It was early in May--the 6th--that Mark Twain had delivered his Cooper
Union lecture, and a month later, June 8, 1867, he sailed on the "Quaker
City," with some sixty-six other "pilgrims," on the great Holy Land
excursion, the story of which has been so fully and faithfully told in
"The Innocent Abroad."
What a wonderful thing it must have seemed in that time for a party of
excursionists to have a ship all to themselves to go a-gipsying in from
port to port of antiquity and romance! The advertised celebrities did
not go, none of them but Mark Twain, but no one minded, presently, for
Mark Twain's sayings and stories kept the company sufficiently
entertained, and sometimes he would read aloud to his fellow-passengers
from the newspaper letters he was writing, and invite comment and
criticism. That was entertainment for them, and it was good for him, for
it gave him an immediate audience, always inspiring to an author.
Furthermore, the comments offered were often of the greatest value,
especially suggestions from one Mrs. Fairbanks, of Cleveland, a
middle-aged, cultured woman, herself a correspondent for her husband's
paper, the "Herald". It requires not many days for acquaintances to form
on shipboard, and in due time a little group gathered regularly each
afternoon to hear Mark Twain read what he had written of their day's
doings, though some of it he destroyed later because Mrs. Fairbanks
thought it not his best.
All of the "pilgrims" mentioned in "The Innocents Abroad" were real
persons. "Dan" was Dan Slote, Mark Twain's room-mate; the Doctor who
confused the guides was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, of Chicago; the poet
Lariat was Bloodgood H. Cutter, an eccentric from Long Island; "Jack" was
Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey; and "Moult" and "Blucher" and "Charlie"
were likewise real, the last named being Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira,
N. Y., a boy of eighteen, whose sister would one day become Mark Twain's
wife.
It has been said that Mark Twain first met Olivia Langdon on the "Quaker
City," but this is not quite true; he met only her picture--the original
was not on that ship. Charlie Langdon, boy fashion, made a sort of hero
of the brilliant man called Mark Twain, and one day in the Bay of Smyrna
invited him to his cabin and exhibited his treasures, among them a dainty
miniature of a sister at home, Olivia, a sweet, delicate creature whom
the boy worshiped.
Samuel Clemens gazed long at the exquisite portrait and spoke of it
reverently, for in the sweet face he seemed to find something spiritual.
Often after that he came to young Langdon's cabin to look at the pictured
countenance, in his heart dreaming of a day when he might learn to know
its owner.
We need not follow in detail here the travels of the "pilgrims" and their
adventures. Most of them have been fully set down in "The Innocents
Abroad," and with not much elaboration, for plenty of amusing things were
happening on a trip of that kind, and Mark Twain's old note-books are
full of the real incidents that we find changed but little in the book.
If the adventures of Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are embroidered here and
there, the truth is always there, too.
Yet the old note-books have a very intimate interest of their own. It is
curious to be looking through them to-day, trying to realize that those
penciled memoranda were the fresh first impressions that would presently
grow into the world's most delightful book of travel; that they were set
down in the very midst of that historic little company that frolicked
through Italy and climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills.
It required five months for the "Quaker City" to make the circuit of the
Mediterranean and return to New York. Mark Twain in that time
contributed fifty two or three letters to the "Alta California" and six
to the "New York Tribune," or an average of nearly three a week--a vast
amount of labor to be done in the midst of sight-seeing. And what
letters of travel they were! The most remarkable that had been written
up to that time. Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry,
they came as a revelation to a public weary of the tiresome descriptive
drivel of that day. They preached a new gospel in travel literature--the
gospel of seeing honestly and speaking frankly--a gospel that Mark Twain
would continue to preach during the rest of his career.
Furthermore, the letters showed a great literary growth in their author.
No doubt the cultivated associations of the ship, the afternoon reading
aloud of his work, and Mrs. Fairbanks's advice had much to do with this.
But we may believe, also, that the author's close study of the King James
version of the Old Testament during the weeks of travel through Palestine
exerted a powerful influence upon his style. The man who had recited
"The Burial of Moses" to Joe Goodman, with so much feeling, could not
fail to be mastered by the simple yet stately Bible phrase and imagery.
Many of the fine descriptive passages in "The Innocents Abroad" have
something almost Biblical in their phrasing. The writer of this memoir
heard in childhood "The Innocents Abroad" read aloud, and has never
forgotten the poetic spell that fell upon him as he listened to a
paragraph written of Tangier:
"Here is a crumbled wall that was old when Columbus discovered
America; old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the
Middle Ages to arm for the first Crusade; old when Charlemagne and
his paladins beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants
and genii in the fabled days of the olden time; old when Christ and
His disciples walked the earth; stood where it stands to-day when
the lips of Memnon were vocal and men bought and sold in the streets
of ancient Thebes."
Mark Twain returned to America to find himself, if not famous, at least
in very high repute. The "Alta" and "Tribune" letters had carried his
name to every corner of his native land. He was in demand now. To his
mother he wrote:
"I have eighteen offers to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts of
the Union--have declined them all . . . . Belong on the
"Tribune" staff and shall write occasionally. Am offered the same
berth to-day on the 'Herald,' by letter."
He was in Washington at this time, having remained in New York but one
day. He had accepted a secretaryship from Senator Stewart of Nevada, but
this arrangement was a brief one. He required fuller freedom for his
Washington correspondence and general literary undertakings.
He had been in Washington but a few days when he received a letter that
meant more to him than he could possibly have dreamed at the moment. It
was from Elisha Bliss, Jr., manager of the American Publishing Company,
of Hartford, Connecticut, and it suggested gathering the Mediterranean
travel-letters into a book. Bliss was a capable, energetic man, with a
taste for humor, and believed there was money for author and publisher in
the travel-book.
The proposition pleased Mark Twain, who replied at once, asking for
further details as to Bliss's plan. Somewhat later he made a trip to
Hartford, and the terms for the publication of "The Innocents Abroad"
were agreed upon. It was to be a large illustrated book for subscription
sale, and the author was to receive five per cent of the selling price.
Bliss had offered him the choice between this royalty and ten thousand
dollars cash. Though much tempted by the large sum to be paid in hand,
Mark Twain decided in favor of the royalty plan--"the best business
judgment I ever displayed," he used to say afterward. He agreed to
arrange the letters for book publication, revising and rewriting where
necessary, and went back to Washington well pleased. He did not realize
that his agreement with Bliss marked the beginning of one of the most
notable publishing connections in American literary history.