We had 2 almost devilish weeks at sea (and I tell you Bayard Taylor is a

really lovable man--which you already knew) then we staid a week in the

beautiful, the very beautiful city of Hamburg; and since then we have

been fooling along, 4 hours per day by rail, with a courier, spending the

other 20 in hotels whose enormous bedchambers and private parlors are an

overpowering marvel to me: Day before yesterday, in Cassel, we had a love

of a bedroom ,31 feet long, and a parlor with 2 sofas, 12 chairs, a

writing desk and 4 tables scattered around, here and there in it. Made

of red silk, too, by George.

The times and times I wish you were along! You could throw some fun into

the journey; whereas I go on, day by day, in a smileless state of solemn

admiration.

What a paradise this is! What clean clothes, what good faces, what

tranquil contentment, what prosperity, what genuine freedom, what superb

government. And I am so happy, for I am responsible for none of it. I

am only here to enjoy. How charmed I am when I overhear a German word

which I understand. With love from us 2 to you 2.

MARK.

P. S. We are not taking six days to go from Hamburg to Heidelberg

because we prefer it. Quite on the contrary. Mrs. Clemens picked up a

dreadful cold and sore throat on board ship and still keeps them in

stock--so she could only travel 4 hours a day. She wanted to dive

straight through, but I had different notions about the wisdom of it.

I found that 4 hours a day was the best she could do. Before I forget

it, our permanent address is Care Messrs. Koester & Co., Backers,

Heidelberg. We go there tomorrow.

Poor Susy! From the day we reached German soil, we have required Rosa to

speak German to the children--which they hate with all their souls. The

other morning in Hanover, Susy came to us (from Rosa, in the nursery) and

said, in halting syllables, "Papa, vie viel uhr ist es?"--then turned

with pathos in her big eyes, and said, "Mamma, I wish Rosa was made in

English."

(Unfinished)

Frankfort was a brief halting-place, their destination being

Heidelberg. They were presently located there in the beautiful

Schloss hotel, which overlooks the old castle with its forest

setting, the flowing Neckar, and the distant valley of the Rhine.

Clemens, who had discovered the location, and loved it, toward the

end of May reported to Howells his felicities.

Part of letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston:

SCHLOSS-HOTEL HEIDELBERG,

Sunday, a. m., May 26, 1878.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--....divinely located. From this airy porch among the

shining groves we look down upon Heidelberg Castle, and upon the swift

Neckar, and the town, and out over the wide green level of the Rhine

valley--a marvelous prospect. We are in a Cul-de-sac formed of

hill-ranges and river; we are on the side of a steep mountain; the river

at our feet is walled, on its other side, (yes, on both sides,) by a

steep and wooded mountain-range which rises abruptly aloft from the

water's edge; portions of these mountains are densely wooded; the plain

of the Rhine, seen through the mouth of this pocket, has many and

peculiar charms for the eye.

Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (enclosed balconies) one

looking toward the Rhine valley and sunset, the other looking up the

Neckar cul-de-sac, and naturally we spend nearly all our time in these

--when one is sunny the other is shady. We have tables and chairs in

them; we do our reading, writing, studying, smoking and suppering in

them.

The view from these bird-cages is my despair. The pictures change from

one enchanting aspect to another in ceaseless procession, never keeping

one form half an hour, and never taking on an unlovely one.

And then Heidelberg on a dark night! It is massed, away down there,

almost right under us, you know, and stretches off toward the valley.

Its curved and interlacing streets are a cobweb, beaded thick with

lights--a wonderful thing to see; then the rows of lights on the arched

bridges, and their glinting reflections in the water; and away at the far

end, the Eisenbahnhof, with its twenty solid acres of glittering

gas-jets, a huge garden, as one may say, whose every plant is a flame.

These balconies are the darlingest things. I have spent all the morning

in this north one. Counting big and little, it has 256 panes of glass in

it; so one is in effect right out in the free sunshine, and yet sheltered

from wind and rain--and likewise doored and curtained from whatever may

be going on in the bedroom. It must have been a noble genius who devised

this hotel. Lord, how blessed is the repose, the tranquillity of this

place! Only two sounds; the happy clamor of the birds in the groves, and

the muffled music of the Neckar, tumbling over the opposing dykes. It is

no hardship to lie awake awhile, nights, for this subdued roar has

exactly the sound of a steady rain beating upon a roof. It is so healing

to the spirit; and it bears up the thread of one's imaginings as the

accompaniment bears up a song.

While Livy and Miss Spaulding have been writing at this table, I have sat

tilted back, near by, with a pipe and the last Atlantic, and read Charley

Warner's article with prodigious enjoyment. I think it is exquisite.

I think it must be the roundest and broadest and completest short essay

he has ever written. It is clear, and compact, and charmingly done.

The hotel grounds join and communicate with the Castle grounds; so we and

the children loaf in the winding paths of those leafy vastnesses a great

deal, and drink beer and listen to excellent music.

When we first came to this hotel, a couple of weeks ago, I pointed to a

house across the river, and said I meant to rent the centre room on the

3d floor for a work-room. Jokingly we got to speaking of it as my

office; and amused ourselves with watching "my people" daily in their

small grounds and trying to make out what we could of their dress, &c.,

without a glass. Well, I loafed along there one day and found on that

house the only sign of the kind on that side of the river: "Moblirte

Wohnung zu Vermiethen!" I went in and rented that very room which I had

long ago selected. There was only one other room in the whole

double-house unrented.

(It occurs to me that I made a great mistake in not thinking to deliver a

very bad German speech, every other sentence pieced out with English, at

the Bayard Taylor banquet in New York. I think I could have made it one

of the features of the occasion.)--[He used this plan at a gathering of

the American students in Heidelberg, on July 4th, with great effect; so

his idea was not wasted.]

We left Hartford before the end of March, and I have been idle ever

since. I have waited for a call to go to work--I knew it would come.

Well, it began to come a week ago; my note-book comes out more and more

frequently every day since; 3 days ago I concluded to move my manuscript

over to my den. Now the call is loud and decided at last. So tomorrow I

shall begin regular, steady work, and stick to it till middle of July or

1st August, when I look for Twichell; we will then walk about Germany 2

or 3 weeks, and then I'll go to work again--(perhaps in Munich.)

We both send a power of love to the Howellses, and we do wish you were

here. Are you in the new house? Tell us about it.

Yrs Ever

MARK.

There has been no former mention in the letters of the coming of

Twichell; yet this had been a part of the European plan. Mark Twain

had invited his walking companion to make a tramp with him through

Europe, as his guest. Material for the new book would grow faster

with Twichell as a companion; and these two in spite of their widely

opposed views concerning Providence and the general scheme of

creation, were wholly congenial comrades. Twichell, in Hartford,

expecting to receive the final summons to start, wrote: "Oh, my! do

you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be? I do. To begin

with, I am thoroughly tired, and the rest will be worth everything.

To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together--why, it's my

dream of luxury."

August 1st brought Twichell, and the friends set out without delay

on a tramp through the Black Forest, making short excursions at

first, but presently extending them in the direction of Switzerland.

Mrs. Clemens and the others remained in Heidelberg, to follow at

their leisure. To Mrs. Clemens her husband sent frequent reports of

their wanderings. It will be seen that their tramp did not confine

itself to pedestrianism, though they did, in fact, walk a great

deal, and Mark Twain in a note to his mother declared, "I loathe all

travel, except on foot." The reports to Mrs. Clemens follow:

Letters to Mrs. Clemens, in Heidelberg:

ALLERHEILIGEN Aug. 5, 1878 8:30 p.m.

Livy darling, we had a rattling good time to-day, but we came very near

being left at Baden-Baden, for instead of waiting in the waiting-room, we

sat down on the platform to wait where the trains come in from the other

direction. We sat there full ten minutes--and then all of a sudden it

occurred to me that that was not the right place.

On the train the principal of the big English school at Nauheim (of which

Mr. Scheiding was a teacher), introduced himself to me, and then he

mapped out our day for us (for today and tomorrow) and also drew a map

and gave us directions how to proceed through Switzerland. He had his

entire school with him, taking them on a prodigious trip through

Switzerland--tickets for the round trip ten dollars apiece. He has done

this annually for 10 years. We took a post carriage from Aachen to

Otterhofen for 7 marks--stopped at the "Pflug" to drink beer, and saw

that pretty girl again at a distance. Her father, mother, and two

brothers received me like an ancient customer and sat down and talked as

long as I had any German left. The big room was full of red-vested

farmers (the Gemeindrath of the district, with the Burgermeister at the

head,) drinking beer and talking public business. They had held an

election and chosen a new member and had been drinking beer at his

expense for several hours. (It was intensely Black-foresty.)

There was an Australian there (a student from Stuttgart or somewhere,)

and Joe told him who I was and he laid himself out to make our course

plain, for us--so I am certain we can't get lost between here and

Heidelberg.

We walked the carriage road till we came to that place where one sees the

foot path on the other side of the ravine, then we crossed over and took

that. For a good while we were in a dense forest and judged we were

lost, but met a native women who said we were all right. We fooled along

and got there at 6 p.m.--ate supper, then followed down the ravine to the

foot of the falls, then struck into a blind path to see where it would

go, and just about dark we fetched up at the Devil's Pulpit on top of the

hills. Then home. And now to bed, pretty sleepy. Joe sends love and I

send a thousand times as much, my darling.

S. L. C.

HOTEL GENNIN.

Livy darling, we had a lovely day jogged right along, with a good horse

and sensible driver--the last two hours right behind an open carriage

filled with a pleasant German family--old gentleman and 3 pretty

daughters. At table d'hote tonight, 3 dishes were enough for me, and

then I bored along tediously through the bill of fare, with a back-ache,

not daring to get up and bow to the German family and leave. I meant to

sit it through and make them get up and do the bowing; but at last Joe

took pity on me and said he would get up and drop them a curtsy and put

me out of my misery. I was grateful. He got up and delivered a

succession of frank and hearty bows, accompanying them with an atmosphere

of good-fellowship which would have made even an English family

surrender. Of course the Germans responded--then I got right up and they

had to respond to my salaams, too. So "that was done."

We walked up a gorge and saw a tumbling waterfall which was nothing to

Giessbach, but it made me resolve to drop you a line and urge you to go

and see Giessbach illuminated. Don't fail--but take a long day's rest,

first. I love you, sweetheart.

SAML.

OVER THE GEMMI PASS.

4.30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, 1878.

Livy darling, Joe and I have had a most noble day. Started to climb (on

foot) at 8.30 this morning among the grandest peaks! Every half hour

carried us back a month in the season. We left them harvesting 2d crop

of hay. At 9 we were in July and found ripe strawberries; at 9.30 we

were in June and gathered flowers belonging to that month; at 10 we were

in May and gathered a flower which appeared in Heidelberg the 17th of

that month; also forget-me-nots, which disappeared from Heidelberg about

mid-May; at 11.30 we were in April (by the flowers;) at noon we had rain

and hail mixed, and wind and enveloping fogs, and considered it March; at

12.30 we had snowbanks above us and snowbanks below us, and considered it

February. Not good February, though, because in the midst of the wild

desolation the forget-me-not still bloomed, lovely as ever.

What a flower garden the Gemmi Pass is! After I had got my hands full

Joe made me a paper bag, which I pinned to my lapel and filled with

choice specimens. I gathered no flowers which I had ever gathered before

except 4 or 5 kinds. We took it leisurely and I picked all I wanted to.

I mailed my harvest to you a while ago. Don't send it to Mrs. Brooks

until you have looked it over, flower by flower. It will pay.

Among the clouds and everlasting snows I found a brave and bright little

forget-me-not growing in the very midst of a smashed and tumbled

stone-debris, just as cheerful as if the barren and awful domes and

ramparts that towered around were the blessed walls of heaven. I thought

how Lilly Warner would be touched by such a gracious surprise, if she,

instead of I, had seen it. So I plucked it, and have mailed it to her

with a note.

Our walk was 7 hours--the last 2 down a path as steep as a ladder,

almost, cut in the face of a mighty precipice. People are not allowed to

ride down it. This part of the day's work taxed our knees, I tell you.

We have been loafing about this village (Leukerbad) for an hour, now we

stay here over Sunday. Not tired at all. (Joe's hat fell over the

precipice--so he came here bareheaded.) I love you, my darling.

SAML.

ST. NICHOLAS, Aug. 26th, '78.

Livy darling, we came through a-whooping today, 6 hours tramp up steep

hills and down steep hills, in mud and water shoe-deep, and in a steady

pouring rain which never moderated a moment. I was as chipper and fresh

as a lark all the way and arrived without the slightest sense of fatigue.

But we were soaked and my shoes full of water, so we ate at once,

stripped and went to bed for 2 1/2 hours while our traps were thoroughly

dried, and our boots greased in addition. Then we put our clothes on hot

and went to table d'hote.

Made some nice English friends and shall see them at Zermatt tomorrow.

Gathered a small bouquet of new flowers, but they got spoiled. I sent

you a safety-match box full of flowers last night from Leukerbad.

I have just telegraphed you to wire the family news to me at Riffel

tomorrow. I do hope you are all well and having as jolly a time as we

are, for I love you, sweetheart, and also, in a measure, the Bays.

--[Little Susy's word for "babies."]--Give my love to Clara Spaulding

and also to the cubs.

SAML.

This, as far as it goes, is a truer and better account of the

excursion than Mark Twain gave in the book that he wrote later. A

Tramp Abroad has a quality of burlesque in it, which did not belong

to the journey at all, but was invented to satisfy the craving for

what the public conceived to be Mark Twain's humor. The serious

portions of the book are much more pleasing--more like himself.

The entire journey, as will be seen, lasted one week more than a

month.

Twichell also made his reports home, some of which give us

interesting pictures of his walking partner. In one place he wrote:

"Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing he so delights in as a

swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once

he is within the influence of its fascinations."

Twichell tells how at Kandersteg they were out together one evening

where a brook comes plunging down from Gasternthal and how he pushed

in a drift to see it go racing along the current. "When I got back

to the path Mark was running down stream after it as hard as he

could go, throwing up his hands and shouting in the wildest ecstasy,

and when a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam

below he would jump up and down and yell. He said afterward that he

had not been so excited in three months."

In other places Twichell refers to his companion's consideration for

the feeling of others, and for animals. "When we are driving, his

concern is all about the horse. He can't bear to see the whip used,

or to see a horse pull hard."

After the walk over Gemmi Pass he wrote: "Mark to-day was immensely

absorbed in flowers. He scrambled around and gathered a great variety,

and manifested the intensest pleasure in them. He crowded a pocket of

his note-book with his specimens, and wanted more room."

Whereupon Twichell got out his needle and thread and some stiff paper he

had and contrived the little paper bag to hang to the front of his vest.

The tramp really ended at Lausanne, where Clemens joined his party, but a

short excursion to Chillon and Chamonix followed, the travelers finally

separating at Geneva, Twichell to set out for home by way of England,

Clemens to remain and try to write the story of their travels. He

hurried a good-by letter after his comrade:

To Rev. J. H. Twichell:

(No date)

DEAR OLD JOE,--It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the

station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't seem to

accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, and the pleasant

tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! it has been such a rich

holiday to me, and I feel under such deep and honest obligations to you

for coming. I am putting out of my mind all memory of the times when I

misbehaved toward you and hurt you: I am resolved to consider it

forgiven, and to store up and remember only the charming hours of the

journeys and the times when I was not unworthy to be with you and share a

companionship which to me stands first after Livy's. It is justifiable

to do this; for why should I let my small infirmities of disposition live

and grovel among my mental pictures of the eternal sublimities of the

Alps?

Livy can't accept or endure the fact that you are gone. But you are,

and we cannot get around it. So take our love with you, and bear it also

over the sea to Harmony, and God bless you both.

MARK.

From Switzerland the Clemens party worked down into Italy,

sight-seeing, a diversion in which Mark Twain found little enough of

interest. He had seen most of the sights ten years before, when his

mind was fresh. He unburdened himself to Twichell and to Howells,

after a period of suffering.

To J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

ROME, Nov. 3, '78.

DEAR JOE,--.....I have received your several letters, and we have

prodigiously enjoyed them. How I do admire a man who can sit down and

whale away with a pen just the same as if it was fishing--or something

else as full of pleasure and as void of labor. I can't do it; else, in

common decency, I would when I write to you. Joe, if I can make a book

out of the matter gathered in your company over here, the book is safe;

but I don't think I have gathered any matter before or since your visit

worth writing up. I do wish you were in Rome to do my sightseeing for

me. Rome interests me as much as East Hartford could, and no more. That

is, the Rome which the average tourist feels an interest in; but there

are other things here which stir me enough to make life worth living.

Livy and Clara Spaulding are having a royal time worshiping the old

Masters, and I as good a time gritting my ineffectual teeth over them.

A friend waits for me. A power of love to you all.

Amen.

MARK.

In his letter to Howells he said: "I wish I could give those sharp

satires on European life which you mention, but of course a man

can't write successful satire except he be in a calm, judicial

good-humor; whereas I hate travel, and I hate hotels, and I hate the

opera, and I hate the old masters. In truth, I don't ever seem to

be in a good-enough humor with anything to satirize it. No, I want

to stand up before it and curse it and foam at the mouth, or take a

club and pound it to rags and pulp. I have got in two or three

chapters about Wagner's operas, and managed to do it without showing

temper, but the strain of another such effort would burst me!"

From Italy the Clemens party went to Munich, where they had arranged

in advance for winter quarters. Clemens claims, in his report of

the matter to Howells, that he took the party through without the

aid of a courier, though thirty years later, in some comment which

he set down on being shown the letter, he wrote concerning this

paragraph: "Probably a lie." He wrote, also, that they acquired a

great affection for Fraulein Dahlweiner: "Acquired it at once and it

outlasted the winter we spent in her house."

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

No 1a, Karlstrasse, 2e Stock.

Care Fraulein Dahlweiner.

MUNICH, Nov. 17, 1878.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--We arrived here night before last, pretty well fagged:

an 8-hour pull from Rome to Florence; a rest there of a day and two

nights; then 5 1/2 hours to Bologna; one night's rest; then from noon to

10:30 p.m. carried us to Trent, in the Austrian Tyrol, where the

confounded hotel had not received our message, and so at that miserable

hour, in that snowy region, the tribe had to shiver together in fireless

rooms while beds were prepared and warmed, then up at 6 in the morning

and a noble view of snow-peaks glittering in the rich light of a full

moon while the hotel-devils lazily deranged a breakfast for us in the

dreary gloom of blinking candles; then a solid 12 hours pull through the

loveliest snow ranges and snow-draped forest--and at 7 p.m. we hauled up,

in drizzle and fog, at the domicile which had been engaged for us ten

months before. Munich did seem the horriblest place, the most desolate

place, the most unendurable place!--and the rooms were so small, the

conveniences so meagre, and the porcelain stoves so grim, ghastly,

dismal, intolerable! So Livy and Clara (Spaulding) sat down forlorn,

and cried, and I retired to a private, place to pray. By and by we all

retired to our narrow German beds; and when Livy and I finished talking

across the room, it was all decided that we would rest 24 hours then pay

whatever damages were required, and straightway fly to the south of

France.

But you see, that was simply fatigue. Next morning the tribe fell in

love with the rooms, with the weather, with Munich, and head over heels

in love with Fraulein Dahlweiner. We got a larger parlor--an ample one

--threw two communicating bedrooms into one, for the children, and now we

are entirely comfortable. The only apprehension, at present, is that the

climate may not be just right for the children, in which case we shall

have to go to France, but it will be with the sincerest regret.

Now I brought the tribe through from Rome, myself. We never had so

little trouble before. The next time anybody has a courier to put out to

nurse, I shall not be in the market.

Last night the forlornities had all disappeared; so we gathered around

the lamp, after supper, with our beer and my pipe, and in a condition of

grateful snugness tackled the new magazines. I read your new story

aloud, amid thunders of applause, and we all agreed that Captain Jenness

and the old man with the accordion-hat are lovely people and most

skillfully drawn--and that cabin-boy, too, we like. Of course we are all

glad the girl is gone to Venice--for there is no place like Venice. Now

I easily understand that the old man couldn't go, because you have a

purpose in sending Lyddy by herself: but you could send the old man over

in another ship, and we particularly want him along. Suppose you don't

need him there? What of that? Can't you let him feed the doves?

Can't you let him fall in the canal occasionally? Can't you let his

good-natured purse be a daily prey to guides and beggar-boys? Can't you

let him find peace and rest and fellowship under Pere Jacopo's kindly

wing? (However, you are writing the book, not I--still, I am one of the

people you are writing it for, you understand.) I only want to insist, in

a friendly way, that the old man shall shed his sweet influence

frequently upon the page--that is all.

The first time we called at the convent, Pere Jacopo was absent; the next

(Just at this moment Miss Spaulding spoke up and said something about

Pere Jacopo--there is more in this acting of one mind upon another than

people think) time, he was there, and gave us preserved rose-leaves to

eat, and talked about you, and Mrs. Howells, and Winnie, and brought out

his photographs, and showed us a picture of "the library of your new

house," but not so--it was the study in your Cambridge house. He was

very sweet and good. He called on us next day; the day after that we

left Venice, after a pleasant sojourn Of 3 or 4 weeks. He expects to

spend this winter in Munich and will see us often, he said.

Pretty soon, I am going to write something, and when I finish it I shall

know whether to put it to itself or in the "Contributors' Club." That

"Contributors' Club" was a most happy idea. By the way, I think that the

man who wrote the paragraph beginning at the bottom of page 643 has said

a mighty sound and sensible thing. I wish his suggestion could be

adopted.

It is lovely of you to keep that old pipe in such a place of honor.

While it occurs to me, I must tell you Susie's last. She is sorely

badgered with dreams; and her stock dream is that she is being eaten up

by bears. She is a grave and thoughtful child, as you will remember.

Last night she had the usual dream. This morning she stood apart (after

telling it,) for some time, looking vacantly at the floor, and absorbed

in meditation. At last she looked up, and with the pathos of one who

feels he has not been dealt by with even-handed fairness, said "But

Mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the bear, but always the person."

It would not have occurred to me that there might be an advantage, even

in a dream, in occasionally being the eater, instead of always the party

eaten, but I easily perceived that her point was well taken.

I'm sending to Heidelberg for your letter and Winnie's, and I do hope

they haven't been lost.

My wife and I send love to you all.

Yrs ever,

MARK.

The Howells story, running at this time in the Atlantic, and so much

enjoyed by the Clemens party, was "The Lady of the Aroostook." The

suggestions made for enlarging the part of the "old man" are

eminently characteristic.

Mark Twain's forty-third birthday came in Munich, and in his letter

conveying this fact to his mother we get a brief added outline of

the daily life in that old Bavarian city. Certainly, it would seem

to have been a quieter and more profitable existence than he had

known amid the confusion of things left behind in, America.

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

No. 1a Karlstrasse,

Dec. 1, MUNICH. 1878.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I broke the back of life yesterday and

started down-hill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect

upon me that I can detect.

I suppose we are located here for the winter. I have a pleasant

work-room a mile from here where I do my writing. The walk to and from

that place gives me what exercise I need, and all I take. We staid three

weeks in Venice, a week in Florence, a fortnight in Rome, and arrived

here a couple of weeks ago. Livy and Miss Spaulding are studying drawing

and German, and the children have a German day-governess. I cannot see

but that the children speak German as well as they do English.

Susie often translates Livy's orders to the servants. I cannot work and

study German at the same time: so I have dropped the latter, and do not

even read the language, except in the morning paper to get the news.

We have all pretty good health, latterly, and have seldom had to call the

doctor. The children have been in the open air pretty constantly for

months now. In Venice they were on the water in the gondola most of the

time, and were great friends with our gondolier; and in Rome and Florence

they had long daily tramps, for Rosa is a famous hand to smell out the

sights of a strange place. Here they wander less extensively.

The family all join in love to you all and to Orion and Mollie.

Affly

Your son

SAM.

XIX.

LETTERS 1879. RETURN TO AMERICA. THE GREAT GRANT REUNION

Life went on very well in Munich. Each day the family fell more in love

with Fraulein Dahlweiner and her house.

Mark Twain, however, did not settle down to his work readily. His

"pleasant work-room" provided exercise, but no inspiration. When he

discovered he could not find his Swiss note-book he was ready to give up

his travel-writing altogether. In the letter that follows we find him

much less enthusiastic concerning his own performances than over the

story by Howells, which he was following in the Atlantic.

The "detective" chapter mentioned in this letter was not included in

'A Tramp Abroad.' It was published separately, as 'The Stolen White

Elephant' in a volume bearing that title. The play, which he had now

found "dreadfully witless and flat," was no other than "Simon Wheeler,

Detective," which he had once regarded so highly. The "Stewart" referred

to was the millionaire merchant, A. T. Stewart, whose body was stolen in

the expectation of reward.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

MUNICH, Jan. 21, (1879)

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It's no use, your letter miscarried in some way and is

lost. The consul has made a thorough search and says he has not been

able to trace it. It is unaccountable, for all the letters I did not

want arrived without a single grateful failure. Well, I have read-up,

now, as far as you have got, that is, to where there's a storm at sea

approaching,--and we three think you are clear, out-Howellsing Howells.

If your literature has not struck perfection now we are not able to see

what is lacking. It is all such truth--truth to the life; every where

your pen falls it leaves a photograph. I did imagine that everything had

been said about life at sea that could be said, but no matter, it was all

a failure and lies, nothing but lies with a thin varnish of fact,--only

you have stated it as it absolutely is. And only you see people and

their ways, and their insides and outsides as they are, and make them

talk as they do talk. I think you are the very greatest artist in these

tremendous mysteries that ever lived. There doesn't seem to be anything

that can be concealed from your awful all-seeing eye. It must be a

cheerful thing for one to live with you and be aware that you are going

up and down in him like another conscience all the time. Possibly you

will not be a fully accepted classic until you have been dead a hundred

years,--it is the fate of the Shakespeares and of all genuine prophets,

--but then your books will be as common as Bibles, I believe. You're not

a weed, but an oak; not a summer-house, but a cathedral. In that day I

shall still be in the Cyclopedias, too, thus: "Mark Twain; history and

occupation unknown--but he was personally acquainted with Howells."

There--I could sing your praises all day, and feel and believe every bit

of it.

My book is half finished; I wish to heaven it was done. I have given up

writing a detective novel--can't write a novel, for I lack the faculty;

but when the detectives were nosing around after Stewart's loud remains,

I threw a chapter into my present book in which I have very extravagantly

burlesqued the detective business--if it is possible to burlesque that

business extravagantly. You know I was going to send you that detective

play, so that you could re-write it. Well I didn't do it because I

couldn't find a single idea in it that could be useful to you. It was

dreadfully witless and flat. I knew it would sadden you and unfit you

for work.

I have always been sorry we threw up that play embodying Orion which you

began. It was a mistake to do that. Do keep that MS and tackle it

again. It will work out all right; you will see. I don't believe that

that character exists in literature in so well-developed a condition as

it exists in Orion's person. Now won't you put Orion in a story? Then

he will go handsomely into a play afterwards. How deliciously you could

paint him--it would make fascinating reading--the sort that makes a

reader laugh and cry at the same time, for Orion is as good and

ridiculous a soul as ever was.

Ah, to think of Bayard Taylor! It is too sad to talk about. I was so

glad there was not a single sting and so many good praiseful words in the

Atlantic's criticism of Deukalion.

Love to you all

Yrs Ever

MARK

We remain here till middle of March.

In 'A Tramp Abroad' there is an incident in which the author

describes himself as hunting for a lost sock in the dark, in a vast

hotel bedroom at Heilbronn. The account of the real incident, as

written to Twichell, seems even more amusing.

The "Yarn About the Limburger Cheese and the Box of Guns," like "The

Stolen White Elephant," did not find place in the travel-book, but

was published in the same volume with the elephant story, added to

the rambling notes of "An Idle Excursion."

With the discovery of the Swiss note-book, work with Mark Twain was

going better. His letter reflects his enthusiasm.

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

MUNICH, Jan 26 '79.

DEAR OLD JOE,--Sunday. Your delicious letter arrived exactly at the

right time. It was laid by my plate as I was finishing breakfast at 12

noon. Livy and Clara, (Spaulding) arrived from church 5 minutes later;

I took a pipe and spread myself out on the sofa, and Livy sat by and

read, and I warmed to that butcher the moment he began to swear. There

is more than one way of praying, and I like the butcher's way because the

petitioner is so apt to be in earnest. I was peculiarly alive to his

performance just at this time, for another reason, to wit: Last night I

awoke at 3 this morning, and after raging to my self for 2 interminable

hours, I gave it up. I rose, assumed a catlike stealthiness, to keep

from waking Livy, and proceeded to dress in the pitch dark. Slowly but

surely I got on garment after garment--all down to one sock; I had one

slipper on and the other in my hand. Well, on my hands and knees I crept

softly around, pawing and feeling and scooping along the carpet, and

among chair-legs for that missing sock; I kept that up; and still kept it

up and kept it up. At first I only said to myself, "Blame that sock,"

but that soon ceased to answer; my expletives grew steadily stronger and

stronger,--and at last, when I found I was lost, I had to sit flat down

on the floor and take hold of something to keep from lifting the roof off

with the profane explosion that was trying to get out of me. I could see

the dim blur of the window, but of course it was in the wrong place and

could give me no information as to where I was. But I had one comfort

--I had not waked Livy; I believed I could find that sock in silence if

the night lasted long enough. So I started again and softly pawed all

over the place,--and sure enough at the end of half an hour I laid my

hand on the missing article. I rose joyfully up and butted the wash-bowl

and pitcher off the stand and simply raised----so to speak. Livy

screamed, then said, "Who is that? what is the matter?" I said "There

ain't anything the matter--I'm hunting for my sock." She said, "Are you

hunting for it with a club?"

I went in the parlor and lit the lamp, and gradually the fury subsided

and the ridiculous features of the thing began to suggest themselves.

So I lay on the sofa, with note-book and pencil, and transferred the

adventure to our big room in the hotel at Heilbronn, and got it on paper

a good deal to my satisfaction.

I found the Swiss note-book, some time ago. When it was first lost I was

glad of it, for I was getting an idea that I had lost my faculty of

writing sketches of travel; therefore the loss of that note-book would

render the writing of this one simply impossible, and let me gracefully

out; I was about to write to Bliss and propose some other book, when the

confounded thing turned up, and down went my heart into my boots. But

there was now no excuse, so I went solidly to work--tore up a great part

of the MS written in Heidelberg,--wrote and tore up,--continued to write

and tear up,--and at last, reward of patient and noble persistence, my

pen got the old swing again!

Since then I'm glad Providence knew better what to do with the Swiss

note-book than I did, for I like my work, now, exceedingly, and often

turn out over 30 MS pages a day and then quit sorry that Heaven makes the

days so short.

One of my discouragements had been the belief that my interest in this

tour had been so slender that I couldn't gouge matter enough out of it to

make a book. What a mistake. I've got 900 pages written (not a word in

it about the sea voyage) yet I stepped my foot out of Heidelberg for the

first time yesterday,--and then only to take our party of four on our

first pedestrian tour--to Heilbronn. I've got them dressed elaborately

in walking costume--knapsacks, canteens, field-glasses, leather leggings,

patent walking shoes, muslin folds around their hats, with long tails

hanging down behind, sun umbrellas, and Alpenstocks. They go all the way

to Wimpfen by rail-thence to Heilbronn in a chance vegetable cart drawn

by a donkey and a cow; I shall fetch them home on a raft; and if other

people shall perceive that that was no pedestrian excursion, they

themselves shall not be conscious of it.--This trip will take 100 pages

or more,--oh, goodness knows how many! for the mood is everything, not

the material, and I already seem to see 300 pages rising before me on

that trip. Then, I propose to leave Heidelberg for good. Don't you see,

the book (1800 MS pages,) may really be finished before I ever get to

Switzerland?

But there's one thing; I want to tell Frank Bliss and his father to be

charitable toward me in,--that is, let me tear up all the MS I want to,

and give me time to write more. I shan't waste the time--I haven't the

slightest desire to loaf, but a consuming desire to work, ever since I

got back my swing. And you see this book is either going to be compared

with the Innocents Abroad, or contrasted with it, to my disadvantage.

I think I can make a book that will be no dead corpse of a thing and I

mean to do my level best to accomplish that.

My crude plans are crystalizing. As the thing stands now, I went to

Europe for three purposes. The first you know, and must keep secret,

even from the Blisses; the second is to study Art; and the third to

acquire a critical knowledge of the German language. My MS already shows

that the two latter objects are accomplished. It shows that I am moving

about as an Artist and a Philologist, and unaware that there is any

immodesty in assuming these titles. Having three definite objects has

had the effect of seeming to enlarge my domain and give me the freedom of

a loose costume. It is three strings to my bow, too.

Well, your butcher is magnificent. He won't stay out of my mind.--I keep

trying to think of some way of getting your account of him into my book

without his being offended--and yet confound him there isn't anything you

have said which he would see any offense in,--I'm only thinking of his

friends--they are the parties who busy themselves with seeing things for

people. But I'm bound to have him in. I'm putting in the yarn about the

Limburger cheese and the box of guns, too--mighty glad Howells declined

it. It seems to gather richness and flavor with age. I have very nearly

killed several companies with that narrative,--the American Artists Club,

here, for instance, and Smith and wife and Miss Griffith (they were here

in this house a week or two.) I've got other chapters that pretty nearly

destroyed the same parties, too.

O, Switzerland! the further it recedes into the enriching haze of time,

the more intolerably delicious the charm of it and the cheer of it and

the glory and majesty and solemnity and pathos of it grow. Those

mountains had a soul; they thought; they spoke,--one couldn't hear it

with the ears of the body, but what a voice it was!--and how real. Deep

down in my memory it is sounding yet. Alp calleth unto Alp!--that

stately old Scriptural wording is the right one for God's Alps and God's

ocean. How puny we were in that awful presence--and how painless it was

to be so; how fitting and right it seemed, and how stingless was the

sense of our unspeakable insignificance. And Lord how pervading were the

repose and peace and blessedness that poured out of the heart of the

invisible Great Spirit of the Mountains.

Now what is it? There are mountains and mountains and mountains in this

world--but only these take you by the heart-strings. I wonder what the

secret of it is. Well, time and time again it has seemed to me that I

must drop everything and flee to Switzerland once more. It is a longing

--a deep, strong, tugging longing--that is the word. We must go again,

Joe.--October days, let us get up at dawn and breakfast at the tower. I

should like that first rate.

Livy and all of us send deluges of love to you and Harmony and all the

children. I dreamed last night that I woke up in the library at home and

your children were frolicing around me and Julia was sitting in my lap;

you and Harmony and both families of Warners had finished their welcomes

and were filing out through the conservatory door, wrecking Patrick's

flower pots with their dress skirts as they went. Peace and plenty abide

with you all!

MARK.

I want the Blisses to know their part of this letter, if possible. They

will see that my delay was not from choice.

Following the life of Mark Twain, whether through his letters or

along the sequence of detailed occurrence, we are never more than a

little while, or a little distance, from his brother Orion. In one

form or another Orion is ever present, his inquiries, his proposals,

his suggestions, his plans for improving his own fortunes, command

our attention. He was one of the most human creatures that ever

lived; indeed, his humanity excluded every form of artificiality

--everything that needs to be acquired. Talented, trusting,

child-like, carried away by the impulse of the moment, despite a

keen sense of humor he was never able to see that his latest plan

or project was not bound to succeed. Mark Twain loved him, pitied

him--also enjoyed him, especially with Howells. Orion's new plan

to lecture in the interest of religion found its way to Munich,

with the following result:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

MUNICH, Feb. 9. (1879)

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have just received this letter from Orion--take care

of it, for it is worth preserving. I got as far as 9 pages in my answer

to it, when Mrs. Clemens shut down on it, and said it was cruel, and made

me send the money and simply wish his lecture success. I said I couldn't

lose my 9 pages--so she said send them to you. But I will acknowledge

that I thought I was writing a very kind letter.

Now just look at this letter of Orion's. Did you ever see the

grotesquely absurd and the heart-breakingly pathetic more closely joined

together? Mrs. Clemens said "Raise his monthly pension." So I wrote to

Perkins to raise it a trifle.

Now only think of it! He still has 100 pages to write on his lecture,

yet in one inking of his pen he has already swooped around the United

States and invested the result!

You must put him in a book or a play right away. You are the only man

capable of doing it. You might die at any moment, and your very greatest

work would be lost to the world. I could write Orion's simple biography,

and make it effective, too, by merely stating the bald facts--and this I

will do if he dies before I do; but you must put him into romance. This

was the understanding you and I had the day I sailed.

Observe Orion's career--that is, a little of it: (1) He has belonged to

as many as five different religious denominations; last March he withdrew

from the deaconship in a Congregational Church and the Superintendency of

its Sunday School, in a speech in which he said that for many months (it

runs in my mind that he said 13 years,) he had been a confirmed infidel,

and so felt it to be his duty to retire from the flock.

2. After being a republican for years, he wanted me to buy him a

democratic newspaper. A few days before the Presidential election, he

came out in a speech and publicly went over to the democrats; he

prudently "hedged" by voting for 6 state republicans, also.

The new convert was made one of the secretaries of the democratic

meeting, and placed in the list of speakers. He wrote me jubilantly of

what a ten-strike he was going to make with that speech. All right--but

think of his innocent and pathetic candor in writing me something like

this, a week later:

"I was more diffident than I had expected to be, and this was increased

by the silence with which I was received when I came forward; so I seemed

unable to get the fire into my speech which I had calculated upon, and

presently they began to get up and go out; and in a few minutes they all

rose up and went away."

How could a man uncover such a sore as that and show it to another? Not

a word of complaint, you see--only a patient, sad surprise.

3. His next project was to write a burlesque upon Paradise Lost.

4. Then, learning that the Times was paying Harte $100 a column for

stories, he concluded to write some for the same price. I read his first

one and persuaded him not to write any more.

5. Then he read proof on the N. Y. Eve. Post at $10 a week and meekly

observed that the foreman swore at him and ordered him around "like a

steamboat mate."

6. Being discharged from that post, he wanted to try agriculture--was

sure he could make a fortune out of a chicken farm. I gave him $900 and

he went to a ten-house village a miles above Keokuk on the river bank

--this place was a railway station. He soon asked for money to buy a

horse and light wagon,--because the trains did not run at church time on

Sunday and his wife found it rather far to walk.

For a long time I answered demands for "loans" and by next mail always

received his check for the interest due me to date. In the most

guileless way he let it leak out that he did not underestimate the value

of his custom to me, since it was not likely that any other customer of

mine paid his interest quarterly, and this enabled me to use my capital

twice in 6 months instead of only once. But alas, when the debt at last

reached $1800 or $2500 (I have forgotten which) the interest ate too

formidably into his borrowings, and so he quietly ceased to pay it or

speak of it. At the end of two years I found that the chicken farm had

long ago been abandoned, and he had moved into Keokuk. Later in one of

his casual moments, he observed that there was no money in fattening a

chicken on 65 cents worth of corn and then selling it for 50.

7. Finally, if I would lend him $500 a year for two years, (this was 4

or 5 years ago,) he knew he could make a success as a lawyer, and would

prove it. This is the pension which we have just increased to $600. The

first year his legal business brought him $5. It also brought him an

unremunerative case where some villains were trying to chouse some negro

orphans out of $700. He still has this case. He has waggled it around

through various courts and made some booming speeches on it. The negro

children have grown up and married off, now, I believe, and their

litigated town-lot has been dug up and carted off by somebody--but Orion

still infests the courts with his documents and makes the welkin ring

with his venerable case. The second year, he didn't make anything. The

third he made $6, and I made Bliss put a case in his hands--about half an

hour's work. Orion charged $50 for it--Bliss paid him $15. Thus four or

five years of slaving has brought him $26, but this will doubtless be

increased when he gets done lecturing and buys that "law library."

Meantime his office rent has been $60 a year, and he has stuck to that

lair day by day as patiently as a spider.

8. Then he by and by conceived the idea of lecturing around America as

"Mark Twain's Brother"--that to be on the bills. Subject of proposed

lecture, "On the, Formation of Character."

9. I protested, and he got on his warpaint, couched his lance, and ran a

bold tilt against total abstinence and the Red Ribbon fanatics. It

raised a fine row among the virtuous Keokukians.

10. I wrote to encourage him in his good work, but I had let a mail

intervene; so by the time my letter reached him he was already winning

laurels as a Red Ribbon Howler.

11. Afterward he took a rabid part in a prayer-meeting epidemic; dropped

that to travesty Jules Verne; dropped that, in the middle of the last

chapter, last March, to digest the matter of an infidel book which he

proposed to write; and now he comes to the surface to rescue our "noble

and beautiful religion" from the sacrilegious talons of Bob Ingersoll.

Now come! Don't fool away this treasure which Providence has laid at

your feet, but take it up and use it. One can let his imagination run

riot in portraying Orion, for there is nothing so extravagant as to be

out of character with him.

Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old

Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?

Yrs ever,

MARK.

To Orion Clemens

(Unsent and inclosed with the foregoing, to W. D. Howells):

MUNICH, Feb. 9, (1879)

MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours has just arrived. I enclose a draft on Hartford for

$25. You will have abandoned the project you wanted it for, by the time

it arrives,--but no matter, apply it to your newer and present project,

whatever it is. You see I have an ineradicable faith in your

unsteadfastness,--but mind you, I didn't invent that faith, you conferred

it on me yourself. But fire away, fire away! I don't see why a

changeable man shouldn't get as much enjoyment out of his changes, and

transformations and transfigurations as a steadfast man gets out of

standing still and pegging at the same old monotonous thing all the time.

That is to say, I don't see why a kaleidoscope shouldn't enjoy itself as

much as a telescope, nor a grindstone have as good a time as a whetstone,

nor a barometer as good a time as a yardstick. I don't feel like girding

at you any more about fickleness of purpose, because I recognize and

realize at last that it is incurable; but before I learned to accept this

truth, each new weekly project of yours possessed the power of throwing

me into the most exhausting and helpless convulsions of profanity. But

fire away, now! Your magic has lost its might. I am able to view your

inspirations dispassionately and judicially, now, and say "This one or

that one or the other one is not up to your average flight, or is above

it, or below it."

And so, without passion, or prejudice, or bias of any kind, I sit in

judgment upon your lecture project, and say it was up to your average,

it was indeed above it, for it had possibilities in it, and even

practical ones. While I was not sorry you abandoned it, I should not be

sorry if you had stuck to it and given it a trial. But on the whole you

did the wise thing to lay it aside, I think, because a lecture is a most

easy thing to fail in; and at your time of life, and in your own town,

such a failure would make a deep and cruel wound in your heart and in

your pride. It was decidedly unwise in you to think for a moment of

coming before a community who knew you, with such a course of lectures;

because Keokuk is not unaware that you have been a Swedenborgian, a

Presbyterian, a Congregationalist, and a Methodist (on probation), and

that just a year ago you were an infidel. If Keokuk had gone to your

lecture course, it would have gone to be amused, not instructed, for when

a man is known to have no settled convictions of his own he can't

convince other people. They would have gone to be amused and that would

have been a deep humiliation to you. It could have been safe for you to

appear only where you were unknown--then many of your hearers would think

you were in earnest. And they would be right. You are in earnest while

your convictions are new. But taking it by and large, you probably did

best to discard that project altogether. But I leave you to judge of

that, for you are the worst judge I know of.

(Unfinished.)

That Mark Twain in many ways was hardly less child-like than his

brother is now and again revealed in his letters. He was of

steadfast purpose, and he possessed the driving power which Orion

Clemens lacked; but the importance to him of some of the smaller

matters of life, as shown in a letter like the following, bespeaks a

certain simplicity of nature which he never outgrew:

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

MUNICH, Feb. 24. (1879)

DEAR OLD JOE,--It was a mighty good letter, Joe--and that idea of yours

is a rattling good one. But I have not sot down here to answer your

letter,--for it is down at my study,--but only to impart some

information.

For a months I had not shaved without crying. I'd spend 3/4 of an hour

whetting away on my hand--no use, couldn't get an edge. Tried a razor

strop-same result. So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the

mystery. Then it seemed plain--to wit: my hand can't give a razor an

edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given.

I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V--the long point

being the continuation of the edge--and that after much use the shape is

this V--the attenuated edge all worn off and gone. By George I knew that

was the explanation. And I knew that a freshly honed and freshly

strapped razor won't cut, but after strapping on the hand as a final

operation, it will cut.--So I sent out for an oil-stone; none to be had,

but messenger brought back a little piece of rock the size of a

Safety-match box--(it was bought in a shoemaker's shop) bad flaw in

middle of it, too, but I put 4 drops of fine Olive oil on it, picked out

the razor marked "Thursday" because it was never any account and would be

no loss if I spoiled it--gave it a brisk and reckless honing for 10

minutes, then tried it on a hair--it wouldn't cut. Then I trotted it

through a vigorous 20-minute course on a razor-strap and tried it on a

hair-it wouldn't cut--tried it on my face--it made me cry--gave it a

5-minute stropping on my hand, and my land, what an edge she had!

We thought we knew what sharp razors were when we were tramping in

Switzerland, but it was a mistake--they were dull beside this old

Thursday razor of mine--which I mean to name Thursday October Christian,

in gratitude. I took my whetstone, and in 20 minutes I put two more of

my razors in splendid condition--but I leave them in the box--I never use

any but Thursday O. C., and shan't till its edge is gone--and then I'll

know how to restore it without any delay.

We all go to Paris next Thursday--address, Monroe & Co., Bankers.

With love

Ys Ever

MARK.

In Paris they found pleasant quarters at the Hotel Normandy, but it

was a chilly, rainy spring, and the travelers gained a rather poor

impression of the French capital. Mark Twain's work did not go

well, at first, because of the noises of the street. But then he

found a quieter corner in the hotel and made better progress. In a

brief note to Aldrich he said: "I sleep like a lamb and write like a

lion--I mean the kind of a lion that writes--if any such." He

expected to finish the book in six weeks; that is to say, before

returning to America. He was looking after its illustrations

himself, and a letter to Frank Bliss, of The American Publishing

Company, refers to the frontpiece, which, from time to time, has

caused question as to its origin. To Bliss he says: "It is a thing

which I manufactured by pasting a popular comic picture into the

middle of a celebrated Biblical one--shall attribute it to Titian.

It needs to be engraved by a master."

The weather continued bad in France and they left there in July to

find it little better in England. They had planned a journey to

Scotland to visit Doctor Brown, whose health was not very good. In

after years Mark Twain blamed himself harshly for not making the

trip, which he declared would have meant so much to Mrs. Clemens.

He had forgotten by that time the real reasons for not going--the

continued storms and uncertainty of trains (which made it barely

possible for them to reach Liverpool in time for their

sailing-date), and with characteristic self-reproach vowed that

only perversity and obstinacy on his part had prevented the journey

to Scotland. From Liverpool, on the eve of sailing, he sent Doctor

Brown a good-by word.

To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:

WASHINGTON HOTEL, LIME STREET, LIVERPOOL.

Aug. (1879)

MY DEAR MR. BROWN,--During all the 15 months we have been spending on the

continent, we have been promising ourselves a sight of you as our latest

and most prized delight in a foreign land--but our hope has failed, our

plan has miscarried. One obstruction after another intruded itself, and

our short sojourn of three or four weeks on English soil was thus

frittered gradually away, and we were at last obliged to give up the idea

of seeing you at all. It is a great disappointment, for we wanted to

show you how much "Megalopis" has grown (she is 7 now) and what a fine

creature her sister is, and how prettily they both speak German. There

are six persons in my party, and they are as difficult to cart around as

nearly any other menagerie would be. My wife and Miss Spaulding are

along, and you may imagine how they take to heart this failure of our

long promised Edinburgh trip. We never even wrote you, because we were

always so sure, from day to day, that our affairs would finally so shape

themselves as to let us get to Scotland. But no,--everything went wrong

we had only flying trips here and there in place of the leisurely ones

which we had planned.

We arrived in Liverpool an hour ago very tired, and have halted at this

hotel (by the advice of misguided friends)--and if my instinct and

experience are worth anything, it is the very worst hotel on earth,

without any exception. We shall move to another hotel early in the

morning to spend to-morrow. We sail for America next day in the

"Gallic."

We all join in the sincerest love to you, and in the kindest remembrance

to "Jock"--[Son of Doctor Brown.]--and your sister.

Truly yours,

S. L. CLEMENS.

It was September 3, 1879, that Mark Twain returned to America by the

steamer Gallic. In the seventeen months of his absence he had taken

on a "traveled look" and had added gray hairs. A New York paper

said of his arrival that he looked older than when he went to

Germany, and that his hair had turned quite gray.

Mark Twain had not finished his book of travel in Paris--in fact,

it seemed to him far from complete--and he settled down rather

grimly to work on it at Quarry Farm. When, after a few days no word

of greeting came from Howells, Clemens wrote to ask if he were dead

or only sleeping. Howells hastily sent a line to say that he had

been sleeping "The sleep of a torpid conscience. I will feign that

I did not know where to write you; but I love you and all of yours,

and I am tremendously glad that you are home again. When and where

shall we meet? Have you come home with your pockets full of

Atlantic papers?" Clemens, toiling away at his book, was, as usual,

not without the prospect of other plans. Orion, as literary

material, never failed to excite him.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Sept. 15, 1879.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--When and where? Here on the farm would be an elegant

place to meet, but of course you cannot come so far. So we will say

Hartford or Belmont, about the beginning of November. The date of our

return to Hartford is uncertain, but will be three or four weeks hence,

I judge. I hope to finish my book here before migrating.

I think maybe I've got some Atlantic stuff in my head, but there's none

in MS, I believe.

Say--a friend of mine wants to write a play with me, I to furnish the

broad-comedy cuss. I don't know anything about his ability, but his

letter serves to remind me of our old projects. If you haven't used

Orion or Old Wakeman, don't you think you and I can get together and

grind out a play with one of those fellows in it? Orion is a field which

grows richer and richer the more he mulches it with each new top-dressing

of religion or other guano. Drop me an immediate line about this, won't

you? I imagine I see Orion on the stage, always gentle, always

melancholy, always changing his politics and religion, and trying to

reform the world, always inventing something, and losing a limb by a new

kind of explosion at the end of each of the four acts. Poor old chap,

he is good material. I can imagine his wife or his sweetheart

reluctantly adopting each of his new religious in turn, just in time to

see him waltz into the next one and leave her isolated once more.

(Mem. Orion's wife has followed him into the outer darkness, after 30

years' rabid membership in the Presbyterian Church.)

Well, with the sincerest and most abounding love to you and yours, from

all this family, I am,

Yrs ever

MARK.

The idea of the play interested Howells, but he had twinges of

conscience in the matter of using Orion as material. He wrote:

"More than once I have taken the skeleton of that comedy of ours and

viewed it with tears..... I really have a compunction or two about

helping to put your brother into drama. You can say that he is your

brother, to do what you like with him, but the alien hand might

inflict an incurable hurt on his tender heart."

As a matter of fact, Orion Clemens had a keen appreciation of his

own shortcomings, and would have enjoyed himself in a play as much

as any observer of it. Indeed, it is more than likely that he would

have been pleased at the thought of such distinguished

dramatization. From the next letter one might almost conclude that

he had received a hint of this plan, and was bent upon supplying

rich material.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Oct. 9 '79.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Since my return, the mail facilities have enabled Orion

to keep me informed as to his intentions. Twenty-eight days ago it was

his purpose to complete a work aimed at religion, the preface to which he

had already written. Afterward he began to sell off his furniture, with

the idea of hurrying to Leadville and tackling silver-mining--threw up

his law den and took in his sign. Then he wrote to Chicago and St. Louis

newspapers asking for a situation as "paragrapher"--enclosing a taste of

his quality in the shape of two stanzas of "humorous rhymes." By a later

mail on the same day he applied to New York and Hartford insurance

companies for copying to do.

However, it would take too long to detail all his projects. They

comprise a removal to south-west Missouri; application for a reporter's

berth on a Keokuk paper; application for a compositor's berth on a St.

Louis paper; a re-hanging of his attorney's sign, "though it only creaks

and catches no flies;" but last night's letter informs me that he has

retackled the religious question, hired a distant den to write in,

applied to my mother for $50 to re-buy his furniture, which has advanced

in value since the sale--purposes buying $25 worth of books necessary to

his labors which he had previously been borrowing, and his first chapter

is already on its way to me for my decision as to whether it has enough

ungodliness in it or not. Poor Orion!

Your letter struck me while I was meditating a project to beguile you,

and John Hay and Joe Twichell, into a descent upon Chicago which I dream

of making, to witness the re-union of the great Commanders of the Western

Army Corps on the 9th of next month. My sluggish soul needs a fierce

upstirring, and if it would not get it when Grant enters the meeting

place I must doubtless "lay" for the final resurrection. Can you and Hay

go? At the same time, confound it, I doubt if I can go myself, for this

book isn't done yet. But I would give a heap to be there. I mean to

heave some holiness into the Hartford primaries when I go back; and if

there was a solitary office in the land which majestic ignorance and

incapacity, coupled with purity of heart, could fill, I would run for it.

This naturally reminds me of Bret Harte--but let him pass.

We propose to leave here for New York Oct. 21, reaching Hartford 24th or

25th. If, upon reflection, you Howellses find, you can stop over here on

your way, I wish you would do it, and telegraph me. Getting pretty

hungry to see you. I had an idea that this was your shortest way home,

but like as not my geography is crippled again--it usually is.

Yrs ever

MARK.

The "Reunion of the Great Commanders," mentioned in the foregoing,

was a welcome to General Grant after his journey around the world.

Grant's trip had been one continuous ovation--a triumphal march.

In '79 most of his old commanders were still alive, and they had

planned to assemble in Chicago to do him honor. A Presidential year

was coming on, but if there was anything political in the project

there were no surface indications. Mark Twain, once a Confederate

soldier, had long since been completely "desouthernized"--at least

to the point where he felt that the sight of old comrades paying

tribute to the Union commander would stir his blood as perhaps it

had not been stirred, even in that earlier time, when that same

commander had chased him through the Missouri swamps. Grant,

indeed, had long since become a hero to Mark Twain, though it is

highly unlikely that Clemens favored the idea of a third term. Some

days following the preceding letter an invitation came for him to be

present at the Chicago reunion; but by this time he had decided not

to go. The letter he wrote has been preserved.

To Gen. William E. Strong, in Chicago:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD.

Oct. 28, 1879.

GEN. WM. E. STRONG, CH'M,

AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:

I have been hoping during several weeks that it might be my good fortune

to receive an invitation to be present on that great occasion in Chicago;

but now that my desire is accomplished my business matters have so shaped

themselves as to bar me from being so far from home in the first half of

November. It is with supreme regret that I lost this chance, for I have

not had a thorough stirring up for some years, and I judged that if I

could be in the banqueting hall and see and hear the veterans of the Army

of the Tennessee at the moment that their old commander entered the room,

or rose in his place to speak, my system would get the kind of upheaval

it needs. General Grant's progress across the continent is of the

marvelous nature of the returning Napoleon's progress from Grenoble to

Paris; and as the crowning spectacle in the one case was the meeting with

the Old Guard, so, likewise, the crowning spectacle in the other will be

our great captain's meeting with his Old Guard--and that is the very

climax which I wanted to witness.

Besides, I wanted to see the General again, any way, and renew the

acquaintance. He would remember me, because I was the person who did not

ask him for an office. However, I consume your time, and also wander

from the point--which is, to thank you for the courtesy of your

invitation, and yield up my seat at the table to some other guest who may

possibly grace it better, but will certainly not appreciate its

privileges more, than I should.

With great respect,

I am, Gentlemen,

Very truly yours,

S. L. CLEMENS.

Private:--I beg to apologize for my delay, gentlemen, but the card of

invitation went to Elmira, N. Y. and hence has only just now reached me.

This letter was not sent. He reconsidered and sent an acceptance,

agreeing to speak, as the committee had requested. Certainly there

was something picturesque in the idea of the Missouri private who

had been chased for a rainy fortnight through the swamps of Ralls

County being selected now to join in welcome to his ancient enemy.

The great reunion was to be something more than a mere banquet. It

would continue for several days, with processions, great

assemblages, and much oratory.

Mark Twain arrived in Chicago in good season to see it all. Three

letters to Mrs. Clemens intimately present his experiences: his

enthusiastic enjoyment and his own personal triumph.

The first was probably written after the morning of his arrival.

The Doctor Jackson in it was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, the

guide-dismaying "Doctor" of Innocents Abroad.

To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, Nov. 11.

Livy darling, I am getting a trifle leg-weary. Dr. Jackson called and

dragged me out of bed at noon, yesterday, and then went off. I went down

stairs and was introduced to some scores of people, and among them an

elderly German gentleman named Raster, who said his wife owed her life to

me--hurt in Chicago fire and lay menaced with death a long time, but the

Innocents Abroad kept her mind in a cheerful attitude, and so, with the

doctor's help for the body she pulled through.... They drove me to Dr.

Jackson's and I had an hour's visit with Mrs. Jackson. Started to walk

down Michigan Avenue, got a few steps on my way and met an erect,

soldierly looking young gentleman who offered his hand; said, "Mr.

Clemens, I believe--I wish to introduce myself--you were pointed out to

me yesterday as I was driving down street--my name is Grant."

"Col. Fred Grant?"

"Yes. My house is not ten steps away, and I would like you to come and

have a talk and a pipe, and let me introduce my wife."

So we turned back and entered the house next to Jackson's and talked

something more than an hour and smoked many pipes and had a sociable good

time. His wife is very gentle and intelligent and pretty, and they have

a cunning little girl nearly as big as Bay but only three years old.

They wanted me to come in and spend an evening, after the banquet, with

them and Gen. Grant, after this grand pow-wow is over, but I said I was

going home Friday. Then they asked me to come Friday afternoon, when

they and the general will receive a few friends, and I said I would.

Col. Grant said he and Gen. Sherman used the Innocents Abroad as their

guide book when they were on their travels.

I stepped in next door and took Dr. Jackson to the hotel and we played

billiards from 7 to 11.30 P.M. and then went to a beer-mill to meet some

twenty Chicago journalists--talked, sang songs and made speeches till 6

o'clock this morning. Nobody got in the least degree "under the

influence," and we had a pleasant time. Read awhile in bed, slept till

11, shaved, went to breakfast at noon, and by mistake got into the

servants' hall. I remained there and breakfasted with twenty or thirty

male and female servants, though I had a table to myself.

A temporary structure, clothed and canopied with flags, has been erected

at the hotel front, and connected with the second-story windows of a

drawing-room. It was for Gen. Grant to stand on and review the

procession. Sixteen persons, besides reporters, had tickets for this

place, and a seventeenth was issued for me. I was there, looking down on

the packed and struggling crowd when Gen. Grant came forward and was

saluted by the cheers of the multitude and the waving of ladies'

handkerchiefs--for the windows and roofs of all neighboring buildings

were massed full of life. Gen. Grant bowed to the people two or three

times, then approached my side of the platform and the mayor pulled me

forward and introduced me. It was dreadfully conspicuous. The General

said a word or so--I replied, and then said, "But I'll step back,

General, I don't want to interrupt your speech."

"But I'm not going to make any--stay where you are--I'll get you to make

it for me."

General Sherman came on the platform wearing the uniform of a full

General, and you should have heard the cheers. Gen. Logan was going to

introduce me, but I didn't want any more conspicuousness.

When the head of the procession passed it was grand to see Sheridan, in

his military cloak and his plumed chapeau, sitting as erect and rigid as

a statue on his immense black horse--by far the most martial figure I

ever saw. And the crowd roared again.

It was chilly, and Gen. Deems lent me his overcoat until night. He came

a few minutes ago--5.45 P.M., and got it, but brought Gen. Willard, who

lent me his for the rest of my stay, and will get another for himself

when he goes home to dinner. Mine is much too heavy for this warm

weather.

I have a seat on the stage at Haverley's Theatre, tonight, where the Army

of the Tennessee will receive Gen. Grant, and where Gen. Sherman will

make a speech. At midnight I am to attend a meeting of the Owl Club.

I love you ever so much, my darling, and am hoping to

get a word from you yet.

SAML.

Following the procession, which he describes, came the grand

ceremonies of welcome at Haverley's Theatre. The next letter is

written the following morning, or at least soiree time the following

day, after a night of ratification.

To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

CHICAGO, Nov. 12, '79.

Livy darling, it was a great time. There were perhaps thirty people on

the stage of the theatre, and I think I never sat elbow-to-elbow with so

many historic names before. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope,

Logan, Augur, and so on. What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the

house, with his right leg crossed over his left and his right boot-sole

tilted up at an angle, and his left hand and arm reposing on the arm of

his chair--you note that position? Well, when glowing references were

made to other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed a

trifle of nervous consciousness--and as these references came frequently,

the nervous change of position and attitude were also frequent. But

Grant!--he was under a tremendous and ceaseless bombardment of praise and

gratulation, but as true as I'm sitting here he never moved a muscle of

his body for a single instant, during 30 minutes! You could have played

him on a stranger for an effigy. Perhaps he never would have moved, but

at last a speaker made such a particularly ripping and blood-stirring

remark about him that the audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped

and clapped an entire minute--Grant sitting as serene as ever--when Gen.

Sherman stepped to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder,

bent respectfully down and whispered in his ear. Gen. Grant got up and

bowed, and the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down,

took about the same position and froze to it till by and by there was

another of those deafening and protracted roars, when Sherman made him

get up and bow again. He broke up his attitude once more--the extent of

something more than a hair's breadth--to indicate me to Sherman when the

house was keeping up a determined and persistent call for me, and poor

bewildered Sherman, (who did not know me), was peering abroad over the

packed audience for me, not knowing I was only three feet from him and

most conspicuously located, (Gen. Sherman was Chairman.)

One of the most illustrious individuals on that stage was "Ole Abe," the

historic war eagle. He stood on his perch--the old savage-eyed rascal

--three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, and as he had been in nearly

every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was probably

stirred pretty often, though he was too proud to let on.

Read Logan's bosh, and try to imagine a burly and magnificent Indian, in

General's uniform, striking a heroic attitude and getting that stuff off

in the style of a declaiming school-boy.

Please put the enclosed scraps in the drawer and I will scrap-book them.

I only staid at the Owl Club till 3 this morning and drank little or

nothing. Went to sleep without whisky. Ich liebe dish.

SAML.

But it is in the third letter that we get the climax. On the same

day he wrote a letter to Howells, which, in part, is very similar in

substance and need not be included here.

A paragraph, however, must not be omitted.

"Imagine what it was like to see a bullet-shredded old battle-flag

reverently unfolded to the gaze of a thousand middle-aged soldiers,

most of whom hadn't seen it since they saw it advancing over

victorious fields, when they were in their prime. And imagine what

it was like when Grant, their first commander, stepped into view

while they were still going mad over the flag, and then right in the

midst of it all somebody struck up, 'When we were marching through

Georgia.' Well, you should have heard the thousand voices lift that

chorus and seen the tears stream down. If I live a hundred years I

shan't ever forget these things, nor be able to talk about them ....

Grand times, my boy, grand times!"

At the great banquet Mark Twain's speech had been put last on the

program, to hold the house. He had been invited to respond to the

toast of "The Ladies," but had replied that he had already responded

to that toast more than once. There was one class of the community,

he said, commonly overlooked on these occasions--the babies--he

would respond to that toast. In his letter to Howells he had not

been willing to speak freely of his personal triumph, but to Mrs.

Clemens he must tell it all, and with that child-like ingenuousness

which never failed him to his last day.

To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

CHICAGO, Nov. 14 '79.

A little after 5 in the morning.

I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable

night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born.

I heard four speeches which I can never forget. One by Emory Storrs, one

by Gen. Vilas (O, wasn't it wonderful!) one by Gen. Logan (mighty

stirring), one by somebody whose name escapes me, and one by that

splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll,--oh, it was just the supremest

combination of English words that was ever put together since the world

began. My soul, how handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in

the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from

his lips! Lord, what an organ is human speech when it is played by a

master! All these speeches may look dull in print, but how the lightning

glared around them when they were uttered, and how the crowd roared in

response! It was a great night, a memorable night. I am so richly

repaid for my journey--and how I did wish with all my whole heart that

you were there to be lifted into the very seventh heaven of enthusiasm,

as I was. The army songs, the military music, the crashing applause

--Lord bless me, it was unspeakable.

Out of compliment they placed me last in the list--No. 15--I was to "hold

the crowd"--and bless my life I was in awful terror when No. 14. rose,

at a o'clock this morning and killed all the enthusiasm by delivering the

flattest, insipidest, silliest of all responses to "Woman" that ever a

weary multitude listened to. Then Gen. Sherman (Chairman) announced my

toast, and the crowd gave me a good round of applause as I mounted on top

of the dinner table, but it was only on account of my name, nothing more

--they were all tired and wretched. They let my first sentence go in.

silence, till I paused and added "we stand on common ground"--then they

burst forth like a hurricane and I saw that I had them! From that time

on, I stopped at the end of each sentence, and let the tornado of

applause and laughter sweep around me--and when I closed with "And if the

child is but the prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt

that he succeeded," I say it who oughtn't to say it, the house came down

with a crash. For two hours and a half, now, I've been shaking hands and

listening to congratulations. Gen. Sherman said, "Lord bless you, my

boy, I don't know how you do it--it's a secret that's beyond me--but it

was great--give me your hand again."

And do you know, Gen. Grant sat through fourteen speeches like a graven

image, but I fetched him! I broke him up, utterly! He told me he

laughed till the tears came and every bone in his body ached. (And do

you know, the biggest part of the success of the speech lay in the fact

that the audience saw that for once in his life he had been knocked out

of his iron serenity.)

Bless your soul, 'twas immense. I never was so proud in my life. Lots

and lots of people--hundreds I might say--told me my speech was the

triumph of the evening--which was a lie. Ladies, Tom, Dick and Harry

--even the policemen--captured me in the halls and shook hands, and

scores of army officers said "We shall always be grateful to you for

coming." General Pope came to bunt me up--I was afraid to speak to him on

that theatre stage last night, thinking it might be presumptuous to

tackle a man so high up in military history. Gen. Schofield, and other

historic men, paid their compliments. Sheridan was ill and could not

come, but I'm to go with a General of his staff and see him before I go

to Col. Grant's. Gen. Augur--well, I've talked with them all, received

invitations from them all--from people living everywhere--and as I said

before, it's a memorable night. I wouldn't have missed it for anything

in the world.

But my sakes, you should have heard Ingersoll's speech on that table!

Half an hour ago he ran across me in the crowded halls and put his arms

about me and said "Mark, if I live a hundred years, I'll always be

grateful for your speech--Lord what a supreme thing it was." But I told

him it wasn't any use to talk, he had walked off with the honors of that

occasion by something of a majority. Bully boy is Ingersoll--traveled

with him in the cars the other day, and you can make up your mind we had

a good time.

Of course I forgot to go and pay for my hotel car and so secure it, but

the army officers told me an hour ago to rest easy, they would go at

once, at this unholy hour of the night and compel the railways to do

their duty by me, and said "You don't need to request the Army of the

Tennessee to do your desires--you can command its services."

Well, I bummed around that banquet hall from 8 in the evening till 2 in

the morning, talking with people and listening to speeches, and I never

ate a single bite or took a sup of anything but ice water, so if I seem

excited now, it is the intoxication of supreme enthusiasm. By George, it

was a grand night, a historical night.

And now it is a quarter past 6 A.M.--so good bye and God bless you and

the Bays,--[Family word for babies]--my darlings

SAML.

Show it to Joe if you want to--I saw some of his friends here.

Mark Twain's admiration for Robert Ingersoll was very great, and we may

believe that he was deeply impressed by the Chicago speech, when we find

him, a few days later, writing to Ingersoll for a perfect copy to read to

a young girls' club in Hartford. Ingersoll sent the speech, also some of

his books, and the next letter is Mark Twain's acknowledgment.

To Col. Robert G. Ingersoll:

HARTFORD, Dec. 14.

MY DEAR INGERSOLL,--Thank you most heartily for the books--I am devouring

them--they have found a hungry place, and they content it and satisfy it

to a miracle. I wish I could hear you speak these splendid chapters

before a great audience--to read them by myself and hear the boom of the

applause only in the ear of my imagination, leaves a something wanting

--and there is also a still greater lack, your manner, and voice, and

presence.

The Chicago speech arrived an hour too late, but I was all right anyway,

for I found that my memory had been able to correct all the errors.

I read it to the Saturday Club (of young girls) and told them to remember

that it was doubtful if its superior existed in our language.

Truly Yours,

S. L. CLEMENS.

The reader may remember Mark Twain's Whittier dinner speech of 1877,

and its disastrous effects. Now, in 1879, there was to be another

Atlantic gathering: a breakfast to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to

which Clemens was invited. He was not eager to accept; it would

naturally recall memories of two years before, but being urged by

both Howells and Warner, he agreed to attend if they would permit

him to speak. Mark Twain never lacked courage and he wanted to

redeem himself. To Howells he wrote:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Nov. 28, 1879.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If anybody talks, there, I shall claim the right to say

a word myself, and be heard among the very earliest--else it would be

confoundedly awkward for me--and for the rest, too. But you may read

what I say, beforehand, and strike out whatever you choose.

Of course I thought it wisest not to be there at all; but Warner took the

opposite view, and most strenuously.

Speaking of Johnny's conclusion to become an outlaw, reminds me of

Susie's newest and very earnest longing--to have crooked teeth and

glasses--"like Mamma."

I would like to look into a child's head, once, and see what its

processes are.

Yrs ever,

S. L. CLEMENS.

The matter turned out well. Clemens, once more introduced by

Howells--this time conservatively, it may be said--delivered a

delicate and fitting tribute to Doctor Holmes, full of graceful

humor and grateful acknowledgment, the kind of speech he should have

given at the Whittier dinner of two years before. No reference was

made to his former disaster, and this time he came away covered with

glory, and fully restored in his self-respect.

XX.

LETTERS OF 1880, CHIEFLY TO HOWELLS. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER." MARK

TWAIN MUGWUMP SOCIETY

The book of travel,--[A Tramp Abroad.]--which Mark Twain had hoped to

finish in Paris, and later in Elmira, for some reason would not come to

an end. In December, in Hartford, he was still working on it, and he

would seem to have finished it, at last, rather by a decree than by any

natural process of authorship. This was early in January, 1880. To

Howells he reports his difficulties, and his drastic method of ending

them.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Jan. 8, '80.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Am waiting for Patrick to come with the carriage.

Mrs. Clemens and I are starting (without the children) to stay

indefinitely in Elmira. The wear and tear of settling the house broke

her down, and she has been growing weaker and weaker for a fortnight.

All that time--in fact ever since I saw you--I have been fighting a

life-and-death battle with this infernal book and hoping to get done some

day. I required 300 pages of MS, and I have written near 600 since I saw

you--and tore it all up except 288. This I was about to tear up

yesterday and begin again, when Mrs. Perkins came up to the billiard room

and said, "You will never get any woman to do the thing necessary to save

her life by mere persuasion; you see you have wasted your words for three

weeks; it is time to use force; she must have a change; take her home and

leave the children here."

I said, "If there is one death that is painfuller than another, may I get

it if I don't do that thing."

So I took the 288 pages to Bliss and told him that was the very last line

I should ever write on this book. (A book which required 2600 pages of

MS, and I have written nearer four thousand, first and last.)

I am as soary (and flighty) as a rocket, to-day, with the unutterable joy

of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been

roosting for more than a year and a half. Next time I make a contract

before writing the book, may I suffer the righteous penalty and be burnt,

like the injudicious believer.

I am mighty glad you are done your book (this is from a man who, above

all others, feels how much that sentence means) and am also mighty glad

you have begun the next (this is also from a man who knows the felicity

of that, and means straightway to enjoy it.) The Undiscovered starts off

delightfully--I have read it aloud to Mrs. C. and we vastly enjoyed it.

Well, time's about up--must drop a line to Aldrich.

Yrs ever,

MARK.

In a letter which Mark Twain wrote to his brother Orion at this

period we get the first hint of a venture which was to play an

increasingly important part in the Hartford home and fortunes during

the next ten or a dozen years. This was the type-setting machine

investment, which, in the end, all but wrecked Mark Twain's

finances. There is but a brief mention of it in the letter to

Orion, and the letter itself is not worth preserving, but as

references to the "machine" appear with increasing frequency, it

seems proper to record here its first mention. In the same letter

he suggests to his brother that he undertake an absolutely truthful

autobiography, a confession in which nothing is to be withheld. He

cites the value of Casanova's memories, and the confessions of

Rousseau. Of course, any literary suggestion from "Brother Sam" was

gospel to Orion, who began at once piling up manuscript at a great

rate.

Meantime, Mark Twain himself, having got 'A Tramp Abroad' on the

presses, was at work with enthusiasm on a story begun nearly three

years before at Quarry Farm-a story for children-its name, as he

called it then, "The Little Prince and The Little Pauper." He was

presently writing to Howells his delight in the new work.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Mch. 11, '80.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....I take so much pleasure in my story that I am loth

to hurry, not wanting to get it done. Did I ever tell you the plot of

it? It begins at 9 a.m., Jan. 27, 1547, seventeen and a half hours

before Henry VIII's death, by the swapping of clothes and place, between

the prince of Wales and a pauper boy of the same age and countenance (and

half as much learning and still more genius and imagination) and after

that, the rightful small King has a rough time among tramps and ruffians

in the country parts of Kent, whilst the small bogus King has a gilded

and worshipped and dreary and restrained and cussed time of it on the

throne--and this all goes on for three weeks--till the midst of the

coronation grandeurs in Westminster Abbey, Feb. 20, when the ragged true

King forces his way in but cannot prove his genuineness--until the bogus

King, by a remembered incident of the first day is able to prove it for

him--whereupon clothes are changed and the coronation proceeds under the

new and rightful conditions.

My idea is to afford a realizing sense of the exceeding severity of the

laws of that day by inflicting some of their penalties upon the King

himself and allowing him a chance to see the rest of them applied to

others--all of which is to account for certain mildnesses which

distinguished Edward VI's reign from those that preceded and followed it.

Imagine this fact--I have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this yarn for

youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with faint praise

out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She is become the

horseleech's daughter and my mill doesn't grind fast enough to suit her.

This is no mean triumph, my dear sir.

Last night, for the first time in ages, we went to the theatre--to see

Yorick's Love. The magnificence of it is beyond praise. The language is

so beautiful, the passion so fine, the plot so ingenious, the whole thing

so stirring, so charming, so pathetic! But I will clip from the Courant

--it says it right.

And what a good company it is, and how like live people they all acted!

The "thee's" and the "thou's" had a pleasant sound, since it is the

language of the Prince and the Pauper. You've done the country a service

in that admirable work....

Yrs Ever,

MARK.

The play, "Yorick's Love," mentioned in this letter, was one which

Howells had done for Lawrence Barrett.

Onion Clemens, meantime, was forwarding his manuscript, and for once

seems to have won his brother's approval, so much so that Mark Twain

was willing, indeed anxious, that Howells should run the

"autobiography" in the Atlantic. We may imagine how Onion prized

the words of commendation which follow:

To Orion Clemens:

May 6, '80.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--It is a model autobiography.

Continue to develop your character in the same gradual inconspicuous and

apparently unconscious way. The reader, up to this time, may have his

doubts, perhaps, but he can't say decidedly, "This writer is not such a

simpleton as he has been letting on to be." Keep him in that state of

mind. If, when you shall have finished, the reader shall say, "The man

is an ass, but I really don't know whether he knows it or not," your work

will be a triumph.

Stop re-writing. I saw places in your last batch where re-writing had

done formidable injury. Do not try to find those places, else you will

mar them further by trying to better them. It is perilous to revise a

book while it is under way. All of us have injured our books in that

foolish way.

Keep in mind what I told you--when you recollect something which belonged

in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are.

Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.

I have penciled the MS here and there, but have not needed to make any

criticisms or to knock out anything.

The elder Bliss has heart disease badly, and thenceforth his life hangs

upon a thread.

Yr Bro

SAM.

But Howells could not bring himself to print so frank a confession

as Orion had been willing to make. "It wrung my heart," he said,

"and I felt haggard after I had finished it. The writer's soul is

laid bare; it is shocking." Howells added that the best touches in

it were those which made one acquainted with the writer's brother;

that is to say, Mark Twain, and that these would prove valuable

material hereafter--a true prophecy, for Mark Twain's early

biography would have lacked most of its vital incident, and at least

half of its background, without those faithful chapters, fortunately

preserved. Had Onion continued, as he began, the work might have

proved an important contribution to literature, but he went trailing

off into by-paths of theology and discussion where the interest was

lost. There were, perhaps, as many as two thousand pages of it,

which few could undertake to read.

Mark Twain's mind was always busy with plans and inventions, many of

them of serious intent, some semi-serious, others of a purely

whimsical character. Once he proposed a "Modest Club," of which the

first and main qualification for membership was modesty. "At

present," he wrote, "I am the only member; and as the modesty

required must be of a quite aggravated type, the enterprise did seem

for a time doomed to stop dead still with myself, for lack of

further material; but upon reflection I have come to the conclusion

that you are eligible. Therefore, I have held a meeting and voted

to offer you the distinction of membership. I do not know that we

can find any others, though I have had some thought of Hay, Warner,

Twichell, Aldrich, Osgood, Fields, Higginson, and a few more

--together with Mrs. Howells, Mrs. Clemens, and certain others

of the sex."

Howells replied that the only reason he had for not joining the

Modest Club was that he was too modest--too modest to confess his

modesty. "If I could get over this difficulty I should like to

join, for I approve highly of the Club and its object.... It ought

to be given an annual dinner at the public expense. If you think I

am not too modest you may put my name down and I will try to think

the same of you. Mrs. Howells applauded the notion of the club from

the very first. She said that she knew one thing: that she was

modest enough, anyway. Her manner of saying it implied that the

other persons you had named were not, and created a painful

impression in my mind. I have sent your letter and the rules to

Hay, but I doubt his modesty. He will think he has a right to

belong to it as much as you or I; whereas, other people ought only

to be admitted on sufferance."

Our next letter to Howells is, in the main, pure foolery, but we get

in it a hint what was to become in time one of Mask Twain's

strongest interests, the matter of copyright. He had both a

personal and general interest in the subject. His own books were

constantly pirated in Canada, and the rights of foreign authors were

not respected in America. We have already seen how he had drawn a

petition which Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, and others were to sign,

and while nothing had come of this plan he had never ceased to

formulate others. Yet he hesitated when he found that the proposed

protection was likely to work a hardship to readers of the poorer

class. Once he wrote: "My notions have mightily changed lately....

I can buy a lot of the copyright classics, in paper, at from three

to thirty cents apiece. These things must find their way into the

very kitchens and hovels of the country..... And even if the treaty

will kill Canadian piracy, and thus save me an average of $5,000 a

year, I am down on it anyway, and I'd like cussed well to write an

article opposing the treaty."

To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.:

Thursday, June 6th, 1880.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--There you stick, at Belmont, and now I'm going to

Washington for a few days; and of course, between you and Providence that

visit is going to get mixed, and you'll have been here and gone again

just about the time I get back. Bother it all, I wanted to astonish you

with a chapter or two from Orion's latest book--not the seventeen which

he has begun in the last four months, but the one which he began last

week.

Last night, when I went to bed, Mrs. Clemens said, "George didn't take

the cat down to the cellar--Rosa says he has left it shut up in the

conservatory." So I went down to attend to Abner (the cat.) About 3 in

the morning Mrs. C. woke me and said, "I do believe I hear that cat in

the drawing-room--what did you do with him?" I answered up with the

confidence of a man who has managed to do the right thing for once, and

said "I opened the conservatory doors, took the library off the alarm,

and spread everything open, so that there wasn't any obstruction between

him and the cellar." Language wasn't capable of conveying this woman's

disgust. But the sense of what she said, was, "He couldn't have done any

harm in the conservatory--so you must go and make the entire house free

to him and the burglars, imagining that he will prefer the coal-bins to

the drawing-room. If you had had Mr. Howells to help you, I should have

admired but not been astonished, because I should know that together you

would be equal to it; but how you managed to contrive such a stately

blunder all by yourself, is what I cannot understand."

So, you see, even she knows how to appreciate our gifts.

Brisk times here.--Saturday, these things happened: Our neighbor Chas.

Smith was stricken with heart disease, and came near joining the

majority; my publisher, Bliss, ditto, ditto; a neighbor's child died;

neighbor Whitmore's sixth child added to his five other cases of measles;

neighbor Niles sent for, and responded; Susie Warner down, abed; Mrs.

George Warner threatened with death during several hours; her son Frank,

whilst imitating the marvels in Barnum's circus bills, thrown from his

aged horse and brought home insensible: Warner's friend Max Yortzburgh,

shot in the back by a locomotive and broken into 32 distinct pieces and

his life threatened; and Mrs. Clemens, after writing all these cheerful

things to Clara Spaulding, taken at midnight, and if the doctor had not

been pretty prompt the contemplated Clemens would have called before his

apartments were ready.

However, everybody is all right, now, except Yortzburg, and he is

mending--that is, he is being mended. I knocked off, during these

stirring times, and don't intend to go to work again till we go away for

the Summer, 3 or 6 weeks hence. So I am writing to you not because I

have anything to say, but because you don't have to answer and I need

something to do this afternoon.....

I have a letter from a Congressman this morning, and he says Congress

couldn't be persuaded to bother about Canadian pirates at a time like

this when all legislation must have a political and Presidential bearing,

else Congress won't look at it. So have changed my mind and my course;

I go north, to kill a pirate. I must procure repose some way, else I

cannot get down to work again.

Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is

approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the

household and seldomest get.

With our affection to you both.

Yrs ever

MARK.

It was always dangerous to send strangers with letters of

introduction to Mark Twain. They were so apt to arrive at the wrong

time, or to find him in the wrong mood. Howells was willing to risk

it, and that the result was only amusing instead of tragic is the

best proof of their friendship.

To W. D. Howells, in Belmont, Mass.:

June 9, '80.

Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr. X----has been here, and I

have bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours and tried

my level best to make it do something, or say something, or appreciate

something--but no, it was worse than Lazarus. A kind-hearted,

well-meaning corpse was the Boston young man, but lawsy bless me,

horribly dull company. Now, old man, unless you have great confidence in

Mr. X's judgment, you ought to make him submit his article to you before

he prints it. For only think how true I was to you: Every hour that he

was here I was saying, gloatingly, "O G-- d--- you, when you are in bed

and your light out, I will fix you" (meaning to kill him)...., but then

the thought would follow--" No, Howells sent him--he shall be spared,

he shall be respected he shall travel hell-wards by his own route."

Breakfast is frozen by this time, and Mrs. Clemens correspondingly hot.

Good bye.

Yrs ever,

MARK.

"I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you," Howells

answered. "What I was afraid of was that you would turn him out of

doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him.

After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you. I am

sorry for your suffering. I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for

bores; but yours is preternaturally keen. I shall begin to be

afraid I bore you. (How does that make you feel?)"

In a letter to Twichell--a remarkable letter--when baby Jean Clemens

was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry

Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain's unfailing

tragic reflection.

To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford:

QUARRY FARM, Aug. 29 ['80].

DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't see no

pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," I should think

he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer....

I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in

Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission fee will be

but a trifle.

It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotation of the Affection

Board brought about by throwing this new security on the market. Four

weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right

along, where she had always been. But now:

Jean

Mamma

Motley [a cat]

Fraulein [another]

Papa

That is the way it stands, now Mamma is become No. 2; I have dropped from

No. 4., and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck

between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I didn't stand

any more show.

I've got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the

day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time. Last evening

Livy said with deep concern, "O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in

your ear."

I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the

head--

"Tis said that abscess conquers love,

But O believe it not."

This made a coolness.

Been reading Daniel Webster's Private Correspondence. Have read a

hundred of his diffuse, conceited, "eloquent," bathotic (or bathostic)

letters written in that dim (no, vanished) Past when he was a student;

and Lord, to think that this boy who is so real to me now, and so booming

with fresh young blood and bountiful life, and sappy cynicisms about

girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame and stood against the sun one

brief tremendous moment with the world's eyes upon him, and then--f-z-t-!

where is he? Why the only long thing, the only real thing about the

whole shadowy business is the sense of the lagging dull and hoary lapse

of time that has drifted by since then; a vast empty level, it seems,

with a formless spectre glimpsed fitfully through the smoke and mist that

lie along its remote verge.

Well, we are all getting along here first-rate; Livy gains strength

daily, and sits up a deal; the baby is five weeks old and--but no more of

this; somebody may be reading this letter 80 years hence. And so, my

friend (you pitying snob, I mean, who are holding this yellow paper in

your hand in 1960,) save yourself the trouble of looking further; I know

how pathetically trivial our small concerns will seem to you, and I will

not let your eye profane them. No, I keep my news; you keep your

compassion. Suffice it you to know, scoffer and ribald, that the little

child is old and blind, now, and once more toothless; and the rest of us

are shadows, these many, many years. Yes, and your time cometh!

MARK.

At the Farm that year Mark Twain was working on The Prince and the

Pauper, and, according to a letter to Aldrich, brought it to an end

September 19th. It is a pleasant letter, worth preserving. The

book by Aldrich here mentioned was 'The Stillwater Tragedy.'

To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.:

ELMIRA, Sept. 15, '80.

MY DEAR ALDRICH,--Thank you ever so much for the book--I had already

finished it, and prodigiously enjoyed it, in the periodical of the

notorious Howells, but it hits Mrs. Clemens just right, for she is

having a reading holiday, now, for the first time in same months; so

between-times, when the new baby is asleep and strengthening up for

another attempt to take possession of this place, she is going to read

it. Her strong friendship for you makes her think she is going to like

it.

I finished a story yesterday, myself. I counted up and found it between

sixty and eighty thousand words--about the size of your book. It is for

boys and girls--been at work at it several years, off and on.

I hope Howells is enjoying his journey to the Pacific. He wrote me that

you and Osgood were going, also, but I doubted it, believing he was in

liquor when he wrote it. In my opinion, this universal applause over his

book is going to land that man in a Retreat inside of two months.

I notice the papers say mighty fine things about your book, too.

You ought to try to get into the same establishment with Howells.

But applause does not affect me--I am always calm--this is because I am

used to it.

Well, good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you. Mrs. Clemens asks me to

send her warmest regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich--which I do, and add

those of

Yrs ever

MARK.

While Mark Twain was a journalist in San Francisco, there was a

middle-aged man named Soule, who had a desk near him on the Morning

Call. Soule was in those days highly considered as a poet by his

associates, most of whom were younger and less gracefully poetic.

But Soule's gift had never been an important one. Now, in his old

age, he found his fame still local, and he yearned for wider

recognition. He wished to have a volume of poems issued by a

publisher of recognized standing. Because Mark Twain had been one

of Soule's admirers and a warm friend in the old days, it was

natural that Soule should turn to him now, and equally natural that

Clemens should turn to Howells.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Sunday, Oct. 2 '80.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Here's a letter which I wrote you to San Francisco the

second time you didn't go there.... I told Soule he needn't write you,

but simply send the MS. to you. O dear, dear, it is dreadful to be an

unrecognized poet. How wise it was in Charles Warren Stoddard to take in

his sign and go for some other calling while still young.

I'm laying for that Encyclopedical Scotchman--and he'll need to lock the

door behind him, when he comes in; otherwise when he hears my proposed

tariff his skin will probably crawl away with him. He is accustomed to

seeing the publisher impoverish the author--that spectacle must be

getting stale to him--if he contracts with the undersigned he will

experience a change in that programme that will make the enamel peel off

his teeth for very surprise--and joy. No, that last is what Mrs. Clemens

thinks--but it's not so. The proposed work is growing, mightily, in my

estimation, day by day; and I'm not going to throw it away for any mere

trifle. If I make a contract with the canny Scot, I will then tell him

the plan which you and I have devised (that of taking in the humor of all

countries)--otherwise I'll keep it to myself, I think. Why should we

assist our fellowman for mere love of God?

Yrs ever

MARK.

One wishes that Howells might have found value enough in the verses

of Frank Soule to recommend them to Osgood. To Clemens he wrote:

"You have touched me in regard to him, and I will deal gently with

his poetry. Poor old fellow! I can imagine him, and how he must

have to struggle not to be hard or sour."

The verdict, however, was inevitable. Soule's graceful verses

proved to be not poetry at all. No publisher of standing could

afford to give them his imprint.

The "Encyclopedical Scotchman" mentioned in the preceding letter was

the publisher Gebbie, who had a plan to engage Howells and Clemens

to prepare some sort of anthology of the world's literature. The

idea came to nothing, though the other plan mentioned--for a library

of humor--in time grew into a book.

Mark Twain's contracts with Bliss for the publication of his books

on the subscription plan had been made on a royalty basis, beginning

with 5 per cent. on 'The Innocents Abroad' increasing to 7 per

cent. on 'Roughing It,' and to 10 per cent. on later books. Bliss

had held that these later percentages fairly represented one half

the profits. Clemens, however, had never been fully satisfied, and

his brother Onion had more than once urged him to demand a specific

contract on the half-profit basis. The agreement for the

publication of 'A Tramp Abroad' was made on these terms. Bliss died

before Clemens received his first statement of sales. Whatever may

have been the facts under earlier conditions, the statement proved

to Mark Twain's satisfaction; at least, that the half-profit

arrangement was to his advantage. It produced another result; it

gave Samuel Clemens an excuse to place his brother Onion in a

position of independence.

To Onion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

Sunday, Oct 24 '80.

MY DEAR BRO.,--Bliss is dead. The aspect of the balance-sheet is

enlightening. It reveals the fact, through my present contract, (which

is for half the profits on the book above actual cost of paper, printing

and binding,) that I have lost considerably by all this nonsense--sixty

thousand dollars, I should say--and if Bliss were alive I would stay with

the concern and get it all back; for on each new book I would require a

portion of that back pay; but as it is (this in the very strictest

confidence,) I shall probably go to a new publisher 6 or 8 months hence,

for I am afraid Frank, with his poor health, will lack push and drive.

Out of the suspicions you bred in me years ago, has grown this result,

--to wit, that I shall within the twelvemonth get $40,000 out of this

"Tramp" instead Of $20,000. Twenty thousand dollars, after taxes and

other expenses are stripped away, is worth to the investor about $75 a

month--so I shall tell Mr. Perkins to make your check that amount per

month, hereafter, while our income is able to afford it. This ends the

loan business; and hereafter you can reflect that you are living not on

borrowed money but on money which you have squarely earned, and which has

no taint or savor of charity about it--and you can also reflect that the

money you have been receiving of me all these years is interest charged

against the heavy bill which the next publisher will have to stand who

gets a book of mine.

Jean got the stockings and is much obliged; Mollie wants to know whom she

most resembles, but I can't tell; she has blue eyes and brown hair, and

three chins, and is very fat and happy; and at one time or another she

has resembled all the different Clemenses and Langdons, in turn, that

have ever lived.

Livy is too much beaten out with the baby, nights, to write, these times;

and I don't know of anything urgent to say, except that a basket full of

letters has accumulated in the 7 days that I have been whooping and

cursing over a cold in the head--and I must attack the pile this very

minute.

With love from us

Y aff

SAM

$25 enclosed.

On the completion of The Prince and Pauper story, Clemens had

naturally sent it to Howells for consideration. Howells wrote:

"I have read the two P's and I like it immensely, it begins well and

it ends well." He pointed out some things that might be changed or

omitted, and added: "It is such a book as I would expect from you,

knowing what a bottom of fury there is to your fun." Clemens had

thought somewhat of publishing the story anonymously, in the fear

that it would not be accepted seriously over his own signature.

The "bull story" referred to in the next letter is the one later

used in the Joan of Arc book, the story told Joan by "Uncle Laxart,"

how he rode a bull to a funeral.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Xmas Eve, 1880.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I was prodigiously delighted with what you said about

the book--so, on the whole, I've concluded to publish intrepidly, instead

of concealing the authorship. I shall leave out that bull story.

I wish you had gone to New York. The company was small, and we had a

first-rate time. Smith's an enjoyable fellow. I liked Barrett, too.

And the oysters were as good as the rest of the company. It was worth

going there to learn how to cook them.

Next day I attended to business--which was, to introduce Twichell to Gen.

Grant and procure a private talk in the interest of the Chinese

Educational Mission here in the U. S. Well, it was very funny. Joe had

been sitting up nights building facts and arguments together into a

mighty and unassailable array and had studied them out and got them by

heart--all with the trembling half-hearted hope of getting Grant to add

his signature to a sort of petition to the Viceroy of China; but Grant

took in the whole situation in a jiffy, and before Joe had more than

fairly got started, the old man said: "I'll write the Viceroy a Letter

--a separate letter--and bring strong reasons to bear upon him; I know

him well, and what I say will have weight with him; I will attend to it

right away. No, no thanks--I shall be glad to do it--it will be a labor

of love."

So all Joe's laborious hours were for naught! It was as if he had come

to borrow a dollar, and been offered a thousand before he could unfold

his case....

But it's getting dark. Merry Christmas to all of you.

Yrs Ever,

MARK.

The Chinese Educational Mission, mentioned in the foregoing, was a

thriving Hartford institution, projected eight years before by a

Yale graduate named Yung Wing. The mission was now threatened, and

Yung Wing, knowing the high honor in which General Grant was held in

China, believed that through him it might be saved. Twichell, of

course, was deeply concerned and naturally overjoyed at Grant's

interest. A day or two following the return to Hartford, Clemens

received a letter from General Grant, in which he wrote: "Li Hung

Chang is the most powerful and most influential Chinaman in his

country. He professed great friendship for me when I was there, and

I have had assurances of the same thing since. I hope, if he is

strong enough with his government, that the decision to withdraw the

Chinese students from this country may be changed."

But perhaps Li Hung Chang was experiencing one of his partial

eclipses just then, or possibly he was not interested, for the

Hartford Mission did not survive.

XXI.

LETTERS 1881, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. ASSISTING A YOUNG SCULPTOR.

LITERARY PLANS

With all of Mark Twain's admiration for Grant, he had opposed him as a

third-term President and approved of the nomination of Garfield. He had

made speeches for Garfield during the campaign just ended, and had been

otherwise active in his support. Upon Garfield's election, however, he

felt himself entitled to no special favor, and the single request which

he preferred at length could hardly be classed as, personal, though made

for a "personal friend."

To President-elect James A. Garfield, in Washington:

HARTFORD, Jany. 12, '81.

GEN. GARFIELD

DEAR SIR,--Several times since your election persons wanting office have

asked me "to use my influence" with you in their behalf.

To word it in that way was such a pleasant compliment to me that I never

complied. I could not without exposing the fact that I hadn't any

influence with you and that was a thing I had no mind to do.

It seems to me that it is better to have a good man's flattering estimate

of my influence--and to keep it--than to fool it away with trying to get

him an office. But when my brother--on my wife's side--Mr. Charles J.

Langdon--late of the Chicago Convention--desires me to speak a word for

Mr. Fred Douglass, I am not asked "to use my influence" consequently I am

not risking anything. So I am writing this as a simple citizen. I am

not drawing on my fund of influence at all. A simple citizen may express

a desire with all propriety, in the matter of a recommendation to office,

and so I beg permission to hope that you will retain Mr. Douglass in his

present office of Marshall of the District of Columbia, if such a course

will not clash with your own preferences or with the expediencies and

interest of your administration. I offer this petition with peculiar

pleasure and strong desire, because I so honor this man's high and

blemishless character and so admire his brave, long crusade for the

liberties and elevation of his race.

He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point, his

history would move me to say these things without that, and I feel them

too.

With great respect

I am, General,

Yours truly,

S. L. CLEMENS.

Clemens would go out of his way any time to grant favor to the

colored race. His childhood associations were partly accountable

for this, but he also felt that the white man owed the negro a debt

for generations of enforced bondage. He would lecture any time in a

colored church, when he would as likely as not refuse point-blank to

speak for a white congregation. Once, in Elmira, he received a

request, poorly and none too politely phrased, to speak for one of

the churches. He was annoyed and about to send a brief refusal,

when Mrs. Clemens, who was present, said:

"I think I know that church, and if so this preacher is a colored

man; he does not know how to write a polished letter--how should

he?" Her husband's manner changed so suddenly that she added:

"I will give you a motto, and it will be useful to you if you will

adopt it: Consider every man colored until he is proved white."

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Feb. 27, 1881.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I go to West Point with Twichell tomorrow, but shall be

back Tuesday or Wednesday; and then just as soon thereafter as you and

Mrs. Howells and Winny can come you will find us ready and most glad to

see you--and the longer you can stay the gladder we shall be. I am not

going to have a thing to do, but you shall work if you want to. On the

evening of March 10th, I am going to read to the colored folk in the

African Church here (no whites admitted except such as I bring with me),

and a choir of colored folk will sing jubilee songs. I count on a good

time, and shall hope to have you folks there, and Livy. I read in

Twichell's chapel Friday night and had a most rattling high time--but the

thing that went best of all was Uncle Remus's Tar Baby. I mean to try

that on my dusky audience. They've all heard that tale from childhood

--at least the older members have.

I arrived home in time to make a most noble blunder--invited Charley

Warner here (in Livy's name) to dinner with the Gerhardts, and told him

Livy had invited his wife by letter and by word of mouth also. I don't

know where I got these impressions, but I came home feeling as one does

who realizes that he has done a neat thing for once and left no flaws or

loop-holes. Well, Livy said she had never told me to invite Charley and

she hadn't dreamed of inviting Susy, and moreover there wasn't any

dinner, but just one lean duck. But Susy Warner's intuitions were

correct--so she choked off Charley, and staid home herself--we waited

dinner an hour and you ought to have seen that duck when he was done

drying in the oven.

MARK.

Clemens and his wife were always privately assisting worthy and

ambitious young people along the way of achievement. Young actors

were helped through dramatic schools; young men and women were

assisted through college and to travel abroad. Among others Clemens

paid the way of two colored students, one through a Southern

institution and another through the Yale law school.

The mention of the name of Gerhardt in the preceding letter

introduces the most important, or at least the most extensive, of

these benefactions. The following letter gives the beginning of the

story:

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Private and Confidential.

HARTFORD, Feb. 21, 1881.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Well, here is our romance.

It happened in this way. One morning, a month ago--no, three weeks

--Livy, and Clara Spaulding and I were at breakfast, at 10 A.M., and I

was in an irritable mood, for the barber was up stairs waiting and his

hot water getting cold, when the colored George returned from answering

the bell and said: "There's a lady in the drawing-room wants to see you."

"A book agent!" says I, with heat. "I won't see her; I will die in my

tracks, first."

Then I got up with a soul full of rage, and went in there and bent

scowling over that person, and began a succession of rude and raspy

questions--and without even offering to sit down.

Not even the defendant's youth and beauty and (seeming) timidity were

able to modify my savagery, for a time--and meantime question and answer

were going on. She had risen to her feet with the first question; and

there she stood, with her pretty face bent floorward whilst I inquired,

but always with her honest eyes looking me in the face when it came her

turn to answer.

And this was her tale, and her plea-diffidently stated, but

straight-forwardly; and bravely, and most winningly simply and earnestly:

I put it in my own fashion, for I do not remember her words:

Mr. Karl Gerhardt, who works in Pratt & Whitney's machine shops, has made

a statue in clay, and would I be so kind as to come and look at it, and

tell him if there is any promise in it? He has none to go to, and he

would be so glad.

"O, dear me," I said, "I don't know anything about art--there's nothing I

could tell him."

But she went on, just as earnestly and as simply as before, with her

plea--and so she did after repeated rebuffs; and dull as I am, even I

began by and by to admire this brave and gentle persistence, and to

perceive how her heart of hearts was in this thing, and how she couldn't

give it up, but must carry her point. So at last I wavered, and promised

in general terms that I would come down the first day that fell idle--and

as I conducted her to the door, I tamed more and more, and said I would

come during the very next week--"We shall be so glad--but--but, would you

please come early in the week?--the statue is just finished and we are so

anxious--and--and--we did hope you could come this week--and"--well, I

came down another peg, and said I would come Monday, as sure as death;

and before I got to the dining room remorse was doing its work and I was

saying to myself, "Damnation, how can a man be such a hound? why didn't I

go with her now?" Yes, and how mean I should have felt if I had known

that out of her poverty she had hired a hack and brought it along to

convey me. But luckily for what was left of my peace of mind, I didn't

know that.