Perhaps a paragraph of explanation should precede this letter.

Political changes had eliminated Orion in Nevada, and he was now

undertaking the practice of law. "Bill Stewart" was Senator

Stewart, of Nevada, of whom we shall hear again. The "Sandwich

Island book," as may be imagined, was made up of his letters to the

Sacramento Union. Nothing came of the venture, except some chapters

in 'Roughing It', rewritten from the material. "Zeb and John

Leavenworth" were pilots whom he had known on the river.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family in St. Louis:

NEW YORK, June 7th, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS, I suppose we shall be many a league at sea tomorrow night,

and goodness knows I shall be unspeakably glad of it.

I haven't got anything to write, else I would write it. I have just

written myself clear out in letters to the Alta, and I think they are the

stupidest letters that were ever written from New York. Corresponding

has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the states. If it continues

abroad, I don't know what the Tribune and Alta folks will think.

I have withdrawn the Sandwich Island book--it would be useless to publish

it in these dull publishing times. As for the Frog book, I don't believe

that will ever pay anything worth a cent. I published it simply to

advertise myself--not with the hope of making anything out of it.

Well, I haven't anything to write, except that I am tired of staying in

one place--that I am in a fever to get away. Read my Alta letters--they

contain everything I could possibly write to you. Tell Zeb and John

Leavenworth to write me. They can get plenty of gossip from the pilots.

An importing house sent two cases of exquisite champagne aboard the ship

for me today--Veuve Clicquot and Lac d'Or. I and my room-mate have set

apart every Saturday as a solemn fast day, wherein we will entertain no

light matters of frivolous conversation, but only get drunk. (That is a

joke.) His mother and sisters are the best and most homelike people I

have yet found in a brown stone front. There is no style about them,

except in house and furniture.

I wish Orion were going on this voyage, for I believe he could not help

but be cheerful and jolly. I often wonder if his law business is going

satisfactorily to him, but knowing that the dull season is setting in now

(it looked like it had already set in before) I have felt as if I could

almost answer the question myself--which is to say in plain words, I was

afraid to ask. I wish I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of

going West. I could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him,

and that would atone for the loss of my home visit. But I am so

worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish anything

that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory. My mind is stored full of

unworthy conduct toward Orion and towards you all, and an accusing

conscience gives me peace only in excitement and restless moving from

place to place. If I could say I had done one thing for any of you that

entitled me to your good opinion, (I say nothing of your love, for I am

sure of that, no matter how unworthy of it I may make myself, from Orion

down you have always given me that, all the days of my life, when God

Almighty knows I seldom deserve it,) I believe I could go home and stay

there and I know I would care little for the world's praise or blame.

There is no satisfaction in the world's praise anyhow, and it has no

worth to me save in the way of business. I tried to gather up its

compliments to send to you, but the work was distasteful and I dropped

it.

You observe that under a cheerful exterior I have got a spirit that is

angry with me and gives me freely its contempt. I can get away from that

at sea, and be tranquil and satisfied--and so, with my parting love and

benediction for Orion and all of you, I say goodbye and God bless you

all--and welcome the wind that wafts a weary soul to the sunny lands of

the Mediterranean!

Yrs. Forever,

SAM.

VII.

LETTERS 1867. THE TRAVELER. THE VOYAGE OF THE "QUAKER CITY"

Mark Twain, now at sea, was writing many letters; not personal letters,

but those unique descriptive relations of travel which would make him his

first great fame--those fresh first impressions preserved to us now as

chapters of The Innocents Abroad. Yet here and there in the midst of

sight-seeing and reporting he found time to send a brief line to those at

home, merely that they might have a word from his own hand, for he had

ordered the papers to which he was to contribute--the Alta and the New

York Tribune--sent to them, and these would give the story of his

travels. The home letters read like notebook entries.

Letters to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

FAYAL (Azores,) June 20th, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We are having a lively time here, after a stormy trip. We

meant to go to San Miguel, but were driven here by stress of weather.

Beautiful climate.

Yrs.

Affect.

SAM.

GIBRALTAR, June 30th, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--Arrived here this morning, and am clear worn out with

riding and climbing in and over and around this monstrous rock and its

fortifications. Summer climate and very pleasant.

Yrs.

SAM.

TANGIER, MOROCCO, (AFRICA), July 1, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS, Half a dozen of us came here yesterday from Gibraltar and

some of the company took the other direction; went up through Spain, to

Paris by rail. We decided that Gibraltar and San Roque were all of Spain

that we wanted to see at present and are glad we came here among the

Africans, Moors, Arabs and Bedouins of the desert. I would not give this

experience for all the balance of the trip combined. This is the

infernalest hive of infernally costumed barbarians I have ever come

across yet.

Yrs.

SAM.

AT SEA, July 2, 1867.

DR. FOLKS,--We are far up the intensely blue and ravishingly beautiful

Mediterranean. And now we are just passing the island of Minorca. The

climate is perfectly lovely and it is hard to drive anybody to bed, day

or night. We remain up the whole night through occasionally, and by this

means enjoy the rare sensation of seeing the sun rise. But the sunsets

are soft, rich, warm and superb!

We had a ball last night under the awnings of the quarter deck, and the

share of it of three of us was masquerade. We had full, flowing,

picturesque Moorish costumes which we purchased in the bazaars of

Tangier.

Yrs.

SAM.

MARSEILLES, FRANCE, July 5, 1867.

We are here. Start for Paris tomorrow. All well. Had gorgeous 4th of

July jollification yesterday at sea.

Yrs.

SAM.

The reader may expand these sketchy outlines to his heart's content

by following the chapters in The Innocents Abroad, which is very

good history, less elaborated than might be supposed. But on the

other hand, the next letter adds something of interest to the

book-circumstances which a modest author would necessarily omit.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

YALTA, RUSSIA, Aug. 25, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We have been representing the United States all we knew how

today. We went to Sebastopol, after we got tired of Constantinople (got

your letter there, and one at Naples,) and there the Commandant and the

whole town came aboard and were as jolly and sociable as old friends.

They said the Emperor of Russia was at Yalta, 30 miles or 40 away, and

urged us to go there with the ship and visit him--promised us a cordial

welcome. They insisted on sending a telegram to the Emperor, and also a

courier overland to announce our coming. But we knew that a great

English Excursion party, and also the Viceroy of Egypt, in his splendid

yacht, had been refused an audience within the last fortnight, so we

thought it not safe to try it. They said, no difference--the Emperor

would hardly visit our ship, because that would be a most extraordinary

favor, and one which he uniformly refuses to accord under any

circumstances, but he would certainly receive us at his palace. We still

declined. But we had to go to Odessa, 250 miles away, and there the

Governor General urged us, and sent a telegram to the Emperor, which we

hardly expected to be answered, but it was, and promptly. So we sailed

back to Yalta.

We all went to the palace at noon, today, (3 miles) in carriages and on

horses sent by the Emperor, and we had a jolly time. Instead of the

usual formal audience of 15 minutes, we staid 4 hours and were made a

good deal more at home than we could have been in a New York

drawing-room. The whole tribe turned out to receive our party-Emperor,

Empress, the oldest daughter (Grand-Duchess Marie, a pretty girl of 14,)

a little Grand Duke, her brother, and a platoon of Admirals, Princes,

Peers of the Empire, etc., and in a little while an aid-de-camp arrived

with a request from the Grand Duke Michael, the Emperor's brother, that

we would visit his palace and breakfast with him. The Emperor also

invited us, on behalf of his absent eldest son and heir (aged 22,) to

visit his palace and consider it a visit to him. They all talk English

and they were all very neatly but very plainly dressed. You all dress a

good deal finer than they were dressed. The Emperor and his family threw

off all reserve and showed us all over the palace themselves. It is very

rich and very elegant, but in no way gaudy.

I had been appointed chairman of a committee to draught an address to the

Emperor in behalf of the passengers, and as I fully expected, and as they

fully intended, I had to write the address myself. I didn't mind it,

because I have no modesty and would as soon write to an Emperor as to

anybody else--but considering that there were 5 on the committee I

thought they might have contributed one paragraph among them, anyway.

They wanted me to read it to him, too, but I declined that honor--not

because I hadn't cheek enough (and some to spare,) but because our Consul

at Odessa was along, and also the Secretary of our Legation at St.

Petersburgh, and of course one of those ought to read it. The Emperor

accepted the address--it was his business to do it--and so many others

have praised it warmly that I begin to imagine it must be a wonderful

sort of document and herewith send you the original draught of it to be

put into alcohol and preserved forever like a curious reptile.

They live right well at the Grand Duke Michael's their breakfasts are not

gorgeous but very excellent--and if Mike were to say the word I would go

there and breakfast with him tomorrow.

Yrs aff

SAM.

P. S. [Written across the face of the last page.] They had told us it

would be polite to invite the Emperor to visit the ship, though he would

not be likely to do it. But he didn't give us a chance--he has requested

permission to come on board with his family and all his relations

tomorrow and take a sail, in case it is calm weather. I can, entertain

them. My hand is in, now, and if you want any more Emperors feted in

style, trot them out.

The next letter is of interest in that it gives us the program and

volume of his work. With all the sight seeing he was averaging a

full four letters a week--long letters, requiring careful

observation and inquiry. How fresh and impressionable and full of

vigor he was, even in that fierce southern heat! No one makes the

Mediterranean trip in summer to-day, and the thought of adding

constant letter-writing to steady travel through southern France,

Italy, Greece, and Turkey in blazing midsummer is stupefying. And

Syria and Egypt in September!

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

CONSTANTINOPLE, Sept. 1, '67.

DEAR FOLKS,--All well. Do the Alta's come regularly? I wish I knew

whether my letters reach them or not. Look over the back papers and see.

I wrote them as follows:

1 Letter from Fayal, in the Azores Islands.

1 from Gibraltar, in Spain.

1 from Tangier, in Africa.

2 from Paris and Marseilles, in France.

1 from Genoa, in Italy.

1 from Milan.

1 from Lake Como.

1 from some little place in Switzerland--have forgotten the name.

4 concerning Lecce, Bergamo, Padua, Verona, Battlefield of Marengo,

Pestachio, and some other cities in Northern Italy.

2 from Venice.

1 about Bologna.

1 from Florence.

1 from Pisa.

1 from Leghorn.

1 from Rome and Civita Vecchia.

2 from Naples.

1 about Pazzuoli, where St. Paul landed, the Baths of Nero, and the

ruins of Baia, Virgil's tomb, the Elysian Fields, the Sunken Cities and

the spot where Ulysses landed.

1 from Herculaneum and Vesuvius.

1 from Pompeii.

1 from the Island of Ischia.

1 concerning the Volcano of Stromboli, the city and Straits of

Messina, the land of Sicily, Scylla and Charybdis etc.

1 about the Grecian Archipelago.

1 about a midnight visit to Athens, the Piraeus and the ruins of the

Acropolis.

1 about the Hellespont, the site of ancient Troy, the Sea of

Marmara, etc.

2 about Constantinople, the Golden Horn and the beauties of the

Bosphorus.

1 from Odessa and Sebastopol in Russia, the Black Sea, etc.

2 from Yalta, Russia, concerning a visit to the Czar.

And yesterday I wrote another letter from Constantinople and

1 today about its neighbor in Asia, Scatter. I am not done with

Turkey yet. Shall write 2 or 3 more.

I have written to the New York Herald 2 letters from Naples, (no name

signed,) and 1 from Constantinople.

To the New York Tribune I have written

1 from Fayal.

1 from Civita Vecchia in the Roman States.

2 from Yalta, Russia.

And 1 from Constantinople.

I have never seen any of these letters in print except the one to the

Tribune from Fayal and that was not worth printing.

We sail hence tomorrow, perhaps, and my next letters will be mailed at

Smyrna, in Syria. I hope to write from the Sea of Tiberius, Damascus,

Jerusalem, Joppa, and possibly other points in the Holy Land. The

letters from Egypt, the Nile and Algiers I will look out for, myself.

I will bring them in my pocket.

They take the finest photographs in the world here. I have ordered some.

They will be sent to Alexandria, Egypt.

You cannot conceive of anything so beautiful as Constantinople, viewed

from the Golden Horn or the Bosphorus. I think it must be the handsomest

city in the world. I will go on deck and look at it for you, directly.

I am staying in the ship, tonight. I generally stay on shore when we are

in port. But yesterday I just ran myself down. Dan Slote, my room-mate,

is on shore. He remained here while we went up the Black Sea, but it

seems he has not got enough of it yet. I thought Dan had got the

state-room pretty full of rubbish at last, but a while ago his dragoman

arrived with a bran new, ghastly tomb-stone of the Oriental pattern, with

his name handsomely carved and gilded on it, in Turkish characters. That

fellow will buy a Circassian slave, next.

I am tired. We are going on a trip, tomorrow. I must to bed. Love to

all.

Yrs

SAM.

U. S. CONSUL'S OFFICE, BEIRUT, SYRIA, Sept. 11. (1867)

DEAR FOLKS,--We are here, eight of us, making a contract with a dragoman

to take us to Baalbek, then to Damascus, Nazareth, &c. then to Lake

Genassareth (Sea of Tiberias,) then South through all the celebrated

Scriptural localities to Jerusalem--then to the Dead Sea, the Cave of

Macpelah and up to Joppa where the ship will be. We shall be in the

saddle three weeks--we have horses, tents, provisions, arms, a dragoman

and two other servants, and we pay five dollars a day apiece, in gold.

Love to all, yrs.

SAM.

We leave tonight, at two o'clock in the morning.

There appear to be no further home letters written from Syria--and

none from Egypt. Perhaps with the desert and the delta the heat at

last became too fearful for anything beyond the actual requirements

of the day. When he began his next it was October, and the fiercer

travel was behind him.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

CAGHARI, SARDINIA, Oct, 12, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We have just dropped anchor before this handsome city and--

ALGIERS, AFRICA, Oct. 15.

They would not let us land at Caghari on account of cholera. Nothing to

write.

MALAGA, SPAIN, Oct. 17.

The Captain and I are ashore here under guard, waiting to know whether

they will let the ship anchor or not. Quarantine regulations are very

strict here on all vessels coming from Egypt. I am a little anxious

because I want to go inland to Granada and see the Alhambra. I can go on

down by Seville and Cordova, and be picked up at Cadiz.

Later: We cannot anchor--must go on. We shall be at Gibraltar before

midnight and I think I will go horseback (a long days) and thence by rail

and diligence to Cadiz. I will not mail this till I see the Gibraltar

lights--I begin to think they won't let us in anywhere.

11.30 P. M.--Gibraltar.

At anchor and all right, but they won't let us land till morning--it is a

waste of valuable time. We shall reach New York middle of November.

Yours,

SAM.

CADIZ, Oct 24, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras, (4 hours)

thus dodging the quarantine, took dinner and then rode horseback all

night in a swinging trot and at daylight took a caleche (a wheeled

vehicle) and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve at

night. That landed us at Seville and we were over the hard part of our

trip, and somewhat tired. Since then we have taken things comparatively

easy, drifting around from one town to another and attracting a good deal

of attention, for I guess strangers do not wander through Andalusia and

the other Southern provinces of Spain often. The country is precisely as

it was when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were possible characters.

But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was under

Moorish domination. No, I will not say that, but then when one is

carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the Alhambra and

the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to overflow with

admiration for the splendid intellects that created them.

I cannot write now. I am only dropping a line to let you know I am well.

The ship will call for us here tomorrow. We may stop at Lisbon, and

shall at the Bermudas, and will arrive in New York ten days after this

letter gets there.

SAM.

This is the last personal letter written during that famous first

sea-gipsying, and reading it our regret grows that he did not put

something of his Spanish excursion into his book. He never returned

to Spain, and he never wrote of it. Only the barest mention of

"seven beautiful days" is found in The Innocents Abroad.

VIII.

LETTERS 1867-68. WASHINGTON AND SAN FRANCISCO. THE PROPOSED BOOK OF

TRAVEL. A NEW LECTURE

From Mark Twain's home letters we get several important side-lights

on this first famous book. We learn, for in stance, that it was he

who drafted the ship address to the Emperor--the opening lines of

which became so wearisome when repeated by the sailors.

Furthermore, we learn something of the scope and extent of his

newspaper correspondence, which must have kept him furiously busy,

done as it was in the midst of super-heated and continuous

sight-seeing. He wrote fifty three letters to the Alta-California,

six to the New York Tribune, and at least two to the New York

Herald more than sixty, all told, of an average, length of three to

four thousand words each. Mark Twain always claimed to be a lazy

man, and certainly he was likely to avoid an undertaking not suited

to his gifts, but he had energy in abundance for work in his chosen

field. To have piled up a correspondence of that size in the time,

and under the circumstances already noted, quality considered, may

be counted a record in the history of travel letters.

They made him famous. Arriving in New York, November 19, 1867, Mark

Twain found himself no longer unknown to the metropolis, or to any

portion of America. Papers East and West had copied his Alta and

Tribune letters and carried his name into every corner of the States

and Territories. He had preached a new gospel in travel literature,

the gospel of frankness and sincerity that Americans could

understand. Also his literary powers had awakened at last. His

work was no longer trivial, crude, and showy; it was full of

dignity, beauty, and power; his humor was finer, worthier. The

difference in quality between the Quaker City letters and those

written from the Sandwich Islands only a year before can scarcely be

measured.

He did not remain in New York, but went down to Washington, where he

had arranged for a private secretaryship with Senator William M.

Stewart,--[The "Bill" Stewart mentioned in the preceding chapter.]

whom he had known in Nevada. Such a position he believed would make

but little demand upon his time, and would afford him an insight

into Washington life, which he could make valuable in the shape of

newspaper correspondence.

But fate had other plans for him. He presently received the

following letter:

From Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford

OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.

HARTFORD, CONN, Nov 21, 1867.

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS Esq.

Tribune Office, New York.

DR. SIR,--We take the liberty to address you this, in place of a letter

which we had recently written and was about to forward to you, not

knowing your arrival home was expected so soon. We are desirous of

obtaining from you a work of some kind, perhaps compiled from your

letters from the East, &c., with such interesting additions as may be

proper. We are the publishers of A. D. Richardson's works, and flatter

ourselves that we can give an author as favorable terms and do as full

justice to his productions as any other house in the country. We are

perhaps the oldest subscription house in the country, and have never

failed to give a book an immense circulation. We sold about 100,000

copies of Richardson's F. D. & E. (Field, Dungeon and Escape) and are

now printing 41,000, of "Beyond the Mississippi," and large orders ahead.

If you have any thought of writing a book, or could be induced to do so,

we should be pleased to see you; and will do so. Will you do us the

favor to reply at once, at your earliest convenience.

Very truly, &c.,

E. BLISS, Jr.

Secty.

Clemens had already the idea of a book in mind and welcomed this

proposition.

To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 1867.

E. BLISS, Jr. Esq.

Sec'y American Publishing Co.--

DEAR SIR,--I only received your favor of Nov. 21st last night, at the

rooms of the Tribune Bureau here. It was forwarded from the Tribune

office, New York, where it had lain eight or ten days. This will be

a sufficient apology for the seeming discourtesy of my silence.

I wrote fifty-two (three) letters for the San Francisco "Alta California"

during the Quaker City excursion, about half of which number have been

printed, thus far. The "Alta" has few exchanges in the East, and I

suppose scarcely any of these letters have been copied on this side of

the Rocky Mountains. I could weed them of their chief faults of

construction and inelegancies of expression and make a volume that would

be more acceptable in many respects than any I could now write. When

those letters were written my impressions were fresh, but now they have

lost that freshness; they were warm then--they are cold, now. I could

strike out certain letters, and write new ones wherewith to supply their

places. If you think such a book would suit your purpose, please drop me

a line, specifying the size and general style of the volume; when the

matter ought to be ready; whether it should have pictures in it or not;

and particularly what your terms with me would be, and what amount of

money I might possibly make out of it. The latter clause has a degree of

importance for me which is almost beyond my own comprehension. But you

understand that, of course.

I have other propositions for a book, but have doubted the propriety of

interfering with good newspaper engagements, except my way as an author

could be demonstrated to be plain before me. But I know Richardson, and

learned from him some months ago, something of an idea of the

subscription plan of publishing. If that is your plan invariably, it

looks safe.

I am on the N. Y. Tribune staff here as an "occasional,", among other

things, and a note from you addressed to

Very truly &c.

SAM L. CLEMENS,

New York Tribune Bureau, Washington, will find me, without fail.

The exchange of these two letters marked the beginning of one of the

most notable publishing connections in American literary history.

The book, however, was not begun immediately. Bliss was in poor

health and final arrangements were delayed; it was not until late in

January that Clemens went to Hartford and concluded the arrangement.

Meantime, fate had disclosed another matter of even greater

importance; we get the first hint of it in the following letter,

though to him its beginning had been earlier--on a day in the blue

harbor of Smyrna, when young Charles Langdon, a fellow-passenger on

the Quaker City, had shown to Mark Twain a miniature of young

Langdon's sister at home:

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

224 F. STREET, WASH, Jan. 8, 1868.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--And so the old Major has been there, has he?

I would like mighty well to see him. I was a sort of benefactor to him

once. I helped to snatch him out when he was about to ride into a

Mohammedan Mosque in that queer old Moorish town of Tangier, in Africa.

If he had got in, the Moors would have knocked his venerable old head

off, for his temerity.

I have just arrived from New York-been there ever since Christmas staying

at the house of Dan Slote my Quaker City room-mate, and having a splendid

time. Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I, (all Quaker City

night-hawks,) had a blow-out at Dan's' house and a lively talk over old

times. We went through the Holy Land together, and I just laughed till

my sides ached, at some of our reminiscences. It was the unholiest gang

that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are the best boys in the

world. We needed Moulton badly. I started to make calls, New Year's

Day, but I anchored for the day at the first house I came to--Charlie

Langdon's sister was there (beautiful girl,) and Miss Alice Hooker,

another beautiful girl, a niece of Henry Ward Beecher's. We sent the old

folks home early, with instructions not to send the carriage till

midnight, and then I just staid there and worried the life out of those

girls. I am going to spend a few days with the Langdon's in Elmira, New

York, as soon as I get time, and a few days at Mrs. Hooker's in Hartford,

Conn., shortly.

Henry Ward Beecher sent for me last Sunday to come over and dine (he

lives in Brooklyn, you know,) and I went. Harriet Beecher Stowe was

there, and Mrs. and Miss Beecher, Mrs. Hooker and my old Quaker City

favorite, Emma Beach.

We had a very gay time, if it was Sunday. I expect I told more lies than

I have told before in a month.

I went back by invitation, after the evening service, and finished the

blow-out, and then staid all night at Mr. Beach's. Henry Ward is a

brick.

I found out at 10 o'clock, last night, that I was to lecture tomorrow

evening and so you must be aware that I have been working like sin all

night to get a lecture written. I have finished it, I call it "Frozen

Truth." It is a little top-heavy, though, because there is more truth in

the title than there is in the lecture.

But thunder, I mustn't sit here writing all day, with so much business

before me.

Good by, and kind regards to all.

Yrs affy

SAM L. CLEMENS.

Jack Van Nostrand of this letter is "Jack" of the Innocents. Emma

Beach was the daughter of Moses S. Beach, of the 'New York Sun.'

Later she became the wife of the well-known painter, Abbot H.

Thayer.

We do not hear of Miss Langdon again in the letters of that time,

but it was not because she was absent from his thoughts. He had

first seen her with her father and brother at the old St. Nicholas

Hotel, on lower Broadway, where, soon after the arrival of the

Quaker City in New York, he had been invited to dine. Long

afterward he said: "It is forty years ago; from that day to this she

has never been out of my mind."

From his next letter we learn of the lecture which apparently was

delivered in Washington.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

WASH. Jan. 9, 1868.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--That infernal lecture is over, thank Heaven!

It came near being a villainous failure. It was not advertised at all.

The manager was taken sick yesterday, and the man who was sent to tell

me, never got to me till afternoon today. There was the dickens to pay.

It was too late to do anything--too late to stop the lecture. I scared

up a door-keeper, and was ready at the proper time, and by pure good luck

a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved! I hardly knew what I

was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style. I was to

have preached again Saturday night, but I won't--I can't get along

without a manager.

I have been in New York ever since Christmas, you know, and now I shall

have to work like sin to catch up my correspondence.

And I have got to get up that book, too. Cut my letters out of the

Alta's and send them to me in an envelop. Some, here, that are not

mailed yet, I shall have to copy, I suppose.

I have got a thousand things to do, and am not doing any of them. I feel

perfectly savage.

Good bye

Yrs aff

SAM.

On the whole, matters were going well with him. His next letter is

full of his success--overflowing with the boyish radiance which he

never quite outgrew.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

HARTFORD, CONN. Jan. 24-68.

DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--This is a good week for me. I stopped in the

Herald office as I came through New York, to see the boys on the staff,

and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week,

impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full

swing, and (write) about anybody and everybody I wanted to. I said I

must have the very fullest possible swing, and he said "all right."

I said "It's a contract--" and that settled that matter.

I'll make it a point to write one letter a week, any-how.

But the best thing that has happened was here. This great American

Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till I

thought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk. I met Rev.

Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled way of

dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he gets a chance,

he said, "Now, here, you are one of the talented men of the age--nobody

is going to deny that---but in matters of business, I don't suppose you

know more than enough to came in when it rains. I'll tell you what to

do, and how to do it." And he did.

And I listened well, and then came up here and made a splendid contract

for a Quaker City book of 5 or 600 large pages, with illustrations, the

manuscript to be placed in the publishers' hands by the middle of July.

My percentage is to be a fifth more than they have ever paid any author,

except Horace Greeley. Beecher will be surprised, I guess, when he hears

this.

But I had my mind made up to one thing--I wasn't going to touch a book

unless there was money in it, and a good deal of it. I told them so.

I had the misfortune to "bust out" one author of standing. They had his

manuscript, with the understanding that they would publish his book if

they could not get a book from me, (they only publish two books at a

time, and so my book and Richardson's Life of Grant will fill the bill

for next fall and winter)--so that manuscript was sent back to its author

today.

These publishers get off the most tremendous editions of their books you

can imagine. I shall write to the Enterprise and Alta every week,

as usual, I guess, and to the Herald twice a week--occasionally to the

Tribune and the Magazines (I have a stupid article in the Galaxy, just

issued) but I am not going to write to this, that and the other paper any

more.

The Chicago Tribune wants letters, but I hope and pray I have charged

them so much that they will not close the contract. I am gradually

getting out of debt, but these trips to New York do cost like sin.

I hope you have cut out and forwarded my printed letters to Washington

--please continue to do so as they arrive.

I have had a tip-top time, here, for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno.

Hooker's family--Beecher's relatives-in a general way of Mr. Bliss, also,

who is head of the publishing firm.) Puritans are mighty straight-laced

and they won't let me smoke in the parlor, but the Almighty don't make

any better people.

Love to all-good-bye. I shall be in New York 3 days--then go on to the

Capital.

Yrs affly, especially Ma.,

Yr SAM.

I have to make a speech at the annual Herald dinner on the 6th of May.

No formal contract for the book had been made when this letter was

written. A verbal agreement between Bliss and Clemens had been

reached, to be ratified by an exchange of letters in the near

future. Bliss had made two propositions, viz., ten thousand

dollars, cash in hand, or a 5-per-cent. royalty on the selling price

of the book. The cash sum offered looked very large to Mark Twain,

and he was sorely tempted to accept it. He had faith, however, in

the book, and in Bliss's ability to sell it. He agreed, therefore,

to the royalty proposition; "The best business judgment I ever

displayed" he often declared in after years. Five per cent.

royalty sounds rather small in these days of more liberal contracts.

But the American Publishing Company sold its books only by

subscription, and the agents' commissions and delivery expenses ate

heavily into the profits. Clemens was probably correct in saying

that his percentage was larger than had been paid to any previous

author except Horace Greeley. The John Hooker mentioned was the

husband of Henry Ward Beecher's sister, Isabel. It was easy to

understand the Beecher family's robust appreciation of Mark Twain.

From the office of Dan Slote, his room-mate of the Quaker City

--"Dan" of the Innocents--Clemens wrote his letter that closed the

agreement with Bliss.

To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford:

Office of SLOTE & WOODMAN, Blank Book Manufacturers,

Nos. 119-121 William St.

NEW YORK, January 27, 1868.

Mr. E. Bliss, Jr.

Sec'y American Publishing Co.

Hartford Conn.

DEAR SIR, Your favor of Jan. 25th is received, and in reply, I will say

that I accede to your several propositions, viz: That I furnish to the

American Publishing Company, through you, with MSS sufficient for a

volume of 500 to 600 pages, the subject to be the Quaker City, the

voyage, description of places, &c., and also embodying the substance of

the letters written by me during that trip, said MSS to be ready about

the first of August, next, I to give all the usual and necessary

attention in preparing said MSS for the press, and in preparation of

illustrations, in correction of proofs--no use to be made by me of the

material for this work in any way which will conflict with its interest

--the book to be sold by the American Publishing Co., by subscription

--and for said MS and labor on my part said Company to pay me a copyright

of 5 percent, upon the subscription price of the book for all copies

sold.

As further proposed by you, this understanding, herein set forth shall be

considered a binding contract upon all parties concerned, all minor

details to be arranged between us hereafter.

Very truly yours,

SAM. L. CLEMENS.

(Private and General.)

I was to have gone to Washington tonight, but have held over a day, to

attend a dinner given by a lot of newspaper Editors and literary

scalliwags, at the Westminster Hotel. Shall go down to-morrow, if I

survive the banquet.

Yrs truly

SAM. CLEMENS.

Mark Twain, in Washington, was in line for political preferment: His

wide acquaintance on the Pacific slope, his new fame and growing

popularity, his powerful and dreaded pen, all gave him special

distinction at the capital. From time to time the offer of one

office or another tempted him, but he wisely, or luckily, resisted.

In his letters home are presented some of his problems.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

224 F. STREET WASHINGTON Feb. 6, 1868.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--For two months there have been some fifty

applications before the government for the postmastership of San

Francisco, which is the heaviest concentration of political power on the

coast and consequently is a post which is much coveted.,

When I found that a personal friend of mine, the Chief Editor of the Alta

was an applicant I said I didn't want it--I would not take $10,000 a year

out of a friend's pocket.

The two months have passed, I heard day before yesterday that a new and

almost unknown candidate had suddenly turned up on the inside track, and

was to be appointed at once. I didn't like that, and went after his case

in a fine passion. I hunted up all our Senators and representatives and

found that his name was actually to come from the President early in the

morning.

Then Judge Field said if I wanted the place he could pledge me the

President's appointment--and Senator Conness said he would guarantee me

the Senate's confirmation. It was a great temptation, but it would

render it impossible to fill my book contract, and I had to drop the

idea.

I have to spend August and September in Hartford which isn't San

Francisco. Mr. Conness offers me any choice out of five influential

California offices. Now, some day or other I shall want an office and

then, just my luck, I can't get it, I suppose.

They want to send me abroad, as a Consul or a Minister. I said I didn't

want any of the pie. God knows I am mean enough and lazy enough, now,

without being a foreign consul.

Sometime in the course of the present century I think they will create a

Commissioner of Patents, and then I hope to get a berth for Orion.

I published 6 or 7 letters in the Tribune while I was gone, now I cannot

get them. I suppose I must have them copied.

Love to all

SAM.

Orion Clemens was once more a candidate for office: Nevada had become a

State; with regularly elected officials, and Orion had somehow missed

being chosen. His day of authority had passed, and the law having failed

to support him, he was again back at his old occupation, setting type in

St. Louis. He was, as ever, full of dreams and inventions that would

some day lead to fortune. With the gift of the Sellers imagination,

inherited by all the family, he lacked the driving power which means

achievement. More and more as the years went by he would lean upon his

brother for moral and physical support. The chances for him in

Washington do not appear to have been bright. The political situation

under Andrew Johnson was not a happy one.

To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:

224 F. STREET, WASH., Feb. 21. (1868)

MY DEAR BRO.,--I am glad you do not want the clerkship, for that Patent

Office is in such a muddle that there would be no security for the

permanency of a place in it. The same remark will apply to all offices

here, now, and no doubt will, till the close of the present

administration.

Any man who holds a place here, now, stands prepared at all times to

vacate it. You are doing, now, exactly what I wanted you to do a year

ago.

We chase phantoms half the days of our lives.

It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.

I am in for it. I must go on chasing them until I marry--then I am done

with literature and all other bosh,--that is, literature wherewith to

please the general public.

I shall write to please myself, then. I hope you will set type till you

complete that invention, for surely government pap must be nauseating

food for a man--a man whom God has enabled to saw wood and be

independent. It really seemed to me a falling from grace, the idea of

going back to San Francisco nothing better than a mere postmaster, albeit

the public would have thought I came with gilded honors, and in great

glory.

I only retain correspondence enough, now, to make a living for myself,

and have discarded all else, so that I may have time to spare for the

book. Drat the thing, I wish it were done, or that I had no other

writing to do.

This is the place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There isn't one

man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson

Burlingame--and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great

talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his

time was up.

There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh, geeminy! There

are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to visit.

I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its "attractions." To be busy

is a man's only happiness--and I am--otherwise I should die

Yrs. aff

SAM.

The secretarial position with Senator Stewart was short-lived. One

cannot imagine Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, and doubtless

there was little to be gained on either side by the arrangement.

They parted without friction, though in later years, when Stewart

had become old and irascible, he used to recount a list of

grievances and declare that he had been obliged to threaten violence

in order to bring Mark to terms; but this was because the author of

Roughing It had in that book taken liberties with the Senator, to

the extent of an anecdote and portrait which, though certainly

harmless enough, had for some reason given deep offense.

Mark Twain really had no time for secretary work. For one thing he

was associated with John Swinton in supplying a Washington letter to

a list of newspapers, and then he was busy collecting his Quaker

City letters, and preparing the copy for his book. Matters were

going well enough, when trouble developed from an unexpected

quarter. The Alta-California had copyrighted the letters and

proposed to issue them in book form. There had been no contract

which would prevent this, and the correspondence which Clemens

undertook with the Alta management led to nothing. He knew that he

had powerful friends among the owners, if he could reach them

personally, and he presently concluded to return to San Francisco,

make what arrangement he could, and finish his book there. It was

his fashion to be prompt; in his next letter we find him already on

the way.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

AT SEA, Sunday, March 15, Lat. 25. (1868)

DEAR FOLKS,--I have nothing to write, except that I am well--that the

weather is fearfully hot-that the Henry Chauncey is a magnificent ship

--that we have twelve hundred, passengers on board--that I have two

staterooms, and so am not crowded--that I have many pleasant friends

here, and the people are not so stupid as on the Quaker City--that we had

Divine Service in the main saloon at 10.30 this morning--that we expect

to meet the upward bound vessel in Latitude 23, and this is why I am

writing now.

We shall reach Aspinwall Thursday morning at 6 o'clock, and San Francisco

less than two weeks later. I worry a great deal about being obliged to

go without seeing you all, but it could not be helped.

Dan Slote, my splendid room-mate in the Quaker City and the noblest man

on earth, will call to see you within a month. Make him dine with you

and spend the evening. His house is my home always in. New York.

Yrs affy,

SAM.

The San Francisco trip proved successful. Once on the ground Clemens had

little difficulty in convincing the Alta publishers that they had

received full value in the newspaper use of the letters, and that the

book rights remained with the author. A letter to Bliss conveys the

situation.

To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 5, '68.

E. BLISS, Jr. Esq.

Dr. SIR,--The Alta people, after some hesitation, have given me

permission to use my printed letters, and have ceased to think of

publishing them themselves in book form. I am steadily at work, and

shall start East with the completed Manuscript, about the middle of June.

I lectured here, on the trip, the other night-over sixteen hundred

dollars in gold in the house--every seat taken and paid for before night.

Yrs truly,

MARK TWAIN.

But he did not sail in June. His friends persuaded him to cover his

lecture circuit of two years before, telling the story of his

travels. This he did with considerable profit, being everywhere

received with great honors. He ended this tour with a second

lecture in San Francisco, announced in a droll and characteristic

fashion which delighted his Pacific admirers, and insured him a

crowded house.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap xlvi, and

Appendix H.]

His agreement had been to deliver his MS. about August 1st.

Returning by the Chauncey, July 28th, he was two days later in

Hartford, and had placid the copy for the new book in Bliss's hands.

It was by no means a compilation of his newspaper letters. His

literary vision was steadily broadening. All of the letters had

been radically edited, some had been rewritten, some entirely

eliminated. He probably thought very well of the book, an opinion

shared by Bliss, but it is unlikely that either of them realized

that it was to become a permanent classic, and the best selling book

of travel for at least fifty years.

IX.

LETTERS 1868-70. COURTSHIP, AND "THE INNOCENTS ABROAD"

The story of Mark Twain's courtship has been fully told in the

completer story of his life; it need only be briefly sketched here

as a setting for the letters of this period. In his letter of

January 8th we note that he expects to go to Elmira for a few days

as soon as he has time.

But he did not have time, or perhaps did not receive a pressing

invitation until he had returned with his MS. from California.

Then, through young Charles Langdon, his Quaker City shipmate, he

was invited to Elmira. The invitation was given for a week, but

through a subterfuge--unpremeditated, and certainly fair enough in

a matter of love-he was enabled to considerably prolong his visit.

By the end of his stay he had become really "like one of the

family," though certainly not yet accepted as such. The fragmentary

letter that follows reflects something of his pleasant situation.

The Mrs. Fairbanks mentioned in this letter had been something more

than a "shipmother" to Mark Twain. She was a woman of fine literary

taste, and Quaker City correspondent for her husband's paper, the

Cleveland Herald. She had given Mark Twain sound advice as to his

letters, which he had usually read to her, and had in no small

degree modified his early natural tendency to exaggeration and

outlandish humor. He owed her much, and never failed to pay her

tribute.

Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

ELMIRA, N.Y. Aug. 26, 1868.

DEAR FOLKS,--You see I am progressing--though slowly. I shall be here

a week yet maybe two--for Charlie Langdon cannot get away until his

father's chief business man returns from a journey--and a visit to Mrs.

Fairbanks, at Cleveland, would lose half its pleasure if Charlie were not

along. Moulton of St. Louis ought to be there too. We three were Mrs.

F's "cubs," in the Quaker City. She took good care that we were at

church regularly on Sundays; at the 8-bells prayer meeting every night;

and she kept our buttons sewed on and our clothing in order--and in a

word was as busy and considerate, and as watchful over her family of

uncouth and unruly cubs, and as patient and as long-suffering, withal, as

a natural mother. So we expect.....

Aug. 25th.

Didn't finish yesterday. Something called me away. I am most

comfortably situated here. This is the pleasantest family I ever knew.

I only have one trouble, and that is they give me too much thought and

too much time and invention to the object of making my visit pass

delightfully. It needs----

Just how and when he left the Langdon home the letters do not

record. Early that fall he began a lecture engagement with James

Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, and his engagements

were often within reach of Elmira. He had a standing invitation now

to the Langdon home, and the end of the week often found him there.

Yet when at last he proposed for the hand of Livy Langdon the

acceptance was by no means prompt. He was a favorite in the Langdon

household, but his suitability as a husband for the frail and gentle

daughter was questioned.

However, he was carrying everything, just then, by storm. The

largest houses everywhere were crowded to hear him. Papers spoke of

him as the coming man of the age, people came to their doors to see

him pass. There is but one letter of this period, but it gives us

the picture.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

CLEVELAND, Nov. 20, 1868.

DEAR FOLKS,--I played against the Eastern favorite, Fanny Kemble, in

Pittsburgh, last night. She had 200 in her house, and I had upwards of

1,500. All the seats were sold (in a driving rain storm, 3 days ago,)

as reserved seats at 25 cents extra, even those in the second and third

tiers--and when the last seat was gone the box office had not been open

more than 2 hours. When I reached the theatre they were turning people

away and the house was crammed, 150 or 200 stood up, all the evening.

I go to Elmira tonight. I am simply lecturing for societies, at $100 a

pop.

Yrs

SAM.

It would be difficult for any family to refuse relationship with one

whose star was so clearly ascending, especially when every

inclination was in his favor, and the young lady herself encouraged

his suit. A provisional engagement was presently made, but it was

not finally ratified until February of the following year. Then in

a letter from one of his lecture points he tells his people

something of his happiness.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

LOCKPORT, N. Y. Feb. 27, 1868.

DEAR FOLKS,--I enclose $20 for Ma. I thought I was getting ahead of her

little assessments of $35 a month, but find I am falling behind with her

instead, and have let her go without money. Well, I did not mean to do

it. But you see when people have been getting ready for months in a

quiet way to get married, they are bound to grow stingy, and go to saving

up money against that awful day when it is sure to be needed. I am

particularly anxious to place myself in a position where I can carry on

my married life in good shape on my own hook, because I have paddled my

own canoe so long that I could not be satisfied now to let anybody help

me--and my proposed father-in-law is naturally so liberal that it would

be just like him to want to give us a start in life. But I don't want it

that way. I can start myself. I don't want any help. I can run this

institution without any outside assistance, and I shall have a wife who

will stand by me like a soldier through thick and thin, and never

complain. She is only a little body, but she hasn't her peer in

Christendom. I gave her only a plain gold engagement ring, when fashion

imperatively demands a two-hundred dollar diamond one, and told her it

was typical of her future lot--namely, that she would have to flourish on

substantials rather than luxuries. (But you see I know the girl--she

don't care anything about luxuries.) She is a splendid girl. She spends

no money but her usual year's allowance, and she spends nearly every cent

of that on other people. She will be a good sensible little wife,

without any airs about her. I don't make intercession for her beforehand

and ask you to love her, for there isn't any use in that--you couldn't

help it if you were to try.

I warn you that whoever comes within the fatal influence of her beautiful

nature is her willing slave for evermore. I take my affidavit on that

statement. Her father and mother and brother embrace and pet her

constantly, precisely as if she were a sweetheart, instead of a blood

relation. She has unlimited power over her father, and yet she never

uses it except to make him help people who stand in need of help....

But if I get fairly started on the subject of my bride, I never shall get

through--and so I will quit right here. I went to Elmira a little over a

week ago, and staid four days and then had to go to New York on business.

......................

No further letters have been preserved until June, when he is in

Elmira and with his fiancee reading final proofs on the new book.

They were having an idyllic good time, of course, but it was a

useful time, too, for Olivia Langdon had a keen and refined literary

instinct, and the Innocents Abroad, as well as Mark Twain's other

books, are better to-day for her influence.

It has been stated that Mark Twain loved the lecture platform, but

from his letters we see that even at this early date, when he was at

the height of his first great vogue as a public entertainer, he had

no love for platform life. Undoubtedly he rejoiced in the brief

periods when he was actually before his audience and could play upon

it with his master touch, but the dreary intermissions of travel and

broken sleep were too heavy a price to pay.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis

ELMIRA, June 4. (1868)

DEAR FOLKS,--Livy sends you her love and loving good wishes, and I send

you mine. The last 3 chapters of the book came tonight--we shall read it

in the morning and then thank goodness, we are done.

In twelve months (or rather I believe it is fourteen,) I have earned just

eighty dollars by my pen--two little magazine squibs and one newspaper

letter--altogether the idlest, laziest 14 months I ever spent in my life.

And in that time my absolute and necessary expenses have been scorchingly

heavy--for I have now less than three thousand six hundred dollars in

bank out of the eight or nine thousand I have made during those months,

lecturing. My expenses were something frightful during the winter.

I feel ashamed of my idleness, and yet I have had really no inclination

to do anything but court Livy. I haven't any other inclination yet.

I have determined not to work as hard traveling, any more, as I did last

winter, and so I have resolved not to lecture outside of the 6 New

England States next winter. My Western course would easily amount to

$10,000, but I would rather make 2 or 3 thousand in New England than

submit again to so much wearing travel. (I have promised to talk ten

nights for a thousand dollars in the State of New York, provided the

places are close together.) But after all if I get located in a newspaper

in a way to suit me, in the meantime, I don't want to lecture at all next

winter, and probably shan't. I most cordially hate the lecture field.

And after all, I shudder to think that I may never get out of it.

In all conversations with Gough, and Anna Dickinson, Nasby, Oliver

Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips and the other old stagers, I could not

observe that they ever expected or hoped to get out of the business.

I don't want to get wedded to it as they are. Livy thinks we can live on

a very moderate sum and that we'll not need to lecture. I know very well

that she can live on a small allowance, but I am not so sure about

myself. I can't scare her by reminding her that her father's family

expenses are forty thousand dollars a year, because she produces the

documents at once to show that precious little of this outlay is on her

account. But I must not commence writing about Livy, else I shall never

stop. There isn't such another little piece of perfection in the world

as she is.

My time is become so short, now, that I doubt if I get to California this

summer. If I manage to buy into a paper, I think I will visit you a

while and not go to Cal. at all. I shall know something about it after

my next trip to Hartford. We all go there on the 10th--the whole family

--to attend a wedding, on the 17th. I am offered an interest in a

Cleveland paper which would pay me $2,300 to $2,500 a year, and a salary

added of $3,000. The salary is fair enough, but the interest is not

large enough, and so I must look a little further. The Cleveland folks

say they can be induced to do a little better by me, and urge me to come

out and talk business. But it don't strike me--I feel little or no

inclination to go.

I believe I haven't anything else to write, and it is bed-time. I want

to write to Orion, but I keep putting it off--I keep putting everything

off. Day after day Livy and I are together all day long and until 10 at

night, and then I feel dreadfully sleepy. If Orion will bear with me and

forgive me I will square up with him yet. I will even let him kiss Livy.

My love to Mollie and Annie and Sammie and all. Good-bye.

Affectionately,

SAM.

It is curious, with his tendency to optimism and general expansion

of futures, that he says nothing of the possible sales of the new

book, or of his expectations in that line. It was issued in July,

and by June the publishers must have had promising advance orders

from their canvassers; but apparently he includes none of these

chickens in his financial forecast. Even when the book had been out

a full month, and was being shipped at the rate of several hundreds

a day, he makes no reference to it in a letter to his sister, other

than to ask if she has not received a copy. This, however, was a

Mark Twain peculiarity. Writing was his trade; the returns from it

seldom excited him. It was only when he drifted into strange and

untried fields that he began to chase rainbows, to blow iridescent

bubbles, and count unmined gold.

To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

BUFFALO, Aug. 20, 1869.

MY DEAR SISTER,--I have only time to write a line. I got your letter

this morning and mailed it to Livy. She will be expecting me tonight and

I am sorry to disappoint her so, but then I couldn't well get away. I

will go next Saturday.

I have bundled up Livy's picture and will try and recollect to mail it

tomorrow. It is a porcelaintype and I think you will like it.

I am sorry I never got to St. Louis, because I may be too busy to go, for

a long time. But I have been busy all the time and St. Louis is clear

out of the way, and remote from the world and all ordinary routes of

travel. You must not place too much weight upon this idea of moving the

capital from Washington. St. Louis is in some respects a better place

for it than Washington, though there isn't more than a toss-up between

the two after all. One is dead and the other in a trance. Washington is

in the centre of population and business, while St. Louis is far removed

from both. And you know there is no geographical centre any more. The

railroads and telegraph have done away with all that. It is no longer

a matter of sufficient importance to be gravely considered by thinking

men. The only centres, now, are narrowed down to those of intelligence,

capital and population. As I said before Washington is the nearest to

those and you don't have to paddle across a river on ferry boats of a

pattern popular in the dark ages to get to it, nor have to clamber up

vilely paved hills in rascally omnibuses along with a herd of all sorts

of people after you are there. Secondly, the removal of the capital is

one of those old, regular, reliable dodges that are the bread-and meat of

back country congressmen. It is agitated every year. It always has

been, it always will be; It is not new in any respect. Thirdly. The

Capitol has cost $40,000,000 already and lacks a good deal of being

finished, yet. There are single stones in the Treasury building (and a

good many of them) that cost twenty-seven thousand dollars apiece--and

millions were spent in the construction of that and the Patent Office and

the other great government buildings. To move to St. Louis, the country

must throw away a hundred millions of capital invested in those

buildings, and go right to work to spend a hundred millions on new

buildings in St. Louis. Shall we ever have a Congress, a majority of

whose members are hopelessly insane? Probably not. But it is possible

--unquestionably such a thing is possible. Only I don't believe it will

happen in our time; and I am satisfied the capital will not be moved

until it does happen. But if St. Louis would donate the ground and the

buildings, it would be a different matter. No, Pamela, I don't see any

good reason to believe you or I will ever see the capital moved.

I have twice instructed the publishers to send you a book--it was the

first thing I did--long before the proofs were finished. Write me if it

is not yet done.

Livy says we must have you all at our marriage, and I say we can't.

It will be at Christmas or New Years, when such a trip across the country

would be equivalent to murder & arson & everything else.--And it would

cost five hundred dollars--an amount of money she don't know the value of

now, but will before a year is gone. She grieves over it, poor little

rascal, but it can't be helped. She must wait awhile, till I am firmly

on my legs, & then she shall see you. She says her father and mother

will invite you just as soon as the wedding date is definitely fixed,

anyway--& she thinks that's bound to settle it. But the ice & snow, &

the long hard journey, & the injudiciousness of laying out any money

except what we are obliged to part with while we are so much in debt,

settles the case differently. For it is a debt.

.....Mr. Langdon is just as good as bound for $25,000 for me, and has

already advanced half of it in cash. I wrote and asked whether I had

better send him my note, or a due-bill, or how he would prefer to have

the indebtedness made of record and he answered every other topic in the

letter pleasantly but never replied to that at all. Still, I shall give

my note into the hands of his business agent here, and pay him the

interest as it falls due. We must "go slow." We are not in the

Cleveland Herald. We are a hundred thousand times better off, but there

isn't so much money in it.

(Remainder missing.)

In spite of the immediate success of his book--a success the like of

which had scarcely been known in America-Mark Twain held himself to

be, not a literary man, but a journalist: He had no plans for

another book; as a newspaper owner and editor he expected, with his

marriage, to settle down and devote the rest of his life to

journalism. The paper was the Buffalo Express; his interest in it

was one-third--the purchase price, twenty-five thousand dollars, of

which he had paid a part, Jervis Langdon, his future father-in-law,

having furnished cash and security for the remainder. He was

already in possession in August, but he was not regularly in Buffalo

that autumn, for he had agreed with Redpath to deliver his Quaker

City lecture, and the tour would not end until a short time before

his wedding-day, February 2, 1870.

Our next letter hardly belongs in this collection; as it was

doubtless written with at least the possibility of publication in

view. But it is too amusing, too characteristic of Mark Twain, to

be omitted. It was sent in response to an invitation from the New

York Society of California Pioneers to attend a banquet given in New

York City, October 13, 1869, and was, of course, read to the

assembled diners.

To the New York Society of California Pioneers, in New York City:

ELMIRA, October 11, 1869.

GENTLEMEN,--Circumstances render it out of my power to take advantage of

the invitation extended to me through Mr. Simonton, and be present at

your dinner at New York. I regret this very much, for there are several

among you whom I would have a right to join hands with on the score of

old friendship, and I suppose I would have a sublime general right to

shake hands with the rest of you on the score of kinship in California

ups and downs in search of fortune.

If I were to tell some of my experience, you would recognize California

blood in me; I fancy the old, old story would sound familiar, no doubt.

I have the usual stock of reminiscences. For instance: I went to

Esmeralda early. I purchased largely in the "Wide West," "Winnemucca,"

and other fine claims, and was very wealthy. I fared sumptuously on

bread when flour was $200 a barrel and had beans for dinner every Sunday,

when none but bloated aristocrats could afford such grandeur. But I

finished by feeding batteries in a quartz mill at $15 a week, and wishing

I was a battery myself and had somebody to feed me. My claims in

Esmeralda are there yet. I suppose I could be persuaded to sell.

I went to Humboldt District when it was new; I became largely interested

in the "Alba Nueva" and other claims with gorgeous names, and was rich

again--in prospect. I owned a vast mining property there. I would not

have sold out for less than $400,000 at that time. But I will now.

Finally I walked home--200 miles partly for exercise, and partly because

stage fare was expensive. Next I entered upon an affluent career in

Virginia City, and by a judicious investment of labor and the capital of

friends, became the owner of about all the worthless wild cat mines there

were in that part of the country. Assessments did the business for me

there. There were a hundred and seventeen assessments to one dividend,

and the proportion of income to outlay was a little against me. My

financial barometer went down to 32 Fahrenheit, and the subscriber was

frozen out.

I took up extensions on the main lead-extensions that reached to British

America, in one direction, and to the Isthmus of Panama in the other--and

I verily believe I would have been a rich man if I had ever found those

infernal extensions. But I didn't. I ran tunnels till I tapped the

Arctic Ocean, and I sunk shafts till I broke through the roof of

perdition; but those extensions turned up missing every time. I am

willing to sell all that property and throw in the improvements.

Perhaps you remember that celebrated "North Ophir?" I bought that mine.

It was very rich in pure silver. You could take it out in lumps as large

as a filbert. But when it was discovered that those lumps were melted

half dollars, and hardly melted at that, a painful case of "salting" was

apparent, and the undersigned adjourned to the poorhouse again.

I paid assessments on "Hale and Norcross" until they sold me out, and I

had to take in washing for a living--and the next month that infamous

stock went up to $7,000 a foot.

I own millions and millions of feet of affluent silver leads in Nevada

--in fact the entire undercrust of that country nearly, and if Congress

would move that State off my property so that I could get at it, I would

be wealthy yet. But no, there she squats--and here am I. Failing health

persuades me to sell. If you know of any one desiring a permanent

investment, I can furnish one that will have the virtue of being eternal.

I have been through the California mill, with all its "dips, spurs and

angles, variations and sinuosities." I have worked there at all the

different trades and professions known to the catalogues. I have been

everything, from a newspaper editor down to a cow-catcher on a

locomotive, and I am encouraged to believe that if there had been a few

more occupations to experiment on, I might have made a dazzling success

at last, and found out what mysterious designs Providence had in creating

me.

But you perceive that although I am not a Pioneer, I have had a

sufficiently variegated time of it to enable me to talk Pioneer like a

native, and feel like a Forty-Niner. Therefore, I cordially welcome you

to your old-remembered homes and your long deserted firesides, and close

this screed with the sincere hope that your visit here will be a happy

one, and not embittered by the sorrowful surprises that absence and lapse

of years are wont to prepare for wanderers; surprises which come in the

form of old friends missed from their places; silence where familiar

voices should be; the young grown old; change and decay everywhere; home

a delusion and a disappointment; strangers at hearthstone; sorrow where

gladness was; tears for laughter; the melancholy-pomp of death where the

grace of life has been!

With all good wishes for the Returned Prodigals, and regrets that I

cannot partake of a small piece of the fatted calf (rare and no gravy,)

I am yours, cordially,

MARK TWAIN.

In the next letter we find him in the midst of a sort of confusion

of affairs, which, in one form or another, would follow him

throughout the rest of his life. It was the price of his success

and popularity, combined with his general gift for being concerned

with a number of things, and a natural tendency for getting into hot

water, which becomes more evident as the years and letters pass in

review. Orion Clemens, in his attempt to save money for the

government, had employed methods and agents which the officials at

Washington did not understand, and refused to recognize. Instead of

winning the credit and commendation he had expected, he now found

himself pursued by claims of considerable proportions. The "land"

referred to is the Tennessee tract, the heritage which John Clemens

had provided for his children. Mark Twain had long since lost faith

in it, and was not only willing, but eager to renounce his rights.

"Nasby" is, of course, David R. Locke, of the Toledo Blade, whose

popularity at this time both as a lecturer and writer was very

great. Clemens had met him here and there on their platform tour,

and they had become good friends. Clemens, in fact, had once

proposed to Nasby a joint trip to the Pacific coast.

The California idea had been given up, but both Mark Twain and Nasby

found engagements enough, and sufficient profit east of the

Mississippi. Boston was often their headquarters that winter ('69

and '70), and they were much together. "Josh Billings," another of

Redpath's lecturers, was likewise often to be found in the Lyceum

offices. There is a photograph of Mark Twain, Nasby, and Josh

Billings together.

Clemens also, that winter, met William Dean Howells, then in the

early days of his association with the Atlantic Monthly. The two

men, so widely different, became firm friends at sight, and it was

to Howells in the years to come that Mark Twain would write more

letters, and more characteristic letters, than to any other living

man. Howells had favorably reviewed 'The Innocents Abroad,' and

after the first moment of their introduction had passed Clemens

said: "When I read that review of yours I felt like the woman who

said that she was so glad that her baby had come white." It was not

the sort of thing that Howells would have said, but it was the sort

of thing that he could understand and appreciate from Mark Twain.

In company with Nasby Clemens, that season, also met Oliver Wendell

Holmes. Later he had sent Holmes a copy of his book and received a

pleasantly appreciative reply. "I always like," wrote Holmes, "to

hear what one of my fellow countrymen, who is not a Hebrew scholar,

or a reader of hiero-glyphics, but a good-humored traveler with a

pair of sharp, twinkling Yankee (in the broader sense) eyes in his

head, has to say about the things that learned travelers often make

unintelligible, and sentimental ones ridiculous or absurd .... I

hope your booksellers will sell a hundred thousand copies of your

travels." A wish that was realized in due time, though it is

doubtful if Doctor Holmes or any one else at the moment believed

that a book of that nature and price (it was $3.50 a copy) would

ever reach such a sale.

To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

BOSTON, Nov. 9, 1869.

MY DEAR SISTER,--Three or four letters just received from home. My first

impulse was to send Orion a check on my publisher for the money he wants,

but a sober second thought suggested that if he has not defrauded the

government out of money, why pay, simply because the government chooses

to consider him in its debt? No: Right is right. The idea don't suit

me. Let him write the Treasury the state of the case, and tell them he

has no money. If they make his sureties pay, then I will make the

sureties whole, but I won't pay a cent of an unjust claim. You talk of

disgrace. To my mind it would be just as disgraceful to allow one's self

to be bullied into paying that which is unjust.

Ma thinks it is hard that Orion's share of the land should be swept away

just as it is right on the point (as it always has been) of becoming

valuable. Let her rest easy on that point. This letter is his ample

authority to sell my share of the land immediately and appropriate the

proceeds--giving no account to me, but repaying the amount to Ma first,

or in case of her death, to you or your heirs, whenever in the future he

shall be able to do it. Now, I want no hesitation in this matter. I

renounce my ownership from this date, for this purpose, provided it is

sold just as suddenly as he can sell it.

In the next place--Mr. Langdon is old, and is trying hard to withdraw

from business and seek repose. I will not burden him with a purchase

--but I will ask him to take full possession of a coal tract of the land

without paying a cent, simply conditioning that he shall mine and throw

the coal into market at his own cost, and pay to you and all of you what

he thinks is a fair portion of the profits accruing--you can do as you

please with the rest of the land. Therefore, send me (to Elmira,)

information about the coal deposits so framed that he can comprehend the

matter and can intelligently instruct an agent how to find it and go to

work.

Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience

--4,000 critics--and on the success of this matter depends my future

success in New England. But I am not distressed. Nasby is in the same

boat. Tonight decides the fate of his brand-new lecture. He has just

left my room--been reading his lecture to me--was greatly depressed. I

have convinced him that he has little to fear.

I get just about five hundred more applications to lecture than I can

possibly fill--and in the West they say "Charge all you please, but

come." I shan't go West at all. I stop lecturing the 22d of January,

sure. But I shall talk every night up to that time. They flood me with

high-priced invitations to write for magazines and papers, and publishers

besiege me to write books. Can't do any of these things.

I am twenty-two thousand dollars in debt, and shall earn the money and

pay it within two years--and therefore I am not spending any money except

when it is necessary.

I had my life insured for $10,000 yesterday (what ever became of Mr.

Moffett' s life insurance?) "for the benefit of my natural heirs"--the

same being my mother, for Livy wouldn't claim it, you may be sure of

that. This has taken $200 out of my pocket which I was going to send to

Ma. But I will send her some, soon. Tell Orion to keep a stiff upper

lip--when the worst comes to the worst I will come forward. Must talk in

Providence, R. I., tonight. Must leave now. I thank Mollie and Orion

and the rest for your letters, but you see how I am pushed--ought to have

6 clerks.

Affectionately,

SAM.

By the end of January, 1870 more than thirty thousand copies of the

Innocents had been sold, and in a letter to his publisher the author

expressed his satisfaction.

To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford:

ELMIRA, Jan. 28 '70.

FRIEND BLISS,--..... Yes, I am satisfied with the way you are running the

book. You are running it in staving, tip-top, first-class style. I

never wander into any corner of the country but I find that an agent has

been there before me, and many of that community have read the book. And

on an average about ten people a day come and hunt me up to thank me and

tell me I'm a benefactor! I guess this is a part of the programme we

didn't expect in the first place.

I think you are rushing this book in a manner to be proud of; and you

will make the finest success of it that has ever been made with a

subscription book, I believe. What with advertising, establishing

agencies, &c., you have got an enormous lot of machinery under way and

hard at work in a wonderfully short space of time. It is easy to see,

when one travels around, that one must be endowed with a deal of genuine

generalship in order to maneuvre a publication whose line of battle

stretches from end to end of a great continent, and whose foragers and

skirmishers invest every hamlet and besiege every village hidden away in

all the vast space between.

I'll back you against any publisher in America, Bliss--or elsewhere.

Yrs as ever

CLEMENS.

There is another letter written just at this time which of all

letters must not be omitted here. Only five years earlier Mark

Twain, poor, and comparatively unknown, had been carrying water

while Jim Gillis and Dick Stoker washed out the pans of dirt in

search of the gold pocket which they did not find. Clemens must

have received a letter from Gillis referring to some particular

occasion, but it has disappeared; the reply, however, always

remained one of James Gillis's treasured possessions.

To James Gillis, in his cabin on Jackass Hill,

Tuolumne Co., California:

ELMIRA, N.Y. Jan. 26, '70.

DEAR JIM,--I remember that old night just as well! And somewhere among my

relics I have your remembrance stored away. It makes my heart ache yet

to call to mind some of those days. Still, it shouldn't--for right in

the depths of their poverty and their pocket-hunting vagabondage lay the

germ of my coming good fortune. You remember the one gleam of jollity

that shot across our dismal sojourn in the rain and mud of Angels' Camp

I mean that day we sat around the tavern stove and heard that chap tell

about the frog and how they filled him with shot. And you remember how

we quoted from the yarn and laughed over it, out there on the hillside

while you and dear old Stoker panned and washed. I jotted the story down

in my note-book that day, and would have been glad to get ten or fifteen

dollars for it--I was just that blind. But then we were so hard up!

I published that story, and it became widely known in America, India,

China, England--and the reputation it made for me has paid me thousands

and thousands of dollars since. Four or five months ago I bought into

the Express (I have ordered it sent to you as long as you live--and if

the book keeper sends you any bills, you let me hear of it.) I went

heavily in debt never could have dared to do that, Jim, if we hadn't

heard the jumping Frog story that day.

And wouldn't I love to take old Stoker by the hand, and wouldn't I love

to see him in his great specialty, his wonderful rendition of "Rinalds"

in the "Burning Shame!" Where is Dick and what is he doing? Give him my

fervent love and warm old remembrances.

A week from today I shall be married to a girl even better, and lovelier

than the peerless "Chapparal Quails." You can't come so far, Jim, but

still I cordially invite you to come, anyhow--and I invite Dick, too.

And if you two boys were to land here on that pleasant occasion, we would

make you right royally welcome.

Truly your friend,

SAML L. CLEMENS.

P. S. "California plums are good, Jim--particularly when they are

stewed."

Steve Gillis, who sent a copy of his letter to the writer, added:

"Dick Stoker--dear, gentle unselfish old Dick-died over three years

ago, aged 78. I am sure it will be a melancholy pleasure to Mark to

know that Dick lived in comfort all his later life, sincerely loved

and respected by all who knew him. He never left Jackass Hill. He

struck a pocket years ago containing enough not only to build

himself a comfortable house near his old cabin, but to last him,

without work, to his painless end. He was a Mason, and was buried

by the Order in Sonora.

"The 'Quails'--the beautiful, the innocent, the wild little Quails

--lived way out in the Chapparal; on a little ranch near the

Stanislaus River, with their father and mother. They were famous

for their beauty and had many suitors."

The mention of "California plums" refers to some inedible fruit

which Gillis once, out of pure goodness of heart, bought of a poor

wandering squaw, and then, to conceal his motive, declared that they

were something rare and fine, and persisted in eating them, though

even when stewed they nearly choked him.

X.

LETTERS 1870-71. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO. MARRIAGE. THE BUFFALO EXPRESS.

"MEMORANDA." LECTURES. A NEW BOOK

Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia Langdon were married in the Langdon

home at Elmira, February 2, 1870, and took up their residence in

Buffalo in a beautiful home, a wedding present from the bride's

father. The story of their wedding, and the amusing circumstances

connected with their establishment in Buffalo, have been told

elsewhere.--[Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. lxxiv.]

Mark Twain now believed that he was through with lecturing. Two

letters to Redpath, his agent, express his comfortable condition.

To James Redpath, in Boston:

BUFFALO, March 22, 1890.

DEAR RED,--I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things

ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us

to live and I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man,

count me out.

Your friend,

S. L. CLEMENS.

To James Redpath, in Boston:

ELMIRA, N. Y. May 10, 1870.

FRIEND REDPATH,--I guess I am out of the field permanently.

Have got a lovely wife; a lovely house, bewitchingly furnished;

a lovely carriage, and a coachman whose style and dignity are simply

awe-inspiring--nothing less--and I am making more money than necessary

--by considerable, and therefore why crucify myself nightly on the

platform. The subscriber will have to be excused from the present

season at least.

Remember me to Nasby, Billings and Fall.--[Redpath's partner in the

lecture lyceum.]--Luck to you! I am going to print your menagerie,

Parton and all, and make comments.

In next Galaxy I give Nasby's friend and mine from Philadelphia (John

Quill, a literary thief) a "hyste."

Yours always and after.

MARK.

The reference to the Galaxy in the foregoing letter has to do with a

department called Memoranda, which he had undertaken to conduct for

the new magazine. This work added substantially to his income, and

he believed it would be congenial. He was allowed free hand to

write and print what he chose, and some of his best work at this

time was published in the new department, which he continued for a

year.

Mark Twain now seemed to have his affairs well regulated. His

mother and sister were no longer far away in St. Louis. Soon after

his marriage they had, by his advice, taken up residence at

Fredonia, New York, where they could be easily visited from Buffalo.

Altogether, the outlook seemed bright to Mark Twain and his wife,

during the first months of their marriage. Then there came a

change. In a letter which Clemens wrote to his mother and sister we

get the first chapter of disaster.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens, and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:

ELMIRA, N. Y. June 25, 1870.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--We were called here suddenly by telegram, 3

days ago. Mr. Langdon is very low. We have well-nigh lost hope--all of

us except Livy.

Mr. Langdon, whose hope is one of his most prominent characteristics,

says himself, this morning, that his recovery is only a possibility, not

a probability. He made his will this morning--that is, appointed

executors--nothing else was necessary. The household is sad enough

Charley is in Bavaria. We telegraphed Munroe & Co. Paris, to notify

Charley to come home--they sent the message to Munich. Our message left

here at 8 in the morning and Charley's answer arrived less than eight

hours afterward. He sailed immediately.

He will reach home two weeks from now. The whole city is troubled. As I

write (at the office,) a dispatch arrives from Charley who has reached

London, and will sail thence on 28th. He wants news. We cannot send him

any.

Affectionately

SAM.

P. S. I sent $300 to Fredonia Bank for Ma--It is in her name.

Mrs. Clemens, herself, was not in the best of health at this time,

but devotion to her father took her to his bedside, where she

insisted upon standing long, hard watches, the strain of which told

upon her severely. Meantime, work must go on; the daily demand of

the newspaper and the monthly call of the Memoranda could not go

unheeded. Also, Bliss wanted a new book, and met Mark Twain at

Elmira to arrange for it. In a letter to Orion we learn of this

project.

To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:

ELMIRA, July 15, 1870

MY DEAR BRO.,--Per contract I must have another 600-page book ready for

my publisher Jan. z, and I only began it today. The subject of it is a

secret, because I may possibly change it. But as it stands, I propose to

do up Nevada and Cal., beginning with the trip across the country in the

stage. Have you a memorandum of the route we took--or the names of any

of the Stations we stopped at? Do you remember any of the scenes, names,

incidents or adventures of the coach trip?--for I remember next to

nothing about the matter. Jot down a foolscap page of items for me.

I wish I could have two days' talk with you.

I suppose I am to get the biggest copyright, this time, ever paid on a

subscription book in this country.

Give our love to Mollie.--Mr. Langdon is very low.

Yr Bro

SAM.

The "biggest copyright," mentioned in this letter, was a royalty of

7 1/2 per cent., which Bliss had agreed to pay, on the retail price

of the book. The book was Roughing It, though this title was not

decided upon until considerably later. Orion Clemens eagerly

furnished a detailed memorandum of the route of their overland

journey, which brought this enthusiastic acknowledgment:

To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:

BUF., 1870.

DEAR BRO.,--I find that your little memorandum book is going to be ever

so much use to me, and will enable me to make quite a coherent narrative

of the Plains journey instead of slurring it over and jumping 2,000 miles

at a stride. The book I am writing will sell. In return for the use of

the little memorandum book I shall take the greatest pleasure in

forwarding to you the third $1,000 which the publisher of the forthcoming

work sends me or the first $1,000, I am not particular--they will both be

in the first quarterly statement of account from the publisher.

In great haste,

Yr Obliged Bro.

SAM.

Love to Mollie. We are all getting along tolerably well.

Mr. Langdon died early in August, and Mrs. Clemens returned to

Buffalo, exhausted in mind and body. If she hoped for rest now, in

the quiet of her own home, she was disappointed, as the two brief

letters that follow clearly show.

To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:

BUFFALO, Aug. 31, 70.

MY DEAR SISTER,--I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but

I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of letters every day; it is a

comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk and be patient

over it. We got the book and I did think I wrote a line thanking you for

it-but I suppose I neglected it.

We are getting along tolerably well. Mother [Mrs. Langdon] is here, and

Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep since her father's death--but I give

her a narcotic every night and make her. I am just as busy as I can be

--am still writing for the Galaxy and also writing a book like the

"Innocents" in size and style. I have got my work ciphered down to days,

and I haven't a single day to spare between this and the date which, by

written contract I am to deliver the M.S. of the book to the publisher.

----In a hurry

Affectionately

SAM

To Orion Clemens, in St, Louis:

BUF. Sept. 9th, 1870.

MY DEAR BRO,--O here! I don't want to be consulted at all about Tenn.

I don't want it even mentioned to me. When I make a suggestion it is for

you to act upon it or throw it aside, but I beseech you never to ask my

advice, opinion or consent about that hated property. If it was because

I felt the slightest personal interest in the infernal land that I ever

made a suggestion, the suggestion would never be made.

Do exactly as you please with the land--always remember this--that so

trivial a percentage as ten per cent will never sell it.

It is only a bid for a somnambulist.

I have no time to turn round, a young lady visitor (schoolmate of Livy's)

is dying in the house of typhoid fever (parents are in South Carolina)

and the premises are full of nurses and doctors and we are all fagged

out.

Yrs.

SAM.

Miss Nye, who had come to cheer her old schoolmate, had been

prostrated with the deadly fever soon after her arrival. Another

period of anxiety and nursing followed. Mrs. Clemens, in spite of

her frail health, devoted much time to her dying friend, until by

the time the end came she was herself in a precarious condition.

This was at the end of September. A little more than a month later,

November 7th, her first child, Langdon Clemens, was prematurely

born. To the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, of Hartford, Mark

Twain characteristically announced the new arrival.

To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, in Hartford, Conn.:

BUFFALO, Nov 12, '70.

DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT,--I came into the world on the 7th inst., and

consequently am about five days old, now. I have had wretched health

ever since I made my appearance. First one thing and then another has

kept me under the weather, and as a general thing I have been chilly and

uncomfortable.

I am not corpulent, nor am I robust in any way. At birth I only weighed

4 1/2 pounds with my clothes on--and the clothes were the chief feature of

the weight, too, I am obliged to confess. But I am doing finely,

all things considered. I was at a standstill for 3 days and a half, but

during the last 24 hours I have gained nearly an ounce, avoirdupois.

They all say I look very old and venerable-and I am aware, myself, that I

never smile. Life seems a serious thing, what I have seen of it--and my

observation teaches me that it is made up mainly of hiccups, unnecessary

washings, and colic. But no doubt you, who are old, have long since

grown accustomed and reconciled to what seems to me such a disagreeable

novelty.

My father said, this morning, when my face was in repose and thoughtful,

that I looked precisely as young Edward Twichell of Hartford used to look

some is months ago--chin, mouth, forehead, expression--everything.

My little mother is very bright and cheery, and I guess she is pretty

happy, but I don't know what about. She laughs a great deal,

notwithstanding she is sick abed. And she eats a great deal, though she

says that is because the nurse desires it. And when she has had all the

nurse desires her to have, she asks for more. She is getting along very

well indeed.

My aunt Susie Crane has been here some ten days or two weeks, but goes

home today, and Granny Fairbanks of Cleveland arrives to take her place.

--[Mrs. Fairbanks, of the Quaker City excursion.]

Very lovingly,

LANGDON CLEMENS.

P. S. Father said I had better write because you would be more

interested in me, just now, than in the rest of the family.

Clemens had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Joseph Hopkins

Twichell and his wife during his several sojourns in Hartford, in

connection with his book publication, and the two men had

immediately become firm friends. Twichell had come to Elmira in

February to the wedding to assist Rev. Thos. K. Beecher in the

marriage ceremony. Joseph Twichell was a devout Christian, while

Mark Twain was a doubter, even a scoffer, where orthodoxy was

concerned, yet the sincerity and humanity of the two men drew them

together; their friendship was lifelong.

A second letter to Twichell, something more than a month later,

shows a somewhat improved condition in the Clemens household.

To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford:

BUF. Dec. 19th, 1870.

DEAR J. H.,--All is well with us, I believe--though for some days the

baby was quite ill. We consider him nearly restored to health now,

however. Ask my brother about us--you will find him at Bliss's

publishing office, where he is gone to edit Bliss's new paper--left here

last Monday. Make his and his wife's acquaintance. Take Mrs. T. to see

them as soon as they are fixed.

Livy is up, and the prince keeps her busy and anxious these latter days

and nights, but I am a bachelor up stairs and don't have to jump up and

get the soothing syrup--though I would as soon do it as not, I assure

you. (Livy will be certain to read this letter.)

Tell Harmony (Mrs. T.) that I do hold the baby, and do it pretty handily,

too, although with occasional apprehensions that his loose head will fall

off. I don't have to quiet him--he hardly ever utters a cry. He is

always thinking about something. He is a patient, good little baby.

Smoke? I always smoke from 3 till 5 Sunday afternoons--and in New York

the other day I smoked a week, day and night. But when Livy is well I

smoke only those two hours on Sunday. I'm "boss" of the habit, now, and

shall never let it boss me any more. Originally, I quit solely on Livy's

account, (not that I believed there was the faintest reason in the

matter, but just as I would deprive myself of sugar in my coffee if she

wished it, or quit wearing socks if she thought them immoral,) and I

stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so,

without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T.

didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon

a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to

make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as

well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient

excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they use to tell me I would shorten

my life ten years by smoking, they little knew the devotee they were

wasting their puerile word upon--they little knew how trivial and

valueless I would regard a decade that had no smoking in it! But I won't

persuade you, Twichell--I won't until I see you again--but then we'll

smoke for a week together, and then shut off again.

I would have gone to Hartford from New York last Saturday, but I got so

homesick I couldn't. But maybe I'll come soon.

No, Sir, catch me in the metropolis again, to get homesick.

I didn't know Warner had a book out.

We send oceans and continents of love--I have worked myself down, today.

Yrs always

MARK.

With his establishment in Buffalo, Clemens, as already noted, had

persuaded his sister, now a widow, and his mother, to settle in

Fredonia, not far away. Later, he had found a position for Orion,

as editor of a small paper which Bliss had established. What with

these several diversions and the sorrows and sicknesses of his own

household, we can readily imagine that literary work had been

performed under difficulties. Certainly, humorous writing under

such disturbing conditions could not have been easy, nor could we

expect him to accept an invitation to be present and make a comic

speech at an agricultural dinner, even though Horace Greeley would

preside. However, he sent to the secretary of the association a

letter which might be read at the gathering:

To A. B. Crandall, in Woodberry Falls, N. Y., to be read

at an agricultural dinner:

BUFFALO, Dec. 26, 1870.

GENTLEMEN,--I thank you very much for your invitation to the Agricultural

dinner, and would promptly accept it and as promptly be there but for the

fact that Mr. Greeley is very busy this month and has requested me to

clandestinely continue for him in The Tribune the articles "What I Know

about Farming." Consequently the necessity of explaining to the readers

of that journal why buttermilk cannot be manufactured profitably at 8

cents a quart out of butter that costs 60 cents a pound compels my stay

at home until the article is written.

With reiterated thanks, I am

Yours truly,

MARK TWAIN.

In this letter Mark Twain made the usual mistake as to the title of

the Greeley farming series, "What I Know of Farming" being the

correct form.

The Buffalo Express, under Mark Twain's management, had become a

sort of repository for humorous efforts, often of an indifferent

order. Some of these things, signed by nom de plumes, were charged

to Mark Twain. When Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" devastated the

country, and was so widely parodied, an imitation of it entitled,

"Three Aces," and signed "Carl Byng," was printed in the Express.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, then editor of Every Saturday, had not met

Mark Twain, and, noticing the verses printed in the exchanges over

his signature, was one of those who accepted them as Mark Twain's

work. He wrote rather an uncomplimentary note in Every Saturday

concerning the poem and its authorship, characterizing it as a

feeble imitation of Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee." Clemens promptly

protested to Aldrich, then as promptly regretted having done so,

feeling that he was making too much of a small matter. Hurriedly he

sent a second brief note.

To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of "Every Saturday,"

Boston, Massachusetts:

BUFFALO, Jan. 22, 1870.

DEAR SIR,--Please do not publish the note I sent you the other day about

"Hy. Slocum's" plagiarism entitled "Three Aces"--it is not important

enough for such a long paragraph. Webb writes me that he has put in a

paragraph about it, too--and I have requested him to suppress it. If you

would simply state, in a line and a half under "Literary Notes," that you

mistook one "Hy. Slocum" (no, it was one "Carl Byng," I perceive) "Carl

Byng" for Mark Twain, and that it was the former who wrote the plagiarism

entitled "Three Aces," I think that would do a fair justice without any

unseemly display. But it is hard to be accused of plagiarism--a crime I

never have committed in my life.

Yrs. Truly

MARK TWAIN.

But this came too late. Aldrich replied that he could not be

prevented from doing him justice, as forty-two thousand copies of

the first note, with the editor's apology duly appended, were

already in press. He would withdraw his apology in the next number

of Every Saturday, if Mark Twain said so. Mark Twain's response

this time assumed the proportions of a letter.

To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in Boston:

472 DELAWARE ST., BUFFALO, Jan. 28.

DEAR MR. ALDRICH,--No indeed, don't take back the apology! Hang it, I

don't want to abuse a man's civility merely because he gives me the

chance.

I hear a good deal about doing things on the "spur of the moment"

--I invariably regret the things I do on the spur of the moment. That

disclaimer of mine was a case in point. I am ashamed every time I think

of my bursting out before an unconcerned public with that bombastic

pow-wow about burning publishers' letters, and all that sort of imbecility,

and about my not being an imitator, etc. Who would find out that I am a

natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature come to the

surface? Nobody.

But I did hate to be accused of plagiarizing Bret Harte, who trimmed and

trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward

utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters

that have found a certain favor in the eyes of even some of the very

decentest people in the land--and this grateful remembrance of mine ought

to be worth its face, seeing that Bret broke our long friendship a year

ago without any cause or provocation that I am aware of.

Well, it is funny, the reminiscences that glare out from murky corners of

one's memory, now and then, without warning. Just at this moment a

picture flits before me: Scene--private room in Barnum's Restaurant,

Virginia, Nevada; present, Artemus Ward, Joseph T. Goodman, (editor and

proprietor Daily "Enterprise"), and "Dan de Quille" and myself, reporters

for same; remnants of the feast thin and scattering, but such tautology

and repetition of empty bottles everywhere visible as to be offensive to

the sensitive eye; time, 2.30 A.M.; Artemus thickly reciting a poem about

a certain infant you wot of, and interrupting himself and being

interrupted every few lines by poundings of the table and shouts of

"Splendid, by Shorzhe!" Finally, a long, vociferous, poundiferous and

vitreous jingling of applause announces the conclusion, and then Artemus:

"Let every man 'at loves his fellow man and 'preciates a poet 'at loves

his fellow man, stan' up!--Stan' up and drink health and long life to

Thomas Bailey Aldrich!--and drink it stanning!" (On all hands fervent,

enthusiastic, and sincerely honest attempts to comply.) Then Artemus:

"Well--consider it stanning, and drink it just as ye are!" Which was

done.

You must excuse all this stuff from a stranger, for the present, and when

I see you I will apologize in full.

Do you know the prettiest fancy and the neatest that ever shot through

Harte's brain? It was this: When they were trying to decide upon a

vignette for the cover of the Overland, a grizzly bear (of the arms of

the State of California) was chosen. Nahl Bras. carved him and the page

was printed, with him in it, looking thus: [Rude sketch of a grizzly

bear.]

As a bear, he was a success--he was a good bear--. But then, it was

objected, that he was an objectless bear--a bear that meant nothing in

particular, signified nothing,--simply stood there snarling over his

shoulder at nothing--and was painfully and manifestly a boorish and

ill-natured intruder upon the fair page. All hands said that--none were

satisfied. They hated badly to give him up, and yet they hated as much

to have him there when there was no paint to him. But presently Harte

took a pencil and drew these two simple lines under his feet and behold

he was a magnificent success!--the ancient symbol of California savagery

snarling at the approaching type of high and progressive Civilization,

the first Overland locomotive!: [Sketch of a small section of railway

track.]

I just think that was nothing less than inspiration itself.

Once more I apologize, and this time I do it "stanning!"

Yrs. Truly

SAML. L. CLEMENS.

The "two simple lines," of course, were the train rails under the

bear's feet, and completed the striking cover design of the Overland

monthly.

The brief controversy over the "Three Aces" was the beginning of

along and happy friendship between Aldrich and Mark Twain. Howells,

Aldrich, Twichell, and Charles Dudley Warner--these were Mark

Twain's intimates, men that he loved, each for his own special charm

and worth.

Aldrich he considered the most brilliant of living men.

In his reply to Clemens's letter, Aldrich declared that he was glad

now that, for the sake of such a letter, he had accused him falsely,

and added:

"Mem. Always abuse people.

"When you come to Boston, if you do not make your presence manifest

to me, I'll put in a !! in 'Every Saturday' to the effect that

though you are generally known as Mark Twain your favorite nom de

plume is 'Barry Gray.'"

Clemens did not fail to let Aldrich know when he was in Boston

again, and the little coterie of younger writers forgathered to give

him welcome.

Buffalo agreed with neither Mrs. Clemens nor the baby. What with

nursing and anguish of mind, Mark Twain found that he could do

nothing on the new book, and that he must give up his magazine

department. He had lost interest in his paper and his surroundings

in general. Journalism and authorship are poor yoke-mates. To

Onion Clemens, at this time editing Bliss's paper at Hartford, he

explained the situation.

To Onion Clemens, in Hartford:

BUFFALO, 4th 1871.

MY DEAR BRO,--What I wanted of the "Liar" Sketch, was to work it into the

California book--which I shall do. But day before yesterday I concluded

to go out of the Galaxy on the strength of it, so I have turned it into

the last Memoranda I shall ever write, and published it as a "specimen

chapter" of my forthcoming book.

I have written the Galaxy people that I will never furnish them another

article long or short, for any price but $500.00 cash--and have requested

them not to ask me for contributions any more, even at that price.

I hope that lets them out, for I will stick to that. Now do try and

leave me clear out of the 'Publisher' for the present, for I am

endangering my reputation by writing too much--I want to get out of the

public view for awhile.

I am still nursing Livy night and day and cannot write anything. I am

nearly worn out. We shall go to Elmira ten days hence (if Livy can

travel on a mattress then,) and stay there till I have finished the

California book--say three months. But I can't begin work right away

when I get there--must have a week's rest, for I have been through 30

days' terrific siege.

That makes it after the middle of March before I can go fairly to work

--and then I'll have to hump myself and not lose a moment. You and Bliss

just put yourselves in my place and you will see that my hands are full

and more than full.

When I told Bliss in N. Y. that I would write something for the Publisher

I could not know that I was just about to lose fifty days. Do you see

the difference it makes? Just as soon as ever I can, I will send some

of the book M.S. but right in the first chapter I have got to alter the

whole style of one of my characters and re-write him clear through to

where I am now. It is no fool of a job, I can tell you, but the book

will be greatly bettered by it. Hold on a few days--four or five--and

I will see if I can get a few chapters fixed to send to Bliss.

I have offered this dwelling house and the Express for sale, and when we

go to Elmira we leave here for good. I shall not select a new home till

the book is finished, but we have little doubt that Hartford will be the

place.

We are almost certain of that. Ask Bliss how it would be to ship our

furniture to Hartford, rent an upper room in a building and unbox it and

store it there where somebody can frequently look after it. Is not the

idea good? The furniture is worth $10,000 or $12,000 and must not be

jammed into any kind of a place and left unattended to for a year.

The first man that offers $25,000 for our house can take it--it cost

that. What are taxes there? Here, all bunched together--of all kinds,

they are 7 per cent--simply ruin.

The things you have written in the Publisher are tip-top.

In haste,

Yr Bro

SAM

There are no further letters until the end of April, by which time

the situation had improved. Clemens had sold his interest in the

Express (though at a loss), had severed his magazine connection, and

was located at Quarry Farm, on a beautiful hilltop above Elmira, the

home of Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane. The pure air

and rest of that happy place, where they were to spend so many

idyllic summers, had proved beneficial to the sick ones, and work on

the new book progressed in consequence. Then Mark Twain's old

editor, "Joe" Goodman, came from Virginia City for a visit, and his

advice and encouragement were of the greatest value. Clemens even

offered to engage Goodman on a salary, to remain until he had

finished his book. Goodman declined the salary, but extended his

visit, and Mark Twain at last seems to have found himself working

under ideal conditions. He jubilantly reports his progress.

To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford:

ELMIRA, Monday. May 15th 1871

FRIEND BLISS,--Yrs rec'd enclosing check for $703.35 The old "Innocents"

holds out handsomely.

I have MS. enough on hand now, to make (allowing for engravings) about

400 pages of the book--consequently am two-thirds done. I intended to

run up to Hartford about the middle of the week and take it along;

because it has chapters in it that ought by all means to be in the

prospectus; but I find myself so thoroughly interested in my work, now

(a thing I have not experienced for months) that I can't bear to lose a

single moment of the inspiration. So I will stay here and peg away as

long as it lasts. My present idea is to write as much more as I have

already written, and then cull from the mass the very best chapters and

discard the rest. I am not half as well satisfied with the first part of

the book as I am with what I am writing now. When I get it done I want

to see the man who will begin to read it and not finish it. If it falls

short of the "Innocents" in any respect I shall lose my guess.

When I was writing the "Innocents" my daily stunt was 30 pages of MS and

I hardly ever got beyond it; but I have gone over that nearly every day

for the last ten. That shows that I am writing with a red-hot interest.

Nothing grieves me now--nothing troubles me, nothing bothers me or gets

my attention--I don't think of anything but the book, and I don't have an

hour's unhappiness about anything and don't care two cents whether school

keeps or not. It will be a bully book. If I keep up my present lick

three weeks more I shall be able and willing to scratch out half of the

chapters of the Overland narrative--and shall do it.

You do not mention having received my second batch of MS, sent a week or

two ago--about 100 pages.

If you want to issue a prospectus and go right to canvassing, say the

word and I will forward some more MS--or send it by hand--special

messenger. Whatever chapters you think are unquestionably good, we will

retain of course, so they can go into a prospectus as well one time as

another. The book will be done soon, now. I have 1200 pages of MS

already written and am now writing 200 a week--more than that, in fact;

during the past week wrote 23 one day, then 30, 33, 35, 52, and 65.

--How's that?

It will be a starchy book, and should be full of snappy pictures

--especially pictures worked in with the letterpress. The dedication

will be worth the price of the volume--thus:

To the Late Cain.

This Book is Dedicated:

Not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect;

not on account of sympathy with him, for his bloody deed placed him

without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking: but out of a mere human

commiseration for him that it was his misfortune to live in a dark age

that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea.

I think it will do.

Yrs. CLEMENS.

P. S.--The reaction is beginning and my stock is looking up. I am

getting the bulliest offers for books and almanacs; am flooded with

lecture invitations, and one periodical offers me $6,000 cash for 12

articles, of any length and on any subject, treated humorously or

otherwise.

The suggested dedication "to the late Cain" may have been the

humoristic impulse of the moment. At all events, it did not

materialize.

Clemens's enthusiasm for work was now such that he agreed with

Redpath to return to the platform that autumn, and he began at once

writing lectures. His disposal of the Buffalo paper had left him

considerably in debt, and platforming was a sure and quick method of

retrenchment. More than once in the years ahead Mark Twain would

return to travel and one-night stands to lift a burden of debt.

Brief letters to Redpath of this time have an interest and even a

humor of their own.

Letters to James Redpath, in Boston:

ELMIRA, June 27, 1871.

DEAR RED,--Wrote another lecture--a third one-today. It is the one I am

going to deliver. I think I shall call it "Reminiscences of Some

Pleasant Characters Whom I Have Met," (or should the "whom" be left out?)

It covers my whole acquaintance--kings, lunatics, idiots and all.

Suppose you give the item a start in the Boston papers. If I write fifty

lectures I shall only choose one and talk that one only.

No sir: Don't you put that scarecrow (portrait) from the Galaxy in, I

won't stand that nightmare.

Yours,

MARK.

ELMIRA, July 10, 1871.

DEAR REDPATH,--I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church

yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do

it in any possible way.

Success to Fall's carbuncle and many happy returns.

Yours,

MARK.

To Mr. Fall, in Boston:

ELMIRA, N. Y. July 20, 1871.

FRIEND FALL,--Redpath tells me to blow up. Here goes! I wanted you to

scare Rondout off with a big price. $125 ain't big. I got $100 the

first time I ever talked there and now they have a much larger hall.

It is a hard town to get to--I run a chance of getting caught by the ice

and missing next engagement. Make the price $150 and let them draw out.

Yours

MARK

Letters to James Redpath, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Tuesday Aug. 8, 1871.

DEAR RED,--I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener.

People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and firm, but when a man

is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea of

foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo. See?

Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give rigid

instructions to confine me to New England; next week, send me to Arizona;

the next week withdraw my name; the next week give you full untrammelled

swing; and the week following modify it. You must try to keep the run of

my mind, Redpath, it is your business being the agent, and it always was

too many for me. It appears to me to be one of the finest pieces of

mechanism I have ever met with. Now about the West, this week, I am

willing that you shall retain all the Western engagements. But what I

shall want next week is still with God.

Let us not profane the mysteries with soiled hands and prying eyes of

sin.

Yours,

MARK.

P. S. Shall be here 2 weeks, will run up there when Nasby comes.

ELMIRA, N. Y. Sept. 15, 1871.

DEAR REDPATH,--I wish you would get me released from the lecture at

Buffalo. I mortally hate that society there, and I don't doubt they

hired me. I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never

even had the common politeness to thank me. They left me to shift for

myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard. Get me rid of Buffalo!

Otherwise I'll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture

there. I can get sick easy enough, by the simple process of saying the

word--well never mind what word--I am not going to lecture there.

Yours,

MARK.

BUFFALO, Sept. 26, 1871.

DEAR REDPATH,--We have thought it all over and decided that we can't

possibly talk after Feb. 2.

We shall take up our residence in Hartford 6 days from now

Yours

MARK.

XI.

LETTERS 1871-72. REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. A LECTURE TOUR. "ROUGHING IT."

FIRST LETTER TO HOWELLS

The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on

Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary

neighborhood. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and

other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell

was perhaps half a mile away.

It was the proper environment for Mark Twain. He settled his little

family there, and was presently at Redpath's office in Boston, which

was a congenial place, as we have seen before. He did not fail to

return to the company of Nasby, Josh Billings, and those others of

Redpath's "attractions" as long and as often as distance would

permit. Bret Harte, who by this time had won fame, was also in

Boston now, and frequently, with Howells, Aldrich, and Mark Twain,

gathered in some quiet restaurant corner for a luncheon that lasted

through a dim winter afternoon--a period of anecdote, reminiscence,

and mirth. They were all young then, and laughed easily. Howells,

has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young

Californian--a gathering at which James T. Fields was present

"Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and

aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager

laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning

shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our

joint mockeries upon our host, who took it gladly."

But a lecture circuit cannot be restricted to the radius of Boston.

Clemens was presently writing to Redpath from Washington and points

farther west.

To James Redpath, in Boston:

WASHINGTON, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1871.

DEAR RED,--I have come square out, thrown "Reminiscences" overboard, and

taken "Artemus Ward, Humorist," for my subject. Wrote it here on Friday

and Saturday, and read it from MS last night to an enormous house. It

suits me and I'll never deliver the nasty, nauseous "Reminiscences" any

more.

Yours,

MARK.

The Artemus Ward lecture lasted eleven days, then he wrote:

To Redpath and Fall, in Boston:

BUFFALO DEPOT, Dec. 8, 1871.

REDPATH & FALL, BOSTON,--Notify all hands that from this time I shall

talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book "Roughing It."

Tried it last night. Suits me tip-top.

SAM'L L. CLEMENS.