XVI. LETTERS, 1876, CHIEFLY TO W. D. HOWELLS. LITERATURE AND POLITICS.
PLANNING A PLAY WITH BRET HARTE.
The Monday Evening Club of Hartford was an association of most of
the literary talent of that city, and it included a number of very
distinguished members. The writers, the editors, the lawyers, and
the ministers of the gospel who composed it were more often than not
men of national or international distinction. There was but one
paper at each meeting, and it was likely to be a paper that would
later find its way into some magazine.
Naturally Mark Twain was one of its favorite members, and his
contributions never failed to arouse interest and discussion. A
“Mark Twain night” brought out every member. In the next letter we
find the first mention of one of his most memorable contributions--a
story of one of life's moral aspects. The tale, now included in his
collected works, is, for some reason, little read to-day; yet the
curious allegory, so vivid in its seeming reality, is well worth
consideration.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Jan. 11, '76.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Indeed we haven't forgotten the Howellses, nor scored
up a grudge of any kind against them; but the fact is I was under the
doctor's hands for four weeks on a stretch and have been disabled from
working for a week or so beside. I thought I was well, about ten days
ago, so I sent for a short-hand writer and dictated answers to a bushel
or so of letters that had been accumulating during my illness. Getting
everything shipshape and cleared up, I went to work next day upon an
Atlantic article, which ought to be worth $20 per page (which is the
price they usually pay for my work, I believe) for although it is only
70 pages MS (less than two days work, counting by bulk,) I have spent 3
more days trimming, altering and working at it. I shall put in one more
day's polishing on it, and then read it before our Club, which is to
meet at our house Monday evening, the 24th inst. I think it will bring
out considerable discussion among the gentlemen of the Club--though
the title of the article will not give them much notion of what is to
follow,--this title being “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of
Crime in Connecticut”--which reminds me that today's Tribune says there
will be a startling article in the current Atlantic, in which a being
which is tangible bud invisible will figure-exactly the case with
the sketch of mine which I am talking about! However, mine can lie
unpublished a year or two as well as not--though I wish that contributor
of yours had not interfered with his coincidence of heroes.
But what I am coming at, is this: won't you and Mrs. Howells come down
Saturday the 22nd and remain to the Club on Monday night? We always have
a rattling good time at the Club and we do want you to come, ever so
much. Will you? Now say you will. Mrs. Clemens and I are persuading
ourselves that you twain will come.
My volume of sketches is doing very well, considering the times;
received my quarterly statement today from Bliss, by which I perceive
that 20,000 copies have been sold--or rather, 20,000 had been sold 3
weeks ago; a lot more, by this time, no doubt.
I am on the sick list again--and was, day before yesterday--but on the
whole I am getting along.
Yrs ever
MARK
Howells wrote that he could not come down to the club meeting,
adding that sickness was “quite out of character” for Mark Twain,
and hardly fair on a man who had made so many other people feel
well. He closed by urging that Bliss “hurry out” 'Tom Sawyer.'
“That boy is going to make a prodigious hit.” Clemens answered:
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston.
HARTFORD, Jan. 18, '76.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Thanks, and ever so many, for the good opinion of 'Tom
Sawyer.' Williams has made about 300 rattling pictures for it--some
of them very dainty. Poor devil, what a genius he has and how he does
murder it with rum. He takes a book of mine, and without suggestion from
anybody builds no end of pictures just from his reading of it.
There was never a man in the world so grateful to another as I was to
you day before yesterday, when I sat down (in still rather wretched
health) to set myself to the dreary and hateful task of making final
revision of Tom Sawyer, and discovered, upon opening the package of MS
that your pencil marks were scattered all along. This was splendid, and
swept away all labor. Instead of reading the MS, I simply hunted out the
pencil marks and made the emendations which they suggested. I reduced
the boy battle to a curt paragraph; I finally concluded to cut the
Sunday school speech down to the first two sentences, leaving no
suggestion of satire, since the book is to be for boys and girls; I
tamed the various obscenities until I judged that they no longer carried
offense. So, at a single sitting I began and finished a revision which
I had supposed would occupy 3 or 4. days and leave me mentally and
physically fagged out at the end. I was careful not to inflict the MS
upon you until I had thoroughly and painstakingly revised it. Therefore,
the only faults left were those that would discover themselves to
others, not me--and these you had pointed out.
There was one expression which perhaps you overlooked. When Huck is
complaining to Tom of the rigorous system in vogue at the widow's, he
says the servants harass him with all manner of compulsory decencies,
and he winds up by saying: “and they comb me all to hell.” (No
exclamation point.) Long ago, when I read that to Mrs. Clemens, she made
no comment; another time I created occasion to read that chapter to her
aunt and her mother (both sensitive and loyal subjects of the kingdom
of heaven, so to speak) and they let it pass. I was glad, for it was the
most natural remark in the world for that boy to make (and he had been
allowed few privileges of speech in the book;) when I saw that you, too,
had let it go without protest, I was glad, and afraid; too--afraid you
hadn't observed it. Did you? And did you question the propriety of it?
Since the book is now professedly and confessedly a boy's and girl's
hook, that darn word bothers me some, nights, but it never did until I
had ceased to regard the volume as being for adults.
Don't bother to answer now, (for you've writing enough to do without
allowing me to add to the burden,) but tell me when you see me again!
Which we do hope will be next Saturday or Sunday or Monday. Couldn't you
come now and mull over the alterations which you are going to make in
your MS, and make them after you go back? Wouldn't it assist the work
if you dropped out of harness and routine for a day or two and have that
sort of revivification which comes of a holiday-forgetfulness of the
work-shop? I can always work after I've been to your house; and if you
will come to mine, now, and hear the club toot their various horns over
the exasperating metaphysical question which I mean to lay before them
in the disguise of a literary extravaganza, it would just brace you up
like a cordial.
(I feel sort of mean trying to persuade a man to put down a critical
piece of work at a critical time, but yet I am honest in thinking it
would not hurt the work nor impair your interest in it to come under
the circumstances.) Mrs. Clemens says, “Maybe the Howellses could come
Monday if they cannot come Saturday; ask them; it is worth trying.”
Well, how's that? Could you? It would be splendid if you could. Drop me
a postal card--I should have a twinge of conscience if I forced you to
write a letter, (I am honest about that,)--and if you find you can't
make out to come, tell me that you bodies will come the next Saturday if
the thing is possible, and stay over Sunday.
Yrs ever
MARK.
Howells, however, did not come to the club meeting, but promised to
come soon when they could have a quiet time to themselves together.
As to Huck's language, he declared:
“I'd have that swearing out in an instant. I suppose I didn't
notice it because the locution was so familiar to my Western sense,
and so exactly the thing that Huck would say.” Clemens changed the
phrase to, “They comb me all to thunder,” and so it stands to-day.
The “Carnival of Crime,” having served its purpose at the club,
found quick acceptance by Howells for the Atlantic. He was so
pleased with it, in fact, that somewhat later he wrote, urging that
its author allow it to be printed in a dainty book, by Osgood, who
made a specialty of fine publishing. Meantime Howells had written
his Atlantic notice of Tom Sawyer, and now inclosed Clemens a proof
of it. We may judge from the reply that it was satisfactory.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Apl 3, '76.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It is a splendid notice and will embolden weak-kneed
journalistic admirers to speak out, and will modify or shut up the
unfriendly. To “fear God and dread the Sunday school” exactly described
that old feeling which I used to have, but I couldn't have formulated
it. I want to enclose one of the illustrations in this letter, if I do
not forget it. Of course the book is to be elaborately illustrated, and
I think that many of the pictures are considerably above the American
average, in conception if not in execution.
I do not re-enclose your review to you, for you have evidently read and
corrected it, and so I judge you do not need it. About two days after
the Atlantic issues I mean to begin to send books to principal journals
and magazines.
I read the “Carnival of Crime” proof in New York when worn and witless
and so left some things unamended which I might possibly have altered
had I been at home. For instance, “I shall always address you in your
own S-n-i-v-e-l-i-n-g d-r-a-w-l, baby.” I saw that you objected to
something there, but I did not understand what! Was it that it was too
personal? Should the language be altered?--or the hyphens taken out?
Won't you please fix it the way it ought to be, altering the language as
you choose, only making it bitter and contemptuous?
“Deuced” was not strong enough; so I met you halfway with “devilish.”
Mrs. Clemens has returned from New York with dreadful sore throat, and
bones racked with rheumatism. She keeps her bed. “Aloha nui!” as the
Kanakas say. MARK.
Henry Irving once said to Mark Twain: “You made a mistake by not
adopting the stage as a profession. You would have made even a
greater actor than a writer.”
Mark Twain would have made an actor, certainly, but not a very
tractable one. His appearance in Hartford in “The Loan of a Lover”
was a distinguished event, and his success complete, though he made
so many extemporaneous improvements on the lines of thick-headed
Peter Spuyk, that he kept the other actors guessing as to their
cues, and nearly broke up the performance. It was, of course, an
amateur benefit, though Augustin Daly promptly wrote, offering to
put it on for a long run.
The “skeleton novelette” mentioned in the next letter refers to a
plan concocted by Howells and Clemens, by which each of twelve
authors was to write a story, using the same plot, “blindfolded” as
to what the others had written. It was a regular “Mark Twain”
notion, and it is hard to-day to imagine Howells's continued
enthusiasm in it. Neither he nor Clemens gave up the idea for a
long time. It appears in their letters again and again, though
perhaps it was just as well for literature that it was never carried
out.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Apl. 22, 1876.
MY DEAR HOWELLS, You'll see per enclosed slip that I appear for the
first time on the stage next Wednesday. You and Mrs. H. come down and
you shall skip in free.
I wrote my skeleton novelette yesterday and today. It will make a little
under 12 pages.
Please tell Aldrich I've got a photographer engaged, and tri-weekly
issue is about to begin. Show him the canvassing specimens and beseech
him to subscribe.
Ever yours,
S. L. C.
In his next letter Mark Twain explains why Tom Sawyer is not to
appear as soon as planned. The reference to “The Literary
Nightmare” refers to the “Punch, Conductor, Punch with Care” sketch,
which had recently appeared in the Atlantic. Many other versifiers
had had their turn at horse-car poetry, and now a publisher was
anxious to collect it in a book, provided he could use the Atlantic
sketch. Clemens does not tell us here the nature of Carlton's
insult, forgiveness of which he was not yet qualified to grant, but
there are at least two stories about it, or two halves of the same
incident, as related afterward by Clemens and Canton. Clemens said
that when he took the Jumping Frog book to Carlton, in 1867, the
latter, pointing to his stock, said, rather scornfully: “Books?
I don't want your book; my shelves are full of books now,” though
the reader may remember that it was Carlton himself who had given
the frog story to the Saturday Press and had seen it become famous.
Carlton's half of the story was that he did not accept Mark Twain's
book because the author looked so disreputable. Long afterward,
when the two men met in Europe, the publisher said to the now rich
and famous author: “Mr. Clemens, my one claim on immortality is that
I declined your first book.”
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston: