Feby. 28, 1874.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--We are all delighted with your commendations of the
Gilded Age-and the more so because some of our newspapers have set forth
the opinion that Warner really wrote the book and I only added my name
to the title page in order to give it a larger sale. I wrote the first
eleven chapters, every word and every line. I also wrote chapters 24,
25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 21, 42, 43, 45, 51, 52. 53, 57,
59, 60, 61, 62, and portions of 35, 49 and 56. So I wrote 32 of the 63
chapters entirely and part of 3 others beside.
The fearful financial panic hit the book heavily, for we published it in
the midst of it. But nevertheless in the 8 weeks that have now elapsed
since the day we published, we have sold 40,000 copies; which gives
L3,000 royalty to be divided between the authors. This is really the
largest two-months' sale which any American book has ever achieved
(unless one excepts the cheaper editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin). The
average price of our book is 16 shillings a copy--Uncle Tom was 2
shillings a copy. But for the panic our sale would have been doubled,
I verily believe. I do not believe the sale will ultimately go over
100,000 copies.
I shipped to you, from Liverpool, Barley's Illustrations of Judd's
“Margaret” (the waiter at the Adelphi Hotel agreeing to ship it securely
per parcel delivery,) and I do hope it did not miscarry, for we
in America think a deal of Barley's--[Felix Octavius Carr barley,
1822-1888, illustrator of the works of Irving, Cooper, etc. Probably the
most distinguished American illustrator of his time.]--work. I shipped
the novel (“Margaret”) to you from here a week ago.
Indeed I am thankful for the wife and the child--and if there is one
individual creature on all this footstool who is more thoroughly and
uniformly and unceasingly happy than I am I defy the world to produce
him and prove him. In my opinion, he doesn't exist. I was a mighty
rough, coarse, unpromising subject when Livy took charge of me 4 years
ago, and I may still be, to the rest of the world, but not to her. She
has made a very creditable job of me.
Success to the Mark Twain Club!--and the novel shibboleth of the
Whistle. Of course any member rising to speak would be required to
preface his remark with a keen respectful whistle at the chair-the chair
recognizing the speaker with an answering shriek, and then as the
speech proceeded its gravity and force would be emphasized and its
impressiveness augmented by the continual interjection of whistles in
place of punctuation-pauses; and the applause of the audience would be
manifested in the same way....
They've gone to luncheon, and I must follow. With strong love from us
both.
Your friend,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.
These were the days when the Howells and Clemens families began
visiting back and forth between Boston and Hartford, and sometimes
Aldrich came, though less frequently, and the gatherings at the
homes of Warner and Clemens were full of never-to-be-forgotten
happiness. Of one such visit Howells wrote:
“In the good-fellowship of that cordial neighborhood we had two such
days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round. There was
constant running in and out of friendly houses, where the lively
hosts and guests called one another by their christian names or
nicknames, and no such vain ceremony as knocking or ringing at
doors. Clemens was then building the stately mansion in which he
satisfied his love of magnificence as if it had been another
sealskin coat, and he was at the crest of the prosperity which
enabled him to humor every whim or extravagance.”
It was the delight of such a visit that kept Clemens constantly
urging its repetition. One cannot but feel the genuine affection of
these letters.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Mch. 1, 1876.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Now you will find us the most reasonable people in the
world. We had thought of precipitating upon you George Warner and wife
one day; Twichell and his jewel of a wife another day, and Chas. Perkins
and wife another. Only those--simply members of our family, they are.
But I'll close the door against them all--which will “fix” all of the
lot except Twichell, who will no more hesitate to climb in at the back
window than nothing.
And you shall go to bed when you please, get up when you please, talk
when you please, read when you please. Mrs. Howells may even go to New
York Saturday if she feels that she must, but if some gentle, unannoying
coaxing can beguile her into putting that off a few days, we shall be
more than glad, for I do wish she and Mrs. Clemens could have a good
square chance to get acquainted with each other. But first and last
and all the time, we want you to feel untrammeled and wholly free from
restraint, here.
The date suits--all dates suit.
Yrs ever
MARK.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Mch. 20, 1876.
DEAR HOWELLS,--You or Aldrich or both of you must come to Hartford to
live. Mr. Hall, who lives in the house next to Mrs. Stowe's (just where
we drive in to go to our new house) will sell for $16,000 or $17,000.
The lot is 85 feet front and 150 deep--long time and easy payments on
the purchase? You can do your work just as well here as in Cambridge,
can't you? Come, will one of you boys buy that house? Now say yes.
Mrs. Clemens is an invalid yet, but is getting along pretty fairly.
We send best regards. MARK.
April found the Clemens family in Elmira. Mrs. Clemens was not
over-strong, and the cares of house-building were many. They went
early, therefore, remaining at the Langdon home in the city until
Quarry Farm should feel a touch of warmer sun, Clemens wrote the
news to Doctor Brown.
*****
To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh:
ELMIRA, N. Y., April 27, '86.
DEAR DOCTOR,--This town is in the interior of the State of New York--and
was my wife's birth-place. We are here to spend the whole summer.
Although it is so near summer, we had a great snow-storm yesterday, and
one the day before. This is rather breaking in upon our plans, as it may
keep us down here in the valley a trifle longer than we desired. It gets
fearfully hot here in the summer, so we spend our summers on top of a
hill 6 or 700 feet high, about two or three miles from here--it never
gets hot up there.
Mrs. Clemens is pretty strong, and so is the “little wifie” barring
a desperate cold in the head the child grows in grace and beauty
marvellously. I wish the nations of the earth would combine in a baby
show and give us a chance to compete. I must try to find one of her
latest photographs to enclose in this. And this reminds me that Mrs.
Clemens keeps urging me to ask you for your photograph and last night
she said, “and be sure to ask him for a photograph of his sister, and
Jock-but say Master Jock--do not be headless and forget that courtesy;
he is Jock in our memories and our talk, but he has a right to his title
when a body uses his name in a letter.” Now I have got it all in--I
can't have made any mistake this time. Miss Clara Spaulding looked in, a
moment, yesterday morning, as bright and good as ever. She would like to
lay her love at your feet if she knew I was writing--as would also fifty
friends of ours whom you have never seen, and whose homage is as fervent
as if the cold and clouds and darkness of a mighty sea did not lie
between their hearts and you. Poor old Rab had not many “friends” at
first, but if all his friends of today could gather to his grave from
the four corners of the earth what a procession there would be! And
Rab's friends are your friends.
I am going to work when we get on the hill-till then I've got to lie
fallow, albeit against my will. We join in love to you and yours.
Your friend ever,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.
P. S. I enclose a specimen of villainy. A man pretends to be my brother
and my lecture agent--gathers a great audience together in a city more
than a thousand miles from here, and then pockets the money and elopes,
leaving the audience to wait for the imaginary lecturer! I am after him
with the law.
It was a historic summer at the Farm. A new baby arrived in June; a
new study was built for Mark Twain by Mrs. Crane, on the hillside
near the old quarry; a new book was begun in it--The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer--and a play, the first that Mark Twain had really
attempted, was completed--the dramatization of The Gilded Age.
An early word went to Hartford of conditions at the Farm.
*****
To Rev. and Mrs. Twichell, in Hartford:
ELMIRA, June 11, 1874.
MY DEAR OLD JOE AND HARMONY,--The baby is here and is the great American
Giantess--weighing 7 3/4 pounds. We had to wait a good long time for
her, but she was full compensation when she did come.
The Modoc was delighted with it, and gave it her doll at once. There is
nothing selfish about the Modoc. She is fascinated with the new baby.
The Modoc rips and tears around out doors, most of the time, and
consequently is as hard as a pine knot and as brown as an Indian. She is
bosom friend to all the ducks, chickens, turkeys and guinea hens on the
place. Yesterday as she marched along the winding path that leads up the
hill through the red clover beds to the summer-house, there was a long
procession of these fowls stringing contentedly after her, led by a
stately rooster who can look over the Modoc's head. The devotion of
these vassals has been purchased with daily largess of Indian meal, and
so the Modoc, attended by her bodyguard, moves in state wherever she
goes.
Susie Crane has built the loveliest study for me, you ever saw. It
is octagonal, with a peaked roof, each octagon filled with a spacious
window, and it sits perched in complete isolation on top of an elevation
that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of
distant blue hills. It is a cosy nest, with just room in it for a sofa
and a table and three or four chairs--and when the storms sweep down the
remote valley and the lightning flashes above the hills beyond, and
the rain beats upon the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it! It
stands 500 feet above the valley and 2 1/2 miles from it.
However one must not write all day. We send continents of love to you
and yours.
Affectionately
MARK.
We have mentioned before that Clemens had settled his mother and
sister at Fredonia, New York, and when Mrs. Clemens was in condition
to travel he concluded to pay them a visit.
It proved an unfortunate journey; the hot weather was hard on Mrs.
Clemens, and harder still, perhaps, on Mark Twain's temper. At any
period of his life a bore exasperated him, and in these earlier days
he was far more likely to explode than in his mellower age. Remorse
always followed--the price he paid was always costly. We cannot
know now who was the unfortunate that invited the storm, but in the
next letter we get the echoes of it and realize something of its
damage.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia:
ELMIRA, Aug. 15.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I came away from Fredonia ashamed of
myself;--almost too much humiliated to hold up my head and say good-bye.
For I began to comprehend how much harm my conduct might do you socially
in your village. I would have gone to that detestable oyster-brained
bore and apologized for my inexcusable rudeness to him, but that I
was satisfied he was of too small a calibre to know how to receive an
apology with magnanimity.
Pamela appalled me by saying people had hinted that they wished to visit
Livy when she came, but that she had given them no encouragement. I
feared that those people would merely comprehend that their courtesies
were not wanted, and yet not know exactly why they were not wanted.
I came away feeling that in return for your constant and tireless
efforts to secure our bodily comfort and make our visit enjoyable, I had
basely repaid you by making you sad and sore-hearted and leaving you
so. And the natural result has fallen to me likewise--for a guilty
conscience has harassed me ever since, and I have not had one short
quarter of an hour of peace to this moment.
You spoke of Middletown. Why not go there and live? Mr. Crane says it is
only about a hundred miles this side of New York on the Erie road. The
fact that one or two of you might prefer to live somewhere else is not
a valid objection--there are no 4 people who would all choose the same
place--so it will be vain to wait for the day when your tastes shall be
a unit. I seriously fear that our visit has damaged you in Fredonia, and
so I wish you were out of it.
The baby is fat and strong, and Susie the same. Susie was charmed with
the donkey and the doll.
Ys affectionately
SAML.
P. S.--DEAR MA AND PAMELA--I am mainly grieved because I have been rude
to a man who has been kind to you--and if you ever feel a desire
to apologize to him for me, you may be sure that I will endorse the
apology, no matter how strong it may be. I went to his bank to apologize
to him, but my conviction was strong that he was not man enough to know
how to take an apology and so I did not make it.
William Dean Howells was in those days writing those vividly
realistic, indeed photographic stories which fixed his place among
American men of letters. He had already written 'Their Wedding
Journey' and 'A Chance Acquaintance' when 'A Foregone Conclusion'
appeared. For the reason that his own work was so different, and
perhaps because of his fondness for the author, Clemens always
greatly admired the books of Howells. Howells's exact observation
and his gift for human detail seemed marvelous to Mark Twain, who
with a bigger brush was inclined to record the larger rather than
the minute aspects of life. The sincerity of his appreciation of
Howells, however, need not be questioned, nor, for that matter, his
detestation of Scott.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 22, 1874.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I have just finished reading the 'Foregone Conclusion' to
Mrs. Clemens and we think you have even outdone yourself. I should think
that this must be the daintiest, truest, most admirable workmanship
that was ever put on a story. The creatures of God do not act out their
natures more unerringly than yours do. If your genuine stories can die,
I wonder by what right old Walter Scott's artificialities shall continue
to live.
I brought Mrs. Clemens back from her trip in a dreadfully broken-down
condition--so by the doctor's orders we unpacked the trunks sorrowfully
to lie idle here another month instead of going at once to Hartford and
proceeding to furnish the new house which is now finished. We hate to
have it go longer desolate and tenantless, but cannot help it.
By and by, if the madam gets strong again, we are hoping to have the
Grays there, and you and the Aldrich households, and Osgood, down to
engage in an orgy with them.
Ys Ever
MARK
Howells was editor of the Atlantic by this time, and had been urging
Clemens to write something suitable for that magazine. He had done
nothing, however, until this summer at Quarry Farm. There, one
night in the moonlight, Mrs. Crane's colored cook, who had been a
slave, was induced to tell him her story. It was exactly the story
to appeal to Mark Twain, and the kind of thing he could write. He
set it down next morning, as nearly in her own words and manner as
possible, without departing too far from literary requirements.
He decided to send this to Howells. He did not regard it very
highly, but he would take the chance. An earlier offering to the
magazine had been returned. He sent the “True Story,” with a brief
note:
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Sept. 2, '74.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....I enclose also a “True Story” which has no humor
in it. You can pay as lightly as you choose for that, if you want it,
for it is rather out of my line. I have not altered the old colored
woman's story except to begin at the beginning, instead of the middle,
as she did--and traveled both ways....
Yrs Ever
MARK.
But Howells was delighted with it. He referred to its “realest kind
of black talk,” and in another place added, “This little story
delights me more and more. I wish you had about forty of them.”
Along with the “True Story” Mark Twain had sent the “Fable for Good
Old Boys and Girls”; but this Howells returned, not, as he said,
because he didn't like it, but because the Atlantic on matters of
religion was just in that “Good Lord, Good Devil condition when a
little fable like yours wouldn't leave it a single Presbyterian,
Baptist, Unitarian, Episcopalian, Methodist, or Millerite paying
subscriber, while all the deadheads would stick to it and abuse it
in the denominational newspapers!”
But the shorter MS. had been only a brief diversion. Mark Twain was
bowling along at a book and a play. The book was Tom Sawyer, as
already mentioned, and the play a dramatization from The Gilded Age.
Clemens had all along intended to dramatize the story of Colonel
Sellers, and was one day thunderstruck to receive word from
California that a San Francisco dramatist had appropriated his
character in a play written for John T. Raymond. Clemens had taken
out dramatic copyright on the book, and immediately stopped the
performance by telegraph. A correspondence between the author and
the dramatist followed, leading to a friendly arrangement by which
the latter agreed to dispose of his version to Mark Twain. A good
deal of discussion from time to time having arisen over the
authorship of the Sellers play, as presented by Raymond, certain
among the letters that follow may be found of special interest.
Meanwhile we find Clemens writing to Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh,
on these matters and events in general. The book MS., which he
mentions as having put aside, was not touched again for nearly a
year.
*****
To Dr. John Brown, in Edinburgh: