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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
Books BY
MARK TWAIN
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD ROUGHING IT
THE GILDED AGE
A TRAMP ABROAD FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR PUDD’NHEAD WILSON SKETCHES NEW AND OLD THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE AT THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
THE $30,000 BEQUEST -
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
WHAT IS MAN? :
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
ADAM’S DIARY
A DOG’S TALE
A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE STORY EDITORIAL WILD OATS
EVE’S DIARY
HOW TO TELL A STORY
IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
CAPT. STORMFIELD’S VISIT TO HEAVEN A HORSE’S TALE
THE JUMPING FROG ~
THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE
TRAVELS AT HOME
TRAVELS IN HISTORY
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS MARK TWAIN’S SPEECHES
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK {[EstaBiisHEep 1817]
MRS. CLEMENS ABOUT 1885
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
ARRANGED WITH COMMENT ‘ BY ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
TWO VOLUMES VOL. II
ILLUSTRATED
HARPER &% BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON
B T911L6 Vive
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. Mark Twain’s letters,
LeLotg
CY -le
Mark Twain's LETTERS
Copyright, 1917, by Mark Twain Company Printed in the United States of America Published November, 1917
rk
SAN FRANGISOO PUBLIC LIBRARY
CHAP.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXII.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
CONTENTS
LETTERS, 1884, FO HOWELLS AND OTHERS—CABLE’S Great Aprit Foor— Huck Finn” In Press —MarKk Twain FOR CLEVELAND—CLEMENS
ANDAGCABEER cach Route Catelt fay etree ae uo lesa e: THE GREAT YEAR OF 1885—CLEMENS AND CABLE — PUBLICATION OF “Huck FINN’ — THE
Grant Memorrs—Mark TWAIN AT Firty .
LETTERS, 1886-87—JANE CLEMENS’S ROMANCE— UNMATEED LETTERS ETC. 2. soa 6. ere
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF 1887—LITERARY AR- TICLES—PEACEFUL DAYS AT THE FaRM— FAvoRITE READING— APOLOGY TO MRrs. CEEVEEAND! HEC fersmeemt. ahs let irer <o Piss goa
LETTERS, 1888—A YaLE DEGREE—WORK ON “THE YANKEE’’—ON INTERVIEWING, ETC. .
LETTERS, 1889—THE MAcHINE—DEATH OF MR. CRANE—CONCLUSION OF ‘‘THE YANKEE”. .
LETTERS, 1890—CHIEFLY TO Jos. T. GoopMAN— THE GREAT MACHINE ENTERPRISE... .
LETTERS, 1891, TO HOWELLS, Mrs. CLEMENS AND OTHERS—RETURN TO LITERATURE—‘‘AMERI- CAN CLAIMANT’’—LEAVING HArTFORD—Ev- ROPE—DOWN THE RHONE ...... .
LETTERS, 1892, CHIEFLY TO Mr. HALL AND Mrs. CRANE—IN BERLIN, .MENTONE, BAD-NAU- HIBIM, FHEORENCES (a 6h ais a een aniie
LETTERS, 1893, TO Mr. Hatt, Mrs. CLEMENS, AND OTHERS—FLORENCE—BusINESS__TROU-
BLES— ‘“‘PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’’—“‘JOAN OF Arc”—AT THE Players, NEw YORK .. .
LETTERS, 1894—A WinTER IN NEW YoRK—
Business, F —END OF THE ;MACHINE .
PAGE
439 448
467
483 — 495 506
529
540
562
375
601
CHAP.
XXXV.
XXXVI. XXXVII.
XXXVIIL
XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
XLII.
XLII.
XLIV.
XLV.
XLVI.
XLVII.
XLVIIL. .
CON TENTS
LETTERS, 1895-96, TO H. H. Rocers Ss SSENEEIC "On OF ee tee tes AROUND THE WorLD—DEATH OF Susy CUEMENS bine oti east 2
. . e ° . . .
LETTERS, 1897—LONDON, SWITZERLAND, VIENNA
LETTERS, 1898, TO HOWELLS AND TWwICHELL— LIFE IN VIENNA—PAYMENT OF THE DEBTS— ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPRESS ....
LETTERS, 1899, TO HowELLs AND OTHERS— VIENNA—LONDON—A SUMMER IN SWEDEN .
LETTERS OF 1900, MAINLY To TWICHELL — THE BoER War—BoxerR TROUBLES—THE RE- TURN TOM AMBRIGA MG ayn Oe ee kh
LETTERS OF 1901, CHIEFLY TO TWICHELL—MARK TWAIN AS A REFORMER—SUMMER AT SARA- NAC—ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT McKIn-
LETTERS OF 1902—RIVERDALE—YorK HARBOR— ILLNESS OF Mrs, CLEMENS . .....
LETTERS OF 1903—To Various PERsons—Harp Days at RIVERDALE—Last SUMMER AT EL- MIRA—THE RETURN TO Itaty . ... .
LETTERS OF 1904—To Various PERsoNs—LIFE IN VILLA QUARTO—DEATH OF Mrs. CLEMENS —TuHE RETURN TO AMERICA .....,
LETTERS OF 1905—To TWICHELL, Mr. DuNEKA AND OTHERS—PoLiTics AND HumANnity—A SUMMER AT DuBLIN=Marxk TwaIn at 70.
LETTERS, 1906, TO VARIOUS PERSONS—THE FaArE- WELL LECTURE—A SECOND SUMMER IN Dups- LIN—BILLIARDS AND COPYRIGHT s
LETTERS, 1907-08—A DEGREE FROM OxFrorp— Tae New Home at ReEppInG pate.
LETTERS, 1900, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS—LIFE AT STORMFIELD—CopyrIGHT ExTENSION— DEATH OF JEAN CLEMENS: .-. 3.05. ~«.
LETTERS OF 1910—Last Trip To BERMUDA—LET- TERS TO PAINE—THE Last LETTER .
e .
PAGE
621 640
655
672 689 = 717 730 748 766
787
804
825
837
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. CLEMENS ABOUT 1885 ... +. + + « « « Frontispiece GERHARDT’S Bust OF MARK TWAIN ... . . .« Facing p. 444 Mark TWAIN AND CABLE ON THEIR READING TouR ‘‘ 450 VILLA VIVIANI, FLORENCE
GARDEN OF VILLA VIVIANI, FLORENCE S70
WHERE Mark Twain WROTE His JOAN oF Arc Book
Mark TWAIN IN 1896, AFTER His RETURN FROM HIs Tour AROUND*THE.WORLDin ee 2) eh ele ees = 030
TEDWORTH SQUARE, LONDON House occupied by the Clemens family, winter of 1896-7
Marx Twain’s Stupy AT WEGGIS, SWITZERLAND, aa 1897 PENSION AT WEGGIS, SWITZERLAND Occupied by the Clemens family, summer of 1897 erier tO. Dao. RISBIBs mes wt tes “Altes aie phase OAS Mark TwAIn ON His Trip AROUND THE WORLD. Facing p. 650 A trick photograph made from two negatives (see pages 647-8) RICHARD WATSON GILDER ABOUT 1903 ..... ‘ 754 Mark Twalin’s WRITING AT SEVENTY ... ~~. Page 788 Mark TwaAin’s Copy FOR LECTURE ANNOUNCEMENT. ‘‘ = 793 NEARED WAIN'S WRITING INE TOOS bec d= «1 il os) ete O20 STORMUIELD perf kb hoon ei, suns 2 do) +e, 9. «Raa O32
Toe ‘‘GorcEous” LETTER FroM W. D. HowELLs; LINE OF COMMENT AT Top BY MARK TWAIN . . Page 839
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
XXIV
LETTERS, 1884, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. CABLE’S GREAT APRIL FOOL. ‘‘HUCK FINN’’ IN PRESS. MARK TWAIN FOR CLEVELAND. CLEMENS AND CABLE
ARK 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 prar Howetis,—‘‘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 domes- ticated, is a permanent member of the family. Money may desert you, friends forsake you, enemies grow indif- ferent 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. 439
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
My billiard table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich Islands: the walls are upholstered with scraps of paper penciled with notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge of that unimagin- ably 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 Christian- ity 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 come 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.
440
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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: “Tf 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 con- fidential”’ 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 rst 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 Conroy, I would like to add your name to the list.”
Of course, the joke in this was that Gabriel Conroy 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 Blood- good 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, Lona IsLAND.
Lone 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, : 441
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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, Buioopcoop H. Curter,
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartrorp, Afi 8, ’84.
My pgAR Howe Lis,—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 zt on. It will cost me a pang every time I think of it, but this anguish will be eingebiisst 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 Tob- sucht 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.
442
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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 com- pleted a three years’ study in Paris, had returned to America a qualified artist.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Evmira, Aug. 21, ’84.
My pear Howe tts,—This presidential campaign is too delicious for anything. Jsn’t human nature the most con- summate 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 thy- self, to a dead moral certainty. Take three quite good specimens—Hawley, Warner,and Charley Clark. Even J do not loathe Blaine more than they do; Yet Hawley is howl- ing for Blaine, Warner and Clark are eating their daily crow in the paper for him, and all three will vote for him. O Stul- tification, where is thy sting, O slave where is thy hickory!
443
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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 inter- rupted at wide intervals by absent-minded ejaculations wrung 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, hypo-
444
GERHARDT’S BUST OF MARK TWAIN
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
critical, lop-sided morality which says a woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none, I want to see him de- stroyed 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:
EvmirA, Sept. 17, ’84.
My DEAR HoweELis,—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 of 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 stand- ing 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.
IL.—1 445
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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 en- tirely 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, '54.
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 them- selves. 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 stren- uously 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 Inde- pendent column would work absolutely certain defeat to Blain and save the country’s Honor?
Politicians often carry a victory by springing some dis- graceful 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
446
MARE TWAIN’S LETTERS
if they won’t call a sudden convention and whoop the thing through? To nominate Edmunds the 1st of Novem- ber, 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. PUBLICA- TION OF “‘HUCK FINN.”’ THE GRANT MEMOIRS. MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY
HE 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 pub- lishing 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 ad- ventures; he had intended only to handle his own books, be- cause 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 com- mander 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 any- thing he had foreseen—the downfall of his firm through the Na-
448
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
poleonic 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 appearing in the Centwry Magazine. General Grant, hard- pressed, was induced by the editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could write them, became inter- ested 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.!
We will now return for the moment to other matters, as re- ported in order by the letters. Clemens and Cable had continued their reading-tour into Canada, and in February found them- selves in Montreal. Here they were invited by the Tuque 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, for the Tuque Bleue Snow-shoe Club, Montreal:
Detroit, February 12, 1885.
Midnight, P.S. My pear Ites,—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 itis 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
1See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. cliv. 449
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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 itis. My cast iron duty is tomy audience—it leaves me no liberty and no option. With kindest regards to the Club and to you, Iam Sincerely yours S. L. CLEMENS.
In the next letter we reach the end of the Clemens-Cable ven- ture 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 pEAR Howe ts,—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 loath- some 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.
450
MARK TWAIN AND CABLE ON THEIR READING TOUR
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
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 in- vestments 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 Hart- ford 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:
Wasuincton, Mch. 2, ’85. My DEAR S1R,—I take my earliest opportunity to answer
your favor of Feb. 23. 451
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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 sus- picious; 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 adver- tised 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 9. L. CLEMENS.
The story of Huck Finn was having a wide success. Webster handled it skilfully, 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 452
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only for the slums.” That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure. Ys Dela.
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:
HartrorpD, May 5, 85.
My pear Howettis,—. . . 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.
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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.
“T 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:
Evmira, July 21, 1885.
My pEar Howe.is,—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 chap- ters, 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
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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 peo- ple; 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 con- vey its purpose in the simplest and most direct terms. It is interesting to note that in thanking Clemens for his compli- ment 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.
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This was some time in July. On the 23d of that month Gen- eral 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 Epiror oF 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 wili 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 possi- bilities 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 civilization 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
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give ourselves no uneasiness about that. Wherever Gen- eral Grant’s body lies, that is national ground. 8. L. CLEMENS. ExmirA, 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 some- thing 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 informa- tion to the publisher of Grant’s own memoirs, hoping from an advance copy to obtain light.
To Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn:
Evora, N. Y. Sept. 11, ’85.
My pEeAR Mr. BeEcHEeR,—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:
“Tonor 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 dis- solve 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 457
MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS
before he came East to be Lt. General. (Refer especially to Gen. Wm. B. Franklin’) 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 Com- mandant of his Oregon post with a report to the War Department of his conduct unless he modified his intem- perance. 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
‘If you could see Franklin and talk with him—then he would unbosom. : 458
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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 Sher- man; 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
459
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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 Gen- eral 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, loving- ness, charity; his loyalty: to friends, to convictions, to promises, half-promises, infinitesimal fractions and shad- ows 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 Har- rison, 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
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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 compul- sion, 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 Donel- son, 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 com- plication 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 think- ing, 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 or words at a single sit- I1.—2 461
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ting!—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 re- cuperation—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 con- struction 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 8. 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 in- terest 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.
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MARK TWAIN'S LETDERS To W. D. Howells, in Boston: Private! HARTFORD, Oct. 18, 1885.
My bear Howe tts,—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 re- sponsible 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 $500 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 pro- crastinated 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 proposi- tion which they would hate to refuse to a man in a per- plexed 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 dis- courteous 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. rst) 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.
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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. rst. I can stand it, and stand it perfectly well; but the days do seem to fool along con- siderable 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.’’
ToW. D.H owells, in Boston:
HotTet NorMANDIE NEw York, Dec. 2, 85.
My pEAR Howe tts,—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.
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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 roth 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.
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To Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Boston:
Dear Mr. Hotmes,—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 go, 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 shin- ing heights in their eyes, to very fellowship with the cham- bered 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, 9. L. CLEMENs.
Holmes wrote with his own hand: “Did Miss Gilder tell you I had twenty-three letters spread out for answer when her sug- gestion came about your anniversary? I stopped my corre- spondence and made my letters wait until the lines were done.”
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XXVI
LETTERS, 1886-87. JANE CLEMENS’S ROMANCE. UNMAILED LETTERS, ETC.
HEN 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.1 We get a glimpse of one of these occasions as well as of Mark Twain’s financiai progress in the next brief note.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Jan. 3, ’86.
My pEAR Howe ts,—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.
1In Mark Twain: A Biography, chaps. clii and clx. 467
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Mark Twain’s mother was a woman of sturdy character and with a keen sense of humor and tender sympathies. Her hus- band, John Marshall Clemens, had been a man of high moral character, honored by all who knew him, respected and appar- ently 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 pear Howe ts,—. . . . 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 repre- sented 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 in- sisted, and persisted; and finally gained her point. They started; and all the waymy 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:
“Ts Dr. Barrett of St. Louis, here?’’
“No. He was here, but he returned to St. Louis this morning.”
“Will he come again?”
6é 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
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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 doit. 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 pro- pose. My uncle should have done as he was asked, with- out 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 sus- pecting 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, assum- ing that there was a subsequent meeting. It does not matter, now. Inspeaking of it, Mark Twain once said: ‘It is as pathetic a romance as any that has crossed the field of my personal ex- perience in a long lifetime.’’?
1When 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.
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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 every-day 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 realiza- tion 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:
Extmira, 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 com- paratively 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
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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 re- flecting, it has taught me a lesson. By and by, when my health fails, I am going to put all y maffairs 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 intomy 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 are 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
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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.
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 waste- basket, 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, tnable 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 what- ever, 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 your- self can do, therefore why shouldn’t you be willing to
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put your hall-mark on it? You will be giving the pur- chaser 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 exag- gerations 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,
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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 nota- tion, 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 drovped this remark:
“T 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 meaning- less 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 worth- less guess. What ascorcher I got, next mail! Such irony! such sarcasm, such caustic praise of my superhonorable
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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 Si1r,—What is the trouble with you? If it is your viscera, you cannot have them taken out and reor- ganized 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 news- papers made a practice of inviting men distinguished in any walk of life to give their time and effort without charge to ex- press 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, station- ery, 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 475
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had previously imitated the idea of this sort of mendi- cancy 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 discrim- inate? 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 mat- ter 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 “‘ar- rangement” 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. 476
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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 drama- tized. 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 Zeit- vertreib.
Now as I understand it, dear and magnanimous 1365, you are going to re-create 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 spell- bound when I came in view, and even inanimate things stopped to look—like locomotives, and district messenger
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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 compli- ment. 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 cir- cumstance 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 cen- sus—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
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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 forme. Truly Yours.
Mailed Answer:
NEw York, Sepi. 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, 8. 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 edi- tions. 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 to-day, 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. Curistrancy, 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 col-
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lect a duty on the counterfeits, and then let them go ahead and circulate in this country.
2. But if there zs 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 couid 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 sin-
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cerely 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. copy- right 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 interpreiers 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 sug- gest 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 Stae 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
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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.
E 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 immedi- ately. 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 pear Mapam,—It is an idea which many people have had, but it is of no value. I have seen it tried out many and many atime. 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
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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 appren- ticeship and proved himself. Your sister’s course is per- fectly 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. DraR HoweEtits —I was in New York five days ago, and Webster mentioned the Library, and proposed to 484
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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 appoint- ment 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 black- mailing 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, T certainly believe. The longer I live the clearer I perceive how un- matchable, 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 Marg.
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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 Jeannetie Gilder (not mailed):
HartrorD, May 14, ’87.
My pear Miss Gitper,—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 seyen 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
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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 din’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.
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As to that “‘Noah’s Ark” book, I began it in Edin- burgh in 1873;! 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.
So Le:
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 Mo.iize,—This is a superb Sunday for weather— very cloudy, and the thermometer as low as 6s. 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 so yards away on a higher (the highest) point; the cats are loafing over at ‘‘Ellerslie”’ which is the children’s estate and dwelling- house 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 see-
1 This is not quite correct. The ‘'Noah’s Ark’ book was begun in Buffalo in 1870. 488
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able. The children have gone on a lark through the neigh- boring 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 pres- ently 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.
Evmira, July 12, ’87.
My pear SIsTtER,—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 con- tinuation 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
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Lives of the Twelve Cesars, and Thomas Carlyle’s French Revo- lution. 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 assembed 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 pgAR Howe is,—How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man while he sleeps. When I fin- ished 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,
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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 Marx.
Mention has been made already of Mark Twain’s tendency to absent-mindedness. 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:
Hartrorp, Nov. 6, 1887.
My pEeaR Mapam,—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
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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 ali 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, be- cause 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 him 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 492
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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 pear CuHatto,—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 anew 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
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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 type- setter, 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 aver- aged $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 wp 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 Christ- mas wishes for your prosperity.
Affectionately, SAM.
XXVIII
ee
LETTERS, 1888. A YALE DEGREE. WORK ON YANKEE.” ON INTERVIEWING, ETC.
THE
ARK TWAIN received his first college degree when he
was made Master of Arts by Yale, in June, 1888. Edi- tor of the Courant, Charles H. Clarke, was selected to notify him of his new title. Clarke was an old friend to whom Clem- ens could write familiarly.
To Charles H. Clarke, in Hartford:
Extmira, July 2, ’88. My pear 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 pEAR FRIEND,—You ate “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.” Crees
With the exception of his brief return to the river in 1882. Mark Twain had been twenty-seven years away from pilots 495
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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:
Evmira, 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 Iam! I mean to go to Hot Springs myself and get 30 or 4o 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? [ 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
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hated me for burlesqueing 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:
Ermira, N. Y., Aue. 4, ’88.
My pear 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. Asarule, 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
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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 occsaion for con- cealment; 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 hyper- criticism? 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
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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.
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 ar days, of course. They will all be on hand and under wages, and each will get in all the work there is oppor- tunity 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 some- where, 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
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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 know- ing when I doit. I began here Monday morning, and have done eighty pages since. I was so tired last night that I thought I would lié abed and rest, to-day; but I couldn’t resist. I mean to try to knock off to-morrow, 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,
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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— o LG
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 mustnt ask for things now. The machine isn’t done. Sa.
The letter that follows is to another of his old pilot friends, one who was also a schoolmate, Will Bowen, of Hannibal. There is to-day 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.:
Hartrorp, 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 uninfiuenced 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 happi- ness, dotibtless 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 -
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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 pass- ing through this noisy swarm of the living, but there it was, and to me there was nothing uncanny about it; no, 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 pari 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 type- setting 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 re- corded that he had figured his personal living expenses down to sixty cents a week, but inasmuch as he was then, by his own con- fession, 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 aman. You can go crazy on less material than anybody that ever 502
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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, be- cause I swear. I swear all day, but I do not lose my tem- per. And don’t imagine that Iam on my way to the poor- house, 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.
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS To Edward W. Bok, in New York:
My Dear Mr. Box,—No, no. It is like most inter- views, pure twaddle and valueless.
For several quite plain and simple reasons, an ‘‘inter- view’’ must, as a rule, be an absurdity, and chiefly for this reason—lIt 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, friendli- ness 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 neces- sary 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.
“Tf 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.”
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“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 over- loads, almost every utterance of his characters with ex- planations 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 mean- ings to the reader, but never the right one. To add inter- pretations 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.
Tf 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
N 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 com- plete, 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 per- fectly spaced and perfectly justified on this earth.
This was the last function that remained to be tested—
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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 mathema- tician.
“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 test is 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
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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 for- gotten that vast fact for the moment.
All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical birth—the first justification of a line of mov- able 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 cal- culators, Jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwright’s frames—all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Com- positor marches alone and far in the lead of human in- ventions.
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. oe
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.
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS To Mrs. Theodore Crane. in Elmira, N. Y.:
Hartrorp, May 28, ’8o9.
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. AUG.
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:
HartTForD, July 13, ’89. Dear Howe tts,—I came on from Elmira a day or two ago, where I left a house of mourning. Mr. Crane IL—5 509
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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 prefection 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 some- thing 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
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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.:'
Evmira, July 24, ’89. Dear Mr. Hati,—Upon reflection—thus: tell Beard to obey his owm 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— Si LG
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 peerfless 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 im- possible. From the next letter we get the situation at this time. The “Mr. Church”? mentioned was Frederick 5. Church, the well-known artist.
1 Charles L. Webster, owing to poor health, had by this time re- tired from the firm.
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Ermira, July 24, ’89.
Dear Howe ts,—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 strat- agem 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 sober- minded 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.
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ExLmira, Aug. 24, ’89.
Dear Howe ts,—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 morn- ing. I’m sure I’m going to be charmed with Beard’s pict- ures. 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:
Hartrorp, Sept. 22, 89. DEAR HowEL1s,—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 513
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be. Iam 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 hap- pened 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 criti- cism. 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 Rie
The type-setting machine began to loom large in the back- ground. Clemens believed it perfected by this time. Paige had got it together again and it was running steadily—or ap- proximately so—setting type at a marvelous speed and with
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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, ’S9.
Dear Jor,—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,’ 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
1 This is Col. McComb, of the Alta-California, who had sent Mark Twain on the Quaker City excursion.
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cost of $3,000 a month, and in so private a way that Hart- ford 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 lmagnificent creature of steel, all of Pratt & Whitney’s superbest 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, justify- ing, 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
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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 814 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 type- setting machine that can run two hours on a stretch with- out 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
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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 15,000 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 de- clared. 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, per- manent, and occupying the position, as regards all kin- dred 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.
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MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS To Mrs. Moffett, in Keokuk:
HARTFORD, Oct, 9, ’89.
Dear Pamera,—An hour after you left I was suddenly struck with a realizing sense of the utter chuckleheaded- ness 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 to-day. 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
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rational people, away down here in this wholesome and — merciless slaughter-day for shams, still mouthing empty reverence for those moss-backed frauds and scoundrel- isms, 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 Brazil- ians 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 Con- necticut Yankee in which he announces the dissolution of King Arthur’s monarchy and proclaims the English Republic. Compare it with the state paper which an- nounces 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
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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 work- ing. 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:
HartTForD, Nov. 29, ’89. DEAR Jor,—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 521
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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 1sth 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:
Hartrorp, Dec. 23, ’89.
Dear Howetis,—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.
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T am going to read to the Cadets at West Point Jan. rz. I go from here to New York the oth, 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. Heisa splen- did 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 lunch- eon. 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
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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 re-publish him with- out 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 care- fully. 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
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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 Con- necticut 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 admir- ing Mark Twain. Clemens stood this for a time and then seems to have decided that something should be done. One of the fore- most 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 IL.—6 525
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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 to-day 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.
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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 | °)0
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 narne to them, but they are a grade higher in the scale of civiliza- tion by the ministrations of the plaster-cast than they were before it took its place upon their 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 culti- vate 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
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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—criti- cized from the culture-standard—to my sorrow and pain; because, honestly, I never cared what became of the cul- tured 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 Mem- bers, 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 ex- press 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; “T 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.”
XXX
LETTERS, 1890, CHIEFLY TO JOS. T. GOODMAN. THE GREAT MACHINE ENTERPRISE
R. 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 ex- quisite 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 atten- tion 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
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years before. The play had eventually been produced at the Lyceum Theatre in New York, with A. P. Burbank in the leading réle, 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 Jor,—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.
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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 3oth 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 per- fect, 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 held 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 require- ment, 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 when 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
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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 dim 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 T 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.
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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, oc- cupied less room. There was not so much about it to get out of order; it was not so delicate, not sohuman. These were im- mense advantages.
But no one at this time could say with certainty which type- setter 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 com- pany 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 Cali- fornia 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:
HartTForpD, June 22, ’90.
Dear Jor,—I have been sitting by the machine 214 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 24 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 534
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of the patents. Now here is a queer fact: I am one of the wealthiest grandees in America—one of the Vander- bilt 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 Marx.
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 Wash- ington 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 cer- tain, 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.
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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 EpitTor 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, J 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 respons- ible 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 pris- oners 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 warn- ing from the first rebukes, seems to mock this humani- tarian age by the aggravation of brutalities. Not satis- fied 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
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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 dis- appointed. 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 uncom- promising 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 valuakle about it somewhere, something worth preserving, some- thing even good and high and fine, when properly ‘‘modi- fied,’ 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 reconcilakle 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 help- less women and little children—your own. What would you do with him, supposing you had a shotgun? Well, he zs loose in your house—Russia. And with your shot- gun 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 in- stance been successful—the ‘‘modification” of a despot-
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ism 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
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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. Per- haps 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 Jor,—... I wish you could get a day off and make those two or three Californians buy those privi- leges, 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 simul- taneously works to a charm.
With love to you both, Mark. 538
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The year closed gloomily enough. The type-setter seemed to be perfected, but capital for its manufacture was not forthcom- ing. The publishing business of Charles L. Webster & Co. was returning little or no profit. Cléemens’s mother had died in Keokuk at the end of October, and tis wife’s mother, in Elmira a month later. Mark Twain, writing a short business letter to his publishing manager, Fred J. Hall, closed it: “Merry Xmas to you!—and I wish to God I could have one myself before I
die ”
XXXI
LETTERS, 1891, TO HOWELLS, MRS. CLEMENS AND OTHERS. RETURN TO LITERATURE. AMERICAN CLAIMANT. LEAVING HARTFORD. EUROPE.
DOWN THE RHINE
LEMENS 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 on 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, ’gr. DEAR HoweE.us,—Mrs. Clemens has been sick abed for near two weeks, but is up and around the room now,
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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 re- luctantly. 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 tremend- ous fortnight and the vividest he is ever going to see.
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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 steamboatmen—a race apart, and not like other folk.
And I was for some years a traveling “‘jour’’ printer, and wandered from city to