The Roughing It chapters proved a success, and continued in high

favor through the rest of the season.

To James Redpath, in Boston:

LOGANSPORT, IND. Jan. 2, 1872.

FRIEND REDPATH,--Had a splendid time with a splendid audience in

Indianapolis last night--a perfectly jammed house, just as I have had all

the time out here. I like the new lecture but I hate the "Artemus Ward"

talk and won't talk it any more. No man ever approved that choice of

subject in my hearing, I think.

Give me some comfort. If I am to talk in New York am I going to have a

good house? I don't care now to have any appointments cancelled. I'll

even "fetch" those Dutch Pennsylvanians with this lecture.

Have paid up $4000 indebtedness. You are the, last on my list. Shall

begin to pay you in a few days and then I shall be a free man again.

Yours,

MARK.

With his debts paid, Clemens was anxious to be getting home. Two

weeks following the above he wrote Redpath that he would accept no

more engagements at any price, outside of New England, and added,

"The fewer engagements I have from this time forth the better I

shall be pleased." By the end of February he was back in Hartford,

refusing an engagement in Boston, and announcing to Redpath, "If I

had another engagement I'd rot before I'd fill it." From which we

gather that he was not entirely happy in the lecture field.

As a matter of fact, Mark Twain loathed the continuous travel and

nightly drudgery of platform life. He was fond of entertaining, and

there were moments of triumph that repaid him for a good deal, but

the tyranny of a schedule and timetables was a constant

exasperation.

Meantime, Roughing It had appeared and was selling abundantly. Mark

Twain, free of debt, and in pleasant circumstances, felt that the

outlook was bright. It became even more so when, in March, the

second child, a little girl, Susy, was born, with no attending

misfortunes. But, then, in the early summer little Langdon died.

It was seldom, during all of Mark Twain's life, that he enjoyed more

than a brief period of unmixed happiness.

It was in June of that year that Clemens wrote his first letter to

William Dean Howells the first of several hundred that would follow

in the years to come, and has in it something that is characteristic

of nearly all the Clemens-Howells letters--a kind of tender

playfulness that answered to something in Howells's make-up, his

sense of humor, his wide knowledge of a humanity which he pictured

so amusingly to the world.

To William Dean Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, June 15, 1872.

FRIEND HOWELLS,--Could you tell me how I could get a copy of your

portrait as published in Hearth and Home? I hear so much talk about it

as being among the finest works of art which have yet appeared in that

journal, that I feel a strong desire to see it. Is it suitable for

framing? I have written the publishers of H & H time and again, but they

say that the demand for the portrait immediately exhausted the edition

and now a copy cannot be had, even for the European demand, which has now

begun. Bret Harte has been here, and says his family would not be

without that portrait for any consideration. He says his children get up

in the night and yell for it. I would give anything for a copy of that

portrait to put up in my parlor. I have Oliver Wendell Holmes and Bret

Harte's, as published in Every Saturday, and of all the swarms that come

every day to gaze upon them none go away that are not softened and

humbled and made more resigned to the will of God. If I had yours to put

up alongside of them, I believe the combination would bring more souls to

earnest reflection and ultimate conviction of their lost condition, than

any other kind of warning would. Where in the nation can I get that

portrait? Here are heaps of people that want it,--that need it. There

is my uncle. He wants a copy. He is lying at the point of death. He

has been lying at the point of death for two years. He wants a copy--and

I want him to have a copy. And I want you to send a copy to the man that

shot my dog. I want to see if he is dead to every human instinct.

Now you send me that portrait. I am sending you mine, in this letter;

and am glad to do it, for it has been greatly admired. People who are

judges of art, find in the execution a grandeur which has not been

equalled in this country, and an expression which has not been approached

in any.

Yrs truly,

S. L. CLEMENS.

P. S. 62,000 copies of "Roughing It" sold and delivered in 4 months.

The Clemens family did not spend the summer at Quarry Farm that

year. The sea air was prescribed for Mrs. Clemens and the baby, and

they went to Saybrook, Connecticut, to Fenwick Hall. Clemens wrote

very little, though he seems to have planned Tom Sawyer, and perhaps

made its earliest beginning, which was in dramatic form.

His mind, however, was otherwise active. He was always more or less

given to inventions, and in his next letter we find a description of

one which he brought to comparative perfection.

He had also conceived the idea of another book of travel, and this

was his purpose of a projected trip to England.

To Orion Clemens, in Hartford:

FENWICK HALL, SAYBROOK, CONN.

Aug. 11, 1872.

MY DEAR BRO.--I shall sail for England in the Scotia, Aug. 21.

But what I wish to put on record now, is my new invention--hence this

note, which you will preserve. It is this--a self-pasting scrap-book

--good enough idea if some juggling tailor does not come along and

ante-date me a couple of months, as in the case of the elastic veststrap.

The nuisance of keeping a scrap-book is: 1. One never has paste

or gum tragacanth handy; 2. Mucilage won't stick, or stay, 4 weeks;

3. Mucilage sucks out the ink and makes the scraps unreadable;

4. To daub and paste 3 or 4 pages of scraps is tedious, slow, nasty and

tiresome. My idea is this: Make a scrap-book with leaves veneered or

coated with gum-stickum of some kind; wet the page with sponge, brush,

rag or tongue, and dab on your scraps like postage stamps.

Lay on the gum in columns of stripes.

Each stripe of gum the length of say 20 ems, small pica, and as broad as

your finger; a blank about as broad as your finger between each 2

stripes--so in wetting the paper you need not wet any more of the gum

than your scrap or scraps will cover--then you may shut up the book and

the leaves won't stick together.

Preserve, also, the envelope of this letter--postmark ought to be good

evidence of the date of this great humanizing and civilizing invention.

I'll put it into Dan Slote's hands and tell him he must send you all over

America, to urge its use upon stationers and booksellers--so don't buy

into a newspaper. The name of this thing is "Mark Twain's Self-Pasting

Scrapbook."

All well here. Shall be up a P. M. Tuesday. Send the carriage.

Yr Bro.

S. L. CLEMENS.

The Dan Slote of this letter is, of course, his old Quaker City

shipmate, who was engaged in the blank-book business, the firm being

Slote & Woodman, located at 119 and 121 William Street, New York.

XII.

LETTERS 1872-73. MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. LONDON HONORS. ACQUAINTANCE

WITH DR. JOHN BROWN. A LECTURE TRIUMPH. "THE GILDED AGE"

Clemens did, in fact, sail for England on the given date, and was

lavishly received there. All literary London joined in giving him a

good time. He had not as yet been received seriously by the older

American men of letters, but England made no question as to his

title to first rank. Already, too, they classified him as of the

human type of Lincoln, and reveled in him without stint. Howells

writes: "In England, rank, fashion, and culture rejoiced in him.

Lord Mayors, Lord Chief justices, and magnates of many kinds were

his hosts."

He was treated so well and enjoyed it all so much that he could not

write a book--the kind of book he had planned. One could not poke

fun at a country or a people that had welcomed him with open arms.

He made plenty of notes, at first, but presently gave up the book

idea and devoted himself altogether to having a good time.

He had one grievance--a publisher by the name of Hotten, a sort of

literary harpy, of which there were a great number in those days of

defective copyright, not merely content with pilfering his early

work, had reprinted, under the name of Mark Twain, the work of a

mixed assortment of other humorists, an offensive volume bearing the

title, Screamers and Eye-openers, by Mark Twain.

They besieged him to lecture in London, and promised him overflowing

houses. Artemus Ward, during his last days, had earned London by

storm with his platform humor, and they promised Mark Twain even

greater success. For some reason, however, he did not welcome the

idea; perhaps there was too much gaiety. To Mrs. Clemens he wrote:

To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

LONDON, Sep. 15, 1872.

Livy, darling, everybody says lecture-lecture-lecture--but I have not the

least idea of doing it--certainly not at present. Mr. Dolby, who took

Dickens to America, is coming to talk business to me tomorrow, though I

have sent him word once before, that I can't be hired to talk here,

because I have no time to spare.

There is too much sociability--I do not get along fast enough with work.

Tomorrow I lunch with Mr. Toole and a Member of Parliament--Toole is the

most able Comedian of the day. And then I am done for a while. On

Tuesday I mean to hang a card to my keybox, inscribed--"Gone out of the

City for a week"--and then I shall go to work and work hard. One can't

be caught in a hive of 4,000,000 people, like this.

I have got such a perfectly delightful razor. I have a notion to buy

some for Charley, Theodore and Slee--for I know they have no such razors

there. I have got a neat little watch-chain for Annie--$20.

I love you my darling. My love to all of you.

SAML.

That Mark Twain should feel and privately report something of his

triumphs we need not wonder at. Certainly he was never one to give

himself airs, but to have the world's great literary center paying

court to him, who only ten years before had been penniless and

unknown, and who once had been a barefoot Tom Sawyer in Hannibal,

was quite startling. It is gratifying to find evidence of human

weakness in the following heart-to-heart letter to his publisher,

especially in view of the relating circumstances.

To Elisha Bliss, in Hartford:

LONDON, Sept. 28, 1872.

FRIEND BLISS,--I have been received in a sort of tremendous way, tonight,

by the brains of London, assembled at the annual dinner of the Sheriffs

of London--mine being (between you and me) a name which was received with

a flattering outburst of spontaneous applause when the long list of

guests was called.

I might have perished on the spot but for the friendly support and

assistance of my excellent friend Sir John Bennett--and I want you to

paste the enclosed in a couple of the handsomest copies of the

"Innocents" and "Roughing It," and send them to him. His address is

"Sir John Bennett,

Cheapside,

London."

Yrs Truly

S. L. CLEMENS.

The "relating circumstances" were these: At the abovementioned

dinner there had been a roll-call of the distinguished guests

present, and each name had been duly applauded. Clemens, conversing

in a whisper with his neighbor, Sir John Bennett, did not give very

close attention to the names, applauding mechanically with the

others.

Finally, a name was read that brought out a vehement hand-clapping.

Mark Twain, not to be outdone in cordiality, joined vigorously, and

kept his hands going even after the others finished. Then,

remarking the general laughter, he whispered to Sir John: "Whose

name was that we were just applauding?"

"Mark Twain's."

We may believe that the "friendly support" of Sir John Bennett was

welcome for the moment. But the incident could do him no harm; the

diners regarded it as one of his jokes, and enjoyed him all the more

for it.

He was ready to go home by November, but by no means had he had

enough of England. He really had some thought of returning there

permanently. In a letter to Mrs. Crane, at Quarry Farm, he wrote:

"If you and Theodore will come over in the Spring with Livy and me,

and spend the summer you will see a country that is so beautiful

that you will be obliged to believe in Fairyland..... and Theodore

can browse with me among dusty old dens that look now as they looked

five hundred years ago; and puzzle over books in the British Museum

that were made before Christ was born; and in the customs of their

public dinners, and the ceremonies of every official act, and the

dresses of a thousand dignitaries, trace the speech and manners of

all the centuries that have dragged their lagging decades over

England since the Heptarchy fell asunder. I would a good deal

rather live here if I could get the rest of you over."

In a letter home, to his mother and sister, we get a further picture

of his enjoyment.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett:

LONDON, Nov. 6, 1872.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have been so everlasting busy that I

couldn't write--and moreover I have been so unceasingly lazy that I

couldn't have written anyhow. I came here to take notes for a book, but

I haven't done much but attend dinners and make speeches. But have had a

jolly good time and I do hate to go away from these English folks; they

make a stranger feel entirely at home--and they laugh so easily that it

is a comfort to make after-dinner speeches here. I have made hundreds of

friends; and last night in the crush of the opening of the New Guild-hall

Library and Museum, I was surprised to meet a familiar face every few

steps. Nearly 4,000 people, of both sexes, came and went during the

evening, so I had a good opportunity to make a great many new

acquaintances.

Livy is willing to come here with me next April and stay several months

--so I am going home next Tuesday. I would sail on Saturday, but that is

the day of the Lord Mayor's annual grand state dinner, when they say 900

of the great men of the city sit down to table, a great many of them in

their fine official and court paraphernalia, so I must not miss it.

However, I may yet change my mind and sail Saturday. I am looking at a

fine Magic lantern which will cost a deal of money, and if I buy it Sammy

may come and learn to make the gas and work the machinery, and paint

pictures for it on glass. I mean to give exhibitions for charitable

purposes in Hartford, and charge a dollar a head.

In a hurry,

Ys affly

SAM.

He sailed November 12th on the Batavia, arriving in New York two

weeks later. There had been a presidential election in his absence.

General Grant had defeated Horace Greeley, a result, in some measure

at least, attributed to the amusing and powerful pictures of the

cartoonist, Thomas Nast. Mark Twain admired Greeley's talents, but

he regarded him as poorly qualified for the nation's chief

executive. He wrote:

To Th. Nast, in Morristown, N. J.:

HARTFORD, Nov. 1872.

Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for

Grant--I mean, rather, for civilization and progress. Those pictures

were simply marvelous, and if any man in the land has a right to hold his

head up and be honestly proud of his share in this year's vast events

that man is unquestionably yourself. We all do sincerely honor you, and

are proud of you.

MARK TWAIN.

Perhaps Mark Twain was too busy at this time to write letters. His

success in England had made him more than ever popular in America,

and he could by no means keep up with the demands on him. In

January he contributed to the New York Tribune some letters on the

Sandwich Islands, but as these were more properly articles they do

not seem to belong here.

He refused to go on the lecture circuit, though he permitted Redpath

to book him for any occasional appearance, and it is due to one of

these special engagements that we have the only letter preserved

from this time. It is to Howells, and written with that

exaggeration with which he was likely to embellish his difficulties.

We are not called upon to believe that there were really any such

demonstrations as those ascribed to Warner and himself.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FARMINGTON AVE, Hartford Feb. 27.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am in a sweat and Warner is in another. I told

Redpath some time ago I would lecture in Boston any two days he might

choose provided they were consecutive days--

I never dreamed of his choosing days during Lent since that was his

special horror--but all at once he telegraphs me, and hollers at me in

all manner of ways that I am booked for Boston March 5 of all days in the

year--and to make matters just as mixed and uncertain as possible, I

can't find out to save my life whether he means to lecture me on the 6th

or not.

Warner's been in here swearing like a lunatic, and saying he had written

you to come on the 4th,--and I said, "You leather-head, if I talk in

Boston both afternoon and evening March 5, I'll have to go to Boston the

4th,"--and then he just kicked up his heels and went off cursing after a

fashion I never heard of before.

Now let's just leave this thing to Providence for 24 hours--you bet it

will come out all right.

Yours ever

MARK.

He was writing a book with Warner at this time--The Gilded Age

--the two authors having been challenged by their wives one night at

dinner to write a better book than the current novels they had been

discussing with some severity. Clemens already had a story in his

mind, and Warner agreed to collaborate in the writing. It was begun

without delay. Clemens wrote the first three hundred and

ninety-nine pages, and read there aloud to Warner, who took up the

story at this point and continued it through twelve chapters, after

which they worked alternately, and with great enjoyment. They also

worked rapidly, and in April the story was completed. For a

collaboration by two men so different in temperament and literary

method it was a remarkable performance.

Another thing Mark Twain did that winter was to buy some land on

Farmington Avenue and begin the building of a home. He had by no

means given up returning to England, and made his plans to sail with

Mrs. Clemens and Susy in May. Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira

--[Later Mrs. John B. Stanchfield, of New York.]--a girlhood friend

of Mrs. Clemens--was to accompany them.

The Daily Graphic heard of the proposed journey, and wrote, asking

for a farewell word. His characteristic reply is the only letter of

any kind that has survived from that spring.

To the Editor of "The Daily Graphic," in New York City:

HARTFORD, Apl. 17, 1873.

ED. GRAPHIC,--Your note is received. If the following two lines which I

have cut from it are your natural handwriting, then I understand you to

ask me "for a farewell letter in the name of the American people." Bless

you, the joy of the American people is just a little premature; I haven't

gone yet. And what is more, I am not going to stay, when I do go.

Yes, it is true. I am only going to remain beyond the sea, six months,

that is all. I love stir and excitement; and so the moment the spring

birds begin to sing, and the lagging weariness of summer to threaten,

I grow restless, I get the fidgets; I want to pack off somewhere where

there's something going on. But you know how that is--you must have felt

that way. This very day I saw the signs in the air of the coming

dullness, and I said to myself, "How glad I am that I have already

chartered a steamship!" There was absolutely nothing in the morning

papers. You can see for yourself what the telegraphic headings were:

BY TELEGRAPH

A Father Killed by His Son

A Bloody Fight in Kentucky

A Court House Fired, and

Negroes Therein Shot

while Escaping

A Louisiana Massacre

An Eight-year-old murderer

Two to Three Hundred Men Roasted Alive!

A Town in a State of General Riot

A Lively Skirmish in Indiana

(and thirty other similar headings.)

The items under those headings all bear date yesterday, Apl. 16 (refer to

your own paper)--and I give you my word of honor that that string of

commonplace stuff was everything there was in the telegraphic columns

that a body could call news. Well, said I to myself this is getting

pretty dull; this is getting pretty dry; there don't appear to be

anything going on anywhere; has this progressive nation gone to sleep?

Have I got to stand another month of this torpidity before I can begin to

browse among the lively capitals of Europe?

But never mind-things may revive while I am away. During the last two

months my next-door neighbor, Chas. Dudley Warner, has dropped his

"Back-Log Studies," and he and I have written a bulky novel in

partnership. He has worked up the fiction and I have hurled in the facts.

I consider it one of the most astonishing novels that ever was written.

Night after night I sit up reading it over and over again and crying. It

will be published early in the Fall, with plenty of pictures. Do you

consider this an advertisement?--and if so, do you charge for such things

when a man is your friend?

Yours truly,

SAML. L. CLEMENS,

"MARK TWAIN,"

An amusing, even if annoying, incident happened about the time of

Mark Twain's departure. A man named Chew related to Twichell a most

entertaining occurrence. Twichell saw great possibilities in it,

and suggested that Mark Twain be allowed to make a story of it,

sharing the profits with Chew. Chew agreed, and promised to send

the facts, carefully set down. Twichell, in the mean time, told the

story to Clemens, who was delighted with it and strongly tempted to

write it at once, while he was in the spirit, without waiting on

Chew. Fortunately, he did not do so, for when Chew's material came

it was in the form of a clipping, the story having been already

printed in some newspaper. Chew's knowledge of literary ethics

would seem to have been slight. He thought himself entitled to

something under the agreement with Twichell. Mark Twain, by this

time in London, naturally had a different opinion.

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, June 9, '73.

DEAR OLD JOE,--I consider myself wholly at liberty to decline to pay Chew

anything, and at the same time strongly tempted to sue him into the

bargain for coming so near ruining me. If he hadn't happened to send me

that thing in print, I would have used the story (like an innocent fool)

and would straightway have been hounded to death as a plagiarist. It

would have absolutely destroyed me. I cannot conceive of a man being such

a hopeless ass (after serving as a legislative reporter, too) as to

imagine that I or any other literary man in his senses would consent to

chew over old stuff that had already been in print. If that man weren't

an infant in swaddling clothes, his only reply to our petition would have

been, "It has been in print." It makes me as mad as the very Old Harry

every time I think of Mr. Chew and the frightfully narrow escape I have

had at his hands. Confound Mr. Chew, with all my heart! I'm willing

that he should have ten dollars for his trouble of warming over his cold

victuals--cheerfully willing to that--but no more. If I had had him near

when his letter came, I would have got out my tomahawk and gone for him.

He didn't tell the story half as well as you did, anyhow.

I wish to goodness you were here this moment--nobody in our parlor but

Livy and me,--and a very good view of London to the fore. We have a

luxuriously ample suite of apartments in the Langham Hotel, 3rd floor,

our bedroom looking straight up Portland Place and our parlor having a

noble array of great windows looking out upon both streets (Portland

Place and the crook that joins it to Regent Street.)

9 P.M. Full twilight--rich sunset tints lingering in the west.

I am not going to write anything--rather tell it when I get back. I love

you and Harmony, and that is all the fresh news I've got, anyway. And I

mean to keep that fresh all the time.

Lovingly

MARK.

P. S.--Am luxuriating in glorious old Pepy's Diary, and smoking.

Letters are exceedingly scarce through all this period. Mark Twain,

now on his second visit to London, was literally overwhelmed with

honors and entertainment; his rooms at the Langham were like a

court. Such men as Robert Browning, Turgenieff, Sir John Millais,

and Charles Kingsley hastened to call. Kingsley and others gave him

dinners. Mrs. Clemens to her sister wrote: "It is perfectly

discouraging to try to write you."

The continuous excitement presently told on her. In July all

further engagements were canceled, and Clemens took his little

family to Scotland, for quiet and rest. They broke the journey at

York, and it was there that Mark Twain wrote the only letter

remaining from this time.

Part of a letter to Mrs. Jervis Langdon, of Elmira, N. Y.:

For the present we shall remain in this queer old walled town, with its

crooked, narrow lanes, that tell us of their old day that knew no wheeled

vehicles; its plaster-and-timber dwellings, with upper stories far

overhanging the street, and thus marking their date, say three hundred

years ago; the stately city walls, the castellated gates, the ivy-grown,

foliage-sheltered, most noble and picturesque ruin of St. Mary's Abbey,

suggesting their date, say five hundred years ago, in the heart of

Crusading times and the glory of English chivalry and romance; the vast

Cathedral of York, with its worn carvings and quaintly pictured windows,

preaching of still remoter days; the outlandish names of streets and

courts and byways that stand as a record and a memorial, all these

centuries, of Danish dominion here in still earlier times; the hint here

and there of King Arthur and his knights and their bloody fights with

Saxon oppressors round about this old city more than thirteen hundred

years gone by; and, last of all, the melancholy old stone coffins and

sculptured inscriptions, a venerable arch and a hoary tower of stone that

still remain and are kissed by the sun and caressed by the shadows every

day, just as the sun and the shadows have kissed and caressed them every

lagging day since the Roman Emperor's soldiers placed them here in the

times when Jesus the Son of Mary walked the streets of Nazareth a youth,

with no more name or fame than the Yorkshire boy who is loitering down

this street this moment.

Their destination was Edinburgh, where they remained a month. Mrs.

Clemens's health gave way on their arrival there, and her husband,

knowing the name of no other physician in the place, looked up Dr.

John Brown, author of Rab and His Friends, and found in him not only

a skilful practitioner, but a lovable companion, to whom they all

became deeply attached. Little Susy, now seventeen months old,

became his special favorite. He named her Megalops, because of her

great eyes.

Mrs. Clemens regained her strength and they returned to London.

Clemens, still urged to lecture, finally agreed with George Dolby to

a week's engagement, and added a promise that after taking his wife

and daughter back to America he would return immediately for a more

extended course. Dolby announced him to appear at the Queen's

Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, for the week of October 13-18, his

lecture to be the old Sandwich Islands talk that seven years before

had brought him his first success. The great hall, the largest in

London, was thronged at each appearance, and the papers declared

that Mark Twain had no more than "whetted the public appetite" for

his humor. Three days later, October 1873, Clemens, with his

little party, sailed for home. Half-way across the ocean he wrote

the friend they had left in Scotland:

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:

MID-ATLANTIC, Oct. 30, 1873.

OUR DEAR FRIEND THE DOCTOR,--We have plowed a long way over the sea,

and there's twenty-two hundred miles of restless water between us, now,

besides the railway stretch. And yet you are so present with us, so

close to us that a span and a whisper would bridge the distance.

The first three days were stormy, and wife, child, maid, and Miss

Spaulding were all sea-sick 25 hours out of the 24, and I was sorry I

ever started. However, it has been smooth, and balmy, and sunny and

altogether lovely for a day or two now, and at night there is a broad

luminous highway stretching over the sea to the moon, over which the

spirits of the sea are traveling up and down all through the secret night

and having a genuine good time, I make no doubt.

Today they discovered a "collie" on board! I find (as per advertisement

which I sent you) that they won't carry dogs in these ships at any price.

This one has been concealed up to this time. Now his owner has to pay

L10 or heave him overboard. Fortunately the doggie is a performing

doggie and the money will be paid. So after all it was just as well you

didn't intrust your collie to us.

A poor little child died at midnight and was buried at dawn this morning

--sheeted and shotted, and sunk in the middle of the lonely ocean in

water three thousand fathoms deep. Pity the poor mother.

With our love.

S. L. CLEMENS.

Mark Twain was back in London, lecturing again at the Queen's

Concert Rooms, after barely a month's absence. Charles Warren

Stoddard, whom he had known in California, shared his apartment at

the Langham, and acted as his secretary--a very necessary office,

for he was besieged by callers and bombarded with letters.

He remained in London two months, lecturing steadily at Hanover

Square to full houses. It is unlikely that there is any other

platform record to match it. One letter of this period has been

preserved. It is written to Twichell, near the end of his

engagement.

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, Jan. 5 1874.

MY DEAR OLD JOE,--I knew you would be likely to graduate into an ass if

I came away; and so you have--if you have stopped smoking. However, I

have a strong faith that it is not too late, yet, and that the

judiciously managed influence of a bad example will fetch you back again.

I wish you had written me some news--Livy tells me precious little. She

mainly writes to hurry me home and to tell me how much she respects me:

but she's generally pretty slow on news. I had a letter from her along

with yours, today, but she didn't tell me the book is out. However, it's

all right. I hope to be home 20 days from today, and then I'll see her,

and that will make up for a whole year's dearth of news. I am right down

grateful that she is looking strong and "lovelier than ever." I only

wish I could see her look her level best, once--I think it would be a

vision.

I have just spent a good part of this day browsing through the Royal

Academy Exhibition of Landseer's paintings. They fill four or five great

salons, and must number a good many hundreds. This is the only

opportunity ever to see them, because the finest of them belong to the

queen and she keeps them in her private apartments. Ah, they're

wonderfully beautiful! There are such rich moonlights and dusks in "The

Challenge" and "The Combat;" and in that long flight of birds across a

lake in the subdued flush of sunset (or sunrise--for no man can ever tell

tother from which in a picture, except it has the filmy morning mist

breathing itself up from the water). And there is such a grave

analytical profundity in the faces of "The Connoisseurs;" and such pathos

in the picture of the fawn suckling its dead mother, on a snowy waste,

with only the blood in the footprints to hint that she is not asleep.

And the way he makes animals absolute flesh and blood--insomuch that if

the room were darkened ever so little and a motionless living animal

placed beside a painted one, no man could tell which was which.

I interrupted myself here, to drop a line to Shirley Brooks and suggest

a cartoon for Punch. It was this. In one of the Academy salons (in the

suite where these pictures are), a fine bust of Landseer stands on a

pedestal in the centre of the room. I suggest that some of Landseer's

best known animals be represented as having come down out of their frames

in the moonlight and grouped themselves about the bust in mourning

attitudes.

Well, old man, I am powerful glad to hear from you and shall be powerful

glad to see you and Harmony. I am not going to the provinces because I

cannot get halls that are large enough. I always felt cramped in Hanover

Square Rooms, but I find that everybody here speaks with awe and respect

of that prodigious place, and wonder that I could fill it so long.

I am hoping to be back in 20 days, but I have so much to go home to and

enjoy with a jubilant joy, that it seems hardly possible that it can ever

come to pass in so uncertain a world as this.

I have read the novel--[The Gilded Age, published during his absence,

December, 1873.]--here, and I like it. I have made no inquiries about

it, though. My interest in a book ceases with the printing of it.

With a world of love,

SAML.

XIII.

LETTERS 1874. HARTFORD AND ELMIRA. A NEW STUDY. BEGINNING "TOM

SAWYER." THE SELLERS PLAY.

Naturally Redpath would not give him any peace now. His London success

must not be wasted. At first his victim refused point-blank, and with

great brevity. But he was overborne and persuaded, and made occasional

appearances, wiring at last this final defiant word:

Telegram to James Redpath, in Boston:

HARTFORD, March 3, 1874.

JAMES REDPATH,--Why don't you congratulate me?

I never expect to stand on a lecture platform again after Thursday night.

MARK.

That he was glad to be home again we may gather from a letter sent

at this time to Doctor Brown, of Edinburgh.

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD

Feby. 28, 1874.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--We are all delighted with your commendations of the

Gilded Age-and the more so because some of our newspapers have set forth

the opinion that Warner really wrote the book and I only added my name to

the title page in order to give it a larger sale. I wrote the first

eleven chapters, every word and every line. I also wrote chapters 24,

25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 21, 42, 43, 45, 51, 52. 53, 57,

59, 60, 61, 62, and portions of 35, 49 and 56. So I wrote 32 of the 63

chapters entirely and part of 3 others beside.

The fearful financial panic hit the book heavily, for we published it in

the midst of it. But nevertheless in the 8 weeks that have now elapsed

since the day we published, we have sold 40,000 copies; which gives

L3,000 royalty to be divided between the authors. This is really the

largest two-months' sale which any American book has ever achieved

(unless one excepts the cheaper editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin). The

average price of our book is 16 shillings a copy--Uncle Tom was 2

shillings a copy. But for the panic our sale would have been doubled,

I verily believe. I do not believe the sale will ultimately go over

100,000 copies.

I shipped to you, from Liverpool, Barley's Illustrations of Judd's

"Margaret" (the waiter at the Adelphi Hotel agreeing to ship it securely

per parcel delivery,) and I do hope it did not miscarry, for we in

America think a deal of Barley's--[Felix Octavius Carr barley, 1822-1888,

illustrator of the works of Irving, Cooper, etc. Probably the most

distinguished American illustrator of his time.]--work. I shipped the

novel ("Margaret") to you from here a week ago.

Indeed I am thankful for the wife and the child--and if there is one

individual creature on all this footstool who is more thoroughly and

uniformly and unceasingly happy than I am I defy the world to produce him

and prove him. In my opinion, he doesn't exist. I was a mighty rough,

coarse, unpromising subject when Livy took charge of me 4 years ago, and

I may still be, to the rest of the world, but not to her. She has made a

very creditable job of me.

Success to the Mark Twain Club!-and the novel shibboleth of the Whistle.

Of course any member rising to speak would be required to preface his

remark with a keen respectful whistle at the chair-the chair recognizing

the speaker with an answering shriek, and then as the speech proceeded

its gravity and force would be emphasized and its impressiveness

augmented by the continual interjection of whistles in place of

punctuation-pauses; and the applause of the audience would be manifested

in the same way ....

They've gone to luncheon, and I must follow. With strong love from us

both.

Your friend,

SAML. L. CLEMENS.

These were the days when the Howells and Clemens families began

visiting back and forth between Boston and Hartford, and sometimes

Aldrich came, though less frequently, and the gatherings at the

homes of Warner and Clemens were full of never-to-be-forgotten

happiness. Of one such visit Howells wrote:

"In the good-fellowship of that cordial neighborhood we had two such

days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round. There was

constant running in and out of friendly houses, where the lively

hosts and guests called one another by their christian names or

nicknames, and no such vain ceremony as knocking or ringing at

doors. Clemens was then building the stately mansion in which he

satisfied his love of magnificence as if it had been another

sealskin coat, and he was at the crest of the prosperity which

enabled him to humor every whim or extravagance."

It was the delight of such a visit that kept Clemens constantly

urging its repetition. One cannot but feel the genuine affection of

these letters.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Mch. 1, 1876.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Now you will find us the most reasonable people in the

world. We had thought of precipitating upon you George Warner and wife

one day; Twichell and his jewel of a wife another day, and Chas. Perkins

and wife another. Only those--simply members of our family, they are.

But I'll close the door against them all--which will "fix" all of the lot

except Twichell, who will no more hesitate to climb in at the back window

than nothing.

And you shall go to bed when you please, get up when you please, talk

when you please, read when you please. Mrs. Howells may even go to New

York Saturday if she feels that she must, but if some gentle, unannoying

coaxing can beguile her into putting that off a few days, we shall be

more than glad, for I do wish she and Mrs. Clemens could have a good

square chance to get acquainted with each other. But first and last and

all the time, we want you to feel untrammeled and wholly free from

restraint, here.

The date suits--all dates suit.

Yrs ever

MARK.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Mch. 20, 1876.

DEAR HOWELLS,--You or Aldrich or both of you must come to Hartford to

live. Mr. Hall, who lives in the house next to Mrs. Stowe's (just where

we drive in to go to our new house) will sell for $16,000 or $17,000.

The lot is 85 feet front and 150 deep--long time and easy payments on the

purchase? You can do your work just as well here as in Cambridge, can't

you? Come, will one of you boys buy that house? Now say yes.

Mrs. Clemens is an invalid yet, but is getting along pretty fairly.

We send best regards.

MARK.

April found the Clemens family in Elmira. Mrs. Clemens was not

over-strong, and the cares of house-building were many. They went

early, therefore, remaining at the Langdon home in the city until

Quarry Farm should feel a touch of warmer sun, Clemens wrote the

news to Doctor Brown.

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:

ELMIRA, N. Y., April 27, '86.

DEAR DOCTOR,--This town is in the interior of the State of New York

--and was my wife's birth-place. We are here to spend the whole summer.

Although it is so near summer, we had a great snow-storm yesterday, and

one the day before. This is rather breaking in upon our plans, as it may

keep us down here in the valley a trifle longer than we desired. It gets

fearfully hot here in the summer, so we spend our summers on top of a

hill 6 or 700 feet high, about two or three miles from here--it never

gets hot up there.

Mrs. Clemens is pretty strong, and so is the "little wifie" barring a

desperate cold in the head the child grows in grace and beauty

marvellously. I wish the nations of the earth would combine in a baby

show and give us a chance to compete. I must try to find one of her

latest photographs to enclose in this. And this reminds me that Mrs.

Clemens keeps urging me to ask you for your photograph and last night she

said, "and be sure to ask him for a photograph of his sister, and

Jock-but say Master Jock--do not be headless and forget that courtesy; he

is Jock in our memories and our talk, but he has a right to his title

when a body uses his name in a letter." Now I have got it all in--I

can't have made any mistake this time. Miss Clara Spaulding looked in, a

moment, yesterday morning, as bright and good as ever. She would like to

lay her love at your feet if she knew I was writing--as would also fifty

friends of ours whom you have never seen, and whose homage is as fervent

as if the cold and clouds and darkness of a mighty sea did not lie

between their hearts and you. Poor old Rab had not many "friends" at

first, but if all his friends of today could gather to his grave from the

four corners of the earth what a procession there would be! And Rab's

friends are your friends.

I am going to work when we get on the hill-till then I've got to lie

fallow, albeit against my will. We join in love to you and yours.

Your friend ever,

SAML. L. CLEMENS.

P. S. I enclose a specimen of villainy. A man pretends to be my brother

and my lecture agent--gathers a great audience together in a city more

than a thousand miles from here, and then pockets the money and elopes,

leaving the audience to wait for the imaginary lecturer! I am after him

with the law.

It was a historic summer at the Farm. A new baby arrived in June; a

new study was built for Mark Twain by Mrs. Crane, on the hillside

near the old quarry; a new book was begun in it--The Adventures of

Tom Sawyer--and a play, the first that Mark Twain had really

attempted, was completed--the dramatization of The Gilded Age.

An early word went to Hartford of conditions at the Farm.

To Rev. and Mrs. Twichell, in Hartford:

ELMIRA, June 11, 1874.

MY DEAR OLD JOE AND HARMONY,--The baby is here and is the great American

Giantess--weighing 7 3/4 pounds. We had to wait a good long time for

her, but she was full compensation when she did come.

The Modoc was delighted with it, and gave it her doll at once. There is

nothing selfish about the Modoc. She is fascinated with the new baby.

The Modoc rips and tears around out doors, most of the time, and

consequently is as hard as a pine knot and as brown as an Indian. She

is bosom friend to all the ducks, chickens, turkeys and guinea hens on

the place. Yesterday as she marched along the winding path that leads up

the hill through the red clover beds to the summer-house, there was a

long procession of these fowls stringing contentedly after her, led by a

stately rooster who can look over the Modoc's head. The devotion of

these vassals has been purchased with daily largess of Indian meal, and

so the Modoc, attended by her bodyguard, moves in state wherever she

goes.

Susie Crane has built the loveliest study for me, you ever saw. It is

octagonal, with a peaked roof, each octagon filled with a spacious

window, and it sits perched in complete isolation on top of an elevation

that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant

blue hills. It is a cosy nest, with just room in it for a sofa and a

table and three or four chairs--and when the storms sweep down the remote

valley and the lightning flashes above the hills beyond, and the rain

beats upon the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it! It stands

500 feet above the valley and 2 1/2 miles from it.

However one must not write all day. We send continents of love to you

and yours.

Affectionately

MARK.

We have mentioned before that Clemens had settled his mother and

sister at Fredonia, New York, and when Mrs. Clemens was in condition

to travel he concluded to pay them a visit.

It proved an unfortunate journey; the hot weather was hard on Mrs.

Clemens, and harder still, perhaps, on Mark Twain's temper. At any

period of his life a bore exasperated him, and in these earlier days

he was far more likely to explode than in his mellower age. Remorse

always followed--the price he paid was always costly. We cannot

know now who was the unfortunate that invited the storm, but in the

next letter we get the echoes of it and realize something of its

damage.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia:

ELMIRA, Aug. 15.

MX DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I came away from Fredonia ashamed of myself;

--almost too much humiliated to hold up my head and say good-bye. For I

began to comprehend how much harm my conduct might do you socially in

your village. I would have gone to that detestable oyster-brained bore

and apologized for my inexcusable rudeness to him, but that I was

satisfied he was of too small a calibre to know how to receive an apology

with magnanimity.

Pamela appalled me by saying people had hinted that they wished to visit

Livy when she came, but that she had given them no encouragement.

I feared that those people would merely comprehend that their courtesies

were not wanted, and yet not know exactly why they were not wanted.

I came away feeling that in return for your constant and tireless efforts

to secure our bodily comfort and make our visit enjoyable, I had basely

repaid you by making you sad and sore-hearted and leaving you so. And

the natural result has fallen to me likewise--for a guilty conscience has

harassed me ever since, and I have not had one short quarter of an hour

of peace to this moment.

You spoke of Middletown. Why not go there and live? Mr. Crane says it

is only about a hundred miles this side of New York on the Erie road.

The fact that one or two of you might prefer to live somewhere else is

not a valid objection--there are no 4 people who would all choose the

same place--so it will be vain to wait for the day when your tastes shall

be a unit. I seriously fear that our visit has damaged you in Fredonia,

and so I wish you were out of it.

The baby is fat and strong, and Susie the same. Susie was charmed with

the donkey and the doll.

Ys affectionately

SAML.

P. S.--DEAR MA AND PAMELA--I am mainly grieved because I have been rude

to a man who has been kind to you--and if you ever feel a desire to

apologize to him for me, you may be sure that I will endorse the apology,

no matter how strong it may be. I went to his bank to apologize to him,

but my conviction was strong that he was not man enough to know how to

take an apology and so I did not make it.

William Dean Howells was in those days writing those vividly

realistic, indeed photographic stories which fixed his place among

American men of letters. He had already written 'Their Wedding

Journey' and 'A Chance Acquaintance' when 'A Foregone Conclusion'

appeared. For the reason that his own work was so different, and

perhaps because of his fondness for the author, Clemens always

greatly admired the books of Howells. Howells's exact observation

and his gift for human detail seemed marvelous to Mark Twain, who

with a bigger brush was inclined to record the larger rather than

the minute aspects of life. The sincerity of his appreciation of

Howells, however, need not be questioned, nor, for that matter, his

detestation of Scott.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Aug. 22, 1874.

DEAR HOWELLS,--I have just finished reading the 'Foregone Conclusion' to

Mrs. Clemens and we think you have even outdone yourself. I should think

that this must be the daintiest, truest, most admirable workmanship that

was ever put on a story. The creatures of God do not act out their

natures more unerringly than yours do. If your genuine stories can die,

I wonder by what right old Walter Scott's artificialities shall continue

to live.

I brought Mrs. Clemens back from her trip in a dreadfully broken-down

condition--so by the doctor's orders we unpacked the trunks sorrowfully

to lie idle here another month instead of going at once to Hartford and

proceeding to furnish the new house which is now finished. We hate to

have it go longer desolate and tenantless, but cannot help it.

By and by, if the madam gets strong again, we are hoping to have the

Grays there, and you and the Aldrich households, and Osgood, down to

engage in an orgy with them.

Ys Ever

MARK

Howells was editor of the Atlantic by this time, and had been urging

Clemens to write something suitable for that magazine. He had done

nothing, however, until this summer at Quarry Farm. There, one

night in the moonlight, Mrs. Crane's colored cook, who had been a

slave, was induced to tell him her story. It was exactly the story

to appeal to Mark Twain, and the kind of thing he could write. He

set it down next morning, as nearly in her own words and manner as

possible, without departing too far from literary requirements.

He decided to send this to Howells. He did not regard it very

highly, but he would take the chance. An earlier offering to the

magazine had been returned. He sent the "True Story," with a brief

note:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Sept. 2, '74.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....I enclose also a "True Story" which has no humor

in it. You can pay as lightly as you choose for that, if you want it,

for it is rather out of my line. I have not altered the old colored

woman's story except to begin at the beginning, instead of the middle, as

she did--and traveled both ways.....

Yrs Ever

MARK.

But Howells was delighted with it. He referred to its "realest kind

of black talk," and in another place added, "This little story

delights me more and more. I wish you had about forty of them."

Along with the "True Story" Mark Twain had sent the "Fable for Good

Old Boys and Girls"; but this Howells returned, not, as he said,

because he didn't like it, but because the Atlantic on matters of

religion was just in that "Good Lord, Good Devil condition when a

little fable like yours wouldn't leave it a single Presbyterian,

Baptist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Methodist, or Millerite paying

subscriber, while all the deadheads would stick to it and abuse it

in the denominational newspapers!"

But the shorter MS. had been only a brief diversion. Mark Twain was

bowling along at a book and a play. The book was Tom Sawyer, as

already mentioned, and the play a dramatization from The Gilded Age.

Clemens had all along intended to dramatize the story of Colonel

Sellers, and was one day thunderstruck to receive word from

California that a San Francisco dramatist had appropriated his

character in a play written for John T. Raymond. Clemens had taken

out dramatic copyright on the book, and immediately stopped the

performance by telegraph. A correspondence between the author and

the dramatist followed, leading to a friendly arrangement by which

the latter agreed to dispose of his version to Mark Twain. A good

deal of discussion from time to time having arisen over the

authorship of the Sellers play, as presented by Raymond, certain

among the letters that follow may be found of special interest.

Meanwhile we find Clemens writing to Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh,

on these matters and events in general. The book MS., which he

mentions as having put aside, was not touched again for nearly a

year.

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:

QUARRY FARM, NEAR ELMIRA, N. Y.

Sept. 4, 1874.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have been writing fifty pages of manuscript a day, on an

average, for sometime now, on a book (a story) and consequently have been

so wrapped up in it and so dead to anything else, that I have fallen

mighty short in letter-writing. But night before last I discovered that

that day's chapter was a failure, in conception, moral truth to nature,

and execution--enough blemish to impair the excellence of almost any

chapter--and so I must burn up the day's work and do it all over again.

It was plain that I had worked myself out, pumped myself dry. So I

knocked off, and went to playing billiards for a change. I haven't had

an idea or a fancy for two days, now--an excellent time to write to

friends who have plenty of ideas and fancies of their own, and so will

prefer the offerings of the heart before those of the head. Day after

to-morrow I go to a neighboring city to see a five-act-drama of mine

brought out, and suggest amendments in it, and would about as soon spend

a night in the Spanish Inquisition as sit there and be tortured with all

the adverse criticisms I can contrive to imagine the audience is

indulging in. But whether the play be successful or not, I hope I shall

never feel obliged to see it performed a second time. My interest in my

work dies a sudden and violent death when the work is done.

I have invented and patented a pretty good sort of scrap-book (I think)

but I have backed down from letting it be known as mine just at present

--for I can't stand being under discussion on a play and a scrap-book at

the same time!

I shall be away two days, and then return to take our tribe to New York,

where we shall remain five days buying furniture for the new house, and

then go to Hartford and settle solidly down for the winter. After all

that fallow time I ought to be able to go to work again on the book.

We shall reach Hartford about the middle of September, I judge.

We have spent the past four months up here on top of a breezy hill, six

hundred feet high, some few miles from Elmira, N. Y., and overlooking

that town; (Elmira is my wife's birthplace and that of Susie and the new

baby). This little summer house on the hill-top (named Quarry Farm

because there's a quarry on it,) belongs to my wife's sister, Mrs. Crane.

A photographer came up the other day and wanted to make some views,

and I shall send you the result per this mail.

My study is a snug little octagonal den, with a coal-grate, 6 big

windows, one little one, and a wide doorway (the latter opening upon the

distant town.) On hot days I spread the study wide open, anchor my papers

down with brickbats and write in the midst of the hurricanes, clothed in

the same thin linen we make shirts of. The study is nearly on the peak

of the hill; it is right in front of the little perpendicular wall of

rock left where they used to quarry stones. On the peak of the hill is

an old arbor roofed with bark and covered with the vine you call the

"American Creeper"--its green is almost bloodied with red. The Study is

30 yards below the old arbor and 200 yards above the dwelling-house-it is

remote from all noises.....

Now isn't the whole thing pleasantly situated?

In the picture of me in the study you glimpse (through the left-hand

window) the little rock bluff that rises behind the pond, and the bases

of the little trees on top of it. The small square window is over the

fireplace; the chimney divides to make room for it. Without the

stereoscope it looks like a framed picture. All the study windows have

Venetian blinds; they long ago went out of fashion in America but they

have not been replaced with anything half as good yet.

The study is built on top of a tumbled rock-heap that has morning-glories

climbing about it and a stone stairway leading down through and dividing

it.

There now--if you have not time to read all this, turn it over to "Jock"

and drag in the judge to help.

Mrs. Clemens must put in a late picture of Susie--a picture which she

maintains is good, but which I think is slander on the child.

We revisit the Rutland Street home many a time in fancy, for we hold

every individual in it in happy and grateful memory.

Goodbye,

Your friend,

SAML. L. CLEMENS.

P. S.--I gave the P. O. Department a blast in the papers about sending

misdirected letters of mine back to the writers for reshipment, and got a

blast in return, through a New York daily, from the New York postmaster.

But I notice that misdirected letters find me, now, without any

unnecessary fooling around.

The new house in Hartford was now ready to be occupied, and in a

letter to Howells, written a little more than a fortnight after the

foregoing, we find them located in "part" of it. But what seems

more interesting is that paragraph of the letter which speaks of

close friendly relations still existing with the Warners, in that it

refutes a report current at this time that there was a break between

Clemens and Warner over the rights in the Sellers play. There was,

in fact, no such rupture. Warner, realizing that he had no hand in

the character of Sellers, and no share in the work of dramatization,

generously yielded all claim to any part of the returns.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Sept. 20, 1876.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--All right, my boy, send proof sheets here. I amend

dialect stuff by talking and talking and talking it till it sounds right

--and I had difficulty with this negro talk because a negro sometimes

(rarely) says "goin" and sometimes "gwyne," and they make just such

discrepancies in other words--and when you come to reproduce them on

paper they look as if the variation resulted from the writer's

carelessness. But I want to work at the proofs and get the dialect as

nearly right as possible.

We are in part of the new house. Goodness knows when we'll get in the

rest of it--full of workmen yet.

I worked a month at my play, and launched it in New York last Wednesday.

I believe it will go. The newspapers have been complimentary. It is

simply a setting for the one character, Col. Sellers--as a play I guess

it will not bear a critical assault in force.

The Warners are as charming as ever. They go shortly to the devil for a

year--(which is but a poetical way of saying they are going to afflict

themselves with the unsurpassable--(bad word) of travel for a spell.)

I believe they mean to go and see you, first-so they mean to start from

heaven to the other place; not from earth. How is that?

I think that is no slouch of a compliment--kind of a dim religious light

about it. I enjoy that sort of thing.

Yrs ever

MARK.

Raymond, in a letter to the Sun, stated that not "one line" of the

California dramatization had been used by Mark Twain, "except that

which was taken bodily from The Gilded Age." Clemens himself, in a

statement that he wrote for the Hartford Post, but suppressed,

probably at the request of his wife, gave a full history of the

play's origin, a matter of slight interest to-day.

Sellers on the stage proved a great success. The play had no

special merit as a literary composition, but the character of

Sellers delighted the public, and both author and actor were richly

repaid for their entertainment.

XIV.

LETTERS 1874. MISSISSIPPI CHAPTERS. VISITS TO BOSTON.

A JOKE ON ALDRICH

"Couldn't you send me some such story as that colored one for our January

number--that is, within a month?" wrote Howells, at the end of September,

and during the week following Mark Twain struggled hard to comply, but

without result. When the month was nearly up he wrote:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Oct. 23, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have delayed thus long, hoping I might do something

for the January number and Mrs. Clemens has diligently persecuted me day

by day with urgings to go to work and do that something, but it's no use

--I find I can't. We are in such a state of weary and endless confusion

that my head won't go. So I give it up.....

Yrs ever,

MARK.

But two hours later, when he had returned from one of the long walks

which he and Twichell so frequently took together, he told a

different story.

Later, P.M. HOME, 24th '74.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I take back the remark that I can't write for the Jan.

number. For Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods and I got

to telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and

grandeur as I saw them (during 5 years) from the pilothouse. He said

"What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!" I hadn't thought of that

before. Would you like a series of papers to run through 3 months or 6

or 9?--or about 4 months, say?

Yrs ever,

MARK.

Howells himself had come from a family of pilots, and rejoiced in

the idea. A few days later Mark Twain forwarded the first

instalment of the new series--those wonderful chapters that begin,

now, with chapter four in the Mississippi book. Apparently he was

not without doubt concerning the manuscript, and accompanied it with

a brief line.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

DEAR HOWELLS,--Cut it, scarify it, reject it handle it with entire

freedom.

Yrs ever,

MARK.

But Howells had no doubts as to the quality of the new find. He

declared that the "piece" about the Mississippi was capital, that it

almost made the water in their ice-pitcher turn muddy as he read it.

"The sketch of the low-lived little town was so good that I could

have wished that there was more of it. I want the sketches, if you

can make them, every month."

The "low-lived little town" was Hannibal, and the reader can turn to

the vivid description of it in the chapter already mentioned.

In the same letter Howells refers to a "letter from Limerick," which

he declares he shall keep until he has shown it around--especially

to Aldrich and Osgood.

The "letter from Limerick" has to do with a special episode.

Mention has just been made of Mark Twain's walk with Twichell.

Frequently their walks were extended tramps, and once in a daring

moment one or the other of them proposed to walk to Boston. The

time was November, and the bracing air made the proposition seem

attractive. They were off one morning early, Twichell carrying a

little bag, and Clemens a basket of luncheon. A few days before,

Clemens had written Redpath that the Rev. J. H. Twichell and he

expected to start at eight o'clock Thursday morning "to walk to

Boston in twenty-four hours--or more. We shall telegraph Young's

Hotel for rooms Saturday night, in order to allow for a low average

of pedestrianism."

They did not get quite to Boston. In fact, they got only a little

farther than the twenty-eight miles they made the first day.

Clemens could hardly walk next morning, but they managed to get to

North Ashford, where they took a carriage for the nearest railway

station. There they telegraphed to Redpath and Howells that they

would be in Boston that evening. Howells, of course, had a good

supper and good company awaiting them at his home, and the

pedestrians spent two happy days visiting and recounting their

adventures.

It was one morning, at his hotel, that Mark Twain wrote the Limerick

letter. It was addressed to Mrs. Clemens, but was really intended

for Howells and Twichell and the others whom it mentions. It was an

amusing fancy, rather than a letter, but it deserves place here.

To Mrs. Clemens---intended for Howells, Aldrich, etc.

BOSTON, Nov. 16, 1935. [1874]

DEAR LIVY, You observe I still call this beloved old place by the name it

had when I was young. Limerick! It is enough to make a body sick.

The gentlemen-in-waiting stare to see me sit here telegraphing this

letter to you, and no doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let

them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I

will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed,

holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a

thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it,

it makes me frantic with rage; and then am I more implacably fixed and

resolved than ever, to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you

what I communicate in ten sends by the new way if I would so debase

myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn drawing-room full of

idiots sitting with their hands on each other's foreheads "communing," I

tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the

blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked

pure drivel and "rot," mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than

these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in this mad

generation.

It is sixty years since I was here before. I walked hither, then, with

my precious old friend. It seems incredible, now, that we did it in two

days, but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked

back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of

the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the

puerile organisms in this effeminate age attempting such a feat.

My air-ship was delayed by a collision with a fellow from China loaded

with the usual cargo of jabbering, copper-colored missionaries, and so I

was nearly an hour on my journey. But by the goodness of God thirteen of

the missionaries were crippled and several killed, so I was content to

lose the time. I love to lose time, anyway, because it brings soothing

reminiscences of the creeping railroad days of old, now lost to us

forever.

Our game was neatly played, and successfully.--None expected us, of

course. You should have seen the guards at the ducal palace stare when

I said, "Announce his grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Rt. Hon.

the Earl of Hartford." Arrived within, we were all eyes to see the Duke

of Cambridge and his Duchess, wondering if we might remember their faces,

and they ours. In a moment, they came tottering in; he, bent and

withered and bald; she blooming with wholesome old age. He peered

through his glasses a moment, then screeched in a reedy voice: "Come to

my arms! Away with titles--I'll know ye by no names but Twain and

Twichell! Then fell he on our necks and jammed his trumpet in his ear,

the which we filled with shoutings to this effect: God bless you, old

Howells what is left of you!"

We talked late that night--none of your silent idiot "communings" for us

--of the olden time. We rolled a stream of ancient anecdotes over our

tongues and drank till the lord Archbishop grew so mellow in the mellow

past that Dublin ceased to be Dublin to him and resumed its sweeter

forgotten name of New York. In truth he almost got back into his ancient

religion, too, good Jesuit, as he has always been since O'Mulligan the

First established that faith in the Empire.

And we canvassed everybody. Bailey Aldrich, Marquis of Ponkapog, came

in, got nobly drunk, and told us all about how poor Osgood lost his

earldom and was hanged for conspiring against the second Emperor--but

he didn't mention how near he himself came to being hanged, too, for

engaging in the same enterprise. He was as chaffy as he was sixty years

ago, too, and swore the Archbishop and I never walked to Boston--but

there was never a day that Ponkapog wouldn't lie, so be it by the grace

of God he got the opportunity.

The Lord High Admiral came in, a hale gentleman close upon seventy and

bronzed by the suns and storms of many climes and scarred with the wounds

got in many battles, and I told him how I had seen him sit in a high

chair and eat fruit and cakes and answer to the name of Johnny. His

granddaughter (the eldest) is but lately warned to the youngest of the

Grand Dukes, and so who knows but a day may come when the blood of the

Howells's may reign in the land? I must not forget to say, while I think

of it, that your new false teeth are done, my dear, and your wig. Keep

your head well bundled with a shawl till the latter comes, and so cheat

your persecuting neuralgias and rheumatisms. Would you believe it?--the

Duchess of Cambridge is deafer than you--deafer than her husband. They

call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it

thunders she looks up expectantly and says "come in....."

The monument to the author of "Gloverson and His Silent partners" is

finished. It is the stateliest and the costliest ever erected to the

memory of any man. This noble classic has now been translated into all

the languages of the earth and is adored by all nations and known to all

creatures. Yet I have conversed as familiarly with the author of it as I

do with my own great-grandchildren.

I wish you could see old Cambridge and Ponkapog. I love them as dearly

as ever, but privately, my dear, they are not much improvement on idiots.

It is melancholy to hear them jabber over the same pointless anecdotes

three and four times of an evening, forgetting that they had jabbered

them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes

poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his

best effort of late years is this:

"O soul, soul, soul of mine:

Soul, soul, soul of thine!

Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine,

And sing thy lauds in crystal wine!"

This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch

that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him.

But I must desist. There are drafts here, everywhere and my gout is

something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder.

God be with you.

HARTFORD.

These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the upper portion

of the city of Dublin.

One may imagine the joy of Howells and the others in this ludicrous

extravaganza, which could have been written by no one but Mark

Twain. It will hardly take rank as prophecy, though certainly true

forecast in it is not wholly lacking.

Clemens was now pretty well satisfied with his piloting story, but

he began to have doubts as to its title, "Old Times on the

Mississippi." It seemed to commit him to too large an undertaking.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Dec. 3, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Let us change the heading to "Piloting on the Miss in

the Old Times"--or to "Steamboating on the M. in Old Times"--or to

"Personal Old Times on the Miss."--We could change it for Feb. if now

too late for Jan.--I suggest it because the present heading is too

pretentious, too broad and general. It seems to command me to deliver a

Second Book of Revelation to the world, and cover all the Old Times the

Mississippi (dang that word, it is worse than "type" or "Egypt ") ever

saw--whereas here I have finished Article No. III and am about to start

on No. 4. and yet I have spoken of nothing but of Piloting as a science

so far; and I doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject.

And I don't care to. Any muggins can write about Old Times on the Miss.

of 500 different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble

about the piloting of that day--and no man ever has tried to scribble

about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time--and it is about the

only new subject I know of. If I were to write fifty articles they would

all be about pilots and piloting--therefore let's get the word Piloting

into the heading. There's a sort of freshness about that, too.

Ys ever,

MARK.

But Howells thought the title satisfactory, and indeed it was the

best that could have been selected for the series. He wrote every

few days of his delight in the papers, and cautioned the author not

to make an attempt to please any "supposed Atlantic audience,"

adding, "Yarn it off into my sympathetic ear." Clemens replied:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

H't'f'd. Dec. 8, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It isn't the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for

it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for

the simple reason that it doesn't require a "humorist" to paint himself

striped and stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was,

that I was only bent on "working up an atmosphere" and that is to me a

most fidgety and irksome thing, sometimes. I avoid it, usually, but in

this case it was absolutely necessary, else every reader would be

applying the atmosphere of his own or sea experiences, and that shirt

wouldn't fit, you know.

I could have sent this Article II a week ago, or more, but I couldn't

bring myself to the drudgery of revising and correcting it. I have been

at that tedious work 3 hours, now, and by George but I am glad it is

over.

Say--I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted

--otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist. Tell me what day and

date you want Nos. 3 and 4, and I will tackle and revise them and they'll

be there to the minute.

I could wind up with No. 4., but there are some things more which I am

powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person

who would quit authorizing in a minute to go to piloting, if the madam

would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time.

My wife was afraid to write you--so I said with simplicity, "I will give

you the language--and ideas." Through the infinite grace of God there

has not been such another insurrection in the family before as followed

this. However, the letter was written, and promptly, too--whereas,

heretofore she has remained afraid to do such things.

With kind regards to Mrs. Howells,

Yrs ever,

MARK.

The "Old Times" papers appeared each month in the Atlantic until

July, 1875, and take rank to-day with Mark Twain's best work. When

the first number appeared, John Hay wrote: "It is perfect; no more

nor less. I don't see how you do it." Which was reported to

Howells, who said: "What business has Hay, I should like to know,

praising a favorite of mine? It's interfering."

These were the days when the typewriter was new. Clemens and

Twichell, during their stay in Boston, had seen the marvel in

operation, and Clemens had been unable to resist owning one. It was

far from being the perfect machine of to-day; the letters were all

capitals, and one was never quite certain, even of those. Mark

Twain, however, began with enthusiasm and practised faithfully. On

the day of its arrival he wrote two letters that have survived, the

first to his brother, the other to Howells.

Typewritten letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Dec. 9, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want to add a short paragraph to article No. 1, when

the proof comes. Merely a line or two, however.

I don't know whether I am going to make this typewriting machine go or

nto: that last word was intended for n-not; but I guess I shall make some

sort of a succss of it before I run it very long. I am so thick-fingered

that I miss the keys.

You needn't a swer this; I am only practicing to get three; another

slip-up there; only practici?ng to get the hang of the thing. I notice

I miss fire & get in a good many unnecessary letters and punctuation marks.

I am simply using you for a target to bang at. Blame my cats but this

thing requires genius in order to work it just right.

Yours ever,

(M)ARK.

Knowing Mark Twain, Howells wrote: "When you get tired of the

machine send it to me." Clemens naturally did get tired of the

machine; it was ruining his morals, he said. He presently offered

it to Howells, who by this time hesitated, but eventually yielded

and accepted it. If he was blasted by its influence the fact has

not been recorded.

One of the famous Atlantic dinners came along in December. "Don't

you dare to refuse that invitation," wrote Howells, "to meet

Emerson, Aldrich, and all those boys at the Parker House, at six

o'clock, Tuesday, December 15th. Come!"

Clemens had no desire to refuse; he sent word that he would come,

and followed it with a characteristic line.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Sunday.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want you to ask Mrs. Howells to let you stay all

night at the Parker House and tell lies and have an improving time, and

take breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you,

and a fire. Can't you tell her it always makes you sick to go home late

at night, or something like that? That sort of thing rouses Mrs.

Clemens's sympathies, easily; the only trouble is to keep them up.

Twichell and I talked till 2 or 3 in the morning, the night we supped at

your house and it restored his health, on account of his being drooping

for some time and made him much more robuster than what he was before.

Will Mrs. Howells let you?

Yrs ever,

S. L. C.

Aldrich had issued that year a volume of poems, and he presented

Clemens with a copy of it during this Boston visit. The letter of

appreciation which follows contains also reference to an amusing

incident; but we shall come to that presently.

To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD.

Dec. 18, 1874.

MY DEAR ALDRICH,--I read the "Cloth of Gold" through, coming down in the

cars, and it is just lightning poetry--a thing which it gravels me to say

because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently

unrecognized, in consequence of the envy and jealousy of this generation.

"Baby Bell" always seemed perfection, before, but now that I have

children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was reading

it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home and forthwith fell upon

me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This was

pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it.

"Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded" etc., "in one of the brightest speeches

of the evening."

That is what the Tribune correspondent says. And that is what everybody

that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don't ever be so unwise

as to go on trying to unconvince those people.

I've been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs.

Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun

in skating if you could do it with somebody else's muscles.--There are

about twenty boys booming by the house, now, and it is mighty good to

look at.

I'm keeping you in mind, you see, in the matter of photographs. I have

a couple to enclose in this letter and I want you to say you got them,

and then I shall know I have been a good truthful child.

I am going to send more as I ferret them out, about the place.--And I

won't forget that you are a "subscriber."

The wife and I unite in warm regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich.

Yrs ever,

S. L. CLEMENS.

A letter bearing the same date as the above went back to Howells, we

find, in reference to still another incident, which perhaps should

come first.

Mark Twain up to this time had worn the black "string" necktie of

the West--a decoration which disturbed Mrs. Clemens, and invited

remarks from his friends. He had persisted in it, however, up to

the date of the Atlantic dinner, when Howells and Aldrich decided

that something must be done about it.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Dec. 18, 1874.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I left No. 3, (Miss. chapter) in my eldest's reach, and

it may have gone to the postman and it likewise may have gone into the

fire. I confess to a dread that the latter is the case and that that

stack of MS will have to be written over again. If so, O for the return

of the lamented Herod!

You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful--Mrs.

Clemens. For months--I may even say years--she had shown unaccountable

animosity toward my neck-tie, even getting up in the night to take it

with the tongs and blackguard it--sometimes also going so far as to

threaten it.

When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that they

were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of happiness

until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom in her

nature gathered itself together,--insomuch that I, being near to a door,

went without, perceiving danger.

Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs.

Clemens's eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the person

of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime.

Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the

words you had written in that book. He and I went to the Concert of the

Yale students last night and had a good time.

Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she'll have

to give her consent this time.

With kindest regards unto ye both.

Yrs ever,

S. L. CLEMENS.

The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew

naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers.

The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit

it and take Howells with him. Howells was willing enough to go and

they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion. This

seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for

some date in the future still unfixed. But Howells was a busy

editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly

than to agree on a definite time of departure. He explained at

length why he could not make the journey, and added: "Forgive me

having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to

that; I supposed you would die, or something. I am really more

sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear." So the beautiful plan

was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time.

We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to

Aldrich, of December the 18th. It had its beginning at the Atlantic

dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any

photographs of himself. It was suggested by one or the other that

his name be put down as a "regular subscriber" for all Mark Twain

photographs as they "came out." Clemens returned home and hunted up

fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began

mailing them to him, one each morning. When a few of them had

arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting.

"The police," he said, "have a way of swooping down on that kind of

publication. The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of

'The Life in New York.'"

Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection--forty-five

envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together.

Aldrich wrote, now, violently declaring the perpetrator of the

outrage to be known to the police; that a sprawling yellow figure

against a green background had been recognized as an admirable

likeness of Mark Twain, alias the jumping Frog, a well-known

Californian desperado, formerly the chief of Henry Plummer's band of

road agents in Montana. The letter was signed, "T. Bayleigh, Chief

of Police." On the back of the envelope "T. Bayleigh" had also

written that it was "no use for the person to send any more letters,

as the post-office at that point was to be blown up. Forty-eight

hogs-head of nitroglycerine had been syrupticiously introduced into

the cellar of the building, and more was expected. R.W.E. H.W.L.

O.W.H., and other conspirators in masks have been seen flitting

about the town for some days past. The greatest excitement combined

with the most intense quietness reigns at Ponkapog."

XV.

LETTERS FROM HARTFORD, 1875. MUCH CORRESPONDENCE WITH HOWELLS

Orion Clemens had kept his job with Bliss only a short time. His mental

make-up was such that it was difficult for him to hold any position long.

He meant to do well, but he was unfortunate in his efforts. His ideas

were seldom practical, his nature was yielding and fickle. He had

returned to Keokuk presently, and being convinced there was a fortune in

chickens, had prevailed upon his brother to purchase for him a little

farm not far from the town. But the chicken business was not lively and

Orion kept the mail hot with manuscripts and propositions of every sort,

which he wanted his brother to take under advisement.

Certainly, to Mark Twain Orion Clemens was a trial. The letters of the

latter show that scarcely one of them but contains the outline of some

rainbow-chasing scheme, full of wild optimism, and the certainty that

somewhere just ahead lies the pot of gold. Only, now and then, there is

a letter of abject humiliation and complete surrender, when some golden

vision, some iridescent soap-bubble, had vanished at his touch. Such

depression did not last; by sunrise he was ready with a new dream, new

enthusiasm, and with a new letter inviting his "brother Sam's" interest

and investment. Yet, his fear of incurring his brother's displeasure was

pitiful, regardless of the fact that he constantly employed the very

means to insure that result. At one time Clemens made him sign a sworn

agreement that he would not suggest any plan or scheme of investment for

the period of twelve months. Orion must have kept this agreement. He

would have gone to the stake before he would have violated an oath, but

the stake would have probably been no greater punishment than his

sufferings that year.

On the whole, Samuel Clemens was surprisingly patient and considerate

with Orion, and there was never a time that he was not willing to help.

Yet there were bound to be moments of exasperation; and once, when his

mother, or sister, had written, suggesting that he encourage his

brother's efforts, he felt moved to write at considerable freedom.

To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:

HARTFORD, Sunday, 1875.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I Saw Gov. Newell today and he said he was

still moving in the matter of Sammy's appointment--[As a West Point

cadet.]--and would stick to it till he got a result of a positive nature

one way or the other, but thus far he did not know whether to expect

success or defeat.

Ma, whenever you need money I hope you won't be backward about saying so

--you can always have it. We stint ourselves in some ways, but we have

no desire to stint you. And we don't intend to, either.

I can't "encourage" Orion. Nobody can do that, conscientiously, for the

reason that before one's letter has time to reach him he is off on some

new wild-goose chase. Would you encourage in literature a man who, the

older he grows the worse he writes? Would you encourage Orion in the

glaring insanity of studying law? If he were packed and crammed full of

law, it would be worthless lumber to him, for his is such a capricious

and ill-regulated mind that he would apply the principles of the law with

no more judgment than a child of ten years. I know what I am saying.

I laid one of the plainest and simplest of legal questions before Orion

once, and the helpless and hopeless mess he made of it was absolutely

astonishing. Nothing aggravates me so much as to have Orion mention law

or literature to me.

Well, I cannot encourage him to try the ministry, because he would change

his religion so fast that he would have to keep a traveling agent under

wages to go ahead of him to engage pulpits and board for him.

I cannot conscientiously encourage him to do anything but potter around

his little farm and put in his odd hours contriving new and impossible

projects at the rate of 365 a year--which is his customary average.

He says he did well in Hannibal! Now there is a man who ought to be

entirely satisfied with the grandeurs, emoluments and activities of a hen

farm--

If you ask me to pity Orion, I can do that. I can do it every day and

all day long. But one can't "encourage" quick-silver, because the

instant you put your finger on it it isn't there. No, I am saying too

much--he does stick to his literary and legal aspirations; and he

naturally would select the very two things which he is wholly and

preposterously unfitted for. If I ever become able, I mean to put Orion

on a regular pension without revealing the fact that it is a pension.

That is best for him. Let him consider it a periodical loan, and pay

interest out of the principal. Within a year's time he would be looking

upon himself as a benefactor of mine, in the way of furnishing me a good

permanent investment for money, and that would make him happy and

satisfied with himself. If he had money he would share with me in a

moment and I have no disposition to be stingy with him.

Affly

SAM.

Livy sends love.

The New Orleans plan was not wholly dead at this time. Howells

wrote near the end of January that the matter was still being

debated, now and then, but was far from being decided upon. He

hoped to go somewhere with Mrs. Howells for a brief time in March,

he said. Clemens, in haste, replied:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Jan. 26, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--When Mrs. Clemens read your letter she said: "Well,

then, wherever they go, in March, the direction will be southward and so

they must give us a visit on the way." I do not know what sort of

control you may be under, but when my wife speaks as positively as that,

I am not in the habit of talking back and getting into trouble. Situated

as I am, I would not be able to understand, now, how you could pass by

this town without feeling that you were running a wanton risk and doing a

daredevil thing. I consider it settled that you are to come in March,

and I would be sincerely sorry to learn that you and Mrs. Howells feel

differently about it.

The piloting material has been uncovering itself by degrees, until it has

exposed such a huge hoard to my view that a whole book will be required

to contain it if I use it. So I have agreed to write the book for Bliss.

--[The book idea was later given up for the time being.]--I won't be

able to run the articles in the Atlantic later than the September number,

for the reason that a subscription book issued in the fall has a much

larger sale than if issued at any other season of the year. It is funny

when I reflect that when I originally wrote you and proposed to do from 6

to 9 articles for the magazine, the vague thought in my mind was that 6

might exhaust the material and 9 would be pretty sure to do it. Or

rather it seems to me that that was my thought--can't tell at this

distance. But in truth 9 chapters don't now seem to more than open up

the subject fairly and start the yarn to wagging.

I have been sick a-bed several days, for the first time in 21 years.

How little confirmed invalids appreciate their advantages. I was able to

read the English edition of the Greville Memoirs through without

interruption, take my meals in bed, neglect all business without a pang,

and smoke 18 cigars a day. I try not to look back upon these 21 years

with a feeling of resentment, and yet the partialities of Providence do

seem to me to be slathered around (as one may say) without that gravity

and attention to detail which the real importance of the matter would

seem to suggest.

Yrs ever

MARK.

The New Orleans idea continued to haunt the letters. The thought of

drifting down the Mississippi so attracted both Clemens and Howells,

that they talked of it when they met, and wrote of it when they were

separated. Howells, beset by uncertainties, playfully tried to put

the responsibility upon his wife. Once he wrote: "She says in the

noblest way, 'Well, go to New Orleans, if you want to so much' (you

know the tone). I suppose it will do if I let you know about the

middle of February?"

But they had to give it up in the end. Howells wrote that he had

been under the weather, and on half work the whole winter. He did

not feel that he had earned his salary, he said, or that he was

warranted in taking a three weeks' pleasure trip. Clemens offered

to pay all the expenses of the trip, but only indefinite

postponement followed. It would be seven years more before Mark

Twain would return to the river, and then not with Howells.

In a former chapter mention has been made of Charles Warren

Stoddard, whom Mark Twain had known in his California days. He was

fond of Stoddard, who was a facile and pleasing writer of poems and

descriptive articles. During the period that he had been acting as

Mark Twain's secretary in London, he had taken pleasure in

collecting for him the news reports of the celebrated Tichborn

Claimant case, then in the English courts. Clemens thought of

founding a story on it, and did, in fact, use the idea, though 'The

American Claimant,' which he wrote years later, had little or no

connection with the Tichborn episode.

To C. W. Stoddard:

HARTFORD, Feb. 1, 1875.

DEAR CHARLEY,--All right about the Tichborn scrapbooks; send them along

when convenient. I mean to have the Beecher-Tilton trial scrap-book as a

companion.....

I am writing a series of 7-page articles for the Atlantic at $20 a page;

but as they do not pay anybody else as much as that, I do not complain

(though at the same time I do swear that I am not content.) However the

awful respectability of the magazine makes up.

I have cut your articles about San Marco out of a New York paper (Joe

Twichell saw it and brought it home to me with loud admiration,) and sent

it to Howells. It is too bad to fool away such good literature in a

perishable daily journal.

Do remember us kindly to Lady Hardy and all that rare family--my wife and

I so often have pleasant talks about them.

Ever your friend,

SAML. L. CLEMENS.

The price received by Mark Twain for the Mississippi papers, as

quoted in this letter, furnishes us with a realizing sense of the

improvement in the literary market, with the advent of a flood of

cheap magazines and the Sunday newspaper. The Atlantic page

probably contained about a thousand words, which would make his

price average, say, two cents per word. Thirty years later, when

his fame was not much more extended, his pay for the same matter

would have been fifteen times as great, that is to say, at the rate

of thirty cents per word. But in that early time there were no

Sunday magazines--no literary magazines at all except the Atlantic,

and Harpers, and a few fashion periodicals. Probably there were

news-stands, but it is hard to imagine what they must have looked

like without the gay pictorial cover-femininity that to-day pleases

and elevates the public and makes author and artist affluent.

Clemens worked steadily on the river chapters, and Howells was

always praising him and urging him to go on. At the end of January

he wrote: "You're doing the science of piloting splendidly. Every

word's interesting. And don't you drop the series 'til you've got

every bit of anecdote and reminiscence into it."

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Feb. 10, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your praises of my literature gave me the solidest

gratification; but I never did have the fullest confidence in my critical

penetration, and now your verdict on S-----has knocked what little I did

have gully-west! I didn't enjoy his gush, but I thought a lot of his

similes were ever so vivid and good. But it's just my luck; every time I

go into convulsions of admiration over a picture and want to buy it right

away before I've lost the chance, some wretch who really understands art

comes along and damns it. But I don't mind. I would rather have my

ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have got so much more

of it.

I send you No. 5 today. I have written and re-written the first half of

it three different times, yesterday and today, and at last Mrs. Clemens

says it will do. I never saw a woman so hard to please about things she

doesn't know anything about.

Yours ever,

MARK.

Of course, the reference to his wife's criticism in this is tenderly

playful, as always--of a pattern with the severity which he pretends

for her in the next.

To Mrs. W. D. Howells, in Boston:

1875

DEAR MRS. HOWELLS,--Mrs. Clemens is delighted to get the pictures, and so

am I. I can perceive in the group, that Mr. Howells is feeling as I so

often feel, viz: "Well, no doubt I am in the wrong, though I do not know

how or where or why--but anyway it will be safest to look meek, and walk

circumspectly for a while, and not discuss the thing." And you look

exactly as Mrs. Clemens does after she has said, "Indeed I do not wonder

that you can frame no reply: for you know only too well, that your

conduct admits of no excuse, palliation or argument--none!"

I shall just delight in that group on account of the good old human

domestic spirit that pervades it--bother these family groups that put on

a state aspect to get their pictures taken in.

We want a heliotype made of our eldest daughter. How soft and rich and

lovely the picture is. Mr. Howells must tell me how to proceed in the

matter.

Truly Yours

SAM. L. CLEMENS.

In the next letter we have a picture of Susy--[This spelling of the

name was adopted somewhat later and much preferred. It appears as

"Susie" in most of the earlier letters.]--Clemens's third birthday,

certainly a pretty picture, and as sweet and luminous and tender

today as it was forty years ago-as it will be a hundred years hence,

if these lines should survive that long. The letter is to her uncle

Charles Langdon, the "Charlie" of the Quaker City. "Atwater" was

associated with the Langdon coal interests in Elmira. "The play"

is, of course, "The Gilded Age."

To Charles Langdon, in Elmira:

Mch. 19, 1875.

DEAR CHARLIE,--Livy, after reading your letter, used her severest form of

expression about Mr. Atwater--to wit: She did not "approve" of his

conduct. This made me shudder; for it was equivalent to Allie

Spaulding's saying "Mr. Atwater is a mean thing;" or Rev. Thomas

Beecher's saying "Damn that Atwater," or my saying "I wish Atwater was

three hundred million miles in----!"

However, Livy does not often get into one of these furies, God be

thanked.

In Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago,

the play paid me an average of nine hundred dollars a week. In smaller

towns the average is $400 to $500.

This is Susie's birth-day. Lizzie brought her in at 8.30 this morning

(before we were up) hooded with a blanket, red curl-papers in her hair, a

great red japonica, in one hand (for Livy) and a yellow rose-bud nestled

in violets (for my buttonhole) in the other--and she looked wonderfully

pretty. She delivered her memorials and received her birth-day kisses.

Livy laid her japonica, down to get a better "holt" for kissing-which

Susie presently perceived, and became thoughtful: then said sorrowfully,

turning the great deeps of her eyes upon her mother: "Don't you care for

you wow?"

Right after breakfast we got up a rousing wood fire in the main hall

(it is a cold morning) illuminated the place with a rich glow from all

the globes of the newell chandelier, spread a bright rug before the fire,

set a circling row of chairs (pink ones and dove-colored) and in the

midst a low invalid-table covered with a fanciful cloth and laden with

the presents--a pink azalia in lavish bloom from Rosa; a gold inscribed

Russia-leather bible from Patrick and Mary; a gold ring (inscribed) from

"Maggy Cook;" a silver thimble (inscribed with motto and initials) from

Lizzie; a rattling mob of Sunday clad dolls from Livy and Annie, and a

Noah's Ark from me, containing 200 wooden animals such as only a human

being could create and only God call by name without referring to the

passenger list. Then the family and the seven servants assembled there,

and Susie and the "Bay" arrived in state from above, the Bay's head being

fearfully and wonderfully decorated with a profusion of blazing red

flowers and overflowing cataracts of lycopodium. Wee congratulatory

notes accompanied the presents of the servants. I tell you it was a

great occasion and a striking and cheery group, taking all the

surroundings into account and the wintry aspect outside.

(Remainder missing.)

There was to be a centennial celebration that year of the battles of

Lexington and Concord, and Howells wrote, urging Clemens and his

wife to visit them and attend it. Mrs. Clemens did not go, and

Clemens and Howells did not go, either--to the celebration. They

had their own ideas about getting there, but found themselves unable

to board the thronged train at Concord, and went tramping about in

the cold and mud, hunting a conveyance, only to return at length to

the cheer of the home, defeated and rather low in spirits.

Twichell, who went on his own hook, had no such difficulties. To

Howells, Mark Twain wrote the adventures of this athletic and

strenuous exponent of the gospel.

The "Winnie" mentioned in this letter was Howells's daughter

Winifred. She had unusual gifts, but did not live to develop them.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD. Apl. 23, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I've got Mrs. Clemens's picture before me, and hope I

shall not forget to send it with this.

Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took midnight

train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by rail at 7.30

A. M. for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P. M., seeing

everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw everything

there; traveled on top of a train to Boston, (with hundreds in company)

deluged with dust, smoke and cinders; yelled and hurrahed all the way

like a schoolboy; lay flat down to dodge numerous bridges, and sailed

into the depot, howling with excitement and as black as a chimney-sweep;

got to Young's Hotel at 7 P. M.; sat down in reading-room and immediately

fell asleep; was promptly awakened by a porter who supposed he was drunk;

wandered around an hour and a half; then took 9 P. M. train, sat down in

smoking car and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as

the train came into Hartford at 1.30 A. M. Thinks he had simply a

glorious time--and wouldn't have missed the Centennial for the world.

He would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge, but was too dirty.

I wouldn't have wanted him there--his appalling energy would have been an

insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and me.

Well, he is welcome to the good time he had--I had a deal better one.

My narrative has made Mrs. Clemens wish she could have been there.--When

I think over what a splendid good sociable time I had in your house I

feel ever so thankful to the wise providence that thwarted our several

ably-planned and ingenious attempts to get to Lexington. I am coming

again before long, and then she shall be of the party.

Now you said that you and Mrs. Howells could run down here nearly any

Saturday. Very well then, let us call it next Saturday, for a "starter."

Can you do that? By that time it will really be spring and you won't

freeze. The birds are already out; a small one paid us a visit

yesterday. We entertained it and let it go again, Susie protesting.

The spring laziness is already upon me--insomuch that the spirit begins

to move me to cease from Mississippi articles and everything else and

give myself over to idleness until we go to New Orleans. I have one

article already finished, but somehow it doesn't seem as proper a chapter

to close with as the one already in your hands. I hope to get in a mood

and rattle off a good one to finish with--but just now all my moods are

lazy ones.

Winnie's literature sings through me yet! Surely that child has one of

these "futures" before her.

Now try to come--will you?

With the warmest regards of the two of us--

Yrs ever,

S. L. CLEMENS.

Mrs. Clemens sent a note to Mrs. Howells, which will serve as a pendant

to the foregoing.

From Mrs. Clemens to Mrs. Howells, in Boston:

MY DEAR MRS. HOWELLS,--Don't dream for one instant that my not getting a

letter from you kept me from Boston. I am too anxious to go to let such

a thing as that keep me.

Mr. Clemens did have such a good time with you and Mr. Howells.

He evidently has no regret that he did not get to the Centennial. I was

driven nearly distracted by his long account of Mr. Howells and his

wanderings. I would keep asking if they ever got there, he would never

answer but made me listen to a very minute account of everything that

they did. At last I found them back where they started from.

If you find misspelled words in this note, you will remember my infirmity

and not hold me responsible.

Affectionately yours,

LIVY L. CLEMENS.

In spite of his success with the Sellers play and his itch to follow it

up, Mark Twain realized what he believed to be his literary limitations.

All his life he was inclined to consider himself wanting in the finer

gifts of character-shading and delicate portrayal. Remembering Huck

Finn, and the rare presentation of Joan of Arc, we may not altogether

agree with him. Certainly, he was never qualified to delineate those

fine artificialities of life which we are likely to associate with

culture, and perhaps it was something of this sort that caused the

hesitation confessed in the letter that follows. Whether the plan

suggested interested Howells or not we do not know. In later years

Howells wrote a novel called The Story of a Play; this may have been its

beginning.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Apl. 26, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--An actor named D. H. Harkins has been here to ask me to

put upon paper a 5-act play which he has been mapping out in his mind for

3 or 4 years. He sat down and told me his plot all through, in a clear,

bright way, and I was a deal taken with it; but it is a line of

characters whose fine shading and artistic development requires an abler

hand than mine; so I easily perceived that I must not make the attempt.

But I liked the man, and thought there was a good deal of stuff in him;

and therefore I wanted his play to be written, and by a capable hand,

too. So I suggested you, and said I would write and see if you would be

willing to undertake it. If you like the idea, he will call upon you in

the course of two or three weeks and describe his plot and his

characters. Then if it doesn't strike you favorably, of course you can

simply decline; but it seems to me well worth while that you should hear

what he has to say. You could also "average" him while he talks, and

judge whether he could play your priest--though I doubt if any man can do

that justice.

Shan't I write him and say he may call? If you wish to communicate

directly with him instead, his address is "Larchmont Manor, Westchester

Co., N. Y."

Do you know, the chill of that 19th of April seems to be in my bones yet?

I am inert and drowsy all the time. That was villainous weather for a

couple of wandering children to be out in.

Ys ever

MARK.

The sinister typewriter did not find its way to Howells for nearly a

year. Meantime, Mark Twain had refused to allow the manufacturers

to advertise his ownership. He wrote to them:

HARTFORD, March 19, 1875.

Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge the

fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter,

for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody

without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe

the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc.,

etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people to know

I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.

Three months later the machine was still in his possession. Bliss

had traded a twelve-dollar saddle for it, but apparently showed

little enthusiasm in his new possession.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

June 25, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I told Patrick to get some carpenters and box the

machine and send it to you--and found that Bliss had sent for the machine

and earned it off.

I have been talking to you and writing to you as if you were present when

I traded the machine to Bliss for a twelve-dollar saddle worth $25

(cheating him outrageously, of course--but conscience got the upper hand

again and I told him before I left the premises that I'd pay for the

saddle if he didn't like the machine--on condition that he donate said

machine to a charity)

This was a little over five weeks ago--so I had long ago concluded that

Bliss didn't want the machine and did want the saddle--wherefore I jumped

at the chance of shoving the machine off onto you, saddle or no saddle so

I got the blamed thing out of my sight.

The saddle hangs on Tara's walls down below in the stable, and the

machine is at Bliss's grimly pursuing its appointed mission, slowly and

implacably rotting away another man's chances for salvation.

I have sent Bliss word not to donate it to a charity (though it is a pity

to fool away a chance to do a charity an ill turn,) but to let me know

when he has got his dose, because I've got another candidate for

damnation. You just wait a couple of weeks and if you don't see the

Type-Writer come tilting along toward Cambridge with an unsatisfied

appetite in its eye, I lose my guess.

Don't you be mad about this blunder, Howells--it only comes of a bad

memory, and the stupidity which is inseparable from true genius. Nothing

intentionally criminal in it.

Yrs ever

MARK.

It was November when Howells finally fell under the baleful

influence of the machine. He wrote:

"The typewriter came Wednesday night, and is already beginning to

have its effect on me. Of course, it doesn't work: if I can

persuade some of the letters to get up against the ribbon they won't

get down again without digital assistance. The treadle refuses to

have any part or parcel in the performance; and I don't know how to

get the roller to turn with the paper. Nevertheless I have begun

several letters to My d-a-r lemans, as it prefers to spell your

respected name, and I don't despair yet of sending you something in

its beautiful handwriting--after I've had a man out from the agent's

to put it in order. It's fascinating in the meantime, and it wastes

my time like an old friend."

The Clemens family remained in Hartford that summer, with the

exception of a brief season at Bateman's Point, R. I., near

Newport. By this time Mark Twain had taken up and finished the Tom

Sawyer story begun two years before. Naturally he wished Howells to

consider the MS.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, July 5th, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have finished the story and didn't take the chap

beyond boyhood. I believe it would be fatal to do it in any shape but

autobiographically--like Gil Blas. I perhaps made a mistake in not

writing it in the first person. If I went on, now, and took him into

manhood, he would just like like all the one-horse men in literature and

the reader would conceive a hearty contempt for him. It is not a boy's

book, at all. It will only be read by adults. It is only written for

adults.

Moreover the book is plenty long enough as it stands. It is about 900

pages of MS, and may be 1000 when I shall have finished "working up"

vague places; so it would make from 130 to 150 pages of the Atlantic

--about what the Foregone Conclusion made, isn't it?

I would dearly like to see it in the Atlantic, but I doubt if it would

pay the publishers to buy the privilege, or me to sell it. Bret Harte

has sold his novel (same size as mine, I should say) to Scribner's

Monthly for $6,500 (publication to begin in September, I think,) and he

gets a royalty of 7 1/2 per cent from Bliss in book form afterwards. He

gets a royalty of ten per cent on it in England (issued in serial

numbers) and the same royalty on it in book form afterwards, and is to

receive an advance payment of five hundred pounds the day the first No.

of the serial appears. If I could do as well, here, and there, with

mine, it might possibly pay me, but I seriously doubt it though it is

likely I could do better in England than Bret, who is not widely known

there.

You see I take a vile, mercenary view of things--but then my household

expenses are something almost ghastly.

By and by I shall take a boy of twelve and run him on through life (in

the first person) but not Tom Sawyer--he would not be a good character

for it.

I wish you would promise to read the MS of Tom Sawyer some time, and see

if you don't really decide that I am right in closing with him as a boy

--and point out the most glaring defects for me. It is a tremendous favor

to ask, and I expect you to refuse and would be ashamed to expect you to

do otherwise. But the thing has been so many months in my mind that it

seems a relief to snake it out. I don't know any other person whose

judgment I could venture to take fully and entirely. Don't hesitate

about saying no, for I know how your time is taxed, and I would have

honest need to blush if you said yes.

Osgood and I are "going for" the puppy G---- on infringement of

trademark. To win one or two suits of this kind will set literary folks

on a firmer bottom. I wish Osgood would sue for stealing Holmes's poem.

Wouldn't it be gorgeous to sue R---- for petty larceny? I will promise

to go into court and swear I think him capable of stealing pea-nuts from

a blind pedlar.

Yrs ever,

CLEMENS.

Of course Howells promptly replied that he would read the story,

adding: "You've no idea what I may ask you to do for me, some day.

I'm sorry that you can't do it for the Atlantic, but I

succumb. Perhaps you will do Boy No. 2 for us." Clemens,

conscience-stricken, meantime, hastily put the MS. out of reach

of temptation.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

July 13, 1875

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Just as soon as you consented I realized all the

atrocity of my request, and straightway blushed and weakened.

I telegraphed my theatrical agent to come here and carry off the MS and

copy it.

But I will gladly send it to you if you will do as follows: dramatize it,

if you perceive that you can, and take, for your remuneration, half of

the first $6000 which I receive for its representation on the stage. You

could alter the plot entirely, if you chose. I could help in the work,

most cheerfully, after you had arranged the plot. I have my eye upon two

young girls who can play "Tom" and "Huck." I believe a good deal of a

drama can be made of it. Come--can't you tackle this in the odd hours of

your vacation? or later, if you prefer?

I do wish you could come down once more before your holiday. I'd give

anything!

Yrs ever,

MARK.

Howells wrote that he had no time for the dramatization and urged Clemens

to undertake it himself. He was ready to read the story, whenever it

should arrive. Clemens did not hurry, however, The publication of Tom

Sawyer could wait. He already had a book in press--the volume of

Sketches New and Old, which he had prepared for Bliss several years

before.

Sketches was issued that autumn, and Howells gave it a good notice

--possibly better than it deserved.

Considered among Mark Twain's books to-day, the collection of sketches

does not seem especially important. With the exception of the frog story

and the "True Story" most of those included--might be spared. Clemens

himself confessed to Howells that He wished, when it was too late, that

he had destroyed a number of them. The book, however, was distinguished

in a special way: it contains Mark Twain's first utterance in print on

the subject of copyright, a matter in which he never again lost interest.

The absurdity and injustice of the copyright laws both amused and

irritated him, and in the course of time he would be largely instrumental

in their improvement. In the book his open petition to Congress that all

property rights, as well as literary ownership, should be put on the

copyright basis and limited to a "beneficent term of forty-two years,"

was more or less of a joke, but, like so many of Mark Twain's jokes, it

was founded on reason and justice.

He had another idea, that was not a joke: an early plan in the direction

of international copyright. It was to be a petition signed by the

leading American authors, asking the United States to declare itself to

be the first to stand for right and justice by enacting laws against the

piracy of foreign books. It was a rather utopian scheme, as most schemes

for moral progress are, in their beginning. It would not be likely ever

to reach Congress, but it would appeal to Howells and his Cambridge

friends. Clemens wrote, outlining his plan of action.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Sept. 18, 1875.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--My plan is this--you are to get Mr. Lowell and Mr.

Longfellow to be the first signers of my copyright petition; you must

sign it yourself and get Mr. Whittier to do likewise. Then Holmes will

sign--he said he would if he didn't have to stand at the head. Then I'm

fixed. I will then put a gentlemanly chap under wages and send him

personally to every author of distinction in the country, and corral the

rest of the signatures. Then I'll have the whole thing lithographed

(about a thousand copies) and move upon the President and Congress in

person, but in the subordinate capacity of a party who is merely the

agent of better and wiser men--men whom the country cannot venture to

laugh at.

I will ask the President to recommend the thing in his message (and if he

should ask me to sit down and frame the paragraph for him I should blush

--but still I would frame it.)

Next I would get a prime leader in Congress: I would also see that votes

enough to carry the measure were privately secured before the bill was

offered. This I would try through my leader and my friends there.