MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--And so the old Major has been there, has he?
I would like mighty well to see him. I was a sort of benefactor to
him once. I helped to snatch him out when he was about to ride into a
Mohammedan Mosque in that queer old Moorish town of Tangier, in Africa.
If he had got in, the Moors would have knocked his venerable old head
off, for his temerity.
I have just arrived from New York-been there ever since Christmas
staying at the house of Dan Slote my Quaker City room-mate, and having
a splendid time. Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I, (all
Quaker City night-hawks,) had a blow-out at Dan's' house and a lively
talk over old times. We went through the Holy Land together, and I just
laughed till my sides ached, at some of our reminiscences. It was the
unholiest gang that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are
the best boys in the world. We needed Moulton badly. I started to make
calls, New Year's Day, but I anchored for the day at the first house I
came to--Charlie Langdon's sister was there (beautiful girl,) and Miss
Alice Hooker, another beautiful girl, a niece of Henry Ward Beecher's.
We sent the old folks home early, with instructions not to send the
carriage till midnight, and then I just staid there and worried the life
out of those girls. I am going to spend a few days with the Langdon's in
Elmira, New York, as soon as I get time, and a few days at Mrs. Hooker's
in Hartford, Conn., shortly.
Henry Ward Beecher sent for me last Sunday to come over and dine (he
lives in Brooklyn, you know,) and I went. Harriet Beecher Stowe was
there, and Mrs. and Miss Beecher, Mrs. Hooker and my old Quaker City
favorite, Emma Beach.
We had a very gay time, if it was Sunday. I expect I told more lies than
I have told before in a month.
I went back by invitation, after the evening service, and finished
the blow-out, and then staid all night at Mr. Beach's. Henry Ward is a
brick.
I found out at 10 o'clock, last night, that I was to lecture tomorrow
evening and so you must be aware that I have been working like sin all
night to get a lecture written. I have finished it, I call it “Frozen
Truth.” It is a little top-heavy, though, because there is more truth in
the title than there is in the lecture.
But thunder, I mustn't sit here writing all day, with so much business
before me.
Good by, and kind regards to all.
Yrs affy
SAM L. CLEMENS.
Jack Van Nostrand of this letter is “Jack” of the Innocents. Emma
Beach was the daughter of Moses S. Beach, of the 'New York Sun.'
Later she became the wife of the well-known painter, Abbot H.
Thayer.
We do not hear of Miss Langdon again in the letters of that time,
but it was not because she was absent from his thoughts. He had
first seen her with her father and brother at the old St. Nicholas
Hotel, on lower Broadway, where, soon after the arrival of the
Quaker City in New York, he had been invited to dine. Long
afterward he said: “It is forty years ago; from that day to this she
has never been out of my mind.”
From his next letter we learn of the lecture which apparently was
delivered in Washington.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
WASH. Jan. 9, 1868.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--That infernal lecture is over, thank Heaven!
It came near being a villainous failure. It was not advertised at all.
The manager was taken sick yesterday, and the man who was sent to tell
me, never got to me till afternoon today. There was the dickens to pay.
It was too late to do anything--too late to stop the lecture. I scared
up a door-keeper, and was ready at the proper time, and by pure good
luck a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved! I hardly knew
what I was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style. I was
to have preached again Saturday night, but I won't--I can't get along
without a manager.
I have been in New York ever since Christmas, you know, and now I shall
have to work like sin to catch up my correspondence.
And I have got to get up that book, too. Cut my letters out of the
Alta's and send them to me in an envelop. Some, here, that are not
mailed yet, I shall have to copy, I suppose.
I have got a thousand things to do, and am not doing any of them. I feel
perfectly savage.
Good bye
Yrs aff
SAM.
On the whole, matters were going well with him. His next letter is
full of his success--overflowing with the boyish radiance which he
never quite outgrew.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
HARTFORD, CONN. Jan. 24-68.
DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--This is a good week for me. I stopped in the
Herald office as I came through New York, to see the boys on the
staff, and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week,
impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full
swing, and (write) about anybody and everybody I wanted to. I said I
must have the very fullest possible swing, and he said “all right.” I
said “It's a contract--” and that settled that matter.
I'll make it a point to write one letter a week, any-how.
But the best thing that has happened was here. This great American
Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till I
thought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk. I met Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled way of
dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he gets a chance,
he said, “Now, here, you are one of the talented men of the age--nobody
is going to deny that---but in matters of business, I don't suppose you
know more than enough to came in when it rains. I'll tell you what to
do, and how to do it.” And he did.
And I listened well, and then came up here and made a splendid contract
for a Quaker City book of 5 or 600 large pages, with illustrations, the
manuscript to be placed in the publishers' hands by the middle of July.
My percentage is to be a fifth more than they have ever paid any author,
except Horace Greeley. Beecher will be surprised, I guess, when he hears
this.
But I had my mind made up to one thing--I wasn't going to touch a book
unless there was money in it, and a good deal of it. I told them so. I
had the misfortune to “bust out” one author of standing. They had his
manuscript, with the understanding that they would publish his book if
they could not get a book from me, (they only publish two books at a
time, and so my book and Richardson's Life of Grant will fill the bill
for next fall and winter)--so that manuscript was sent back to its
author today.
These publishers get off the most tremendous editions of their books
you can imagine. I shall write to the Enterprise and Alta every week,
as usual, I guess, and to the Herald twice a week--occasionally to the
Tribune and the Magazines (I have a stupid article in the Galaxy, just
issued) but I am not going to write to this, that and the other paper
any more.
The Chicago Tribune wants letters, but I hope and pray I have charged
them so much that they will not close the contract. I am gradually
getting out of debt, but these trips to New York do cost like sin.
I hope you have cut out and forwarded my printed letters to
Washington--please continue to do so as they arrive.
I have had a tip-top time, here, for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno.
Hooker's family--Beecher's relatives-in a general way of Mr. Bliss,
also, who is head of the publishing firm.) Puritans are mighty
straight-laced and they won't let me smoke in the parlor, but the
Almighty don't make any better people.
Love to all-good-bye. I shall be in New York 3 days--then go on to the
Capital.
Yrs affly, especially Ma.,
Yr SAM.