Dec. 18, 1874.
MY DEAR ALDRICH,--I read the “Cloth of Gold” through, coming down in the
cars, and it is just lightning poetry--a thing which it gravels me to
say because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently
unrecognized, in consequence of the envy and jealousy of this
generation. “Baby Bell” always seemed perfection, before, but now that
I have children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was
reading it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home and forthwith
fell upon me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This
was pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it.
“Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded” etc., “in one of the brightest speeches
of the evening.”
That is what the Tribune correspondent says. And that is what everybody
that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don't ever be so unwise
as to go on trying to unconvince those people.
I've been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs.
Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun
in skating if you could do it with somebody else's muscles.--There are
about twenty boys booming by the house, now, and it is mighty good to
look at.
I'm keeping you in mind, you see, in the matter of photographs. I have a
couple to enclose in this letter and I want you to say you got them, and
then I shall know I have been a good truthful child.
I am going to send more as I ferret them out, about the place.--And I
won't forget that you are a “subscriber.”
The wife and I unite in warm regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich.
Yrs ever,
S. L. CLEMENS.
A letter bearing the same date as the above went back to Howells, we
find, in reference to still another incident, which perhaps should
come first.
Mark Twain up to this time had worn the black “string” necktie of
the West--a decoration which disturbed Mrs. Clemens, and invited
remarks from his friends. He had persisted in it, however, up to
the date of the Atlantic dinner, when Howells and Aldrich decided
that something must be done about it.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Dec. 18, 1874.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I left No. 3, (Miss. chapter) in my eldest's reach,
and it may have gone to the postman and it likewise may have gone into
the fire. I confess to a dread that the latter is the case and that that
stack of MS will have to be written over again. If so, O for the return
of the lamented Herod!
You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful--Mrs.
Clemens. For months--I may even say years--she had shown unaccountable
animosity toward my neck-tie, even getting up in the night to take it
with the tongs and blackguard it--sometimes also going so far as to
threaten it.
When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that
they were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of
happiness until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom
in her nature gathered itself together,--insomuch that I, being near to
a door, went without, perceiving danger.
Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs.
Clemens's eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the
person of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime.
Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the
words you had written in that book. He and I went to the Concert of the
Yale students last night and had a good time.
Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she'll have
to give her consent this time.
With kindest regards unto ye both.
Yrs ever,
S. L. CLEMENS.
The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew
naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers.
The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit
it and take Howells with him. Howells was willing enough to go and
they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion. This
seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for
some date in the future still unfixed. But Howells was a busy
editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly
than to agree on a definite time of departure. He explained at
length why he could not make the journey, and added: “Forgive me
having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to
that; I supposed you would die, or something. I am really more
sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear.” So the beautiful plan
was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time.
We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to
Aldrich, of December the 18th. It had its beginning at the Atlantic
dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any
photographs of himself. It was suggested by one or the other that
his name be put down as a “regular subscriber” for all Mark Twain
photographs as they “came out.” Clemens returned home and hunted up
fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began
mailing them to him, one each morning. When a few of them had
arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting.
“The police,” he said, “have a way of swooping down on that kind of
publication. The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of
'The Life in New York.'”
Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection--forty-five
envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together.
Aldrich wrote, now, violently declaring the perpetrator of the
outrage to be known to the police; that a sprawling yellow figure
against a green background had been recognized as an admirable
likeness of Mark Twain, alias the jumping Frog, a well-known
Californian desperado, formerly the chief of Henry Plummer's band of
road agents in Montana. The letter was signed, “T. Bayleigh, Chief
of Police.” On the back of the envelope “T. Bayleigh” had also
written that it was “no use for the person to send any more letters,
as the post-office at that point was to be blown up. Forty-eight
hogs-head of nitroglycerine had been syrupticiously introduced into
the cellar of the building, and more was expected. R.W.E. H.W.L.
O.W.H., and other conspirators in masks have been seen flitting
about the town for some days past. The greatest excitement combined
with the most intense quietness reigns at Ponkapog.”