Clemens' first period of editorial work was a brief one, though he made
frequent contributions to the paper: sketches, squibs, travel-notes, and
experiences, usually humorous in character. His wedding-day had been set
for early in the year, and it was necessary to accumulate a bank account
for that occasion. Before October he was out on the lecture circuit,
billed now for the first time for New England, nervous and apprehensive
in consequence, though with good hope. To Pamela he wrote (November
9th):
To-morrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston
audience--4,000 critics--and on the success of this matter depends my
future success in New England. But I am not distressed. Nasby is in the
same boat. Tonight decides the fate of his brand-new lecture. He
has just left my room--been reading his lecture to me--was greatly
depressed. I have convinced him that he has little to fear.
Whatever alarm Mark Twain may have felt was not warranted. His success
with the New England public was immediate and complete. He made his
headquarters in Boston, at Redpath's office, where there was pretty sure
to be a congenial company, of which he was presently the center.
It was during one of these Boston sojourns that he first met William
Dean Howells, his future friend and literary counselor. Howells was
assistant editor of the Atlantic at this time; James T. Fields, its
editor. Clemens had been gratified by the Atlantic review, and had
called to express his thanks for it. He sat talking to Fields, when
Howells entered the editorial rooms, and on being presented to the
author of the review, delivered his appreciation in the form of a story,
sufficiently appropriate, but not qualified for the larger types.--[He
said: “When I read that review of yours, I felt like the woman who was
so glad her baby had come white.”]
His manner, his humor, his quaint colloquial forms all delighted
Howells--more, in fact, than the opulent sealskin overcoat which he
affected at this period--a garment astonishing rather than esthetic, as
Mark Twain's clothes in those days of his first regeneration were likely
to be startling enough, we may believe; in the conservative atmosphere
of the Atlantic rooms. And Howells--gentle, genial, sincere--filled
with the early happiness of his calling, won the heart of Mark Twain
and never lost it, and, what is still more notable, won his absolute and
unvarying confidence in all literary affairs. It was always Mark Twain's
habit to rely on somebody, and in matters pertaining to literature and
to literary people in general he laid his burden on William Dean Howells
from that day. Only a few weeks after that first visit we find him
telegraphing to Howells, asking him to look after a Californian poet,
then ill and friendless in Brooklyn. Clemens states that he does
not know the poet, but will contribute fifty dollars if Howells
will petition the steamboat company for a pass; and no doubt Howells
complied, and spent a good deal more than fifty dollars' worth of time
to get the poet relieved and started; it would be like him.