices to be stuck in, here and there; and this work he +patiently continued, a few lines a day, with pad and pencil, till far +into July, at Mt. McGregor. One day he put his pencil aside, and said +he was done--there was nothing more to do. If I had been there I could +have foretold the shock that struck the world three days later. + +Well, I've written all this, and it doesn't seem to amount to anything. +But I do want to help, if I only could. I will enclose some scraps from +my Autobiography--scraps about General Grant--they may be of some trifle +of use, and they may not--they at least verify known traits of his +character. My Autobiography is pretty freely dictated, but my idea is to +jack-plane it a little before I die, some day or other; I mean the rude +construction and rotten grammar. It is the only dictating I ever did, +and it was most troublesome and awkward work. You may return it to +Hartford. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The old long-deferred Library of Humor came up again for discussion, + when in the fall of 1885 Howells associated himself with Harper & + Brothers. Howells's contract provided that his name was not to + appear on any book not published by the Harper firm. He wrote, + therefore, offering to sell out his interest in the enterprise for + two thousand dollars, in addition to the five hundred which he had + already received--an amount considered to be less than he was to + have received as joint author and compiler. Mark Twain's answer + pretty fully covers the details of this undertaking. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Oct. 18, 1885. +Private. + +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I reckon it would ruin the book that is, make it +necessary to pigeon-hole it and leave it unpublished. I couldn't publish +it without a very responsible name to support my own on the title page, +because it has so much of my own matter in it. I bought Osgood's rights +for $3,000 cash, I have paid Clark $800 and owe him $700 more, which must +of course be paid whether I publish or not. Yet I fully recognize that I +have no sort of moral right to let that ancient and procrastinated +contract hamper you in any way, and I most certainly won't. So, it is my +decision,--after thinking over and rejecting the idea of trying to buy +permission of the Harpers for $2,500 to use your name, (a proposition +which they would hate to refuse to a man in a perplexed position, and yet +would naturally have to refuse it,) to pigeon-hole the "Library": not +destroy it, but merely pigeon-hole it and wait a few years and see what +new notion Providence will take concerning it. He will not desert us +now, after putting in four licks to our one on this book all this time. +It really seems in a sense discourteous not to call it "Providence's +Library of Humor." + +Now that deal is all settled, the next question is, do you need and must +you require that $2,000 now? Since last March, you know, I am carrying a +mighty load, solitary and alone--General Grant's book--and must carry it +till the first volume is 30 days old (Jan. 1st) before the relief money +will begin to flow in. From now till the first of January every dollar +is as valuable to me as it could be to a famishing tramp. If you can +wait till then--I mean without discomfort, without inconvenience--it will +be a large accommodation to me; but I will not allow you to do this favor +if it will discommode you. So, speak right out, frankly, and if you need +the money I will go out on the highway and get it, using violence, if +necessary. + +Mind, I am not in financial difficulties, and am not going to be. I am +merely a starving beggar standing outside the door of plenty--obstructed +by a Yale time-lock which is set for Jan. 1st. I can stand it, and stand +it perfectly well; but the days do seem to fool along considerable slower +than they used to. + +I am mighty glad you are with the Harpers. I have noticed that good men +in their employ go there to stay. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + In the next letter we begin to get some idea of the size of Mark + Twain's first publishing venture, and a brief summary of results may + not be out of place here. + + The Grant Life was issued in two volumes. In the early months of + the year when the agents' canvass was just beginning, Mark Twain, + with what seems now almost clairvoyant vision, prophesied a sale of + three hundred thousand sets. The actual sales ran somewhat more + than this number. On February 27, 1886, Charles L. Webster & Co. + paid to Mrs. Grant the largest single royalty check in the history + of book-publishing. The amount of it was two hundred thousand + dollars. Subsequent checks increased the aggregate return to + considerably more than double this figure. In a memorandum made by + Clemens in the midst of the canvass he wrote." + + "During 100 consecutive days the sales (i. e., subscriptions) of + General Grant's book averaged 3,000 sets (6,000 single volumes) per + day: Roughly stated, Mrs. Grant's income during all that time was + $5,000 a day." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HOTEL NORMANDIE + NEW YORK, Dec. 2, '85. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- I told Webster, this afternoon, to send you that +$2,000; but he is in such a rush, these first days of publication, that +he may possibly forget it; so I write lest I forget it too. Remind me, +if he should forget. When I postponed you lately, I did it because I +thought I should be cramped for money until January, but that has turned +out to be an error, so I hasten to cut short the postponement. + +I judge by the newspapers that you are in Auburndale, but I don't know it +officially. + +I've got the first volume launched safely; consequently, half of the +suspense is over, and I am that much nearer the goal. We've bound and +shipped 200,000 books; and by the 10th shall finish and ship the +remaining 125,000 of the first edition. I got nervous and came down to +help hump-up the binderies; and I mean to stay here pretty much all the +time till the first days of March, when the second volume will issue. +Shan't have so much trouble, this time, though, if we get to press pretty +soon, because we can get more binderies then than are to be had in front +of the holidays. One lives and learns. I find it takes 7 binderies four +months to bind 325,000 books. + +This is a good book to publish. I heard a canvasser say, yesterday, that +while delivering eleven books he took 7 new subscriptions. But we shall +be in a hell of a fix if that goes on--it will "ball up" the binderies +again. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + November 30th that year was Mark Twain's fiftieth birthday, an event + noticed by the newspapers generally, and especially observed by many + of his friends. Warner, Stockton and many others sent letters; + Andrew Lang contributed a fine poem; also Oliver Wendell. Holmes-- + the latter by special request of Miss Gilder--for the Critic. These + attentions came as a sort of crowning happiness at the end of a + golden year. At no time in his life were Mark Twain's fortunes and + prospects brighter; he had a beautiful family and a perfect home. + Also, he had great prosperity. The reading-tour with Cable had been + a fine success. His latest book, The Adventures of Huckleberry + Finn, had added largely to his fame and income. The publication of + the Grant Memoirs had been a dazzling triumph. Mark Twain had + become recognized, not only as America's most distinguished author, + but as its most envied publisher. And now, with his fiftieth + birthday, had come this laurel from Holmes, last of the Brahmins, to + add a touch of glory to all the rest. We feel his exaltation in his + note of acknowledgment. + + + To Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Boston: + +DEAR MR. HOLMES,--I shall never be able to tell you the half of how proud +you have made me. If I could you would say you were nearly paid for the +trouble you took. And then the family: If I can convey the electrical +surprise and gratitude and exaltation of the wife and the children last +night, when they happened upon that Critic where I had, with artful +artlessness, spread it open and retired out of view to see what would +happen--well, it was great and fine and beautiful to see, and made me +feel as the victor feels when the shouting hosts march by; and if you +also could have seen it you would have said the account was squared. For +I have brought them up in your company, as in the company of a warm and +friendly and beneficent but far-distant sun; and so, for you to do this +thing was for the sun to send down out of the skies the miracle of a +special ray and transfigure me before their faces. I knew what that poem +would be to them; I knew it would raise me up to remote and shining +heights in their eyes, to very fellowship with the chambered Nautilus +itself, and that from that fellowship they could never more dissociate me +while they should live; and so I made sure to be by when the surprise +should come. + +Charles Dudley Warner is charmed with the poem for its own felicitous +sake; and so indeed am I, but more because it has drawn the sting of my +fiftieth year; taken away the pain of it, the grief of it, the somehow +shame of it, and made me glad and proud it happened. + +With reverence and affection, + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Holmes wrote with his own hand: "Did Miss Gilder tell you I had + twenty-three letters spread out for answer when her suggestion came + about your anniversary? I stopped my correspondence and made my + letters wait until the lines were done." + + + + +XXVI + +LETTERS, 1886-87. JANE CLEMENS'S ROMANCE. UNMAILED LETTERS, ETC. + + When Clemens had been platforming with Cable and returned to + Hartford for his Christmas vacation, the Warner and Clemens families + had joined in preparing for him a surprise performance of The Prince + and the Pauper. The Clemens household was always given to + theatricals, and it was about this time that scenery and a stage + were prepared--mainly by the sculptor Gerhardt--for these home + performances, after which productions of The Prince and the Pauper + were given with considerable regularity to audiences consisting of + parents and invited friends. The subject is a fascinating one, but + it has been dwelt upon elsewhere.--[In Mark Twain: A Biography, + chaps. cliff and clx.]-- We get a glimpse of one of these occasions + as well as of Mark Twain's financial progress in the next brief + note. + + To W. D. Howells; in Boston: + + Jan. 3, '86. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- The date set for the Prince and Pauper play is ten +days hence--Jan. 13. I hope you and Pilla can take a train that arrives +here during the day; the one that leaves Boston toward the end of the +afternoon would be a trifle late; the performance would have already +begun when you reached the house. + +I'm out of the woods. On the last day of the year I had paid out +$182,000 on the Grant book and it was totally free from debt. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + Mark Twain's mother was a woman of sturdy character and with a keen + sense of humor and tender sympathies. Her husband, John Marshall + Clemens, had been a man of high moral character, honored by all who + knew him, respected and apparently loved by his wife. No one would + ever have supposed that during all her years of marriage, and almost + to her death, she carried a secret romance that would only be told + at last in the weary disappointment of old age. It is a curious + story, and it came to light in this curious way: + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, May 19, '86. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- ..... Here's a secret. A most curious and pathetic +romance, which has just come to light. Read these things, but don't +mention them. Last fall, my old mother--then 82--took a notion to attend +a convention of old settlers of the Mississippi Valley in an Iowa town. +My brother's wife was astonished; and represented to her the hardships +and fatigues of such a trip, and said my mother might possibly not even +survive them; and said there could be no possible interest for her in +such a meeting and such a crowd. But my mother insisted, and persisted; +and finally gained her point. They started; and all the way my mother +was young again with excitement, interest, eagerness, anticipation. They +reached the town and the hotel. My mother strode with the same eagerness +in her eye and her step, to the counter, and said: + +"Is Dr. Barrett of St. Louis, here?" + +"No. He was here, but he returned to St. Louis this morning." + +"Will he come again?" + +"No." + +My mother turned away, the fire all gone from her, and said, " Let us go +home." + +They went straight back to Keokuk. My mother sat silent and thinking for +many days--a thing which had never happened before. Then one day she +said: + +"I will tell you a secret. When I was eighteen, a young medical student +named Barrett lived in Columbia (Ky.) eighteen miles away; and he used to +ride over to see me. This continued for some time. I loved him with my +whole heart, and I knew that he felt the same toward me, though no words +had been spoken. He was too bashful to speak--he could not do it. +Everybody supposed we were engaged--took it for granted we were--but we +were not. By and by there was to be a party in a neighboring town, and +he wrote my uncle telling him his feelings, and asking him to drive me +over in his buggy and let him (Barrett) drive me back, so that he might +have that opportunity to propose. My uncle should have done as he was +asked, without explaining anything to me; but instead, he read me the +letter; and then, of course, I could not go--and did not. He (Barrett) +left the country presently, and I, to stop the clacking tongues, and to +show him that I did not care, married, in a pet. In all these sixty-four +years I have not seen him since. I saw in a paper that he was going to +attend that Old Settlers' Convention. Only three hours before we reached +that hotel, he had been standing there!" + +Since then, her memory is wholly faded out and gone; and now she writes +letters to the school-mates who had been dead forty years, and wonders +why they neglect her and do not answer. + +Think of her carrying that pathetic burden in her old heart sixty-four +years, and no human being ever suspecting it! + Yrs ever, + MARK. + +We do not get the idea from this letter that those two long ago +sweethearts quarreled, but Mark Twain once spoke of their having done so, +and there may have been a disagreement, assuming that there was a +subsequent meeting. It does not matter, now. In speaking of it, Mark +Twain once said: "It is as pathetic a romance as any that has crossed the +field of my personal experience in a long lifetime." --[When Mark Twain: +A Biography was written this letter had not come to light, and the matter +was stated there in accordance with Mark Twain's latest memory of it.] + +Howells wrote: "After all, how poor and hackneyed all the inventions are +compared with the simple and stately facts. Who could have imagined such +a heart-break as that? Yet it went along with the fulfillment of +everyday duty and made no more noise than a grave under foot. I doubt if +fiction will ever get the knack of such things." + +Jane Clemens now lived with her son Orion and his wife, in Keokuk, where +she was more contented than elsewhere. In these later days her memory +had become erratic, her realization of events about her uncertain, but +there were times when she was quite her former self, remembering clearly +and talking with her old-time gaiety of spirit. Mark Twain frequently +sent her playful letters to amuse her, letters full of such boyish gaiety +as had amused her long years before. The one that follows is a fair +example. It was written after a visit which Clemens and his family had +paid to Keokuk. + + + To Jane Clemens, in Keokuk: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 7, '86. +DEAR MA,--I heard that Molly and Orion and Pamela had been sick, but I +see by your letter that they are much better now, or nearly well. When +we visited you a month ago, it seemed to us that your Keokuk weather was +pretty hot; Jean and Clara sat up in bed at Mrs. McElroy's and cried +about it, and so did I; but I judge by your letter that it has cooled +down, now, so that a person is comparatively comfortable, with his skin +off. Well it did need cooling; I remember that I burnt a hole in my +shirt, there, with some ice cream that fell on it; and Miss Jenkins told +me they never used a stove, but cooked their meals on a marble-topped +table in the drawing-room, just with the natural heat. If anybody else +had told me, I would not have believed it. I was told by the Bishop of +Keokuk that he did not allow crying at funerals, because it scalded the +furniture. If Miss Jenkins had told me that, I would have believed it. +This reminds me that you speak of Dr. Jenkins and his family as if they +were strangers to me. Indeed they are not. Don't you suppose I remember +gratefully how tender the doctor was with Jean when she hurt her arm, and +how quickly he got the pain out of the hurt, whereas I supposed it was +going to last at least an hour? No, I don't forget some things as easily +as I do others. + +Yes, it was pretty hot weather. Now here, when a person is going to die, +he is always in a sweat about where he is going to; but in Keokuk of +course they don't care, because they are fixed for everything. It has +set me reflecting, it has taught me a lesson. By and by, when my health +fails, I am going to put all my affairs in order, and bid good-bye to my +friends here, and kill all the people I don't like, and go out to Keokuk +and prepare for death. + +They are all well in this family, and we all send love. + Affly Your Son + SAM. + + + The ways of city officials and corporations are often past + understanding, and Mark Twain sometimes found it necessary to write + picturesque letters of protest. The following to a Hartford + lighting company is a fair example of these documents. + + + To a gas and electric-lighting company, in Hartford: + +GENTLEMEN,--There are but two places in our whole street where lights +could be of any value, by any accident, and you have measured and +appointed your intervals so ingeniously as to leave each of those places +in the centre of a couple of hundred yards of solid darkness. When I +noticed that you were setting one of your lights in such a way that I +could almost see how to get into my gate at night, I suspected that it +was a piece of carelessness on the part of the workmen, and would be +corrected as soon as you should go around inspecting and find it out. +My judgment was right; it is always right, when you axe concerned. For +fifteen years, in spite of my prayers and tears, you persistently kept a +gas lamp exactly half way between my gates, so that I couldn't find +either of them after dark; and then furnished such execrable gas that I +had to hang a danger signal on the lamp post to keep teams from running +into it, nights. Now I suppose your present idea is, to leave us a +little more in the dark. + +Don't mind us--out our way; we possess but one vote apiece, and no rights +which you are in any way bound to respect. Please take your electric +light and go to--but never mind, it is not for me to suggest; you will +probably find the way; and any way you can reasonably count on divine +assistance if you lose your bearings. + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + [Etext Editor's Note: Twain wrote another note to Hartford Gas and + Electric, which he may not have mailed and which Paine does not + include in these volumes: + "Gentleman:--Someday you are going to move me almost to the point + of irritation with your God-damned chuckle headed fashion of + turning off your God-damned gas without giving notice to your + God-damned parishioners--and you did it again last night--" + D.W.] + + Frequently Clemens did not send letters of this sort after they were + written. Sometimes he realized the uselessness of such protest, + sometimes the mere writing of them had furnished the necessary + relief, and he put, the letter away, or into the wastebasket, and + wrote something more temperate, or nothing at all. A few such + letters here follow. + + Clemens was all the time receiving application from people who + wished him to recommend one article or another; books, plays, + tobacco, and what not. They were generally persistent people, + unable to accept a polite or kindly denial. Once he set down some + remarks on this particular phase of correspondence. He wrote: + + +I + +No doubt Mr. Edison has been offered a large interest in many and many an +electrical project, for the use of his name to float it withal. And no +doubt all men who have achieved for their names, in any line of activity +whatever, a sure market value, have been familiar with this sort of +solicitation. Reputation is a hall-mark: it can remove doubt from pure +silver, and it can also make the plated article pass for pure. + +And so, people without a hall-mark of their own are always trying to get +the loan of somebody else's. + +As a rule, that kind of a person sees only one side of the case. He sees +that his invention or his painting or his book is--apparently--a trifle +better than you yourself can do, therefore why shouldn't you be willing +to put your hall-mark on it? You will be giving the purchaser his full +money's worth; so who is hurt, and where is the harm? Besides, are you +not helping a struggling fellow-craftsman, and is it not your duty to do +that? + +That side is plenty clear enough to him, but he can't and won't see the +other side, to-wit: that you are a rascal if you put your hall-mark upon +a thing which you did not produce yourself, howsoever good it may be. +How simple that is; and yet there are not two applicants in a hundred who +can, be made to see it. + +When one receives an application of this sort, his first emotion is an +indignant sense of insult; his first deed is the penning of a sharp +answer. He blames nobody but that other person. That person is a very +base being; he must be; he would degrade himself for money, otherwise it +would not occur to him that you would do such a thing. But all the same, +that application has done its work, and taken you down in your own +estimation. You recognize that everybody hasn't as high an opinion of +you as you have of yourself; and in spite of you there ensues an interval +during which you are not, in your own estimation as fine a bird as you +were before. + +However, being old and experienced, you do not mail your sharp letter, +but leave it lying a day. That saves you. For by that time you have +begun to reflect that you are a person who deals in exaggerations--and +exaggerations are lies. You meant yours to be playful, and thought you +made them unmistakably so. But you couldn't make them playfulnesses to a +man who has no sense of the playful and can see nothing but the serious +side of things. You rattle on quite playfully, and with measureless +extravagance, about how you wept at the tomb of Adam; and all in good +time you find to your astonishment that no end of people took you at your +word and believed you. And presently they find out that you were not in +earnest. They have been deceived; therefore, (as they argue--and there +is a sort of argument in it,) you are a deceiver. If you will deceive in +one way, why shouldn't you in another? So they apply for the use of your +trade-mark. You are amazed and affronted. You retort that you are not +that kind of person. Then they are amazed and affronted; and wonder +"since when?" + +By this time you have got your bearings. You realize that perhaps there +is a little blame on both sides. You are in the right frame, now. So +you write a letter void of offense, declining. You mail this one; you +pigeon-hole the other. + +That is, being old and experienced, you do, but early in your career, you +don't: you mail the first one. + + +II + +An enthusiast who had a new system of musical notation, wrote to me and +suggested that a magazine article from me, contrasting the absurdities of +the old system with the simplicities of his new one, would be sure to +make a "rousing hit." He shouted and shouted over the marvels wrought by +his system, and quoted the handsome compliments which had been paid it by +famous musical people; but he forgot to tell me what his notation was +like, or what its simplicities consisted in. So I could not have written +the article if I had wanted to--which I didn't; because I hate strangers +with axes to grind. I wrote him a courteous note explaining how busy I +was--I always explain how busy I am--and casually drooped this remark: + +"I judge the X-X notation to be a rational mode of representing music, in +place of the prevailing fashion, which was the invention of an idiot." + +Next mail he asked permission to print that meaningless remark. +I answered, no--courteously, but still, no; explaining that I could not +afford to be placed in the attitude of trying to influence people with a +mere worthless guess. What a scorcher I got, next mail! Such irony! +such sarcasm, such caustic praise of my superhonorable loyalty to the +public! And withal, such compassion for my stupidity, too, in not being +able to understand my own language. I cannot remember the words of this +letter broadside, but there was about a page used up in turning this idea +round and round and exposing it in different lights. + + Unmailed Answer: + +DEAR SIR,--What is the trouble with you? If it is your viscera, you +cannot have them taken out and reorganized a moment too soon. I mean, +if they are inside. But if you are composed of them, that is another +matter. Is it your brain? But it could not be your brain. Possibly it +is your skull: you want to look out for that. Some people, when they get +an idea, it pries the structure apart. Your system of notation has got +in there, and couldn't find room, without a doubt that is what the +trouble is. Your skull was not made to put ideas in, it was made to +throw potatoes at. + Yours Truly. + + + Mailed Answer: + +DEAR SIR,--Come, come--take a walk; you disturb the children. + Yours Truly. + + +There was a day, now happily nearly over, when certain newspapers made a +practice of inviting men distinguished in any walk of life to give their +time and effort without charge to express themselves on some subject of +the day, or perhaps they were asked to send their favorite passages in +prose or verse, with the reasons why. Such symposiums were "features" +that cost the newspapers only the writing of a number of letters, +stationery, and postage. To one such invitation Mark Twain wrote two +replies. They follow herewith: + + Unmailed Answer: + +DEAR SIR,--I have received your proposition--which you have imitated from +a pauper London periodical which had previously imitated the idea of this +sort of mendicancy from seventh-rate American journalism, where it +originated as a variation of the inexpensive "interview." + +Why do you buy Associated Press dispatches? To make your paper the more +salable, you answer. But why don't you try to beg them? Why do you +discriminate? I can sell my stuff; why should I give it to you? Why +don't you ask me for a shirt? What is the difference between asking me +for the worth of a shirt and asking me for the shirt itself? Perhaps you +didn't know you were begging. I would not use that argument--it makes +the user a fool. The passage of poetry--or prose, if you will--which has +taken deepest root in my thought, and which I oftenest return to and +dwell upon with keenest no matter what, is this: That the proper place +for journalists who solicit literary charity is on the street corner with +their hats in their hands. + + + Mailed Answer: + +DEAR SIR,--Your favor of recent date is received, but I am obliged by +press of work to decline. + + + The manager of a traveling theatrical company wrote that he had + taken the liberty of dramatizing Tom Sawyer, and would like also the + use of the author's name--the idea being to convey to the public + that it was a Mark Twain play. In return for this slight favor the + manager sent an invitation for Mark Twain to come and see the play-- + to be present on the opening night, as it were, at his (the + manager's) expense. He added that if the play should be a go in the + cities there might be some "arrangement" of profits. Apparently + these inducements did not appeal to Mark Twain. The long unmailed + reply is the more interesting, but probably the briefer one that + follows it was quite as effective. + + Unmailed Answer: + + HARTFORD, Sept. 8, '87. +DEAR SIR,--And so it has got around to you, at last; and you also have +"taken the liberty." You are No. 1365. When 1364 sweeter and better +people, including the author, have "tried" to dramatize Tom Sawyer and +did not arrive, what sort of show do you suppose you stand? That is a +book, dear sir, which cannot be dramatized. One might as well try to +dramatize any other hymn. Tom Sawyer is simply a hymn, put into prose +form to give it a worldly air. + +Why the pale doubt that flitteth dim and nebulous athwart the forecastle +of your third sentence? Have no fears. Your piece will be a Go. +It will go out the back door on the first night. They've all done it +--the 1364. So will 1365. Not one of us ever thought of the simple +device of half-soling himself with a stove-lid. Ah, what suffering a +little hindsight would have saved us. Treasure this hint. + +How kind of you to invite me to the funeral. Go to; I have attended a +thousand of them. I have seen Tom Sawyer's remains in all the different +kinds of dramatic shrouds there are. You cannot start anything fresh. +Are you serious when you propose to pay my expence--if that is the +Susquehannian way of spelling it? And can you be aware that I charge a +hundred dollars a mile when I travel for pleasure? Do you realize that +it is 432 miles to Susquehanna? Would it be handy for you to send me the +$43,200 first, so I could be counting it as I come along; because +railroading is pretty dreary to a sensitive nature when there's nothing +sordid to buck at for Zeitvertreib. + +Now as I understand it, dear and magnanimous 1365, you are going to +recreate Tom Sawyer dramatically, and then do me the compliment to put me +in the bills as father of this shady offspring. Sir, do you know that +this kind of a compliment has destroyed people before now? Listen. + +Twenty-four years ago, I was strangely handsome. The remains of it are +still visible through the rifts of time. I was so handsome that human +activities ceased as if spellbound when I came in view, and even +inanimate things stopped to look--like locomotives, and district +messenger boys and so-on. In San Francisco, in the rainy season I was +often mistaken for fair weather. Upon one occasion I was traveling in +the Sonora region, and stopped for an hour's nooning, to rest my horse +and myself. All the town came out to look. The tribes of Indians +gathered to look. A Piute squaw named her baby for me,--a voluntary +compliment which pleased me greatly. Other attentions were paid me. +Last of all arrived the president and faculty of Sonora University and +offered me the post of Professor of Moral Culture and the Dogmatic +Humanities; which I accepted gratefully, and entered at once upon my +duties. But my name had pleased the Indians, and in the deadly kindness +of their hearts they went on naming their babies after me. I tried to +stop it, but the Indians could not understand why I should object to so +manifest a compliment. The thing grew and grew and spread and spread and +became exceedingly embarrassing. The University stood it a couple of +years; but then for the sake of the college they felt obliged to call a +halt, although I had the sympathy of the whole faculty. The president +himself said to me, "I am as sorry as I can be for you, and would still +hold out if there were any hope ahead; but you see how it is: there are a +hundred and thirty-two of them already, and fourteen precincts to hear +from. The circumstance has brought your name into most wide and +unfortunate renown. It causes much comment--I believe that that is not +an over-statement. Some of this comment is palliative, but some of it +--by patrons at a distance, who only know the statistics without the +explanation,--is offensive, and in some cases even violent. Nine +students have been called home. The trustees of the college have been +growing more and more uneasy all these last months--steadily along with +the implacable increase in your census--and I will not conceal from you +that more than once they have touched upon the expediency of a change in +the Professorship of Moral Culture. The coarsely sarcastic editorial in +yesterday's Alta, headed Give the Moral Acrobat a Rest--has brought +things to a crisis, and I am charged with the unpleasant duty of +receiving your resignation." + +I know you only mean me a kindness, dear 1365, but it is a most deadly +mistake. Please do not name your Injun for me. Truly Yours. + + + Mailed Answer: + + NEW YORK, Sept. 8. 1887. +DEAR SIR,--Necessarily I cannot assent to so strange a proposition. And +I think it but fair to warn you that if you put the piece on the stage, +you must take the legal consequences. + Yours respectfully, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Before the days of international copyright no American author's + books were pirated more freely by Canadian publishers than those of + Mark Twain. It was always a sore point with him that these books, + cheaply printed, found their way into the United States, and were + sold in competition with his better editions. The law on the + subject seemed to be rather hazy, and its various interpretations + exasperating. In the next unmailed letter Mark Twain relieves + himself to a misguided official. The letter is worth reading today, + if for no other reason, to show the absurdity of copyright + conditions which prevailed at that time. + + + Unmailed Letter to H. C. Christiancy, on book Piracy: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 18, '87. +H. C. CHRISTIANCY, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR,-- As I understand it, the position of the U. S. Government is +this: If a person be captured on the border with counterfeit bonds in his +hands--bonds of the N. Y. Central Railway, for instance--the procedure in +his case shall be as follows: + +1. If the N. Y. C. have not previously filed in the several police +offices along the border, proof of ownership of the originals of the +bonds, the government officials must collect a duty on the counterfeits, +and then let them go ahead and circulate in this country. + +2. But if there is proof already on file, then the N. Y. C. may pay the +duty and take the counterfeits. + +But in no case will the United States consent to go without its share of +the swag. It is delicious. The biggest and proudest government on earth +turned sneak-thief; collecting pennies on stolen property, and pocketing +them with a greasy and libidinous leer; going into partnership with +foreign thieves to rob its own children; and when the child escapes the +foreigner, descending to the abysmal baseness of hanging on and robbing +the infant all alone by itself! Dear sir, this is not any more +respectable than for a father to collect toll on the forced prostitution +of his own daughter; in fact it is the same thing. Upon these terms, +what is a U. S. custom house but a "fence?" That is all it is: a +legalized trader in stolen goods. + +And this nasty law, this filthy law, this unspeakable law calls itself a +"regulation for the protection of owners of copyright!" Can sarcasm go +further than that? In what way does it protect them? Inspiration itself +could not furnish a rational answer to that question. Whom does it +protect, then? Nobody, as far as I can see, but the foreign thief- +sometimes--and his fellow-footpad the U. S. government, all the time. +What could the Central Company do with the counterfeit bonds after it had +bought them of the star spangled banner Master-thief? Sell them at a +dollar apiece and fetch down the market for the genuine hundred-dollar +bond? What could I do with that 20-cent copy of "Roughing It" which the +United States has collared on the border and is waiting to release to me +for cash in case I am willing to come down to its moral level and help +rob myself? Sell it at ten or fifteen cents--duty added--and destroy the +market for the original $3,50 book? Who ever did invent that law? I +would like to know the name of that immortal jackass. + +Dear sir, I appreciate your courtesy in stretching your authority in the +desire to do me a kindness, and I sincerely thank you for it. But I have +no use for that book; and if I were even starving for it I would not pay +duty on in either to get it or suppress it. No doubt there are ways in +which I might consent to go into partnership with thieves and fences, +but this is not one of them. This one revolts the remains of my self- +respect; turns my stomach. I think I could companion with a highwayman +who carried a shot-gun and took many risks; yes, I think I should like +that if I were younger; but to go in with a big rich government that robs +paupers, and the widows and orphans of paupers and takes no risk--why the +thought just gags me. + +Oh, no, I shall never pay any duties on pirated books of mine. I am much +too respectable for that--yet awhile. But here--one thing that grovels +me is this: as far as I can discover--while freely granting that the +U. S. copyright laws are far and away the most idiotic that exist +anywhere on the face of the earth--they don't authorize the government to +admit pirated books into this country, toll or no toll. And so I think +that that regulation is the invention of one of those people--as a rule, +early stricken of God, intellectually--the departmental interpreters of +the laws, in Washington. They can always be depended on to take any +reasonably good law and interpret the common sense all out of it. They +can be depended on, every time, to defeat a good law, and make it +inoperative--yes, and utterly grotesque, too, mere matter for laughter +and derision. Take some of the decisions of the Post-office Department, +for instance--though I do not mean to suggest that that asylum is any +worse than the others for the breeding and nourishing of incredible +lunatics--I merely instance it because it happens to be the first to come +into my mind. Take that case of a few years ago where the P. M. General +suddenly issued an edict requiring you to add the name of the State after +Boston, New York, Chicago, &c, in your superscriptions, on pain of having +your letter stopped and forwarded to the dead-letter office; yes, and I +believe he required the county, too. He made one little concession in +favor of New York: you could say "New York City," and stop there; but if +you left off the "city," you must add "N. Y." to your "New York." Why, +it threw the business of the whole country into chaos and brought +commerce almost to a stand-still. Now think of that! When that man goes +to--to--well, wherever he is going to--we shan't want the microscopic +details of his address. I guess we can find him. + +Well, as I was saying, I believe that this whole paltry and ridiculous +swindle is a pure creation of one of those cabbages that used to be at +the head of one of those Retreats down there--Departments, you know--and +that you will find it so, if you will look into it. And moreover--but +land, I reckon we are both tired by this time. + Truly Yours, + MARK TWAIN. + + + + + +XXVII + +MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF 1887. LITERARY ARTICLES. PEACEFUL DAYS AT THE +FARM. FAVORITE READING. APOLOGY TO MRS. CLEVELAND, ETC. + +We have seen in the preceding chapter how unknown aspirants in one field +or another were always seeking to benefit by Mark Twain's reputation. +Once he remarked, "The symbol of the human race ought to be an ax; every +human being has one concealed about him somewhere." He declared when a +stranger called on him, or wrote to him, in nine cases out of ten he +could distinguish the gleam of the ax almost immediately. The following +letter is closely related to those of the foregoing chapter, only that +this one was mailed--not once, but many times, in some form adapted to +the specific applicant. It does not matter to whom it was originally +written, the name would not be recognized. + + + To Mrs. T. Concerning unearned credentials, etc. + + HARTFORD, 1887. +MY DEAR MADAM,--It is an idea which many people have had, but it is of no +value. I have seen it tried out many and many a time. I have seen a +lady lecturer urged and urged upon the public in a lavishly complimentary +document signed by Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes and some others of +supreme celebrity, but--there was nothing in her and she failed. If +there had been any great merit in her she never would have needed those +men's help and (at her rather mature age,) would never have consented to +ask for it. + +There is an unwritten law about human successes, and your sister must bow +to that law, she must submit to its requirements. In brief this law is: + + 1. No occupation without an apprenticeship. + + 2. No pay to the apprentice. + +This law stands right in the way of the subaltern who wants to be a +General before he has smelt powder; and it stands (and should stand) in +everybody's way who applies for pay or position before he has served his +apprenticeship and proved himself. Your sister's course is perfectly +plain. Let her enclose this letter to Maj. J. B. Pond, and offer to +lecture a year for $10 a week and her expenses, the contract to be +annullable by him at any time, after a month's notice, but not annullable +by her at all. The second year, he to have her services, if he wants +them, at a trifle under the best price offered her by anybody else. + +She can learn her trade in those two years, and then be entitled to +remuneration--but she can not learn it in any less time than that, unless +she is a human miracle. + +Try it, and do not be afraid. It is the fair and right thing. If she +wins, she will win squarely and righteously, and never have to blush. + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Howells wrote, in February, offering to get a publisher to take the + Library of Humor off Mark Twain's hands. Howells had been paid + twenty-six hundred dollars for the work on it, and his conscience + hurt him when he reflected that the book might never be used. In + this letter he also refers to one of the disastrous inventions in + which Clemens had invested--a method of casting brass dies for + stamping book-covers and wall-paper. Howells's purpose was to + introduce something of the matter into his next story. Mark Twain's + reply gives us a light on this particular invention. + + + HARTFORD, Feb. 15, '87. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I was in New York five days ago, and Webster mentioned the +Library, and proposed to publish it a year or a year and half hence. +I have written him your proposition to-day. (The Library is part of the +property of the C. L. W. & Co. firm.) + +I don't remember what that technical phrase was, but I think you will +find it in any Cyclopedia under the head of "Brass." The thing I best +remember is, that the self-styled "inventor" had a very ingenious way of +keeping me from seeing him apply his invention: the first appointment was +spoiled by his burning down the man's shop in which it was to be done, +the night before; the second was spoiled by his burning down his own shop +the night before. He unquestionably did both of these things. He really +had no invention; the whole project was a blackmailing swindle, and cost +me several thousand dollars. + +The slip you sent me from the May "Study" has delighted Mrs. Clemens and +me to the marrow. To think that thing might be possible to many; but to +be brave enough to say it is possible to you only, I certainly believe. +The longer I live the clearer I perceive how unmatchable, how +unapproachable, a compliment one pays when he says of a man "he has the +courage (to utter) his convictions." Haven't you had reviewers talk Alps +to you, and then print potato hills? + +I haven't as good an opinion of my work as you hold of it, but I've +always done what I could to secure and enlarge my good opinion of it. +I've always said to myself, "Everybody reads it and that's something--it +surely isn't pernicious, or the most acceptable people would get pretty +tired of it." And when a critic said by implication that it wasn't high +and fine, through the remark "High and fine literature is wine" I +retorted (confidentially, to myself,) "yes, high and fine literature is +wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water." + +You didn't tell me to return that proof-slip, so I have pasted it into my +private scrap-book. None will see it there. With a thousand thanks. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + Our next letter is an unmailed answer, but it does not belong with + the others, having been withheld for reasons of quite a different + sort. Jeanette Gilder, then of the Critic, was one of Mark Twain's + valued friends. In the comment which he made, when it was shown to + him twenty-two years later, he tells us why he thinks this letter + was not sent. The name, "Rest-and-be-Thankful," was the official + title given to the summer place at Elmira, but it was more often + known as "Quarry Farm." + + + To Jeannette Gilder (not mailed): + + HARTFORD, May 14, '87. +MY DEAR MISS GILDER,--We shall spend the summer at the same old place-the +remote farm called "Rest-and-be-Thankful," on top of the hills three +miles from Elmira, N. Y. Your other question is harder to answer. It is +my habit to keep four or five books in process of erection all the time, +and every summer add a few courses of bricks to two or three of them; but +I cannot forecast which of the two or three it is going to be. It takes +seven years to complete a book by this method, but still it is a good +method: gives the public a rest. I have been accused of "rushing into +print" prematurely, moved thereto by greediness for money; but in truth +I have never done that. Do you care for trifles of information? (Well, +then, "Tom Sawyer" and "The Prince and the Pauper" were each on the +stocks two or three years, and "Old Times on the Mississippi" eight. +One of my unfinished books has been on the stocks sixteen years; another +seventeen. This latter book could have been finished in a day, at any +time during the past five years. But as in the first of these two +narratives all the action takes place in Noah's ark, and as in the other +the action takes place in heaven, there seemed to be no hurry, and so I +have not hurried. Tales of stirring adventure in those localities do not +need to be rushed to publication lest they get stale by waiting. In +twenty-one years, with all my time at my free disposal I have written and +completed only eleven books, whereas with half the labor that a +journalist does I could have written sixty in that time. I do not +greatly mind being accused of a proclivity for rushing into print, but +at the same time I don't believe that the charge is really well founded. +Suppose I did write eleven books, have you nothing to be grateful for? +Go to--- remember the forty-nine which I didn't write. + Truly Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Notes (added twenty-two years later): + +Stormfield, April 30, 1909. It seems the letter was not sent. I +probably feared she might print it, and I couldn't find a way to say so +without running a risk of hurting her. No one would hurt Jeannette +Gilder purposely, and no one would want to run the risk of doing it +unintentionally. She is my neighbor, six miles away, now, and I must +ask her about this ancient letter. + +I note with pride and pleasure that I told no untruths in my unsent +answer. I still have the habit of keeping unfinished books lying around +years and years, waiting. I have four or five novels on hand at present +in a half-finished condition, and it is more than three years since I +have looked at any of them. I have no intention of finishing them. +I could complete all of them in less than a year, if the impulse should +come powerfully upon me: Long, long ago money-necessity furnished that +impulse once, (" Following the Equator"), but mere desire for money has +never furnished it, so far as I remember. Not even money-necessity was +able to overcome me on a couple of occasions when perhaps I ought to have +allowed it to succeed. While I was a bankrupt and in debt two offers +were made me for weekly literary contributions to continue during a year, +and they would have made a debtless man of me, but I declined them, with +my wife's full approval, for I had known of no instance where a man had +pumped himself out once a week and failed to run "emptyings" before the +year was finished. + +As to that "Noah's Ark" book, I began it in Edinburgh in 1873;--[This is +not quite correct. The "Noah's Ark" book was begun in Buffalo in 1870.] +I don't know where the manuscript is now. It was a Diary, which +professed to be the work of Shem, but wasn't. I began it again several +months ago, but only for recreation; I hadn't any intention of carrying +it to a finish +--or even to the end of the first chapter, in fact. + +As to the book whose action "takes place in Heaven." That was a small +thing, ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.") It lay in my pigeon- +holes 40 years, then I took it out and printed it in Harper's Monthly +last year. + S. L. C. + + +In the next letter we get a pretty and peaceful picture of "Rest-and-be- +Thankful." These were Mark Twain's balmy days. The financial drain of +the type-machine was heavy but not yet exhausting, and the prospect of +vast returns from it seemed to grow brighter each day. His publishing +business, though less profitable, was still prosperous, his family life +was ideal. How gratefully, then, he could enter into the peace of that +"perfect day." + + + To Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Ia.: + + ON THE HILL NEAR ELMIRA, July 10, '87. +DEAR MOLLIE,--This is a superb Sunday for weather--very cloudy, and the +thermometer as low as 65. The city in the valley is purple with shade, +as seen from up here at the study. The Cranes are reading and loafing in +the canvas-curtained summer-house 50 yards away on a higher (the highest) +point; the cats are loafing over at "Ellerslie" which is the children's +estate and dwellinghouse in their own private grounds (by deed from Susie +Crane) a hundred yards from the study, amongst the clover and young oaks +and willows. Livy is down at the house, but I shall now go and bring her +up to the Cranes to help us occupy the lounges and hammocks--whence a +great panorama of distant hill and valley and city is seeable. The +children have gone on a lark through the neighboring hills and woods. +It is a perfect day indeed. + With love to you all. + SAM. + + +Two days after this letter was written we get a hint of what was the +beginning of business trouble--that is to say, of the failing health of +Charles L. Webster. Webster was ambitious, nervous, and not robust. +He had overworked and was paying the penalty. His trouble was +neurasthenia, and he was presently obliged to retire altogether from the +business. The "Sam and Mary" mentioned were Samuel Moffet and his wife. + + + To Mrs. Pamela Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y. + + ELMIRA, July 12, '87 +MY DEAR SISTER,--I had no idea that Charley's case was so serious. +I knew it was bad, and persistent, but I was not aware of the full size +of the matter. + +I have just been writing to a friend in Hartford' who treated what I +imagine was a similar case surgically last fall, and produced a permanent +cure. If this is a like case, Charley must go to him. + +If relief fails there, he must take the required rest, whether the +business can stand it or not. + +It is most pleasant to hear such prosperous accounts of Sam and Mary, +I do not see how Sam could well be more advantageously fixed. He can +grow up with that paper, and achieve a successful life. + +It is not all holiday here with Susie and Clara this time. They have to +put in some little time every day on their studies. Jean thinks she is +studying too, but I don't know what it is unless it is the horses; she +spends the day under their heels in the stables--and that is but a +continuation of her Hartford system of culture. + +With love from us all to you all. + Affectionately + SAM. + + +Mark Twain had a few books that he read regularly every year or two. +Among these were 'Pepys's Diary', Suetonius's 'Lives of the Twelve +Caesars', and Thomas Carlyle's 'French Revolution'. He had a passion for +history, biography, and personal memoirs of any sort. In his early life +he had cared very little for poetry, but along in the middle eighties he +somehow acquired a taste for Browning and became absorbed in it. +A Browning club assembled as often as once a week at the Clemens home in +Hartford to listen to his readings of the master. He was an impressive +reader, and he carefully prepared himself for these occasions, indicating +by graduated underscorings, the exact values he wished to give to words +and phrases. Those were memorable gatherings, and they must have +continued through at least two winters. It is one of the puzzling phases +of Mark Twain's character that, notwithstanding his passion for direct +and lucid expression, he should have found pleasure in the poems of +Robert Browning. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 22, '87. +MY DEAR HOWELLS,--How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man +while he sleeps. When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871, +I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it +differently being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and +environment (and Taine and St. Simon): and now I lay the book down once +more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte!--And not a pale, +characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such gospel +so the change is in me--in my vision of the evidences. + +People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at +all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. +It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say that of Dickens's or +Scott's books. Nothing remains the same. When a man goes back to look +at the house of his childhood, it has always shrunk: there is no instance +of such a house being as big as the picture in memory and imagination +call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its correct dimensions: the house hasn't +altered; this is the first time it has been in focus. + +Well, that's loss. To have house and Bible shrink so, under the +disillusioning corrected angle, is loss-for a moment. But there are +compensations. You tilt the tube skyward and bring planets and comets +and corona flames a hundred and fifty thousand miles high into the field. +Which I see you have done, and found Tolstoi. I haven't got him in focus +yet, but I've got Browning . . . . + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + Mention has been made already of Mark Twain's tendency to + absentmindedness. He was always forgetting engagements, or getting + them wrong. Once he hurried to an afternoon party, and finding the + mistress of the house alone, sat down and talked to her comfortably + for an hour or two, not remembering his errand at all. It was only + when he reached home that he learned that the party had taken place + the week before. It was always dangerous for him to make + engagements, and he never seemed to profit by sorrowful experience. + We, however, may profit now by one of his amusing apologies. + + + To Mrs. Grover Cleveland, in Washington: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 6, 1887. +MY DEAR MADAM,--I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this +house of ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run +itself without the help of the major half it gets aground. Last night +when I was offered the opportunity to assist you in the throwing open the +Warner brothers superb benefaction in Bridgeport to those fortunate +women, I naturally appreciated the honor done me, and promptly seized my +chance. I had an engagement, but the circumstances washed it out of my +mind. If I had only laid the matter before the major half of the +administration on the spot, there would have been no blunder; but I never +thought of that. So when I did lay it before her, later, I realized once +more that it will not do for the literary fraction of a combination to +try to manage affairs which properly belong in the office of the business +bulk of it. I suppose the President often acts just like that: goes and +makes an impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next +to impossible to break it up and set things straight again. Well, that +is just our way, exactly-one half of the administration always busy +getting the family into trouble, and the other half busy getting it out +again. And so we do seem to be all pretty much alike, after all. The +fact is, I had forgotten that we were to have a dinner party on that +Bridgeport date--I thought it was the next day: which is a good deal of +an improvement for me, because I am more used to being behind a day or +two than ahead. But that is just the difference between one end of this +kind of an administration and the other end of it, as you have noticed, +yourself--the other end does not forget these things. Just so with a +funeral; if it is the man's funeral, he is most always there, of course- +but that is no credit to him, he wouldn't be there if you depended on +hint to remember about it; whereas, if on the other hand--but I seem to +have got off from my line of argument somehow; never mind about the +funeral. Of course I am not meaning to say anything against funerals-- +that is, as occasions--mere occasions--for as diversions I don't think +they amount to much But as I was saying--if you are not busy I will look +back and see what it was I was saying. + +I don't seem to find the place; but anyway she was as sorry as ever +anybody could be that I could not go to Bridgeport, but there was no help +for it. And I, I have been not only sorry but very sincerely ashamed of +having made an engagement to go without first making sure that I could +keep it, and I do not know how to apologize enough for my heedless breach +of good manners. + With the sincerest respect, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Samuel Clemens was one of the very few authors to copyright a book + in England before the enactment of the international copyright law. + As early as 1872 he copyrighted 'Roughing It' in England, and + piratical publishers there respected his rights. Finally, in 1887, + the inland revenue office assessed him with income tax, which he + very willingly paid, instructing his London publishers, Chatto & + Windus, to pay on the full amount he had received from them. But + when the receipt for his taxes came it was nearly a yard square with + due postage of considerable amount. Then he wrote: + + + To Mr. Chatto, of Chatto & Windus, in London: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 5, '87. +MY DEAR CHATTO,--Look here, I don't mind paying the tax, but don't you +let the Inland Revenue Office send me any more receipts for it, for the +postage is something perfectly demoralizing. If they feel obliged to +print a receipt on a horse-blanket, why don't they hire a ship and send +it over at their own expense? + +Wasn't it good that they caught me out with an old book instead of a new +one? The tax on a new book would bankrupt a body. It was my purpose to +go to England next May and stay the rest of the year, but I've found that +tax office out just in time. My new book would issue in March, and they +would tax the sale in both countries. Come, we must get up a compromise +somehow. You go and work in on the good side of those revenue people and +get them to take the profits and give me the tax. Then I will come over +and we will divide the swag and have a good time. + +I wish you to thank Mr. Christmas for me; but we won't resist. The +country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Another English tax assessment came that year, based on the report + that it was understood that he was going to become an English + resident, and had leased Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year. + Clemens wrote his publishers: "I will explain that all that about + Buckenham Hall was an English newspaper's mistake. I was not in + England, and if I had been I wouldn't have been at Buckenham Hall, + anyway, but at Buckingham Palace, or I would have endeavored to find + out the reason why. Clemens made literature out of this tax + experience. He wrote an open letter to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. + Such a letter has no place in this collection. It was published in + the "Drawer" of Harper's Magazine, December, 1887, and is now + included in the uniform edition of his works under the title of, "A + Petition to the Queen of England." + + From the following letter, written at the end of the year, we gather + that the type-setter costs were beginning to make a difference in + the Clemens economies. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 18, '87. +DEAR PAMELA,-- will you take this $15 and buy some candy or some other +trifle for yourself and Sam and his wife to remember that we remember +you, by? + +If we weren't a little crowded this year by the typesetter, I'd send a +check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like +that. However we go on and on, but the type-setter goes on forever--at +$3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the +first seventeen months, when the bill only averaged $2,000,and promised +to take a thousand years. We'll be through, now, in 3 or 4 months, I +reckon, and then the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once +more, whether success ensues or failure. + +Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped- +but it would take a long letter to explain why and who is to blame. + +All the family send love to all of you and best Christmas wishes for your +prosperity. + Affectionately, + SAM. + + + + +XXVIII + +LETTERS,1888. A YALE DEGREE. WORK ON "THE YANKEE." ON INTERVIEWING, +ETC. + + Mark Twain received his first college degree when he was made Master + of Arts by Yale, in June, 1888. Editor of the Courant, Charles H. + Clarke, was selected to notify him of his new title. Clarke was an + old friend to whom Clemens could write familiarly. + + + To Charles H. Clarke, in Hartford: + + ELMIRA, July 2, '88. +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Thanks for your thanks, and for your initiation +intentions. I shall be ready for you. I feel mighty proud of that +degree; in fact, I could squeeze the truth a little closer and say vain +of it. And why shouldn't I be? --I am the only literary animal of my +particular subspecies who has ever been given a degree by any College in +any age of the world, as far as I know. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. Clemens M. A. + + + Reply: Charles H. Clarke to S. L Clemens: + +MY DEAR FRIEND, You are "the only literary animal of your particular +subspecies" in existence and you've no cause for humility in the fact. +Yale has done herself at least as much credit as she has done you, and +"Don't you forget it." + C. H. C. + + + With the exception of his brief return to the river in 1882. Mark + Twain had been twenty-seven years away from pilots and piloting. + Nevertheless, he always kept a tender place in his heart for the old + times and for old river comrades. Major "Jack" Downing had been a + Mississippi pilot of early days, but had long since retired from the + river to a comfortable life ashore, in an Ohio town. Clemens had + not heard from him for years when a letter came which invited the + following answer. + + + To Major "Jack" Downing, in Middleport Ohio: + + ELMIRA, N. Y.[no month] 1888. +DEAR MAJOR,-- And has it come to this that the dead rise up and speak? +For I supposed that you were dead, it has been so long since I heard your +name. + +And how young you've grown! I was a mere boy when I knew you on the +river, where you had been piloting for 35 years, and now you are only a +year and a half older than I am! I mean to go to Hot Springs myself and +get 30 or 40 years knocked off my age. It's manifestly the place that +Ponce de Leon was striking for, but the poor fellow lost the trail. + +Possibly I may see you, for I shall be in St. Louis a day or two in +November. I propose to go down the river and "note the changes" once +more before I make the long crossing, and perhaps you can come there. +Will you? I want to see all the boys that are left alive. + +And so Grant Marsh, too, is flourishing yet? A mighty good fellow, and +smart too. When we were taking that wood flat down to the Chambers, +which was aground, I soon saw that I was a perfect lubber at piloting +such a thing. I saw that I could never hit the Chambers with it, so I +resigned in Marsh's favor, and he accomplished the task to my admiration. +We should all have gone to the mischief if I had remained in authority. +I always had good judgement, more judgement than talent, in fact. + +No; the nom de plume did not originate in that way. Capt. Sellers used +the signature, "Mark Twain," himself, when he used to write up the +antiquities in the way of river reminiscences for the New Orleans +Picayune. He hated me for burlesquing them in an article in the True +Delta; so four years later when he died, I robbed the corpse--that is I +confiscated the nom de plume. I have published this vital fact 3,000 +times now. But no matter, it is good practice; it is about the only fact +that I can tell the same way every time. Very glad, indeed, to hear from +you Major, and shall be gladder still to see you in November. + + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + He did not make the journey down the river planned for that year. + He had always hoped to make another steamboat trip with Bixby, but + one thing and another interfered and he did not go again. + + Authors were always sending their books to Mark Twain to read, and + no busy man was ever more kindly disposed toward such offerings, + more generously considerate of the senders. Louis Pendleton was a + young unknown writer in 1888, but Clemens took time to read his + story carefully, and to write to him about it a letter that cost + precious time, thought, and effort. It must have rejoiced the young + man's heart to receive a letter like that, from one whom all young + authors held supreme. + + + To Louis Pendleton, in Georgia: + + ELMIRA, N. Y., Aug. 4, '88. +MY DEAR SIR,--I found your letter an hour ago among some others which had +lain forgotten a couple of weeks, and I at once stole time enough to read +Ariadne. Stole is the right word, for the summer "Vacation" is the only +chance I get for work; so, no minute subtracted from work is borrowed, it +is stolen. But this time I do not repent. As a rule, people don't send +me books which I can thank them for, and so I say nothing--which looks +uncourteous. But I thank you. Ariadne is a beautiful and satisfying +story; and true, too--which is the best part of a story; or indeed of any +other thing. Even liars have to admit that, if they are intelligent +liars; I mean in their private [the word conscientious written but +erased] intervals. (I struck that word out because a man's private +thought can never be a lie; what he thinks, is to him the truth, always; +what he speaks--but these be platitudes.) + +If you want me to pick some flaws--very well--but I do it unwillingly. +I notice one thing--which one may notice also in my books, and in all +books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement +or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from +the water which she had drawn from the well, it is evidence--it is almost +proof--that your words were not as clear as they should have been. True, +it is only a trifling thing; but so is mist on a mirror. I would have +hung the pail on Ariadne's arm. You did not deceive me when you said +that she carried it under her arm, for I knew she didn't; still it was +not your right to mar my enjoyment of the graceful picture. If the pail +had been a portfolio, I wouldn't be making these remarks. The engraver +of a fine picture revises, and revises, and revises -and then revises, +and revises, and revises; and then repeats. And always the charm of that +picture grows, under his hand. It was good enough before--told its +story, and was beautiful. True: and a lovely girl is lovely, with +freckles; but she isn't at her level best with them. + +This is not hypercriticism; you have had training enough to know that. + +So much concerning exactness of statement. In that other not-small +matter--selection of the exact single word--you are hard to catch. +Still, I should hold that Mrs. Walker considered that there was no +occasion for concealment; that "motive" implied a deeper mental search +than she expended on the matter; that it doesn't reflect the attitude of +her mind with precision. Is this hypercriticism? I shan't dispute it. +I only say, that if Mrs. Walker didn't go so far as to have a motive, I +had to suggest that when a word is so near the right one that a body +can't quite tell whether it is or isn't, it's good politics to strike it +out and go for the Thesaurus. That's all. Motive may stand; but you +have allowed a snake to scream, and I will not concede that that was the +best word. + +I do not apologize for saying these things, for they are not said in the +speck-hunting spirit, but in the spirit of want-to-help-if-I-can. They +would be useful to me if said to me once a month, they may be useful to +you, said once. + +I save the other stories for my real vacation--which is nine months long, +to my sorrow. I thank you again. + Truly Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In the next letter we get a sidelight on the type-setting machine, + the Frankenstein monster that was draining their substance and + holding out false hopes of relief and golden return. The program + here outlined was one that would continue for several years yet, + with the end always in sight, but never quite attained. + + + To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Ia.: + + Oct. 3, '88. +Private + +Saturday 29th, by a closely calculated estimate, there were 85 days' work +to do on the machine. + +We can use 4 men, but not constantly. If they could work constantly it +would complete the machine in 21 days, of course. They will all be on +hand and under wages, and each will get in all the work there is +opportunity for, but by how much they can reduce the 85 days toward the +21 days, nobody can tell. + +To-day I pay Pratt & Whitney $10,000. This squares back indebtedness and +everything to date. They began about May or April or March 1886--along +there somewhere, and have always kept from a dozen to two dozen master- +hands on the machine. + +That outgo is done; 4 men for a month or two will close up that leak and +caulk it. Work on the patents is also kind of drawing toward a +conclusion. + +Love to you both. All well here. + +And give our love to Ma if she can get the idea. + + SAM. + + + Mark Twain that year was working pretty steadily on 'The Yankee at + King Arthur's Court', a book which he had begun two years before. + He had published nothing since the Huck Finn story, and his company + was badly in need of a new book by an author of distinction. Also + it was highly desirable to earn money for himself; wherefore he set + to work to finish the Yankee story. He had worked pretty steadily + that summer in his Elmira study, but on his return to Hartford found + a good deal of confusion in the house, so went over to Twichell's, + where carpenter work was in progress. He seems to have worked there + successfully, though what improvement of conditions he found in that + numerous, lively household, over those at home it would be difficult + to say. + + + To Theodore W. Crane, at Quarry Farm, Elmira, N. Y. + + Friday, Oct.,5, '88. +DEAR THEO,--I am here in Twichell's house at work, with the noise of the +children and an army of carpenters to help. Of course they don't help, +but neither do they hinder. It's like a boiler-factory for racket, and +in nailing a wooden ceiling onto the room under me the hammering tickles +my feet amazingly sometimes, and jars my table a good deal; but I never +am conscious of the racket at all, and I move my feet into position of +relief without knowing when I do it. I began here Monday morning, and +have done eighty pages since. I was so tired last night that I thought I +would lie abed and rest, to-day; but I couldn't resist. I mean to try to +knock off tomorrow, but it's doubtful if I do. I want to finish the day +the machine finishes, and a week ago the closest calculations for that +indicated Oct. 22--but experience teaches me that their calculations will +miss fire, as usual. + +The other day the children were projecting a purchase, Livy and I to +furnish the money-a dollar and a half. Jean discouraged the idea. She +said: "We haven't got any money. Children, if you would think, you would +remember the machine isn't done. + +It's billiards to-night. I wish you were here. + With love to you both + S. L. C. + +P. S. I got it all wrong. It wasn't the children, it was Marie. She +wanted a box of blacking, for the children's shoes. Jean reproved her- +and said: + +"Why, Marie, you mustn't ask for things now. The machine isn't done. + + S. L. C. + + + The letter that follows is to another of his old pilot friends, one + who was also a schoolmate, Will Bowen, of Hannibal. There is today + no means of knowing the occasion upon which this letter was written, + but it does not matter; it is the letter itself that is of chief + value. + + + To Will Bowen, in Hannibal, Mo.: + + HARTFORD, Nov 4, '88. +DEAR WILL,-- I received your letter yesterday evening, just as I was +starting out of town to attend a wedding, and so my mind was privately +busy, all the evening, in the midst of the maelstrom of chat and chaff +and laughter, with the sort of reflections which create themselves, +examine themselves, and continue themselves, unaffected by surroundings +--unaffected, that is understood, by the surroundings, but not +uninfluenced by them. Here was the near presence of the two supreme +events of life: marriage, which is the beginning of life, and death which +is the end of it. I found myself seeking chances to shirk into corners +where I might think, undisturbed; and the most I got out of my thought, +was this: both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises +happiness, doubtless the other assures it. A long procession of people +filed through my mind--people whom you and I knew so many years ago--so +many centuries ago, it seems like-and these ancient dead marched to the +soft marriage music of a band concealed in some remote room of the house; +and the contented music and the dreaming shades seemed in right accord +with each other, and fitting. Nobody else knew that a procession of the +dead was passing though this noisy swarm of the living, but there it was, +and to me there was nothing uncanny about it; Rio, they were welcome +faces to me. I would have liked to bring up every creature we knew in +those days--even the dumb animals--it would be bathing in the fabled +Fountain of Youth. + +We all feel your deep trouble with you; and we would hope, if we might, +but your words deny us that privilege. To die one's self is a thing that +must be easy, and of light consequence, but to lose a part of one's self +--well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that +disaster, received that wound which cannot heal. + Sincerely your friend + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + His next is of quite a different nature. Evidently the typesetting + conditions had alarmed Orion, and he was undertaking some economies + with a view of retrenchment. Orion was always reducing economy to + science. Once, at an earlier date, he recorded that he had figured + his personal living expenses down to sixty cents a week, but + inasmuch as he was then, by his own confession, unable to earn the + sixty cents, this particular economy was wasted. Orion was a trial, + certainly, and the explosion that follows was not without excuse. + Furthermore, it was not as bad as it sounds. Mark Twain's rages + always had an element of humor in them, a fact which no one more + than Orion himself would appreciate. He preserved this letter, + quietly noting on the envelope, "Letter from Sam, about ma's nurse." + + + Letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: + + NOV. 29, '88. +Jesus Christ!--It is perilous to write such a man. You can go crazy on +less material than anybody that ever lived. What in hell has produced +all these maniacal imaginings? You told me you had hired an attendant +for ma. Now hire one instantly, and stop this nonsense of wearing Mollie +and yourself out trying to do that nursing yourselves. Hire the +attendant, and tell me her cost so that I can instruct Webster & Co. to +add it every month to what they already send. Don't fool away any more +time about this. And don't write me any more damned rot about "storms," +and inability to pay trivial sums of money and--and--hell and damnation! +You see I've read only the first page of your letter; I wouldn't read the +rest for a million dollars. + Yr + SAM. + +P. S. Don't imagine that I have lost my temper, because I swear. I +swear all day, but I do not lose my temper. And don't imagine that I am +on my way to the poorhouse, for I am not; or that I am uneasy, for I am +not; or that I am uncomfortable or unhappy--for I never am. I don't know +what it is to be unhappy or uneasy; and I am not going to try to learn +how, at this late day. + SAM. + + + Few men were ever interviewed oftener than Mark Twain, yet he never + welcomed interviewers and was seldom satisfied with them. "What I + say in an interview loses it character in print," he often remarked, + "all its life and personality. The reporter realizes this himself, + and tries to improve upon me, but he doesn't help matters any." + + Edward W. Bok, before he became editor of the Ladies Home Journal, + was conducting a weekly syndicate column under the title of "Bok's + Literary Leaves." It usually consisted of news and gossip of + writers, comment, etc., literary odds and ends, and occasional + interviews with distinguished authors. He went up to Hartford one + day to interview Mark Twain. The result seemed satisfactory to Bok, + but wishing to be certain that it would be satisfactory to Clemens, + he sent him a copy for approval. The interview was not returned; + in the place of it came a letter-not altogether disappointing, as + the reader may believe. + + + To Edward W. Bok, in New York: + +MY DEAR MR. BOK,--No, no. It is like most interviews, pure twaddle and +valueless. + +For several quite plain and simple reasons, an "interview" must, as a +rule, be an absurdity, and chiefly for this reason--It is an attempt to +use a boat on land or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken +speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is the +proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment +"talk" is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when +you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from +it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your +hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of the voice, the +laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that +body warmth, grace, friendliness and charm and commended it to your +affections--or, at least, to your tolerance--is gone and nothing is left +but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver. + +Such is "talk" almost invariably, as you see it lying in state in an +"interview". The interviewer seldom tries to tell one how a thing was +said; he merely puts in the naked remark and stops there. When one +writes for print his methods are very different. He follows forms which +have but little resemblance to conversation, but they make the reader +understand what the writer is trying to convey. And when the writer is +making a story and finds it necessary to report some of the talk of his +characters observe how cautiously and anxiously he goes at that risky and +difficult thing. "If he had dared to say that thing in my presence," +said Alfred, "taking a mock heroic attitude, and casting an arch glance +upon the company, blood would have flowed." + +"If he had dared to say that thing in my presence," said Hawkwood, with +that in his eye which caused more than one heart in that guilty +assemblage to quake, "blood would have flowed." + +"If he had dared to say that thing in my presence," said the paltry +blusterer, with valor on his tongue and pallor on his lips, "blood would +have flowed." + +So painfully aware is the novelist that naked talk in print conveys no +meaning that he loads, and often overloads, almost every utterance of his +characters with explanations and interpretations. It is a loud +confession that print is a poor vehicle for "talk"; it is a recognition +that uninterpreted talk in print would result in confusion to the reader, +not instruction. + +Now, in your interview, you have certainly been most accurate; you have +set down the sentences I uttered as I said them. But you have not a word +of explanation; what my manner was at several points is not indicated. +Therefore, no reader can possibly know where I was in earnest and where I +was joking; or whether I was joking altogether or in earnest altogether. +Such a report of a conversation has no value. It can convey many +meanings to the reader, but never the right one. To add interpretations +which would convey the right meaning is a something which would require +--what? An art so high and fine and difficult that no possessor of it +would ever be allowed to waste it on interviews. + +No; spare the reader, and spare me; leave the whole interview out; it is +rubbish. I wouldn't talk in my sleep if I couldn't talk better than +that. + +If you wish to print anything print this letter; it may have some value, +for it may explain to a reader here and there why it is that in +interviews, as a rule, men seem to talk like anybody but themselves. + Very sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN. + + + + +XXIX + +LETTERS, 1889. THE MACHINE. DEATH OF MR. CRANE. +CONCLUSION OF THE YANKEE + +In January, 1889, Clemens believed, after his long seven years of +waiting, fruition had come in the matter of the type machine. Paige, the +inventor, seemed at last to have given it its finishing touches. The +mechanical marvel that had cost so much time, mental stress, and a +fortune in money, stood complete, responsive to the human will and touch +--the latest, and one of the greatest, wonders of the world. To George +Standring, a London printer and publisher, Clemens wrote: "The machine is +finished!" and added, "This is by far the most marvelous invention ever +contrived by man. And it is not a thing of rags and patches; it is made +of massive steel, and will last a century. + +In his fever of enthusiasm on that day when he had actually seen it in +operation, he wrote a number of exuberant letters. They were more or +less duplicates, but as the one to his brother is of fuller detail and +more intimate than the others, it has been selected for preservation +here. + + To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk: + + HARTFORD, Jan. 5, '89. +DEAR ORION,--At 12.20 this afternoon a line of movable types was spaced +and justified by machinery, for the first time in the history of the +world! And I was there to see. It was done automatically--instantly-- +perfectly. This is indeed the first line of movable types that ever was +perfectly spaced and perfectly justified on this earth. + +This was the last function that remained to be tested--and so by long +odds the most amazing and extraordinary invention ever born of the brain +of man stands completed and perfect. Livy is down stairs celebrating. + +But it's a cunning devil, is that machine!--and knows more than any man +that ever lived. You shall see. We made the test in this way. We set +up a lot of random letters in a stick--three-fourths of a line; then +filled out the line with quads representing 14 spaces, each space to be +35/1000 of an inch thick. Then we threw aside the quads and put the +letters into the machine and formed them into 15 two-letter words, +leaving the words separated by two-inch vacancies. Then we started up +the machine slowly, by hand, and fastened our eyes on the space-selecting +pins. The first pin-block projected its third pin as the first word came +traveling along the race-way; second block did the same; but the third +block projected its second pin! + +"Oh, hell! stop the machine--something wrong--it's going to set a +30/1000 space!" + +General consternation. "A foreign substance has got into the spacing +plates." This from the head mathematician. + +"Yes, that is the trouble," assented the foreman. + +Paige examined. "No--look in, and you can see that there's nothing of +the kind." Further examination. "Now I know what it is--what it must +be: one of those plates projects and binds. It's too bad--the first +testis a failure." A pause. "Well, boys, no use to cry. Get to work-- +take the machine down.--No--Hold on! don't touch a thing! Go right +ahead! We are fools, the machine isn't. The machine knows what it's +about. There is a speck of dirt on one of those types, and the machine +is putting in a thinner space to allow for it!" + +That was just it. The machine went right ahead, spaced the line, +justified it to a hair, and shoved it into the galley complete and +perfect! We took it out and examined it with a glass. You could not +tell by your eye that the third space was thinner than the others, but +the glass and the calipers showed the difference. Paige had always said +that the machine would measure invisible particles of dirt and allow for +them, but even he had forgotten that vast fact for the moment. + +All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical birth-- +the first justification of a line of movable type by machinery--and also +set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had drank anything, and yet +everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, stupefied, stunned. + +All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly +into commonplace contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. +Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton gins, sewing machines, +Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwrigbt's +frames--all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone +and far in the lead of human inventions. + +In two or three weeks we shall work the stiffness out of her joints and +have her performing as smoothly and softly as human muscles, and then we +shall speak out the big secret and let the world come and gaze. + +Return me this letter when you have read it. + + SAM. + + + Judge of the elation which such a letter would produce in Keokuk! + Yet it was no greater than that which existed in Hartford--for a + time. + + Then further delays. Before the machine got "the stiffness out of + her joints" that "cunning devil" manifested a tendency to break the + types, and Paige, who was never happier than when he was pulling + things to pieces and making improvements, had the type-setter apart + again and the day of complete triumph was postponed. + + There was sadness at the Elmira farm that spring. Theodore Crane, + who had long been in poor health, seemed to grow daily worse. In + February he had paid a visit to Hartford and saw the machine in + operation, but by the end of May his condition was very serious. + Remembering his keen sense of humor, Clemens reported to him + cheering and amusing incidents. + + + To Mrs. Theodore Crane. in Elmira, N. Y.: + + HARTFORD, May 28, '89. +Susie dear, I want you to tell this to Theodore. You know how absent- +minded Twichell is, and how desolate his face is when he is in that +frame. At such times, he passes the word with a friend on the street and +is not aware of the meeting at all. Twice in a week, our Clara had this +latter experience with him within the past month. But the second +instance was too much for her, and she woke him up, in his tracks, with a +reproach. She said: + +"Uncle Joe, why do you always look as if you were just going down into +the grave, when you meet a person on the street?"--and then went on to +reveal to him the funereal spectacle which he presented on such +occasions. Well, she has met Twichell three times since then, and would +swim the Connecticut to avoid meeting him the fourth. As soon as he +sights her, no matter how public the place nor how far off she is, he +makes a bound into the air, heaves arms and legs into all sorts of +frantic gestures of delight, and so comes prancing, skipping and +pirouetting for her like a drunken Indian entering heaven. + +With a full invoice of love from us all to you and Theodore. + + S. L. C. + + + The reference in the next to the "closing sentence" in a letter + written by Howells to Clemens about this time, refers to a heart- + broken utterance of the former concerning his daughter Winnie, who + had died some time before. She had been a gentle talented girl, but + never of robust health. Her death had followed a long period of + gradual decline. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Judy 13, '89. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I came on from Elmira a day or two ago, where I left a +house of mourning. Mr. Crane died, after ten months of pain and two +whole days of dying, at the farm on the hill, the 3rd inst: A man who had +always hoped for a swift death. Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Clemens and the +children were in a gloom which brought back to me the days of nineteen +years ago, when Mr. Langdon died. It is heart-breaking to see Mrs. +Crane. Many a time, in the past ten days, the sight of her has reminded +me, with a pang, of the desolation which uttered itself in the closing +sentence of your last letter to me. I do see that there is an argument +against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind; the awful +famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release. + +I shall be here ten days yet, and all alone: nobody in the house but the +servants. Can't Mrs. Howells spare you to me? Can't you come and stay +with me? The house is cool and pleasant; your work will not be +interrupted; we will keep to ourselves and let the rest of the world do +the same; you can have your choice of three bedrooms, and you will find +the Children's schoolroom (which was built for my study,) the perfection +of a retired and silent den for work. There isn't a fly or a mosquito on +the estate. Come--say you will. + +With kindest regards to Mrs. Howells, and Pilla and John, + Yours Ever + MARK. + + +Howells was more hopeful. He wrote: "I read something in a strange book, +The Physical Theory of Another Life, that consoles a little; namely, we +see and feel the power of Deity in such fullness that we ought to infer +the infinite justice and Goodness which we do not see or feel." And a +few days later, he wrote: "I would rather see and talk with you than any +other man in the world outside my own blood." + +A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was brought to an end that +year and given to the artist and printer. Dan Beard was selected for the +drawings, and was given a free hand, as the next letter shows. + + + To Fred J. Hall, Manager Charles L. Webster & Co.: + +[Charles L. Webster, owing to poor health, had by this time retired +from the firm.] + + ELMIRA, July 20, '89. +DEAR MR. HALL,-- Upon reflection--thus: tell Beard to obey his own +inspiration, and when he sees a picture in his mind put that picture on +paper, be it humorous or be it serious. I want his genius to be wholly +unhampered, I shan't have fears as to the result. They will be better +pictures than if I mixed in and tried to give him points on his own +trade. + +Send this note and he'll understand. + Yr + S. L. C. + + + Clemens had made a good choice in selecting Beard for the + illustrations. He was well qualified for the work, and being of a + socialistic turn of mind put his whole soul into it. When the + drawings were completed, Clemens wrote: "Hold me under permanent + obligations. What luck it was to find you! There are hundreds of + artists that could illustrate any other book of mine, but there was + only one who could illustrate this one. Yes, it was a fortunate + hour that I went netting for lightning bugs and caught a meteor. + Live forever!" + + Clemens, of course, was anxious for Howells to read The Yankee, and + Mrs. Clemens particularly so. Her eyes were giving her trouble that + summer, so that she could not read the MS. for herself, and she had + grave doubts as to some of its chapters. It may be said here that + the book to-day might have been better if Mrs. Clemens had been able + to read it. Howells was a peerless critic, but the revolutionary + subject-matter of the book so delighted him that he was perhaps + somewhat blinded to its literary defects. However, this is + premature. Howells did not at once see the story. He had promised + to come to Hartford, but wrote that trivial matters had made his + visit impossible. From the next letter we get the situation at this + time. The "Mr. Church" mentioned was Frederick S. Church, the well- + known artist. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, July 24, '89. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I, too, was as sorry as I could be; yes, and desperately +disappointed. I even did a heroic thing: shipped my book off to New York +lest I should forget hospitality and embitter your visit with it. Not +that I think you wouldn't like to read it, for I think you would; but not +on a holiday that's not the time. I see how you were situated--another +familiarity of Providence and wholly wanton intrusion--and of course we +could not help ourselves. Well, just think of it: a while ago, while +Providence's attention was absorbed in disordering some time-tables so as +to break up a trip of mine to Mr. Church's on the Hudson, that Johnstown +dam got loose. I swear I was afraid to pray, for fear I should laugh. +Well, I'm not going to despair; we'll manage a meet yet. + +I expect to go to Hartford again in August and maybe remain till I have +to come back here and fetch the family. And, along there in August, some +time, you let on that you are going to Mexico, and I will let on that I +am going to Spitzbergen, and then under cover of this clever stratagem we +will glide from the trains at Worcester and have a time. I have noticed +that Providence is indifferent about Mexico and Spitzbergen. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + Possibly Mark Twain was not particularly anxious that Howells should + see his MS., fearing that he might lay a ruthless hand on some of + his more violent fulminations and wild fancies. However this may + be, further postponement was soon at an end. Mrs. Clemens's eyes + troubled her and would not permit her to read, so she requested that + the Yankee be passed upon by soberminded critics, such as Howells + and Edmund Clarence Stedman. Howells wrote that even if he hadn't + wanted to read the book for its own sake, or for the author's sake, + he would still want to do it for Mrs. Clemens's. Whereupon the + proofs were started in his direction. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + ELMIRA, Aug. 24, '89. +DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should be moved to speak of my book in the Study, +I shall be glad and proud--and the sooner it gets in, the better for the +book; though I don't suppose you can get it in earlier than the November +number--why, no, you can't get it in till a month later than that. Well, +anyway I don't think I'll send out any other press copy--except perhaps +to Stedman. I'm not writing for those parties who miscall themselves +critics, and I don't care to have them paw the book at all. It's my +swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently, and I wish to pass +to the cemetery unclodded. + +I judge that the proofs have begun to reach you about this time, as I had +some (though not revises,) this morning. I'm sure I'm going to be +charmed with Beard's pictures. Observe his nice take-off of Middle-Age +art-dinner-table scene. + Ys sincerely + MARK. + + + Howells's approval of the Yankee came almost in the form of exultant + shouts, one after reading each batch of proof. First he wrote: + "It's charming, original, wonderful! good in fancy and sound to the + core in morals." And again, "It's a mighty great book, and it makes + my heart burn with wrath. It seems God did not forget to put a soul + into you. He shuts most literary men off with a brain, merely." + Then, a few days later: "The book is glorious--simply noble; what + masses of virgin truth never touched in print before!" and, finally, + "Last night I read your last chapter. As Stedman says of the whole + book, it's titanic." + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Sept. 22, '89. +DEAR HOWELLS,--It is immensely good of you to grind through that stuff +for me; but it gives peace to Mrs. Clemens's soul; and I am as grateful +to you as a body can be. I am glad you approve of what I say about the +French Revolution. Few people will. It is odd that even to this day +Americans still observe that immortal benefaction through English and +other monarchical eyes, and have no shred of an opinion about it that +they didn't get at second-hand. + +Next to the 4th of July and its results, it was the noblest and the +holiest thing and the most precious that ever happened in this earth. +And its gracious work is not done yet--not anywhere in the remote +neighborhood of it. + +Don't trouble to send me all the proofs; send me the pages with your +corrections on them, and waste-basket the rest. We issue the book +Dec. 10; consequently a notice that appears Dec. 20 will be just in good +time. + +I am waiting to see your Study set a fashion in criticism. When that +happens--as please God it must--consider that if you lived three +centuries you couldn't do a more valuable work for this country, or a +humaner. + +As a rule a critic's dissent merely enrages, and so does no good; but by +the new art which you use, your dissent must be as welcome as your +approval, and as valuable. I do not know what the secret of it is, +unless it is your attitude--man courteously reasoning with man and +brother, in place of the worn and wearisome critical attitude of all this +long time--superior being lecturing a boy. + +Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over +again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and +they keep multiplying and multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. +And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + The type-setting machine began to loom large in the background. + Clemens believed it perfected by this time. Paige had got it + together again and it was running steadily--or approximately so + --setting type at a marvelous speed and with perfect accuracy. In + time an expert operator would be able to set as high as eight + thousand ems per hour, or about ten times as much as a good + compositor could set and distribute by hand. Those who saw it were + convinced--most of them--that the type-setting problem was solved by + this great mechanical miracle. If there were any who doubted, it + was because of its marvelously minute accuracy which the others only + admired. Such accuracy, it was sometimes whispered, required + absolutely perfect adjustment, and what would happen when the great + inventor--"the poet in steel," as Clemens once called him--was no + longer at hand to supervise and to correct the slightest variation. + But no such breath of doubt came to Mark Twain; he believed the + machine as reliable as a constellation. + + But now there was need of capital to manufacture and market the + wonder. Clemens, casting about in his mind, remembered Senator + Jones, of Nevada, a man of great wealth, and his old friend, Joe + Goodman, of Nevada, in whom Jones had unlimited confidence. He + wrote to Goodman, and in this letter we get a pretty full exposition + of the whole matter as it stood in the fall of 1889. We note in + this communication that Clemens says that he has been at the machine + three years and seven months, but this was only the period during + which he had spent the regular monthly sum of three thousand + dollars. His interest in the invention had begun as far back as + 1880. + + + To Joseph T. Goodman, in Nevada: + + Private. HARTFORD, Oct. 7, '89. +DEAR JOE,-I had a letter from Aleck Badlam day before yesterday, and in +answering him I mentioned a matter which I asked him to consider a secret +except to you and John McComb,--[This is Col. McComb, of the Alta- +California, who had sent Mark Twain on the Quaker City excursion]--as I +am not ready yet to get into the newspapers. + +I have come near writing you about this matter several times, but it +wasn't ripe, and I waited. It is ripe, now. It is a type-setting +machine which I undertook to build for the inventor(for a consideration). +I have been at it three years and seven months without losing a day, at a +cost of $3,000 a month, and in so private a way that Hartford has known +nothing about it. Indeed only a dozen men have known of the matter. +I have reported progress from time to time to the proprietors of the +N. Y. Sun, Herald, Times, World, Harper Brothers and John F. Trow; also +to the proprietors of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. Three +years ago I asked all these people to squelch their frantic desire to +load up their offices with the Mergenthaler (N. Y. Tribune) machine, and +wait for mine and then choose between the two. They have waited--with no +very gaudy patience--but still they have waited; and I could prove to +them to-day that they have not lost anything by it. But I reserve the +proof for the present--except in the case of the N. Y. Herald; I sent an +invitation there the other day--a courtesy due a paper which ordered +$240,000 worth of our machines long ago when it was still in a crude +condition. The Herald has ordered its foreman to come up here next +Thursday; but that is the only invitation which will go out for some time +yet. + +The machine was finished several weeks ago, and has been running ever +since in the machine shop. It is a magnificent creature of steel, all of +Pratt & Whitney's super-best workmanship, and as nicely adjusted and as +accurate as a watch. In construction it is as elaborate and complex as +that machine which it ranks next to, by every right--Man--and in +performance it is as simple and sure. + +Anybody can set type on it who can read--and can do it after only 15 +minutes' instruction. The operator does not need to leave his seat at +the keyboard; for the reason that he is not required to do anything but +strike the keys and set type--merely one function; the spacing, +justifying, emptying into the galley, and distributing of dead matter is +all done by the machine without anybody's help--four functions. + +The ease with which a cub can learn is surprising. Day before yesterday +I saw our newest cub set, perfectly space and perfectly justify 2,150 ems +of solid nonpareil in an hour and distribute the like amount in the same +hour--and six hours previously he had never seen the machine or its +keyboard. It was a good hour's work for 3-year veterans on the other +type-setting machines to do. We have 3 cubs. The dean of the trio is a +school youth of 18. Yesterday morning he had been an apprentice on the +machine 16 working days (8-hour days); and we speeded him to see what he +could do in an hour. In the hour he set 5,900 ems solid nonpareil, and +the machine perfectly spaced and justified it, and of course distributed +the like amount in the same hour. Considering that a good fair +compositor sets 700 and distributes 700 in the one hour, this boy did the +work of about 8 x a compositors in that hour. This fact sends all other +type-setting machines a thousand miles to the rear, and the best of them +will never be heard of again after we publicly exhibit in New York. + +We shall put on 3 more cubs. We have one school boy and two compositors, +now,--and we think of putting on a type writer, a stenographer, and +perhaps a shoemaker, to show that no special gifts or training are +required with this machine. We shall train these beginners two or three +months--or until some one of them gets up to 7,000 an hour--then we will +show up in New York and run the machine 24 hours a day 7 days in the +week, for several months--to prove that this is a machine which will +never get out of order or cause delay, and can stand anything an anvil +can stand. You know there is no other typesetting machine that can run +two hours on a stretch without causing trouble and delay with its +incurable caprices. + +We own the whole field--every inch of it--and nothing can dislodge us. + +Now then, above is my preachment, and here follows the reason and purpose +of it. I want you to run over here, roost over the machine a week and +satisfy yourself, and then go to John P. Jones or to whom you please, and +sell me a hundred thousand dollars' worth of this property and take ten +per cent in cash or the "property" for your trouble--the latter, if you +are wise, because the price I ask is a long way short of the value. + +What I call "property" is this. A small part of my ownership consists of +a royalty of $500 on every machine marketed under the American patents. +My selling-terms are, a permanent royalty of one dollar on every +American-marketed machine for a thousand dollars cash to me in hand paid. +We shan't market any fewer than 5,000 machines in 15 years--a return of +fifteen thousand dollars for one thousand. A royalty is better than +stock, in one way--it must be paid, every six months, rain or shine; it +is a debt, and must be paid before dividends are declared. By and by, +when we become a stock company I shall buy these royalties back for stock +if I can get them for anything like reasonable terms. + +I have never borrowed a penny to use on the machine, and never sold a +penny's worth of the property until the machine was entirely finished and +proven by the severest tests to be what she started out to be--perfect, +permanent, and occupying the position, as regards all kindred machines, +which the City of Paris occupies as regards the canvas-backs of the +mercantile marine. + +It is my purpose to sell two hundred dollars of my royalties at the above +price during the next two months and keep the other $300. + +Mrs. Clemens begs Mrs. Goodman to come with you, and asks pardon for not +writing the message herself--which would be a pathetically-welcome +spectacle to me; for I have been her amanuensis for 8 months, now, since +her eyes failed her. Yours as always + MARK. + + + While this letter with its amazing contents is on its way to + astonish Joe Goodman, we will consider one of quite a different, + but equally characteristic sort. We may assume that Mark Twain's + sister Pamela had been visiting him in Hartford and was now making + a visit in Keokuk. + + + To Mrs. Moffett, in Keokuk: + + HARTFORD, Oct 9, '89. +DEAR PAMELA,--An hour after you left I was suddenly struck with a +realizing sense of the utter chuckle-headedness of that notion of mine: +to send your trunk after you. Land! it was idiotic. None but a lunatic +would, separate himself from his baggage. + +Well, I am soulfully glad the baggage fetcher saved me from consummating +my insane inspiration. I met him on the street in the afternoon and paid +him again. I shall pay him several times more, as opportunity offers. + +I declined the invitation to banquet with the visiting South American +Congress, in a polite note explaining that I had to go to New York today. +I conveyed the note privately to Patrick; he got the envelope soiled, +and asked Livy to put on a clean one. That is why I am going to the +banquet; also why I have disinvited the boys I thought I was going to +punch billiards with, upstairs to-night. + +Patrick is one of the injudiciousest people I ever struck. And I am the +other. + Your Brother + SAM. + + + The Yankee was now ready for publication, and advance sheets were + already in the reviewers' hands. Just at this moment the Brazilian + monarchy crumbled, and Clemens was moved to write Sylvester Baxter, + of the Boston Herald, a letter which is of special interest in its + prophecy of the new day, the dawn of which was even nearer than he + suspected. + + +DEAR MR. BAXTER, Another throne has gone down, and I swim in oceans of +satisfaction. I wish I might live fifty years longer; I believe I should +see the thrones of Europe selling at auction for old iron. I believe I +should really see the end of what is surely the grotesquest of all the +swindles ever invented by man-monarchy. It is enough to make a graven +image laugh, to see apparently rational people, away down here in this +wholesome and merciless slaughter-day for shams, still mouthing empty +reverence for those moss-backed frauds and scoundrelisms, hereditary +kingship and so-called "nobility." It is enough to make the monarchs and +nobles themselves laugh--and in private they do; there can be no question +about that. I think there is only one funnier thing, and that is the +spectacle of these bastard Americans--these Hamersleys and Huntingtons +and such--offering cash, encumbered by themselves, for rotten carcases +and stolen titles. When our great brethren the disenslaved Brazilians +frame their Declaration of Independence, I hope they will insert this +missing link: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all monarchs +are usurpers, and descendants of usurpers; for the reason that no throne +was ever set up in this world by the will, freely exercised, of the only +body possessing the legitimate right to set it up--the numerical mass of +the nation." + +You already have the advance sheets of my forthcoming book in your hands. +If you will turn to about the five hundredth page, you will find a state +paper of my Connecticut Yankee in which he announces the dissolution of +King Arthur's monarchy and proclaims the English Republic. Compare it +with the state paper which announces the downfall of the Brazilian +monarchy and proclaims the Republic of the United States of Brazil, and +stand by to defend the Yankee from plagiarism. There is merely a +resemblance of ideas, nothing more. The Yankee's proclamation was +already in print a week ago. This is merely one of those odd +coincidences which are always turning up. Come, protect the Yank from +that cheapest and easiest of all charges--plagiarism. Otherwise, you +see, he will have to protect himself by charging approximate and +indefinite plagiarism upon the official servants of our majestic twin +down yonder, and then there might be war, or some similar annoyance. + +Have you noticed the rumor that the Portuguese throne is unsteady, and +that the Portuguese slaves are getting restive? Also, that the head +slave-driver of Europe, Alexander III, has so reduced his usual monthly +order for chains that the Russian foundries are running on only half time +now? Also that other rumor that English nobility acquired an added +stench the other day--and had to ship it to India and the continent +because there wasn't any more room for it at home? Things are working. +By and by there is going to be an emigration, may be. Of course we shall +make no preparation; we never do. In a few years from now we shall have +nothing but played-out kings and dukes on the police, and driving the +horse-cars, and whitewashing fences, and in fact overcrowding all the +avenues of unskilled labor; and then we shall wish, when it is too late, +that we had taken common and reasonable precautions and drowned them at +Castle Garden. + + + There followed at this time a number of letters to Goodman, but as + there is much of a sameness in them, we need not print them all. + Clemens, in fact, kept the mails warm with letters bulging with + schemes for capitalization, and promising vast wealth to all + concerned. When the letters did not go fast enough he sent + telegrams. In one of the letters Goodman is promised "five hundred + thousand dollars out of the profits before we get anything + ourselves." One thing we gather from these letters is that Paige + has taken the machine apart again, never satisfied with its + perfection, or perhaps getting a hint that certain of its + perfections were not permanent. A letter at the end of November + seems worth preserving here. + + + To Joseph T. Goodman, in California: + + HARTFORD, Nov. 29, '89. +DEAR JOE, Things are getting into better and more flexible shape every +day. Papers are now being drawn which will greatly simplify the raising +of capital; I shall be in supreme command; it will not be necessary for +the capitalist to arrive at terms with anybody but me. I don't want to +dicker with anybody but Jones. I know him; that is to say, I want to +dicker with you, and through you with Jones. Try to see if you can't be +here by the 15th of January. + +The machine was as perfect as a watch when we took her apart the other +day; but when she goes together again the 15th of January we expect her +to be perfecter than a watch. + +Joe, I want you to sell some royalties to the boys out there, if you can, +for I want to be financially strong when we go to New York. You know the +machine, and you appreciate its future enormous career better than any +man I know. At the lowest conceivable estimate (2,000 machines a year,) +we shall sell 34,000 in the life of the patent--17 years. + +All the family send love to you--and they mean it, or they wouldn't say +it. + Yours ever + MARK. + + + The Yankee had come from the press, and Howells had praised it in + the "Editor's Study" in Harper's Magazine. He had given it his + highest commendation, and it seems that his opinion of it did not + change with time. "Of all fanciful schemes of fiction it pleases me + most," he in one place declared, and again referred to it as + "a greatly imagined and symmetrically developed tale." + + In more than one letter to Goodman, Clemens had urged him to come + East without delay. "Take the train, Joe, and come along," he wrote + early in December. And we judge from the following that Joe had + decided to come. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Dec. 23, '89. +DEAR HOWELLS,--The magazine came last night, and the Study notice is just +great. The satisfaction it affords us could not be more prodigious if +the book deserved every word of it; and maybe it does; I hope it does, +though of course I can't realize it and believe it. But I am your +grateful servant, anyway and always. + +I am going to read to the Cadets at West Point Jan. 11. I go from here +to New York the 9th, and up to the Point the 11th. Can't you go with me? +It's great fun. I'm going to read the passages in the "Yankee" in which +the Yankee's West Point cadets figure--and shall covertly work in a +lecture on aristocracy to those boys. I am to be the guest of the +Superintendent, but if you will go I will shake him and we will go to the +hotel. He is a splendid fellow, and I know him well enough to take that +liberty. + +And won't you give me a day or two's visit toward the end of January? +For two reasons: the machine will be at work again by that time, and we +want to hear the rest of the dream-story; Mrs. Clemens keeps speaking +about it and hankering for it. And we can have Joe Goodman on hand again +by that time, and I want you to get to know him thoroughly. It's well +worth it. I am going to run up and stay over night with you as soon as I +can get a chance. + +We are in the full rush of the holidays now, and an awful rush it is, +too. You ought to have been here the other day, to make that day perfect +and complete. All alone I managed to inflict agonies on Mrs: Clemens, +whereas I was expecting nothing but praises. I made a party call the day +after the party--and called the lady down from breakfast to receive it. +I then left there and called on a new bride, who received me in her +dressing-gown; and as things went pretty well, I stayed to luncheon. +The error here was, that the appointed reception-hour was 3 in the +afternoon, and not at the bride's house but at her aunt's in another part +of the town. However, as I meant well, none of these disasters +distressed me. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + The Yankee did not find a very hearty welcome in England. English + readers did not fancy any burlesque of their Arthurian tales, or + American strictures on their institutions. Mark Twain's publishers + had feared this, and asked that the story be especially edited for + the English edition. Clemens, however, would not listen to any + suggestions of the sort. + + + To Messrs. Chatto & Windus, in London, Eng.: + +GENTLEMEN,--Concerning The Yankee, I have already revised the story +twice; and it has been read critically by W. D. Howells and Edmund +Clarence Stedman, and my wife has caused me to strike out several +passages that have been brought to her attention, and to soften others. +Furthermore, I have read chapters of the book in public where Englishmen +were present and have profited by their suggestions. + +Now, mind you, I have taken all this pains because I wanted to say a +Yankee mechanic's say against monarchy and its several natural props, +and yet make a book which you would be willing to print exactly as it +comes to you, without altering a word. + +We are spoken of (by Englishmen) as a thin-skinned people. It is you who +are thin-skinned. An Englishman may write with the most brutal frankness +about any man or institution among us and we republish him without +dreaming of altering a line or a word. But England cannot stand that +kind of a book written about herself. It is England that is thin- +skinned. It causeth me to smile when I read the modifications of my +language which have been made in my English editions to fit them for the +sensitive English palate. + +Now, as I say, I have taken laborious pains to so trim this book of +offense that you might not lack the nerve to print it just as it stands. +I am going to get the proofs to you just as early as I can. I want you +to read it carefully. If you can publish it without altering a single +word, go ahead. Otherwise, please hand it to J. R. Osgood in time for +him to have it published at my expense. + +This is important, for the reason that the book was not written for +America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done their +sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that it seems to +me high time that some of us should substantially recognize the good +intent by trying to pry up the English nation to a little higher level of +manhood in turn. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +The English nation, at least a considerable portion of it, did not wish +to be "pried up to a higher level of manhood" by a Connecticut Yankee. +The papers pretty generally denounced the book as coarse; in fact, a +vulgar travesty. Some of the critics concluded that England, after all, +had made a mistake in admiring Mark Twain. Clemens stood this for a time +and then seems to have decided that something should be done. One of the +foremost of English critics was his friend and admirer; he would state +the case to him fully and invite his assistance. + + + To Andrew Lang, in London: + +[First page missing.] + + 1889 +They vote but do not print. The head tells you pretty promptly whether +the food is satisfactory or not; and everybody hears, and thinks the +whole man has spoken. It is a delusion. Only his taste and his smell +have been heard from--important, both, in a way, but these do not build +up the man; and preserve his life and fortify it. + +The little child is permitted to label its drawings "This is a cow this +is a horse," and so on. This protects the child. It saves it from the +sorrow and wrong of hearing its cows and its horses criticized as +kangaroos and work benches. A man who is white-washing a fence is doing +a useful thing, so also is the man who is adorning a rich man's house +with costly frescoes; and all of us are sane enough to judge these +performances by standards proper to each. Now, then, to be fair, an +author ought to be allowed to put upon his book an explanatory line: +"This is written for the Head; "This is written for the Belly and the +Members." And the critic ought to hold himself in honor bound to put +away from him his ancient habit of judging all books by one standard, and +thenceforth follow a fairer course. + +The critic assumes, every time, that if a book doesn't meet the +cultivated-class standard, it isn't valuable. Let us apply his law all +around: for if it is sound in the case of novels, narratives, pictures, +and such things, it is certainly sound and applicable to all the steps +which lead up to culture and make culture possible. It condemns the +spelling book, for a spelling book is of no use to a person of culture; +it condemns all school books and all schools which lie between the +child's primer and Greek, and between the infant school and the +university; it condemns all the rounds of art which lie between the cheap +terra cotta groups and the Venus de Medici, and between the chromo and +the Transfiguration; it requires Whitcomb Riley to sing no more till he +can sing like Shakespeare, and it forbids all amateur music and will +grant its sanction to nothing below the "classic." + +Is this an extravagant statement? No, it is a mere statement of fact. +It is the fact itself that is extravagant and grotesque. And what is the +result? This--and it is sufficiently curious: the critic has actually +imposed upon the world the superstition that a painting by Raphael is +more valuable to the civilizations of the earth than is a chromo; and the +august opera than the hurdy-gurdy and the villagers' singing society; and +Homer than the little everybody's-poet whose rhymes are in all mouths +today and will be in nobody's mouth next generation; and the Latin +classics than Kipling's far-reaching bugle-note; and Jonathan Edwards +than the Salvation Army; and the Venus de Medici than the plaster-cast +peddler; the superstition, in a word, that the vast and awful comet that +trails its cold lustre through the remote abysses of space once a century +and interests and instructs a cultivated handful of astronomers is worth +more to the world than the sun which warms and cheers all the nations +every day and makes the crops to grow. + +If a critic should start a religion it would not have any object but to +convert angels: and they wouldn't need it. The thin top crust of +humanity--the cultivated--are worth pacifying, worth pleasing, worth +coddling, worth nourishing and preserving with dainties and delicacies, +it is true; but to be caterer to that little faction is no very dignified +or valuable occupation, it seems to me; it is merely feeding the over- +fed, and there must be small satisfaction in that. It is not that little +minority who are already saved that are best worth trying to uplift, +I should think, but the mighty mass of the uncultivated who are +underneath. That mass will never see the Old Masters--that sight is for +the few; but the chromo maker can lift them all one step upward toward +appreciation of art; they cannot have the opera, but the hurdy-gurdy and +the singing class lift them a little way toward that far light; they will +never know Homer, but the passing rhymester of their day leaves them +higher than he found them; they may never even hear of the Latin +classics, but they will strike step with Kipling's drum-beat, and they +will march; for all Jonathan Edwards's help they would die in their +slums, but the Salvation Army will beguile some of them up to pure air +and a cleaner life; they know no sculpture, the Venus is not even a name +to them, but they are a grade higher in the scale of civilization by the +ministrations of the plaster-cast than they were before it took its place +upon then mantel and made it beautiful to their unexacting eyes. + +Indeed I have been misjudged, from the very first. I have never tried in +even one single instance, to help cultivate the cultivated classes. +I was not equipped for it, either by native gifts or training. And I +never had any ambition in that direction, but always hunted for bigger +game--the masses. I have seldom deliberately tried to instruct them, +but have done my best to entertain them. To simply amuse them would have +satisfied my dearest ambition at any time; for they could get instruction +elsewhere, and I had two chances to help to the teacher's one: for +amusement is a good preparation for study and a good healer of fatigue +after it. My audience is dumb, it has no voice in print, and so I cannot +know whether I have won its approbation or only got its censure. + +Yes, you see, I have always catered for the Belly and the Members, but +have been served like the others--criticized from the culture-standard +--to my sorrow and pain; because, honestly, I never cared what became of +the cultured classes; they could go to the theatre and the opera--they +had no use for me and the melodeon. + +And now at last I arrive at my object and tender my petition, making +supplication to this effect: that the critics adopt a rule recognizing +the Belly and the Members, and formulate a standard whereby work done for +them shall be judged. Help me, Mr. Lang; no voice can reach further than +yours in a case of this kind, or carry greater weight of authority. + + + Lang's reply was an article in the Illustrated London News on "The + Art of Mark Twain." Lang had no admiration to express for the + Yankee, which he confessed he had not cared to read, but he + glorified Huck Finn to the highest. "I can never forget, nor be + ungrateful for the exquisite pleasure with which I read Huckleberry + Finn for the first time, years ago," he wrote; "I read it again last + night, deserting Kenilworth for Huck. I never laid it down till I + had finished it." + + Lang closed his article by referring to the story of Huck as the + "great American novel which had escaped the eyes of those who + watched to see this new planet swim into their ken." + + + + + +LETTERS, 1890, CHIEFLY TO JOS. T. GOODMAN. THE GREAT MACHINE ENTERPRISE + + Dr. John Brown's son, whom Mark Twain and his wife had known in 1873 + as "Jock," sent copies of Dr. John Brown and His Sister Isabella, by + E. T. McLaren. It was a gift appreciated in the Clemens home. + + + To Mr. John Brown, in Edinburgh, Scotland: + + HARTFORD, Feby 11, 1890. +DEAR MR. BROWN,--Both copies came, and we are reading and re-reading the +one, and lending the other, to old time adorers of "Rab and his Friends." +It is an exquisite book; the perfection of literary workmanship. It says +in every line, "Don't look at me, look at him"--and one tries to be good +and obey; but the charm of the painter is so strong that one can't keep +his entire attention on the developing portrait, but must steal side- +glimpses of the artist, and try to divine the trick of her felicitous +brush. In this book the doctor lives and moves just as he was. He was +the most extensive slave-holder of his time, and the kindest; and yet he +died without setting one of his bondmen free. We all send our very, very +kindest regards. + Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + If Mark Twain had been less interested in the type-setting machine + he might possibly have found a profit that winter in the old Sellers + play, which he had written with Howells seven years before. The + play had eventually been produced at the Lyceum Theatre in New York, + with A. P. Burbank in the leading role, and Clemens and Howells as + financial backers. But it was a losing investment, nor did it pay + any better when Clemens finally sent Burbank with it on the road. + Now, however, James A. Herne, a well-known actor and playwright, + became interested in the idea, after a discussion of the matter with + Howells, and there seemed a probability that with changes made under + Herne's advisement the play might be made sensible and successful. + + But Mark Twain's greater interest was now all in the type-machine, + and certainly he had no money to put into any other venture. His + next letter to Goodman is illuminating--the urgency of his need for + funds opposed to that conscientiousness which was one of the most + positive forces of Mark Twain's body spiritual. The Mr. Arnot of + this letter was an Elmira capitalist. + + + To Jos. T. Goodman, in California: + + HARTFORD, March 31, '90. +DEAR JOE,--If you were here, I should say, "Get you to Washington and beg +Senator Jones to take the chances and put up about ten or "--no, I +wouldn't. The money would burn a hole in my pocket and get away from me +if the furnisher of it were proceeding upon merely your judgment and mine +and without other evidence. It is too much of a responsibility. + +But I am in as close a place to-day as ever I was; $3,000 due for the +last month's machine-expenses, and the purse empty. I notified Mr. Arnot +a month ago that I should want $5,000 to-day, and his check arrived last +night; but I sent it back to him, because when he bought of me on the 9th +of December I said that I would not draw upon him for 3 months, and that +before that date Senator Jones would have examined the machine and +approved, or done the other thing. If Jones should arrive here a week or +ten days from now (as he expects to do,) and should not approve, and +shouldn't buy any royalties, my deal with Arnot would not be +symmetrically square, and then how could I refund? The surest way was to +return his check. + +I have talked with the madam, and here is the result. I will go down to +the factory and notify Paige that I will scrape together $6,000 to meet +the March and April expenses, and will retire on the 30th of April and +return the assignment to him if in the meantime I have not found +financial relief. + +It is very rough; for the machine does at last seem perfect, and just a +bird to go! I think she's going to be good for 8,000 ems an hour in the +hands of a good ordinary man after a solid year's practice. I may be in +error, but I most solidly believe it. + +There's an improved Mergenthaler in New York; Paige and Davis and I +watched it two whole afternoons. + With the love of us all, + MARK. + + + Arnot wrote Clemens urging him to accept the check for five thousand + dollars in this moment of need. Clemens was probably as sorely + tempted to compromise with his conscience as he had ever been in his + life, but his resolution field firm. + + + To M. H. Arnot, in Elmira, N. Y.: + +MR. M. H. ARNOT + +DEAR SIR,--No--no, I could not think of taking it, with you unsatisfied; +and you ought not to be satisfied until you have made personal +examination of the machine and had a consensus of testimony of +disinterested people, besides. My own perfect knowledge of what is +required of such a machine, and my perfect knowledge of the fact that +this is the only machine that can meet that requirement, make it +difficult for me to realize that a doubt is possible to less well-posted +men; and so I would have taken your money without thinking, and thus +would have done a great wrong to you and a great one to myself. And now +that I go back over the ground, I remember that where I said I could get +along 3 months without drawing on you, that delay contemplated a visit +from you to the machine in the interval, and your satisfaction with its +character and prospects. I had forgotten all that. But I remember it +now; and the fact that it was not "so nominated in the bond" does not +alter the case or justify me in making my call so prematurely. I do not +know that you regarded all that as a part of the bargain--for you were +thoroughly and magnanimously unexacting--but I so regarded it, +notwithstanding I have so easily managed to forget all about it. + +You so gratified me, and did me so much honor in bonding yourself to me +in a large sum, upon no evidence but my word and with no protection but +my honor, that my pride in that is much stronger than my desire to reap a +money advantage from it. + +With the sincerest appreciation I am Truly yours + S L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. I have written a good many words and yet I seem to have failed to +say the main thing in exact enough language--which is, that the +transaction between us is not complete and binding until you shall have +convinced yourself that the machine's character and prospects are +satisfactory. + +I ought to explain that the grippe delayed us some weeks, and that we +have since been waiting for Mr. Jones. When he was ready, we were not; +and now we have been ready more than a month, while he has been kept in +Washington by the Silver bill. He said the other day that to venture out +of the Capitol for a day at this time could easily chance to hurt him if +the bill came up for action, meantime, although it couldn't hurt the +bill, which would pass anyway. Mrs. Jones said she would send me two or +three days' notice, right after the passage of the bill, and that they +would follow as soon as I should return word that their coming would not +inconvenience us. I suppose I ought to go to New York without waiting +for Mr. Jones, but it would not be wise to go there without money. + +The bill is still pending. + + + The Mergenthaler machine, like the Paige, was also at this time in + the middle stages of experimental development. It was a slower + machine, but it was simpler, less expensive, occupied less room. + There was not so much about it to get out of order; it was not so + delicate, not so human. These were immense advantages. + + But no one at this time could say with certainty which typesetter + would reap the harvest of millions. It was only sure that at least + one of them would, and the Mergenthaler people were willing to trade + stock for stock with the Paige company in order to insure financial + success for both, whichever won. Clemens, with a faith that never + faltered, declined this offer, a decision that was to cost him + millions. + + Winter and spring had gone and summer had come, but still there had + been no financial conclusion with Jones, Mackay, and the other rich + Californians who were to put up the necessary million for the + machine's manufacture. Goodman was spending a large part of his + time traveling back and forth between California and Washington, + trying to keep business going at both ends. Paige spent most of his + time working out improvements for the type-setter, delicate + attachments which complicated its construction more and more. + + + To Joe T. Goodman, in Washington: + + HARTFORD, June 22, '90. +DEAR JOE,--I have been sitting by the machine 2 hours, this afternoon, +and my admiration of it towers higher than ever. There is no sort of +mistake about it, it is the Big Bonanza. In the 2 hours, the time lost +by type-breakage was 3 minutes. + +This machine is totally without a rival. Rivalry with it is impossible. +Last Friday, Fred Whitmore (it was the 28th day of his apprenticeship on +the machine) stacked up 49,700 ems of solid nonpareil in 8 hours, and the +type-breaking delay was only 6 minutes for the day. + +I claim yet, as I have always claimed, that the machine's market (abroad +and here together,) is today worth $150,000,000 without saying anything +about the doubling and trebling of this sum that will follow within the +life of the patents. Now here is a queer fact: I am one of the +wealthiest grandees in America--one of the Vanderbilt gang, in fact--and +yet if you asked me to lend you a couple of dollars I should have to ask +you to take my note instead. + +It makes me cheerful to sit by the machine: come up with Mrs. Goodman and +refresh yourself with a draught of the same. + Ys ever + MARK. + + + The machine was still breaking the types now and then, and no doubt + Paige was itching to take it to pieces, and only restrained by force + from doing so. He was never thoroughly happy unless he was taking + the machine apart or setting it up again. Finally, he was allowed + to go at it--a disasterous permission, for it was just then that + Jones decided to steal a day or two from the Silver Bill and watch + the type-setter in operation. Paige already had it in parts when + this word came from Goodman, and Jones's visit had to be called off. + His enthusiasm would seem to have weakened from that day. In July, + Goodman wrote that both Mackay and Jones had become somewhat + diffident in the matter of huge capitalization. He thought it + partly due, at least, to "the fatal delays that have sicklied over + the bloom of original enthusiasm." Clemens himself went down to + Washington and perhaps warmed Jones with his eloquence; at least, + Jones seemed to have agreed to make some effort in the matter a + qualified promise, the careful word of a wary politician and + capitalist. How many Washington trips were made is not certain, but + certainly more than one. Jones would seem to have suggested forms + of contracts, but if he came to the point of signing any there is no + evidence of it to-day. + + Any one who has read Mark Twain's, "A Connecticut Yankee in King + Arthur's Court," has a pretty good idea of his opinion of kings in + general, and tyrants in particular. Rule by "divine right," however + liberal, was distasteful to him; where it meant oppression it + stirred him to violence. In his article, "The Czar's Soliloquy," he + gave himself loose rein concerning atrocities charged to the master + of Russia, and in a letter which he wrote during the summer of 1890, + he offered a hint as to remedies. The letter was written by + editorial request, but was never mailed. Perhaps it seemed too + openly revolutionary at the moment. + + Yet scarcely more than a quarter of a century was needed to make it + "timely." Clemens and his family were spending some weeks in the + Catskills when it was written. + + + An unpublished letter on the Czar. + + ONTEORA, 1890. +TO THE EDITOR OF FREE RUSSIA,--I thank you for the compliment of your +invitation to say something, but when I ponder the bottom paragraph on +your first page, and then study your statement on your third page, of the +objects of the several Russian liberation-parties, I do not quite know +how to proceed. Let me quote here the paragraph referred to: + +"But men's hearts are so made that the sight of one voluntary victim for +a noble idea stirs them more deeply than the sight of a crowd submitting +to a dire fate they cannot escape. Besides, foreigners could not see so +clearly as the Russians how much the Government was responsible for the +grinding poverty of the masses; nor could they very well realize the +moral wretchedness imposed by that Government upon the whole of educated +Russia. But the atrocities committed upon the defenceless prisoners are +there in all their baseness, concrete and palpable, admitting of no +excuse, no doubt or hesitation, crying out to the heart of humanity +against Russian tyranny. And the Tzar's Government, stupidly confident +in its apparently unassailable position, instead of taking warning from +the first rebukes, seems to mock this humanitarian age by the aggravation +of brutalities. Not satisfied with slowly killing its prisoners, and +with burying the flower of our young generation in the Siberian desserts, +the Government of Alexander III. resolved to break their spirit by +deliberately submitting them to a regime of unheard-of brutality and +degradation." + +When one reads that paragraph in the glare of George Kennan's +revelations, and considers how much it means; considers that all earthly +figures fail to typify the Czar's government, and that one must descend +into hell to find its counterpart, one turns hopefully to your statement +of the objects of the several liberation-parties--and is disappointed. +Apparently none of them can bear to think of losing the present hell +entirely, they merely want the temperature cooled down a little. + +I now perceive why all men are the deadly and uncompromising enemies of +the rattlesnake: it is merely because the rattlesnake has not speech. +Monarchy has speech, and by it has been able to persuade men that it +differs somehow from the rattlesnake, has something valuable about it +somewhere, something worth preserving, something even good and high and +fine, when properly "modified," something entitling it to protection from +the club of the first comer who catches it out of its hole. It seems a +most strange delusion and not reconcilable with our superstition that man +is a reasoning being. If a house is afire, we reason confidently that it +is the first comer's plain duty to put the fire out in any way he can-- +drown it with water, blow it up with dynamite, use any and all means to +stop the spread of the fire and save the rest of the city. What is the +Czar of Russia but a house afire in the midst of a city of eighty +millions of inhabitants? Yet instead of extinguishing him, together with +his nest and system, the liberation-parties are all anxious to merely +cool him down a little and keep him. + +It seems to me that this is illogical--idiotic, in fact. Suppose you had +this granite-hearted, bloody-jawed maniac of Russia loose in your house, +chasing the helpless women and little children--your own. What would you +do with him, supposing you had a shotgun? Well, he is loose in your +house-Russia. And with your shotgun in your hand, you stand trying to +think up ways to "modify" him. + +Do these liberation-parties think that they can succeed in a project +which has been attempted a million times in the history of the world and +has never in one single instance been successful--the "modification" of a +despotism by other means than bloodshed? They seem to think they can. +My privilege to write these sanguinary sentences in soft security was +bought for me by rivers of blood poured upon many fields, in many lands, +but I possess not one single little paltry right or privilege that come +to me as a result of petition, persuasion, agitation for reform, or any +kindred method of procedure. When we consider that not even the most +responsible English monarch ever yielded back a stolen public right until +it was wrenched from them by bloody violence, is it rational to suppose +that gentler methods can win privileges in Russia? + +Of course I know that the properest way to demolish the Russian throne +would be by revolution. But it is not possible to get up a revolution +there; so the only thing left to do, apparently, is to keep the throne +vacant by dynamite until a day when candidates shall decline with thanks. +Then organize the Republic. And on the whole this method has some large +advantages; for whereas a revolution destroys some lives which cannot +well be spared, the dynamite way doesn't. Consider this: the +conspirators against the Czar's life are caught in every rank of life, +from the low to the high. And consider: if so many take an active part, +where the peril is so dire, is this not evidence that the sympathizers +who keep still and do not show their hands, are countless for multitudes? +Can you break the hearts of thousands of families with the awful Siberian +exodus every year for generations and not eventually cover all Russia +from limit to limit with bereaved fathers and mothers and brothers and +sisters who secretly hate the perpetrator of this prodigious crime and +hunger and thirst for his life? Do you not believe that if your wife or +your child or your father was exiled to the mines of Siberia for some +trivial utterances wrung from a smarting spirit by the Czar's intolerable +tyranny, and you got a chance to kill him and did not do it, that you +would always be ashamed to be in your own society the rest of your life? +Suppose that that refined and lovely Russian lady who was lately stripped +bare before a brutal soldiery and whipped to death by the Czar's hand in +the person of the Czar's creature had been your wife, or your daughter or +your sister, and to-day the Czar should pass within reach of your hand, +how would you feel--and what would you do? Consider, that all over vast +Russia, from boundary to boundary, a myriad of eyes filled with tears +when that piteous news came, and through those tears that myriad of eyes +saw, not that poor lady, but lost darlings of their own whose fate her +fate brought back with new access of grief out of a black and bitter past +never to be forgotten or forgiven. + +If I am a Swinburnian--and clear to the marrow I am--I hold human nature +in sufficient honor to believe there are eighty million mute Russians +that are of the same stripe, and only one Russian family that isn't. + + MARK TWAIN. + + + Type-setter matters were going badly. Clemens still had faith in + Jones, and he had lost no grain of faith in the machine. The money + situation, however, was troublesome. With an expensive + establishment, and work of one sort or another still to be done on + the machine, his income would not reach. Perhaps Goodman had + already given up hope, for he does not seem to have returned from + California after the next letter was written--a colorless letter-- + in which we feel a note of resignation. The last few lines are + sufficient. + + + To Joe T. Goodman, in California: + +DEAR JOE,--...... I wish you could get a day off and make those two or +three Californians buy those privileges, for I'm going to need money +before long. + +I don't know where the Senator is; but out on the Coast I reckon. + +I guess we've got a perfect machine at last. We never break a type, now, +and the new device for enabling the operator to touch the last letters +and justify the line simultaneously works, to a charm. + With love to you both, + MARK + + + The year closed gloomily enough. The type-setter seemed to be + perfected, but capital for its manufacture was not forthcoming. + The publishing business of Charles L. Webster & Co. was returning + little or no profit. Clemens's mother had died in Keokuk at the end + of October, and his wife's mother, in Elmira a month later. Mark + Twain, writing a short business letter to his publishing manager, + Fred J. Ball, closed it: "Merry Xmas to you!--and I wish to God I + could have one myself before I die." + + + + +XXXI + +LETTERS, 189I, TO HOWELLS, MRS. CLEMENS AND OTHERS. +RETURN TO LITERATURE. AMERICAN CLAIMANT. LEAVING HARTFORD. +EUROPE. DOWN THE RHINE + +Clemens was still not without hope in the machine, at the beginning of +the new year (1891) but it was a hope no longer active, and it presently +became a moribund. Jones, on about the middle of February, backed out +altogether, laying the blame chiefly on Mackay and the others, who, he +said, had decided not to invest. Jones "let his victim down easy" with +friendly words, but it was the end, for the present, at least, of machine +financiering. + +It was also the end of Mark Twain's capital. His publishing business was +not good. It was already in debt and needing more money. There was just +one thing for him to do and he did it at once, not stopping to cry over +spilt milk, but with good courage and the old enthusiasm that never +failed him, he returned to the trade of authorship. He dug out half- +finished articles and stories, finished them and sold them, and within a +week after the Jones collapse he was at work on a novel based an the old +Sellers idea, which eight years before he and Howells had worked into a +play. The brief letter in which he reported this news to Howells bears +no marks of depression, though the writer of it was in his fifty-sixth +year; he was by no means well, and his financial prospects were anything +but golden. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 24, '91 +DEAR HOWELLS,--Mrs. Clemens has been sick abed for near two weeks, but is +up and around the room now, and gaining. I don't know whether she has +written Mrs. Howells or not--I only know she was going to--and will yet, +if she hasn't. We are promising ourselves a whole world of pleasure in +the visit, and you mustn't dream of disappointing us. + +Does this item stir an interest in you? Began a novel four days ago, and +this moment finished chapter four. Title of the book + + "Colonel Mulberry Sellers. + American Claimant + Of the + Great Earldom of Rossmore' + in the + Peerage of Great Britain." + + Ys Ever + MARK. + + +Probably Mark Twain did not return to literary work reluctantly. He had +always enjoyed writing and felt now that he was equipped better than ever +for authorship, at least so far as material was concerned. There exists +a fragmentary copy of a letter to some unknown correspondent, in which he +recites his qualifications. It bears evidence of having been written +just at this time and is of unusual interest at this point. + + + Fragment of Letter to ------- 1891: + +. . . . I confine myself to life with which I am familiar when +pretending to portray life. But I confined myself to the boy-life out on +the Mississippi because that had a peculiar charm for me, and not because +I was not familiar with other phases of life. I was a soldier two weeks +once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted like a rat the whole +time. Familiar? My splendid Kipling himself hasn't a more burnt-in, +hard-baked, and unforgetable familiarity with that death-on-the-pale- +horse-with-hell-following-after, which is a raw soldier's first fortnight +in the field--and which, without any doubt, is the most tremendous +fortnight and the vividest he is ever going to see. + +Yes, and I have shoveled silver tailings in a quartz-mill a couple of +weeks, and acquired the last possibilities of culture in that direction. +And I've done "pocket-mining" during three months in the one little patch +of ground in the whole globe where Nature conceals gold in pockets--or +did before we robbed all of those pockets and exhausted, obliterated, +annihilated the most curious freak Nature ever indulged in. There are +not thirty men left alive who, being told there was a pocket hidden on +the broad slope of a mountain, would know how to go and find it, or have +even the faintest idea of how to set about it; but I am one of the +possible 20 or 30 who possess the secret, and I could go and put my hand +on that hidden treasure with a most deadly precision. + +And I've been a prospector, and know pay rock from poor when I find it-- +just with a touch of the tongue. And I've been a silver miner and know +how to dig and shovel and drill and put in a blast. And so I know the +mines and the miners interiorly as well as Bret Harte knows them +exteriorly. + +And I was a newspaper reporter four years in cities, and so saw the +inside of many things; and was reporter in a legislature two sessions +and the same in Congress one session, and thus learned to know personally +three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and +the cowardliest hearts that God makes. + +And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all the +different kinds of steam-boatmen--a race apart, and not like other folk. + +And I was for some years a traveling "jour" printer, and wandered from +city to city--and so I know that sect familiarly. + +And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and was a +responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets--and so I know +a great many secrets about audiences--secrets not to be got out of books, +but only acquirable by experience. + +And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a fortune on +it, and failed to make it go--and the history of that would make a large +book in which a million men would see themselves as in a mirror; and they +would testify and say, Verily, this is not imagination; this fellow has +been there--and after would cast dust upon their heads, cursing and +blaspheming. + +And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General Grant's) +the largest copyright checks this world has seen--aggregating more than +L80,000 in the first year. + +And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55. + +Now then; as the most valuable capital or culture or education usable in +the building of novels is personal experience I ought to be well equipped +for that trade. + +I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real, none of +it artificial, for I don't know anything about books. + + [No signature.] + + + Clemens for several years had been bothered by rheumatism in his + shoulder. The return now to the steady use of the pen aggravated + his trouble, and at times he was nearly disabled. The phonograph + for commercial dictation had been tried experimentally, and Mark + Twain was always ready for any innovation. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Feb. 28, '91. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Won't you drop-in at the Boylston Building (New England +Phonograph Co) and talk into a phonograph in an ordinary conversation- +voice and see if another person (who didn't hear you do it) can take the +words from the thing without difficulty and repeat them to you. If the +experiment is satisfactory (also make somebody put in a message which you +don't hear, and see if afterward you can get it out without difficulty) +won't you then ask them on what terms they will rent me a phonograph for +3 months and furnish me cylinders enough to carry 75,000 words. 175 +cylinders, ain't it? + +I don't want to erase any of them. My right arm is nearly disabled by +rheumatism, but I am bound to write this book (and sell 100,000 copies of +it--no, I mean a million--next fall) I feel sure I can dictate the book +into a phonograph if I don't have to yell. I write 2,000 words a day; I +think I can dictate twice as many. + +But mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you--go ahead and do +it, all the same. + Ys ever + MARK. + + + Howells, always willing to help, visited the phonograph place, and a + few days later reported results. He wrote: "I talked your letter + into a fonograf in my usual tone at my usual gait of speech. Then + the fonograf man talked his answer in at his wonted swing and swell. + Then we took the cylinder to a type-writer in the next room, and she + put the hooks into her ears and wrote the whole out. I send you the + result. There is a mistake of one word. I think that if you have + the cheek to dictate the story into the fonograf, all the rest is + perfectly easy. It wouldn't fatigue me to talk for an hour as I + did." + + Clemens did not find the phonograph entirely satisfactory, at least + not for a time, and he appears never to have used it steadily. His + early experience with it, however, seems interesting. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, Apl. 4, '91. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I'm ashamed. It happened in this way. I was proposing to +acknowledge the receipt of the play and the little book per phonograph, +so that you could see that the instrument is good enough for mere letter- +writing; then I meant to add the fact that you can't write literature +with it, because it hasn't any ideas and it hasn't any gift for +elaboration, or smartness of talk, or vigor of action, or felicity of +expression, but is just matter-of-fact, compressive, unornamental, and as +grave and unsmiling as the devil. + +I filled four dozen cylinders in two sittings, then found I could have +said about as much with the pen and said it a deal better. Then I +resigned. + +I believe it could teach one to dictate literature to a phonographer--and +some time I will experiment in that line. + +The little book is charmingly written, and it interested me. But it +flies too high for me. Its concretest things are filmy abstractions to +me, and when I lay my grip on one of them and open my hand, I feel as +embarrassed as I use to feel when I thought I had caught a fly. I'm +going to try to mail it back to you to-day--I mean I am going to charge +my memory. Charging my memory is one of my chief industries .... + +With our loves and our kindest regards distributed among you according to +the proprieties. + Yrs ever + MARK. + +P. S.--I'm sending that ancient "Mental Telegraphy" article to Harper's +--with a modest postscript. Probably read it to you years ago. + S. L. C. + + + The "little book" mentioned in this letter was by Swedenborg, an + author in whom the Boston literary set was always deeply interested. + "Mental Telegraphy" appeared in Harper's Magazine, and is now + included in the Uniform Edition of Mark Twain's books. It was + written in 1878. + + Joe Goodman had long since returned to California, it being clear + that nothing could be gained by remaining in Washington. On receipt + of the news of the type-setter's collapse he sent a consoling word. + Perhaps he thought Clemens would rage over the unhappy circumstance, + and possibly hold him in some measure to blame. But it was + generally the smaller annoyances of life that made Mark Twain rage; + the larger catastrophes were likely to stir only his philosophy. + + The Library of American Literature, mentioned in the following + letter, was a work in many volumes, edited by Edmund Clarence + Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. + + + To Joe T. Goodman: + + April [?] 1891. +DEAR JOE, Well, it's all right, anyway. Diplomacy couldn't have saved +it--diplomacy of mine--at that late day. I hadn't any diplomacy in +stock, anyway. In order to meet Jones's requirements I had to surrender +the old contract (a contract which made me boss of the situation and gave +me the whip-hand of Paige) and allow the new one to be drafted and put in +its place. I was running an immense risk, but it was justified by +Jones's promises--promises made to me not merely once but every time I +tallied with him. When February arrived, I saw signs which were mighty +plain reading. Signs which meant that Paige was hoping and praying that +Jones would go back on me--which would leave Paige boss, and me robbed +and out in the cold. His prayers were answered, and I am out in the +cold. If I ever get back my nine-twentieths interest, it will be by law- +suit--which will be instituted in the indefinite future, when the time +comes. + +I am at work again--on a book. Not with a great deal of spirit, but with +enough--yes, plenty. And I am pushing my publishing house. It has +turned the corner after cleaning $50,000 a year for three consecutive +years, and piling every cent of it into one book--Library of American +Literature--and from next January onward it will resume dividends. But +I've got to earn $50,000 for it between now and then--which I will do if +I keep my health. This additional capital is needed for that same book, +because its prosperity is growing so great and exacting. + +It is dreadful to think of you in ill health--I can't realize it; you are +always to me the same that you were in those days when matchless health. +and glowing spirits and delight in life were commonplaces with us. Lord +save us all from old age and broken health and a hope-tree that has lost +the faculty of putting out blossoms. + + With love to you both from us all. + MARK. + + + Mark Twain's residence in Hartford was drawing rapidly to a close. + Mrs. Clemens was poorly, and his own health was uncertain. They + believed that some of the European baths would help them. + Furthermore, Mark Twain could no longer afford the luxury of his + Hartford home. In Europe life could be simpler and vastly cheaper. + He was offered a thousand dollars apiece for six European letters, + by the McClure syndicate and W. M. Laffan, of the Sun. This would + at least give him a start on the other side. The family began + immediately their sad arrangements for departure. + + + To Fred J. Hall (manager Chas. L. Webster & Co.), N. Y.: + + HARTFORD, Apl. 14, '91. +DEAR MR. HALL,--Privately--keep it to yourself--as you, are already +aware, we are going to Europe in June, for an indefinite stay. We shall +sell the horses and shut up the house. We wish to provide a place for +our coachman, who has been with us a 21 years, and is sober, active, +diligent, and unusually bright and capable. You spoke of hiring a +colored man as engineer and helper in the packing room. Patrick would +soon learn that trade and be very valuable. We will cease to need him by +the middle or end of June. Have you made irrevocable arrangements with +the colored man, or would you prefer to have Patrick, if he thinks he +would like to try? + +I have not said anything to him about it yet. + + Yours + S. L. C. + + + It was to be a complete breaking up of their beautiful + establishment. Patrick McAleer, George the butler, and others of + their household help had been like members of the family. We may + guess at the heartbreak of it all, even though the letters remain + cheerful. + + Howells, strangely enough, seems to have been about the last one to + be told of their European plans; in fact, he first got wind of it + from the papers, and wrote for information. Likely enough Clemens + had not until then had the courage to confess. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + HARTFORD, May 20, '91. +DEAR HOWELLS,--For her health's sake Mrs. Clemens must try baths +somewhere, and this it is that has determined us to go to Europe. +The water required seems to be provided at a little obscure and little- +visited nook up in the hills back of the Rhine somewhere and you get to +it by Rhine traffic-boat and country stage-coach. Come, get "sick or +sorry enough" and join us. We shall be a little while at that bath, and +the rest of the summer at Annecy (this confidential to you) in Haute +Savoie, 22 miles from Geneva. Spend the winters in Berlin. I don't know +how long we shall be in Europe--I have a vote, but I don't cast it. I'm +going to do whatever the others desire, with leave to change their mind, +without prejudice, whenever they want to. Travel has no longer, any +charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to see except +heaven and hell, and I have only a vague curiosity as concerns one of +those. + +I found I couldn't use the play--I had departed too far from its lines +when I came to look at it. I thought I might get a great deal of +dialogue out of it, but I got only 15 loosely written pages--they saved +me half a days work. It was the cursing phonograph. There was abundance +of good dialogue, but it couldn't befitted into the new conditions of the +story. + +Oh, look here--I did to-day what I have several times in past years +thought of doing: answered an interviewing proposition from a rich +newspaper with the reminder that they had not stated the terms; that my +time was all occupied with writing, at good pay, and that as talking was +harder work I should not care to venture it unless I knew the pay was +going to be proportionately higher. I wish I had thought of this the +other day when Charley Stoddard turned a pleasant Englishman loose on me +and I couldn't think of any rational excuse. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + Clemens had finished his Sellers book and had disposed of the serial + rights to the McClure syndicate. The house in Hartford was closed + early in June, and on the 6th the family, with one maid, Katie + Leary, sailed on the Gascogne. Two weeks later they had begun a + residence abroad which was to last for more than nine years. + + It was not easy to get to work in Europe. Clemens's arm remained + lame, and any effort at writing brought suffering. The Century + Magazine proposed another set of letters, but by the end of July he + had barely begun on those promised to McClure and Laffan. In + August, however, he was able to send three: one from Aix about the + baths there, another from Bayreuth concerning the Wagner festival, + and a third from Marienbad, in Bohemia, where they rested for a + time. He decided that he would arrange for no more European letters + when the six were finished, but would gather material for a book. + He would take a courier and a kodak and go tramping again in some + fashion that would be interesting to do and to write. + + The idea finally matured when he reached Switzerland and settled the + family at the Hotel Beau Rivage, Ouchy, Lausanne, facing Lake Leman. + He decided to make a floating trip down the Rhone, and he engaged + Joseph Very, a courier that had served him on a former European + trip, to accompany him. The courier went over to Bourget and bought + for five dollars a flat-bottomed boat and engaged its owner as their + pilot. It was the morning of September 20, when they began their + floating-trip down the beautiful historic river that flows through + the loveliest and most romantic region of France. He wrote daily to + Mrs. Clemens, and his letters tell the story of that drowsy, happy + experience better than the notes made with a view to publication. + Clemens had arrived at Lake Bourget on the evening before the + morning of their start and slept on the Island of Chatillon, in an + old castle of the same name. Lake Bourget connects with the Rhone + by a small canal. + + + Letters and Memoranda to Mrs. Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland: + + Sept. 20, 1891. + Sunday, 11 a.m. +On the lake Bourget--just started. The castle of Chatillon high overhead +showing above the trees. It was a wonderfully still place to sleep in. +Beside us there was nobody in it but a woman, a boy and a dog. A Pope +was born in the room I slept in. No, he became a Pope later. + +The lake is smooth as glass--a brilliant sun is shining. + +Our boat is comfortable and shady with its awning. + +11.20 We have crossed the lake and are entering the canal. Shall +presently be in the Rhone. + +Noon. Nearly down to the Rhone. Passing the village of Chanaz. + +3.15 p. m. Sunday. We have been in the Rhone 3 hours. It is +unimaginably still and reposeful and cool and soft and breezy. No rowing +or work of any kind to do--we merely float with the current--we glide +noiseless and swift--as fast as a London cab-horse rips along--8 miles an +hour--the swiftest current I've ever boated in. We have the entire river +to ourselves--nowhere a boat of any kind. + Good bye Sweetheart + S. L. C. + + + PORT DE GROLEE, Monday, 4.15 p.m. + [Sept. 21, 1891] +Name of the village which we left five minutes ago. + +We went ashore at 5 p. m. yesterday, dear heart, and walked a short mile +to St. Geuix, a big village, and took quarters at the principal inn; had +a good dinner and afterwards along walk out of town on the banks of the +Guiers till 7.30. + +Went to bed at 8.30 and continued to make notes and read books and +newspapers till midnight. Slept until 8, breakfasted in bed, and lay +till noon, because there had been a very heavy rain in the night and the +day was still dark and lowering. But at noon the sun broke through and +in 15 minutes we were tramping toward the river. Got afloat at 1 p. m. +but at 2.40 we had to rush suddenly ashore and take refuge in the above +village. Just as we got ourselves and traps safely housed in the inn, +the rain let go and came down in great style. We lost an hour and a half +there, but we are off again, now, with bright sunshine. + +I wrote you yesterday my darling, and shall expect to write you every +day. + +Good-day, and love to all of you. + SAML. + + + ON THE RHONE BELOW VILLEBOIS, + Tuesday noon. +Good morning, sweetheart. Night caught us yesterday where we had to take +quarters in a peasant's house which was occupied by the family and a lot +of cows and calves--also several rabbits.--[His word for fleas.]-- The +latter had a ball, and I was the ball-room; but they were very friendly +and didn't bite. + +The peasants were mighty kind and hearty, and flew around and did their +best to make us comfortable. This morning I breakfasted on the shore in +the open air with two sociable dogs and a cat. Clean cloth, napkin and +table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent butter, good +bread, first class coffee with pure milk, fried fish just caught. +Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of such a phenomenally +dirty house. + +An hour ago we saw the Falls of the Rhone, a prodigiously rough and +dangerous looking place; shipped a little water but came to no harm. +It was one of the most beautiful pieces of piloting and boat-management +I ever saw. Our admiral knew his business. + +We have had to run ashore for shelter every time it has rained +heretofore, but Joseph has been putting in his odd time making a water- +proof sun-bonnet for the boat, and now we sail along dry although we had +many heavy showers this morning. + +With a word of love to you all and particularly you, + SAML. + + + ON THE RHONE, BELOW VIENNA. +I salute you, my darling. Your telegram reached me in Lyons last night +and was very pleasant news indeed. + +I was up and shaved before 8 this morning, but we got delayed and didn't +sail from Lyons till 10.3O--an hour and a half lost. And we've lost +another hour--two of them, I guess--since, by an error. We came in sight +of Vienne at 2 o'clock, several miles ahead, on a hill, and I proposed to +walk down there and let the boat go ahead of us. So Joseph and I got out +and struck through a willow swamp along a dim path, and by and by came +out on the steep bank of a slough or inlet or something, and we followed +that bank forever and ever trying to get around the head of that slough. +Finally I noticed a twig standing up in the water, and by George it had a +distinct and even vigorous quiver to it! I don't know when I have felt +so much like a donkey. On an island! I wanted to drown somebody, but I +hadn't anybody I could spare. However, after another long tramp we found +a lonely native, and he had a scow and soon we were on the mainland--yes, +and a blamed sight further from Vienne than we were when we started. + +Notes--I make millions of them; and so I get no time to write to you. If +you've got a pad there, please send it poste-restante to Avignon. I may +not need it but I fear I shall. + +I'm straining to reach St. Pierre de Boef, but it's going to be a close +fit, I reckon. + + + AFLOAT, Friday, 3 p.m., '91. +Livy darling, we sailed from St. Pierre de Boef six hours ago, and are +now approaching Tournon, where we shall not stop, but go on and make +Valence, a City Of 25,000 people. It's too delicious, floating with the +swift current under the awning these superb sunshiny days in deep peace +and quietness. Some of these curious old historical towns strangely +persuade me, but it is so lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them +from the outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for +next to nothing. + +Joseph is perfect. He is at his very best--and never was better in his +life. I guess he gets discouraged and feels disliked and in the way when +he is lying around--but here he is perfection, and brim full of useful +alacrities and helps and ingenuities. + +When I woke up an hour ago and heard the clock strike 4, I said "I seem +to have been asleep an immensely long time; I must have gone to bed +mighty early; I wonder what time I did go to bed." And I got up and lit +a candle and looked at my watch to see. + + + AFLOAT + 2 HOURS BELOW BOURG ST. ANDEOL. + Monday, 11 a.m., Sept. 28. +Livy darling, I didn't write yesterday. We left La Voulte in a driving +storm of cold rain--couldn't write in it--and at 1 p. m. when we were +not thinking of stopping, we saw a picturesque and mighty ruin on a high +hill back of a village, and I was seized with a desire to explore it; so +we landed at once and set out with rubbers and umbrella, sending the boat +ahead to St. Andeol, and we spent 3 hours clambering about those cloudy +heights among those worn and vast and idiotic ruins of a castle built by +two crusaders 650 years ago. The work of these asses was full of +interest, and we had a good time inspecting, examining and scrutinizing +it. All the hills on both sides of the Rhone have peaks and precipices, +and each has its gray and wasted pile of mouldy walls and broken towers. +The Romans displaced the Gauls, the Visigoths displaced the Romans, the +Saracens displaced the Visigoths, the Christians displaced the Saracens, +and it was these pious animals who built these strange lairs and cut each +other's throats in the name and for the glory of God, and robbed and +burned and slew in peace and war; and the pauper and the slave built +churches, and the credit of it went to the Bishop who racked the money +out of them. These are pathetic shores, and they make one despise the +human race. + +We came down in an hour by rail, but I couldn't get your telegram till +this morning, for it was Sunday and they had shut up the post office to +go to the circus. I went, too. It was all one family--parents and 5 +children--performing in the open air to 200 of these enchanted villagers, +who contributed coppers when called on. It was a most gay and strange +and pathetic show. I got up at 7 this morning to see the poor devils +cook their poor breakfast and pack up their sordid fineries. + +This is a 9 k-m. current and the wind is with us; we shall make Avignon +before 4 o'clock. I saw watermelons and pomegranates for sale at St. +Andeol. + + With a power of love, Sweetheart, + SAML. + + + HOTEL D'EUROPE, AVIGNON, + Monday, 6 p.m., Sept. 28. +Well, Livy darling, I have been having a perfect feast of letters for an +hour, and I thank you and dear Clam with all my heart. It's like hearing +from home after a long absence. + +It is early to be in bed, but I'm always abed before 9, on this voyage; +and up at 7 or a trifle later, every morning. If I ever take such a trip +again, I will have myself called at the first tinge of dawn and get to +sea as soon after as possible. The early dawn on the water-nothing can +be finer, as I know by old Mississippi experience. I did so long for you +and Sue yesterday morning--the most superb sunrise!--the most marvelous +sunrise! and I saw it all from the very faintest suspicion of the coming +dawn all the way through to the final explosion of glory. But it had +interest private to itself and not to be found elsewhere in the world; +for between me and it, in the far distant-eastward, was a silhouette +mountain-range in which I had discovered, the previous afternoon, a most +noble face upturned to the sky, and mighty form out stretched, which I +had named Napoleon Dreaming of Universal Empire--and now, this prodigious +face, soft, rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay +against that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors all rayed +like a wheel with the upstreaming and far-reaching lances of the sun. It +made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its unimaginable +majesty and beauty. + +We had a curious experience today. A little after I had sealed and +directed my letter to you, in which I said we should make Avignon before +4, we got lost. We ceased to encounter any village or ruin mentioned in +our "particularizes" and detailed Guide of the Rhone--went drifting along +by the hour in a wholly unknown land and on an uncharted river! Confound +it, we stopped talking and did nothing but stand up in the boat and +search the horizons with the glass and wonder what in the devil had +happened. And at last, away yonder at 5 o'clock when some east towers +and fortresses hove in sight we couldn't recognize them for Avignon--yet +we knew by the broken bridge that it was Avignon. + +Then we saw what the trouble was--at some time or other we had drifted +down the wrong side of an island and followed a sluggish branch of the +Rhone not frequented in modern times. We lost an hour and a half by it +and missed one of the most picturesque and gigantic and history-sodden +masses of castellated medieval ruin that Europe can show. + +It was dark by the time we had wandered through the town and got the +letters and found the hotel--so I went to bed. + +We shall leave here at noon tomorrow and float down to Arles, arriving +about dark, and there bid good bye to the boat, the river-trip finished. +Between Arles and Nimes (and Avignon again,) we shall be till Saturday +morning--then rail it through on that day to Ouchy, reaching the hotel at +11 at night if the train isn't late. + +Next day (Sunday) if you like, go to Basel, and Monday to Berlin. But I +shall be at your disposal, to do exactly as you desire and prefer. + + With no end of love to all of you and twice as much to you, + sweetheart, + SAML. + +I believe my arm is a trifle better than it was when I started. + + + The mention in the foregoing letter of the Napoleon effigy is the + beginning of what proved to be a rather interesting episode. Mark + Twain thought a great deal of his discovery, as he called it--the + giant figure of Napoleon outlined by the distant mountain range. + In his note-book he entered memoranda telling just where it was to + be seen, and added a pencil sketch of the huge profile. But then he + characteristically forgot all about it, and when he recalled the + incident ten years later, he could not remember the name of the + village, Beauchastel, from which the great figure could be seen; + also, that he had made a record of the place. + + But he was by this time more certain than ever that his discovery + was a remarkable one, which, if known, would become one of the great + natural wonders, such as Niagara Falls. Theodore Stanton was + visiting him at the time, and Clemens urged him, on his return to + France, to make an excursion to the Rhone and locate the Lost + Napoleon, as he now called it. But Clemens remembered the wonder as + being somewhere between Arles and Avignon, instead of about a + hundred miles above the last-named town. Stanton naturally failed + to find it, and it remained for the writer of these notes, motoring + up the Rhone one September day, exactly twenty-two years after the + first discovery, to re-locate the vast reclining figure of the first + consul of France, "dreaming of Universal Empire." The re-discovery + was not difficult--with Mark Twain's memoranda as a guide--and it + was worth while. Perhaps the Lost Napoleon is not so important a + natural wonder as Mark Twain believed, but it is a striking picture, + and on a clear day the calm blue face outlined against the sky will + long hold the traveler's attention. + + To Clara Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland: + + AFLOAT, 11.20 a.m., Sept. 29, Tuesday. +DEAR OLD BEN,--The vast stone masses and huge towers of the ancient papal +palace of Avignon are projected above an intervening wooded island a mile +up the river behind me--for we are already on our way to Arles. It is a +perfectly still morning, with a brilliant sun, and very hot--outside; but +I am under cover of the linen hood, and it is cool and shady in here. + +Please tell mamma I got her very last letter this morning, and I perceive +by it that I do not need to arrive at Ouchy before Saturday midnight. +I am glad, because I couldn't do the railroading I am proposing to do +during the next two or three days and get there earlier. I could put in +the time till Sunday midnight, but shall not venture it without +telegraphic instructions from her to Nimes day after tomorrow, Oct. 1, +care Hotel Manivet. + +The only adventures we have is in drifting into rough seas now and then. +They are not dangerous, but they go thro' all the motions of it. +Yesterday when we shot the Bridge of the Holy Spirit it was probably in +charge of some inexperienced deputy spirit for the day, for we were +allowed to go through the wrong arch, which brought us into a tourbillon +below which tried to make this old scow stand on its head. Of course I +lost my temper and blew it off in a way to be heard above the roar of the +tossing waters. I lost it because the admiral had taken that arch in +deference to my opinion that it was the best one, while his own judgment +told him to take the one nearest the other side of the river. I could +have poisoned him I was so mad to think I had hired such a turnip. +A boatman in command should obey nobody's orders but his own, and yield +to nobody's suggestions. + +It was very sweet of you to write me, dear, and I thank you ever so much. +With greatest love and kisses, + PAPA. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland: + + ARLES, Sept. 30, noon. +Livy darling, I hain't got no time to write today, because I am sight +seeing industriously and imagining my chapter. + +Bade good-bye to the river trip and gave away the boat yesterday evening. +We had ten great days in her. + +We reached here after dark. We were due about 4.30, counting by +distance, but we couldn't calculate on such a lifeless current as we +found. + I love you, sweetheart. + SAML. + + + It had been a long time since Clemens had written to his old friend + Twichell, but the Rhone trip must have reminded him of those days + thirteen years earlier, when, comparatively young men, he and + Twichell were tramping through the Black Forest and scaling Gemmi + Pass. He sent Twichell a reminder of that happy time. + + + To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, in Hartford, Conn: + + NIMES, Oct. 1, '91. +DEAR JOE,--I have been ten days floating down the Rhone on a raft, from +Lake Bourget, and a most curious and darling kind of a trip it has been. +You ought to have been along--I could have made room for you easily --and +you would have found that a pedestrian tour in Europe doesn't begin with +a raft-voyage for hilarity and mild adventure, and intimate contact with +the unvisited native of the back settlements, and extinction from the +world and newspapers, and a conscience in a state of coma, and lazy +comfort, and solid happiness. In fact there's nothing that's so lovely. + +But it's all over. I gave the raft away yesterday at Arles, and am +loafing along back by short stages on the rail to Ouchy-Lausanne where +the tribe are staying. + Love to you all + MARK. + + + The Clemenses settled in Berlin for the winter, at 7 Kornerstrasse, + and later at the Hotel Royal. There had been no permanent + improvement in Mark Twain's arm and he found writing difficult. + Some of the letters promised to Laffan and McClure were still + unfinished. + + Young Hall, his publishing manager in America, was working hard to + keep the business afloat, and being full of the optimism of his + years did not fail to make as good a showing as he could. We may + believe his letters were very welcome to Clemens and his wife, who + found little enough in the general prospect to comfort them. + + + To Mr. Hall, in New York: + + BERLIN, Nov. 27, '91. +DEAR MR. HALL,--That kind of a statement is valuable. It came this +morning. This is the first time since the business began that I have had +a report that furnished the kind of information I wanted, and was really +enlightening and satisfactory. Keep it up. Don't let it fall into +desuetude. + +Everything looks so fine and handsome with the business, now, that I feel +a great let-up from depression. The rewards of your long and patient +industry are on their way, and their arrival safe in port, presently, +seems assured. + +By George, I shall be glad when the ship comes in! + +My arm is so much better that I was able to make a speech last night to +250 Americans. But when they threw my portrait on the screen it was a +sorrowful reminder, for it was from a negative of 15 years ago, and +hadn't a gray hair in it. And now that my arm is better, I have stolen a +couple of days and finished up a couple of McClure letters that have been +lying a long time. + +I shall mail one of them to you next Tuesday--registered. Lookout for +it. + +I shall register and mail the other one (concerning the "Jungfrau") next +Friday look out for it also, and drop me a line to let me know they have +arrived. + +I shall write the 6th and last letter by and by when I have studied +Berlin sufficiently. + +Yours in a most cheerful frame of mind, and with my and all the family's +Thanksgiving greetings and best wishes, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Postscript by Mrs. Clemens written on Mr. Clemens's letter: + +DEAR MR. HALL,--This is my birthday and your letter this morning was a +happy addition to the little gifts on the breakfast table. I thought of +going out and spending money for something unnecessary after it came, but +concluded perhaps I better wait a little longer. + Sincerely yours + O. L. CLEMENS. + + + "The German Chicago" was the last of the six McClure letters and was + finished that winter in Berlin. It is now included in the Uniform + Edition of Mark Twain's works, and is one of the best descriptive + articles of the German capital ever written. He made no use of the + Rhone notes further than to put them together in literary form. + They did not seem to him to contain enough substance to warrant + publication. A letter to Hall, written toward the end of December, + we find rather gloomy in tone, though he is still able to extract + comfort and even cheerfulness from one of Mr. Hall's reports. + + + Memorandum to Fred J. Hall, in New York: + +Among the MSS I left with you are a few that have a recent look and are +written on rather stiff pale green paper. If you will have those type- +writered and keep the originals and send me the copies (one per mail, not +two.) I'll see if I can use them. + +But tell Howells and other inquirers that my hopes of writing anything +are very slender--I seem to be disabled for life. + +Drop McClure a line and tell him the same. I can't dare to make an +engagement now for even a single letter. + +I am glad Howells is on a magazine, but sorry he gave up the Study. +I shall have to go on a magazine myself if this L. A. L. continues to +hold my nose down to the grind-stone much longer. + +I'm going to hold my breath, now, for 3o days--then the annual statement +will arrive and I shall know how we feel! Merry Xmas to you from us all. + + Sincerely, + S. L. C. + +P. S. Just finished the above and finished raging at the eternal German +tax-gatherer, and so all the jubilant things which I was going to say +about the past year's business got knocked out of me. After writing this +present letter I was feeling blue about Huck Finn, but I sat down and +overhauled your reports from now back to last April and compared them +with the splendid Oct.-Nov. business, and went to bed feeling refreshed +and fine, for certainly it has been a handsome year. Now rush me along +the Annual Report and let's see how we feel! + S. L. C. + + + + +XXXII + +LETTERS, 1892, CHIEFLY TO MR. HALL AND MRS. CRANE. IN BERLIN, MENTONE, +BAD-NAUHEIM, FLORENCE + +Mark Twain was the notable literary figure in Berlin that winter, the +center of every great gathering. He was entertained by the Kaiser, and +shown many special attentions by Germans of every rank. His books were +as well known in Berlin as in New York, and at court assemblies and +embassies he was always a chief center of interest. + +He was too popular for his own good; the gaiety of the capital told on +him. Finally, one night, after delivering a lecture in a hot room, he +contracted a severe cold, driving to a ball at General von Versen's, and +a few days later was confined to his bed with pneumonia. It was not a +severe attack, but it was long continued. He could write some letters +and even work a little, but he was not allowed to leave his bed for many +weeks, a condition which he did not find a hardship, for no man ever +enjoyed the loose luxury of undress and the comfort of pillows more than +Mark Twain. In a memorandum of that time he wrote: "I am having a +booming time all to myself." + +Meantime, Hall, in America, was sending favorable reports of the +publishing business, and this naturally helped to keep up his spirits. +He wrote frequently to Hall, of course, but the letters for the most part +are purely of a business nature and of little interest to the general +reader. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + HOTEL ROYAL, BERLIN, Feb. 12. +DEAR MR. HALL,--Daly wants to get the stage rights of the "American +Claimant." The foundation from which I wrote the story is a play of the +same name which has been in A. P. Burbank's hands 5 or 6 years. That +play cost me some money (helping Burbank stage it) but has never brought +me any. I have written Burbank (Lotos Club) and asked him to give me +back his rights in the old play so that I can treat with Daly and utilize +this chance to even myself up. Burbank is a lovely fellow, and if he +objects I can't urge him. But you run in at the Lotos and see him; and +if he relinquishes his claim, then I would like you to conduct the +business with Daly; or have Whitford or some other lawyer do it under +your supervision if you prefer. + +This morning I seem to have rheumatism in my right foot. + +I am ordered south by the doctor and shall expect to be well enough to +start by the end of this month. + + [No signature.] + + + + It is curious, after Clemens and Howells had tried so hard and so + long to place their "Sellers" Play, that now, when the story + appeared in book form, Augustin Daly should have thought it worth + dramatizing. Daly and Clemens were old friends, and it would seem + that Daly could hardly have escaped seeing the play when it was + going the rounds. But perhaps there is nothing more mysterious in + the world than the ways and wants of theatrical managers. The + matter came to nothing, of course, but the fact that Daly should + have thought a story built from an old discarded play had a play in + it seems interesting. + + Clemens and his wife were advised to leave the cold of Berlin as + soon as he was able to travel. This was not until the first of + March, when, taking their old courier, Joseph Very, they left the + children in good hands and journeyed to the south of France. + + + To Susy Clemens, in Berlin: + + MENTONE, Mch 22, '92. +SUSY DEAR,--I have been delighted to note your easy facility with your +pen and proud to note also your literary superiorities of one kind and +another--clearness of statement, directness, felicity of expression, +photographic ability in setting forth an incident--style--good style--no +barnacles on it in the way of unnecessary, retarding words (the Shipman +scrapes off the barnacles when he wants his racer to go her best gait and +straight to the buoy.) You should write a letter every day, long or short +--and so ought I, but I don't. + +Mamma says, tell Clara yes, she will have to write a note if the fan +comes back mended. + +We couldn't go to Nice to-day--had to give it up, on various accounts-- +and this was the last chance. I am sorry for Mamma--I wish she could +have gone. She got a heavy fall yesterday evening and was pretty stiff +and lame this morning, but is working it off trunk packing. + +Joseph is gone to Nice to educate himself in Kodaking--and to get the +pictures mounted which Mamma thinks she took here; but I noticed she +didn't take the plug out, as a rule. When she did, she took nine +pictures on top of each other--composites. + With lots of love. + PAPA. + + + In the course of their Italian wanderings they reached Florence, + where they were so comfortable and well that they decided to engage + a villa for the next winter. Through Prof. Willard Fiske, they + discovered the Villa Viviani, near Settignano, an old palace + beautifully located on the hilltops east of Florence, commanding a + wonderful view of the ancient city. Clemens felt that he could work + there, and time proved that he was right. + + For the summer, however, they returned to Germany, and located at + Bad-Nauheim. Clemens presently decided to make a trip to America to + give some personal attention to business matters. For one thing, + his publishing-house, in spite of prosperity, seemed constantly to + be requiring more capital, and then a Chicago company had been + persuaded by Paige to undertake the manufacture of the type-setter. + It was the beginning of a series of feverish trips which he would + make back and forth across the ocean during the next two years. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + BAD-NAUHEIM, June 11, '92. + Saturday. +DEAR MR. HALL,--If this arrives before I do, let it inform you that I am +leaving Bremen for New York next Tuesday in the "Havel." + +If you can meet me when the ship arrives, you can help me to get away +from the reporters; and maybe you can take me to your own or some other +lodgings where they can't find me. + +But if the hour is too early or too late for you, I shall obscure myself +somewhere till I can come to the office. + +Yours sincerely + S. L. C. + + + Nothing of importance happened in America. The new Paige company + had a factory started in Chicago and expected to manufacture fifty + machines as a beginning. They claimed to have capital, or to be + able to command it, and as the main control had passed from + Clemens's hands, he could do no more than look over the ground and + hope for the best. As for the business, about all that he could do + was to sign certain notes necessary to provide such additional + capital as was needed, and agree with Hall that hereafter they would + concentrate their efforts and resist further temptation in the way + of new enterprise. Then he returned to Bad-Nauheim and settled down + to literature. This was the middle of July, and he must have worked + pretty steadily, for he presently had a variety of MSS. ready to + offer. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + Aug. 10, '92. +DEAR MR. HALT,--I have dropped that novel I wrote you about, because I +saw a more effective way of using the main episode--to wit: by telling it +through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn and Tom +Sawyer (still 15 years old) and their friend the freed slave Jim around +the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, and somewhere after +the end of that great voyage he will work in the said episode and then +nobody will suspect that a whole book has been written and the globe +circumnavigated merely to get that episode in an effective (and at the +same time apparently unintentional) way. I have written 12,000 words of +this narrative, and find that the humor flows as easily as the adventures +and surprises--so I shall go along and make a book of from 50,000 to +100,000 words. + +It is a story for boys, of course, and I think will interest any boy +between 8 years and 80. + +When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas, +wrote and, offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for boys 50,000 +words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other matter in my +mind, then. + +I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so +that it will not only interest boys but will also strongly interest any +man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience. + +Now this story doesn't need to be restricted to a Childs magazine--it is +proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a syndicate. I +don't swear it, but I think so. + +Proposed title of the story, "New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." + + [No signature.] + + + The "novel" mentioned in the foregoing was The Extraordinary Twins, + a story from which Pudd'nhead Wilson would be evolved later. It was + a wildly extravagant farce--just the sort of thing that now and then + Mark Twain plunged into with an enthusiasm that had to work itself + out and die a natural death, or mellow into something worth while. + Tom Sawyer Abroad, as the new Huck story was finally called, was + completed and disposed of to St. Nicholas for serial publication. + + The Twichells were in Europe that summer, and came to Bad-Nauheim. + The next letter records a pleasant incident. The Prince of Wales of + that day later became King Edward VII. + + + To Mr. and Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa.: + + Private. BAD-NAUHEIM, Aug. 23, '92. +DEAR ORION AND MOLLIE,--("Private" because no newspaper-man or other +gossip must get hold of it) + +Livy is getting along pretty well, and the doctor thinks another summer +here will cure her. + +The Twichell's have been here four days and we have had good times with +them. Joe and I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure resort, +Saturday, to dine with some friends, and in the morning I went walking in +the promenade and met the British Ambassador to the Court of Berlin, and +he introduced me to the Prince of Wales, and I found him a most unusually +comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman to talk with--quick to see the +obscurest point, and equipped with a laugh which is spontaneous and +catching. Am invited by a near friend of his to meet him at dinner day +after tomorrow, and there could be a good time, but the brass band will +smash the talk and spoil everything. + +We are expecting to move to Florence ten or twelve days hence, but if +this hot weather continues we shall wait for cooler. I take Clara to +Berlin for the winter-music, mainly, with German and French added. Thus +far, Jean is our only glib French scholar. + +We all send love to you all and to Pamela and Sam's family, and Annie. + + SAM + + + Clemens and family left Bad-Nauheim for Italy by way of Switzerland. + In September Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Crane, who had been with + them in Europe during the first year, had now returned to America. + Mrs. Clemens had improved at the baths, though she had by no means + recovered her health. We get a general report of conditions from + the letter which Clemens wrote Mrs. Crane from Lucerne, Switzerland, + where the party rested for several days. The "Phelps" mentioned in + this letter was William Walter Phelps, United States Minister to + Germany. The Phelps and Clemens families had been much associated + in Berlin. "Mason" was Frank Mason, Consul General at Frankfort, + and in later years at Paris. "Charlie and Ida " were Charles and + Mrs. Langdon, of Elmira. + + + To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira, N. Y.: + + LUCERNE, Sept. 18, '92. +DEAR AUNT SUE,--Imagine how I felt to find that you had actually gone off +without filling my traveling ink stand which you gave me! I found it out +yesterday. Livy advised me to write you about it. + +I have been driving this pen hard. I wrote 280 pages on a yarn called +"Tom Sawyer Abroad," then took up the "Twins" again, destroyed the last +half of the manuscript and re-wrote it in another form, and am going to +continue it and finish it in Florence. "Tom Sawyer" seems rather pale to +the family after the extravagances of the Twins, but they came to like it +after they got used to it + +We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left there four or +five days earlier we should have made Florence in 3 days; but by the time +we got started Livy had got smitten with what we feared might be +erysipelas--greatly swollen neck and face, and unceasing headaches. We +lay idle in Frankfort 4 days, doctoring. We started Thursday and made +Bale. Hard trip, because it was one of those trains that gets tired +every seven minutes and stops to rest three quarters of an hour. It took +us 3 « hours to get here, instead of the regulation 2.20. We reached +here Friday evening and will leave tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. The rest +has made the headaches better. We shall pull through to Milan tomorrow +if possible. Next day we shall start at 10 a. m., and try to make +Bologna, 5 hours. Next day (Thursday) Florence, D. V. Next year we will +walk, for these excursions have got to be made over again. I've got +seven trunks, and I undertook to be courier because I meant to express +them to Florence direct, but we were a couple of days too late. All +continental roads had issued a peremptory order that no baggage should +travel a mile except in the company of the owner. (All over Europe +people are howling; they are separated from their baggage and can't get +it forwarded to them) I have to re-ship my trunks every day. It is very +amusing--uncommonly so. There seemed grave doubts about our being able +to get these trunks over the Italian frontier, but I've got a very +handsome note from the Frankfort Italian Consul General addressed to all +Italian Customs Officers, and we shall get through if anybody does. + +The Phelpses came to Frankfort and we had some great times--dinner at his +hotel, the Masons, supper at our inn--Livy not in it. She was merely +allowed a glimpse, no more. Of course, Phelps said she was merely +pretending to be ill; was never looking so well and fine. + +The children are all right. They paddle around a little, and drive-so do +we all. Lucerne seems to be pretty full of tourists. The Fleulen boat +went out crowded yesterday morning. + +The Paris Herald has created a public interest by inoculating one of its +correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to God they +would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite general and +strong, and much hope is felt. + +Livy says, I have said enough bad things, and better send all our loves +to you and Charley and Ida and all the children and shut up. Which I do +--and shut up. + S. L. C. + + + They reached Florence on the 26th, and four days later we find + Clemens writing again to Mrs. Crane, detailing everything at length. + Little comment on this letter is required; it fully explains itself. + Perhaps a word of description from one of his memoranda will not be + out of place. Of the villa he wrote: "It is a plain, square + building, like a box, and is painted light green and has green + window-shutters. It stands in a commanding position on the + artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is walled around + with masonry. From the walls the vineyards and olive groves of the + estate slant away toward the valley.... Roses overflow the + retaining walls and the battered and mossy stone urn on the gate- + post, in pink and yellow cataracts, exactly as they do on the drop- + curtains in the theaters. The house is a very fortress for + strength." + + The Mrs. Ross in this letter was Janet Ross, daughter of Lady Duff + Gordon, remembered to-day for her Egyptian letters. The Ross castle + was but a little distance away. + + + To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira: + + VILLA VIVIANI, SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE. + Sept. 30, 1892 +DEAR SUE,--We have been in the house several days, and certainly it is a +beautiful place,--particularly at this moment, when the skies are a deep +leaden color, the domes of Florence dim in the drizzling rain, and +occasional perpendicular coils of lightning quivering intensely in the +black sky about Galileo's Tower. It is a charming panorama, and the most +conspicuous towers and domes down in the city look to-day just as they +looked when Boccaccio and Dante used to contemplate them from this +hillock five and six hundred years ago. + +The Mademoiselle is a great help to Livy in the housekeeping, and is a +cheery and cheerful presence in the house. The butler is equipped with a +little French, and it is this fact that enables the house to go--but it +won't go well until the family get some sort of facility with the Italian +tongue, for the cook, the woman-of-all-work and the coachman understand +only that. It is a stubborn and devilish language to learn, but Jean and +the others will master it. Livy's German Nauheim girl is the worst off +of anybody, as there is no market for her tongue at all among the help. + +With the furniture in and the curtains up the house is very pretty, and +not unhomelike. At mid-night last night we heard screams up stairs--Susy +had set the lofty window curtains afire with a candle. This sounds kind +of frightful, whereas when you come to think of it, a burning curtain or +pile of furniture hasn't any element of danger about it in this fortress. +There isn't any conceivable way to burn this house down, or enable a +conflagration on one floor to climb to the next. + +Mrs. Ross laid in our wood, wine and servants for us, and they are +excellent. She had the house scoured from Cellar to rook the curtains +washed and put up, all beds pulled to pieces, beaten, washed and put +together again, and beguiled the Marchese into putting a big porcelain +stove in the vast central hall. She is a wonderful woman, and we don't +quite see how or when we should have gotten under way without her. + +Observe our address above--the post delivers letters daily at the house. + +Even with the work and fuss of settling the house Livy has improved--and +the best is yet to come. There is going to be absolute seclusion here-- +a hermit life, in fact. We (the rest of us) shall run over to the Ross's +frequently, and they will come here now and then and see Livy--that is +all. Mr. Fiske is away--nobody knows where--and the work on his house +has been stopped and his servants discharged. Therefore we shall merely +go Rossing--as far as society is concerned--shan't circulate in Florence +until Livy shall be well enough to take a share in it. + +This present house is modern. It is not much more than two centuries +old; but parts of it, and also its foundations are of high antiquity. +The fine beautiful family portraits--the great carved ones in the large +ovals over the doors of the big hall--carry one well back into the past. +One of them is dated 1305--he could have known Dante, you see. Another +is dated 1343--he could have known Boccaccio and spent his afternoons in +Fiesole listening to the Decameron tales. Another is dated 1463-- +he could have met Columbus..... + +Evening. The storm thundered away until night, and the rain came down in +floods. For awhile there was a partial break, which furnished about such +a sunset as will be exhibited when the Last Day comes and the universe +tumbles together in wreck and ruin. I have never seen anything more +spectacular and impressive. + +One person is satisfied with the villa, anyway. Jean prefers it to all +Europe, save Venice. Jean is eager to get at the Italian tongue again, +now, and I see that she has forgotten little or nothing of what she +learned of it in Rome and Venice last spring. + +I am the head French duffer of the family. Most of the talk goes over my +head at the table. I catch only words, not phrases. When Italian comes +to be substituted I shall be even worse off than I am now, I suppose. + +This reminds me that this evening the German girl said to Livy, "Man hat +mir gesagt loss Sie una candella verlaught habe"--unconsciously dropping +in a couple of Italian words, you see. So she is going to join the +polyglots, too, it appears. They say it is good entertainment to hear +her and the butler talk together in their respective tongues, piecing out +and patching up with the universal sign-language as they go along. Five +languages in use in the house (including the sign-language-hardest-worked +of them all) and yet with all this opulence of resource we do seem to +have an uncommonly tough time making ourselves understood. + +What we lack is a cat. If we only had Germania! That was the most +satisfactory all-round cat I have seen yet. Totally ungermanic in the +raciness of his character and in the sparkle of his mind and the +spontaneity of his movements. We shall not look upon his like again.... + + S. L. C. + + + Clemens got well settled down to work presently. He found the + situation, the climate, the background, entirely suited to literary + production, and in a little while he had accomplished more than at + any other time since his arrival in Europe. From letters to Mrs. + Crane and to Mr. Hall we learn something of his employments and his + satisfaction. + + + To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira: + + VILLA VIVIANI + SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE. Oct. 22, '92. +DEAR SUE,--We are getting wonted. The open fires have driven away the +cold and the doubt, and now a cheery spirit pervades the place. Livy and +the Kings and Mademoiselle having been taking their tea a number of +times, lately, on the open terrace with the city and the hills and the +sunset for company. I stop work, a few minutes, as a rule, when the sun +gets down to the hilltops west of Florence, and join the tea-group to +wonder and exclaim. There is always some new miracle in the view, a new +and exquisite variation in the show, a variation which occurs every 15 +minutes between dawn and night. Once early in the morning, a multitude +of white villas not before perceived, revealed themselves on the far +hills; then we recognized that all those great hills are snowed thick +with them, clear to the summit. + +The variety of lovely effects, the infinitude of change, is something not +to be believed by any who has not seen it. No view that I am acquainted +with in the world is at all comparable to this for delicacy, charm, +exquisiteness, dainty coloring, and bewildering rapidity of change. It +keeps a person drunk with pleasure all the time. Sometimes Florence +ceases to be substantial, and becomes just a faint soft dream, with domes +and towers of air, and one is persuaded that he might blow it away with a +puff of his breath. + +Livy is progressing admirably. This is just the place for her. + + [Remainder missing.] + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + Dec. 12, '92. +DEAR MR. HALL,--November check received. + +I have lent the Californian's Story to Arthur Stedman for his Author Club +Book, so your suggestion that my new spring-book bear that name arrives +too late, as he probably would not want us to use that story in a book of +ours until the Author book had had its run. That is for him to decide-- +and I don't want him hampered at all in his decision. I, for my part, +prefer the "$1,000,000 Banknote and Other Stories" by Mark Twain as a +title, but above my judgment I prefer yours. I mean this--it is not +taffy. + +I told Arthur to leave out the former squib or paragraph and use only the +Californian's Story. Tell him this is because I am going to use that in +the book I am now writing. + +I finished "Those Extraordinary Twins" night before last makes 60 or +80,000 words--haven't counted. + +The last third of it suits me to a dot. I begin, to-day, to entirely +recast and re-write the first two-thirds--new plan, with two minor +characters, made very prominent, one major character cropped out, and the +Twins subordinated to a minor but not insignificant place. + +The minor character will now become the chiefest, and I will name the +story after him--"Puddn'head Wilson." + +Merry Xmas to you, and great prosperity and felicity! + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +XXXIII + +LETTERS, 1893, TO MR. HALL, MRS. CLEMENS, AND OTHERS. FLORENCE. +BUSINESS TROUBLES. "PUDD'NHEAD WILSON." "JOAN OF ARC." +AT THE PLAYERS, NEW YORK + +The reader may have suspected that young Mr. Hall in New York was having +his troubles. He was by this time one-third owner in the business of +Charles L. Webster & Co., as well as its general manager. The business +had been drained of its capital one way and another-partly by the +publication of unprofitable books; partly by the earlier demands of the +typesetter, but more than all by the manufacturing cost and agents' +commissions demanded by L. A. L.; that is to say, the eleven large +volumes constituting the Library of American Literature, which Webster +had undertaken to place in a million American homes. There was plenty of +sale for it--indeed, that was just the trouble; for it was sold on +payments--small monthly payments--while the cost of manufacture and the +liberal agents' commissions were cash items, and it would require a +considerable period before the dribble of collections would swell into a +tide large enough to satisfy the steady outflow of expense. A sale of +twenty-five sets a day meant prosperity on paper, but unless capital +could be raised from some other source to make and market those books +through a period of months, perhaps even years, to come, it meant +bankruptcy in reality. It was Hall's job, with Clemens to back him, to +keep their ship afloat on these steadily ebbing financial waters. It was +also Hall's affair to keep Mark Twain cheerful, to look pleasant himself, +and to show how they were steadily getting rich because orders were +pouring in, though a cloud that resembled bankruptcy loomed always a +little higher upon the horizon. If Hall had not been young and an +optimist, he would have been frightened out of his boots early in the +game. As it was, he made a brave steady fight, kept as cheerful and +stiff an upper lip as possible, always hoping that something would +happen--some grand sale of his other books, some unexpected inflow from +the type-setter interests--anything that would sustain his ship until the +L. A. L. tide should turn and float it into safety. + +Clemens had faith in Hall and was fond of him. He never found fault with +him; he tried to accept his encouraging reports at their face value. He +lent the firm every dollar of his literary earnings not absolutely needed +for the family's support; he signed new notes; he allowed Mrs. Clemens to +put in such remnants of her patrimony as the type-setter had spared. + +The situation in 1893 was about as here outlined. The letters to Hall of +that year are frequent and carry along the story. To any who had formed +the idea that Mark Twain was irascible, exacting, and faultfinding, they +will perhaps be a revelation. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + FLORENCE, Jan. 1, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,--Yours of Dec. 19 is to hand, and Mrs. Clemens is deeply +distressed, for she thinks I have been blaming you or finding fault with +you about something. But most surely that cannot be. I tell her that +although I am prone to write hasty and regrettable things to other +people, I am not a bit likely to write such things to you. I can't +believe I have done anything so ungrateful. If I have, pile coals of +fire on my head, for I deserve it! + +I wonder if my letter of credit isn't an encumbrance? Do you have to +deposit the whole amount it calls for? If that is so, it is an +encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak. +I have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because I thought +you deposited nothing against it, and only had to put up money that I +drew upon it; that therefore the less I drew the easier it would be for +you. + +I am dreadfully sorry I didn't know it would be a help to you to let my +monthly check pass over a couple of months. I could have stood that by +drawing what is left of Mrs. Clemens's letter of credit, and we would +have done it cheerfully. + +I will write Whitmore to send you the "Century" check for $1,000, and you +can collect Mrs. Dodge's $2,000 (Whitmore has power of attorney which I +think will enable him to endorse it over to you in my name.) If you need +that $3,000 put it in the business and use it, and send Whitmore the +Company's note for a year. If you don't need it, turn it over to Mr. +Halsey and let him invest it for me. + +I've a mighty poor financial head, and I may be all wrong--but tell me if +I am wrong in supposing that in lending my own firm money at 6 per cent I +pay 4 of it myself and so really get only a per cent? Now don't laugh if +that is stupid. + +Of course my friend declined to buy a quarter interest in the L. A. L. +for $200,000. I judged he would. I hoped he would offer $100,000, but +he didn't. If the cholera breaks out in America, a few months hence, we +can't borrow or sell; but if it doesn't we must try hard to raise +$100,000. I wish we could do it before there is a cholera scare. + +I have been in bed two or three days with a cold, but I got up an hour +ago, and I believe I am all right again. + +How I wish I had appreciated the need of $100,000 when I was in New York +last summer! I would have tried my best to raise it. It would make us +able to stand 1,000 sets of L. A. L. per month, but not any more, I +guess. + +You have done magnificently with the business, and we must raise the +money somehow, to enable you to reap the reward of all that labor. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +"Whitmore," in this letter, was F. G. Whitmore, of Hartford, Mark Twain's +financial agent. The money due from Mrs. Dodge was a balance on Tom +Sawyer Abroad, which had been accepted by St. Nicholas. Mr. Halsey was a +down-town broker. + +Clemens, who was growing weary of the constant demands of L. A. L., had +conceived the idea that it would be well to dispose of a portion of it +for enough cash to finance its manufacture. + +We don't know who the friend was to whom he offered a quarter interest +for the modest sum of two hundred thousand dollars. But in the next +letter we discover designs on a certain very canny Scotchman of Skibo. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + FLORENCE, Jan. 28, '92. +DEAR MR. HALL,--I want to throw out a suggestion and see what you think +of it. We have a good start, and solid ground under us; we have a +valuable reputation; our business organization is practical, sound and +well-devised; our publications are of a respect-worthy character and of a +money-breeding species. Now then I think that the association with us of +some one of great name and with capital would give our business a +prodigious impetus--that phrase is not too strong. + +As I look at it, it is not money merely that is needed; if that were all, +the firm has friends enough who would take an interest in a paying +venture; we need some one who has made his life a success not only from a +business standpoint, but with that achievement back of him, has been +great enough to make his power felt as a thinker and a literary man. It +is a pretty usual thing for publishers to have this sort of partners. +Now you see what a power Carnegie is, and how far his voice reaches in +the several lines I speak of. Do you know him? You do by correspondence +or purely business talks about his books--but personally, I mean? so that +it would not be an intrusion for you to speak to him about this desire of +mine--for I would like you to put it before him, and if you fail to +interest him in it, you will probably get at least some valuable +suggestions from him. I'll enclose a note of introduction--you needn't +use it if you don't need to. + Yours S. L. C. + +P. S. Yes, I think I have already acknowledged the Dec. $1,000 and the +Jan. $500--and if another $500 was mailed 3 days ago there's no hiatus. + +I think I also reminded you that the new letter of credit does not cover +the unexpended balance of the old one but falls considerably short of it. + +Do your best with Carnegie, and don't wait to consider any of my +intermediate suggestions or talks about our raising half of the $200,000 +ourselves. I mean, wait for nothing. To make my suggestion available I +should have to go over and see Arnot, and I don't want to until I can +mention Carnegie's name to him as going in with us. + +My book is type-written and ready for print--"Pudd'nhead Wilson-a Tale." +(Or, "Those Extraordinary Twins," if preferable.) + +It makes 82,500 words--12,000 more than Huck Finn. But I don't know what +to do with it. Mrs. Clemens thinks it wouldn't do to go to the Am. Pub. +Co. or anywhere outside of our own house; we have no subscription +machinery, and a book in the trade is a book thrown away, as far as +money-profit goes. I am in a quandary. Give me a lift out of it. + +I will mail the book to you and get you to examine it and see if it is +good or if it is bad. I think it is good, and I thought the Claimant +bad, when I saw it in print; but as for real judgment, I think I am +destitute of it. + +I am writing a companion to the Prince and Pauper, which is half done and +will make 200,000 words; and I have had the idea that if it were gotten +up in handsome style, with many illustrations and put at a high enough +price maybe the L. A. L. canvassers would take it and run it with that +book. Would they? It could be priced anywhere from $4 up to $10, +according to how it was gotten up, I suppose. + +I don't want it to go into a magazine. + S. L. C. + +I am having several short things type-"writered." I will send them to +you presently. I like the Century and Harper's, but I don't know that I +have any business to object to the Cosmopolitan if they pay as good +rates. I suppose a man ought to stick to one magazine, but that may be +only superstition. What do you think? + S. L. C. + + + "The companion to The Prince and the Pauper," mentioned in this + letter, was the story of Joan of Arc, perhaps the most finished of + Mark Twain's literary productions. His interest in Joan had been + first awakened when, as a printer's apprentice in Hannibal, he had + found blowing along the street a stray leaf from some printed story + of her life. That fragment of history had pictured Joan in prison, + insulted and mistreated by ruffians. It had aroused all the + sympathy and indignation in the boy, Sam Clemens; also, it had + awakened his interest in history, and, indeed, in all literature. + + His love for the character of Joan had grown with the years, until + in time he had conceived the idea of writing her story. As far back + as the early eighties he had collected material for it, and had + begun to make the notes. One thing and another had interfered, and + he had found no opportunity for such a story. Now, however, in + Florence, in the ancient villa, and in the quiet garden, looking + across the vineyards and olive groves to the dream city along the + Arno, he felt moved to take up the tale of the shepherd girl of + France, the soldier maid, or, as he called her, "The noble child, + the most innocent, the most lovely, the most adorable the ages have + produced." His surroundings and background would seem to have been + perfect, and he must have written with considerable ease to have + completed a hundred thousand words in a period of not more than six + weeks. + + Perhaps Hall did not even go to see Carnegie; at all events nothing + seems to have come of the idea. Once, at a later time, Mask Twain + himself mentioned the matter to Carnegie, and suggested to him that + it was poor financiering to put all of one's eggs into one basket, + meaning into iron. But Carnegie answered, "That's a mistake; put + all your eggs into one basket and watch that basket." + + It was March when Clemens felt that once more his presence was + demanded in America. He must see if anything could be realized from + the type-setter or L. A. L. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + March 13, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,--I am busy getting ready to sail the 22d, in the Kaiser +Wilhelm II. + +I send herewith 2 magazine articles. + +The Story contains 3,800 to 4,000 words. + +The "Diary" contains 3,800 words. + +Each would make about 4 pages of the Century. + +The Diary is a gem, if I do say it myself that shouldn't. + +If the Cosmopolitan wishes to pay $600 for either of them or $1,200 for +both, gather in the check, and I will use the money in America instead of +breaking into your treasury. + +If they don't wish to trade for either, send the articles to the Century, +without naming a price, and if their check isn't large enough I will call +and abuse them when I come. + +I signed and mailed the notes yesterday. + Yours + S. L. C. + + + Clemens reached New York on the 3d of April and made a trip to + Chicago, but accomplished nothing, except to visit the World's Fair + and be laid up with a severe cold. The machine situation had not + progressed. The financial stringency of 1893 had brought everything + to a standstill. The New York bank would advance Webster & Co. no + more money. So disturbed were his affairs, so disordered was + everything, that sometimes he felt himself as one walking amid + unrealities. A fragment of a letter to Mrs. Crane conveys this: + + "I dreamed I was born and grew up and was a pilot on the Mississippi + and a miner and a journalist in Nevada and a pilgrim in the Quaker + City, and had a wife and children and went to live in a villa at + Florence--and this dream goes on and on and sometimes seems so real + that I almost believe it is real. I wonder if it is? But there is + no way to tell, for if one applies tests they would be part of the + dream, too, and so would simply aid the deceit. I wish I knew + whether it is a dream or real." + + He saw Warner, briefly, in America; also Howells, now living in New + York, but he had little time for visiting. On May 13th he sailed + again for Europe on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. On the night before + sailing he sent Howells a good-by word. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York City: + + MURRAY HILL HOTEL, NEW YORE, May 12, 1893. + Midnight. +DEAR HOWELLS--I am so sorry I missed you. + +I am very glad to have that book for sea entertainment, and I thank you +ever so much for it. + +I've had a little visit with Warner at last; I was getting afraid I +wasn't going to have a chance to see him at all. I forgot to tell you +how thoroughly I enjoyed your account of the country printing office, and +how true it all was and how intimately recognizable in all its details. +But Warner was full of delight over it, and that reminded me, and I am +glad, for I wanted to speak of it. + +You have given me a book; Annie Trumbull has sent me her book; I bought a +couple of books; Mr. Hall gave me a choice German book; Laflan gave me +two bottles of whisky and a box of cigars--I go to sea nobly equipped. + +Good-bye and all good fortune attend you and yours--and upon you all I +leave my benediction. + MARK. + + + Mention has already been made of the Ross home being very near to + Viviani, and the association of the Ross and Clemens families. + There was a fine vegetable garden on the Ross estate, and it was in + the interest of it that the next letter was written to the Secretary + of Agriculture. + + + To Hon. J. Sterling Morton, in Washington, D. C.: + Editorial Department Century Magazine, Union Square, + + NEW YORK, April 6, 1893. +TO THE HON. J. STERLING MORTON,--Dear Sir: Your petitioner, Mark Twain, +a poor farmer of Connecticut--indeed, the poorest one there, in the +opinion of many-desires a few choice breeds of seed corn (maize), and in +return will zealously support the Administration in all ways honorable +and otherwise. + +To speak by the card, I want these things to hurry to Italy to an English +lady. She is a neighbor of mine outside of Florence, and has a great +garden and thinks she could raise corn for her table if she had the right +ammunition. I myself feel a warm interest in this enterprise, both on +patriotic grounds and because I have a key to that garden, which I got +made from a wax impression. It is not very good soil, still I think she +can grow enough for one table and I am in a position to select the table. +If you are willing to aid and abet a countryman (and Gilder thinks you +are,) please find the signature and address of your petitioner below. + +Respectfully and truly yours. + MARK TWAIN, + +67 Fifth Avenue, New York. + +P. S.--A handful of choice (Southern) watermelon seeds would pleasantly +add to that lady's employments and give my table a corresponding lift. + + + His idea of business values had moderated considerably by the time + he had returned to Florence. He was not hopeless yet, but he was + clearly a good deal disheartened--anxious for freedom. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + FLORENCE May 30, '93 +DEAR MR. HALL,--You were to cable me if you sold any machine royalties-- +so I judge you have not succeeded. + +This has depressed me. I have been looking over the past year's letters +and statements and am depressed still more. + +I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition unfitted +for it and I want to get out of it. I am standing on the Mount Morris +volcano with help from the machine a long way off--doubtless a long way +further off than the Connecticut Co. imagines. + +Now here is my idea for getting out. + +The firm owes Mrs. Clemens and me--I do not know quite how much, but it +is about $170,000 or $175,000, 1 suppose (I make this guess from the +documents here, whose technicalities confuse me horribly.) + +The firm owes other sums, but there is stock and cash assets to cover the +entire indebtedness and $116,679.20 over. Is that it? In addition we +have the L. A. L. plates and copyright, worth more than $130,000--is +that correct? + +That is to say, we have property worth about $250,000 above indebtedness, +I suppose--or, by one of your estimates, $300,000? The greater part of +the first debts to me is in notes paying 6 percent. The rest (the old +$70,000 or whatever it is) pays no interest. + +Now then, will Harper or Appleton, or Putnam give me $200,000 for those +debts and my two-thirds interest in the firm? (The firm of course taking +the Mount Morris and all such obligations off my hands and leaving me +clear of all responsibility.) + +I don't want much money. I only want first class notes--$200,000 worth +of them at 6 per cent, payable monthly;--yearly notes, renewable annually +for 3 years, with $5,000 of the principal payable at the beginning and +middle of each year. After that, the notes renewable annually and +(perhaps) a larger part of the principal payable semi-annually. + +Please advise me and suggest alterations and emendations of the above +scheme, for I need that sort of help, being ignorant of business and not +able to learn a single detail of it. + +Such a deal would make it easy for a big firm to pour in a big cash +capital and jump L. A. L. up to enormous prosperity. Then your one-third +would be a fortune--and I hope to see that day! + +I enclose an authority to use with Whitmore in case you have sold any +royalties. But if you can't make this deal don't make any. Wait a +little and see if you can't make the deal. Do make the deal if you +possibly can. And if any presence shall be necessary in order to +complete it I will come over, though I hope it can be done without that. + +Get me out of business! + +And I will be yours forever gratefully, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +My idea is, that I am offering my 2/3 of L. A. L. and the business for +thirty or forty thousand dollars. Is that it? + +P. S. S. The new firm could retain my books and reduce them to a +10 percent royalty. S. L. C. + + + To Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + VILLA VIVIANI, SETTIGNANO (FLORENCE) + June 9, '93. +DEAR JOE,--The sea voyage set me up and I reached here May 27 in +tolerable condition--nothing left but weakness, cough all gone. + +Old Sir Henry Layard was here the other day, visiting our neighbor Janet +Ross, daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, and since then I have been reading +his account of the adventures of his youth in the far East. In a +footnote he has something to say about a sailor which I thought might +interest you--viz: + +"This same quartermaster was celebrated among the English in Mesopotamia +for an entry which he made in his log-book-after a perilous storm; 'The +windy and watery elements raged. Tears and prayers was had recourse to, +but was of no manner of use. So we hauled up the anchor and got round +the point.'" + +There--it isn't Ned Wakeman; it was before his day. + + With love, + MARK. + + + They closed Villa Viviani in June and near the end of the month + arrived in Munich in order that Mrs. Clemens might visit some of the + German baths. The next letter is written by her and shows her deep + sympathy with Hall in his desperate struggle. There have been few + more unselfish and courageous women in history than Mark Twain's + wife. + + + From Mrs. Clemens to Mr. Hall, in New York: + + June 27th 1893 + MUNICH. +DEAR MR. HALL,-- Your letter to Mr. Clemens of June 16th has just reached +here; as he has gone to Berlin for Clara I am going to send you just a +line in answer to it. + +Mr. Clemens did not realize what trouble you would be in when his letter +should reach you or he would not have sent it just then. I hope you will +not worry any more than you can help. Do not let our interests weigh on +you too heavily. We both know you will, as you always have, look in +every way to the best interests of all. + +I think Mr. Clemens is right in feeling that he should get out of +business, that he is not fitted for it; it worries him too much. + +But he need be in no haste about it, and of course, it would be the very +farthest from his desire to imperil, in the slightest degree, your +interests in order to save his own. + +I am sure that I voice his wish as well as mine when I say that he would +simply like you to bear in mind the fact that he greatly desires to be +released from his present anxiety and worry, at a time when it shall not +endanger your interest or the safety of the business. + +I am more sorry than I can express that this letter of Mr. Clemens' +should have reached you when you were struggling under such terrible +pressure. I hope now that the weight is not quite so heavy. He would +not have written you about the money if he had known that it was an +inconvenience for you to send it. He thought the book-keeper whose duty +it is to forward it had forgotten. + +We can draw on Mr. Langdon for money for a few weeks until things are a +little easier with you. As Mr. Clemens wrote you we would say "do not +send us any more money at present" if we were not afraid to do so. I +will say, however, do not trouble yourself if for a few weeks you are not +able to send the usual amount. + +Mr. Clemens and I have the greatest possible desire, not to increase in +any way your burdens, and sincerely wish we might aid you. + +I trust my brother may be able, in his talk with you, to throw some +helpful light on the situation. + +Hoping you will see a change for the better and begin to reap the fruit +of your long and hard labor. + Believe me + Very Cordially yours + OLIVIA L. CLEMENS. + + +Hall, naturally, did not wish to be left alone with the business. He +realized that his credit would suffer, both at the bank and with the +public, if his distinguished partner should retire. He wrote, therefore, +proposing as an alternate that they dispose of the big subscription set +that was swamping them. It was a good plan--if it would work--and we +find Clemens entering into it heartily. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + MUNICH, July 3, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,--You make a suggestion which has once or twice flitted +dimly through my mind heretofore to wit, sell L. A. L. + +I like that better than the other scheme, for it is no doubt feasible, +whereas the other is perhaps not. + +The firm is in debt, but L. A. L. is free--and not only free but has +large money owing to it. A proposition to sell that by itself to a big +house could be made without embarrassment we merely confess that we +cannot spare capital from the rest of the business to run it on the huge +scale necessary to make it an opulent success. + +It will be selling a good thing--for somebody; and it will be getting rid +of a load which we are clearly not able to carry. Whoever buys will have +a noble good opening--a complete equipment, a well organized business, +a capable and experienced manager, and enterprise not experimental but +under full sail, and immediately able to pay 50 per cent a year on every +dollar the publisher shall actually invest in it--I mean in making and +selling the books. + +I am miserably sorry to be adding bothers and torments to the over-supply +which you already have in these hideous times, but I feel so troubled, +myself, considering the dreary fact that we are getting deeper and deeper +in debt and the L. A. L. getting to be a heavier and heavier burden all +the time, that I must bestir myself and seek a way of relief. + +It did not occur to me that in selling out I would injure you--for that I +am not going to do. But to sell L. A. L. will not injure you it will put +you in better shape. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + July 8, '92. +DEAR MR. HALL,--I am sincerely glad you are going to sell L. A. L. I am +glad you are shutting off the agents, and I hope the fatal book will be +out of our hands before it will be time to put them on again. With +nothing but our non-existent capital to work with the book has no value +for us, rich a prize as it will be to any competent house that gets it. + +I hope you are making an effort to sell before you discharge too many +agents, for I suppose the agents are a valuable part of the property. + +We have been stopping in Munich for awhile, but we shall make a break for +some country resort in a few days now. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. C. + + July 8 +P. S. No, I suppose I am wrong in suggesting that you wait a moment +before discharging your L. A. L. agents--in fact I didn't mean that. +I judge your only hope of salvation is in discharging them all at once, +since it is their commissions that threaten to swamp us. It is they who +have eaten up the $14,000 I left with you in such a brief time, no doubt. + +I feel panicky. + +I think the sale might be made with better advantage, however, now, than +later when the agents have got out of the purchaser's reach. + S. L. C. + +P. S. No monthly report for many months. + + + Those who are old enough to remember the summer of 1893 may recall + it as a black financial season. Banks were denying credit, + businesses were forced to the wall. It was a poor time to float any + costly enterprise. The Chicago company who was trying to build the + machines made little progress. The book business everywhere was + bad. In a brief note following the foregoing letters Clemens wrote + Hall: + + "It is now past the middle of July and no cablegram to say the + machine is finished. We are afraid you are having miserable days + and worried nights, and we sincerely wish we could relieve you, but + it is all black with us and we don't know any helpful thing to say + or do." + + He inclosed some kind of manuscript proposition for John Brisben + Walker, of the Cosmopolitan, with the comment: "It is my ingenious + scheme to protect the family against the alms-house for one more + year--and after that--well, goodness knows! I have never felt so + desperate in my life--and good reason, for I haven't got a penny to + my name, and Mrs. Clemens hasn't enough laid up with Langdon to keep + us two months." + + It was like Mark Twain, in the midst of all this turmoil, to project + an entirely new enterprise; his busy mind was always visioning + success in unusual undertakings, regardless of immediate conditions + and the steps necessary to achievement. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + July 26, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,-- ..... I hope the machine will be finished this month; +but it took me four years and cost me $100,000 to finish the other +machine after it was apparently entirely complete and setting type like a +house-afire. + +I wonder what they call "finished." After it is absolutely perfect it +can't go into a printing-office until it has had a month's wear, running +night and day, to get the bearings smooth, I judge. + +I may be able to run over about mid-October. Then if I find you relieved +of L. A. L. we will start a magazine inexpensive, and of an entirely +unique sort. Arthur Stedman and his father editors of it. Arthur could +do all the work, merely submitting it to his father for approval. + +The first number should pay--and all subsequent ones --25 cents a number. +Cost of first number (20,000 copies) $2,000. Give most of them away, +sell the rest. Advertising and other expenses--cost unknown. Send one +to all newspapers--it would get a notice--favorable, too. + +But we cannot undertake it until L. A. L, is out of the way. With our +hands free and some capital to spare, we could make it hum. + +Where is the Shelley article? If you have it on hand, keep it and I will +presently tell you what to do with it. + +Don't forget to tell me. + Yours Sincerely + S. L. C. + + + The Shelley article mentioned in this letter was the "Defense of + Harriet Sheller," one of the very best of his essays. How he could + have written this splendid paper at a time of such distraction + passes comprehension. Furthermore, it is clear that he had revised, + indeed rewritten, the long story of Pudd'nhead Wilson. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + July 30, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,--This time "Pudd'nhead Wilson" is a success! Even Mrs. +Clemens, the most difficult of critics, confesses it, and without +reserves or qualifications. Formerly she would not consent that it be +published either before or after my death. I have pulled the twins apart +and made two individuals of them; I have sunk them out of sight, they are +mere flitting shadows, now, and of no importance; their story has +disappeared from the book. Aunt Betsy Hale has vanished wholly, leaving +not a trace behind; aunt Patsy Cooper and her daughter Rowena have almost +disappeared--they scarcely walk across the stage. The whole story is +centered on the murder and the trial; from the first chapter the movement +is straight ahead without divergence or side-play to the murder and the +trial; everything that is done or said or that happens is a preparation +for those events. Therefore, 3 people stand up high, from beginning to +end, and only 3--Pudd'nhead, "Tom" Driscoll, and his nigger mother, +Roxana; none of the others are important, or get in the way of the story +or require the reader's attention. Consequently, the scenes and episodes +which were the strength of the book formerly are stronger than ever, now. + +When I began this final reconstruction the story contained 81,500 words, +now it contains only 58,000. I have knocked out everything that delayed +the march of the story--even the description of a Mississippi steamboat. +There's no weather in, and no scenery--the story is stripped for flight! + +Now, then what is she worth? The amount of matter is but 3,000 words +short of the American Claimant, for which the syndicate paid $12,500. +There was nothing new in that story, but the finger-prints in this one +is virgin ground--absolutely fresh, and mighty curious and interesting +to everybody. + +I don't want any more syndicating--nothing short of $20,000, anyway, and +that I can't get--but won't you see how much the Cosmopolitan will stand? + +Do your best for me, for I do not sleep these nights, for visions of the +poor-house. + +This in spite of the hopeful tone of yours of 11th to Langdon (just +received) for in me hope is very nearly expiring. Everything does look +so blue, so dismally blue! + +By and by I shall take up the Rhone open-boat voyage again, but not now- +we are going to be moving around too much. I have torn up some of it, +but still have 15,000 words that Mrs. Clemens approves of, and that I +like. I may go at it in Paris again next winter, but not unless I know I +can write it to suit me. + +Otherwise I shall tackle Adam once more, and do him in a kind of a +friendly and respectful way that will commend him to the Sunday schools. +I've been thinking out his first life-days to-day and framing his +childish and ignorant impressions and opinions for him. + +Will ship Pudd'nhead in a few days. When you get it cable + + Mark Twain + Care Brownship, London + Received. + +I mean to ship "Pudd'nhead Wilson" to you-say, tomorrow. It'll furnish +me hash for awhile I reckon. I am almost sorry it is finished; it was +good entertainment to work at it, and kept my mind away from things. + +We leave here in about ten days, but the doctors have changed our plans +again. I think we shall be in Bohemia or thereabouts till near the end +of September, then go to Paris and take a rest. + Yours Sincerely + S. L. C. + +P. S. Mrs. Clemens has come in since, and read your letter and is deeply +distressed. She thinks that in some letter of mine I must have +reproached you. She says it is wonderful that you have kept the ship +afloat in this storm that has seen fleets and fleets go down; that from +what she learns of the American business-situation from her home letters +you have accomplished a marvel in the circumstances, and that she cannot +bear to have a word said to you that shall voice anything but praise and +the heartiest appreciation--and not the shadow of a reproach will she +allow. + +I tell her I didn't reproach you and never thought of such a thing. And +I said I would break open my letter and say so. + +Mrs. Clemens says I must tell you not to send any money for a month or +two--so that you may be afforded what little relief is in our power. +All right--I'm willing; (this is honest) but I wish Brer Chatto would +send along his little yearly contribution. I dropped him a line about +another matter a week ago--asked him to subscribe for the Daily News for +me--you see I wanted to remind him in a covert way that it was pay-up +time--but doubtless I directed the letter to you or some one else, for I +don't hear from him and don't get any Daily News either. + + +To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + Aug. 6, '93. +DEAR MR. HALL,--I am very sorry--it was thoughtless in me. Let the +reports go. Send me once a month two items, and two only: + +Cash liabilities--(so much) +Cash assets--(so much) + +I can perceive the condition of the business at a glance, then, and that +will be sufficient. + +Here we never see a newspaper, but even if we did I could not come +anywhere near appreciating or correctly estimating the tempest you have +been buffeting your way through--only the man who is in it can do that-- +but I have tried not to burden you thoughtlessly or wantonly. I have +been wrought and unsettled in mind by apprehensions, and that is a thing +that is not helpable when one is in a strange land and sees his resources +melt down to a two months' supply and can't see any sure daylight beyond. +The bloody machine offered but a doubtful outlook--and will still offer +nothing much better for a long time to come; for when Davis's "three +weeks" is up there's three months' tinkering to follow I guess. That is +unquestionably the boss machine of the world, but is the toughest one on +prophets, when it is in an incomplete state, that has ever seen the +light. Neither Davis nor any other man can foretell with any +considerable approach to certainty when it will be ready to get down to +actual work in a printing office. + + [No signature.] + + + Three days after the foregoing letter was written he wrote, briefly: + + "Great Scott but it's a long year-for you and me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. At least since I was finishing that other + machine. + + "I watch for your letters hungrily--just as I used to watch for the + cablegram saying the machine's finished; but when 'next week + certainly' swelled into 'three weeks sure' I recognized the old + familiar tune I used to hear so much. Ward don't know what sick- + heartedness is--but he is in a way to find out." + + Always the quaint form of his humor, no matter how dark the way. + We may picture him walking the floor, planning, scheming, and + smoking--always smoking--trying to find a way out. It was not the + kind of scheming that many men have done under the circumstances; + not scheming to avoid payment of debts, but to pay them. + + + To Fred J. Hall, in New York: + + Aug. 14, '93 +DEAR MR. HALL,--I am very glad indeed if you and Mr. Langdon are able to +see any daylight ahead. To me none is visible. I strongly advise that +every penny that comes in shall be applied to paying off debts. I may be +in error about this, but it seems to me that we have no other course +open. We can pay a part of the debts owing to outsiders--none to the +Clemenses. In very prosperous times we might regard our stock and +copyrights as assets sufficient, with the money owing to us, to square up +and quit even, but I suppose we may not hope for such luck in the present +condition of things. + +What I am mainly hoping for, is to save my royalties. If they come into +danger I hope you will cable me, so that I can come over and try to save +them, for if they go I am a beggar. + +I would sail to-day if I had anybody to take charge of my family and help +them through the difficult journeys commanded by the doctors. I may be +able to sail ten days hence; I hope so, and expect so. + +We can never resurrect the L. A. L. I would not spend any more money on +that book. You spoke, a while back, of trying to start it up again as a +preparation to disposing of it, but we are not in shape to venture that, +I think. It would require more borrowing, and we must not do that. + Yours Sincerely + S. L. C. + +Aug. 16. I have thought, and thought, but I don't seem to arrive in any +very definite place. Of course you will not have an instant's safety +until the bank debts are paid. There is nothing to be thought of but to +hand over every penny as fast as it comes in--and that will be slow +enough! Or could you secure them by pledging part of our cash assets +and-- + +I am coming over, just as soon as I can get the family moved and settled. + S. L. C. + + + Two weeks following this letter he could endure the suspense no + longer, and on August 29th sailed once more for America. In New + York, Clemens settled down at the Players Club, where he could live + cheaply, and undertook some literary work while he was casting about + for ways and means to relieve the financial situation. Nothing + promising occurred, until one night at the Murray Hill Hotel he was + introduced by Dr. Clarence C. Rice to Henry H. Rogers, of the + Standard Oil group of financiers. Rogers had a keen sense of humor + and had always been a great admirer of Mark Twain's work. It was a + mirthful evening, and certainly an eventful one in Mark Twain's + life. A day or two later Doctor Rice asked the millionaire to + interest himself a little in Clemens's business affairs, which he + thought a good deal confused. Just what happened is not remembered + now, but from the date of the next letter we realize that a + discussion of the matter by Clemens and Rogers must have followed + pretty promptly. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Europe: + + Oct. 18, '93. +DEAR, DEAR SWEETHEART,--I don't seem to get even half a chance to write +you, these last two days, and yet there's lots to say. + +Apparently everything is at last settled as to the giveaway of L. A. L., +and the papers will be signed and the transfer made to-morrow morning. + +Meantime I have got the best and wisest man in the whole Standard Oil +group of mufti-millionaires a good deal interested in looking into the +type-setter (this is private, don't mention it.) He has been searching +into that thing for three weeks, and yesterday he said to me, "I find the +machine to be all you represented it--I have here exhaustive reports from +my own experts, and I know every detail of its capacity, its immense +value, its construction, cost, history, and all about its inventor's +character. I know that the New York Co. and the Chicago Co. are both +stupid, and that they are unbusinesslike people, destitute of money and +in a hopeless boggle." + +Then he told me the scheme he had planned, then said: "If I can arrange +with these people on this basis--it will take several weeks to find out-- +I will see to it that they get the money they need. Then the thing will +move right along and your royalties will cease to be waste paper. I will +post you the minute my scheme fails or succeeds. In the meantime, you +stop walking the floor. Go off to the country and try to be gay. You +may have to go to walking again, but don't begin till I tell you my +scheme has failed." And he added: "Keep me posted always as to where you +are--for if I need you and can use you--I want to know where to put my +hand on you." + +If I should even divulge the fact that the Standard Oil is merely talking +remotely about going into the type-setter, it would send my royalties up. + +With worlds and worlds of love and kisses to you all, + SAML. + + +With so great a burden of care shifted to the broad financial shoulders +of H. H. Rogers, Mark Twain's spirits went ballooning, soaring toward the +stars. He awoke, too, to some of the social gaieties about him, and +found pleasure in the things that in the hour of his gloom had seemed +mainly mockery. We find him going to a Sunday evening at Howells's, to +John Mackay's, and elsewhere. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + Dec. 2, '93. +LIVY DARLING,--Last night at John Mackay's the dinner consisted of soup, +raw oysters, corned beef and cabbage, and something like a custard. +I ate without fear or stint, and yet have escaped all suggestion of +indigestion. The men present were old gray Pacific-coasters whom I knew +when I and they were young and not gray. The talk was of the days when +we went gypsying a long time ago--thirty years. Indeed it was a talk of +the dead. Mainly that. And of how they looked, and the harum-scarum +things they did and said. For there were no cares in that life, no aches +and pains, and not time enough in the day (and three-fourths of the +night) to work off one's surplus vigor and energy. Of the mid-night +highway robbery joke played upon me with revolvers at my head on the +windswept and desolate Gold Hill Divide, no witness is left but me, the +victim. All the friendly robbers are gone. These old fools last night +laughed till they cried over the particulars of that old forgotten crime. + +John Mackay has no family here but a pet monkey--a most affectionate and +winning little devil. But he makes trouble for the servants, for he is +full of curiosity and likes to take everything out of the drawers and +examine it minutely; and he puts nothing back. The examinations of +yesterday count for nothing to-day--he makes a new examination every day. +But he injures nothing. + +I went with Laffan to the Racquet Club the other night and played, +billiards two hours without starting up any rheumatism. I suppose it was +all really taken out of me in Berlin. + +Richard Harding Davis spoke yesterday of Clara's impersonations at Mrs. +Van Rensselaer's here and said they were a wonderful piece of work. + +Livy dear, I do hope you are comfortable, as to quarters and food at the +Hotel Brighton. But if you're not don't stay there. Make one more +effort--don't give it up. Dear heart, this is from one who loves you-- +which is Saml. + + + It was decided that Rogers and Clemens should make a trip to Chicago + to investigate personally the type-setter situation there. Clemens + reports the details of the excursion to Mrs. Clemens in a long + subdivided letter, most of which has no general interest and is here + omitted. The trip, as a whole, would seem to have been + satisfactory. The personal portions of the long Christmas letter + may properly be preserved. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + THE PLAYERS, Xmas, 1893. + No. 1. +Merry Xmas, my darling, and all my darlings! I arrived from Chicago +close upon midnight last night, and wrote and sent down my Christmas +cablegram before undressing: "Merry Xmas! Promising progress made in +Chicago." It would get to the telegraph office toward 8 this morning and +reach you at luncheon. + +I was vaguely hoping, all the past week, that my Xmas cablegram would be +definite, and make you all jump with jubilation; but the thought always +intruded itself, "You are not going out there to negotiate with a man, +but with a louse. This makes results uncertain." + +I was asleep as Christmas struck upon the clock at mid night, and didn't +wake again till two hours ago. It is now half past 10 Xmas morning; I +have had my coffee and bread, and shan't get out of bed till it is time +to dress for Mrs. Laflan's Christmas dinner this evening--where I shall +meet Bram Stoker and must make sure about that photo with Irving's +autograph. I will get the picture and he will attend to the rest. In +order to remember and not forget--well, I will go there with my dress +coat wrong side out; it will cause remark and then I shall remember. + + + No. 2 and 3. +I tell you it was interesting! The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way +out Mr. Rogers would plan out the campaign while I walked the floor and +smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap and drop it +and we would totally change the subject and take up the scenery, etc. + +(Here follows the long detailed report of the Chicago conference, of +interest only to the parties directly concerned.) + + + No. 4. +We had nice tripe, going and coming. Mr. Rogers had telegraphed the +Pennsylvania Railroad for a couple of sections for us in the fast train +leaving at 2 p. m. the 22nd. The Vice President telegraphed back that +every berth was engaged (which was not true--it goes without saying) but +that he was sending his own car for us. It was mighty nice and +comfortable. In its parlor it had two sofas, which could become beds at +night. It had four comfortably-cushioned cane arm-chairs. It had a very +nice bedroom with a wide bed in it; which I said I would take because I +believed I was a little wider than Mr. Rogers--which turned out to be +true; so I took it. It had a darling back-porch--railed, roofed and +roomy; and there we sat, most of the time, and viewed the scenery and +talked, for the weather was May weather, and the soft dream-pictures of +hill and river and mountain and sky were clear and away beyond anything I +have ever seen for exquisiteness and daintiness. + +The colored waiter knew his business, and the colored cook was a finished +artist. Breakfasts: coffee with real cream; beefsteaks, sausage, bacon, +chops, eggs in various ways, potatoes in various--yes, and quite +wonderful baked potatoes, and hot as fire. Dinners--all manner of +things, including canvas-back duck, apollinaris, claret, champagne, etc. + +We sat up chatting till midnight, going and coming; seldom read a line, +day or night, though we were well fixed with magazines, etc.; then I +finished off with a hot Scotch and we went to bed and slept till 9.30a.m. +I honestly tried to pay my share of hotel bills, fees, etc., but I was +not allowed--and I knew the reason why, and respected the motive. I will +explain when I see you, and then you will understand. + +We were 25 hours going to Chicago; we were there 24 hours; we were 30 +hours returning. Brisk work, but all of it enjoyable. We insisted on +leaving the car at Philadelphia so that our waiter and cook (to whom Mr. +R. gave $10 apiece,) could have their Christmas-eve at home. + +Mr. Rogers's carriage was waiting for us in Jersey City and deposited me +at the Players. There--that's all. This letter is to make up for the +three letterless days. I love you, dear heart, I love you all. + SAML. + + + + +XXXIV + +LETTERS 1894. A WINTER IN NEW YORK. BUSINESS FAILURE. +END OF THE MACHINE + +The beginning of the new year found Mark Twain sailing buoyantly on a +tide of optimism. He believed that with H. H. Rogers as his financial +pilot he could weather safely any storm or stress. He could divert +himself, or rest, or work, and consider his business affairs with +interest and amusement, instead of with haggard anxiety. He ran over to +Hartford to see an amateur play; to Boston to give a charity reading; to +Fair Haven to open the library which Mr. Rogers had established there; he +attended gay dinners, receptions, and late studio parties, acquiring the +name of the "Belle of New York." In the letters that follow we get the +echo of some of these things. The Mrs. Rice mentioned in the next brief +letter was the wife of Dr. Clarence C. Rice, who had introduced +H. H. Rogers to Mark Twain. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + Jan. 12, '94 +Livy darling, I came down from Hartford yesterday with Kipling, and he +and Hutton and I had the small smoking compartment to ourselves and found +him at last at his ease, and not shy. He was very pleasant company +indeed. He is to be in the city a week, and I wish I could invite him to +dinner, but it won't do. I should be interrupted by business, of course. +The construction of a contract that will suit Paige's lawyer (not Paige) +turns out to be very difficult. He is embarrassed by earlier advice to +Paige, and hates to retire from it and stultify himself. The +negotiations are being conducted, by means of tedious long telegrams and +by talks over the long-distance telephone. We keep the wires loaded. + +Dear me, dinner is ready. So Mrs. Rice says. + + With worlds of love, + SAML. + + +Clemens and Oliver Wendell Holmes had met and become friends soon after +the publication of Innocents Abroad, in 1869. Now, twenty-five years +later, we find a record of what without doubt was their last meeting. +It occurred at the home of Mrs. James T. Field. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + BOSTON, Jan. 25, '94. +Livy darling, I am caught out worse this time than ever before, in the +matter of letters. Tuesday morning I was smart enough to finish and mail +my long letter to you before breakfast--for I was suspecting that I would +not have another spare moment during the day. It turned out just so. + +In a thoughtless moment I agreed to come up here and read for the poor. +I did not reflect that it would cost me three days. I could not get +released. Yesterday I had myself called at 8 and ran out to Mr. Rogers's +house at 9, and talked business until half past 10; then caught 11 +o'clock train and arrived here at 6; was shaven and dressed by 7 and +ready for dinner here in Mrs. Field's charming house. + +Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out now (he is in his 84th year,) +but he came out this time-said he wanted to "have a time" once more with +me. + +Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come and went away crying because she +wouldn't let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett and +sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes. + +Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking +(and listening) as ever he did in his life, I guess. Fields and Jewett +said he hadn't been in such splendid form in years. He had ordered his +carriage for 9. + +The coachman sent in for him at 9; but he said, "Oh, nonsense!--leave +glories and grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away and come in an +hour!" + +At 10 he was called for again, and Mrs. Fields, getting uneasy, rose, but +he wouldn't go--and so we rattled ahead the same as ever. Twice more +Mrs. Fields rose, but he wouldn't go--and he didn't go till half past 10 +--an unwarrantable dissipation for him in these days. He was +prodigiously complimentary about some of my books, and is having +Pudd'nhead read to him. I told him you and I used the Autocrat as a +courting book and marked it all through, and that you keep it in the +sacred green box with the love letters, and it pleased him. + +Good-bye, my dear darling, it is 15 minutes to dinner and I'm not dressed +yet. I have a reception to-night and will be out very late at that place +and at Irving's Theatre where I have a complimentary box. I wish you +were all here. + SAML. + + + In the next letter we meet James J. Corbett--"Gentleman Jim," as he + was sometimes called--the champion pugilist of that day. + + The Howells incident so amusingly dramatized will perhaps be more + appreciated if the reader remembers that Mark Twain himself had at + intervals been a mind-healing enthusiast. Indeed, in spite of his + strictures on Mrs. Eddy, his interest in the subject of mind-cure + continued to the end of his life. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + Sunday, 9.30 a. m. +Livy dear, when we got out to the house last night, Mrs. Rogers, who is +up and around, now, didn't want to go down stairs to dinner, but Mr. R. +persuaded her and we had a very good time indeed. By 8 o'clock we were +down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square Garden +(Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr. Rice while I +(went) to the Players and picked up two artists--Reid and Simmons--and +thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats. There was a vast multitude of people in +the brilliant place. Stanford White came along presently and invited me +to go to the World-Champion's dressing room, which I was very glad to do. +Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being the +most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the world. +I said: + +"You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June--but +you are not done, then. You will have to tackle me." + +He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in +earnest: + +"No--I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or right to +require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit of your own, +but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation would be gone and +you would have a double one. You have got fame enough and you ought not +to want to take mine away from me." + +Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco. + +There were lots of little boxing matches, to entertain the crowd: then at +last Corbett appeared in the ring and the 8,000 people present went mad +with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. They said they +had never seen anything that came reasonably near equaling its perfection +except Greek statues, and they didn't surpass it. + +Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion--oh, +beautiful to see!--then the show was over and we struggled out through a +perfect wash of humanity. When we reached the street I found I had left +my arctics in the box. I had to have them, so Simmons said he would go +back and get them, and I didn't dissuade him. I couldn't see how he was +going to make his way a single yard into that solid oncoming wave of +people--yet he must plow through it full 50 yards. He was back with the +shoes in 3 minutes! + +How do you reckon he accomplished that miracle? By saying: + +"Way, gentlemen, please--coming to fetch Mr. Corbett's overshoes." + +The word flew from mouth to mouth, the Red Sea divided, and Simmons +walked comfortably through and back, dry shod. Simmons (this was +revealed to me under seal of secrecy by Reid) is the hero of "Gwen," and +he and Gwen's author were once engaged to marry. This is "fire-escape" +Simmons, the inveterate talker, you know: "Exit--in case of Simmons." + +I had an engagement at a beautiful dwelling close to the Players for +10.30; I was there by 10.45. Thirty cultivated and very musical ladies +and gentlemen present--all of them acquaintances and many of them +personal friends of mine. That wonderful Hungarian Band was there (they +charge $500 for an evening.) Conversation and Band until midnight; then a +bite of supper; then the company was compactly grouped before me and I +told about Dr. B. E. Martin and the etchings, and followed it with the +Scotch-Irish Christening. My, but the Martin is a darling story! Next, +the head tenor from the Opera sang half a dozen great songs that set the +company wild, yes, mad with delight, that nobly handsome young Damrosch +accompanying on the piano. + +Just a little pause--then the Band burst out into an explosion of weird +and tremendous dance music, a Hungarian celebrity and his wife took the +floor--I followed; I couldn't help it; the others drifted in, one by one, +and it was Onteora over again. + +By half past 4 I had danced all those people down--and yet was not tired; +merely breathless. I was in bed at 5, and asleep in ten minutes. Up at +9 and presently at work on this letter to you. I think I wrote until 2 +or half past. Then I walked leisurely out to Mr. Rogers's (it is called +3 miles but it is short of it) arriving at 3.30, but he was out-- +to return at 5.30--(and a person was in, whom I don't particularly like) +--so I didn't stay, but dropped over and chatted with the Howellses until +6. + +First, Howells and I had a chat together. I asked about Mrs. H. He said +she was fine, still steadily improving, and nearly back to her old best +health. I asked (as if I didn't know): + +"What do you attribute this strange miracle to?" + +"Mind-cure--simply mind-cure." + +"Lord, what a conversion! You were a scoffer three months ago." + +"I? I wasn't." + +"You were. You made elaborate fun of me in this very room." + +"I did not, Clemens." + +"It's a lie, Howells, you did." + +I detailed to him the conversation of that time--with the stately +argument furnished by Boyesen in the fact that a patient had actually +been killed by a mind-curist; and Howells's own smart remark that when +the mind-curist is done with you, you have to call in a "regular" at last +because the former can't procure you a burial permit. + +At last he gave in--he said he remembered that talk, but had now been a +mind-curist so long it was difficult for him to realize that he had ever +been anything else. + +Mrs. H. came skipping in, presently, the very person, to a dot, that she +used to be, so many years ago. + +Mrs. H. said: "People may call it what they like, but it is just +hypnotism, and that's all it is--hypnotism pure and simple. Mind-cure! +--the idea! Why, this woman that cured me hasn't got any mind. She's a +good creature, but she's dull and dumb and illiterate and--" + +"Now Eleanor!" + +"I know what I'm talking about!--don't I go there twice a week? And Mr. +Clemens, if you could only see her wooden and satisfied face when she +snubs me for forgetting myself and showing by a thoughtless remark that +to me weather is still weather, instead of being just an abstraction and +a superstition--oh, it's the funniest thing you ever saw! A-n-d-when she +tilts up her nose-well, it's--it's--Well it's that kind of a nose that--" + +"Now Eleanor!--the woman is not responsible for her nose--" and so-on and +so-on. It didn't seem to me that I had any right to be having this feast +and you not there. + +She convinced me before she got through, that she and William James are +right--hypnotism and mind-cure are the same thing; no difference between +them. Very well; the very source, the very center of hypnotism is Paris. +Dr. Charcot's pupils and disciples are right there and ready to your hand +without fetching poor dear old Susy across the stormy sea. Let Mrs. +Mackay (to whom I send my best respects, tell you whom to go to to learn +all you need to learn and how to proceed. Do, do it, honey. Don't lose +a minute . + +.....At 11 o'clock last night Mr. Rogers said: + +"I am able to feel physical fatigue--and I feel it now. You never show +any, either in your eyes or your movements; do you ever feel any?" + +I was able to say that I had forgotten what that feeling was like. Don't +you remember how almost impossible it was for me to tire myself at the +Villa? Well, it is just so in New York. I go to bed unfatigued at 3, +I get up fresh and fine six hours later. I believe I have taken only one +daylight nap since I have been here. + +When the anchor is down, then I shall say: + +"Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it again!" + +I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it, I will swim +in ink! Joan of Arc--but all this is premature; the anchor is not down +yet. + +To-morrow (Tuesday) I will add a P. S. if I've any to add; but, whether +or no, I must mail this to morrow, for the mail steamer goes next day. + +5.30 p. m. Great Scott, this is Tuesday! I must rush this letter into +the mail instantly. + +Tell that sassy Ben I've got her welcome letter, and I'll write her as +soon as I get a daylight chance. I've most time at night, but I'd +druther write daytimes. + SAML. + + + The Reid and Simmons mentioned in the foregoing were Robert Reid and + Edward Simmons, distinguished painter--the latter a brilliant, + fluent, and industrious talker. The title; "Fire-escape Simmons," + which Clemens gives him, originated when Oliver Herford, whose + quaint wit has so long delighted New-Yorkers, one day pinned up by + the back door of the Players the notice: "Exit in case of Simmons." + Gwen, a popular novel of that day, was written by Blanche Willis + Howard. + + "Jamie" Dodge, in the next letter, was the son of Mrs. Mary Mapes + Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas. + + + To Clara Clemens, in Paris: + + MR. ROGERS'S OFFICE, Feb. 5, '94. +Dear Benny--I was intending to answer your letter to-day, but I am away +down town, and will simply whirl together a sentence or two for good- +fellowship. I have bought photographs of Coquelin and Jane Hading and +will ask them to sign them. I shall meet Coquelin tomorrow night, and if +Hading is not present I will send her picture to her by somebody. + +I am to breakfast with Madame Nordica in a few days, and meantime I hope +to get a good picture of her to sign. She was of the breakfast company +yesterday, but the picture of herself which she signed and gave me does +not do her majestic beauty justice. + +I am too busy to attend to the photo-collecting right, because I have to +live up to the name which Jamie Dodge has given me--the "Belle of New +York"--and it just keeps me rushing. Yesterday I had engagements to +breakfast at noon, dine at 3, and dine again at 7. I got away from the +long breakfast at 2 p. m., went and excused myself from the 3 o'clock +dinner, then lunched with Mrs. Dodge in 58th street, returned to the +Players and dressed, dined out at 9, and was back at Mrs. Dodge's at +10 p. m. where we had magic-lantern views of a superb sort, and a lot of +yarns until an hour after midnight, and got to bed at 2 this morning +--a good deal of a gain on my recent hours. But I don't get tired; I +sleep as sound as a dead person, and always wake up fresh and strong-- +usually at exactly 9. + +I was at breakfast lately where people of seven separate nationalities +sat and the seven languages were going all the time. At my side sat +a charming gentleman who was a delightful and active talker, and +interesting. He talked glibly to those folks in all those seven +languages and still had a language to spare! I wanted to kill him, for +very envy. + + I greet you with love and kisses. + PAPA. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + Feb. --. +Livy dear, last night I played billiards with Mr. Rogers until 11, then +went to Robert Reid's studio and had a most delightful time until 4 this +morning. No ladies were invited this time. Among the people present +were-- + +Coquelin; +Richard Harding Davis; +Harrison, the great out-door painter; +Wm. H. Chase, the artist; +Bettini, inventor of the new phonograph. +Nikola Tesla, the world-wide illustrious electrician; see article about +him in Jan. or Feb. Century. +John Drew, actor; +James Barnes, a marvelous mimic; my, you should see him! +Smedley the artist; +Zorn the artist; +Zogbaum the artist; +Reinhart the artist; +Metcalf the artist; +Ancona, head tenor at the Opera; + +Oh, a great lot of others. Everybody there had done something and was in +his way famous. + +Somebody welcomed Coquelin in a nice little French speech; John Drew did +the like for me in English, and then the fun began. Coquelin did some +excellent French monologues--one of them an ungrammatical Englishman +telling a colorless historiette in French. It nearly killed the fifteen +or twenty people who understood it. + +I told a yarn, Ancona sang half a dozen songs, Barnes did his darling +imitations, Harding Davis sang the hanging of Danny Deever, which was of +course good, but he followed it with that most fascinating (for what +reason I don't know) of all Kipling's poems, "On the Road to Mandalay," +sang it tenderly, and it searched me deeper and charmed me more than the +Deever. + +Young Gerrit Smith played some ravishing dance music and we all danced +about an hour. There couldn't be a pleasanter night than that one was. +Some of those people complained of fatigue but I don't seem to know what +the sense of fatigue is. + +Coquelin talks quite good English now. He said: + +"I have a brother who has the fine mind--ah, a charming and delicate +fancy, and he knows your writings so well, and loves them--and that is +the same with me. It will stir him so when I write and tell him I have +seen you!" + +Wasn't that nice? We talked a good deal together. He is as winning as +his own face. But he wouldn't sign that photograph for Clara. "That? +No! She shall have a better one. I will send it to you." + +He is much driven, and will forget it, but Reid has promised to get the +picture for me, and I will try and keep him reminded. + +Oh, dear, my time is all used up and your letters are not answered. + +Mama, dear, I don't go everywhere--I decline most things. But there are +plenty that I can't well get out of. + +I will remember what you say and not make my yarning too common. + +I am so glad Susy has gone on that trip and that you are trying the +electric. May you both prosper. For you are mighty dear to me and in my +thoughts always. + SAML. + + + The affairs of the Webster Publishing Company were by this time + getting into a very serious condition indeed. The effects of the + panic of the year before could not be overcome. Creditors were + pressing their claims and profits were negligible. In the following + letter we get a Mark Twain estimate of the great financier who so + cheerfully was willing to undertake the solving of Mark Twain's + financial problems. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + THE PLAYERS, Feb. 15, '94. 11.30 p. m. +Livy darling, Yesterday I talked all my various matters over with Mr. +Rogers and we decided that it would be safe for me to leave here the 7th +of March, in the New York. So his private secretary, Miss Harrison, +wrote and ordered a berth for me and then I lost no time in cabling you +that I should reach Southampton March 14, and Paris the 15th. Land, but +it made my pulses leap, to think I was going to see you again!..... +One thing at a time. I never fully laid Webster's disastrous condition +before Mr. Rogers until to-night after billiards. I did hate to burden +his good heart and over-worked head with it, but he took hold with +avidity and said it was no burden to work for his friends, but a +pleasure. We discussed it from various standpoints, and found it a +sufficiently difficult problem to solve; but he thinks that after he has +slept upon it and thought it over he will know what to suggest. + +You must not think I am ever rude with Mr. Rogers, I am not. He is not +common clay, but fine--fine and delicate--and that sort do not call out +the coarsenesses that are in my sort. I am never afraid of wounding him; +I do not need to watch myself in that matter. The sight of him is peace. + +He wants to go to Japan--it is his dream; wants to go with me--which +means, the two families--and hear no more about business for awhile, and +have a rest. And he needs it. But it is like all the dreams of all busy +men--fated to remain dreams. + +You perceive that he is a pleasant text for me. It is easy to write +about him. When I arrived in September, lord how black the prospect was +--how desperate, how incurably desperate! Webster and Co had to have a +small sum of money or go under at once. I flew to Hartford--to my +friends--but they were not moved, not strongly interested, and I was +ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that I got the +money and was by it saved. And then--while still a stranger--he set +himself the task of saving my financial life without putting upon me (in +his native delicacy) any sense that I was the recipient of a charity, +a benevolence--and he has accomplished that task; accomplished it at a +cost of three months of wearing and difficult labor. He gave that time +to me--time which could not be bought by any man at a hundred thousand +dollars a month--no, nor for three times the money. + +Well, in the midst of that great fight, that long and admirable fight, +George Warner came to me and said: + +"There is a splendid chance open to you. I know a man--a prominent man-- +who has written a book that will go like wildfire; a book that arraigns +the Standard Oil fiends, and gives them unmitigated hell, individual by +individual. It is the very book for you to publish; there is a fortune +in it, and I can put you in communication with the author." + +I wanted to say: + +"The only man I care for in the world; the only man I would give a damn +for; the only man who is lavishing his sweat and blood to save me and +mine from starvation and shame, is a Standard Oil fiend. If you know me, +you know whether I want the book or not." + +But I didn't say that. I said I didn't want any book; I wanted to get +out of the publishing business and out of all business, and was here for +that purpose and would accomplish it if I could. + +But there's enough. I shall be asleep by 3, and I don't need much sleep, +because I am never drowsy or tired these days. Dear, dear Susy my +strength reproaches me when I think of her and you, my darling. + + SAML. + + + But even so able a man as Henry Rogers could not accomplish the + impossible. The affairs of the Webster Company were hopeless, the + business was not worth saving. By Mr. Rogers's advice an assignment + was made April, 18, 1894. After its early spectacular success less + than ten years had brought the business to failure. The publication + of the Grant memoirs had been its only great achievement. + + Clemens would seem to have believed that the business would resume, + and for a time Rogers appears to have comforted him in his hope, but + we cannot believe that it long survived. Young Hall, who had made + such a struggle for its salvation, was eager to go on, but he must + presently have seen the futility of any effort in that direction. + + Of course the failure of Mark Twain's firm made a great stir in the + country, and it is easy to understand that loyal friends would rally + in his behalf. + + + To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris: + + April 22, '94. +Dear old darling, we all think the creditors are going to allow us to +resume business; and if they do we shall pull through and pay the debts. +I am prodigiously glad we made an assignment. And also glad that we did +not make it sooner. Earlier we should have made a poor showing; but now +we shall make a good one. + +I meet flocks of people, and they all shake me cordially by the hand and +say "I was so sorry to hear of the assignment, but so glad you did it. +It was around, this long time, that the concern was tottering, and all +your friends were afraid you would delay the assignment too long." + +John Mackay called yesterday, and said, "Don't let it disturb you, Sam-- +we all have to do it, at one time or another; it's nothing to be ashamed +of." + +One stranger out in New York State sent me a dollar bill and thought he +would like to get up a dollar-subscription for me. And Poultney +Bigelow's note came promptly, with his check for $1,000. I had been +meeting him every day at the Club and liking him better and better all +the time. I couldn't take his money, of course, but I thanked him +cordially for his good will. + +Now and then a good and dear Joe Twichell or Susy Warner condoles with me +and says "Cheer up--don't be downhearted," and some other friend says, +"I am glad and surprised to see how cheerful you are and how bravely you +stand it"--and none of them suspect what a burden has been lifted from me +and how blithe I am inside. Except when I think of you, dear heart--then +I am not blithe; for I seem to see you grieving and ashamed, and dreading +to look people in the face. For in the thick of the fight there is +cheer, but you are far away and cannot hear the drums nor see the +wheeling squadrons. You only seem to see rout, retreat, and dishonored +colors dragging in the dirt--whereas none of these things exist. There +is temporary defeat, but no dishonor--and we will march again. Charley +Warner said to-day, "Sho, Livy isn't worrying. So long as she's got you +and the children she doesn't care what happens. She knows it isn't her +affair." Which didn't convince me. + +Good bye my darling, I love you and all of the kids--and you can tell +Clara I am not a spitting gray kitten. + SAML. + + + Clemens sailed for Europe as soon as his affairs would permit him to + go. He must get settled where he could work comfortably. Type- + setter prospects seemed promising, but meantime there was need of + funds. + + He began writing on the ship, as was his habit, and had completed + his article on Fenimore Cooper by the time he reached London. In + August we find him writing to Mr. Rogers from Etretat, a little + Norman watering-place. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + ETRETAT, (NORMANDIE) + CHALET DES ABRIS) + Aug. 25, '94. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I find the Madam ever so much better in health and +strength. The air is superb and soothing and wholesome, and the Chalet +is remote from noise and people, and just the place to write in. I shall +begin work this afternoon. + +Mrs. Clemens is in great spirits on, account of the benefit which she has +received from the electrical treatment in Paris and is bound to take it +up again and continue it all the winter, and of course I am perfectly +willing. She requires me to drop the lecture platform out of my mind and +go straight ahead with Joan until the book is finished. If I should have +to go home for even a week she means to go with me--won't consent to be +separated again--but she hopes I won't need to go. + +I tell her all right, "I won't go unless you send, and then I must." + +She keeps the accounts; and as she ciphers it we can't get crowded for +money for eight months yet. I didn't know that. But I don't know much +anyway. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The reader may remember that Clemens had written the first half of + his Joan of Arc book at the Villa Viviani, in Florence, nearly two + years before. He had closed the manuscript then with the taking of + Orleans, and was by no means sure that he would continue the story + beyond that point. Now, however, he was determined to reach the + tale's tragic conclusion. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + ETRETAT, + Sunday, Sept. 9, '94. +DEAR MR. ROGERS, I drove the quill too hard, and I broke down--in my +head. It has now been three days since I laid up. When I wrote you a +week ago I had added 10,000 words or thereabout to Joan. Next day I +added 1,500 which was a proper enough day's work though not a full one; +but during Tuesday and Wednesday I stacked up an aggregate of 6,000 +words--and that was a very large mistake. My head hasn't been worth a +cent since. + +However, there's a compensation; for in those two days I reached and +passed--successfully--a point which I was solicitous about before I ever +began the book: viz., the battle of Patay. Because that would naturally +be the next to the last chapter of a work consisting of either two books +or one. In the one case one goes right along from that point (as I shall +do now); in the other he would add a wind-up chapter and make the book +consist of Joan's childhood and military career alone. + +I shall resume work to-day; and hereafter I will not go at such an +intemperate' rate. My head is pretty cobwebby yet. + +I am hoping that along about this time I shall hear that the machine is +beginning its test in the Herald office. I shall be very glad indeed to +know the result of it. I wish I could be there. + Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Rouen, where Joan met her martyrdom, was only a short distance away, + and they halted there en route to Paris, where they had arranged to + spend the winter. The health of Susy Clemens was not good, and they + lingered in Rouen while Clemens explored the old city and + incidentally did some writing of another sort. In a note to Mr. + Rogers he said: "To put in my odd time I am writing some articles + about Paul Bourget and his Outre-Mer chapters--laughing at them and + at some of our oracular owls who find them important. What the hell + makes them important, I should like to know!" + + He was still at Rouen two weeks later and had received encouraging + news from Rogers concerning the type-setter, which had been placed + for trial in the office of the Chicago Herald. Clemens wrote: "I + can hardly keep from sending a hurrah by cable. I would certainly + do it if I wasn't superstitious." His restraint, though wise, was + wasted the end was near. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, + PARIS, Dec. 22; '94. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I seemed to be entirely expecting your letter, and also +prepared and resigned; but Lord, it shows how little we know ourselves +and how easily we can deceive ourselves. It hit me like a thunder-clap. +It knocked every rag of sense out of my head, and I went flying here and +there and yonder, not knowing what I was doing, and only one clearly +defined thought standing up visible and substantial out of the crazy +storm-drift that my dream of ten years was in desperate peril, and out of +the 60,000 or 90,000 projects for its rescue that came floating through +my skull, not one would hold still long enough for me to examine it and +size it up. Have you ever been like that? Not so much so, I reckon. + +There was another clearly defined idea--I must be there and see it die. +That is, if it must die; and maybe if I were there we might hatch up some +next-to-impossible way to make it take up its bed and take a walk. + +So, at the end of four hours I started, still whirling and walked over to +the rue Scribe-- 4 P. M.--and asked a question or two and was told I +should be running a big risk if I took the 9 P. M. train for London and +Southampton; "better come right along at 6.52 per Havre special and step +aboard the New York all easy and comfortable." Very! and I about two +miles from home, with no packing done. + +Then it occurred to me that none of these salvation-notions that were +whirl-winding through my head could be examined or made available unless +at least a month's time could be secured. So I cabled you, and said to +myself that I would take the French steamer tomorrow (which will be +Sunday). + +By bedtime Mrs. Clemens had reasoned me into a fairly rational and +contented state of mind; but of course it didn't last long. So I went on +thinking--mixing it with a smoke in the dressing room once an hour--until +dawn this morning. Result--a sane resolution; no matter what your answer +to my cable might be, I would hold still and not sail until I should get +an answer to this present letter which I am now writing, or a cable +answer from you saying "Come" or "Remain." + +I have slept 6 hours, my pond has clarified, and I find the sediment of +my 70,000 projects to be of this character: + +[Several pages of suggestions for reconstructing the machine follow.] + +Don't say I'm wild. For really I'm sane again this morning. + + ...................... + +I am going right along with Joan, now, and wait untroubled till I hear +from you. If you think I can be of the least use, cable me "Come." +I can write Joan on board ship and lose no time. Also I could discuss my +plan with the publisher for a deluxe Joan, time being an object, for some +of the pictures could be made over here cheaply and quickly, but would +cost much time and money in America. + + ...................... + +If the meeting should decide to quit business Jan. 4, I'd like to have +Stoker stopped from paying in any more money, if Miss Harrison doesn't +mind that disagreeable job. And I'll have to write them, too, of course. + With love, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The "Stoker" of this letter was Bram Stoker, long associated with + Sir Henry Irving. Irving himself had also taken stock in the + machine. The address, 169 Rue de l'Universite, whence these letters + are written, was the beautiful studio home of the artist Pomroy + which they had taken for the winter. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, + PARIS, Dec. 27, '94. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Notwithstanding your heart is "old and hard," you make +a body choke up. I know you "mean every word you say" and I do take it +"in the same spirit in which you tender it." I shall keep your regard +while we two live--that I know; for I shall always remember what you have +done for me, and that will insure me against ever doing anything that +could forfeit it or impair it. I am 59 years old; yet I never had a +friend before who put out a hand and tried to pull me ashore when he +found me in deep waters. + +It is six days or seven days ago that I lived through that despairing +day, and then through a night without sleep; then settled down next day +into my right mind (or thereabouts,) and wrote you. I put in the rest of +that day till 7 P. M. plenty comfortably enough writing a long chapter +of my book; then went to a masked ball blacked up as Uncle Remus, taking +Clara along; and we had a good time. I have lost no day since and +suffered no discomfort to speak of, but drove my troubles out of my mind +and had good success in keeping them out--through watchfulness. I have +done a good week's work and put the book a good way ahead in the Great +Trial, which is the difficult part which requires the most thought and +carefulness. I cannot see the end of the Trial yet, but I am on the +road. I am creeping surely toward it. + +"Why not leave them all to me." My business bothers? I take you by the +hand! I jump at the chance! + +I ought to be ashamed and I am trying my best to be ashamed--and yet I do +jump at the chance in spite of it. I don't want to write Irving and I +don't want to write Stoker. It doesn't seem as if I could. But I can +suggest something for you to write them; and then if you see that I am +unwise, you can write them something quite different. Now this is my +idea: + + 1. To return Stoker's $100 to him and keep his stock. + + 2. And tell Irving that when luck turns with me I will make good to + him what the salvage from the dead Co. fails to pay him of his $500. + + +P. S. Madam says No, I must face the music. So I enclose my effort to +be used if you approve, but not otherwise. + +There! Now if you will alter it to suit your judgment and bang away, I +shall be eternally obliged. + +We shall try to find a tenant for our Hartford house; not an easy matter, +for it costs heavily to live in. We can never live in it again; though +it would break the family's hearts if they could believe it. + +Nothing daunts Mrs. Clemens or makes the world look black to her--which +is the reason I haven't drowned myself. + +We all send our deepest and warmest greetings to you and all of yours and +a Happy New Year! + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +Enclosure: + +MY DEAR STOKER,--I am not dating this because it is not to be mailed at +present. + +When it reaches you it will mean that there is a hitch in my machine- +enterprise--a hitch so serious as to make it take to itself the aspect of +a dissolved dream. This letter, then, will contain cheque for the $100 +which you have paid. And will you tell Irving for me--I can't get up +courage enough to talk about this misfortune myself, except to you, whom +by good luck I haven't damaged yet that when the wreckage presently +floats ashore he will get a good deal of his $500 back; and a dab at a +time I will make up to him the rest. + +I'm not feeling as fine as I was when I saw you there in your home. +Please remember me kindly to Mrs. Stoker. I gave up that London lecture- +project entirely. Had to--there's never been a chance since to find the +time. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +XXXV + +LETTERS, 1895-96, TO H. H. ROGERS AND OTHERS. FINISHING "JOAN OF ARC." +THE TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. DEATH OF SUSY CLEMENS + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + [No date.] +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Yours of Dec. 21 has arrived, containing the circular +to stockholders and I guess the Co. will really quit--there doesn't seem +to be any other wise course. + +There's one thing which makes it difficult for me to soberly realize that +my ten year dream is actually dissolved; and that is, that it reveries my +horoscope. The proverb says, "Born lucky, always lucky," and I am very +superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for +one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or +in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times +before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise. +When the "Pennsylvania" blew up and the telegraph reported my brother as +fatally injured (with 60 others) but made no mention of me, my uncle said +to my mother "It means that Sam was somewhere else, after being on that +boat a year and a half--he was born lucky." Yes, I was somewhere else. +I am so superstitious that I have always been afraid to have business +dealings with certain relatives and friends of mine because they were +unlucky people. All my life I have stumbled upon lucky chances of large +size, and whenever they were wasted it was because of my own stupidity +and carelessness. And so I have felt entirely certain that that machine +would turn up trumps eventually. It disappointed me lots of times, but I +couldn't shake off the confidence of a life-time in my luck. + +Well, whatever I get out of the wreckage will be due to good luck--the +good luck of getting you into the scheme--for, but for that, there +wouldn't be any wreckage; it would be total loss. + +I wish you had been in at the beginning. Then we should have had the +good luck to step promptly ashore. + +Miss Harrison has had a dream which promises me a large bank account, +and I want her to go ahead and dream it twice more, so as to make the +prediction sure to be fulfilled. + +I've got a first rate subject for a book. It kept me awake all night, +and I began it and completed it in my mind. The minute I finish Joan +I will take it up. + Love and Happy New Year to you all. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + This was about the end of the machine interests so far as Clemens + was concerned. Paige succeeded in getting some new people + interested, but nothing important happened, or that in any way + affected Mark Twain. Characteristically he put the whole matter + behind him and plunged into his work, facing comparative poverty and + a burden of debts with a stout heart. The beginning of the new year + found him really poorer in purse than he had ever been in his life, + but certainly not crushed, or even discouraged--at least, not + permanently--and never more industrious or capable. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, + PARIS, Jan. 23, '95. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--After I wrote you, two or three days ago I thought I +would make a holiday of the rest of the day--the second deliberate +holiday since I had the gout. On the first holiday I wrote a tale of +about 6,000 words, which was 3 days' work in one; and this time I did +8,000 before midnight. I got nothing out of that first holiday but the +recreation of it, for I condemned the work after careful reading and some +revision; but this time I fared better--I finished the Huck Finn tale +that lies in your safe, and am satisfied with it. + +The Bacheller syndicate (117 Tribune Building) want a story of 5,000 +words (lowest limit of their London agent) for $1,000 and offer to plank +the check on delivery, and it was partly to meet that demand that I took +that other holiday. So as I have no short story that suits me (and can't +and shan't make promises), the best I can do is to offer the longer one +which I finished on my second holiday--"Tom Sawyer, Detective." + +It makes 27 or 28,000 words, and is really written for grown folks, +though I expect young folk to read it, too. It transfers to the banks of +the Mississippi the incidents of a strange murder which was committed in +Sweden in old times. + +I'll refer applicants for a sight of the story to you or Miss Harrison.-- +[Secretary to Mr. Rogers.] + Yours sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, + Apr. 29, '95. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Your felicitous delightful letter of the 15th arrived +three days ago, and brought great pleasure into the house. + +There is one thing that weighs heavily on Mrs. Clemens and me. That is +Brusnahan's money. If he is satisfied to have it invested in the Chicago +enterprise, well and good; if not, we would like to have the money paid +back to him. I will give him as many months to decide in as he pleases-- +let him name 6 or 10 or 12--and we will let the money stay where it is in +your hands till the time is up. Will Miss Harrison tell him so? I mean +if you approve. I would like him to have a good investment, but would +meantime prefer to protect him against loss. + +At 6 minutes past 7, yesterday evening, Joan of Arc was burned at the +stake. + +With the long strain gone, I am in a sort of physical collapse today, but +it will be gone tomorrow. I judged that this end of the book would be +hard work, and it turned out so. I have never done any work before that +cost so much thinking and weighing and measuring and planning and +cramming, or so much cautious and painstaking execution. For I wanted +the whole Rouen trial in, if it could be got in in such a way that the +reader's interest would not flag--in fact I wanted the reader's interest +to increase; and so I stuck to it with that determination in view--with +the result that I have left nothing out but unimportant repetitions. +Although it is mere history--history pure and simple--history stripped +naked of flowers, embroideries, colorings, exaggerations, invention--the +family agree that I have succeeded. It was a perilous thing to try in a +tale, but I never believed it a doubtful one--provided I stuck strictly +to business and didn't weaken and give up: or didn't get lazy and skimp +the work. The first two-thirds of the book were easy; for I only needed +to keep my historical road straight; therefore I used for reference only +one French history and one English one--and shoveled in as much fancy +work and invention on both sides of the historical road as I pleased. +But on this last third I have constantly used five French sources and +five English ones and I think no telling historical nugget in any of them +has escaped me. + +Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was written for +love. + +There--I'm called to see company. The family seldom require this of me, +but they know I am not working today. + Yours sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + "Brusnahan," of the foregoing letter, was an employee of the New + York Herald, superintendent of the press-room--who had invested some + of his savings in the type-setter. + + In February Clemens returned to New York to look after matters + connected with his failure and to close arrangements for a reading- + tour around the world. He was nearly sixty years old, and time had + not lessened his loathing for the platform. More than once, + however, in earlier years, he had turned to it as a debt-payer, and + never yet had his burden been so great as now. He concluded + arrangements with Major Pond to take him as far as the Pacific + Coast, and with R. S. Smythe, of Australia, for the rest of the + tour. In April we find him once more back in Paris preparing to + bring the family to America, He had returned by way of London, + where he had visited Stanley the explorer--an old friend. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, + Sunday, Apr.7,'95. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--..... Stanley is magnificently housed in London, in a +grand mansion in the midst of the official world, right off Downing +Street and Whitehall. He had an extraordinary assemblage of brains and +fame there to meet me--thirty or forty (both sexes) at dinner, and more +than a hundred came in, after dinner. Kept it up till after midnight. +There were cabinet ministers, ambassadors, admirals, generals, canons, +Oxford professors, novelists, playwrights, poets, and a number of people +equipped with rank and brains. I told some yarns and made some speeches. +I promised to call on all those people next time I come to London, and +show them the wife and the daughters. If I were younger and very strong +I would dearly love to spend a season in London--provided I had no work +on hand, or no work more exacting than lecturing. I think I will lecture +there a month or two when I return from Australia. + +There were many delightful ladies in that company. One was the wife of +His Excellency Admiral Bridge, Commander-in Chief of the Australian +Station, and she said her husband was able to throw wide all doors to me +in that part of the world and would be glad to do it, and would yacht me +and my party around, and excursion us in his flag-ship and make us have a +great time; and she said she would write him we were coming, and we would +find him ready. I have a letter from her this morning enclosing a letter +of introduction to the Admiral. I already know the Admiral commanding in +the China Seas and have promised to look in on him out there. He sleeps +with my books under his pillow. P'raps it is the only way he can sleep. + +According to Mrs. Clemens's present plans--subject to modification, of +course--we sail in May; stay one day, or two days in New York, spend +June, July and August in Elmira and prepare my lectures; then lecture in +San Francisco and thereabouts during September and sail for Australia +before the middle of October and open the show there about the middle of +November. We don't take the girls along; it would be too expensive and +they are quite willing to remain behind anyway. + +Mrs. C. is feeling so well that she is not going to try the New York +doctor till we have gone around the world and robbed it and made the +finances a little easier. + With a power of love to you all, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + There would come moments of depression, of course, and a week later + he wrote: "I am tired to death all the time:" To a man of less + vitality, less vigor of mind and body, it is easy to believe that + under such circumstances this condition would have remained + permanent. But perhaps, after all, it was his comic outlook on + things in general that was his chief life-saver. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + 169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, Apr. 29, '95. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I have been hidden an hour or two, reading proof of +Joan and now I think I am a lost child. I can't find anybody on the +place. The baggage has all disappeared, including the family. I reckon +that in the hurry and bustle of moving to the hotel they forgot me. But +it is no matter. It is peacefuller now than I have known it for days and +days and days. + +In these Joan proofs which I have been reading for the September Harper +I find a couple of tip-top platform readings--and I mean to read them on +our trip. If the authorship is known by then; and if it isn't, I will +reveal it. The fact is, there is more good platform-stuff in Joan than +in any previous book of mine, by a long sight. + +Yes, every danged member of the tribe has gone to the hotel and left me +lost. I wonder how they can be so careless with property. I have got to +try to get there by myself now. + +All the trunks are going over as luggage; then I've got to find somebody +on the dock who will agree to ship 6 of them to the Hartford Customhouse. +If it is difficult I will dump them into the river. It is very careless +of Mrs. Clemens to trust trunks and things to me. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + By the latter part of May they were at Quarry Farm, and Clemens, + laid up there with a carbuncle, was preparing for his long tour. + The outlook was not a pleasant one. To Mr. Rogers he wrote: "I + sha'n't be able to stand on the platform before we start west. I + sha'n't get a single chance to practice my reading; but will have to + appear in Cleveland without the essential preparation. Nothing in + this world can save it from being a shabby, poor disgusting + performance. I've got to stand; I can't do it and talk to a house, + and how in the nation am I going to sit? Land of Goshen, it's this + night week! Pray for me." + + The opening at Cleveland July 15th appears not to have been much of + a success, though from another reason, one that doubtless seemed + amusing to him later. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + + (Forenoon) + CLEVELAND, July 16, '95. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,-- Had a roaring success at the Elmira reformatory Sunday +night. But here, last night, I suffered defeat--There were a couple of +hundred little boys behind me on the stage, on a lofty tier of benches +which made them the most conspicuous objects in the house. And there was +nobody to watch them or keep them quiet. Why, with their scufflings and +horse-play and noise, it was just a menagerie. Besides, a concert of +amateurs had been smuggled into the program (to precede me,) and their +families and friends (say ten per cent of the audience) kept encoring +them and they always responded. So it was 20 minutes to 9 before I got +the platform in front of those 2,600 people who had paid a dollar apiece +for a chance to go to hell in this fashion. + +I got started magnificently, but inside of half an hour the scuffling +boys had the audience's maddened attention and I saw it was a gone case; +so I skipped a third of my program and quit. The newspapers are kind, +but between you and me it was a defeat. There ain't going to be any more +concerts at my lectures. I care nothing for this defeat, because it was +not my fault. My first half hour showed that I had the house, and I +could have kept it if I hadn't been so handicapped. + Yours sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +P. S. Had a satisfactory time at Petoskey. Crammed the house and turned +away a crowd. We had $548 in the house, which was $300 more than it had +ever had in it before. I believe I don't care to have a talk go off +better than that one did. + + + Mark Twain, on this long tour, was accompanied by his wife and his + daughter Clara--Susy and Jean Clemens remaining with their aunt at + Quarry Farm. The tour was a financial success from the start. + By the time they were ready to sail from Vancouver five thousand + dollars had been remitted to Mr. Rogers against that day of + settlement when the debts of Webster & Co. were to be paid. Perhaps + it should be stated here that a legal settlement had been arranged + on a basis of fifty cents on the dollar, but neither Clemens nor his + wife consented to this as final. They would pay in full. + + They sailed from Vancouver August 23, 1895. About the only letter + of this time is an amusing note to Rudyard Kipling, written at the + moment of departure. + + + To Rudyard Kipling, in England: + + August, 1895. +DEAR KIPLING,--It is reported that you are about to visit India. This +has moved me to journey to that far country in order that I may unload +from my conscience a debt long due to you. Years ago you came from India +to Elmira to visit me, as you said at the time. It has always been my +purpose to return that visit and that great compliment some day. I shall +arrive next January and you must be ready. I shall come riding my ayah +with his tusks adorned with silver bells and ribbons and escorted by a +troop of native howdahs richly clad and mounted upon a herd of wild +bungalows; and you must be on hand with a few bottles of ghee, for I +shall be thirsty. + Affectionately, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens, platforming in Australia, was too busy to write letters. + Everywhere he was welcomed by great audiences, and everywhere + lavishly entertained. He was beset by other carbuncles, but would + seem not to have been seriously delayed by them. A letter to his + old friend Twichell carries the story. + + + To Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + FRANK MOELLER'S MASONIC HOTEL, + NAPIER, NEW ZEALAND, + November 29, '95. +DEAR JOE,--Your welcome letter of two months and five days ago has just +arrived, and finds me in bed with another carbuncle. It is No. 3. Not a +serious one this time. I lectured last night without inconvenience, but +the doctors thought best to forbid to-night's lecture. My second one +kept me in bed a week in Melbourne. + +.....We are all glad it is you who is to write the article, it delights +us all through. + +I think it was a good stroke of luck that knocked me on my back here at +Napier, instead of some hotel in the centre of a noisy city. Here we +have the smooth and placidly-complaining sea at our door, with nothing +between us and it but 20 yards of shingle--and hardly a suggestion of +life in that space to mar it or make a noise. Away down here fifty-five +degrees south of the Equator this sea seems to murmur in an unfamiliar +tongue--a foreign tongue--tongue bred among the ice-fields of the +Antarctic--a murmur with a note of melancholy in it proper to the vast +unvisited solitudes it has come from. It was very delicious and solacing +to wake in the night and find it still pulsing there. I wish you were +here--land, but it would be fine! + +Livy and Clara enjoy this nomadic life pretty well; certainly better than +one could have expected they would. They have tough experiences, in the +way of food and beds and frantic little ships, but they put up with the +worst that befalls with heroic endurance that resembles contentment. + +No doubt I shall be on the platform next Monday. A week later we shall +reach Wellington; talk there 3 nights, then sail back to Australia. We +sailed for New Zealand October 30. + +Day before yesterday was Livy's birthday (under world time), and tomorrow +will be mine. I shall be 60--no thanks for it. + +I and the others send worlds and worlds of love to all you dear ones. + + MARK. + + + The article mentioned in the foregoing letter was one which Twichell + had been engaged by Harper's Magazine to write concerning the home + life and characteristics of Mark Twain. By the time the Clemens + party had completed their tour of India--a splendid, triumphant + tour, too full of work and recreation for letter-writing--and had + reached South Africa, the article had appeared, a satisfactory one, + if we may judge by Mark Twain's next. + + This letter, however, has a special interest in the account it gives + of Mark Twain's visit to the Jameson raiders, then imprisoned at + Pretoria. + + + To Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC, + The Queen's Birthday, '96. + (May 24) +DEAR OLD JOE,--Harper for May was given to me yesterday in Johannesburg +by an American lady who lives there, and I read your article on me while +coming up in the train with her and an old friend and fellow-Missourian +of mine, Mrs. John Hays Hammond, the handsome and spirited wife of the +chief of the 4 Reformers, who lies in prison here under a 15-year +sentence, along with 50 minor Reformers who are in for 1 and 5-year +terms. Thank you a thousand times Joe, you have praised me away above my +deserts, but I am not the man to quarrel with you for that; and as for +Livy, she will take your very hardiest statements at par, and be grateful +to you to the bottom of her heart. Between you and Punch and Brander +Matthews, I am like to have my opinion of myself raised sufficiently +high; and I guess the children will be after you, for it is the study of +their lives to keep my self-appreciation down somewhere within bounds. + +I had a note from Mrs. Rev. Gray (nee Tyler) yesterday, and called on her +to-day. She is well. + +Yesterday I was allowed to enter the prison with Mrs. Hammond. A Boer +guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous and polite, only +he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big open court) and +wouldn't let me cross a white mark that was on the ground--the "death- +line" one of the prisoners called it. Not in earnest, though, I think. +I found that I had met Hammond once when he was a Yale senior and a guest +of Gen. Franklin's. I also found that I had known Capt. Mein intimately +32 years ago. One of the English prisoners had heard me lecture in +London 23 years ago. After being introduced in turn to all the +prisoners, I was allowed to see some of the cells and examine their food, +beds, etc. I was told in Johannesburg that Hammond's salary of $150,000 +a year is not stopped, and that the salaries of some of the others are +still continued. Hammond was looking very well indeed, and I can say the +same of all the others. When the trouble first fell upon them it hit +some of them very hard; several fell sick (Hammond among them), two or +three had to be removed to the hospital, and one of the favorites lost +his mind and killed himself, poor fellow, last week. His funeral, with a +sorrowing following of 10,000, took the place of the public demonstration +the Americans were getting up for me. + +These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, and I believe they are all +educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy. They have a +lot of books to read, they play games and smoke, and for awhile they will +be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for long, not for very +long, I take it. I am told they have times of deadly brooding and +depression. I made them a speech--sitting down. It just happened so. +I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has one advantage--it is only a +talk, it doesn't take the form of a speech. I have tried it once before +on this trip. However, if a body wants to make sure of having "liberty," +and feeling at home, he had better stand up, of course. I advised them +at considerable length to stay where they were--they would get used to it +and like it presently; if they got out they would only get in again +somewhere else, by the look of their countenances; and I promised to go +and see the President and do what I could to get him to double their +jail-terms. + +We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up and a +little over, and we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but the +Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, and the warden, a genial, elderly Boer +named Du Plessis--explained that his orders wouldn't allow him to admit +saint and sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday. Du Plessis +--descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200 years ago-- +but he hasn't any French left in him now--all Dutch. + +It gravels me to think what a goose I was to make Livy and Clara remain +in Durban; but I wanted to save them the 30-hour railway trip to +Johannesburg. And Durban and its climate and opulent foliage were so +lovely, and the friends there were so choice and so hearty that I +sacrificed myself in their interests, as I thought. It is just the +beginning of winter, and although the days are hot, the nights are cool. +But it's lovely weather in these regions, too; and the friends are as +lovely as the weather, and Johannesburg and Pretoria are brimming with +interest. I talk here twice more, then return to Johannesburg next +Wednesday for a fifth talk there; then to the Orange Free State capital, +then to some town on the way to Port Elizabeth, where the two will join +us by sea from Durban; then the gang will go to Kimberley and presently +to the Cape--and so, in the course of time, we shall get through and sail +for England; and then we will hunt up a quiet village and I will write +and Livy edit, for a few months, while Clara and Susy and Jean study +music and things in London. + +We have had noble good times everywhere and every day, from Cleveland, +July 15, to Pretoria, May 24, and never a dull day either on sea or land, +notwithstanding the carbuncles and things. Even when I was laid up 10 +days at Jeypore in India we had the charmingest times with English +friends. All over India the English well, you will never know how good +and fine they are till you see them. + +Midnight and after! and I must do many things to-day, and lecture +tonight. + +A world of thanks to you, Joe dear, and a world of love to all of you. + + MARK. + + + Perhaps for readers of a later day a word as to what constituted the + Jameson raid would not be out of place here. Dr. Leander Starr + Jameson was an English physician, located at Kimberley. President + Kruger (Oom Paul), head of the South African Republic, was one of + his patients; also, Lobengula, the Matabele chief. From Lobengula + concessions were obtained which led to the formation of the South + African Company. Jameson gave up his profession and went in for + conquest, associating himself with the projects of Cecil Rhodes. + In time he became administrator of Rhodesia. By the end of 1894. + he was in high feather, and during a visit to England was feted as + a sort of romantic conqueror of the olden time. Perhaps this turned + his head; at all events at the end of 1895 came the startling news + that "Dr. Jim," as he was called, at the head of six hundred men, + had ridden into the Transvaal in support of a Rhodes scheme for an + uprising at Johannesburg. The raid was a failure. Jameson, and + those other knights of adventure, were captured by the forces of + "Oom Paul," and some of them barely escaped execution. The Boer + president handed them over to the English Government for punishment, + and they received varying sentences, but all were eventually + released. Jameson, later, became again prominent in South-African + politics, but there is no record of any further raids. + + ......................... + + The Clemens party sailed from South Africa the middle of July, 1896, + and on the last day of the month reached England. They had not + planned to return to America, but to spend the winter in or near + London in some quiet place where Clemens could write the book of his + travels. + + The two daughters in America, Susy and Jean, were expected to arrive + August 12th, but on that day there came, instead, a letter saying + that Susy Clemens was not well enough to sail. A cable inquiry was + immediately sent, but the reply when it came was not satisfactory, + and Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed for America without further delay. + This was on August 15th. Three days later, in the old home at + Hartford, Susy Clemens died of cerebral fever. She had been + visiting Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, but by the physician's advice + had been removed to the comfort and quiet of her own home, only a + few steps away. + + Mark Twain, returning from his triumphant tour of the world in the + hope that soon, now, he might be free from debt, with his family + happily gathered about him, had to face alone this cruel blow. + There was no purpose in his going to America; Susy would be buried + long before his arrival. He awaited in England the return of his + broken family. They lived that winter in a quiet corner of Chelsea, + No. 23 Tedworth Square. + + + To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, in Hartford, Conn.: + + Permanent address: + % CHATTO & WINDUS + 111 T. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, + Sept. 27, '96. +Through Livy and Katy I have learned, dear old Joe, how loyally you stood +poor Susy's friend, and mine, and Livy's: how you came all the way down, +twice, from your summer refuge on your merciful errands to bring the +peace and comfort of your beloved presence, first to that poor child, and +again to the broken heart of her poor desolate mother. It was like you; +like your good great heart, like your matchless and unmatchable self. +It was no surprise to me to learn that you stayed by Susy long hours, +careless of fatigue and heat, it was no surprise to me to learn that you +could still the storms that swept her spirit when no other could; for she +loved you, revered you, trusted you, and "Uncle Joe" was no empty phrase +upon her lips! I am grateful to you, Joe, grateful to the bottom of my +heart, which has always been filled with love for you, and respect and +admiration; and I would have chosen you out of all the world to take my +place at Susy's side and Livy's in those black hours. + +Susy was a rare creature; the rarest that has been reared in Hartford in +this generation. And Livy knew it, and you knew it, and Charley Warner +and George, and Harmony, and the Hillyers and the Dunhams and the +Cheneys, and Susy and Lilly, and the Bunces, and Henry Robinson and Dick +Burton, and perhaps others. And I also was of the number, but not in the +same degree--for she was above my duller comprehension. I merely knew +that she was my superior in fineness of mind, in the delicacy and +subtlety of her intellect, but to fully measure her I was not competent. +I know her better now; for I have read her private writings and sounded +the deeps of her mind; and I know better, now, the treasure that was mine +than I knew it when I had it. But I have this consolation: that dull as +I was, I always knew enough to be proud when she commended me or my work +--as proud as if Livy had done it herself--and I took it as the accolade +from the hand of genius. I see now--as Livy always saw--that she had +greatness in her; and that she herself was dimly conscious of it. + +And now she is dead--and I can never tell her. + +God bless you Joe--and all of your house. + S. L. C. + + + To Mr. Henry C. Robinson, Hartford, Conn.: + + LONDON, Sept. 28, '96. +It is as you say, dear old friend, "the pathos of it" yes, it was a +piteous thing--as piteous a tragedy as any the year can furnish. When we +started westward upon our long trip at half past ten at night, July 14, +1895, at Elmira, Susy stood on the platform in the blaze of the electric +light waving her good-byes to us as the train glided away, her mother +throwing back kisses and watching her through her tears. One year, one +month, and one week later, Clara and her mother having exactly completed +the circuit of the globe, drew up at that platform at the same hour of +the night, in the same train and the same car--and again Susy had come a +journey and was near at hand to meet them. She was waiting in the house +she was born in, in her coffin. + +All the circumstances of this death were pathetic--my brain is worn to +rags rehearsing them. The mere death would have been cruelty enough, +without overloading it and emphasizing it with that score of harsh and +wanton details. The child was taken away when her mother was within +three days of her, and would have given three decades for sight of her. + +In my despair and unassuageable misery I upbraid myself for ever parting +with her. But there is no use in that. Since it was to happen it would +have happened. + With love + S. L. C. + + + The life at Tedworth Square that winter was one of almost complete + privacy. Of the hundreds of friends which Mark Twain had in London + scarcely half a dozen knew his address. He worked steadily on his + book of travels, 'Following the Equator', and wrote few letters + beyond business communications to Mr. Rogers. In one of these he + said, "I am appalled! Here I am trying to load you up with work + again after you have been dray-horsing over the same tiresome ground + for a year. It's too bad, and I am ashamed of it." + + But late in November he sent a letter of a different sort--one that + was to have an important bearing on the life of a girl today of + unique and world-wide distinction. + + + To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in New York City: + +For and in behalf of Helen Keller, +stone blind and deaf, and formerly dumb. + +DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--Experience has convinced me that when one wishes to +set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't prefer to be +bothered with, it is best to move upon him behind his wife. If she can't +convince him it isn't worth while for other people to try. + +Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Lawrence +Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July, in Boston, +when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to +Radcliffe College. She passed without a single condition. She was +allowed the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, and +this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question papers had +to be read to her. Yet she scored an average of 90 as against an average +of 78 on the part of the other applicants. + +It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her +studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a +fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special lines +she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages. + +There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a College +degree for lack of support for herself and for Miss Sullivan, (the +teacher who has been with her from the start--Mr. Rogers will remember +her.) Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich Englishmen in her +case, and I would gladly try, but my secluded life will not permit it. +I see nobody. Nobody knows my address. Nothing but the strictest hiding +can enable me to write my long book in time. + +So I thought of this scheme: Beg you to lay siege to your husband and get +him to interest himself and Mess. John D. and William Rockefeller and the +other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen's case; get them to subscribe an +annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a thousand dollars--and agree +to continue this for three or four years, until she has completed her +college course. I'm not trying to limit their generosity--indeed no, +they may pile that Standard Oil, Helen Keller College Fund as high as +they please, they have my consent. + +Mrs. Hutton's idea is to raise a permanent fund the interest upon which +shall support Helen and her teacher and put them out of the fear of want. +I shan't say a word against it, but she will find it a difficult and +disheartening job, and meanwhile what is to become of that miraculous +girl? + +No, for immediate and sound effectiveness, the thing is for you to plead +with Mr. Rogers for this hampered wonder of your sex, and send him +clothed with plenary powers to plead with the other chiefs--they have +spent mountains of money upon the worthiest benevolences, and I think +that the same spirit which moved them to put their hands down through +their hearts into their pockets in those cases will answer "Here!" when +its name is called in this one. 638 + +There--I don't need to apologize to you or to H. H. for this appeal that +I am making; I know you too well for that. + +Good-bye with love to all of you + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Laurence Hutton is on the staff of Harper's Monthly--close by, and handy +when wanted. + + + The plea was not made in vain. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers interested + themselves most liberally in Helen Keller's fortune, and certainly + no one can say that any of those who contributed to her success ever + had reason for disappointment. + + In his letter of grateful acknowledgment, which follows, Clemens + also takes occasion to thank Mr. Rogers for his further efforts in + the matter of his own difficulties. This particular reference + concerns the publishing, complications which by this time had arisen + between the American Publishing Company, of Hartford, and the house + in Franklin Square. + + + LONDON, Dec. 22, '96. +DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful to you +both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, and that +Mr. Rogers was already interested in her and touched by her; and I was +sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you have gone far +and away beyond the sum I expected--may your lines fall in pleasant +places here and Hereafter for it! + +The Huttons are as glad and grateful as they can be, and I am glad for +their sakes as well as for Helen's. + +I want to thank Mr. Rogers for crucifying himself again on the same old +cross between Bliss and Harper; and goodness knows I hope he will come to +enjoy it above all other dissipations yet, seeing that it has about it +the elements of stability and permanency. However, at any time that he +says sign, we're going to do it. + Ever sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +XXXVI + +LETTERS 1897. LONDON, SWITZERLAND, VIENNA + +Mark Twain worked steadily on his book that sad winter and managed to +keep the gloom out of his chapters, though it is noticeable that +'Following the Equator' is more serious than his other books of travel. +He wrote few letters, and these only to his three closest friends, +Howells, Twichell, and Rogers. In the letter to Twichell, which follows, +there is mention of two unfinished manuscripts which he expects to +resume. One of these was a dream story, enthusiastically begun, but +perhaps with insufficient plot to carry it through, for it never reached +conclusion. He had already tried it in one or two forms and would begin +it again presently. The identity of the other tale is uncertain. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Jan. 19, '97. +DEAR JOE,--Do I want you to write to me? Indeed I do. I do not want +most people to write, but I do want you to do it. The others break my +heart, but you will not. You have a something divine in you that is not +in other men,. You have the touch that heals, not lacerates. And you +know the secret places of our hearts. You know our life--the outside of +it--as the others do--and the inside of it--which they do not. You have +seen our whole voyage. You have seen us go to sea, a cloud of sail--and +the flag at the peak; and you see us now, chartless, adrift--derelicts; +battered, water-logged, our sails a ruck of rags, our pride gone. For it +is gone. And there is nothing in its place. The vanity of life was all +we had, and there is no more vanity left in us. We are even ashamed of +that we had; ashamed that we trusted the promises of life and builded +high--to come to this! + +I did know that Susy was part of us; I did not know that she could go +away; I did not know that she could go away, and take our lives with her, +yet leave our dull bodies behind. And I did not know what she was. To +me she was but treasure in the bank; the amount known, the need to look +at it daily, handle it, weigh it, count it, realize it, not necessary; +and now that I would do it, it is too late; they tell me it is not there, +has vanished away in a night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I +am a pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to have it? Why am +I robbed, and who is benefited? + +Ah, well, Susy died at home. She had that privilege. Her dying eyes +rested upon nothing that was strange to them, but only upon things which +they had known and loved always and which had made her young years glad; +and she had you, and Sue, and Katy, and John, and Ellen. This was happy +fortune--I am thankful that it was vouchsafed to her. If she had died in +another house-well, I think I could not have borne that. To us, our +house was not unsentient matter--it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to +see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies; it was +of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the +peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its +face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome--and we could +not enter it unmoved. And could we now, oh, now, in spirit we should +enter it unshod. + +I am trying to add to the "assets" which you estimate so generously. +No, I am not. The thought is not in my mind. My purpose is other. I am +working, but it is for the sake of the work--the "surcease of sorrow" +that is found there. I work all the days, and trouble vanishes away when +I use that magic. This book will not long stand between it and me, now; +but that is no matter, I have many unwritten books to fly to for my +preservation; the interval between the finishing of this one and the +beginning of the next will not be more than an hour, at most. +Continuances, I mean; for two of them are already well along--in fact +have reached exactly the same stage in their journey: 19,000 words each. +The present one will contain 180,000 words--130,000 are done. I am well +protected; but Livy! She has nothing in the world to turn to; nothing +but housekeeping, and doing things for the children and me. She does not +see people, and cannot; books have lost their interest for her. She sits +solitary; and all the day, and all the days, wonders how it all happened, +and why. We others were always busy with our affairs, but Susy was her +comrade--had to be driven from her loving persecutions--sometimes at 1 in +the morning. To Livy the persecutions were welcome. It was heaven to +her to be plagued like that. But it is ended now. Livy stands so in +need of help; and none among us all could help her like you. + +Some day you and I will walk again, Joe, and talk. I hope so. We could +have such talks! We are all grateful to you and Harmony--how grateful it +is not given to us to say in words. We pay as we can, in love; and in +this coin practicing no economy. + Good bye, dear old Joe! + MARK. + + + The letters to Mr. Rogers were, for the most part, on matters of + business, but in one of them he said: "I am going to write with all + my might on this book, and follow it up with others as fast as I can + in the hope that within three years I can clear out the stuff that + is in me waiting to be written, and that I shall then die in the + promptest kind of a way and no fooling around." And in one he + wrote: "You are the best friend ever a man had, and the surest." + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York + + LONDON, Feb. 23, '97. +DEAR HOWELLS,-I find your generous article in the Weekly, and I want to +thank you for its splendid praises, so daringly uttered and so warmly. +The words stir the dead heart of me, and throw a glow of color into a +life which sometimes seems to have grown wholly wan. I don't mean that I +am miserable; no--worse than that--indifferent. Indifferent to nearly +everything but work. I like that; I enjoy it, and stick to it. I do it +without purpose and without ambition; merely for the love of it. + +This mood will pass, some day--there is history for it. But it cannot +pass until my wife comes up out of the submergence. She was always so +quick to recover herself before, but now there is no rebound, and we are +dead people who go through the motions of life. Indeed I am a mud image, +and it will puzzle me to know what it is in me that writes, and has +comedy-fancies and finds pleasure in phrasing them. It is a law of our +nature, of course, or it wouldn't happen; the thing in me forgets the +presence of the mud image and goes its own way, wholly unconscious of it +and apparently of no kinship with it. I have finished my book, but I go +on as if the end were indefinitely away--as indeed it is. There is no +hurry--at any rate there is no limit. + +Jean's spirits are good; Clara's are rising. They have youth--the only +thing that was worth giving to the race. + +These are sardonic times. Look at Greece, and that whole shabby muddle. +But I am not sorry to be alive and privileged to look on. If I were not +a hermit I would go to the House every day and see those people scuffle +over it and blether about the brotherhood of the human race. This has +been a bitter year for English pride, and I don't like to see England +humbled--that is, not too much. We are sprung from her loins, and it +hurts me. I am for republics, and she is the only comrade we've got, in +that. We can't count France, and there is hardly enough of Switzerland +to count. Beneath the governing crust England is sound-hearted--and +sincere, too, and nearly straight. But I am appalled to notice that the +wide extension of the surface has damaged her manners, and made her +rather Americanly uncourteous on the lower levels. + +Won't you give our love to the Howellses all and particular? + Sincerely yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The travel-book did not finish easily, and more than once when he + thought it completed he found it necessary to cut and add and + change. The final chapters were not sent to the printer until the + middle of May, and in a letter to Mr. Rogers he commented: "A + successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out + of it." Clemens was at the time contemplating a uniform edition of + his books, and in one of his letters to Mr. Rogers on the matter he + wrote, whimsically, "Now I was proposing to make a thousand sets at + a hundred dollars a set, and do the whole canvassing myself..... I + would load up every important jail and saloon in America with de + luxe editions of my books. But Mrs. Clemens and the children object + to this, I do not know why." And, in a moment of depression: "You + see the lightning refuses to strike me--there is where the defect + is. We have to do our own striking as Barney Barnato did. But + nobody ever gets the courage until he goes crazy." + + They went to Switzerland for the summer to the village of Weggis, on + Lake Lucerne--"The charmingest place we ever lived in," he declared, + "for repose, and restfulness, and superb scenery." It was here that + he began work on a new story of Tom and Huck, and at least upon one + other manuscript. From a brief note to Mr. Rogers we learn + something of his employments and economies. + + + To Henry H. Rogers, in New York: + + LUCERNE, August the something or other, 1897. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,-- I am writing a novel, and am getting along very well +with it. + +I believe that this place (Weggis, half an hour from Lucerne,) is the +loveliest in the world, and the most satisfactory. We have a small house +on the hillside all to ourselves, and our meals are served in it from the +inn below on the lake shore. Six francs a day per head, house and food +included. The scenery is beyond comparison beautiful. We have a row +boat and some bicycles, and good roads, and no visitors. Nobody knows we +are here. And Sunday in heaven is noisy compared to this quietness. + Sincerely yours + S. L. C. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LUCERNE, Aug. 22, '97. +DEAR JOE,--Livy made a noble find on the Lucerne boat the other day on +one of her shopping trips--George Williamson Smith--did I tell you about +it? We had a lovely time with him, and such intellectual refreshment as +we had not tasted in many a month. + +And the other night we had a detachment of the jubilee Singers--6. I had +known one of them in London 24 years ago. Three of the 6 were born in +slavery, the others were children of slaves. How charming they were--in +spirit, manner, language, pronunciation, enunciation, grammar, phrasing, +matter, carriage, clothes--in every detail that goes to make the real +lady and gentleman, and welcome guest. We went down to the village hotel +and bought our tickets and entered the beer-hall, where a crowd of German +and Swiss men and women sat grouped at round tables with their beer mugs +in front of them--self-contained and unimpressionable looking people, an +indifferent and unposted and disheartened audience--and up at the far end +of the room sat the Jubilees in a row. The Singers got up and stood--the +talking and glass jingling went on. Then rose and swelled out above +those common earthly sounds one of those rich chords the secret of whose +make only the Jubilees possess, and a spell fell upon that house. It was +fine to see the faces light up with the pleased wonder and surprise of +it. No one was indifferent any more; and when the singers finished, the +camp was theirs. It was a triumph. It reminded me of Launcelot riding +in Sir Kay's armor and astonishing complacent Knights who thought they +had struck a soft thing. The Jubilees sang a lot of pieces. Arduous and +painstaking cultivation has not diminished or artificialized their music, +but on the contrary--to my surprise--has mightily reinforced its +eloquence and beauty. Away back in the beginning--to my mind--their +music made all other vocal music cheap; and that early notion is +emphasized now. It is utterly beautiful, to me; and it moves me +infinitely more than any other music can. I think that in the Jubilees +and their songs America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages; +and I wish it were a foreign product, so that she would worship it and +lavish money on it and go properly crazy over it. + +Now, these countries are different: they would do all that, if it were +native. It is true they praise God, but that is merely a formality, and +nothing in it; they open out their whole hearts to no foreigner. + +The musical critics of the German press praise the Jubilees with great +enthusiasm--acquired technique etc, included. + +One of the jubilee men is a son of General Joe Johnson, and was educated +by him after the war. The party came up to the house and we had a +pleasant time. + +This is paradise, here--but of course we have got to leave it by and by. +The 18th of August--[Anniversary of Susy Clemens's death.]--has come and +gone, Joe--and we still seem to live. + With love from us all. + MARK. + + + Clemens declared he would as soon spend his life in Weggis "as + anywhere else in the geography," but October found them in Vienna + for the winter, at the Hotel Metropole. The Austrian capital was + just then in a political turmoil, the character of which is hinted + in the following: + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + HOTEL METROPOLE, + VIENNA, Oct. 23, '97. +DEAR JOE,--We are gradually getting settled down and wonted. Vienna is +not a cheap place to live in, but I have made one small arrangement +which: has a distinctly economical aspect. The Vice Consul made the +contract for me yesterday-to-wit: a barber is to come every morning 8.30 +and shave me and keep my hair trimmed for $2.50 a month. I used to pay +$1.50 per shave in our house in Hartford. + +Does it suggest to you reflections when you reflect that this is the most +important event which has happened to me in ten days--unless I count--in +my handing a cabman over to the police day before yesterday, with the +proper formalities, and promised to appear in court when his case comes +up. + +If I had time to run around and talk, I would do it; for there is much +politics agoing, and it would be interesting if a body could get the hang +of it. It is Christian and Jew by the horns--the advantage with the +superior man, as usual--the superior man being the Jew every time and in +all countries. Land, Joe, what chance would the Christian have in a +country where there were 3 Jews to 10 Christians! Oh, not the shade of a +shadow of a chance. The difference between the brain of the average +Christian and that of the average Jew--certainly in Europe--is about the +difference between a tadpole's and an Archbishop's. It's a marvelous, +race--by long odds the most marvelous that the world has produced, I +suppose. + +And there's more politics--the clash between Czech and Austrian. I wish +I could understand these quarrels, but of course I can't. + +With the abounding love of us all + MARK. + + + In Following the Equator there was used an amusing picture showing + Mark Twain on his trip around the world. It was a trick photograph + made from a picture of Mark Twain taken in a steamer-chair, cut out + and combined with a dilapidated negro-cart drawn by a horse and an + ox. In it Clemens appears to be sitting luxuriously in the end of + the disreputable cart. His companions are two negroes. To the + creator of this ingenious effect Mark Twain sent a characteristic + acknowledgment. + + + To T. S. Frisbie + + VIENNA, Oct. 25, '97. +MR. T. S. FRISBIE,--Dear Sir: The picture has reached me, and has moved +me deeply. That was a steady, sympathetic and honorable team, and +although it was not swift, and not showy, it pulled me around the globe +successfully, and always attracted its proper share of attention, even in +the midst of the most costly and fashionable turnouts. Princes and dukes +and other experts were always enthused by the harness and could hardly +keep from trying to buy it. The barouche does not look as fine, now, as +it did earlier-but that was before the earthquake. + +The portraits of myself and uncle and nephew are very good indeed, and +your impressionist reproduction of the palace of the Governor General of +India is accurate and full of tender feeling. + +I consider that this picture is much more than a work of art. How much +more, one cannot say with exactness, but I should think two-thirds more. + + Very truly yours + MARK TWAIN. + + + Following the Equator was issued by subscription through Mark + Twain's old publishers, the Blisses, of Hartford. The sale of it + was large, not only on account of the value of the book itself, but + also because of the sympathy of the American people with Mark + Twain's brave struggle to pay his debts. When the newspapers began + to print exaggerated stories of the vast profits that were piling + up, Bliss became worried, for he thought it would modify the + sympathy. He cabled Clemens for a denial, with the following + result: + + + To Frank E. Bliss, in Hartford: + + VIENNA, Nov. 4, 1897. +DEAR BLISS,--Your cablegram informing me that a report is in circulation +which purports to come from me and which says I have recently made +$82,000 and paid all my debts has just reached me, and I have cabled +back my regret to you that it is not true. I wrote a letter--a private +letter--a short time ago, in which I expressed the belief that I should +be out of debt within the next twelvemonth. If you make as much as usual +for me out of the book, that belief will crystallize into a fact, and I +shall be wholly out of debt. I am encoring you now. + +It is out of that moderate letter that the Eighty-Two Thousand-Dollar +mare's nest has developed. But why do you worry about the various +reports? They do not worry me. They are not unfriendly, and I don't see +how they can do any harm. Be patient; you have but a little while to +wait; the possible reports are nearly all in. It has been reported that +I was seriously ill--it was another man; dying--it was another man; dead +--the other man again. It has been reported that I have received a +legacy it was another man; that I am out of debt--it was another man; and +now comes this $82,000--still another man. It has been reported that I +am writing books--for publication; I am not doing anything of the kind. +It would surprise (and gratify) me if I should be able to get another +book ready for the press within the next three years. You can see, +yourself, that there isn't anything more to be reported--invention is +exhausted. Therefore, don't worry, Bliss--the long night is breaking. +As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have +become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't +take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our +house in Hartford, and let it talk. + Truly yours, + MARK TWAIN. + +P. S. This is not a private letter. I am getting tired of private +letters. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + VIENNA + HOTEL METROPOLE, NOV. 19, '97. +DEAR JOE,--Above is our private (and permanent) address for the winter. +You needn't send letters by London. + +I am very much obliged for Forrest's Austro-Hungarian articles. I have +just finished reading the first one: and in it I find that his opinion +and Vienna's are the same, upon a point which was puzzling me--the +paucity (no, the absence) of Austrian Celebrities. He and Vienna both +say the country cannot afford to allow great names to grow up; that the +whole safety and prosperity of the Empire depends upon keeping things +quiet; can't afford to have geniuses springing up and developing ideas +and stirring the public soul. I am assured that every time a man finds +himself blooming into fame, they just softly snake him down and relegate +him to a wholesome obscurity. It is curious and interesting. + +Three days ago the New York World sent and asked a friend of mine +(correspondent of a London daily) to get some Christmas greetings from +the celebrities of the Empire. She spoke of this. Two or three bright +Austrians were present. They said "There are none who are known all over +the world! none who have achieved fame; none who can point to their work +and say it is known far and wide in the earth: there are no names; +Kossuth (known because he had a father) and Lecher, who made the 12 hour +speech; two names-nothing more. Every other country in the world, +perhaps, has a giant or two whose heads are away up and can be seen, but +ours. We've got the material--have always had it--but we have to +suppress it; we can't afford to let it develop; our political salvation +depends upon tranquillity--always has." + +Poor Livy! She is laid up with rheumatism; but she is getting along now. +We have a good doctor, and he says she will be out of bed in a couple of +days, but must stay in the house a week or ten. + +Clara is working faithfully at her music, Jean at her usual studies, and +we all send love. + MARK. + + + Mention has already been made of the political excitement in Vienna. + The trouble between the Hungarian and German legislative bodies + presently became violent. Clemens found himself intensely + interested, and was present in one of the galleries when it was + cleared by the police. All sorts of stories were circulated as to + what happened to him, one of which was cabled to America. A letter + to Twichell sets forth what really happened. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + HOTEL METROPOLE, + VIENNA, Dec. 10, '97. +DEAR JOE,--Pond sends me a Cleveland paper with a cablegram from here in +it which says that when the police invaded the parliament and expelled +the 11 members I waved my handkerchief and shouted 'Hoch die Deutschen!' +and got hustled out. Oh dear, what a pity it is that one's adventures +never happen! When the Ordner (sergeant-at-arms) came up to our gallery +and was hurrying the people out, a friend tried to get leave for me to +stay, by saying, "But this gentleman is a foreigner--you don't need to +turn him out--he won't do any harm." + +"Oh, I know him very well--I recognize him by his pictures; and I should +be very glad to let him stay, but I haven't any choice, because of the +strictness of the orders." + +And so we all went out, and no one was hustled. Below, I ran across the +London Times correspondent, and he showed me the way into the first +gallery and I lost none of the show. The first gallery had not +misbehaved, and was not disturbed . + +. . . We cannot persuade Livy to go out in society yet, but all the +lovely people come to see her; and Clara and I go to dinner parties, and +around here and there, and we all have a most hospitable good time. +Jean's woodcarving flourishes, and her other studies. + +Good-bye Joe--and we all love all of you. + MARK. + + + Clemens made an article of the Austrian troubles, one of the best + things he ever wrote, and certainly one of the clearest elucidations + of the Austro-Hungarian confusions. It was published in Harper's + Magazine, and is now included in his complete works. + + Thus far none of the Webster Company debts had been paid--at least, + none of importance. The money had been accumulating in Mr. Rogers's + hands, but Clemens was beginning to be depressed by the heavy + burden. He wrote asking for relief. + + + Part of a letter to H. H. Rogers, in New York: + +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I throw up the sponge. I pull down the flag. Let us +begin on the debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. It totally +unfits me for work. I have lost three entire months now. In that time I +have begun twenty magazine articles and books--and flung every one of +them aside in turn. The debts interfered every time, and took the spirit +out of any work. And yet I have worked like a bond slave and wasted no +time and spared no effort---- + +Rogers wrote, proposing a plan for beginning immediately upon the debts. +Clemens replied enthusiastically, and during the next few weeks wrote +every few days, expressing his delight in liquidation. + + + Extracts from letters to H. H. Rogers, in New York: + +. . . We all delighted with your plan. Only don't leave B-- out. +Apparently that claim has been inherited by some women--daughters, no +doubt. We don't want to see them lose any thing. B-- is an ass, and +disgruntled, but I don't care for that. I am responsible for the money +and must do the best I can to pay it..... I am writing hard--writing for +the creditors. + + + Dec. 29. +Land we are glad to see those debts diminishing. For the first time in +my life I am getting more pleasure out of paying money out than pulling +it in. + + + Jan. 2. +Since we have begun to pay off the debts I have abundant peace of mind +again--no sense of burden. Work is become a pleasure again--it is not +labor any longer. + + + March 7. +Mrs. Clemens has been reading the creditors' letters over and over again +and thanks you deeply for sending them, and says it is the only really +happy day she has had since Susy died. + + + + +XXXVII + +LETTERS, 1898, TO HOWELLS AND TWICHELL. LIFE IN VIENNA. PAYMENT OF THE +DEBTS. ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPRESS + +The end of January saw the payment of the last of Mark Twain's debts. +Once more he stood free before the world--a world that sounded his +praises. The latter fact rather amused him. "Honest men must be pretty +scarce," he said, "when they make so much fuss over even a defective +specimen." When the end was in sight Clemens wrote the news to Howells +in a letter as full of sadness as of triumph. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + HOTEL METROPOLE, + VIENNA, Jan. 22, '98. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Look at those ghastly figures. I used to write it +"Hartford, 1871." There was no Susy then--there is no Susy now. And how +much lies between--one long lovely stretch of scented fields, and +meadows, and shady woodlands, and suddenly Sahara! You speak of the +glorious days of that old time--and they were. It is my quarrel--that +traps like that are set. Susy and Winnie given us, in miserable sport, +and then taken away. + +About the last time I saw you I described to you the culminating disaster +in a book I was going to write (and will yet, when the stroke is further +away)--a man's dead daughter brought to him when he had been through all +other possible misfortunes--and I said it couldn't be done as it ought to +be done except by a man who had lived it--it must be written with the +blood out of a man's heart. I couldn't know, then, how soon I was to be +made competent. I have thought of it many a time since. If you were +here I think we could cry down each other's necks, as in your dream. +For we are a pair of old derelicts drifting around, now, with some of our +passengers gone and the sunniness of the others in eclipse. + +I couldn't get along without work now. I bury myself in it up to the +ears. Long hours--8 and 9 on a stretch, sometimes. And all the days, +Sundays included. It isn't all for print, by any means, for much of it +fails to suit me; 50,000 words of it in the past year. It was because of +the deadness which invaded me when Susy died. But I have made a change +lately--into dramatic work--and I find it absorbingly entertaining. +I don't know that I can write a play that will play: but no matter, I'll +write half a dozen that won't, anyway. Dear me, I didn't know there was +such fun in it. I'll write twenty that won't play. I get into immense +spirits as soon as my day is fairly started. Of course a good deal of +this friskiness comes of my being in sight of land--on the Webster & Co. +debts, I mean. (Private.) We've lived close to the bone and saved every +cent we could, and there's no undisputed claim, now, that we can't cash. +I have marked this "private" because it is for the friends who are +attending to the matter for us in New York to reveal it when they want to +and if they want to. There are only two claims which I dispute and which +I mean to look into personally before I pay them. But they are small. +Both together they amount to only $12,500. I hope you will never get the +like of the load saddled onto you that was saddled onto me 3 years ago. +And yet there is such a solid pleasure in paying the things that I reckon +maybe it is worth while to get into that kind of a hobble, after all. +Mrs. Clemens gets millions of delight out of it; and the children have +never uttered one complaint about the scrimping, from the beginning. + +We all send you and all of you our love. + MARK. + + + Howells wrote: "I wish you could understand how unshaken you are, + you old tower, in every way; your foundations are struck so deep + that you will catch the sunshine of immortal years, and bask in the + same light as Cervantes and Shakespeare." + + The Clemens apartments at the Metropole became a sort of social + clearing-house of the Viennese art and literary life, much more like + an embassy than the home of a mere literary man. Celebrities in + every walk of life, persons of social and official rank, writers for + the press, assembled there on terms hardly possible in any other + home in Vienna. Wherever Mark Twain appeared in public he was a + central figure. Now and then he read or spoke to aid some benefit, + and these were great gatherings attended by members of the royal + family. It was following one such event that the next letter was + written. + + +(Private) + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + HOTEL METROPOLE, + VIENNA, Feb. 3, '98. +DEAR JOE, There's that letter that I began so long ago--you see how +it is: can't get time to finish anything. I pile up lots of work, +nevertheless. There may be idle people in the world, but I'm not one of +them. I say "Private" up there because I've got an adventure to tell, +and you mustn't let a breath of it get out. First I thought I would lay +it up along with a thousand others that I've laid up for the same +purpose--to talk to you about, but--those others have vanished out of my +memory; and that must not happen with this. + +The other night I lectured for a Vienna charity; and at the end of it +Livy and I were introduced to a princess who is aunt to the heir apparent +of the imperial throne--a beautiful lady, with a beautiful spirit, and +very cordial in her praises of my books and thanks to me for writing +them; and glad to meet me face to face and shake me by the hand--just the +kind of princess that adorns a fairy tale and makes it the prettiest tale +there is. + +Very well, we long ago found that when you are noticed by supremacies, +the correct etiquette is to go, within a couple of days, and pay your +respects in the quite simple form of writing your name in the Visitors' +Book kept in the office of the establishment. That is the end of it, and +everything is squared up and ship-shape. + +So at noon today Livy and I drove to the Archducal palace, and got by the +sentries all right, and asked the grandly-uniformed porter for the book +and said we wished to write our names in it. And he called a servant in +livery and was sending us up stairs; and said her Royal Highness was out +but would soon be in. Of course Livy said "No--no--we only want the +book;" but he was firm, and said, "You are Americans?" + +"Yes." + +"Then you are expected, please go up stairs." + +"But indeed we are not expected--please let us have the book and--" + +"Her Royal Highness will be back in a very little while--she commanded me +to tell you so--and you must wait." + +Well, the soldiers were there close by--there was no use trying to +resist--so we followed the servant up; but when he tried to beguile us +into a drawing-room, Livy drew the line; she wouldn't go in. And she +wouldn't stay up there, either. She said the princess might come in at +any moment and catch us, and it would be too infernally ridiculous for +anything. So we went down stairs again--to my unspeakable regret. For +it was too darling a comedy to spoil. I was hoping and praying the +princess would come, and catch us up there, and that those other +Americans who were expected would arrive, and be taken for impostors by +the portier, and shot by the sentinels--and then it would all go into the +papers, and be cabled all over the world, and make an immense stir and be +perfectly lovely. And by that time the princess would discover that we +were not the right ones, and the Minister of War would be ordered out, +and the garrison, and they would come for us, and there would be another +prodigious time, and that would get cabled too, and--well, Joe, I was in +a state of perfect bliss. But happily, oh, so happily, that big portier +wouldn't let us out--he was sorry, but he must obey orders--we must go +back up stairs and wait. Poor Livy--I couldn't help but enjoy her +distress. She said we were in a fix, and how were we going to explain, +if the princess should arrive before the rightful Americans came? We +went up stairs again--laid off our wraps, and were conducted through one +drawing room and into another, and left alone there and the door closed +upon us. + +Livy was in a state of mind! She said it was too theatrically +ridiculous; and that I would never be able to keep my mouth shut; that I +would be sure to let it out and it would get into the papers--and she +tried to make me promise--"Promise what?" I said-- "to be quiet about +this? Indeed I won't--it's the best thing that ever happened; I'll tell +it, and add to it; and I wish Joe and Howells were here to make it +perfect; I can't make all the rightful blunders myself--it takes all +three of us to do justice to an opportunity like this. I would just like +to see Howells get down to his work and explain, and lie, and work his +futile and inventionless subterfuges when that princess comes raging in +here and wanting to know." But Livy could not hear fun--it was not a +time to be trying to be funny--we were in a most miserable and shameful +situation, and if-- + +Just then the door spread wide and our princess and 4 more, and 3 little +princes flowed in! Our princess, and her sister the Archduchess Marie +Therese (mother to the imperial Heir and to the young girl Archduchesses +present, and aunt to the 3 little princes)--and we shook hands all around +and sat down and had a most sociable good time for half an hour--and by +and by it turned out that we were the right ones, and had been sent for +by a messenger who started too late to catch us at the hotel. We were +invited for 2 o'clock, but we beat that arrangement by an hour and a +half. + +Wasn't it a rattling good comedy situation? Seems a kind of pity we were +the right ones. It would have been such nuts to see the right ones come, +and get fired out, and we chatting along comfortably and nobody +suspecting us for impostors. + +We send lots and lots of love. + MARK. + + + The reader who has followed these pages has seen how prone Mark + Twain was to fall a victim to the lure of a patent-right--how he + wasted several small fortunes on profitless contrivances, and one + large one on that insatiable demon of intricacy and despair, the + Paige type-setter. It seems incredible that, after that experience + and its attending disaster, he should have been tempted again. But + scarcely was the ink dry on the receipts from his creditors when he + was once more borne into the clouds on the prospect of millions, + perhaps even billions, to be made from a marvelous carpet-pattern + machine, the invention of Sczezepanik, an Austrian genius. That + Clemens appreciated his own tendencies is shown by the parenthetic + line with which he opens his letter on the subject to Mr. Rogers. + Certainly no man was ever a more perfect prototype of Colonel + Sellers than the creator of that lovely, irrepressible visionary. + + + To Mr. Rogers, in New York: + + March 24, '98. +DEAR MR. ROGERS,--(I feel like Col. Sellers). + +Mr. Kleinberg [agent for Sczezepanik] came according to appointment, at +8.30 last night, and brought his English-speaking Secretary. I asked +questions about the auxiliary invention (which I call "No. 2 ") and got +as good an idea of it as I could. It is a machine. It automatically +punches the holes in the jacquard cards, and does it with mathematical +accuracy. It will do for $1 what now costs $3. So it has value, but +"No. 2" is the great thing(the designing invention.) It saves $9 out of +$10 and the jacquard looms must have it. + +Then I arrived at my new project, and said to him in substance, this: + +"You are on the point of selling the No. 2 patents to Belgium, Italy, +etc. I suggest that you stop those negotiations and put those people off +two or three months. They are anxious now, they will not be less anxious +then--just the reverse; people always want a thing that is denied them. + +"So far as I know, no great world-patent has ever yet been placed in the +grip of a single corporation. This is a good time to begin. + +"We have to do a good deal of guess-work here, because we cannot get hold +of just the statistics we want. Still, we have some good statistics--and +I will use those for a test. + +"You say that of the 1500 Austrian textile factories, 800 use the +jacquard. Then we will guess that of the 4,000 American factories 2,000 +use the jacquard and must have our No. 2. + +"You say that a middle-sized Austrian factory employs from 20 to 3o +designers and pays them from 800 to 3,000 odd florins a year--(a florin +is 2 francs). Let us call the average wage 1500 florins ($600). + +"Let us apply these figures (the low wages too) to the 2,000 American +factories--with this difference, to guard against over-guessing; that +instead of allowing for 20 to 30 designers to a middle-sized factory, we +allow only an average of 10 to each of the 2,000 factories--a total of +20,000 designers. Wages at $600, a total of $12,000,000. Let us +consider that No. 2 will reduce this expense to $2,000,000 a year. The +saving is $5,000,000 per each of the $200,000,000 of capital employed in +the jacquard business over there. + +"Let us consider that in the countries covered by this patent, an +aggregate of $1,500,000,000 of capital is employed in factories requiring +No. 2. + +"The saving (as above) is $75,000,000 a year. The Company holding in its +grip all these patents would collar $50,000,000 of that, as its share. +Possibly more. + +"Competition would be at an end in the Jacquard business, on this planet. +Price-cutting would end. Fluctuations in values would cease. The +business would be the safest and surest in the world; commercial panics +could not seriously affect it; its stock would be as choice an investment +as Government bonds. When the patents died the Company would be so +powerful that it could still keep the whole business in its hands. Would +you like to grant me the privilege of placing the whole jacquard business +of the world in the grip of a single Company? And don't you think that +the business would grow-grow like a weed?" + +"Ach, America--it is the country of the big! Let me get my breath--then +we will talk." + +So then we talked--talked till pretty late. Would Germany and England +join the combination? I said the Company would know how to persuade +them. + +Then I asked for a Supplementary Option, to cover the world, and we +parted. + +I am taking all precautions to keep my name out of print in connection +with this matter. And we will now keep the invention itself out of print +as well as we can. Descriptions of it have been granted to the "Dry +Goods Economist" (New York) and to a syndicate of American papers. I +have asked Mr. Kleinberg to suppress these, and he feels pretty sure he +can do it. + With love, + S. L. C. + + + If this splendid enthusiasm had not cooled by the time a reply came + from Mr. Rogers, it must have received a sudden chill from the + letter which he inclosed--the brief and concise report from a + carpet-machine expert, who said: "I do not feel that it would be of + any value to us in our mills, and the number of jacquard looms in + America is so limited that I am of the opinion that there is no + field for a company to develop the invention here. A cursory + examination of the pamphlet leads me to place no very high value + upon the invention, from a practical standpoint." + + With the receipt of this letter carpet-pattern projects would seem + to have suddenly ceased to be a factor in Mark Twain's calculations. + Such a letter in the early days of the type-machine would have saved + him a great sum in money and years of disappointment. But perhaps + he would not have heeded it then. + + The year 1898 brought the Spanish-American War. Clemens was + constitutionally against all wars, but writing to Twichell, whose + son had enlisted, we gather that this one was an exception. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + KALTENLEUTGEBEN, NEAR VIENNA, + June 17, '98. +DEAR JOE,--You are living your war-days over again in Dave, and it must +be a strong pleasure, mixed with a sauce of apprehension--enough to make +it just schmeck, as the Germans say. Dave will come out with two or +three stars on his shoulder-straps if the war holds, and then we shall +all be glad it happened. + +We started with Bull Run, before. Dewey and Hobson have introduced an +improvement on the game this time. + +I have never enjoyed a war-even in written history--as I am enjoying this +one. For this is the worthiest one that was ever fought, so far as my +knowledge goes. It is a worthy thing to fight for one's freedom; it is +another sight finer to fight for another man's. And I think this is the +first time it has been done. + +Oh, never mind Charley Warner, he would interrupt the raising of Lazarus. +He would say, the will has been probated, the property distributed, it +will be a world of trouble to settle the rows--better leave well enough +alone; don't ever disturb anything, where it's going to break the soft +smooth flow of things and wobble our tranquillity. + +Company! (Sh! it happens every day--and we came out here to be quiet.) + +Love to you all. + MARK. + + + They were spending the summer at Kaltenleutgeben, a pleasant village + near Vienna, but apparently not entirely quiet. Many friends came + out from Vienna, including a number of visiting Americans. Clemens, + however, appears to have had considerable time for writing, as we + gather from the next to Howells. + + + To W. D. Howells, in America: + + KALTENLEUTGEBEN, BEI WIEN, + Aug. 16, '98. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Your letter came yesterday. It then occurred to me that I +might have known (per mental telegraph) that it was due; for a couple of +weeks ago when the Weekly came containing that handsome reference to me I +was powerfully moved to write you; and my letter went on writing itself +while I was at work at my other literature during the day. But next day +my other literature was still urgent--and so on and so on; so my letter +didn't get put into ink at all. But I see now, that you were writing, +about that time, therefore a part of my stir could have come across the +Atlantic per mental telegraph. In 1876 or '75 I wrote 40,000 words of a +story called "Simon Wheeler" wherein the nub was the preventing of an +execution through testimony furnished by mental telegraph from the other +side of the globe. I had a lot of people scattered about the globe who +carried in their pockets something like the old mesmerizer-button, made +of different metals, and when they wanted to call up each other and have +a talk, they "pressed the button" or did something, I don't remember +what, and communication was at once opened. I didn't finish the story, +though I re-began it in several new ways, and spent altogether 70,000 +words on it, then gave it up and threw it aside. + +This much as preliminary to this remark: some day people will be able to +call each other up from any part of the world and talk by mental +telegraph--and not merely by impression, the impression will be +articulated into words. It could be a terrible thing, but it won't be, +because in the upper civilizations everything like sentimentality (I was +going to say sentiment) will presently get materialized out of people +along with the already fading spiritualities; and so when a man is called +who doesn't wish to talk he will be like those visitors you mention: "not +chosen"--and will be frankly damned and shut off. + +Speaking of the ill luck of starting a piece of literary work wrong-and +again and again; always aware that there is a way, if you could only +think it out, which would make the thing slide effortless from the pen- +the one right way, the sole form for you, the other forms being for men +whose line those forms are, or who are capabler than yourself: I've had +no end of experience in that (and maybe I am the only one--let us hope +so.) Last summer I started 16 things wrong--3 books and 13 mag. +articles--and could only make 2 little wee things, 1500 words altogether, +succeed:--only that out of piles and stacks of diligently-wrought MS., +the labor of 6 weeks' unremitting effort. I could make all of those +things go if I would take the trouble to re-begin each one half a dozen +times on a new plan. But none of them was important enough except one: +the story I (in the wrong form) mapped out in Paris three or four years +ago and told you about in New York under seal of confidence--no other +person knows of it but Mrs. Clemens--the story to be called "Which was +the Dream?" + +A week ago I examined the MS--10,000 words--and saw that the plan was a +totally impossible one-for me; but a new plan suggested itself, and +straightway the tale began to slide from the pen with ease and +confidence. I think I've struck the right one this time. I have already +put 12,000 words of it on paper and Mrs. Clemens is pretty outspokenly +satisfied with it-a hard critic to content. I feel sure that all of the +first half of the story--and I hope three-fourths--will be comedy; but by +the former plan the whole of it (except the first 3 chapters) would have +been tragedy and unendurable, almost. I think I can carry the reader a +long way before he suspects that I am laying a tragedy-trap. In the +present form I could spin 16 books out of it with comfort and joy; but I +shall deny myself and restrict it to one. (If you should see a little +short story in a magazine in the autumn called "My Platonic Sweetheart" +(written 3 weeks ago) that is not this one. It may have been a +suggester, though. + +I expect all these singular privacies to interest you, and you are not to +let on that they don't. + +We are leaving, this afternoon, for Ischl, to use that as a base for the +baggage, and then gad around ten days among the lakes and mountains to +rest-up Mrs. Clemens, who is jaded with housekeeping. I hope I can get a +chance to work a little in spots--I can't tell. But you do it--therefore +why should you think I can't? + + [Remainder missing.] + + + The dream story was never completed. It was the same that he had + worked on in London, and perhaps again in Switzerland. It would be + tried at other times and in other forms, but it never seemed to + accommodate itself to a central idea, so that the good writing in it + eventually went to waste. The short story mentioned, "My Platonic + Sweetheart," a charming, idyllic tale, was not published during Mark + Twain's lifetime. Two years after his death it appeared in Harper's + Magazine. + + The assassination of the Empress of Austria at Geneva was the + startling event of that summer. In a letter to Twichell Clemens + presents the tragedy in a few vivid paragraphs. Later he treated it + at some length in a magazine article which, very likely because of + personal relations with members of the Austrian court, he withheld + from print. It has since been included in a volume of essays, What + Is Man, etc. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + KALTENLEUTGEBEN, Sep. 13, '98. +DEAR JOE,-- You are mistaken; people don't send us the magazines. No-- +Harper, Century and McClure do; an example I should like to recommend to +other publishers. And so I thank you very much for sending me Brander's +article. When you say "I like Brander Matthews; he impresses me as a man +of parts and power," I back you, right up to the hub--I feel the same +way--. And when you say he has earned your gratitude for cuffing me for +my crimes against the Leather stockings and the Vicar, I ain't making any +objection. Dern your gratitude! + +His article is as sound as a nut. Brander knows literature, and loves +it; he can talk about it and keep his temper; he can state his case so +lucidly and so fairly and so forcibly that you have to agree with him, +even when you don't agree with him; and he can discover and praise such +merits as a book has, even when they are half a dozen diamonds scattered +through an acre of mud. And so he has a right to be a critic. + +To detail just the opposite of the above invoice is to describe me. I +haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I +hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden +me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I +have to stop every time I begin. + +That good and unoffending lady the Empress is killed by a mad-man, and I +am living in the midst of world-history again. The Queen's jubilee last +year, the invasion of the Reichsrath by the police, and now this murder, +which will still be talked of and described and painted a thousand years +from now. To have a personal friend of the wearer of the crown burst in +at the gate in the deep dusk of the evening and say in a voice broken +with tears, "My God the Empress is murdered," and fly toward her home +before we can utter a question-why, it brings the giant event home to +you, makes you a part of it and personally interested; it is as if your +neighbor Antony should come flying and say "Caesar is butchered--the head +of the world is fallen!" + +Of course there is no talk but of this. The mourning is universal and +genuine, the consternation is stupefying. The Austrian Empire is being +draped with black. Vienna will be a spectacle to see, by next Saturday, +when the funeral cortege marches. We are invited to occupy a room in the +sumptuous new hotel (the "Krantz" where we are to live during the Fall +and Winter) and view it, and we shall go. + +Speaking of Mrs. Leiter, there is a noble dame in Vienna, about whom they +retail similar slanders. She said in French--she is weak in French--that +she had been spending a Sunday afternoon in a gathering of the +"demimonde." Meaning the unknown land, that mercantile land, that +mysterious half-world which underlies the aristocracy. But these +Malaproperies are always inventions--they don't happen. + +Yes, I wish we could have some talks; I'm full to the eye-lids. Had a +noble good one with Parker and Dunham--land, but we were grateful for +that visit! + Yours with all our loves. + MARK. + + [Inclosed with the foregoing.] + +Among the inadequate attempts to account for the assassination we must +concede high rank to the German Emperor's. He justly describes it as a +"deed unparalleled for ruthlessness," and then adds that it was "ordained +from above." + +I think this verdict will not be popular "above." A man is either a free +agent or he isn't. If a man is a free agent, this prisoner is +responsible for what he has done; but if a man is not a free agent, if +the deed was ordained from above, there is no rational way of making this +prisoner even partially responsible for it, and the German court cannot +condemn him without manifestly committing a crime. Logic is logic; and +by disregarding its laws even Emperors as capable and acute as William II +can be beguiled into making charges which should not be ventured upon +except in the shelter of plenty of lightning-rods. + MARK. + + + The end of the year 1898 found Mark Twain once more in easy, even + luxurious, circumstances. The hard work and good fortune which had + enabled him to pay his debts had, in the course of another year, + provided what was comparative affluence: His report to Howells is + characteristic and interesting. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + HOTEL KRANTZ, WIEN, L. NEVER MARKT 6 + Dec. 30, '98. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I begin with a date--including all the details--though I +shall be interrupted presently by a South-African acquaintance who is +passing through, and it may be many days before I catch another leisure +moment. Note how suddenly a thing can become habit, and how +indestructible the habit is, afterward! In your house in Cambridge a +hundred years ago, Mrs. Howells said to me, "Here is a bunch of your +letters, and the dates are of no value, because you don't put any in-- +the years, anyway." That remark diseased me with a habit which has cost +me worlds of time and torture and ink, and millions of vain efforts and +buckets of tears to break it, and here it is yet--I could easier get rid +of a virtue..... + +I hope it will interest you (for I have no one else who would much care +to know it) that here lately the dread of leaving the children in +difficult circumstances has died down and disappeared and I am now having +peace from that long, long nightmare, and can sleep as well as anyone. +Every little while, for these three years, now, Mrs. Clemens has come +with pencil and paper and figured up the condition of things (she keeps +the accounts and the bank-book) and has proven to me that the clouds were +lifting, and so has hoisted my spirits temporarily and kept me going till +another figuring-up was necessary. Last night she figured up for her own +satisfaction, not mine, and found that we own a house and furniture in +Hartford; that my English and American copyrights pay an income which +represents a value of $200,000; and that we have $107,000 cash in the +bank. I have been out and bought a box of 6-cent cigars; I was smoking +4 « centers before. + +At the house of an English friend, on Christmas Eve, we saw the Mouse- +Trap played and well played. I thought the house would kill itself with +laughter. By George they played with life! and it was most +devastatingly funny. And it was well they did, for they put us Clemenses +in the front seat, and if they played it poorly I would have assaulted +them. The head young man and girl were Americans, the other parts were +taken by English, Irish and Scotch girls. Then there was a nigger- +minstrel show, of the genuine old sort, and I enjoyed that, too, for the +nigger-show was always a passion of mine. This one was created and +managed by a Quaker doctor from Philada., (23 years old) and he was the +middle man. There were 9 others--5 Americans from 5 States and a +Scotchman, 2 Englishmen and an Irishman--all post-graduate-medical young +fellows, of course--or, it could be music; but it would be bound to be +one or the other. + +It's quite true--I don't read you "as much as I ought," nor anywhere near +half as much as I want to; still I read you all I get a chance to. +I saved up your last story to read when the numbers should be complete, +but before that time arrived some other admirer of yours carried off the +papers. I will watch admirers of yours when the Silver Wedding journey +begins, and that will not happen again. The last chance at a bound book +of yours was in London nearly two years ago--the last volume of your +short things, by the Harpers. I read the whole book twice through and +some of the chapters several times, and the reason that that was as far +as I got with it was that I lent it to another admirer of yours and he is +admiring it yet. Your admirers have ways of their own; I don't know +where they get them. + +Yes, our project is to go home next autumn if we find we can afford to +live in New York. We've asked a friend to inquire about flats and +expenses. But perhaps nothing will come of it. We do afford to live in +the finest hotel in Vienna, and have 4 bedrooms, a dining-room, a +drawing-room, 3 bath-rooms and 3 Vorzimmers, (and food) but we couldn't +get the half of it in New York for the same money ($600 a month). + + +Susy hovers about us this holiday week, and the shadows fall all about us +of + + "The days when we went gipsying + A long time ago." + +Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but he goes by us +others and will not look our way. We saw the "Master of Palmyra" last +night. How Death, with the gentleness and majesty, made the human grand- +folk around him seem little and trivial and silly! + +With love from all of us to all of you. + MARK. + + + + +XXXVIII + +LETTERS, 1899, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. VIENNA. LONDON. A SUMMER IN +SWEDEN + +The beginning of 1899 found the Clemens family still in Vienna, occupying +handsome apartments at the Hotel Krantz. Their rooms, so often thronged +with gay and distinguished people, were sometimes called the "Second +Embassy." Clemens himself was the central figure of these assemblies. +Of all the foreign visitors in the Austrian capital he was the most +notable. Everywhere he was surrounded by a crowd of listeners--his +sayings and opinions were widely quoted. + +A project for world disarmament promulgated by the Czar of Russia would +naturally interest Mark Twain, and when William T. Stead, of the Review +of Reviews, cabled him for an opinion on the matter, he sent at first a +brief word and on the same day followed it with more extended comment. +The great war which has since devastated the world gives to this incident +an added interest. + + + To Wm. T. Stead, in London: + +No. 1. + VIENNA, Jan. 9. +DEAR MR. STEAD,-The Czar is ready to disarm: I am ready to disarm. +Collect the others, it should not be much of a task now. + MARK TWAIN. + + +To Wm. T. Stead, in London: + +No. 2. +DEAR MR. STEAD,--Peace by compulsion. That seems a better idea than the +other. Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should +not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and +history seems to show that that cannot be done. Can't we reduce the +armaments little by little--on a pro rata basis--by concert of the +powers? Can't we get four great powers to agree to reduce their strength +10 per cent a year and thrash the others into doing likewise? For, of +course, we cannot expect all of the powers to be in their right minds at +one time. It has been tried. We are not going to try to get all of them +to go into the scheme peaceably, are we? In that case I must withdraw my +influence; because, for business reasons, I must preserve the outward +signs of sanity. Four is enough if they can be securely harnessed +together. They can compel peace, and peace without compulsion would be +against nature and not operative. A sliding scale of reduction of 10 per +cent a year has a sort of plausible look, and I am willing to try that if +three other powers will join. I feel sure that the armaments are now +many times greater than necessary for the requirements of either peace or +war. Take wartime for instance. Suppose circumstances made it necessary +for us to fight another Waterloo, and that it would do what it did +before--settle a large question and bring peace. I will guess that +400,000 men were on hand at Waterloo (I have forgotten the figures). +In five hours they disabled 50,000 men. It took them that tedious, long +time because the firearms delivered only two or three shots a minute. +But we would do the work now as it was done at Omdurman, with shower +guns, raining 600 balls a minute. Four men to a gun--is that the number? +A hundred and fifty shots a minute per man. Thus a modern soldier is 149 +Waterloo soldiers in one. Thus, also, we can now retain one man out of +each 150 in service, disband the others, and fight our Waterloos just as +effectively as we did eighty-five years ago. We should do the same +beneficent job with 2,800 men now that we did with 400,000 then. The +allies could take 1,400 of the men, and give Napoleon 1,400 and then whip +him. + +But instead what do we see? In war-time in Germany, Russia and France, +taken together we find about 8 million men equipped for the field. Each +man represents 149 Waterloo men, in usefulness and killing capacity. +Altogether they constitute about 350 million Waterloo men, and there are +not quite that many grown males of the human race now on this planet. +Thus we have this insane fact--that whereas those three countries could +arm 18,000 men with modern weapons and make them the equals of 3 million +men of Napoleon's day, and accomplish with them all necessary war work, +they waste their money and their prosperity creating forces of their +populations in piling together 349,982,000 extra Waterloo equivalents +which they would have no sort of use for if they would only stop drinking +and sit down and cipher a little. + +Perpetual peace we cannot have on any terms, I suppose; but I hope we can +gradually reduce the war strength of Europe till we get it down to where +it ought to be--20,000 men, properly armed. Then we can have all the +peace that is worth while, and when we want a war anybody can afford it. + + + VIENNA, January 9. +P. S.--In the article I sent the figures are wrong--"350 million" ought +to be 450 million; "349,982,000" ought to be 449,982,000, and the remark +about the sum being a little more than the present number of males on the +planet--that is wrong, of course; it represents really one and a half the +existing males. + + + Now and then one of Mark Twain's old comrades still reached out to + him across the years. He always welcomed such letters -they came as + from a lost land of romance, recalled always with tenderness. He + sent light, chaffing replies, but they were never without an + undercurrent of affection. + + + To Major "Jack" Downing, in Middleport, Ohio: + + HOTEL KRANTZ, WEIN, I, NEUER MART 6, + Feb. 26, 1899. +DEAR MAJOR,--No: it was to Bixby that I was apprenticed. He was to teach +me the river for a certain specified sum. I have forgotten what it was, +but I paid it. I steered a trip for Bart Bowen, of Keokuk, on the A. T. +Lacy, and I was partner with Will Bowen on the A. B. Chambers (one trip), +and with Sam Bowen a whole summer on a small Memphis packet. + +The newspaper report you sent me is incorrect. Bixby is not 67: he is +97. I am 63 myself, and I couldn't talk plain and had just begun to walk +when I apprenticed myself to Bixby who was then passing himself off for +57 and successfully too, for he always looked 60 or 70 years younger than +he really was. At that time he was piloting the Mississippi on a Potomac +commission granted him by George Washington who was a personal friend of +his before the Revolution. He has piloted every important river in +America, on that commission, he has also used it as a passport in Russia. +I have never revealed these facts before. I notice, too, that you are +deceiving the people concerning your age. The printed portrait which you +have enclosed is not a portrait of you, but a portrait of me when I was +19. I remember very well when it was common for people to mistake Bixby +for your grandson. Is it spreading, I wonder--this disposition of pilots +to renew their youth by doubtful methods? Beck Jolly and Joe Bryan--they +probably go to Sunday school now--but it will not deceive. + +Yes, it is as you say. All of the procession but a fraction has passed. +It is time for us all to fall in. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + HOTEL KRANTZ, WIEN I. NEUER MARKT 6 + April 2, '99. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I am waiting for the April Harper, which is about due now; +waiting, and strongly interested. You are old enough to be a weary man, +with paling interests, but you do not show it. You do your work in the +same old delicate and delicious and forceful and searching and perfect +way. I don't know how you can--but I suspect. I suspect that to you +there is still dignity in human life, and that Man is not a joke--a poor +joke--the poorest that was ever contrived. Since I wrote my Bible, (last +year)--["What Is Man."]--which Mrs. Clemens loathes, and shudders over, +and will not listen to the last half nor allow me to print any part of +it, Man is not to me the respect-worthy person he was before; and so I +have lost my pride in him, and can't write gaily nor praisefully about +him any more. And I don't intend to try. I mean to go on writing, for +that is my best amusement, but I shan't print much. (for I don't wish to +be scalped, any more than another.) + +April 5. The Harper has come. I have been in Leipzig with your party, +and then went on to Karlsbad and saw Mrs. Marsh's encounter with the +swine with the toothpick and the other manners--["Their Silver Wedding +Journey."]--At this point Jean carried the magazine away. + +Is it imagination, or--Anyway I seem to get furtive and fleeting glimpses +which I take to be the weariness and condolence of age; indifference to +sights and things once brisk with interest; tasteless stale stuff which +used to be champagne; the boredom of travel: the secret sigh behind the +public smile, the private What-in-hell-did-I-come-for! + +But maybe that is your art. Maybe that is what you intend the reader to +detect and think he has made a Columbus-discovery. Then it is well done, +perfectly done. I wrote my last travel book--[Following the Equator.]-- +in hell; but I let on, the best I could, that it was an excursion through +heaven. Some day I will read it, and if its lying cheerfulness fools me, +then I shall believe it fooled the reader. How I did loathe that journey +around the world!--except the sea-part and India. + +Evening. My tail hangs low. I thought I was a financier--and I bragged +to you. I am not bragging, now. The stock which I sold at such a fine +profit early in January, has never ceased to advance, and is now worth +$60,000 more than I sold it for. I feel just as if I had been spending +$20,000 a month, and I feel reproached for this showy and unbecoming +extravagance. + +Last week I was going down with the family to Budapest to lecture, and to +make a speech at a banquet. Just as I was leaving here I got a telegram +from London asking for the speech for a New York paper. I (this is +strictly private) sent it. And then I didn't make that speech, but +another of a quite different character--a speech born of something +which the introducer said. If that said speech got cabled and printed, +you needn't let on that it was never uttered. + +That was a darling night, and those Hungarians were lively people. We +were there a week and had a great time. At the banquet I heard their +chief orator make a most graceful and easy and beautiful and delicious +speech--I never heard one that enchanted me more--although I did not +understand a word of it, since it was in Hungarian. But the art of it!- +it was superlative. + +They are wonderful English scholars, these people; my lecture audience-- +all Hungarians--understood me perfectly--to judge by the effects. The +English clergyman told me that in his congregation are 150 young English +women who earn their living teaching their language; and that there are. +others besides these. + +For 60 cents a week the telephone reads the morning news to you at home; +gives you the stocks and markets at noon; gives you lessons in 3 foreign +languages during 3 hours; gives you the afternoon telegrams; and at night +the concerts and operas. Of course even the clerks and seamstresses and +bootblacks and everybody else are subscribers. + +(Correction. Mrs. Clemens says it is 60 cents a month.) + +I am renewing my youth. I made 4 speeches at one banquet here last +Saturday night. And I've been to a lot of football matches. + +Jean has been in here examining the poll for the Immortals ("Literature," +March 24,) in the hope, I think, that at last she should find me at the +top and you in second place; and if that is her ambition she has suffered +disappointment for the third time--and will never fare any better, I +hope, for you are where you belong, by every right. She wanted to know +who it is that does the voting, but I was not able to tell her. Nor when +the election will be completed and decided. + +Next Morning. I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every +morning--well knowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities and +basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and +cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the +human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not +despair. + +(Escaped from) 5 o'clock tea. ('sh!) Oh, the American girl in Europe! +Often she is creditable, but sometimes she is just shocking. This one, +a minute ago--19, fat-face, raspy voice, pert ways, the self-complacency +of God; and with it all a silly laugh (embarrassed) which kept breaking +out through her chatter all along, whereas there was no call for it, for +she said nothing that was funny. "Spose so many 've told y' how they +'njoyed y'r chapt'r on the Germ' tongue it's bringin' coals to Newcastle +Kehe! say anything 'bout it Ke-hehe! Spent m' vacation 'n Russia, 'n +saw Tolstoi; he said--" It made me shudder. + +April 12. Jean has been in here with a copy of Literature, complaining +that I am again behind you in the election of the 10 consecrated members; +and seems troubled about it and not quite able to understand it. But I +have explained to her that you are right there on the ground, inside the +pool-booth, keeping game--and that that makes a large difference in these +things. + +13th. I have been to the Knustausstellung with Mrs. Clemens. The office +of art seems to be to grovel in the dirt before Emperors and this and +that and the other damned breed of priests. + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + Howells and Clemens were corresponding regularly again, though not + with the frequency of former years. Perhaps neither of them was + bubbling over with things to say; perhaps it was becoming yearly + less attractive to pick up a pen and write, and then, of course, + there was always the discouragement of distance. Once Howells + wrote: "I know this will find you in Austria before I can well turn + round, but I must make believe you are in Kennebunkport before I can + begin it." And in another letter: "It ought to be as pleasant to + sit down and write to you as to sit down and talk to you, but it + isn't..... The only reason why I write is that I want another + letter from you, and because I have a whole afternoon for the job. + I have the whole of every afternoon, for I cannot work later than + lunch. I am fagged by that time, and Sunday is the only day that + brings unbearable leisure. I hope you will be in New York another + winter; then I shall know what to do with these foretastes of + eternity." + + Clemens usually wrote at considerable length, for he had a good deal + to report of his life in the Austrian capital, now drawing to a + close. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + May 12, 1899. +DEAR HOWELLS,--7.15 p. m. Tea (for Mr. and Mrs. Tower, who are leaving +for Russia) just over; nice people and rather creditable to the human +race: Mr. and Mrs. Tower; the new Minister and his wife; the Secretary of +Legation; the Naval (and Military) Attach; several English ladies; an +Irish lady; a Scotch lady; a particularly nice young Austrian baron who +wasn't invited but came and went supposing it was the usual thing and +wondered at the unusually large gathering; two other Austrians and +several Americans who were also in his fix; the old Baronin Langeman, +the only Austrian invited; the rest were Americans. It made just a +comfortable crowd in our parlor, with an overflow into Clara's through +the folding doors. I don't enjoy teas, and am daily spared them by Mrs. +Clemens, but this was a pleasant one. I had only one accident. The old +Baronin Langeman is a person I have a strong fondness for, for we +violently disagree on some subjects and as violently agree on others-- +for instance, she is temperance and I am not: she has religious beliefs +and feelings and I have none; (she's a Methodist!) she is a democrat and +so am I; she is woman's rights and so am I; she is laborers' rights and +approves trades unions and strikes, and that is me. And so on. After +she was gone an English lady whom I greatly like, began to talk sharply +against her for contributing money, time, labor, and public expression of +favor to a strike that is on (for an 11-hour day) in the silk factories +of Bohemia--and she caught me unprepared and betrayed me into over-warm +argument. I am sorry: for she didn't know anything about the subject, +and I did; and one should be gentle with the ignorant, for they are the +chosen of God. + +(The new Minister is a good man, but out of place. The Sec. of Legation +is a good man, but out of place. The Attache is a good man, but out of +place. Our government for displacement beats the new White Star ship; +and her possible is 17,200 tons.) + +May 13, 4 p. m. A beautiful English girl and her handsome English +husband came up and spent the evening, and she certainly is a bird. +English parents--she was born and reared in Roumania and couldn't talk +English till she was 8 or 10. She came up clothed like the sunset, and +was a delight to look at. (Roumanian costume.)..... + +Twenty-four young people have gone out to the Semmering to-day (and to- +morrow) and Mrs. Clemens and an English lady and old Leschetitzky and his +wife have gone to chaperon them. They gave me a chance to go, but there +are no snow mountains that I want to look at. Three hours out, three +hours back, and sit up all night watching the young people dance; yelling +conversationally and being yelled at, conversationally, by new +acquaintances, through the deafening music, about how I like Vienna, and +if it's my first visit, and how long we expect to stay, and did I see the +foot-washing, and am I writing a book about Vienna, and so on. The terms +seemed too severe. Snow mountains are too dear at the price .... + +For several years I have been intending to stop writing for print as soon +as I could afford it. At last I can afford it, and have put the pot- +boiler pen away. What I have been wanting is a chance to write a book +without reserves--a book which should take account of no one's feelings, +and no one's prejudices, opinions, beliefs, hopes, illusions, delusions; +a book which should say my say, right out of my heart, in the plainest +language and without a limitation of any sort. I judged that that would +be an unimaginable luxury, heaven on earth. + +It is under way, now, and it is a luxury! an intellectual drunk: Twice I +didn't start it right; and got pretty far in, both times, before I found +it out. But I am sure it is started right this time. It is in tale- +form. I believe I can make it tell what I think of Man, and how he is +constructed, and what a shabby poor ridiculous thing he is, and how +mistaken he is in his estimate of his character and powers and qualities +and his place among the animals. + +So far, I think I am succeeding. I let the madam into the secret day +before yesterday, and locked the doors and read to her the opening +chapters. She said-- + +"It is perfectly horrible--and perfectly beautiful!" + +"Within the due limits of modesty, that is what I think." + +I hope it will take me a year or two to write it, and that it will turn +out to be the right vessel to contain all the abuse I am planning to dump +into it. + Yours ever + MARK. + + + The story mentioned in the foregoing, in which Mark Twain was to + give his opinion of man, was The Mysterious Stranger. It was not + finished at the time, and its closing chapter was not found until + after his death. Six years later (1916) it was published serially + in Harper's Magazine, and in book form. + + The end of May found the Clemens party in London, where they were + received and entertained with all the hospitality they had known in + earlier years. Clemens was too busy for letter-writing, but in the + midst of things he took time to report to Howells an amusing + incident of one of their entertainments. + + + To W. D. Howells, in America: + + LONDON, July 3, '99 +DEAR HOWELLS,--..... I've a lot of things to write you, but it's no use-- +I can't get time for anything these days. I must break off and write a +postscript to Canon Wilberforce before I go to bed. This afternoon he +left a luncheon-party half an hour ahead of the rest, and carried off my +hat (which has Mark Twain in a big hand written in it.) When the rest of +us came out there was but one hat that would go on my head--it fitted +exactly, too. So wore it away. It had no name in it, but the Canon was +the only man who was absent. I wrote him a note at 8 p.m.; saying that +for four hours I had not been able to take anything that did not belong +to me, nor stretch a fact beyond the frontiers of truth, and my family +were getting alarmed. Could he explain my trouble? And now at 8.30 p.m. +comes a note from him to say that all the afternoon he has been +exhibiting a wonder-compelling mental vivacity and grace of expression, +etc., etc., and have I missed a hat? Our letters have crossed. + Yours ever + MARK. + + + News came of the death of Robert Ingersoll. Clemens had been always + one of his most ardent admirers, and a warm personal friend. To + Ingersoll's niece he sent a word of heartfelt sympathy. + + + To Miss Eva Farrell, in New York: + + 30 WELLINGTON COURT, ALBERT GATE. +DEAR MISS FARRELL,--Except my daughter's, I have not grieved for any +death as I have grieved for his. His was a great and beautiful spirit, +he was a man--all man from his crown to his foot soles. My reverence for +him was deep and genuine; I prized his affection for me and returned it +with usury. + Sincerely Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens and family decided to spend the summer in Sweden, at Sauna, + in order to avail themselves of osteopathic treatment as practised + by Heinrick Kellgren. Kellgren's method, known as the "Swedish + movements," seemed to Mark Twain a wonderful cure for all ailments, + and he heralded the discovery far and wide. He wrote to friends far + and near advising them to try Kellgren for anything they might + happen to have. Whatever its beginning, any letter was likely to + close with some mention of the new panacea. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, traveling in Europe: + + SANNA, Sept. 6, '99. +DEAR JOE,--I've no business in here--I ought to be outside. I shall +never see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven. Venice? +land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place to be. I have +seen about 60 sunsets here; and a good 40 of them were clear and away +beyond anything I had ever imagined before for dainty and exquisite and +marvellous beauty and infinite change and variety. America? Italy? The +tropics? They have no notion of what a sunset ought to be. And this +one--this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all the rest. It brings the +tears, it is so unutterably beautiful. + +If I had time, I would say a word about this curative system here. The +people actually do several of the great things the Christian Scientists +pretend to do. You wish to advise with a physician about it? Certainly. +There is no objection. He knows next to something about his own trade, +but that will not embarrass him in framing a verdict about this one. +I respect your superstitions--we all have them. It would be quite +natural for the cautious Chinaman to ask his native priest to instruct +him as to the value of the new religious specialty which the Western +missionary is trying to put on the market, before investing in it. (He +would get a verdict.) + Love to you all! + Always Yours + MARK. + + Howells wrote that he was going on a reading-tour-dreading it, of + course-and asking for any advice that Clemens felt qualified to + give. Naturally, Clemens gave him the latest he had in stock, + without realizing, perhaps, that he was recommending an individual + practice which few would be likely to imitate. Nevertheless, what + he says is interesting. + + + To W. D. Howells, in America: + + SANNA, SWEDEN, Sept. 26, '99. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Get your lecture by heart--it will pay you. I learned a +trick in Vienna--by accident--which I wish I had learned years ago. I +meant to read from a Tauchnitz, because I knew I hadn't well memorized +the pieces; and I came on with the book and read a few sentences, then +remembered that the sketch needed a few words of explanatory +introduction; and so, lowering the book and now and then unconsciously +using it to gesture with, I talked the introduction, and it happened to +carry me into the sketch itself, and then I went on, pretending that I +was merely talking extraneous matter and would come to the sketch +presently. It was a beautiful success. I knew the substance of the +sketch and the telling phrases of it; and so, the throwing of the rest of +it into informal talk as I went along limbered it up and gave it the snap +and go and freshness of an impromptu. I was to read several pieces, and +I played the same game with all of them, and always the audience thought +I was being reminded of outside things and throwing them in, and was +going to hold up the book and begin on the sketch presently--and so I +always got through the sketch before they were entirely sure that it had +begun. I did the same thing in Budapest and had the same good time over +again. It's a new dodge, and the best one that was ever invented. Try +it. You'll never lose your audience--not even for a moment. Their +attention is fixed, and never wavers. And that is not the case where one +reads from book or MS., or where he stands up without a note and frankly +exposes the fact, by his confident manner and smooth phrasing, that he is +not improvising, but reciting from memory. And in the heat of telling a +thing that is memorised in substance only, one flashes out the happiest +suddenly-begotten phrases every now and then! Try it. Such a phrase has +a life and sparkle about it that twice as good a one could not exhibit if +prepared beforehand, and it "fetches" an audience in such an enthusing +and inspiring and uplifting way that that lucky phrase breeds another +one, sure. + +Your September instalment--["Their Silver Wedding journey."]-- was +delicious--every word of it. You haven't lost any of your splendid art. +Callers have arrived. + With love + MARK. + + + "Yes," wrote Howells, "if I were a great histrionic artist like you + I would get my poor essays by heart, and recite them, but being what + I am I should do the thing so lifelessly that I had better recognise + their deadness frankly and read them." + + From Vienna Clemens had contributed to the Cosmopolitan, then owned + by John Brisben Walker, his first article on Christian Science. It + was a delicious bit of humor and found such enthusiastic + appreciation that Walker was moved to send an additional $200 check + in payment for it. This brought prompt acknowledgment. + + + To John Brisben Walker, in Irvington, N. Y.: + + LONDON, Oct. 19, '99 +DEAR MR. WALKER,--By gracious but you have a talent for making a man feel +proud and good! To say a compliment well is a high art--and few possess +it. You know how to do it, and when you confirm its sincerity with a +handsome cheque the limit is reached and compliment can no higher go. +I like to work for you: when you don't approve an article you say so, +recognizing that I am not a child and can stand it; and when you approve +an article I don't have to dicker with you as if I raised peanuts and you +kept a stand; I know I shall get every penny the article is worth. + +You have given me very great pleasure, and I thank you for it. + Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + On the same day he sent word to Howells of the good luck which now + seemed to be coming his way. The Joan of Arc introduction was the + same that today appears in his collected works under the title of + Saint Joan of Arc. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + LONDON, Oct. 19, '99. +DEAR HOWELLS,--My, it's a lucky day!--of the sort when it never rains but +it pours. I was to write an introduction to a nobler book--the English +translation of the Official Record (unabridged) of the Trials and +Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, and make a lot of footnotes. I wrote the +introduction in Sweden, and here a few days ago I tore loose from a tale +I am writing, and took the MS book and went at the grind of note-making +--a fearful job for a man not used to it. This morning brought a note +from my excellent friend Murray, a rich Englishman who edits the +translation, saying, "Never mind the notes--we'll make the translators do +them." That was comfort and joy. + +The same mail brought a note from Canon Wilberforce, asking me to talk +Joan of Arc in his drawing-room to the Dukes and Earls and M. P.'s-- +(which would fetch me out of my seclusion and into print, and I couldn't +have that,) and so of course I must run down to the Abbey and explain-- +and lose an hour. Just then came Murray and said "Leave that to me +--I'll go and do the explaining and put the thing off 3 months; you write +a note and tell him I am coming." + +(Which I did, later. Wilberforce carried off my hat from a lunch party +last summer, and in to-day's note he said he wouldn't steal my new hat +this time. In my note I said I couldn't make the drawing-room talk, now +--Murray would explain; and added a P. S.: "You mustn't think it is +because I am afraid to trust my hat in your reach again, for I assure you +upon honor it isn't. I should bring my old one." + +I had suggested to Murray a fortnight ago, that he get some big guns to +write introductory monographs for the book. + +Miss X, Joan's Voices and Prophecies. + +The Lord Chief Justice of England, the legal prodigies which she +performed before her judges. + +Lord Roberts, her military genius. + +Kipling, her patriotism. + +And so on. When he came this morning he said he had captured Miss X; +that Lord Roberts and Kipling were going to take hold and see if they +could do monographs worthy of the book. He hadn't run the others to +cover yet, but was on their track. Very good news. It is a grand book, +and is entitled to the best efforts of the best people. As for me, I +took pains with my Introduction, and I admit that it is no slouch of a +performance. + +Then I came down to Chatto's, and found your all too beautiful letter, +and was lifted higher than ever. Next came letters from America properly +glorifying my Christian Science article in the Cosmopolitan (and one +roundly abusing it,) and a letter from John Brisben Walker enclosing $200 +additional pay for the article (he had already paid enough, but I didn't +mention that--which wasn't right of me, for this is the second time he +has done such a thing, whereas Gilder has done it only once and no one +else ever.) I make no prices with Walker and Gilder--I can trust them. + +And last of all came a letter from M-. How I do wish that man was in +hell. Even-the briefest line from that idiot puts me in a rage. + +But on the whole it has been a delightful day, and with M---- in hell it +would have been perfect. But that will happen, and I can wait. + +Ah, if I could look into the inside of people as you do, and put it on +paper, and invent things for them to do and say, and tell how they said +it, I could writs a fine and readable book now, for I've got a prime +subject. I've written 30,000 words of it and satisfied myself that the +stuff is there; so I am going to discard that MS and begin all over again +and have a good time with it. + +Oh, I know how you feel! I've been in hell myself. You are there +tonight. By difference in time you are at luncheon, now--and not eating +it. Nothing is so lonesome as gadding around platforming. I have +declined 45 lectures to-day-England and Scotland. I wanted the money, +but not the torture: Good luck to you!--and repentance. + With love to all of you + MARK. + + + + + +LETTERS OF 1900, MAINLY TO TWICHELL. THE BOER WAR. BOXER TROUBLES. +THE RETURN TO AMERICA + +The New Year found Clemens still in London, chiefly interested in +osteopathy and characteristically glorifying the practice at the expense +of other healing methods. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Jan. 8, 1900. +DEAR JOE,--Mental Telepathy has scored another. Mental Telegraphy will +be greatly respected a century hence. + +By the accident of writing my sister and describing to her the remarkable +cures made by Kellgren with his hands and without drugs, I brought upon +myself a quite stunning surprise; for she wrote to me that she had been +taking this very treatment in Buffalo--and that it was an American +invention. + +Well, it does really turn out that Dr. Still, in the middle of Kansas, in +a village, began to experiment in 1874, only five years after Kellgren +began the same work obscurely in the village of Gotha, in Germany. Dr. +Still seems to be an honest man; therefore I am persuaded that Kellgren +moved him to his experiments by Mental Telegraphy across six hours of +longitude, without need of a wire. By the time Still began to +experiment, Kellgren had completed his development of the principles of +his system and established himself in a good practice in London--1874 +--and was in good shape to convey his discovery to Kansas, Mental +Telegraphically. + +Yes, I was greatly surprised to find that my mare's nest was much in +arrears: that this new science was well known in America under the name +of Osteopathy. Since then, I find that in the past 3 years it has got +itself legalized in 14 States in spite of the opposition of the +physicians; that it has established 20 Osteopathic schools and colleges; +that among its students are 75 allopathic physicians; that there is a +school in Boston and another in Philadelphia, that there are about 100 +students in the parent college (Dr. Still's at Kirksville, Missouri,) and +that there are about 2,000 graduates practicing in America. Dear me, +there are not 30 in Europe. Europe is so sunk in superstitions and +prejudices that it is an almost impossible thing to get her to do +anything but scoff at a new thing--unless it come from abroad; as witness +the telegraph, dentistry, &c. + +Presently the Osteopath will come over here from America and will soon +make himself a power that must be recognized and reckoned with; and then, +25 years from now, England will begin to claim the invention and tell all +about its origin, in the Cyclopedia B----- as in the case of the +telegraph, applied anaesthetics and the other benefactions which she +heaped her abuse upon when her inventors first offered them to her. + +I cannot help feeling rather inordinately proud of America for the gay +and hearty way in which she takes hold of any new thing that comes along +and gives it a first rate trial. Many an ass in America, is getting a +deal of benefit out of X-Science's new exploitation of an age-old healing +principle--faith, combined with the patient's imagination--let it boom +along! I have no objection. Let them call it by what name they choose, +so long as it does helpful work among the class which is numerically +vastly the largest bulk of the human race, i.e. the fools, the idiots, +the pudd'nheads. + +We do not guess, we know that 9 in 10 of the species are pudd'nheads. +We know it by various evidences; and one of them is, that for ages the +race has respected (and almost venerated) the physician's grotesque +system--the emptying of miscellaneous and harmful drugs into a person's +stomach to remove ailments which in many cases the drugs could not reach +at all; in many cases could reach and help, but only at cost of damage to +some other part of the man; and in the remainder of the cases the drug +either retarded the cure, or the disease was cured by nature in spite of +the nostrums. The doctor's insane system has not only been permitted to +continue its follies for ages, but has been protected by the State and +made a close monopoly--an infamous thing, a crime against a free-man's +proper right to choose his own assassin or his own method of defending +his body against disease and death. + +And yet at the same time, with curious and senile inconsistency, the +State has allowed the man to choose his own assassin--in one detail--the +patent-medicine detail--making itself the protector of that perilous +business, collecting money out of it, and appointing no committee of +experts to examine the medicines and forbid them when extra dangerous. +Really, when a man can prove that he is not a jackass, I think he is in +the way to prove that he is no legitimate member of the race. + +I have by me a list of 52 human ailments--common ones--and in this list I +count 19 which the physician's art cannot cure. But there isn't one +which Osteopathy or Kellgren cannot cure, if the patient comes early. + +Fifteen years ago I had a deep reverence for the physician and the +surgeon. But 6 months of closely watching the Kellgren business has +revolutionized all that, and now I have neither reverence nor respect for +the physician's trade, and scarcely any for the surgeon's,--I am +convinced that of all quackeries, the physician's is the grotesquest and +the silliest. And they know they are shams and humbugs. They have taken +the place of those augurs who couldn't look each other in the face +without laughing. + +See what a powerful hold our ancient superstitions have upon us: two +weeks ago, when Livy committed an incredible imprudence and by +consequence was promptly stricken down with a heavy triple attack-- +influenza, bronchitis, and a lung affected--she recognized the gravity of +the situation, and her old superstitions rose: she thought she ought to +send for a doctor--Think of it--the last man in the world I should want +around at such a time. Of course I did not say no--not that I was +indisposed to take the responsibility, for I was not, my notion of a +dangerous responsibility being quite the other way--but because it is +unsafe to distress a sick person; I only said we knew no good doctor, +and it could not be good policy to choose at hazard; so she allowed me to +send for Kellgren. To-day she is up and around-Lured. It is safe to say +that persons hit in the same way at the same time are in bed yet, and +booked to stay there a good while, and to be in a shackly condition and +afraid of their shadows for a couple of years or more to come. + +It will be seen by the foregoing that Mark Twain's interest in the +Kellgren system was still an ardent one. Indeed, for a time he gave most +of his thought to it, and wrote several long appreciations, perhaps with +little idea of publication, but merely to get his enthusiasm physically +expressed. War, however, presently supplanted medicine--the Boer +troubles in South Africa and the Boxer insurrection in China. It was a +disturbing, exciting year. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Boston: + + WELLINGTON COURT, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, + Jan. 25, 1900. +DEAR HOWELLS,--If you got half as much as Pond prophesied, be content and +praise God--it has not happened to another. But I am sorry he didn't go +with you; for it is marvelous to hear him yarn. He is good company, +cheery and hearty, and his mill is never idle. Your doing a lecture tour +was heroic. It was the highest order of grit, and you have a right to be +proud of yourself. No mount of applause or money or both could save it +from being a hell to a man constituted as you are. It is that even to +me, who am made of coarser stuff. + +I knew the audiences would come forward and shake hands with you--that +one infallible sign of sincere approval. In all my life, wherever it +failed me I left the hall sick and ashamed, knowing what it meant. + +Privately speaking, this is a sordid and criminal war, and in every way +shameful and excuseless. Every day I write (in my head) bitter magazine +articles about it, but I have to stop with that. For England must not +fall; it would mean an inundation of Russian and German political +degradations which would envelop the globe and steep it in a sort of +Middle-Age night and slavery which would last till Christ comes again. +Even wrong--and she is wrong--England must be upheld. He is an enemy of +the human race who shall speak against her now. Why was the human race +created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of +it. God had his opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, +He must commit this grotesque folly--a lark which must have cost him a +regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects. For a +giddy and unbecoming caprice there has been nothing like it till this +war. I talk the war with both sides--always waiting until the other man +introduces the topic. Then I say "My head is with the Briton, but my +heart and such rags of morals as I have are with the Boer--now we will +talk, unembarrassed and without prejudice." And so we discuss, and have +no trouble. + + Jan. 26. +It was my intention to make some disparaging remarks about the human +race; and so I kept this letter open for that purpose, and for the +purpose of telling my dream, wherein the Trinity were trying to guess a +conundrum, but I can do better--for I can snip out of the "Times" various +samples and side-lights which bring the race down to date, and expose it +as of yesterday. If you will notice, there is seldom a telegram in a +paper which fails to show up one or more members and beneficiaries of our +Civilization as promenading in his shirt-tail, with the rest of his +regalia in the wash. + +I love to see the holy ones air their smug pieties and admire them and +smirk over them, and at the same moment frankly and publicly show their +contempt for the pieties of the Boer--confidently expecting the approval +of the country and the pulpit, and getting it. + +I notice that God is on both sides in this war; thus history repeats +itself. But I am the only person who has noticed this; everybody here +thinks He is playing the game for this side, and for this side only. + + With great love to you all + MARK. + + + One cannot help wondering what Mark Twain would have thought of + human nature had he lived to see the great World War, fought mainly + by the Christian nations who for nearly two thousand years had been + preaching peace on earth and goodwill toward men. But his opinion + of the race could hardly have been worse than it was. And nothing + that human beings could do would have surprised him. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + LONDON, Jan. 27, 1900. +DEAR JOE,--Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free and +give their islands to them; and apparently we are not proposing to hang +the priests and confiscate their property. If these things are so, the +war out there has no interest for me. + +I have just been examining chapter LXX of "Following the Equator," to see +if the Boer's old military effectiveness is holding out. It reads +curiously as if it had been written about the present war. + +I believe that in the next chapter my notion of the Boer was rightly +conceived. He is popularly called uncivilized, I do not know why. +Happiness, food, shelter, clothing, wholesale labor, modest and rational +ambitions, honesty, kindliness, hospitality, love of freedom and +limitless courage to fight for it, composure and fortitude in time of +disaster, patience in time of hardship and privation, absence of noise +and brag in time of victory, contentment with a humble and peaceful life +void of insane excitements--if there is a higher and better form of +civilization than this, I am not aware of it and do not know where to +look for it. I suppose we have the habit of imagining that a lot of +artistic, intellectual and other artificialities must be added, or it +isn't complete. We and the English have these latter; but as we lack the +great bulk of these others, I think the Boer civilization is the best of +the two. My idea of our civilization is that it is a shabby poor thing +and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogancies, meannesses, and +hypocrisies. As for the word, I hate the sound of it, for it conveys a +lie; and as for the thing itself, I wish it was in hell, where it +belongs. + +Provided we could get something better in the place of it. But that is +not possible, perhaps. Poor as it is, it is better than real savagery, +therefore we must stand by it, extend it, and (in public) praise it. +And so we must not utter any hateful word about England in these days, +nor fail to hope that she will win in this war, for her defeat and fall +would be an irremediable disaster for the mangy human race.... Naturally, +then, I am for England; but she is profoundly in the wrong, Joe, and no +(instructed) Englishman doubts it. At least that is my belief. + +Maybe I managed to make myself misunderstood, as to the Osteopathists. +I wanted to know how the men impress you. As to their Art, I know fairly +well about that, and should not value Hartford's opinion of it; nor a +physician's; nor that of another who proposed to enlighten me out of his +ignorance. Opinions based upon theory, superstition and ignorance are +not very precious. + +Livy and the others are off for the country for a day or two. + Love to you all + MARK. + + + The next letter affords a pleasant variation. Without doubt it was + written on realizing that good nature and enthusiasm had led him + into indiscretion. This was always happening to him, and letters + like this are not infrequent, though generally less entertaining. + + + To Mr. Ann, in London: + + WELLINGTON COURT, Feb. 23, '00. +DEAR MR. ANN,--Upon sober second thought, it won't do!--I withdraw that +letter. Not because I said anything in it which is not true, for I +didn't; but because when I allow my name to be used in forwarding a +stock-scheme I am assuming a certain degree of responsibility as toward +the investor, and I am not willing to do that. I have another objection, +a purely selfish one: trading upon my name, whether the enterprise scored +a success or a failure would damage me. I can't afford that; even the +Archbishop of Canterbury couldn't afford it, and he has more character to +spare than I have. (Ah, a happy thought! If he would sign the letter +with me that would change the whole complexion of the thing, of course. +I do not know him, yet I would sign any commercial scheme that he would +sign. As he does not know me, it follows that he would sign anything +that I would sign. This is unassailable logic--but really that is all +that can be said for it.) + +No, I withdraw the letter. This virgin is pure up to date, and is going +to remain so. + Ys sincerely, + S. L. C. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + WELLINGTON COURT, + KNIGHTSBRIDGE, Mch. 4, '00. +DEAR JOE,-- Henry Robinson's death is a sharp wound to me, and it goes +very deep. I had a strong affection for him, and I think he had for me. +Every Friday, three-fourths of the year for 16 years he was of the +billiard-party in our house. When we come home, how shall we have +billiard-nights again--with no Ned Bunce and no Henry Robinson? +I believe I could not endure that. We must find another use for that +room. Susy is gone, George is gone, Libby Hamersley, Ned Bunce, Henry +Robinson. The friends are passing, one by one; our house, where such +warm blood and such dear blood flowed so freely, is become a cemetery. +But not in any repellent sense. Our dead are welcome there; their life +made it beautiful, their death has hallowed it, we shall have them with +us always, and there will be no parting. + +It was a moving address you made over Ward Cheney--that fortunate, youth! +Like Susy, he got out of life all that was worth the living, and got his +great reward before he had crossed the tropic frontier of dreams and +entered the Sahara of fact. The deep consciousness of Susy's good +fortune is a constant comfort to me. + +London is happy-hearted at last. The British victories have swept the +clouds away and there are no uncheerful faces. For three months the +private dinner parties (we go to no public ones) have been Lodges of +Sorrow, and just a little depressing sometimes; but now they are smiley +and animated again. Joe, do you know the Irish gentleman and the Irish +lady, the Scotch gentleman and the Scotch lady? These are darlings, +every one. Night before last it was all Irish--24. One would have to +travel far to match their ease and sociability and animation and sparkle +and absence of shyness and self-consciousness. + +It was American in these fine qualities. This was at Mr. Lecky's. He is +Irish, you know. Last night it was Irish again, at Lady Gregory's. Lord +Roberts is Irish; and Sir William Butler; and Kitchener, I think; and a +disproportion of the other prominent Generals are of Irish and Scotch +breed-keeping up the traditions of Wellington, and Sir Colin Campbell of +the Mutiny. You will have noticed that in S. A. as in the Mutiny, it is +usually the Irish and the Scotch that are placed in the fore-front of the +battle. An Irish friend of mine says this is because the Kelts are +idealists, and enthusiasts, with age-old heroisms to emulate and keep +bright before the world; but that the low-class Englishman is dull and +without ideals, fighting bull-doggishly while he has a leader, but losing +his head and going to pieces when his leader falls--not so with the Kelt. +Sir Wm. Butler said "the Kelt is the spear-head of the British lance." + Love to you all. + MARK. + + + The Henry Robinson mentioned in the foregoing letter was Henry C. + Robinson, one-time Governor of Connecticut, long a dear and intimate + friend of the Clemens household. "Lecky" was W. E. H. Lecky, the + Irish historian whose History of European Morals had been, for many + years, one of Mark Twain's favorite books: + + In July the Clemenses left the small apartment at 30 Wellington + Court and established a summer household a little way out of London, + at Dollis Hill. To-day the place has been given to the public under + the name of Gladstone Park, so called for the reason that in an + earlier time Gladstone had frequently visited there. It was a + beautiful spot, a place of green grass and spreading oaks. In a + letter in which Mrs. Clemens wrote to her sister she said: "It is + simply divinely beautiful and peaceful; the great, old trees are + beyond everything. I believe nowhere in the world do you find such + trees as in England." Clemens wrote to Twichell: "From the house + you can see little but spacious stretches of hay-fields and green + turf..... Yet the massed, brick blocks of London are reachable in + three minutes on a horse. By rail we can be in the heart of London, + in Baker Street, in seventeen minutes--by a smart train in five." + + Mail, however, would seem to have been less prompt. + + + To the Editor of the Times, in London: + +SIR,--It has often been claimed that the London postal service was +swifter than that of New York, and I have always believed that the claim +was justified. But a doubt has lately sprung up in my mind. I live +eight miles from Printing House Square; the Times leaves that point at 4 +o'clock in the morning, by mail, and reaches me at 5 in the afternoon, +thus making the trip in thirteen hours. + +It is my conviction that in New York we should do it in eleven. + + C. +DOLLIS HILL, N. W. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + DOLLIS HILL HOUSE, KILBURN, N. W. + LONDON, Aug. 12, '00. +DEAR JOE,--The Sages Prof. Fiske and Brander Matthews were out here to +tea a week ago and it was a breath of American air to see them. We +furnished them a bright day and comfortable weather--and they used it all +up, in their extravagant American way. Since then we have sat by coal +fires, evenings. + +We shall sail for home sometime in October, but shall winter in New York +where we can have an osteopath of good repute to continue the work of +putting this family in proper condition. + +Livy and I dined with the Chief justice a month ago and he was as well- +conditioned as an athlete. + +It is all China, now, and my sympathies are with the Chinese. They have +been villainously dealt with by the sceptred thieves of Europe, and I +hope they will drive all the foreigners out and keep them out for good. +I only wish it; of course I don't really expect it. + +Why, hang it, it occurs to me that by the time we reach New York you +Twichells will be invading Europe and once more we shall miss the +connection. This is thoroughly exasperating. Aren't we ever going to +meet again? + With no end of love from all of us, + MARK. + +P. S. Aug. 18. +DEAR JOE,--It is 7.30 a. m. I have been waking very early, lately. If +it occurs once more, it will be habit; then I will submit and adopt it. + +This is our day of mourning. It is four years since Susy died; it is +five years and a month that I saw her alive for the last time-throwing +kisses at us from the railway platform when we started West around the +world. + +Sometimes it is a century; sometimes it was yesterday. + With love + MARK. + + + We discover in the foregoing letter that the long European residence + was drawing to an end. More than nine years had passed since the + closing of the Hartford house--eventful years that had seen failure, + bereavement, battle with debt, and rehabilitated fortunes. All the + family were anxious to get home--Mark Twain most anxious of all. + + They closed Dollis Hill House near the end of September, and put up + for a brief period at a family hotel, an amusing picture of which + follows. + + + To J. Y. M. MacAlister, in London: + + Sep. 1900. +MY DEAR MACALISTER,--We do really start next Saturday. I meant to sail +earlier, but waited to finish some studies of what are called Family +Hotels. They are a London specialty, God has not permitted them to exist +elsewhere; they are ramshackle clubs which were dwellings at the time of +the Heptarchy. Dover and Albemarle Streets are filled with them. The +once spacious rooms are split up into coops which afford as much +discomfort as can be had anywhere out of jail for any money. All the +modern inconveniences are furnished, and some that have been obsolete for +a century. The prices are astonishingly high for what you get. The +bedrooms are hospitals for incurable furniture. I find it so in this +one. They exist upon a tradition; they represent the vanishing home-like +inn of fifty years ago, and are mistaken by foreigners for it. Some +quite respectable Englishmen still frequent them through inherited habit +and arrested development; many Americans also, through ignorance and +superstition. The rooms are as interesting as the Tower of London, but +older I think. Older and dearer. The lift was a gift of William the +Conqueror, some of the beds are prehistoric. They represent geological +periods. Mine is the oldest. It is formed in strata of Old Red +Sandstone, volcanic tufa, ignis fatuus, and bicarbonate of hornblende, +superimposed upon argillaceous shale, and contains the prints of +prehistoric man. It is in No. 149. Thousands of scientists come to see +it. They consider it holy. They want to blast out the prints but +cannot. Dynamite rebounds from it. + +Finished studies and sail Saturday in Minnehaha. + Yours ever affectionately, + MARK TWAIN. + + + They sailed for New York October 6th, and something more than a week + later America gave them a royal welcome. The press, far and wide, + sounded Mark Twain's praises once more; dinners and receptions were + offered on every hand; editors and lecture agents clamored for him. + + The family settled in the Earlington Hotel during a period of house- + hunting. They hoped eventually to return to Hartford, but after a + brief visit paid by Clemens alone to the old place he wrote: + + + To Sylvester Baxter, in Boston: + + NEW YORK, Oct. 26, 1900. +DEAR MR. BAXTER,--It was a great pleasure to me to renew the other days +with you, and there was a pathetic pleasure in seeing Hartford and the +house again; but I realize that if we ever enter the house again to live, +our hearts will break. I am not sure that we shall ever be strong enough +to endure that strain. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mr. and Mrs. Rogers wished to have them in their neighborhood, but + the houses there were not suitable, or were too expensive. Through + Mr. Frank Doubleday they eventually found, at 14 West Tenth Street, + a large residence handsomely furnished, and this they engaged for + the winter. "We were lucky to get this big house furnished," he + wrote MacAlister in London. "There was not another one in town + procurable that would answer us, but this one is all right--space + enough in it for several families, the rooms all old-fashioned, + great size." + + The little note that follows shows that Mark Twain had not entirely + forgotten the days of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. + + + To a Neighbor on West Tenth Street, New York: + + Nov. 30. +DEAR MADAM,--I know I ought to respect my duty and perform it, but I am +weak and faithless where boys are concerned, and I can't help secretly +approving pretty bad and noisy ones, though I do object to the kind that +ring door-bells. My family try to get me to stop the boys from holding +conventions on the front steps, but I basely shirk out of it, because I +think the boys enjoy it. + +My wife has been complaining to me this evening about the boys on the +front steps and under compulsion I have made some promises. But I am +very forgetful, now that I am old, and my sense of duty is getting +spongy. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +VOLUME V. +MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS 1901-1906 + + +XL + +LETTERS OF 1901, CHIEFLY TO TWICHELL. MARK TWAIN AS A REFORMER. +SUMMER AT SARANAC. ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY + + An editorial in the Louisville Courier-Journal, early in 1901, said: + "A remarkable transformation, or rather a development, has taken + place in Mark Twain. The genial humorist of the earlier day is now + a reformer of the vigorous kind, a sort of knight errant who does + not hesitate to break a lance with either Church or State if he + thinks them interposing on that broad highway over which he believes + not a part but the whole of mankind has the privilege of passing in + the onward march of the ages." + + Mark Twain had begun "breaking the lance" very soon after his return + from Europe. He did not believe that he could reform the world, but + at least he need not withhold his protest against those things which + stirred his wrath. He began by causing the arrest of a cabman who + had not only overcharged but insulted him; he continued by writing + openly against the American policy in the Philippines, the + missionary propaganda which had resulted in the Chinese uprising and + massacre, and against Tammany politics. Not all of his efforts were + in the line of reform; he had become a sort of general spokesman + which the public flocked to hear, whatever the subject. On the + occasion of a Lincoln Birthday service at Carnegie Hall he was + chosen to preside, and he was obliged to attend more dinners than + were good for his health. His letters of this period were mainly + written to his old friend Twichell, in Hartford. Howells, who lived + in New York, he saw with considerable frequency. + + In the letter which follows the medicine which Twichell was to take + was Plasmon, an English proprietary remedy in which Mark Twain had + invested--a panacea for all human ills which osteopathy could not + reach. + + + To Rev. Joseph Twichell, in Hartford: + + 14 W. 10TH ST. Jan. 23, '01. +DEAR JOE,--Certainly. I used to take it in my coffee, but it settled to +the bottom in the form of mud, and I had to eat it with a spoon; so I +dropped the custom and took my 2 teaspoonfuls in cold milk after +breakfast. If we were out of milk I shoveled the dry powder into my +mouth and washed it down with water. The only essential is to get it +down, the method is not important. + +No, blame it, I can't go to the Alumni dinner, Joe. It takes two days, +and I can't spare the time. Moreover I preside at the Lincoln birthday +celebration in Carnegie Hall Feb. 11 and I must not make two speeches so +close together. Think of it--two old rebels functioning there--I as +President, and Watterson as Orator of the Day! Things have changed +somewhat in these 40 years, thank God. + +Look here--when you come down you must be our guest--we've got a roomy +room for you, and Livy will make trouble if you go elsewhere. Come +straight to 14 West 10th. + +Jan. 24. Livy says Amen to that; also, can you give us a day or two's +notice, so the room will be sure to be vacant? + +I'm going to stick close to my desk for a month, now, hoping to write a +small book. + Ys Ever + MARK + + + The letter which follows is a fair sample of Mark Twain's private + violence on a subject which, in public print, he could only treat + effectively by preserving his good humor. When he found it + necessary to boil over, as he did, now and then, for relief, he + always found a willing audience in Twichell. The mention of his + "Private Philosophy" refers to 'What Is Man?', privately published + in 1906; reissued by his publishers in 1916. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + 14 W. 10th Jan. 29, '01. +DEAR JOE,--I'm not expecting anything but kicks for scoffing, and am +expecting a diminution of my bread and butter by it, but if Livy will let +me I will have my say. This nation is like all the others that have been +spewed upon the earth--ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its +vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be, when they +get all these hypocrites assembled there! + +I can't understand it! You are a public guide and teacher, Joe, and are +under a heavy responsibility to men, young and old; if you teach your +people--as you teach me--to hide their opinions when they believe the +flag is being abused and dishonored, lest the utterance do them and a +publisher a damage, how do you answer for it to your conscience? You are +sorry for me; in the fair way of give and take, I am willing to be a +little sorry for you. + +However, I seem to be going counter to my own Private Philosophy--which +Livy won't allow me to publish--because it would destroy me. But I hope +to see it in print before I die. I planned it 15 years ago, and wrote it +in '98. I've often tried to read it to Livy, but she won't have it; it +makes her melancholy. The truth always has that effect on people. Would +have, anyway, if they ever got hold of a rag of it--Which they don't. + +You are supposing that I am supposing that I am moved by a Large +Patriotism, and that I am distressed because our President has blundered +up to his neck in the Philippine mess; and that I am grieved because this +great big ignorant nation, which doesn't know even the A B C facts of the +Philippine episode, is in disgrace before the sarcastic world--drop that +idea! I care nothing for the rest--I am only distressed and troubled +because I am befouled by these things. That is all. When I search +myself away down deep, I find this out. Whatever a man feels or thinks +or does, there is never any but one reason for it--and that is a selfish +one. + +At great inconvenience, and expense of precious time I went to the chief +synagogue the other night and talked in the interest of a charity school +of poor Jew girls. I know--to the finest, shades--the selfish ends that +moved me; but no one else suspects. I could give you the details if I +had time. You would perceive how true they are. + +I've written another article; you better hurry down and help Livy squelch +it. + +She's out pottering around somewhere, poor housekeeping slave; and Clara +is in the hands of the osteopath, getting the bronchitis pulled and +hauled out of her. It was a bad attack, and a little disquieting. It +came day before yesterday, and she hasn't sat up till this afternoon. +She is getting along satisfactorily, now. + Lots of love to you all. + MARK + + + Mark Twain's religion had to do chiefly with humanity in its present + incarnation, and concerned itself very little with any possible + measure of reward or punishment in some supposed court of the + hereafter. Nevertheless, psychic investigation always interested + him, and he was good-naturedly willing to explore, even hoping, + perhaps, to be convinced that individuality continues beyond death. + The letter which follows indicates his customary attitude in + relation to spiritualistic research. The experiments here + mentioned, however, were not satisfactory. + + + To Mrs. Charles McQuiston: + + DOBBS FERRY, N. Y. + March 26, 1901. +DEAR MRS. McQUISTON,--I have never had an experience which moved me to +believe the living can communicate with the dead, but my wife and I have +experimented in the matter when opportunity offered and shall continue to +do so. + +I enclose a letter which came this morning--the second from the same +source. Mrs. K---- is a Missourian, and lately she discovered, by +accident, that she was a remarkable hypnotiser. Her best subject is a +Missouri girl, Miss White, who is to come here soon and sustain strictly +scientific tests before professors at Columbia University. Mrs. Clemens +and I intend to be present. And we shall ask the pair to come to our +house to do whatever things they can do. Meantime, if you thought well +of it, you might write her and arrange a meeting, telling her it is by my +suggestion and that I gave you her address. + +Someone has told me that Mrs. Piper is discredited. I cannot be sure, +but I think it was Mr. Myers, President of the London Psychical Research +Society--we heard of his death yesterday. He was a spiritualist. I am +afraid he was a very easily convinced man. We visited two mediums whom +he and Andrew Lang considered quite wonderful, but they were quite +transparent frauds. + +Mrs. Clemens corrects me: One of those women was a fraud, the other not a +fraud, but only an innocent, well-meaning, driveling vacancy. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In Mark Twain's Bermuda chapters entitled Idle Notes of an Idle + Excursion he tells of an old sea captain, one Hurricane Jones, who + explained biblical miracles in a practical, even if somewhat + startling, fashion. In his story of the prophets of Baal, for + instance, the old captain declared that the burning water was + nothing more nor less than petroleum. Upon reading the "notes," + Professor Phelps of Yale wrote that the same method of explaining + miracles had been offered by Sir Thomas Browne. + + Perhaps it may be added that Captain Hurricane Jones also appears in + Roughing It, as Captain Ned Blakely. + + + To Professor William Lyon Phelps; + + YALE UNIVERSITY, + NEW YORK, April 24, 1901. +MY DEAR SIR,--I was not aware that old Sir Thomas had anticipated that +story, and I am much obliged to you for furnishing me the paragraph. +t is curious that the same idea should leave entered two heads so unlike +as the head of that wise old philosopher and that of Captain Ned Wakeman, +a splendidly uncultured old sailor, but in his own opinion a thinker by +divine right. He was an old friend of mine of many years' standing; +I made two or three voyages with him, and found him a darling in many +ways. The petroleum story was not told to me; he told it to Joe +Twichell, who ran across him by accident on a sea voyage where I think +the two were the only passengers. A delicious pair, and admirably mated, +they took to each other at once and became as thick as thieves. Joe was +passing under a fictitious name, and old Wakeman didn't suspect that he +was a parson; so he gave his profanity full swing, and he was a master of +that great art. You probably know Twichell, and will know that that is a +kind of refreshment which he is very capable of enjoying. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + For the summer Clemens and his family found a comfortable lodge in + the Adirondacks--a log cabin called "The Lair"--on Saranac Lake. + Soon after his arrival there he received an invitation to attend the + celebration of Missouri's eightieth anniversary. He sent the + following letter: + + + To Edward L. Dimmitt, in St. Louis: + + AMONG THE ADIRONDACK LAKES, July 19, 1901. +DEAR MR. DIMMITT,--By an error in the plans, things go wrong end first in +this world, and much precious time is lost and matters of urgent +importance are fatally retarded. Invitations which a brisk young fellow +should get, and which would transport him with joy, are delayed and +impeded and obstructed until they are fifty years overdue when they reach +him. + +It has happened again in this case. + +When I was a boy in Missouri I was always on the lookout for invitations +but they always miscarried and went wandering through the aisles of time; +and now they are arriving when I am old and rheumatic and can't travel +and must lose my chance. + +I have lost a world of delight through this matter of delaying +invitations. Fifty years ago I would have gone eagerly across the world +to help celebrate anything that might turn up. IT would have made no +difference to me what it was, so that I was there and allowed a chance to +make a noise. + +The whole scheme of things is turned wrong end to. Life should begin +with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its +capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages. As things are now, when in +youth a dollar would bring a hundred pleasures, you can't have it. When +you are old, you get it and there is nothing worth buying with it then. + +It's an epitome of life. The first half of it consists of the capacity +to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without +the capacity. + +I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. +I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is +no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities +proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and +inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way +and imminent as indicated above. + +Yours is a great and memorable occasion, and as a son of Missouri I +should hold it a high privilege to be there and share your just pride in +the state's achievements; but I must deny myself the indulgence, while +thanking you earnestly for the prized honor you have done me in asking me +to be present. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In the foregoing Mark Twain touches upon one of his favorite + fancies: that life should begin with old age and approach strong + manhood, golden youth, to end at last with pampered and beloved + babyhood. Possibly he contemplated writing a story with this idea + as the theme, but He seems never to have done so. + + The reader who has followed these letters may remember Yung Wing, + who had charge of the Chinese educational mission in Hartford, and + how Mark Twain, with Twichell, called on General Grant in behalf of + the mission. Yung Wing, now returned to China, had conceived the + idea of making an appeal to the Government of the United States for + relief of his starving countrymen. + + + To J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + AMPERSAND, N. Y., July 28, '01. +DEAR JOE,--As you say, it is impracticable--in my case, certainly. For +me to assist in an appeal to that Congress of land-thieves and liars +would be to bring derision upon it; and for me to assist in an appeal for +cash to pass through the hands of those missionaries out there, of any +denomination, Catholic or Protestant, wouldn't do at all. They wouldn't +handle money which I had soiled, and I wouldn't trust them with it, +anyway. They would devote it to the relief of suffering--I know that-- +but the sufferers selected would be converts. The missionary-utterances +exhibit no humane feeling toward the others, but in place of it a spirit +of hate and hostility. And it is natural; the Bible forbids their +presence there, their trade is unlawful, why shouldn't their characters +be of necessity in harmony with--but never mind, let it go, it irritates +me. + +Later.... I have been reading Yung Wing's letter again. It may be that +he is over-wrought by his sympathies, but it may not be so. There may be +other reasons why the missionaries are silent about the Shensi-2-year +famine and cannibalism. It may be that there are so few Protestant +converts there that the missionaries are able to take care of them. That +they are not likely to largely concern themselves about Catholic converts +and the others, is quite natural, I think. + +That crude way of appealing to this Government for help in a cause which +has no money in it, and no politics, rises before me again in all its +admirable innocence! Doesn't Yung Wing know us yet? However, he has +been absent since '96 or '97. We have gone to hell since then. Kossuth +couldn't raise 30 cents in Congress, now, if he were back with his moving +Magyar-Tale. + +I am on the front porch (lower one--main deck) of our little bijou of a +dwelling-house. The lake-edge (Lower Saranac) is so nearly under me that +I can't see the shore, but only the water, small-pored with rain- +splashes--for there is a heavy down-pour. It is charmingly like sitting +snuggled up on a ship's deck with the stretching sea all around--but very +much more satisfactory, for at sea a rain-storm is depressing, while here +of course the effect engendered is just a deep sense of comfort and +contentment. The heavy forest shuts us solidly in on three sides there +are no neighbors. There are beautiful little tan-colored impudent +squirrels about. They take tea, 5 p. m., (not invited) at the table in +the woods where Jean does my typewriting, and one of them has been brave +enough to sit upon Jean's knee with his tail curved over his back and +munch his food. They come to dinner, 7 p. m., on the front porch (not +invited). They all have the one name--Blennerhasset, from Burr's friend +--and none of them answers to it except when hungry. + +We have been here since June 21st. For a little while we had some warm +days--according to the family's estimate; I was hardly discommoded +myself. Otherwise the weather has been of the sort you are familiar with +in these regions: cool days and cool nights. We have heard of the hot +wave every Wednesday, per the weekly paper--we allow no dailies to +intrude. Last week through visitors also--the only ones we have had-- +Dr. Root and John Howells. + +We have the daily lake-swim; and all the tribe, servants included (but +not I) do a good deal of boating; sometimes with the guide, sometimes +without him--Jean and Clara are competent with the oars. If we live +another year, I hope we shall spend its summer in this house. + +We have taken the Appleton country seat, overlooking the Hudson, at +Riverdale, 25 minutes from the Grand Central Station, for a year, +beginning Oct. 1, with option for another year. We are obliged to be +close to New York for a year or two. + +Aug. 3rd. I go yachting a fortnight up north in a 20-knot boat 225 feet +long, with the owner, (Mr. Rogers), Tom Reid, Dr. Rice, Col. A. G. Paine +and one or two others. Judge Howland would go, but can't get away from +engagements; Professor Sloane would go, but is in the grip of an illness. +Come--will you go? If you can manage it, drop a post-card to me c/o H.H. +Rogers, 26 Broadway. I shall be in New York a couple of days before we +sail--July 31 or Aug. 1, perhaps the latter,--and I think I shall stop at +the Hotel Grosvenor, cor. l0th St and 5th ave. + +We all send you and the Harmonies lots and gobs of love. + MARK + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + AMPERSAND, N. Y., Aug. 28. +DEAR JOE,--Just a word, to scoff at you, with your extravagant suggestion +that I read the biography of Phillips Brooks--the very dullest book that +has been printed for a century. Joe, ten pages of Mrs. Cheney's masterly +biography of her fathers--no, five pages of it--contain more meat, more +sense, more literature, more brilliancy, than that whole basketful of +drowsy rubbish put together. Why, in that dead atmosphere even Brooks +himself is dull--he wearied me; oh how he wearied me! + +We had a noble good time in the Yacht, and caught a Chinese missionary +and drowned him. + Love from us all to you all. + MARK. + + + The assassination of President McKinley occurred September 6, 1901. + Such an event would naturally stir Mark Twain to comment on human + nature in general. His letter to Twichell is as individual as it is + sound in philosophy. At what period of his own life, or under what + circumstances, he made the long journey with tragic intent there is + no means of knowing now. There is no other mention of it elsewhere + in the records that survive him. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + AMPERSAND, Tuesday, (Sept. 10, 1901) +DEAR JOE,--It is another off day, but tomorrow I shall resume work to a +certainty, and bid a long farewell to letter-scribbling. + +The news of the President looks decidedly hopeful, and we are all glad, +and the household faces are much improved, as to cheerfulness. Oh, the +talk in the newspapers! Evidently the Human Race is the same old Human +Race. And how unjust, and unreflectingly discriminating, the talkers +are. Under the unsettling effects of powerful emotion the talkers are +saying wild things, crazy things--they are out of themselves, and do not +know it; they are temporarily insane, yet with one voice they declare the +assassin sane--a man who has been entertaining fiery and reason-- +debauching maggots in his head for weeks and months. Why, no one is +sane, straight along, year in and year out, and we all know it. Our +insanities are of varying sorts, and express themselves in varying forms +--fortunately harmless forms as a rule--but in whatever form they occur +an immense upheaval of feeling can at any time topple us distinctly over +the sanity-line for a little while; and then if our form happens to be of +the murderous kind we must look out--and so must the spectator. + +This ass with the unpronounceable name was probably more insane than +usual this week or two back, and may get back upon his bearings by and +by, but he was over the sanity-border when he shot the President. It is +possible that it has taken him the whole interval since the murder of the +King of Italy to get insane enough to attempt the President's life. +Without a doubt some thousands of men have been meditating the same act +in the same interval, but new and strong interests have intervened and +diverted their over-excited minds long enough to give them a chance to +settle, and tranquilize, and get back upon a healthy level again. Every +extraordinary occurrence unsettles the heads of hundreds of thousands of +men for a few moments or hours or days. If there had been ten kings +around when Humbert fell they would have been in great peril for a day or +more--and from men in whose presence they would have been quite safe +after the excess of their excitement had had an interval in which to cool +down. I bought a revolver once and travelled twelve hundred miles to +kill a man. He was away. He was gone a day. With nothing else to do, +I had to stop and think--and did. Within an hour--within half of it-- +I was ashamed of myself--and felt unspeakably ridiculous. I do not know +what to call it if I was not insane. During a whole week my head was in +a turmoil night and day fierce enough and exhausting enough to upset a +stronger reason than mine. + +All over the world, every day, there are some millions of men in that +condition temporarily. And in that time there is always a moment-- +perhaps only a single one when they would do murder if their man was at +hand. If the opportunity comes a shade too late, the chances are that it +has come permanently too late. Opportunity seldom comes exactly at the +supreme moment. This saves a million lives a day in the world--for sure. + +No Ruler is ever slain but the tremendous details of it are ravenously +devoured by a hundred thousand men whose minds dwell, unaware, near the +temporary-insanity frontier--and over they go, now! There is a day--two +days--three--during which no Ruler would be safe from perhaps the half of +them; and there is a single moment wherein he would not be safe from any +of them, no doubt. + +It may take this present shooting-case six months to breed another ruler- +tragedy, but it will breed it. There is at least one mind somewhere +which will brood, and wear, and decay itself to the killing-point and +produce that tragedy. + +Every negro burned at the stake unsettles the excitable brain of another +one--I mean the inflaming details of his crime, and the lurid +theatricality of his exit do it--and the duplicate crime follows; and +that begets a repetition, and that one another one and so on. Every +lynching-account unsettles the brains of another set of excitable white +men, and lights another pyre--115 lynchings last year, 102 inside of 8 +months this year; in ten years this will be habit, on these terms. + +Yes, the wild talk you see in the papers! And from men who are sane when +not upset by overwhelming excitement. A U. S. Senator-Cullom--wants this +Buffalo criminal lynched! It would breed other lynchings--of men who are +not dreaming of committing murders, now, and will commit none if Cullom +will keep quiet and not provide the exciting cause. + +And a District Attorney wants a law which shall punish with death +attempts upon a President's life--this, mind you, as a deterrent. +It would have no effect--or the opposite one. The lunatic's mind-space +is all occupied--as mine was--with the matter in hand; there is no room +in it for reflections upon what may happen to him. That comes after the +crime. + +It is the noise the attempt would make in the world that would breed the +subsequent attempts, by unsettling the rickety minds of men who envy the +criminal his vast notoriety--his obscure name tongued by stupendous Kings +and Emperors--his picture printed everywhere, the trivialest details of +his movements, what he eats, what he drinks; how he sleeps, what he says, +cabled abroad over the whole globe at cost of fifty thousand dollars a +day--and he only a lowly shoemaker yesterday!--like the assassin of the +President of France--in debt three francs to his landlady, and insulted +by her--and to-day she is proud to be able to say she knew him +"as familiarly as you know your own brother," and glad to stand till she +drops and pour out columns and pages of her grandeur and her happiness +upon the eager interviewer. + +Nothing will check the lynchings and ruler-murder but absolute silence-- +the absence of pow-pow about them. How are you going to manage that? +By gagging every witness and jamming him into a dungeon for life; by +abolishing all newspapers; by exterminating all newspaper men; and by +extinguishing God's most elegant invention, the Human Race. It is quite +simple, quite easy, and I hope you will take a day off and attend to it, +Joe. I blow a kiss to you, and am + Lovingly Yours, + MARK. + + + When the Adirondack summer ended Clemens settled for the winter in + the beautiful Appleton home at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson. It was a + place of wide-spreading grass and shade-a house of ample room. They + were established in it in time for Mark Twain to take an active + interest in the New York elections and assist a ticket for good + government to defeat Tammany Hall. + + + + +XLI + +LETTERS OF 1902. RIVERDALE. YORK HARBOR. ILLNESS OF MRS. CLEMENS + +The year 1902 was an eventful one for Mark Twain. In April he received a +degree of LL.D. from the University of Missouri and returned to his +native State to accept it. This was his last journey to the Mississippi +River. During the summer Mrs. Clemens's health broke down and illnesses +of one sort or another visited other members of the family. Amid so much +stress and anxiety Clemens had little time or inclination for work. He +wrote not many letters and mainly somber ones. Once, by way of +diversion, he worked out the idea of a curious club--which he formed--its +members to be young girls--girls for the most part whom he had never +seen. They were elected without their consent from among those who wrote +to him without his consent, and it is not likely that any one so chosen +declined membership. One selection from his letters to the French +member, Miss Helene Picard, of St.-Die, France, will explain the club and +present a side of Mask Twain somewhat different from that found in most +of his correspondence. + + + To Miss Picard, in St.-Die, France: + + RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON, February 22, 1902. +DEAR MISS HELENE,--If you will let me call you so, considering that my +head is white and that I have grownup daughters. Your beautiful letter +has given me such deep pleasure! I will make bold to claim you for a +friend and lock you up with the rest of my riches; for I am a miser who +counts his spoil every day and hoards it secretly and adds to it when he +can, and is grateful to see it grow. + +Some of that gold comes, like yourself, in a sealed package, and I can't +see it and may never have the happiness; but I know its value without +that, and by what sum it increases my wealth. + +I have a Club, a private Club, which is all my own. I appoint the +Members myself, and they can't help themselves, because I don't allow +them to vote on their own appointment and I don't allow them to resign! +They are all friends whom I have never seen (save one), but who have +written friendly letters to me. + +By the laws of my Club there can be only one Member in each country, and +there can be no male Member but myself. Some day I may admit males, but +I don't know--they are capricious and inharmonious, and their ways +provoke me a good deal. It is a matter which the Club shall decide. + +I have made four appointments in the past three or four months: You as +Member for France, a young Highland girl as Member for Scotland, a +Mohammedan girl as Member for Bengal, and a dear and bright young niece +of mine as Member for the United States--for I do not represent a country +myself, but am merely Member at Large for the Human Race. + +You must not try to resign, for the laws of the Club do not allow that. +You must console yourself by remembering that you are in the best of +company; that nobody knows of your membership except myself--that no +Member knows another's name, but only her country; that no taxes are +levied and no meetings held (but how dearly I should like to attend +one!). + +One of my Members is a Princess of a royal house, another is the daughter +of a village book-seller on the continent of Europe. For the only +qualification for Membership is intellect and the spirit of good will; +other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count. + +May I send you the Constitution and Laws of the Club? I shall be so +pleased if I may. It is a document which one of my daughters typewrites +for me when I need one for a new Member, and she would give her eyebrows +to know what it is all about, but I strangle her curiosity by saying: +"There are much cheaper typewriters than you are, my dear, and if you try +to pry into the sacred mysteries of this Club one of your prosperities +will perish sure." + +My favorite? It is "Joan of Arc." My next is "Huckleberry Finn," but +the family's next is "The Prince and the Pauper." (Yes, you are right-- +I am a moralist in disguise; it gets me into heaps of trouble when I go +thrashing around in political questions.) + +I wish you every good fortune and happiness and I thank you so much for +your letter. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Early in the year Clemens paid a visit to Twichell in Hartford, and + after one of their regular arguments on theology and the moral + accountability of the human race, arguments that had been going on + between them for more than thirty years--Twichell lent his visitor + Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards, to read on the way home. + The next letter was the result. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON. + Feb. '02. +DEAR JOE,--"After compliments."--[Meaning "What a good time you gave me; +what a happiness it was to be under your roof again; etc., etc." See +opening sentence of all translations of letters passing between Lord +Roberts and Indian princes and rulers.]-- From Bridgeport to New York; +thence to home; and continuously until near midnight I wallowed and +reeked with Jonathan in his insane debauch; rose immediately refreshed +and fine at 10 this morning, but with a strange and haunting sense of +having been on a three days' tear with a drunken lunatic. It is years +since I have known these sensations. All through the book is the glaze +of a resplendent intellect gone mad--a marvelous spectacle. No, not all +through the book--the drunk does not come on till the last third, where +what I take to be Calvinism and its God begins to show up and shine red +and hideous in the glow from the fires of hell, their only right and +proper adornment. By God I was ashamed to be in such company. + +Jonathan seems to hold (as against the Arminian position) that the Man +(or his Soul or his Will) never creates an impulse itself, but is moved +to action by an impulse back of it. That's sound! + +Also, that of two or more things offered it, it infallibly chooses the +one which for the moment is most pleasing to ITSELF. Perfectly correct! +An immense admission for a man not otherwise sane. + +Up to that point he could have written chapters III and IV of my +suppressed "Gospel." But there we seem to separate. He seems to concede +the indisputable and unshakable dominion of Motive and Necessity (call +them what he may, these are exterior forces and not under the man's +authority, guidance or even suggestion)--then he suddenly flies the logic +track and (to all seeming) makes the man and not these exterior forces +responsible to God for the man's thoughts, words and acts. It is frank +insanity. + +I think that when he concedes the autocratic dominion of Motive and +Necessity he grants, a third position of mine--that a man's mind is a +mere machine--an automatic machine--which is handled entirely from the +outside, the man himself furnishing it absolutely nothing: not an ounce +of its fuel, and not so much as a bare suggestion to that exterior +engineer as to what the machine shall do, nor how it shall do it nor +when. + +After that concession, it was time for him to get alarmed and shirk--for +he was pointing straight for the only rational and possible next-station +on that piece of road the irresponsibility of man to God. + +And so he shirked. Shirked, and arrived at this handsome result: + +Man is commanded to do so-and-so. It has been ordained from the +beginning of time that some men shan't and others can't. + +These are to be blamed: let them be damned. + +I enjoy the Colonel very much, and shall enjoy the rest of him with an +obscene delight. + Joe, the whole tribe shout love to you and yours! + MARK. + + + We have not heard of Joe Goodman since the trying days of '90 and + '91, when he was seeking to promote the fortunes of the type-setting + machine. Goodman, meantime, who had in turn been miner, printer, + publisher, and farmer; had been devoting his energies and genius to + something entirely new: he had been translating the prehistoric + Mayan inscriptions of Yucatan, and with such success that his work + was elaborately published by an association of British scientists. + In due time a copy of this publication came to Clemens, who was full + of admiration of the great achievement. + + + To J. T. Goodman, in California: + + RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON, + June 13, '02. +DEAR JOE,--I am lost in reverence and admiration! It is now twenty-four +hours that I have been trying to cool down and contemplate with quiet +blood this extraordinary spectacle of energy, industry, perseverance, +pluck, analytical genius, penetration, this irruption of thunders and +fiery splendors from a fair and flowery mountain that nobody had supposed +was a sleeping volcano, but I seem to be as excited as ever. Yesterday +I read as much as half of the book, not understanding a word but +enchanted nevertheless--partly by the wonder of it all, the study, the +erudition, the incredible labor, the modesty, the dignity, the majestic +exclusiveness of the field and its lofty remoteness from things and +contacts sordid and mean and earthy, and partly by the grace and beauty +and limpidity of the book's unsurpassable English. Science, always great +and worshipful, goes often in hodden grey, but you have clothed her in +garments meet for her high degree. + +You think you get "poor pay" for your twenty years? No, oh no. You have +lived in a paradise of the intellect whose lightest joys were beyond the +reach of the longest purse in Christendom, you have had daily and nightly +emancipation from the world's slaveries and gross interests, you have +received a bigger wage than any man in the land, you have dreamed a +splendid dream and had it come true, and to-day you could not afford to +trade fortunes with anybody--not even with another scientist, for he must +divide his spoil with his guild, whereas essentially the world you have +discovered is your own and must remain so. + +It is all just magnificent, Joe! And no one is prouder or gladder than + Yours always + MARK. + + + At York Harbor, Maine, where they had taken a cottage for the + summer--a pretty place, with Howells not far distant, at Kittery + Point--Mrs. Clemens's health gave way. This was at a period when + telegraphic communication was far from reliable. The old-time + Western Union had fallen from grace; its "system" no longer + justified the best significance of that word. The new day of + reorganization was coming, and it was time for it. Mark Twain's + letter concerning the service at York Harbor would hardly be + warranted today, but those who remember conditions of that earlier + time will agree that it was justified then, and will appreciate its + satire. + + + To the President of The Western Union, in New York: + + "THE PINES" + YORK HARBOR, MAINE. +DEAR SIR,--I desire to make a complaint, and I bring it to you, the head +of the company, because by experience I know better than to carry it to a +subordinate. + +I have been here a month and a half, and by testimony of friends, +reinforced by personal experience I now feel qualified to claim as an +established fact that the telegraphic service here is the worst in the +world except that Boston. + +These services are actually slower than was the New York and Hartford +service in the days when I last complained to you--which was fifteen or +eighteen years ago, when telegraphic time and train time between the +mentioned points was exactly the same, to-wit, three hours and a half. +Six days ago--it was that raw day which provoked so much comment--my +daughter was on her way up from New York, and at noon she telegraphed me +from New Haven asking that I meet her with a cloak at Portsmouth. Her +telegram reached me four hours and a quarter later--just 15 minutes too +late for me to catch my train and meet her. + +I judge that the telegram traveled about 200 miles. It is the best +telegraphic work I have seen since I have been here, and I am mentioning +it in this place not as a complaint but as a compliment. I think a +compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, +because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous +and gentle reception. + +Still, there is a detail or two connected with this matter which ought +perhaps to be mentioned. And now, having smoothed the way with the +compliment, I will venture them. The head corpse in the York Harbor +office sent me that telegram altho (1) he knew it would reach me too late +to be of any value; (2) also, that he was going to send it to me by his +boy; (3) that the boy would not take the trolley and come the 2 miles in +12 minutes, but would walk; (4) that he would be two hours and a quarter +on the road; (5) and that he would collect 25 cents for transportation, +for a telegram which the he knew to be worthless before he started it. +From these data I infer that the Western Union owes me 75 cents; that is +to say, the amount paid for combined wire and land transportation-- +a recoup provided for in the printed paragraph which heads the telegraph- +blank. + +By these humane and Christian stages we now arrive at the complaint +proper. We have had a grave case of illness in the family, and a +relative was coming some six hundred miles to help in the sick-room +during the convalescing period. It was an anxious time, of course, +and I wrote and asked to be notified as to the hour of the expected +arrival of this relative in Boston or in York Harbor. Being afraid of +the telegraph--which I think ought not to be used in times of hurry and +emergency--I asked that the desired message be brought to me by some +swift method of transportation. By the milkman, if he was coming this +way. But there are always people who think they know more than you do, +especially young people; so of course the young fellow in charge of this +lady used the telegraph. And at Boston, of all places! Except York +Harbor. + +The result was as usual; let me employ a statelier and exacter term, and +say, historical. + +The dispatch was handed to the h. c. of the Boston office at 9 this +morning. It said, "Shall bring A. S. to you eleven forty-five this +morning." The distance traveled by the dispatch is forty or fifty miles, +I suppose, as the train-time is five minutes short of two hours, and the +trains are so slow that they can't give a W. U. telegram two hours and +twenty minutes start and overtake it. + +As I have said, the dispatch was handed in at Boston at 9. The expected +visitors left Boston at 9.40, and reached my house at 12 noon, beating +the telegram 2 solid hours, and 5 minutes over. + +The boy brought the telegram. It was bald-headed with age, but still +legible. The boy was prostrate with travel and exposure, but still +alive, and I went out to condole with him and get his last wishes and +send for the ambulance. He was waiting to collect transportation before +turning his passing spirit to less serious affairs. I found him +strangely intelligent, considering his condition and where he is getting +his training. I asked him at what hour the telegram was handed to the +h. c. in Boston. He answered brightly, that he didn't know. + +I examined the blank, and sure enough the wary Boston h. c. had +thoughtfully concealed that statistic. I asked him at what hour it had +started from Boston. He answered up as brightly as ever, and said he +didn't know. + +I examined the blank, and sure enough the Boston h. c. had left that +statistic out in the cold, too. In fact it turned out to be an official +concealment--no blank was provided for its exposure. And none required +by the law, I suppose. "It is a good one-sided idea," I remarked; +"They can take your money and ship your telegram next year if they want +to--you've no redress. The law ought to extend the privilege to all of +us." + +The boy looked upon me coldly. + +I asked him when the telegram reached York Harbor. He pointed to some +figures following the signature at the bottom of the blank--"12.14. +"I said it was now 1.45 and asked-- + +"Do you mean that it reached your morgue an hour and a half ago?" + +He nodded assent. + +"It was at that time half an hour too late to be of any use to me, if I +wanted to go and meet my people--which was the case--for by the wording +of the message you can see that they were to arrive at the station at +11.45. Why did, your h. c. send me this useless message? Can't he read? +Is he dead?" + +"It's the rules." + +"No, that does not account for it. Would he have sent it if it had been +three years old, I in the meantime deceased, and he aware of it?" + +The boy didn't know. + +"Because, you know, a rule which required him to forward to the cemetery +to-day a dispatch due three years ago, would be as good a rule as one +which should require him to forward a telegram to me to-day which he knew +had lost all its value an hour or two before he started it. The +construction of such a rule would discredit an idiot; in fact an idiot-- +I mean a common ordinary Christian idiot, you understand--would be +ashamed of it, and for the sake of his reputation wouldn't make it. What +do you think?" + +He replied with much natural brilliancy that he wasn't paid for thinking. + +This gave me a better opinion of the commercial intelligence pervading +his morgue than I had had before; it also softened my feelings toward +him, and also my tone, which had hitherto been tinged with bitterness. + +"Let bygones be bygones," I said, gently, "we are all erring creatures, +and mainly idiots, but God made us so and it is dangerous to criticise." + Sincerely + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + One day there arrived from Europe a caller with a letter of + introduction from Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania, better known as + Carmen Sylva. The visitor was Madam Hartwig, formerly an American + girl, returning now, because of reduced fortunes, to find profitable + employment in her own land. Her husband, a man of high principle, + had declined to take part in an "affair of honor," as recognized by + the Continental code; hence his ruin. Elizabeth of Rumania was one + of the most loved and respected of European queens and an author of + distinction. Mark Twain had known her in Vienna. Her letter to him + and his own letter to the public (perhaps a second one, for its date + is two years later) follow herewith. + + + From Carmen Sylva to Mark Twain: + + BUCAREST, May 9, 1902. +HONORED MASTER,--If I venture to address you on behalf of a poor lady, +who is stranded in Bucarest I hope not to be too disagreeable. + +Mrs. Hartwig left America at the age of fourteen in order to learn to +sing which she has done thoroughly. Her husband had quite a brilliant +situation here till he refused to partake 'dans une afaire onereuse', +so it seems. They haven't a penny and each of them must try to find a +living. She is very nice and pleasant and her school is so good that she +most certainly can give excellent singing lessons. + +I beg your pardon for being a bore to one I so deeply love and admire, +to whom I owe days and days of forgetfulness of self and troubles and the +intensest of all joys: Hero-worship! People don't always realize what a +happiness that is! God bless you for every beautiful thought you poured +into my tired heart and for every smile on a weary way! + + CARMEN SYLVA. + + + From Mark Twain to the Public: + + Nov. 16, '04. +TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,--I desire to recommend Madame Hartwig to my +friends and the public as a teacher of singing and as a concert-vocalist. +She has lived for fifteen years at the court of Roumania, and she brought +with her to America an autograph letter in which her Majesty the Queen of +Roumania cordially certified her to me as being an accomplished and +gifted singer and teacher of singing, and expressed a warm hope that her +professional venture among us would meet with success; through absence in +Europe I have had no opportunity to test the validity of the Queen's +judgment in the matter, but that judgment is the utterance of an entirely +competent authority--the best that occupies a throne, and as good as any +that sits elsewhere, as the musical world well knows--and therefore back +it without hesitation, and endorse it with confidence. + +I will explain that the reason her Majesty tried to do her friend a +friendly office through me instead of through someone else was, not that +I was particularly the right or best person for the office, but because I +was not a stranger. It is true that I am a stranger to some of the +monarchs--mainly through their neglect of their opportunities--but such +is not the case in the present instance. The latter fact is a high +compliment to me, and perhaps I ought to conceal it. Some people would. + + MARK TWAIN. + + + + + Mrs. Clemens's improvement was scarcely perceptible. It was not + until October that they were able to remove her to Riverdale, and + then only in a specially arranged invalid-car. At the end of the + long journey she was carried to her room and did not leave it again + for many months. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + RIVERDALE, N. Y., Oct. 31, '02. +DEAR JOE,--It is ten days since Susy [Twichell] wrote that you were laid +up with a sprained shoulder, since which time we have had no news about +it. I hope that no news is good news, according to the proverb; still, +authoritative confirmation of it will be gladly received in this family, +if some of you will furnish it. Moreover, I should like to know how and +where it happened. In the pulpit, as like as not, otherwise you would +not be taking so much pains to conceal it. This is not a malicious +suggestion, and not a personally-invented one: you told me yourself, +once, that you threw artificial power and impressiveness into places in +your sermons where needed, by "banging the bible"--(your own words.) +You have reached a time of life when it is not wise to take these risks. +You would better jump around. We all have to change our methods as the +infirmities of age creep upon us. Jumping around will be impressive now, +whereas before you were gray it would have excited remark. + +Poor Livy drags along drearily. It must be hard times for that turbulent +spirit. It will be a long time before she is on her feet again. It is a +most pathetic case. I wish I could transfer it to myself. Between +ripping and raging and smoking and reading, I could get a good deal of a +holiday out of it. + +Clara runs the house smoothly and capably. She is discharging a trial- +cook today and hiring another. + A power of love to you all! + MARK. + + +Such was the state of Mrs. Clemens's health that visitors were excluded +from the sick room, and even Clemens himself was allowed to see her no +more than a few moments at a time. These brief, precious visits were the +chief interests of his long days. Occasionally he was allowed to send +her a few lines, reporting his occupations, and these she was sometimes +permitted to answer. Only one of his notes has been preserved, written +after a day, now rare, of literary effort. Its signature, the letter Y, +stands for "Youth," always her name for him. + + + To Mrs. Clemens: + +DEAR HEART,--I've done another full day's work, and finished before 4. +I have been reading and dozing since and would have had a real sleep a +few minutes ago but for an incursion to bring me a couple of unimportant +letters. I've stuck to the bed all day and am getting back my lost +ground. Next time I will be strictly careful and make my visit very +short--just a kiss and a rush. Thank you for your dear, dear note; you +who are my own and only sweetheart. + Sleep well! + Y. + + + + +XLII + +LETTERS OF 1903. TO VARIOUS PERSONS. HARD DAYS AT RIVERDALE. +LAST SUMMER AT ELMIRA. THE RETURN TO ITALY + +The reader may perhaps recall that H. H. Rogers, some five or six years +earlier, had taken charge of the fortunes of Helen Keller, making it +possible for her to complete her education. Helen had now written her +first book--a wonderful book--'The Story of My Life', and it had been +successfully published. For a later generation it may be proper to +explain that the Miss Sullivan, later Mrs. Macy, mentioned in the letter +which follows, was the noble woman who had devoted her life to the +enlightenment of this blind, dumb girl--had made it possible for her to +speak and understand, and, indeed, to see with the eyes of luminous +imagination. + +The case of plagiarism mentioned in this letter is not now remembered, +and does not matter, but it furnished a text for Mark Twain, whose +remarks on the subject in general are eminently worth while. + + + To Helen Keller, in Wrentham, Mass.: + + RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON, + ST. PATRICK'S DAY, '03. +DEAR HELEN,--I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am +to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and +as a remembrances of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted +between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of +violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in +heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often +think of it with longing, and how they'll say, "There they come--sit +down in front!" I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same. I was +at Henry Rogers's last night, and of course we talked of you. He is not +at all well; you will not like to hear that; but like you and me, he is +just as lovely as ever. + +I am charmed with your book-enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, +the most wonderful in the world--you and your other half together-- +Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took the pair of you to make a complete +and perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, +penetration, originality, wisdom, character, and the fine literary +competencies of her pen--they are all there. + +Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was +that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human +utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernal, the soul--let +us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable +material of all human utterances--is plagiarism. For substantially all +ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million +outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and +satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas +there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little +discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his +temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When +a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries +and ten thousand men--but we call it his speech, and really some +exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It +is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we +call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand +men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a +photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing--and the last man +gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite--that +is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine +parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure +and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do +that. + +Then why don't we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well +as the story itself? It can hardly happen--to the extent of fifty words +except in the case of a child: its memory-tablet is not lumbered with +impressions, and the actual language can have graving-room there, and +preserve the language a year or two, but a grown person's memory-tablet +is a palimpsest, with hardly a bare space upon which to engrave a phrase. +It must be a very rare thing that a whole page gets so sharply printed +upon a man's mind, by a single reading, that it will stay long enough to +turn up some time or other and be mistaken by him for his own. No doubt +we are constantly littering our literature with disconnected sentences +borrowed from books at some unremembered time and now imagined to be our +own, but that is about the most we can do. In 1866 I read Dr. Holmes's +poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his +dictation, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my "Innocents +Abroad" with. Then years afterwards I was talking with Dr. Holmes about +it. He was not an ignorant ass--no, not he: he was not a collection of +decayed human turnips, like your "Plagiarism Court;" and so when I said, +"I know now where I stole it, but whom did you steal it from," he said, +"I don't remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have +never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anybody who had." + +To think of those solemn donkeys breaking a little child's heart with +their ignorant rubbish about plagiarism! I couldn't sleep for +blaspheming about it last night. Why, their whole lives, their whole +histories, all their learning, all their thoughts, all their opinions +were one solid ruck of plagiarism, and they didn't know it and never +suspected it. A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting +themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they +think they've caught filching a chop! Oh, dam-- + +But you finish it, dear, I am running short of vocabulary +today. Ever lovingly your friend, + MARK. + +(Edited and modified by Clara Clemens, deputy to her mother, who for more +than 7 months has been ill in bed and unable to exercise her official +function.) + + + The burden of the Clemens household had fallen almost entirely upon + Clara Clemens. In addition to supervising its customary affairs, + she also shouldered the responsibility of an unusual combination of + misfortunes, for besides the critical condition of her mother, her + sister, Jean Clemens, was down with pneumonia, no word of which must + come to Mrs. Clemens. Certainly it was a difficult position. In + some account of it, which he set down later, Clemens wrote: "It was + fortunate for us all that Clara's reputation for truthfulness was so + well established in her mother's mind. It was our daily protection + from disaster. The mother never doubted Clara's word. Clara could + tell her large improbabilities without exciting any suspicion, + whereas if I tried to market even a small and simple one the case + would have been different. I was never able to get a reputation + like Clara's." + + The accumulation of physical ailments in the Clemens home had + somewhat modified Mark Twain's notion of medical practice. He was + no longer radical; he had become eclectic. It is a good deal of a + concession that he makes to Twichell, after those earlier letters + from Sweden, in which osteopathy had been heralded as the anodyne + for all human ills. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + +DEAR JOE,--Livy does really make a little progress these past 3 or 4 +days, progress which is visible to even the untrained eye. The +physicians are doing good work with her, but my notion is, that no art of +healing is the best for all ills. I should distribute the ailments +around: surgery cases to the surgeons; lupus to the actinic-ray +specialist; nervous prostration to the Christian Scientist; most ills to +the allopath and the homeopath; (in my own particular case) rheumatism, +gout and bronchial attacks to the osteopathist. + +Mr. Rogers was to sail southward this morning--and here is this weather! +I am sorry. I think it's a question if he gets away tomorrow. + Ys Ever + MARK. + + + It was through J. Y. M. MacAlister, to whom the next letter is + written, that Mark Twain had become associated with the Plasmon + Company, which explains the reference to "shares." He had seen much + of MacAlister during the winter at Tedworth Square, and had grown + fond of him. It is a characteristic letter, and one of interesting + fact. + + + To J. Y. M. MacAlister, in London: + + RIVERDALE, NEW YORK. + April, 7, '03. +DEAR MACALISTER,--Yours arrived last night, and God knows I was glad to +get it, for I was afraid I had blundered into an offence in some way and +forfeited your friendship--a kind of blunder I have made so many times in +my life that I am always standing in a waiting and morbid dread of its +occurrence. + +Three days ago I was in condition--during one horribly long night--to +sympathetically roast with you in your "hell of troubles." During that +night I was back again where I was in the black days when I was buried +under a mountain of debt. I called the daughters to me in private +council and paralysed them with the announcement, "Our outgo has +increased in the past 8 months until our expenses are now 125 per cent. +greater than our income." + +It was a mistake. When I came down in the morning a gray and aged wreck, +and went over the figures again, I found that in some unaccountable way +(unaccountable to a business man but not to me) I had multiplied the +totals by 2. By God I dropped 75 years on the floor where I stood. + +Do you know it affected me as one is affected when he wakes out of a +hideous dream and finds that it was only a dream. It was a great comfort +and satisfaction to me to call the daughters to a private meeting of the +Board again and say, "You need not worry any more; our outgo is only a +third more than our income; in a few months your mother will be out of +her bed and on her feet again--then we shall drop back to normal and be +all right." + +Certainly there is a blistering and awful reality about a well-arranged +unreality. It is quite within the possibilities that two or three nights +like that night of mine could drive a man to suicide. He would refuse to +examine the figures; they would revolt him so, and he could go to his +death unaware that there was nothing serious about them. I cannot get +that night out of my head, it was so vivid, so real, so ghastly. In any +other year of these 33 the relief would have been simple: go where you +can cut your cloth to fit your income. You can't do that when your wife +can't be moved, even from one room to the next. + +Clam spells the trained nurse afternoons; I am allowed to see Mrs. +Clemens 20 minutes twice a day and write her two letters a day provided I +put no news in them. No other person ever sees her except the physician +and now and then a nerve-specialist from New York. She saw there was +something the matter that morning, but she got no facts out of me. But +that is nothing--she hasn't had anything but lies for 8 months. A fact +would give her a relapse. + +The doctor and a specialist met in conspiracy five days ago, and in their +belief she will by and by come out of this as good as new, substantially. +They ordered her to Italy for next winter--which seems to indicate that +by autumn she will be able to undertake the voyage. So Clara is writing +a Florence friend to take a look round among the villas for us in the +regions near that city. It seems early to do this, but Joan Bergheim +thought it would be wise. + +He and his wife lunched with us here yesterday. They have been abroad in +Havana 4 months, and they sailed for England this morning. + +I am enclosing an order for half of my (your) Founders shares. You are +not to refuse them this time, though you have done it twice before. They +are yours, not mine, and for your family's sake if not your own you +cannot in these cloudy days renounce this property which is so clearly +yours and theirs. You have been generous long enough; be just, now to +yourself. Mr. Rogers is off yachting for 5 or 6 weeks--I'll get them +when he returns. The head of the house joins me in warmest greetings and +remembrances to you and Mrs. MacAlister. + Ever yours, + Mark. + +May 8. Great Scott! I never mailed this letter! I addressed it, put +"Registered" on it--then left it lying unsealed on the arm of my chair, +and rushed up to my bed quaking with a chill. I've never been out of the +bed since--oh, bronchitis, rheumatism, two sets of teeth aching, land, +I've had a dandy time for 4 weeks. And to-day--great guns, one of the +very worst! . . . + +I'm devilish sorry, and I do apologise--for although I am not as slow as +you are about answering letters, as a rule, I see where I'm standing this +time. + +Two weeks ago Jean was taken down again--this time with measles, and I +haven't been able to go to her and she hasn't been able to come to me. + +But Mrs. Clemens is making nice progress, and can stand alone a moment or +two at a time. + +Now I'll post this. + MARK + + + The two letters that follow, though written only a few days apart, + were separated in their arrival by a period of seven years. The + second letter was, in some way, mislaid and not mailed; and it was + not until after the writer of it was dead that it was found and + forwarded. + + Mark Twain could never get up much enthusiasm for the writings of + Scott. His praise of Quentin Durward is about the only approval he + ever accorded to the works of the great romanticist. + + + To Brander Matthews, in New York: + + NEW YORK CITY, May 4, '03. +DEAR BRANDER,--I haven't been out of my bed for four weeks, but--well, I +have been reading, a good deal, and it occurs to me to ask you to sit +down, some time or other when you have 8 or 9 months to spare, and jot me +down a certain few literary particulars for my help and elevation. Your +time need not be thrown away, for at your further leisure you can make +Colombian lectures out of the results and do your students a good turn. + +1. Are there in Sir Walter's novels passages done in good English-- +English which is neither slovenly or involved? + +2. Are there passages whose English is not poor and thin and +commonplace, but is of a quality above that? + +3. Are there passages which burn with real fire--not punk, fox-fire, +make believe? + +4. Has he heroes and heroines who are not cads and cadesses? + +5. Has he personages whose acts and talk correspond with their +characters as described by him? + +6. Has he heroes and heroines whom the reader admires, admires, and +knows why? + +7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages that +are humorous? + +8. Does he ever chain the reader's interest, and make him reluctant to +lay the book down? + +9. Are there pages where he ceases from posing, ceases from admiring the +placid flood and flow of his own dilutions, ceases from being artificial, +and is for a time, long or short, recognizably sincere and in earnest? + +10. Did he know how to write English, and didn't do it because he didn't +want to? + +11. Did he use the right word only when he couldn't think of another +one, or did he run so much to wrong because he didn't know the right one +when he saw it? + +13. Can you read him? and keep your respect for him? Of course a +person could in his day--an era of sentimentality and sloppy romantics-- +but land! can a body do it today? + +Brander, I lie here dying, slowly dying, under the blight of Sir Walter. +I have read the first volume of Rob Roy, and as far as chapter XIX of Guy +Mannering, and I can no longer hold my head up nor take my nourishment. +Lord, it's all so juvenile! so artificial, so shoddy; and such wax +figures and skeletons and spectres. Interest? Why, it is impossible to +feel an interest in these bloodless shams, these milk-and-water humbugs. +And oh, the poverty of the invention! Not poverty in inventing +situations, but poverty in furnishing reasons for them. Sir Walter +usually gives himself away when he arranges for a situation--elaborates, +and elaborates, and elaborates, till if you live to get to it you don't +believe in it when it happens. + +I can't find the rest of Rob Roy, I can't stand any more Mannering--I do +not know just what to do, but I will reflect, and not quit this great +study rashly. He was great, in his day, and to his proper audience; and +so was God in Jewish times, for that matter, but why should either of +them rank high now? And do they?--honest, now, do they? Dam'd if I +believe it. + +My, I wish I could see you and Leigh Hunt! +` Sincerely Yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To Brander Matthews, in New York: + + RIVERDALE, May 8,'03 (Mailed June, 1910). +DEAR BRANDER,--I'm still in bed, but the days have lost their dulness +since I broke into Sir Walter and lost my temper. I finished Guy +Mannering--that curious, curious book, with its mob of squalid shadows +jabbering around a single flesh-and-blood being--Dinmont; a book crazily +put together out of the very refuse of the romance-artist's stage +properties--finished it and took up Quentin Durward, and finished that. + +It was like leaving the dead to mingle with the living: it was like +withdrawing from the infant class in the College of journalism to sit +under the lectures in English literature in Columbia University. + +I wonder who wrote Quentin Durward? + Yrs ever + MARK. + + + In 1903, preparations were going on for a great world's fair, to be + held in St. Louis, and among other features proposed was a World's + Literary Convention, with a week to be set apart in honor of Mark + Twain, and a special Mark Twain Day in it, on which the National + Association would hold grand services in honor of the distinguished + Missourian. A letter asking his consent to the plan brought the + following reply. + + + To T. F. Gatts, of Missouri: + + NEW YORK, May 30, 1903. +DEAR MR. GATTS,--It is indeed a high compliment which you offer me in +naming an association after me and in proposing the setting apart of a +Mark Twain day at the great St. Louis fair, but such compliments are not +proper for the living; they are proper and safe for the dead only. I +value the impulse which moves you to tender me these honors. I value it +as highly as any one can, and am grateful for it, but I should stand in a +sort of terror of the honors themselves. So long as we remain alive we +are not safe from doing things which, however righteously and honorably +intended, can wreck our repute and extinguish our friendships. + +I hope that no society will be named for me while I am still alive, for I +might at some time or other do something which would cause its members to +regret having done me that honor. After I shall have joined the dead I +shall follow the customs of those people and be guilty of no conduct that +can wound any friend; but until that time shall come I shall be a +doubtful quantity like the rest of our race. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The National Mark Twain Association did not surrender easily. Mr. + Gatts wrote a second letter full of urgent appeal. If Mark Twain + was tempted, we get no hint of it in his answer. + + + To T. F. Gatts, of Missouri: + + NEW YORK, June 8, 1903. +DEAR MR. GATTS,--While I am deeply touched by the desire of my friends of +Hannibal to confer these great honors upon me, I must still forbear to +accept them. Spontaneous and unpremeditated honors, like those which +came to me at Hannibal, Columbia, St. Louis and at the village stations +all down the line, are beyond all price and are a treasure for life in +the memory, for they are a free gift out of the heart and they come +without solicitations; but I am a Missourian and so I shrink from +distinctions which have to be arranged beforehand and with my privity, +for I then became a party to my own exalting. I am humanly fond of +honors that happen but chary of those that come by canvass and intention. +With sincere thanks to you and your associates for this high compliment +which you have been minded to offer me, I am, + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + We have seen in the letter to MacAlister that Mark Twain's wife had + been ordered to Italy and plans were in progress for an + establishment there. By the end of June Mrs. Clemens was able to + leave Riverdale, and she made the journey to Quarry Farm, Elmira, + where they would remain until October, the month planned for their + sailing. The house in Hartford had been sold; and a house which, + prior to Mrs. Clemens's breakdown they had bought near Tarrytown + (expecting to settle permanently on the Hudson) had been let. They + were going to Europe for another indefinite period. + + At Quarry Farm Mrs. Clemens continued to improve, and Clemens, once + more able to work, occupied the study which Mrs. Crane had built for + him thirty years before, and where Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and the + Wandering Prince had been called into being. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford, Conn.: + + QUARRY FARM, ELMIRA, N. Y., + July 21, '03. +DEAR JOE,--That love-letter delighted Livy beyond any like utterance +received by her these thirty years and more. I was going to answer it +for her right away, and said so; but she reserved the privilege to +herself. I judge she is accumulating Hot Stuff--as George Ade would say +. . . . + +Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not +very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part of +the night, makes excursions in carriage and in wheel-chair; and, in the +matter of superintending everything and everybody, has resumed business +at the old stand. + +Did you ever go house-hunting 3,000 miles away? It costs three months of +writing and telegraphing to pull off a success. We finished 3 or 4 days +ago, and took the Villa Papiniano (dam the name, I have to look at it a +minutes after writing it, and then am always in doubt) for a year by +cable. Three miles outside of Florence, under Fiesole--a darling +location, and apparently a choice house, near Fiske. + +There's 7 in our gang. All women but me. It means trunks and things. +But thanks be! To-day (this is private) comes a most handsome voluntary +document with seals and escutcheons on it from the Italian Ambassador +(who is a stranger to me) commanding the Customs people to keep their +hands off the Clemens's things. Now wasn't it lovely of him? And wasn't +it lovely of me to let Livy take a pencil and edit my answer and knock a +good third of it out? + +And that's a nice ship--the Irene! new--swift--13,000 tons--rooms up in +the sky, open to sun and air--and all that. I was desperately troubled +for Livy--about the down-cellar cells in the ancient "Latin." + +The cubs are in Riverdale, yet; they come to us the first week in August. + With lots and lots of love to you all, + MARK. + + + The arrangement for the Villa Papiniano was not completed, after + all, and through a good friend, George Gregory Smith, a resident of + Florence, the Villa Quarto, an ancient home of royalty, on the hills + west of Florence, was engaged. Smith wrote that it was a very + beautiful place with a south-eastern exposure, looking out toward + Valombrosa and the Chianti Hills. It had extensive grounds and + stables, and the annual rental for it all was two thousand dollars a + year. It seemed an ideal place, in prospect, and there was great + hope that Mrs. Clemens would find her health once more in the + Italian climate which she loved. + + Perhaps at this point, when Mark Twain is once more leaving America, + we may offer two letters from strangers to him--letters of + appreciation--such as he was constantly receiving from those among + the thousands to whom he had given happiness. The first is from + Samuel Merwin, one day to become a popular novelist, then in the + hour of his beginnings. + + + To Mark Twain, from Samuel Merwin: + + PLAINFIELD, N. J. + August 4, 1903. +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--For a good many years I have been struggling with the +temptation to write you and thank you for the work you have done; and to- +day I seem to be yielding. + +During the past two years I have been reading through a group of writers +who seem to me to represent about the best we have--Sir Thomas Malory, +Spenser, Shakespeare, Boswell, Carlyle, Le Sage. In thinking over one +and then another, and then all of them together, it was plain to see why +they were great men and writers: each brought to his time some new blood, +new ideas,--turned a new current into the stream. I suppose there have +always been the careful, painstaking writers, the men who are always +taken so seriously by their fellow craftsmen. It seems to be the +unconventional man who is so rare--I mean the honestly unconventional +man, who has to express himself in his own big way because the +conventional way isn't big enough, because ne needs room and freedom. + +We have a group of the more or less conventional men now--men of dignity +and literary position. But in spite of their influence and of all the +work they have done, there isn't one of them to whom one can give one's +self up without reservation, not one whose ideas seem based on the deep +foundation of all true philosophy,--except Mark Twain. + +I hope this letter is not an impertinence. I have just been turning +about, with my head full of Spenser and Shakespeare and "Gil Blas," +looking for something in our own present day literature to which I could +surrender myself as to those five gripping old writings. And nothing +could I find until I took up "Life on the Mississippi," and "Huckleberry +Finn," and, just now, the "Connecticut Yankee." It isn't the first time +I have read any of these three, and it's because I know it won't be the +last, because these books are the only ones written in my lifetime that +claim my unreserved interest and admiration and, above all, my feelings, +that I've felt I had to write this letter. + +I like to think that "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" will be looked +upon, fifty or a hundred years from now, as the picture of buoyant, +dramatic, human American life. I feel, deep in my own heart, pretty sure +that they will be. They won't be looked on then as the work of a +"humorist" any more than we think of Shakespeare as a humorist now. +I don't mean by this to set up a comparison between Mark Twain and +Shakespeare: I don't feel competent to do it; and I'm not at all sure +that it could be done until Mark Twain's work shall have its fair share +of historical perspective. But Shakespeare was a humorist and so, thank +Heaven! is Mark Twain. And Shakespeare plunged deep into the deep, sad +things of life; and so, in a different way (but in a way that has more +than once brought tears to my eyes) has Mark Twain. But after all, it +isn't because of any resemblance for anything that was ever before +written that Mark Twain's books strike in so deep: it's rather because +they've brought something really new into our literature--new, yet old as +Adam and Eve and the Apple. And this achievement, the achievement of +putting something into literature that was not there before, is, I should +think, the most that any writer can ever hope to do. It is the one mark +of distinction between the "lonesome" little group of big men and the +vast herd of medium and small ones. Anyhow, this much I am sure of--to +the young man who hopes, however feebly, to accomplish a little +something, someday, as a writer, the one inspiring example of our time is +Mark Twain. + Very truly yours, + SAMUEL MERWIN. + + +Mark Twain once said he could live a month on a good compliment, and from +his reply, we may believe this one to belong in, that class. + + + To Samuel Merwin, in Plainfield, N. J.: + + Aug. 16, '03. +DEAR MR. MERWIN,--What you have said has given me deep pleasure--indeed I +think no words could be said that could give me more. + Very sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The next "compliment" is from one who remains unknown, for she + failed to sign her name in full. But it is a lovely letter, and + loses nothing by the fact that the writer of it was willing to + remain in obscurity. + + + To Mark Twain, from Margaret M----: + + PORTLAND, OREGON + Aug. 18, 1903. +MY DEAR, DEAR MARK TWAIN,--May a little girl write and tell you how +dearly she loves and admires your writings? Well, I do and I want to +tell you your ownself. Don't think me too impertinent for indeed I don't +mean to be that! I have read everything of yours that I could get and +parts that touch me I have read over and over again. They seem such dear +friends to me, so like real live human beings talking and laughing, +working and suffering too! One cannot but feel that it is your own life +and experience that you have painted. So do not wonder that you seem a +dear friend to me who has never even seen you. I often think of you as +such in my own thoughts. I wonder if you will laugh when I tell you I +have made a hero of you? For when people seem very sordid and mean and +stupid (and it seems as if everybody was) then the thought will come like +a little crumb of comfort "well, Mark Twain isn't anyway." And it does +really brighten me up. + +You see I have gotten an idea that you are a great, bright spirit of +kindness and tenderness. One who can twist everybody's-even your own- +faults and absurdities into hearty laughs. Even the person mocked must +laugh! Oh, Dear! How often you have made me laugh! And yet as often +you have struck something infinite away down deep in my heart so that I +want to cry while half laughing! + +So this all means that I want to thank you and to tell you. "God always +love Mark Twain!" is often my wish. I dearly love to read books, and I +never tire of reading yours; they always have a charm for me. Good-bye, +I am afraid I have not expressed what I feel. But at least I have tried. + Sincerely yours. + MARGARET M.---- + + + Clemens and family left Elmira October the 5th for New York City. + They remained at the Hotel Grosvenor until their sailing date, + October 24th. A few days earlier, Mr. Frank Doubleday sent a volume + of Kipling's poems and de Blowitz's Memoirs for entertainment on the + ship. Mark Twain's acknowledgment follows. + + + To F. N. Doubleday, in New York: + + THE GROSVENOR, + October 12, '03. +DEAR DOUBLEDAY,--The books came--ever so many thanks. I have been +reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Men" over and over again--my custom +with Kipling's work-and saving up the rest for other leisurely and +luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply impressive fellow-being. In +these many recent trips up and down the Sound in the Kanawha -- +[Mr. Rogers's yacht.]-- he has talked to me nightly, sometimes in his +pathetic and melancholy way, sometimes with his strenuous and urgent +note, and I got his meaning--now I have his words! No one but Kipling +could do this strong and vivid thing. Some day I hope to hear the poem +chanted or sung--with the bell-buoy breaking in, out of the distance. + +"The Old Men," delicious, isn't it? And so comically true. I haven't +arrived there yet, but I suppose I am on the way.... + Yours ever, + MARK. + +P. S. Your letter has arrived. It makes me proud and glad--what Kipling +says. I hope Fate will fetch him to Florence while we are there. +I would rather see him than any other man. + +We've let the Tarrytown house for a year. Man, you would never have +believed a person could let a house in these times. That one's for sale, +the Hartford one is sold. When we buy again may we--may I--be damned.... + +I've dipped into Blowitz and find him quaintly and curiously interesting. +I think he tells the straight truth, too. I knew him a little, 23 years +ago. + + The appreciative word which Kipling had sent Doubleday was: "I love + to think of the great and God-like Clemens. He is the biggest man + you have on your side of the water by a damn sight, and don't you + forget it. Cervantes was a relation of his." + + + + +XLIII + +LETTERS OF 1904. TO VARIOUS PERSONS. LIFE IN VILLA QUARTO. DEATH OF +MRS. CLEMENS. THE RETURN TO AMERICA + +Mrs. Clemens stood the voyage to Italy very well and, in due time, the +family were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, the picturesque old +Palace of Cosimo, a spacious, luxurious place, even if not entirely +cheerful or always comfortable during the changeable Tuscan winter. +Congratulated in a letter from MacAlister in being in the midst of +Florentine sunshine, he answered: "Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there +isn't any. We have heavy fogs every morning, and rain all day. This +house is not merely large, it is vast--therefore I think it must always +lack the home feeling." + +Neither was their landlady, the American wife of an Italian count, all +that could be desired. From a letter to Twichell, however, we learn that +Mark Twain's work was progressing well. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, + FLORENCE, Jan. 7, '04. +DEAR JOE,--. . . I have had a handsome success, in one way, here. +I left New York under a sort of half promise to furnish to the Harper +magazines 30,000 words this year. Magazining is difficult work because +every third page represents 2 pages that you have put in the fire; +(because you are nearly sure to start wrong twice) and so when you have +finished an article and are willing to let it go to print it represents +only 10 cents a word instead of 30. + +But this time I had the curious (and unprecedented) luck to start right +in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; and the +reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have I +approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last resort +(Livy) has done the same. + +On many of the between-days I did some work, but only of an idle and not +necessarily necessary sort, since it will not see print until I am dead. +I shall continue this (an hour per day) but the rest of the year I expect +to put in on a couple of long books (half-completed ones.) No more +magazine-work hanging over my head. + +This secluded and silent solitude this clean, soft air and this +enchanting view of Florence, the great valley and the snow-mountains that +frame it are the right conditions for work. They are a persistent +inspiration. To-day is very lovely; when the afternoon arrives there +will be a new picture every hour till dark, and each of them divine--or +progressing from divine to diviner and divinest. On this (second) floor +Clara's room commands the finest; she keeps a window ten feet high wide +open all the time and frames it in. I go in from time to time, every day +and trade sass for a look. The central detail is a distant and stately +snow-hump that rises above and behind blackforested hills, and its +sloping vast buttresses, velvety and sun-polished with purple shadows +between, make the sort of picture we knew that time we walked in +Switzerland in the days of our youth. + +I wish I could show your letter to Livy--but she must wait a week or so +for it. I think I told you she had a prostrating week of tonsilitis a +month ago; she has remained very feeble ever since, and confined to the +bed of course, but we allow ourselves to believe she will regain the lost +ground in another month. Her physician is Professor Grocco--she could +not have a better. And she has a very good trained nurse. + +Love to all of you from all of us. And to all of our dear Hartford +friends. + MARK + +P. S. 3 days later. + +Livy is as remarkable as ever. The day I wrote you--that night, I mean-- +she had a bitter attack of gout or rheumatism occupying the whole left +arm from shoulder to fingers, accompanied by fever. The pains racked her +50 or 6o hours; they have departed, now--and already she is planning a +trip to Egypt next fall, and a winter's sojourn there! This is life in +her yet. + +You will be surprised that I was willing to do so much magazine-writing-- +a thing I have always been chary about--but I had good reasons. Our +expenses have been so prodigious for a year and a half, and are still so +prodigious, that Livy was worrying altogether too much about them, and +doing a very dangerous amount of lying awake on their account. It was +necessary to stop that, and it is now stopped. + +Yes, she is remarkable, Joe. Her rheumatic attack set me to cursing and +swearing, without limit as to time or energy, but it merely concentrated +her patience and her unconquerable fortitude. It is the difference +between us. I can't count the different kinds of ailments which have +assaulted her in this fiendish year and a half--and I forgive none of +them--but here she comes up again as bright and fresh and enterprising as +ever, and goes to planning about Egypt, with a hope and a confidence +which are to me amazing. + +Clara is calling for me--we have to go into town and pay calls. + + MARK. + + + In Florence, that winter, Clemens began dictating to his secretary + some autobiographical chapters. This was the work which was "not to + see print until I am dead." He found it a pleasant, lazy occupation + and wrote his delight in it to Howells in a letter which seems not + to have survived. In his reply, Howells wrote: "You do stir me + mightily with the hope of dictating and I will try it when I get the + chance. But there is the tempermental difference. You are dramatic + and unconscious; you count the thing more than yourself; I am cursed + with consciousness to the core, and can't say myself out; I am + always saying myself in, and setting myself above all that I say, as + of more worth. Lately I have felt as if I were rotting with + egotism. I don't admire myself; I am sick of myself; but I can't + think of anything else. Here I am at it now, when I ought to be + rejoicing with you at the blessing you have found .... I'd like, + immensely, to read your autobiography. You always rather bewildered + me by your veracity, and I fancy you may tell the truth about + yourself. But all of it? The black truth which we all know of + ourselves in our hearts, or only the whity-brown truth of the + pericardium, or the nice, whitened truth of the shirtfront? Even + you won't tell the black heart's--truth. The man who could do it + would be famed to the last day the sun shone upon." + + We gather from Mark Twain's answer that he was not deceiving himself + in the matter of his confessions. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, + March 14, '04. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Yes, I set up the safeguards, in the first day's +dictating; taking this position: that an autobiography is the truest of +all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the +truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with +hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is +there, between the lines, where the author is raking dust upon it, the +result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily +diligences. + +The summer in England! you can't ask better luck than that. Then you +will run over to Florence; we shall all be hungry to see you-all. We are +hunting for another villa, (this one is plenty large enough but has no +room in it) but even if we find it I am afraid it will be months before +we can move Mrs. Clemens. Of course it will. But it comforts us to let +on that we think otherwise, and these pretensions help to keep hope alive +in her. + Good-bye, with love, Amen. + Yours ever + MARK. + + + News came of the death of Henry M. Stanley, one of Mark Twain's + oldest friends. Clemens once said that he had met Stanley in St. + Louis where he (Clemens) had delivered a lecture which Stanley had + reported. In the following letter he fixes the date of their + meeting as early in 1867, which would be immediately after Mark + Twain's return from California, and just prior to the Quaker City + excursion--a fact which is interesting only because it places the + two men together when each was at the very beginning of a great + career. + + + To Lady Stanley, in England: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FIRENZE, May 11, '04. +DEAR LADY STANLEY,--I have lost a dear and honored friend--how fast they +fall about me now, in my age! The world has lost a tried and proved +hero. And you--what have you lost? It is beyond estimate--we who know +you, and what he was to you, know that. How far he stretches across my +life! I knew him when his work was all before him five years before the +great day that he wrote his name far-away up on the blue of the sky for +the world to see and applaud and remember; I have known him as friend and +intimate ever since. It is 37 years. I have known no other friend and +intimate so long, except John Hay--a friendship which dates from the same +year and the same half of it, the first half of 1867. I grieve with you +and with your family, dear Lady Stanley, it is all I can do; but that I +do out of my heart. It would be we, instead of I, if Mrs. Clemens knew, +but in all these 20 months that she has lain a prisoner in her bed we +have hidden from her all things that could sadden her. Many a friend is +gone whom she still asks about and still thinks is living. + +In deepest sympathy I beg the privilege of signing myself + Your friend, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, May 11, '04 +DEAR JOE,--Yours has this moment arrived--just as I was finishing a note +to poor Lady Stanley. I believe the last country-house visit we paid in +England was to Stanley's. Lord, how my friends and acquaintances fall +about me now, in my gray-headed days! Vereschagin, Mommsen, Dvorak, +Lenbach, Jokai--all so recently, and now Stanley. I had known Stanley 37 +years. Goodness, who is it I haven't known! As a rule the necrologies +find me personally interested--when they treat of old stagers. Generally +when a man dies who is worth cabling, it happens that I have run across +him somewhere, some time or other. + +Oh, say! Down by the Laurentian Library there's a marble image that has +been sitting on its pedestal some 450 Years, if my dates are right-- +Cosimo I. I've seen the back of it many a time, but not the front; but +yesterday I twisted my head around after we had driven by, and the +profane exclamation burst from my mouth before I could think: "there's +Chauncey Depew!" + +I mean to get a photo of it--and use it if it confirms yesterday's +conviction. That's a very nice word from the Catholic Magazine and I am +glad you sent it. I mean to show it to my priest--we are very fond of +him. He is a stealing man, and is also learnedly scientific. He +invented the thing which records the seismatic disturbances, for the +peoples of the earth. And he's an astronomer and has an observatory of +his own. + +Ah, many's the cry I have, over reflecting that maybe we could have had +Young Harmony for Livy, and didn't have wit enough to think of it. + +Speaking of Livy reminds me that your inquiry arrives at a good time +(unberufen) It has been weeks (I don't know how many!) since we could +have said a hopeful word, but this morning Katy came the minute the day- +nurse came on watch and said words of a strange and long-forgotten sound: +"Mr. Clemens, Mrs. Clemens is really and truly better!--anybody can see +it; she sees it herself; and last night at 9 o'clock she said it." + +There--it is heart-warming, it is splendid, it is sublime; let us enjoy +it, let us make the most of it today--and bet not a farthing on tomorrow. +The tomorrows have nothing for us. Too many times they have breathed the +word of promise to our ear and broken it to our hope. We take no +tomorrow's word any more. + +You've done a wonder, Joe: you've written a letter that can be sent in to +Livy--that doesn't often happen, when either a friend or a stranger +writes. You did whirl in a P. S. that wouldn't do, but you wrote it on a +margin of a page in such a way that I was able to clip off the margin +clear across both pages, and now Livy won't perceive that the sheet isn't +the same size it used to was. It was about Aldrich's son, and I came +near forgetting to remove it. It should have been written on a loose +strip and enclosed. That son died on the 5th of March and Aldrich wrote +me on the night before that his minutes were numbered. On the 18th Livy +asked after that patient, and I was prepared, and able to give her a +grateful surprise by telling her "the Aldriches are no longer uneasy +about him." + +I do wish I could have been present and heard Charley Clark. When he +can't light up a dark place nobody can. + With lots of love to you all. + MARK. + + + Mrs. Clemens had her bad days and her good days-days when there + seemed no ray of light, and others that seemed almost to promise + recovery. The foregoing letter to Twichell, and the one which + follows, to Richard Watson Gilder, reflect the hope and fear that + daily and hourly alternated at Villa Quarto + + + To Richard Watson Gilder, in New York: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, + May 12, '04. +DEAR GILDER,--A friend of ours (the Baroness de Nolda) was here this +afternoon and wanted a note of introduction to the Century, for she has +something to sell to you in case you'll want to make her an offer after +seeing a sample of the goods. I said "With pleasure: get the goods +ready, send the same to me, I will have Jean type-write them, then I will +mail them to the Century and tonight I will write the note to Mr. Gilder +and start it along. Also write me a letter embodying what you have been +saying to me about the goods and your proposed plan of arranging and +explaining them, and I will forward that to Gilder too." + +As to the Baroness. She is a German; 30 years old; was married at 17; is +very pretty-indeed I might say very pretty; has a lot of sons (5) running +up from seven to 12 years old. Her husband is a Russian. They live half +the time in Russia and the other half in Florence, and supply population +alternately to the one country and then to the other. Of course it is a +family that speaks languages. This occurs at their table--I know it by +experience: It is Babel come again. The other day, when no guests were +present to keep order, the tribes were all talking at once, and 6 +languages were being traded in; at last the littlest boy lost his temper +and screamed out at the top of his voice, with angry sobs: "Mais, +vraiment, io non capisco gar nichts." + +The Baroness is a little afraid of her English, therefore she will write +her remarks in French--I said there's a plenty of translators in New +York. Examine her samples and drop her a line. + +For two entire days, now, we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens +(unberufen). After 20 months of bed-ridden solitude and bodily misery +she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid shrunken shadow, and looks +bright and young and pretty. She remains what she always was, the most +wonderful creature of fortitude, patience, endurance and recuperative +power that ever was. But ah, dear, it won't last; this fiendish malady +will play new treacheries upon her, and I shall go back to my prayers +again--unutterable from any pulpit! + With love to you and yours, + S. L. C. + +May 13 10 A.M. I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2 minutes +visits per day to the sick room. And found what I have learned to +expect--retrogression, and that pathetic something in the eye which +betrays the secret of a waning hope. + + + The year of the World's Fair had come, and an invitation from Gov. + Francis, of Missouri, came to Mark Twain in Florence, personally + inviting him to attend the great celebration and carry off first + prize. We may believe that Clemens felt little in the spirit of + humor, but to such an invitation he must send a cheerful, even if + disappointing, answer. + + + To Gov. Francis, of Missouri: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FIRENZE, + May 26, 1904. +DEAR GOVERNOR FRANCIS,--It has been a dear wish of mine to exhibit myself +at the Great Fair and get a prize, but circumstances beyond my control +have interfered, and I must remain in Florence. Although I have never +taken prizes anywhere else I used to take them at school in Missouri half +a century ago, and I ought to be able to repeat, now, if I could have a +chance. I used to get the medal for good spelling, every week, and I +could have had the medal for good conduct if there hadn't been so much +curruption in Missouri in those days; still, I got it several times by +trading medals and giving boot. I am willing to give boot now, if-- +however, those days are forever gone by in Missouri, and perhaps it is +better so. Nothing ever stops the way it was in this changeable world. +Although I cannot be at the Fair, I am going to be represented there +anyway, by a portrait, by Professor Gelli. You will find it excellent. +Good judges here say it is better than the original. They say it has all +the merits of the original and keeps still, besides. It sounds like +flattery, but it is just true. + +I suppose you will get a prize, because you have created the most +prodigious and in all ways most wonderful Fair the planet has ever seen. +Very well, you have indeed earned it: and with it the gratitude of the +State and the nation. + Sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN + + It was only a few days after the foregoing was written that death + entered Villa Quarto--unexpectedly at last--for with the first June + days Mrs. Clemens had seemed really to improve. It was on Sunday, + June 5th, that the end came. Clemens, with his daughter Jean, had + returned from a long drive, during which they had visited a Villa + with the thought of purchase. On their return they were told that + their patient had been better that afternoon than for three months. + Yet it was only a few hours later that she left them, so suddenly + and quietly that even those near her did not at first realize that + she was gone. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York. + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, + June 6, '94. [1904] +DEAR HOWELLS,--Last night at 9.20 I entered Mrs. Clemens's room to say +the usual goodnight--and she was dead--tho' no one knew it. She had been +cheerfully talking, a moment before. She was sitting up in bed--she had +not lain down for months--and Katie and the nurse were supporting her. +They supposed she had fainted, and they were holding the oxygen pipe to +her mouth, expecting to revive her. I bent over her and looked in her +face, and I think I spoke--I was surprised and troubled that she did not +notice me. Then we understood, and our hearts broke. How poor we are +today! + +But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended. I would not call +her back if I could. + +Today, treasured in her worn old Testament, I found a dear and gentle +letter from you, dated Far Rockaway, Sept. 13, 1896, about our poor +Susy's death. I am tired and old; I wish I were with Livy. + +I send my love-and hers-to you all. + S. L. C. + + + In a letter to Twichell he wrote: "How sweet she was in death; how + young, how beautiful, how like her dear, girlish self cf thirty + years ago; not a gray hair showing." + + The family was now without plans for the future until they + remembered the summer home of R. W. Gilder, at Tyringham, + Massachusetts, and the possibility of finding lodgment for + themselves in that secluded corner of New England. Clemens wrote + without delay, as follows: + + + To R. W. Gilder, in New York: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, + June 7, '04. +DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what to +do: at last I went to the girls with an idea: to ask the Gilders to get +us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time they have not +shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you and shall hope to +be in time. + +An, hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine went silent +out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and has lost his way. She +who is gone was our head, she was our hands. We are now trying to make +plans--we: we who have never made a plan before, nor ever needed to. If +she could speak to us she would make it all simple and easy with a word, +and our perplexities would vanish away. If she had known she was near to +death she would have told us where to go and what to do: but she was not +suspecting, neither were we. (She had been chatting cheerfully a moment +before, and in an instant she was gone from us and we did not know it. +We were not alarmed, we did not know anything had happened. It was a +blessed death--she passed away without knowing it.) She was all our +riches and she is gone: she was our breath, she was our life and now we +are nothing. + +We send you our love--and with it the love of you that was in her heart +when she died. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Howells wrote his words of sympathy, adding: "The character which + now remains a memory was one of the most perfect ever formed on the + earth," and again, after having received Clemens's letter: "I cannot + speak of your wife's having kept that letter of mine where she did. + You know how it must humiliate a man in his unworthiness to have + anything of his so consecrated. She hallowed what she touched, far + beyond priests." + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, '04. + June 12, 6 p. m. +DEAR HOWELLS,--We have to sit and hold our hands and wait--in the silence +and solitude of this prodigious house; wait until June 25, then we go to +Naples and sail in the Prince Oscar the 26th. There is a ship 12 days +earlier (but we came in that one.) I see Clara twice a day--morning and +evening--greeting--nothing more is allowed. She keeps her bed, and says +nothing. She has not cried yet. I wish she could cry. It would break +Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourselves from all the friends that +call--though of course only intimates come. Intimates--but they are not +the old old friends, the friends of the old, old times when we laughed. + +Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog that I knew in the +old times! and could put my arms around his neck and tell him all, +everything, and ease my heart. + +Think-in 3 hours it will be a week!--and soon a month; and by and by a +year. How fast our dead fly from us. + +She loved you so, and was always as pleased as a child with any notice +you took of her. + +Soon your wife will be with you, oh fortunate man! And John, whom mine +was so fond of. The sight of him was such a delight to her. Lord, the +old friends, how dear they are. + S. L. C. + + + To Rev. J. R. Twichell, in Hartford: + + VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, + June 18, '04. +DEAR JOE,--It is 13 days. I am bewildered and must remain so for a time +longer. It was so sudden, so unexpected. Imagine a man worth a hundred +millions who finds himself suddenly penniless and fifty million in debt +in his old age. + +I was richer than any other person in the world, and now I am that pauper +without peer. Some day I will tell you about it, not now. + MARK. + + + A tide of condolence flowed in from all parts of the world. It was + impossible to answer all. Only a few who had been their closest + friends received a written line, but the little printed + acknowledgment which was returned was no mere formality. It was a + heartfelt, personal word. + + They arrived in America in July, and were accompanied by Twichell to + Elmira, and on the 14th Mrs. Clemens was laid to rest by the side of + Susy and little Langdon. R. W. Gilder had arranged for them to + occupy, for the summer, a cottage on his place at Tyringham, in the + Berkshire Hills. By November they were at the Grosvenor, in New + York, preparing to establish themselves in a house which they had + taken on the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue--Number 21. + + + To F. N. Doubleday, in New York: + +DEAR DOUBLEDAY,--I did not know you were going to England: I would have +freighted you with such messages of homage and affection to Kipling. +And I would have pressed his hand, through you, for his sympathy with +me in my crushing loss, as expressed by him in his letter to Gilder. +You know my feeling for Kipling and that it antedates that expression. + +I was glad that the boys came here to invite me to the house-warming and +I think they understood why a man in the shadow of a calamity like mine +could not go. + +It has taken three months to repair and renovate our house--corner of 9th +and 5th Avenue, but I shall be in it in io or 15 days hence. Much of the +furniture went into it today (from Hartford). We have not seen it for 13 +years. Katy Leary, our old housekeeper, who has been in our service more +than 24 years, cried when she told me about it to-day. She said "I had +forgotten it was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens right back to +me--in that old time when she was so young and lovely." + +Jean and my secretary and the servants whom we brought from Italy because +Mrs. Clemens liked them so well, are still keeping house in the Berkshire +hills--and waiting. Clara (nervously wrecked by her mother's death) is +in the hands of a specialist in 69th St., and I shall not be allowed to +have any communication with her--even telephone--for a year. I am in +this comfortable little hotel, and still in bed--for I dasn't budge till +I'm safe from my pet devil, bronchitis. + +Isn't it pathetic? One hour and ten minutes before Mrs. Clemens died I +was saying to her "To-day, after five months search, I've found the villa +that will content you: to-morrow you will examine the plans and give it +your consent and I will buy it." Her eyes danced with pleasure, for she +longed for a home of her own. And there, on that morrow, she lay white +and cold. And unresponsive to my reverent caresses--a new thing to me +and a new thing to her; that had not happened before in five and thirty +years. + +I am coming to see you and Mrs. Doubleday by and bye. She loved and +honored Mrs. Doubleday and her work. + Always yours, + MARK. + + + It was a presidential year and the air was thick with politics. + Mark Twain was no longer actively interested in the political + situation; he was only disheartened by the hollowness and pretense + of office-seeking, and the methods of office-seekers in general. + Grieved that Twichell should still pin his faith to any party when + all parties were so obviously venal and time-serving, he wrote in + outspoken and rather somber protest. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + THE GROSVENOR, Nov. 4, '04. +Oh, dear! get out of that sewer--party politics--dear Joe. At least +with your mouth. We hail only two men who could make speeches for their +parties and preserve their honor and their dignity. One of them is dead. +Possibly there were four. I am sorry for John Hay; sorry and ashamed. +And yet I know he couldn't help it. He wears the collar, and he had to +pay the penalty. Certainly he had no more desire to stand up before a +mob of confiding human incapables and debauch them than you had. +Certainly he took no more real pleasure in distorting history, concealing +facts, propagating immoralities, and appealing to the sordid side of +human nature than did you; but he was his party's property, and he had to +climb away down and do it. + +It is interesting, wonderfully interesting--the miracles which party- +politics can do with a man's mental and moral make-up. Look at McKinley, +Roosevelt, and yourself: in private life spotless in character; +honorable, honest, just, humane, generous; scorning trickeries, +treacheries, suppressions of the truth, mistranslations of the meanings +of facts, the filching of credit earned by another, the condoning of +crime, the glorifying of base acts: in public political life the reverse +of all this. + +McKinley was a silverite--you concealed it. Roosevelt was a silverite-- +you concealed it. Parker was a silverite--you publish it. Along with a +shudder and a warning: "He was unsafe then. Is he any safer now?" + +Joe, even I could be guilty of such a thing as that--if I were in party- +politics; I really believe it. + +Mr. Cleveland gave the country the gold standard; by implication you +credit the matter to the Republican party. + +By implication you prove the whole annual pension-scoop, concealing the +fact that the bulk of the money goes to people who in no way deserve it. +You imply that all the batteners upon this bribery-fund are Republicans. +An indiscreet confession, since about half of them must have been +Democrats before they were bought. + +You as good as praise Order 78. It is true you do not shout, and you do +not linger, you only whisper and skip--still, what little you do in the +matter is complimentary to the crime. + +It means, if it means anything, that our outlying properties will all be +given up by the Democrats, and our flag hauled down. All of them? Not +only the properties stolen by Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt, but the +properties honestly acquired? Joe, did you believe that hardy statement +when you made it? Yet you made it, and there it stands in permanent +print. Now what moral law would suffer if we should give up the stolen +ones? But-- + +"You know our standard-bearer. He will maintain all that we have +gained"--by whatever process. Land, I believe you! + +By George, Joe, you are as handy at the game as if you had been in +training for it all your life. Your campaign Address is built from the +ground up upon the oldest and best models. There isn't a paragraph in it +whose facts or morals will wash--not even a sentence, I believe. + +But you will soon be out of this. You didn't want to do it--that is +sufficiently apparent, thanks be!--but you couldn't well get out of it. +In a few days you will be out of it, and then you can fumigate yourself +and take up your legitimate work again and resume your clean and +wholesome private character once more and be happy--and useful. + +I know I ought to hand you some guff, now, as propitiation and apology +for these reproaches, but on the whole I believe I won't. + +I have inquired, and find that Mitsikuri does not arrive here until to- +morrow night. I shall watch out, and telephone again, for I greatly want +to see him. + Always Yours, + MARK. + +P-S- Nov, 4. I wish I could learn to remember that it is unjust and +dishonorable to put blame upon the human race for any of its acts. For +it did not make itself, it did not make its nature, it is merely a +machine, it is moved wholly by outside influences, it has no hand in +creating the outside influences nor in choosing which of them it will +welcome or reject, its performance is wholly automatic, it has no more +mastership nor authority over its mind than it has over its stomach, +which receives material from the outside and does as it pleases with it, +indifferent to it's proprietor's suggestions, even, let alone his +commands; wherefore, whatever the machine does--so called crimes and +infamies included--is the personal act of its Maker, and He, solely, is +responsible. I wish I could learn to pity the human race instead of +censuring it and laughing at it; and I could, if the outside influences +of old habit were not so strong upon my machine. It vexes me to catch +myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt, and blaming the +soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither praise nor blame is +due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he being merely a +helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand of God. + + Through a misunderstanding, Clemens, something more than a year + earlier, had severed his connection with the Players' Club, of which + he had been one of the charter members. Now, upon his return to New + York, a number of his friends joined in an invitation to him to + return. It was not exactly a letter they sent, but a bit of an old + Scotch song-- + + "To Mark Twain + from + The Clansmen. + Will ye no come back again, + Will ye no come back again? + Better lo'ed ye canna be. + Will ye no come back again?" + + Those who signed it were David Monroe, of the North American Review; + Robert Reid, the painter, and about thirty others of the Round Table + Group, so called because its members were accustomed to lunching at + a large round table in a bay window of the Player dining-room. Mark + Twain's reply was prompt and heartfelt. He wrote: + + + To Robt. Reid and the Others: + +WELL-BELOVED,--Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charley's heart, +if he had one, and certainly they have gone to mine. I shall be glad and +proud to come back again after such a moving and beautiful compliment as +this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope you can poll the +necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate. It will be many months +before I can foregather with you, for this black border is not +perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the loss of one whose memory +is the only thing I worship. + +It is not necessary for me to thank you--and words could not deliver what +I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope in the small +casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to me. + + S. L. C. + + +A year later, Mark Twain did "come back again," as an honorary life +member, and was given a dinner of welcome by those who had signed the +lines urging his return. + + + + +XLIV + +LETTERS OF 1905. TO TWICHELL, MR. DUNEKA AND OTHERS. +POLITICS AND HUMANITY. A SUMMER AT DUBLIN. MARK TWAIN AT 70 + + In 1884 Mark Twain had abandoned the Republican Party to vote for + Cleveland. He believed the party had become corrupt, and to his + last day it was hard for him to see anything good in Republican + policies or performance. He was a personal friend of Thedore + Roosevelt's but, as we have seen in a former letter, Roosevelt the + politician rarely found favor in his eyes. With or without + justification, most of the President's political acts invited his + caustic sarcasm and unsparing condemnation. Another letter to + Twichell of this time affords a fair example. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + Feb. 16, '05. +DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the +President if I could only find the words to define it with. Here they +are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome: "For twenty years I have loved +Roosevelt the man and hated Roosevelt the statesman and politician." + +It's mighty good. Every time, in 25 years, that I have met Roosevelt the +man, a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the hand-grip; +but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman and politician, +I find him destitute of morals and not respectworthy. It is plain that +where his political self and his party self are concerned he has nothing +resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations he is naively +indifferent to the restraints of duty and even unaware of them; ready to +kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever it gets in the way; and +whenever he smells a vote, not only willing but eager to buy it, give +extravagant rates for it and pay the bill not out of his own pocket or +the party's, but out of the nation's, by cold pillage. As per Order 78 +and the appropriation of the Indian trust funds. + +But Roosevelt is excusable--I recognize it and (ought to) concede it. +We are all insane, each in his own way, and with insanity goes +irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to keep +in mind that Theodore, as statesman arid politician, is insane and +irresponsible. + +Do not throw these enlightenments aside, but study them, let them raise +you to higher planes and make you better. You taught me in my callow +days, let me pay back the debt now in my old age out of a thesaurus with +wisdom smelted from the golden ores of experience. + Ever yours for sweetness and light + MARK. + + + The next letter to Twichell takes up politics and humanity in + general, in a manner complimentary to neither. Mark Twain was never + really a pessimist, but he had pessimistic intervals, such as come + to most of us in life's later years, and at such times he let + himself go without stint concerning "the damned human race," as he + called it, usually with a manifest sense of indignation that he + should be a member of it. In much of his later writing-- + A Mysterious Stranger for example--he said his say with but small + restraint, and certainly in his purely intellectual moments he was + likely to be a pessimist of the most extreme type, capably damning + the race and the inventor of it. Yet, at heart, no man loved his + kind more genuinely, or with deeper compassion, than Mark Twain, + perhaps for its very weaknesses. It was only that he had intervals + --frequent intervals, and rather long ones--when he did not admire + it, and was still more doubtful as to the ways of providence. + + + To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford: + + March 14, '05. +DEAR JOE,--I have a Puddn'head maxim: + +"When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an +optimist after it, he knows too little." + +It is with contentment, therefore, that I reflect that I am better and +wiser than you. Joe, you seem to be dealing in "bulks," now; the "bulk" +of the farmers and U. S. Senators are "honest." As regards purchase and +sale with money? Who doubts it? Is that the only measure of honesty? +Aren't there a dozen kinds of honesty which can't be measured by the +money-standard? Treason is treason--and there's more than one form of +it; the money-form is but one of them. When a person is disloyal to any +confessed duty, he is plainly and simply dishonest, and knows it; knows +it, and is privately troubled about it and not proud of himself. Judged +by this standard--and who will challenge the validity of it?--there isn't +an honest man in Connecticut, nor in the Senate, nor anywhere else. I do +not even except myself, this time. + +Am I finding fault with you and the rest of the populace? No--I assure +you I am not. For I know the human race's limitations, and this makes it +my duty--my pleasant duty--to be fair to it. Each person in it is honest +in one or several ways, but no member of it is honest in all the ways +required by--by what? By his own standard. Outside of that, as I look +at it, there is no obligation upon him. + +Am I honest? I give you my word of honor (private) I am not. For seven +years I have suppressed a book which my conscience tells me I ought to +publish. I hold it a duty to publish it. There are other difficult +duties which I am equal to, but I am not equal to that one. Yes, even I +am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. +We are certainly all honest in one or several ways--every man in the +world--though I have reason to think I am the only one whose black-list +runs so light. Sometimes I feel lonely enough in this lofty solitude. + +Yes, oh, yes, I am not overlooking the "steady progress from age to age +of the coming of the kingdom of God and righteousness." "From age to +age"--yes, it describes that giddy gait. I (and the rocks) will not live +to see it arrive, but that is all right--it will arrive, it surely will. +But you ought not to be always ironically apologizing for the Deity. If +that thing is going to arrive, it is inferable that He wants it to +arrive; and so it is not quite kind of you, and it hurts me, to see you +flinging sarcasms at the gait of it. And yet it would not be fair in me +not to admit that the sarcasms are deserved. When the Deity wants a +thing, and after working at it for "ages and ages" can't show even a +shade of progress toward its accomplishment, we--well, we don't laugh, +but it is only because we dasn't. The source of "righteousness"--is in +the heart? Yes. And engineered and directed by the brain? Yes. Well, +history and tradition testify that the heart is just about what it was in +the beginning; it has undergone no shade of change. Its good and evil +impulses and their consequences are the same today that they were in Old +Bible times, in Egyptian times, in Greek times, in Middle Age times, in +Twentieth Century times. There has been no change. + +Meantime, the brain has undergone no change. It is what it always was. +There are a few good brains and a multitude of poor ones. It was so in +Old Bible times and in all other times--Greek, Roman, Middle Ages and +Twentieth Century. Among the savages--all the savages--the average brain +is as competent as the average brain here or elsewhere. I will prove it +to you, some time, if you like. And there are great brains among them, +too. I will prove that also, if you like. + +Well, the 19th century made progress--the first progress after "ages and +ages"--colossal progress. In what? Materialities. Prodigious +acquisitions were made in things which add to the comfort of many and +make life harder for as many more. But the addition to righteousness? +Is that discoverable? I think not. The materialities were not invented +in the interest of righteousness; that there is more righteousness in the +world because of them than there, was before, is hardly demonstrable, I +think. In Europe and America, there is a vast change (due to them) in +ideals--do you admire it? All Europe and all America, are feverishly +scrambling for money. Money is the supreme ideal--all others take tenth +place with the great bulk of the nations named. Money-lust has always +existed, but not in the history of the world was it ever a craze, a +madness, until your time and mine. This lust has rotted these nations; +it has made them hard, sordid, ungentle, dishonest, oppressive. + +Did England rise against the infamy of the Boer war? No--rose in favor +of it. Did America rise against the infamy of the Phillipine war? No-- +rose in favor of it. Did Russia rise against the infamy of the present +war? No--sat still and said nothing. Has the Kingdom of God advanced in +Russia since the beginning of time? + +Or in Europe and America, considering the vast backward step of the +money-lust? Or anywhere else? If there has been any progress toward +righteousness since the early days of Creation--which, in my ineradicable +honesty, I am obliged to doubt--I think we must confine it to ten per +cent of the populations of Christendom, (but leaving, Russia, Spain and +South America entirely out.) This gives us 320,000,000 to draw the ten +per cent from. That is to say, 32,000,000 have advanced toward +righteousness and the Kingdom of God since the "ages and ages" have been +flying along, the Deity sitting up there admiring. Well, you see it +leaves 1,200,000,000 out of the race. They stand just where they have +always stood; there has been no change. + +N. B. No charge for these informations. Do come down soon, Joe. + With love, + MARK. + + + St. Clair McKelway, of The Brooklyn Eagle, narrowly escaped injuries + in a railway accident, and received the following. Clemens and + McKelway were old friends. + + + To St. Clair McKelway, in Brooklyn: + + 21 FIFTH AVE. Sunday Morning. + April 30, 1905. +DEAR McKELWAY, Your innumerable friends are grateful, most grateful. + +As I understand the telegrams, the engineer of your train had never seen +a locomotive before. Very well, then, I am once more glad that there is +an Ever-watchful Providence to foresee possible results and send Ogdens +and McIntyres along to save our friends. + +The Government's Official report, showing that our railways killed twelve +hundred persons last year and injured sixty thousand convinces me that +under present conditions one Providence is not enough to properly and +efficiently take care of our railroad business. But it is +characteristically American--always trying to get along short-handed and +save wages. + +I am helping your family congratulate themselves, and am your friend as +always. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens did not spend any more summers at Quarry Farm. All its + associations were beautiful and tender, but they could only sadden + him. The life there had been as of another world, sunlit, idyllic, + now forever vanished. For the summer of 1905 he leased the Copley + Green house at Dublin, New Hampshire, where there was a Boston + colony of writing and artistic folk, including many of his long-time + friends. Among them was Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who + wrote a hearty letter of welcome when he heard the news. Clemens + replied in kind. + + + To Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in Boston: + + 21 FIFTH AVE. Sunday, March 26, z9o.5. +DEAR COL. HIGGINSON,--I early learned that you would be my neighbor in +the Summer and I rejoiced, recognizing in you and your family a large +asset. I hope for frequent intercourse between the two households. I +shall have my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the +rest-cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk Conn and we shall not +see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the middle of October. + +Jean (the youngest daughter) went to Dublin and saw the house and came +back charmed with it. I know the Thayers of old--manifestly there is no +lack of attractions up there. Mrs. Thayer and I were shipmates in a wild +excursion perilously near 40 years ago. + +You say you "send with this" the story. Then it should be here but it +isn't, when I send a thing with another thing, the other thing goes but +the thing doesn't, I find it later--still on the premises. Will you look +it up now and send it? + +Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the fields, +with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired of waiting for that +man to get old. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. C. + + + Mark Twain was in his seventieth year, old neither in mind nor body, + but willing to take life more quietly, to refrain from travel and + gay events. A sort of pioneers' reunion was to be held on the + Pacific Coast, and a letter from Robert Fulton, of Reno, Nevada, + invited Clemens to attend. He did not go, but he sent a letter that + we may believe was the next best thing to those who heard it read. + + + To Robert Fulton, in Reno, Nevada: + + IN THE MOUNTAINS, + May 24, 1905. +DEAR MR. FULTON,--I remember, as if it were yesterday, that when I +disembarked from the overland stage in front of the Ormsby in Carson City +in August, 1861, I was not expecting to be asked to come again. I was +tired, discouraged, white with alkali dust, and did not know anybody; and +if you had said then, "Cheer up, desolate stranger, don't be down- +hearted--pass on, and come again in 1905," you cannot think how grateful +I would have been and how gladly I would have closed the contract. +Although I was not expecting to be invited, I was watching out for it, +and was hurt and disappointed when you started to ask me and changed it +to, "How soon are you going away?" + +But you have made it all right, now, the wound is closed. And so I thank +you sincerely for the invitation; and with you, all Reno, and if I were a +few years younger I would accept it, and promptly. I would go. I would +let somebody else do the oration, but, as for me, I would talk-- +just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and talk +--and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and +unforgettable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent +Hailand-farewell as they passed: Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, +Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart; Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, +North, Root,--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the +desperadoes, who made life a joy and the "Slaughter-house" a precious +possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, +Jack Williams and the rest of the crimson discipleship--and so on and so +on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more good +to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are doing +now. + +Those were the days! those old ones. They will come no more. Youth will +come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there +have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would +you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white +head. + +Good-bye. I drink to you all. Have a good time--and take an old man's +blessing. + MARK TWAIN. + + + A few days later he was writing to H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, + who had invited him for a visit in event of his coming to the Coast. + Henry James had just been there for a week and it was hoped that + Howells would soon follow. + + + To H. H. Bancroft, in San Francisco: + + UP IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, + May 27, 1905. +DEAR MR. BANCROFT,--I thank you sincerely for the tempting hospitalities +which you offer me, but I have to deny myself, for my wandering days are +over, and it is my desire and purpose to sit by the fire the rest of my +remnant of life and indulge myself with the pleasure and repose of work +--work uninterrupted and unmarred by duties or excursions. + +A man who like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next November has +no business to be flitting around the way Howells does--that shameless +old fictitious butter fly. (But if he comes, don't tell him I said it, +for it would hurt him and I wouldn't brush a flake of powder from his +wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his indestructible youth, +anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.) With thanks again, + Sincerely yours, + S. L. C. + + + Clemens found that the air of the New Hampshire hills agreed with + him and stimulated him to work. He began an entirely new version of + The Mysterious Stranger, of which he already had a bulky and nearly + finished manuscript, written in Vienna. He wrote several hundred + pages of an extravaganza entitled, Three Thousand Years Among the + Microbes, and then, having got his superabundant vitality reduced + (it was likely to expend itself in these weird mental exploits), + he settled down one day and wrote that really tender and beautiful + idyl, Eve's Diary, which he had begun, or at least planned, the + previous summer at Tyringham. In a letter to Mr. Frederick A. + Duneka, general manager of Harper & Brothers, he tells something of + the manner of the story; also his revised opinion of Adam's Diary, + written in '93, and originally published as a souvenir of Niagara + Falls. + + + To Frederick A. Duneka, in New York: + + DUBLIN, July 16, '05. +DEAR MR. DUNEKA,--I wrote Eve's Diary, she using Adam's Diary as her +(unwitting and unconscious) text, of course, since to use any other text +would have been an imbecility--then I took Adam's Diary and read it. It +turned my stomach. It was not literature; yet it had been literature +once--before I sold it to be degraded to an advertisement of the Buffalo +Fair. I was going to write and ask you to melt the plates and put it out +of print. + +But this morning I examined it without temper, and saw that if I +abolished the advertisement it would be literature again. + +So I have done it. I have struck out 700 words and inserted 5 MS pages +of new matter (650 words), and now Adam's Diary is dam good--sixty times +as good as it ever was before. + +I believe it is as good as Eve's Diary now--no, it's not quite that good, +I guess, but it is good enough to go in the same cover with Eve's. I'm +sure of that. + +I hate to have the old Adam go out any more--don't put it on the presses +again, let's put the new one in place of it; and next Xmas, let us bind +Adam and Eve in one cover. They score points against each other--so, if +not bound together, some of the points would not be perceived..... + +P. S. Please send another Adam's Diary, so that I can make 2 revised +copies. Eve's Diary is Eve's love-Story, but we will not name it that. + Yrs ever, + MARK. + + + The peace-making at Portsmouth between Japan and Russia was not + satisfactory to Mark Twain, who had fondly hoped there would be no + peace until, as he said, "Russian liberty was safe. One more battle + would have abolished the waiting chains of millions upon millions of + unborn Russians and I wish it could have been fought." He set down + an expression of his feelings for the Associated Press, and it + invited many letters. Charles Francis Adams wrote, "It attracted my + attention because it so exactly expresses the views I have myself + all along entertained." + + Clemens was invited by Colonel George Harvey to dine with the + Russian emissaries, Baron Rosen and Sergius Witte. He declined, but + his telegram so pleased Witte that he asked permission to publish + it, and announced that he would show it to the Czar. + + + Telegram. To Col. George Harvey, in New York: + +TO COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than +glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here +equipped with nothing but a pen, and with it have divided the honors of +the war with the sword. It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries +history will not get done admiring these men who attempted what the world +regarded as impossible and achieved it. + + Witte would not have cared to show the Czar the telegram in its + original form, which follows. + + + Telegram (unsent). To Col. George Harvey, in New York: + +TO COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than +glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians who with the +pen have annulled, obliterated, and abolished every high achievement of +the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a tremendous war into a gay +and blithesome comedy. If I may, let me in all respect and honor salute +them as my fellow-humorists, I taking third place, as becomes one who was +not born to modesty, but by diligence and hard work is acquiring it. + MARK. + + Nor still another unsent form, perhaps more characteristic than + either of the foregoing. + + Telegram (unsent). To Col. George Harvey, in New York: + +DEAR COLONEL,--No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow +send for me. + MARK. + + + To Mrs. Crane, Quarry Farm: + + DUBLIN, Sept. 24, '05. +Susy dear, I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was +sitting up in my bed (here) at my right and looking as young and sweet as +she used to do when she was in health. She said: "what is the name of +your sweet sister?" I said, "Pamela." "Oh, yes, that is it, I thought +it was--(naming a name which has escaped me) "Won't you write it down for +me?" I reached eagerly for a pen and pad--laid my hands upon both--then +said to myself, " It is only a dream," and turned back sorrowfully and +there she was, still. The conviction flamed through me that our lamented +disaster was a dream, and this a reality. I said, "How blessed it is, +how blessed it is, it was all a dream, only a dream!" She only smiled +and did not ask what dream I meant, which surprised me. She leaned her +head against mine and I kept saying, "I was perfectly sure it was a +dream, I never would have believed it wasn't." + +I think she said several things, but if so they are gone from my memory. +I woke and did not know I had been dreaming. She was gone. I wondered +how she could go without my knowing it, but I did not spend any thought +upon that, I was too busy thinking of how vivid and real was the dream +that we had lost her and how unspeakably blessed it was to find that it +was not true and that she was still ours and with us. + S. L. C. + + + One day that summer Mark Twain received a letter from the actress, + Minnie Maddern Fiske, asking him to write something that would aid + her in her crusade against bull-fighting. The idea appealed to him; + he replied at once. + + + To Mrs. Fiske: + +DEAR MRS. FISKE,--I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get +it to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try +again--and yet again--and again. I am used to this. It has taken me +twelve years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I +think. --[Probably "The Death Disk."]-- So do not be discouraged; I will +stick to this one in the same way. Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + He did not delay in his beginning, and a few weeks later was sending + word to his publisher about it. + + + To Frederick A. Duneka, in New York: + + Oct. 2, '05. +DEAR MR. DUNEKA,--I have just finished a short story which I "greatly +admire," and so will you--"A Horse's Tale"--about 15,000 words, at a +rough guess. It has good fun in it, and several characters, and is +lively. I shall finish revising it in a few days or more, then Jean will +type it. + +Don't you think you can get it into the Jan. and Feb. numbers and issue +it as a dollar booklet just after the middle of Jan. when you issue the +Feb. number? + +It ought to be ably illustrated. + +Why not sell simultaneous rights, for this once, to the Ladies' Home +Journal or Collier's, or both, and recoup yourself?--for I would like to +get it to classes that can't afford Harper's. Although it doesn't +preach, there's a sermon concealed in it. + Yr sincerely, + MARK. + + + Five days later he added some rather interesting facts concerning + the new story. + + + To F. A. Duneka, in New York: + + Oct. 7, 1906. ['05] +DEAR MR. DUNEKA,--..... I've made a poor guess as to number of words. +I think there must be 20,000. My usual page of MS. contains about 130 +words; but when I am deeply interested in my work and dead to everything +else, my hand-writing shrinks and shrinks until there's a great deal more +than 130 on a page--oh, yes, a deal more. Well, I discover, this +morning, that this tale is written in that small hand. + +This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my daughter, Susy, +whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good while before I found +it out. + +So I am sending you her picture to use--and to reproduce with +photographic exactness the unsurpassable expression and all. May you +find an artist who has lost an idol! + +Take as good care of the picture as you can and restore it to me when I +come. + +I hope you will illustrate this tale considerably. Not humorous +pictures. No. When they are good (or bad) one's humor gets no chance to +play surprises on the reader. A humorous subject illustrated seriously +is all right, but a humorous artist is no fit person for such work. You +see, the humorous writer pretends to absolute seriousness (when he knows +his trade) then for an artist--to step in and give his calculated gravity +all away with a funny picture--oh, my land! It gives me the dry gripes +just to think of it. It would be just about up to the average comic +artist's intellectual level to make a funny picture of the horse kicking +the lungs out of a trader. Hang it, the remark is funny--because the +horse is not aware of it but the fact is not humorous, it is tragic and +it is no subject for a humorous picture. + +Could I be allowed to sit in judgment upon the pictures before they are +accepted--at least those in which Cathy may figure? + +This is not essential. It is but a suggestion, and it is hereby +withdrawn, if it would be troublesome or cause delay. + +I hope you will reproduce the cat-pile, full page. And save the photo +for me in as good condition as possible. When Susy and Clara were little +tots those cats had their profoundest worship, and there is no duplicate +of this picture. These cats all had thundering names, or inappropriate +ones--furnished by the children with my help. One was named Buffalo +Bill. + +Are you interested in coincidences? + +After discovering, about the middle of the book, that Cathy was Susy +Clemens, I put her picture with my MS., to be reproduced. After the book +was finished it was discovered that Susy had a dim model of Soldier Boy +in her arms; I had forgotten all about that toy. + +Then I examined the cat-picture and laid it with the MS. for +introduction; but it was not until yesterday that I remembered that one +of the cats was named Buffalo Bill. + Sincerely yours, + MARK. + + + The reference in this letter to shrinkage of his hand-writing with + the increasing intensity of his interest, and the consequent + addition of the number of words to the page, recalls another fact, + noted by Mr. Duneka, viz.: that because of his terse Anglo-Saxon + diction, Mark Twain could put more words on a magazine page than any + other writer. It is hardly necessary to add that he got more force + into what he put on the page for the same reason. + + There was always a run of reporters at Mark Twain's New York home. + His opinion was sought for on every matter of public interest, and + whatever happened to him in particular was considered good for at + least half a column of copy, with his name as a catch-line at the + top. When it was learned that he was to spend the summer in New + Hampshire, the reporters had all wanted to find out about it. Now + that the summer was ending, they began to want to know how he had + liked it, what work he had done and what were his plans for another + year. As they frequently applied to his publishers for these + details it was finally suggested to him that he write a letter + furnishing the required information. His reply, handed to Mr. + Duneka, who was visiting him at the moment, is full of interest. + + + Mem. for Mr. Duneka: + + DUBLIN, Oct. 9, 1905. +.....As to the other matters, here are the details. + +Yes, I have tried a number of summer homes, here and in Europe together. + +Each of these homes had charms of its own; charms and delights of its +own, and some of them--even in Europe had comforts. Several of them had +conveniences, too. They all had a "view." + +It is my conviction that there should always be some water in a view-- +a lake or a river, but not the ocean, if you are down on its level. I +think that when you are down on its level it seldom inflames you with an +ecstasy which you could not get out of a sand-flat. It is like being on +board ship, over again; indeed it is worse than that, for there's three +months of it. On board ship one tires of the aspects in a couple of +days, and quits looking. The same vast circle of heaving humps is spread +around you all the time, with you in the centre of it and never gaining +an inch on the horizon, so far as you can see; for variety, a flight of +flying-fish, mornings; a flock of porpoises throwing summersaults +afternoons; a remote whale spouting, Sundays; occasional phosphorescent +effects, nights; every other day a streak of black smoke trailing along +under the horizon; on the one single red letter day, the illustrious +iceberg. I have seen that iceberg thirty-four times in thirty-seven +voyages; it is always the same shape, it is always the same size, it +always throws up the same old flash when the sun strikes it; you may set +it on any New York door-step of a June morning and light it up with a +mirror-flash; and I will engage to recognize it. It is artificial, and +it is provided and anchored out by the steamer companies. I used to like +the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get excited over any kind +of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran out, if it was a +fortnight. + +Last January, when we were beginning to inquire about a home for this +summer, I remembered that Abbott Thayer had said, three years before, +that the New Hampshire highlands was a good place. He was right--it was +a good place. Any place that is good for an artist in paint is good for +an artist in morals and ink. Brush is here, too; so is Col. T. W. +Higginson; so is Raphael Pumpelly; so is Mr. Secretary Hitchcock; so is +Henderson; so is Learned; so is Summer; so is Franklin MacVeigh; so is +Joseph L. Smith; so is Henry Copley Greene, when I am not occupying his +house, which I am doing this season. Paint, literature, science, +statesmanship, history, professorship, law, morals,--these are all +represented here, yet crime is substantially unknown. + +The summer homes of these refugees are sprinkled, a mile apart, among the +forest-clad hills, with access to each other by firm smooth country roads +which are so embowered in dense foliage that it is always twilight in +there, and comfortable. The forests are spider-webbed with these good +roads, they go everywhere; but for the help of the guide-boards, the +stranger would not arrive anywhere. + +The village--Dublin--is bunched together in its own place, but a good +telephone service makes its markets handy to all those outliars. I have +spelt it that way to be witty. The village executes orders on, the +Boston plan--promptness and courtesy. + +The summer homes are high-perched, as a rule, and have contenting +outlooks. The house we occupy has one. Monadnock, a soaring double +hump, rises into the sky at its left elbow--that is to say, it is close +at hand. From the base of the long slant of the mountain the valley +spreads away to the circling frame of the hills, and beyond the frame the +billowy sweep of remote great ranges rises to view and flows, fold upon +fold, wave upon wave, soft and blue and unwordly, to the horizon fifty +miles away. In these October days Monadnock and the valley and its +framing hills make an inspiring picture to look at, for they are +sumptuously splashed and mottled and be-torched from sky-line to sky-line +with the richest dyes the autumn can furnish; and when they lie flaming +in the full drench of the mid-afternoon sun, the sight affects the +spectator physically, it stirs his blood like military music. + +These summer homes are commodious, well built, and well furnished--facts +which sufficiently indicate that the owners built them to live in +themselves. They have furnaces and wood fireplaces, and the rest of the +comforts and conveniences of a city home, and can be comfortably occupied +all the year round. + +We cannot have this house next season, but I have secured Mrs. Upton's +house which is over in the law and science quarter, two or three miles +from here, and about the same distance from the art, literary, and +scholastic groups. The science and law quarter has needed improving, +this good while. + +The nearest railway-station is distant something like an hour's drive; it +is three hours from there to Boston, over a branch line. You can go to +New York in six hours per branch lines if you change cars every time you +think of it, but it is better to go to Boston and stop over and take the +trunk line next day, then you do not get lost. + +It is claimed that the atmosphere of the New Hampshire highlands is +exceptionally bracing and stimulating, and a fine aid to hard and +continuous work. It is a just claim, I think. I came in May, and +wrought 35 successive days without a break. It is possible that I could +not have done it elsewhere. I do not know; I have not had any +disposition to try it, before. I think I got the disposition out of the +atmosphere, this time. I feel quite sure, in fact, that that is where it +came from. + +I am ashamed to confess what an intolerable pile of manuscript I ground +out in the 35 days, therefore I will keep the number of words to myself. +I wrote the first half of a long tale--"The Adventures of a Microbe" and +put it away for a finish next summer, and started another long tale--"The +Mysterious Stranger;" I wrote the first half of it and put it with the +other for a finish next summer. I stopped, then. I was not tired, but I +had no books on hand that needed finishing this year except one that was +seven years old. After a little I took that one up and finished it. Not +for publication, but to have it ready for revision next summer. + +Since I stopped work I have had a two months' holiday. The summer has +been my working time for 35 years; to have a holiday in it (in America) +is new for me. I have not broken it, except to write "Eve's Diary" and +"A Horse's Tale"--short things occupying the mill 12 days. + +This year our summer is 6 months long and ends with November and the +flight home to New York, but next year we hope and expect to stretch it +another month and end it the first of December. + + [No signature.] + + + The fact that he was a persistent smoker was widely known, and many + friends and admirers of Mark Twain sent him cigars, most of which he + could not use, because they were too good. He did not care for + Havana cigars, but smoked the fragrant, inexpensive domestic tobacco + with plenty of "pep" in it, as we say today. Now and then he had an + opportunity to head off some liberal friend, who wrote asking + permission to contribute to his cigar collection, as instance the + following. + + + To Rev. L. M. Powers, in Haverhill, Mass.: + + Nov. 9, 1905. +DEAR MR. POWERS,--I should accept your hospitable offer at once but for +the fact I couldn't do it and remain honest. That is to say if I allowed +you to send me what you believe to be good cigars it would distinctly +mean that I meant to smoke them, whereas I should do nothing of the kind. +I know a good cigar better than you do, for I have had 6o years +experience. + +No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than +anybody else; I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents I know +it to be either foreign or half-foreign, and unsmokeable. By me. I have +many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices from 20 cts apiece up to 1.66 +apiece; I bought none of them, they were all presents, they are an +accumulation of several years. I have never smoked one of them and never +shall, I work them off on the visitor. You shall have a chance when you +come. + +Pessimists are born not made; optimists are born not made; but no man is +born either pessimist wholly or optimist wholly, perhaps; he is +pessimistic along certain lines and optimistic along certain others. +That is my case. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In spite of all the fine photographs that were made of him, there + recurred constantly among those sent him to be autographed a print + of one which, years before, Sarony had made and placed on public + sale. It was a good photograph, mechanically and even artistically, + but it did not please Mark Twain. Whenever he saw it he recalled + Sarony with bitterness and severity. Once he received an inquiry + concerning it, and thus feelingly expressed himself. + + + To Mr. Row (no address): + + 21 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, + November 14, 1905. +DEAR MR. ROW,--That alleged portrait has a private history. Sarony was +as much of an enthusiast about wild animals as he was about photography; +and when Du Chaillu brought the first Gorilla to this country in 1819 he +came to me in a fever of excitement and asked me if my father was of +record and authentic. I said he was; then Sarony, without any abatement +of his excitement asked if my grandfather also was of record and +authentic. I said he was. Then Sarony, with still rising excitement and +with joy added to it, said he had found my great grandfather in the +person of the gorilla, and had recognized him at once by his resemblance +to me. I was deeply hurt but did not reveal this, because I knew Saxony +meant no offense for the gorilla had not done him any harm, and he was +not a man who would say an unkind thing about a gorilla wantonly. I went +with him to inspect the ancestor, and examined him from several points of +view, without being able to detect anything more than a passing +resemblance. "Wait," said Sarony with confidence, "let me show you." +He borrowed my overcoat - and put it on the gorilla. The result was +surprising. I saw that the gorilla while not looking distinctly like me +was exactly what my great grand father would have looked like if I had +had one. Sarong photographed the creature in that overcoat, and spread +the picture about the world. It has remained spread about the world ever +since. It turns up every week in some newspaper somewhere or other. It +is not my favorite, but to my exasperation it is everybody else's. +Do you think you could get it suppressed for me? I will pay the limit. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The year 1905 closed triumphantly for Mark Twain. The great + "Seventieth Birthday" dinner planned by Colonel George Harvey is + remembered to-day as the most notable festival occasion in New York + literary history. Other dinners and ovations followed. At seventy + he had returned to the world, more beloved, more honored than ever + before. + + + + +XLV + +LETTERS, 1906, TO VARIOUS PERSONS. THE FAREWELL LECTURE. A SECOND +SUMMER IN DUBLIN. BILLIARDS AND COPYRIGHT + + MARK TWAIN at "Pier Seventy," as he called it, paused to look + backward and to record some memoirs of his long, eventful past. The + Autobiography dictations begun in Florence were resumed, and daily + he traveled back, recalling long-ago scenes and all-but-forgotten + places. He was not without reminders. Now and again there came + some message that brought back the old days--the Tom Sawyer and Huck + Finn days--or the romance of the river that he never recalled other + than with tenderness and a tone of regret that it was gone. An + invitation to the golden wedding of two ancient friends moved and + saddened him, and his answer to it conveys about all the story of + life. + + + To Mr. and Mrs. Gordon: + + 21 FIFTH AVENUE, + Jan. 24, '06. +DEAR GORDONS,--I have just received your golden-wedding "At Home" and am +trying to adjust my focus to it and realize how much it means. It is +inconceivable! With a simple sweep it carries me back over a stretch of +time measurable only in astronomical terms and geological periods. +It brings before me Mrs. Gordon, young, round-limbed, handsome; and with +her the Youngbloods and their two babies, and Laura Wright, that +unspoiled little maid, that fresh flower of the woods and the prairies. +Forty-eight years ago! + +Life was a fairy-tale, then, it is a tragedy now. When I was 43 and John +Hay 41 he said life was a tragedy after 40, and I disputed it. Three +years ago he asked me to testify again: I counted my graves, and there +was nothing for me to say. + +I am old; I recognize it but I don't realize it. I wonder if a person +ever really ceases to feel young--I mean, for a whole day at a time. My +love to you both, and to all of us that are left. + MARK. + + + Though he used very little liquor of any kind, it was Mark Twain's + custom to keep a bottle of Scotch whiskey with his collection of + pipes and cigars and tobacco on a little table by his bed-side. + During restless nights he found a small quantity of it conducive to + sleep. Andrew Carnegie, learning of this custom, made it his + business to supply Scotch of his own special importation. The first + case came, direct from Scotland. When it arrived Clemens sent this + characteristic acknowledgment. + + + To Andrew Carnegie, in Scotland: + + 21 FIFTH AVE. Feb. 10, '06. +DEAR ST. ANDREW,--The whisky arrived in due course from over the water; +last week one bottle of it was extracted from the wood and inserted into +me, on the instalment plan, with this result: that I believe it to be the +best, smoothest whisky now on the planet. Thanks, oh, thanks: I have +discarded Peruna. + +Hoping that you three are well and happy and will be coming back before +the winter sets in. + I am, + Sincerely yours, + MARK. + + + It must have been a small bottle to be consumed by him in a week, or + perhaps he had able assistance. The next brief line refers to the + manuscript of his article, "Saint Joan of Arc," presented to the + museum at Rouen. + + + To Edward E. Clarke: + + 21 FIFTH AVE. Feb., 1906. +DEAR SIR,--I have found the original manuscript and with great pleasure I +transmit it herewith, also a printed copy. + +It is a matter of great pride to me to have any word of mine concerning +the world's supremest heroine honored by a place in that Museum. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The series of letters which follows was prepared by Mark Twain and + General Fred Grant, mainly with a view of advertising the lecture + that Clemens had agreed to deliver for the benefit of the Robert + Fulton Monument Association. It was, in fact, to be Mark Twain's + "farewell lecture," and the association had really proposed to pay + him a thousand dollars for it. The exchange of these letters, + however, was never made outside of Mark Twain's bed-room. Propped + against the pillows, pen in hand, with General Grant beside him, + they arranged the series with the idea of publication. Later the + plan was discarded, so that this pleasant foolery appears here for + the first, time. + + + PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL + + (Correspondence) + + Telegram + + Army Headquarters (date) +MARK TWAIN, New York,--Would you consider a proposal to talk at Carnegie +Hall for the benefit of the Robert Fulton Monument Association, of which +you are a Vice President, for a fee of a thousand dollars? + F. D. GRANT, + President, + Fulton Monument Association. + + + Telegraphic Answer: + +MAJOR-GENERAL F. D. GRANT, Army Headquarters,--I shall be glad to do it, +but I must stipulate that you keep the thousand dollars and add it to the +Monument fund as my contribution. + CLEMENS. + + +Letters: + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--You have the thanks of the Association, and the terms +shall be as you say. But why give all of it? Why not reserve a portion +--why should you do this work wholly without compensation? + Truly yours + FRED. D. GRANT. + + +MAJOR GENERAL GRANT, Army Headquarters. + +DEAR GENERAL,--Because I stopped talking for pay a good many years ago, +and I could not resume the habit now without a great deal of personal +discomfort. I love to hear myself talk, because I get so much +instruction and moral upheaval out of it, but I lose the bulk of this joy +when I charge for it. Let the terms stand. + +General, if I have your approval, I wish to use this good occasion to +retire permanently from the platform. + Truly yours + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--Certainly. But as an old friend, permit me to say, +Don't do that. Why should you?--you are not old yet. + Yours truly, + FRED D. GRANT. + + +DEAR GENERAL,--I mean the pay-platform; I shan't retire from the gratis- +platform until after I am dead and courtesy requires me to keep still and +not disturb the others. + +What shall I talk about? My idea is this: to instruct the audience about +Robert Fulton, and..... Tell me-was that his real name, or was it his +nom de plume? However, never mind, it is not important--I can skip it, +and the house will think I knew all about it, but forgot. Could you find +out for me if he was one of the Signers of the Declaration, and which +one? But if it is any trouble, let it alone, I can skip it. Was he out +with Paul Jones? Will you ask Horace Porter? And ask him if he brought +both of them home. These will be very interesting facts, if they can be +established. But never mind, don't trouble Porter, I can establish them +anyway. The way I look at it, they are historical gems--gems of the very +first water. + +Well, that is my idea, as I have said: first, excite the audience with a +spoonful of information about Fulton, then quiet down with a barrel of +illustration drawn by memory from my books--and if you don't say anything +the house will think they never heard of it before, because people don't +really read your books, they only say they do, to keep you from feeling +bad. Next, excite the house with another spoonful of Fultonian fact, +then tranquilize them again with another barrel of illustration. And so +on and so on, all through the evening; and if you are discreet and don't +tell them the illustrations don't illustrate anything, they won't notice +it and I will send them home as well-informed about Robert Fulton as I am +myself. Don't be afraid; I know all about audiences, they believe +everything you say, except when you are telling the truth. + Truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +P.S. Mark all the advertisements "Private and Confidential," otherwise +the people will not read them. + M. T. + + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--How long shall you talk? I ask in order that we may +be able to say when carriages may be called. + Very Truly yours, + HUGH GORDON MILLER, + Secretary. + + +DEAR MR. MILLER,--I cannot say for sure. It is my custom to keep on +talking till I get the audience cowed. Sometimes it takes an hour and +fifteen minutes, sometimes I can do it in an hour. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Mem. My charge is 2 boxes free. Not the choicest--sell the choicest, +and give me any 6-seat boxes you please. + S. L. C. + +I want Fred Grant (in uniform) on the stage; also the rest of the +officials of the Association; also other distinguished people--all the +attractions we can get. Also, a seat for Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine, who +may be useful to me if he is near me and on the front. + S. L. C. + + + The seat chosen for the writer of these notes was to be at the front + of the stage in order that the lecturer might lean over now and then + and pretend to be asking information concerning Fulton. I was not + entirely happy in the thought of this showy honor, and breathed more + freely when this plan was abandoned and the part assigned to General + Grant. + + The lecture was given in Carnegie Hall, which had been gayly + decorated for the occasion. The house was more than filled, and a + great sum of money was realized for the fund. + + It was that spring that Gorky and Tchaikowski, the Russian + revolutionists, came to America hoping to arouse interest in their + cause. The idea of the overthrow of the Russian dynasty was + pleasant to Mark Twain. Few things would have given him greater + comfort than to have known that a little more than ten years would + see the downfall of Russian imperialism. The letter which follows + was a reply to an invitation from Tchaikowski, urging him to speak + at one of the meetings. + + +DEAR MR. TCHAIKOWSKI,--I thank you for the honor of the invitation, but +I am not able to accept it, because on Thursday evening I shall be +presiding at a meeting whose object is to find remunerative work for +certain classes of our blind who would gladly support themselves if they +had the opportunity. + +My sympathies are with the Russian revolution, of course. It goes +without saying. I hope it will succeed, and now that I have talked with +you I take heart to believe it will. Government by falsified promises; +by lies, by treacheries, and by the butcher-knife for the aggrandizement +of a single family of drones and its idle and vicious kin has been borne +quite long enough in Russia, I should think, and it is to be hoped that +the roused nation, now rising in its strength, will presently put an end +to it and set up the republic in its place. Some of us, even of the +white headed, may live to see the blessed day when Czars and Grand Dukes +will be as scarce there as I trust they are in heaven. + Most sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN. + + + There came another summer at Dublin, New Hampshire, this time in the + fine Upton residence on the other slope of Monadnock, a place of + equally beautiful surroundings, and an even more extended view. + Clemens was at this time working steadily on his so-called + Autobiography, which was not that, in fact, but a series of + remarkable chapters, reminiscent, reflective, commentative, written + without any particular sequence as to time or subject-matter. He + dictated these chapters to a stenographer, usually in the open air, + sitting in a comfortable rocker or pacing up and down the long + veranda that faced a vast expanse of wooded slope and lake and + distant blue mountains. It became one of the happiest occupations + of his later years. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Maine: + + DUBLIN, Sunday, June 17, '06. +DEAR HOWELLS,-- ..... The dictating goes lazily and pleasantly on. With +intervals. I find that I have been at it, off and on, nearly two hours a +day for 155 days, since Jan. 9. To be exact I've dictated 75 hours in 80 +days and loafed 75 days. I've added 60,000 words in the month that I've +been here; which indicates that I've dictated during 20 days of that +time--40 hours, at an average of 1,500 words an hour. It's a plenty, and +I am satisfied. + +There's a good deal of "fat" I've dictated, (from Jan. 9) 210,000 words, +and the "fat" adds about 50,000 more. + +The "fat" is old pigeon-holed things, of the years gone by, which I or +editors didn't das't to print. For instance, I am dumping in the little +old book which I read to you in Hartford about 30 years ago and which you +said "publish--and ask Dean Stanley to furnish an introduction; he'll do +it." ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.") It reads quite to suit +me, without altering a word, now that it isn't to see print until I am +dead. + +To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs and assigns +burnt alive if they venture to print it this side of 2006 A.D.--which I +judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters if I live 3 or 4 +years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a stir when it comes +out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, along with other dead +pals. You are invited. + MARK. + + His tendency to estimate the measure of the work he was doing, and + had completed, must have clung to him from his old printer days. + + The chapter which was to get his heirs and assigns burned alive was + on the orthodox God, and there was more than one such chapter. In + the next letter he refers to two exquisite poems by Howells, and the + writer of these notes recalls his wonderful reading of them aloud. + 'In Our Town' was a collection of short stories then recently issued + by William Allen White. Howells had recommended them. + + + To W. D. Howells, in Maine: + + 21 FIFTH AVE., Tuesday Eve. +DEAR HOWELLS,--It is lovely of you to say those beautiful things--I don't +know how to thank you enough. But I love you, that I know. + +I read "After the Wedding" aloud and we felt all the pain of it and the +truth. It was very moving and very beautiful--would have been over- +comingly moving, at times, but for the haltings and pauses compelled by +the difficulties of MS--these were a protection, in that they furnished +me time to brace up my voice, and get a new start. Jean wanted to keep +the MS for another reading-aloud, and for "keeps," too, I suspected, but +I said it would be safest to write you about it. + +I like "In Our Town," particularly that Colonel, of the Lookout Mountain +Oration, and very particularly pages 212-16. I wrote and told White so. + +After "After the Wedding" I read "The Mother" aloud and sounded its human +deeps with your deep-sea lead. I had not read it before, since it was +first published. + +I have been dictating some fearful things, for 4 successive mornings--for +no eye but yours to see until I have been dead a century--if then. But +I got them out of my system, where they had been festering for years--and +that was the main thing. I feel better, now. + +I came down today on business--from house to house in 12 « hours, and +expected to arrive dead, but am neither tired nor sleepy. + Yours as always + MARK. + + + To William Allen White, in Emporia, Kans.: + + DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, + June 24, 1906. +DEAR MR. WHITE,--Howells told me that "In Our Town" was a charming book, +and indeed it is. All of it is delightful when read one's self, parts of +it can score finely when subjected to the most exacting of tests--the +reading aloud. Pages 197 and 216 are of that grade. I have tried them a +couple of times on the family, and pages 212 and 216 are qualified to +fetch any house of any country, caste or color, endowed with those riches +which are denied to no nation on the planet--humor and feeling. + +Talk again--the country is listening. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Witter Bynner, the poet, was one of the editors of McClure's + Magazine at this time, but was trying to muster the courage to give + up routine work for verse-making and the possibility of poverty. + Clemens was fond of Bynner and believed in his work. He did not + advise him, however, to break away entirely from a salaried + position--at least not immediately; but one day Bynner did so, and + reported the step he had taken, with some doubt as to the answer he + would receive. + + + To Witter Bynner, in New York: + + DUBLIN, Oct. 5, 1906. +DEAR POET,--You have certainly done right for several good reasons; at +least, of them, I can name two: + +1. With your reputation you can have your freedom and yet earn your +living. 2. if you fall short of succeeding to your wish, your +reputation will provide you another job. And so in high approval I +suppress the scolding and give you the saintly and fatherly pat instead. + MARK TWAIN. + + + On another occasion, when Bynner had written a poem to Clara + Clemens, her father pretended great indignation that the first poem + written by Bynner to any one in his household should not be to him, + and threatened revenge. At dinner shortly after he produced from + his pocket a slip of paper on which he had set down what he said was + "his only poem." He read the lines that follow: + + "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, + The saddest are these: It might have been. + Ah, say not so! as life grows longer, leaner, thinner, + We recognize, O God, it might have Bynner!" + + He returned to New York in October and soon after was presented by + Mrs. H. H. Rogers with a handsome billiard-table. + + He had a passion for the game, but had played comparatively little + since the old Hartford days of fifteen years before, when a group of + his friends used to assemble on Friday nights in the room at the top + of the house for long, strenuous games and much hilarity. Now the + old fever all came back; the fascinations of the game superseded + even his interest in the daily dictations. + + + To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + 21 FIFTH AVENUE, Monday, Nov., 1906. +DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--The billiard table is better than the doctors. It is +driving out the heartburn in a most promising way. I have a billiardist +on the premises, and I walk not less than ten miles every day with the +cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole of the exercise, nor +the most health-giving part of it, I think. Through the multitude of the +positions and attitudes it brings into play every muscle in the body and +exercises them all. + +The games begin right after luncheon, daily, and continue until midnight, +with 2 hours' intermission for dinner and music. And so it is 9 hours' +exercise per day, and 10 or 12 on Sunday. Yesterday and last night it +was 12--and I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The billiard +table, as a Sabbath breaker can beat any coal-breaker in Pennsylvania, +and give it 30 in, the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to daily billiards +he can do without doctors and the massageur, I think. + +We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour and a half from +New York. It is decided. It is to be built by contract, and is to come +within $25,000. + With love and many thanks. + S. L. C. + +P.S. Clara is in the sanitarium--till January 28 when her western +concert tour will begin. She is getting to be a mighty competent singer. +You must know Clara better; she is one of the very finest and completest +and most satisfactory characters I have ever met. Others knew it before, +but I have always been busy with other matters. + + + The "billiardist on the premises" was the writer of these notes, + who, earlier in the year, had become his biographer, and, in the + course of time, his daily companion and friend. The farm mentioned + was one which he had bought at Redding, Connecticut, where, later, + he built the house known as "Stormfield." + + Henry Mills Alden, for nearly forty years editor of Harper's + Magazine, arrived at his seventieth birthday on November 11th that + year, and Harper & Brothers had arranged to give him a great dinner + in the offices of Franklin Square, where, for half a century, he had + been an active force. Mark Twain, threatened with a cold, and + knowing the dinner would be strenuous, did not feel able to attend, + so wrote a letter which, if found suitable, could be read at the + gathering. + + + To Mr. Henry Alden: + +ALDEN,--dear and ancient friend--it is a solemn moment. You have now +reached the age of discretion. You have been a long time arriving. Many +years ago you docked me on an article because the subject was too old; +later, you docked me on an article because the subject was too new; later +still, you docked me on an article because the subject was betwixt and +between. Once, when I wrote a Letter to Queen Victoria, you did not put +it in the respectable part of the Magazine, but interred it in that +potter's field, the Editor's Drawer. As a result, she never answered it. +How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine +editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember, with +charity, that his intentions were good. + +You will reform, now, Alden. You will cease from these economies, and +you will be discharged. But in your retirement you will carry with you +the admiration and earnest good wishes of the oppressed and toiling +scribes. This will be better than bread. Let this console you when the +bread fails. + +You will carry with you another thing, too--the affection of the scribes; +for they all love you in spite of your crimes. For you bear a kind heart +in your breast, and the sweet and winning spirit that charms away all +hostilities and animosities, and makes of your enemy your friend and +keeps him so. You have reigned over us thirty-six years, and, please +God, you shall reign another thirty-six--"and peace to Mahmoud on his +golden throne!" + Always yours + MARK + + + A copyright bill was coming up in Washington and a delegation of + authors went down to work for it. Clemens was not the head of the + delegation, but he was the most prominent member of it, as well as + the most useful. He invited the writer to accompany him, and + elsewhere I have told in detail the story of that excursion,--[See + Mark Twain; A Biography, chap. ccli,]-- which need be but briefly + touched upon here. + + His work was mainly done aside from that of the delegation. They + had him scheduled for a speech, however, which he made without notes + and with scarcely any preparation. Meantime he had applied to + Speaker Cannon for permission to allow him on the floor of the + House, where he could buttonhole the Congressmen. He was not + eligible to the floor without having received the thanks of + Congress, hence the following letter: + + + To Hon. Joseph Cannon, House of Representatives: + + Dec. 7, 1906. +DEAR UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of the Congress--not next +week but right away. It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your +affectionate old friend right away; by persuasion, if you can, by +violence if you must, for it is imperatively necessary that I get on the +floor for two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in +behalf of the support, encouragement and protection of one of the +nation's most valuable assets and industries--its literature. I have +arguments with me, also a barrel, with liquid in it. + +Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for others; +there isn't time. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for seventy- +one years and I am entitled to thanks. Congress knows it perfectly well +and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and earned expression of +gratitude has been merely felt by the House and never publicly uttered. +Send me an order on the Sergeant-at-Arms quick. When shall I come? With +love and a benediction. + MARK TWAIN. + + + This was mainly a joke. Mark Twain did not expect any "thanks," but + he did hope for access to the floor, which once, in an earlier day, + had been accorded him. We drove to the Capitol and he delivered his + letter to "Uncle Joe" by hand. "Uncle Joe" could not give him the + privilege of the floor; the rules had become more stringent. He + declared they would hang him if he did such a thing. He added that + he had a private room down-stairs, where Mark Twain might establish + headquarters, and that he would assign his colored servant, Neal, of + long acquaintanceship with many of the members, to pass the word + that Mark Twain was receiving. + + The result was a great success. All that afternoon members of + Congress poured into the Speaker's room and, in an atmosphere blue + with tobacco smoke, Mark Twain talked the gospel of copyright to his + heart's content. + + The bill did not come up for passage that session, but Mark Twain + lived to see his afternoon's lobbying bring a return. In 1909, + Champ Clark, and those others who had gathered around him that + afternoon, passed a measure that added fourteen years to the + copyright term. + + The next letter refers to a proposed lobby of quite a different + sort. + + + To Helen Keller, in Wrentham, Mass.: + + 21 FIFTH AVENUE, + Dec. 23, '06. +DEAR HELEN KELLER,-- . . . You say, "As a reformer, you know that +ideas must be driven home again and again." + +Yes, I know it; and by old experience I know that speeches and documents +and public meetings are a pretty poor and lame way of accomplishing it. +Last year I proposed a sane way--one which I had practiced with success +for a quarter of a century--but I wasn't expecting it to get any +attention, and it didn't. + +Give me a battalion of 200 winsome young girls and matrons, and let me +tell them what to do and how to do it, and I will be responsible for +shining results. If I could mass them on the stage in front of the +audience and instruct them there, I could make a public meeting take hold +of itself and do something really valuable for once. Not that the real +instruction would be done there, for it wouldn't; it would be previously +done privately, and merely repeated there. + +But it isn't going to happen--the good old way will be stuck to: there'll +be a public meeting: with music, and prayer, and a wearying report, and a +verbal description of the marvels the blind can do, and 17 speeches--then +the call upon all present who are still alive, to contribute. This hoary +program was invented in the idiot asylum, and will never be changed. Its +function is to breed hostility to good causes. + +Some day somebody will recruit my 200--my dear beguilesome Knights of the +Golden Fleece--and you will see them make good their ominous name. + +Mind, we must meet! not in the grim and ghastly air of the platform, +mayhap, but by the friendly fire--here at 21. + Affectionately your friend, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + They did meet somewhat later that winter in the friendly parlors of + No. 21, and friends gathered in to meet the marvelous blind girl and + to pay tribute to Miss Sullivan (Mrs. Macy) for her almost + incredible achievement. + + + + +XLVI + +LETTERS 1907-08. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD. THE NEW HOME AT REDDING + + The author, J. Howard Moore, sent a copy of his book, The Universal + Kinship, with a letter in which he said: "Most humorists have no + anxiety except to glorify themselves and add substance to their + pocket-books by making their readers laugh. You have shown, on many + occasions, that your mission is not simply to antidote the + melancholy of a world, but includes a real and intelligent concern + for the general welfare of your fellowman." + + The Universal Kinship was the kind of a book that Mark Twain + appreciated, as his acknowledgment clearly shows. + + + To Mr. J. Howard Moore: + + Feb. 2, '07. +DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep pleasure +and satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at the same time, since +it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished opinions and +reflections and resentments by doing it lucidly and fervently and +irascibly for me. + +There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the mentality +of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by a thousand +grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we have gone +backward as many grades. That evolution is strange, and to me +unaccountable and unnatural. Necessarily we started equipped with their +perfect and blemishless morals; now we are wholly destitute; we have no +real, morals, but only artificial ones--morals created and preserved by +the forced suppression of natural and hellish instincts. Yet we are dull +enough to be vain of them. Certainly we are a sufficiently comical +invention, we humans. + Sincerely Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mark Twain's own books were always being excommunicated by some + librarian, and the matter never failed to invite the attention and + amusement of the press, and the indignation of many correspondents. + Usually the books were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the morals of which + were not regarded as wholly exemplary. But in 1907 a small library, + in a very small town, attained a day's national notoriety by putting + the ban on Eve's Diary, not so much on account of its text as for + the chaste and exquisite illustrations by Lester Ralph. When the + reporters came in a troop to learn about it, the author said: "I + believe this time the trouble is mainly with the pictures. I did + not draw them. I wish I had--they are so beautiful." + + Just at this time, Dr. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, was giving a + literary talk to the Teachers' Club, of Hartford, dwelling on the + superlative value of Mark Twain's writings for readers old and + young. Mrs. F. G. Whitmore, an old Hartford friend, wrote Clemens + of the things that Phelps had said, as consolation for Eve's latest + banishment. This gave him a chance to add something to what he had + said to the reporters. + + + To Mrs. Whitmore, in Hartford: + + Feb. 7, 1907. +DEAR MRS. WHITMORE,--But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book +of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected +youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it +delights me and doesn't anger me. But even if it angered me such words +as those of Professor Phelps would take the sting all out. Nobody +attaches weight to the freaks of the Charlton Library, but when a man +like Phelps speaks, the world gives attention. Some day I hope to meet +him and thank him for his courage for saying those things out in public. +Custom is, to think a handsome thing in private but tame it down in the +utterance. + +I hope you are all well and happy; and thereto I add my love. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In May, 1907, Mark Twain was invited to England to receive from + Oxford the degree of Literary Doctor. It was an honor that came to + him as a sort of laurel crown at the end of a great career, and + gratified him exceedingly. To Moberly Bell, of the London Times, + he expressed his appreciation. Bell had been over in April and + Clemens believed him concerned in the matter. + + + To Moberly Bell, in London: + + 21 FIFTH AVENUE, May 3, '07 +DEAR MR. BELL,--Your hand is in it! and you have my best thanks. +Although I wouldn't cross an ocean again for the price of the ship that +carried me, I am glad to do it for an Oxford degree. I shall plan to +sail for England a shade before the middle of June, so that I can have a +few days in London before the 26th. + Sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + He had taken a house at Tuxedo for the summer, desiring to be near + New York City, and in the next letter he writes Mr. Rogers + concerning his London plans. We discover, also, in this letter that + he has begun work on the Redding home and the cost is to come + entirely out of the autobiographical chapters then running in the + North American Review. It may be of passing interest to note here + that he had the usual house-builder's fortune. He received thirty + thousand dollars for the chapters; the house cost him nearly double + that amount. + + + To H. H. Rogers, in New York: + + TUXEDO PARK, + May 29, '07. +DEAR ADMIRAL,--Why hang it, I am not going to see you and Mrs. Rogers at +all in England! It is a great disappointment. I leave there a month +from now--June 29. No, I shall see you; for by your itinerary you are +most likely to come to London June 21st or along there. So that is very +good and satisfactory. I have declined all engagements but two--Whitelaw +Reid (dinner) June 21, and the Pilgrims (lunch), June 25. The Oxford +ceremony is June 26. I have paid my return passage in the Minne- +something, but it is just possible that I may want to stay in England a +week or two longer--I can't tell, yet. I do very much want to meet up +with the boys for the last time. + +I have signed the contract for the building of the house on my +Connecticut farm and specified the cost limit, and work has been begun. +The cost has to all come out of a year's instalments of Autobiography in +the N. A. Review. + +Clara, is winning her way to success and distinction with sure and steady +strides. By all accounts she is singing like a bird, and is not afraid +on the concert stage any more. + +Tuxedo is a charming place; I think it hasn't its equal anywhere. + +Very best wishes to you both. + S. L. C. + + + The story of Mark Twain's extraordinary reception and triumph in + England has been told. --[Mark Twain; A Biography, chaps. cclvi- + cclix]-- It was, in fact, the crowning glory of his career. Perhaps + one of the most satisfactory incidents of his sojourn was a dinner + given to him by the staff of Punch, in the historic offices at 10 + Bouverie Street where no other foreign visitor had been thus + honored--a notable distinction. When the dinner ended, little joy + Agnew, daughter of the chief editor, entered and presented to the + chief guest the original drawing of a cartoon by Bernard Partridge, + which had appeared on the front page of Punch. In this picture the + presiding genius of the paper is offering to Mark Twain health, long + life, and happiness from "The Punch Bowl." + + A short time after his return to America he received a pretty + childish letter from little Miss Agnew acknowledging a photograph he + had sent her, and giving a list of her pets and occupations. Such a + letter always delighted Mark Twain, and his pleasure in this one is + reflected in his reply. + + + To Miss Joy Agnew, in London: + + TUXEDO PARK, NEW YORK. +Unto you greetings and salutation and worship, you dear, sweet little +rightly-named Joy! I can see you now almost as vividly as I saw you that +night when you sat flashing and beaming upon those sombre swallow-tails. + + "Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky." + +Oh, you were indeed the only one--there wasn't even the remotest chance +of competition with you, dear! Ah, you are a decoration, you little +witch! + +The idea of your house going to the wanton expense of a flower garden!-- +aren't you enough? And what do you want to go and discourage the other +flowers for? Is that the right spirit? is it considerate? is it kind? +How do you suppose they feel when you come around--looking the way you +look? And you so pink and sweet and dainty and lovely and supernatural? +Why, it makes them feel embarrassed and artificial, of course; and in my +opinion it is just as pathetic as it can be. Now then you want to +reform--dear--and do right. + +Well certainly you are well off, Joy: + +3 bantams; +3 goldfish; +3 doves; +6 canaries; +2 dogs; +1 cat; + +All you need, now, to be permanently beyond the reach of want, is one +more dog--just one more good, gentle, high principled, affectionate, +loyal dog who wouldn't want any nobler service than the golden privilege +of lying at your door, nights, and biting everything that came along--and +I am that very one, and ready to come at the dropping of a hat. + +Do you think you could convey my love and thanks to your "daddy" and Owen +Seaman and those other oppressed and down-trodden subjects of yours, you +darling small tyrant? + +On my knees! These--with the kiss of fealty from your other subject-- + + MARK TWAIN + + + Elinor Glyn, author of Three Weeks and other erotic tales, was in + America that winter and asked permission to call on Mark Twain. An + appointment was made and Clemens discussed with her, for an hour or + more, those crucial phases of life which have made living a complex + problem since the days of Eve in Eden. Mrs. Glyn had never before + heard anything like Mark Twain's wonderful talk, and she was anxious + to print their interview. She wrote what she could remember of it + and sent it to him for approval. If his conversation had been + frank, his refusal was hardly less so. + + + To Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in New York: + + Jan. 22, '08. +DEAR MRS. GLYN, It reads pretty poorly--I get the sense of it, but it is +a poor literary job; however, it would have to be that because nobody can +be reported even approximately, except by a stenographer. +Approximations, synopsized speeches, translated poems, artificial flowers +and chromos all have a sort of value, but it is small. If you had put +upon paper what I really said it would have wrecked your type-machine. +I said some fetid, over-vigorous things, but that was because it was a +confidential conversation. I said nothing for print. My own report of +the same conversation reads like Satan roasting a Sunday school. It, and +certain other readable chapters of my autobiography will not be published +until all the Clemens family are dead--dead and correspondingly +indifferent. They were written to entertain me, not the rest of the +world. I am not here to do good--at least not to do it intentionally. +You must pardon me for dictating this letter; I am sick a-bed and not +feeling as well as I might. + Sincerely Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Among the cultured men of England Mark Twain had no greater admirer, + or warmer friend, than Andrew Lang. They were at one on most + literary subjects, and especially so in their admiration of the life + and character of Joan of Arc. Both had written of her, and both + held her to be something almost more than mortal. When, therefore, + Anatole France published his exhaustive biography of the maid of + Domremy, a book in which he followed, with exaggerated minuteness + and innumerable footnotes, every step of Joan's physical career at + the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen, + Lang wrote feelingly, and with some contempt, of the performance, + inviting the author of the Personal Recollections to come to the + rescue of their heroine. "Compare every one of his statements with + the passages he cites from authorities, and make him the laughter of + the world" he wrote. "If you are lazy about comparing I can make + you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this + amazing novelist says that they say. When I tell you that he thinks + the Epiphany (January 6, Twelfth Night) is December 25th--Christmas + Day-you begin to see what an egregious ass he is. Treat him like + Dowden, and oblige"--a reference to Mark Twain's defense of Harriet + Shelley, in which he had heaped ridicule on Dowden's Life of the + Poet--a masterly performance; one of the best that ever came from + Mark Twain's pen. + + Lang's suggestion would seem to have been a welcome one. + + + To Andrew Lang, in London: + + NEW YORK, April 25, 1908. +DEAR MR. LANG,--I haven't seen the book nor any review of it, but only +not very-understandable references to it--of a sort which discomforted +me, but of course set my interest on fire. I don't want to have to read +it in French--I should lose the nice shades, and should do a lot of gross +misinterpreting, too. But there'll be a translation soon, nicht wahr? +I will wait for it. I note with joy that you say: "If you are lazy about +comparing, (which I most certainly am), I can make you a complete set of +what the authorities say, and of what this amazing novelist says that +they say." + +Ah, do it for me! Then I will attempt the article, and (if I succeed in +doing it to my satisfaction,) will publish it. It is long since I +touched a pen (3 « years), and I was intending to continue this happy +holiday to the gallows, but--there are things that could beguile me to +break this blessed Sabbath. + Yours very sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Certainly it is an interesting fact that an Englishman--one of the + race that burned Joan--should feel moved to defend her memory + against the top-heavy perversions of a distinguished French author. + + But Lang seems never to have sent the notes. The copying would have + been a tremendous task, and perhaps he never found the time for it. + We may regret to-day that he did not, for Mark Twain's article on + the French author's Joan would have been at least unique. + + Samuel Clemens could never accustom himself to the loss of his wife. + From the time of her death, marriage-which had brought him his + greatest joy in life-presented itself to him always with the thought + of bereavement, waiting somewhere just behind. The news of an + approaching wedding saddened him and there was nearly always a + somber tinge in his congratulations, of which the following to a + dear friend is an example: + + + To Father Fitz-Simon, in Washington: + + June 5, '08. +DEAR FATHER FITZ-SIMON,--Marriage--yes, it is the supreme felicity of +life, I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The +deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when +it comes. + +And so I congratulate you. Not perfunctorily, not lukewarmly, but with a +fervency and fire that no word in the dictionary is strong enough to +convey. And in the same breath and with the same depth and sincerity, +I grieve for you. Not for both of you and not for the one that shall go +first, but for the one that is fated to be left behind. For that one +there is no recompense.--For that one no recompense is possible. + +There are times--thousands of times--when I can expose the half of my +mind, and conceal the other half, but in the matter of the tragedy of +marriage I feel too deeply for that, and I have to bleed it all out or +shut it all in. And so you must consider what I have been through, and +am passing through and be charitable with me. + +Make the most of the sunshine! and I hope it will last long--ever so +long. + +I do not really want to be present; yet for friendship's sake and because +I honor you so, I would be there if I could. + Most sincerely your friend, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The new home at Redding was completed in the spring of 1908, and on + the 18th of June, when it was entirely fitted and furnished, Mark + Twain entered it for the first time. He had never even seen the + place nor carefully examined plans which John Howells had made for + his house. He preferred the surprise of it, and the general + avoidance of detail. That he was satisfied with the result will be + seen in his letters. He named it at first "Innocence at Home"; + later changing this title to "Stormfield." + + The letter which follows is an acknowledgment of an interesting + souvenir from the battle-field of Tewksbury (1471), and some relics + of the Cavalier and Roundhead Regiments encamped at Tewksbury in + 1643. + + + To an English admirer: + + INNOCENCE AT HOME, REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + Aug. 15, '08. +DEAR SIR,--I highly prize the pipes, and shall intimate to people that +"Raleigh" smoked them, and doubtless he did. After a little practice I +shall be able to go further and say he did; they will then be the most +interesting features of my library's decorations. The Horse-shoe is +attracting a good deal of attention, because I have intimated that the +conqueror's horse cast it; it will attract more when I get my hand in and +say he cast it, I thank you for the pipes and the shoe; and also for the +official guide, which I read through at a single sitting. If a person +should say that about a book of mine I should regard it as good evidence +of the book's interest. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + In his philosophy, What Is Man?, and now and again in his other + writings, we find Mark Twain giving small credit to the human mind + as an originator of ideas. The most original writer of his time, he + took no credit for pure invention and allowed none to others. The + mind, he declared, adapted, consciously or unconsciously; it did not + create. In a letter which follows he elucidates this doctrine. The + reference in it to the "captain" and to the kerosene, as the reader + may remember, have to do with Captain "Hurricane" Jones and his + theory of the miracles of "Isaac and of the prophets of Baal," as + expounded in Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion. + + By a trick of memory Clemens gives The Little Duke as his suggestion + for The Prince and the Pauper; he should have written The Prince and + the Page, by the same author. + + + To Rev. F. Y. Christ, in New York: + + REDDING, CONN., Aug., '08. +DEAR SIR,--You say "I often owe my best sermons to a suggestion received +in reading or from other exterior sources." Your remark is not quite in +accordance with the facts. We must change it to--"I owe all my thoughts, +sermons and ideas to suggestions received from sources outside of myself. +The simplified English of this proposition is--"No man's brains ever +originated an idea." It is an astonishing thing that after all these +ages the world goes on thinking the human brain machinery can originate a +thought. + +It can't. It never has done it. In all cases, little and big, the +thought is born of a suggestion; and in all cases the suggestions come to +the brain from the outside. The brain never acts except from exterior +impulse. + +A man can satisfy himself of the truth of this by a single process,--let +him examine every idea that occurs to him in an hour; a day; in a week +--in a lifetime if he please. He will always find that an outside +something suggested the thought, something which he saw with his eyes or +heard with his ears or perceived by his touch--not necessarily to-day, +nor yesterday, nor last year, nor twenty years ago, but sometime or +other. Usually the source of the suggestion is immediately traceable, +but sometimes it isn't. + +However, if you will examine every thought that occurs to you for the +next two days, you will find that in at least nine cases out of ten you +can put your finger on the outside suggestion--And that ought to convince +you that No. 10 had that source too, although you cannot at present hunt +it down and find it. + +The idea of writing to me would have had to wait a long time if it waited +until your brain originated it. It was born of an outside suggestion-- +Sir Thomas and my old Captain. + +The hypnotist thinks he has invented a new thing--suggestion. This is +very sad. I don't know where my captain got his kerosene idea. (It was +forty-one years ago, and he is long ago dead.) But I know that it didn't +originate in his head, but it was born from a suggestion from the +outside. + +Yesterday a guest said, "How did you come to think of writing 'The Prince +and the Pauper?' I didn't. The thought came to me from the outside-- +suggested by that pleasant and picturesque little history-book, Charlotte +M. Yonge's "Little Duke," I doubt if Mrs. Burnett knows whence came to +her the suggestion to write "Little Lord Fauntleroy," but I know; it came +to her from reading "The Prince and the Pauper." In all my life I have +never originated an idea, and neither has she, nor anybody else. + +Man's mind is a clever machine, and can work up materials into ingenious +fancies and ideas, but it can't create the material; none but the gods +can do that. In Sweden I saw a vast machine receive a block of wood, and +turn it into marketable matches in two minutes. It could do everything +but make the wood. That is the kind of machine the human mind is. Maybe +this is not a large compliment, but it is all I can afford..... + Your friend and well-wisher + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in Fair Hawn, Mass.: + + REDDING, CONN, Aug. 12, 1908. +DEAR MRS. ROGERS, I believe I am the wellest man on the planet to-day, +and good for a trip to Fair Haven (which I discussed with the Captain of +the New Bedford boat, who pleasantly accosted me in the Grand Central +August 5) but the doctor came up from New York day before yesterday, and +gave positive orders that I must not stir from here before frost. It is +because I was threatened with a swoon, 10 or 12 days ago, and went to New +York a day or two later to attend my nephew's funeral and got horribly +exhausted by the heat and came back here and had a bilious collapse. In +24 hours I was as sound as a nut again, but nobody believes it but me. + +This is a prodigiously satisfactory place, and I am so glad I don't have +to go back to the turmoil and rush of New York. The house stands high +and the horizons are wide, yet the seclusion is perfect. The nearest +public road is half a mile away, so there is nobody to look in, and I +don't have to wear clothes if I don't want to. I have been down stairs +in night-gown and slippers a couple of hours, and have been photographed +in that costume; but I will dress, now, and behave myself. + +That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my +brain. . . Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for +it. I wish Henry Rogers would come here, and I wish you would come with +him. You can't rest in that crowded place, but you could rest here, for +sure! I would learn bridge, and entertain you, and rob you. + With love to you both, + Ever yours, + S. L. C. + + + In the foregoing letter we get the first intimation of Mark Twain's + failing health. The nephew who had died was Samuel E. Moffett, son + of Pamela Clemens. Moffett, who was a distinguished journalist--an + editorial writer on Collier's Weekly, a man beloved by all who knew + him--had been drowned in the surf off the Jersey beach. + + + To W. D. Howells, Kittery Point, Maine: + + Aug. 12, '08. +DEAR HOWELLS,--Won't you and Mrs. Howells and Mildred come and give us as +many days as you can spare, and examine John's triumph? It is the most +satisfactory house I am acquainted with, and the most satisfactorily +situated. + +But it is no place to work in, because one is outside of it all the time, +while the sun and the moon are on duty. Outside of it in the loggia, +where the breezes blow and the tall arches divide up the scenery and +frame it. + +It's a ghastly long distance to come, and I wouldn't travel such a +distance to see anything short of a memorial museum, but if you can't +come now you can at least come later when you return to New York, for the +journey will be only an hour and a half per express-train. Things are +gradually and steadily taking shape inside the house, and nature is +taking care of the outside in her ingenious and wonderful fashion--and +she is competent and asks no help and gets none. I have retired from New +York for good, I have retired from labor for good, I have dismissed my +stenographer and have entered upon a holiday whose other end is in the +cemetery. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + From a gentleman in Buffalo Clemens one day received a letter + inclosing an incompleted list of the world's "One Hundred Greatest + Men," men who had exerted "the largest visible influence on the life + and activities of the race." The writer asked that Mark Twain + examine the list and suggest names, adding "would you include Jesus, + as the founder of Christianity, in the list?" + + To the list of statesmen Clemens added the name of Thomas Paine; to + the list of inventors, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. The + question he answered in detail. + + + To-----------, Buffalo, N. Y. + + Private. REDDING, CONN, Aug. 28, '08. +DEAR SIR,--By "private," I mean don't print any remarks of mine. + + .................. +I like your list. + +The "largest visible influence." + +These terms require you to add Jesus. And they doubly and trebly require +you to add Satan. From A.D. 350 to A.D. 1850 these gentlemen exercised a +vaster influence over a fifth part of the human race than was exercised +over that fraction of the race by all other influences combined. Ninety- +nine hundredths of this influence proceeded from Satan, the remaining +fraction of it from Jesus. During those 1500 years the fear of Satan and +Hell made 99 Christians where love of God and Heaven landed one. During +those 1500 years, Satan's influence was worth very nearly a hundred times +as much to the business as was the influence of all the rest of the Holy +Family put together. + +You have asked me a question, and I have answered it seriously and +sincerely. You have put in Buddha--a god, with a following, at one time, +greater than Jesus ever had: a god with perhaps a little better evidence +of his godship than that which is offered for Jesus's. How then, in +fairness, can you leave Jesus out? And if you put him in, how can you +logically leave Satan out? Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but +it is the lightning that does the work. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The "Children's Theatre" of the next letter was an institution of + the New York East Side in which Mark Twain was deeply interested. + The children were most, if not all, of Hebrew parentage, and the + performances they gave, under the direction of Alice M. Herts, were + really remarkable. It seemed a pity that lack of funds should have + brought this excellent educational venture to an untimely end. + + The following letter was in reply to one inclosing a newspaper + clipping reporting a performance of The Prince and the Pauper, given + by Chicago school children. + + + To Mrs. Hookway, in Chicago: + Sept., 1908. +DEAR MRS. HOOKWAY,--Although I am full of the spirit of work this +morning, a rarity with me lately--I must steal a moment or two for a word +in person: for I have been reading the eloquent account in the Record- +Herald and am pleasurably stirred, to my deepest deeps. The reading +brings vividly back to me my pet and pride. The Children's Theatre of +the East side, New York. And it supports and re-affirms what I have so +often and strenuously said in public that a children's theatre is easily +the most valuable adjunct that any educational institution for the young +can have, and that no otherwise good school is complete without it. + +It is much the most effective teacher of morals and promoter of good +conduct that the ingenuity of man has yet devised, for the reason that +its lessons are not taught wearily by book and by dreary homily, but by +visible and enthusing action; and they go straight to the heart, which is +the rightest of right places for them. Book morals often get no further +than the intellect, if they even get that far on their spectral and +shadowy pilgrimage: but when they travel from a Children's Theatre they +do not stop permanently at that halfway house, but go on home. + +The children's theatre is the only teacher of morals and conduct and high +ideals that never bores the pupil, but always leaves him sorry when the +lesson is over. And as for history, no other teacher is for a moment +comparable to it: no other can make the dead heroes of the world rise up +and shake the dust of the ages from their bones and live and move and +breathe and speak and be real to the looker and listener: no other can +make the study of the lives and times of the illustrious dead a delight, +a splendid interest, a passion; and no other can paint a history-lesson +in colors that will stay, and stay, and never fade. + +It is my conviction that the children's theatre is one of the very, very +great inventions of the twentieth century; and that its vast educational +value--now but dimly perceived and but vaguely understood--will presently +come to be recognized. By the article which I have been reading I find +the same things happening in the Howland School that we have become +familiar with in our Children's Theatre (of which I am President, and +sufficiently vain of the distinction.) These things among others; + +1. The educating history-study does not stop with the little players, +but the whole school catches the infection and revels in it. + +2. And it doesn't even stop there; the children carry it home and infect +the family with it--even the parents and grandparents; and the whole +household fall to studying history, and bygone manners and customs and +costumes with eager interest. And this interest is carried along to the +studying of costumes in old book-plates; and beyond that to the selecting +of fabrics and the making of clothes. Hundreds of our children learn, +the plays by listening without book, and by making notes; then the +listener goes home and plays the piece--all the parts! to the family. +And the family are glad and proud; glad to listen to the explanations and +analyses, glad to learn, glad to be lifted to planes above their dreary +workaday lives. Our children's theatre is educating 7,000 children--and +their families. When we put on a play of Shakespeare they fall to +studying it diligently; so that they may be qualified to enjoy it to the +limit when the piece is staged. + +3. Your Howland School children do the construction-work, stage- +decorations, etc. That is our way too. Our young folks do everything +that is needed by the theatre, with their own hands; scene-designing, +scene-painting, gas-fitting, electric work, costume-designing--costume +making, everything and all things indeed--and their orchestra and its +leader are from their own ranks. + +The article which I have been reading, says--speaking of the historical +play produced by the pupils of the Howland School-- + +"The question naturally arises, What has this drama done for those who so +enthusiastically took part?--The touching story has made a year out of +the Past live for the children as could no chronology or bald statement +of historical events; it has cultivated the fancy and given to the +imagination strength and purity; work in composition has ceased to be +drudgery, for when all other themes fall flat a subject dealing with some +aspect of the drama presented never fails to arouse interest and a rapid +pushing of pens over paper." + +That is entirely true. The interest is not confined to the drama's +story, it spreads out all around the period of the story, and gives to +all the outlying and unrelated happenings of that period a fascinating +interest--an interest which does not fade out with the years, but remains +always fresh, always inspiring, always welcome. History-facts dug by the +job, with sweat and tears out of a dry and spiritless text-book--but +never mind, all who have suffered know what that is. . . + I remain, dear madam, + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Mark Twain had a special fondness for cats. As a boy he always + owned one and it generally had a seat beside him at the table. + There were cats at Quarry Farm and at Hartford, and in the house at + Redding there was a gray mother-cat named Tammany, of which he was + especially fond. Kittens capering about were his chief delight. + In a letter to a Chicago woman he tells how those of Tammany + assisted at his favorite game. + + + To Mrs. Mabel Larkin Patterson, in Chicago: + + REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + Oct. 2, '08. +DEAR MRS. PATTERSON,--The contents of your letter are very pleasant and +very welcome, and I thank you for them, sincerely. If I can find a +photograph of my "Tammany" and her kittens, I will enclose it in this. + +One of them likes to be crammed into a corner-pocket of the billiard +table--which he fits as snugly as does a finger in a glove and then he +watches the game (and obstructs it) by the hour, and spoils many a shot +by putting out his paw and changing the direction of a passing ball. +Whenever a ball is in his arms, or so close to him that it cannot be +played upon without risk of hurting him, the player is privileged to +remove it to anyone of the 3 spots that chances to be vacant. + +Ah, no, my lecturing days are over for good and all. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The letter to Howells which follows was written a short time before + the passage of the copyright extension bill, which rendered Mark + Twain's new plan, here mentioned, unneeded--at least for the time. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + Monday, Oct. 26, '08. +Oh, I say! Where are you hiding, and why are you hiding? You promised +to come here and you didn't keep your word. (This sounds like +astonishment--but don't be misled by that.) + +Come, fire up again on your fiction-mill and give us another good +promise. And this time keep it--for it is your turn to be astonished. +Come and stay as long as you possibly can. I invented a new copyright +extension scheme last Friday, and sat up all night arranging its details. +It will interest you. Yesterday I got it down on paper in as compact a +form as I could. Harvey and I have examined the scheme, and to-morrow or +next day he will send me a couple of copyright-experts to arrange about +getting certain statistics for me. + +Authors, publishers and the public have always been damaged by the +copyright laws. The proposed amendment will advantage all three--the +public most of all. I think Congress will pass it and settle the vexed +question permanently. + +I shall need your assent and the assent of about a dozen other authors. +Also the assent of all the large firms of the 300 publishers. These +authors and publishers will furnish said assent I am sure. Not even the +pirates will be able to furnish a serious objection, I think. + +Come along. This place seemed at its best when all around was summer- +green; later it seemed at its best when all around was burning with the +autumn splendors; and now once more it seems at its best, with the trees +naked and the ground a painter's palette. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + Clemens was a great admirer of the sea stories of W. W. Jacobs and + generally kept one or more of this author's volumes in reach of his + bed, where most of his reading was done. The acknowledgment that + follows was sent when he had finished Salthaven. + + + To W. W. Jacobs, in England: + + REDDING, CONN, + Oct. 28, '08. +DEAR MR. JACOBS,--It has a delightful look. I will not venture to say +how delightful, because the words would sound extravagant, and would +thereby lose some of their strength and to that degree misrepresent me. +It is my conviction that Dialstone Lane holds the supremacy over all +purely humorous books in our language, but I feel about Salthaven as the +Cape Cod poet feels about Simon Hanks: + + "The Lord knows all things, great and small, + With doubt he's not perplexed: + 'Tis Him alone that knows it all + But Simon Hanks comes next." + +The poet was moved by envy and malice and jealousy, but I am not: I place +Salthaven close up next to Dialstone because I think it has a fair and +honest right to that high position. I have kept the other book moving; +I shall begin to hand this one around now. + +And many thanks to you for remembering me. + +This house is out in the solitudes of the woods and the hills, an hour +and a half from New York, and I mean to stay in it winter and summer the +rest of my days. I beg you to come and help occupy it a few days the +next time you visit the U.S. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + One of the attractions of Stormfield was a beautiful mantel in the + billiard room, presented by the Hawaiian Promotion Committee. It + had not arrived when the rest of the house was completed, but came + in time to be set in place early in the morning of the owner's + seventy-third birthday. It was made of a variety of Hawaiian woods, + and was the work of a native carver, F. M. Otremba. Clemens was + deeply touched by the offering from those "western isles"--the + memory of which was always so sweet to him. + + + To Mr. Wood, in Hawaii: + + Nov. 30, '08. +DEAR MR. WOOD,--The beautiful mantel was put in its place an hour ago, +and its friendly "Aloha" was the first uttered greeting my 73rd birthday +received. It is rich in color, rich in quality, and rich in decoration, +therefore it exactly harmonizes with the taste for such things which was +born in me and which I have seldom been able to indulge to my content. +It will be a great pleasure to me, daily renewed, to have under my eye +this lovely reminder of the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored +in any ocean, and I beg to thank the Committee for providing me that +pleasure. + Sincerely Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +XLVII + +LETTERS, 1909. TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. LIFE AT STORMFIELD. COPYRIGHT +EXTENSION. DEATH OF JEAN CLEMENS + + Clemens remained at Stormfield all that winter. New York was sixty + miles away and he did not often care to make the journey. He was + constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private + party, but such affairs had lost interest for him. He preferred the + quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for + entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient. Guests + came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he + ever was restless or lonely he did not show it. + + Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard + asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a + Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. Closing + his letter, General Howard said, "Never mind if you did fight on the + other side." + + + To General O. O. Howard: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + Jan, 12, '09. +DEAR GENERAL HOWARD,--You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking +me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to +decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that +object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln +Memorial University. The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of all +the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln, +serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people. + +I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be +there to witness it and help you rejoice. But I am older than people +think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from +home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in +mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter. + +You ought not to say sarcastic things about my "fighting on the other +side." General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me +compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs +for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had +followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have +caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General +Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced, +and you have hurt my feelings. + But I have an affection for you, anyway. + MARK TWAIN. + + + One of Mark Twain's friends was Henniker-Heaton, the so-called + "Father of Penny Postage" between England and America. When, after + long years of effort, he succeeded in getting the rate established, + he at once bent his energies in the direction of cheap cable service + and a letter from him came one day to Stormfield concerning his new + plans. This letter happened to be over-weight, which gave Mark + Twain a chance for some amusing exaggerations at his expense. + + + To Henniker-Heaton, in London: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + Jan. 18, 1909. +DEAR HENNIKER-HEATON,--I do hope you will succeed to your heart's desire +in your cheap-cablegram campaign, and I feel sure you will. Indeed your +cheap-postage victory, achieved in spite of a quarter-century of +determined opposition, is good and rational prophecy that you will. +Wireless, not being as yet imprisoned in a Chinese wall of private cash +and high-placed and formidable influence, will come to your aid and make +your new campaign briefer and easier than the other one was. + +Now then, after uttering my serious word, am I privileged to be frivolous +for a moment? When you shall have achieved cheap telegraphy, are you +going to employ it for just your own selfish profit and other people's +pecuniary damage, the way you are doing with your cheap postage? You get +letter-postage reduced to 2 cents an ounce, then you mail me a 4-ounce +letter with a 2-cent stamp on it, and I have to pay the extra freight at +this end of the line. I return your envelope for inspection. Look at +it. Stamped in one place is a vast "T," and under it the figures "40," +and under those figures appears an "L," a sinister and suspicious and +mysterious L. In another place, stamped within a circle, in offensively +large capitals, you find the words "DUE 8 CENTS." Finally, in the midst +of a desert space up nor-noreastard from that circle you find a figure +"3" of quite unnecessarily aggressive and insolent magnitude--and done +with a blue pencil, so as to be as conspicuous as possible. I inquired +about these strange signs and symbols of the postman. He said they were +P. O. Department signals for his instruction. + +"Instruction for what?" + +"To get extra postage." + +"Is it so? Explain. Tell me about the large T and the 40. + +"It's short for Take 40--or as we postmen say, grab 40" + +Go on, please, while I think up some words to swear with." + +"Due 8 means, grab 8 more." + +"Continue." + +"The blue-pencil 3 was an afterthought. There aren't any stamps for +afterthoughts; the sums vary, according to inspiration, and they whirl in +the one that suggests itself at the last moment. Sometimes they go +several times higher than this one. This one only means hog 3 cents +more. And so if you've got 51 cents about you, or can borrow it--" + +"Tell me: who gets this corruption?" + +"Half of it goes to the man in England who ships the letter on short +postage, and the other half goes to the P.O.D. to protect cheap postage +from inaugurating a deficit." + +"-------------------" + +"I can't blame you; I would say it myself in your place, if these ladies +were not present. But you see I'm only obeying orders, I can't help +myself." + +"Oh, I know it; I'm not blaming you. Finally, what does that L stand +for?" + +"Get the money, or give him L. It's English, you know." + +"Take it and go. It's the last cent I've got in the world -------." + +After seeing the Oxford pageant file by the grand stand, picture after +picture, splendor after splendor, three thousand five hundred strong, the +most moving and beautiful and impressive and historically-instructive +show conceivable, you are not to think I would miss the London pageant of +next year, with its shining host of 15,000 historical English men and +women dug from the misty books of all the vanished ages and marching in +the light of the sun--all alive, and looking just as they were used to +look! Mr. Lascelles spent yesterday here on the farm, and told me all +about it. I shall be in the middle of my 75th year then, and interested +in pageants for personal and prospective reasons. + +I beg you to give my best thanks to the Bath Club for the offer of its +hospitalities, but I shall not be able to take advantage of it, because I +am to be a guest in a private house during my stay in London. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + It was in 1907 that Clemens had seen the Oxford Pageant--during the + week when he had been awarded his doctor's degree. It gave him the + greatest delight, and he fully expected to see the next one, planned + for 1910. + + In the letter to Howells which follows we get another glimpse of + Mark Twain's philosophy of man, the irresponsible machine. + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., + Jan. 18, '09. +DEAR HOWELLS,--I have to write a line, lazy as I am, to say how your Poe +article delighted me; and to say that I am in agreement with +substantially all you say about his literature. To me his prose is +unreadable--like Jane Austin's. No, there is a difference. I could read +his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It +seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death. + +Another thing: you grant that God and circumstances sinned against Poe, +but you also grant that he sinned against himself--a thing which he +couldn't do and didn't do. + +It is lively up here now. I wish you could come. + Yrs ever, + MARK + + + To W. D. Howells, in New York: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + 3 in the morning, Apl. 17, '09. + [Written with pencil]. +My pen has gone dry and the ink is out of reach. Howells, Did you write +me day-before-day before yesterday, or did I dream it? In my mind's eye +I most vividly see your hand-write on a square blue envelop in the +mailpile. I have hunted the house over, but there is no such letter. +Was it an illusion? + +I am reading Lowell's letter, and smoking. I woke an hour ago and am +reading to keep from wasting the time. On page 305, vol. I. I have +just margined a note: + +"Young friend! I like that! You ought to see him now." + +It seemed startlingly strange to hear a person call you young. It was a +brick out of a blue sky, and knocked me groggy for a moment. Ah me, the +pathos of it is, that we were young then. And he--why, so was he, but he +didn't know it. He didn't even know it 9 years later, when we saw him +approaching and you warned me, saying, "Don't say anything about age--he +has just turned fifty, and thinks he is old and broods over it." + +[Well, Clara did sing! And you wrote her a dear letter.] + +Time to go to sleep. + Yours ever, + MARK. + + + To Daniel Kiefer: + + [No date.] +DANL KIEFER ESQ. DEAR SIR,--I should be far from willing to have a +political party named after me. + +I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed its members to +have political aspirations or to push friends forward for political +preferment. + Yours very truly, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + The copyright extension, for which the author had been working so + long, was granted by Congress in 1909, largely as the result of that + afternoon in Washington when Mark Twain had "received" in "Uncle + Joe" Cannon's private room, and preached the gospel of copyright + until the daylight faded and the rest of the Capitol grew still. + Champ Clark was the last to linger that day and they had talked far + into the dusk. Clark was powerful, and had fathered the bill. Now + he wrote to know if it was satisfactory. + + + To Champ Clark, in Washington: + + STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., June 5, '09. +DEAR CHAMP CLARK--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me? +Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, and clearly defined, and +just and righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United +States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no +trouble in arriving at that decision. + +The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was down +there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting and apparently +irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all said "the case is +hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos nothing can be built." +But we were in error; out of that chaotic mass this excellent bill has +been instructed; the warring interests have been reconciled, and the +result is as comely and substantial a legislative edifice as lifts its +domes and towers and protective lightning rods out of the statute book, +I think. When I think of that other bill, which even the Deity couldn't +understand, and of this one which even I can understand, I take off my +hat to the man or men who devised this one. Was it R. U. Johnson? Was +it the Author's League? Was it both together? I don't know, but I take +off my hat, anyway. Johnson has written a valuable article about the new +law--I enclose it. + +At last--at last and for the first time in copyright history we are ahead +of England! Ahead of her in two ways: by length of time and by fairness +to all interests concerned. Does this sound like shouting? Then I must +modify it: all we possessed of copyright-justice before the fourth of +last March we owed to England's initiative. + Truly Yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Because Mark Twain amused himself with certain aspects of Christian + Science, and was critical of Mrs. Eddy, there grew up a wide + impression that he jeered at the theory of mental healing; when, as + a matter of fact, he was one of its earliest converts, and never + lost faith in its power. The letter which follows is an excellent + exposition of his attitude toward the institution of Christian + Science and the founder of the church in America. + + + To J. Wylie Smith, Glasgow, Scotland: + + "STORMFIELD," August 7, 1909 +DEAR SIR,--My view of the matter has not changed. To wit, that Christian +Science is valuable; that it has just the same value now that it had when +Mrs. Eddy stole it from Quimby; that its healing principle (its most +valuable asset) possesses the same force now that it possessed a million +years ago before Quimby was born; that Mrs. Eddy. . . organized that +force, and is entitled to high credit for that. Then, with a splendid +sagacity she hitched it to. . . a religion, the surest of all ways to +secure friends for it, and support. In a fine and lofty way-- +figuratively speaking--it was a tramp stealing a ride on the lightning +express. Ah, how did that ignorant village-born peasant woman know the +human being so well? She has no more intellect than a tadpole--until it +comes to business then she is a marvel! Am I sorry I wrote the book? +Most certainly not. You say you have 500 (converts) in Glasgow. Fifty +years from now, your posterity will not count them by the hundred, but by +the thousand. I feel absolutely sure of this. + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Clemens wrote very little for publication that year, but he enjoyed + writing for his own amusement, setting down the things that boiled, + or bubbled, within him: mainly chapters on the inconsistencies of + human deportment, human superstition and human creeds. The "Letters + from the Earth" referred to in the following, were supposed to have + been written by an immortal visitant from some far realm to a + friend, describing the absurdities of mankind. It is true, as he + said, that they would not do for publication, though certainly the + manuscript contains some of his mgt delicious writing. Miss + Wallace, to whom the next letter is written, had known Mark Twain in + Bermuda, and, after his death, published a dainty volume entitled + Mark Twain in the Happy Island. + + + "STORMFIELD," REDDING, CONNECTICUT, + Nov. 13, '09. +DEAR BETSY,--I've been writing "Letters from the Earth," and if you will +come here and see us I will--what? Put the MS in your hands, with the +places to skip marked? No. I won't trust you quite that far. I'll read +messages to you. This book will never be published--in fact it couldn't +be, because it would be felony to soil the mails with it, for it has much +Holy Scripture in it of the kind that . . . can't properly be read +aloud, except from the pulpit and in family worship. Paine enjoys it, +but Paine is going to be damned one of these days, I suppose. + +The autumn splendors passed you by? What a pity. I wish you had been +here. It was beyond words! It was heaven and hell and sunset and +rainbows and the aurora all fused into one divine harmony, and you +couldn't look at it and keep the tears back. All the hosannahing strong +gorgeousnesses have gone back to heaven and hell and the pole, now, but +no matter; if you could look out of my bedroom window at this moment, you +would choke up; and when you got your voice you would say: This is not +real, this is a dream. Such a singing together, and such a whispering +together, and such a snuggling together of cosy soft colors, and such +kissing and caressing, and such pretty blushing when the sun breaks out +and catches those dainty weeds at it--you remember that weed-garden of +mine?--and then--then the far hills sleeping in a dim blue trance--oh, +hearing about it is nothing, you should be here to see it. + +Good! I wish I could go on the platform and read. And I could, if it +could be kept out of the papers. There's a charity-school of 400 young +girls in Boston that I would give my ears to talk to, if I had some more; +but--oh, well, I can't go, and it's no use to grieve about it. + +This morning Jean went to town; also Paine; also the butler; also Katy; +also the laundress. The cook and the maid, and the boy and the +roustabout and Jean's coachman are left--just enough to make it lonesome, +because they are around yet never visible. However, the Harpers are +sending Leigh up to play billiards; therefore I shall survive. + Affectionately, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Early in June that year, Clemens had developed unmistakable symptoms + of heart trouble of a very serious nature. It was angina pectoris, + and while to all appearances he was as well as ever and usually felt + so, he was periodically visited by severe attacks of acute "breast + pains" which, as the months passed, increased in frequency and + severity. He was alarmed and distressed--not on his own account, + but because of his daughter Jean--a handsome girl, who had long been + subject to epileptic seizures. In case of his death he feared that + Jean would be without permanent anchorage, his other daughter, + Clara--following her marriage to Ossip Gabrilowitsch in October-- + having taken up residence abroad. + + This anxiety was soon ended. On the morning of December 24th, jean + Clemens was found dead in her apartment. She was not drowned in her + bath, as was reported, but died from heart exhaustion, the result of + her malady and the shock of cold water. + [Questionable diagnosis! D.W.] + + The blow to her father was terrible, but heavy as it was, one may + perhaps understand that her passing in that swift, painless way must + have afforded him a measure of relief. + + + To Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, in Europe: + + REDDING, CONN., + Dec. 29, '09. +O, Clara, Clara dear, I am so glad she is out of it and safe--safe! I am +not melancholy; I shall never be melancholy again, I think. You see, I +was in such distress when I came to realize that you were gone far away +and no one stood between her and danger but me--and I could die at any +moment, and then--oh then what would become of her! For she was wilful, +you know, and would not have been governable. + +You can't imagine what a darling she was, that last two or three days; +and how fine, and good, and sweet, and noble-and joyful, thank Heaven!-- +and how intellectually brilliant. I had never been acquainted with Jean +before. I recognized that. + +But I mustn't try to write about her--I can't. I have already poured my +heart out with the pen, recording that last day or two. + +I will send you that--and you must let no one but Ossip read it. + +Good-bye. + I love you so! + And Ossip. + FATHER. + + +The writing mentioned in the last paragraph was his article 'The Death of +Jean,' his last serious writing, and one of the world's most beautiful +examples of elegiac prose. --[Harper's Magazine, Dec., 1910, and later in +the volume, 'What Is Man and Other Essays.' + + + + +XLVIII + +LETTERS OF 1910. LAST TRIP TO BERMUDA. LETTERS TO PAINE. +THE LAST LETTER + + Mark Twain had returned from a month's trip to Bermuda a few days + before Jean died. Now, by his physician's advice, he went back to + those balmy islands. He had always loved them, since his first trip + there with Twichell thirty-three years earlier, and at "Bay House," + the residence of Vice-Consul Allen, where he was always a welcome + guest, he could have the attentions and care and comforts of a home. + Taking Claude, the butler, as his valet, he sailed January 5th, and + presently sent back a letter in which he said, "Again I am leading + the ideal life, and am immeasurably content." + + By his wish, the present writer and his family were keeping the + Stormfield house open for him, in order that he might be able to + return to its comforts at any time. He sent frequent letters--one + or two by each steamer--but as a rule they did not concern matters + of general interest. A little after his arrival, however, he wrote + concerning an incident of his former visit--a trivial matter--but + one which had annoyed him. I had been with him in Bermuda on the + earlier visit, and as I remember it, there had been some slight + oversight on his part in the matter of official etiquette--something + which doubtless no one had noticed but himself. + + + To A. B. Paine, in Redding: + + BAY HOUSE, Jan. 11, 1910. + +DEAR PAINE,-- . . . There was a military lecture last night at the +Officer's Mess, prospect, and as the lecturer honored me with a special +and urgent invitation and said he wanted to lecture to me particularly, +I being "the greatest living master of the platform-art," I naturally +packed Helen and her mother into the provided carriage and went. + +As soon as we landed at the door with the crowd the Governor came to me +at once and was very cordial, and apparently as glad to see me as he said +he was. So that incident is closed. And pleasantly and entirely +satisfactorily. Everything is all right, now, and I am no longer in a +clumsy and awkward situation. + +I "met up" with that charming Colonel Chapman, and other officers of the +regiment, and had a good time. + +Commandant Peters of the "Carnegie" will dine here tonight and arrange a +private visit for us to his ship, the crowd to be denied access. + Sincerely Yours, + S. L. C. + + + "Helen" of this letter was Mr. and Mrs. Allen's young daughter, + a favorite companion of his walks and drives. "Loomis" and "Lark," + mentioned in the letters which follow, were Edward E. Loomis--his + nephew by marriage--named by Mark Twain as one of the trustees of + his estate, and Charles T. Lark, Mark Twain's attorney. + + + To A. B. Paine, in Redding: + + HAMILTON, Jan. 21, '10. +DEAR PAINE,--Thanks for your letter, and for its contenting news of the +situation in that foreign and far-off and vaguely-remembered country +where you and Loomis and Lark and other beloved friends are. + +I have a letter from Clara this morning. She is solicitous, and wants me +well and watchfully taken care of. My, she ought to see Helen and her +parents and Claude administer that trust! + +Also she says: "I hope to hear from you or Mr. Paine very soon." + +I am writing her, and I know you will respond to your part of her prayer. +She is pretty desolate now, after Jean's emancipation--the only kindness +God ever did that poor unoffending child in all her hard life. + Ys ever + S. L. C. + + + Send Clara a copy of Howells's gorgeous letter. I want a copy of my + article that he is speaking of. + + + The "gorgeous letter" was concerning Mark Twain's article, "The + Turning-point in My Life" which had just appeared in one of the + Harper publications. Howells wrote of it, "While your wonderful + words are warm in my mind yet, I want to tell you what you know + already: that you never wrote anything greater, finer, than that + turning-point paper of yours." + + From the early Bermuda letters we may gather that Mark Twain's days + were enjoyable enough, and that his malady was not giving him + serious trouble, thus far. Near the end of January he wrote: "Life + continues here the same as usual. There isn't a flaw in it. Good + times, good home, tranquil contentment all day and every day, + without a break. I shouldn't know how to go about bettering my + situation." He did little in the way of literary work, probably + finding neither time nor inclination for it. When he wrote at all + it was merely to set down some fanciful drolleries with no thought + of publication. + + + To Prof. William Lyon Phelps, Yale College: + + HAMILTON, March 12. +DEAR PROFESSOR PHELPS,--I thank you ever so much for the book--[Professor +Phelps's Essays on Modern Novelists.]--which I find charming--so charming +indeed, that I read it through in a single night, and did not regret the +lost night's sleep. I am glad if I deserve what you have said about me: +and even if I don't I am proud and well contented, since you think I +deserve it. + +Yes, I saw Prof. Lounsbury, and had a most pleasant time with him. He +ought to have staid longer in this little paradise--partly for his own +sake, but mainly for mine. + +I knew my poor Jean had written you. I shall not have so dear and sweet +a secretary again. + +Good health to you, and all good fortune attend you. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + He would appear to have written not many letters besides those to + Mrs. Gabrilowitsch and to Stormfield, but when a little girl sent + him a report of a dream, inspired by reading The Prince and the + Pauper, he took the time and trouble to acknowledge it, realizing, + no doubt, that a line from him would give the child happiness. + + + To Miss Sulamith, in New York: + + "BAY HOUSE," BERMUDA, March 21, 1910. +DEAR MISS SULAMITH,--I think it is a remarkable dream for a girl of 13 to +have dreamed, in fact for a person of any age to have dreamed, because it +moves by regular grade and sequence from the beginning to the end, which +is not the habit of dreams. I think your report of it is a good piece of +work, a clear and effective statement of the vision. + +I am glad to know you like the "Prince and the Pauper" so well and I +believe with you that the dream is good evidence of that liking. I think +I may say, with your sister that I like myself best when I am serious. + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + Through February, and most of March, letters and reports from him + were about the same. He had begun to plan for his return, and + concerning amusements at Stormfield for the entertainment of the + neighbors, and for the benefit of the library which he had founded + soon after his arrival in Redding. In these letters he seldom + mentioned the angina pains that had tortured him earlier. But once, + when he sent a small photograph of himself, it seemed to us that his + face had become thin and that he had suffered. Certainly his next + letter was not reassuring. + + + To A. B. Paine, in Redding: + +DEAR PAINE,--We must look into the magic-lantern business. Maybe the +modern lantern is too elaborate and troublesome for back-settlement use, +but we can inquire. We must have some kind of a show at "Stormfield" to +entertain the countryside with. + +We are booked to sail in the "Bermudian" April 23rd, but don't tell +anybody, I don't want it known. I may have to go sooner if the pain in +my breast doesn't mend its ways pretty considerably. I don't want to die +here for this is an unkind place for a person in that condition. I +should have to lie in the undertaker's cellar until the ship would remove +me and it is dark down there and unpleasant. + +The Colliers will meet me on the pier and I may stay with them a week or +two before going home. It all depends on the breast pain--I don't want +to die there. I am growing more and more particular about the place. + With love, + S. L. C. + + + This letter had been written by the hand of his "secretary," Helen + Allen: writing had become an effort to him. Yet we did not suspect + how rapidly the end was approaching and only grew vaguely alarmed. + A week later, however, it became evident that his condition was + critical. + + +DEAR PAINE,--. . . . I have been having a most uncomfortable time for +the past 4 days with that breast-pain, which turns out to be an affection +of the heart, just as I originally suspected. The news from New York is +to the effect that non-bronchial weather has arrived there at last, +therefore if I can get my breast trouble in traveling condition I may +sail for home a week or two earlier than has heretofore been proposed: + Yours as ever + S. L. CLEMENS, + (per H. S. A.) + + + In this letter he seems to have forgotten that his trouble had been + pronounced an affection of the heart long before he left America, + though at first it had been thought that it might be gastritis. + The same mail brought a letter from Mr. Allen explaining fully the + seriousness of his condition. I sailed immediately for Bermuda, + arriving there on the 4th of April. He was not suffering at the + moment, though the pains came now with alarming frequency and + violence. He was cheerful and brave. He did not complain. He gave + no suggestion of a man whose days were nearly ended. + + A part of the Stormfield estate had been a farm, which he had given + to Jean Clemens, where she had busied herself raising some live + stock and poultry. After her death he had wished the place to be + sold and the returns devoted to some memorial purpose. The sale had + been made during the winter and the price received had been paid in + cash. I found him full of interest in all affairs, and anxious to + discuss the memorial plan. A day or two later he dictated the + following letter-the last he would ever send. + + It seemed fitting that this final word from one who had so long + given happiness to the whole world should record a special gift to + his neighbors. + + + To Charles T. Lark, in New York: + + HAMILTON, BERMUDA. + April 6, 1910. +DEAR MR. LARK,--I have told Paine that I want the money derived from the +sale of the farm, which I had given, but not conveyed, to my daughter +Jean, to be used to erect a building for the Mark Twain Library of +Redding, the building to be called the Jean L. Clemens Memorial Building. + +I wish to place the money $6,000.00 in the hands of three trustees,-- +Paine and two others: H. A. Lounsbury and William E. Hazen, all of +Redding, these trustees to form a building Committee to decide on the +size and plan of the building needed and to arrange for and supervise the +work in such a manner that the fund shall amply provide for the building +complete, with necessary furnishings, leaving, if possible, a balance +remaining, sufficient for such repairs and additional furnishings as may +be required for two years from the time of completion. + +Will you please draw a document covering these requirements and have it +ready by the time I reach New York (April 14th). + Very sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + We sailed on the 12th of April, reaching New York on the 14th, + as he had planned. A day or two later, Mr. and Mrs. Gabrilowitsch, + summoned from Italy by cable, arrived. He suffered very little + after reaching Stormfield, and his mind was comparatively clear up + to the last day. On the afternoon of April 21st he sank into a + state of coma, and just at sunset he died. Three days later, at + Elmira, New York, he was laid beside Mrs. Clemens and those others + who had preceded him. + + + + + THE LAST DAY AT STORMFIELD + + By BLISS CARMAN. + + At Redding, Connecticut, + The April sunrise pours + Over the hardwood ridges + Softening and greening now + In the first magic of Spring. + + The wild cherry-trees are in bloom, + The bloodroot is white underfoot, + The serene early light flows on, + Touching with glory the world, + And flooding the large upper room + Where a sick man sleeps. + Slowly he opens his eyes, + After long weariness, smiles, + And stretches arms overhead, + While those about him take heart. + + With his awakening strength, + (Morning and spring in the air, + The strong clean scents of earth, + The call of the golden shaft, + Ringing across the hills) + He takes up his heartening book, + Opens the volume and reads, + A page of old rugged Carlyle, + The dour philosopher + Who looked askance upon life, + Lurid, ironical, grim, + Yet sound at the core. + But weariness returns; + He lays the book aside + With his glasses upon the bed, + And gladly sleeps. Sleep, + Blessed abundant sleep, + Is all that he needs. + + And when the close of day + Reddens upon the hills + And washes the room with rose, + In the twilight hush + The Summoner comes to him + Ever so gently, unseen, + Touches him on the shoulder; + And with the departing sun + Our great funning friend is gone. + + How he has made us laugh! + A whole generation of men + Smiled in the joy of his wit. + But who knows whether he was not + Like those deep jesters of old + Who dwelt at the courts of Kings, + Arthur's, Pendragon's, Lear's, + Plying the wise fool's trade, + Making men merry at will, + Hiding their deeper thoughts + Under a motley array,-- + Keen-eyed, serious men, + Watching the sorry world, + The gaudy pageant of life, + With pity and wisdom and love? + + Fearless, extravagant, wild, + His caustic merciless mirth + Was leveled at pompous shams. + Doubt not behind that mask + There dwelt the soul of a man, + Resolute, sorrowing, sage, + As sure a champion of good + As ever rode forth to fray. + + Haply--who knows?--somewhere + In Avalon, Isle of Dreams, + In vast contentment at last, + With every grief done away, + While Chaucer and Shakespeare wait, + And Moliere hangs on his words, + And Cervantes not far off + Listens and smiles apart, + With that incomparable drawl + He is jesting with Dagonet now. + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Complete Letters +of Mark Twain compiled by Albert Bigelow Paine + |