The Sellers play was given in Hartford, in January (1875), to as many
people as could crowd into the Opera House. Raymond had reached the
perfection of his art by that time, and the townsmen of Mark Twain saw
the play and the actor at their best. Kate Field played the part of
Laura Hawkins, and there was a Hartford girl in the company; also
a Hartford young man, who would one day be about as well known to
playgoers as any playwright or actor that America has produced. His
name was William Gillette, and it was largely due to Mark Twain that
the author of Secret Service and of the dramatic “Sherlock Holmes” got
a fair public start. Clemens and his wife loaned Gillette the three
thousand dollars which tided him through his period of dramatic
education. Their faith in his ability was justified.
Hartford would naturally be enthusiastic on a first “Sellers-Raymond”
night. At the end of the fourth act there was an urgent demand for the
author of the play, who was supposed to be present. He was not there in
person, but had sent a letter, which Raymond read:
MY DEAR RAYMOND,--I am aware that you are going to be welcomed to our
town by great audiences on both nights of your stay there, and I beg
to add my hearty welcome also, through this note. I cannot come to
the theater on either evening, Raymond, because there is something so
touching about your acting that I can't stand it.
(I do not mention a couple of colds in my head, because I hardly mind
them as much as I would the erysipelas, but between you and me I would
prefer it if they were rights and lefts.)
And then there is another thing. I have always taken a pride in earning
my living in outside places and spending it in Hartford; I have said
that no good citizen would live on his own people, but go forth and make
it sultry for other communities and fetch home the result; and now at
this late day I find myself in the crushed and bleeding position of
fattening myself upon the spoils of my brethren! Can I support such
grief as this? (This is literary emotion, you understand. Take the money
at the door just the same.)
Once more I welcome you to Hartford, Raymond, but as for me let me stay
at home and blush.
Yours truly, MARK.
The play was equally successful wherever it went. It made what in that
day was regarded as a fortune. One hundred thousand dollars is hardly
too large an estimate of the amount divided between author and actor.
Raymond was a great actor in that part, as he interpreted it, though he
did not interpret it fully, or always in its best way. The finer side,
the subtle, tender side of Colonel Sellers, he was likely to overlook.
Yet, with a natural human self-estimate, Raymond believed he had created
a much greater part than Mark Twain had written. Doubtless from the
point of view of a number of people this was so, though the idea,
was naturally obnoxious to Clemens. In course of time their personal
relations ceased.
Clemens that winter gave another benefit for Father Hawley. In reply to
an invitation to appear in behalf of the poor, he wrote that he had quit
the lecture field, and would not return to the platform unless driven
there by lack of bread. But he added:
By the spirit of that remark I am debarred from delivering this proposed
lecture, and so I fall back upon the letter of it, and emerge upon the
platform for this last and final time because I am confronted by a lack
of bread-among Father Hawley's flock.
He made an introductory speech at an old-fashioned spelling-bee,
given at the Asylum Hill Church; a breezy, charming talk of which the
following is a sample:
I don't see any use in spelling a word right--and never did. I mean
I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of
spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook
all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. I
have a correspondent whose letters are always a refreshment to me;
there is such a breezy, unfettered originality about his
orthography. He always spells “kow” with a large “K.” Now that is
just as good as to spell it with a small one. It is better. It
gives the imagination a broader field, a wider scope. It suggests
to the mind a grand, vague, impressive new kind of a cow.
He took part in the contest, and in spite of his early reputation,
was spelled down on the word “chaldron,” which he spelled
“cauldron,” as he had been taught, while the dictionary used as
authority gave that form as second choice.
Another time that winter, Clemens read before the Monday Evening Club
a paper on “Universal Suffrage,” which is still remembered by the
surviving members of that time. A paragraph or two will convey its
purport:
Our marvelous latter-day statesmanship has invented universal
suffrage. That is the finest feather in our cap. All that we
require of a voter is that he shall be forked, wear pantaloons
instead of petticoats, and bear a more or less humorous resemblance
to the reported image of God. He need not know anything whatever;
he may be wholly useless and a cumberer of the earth; he may even be
known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer
clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a
president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We
brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after
all, for we restrict when we come to the women.
The Monday Evening Club was an organization which included the best
minds of Hartford. Dr. Horace Bushnell, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, and J.
Hammond Trumbull founded it back in the sixties, and it included such
men as Rev. Dr. Parker, Rev. Dr. Burton, Charles H. Clark, of the
Courant, Warner, and Twichell, with others of their kind. Clemens had
been elected after his first sojourn in England (February, 1873),
and had then read a paper on the “License of the Press.” The club met
alternate Mondays, from October to May. There was one paper for each
evening, and, after the usual fashion of such clubs, the reading was
followed by discussion. Members of that time agree that Mark Twain's
association with the club had a tendency to give it a life, or at least
an exhilaration, which it had not previously known. His papers were
serious in their purpose he always preferred to be serious--but they
evidenced the magic gift which made whatever he touched turn to literary
jewelry.
Psychic theories and phenomena always attracted Mark Twain. In
thought-transference, especially, he had a frank interest--an interest
awakened and kept alive by certain phenomena--psychic manifestations we
call them now. In his association with Mrs. Clemens it not
infrequently happened that one spoke the other's thought, or perhaps a
long-procrastinated letter to a friend would bring an answer as quickly
as mailed; but these are things familiar to us all. A more startling
example of thought-communication developed at the time of which we are
writing, an example which raised to a fever-point whatever interest he
may have had in the subject before. (He was always having these vehement
interests--rages we may call them, for it would be inadequate to speak
of them as fads, inasmuch as they tended in the direction of human
enlightenment, or progress, or reform.)
Clemens one morning was lying in bed when, as he says, “suddenly a
red-hot new idea came whistling down into my camp.” The idea was
that the time was ripe for a book that would tell the story of the
Comstock-of the Nevada silver mines. It seemed to him that the person
best qualified for the work was his old friend William Wright--Dan
de Quille. He had not heard from Dan, or of him, for a long time, but
decided to write and urge him to take up the idea. He prepared the
letter, going fully into the details of his plan, as was natural for
him to do, then laid it aside until he could see Bliss and secure his
approval of the scheme from a publishing standpoint. Just a week later,
it was the 9th of March, a letter came--a thick letter bearing a Nevada
postmark, and addressed in a handwriting which he presently recognized
as De Quille's. To a visitor who was present he said:
“Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you everything this letter
contains--date, signature, and all without breaking the seal.”
He stated what he believed was in the letter. Then he opened it and
showed that he had correctly given its contents, which were the same in
all essential details as those of his own letter, not yet mailed.
In an article on “Mental Telegraphy” (he invented the name) he relates
this instance, with others, and in 'Following the Equator' and elsewhere
he records other such happenings. It was one of the “mysteries” in
which he never lost interest, though his concern in it in time became a
passive one.
The result of the De Quille manifestation, however, he has not recorded.
Clemens immediately wrote, urging Dan to come to Hartford for an
extended visit. De Quille came, and put in a happy spring in his
old comrade's luxurious home, writing 'The Big Bonanza', which Bliss
successfully published a year later.
Mark Twain was continually inviting old friends to share his success
with him. Any comrade of former days found welcome in his home as often
as he would come, and for as long as he would stay. Clemens dropped his
own affairs to advise in their undertakings; and if their undertakings
were literary he found them a publisher. He did this for Joaquin Miller
and for Bret Harte, and he was always urging Goodman to make his house a
home.
The Beecher-Tilton trial was the sensation of the spring of 1875, and
Clemens, in common with many others, was greatly worked up over it.
The printed testimony had left him decidedly in doubt as to Beecher's
innocence, though his blame would seem to have been less for the
possible offense than because of the great leader's attitude in the
matter. To Twichell he said:
“His quibbling was fatal. Innocent or guilty, he should have made an
unqualified statement in the beginning.”
Together they attended one of the sessions, on a day when Beecher
himself was on the witness-stand. The tension was very great; the
excitement was painful. Twichell thought that Beecher appeared well
under the stress of examination and was deeply sorry for him; Clemens
was far from convinced.
The feeling was especially strong in Hartford, where Henry Ward
Beecher's relatives were prominent, and animosities grew out of it. They
are all forgotten now; most of those who cherished bitterness are dead.
Any feeling that Clemens had in the matter lasted but a little while.
Howells tells us that when he met him some months after the trial ended,
and was tempted to mention it, Clemens discouraged any discussion of the
event. Says Howells:
He would only say the man had suffered enough; as if the man had
expiated his wrong, and he was not going to do anything to renew his
penalty. I found that very curious, very delicate. His continued
blame could not come to the sufferer's knowledge, but he felt it his
duty to forbear it.
It was one hundred years, that 19th of April, since the battles of
Lexington and Concord, and there was to be a great celebration. The
Howellses had visited Hartford in March, and the Clemenses were invited
to Cambridge for the celebration. Only Clemens could go, which in the
event proved a good thing perhaps; for when Clemens and Howells set
out for Concord they did not go over to Boston to take the train, but
decided to wait for it at Cambridge. Apparently it did not occur to them
that the train would be jammed the moment the doors were opened at the
Boston station; but when it came along they saw how hopeless was their
chance. They had special invitations and passage from Boston, but these
were only mockeries now. It yeas cold and chilly, and they forlornly set
out in search of some sort of a conveyance. They tramped around in
the mud and raw wind, but vehicles were either filled or engaged, and
drivers and occupants were inclined to jeer at them. Clemens was taken
with an acute attack of indigestion, which made him rather dismal
and savage. Their effort finally ended with his trying to run down a
tally-ho which was empty inside and had a party of Harvard students
riding atop. The students, who did not recognize their would-be fare,
enjoyed the race. They encouraged their pursuer, and perhaps their
driver, with merriment and cheers. Clemens was handicapped by having to
run in the slippery mud, and soon “dropped by the wayside.”
“I am glad,” says Howells, “I cannot recall what he said when he came
back to me.”
They hung about a little longer, then dragged themselves home, slipped
into the house, and built up a fine, cheerful fire on the hearth. They
proposed to practise a deception on Mrs. Howells by pretending they had
been to Concord and returned. But it was no use. Their statements were
flimsy, and guilt was plainly written on their faces. Howells recalls
this incident delightfully, and expresses the belief that the humor of
the situation was finally a greater pleasure to Clemens than the actual
visit to Concord would have been.
Twichell did not have any such trouble in attending the celebration.
He had adventures (he was always having adventures), but they were of a
more successful kind. Clemens heard the tale of them when he returned to
Hartford. He wrote it to Howells:
Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took
midnight train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by
rail at 7.30 A.M. for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P.M.,
seeing everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw
everything there; traveled on top of a train to Boston (with
hundreds in company), deluged with dust, smoke, and cinders; yelled
and hurrahed all the way like a school-boy; lay flat down, to dodge
numerous bridges, and sailed into the depot howling with excitement
and as black as a chimneysweep; got to Young's Hotel at 7 P.M.; sat
down in the reading-room and immediately fell asleep; was promptly
awakened by a porter, who supposed he was drunk; wandered around an
hour and a half; then took 9 P.M. train, sat down in a smoking-car,
and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as the train
came into Hartford at 1.30 A.M. Thinks he had simply a glorious
time, and wouldn't have missed the Centennial for the world. He
would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge but he was too
dirty. I wouldn't have wanted him there; his appalling energy would
have been an insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and
me.